WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 128 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 A zone media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.360 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.800 Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. On 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.920 this show, we end up talking a lot about the 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.400 various ways of politicians, media personalities, and lobbying groups are 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.800 constantly trying to make life a living hell for trans people, 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.199 between restricting medical care, access to public spaces, as well 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.960 as banning and literally burning queer art. Basically a lot 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.680 of depressing stuff that's designed to make us trans people 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.920 go mad. We live in a transphobic society. All it 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.960 takes is one bet day for an aspiring comedian to 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.800 fall into a vat of estrogenizing chemicals and emerge a 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:11.480 jokerfied harlequin. Filmmaker Vera Dru's new movie, A Multimedia Queer 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.520 Fever Dream titled The People's Joker, takes this premise and 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.920 depicts what it's like trying to make a living as 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.240 an irony poisoned trans person in a Gotham city where 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.000 comedy has been made illegal. This isn't just an unauthorized 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.320 transgender parody of DC comics, though it is that as well. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.800 The film is a wholly unique collaboration of dozens of 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.640 queer artists utilizing fair use to tell a trans coming 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.000 of age story with the gothic, queer coded imagery of Batman. 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.840 If you know anything about my tastes, you probably know 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.160 that this is incredibly up my alley. So in a 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.080 departure from this show's usual doom and gloom, I'm putting 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:54.440 together a few episodes on what it means to be 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.120 a queer artist in today's political climate. More episodes will 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.400 come out next week, but I wanted to get this 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.559 one out right now, in time for listeners to catch 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.040 the theatrical run of The People's Joker, hopefully in a 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.800 theater near you, right now or in the near future. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.280 Last week, I was lucky enough to chat with the 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.240 clown Princess of Crime herself, Vera Drew, about the making 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:19.920 of the People's Joker. 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.240 My name is Via Drew. I'm the writer, director, and 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.520 I also star in the People's Joker. I also did 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.840 some of the visual effects too. You can get tickets 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.320 online at the People's Joker dot com. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.320 I would like to just start with the origin of 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.040 the People's Joker project. Why is there a transgender Joker 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:41.519 and why does that make so much sense? 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.200 I'm glad you feel like it makes sense. I mean, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:50.640 it kind of really started just because Todd Phillips was 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:56.120 like in the news talking about like woke culture and 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.399 how like it was too hard to make comedy now 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.360 and stuff, which is really funny coming from a director 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.600 who's made millions and millions of dollars making comedy and 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:13.520 like also like made Joker like the year prior, and 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.520 that is a comedy. Like it's a dark comedy, but 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:18.840 it's totally a comedy and it made a billion dollars. 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.640 But yeah, he was complaining about woke culture, as is 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:28.079 his right. But in my co writer, the person who 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.320 ended up becoming my co writer, bri LeRose, actually just 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.440 kind of jokingly commissioned me on Twitter to re edit 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:41.320 Todd phillips Joker and actually venmowed me twelve dollars, and yeah, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.440 I started doing it. Like in earnest, I started like 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:49.520 actually re editing the movie. And I had worked at 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.040 Absolutely Productions for years as an editor and had kind 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.800 of come up as an alternative comedy editor, so you know, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:58.560 at that point it was probably just going to be 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.200 like a lot of bart sound effects and woosh noises 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:07.640 and slips and slide whistles. But as I was working 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.120 on it and kind of just making this like big 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.800 piece of bound footage video art, like a narrative kind 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.560 of just like fell into place and it kind of 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.440 just came in an instant and I was just like, oh, okay, 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:23.080 I think I actually want to make like a coming 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.720 of age film, but I want to make like a 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.159 parody of The Joker, like in that process and kind 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:34.280 of just like tell like a really earnest and super 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.640 personal autobiographical story about my life and growing up in 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.640 the Midwest and coming out as trans and comedy and 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.120 you know, my relationship with my mom and toxic relationship 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.400 I was in and stuff, but kind of process and 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.960 mythologize all of that through through Batman characters. So that's 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.960 kind of the origin of the movie. Guess I had 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.840 also kind of been kicking around an idea for like 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.599 a body horror, like a trans body horror movie before 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:14.080 that that was basically like about a drag queen who 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.480 was physically addicted to irony and like couldn't like survive 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:20.560 without it, but it was also like destroying her from 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.159 the inside out. The two ideas kind of like merged 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.280 together into this sort of I guess. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.239 Yeah, that definitely comes through. One of my favorite parts 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.560 of this movie is that it gets to talk about 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.560 so many intimate aspects of trans experience, like trans misogyny, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.880 the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that gets targeted against 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:44.440 transfems in particular, as well as trans for trans relationships 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.320 or T four T, and lots of other little things. 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.440 It's using the visual language of Batman as a shorthand 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.920 to get textualize parts of queerness that just don't often 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.320 appear in mass media. I showed my co host Mia 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.760 the film last week to get her thoughts on the 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.320 movie as a piece of queer art, since her and 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.000 my own tastes often greatly differ. What did you think 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.600 of the transgender clown. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.840 It rips one of the things that was the most 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:13.960 interesting to me about it is like, so I'd read 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.400 some reviews of it, and because it's you know, because 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.560 it's sort of the sub media works, most of the 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.800 reviews are by those people. And it's really fun to 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.120 see a movie where you're reading it and you you 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.840 look at this and you're going, oh, these people didn't 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.840 get it. They how much. But they do not know 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.720 about T boy swag. They do not know about like 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:40.000 all of this stuff that's happening in this And yeah, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.159 I mean, I think that's the thing about it that's 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:47.160 really interesting, because you know, transcoming of age story is 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.680 like one of the few kind of stories you're sort 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.120 of allowed to tell if you're trans, less so in film, 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.000 more so like in writing your stuff, allowed to do 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.400 this specifically. Yeah, Yeah, And it's really interesting the way 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.080 that this movie starts with a you know, for the 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.039 first maybe ten minutes, it's okay, this is like a 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.479 pretty standard coming of age story, and then it hits 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.800 the real shit in a way that doesn't ever show 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.160 up on this stuff. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.800 Like I first saw this movie a year ago, and 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.760 I was shocked at the depiction of like T for 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.040 TA relationships, which you like never you never see so 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.400 being able to look at like emotional abuse within a 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:29.880 T for T relationship being depicted this way, You're like, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.120 oh my god, it's like actually like showing something that 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.240 is literally never talked about like openly, like this is 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.080 something that we like people have experiences of, but it's 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.880 never really like shown or discussed. I found that to 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.440 be incredibly resonant and very like tastefully done. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.040 Yeah, I mean I was just like weeping watching parts 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.080 of it. Absolutely. There's a line in there that is 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.800 I have never ever like one of the sort of 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.640 most real things that like you as a transwoman experience 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.720 is someone who's trans misogyny exempt saying they don't feel 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.400 safe around you. Yeah, and that being how they kick you, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.480 like how you get ran out, how you get abused. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.760 That the fact that that's in that's in film, and 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.240 you can see all of the people, like you can 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.080 see sis people like not getting it, like they just 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.240 they don't they don't understand what's going on. And that's 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.280 really incredibly powerful in a lot of ways. 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:31.400 All while in like Jared Letter Joker makeups, ye, Like 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.720 it's amazing, They're like getting into all of this like 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.880 extremely intense stuff. The gas landing scene was fucking phenomenal, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.920 But it all looks like this, fucking like copy pasted 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.960 comic art spliced in with like Speed Racer and Return 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.400 from Oz. And it is with all of these like 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.360 adult swim asthetics, because ver Drew has been an editor 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.560 on a lot of like starting with like Tim and 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.400 Eric stuff to like Nathan Fielder to Tim Robinson, very 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.720 entrenched in this like layered allage like adult swim style. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.280 So that's present all throughout the movie. It's extremely visually unique. 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.360 It's it's kind of like like it like an It 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.680 really is like an Internet meme, like brought to life 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.160 and like puppeteered by like an uncanny unseen hand. I 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.760 think it really embraces the aesthetics of like an ill 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.920 fitting Halloween Harley Quinn cosplay costume. It's like taking that 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.880 and like deeply interrogating what that visually represents and looks 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.559 like and why someone would wear an ill fitting Harley 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:35.360 Quinn costume. It deeply understands all of like the aesthetics 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:51.520 sensibilities behind an image like that. Extremely extremely fun. I 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.000 think it's worth talking about, at least in brief. The 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.880 trajectory of this movie's release because it is a very 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.840 comic book. Joker fied story from the idea of this 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.320 film to its premiere at a film festival, to all 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.680 of the uncertainty and legal chaos that came along the way. 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.360 So an earlier cut of this movie was originally set 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.240 to premiere at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival back 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:21.080 in twenty twenty two. Right before the first showing, Warner 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:26.439 Brothers sent a vaguely worded but threatening letter which resulted 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.320 in the People's Joker being pulled from the festival save 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.760 for one late night screening that got rave reviews. With 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.040 its legal status uncertain, the movie kind of went into limbo. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.360 Here's Vera drew on what happened after the first Tiff showing. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.480 I really put all I had into this movie, you know, 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.760 like I really I cashed in every favor I had 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:54.199 ever accumulated in Hollywood financially, Like I took out a 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.800 huge loan to finish it. And it was just this big, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.000 deep personal thing that I had made that originally really 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.080 was just for me and my friends. Like it was 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.000 just kind of a thing that I had just made. 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:09.880 You know, maybe I would have shown it to like 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.520 my Patreon or something, but like it was, uh, you know, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.640 after a certain point like it, you know, once we 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.440 had that like premiere, it was just like I need 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.520 to like I can't just post this to YouTube. I 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.200 can't like just dump it somewhere or like shelve it. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.640 And what felt right really was like taking the movie 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.200 out just to festivals and kind of doing like a 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.200 secret screening tour, which is what we did, and that 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.080 was really exciting and kind of like a jokerfied way 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.600 of sort of getting this this movie out there. And 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.680 I was just surrounded by other filmmakers and the genre 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.800 community and you know who would see the movie at 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.880 this festival and be like you need to just wait. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.040 The person who's gonna help you is gonna come. 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.160 So for a while the film was making surprise secret 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.439 screenings at film festivals across the US in Canada, and 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.960 now almost two years later, the queer distribution company Altered 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.320 Innocence picked up the film and it's now in movie 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:09.680 theaters and nationwide. 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.920 The thing that's I think is really interesting about this 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:14.959 is sort of the timing of it, because this originally 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.199 comes out in twenty twenty two right, sure it does 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.720 and then gets on came out by pushed back into 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.760 the closet by the corporate. 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.560 Ghouls of this discovery pushes the people's choker back into 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:27.160 the closet. 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:28.240 Yeah. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:30.000 But what I think is. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.920 Really interesting about it is is its position in this 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.319 sort of arc of queer media. 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:35.520 Right. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.520 I mean when I was a kid, there was nothing. 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.640 It was like, like the first queer thing I ever 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:46.480 saw in a show was the Cora Sami kiss at 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.520 the end of Legend of Korra. Like there was nothing, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.160 and then suddenly it's funny. I just watched last night, 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.240 like three of the old Law and Order SVU trans episodes. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.800 Oh god, oh boy, oh boy, do they have some 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.080 extremely extremely interesting moments. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.160 I will leave it up to the viewer's imagination. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.520 Yeah. But and what's interesting about the race is you 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.679 get this moment that I kind of recognize from you 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.880 have this sort of Asian American media too, where like 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.800 there was this you know it was if you go 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.520 back and watch something from two thousand and four that 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.440 has an Asian person in it, it is it is 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.760 like like there are people right now in the US 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.120 who will physically attack you for being Asian. And who 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.840 will say shit and who's whose level of verbal racism 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:34.800 will be less than the racism that's just in this 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.720 movie as a gag. Sure, and you know, and so 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.440 you get and eventually, like throughout the twenty tens, we 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.160 sort of got like, oh, there's like Asian Americans and 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.880 movies now, and that was kind of happening with with 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.559 with sort of you know and prickoling cartoons, things like 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.920 owl House. That was kind of happening in media with 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.640 queer people. And then there was the sort of the 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.160 twenty twenties backlash, and that's like you you can you 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.440 know it's it's in the same way the Huntress. Thompson 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.400 has this line about like you can see exactly where 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.600 the standing in Vegas. You can see the line where 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.920 the sixties receded, Like you can see the line where 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.880 all of the queer stuff just is like gone. And 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.040 this forces everyone. You know, you if you have two options, right, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.120 you can fucking go back into the closet and you 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:22.000 can fucking work on whatever dog shit show that's just 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.240 going to be completely sisse hat now, or you can 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.520 just you can make the people's choker. Just to say, 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.440 you can just make you're just you can just go 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.640 and do it and you can make something. And I 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.360 think there's something that's very different than a lot than 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.360 the sort of wave that have come before. It is 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.880 it like this is this is the transmedia that is 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.760 made by trans people for trans people. And there's some 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.360 like trapping stuff for SIS people to sort of like 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.360 walk them along a little tiny bit, but. 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.920 Like it uses the language of DC comics to handhold 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.320 other audiences to understand what's going on. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.400 Yeah, but but at its core, you know, and like 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.080 obviously like the yeah, there's you know, mix of plicks 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:03.720 like I'm butchering his name. 