WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 50 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.359 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.600 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.440 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.960 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:17.919 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.119 there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:27.600 can make your own decisions. Welcome to the coort open. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.960 Here is practical guy to make it Puma culture happen 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.800 wherever you are. I am your host for this episode, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.840 Andrew of the YouTube channel andreis Um. I'm joined here 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:50.839 with Chris and Jeames lou Hello. Hi, thanks for having us, 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:58.400 Thanks having me the guest. Well, you're gonna walk us 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.280 through this. I'm very excited to learn more about it. Yes, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.680 so I really see it as a as a key 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.319 component in our restoration of the earth. And so I 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:13.760 find it necessary that regardless of what direction your individual 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.720 practice is going in, we're we're looking to specialize or whatever, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.959 couldn't quote specialized. I think it's still important to think 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.840 about where food comes from and think about way as 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:30.040 that we can enhanced and in large our food autonomy, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:38.400 especially considering the multi layering crises that you know compounding 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:46.560 these days. Puma culture was first coined as a tomb 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:52.720 by puma culturist Bill Mollison. It's a portmanteau of permanent 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.800 agriculture and permanent culture, and it's the conscious design and 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.560 mainstenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems MS which have a diversity, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.640 stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It's a way of 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.160 integrating landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.920 other material and other non material needs in a sustainable way. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.520 And just to be clear, the concepts, the ideas, the 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:26.760 principles that make up puma culture have existed long before 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:31.320 Bill Morrison was born, have existed in cultures all over 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.920 the world. Bill Molson is just someone who has, I 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:43.600 guess given it a spin for a modern audience. But 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:45.840 these principles, these ideas are things that have been in 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:51.160 practice for thousands of years, tens of thousands, even from 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:56.119 the approach to land management and settlement designed to the 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.679 whole systems thinking approach to nature which can be seen 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.000 in a lot of animals practices. It has a long history, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.320 and it's one that people who practice Puma culture today 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:17.160 research Puma culture will inevitably uncover in their learning process. However, 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.160 Bill Morrison first coined in the nineties seventies as a 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.120 response to the oil embargoes they were taking place at 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:32.120 the time. By bringing together the traditional knowledge of vastery 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:38.120 of indigenous cultures and combining them with certain modern design 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:45.200 and layouts, it created a movement that is now um 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.360 spreading across the world from every on every continent. Honestly, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:55.640 the way that Puma culture views um the world the 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:01.600 views systems. It comes with an outlook that recognizes it 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:06.640 all biological material is a potential energy source. The aim 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.480 is to try to trap energy on your land and 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:12.480 to use that energy the most efficient way before a 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:19.599 degrede to create circular economies and cycles of energy. That 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:26.839 how for actual sustainable agricultural practice, which unfortunately has not 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:32.279 been the aim of agriculture, especially industrial agriculture, and Superma 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:38.320 culture represents a challenge to that status cool. The ethics 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.800 of Puma culture are primarily focused on care for the earth, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.920 that being all living and on living things, care for 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.080 all people, there by promoting self reliance and community responsibility, 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.480 the sort of we all have access to the resources 0:04:55.560 --> 0:05:00.000 necessary for existence and care for community, and specifically communit 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.320 t that allows us to be to think of an 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:10.039 approach our society in a way that benefits all people 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.920 in all life, recognizing the community is not just our neighbors, 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.279 it's not just the people who live in our city 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.599 or town. It is all the living things that incorporate 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.960 our surroundings and beyond. The way that puman culture approaches 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.680 um design, it's a lot of his emphasis and mimicking 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.960 how the natural world would attempt to stabilize. Of course, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:44.360 these systems take thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:51.200 even millions of years two fully develop and age and 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.360 reach some kind of stable state. But public culture seeks 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.560 to learn from you know, these old growth forests and 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:06.679 these healthily ecosystems, and accelerate that process to establish things 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:13.880 that will last generations, to established spaces that will provide 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.559 for the needs of people hundreds of years down the line. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:23.919 When it comes to approaching pumic culture design practically, first 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.880 things first to recognize is that anybody can take part 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:33.240 in pumic culture design. Anybody can take part in constructing 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.120 these sources of systems, and it can be established. The 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:41.520 basic principles can be established regardless of your circumstances, your 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:48.440 individual climate or biosphere, because the principles are based on 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.400 following what nature was doing anyway. One of the first 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:59.919 principles involves the recognition of the connections in a local 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.560 Asian seeing that a web is stronger than a single string, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:10.080 meaning that all of these different parts, the different moving parts, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:16.400 coming together create something stronger than if each individual person, 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:22.120 each individual creature trying to move by itself. It also 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.920 looks at the connection between waste and resources. We all 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.400 on the old adage just says, you know, one man's 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.280 trash is another mantas of treasure, but when it comes 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.120 to ecosystems, we should really be taking it quite literally, 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:41.160 because the waste of one part of the system directly 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:47.320 feeds into the resource of another part. Decomposing plants and 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:55.840 animals directly feed into the fungal networks and flourishing of 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:00.200 the next generation of plants, animals, as and in at 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.360 web in that network. In those connections, we can also 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:09.400 recognize for principle too, that each element performs multiple functions. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.360 If we are for example, keeping chickens. They can be 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:19.520 a source of eggs and feathers and protein, of course, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:25.520 but they also produced mania, and their daily activity helps 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:32.320 to aerate the soil. And they also provide insect control um, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.720 allowing your plans to food and flourish banana trees. They 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.959 provide bananas, of course, they provide fruit. They also provide 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.160 starch and mulch and protection and shade, and they hold 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.840 water quite well. Actually, when I had taken a puma 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.079 culture design course a couple of months ago, one of 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.439 the things that I had learned from the guy who 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.040 was running it was that he had told his story 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.760 and he had done this this project in Barbarous and 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:05.160 in Barbado was he was called to restore sort of 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:10.760 like an old sand mine um because it run out 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:12.720 of sand. Well, it's close running out of sand. And 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.480 so the community that was reliant in that sand mine 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.240 didn't really have any direction um because their economy, their 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.640 local economy, been so reliant on those jobs. When he 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:25.800 came in, it's just like and he showed the pictures, 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:31.520 it's just very very barren landscape, very dry, very dusty, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:39.640 And I was honestly in disbelief that something so dead, 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.760 so destroyed, something so devolved, could be as radically transformed 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.079 as he had transformed it. Unfortunately, this is a podcast, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.280 not a video, or otherwise I would show you the pictures. 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:56.880 But the transformation was stunning. I want of the elements 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.240 that he had used to transform that dry lands ape 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:07.559 into a lush food forest was banana trees, because surprisingly, 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.440 banana trees are very effective. Well, unsurprisingly, banana trees are 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:19.240 very effective at growing quickly and providing shade to other plants, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:21.679 and so as these other plants are growing up, they 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.280 have the shaded banana tree to protect them from the 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.760 harsh sun and to the banana trees. While they may 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.120 not be the top doors to the forest in the end, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.560 by the time the forest is fully established, because banana 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.840 trees don't get that tall, they still vital in that 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:41.160 early stage in providing that function of shade that allows 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.600 the rest of the forest to establish itself. That's really cool. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:51.080 It's very very very cool. Which all pictures after, it's 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.040 like a place people could see them online like Instagram, 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:59.640 they could look up or something. Yes, so um, if 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:05.440 you go on Wassamaki Puma culture dot org. I believe 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.160 he has the pictures up there that'll be w E 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:14.600 S E M A k I Puma culture dot org. 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.960 And if I remember correctly, he has the pictures on there. Yeah, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.280 was it like a sand mine before or something? Yeah, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.400 it was a sand mine. Yeah, jeez, wow, it looks 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.400 like there's no goodness in the soil and the first 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.960 one and then yeah, yeah, to go back into the 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.680 recording aspect when it came to that project, a large 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.320 part of it was just getting that life in the soil. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:49.000 So they were taken. They were getting mulch and manua 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.600 from wherever they could get it, just to give some 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.200 life for that soil. They would grow sitting like hardy, 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.000 fast growing plants and then chopped them down after they'd 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.720 grow in sufficiently so they would die right where they 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:09.000 lay and provide nutrients to the soil. And that process 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.120 was what helps to build up that soil even before 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.600 you started planting the bananas and other stuff. And were 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.360 they able like you're saying, they were getting some of 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.160 that stuff wherever they could get it, like, and were 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.360 they able to get that that was it like considered 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.600 a waste product? I guess better people they got it from, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.560 and so like I know, I have chickens and they 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.679 obviously produced like manure, and I'll put some of it 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.720 in my like vegetables to the grow. But I'll just 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.319 give it to anyone else who wants it. It is 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.480 that a thing that they were able to do there? Yeah, 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.040 I think people are donated UM. And I mean I 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.400 would assume at least in turn, I don't know what 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.640 the cases in Barbados, but in turn that they are 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.120 bush trucks which pass every once in a while to 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:01.760 collect whatever, you know, branches and cut grass and whatever 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.400 people have puts out um from their yard will go whatever. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.480 So I would assume that they would have asked the 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.480 bush truck people to you know, bring some of that 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.120 stuff to the site to help out, because a lot 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:17.440 of people, you know, they just put that in front 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.080 of the yard waiting for the bush struck to pass. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.920 And so a lot of very good potential sources of 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:29.160 like UM ecosystem building, that sort of that so called 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:35.600 waste really resources gets wasted when it could really see UM, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.559 a lot of these kinds of projects. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, yes, 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.680 something that like I don't know if if you ever 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.719 read UN documents about like stopping climate change. Like they 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.079 always have a giant section about circular about circular economy stuff, 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.959 but about sort of I mean, basically doing this stuff 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.400 and then nothing ever happens and no one ever does it, 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.640 and so yeah, it's it's really cool all that, like 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.719 this is a place where those ideas which like are 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.680 if there's if we are going to survive as a 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.200 species with like most of us alive and doing well, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:17.400 we're going to have to do exactly. I'm I'm kind 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.440 of reminded just on this sort of topic of I 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.080 was in Rwanda and February, and one of the things 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.400 that really struck me with this system of agriculture that 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:33.320 they've devised where um, they have patties that they grow 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.360 rice right like submerged, and then in there there are 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.080 living fish and then above them they are like little 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.960 hutches with rabbits and I'm so like the rabbit manure 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.120 helps to fertilize what's growing beneath, and then like it's 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.360 this kind of circular thing where I think they can 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.600 feed some of the things that they cut off the 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.000 plant to the rabbits and it's sort of like and 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.240 the fish will help keep the water clean. I think 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.640 that like filter fish, I can't quite a plan to 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.800 keep it clean for the fish. It was fascinating. I 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.640 was like, this is amazing, Like they're not as opposed 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.240 to I grew up on a farm and I'm very 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.920 familiar with some of the larger arable sort of grain, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:18.000 but like grains in the UK, and how you're relying 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.280 on a ton of exogenous inputs, which I was just 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.360 so impressed with the fact that they devised a system 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.080 that didn't require those exactly exactly you really want to. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.440 Of course you might, we will have to get external sources, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.280 especially in the beginning as you're trying to establish the system, 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.200 but the aim is really to have this system continuously 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:46.520 establishing itself and expanding itself and maintaining itself. Yeah, would 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:52.200 it be a system that works mostly with like a 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.040 plant based food stuff, so I guess that seems generally 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:02.840 to be more sustainable. Absolutely. I mean, man Ya's a 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.960 really powerful source of fertilizer. And I think you can 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:12.040 keep animals without you know, eating them or using them 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.800 anyway if you just want to, you know, because they 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:20.720 make good companions and stuff as well. