WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 84 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.359 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.440 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.280 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.800 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.959 there's gotta be nothing new here for you. But you 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:21.600 can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:32.519 It's another mass shooting. There's no I don't, I don't. 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.040 I don't have a good way to start this episode. Yeah, 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.239 but welcome jac it appen here a podcast that is 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:44.600 also just about mass shootings now because yeah, great great 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:49.320 world we live in with me is Gare and Robert Hello. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.680 Hello, Yeah, so a Nazi killed a whole bunch of 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:54.240 people again. 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.080 Yeah, in case there's been another one, we are we 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.560 are talking about the specific as shooting in Allen, Texas 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.679 with the guy who was covered in swastika tattoos that 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.720 certain people are claiming as a fed. Yeah. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:14.920 That happened on Sunday, May seventh. So I think I 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.320 think MIA has some details about what actually happened to 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.080 kind of put together, but for the majority that we're 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.760 actually going to be talking about people's reaction to this, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.560 including some of the most influential people on the planet. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.160 And the level of reality denial that is, it has 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.039 been bad before, it's just extra visible right now, and 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.080 it's visible to a degree that is that is pretty worrying, 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.200 and we felt it was it was worth talking about 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.760 just because of you know, whenever a reality fracture is 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.880 big enough to be like this this noticeable, that is 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.320 always always an interesting sign of where we are at 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.000 as a culture. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.960 Yeah, I think so before we fully dive into that, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.240 there's something that I do want to talk about like 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:05.760 briefly with this, which is that so like this is 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.639 you know, in the sort of mold of like white 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.000 premises killings, is like, this is very very targeted and 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.400 non white people. So he shot one white guy who 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.240 was a security guard, and then he shot like three 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.120 Latino people and then four Asian people. And I don't know, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.800 I wanted to just sort of like remind people that 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.600 anti Asian violence is still like a thing because everyone 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.080 seems to have forgotten about it, and you know, this 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:34.760 is like I mean, I think if you exclude the 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:40.040 if you exclude the three in California that were like 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.440 also committed by Asian people, says like the fourth mass 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.640 shooting in two years that's been at least half the 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:51.640 victims of an Asian It fucking sucks, I you know. 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.799 I mean, we've talked about antias violence a decent amount 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.679 on this show. None of the things we've ever talked 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.520 about have gotten any better. The only sort of actual 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.560 instrument the results of any of this is that like 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.200 violence against Asian people get used as a rhetorical cudgel 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:12.119 to justify killing black people, which is fucking abhorrent. And yeah, 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.240 I just wanted to get this in because the media 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.760 has collectively forgotten that that was the whole thing, and 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.680 no one really talks about the shooting in that framing, 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.880 and I think it's important to do so at least 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:24.480 for a little bit. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.840 I think the other thing to kind of just talk 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.520 about it at the top here. Latino white supremacists and 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.280 Latino Nazis are not They are not an uncommon thing. 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.920 This is actually quite common. Two of the most famous 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.280 fascists in the world right now, Nick Fuentes and Enrique Tario, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:45.160 are not white. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:46.200 No. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.160 I mean, just like, think about think about where I mean, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.520 think about the fact that prior to World War Two, 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.760 Argentina spent a significant chunk of their defense budget bringing 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.320 over Nazis to train their military, which is a big 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.680 part of why so many Nazis escaped there via rat lines. 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.200 You know, we just did a series of episodes on 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.800 Alfredo Stressner, the fascist dictator of Paraguay who put up 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.320 and hid Joseph Mengola along with a bunch of other 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.800 Nazis for a while. Mangola had citizenship in both Argentina 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.680 and in Paraguay. Like, this is it's not uncommon. This 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:21.919 is not like a new thing. We're not It's not 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.800 like some sudden shift in the way that fascism works. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.400 Even the shooter himself like posted memes about being a 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.720 Latino white supremacist, Like it is a subculture big enough 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.440 that it has its own like meme of vortex. So 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.880 and this shooter was actively engaged in in said like 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:43.520 a me medic culture. 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.400 No, And it's also worth noting that a lot of 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.240 the same things that we talk about when we talk 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.440 about Nazi mass shooter culture in the United States, the 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.599 fact that a lot of shootings are kind of incited 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.080 on eight Chan and four chan and similar boards. This 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.760 happens in Latin America. Brazil in particular has a website 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.880 called degola chan that has spawned at least a couple 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.880 of shootings. In the last year, They've had several more 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.200 mass shootings that are political in nature, that are kind 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.360 of driven by online fascists. Like this is not the 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.679 only place that this happened. Serbia just had a couple 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.960 as well. But like, what what what? What this guy's 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.039 doing is very much just as the christ shooting was 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.200 very much something that occurred within the broader envelope of 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:31.440 a transnational accelerationist fascist movement, you know, the Allen shooting, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.640 as far as we can tell what the information we 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.000 have available, seems to fit very well into that schema. 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.160 Okay, we should talk about the shooter a bit. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.320 So there's there's a sort of I don't know, there's 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.880 like a after every mass shooting, there's this sort of 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.640 like identification cycle thing that happens, where like a bunch 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:52.920 of musations us AN organizations still trying to figure out 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:53.880 who the shooter was. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:01.279 So I think like the day after, very very very 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:02.279 like pretty. 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.120 Soon after the shooting, there's the new York Times runs 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.800 an article that reveals that the shooter has this like 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:09.520 has an account on like a kind of weird Russian 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:15.360 social media site. And from from that information, uh Eric Toler, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.839 who's a bell researcher, a belling cat like, tracks down 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:25.120 the site and he finds a bunch of wild stuff. 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.600 He finds like, I mean, obviously the shooter is like 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:29.960 he finds it the shooter is a Nazi. He has 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.280 like a swastika tattoo. He has also has an SS 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.960 tattoo from the shooting. He's wearing like a right wing 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.520 desk squad patches. Like it's just like a whole thing 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.640 that the Proud Boys also do. It's like a patch 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:42.680 that says like rw. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.839 D, Yeah, they sell our WDS patches. I mean, I 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:47.680 think a lot of it kind of comes out of 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.120 some of the discourse around Pinochet that goes back a 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.280 few decades, but at this point it's a much broader 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.200 thing than that. I've got a bunch of photos of 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.360 Jeremy Brederimo I think is his now who is one 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:02.960 of the Proud Boys. I believe he's the guy who 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.120 got stabbed prior to January sixth during one of the 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.640 big riots in DC after the twenty twenty election, but 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.000 with the big RWDS patch on his chest. And you 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:17.040 can find like Tasitala Tozy, who is an inveterate rioter 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.160 with a Patriot prayer up in Portland, would wear them 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.679 all the time. They're a common piece of fascism merch. 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.400 Yeah, and you know, and this and also you know 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.080 the other thing that's kind of important that gets found 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:35.080 on this like social media site, which okay, I wish 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.560 you it's a kind of weird thing, like he doesn't 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.360 I don't know the social media site. Seems like he 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.760 was basically using as like a journal, Like he doesn't 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.000 like follow people or like have followers, so he's just 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.200 sort of posting this stuff. He also finds a bunch 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:54.960 of clips of like Timpoole videos, and so this immediately 0:07:55.040 --> 0:08:00.720 sends the entire right into like you know, full on 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.320 defense mode, right. You know, it turns out it's it's 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.720 not great for your brand with like the sort of 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.000 general array of people if it's being associated with a 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.720 guy who just did a mass shooting. So Tim Poole 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:16.320 responds to the other thing is there's there's like a 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.760 manifesto on it, and Tim Poole responds to this by 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.040 I think I think what actually, like legitimately what happened 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.360 is he read the manifesto and there's a thing in 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.560 the manifesto like talking about the Nashville shooter being trans 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.600 or like specifically about the Nashville shooter. And I think 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.040 I think specifically he read that and was like, oh shit, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:36.520 this is my out. I can go back and talking 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:44.040 about the Nashville shooter. Sure, And so he starts, he 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.240 starts this. There's this whole sort of train of like 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.040 right wing stuff about how all of this is fake. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.400 So he starts arguing that, like this isn't the guy's 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:59.160 social media account. This this sort of very very rapidly 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:04.480 morphs into i mean, just like full on like Sandy 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:09.079 hook shit, what if his employees like tweets? Why is 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.040 the corporate press so threatened by people questioning the authenticity 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:16.040 of a Mexican neo nazi's Russian social media account uncovered 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.880 by state funded media? And this because this immediately becomes 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:20.920 the mainline right state funded media things. They're talking about 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:22.520 Belling Cat, which. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.560 They're they're hopping on all of the Tanky conspiracies. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.560 Yeah, yeah, running with it. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.199 Because Twitter is a is a cultic milieu of conspiracy, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.920 and you can latch onto one talking point to make 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.840 you feel okay about denying an entire like facet of 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.240 reality and then it becomes an easy out. 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.360 Yeah, and we're gonna we're gonna circle back to like 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.199 specifically the tanking people getting involved in this because they do. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:50.679 What they're doing is a little bit of like and 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.240 uh an evolution from what what's what? Folks kind of 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.200 in the debating Christians about evolution and shit called the 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.880 Gish gallop, where the the the original idea of the 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.120 Gish gallop was when you're arguing from a creationist perspective 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.280 about stuff like, you know, the age of the world, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.680 you bring up so many different kind of topics, you know, 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.319 from different very niche issues you have a carbon dating to, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.360 you know, specific problems you have with like the way 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.280 scientists are interpreting specific fossils, and it's just too much 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.920 detail for somebody in like an ad hoc public argument 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.360 to really like counter at once. And kind of the 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.760 evolution of it is when you're dealing with something like 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:30.800 this rather than deal with the broader picture, which is 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.920 there's just a tremendous amount of evidence that this guy 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.720 was a Nazi, that this guy was motivated and kind 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.840 of brought into the community by a lot of content 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.440 that guys like Tim Poole make. Instead you focus on, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.719 you pull up one single thing that you can kind 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.160 of like try to get people to latch onto, and 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:50.600 if you can get them arguing about that thing, you 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.000 can get them to ignore the bigger picture, like at 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:54.679 least you can distract attention from it. 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:55.160 And it works. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.800 It works for a lot of people. It's especially effective 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:58.720 on social media. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.960 Yeah, and unfortunately the social media platform that this is 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.400 mainly happening on his Twitter, which Elon Musk owns, and 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:11.160 Elon Musk immediately like decides that he's just fully in 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.920 on this shit, and he is, I mean she is, like, 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.480 like Elon Musk is is just actively promoting the sort 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.920 of weird conspiracy that basically what the sort of right 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.720 wing story about this becomes is that like, okay, Belling 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.360 Cat is is the CIA, and they're being paid to 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.720 create a like a false flag thing that okay, they're 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:41.760 they're they're being paid to create a false flag to 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.520 to make this guy look like a Nazi and a 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.720 timpoole fan to distract people from the Nashville shooting, which 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:48.480 is just like. 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:51.960 The absolute nonsense. 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.400 But you know, you you immediately get into like that 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.000 that Tim Pool employee again, like it like starts doing 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.880 this whole like we are enshrined with liberty to freely 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.160 scrutinize every claim, just as the sanctity of like every 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.240 human being in America like has the right to question stuff. 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.960 It's like this is like literally like literally word for 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.160 word stuff Alex Jones was saying in the Sandy Hook trial. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.200 But we've gotten to the point where you just you know, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.320 like the sort of mainstream of the right just does 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.160 this about every time it's a writing mass shooting, and 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:31.320 this this particular time, it's been just everywhere. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.080 Yeah, we're we're, we're gonna there's no no, no smooth 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.880 way to break to ads in an episode about a 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:39.400 mass shooting, but that's what we're doing. 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:41.280 We are back. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.760 I want to talk now a little bit more about 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.880 the actual exchanges that Musk was involved in and how 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.800 this narrative of like a syop and this whole narrative 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.240 around the shooting being a syeop, how that viewpoint got 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.680 inflated on Twitter because must controls where all of the 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:01.800 interactions go for tweets and actually like specifically get into 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:07.320 how this specific conspiracy is is a demonstration of how 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.520 much of just a separation from reality that people like 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.080 Musk are like actively actively working towards. One of the 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.400 main accounts that Musk was kind of like riffing off 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.440 of in this and who was like trying to like 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.400 feed Musk this type of stuff was the redheaded libertarian 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.720 who works for Timpoole. She created a bunch of memes 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.760 about this shooting talking about how how this the guy 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.400 can't can't be a Nazi and he because he's Latino. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.360 You know, why would someone use a Russian social media site? 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.640 Even tho it's actually very common for American notaptries to 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:43.800 use Russian social media. 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.240 We used to do an exercise at a trainings that 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.960 I did for Bellancat where people would go through and 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:55.200 use v Contacta, which is a Russian like kind of 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.480 Facebook clone, and you would kind of use geographical search 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.080 to find of like KKK members and shit in the 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.600 American South, because it was really common with them because 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.920 it didn't have any kind of content moderation. 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.320 So yeah, so the types of like right wing content 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.400 creators who are within Musk's Twitter orbit start pumping out 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.480 all of this stuff, right, and this is where Musk 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.960 gets all of his information from. So he starts he 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.160 starts like just questioning the validity of this story, but 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.040 then also specifically targeting belling Cat, saying that didn't didn't 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.520 didn't this story come from Bellingat, which literally specializes in 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.480 psychological operations, which, first of all, is just a wild 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:39.640 thing to say when you're talking about is specifically like 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.920 an open source journalism website, Like it's the most the 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.120 most honest way you could do journalism because it's given 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.040 people the tools to literally check all of the work themselves. 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.800 Like it's yeah, I mean this is. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:53.440 Kind of like a minor aside, but one of the 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.480 things that happens here constantly with all these people is 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.560 they're like absolutely astounded, like like how how how did 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.280 belling get possibly find this? It's like, well, it's not 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.240 that hard, it's really easy. The thing is the thing 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.680 is right if if so, Like, I am not a journalist, right, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.640 I learned everything I know about this from gare in 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.800 like one night, and like I have tracked down like 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:13.960 mass you too social media accounts and like before the 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:15.960 police got them, Like it's not that hard. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.280 But the thing is it requires you to even like just. 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.000 A tiny tiny bit be a journalist. 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:22.920 And not a single one of these writing people has 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.760 ever like done journalism ever, and so like just like 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.680 the tiniest bit of journalism just like destroys their brains 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.600 and they're like they are physically incapable of comprehending how 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.320 someone could have done a journalism and then they use 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:35.960 this to sort of feed their base because their base 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.440 also just doesn't understand how someone could do a journalism 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.480 and this this, this, this lets you do this like 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.160 cycle of like how could they possibly have found this? 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:43.680 They must have been given it by the government. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.720 It's just like No, all that really comes down to 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.920 is is who has who is on their computer at 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.480 the right time when this thing happens. Yeah, whenever I 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.600 find out or whenever I can id people, it's always 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.600 just like coincidence that the thing happens as I'm already 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.360 at my computer, so now I can look into this thing, right, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.800 it is It is just who has access to the 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.320 internet at the right time is the way that we 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.840 figure out like, who's gonna end up iding somebody? 