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.280 No, no one knows how to say That's that's the 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.040 whole bit, is that no one knows how to say it. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:11.760 Yeah, I mean, like you know, so like there's like 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.760 there's like kind of deep cut like comic stuff in 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.280 there too, because you know, this is by people who, like, 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.800 unlike everyone who makes these fucking movies these days, people 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.480 who actually genuinely, like deeply love the source material that 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.960 they're pulling from, yes, and thus are willing to just 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.600 go off the walls with it and have like Jason 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.760 Todd t boy Swag emotional abuser Joker. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.720 Who has any many such cases like so. 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.040 Much more interesting than any iteration of the Joker I've seen, 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:41.640 absolutely well. 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.640 And it also it also pulls on like the very 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.800 long history of the Joker being queer coded. Yeah, I 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.320 mean like if you go to like Grant Morrison's Joker, 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.080 extremely queer, the sixties Batman show is all very queer, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.400 but like, the Joker has always been seen as this 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.080 kind of this like having this queer deviant element despite 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.480 really only having like heterosexual pairings, but even still in 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.760 his relation to Batman, it's always been a very queer 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.520 heavy thing. And that's something that DC Comics has definitely 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.200 shied away from intentionally and having something that so blatantly 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.720 embraces that well, not not just like does it for 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.920 like fun representation, like actually interrogates like queer relationships through that, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.800 through that extremely like troubling power dynamic is really really fascinating. 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.600 There is no fucking CIS man, Like, there is no 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.720 white CIS dude who has gone through enough shit to 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.600 make them cruited to the Joker like come odd, It's like, 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.920 oh damn, I couldn't get on a comedy show, so 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.800 I became the Joker like wait, wait, wait, no, no, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.800 this is insufficient. The Joker, Afi Mia. All it takes 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:49.000 is one bad day. I you know, I mean, I guess, 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:49.400 I guess. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.880 I guess that is like, do you want to know 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.640 how I got these emotional scars. 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:59.920 It's really like like every cisman is okay enough with 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:01.880 violence that they think that they're one bad day for 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.320 just murdering everyone around them, and sometimes they snap and 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.040 it's like true, you know, but also come on, like 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:09.359 you want a fucker. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:10.879 It's seen. Shit. 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.919 We've had a very like in cell embrace of the 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.000 Joker ever since he ledger, of course with the Joaquin 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.040 Phoenix movie, very in cell coded, both in conversation with that, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.399 because this piece was made as a direct reaction to 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.920 Tom Phillips's The Joker Movie, but this is always it's 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.280 in conversation with that, while highlighting the actual like like 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.600 very very uh inherent queerness to this man who dresses 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.520 up like a clown to play with another man who 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:50.720 dresses up like a bat. I was lucky enough to 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.760 catch an earlier cut of the People's Joker at a 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.119 Canadian film festival last year, dressed in one of my 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.080 many Harley Quinn costumes. Again, if you know anything about me, 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.959 you know I love Batman on Gotham City. I do 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.520 my yearly queer Batman returns watch parties where I dress 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.119 up like Michelle Feiver's Catwoman. But the social groups I'm 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.400 often in can sometimes be a little bit weird about 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.439 Batman stuff, because he's like a fascist or whatever. But 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.920 I've always thought that Gotham City is really queer as 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.000 a concept, and I love that someone else appeared to 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.880 share that opinion and decided to explore Gotham City as 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.960 an aesthetic zone to operate in as a queer artist. 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.359 Here's Vera Drew talking about the connection between her queerness 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:37.200 and Batman. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.400 I really am like a lifelong Batman comic fan, and 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:44.760 I've been working on this movie for four years and 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.080 I'm somehow still not sick of Batman, which is crazy 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.800 to me. Yeah, I mean, I think like the lore 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:54.840 has just kind of always been there in my life, 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.360 and it's always just felt very queer to me. I mean, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.679 I guess most in like a subtext way, but you 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.320 just think back to like all the iterations, Like, I mean, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.640 my my entry point into Batman was Joel Schumacher Batman 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.680 like I saw Batman forever when I was six and 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.160 I it was like, literally one of the first times 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.800 I realized I was trans was that moment was just 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.439 seeing Nicole Kidman. I wanted to look like her. I 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.960 wanted to be perceived how she was being perceived. I 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.440 wanted someone to look at me the way Batman looks 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.399 at her. And that was all very confusing for a 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.000 six year old, you know who up until that point 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.639 was pretty sure they were a boy. I grew up 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.320 in the nineties, so I didn't really have like my 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.440 representation was the Jerry Springer Show and Howard Stern. That's 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.520 where I saw trans people, and I think like comics 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:57.280 were just this space where I could I don't know, 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.720 it just feels very queer like and it's it's not 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.240 j subtext. I mean there is, there's a lot of 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.399 subtext obviously in like the Schumacher Batman's like his his 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:12.960 Gotham City just is a like gay Neon nightmare of beauty. 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.720 We're definitely like taking that aesthetic kind of in the 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.000 People's Joker like that was always kind of my vision 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:25.399 for Gotham. But even the sixties Batman, despite how absolutely yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.800 you know, it's it's super conservative, but like it's it's 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.240 so colorful and like it's. 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:31.840 Very gay, it's extremely gay. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.800 It's and it's like, I because somebody actually described it 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.239 to me the other day as like you have like 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.280 a character like Riddler and like he's just surrounded by 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:46.520 like hot women. Like it's just everybody feels like kind 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:53.200 of like a weird, poly annoying person, you know, which 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:54.280 is me and my friends. 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.919 So I feel like Adam West is definitely playing like 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.480 a closeted gay man in that show as well, totally 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:04.600 who's like surrounded by much more like flamboyant queers and 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:06.000 he like doesn't know how to deal with it. 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:08.520 That's totally fair. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.040 I really appreciated, like there's so many Batman Forever jokes 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.439 in this, Like you even use the Batman Forever font 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.560 like constantly throughout the film. There's so many like little bits. 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.720 I really appreciated all of the Alexander Knox jokes throughout 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:26.280 the film. I think feel like that's one of the 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.800 most underrated characters from the Tim Burton movies. And then 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.040 all of like the Grant Morrison super sanity bits also, 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.720 I found incredibly funny. When I was watching it, I 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.399 felt like a big strong sense I felt was like, 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.199 this is what a piece of art would look like 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.840 if it was made like within the DC universe. It 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.080 feels like something that comes like from that point and 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.000 is like somehow like emanated into our world. 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:52.719 Wow, thank you. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:54.119 It was wonderful. 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.560 There's definitely some like speed racer elements, a little bit 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.480 of like David Lynch's Dune, especially like the Mister Mixelplex 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.080 scenes felt very much like all of like like the 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:09.120 Weird Spice visions. It was great seeing this progress from 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.840 the cut last year to this one. It flows a lot. 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:14.920 When I was talking with my co host Mia about 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.679 the film, we both pointed out how this movie doesn't 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.120 just feel like a movie with gay people in it itself, 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.000 feels like a piece of queer art, like the art 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.360 itself has a sense of inherent queerness. I think there's 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:31.280 a lot of reasons for that, the fact that it's 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.680 a collaborative project from dozens of queer artists sending in 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:40.359 background pieces, characters, voice acting, music, set design. It all 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.720 creates a very like DIY queer zine kind of feel, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.560 but in a moving picture. So I wanted to talk 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.600 a little bit more about this difference between just queer 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.640 representation and queer art. You kind of touch on something 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:58.159 previously where like the difference between queer representation and like 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.439 art that is that the is queer. These are like 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.720 two very different things, and the movie actually is in 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:07.399 conversation with this as well, being like the difference between 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:09.840 hiring a trans person to be on the SNL cast 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.880 versus a trans person doing their own comedy show, right, 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:15.440 and how those are two very different things with very 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:17.960 different politics. And I think this movie is a large 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:20.679 statement against that assimilation is to drive that a lot 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:22.600 of people kind of fall back on for like self 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.320 preservation reasons, self coping reasons, and like financial reasons. Sure, 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.240 it is extremely critical of that notion and reifiz like 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:35.480 this like diy approach towards queer people making our own art. 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:37.720 Yeah, And that's something I've been thinking about a lot, because, 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:40.520 like you know, like Asian Americans have like we got there, right, 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.320 like sis as and Americans, we we got our representation, 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.160 Like what is a representation? It's like, well, they found 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.360 a way to make like being East Asian the thing 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:51.080 you can sell to white people. By having it be 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:55.040 about food and selling the version of like a slightly 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.480 different version of the traditional family, and I you know 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:00.600 and like and you can you can sort of ask 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:05.000 what good has this done for Asian American people? And 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:10.600 mostly what it's done is that Asian American cinema there's 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:14.600 it's a wasteland, right like, and you know, and you 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:16.920 could see like there's a there's a version of sort 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.359 of of where the twenty twenties go that's different where 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:23.199 the assimilationist drive kicks in and we don't. And this 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.880 happens to Quimbidia where it's just this yeah, nothing, it's 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.120 just this void of sort of formless content that gets 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:31.440 sold to the sist people. 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:32.720 I mean, and I think you could even look at 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:34.359 that from a lot of like twenty sixteen to twenty 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:37.240 twenty stylings of queer media that does come off as 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:39.840 very similationist. And now I feel like we are entering 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:45.280 this new age of trans cinema where we have a 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:48.159 lot of people either working with more independent production houses. 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:50.879 I mc fairy excited for I saw the TV Glow 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:53.480 coming out next month, but we have a lot of 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.720 other independent trends filmmakers starting out quite young getting into 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.880 filmmaking also not quite young, like into their thirties, who 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.640 are working to actually produce films and media that don't 0:25:04.680 --> 0:25:07.240 just get thrown up on YouTube. That producing art that 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:10.680 does not just become another transgender video essay that floods 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.600 the site. Right, it's finding other ways to actually engage 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:16.879 artistically besides the very comfortable ways that we've gotten used to, 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.280 whether that's like, you know, what your average trans DJ 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:23.800 trans like electronic music or a trans video essay, which 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:25.719 feels like, really the only two ways to make art 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:29.240 is a trans person reliably are making YouTube videos making music, 0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:32.280 both of which can be very good. Absolutely, there's of 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:35.400 some fantastic trans musicians. There's a lot of great video 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:38.719 essays out there, but the artistic landscape is so much 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:42.159 bigger than that. And being able to watch people realize 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:45.480 that this YouTube thing is so self limiting and trying 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:48.760 to grow past that is incredibly cool to see. I 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.600 know there's stuff like Nebula, just like this streaming service 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:53.959 kind of built on YouTube but trying to do more 0:25:54.000 --> 0:25:56.440 of its own things. That's been interesting to watch grow. 0:25:57.040 --> 0:25:59.399 But also a lot of people attempting just to actually 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:03.400 like take movies to film festivals and actually like engage 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:06.560 with this as like art and like having it be 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:08.520 recognized as arts. Like it would have been so easy 0:26:08.520 --> 0:26:11.680 to turn the people's choker into like a YouTube fan film, right, yeah, 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:14.720 fucking thousands of fucking Batman fan films on YouTube. 0:26:14.760 --> 0:26:15.879 That would have been so easy. 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.600 But the insistents are like, no, I'm actually gonna actually 0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:21.160 going to use like fair use law, gonna actually do 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:24.240 like a legal parody and push this through film festivals, 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:26.720 get it in actual movie theaters. We are seeing a 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:29.959 lot more transfilms at film festivals. We are seeing this 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:33.080 start happening, and I'm very excited to watch this grow. 0:26:34.080 --> 0:26:36.480 Yeah, And I think what's ultimately happening here is that 0:26:36.760 --> 0:26:39.000 there's a combination of two things. One is that we 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:42.200 were getting spat out by the traditional media machine, and two, 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:45.320 the traditional media machine is rotting from the inside, right, 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:49.840 And it's not good that either of these things are 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:53.760 really happening. But simultaneously, it also means that we're in 0:26:53.800 --> 0:26:56.520 this position where, having been spat out, we can go 0:26:56.600 --> 0:27:00.600 make the giant media monster. Yeah, we can go stab 0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:03.320 it and force a bunch of these like random CIS 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:05.879 critics to be like to try to figure out a 0:27:05.920 --> 0:27:07.840 tea for tea relationship, but just blow it. 0:27:08.480 --> 0:27:11.159 Something like this would have never been made by Warner Brothers. 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:14.920 That's just like impossible. This art could have never never 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:18.440 been made under Warner Brothers, Right, that's just impossible, and 0:27:18.640 --> 0:27:21.679 being able to say no, I'm going to use these 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:25.280 cultural iconography that we keep being told endlessly that this 0:27:25.320 --> 0:27:27.960 is this is our culture's version of mythology, of which 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:30.040 is fucking people talk about superheroes like that all the 0:27:30.040 --> 0:27:31.960 fucking time, like this, this is our Greek gods, this 0:27:32.000 --> 0:27:33.840 is our blah bla blah blah blah. Yet it's just 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:36.520 owned by like two companies who control everything about it 0:27:36.840 --> 0:27:38.879 and don't allow the public to actually engage with these 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:41.480 as cultural thinkers and say no, we actually are going 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:43.919 to find a way to use these characters in relation 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:48.439 to someone's own life as an artist and using it 0:27:48.480 --> 0:27:51.760 to talk about queerness and comedy and working in the 0:27:51.760 --> 0:27:54.920 comedy industry as a queer person to create a very 0:27:55.000 --> 0:27:58.360 unique piece that yeah, literally could have there's no way 0:27:58.400 --> 0:28:00.159 wouldever be made. So this is this is this is 0:28:00.200 --> 0:28:01.960 a piece of art that could have never happened any 0:28:01.960 --> 0:28:04.800 other way. And now we have it playing in a 0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:07.080 local theater near you, and I think that's very cool. 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:10.720 Here's Vera Drew again talking about the theatrical run. 0:28:11.240 --> 0:28:13.720 We're playing a lot of cities. We keep adding more. 0:28:13.800 --> 0:28:16.359 If you don't see your city, bother the theater in 0:28:16.440 --> 0:28:18.560 your town and tell them you want them to play it, 0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:21.120 and you know, show them one of the many articles 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:23.719 about this film and maybe they maybe they'll do it, 0:28:23.840 --> 0:28:25.520 or reach out to us and let us know. The 0:28:25.600 --> 0:28:27.639 People's Joker dot com and you can follow me at 0:28:27.680 --> 0:28:31.879 Vera Drew twenty two on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok. 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:34.080 Don't know how to use it, but we're going to 0:28:34.160 --> 0:28:35.400 figure it out together. 0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:38.280 Thanks for listening again. You can check out The People's 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:41.479 Joker at the People's Joker dot Com look for tickets 0:28:41.480 --> 0:28:45.000 and showtimes. Hopefully they'll be one in your area. Next week, 0:28:45.080 --> 0:28:48.520 there'll be more episodes talking about the making of this movie, 0:28:48.840 --> 0:28:53.320 as well as a few other transcomedian art projects that 0:28:53.360 --> 0:29:08.600 are currently ongoing. See you on the other side. 0:29:09.760 --> 0:29:13.920 Welcome to Grappen Here, I'm Andrew Sage to future channel Andreism. 0:29:14.520 --> 0:29:18.240 I'm joined by Mia Wong. Did not miss your que 0:29:18.280 --> 0:29:20.000 this time? This will not make any sense to you 0:29:20.080 --> 0:29:22.480 unless you've heard the previous episode in which I missed 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:22.720 by you. 0:29:23.480 --> 0:29:33.960 But hello, indeed, indeed welcome, did missic you? So recently 0:29:34.680 --> 0:29:38.600 I read Born a Crime by Trevoranoah. It was his 0:29:38.800 --> 0:29:42.920 memoir of his childhood in South Africa and politics society. 