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.800 I would say a plant focus system could definitely but 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.760 and to sort of rhyme or aligned with principle too, 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.880 which said that each element performs multiple functions. It's also 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.400 important to have each function supported very multiple elements. Right, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.240 So you don't want to get all your food from 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.800 one source. You want to have a mix of trees 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.640 and roots and short crops and cultivates. I mean having 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.840 all your food coming from one sources. Basically what we 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.600 do now with you know, these mono cultures, with these 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.880 this industrial farming that has these fields and fields and 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:03.920 fields that are so susceptible to pests and disease that 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:08.199 we have to basically drench them with chemicals just a 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.880 lot to survive. Because and the same guy who did 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.760 the course, he explains it me like this. He said 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:20.880 that when there's a system in nature and it's not 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.120 in balance, they basically send out a signal saying, eight, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.639 this is not in balance, come and fix it. And 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.600 so these so called pests, these bugs and stuff, they 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.960 come to these aberrations, these freaks of nature, these massive 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:45.280 fields of crops, and recognizing that this is not sustainable 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:54.120 um establishments in the landscape, they try to try to optimize. Right, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.640 he calls them. He doesn't call them pests. He calls 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:02.320 them optimizers. So if you have, for example, uh, excessive 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.560 amount of a certain pest in your system, something's wrong 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.520 with that system because those so called pests, those optimizers 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:14.840 are only able to flood your system because they don't 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.480 have the mechanism. System doesn't have the mechanisms in place 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.440 to keep them in check. So you don't have the fauna, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:26.520 the larger insects and stuff in your system that will 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.160 keep those pests in check. There's an imbalance in place, 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.159 and that's something that needs to be rectified, and there 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.600 different ways to rectified depend on this situation. Another example, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.680 and this isn't um from the pooma culture poom culture course. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.800 Another example was the this I believe someone was talking 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.480 about the presence of wolves in some of the parks 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.960 in in the US and how reintroducing those wolves did 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.320 so much too regulate the rest of the ecosystem, the 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.880 ripple effects that had an arrest the ecosystem UM stabilizing 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:08.880 the day of populations and stabilizing UM the beaver populations, 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.639 and stabilizing all these other different plants and animal species 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.160 that you would think are not even connected to the wolves, 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.480 but still their presence creating a significant rule in maintaining 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.439 that balance. Yeah. Go go watch how wolves change rivers. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.120 It's literally five minutes and it rules. Yeah, it's amazing. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.280 It's just like the concept of rewilding. Is that what 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.840 would that be a similar thing? Yeah? Yeah, rewilding is 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:41.639 basically it's puma culture had to be more focused on 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:50.000 sustaining human communities in you know, in a balance with 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.280 the rest of the natural world, whereas rewilding is more 0:19:54.320 --> 0:20:01.600 focused on helping to rebuild ecosystems outside of the human 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.720 sphere at He says, I understand it. Yeah, yeah, that 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.640 makes no sense to me. So with principle three, which 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.879 was three or rate, was that each function should be 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.080 supported by multiple elements. You would want to get all 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.920 your food from one source. You just want to grow 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.399 like rows and rows of trees or rows and rows 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.800 of corn. You want to grow a mix of trees 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.360 and roots and short crops and cultivars and all these 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:34.040 different species and variations that would make up like an 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:39.640 actual forest. The food forest is approach that a lot 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.439 of prima culturists would advocate, and within a food forest, 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:50.240 you would have I believe seven major groups. This sort 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:55.280 of seven levels that creator sort of a beneficial system. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.040 On the top layer, you have the canopy, which consists 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.720 of large fruits and nut trees. They provide the most 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.960 shade and they keep the whole area they'll climb into 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.800 the area stable. On that second layer, you're gonna have 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.439 the low tree layer, which has the dwarf fruit trees. 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.879 The smaller fruit trees would fall under the canopy. On 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.840 the third layer, you would have the shrub layer where 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.240 you would grow you know, your berries and other small 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:27.200 you know plants. And below that you have the ubecious 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:32.320 layer where you would grow different houbs and spices and 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.159 things like that. And then below that you have your 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.000 root vegetables, and below that you have well, you can 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.640 really go below the roof vegetables, but next to those 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.760 three vegetables, you would want to grow your soil surface crops, 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:49.359 your ground cover um like they're sitting running beans and stuff. 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.159 That would help to create a groundcover which protects the 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:58.080 soil and prevents the establishment of undesirable plants, which we 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.119 quote wheats. And then finally the seventh layers, the poutical layer, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.880 which consists of the climbers and vines. It would establish 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.879 themselves on the low tree layer and the canopy. So 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.280 if you have that sort of food forest system in 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:16.600 places all those seven layers, you're not getting each function 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:19.840 supported by one element to getting it supported by many elements. 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.800 The same goes for water. You want to get all 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:28.200 your water source coming from just like the pipes and 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.080 whatever water the government sent you, you want to have 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:35.200 water coming from the rain. If possible, you might want 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.080 to tap into the water table, or you might want 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.720 to depending on your situation. You might have extreme or 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:43.480 you might be on a hill, in which case you'd 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.760 have water flowing down, and you want to find ways 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.800 to trap that water and to consive that water so 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:55.760 that is distributed throughout your system. Unlike regular home garden. 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:00.440 Part of the aim of a puma culture um system 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.399 is that it just like in nature, it waters itself, 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:07.679 it takes care of itself, and so you're going to 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.359 have to want You're gonna want to have all sources 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:15.280 of different sources of water elements in place to provide 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:18.760 that water. The same goes for energy. You would want 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:21.280 to get all the energy from one source. You want 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:27.640 to combine you know, human power, animal power, hydro electricity 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:33.439 if possible, soul of power if possible. Basically, redundancy is 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:38.159 very important. Redundancy is very important, and I'll see it 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:44.720 again for emphasis. Redundancy is very important. The next principle, 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:49.280 principle number four, is that you want to approach puma 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:56.280 culture with energy efficiency in mind, particularly your own energy. 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.480 So on the more practical side of things, if you 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:03.200 you might want to do what my mentor my guide 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:07.440 had done, which was a zone and sector analysis. So basically, 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.960 you draw like a map of your space. You outline 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:15.679 your daily patterns and the energies that come from outside 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:18.440 your site, like wind and rain and flood and fire 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:22.359 and pollution and noise and smells and all these different things. 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.240 You want to look at how you move through your space. 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:28.119 Want look at how the sunshine passes over your space. 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:30.560 You want to look at the view and you want 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.360 to try to harness those good energies, whether it be 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:38.920 the rain or wind or whatever it maybe the sun 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:43.920 and plant. Accordingly, you don't want to have sun sensitive 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:49.199 plants on like the south side of your property of 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:53.480 your space wherever the spaces, and you wouldn't want to 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.080 have plants to eat a lot of sun in the shade. 0:24:57.600 --> 0:24:59.639 You also want to divvy up your space. Once you've 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:01.920 you know, on that map of you space, you're wanted 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.440 to get up into zoons. So I first zone not 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:09.359 be your immediate live in space. The second zone would 0:25:09.440 --> 0:25:13.960 have an intensive kitchen garden sorry first soon it would 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:17.399 be a place of consumption and processing of whatever it 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:19.919 is that your system is producing. It doesn't necessarily have 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:24.600 to be a house. It could be uh community kitchen, 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:30.520 or it can be uh campus clubhouse. I don't know. 0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:33.200 It could be any space that you're using for consumption 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:36.120 and processing. The next zone is going to be intensive 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:38.119 kitchen garden. It's a place where you would want to 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:44.800 grow the plants that cycle through more quickly, UM, the 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:46.760 spices and the herbs and the different things that you 0:25:46.760 --> 0:25:50.800 would use on a regular basis. The next zone I 0:25:50.840 --> 0:25:56.000 would want to have its focus on local support, community 0:25:56.040 --> 0:26:00.680 support and surplus. So this zone UM, the first zone 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.840 is actually technically zone zero. The second zonner Zone one 0:26:04.080 --> 0:26:06.600 as a Zone two, which is that sort of local 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:11.040 support space that orchard is we want to grow, UM, 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:16.040 your fruit trees, your ornamentals, UM, I want to raise 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:18.919 raise animals there and you basically wanted to be a 0:26:18.960 --> 0:26:23.760 space where you can provide for the local community, separate 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:28.320 and apart from your own produce. Zone three would also 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:32.359 have the emphasis on production. Zone three probably the space 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:35.440 where you have your main crops, the crops you spend 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:39.000 a lot of time focusing on. Zone four would also 0:26:39.080 --> 0:26:46.840 have a lot of investment in establishing a sustainable sort 0:26:46.880 --> 0:26:50.200 of life cycle um for more long term plants, and 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:58.800 Zone five would be a space of wilderness, of forest 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:05.320 of wildlife, orridors that allow spaces of free wilding even 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:13.080 within your mall constructed site. Having your system split into 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:18.879 zones helps you to reduce the amount of work that 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:21.280 you put in, the amount of resources use, the amount 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:24.639 of maintenance you'll need, and it also helps you to 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:29.280 boost to yields and to recycle resources most effectively. The 0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:37.920 fifth principle is the use of biological resources natural insecticides, timber, 0:27:39.040 --> 0:27:42.399 nitrogen fixers, whatever the case may be, you want to 0:27:42.400 --> 0:27:47.879 be using the systems that have evolved to fulfill those rules. 0:27:48.040 --> 0:27:52.520 To fulfill those rules, you may or may not be 0:27:52.600 --> 0:27:57.720 afraid of certain creatures. I myself, personally, I don't like 0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:04.200 frogs or toads or really I don't like most animals personally, 0:28:04.200 --> 0:28:07.159 I just survide with them. However, Comma, I recognize the 0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:11.520 importance right, So frogs and bats and snakes, all of 0:28:11.520 --> 0:28:16.920 these creatures helped provide like a stable system, whether it 0:28:16.960 --> 0:28:21.520 be a snakes dealing with um crats or bats stealing 0:28:21.560 --> 0:28:25.159 with insects, or frogs also dealing with insects. You men 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:28.600 want to use companion planting as well, um like the 0:28:28.640 --> 0:28:32.320 three sisters method, which is a combination of beans, corn, 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:37.080 and what's the three one again with squashes, right, and 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:40.960 squash and that would help to establish you know itself 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:43.840 and maintain itself. It's sort of like a microcosm of 0:28:43.960 --> 0:28:47.480 the Bronda Puber culture concept and one that has been 0:28:47.920 --> 0:28:54.440 in practice funititive years. The sixth principle is the practice 0:28:54.440 --> 0:29:01.480 of energy cycling. Trapping sunlight through greenhouses is making the 0:29:01.600 --> 0:29:04.840 most used basically out of the energy that flews through 0:29:04.880 --> 0:29:09.400 your system before it leaves your system, recycling the organic 0:29:09.440 --> 0:29:13.160 matter that passes three system so that produces no real 0:29:13.240 --> 0:29:18.200 waste um. When I was at the site at the 0:29:18.360 --> 0:29:25.200 Puma Culture forest, I witnessed compost toilet for the first 0:29:25.240 --> 0:29:30.720 time and was immediately grossed up by the concept. However, 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:37.600 Comma upon being blown away by the product of those 0:29:37.600 --> 0:29:40.920 compost toilets, I changed my tune very quickly. And although 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.560 I would not I probably would not use a compost 0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:48.000 toilet on a regular basis. I think it has some benefit, um, 0:29:48.040 --> 0:29:52.960 because we're flushing away some some real power, some real 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:57.400 nutrition stuff. Um. Of course, there are risks associated with 0:29:57.480 --> 0:30:01.360 using human mania, but the process that he had put 0:30:01.360 --> 0:30:06.480 in place involved using human waste um. And then for 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:10.160 every certain amount of human waste, you dump sawdust on 0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:13.200 top of it. And that sawdust helps to deal with 0:30:13.240 --> 0:30:15.880 the smell um so much so that I actually didn't 0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:19.240 smell anything when I opened up those those compost toilets. 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:22.240 But it also helps to create that balance between the 0:30:22.280 --> 0:30:26.640 carbon and the nitrogen that is required for compost. And 0:30:26.720 --> 0:30:31.959 so after that, after a tub has been filled compost toy, 0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:35.040 the toub has been filled, he seals it up, leaves 0:30:35.080 --> 0:30:37.760 it for a year to break down, and by the 0:30:37.760 --> 0:30:40.960 time it comes out it's just like regular soil. However, 0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:44.800 of course safety prequestions, I believe he only uses it 0:30:45.000 --> 0:30:47.840 for his orchards, so only like fruit trees and other 0:30:47.920 --> 0:30:50.520 kinds of trees. I spent a lot of time so 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:55.120 far discussing these sort of larger systems where you know, 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:58.720 I'm basically assuming you have several acres of land like 0:30:58.800 --> 0:31:01.680 this guy does. I don't have several leakers of land. 0:31:01.680 --> 0:31:05.800 I don't have an inch of land um, and I 0:31:05.840 --> 0:31:09.080 feel like a lot of people listening don't. So there 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:13.080 are elements that you can incorporate on the small scale, 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:18.960 such as grew boxes. You can have deep litter beds, 0:31:19.400 --> 0:31:24.280 you can have aquaculture systems, and that's actually one of 0:31:24.320 --> 0:31:29.000 the things that he Foost established um which is like 0:31:29.240 --> 0:31:31.560 a series of aquaculture systems, and it's actually one of 0:31:31.600 --> 0:31:35.520 the main focuses of his project to this day. But 0:31:35.680 --> 0:31:38.480 I was quite surprised as to the yield that could 0:31:38.520 --> 0:31:40.800 be produced from something as simple as a couple of 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:43.600 pipes put together with some to me to plants grown 0:31:43.600 --> 0:31:48.520 out of it. So I mean, don't underestimate yourself or 0:31:49.200 --> 0:31:52.600 this pace available to you, because it might not be 0:31:52.680 --> 0:31:56.400 able to plant to whole forest, but you can do 0:31:56.480 --> 0:32:01.200 a little something. Coming back to the food forest concept, 0:32:01.280 --> 0:32:04.920 the eighth principle is the use of natural plant succession 0:32:04.960 --> 0:32:08.479 and stack. It you are a group plants together, they 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:11.160 would give a continuing production over time and both the 0:32:11.200 --> 0:32:15.320 short term and long term. And like I established, you 0:32:15.400 --> 0:32:19.320 want to have those layers in place, the roots, divines, 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:26.840 the trees, etcetera. The ninth principle encourages diversity, encourages poly culture, 0:32:27.880 --> 0:32:30.360 which is something that I'm sure you would have picked 0:32:30.440 --> 0:32:35.120 up on by now. The tenth principle is increasing the 0:32:35.280 --> 0:32:42.200 edge within a system by creating unique niches that allow 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:50.800 for the more rare, the more vulnerable corners of life 0:32:51.480 --> 0:32:54.360 to sustain themselves. And I think that's something that a 0:32:54.360 --> 0:32:57.400 lot of pum and culturists do in terms of establishing 0:32:57.400 --> 0:33:00.320 their own systems. They have like a special food cocus, 0:33:00.840 --> 0:33:04.440 certain passion project to certain species that they just love 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:06.360 and want to see flourish, and so they create these 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:10.960 niches within their systems that allow allow for those creatures 0:33:11.000 --> 0:33:17.280 to flourish. Principal eleven employers that you observe natural patterns. 0:33:18.160 --> 0:33:23.920 Nature rarely goes in a street line, and you may 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:29.400 want to make that pattern, whether be spirals or waves 0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:33.400 or branches, whether it be patterns over time from you know, 0:33:33.640 --> 0:33:36.680 the week to the month of the year to repeating 0:33:36.760 --> 0:33:41.200 patterns in the weather or the seasons. You want to 0:33:41.200 --> 0:33:46.320 be observing these patterns and adjusting system continually. The early 0:33:46.360 --> 0:33:51.760 parts of establishing a puma culture system is certainly the 0:33:51.800 --> 0:33:56.240 most difficult part. But even five to ten years down 0:33:56.280 --> 0:34:00.680 the line, when the system is more established, more sell sustaining, 0:34:01.400 --> 0:34:05.520 he still want to be playing that role of tweaking 0:34:05.560 --> 0:34:08.040 it as you go along. And I think that's something 0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:10.879 that more people need to recognize about humanity. We didn't 0:34:10.880 --> 0:34:13.440 just spring on to hear like some sort of alien 0:34:13.760 --> 0:34:18.960 parasite leaching off of the youth, right, We just like 0:34:19.040 --> 0:34:21.880 every other animal, like every other creature on this planet, 0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:26.880 have a role to play in the ecosystems we inhabit. Unfortunately, 0:34:26.920 --> 0:34:29.040 a lot of that activity has been destructive because of 0:34:29.080 --> 0:34:32.520 how all socio economic system has been structured. But that's 0:34:32.560 --> 0:34:35.319 something we have a role and changeing. And part of 0:34:35.360 --> 0:34:43.759 that is recognizing that we are stewards. We we we 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:47.880 can be good stewards. We can't help to facilitate the 0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:51.720 flourishing of life. We don't have to be grim reapers 0:34:52.440 --> 0:34:55.279 upon the systems that we are a part of. And 0:34:55.320 --> 0:34:59.719 so even as you're late, couldn't quote in these long 0:34:59.840 --> 0:35:04.600 term projects twenty years, thirty years, you're still going to 0:35:04.680 --> 0:35:10.680 be tweaking and cultivating and hopefully expanding these systems over time. 0:35:11.120 --> 0:35:14.640 Principles twelve reminds us we gotta pay attention to the 0:35:14.680 --> 0:35:18.800 scale of these systems, to the long term of these systems, 0:35:19.200 --> 0:35:23.320 recognizing that this is something you want to establish over generations. 