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.160 Yeah, it's it's a mix of that, and it's a 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.600 mix of just who has the patience and the motivation 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.920 to sit and comb through shit for hours and days, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.160 which is the same thing that like, it's the same 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.600 thing at anti fascist activists have been doing for years, 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.400 you know, especially since Charlottesville, where you're just like, I'm 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:27.640 going to watch the same videos of the same event 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.760 and find new ones and I'm going to spend three 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.160 years doing that, and eventually I will catch a tattoo 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.560 or a shirt with a logo and that will let 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.600 me id somebody, because you know, of the of the 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.800 different social media shit that I've been pulling up, like 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.720 it's it's it's not it doesn't take like spice satellites. 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.840 It just takes motivation, being in the right place at 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:50.840 the right time and having nothing else to do. 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:52.280 Yeah. 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.240 So eventually they started just kind of harping on this 0:16:55.320 --> 0:17:00.160 term syop, so sich obviously means psychological operation. But what 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.840 what they mean when they say syop is that they 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.679 mean this was like a government, This is a false 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.560 like a manufactured government planned operation. That's what they actually mean, right, 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.000 Like in in the conspiracy space, syop is is more 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.679 like a loaded term they don't actually refer to like 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.399 actual syops that get doning like against like you know, 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.879 you can look at like co Intel pro right, you 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:26.480 can look at you can look at various ways that 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.720 the FBI of the army has done syops. But what 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:31.919 they mean when they say syop is this is like 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.600 this is a government conspiracy theory and it's a false 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.560 narrative that's been crafted to like change public opinions. So 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.120 I guess, I guess these people mea you mentioned how 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.199 they're making it sound like this was this was created 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.480 to distract from the Nashville shooting or just just they 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.119 have various like motivations for why they want to but 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.560 it the important part is that they could use this 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.879 word to just easily deny reality, and that is that 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.320 it is kind of beyond like whatever motivations they have. 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:01.919 It's just easy for them and their ideology to just 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.600 block off this section of reality so that they don't 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.960 have to Like people who are like actually libertarians don't 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.359 need to like confront what the extent of their ideology 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.800 actually means. Right, you know, there's certainly people who are 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.240 like okay with mass shootings happening, or you know, are 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.080 totally fine with with with with like non white people 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.399 getting killed in mass shootings. But there probably are certain 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.639 libertarians who don't actually like mass shootings. They don't actually 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.240 like when fascists go kill tons of people, and it's 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.440 easier for them sometimes just to block off this section 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.200 and ignore it than actually confront what their ideology means. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.760 So some must kept saying this is either the weirdest 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.280 story ever or a very bad syop. The answer is neither. 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.560 This story is not super weird. It's actually very very 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.840 explainable if you understand the mechanisms at play here, and 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.919 even just not a bad SI Yeah. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.040 I mean it's not even like it's not on it's 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.480 like on the whole. It's not a particularly complicated story 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.080 like there are. It is not an uncommon thing. I mean, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.040 the biggest, most recent one before this was that that 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.439 shooting in New York at the grocery store that was 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:09.080 like a directly inspired Nazi attack. Like this kind of 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.880 shit happens constantly in the United States. It doesn't require 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.280 nobody has to be secretly armed by the Feds. There's 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.880 an AR fifteen behind every bush in this country. It's 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.080 not hard for this kind of this kind of shit, 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.199 It's not hard to see where this like originates from. 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:29.680 Yeah, so it's I mean, Muska just kept kept replying 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:34.640 to both Timpoole employee tweets tweets from the very blatantly 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.200 fascist account to end Wokeness, which Musk has been replying 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:43.159 to quite a quite often recently. So this and I 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.160 think the reason why we wanted to just talk about 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.639 this specifically is just because of you. Like, all of 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.080 these Musk tweets are getting like millions and millions of views, 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.520 if the view counter is any is anything to go by. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.160 At the very least, he's in the top three accounts 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.760 with the highest engagement on Twitter. So these these types 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:03.320 of conspiracy theories are getting inflated to extremely high degrees 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.080 at least online, and the separation of reality online is 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.080 inflated for these mass shootings in a way that I 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:13.200 have not seen in quite a while. I have not 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.480 seen this much just denial of like information regarding mass 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:22.280 shootings in quite a long time. And the combination of 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.000 the stuff like the stuff with Belling Cat coming from 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.480 the tankies and how those conspiracies have now mashed with 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.480 all of these like neo fascist shit. It's a combination 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:37.600 of reality denial that is absolutely worrying for like future 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:38.720 mass shootings as well. 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.360 It's a pivot in the kind of reality that's being denied. 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.440 You know, not we have nothing to do with these 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:47.679 Nazis who are parroting some of the things that we 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.840 say about immigration. It's this is fundamentally not the attack 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.199 that you think it is. This is our enemies creating 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.800 an attack to try to make us look bad. Like 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.959 the fact that that you've always seen and pieces of that. 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.560 The fact that it's being parroted by the wealthiest man 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.440 on the planet using one of the biggest information fire 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.119 hoses that exists is completely novel. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.080 Yeah, because I mean a lot of these same conspiracy 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.040 theories that specifically about like Eric Toler, we saw we 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.639 saw leftists and tankies bringing up the same stuff during 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.880 the UH, during the stuff with the Nazi National guardsmen 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.800 a month ago. So we have a lot of this 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:28.280 stuff has kind of been writing on the back of 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.600 that and just continued and accelerating UH since then. It 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.280 appears there's a few outlets like Business Insider and Blank 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:40.560 at themselves reporting that they are they are receiving basically 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.040 shadow bands on Twitter right now, with their with their 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.400 with their account and their posts having a very limited reach. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.760 An interesting shadow band too, because it's not like it. 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:53.480 It appears, at least from what I've seen, that what 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.240 they're doing is they're making it so that when people 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.040 type belling Cat into the search bar, nothing comes up, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.159 as opposed to like throttling the reach of the actual 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.320 posts themselves, trying to make it deliberately difficult for people 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.240 to actually look up information, which is interesting to me. 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:13.560 Yeah, and I guess I guess it's worth saying that 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:19.879 the police and Texas have confirmed everything about about the 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.320 shooters political beliefs and his new Nazi ties, and he 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.679 has a neo Nazi shit in his apartment. Obviously his 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.000 body is covered with neuo Nazi tattoos. One of the 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.439 things that some of the kind of right wing content 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:33.800 creators were trying to do is that they were trying 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.800 to say that the specific pictures of the individual that 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.639 belling Cat found online, that that these pictures were not 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:42.879 this person. They in fact that they were saying, they 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.640 were saying that the shooter is just somebody else, which 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.320 was also proven rob but yeah, they also. 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.680 They also they did another classic right wing thing, which 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.359 is that they misidentified the shooter. Yes, I thought it 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.760 was another guy with the same name, because. 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.119 Like and they misidentify the shooter, and they misidentified the 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.600 non Nazi tattoo that he had, yes, because he had 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.359 he had weirdly enough, like the city of Dallas's seal 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:09.639 tattooed on his hands. 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:12.920 Yeah, the Texas tattoo on his shoulder. 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:16.480 Yeah. They they like definitely, like there were a lot 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.560 of conspiracy theories about that, and a lot of them 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:20.480 related to the fact that, like the first photos we 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:22.840 got of the guy were like the kind of photos 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:24.639 you get of a dead man at a mass shooting 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.040 that someone takes through a window while sheltering, So it 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:29.840 wasn't clear. So they would take a picture of like 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.560 a social media picture of the tattoo on his hand, 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.040 and then a picture of him dead, and like the 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:37.720 tattoo on his hand in the picture of him dead 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:39.720 was like blurrier, and they were like, look, the lines 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.320 aren't straight. They're straight in the picture on his social 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:44.400 media and it's like, well, yeah, because those were taken 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:47.919 by very different cameras in very different situations. Like you 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:50.400 know how cameras work, you know how this this is 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:51.320 of what. 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.840 Of the funnier ones that one of these content creators 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:57.119 was doing was they were they were posting the the 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.359 photos of of the Nazi tattoos that the shooter himself 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:03.480 posted online, being like, look how fresh these tattoos are. 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:06.320 How can. 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:09.800 If he had these tattoos for years, why do they 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:11.480 look so fresh at these photos? 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:13.680 Because the photos were from right after. 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:19.119 Him, like you do when you get a tattoo. Yeah, 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.320 there's like I have tattoos pictures of me getting tattoos 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.240 from like fifteen years ago somewhere on my Facebook. Like 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.399 you could do the same thing, suspicious Robert. 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:33.560 One of the interesting things is that like we see 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:35.080 the same thing with all of like all of the 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:37.760 worries around like deep faking stuff, like all of all 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.240 of the like weaponized on reality stuff. It doesn't need 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:43.399 to actually be convincing. It it doesn't need to be 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.200 good like like deep fakes don't need to be good quality. 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:48.560 You can you can post a meme of like a 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.359 picture of Biden's face and some text on it with 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.960 a quotation mark post on Facebook and millions of people 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:57.480 will believe that's just true. Like it doesn't need to 0:24:57.520 --> 0:24:59.639 be real or convincing in order for it to have 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:00.960 it like an effect. 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:03.879 And it's also it's not just about I think it's 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:06.679 it's thinking, Like, it's not just about convincing people. It's 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:08.679 not about making them believe it. This is like, this 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:10.680 is the thing that I tried to talk about years 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:13.440 ago during the Eight Chance shooting. It's shit posting. Part 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:16.480 of the goal is just to disrupt conversation. It's to 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:18.920 make people engage with the fake stuff. It's to make 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:23.239 people break kind of the lines of reasoning that they 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:25.920 are going in with, Like it's to make people distract 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:28.360 people from the stuff that is really clear and obvious 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:33.240 and just kind of fracture the conversation. Because the more 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:36.440 that you do that kind of the weaker you make 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:39.399 the response to what's happened, and the more kind of 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:43.040 that you can distract people from the degree of complicity 0:25:43.160 --> 0:25:45.879 that the people in kind of the media sphere on 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:47.320 the right have for all of this shit. 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:50.639 Yeah, And I think that's why it's like specifically going 0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:52.719 after the Billin Cat stuff has been really effective with 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:55.720 UP because like like there are like people who I 0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:59.320 am friends with in real life who like are convinced 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:02.000 that billing cares as a CIA si op, Like this 0:26:02.160 --> 0:26:05.199 is like a like they like really not insignificant portions 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:08.199 of the left believe this, yep. And that means that 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:10.359 it's you know, unbelievably difficult to form any kind of 0:26:10.320 --> 0:26:12.480 coherent response when like half of the people who would 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:14.199 normally be doing this stuff are like, oh, well they 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:15.360 are actually CIA, So. 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:21.320 Like, yes, the the Netherlands based CIA unit. 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:25.520 Yeah, it's like yeah there. I mean like at least 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.119 in the time I was there, the primary people funding 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:31.600 us was the Dutch post code lottery, Like it's it's 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:33.680 it's I don't know, like. 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:36.920 Like almost every news organization they take grants where yeah, 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:37.679 where they can get them. 0:26:37.880 --> 0:26:40.280 Yeah, And like I want to specifically talk about the 0:26:40.320 --> 0:26:44.200 NYDA a tiny bit because people like, so the main 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:46.439 conspiracy is about like they like at one point they 0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:48.199 took they took a grant for the National Talent for 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:52.600 Democracy and like, yeah, those people do weird shit sometimes, 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:54.800 but they also for example, like if okay, so if 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.400 you're gonna have the line that every single person who's 0:26:57.440 --> 0:26:59.880 taking money for the n D is a CIA thing, 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:02.680 Like you have to accept that. For example, like the 0:27:02.720 --> 0:27:06.720 pro Beijing Electoral Party in Hong Kong is a CIA 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:08.560 op because they also got a shit ton of any 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:11.679 D money, right, Like, like any just gives money to 0:27:11.840 --> 0:27:12.760 a shit ton of people. 0:27:13.480 --> 0:27:16.679 It's definitely worth emphasizing that, like the initial groups that 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:20.119 are pushing the Bellingkt conspiracies were all gray zone people 0:27:20.320 --> 0:27:24.600 that are specifically specifically paid by the Russian government, like 0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:28.560 because Russia was mad at Bellinkat for exposing their war crimes. Yeah, 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:31.320 and like that's where all of this stuff starts. 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:34.120 There's I don't know how much point there is in 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:38.000 like laying into this specific thing too much. Would I 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:40.959 would remind you at all times when you are like 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:44.480 dealing with breaking news like this and there's a bunch 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:47.639 of different and there's a bunch of different kind of 0:27:47.640 --> 0:27:53.080 like conflicting arguments about what's actually happening. Okham's raiser isn't 0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:55.400 one hundred percent of the time the way to go. 0:27:55.960 --> 0:27:59.199 But in a situation like this, you have two possibilities. 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:02.400 One is that a Nazi went on a killing spree, 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:06.280 as happens constantly, as has been happening since the Nazis 0:28:06.680 --> 0:28:11.040 became a thing. The other possibility is that the federal government, 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:15.280 for unclear reasons, convinced a man to cover his body 0:28:15.320 --> 0:28:18.920 in swastika tattoos and shoot random people at a mall 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:22.159 for gun control. That's not going to get passed in 0:28:22.200 --> 0:28:26.720 the state of Texas. I don't know, like which of 0:28:26.720 --> 0:28:28.240 those seems likely to you. 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:33.600 I did this thing like very deliberately to myself, like 0:28:34.000 --> 0:28:37.560 about a year ago, where I was like, I was 0:28:37.680 --> 0:28:40.280 very deliberate, like I'm going to like un conspiracy theory 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:43.680 my brain, because you know, like there is a lot 0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:46.800 of like like the kind of reasoning you get in 0:28:46.840 --> 0:28:49.400 this stuff, which is like, hey, here's a thing that like, 0:28:49.600 --> 0:28:52.600 quote unquote looks weird, so this whole thing must be suspect, 0:28:52.720 --> 0:28:55.120 so it must be an op is like a really 0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:57.400 really kind of like it's a really common kind of 0:28:57.440 --> 0:29:00.560 reasoning now that just like a lot of people across 0:29:00.560 --> 0:29:03.800 the entire poetic conpectionum have and it's not actually a 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:06.280 good way to understand the worlds like it's it simply 0:29:06.440 --> 0:29:06.680 is not. 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:11.200 We live in an increasingly absurd world where every single 0:29:11.200 --> 0:29:13.360 weird thing is more and more visible because of the Internet, 0:29:13.400 --> 0:29:15.560 so we're more aware of how much weird shit happens 0:29:15.600 --> 0:29:18.400 all the time, and stuff that and stuff that may 0:29:18.400 --> 0:29:21.720 not not necessarily be weird, because like everything, there is 0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:24.200 an expert in every field who can explain to you 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:27.960 why this thing actually makes perfect sense. And it's just 0:29:28.000 --> 0:29:29.920 people being exposed to things that they're not usually that 0:29:29.960 --> 0:29:32.440 they're not used to. I think one of the interesting 0:29:32.600 --> 0:29:33.920 one of the last things I think we should like 0:29:33.960 --> 0:29:37.680 mention about this is just the influx of how militant 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:42.040 like neo Nazism or like visible ne Nazism has just 0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:45.800 been People have just been saying it's Feds in an 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:49.720 increasingly concerning way, like like I think, like a last month, 0:29:49.800 --> 0:29:52.200 there was this viral video of a whole bunch of 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:56.120 Nazis stressed in red and black, I think, protesting something. 0:29:56.160 --> 0:29:58.840 I forget the exact circumstances at the moment. 0:30:00.280 --> 0:30:01.200 I think it was. 0:30:01.240 --> 0:30:03.400 I think it was some drag related protests, but yeah, 0:30:03.400 --> 0:30:05.480 there was this group of Nazis dressed in red and 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:08.360 black doing Nazi shit, And when you looked at any 0:30:08.360 --> 0:30:11.480 of the videos on Twitter, you saw hundreds of replies 0:30:11.480 --> 0:30:14.120 from people with blue check marks just calling them Feds, 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:16.280 saying oh, Wow, look at all these Feds. Well, oh, 0:30:16.320 --> 0:30:18.520 I can't believe the FEDS are so busy today. Blah 0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:20.400 blah blah blah blah. You know, it's it's like the 0:30:20.600 --> 0:30:24.040 one hundred person NPC meme with them all wearing the 0:30:24.040 --> 0:30:26.480 blue check mark on the forehead saying it's the FEDS 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:29.280 just because it's it's once we get to the point 0:30:29.280 --> 0:30:33.280 where we have more Nazis doing mass shootings again, the 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:35.680 same way like there was an influx between like twenty 0:30:35.760 --> 0:30:38.520 seventeen to twenty nineteen than twenty twenty, there was kind 0:30:38.520 --> 0:30:40.840 of a dip because all all crime kind of had 0:30:40.840 --> 0:30:43.160 a dip. As we're gonna go into the next next 0:30:43.200 --> 0:30:47.120 election cycle, as things are gonna start looping again, when 0:30:47.160 --> 0:30:50.160 more and more Nazis start doing shit, just how there's 0:30:50.200 --> 0:30:52.520 gonna be a bigger swath of the population who just 0:30:52.560 --> 0:30:56.880 denies that's what's happening, and that is gonna make make 0:30:57.040 --> 0:30:59.320 the problem of Nazis probably a bit harder to deal with. 0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:01.600 I mean, there's there will still be anti fascists doing 0:31:01.600 --> 0:31:03.360 their work to like docs and I D people and 0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:06.280 and and and all that stuff, but the amount of 0:31:06.320 --> 0:31:08.880 like visibility and the amount of traction that that this 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:12.320 level of reality denial is getting around, like militant in 0:31:12.400 --> 0:31:16.600 neo Nazism and around Nazi killings, will be a kind 0:31:16.600 --> 0:31:19.160 of a new thing to navigate, or not a new thing, 0:31:19.200 --> 0:31:21.440 but like it's a the problem will be bigger than 0:31:21.480 --> 0:31:22.320 what it used to be. 0:31:22.960 --> 0:31:25.440 I wanted to kind of note one thing on a 0:31:25.640 --> 0:31:28.680 on the other side of the ideological spectrum and uh 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:30.760 and and not to equate the two. But there has 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:33.920 been something kind of concerning that I've been seeing crop 0:31:34.000 --> 0:31:37.520 up in liberal circles. You may have noticed, kind of 0:31:37.560 --> 0:31:40.000 as a response to all of the mass shootings and 0:31:40.040 --> 0:31:44.200 the generally consistent Republican line that there's nothing to do 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:49.120 except for be shittier to marginalize people. That that there's 0:31:49.160 --> 0:31:51.360 been kind of this like focus in a lot of 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:55.240 mainstream liberal media on articles and the idea that you 0:31:55.280 --> 0:31:59.600 should spread pictures of victims of shootings, and a focus 0:31:59.640 --> 0:32:02.160 on the amount of damage that like a weapon like 0:32:02.160 --> 0:32:06.120 an AR fifteen does to a human body. People can 0:32:06.160 --> 0:32:08.200 have their own opinion on like whether or not this 0:32:08.320 --> 0:32:10.920 is a helpful idea, but I have noticed in sort 0:32:10.960 --> 0:32:14.080 of arguments I've been having with people a troubling trend, 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:16.840 which is when I talk about the importance of doing 0:32:16.880 --> 0:32:20.680 stuff like taking stop the bleed training, carrying things like tourniquets. 