0:29:43.000 --> 0:29:46.280 Is a decent comedian and had me laughing out loud 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:51.120 and thinking a lot as well, and it really reignited 0:29:51.520 --> 0:29:55.840 my long pass and interest in South African history because 0:29:55.880 --> 0:29:59.240 he's given a lot of context when sharing his stories. 0:30:00.880 --> 0:30:04.040 So I decided to look into the history of anarchism 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:07.240 in South Africa and that's what we will be exploring today. 0:30:08.160 --> 0:30:10.520 Much of the information I gathered is thanks to the 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:14.880 scholarship of Lucian van der Walt, a South African anarchist 0:30:14.960 --> 0:30:19.800 and professor of sociology. Particularly, I'll be looking at the 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:25.480 work on anarchism and Cynicalism Southern Africa from the International 0:30:25.520 --> 0:30:29.920 Encyclopedia Revolution and Protest and Anarchism and Cynicalism in the 0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:33.480 colonial and post colonial world. Without getting into the lengthy 0:30:33.600 --> 0:30:36.640 and storied history of the region, I do need to 0:30:36.640 --> 0:30:40.880 provide some context, so we'll start in the mid nineteenth century, 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:44.680 where the region that became South Africa was considered marginal 0:30:44.720 --> 0:30:46.920 to the world economy. You had the poet of the 0:30:46.920 --> 0:30:50.000 Cape of Good Hope and Port Elizabeth, which handled me 0:30:50.040 --> 0:30:53.640 in the agricultural exports. And this was during the second 0:30:53.680 --> 0:30:57.360 period of the British Cape Colony's existence, after it had 0:30:57.400 --> 0:30:59.960 briefly fallen into the hands of the Batavia and Republic 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:04.280 during the Napoleonic Wars. None of that is particularly necessary 0:31:04.320 --> 0:31:07.640 to know for our sake, but you know a little 0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:11.440 fun fact. At this point, once again, under the British, 0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:16.120 the land was broadly agrarian, and Britain's farms were worked 0:31:16.160 --> 0:31:21.160 by colored and African workers. The neighboring Natal Colony, also 0:31:21.240 --> 0:31:25.200 under British rule, had its plantations worked by indentured Indians. 0:31:26.080 --> 0:31:29.560 The rest of the interior was under various Africana republics 0:31:29.560 --> 0:31:34.280 and African kingdoms. For those not in the know, so 0:31:34.520 --> 0:31:39.840 African in this context refers to obviously Africans, Black Africans 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:44.360 to be specific, Indians referring to the indentured laborers from 0:31:44.400 --> 0:31:50.200 the Indian subcontinent, Africanas referring to the Afrikaans or Dutch 0:31:50.320 --> 0:31:54.520 speaking white South Africans, and then we have, of course 0:31:54.560 --> 0:32:00.680 the British, which are you know, white British people, and 0:32:00.840 --> 0:32:04.600 the colored as a designation as a group as a 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:08.640 self identified ethnic group referred to the people of mixed 0:32:09.200 --> 0:32:13.640 European and African heritage that had begun to develop their 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:17.320 own identity in their own community. Because the settlement of 0:32:17.360 --> 0:32:21.360 South Africa had started centuries before, so other than the 0:32:21.400 --> 0:32:25.400 agricultural export and ports providing a respite for trade between 0:32:25.440 --> 0:32:28.600 the West and the East, the Southern African colonies weren't 0:32:28.640 --> 0:32:32.239 particularly high up on anyone's list of priorities. But then 0:32:32.280 --> 0:32:35.400 the economic landscape of the region transformed with the discovery 0:32:35.400 --> 0:32:39.200 of diamonds in Kimberley in eighteen sixty seven and gold 0:32:39.320 --> 0:32:42.640 in Woodwater surround in eighteen eighty six. To make a 0:32:42.760 --> 0:32:46.040 very long story short, this led to the rapid centralization 0:32:46.120 --> 0:32:49.760 of mining activities and the growth of towns like Johannesburg, 0:32:50.160 --> 0:32:52.560 one of the most well known towns in South Africa. 0:32:53.640 --> 0:32:58.360 Imperial interests intensified, resultant in the British Wars and Africans 0:32:58.400 --> 0:33:01.720 and Africanas and the lablishment of the Union of South 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:06.400 Africa in nineteen ten. An extremely diverse and polygoth society 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:11.280 under British rule. By nineteen thirteen, almost half of the 0:33:11.280 --> 0:33:14.400 world's gold output came from with waters Round area and 0:33:14.520 --> 0:33:18.320 with Watersrand Minds employed one hundred and ninety five thousand 0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:22.880 Africans and twenty two thousand white workers. The working class 0:33:23.600 --> 0:33:29.520 clearly faced many racial and ethnic divisions. It was primarily 0:33:29.520 --> 0:33:34.160 composed of various Africans, which had their own divisions between them, 0:33:34.360 --> 0:33:37.280 and there were also divisions between the largely skilled white 0:33:37.320 --> 0:33:42.280 immigrants from Europe and the largely unskilled local white africaners. 0:33:42.960 --> 0:33:46.200 The marginalized African and colored middle classes that began to 0:33:46.240 --> 0:33:49.320 form from the few free laborers involved in various grown 0:33:49.360 --> 0:33:53.760 industries would come to lead early nationalist movements while grappling 0:33:53.800 --> 0:33:59.480 with segregation, discrimination, and linguistic challenges. As van der Wald said, 0:33:59.520 --> 0:34:02.840 and they lived in a situation where a cheap African 0:34:02.920 --> 0:34:05.479 labor formed the bedrock of the mines as well as 0:34:05.520 --> 0:34:09.520 state industry and the crowing commercial farming and manufacturing sectors, 0:34:09.840 --> 0:34:12.640 and where the cheapness of African labor was primarily a 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:16.239 function of the black's historic incorporation into the country as 0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:20.440 a subject to people. In this sense, local capitalist relations 0:34:20.440 --> 0:34:25.319 of exploitation were constructed upon colonial relations of domination. Fast 0:34:25.360 --> 0:34:27.719 forward to the eve of apartheid in nineteen forty eight, 0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:30.880 when African and nationalists took power and extended the segregation 0:34:30.960 --> 0:34:33.600 policies in the first four decades of the Union even further, 0:34:34.320 --> 0:34:37.440 you get two responses to the national question preceding the 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:40.319 development of apartheid from the organized labor crowd at the time. 0:34:40.719 --> 0:34:44.239 The first response, known as white labourism, was associated with 0:34:44.280 --> 0:34:48.480 the mainstream white labor movement leading back to the nineteenth century. 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:52.680 The South African Labor Party and South African Industrial Federation 0:34:52.840 --> 0:34:57.319 were key proponents of white labourism, and both organizations were 0:34:57.320 --> 0:35:00.760 born from the exclusiveness of early craft unions that later 0:35:00.920 --> 0:35:06.560 evolved into more pronounced racial exclusiveness. This white laborism approach 0:35:06.680 --> 0:35:12.360 combined social democracy with segregation, promoting job reservation and preferential 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:18.720 employment for whites, urban segregation and Asian repatriation white power 0:35:18.960 --> 0:35:23.239 for white workers. Basically, the other races can figure out 0:35:23.239 --> 0:35:26.560 their own deal, of course, on the reservations that we 0:35:26.680 --> 0:35:30.320 put them in. So it's no surprise that the apartheid 0:35:30.360 --> 0:35:34.960 government in part mainstreamed this white laborism movement, but the 0:35:34.960 --> 0:35:37.400 second response to the national question was linked to the 0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:41.719 Communist Party of South Africa the CPSA from nineteen twenty eight, 0:35:42.160 --> 0:35:45.359 when it adopted the Native Republic thesis under pressure from 0:35:45.360 --> 0:35:49.840 the Communist International. This approach advocated for the establishment of 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:53.759 an independent South Africa Native Republic as a precursor to 0:35:53.800 --> 0:35:58.080 the Workers and Peasants Republic, separating national liberation specifically in 0:35:58.120 --> 0:36:02.520 the fourth of nationalism and then socialism into distinct stages. 0:36:04.040 --> 0:36:07.640 The CPSA initially considered leading both of these stages, but 0:36:07.920 --> 0:36:11.040 later abandoned this idea and opted for a united front 0:36:11.080 --> 0:36:14.759 with the African National Congress, aiming for a unitary, democratic, 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:20.799 and capitalist state with land reform and partial nationalization. But 0:36:20.800 --> 0:36:24.920 there's a hidden history that goes unnoticed prior to the 0:36:25.000 --> 0:36:30.040 rise of apartheid and the CPSA. All the way back 0:36:30.040 --> 0:36:33.520 in the eighteen eighties, Henry Glass played a pivotal role 0:36:33.560 --> 0:36:38.080 in establishing the local anarchist tradition in South Africa. He 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:41.080 was an Englishman born in India with a background in 0:36:41.200 --> 0:36:44.719 radical London circles. He moved to Port Elizabeth in the 0:36:44.760 --> 0:36:48.120 eighteen eighties and engaged in various jobs, including working on 0:36:48.160 --> 0:36:52.799 the Witwatersrand minds among African people. He contributed to the 0:36:52.840 --> 0:36:57.240 Cape Labor Press, translated key works by Kropotkin into English, 0:36:57.600 --> 0:37:02.680 and distributed anarchist materials through various organizations. Glass seems to 0:37:02.760 --> 0:37:07.000 have taken a good look at clonalism, saw how Africans 0:37:07.000 --> 0:37:10.680 were treated, and didn't shy away from calling it out 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:16.120 now self. His writing did idealize pre capitalist cultures, for example, 0:37:16.200 --> 0:37:19.040 pointing out in a letter to Kropotkin that you can 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:22.920 still find amongst them the principle of communism, but his 0:37:23.000 --> 0:37:25.600 main focus was on pointing fingers at an order that 0:37:25.680 --> 0:37:29.440 treated Africans like second class citizens, and going even further 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:32.360 to champion the idea of a working class movement that 0:37:32.480 --> 0:37:37.040 bridged racial divides. He understood the foolishness of white workers 0:37:37.040 --> 0:37:40.239 to try and pursue their liberation alone while sidelining their 0:37:40.239 --> 0:37:43.480 colored comrades, and though Glass spent his time agitating in 0:37:43.520 --> 0:37:46.880 Port Elizabeth, this was also a perspective shared by the 0:37:46.960 --> 0:37:51.680 Social Democratic Federation or SDF, based in Cape Town, which 0:37:51.719 --> 0:37:57.040 despite its name, was all about pushing anarchism and syndicalism. Actually, 0:37:57.480 --> 0:38:00.799 maybe more precise there was a dominant wing within the 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:05.440 SDF of Cape Town that emphasized anarchism and syndicalism. There 0:38:05.480 --> 0:38:08.960 will also moderate and status elements in the SDF as well. 0:38:09.440 --> 0:38:13.360 Cape Town was quite different at that time from Port Elizabeth. 0:38:13.920 --> 0:38:17.680 Port Elizabeth was mostly African and white, but Cape Town 0:38:17.760 --> 0:38:21.560 had a significant colored population, which created a situation where 0:38:21.680 --> 0:38:25.160 much of Cape Town's working class was free labor rather 0:38:25.200 --> 0:38:29.160 than bound to some form of slavery or dangure. Coloreds 0:38:29.239 --> 0:38:33.279 were facing growing official segregation and popular discrimination from the 0:38:33.360 --> 0:38:36.120 late nineteenth century onwards, though, so there was a growing 0:38:36.200 --> 0:38:40.480 discontent as the working class fractured even further. But there 0:38:40.520 --> 0:38:42.560 was a key figure in the Cape Town SDF that 0:38:42.719 --> 0:38:46.960 pushed anarchism and syndicalism, and that was Wilfred Harrison, another 0:38:47.000 --> 0:38:50.200 friend of Kopotkin, a carpenter, a trade unionist, and an 0:38:50.200 --> 0:38:53.440 ex soldier. He was known as a very dynamic speaker 0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:56.320 and a staunch anarchist communist who pushed for a future 0:38:56.600 --> 0:39:01.560 where workers owned and controlled everything. With Harrison at the Helm, 0:39:01.640 --> 0:39:04.480 the SDF set up shop in Adelaide Street, where they 0:39:04.480 --> 0:39:08.120 were organized in talks, events, and even standing in elections 0:39:08.120 --> 0:39:13.920 for propaganda purposes. The sdf's events attracted thousands, creating truly 0:39:14.120 --> 0:39:18.160 uniquely integrated public spheres that would bring Colors, white and 0:39:18.280 --> 0:39:21.840 Africans in some of the same spaces. They were holding 0:39:21.880 --> 0:39:25.120 speeches in Afrikaans, which was the most popular language of 0:39:25.160 --> 0:39:28.440 the colors, and in eastingt Closer, the language of the 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:35.600 Mooser people. They had bookshops, reading rooms, refreshment bars, beach trips, choirs, 0:39:35.880 --> 0:39:39.480 and even a few socialist christ Nets. At the various 0:39:39.520 --> 0:39:45.960 talks they welcomed controversial figures, including a young Gandhi. Harrison's 0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:49.320 wing of the SDF further sought to remove union color bars, 0:39:49.880 --> 0:39:53.879 unionize colors, secure equal pay, and build unions that would 0:39:53.960 --> 0:39:58.600 unite all workers, regardless of race. In the early nineteen hundreds, 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:02.160 socialists and with Waters Round launched the Weekly Voice of Labor, 0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:06.080 led by Archie Crawford and Mary Fitzgerald. The paper saved 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:09.600 to connect socialists across cities from Duban to Kimberley, to 0:40:09.680 --> 0:40:14.720 Cape Town to Johannesburg. Archie Crawford was a staunch anti segregationist, 0:40:15.040 --> 0:40:17.560 pushing back against the South African Labor Party for its 0:40:17.560 --> 0:40:22.200 policies and organized in the neglected colored workers. In nineteen ten, 0:40:22.280 --> 0:40:25.799 the SDF hosted British synicolist Tom Mann, whose tours the 0:40:25.800 --> 0:40:28.520 region would inspire the founding of the Socialist Labor Party 0:40:28.760 --> 0:40:32.960 or SLP. In Johannesburg. They adopted the ideas of Daniel 0:40:33.040 --> 0:40:35.840 de Leon, the American leader of the International Workers of 0:40:35.840 --> 0:40:38.960 the World, and were followed by the Industrial Workers Union, 0:40:39.320 --> 0:40:44.480 which linked with the IWW in Chicago. The IWW's ideas 0:40:44.560 --> 0:40:48.279 spread to Duban and Pretoria, but it was Johannesburg where 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:52.080 they flexed their muscles with successful strikes and challenges to 0:40:52.160 --> 0:40:57.160 labor laws. The IWW's position carried the same as its forebears, 0:40:57.719 --> 0:40:59.960 fight the class war with the aid of all workers 0:41:00.120 --> 0:41:03.680 to whether efficient or an efficient, skilled or unskilled, white 0:41:03.760 --> 0:41:07.840 or black. IWW organizer Jock Campbell would be the first 0:41:07.880 --> 0:41:11.680 to specifically make propaganda amongst the African workers in which 0:41:11.719 --> 0:41:26.200 waters Rand. But don't get me wrong, these efforts do 0:41:26.280 --> 0:41:31.000 not mean that they necessarily succeeded. The IWW and SLP's 0:41:31.080 --> 0:41:34.920 struggle to recruit to cross racial lines semms not primarily 0:41:34.960 --> 0:41:39.560 from prejudice, but from their overall weakness as union organizers 0:41:39.680 --> 0:41:42.600 outside the tram sector, where they saw the most successes, 0:41:43.200 --> 0:41:46.839 and of course, the practical challenges of organizing the predominantly 0:41:47.080 --> 0:41:51.480 unfree African workforce underwit Water's Rand. So they talked a 0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:54.799 good talk about reaching across racial lines, but not a 0:41:54.800 --> 0:41:57.960 massive success because they didn't have a strategy in place 0:41:58.280 --> 0:42:02.760 to actually establish those actions between Africans, colored and Indian 0:42:02.800 --> 0:42:06.600 workers in this regard. Actually, the SDF in Cape Town 0:42:07.040 --> 0:42:10.799 was a lot more successful. However, something did happen in 0:42:10.800 --> 0:42:15.480 witwaters Rand. In May nineteen thirteen, a significant general strike 0:42:15.760 --> 0:42:19.440 erupted on the witwaters Rand, initiated by white miners and 0:42:19.560 --> 0:42:24.040 quickly spread in across industries. The strike was marked by 0:42:24.120 --> 0:42:28.280 riots and gun battles and escalating on what's called Black Saturday, 0:42:28.520 --> 0:42:31.920 July fifth, resulting in twenty five deaths at the hands 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:36.239 of the imperial troops. Subsequent strikes by African miners and 0:42:36.320 --> 0:42:42.319 Indian passive resistance campaigns further intensified the social unrest, with 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:44.360 the failure of a compromise in the aftermath of the 0:42:44.440 --> 0:42:47.560 nineteen thirteen strike led to a second general strike in 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:52.879 January nineteen fourteen. The state responded swiftly, declaring martial law, 0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:57.600 mobilizing forces and suppressing the unions, resulting the arrest and 0:42:57.680 --> 0:43:02.839 deportation of key activists, including Archie Crawford. Then World War 0:43:02.880 --> 0:43:06.600 One further disrupted things, with the country joining the British side. 0:43:07.080 --> 0:43:10.760 While some organizations suspended activities to support the war efforts, 0:43:11.360 --> 0:43:15.759 hardline African and nationalists launched an armed rebellion, leading to 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:18.600 split within the SDF and the South African Labor Party. 0:43:19.520 --> 0:43:23.000 Although anarchism synicalism played a role in these turbulent events, 0:43:23.600 --> 0:43:27.319 the actual syndicalist movement on the Witwaterstrand was weak and 0:43:27.400 --> 0:43:31.279 divided by nineteen thirteen, despite attempts to forge unity through 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:34.600 the United Socialist Party the USP, it fell apart due 0:43:34.640 --> 0:43:38.320 to existing divisions and ideological differences among the constituent groups. 0:43:38.880 --> 0:43:43.600 While organized syndicalism struggled to lead the strikes, syndicalist ideas 0:43:43.640 --> 0:43:48.960 and slogans gained considerable traction in labor circles. The strikes 0:43:49.000 --> 0:43:54.799 and war issues reinvigorated existing anarchists and syndicalists, radicalized new activists, 0:43:55.000 --> 0:43:59.719 and sparked widespread interest in radical ideas which would lead 0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:04.280 to an new development. In September nineteen fifteen, the Industrial 0:44:04.320 --> 0:44:09.160 Socialist League the ISSL emerged as a prominent syndicalist formation, 0:44:10.040 --> 0:44:13.200 comprising of the syndicalist veterans and anti war South African 0:44:13.320 --> 0:44:17.919 Labor Party activists. The ISL quickly became the largest left 0:44:17.920 --> 0:44:21.880 political group before the Communist Party of South Africa. The 0:44:21.920 --> 0:44:26.200 ISL rooted in the ISWW tradition, advocated for the organization 0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:30.640 of workers on industrial alliance irrespective of race, and envisioned 0:44:30.640 --> 0:44:34.680 in an integrated revolutionary one big union for national liberation 0:44:34.920 --> 0:44:39.000 and class struggle. The ISL criticized whitecraft unions for the 0:44:39.040 --> 0:44:43.120 divisive practices and advocated of industrial unions to confront the 0:44:43.200 --> 0:44:47.800 challenges posed by giant corporations and trusts. Racial prejudice, according 0:44:47.800 --> 0:44:51.640 to the ISSL, served the ruling class's interests insuring a 0:44:51.719 --> 0:44:55.879 study supply of cheap, unorganized African labor at the same 0:44:55.880 --> 0:45:00.279 time that the ISL was actively opposing discriminatory laws. The 0:45:00.320 --> 0:45:05.239 ISL also doubted the efficacy of African nationalist programs in 0:45:05.480 --> 0:45:10.719 genuinely emancipating the black masses. It contended that national oppression 0:45:10.880 --> 0:45:15.200 was rooted in capitalism, making national liberation unlikely under the 0:45:15.200 --> 0:45:20.160 prevalance system. The ISL aimed to reform white unions, but 0:45:20.239 --> 0:45:24.080 while leading efforts to organize people of color, they faced challenges, 0:45:24.239 --> 0:45:26.800 of course, in the form of opposition from white workers, 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:31.920 electoral defeats, and hostility from established unions. They were evicted 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:35.960 from Trades Hall in nineteen seventeen for resistant discriminatory policies, 0:45:36.320 --> 0:45:41.040 but continued the activities cultivating links with people of color, 0:45:41.400 --> 0:45:47.000 particularly through its passionately anti Zionist Yiddish speaking branch. The 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:50.640 ISL played a pivotal role in establishing unions among people 0:45:50.680 --> 0:45:54.080 of color, launching the Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban 0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:57.680 in nineteen seventeen and later through night schools for Africans, 0:45:58.000 --> 0:46:01.560 initiating the Industrial Workers off in the same year, both 0:46:01.560 --> 0:46:04.520 of which would be led by their own constituents. In 0:46:04.600 --> 0:46:07.799 July nineteen eighteen, there would be another general strike, this 0:46:07.960 --> 0:46:12.360 time primarily by Africans. Earlier that year, one hundred and 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:16.200 fifty two African municipal workers were sentenced to hard labor 0:46:16.320 --> 0:46:19.840 for striking, leading to protests organized by the Industrial Workers 0:46:19.880 --> 0:46:23.640 of Africa, the International Socialist League and the South African 0:46:24.000 --> 0:46:28.480 Native National Congress and the South Africa Native National Congress 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:32.480 the SANNC, which was the precursor to the currently ruled 0:46:32.480 --> 0:46:37.560 In African National Congress the ANC. The Joint Action Committee 0:46:37.560 --> 0:46:40.480 proposed a general strike on the Witwatersrand for the release 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:43.800 of the sentenced workers and better pay for African workers. 0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:48.200 Although the strike was canceled last minute, several thousand African 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:53.360 miners participated anyway, resulting in arrests for incitement to public violence. 0:46:54.320 --> 0:46:57.960 The rested individuals included ISL members and a member of 0:46:58.040 --> 0:47:02.160 both the Industrial Workers of Africa and the ESSAYNNC. A 0:47:02.239 --> 0:47:05.719 year later, in March nineteen nineteen, ISL members played a 0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:09.439 role in their civil disobedience campaign against pass lords, which 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:13.320 required non whites in South Africa to carry documents authorizing 0:47:13.360 --> 0:47:18.480 their presence in restricted white areas. That resistance campaign led 0:47:18.520 --> 0:47:24.160 to nearly seven hundred arrests. That same year, in Kimberley, 0:47:24.520 --> 0:47:28.520 the ISL established syndicalist unions among colored workers, such as 0:47:28.560 --> 0:47:31.720 the Clothing Workers Industrial Union and the Horse Drivers Union. 0:47:32.440 --> 0:47:38.520 These unions achieved significant successes, including wage increases in Cape Town. 0:47:38.920 --> 0:47:42.360 ISL members City Way and KREI aimed to organize the 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:46.040 Industrial Workers of Africa on the docks. They collaborated with 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:50.520 the Industrial Socialist League the ind SL, a syndicalist breakaway 0:47:50.520 --> 0:47:53.200 from the SDF, and played a role in the major 0:47:53.239 --> 0:47:57.000 strike on the docks in December nineteen nineteen. Now the 0:47:57.040 --> 0:48:03.560 strike ultimately disintegrated, but it's still mar significant event. All 0:48:03.600 --> 0:48:07.520 in all, the ISL, heavily influenced by syndicalism, would play 0:48:07.520 --> 0:48:10.320 a major role in the strikes of the late nineteen tenths. 0:48:12.000 --> 0:48:15.360 The ISL's influence extended to the formation of the Communist 0:48:15.440 --> 0:48:19.200 Party of South Africa CPS, alongside the SDF and the 0:48:19.239 --> 0:48:22.320 INDSCEL and a few other groups in the nineteen twenties. 