0:35:23.480 --> 0:35:29.960 And finally, Principle number thirteen is be positive experiments small, 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:35.480 learning from your mistakes, scale up, bringing more people, get involved, 0:35:35.560 --> 0:35:39.680 get more of your community, of your social circle, of 0:35:39.719 --> 0:35:43.279 your family, of your affinity group, of whatever the case 0:35:43.280 --> 0:35:48.960 is going to be, get more people involved. Um in 0:35:49.280 --> 0:35:56.600 imagining this complex, beautiful revolutionary project, we have a long 0:35:56.640 --> 0:36:00.359 way to go, but a lot of prom as could 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:02.680 be made in a short space of time, and a 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:06.120 lot of projects already going on. With this ended mind, 0:36:06.640 --> 0:36:09.280 I would sugg just going online really and just switching 0:36:09.320 --> 0:36:12.760 for the different Pooma culture projects happening around the world, 0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:16.440 whether it be the food forests that Jeff law Turner 0:36:16.520 --> 0:36:21.040 is working to establish in Morocco, or the puma culture 0:36:21.360 --> 0:36:24.799 Pumablitz systems that people are putting in place in Australia 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:31.360 and or the greening the Sahara projects in the Sahel 0:36:31.480 --> 0:36:38.080 region across Africa, or the many small skill projects taking 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:40.719 place and large scale projects taking place across the America's 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:42.880 there a lot of people putting in this work, and 0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:49.440 there's a large community, um willing and able to support 0:36:49.960 --> 0:36:54.520 as you hopefully embark upon this journey. That's about it 0:36:54.560 --> 0:36:59.560 for me. Yeah, that's that's fascinating and I'm really interesting 0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:03.319 is that. I think, Yeah, it's it's massively missing in 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:07.120 our discussion about like I don't know how to phrase 0:37:07.160 --> 0:37:10.759 this rightly, but like making a better world, just to 0:37:10.880 --> 0:37:14.000 give it a really broad sort of phrasing. And when 0:37:14.080 --> 0:37:17.920 we often think about like political discourse and when we 0:37:17.920 --> 0:37:22.959 think about political systems, but without food systems, we really 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:27.960 like the hierarchy of needs is not satisfied, right, And 0:37:28.040 --> 0:37:33.560 I think that folks listening can make a really positive change, 0:37:33.560 --> 0:37:36.200 really really quickly and in their own lives and spaces 0:37:36.239 --> 0:37:41.160 if they sort of spend some time with this stuff. Yeah, absolutely, 0:37:41.880 --> 0:37:44.600 and it's cool. I think, um an important to to 0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:48.239 reference that like so much of this like we're like 0:37:48.320 --> 0:37:50.279 the person you named a start who's name I'm sorry 0:37:50.560 --> 0:37:53.960 I've forgotten, but like, um, I think, yeah, it's important 0:37:53.960 --> 0:37:57.160 to a reference that these are indigenous ways of knowing 0:37:57.239 --> 0:38:00.279 and doing and being and living and like you said, 0:38:00.320 --> 0:38:04.200 they've existed for millennia and like going back to that, 0:38:04.400 --> 0:38:07.080 it's good as part of the largest sort of way 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:10.080 of respecting indigenous cultures and land rights and all the 0:38:10.120 --> 0:38:28.280 other things we need to do. Ah, it could happen. 0:38:28.360 --> 0:38:32.480 Here is a podcast that you're listening to, and you know, 0:38:32.840 --> 0:38:35.840 mostly we talk about problems that you should be aware of. 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:39.840 Sometimes we talk about solutions, and today we're kind of 0:38:39.880 --> 0:38:42.000 going to talk about a solution. Today is one of 0:38:42.000 --> 0:38:47.640 our famed good News episodes. So everybody, everybody celebrate and 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:50.279 also give your name for the folks at home. Yea, 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:58.840 I'm James, Yay, I'm Gare, Yeah, I'm Chris. Wonderful. That 0:38:58.880 --> 0:39:02.200 was perfect. That was that is completely natural, just just 0:39:02.280 --> 0:39:06.799 like we practiced. Um. So the thing that the thing 0:39:06.840 --> 0:39:09.480 that is noteworthy and the thing that we're celebrating and 0:39:09.520 --> 0:39:12.920 also explained today, is that this summer we were recording 0:39:12.960 --> 0:39:18.840 this what like a day into September, two days into September, UM, 0:39:18.880 --> 0:39:21.360 so we are we are. Yeah, it's September one. So 0:39:21.400 --> 0:39:26.160 we have officially gotten through the summer um without a 0:39:26.239 --> 0:39:30.200 right wing rally in Portland that degenerates into a gigantic brawl. 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:32.799 This is the first year that has happened since two 0:39:32.800 --> 0:39:36.800 thousands seventeen. So starting in two thousand seventeen, Patriot Prayer 0:39:36.880 --> 0:39:40.680 and the Proud Boys and other affiliated groups would vary 0:39:40.760 --> 0:39:42.759 regularly and they would do it throughout the year, but 0:39:42.840 --> 0:39:47.440 particularly during the summers, um hold protests and marches, and 0:39:47.640 --> 0:39:50.920 these all had different themes. They were the Second Amendment rallies, 0:39:51.000 --> 0:39:54.240 rally against Marxism rally and support of the fucking cops, 0:39:54.360 --> 0:39:57.760 the hymn to rally, all sorts of stupid, stupid fucking 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:00.759 names um. But the main problem, the main purpose of 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:03.239 them all was so that there would be gigantic fist 0:40:03.280 --> 0:40:06.880 fights between you know, Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer brawlers 0:40:06.960 --> 0:40:09.680 and anti fascists. That was the reason to hold these events, 0:40:10.000 --> 0:40:14.160 and they got increasingly gnarly and increasingly violent, until everything 0:40:14.200 --> 0:40:17.960 culminated in the summer of this massive Trump caravan through 0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:21.000 the city with like thousands of trucks, people shooting paintballs 0:40:21.000 --> 0:40:24.640 and spraying mace and throwing shipped off the back of trucks, 0:40:24.640 --> 0:40:29.359 and then a Patriot Prayer member named Aaron Danielson got 0:40:29.400 --> 0:40:33.000 his ass shot to death by an anti fascist during 0:40:33.239 --> 0:40:37.239 a somewhat unclear altercation outside of a parking garage. What 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:40.000 I can say is that everyone involved was heavily armed. 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:45.759 UM and yeah. After that there were some more very 0:40:45.880 --> 0:40:51.080 ugly fights. But UM, an increasing like thing that happened 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:53.440 was that there would be gunfire at these protests. And 0:40:53.960 --> 0:40:58.319 the next year UM, at an anniversary fucking fistfight thing, 0:40:59.360 --> 0:41:02.600 a right winged administrator fired into a crowd of anti 0:41:02.600 --> 0:41:05.640 fascists in downtown for Portland, who returned fire and drove 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:09.399 him off. He was arrested. UM. A bunch of there 0:41:09.440 --> 0:41:12.000 was a big stupid fight at a kmart in another 0:41:12.000 --> 0:41:15.160 part of town the same day debandoned kmart parking lot 0:41:15.200 --> 0:41:18.760 that held a massive brawl and several of them got 0:41:18.800 --> 0:41:22.040 Several of the proud boy types got real nasty charges 0:41:22.080 --> 0:41:25.120 from that one. After the police, as they generally did, 0:41:25.239 --> 0:41:28.239 chose not to take any kind of action. UM and 0:41:28.280 --> 0:41:31.160 then you know, things kind of peat it out, UM 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:34.280 and nothing. There have not been any right wing rallies since. 0:41:34.360 --> 0:41:37.800 There was one mass shooting attack on a weekly racial 0:41:37.840 --> 0:41:41.560 justice protest in Portland earlier this year, UM, where a 0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:44.680 fascist fired into a crowd of women who were doing 0:41:44.719 --> 0:41:49.160 corking duty. Um he killed one woman, um, and he 0:41:49.360 --> 0:41:55.520 wounded four other people and um, yeah, he was taken down, 0:41:55.640 --> 0:41:59.160 shot twice in the hip by a protester who was 0:41:59.320 --> 0:42:02.560 armed security for that march. And after that there hasn't 0:42:02.560 --> 0:42:04.880 really been anything. And this is the interesting one of 0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:06.480 the things that There's a number of things that are 0:42:06.520 --> 0:42:08.880 interesting here, but one of them is that this has 0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:13.719 occurred while Proud Boy chapters are recording record recruitment. There's 0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:16.120 more new chapters of the Proud Boys than there were 0:42:16.200 --> 0:42:19.040 prior to January six, and there have been at least 0:42:19.080 --> 0:42:22.440 two hundreds something right wing gatherings around the country with 0:42:22.480 --> 0:42:25.160 like Proud Boys and other affiliated groups in attendance since 0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:29.960 January six. UM, So nationwide, the kind of rallies that 0:42:30.000 --> 0:42:33.160 Portland's been sing since got more common, and they didn't 0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:34.880 happen at all in Portland this year. And that's what 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:37.520 we're here to talk about today. I think there's a 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:41.400 couple of things that are have contributed to the current 0:42:41.400 --> 0:42:44.000 state of affairs, UM, which I think broadly can be 0:42:44.040 --> 0:42:47.480 described as the right is kind of scared to do 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:50.319 big events in Portland. There have been a couple of 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:53.080 like sputtering attempts. They drove through town on their way 0:42:53.120 --> 0:42:55.760 to Washington real quickly as part of this caravan once, 0:42:56.080 --> 0:42:58.399 but they didn't go through downtown again. It wasn't like 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:00.960 one guy did fire it people on a bridge with 0:43:01.000 --> 0:43:04.040 a handgun, which the police did nothing about. But they're 0:43:04.040 --> 0:43:05.680 not willing to like hang around. And I think there's 0:43:05.680 --> 0:43:08.480 a few reasons why they've been scared off. Number One, 0:43:08.600 --> 0:43:13.120 they keep getting shot UM. That has happened several times now. UM. 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.960 Number Two, the physical resistance to them has been gnarlier 0:43:17.000 --> 0:43:20.480 as of the fights. UM, people have gotten smarter about 0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:23.040 how they do some aspects of the fighting, involving like 0:43:23.120 --> 0:43:26.560 a lot of property, like spraying paint on people's fancy 0:43:26.600 --> 0:43:29.800 body armor and ship, which is expensive. And then after 0:43:30.080 --> 0:43:33.640 five years of ignoring it, UM, the state has actually 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:38.080 started charging right wing brawlers with felonies, which has scared 0:43:38.120 --> 0:43:41.600 I think a lot of them off. UM. And yeah, 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:43.080 so that's that's kind of where we are now. And 0:43:43.120 --> 0:43:44.640 I think one of the things people should be paying 0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:48.560 attention to is what Portland's had to do and and 0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:50.879 both how long it took, but also like what kind 0:43:50.920 --> 0:43:53.880 of things were involved to actually get to this point, 0:43:53.880 --> 0:43:56.840 Because other folks are going to need to be willing 0:43:56.880 --> 0:43:58.200 to do some of the ship people had to do 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:01.279 in Portland for years, which includes like fucking strapping on 0:44:01.320 --> 0:44:04.880 gear and going out to confront these people in the street. Yeah. 0:44:05.000 --> 0:44:08.239 I think, Um, it's really interesting because I just I 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:10.960 know you've written a piece about this for New Lines 0:44:11.880 --> 0:44:14.440 recurring Me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll be up by the 0:44:14.480 --> 0:44:17.520 time the ser this runs cool. Um, yeah, I just 0:44:17.520 --> 0:44:20.000 read it. I thought it was really good. Um. It 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:23.440 reminds me of like when we talk about anti fascism historically, right, 0:44:23.480 --> 0:44:25.960 We we sort of talked about the high points a lot, 0:44:26.200 --> 0:44:28.479 and the one that at least I see most people 0:44:28.520 --> 0:44:31.160 going back to is the Battle of Cable Street in 0:44:31.280 --> 0:44:34.319 London in six which people will probably I know you've 0:44:34.360 --> 0:44:37.920 had it in Bastards episodes before, yes, and it's it's 0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:41.719 very similar thing, right, Like it's a broad intersexual coalition 0:44:41.760 --> 0:44:43.680 of people who are like, we will not let you 0:44:43.719 --> 0:44:46.239 do this ship in our space, and we will physically 0:44:46.280 --> 0:44:48.640 fucking stop you, and if the police try and protect you, 0:44:49.040 --> 0:44:52.200 we will stop them doing that as well. There's incidents 0:44:52.239 --> 0:44:55.320 between most of these fascists and anti fascists, like throughout 0:44:55.360 --> 0:44:57.840 the thirties and a lot later in British history. But 0:44:57.840 --> 0:45:01.000 it's a very similar kind of play book, I guess right. 0:45:01.280 --> 0:45:04.680 It's like physical force opposition to fascist gatherings and not 0:45:04.760 --> 0:45:08.120 letting them feel safe in your space. Yeah, not letting 0:45:08.120 --> 0:45:11.280 them feel safe and not letting them go unopposed, because 0:45:11.320 --> 0:45:12.640 I mean, one of the things that was kind of 0:45:12.640 --> 0:45:16.960 repeatedly a factor in Portland is that when the anti 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:20.760 fascists out numbered the right from the start, and significantly 0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:23.759 there was a lot less violets on on the days 0:45:23.800 --> 0:45:27.239 when that happened, um, And so it wasn't always a 0:45:27.280 --> 0:45:29.479 matter of people needing to show up to literally fight. 0:45:29.520 --> 0:45:31.480 There are times when like a show of force can work, 0:45:31.480 --> 0:45:33.760 and I think a good example of that in recent 0:45:33.840 --> 0:45:37.160 times in Texas in the DFW area obviously is a 0:45:37.200 --> 0:45:40.680 hot point for different right wing groups, including the Proud 0:45:40.719 --> 0:45:44.400 Boys harassing LGBT events stuff like drag Queen Story Hours 0:45:44.400 --> 0:45:47.000 and that sort of thing, and members of the elm 0:45:47.040 --> 0:45:48.800 Fork John Brown Gun Club who we've had on the 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:51.480 show and and other affiliated groups have been showing up 0:45:52.000 --> 0:45:54.759 armed in an armor, most recently to protect like a 0:45:54.840 --> 0:45:58.319 drag brunch um that was being counter protested. You can 0:45:58.360 --> 0:46:01.239 see like photos of like here's a proud boat with 0:46:01.280 --> 0:46:03.719 a bat with fucking barbed wire wrapped around it, and 0:46:04.840 --> 0:46:07.440 there there and in this like, you don't show up 0:46:07.440 --> 0:46:09.759 with the bat wrapped in barbed wire unless you're hoping 0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:12.120 you're gonna get to bash somebody's fucking head in. And 0:46:12.160 --> 0:46:14.719 that guy wound up standing off at the sideline all 0:46:14.760 --> 0:46:18.040 day long because a bunch of people were there with rifles. 0:46:18.600 --> 0:46:20.520 I think that guy may not legally be allowed to 0:46:20.560 --> 0:46:24.360 possess firearms. Yes, I also suspect that guy has a 0:46:24.400 --> 0:46:27.799 felony record because he also had a nightstick and like 0:46:27.920 --> 0:46:31.520 several other like more ninja like meamed here weapons. It 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:35.319 was yeah, yeah, say to me and look if if 0:46:35.360 --> 0:46:38.600 I'm going to be totally fair, meme to your weapons. No, 0:46:38.600 --> 0:46:41.000 no side in this fight. Because for a long time 0:46:41.040 --> 0:46:43.000 in Portland, there was an individual who would bring a 0:46:43.000 --> 0:46:48.080 pair of Samurai sorts everyone stations and we're we are 0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:52.240 talking gas station grade samurai. Did they have the oil 0:46:52.400 --> 0:46:56.040 slick effect? They must have, they must have. No, he 0:46:56.120 --> 0:46:58.480 never drew his blades because of course then he would 0:46:58.480 --> 0:47:01.080 have had they would have had to taste. That's the rule. Yeah, 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:06.120 that's the legal ramification that also it's impossible to take 0:47:06.160 --> 0:47:08.000 the swords that when you have them mounted on your back, 0:47:09.000 --> 0:47:14.799 it's literally possible to take the tactical back screen. It's 0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:17.319 an offensive position. But no, I think it's worth talking 0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:20.160 about the types of other cities where there have been 0:47:20.200 --> 0:47:25.000 a sizeable amount of far right protests this summer, especially 0:47:25.239 --> 0:47:29.480 targeted at queer people, um, and how Portland is one 0:47:29.480 --> 0:47:31.000 of the cities where that did not happen. I mean, 0:47:31.000 --> 0:47:33.040 we've seen a lot of stuff in Dallas, and the 0:47:33.680 --> 0:47:37.319 people have been doing a pretty good job and both 0:47:37.360 --> 0:47:40.839 denying the right ground to gain but also denying them 0:47:40.880 --> 0:47:43.880 any of their like fight footage that they love to gather. 0:47:44.640 --> 0:47:47.480 They've they've done a really good job at balancing that aspect, 0:47:47.480 --> 0:47:50.799 which is very, very challenging. It's very challenging and it 0:47:50.840 --> 0:47:53.759 takes a lot of discipline. And obviously, when we think 0:47:53.840 --> 0:47:56.520 kind of tactically about what guns mean in a situation 0:47:56.600 --> 0:47:59.239 like this, they're tools that have up. The downside of 0:47:59.239 --> 0:48:02.120 guns is that if things go wrong and everybody is strapped, 0:48:02.480 --> 0:48:06.440 the potential is for things to go very fucking wrong. Indeed, Um, 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:08.719 the upside is that when you have a line of 0:48:08.719 --> 0:48:12.680 people with rifles. The dudes with knives and batons and 0:48:12.719 --> 0:48:14.160 ship are a hell of a lot less likely to 0:48:14.160 --> 0:48:17.120 want to start a fucking fight because it's the the 0:48:17.280 --> 0:48:20.000 consequences are immediately obvious. You could look at it as 0:48:20.160 --> 0:48:24.560 kind of like the protest equivalent of mutually assured destruction 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:27.319 of sort of the old like of of how the 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:31.640 US of the Soviet Union managed nuclear tensions. Um. But 0:48:32.360 --> 0:48:34.960 it it. It has been very effective in Dallas for 0:48:35.000 --> 0:48:37.280 that reason. And I think it's I think the fact 0:48:37.320 --> 0:48:41.880 that protests became increasingly armed in Portland and also that 0:48:41.920 --> 0:48:45.040 there are by my account at least three cases of 0:48:45.160 --> 0:48:51.600 fascists uh being run off or injured or killed by 0:48:51.640 --> 0:48:55.440 protesters with firearms. That is part of why they didn't 0:48:55.440 --> 0:48:58.879 want to do that ship so much anymore. M hmm. 0:48:59.520 --> 0:49:03.239 I think part it's important too, because, like I I 0:49:03.280 --> 0:49:06.480 think there was a real danger after written House that 0:49:07.239 --> 0:49:09.160 right wing protesters We're gonna see this and just be like, no, 0:49:09.239 --> 0:49:10.920 we can just shoot these people, right, because you know, 0:49:11.040 --> 0:49:13.640 you have a situation where suddenly becomes very clear that 0:49:14.080 --> 0:49:16.040 the state is not going to prosecute people if like 0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:19.760 right wing protests for shooting people. But you know, okay, 0:49:19.800 --> 0:49:21.480 if if the if the desterrance is not to say, 0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:22.960 if the insurance is if you get here to get 0:49:22.960 --> 0:49:25.920 into a gunfight, you're gonna lose and get shot like that, 0:49:25.920 --> 0:49:27.960 that I think has been extremely effective in a lot 0:49:28.000 --> 0:49:32.640 of ways. Yeah, early so sort of hadn't. I think 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.160 it's probably worth noting as well that like where it's 0:49:35.160 --> 0:49:38.440 been effective, it's been effective because it's been organized and 0:49:38.480 --> 0:49:41.000 like I don't want to use the word discipline because 0:49:41.000 --> 0:49:43.759 maybe discipline imply the authority that that doesn't exist. But 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:46.680 like there's been some kind of collective restraint in agreement 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:50.200 on rules of engagement and stuff, which because I've also 0:49:50.239 --> 0:49:52.480 seen folks try to do this unilaternally, that does not 0:49:52.640 --> 0:49:55.279 fucking end well, Like if you're if you're the one 0:49:55.320 --> 0:49:58.719 person I've been carrying and expecting the state where that's 0:49:58.760 --> 0:50:02.439 not legal, like you're just to one person going to prison. Yeah, 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:06.000 and obviously open carry protests only work in states where 0:50:06.160 --> 0:50:09.240 that can be done legally. Yeah, doing that in Texas 0:50:09.280 --> 0:50:12.160 is different than doing that in California. Yeah, That's what 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:16.120 I'm here to tell you. But yeah, I think it's 0:50:16.120 --> 0:50:18.520 a it's a force multiplier, right, Like these guys have 0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:21.719 I think especially people on the right have like absorbed 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:24.920 so much like this sort of like there are types 0:50:24.920 --> 0:50:28.120 of male as delineated by the Greek alphabet bollocks, and 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:30.879 they've convinced themselves that they are Alpha's and they can 0:50:30.880 --> 0:50:33.839 win a fight. Now, James, I've seen more Sigmas than 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:39.279 Alpha's protest so many sigmas. I've seen a few epsilons, Man, 0:50:39.400 --> 0:50:42.799 I don't know that's the type of male. I met 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:46.040 a real Sigma at an anti mask protest in who 0:50:46.120 --> 0:50:48.880 brought his a r in a sixty round drum and 0:50:48.920 --> 0:50:51.960 brag that he had five hundred rounds loaded into magazines 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:54.239 as he as he protested masks in front of the 0:50:54.280 --> 0:50:56.960 state capital. And it was like the people he was 0:50:57.000 --> 0:51:00.359 protesting were specifically like about a dozen nurses who were 0:51:00.480 --> 0:51:02.400 standing around. Let's say, it was like, you got do 0:51:02.400 --> 0:51:05.719 you need those five bullets for those unarmed nurses? Where 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:09.520 signs telling it a mask he's ready for when the 0:51:09.560 --> 0:51:14.200 ship hits the fan romic, I'm guessing. Oh, I I 0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:16.120 don't believe I saw a med kit. I used to 0:51:16.120 --> 0:51:18.080 try to make a note of it. I will say 0:51:18.120 --> 0:51:20.839 the right. In the last year, I've noticed more med 0:51:20.960 --> 0:51:24.080 kits and pictures that I've seen so good good, I 0:51:24.120 --> 0:51:27.480 guess yeah. But yeah, like if you are a person 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:30.560 who's not like physically enormous or like, like I said, 0:51:30.560 --> 0:51:33.279 these guys have convinced themselves that like they somehow like 0:51:33.520 --> 0:51:36.720 top tier brawlers, even though seen the Patriot Front videos 0:51:36.760 --> 0:51:40.200 they're very funny, like it's like a false equalizer. I 0:51:40.239 --> 0:51:44.000 guess right. It allows people to sort of enter that 0:51:44.040 --> 0:51:49.480 space without having to be massive dudes. I don't want 0:51:49.480 --> 0:51:52.839 to focus too much on specifically firearms because I think 0:51:52.840 --> 0:51:55.759 that's less important than and not that the primary lesson 0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:58.279 of Portland, which is what is necessary to stop these 0:51:58.280 --> 0:52:01.359 people from showing up, is consist shows of force. And 0:52:02.280 --> 0:52:04.000 I think one thing that I just kind of always 0:52:04.040 --> 0:52:07.319 don't intellectually interesting is that you know, when you when 0:52:07.320 --> 0:52:10.520 you read about like military strategy, right, um, for every 0:52:10.600 --> 0:52:15.160 like guy who's actually kicking indoors getting into firefights in 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:18.440 the field, you have you know, nine or ten people 0:52:18.560 --> 0:52:21.839 behind him who are responsible for logistics, right Um. That's 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:24.560 the only way in modern military works. When you don't 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:26.799 have a logistics train set up like that, things go 0:52:26.920 --> 0:52:30.040 like they did for Russia start of the advansion, where 0:52:30.040 --> 0:52:33.880 you have like hundreds of tanks without fuel and ship UM. 0:52:33.960 --> 0:52:38.720 When in Portland protests, an average for a large protest, 0:52:38.760 --> 0:52:40.760 I would say the average was around a thousand people. 