0:32:21.000 --> 0:32:23.600 I've gotten responses from a couple of people that are 0:32:23.640 --> 0:32:27.320 like AR fifteens are so powerful the wounds are not survivable, 0:32:27.360 --> 0:32:30.040 there's no point in doing this. That is not the case. 0:32:30.640 --> 0:32:33.000 I have known dozens of people who have been shot 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:36.000 by AR fifteens, in some cases in AR style weapons, 0:32:36.000 --> 0:32:38.920 in some cases multiple times, and larger weapons, and lived. 0:32:40.400 --> 0:32:43.320 It is always worthwhile to have stopped the bleed training 0:32:43.360 --> 0:32:46.120 and to carry equipment. If you hear anyone saying that, 0:32:46.240 --> 0:32:49.920 please please correct them, Because whatever you think about gun control, 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:52.800 it is very important for people to know how to 0:32:52.840 --> 0:32:55.960 deal with those kind of injuries, and it is important 0:32:56.120 --> 0:32:58.000 in the immediate wake of an attack. One of the 0:32:58.040 --> 0:33:00.000 things that was really unsettling is in the immediate way 0:33:00.160 --> 0:33:03.880 of the Allen attack, after the shooter was down, there 0:33:03.960 --> 0:33:05.800 was a couple of people who ran in to try 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:07.600 to provide life saving aid, and a bunch more who 0:33:07.640 --> 0:33:10.800 took photos of the people who had been wounded and killed. 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:13.280 And it's possible that if more of the people taking 0:33:13.280 --> 0:33:15.560 photos had gotten in an attempted to provide aid. Some 0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:18.200 of the people who were injured might have survived, no 0:33:18.280 --> 0:33:22.320 way to know, but always worth having that training. That's 0:33:22.400 --> 0:33:24.360 just something I've noticed. Not to put it in the 0:33:24.360 --> 0:33:27.520 same moral universe as trying to pretend your calls for 0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:29.960 violence aren't calls for violence, but it is something that 0:33:30.000 --> 0:33:32.040 concerned me and that people should maybe keep an eye on. 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:35.600 Yeah, I mean, I that was the case with the 0:33:35.640 --> 0:33:38.360 Rittenhouse shootings. There was someone who basically had most of 0:33:38.400 --> 0:33:43.280 their arm, yeah, blown off, but they did not die. Yeah, 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:46.840 So yeah, that is that is not true. And I've 0:33:46.880 --> 0:33:50.520 watched a lot of the Rittenhouse footage and yeah, it is. 0:33:50.600 --> 0:33:50.840 It is. 0:33:51.080 --> 0:33:54.760 It is nasty. Yeah, but no, that is that is 0:33:54.760 --> 0:33:55.680 a good thing to note. 0:33:55.920 --> 0:33:56.920 Yeah, and also like. 0:33:59.000 --> 0:34:02.520 On just a fundamental human level, like do do not 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:05.160 let yourself be consumed by the algorithm so much that 0:34:05.200 --> 0:34:07.400 your first reaction to seeing someone get shot is you 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:10.360 try to film them, Like, yeah, we need to be 0:34:10.360 --> 0:34:15.440 better than this, Like we have watched people die because 0:34:15.480 --> 0:34:18.160 of this, Like like this, this is not a thing 0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:20.279 as society that we can continue to be doing. Like 0:34:20.440 --> 0:34:23.200 we simply cannot. We simply have to act and not 0:34:24.400 --> 0:34:28.720 like become part of a sort of like mass media 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:30.480 spectacle instead of doing something. 0:34:31.080 --> 0:34:34.640 Yeah, the footage of things is not going to change it, 0:34:34.760 --> 0:34:39.120 especially with mass shootings. Footage and mass shootings usually actually 0:34:39.120 --> 0:34:41.239 make the problem worse, and it's mostly used by people 0:34:41.280 --> 0:34:43.239 who want to be mass shooters. 0:34:43.800 --> 0:34:47.960 Yeah, I'm I that may be a conversation we should, uh, 0:34:48.040 --> 0:34:51.000 we should expand on it a later date. But you know, 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:54.120 don't don't let the bastards grind you down. Take a 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:57.160 stop the bleed course, you know, bring a tourniquet with 0:34:57.200 --> 0:34:59.560 you out in the world. These are these are action 0:34:59.640 --> 0:35:03.359 items that that that you can do that might in 0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:06.360 fact help. So that's going to be it for us today. 0:35:06.560 --> 0:35:09.839 It could happen here until next time, you know, keep 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:10.720 your head on this wivel. 0:35:26.160 --> 0:35:28.680 Hello and welcome to another episode of It Could Happen 0:35:28.719 --> 0:35:33.480 Here with me Andrew of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Today, 0:35:33.480 --> 0:35:36.200 I'm joined by Mia and today we're going to be 0:35:36.200 --> 0:35:41.080 discussing another leading figure in the black radical tradition. If 0:35:41.080 --> 0:35:43.719 you've heard the episodes on Quasi Ba Lagoon, you know 0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:46.879 exactly what's up today. I've got the first part in 0:35:46.920 --> 0:35:51.000 a two parter about Lorenzo kembo Iven and his vision 0:35:51.239 --> 0:35:58.000 for revolution. Even's life has been one of resistance, resilience, 0:35:58.440 --> 0:36:02.919 and radicalism. These contributions the anarchist movement, especially his work 0:36:02.960 --> 0:36:06.680 on black anarchism, even to this day with his ongoing podcast, 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:14.080 continues to inspire activists around the world, myself included. So, Mia, 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:18.320 what are your what has your experience been with the 0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:20.040 Rinzo Combo Irvin and his work. 0:36:20.640 --> 0:36:23.840 Yeah, so I've read Anarchist in the Black Revolution, which 0:36:23.880 --> 0:36:27.440 I really enjoy. I've listened to not all of but 0:36:27.600 --> 0:36:30.280 like a pretty good amount of the Black Autonomy podcasts 0:36:31.120 --> 0:36:34.720 that he runs, which is great, and so yeah, I'm 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:36.319 excited to talk about him. 0:36:36.360 --> 0:36:42.440 Awesome. Yeah, he really is a fantastic and necessary figure 0:36:42.640 --> 0:36:47.200 in this you know, broader movement, especially now for those 0:36:47.239 --> 0:36:49.840 who don't know, the Rnzo Combo Irven was one of 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:54.080 the earliest founders of the black anarchist movement, which was 0:36:54.080 --> 0:36:57.440 a distinct tradition born out of the history of black 0:36:57.560 --> 0:37:01.560 radical politics in nineteen seventies. Black anarchism is not just 0:37:01.920 --> 0:37:06.000 h we are thrown on an adjective onto anarchism. There's 0:37:06.000 --> 0:37:09.400 a history behind it and there's a distinct tradition that 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:16.360 accompanies it. There were anarchists historically who were black, who 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:21.959 were not part of this black anarchist tradition, and well, 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:27.360 of course black anarchists who weren't part of those earlier movements. 0:37:28.760 --> 0:37:31.719 I think one of the most notable sort of go 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:37.920 to examples is Lucy Parsons was a very important anarchist 0:37:37.920 --> 0:37:40.560 figure in the sort of the peak of the movement, 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:46.920 at least in the US in the twentieth century. But 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:52.160 although she was Black, her contributions don't necessarily contribute to 0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:57.720 that sort of black anarchist lineage. So let's get into 0:37:57.960 --> 0:38:03.520 earthIn right. Nineteen forty seven. By the time he was twelve, 0:38:04.239 --> 0:38:08.680 Lorenzo Kobertuvin had joined the NAACP youth group and participated 0:38:08.800 --> 0:38:12.160 in sit in protests that helped to end racial segregation 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:16.840 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was later drafted during the Vietnam 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:19.439 War and served in the army for two years, where 0:38:19.480 --> 0:38:23.360 he eventually became an anti war activist. And in nineteen 0:38:23.400 --> 0:38:26.040 twenty seven, when he was twenty years old, after his 0:38:26.120 --> 0:38:30.120 involvement with the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, Lorentzo kumbo 0:38:30.239 --> 0:38:33.759 Uven joined the Black Panther Party as a rank and 0:38:33.800 --> 0:38:37.640 file member. Two years later, he hijacked a plane and 0:38:37.680 --> 0:38:39.960 fled to Cuba. While he was on the run for 0:38:40.000 --> 0:38:44.040 attempting to kill a Ku Klux Klan member, But instead 0:38:44.040 --> 0:38:48.200 of receiving support as some black radicals had received when 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:53.560 fleeing to Cuba, Cune authorities had jailed him, deported him, 0:38:53.840 --> 0:38:59.160 deported him to Czechoslovakia, and eventually he escaped from Czechoslovakia 0:38:59.480 --> 0:39:04.239 to each before eventually being caught, tortured, and brought back 0:39:04.280 --> 0:39:07.560 to the United States, and then after being drugged during 0:39:07.600 --> 0:39:12.040 his trial, he was handled two life sentences by an 0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:16.400 all white jury in a redneck town. Tough prick as 0:39:16.480 --> 0:39:22.400 you can imagine, Irvin had very quickly become disillusioned with 0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:25.600 the dictatorship he had experienced in Cuba and the socialist 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:28.880 countries he visited, and during his time in prison, he 0:39:28.960 --> 0:39:33.160 reflected on his life and found an alternative method for 0:39:33.200 --> 0:39:36.840 black revolution, distinct from the form he found the Panther Party. 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:40.600 Now even wasn't the first person to criticize the Black 0:39:40.640 --> 0:39:44.840 Panther Party's style of organization. One of the splits between 0:39:44.840 --> 0:39:48.319 the East Coast and West Coast Panthers was on what 0:39:48.480 --> 0:39:51.400 form of organization they would take. I discussed that a 0:39:51.400 --> 0:39:55.520 bit in the Quasi Battagoon episodes, and then of course 0:39:55.560 --> 0:39:57.200 there were other figures who came out to the Black 0:39:57.200 --> 0:40:02.000 Panther Party with their own criticisms, including if I remember correctly, 0:40:02.000 --> 0:40:09.920 Asata Shakur and also Don Cox. While in prison, Iuven, 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:14.440 had you gone receiving anarchist literature? And he also signed 0:40:14.440 --> 0:40:16.880 to pick up what another Black anarchist who he was 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:21.000 briefly imprisoned with at the time, Martin Sostra, was putting down. 0:40:21.040 --> 0:40:23.560 Martin Sostra is what I believe one of the first 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:28.400 major black anarchist figures in that sort of nineteen sixties 0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:34.080 nineteen seventies period, and so him being in prison with 0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:36.960 Sostra at the same time sort of really helped even 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:40.200 to understand exactly what anarchism meant and how it would 0:40:40.200 --> 0:40:45.240 applied to a specifically black experience in black context. Ivin 0:40:45.320 --> 0:40:49.719 was also inspired by Peter Kropotkin, Everyone's favorite Russian and 0:40:49.760 --> 0:40:55.400 former prince, and ultimately even adopted the ideology of anarchist. 0:40:56.239 --> 0:40:59.439 His case was soon taken up by the anarchist Black 0:40:59.480 --> 0:41:03.919 Cross and the Helper Prisoner Oppose Torture Organizing Committee, which 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:06.960 led to an international campaign the petition for his release. 0:41:08.560 --> 0:41:12.120 Evan's writings on Anarchism of the Black Revolution, which was 0:41:12.160 --> 0:41:15.960 written in prison, gained immense popularity, and so he was 0:41:16.000 --> 0:41:20.520 released in nineteen eighty three after serving nearly fifteen years. 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:25.520 In his book, he emphasized that anarchism is the most democratic, 0:41:26.080 --> 0:41:29.800 effective and radical way to obtain freedom for the black community, 0:41:30.520 --> 0:41:32.520 but the black people must be free to design their 0:41:32.560 --> 0:41:36.400 movements without the approval of North American anarchists. Do you 0:41:36.440 --> 0:41:38.799 believe that black people and other people of color would 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:41.520 be the backbone of the American anarchist movement of the future. 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:47.880 The first edition of Anarchism the Black Revolution was published 0:41:47.960 --> 0:41:50.160 quite a while ago. It's still the addition that is 0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:54.360 available on the Anarchist Library you can check out, but 0:41:54.440 --> 0:41:56.440 it is I would consider it to be a sort 0:41:56.440 --> 0:42:01.080 of a rough early edition. There are certainly some typos 0:42:01.080 --> 0:42:06.439 and editorial mistakes and stuff that were addressed in the 0:42:06.440 --> 0:42:10.080 most recent edition that was published and I believe twenty 0:42:10.160 --> 0:42:17.120 twenty one and edited with some help from William C. Anderson, 0:42:18.080 --> 0:42:20.839 who also is another leading figure in the modern black 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:26.520 anarchist movement, having written works like Nation or nomap Irvin 0:42:26.719 --> 0:42:33.200 took and still takes a principal stance against capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, 0:42:33.360 --> 0:42:38.760 colonial oppression, patriarchy, queerphobia, and the state, recognizing the government 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:42.560 is one of the worst forms of modern oppression. His 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:46.080 emphasis on intersectionality has played a crucial role in the 0:42:46.120 --> 0:42:51.240 shift away from class exclusive analysis in the American anarchist movement, 0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:55.080 and today he remains active, as I said recording a 0:42:55.080 --> 0:42:58.600 podcast called Black Autonomy with his wife and fellow forma 0:42:58.680 --> 0:43:04.000 panther Jonina. So today we drawn from Even's book Actism 0:43:04.040 --> 0:43:07.759 of the Black Revolution to delve into his picture of 0:43:07.800 --> 0:43:14.360 revolution in North America and beyond. I think one of 0:43:14.360 --> 0:43:17.719 the strongest strategies for the development of the Black Revolution 0:43:18.320 --> 0:43:21.759 would be a Black labor federation. As Even discusseds in 0:43:21.800 --> 0:43:25.319 his book, black labor has been a critical economic fact 0:43:25.360 --> 0:43:28.000 in America since the country's inception, and it was through 0:43:28.040 --> 0:43:31.080 the toil of black labor, beginning with slave labor in 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:34.320 the Old South and extending to share cropping, farm labor 0:43:34.320 --> 0:43:36.799 and migration to the North for factory jobs, that the 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:42.200 foundations of the American nation were built. However, as is obvious, 0:43:42.719 --> 0:43:47.040 black workers have been routinely excluded from that share of 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:51.640 the wealth of the American nation and routinely excluded from 0:43:51.680 --> 0:43:56.759 the trade unions that struggled to regain some of that wealth, like, 0:43:56.840 --> 0:44:00.560 for example, the American Federation of Labor, the Dash Colored 0:44:00.600 --> 0:44:03.680 Labor Union, the National Colored Farmers Alliance, and the Brotherhood 0:44:03.680 --> 0:44:06.319 of Sleeping Car Porters, as well as the League of 0:44:06.320 --> 0:44:09.760 Black Revolutionary Workers, and other unions and associations of black 0:44:09.800 --> 0:44:13.839 workers were then formed to represent these interests that were 0:44:13.880 --> 0:44:18.440 being left out and not at all brought to the table. 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:23.799 Black workers were very much instrumental in the Congress of 0:44:23.840 --> 0:44:27.719 Industrial Organizations, campaign of strikes and sit downs and other 0:44:27.800 --> 0:44:32.040 protests to organize unskilled industrial workers, but they didn't get 0:44:32.080 --> 0:44:37.880 to enjoy the benefits of their pivotal role. Most of 0:44:37.920 --> 0:44:42.040 the Black population is working class, and black industrial and 0:44:42.040 --> 0:44:45.920 clerical workers still hold significant potential power and the struggle 0:44:46.000 --> 0:44:50.960 for black liberation. A lot of these workers have already 0:44:50.960 --> 0:44:52.960 been organized and to defend their righted work and advocate 0:44:53.000 --> 0:44:56.960 for their interests, even if union leadership is conservative, even 0:44:56.960 --> 0:44:59.759 if they weren't challenge management, even if they're not even unionized. 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:03.680 We see as well in modern times a lot of 0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:08.160 black figures stepping up to organize these unions. The first 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:12.480 union to be organized in Amazon was spearheaded by a 0:45:12.520 --> 0:45:18.640 black worker, Chris Smaws, and workers black workers across history 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:23.800 have already been creating union caucuses and creating independently of 0:45:23.920 --> 0:45:27.840 unions were necessary to push for their specific interests because, 0:45:27.880 --> 0:45:31.520 I mean, the unity of black workers and the rest 0:45:31.560 --> 0:45:36.120 of the working class is essential to combat and overthrow capitalism. 0:45:36.440 --> 0:45:40.880 But there needs to be a recognition within that unity 0:45:41.400 --> 0:45:45.399 of distinctly black interests and a distinctly black history, which 0:45:45.400 --> 0:45:48.759 is why black caucuses within unions are able to take 0:45:48.800 --> 0:45:50.920 up demand to the struggles that unions have turned the 0:45:50.920 --> 0:45:55.279 blind eye to, such as discriminatory hiring, firing, and promotion practices, 0:45:55.840 --> 0:46:01.759 and you know, lack of equal treatment. I think these 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:05.480 caucuses could even go further as even also argues to 0:46:05.480 --> 0:46:11.800 democratize their unions, to eliminate some of these discriminatory practices, 0:46:11.840 --> 0:46:15.840 and to really push for the radical fighting spirit that 0:46:15.920 --> 0:46:17.920 has been lost in some of these sort of reformist 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:21.799 union structures. The black aucuss and also the workers more 0:46:21.840 --> 0:46:26.400 generally should be stepping up to demand democratic control the union, 0:46:26.520 --> 0:46:30.359 to demand equal treatments, demand of firmative action, demand full 0:46:30.400 --> 0:46:34.640 employment demand, shorter work weeks, to demand, the right to strike, 0:46:34.920 --> 0:46:39.000 the demand to social security, and an employment compensation demand 0:46:39.040 --> 0:46:45.480 for liverable minimum wages. Of course, all of these accomplishments 0:46:45.560 --> 0:46:54.480 or demands already sort of short term benefits that would 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:58.960 still retain a COPITALSS structure, but they're necessary nonetheless, especially 0:46:59.040 --> 0:47:02.759 when unionize the is are an all time low historically. 0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:05.959 One of the things that even also advocates for, which 0:47:05.960 --> 0:47:10.000 I'll get into more in the future, is this idea 0:47:10.040 --> 0:47:17.880 of unions advocating for companies to put aside funds specifically 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:21.880 for programs to rebuild in a city communities and provide 0:47:21.880 --> 0:47:26.879 work for black workers and your stocks, about worker self 0:47:26.880 --> 0:47:30.759 management of industry by factory committees and workers councils, and 0:47:32.000 --> 0:47:37.879 elections by workers themselves. But the main idea that he's 0:47:37.960 --> 0:47:41.320 pushing for, at least in terms of the black working 0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:44.640 class and black labor, is, as I mentioned, a Black 0:47:44.680 --> 0:47:48.160 labor federation, both in a national level and on an 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:54.360 international level, a national workers association with serves both a 0:47:54.440 --> 0:47:57.960 revolutionary union movement for a place organizing and a mass 0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:01.600 social movement for community organizing, combining tactics from both the 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:07.480 labor and the black liberation movements to multiply their numbers 0:48:08.400 --> 0:48:10.879 and build their strength and tilling the unions into these 0:48:10.920 --> 0:48:14.960 militant class struggle instruments. An example that we can see 0:48:14.960 --> 0:48:18.320 in history during the late nineteen sixties was the League 0:48:18.360 --> 0:48:21.960 of Revolutionary Black Workers, which is organizing black auto workers 0:48:23.480 --> 0:48:32.480 out of the out of the Dodge Revolutionary Movement. Sorry 0:48:32.480 --> 0:48:35.840 to me, let me rephrase that. One example of that 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:38.759 type of organization could be found in the League of 0:48:38.800 --> 0:48:42.759 Revolutionary Black Workers, which organized black auto workers during the 0:48:42.840 --> 0:48:46.640 late nineteen sixties. The League had grown out of a 0:48:46.680 --> 0:48:49.920 major affiliate of it out of a major affiliate, the 0:48:49.960 --> 0:48:52.920 Dodge Revolutionary Movement, and it was a black labor federation 0:48:53.000 --> 0:48:56.880 that existed as an organized alternative to the United Auto Workers, 0:48:56.920 --> 0:49:00.600 which have been excluding black workers. League was also a 0:49:00.680 --> 0:49:04.359 very major force on the streets, as it was in 0:49:04.400 --> 0:49:08.120 addition to organizing its workplaces organized in college campuses and 0:49:08.160 --> 0:49:14.799 black inner city areas. But its potential was stifled, unfortunately 0:49:14.880 --> 0:49:19.160 by political faction fights among leadership. There was a division 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:25.240 between those who wanted to take a more Marxist Leninist 0:49:25.239 --> 0:49:27.920 approach to the organization compared to those who want to 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:32.080 take more democratic approach the organization. There was a lack 0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:35.879 of a solid enough organized based in the factories, there 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:41.600 was significant company and United Auto Workers, and state repression. 0:49:42.200 --> 0:49:45.960 Of course, organized racism, a lack of cooperation among white workers, 0:49:46.000 --> 0:49:48.920 and other reasons that eventually led to the league splitting 0:49:49.000 --> 0:49:52.960 into mutually hostile factions that would die after less than 0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:59.400 five years of existence. Classic organized and history story. I 0:49:59.400 --> 0:50:01.919 don't think that you should look at these failures and 0:50:02.719 --> 0:50:04.759 use them as an opportunity to give up. I think 0:50:04.800 --> 0:50:06.799 we look at these failures and we use them as 0:50:06.960 --> 0:50:11.359 learning opportunities, use them as opportunities to recognize, oh, we 0:50:11.360 --> 0:50:15.279 can do something like this, but not exactly like this. 0:50:15.840 --> 0:50:18.320 Yeah, and make sure that Bob Avankian is never involved 0:50:18.320 --> 0:50:19.600 at any point in the process. 0:50:21.400 --> 0:50:25.200 Exactly exactly. I mean, we still need these sorts of 0:50:25.280 --> 0:50:30.479 labor organizations and associations and unions. We still need black 0:50:30.520 --> 0:50:33.399 workers pay aheading these sort of organizations to organize other 0:50:33.440 --> 0:50:36.560 black workers in their communities to support the strike. Sim 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:41.880 workplace organized. It will be necessary for significant changes, and 0:50:41.960 --> 0:50:44.520 of course we need the groups we established to avoid 0:50:44.560 --> 0:50:48.080 the pitfalls and ideological scruples of Marxism. Len this up. 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:52.880 But you're just the sort of American approach, because in 0:50:52.960 --> 0:50:55.880 case those of you who don't know, I'm not living 0:50:55.920 --> 0:51:00.640 in America, I'm not an American, which is why, and also 0:51:00.800 --> 0:51:05.480 addresses and advocates for an international Black Labor Federation to 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:11.719 wield the collective power of black workers globally that have 0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:18.080 been universally oppressed and exploited around the world as a 0:51:18.280 --> 0:51:23.279 racial group, Black workers have been oppressed as workers and 0:51:23.400 --> 0:51:28.879 as people, and this dual form for pressure is really 0:51:28.920 --> 0:51:33.040 what emphasizes that need to organize for old rights and 0:51:33.040 --> 0:51:38.560 our own liberation. In African and Caribbean countries, including trant Tobigo, 0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:43.160 there are labor federations and labor unions, but a lot 0:51:43.200 --> 0:51:45.480 of them are reformists, a lot of them are government control, 0:51:45.560 --> 0:51:47.719 and there's a lack of militancy. There's a lot of 0:51:47.760 --> 0:51:51.560 collaboration with the government and with companies they're supposed to 0:51:51.600 --> 0:51:56.440 be organizing against. As it's necessary to have an organization 0:51:56.960 --> 0:52:01.400 with an internationalist scope that is pushing for solidarity, that 0:52:01.560 --> 0:52:05.279 is pushing for radical change. And so I think that's 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:08.440 that's the real strength of an international Black Labor Federation. 0:52:08.520 --> 0:52:11.759 You know, that idea of increased solidarity across several countries, 0:52:12.280 --> 0:52:15.400 uh the idea of strengthening our collective bargaining power and 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:18.319 ability to organize this better work and conditions. Of course, 0:52:18.320 --> 0:52:21.200 we'd also have the benefit of shared resources and the 0:52:21.239 --> 0:52:24.960 benefit of greater visibility to these issues that we are 0:52:25.000 --> 0:52:27.759 facing in the workplace and in society. And then of 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:31.319 course there will also be the ability to exert using 0:52:31.320 --> 0:52:38.120 that visibility and resources and solidarity to exert greater political influence. However, 0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:41.960 you know, an international Black federation, we still struggle with 0:52:42.600 --> 0:52:45.920 political barriers, particularly in countries that are actively hostile to 0:52:46.000 --> 0:52:49.200 that sort of organizing. Of course, the power would be 0:52:49.840 --> 0:52:51.680 will do everything in their power to keep such a 0:52:51.719 --> 0:52:55.520 struggle from being able to attain and maintain any kind 0:52:55.520 --> 0:53:02.160 of momentum or power. The construs rains of time and 0:53:02.320 --> 0:53:08.680 energy and resources and engagement also prevent such a federation 0:53:08.920 --> 0:53:13.000 from gaining crown. But I still think of all those 0:53:13.000 --> 0:53:16.360 are issues that we should keep in mind. If well developed, 0:53:16.400 --> 0:53:20.799 I think that national, regional and international caucuses can do 0:53:20.880 --> 0:53:27.520 a lot to implement significant changes. In fact, one strategy 0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:32.480 that even advocates for is something that I believe an 0:53:32.480 --> 0:53:36.759 international Black Labor federation or any kind of International Labor 0:53:36.760 --> 0:53:41.200 Federation will be necessary to help to organize, and that 0:53:41.200 --> 0:53:46.920 would be a general strike because the vast majority of 0:53:46.920 --> 0:53:49.320 the Black community consists of working class people in the US, 0:53:49.400 --> 0:53:55.040 because many of them are engaged in manufacturing and medical 0:53:55.080 --> 0:54:01.719 service and communications and food production and retail, h a 0:54:01.760 --> 0:54:04.560 lot of blue collar work that really makes the country 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:08.400 go around. It really makes them an essential component to 0:54:08.480 --> 0:54:14.040 the Capital's economy and of the American economy. I think 0:54:14.040 --> 0:54:19.160 it positions them as really really key players in any 0:54:19.239 --> 0:54:23.480 sort of protest campaign that would involve first racism and 0:54:23.600 --> 0:54:30.560 class oppression, and it could go even further into beyond 0:54:30.760 --> 0:54:35.040 just stepping up and striking for demands in the workplace, 0:54:35.440 --> 0:54:38.399 control over the workplace. It could also go step further 0:54:38.400 --> 0:54:41.600 and accomplish it and accomplish in even more revolutionary goals. 0:54:42.480 --> 0:54:45.360 And I would of course involve using tactics like industrial 0:54:45.400 --> 0:54:50.080 sabotage and factory occupations and sit ins and slowdowns and 0:54:50.200 --> 0:54:54.680 wildcat strikes and other work stoppages that would help to 0:54:56.800 --> 0:55:02.759 reassuit our collective power. Of course, as I'm always really 0:55:02.760 --> 0:55:06.120 careful to emphasize when I bring up general strikes, they're 0:55:06.160 --> 0:55:11.040 not easy to organize. A friend of mine Alkie. He 0:55:11.320 --> 0:55:14.960 has a video on his YouTube channel about general strikes 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:16.799 and how they work, and some of the history is 0:55:16.840 --> 0:55:20.560 some past general strikes. So that's I think that's required 0:55:20.600 --> 0:55:24.879 reading code good reading to definitely check out. But yeah, 0:55:24.920 --> 0:55:27.760 general strikes are not easy to organize. They're not something 0:55:27.760 --> 0:55:30.280 that you could just call for on Reddit or Twitter 0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:32.280 or Facebook or whatever. 0:55:32.840 --> 0:55:33.040 You know. 0:55:33.160 --> 0:55:37.560 It takes serious community and workplace mobilization. It takes significant planning. 