0:48:23.200 --> 0:48:26.520 That party would go underground after the Anti Communist Act 0:48:26.600 --> 0:48:29.760 of the fifties and re emerge as the South African 0:48:29.840 --> 0:48:34.759 Communist Party the SAACP. For most of its history, it 0:48:34.800 --> 0:48:40.920 has been explicitly Marxist Leninist, heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. However, 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:44.960 when it first started, syndicalist concepts still lingered within the 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:49.560 party for many years before was eventually excised. The internationalist 0:48:49.600 --> 0:48:52.160 and multi racial vision of the syndicalist movement was later 0:48:52.160 --> 0:48:54.799 taken over by the two stage strategy of the cpsa 0:48:54.920 --> 0:48:59.480 slash SACP, which sought to establish an independent, democratic capitalist 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:03.759 republic as a precursor to a socialist order. This, of course, 0:49:03.800 --> 0:49:07.680 diverges from the earlier anarchist and syndicalist strategy, which viewed 0:49:07.680 --> 0:49:12.200 the anti colonial independence and class struggles as interconnected and 0:49:12.280 --> 0:49:15.839 didn't see national liberation as solely the purview of nationalism, 0:49:16.840 --> 0:49:20.280 a view which to me is more sophisticated and revolutionary 0:49:20.320 --> 0:49:23.160 than this one track status view that Marxist tend to 0:49:23.160 --> 0:49:28.360 adopt contrary to the organizing efforts of actual working class people. Interestingly, 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:32.440 Van der Walt argues that while CPSA undeniably contributed to 0:49:32.520 --> 0:49:36.000 working class struggles since the nineteen forties, a critical look 0:49:36.040 --> 0:49:39.880 reveals that they made consistent cricketures of the pre CPSA left. 0:49:40.560 --> 0:49:43.520 They sort of established themselves as the true vanguard in 0:49:43.520 --> 0:49:46.560 the fight for South Africa's liberation. So they portrayed the 0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:50.879 pre CPSA left in two main currents, the Proto Bolsheviks 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:55.760 considered true socialists and everyone else The pre CPSA left 0:49:55.840 --> 0:49:58.960 was deemed a failure, with the Proto Bolsheviks credited for 0:49:59.000 --> 0:50:03.320 pioneer and socialist work among black workers. According to their narrative, 0:50:03.760 --> 0:50:07.160 it was only in the late nineteen twenties the CPSAS 0:50:07.200 --> 0:50:10.280 adoption of the Native republic thesis and Marxist Leninist ideas 0:50:10.560 --> 0:50:15.359 that the national question was adequately addressed. Anarchism and syndicalism 0:50:15.719 --> 0:50:20.120 are portrayed as marginal and bothersome predominantly white movements that 0:50:20.440 --> 0:50:24.120 at best underestimated the significance of national oppression were at 0:50:24.200 --> 0:50:29.920 worst endorsed white supremacy and segregation. This interpretation, of course, 0:50:29.920 --> 0:50:33.799 positions a CPSA slash SACP as the sole bearers of 0:50:33.840 --> 0:50:38.480 revolutionary socialist solutions the national question, while ironically erasing the 0:50:38.520 --> 0:50:43.800 history of early African socialist and syndicalist radicalism. So wrapping 0:50:43.880 --> 0:50:46.920 up a bit here, we delved into the intricate history 0:50:46.960 --> 0:50:51.200 of anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, uncovering a movement 0:50:51.239 --> 0:50:53.840 that played a significant role in Southern Africa from the 0:50:53.920 --> 0:50:57.840 eighteen eighties to the nineteen twenties and consistently grappled with 0:50:57.880 --> 0:51:01.560 the complexities of the national question. We've seen a multi 0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:05.840 racial and internationalist movement marked by a steadfast opposition to 0:51:05.920 --> 0:51:10.279 racial discrimination and a commitment to interracial labor organization and 0:51:10.320 --> 0:51:13.400 the unity of the Wigan class. They had a vision 0:51:13.440 --> 0:51:17.120 of a society rooted in class solidarity, of an industrial 0:51:17.200 --> 0:51:21.040 republic distinct from the conventional nation state and in lockstep 0:51:21.080 --> 0:51:25.840 with an international industrial republic. Now, despite the decline of 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:29.200 anarchism and cynicalism in the years following the founding of 0:51:29.239 --> 0:51:34.120 the CPSA slash sacp Anarchism is still alive today in 0:51:34.160 --> 0:51:39.800 South Africa. The Zaba Laza Anarchist Communist Front or ZACF 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:44.839 is a specific anarchist political organization based in Johannesburg, South 0:51:44.880 --> 0:51:48.080 Africa and founded on May Day in two thousand and three. 0:51:49.080 --> 0:51:53.600 The organization operates on an individual membership basis by invitation only, 0:51:54.160 --> 0:52:00.000 emphasising theoretical and strategic unity among members. The Zaba Lazas, 0:51:59.800 --> 0:52:03.480 a line with the anarchist communist Platformists and a specifistic 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:06.920 traditions within anarchism, subscribe in to the idea of an 0:52:06.960 --> 0:52:12.239 active minority pushing anarchist ideas within larger movements. In fact, 0:52:12.360 --> 0:52:16.640 unlike the anarchisynicalists, the Zablazas don't aim to build mass 0:52:16.640 --> 0:52:20.920 anarchist movements, but rather to participate in existing social movements, 0:52:21.239 --> 0:52:28.319 spreading anarchist principles within heterogeneous organizations. Zablaza advocates for direct democracy, 0:52:28.800 --> 0:52:34.919 mutual aid, horizontalism, class combativeness, direct action, and class independence. 0:52:35.680 --> 0:52:38.439 It emerged during a time of political closure within trade 0:52:38.480 --> 0:52:42.320 unions which were controlled by the African National Congress government. 0:52:42.960 --> 0:52:47.000 It oriented itself towards emerging social movements such as the 0:52:47.040 --> 0:52:51.239 Anti Privatization Forum and the Landless People's Movement, aim into 0:52:51.239 --> 0:52:56.600 advance anarchist principles within these movements. Sablas's work includes popular 0:52:56.680 --> 0:53:01.960 political education, combatant reformists and authoritarians, tendencies, an advocation for 0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:06.520 the independence of social movements from political parties and electoral politics. 0:53:07.800 --> 0:53:12.120 So that's the story the history of anarchism and cynicalism 0:53:12.200 --> 0:53:16.440 and South Africa. Obviously this is a summary, but it 0:53:16.480 --> 0:53:20.520 goes to show the influence that these movements have had 0:53:20.719 --> 0:53:24.400 in shape and the history of that often forgotten region 0:53:24.440 --> 0:53:28.560 of the world. Thanks for joining me once again, or 0:53:28.640 --> 0:53:30.279 Powell to all the people. 0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:47.920 Yes, welcome to it could happen here a podcast that 0:53:48.040 --> 0:53:50.520 much of the chagrin of my upstairs neighbors is being 0:53:50.520 --> 0:53:54.120 recorded at almost three in the morning. Is being recorded 0:53:54.160 --> 0:53:55.960 at three in the morning instead of at any normal 0:53:56.000 --> 0:53:59.240 time because a bunch of protests broke out across college 0:53:59.280 --> 0:54:04.160 campuses against the genocide and Palestine. We will cover that 0:54:04.960 --> 0:54:11.759 at some point very soon. However, Comma, there is this 0:54:11.840 --> 0:54:14.319 episode to be done. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and 0:54:14.480 --> 0:54:19.719 this episode is something a little different. So there's an 0:54:19.760 --> 0:54:23.000 element of Trump's Agenda forty seven that we didn't really 0:54:23.080 --> 0:54:27.120 talk about in our episodes. That's actually a pretty significant 0:54:27.160 --> 0:54:32.160 amount of the material, and that's Trump's trade policy. And 0:54:32.360 --> 0:54:36.080 this is sort of surprisingly a very large part of 0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:38.960 his pitch. The sort of gist of it is that 0:54:39.040 --> 0:54:44.720 Trump's appeal to like the white working class TM is Okay, 0:54:44.719 --> 0:54:46.759 we're going to do a bunch of protectionist terrorists. This 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:48.960 is going to bring jobs back to the US by 0:54:49.000 --> 0:54:52.760 imposing costs and manufacturing in other countries, etc. Et cetera. 0:54:52.880 --> 0:54:56.240 This will bring jobs back to America and it will 0:54:56.280 --> 0:55:00.360 make America greater or some shit. Now, the center piece 0:55:00.440 --> 0:55:04.600 of this is what's called the Reciprocal Tariff Bill, and 0:55:04.640 --> 0:55:09.120 it's not that complicated. Basically, what it says is if 0:55:09.160 --> 0:55:12.279 a country imposes a tariff on an American good, the 0:55:12.400 --> 0:55:16.160 US imposes an identical tariff on that tariff. It's designed 0:55:16.160 --> 0:55:21.719 to basically automatically start trade wars. Now, the reason we 0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:26.319 didn't cover this in the original Legenda forty seven slate 0:55:26.360 --> 0:55:29.800 of episodes is that even in the worst case scenario 0:55:29.800 --> 0:55:32.719 where Trump takes power like a coup, and you know, 0:55:32.800 --> 0:55:36.960 the sort of power of anyone to oppose the magnificantly curtailed. 0:55:37.000 --> 0:55:39.440 I don't think you can get this one passed. And 0:55:39.520 --> 0:55:41.120 the reason I don't think you can get this one 0:55:41.200 --> 0:55:45.560 passed is because, you know, as it turns out, this 0:55:45.800 --> 0:55:47.960 package and we're going to sort of explore this a 0:55:47.960 --> 0:55:54.600 little bit. Actually seriously, messing with tariffs is something that 0:55:55.760 --> 0:55:57.960 is really really going to piss off a lot of 0:55:57.960 --> 0:56:03.520 corporations that actually matter. Now, Okay, So like I could 0:56:03.520 --> 0:56:05.839 have just done the episode anyways, led with that and 0:56:06.239 --> 0:56:08.880 just given a sort of you know, just given the 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:10.640 disclaimer that like it's probably not gonna happen. But I 0:56:10.680 --> 0:56:15.760 think there's a more interesting story here that hasn't really 0:56:15.840 --> 0:56:21.760 been talked about about the origin of basically the framework 0:56:21.800 --> 0:56:24.319 of modern American politics, both on the right and on 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:26.920 the left, because they both emerge I think from a 0:56:26.960 --> 0:56:32.160 series of arguments about trade that has been kind of 0:56:32.280 --> 0:56:35.560 broadly forgotten. I think that's to our detriment. And the 0:56:35.560 --> 0:56:38.480 product of this is that there's been a sort of 0:56:38.600 --> 0:56:40.640 raft of arguments and I've seen this as much from 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.480 the leftist from the right, that Trump's support for tariffs 0:56:43.520 --> 0:56:46.000 and particularly the sort of trade spat he got in 0:56:46.000 --> 0:56:49.000 with China from twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen marks the 0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:51.680 end of the sort of like neoliberal free trade regime 0:56:51.760 --> 0:56:54.880 and the emergence of like new nationalist protections against free trade. 0:56:54.920 --> 0:56:58.680 That's like the neo economic system that's replaced neoliberalism. And 0:56:59.000 --> 0:57:02.919 I am very skeptical of this. And the reason why 0:57:02.960 --> 0:57:06.759 I'm very skeptical of this is because I, like when 0:57:06.760 --> 0:57:09.080 I was coming up as a leftist, I spent a 0:57:09.120 --> 0:57:13.200 bunch of time seriously became involved in like irl left 0:57:13.320 --> 0:57:15.640 organizing around twenty seventeen. I'd done some stuff in like 0:57:15.640 --> 0:57:19.200 twenty thirteen before then, but that meant that, you know, 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:22.040 a lot of the stuff I was reading was accounts 0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:24.480 of what was called the global justice movements, which was 0:57:24.800 --> 0:57:27.440 alter globalization, anti globalization. There's like it has it has 0:57:27.480 --> 0:57:30.160 a million names, but it was it was a series 0:57:30.200 --> 0:57:33.760 of mass protest movements against the sort of raft of 0:57:33.760 --> 0:57:39.240 free trade agreements coming out of the nineties. So and 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:43.680 you get a very very different picture of the history 0:57:43.720 --> 0:57:46.400 of free trade that is sort of broader and more 0:57:46.440 --> 0:57:48.960 expansive in the history of the resistance to it. Then 0:57:49.000 --> 0:57:51.280 you get if you just sort of like, you know, 0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:55.840 assume neoliberalism has been the same always and Trump is 0:57:55.880 --> 0:57:59.360 the sort of aberration to it. Now, Trump's status as 0:57:59.360 --> 0:58:02.960 an aberration something that I question. I mean, you know, 0:58:03.040 --> 0:58:06.280 the trade war that he got into is something, you know, 0:58:06.560 --> 0:58:10.480 it's it's it is different. But I think there's a 0:58:10.560 --> 0:58:13.600 lot of there's a lot of sort of hype around 0:58:13.680 --> 0:58:15.960 Trump's like opposition to free trade. And like one of 0:58:16.000 --> 0:58:18.520 the big things you know that Trump ran on was 0:58:18.640 --> 0:58:20.520 pulling out of NAFTA, and he did. He did pull 0:58:20.560 --> 0:58:24.880 out of DAFTA. However, COMA he then set up a 0:58:24.960 --> 0:58:27.080 new trade NAFTA. By the way, it's a North American 0:58:27.120 --> 0:58:31.400 Free Trade Agreement. It's really shit. We're going to talk 0:58:31.400 --> 0:58:34.080 a bit more about what exactly it did later, but 0:58:34.240 --> 0:58:38.800 you know, it's broadly seen, I think rightly as something 0:58:38.800 --> 0:58:41.560 that smashed both huge portions of what was left of 0:58:41.560 --> 0:58:45.200 the American manufacturing economy and you know, the parts of 0:58:45.200 --> 0:58:47.880 the economy that had been rebuilt in the eighties and 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:52.800 also just absolutely annihilating the mechicangy cultural industry. For reasons 0:58:52.800 --> 0:58:54.600 that we will we will explain it a bit. It's 0:58:55.080 --> 0:58:59.480 now becoming extremely deeply unpopular because unbelievable numbers of workers 0:58:59.520 --> 0:59:02.840 lost their and you know, the the jobs that they 0:59:03.000 --> 0:59:07.360 got afterwards had shittier wages. You know, entire communities are ravage, 0:59:07.360 --> 0:59:10.280 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So Trump, you know, 0:59:10.320 --> 0:59:12.560 famously campaigns I'm pulling out of this deal, but he 0:59:12.640 --> 0:59:16.280 replaces it with something called USMCA. Now here's the thing 0:59:16.280 --> 0:59:21.440 about this deal. This is basically just NAFTA with slightly 0:59:21.480 --> 0:59:24.200 stronger carve outs for the auto industry about like what 0:59:24.320 --> 0:59:26.280 percentage of the parts of vehicles had to be produced 0:59:26.280 --> 0:59:30.600 in the US and some like slightly stronger labored like protections, 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:34.400 which is like fine, but it's it's basically the same deal, right, 0:59:35.440 --> 0:59:38.320 So you know you have to take this whole sort 0:59:38.360 --> 0:59:41.160 of like a Trump is like the anti free trade 0:59:41.200 --> 0:59:43.800 thing with a grain of salt. And look at again 0:59:44.080 --> 0:59:49.280 this deal they negotiated, which is just NAFTA. It is literally, 0:59:49.480 --> 0:59:51.600 after all of the hype of him pulling out of NAFTA, 0:59:51.800 --> 0:59:55.360 he did NAFTA again. Now this something very interesting that 0:59:55.400 --> 0:59:58.880 I don't think people remember. Obaba also opposed NAFTA, and 0:59:58.920 --> 1:00:01.800 they came into office and then nothing ever fucking happened. 1:00:01.960 --> 1:00:05.560 The NAFTA, So, you know, the sort of like the 1:00:05.920 --> 1:00:11.000 rumors of naftas Dubais have been greatly exaggerated. But Comma, 1:00:12.200 --> 1:00:15.840 the story of the building of opposition to NAFTA is 1:00:16.120 --> 1:00:20.160 very very interesting. So something I don't think most people 1:00:20.240 --> 1:00:24.160 understand is that the modern American left is descended from 1:00:24.160 --> 1:00:29.640 the Zapatistas. Very specifically. We're gonna one day cover the 1:00:29.960 --> 1:00:33.000 Sapatista uprising in some detail, but the sort of cliff 1:00:33.040 --> 1:00:35.960 nosed version is that on January first, nineteen ninety four, 1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:39.960 the Zapatistas, who are you named after the great Mexican 1:00:40.080 --> 1:00:45.840 revolutionary hero Melio Zapata, staged in uprising in Mexico. They 1:00:45.880 --> 1:00:47.800 seized a bunch of cities very quickly. They were sort 1:00:47.840 --> 1:00:49.960 of driven out of those cities, but eventually they took 1:00:50.040 --> 1:00:52.480 control of a decent part of the territory of the 1:00:52.520 --> 1:00:56.000 Mexican state of Chiapas. The Zapatisa stage is uprising for 1:00:56.000 --> 1:00:58.000 a number of reasons. The most famous of them is 1:00:58.040 --> 1:01:02.320 that January first, nineteen ninety four is the year the 1:01:02.440 --> 1:01:06.320 NATHA took effect. One of the things about this free 1:01:06.360 --> 1:01:10.360 trade agreement is that it in order to ratify it, 1:01:10.400 --> 1:01:14.360 the Mexican governments changed the constitution, and the part of 1:01:14.400 --> 1:01:16.800 the constitution they eliminated was the part that had secured 1:01:17.200 --> 1:01:20.280 collective ownership of a bunch of land for indigenous people, 1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:23.640 and this would allow corporations to seize and control the season, 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:26.600 controlled the indigenous lands, exploit for resources, kicked the people 1:01:26.640 --> 1:01:30.040 off of it, and kill them. Now, this obviously was 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:34.480 unacceptable to the Zapatistas. They go into revolt. What I 1:01:34.520 --> 1:01:38.880 think people don't realize is the zapatisis what the Zapatisis 1:01:38.960 --> 1:01:41.120 did next, which is holding these a series of these 1:01:41.120 --> 1:01:46.520 things called encuentros like encounters. Sorry, my Spanish is not 1:01:46.640 --> 1:01:48.560 as good as it once was, and it was never great, 1:01:49.000 --> 1:01:52.600 but you know, in which they invited you know, sort 1:01:52.640 --> 1:01:55.240 of leftist activists from all over the world to get together. 1:01:56.080 --> 1:02:01.080 And this is the thing that re built the left 1:02:01.400 --> 1:02:05.400 after the absolute catastrophe of the death of the old 1:02:05.480 --> 1:02:08.280 left around the collapse of the Soviet Union, which sort 1:02:08.280 --> 1:02:13.600 of annihilated like the sort of old left like communist 1:02:13.640 --> 1:02:17.040 political parties and you know Usherton, like the pure era 1:02:17.200 --> 1:02:20.960 of the march and neoliberalism, and the activists that came 1:02:21.040 --> 1:02:24.520 out of these encounters go back to you know, go 1:02:24.560 --> 1:02:27.800 back to their respective countries and they start and you know, 1:02:27.840 --> 1:02:33.160 they're they're organizing against these trade against you know, these 1:02:33.200 --> 1:02:36.360 series of free trade deals, and they start doing what's 1:02:36.360 --> 1:02:38.600 becalled what's become known as summit hopping. I think the 1:02:38.880 --> 1:02:42.560 most famous of these in America is what's become known 1:02:42.600 --> 1:02:44.960 as the Battle of Seattle, the nineteen ninety nine giant 1:02:44.960 --> 1:02:49.040 protest against the World Trade Organization summit. Yeah, and this 1:02:49.120 --> 1:02:50.720 sort of you know, and this starts from about nineteen 1:02:50.760 --> 1:02:53.720 ninety nine to nine to eleven. There's a huge wave 1:02:53.960 --> 1:02:56.439 of these well, I mean it goes on after nine eleven, 1:02:56.480 --> 1:02:58.880 but nine to eleven really damages it. But there's this 1:02:59.200 --> 1:03:02.280 massive it's like really the first sort of real like 1:03:03.160 --> 1:03:07.400 mass mobilizations and social movements like in the US sense, 1:03:07.600 --> 1:03:09.440 like there's a stuff in the anti nuclear whom of 1:03:09.480 --> 1:03:10.959 the eighties, but this is this is the first really 1:03:11.000 --> 1:03:15.080 big sort of like resurrection of the left. And I 1:03:15.080 --> 1:03:19.200 think importantly for us, like the people who people who 1:03:19.240 --> 1:03:23.040 found occupy like David Graeber for example, is someone who 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:28.120 starts doing politics like during this period dream alter globalization, 1:03:28.320 --> 1:03:32.920 during these sort of protests, and those people, those are 1:03:32.920 --> 1:03:37.200 the people who build occupy, and you know, occupy for 1:03:37.360 --> 1:03:40.680 whatever whatever else you can say about it, Occupy is 1:03:40.760 --> 1:03:43.720 the single event that brought that like drag the American 1:03:43.840 --> 1:03:47.720 left kicking and screaming out of irrelevance and all of 1:03:47.760 --> 1:03:50.040 that shit. Everything, you know, every all of the sort 1:03:50.080 --> 1:03:52.880 of organizational tenets of occupy, all of its sort of ideology. 1:03:53.400 --> 1:03:57.680 That stuff is all stuff from multi globalization, right, and 1:03:57.720 --> 1:04:01.000 you know, the sort of tenants of like direct democracy, 1:04:01.360 --> 1:04:05.040 of the sort of like the sort of economic egalitarianism, 1:04:05.160 --> 1:04:07.720 this opposition to free trade. This you know, this whole 1:04:07.720 --> 1:04:11.000 thing about the way that the World Trade Organization and 1:04:11.120 --> 1:04:15.280 the World Bank, you know, use sort of economic structuring 1:04:15.320 --> 1:04:19.680 deals to devastate economies and like turn entire nations into 1:04:19.720 --> 1:04:23.360 sort of debt peons. This is all ault globalization stuff. 1:04:24.160 --> 1:04:28.840 And this movement is very, very powerful and very successful. 1:04:29.080 --> 1:04:30.640 Even the sort of arch like you know, by by 1:04:30.720 --> 1:04:33.280 by by the time you hit twenty sixteen, right, this 1:04:33.360 --> 1:04:37.480 has reshaped politics in the US to the extent that 1:04:37.600 --> 1:04:42.040 like arch neoliberal Hillary Clinton says she's openly in fa 1:04:42.200 --> 1:04:44.880 like openly says she's in favor of renegotiating NAFTA and 1:04:44.960 --> 1:04:47.680 opposes her own trans Pacific Partnership, which is the last 1:04:47.720 --> 1:04:50.200 of the sort of giant free trade deals that would 1:04:50.240 --> 1:04:52.720 eventually like die and go up and smoke with Trump. Right, 1:04:53.160 --> 1:04:56.560 I'm going to read a passage from David Graver's piece 1:04:56.560 --> 1:05:00.840 to Shock of Victory about what actually happened UH dreamed 1:05:00.840 --> 1:05:05.600 this movement. This is section about free trade agreements. All 1:05:05.640 --> 1:05:08.600 the ambitious free trade treaties planned since nineteen ninety eight 1:05:08.640 --> 1:05:12.160 have failed. The MIIA was routed the FTAA the focus 1:05:12.160 --> 1:05:14.400 of the actions in Quebec, and Miami stopped that in 1:05:14.440 --> 1:05:17.280 its tracks. Most of us remember the two thousand and 1:05:17.280 --> 1:05:20.600 three FTAA, some mainly for introducing the quote unquote Miami 1:05:20.640 --> 1:05:25.520 model of extreme police respression against even obviously nonviolent civil resistance. 1:05:26.040 --> 1:05:28.760 It was that, but we forget that this was more 1:05:28.800 --> 1:05:32.000 than anything, the enraged flailings of a pack of extremely 1:05:32.040 --> 1:05:36.360 sore losers. Miami was the meeting where the FTAA was 1:05:36.400 --> 1:05:40.640 definitively killed. Now no one is even talking about broad, 1:05:40.680 --> 1:05:43.600 ambitious treaties on that scale. The US is reduced to 1:05:43.600 --> 1:05:46.400 pushing from minor country to country trade packs with additional 1:05:46.440 --> 1:05:49.520 allies like South Korea and Peru, or at best deals 1:05:49.560 --> 1:05:53.760 like caf TA uniting its remaining client states in Central America. 1:05:53.840 --> 1:05:55.840 And it's not even clear we'll manage to pull that off. 1:05:56.120 --> 1:05:58.160 And this is what we've seen from you know, sort 1:05:58.160 --> 1:06:00.520 of projecting forward from the future, from the two thousands 1:06:00.560 --> 1:06:03.520 when this is written. Free trade was not killed by 1:06:03.520 --> 1:06:07.120 Trump or shijianping. These free trade agreements, if anyone, was 1:06:07.200 --> 1:06:09.320 killed by the Zappatistas and the global justice and the 1:06:09.320 --> 1:06:11.600 global justice movement. That the that, you know, the sort 1:06:11.600 --> 1:06:13.840 of like in contros and the Zappatista is built. 1:06:15.200 --> 1:06:15.360 Now. 1:06:15.400 --> 1:06:17.920 One things that Appatistas did not build is the producting 1:06:17.960 --> 1:06:31.240 services that support this podcast. And we are we are 1:06:31.280 --> 1:06:34.800 back from products and servicing, products and servicing. That is 1:06:34.840 --> 1:06:39.480 slightly ominous. Now, the modern left isn't the only thing 1:06:39.520 --> 1:06:43.560 that sort of descended from the backlash to free trade right. 1:06:43.600 --> 1:06:45.880 We've we've you know, we we've gone over the extent 1:06:46.400 --> 1:06:48.400 to which the left is built off of this stuff. 1:06:48.880 --> 1:06:51.120 But much of the modern right is descended from the 1:06:51.160 --> 1:06:54.240 sort of ross perrot like right wing nationalists backlash to 1:06:54.400 --> 1:06:57.200 the same stuff. I think probably the most the most 1:06:57.240 --> 1:07:00.480 famous link between that era and this era is Alex Jones. 1:07:00.880 --> 1:07:03.080 This is the reason that like Alex Jones, and people 1:07:03.120 --> 1:07:06.480 like him screaming about like scream constantly about globalists, right, 1:07:06.920 --> 1:07:11.160 because you know, the global justice movement has two kind 1:07:11.200 --> 1:07:14.840 of wings. There's or you know what was called anti globalizition. 1:07:15.440 --> 1:07:17.520 It's two wings. One wing is a sort is a 1:07:17.600 --> 1:07:20.920 leftist wing, which is like, okay, we actually support like 1:07:21.200 --> 1:07:23.240 the we know, we support the global like movement of 1:07:23.280 --> 1:07:25.400 ideas and people, but we but you know what, what 1:07:25.400 --> 1:07:30.320 what globalization and free trade actually means is locking people 1:07:30.400 --> 1:07:33.200 down in their countries with militarized borders while capital boost 1:07:33.400 --> 1:07:36.440 freely between them. And we think that's fucking bad. There 1:07:36.560 --> 1:07:39.440 was also another you know, there was also the right 1:07:39.480 --> 1:07:42.680 ring reaction, which is this incredibly right ring nationalist reaction, 1:07:42.760 --> 1:07:45.680 which is that like, ah, like these these like rootless 1:07:45.720 --> 1:07:52.320 cosmopolitan globalists are uh are like like you know, taking 1:07:52.360 --> 1:07:55.720 all of our jobs and moving them to like Mexico, 1:07:56.520 --> 1:08:00.160 and you know they've like sold they're like sold out 1:08:00.200 --> 1:08:02.200 the American people. And you know, like obviously this stuff 1:08:02.280 --> 1:08:05.360 is just it starts anti it starts like as anti 1:08:05.360 --> 1:08:08.360 semitic dog whistles and just gets I mean like like okay, 1:08:08.400 --> 1:08:10.400 these are like the loudest dog whistles of all time. Right, 1:08:10.440 --> 1:08:14.280 But you know, they get increasingly anti semitic, and this 1:08:14.320 --> 1:08:16.280 is the kind of stuff you know that Alex Jones 1:08:16.320 --> 1:08:20.120 is doing. And this is the kind of sort of 1:08:20.160 --> 1:08:23.600 writing politics that winds out over so sort of like 1:08:23.640 --> 1:08:30.200 neo conservatisms more like sort of hoorah free trade. We're 1:08:30.240 --> 1:08:32.759 going to use like the might of the American empire 1:08:32.920 --> 1:08:36.160 to like you know, spread sort of like this very 1:08:36.200 --> 1:08:39.880 specific model of capitalism to other countries. And you get 1:08:39.880 --> 1:08:42.879 the sort of Trump style like fuck every other country, 1:08:42.960 --> 1:08:46.800 We're gonna kind of do tariffs and stuff. Now, what 1:08:46.880 --> 1:08:51.080 I think is very interesting. So what Trump eventually sort 1:08:51.080 --> 1:08:54.320 of winds up, you know, producing as a discourse, I 1:08:54.320 --> 1:08:56.839 guess you could say, is is this is this image 1:08:57.000 --> 1:08:59.560 of Okay, so, like the thing that's holding back the 1:08:59.600 --> 1:09:02.760 American worker is China because all of our jobs are 1:09:02.760 --> 1:09:04.519 being sent to China, and so if we just put 1:09:04.560 --> 1:09:07.400 more tariffs on China and we defeat China geopolitically, everything 1:09:07.439 --> 1:09:10.320 will sort of like be great in the American nation. 