0:52:40.800 --> 0:52:43.160 Now that's a large protest. Often they were smaller. But 0:52:43.200 --> 0:52:45.399 when you would get these big hyped for a couple 0:52:45.480 --> 0:52:47.239 of weeks the Proud Boys are coming to town, you'd 0:52:47.280 --> 0:52:50.440 easily get a thousand or two thousand people counter protesting, 0:52:51.040 --> 0:52:54.040 and you know it would be probably ten or fiftcent 0:52:54.160 --> 0:52:57.120 who were who were showing up specifically ready to kind 0:52:57.120 --> 0:53:00.399 of throw down um and ready to throw and also 0:53:00.440 --> 0:53:03.640 with some experience doing it, and a much larger number 0:53:03.640 --> 0:53:05.520 who were Some of them were there as medics, some 0:53:05.560 --> 0:53:07.600 of them were handing out water or other beverages, they 0:53:07.600 --> 0:53:10.080 were handing out food. Uh. There were people who were 0:53:10.080 --> 0:53:12.120 there just to yell and chant with signs to like 0:53:12.239 --> 0:53:15.040 be you know, moral support. There were people they're doing 0:53:15.120 --> 0:53:20.040 transport blocking roads. UM. People they're doing you know, UM 0:53:20.120 --> 0:53:24.520 intel and stuff, filming things UM. People who were there, 0:53:24.680 --> 0:53:28.279 uh you know doing stuff like um covering up live 0:53:28.320 --> 0:53:31.440 streamers cameras with with bubble rap sheets. Or we used 0:53:31.440 --> 0:53:33.120 to have a band full of people who dressed as 0:53:33.160 --> 0:53:35.640 bananas who would kind of kind of try to distract 0:53:35.680 --> 0:53:37.920 and drown out the far right. There was one beautiful 0:53:37.960 --> 0:53:40.279 individual I saw a couple of times who was in 0:53:40.360 --> 0:53:42.759 black block, except for they wore a kilt and they 0:53:42.760 --> 0:53:45.160 carried a pair of bagpipes. And when, like you would 0:53:45.160 --> 0:53:47.759 get a couple of fascists approaching a protester and like 0:53:47.800 --> 0:53:49.920 trying to get into an argument, he would walk right 0:53:49.960 --> 0:53:51.799 up and he would just start playing the bagpipes so 0:53:51.840 --> 0:53:57.520 that they couldn't have an offensive. Yeah. Yeah, it was beautiful, um, 0:53:57.560 --> 0:53:59.839 but kind of more important than the specific you do 0:54:00.040 --> 0:54:01.920 need and I don't want to like distracted this. You 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:04.279 always need a core of people who are willing and 0:54:04.320 --> 0:54:06.879 ready to get into a fucking fight when you're doing 0:54:06.920 --> 0:54:09.920 this kind of activism. But the biggest thing is that 0:54:10.000 --> 0:54:13.920 people show up consistently. Um. And one of the things 0:54:13.920 --> 0:54:17.040 Portland's had a number of different organizations like pop Mob, 0:54:17.120 --> 0:54:22.439 Popular and more Mobilization that kind of existed to organize 0:54:23.360 --> 0:54:27.680 less radical um or at least kind of and not 0:54:27.680 --> 0:54:30.000 not necessarily less radical. Sometimes people who were just like 0:54:30.080 --> 0:54:33.240 because of whatever in their life, were much less interested 0:54:33.280 --> 0:54:35.440 in the actual getting into a fight thing, but understood 0:54:35.440 --> 0:54:37.279 that the more people show up the safer it is, 0:54:37.960 --> 0:54:40.960 and succeeded in ensuring that there was like a larger 0:54:41.200 --> 0:54:44.399 body of people at all of these events, and that 0:54:44.520 --> 0:54:47.640 along with more rat groups like Rose City Antifa, who 0:54:47.719 --> 0:54:50.120 kind of particularly earlier in the fights, was a big 0:54:50.160 --> 0:54:52.480 street presence as well as did a lot of research, 0:54:52.920 --> 0:54:55.680 and then other kind of newer um and often kind 0:54:55.680 --> 0:54:58.680 of smaller anti fascist collectives that would organize people to 0:54:58.760 --> 0:55:01.080 straight up fight. It was it was this mix of 0:55:01.120 --> 0:55:04.360 all of that that allowed it to be that whenever 0:55:04.400 --> 0:55:07.440 they showed up, there was always a group confronting them, 0:55:07.480 --> 0:55:11.160 and it was nearly always larger um. And it got 0:55:11.200 --> 0:55:13.799 to the point at the height of you know, there 0:55:13.880 --> 0:55:17.560 was this right wing protest before time hand, nobody quite 0:55:17.640 --> 0:55:20.239 knew how bad it was going to be. Garrison. You 0:55:20.280 --> 0:55:22.799 and I got there right as things were starting, and 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:27.480 it was the anti fascists were outnumbered kind of at 0:55:27.480 --> 0:55:29.840 the beginning of the day, and things got really violent 0:55:30.040 --> 0:55:33.920 very quickly. Within an hour or two though, about somewhere 0:55:33.920 --> 0:55:36.200 around a thousand people had showed up on the anti 0:55:36.200 --> 0:55:38.480 fascist side and we're organized and fighting. It was a 0:55:38.600 --> 0:55:43.120 very impressive response time. Yeah, and I think it is 0:55:43.280 --> 0:55:46.320 it's the actual it's the I mean people used the 0:55:46.360 --> 0:55:48.920 word like the term to diversity of tactics often just 0:55:49.000 --> 0:55:53.080 to kind of defend actions that are more radical. Um. 0:55:53.480 --> 0:55:56.400 And there's the there's the other side of diversity of tactics, 0:55:56.400 --> 0:55:59.160 which is pulling in all of the background support that 0:55:59.280 --> 0:56:03.600 creates This is the sustainability for more radical actions like 0:56:03.600 --> 0:56:05.640 showing up and actually being a frontliner to get into 0:56:05.640 --> 0:56:08.400 fistfights with proud boys. Then there's all of the other stuff, 0:56:08.520 --> 0:56:12.640 like whether that's like medics, other support teams, people playing 0:56:12.840 --> 0:56:16.120 doing like queer dance parties to push fascists out of areas. 0:56:16.440 --> 0:56:18.640 All those types of things not only make the environment 0:56:18.680 --> 0:56:21.120 more sustainable, so people can show up over a larger 0:56:21.120 --> 0:56:22.759 period of time because they don't get so burnt out 0:56:22.800 --> 0:56:26.160 because all they're doing is fist fighting. Um. So I 0:56:26.160 --> 0:56:28.680 think those actions are another our thing. That's it's it's 0:56:28.680 --> 0:56:31.680 worth not just ignoring those and not just discrediting those, 0:56:32.440 --> 0:56:36.680 because once you have that type of presence and people 0:56:36.840 --> 0:56:39.600 know that you're gonna that, those are the types of 0:56:39.680 --> 0:56:43.120 environments that you're able to create when you're outnumbered by 0:56:43.200 --> 0:56:45.080 fascists and you need to call and need to need 0:56:45.120 --> 0:56:47.200 to put out a call for support if you if 0:56:47.239 --> 0:56:50.319 you have this kind of reputation that can that can 0:56:50.360 --> 0:56:52.319 help get a lot of people out very quickly and 0:56:52.360 --> 0:56:56.520 help with the That actually is like popular mobilization that right, 0:56:56.520 --> 0:56:58.520 that that's what that's what that's what that actually means. 0:56:58.840 --> 0:57:01.560 So that's how you can get at the anti fascist 0:57:01.560 --> 0:57:03.759 side to outnumber the fascist side, like we saw in 0:57:05.000 --> 0:57:07.399 um despite that not being the case. When when when 0:57:07.400 --> 0:57:12.040 when it started? Yeah? And I think because the main 0:57:12.080 --> 0:57:16.040 thing that ended that fight was the was the anti 0:57:16.080 --> 0:57:20.560 fascist side just moving as a massive, massive block and 0:57:20.800 --> 0:57:24.640 just pushing the fascists out of the area. Like there's 0:57:24.520 --> 0:57:26.680 as soon as the fascist line broke and you have 0:57:26.880 --> 0:57:29.600 like hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of people in Portland 0:57:29.680 --> 0:57:34.120 streets directing the flow of movement, you can't you can't 0:57:34.160 --> 0:57:37.120 stop that. The force. The force is too great, um. 0:57:37.200 --> 0:57:39.479 And that requires there to be a large amount of people, 0:57:39.520 --> 0:57:42.640 including people who are not gonna get into a fist 0:57:42.680 --> 0:57:45.760 fight with someone three times their size. Yeah. I think 0:57:46.120 --> 0:57:50.080 another thing, um that that maybe it's important is that 0:57:50.240 --> 0:57:53.200 like and it's kind of at the core of anti fascism, right, 0:57:53.200 --> 0:57:55.920 It's it's it's possible for people who have done just 0:57:55.960 --> 0:58:00.720 different tactics, but different opinions, like to create this broad 0:58:00.760 --> 0:58:03.640 based alliance and not get a cross with each other 0:58:03.720 --> 0:58:08.400 for not agreeing on everything. And yeah, or at least, um, 0:58:08.680 --> 0:58:12.440 stop fighting with each other long enough to drive the 0:58:12.440 --> 0:58:15.680 fascists out. Because Portland's, by the way, another thing we 0:58:15.680 --> 0:58:20.080 should acknowledge, the Portland anti fascist community can be quite messy. Um. 0:58:20.080 --> 0:58:22.560 There are a lot of different factions and disagreements, and 0:58:22.600 --> 0:58:24.920 there have been a lot of arguments up to the 0:58:24.920 --> 0:58:28.760 present day. But you know, as a general rule, when 0:58:28.840 --> 0:58:32.600 the right showed up, people mobilized and and threw down 0:58:32.680 --> 0:58:35.520 against them. You know, despite the fact that it was 0:58:35.560 --> 0:58:37.720 a mix of folks who were libs and folks who 0:58:37.720 --> 0:58:41.800 were radicals and folks who were you know, um something 0:58:41.800 --> 0:58:46.120 in between. Um it was And again I don't this 0:58:46.200 --> 0:58:49.520 was never a particularly clean process, and it didn't have 0:58:49.600 --> 0:58:51.800 to be. You know, you could point out and and 0:58:51.920 --> 0:58:54.120 if we had longer, we could point out all number 0:58:54.160 --> 0:58:57.160 of different like flaws and shortcomings and like things that 0:58:57.240 --> 0:59:00.520 we're done, that we're wrong or unfair to somebody. But 0:59:00.560 --> 0:59:02.760 what was kind of more important than any of the 0:59:02.800 --> 0:59:05.160 ways in which the movement was flawed was at the 0:59:05.200 --> 0:59:07.280 end of the day, that it persisted, that it kept 0:59:07.480 --> 0:59:11.080 bringing people out, and that it kept resisting, and that 0:59:11.320 --> 0:59:14.320 the right seems to have kind of blinked before the 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:16.920 left did. Here, like that's what what matters more than 0:59:16.960 --> 0:59:19.840 anything about Portland's people felt comfortable enough to continue to 0:59:19.840 --> 0:59:23.080 come out and it felt worthwhile enough. But for the 0:59:23.080 --> 0:59:26.080 anti specifically for the anti fascist protests, they were able 0:59:26.120 --> 0:59:29.240 to create those environments that people that that families were 0:59:29.280 --> 0:59:33.400 felt totally comfortable coming out to UM and people felt 0:59:33.400 --> 0:59:36.040 that it actually was worthwhile, Like there was it was 0:59:36.120 --> 0:59:38.240 it was worth it to take an afternoon out of 0:59:38.240 --> 0:59:42.080 your day to show up and say no, and and 0:59:42.280 --> 0:59:45.600 and if you're able to physically display no, you can't, 0:59:45.640 --> 0:59:49.480 you can't come here. Yeah, And that was um. You know, 0:59:49.520 --> 0:59:51.920 obviously when we talked about the difference between doing that 0:59:52.000 --> 0:59:54.040 against the police as opposed to the right, you know, 0:59:54.080 --> 0:59:59.160 the police have more in their current form hundred and 0:59:59.200 --> 1:00:01.280 fifty have had a hundred and fifty years or so 1:00:01.360 --> 1:00:04.280 to dig in. You know, Um, it's a harder target. 1:00:04.320 --> 1:00:08.520 But yeah, I think the fact that um, I think 1:00:08.520 --> 1:00:11.680 the fact that one of the strengths of the movement 1:00:11.760 --> 1:00:15.360 in Portland was that as a general rule. A lot 1:00:15.400 --> 1:00:18.680 of people who had a pretty diverse set of beliefs 1:00:18.720 --> 1:00:21.520 all felt this is a thing I can do and 1:00:21.560 --> 1:00:25.080 should do. This is worthwhile and important. These people need 1:00:25.080 --> 1:00:27.600 to be opposed in the streets, and that's worth some 1:00:27.720 --> 1:00:30.680 time out of my very limited fucking free time to 1:00:30.720 --> 1:00:33.680 go do um and that That is kind of I 1:00:33.720 --> 1:00:37.200 think the primary lesson if you want to know what 1:00:37.440 --> 1:00:40.840 other cities should take from Portland's, it's the importance of 1:00:41.440 --> 1:00:45.320 developing a community like that, a community information network like that, 1:00:45.360 --> 1:00:49.280 but also just like a community where people can all 1:00:49.400 --> 1:00:52.760 kind of where where people feel like, yes, it is 1:00:52.840 --> 1:00:55.920 actually it is worthwhile for me to show up and 1:00:55.920 --> 1:00:59.120 participate in this right Like. That's the hard thing is 1:00:59.680 --> 1:01:02.800 getting across When there's, um, you know, a book reading 1:01:02.800 --> 1:01:05.400 at a library, the Proud Boys are going to show 1:01:05.480 --> 1:01:10.600 up in protest. It's it's getting getting the message out 1:01:10.640 --> 1:01:12.760 to people in the area and getting a couple of 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:15.200 hundred folks to show up, Because if you can get 1:01:15.360 --> 1:01:17.280 two hundred people to show up to something like that, 1:01:17.640 --> 1:01:19.760 there's never gonna be that many fucking Proud Boys at 1:01:19.800 --> 1:01:21.680 the event. It's gonna be thirty or forty of them 1:01:21.960 --> 1:01:25.080 or less. Maybe a dozen. And if you're a fucking 1:01:25.120 --> 1:01:28.959 library and twenty proud boys show up to like cause 1:01:29.000 --> 1:01:31.280 a problem, and you've got like a dozen kids inside 1:01:31.320 --> 1:01:33.240 getting read a book or some shit, or it's a brunch, 1:01:33.600 --> 1:01:36.080 and yet thirty proud boys show up, you have a 1:01:36.160 --> 1:01:38.400 huge problem. People would get really hurt. They could get 1:01:38.400 --> 1:01:40.520 fucked up heading to their cars, they can get harassed. 1:01:40.520 --> 1:01:43.120 It's scary if that number of Proud Boys shows up 1:01:43.120 --> 1:01:45.880 and a hundred a hundred and fifty people show up 1:01:45.920 --> 1:01:49.320 to counter them. Um, then suddenly number one, all of 1:01:49.320 --> 1:01:52.320 the people who are being threatened by the fascists get 1:01:52.360 --> 1:01:55.080 this feeling that like, oh my god, I'm actually supported 1:01:55.080 --> 1:01:57.360 by the community, that like people are willing to come 1:01:57.360 --> 1:02:00.840 out and defend me and defend people like me. And 1:02:00.920 --> 1:02:02.760 number two, the proud boys get to feel it like 1:02:02.840 --> 1:02:06.440 fuck even even here, we're even in Dallas right where 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:09.880 we we might be outnumbered. You know, I think because 1:02:09.960 --> 1:02:13.800 a few other cities where protests have continued and where 1:02:13.880 --> 1:02:16.120 they haven't, they haven't in Portland, I think yet we've 1:02:16.360 --> 1:02:19.760 we've seen a decent amount of activity this year in Salem, 1:02:19.920 --> 1:02:22.680 um a lot of blood and there have been far 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:25.800 right protests in Salem ever since seen as well. Yes. 1:02:26.520 --> 1:02:29.360 And the other place that because because I just because 1:02:29.360 --> 1:02:31.479 I just did a deep dive into this is there's 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:33.880 been a lot of people from the Portland area from 1:02:34.000 --> 1:02:38.960 Vancouver UM planning to go up to port towns in 1:02:39.080 --> 1:02:42.280 Washington and it's been interesting talking with the people up 1:02:42.320 --> 1:02:44.920 there about this is the first time they've really seen 1:02:45.240 --> 1:02:48.040 a large influx of people. And it's it's people who 1:02:48.080 --> 1:02:51.320 don't it's the proud boys who are not comfortable showing 1:02:51.360 --> 1:02:53.640 up to Portland anymore, but instead they're going to drive 1:02:53.640 --> 1:02:56.280 three hours to go to this small town of ten 1:02:56.280 --> 1:02:59.640 thousand people. UM. And then watching people in this in 1:02:59.680 --> 1:03:01.840 this low laria figure out how they're going to respond 1:03:01.880 --> 1:03:04.880 to this has been super intriguing. There's been a whole 1:03:04.880 --> 1:03:08.000 bunch of people. There's been affinity groups in the area 1:03:08.360 --> 1:03:12.280 setting up medic trainings for for queer people who live 1:03:12.320 --> 1:03:16.880 in the town. UH. There's been meetings between bipoc groups 1:03:16.920 --> 1:03:20.680 and like more like gun based queer groups about how 1:03:20.680 --> 1:03:24.000 they can mutually support each other as the far right 1:03:24.040 --> 1:03:27.240 descends on their city. UM. And in some cases, you know, 1:03:27.320 --> 1:03:30.360 there was people in certain groups who at at previous 1:03:30.360 --> 1:03:33.040 protests that's happened the past month. They did not feel 1:03:33.040 --> 1:03:35.200 comfortable going out to the front lines of this type 1:03:35.240 --> 1:03:37.320 of thing, but they were able to work with other 1:03:37.400 --> 1:03:41.320 organizers to set up kind of uh like support kind 1:03:41.320 --> 1:03:45.000 of like uh support like areas and even kind of 1:03:45.080 --> 1:03:47.120 kind of like they described it as like a picnic 1:03:47.480 --> 1:03:49.760 that's like a quarter mile away and it creates like 1:03:49.800 --> 1:03:51.720 a buffer zone in between people who want to go 1:03:51.760 --> 1:03:53.760 to the front lines and this whole background of people 1:03:53.800 --> 1:03:55.920 that's supporting you and it's gonna help you out if 1:03:55.960 --> 1:03:59.560 you need anything. Um So, all the various ways that 1:03:59.640 --> 1:04:02.760 you can, you can incorporate a diversity of strategies and 1:04:02.840 --> 1:04:06.640 different type of groups into countering something that's moving to 1:04:06.680 --> 1:04:10.600 your city. Now. Um just an interesting note based on 1:04:10.680 --> 1:04:12.880 how much I've I've heard people talk about you know, 1:04:13.000 --> 1:04:16.320 proud boys coming up from Portland and and and Vancouver 1:04:16.840 --> 1:04:20.480 just ending up feeling they have to drive three hours 1:04:20.480 --> 1:04:24.440 to other cities to get you know there whatever whatever 1:04:24.480 --> 1:04:27.240 they want to do. Yeah, the ideal thing is that 1:04:27.280 --> 1:04:30.600 they walk away not even beat up as much as 1:04:30.760 --> 1:04:34.520 demoralized and feeling like it was a waste of time 1:04:34.520 --> 1:04:37.520 and money. Ideally, they in their gear, get covered and 1:04:37.600 --> 1:04:42.160 fucking paint or something, um, and they lost six hours 1:04:42.160 --> 1:04:45.479 of time on a fucking Saturday. And if that kind 1:04:45.480 --> 1:04:49.680 of happens repeatedly, maybe they'll stop, you know, which is 1:04:49.800 --> 1:04:54.000 which is again the goal is for them to uh 1:04:54.280 --> 1:04:56.800 feel like it's not worth coming out, you know, like 1:04:56.880 --> 1:05:00.240 that's what like people. It's often said like, you know, 1:05:00.280 --> 1:05:02.640 make racists a freight again is a statement you heard 1:05:02.680 --> 1:05:06.320 a lot, particularly after But it's a little more complicated 1:05:06.360 --> 1:05:09.800 than that. It's not purely about fear. It's also it's hopeless. 1:05:10.040 --> 1:05:11.959 You want to make them hopeless. You want to feel 1:05:12.080 --> 1:05:14.160 make them to feel like there's no fucking point in 1:05:14.200 --> 1:05:17.240 showing up. And that's the most valuable thing, is a 1:05:17.360 --> 1:05:21.360 victory condition. That's that's above everything else, is making them 1:05:21.400 --> 1:05:24.800 feel like there is no hope for their movement. I 1:05:24.840 --> 1:05:27.480 think that the most recent as as a time of recording, 1:05:27.520 --> 1:05:31.840 there was there was this protest on the UM that 1:05:31.920 --> 1:05:34.800 was a mix of like turfs and then a mix 1:05:34.960 --> 1:05:37.919 of far right people. There's this guy from Vancouver called 1:05:37.920 --> 1:05:41.120 the Common Sense Conservative who runs a little like video 1:05:41.200 --> 1:05:44.360 blog thing um that he was organizing some people to 1:05:44.360 --> 1:05:47.440 go up and I don't know, it's it's it's there 1:05:47.480 --> 1:05:49.600 was like, yeah, it's like thirty people, lots of them 1:05:49.600 --> 1:05:51.720 from out of state who traveled up as a part 1:05:51.720 --> 1:05:54.400 of this, like Turf Anti transside, and there was like 1:05:54.480 --> 1:05:57.800 three hundred to four hundred people from the local area 1:05:57.920 --> 1:05:59.919 who showed up and we're like, no, you're not gonna 1:06:00.000 --> 1:06:03.320 to this of And ever since then there's been a 1:06:03.320 --> 1:06:06.280 lot of infighting between the Turfs and the kind of 1:06:06.320 --> 1:06:10.960 more far right people because it sucks. It sucks that 1:06:11.040 --> 1:06:13.680 you have three people from the actual city that show 1:06:13.760 --> 1:06:16.800 up and go no and try to like physically remove 1:06:16.840 --> 1:06:20.800 you from this space. And I think you can sort 1:06:20.800 --> 1:06:22.840 of see mirrors of this and like the way left, 1:06:22.840 --> 1:06:26.480 just like protest work right where it's like it's it's 1:06:26.480 --> 1:06:29.000 a lot easier to hold together coalitions when you're winning, 1:06:29.680 --> 1:06:32.040 and the moment you start losing, the moment things start 1:06:32.080 --> 1:06:34.800 going wrong, like all of the infighting comes back and 1:06:35.120 --> 1:06:38.320 you know the entire movement will just tostegrate. And this 1:06:38.320 --> 1:06:39.840 this works the same way on the right if you 1:06:39.840 --> 1:06:43.040 can if you can actually beat them consistently a few times, 1:06:43.040 --> 1:06:46.000 and you can start like holding on long enough for 1:06:46.040 --> 1:06:50.040 their their internal group dynamics to unravel. Like this, this 1:06:50.160 --> 1:06:55.280 is a way to beat them. Yeah, yep. Um, well 1:06:55.280 --> 1:06:57.760 that's about all I had to say, not a complicated 1:06:57.800 --> 1:07:05.280 topic anything else, all right? Well, well as uh yeah, anyway, 1:07:05.440 --> 1:07:09.680 go up, go go yellow the fucking Nazi. Um, go 1:07:09.680 --> 1:07:14.640 go damage a fascists body armor by spraying them with 1:07:14.680 --> 1:07:19.400 paint from a great distance. You know, go go. Uh, 1:07:19.440 --> 1:07:38.880 I don't know, do something else? Uh? By what's kyling? 1:07:39.040 --> 1:07:43.720 Your Written House? Oh? In in our in our Centenius 1:07:44.280 --> 1:07:50.080 Cultural Center. Ya remember Kyle written House. Remember Remember that 1:07:50.200 --> 1:07:52.840 night where I spent way too much time online finding 1:07:52.840 --> 1:07:55.200 that kid's name, and then he was arrested a few 1:07:55.240 --> 1:07:58.760 hours later, and then he got off after murdering these people. 1:07:59.160 --> 1:08:02.360 Remember when that happened. I do. So you're saying that 1:08:02.400 --> 1:08:04.000 you're in some way responsible for what we're going to 1:08:04.040 --> 1:08:09.240 talk about today. No, this is not. This is one 1:08:09.240 --> 1:08:12.760 of the most truly cursed things that I have ever 1:08:12.800 --> 1:08:16.520 seen on the internet that that man has ever existed. 