0:55:37.600 --> 0:55:43.520 It takes strike committees and support committees because and even 0:55:43.560 --> 0:55:48.399 defense committees when employers maybe trying to retaliate against strike 0:55:48.400 --> 0:55:52.960 cod workers or blacklist or fire workers. 0:55:53.480 --> 0:55:53.680 Yeah. 0:55:53.680 --> 0:55:57.520 And I would also say like something that I think people, okay, 0:55:57.960 --> 0:56:00.839 there's not a delegate way to say this, Like, look, 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:04.080 if you're gonna be engaged in like a long term, 0:56:04.120 --> 0:56:07.000 serious general strike, you're gonna have to do things like 0:56:07.120 --> 0:56:10.640 you're gonna have to start seizing stuff, Like you're going 0:56:10.680 --> 0:56:13.040 to have to start committing theft in order to make 0:56:13.080 --> 0:56:16.520 sure that people can like eat, Yeah, exactly, Like you're 0:56:16.520 --> 0:56:18.480 gonna have to start appropriating stuff. 0:56:20.440 --> 0:56:23.640 Yeah, exactly. It's not just standing around in a picket line, 0:56:23.680 --> 0:56:28.200 you know, Like the general strike is an extra extremely 0:56:28.760 --> 0:56:35.600 involved and invested. You don't get usually you don't get 0:56:35.640 --> 0:56:41.880 two chances to do a general strike, you know, like 0:56:41.960 --> 0:56:47.239 you have that chance, and after that they're usually if 0:56:47.239 --> 0:56:50.799 you feel you usually introduce legislation or put things in 0:56:50.840 --> 0:56:53.680 place to ensure that something like that never happens again. 0:56:54.080 --> 0:56:56.719 Yeah, or you get like there was a thing that 0:56:56.880 --> 0:56:58.560 used to happen back when, you know, back in like 0:56:58.600 --> 0:57:01.440 the early nineteen hundreds of these, and a lot was 0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:05.920 you would get these general strikes, but you know they 0:57:05.960 --> 0:57:09.280 would kind of they would be like like two days long. 0:57:11.280 --> 0:57:15.440 And there's this great Melo testa quote from Oheen nineteen 0:57:15.440 --> 0:57:20.160 twenty four, I think where he's talking about how he's 0:57:20.160 --> 0:57:24.120 talking about the factory occupations that started in Italy in 0:57:24.160 --> 0:57:27.640 the like during the two Red Years, and he has 0:57:27.680 --> 0:57:30.760 this line that goes, general strikes a protests no longer 0:57:30.840 --> 0:57:33.840 upset anyone, neither those who take part in them, nor 0:57:33.960 --> 0:57:36.880 those against whom they are directed. If only the police 0:57:36.920 --> 0:57:39.760 had the intelligence to avoid being provocative, they would pass 0:57:39.800 --> 0:57:43.120 off as a public as any public holiday. One must 0:57:43.160 --> 0:57:46.480 seek something else. We put forward an idea, the takeover of. 0:57:46.320 --> 0:57:51.000 Factories exactly exactly like you have to step beyond or 0:57:51.160 --> 0:57:54.280 is this legal? It is this legal and looking too 0:57:54.640 --> 0:58:00.040 Oh what can we make possible? You know, yeah, I 0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:03.200 mean I don't mean to be flippant, you know, like 0:58:03.280 --> 0:58:07.000 it's difficult. It takes so much organization of a lot 0:58:07.040 --> 0:58:10.400 and coordination of a large group of people. There's always 0:58:10.400 --> 0:58:12.000 put the sea of scabs. 0:58:12.280 --> 0:58:12.480 You know. 0:58:13.480 --> 0:58:16.440 It could have significant consequences for workers who depend on 0:58:16.480 --> 0:58:21.840 their wages to survive and to support their families. It 0:58:21.920 --> 0:58:24.520 can have a lot of ripple effects, and it could 0:58:24.560 --> 0:58:29.120 also involve you know, workers end up going to jail 0:58:29.240 --> 0:58:34.720 or just losing their jobs. But still it's it's a 0:58:34.760 --> 0:58:38.880 powerful tool that if we can recognize, if we could 0:58:38.880 --> 0:58:43.160 start working towards if when people were calling for strikes 0:58:43.200 --> 0:58:45.720 back in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, 0:58:45.800 --> 0:58:49.520 twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one and two, if all 0:58:49.600 --> 0:58:52.760 those years so we spent calling for general strikes actually 0:58:52.760 --> 0:58:56.800 more effort was being put in to actually put the 0:58:56.840 --> 0:59:00.400 foundation in place for general strike to occur, then twenty 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:03.880 twenty three we would be prepared to support a general 0:59:03.920 --> 0:59:07.560 strike in a long term way, in a way that 0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:14.800 would actually signify, you know, revolutionary change in our lifetimes 0:59:15.560 --> 0:59:22.120 I mean they'll be discertened. Dear listener, They're still potential 0:59:22.200 --> 0:59:25.160 for such a thing to occur. It just takes preparation 0:59:25.600 --> 0:59:30.440 and organization. Speaking of things that take preparation organization, and 0:59:30.720 --> 0:59:34.360 one of Irven's tactics is a mass tax boycott. You know, 0:59:34.360 --> 0:59:36.960 people should refuse to pay any form of taxes to 0:59:36.960 --> 0:59:40.360 the government, be it federal, income, estate, or state taxes 0:59:40.680 --> 0:59:44.200 while they continue to be exploited. Because, as he would argue, 0:59:44.280 --> 0:59:48.640 you know, wealthy and their corporations paying next to no taxes, 0:59:48.680 --> 0:59:50.840 while the poor and workers be a brunch of taxation 0:59:51.560 --> 0:59:54.520 and do not receive any benefits in return. You know, 0:59:54.560 --> 0:59:57.000 all these taxes on income and goods and services, but 0:59:57.080 --> 1:00:01.040 communities are still suffering, and that money ends up going 1:00:01.080 --> 1:00:05.120 to fund the Pentagon and defense contractors and consultants who 1:00:05.200 --> 1:00:07.760 get to you know, loot the government for their own game. 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:15.240 So part of a black radical movement or the Black revolutions, 1:00:15.320 --> 1:00:19.400 if an arguseful, is a mass tax resistance movement to 1:00:19.400 --> 1:00:23.240 boycott taxes, similar to the peace movements, war tax resistance, 1:00:24.320 --> 1:00:27.880 taking people all the taxes that would have gone into 1:00:27.920 --> 1:00:31.400 personal property, all the taxes that wo have been reaped 1:00:31.440 --> 1:00:34.400 from personal property and income tax and stocks and bonds, 1:00:35.000 --> 1:00:40.439 and funneling that towards community development, find that towards going 1:00:40.520 --> 1:00:46.360 to projects and organizations. As with any evolution reaction, significant 1:00:46.440 --> 1:00:50.080 legal consequences would be involved in that. Of course, you know, 1:00:50.920 --> 1:00:53.680 I think such a tactic needs some serious mass support 1:00:53.720 --> 1:00:56.280 and backend behind it to succeed. And even then, I 1:00:56.280 --> 1:00:58.920 don't believe it should be the backboone of any movement. 1:00:59.080 --> 1:01:01.520 I think it's more so like an accessory and event 1:01:01.560 --> 1:01:06.160 of media rupture, a single tool in a broader arsenal, 1:01:07.160 --> 1:01:09.360 Like I don't think the entire movement should be built 1:01:09.400 --> 1:01:12.240 off of tax avoidance. They're just going to get a 1:01:12.280 --> 1:01:13.920 bunch of people throw into prison. They ask a lot 1:01:13.960 --> 1:01:16.320 more to it than that. I look at the sort 1:01:16.320 --> 1:01:20.320 of cost benefit analysis, like, yeah, it'll get a lot 1:01:20.360 --> 1:01:24.960 of federal attention, but if it's not properly implemented, I 1:01:25.000 --> 1:01:27.520 don't really see any immediate benefits for the long term 1:01:27.520 --> 1:01:29.560 goals of the movement. I mean, I could be wrong, 1:01:30.480 --> 1:01:32.800 but it's not a tactic that I would personally feelful 1:01:33.600 --> 1:01:37.040 unless such a struggle is already in existence and in 1:01:37.040 --> 1:01:43.440 its later stages another type of boycott that's even references is, 1:01:43.480 --> 1:01:49.160 of course the irregular, conventional, unconventional sort of boycotts used 1:01:49.200 --> 1:01:53.720 during the Civil Rights movement. A lot of black consumers 1:01:53.720 --> 1:01:57.480 with boycott, particular moochents public services refusing to treat with 1:01:57.520 --> 1:02:01.000 moochents who would allow for reach of discrimination and use 1:02:01.040 --> 1:02:05.520 that loss of revenue to force them to make concessions. Today, 1:02:05.560 --> 1:02:08.320 black consumers in the US spend hundreds of billions a 1:02:08.400 --> 1:02:13.480 year in the campus economy. Of course, not all of 1:02:13.480 --> 1:02:19.480 those consumers are workers, and all those workers are able 1:02:19.920 --> 1:02:26.560 to boycott. But I think boycotts are still a potential 1:02:26.600 --> 1:02:30.680 to the arsenal again to wage you know, warfare, economic 1:02:30.800 --> 1:02:35.120 warfare against the corporate structures. I mean it could be 1:02:35.160 --> 1:02:40.080 expanded from anything. It can be expanded to cover everything 1:02:40.160 --> 1:02:46.600 from specific products to entire industries. Right. Dr Martin Luther 1:02:46.680 --> 1:02:50.320 King Junior himself recognized the potential of a national black boycott. 1:02:52.160 --> 1:02:56.640 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior himself recognized the potential of 1:02:56.680 --> 1:03:01.720 a national black boycott for America's major corporations. Shortly after 1:03:01.840 --> 1:03:06.520 he was assassinated, he established such an initiative called Operation 1:03:07.160 --> 1:03:11.640 bread Basket, which aimed, among other things, to force corporations 1:03:11.680 --> 1:03:15.360 to pour money into national black community development projects for 1:03:15.480 --> 1:03:19.640 poor communities. I think, you know, podcasts have a way 1:03:19.680 --> 1:03:28.920 to put economic pressure, but they I also believe a 1:03:30.160 --> 1:03:37.040 little bit less effective in our modern globalized world due 1:03:37.120 --> 1:03:39.840 to the fact that you know, a lot of these 1:03:39.840 --> 1:03:45.240 companies are owned by the same like three corporations. They 1:03:45.320 --> 1:03:48.760 usually have ways to mitigate economic losses in one market 1:03:48.800 --> 1:03:54.840 by targeting other alternative markets. Or even if they experienced 1:03:54.880 --> 1:03:57.439 a dip in demand in one sector, they may still 1:03:57.560 --> 1:04:02.160 enjoy demand in another sector and another part of the world. 1:04:04.520 --> 1:04:07.360 And on top of that, company is can of also 1:04:07.440 --> 1:04:10.160 use that it as an opportunity to sort of get 1:04:10.160 --> 1:04:13.000 people off the movement. For example, boycott is taking place, 1:04:13.040 --> 1:04:16.640 they could say, oh, you're trying to boycott, well, we 1:04:16.800 --> 1:04:20.520 just put a sale out fifty sixty percent of wild 1:04:20.560 --> 1:04:24.240 stocks last and then you have people sort of, you know, 1:04:24.320 --> 1:04:27.480 breaking off of the movement. And I mean, of course, 1:04:27.520 --> 1:04:29.840 not everybody will do that, some people are principled, but 1:04:30.280 --> 1:04:32.560 that is still a tactic that you see some companies 1:04:32.680 --> 1:04:36.080 using when they're starting to experience that sort of economic pressure, 1:04:36.080 --> 1:04:40.240 they try to fragment the movement quote unquote votes in 1:04:40.240 --> 1:04:43.760 with your wallet, even mass coordinated in my opinion, is 1:04:44.040 --> 1:04:47.040 limited in its ability to challenge the courses. 1:04:46.640 --> 1:04:47.760 Of oppression in equality. 1:04:48.360 --> 1:04:51.160 I would think it brings us any closer to anarchist 1:04:51.400 --> 1:04:54.880 I think it only weakens the current world. So I 1:04:54.920 --> 1:05:01.520 think it's another tactic that really cannot act alone. And 1:05:01.560 --> 1:05:03.479 then we got another tool in Yos. Now we could 1:05:03.520 --> 1:05:05.320 call it a rent boycott. We can call it a 1:05:05.400 --> 1:05:13.240 rent strike. It's a way to achieve certain legislative changes, 1:05:13.400 --> 1:05:17.720 or so we to achieve certain more radical changes if 1:05:17.760 --> 1:05:21.080 you get into sort of occupation and squatn and that 1:05:21.160 --> 1:05:24.280 kind of thing. In Harlem, in New York City, rent 1:05:24.320 --> 1:05:28.440 boycotts were so successful the decreation of rent control legislation, 1:05:28.880 --> 1:05:34.080 which prevented evictions, unjustified price increases, and required reasonable upkeep 1:05:34.120 --> 1:05:38.080 by property owners and management companies. There is a track 1:05:38.160 --> 1:05:42.600 record of Rench strikes providing some benefits, you know, allowing 1:05:42.640 --> 1:05:46.360 tenants to negotiate with landlords and to bring some issues 1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:48.960 to light. And I could also bring about, of course, 1:05:49.000 --> 1:05:55.360 certain policy changes and push for or highlight further the 1:05:55.440 --> 1:06:00.000 need for affordable and accessible houses. But again, Rench strikes 1:06:00.160 --> 1:06:05.680 legally risky. They can also be difficult to coordinate, especially 1:06:05.680 --> 1:06:08.880 for those who are really kind of risk eviction. I mean, 1:06:08.880 --> 1:06:12.840 nobody can really risk eviction, right, But that's where the 1:06:12.920 --> 1:06:17.600 risk sort of comes in. And then if there's a 1:06:17.680 --> 1:06:20.680 lack of support, if the land world has significant resources 1:06:20.720 --> 1:06:23.920 behind them, there are also you know, ways that it 1:06:23.960 --> 1:06:28.400 could go wrong. I don't want to mislead like I 1:06:28.440 --> 1:06:30.840 want people to be aware of the reality of how 1:06:30.920 --> 1:06:34.880 difficult this sort of organized effort is. All these organizing 1:06:34.920 --> 1:06:37.439 efforts are. It's not a walk in the park. It's 1:06:37.440 --> 1:06:44.720 not you know, like acts the end of Act three 1:06:45.120 --> 1:06:48.120 and some revolution story movie where the good guys are 1:06:48.880 --> 1:06:51.000 able to win with the power of friendship, with that 1:06:51.080 --> 1:06:54.800 kind of thing. It's tough work and we have to 1:06:54.800 --> 1:06:56.960 be aware of the risks even as we engage in 1:06:57.280 --> 1:07:02.200 such actions. Even also advocates for you know, squatting in 1:07:02.320 --> 1:07:05.520 tandem with rent strikes. So, in addition to withholding rent 1:07:05.560 --> 1:07:10.120 payments from exploitsive landlords and banks, also movements to engage 1:07:10.120 --> 1:07:13.480 in urban squating, to seize housen to seize empty plots 1:07:13.480 --> 1:07:19.040 of land, to seize unoccupied and abandoned buildings, and to 1:07:19.120 --> 1:07:23.480 redirect payments that would have gone towards rent towards necessary 1:07:23.520 --> 1:07:28.600 repairs to improve living conditions and to claim our cities 1:07:29.080 --> 1:07:34.080 for ourselves. But again, while squating does provided immediate housing 1:07:34.160 --> 1:07:37.600 solution for those in need, while draws attentions the issue 1:07:37.640 --> 1:07:41.440 of hosting inequality, while creates a sense of collective ownership, 1:07:41.480 --> 1:07:44.280 and while it can help to improve all these neglected 1:07:44.320 --> 1:07:51.880 areas and urban environments, it's also legal cross involved in 1:07:52.120 --> 1:07:57.440 effection and arrest. A lot of squatting conditions can be 1:07:58.120 --> 1:08:01.920 fairly unsafe, while unsanitary, particularly if a property is not 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:05.640 up to a particular standard. And then of course squating 1:08:05.760 --> 1:08:08.800 is also sort of temporary as a solution. It doesn't 1:08:08.840 --> 1:08:12.960 really address the root courses of housing. It is really 1:08:13.000 --> 1:08:16.320 a precurious position to keep people in. And it's another 1:08:16.360 --> 1:08:19.479 case where without mass defense and support we got a 1:08:19.560 --> 1:08:21.840 mass movement backing it up, it's going to be very 1:08:21.840 --> 1:08:25.519 easy to dislodge any games that might be made in 1:08:25.560 --> 1:08:32.800 the short term. Family even also argues for the establishment 1:08:33.680 --> 1:08:38.439 of the commune as a staging ground for Black revolutionary struggle. 1:08:40.040 --> 1:08:42.280 The concept of the community is basically like a dual 1:08:42.320 --> 1:08:50.360 power structure, an institution meant to compete with government power, 1:08:50.479 --> 1:08:53.679 to preserve as a comment to government power in order 1:08:53.720 --> 1:09:01.000 to assert collective community power foreman and unify and various 1:09:01.080 --> 1:09:05.880 organizations as struggle taking control of existing communities and institutions 1:09:06.400 --> 1:09:09.400 and work at a fight against economic and political and 1:09:09.400 --> 1:09:18.439 cultural discrimination, expertiation and servitude in this capitalist society. And 1:09:18.640 --> 1:09:21.439 he goes in to talk about inner city communes as 1:09:21.520 --> 1:09:26.960 centers of black counterpower and social revolertionary culture to say, 1:09:27.000 --> 1:09:31.040 as sort of a living example of what revolution could 1:09:31.040 --> 1:09:34.599 look like. I think this is a case where at 1:09:34.640 --> 1:09:37.080 the time he didn't have the word for it, but 1:09:37.120 --> 1:09:40.960 we do now, and that would be prefigurative politics, the 1:09:41.000 --> 1:09:44.080 idea of you know, establishing these sort of institutions and 1:09:44.120 --> 1:09:49.120 the here and now that would be able to prefigure 1:09:50.160 --> 1:09:52.479 the world that we want to see in the future. 1:09:55.880 --> 1:09:58.160 Another component of these sort of communes is to provide 1:09:58.160 --> 1:10:03.160 a count narrative to sort of black capitalism and responsibility politics. 1:10:03.160 --> 1:10:07.080 It gets pushed out as a dominant narrative within black 1:10:07.080 --> 1:10:11.560 communities in the US. The commune and the Black communey specifically, 1:10:11.600 --> 1:10:14.720 you can say as a place for a new society 1:10:14.720 --> 1:10:20.160 and a new culture to emerge that rejects the internalization 1:10:21.080 --> 1:10:25.200 of oppression under this system. And so when you want 1:10:25.200 --> 1:10:27.120 to get into sort of how the sort of community 1:10:27.120 --> 1:10:33.160 be established, even talks about establishing community councils the world 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:40.320 govern and even talks about establishing community councils to allow 1:10:40.439 --> 1:10:47.960 for collective governance and be composed of workers from various 1:10:47.960 --> 1:10:56.439 industries and neighborhoods and delegates to organized communities on a 1:10:56.479 --> 1:11:02.600 block by block basis. He also emphasizes they need to 1:11:02.640 --> 1:11:08.400 reject black politicians, bureaucrats, and mayors from sort of co 1:11:08.479 --> 1:11:13.680 opting these efforts and ensuring that the community on the 1:11:13.760 --> 1:11:18.920 ground actually retains control over the institutions that they establish 1:11:19.120 --> 1:11:23.280 and develop and take control over to ensure that the 1:11:23.360 --> 1:11:31.920 community's needs and desires are met. One example that he 1:11:32.000 --> 1:11:35.200 uses is in the case of schools right where the 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:42.240 community would organize parents, students, teachers, and community like to 1:11:42.960 --> 1:11:52.400 cooperatively administer the schools. I think we see a lot 1:11:52.439 --> 1:11:57.479 of efforts by right wing parents right now organize and 1:11:57.800 --> 1:12:00.240 sort of run things in a lot of public schools, 1:12:01.720 --> 1:12:06.800 But that does mean it's similar efforts can't be taken 1:12:06.920 --> 1:12:09.640 by radicals to push for the same. Of course, it 1:12:09.680 --> 1:12:12.760 wouldn't be as easy because they aim to see the 1:12:12.800 --> 1:12:15.200 status school, whereas we aim to change things. 1:12:15.560 --> 1:12:17.439 I think it is sort of important to note too 1:12:17.520 --> 1:12:19.640 that it's like, it's not like this sort of like 1:12:19.760 --> 1:12:22.920 right wing school stuff came out of nowhere. Like part 1:12:22.960 --> 1:12:26.080 of the reason this was happening was that like there 1:12:26.120 --> 1:12:30.519 had been movements inside the like inside. 1:12:30.600 --> 1:12:33.480 Sorry, let me if I say. 1:12:32.880 --> 1:12:36.080 There have been movements from teachers and from like inside 1:12:36.120 --> 1:12:39.880 the education system trying to sort of like, you know, 1:12:39.960 --> 1:12:43.120 we do things I teach black history, right, and you know, 1:12:43.320 --> 1:12:45.280 like part like these are these are things that like, 1:12:47.439 --> 1:12:49.880 these are kinds of movements that people really tend to 1:12:49.920 --> 1:12:53.320 ignore and really tend to sort of not think about 1:12:53.320 --> 1:12:57.360 the significance of. But yeah, I mean it's it's it's 1:12:57.400 --> 1:12:59.200 not like these sort of like right wing versions of this. 1:12:59.720 --> 1:13:00.679 Came out of know where. 1:13:00.680 --> 1:13:04.240 They were reaction to people, you know, doing a sort 1:13:04.280 --> 1:13:05.959 of more moderate version of the strategy. 1:13:06.960 --> 1:13:10.320 Yeah, that's true. That is true, And so now we 1:13:10.400 --> 1:13:16.920 have to push even harder to counter their counter efforts 1:13:18.160 --> 1:13:24.000 and really assuite that sort of transformation in the education 1:13:24.120 --> 1:13:29.120 space and beyond just the education space. What Even talks 1:13:29.160 --> 1:13:36.680 about is ensuring that these councils encompass a variety of organizations, 1:13:37.600 --> 1:13:41.320 not just blocking neighborhood communities, but also labor union, student groups, 1:13:41.720 --> 1:13:45.920 social activist groups and even specialists you or single issue 1:13:46.080 --> 1:13:51.080 campaigns and issues. The idea is, of course, to continuously 1:13:51.160 --> 1:13:58.160 promote self rule, to continuously develop people's powers and drives 1:13:58.160 --> 1:14:02.440 and consciousness towards liberation, and to continuously offer an alternative 1:14:03.120 --> 1:14:06.880 to this pervasive sense that all this is is all 1:14:06.880 --> 1:14:14.120 they can ever be. It's necessary to sort of incubate 1:14:14.200 --> 1:14:19.320 this sort of embryo of a revolutionary society, this micro 1:14:19.360 --> 1:14:26.400 cause of a new lifestyle, and to highlight the necessity 1:14:26.479 --> 1:14:30.640 of struggle against you know, these systems. And when I 1:14:30.680 --> 1:14:36.560 speak of consciousness, I'm also speaking of specifically Black consciousness. 1:14:37.000 --> 1:14:41.639 Speaking of consciousness rais and sessions to ensure that black history, 1:14:41.720 --> 1:14:47.160 black culture is accessible and available and understood by the 1:14:47.160 --> 1:14:51.400 black community. To ensure that newly liberates and like social 1:14:51.400 --> 1:14:56.080 ideas and values are distributed within the community, to ensure 1:14:56.080 --> 1:15:01.439 that counselinine therapy are available, rooted, and of course a 1:15:01.479 --> 1:15:06.440 black revolutionary perspective tell people to realize that this disunity 1:15:06.600 --> 1:15:18.880 and distrust and violence and oppression, that because due to 1:15:18.920 --> 1:15:22.160 this legacy end of this system does not have to 1:15:22.160 --> 1:15:29.360 continue to be so. But that's it for me and 1:15:29.479 --> 1:15:32.639 for Irvin. For now you can join us for part 1:15:32.720 --> 1:15:36.240 two where we can dive into the day to day aspects. 1:15:36.280 --> 1:15:39.679 So there's viable programs that Irvin describes to build black 1:15:39.680 --> 1:15:43.880 resilience in the air. And now if you're looking for 1:15:43.960 --> 1:15:46.280 me on the internet, you can find me on YouTube 1:15:46.320 --> 1:15:49.519 dot com slash andeurism and you can support on patuon 1:15:49.560 --> 1:16:12.519 dot com slash saying Peace. And welcome back to another 1:16:12.560 --> 1:16:15.519 episode of It Could Happen here with myself Andrew of 1:16:15.560 --> 1:16:19.400 the YouTube channel Andewism if you're joining us. From the 1:16:19.400 --> 1:16:23.479 previous episode, we touched on the life of Lorenzo Cambo 1:16:23.760 --> 1:16:28.479 Irvin who he was as a leading figure in the 1:16:28.479 --> 1:16:34.320 black anarchist movement, how he ended up in that position, 1:16:36.720 --> 1:16:39.840 sort of his life story and how he ended up 1:16:39.840 --> 1:16:43.599 writing Anarchism the Black Revolution and sort of breaking down 1:16:43.640 --> 1:16:49.400 that vision of a Black revolution, including tactics like communes, squats, 1:16:49.680 --> 1:16:53.559 French strikes, tax strikes, boycotts, general strikes, and of course 1:16:53.960 --> 1:16:57.360 a Black labor federation. But that's not all that Uven 1:16:57.520 --> 1:17:00.000 has explored in his work, and today we're going to 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:04.000 dive into his vision for survival programs, things to agitate 1:17:04.040 --> 1:17:07.040 for and actions the black community can take to survive 1:17:07.320 --> 1:17:12.280 under the current system now. Historically, black communities have been 1:17:12.320 --> 1:17:17.880 subjected to economic exploitation, with businesses and financial institutions often 1:17:17.880 --> 1:17:21.160 taken profits out of the community without investing in its 1:17:21.200 --> 1:17:26.000 growth and development, and this of course has led to disinvestment, poverty, 1:17:26.479 --> 1:17:30.560 lack of resources of community members, and of course persistent 1:17:30.840 --> 1:17:35.479 relative deprivation. So the demand for community control of businesses 1:17:35.479 --> 1:17:39.880 and financial institutions that even outlines, is something that seeks 1:17:39.880 --> 1:17:42.080 to shift power and resources back into the hands of 1:17:42.080 --> 1:17:45.519 the community. By place and control in the hands community 1:17:45.600 --> 1:17:50.280 members provides an opportunity to build economic power and to 1:17:50.360 --> 1:17:56.800 ensure that businesses and financial institutions work for communities rather 1:17:56.880 --> 1:18:01.519 than vice versa, because such institution and businesses would be 1:18:01.600 --> 1:18:04.880 under the control of the workers themselves. So in a 1:18:04.920 --> 1:18:09.000 cooperative model, members work together to achieve common goals and 1:18:09.000 --> 1:18:11.880 share the benefits and risks of a business equally. The 1:18:11.880 --> 1:18:17.240 covenant structure for cooperative typically involves board of directors who 1:18:17.400 --> 1:18:21.240 might elected by members to make strategic decisions on behalf 1:18:21.240 --> 1:18:24.120 of the cooperative, but there of course other ways of 1:18:24.200 --> 1:18:29.200 organizer and including horizontal consensus. All members of a cooperative 1:18:29.240 --> 1:18:31.880 have an equal say in these decisions, with each member 1:18:32.240 --> 1:18:35.200 typically having one food and the board of directors is 1:18:35.240 --> 1:18:37.519 meant to just be accountable to members and act in 1:18:37.520 --> 1:18:43.400 the best interest of the cooperative. Now cooperatives already exist, 1:18:44.000 --> 1:18:46.439 they operate in various industries, and they can operate in 1:18:46.520 --> 1:18:52.320 various industries including agriculture, retail, finance, housing, healthcare, and more. 1:18:52.840 --> 1:18:56.800 For example, in a cooperative agriculture model, farmers can prove 1:18:56.880 --> 1:19:01.160 resources to purchas seeds, fertilizers, and equipment lower cost, and 1:19:01.200 --> 1:19:04.240 then sell their crops collectively to increase bargaining power and 1:19:04.320 --> 1:19:08.479 reduce costs. In a retail cooperative, members can buy products 1:19:08.520 --> 1:19:10.439 at a discount and how a saying the type of 1:19:10.439 --> 1:19:14.040 products offered, while in a financial cooperative, members can access 1:19:14.040 --> 1:19:17.320 banking services and share in the profits they're generated by 1:19:17.400 --> 1:19:22.559 the cooperative. Cooperatives also often provide mutual aid and support 1:19:22.600 --> 1:19:26.520 to their members, with surplus profits from the businesses reinvested 1:19:26.560 --> 1:19:30.400 either in the businesses or distributed as dividends to members, 1:19:30.439 --> 1:19:33.200 which ensures that the benefit to the business are shared 1:19:33.240 --> 1:19:35.479 equatively and members have a stake in the success of 1:19:35.479 --> 1:19:38.800 a cooperative. Like I mentioned, corporators already exist, which means 1:19:38.800 --> 1:19:42.600 they are capable of operating within capitalism, but within a 1:19:42.720 --> 1:19:49.400 broader program of social revolution. They're meant to build our 1:19:49.760 --> 1:19:56.439 alternative power in a dual power struggle to eventually enable 1:19:56.520 --> 1:20:01.479 us to assert our independent from this system as it will. 1:20:03.160 --> 1:20:06.000 But even here now, it is necessary to survive under 1:20:06.000 --> 1:20:09.400 this system, and I think cooperatives offer a more humane 1:20:10.680 --> 1:20:14.960 and more empowering model. Another example of that sort of 1:20:15.000 --> 1:20:18.880 cooperative structure could be found in mutual lead banking societies, 1:20:20.080 --> 1:20:24.240 again owned and controlled by the members, and are created 1:20:24.320 --> 1:20:31.240 specifically to provide access to financial services and support to 1:20:31.360 --> 1:20:36.000 individuals and communities that have been traditionally excluded or marginalized 1:20:36.000 --> 1:20:40.759 from a lot of traditional banking systems. So they function 1:20:40.920 --> 1:20:44.479 to provide low interest loans to members for various purposes 1:20:44.520 --> 1:20:49.280 including you know, starts and businesses, purchasing homes, covering unexpected expenses, 1:20:49.920 --> 1:20:52.360 and members are required to you know, put in a 1:20:52.400 --> 1:20:55.040 certain amount each month to fund these sorts of loans, 1:20:57.560 --> 1:21:01.960 and in addition to providing financial services sort of societies 1:21:02.080 --> 1:21:07.759 can also provide education and support, help with financial planning, 1:21:07.920 --> 1:21:13.160 help with budgeting, help with financial literacy to enable members 1:21:13.200 --> 1:21:21.479 to better survive within their current financial situation under capitalism. 1:21:21.680 --> 1:21:24.519 And so that's one aspect of the survival program, right, 1:21:24.600 --> 1:21:30.040 and emphasis on survival it existed now in this system. 1:21:30.360 --> 1:21:33.960 So that's one aspect of pushing for community controller businesses 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:37.880 and financial institutions and creating community cooperatives and mutual aid 1:21:37.920 --> 1:21:43.360 banking societies. Another aspect of that survival program that open 1:21:43.360 --> 1:21:47.439 outlines is achieving community controlled housing to help address is 1:21:47.439 --> 1:21:51.280 to use of gentrification, displacement, and lack of affordable housing 1:21:52.800 --> 1:21:56.280 through legal and legal means such as then strikes and demonstrations, 1:21:57.080 --> 1:22:01.400 arn't actions, open squad in, drive landlords out and take 1:22:01.439 --> 1:22:05.240 over the property. Those are more precarious approaches, right, and 1:22:05.240 --> 1:22:07.479 then they're also be above the board methods. I spoke 1:22:07.520 --> 1:22:11.280 about those approaches. Some of those approaches in the first 1:22:11.280 --> 1:22:16.840 part the quote unquote above the board methods would be 1:22:17.680 --> 1:22:22.520 establishing things like community land trusts or colts. A CLT 1:22:22.600 --> 1:22:26.920 is essentially a nonprofit organization that owns and manages land 1:22:26.960 --> 1:22:29.799 for the benefit of a community. The CLT can acquire 1:22:29.880 --> 1:22:32.639 land and then lease it to developers or residents who 1:22:32.680 --> 1:22:35.519 agree to use the land for affordable house which allows 1:22:35.520 --> 1:22:38.519 them to retain control of the land and ensure there's 1:22:38.520 --> 1:22:42.040 been used for their good rather than being solo off 1:22:42.080 --> 1:22:46.760 the private developers for the sake of profit. In a 1:22:46.800 --> 1:22:51.280 situation under a CLT where a homeowner wants to sell 1:22:51.640 --> 1:22:54.080 wants to move, they can only sell the building that 1:22:54.120 --> 1:22:57.200 they occupy. They can't sell the land itself because the 1:22:57.200 --> 1:23:00.920 community land Trust retains control of the land. The Community 1:23:01.000 --> 1:23:04.120 land Trust also retains the right of first refusal to 1:23:04.120 --> 1:23:07.280 purchase the buildings, which basically means before you can try 1:23:07.320 --> 1:23:09.680 and sell the building to anyone else, you have to 1:23:09.720 --> 1:23:13.200 give the Community land Trust, the community itself an opportunity 1:23:13.240 --> 1:23:18.040 to buy the building back, and that would enable them 1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:23.360 to also make sure that people aren't coming into just 1:23:23.439 --> 1:23:27.360 profit off of such affordable holes in and they're also 1:23:27.400 --> 1:23:30.280 doing it so that the house in stay is affordable, 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:32.320 so they can ensure that they can resell the building 1:23:32.800 --> 1:23:38.280 to somebody who's also seeking that, you know, affordable housing. 