1:09:11.000 --> 1:09:14.280 Like you the white worker are going to have jobs again, 1:09:14.400 --> 1:09:16.240 Like everything's going to go back to the way they were. 1:09:17.320 --> 1:09:21.280 And what's fascinating about this is that, you know, as 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:23.880 the trade war's intensifying, and then mid Light twenty tens 1:09:24.720 --> 1:09:29.240 in China, there is a parallel discourse which is almost identical, 1:09:29.600 --> 1:09:31.920 where Chinese nationalists will do this thing where they talk 1:09:31.920 --> 1:09:35.280 about like breaking through the Great Ming as a solution 1:09:35.360 --> 1:09:39.280 to evolution. We talked about involution on the show before. 1:09:39.479 --> 1:09:41.759 Is this concept that's very popular in China right now, 1:09:42.200 --> 1:09:45.439 where you know, it's becoming increasingly clear that like a 1:09:45.479 --> 1:09:47.920 working hard is not going to actually get you any 1:09:47.920 --> 1:09:49.680 more money than you're getting now, Like you're not going 1:09:49.760 --> 1:09:51.280 to get ahead in life. You're just sort of stuck. 1:09:51.280 --> 1:09:53.280 And so you're stuck in this condition of putting more 1:09:53.320 --> 1:09:57.639 and more effort into nothing. And the Chinese nationalist argument 1:09:57.680 --> 1:10:00.200 is that if you, if you can geopolitically dif feed 1:10:00.280 --> 1:10:02.400 the US, China will sort of like break out of 1:10:02.400 --> 1:10:07.120 its wage stagnation and economic stagnation. And so you know, 1:10:07.160 --> 1:10:09.519 what you have is this very very dangerous collision of 1:10:09.560 --> 1:10:12.960 these two sort of like right wing nationalisms that are 1:10:13.120 --> 1:10:18.800 like offering these really sort of categorically false assertions that 1:10:18.880 --> 1:10:21.879 if you just follow their sort of nationalists geopolitical agenda, 1:10:21.880 --> 1:10:23.919 then all of the sort of class issues that everyone's 1:10:23.920 --> 1:10:29.560 dealing with will suddenly magically work themselves out. Now contra 1:10:29.800 --> 1:10:34.240 this and contra I think the argument that even that 1:10:34.400 --> 1:10:36.200 sort of just you know, the argument that I was 1:10:36.200 --> 1:10:39.360 talking about before, that like Trump and the sort of 1:10:39.479 --> 1:10:43.640 nationalists like economic policy and discourse from China like represents 1:10:43.840 --> 1:10:46.640 something you know, seismic, like a seismic change, and like 1:10:47.320 --> 1:10:51.080 trade policy, that signals the end of neoliberalism. I want 1:10:51.080 --> 1:10:53.320 to come back to the point of will Trump actually 1:10:53.400 --> 1:10:55.599 be able to implement any of the stuff even if 1:10:55.640 --> 1:10:58.760 he had sort of near dictatorial power, And I think 1:10:58.800 --> 1:11:00.599 the answer to that is no. The reason I think 1:11:00.640 --> 1:11:02.600 the answer to that is no is that, you know, 1:11:02.640 --> 1:11:05.320 one of the old observations about quote unquote free trade 1:11:05.320 --> 1:11:08.680 from the global just movement is that, Okay, if you 1:11:08.760 --> 1:11:13.719 look at what quote unquote trade is, right, international trade, 1:11:14.560 --> 1:11:17.799 huge amount of it is literally the same company moving 1:11:17.840 --> 1:11:21.840 its own resources from one place to another. Now, the 1:11:21.880 --> 1:11:24.360 problem is the more expensive it is for corporation to 1:11:24.400 --> 1:11:26.559 do this, the more pissed off they get. Right, and 1:11:26.600 --> 1:11:29.639 this means that this kind of like tariff war bullshit, 1:11:30.760 --> 1:11:32.840 And this happened through the Trump administration that pissed off 1:11:32.840 --> 1:11:34.280 a lot of people. And if if you know, and 1:11:34.840 --> 1:11:37.320 Trump is you know, his intention is to start an 1:11:37.400 --> 1:11:40.240 even larger and more powerful series of trade wars. This 1:11:40.439 --> 1:11:42.760 is going to piss off a lot of people who 1:11:42.800 --> 1:11:45.240 actually matter in the sort of in the American political system, 1:11:45.280 --> 1:11:48.080 which is to say, a lot of shareholders and a 1:11:48.120 --> 1:11:52.519 lot of CEOs, and you know. And so I think 1:11:52.560 --> 1:11:54.880 the fairly obvious inclusion is that what actually happens here 1:11:55.000 --> 1:11:56.880 is you get exactly the same kind of shit that 1:11:56.920 --> 1:11:59.240 happened with Trump's like quote unquote pull out of NAFTA, 1:11:59.680 --> 1:12:02.280 where he makes like one or two symbolic gestures and 1:12:02.320 --> 1:12:05.760 then everything continues as normal and he declares victory. Now, 1:12:05.920 --> 1:12:08.479 the second problem I have with people looking at this 1:12:08.560 --> 1:12:11.120 as a sort of new regime is the way that 1:12:11.160 --> 1:12:17.439 they're thinking about this sort of like tiff and subsidy 1:12:17.520 --> 1:12:20.679 regime as something that's that's not a part of neoliberalism, right, 1:12:20.720 --> 1:12:24.040 Like the sort of theoretical ideal of neoliberalism is countries 1:12:24.080 --> 1:12:26.240 aren't supposed to do tarriffs. Countries aren't supposed to be 1:12:26.240 --> 1:12:28.200 able to do like quote unquote protectionism. So we're not 1:12:28.200 --> 1:12:32.439 supposed to give subsis and manufacturers and everyone's supposed to 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:35.400 like compete on a free and equal trade playing field. 1:12:36.280 --> 1:12:40.479 This has never been true and in fact, what free 1:12:40.520 --> 1:12:42.639 trade has meant in practice, and this has been true 1:12:42.680 --> 1:12:45.640 since the founding of the World Trade Organization. What it 1:12:45.720 --> 1:12:48.559 means is that Western countries get to impose terriffs and 1:12:48.600 --> 1:12:53.160 manufacturing subsidies and non Western countries don't. Right, even in 1:12:53.200 --> 1:12:56.000 the WTO, there's a bunch of random carve outs for 1:12:56.320 --> 1:13:00.680 like fucking like random workers in Germany and stuff. This 1:13:00.880 --> 1:13:03.400 is also a part of like literally a part of 1:13:03.439 --> 1:13:05.839 what start of the Zapatista uprising. I mean we talked about, 1:13:06.200 --> 1:13:08.439 you know, the primary cause, like the elimination of collective 1:13:08.439 --> 1:13:15.160 ownership from Mexican constitution. But another huge problem is what 1:13:15.160 --> 1:13:16.960 what NAFTA was going to do is force a bunch 1:13:17.000 --> 1:13:21.360 of Mexican corn farmers to compete with American corn farmers. Now, okay, 1:13:21.840 --> 1:13:25.080 if it was literally just corn farmers from these two 1:13:25.120 --> 1:13:28.840 countries competing, like Mexican corn farmers probably eventually cauld out 1:13:28.840 --> 1:13:31.960 compete American corn farmers because Americans are fucking dogshit at farming. 1:13:32.720 --> 1:13:35.880 But under the terms of NAFTA, and this is again 1:13:35.880 --> 1:13:37.840 the thing that's been true of free trade this whole time, 1:13:38.720 --> 1:13:42.520 they have to compete with subsidized American corn. This is impossible. 1:13:42.640 --> 1:13:45.400 Mexican farmers got fucking annihilated. All of their land was 1:13:45.400 --> 1:13:49.240 seized by corporations, and you know, it has brought sort 1:13:49.240 --> 1:13:51.599 of devastation and ruined to the Mexican economy ever since. 1:13:51.640 --> 1:13:53.719 This has been absolutely great for the ruling class because 1:13:53.720 --> 1:13:56.439 all of these farmers who suddenly like you know, can't 1:13:56.439 --> 1:13:59.479 afford to keep their farms anymore, were forced into sort 1:13:59.520 --> 1:14:02.280 of like labor and a bunch of shitty sweatshops that 1:14:02.320 --> 1:14:05.160 were set up from NAFTA. So this worked great from 1:14:05.160 --> 1:14:07.760 the perspective of American capital. But again, if you look 1:14:07.800 --> 1:14:11.000 at what actually happened here, right, all of the sort 1:14:11.000 --> 1:14:13.559 of like rhetorica of free trade, you know, like sort 1:14:13.560 --> 1:14:15.920 of like fades into myst and face of the reality 1:14:16.080 --> 1:14:21.040 of one of the great industrial policy programs in the 1:14:21.120 --> 1:14:23.919 in the history of world economies, which is the American 1:14:23.960 --> 1:14:27.240 subsidization of its own fucking agriculture. And you know, this 1:14:27.439 --> 1:14:30.680 isn't considered in the quote unquote industrial policy or like 1:14:30.720 --> 1:14:36.080 industrial like government planning or whatever, like largely because people 1:14:36.120 --> 1:14:38.639 have this weird bias when they talk about government planning 1:14:38.680 --> 1:14:41.519 that it only is supposed to apply to like, oh, 1:14:41.600 --> 1:14:44.200 government planning means when like someone like plans steel outputs 1:14:44.280 --> 1:14:47.360 or some shit, but like, no, like the actual large 1:14:47.360 --> 1:14:49.519 scale economic plan that goes on the US is the 1:14:49.840 --> 1:14:52.479 unfat like billions and billions of billions and billions of 1:14:52.479 --> 1:14:56.120 dollars will be pour into the agricultural industry every year. So, 1:14:56.800 --> 1:14:58.840 you know, if if you look at the stuff that 1:14:58.880 --> 1:15:01.240 everyone's claiming of these sort of new innovations that are 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:04.240 like the end of neoliberalism, right, it's like, oh my god. 1:15:04.320 --> 1:15:10.160 Other countries are putting up like protectionists subsidy things, Like 1:15:10.160 --> 1:15:12.080 they're having their you know, people are like trying to 1:15:12.080 --> 1:15:15.000 make microchips and they're having like state sponsored programs to 1:15:15.040 --> 1:15:18.640 do microshrips. It's like, well, they're just doing with microchips 1:15:18.640 --> 1:15:23.320 what the US has been doing with cord this entire time. Right. 1:15:24.479 --> 1:15:27.720 What's really changing to some extent is that, you know, 1:15:28.080 --> 1:15:30.680 the deal had always been that Western countries get to 1:15:30.720 --> 1:15:33.960 impost Harris and AD manufacturing subsidies and non Western countries don't. 1:15:34.600 --> 1:15:37.200 And I think part of what's weighing people out is that, like, 1:15:37.240 --> 1:15:40.240 you know, China has actually been kind of attempting to 1:15:40.240 --> 1:15:43.120 break the West monopoly on being able to do with 1:15:43.160 --> 1:15:47.400 industrial policy, and this has caused a bunch of people 1:15:47.439 --> 1:15:51.320 to really severely overestimate the extent to which like this 1:15:51.439 --> 1:15:57.599 is an actual break from previous regimes of trade and capital. Now, 1:15:58.120 --> 1:16:00.519 another point that I want to make that I I've 1:16:00.520 --> 1:16:02.920 talked about this before on the show, but I want 1:16:02.920 --> 1:16:05.200 to kind of briefly touch on it again because I 1:16:05.200 --> 1:16:08.680 think it's really important and it's really badly understood. Is 1:16:08.720 --> 1:16:11.120 that for all of the sort of discourse about how 1:16:11.760 --> 1:16:15.320 like a China's like entering into economic competition with the West, 1:16:15.320 --> 1:16:19.000 and it's like increasingly using the party to like pursue 1:16:19.120 --> 1:16:22.600 nationalist aims instead of like following the market, if you 1:16:22.600 --> 1:16:25.200 look at what's actually going on in China, despite all 1:16:25.280 --> 1:16:28.000 the hype about like China and the US are decoupling 1:16:28.040 --> 1:16:30.439 their economies, or like China is trying to make its 1:16:30.479 --> 1:16:34.719 own domestic silicon industry, the actual tendency in Chinese economic 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:39.439 policy is towards further integration and increasing foreign otoship. China 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:42.600 has a lot of provisions about foreign companies needing to 1:16:42.600 --> 1:16:44.880 be in partnership with Chinese companies in order to operate 1:16:44.920 --> 1:16:48.000 in China. There's always been massive restrictions on how much 1:16:48.040 --> 1:16:51.599 stock a foreign company can own in Chinese companies, and 1:16:51.800 --> 1:16:56.880 these restrictions in sector, sector after sector after sector are 1:16:56.920 --> 1:16:59.880 being lifted, and so you have to sort of look 1:17:00.080 --> 1:17:03.360 at this, you know, the sort of like surface level 1:17:03.439 --> 1:17:06.720 nationalist narratives about like, ah, we're entering an era of 1:17:06.800 --> 1:17:11.920 like warring like like warring mutually exclusive economic trading series, 1:17:11.920 --> 1:17:15.799 with the reality of China being like, no, please foreign capital, 1:17:16.000 --> 1:17:19.640 like you can operate here without us. It's going to 1:17:19.720 --> 1:17:22.120 be great just to keep keep keep pumping more capital 1:17:22.160 --> 1:17:24.439 in if we all, if we all work together, all 1:17:24.479 --> 1:17:26.960 of the sort of porgeows you will keep making money together. 1:17:27.840 --> 1:17:31.120 And I think all of this leads to something the 1:17:31.200 --> 1:17:33.120 last thing I want touch on, which is what's actually 1:17:33.240 --> 1:17:37.680 happening here and the thing that's actually happening here and 1:17:38.000 --> 1:17:40.240 the problem, the thing that's actually causing all of these 1:17:40.280 --> 1:17:43.519 sort of like all like the sort of focus on 1:17:43.560 --> 1:17:49.760 trade itself and the sort of Trumpian nationalists, we can 1:17:49.800 --> 1:17:54.559 solve all your problems by trade competition. What's happening is 1:17:54.600 --> 1:17:58.080 that after about the nineteen sixties, because of sort of 1:17:58.160 --> 1:18:04.040 structural manufacturing of a capacity under consumption production, you know, 1:18:04.120 --> 1:18:07.519 industrial production is zero sum, right, you can't increase production 1:18:07.680 --> 1:18:12.600 rates in a country without that, you know, without that 1:18:12.640 --> 1:18:14.960 production coming at the cost of another country. And this 1:18:15.040 --> 1:18:18.160 is this is because and wow, stop me if you 1:18:18.160 --> 1:18:22.599 heard this one before. This is because of fucking capitalism 1:18:22.920 --> 1:18:25.040 and what Trump is trying to do and what you know, 1:18:25.080 --> 1:18:27.280 to a lesser extent sort of xihiping, and what to 1:18:27.640 --> 1:18:30.800 you know, these sort of Chinese nationalists are trying to 1:18:30.800 --> 1:18:34.240 do is turn you know, they're trying to stand on 1:18:34.280 --> 1:18:37.479 a beach and order the tide to recede in order 1:18:37.479 --> 1:18:40.240 to stop the coming class war. They are trying to say, no, 1:18:40.320 --> 1:18:43.000 we can go back to the era where production wasn't 1:18:43.080 --> 1:18:45.120 zero s. We can do this as sort of terrorists. 1:18:45.120 --> 1:18:48.400 We can go back to the golden age of both 1:18:48.479 --> 1:18:51.599 corporations and unions making moor corporations and workers like making 1:18:51.680 --> 1:18:55.000 money together and the sort of like national collaborationist project. 1:18:56.120 --> 1:19:00.840 And they're doing this in large parts because they are 1:19:00.920 --> 1:19:02.880 watching the same thing that you and I are watching, 1:19:02.880 --> 1:19:04.720 the same thing. That's the reason this episode is being 1:19:04.800 --> 1:19:06.600 recorded at fucking three in the morning, is at of 1:19:06.600 --> 1:19:09.799 a normal time, which is that all across the US, 1:19:09.840 --> 1:19:13.240 and you know, increasingly all across the world. You can 1:19:13.320 --> 1:19:18.080 fucking see the working class starting to organize again. You 1:19:18.080 --> 1:19:19.920 can see it starting to wake up, you can see 1:19:19.960 --> 1:19:25.679 it starting to mobilize. And this whole fucking thing, all 1:19:25.720 --> 1:19:30.680 of Trump, right, this entire sort of racist, senophobic nationalist project, 1:19:31.240 --> 1:19:36.320 is just utter dread that Ferguson and the Black Revolution 1:19:36.560 --> 1:19:40.160 put into the fucking hearts of these people. And if 1:19:40.200 --> 1:19:42.240 we fight hard enough, we fight smart enough, and we 1:19:42.320 --> 1:19:44.800 fight organized enough in Shilah, we will see the fucking 1:19:44.840 --> 1:19:47.040 day when these people's nightmare comes true and we never 1:19:47.080 --> 1:19:50.800 have to hear another word from these fuckers again. It 1:19:50.880 --> 1:20:07.120 says been it could happen here. Hi. 1:20:07.200 --> 1:20:10.439 Everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me today and I'm 1:20:10.479 --> 1:20:13.439 joined by Meghan Burdett, who is the director of research 1:20:13.479 --> 1:20:14.799 at the Kurdish Peace Institute. 1:20:14.880 --> 1:20:17.040 Hi, Meghan, thanks so much for having me. 1:20:17.360 --> 1:20:19.560 Yeah, thanks for joining us. So what we wanted to 1:20:19.560 --> 1:20:21.880 talk about today was these local elections that have been 1:20:21.920 --> 1:20:25.000 happening in Turkey in the last week or so. We're 1:20:25.040 --> 1:20:27.680 recording in very early aprils that it happened I think 1:20:27.680 --> 1:20:28.360 towards the end of. 1:20:28.320 --> 1:20:30.599 March, right, yeah, March thirty first. 1:20:31.080 --> 1:20:35.160 Yeah, So can you explain to listeners First of all, 1:20:35.240 --> 1:20:39.720 like I mean, I've heard about these Turkish local elections 1:20:40.120 --> 1:20:42.439 almost constantly for the past several months, because I hear 1:20:42.479 --> 1:20:45.760 about them from Kurdish migrants leaving Turkey. Almost every time 1:20:45.800 --> 1:20:48.000 I'm at the border, I meet people and they tell me, 1:20:48.320 --> 1:20:50.720 can you explain sort of the context of these elections, 1:20:50.760 --> 1:20:52.640 the concerns going into them. 1:20:53.200 --> 1:20:56.639 Yeah, of course. So first off, these are the first 1:20:56.680 --> 1:21:00.679 elections in Turkey following the presidential and parla mentory vote 1:21:00.720 --> 1:21:03.800 last year that was seen as a huge disappointment for 1:21:03.920 --> 1:21:07.800 the opposition and also for a couple of separate reasons 1:21:07.840 --> 1:21:09.880 and a couple of similar reasons for the pro Kurdish 1:21:09.920 --> 1:21:14.920 political movement as well. The Opposition underperformed last year. They 1:21:14.920 --> 1:21:18.720 were not able to defeat Erdowan as the polling and 1:21:18.800 --> 1:21:21.439 the sentiment in the country had suggested that they would, 1:21:22.080 --> 1:21:25.599 and the pro Kurdish political movement also underperformed as well. 1:21:26.680 --> 1:21:29.240 They did not win as many seats or as many 1:21:29.280 --> 1:21:31.280 votes as they usually do, and a lot of that 1:21:31.360 --> 1:21:35.519 was attributed to the very complex Alliance decisions they made, 1:21:35.680 --> 1:21:38.400 choosing not to run their own presidential candidate and instead 1:21:38.439 --> 1:21:41.600 ask their voters to vote for the CHP, which is 1:21:41.640 --> 1:21:44.000 the main opposition party that has a history of being 1:21:44.160 --> 1:21:48.040 very nationalist and violent and exclusionary towards Kurds. Though things 1:21:48.080 --> 1:21:51.839 have changed in these past twenty years, voters didn't understand 1:21:51.840 --> 1:21:54.040 that a lot of voters weren't happy with that. And 1:21:54.080 --> 1:21:56.600 then there were some local level issues with selections of 1:21:56.720 --> 1:21:59.320 candidates as well, and then of course the climate of 1:21:59.760 --> 1:22:05.559 very severe political repression, and had the opposition one there 1:22:06.240 --> 1:22:09.040 was a lot of hope that it would have started 1:22:09.080 --> 1:22:12.960 to change things on the Kurdish issue in Turkey. You know, 1:22:13.000 --> 1:22:16.920 from what I'd been hearing from people, there were prospects 1:22:16.960 --> 1:22:20.960 of political prisoners being released, of contact between the state 1:22:21.120 --> 1:22:24.439 and of delah Ojalon being re established, which could have 1:22:24.479 --> 1:22:27.360 been the opening of a new peace process if you 1:22:27.400 --> 1:22:30.759 follow this. You know, the PKK declared a ceasefire prior 1:22:30.800 --> 1:22:34.479 to the elections. They initially said that it was following 1:22:34.560 --> 1:22:37.240 the earthquake in order to not allow the conflict to 1:22:37.439 --> 1:22:41.719 intervene with humanitarian efforts, but they did very explicitly extend 1:22:41.760 --> 1:22:45.280 it through the elections. And the discussions around that that 1:22:45.479 --> 1:22:48.880 I heard in Iraqi, Kurdistan, in Northeast Syria and in 1:22:48.920 --> 1:22:52.360 Europe made it very clear that that was an opening 1:22:52.520 --> 1:22:56.160 to hopefully be able to leverage it into a larger 1:22:56.200 --> 1:23:00.759 piece process were there to be a political change happen. 1:23:01.479 --> 1:23:06.000 So for Kurds, the situation did not improve. Ardwan continued 1:23:06.040 --> 1:23:10.360 his crackdown and his military aggression against Kurds in Iraq 1:23:10.439 --> 1:23:15.120 and Syria, and for democracy in Turkey, for the condition 1:23:15.360 --> 1:23:18.519 of the opposition, for the condition of all the groups 1:23:18.520 --> 1:23:21.759 that pressed under Aerdowan's regime, whether that's women, whether that's workers, 1:23:21.840 --> 1:23:24.599 whether that's the earthquake victims that have been left behind, 1:23:25.240 --> 1:23:28.800 things didn't get better. So these elections were an opportunity 1:23:28.880 --> 1:23:33.720 for people to register their disapproval in a way that 1:23:34.000 --> 1:23:36.439 I think many might have wished that they could have 1:23:36.520 --> 1:23:40.360 a year ago. And that disapproval was registered for the 1:23:40.400 --> 1:23:43.960 first time. Air Dowon's party, the Justice and Development Party 1:23:44.040 --> 1:23:48.599 or the AKP, was not the first place party in Turkey. 1:23:48.760 --> 1:23:53.040 The main opposition CHP actually overtook them the pro Kurdish 1:23:53.080 --> 1:23:56.160 People's Equality and Democracy Party or the DEM Party, which 1:23:56.360 --> 1:23:58.200 used to be the HDP, So if I call it 1:23:58.200 --> 1:24:02.920 the HDP, I'm sorry. Went Actually their results were much 1:24:02.920 --> 1:24:05.400 more in line with what they had done in the past. 1:24:05.600 --> 1:24:08.280 They performed you know, right on standard, they actually won 1:24:08.360 --> 1:24:12.280 more municipalities than they did in twenty nineteen, and there 1:24:12.360 --> 1:24:16.240 was a lot of enthusiasm for change among Kurds, among 1:24:16.240 --> 1:24:19.280 supporters of the opposition, you know, among people who I 1:24:19.320 --> 1:24:21.479 think had wanted to see things start to move in 1:24:21.520 --> 1:24:25.720 a more democratic direction last year. So that was a 1:24:25.800 --> 1:24:29.960 very big deal for that reason. And it also shows 1:24:30.200 --> 1:24:34.559 the fact that Airedowan is not necessarily as invincible in 1:24:34.640 --> 1:24:37.360 twenty twenty eight as people feared he would be. 1:24:38.240 --> 1:24:41.320 Yeah, So talking of invincibility, I think that's a good 1:24:41.640 --> 1:24:44.360 kind of key into our next topic, which is that 1:24:44.520 --> 1:24:49.760 the elections weren't exactly like a smooth kind of I 1:24:49.760 --> 1:24:53.120 guess concession by Idowan and by his party. Right, can 1:24:53.160 --> 1:24:55.639 you explain to people who aren't familiar with this what happened? 1:24:56.439 --> 1:25:00.000 Yeah, So, to start, before the elections, over seventy five 1:25:00.439 --> 1:25:04.200 of voters who supported successful pro Kurdish mayoral candidates had 1:25:04.200 --> 1:25:09.160 their elected representation taken away from them. The government removed 1:25:09.200 --> 1:25:13.400 and imprisoned elected mayors and replaced them with regime loyalist 1:25:13.479 --> 1:25:18.760 trustees who essentially ruled these municipalities on direct orders from 1:25:18.920 --> 1:25:22.840 Erdowan in Ankarap. So this was on an unfair playing 1:25:22.880 --> 1:25:26.960 field for the Kurdish political movement to begin with, very 1:25:27.040 --> 1:25:29.680 unfair playing field for the main opposition as well. At 1:25:29.720 --> 1:25:32.600 Kreme Mamoluh's the very popular mayor of Istanbul, who just 1:25:32.640 --> 1:25:36.360 won reelection by a very large margin, as a criminal 1:25:36.360 --> 1:25:38.920 case against him that could have him banned from politics, 1:25:39.720 --> 1:25:43.080 So this was very difficult in the Kurdish regions. There 1:25:43.120 --> 1:25:47.360 were many many irregularities on election day. One that a 1:25:47.400 --> 1:25:49.799 lot of people were discussing were these so called mobile 1:25:49.880 --> 1:25:53.680 voters where the government actually sent members of these security 1:25:53.720 --> 1:25:58.120 forces predominantly from Western Turkey into Kurdish cities to vote 1:25:58.200 --> 1:26:02.960 in large groups for ruling Akap. You know, there's a 1:26:02.960 --> 1:26:06.160 lot of videos taken by local media, local politicians and 1:26:06.200 --> 1:26:10.439 activists challenging these people, asking them where they're from, and 1:26:10.479 --> 1:26:13.040 then videos of them all crowding into the airports and 1:26:13.120 --> 1:26:16.360 back on their buses flying back to Western Turkey the 1:26:16.360 --> 1:26:18.160 next day, so you know, they're not even making a 1:26:18.200 --> 1:26:22.080 pretense of being local voters. That shifted the results in 1:26:22.120 --> 1:26:25.160 some districts. In Chernock, which is a very heavily militarized 1:26:25.200 --> 1:26:29.360 province where the government bases a lot of its military campaigns. 1:26:29.400 --> 1:26:32.000 You know, into the occupied regions of Iraq and Syria 1:26:32.040 --> 1:26:35.679 from the pro Kurdish political movement alleges that these voters 1:26:35.680 --> 1:26:38.719 shifted the outcome. So you had that kind of outright 1:26:38.960 --> 1:26:42.080 attempts at theft in addition to the context of repression. 1:26:42.840 --> 1:26:46.639 And then most brazenly, just one day after the election, 1:26:47.600 --> 1:26:53.240 the local provincial election board denied a mandate of victory, 1:26:53.320 --> 1:26:56.000 you know, essentially the documents certifying that a candidate has 1:26:56.040 --> 1:26:59.919 won the elections and will be allowed to assume office 1:27:00.400 --> 1:27:02.880 to the pro Kurdish candidate of Billa Zaidon in the 1:27:02.920 --> 1:27:06.519 province of Vaughan, which is a heavily Kurdish province where 1:27:06.640 --> 1:27:10.640 the dem Party won all fourteen district municipalities and the 1:27:10.680 --> 1:27:15.720 metropolitan municipality as well. So the local election authority essentially said, no, 1:27:16.200 --> 1:27:19.040 you can't run. There's been a last minute legal finding 1:27:19.080 --> 1:27:22.639 that you're unfit to run for office, as there always is, right, 1:27:22.840 --> 1:27:26.720 and then they tried to give the municipality to the 1:27:26.800 --> 1:27:30.599 candidate from Erdowon's party, the AKP, who got less than 1:27:30.600 --> 1:27:32.400 half of the number of votes. 1:27:32.800 --> 1:27:36.720 Right yeah, so kind of yeah, and validating the results. 