1:08:17.160 --> 1:08:19.240 So I know people are just learning about this now, 1:08:19.320 --> 1:08:21.720 but I've known about this for a while because I 1:08:21.800 --> 1:08:24.040 kind of have a personal obsession with Kyle Rittenhouse for 1:08:24.439 --> 1:08:29.080 reasons that should be obvious. Um uh yeah, I've been, 1:08:29.200 --> 1:08:31.240 I've been. I'ven't about this for a bit. I just 1:08:31.280 --> 1:08:33.400 have never found a good time to bring it up. 1:08:34.000 --> 1:08:36.400 But I guess, I guess, I guess we've now found it, 1:08:36.840 --> 1:08:41.600 which is it's Kyle in time. Yeah, it's time to 1:08:41.640 --> 1:08:48.400 talk about the central cultural Kyle Rittenhouse, which exists in Argentina. 1:08:49.240 --> 1:08:52.920 As part of I think maybe we'll explain a little 1:08:52.920 --> 1:08:56.120 bit about like what the broader contact of these central sits, 1:08:56.160 --> 1:08:57.960 like what they are if people aren't familiar, and then 1:08:58.000 --> 1:09:02.160 what the fuck this abomination is all about? Right? So 1:09:02.200 --> 1:09:06.760 these exist across Latin America more or less. Also, I've 1:09:06.760 --> 1:09:08.479 seen him in Spain, the Spanish speaking world, but I 1:09:08.479 --> 1:09:10.559 think that's like a reflective thing, going back to Spain. 1:09:11.280 --> 1:09:15.720 And they're like community spaces. They they're very hugely but 1:09:15.960 --> 1:09:19.680 I've been two different ones. They've nearly always left this 1:09:19.920 --> 1:09:23.719 or at least progressive, and their spaces where sometimes people 1:09:23.800 --> 1:09:27.360 can go and meet, right, communities can meet. Sometimes they're 1:09:27.400 --> 1:09:32.599 like cultural events, talks, you can borrow books. Often like 1:09:32.880 --> 1:09:36.519 their associated with neighborhood movements or what we might broadly 1:09:36.640 --> 1:09:41.960 call like anarchism. But sometimes it's yeah, explicit, sometimes it's 1:09:42.000 --> 1:09:45.120 it's not. It's like a communally center type thing. The 1:09:45.160 --> 1:09:46.960 closest thing we would have here would probably be like 1:09:47.360 --> 1:09:50.519 info shops, but those kind of differ based on what 1:09:50.680 --> 1:09:53.840 kind of anarchist infoshop you're at. Um. But yeah, they're 1:09:53.840 --> 1:09:56.240 like like community gathering places you can pick up books 1:09:56.320 --> 1:10:00.679 or whatever. And this one's a little bit a little 1:10:00.720 --> 1:10:04.280 bit odd. Yeah, yeah, because it is very much not 1:10:04.479 --> 1:10:08.519 left if it claims me, Argentina's first openly right, it's 1:10:08.680 --> 1:10:12.639 cultural center, and it's run by this guy called Josse 1:10:12.680 --> 1:10:17.559 a dead Man. He is a poster, right, This is 1:10:17.560 --> 1:10:21.880 the guy who many people will have become aware of today. 1:10:21.920 --> 1:10:24.240 I have spent most of my day watching his content 1:10:24.280 --> 1:10:28.360 on the internet. Good for you, it's great, and I 1:10:28.439 --> 1:10:31.439 love my job. I took three days off, I went camping, 1:10:31.520 --> 1:10:36.800 and then I just retoxified my brain with this ship immediately. Yeah, 1:10:37.200 --> 1:10:40.880 it's okay, So obviously dead Man right. The reason that 1:10:40.920 --> 1:10:44.160 we are interested in him today is a because of 1:10:44.200 --> 1:10:49.040 his truly cursed posting history and be because the anti 1:10:49.200 --> 1:10:55.559 terrorist police in Argentina raided the Central Court rittenhouse last night. 1:10:56.000 --> 1:10:59.840 I've got some audio of the raid which they went. 1:11:00.439 --> 1:11:02.040 We have to we have to play the studio of 1:11:02.040 --> 1:11:05.280 the race. Yeah, yeah, there were flashbangs, So we're there 1:11:05.280 --> 1:11:19.800 were guns. There were a lot of guys in plate carriers. 1:11:20.360 --> 1:11:24.559 That's wild. Just the that's like the first real time 1:11:24.600 --> 1:11:27.000 anything related to cal Writon House has faced any sort 1:11:27.000 --> 1:11:34.120 of consequence, that's right, Yeah, based Argentinean cops. Well, again, 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:37.960 they can only do things that are funny, that's true. 1:11:38.000 --> 1:11:41.719 And this is and raiding a Kylendhouse themed cultural center 1:11:42.160 --> 1:11:45.640 is funny, is very funny. This is extremely funny, Like, 1:11:45.720 --> 1:11:47.960 this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. 1:11:48.040 --> 1:11:51.160 As they go in, you're going to see some some 1:11:51.240 --> 1:11:56.320 of not only artistically offensive, but really offensive in every 1:11:56.360 --> 1:12:01.400 way murals. So they're really bad, Yeah, very incredibly bad. 1:12:01.560 --> 1:12:05.200 The right is not good at street art, no, I mean, 1:12:05.240 --> 1:12:06.920 and this is this is this is the real problem 1:12:06.960 --> 1:12:08.600 that they have. As is sort of like strategy of 1:12:08.640 --> 1:12:11.000 like trying to mirror sort of left wing cultural spaces. 1:12:11.040 --> 1:12:13.639 Is that like as as annoying as like left wing 1:12:13.680 --> 1:12:16.519 cultural spaces are like right wing cultural spaces are like 1:12:16.560 --> 1:12:18.599 the worst thing to be and you can possibly imagine 1:12:18.640 --> 1:12:21.040 because there's nobody like every single one of these people 1:12:21.080 --> 1:12:24.960 is completely insufferable. And again, let left left left wing 1:12:25.040 --> 1:12:26.640 sort of like social rude, but it's always buffered by 1:12:26.640 --> 1:12:28.160 the fact that they have an incredible number of very 1:12:28.200 --> 1:12:32.160 talented artists. These guys like the Donald Trump with the 1:12:32.280 --> 1:12:35.280 squad head is I don't think you would describe it 1:12:35.320 --> 1:12:39.400 as as as quality artists. Responsible for the for the 1:12:39.479 --> 1:12:42.760 murals at the Kyle Written House Cultural Center, Yeah, he 1:12:42.840 --> 1:12:46.840 did them himself. There their videos. So do we want 1:12:46.840 --> 1:12:49.680 to talk about what before? We before talking about like 1:12:49.720 --> 1:12:52.120 why this was rated? Wan to talk about like what 1:12:52.240 --> 1:12:55.280 this actually is and like whysts like like where did 1:12:55.280 --> 1:12:58.479 this come from? Okay? So this comes pretty much out 1:12:58.520 --> 1:13:02.519 of this. He seems to some of his earlier posts 1:13:02.520 --> 1:13:07.519 about centership of Dragon Ball Z like oh my god, yeah, 1:13:07.520 --> 1:13:10.479 which I will not profess. I've probably it's probably Z, 1:13:10.640 --> 1:13:16.639 isn't it? Okay? Okay, alright, so I've I've given myself 1:13:16.640 --> 1:13:20.280 away as a non anime understander at the outset. I 1:13:20.360 --> 1:13:23.640 don't know why it was censored, and he claims that 1:13:23.680 --> 1:13:26.599 it was. He uses a phase like Femi bolshi a 1:13:26.640 --> 1:13:30.400 lot Femi bolshe which I'm guessing is a portmanteau of 1:13:30.439 --> 1:13:36.360 feminist in Bolshevik, and he is a card. You're probably right, Yeah, 1:13:36.800 --> 1:13:42.120 so he's definitely an in. So, yes, the feminists are 1:13:42.160 --> 1:13:45.880 censoring DBZ and this means I need to start a 1:13:45.920 --> 1:13:50.240 fascist hangout spot. Yeah, that's that's the journey of this. Yeah, 1:13:50.280 --> 1:13:53.000 well more or less, I guess it seems to really 1:13:53.040 --> 1:13:55.559 come out of the lockdown. It seems to come out 1:13:55.600 --> 1:14:01.400 of him being unemployed from March. There's a big anti 1:14:01.479 --> 1:14:06.639 lockdown group in Argentina called fuerts Ony Dadda Argentina, which 1:14:06.680 --> 1:14:09.160 he's part of. And that that's if you look. Actually 1:14:09.160 --> 1:14:11.479 it says like Carl written House Cultural Center, and then 1:14:11.520 --> 1:14:16.080 it has fuess ony Daddia written underneath um, and so 1:14:16.360 --> 1:14:19.559 that seems to be a large part of it. It 1:14:19.960 --> 1:14:23.040 opened relatively recently. I was looking for an exact date, 1:14:23.080 --> 1:14:24.640 but I couldn't find it. But it is within the 1:14:24.720 --> 1:14:27.880 last year, Yes it has. It has been within the year. 1:14:27.920 --> 1:14:32.639 I remember seeing something about this earlier this year. Um, 1:14:32.680 --> 1:14:35.040 just to recap some of the art, maybe because it 1:14:35.120 --> 1:14:42.720 didn't like art's a strong word, paintings depictures. Yeah, art 1:14:42.720 --> 1:14:45.720 requires a few a few things to make it actually art. 1:14:46.400 --> 1:14:49.200 I don't think the stuff qualifies as as art. No, 1:14:49.760 --> 1:14:52.400 but and some of them I genuinely was unable to 1:14:52.400 --> 1:14:55.600 discern who are they supposed to be? It's really difficult, 1:14:55.840 --> 1:14:59.200 Like it's it's kind of hard to tell who Trump 1:14:59.360 --> 1:15:02.080 is and it's Trump. This is this is this is 1:15:02.160 --> 1:15:04.120 this is how. This is the level of artists we're 1:15:04.120 --> 1:15:06.920 dealing with. Your Yeah, trap looks like someone out of 1:15:06.960 --> 1:15:09.400 Minecraft or something like. His head is entirely square. The 1:15:09.439 --> 1:15:13.479 width is equal to the height. Yeah, which, but they've 1:15:13.520 --> 1:15:15.400 they've got One of the guys I saw was this 1:15:15.439 --> 1:15:21.040 guy called Malvo. Do people know who he is? Perhaps not? Okay, 1:15:21.080 --> 1:15:23.240 this is probably one that we won't include the video 1:15:23.280 --> 1:15:25.960 of in the podcast. But so he was. He went 1:15:26.000 --> 1:15:28.320 to prison because he tortured leftists as a copy in 1:15:28.400 --> 1:15:31.920 Argentina in the seventies, right, and then he escaped and 1:15:31.960 --> 1:15:34.120 in two thousand and eight, the cops come to his 1:15:34.160 --> 1:15:36.639 house to take him back, and instead of going back 1:15:36.680 --> 1:15:40.240 to Jaila Live TV in front of his wife and children, 1:15:40.560 --> 1:15:44.840 he shoots himself. Like they just keep rolling, the reporters 1:15:44.880 --> 1:15:46.719 like five feet away and they're like, oh, he shoves 1:15:46.840 --> 1:15:50.520 up in the head. He's down, and now he's immortalized 1:15:50.640 --> 1:15:54.760 by Yeah. That looks like a five year old in 1:15:54.880 --> 1:15:58.000 cells finger painting on the walls. This is this is 1:15:58.040 --> 1:16:02.519 what happens when people follow their leader. Alert. Yeah, it's true. 1:16:03.920 --> 1:16:08.160 So there's there's other people there. There's Heavier Malay. I 1:16:08.200 --> 1:16:11.960 think he's called he's like he's a classic chud libertarian. 1:16:12.479 --> 1:16:17.280 He's an Argentine politician. They of course have a Confederate flag. 1:16:17.720 --> 1:16:20.680 They have banners from the Argentine Civil War. There's an 1:16:20.680 --> 1:16:26.360 imperial Japanese flag. Yeah, next to Donald Trump, like the 1:16:26.520 --> 1:16:29.479 kind of I'm just looking at like the front like 1:16:29.600 --> 1:16:33.519 banner thing or like the front like mural at the 1:16:33.640 --> 1:16:40.559 editor's horrible horrible picture of Kyle Rittenhouse wearing a suit 1:16:40.760 --> 1:16:47.519 that it looks so funny. It's like it's the the 1:16:47.520 --> 1:16:53.040 the image is just amazing. It's god they have they 1:16:53.080 --> 1:16:56.000 have Okay, I will say it looks like I drew 1:16:56.080 --> 1:16:59.719 it blindfolded with my left hand. Like it looks so bad. 1:17:00.200 --> 1:17:03.240 The one thing, okay, I I think they're well, okay. 1:17:03.160 --> 1:17:06.479 Their depiction of Bollsonaro, like it's fine. It kind of 1:17:06.520 --> 1:17:11.640 captures the grotesqueness of him. But he's doing finger guns 1:17:12.760 --> 1:17:17.479 guns with the Brazilian flag behind him. Remember remember this 1:17:17.560 --> 1:17:23.320 started with DVZ. Here, Yeah, written houses like giant thing 1:17:23.439 --> 1:17:28.080 has like what what is it? The two holes, the 1:17:28.120 --> 1:17:31.800 two blacks on his face eyepatch, But no, it's not. 1:17:32.680 --> 1:17:35.400 It's like two or three black circles on the inside 1:17:35.439 --> 1:17:38.080 mineral of written house. It looks like he's wearing an eyepatch, 1:17:38.200 --> 1:17:41.280 like some kind of night vision optic. Maybe also as 1:17:41.280 --> 1:17:44.200 a Kyler written House expert who spent hours coming through 1:17:44.240 --> 1:17:47.120 the clothing he was wearing. They have his hat completely wrong. 1:17:47.479 --> 1:17:51.680 They have here like a reddish pinkish hat. That's not 1:17:51.800 --> 1:17:54.160 the hat that he was wearing. He was wearing a 1:17:54.360 --> 1:17:58.880 tan hat with with a white back mesh. Um and 1:17:58.920 --> 1:18:01.120 the hat was the reason were able to figure out 1:18:01.160 --> 1:18:03.000 who he was because it has a little tear in 1:18:03.040 --> 1:18:05.160 the front and we were able to compare that to 1:18:05.160 --> 1:18:09.439 get an exact match onto the suspects Facebook profile. Um, 1:18:09.520 --> 1:18:12.120 so the hat is completely wrong. So already they've they've 1:18:12.200 --> 1:18:16.720 dropped the ball here on any semblance of accuracy by 1:18:17.640 --> 1:18:20.919 the completely rung hat for this picture. It's I'm insulted. 1:18:21.000 --> 1:18:24.639 As someone who spent hours figuring out what this guy's 1:18:24.680 --> 1:18:28.559 name is, I'm insulted. Yeah, there's all kind of cursed stuff. 1:18:28.560 --> 1:18:33.400 This Abascale, the box guy from Spain, like anyone who 1:18:33.520 --> 1:18:35.719 you can think of he's just like a culture warrior 1:18:35.920 --> 1:18:42.040 is depicted in finger painting style by this guy by 1:18:42.080 --> 1:18:47.719 Hosy death Man. So he he came to the attention 1:18:47.760 --> 1:18:49.360 of the author well, actually he came to the attention 1:18:49.400 --> 1:18:54.280 of the authorities before. It will shock nobody to find 1:18:54.320 --> 1:18:57.400 that he has been sending untolisted images of his genitalia 1:18:57.479 --> 1:18:59.680 to women for a very long time. So he's been 1:18:59.720 --> 1:19:01.920 sending got a lot of are you telling me? The 1:19:02.040 --> 1:19:05.160 dragon ball z in Cel, who started a Kyle written 1:19:05.200 --> 1:19:08.559 host cultural center, has been sending out unsolicited dick fix. 1:19:10.240 --> 1:19:14.360 I wonder if what Okay, hold on, hold on, I 1:19:14.600 --> 1:19:16.280 just I think I think I just had a revelation 1:19:16.320 --> 1:19:18.920 about this guy. Did you just crack this case wide open? 1:19:19.320 --> 1:19:23.679 Hold on, hold on, Yeah, I can't wait to hear 1:19:23.720 --> 1:19:26.080 what you've come out with. I am on the edge 1:19:26.080 --> 1:19:29.760 of edge of my seat. I am thrilled. All right, 1:19:30.680 --> 1:19:32.439 I only have to hand them on their Facebook page, 1:19:32.439 --> 1:19:36.719 which is toxic as hell. Yeah, their face. Their Facebook 1:19:36.760 --> 1:19:40.599 is pretty funny. They have a video of a woman 1:19:40.920 --> 1:19:43.439 in the side of the culture yea. When the woman 1:19:43.520 --> 1:19:45.280 comes in there, like just to prove it's a woman. 1:19:45.439 --> 1:19:47.800 People say women don't come here like we have a woman. 1:19:48.560 --> 1:19:51.479 They've filmed like of like a like a five minute 1:19:51.520 --> 1:19:54.920 video of this woman sitting inside, just so there was 1:19:55.040 --> 1:19:58.040 proof that there was a woman inside this building. Yeah, 1:19:58.320 --> 1:20:02.200 they were so shocked. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's very clear 1:20:02.240 --> 1:20:04.920 that like they had not been expecting it. So he's 1:20:04.920 --> 1:20:08.280 actually been to jail for gender based online violence. I 1:20:08.280 --> 1:20:10.400 think I figured out how this connects Dragon ball Z. 1:20:10.960 --> 1:20:14.280 My Okay, I'm not a percent sure about this. My 1:20:14.479 --> 1:20:18.360 guess is that this guy is like a hard line. Um, 1:20:18.640 --> 1:20:21.639 I've never actually heard this guy's names out loud. Vic 1:20:22.479 --> 1:20:26.120 Mignagna like truth or guymig Vagot is like this. He 1:20:26.240 --> 1:20:27.880 was a voice actor who was on Dragon ball Z 1:20:28.560 --> 1:20:32.040 who like sexually harassed and assaulted like a ship ton 1:20:32.080 --> 1:20:36.040 of people. Um, And in twenty nineteen, like the stuff 1:20:36.080 --> 1:20:38.240 came out and there was like a huge right wing 1:20:38.280 --> 1:20:41.240 backlash around him, And I really wonder if this is 1:20:41.280 --> 1:20:46.040 the fucking thing that he was mad about. He was 1:20:46.120 --> 1:20:50.639 this voice actor that got canceled because his favorite voice 1:20:50.640 --> 1:20:54.360 actor got canceled for sexually Celtic people. Yeah, well so 1:20:54.360 --> 1:20:57.120 so Vic tried to, like the voice actor guy tried 1:20:57.160 --> 1:20:59.360 to sue a bunch of people for defamation and got 1:20:59.360 --> 1:21:02.479 fucking apps lutely owned in court, and then all of 1:21:02.520 --> 1:21:04.680 the ship that he'd been doing for like decades like 1:21:04.800 --> 1:21:08.040 came out. So it would not surprise me if this 1:21:08.160 --> 1:21:10.280 was like part of this guy, like if this is 1:21:10.360 --> 1:21:12.080 part of the thing he was sucking screaming about with 1:21:12.160 --> 1:21:16.320 dragon ball Zy being censored. But the feminist Bolsheviks, Yeah, 1:21:16.840 --> 1:21:18.519 that's the worst thing I've ever said. This is the 1:21:18.520 --> 1:21:20.560 worst organization ever had in my life. Yeah, that's a 1:21:20.600 --> 1:21:23.920 kind of I think a large part of this cultural 1:21:23.960 --> 1:21:26.080 center and the kind of the stuff behind it stems 1:21:26.080 --> 1:21:29.320 out of a whole bunch of like the anti communist 1:21:29.360 --> 1:21:34.479 groups that have existed in Argentina for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:21:34.520 --> 1:21:37.080 his like so all his videos he has his backpack 1:21:37.200 --> 1:21:39.040 with like a hammer and sickle with like that no 1:21:39.360 --> 1:21:43.360 you know, the circling line through it. And he then 1:21:43.400 --> 1:21:47.599 that he stages that everywhere with him, and he has 1:21:47.640 --> 1:21:51.960 like something he has like a bunch of anti communist 1:21:52.040 --> 1:21:55.439 graffiti that he also you'll see him in his h 1:21:56.240 --> 1:21:58.960 like in his Facebook profile it used to say sometimes 1:21:58.960 --> 1:22:01.320 anti social always anti communist, and it had like the 1:22:01.400 --> 1:22:06.519 yellow and black little thing and yeah, and he's he's betrayed. 1:22:06.520 --> 1:22:09.160 I think the tweet that first announced it betrayed them 1:22:09.200 --> 1:22:16.040 as like libertarian and caps, which like they have like 1:22:16.080 --> 1:22:20.200 better dead than red. That's not a fucking ang cap. 1:22:20.280 --> 1:22:22.639 But like these people are trying to revoke the era 1:22:22.680 --> 1:22:25.720 of violence against the left in Argentina in the nineteen seventies, right, 1:22:25.760 --> 1:22:28.920 Like that's where they're going for here. Yeah, I think 1:22:28.960 --> 1:22:31.760 like in case people are not aware of this, Argentina 1:22:32.080 --> 1:22:35.000 had a like an incredibly brutal military data show killed 1:22:35.000 --> 1:22:38.240 the ships on people. Also like went around Latin America 1:22:38.280 --> 1:22:40.840 trading other death squads. They had this group called the 1:22:40.880 --> 1:22:44.519 Triple A, which was basically a fascist death squad that 1:22:45.640 --> 1:22:47.360 sort of actor as a pre military for other wings 1:22:47.360 --> 1:22:48.960 of the state. They killed one of people. Eventually they 1:22:49.000 --> 1:22:51.599 kill the governments. Um, they're one of the people involved 1:22:51.640 --> 1:22:56.479 in Operation Condor. They drop people at helicopters. Also they yeah, 1:22:56.920 --> 1:22:59.719 it was really fucking bad. And and and these anti 1:23:00.040 --> 1:23:04.120 these like anti communists they basically fascist death squads or 1:23:04.160 --> 1:23:09.760 some of them fascist literally fascist. Yes, are like the 1:23:09.880 --> 1:23:12.479 style of slogans. The propaganda that they're using for this 1:23:12.640 --> 1:23:15.400 center is in the same vein as that they're carrying 1:23:15.479 --> 1:23:18.839 that tradition in Argentina, and I think people are familiar 1:23:18.880 --> 1:23:23.080 with the Nazis. People should also probably probably somewhat familiar 1:23:23.360 --> 1:23:27.960 with the the the whole thing with tons of tons 1:23:27.960 --> 1:23:31.519 of Nazis fleeing to Argentina um and Argentina being very 1:23:31.520 --> 1:23:33.800 welcoming to a whole bunch of like like like like 1:23:33.800 --> 1:23:38.080 like German Nazi like actual like Nazi Nazis, like like 1:23:38.160 --> 1:23:43.720 with membership God, not Third Reich Nazis. Yeah. So one 1:23:43.760 --> 1:23:46.080 thing that the that he did, one thing that dead 1:23:46.120 --> 1:23:49.080 man did or he they posted as we on their 1:23:49.120 --> 1:23:52.880 Facebook page with last mathday's dela plaza da mio. They 1:23:52.920 --> 1:23:55.800 are like these mothers who made this weekly protest I 1:23:55.800 --> 1:23:57.920 think it was weekly, and they wore white handkerchiefs, right, 1:23:57.960 --> 1:24:01.599 and they were like where are I disappeared children? And 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:04.160 they sort of mobilized maternity in this way that made 1:24:04.160 --> 1:24:06.559 it very hard for the state to crack down on them, right, 1:24:06.640 --> 1:24:09.360 especially a state which is all about like quote unquote 1:24:09.360 --> 1:24:12.640 traditional gender roles or whatever you want to call it. Um. 1:24:13.240 --> 1:24:16.840 So these mothers are like held up as a great 1:24:16.880 --> 1:24:21.320 example of peaceful protest, of peaceful protests against dictatorship, right 1:24:21.320 --> 1:24:25.639 of forcing them to acknowledge their crimes. They're they're looked 1:24:25.680 --> 1:24:27.200 up to by a lot of people all around the world, 1:24:27.200 --> 1:24:30.040 and he and his bros went out and vandalized a 1:24:30.120 --> 1:24:32.960 monument to them and then posted about it on their 1:24:32.960 --> 1:24:36.080 Facebook like pretty openly, like we did this, look at 1:24:36.160 --> 1:24:40.880 us go so generally pretty much piece of ship guy. 1:24:42.000 --> 1:24:44.760 And he claims that the real he was radicalized by 1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:48.519 torturous sexual abstinence, which is enforced upon him by the 1:24:48.560 --> 1:24:55.080 government with the COVID nineteen lockdown. Aha, So he's claiming 1:24:55.120 --> 1:24:57.800 to be a var cell and not an him cell 1:24:58.040 --> 1:25:01.160 or c that's have said this too long, I mean, 1:25:01.360 --> 1:25:03.600 and if it's first on by the government, then it 1:25:03.840 --> 1:25:08.760 is involuntary. Yes, yeah, okay, I guess I guess some 1:25:09.400 --> 1:25:15.800 men right here. We don't need to continue the conversation. 1:25:16.280 --> 1:25:22.160 It actually doesn't matter. No, he was unable to find 1:25:22.160 --> 1:25:25.120 intimacy with the people he wanted to and therefore decided 1:25:25.160 --> 1:25:28.599 to send them pictures of his penis instead and then 1:25:28.800 --> 1:25:33.519 start a cultural center themed after Kyle Rittenhouse. That's correct. Yeah, 1:25:33.680 --> 1:25:37.080 I'm trying to think of like I did a lot 1:25:37.080 --> 1:25:38.720 of stuff on like the aftermath of the Written House 1:25:38.720 --> 1:25:41.040 shooting as well, and we immediately saw a whole bunch 1:25:41.080 --> 1:25:44.200 of a big wave of written House stuff in the 1:25:44.479 --> 1:25:48.519 better Dead than Read and anti communist action type like memes, 1:25:49.120 --> 1:25:50.920 And I think that this very much stems out of 1:25:50.960 --> 1:25:53.240 that tradition as well, at the cow written House being 1:25:53.240 --> 1:25:57.080 this like symbol of here is a shining example of 1:25:57.120 --> 1:25:59.360 someone who actually put in the work to kill communists 1:25:59.439 --> 1:26:03.800 quote un communists obviously. Um. And I think that with 1:26:03.800 --> 1:26:07.759 with the whole kind of like anti communist death squad 1:26:07.800 --> 1:26:10.120 framing of this, that matches up with a lot of 1:26:10.120 --> 1:26:12.360 the kind of the memes that we're that we're circulating 1:26:13.080 --> 1:26:17.000 in the weeks after the original shooting in Kenosha, And 1:26:17.040 --> 1:26:19.800 we can see this as like a physical manifestation of 1:26:19.840 --> 1:26:23.360 that type of mimetic messaging, like this is like a 1:26:23.760 --> 1:26:27.160 it's a it's a physical version of that of course 1:26:27.280 --> 1:26:30.600 incorporating into just a larger kind of right wing populist politics, 1:26:31.240 --> 1:26:35.120 uh you know, veering onto fascism um. And I think 1:26:35.360 --> 1:26:40.360 it's but specifically with like the anti communist action and 1:26:40.600 --> 1:26:43.280 better Dead than Red type type memes that were using 1:26:43.320 --> 1:26:46.840 written House, that is a very a very clear kind 1:26:46.840 --> 1:26:51.040 of uh nexus point between these two things, Like why 1:26:51.080 --> 1:26:54.160 is someone in Argentina super into Cowritten House. It's it's 1:26:54.160 --> 1:26:56.960 because of this we already have this big strain of 1:26:57.000 --> 1:27:00.519 anti communist stuff inside Argentina. Kyle and how was used 1:27:00.600 --> 1:27:03.160 me medically in this way? Very easy thing for the 1:27:03.280 --> 1:27:09.599 right there to use. I think, I don't know. I think, Um, James, 1:27:09.600 --> 1:27:11.439 do you have Do you have any other fun facts 1:27:11.439 --> 1:27:14.400 about this? Yeah? I do, Yeah, I do. So there 1:27:14.400 --> 1:27:16.600 seems to be another guy who does most of the 1:27:17.320 --> 1:27:20.120 speaking for them when they speak to the media. He 1:27:20.160 --> 1:27:24.400 only gives his name once as do like ju, but 1:27:24.439 --> 1:27:29.479 then he also wait for it because he claims to 1:27:29.520 --> 1:27:32.400 have Jewish ancestry as well, and therefore they can't be 1:27:32.439 --> 1:27:36.880 anti Semitic. So very troubling. Maybe I'm pronouncing that wrong, 1:27:36.920 --> 1:27:38.920 but you know, I can't think of another way. It's 1:27:38.960 --> 1:27:42.640 only two letters, so extremely troubling. One thing that I 1:27:42.680 --> 1:27:44.400 did know is what is there's a whole lot of 1:27:44.479 --> 1:27:47.439 quote unquote gender ideology talk right, and a lot of 1:27:47.479 --> 1:27:52.240 cultural Marxism talk. So here's a guy who's extremely online 1:27:52.320 --> 1:27:55.920 and is parenting these kind of Ben Shapiro American Right 1:27:56.800 --> 1:28:02.479 talking points. You can also like One thing that's very 1:28:02.520 --> 1:28:04.559 funny is there appears to be a punk band called 1:28:04.560 --> 1:28:09.519 war Pigs who are selling I think it's figurines, like 1:28:09.600 --> 1:28:14.880 World Cup figurines preps which they are selling. Mundy, it's 1:28:14.880 --> 1:28:18.240 the word he used. They seem to be basically pretending 1:28:18.280 --> 1:28:21.160 to be him online selling these figurines, pretending their fundraising 1:28:21.560 --> 1:28:23.599 for his center, but then they're obviously using the money 1:28:23.640 --> 1:28:27.719 for their anti fascist efforts. That is incredibly bad. Shout 1:28:27.760 --> 1:28:31.720 out to them, war Pigs, look him up. Yeah, they 1:28:31.920 --> 1:28:34.360 give him some money if you can buy so funny. 