1:23:38.960 --> 1:23:42.000 And by providing that sort of house in, community land 1:23:42.000 --> 1:23:46.280 trusts can stabilize communities and prevent displacement in the long term. 1:23:46.840 --> 1:23:53.880 They can help to revitalize distress neighborhoods, and they can 1:23:53.920 --> 1:23:57.519 also invest into things like community facilities like pools, and 1:23:58.400 --> 1:24:05.479 laundromats and gyms and that sort of thing. In terms 1:24:05.479 --> 1:24:12.280 of how you actually create a colt, laws of course 1:24:12.400 --> 1:24:15.760 vary from place to place, but essentially you form a 1:24:15.800 --> 1:24:22.519 nonprofit organization, obtain tax exam status, acquire the land either 1:24:22.560 --> 1:24:26.400 through purchase or donation, and then begin developing affordable house 1:24:26.960 --> 1:24:30.200 or community facilities on the land. In addition to that, 1:24:30.240 --> 1:24:33.200 a community an trust would need to guidelines in place 1:24:33.680 --> 1:24:37.120 for leasing the land home owners and to maintain the 1:24:37.120 --> 1:24:40.280 affordability of the land over time. And of course, community 1:24:40.240 --> 1:24:43.200 an trust requires a system of governance and decision making 1:24:43.880 --> 1:24:49.080 to engage in that sort of ongoing effort of involving 1:24:49.520 --> 1:24:52.599 the residents themselves and ensuring that they are educated, and 1:24:52.680 --> 1:24:56.080 how comuntland trusts work, and how this model could be 1:24:56.120 --> 1:25:00.680 expanded to other communities. For the start, abolition such a 1:25:00.720 --> 1:25:06.920 thing requires significant resources. Another approach to community controlled housing 1:25:06.960 --> 1:25:11.720 that also takes some resources is through limited equity housing cooperatives. 1:25:12.120 --> 1:25:16.599 So in this model, residents own and manage the house development. 1:25:17.560 --> 1:25:20.720 Each have a same decision making process to run democratically. 1:25:21.640 --> 1:25:25.120 They each have a share in the cooperative, which gives 1:25:25.120 --> 1:25:28.040 them the right to occupy a unit in development. The 1:25:28.080 --> 1:25:30.960 share price, however, is set at a fixed rate, which 1:25:31.000 --> 1:25:32.800 means the unit can only be sold back to the 1:25:32.840 --> 1:25:36.360 cooperative at the same price, which again helps to make 1:25:36.400 --> 1:25:44.599 sure that the housing remains affordable in the long term. So, 1:25:45.080 --> 1:25:50.400 unlike with the community land trust where you own the 1:25:50.400 --> 1:25:54.840 building but you don't own the land, in an LHC 1:25:55.880 --> 1:25:59.840 or limited equity housing cooperative, you don't own the building 1:26:00.120 --> 1:26:04.800 or the land, You own a share and the cooperative 1:26:05.240 --> 1:26:09.240 owns the property itself. You're also required, of course, to 1:26:09.280 --> 1:26:12.479 contribute a down payment and to pay monthly fees, which 1:26:12.520 --> 1:26:15.400 helps to maintain and manage the property. You know, it's 1:26:15.400 --> 1:26:21.240 difficult to organize things, as anyone with some experience organizing 1:26:21.320 --> 1:26:28.200 can tell you, and something as high investment as housing 1:26:28.360 --> 1:26:32.759 is no different, right. It's a challenge. It's a challenge 1:26:32.760 --> 1:26:36.320 in fundraising, it's a challenge in organizing people. It's a 1:26:36.400 --> 1:26:40.679 challenge and insurance that such efforts are defended and able 1:26:40.720 --> 1:26:43.799 to establish themselves in the long term. But it's still 1:26:43.920 --> 1:26:47.960 a promising model I believe for survival because of its 1:26:48.000 --> 1:26:51.720 priority on community ownership and control. It really relieves that 1:26:51.920 --> 1:26:56.559 one major stress in a lot of people's lives in 1:26:56.640 --> 1:27:00.840 terms of affordable housing. Of course, the long term ors 1:27:00.840 --> 1:27:04.679 and should be decommodified entirely, but that is the future. 1:27:04.960 --> 1:27:09.519 The survival program is for the heir now. Another aspect 1:27:09.520 --> 1:27:12.480 of this fiber program that even talks about is food autonomy, 1:27:12.520 --> 1:27:18.240 the establishments of black community controlled food systems to establish 1:27:18.280 --> 1:27:22.240 self sufficiency, to control the production, distribution of foods, and 1:27:22.240 --> 1:27:25.360 should basic needs to met to ensure that Black communities 1:27:25.400 --> 1:27:27.960 are no longer at the mouseea of food deserts and 1:27:28.000 --> 1:27:33.400 other systemic barriers to accessing healthy, affordable food. By creating 1:27:33.400 --> 1:27:39.040 trucking networks and warehouses and community farms, farmers cooperatives, food cooperatives, 1:27:39.120 --> 1:27:43.719 agricultural unions, and other collective associations, black communities can ensure 1:27:43.720 --> 1:27:48.519 that healthy and essential foods are readily available. Rather than 1:27:48.600 --> 1:27:53.240 just treating the symptom, such institutions would treat the root 1:27:53.360 --> 1:27:56.880 cause of food and security, which is a lack of 1:27:56.880 --> 1:28:04.120 control over our food chains and food networks. So, for example, 1:28:05.040 --> 1:28:08.200 a trucking network would be used to transport food from 1:28:08.240 --> 1:28:12.000 communal farms to warehouses which could serve as clecterly owned 1:28:12.000 --> 1:28:14.799 distribution centers for the food in a sort of a 1:28:14.840 --> 1:28:19.040 library economy set in the waite houses can also save 1:28:19.080 --> 1:28:26.120 us storage facilities for other non perishable food items, to 1:28:26.240 --> 1:28:31.800 bank seeds to distribute those seeds and other items and 1:28:31.840 --> 1:28:35.679 tools to community gardens and food cooperatives, and such community 1:28:35.720 --> 1:28:38.479 gardens could be established on vacant lots, on rooftops and 1:28:38.960 --> 1:28:42.200 unused spaces within the city, particularly in areas where access 1:28:42.240 --> 1:28:45.960 to fresh produce is limited, and all these efforts would 1:28:45.960 --> 1:28:48.880 involve members of the community who would be responsible for 1:28:48.920 --> 1:28:51.799 each step in the process and ensuring that such things 1:28:51.800 --> 1:28:59.320 are accessible equatively. Food cooperatives within communities could for example, 1:29:00.920 --> 1:29:03.400 be organized through sort of a share structure where each 1:29:03.920 --> 1:29:06.720 household or each individual has a share in the cooperative 1:29:07.040 --> 1:29:09.439 that entitles them to sit down to food each week. 1:29:10.840 --> 1:29:12.439 Or you could have in a sort of a library 1:29:12.479 --> 1:29:14.680 structure that a lot of different ways that you can organize it. 1:29:18.280 --> 1:29:21.559 You could even have as well. Agricultural unions provide support 1:29:21.640 --> 1:29:27.320 and training and education unsustainable farming practices, access to tools 1:29:27.360 --> 1:29:31.639 and equipment, financial systems for farmers in need. All these 1:29:31.720 --> 1:29:36.600 efforts would establish the foundation necessary for food or autonomy 1:29:38.120 --> 1:29:42.720 under this sort of survival program that Eve has developed, 1:29:47.400 --> 1:29:49.880 and as I mentioned in the previous episode, even also 1:29:49.920 --> 1:29:55.080 talks about under the survival programs, developing autonomous education, ensuring 1:29:55.120 --> 1:29:58.439 the community has control over every aspect of the educational system, 1:29:58.880 --> 1:30:06.560 from the curriculum, textbooks, to the hiring and training of teachers, administrators, 1:30:08.479 --> 1:30:11.000 And as I spoke about in the previous episode, you know, 1:30:11.640 --> 1:30:13.960 the same way the reactionary is fighting advocate for control 1:30:13.960 --> 1:30:15.880 of educations, the same way that we can do the same. 1:30:16.280 --> 1:30:18.960 It won't be as easy, but we have to counter 1:30:19.080 --> 1:30:23.000 their efforts because they've already been countering hours the minimal 1:30:23.080 --> 1:30:26.799 gains we've made, and for example, ensuring that an accurate 1:30:26.840 --> 1:30:30.760 account of history is told in schools is already being 1:30:30.760 --> 1:30:39.160 fought against, so we need to go even further. Community 1:30:39.240 --> 1:30:46.960 controlled schools would not only reflect community values, culture and history. 1:30:47.600 --> 1:30:49.520 Not only would they be designed to meet the specific 1:30:49.600 --> 1:30:52.360 needs of the children within them. Not only do they 1:30:52.400 --> 1:30:56.599 provide us safe and a nutrient environment, encourage creativity, critical thinking, 1:30:56.680 --> 1:31:04.799 and problem solving skills, but they would also provide a space, 1:31:06.640 --> 1:31:12.040 an additional space for the development of people's powers and 1:31:12.160 --> 1:31:16.200 drives and consciousness towards liberation at any age. I mean, 1:31:16.240 --> 1:31:19.559 in addition to primary and secondary education, Woven also talks 1:31:19.600 --> 1:31:27.520 about free higher education programs, remedial training programs, reading programs, 1:31:28.400 --> 1:31:32.120 trade programs, all these things to help develop people's skills 1:31:32.160 --> 1:31:38.400 and education knowledge that would helped equip them to address social, political, 1:31:38.400 --> 1:31:44.000 and economic issues. If it also calls for a system 1:31:44.000 --> 1:31:48.840 of community based self defense to defend ourselves against various 1:31:48.880 --> 1:31:53.759 forms of violence, including police brutality, heat crimes, and vigilanty attacks, 1:31:53.800 --> 1:31:59.280 without relying on government or law enforcement agencies to defend 1:31:59.720 --> 1:32:03.360 or set else, they had several components to this. Of course, 1:32:03.720 --> 1:32:07.960 you'll involved organizing and mobilizing community members to participate in 1:32:08.000 --> 1:32:12.400 self defense training programs. It would involve weapons training, It 1:32:12.400 --> 1:32:16.720 would involve tactics for de escalation. It would involve a 1:32:17.040 --> 1:32:23.720 network that can coordate responses to incidents of violence, establishing 1:32:23.720 --> 1:32:30.640 community channels to quickly disseminate information, enabling restorative and transformative 1:32:30.720 --> 1:32:34.759 justice practices to be included to keep the state out 1:32:34.800 --> 1:32:40.559 of resolving the conflicts between people in communities. And then, 1:32:40.600 --> 1:32:44.240 of course, unlike a lot of these law enforcement systems 1:32:44.280 --> 1:32:48.599 and structures, a community based self defense program or system 1:32:49.080 --> 1:32:54.040 would also be involved in the prevention of such incidents 1:32:54.040 --> 1:32:57.080 of violence and harm and conflict from recurrent. It will 1:32:57.120 --> 1:33:02.479 be involved in continuously evaluating interchange in circumstances, to analyze 1:33:02.479 --> 1:33:06.759 in the patterns of violence and gaps that are taking 1:33:06.760 --> 1:33:10.800 place in training or in resources, and to continuously refine 1:33:11.760 --> 1:33:19.439 tactics and strategies and approaches to see to the long 1:33:19.560 --> 1:33:23.599 term healing of the communities and the interruption of cycles 1:33:23.600 --> 1:33:31.439 of violence and generational trauma in the long term. Another 1:33:31.439 --> 1:33:35.679 component of these survival programs would involve medical training, large 1:33:35.720 --> 1:33:40.120 scale medical training programs in black communities providing individuals with 1:33:40.160 --> 1:33:44.080 the knowledge and skills needed to understand and address health issues. 1:33:44.640 --> 1:33:48.200 Black communities, especially those from low income backgrounds in the US, 1:33:48.560 --> 1:33:54.000 often face significant barriers to access in quality healthcare. It's 1:33:54.080 --> 1:33:56.880 due to systemic racism and oppression. So it's due to 1:34:00.280 --> 1:34:06.280 inaccessibility and an affordability of healthcare just generally, and also 1:34:06.320 --> 1:34:12.880 the quality and resources af felable within certain communities specifically, 1:34:13.680 --> 1:34:19.320 and also the ways that health outcomes are worse if 1:34:19.360 --> 1:34:26.360 you are black. Black mothers are, or rather the black 1:34:26.439 --> 1:34:32.280 maternal death rate is one particularly heavy example of these 1:34:32.280 --> 1:34:35.600 sorts of disparities. And so that's why we need community 1:34:35.680 --> 1:34:39.599 based medical clinics and training programs and workshops and seminars 1:34:39.640 --> 1:34:44.679 led by black medical professionals, public health experts, public health experts, 1:34:44.680 --> 1:34:49.240 and community organizers who are versed in the social sernants 1:34:49.280 --> 1:34:52.280 of health and impacts of systemic racism and health outcomes, 1:34:52.720 --> 1:34:59.479 and invested in seeing that changed. Such a program would 1:34:59.520 --> 1:35:05.120 involve medical including dental training, empower individuals to provide basic 1:35:05.160 --> 1:35:08.400 health care services and support their communities. You would involve 1:35:08.439 --> 1:35:12.080 trading in first aid. You involve healthcare screenings, health education, 1:35:12.960 --> 1:35:17.320 because underrepresentation in health matters, lack of education in one's 1:35:17.360 --> 1:35:20.840 own personal health matters, and two people losing their lives 1:35:20.880 --> 1:35:23.800 as a result of that racial blind spot and as 1:35:23.840 --> 1:35:27.720 a result of that inequality, and so survival program in 1:35:27.760 --> 1:35:35.320 the here and now needs to account for that. Even 1:35:35.320 --> 1:35:39.040 also calls for the release of black political prisoners as 1:35:39.120 --> 1:35:42.280 part of a broader abolitionist struggle rooted in the recognition 1:35:42.320 --> 1:35:44.599 that the criminal justice system in the US has been 1:35:44.680 --> 1:35:47.360 used as a tool for political repression against black people 1:35:47.600 --> 1:35:51.439 and the martialized communities. You're speaking here from experience, of course, 1:35:51.520 --> 1:35:54.120 he wrote this when he was in prison. Mass and 1:35:54.200 --> 1:35:58.559 conceration of black people has been deliberate and systemic effort 1:35:58.600 --> 1:36:02.040 to silence and dissent, to silence dissent and maintain the 1:36:02.040 --> 1:36:09.200 statusco of white supremacy and white supremacist capitalism. Here and now, 1:36:09.320 --> 1:36:12.760 survival programs should be involved in the release of black 1:36:12.760 --> 1:36:16.200 political prisoners, especially to investigate and review the cases of 1:36:16.200 --> 1:36:19.240 those who have been unjustly imprisoned, to address the use 1:36:19.280 --> 1:36:23.960 of cost confessions, falsified evidence, and other forms of prosecutorial 1:36:24.120 --> 1:36:27.360 misconduct there has led to wrongful convictions that has led 1:36:27.400 --> 1:36:31.120 to people rotten away in jail cells for decades with 1:36:31.280 --> 1:36:35.639 no sort of justice. I mean, these people are often 1:36:35.680 --> 1:36:39.160 so of the most committed and dedicated revolutionaries and their 1:36:39.200 --> 1:36:42.519 continued imprisonment has been a craving justice. Some of them 1:36:42.840 --> 1:36:47.280 unfortunately passed before they're even released if they have released 1:36:47.280 --> 1:36:50.280 a tool and by demanding their release, by fighting for 1:36:50.320 --> 1:36:53.160 their freedom, by writing to them and supporting them even now, 1:36:53.360 --> 1:36:55.840 by showing our solidarity with those who have sacrificed so 1:36:55.920 --> 1:36:58.479 much in the struggle for liberation and ensuring that their 1:36:58.560 --> 1:37:04.240 voices are heard, not only can we aid in their survival, 1:37:04.760 --> 1:37:09.920 but we can also aid in our own. Lastly, even 1:37:10.000 --> 1:37:18.479 calls for the ever contentious big payback reparations. You have 1:37:18.560 --> 1:37:20.880 then challenges us to build a mass movement in our 1:37:20.880 --> 1:37:24.200 communities to compel the government and the rich to provide 1:37:24.200 --> 1:37:27.920 the means for our community is redevelopment at the centuries 1:37:28.160 --> 1:37:31.520 of slavery and of abuse, and of robbery and of discrimination, 1:37:32.240 --> 1:37:35.879 demanding those reparations in the form of community development funds 1:37:36.479 --> 1:37:39.640 to be placed in credit unions, cooperatives and not the 1:37:39.680 --> 1:37:42.280 mutual aid institutions in the black community, so we can 1:37:42.280 --> 1:37:46.519 start to obtaining some measure of economic self sufficiency. But 1:37:46.600 --> 1:37:49.200 of course from the question of who pays, to how 1:37:49.240 --> 1:37:51.200 we force them to pay, to how we determine how 1:37:51.240 --> 1:37:54.160 much they pay, how that pay is distributed or implemented, 1:37:54.439 --> 1:37:56.559 if the pay is even in cash. You know, there's 1:37:56.560 --> 1:37:59.839 a lot of tensions surrounding that topic and pro reparation. 1:38:00.000 --> 1:38:02.520 It's not just for Black America, with the entire diaspora. 1:38:03.439 --> 1:38:05.720 I mean, I've seen the US made sure to get 1:38:05.760 --> 1:38:08.280 reparations for itself and its allies after World War Two. 1:38:08.600 --> 1:38:12.240 The victims of various atrustees have received reparations for the injustices. 1:38:12.880 --> 1:38:17.960 But as soon as Black people demand their do demand 1:38:17.960 --> 1:38:20.759 their do everybody, you know, they want us to forget 1:38:20.760 --> 1:38:27.000 about it. But yeah, everybody knows, and I think part 1:38:27.040 --> 1:38:29.479 of that is because everybody knows that they can't actually 1:38:30.920 --> 1:38:33.840 afford it. You know, if we were paid exactly what 1:38:33.880 --> 1:38:36.640 we would do, they would not have the wealth that 1:38:36.640 --> 1:38:41.559 they have. And so my stance has always been I 1:38:41.560 --> 1:38:44.760 don't think reparations will come by ballot. I don't want 1:38:44.800 --> 1:38:49.160 it to come by ballot. I don't want to receive 1:38:49.200 --> 1:38:52.719 some check in the mail it says, okay, now be happy, 1:38:53.360 --> 1:38:58.160 get over it, but let me not get myself in 1:38:58.200 --> 1:39:01.040 any more trouble. Even at that, I don't think it 1:39:01.040 --> 1:39:02.120 will come by a ballot. 1:39:04.080 --> 1:39:05.519 There's a lot of things that's reasonable. 1:39:07.680 --> 1:39:11.320 Yeah, I've already said so much in these past two episodes. 1:39:12.760 --> 1:39:14.280 I mean, there are a lot of arms to this 1:39:15.080 --> 1:39:17.240 survival program. Then bring things to a close a bit. 1:39:17.600 --> 1:39:19.439 There as a lot of areas of struggle that we 1:39:19.439 --> 1:39:22.759 can pick up, a lot of things that can be applied. 1:39:22.760 --> 1:39:24.400 Of course, most of these things I think could be 1:39:24.400 --> 1:39:27.280 applied beyond the black community. But there's a reason that 1:39:27.320 --> 1:39:32.320 the black community specifically was Urban's focus, because of his 1:39:32.360 --> 1:39:34.920 life experience, because of the need to address black communities 1:39:34.960 --> 1:39:42.360 specifically in uh in an anarchist text, something that was 1:39:42.400 --> 1:39:46.200 really lacking prior to the resurgence of you know, the 1:39:46.200 --> 1:39:50.840 black radical tradition, the black anarchist specific tradition in the seventies. 1:39:52.280 --> 1:39:57.040 So it's necessary. But I just hope, you know, people 1:39:57.040 --> 1:40:01.560 who are listening who on that black didn't just you know, 1:40:02.360 --> 1:40:05.960 click off, that I still hear that these ideas and stuff, 1:40:06.000 --> 1:40:11.479 these programs are applicable more broadly. I hope that I 1:40:11.479 --> 1:40:15.360 can see and contribute to these changes in my lifetime, 1:40:16.920 --> 1:40:23.719 and as I consistently borrow from Ashanti Alston, another black 1:40:23.760 --> 1:40:27.760 anarchist figure who I actually hope at some point we 1:40:27.800 --> 1:40:30.679 could bring on or power to all the people. 1:40:31.479 --> 1:40:31.799 Peace. 1:40:47.000 --> 1:40:50.120 Hello podcast fans, and welcome to it could happen here 1:40:50.160 --> 1:40:54.320 A podcast Today is hosted by me James Down and 1:40:54.560 --> 1:40:58.720 Mia Wong Hi May. Hello, Hi, So what we're going 1:40:58.760 --> 1:41:01.639 to talk about today is situation on the border. We're 1:41:01.640 --> 1:41:05.559 working on a scripted episode which will take away because 1:41:05.560 --> 1:41:07.720 they always do, and you know, if we want that 1:41:07.800 --> 1:41:10.320 to be nice and sort of polished for youse. But 1:41:11.040 --> 1:41:13.640 I did want to update everyone because I think that 1:41:13.720 --> 1:41:16.880 what's happening it has a sense of urgency to it, 1:41:16.920 --> 1:41:19.120 and certainly like some of the mutual aid requests have 1:41:19.200 --> 1:41:22.920 a real sense of urgency to them, and folks who 1:41:23.000 --> 1:41:26.120 follow me on Twitter dot com and ll have noticed that, 1:41:26.120 --> 1:41:30.080 like in between the ship posts, I've been down at 1:41:30.080 --> 1:41:33.160 the US Mexico border for most of the tail end 1:41:33.160 --> 1:41:37.160 of last week and the start of this week, sort 1:41:37.160 --> 1:41:40.439 of depicting what's going on there, along with my friend 1:41:40.560 --> 1:41:43.559 Joe Joe Ariyama's who's a freelancer who we're going to 1:41:43.560 --> 1:41:46.200 be working with on the scripted series. And people can 1:41:46.240 --> 1:41:49.400 find Joe at Joe or Ori e photo on Twitter. 1:41:49.960 --> 1:41:52.120 Joe's got some really good photos if you want to 1:41:52.160 --> 1:41:55.040 see kind of what's going on. But the longer than 1:41:55.040 --> 1:41:58.439 the short of it is that title forty two ended 1:41:58.640 --> 1:42:02.439 on well to begin with, exactly the moment that it 1:42:02.600 --> 1:42:05.720 ended was a subject of some contention, right, we knew 1:42:05.760 --> 1:42:07.760 it was going to end on the eleventh of May. 1:42:08.880 --> 1:42:13.040 Title thirty two, if folks don't remember, is a emergency 1:42:13.280 --> 1:42:15.840 public health measure. It's part of the United States Public 1:42:15.840 --> 1:42:20.040 Health Law, the United States Code Public Health something something 1:42:20.479 --> 1:42:26.360 then allows border patrol to expel people from the United 1:42:26.400 --> 1:42:32.320 States without giving them their due process, their asylum here. Basically, 1:42:32.520 --> 1:42:36.920 they bounce them straight back to Mexico, right, And this 1:42:37.000 --> 1:42:40.840 has been in place since March of twenty twenty. We 1:42:40.920 --> 1:42:43.960 now know that the Trump administration pressured the CDC, So 1:42:44.000 --> 1:42:46.400 in theory it was it came through the CDC, right 1:42:46.479 --> 1:42:49.760 the Center for Disease Control under pressure from Drug administration, 1:42:50.400 --> 1:42:56.439 direct pressure from Pence, and Stephen Miller was yeah. 1:42:56.360 --> 1:43:01.000 Probably this was a Stephen Miller like, yeah, supremacy special. 1:43:01.360 --> 1:43:07.400 Yeah, bubblehead looking racist motherfucker has once again done something terrible. 1:43:08.080 --> 1:43:10.080 Not that some of his policies. As we'll get onto 1:43:10.120 --> 1:43:14.880 this in descripted episode, the Biden administration has like copy 1:43:14.920 --> 1:43:17.360 pasted some steep, some straight up Stephen Miller stuff in 1:43:18.040 --> 1:43:22.519 its transit bounds and is absolutely liable for I don't 1:43:22.520 --> 1:43:24.639 want to use the word chaos at our border because 1:43:24.640 --> 1:43:27.519 that plays into this Fox use narrative. There is a 1:43:28.520 --> 1:43:32.160 very concerted plan to make people suffer more than is 1:43:32.280 --> 1:43:35.639 necessary at our border, and it would have been very 1:43:35.680 --> 1:43:40.400 easy to avoid this. So title forty two basically, there 1:43:40.400 --> 1:43:44.120 are no consequences for crossing, but it's also very hard 1:43:44.120 --> 1:43:49.440 to get asylum. The CBP officer can like spontaneously decide 1:43:49.560 --> 1:43:53.439 to give you your rights. Basically, if you're like, come on, bro, 1:43:53.720 --> 1:43:56.080 I'm going to get killed if I go home, then 1:43:56.120 --> 1:43:58.599 that person can decide to allow you to be processed 1:43:58.600 --> 1:44:01.640 for asylum, which is what a lot of the Ukrainian 1:44:02.040 --> 1:44:04.680 folks got surprise, surprise. 1:44:04.520 --> 1:44:06.000 And I feel like we should we should also mention 1:44:06.120 --> 1:44:10.960 that under like multiple legal frameworks, you have the right 1:44:11.120 --> 1:44:15.320 to request asylum. This is this is something that supposedly 1:44:15.439 --> 1:44:19.639 is inviolable, Like you have the right as a human 1:44:19.640 --> 1:44:21.439 being to request asylum in a country. 1:44:21.800 --> 1:44:24.120 Yes, and it doesn't matter where you've been before, and 1:44:24.160 --> 1:44:26.519 it doesn't matter how you got there, and you don't 1:44:26.520 --> 1:44:28.519 have to do it at a port of entry. It 1:44:28.560 --> 1:44:30.479 doesn't matter how you enter the country or where you 1:44:30.600 --> 1:44:34.759 entered the country. Yes, yeah, and yeah, under multiple different 1:44:34.760 --> 1:44:37.760 international frameworks you have the right to do this. But 1:44:37.920 --> 1:44:40.639 the USA has been denying that to people for three 1:44:41.200 --> 1:44:43.559 and a eight years now, right, three years and stuff 1:44:43.600 --> 1:44:44.599 like that, and you know what I mean. 1:44:44.760 --> 1:44:46.799 I also could just want to briefly mention this because 1:44:47.520 --> 1:44:51.920 I feel like there's this way in which people people 1:44:51.960 --> 1:44:54.920 people will talk about like one border regime and then 1:44:55.160 --> 1:44:57.639 never connect the dots between this one and the other ones. 1:44:57.640 --> 1:44:59.519 But like, for example, like this is something that happens 1:44:59.520 --> 1:45:03.360 all over the world world. Yes, I mean like part 1:45:03.439 --> 1:45:05.080 part of like part of the sort of like crisis 1:45:05.080 --> 1:45:07.720 that is going on into Dan right now is about 1:45:07.840 --> 1:45:09.320 like a ship ton of money. But the end this 1:45:09.320 --> 1:45:11.479 is actually happened in Libya too. It's the Italian government 1:45:11.479 --> 1:45:15.200 paying the Libyan and sort of Sudanese parabilitaries a ship 1:45:15.240 --> 1:45:18.519 ton of money to like keep refugees like basically like 1:45:18.680 --> 1:45:22.000 trap to something, to enslave them in camps, to cute 1:45:22.000 --> 1:45:25.480 them from like getting to Italy to try to request asylum. 1:45:25.560 --> 1:45:27.519 So yeah, so this is a yeah, like Fredecks does 1:45:27.560 --> 1:45:30.800 this like this, This is sort of like a global. 1:45:31.720 --> 1:45:32.799 Yeah, terrible regime. 1:45:33.640 --> 1:45:39.519 The border like industrial complex is every bit as bad, 1:45:39.560 --> 1:45:42.400 if not worse than the defense industrial complex. So we're 1:45:42.400 --> 1:45:46.920 more familiar with, like border policing is something that really 1:45:47.120 --> 1:45:49.160 came post nine to eleven, right with the creation of 1:45:49.200 --> 1:45:51.479 DHS and the United States, but we have exported that 1:45:51.520 --> 1:45:55.320 shit everywhere. And like our Border Patrol Agents r CBP 1:45:55.479 --> 1:45:57.720 has an office in lots of embassies or like they 1:45:57.720 --> 1:46:01.479 train Dominican border agents the border with Haiti, for instance, 1:46:01.560 --> 1:46:04.920 and are trained by our CBP people. CBP agents were 1:46:04.960 --> 1:46:10.400 deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan. Yeah, this is a global thing. Yeah, 1:46:10.439 --> 1:46:13.280 And like where I guess where I am now, where 1:46:13.280 --> 1:46:15.640 I've been for a while, is the place where that 1:46:15.680 --> 1:46:19.679 all began, right, and where we continue to see CBP 1:46:19.800 --> 1:46:22.800 innovating new and exciting ways to fucking take some of 1:46:22.800 --> 1:46:25.880 the most desperate people in the world and make them 1:46:25.920 --> 1:46:29.440 suffer and spend a shit ton of money and preventing 1:46:29.479 --> 1:46:32.799 them from accessing their legal right to asylum or detaining 1:46:32.800 --> 1:46:37.479 them while they do it. And so what has happened 1:46:37.600 --> 1:46:39.479 is so Title forty two was supposed to end on 1:46:39.520 --> 1:46:41.120 the eleventh of May, right, that was when the federal 1:46:41.160 --> 1:46:43.080 COVID emergency ended, So there was no reason for it 1:46:43.120 --> 1:46:45.640 to exist anymore. There wasn't a reason for it to 1:46:45.680 --> 1:46:46.559 exist to begin with. 1:46:46.760 --> 1:46:50.000 But yeah, any like, don't don't don't think too hard 1:46:50.000 --> 1:46:52.400 about the fact that like that was the last that 1:46:52.520 --> 1:46:54.960 was basically the last COVID policy that was still in place. 1:46:55.040 --> 1:46:57.960 Yeah, Like there were not vaccine mandates for the people 1:46:58.000 --> 1:47:00.719 meeting the migrants at the fucking border, Yeah, right, Like. 1:47:01.479 --> 1:47:04.040 This was this was this was never about public health, 1:47:04.280 --> 1:47:06.840 Like no, you know, I mean, and in so far 1:47:06.880 --> 1:47:10.479 as you can extricate sort of like the sort of 1:47:10.520 --> 1:47:15.120 imperial estates public health measures from social cleansing stuff, which 1:47:15.120 --> 1:47:18.960 has been happening for generations and generations. But yeah, like 1:47:19.000 --> 1:47:21.200 this was this was not about that, like this, Yeah, 1:47:21.240 --> 1:47:22.479 this was just an immigration ban. 1:47:23.080 --> 1:47:26.680 Yeah, and it became a sort of albatross by an 1:47:26.720 --> 1:47:29.639 administration who didn't want to be hit on border stuff. 1:47:29.680 --> 1:47:29.800 Right. 