1:27:37.120 --> 1:27:38.840 We're going to break briefly for an advert here and 1:27:38.880 --> 1:27:52.800 then we'll be back, right, We're back. So when they 1:27:52.800 --> 1:27:56.840 tried to invalidate these results right into install representatives, I 1:27:56.840 --> 1:27:58.640 guess you could call them that who didn't win the 1:27:58.640 --> 1:28:03.479 popular vote. There was like a significant street response to that, right, 1:28:03.800 --> 1:28:05.679 can you talk us through that? And then the repression 1:28:05.680 --> 1:28:06.880 of it and the results of it. 1:28:07.439 --> 1:28:12.400 Absolutely so. There were mass demonstrations in Vaughan in other 1:28:12.520 --> 1:28:16.400 Kurdish provinces, and these are people coming out who not 1:28:16.560 --> 1:28:20.080 ten years ago saw the military raising their cities to 1:28:20.120 --> 1:28:22.920 the ground, killing civilians in the streets. This is a 1:28:23.000 --> 1:28:26.880 very costly endeavor for Kurdish people in these provinces to 1:28:26.920 --> 1:28:29.559 go protest. That's why you haven't seen it to such 1:28:29.600 --> 1:28:32.320 a degree as was seen in the nineties, in the 1:28:32.360 --> 1:28:35.320 early two thousands, since the collapse of the peace process 1:28:35.400 --> 1:28:38.719 and that violent military campaign in the cities. But last 1:28:38.800 --> 1:28:42.280 night they were out in full force, and very notably, 1:28:42.360 --> 1:28:46.800 they weren't alone. There were protests in Istanbul and solidarity 1:28:46.840 --> 1:28:50.320 as well, you know, carried out by Kurds living there, 1:28:50.360 --> 1:28:55.840 but also by leftist parties, by feminists, by Kurdish religious organizations, 1:28:56.439 --> 1:28:58.720 by all the segments of civil society that have sort 1:28:58.760 --> 1:29:02.360 of oriented around the pro Kurdish political movement, and there 1:29:02.400 --> 1:29:06.599 was also a pretty significant reaction from the main opposition CHP, 1:29:06.720 --> 1:29:11.000 which is not known for radicalism. You had the CHP 1:29:11.200 --> 1:29:14.599 party leader Osgara Ozel saying that it was illegitimate for 1:29:14.680 --> 1:29:18.000 the government to deny a candidate a mandate, and then 1:29:18.040 --> 1:29:21.880 you had Imamulu in Istanbul also criticizing the decision, saying 1:29:21.920 --> 1:29:25.080 it was illegitimate and calling on the government to respect 1:29:25.080 --> 1:29:27.960 the popular will. So at the same time you had 1:29:28.000 --> 1:29:32.240 this outcry across the Turkish political spectrum, you had tens 1:29:32.240 --> 1:29:36.479 of thousands of people out protesting, braving police violence. You know, 1:29:36.520 --> 1:29:40.200 there were armed pro government vigilantes caught on video shooting 1:29:40.240 --> 1:29:45.160 into crowds. There was very, very harrowing videos of beatings 1:29:45.200 --> 1:29:49.200 and torture of civilians. Journalists were attacked and prevented from 1:29:49.280 --> 1:29:53.599 covering the protests. This was a very difficult situation to watch, 1:29:53.760 --> 1:29:56.000 and a lot of people that I was speaking to 1:29:56.120 --> 1:29:59.799 were worrying about a return to the level of violence 1:29:59.800 --> 1:30:03.000 that seen in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Were things 1:30:03.040 --> 1:30:06.280 to escalate, But you know, sometimes there's good news in 1:30:06.320 --> 1:30:10.559 Turkey and Kurdistan. Not always, but sometimes you know, in 1:30:10.920 --> 1:30:15.679 Turkish you'd say da dyne kaslan Achaz will win by resisting, 1:30:16.200 --> 1:30:19.599 and in Kurdish you'd say behludan Jiana resistance is life 1:30:20.000 --> 1:30:23.040 and that sort of Those are very famous protest slogans 1:30:23.640 --> 1:30:27.360 that proved really accurate last night, because today Turkey's Supreme 1:30:27.400 --> 1:30:31.960 Electoral Council actually reversed the attempt to give the election 1:30:32.160 --> 1:30:35.800 to the losing pro government candidate and gave the Dun 1:30:35.800 --> 1:30:38.519 party candidate his mandate back. So they've said that he 1:30:38.600 --> 1:30:42.240 will be allowed to assume office, and I think they 1:30:42.280 --> 1:30:47.000 looked at this huge street protest, they looked at this 1:30:47.040 --> 1:30:51.080 opposition coming from not only the pro Kurdish political movement 1:30:51.160 --> 1:30:55.320 but many different political forces in Turkey, and the state 1:30:55.479 --> 1:30:59.360 decided to back down. They decided not to pick this 1:30:59.479 --> 1:31:02.080 fight now. And you know, that's not to say that 1:31:02.200 --> 1:31:05.720 voter suppression in other provinces wasn't an issue. That's not 1:31:05.840 --> 1:31:09.280 to say that there are still outcomes that are being contested. 1:31:10.200 --> 1:31:12.120 You know, the government's doing a lot of very unfair 1:31:12.200 --> 1:31:14.760 things right now to try to take districts from the 1:31:15.040 --> 1:31:17.880 CHP and from the pro Kurdish political movement. But what 1:31:17.960 --> 1:31:22.559 this does show is that when people insist on a 1:31:22.560 --> 1:31:27.280 democratic outcome and when they are willing to stand up 1:31:27.320 --> 1:31:31.920 for it in large numbers and face the consequences the 1:31:31.920 --> 1:31:35.879 difficulty of doing that that even regimes like air dons, 1:31:36.000 --> 1:31:39.840 these very you know, autocratic, far right governments have a 1:31:39.880 --> 1:31:42.639 point at which they will back down. And I think 1:31:42.720 --> 1:31:47.200 that that display of resistance and solidarity getting a government 1:31:47.320 --> 1:31:49.439 like that to back down is something that can be 1:31:49.600 --> 1:31:51.760 very hopeful for people around the world right now. 1:31:52.200 --> 1:31:55.080 Yeah, definitely. I mean we've seen like just to the 1:31:55.080 --> 1:31:57.320 stuff we've cold or obviously the United States, but also 1:31:57.360 --> 1:32:01.439 in Mianma, like increasingly it's harder and harder for states 1:32:01.479 --> 1:32:04.960 to deny people's right to be represented or to be heard, 1:32:05.040 --> 1:32:08.000 and like that's a good thing Germany for democracy. 1:32:08.360 --> 1:32:08.599 Yeah. 1:32:09.160 --> 1:32:11.479 I wanted to ask about you spoken a little bit 1:32:11.479 --> 1:32:15.599 about the Turkish military's incursions into northern Assyria and into 1:32:15.880 --> 1:32:19.320 like Iraqi, Curtistan, Curtis Donal, a potonomous region. Can you 1:32:19.400 --> 1:32:22.960 explain that there's a lot of like I think Turkey 1:32:23.000 --> 1:32:27.040 is pretty clearly like telegraphed plants for increased military activity 1:32:27.080 --> 1:32:30.320 in that region. So can you explain what's what's being 1:32:30.520 --> 1:32:32.920 proposed and what that means. 1:32:33.120 --> 1:32:37.879 So, I think because they have gone into this election 1:32:38.360 --> 1:32:41.320 and found themselves weakened. This is something that could make 1:32:41.360 --> 1:32:45.080 Airdon very dangerous. One thing that the government has always 1:32:45.120 --> 1:32:49.000 done when it's found itself weak is try to polarize 1:32:49.000 --> 1:32:55.000 society by attacking the Kurds both domestically and internationally in Iraqi, 1:32:55.080 --> 1:32:58.360 Kurdistan and in North East Syria. Of course, you have 1:32:58.640 --> 1:33:02.559 the AKP government loss of its majority in the twenty 1:33:02.560 --> 1:33:05.960 fifteen elections during the peace process becoming the reason for 1:33:06.040 --> 1:33:09.439 the government's abandonment of the peace process itself. Then in 1:33:09.479 --> 1:33:12.880 twenty nineteen after the local elections where the government lost 1:33:12.880 --> 1:33:15.720 control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time. That 1:33:15.840 --> 1:33:19.120 was very quickly followed with the appointment of state trustees 1:33:19.160 --> 1:33:22.400 to Kurdish municipalities, and then the invasion of North and 1:33:22.479 --> 1:33:27.000 East Syria following Ardwan's agreement with Donald Trump about that. 1:33:27.680 --> 1:33:31.479 And so this does look like the kind of context 1:33:31.600 --> 1:33:33.719 in which he has lashed out against Kurds in Iraq 1:33:33.760 --> 1:33:37.120 and Syria before, and given these threats that you mentioned 1:33:37.120 --> 1:33:40.120 that he has been making. The diplomatic traffic between Turkey 1:33:40.160 --> 1:33:43.280 and Iraq, Turkey and Iran, Turkey and the US and Europe. 1:33:44.160 --> 1:33:46.680 They do appear to be preparing for something now. I 1:33:46.720 --> 1:33:49.120 was just on the ground in North and East Syria 1:33:49.200 --> 1:33:52.479 and in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I heard from many people 1:33:52.760 --> 1:33:57.960 that they're concerned. The threats that the government has been 1:33:58.000 --> 1:34:01.320 making appear to suggest that they might try to go 1:34:01.560 --> 1:34:06.200 for a geographically larger military operation this time. There's a 1:34:06.280 --> 1:34:10.280 chance that instead of only conducting their typical spring offensive 1:34:10.479 --> 1:34:14.040 into Iraqi Kurdistan, which usually gets them nowhere, they might 1:34:14.080 --> 1:34:18.200 also attempt to invade northern Syria as well. Of course, 1:34:18.280 --> 1:34:21.320 that's very internationally contingent. They would need a green light 1:34:21.479 --> 1:34:24.320 from the Americans and from the Russians to be able 1:34:24.360 --> 1:34:27.880 to violate those cease fires and go in there. But 1:34:27.920 --> 1:34:30.920 the threats very real. It's something that people are very 1:34:30.920 --> 1:34:33.280 concerned about on the ground, and I think that it's 1:34:33.320 --> 1:34:36.559 worth paying attention to, and particularly for those of US 1:34:36.600 --> 1:34:39.439 and countries that are allied with the Turkish government making 1:34:39.479 --> 1:34:41.720 noise about, you know, opposing trying to get onto the 1:34:41.760 --> 1:34:45.439 agenda so that permission is not given here and they're 1:34:45.479 --> 1:34:46.680 not incentivized to do this. 1:34:47.600 --> 1:34:49.720 Yeah. I think that's a very good point, because, like 1:34:50.400 --> 1:34:52.439 Curtish issues are ones that don't come up very much 1:34:52.479 --> 1:34:54.679 in the press in the United States for the most part, 1:34:54.920 --> 1:34:58.639 and people and their representatives don't hear about them very much. 1:34:58.680 --> 1:35:00.559 But this is one of those like be right to 1:35:00.640 --> 1:35:03.160 your your rep things like that, that doesn't a lot 1:35:03.160 --> 1:35:05.000 of shit isn't going to get changed with an email 1:35:05.120 --> 1:35:08.920 to your elected officials, but especially like certain officials who 1:35:08.920 --> 1:35:11.400 are on you know, foreign relations, to committees or something, 1:35:11.520 --> 1:35:14.479 as well as as like other forms of political activism 1:35:14.520 --> 1:35:18.360 could help here, right like, especially in an election year 1:35:18.520 --> 1:35:20.960 like that. That's a way to stop that. 1:35:21.960 --> 1:35:24.479 Now, this is something that needs to be made into 1:35:24.520 --> 1:35:26.639 an issue. And one thing I hear time and time again, 1:35:26.680 --> 1:35:30.439 whether I'm speaking to people from the Autonomous Administration, the 1:35:30.560 --> 1:35:34.360 YPG and the YPG or pro Kurdish politicians in Turkey 1:35:35.080 --> 1:35:36.800 is they know, you know, the weapons that are being 1:35:36.880 --> 1:35:39.720 used against them, the tear gas canisters, you know, the 1:35:39.800 --> 1:35:42.960 drone parts, the bombs, the equipment, the military training that 1:35:43.000 --> 1:35:47.599 these personnel get. It all comes from Europe, the United States, 1:35:47.720 --> 1:35:50.599 NATO countries that are allied with Turkey. There's a lot 1:35:50.600 --> 1:35:53.600 of leverage and you know, pushing to end that military 1:35:53.600 --> 1:35:56.120 support is something that could be done right now, that 1:35:56.160 --> 1:35:59.040 could be very important. And really, you know, this is 1:35:59.080 --> 1:36:03.160 something where one feels almost when one makes these calls, 1:36:03.200 --> 1:36:05.240 like once constantly asking you know, you should do this 1:36:05.360 --> 1:36:08.120 for these people because they're being oppressed and your government 1:36:08.200 --> 1:36:10.280 has a say in it. But we really benefit from 1:36:10.280 --> 1:36:12.920 this too, Right if you look at what the Kurdish 1:36:12.960 --> 1:36:15.400 people and their allies in Turkey have done and standing 1:36:15.479 --> 1:36:18.720 up for democracy in getting the government to reverse this 1:36:18.760 --> 1:36:21.639 attempt to steal an election, you know, that's one small 1:36:21.720 --> 1:36:25.439 example of the very powerful democratic tradition that they have. 1:36:26.280 --> 1:36:28.080 That is something that we can learn from, you know, 1:36:28.120 --> 1:36:29.960 whether you're in the US or in Europe, in many 1:36:29.960 --> 1:36:32.400 different countries around the world right now, the threat of 1:36:33.439 --> 1:36:36.760 authoritarianism and the sort of far right politics of which 1:36:36.800 --> 1:36:40.920 Airedwan is an example, it's an international threat, and you know, 1:36:41.000 --> 1:36:44.360 standing with the people who've been able to resist it 1:36:44.400 --> 1:36:48.040 is something that you know can benefit us all around 1:36:48.040 --> 1:36:48.720 the world as well. 1:36:49.280 --> 1:36:52.360 Yeah, and like it presents a vision for a future 1:36:52.439 --> 1:36:56.320 in which we all stand united against state violence around 1:36:56.360 --> 1:36:59.760 the world, rather than being isolated and gradually destroyed by 1:37:00.160 --> 1:37:04.200 various states and violent actors. Talking I guess of violent actors. 1:37:04.960 --> 1:37:07.280 The one more thing I wanted to cover with we're 1:37:07.320 --> 1:37:09.200 jumping around a little bit was but like I think 1:37:09.200 --> 1:37:12.920 people will probably have seen at least maybe their social 1:37:12.960 --> 1:37:15.280 media timelines are different than mine, But there was a 1:37:15.280 --> 1:37:18.960 lot of violence against Kurdish people in Northern Europe recently, 1:37:19.040 --> 1:37:21.799 right in Belgium, I think, I think maybe in Germany 1:37:21.840 --> 1:37:25.040 as well. Explain a little bit of that. Like it's 1:37:25.479 --> 1:37:27.200 we get into a little bit of like like Turkish 1:37:27.240 --> 1:37:29.920 fascist politics as well, but can you explain what was 1:37:29.960 --> 1:37:30.639 going on there? 1:37:31.360 --> 1:37:36.280 So this all began when some far right Turkish nationalists 1:37:36.320 --> 1:37:40.200 started threatening a Kurdish family after returning from nol Rose 1:37:40.280 --> 1:37:44.400 or Kurdish New Year celebrations, and escalated into you know, 1:37:44.520 --> 1:37:48.559 essentially these far right vigilantes prowling the streets looking for 1:37:48.680 --> 1:37:52.280 Kurds and Kurdish businesses to attack. And this is not 1:37:52.479 --> 1:37:55.680 something new at all. The Turkish government has invested a 1:37:55.680 --> 1:37:59.759 great deal in allowing these structures to operate in Europe. 1:38:00.320 --> 1:38:04.080 You have the Gray Wolves, which are a fascist paramilitary 1:38:04.800 --> 1:38:09.120 actually the paramilitary wing of the party with which Airdwan 1:38:09.240 --> 1:38:11.479 is currently allied and with which he has a majority 1:38:11.520 --> 1:38:15.120 in parliament, the National Action Party or the MHP. You know, 1:38:15.160 --> 1:38:18.200 this is a group that's been responsible for murders and 1:38:18.800 --> 1:38:23.600 assassinations and all kinds of attacks on Kurds, other minorities, dissidents, 1:38:24.200 --> 1:38:26.719 and has been responsible for violence in Europe as well. 1:38:27.400 --> 1:38:32.320 You have the government encouraging religious fundamentalism through its network 1:38:32.400 --> 1:38:35.960 of religious institutions in Europe and trying to make that 1:38:36.280 --> 1:38:42.040 very extreme and very politically instrumentalized vision of religion popular 1:38:42.439 --> 1:38:45.400 amongst the Turkish community. And then you have you know, 1:38:45.439 --> 1:38:51.040 Turkish intelligence assets able to freely operate and conduct all 1:38:51.160 --> 1:38:56.640 kinds of attacks on Kurdish dissidents, you know, within the 1:38:56.720 --> 1:38:57.719 very center of Europe. 1:38:57.800 --> 1:38:57.920 Right. 1:38:57.960 --> 1:39:00.720 We all remember in twenty thirteen the assass nation of 1:39:00.880 --> 1:39:04.120 Sakinah Johnson's in front of the Kurdish Community Center in Paris. 1:39:04.920 --> 1:39:08.160 That murder was never solved. The perpetrator, who they caught 1:39:08.360 --> 1:39:11.200 very conveniently died in prison before he was set to 1:39:11.200 --> 1:39:15.519 go to trial. Turkish responsibility has never been proven in court, 1:39:15.880 --> 1:39:18.960 I think, because there are a lot of people who 1:39:18.960 --> 1:39:21.479 don't want a full investigation of a case like that 1:39:21.640 --> 1:39:24.400 to come out. And then, just I believe yesterday or 1:39:24.400 --> 1:39:26.759 maybe the day before, it came out that a Belgian 1:39:26.800 --> 1:39:33.680 court found alleged Turkish operatives responsible for planning attacks on 1:39:34.080 --> 1:39:38.759 two very senior Kurdish diplomats in Belgium who are members 1:39:38.760 --> 1:39:41.479 of the Kurdistan National Congress, which is sort of like 1:39:41.520 --> 1:39:45.960 the de facto foreign ministry of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. 1:39:46.479 --> 1:39:49.799 You know, these individuals had been spying on the Kurdistan 1:39:49.880 --> 1:39:53.719 National Congress building, They'd been in contact with Turkish officials, 1:39:53.760 --> 1:39:58.400 They'd been planning assassinations very senior politicians. This is a 1:39:58.439 --> 1:40:01.160 real problem. You know, these groups and the state itself 1:40:01.200 --> 1:40:06.160 are able to freely attack civilians, plot murders and do 1:40:06.320 --> 1:40:09.880 violence and really cause chaos. And that's something that's very dangerous, 1:40:10.439 --> 1:40:13.080 not only for the Kurdish community, but for really anybody 1:40:13.120 --> 1:40:13.800 living in their way. 1:40:14.400 --> 1:40:14.639 Yeah. 1:40:14.800 --> 1:40:17.160 Yeah, and there are a lot of people who would 1:40:17.280 --> 1:40:20.040 rightly want that to stop. I think, so, like, what's 1:40:20.080 --> 1:40:22.519 the current situation is a number of people were like beaten. 1:40:22.640 --> 1:40:26.000 Was somebody kidnapped? Did I see or was that? I 1:40:26.040 --> 1:40:28.400 didn't see any further reporting on that than one photo. 1:40:29.240 --> 1:40:32.240 It was very serious. I mean, there were people were attacked. 1:40:32.479 --> 1:40:36.280 I'm not exactly certain of the extent of kidnappings or 1:40:36.320 --> 1:40:39.599 other instances like that, but this was some very serious 1:40:40.080 --> 1:40:43.280 violence and we know what these groups are capable of. 1:40:43.880 --> 1:40:47.320 They have killed people and they have essentially gotten away 1:40:47.320 --> 1:40:51.800 with it. So it may have died down for now, 1:40:51.880 --> 1:40:54.880 which is certainly good. And obviously, you know, we saw 1:40:55.000 --> 1:40:57.400 a lot of calls for a restraint, you know, from 1:40:57.439 --> 1:41:00.439 the Kurdish community, a lot of calls for or these 1:41:00.439 --> 1:41:03.599 European governments essentially to do their job and prevent these 1:41:03.640 --> 1:41:09.000 groups from you know, importing their nationalist campaigns against a 1:41:09.040 --> 1:41:11.759 persecuted minority to a place where you know, these cords 1:41:11.800 --> 1:41:13.559 have fled to be free from that sort of thing. 1:41:14.200 --> 1:41:16.479 So it's stopped for now, but it's very much not over, 1:41:16.640 --> 1:41:19.400 you know. I when you see the Kurdish community in 1:41:19.400 --> 1:41:20.880 Europe and spend time with them and look at the 1:41:20.920 --> 1:41:23.360 security precautions that they have to take just to hold 1:41:23.400 --> 1:41:27.120 conferences and cultural festivals, Yeah, it's really quite disheartening. 1:41:27.760 --> 1:41:30.280 Yeah, yeah, especially like you say, in northern Europe, like 1:41:30.280 --> 1:41:32.920 they're not in Turkey. Left Turkey to avoid that stuff. 1:41:33.479 --> 1:41:34.719 Yeah. 1:41:34.800 --> 1:41:37.360 We'll take a second outbreak here and then we'll be 1:41:37.400 --> 1:41:52.360 back to finish up. So for the last part, do 1:41:52.400 --> 1:41:54.080 you have anything you want to add that we haven't 1:41:54.120 --> 1:41:54.800 got to yet. 1:41:55.920 --> 1:41:59.160 I think that you know, overall, looking at the situation 1:41:59.720 --> 1:42:03.280 in Turkey following these elections, looking at the situation in Europe, 1:42:03.840 --> 1:42:07.400 we're seeing that the Turkish government continues to be an 1:42:07.400 --> 1:42:11.720 example of the danger of these kinds of far right, nationalist, 1:42:11.800 --> 1:42:16.479 religious fundamentalist regimes that are on the rise everywhere. These 1:42:16.520 --> 1:42:20.120 are political trends that are growing around the world, and 1:42:20.520 --> 1:42:26.120 Airdowan and his current Turkish government are a very clear 1:42:26.200 --> 1:42:29.840 example of the danger that that causes, not to just 1:42:29.920 --> 1:42:33.800 the population of a country, but to neighboring countries, to 1:42:34.080 --> 1:42:38.120 diaspora communities that have left, that have gone elsewhere, that 1:42:38.240 --> 1:42:41.840 maintain their culture and maintain their interest in political organizing. 1:42:42.439 --> 1:42:44.519 So these are threats that people are going to be 1:42:44.560 --> 1:42:46.920 looking at around the world, and I think it's very 1:42:46.960 --> 1:42:49.679 important to be following the situation in Turkey for that reason. 1:42:50.400 --> 1:42:52.919 But at the same time, looking at how the Kurdish 1:42:52.920 --> 1:42:56.240 people and their allies in Turkey, you know, on the left, 1:42:56.680 --> 1:42:59.439 in workers' movements, in feminist movements, in all of these 1:42:59.479 --> 1:43:03.120 sort of grews that have also been victimized by Erdowan's regime, 1:43:03.760 --> 1:43:07.639 we're seeing that resistance is possible, that people can stand 1:43:07.680 --> 1:43:11.719 up for democracy and they can win and that look right, 1:43:11.840 --> 1:43:14.920 nobody's giving up on their work. You know, the KMK 1:43:15.080 --> 1:43:19.360 doesn't stop advocating for Kurdish interests in a diplomatic capacity 1:43:19.960 --> 1:43:22.240 because their members face threats. You know, these people go 1:43:22.280 --> 1:43:24.920 to work every single day, you know, in Wilsheva, in 1:43:24.960 --> 1:43:29.320 North and Eastsyria, in Iraqi, Kurdistan, Kurdish groups, you know, 1:43:29.360 --> 1:43:34.360 Kurdish political organizations, Kurdish politicians and activists, they continue building 1:43:34.439 --> 1:43:36.640 up their project. You know, I said, I was just 1:43:36.680 --> 1:43:39.920 in northern Syria. It's extremely difficult right now. People don't 1:43:39.920 --> 1:43:42.640 have electricity, people don't have water because Turkey bombed all 1:43:42.640 --> 1:43:46.160 the infrastructure. But still they're celebrating now Rose. You know, 1:43:46.160 --> 1:43:49.160 they're talking about their upcoming local elections that they want 1:43:49.200 --> 1:43:51.320 to hold and how to hold them in the best way. 1:43:51.479 --> 1:43:53.680 You know, they're talking about their new social contract and 1:43:53.720 --> 1:43:58.799 how they can implement it. They're moving forward constantly despite 1:43:58.840 --> 1:44:02.599 the threats that they're facing. And I think that you know, 1:44:03.160 --> 1:44:05.240 many of you listening to this are people who are 1:44:05.280 --> 1:44:09.160 probably looking to improve and change the society that you 1:44:09.200 --> 1:44:12.679 live in. And so when we look at what's going 1:44:12.720 --> 1:44:15.639 on in Turkey and in Kurdistan, we can see both 1:44:15.920 --> 1:44:18.400 very clear examples of what it is that people who 1:44:18.400 --> 1:44:20.720 want change are up against, but also what they can 1:44:20.760 --> 1:44:22.920 accomplish even under those conditions. 1:44:23.280 --> 1:44:25.920 Yeah, I think like one of the things I took 1:44:26.120 --> 1:44:30.200 from going to Kurdistan was like how invested, like how 1:44:30.240 --> 1:44:33.680 genuine the solidarity that those people have with other like 1:44:33.720 --> 1:44:37.679 oppressed groups. It's like I spent as much time answering 1:44:37.760 --> 1:44:40.799 questions about me and ma as I did like asking 1:44:40.880 --> 1:44:44.320 questions about Kurdistan, which was surprising to me, but obviously 1:44:44.760 --> 1:44:47.000 happy to do it. But like it would be nice 1:44:47.040 --> 1:44:50.439 to see some of that solidarity come back from the US, right, 1:44:50.520 --> 1:44:53.240 So are they're like, I mean, I guess you can 1:44:53.240 --> 1:44:55.200 come down to the border and help Kurdish people literally 1:44:55.240 --> 1:44:57.160 any day of the week if you'd like to do 1:44:57.280 --> 1:45:00.639 that all the time. But what concrete actions people take, 1:45:00.760 --> 1:45:05.600 especially with regard to like helping their self administration in 1:45:05.640 --> 1:45:08.200 North and East Syria, right, Like they're facing constant attacks, 1:45:08.360 --> 1:45:10.640 power stations get bombed, Like all my friends there are 1:45:10.680 --> 1:45:14.760 always struggling to have power, internet or even like electricity, 1:45:15.200 --> 1:45:18.160 and they got flooded recently on top of all that. Yeah, 1:45:18.320 --> 1:45:20.759 so like their concrete actions people can take to help 1:45:21.040 --> 1:45:24.560 to be in solidarity Oh absolutely. 1:45:24.600 --> 1:45:27.280 I mean, I think one thing, if you have expertise 1:45:27.680 --> 1:45:30.400 on anything to do with, you know, power grids that 1:45:30.439 --> 1:45:34.160 are resilient to these kinds of attacks, on alternative clean 1:45:34.240 --> 1:45:38.680 energy sources, anything that could possibly help people in a 1:45:38.720 --> 1:45:42.599 situation like this live. They want expertise. There's a lot 1:45:42.720 --> 1:45:45.800 of problems that they're facing that they simply because of 1:45:45.840 --> 1:45:49.080 the war, don't have the capacity not only to solve, 1:45:49.120 --> 1:45:51.639 but even to start thinking about how it is that 1:45:51.680 --> 1:45:55.320 one solves a problem like this because there just aren't 1:45:55.320 --> 1:45:57.720 that many societies in the world going through it. So 1:45:57.920 --> 1:46:05.599 any kind of in addressing energy issues, environmental issues, these 1:46:05.680 --> 1:46:08.400 kinds of problems, the second and third order effects of 1:46:09.320 --> 1:46:14.280 the attacks on infrastructure, on oil and gas, on power facilities, 1:46:14.840 --> 1:46:16.880 that would be very important. They really do need that, 1:46:16.960 --> 1:46:18.479 and that's something you know, you can write to us 1:46:18.479 --> 1:46:20.880 at the Kurdish Piece Institute. We can connect you with people. 1:46:21.400 --> 1:46:23.360 If you have contacts on the ground there, you can 1:46:23.400 --> 1:46:26.599 talk to them. That's one thing. Then at the end 1:46:26.640 --> 1:46:29.479 of the day, you know, they have these elections coming 1:46:29.560 --> 1:46:32.840 up that is a big step for them. They've just 1:46:32.880 --> 1:46:35.760 put out a new social contract. They're really trying to 1:46:35.880 --> 1:46:38.439 listen to some of the internal criticisms that they get 1:46:38.479 --> 1:46:42.120 and really build up the civil, social political side of 1:46:42.160 --> 1:46:45.400 their system. You know, there's a belief among many people 1:46:45.400 --> 1:46:47.520 there that I've talked to that because of the existential 1:46:47.560 --> 1:46:50.120 nature of these wars that they're fighting, they haven't been 1:46:50.160 --> 1:46:53.599 able to really pursue the political elements of their revolution 1:46:53.880 --> 1:46:56.759 to the degree that they want to. And they're trying 1:46:56.800 --> 1:46:59.280 to do that now. They have this new social Contract. 1:46:59.280 --> 1:47:02.040 It's an incredible document. You can read it. They're going 1:47:02.080 --> 1:47:06.160 to hold municipal elections on May thirtieth, I believe is 1:47:06.160 --> 1:47:09.640 the date that was announced. So any if you know 1:47:09.760 --> 1:47:13.160 a lot about electoral systems, if you have done election 1:47:13.280 --> 1:47:16.519 observation before, if you want to help them do that 1:47:16.720 --> 1:47:19.479 right and get international attention for what it is that 1:47:19.520 --> 1:47:22.519 they're doing. That's another way that people have been telling 1:47:22.560 --> 1:47:25.320 me that you can help. And then finally, you know, 1:47:25.320 --> 1:47:28.719 if you're here listening in the US, Airdwan is coming 1:47:28.800 --> 1:47:32.440 to the White House on May ninth. According to reports 1:47:32.680 --> 1:47:37.360 from Turkish and international media, there is going to be 1:47:37.479 --> 1:47:40.800 a demonstration. There will probably be a lot of campaigns 1:47:40.880 --> 1:47:45.360 around that demonstration as well, on things like conditioning and 1:47:45.520 --> 1:47:49.080 ending arm sales and security assistants on calls for peace, 1:47:49.240 --> 1:47:53.840 on calls for the US to end its support for 1:47:54.200 --> 1:47:57.960 and enablement of Turkey's occupation of Iraq and Syria. It's 1:47:58.000 --> 1:48:01.160 repression of its Kurdish people at home, and so anything 1:48:01.200 --> 1:48:03.360 that you can do to join those actions in those 1:48:03.400 --> 1:48:06.840 campaigns would be very helpful. You know, this is going 1:48:06.920 --> 1:48:10.000 to be an opportunity to let both Airdowan and the 1:48:10.040 --> 1:48:13.960 White House hear what the American people think about US 1:48:14.000 --> 1:48:18.040 support for what the Turkish government is doing. So be there, 1:48:18.160 --> 1:48:21.040 get involved. That's one way that we can, you know, 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:23.800 make our voices heard and try to push for a 1:48:23.880 --> 1:48:24.599 change in policy. 