1:28:34.760 --> 1:28:37.640 He gets so fucking mad about it. He made so 1:28:37.680 --> 1:28:42.960 many videos about it. And then his parents were like 1:28:43.000 --> 1:28:45.400 he talks about them as heroes of the Marxist movement 1:28:45.520 --> 1:28:50.639 and like leftists and revolutionaries. So he's thirty eight now, 1:28:51.520 --> 1:28:55.880 so his parents will have been young in the seventies 1:28:56.040 --> 1:29:00.880 perhaps but certainly certainly like around in the period in 1:29:00.920 --> 1:29:03.920 their teens and tw empties. And he talks about like 1:29:03.960 --> 1:29:06.000 how his parents recruel to him, and how the supposed 1:29:06.040 --> 1:29:10.240 Marxists like bullied him, how he he says at one 1:29:10.280 --> 1:29:14.200 point he has Tourette's. They forced him to do treatments, 1:29:14.240 --> 1:29:17.800 which he claims curtails his opportunities to meet women. But 1:29:17.920 --> 1:29:20.280 he only mentioned this once and he sort of goes 1:29:20.280 --> 1:29:22.640 off on these weird diversions. Yeah, it's a lot of 1:29:22.800 --> 1:29:26.439 very basic kind of online and cell type stuff. I 1:29:26.479 --> 1:29:28.280 want to talk a little bit about the sort of 1:29:28.280 --> 1:29:31.640 trans ale on this too, because I think so one 1:29:31.640 --> 1:29:33.120 of the things I think like is not very well 1:29:33.160 --> 1:29:36.400 known that at some point I will do a full 1:29:36.439 --> 1:29:38.680 episode on when I find when I'm able to like 1:29:38.960 --> 1:29:41.160 get enough stuff together and find people who are like 1:29:41.320 --> 1:29:44.280 really qualified to talk about it. But Argentina has had 1:29:44.360 --> 1:29:46.360 one of the world's most powerful trans movements for a 1:29:46.360 --> 1:29:49.200 long time. And I mean they have stuff there that 1:29:49.400 --> 1:29:52.320 like like there, there's there, there is a law that 1:29:52.360 --> 1:30:01.160 passed um I think last year or that that like 1:30:01.160 --> 1:30:03.280 that they have like a hiring quota, so all for 1:30:03.280 --> 1:30:05.880 public service job, there's a one percent hiring quota of 1:30:05.880 --> 1:30:09.600 people who have to be trans. Like. Yeah, they're like 1:30:09.640 --> 1:30:11.920 they they have stuff. They're like they have done stuff 1:30:11.920 --> 1:30:16.280 there that is like like not even like on the 1:30:16.360 --> 1:30:19.639 agenda for like any other like trans woven I've ever seen. 1:30:20.360 --> 1:30:24.040 So Yeah, they're they're they're very strong, they're very well organized, 1:30:24.120 --> 1:30:26.360 and the government has sort of like has done like 1:30:26.400 --> 1:30:29.960 a bunch of like genuinely very good, like pro trans stuff, 1:30:30.000 --> 1:30:32.760 like under the pressure of this movement, and I think 1:30:32.760 --> 1:30:34.559 that I think like in that context, I think his 1:30:35.120 --> 1:30:37.240 this fact that he's obsessed with like gender critical ship 1:30:37.320 --> 1:30:40.160 makes a lot of soundse because that's you know, that's 1:30:40.160 --> 1:30:42.600 like one of the sort of right wing things in 1:30:42.720 --> 1:30:46.160 Argentina is opposing this ship. But like it doesn't. I 1:30:46.160 --> 1:30:48.559 don't know, they're kind of losing that battle insofar as 1:30:48.760 --> 1:30:51.040 like you know, people people have done a really really 1:30:51.080 --> 1:30:54.360 good job and fought really really desperate and sort of 1:30:54.400 --> 1:30:57.920 horrible battles for decades. But yeah, they're they're they're sort 1:30:57.920 --> 1:31:02.479 of bearing fruit in really cool way. Is respect nice 1:31:02.600 --> 1:31:06.160 good job, and so what else is bearing fruit is 1:31:06.280 --> 1:31:12.040 his posting because he has been rated by I would 1:31:12.120 --> 1:31:14.439 urge you towards this video. I'll tweet it so people 1:31:14.439 --> 1:31:17.840 can find it there as well. But a metric ship 1:31:17.840 --> 1:31:22.080 ton of our police. And the reason they're rating him 1:31:22.240 --> 1:31:25.360 is because he's made like a public threat. Basically he 1:31:25.400 --> 1:31:28.640 made this say. It's about eleven and a half minute video. Notably, 1:31:28.960 --> 1:31:31.559 he says our total to support to the Brazilian hero 1:31:31.720 --> 1:31:35.599 who tried to create justice for all Argentinians and goes 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:37.680 on to talk about this. This is with reference to 1:31:37.960 --> 1:31:41.360 the assassination attempt that we saw what last week, Yes, 1:31:41.520 --> 1:31:45.280 so so so last week this this fascist tried to 1:31:45.320 --> 1:31:48.960 assassinate the vice president of Argentina. And we're going to 1:31:49.040 --> 1:31:52.559 get more into this in our upcoming week of content 1:31:52.720 --> 1:31:57.840 titled Assassination Week. Assassination Upcoming, We're gonna be a whole 1:31:57.840 --> 1:32:02.040 week of whole week of episodes about fascinations. Um. But 1:32:02.840 --> 1:32:06.360 in brief, this this, this happened, and then the people 1:32:06.400 --> 1:32:10.240 at the Cultural Center made this livestream celebrating the attack 1:32:10.680 --> 1:32:16.960 and calling the perpetrator Argentina's Brazilian hero. Yes, it really 1:32:17.080 --> 1:32:20.599 was just he also like tells people to rise up 1:32:20.680 --> 1:32:23.439 and stuff like, there's some very clear course direction in there. 1:32:24.040 --> 1:32:28.360 In the raid, they found a mortar shell and one 1:32:28.560 --> 1:32:32.360 eight four minument a mortar shell, a drone, and they 1:32:32.400 --> 1:32:35.080 they've confiscated a bunch of hard drive which I do 1:32:35.200 --> 1:32:37.080 not envy the person who has to go through his 1:32:37.120 --> 1:32:41.160 phones and hard drives. There. They're going to see some balls, 1:32:41.880 --> 1:32:45.599 they're going to see some pain, but hopefully that person 1:32:45.760 --> 1:32:49.400 can get some therapy. And this isn't the first like, 1:32:49.439 --> 1:32:52.719 this isn't the first time that the state has tried 1:32:52.760 --> 1:32:55.840 to come after them. They actually there there were discussions 1:32:55.840 --> 1:33:00.360 about like denying the crimes committed under the day Tater 1:33:00.479 --> 1:33:03.519 ship and how he can be prosecuted for that, because 1:33:03.520 --> 1:33:06.280 that was the thing that they were very clearly doing. 1:33:06.720 --> 1:33:09.400 So it seemed like he'd kind of been in the 1:33:09.439 --> 1:33:13.680 crosshairs of progressive legislators in Argentina for a while, and 1:33:13.720 --> 1:33:16.639 then he went and made this batchet crazy video where 1:33:16.640 --> 1:33:19.559 he makes calls to violence. He says the left can't 1:33:19.560 --> 1:33:23.400 ask for non violence. He says the left doesn't respect democracy, 1:33:24.320 --> 1:33:26.640 and he calls the vice president a rat and a 1:33:26.720 --> 1:33:29.280 murderer and says that it's just a shame that she 1:33:29.320 --> 1:33:32.480 wasn't blown up and it's only because the weapon malfunctioned 1:33:32.600 --> 1:33:34.840 that this hero didn't get to do justice for a 1:33:34.960 --> 1:33:41.240 largent times, I should have been the guy like I'm sorry. Yeah, look, 1:33:41.680 --> 1:33:45.080 we're like, he's just he's just built different. Yeah, she's 1:33:45.120 --> 1:33:48.000 he's built different because he got sabotaged by all of 1:33:48.000 --> 1:33:51.519 his esoteric Nazi or something, which we will get more 1:33:51.600 --> 1:33:55.559 into in the upcoming assassination week. Yep, we just got 1:33:55.560 --> 1:33:59.800 to record the theme music and then we'll be there. 1:33:59.840 --> 1:34:03.440 He cut together footage of all of the great assassination. 1:34:04.680 --> 1:34:08.960 This is gonna be half an hour constant assassination college. Yeah, 1:34:09.000 --> 1:34:12.519 these guys are extremely curse that there's more curse stuff 1:34:12.520 --> 1:34:16.519 that they've done that like we probably shouldn't go into. 1:34:16.640 --> 1:34:19.360 I didn't think because I think you could just understand 1:34:19.520 --> 1:34:22.080 this is a lonely in so guy who's been on 1:34:22.120 --> 1:34:25.000 the Internet too much become more and more radicalized and 1:34:25.080 --> 1:34:29.720 like surrounded himself with people who agree. And it's been 1:34:29.720 --> 1:34:32.120 pretty funny to watch people prank him for a while, 1:34:32.160 --> 1:34:34.720 like scrolling down their Facebook page. It's very funny to 1:34:34.760 --> 1:34:38.040 see people consistently like he doesn't seem to be an 1:34:38.120 --> 1:34:44.120 intellectual giant. But it's also worrying and obviously he's advocating 1:34:44.200 --> 1:34:48.799 for violence against people. Wouldn't emoginized. Whenever someone starts taking 1:34:48.840 --> 1:34:51.960 things that are online out into the physical world, like 1:34:52.040 --> 1:34:57.080 making basically a monument like a physical place, Um, it's 1:34:57.080 --> 1:34:59.719 always concerning. It's always it's always one of the big 1:35:00.120 --> 1:35:04.519 big red flags. Yeah, and I think, like specifically, the 1:35:04.560 --> 1:35:06.400 fact that he had both a mortar shell and a 1:35:06.520 --> 1:35:11.640 drone is incredibly alarming. You don't say, yeah, I just 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:12.960 want to say, I just want to put that all 1:35:13.040 --> 1:35:16.800 the record for a second. Yeah, if he'd posted a 1:35:16.840 --> 1:35:18.080 little bit less, you're going to have made it into 1:35:18.080 --> 1:35:22.479 assassination week. But here we are, and they cocked by 1:35:22.520 --> 1:35:26.280 your own posted tail tail is all this time. Yeah, 1:35:26.680 --> 1:35:29.639 if he'd stuck to tradition and not posted him, they did. Also, 1:35:29.720 --> 1:35:32.360 I just want to sell secondhand clothes at the center. 1:35:32.439 --> 1:35:34.320 I don't know why. I don't know what they were 1:35:34.320 --> 1:35:39.760 going for there, but they did that. So coffee really Yeah, 1:35:39.800 --> 1:35:44.240 well in Argentina and you want some secondhand clothes and coffee, 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:47.320 I can tell you where not to go. Don't go 1:35:47.400 --> 1:35:50.080 to this place because these odds are you're gonna get 1:35:50.120 --> 1:35:52.640 rated by police when you're there. Yeah. I didn't think 1:35:52.640 --> 1:35:55.760 there's much of dis place left now. I think it 1:35:55.800 --> 1:35:58.040 looks like the door has not recovered from their entry, 1:35:58.120 --> 1:36:00.120 judging by the fact that they've taped bin bag for 1:36:00.160 --> 1:36:03.880 it in the photos here. Yeah, hopefully someone can squat 1:36:03.920 --> 1:36:05.760 this place. Maybe the war pigs can get it and 1:36:05.800 --> 1:36:08.280 just toast a collection of figurines there that would be based. 1:36:08.400 --> 1:36:11.479 That would be so sick. Yeah, they need money, just 1:36:11.560 --> 1:36:14.559 let us know. We'll do a fundraiser. So I hope 1:36:14.560 --> 1:36:18.519 this is a good lesson in knowing when posting goes 1:36:18.600 --> 1:36:24.120 too far. Yeah, try try to keep your cringe online 1:36:24.120 --> 1:36:27.280 if you're going to do it, because you don't want 1:36:27.280 --> 1:36:30.280 to be this guy. No, you certainly do not want 1:36:30.280 --> 1:36:33.640 to be this guy complaining about track and Bolz and 1:36:33.760 --> 1:36:37.800 posting that results in the police raiding your car and 1:36:37.920 --> 1:36:43.439 house steamed hangout spot. Yeah just yeah, truly one of 1:36:43.439 --> 1:36:45.880 the weirdest pivots from online to the streets that I've 1:36:45.880 --> 1:36:48.439 ever seen. This dude probably should have been jail a 1:36:48.479 --> 1:36:51.759 long time ago. They probably worth noting that, like gender 1:36:51.800 --> 1:36:55.599 based violence is like the common denominator for people who 1:36:55.640 --> 1:36:58.439 do add terrible ship, and this is not not an 1:36:58.439 --> 1:37:02.880 example of that. Yeah. Who who could have thought that 1:37:03.200 --> 1:37:07.200 the raging and cell misogynist would also have bad politics? Yeah, 1:37:07.360 --> 1:37:11.519 to keep doing Fammi Boushi ship, you have a full support. Indeed, 1:37:11.760 --> 1:37:14.559 Well that isn't for us today. To tune in next 1:37:14.600 --> 1:37:19.400 week I think next week, right next week or maybe 1:37:19.400 --> 1:37:23.639 the week after for our upcoming week of episodes titled 1:37:23.640 --> 1:37:26.880 Assassination Week. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Of course, not 1:37:26.880 --> 1:37:44.599 not endorsing any political violence, assassinations any kinds. AH nine 1:37:44.640 --> 1:37:47.719 eleven is in a couple of days. I'm Robert Evans. 1:37:47.800 --> 1:37:50.240 This is it could have happened here a podcast about 1:37:50.360 --> 1:37:53.600 nine eleven. Um well, as as Garrison said in the 1:37:53.640 --> 1:37:56.439 intro that we're not using it's about things falling apart, 1:37:56.760 --> 1:38:00.920 and boy did that happen on two things that fell apart? Yeah? 1:38:01.040 --> 1:38:05.960 Um yeah. So this was originally going to be a 1:38:06.040 --> 1:38:08.880 slightly cruder episode than it wound up being. But I'm 1:38:08.920 --> 1:38:12.400 just gonna I'm just gonna delve into the script and uh, 1:38:12.560 --> 1:38:16.240 Chris Garrison, you guys just buckle in, because the reason 1:38:16.479 --> 1:38:18.240 I have you both as guests on this is that 1:38:18.280 --> 1:38:21.599 you are both too young to remember nine That's not true. 1:38:21.680 --> 1:38:25.519 I remember, I remember, I remember. Were you like four? 1:38:27.040 --> 1:38:29.799 I hope so yeah, I was four. But I remember 1:38:29.920 --> 1:38:33.360 my mom like so she she was trying to explain 1:38:33.520 --> 1:38:37.799 the Pentagon, right, and so she has like a coaster 1:38:38.040 --> 1:38:40.599 on the ground and she's making an airplane with her 1:38:40.640 --> 1:38:45.360 hand is just going into anyway. So, as I said, 1:38:45.439 --> 1:38:48.880 neither of you properly remember nine eleven. I don't remember it. 1:38:49.160 --> 1:38:51.800 Love it. I I was at the age where every 1:38:52.080 --> 1:38:54.479 moment of it is burnt into my into my brain, 1:38:54.600 --> 1:38:57.000 as is the reaction so I wanted you both on 1:38:57.040 --> 1:39:01.360 this because we're gonna talk about how nine eleven kind 1:39:01.360 --> 1:39:05.920 of became a cult um and how to maybe how 1:39:05.960 --> 1:39:07.799 to maybe deal with that, and then we'll be chatting 1:39:07.800 --> 1:39:11.200 about Glenn Beck's nine twelve project, which is something I'm 1:39:11.240 --> 1:39:14.320 sure neither of you are very familiar with. Now. In 1:39:14.320 --> 1:39:17.559 its sixth season, the popular cartoons South Park ran an 1:39:17.560 --> 1:39:20.000 episode in which Jared Fogel, who was at that point 1:39:20.080 --> 1:39:23.200 just a subway spokesman and not a convicted child molester, 1:39:23.760 --> 1:39:25.720 came to town and announced the start of a new 1:39:25.760 --> 1:39:29.320 program to give everyone AIDS. Now, he was talking about 1:39:29.400 --> 1:39:32.360 dietitians and personal trainers to help people lose weight, but 1:39:32.400 --> 1:39:35.520 everybody heard AIDS the disease, which led to wacky hijinks. 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:39.200 That's the episode. It ends when everyone realizes they'd misunderstood 1:39:39.240 --> 1:39:41.720 Fogel and they all laugh. Uh. This leads them to 1:39:41.760 --> 1:39:44.880 realize that AIDS is finally funny, because things that are 1:39:44.880 --> 1:39:48.360 tragic become funny exactly twenty two point three years after 1:39:48.439 --> 1:39:51.160 they occur. That's the joke in the episode, and went 1:39:51.200 --> 1:39:53.960 on to become a minor little internet joke that, like, 1:39:54.439 --> 1:39:56.240 you know, once you hit that twenty two year point, 1:39:56.280 --> 1:39:59.000 you can laugh about something tragic. We are now at 1:39:59.040 --> 1:40:01.920 like twenty one year and change since September eleventh, two 1:40:01.920 --> 1:40:04.120 thousand one, and I think if we're all honest, most 1:40:04.200 --> 1:40:05.800 of us can admit that we've laughed at a lot 1:40:05.840 --> 1:40:07.960 of nine eleven jokes. We're recording this the day the 1:40:08.040 --> 1:40:10.840 Queen died, and people are like photo shopping her face 1:40:10.920 --> 1:40:13.840 to be the Twin Towers, and it's so it's quite 1:40:13.840 --> 1:40:16.880 a time on the old Internet. Now. I think the first, 1:40:17.120 --> 1:40:18.920 I think the hardest, at least, that I ever laughed 1:40:18.920 --> 1:40:20.439 at a nine eleven joke. I'm sure it's not the 1:40:20.479 --> 1:40:22.960 first time was this picture of Trump Tower that was 1:40:23.160 --> 1:40:26.080 posted to Twitter like right after he got inaugurated, with 1:40:26.120 --> 1:40:29.679 the text George Bush do you thing? Um, it's still 1:40:29.720 --> 1:40:33.439 an excellent nine eleven joke. Now, the first person with 1:40:33.479 --> 1:40:35.880 any kind of platform to making a nine eleven joke 1:40:36.080 --> 1:40:40.040 was the recently deceased comedian Gilbert Gottfried. On September twenty nine, 1:40:40.160 --> 1:40:42.080 two thousand one, he took part in a roast of 1:40:42.160 --> 1:40:44.840 Hugh Hefner at the New York Friars Club, And I'm 1:40:44.840 --> 1:40:47.600 gonna play you the audio of that right now. I 1:40:47.720 --> 1:40:50.639 have to catch up flight to California. I can't get 1:40:50.680 --> 1:40:53.000 a direct flight. They said they had to stop at 1:40:53.000 --> 1:41:01.000 the Empire State Building Park there. Extremely tamed joke. Honestly 1:41:01.280 --> 1:41:05.559 not a great joke. UM, but it went onto it 1:41:05.640 --> 1:41:08.240 was It's probably like maybe the most famous and like 1:41:08.320 --> 1:41:12.400 kind of stand up history like bombs. Um. God Freed 1:41:12.479 --> 1:41:15.120 and said himself said that he lost the audience more 1:41:15.120 --> 1:41:18.000 than anyone else ever has. UM. I think it caused 1:41:18.080 --> 1:41:21.559 some career problems for him. Um. He later said, like 1:41:21.600 --> 1:41:24.800 a few weeks after. This was days after. So this 1:41:24.880 --> 1:41:27.400 is at the Friar's Club roast of Hugh Hefner on 1:41:27.439 --> 1:41:33.599 September twenty nine. Is this work too soon? It's from UM? Well, yeah, 1:41:33.800 --> 1:41:35.200 this I mean, I don't I don't know that it 1:41:35.240 --> 1:41:39.040 originated there, but this was the response to him. Um, 1:41:39.080 --> 1:41:41.120 and I think it's the first time I ever recall 1:41:41.240 --> 1:41:44.479 hearing someone say that. Godfried said that like the reason 1:41:44.520 --> 1:41:46.439 he decided to tell a joke this close to nine 1:41:46.479 --> 1:41:48.920 eleven was that he was personally offended by the fact 1:41:48.920 --> 1:41:53.120 that anything could be too soon to make a joke about. UM. 1:41:53.240 --> 1:41:55.360 One of these is interesting about this. A little side 1:41:55.360 --> 1:41:57.760 thing is that like after bombing and getting shouted at 1:41:57.760 --> 1:42:00.599 by the audience. Godfried, like decide did to get them 1:42:00.600 --> 1:42:03.960 back by telling a particularly long and foul version of 1:42:03.960 --> 1:42:09.800 the Aristocrats, which is a meta joke about jokes primarily anyway. Um, 1:42:09.840 --> 1:42:12.080 it's basically just being as foul mouthed as you can 1:42:12.120 --> 1:42:15.479 possibly be to an audience. Um. And that that audio 1:42:15.560 --> 1:42:19.040 has been lost to time apparently, But boy, you can 1:42:19.040 --> 1:42:21.760 watch a fun documentary about the Aristocrats if you want 1:42:21.760 --> 1:42:24.400 to learn more about that now. I think the first 1:42:24.520 --> 1:42:27.360 good actual comedy bit about nine eleven came out a 1:42:27.400 --> 1:42:29.679 little bit after this. This was about two weeks after 1:42:29.720 --> 1:42:32.000 the day and a couple of months later, at like 1:42:32.040 --> 1:42:35.840 the three month point, South Park season five aired, uh, 1:42:35.880 --> 1:42:38.960 and they ran an episode about nine eleven. Um. It 1:42:39.000 --> 1:42:41.880 has been criticized, rightly so because there's some kind of 1:42:42.000 --> 1:42:47.320 racist bits of humor in there. Surprising, that's not surprising. Um. 1:42:47.400 --> 1:42:50.480 That said, it's also kind of a valuable snapshot of history. 1:42:50.520 --> 1:42:53.880 For one thing, The huge part of the episode is 1:42:53.960 --> 1:42:56.800 just kind of like the Afghan child counterparts to the 1:42:56.800 --> 1:42:59.360 main characters in the show, walking around their town as 1:42:59.400 --> 1:43:02.599 everyone is ordered by US air strikes. UM. So it's 1:43:02.680 --> 1:43:05.320 it is not like the it stands kind of an 1:43:05.320 --> 1:43:09.040 opposition to sort of the kind of like bootlicking responses 1:43:09.080 --> 1:43:12.000 you got for For some context, the show The West Wing, 1:43:12.479 --> 1:43:14.840 which is the favorite show of everybody who runs anything 1:43:14.840 --> 1:43:18.400 in politics right now, ran an emergency nine eleven episode 1:43:18.479 --> 1:43:20.880 like a couple of weeks after the attack, which was 1:43:20.920 --> 1:43:23.360 the kind of turnaround you didn't do in TV at 1:43:23.360 --> 1:43:25.559 that point in time. So they put in a ton 1:43:25.600 --> 1:43:28.160 of effort to have the special nine eleven episode of 1:43:28.200 --> 1:43:31.479 The West Wing. Um that number one in the alternate 1:43:31.479 --> 1:43:34.000 West Wing universe, there's no nine eleven. There's like some 1:43:34.160 --> 1:43:37.360 vague like there's basically basically the episode focus on like 1:43:37.360 --> 1:43:39.120 a bunch of kids on a tour getting stuck in 1:43:39.120 --> 1:43:41.639 the White House because it locks down because some vague 1:43:41.720 --> 1:43:44.840 terrorist attack thing happens in a fake country they made up. 1:43:45.040 --> 1:43:47.200 So when the West Wing needed to talk about Muslims, 1:43:47.680 --> 1:43:50.720 um and kind of like the breakout piece of this, well, 1:43:50.760 --> 1:43:53.759 there's two breakouts. One of them is a very racist 1:43:53.840 --> 1:43:56.839 retelling of the story of Isaac and Ishmael that explains 1:43:56.880 --> 1:44:00.200 like why Muslims are always so angry all the time, um. 1:44:00.280 --> 1:44:02.599 And then the White House Press Lady c J. Craig 1:44:02.640 --> 1:44:06.720 goes on a rant about how awesome the intelligence apparatus 1:44:06.760 --> 1:44:09.960 is and how like what good people uh CIA agents are, 1:44:10.040 --> 1:44:13.280 and how the best thing to do for politics sometimes 1:44:13.360 --> 1:44:16.280 is to have a guy dressed as a waiter murder 1:44:16.360 --> 1:44:19.360 somebody with a silence pistol like it was out of 1:44:19.400 --> 1:44:22.960 its mind, unhinged. That's the fucking like. So the fact 1:44:22.960 --> 1:44:24.720 that South Park does an episode that's like, yeah, we're 1:44:24.760 --> 1:44:26.920 gonna murder a bunch of people in Afghanistan for no 1:44:27.040 --> 1:44:30.040 reason is like, not a not a bad response, not 1:44:30.080 --> 1:44:33.160 a bad thing to recognize about that day. Um, the 1:44:33.200 --> 1:44:36.720 other things that are like pretty good or pretty I 1:44:36.760 --> 1:44:40.360 think meaningful sort of bits in that episode. It opens 1:44:40.720 --> 1:44:42.639 with all of the kids at the bus stop wearing 1:44:42.680 --> 1:44:45.320 gas masks as they stand in line for the bus. 1:44:45.720 --> 1:44:48.519 There's a piece in that episode that kind of sticks 1:44:48.560 --> 1:44:51.680 with me today still, um that I'm gonna play for 1:44:51.720 --> 1:44:57.320 you guys. I don't know, I always found that bit fun. 1:44:57.479 --> 1:45:00.080 So when the school bus arrives, there's a cop on 1:45:00.120 --> 1:45:02.840 its searching bags and confiscating items that might be used 1:45:02.840 --> 1:45:05.920 as weapons. The school classroom doors are reinforced with a 1:45:05.960 --> 1:45:09.559 massive military grade lock, which resonated more in a time 1:45:09.600 --> 1:45:12.960 when like school shootings weren't a constant thing. Um, And 1:45:13.000 --> 1:45:14.840 it it kind of hit me because, you know, when 1:45:14.840 --> 1:45:16.920 this episode came out and I watched it when it 1:45:16.960 --> 1:45:19.479 came out, I was at middle school, Clark Middle School 1:45:19.520 --> 1:45:23.400 in Plano, Texas, and on nine eleven and twelve, the 1:45:23.439 --> 1:45:27.160 attacks were like the only topic of discussion that anyone had. 1:45:27.200 --> 1:45:28.920 And I have this vivid memory of a couple of 1:45:28.920 --> 1:45:32.040 girls in my US history class weeping because they were 1:45:32.080 --> 1:45:35.320 scared that al Qaeda was coming for our schools next. Um, 1:45:35.360 --> 1:45:38.240 Like this was a very real worry for kids that 1:45:38.320 --> 1:45:42.479 I grew up with, what like Midland, Texas or something. No, 1:45:42.720 --> 1:45:45.280 it was, indeed, it's a big school. But like I'm 1:45:45.400 --> 1:45:48.479 certain that fucking Osama bin Laden had never heard the 1:45:48.600 --> 1:45:52.719 name plane o Texas, let alone the Joatha thing with 1:45:52.880 --> 1:45:57.800 like anytime a plane was like going down, people will 1:45:57.880 --> 1:46:01.320 point at it and be like, oh my god, yeah yeah, 1:46:02.560 --> 1:46:04.960 um No, that was definitely a meme. And there was, 1:46:05.320 --> 1:46:08.320 you know, one of the most famous ones was this 1:46:08.320 --> 1:46:11.559 this video called Triumph Dot a v I that started 1:46:11.560 --> 1:46:14.040 to spread on the Something Awful forums That was just 1:46:14.120 --> 1:46:19.759 footage of the September eleventh attacks set to yakety sacks um. 1:46:19.800 --> 1:46:23.559 And again, these were all kind of the comedy that 1:46:23.560 --> 1:46:26.000 that you know, that South Park put out here and 1:46:26.040 --> 1:46:29.280 that you saw, and stuff like the Triumph video were 1:46:29.640 --> 1:46:34.040 reactions to how fucking seriously everybody else took nine eleven right. 