1:47:29.800 --> 1:47:31.559 They didn't want to They didn't want to drop it 1:47:31.560 --> 1:47:34.320 before the midterms. They initially band to drop it in 1:47:34.360 --> 1:47:36.760 December twenty twenty two, which is obviously right after the 1:47:36.800 --> 1:47:39.479 mid terms. They didn't we here we are in May. 1:47:39.560 --> 1:47:42.720 There was a complicated legal challenge, which there always is, 1:47:42.720 --> 1:47:45.760 and it doesn't matter because here we are right and 1:47:46.000 --> 1:47:47.559 it's supposed to drop in the to me, so we're 1:47:47.600 --> 1:47:50.679 all thinking, right, midnight on the tenth of May, we'll 1:47:50.720 --> 1:47:53.479 be out there. We'll see what goes down. They announced 1:47:53.479 --> 1:47:57.360 the day before that it is dropping on midnight on 1:47:57.439 --> 1:48:00.280 the eleventh, So they're going to ring every minute knit 1:48:00.560 --> 1:48:05.439 out of it. And so in the days before, a 1:48:05.520 --> 1:48:09.320 number of migrants have told me that they understood that 1:48:09.360 --> 1:48:11.640 they basically had to get across before the end of 1:48:11.680 --> 1:48:14.639 Title forty two, because it was their understanding that if 1:48:14.640 --> 1:48:17.960 they crossed under Title eight they would be ejected, and 1:48:18.000 --> 1:48:19.880 they wouldn't be allowed to return for five years and 1:48:19.880 --> 1:48:23.840 they would face felony charges. So they did this. I 1:48:23.840 --> 1:48:27.120 don't quite know often these this information spreads about like 1:48:27.160 --> 1:48:30.200 WhatsApp in camps, right, or sort of like like a 1:48:30.240 --> 1:48:33.760 game of Telephone in camps. So I don't quite know 1:48:33.760 --> 1:48:36.000 where this information came from, but it closely parallels something 1:48:36.040 --> 1:48:38.559 that majorcus Is, a Secretary of Home lanun Security, said 1:48:38.560 --> 1:48:43.000 in press conference where he mischaracterized international immigration law. And 1:48:43.040 --> 1:48:46.400 he's done this multiple times. Right, He himself, someone who 1:48:46.520 --> 1:48:48.960 is a migrant to this country who apparently family left 1:48:48.960 --> 1:48:52.120 Cuba when he was one year old, has just some 1:48:52.160 --> 1:48:56.800 of the most dogshit statements on the record, and I've 1:48:56.840 --> 1:49:00.400 depicted some of those in the scripted episode. Folks up 1:49:00.600 --> 1:49:02.439 my piece I wrote for NBC a couple of years 1:49:02.479 --> 1:49:05.800 ago about the Biden administration's policy towards Haiti if they 1:49:06.280 --> 1:49:08.320 they want to see more of the dogshit stuff that 1:49:08.360 --> 1:49:13.040 he and Biden have said. And so in the days 1:49:13.120 --> 1:49:16.800 before the end of Title forty two, a lot of 1:49:16.800 --> 1:49:18.760 folks started to try to cross right because of this 1:49:18.840 --> 1:49:24.000 information that they had. They ended up at least where 1:49:24.040 --> 1:49:27.240 I am, which is in southern California, right, the sort 1:49:27.280 --> 1:49:30.440 of extreme southwestern border in the United States, literally the 1:49:30.560 --> 1:49:33.040 end of the wall. Folks were crossing like around the 1:49:33.160 --> 1:49:35.599 end of the wall right at low tide and turning 1:49:35.640 --> 1:49:41.040 themselves into border patrol asking to make their case for 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:45.040 their right to asylum. And I think sometimes when we 1:49:45.080 --> 1:49:47.280 think about migrants, you know, we made me think about 1:49:47.320 --> 1:49:53.599 people from South America or Central America, every single continent, 1:49:54.640 --> 1:49:59.080 maybe not any like Australasians, but like just in it. 1:49:59.200 --> 1:50:01.840 In a day at one camp, I spoke to someone 1:50:01.840 --> 1:50:04.519 from Angola. I spoke to someone from Congo. I spoke 1:50:04.560 --> 1:50:07.880 to someone from Sudan. I spoke to a Kurdish guy. 1:50:08.479 --> 1:50:13.720 I spoke to people certainly from all over South America, Russians, 1:50:14.280 --> 1:50:19.920 Tagik people, Jamaican people, and like. For instance, just to 1:50:19.920 --> 1:50:21.400 give you a sense of like how global it is, 1:50:21.439 --> 1:50:24.080 I spoke to a Jamaican lady who was caring for 1:50:24.080 --> 1:50:27.000 a sixteen or seventeen year old pair of Tagiq siblings 1:50:27.320 --> 1:50:30.720 who didn't speak any of the relevant languages for communication 1:50:30.840 --> 1:50:32.880 with border patroller with other people in the camp, so 1:50:33.520 --> 1:50:35.639 she would use her phone to call their mother, who 1:50:35.640 --> 1:50:38.400 spoke some English, give information to the mother who would 1:50:38.400 --> 1:50:42.639 translate it. Back to these two young children, and all 1:50:42.680 --> 1:50:44.840 of these people had presented like there were a lot 1:50:44.880 --> 1:50:47.519 of Afghan people too. Probably should have mentioned that up top, 1:50:47.600 --> 1:50:49.880 But these are the people who we fucking abandoned once 1:50:49.920 --> 1:50:53.559 and now we're trapping, trapping them in between little fences. 1:50:54.400 --> 1:50:56.759 And it's hot in the day, right like I slept 1:50:56.760 --> 1:50:58.639 out in the desert last night and it was above 1:50:58.680 --> 1:51:01.680 one Hundred's not that hot in San Diego, but in 1:51:01.680 --> 1:51:04.400 her Cumber where they're also holding people, it's absolutely getting 1:51:04.439 --> 1:51:06.639 into triple digits every day, and it's cold at night, 1:51:06.800 --> 1:51:13.320 and it's a really inhospitable environment for people. So folks 1:51:13.439 --> 1:51:15.599 were held there, you know, up to a week in 1:51:15.600 --> 1:51:22.000 some cases, and are now I think being processed by 1:51:22.000 --> 1:51:26.120 a border patrol. There was a ruling by a Florida judge. 1:51:26.840 --> 1:51:28.680 I'm not exactly clear on when because I was down 1:51:28.680 --> 1:51:30.519 at the border and my phone didn't work very well, 1:51:31.240 --> 1:51:34.280 but at some point right before Title forty two drop 1:51:34.320 --> 1:51:36.719 that they could have been released on humanitarian parole, which 1:51:36.760 --> 1:51:39.439 means in theory they have to be released with a 1:51:39.479 --> 1:51:42.200 court date, right with a court date to appear for 1:51:42.200 --> 1:51:45.800 their asylum hearing, which will slow down the process of 1:51:46.200 --> 1:51:51.880 releasing them, right, And so I've heard of court dates. 1:51:51.920 --> 1:51:55.080 I've heard of folks being released already kind of with 1:51:55.240 --> 1:52:00.200 court dates in twenty twenty seven, which this whole thing 1:52:00.920 --> 1:52:05.320 has just been like a disaster in terms of the 1:52:05.520 --> 1:52:09.000 federal response, right like, and in just the cruelest possible way. 1:52:10.080 --> 1:52:10.519 It was. 1:52:11.439 --> 1:52:14.519 Everyone could see this coming, right that there will be 1:52:14.600 --> 1:52:17.759 more people trying to cross. There are sixteen thousand people 1:52:18.280 --> 1:52:21.000 give or take in Tijuana alone, So it's just across 1:52:21.000 --> 1:52:23.120 from where I live, waiting to come to the United 1:52:23.120 --> 1:52:25.400 States because they've been denied that right for three years, 1:52:25.920 --> 1:52:28.200 because they need somewhere safe to go, and because they're 1:52:28.200 --> 1:52:33.160 not safe there. And the best estimate we got for 1:52:33.240 --> 1:52:35.160 how many they could process from border patrol was two 1:52:35.240 --> 1:52:39.040 hundred a day at the Tijuana porta Ventry or Sunny 1:52:39.040 --> 1:52:43.240 Cedro port of entry, really, but we don't know. There's 1:52:43.280 --> 1:52:45.080 no clear I don't know how many people they're processing 1:52:45.120 --> 1:52:48.800 every day, right, But these people who do come in 1:52:48.800 --> 1:52:50.240 now have to have a hearing date before they can 1:52:50.280 --> 1:52:53.360 be released. When if they get through, So I spoke 1:52:53.400 --> 1:52:57.240 to a young man and his son who I'd spoken 1:52:57.320 --> 1:53:02.800 to at the border, and he had been released into 1:53:02.800 --> 1:53:06.120 the United States where a charity in San Diego will 1:53:06.120 --> 1:53:10.240 provide him with two nights, what like two nights of accommodation, right, 1:53:11.720 --> 1:53:14.760 and then it can't quite work out what then, like 1:53:14.800 --> 1:53:17.360 he's out on his own, you know, Like I guess 1:53:17.400 --> 1:53:23.560 we'll find out tonight. But he has to find a sponsor. 1:53:23.960 --> 1:53:26.240 I don't quite understand how he was released without a sponsor, 1:53:26.280 --> 1:53:29.120 but it seems like the system is kind of bungling 1:53:29.160 --> 1:53:32.639 things up, and these folks have to fund their own 1:53:32.720 --> 1:53:35.000 flights to wherever it is. A sponsor is right, so 1:53:35.080 --> 1:53:38.080 they have family or community, they're having to work out 1:53:38.080 --> 1:53:40.960 how to get to that family and community, so be 1:53:41.040 --> 1:53:45.559 there the greyhound or a plane or a train. So 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:53.000 it all in all a giant classifuck with very human consequences. 1:53:53.040 --> 1:53:58.440 Like I can't stress enough how like every possible demographic 1:53:58.479 --> 1:54:02.120 is represented, old people, little tiny children, right, Like I 1:54:02.160 --> 1:54:04.400 was talking to a little Afga and girl, not really 1:54:04.439 --> 1:54:07.760 talking to we don't share any languages, but I was 1:54:07.760 --> 1:54:11.240 more just like making funny faces for a while and 1:54:11.400 --> 1:54:12.760 sort of pointing at things. 1:54:12.600 --> 1:54:13.000 And. 1:54:14.600 --> 1:54:16.760 Like it just breaks my heart that there are little 1:54:16.840 --> 1:54:21.320 children who like especially you know, she's a little girl, 1:54:21.360 --> 1:54:23.280 she's from Afghanistan. We told her shit ton of lies 1:54:23.280 --> 1:54:26.400 about Afghan women to justify twenty years of killing people, 1:54:26.840 --> 1:54:30.439 of certain people making money from killing people, and like 1:54:30.840 --> 1:54:35.520 this was supposedly they're like canard was that this was 1:54:35.560 --> 1:54:38.520 for Afghan girls and women, Right, And here's an Afghan 1:54:38.600 --> 1:54:44.240 girl sleeping in the fucking dirt, like twenty twenty minutes 1:54:44.680 --> 1:54:47.840 from where I live. And I can't even give this 1:54:47.960 --> 1:54:51.760 kid like hot meal because I can't fit it through 1:54:51.800 --> 1:54:56.000 the bars of the fence. Like everything that goes across 1:54:56.000 --> 1:54:59.160 to these people has to go through the bars of 1:54:59.200 --> 1:55:03.520 the fence. Right, someone worked out that pizza, pizza could 1:55:03.520 --> 1:55:06.240 fit through because flat right, people have been getting pizza. 1:55:06.320 --> 1:55:09.080 But other than that, they're getting you know, bottles of water, 1:55:09.120 --> 1:55:13.560 granola bars, you know things that fit through a fence, 1:55:13.640 --> 1:55:17.520 beef jerky. And they've been there for days in some cases. 1:55:17.560 --> 1:55:20.640 And that's a camp that's relatively accessible, right, I can 1:55:20.680 --> 1:55:22.760 pull off the interstate, drive down a dirt road and 1:55:22.800 --> 1:55:26.720 be there in like I say, twenty minutes. The camps 1:55:26.720 --> 1:55:29.640 are less accessible. We've heard the conditions are much worse. 1:55:29.720 --> 1:55:33.120 A couple of Jamaican guys told me that there was 1:55:33.160 --> 1:55:35.280 another camp that we we tried to get access to it, 1:55:35.320 --> 1:55:39.000 weren't able to get access to that was further west 1:55:39.000 --> 1:55:41.440 from where we were, where people were hungry. They're getting 1:55:42.040 --> 1:55:45.680 this is all just from that source. I have reached 1:55:45.720 --> 1:55:47.800 out a border patrol, but as of today, they haven't 1:55:47.800 --> 1:55:51.320 got back to me, saying that they were getting a 1:55:51.320 --> 1:55:54.400 bottle of water and a granola bar every day, and 1:55:54.440 --> 1:55:57.200 that like some of these other folks had taken it 1:55:57.280 --> 1:55:58.960 upon themselves to like walk over there to try and 1:55:58.960 --> 1:56:00.880 get them food, right, people who already not in the 1:56:00.920 --> 1:56:04.000 great situation themselves, and they kept asking why couldn't we 1:56:04.040 --> 1:56:06.640 go there, Why couldn't we help them? Like it was 1:56:06.760 --> 1:56:08.360 very admirable right to see folks who are in a 1:56:08.360 --> 1:56:10.960 pretty bad way be like, hey, these people need help 1:56:10.960 --> 1:56:15.280 more than we do. So, yeah, that's a situation. I 1:56:15.320 --> 1:56:20.480 think we should take a break for advertising then sorry, 1:56:20.520 --> 1:56:23.320 I ye, yeah, hopefully not for a drone or some shit. 1:56:24.640 --> 1:56:27.600 All right, we're back, and this is another happy and 1:56:27.680 --> 1:56:30.440 exciting episode in which I tell you things that will 1:56:30.440 --> 1:56:35.480 brighten your day. So something I wanted to talk about 1:56:35.480 --> 1:56:38.520 because I think it's important is the mutual aid response 1:56:38.600 --> 1:56:44.160 to this, and it's been really really impressive, you know, 1:56:45.520 --> 1:56:47.360 I live in a place where the Democrats are absolute 1:56:47.400 --> 1:56:52.480 dog shit. Well we'll do It's America, right, but like 1:56:53.000 --> 1:56:56.080 just the particularly cringe like cast real liberalism of San 1:56:56.120 --> 1:56:58.640 Diego Democrats is like as always on display. 1:56:58.680 --> 1:56:58.800 Right. 1:56:58.800 --> 1:57:02.800 I saw one of them tweeting today how CBS, DHS 1:57:02.800 --> 1:57:05.120 and CBP are doing a great job and keeping us safe, 1:57:05.200 --> 1:57:11.040 and like my like it makes me want to say 1:57:11.120 --> 1:57:15.280 things I shouldn't say on the podcast, I guess. But 1:57:15.320 --> 1:57:20.480 what that means is that, like, our government isn't going 1:57:20.520 --> 1:57:23.520 to do shit, right, Like, it is entirely on us 1:57:23.680 --> 1:57:25.720 to look after each other. And people have done that. 1:57:27.120 --> 1:57:31.760 The groups like American Friends Service Committee, which is a 1:57:31.760 --> 1:57:33.920 great organization which has really good stuff on the boarder, 1:57:33.960 --> 1:57:36.360 have been down there every single day, right, Like there 1:57:36.360 --> 1:57:38.080 have been days when I've left at one am there's 1:57:38.080 --> 1:57:43.240 still someone there. They've been giving people water, giving people food. 1:57:43.640 --> 1:57:46.480 A huge need that people have is to charge their phones. 1:57:46.680 --> 1:57:50.040 And the way that migrants interact with CBP, at least 1:57:50.040 --> 1:57:52.080 in theory, the way you get an asylum appointment is 1:57:52.080 --> 1:57:55.640 booking it through an app called CBP one. We've talked 1:57:55.680 --> 1:57:59.720 about this on the podcast before, but CBP one is terrible. 1:57:59.800 --> 1:58:04.520 It is a terrible app that doesn't work. And that's 1:58:04.680 --> 1:58:08.720 for people who have phones and Wi Fi. Right, if 1:58:08.760 --> 1:58:12.920 you are stuck in between two fences and a dusty 1:58:12.920 --> 1:58:14.400 piece of ground, how the hell are you supposed to 1:58:14.480 --> 1:58:17.440 charge your phone? You don't have Wi Fi, right, you 1:58:17.480 --> 1:58:20.000 may not have a data plan that works in that area. 1:58:20.120 --> 1:58:24.480 So a huge unmet need was charging charging phone. So 1:58:25.200 --> 1:58:27.520 we were able to get some donations from the team 1:58:27.600 --> 1:58:30.440 and buy a big charger. Other folks turned up with charges. 1:58:31.800 --> 1:58:34.800 Even all the news orgs I see to include, like 1:58:34.840 --> 1:58:37.480 like Fox National weren't there, which is a good thing, 1:58:38.600 --> 1:58:41.360 but like we could talk about that actually as well. 1:58:41.360 --> 1:58:43.960 My goods will specifically ask which news network you're with, 1:58:44.080 --> 1:58:46.600 which I think is that. I think that's good. I 1:58:46.920 --> 1:58:51.360 think it's good they tell Fox News to fuck off, because, yeah, 1:58:51.600 --> 1:58:54.400 someone who participates in your dehumanization doesn't also deserve to 1:58:54.400 --> 1:58:58.360 make money from your trauma. And so every news network 1:58:58.520 --> 1:59:01.040 that was there, right or the called folks from San 1:59:01.080 --> 1:59:04.120 Diego were just constantly shuttling back and forth to their bands, 1:59:04.160 --> 1:59:07.440 charging phones constantly, constantly, constantly, and it became a bit 1:59:07.440 --> 1:59:11.640 of a cluster because obviously there's literally just hundreds of 1:59:11.760 --> 1:59:15.120 people in this small area, dozens of hands reaching to 1:59:15.120 --> 1:59:17.440 a defense, Charge my phone? Can I have my phone back? 1:59:17.520 --> 1:59:19.800 Charge my phone? And in the English and Spanish and 1:59:19.840 --> 1:59:26.280 French and command Gye and Vietnamese and all these other languages, right, 1:59:26.360 --> 1:59:31.000 So it was very hard to organize that. So folks 1:59:31.040 --> 1:59:34.240 came down, Folks from San Diego, from different sort of 1:59:34.320 --> 1:59:38.560 mutual aid groups came down and they organized the system. Right. 1:59:38.560 --> 1:59:40.720 They got Painter's tape, the names of the people on 1:59:40.760 --> 1:59:43.880 the back of the phone. We had this huge ash 1:59:43.920 --> 1:59:46.240 battery that we were able to get and that they 1:59:46.280 --> 1:59:48.760 were able to charge people's phones, get them their phones 1:59:48.760 --> 1:59:53.200 back to them. And that is a crucial thing, right 1:59:53.240 --> 1:59:55.120 in that scenario. Not only is it your only way 1:59:55.120 --> 1:59:57.200 to communicate with border patrol, it's your only way to 1:59:57.240 --> 1:59:58.360 communicate with your family. 1:59:59.160 --> 1:59:59.280 Right. 1:59:59.400 --> 2:00:02.040 Like one guy had lost his phone, and so I 2:00:02.120 --> 2:00:03.840 just bought him a burner phone or you know, one 2:00:03.880 --> 2:00:07.800 of those warm artphones so that he could call his 2:00:07.840 --> 2:00:11.120 family because the family didn't know where he was. Right 2:00:11.440 --> 2:00:14.000 last they'd heard he was in Mexico or maybe even 2:00:14.040 --> 2:00:18.880 further south. And so the phones are super important. Other 2:00:18.960 --> 2:00:21.840 mutual ad groups have been getting blankets, right, And I 2:00:21.880 --> 2:00:24.760 saw an Afghan family turn up and had they had 2:00:24.800 --> 2:00:27.960 crayons for the Afghan kids who were there, right, and 2:00:28.000 --> 2:00:30.960 like coloring books and things for children to do, because 2:00:30.960 --> 2:00:33.800 it's probably boring being a kid, and it's probably scary 2:00:33.840 --> 2:00:36.680 being a kid, where like every day men with guns 2:00:36.720 --> 2:00:38.760 and camouflage gear turn up and they speak a language 2:00:38.760 --> 2:00:41.200 you don't understand, and then you don't know what they say, 2:00:41.240 --> 2:00:42.080 and then you stay there. 2:00:42.400 --> 2:00:45.560 Yeah, and I want to kind of just there are 2:00:45.600 --> 2:00:48.600 lots of things that could get called camps that are 2:00:49.440 --> 2:00:55.080 like not camps, right, Like this is like this this 2:00:55.160 --> 2:00:56.920 is not a camp in the sense of like there 2:00:56.920 --> 2:00:59.440 are buildings that you go into or even like there 2:00:59.440 --> 2:01:04.080 are ten it's just like, oh yeah, no, yeah, I 2:01:04.080 --> 2:01:04.680 think that's. 2:01:04.480 --> 2:01:07.280 A very good I think that I haven't mentioned, thank you. 2:01:07.560 --> 2:01:07.800 Yes. 2:01:07.880 --> 2:01:10.840 This is people lying on the dirt. Occasionally, they have 2:01:10.880 --> 2:01:14.120 a my last space blanket. Occasionally they have a top. 2:01:14.920 --> 2:01:17.520 If they want to make any form of shelter they 2:01:17.520 --> 2:01:19.160 have to use the only thing they have to use 2:01:19.240 --> 2:01:21.520 is the wall itself. Right, So up against the wall, 2:01:21.560 --> 2:01:24.280 people have made like a lean to kind of situation 2:01:24.360 --> 2:01:28.200 with the top, right, But no, this is by no 2:01:28.360 --> 2:01:32.680 means suitable shelter. Literally, people are lying on the dirt. 2:01:32.720 --> 2:01:35.839 Like it's just a fucking cage like in a desert. 2:01:36.000 --> 2:01:39.400 Like it's yeah, it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's 2:01:39.400 --> 2:01:41.920 the kind of thing that like, like you it's the 2:01:42.000 --> 2:01:43.680 kind of thing you would put it in a Poclyst movement. 2:01:43.680 --> 2:01:45.440 People will be like, oh, no, one would ever do that. Shit. 2:01:45.440 --> 2:01:48.880 It's like no, no, Like this is just sort of yeah, 2:01:49.120 --> 2:01:50.600 this is what US border policy is. 2:01:50.760 --> 2:01:55.280 It's these like just these open air cages. 2:01:56.160 --> 2:01:58.560 Yeah, it's you wouldn't like, you know, I go to 2:01:58.600 --> 2:02:00.520 the zoo in San Diego and the animals much better 2:02:00.520 --> 2:02:04.440 conditions than that. There's no running water. There was one 2:02:05.080 --> 2:02:10.520 porterloo toilet for five hundred people. Yeah, it's terrible. It 2:02:10.640 --> 2:02:13.880 is awful. It's little. It's people wrapping their babies in 2:02:13.960 --> 2:02:16.200 my love blankets and trying to get them to sleep 2:02:16.240 --> 2:02:21.520 at night, you know. And that's the same as several 2:02:21.560 --> 2:02:23.880 places up and down the border. Right they're starting to 2:02:23.880 --> 2:02:29.200 clear them out now, So sort of Tuesday Monday, So 2:02:29.840 --> 2:02:32.520 some people got there a week ago, I think, and 2:02:32.960 --> 2:02:36.440 so they've been staying there for a long time. And yeah, 2:02:36.480 --> 2:02:39.960 like it's no point does there seem to have been 2:02:40.000 --> 2:02:45.760 any consideration for even giving people shade or shelter or like, Yeah, 2:02:45.960 --> 2:02:49.720 the very basics, and like I should reinforce it. In 2:02:49.760 --> 2:02:52.880 twenty eighteen, when Trump blocked a large group of migrants 2:02:52.880 --> 2:02:56.200 from entering the United States, the government of Mexico did 2:02:56.240 --> 2:02:59.360 considerably better than this. It was by no means a 2:02:59.400 --> 2:03:04.000 good situation for those children at all, but they did 2:03:04.040 --> 2:03:08.520 better than this. Which it's aventally extremely low bar to clear, 2:03:08.560 --> 2:03:11.280 but we have failed to clear it completely as a country. 2:03:11.400 --> 2:03:13.960 And that's kind of to our eternal shame, I think. 2:03:14.080 --> 2:03:17.600 Yeah, and I think and everything worth emphasizing about this 2:03:17.680 --> 2:03:21.360 is that it hasn't always been like this. There's there's 2:03:21.400 --> 2:03:23.400 this sort of image that's been constructed that this is 2:03:23.440 --> 2:03:25.600 always what the US border has been. No, I mean 2:03:25.600 --> 2:03:27.840 it's not like it's not it's not like American border 2:03:27.880 --> 2:03:29.480 policy has always been like good. 2:03:30.240 --> 2:03:33.120 But I mean, like in my lifetime, it wasn't likely. 2:03:33.200 --> 2:03:36.400 Yes, in the mid nineties there were four thousand border 2:03:36.400 --> 2:03:39.920 patrol agents. Yeah, it's increased by a factor of ten, 2:03:39.960 --> 2:03:41.440 and its budget probably by more than that. 2:03:42.320 --> 2:03:45.480 Yeah, And you know the consequences of this is just 2:03:48.040 --> 2:03:50.440 basically in order to appease a bunch of just sort 2:03:50.480 --> 2:03:57.440 of like fucking like turbo racist baked dipshits like who 2:03:57.480 --> 2:04:00.160 live in the suburbs and you know, have no have 2:04:00.280 --> 2:04:03.080 like never experienced a single hardship and their entire lives 2:04:03.560 --> 2:04:06.560 like fucking like untold numbers of people are put through 2:04:06.680 --> 2:04:12.040 just in human suffering and for fucking nothing, just just 2:04:12.160 --> 2:04:16.720 like for for nothing, for like just dog shit electoral pandering. 2:04:17.200 --> 2:04:21.800 Yeah, by people who have never seen what goes on 2:04:21.840 --> 2:04:25.520 at the border. They've never experienced where these people come from. 2:04:25.120 --> 2:04:29.720 And yeah, it's they're just numbers to people in DC, right, 2:04:29.960 --> 2:04:34.040 And I would really urge people to not read immigration coverage, 2:04:34.480 --> 2:04:36.640 or watch immigration coverage, or listen to immigration coverage that 2:04:36.680 --> 2:04:39.840 isn't written by people at the border, because this isn't 2:04:39.880 --> 2:04:42.120 a fucking issue about numbers. Like every single one of 2:04:42.160 --> 2:04:44.800 those numbers is a person who has people they love 2:04:44.920 --> 2:04:47.360 and things that they've done and choices that they've made 2:04:47.360 --> 2:04:50.560 that got them there, and every single one of them 2:04:50.800 --> 2:04:54.480 is someone who deserves compassion and empathy. And it's not 2:04:54.760 --> 2:04:57.720 just another you know, like a number in an Excel chart, 2:04:57.760 --> 2:05:00.800 which is how it's treated. And yeah, it has always 2:05:00.800 --> 2:05:02.920 been this way This is a very recent innovation, and 2:05:02.960 --> 2:05:06.560 it's I mean we've talked about this before as well, 2:05:06.560 --> 2:05:09.520 but right, this is the proving ground for state surveillance, 2:05:09.600 --> 2:05:13.400 state violence, fascism, all these things. Right, the reason that 2:05:13.480 --> 2:05:15.920 you got surveilled by a drone if you went to 2:05:16.320 --> 2:05:18.920 a George Floyd protest in Minneapolis is because the Border 2:05:18.960 --> 2:05:22.920 Patrol already had one. The reason that cops listened into 2:05:22.960 --> 2:05:25.920 your phone if you went to some protest in twenty 2:05:25.920 --> 2:05:29.120 twenty is because of border patrol technology. Right, they have 2:05:29.200 --> 2:05:31.080 these sting ray towers all up and down the border. 2:05:31.600 --> 2:05:34.280 Robert and I have seen him in Mexico, sorry, in 2:05:34.400 --> 2:05:35.200 Texas even. 2:05:35.520 --> 2:05:37.800 Yeah, and I mean, you know, even even stuff like this, 2:05:37.880 --> 2:05:39.760 this is the sort of recent laws in places like 2:05:39.760 --> 2:05:42.080 Florida and Texas that are you know, led the state 2:05:42.160 --> 2:05:44.760 steel trans kids, right like that. That's also stuff that 2:05:44.880 --> 2:05:47.120 was sort of like, yeah, like the prototype of that 2:05:47.160 --> 2:05:48.720 came from the I mean like it came from the border. 2:05:49.240 --> 2:05:52.400 There's it's also something that came from sort of like 2:05:52.400 --> 2:05:57.040 like anti black bullshit that like is sort of deeply 2:05:57.120 --> 2:06:00.440 rooted in like American family planning bullshit. But like, yeah, 2:06:00.440 --> 2:06:02.680 like that that's also another one of the places where 2:06:02.680 --> 2:06:04.120 like that stuff was tested. 2:06:04.440 --> 2:06:06.960 And with indigenous folks, like we've ripped Indigenous children for 2:06:07.000 --> 2:06:11.280 their families for decades. But yeah, we it's a deeply 2:06:11.400 --> 2:06:18.200 baked white supremacist system that always does its experimenting on 2:06:18.680 --> 2:06:22.040 marginized people are very often at the border. But yeah, 2:06:22.080 --> 2:06:26.080 if you if you're worried about the government intercepting your 2:06:26.120 --> 2:06:30.800 communications with an abortion care provider, that has happened because 2:06:30.800 --> 2:06:33.040 at some point they've been allowed to do stuff to 2:06:33.160 --> 2:06:36.840 migrants that was equally bad, if not worse, And and 2:06:37.360 --> 2:06:40.600 like this will hurt you even if you are like 2:06:41.800 --> 2:06:44.160 Kathy the liberal in Minnesota, like when we let the 2:06:44.200 --> 2:06:47.840 state have these powers, they don't just use them benevolently, 2:06:47.880 --> 2:06:49.880 and that they weren't using them benevolently in the first place. 2:06:50.000 --> 2:06:53.800 Read like they say innocent people who've done nothing wrong. 2:06:54.040 --> 2:06:56.640 Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing about state power 2:06:56.680 --> 2:06:59.400 is and any any power the state has, inevitably they 2:06:59.400 --> 2:07:01.800 will wonder you it on you. And so you can't 2:07:01.880 --> 2:07:05.120 let them take shit like this because you know they will. 2:07:05.400 --> 2:07:08.560 They will turn your entire society into a sort of 2:07:08.800 --> 2:07:10.000 hell Garrison state. 2:07:11.160 --> 2:07:15.760 Yeah, and it's just I don't know that the inhumanity 2:07:15.800 --> 2:07:18.080 that your taxes pay for for listening to this in 2:07:18.120 --> 2:07:23.280 America is abhorrent. It's disgusting, and yeah, you should do 2:07:23.320 --> 2:07:26.040 everything you can to stop it. And like, this probably 2:07:26.080 --> 2:07:29.160 is one of the instances where like you may be 2:07:29.200 --> 2:07:31.080 able to do something of some value by writing to 2:07:31.120 --> 2:07:34.040 a politician. It's certainly one of the instances where if 2:07:34.080 --> 2:07:36.560 you live near the border, you can show up and 2:07:36.600 --> 2:07:40.400 make a very meaningful difference to someone's whole experience. Right, 2:07:40.520 --> 2:07:44.400 Like myself and Joe were down there when this this 2:07:44.520 --> 2:07:48.320 guy had lost his phone, and like, you know, it 2:07:48.400 --> 2:07:51.880 wasn't that expensive to buy this guy a phone. Other 2:07:52.280 --> 2:07:55.400 like people will remember Mandy and people will remember Alex, 2:07:55.480 --> 2:07:57.200 who are two guests I've had on different San Diego 2:07:57.200 --> 2:07:59.160 episodes that they've both been down there. I know Alex 2:07:59.200 --> 2:08:01.920 gave his EpiPen to someone who needed an epipenn, like 2:08:01.960 --> 2:08:06.360 we acutely needed an EpiPen. Like things like that, you 2:08:06.400 --> 2:08:09.200 can maybe save someone's life, maybe just make someone's day 2:08:09.240 --> 2:08:11.320 a little bit less shit. You know, maybe you can 2:08:12.040 --> 2:08:13.800 let a kid kick a football and you'd have to 2:08:13.800 --> 2:08:15.680 deflate the football to get it through the defense early, 2:08:16.320 --> 2:08:19.120 but like, you know, you can give a doll to 2:08:19.160 --> 2:08:20.920 a little kid so they can play with it or something. 2:08:20.960 --> 2:08:23.400 Do somethink that will for a moment take them out 2:08:23.440 --> 2:08:27.680 of the utterly miserable place that we force them into. 2:08:28.320 --> 2:08:31.680 And if folks want to support that, I know I'd 2:08:31.680 --> 2:08:35.760 posted Mandy's cash app and Venmo and I think some 2:08:35.760 --> 2:08:38.160 people very generously did contribute, which is great. If you're 2:08:38.200 --> 2:08:43.360 not at the border, look at Border Kindness, which is 2:08:43.560 --> 2:08:45.160 a group out of San Diego who I know are 2:08:45.160 --> 2:08:48.600 doing aid runs to Cucumber. I think the Houcumber Hotel 2:08:48.680 --> 2:08:54.280 Hukumba for those not familiar, Jacu Mba the Hookumber Hotel 2:08:54.400 --> 2:08:58.040 was housing folks and providing it there a huge amount 2:08:58.080 --> 2:09:03.000 of water and shelter to people this morning. People can 2:09:03.600 --> 2:09:06.160 look at the American French Service Committee that I wrote about, 2:09:06.200 --> 2:09:08.880 and I know that Joe and myself have shared some 2:09:08.920 --> 2:09:11.120 Amazon wish lists that people have and that kind of thing. 