1:48:25.120 --> 1:48:26.920 Yeah, I think it's great. I think people should like 1:48:27.720 --> 1:48:30.880 if you want an example of I guess the US complicity. 1:48:31.120 --> 1:48:35.799 Like while I was in Kurdistan, there was a bombing 1:48:35.880 --> 1:48:39.479 that killed thirty nine SIH like internal security forces, and 1:48:40.080 --> 1:48:43.160 that was like a plane that your tax dolars if 1:48:43.200 --> 1:48:44.760 you live in the US, developed, right, like an F 1:48:44.800 --> 1:48:48.920 sixteen with munitions, so you probably sold to them, and 1:48:49.200 --> 1:48:54.240 the US is selling has sold more F sixteen since then, right, yes, Yeah, 1:48:54.360 --> 1:48:56.400 So like that is a thing that we could stop, 1:48:56.560 --> 1:49:00.200 and that would concretely stop. Like I spoke to a 1:49:00.479 --> 1:49:02.320 mother who lost her son. He was a little I 1:49:02.360 --> 1:49:05.920 think it was like fourteen fifteen, a little football player. 1:49:06.040 --> 1:49:07.960 They had pictures of him all over the house, right, Like, 1:49:08.000 --> 1:49:10.320 it was really heartbreaking stuff. And I know that this 1:49:10.400 --> 1:49:12.120 happens a lot in other parts of the world. I'm 1:49:12.120 --> 1:49:14.400 not saying that's not important too, but yeah, it's it's 1:49:14.439 --> 1:49:16.679 always hard to talk to parents who have lost their kids, 1:49:16.680 --> 1:49:20.400 and you can stop that happening. Like, if we don't 1:49:20.479 --> 1:49:22.479 sell them the f sixteens that do that, then they 1:49:22.760 --> 1:49:24.519 don't have the ability to do it, at least not 1:49:24.600 --> 1:49:25.040 as much. 1:49:25.680 --> 1:49:28.320 And this is one way that we can connect struggles 1:49:28.320 --> 1:49:30.800 and causes as well, because it's all the same companies 1:49:31.200 --> 1:49:34.080 that are providing equipment to all of these states that 1:49:34.160 --> 1:49:37.559 are doing this. You know, the targets are the same 1:49:37.800 --> 1:49:41.160 for these kinds of campaigns. And look, you know, all 1:49:41.200 --> 1:49:44.320 of these governments, all of these corporations, they know that 1:49:44.320 --> 1:49:46.680 they're on the same side. We don't always know that 1:49:46.720 --> 1:49:49.080 we're on the same side too, And so I think 1:49:49.120 --> 1:49:53.040 that getting together and pointing out the patterns and standing 1:49:53.040 --> 1:49:55.760 against you know, these arm sales and security assistants in 1:49:55.800 --> 1:49:59.760 the context of Kurdistan, alongside many other contexts where they're 1:49:59.760 --> 1:50:02.720 also very destructive is an important way that we can 1:50:02.760 --> 1:50:04.920 sort of amplify our efforts to do that. 1:50:05.520 --> 1:50:07.880 Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very good, very good point. 1:50:07.920 --> 1:50:11.679 Like I live in San Diego. Almost every single bomb 1:50:11.760 --> 1:50:13.679 that has fallen on Palestine and many of the water 1:50:13.760 --> 1:50:16.880 full on Kurdistan. Have you know the company that sold 1:50:16.920 --> 1:50:20.759 that has an office here, Like if they're the places 1:50:20.760 --> 1:50:23.599 where you can apply pressure in places where you can 1:50:23.600 --> 1:50:26.960 hopefully make a change, Megan, where can people you mentioned 1:50:27.000 --> 1:50:29.160 like emailing you? Where can people find you? How can 1:50:29.200 --> 1:50:31.520 people keep up to date with what's happening in Kurdistan? 1:50:32.160 --> 1:50:36.040 Yeah, of course. So you can go to Kurdishpeace dot org. 1:50:36.200 --> 1:50:39.320 That's the website of our institute. If you go to 1:50:39.520 --> 1:50:42.160 our about page, my contact is on there. You can 1:50:42.200 --> 1:50:44.479 always reach out to me whether you have a question 1:50:44.520 --> 1:50:47.880 about Kurdistan, you want to read our research and analysis. 1:50:47.920 --> 1:50:49.840 You know you're a journalist or an analyst and you 1:50:49.880 --> 1:50:52.960 want to submit something yourself. We can help you there. 1:50:53.400 --> 1:50:57.880 We're also on Twitter at Kurdish Peace Org. And yeah, 1:50:57.960 --> 1:51:00.200 that's a great way for you to follow. In the 1:51:00.240 --> 1:51:02.799 English language. If you're looking for resources on the ground, 1:51:03.400 --> 1:51:06.960 you can follow North Press Agency which publishes in English, 1:51:07.040 --> 1:51:10.840 the Rojeva Information Center, which publishes in English. And then 1:51:11.200 --> 1:51:13.680 you know, get involved with your local Kurdish community in 1:51:13.800 --> 1:51:15.680 a lot of major cities in the US. If you're 1:51:15.680 --> 1:51:17.880 in New York, if you're in Boston, if you're in 1:51:17.920 --> 1:51:20.880 the DMV area, if you're in California, like you know, 1:51:21.720 --> 1:51:26.280 there are active Kurdish communities, and you know, go to 1:51:26.320 --> 1:51:30.120 a cultural event, go to a demonstration, you'll find both 1:51:30.320 --> 1:51:32.760 great ways to get connected and really get plugged into 1:51:32.800 --> 1:51:36.240 solidarity efforts. But also you know, a wonderful community and 1:51:36.280 --> 1:51:39.920 a wonderful culture that I think, you know, anyone would be. 1:51:40.800 --> 1:51:44.560 I've certainly been, you know, very happy to have experienced. 1:51:44.920 --> 1:51:48.320 So yeah, likewise, yeah, great, Thank you so much, Megan, 1:51:48.360 --> 1:51:49.120 that was great. 1:51:50.040 --> 1:52:00.000 Thank you. 1:52:04.280 --> 1:52:06.680 Welcome to Dick It Happen Here, a podcast coming to 1:52:06.800 --> 1:52:09.599 you from a week where decades are happening. I'm your host. 1:52:09.680 --> 1:52:11.519 Nia Long with me is James Stout. 1:52:12.360 --> 1:52:14.120 Hi, man, I'm great to be here. 1:52:14.760 --> 1:52:17.879 And also with us as Talia Jane an independent journalist 1:52:18.160 --> 1:52:21.040 covering social movements and protests who is currently covering the 1:52:21.080 --> 1:52:25.360 Gazza solidarity encampments at Columbia University. Talia welcome to the show. 1:52:25.800 --> 1:52:27.280 Thanks for having me, guys. 1:52:28.160 --> 1:52:29.639 Yay, thanks for doing us. 1:52:30.160 --> 1:52:31.880 Hell yeah, yeah. 1:52:31.920 --> 1:52:34.639 So I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about the Columbia occupation. 1:52:34.760 --> 1:52:37.680 I also want to briefly mention that there are a 1:52:37.800 --> 1:52:41.280 lot of there's been a wave of occupations of campuses 1:52:41.520 --> 1:52:45.759 across the country just right now. This is being recorded 1:52:45.760 --> 1:52:48.360 on Wednesday night. By the time this goes up on 1:52:48.560 --> 1:52:51.000 like Friday, a lot of the stuff we're going to 1:52:51.000 --> 1:52:52.360 be saying is probably going to be at a date 1:52:52.400 --> 1:52:55.240 because everything's moving really quickly. But I mean there's occupations obviously, 1:52:55.280 --> 1:52:59.080 like Columbia. There's like CSU, Humblet, University of Texas at Austin, 1:52:59.120 --> 1:53:04.000 Ohio State, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, some university in Italy, Emerson, Tuft's, MIT, 1:53:04.520 --> 1:53:07.839 NYU City, University of New York, the New Schools, University 1:53:07.840 --> 1:53:11.479 of Rochester, University of Pittsburgh, USC, University of Minnesota, University 1:53:11.479 --> 1:53:16.120 of Michigan, Vanderbilt, UNC, Chapel Hill. I mean, there's so 1:53:16.280 --> 1:53:18.280 many of these. By the time that this goes up, 1:53:18.360 --> 1:53:21.240 there will be more of them. Yeah, it's been wild, 1:53:21.640 --> 1:53:25.880 there's been a lot of I mean at Humboldt, there 1:53:26.320 --> 1:53:28.240 was a lot of very intense fighting with the police. 1:53:28.880 --> 1:53:31.080 A bunch of kids occupied a building. They beat the 1:53:31.080 --> 1:53:33.519 shit while Okay, that's going a bit too far, but 1:53:33.560 --> 1:53:36.320 they barricaded it, kept the cops from coming in, cops 1:53:36.360 --> 1:53:42.200 ran off of campus. So, lots of incredibly wild stuff happening. Yeah, 1:53:42.240 --> 1:53:46.080 which I guess brings us to the Gauza. The I 1:53:46.080 --> 1:53:48.400 guess the original one, the first one. They got a 1:53:48.400 --> 1:53:51.440 lot of media attention, the Gauza Solidarity acampment at Columbia. 1:53:52.000 --> 1:53:52.200 Yeah. 1:53:52.240 --> 1:53:55.120 So, Telly, I wanted to ask you, so, how did 1:53:55.120 --> 1:53:57.240 this sort of start and what's kind of been making 1:53:57.280 --> 1:54:00.479 it different from the really pretty large number of other 1:54:01.560 --> 1:54:04.919 free Palestine anti genocide protests that have been on campuses 1:54:04.920 --> 1:54:10.360 and off campuses for the past like time, Yeah, six 1:54:10.439 --> 1:54:11.200 seven months. 1:54:11.600 --> 1:54:15.840 Yeah, Well, I think the genesis of this was that 1:54:15.960 --> 1:54:20.240 Columbia University, as we've seen in universities across the country, 1:54:20.320 --> 1:54:26.040 suspended a number of pro Palestine advocacy student groups. They 1:54:26.560 --> 1:54:30.960 were very slow to move their feet about targeted attacks 1:54:31.160 --> 1:54:35.560 against students who were demonstrating for Palestine, including an incident 1:54:35.640 --> 1:54:38.840 where someone was allegedly sprayed with a chemical irritant or 1:54:38.880 --> 1:54:43.840 people were sprayed with a chemical irritant by former IOF 1:54:44.240 --> 1:54:49.160 soldiers who are also students here, and just this, you know, 1:54:49.400 --> 1:54:54.760 building tension of there is a actual genocide occurring, and 1:54:55.720 --> 1:55:01.680 universities are being forced to and towards the people committing 1:55:01.680 --> 1:55:05.080 the genocide instead of standing on the right side of history, 1:55:05.920 --> 1:55:08.680 or they're actively choosing to do that too, because their 1:55:09.280 --> 1:55:12.600 whole thing is not about actually educating people and preparing 1:55:12.600 --> 1:55:19.720 them to be tomorrow's leaders and managers or baristas, but 1:55:19.960 --> 1:55:23.560 to get people, you know, to give them money to 1:55:23.640 --> 1:55:29.200 fill their coffers and portray this image of you know, 1:55:29.760 --> 1:55:32.040 exceptionalism and elitism and whatnot. 1:55:32.360 --> 1:55:34.080 So that was the genesis. 1:55:34.120 --> 1:55:38.800 And then on Tuesday night I got a text at 1:55:38.840 --> 1:55:41.960 like eleven pm, I want to say, asking me if 1:55:42.000 --> 1:55:45.880 I wanted to come cover a late night slash early 1:55:45.960 --> 1:55:50.000 morning de occupation demo. And this was from someone I'd 1:55:50.000 --> 1:55:52.000 never talked to before. I had no idea who it was, 1:55:52.680 --> 1:55:55.200 but they said it was a Columbia and they said 1:55:55.200 --> 1:55:56.760 it was late night, early morning. I thought I'd be 1:55:56.760 --> 1:55:59.360 out of here at you know, ten am the next day, 1:56:01.680 --> 1:56:05.680 and then you know, standing there witnessing it all unfold, 1:56:05.720 --> 1:56:09.400 it became pretty evident that that was not the case. 1:56:09.440 --> 1:56:12.160 And I think the reason why this stands out is 1:56:12.160 --> 1:56:16.720 because this is an elite university where you can't say, oh, well, 1:56:16.720 --> 1:56:20.200 these are just dumb TikTok kids. These are kids who 1:56:20.200 --> 1:56:23.160 have like the these are like adults who have you know, 1:56:23.200 --> 1:56:29.320 they have incredible resumes, really high academic excellence. They got 1:56:29.360 --> 1:56:33.560 into an extremely difficult school to get into, and they 1:56:33.640 --> 1:56:38.480 are joining the ranks of the you know, frazzled fringe, 1:56:38.640 --> 1:56:45.120 stinky anarchists and the silly kids who are being brainwashed 1:56:45.160 --> 1:56:48.400 by TikTok. And they said like, no, those people are right, 1:56:48.560 --> 1:56:51.440 like this is bad and you need to disclose and 1:56:51.560 --> 1:56:53.680 divest and we're not going to stop until you do. 1:56:54.480 --> 1:56:58.440 And I think that that stance from a position of 1:56:58.640 --> 1:57:05.080 privilege really shook things up. What followed also set a 1:57:05.200 --> 1:57:08.880 tone of the university deciding to call the police and 1:57:09.360 --> 1:57:14.480 claiming that this encampment was it posed a clear and 1:57:14.600 --> 1:57:19.880 present danger to the safety of students on campus, which, 1:57:20.320 --> 1:57:23.560 you know, anyone who has spent any length of time 1:57:23.960 --> 1:57:26.200 in or around the encampment can plainly see that that 1:57:26.320 --> 1:57:27.680 is nonsensical. 1:57:27.720 --> 1:57:28.280 It's absurd. 1:57:28.360 --> 1:57:30.480 These are kids that are studying on a lawn, but 1:57:30.560 --> 1:57:33.120 that choice of bringing the NYPD in and having one 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:37.360 hundred and eight students arrested by the NYPD Strategic Response Group, 1:57:37.720 --> 1:57:40.960 which is their you know, counter terrorism goon squad that 1:57:41.440 --> 1:57:45.400 violently represses protests pretty consistently, to have them arrest one 1:57:45.480 --> 1:57:49.400 hundred nate people, including carrying them out from by their 1:57:49.480 --> 1:57:52.040 arms and lengths and arresting legal observers. 1:57:52.600 --> 1:57:54.200 You know that that was like. 1:57:55.360 --> 1:57:58.200 This is that it was an outsized response for something 1:57:58.280 --> 1:57:59.520 that was pretty straightforward. 1:57:59.560 --> 1:58:01.240 There hanging out on a lawn. 1:58:01.600 --> 1:58:04.760 They have everything set up to sustain within that space. 1:58:05.280 --> 1:58:08.080 They are not going out and roaming around and you know, 1:58:08.560 --> 1:58:11.920 breaking things or assaulting people or anything like that. And 1:58:12.040 --> 1:58:15.760 they're just using this to call attention to their cause, 1:58:15.800 --> 1:58:20.720 which is divestment from genocide and from you know, war profiteering, 1:58:21.160 --> 1:58:27.480 and to and the school's gentrification of Harlem, and to 1:58:27.840 --> 1:58:32.880 you know, at institute, an academic boycott of Israel and 1:58:33.160 --> 1:58:37.360 Israeli campuses that are in community with Colombia, like their 1:58:37.360 --> 1:58:42.320 satellite schools that bring the IOF soldiers to Colombia to 1:58:42.440 --> 1:58:45.120 commit harm against students here. And you know, so these 1:58:45.120 --> 1:58:48.640 are these are very basic asks and they were met 1:58:48.720 --> 1:58:53.520 with state force signed off by the president of the school, 1:58:54.160 --> 1:58:57.840 and seeing that, I think is what provoked a lot 1:58:57.840 --> 1:58:59.960 of other schools of like, well, if Columbia's doing it, 1:59:00.040 --> 1:59:03.680 than we definitely got to because you have a major 1:59:04.080 --> 1:59:08.200 elite institution taking this step, making clear that this is 1:59:08.240 --> 1:59:12.880 not just a cause that you know, the scrappy little 1:59:12.920 --> 1:59:16.440 weirdos at the bottom like me care about, you know. 1:59:17.000 --> 1:59:19.520 And so I think that's what set it off. And 1:59:20.920 --> 1:59:25.160 the fact that they returned they just took over the 1:59:25.240 --> 1:59:31.320 other lawn while while their classmates were being processed after 1:59:31.360 --> 1:59:33.680 being arrested. They just took over the other lawn and 1:59:33.720 --> 1:59:35.240 they're like, all right, we're going to set it up 1:59:35.280 --> 1:59:41.400 here was such a hilariously like based move that it 1:59:41.480 --> 1:59:47.520 was like the defiance and the determination was undeniable. And 1:59:47.880 --> 1:59:51.080 when you see a group like with the students at Humboldt, 1:59:51.480 --> 1:59:54.400 where the cops with the riot shields are trying to 1:59:54.400 --> 1:59:56.839 barge in and they're pushing them back and they're screaming 1:59:56.880 --> 1:59:59.600 get the fuck out, and they're bonking them over the 1:59:59.640 --> 2:00:02.840 head with the empty water jug, when you see things 2:00:02.880 --> 2:00:05.200 like that, Yeah, when you see things like that, it's 2:00:06.240 --> 2:00:11.360 very like there is an energy to this that has 2:00:11.400 --> 2:00:13.760 always been there, but that has not been very easily 2:00:13.800 --> 2:00:20.280 seen by the masses, and we're now seeing it show 2:00:20.320 --> 2:00:22.920 its head of like, no, we're not fucking around, like 2:00:22.960 --> 2:00:24.240 you need to listen to us. 2:00:24.280 --> 2:00:26.600 We're tired of the song and. 2:00:26.640 --> 2:00:30.280 Dance game that you're doing, dismissing all of our valid concerns, 2:00:30.320 --> 2:00:34.560 because we know concretely and statistically that we are on 2:00:34.600 --> 2:00:36.880 the right side of history, and we're going to make 2:00:36.920 --> 2:00:40.960 you listen and trust that if you beat us up, 2:00:41.000 --> 2:00:44.240 we're coming back, like we're not going away. It doesn't 2:00:44.280 --> 2:00:47.440 scare us, which is what the kids at a UT 2:00:47.600 --> 2:00:50.960 Austin were chanting I think when they brought the horses 2:00:50.960 --> 2:00:51.920 in the state troopers in. 2:00:52.000 --> 2:00:53.200 It's like, we're not scared of you. 2:00:54.240 --> 2:00:59.080 And that tone has permeated throughout the demonstrations for Palaestinian 2:00:59.120 --> 2:01:03.640 liberation since in prior to October. But if you don't 2:01:03.640 --> 2:01:06.240 follow the protests, or if you only go by what 2:01:07.080 --> 2:01:10.200 the major news outlets are saying about them, you don't 2:01:10.240 --> 2:01:13.120 see that tone. So this, for me is not surprising. 2:01:14.400 --> 2:01:18.920 This is a continuation of an energy that has not 2:01:19.080 --> 2:01:21.920 ceased for upwards of six months. I think it's the 2:01:21.960 --> 2:01:26.880 two hundred and first day of the genocide. So it's 2:01:26.880 --> 2:01:30.360 not surprising for people who've paid attention. It's a relief 2:01:30.520 --> 2:01:33.960 for kids who are here and who have been involved, 2:01:34.000 --> 2:01:36.920 and who have been silenced and ignored and written off 2:01:36.920 --> 2:01:37.560 this whole time. 2:01:38.240 --> 2:01:39.280 It's a very long answer. 2:01:39.280 --> 2:01:40.400 I now that's a. 2:01:40.320 --> 2:01:43.720 Good one, though. I think it's a It's great to 2:01:43.760 --> 2:01:45.440 have your perspective if someone who's been on the ground. 2:01:46.080 --> 2:01:49.080 One thing I wanted to ask is, like, obviously this 2:01:49.200 --> 2:01:52.200 is a protest that its core is about state violence, 2:01:52.360 --> 2:01:55.640 and it has predictably enough been responded to with state violence. 2:01:56.160 --> 2:02:00.520 And like you said that people were generally not weighed 2:02:00.560 --> 2:02:02.640 by that. I wonder if you've seen people who kind 2:02:02.640 --> 2:02:06.320 of had the opposite reaction, Like I kind of remember 2:02:07.160 --> 2:02:09.400 the student protests that I had been involved in. I'm 2:02:09.440 --> 2:02:11.640 just going to say that, and I can remember like 2:02:11.720 --> 2:02:17.200 the reaction by students when seeing that fellow students being 2:02:17.200 --> 2:02:19.840 assaulted by the police was like, Okay, fuck this, Like 2:02:20.440 --> 2:02:22.280 you know, like Georgio Wah has this thing about like 2:02:22.840 --> 2:02:24.640 when I see a real flesh and blud worker of 2:02:24.720 --> 2:02:26.600 fighting is natural. Letting me the policeman. I don't have 2:02:26.640 --> 2:02:29.080 to ask myself what side I'm on, did you find 2:02:29.120 --> 2:02:32.040 the same thing with students where they were like, okay, 2:02:32.520 --> 2:02:34.520 I wasn't out here, And now I've seen the way 2:02:34.560 --> 2:02:36.520 the university and the cops have responded to this, and 2:02:36.520 --> 2:02:38.320 now I'm coming out because it's not okay. 2:02:39.560 --> 2:02:45.280 The encampment went up Wednesday and it was forcibly removed 2:02:45.320 --> 2:02:48.760 with arrests on Thursday, I think, or was it Friday. 2:02:49.120 --> 2:02:52.160 I don't remember. It was a long time ago. For me. 2:02:53.360 --> 2:02:57.480 It's fine, But. 2:02:55.960 --> 2:03:01.640 Prior to the encampment being taken down, the possibility of 2:03:01.680 --> 2:03:05.760 it provoked a significant response from the student body here 2:03:05.800 --> 2:03:10.640 at Columbia to show up and rally around the encampment 2:03:10.720 --> 2:03:15.440 all night. They did this march, this daisy chain where 2:03:15.440 --> 2:03:18.000 they were chanting. The more you try to silence us, 2:03:18.000 --> 2:03:21.480 the louder we will be and disclose, divest, We will 2:03:21.480 --> 2:03:24.480 not stop. We will not rest all night around the 2:03:24.560 --> 2:03:26.640 encampment to keep it safe and to show that they 2:03:26.680 --> 2:03:30.040 had larger support beyond the students who chose to stay 2:03:30.040 --> 2:03:33.400 on the lawn at risk of being arrested. After they 2:03:33.400 --> 2:03:37.880 were arrested, more students came onto the other lawn and 2:03:37.960 --> 2:03:42.480 have continued to occupy that second lawn so absolutely it 2:03:42.480 --> 2:03:43.440 was a strissand effect. 2:03:43.480 --> 2:03:44.400 They tried to shut. 2:03:44.160 --> 2:03:47.480 It down, and it made people feel very strongly that 2:03:47.520 --> 2:03:50.040 they need to show up and put themselves on the 2:03:50.080 --> 2:03:54.040 line as well. And they also I think they saw 2:03:54.640 --> 2:03:57.800 what I think it also showed them what the state 2:03:58.240 --> 2:04:02.320 does and what the university does, and seeing it firsthand 2:04:02.800 --> 2:04:05.880 eliminates a lot of the mystery that, you know, the 2:04:05.920 --> 2:04:09.520 fear that can circulate of like the uncertainty of it. 2:04:09.800 --> 2:04:11.040 Seeing what it looks. 2:04:10.800 --> 2:04:14.560 Like, they're like, oh whatever, And now they're seeing, you know, 2:04:14.720 --> 2:04:19.720 videos of protesters being brutalized on other campuses, and like 2:04:19.760 --> 2:04:22.240 I heard so much told me last night they said 2:04:22.280 --> 2:04:25.280 that they overheard someone like talking to another student on 2:04:25.320 --> 2:04:27.640 the lawn and they were like, oh, so you a 2:04:27.720 --> 2:04:31.040 jail support, Like, yes, you're there, Like it's it's this 2:04:31.160 --> 2:04:34.480 sort of they're gonna they're gonna do what they're gonna do. 2:04:35.800 --> 2:04:40.080 We don't care, like because these are the threat of violence. 2:04:40.120 --> 2:04:43.960 Physical harm is a threat to cease whatever it is 2:04:43.960 --> 2:04:47.080 that you're doing, of academic harm. These are things that 2:04:47.120 --> 2:04:49.640 are trying to get you to stop doing what you're doing. 2:04:49.720 --> 2:04:51.960 And when you know that they are being deployed as 2:04:52.000 --> 2:04:55.320 tools and tactics. You're not gonna stop because they're not 2:04:55.400 --> 2:04:55.960 scary to you. 2:04:56.960 --> 2:04:57.840 Well, what are you gonna do? 2:04:57.880 --> 2:05:02.360 You're gonna suspend me for joining in a historic protest? 2:05:02.480 --> 2:05:05.880 Okay, see if I care. You know, I think that's 2:05:05.880 --> 2:05:07.440 the energy for a lot of students. 2:05:07.840 --> 2:05:10.360 Yeah, unfortunately we need to go to ads for a second, 2:05:10.560 --> 2:05:13.440 but I don't know, skip them and we'll be back 2:05:13.800 --> 2:05:15.920 in however long it takes you to press the forward 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:31.560 button like six times and we are back. So, something 2:05:31.600 --> 2:05:34.680 I wanted to ask about. I've been seeing a lot 2:05:34.720 --> 2:05:38.720 of stuff floating around about the negotiations that are happening 2:05:38.760 --> 2:05:41.560 between the university and the students, and I want to 2:05:41.600 --> 2:05:45.520 know what have you actually heard about these because the 2:05:45.560 --> 2:05:48.120 statements that have been coming out don't seem to really 2:05:48.160 --> 2:05:51.520 be matching anything else I've seen going on on the ground. 2:05:52.840 --> 2:05:53.720 Do you know what's happening? 2:05:55.000 --> 2:05:58.760 So the university has taken a stance of this is 2:05:58.800 --> 2:06:01.720 a clearing present day, it is disruptive, it is harmful, 2:06:01.760 --> 2:06:06.040 et cetera. That's because it's impeding with them building stairs 2:06:06.680 --> 2:06:09.520 and stadium seating for the commencement that's happening in a 2:06:09.560 --> 2:06:16.600 couple of weeks. So you know, It's like that's that's 2:06:16.680 --> 2:06:19.040 the clear and present danger is that it's costly for 2:06:19.120 --> 2:06:23.200 them to have to wait to complete this this setup. 2:06:23.920 --> 2:06:27.640 But my understanding is that the students are very much 2:06:27.960 --> 2:06:31.200 holding their ground, very firm, and their their demands are 2:06:31.280 --> 2:06:34.960 very reasonable. It's saying like, tell us where your money 2:06:35.000 --> 2:06:37.520 comes from, so we can look into it and see 2:06:37.560 --> 2:06:42.040 that you're keeping your nose clean. This isn't a difficult 2:06:42.160 --> 2:06:45.600 to ask. I think if you ask to see my receipts, 2:06:45.600 --> 2:06:48.560 I could jump to you. Although I'm not an elite university, 2:06:48.640 --> 2:06:52.920 but I'm also not you know, profiting off of weapons manufacturing. 2:06:53.920 --> 2:06:59.120 And so the university's stance is very much trying to 2:06:59.200 --> 2:07:06.000 kind of spook them into quitting. And there was a 2:07:06.120 --> 2:07:09.440 statement released by the president last night at four am 2:07:09.520 --> 2:07:13.480 saying that the students made some concessions, two of which 2:07:13.520 --> 2:07:16.360 were things that they're already doing. One of which was 2:07:16.480 --> 2:07:19.440 an easy adjustment that's not a concession, which was just 2:07:19.960 --> 2:07:24.840 making the camp more ada accessible and in compliance with 2:07:25.200 --> 2:07:29.600 FDN Y regulations for fire safety, which I think would 2:07:29.600 --> 2:07:35.000 be crazy if a fire broke out at this camp. Anyway, 2:07:35.240 --> 2:07:39.000 I was a tangent. And then there was a thing 2:07:39.080 --> 2:07:42.360 saying that they're going to be ending negotiations in forty 2:07:42.400 --> 2:07:45.720 eight hours, and with the students reported out from those 2:07:45.760 --> 2:07:49.120 negotiations at the time was at the university at around 2:07:49.120 --> 2:07:51.800 midnight threatened to call in the National Guard and to 2:07:51.800 --> 2:07:55.560 call in the NYPD, and that shut down negotiations. And 2:07:55.720 --> 2:07:59.640 it was only after they put out these widespread calls 2:07:59.760 --> 2:08:03.160 and thousands of people gathered on the lawn in support 2:08:03.240 --> 2:08:08.160 of the encampment that that was changed and the university 2:08:08.360 --> 2:08:11.880 agreed in writing to not call the YPD and to 2:08:12.000 --> 2:08:14.760 not mobilized National Guard, which I don't think they have 2:08:14.760 --> 2:08:18.480 the authority to do regardless, but it was this written 2:08:18.520 --> 2:08:24.200 concession from the university, and their perspective of it was 2:08:24.200 --> 2:08:28.240 that the students provided concessions. And I think it's kind 2:08:28.240 --> 2:08:32.200 of it speaks to who each side is speaking to. 2:08:32.280 --> 2:08:35.160 The students are speaking to the movement that they have 2:08:36.120 --> 2:08:40.760 kind of shepherded into existence, and the university is speaking 2:08:40.920 --> 2:08:45.520 to their donors and their trustees and the right wingers 2:08:45.520 --> 2:08:49.680 who are having nuclear meltdowns on Twitter. 