1:46:34.280 --> 1:46:35.600 Like I have to, I have to point out that 1:46:35.680 --> 1:46:38.439 like watching an episode like this or watching something like 1:46:38.479 --> 1:46:42.360 Trump felt like legitimately transgressive in the days and weeks 1:46:42.400 --> 1:46:45.800 after nine eleven, because it was kind of a as 1:46:45.800 --> 1:46:47.640 we'll talk about, had turned into kind of like a 1:46:47.680 --> 1:46:51.000 secular cult um. And I think people who were just 1:46:51.080 --> 1:46:53.719 a few years old then or born after nine eleven 1:46:54.120 --> 1:46:56.519 missed this part of nine eleven. Um. I think you 1:46:56.600 --> 1:46:59.320 inherited the wars and the intrusions on civil liberties and 1:46:59.360 --> 1:47:02.040 the creeping fast is um, but not the derangement by 1:47:02.120 --> 1:47:05.200 terror that had preceded it, Like everybody's permanently deranged from 1:47:05.240 --> 1:47:09.000 nine eleven, But you didn't really get to know people 1:47:09.120 --> 1:47:11.920 before that kind of happened and drove a lot of 1:47:11.960 --> 1:47:15.000 them mad. As a kid, it was like a strange 1:47:15.120 --> 1:47:18.280 and exciting and scary moment. But I think my parents 1:47:18.320 --> 1:47:19.760 and I think the people who were kind of in 1:47:19.800 --> 1:47:23.360 their age range um completely lost their minds, and oddly 1:47:23.439 --> 1:47:25.799 that that South Park episode has kind of the best 1:47:26.280 --> 1:47:29.599 depiction of that too. There's a scene in which stand 1:47:29.640 --> 1:47:31.160 who is one of the main characters they're all like 1:47:31.240 --> 1:47:34.080 middle school kids, walks into his house and sees his 1:47:34.200 --> 1:47:38.559 mom like lying on the couch staring blankly ahead UM 1:47:38.640 --> 1:47:41.920 and just like weeping. She's surrounded by tissues. She's been 1:47:41.920 --> 1:47:45.360 crying for days, UM and as her husband says, she's 1:47:45.360 --> 1:47:48.439 just been watching CNN for like the last eight weeks straight. 1:47:48.920 --> 1:47:50.519 And the the image of her just kind of like 1:47:50.600 --> 1:47:52.920 lying on the couch staring at the TV is I 1:47:53.200 --> 1:47:55.599 can remember every adult that I knew as a kid 1:47:55.720 --> 1:47:59.200 doing that, and it it really did go on for days, 1:47:59.240 --> 1:48:01.439 like people moved moved around as if they were like 1:48:01.560 --> 1:48:03.920 in kind of a shocked stupor. I'm sure there's places 1:48:03.920 --> 1:48:07.960 where this wasn't the case, UM, But for my family, 1:48:08.000 --> 1:48:10.559 who were very very conservative people, and I think for 1:48:10.600 --> 1:48:13.760 people particularly who lived closer to the attacks, like it 1:48:13.800 --> 1:48:17.439 was just this period of um like post traumatic stress 1:48:17.479 --> 1:48:20.000 for the entire country. I think a good amount of 1:48:20.040 --> 1:48:22.360 research backs up the fact that this it had this 1:48:22.479 --> 1:48:24.639 kind of and I think it is hard to understand 1:48:24.640 --> 1:48:26.840 if you weren't there impact on people. I found a 1:48:26.880 --> 1:48:30.000 Pew Research study that I'm gonna quote from now. Our 1:48:30.000 --> 1:48:32.280 first survey following the attacks went into the field just 1:48:32.360 --> 1:48:35.760 days after nine eleven. From September seventeen, two thousand one, 1:48:35.800 --> 1:48:38.799 A sizeable majority of adults said they felt depressed. Nearly 1:48:38.880 --> 1:48:41.599 half said they had difficulty concentrating, and a third said 1:48:41.640 --> 1:48:44.080 they had trouble sleeping. It was an era in which 1:48:44.080 --> 1:48:47.479 television was still the public's dominant news source. Said they 1:48:47.560 --> 1:48:49.840 got most of their news about the attacks from television, 1:48:50.040 --> 1:48:52.519 compared with just five percent who got their news online, 1:48:52.720 --> 1:48:54.960 and the televised images of death and destruction had a 1:48:54.960 --> 1:48:57.960 powerful impact. Around nine and ten Americans agreed with the 1:48:58.000 --> 1:49:00.600 statement I feel sad when watching t the coverage of 1:49:00.600 --> 1:49:05.320 the terrorist attacks. A sizable majority found it frightening to watch, 1:49:05.479 --> 1:49:08.720 but most did so anyway. Fear was widespread, not just 1:49:08.800 --> 1:49:11.000 in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the 1:49:11.040 --> 1:49:14.040 fall of two thousand one. Most Americans said they were 1:49:14.160 --> 1:49:18.000 very percent or somewhat forty five percent worried about another attack. 1:49:18.280 --> 1:49:20.439 When asked a year later to describe how their lives 1:49:20.520 --> 1:49:22.800 changed in a major way, about half the adults said 1:49:22.840 --> 1:49:25.519 they felt more afraid, more careful, and more distrustful or 1:49:25.600 --> 1:49:28.360 more vulnerable as a result of the attacks. And I 1:49:28.400 --> 1:49:31.639 think you can't separate this because the main people were 1:49:31.640 --> 1:49:34.040 talking about here when we're talking about the response to this, 1:49:34.479 --> 1:49:36.800 when we're talking about the people who got to make decisions, 1:49:36.840 --> 1:49:39.320 it's boomers, right, which is not all that different from 1:49:39.320 --> 1:49:40.880 how it is today, but even it was even more 1:49:40.920 --> 1:49:44.240 so boomers then. And you know, my parents and the 1:49:44.280 --> 1:49:46.719 people of their generation are all children of the Cold War. 1:49:47.160 --> 1:49:50.320 They both grew up, my parents on different military bases, 1:49:50.520 --> 1:49:53.679 um and I can remember, you know, my dad told 1:49:53.680 --> 1:49:55.760 me stories about doing like duck and coverage rills as 1:49:55.760 --> 1:49:57.840 a kid, like literally hiding under a desk to get 1:49:57.840 --> 1:50:02.040 ready for an atomic bomb. His family like went out 1:50:02.080 --> 1:50:04.840 into the countryside during the Cuban missile crisis to hide 1:50:04.880 --> 1:50:06.560 because they were afraid all the cities we're going to 1:50:06.600 --> 1:50:10.240 get nuked. And this is not These are not uncommon experiences. 1:50:10.240 --> 1:50:12.719 So you have to think, like all of the all 1:50:12.760 --> 1:50:16.559 of the adults were either very close to this period 1:50:16.640 --> 1:50:20.080 or had spent most of their formative years like constantly 1:50:20.160 --> 1:50:23.360 scared of being murdered by a nuclear weapon. Um, there 1:50:23.360 --> 1:50:26.160 have been clinical like studies and stuff that have shown 1:50:26.200 --> 1:50:28.960 that that fear of nuclear annihilation is a major factor 1:50:29.000 --> 1:50:32.439 and anxiety like it's not ever been properly I think 1:50:32.479 --> 1:50:36.479 explained how much that fucked up that generation. But what 1:50:36.560 --> 1:50:38.800 you had is all these people who had spent the 1:50:38.800 --> 1:50:41.479 first couple of decades of their lives living with the 1:50:41.520 --> 1:50:45.080 sort of damocles over their heads. And then the war ends, right, 1:50:45.240 --> 1:50:48.439 the Cold War ends, the USSR falls apart, and suddenly 1:50:48.640 --> 1:50:51.760 people aren't talking about nuclear warfare for the first time 1:50:51.800 --> 1:50:55.599 in anybody's memory. Um, And I think for most of 1:50:55.600 --> 1:50:59.360 that generation they felt safe for the first time. There 1:50:59.400 --> 1:51:02.760 was this kind of celebration that was pretty bipartisan, that 1:51:02.840 --> 1:51:06.000 capitalism and democracy had triumphed, and that like this kind 1:51:06.000 --> 1:51:09.080 of horror that had stalked through their childhood had been defeated. 1:51:09.640 --> 1:51:12.360 When people like Francis fuki Yama talked about the end 1:51:12.360 --> 1:51:15.560 of history, what Fukiyama meant was that liberal democracy was 1:51:15.640 --> 1:51:17.760 kind of, in his eyes, the end of the evolutionary 1:51:17.840 --> 1:51:20.680 road for states, which is a flawed idea, But the 1:51:20.720 --> 1:51:24.320 interpretation that I think people like my parents had was 1:51:24.360 --> 1:51:27.120 that we didn't need to worry anymore. Right, like that 1:51:27.120 --> 1:51:28.760 that's the end of history, right, our way of life 1:51:28.800 --> 1:51:31.480 had one and we like we we didn't need to worry. 1:51:31.520 --> 1:51:34.960 And in nine eleven happens and suddenly this decade or 1:51:35.000 --> 1:51:37.960 so of relief from that all ends in a minute, 1:51:38.040 --> 1:51:39.960 and all of that fear that they lived with their 1:51:40.000 --> 1:51:43.640 whole lives came roaring back with abandoned. Nine eleven was 1:51:43.680 --> 1:51:46.519 like the emotional equivalent of splitting an atom. And and 1:51:46.560 --> 1:51:49.360 the Internet that was released by that is going to 1:51:49.400 --> 1:51:52.160 be used for something, right. I want to kind of 1:51:52.200 --> 1:51:53.960 touch on that a little bit, because I mean, I 1:51:54.040 --> 1:51:56.800 obviously don't remember the nineties because I wasn't there, and 1:51:56.840 --> 1:51:59.160 it is such a fascinating idea to me, like this 1:51:59.320 --> 1:52:02.920 time where neoliberalism kind of reached their paradise, like like 1:52:03.000 --> 1:52:05.240 we didn't we could we we we we did the thing, 1:52:05.320 --> 1:52:09.400 We found the spot and how that you know, talk 1:52:09.439 --> 1:52:10.920 about like the edge o chaos theory, how it was 1:52:10.920 --> 1:52:13.080 built up to the super high point and then all 1:52:13.080 --> 1:52:15.920 because because it got so high and then immediately crumbled, 1:52:16.360 --> 1:52:19.400 um and shot down and there's this thing that um. 1:52:19.960 --> 1:52:23.400 One of my favorite writers, Granat Morrison, talks about how 1:52:24.040 --> 1:52:27.840 nine eleven kind of became this moment where the world 1:52:27.880 --> 1:52:31.120 of imagination and the world of like the lowest material 1:52:31.640 --> 1:52:36.599 visceral reality crashed into each other. Um, and he says 1:52:36.680 --> 1:52:40.000 a quote. The collapse expressed itself in the material world 1:52:40.160 --> 1:52:42.200 when the twin towers of the World Trade Center were 1:52:42.240 --> 1:52:46.720 reduced to dust by determined extremists. When cement occurred, reality 1:52:46.720 --> 1:52:50.759 and fiction began their slow collapse into one another. After 1:52:50.760 --> 1:52:54.280 the fall of the towers, quote unquote, reality became more fictional, 1:52:54.400 --> 1:52:59.479 and quote unquote fiction became more realistic, I think, plausible, realistic, 1:52:59.520 --> 1:53:03.320 superhero of movies like The Dark Knight films, fake news, 1:53:03.520 --> 1:53:09.040 deep fakes, a r VR and the rise of magical thinking. Um. 1:53:09.120 --> 1:53:11.120 And I would extra plate that out to like stuff 1:53:11.160 --> 1:53:13.519 like you know Q and on UM and you know 1:53:13.600 --> 1:53:17.719 the how just these images that we thought were only 1:53:18.439 --> 1:53:24.080 viewable in film and television um became descended down onto 1:53:24.160 --> 1:53:29.240 the onto the dirtiest, most visceral material plane. UM. And 1:53:29.280 --> 1:53:31.760 then things that were fake like this idea like the 1:53:31.760 --> 1:53:34.439 Perfect nineties, It's gonna be this is gonna continue continue 1:53:34.439 --> 1:53:38.439 like Diever that fiction. Uh, it felt almost more real, 1:53:38.479 --> 1:53:40.200 like it like that that that should have been what's 1:53:40.240 --> 1:53:43.360 real and it's not me more. Yeah, it feels like 1:53:43.400 --> 1:53:45.360 there's an alternate and I think that's part of why 1:53:45.880 --> 1:53:48.639 liberals are still so goddamn in love with the West wing. 1:53:48.720 --> 1:53:51.000 And by the way I talked about liberals, my parents, 1:53:51.040 --> 1:53:54.000 who loved Ronald Reagan more than life itself, watched every 1:53:54.040 --> 1:53:56.200 episode of that show. They thought it was wonderful. And 1:53:56.240 --> 1:53:59.720 the Republicans are always portrayed very sympathetically on the West wing. Right, 1:53:59.720 --> 1:54:03.679 it's very much this noble opposition sort of idea um 1:54:04.040 --> 1:54:08.680 and uh, the the that I think there's something in 1:54:08.720 --> 1:54:11.960 that that there's list almost since that we've been locked 1:54:12.000 --> 1:54:15.559 out of the right reality. And that's that's what you know, 1:54:15.600 --> 1:54:18.000 That's what liberals are constantly harkening back to with with 1:54:18.080 --> 1:54:21.040 nine eleven. But it's also or with with stuff like 1:54:21.080 --> 1:54:25.000 the West Wing. But it's also like what conservatives. I 1:54:25.040 --> 1:54:27.000 think for a while they were looking for that. I 1:54:27.040 --> 1:54:31.920 think that's what George W. Bush promised and failed to deliver. Um. 1:54:31.960 --> 1:54:34.600 It's what they were hoping to get with Romney and 1:54:34.640 --> 1:54:37.200 when that didn't happen. I think part of what's going 1:54:37.280 --> 1:54:39.400 on with Trump is this desire, part of the desire 1:54:39.400 --> 1:54:42.440 to burn it all down is the inability to get 1:54:42.440 --> 1:54:46.720 back to this imagined if you're talking about the collapse 1:54:46.880 --> 1:54:49.480 of reality and fiction going into each other, that's what 1:54:49.560 --> 1:54:53.880 Donald Trump represents. He is this so fictional person that 1:54:54.120 --> 1:54:56.600 in order to meet this new world of reality and 1:54:56.600 --> 1:54:59.520 fiction the same thing, you need somebody that under that, 1:54:59.520 --> 1:55:02.640 that rep sense that. Um. So they turned to him 1:55:02.720 --> 1:55:06.080 because he was meeting the way they saw the world 1:55:06.160 --> 1:55:08.720 was going, that the reality infection are going into each other. 1:55:08.920 --> 1:55:13.000 So you're going to get the reality television president who 1:55:13.040 --> 1:55:16.320 who who? Who kind of embodies that essence on a 1:55:16.480 --> 1:55:19.880 very very visceral level. And I think that's part of 1:55:19.920 --> 1:55:22.600 why when you have nine eleven happen, you have all 1:55:22.600 --> 1:55:27.400 of this energy released. Both parties kind of come together 1:55:27.640 --> 1:55:31.080 in this idea that the United States should strike back 1:55:31.560 --> 1:55:33.840 and that we were at war. It's rightly pointed out 1:55:33.840 --> 1:55:37.120 by people that particularly protests against the Iraq war were massive, 1:55:37.400 --> 1:55:41.320 and they were, they were historically large. But President Bush 1:55:41.400 --> 1:55:44.520 was also the most popular president of our lifetime briefly, 1:55:44.560 --> 1:55:47.240 and it's because people were in line behind this idea 1:55:47.320 --> 1:55:49.760 that we need to hit someone well. And and I 1:55:49.760 --> 1:55:52.800 think something that's important about this that's completely forgotten is 1:55:52.880 --> 1:55:56.440 that the invasion of Afghanistan. There was like no protests. 1:55:56.880 --> 1:55:59.560 There were there were a few, but like the left imploded, 1:56:00.120 --> 1:56:02.600 like here's I'm going to read a quote from Doug Henwood. 1:56:03.440 --> 1:56:06.200 This is an attack on us. There is a near 1:56:06.240 --> 1:56:10.560 certainty that something will be done soon. Clearly considerable use 1:56:10.600 --> 1:56:12.720 of force will have to be used to capture these 1:56:12.760 --> 1:56:18.680 motherfucker's um like Adolph read He's like talking about how 1:56:18.800 --> 1:56:21.440 like there's gonna have to be military reaction. Like a 1:56:21.480 --> 1:56:23.400 bunch of the people from like who like the the 1:56:23.440 --> 1:56:27.800 old school, like anti Vietnam War protesters like from STS 1:56:27.840 --> 1:56:30.360 are like, well, we don't oppose all wars, we just 1:56:30.400 --> 1:56:33.040 opposed bad wars. So like here we should go in vadive. 1:56:33.040 --> 1:56:37.120 Guess like everyone lost their minds. Well, and I want 1:56:37.160 --> 1:56:39.040 to what I really the core of when I talk 1:56:39.080 --> 1:56:42.000 about today is why that happened. Because I think there's 1:56:42.600 --> 1:56:45.600 on particularly kind of some of the more superficial left 1:56:45.600 --> 1:56:48.840 wing analysis of this, this idea that like George Bush 1:56:49.160 --> 1:56:52.400 did what he did in response because he's like this 1:56:52.480 --> 1:56:55.720 Christian holy warrior um. And there's a couple of reasons 1:56:55.720 --> 1:56:57.880 people do this, including the fact that he once referred 1:56:57.920 --> 1:57:00.200 to the invasion of Iraq as a crusade, but as 1:57:00.240 --> 1:57:03.640 a general rule, what Bush did was not because of 1:57:03.680 --> 1:57:06.040 his Christianity and had nothing to do with any kind 1:57:06.040 --> 1:57:10.280 of conflict with his Lam. In particular. What it was 1:57:10.280 --> 1:57:14.240 was the reaction of a group of a kind of fundamentalists, 1:57:14.280 --> 1:57:18.320 fundamentalists of belief in the American state, reacting to an 1:57:18.360 --> 1:57:22.480 attack on the sanctity of that kind of idea um. 1:57:22.520 --> 1:57:25.280 And this is this is you know why all these 1:57:25.320 --> 1:57:27.200 liberals were on board at least with you know, the 1:57:27.240 --> 1:57:31.240 strike on Afghanistan or attacking Afghanistan. Christopher Hitchens. Probably no 1:57:31.280 --> 1:57:33.600 one embodies like what happened to a lot of the 1:57:33.680 --> 1:57:37.600 left better than Hitchens. Hitchens was a well known liberal journalist. 1:57:37.600 --> 1:57:41.080 He wrote an excoriating book about Henry Kissinger. Right, he's 1:57:41.080 --> 1:57:43.640 one of these people who was criticizing the Empire, who 1:57:43.680 --> 1:57:47.080 was attacking it for its excesses. For builds his career 1:57:47.200 --> 1:57:49.800 on that, and the nine eleven happens. And the first 1:57:49.880 --> 1:57:51.760 big thing he does is he puts out a massive 1:57:51.800 --> 1:57:55.880 column titled Bush's Secularist Triumph, in which he argues that 1:57:55.920 --> 1:57:58.920 the war on terror is not a crusade but a 1:57:58.960 --> 1:58:01.880 battle to keep rely Gin in public power. Separate, and 1:58:01.960 --> 1:58:03.800 I want to quote now from a study published in 1:58:03.840 --> 1:58:07.480 the Journal of Political Theology by William Kavanaugh of DePaul University. 1:58:07.880 --> 1:58:11.960 It's kindled the war on terror secular or sacred. There 1:58:11.960 --> 1:58:13.840 may be some Christians who think that we are fighting 1:58:13.880 --> 1:58:15.680 for Jesus, but the battle is being one in the 1:58:15.760 --> 1:58:19.400 name of secularism. George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, 1:58:19.440 --> 1:58:22.120 but he and the US Armed forces have objectively done 1:58:22.120 --> 1:58:24.720 more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic 1:58:24.720 --> 1:58:28.360 community combined and doubled. While the left makes apologies for 1:58:28.400 --> 1:58:31.480 religious terrorists, the right supports their obliteration to protect our 1:58:31.520 --> 1:58:34.920 secular state. Secularism is not just a smug attitude. It 1:58:35.000 --> 1:58:37.800 is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life that 1:58:37.880 --> 1:58:41.720 only became thinkable after several wars and revolutions had ruthlessly 1:58:41.760 --> 1:58:44.040 smashed the hold of clergy on the state. We are 1:58:44.040 --> 1:58:46.640 now in the middle of another such war and revolution, 1:58:46.720 --> 1:58:50.120 and the liberals have gone a wall. That's Kavanaugh's summary 1:58:50.160 --> 1:58:54.280 of Hitchens is article, but like, what's going on there 1:58:54.360 --> 1:58:57.280 is really interesting because Hitchens is proceeding as an a 1:58:57.320 --> 1:59:00.480 priori assumption that the attack on the Twin Hours is 1:59:00.520 --> 1:59:03.320 an attempt by a theocracy to take over and destroy 1:59:03.320 --> 1:59:07.400 a secular state, rather than an attempt to damage economically 1:59:07.480 --> 1:59:10.680 a military enemy um and goat it into a war 1:59:10.720 --> 1:59:14.040 that would weaken it socially, militarily and economically, which is 1:59:14.040 --> 1:59:17.520 exactly what had actually happened. The liberals that Hitchens attacks 1:59:17.560 --> 1:59:20.880 is former allies are basically saying, don't take the bait right, 1:59:21.200 --> 1:59:23.360 don't do the thing that he wants you to do, 1:59:23.640 --> 1:59:25.720 because it will it will lead to the results he 1:59:25.760 --> 1:59:28.760 wants to achieve. All Hitchens can see is that, like 1:59:28.920 --> 1:59:31.600 Muslim extremists are scary and they want to hurt him 1:59:31.640 --> 1:59:35.640 as an atheist, religion is doing things that hurt me, 1:59:36.000 --> 1:59:38.920 So I must destroy the people who believe in this city. Yeah. 1:59:39.040 --> 1:59:42.160 And it's interesting because everybody, all of the people who 1:59:42.240 --> 1:59:44.919 are kind of on the side of this civic religion, 1:59:45.280 --> 1:59:47.640 which is which is why they're responding, because there they're 1:59:47.680 --> 1:59:50.560 civic religion has been attacked and this strike on the towers. 1:59:50.880 --> 1:59:52.920 They all find kind of different ways to justify it. 1:59:53.040 --> 1:59:55.440 Hitchens is a prominent atheist, so it makes sense that 1:59:55.520 --> 1:59:58.320 he kind of sees it as a fight against theocracy. 1:59:58.640 --> 2:00:00.320 If you go through a lot of footage of news 2:00:00.360 --> 2:00:02.560 anchors in the immediate wake of the attack. Garrison, you 2:00:02.560 --> 2:00:04.200 and I were doing this a couple of nights ago. 2:00:04.480 --> 2:00:08.160 There were numerous references that the Twin Towers, which were 2:00:08.200 --> 2:00:12.440 a symbol of capitalism, and that they represent capitalist and 2:00:12.520 --> 2:00:16.160 American supremacy over capital It's like it's it's it's like 2:00:16.200 --> 2:00:20.120 the American supremacy of the economic system and and and 2:00:20.800 --> 2:00:23.840 like a reified symbol of capitalism almost like it's like 2:00:24.000 --> 2:00:27.920 it's like an idol to like to the god of capital. Yeah, 2:00:28.680 --> 2:00:30.680 there's a there's a number of different things you can 2:00:30.720 --> 2:00:33.200 find making this point. But in a column that published 2:00:33.240 --> 2:00:36.880 on nine twelve, uh, the Washington Post editorial Board wrote, 2:00:37.120 --> 2:00:39.600 for three decades, the Twin Towers of New York's World 2:00:39.640 --> 2:00:42.360 Trade Center stood as the symbol of American economic might, 2:00:42.560 --> 2:00:45.240 as powerful an icon for capitalism as the Statue of 2:00:45.280 --> 2:00:50.520 Liberty is for freedom exactly exactly. That's yeah, yeah, it's amazing. No, 2:00:50.680 --> 2:00:52.840 people were just saying this ship the day. You ever 2:00:52.880 --> 2:00:55.400 think that's funny about it. It's like no one thought 2:00:55.480 --> 2:00:59.160 this before. Like these are cheap fucking buildings, like the 2:00:59.200 --> 2:01:02.720 World Trades Yeah, like a license, Like it's literally It's 2:01:02.760 --> 2:01:06.600 just like license is a nameless license out. It's like that, 2:01:06.960 --> 2:01:08.920 you know, But that doesn't because again, what what you 2:01:09.760 --> 2:01:12.360 by saying this when they're saying like, for three decades, 2:01:12.360 --> 2:01:15.520 this was the symbol of American economic might. People and 2:01:15.560 --> 2:01:17.240 I keep going back to my parents, but I think 2:01:17.240 --> 2:01:20.560 they represent a lot of Americans saw the defeat of 2:01:20.600 --> 2:01:24.200 the Soviet Union as being achieved by the US economy, 2:01:24.280 --> 2:01:27.080 by capitalist right, and and that's the thing that ended history. 2:01:27.160 --> 2:01:29.320 That's the thing that got them to their neo liver paradise. 2:01:29.400 --> 2:01:31.800 It's the thing that saved them from the nukes. And 2:01:31.840 --> 2:01:36.640 so by taking these towers down, bin Laden basically killed Superman. Right, 2:01:36.680 --> 2:01:41.040 That's how they're reacting to it. Um. George Bush and 2:01:41.080 --> 2:01:44.280 Christopher Hitchens and the Washington Post editorial board, they all 2:01:44.320 --> 2:01:47.360 saw their support for war not as as not based 2:01:47.360 --> 2:01:50.440 in religion. All of them would have denied this right, Um. 2:01:50.480 --> 2:01:53.360 But Kavanaugh argues that they were motivated primarily by what 2:01:53.400 --> 2:01:55.680 he calls the civil religion of the United States, which 2:01:55.680 --> 2:01:57.280 is why I've been using that term. I'm gonna quote 2:01:57.320 --> 2:01:59.960 from his paper again. The United States has its own 2:02:00.000 --> 2:02:02.760 civil religion, which, though relying on the support of Christians, 2:02:02.760 --> 2:02:07.160 and undoubtedly, borrowing much from Christian imagery, transcends mere sectarian 2:02:07.200 --> 2:02:10.760 religion to unite all Americans on a higher ground. Indeed, 2:02:10.840 --> 2:02:13.960 this is what makes secularism compatible with civil religion. What 2:02:14.120 --> 2:02:18.520 Robert Bella calls traditional religion is privatized, while civic rituals 2:02:18.520 --> 2:02:22.440 revolve around a generic God who underwrites America's identity and 2:02:22.480 --> 2:02:25.640 purpose in the world. In this sense, Andrew Sullivan is right. 