2:09:11.200 --> 2:09:14.680 But it's it's a massive task, but it's not one 2:09:14.760 --> 2:09:17.640 that's like insurmountable. The amount of people I've seen show 2:09:17.760 --> 2:09:21.680 up to include like and you know, I'm not a 2:09:21.720 --> 2:09:24.480 religious person and I'm not a person who particularly cares 2:09:24.520 --> 2:09:27.520 for organized religion either, but it does make me happy 2:09:27.520 --> 2:09:30.360 when I see like old church ladies in high heels 2:09:30.360 --> 2:09:34.240 with perms coming out and like giving water to children, 2:09:34.400 --> 2:09:39.800 charging phones and seeing I think it's like, certainly I've 2:09:39.800 --> 2:09:41.680 lived on the border for fifteen years. It's been a 2:09:41.680 --> 2:09:45.520 fundamentally radicalizing experience for me. Like I think you're supposed 2:09:45.520 --> 2:09:47.840 to grow old and grow out of your anarchist politics 2:09:47.920 --> 2:09:49.360 or whatever. But I don't know how anyone could live 2:09:49.400 --> 2:09:53.480 here and think that like police state good it's and 2:09:53.520 --> 2:09:56.120 I think anybody who can get down here should it's 2:09:56.160 --> 2:09:59.400 good for you too, Like and I always think about 2:09:59.400 --> 2:10:01.920 how oscoor why child has this thing about like how 2:10:02.040 --> 2:10:05.040 seeing people living on the streets like not only undermind 2:10:05.080 --> 2:10:08.440 stare humanity, but also his humanity, because like seeing someone 2:10:08.440 --> 2:10:10.640 else suffering should make us feel bad, and so like 2:10:10.720 --> 2:10:14.000 he benefits when he helps someone, and like you know, 2:10:14.320 --> 2:10:17.920 we're all lifted up, right, Like I I guess one 2:10:17.960 --> 2:10:19.600 of the things I struggle with most of the journalist 2:10:19.800 --> 2:10:24.240 is that like that like feeling of living in comfort 2:10:24.240 --> 2:10:28.040 while other people can't, especially when it's such like it's 2:10:28.080 --> 2:10:30.640 one thing if I if I go somewhere, right, if 2:10:30.640 --> 2:10:33.320 I'm in Myanmar and I'm aware that things are difficult 2:10:33.360 --> 2:10:35.720 and scary, and then I get on a plane and 2:10:35.760 --> 2:10:38.960 it takes two days when I come back. But just 2:10:39.000 --> 2:10:43.560 from like a personal like mental health perspective, seeing a 2:10:43.600 --> 2:10:47.160 little child sleep in the dirt, right, or someone asking 2:10:47.200 --> 2:10:50.040 me for fucking bin back so they can keep their 2:10:50.080 --> 2:10:52.600 baby out of the rain like a trash back, or 2:10:52.640 --> 2:10:56.240 a kid without shoes, you know, and then going home 2:10:57.080 --> 2:11:00.800 to my relatively comfortable existence is really hard. And I 2:11:00.800 --> 2:11:02.360 think we should all have to face up to that 2:11:02.440 --> 2:11:06.640 because it's what it's what our government is responsible for. 2:11:06.680 --> 2:11:09.160 And supposed we've got the best sucking option in twenty twenty, right, 2:11:09.160 --> 2:11:11.800 this is the this is this is the good choice 2:11:12.160 --> 2:11:15.640 of the two. But it doesn't make any meaningful difference 2:11:15.680 --> 2:11:18.160 whether you choose Trump or Biden to these people, right, 2:11:18.360 --> 2:11:20.400 because the best treat them like ship. 2:11:21.040 --> 2:11:24.920 Yeah, it's like the kids are still in cages. And yes, 2:11:25.080 --> 2:11:28.919 you know, until until until the entire system that enables 2:11:28.920 --> 2:11:31.200 the ship is destroyed and it can be right like, 2:11:31.240 --> 2:11:33.320 and this isn't even this, this isn't even on the 2:11:33.360 --> 2:11:35.440 on the level of sort of like you know of 2:11:35.480 --> 2:11:38.400 sort of anarchist politics, right like this, none of this 2:11:38.440 --> 2:11:41.720 ship existed twenty years ago, right, like this is this 2:11:41.800 --> 2:11:43.640 is like wow, okay, I guess it's twenty FOI three 2:11:43.840 --> 2:11:44.760 twenty five years ago. 2:11:44.800 --> 2:11:46.840 None of this ship existed even. 2:11:46.600 --> 2:11:49.200 Within like the framework of the nation state, right, Like, 2:11:49.240 --> 2:11:51.480 this is not a thing that you that we have 2:11:51.600 --> 2:11:54.320 to do, which we simply do. 2:11:54.360 --> 2:11:55.960 Not have to you. 2:11:55.960 --> 2:11:59.680 You could share politics with Bill Clinton and still. 2:11:59.360 --> 2:12:02.520 Ronald read was better on the fucking border than any 2:12:02.600 --> 2:12:06.040 than any president who has been alive in my fucking lifetime. 2:12:06.320 --> 2:12:08.600 Right, Yeah, fucking Reagan. 2:12:09.360 --> 2:12:13.360 Dwight Eisenhower would have had serious concerns about the industrial 2:12:13.360 --> 2:12:14.640 complex we're building at the border. 2:12:14.720 --> 2:12:16.760 Yeah, Like this is not like this, this, this isn't 2:12:16.760 --> 2:12:21.440 this isn't like a particularly radical political thing, right, It's 2:12:21.520 --> 2:12:24.160 just that we've we've become sort of a nerd to 2:12:24.320 --> 2:12:28.200 this death state that's built up around us, and you know, 2:12:28.400 --> 2:12:31.440 doesn't it doesn't keep anyone safe. It just fucking inflicts 2:12:31.600 --> 2:12:36.320 untold human misery. So fucking Greg Abbott can win an election. 2:12:37.200 --> 2:12:40.520 Yeah yeah, and it costs us a lot of money. Right, Like, 2:12:40.720 --> 2:12:45.720 your universal healthcare is an unmandrone flying over some children 2:12:45.840 --> 2:12:49.879 run across a desert in Arizona. Right now, Your free 2:12:50.280 --> 2:12:54.720 university education is a border patrol smart camera in the 2:12:54.760 --> 2:12:57.200 desert that goes off every time a fucking deer walks past. 2:12:57.200 --> 2:13:01.440 How it rains like it. This stuff is expensive and like, 2:13:02.240 --> 2:13:04.600 if you're in the US, you are paying for it. Yeah. 2:13:04.640 --> 2:13:10.120 I think the most sort of soft of liberals can 2:13:10.160 --> 2:13:11.680 see that this is right. And they did see that 2:13:11.720 --> 2:13:15.000 this ship was wrong in the Trump administration, and they 2:13:15.040 --> 2:13:16.920 do see this is wrong when they come right, Like 2:13:18.680 --> 2:13:21.760 I've some of the best mutual aid groups I've worked 2:13:21.760 --> 2:13:25.840 with are like middle aged folks from churches who have 2:13:26.200 --> 2:13:29.640 time and the means to help and just didn't realize 2:13:29.640 --> 2:13:31.600 that it was like no one was coming and we 2:13:31.640 --> 2:13:33.840 had to do it ourselves. And when they did that, 2:13:33.880 --> 2:13:37.080 they were very effective. And so I would encourage folks 2:13:37.080 --> 2:13:40.680 who are in border communities near the border. Near the 2:13:40.680 --> 2:13:42.720 border means a different thing of your border patrol because 2:13:42.760 --> 2:13:45.080 their jurisdiction applies one hundred miles. 2:13:44.880 --> 2:13:45.560 From the border. 2:13:45.800 --> 2:13:48.400 That's the other thing, right, the border will come to you. 2:13:48.520 --> 2:13:48.760 Yeah. 2:13:50.520 --> 2:13:53.320 Statistically, odds are that you are the border already has 2:13:53.320 --> 2:13:53.800 come to you. 2:13:54.280 --> 2:13:56.400 Yes, yeah, yeah. 2:13:56.440 --> 2:13:58.360 Two thirds of people in the United States are in 2:13:58.440 --> 2:14:00.520 the border patrol in for Smith Zone. 2:14:00.600 --> 2:14:03.240 Yeah, I'm in it, and I'm in like fucking Chicago, right. 2:14:03.240 --> 2:14:08.240 Oh yeah, like yeah, I think yes, people who would 2:14:08.240 --> 2:14:09.840 not think of themselves as bored as well as the 2:14:09.840 --> 2:14:12.800 border affects you. If you go to other communities in 2:14:12.800 --> 2:14:15.400 your city, you might realize border patroller around there, Ice 2:14:15.440 --> 2:14:20.360 are around there. So yeah, it's it's pretty bleak. We're 2:14:20.400 --> 2:14:22.560 working on some scripted stuff, but I want to get 2:14:22.600 --> 2:14:24.480 into a bit of the history of border patrol and 2:14:24.600 --> 2:14:26.840 rereading Border Patrol Nation, which is a great book if 2:14:26.840 --> 2:14:31.920 people haven't read it, and I want The other thing 2:14:31.920 --> 2:14:35.600 I should say about border reporting is if people don't 2:14:35.640 --> 2:14:38.400 center migrants and they're reporting about migration, then you shouldn't 2:14:38.440 --> 2:14:41.880 be reading that reporting. Like sometimes it can be hard. 2:14:42.480 --> 2:14:43.960 One other thing I guess I do want to say 2:14:44.000 --> 2:14:46.000 is you're seeing my photos and you're seeing Joe's photos, 2:14:46.040 --> 2:14:48.800 You're not going to see many faces. And that's because 2:14:48.840 --> 2:14:51.200 people have legitimate fears for their wellbeing. That's why they 2:14:51.240 --> 2:14:56.560 are fucking here. Yeah, and not obtaining consent before taking 2:14:56.600 --> 2:15:00.800 photographs is making a terrible situation worse, And like that's 2:15:00.800 --> 2:15:03.560 something that we can work on as a media, right, 2:15:03.640 --> 2:15:05.440 like something I will continue to call out when I 2:15:05.520 --> 2:15:09.120 see it. But if you don't speak the language, find 2:15:09.120 --> 2:15:12.640 someone who does it. Don't take the goddamn photo. You'll 2:15:12.680 --> 2:15:14.040 see some face in the mind. Like I like to 2:15:14.080 --> 2:15:16.520 pass my camera through the fence and give it to 2:15:16.640 --> 2:15:18.760 like teenage kids so they can run around and take 2:15:18.760 --> 2:15:21.280 photos and have fun. And like so when they take 2:15:21.320 --> 2:15:25.000 like goofy selfies, I'll post those. They get concerned from 2:15:25.000 --> 2:15:26.480 them or their parents, and the parents are around it, 2:15:26.520 --> 2:15:31.800 and that's fine. But yeah, when you're looking at border coverage, 2:15:31.920 --> 2:15:35.600 always understand that these are people and if we don't 2:15:35.640 --> 2:15:38.520 center those people and their stories, then we're doing it wrong. 2:15:39.520 --> 2:15:43.760 If you can physically get to these places, like you should, 2:15:44.080 --> 2:15:45.920 like the the the this is this is one of 2:15:45.920 --> 2:15:48.840 the like the situations where like the amount of good 2:15:48.880 --> 2:15:51.560 that like a very small number of people could do 2:15:51.960 --> 2:15:55.640 is enormous and the cost is not that high. 2:15:56.280 --> 2:16:01.920 No, but for instance, I some of my friends had 2:16:01.960 --> 2:16:04.040 just gone to Costco right and just loaded up one 2:16:04.080 --> 2:16:06.760 of those big Costco trolleys and like that that makes 2:16:06.760 --> 2:16:11.520 a meaningful difference to hundreds of people, And so you should. 2:16:11.880 --> 2:16:13.880 There will probably be mutual aid networks on the ground 2:16:13.920 --> 2:16:18.520 at almost every border area. By now, reach out to them, 2:16:18.600 --> 2:16:20.880 see if they need the money. If you can get 2:16:20.880 --> 2:16:24.440 there and help organize, that's better. If you have skills, right, 2:16:24.480 --> 2:16:27.839 if you have language skills yours, like there are people 2:16:29.000 --> 2:16:32.080 I met a guy who spoke Commanji, like the Kurdish 2:16:32.200 --> 2:16:37.119 dialect of North and East Syria, right, people who speak 2:16:37.680 --> 2:16:42.039 Vietnamese almost every language you can conceive of. 2:16:42.280 --> 2:16:42.440 Right. 2:16:43.320 --> 2:16:45.920 Those people really struggle to get information and they just 2:16:46.280 --> 2:16:49.080 can't talk to anyone because there's no one else to 2:16:49.120 --> 2:16:52.800 talk to and their phone, you know, the phone charges 2:16:52.920 --> 2:16:55.640 is a precious commodity and it's cost a lot of 2:16:55.640 --> 2:16:57.640 money to dial into Nashley. So those people could just 2:16:57.640 --> 2:17:00.560 be lonely. So if you have those language skills, go. 2:17:00.760 --> 2:17:03.000 Someone broke their finger in San Diegore getting crushed up 2:17:03.000 --> 2:17:05.000 against the fence. If you know there was a medic 2:17:05.000 --> 2:17:06.920 there to help them. If they hadn't been, that could 2:17:06.959 --> 2:17:08.879 have been worse for them. And you know, sometimes the 2:17:08.920 --> 2:17:11.840 ambulance can come in and take people out. But there 2:17:11.840 --> 2:17:14.959 are valuable, meaningful things that you could do if you 2:17:14.959 --> 2:17:16.640 have the time, if not, if you have the money, 2:17:17.200 --> 2:17:20.360 there are really important places to donate, and there's just 2:17:20.400 --> 2:17:22.959 a couple of them. Will highlight a couple more as 2:17:23.000 --> 2:17:25.280 we go forward. And one more thing I did want 2:17:25.320 --> 2:17:29.240 to plug is miles for migrants where if you have 2:17:29.360 --> 2:17:31.800 if you don't have money, but you do have airline miles. 2:17:32.200 --> 2:17:34.520 Like I was speaking to this guy today who got across. 2:17:34.840 --> 2:17:36.680 He has two days and he has to get himself 2:17:36.720 --> 2:17:40.800 in New York where he has family. I don't have 2:17:40.920 --> 2:17:43.360 the means to buy four airline tickets or it would, 2:17:43.440 --> 2:17:45.200 but if you have air miles and you want to 2:17:45.240 --> 2:17:46.000 donate them, you can. 2:17:46.240 --> 2:17:47.560 Yeah, And then this is the thing, like you know, 2:17:47.640 --> 2:17:49.640 like I have family who, for example, like work at 2:17:49.640 --> 2:17:51.600 Hong Kong, right, and they have like you know, and 2:17:51.600 --> 2:17:54.120 they're like there are people like that who could are like, 2:17:54.200 --> 2:17:55.959 you know, not radicals, but are sort of you know, 2:17:56.120 --> 2:17:56.360 like you. 2:17:56.600 --> 2:17:58.920 Could like like there are people in. 2:17:58.879 --> 2:18:02.039 This world who have a shit of miles like built 2:18:02.120 --> 2:18:04.560 up because you know, for like work or some shit, 2:18:04.720 --> 2:18:07.400 right that's just sitting there, and that that's something that 2:18:08.240 --> 2:18:11.879 you know, like you can you can like like you you. 2:18:11.840 --> 2:18:13.920 May not have it. You might know people who do. 2:18:14.800 --> 2:18:17.160 Yeah, yeah, you might know someone who does a weird 2:18:17.160 --> 2:18:20.080 credit card flipping thing, you know, where they like get 2:18:20.200 --> 2:18:23.320 air miles in and make it their whole personality to 2:18:23.440 --> 2:18:26.000 to get air miles. But like whatever, if those people 2:18:26.000 --> 2:18:28.720 can help, yeah, you don't need to turn them into 2:18:28.800 --> 2:18:33.879 like Macnavists overnight. Like like, nobody wants to see a 2:18:33.879 --> 2:18:36.840 little baby sleep in the dirt, and anybody who could 2:18:36.879 --> 2:18:39.560 be there physically would be appalled by it. And I 2:18:39.600 --> 2:18:41.680 think if you can convey to those folks that now 2:18:41.680 --> 2:18:45.879 at the time when something that costs them nothing materially, Yeah, right, 2:18:45.959 --> 2:18:47.760 Like I know tons of people have more miles that 2:18:47.800 --> 2:18:50.920 they can use because they fly at the time for work. 2:18:50.959 --> 2:18:52.600 You don't want to fly. When you're done flying, you 2:18:52.640 --> 2:18:55.320 want to stay at home. So that's another way that 2:18:55.360 --> 2:19:00.720 people can help. And yeah, just I guess it's a 2:19:00.800 --> 2:19:04.920 crisis that will continue unabated because the cruelty is the 2:19:04.959 --> 2:19:08.800 point and it's for once. Like you know, we can't 2:19:08.800 --> 2:19:11.360 stop all the climate change and all this bad shit, 2:19:12.400 --> 2:19:15.720 but this is something that it is within our power 2:19:16.000 --> 2:19:20.000 to a bet, can't We can't make it go away yet. 2:19:20.120 --> 2:19:22.600 But like we spoke to the people who are doing 2:19:22.600 --> 2:19:24.720 border drops on the border, there are meaningful things that 2:19:25.000 --> 2:19:26.920 every single one of us can do to help. 2:19:27.760 --> 2:19:31.160 Yeah, go into the world. Do not let the violence 2:19:31.160 --> 2:19:34.320 done in our name be who we are. 2:19:36.240 --> 2:19:38.320 Yeah, sure, people, you're better than this. 2:19:38.440 --> 2:19:52.440 I guess, hey everyone, Robert here. Before we get into it, 2:19:52.480 --> 2:19:56.400 I want to note my internet was terrible during this call. 2:19:56.959 --> 2:19:59.880 We tried to have the guest record locally, but there 2:20:00.120 --> 2:20:03.080 is kind of a technical glitch there, and Zoom glitched 2:20:03.080 --> 2:20:05.160 a little on the audio. In order to make it listenable. 2:20:05.160 --> 2:20:07.000 There are going to be like three or four points 2:20:07.040 --> 2:20:10.160 here where I pop in and just say what he 2:20:10.200 --> 2:20:13.280 was trying to say or what he said, and the 2:20:13.280 --> 2:20:16.800 Internet then garbled up so that you can understand what's 2:20:16.840 --> 2:20:19.000 actually being said in the conversation. So when my voice 2:20:19.000 --> 2:20:22.440 pops in and I read a line, it's me reading 2:20:22.480 --> 2:20:24.880 something that he said that got kind of distorted. I 2:20:24.879 --> 2:20:32.560 do apologize. Ah, welcome to it could happen here. A 2:20:32.760 --> 2:20:37.160 podcast about things falling apart and occasionally about the quest 2:20:37.280 --> 2:20:40.160 to build a better world. Today, we've got an episode 2:20:40.760 --> 2:20:45.080 that is in the latter category about the struggle to 2:20:45.680 --> 2:20:49.880 make the United Kingdom less I don't know, in the 2:20:49.920 --> 2:20:53.879 thrall of a monarchy and an aristocratic class, and to 2:20:53.920 --> 2:20:57.400 build a more equitable society. And our guest today is 2:20:57.600 --> 2:21:02.039 somebody who is attempting to through that cause and did 2:21:02.080 --> 2:21:06.280 so last year by attempting to huck several eggs at 2:21:06.400 --> 2:21:11.320 the current King of England, Charles the I forget the number, Patrick, Well, 2:21:11.360 --> 2:21:14.320 how are you doing today? Hi? 2:21:14.640 --> 2:21:15.520 Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. 2:21:15.640 --> 2:21:19.960 Yeah. It was five eggs. Five eggs and he's the 2:21:20.000 --> 2:21:24.080 third king, the third k far more than three unfortunately. 2:21:24.640 --> 2:21:28.600 Yeah, you guys have had a few. Was one of 2:21:28.600 --> 2:21:29.959 the one she'll killed to Charles? 2:21:30.760 --> 2:21:32.440 Yeah, yeah, that was the last one. 2:21:32.480 --> 2:21:37.320 That was the last one. Well, I would say, yeah. 2:21:38.440 --> 2:21:41.160 So let's start by talking about this is in a 2:21:41.280 --> 2:21:45.760 twenty about a year ago at a he was doing 2:21:45.800 --> 2:21:47.959 a They called it a walkabout, which I guess is 2:21:47.959 --> 2:21:50.640 when the king shows up in a city in the video. 2:21:50.720 --> 2:21:53.120 I watched the video of this and like, there's a 2:21:53.120 --> 2:21:55.560 bunch of people dressed in all sorts of fun costumes, 2:21:55.600 --> 2:21:59.080 and some ladies got a massive sword, like a sword, 2:21:59.280 --> 2:22:01.560 a sword of the size that I know for a 2:22:01.640 --> 2:22:03.640 fact that man cannot lift above his head. 2:22:05.480 --> 2:22:06.480 Yeah, it's funny. 2:22:06.520 --> 2:22:08.240 He comes out of his little car and I know, 2:22:08.280 --> 2:22:13.200 all the little trumpets go and everyone starts, you know, 2:22:13.800 --> 2:22:15.760 waving their flags on queue and. 2:22:15.640 --> 2:22:17.200 Going like, look there he is. There. 2:22:17.200 --> 2:22:21.440 He is pretty unhinged, to be honest. It's it's it's 2:22:21.480 --> 2:22:22.160 quite embarrassing. 2:22:22.240 --> 2:22:28.120 But yeah, there's like the the American chauvinist in me 2:22:28.240 --> 2:22:32.039 that like wants to wants to laugh more about the monarchy. 2:22:32.120 --> 2:22:36.520 But I'm just finished reading an article about Diane Feinstein 2:22:36.920 --> 2:22:40.520 where the journalist interviewing her was like, so, you've missed 2:22:40.560 --> 2:22:42.280 a bunch of votes over the last three months, and 2:22:42.280 --> 2:22:44.400 she's like, no, I haven't. I've been working the whole time. 2:22:44.840 --> 2:22:48.280 So I guess we're all kind of enthrall to the 2:22:48.280 --> 2:22:50.560 corpses of of of our past. 2:22:51.760 --> 2:22:54.800 It's hierarchy. Hierarchy everywhere is the problem. 2:22:55.640 --> 2:22:58.760 So you decide to show up when you kind of 2:22:58.800 --> 2:23:01.360 find out that the king is going to be showing 2:23:01.440 --> 2:23:03.600 up here, and what kind of leads you to decide, 2:23:03.640 --> 2:23:06.279 I'm gonna I'm gonna throw some eggs in my pocket 2:23:06.360 --> 2:23:08.720 and take my shot. 2:23:09.560 --> 2:23:11.840 So I actually found out that he was coming to 2:23:11.920 --> 2:23:14.160 York about three days with a megaphone and you know, 2:23:14.440 --> 2:23:16.199 shout some cause obviously. 2:23:16.520 --> 2:23:19.000 The queen had died. 2:23:20.720 --> 2:23:25.400 About a month or so before, and during the funeral 2:23:25.440 --> 2:23:29.000 processions there was you know, several people were arrested for 2:23:30.120 --> 2:23:34.440 someone shouted at you know, Prince Andrew, you know, in 2:23:34.480 --> 2:23:37.320 Scotland's they were like, oh, you're a sick old man, 2:23:37.680 --> 2:23:40.080 and they did, and that was probably my inspiration. But 2:23:40.120 --> 2:23:42.640 then on the morning when he came to York, my 2:23:42.879 --> 2:23:45.800 megaphone was just like busted. So I was just like, oh, okay, 2:23:45.800 --> 2:23:47.440 I'm gonna gonna go get some eggs then. 2:23:48.640 --> 2:23:51.960 And white eggs. What what kind of led to that decision? 2:23:53.320 --> 2:23:54.240 Man? Everyone asked that. 2:23:54.640 --> 2:23:56.800 Yeah, I guess like I was into the assumption that 2:23:56.800 --> 2:23:58.560 we all just knew that you throw eggs at people, 2:23:58.600 --> 2:24:00.080 you don't like maybe it's a British thing. 2:24:01.000 --> 2:24:03.160 But I think it may just be that in the 2:24:03.280 --> 2:24:05.960 US because of the gun stuff, people are like a 2:24:06.000 --> 2:24:08.840 lot more hesitant to huck stuff just for fun, right, 2:24:08.840 --> 2:24:11.200 if you're throwing stuff and somebody it's serious. 2:24:12.440 --> 2:24:14.240 Although someone someone threw a beer at. 2:24:16.320 --> 2:24:16.879 Ted Cruz. 2:24:17.000 --> 2:24:20.280 Yeah, they sure did. That was good. That was good. 2:24:20.600 --> 2:24:21.840 Yeah. 2:24:22.040 --> 2:24:24.039 I think, you know, I actually had a lot of 2:24:24.040 --> 2:24:28.400 time to think about before my trial about why eggs 2:24:28.400 --> 2:24:30.039 and stuff, and I think they're just funny, you know, 2:24:30.120 --> 2:24:31.800 like there's a lot of egg puns that came out 2:24:31.800 --> 2:24:34.840 of it that that that you know, not to get 2:24:34.840 --> 2:24:37.240 too philosophical about it, but they're kind of you know 2:24:37.280 --> 2:24:43.199 they're they're really harmless, you know, but inherently humiliating as well. 2:24:43.600 --> 2:24:47.320 Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to argue attempted murder from an egg, 2:24:47.720 --> 2:24:49.280 but at the same time getting it. 2:24:49.920 --> 2:24:51.960 Yeah, well exactly. 2:24:51.959 --> 2:24:53.680 And I think there's there's something to be said for 2:24:54.280 --> 2:24:58.920 contrasting the violence of the state yea, with what's obviously 2:24:59.000 --> 2:25:02.520 like very low level violence. And yeah, I'm the one 2:25:02.560 --> 2:25:04.520 standing trial for it. 2:25:05.760 --> 2:25:09.240 Yeah, I mean it. It is like the language that 2:25:09.280 --> 2:25:12.119 got used by the state kind of in the proceedings 2:25:12.160 --> 2:25:15.080 against you was was amusing. Like I know that it 2:25:15.200 --> 2:25:17.120 was a pain in the ash you had to go through, 2:25:17.120 --> 2:25:20.800 but like the kind of the framing that they they 2:25:20.879 --> 2:25:22.800 put with it to make it seem like this was 2:25:22.920 --> 2:25:27.840 this was such a like serious offense against public order 2:25:28.040 --> 2:25:31.879 was was was quite funny. And I think it's beyond 2:25:31.959 --> 2:25:33.960 me to know what was going on in the now 2:25:34.040 --> 2:25:36.840 King's head at the time, but you got quite close. 2:25:37.840 --> 2:25:40.480 You can see right after it hit there's goop on 2:25:40.520 --> 2:25:42.720 the ground directly in front of his foot, and his 2:25:42.800 --> 2:25:45.800 shoulders slump a little and he looks down, and I 2:25:45.879 --> 2:25:48.320 wonder if it made him feel bad. I hope it did, 2:25:49.240 --> 2:25:51.440 you know. I can't get inside the man's head. Maybe 2:25:51.480 --> 2:25:53.840 he's not capable of that, but I wonder. 2:25:54.959 --> 2:25:57.480 So, Yeah, I mean through five, and I will say 2:25:57.480 --> 2:25:59.320 it for the record that one of them did bounce 2:25:59.320 --> 2:26:01.480 off his arm, but he does have a force field, 2:26:01.600 --> 2:26:04.360 so it's not my fault that it didn't didn't get 2:26:04.640 --> 2:26:07.760 the full impact. But yeah, I honestly think he didn't 2:26:07.760 --> 2:26:10.000 have a clue what's going on. He's pretty pretty seen, 2:26:10.040 --> 2:26:15.560 how to be honest. Yeah, but you know, monarchists were like, 2:26:16.360 --> 2:26:18.720 so like, wow, look at how stoic he is. 2:26:18.760 --> 2:26:20.640 He just doesn't even care. He just shrugged it off. 2:26:20.680 --> 2:26:23.520 He's such a badass, and it's like he's just been 2:26:23.520 --> 2:26:29.119 guided through this series of bizarre public opinions where he's 2:26:29.160 --> 2:26:32.360 got to pretend that he you know, smiles and waves 2:26:32.360 --> 2:26:34.720 at normal people and he doesn't think that we're all plebs. 2:26:34.760 --> 2:26:41.240 But yeah, yeah, And it was the crowd reaction around 2:26:41.280 --> 2:26:44.040 you was pretty intense from what I understand. I mean, 2:26:44.080 --> 2:26:47.279 like people came after you when they realized what had happened. 2:26:48.240 --> 2:26:50.800 Yeah, and I think in some ways that spoke more 2:26:50.879 --> 2:26:53.720 more itself than like anything that I could have done. 2:26:53.920 --> 2:26:56.600 You know, the reaction to the video, you know, people 2:26:56.640 --> 2:26:59.680 immediately just start like pulling my hair out in chunks 2:26:59.680 --> 2:27:02.400 and just like screaming, like you know, like. 2:27:02.440 --> 2:27:04.280 Just killing him, like stick his head on a spike, 2:27:04.440 --> 2:27:06.000 kick him to death, you know. 2:27:06.120 --> 2:27:08.520 And it really I think maybe that kind of rhetoric 2:27:08.600 --> 2:27:11.400 is perhaps more like, you know that the overt violence 2:27:11.480 --> 2:27:14.600 is more prevalent in American politics. But yeah, you know, 2:27:14.800 --> 2:27:18.039 it exposed that you know, these people are essentially fascists, 2:27:18.200 --> 2:27:18.560 you know. 2:27:18.720 --> 2:27:22.959 And that they yeah, they're very, very violent people. 2:27:24.920 --> 2:27:29.320 And I think this is something people have are starting 2:27:29.720 --> 2:27:34.199 to recognize a little bit more about kind of politics 2:27:34.280 --> 2:27:37.039 in the UK. I mean, we're looking right now. The 2:27:37.040 --> 2:27:39.560 Public Order Act of twenty twenty three is kind of 2:27:39.560 --> 2:27:45.000 the most recent law that's gone through Parliament that effectively 2:27:45.520 --> 2:27:49.080 like expands the ability of the police to crack down 2:27:49.120 --> 2:27:52.600 on protests. Some people will argue, and I think this seems, 2:27:52.760 --> 2:27:56.600 based on what I've read, pretty credible that it basically 2:27:56.640 --> 2:27:59.280 makes it possible for the police to arrest anyone for 2:27:59.440 --> 2:28:04.599 almost any kind of activism. And that kind of was 2:28:04.600 --> 2:28:08.400 was exhibited during the coronation when a group of kind 2:28:08.480 --> 2:28:11.120 of of anti monarchist protesters who are more on the 2:28:11.160 --> 2:28:13.360 liberal side of things, and you're kind of approaching this 2:28:14.160 --> 2:28:19.360 as an anarchist, but a fairly large group of protesters 2:28:19.400 --> 2:28:21.600 with signs that were saying stuff like not my king, 2:28:22.600 --> 2:28:26.280 attempted to rally doing so. I believe their their goal, 2:28:26.320 --> 2:28:28.520 from what I can tell, was to comply with the 2:28:28.600 --> 2:28:32.040 law as they understood it, and that did not protect 2:28:32.080 --> 2:28:33.160 them from the police. 2:28:34.480 --> 2:28:37.840 No. So you know, the context is in the wake 2:28:38.040 --> 2:28:41.879 of the police there was a police officer, you know, 2:28:41.959 --> 2:28:46.080 last year who murdered a woman, Sarah Everard. Yeah, and 2:28:46.160 --> 2:28:49.000 in the wake of that, they passed the Police, Courts, 2:28:49.879 --> 2:28:53.080 Sentencing and Crime Bill, and that that bill was really like, 2:28:53.200 --> 2:28:56.160 you know, the most over crackdown on protest. 2:28:56.600 --> 2:28:57.599 It banned. 2:28:59.040 --> 2:29:01.920 It allowed the police to arrest, the discretion of an officer, 2:29:02.040 --> 2:29:07.320 any protest that was deemed potentially annoying, like that's the 2:29:07.320 --> 2:29:10.920 specific language, is any any any action that could be 2:29:10.959 --> 2:29:14.120 loud or annoying. So, you know, there was a there 2:29:14.160 --> 2:29:16.000 was a lot of protests against that at the time. 2:29:16.000 --> 2:29:18.560 That obviously came to nothing, and they passed the bill anyway, 2:29:18.879 --> 2:29:20.680 and then and then so the Public Order Bill just 2:29:20.720 --> 2:29:23.440 goes that step further by allowing them to preemptively arrest 2:29:23.959 --> 2:29:26.760 anyone who might be about to do something that's loud 2:29:27.080 --> 2:29:32.160 or annoying, and including this new thing called a serious 2:29:32.160 --> 2:29:35.240 Disruption Prevention Order, which is something that they can apply 2:29:35.360 --> 2:29:38.360 to someone who's considered an aggravated activist. 2:29:38.280 --> 2:29:41.000 He's saying, which is someone who has been arrested more 2:29:41.040 --> 2:29:43.160 than twice for protest related offenses. 2:29:43.520 --> 2:29:45.760 Essentially, it bans, you know, use of the internet to 2:29:45.760 --> 2:29:48.640 communicate about your ideas, basically stop you from attending protests 2:29:48.640 --> 2:29:49.240 in the first place. 2:29:49.320 --> 2:29:50.840 And a rest the train station. 2:29:52.840 --> 2:29:56.160 And yeah, we saw that in play with with the Republic, 2:29:56.280 --> 2:30:00.560 that this organization that had been extensively liaising with the police, 2:30:00.600 --> 2:30:03.360 and you know, it just seemed quite like Pikachu face 2:30:03.440 --> 2:30:05.640 when suddenly they were all just rounded up and yeah, 2:30:05.680 --> 2:30:08.600 but for literally, you know, no pretext. It was they 2:30:08.640 --> 2:30:12.760 had they had like twelve thousand pounds worth of signs 2:30:12.800 --> 2:30:15.119 in a van and they were they were all wrapped 2:30:15.200 --> 2:30:19.480 up in yeah, just like rope rope, and the pretext 2:30:19.480 --> 2:30:21.160 for the arrest was that the rope was a lock 2:30:21.200 --> 2:30:23.640 on device that could be used to you know, I 2:30:23.640 --> 2:30:26.720 don't know, like jump in front of the procession and 2:30:27.640 --> 2:30:29.320 tie yourself with rope to the road. 2:30:29.520 --> 2:30:30.680 I really don't know. 2:30:30.680 --> 2:30:34.240 Like, yeah, from what I could tell just from the 2:30:34.240 --> 2:30:37.120 coverage I've read, if their protest had gone the way 2:30:37.160 --> 2:30:40.040 they planned it, it would have been like a show, 2:30:40.120 --> 2:30:42.160 a visible show that there were people who didn't like 2:30:42.200 --> 2:30:44.720 the monarchy, but it would not have caused it like 2:30:44.879 --> 2:30:47.359 they would not have this. These people were not planning 2:30:47.400 --> 2:30:51.000 to like burn down any public buildings or you know, 2:30:51.080 --> 2:30:53.800 smash car windows or stop a road. Not that I'm 2:30:53.920 --> 2:30:57.520 specifically condemning that behavior, but I'm just stating this. This 2:30:57.640 --> 2:31:00.160 was not the state cracking down on people because they 2:31:00.200 --> 2:31:02.480 were afraid of a riot. This was the state cracking 2:31:02.520 --> 2:31:05.800 down on people because they didn't want the display of 2:31:05.879 --> 2:31:08.879 any kind of descent to exist. 2:31:10.440 --> 2:31:13.720 Yeah, and you know, that's where we're at in this country. 2:31:13.800 --> 2:31:17.039 And to be honest, the arrest of those organizers was 2:31:17.080 --> 2:31:18.960 the best thing that could have happened for the movement, 2:31:19.959 --> 2:31:22.920 because you know, what it really did was just shine 2:31:22.959 --> 2:31:25.800 a light that it was impossible to ignore and in 2:31:25.800 --> 2:31:28.680 some ways kind of over shadowed the coronation. Really was 2:31:29.879 --> 2:31:32.320 far more than any speech that Graham Smith you know, 2:31:32.560 --> 2:31:36.959 was planning to give, you know, just so overtly that 2:31:36.959 --> 2:31:40.520 that there is no acceptable form of descent. Now, the 2:31:40.680 --> 2:31:44.959 very concept is so distasteful to Yeah, our aristocracy that 2:31:45.480 --> 2:31:46.519 it's banned. 2:31:47.000 --> 2:31:49.840 And I really appreciate your ability to kind of see 2:31:50.440 --> 2:31:54.360 the upside, the tactical upside in that, because I think 2:31:54.400 --> 2:31:57.120 it is true. I doubt I would have heard about 2:31:57.120 --> 2:32:00.440 that protest if it had gone as the organizer's plan, right, 2:32:00.720 --> 2:32:02.280 because it would have just been Yeah, there's some people 2:32:02.280 --> 2:32:04.800 who don't like the monarchy in the UK. That doesn't 2:32:04.840 --> 2:32:08.720 surprise me at all, but seeing it was like everywhere 2:32:08.720 --> 2:32:10.720 all over my social media. I got sent it by 2:32:10.800 --> 2:32:14.879 multiple friends, by a family member because the state decided 2:32:14.879 --> 2:32:18.039 to go after these people, And I do think I 2:32:18.040 --> 2:32:22.080 think it's also from just a standpoint when you're talking 2:32:22.080 --> 2:32:25.360 about a struggle with as long odds as kind of 2:32:25.520 --> 2:32:30.640 struggling against the monarchy in the United Kingdom, which is 2:32:31.080 --> 2:32:33.920 you are talking about like the most entrenched power structure 2:32:33.959 --> 2:32:39.480 outside of the Vatican, right, Basically, Yeah, when you're talking 2:32:39.480 --> 2:32:42.200 about that, it is so important to be able to 2:32:42.320 --> 2:32:45.760 look at moments like this and see the upside on 2:32:45.840 --> 2:32:49.400 them rather than just rather than just kind of feel 2:32:49.400 --> 2:32:52.200 the boot all the time. Otherwise you're not going to 2:32:52.240 --> 2:32:55.080 have the endurance to keep fighting. 