2:08:50.640 --> 2:08:52.520 That's something else I wanted to sort of ask about 2:08:52.520 --> 2:08:55.200 because I it's kind of hard for me to a 2:08:55.320 --> 2:08:59.040 sense of it, like, Okay, so Speaker of the House 2:08:59.080 --> 2:09:04.440 Bike Johnson, who is a utterly deranged session Zionist. 2:09:04.880 --> 2:09:10.240 Yeah, like you mean the new Churchill mea godly real weirdo, 2:09:10.760 --> 2:09:15.560 like anti evolution guy he's been, he said, He said that. 2:09:15.560 --> 2:09:17.800 Like he's going to go to Congress and call for 2:09:17.920 --> 2:09:19.840 the National Guard deplay, which also doesn't make any sense 2:09:19.880 --> 2:09:23.560 because Congress. I don't can't do it either. But I 2:09:23.600 --> 2:09:25.200 think you're trying to get like the governor, but like, 2:09:25.240 --> 2:09:27.280 what what do you think of the actual odds of 2:09:27.320 --> 2:09:29.000 a National Guard to point? Because I've heard a lot 2:09:29.000 --> 2:09:32.000 of talk about it and I can't gauge it at all. 2:09:32.920 --> 2:09:34.360 So Hochel has said. 2:09:34.160 --> 2:09:38.320 That that's not on the table, I believe, And there's 2:09:38.400 --> 2:09:43.200 no interest from what I can tell of the actual 2:09:43.480 --> 2:09:47.680 elected reps in calling in the National Guard. There's interest 2:09:47.720 --> 2:09:50.839 from Eric Adams, who is a former cop and basically 2:09:50.880 --> 2:09:54.600 still a cop, to use the NYPD, and the NYPD 2:09:54.680 --> 2:09:57.520 has been very allergic to when the National Guard comes 2:09:57.560 --> 2:10:00.720 out here because they want to be the ones skulls 2:10:01.280 --> 2:10:04.600 and being in charge of brutalizing New Yorkers, and they 2:10:05.040 --> 2:10:07.920 take a great offense when someone else comes in and 2:10:07.960 --> 2:10:10.360 does it for them. So they wouldn't really be on 2:10:10.360 --> 2:10:13.280 board with the National Guard mobilizing here either. The school 2:10:13.280 --> 2:10:15.400 doesn't have the authority to do that. It's only the governor. 2:10:15.440 --> 2:10:18.280 The governor hasn't made any indication, and Mike Johnson is 2:10:18.320 --> 2:10:23.160 doing conservative stunt work. He was joined by Elie Staphonic, 2:10:23.240 --> 2:10:28.280 who is a conservative, and you know she regularly disseminates 2:10:28.320 --> 2:10:34.560 disinformation and inflammatory propaganda to demonize unhoused people, migrants, queer people, 2:10:35.000 --> 2:10:38.720 so it's no surprise that they're you know, banging this drum, 2:10:38.920 --> 2:10:42.720 which was also pushed by Shy davidy or however he 2:10:42.760 --> 2:10:45.960 pronounce his name, who was an assistant professor here who 2:10:46.000 --> 2:10:49.680 attempted to hold a rally in the center of the 2:10:49.800 --> 2:10:53.760 Cause of Solidarity encampment with a slew of Zionists and 2:10:53.880 --> 2:10:58.480 his ID card was deactivated and he found out in 2:10:58.560 --> 2:11:00.880 real time in front of a bunch of cameras that 2:11:00.960 --> 2:11:07.240 he called to come watch him. It was It's one 2:11:07.280 --> 2:11:09.000 of those things that you witness in real time that 2:11:09.040 --> 2:11:12.280 you feel like you're you're living in a movie. But 2:11:12.400 --> 2:11:15.880 it was great, and he had a nuclear tantrum and 2:11:16.000 --> 2:11:18.040 claimed that it was because he wasn't safe on campus 2:11:18.400 --> 2:11:21.120 when he was told that his protest was not safe 2:11:21.160 --> 2:11:24.840 for their students. So, you know, I think it's we're 2:11:24.880 --> 2:11:26.920 seeing a lot of rhetoric and a lot of saber 2:11:27.000 --> 2:11:31.400 rattling from the far right, from conservatives, from people who 2:11:31.480 --> 2:11:36.960 have never had any kind of support for Palestinians or 2:11:37.000 --> 2:11:40.320 for the cause of Palestinian liberation. You know, Mike Johnson 2:11:40.400 --> 2:11:44.080 makes he receives over a quarter million dollars from APAC. 2:11:44.680 --> 2:11:48.040 You know, these are these are not people whose statements 2:11:48.040 --> 2:11:51.080 should be taken seriously in the context of what is possible, 2:11:51.480 --> 2:11:56.720 what is reasonable, and what is you know, reality. 2:11:57.720 --> 2:11:58.280 To put it. 2:11:58.240 --> 2:12:03.120 Nicely, Yeah, yeah, I think a reason it's fascinating, like, 2:12:03.160 --> 2:12:06.120 at least to me, Like I went to a fancy university, 2:12:06.160 --> 2:12:09.360 you know, and engaged in plenty of including pro Palestine 2:12:09.480 --> 2:12:12.840 actions when I was there. But a thing that I see, 2:12:12.880 --> 2:12:15.440 like as a journalist now, is that the right wing 2:12:15.520 --> 2:12:18.480 and wealthy folks generally seem to see that ivy league universities, 2:12:18.520 --> 2:12:21.360 particularly in the US, is like their safe space. And 2:12:21.400 --> 2:12:23.680 I think the reason that they're so mad at this 2:12:23.960 --> 2:12:26.520 is that they feel like it's not just that it's happening, 2:12:26.640 --> 2:12:30.160 it's where it's happening, and like that that's called them 2:12:30.200 --> 2:12:32.800 to have these massive tantrums like you've reported on. 2:12:33.760 --> 2:12:38.760 Yeah, I mean, there's, there's, there's it's it's all hypocrisy 2:12:38.800 --> 2:12:40.600 for them because on the one hand, these are liberal 2:12:40.720 --> 2:12:43.880 universities who are ushering in an era of DEI and 2:12:43.920 --> 2:12:46.640 purple hair and queer kids. And then on the other side, 2:12:46.680 --> 2:12:49.720 these are sacred spaces of learning and higher education that 2:12:49.760 --> 2:12:52.280 no one should have access to unless they're you know, 2:12:52.320 --> 2:12:55.400 grandparents are in the Arian Brotherhood. So it's it's one 2:12:55.400 --> 2:12:58.480 of those things where it kind of depends on the 2:12:58.600 --> 2:13:03.080 day about how they feel about really elite campuses of 2:13:03.760 --> 2:13:04.480 higher learning. 2:13:04.760 --> 2:13:06.920 But it doesn't matter either way. They don't care. They 2:13:06.920 --> 2:13:07.800 don't actually care. 2:13:08.200 --> 2:13:13.600 They just hate the cause and will do anything they 2:13:13.600 --> 2:13:17.680 can to bring it to a halt. But the DNA 2:13:17.760 --> 2:13:20.640 of this cause is to keep going regardless of the 2:13:20.680 --> 2:13:21.800 efforts to stop it. 2:13:23.120 --> 2:13:25.880 Right, And it wasn't so long ago that everyone was 2:13:25.960 --> 2:13:27.840 up in arms, when I say everyone on the road 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:29.840 was up and arms about campus free speech, which is 2:13:29.880 --> 2:13:33.040 something that seems have likely been forgotten in the last 2:13:33.040 --> 2:13:35.800 couple of weeks. It's like that we've all seen videos 2:13:35.840 --> 2:13:39.320 in Texas today right of the DPS and state troopers 2:13:39.360 --> 2:13:43.640 and horses and bikes that live to misuse bikes. But yeah, 2:13:43.880 --> 2:13:46.680 it's as I guess, the hypocoty is kind of the 2:13:46.720 --> 2:13:47.880 point with those people. 2:13:49.360 --> 2:13:52.200 Yeah, I mean, like Mike Johnson made his speech today 2:13:52.240 --> 2:13:55.360 on the steps of the Low Library. He was talking 2:13:55.440 --> 2:13:57.520 about how you know there was a repression of free 2:13:57.560 --> 2:14:00.680 speech on campus, but then in the same breath he 2:14:00.720 --> 2:14:02.320 said that and that's why I want to call in 2:14:02.360 --> 2:14:06.000 the National Guard to eliminate this protest. Their argument is 2:14:06.040 --> 2:14:09.920 that this protest is inherently anti Semitic because it rejects 2:14:09.960 --> 2:14:12.880 the state of Israel and the genocide and apartheid that 2:14:12.920 --> 2:14:16.080 the state has been doing since its inception and prior 2:14:16.160 --> 2:14:21.960 to its inception of the Palestinian people. And in the IHR, 2:14:22.440 --> 2:14:27.920 in the IHR definition of anti semitism, it is any 2:14:27.960 --> 2:14:31.080 criticism of the State of Israel, which would include people 2:14:31.120 --> 2:14:36.120 who are living in Israel criticizing their own government, would 2:14:36.120 --> 2:14:39.800 be labeled as anti Semitic. And they're trying to redefine 2:14:40.480 --> 2:14:44.360 reality in real time by claiming that these students who 2:14:44.600 --> 2:14:47.840 just don't want for mass death to be occurring and 2:14:47.880 --> 2:14:51.720 they don't want their university to be responsible in facilitating 2:14:51.760 --> 2:14:56.680 that are somehow anti Semitic. Meanwhile, a large number of 2:14:56.680 --> 2:15:00.880 them are Jews themselves. Who you know they held satter 2:15:01.920 --> 2:15:03.320 at the start of Passover. 2:15:04.240 --> 2:15:07.200 Yeah, I think, uh and maybe do you know bing one, 2:15:07.480 --> 2:15:11.160 a photojournalist, Yeah, withual friend being being took this photo 2:15:11.160 --> 2:15:12.880 which went viral on Twitter. I source in the New 2:15:12.960 --> 2:15:15.640 York Times of a Jewish graduate student just like sitting 2:15:15.720 --> 2:15:17.680 on a folding chat being like, now I'm fine, I 2:15:17.680 --> 2:15:18.800 don't feel unsafe here. 2:15:19.360 --> 2:15:22.960 Oh yeah, I mean that's like, that's the thing is 2:15:23.000 --> 2:15:25.400 that the people who feel quote unquote unsafe are also 2:15:25.680 --> 2:15:30.640 the people who are known antagonizers of pro Palestine demonstrations. 2:15:30.840 --> 2:15:34.360 These are the kids that bought like fart spray from 2:15:34.400 --> 2:15:39.720 Amazon to spray on students who were demonstrating peacefully. These 2:15:39.760 --> 2:15:42.960 are students who show up with giant flags outside of 2:15:43.040 --> 2:15:48.200 Columbia University to antagonize people. They brought thick wooden poles 2:15:48.680 --> 2:15:52.200 with flags fixed to them to a demonstration on Wall 2:15:52.240 --> 2:15:56.440 Street the week prior to this encampment launching, and they 2:15:56.440 --> 2:15:58.920 were antagonizing people. They were getting in, they were trying to, 2:15:59.000 --> 2:16:02.560 you know, instigate arguments with people, and you know, they 2:16:02.560 --> 2:16:04.840 were just kind of trying to incite, and then they 2:16:04.840 --> 2:16:08.360 claim to be victims when people respond to their inciting behavior, 2:16:08.760 --> 2:16:13.440 and it's very much like an abusive mentality that they have. 2:16:14.120 --> 2:16:17.160 But in terms of like actual anti Semitism, all of that, 2:16:17.760 --> 2:16:20.600 all of that rhetoric ends up being a distraction from 2:16:20.640 --> 2:16:24.360 actual instances of anti Semitism. And the more that you 2:16:24.480 --> 2:16:29.320 try to fuse the political ideology of Zionism with the 2:16:29.520 --> 2:16:32.840 prejudice against Jewish people for being Jewish, the more you 2:16:32.840 --> 2:16:36.280 try to fuse those together as one thing, like, you know, 2:16:36.360 --> 2:16:40.519 fusing Jewish identity to Zionism, the more you see instances 2:16:40.600 --> 2:16:44.600 of anti Semitism actually anti Semitism. So if anything, like 2:16:44.640 --> 2:16:49.400 the students who are coming in cheering on Israel and 2:16:50.480 --> 2:16:55.440 boasting about the murderers of you know, tens of thousands 2:16:55.480 --> 2:16:59.240 of children, the starvations, and the displacements of millions of people, 2:16:59.560 --> 2:17:02.039 the more that they do that, the more that that 2:17:03.600 --> 2:17:06.320 teaches people like, oh, maybe all Jews are like that, 2:17:06.760 --> 2:17:08.200 maybe all Jews are bad. 2:17:08.560 --> 2:17:09.400 And then I. 2:17:09.360 --> 2:17:12.920 End up getting DMS from people photoshopping my face into 2:17:13.080 --> 2:17:15.959 an oven calling for my death when you know, I 2:17:16.000 --> 2:17:17.920 don't give a fuck about the state of Israel. I 2:17:17.920 --> 2:17:21.200 don't give a fuck about any states, you know, So 2:17:21.240 --> 2:17:23.360 it's just it's one of those things like this is 2:17:24.240 --> 2:17:28.200 like they are they are planting toxic seeds and then 2:17:28.640 --> 2:17:31.800 flipping out when they sprout. 2:17:32.520 --> 2:17:35.520 Talking of toxic seeds, now is the time for some 2:17:35.600 --> 2:17:38.160 marketing professionals to plant some toxic seeds in your mind 2:17:38.240 --> 2:17:51.720 as we take our second advertising break. All right, well 2:17:51.720 --> 2:17:55.760 we're back, hopefully. I haven't bought anything since we last spoke, Tylia. 2:17:55.879 --> 2:17:58.920 I wanted to talk a little bit about a thing 2:17:59.200 --> 2:18:02.760 that we've seen a lot. It's like this idea of 2:18:02.800 --> 2:18:05.160 like the universe, and this happens at every protest movement 2:18:05.240 --> 2:18:08.120 right like the state, the university, whatever, will seek to 2:18:08.680 --> 2:18:11.600 appoint people leaders and allow them to negotiate on behalf 2:18:11.640 --> 2:18:13.840 of everyone, even if those people have not consented to 2:18:13.840 --> 2:18:17.400 be negotiated for, and then they'll use that to corupt 2:18:17.400 --> 2:18:20.280 the movement, offer concessions that these particular people might want, 2:18:20.480 --> 2:18:24.240 and in doing so kind of defang the original sort 2:18:24.280 --> 2:18:28.280 of protest. Is that something that you've seen happening or 2:18:28.280 --> 2:18:31.320 the university's tried to do to like divide people or 2:18:31.360 --> 2:18:34.080 to kind of pull people out and appoint them as leaders. 2:18:35.080 --> 2:18:39.400 They've suspended the people that they believe to be primary 2:18:39.440 --> 2:18:43.560 student organizers, but in terms of other divisions, they have 2:18:43.680 --> 2:18:47.080 not been successful. These are students organizing with their classmates. 2:18:47.120 --> 2:18:51.520 It's not possible for some outside group to infiltrate that 2:18:51.600 --> 2:18:56.400 space because they are not students at this university. You know, 2:18:56.440 --> 2:19:01.680 there's SJP chapters that students are members of in their schools, 2:19:02.640 --> 2:19:05.040 but they are ultimately making the choices of what their 2:19:05.200 --> 2:19:08.680 SJP chapter is doing, and you know a lot of 2:19:08.720 --> 2:19:12.280 those SJP chapters have been suspended. So, you know, I 2:19:12.320 --> 2:19:16.440 think in terms of the possibility of the university having 2:19:16.480 --> 2:19:20.039 any sort of in to build some sort. 2:19:19.879 --> 2:19:21.920 Of op is very low. 2:19:22.360 --> 2:19:26.280 The solidarity that we're seeing is I don't think I've 2:19:26.320 --> 2:19:30.480 seen levels of people on the same page and able 2:19:30.560 --> 2:19:36.520 to organize. The literacy of it is just phenomenal. You know, 2:19:36.640 --> 2:19:39.920 there's people who are just they're all very like clearly 2:19:40.000 --> 2:19:43.560 knowledgeable about what it is that they're organizing for, what 2:19:43.640 --> 2:19:46.400 the risks are, what the history of the movement is, 2:19:46.760 --> 2:19:49.560 and they've spent a lot of time learning those things 2:19:50.240 --> 2:19:52.400 to make sure that when they decide to take a 2:19:52.440 --> 2:19:55.720 step forward, that they are doing so fully informed and 2:19:55.760 --> 2:19:59.720 fully empowered and trying to break that down is something 2:19:59.760 --> 2:20:03.320 that has not been successful. And we've seen that, you know, 2:20:03.440 --> 2:20:05.800 time and time again. They have this chance. The more 2:20:05.840 --> 2:20:07.520 you try to silence us, the louder we will be. 2:20:07.600 --> 2:20:12.279 And it's true, and these institutions should probably start believing 2:20:12.360 --> 2:20:15.520 it because it would save them a lot of trouble 2:20:16.080 --> 2:20:18.400 by you know, trying to write this off is something 2:20:18.440 --> 2:20:20.680 that you know, people don't know what they're doing or 2:20:21.040 --> 2:20:24.480 you know, whatever it is, because they are they know everything, 2:20:24.480 --> 2:20:26.959 They know everything. These are kids that all they do 2:20:27.000 --> 2:20:31.920 is study, you know, like you're talking about huge nerds 2:20:32.280 --> 2:20:38.440 joining into a massive, you know, decades long social movement. 2:20:38.520 --> 2:20:39.600 They've done the reading. 2:20:41.560 --> 2:20:44.160 Yeah, talking people who's done the reading. I wanted to 2:20:44.240 --> 2:20:46.760 talk about like faculty because I know a lot of 2:20:46.760 --> 2:20:49.360 people who are faculty at university's listened to this podcast, 2:20:50.360 --> 2:20:53.280 and I'm sure they're interested in, like how faculty have 2:20:53.600 --> 2:20:56.120 been in solidarity with students there, how they can be 2:20:56.160 --> 2:20:58.960 in solidarity with their own students. So have you seen that? 2:20:59.040 --> 2:21:00.480 Have you seen faculty up? 2:21:01.560 --> 2:21:01.760 Oh? 2:21:01.840 --> 2:21:05.760 Oh yeah, there was a massive faculty walk out the 2:21:05.800 --> 2:21:09.840 other day between Barnard and Columbia faculty members. The schools 2:21:09.840 --> 2:21:13.000 are kind of related. They're right across the street from 2:21:13.040 --> 2:21:15.040 each other, and they have a lot of overlap. Barnard's 2:21:15.080 --> 2:21:18.960 kind of under slightly under the university the Columbia umbrella, 2:21:19.000 --> 2:21:21.720 but still has the un president and things like that. 2:21:21.800 --> 2:21:24.360 And there was a huge faculty walk out from both 2:21:24.440 --> 2:21:27.720 campuses that gathered on the Low the steps of the 2:21:27.720 --> 2:21:31.640 Low Library, and it was easily hundreds I would say, 2:21:31.640 --> 2:21:34.160 maybe like five hundred people and. 2:21:34.120 --> 2:21:35.680 That was it. That was it Columbia. 2:21:35.720 --> 2:21:38.640 And then at NYU, the students set up an encampment 2:21:38.720 --> 2:21:42.400 and they were surrounded by faculty who had linked arms 2:21:42.520 --> 2:21:45.280 as a as a dazy chain around the encampment to 2:21:45.400 --> 2:21:49.400 protect the students. So we're seeing a very real, you know, 2:21:49.560 --> 2:21:54.000 multi layer of solidarity emerging in these spaces. And I 2:21:54.040 --> 2:21:57.560 think it's you know, even if the even if professors 2:21:57.720 --> 2:22:02.000 and faculty don't necessarily wholly or wholly understand they're not 2:22:02.480 --> 2:22:06.760 fully on the same wavelength as the student organizers, necessarily, 2:22:07.160 --> 2:22:09.360 they're still showing up on the basis of like, these 2:22:09.360 --> 2:22:14.000 students of the right to express their opinions and they 2:22:14.360 --> 2:22:18.640 should not be getting met with severe academic or state 2:22:18.800 --> 2:22:23.320 discipline for doing so. Because we've seen these same campuses 2:22:23.360 --> 2:22:26.879 open their doors to people like Charlie Charlie Kirk and 2:22:27.080 --> 2:22:30.400 Gavin McGinnis, and you know, like white supremacists and white 2:22:30.480 --> 2:22:33.520 nationalists who are able to go on their campuses and 2:22:33.560 --> 2:22:36.520 spread hate and you know, right going disinformation and try 2:22:36.560 --> 2:22:41.720 and recruit people through their you know, young Republican school chapters. 2:22:41.879 --> 2:22:45.199 Those chapters aren't being disbanded. You know, there's there isn't 2:22:45.560 --> 2:22:52.440 an urgent rush to prevent the hosting of white nationalists 2:22:52.480 --> 2:22:57.599 and white supremacists, and you know, people who are actually 2:22:58.520 --> 2:23:03.320 politically and intense anti Semitic to an extreme, they're not 2:23:03.360 --> 2:23:07.039 doing anything to actually like prevent those people from appearing 2:23:07.080 --> 2:23:10.600 on campus. So I think that there's there's a lot 2:23:10.600 --> 2:23:13.119 of layers to it, but there is a very strong 2:23:13.600 --> 2:23:16.240 surge of faculty saying like, hey, this is this is 2:23:16.640 --> 2:23:19.400 fucked up, and we're not We're not going to let 2:23:19.440 --> 2:23:21.320 you think that this is just kids that you're picking on, 2:23:21.400 --> 2:23:24.600 Like you're also attacking your own staff, who you know, 2:23:24.720 --> 2:23:29.080 has a longer relationship to the university, has a you know, 2:23:29.120 --> 2:23:30.800 as hard as it is as it is for these 2:23:30.879 --> 2:23:32.840 kids to get into the school, it's harder to get 2:23:32.920 --> 2:23:34.600 hired to work. 2:23:34.360 --> 2:23:37.000 Here, and so you know, we're seeing a lot of that. 2:23:37.040 --> 2:23:40.800 There's also security people who were put in charge of 2:23:40.920 --> 2:23:44.520 evicting students from their rooms at Barnard. 2:23:44.560 --> 2:23:48.279 Because Barnard has chosen that students at Barnard. 2:23:48.120 --> 2:23:51.240 Participated in this demo, they weren't only going to be 2:23:51.720 --> 2:23:55.199 suspended temporarily, but evicted from their housing, banned from campus, 2:23:55.280 --> 2:23:58.240 unable to access any food or meal plans, whereas the 2:23:58.320 --> 2:24:01.080 Columbia students have been suspended are still able to access 2:24:01.080 --> 2:24:02.920 housing and meal plans, but they aren't allowed to go 2:24:02.959 --> 2:24:06.480 to class or any campus events, which is fine because 2:24:06.480 --> 2:24:09.320 the only one that's happening right now is the encampment. 2:24:09.920 --> 2:24:12.440 But you know, there was there was a security person 2:24:12.480 --> 2:24:16.160 who sent an email to the school at Barnard saying, 2:24:16.200 --> 2:24:18.400 like I quit, Like this is this is inhumane, this 2:24:18.440 --> 2:24:21.880 is undignified, this is crazy. You're giving these students fifteen 2:24:21.920 --> 2:24:26.080 minutes to uproot themselves from their rooms. They might not 2:24:26.200 --> 2:24:28.520 have another place to go. These you know, these might 2:24:28.560 --> 2:24:33.000 be students who don't have a family's house. 2:24:33.320 --> 2:24:36.800 Nearby, or you know, or the funds or the. 2:24:36.800 --> 2:24:41.840 Means to live somewhere else and not worry about the 2:24:41.840 --> 2:24:44.960 cost you're you know, destabilizing people's lives in a very 2:24:45.000 --> 2:24:49.800 severe way. And this this you know, security person resigned. 2:24:49.840 --> 2:24:52.760 They're like this is nuts. So I think there's there's 2:24:52.800 --> 2:24:58.880 the fact that just the the overall what is of 2:24:58.920 --> 2:25:03.600 how these universities responding has provided a type of solidarity. 2:25:03.680 --> 2:25:05.520 And then there's also the fact that a lot of 2:25:05.560 --> 2:25:09.560 people just generally understand that genocide is bad, and it's 2:25:09.959 --> 2:25:13.160 gotten to a point where there's a lot of rhetoric 2:25:13.360 --> 2:25:17.640 trying to obscure that and obfuskate like what is genocide? 2:25:18.000 --> 2:25:20.800 And you know, Israel isroid truxs and all this other 2:25:21.240 --> 2:25:26.880 like bullshit like propaganda and disinformation and you know, fear 2:25:26.959 --> 2:25:27.959 mongering and all these things. 2:25:28.120 --> 2:25:30.480 And people can see very clearly what the game is. 2:25:31.160 --> 2:25:33.480 And so we're kind of at a pivotal moment for 2:25:34.760 --> 2:25:37.840 just common reality and critical thinking. 2:25:37.920 --> 2:25:39.039 And I think that we're seeing a. 2:25:39.000 --> 2:25:44.640 Lot of people show that the efforts to alter what 2:25:45.160 --> 2:25:48.240 our established common reality is is not working. 2:25:48.959 --> 2:25:50.480 And the Springs means is the thing I wanted to 2:25:50.480 --> 2:25:52.960 close on, which is where do you see this going? 2:25:54.440 --> 2:25:58.879 Oh, I'm an need a minute on that one. I mean, 2:25:59.360 --> 2:26:02.000 you know, we're at a very pivotal moment in history. 2:26:02.000 --> 2:26:05.960 There's a lot of comparisons being made to protests against 2:26:05.959 --> 2:26:09.080 the Vietnam War, and in those protests there was a 2:26:09.120 --> 2:26:12.480 lot of state violence, a lot of state repression, but 2:26:12.560 --> 2:26:16.680 there was also a lot of people willing to throw. 2:26:16.520 --> 2:26:20.920 Down in a very intense way. And you know, we're 2:26:20.959 --> 2:26:22.199 already seeing. 2:26:23.440 --> 2:26:28.800 Levels to that that have very very strong parallels, you know, 2:26:28.840 --> 2:26:32.200 with Lake Aaron Bushnell, which is also a story that 2:26:32.240 --> 2:26:37.960 I ended up breaking, And you know, like, so this 2:26:38.120 --> 2:26:41.600 is this is big, and I think that right now, 2:26:41.720 --> 2:26:44.840 in the midst of it, it's hard to guess what's 2:26:44.840 --> 2:26:47.560 going to happen two weeks from now or six months 2:26:47.560 --> 2:26:50.879 from now. But I guarantee you we all know what's 2:26:50.920 --> 2:26:53.200 going to happen fifty years from now. We're all going 2:26:53.240 --> 2:26:55.359 to look at this fifty years from now and be like, Wow, 2:26:56.360 --> 2:26:59.680 stay was on some dumb shit. Those protesters were right, 2:27:00.360 --> 2:27:03.280 and it's good that they didn't stop totally. 2:27:03.360 --> 2:27:05.920 Yeah, I think that's a great place to end, Talia. 2:27:06.160 --> 2:27:08.440 I wonder if you would like to let people know 2:27:08.480 --> 2:27:10.360 where they can find you, where they can read your work, 2:27:10.360 --> 2:27:11.720 how they can support your work. 2:27:12.840 --> 2:27:17.000 Sure, so I mostly report live on Twitter talia otg 2:27:17.400 --> 2:27:20.120 as in on the ground, and you can support me 2:27:20.240 --> 2:27:24.240 by signing up on Patreon for hopefully more than five 2:27:24.320 --> 2:27:29.039 dollars a month. Those those small donations cover the entirety 2:27:29.080 --> 2:27:34.640 of my living and survival and allow for me to 2:27:34.920 --> 2:27:37.360 do this work for the past four years. So I'm 2:27:37.400 --> 2:27:40.480 like incredibly grateful. You know, people can support on Patreon. 2:27:40.560 --> 2:27:42.480 They can also if you just want to do like 2:27:42.520 --> 2:27:45.920 a one time heard you on the pod loved it. 2:27:46.320 --> 2:27:48.680 I have like a PayPal and a Venmo and all 2:27:48.680 --> 2:27:51.680 that other shit on my Twitter account if people want 2:27:51.720 --> 2:27:56.240 to send a couple couple bucks that way, and you know, 2:27:56.240 --> 2:27:59.600 another way to support is send me tips if you 2:28:00.080 --> 2:28:03.320 if you decide that you're gonna do something, feel free 2:28:03.320 --> 2:28:05.400 to you know, email and bio. 2:28:07.360 --> 2:28:08.480 I always, I always want. 2:28:08.320 --> 2:28:12.120 To know send all your all your tips, especially if 2:28:12.120 --> 2:28:15.360 you're at Columbia University. Anything else do you want to 2:28:15.680 --> 2:28:17.760 plug or me or anything else need to do before 2:28:17.760 --> 2:28:17.959 we go. 2:28:18.600 --> 2:28:21.640 I'm sorry that my voice sounds really like this. 2:28:23.480 --> 2:28:26.880 It's I don't think I've I haven't gotten a lot 2:28:26.920 --> 2:28:30.359 of sleep, and I hope that everything I said was coherent, 2:28:30.400 --> 2:28:32.920 even though I was just giving you essay after essay 2:28:32.920 --> 2:28:33.600 after essay. 2:28:34.920 --> 2:28:37.400 It was fantastic. Thank you so much, Shatie. 2:28:37.480 --> 2:28:41.000 Thank you so much, and thank you guys. It's something 2:28:41.040 --> 2:28:43.360 I could say from everyone. I could happen here, from 2:28:43.400 --> 2:28:46.240 the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Fuck him, 2:28:46.400 --> 2:28:47.640 fuck him up, keep. 2:28:50.560 --> 2:28:54.040 Yeah, fucking get him. 2:28:54.760 --> 2:28:54.960 Hey. 2:28:55.040 --> 2:28:58.160 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 2:28:58.160 --> 2:28:59.840 now until we heat Death of the Universe. 2:29:00.480 --> 2:29:02.840 It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 2:29:03.040 --> 2:29:05.720 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:29:05.760 --> 2:29:08.880 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 2:29:08.920 --> 2:29:12.080 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:29:12.120 --> 2:29:14.800 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 2:29:14.840 --> 2:29:18.080 Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.