2:02:25.920 --> 2:02:28.560 This is a religious war. The war of which nine 2:02:28.560 --> 2:02:31.920 eleven was a significant marker, is not extremist and expansionist 2:02:31.920 --> 2:02:35.200 religion against a peace loving and neutral secularist order. It 2:02:35.320 --> 2:02:38.840 is rather the violent confrontation of Islamist terrorism with the 2:02:38.920 --> 2:02:43.840 civil religion of American expansionism, that is, the evangelical insistence 2:02:43.880 --> 2:02:46.800 that liberal social order is the only viable kind of 2:02:46.880 --> 2:02:49.680 social order. It is what Tarik Ali has called the 2:02:49.760 --> 2:02:53.520 clash of fundamentalisms. And I think that's important because I 2:02:53.520 --> 2:02:55.480 think one way area in which the left really got 2:02:55.520 --> 2:02:58.760 things wrong in sort of their interpretation of what happens 2:02:58.760 --> 2:03:00.720 in this period of seeing it as a lash between 2:03:01.200 --> 2:03:04.440 kind of Christian fundamentalists as embodied by George Bush and 2:03:04.720 --> 2:03:08.200 Islamic fundamentalists. No, no, no. The people who were leading 2:03:08.240 --> 2:03:10.560 this country, including Bush, but including most of the the Liberals, 2:03:10.560 --> 2:03:14.400 were America fundamentalists. They were fundamentalists in the idea of 2:03:14.400 --> 2:03:17.040 the secular American state, and so were my parents. As 2:03:17.040 --> 2:03:20.000 conservative as they were, my family was never about you know, 2:03:20.280 --> 2:03:23.040 Christianity needing to be spread over there. It was about 2:03:23.760 --> 2:03:27.920 this this belief in America as something holy and that 2:03:28.080 --> 2:03:31.360 something holy and sacred had been struck on September eleven. 2:03:32.280 --> 2:03:37.160 I will say I I think, I I don't know, 2:03:37.360 --> 2:03:41.560 it's easy for me to see why people think about 2:03:41.600 --> 2:03:43.760 this on the left sort of as this Christian holy war, 2:03:43.800 --> 2:03:45.240 because like I grew up with a lot of people 2:03:45.920 --> 2:03:48.480 who like in the wake of this, who like really 2:03:48.480 --> 2:03:51.080 were full on into the crusade thing. Like I had 2:03:51.440 --> 2:03:53.360 classmates would talk about how they were going to join 2:03:53.400 --> 2:03:57.080 the military to kill a Muslims. Like there was like 2:03:57.160 --> 2:03:59.520 I think this is a real thing. Sure, and that's 2:03:59.520 --> 2:04:02.160 what I mean, that's sort of analytic wrong, that's what 2:04:02.320 --> 2:04:04.840 that's what Kavanaugh saying, and that it's kind of scaffolded 2:04:04.960 --> 2:04:10.200 on Christianity. But like that's fun fundamentally, like the fact 2:04:10.280 --> 2:04:12.160 that there are some people who are going in there 2:04:12.200 --> 2:04:14.880 being like this is finally religious crusade, doesn't mean that's 2:04:14.920 --> 2:04:17.800 like what the leadership of the country is doing, and 2:04:17.800 --> 2:04:19.240 as I have to do. I think that's part of 2:04:19.320 --> 2:04:23.280 why we get Trump and the current Christian extremist surge 2:04:23.840 --> 2:04:27.120 is that, uh, it's a reaction to how kind of 2:04:27.160 --> 2:04:30.600 the neo cons go with this, because for the neo cons, 2:04:30.680 --> 2:04:33.880 this isn't really about this isn't about Christianity is something 2:04:33.920 --> 2:04:36.360 you use in this fight, but like, that's not what 2:04:36.440 --> 2:04:40.600 you're fighting for here. Um. And I think there's there's 2:04:40.640 --> 2:04:42.720 a good amount of evidence for the fact that Americans 2:04:43.120 --> 2:04:47.240 identified something as being like holy about the Twin Towers, 2:04:47.240 --> 2:04:51.560 particularly after the attack. UM from Kavanaughs study in Public 2:04:51.600 --> 2:04:54.480 Theology Quote and August to thousand ten of poll found 2:04:54.480 --> 2:04:57.200 that fifty six percent of Americans regard Ground zero as 2:04:57.280 --> 2:05:00.600 sacred ground, and a slightly larger majority opposes construction of 2:05:00.600 --> 2:05:03.960 a mosque nearby. For this region, a sacred aura surrounds 2:05:03.960 --> 2:05:06.280 the identity of the nation that was attacked on that day, 2:05:06.400 --> 2:05:09.680 and the attacks concentrated that sacredness in a particular location 2:05:09.680 --> 2:05:12.200 in time. It is not necessary to go back to 2:05:12.240 --> 2:05:15.080 the more famously evangelical George W. Bush to make the 2:05:15.120 --> 2:05:17.800 link between piety and nine eleven. In his speech at 2:05:17.800 --> 2:05:21.200 Ground Zero last September eleventh, two thousand ten, Barack Obama 2:05:21.200 --> 2:05:24.280 talked about gathering at this sacred hour on hallowed Ground 2:05:24.560 --> 2:05:26.440 and talked about how those who were not only killed 2:05:26.480 --> 2:05:29.720 but sacrificed in the attacks. God was invoked, of course, 2:05:29.760 --> 2:05:32.280 but it was a generic God who belonged to no 2:05:32.400 --> 2:05:36.120 particular faith, because, as Obama made clear, the victims themselves 2:05:36.160 --> 2:05:39.400 were of many faiths. Yeah, this is I mean one 2:05:39.400 --> 2:05:42.120 of the things that I think is interesting if you're 2:05:42.120 --> 2:05:44.800 actually trying to analyze this and you want to see 2:05:44.880 --> 2:05:46.840 kind of the degree to which why I think it's 2:05:46.840 --> 2:05:51.000 important to look at how people treated the space itself 2:05:51.080 --> 2:05:55.800 is sacred, is how actual religion responded in the wake 2:05:55.840 --> 2:05:58.560 of nine eleven, and how Americans responded to religion in 2:05:58.560 --> 2:06:01.800 the wake of nine eleven, because you know, it says 2:06:01.840 --> 2:06:04.200 they're about fifty six percent of the country. See, this 2:06:04.320 --> 2:06:07.320 is like hallowed Ground in some way. Um. And I 2:06:07.360 --> 2:06:09.840 think there's evidence that people kind of rose up to 2:06:09.840 --> 2:06:13.280 defend this civic religion more than they actually did their 2:06:13.360 --> 2:06:17.520 real faiths. Um. And this is because primarily the reaction 2:06:18.280 --> 2:06:21.000 on a on a population basis to September eleven, is 2:06:21.040 --> 2:06:24.800 that religiosity in the United States continued to decline. Right, 2:06:24.840 --> 2:06:27.120 There's a public idea that it led to this like 2:06:27.280 --> 2:06:29.880 surge of people coming back to the church and getting 2:06:29.880 --> 2:06:32.960 religious again, but there's really no demographic evidence to back 2:06:33.000 --> 2:06:34.440 that up. And I want to quote from an article 2:06:34.440 --> 2:06:37.520 I found in Christianity Today. For a few weeks after 2:06:37.640 --> 2:06:40.040 nine eleven, people packed the pews, but it soon became 2:06:40.080 --> 2:06:42.680 apparent there was not a great awakening or a profound 2:06:42.840 --> 2:06:46.520 change in America's religious practices, as Frank M. Newport Gallop Pole, 2:06:46.600 --> 2:06:48.680 editor in chief, told The New York Times in November 2:06:48.680 --> 2:06:51.720 of two thousand one. Barnard Group confirmed that conclusion in 2:06:51.720 --> 2:06:55.640 two thousand six, attract nineteen dimensions of spirituality and beliefs 2:06:55.640 --> 2:06:59.000 and found none of those nineteen indicators were statistically different 2:06:59.200 --> 2:07:02.000 from pre attack measures. In other words, that not eleven 2:07:02.040 --> 2:07:05.160 attacks didn't put American Christians on a trajectory towards more 2:07:05.320 --> 2:07:08.959 orthodox beliefs or more consistent habits of prayer, church attendance, 2:07:09.000 --> 2:07:11.240 or scripture reading. And so far as we can measure 2:07:11.280 --> 2:07:14.720 matters of faith, the decline of American religiosity continue to 2:07:14.800 --> 2:07:18.480 pace spiritually speaking, said barn As David Kinneman. It's as 2:07:18.520 --> 2:07:23.560 if nothing significant ever happened, and that's something evangelicals have 2:07:23.560 --> 2:07:25.680 had to grapple with ever since the US did not 2:07:25.760 --> 2:07:29.240 turn back to God demographically. And while hateful attacks against 2:07:29.320 --> 2:07:31.520 Muslims surged, you have to acknowledge that a lot of 2:07:31.520 --> 2:07:33.560 those were from people who were more or less secular 2:07:34.040 --> 2:07:36.040 um in the traditional sense. And this is part of 2:07:36.080 --> 2:07:40.400 why so many of the online atheists set Uh sided 2:07:40.440 --> 2:07:42.360 with the al right in two thousand fifteen, in two 2:07:42.360 --> 2:07:44.560 thousand sixteen, right, it's because there are a lot of 2:07:44.600 --> 2:07:48.520 those people Um, while they would have described themselves as 2:07:48.560 --> 2:07:52.040 an opposition to Christianity as well, were very much a 2:07:52.080 --> 2:07:54.520 part of the same civic religion as everybody else. And 2:07:54.520 --> 2:07:57.280 we're willing to engage in racist attacks against members of 2:07:57.320 --> 2:07:59.720 religion as a result of that. You know, when when 2:07:59.720 --> 2:08:02.360 you get the fact that a majority of Americans saw 2:08:02.440 --> 2:08:05.320 ground zero was sacred and opposed building a mosque because 2:08:05.360 --> 2:08:07.720 of that, a decent chunk of those people are not 2:08:07.880 --> 2:08:10.280 Christians who opposed the building of a mosque, Right, they're 2:08:10.320 --> 2:08:13.000 a religious or their atheist, and they opposed the building 2:08:13.040 --> 2:08:16.200 of a mosque because they still see Islam as an enemy. Yeah, 2:08:16.240 --> 2:08:20.080 it's uh, it's interesting, but Americans were not moved to 2:08:20.160 --> 2:08:24.360 embrace religion by the attacks UM and the deterioration of 2:08:24.360 --> 2:08:26.360 our sense of security that followed, and I think that 2:08:26.440 --> 2:08:30.240 Evangelicals have never been able to actually accept this. A 2:08:30.280 --> 2:08:33.360 two thousand thirteen Barner Group survey found that most Americans, 2:08:33.360 --> 2:08:37.160 but particularly born again Christians, believe nine eleven quote made 2:08:37.240 --> 2:08:40.320 people turn back to God, and this again has led 2:08:40.360 --> 2:08:42.960 to kind of a fetishization of the period right after 2:08:43.080 --> 2:08:46.600 nine eleven UM. The writer of that Christianity Today article 2:08:46.680 --> 2:08:49.960 I cited earlier theorizes quote. My first suggestion is what 2:08:50.000 --> 2:08:52.240 we thought was hope wasn't lost at all. It was 2:08:52.320 --> 2:08:54.960 less Christian trust and character and redemption of God than 2:08:55.000 --> 2:08:58.720 American optimism, coded with not quite biblical bromides that when 2:08:58.760 --> 2:09:02.320 there's bad, good will follow. Americans love to believe that 2:09:02.400 --> 2:09:04.840 everything happens for a reason, and that after a short 2:09:04.840 --> 2:09:07.360 period of time, sorrow will always turn into joy and 2:09:07.440 --> 2:09:12.160 suffering into sanctifications. We quote Romans we know that in 2:09:12.200 --> 2:09:14.000 all things God works for the good of those who 2:09:14.080 --> 2:09:16.680 love him, and incorrectly interpreted to mean that everything that 2:09:16.760 --> 2:09:20.400 happens to us will also somehow work out, Okay, And 2:09:20.440 --> 2:09:22.520 I think that they're onto something here, and this really 2:09:22.560 --> 2:09:24.640 that this goes back to what Kavanaugh was saying about 2:09:24.640 --> 2:09:27.840 how this civil religion is kind of grafted on over 2:09:27.880 --> 2:09:33.640 the bones of Christianity, right, Um, and it's it's there's 2:09:33.640 --> 2:09:36.080 so much. Part of what's interesting to me here is 2:09:36.120 --> 2:09:38.800 that well, I think it's it's worthwhile that he quotes Romans. 2:09:39.720 --> 2:09:42.200 I have to think that this, this belief that Americans 2:09:42.240 --> 2:09:44.800 have that everything happens for a reason, is at least 2:09:44.840 --> 2:09:47.800 as undergirded by like Disney as it is with scripture. 2:09:48.000 --> 2:09:50.280 It's undergraded by the way we tell stories, by the 2:09:50.320 --> 2:09:53.120 way fiction works in our society, which is a very 2:09:53.240 --> 2:09:56.800 unique to us. Right, Every culture does not tell stories 2:09:56.880 --> 2:10:00.320 the same way. Well, and I think, like, if you 2:10:00.320 --> 2:10:02.840 want to trace that out to like, I think that's 2:10:02.840 --> 2:10:06.960 part of the reason why people are so unbelievably any 2:10:06.960 --> 2:10:11.600 conspiracy theories here. Yeah, if everything needs to have a reason, 2:10:11.640 --> 2:10:14.040 that it's part of an overarching grand narrative that ties 2:10:14.080 --> 2:10:18.200 everything together. Yeah, And it's obviously again I don't want 2:10:18.200 --> 2:10:20.640 to like underplay and perhaps we should do an episode 2:10:20.680 --> 2:10:23.080 maybe behind the bastards on the reaction of the religious 2:10:23.160 --> 2:10:26.120 right to nine eleven, which was nuts and it was 2:10:26.480 --> 2:10:29.680 vicious and horrific. I'm not I'm not trying to deny that, 2:10:30.080 --> 2:10:31.800 but I think one of the things that happens in 2:10:31.840 --> 2:10:35.640 this period is they grow increasingly infuriated that that is 2:10:35.680 --> 2:10:38.480 not shared by a majority of the country, that it 2:10:38.520 --> 2:10:42.720 doesn't bring a religious revival, right, that that doesn't follow 2:10:42.760 --> 2:10:47.640 September eleven. Um. Now, it is kind of there's a 2:10:47.680 --> 2:10:50.880 couple of things that are interesting here. Um. One of 2:10:50.880 --> 2:10:54.480 them is that, uh, the apocalyptic Christian believers, they do 2:10:54.600 --> 2:10:57.840 have kind of this this in with the Bush administration. 2:10:57.920 --> 2:11:00.760 We know that at one point a bunch of apocalyptic 2:11:01.000 --> 2:11:03.840 like Christian representatives, like people who are kind of heading 2:11:03.920 --> 2:11:07.040 churches and stuff that believe there's this belief among certain 2:11:07.120 --> 2:11:09.880 Christians that you need to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem 2:11:09.920 --> 2:11:12.160 and bring about the end of days and all this stuff. 2:11:12.160 --> 2:11:13.600 There's a bunch of ship that has to happen in 2:11:13.640 --> 2:11:16.640 Palestine in order for the apocalypse to come, and they're 2:11:16.640 --> 2:11:18.880 trying to get us presidents to make it happen. This 2:11:18.960 --> 2:11:21.560 is why Trump made some of the calls that he 2:11:21.640 --> 2:11:25.600 made was to deliberately like give those people a win, um, 2:11:25.640 --> 2:11:27.000 which is why some of the ship that happened in 2:11:27.080 --> 2:11:30.839 Jerusalem during the Trump administration um was able to happen. 2:11:31.360 --> 2:11:33.120 All of that stuff is stuff that they went to 2:11:33.160 --> 2:11:35.040 George Bush. They had a two hour meeting with him 2:11:35.040 --> 2:11:38.000 and Elliott Abrams and a bunch of his staff were 2:11:38.000 --> 2:11:41.440 these representatives of kind of like the Pentecostal movement. Tried 2:11:41.480 --> 2:11:43.720 to get him to carry out this wish list policy 2:11:43.800 --> 2:11:46.920 of acts around Israel and Iraq to help them bring 2:11:46.920 --> 2:11:50.320 about the rapture, and the Bush administration didn't really do 2:11:50.360 --> 2:11:52.080 any of that. They have to take the meeting, right, 2:11:52.080 --> 2:11:54.080 They bring these guys in, they don't give them what 2:11:54.080 --> 2:11:56.160 they want. It's not until Trump that a lot of 2:11:56.200 --> 2:11:58.960 these guys get what they want. And what you what 2:11:59.200 --> 2:12:03.800 happens here. You've got this this death cult Christian group 2:12:03.960 --> 2:12:06.160 who see this as a crusade and who want to 2:12:06.200 --> 2:12:09.680 war with Islam, and they're constantly frustrated by the fact 2:12:09.680 --> 2:12:12.200 that even though he's supposed to be their guy, Bush 2:12:12.280 --> 2:12:14.640 doesn't go all the way for them, right, and this 2:12:14.720 --> 2:12:19.120 is part of why his military adventurism gets criticized effectively 2:12:19.160 --> 2:12:22.800 by guys like Trump. Who win the evangelical right, because 2:12:23.080 --> 2:12:24.840 the evangelicals say, like, well, if we're not going to 2:12:24.920 --> 2:12:26.880 have a holy war, then like what was this stuff? 2:12:26.880 --> 2:12:28.520 We just wasted a bunch of of money and a 2:12:28.520 --> 2:12:30.440 bunch of treasure and a bunch of young men for 2:12:30.600 --> 2:12:33.800 nothing over there. Um. And that's part of like what 2:12:33.880 --> 2:12:37.400 Trump wins on. Now, these two factions, these neo cons, 2:12:37.440 --> 2:12:39.440 the guys who wind up, by the way, the guys 2:12:39.480 --> 2:12:41.800 who are sort of on the civic religion side of 2:12:41.840 --> 2:12:43.960 the response to nine eleven are all the people who 2:12:44.000 --> 2:12:46.800 wind up running the Lincoln project right when you're talking 2:12:46.800 --> 2:12:49.480 about the Republicans on that side of thing. And then 2:12:49.520 --> 2:12:52.320 the part the folks who break off the evangelicals, the 2:12:52.320 --> 2:12:54.880 people who want to holy war, that's who winds up 2:12:54.880 --> 2:12:59.400 making the core of Trump's support. Um. And yeah, And 2:12:59.440 --> 2:13:02.440 that's I think mostly where I'm going to leave us 2:13:02.480 --> 2:13:05.280 for today. On nine twelve. Next week we'll have another 2:13:05.320 --> 2:13:08.760 special episode about Glenn Beck's nine twelve project that will 2:13:08.800 --> 2:13:10.360 be kind of the finishing of this. But I want 2:13:10.360 --> 2:13:13.520 to end because we're talking about why I did this 2:13:13.560 --> 2:13:15.760 and why I started by talking about jokes about nine 2:13:15.800 --> 2:13:21.680 eleven is because I think understanding understanding the attack on 2:13:21.720 --> 2:13:24.960 the towers as like an attack on what what had 2:13:25.000 --> 2:13:27.880 effectively become a god to a lot of Americans, even 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:30.560 if they didn't realize it. Right, the sanctity of this 2:13:30.640 --> 2:13:35.320 kind of neoliberal capitalist order, and it's it's it's um, 2:13:35.360 --> 2:13:40.160 it's historic inevitability. Right. The fact that that's what was 2:13:40.200 --> 2:13:43.400 going on, that that that was so dear to people, 2:13:43.480 --> 2:13:46.760 that justified so much violence, twenty years of war, of 2:13:46.840 --> 2:13:50.520 bombing's millions of deaths is part of why I think 2:13:51.040 --> 2:13:54.080 there's a value in joking about nine eleven, which is 2:13:54.080 --> 2:13:56.760 not to say that what happened wasn't terrible. Three three 2:13:56.760 --> 2:13:59.880 thousand and change innocent people were murdered um in a 2:14:00.040 --> 2:14:02.120 in a truly horrific way. If you actually sit down 2:14:02.160 --> 2:14:04.640 and watch the footage the people falling out of the buildings, 2:14:05.000 --> 2:14:06.760 it's a namare. If you think about stuff like Flight 2:14:06.880 --> 2:14:09.640 ninety three, it's it's really stirring. You have these people 2:14:09.680 --> 2:14:12.919 who one moment they're heading to like see their families 2:14:13.040 --> 2:14:14.440 or go on a work trip or something. You're on 2:14:14.440 --> 2:14:17.320 a plane experience, I'm sure everybody has, where you're just 2:14:17.360 --> 2:14:19.200 like trying to get from A to B and in 2:14:19.240 --> 2:14:21.320 the space of like a few minutes. They have to 2:14:21.360 --> 2:14:24.120 all decide they're going to charge a bunch of terrorists, 2:14:24.480 --> 2:14:27.000 fight in hand to hand combat, and then pilot a 2:14:27.040 --> 2:14:29.040 plane into the ground in order to stop it from 2:14:29.120 --> 2:14:33.800 killing other people. That's that's powerful stuff. Um. What what 2:14:33.920 --> 2:14:37.320 I think is important is de sacralizing it, because there's 2:14:37.320 --> 2:14:42.160 nothing sacred about mass murder um, and there's nothing there's 2:14:42.360 --> 2:14:44.760 we shouldn't see what happened, there is anything but what 2:14:44.800 --> 2:14:48.200 it is, which is a tragic um, a tragic act 2:14:48.200 --> 2:14:51.840 of violence against innocent people. But taking it as like 2:14:51.880 --> 2:14:57.040 an attack on our soul, as an attack on like 2:14:57.200 --> 2:15:01.440 our our collective god. Um. When you start to do 2:15:01.480 --> 2:15:05.000 that again, it kind of justifies any sort of violence, 2:15:05.040 --> 2:15:08.080 like there's nothing, there's nothing that's off the table, and 2:15:08.160 --> 2:15:10.400 in in the first few years after nine eleven, there 2:15:10.440 --> 2:15:14.240 was nothing off the table. Um, And we're never getting 2:15:14.320 --> 2:15:17.840 back to the world that we had before, which is 2:15:17.920 --> 2:15:20.720 ultimately like what all that violence was about. Right, all 2:15:20.800 --> 2:15:22.920 of everything terrible that was in the wake of nine 2:15:22.920 --> 2:15:26.160 eleven was justified, even if people didn't say it. In 2:15:26.200 --> 2:15:28.440 the desire to get back to where we were in 2:15:28.440 --> 2:15:30.960 the nineties, right in their heads and their sense of security. 2:15:30.960 --> 2:15:33.800 I'm not talking about anything is like courses, economic projections. 2:15:34.040 --> 2:15:36.960 I'm talking about in the sense of like optimism and 2:15:37.160 --> 2:15:39.920 basic security. And I think one of the people who 2:15:39.960 --> 2:15:42.120 got this best in the immediate wake of the attack 2:15:42.560 --> 2:15:45.120 was Hunter S. Thompson, who you know, was still alive 2:15:45.120 --> 2:15:46.640 at that point for a couple of years, and he 2:15:46.680 --> 2:15:49.320 wrote a column. I think it was for ESPN dot com, 2:15:49.560 --> 2:15:52.200 because that's who he was writing for in those days. 2:15:52.240 --> 2:15:55.800 His career was well past its peak, um, but he 2:15:55.840 --> 2:15:59.160 wrote probably the best thing anyone wrote a week after 2:15:59.240 --> 2:16:01.080 nine eleven. I'm going to read you the end of that. 2:16:01.160 --> 2:16:04.960 Now we're at war now, according to President Bush, and 2:16:05.000 --> 2:16:07.040 I take him at his word. He also says this 2:16:07.080 --> 2:16:10.200 war might last for a very long time. Generals and 2:16:10.240 --> 2:16:12.600 military scholars that will tell you that eight or ten 2:16:12.680 --> 2:16:14.800 years is actually not such a long time in the 2:16:14.840 --> 2:16:17.560 span of human history, which is no doubt true. But 2:16:17.680 --> 2:16:20.000 history also tells us that ten years of martial law 2:16:20.040 --> 2:16:22.080 and a wartime economy are going to feel like a 2:16:22.120 --> 2:16:24.680 lifetime to people who are in their twenties today. The 2:16:24.720 --> 2:16:27.240 poor bastards of what will forever be known as Generation 2:16:27.400 --> 2:16:30.280 Z are doomed to be the first generation of Americans 2:16:30.280 --> 2:16:32.280 who will grow up with the lower standard of living 2:16:32.280 --> 2:16:35.680 than their parents enjoyed. This is extremely heavy news and 2:16:35.720 --> 2:16:37.720 it will take a while for it to sink in. 2:16:37.760 --> 2:16:39.959 The twenty two babies born in New York City while 2:16:40.000 --> 2:16:42.440 the World Trade Center burned, will never know what they missed. 2:16:42.680 --> 2:16:44.840 The last half of the twentieth century will seem like 2:16:44.879 --> 2:16:48.040 a wild party for rich kids compared to what's coming now. 2:16:48.400 --> 2:16:51.280 The party's over, folks. Yeah, that is kind of the 2:16:51.280 --> 2:16:55.440 feeling growing up in the early two thousand's and not 2:16:56.040 --> 2:17:00.520 not knowing, not never actually experiencing the nineties. Yeah, some ways, 2:17:01.040 --> 2:17:04.200 you know, nine eleven feels very similar to me as 2:17:04.200 --> 2:17:08.400 something like Pearl Harbor, Like they're both things that happened 2:17:08.520 --> 2:17:11.440 I guess before I was around, and it just they 2:17:11.520 --> 2:17:14.640 created the world that already existed in like it never 2:17:15.520 --> 2:17:19.560 it never like it, you know, it never changed the 2:17:19.600 --> 2:17:22.640 world I was in. It just became the world that 2:17:22.680 --> 2:17:25.840 I was in. For me, nine eleven is my first memory, 2:17:26.879 --> 2:17:31.640 Like that is the first thing I remember, And yeah, 2:17:31.680 --> 2:17:35.840 we got exactly the world that you would expect from 2:17:35.879 --> 2:17:40.480 your first every reading nine eleven. Yeah, it's um, I 2:17:40.480 --> 2:17:43.120 mean again, for me, I think the thing I identify 2:17:43.200 --> 2:17:45.240 most is that little clip I played from South Park 2:17:45.280 --> 2:17:46.800 where one of the kids is like, do you remember 2:17:46.840 --> 2:17:53.879 when everything didn't suck? It's not really um, So yeah, 2:17:54.320 --> 2:17:57.640 go out, um, tell a tasteful joke about nine eleven, 2:17:58.160 --> 2:18:03.879 and try not to worship the state. It doesn't end well. Hey, 2:18:03.959 --> 2:18:07.040 we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 2:18:07.080 --> 2:18:09.680 now until the heat death of the universe. It Could 2:18:09.720 --> 2:18:12.000 Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For 2:18:12.160 --> 2:18:14.880 more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool 2:18:14.920 --> 2:18:16.920 zone media dot com, or check us out on the 2:18:16.959 --> 2:18:19.640 I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 2:18:19.680 --> 2:18:22.440 to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, 2:18:22.520 --> 2:18:26.160 updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. 2:18:26.160 --> 2:18:27.000 Thanks for listening.