2:32:55.920 --> 2:32:59.040 You know, for me with specifically with the eggs. 2:33:00.360 --> 2:33:03.000 I was I've been conscious the whole time that the 2:33:03.040 --> 2:33:08.280 backlash and the you know, disproportionate state reaction would speak 2:33:08.320 --> 2:33:10.880 more than my own actions. So, for example, one of 2:33:10.920 --> 2:33:13.560 the reasons why I think, you know, it went pretty 2:33:13.600 --> 2:33:15.080 viral when I when I threw the eggs in the 2:33:15.120 --> 2:33:19.760 first place, I was a bit surprised by by how 2:33:19.800 --> 2:33:23.680 it went kind of quite internationally. But but but you know, 2:33:23.879 --> 2:33:27.640 so the fact, so my bail conditions were between between 2:33:27.640 --> 2:33:30.520 my arrest and my trial were that I wasn't allowed 2:33:30.520 --> 2:33:34.280 to carry eggs in public. Yeah, I know. And so 2:33:34.360 --> 2:33:38.400 that is in itself like so absurd that it's like, right. 2:33:39.360 --> 2:33:41.280 I gotta know, is there like a provision for if 2:33:41.320 --> 2:33:43.440 you're going home from the store or are you just 2:33:43.560 --> 2:33:44.039 are you just. 2:33:46.000 --> 2:33:48.160 So so So the copper who was literally just like 2:33:48.240 --> 2:33:50.280 making this up at the station says like, okay, so 2:33:50.320 --> 2:33:52.600 your bail condition is you're not allowed within five hundred 2:33:52.640 --> 2:33:54.200 meters of the king, you're not allowed to carry eggs 2:33:54.200 --> 2:33:56.800 in public. And then he goes like, oh, actually, like 2:33:56.920 --> 2:33:58.600 what was if he wants to buy some eggs And 2:33:58.600 --> 2:34:00.680 they're like okay, So they changed it so it's you're 2:34:00.680 --> 2:34:02.600 allowed to carry eggs as long as you're going home 2:34:02.640 --> 2:34:09.160 from the shops and you've got the receipt. And I 2:34:09.160 --> 2:34:12.040 think that was a more viral than me actually doing it, 2:34:12.040 --> 2:34:13.920 you know what I mean, Like people were like, you know, 2:34:14.680 --> 2:34:16.480 that's that's that's Britain for you. 2:34:16.560 --> 2:34:18.120 Have you got a license for those eggs? 2:34:18.200 --> 2:34:22.039 You know, I'm imagining you like sliding down an alleyway 2:34:22.080 --> 2:34:24.680 with like a like a like a nineteen forty style 2:34:24.760 --> 2:34:27.400 shoulder holster, but with just like eggs under each year. 2:34:28.240 --> 2:34:33.280 Yeah and so and so you know when I so, so, 2:34:33.320 --> 2:34:36.520 I had my trial, you know, which was for yeah, 2:34:36.600 --> 2:34:43.160 threatening behavior that made someone fear imminent violence. In the 2:34:43.160 --> 2:34:47.160 wake of that, like I was convicted, I narrowly avoided 2:34:47.200 --> 2:34:49.080 six months in prison, which is the sentence that I 2:34:49.080 --> 2:34:54.120 thought I was gone, yeah, yeah, and so, so you know, 2:34:55.560 --> 2:34:57.520 in my trial, you know, I had the option to 2:34:57.840 --> 2:35:01.440 either downplay what I as being like, oh, it's not. 2:35:01.440 --> 2:35:03.200 Really violence, it's just an egg. 2:35:03.360 --> 2:35:06.200 But then of course, you know, legally it was you know, 2:35:06.400 --> 2:35:07.960 that could just councel as a soul. But then I 2:35:08.040 --> 2:35:10.720 chose it instead to say, okay, yeah, it was violence, 2:35:11.040 --> 2:35:15.080 but it was legitimate violence because it was necessary to 2:35:15.200 --> 2:35:19.959 resist the far greater violence of the British state, you know, 2:35:20.120 --> 2:35:22.640 citing the historic impact of colonialism. 2:35:23.000 --> 2:35:26.320 He's saying current foreign policy like the King personally negotiating 2:35:26.360 --> 2:35:28.480 weapons deals with Saudi Arabia. 2:35:28.520 --> 2:35:31.080 And then also you know, climate breakdown and the way 2:35:31.080 --> 2:35:33.800 in which by continuing to invest in fossil fuels global 2:35:33.800 --> 2:35:36.400 South like intentionally, and so therefore, you know, I was 2:35:36.400 --> 2:35:38.520 basically defending the right of you know, acting in defense 2:35:38.560 --> 2:35:40.480 of others with violence. I'm glad I did it, and 2:35:40.879 --> 2:35:44.560 I don't done much worse. So in the end, actually 2:35:44.600 --> 2:35:46.480 I got one hundred hours. I got one hundred hours 2:35:46.480 --> 2:35:51.600 of community service, which was extreme, you know, getting away 2:35:51.640 --> 2:35:52.400 with it essentially. 2:35:52.520 --> 2:35:55.000 So, yeah, did you get us? I wondered, was it 2:35:55.160 --> 2:35:57.760 just a situation? Did you just get lucky with a 2:35:57.879 --> 2:36:02.840 judge or like, because that's surprising. I'm surprised that like 2:36:02.920 --> 2:36:05.720 that that worked as well as it did in a 2:36:05.720 --> 2:36:06.400 positive way. 2:36:08.400 --> 2:36:10.000 I think, yeah, yeah, me too. 2:36:10.120 --> 2:36:10.280 Yeah. 2:36:10.320 --> 2:36:12.199 I mean I had a big bag. 2:36:12.000 --> 2:36:13.440 With me with all my light undies in because I 2:36:13.440 --> 2:36:17.160 thought I was going down, you know, And I think 2:36:17.520 --> 2:36:21.039 there was partly, yes, getting lucky with the judge. Partly 2:36:21.480 --> 2:36:23.360 I think they were in a really difficult position and 2:36:23.360 --> 2:36:25.360 this is what I wanted to put them in essentially, 2:36:25.400 --> 2:36:29.200 which is that following all of that the money, you know, 2:36:29.520 --> 2:36:31.080 in the lead up to the coronation, there was a 2:36:31.080 --> 2:36:33.760 lot of negative press around around the king and the monarchy, 2:36:34.320 --> 2:36:37.600 and they had a choice between either sending me to 2:36:37.600 --> 2:36:42.640 prison and looking extremely authoritarian and blowing out proportion, or 2:36:42.959 --> 2:36:45.200 letting me get away with it. And you know, I 2:36:45.240 --> 2:36:48.200 think they chose to minimize the negative press. You know, 2:36:48.480 --> 2:36:52.320 I mean, obviously, supposedly there's an independent judiciary and there 2:36:52.320 --> 2:36:54.920 would have been no conversations with the palace and the 2:36:54.959 --> 2:36:57.240 police about the charging procedures. 2:36:57.240 --> 2:36:58.440 But that's that's a lot of rubbish. 2:36:58.520 --> 2:37:01.560 But you know, yeah, and so but I think I 2:37:01.600 --> 2:37:04.039 wanted to put them in that difficult position because I 2:37:04.120 --> 2:37:06.200 knew that, like I said, their backlash would look worse 2:37:06.280 --> 2:37:08.280 than what I did. And so so when I chose 2:37:08.320 --> 2:37:12.160 to go to the coronation following following my conviction, you know, 2:37:12.640 --> 2:37:15.600 I had to tell my probation officer, look, I'm going 2:37:15.600 --> 2:37:17.920 to the coronation. I am going I'm going to peacefully protest. 2:37:17.920 --> 2:37:20.400 I'm just going to be there. Deal with it, you know, 2:37:20.520 --> 2:37:25.160 And basically he told me that the counter Terrorism Department 2:37:26.160 --> 2:37:29.640 had was seeking an injunction from the courts to stop 2:37:29.640 --> 2:37:33.120 me attending, but then the court had ruled that no, 2:37:33.360 --> 2:37:35.120 I was allowed to attend. I'd already been given my 2:37:35.120 --> 2:37:38.080 punishment and he wasn't going to put any further conditions 2:37:38.080 --> 2:37:39.840 on me, not be allowing allowed to go. 2:37:40.560 --> 2:37:42.400 So so but I knew that if I. 2:37:42.400 --> 2:37:45.160 Went to the coronation they would arrest me anyway and 2:37:45.160 --> 2:37:47.400 it would make them look bad, you know. And then 2:37:47.400 --> 2:37:49.039 they they did. You know, I was as well as 2:37:49.080 --> 2:37:52.280 well as all of the organizers. I was there, you know, 2:37:52.480 --> 2:37:55.840 just not my king blah blah blah. And then and 2:37:55.840 --> 2:37:57.640 then and then I look up and there's a little 2:37:57.680 --> 2:37:59.959 watchtower that they had erected in the center of Trafalgarscoo, 2:38:00.240 --> 2:38:03.600 and I just saw that there was about seven police 2:38:03.640 --> 2:38:07.160 officers just all like staring at me and filming me 2:38:08.240 --> 2:38:10.200 from you know, like two hundred meters away. And I 2:38:10.240 --> 2:38:12.959 was like, oh, okay, they're gonna arrest me now. So yeah, 2:38:13.000 --> 2:38:14.920 I gave my phone and well it's to my brother 2:38:14.959 --> 2:38:17.680 and then smile. And then within seconds, within seconds, they 2:38:17.680 --> 2:38:20.160 were just dragging me out, like you know, in handcuffs 2:38:20.400 --> 2:38:22.199 from the center of a of a crowd of about, 2:38:22.240 --> 2:38:25.440 you know, twenty thousand people, and I honestly couldn't have 2:38:25.520 --> 2:38:29.840 looked like more like overtly fascist if they tried, and 2:38:29.840 --> 2:38:31.760 and that was kind of the point, really is. 2:38:34.920 --> 2:38:40.320 Man? I uh, such a wild story, but I'm glad 2:38:40.400 --> 2:38:43.560 you did what you did. I'm impressed by the amount 2:38:43.560 --> 2:38:46.959 of thought that kind of went into the optics of it, 2:38:47.560 --> 2:38:49.840 because it's it's really the only way to turn an 2:38:49.840 --> 2:38:54.520 egg into an effective weapon, right is by very careful planning. 2:38:56.120 --> 2:38:59.680 I'm kind of curious where do you see what do 2:38:59.680 --> 2:39:04.560 you see the route forward for both not just kind 2:39:04.600 --> 2:39:08.640 of opposing the monarchy in your country, but sort of 2:39:08.680 --> 2:39:12.720 opposing the overreach by the police. This is a problem 2:39:12.840 --> 2:39:15.840 in more places than the United Kingdom, but y'all are 2:39:15.920 --> 2:39:18.760 kind of on one of the cutting edges of sort 2:39:18.760 --> 2:39:24.520 of global attempts by law enforcement and its supporters in 2:39:24.600 --> 2:39:29.520 the state to effectively make dissent impossible ahead of what 2:39:29.560 --> 2:39:32.039 everyone knows is going to be kind of a heightening 2:39:32.080 --> 2:39:35.480 period of climate based activism. 2:39:35.800 --> 2:39:39.039 Yeah, and so with the climate activist movement in the UK, 2:39:39.320 --> 2:39:43.320 you know, we've seen extinction rebellion active since like twenty eighteen, 2:39:43.720 --> 2:39:47.040 and I've been you know, arrested multiple times with them 2:39:47.080 --> 2:39:48.760 at different actions. 2:39:49.320 --> 2:39:50.920 You know, the. 2:39:50.840 --> 2:39:55.680 Part of their strategy was that mass arrests, you know, 2:39:56.600 --> 2:40:01.600 blocking roads, nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience would force 2:40:01.640 --> 2:40:04.119 the government to take action. And I think really we're 2:40:04.160 --> 2:40:08.200 seeing that strategy like having run its course. And and 2:40:08.280 --> 2:40:10.320 and I think for a while now that's been evident 2:40:10.320 --> 2:40:13.320 that it wasn't working because they've just banned the types 2:40:13.320 --> 2:40:16.680 of protests that we were doing. And also it was 2:40:16.800 --> 2:40:21.600 essentially quite naive to believe that, yeah, oh, you know, 2:40:21.600 --> 2:40:24.000 if we cause enough disruption, they're just going to put 2:40:24.040 --> 2:40:27.560 aside all of the you know, lobbying interests and their 2:40:27.640 --> 2:40:31.720 literal role in upholding capitalism to just go, oh, no, okay, 2:40:31.800 --> 2:40:33.960 fair enough that they're blocked and roads, we are going 2:40:34.000 --> 2:40:38.040 to like radically transform society to deal with climate breakdown. 2:40:38.959 --> 2:40:41.240 That was never going to work, you know, realistically. And 2:40:41.320 --> 2:40:42.640 so so. 2:40:42.680 --> 2:40:46.560 Even though you know, we've seen every time they passed 2:40:46.600 --> 2:40:50.680 these these new legislation, there are there's a there's a backlash, 2:40:50.720 --> 2:40:53.600 there's some marches, there's some protests that fizzle out, and 2:40:54.200 --> 2:40:57.880 the state just keep consolidating more and more power, and 2:40:58.160 --> 2:41:00.720 people keep getting more and more dis illusioned with. 2:41:01.200 --> 2:41:04.360 He says, with what an effective strategy of resistance looks like. 2:41:04.440 --> 2:41:06.800 And so for me personally, it's something I've been thinking 2:41:06.800 --> 2:41:07.920 about for a while. 2:41:07.720 --> 2:41:11.039 Now but recently have is that, you know, we have 2:41:11.120 --> 2:41:14.000 to stop asking politicians through direct democracy at the local 2:41:14.080 --> 2:41:19.280 level and essentially you know, using like democratic confederalism, you know, 2:41:19.480 --> 2:41:22.119 as they're doing Rajava, to to look. 2:41:21.920 --> 2:41:24.760 At creating a national. 2:41:26.040 --> 2:41:30.080 Network of people's assemblies that builds dual power outside of 2:41:30.120 --> 2:41:30.520 the state. 2:41:30.920 --> 2:41:34.720 Because because, because I think a lot of the problem with. 2:41:34.680 --> 2:41:37.440 These direct action movements is that they don't have the 2:41:37.520 --> 2:41:40.440 legitimacy of a democratic mandate, so that even whilst the 2:41:40.440 --> 2:41:44.080 tactics might be like in some way effective, you know, 2:41:44.320 --> 2:41:47.520 Extinction Rebellion has always said our message is to say 2:41:47.560 --> 2:41:50.440 that climate change is a serious threat, but we cannot 2:41:50.440 --> 2:41:53.480 propose the solutions because we don't have a democratic mandate. 2:41:54.080 --> 2:41:56.959 But the way to you know, work around that is 2:41:56.959 --> 2:42:00.920 to build a democratic mandate through holding people's assemblies, creating 2:42:01.000 --> 2:42:05.199 forums where people can create their own vision, and then 2:42:05.959 --> 2:42:08.560 direct action can then be used in service of those 2:42:08.560 --> 2:42:10.600 aims rather than putting the cart before the horse, if 2:42:10.600 --> 2:42:11.120 that makes sense. 2:42:11.480 --> 2:42:16.080 No, yeah, I think that that's certainly like one of 2:42:16.120 --> 2:42:20.200 the more pragmatic ways forward that I think I've seen. 2:42:20.280 --> 2:42:23.680 You know, we're we're we're always talking about an uphill 2:42:23.760 --> 2:42:26.519 battle here, and I think kind of the inherent difficulty 2:42:26.680 --> 2:42:33.000 of fixing any of these bigger problems, particularly fixing the 2:42:34.680 --> 2:42:37.160 and what we mean is dismantling the systems that are 2:42:37.760 --> 2:42:43.840 causing climate destruction, like that is such a lopsided battle 2:42:44.040 --> 2:42:47.400 that I think whenever, whenever you have you present an 2:42:47.440 --> 2:42:50.520 option to people, because it sounds hard, there's this there's 2:42:50.560 --> 2:42:53.640 this tendency to just be like, well, you know, we 2:42:53.760 --> 2:42:56.400 have to go by the thing that we know, which 2:42:56.440 --> 2:42:59.000 is just kind of like trying to vote in better people. 2:43:00.440 --> 2:43:02.360 If we can take a lesson out of the last 2:43:02.520 --> 2:43:08.720 thirty years, it's that the standard electoral methods cannot provide 2:43:08.760 --> 2:43:11.879 the solution to climate change, like they simply aren't going 2:43:11.959 --> 2:43:14.840 to do it. And I think the police in a 2:43:14.840 --> 2:43:16.880 lot of kind I mean in the United States right 2:43:16.879 --> 2:43:20.640 here in one of my old hometown's, Austin, Texas, they 2:43:20.760 --> 2:43:24.600 just voted on a police accountability bill that the police 2:43:24.600 --> 2:43:27.680 have basically said we're not going to abide by. Like 2:43:27.760 --> 2:43:29.880 this is and you can find stories like that all 2:43:29.920 --> 2:43:31.920 over the United States and other parts of the world, 2:43:32.040 --> 2:43:35.120 Like the kind of the hope that you can just 2:43:35.200 --> 2:43:37.720 sort of like put in your however long it takes 2:43:37.720 --> 2:43:40.600 you to do voting in your country or city or whatever, 2:43:41.120 --> 2:43:46.800 and that that's the method forward. It's it seems more 2:43:46.840 --> 2:43:51.440 realistic because it's more familiar. But I think the vision 2:43:51.480 --> 2:43:55.640 you're putting forward, not to say that it's as simple 2:43:55.720 --> 2:43:59.160 that simple, but like it's effortful. And I think that 2:43:59.520 --> 2:44:03.800 whenever someone's positing something like that that requires that kind 2:44:03.840 --> 2:44:06.400 of like effort from a large enough segment of the population, 2:44:07.200 --> 2:44:10.480 I see that as inherently more realistic than hoping that 2:44:10.520 --> 2:44:13.920 we can just all kind of keep putting our twenty 2:44:13.959 --> 2:44:16.640 minutes of voting a year towards solving the problem and 2:44:16.680 --> 2:44:17.680 expect it to get better. 2:44:18.560 --> 2:44:20.880 Yeah, And it's like one of those things with you know, 2:44:20.959 --> 2:44:24.959 like the idea that imagining prison abolition, you have to 2:44:25.000 --> 2:44:28.800 imagine a world where that's possible, and that requires changing everything, right, 2:44:29.520 --> 2:44:32.880 And I think that applies to tackling climate change and 2:44:33.680 --> 2:44:36.840 implementing direct democracy. So you know, if you're talking about 2:44:36.840 --> 2:44:39.720 a system where people can turn it to a forum 2:44:40.120 --> 2:44:42.480 in a local community center, or you know, church or 2:44:42.520 --> 2:44:45.920 whatever once a week. Then people say, well that's not 2:44:45.959 --> 2:44:48.720 going to be accessible, you know, because so it's like, well, 2:44:48.760 --> 2:44:50.640 you're right, we'll probably have to set up a system 2:44:50.640 --> 2:44:55.000 of mutual aid that supports you know, working class people 2:44:55.080 --> 2:44:56.680 to be able to attend those kind of events. 2:44:57.200 --> 2:45:00.600 And you know, yeah, it's like, how are you going 2:45:00.640 --> 2:45:01.040 to pay for it? 2:45:01.080 --> 2:45:02.880 And it's like, well, you're right, we're probably going to 2:45:02.920 --> 2:45:05.080 have to, you know, set up a solidarity economy where 2:45:05.280 --> 2:45:08.240 you know, if we decide, for example, that we want 2:45:08.600 --> 2:45:13.400 free public transport then and and bus drivers to be 2:45:13.400 --> 2:45:15.680 paid paid a fair wage, you know, then you're going 2:45:15.760 --> 2:45:17.920 to have to look at a whole system whereby people 2:45:18.320 --> 2:45:21.720 are potentially getting free housing in return for being a 2:45:21.720 --> 2:45:25.640 bus driver, free food that comes from the local food cooperative. 2:45:26.320 --> 2:45:31.320 And you're like, I say, building dual power rather than 2:45:31.520 --> 2:45:35.600 attacking the system head on, because in a battle, in 2:45:35.640 --> 2:45:38.199 a pitch street battle in this country, at least between 2:45:38.280 --> 2:45:39.800 us and the police, we're going to lose. And I 2:45:39.800 --> 2:45:43.160 think that, you know, we need to think smarter because 2:45:43.240 --> 2:45:47.840 at this point they haven't yet made organizing public meetings illegal, 2:45:48.160 --> 2:45:49.600 but you know they probably will at some point. 2:45:49.879 --> 2:45:50.560 And then it's. 2:45:52.120 --> 2:45:54.000 The only way we'll be able to resist that is 2:45:54.000 --> 2:45:56.000 if we've had some public meetings to decide how we're 2:45:56.040 --> 2:45:57.720 going to do it, because at the moment, we haven't 2:45:57.720 --> 2:46:00.560 even had the meeting to decide what our collective strategies 2:46:00.760 --> 2:46:05.040 because there is so much atomization between between these different 2:46:05.160 --> 2:46:09.760 like you know, left wing social movements and civil society 2:46:09.840 --> 2:46:14.080 organizations and so much. Sometimes at heart just depresses me 2:46:14.120 --> 2:46:17.600 to think about how many people are working for environmental 2:46:17.680 --> 2:46:20.520 charities or whatever, where all of their work and their 2:46:20.560 --> 2:46:26.760 research is going towards creating policy proposals for politicians to ignore. 2:46:27.320 --> 2:46:30.560 It's like if you were putting that amount of energy 2:46:30.600 --> 2:46:34.920 and your enthusiasm in service of the vision that's been 2:46:34.959 --> 2:46:40.200 created democratically by the people, then we don't need to 2:46:40.800 --> 2:46:44.520 petition anyone to make the changes we need because we'll 2:46:44.520 --> 2:46:49.760 have organized effectively enough to do the things that will 2:46:49.800 --> 2:46:53.320 really challenge state power, for example, like a mass rent 2:46:53.360 --> 2:46:54.720 strike and a general strike. 2:46:55.840 --> 2:46:59.080 Or if those efforts that are currently going towards putting 2:46:59.080 --> 2:47:02.080 policy papers on desks where there'll be ignored or neutered, 2:47:02.720 --> 2:47:07.600 was going towards putting forth policy that is then being 2:47:07.680 --> 2:47:10.560 backed by a movement that is carrying out rent strikes, 2:47:10.560 --> 2:47:13.640 that is putting out together work stoppages, that is blocking roads, 2:47:14.120 --> 2:47:17.680 that's able to actually throttle some of the life support 2:47:17.760 --> 2:47:22.560 system of the state. Well, then suddenly you're not looking 2:47:22.680 --> 2:47:25.400 at a recommendation a white paper that's going to wind 2:47:25.480 --> 2:47:28.160 up on some bloodless bureaucrats desk, or that that's going 2:47:28.240 --> 2:47:31.280 to wind up getting cut to pieces in Parliament. You 2:47:32.520 --> 2:47:35.400 have something that has teeth behind it, right, the kind 2:47:35.440 --> 2:47:39.600 of force that might be able to make change. I 2:47:39.600 --> 2:47:43.600 don't know. Again, when you talk about this kind of stuff, 2:47:43.680 --> 2:47:46.000 you have to contrast it with what we've been trying 2:47:46.040 --> 2:47:47.680 so far, which is nothing. 2:47:49.360 --> 2:47:53.360 Yeah, and you know, diversity of tactics is huge, and 2:47:53.400 --> 2:47:55.600 so you know a lot of these dark action groups 2:47:55.640 --> 2:47:57.120 in the UK, like just Stop Oil that have been 2:47:57.120 --> 2:48:01.120 blocking motorways and stuff, have received like you know, huge criticism, 2:48:01.240 --> 2:48:03.520 especially from people who you know, really ought to be 2:48:03.600 --> 2:48:09.560 allies and at least recognize the the that this action 2:48:09.640 --> 2:48:11.600 is coming out of a place of desperation because people 2:48:11.600 --> 2:48:14.760 cannot see a better way. Yeah, and you know there 2:48:14.800 --> 2:48:17.640 was a there's someone from just Stop Oil who just 2:48:17.680 --> 2:48:23.280 got three years in prison for blocking a motorway and 2:48:23.280 --> 2:48:26.560 and that's that's insane, you know, and you know on 2:48:26.600 --> 2:48:28.560 some level that person is it is a martyr, and 2:48:28.920 --> 2:48:30.959 you've got to hold your take your hat off, and 2:48:31.000 --> 2:48:33.640 say what that has done is shine a spotlight again 2:48:33.800 --> 2:48:36.800 on state authority in a way that you know, if 2:48:37.040 --> 2:48:39.000 they have these laws on the books, but they never 2:48:39.040 --> 2:48:40.920 have to use them, then it's easy to forget that 2:48:40.959 --> 2:48:42.720 they exist and have that power. 2:48:45.360 --> 2:48:47.240 Do you want to talk a little bit about cooperation? 2:48:47.440 --> 2:48:47.640 U K. 2:48:49.520 --> 2:48:52.840 Yeah, yeah, So so you know, for me, I'm I'm 2:48:52.879 --> 2:48:56.360 a democratic confederalist, you know, I mean or like you know, 2:48:56.600 --> 2:49:03.480 the Rajarvant project using direct markcracy, but also confederating that 2:49:03.640 --> 2:49:06.960 up to sort of replace the state with a form 2:49:07.000 --> 2:49:11.720 of governance that's democratic. And you know, I also I'm 2:49:11.720 --> 2:49:15.039 a big believer in cosmocracy, right, which is the proper 2:49:15.080 --> 2:49:16.320 name for global democracy. 2:49:16.720 --> 2:49:18.879 He says, essentially, you know, I wrote about this while 2:49:18.920 --> 2:49:20.680 I was doing my masters. 2:49:20.720 --> 2:49:25.280 And that is how potentially, if we were implementing this 2:49:25.360 --> 2:49:28.480 system world, we can use the internet to confederate to 2:49:28.520 --> 2:49:30.800 a global level, you know, and really start to tackle 2:49:31.680 --> 2:49:36.440 the issues that we collectively face as humanity, which is 2:49:36.480 --> 2:49:39.400 like the fact that our separation from nature and the 2:49:39.480 --> 2:49:42.840 rise of fascism, is is threatening angers with extinction, and 2:49:42.920 --> 2:49:45.360 so yeah, I'm a citizen of Earth and. 2:49:46.959 --> 2:49:49.080 You know that's what motivates a lot of my actions. 2:49:49.600 --> 2:49:50.800 But you know, in some ways I've been kind of 2:49:50.800 --> 2:49:54.320 stewing on these ideas alone, and so recently I met 2:49:54.360 --> 2:49:59.280 a group called Cooperation UK, who are you know, connecting. 2:50:00.480 --> 2:50:03.760 I can often get bogged down in abstract theory about 2:50:03.760 --> 2:50:05.760 like how you know, changing the whole world and never 2:50:05.760 --> 2:50:06.920 actually doing anything practical. 2:50:07.000 --> 2:50:07.800 That's my downfall. 2:50:08.120 --> 2:50:10.760 But you know, you need to start a movement like 2:50:10.840 --> 2:50:17.320 that locally, and and so they're copying Cooperation Jackson, you know, 2:50:17.400 --> 2:50:22.879 who have been incredibly effective, you know, setting up people's assemblies, 2:50:23.120 --> 2:50:28.279 mutual aid economy in Jackson and also like a community 2:50:28.360 --> 2:50:28.920 land trust. 2:50:29.040 --> 2:50:29.840 You know, they own. 2:50:29.800 --> 2:50:34.280 Like like fifty different buildings, you know, that are used 2:50:34.440 --> 2:50:37.959 collectively by the community. And this group are planning to 2:50:38.000 --> 2:50:40.600 set that up in Hull, which is just a city 2:50:40.640 --> 2:50:43.680 in the Northeast that's incredibly deprived. It's got like the 2:50:43.720 --> 2:50:46.440 lowest voter turnout in the UK, but it also has 2:50:46.440 --> 2:50:50.959 a thriving network of food banks and you know cooperatives 2:50:51.000 --> 2:50:52.240 and mutual aid groups. 2:50:52.680 --> 2:50:55.720 And I think the next step for me is when 2:50:55.800 --> 2:51:01.240 those those groups send delegates to me, eat together and 2:51:01.280 --> 2:51:05.520 decide on collective strategy, right, like, because there are so 2:51:05.640 --> 2:51:08.080 many people doing so much good work, but there's almost 2:51:08.120 --> 2:51:10.800 like no faith in our own vision, which is that 2:51:10.959 --> 2:51:15.200 if we're the people you know who are say a 2:51:15.400 --> 2:51:19.439 union for nurses, then you know, we should be deciding 2:51:20.280 --> 2:51:24.680 the conditions that exist in healthcare, you know, because who 2:51:24.800 --> 2:51:29.640 better besides patients and like staff is that to decide 2:51:29.840 --> 2:51:32.720 the conditions that they that they operate in. 2:51:33.240 --> 2:51:36.480 And and so yeah, cooperation UK there there are there's 2:51:36.520 --> 2:51:38.280 a group of us that are moving to Whull. 2:51:38.360 --> 2:51:38.720 I'm moving. 2:51:38.800 --> 2:51:42.080 I'm moving next week. I'm really excited about it. And yeah, 2:51:42.120 --> 2:51:44.600 we're planning to set up lots of local neighborhood assemblies 2:51:45.080 --> 2:51:48.519 with the intention of within a year holding a citywide 2:51:48.680 --> 2:51:52.480 people's assembly that can create a shared vision and then 2:51:52.920 --> 2:51:58.000 and then potentially you know, standing candidates for local council 2:51:58.440 --> 2:52:01.160 but whose only policy is we will enact. 2:52:01.760 --> 2:52:02.480 We will give. 2:52:02.360 --> 2:52:04.800 Power to the people's assemblies and then they can use 2:52:04.840 --> 2:52:10.200 the you know, financial power of existing institutions to support 2:52:10.200 --> 2:52:11.520 the transition to a new model. 2:52:12.680 --> 2:52:15.840 And whilst they're doing that in Hull, you know. 2:52:15.920 --> 2:52:19.359 The work that I hope to be doing is document 2:52:19.400 --> 2:52:22.920 in that process the learning, you know, so people can 2:52:23.000 --> 2:52:25.640 learn from the mistakes and that, you know, and hopefully 2:52:25.640 --> 2:52:28.520 we can set them up in every city well across 2:52:28.520 --> 2:52:30.880 the UK, because there are already people who think very 2:52:30.879 --> 2:52:34.120 similarly and that we're at a time now where that's 2:52:34.160 --> 2:52:37.240 coalescing into the you know, people are recognizing the need 2:52:37.280 --> 2:52:40.160 for this new movement with a new strategy that's based 2:52:40.160 --> 2:52:43.400 around democracy rather than just activism. 2:52:44.160 --> 2:52:46.879 And yeah, it's really exciting. 2:52:47.480 --> 2:52:52.520 Yeah, I mean, that's I think that's a worthwhile idea. 2:52:52.680 --> 2:52:58.000 I think it's it's it's bold and something that I'm 2:52:58.120 --> 2:53:01.920 I'm glad to see being attempted. Well, it's been really 2:53:01.959 --> 2:53:04.000 great talking with you today. Did you have anywhere you 2:53:04.040 --> 2:53:07.000 wanted to direct listeners in order to help if they're 2:53:07.000 --> 2:53:08.920 interested in what Cooperation UK is doing. 2:53:09.879 --> 2:53:10.600 Yeah, definitely. 2:53:10.959 --> 2:53:15.120 So there's there's a crowdfunder that I think there'll be. 2:53:15.160 --> 2:53:17.920 I believe there'll be a link that you guys can act. 2:53:18.560 --> 2:53:20.560 He says, and we'll be using that money to set 2:53:20.640 --> 2:53:23.400 up the People's Assembly and mutual aid networks, but also 2:53:23.440 --> 2:53:26.000 to create resources that anyone anywhere can use in their 2:53:26.040 --> 2:53:26.880 local community. 2:53:27.520 --> 2:53:29.920 And I hope is that, you know, as these groups proliferate, 2:53:30.120 --> 2:53:32.280 you know, we're going to start reaching out to each other, 2:53:32.680 --> 2:53:38.119 forming an international solidarity network that is capable of providing 2:53:38.520 --> 2:53:40.480 like the mutual aid that we that we need to 2:53:40.520 --> 2:53:42.920 support each other, you know, for example, you know, if 2:53:42.959 --> 2:53:48.959 we're talking about Palestine or Iran, to provide real, meaningful solidarities, 2:53:49.560 --> 2:53:53.400 you know, liberation groups will require more organization than just 2:53:53.720 --> 2:53:54.600 like thoughts and prayers. 2:53:54.600 --> 2:53:59.720 Really and yeah, yeah, well, thank you so much, Patrick, 2:54:00.560 --> 2:54:03.440 It has been great talking with you. Good luck as 2:54:03.520 --> 2:54:07.080 you continue moving forward. 2:54:07.160 --> 2:54:09.280 And yeah, yeah, thanks very much. 2:54:09.360 --> 2:54:12.840 Yeah, I guess I should also say I'm on I'm bizarrely, 2:54:13.120 --> 2:54:13.960 I'm on TikTok. 2:54:14.000 --> 2:54:16.240 That's the medium I'm using at the moment. I wish 2:54:16.280 --> 2:54:16.720 it wasn't. 2:54:17.360 --> 2:54:20.520 I'll probably want to start making more YouTube videos discussing 2:54:20.560 --> 2:54:22.360 these ideas, so maybe I'll send you a link that 2:54:22.360 --> 2:54:22.960 you can put in them. 2:54:23.000 --> 2:54:24.880 This isn't a both show. It's my YouTube channel. 2:54:25.240 --> 2:54:29.920 Excellent well Patrick tellwell Citizen of Earth YouTube channel and 2:54:30.320 --> 2:54:33.120 we'll have your TikTok and the description. Thanks again for 2:54:33.160 --> 2:54:37.800 coming on the show. Everybody go out and you know, 2:54:38.040 --> 2:54:44.519 acquire eggs. Hey, We'll be back Monday, with more episodes 2:54:44.640 --> 2:54:47.120 every week from now until the heat death of the Universe. 2:54:47.680 --> 2:54:50.200 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 2:54:50.280 --> 2:54:52.959 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:54:53.000 --> 2:54:55.240 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 2:54:55.240 --> 2:54:58.800 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 2:54:59.080 --> 2:55:01.199 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 2:55:01.280 --> 2:55:04.280 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 2:55:04.480 --> 2:55:05.320 Thanks for listening.