WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 240 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.120 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.440 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.680 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.400 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.440 Hello, go on and welcome to it could happen here. 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.240 My name is Dan al Kurd, and I'm a researcher 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.800 and analyst of Arab and pasting in politics. Today I 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:41.199 want to talk about football, soccer, whatever, and I'll just 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.360 start by saying, obviously FIFA is a terrible, terrible organization. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.560 And while there are many heartwarming events in this World Cup, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:51.680 the World Cup gets me, gets a lot of us. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.440 Despite everything, there have also been egregious incidents against players 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.440 and referees and fans from the global South. Take for example, 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.040 what happened to the Somali referee who wasn't allowed to 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.480 come into the US to do his job. He was 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.560 kept hours and hours in the airport before being unceremoniously 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.160 returned to Somalia. Similarly, the head of the Palestine Football 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.360 Association was denied a visa in to the United States, 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.520 not allowed to come to the World Cup on US soil. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.560 This is in spite of the fact that FIFA invited 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.920 association heads from around the world to attend and he 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.600 did attend the opening game in Mexico City. Or one 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:27.640 of the worst incidents, if you can call it that, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.200 the way that the Iranian team has been treated. They 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.440 weren't allowed to stay in the US despite the games 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.160 they were playing in this country, were constantly made to 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.880 fly back to Mexico after every game. Clearly they were 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.440 put at a severe disadvantage because they weren't allowed to 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.640 rest and recuperate like the other teams. And listen, I'm 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.680 not going to say it is a conspiracy, but having 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:51.080 not won but three goals discounted by var eventually leading 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.160 to their elimination from the tournament just adds insult to injury. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.040 But like I said, of course, there are many heartwarming stories. 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.920 For me as a Palestine unit's been great to see 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.920 how much Palestine keeps popping up despite the fact that 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.240 the environment in the United States is much more hostile 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.280 on this issue than the last World Cup. People are 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.840 still talking about Palestine and advocating for Palestine. Thousands of 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.160 Bosnian supporters, for example, turned Toronto into a sea of 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.280 blue as they marched toward the stadium for the Canada match, 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.240 chanting Free Palestine, and they did that in a number 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:26.200 of places, Englewood, Seattle. They also chanted Palestine within the 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.320 stadiums in multiple games. At that Canada game, activists also 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.440 a deferrald a kick Israel out of FIFA banner and 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.639 it makes sense really when you understand the experience of 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.560 Bosnians with jedtocide themselves not too long ago. Similarly, Moroccan 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.240 fans held Palestinian flags or wore Morocco jerseys with the 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.320 word Palestine on it, and this showed up on TV. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.840 At the very opening match in Mexico City, pro Palestine 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.480 demonstrators gathered to form a giant human Palestinian flag, and 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.560 South Korean fans brought Palestinian flags to the tournament, honoring 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.280 a promise they made during their qualifying when They're fans 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.040 had chanted will take Palestine to the World Cup with us. 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.120 In Gaza, Palestinians are watching the games too. Spain is 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.680 the favorite team these days because of the government's position 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.360 on the Israel Palestinian conflict and because of superstar player 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.959 leamg Yamal, who has been unapologetically pro Palestine. Obviously, the 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.200 genocide that has unfolded in Gaza and the war in 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.120 killing that continues in the Middle East in both occupy 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.040 territories and in Lebanon are part of the reason why 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.840 this issue seems to be ever present. But it didn't 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.600 start with the genocide. The story of Palestine at the 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.920 World Cup is more layer than that, and the twenty 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.680 twenty two World Cup in Qatar was a good demonstration 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.720 of why Palestine keeps popping up and what Palestine represents 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.520 to fans, especially air ones then and everyone now. I 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.240 know it might seem strange to be talking about this 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.600 now a few years after the fact, but I've been 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.760 thinking about it a lot, especially given everything that has 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.480 unfolded since, and I think the World Cup moment is 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.839 one of those events that gets more interesting, not less, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.320 as time passes back then as it does now. It's 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.160 showing us something important, not just about Palestine, but about 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.360 the limits of what governments can actually control when it 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.000 comes to what their own people believe. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:10.760 So let's get into it. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.360 Palestine did not qualify for the twenty twenty two World Cup. 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.800 The Palasadian national football team was nowhere near Doha in 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.839 an official capacity, and yet Arabs from across the region 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.960 and across the world began referring to Palestine then as 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.640 the thirty third team. Because Palestine was everywhere at the 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.960 twenty twenty two World Cup. There were Palestinian flags draped 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.599 over shoulders and stadiums. Crowds erupted into the chance of Multani, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.120 the Palestinian anthem. After Arab teams won, one Tunisian fan 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.440 ran onto the pitch mid match for the Palestinian flag. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.960 And when Morocco pulled off their historic upset against Spain 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:47.320 so it's the first African and Arab team to ever 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.200 reach the semi finals of a World Cup, Moroccan players 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.279 ran to the crowd and held up the Palestinian flag. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.200 This was significant. Morocco had just signed the Abraham Accords 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.960 with Israel only two years prior to this game, and 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.480 their players didn't seemed to care. Israeli journalists who traveled 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:07.120 to Kata to cover the tournament reported being coldly received, followed, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.920 and in some cases physically shut out of interviews by 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.680 crowds of Arab fans. Some of these reporters were caught 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.120 on camera claiming to be from other countries like France 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.440 or Switzerland in order to get people to talk to them. 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.680 Some of them masked their logos from their stations. Israeli 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.440 media at the time expressed something between confusion and outrage. 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.800 One reporter remarked, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.880 said that the hostility wasn't just coming from governments as 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.440 they had assumed, it was coming from ordinary people, and 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.800 this surprised them, but it shouldn't have. Now. None of 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.240 this was purely spontaneous. That's the part of the story 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.240 I find most interesting and the part that gets maybe 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.520 the least attention. Months before the World Cup began, a 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.320 Qatari activist group called Katari Youth a post a normalization QAYN, 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.200 started planning. They were founded in twenty eleven and by 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.600 twenty twenty two, led predominantly by Qatari women, they had 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.800 been working for over a decade to push back against 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.440 Glatar's slow dift towards normalizing ties with Israel. Which is 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.719 something the Clitari government had been entertaining, largely under pressure 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.279 from the United States and from its golf neighbors, and 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.680 in a country where over eighty percent of people opposed 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.359 normalization with Israel. This organization, Qultari Youth, had a base, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.760 but they had to work carefully because you can't have 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.839 unsanctioned civil society organizations. There's all sorts of restrictions on 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.839 independent activism, extremely severe and cleveland. But they saw the 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.919 World Cup as a window, an opportunity to turn what 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.120 already existed, which was deep, widespread popular solidarity with Palestine, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.360 into something visible, coordinated and impossible to ignore. So they 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.520 got to work. They persuaded Katura's national team captain to 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.400 wear a Kafia patterned armband before the opening match, and 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.520 then there was this hashtag the captain's armband is Palestinian, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.400 which started trending on Arabic Twitter. 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.360 They reached out to Quatari. 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:57.120 Influencers from prominent journalists who amplified the campaign across social media, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.680 and they called on local businesses to display signs that 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.160 they were compliant with the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement. They 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.760 also ran a kind of counterintelligence operation against Israeli media, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.040 because they were the ones that began identifying Israeli journalists 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.240 and their logos on social media, flagging them so that 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.040 Arab fans at the tournament knew who to avoid, and 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.600 this is how those videos of Israeli broadcasters being turned 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.240 away kept appearing online. They also organized fans to chant 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.400 for Palisian at the forty eighth minute of every match. 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.320 That's not random. That's a reference to nineteen forty eight 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.880 and to the Nekba where close to William Past Indians 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.280 were expelled from their homes with the founding of Israeli State. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.640 Key members of Katarith said the goal was to turn 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.600 Arab fans from sympathizers into participants, and they were honest 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.000 about something else too. This only worked because the ground 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.600 was already ready. As they put it, the campaign would 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.560 not have succeeded had it not been for people's own 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.240 proactive support of the Palaestini cause, and that's worth sitting 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.760 with for a moment. The organizing mattered, the strategy mattered, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:56.960 but the reason it spread so quickly so far is 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.760 that there was already a fire there. Katariuth just let 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:12.960 them now to understand why people were so upset. You 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.520 have to understand the Abraham Accords. I've talked about it 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.800 on this podcast before the normalization agreements broken by the 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.800 Trump administration in twenty twenty between Israel and the UAE, 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.160 the United Air Emirates and Bahrain, and later Sudan and Morocco. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.480 These deals were sold as historic breakthroughs, as a new 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.920 era of peace, and in terms of official diplomatic relations, 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.880 they were breakthroughs. They were historic, but there was a problem. 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.320 Nobody asked the people, and these accords didn't solve anything. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:40.480 Now. 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.920 Air public opinion surveys have consistently shown that the vast 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.559 majority of Arabs opposed normalization with Israel absent a resolution 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.120 to the question of Palestinian statehood and the ongoing occupation, 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.640 and in the most recent polling before the accords, it 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.120 was something like eighty eight percent of Arabs across thirteen 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.920 countries that rejected normalization with Israel, and nearly two thirds 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.360 of those cited the occupation of Pastinian land as their reason. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.080 Only seven percent cited something like religious objections. The fear 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.800 had always been that if you normalize relations with Israel 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.679 without a resolution to the Israeli Palsaiinian conflict. Israel would 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.160 not have any reason to try and resolve the conflict 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.840 or address the grievances of Palestinians that Israel perhaps would 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:25.200 become more aggressive if the guardrails were off. So what 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.840 the Abraham Cords actually did from the perspective of ordinary 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.080 Arabs was deep in the sense that their governments wouldn't 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.400 listen to them, were willing to sell them out, sell 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:38.120 out the Palestinians for economic and security arrangements that disproportionately 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.640 benefited ruling classes anyway, and the US Israeli security architecture. 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.840 I've written about this academically, and what I found is 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:47.720 a kind of paradox at the heart of these so 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.880 called peace deals. Peace initiatives that don't address the root 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.959 causes of conflict don't actually create peace. They create a 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.000 different kind of violence, a structural violence, because they maintained 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.040 the root causes of conflict, and and they enable authoritarian 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.840 practices by governments. So Israel shares a lot of tools surveillance, technology, 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.040 propaganda framework, security cooperation, both material and discursive tools, and 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.000 these have a way of turning up in the hands 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.640 of governments for pressing their own citizens. Now I'm not 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.640 saying the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain needed encouragement to 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.680 repress their own citizens, but it's just another added layer, 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.800 another way that the red lines shift, and new ways 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.160 that these governments can attack their own citizens and their 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.800 own activists. For example, Amadouti activists involved in anti normalization 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.840 activities after the accords became targets of surveillance operations, and 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.480 people who spoke out about the deals faced travel bands 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.480 in Bahrain, civil society organizations were newly restricted. The quote 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.120 unquote peace came with the repressive apparatus baked in, which 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.839 is exactly why when thousands of Arabs gathered and has 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.000 public squares to watch the World Cup, the energy around 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.640 Palestine wasn't some just like emotional sentiment, and it wasn't 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:57.120 a relic. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:57.960 It was fresh. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:10:59.680 It was the anger of people who had just watched 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.560 their governments make deals they never asked for, and deals 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.080 that were used to oppress them and not solve the 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:09.400 postating issue. There is a concept that academics and activists 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.720 have used called sports normalization. The idea is that sports, 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.920 because they're presented as a political or maybe as entertainment 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.800 as a space above politics. They can be used as 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.160 a soft avenue for normalizing relationships that would be otherwise 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.920 politically controversial. Israel has long pursued the strategy. The logic is, 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.960 if Israel and Arab athletes compete together, then this image 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:36.160 of coexistence replaces the political reality of occupation. You don't 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.800 need any kind of solution or diplomatic agreement. You just 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.600 need enough footage of an Israelian Oracan shaking hands on 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.480 the pitch to make people feel like things are moving 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.840 in a good direction. Kutan Youth were very explicit about 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.319 targeting this. They hosted panels on sports normalization. They released 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.240 a statement pointing out that Western political boycotts of Russia 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.880 extended the sporting events after the invasion of Ukraine, and 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.880 nobody then complained that sports were being mixed up with politics, 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.360 and to them, the inconsistency was glaring that mixing sports 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.400 with politics was apparently fine when it was about sanctioning Russia, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:11.600 you know, admittedly very appropriately, but somehow inappropriate when it 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.360 came to Palestinian rights, and this double standard I've encountered 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.719 it constantly in my work. The insistence that the Pastadian 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.679 cause is uniquely problematic, uniquely in need of being kept 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.440 out of polite conversation or unreasonable. This insistence falls apart 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.240 the moment you compare it to any other conflict where 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.880 the West has chosen a side. Now, the World Cup 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.920 made that visible in real time. When the Palestidian flag 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.599 showed up in a stadium in Doha, it wasn't just 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.240 a symbol of solidarity. It was an argument. It said, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.960 this issue is not resolved. We have not moved on. 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.120 It doesn't matter what the Abraham records said or how 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.679 many photo ops it's going to make any of this 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:47.199 go away. 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:48.199 Now. 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.040 I want to dwell for a minute on Morocco full disclosure. 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:52.560 That's the team I support. I hope they go as 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.280 far as possible. But Morocco is an interesting case, and 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.120 I think it illuminates something about the limits of top 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.520 down normalization. Like I said, in governments signed the apraamic courts, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.840 and the deal actually included US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.160 over Western Sahara, which Morocco has long occupied. Itself a 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.120 case of a people's right to self determination being traded 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.440 away in this diplomatic agreement situation. So it was a 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.200 completely cynical arrangement all around. And yet when Morocco beat 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.080 Spain and reached the semi finals, their players held up 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.680 the Palestinian flag. When Morocco beat Portugal and the streets 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.600 of robot and Casablanca erupted, the Palstinian flag was there too, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.200 and fans in Doha who had traveled from across North 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.920 Africa and the Middle East were wearing Palstinian Kafia's chanting 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.880 for Palestine. Now, the Moroccan government's deal with Israel did 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:39.959 not transfer to the Moroccan people. And this is the 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:41.640 key insight from the World Cup, the one that I 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.920 keep coming back to that governments can sign papers, but 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:46.640 they can't really sign on behalf. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:47.240 Of public sentiment. 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:51.600 And these countries are not democratic, so any kind of 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.160 push to do something like this seems like a betrayal 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.959 to their own citizens. And they can't normalize what has 0:13:58.000 --> 0:13:59.680 not been normalized in the hearts and minds of their 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.960 own There is a kind of arrogance in the Abraham 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.240 Recurts framework. The assumption is that if you get the 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:06.959 right signatures, if you get the right photo op on 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:08.959 the White House lawn, that the conflict can be ignored 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.360 that the Pastadian cause can recede, but the World Cup 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.679 was a direct refutation of that assumption. Now I've been 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.720 thinking about all of this in the context of everything 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.200 that has happened since the genocide in Gaza, the daily images, 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.080 the death tolls, the wholesale destruction of Gazan society, and 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.080 the ongoing question of what normalization means now and whether 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.720 any of those Abraham courts frameworks can survive what the 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:32.760 world has watched happen. 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:33.480 Now. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.800 I do think it will survive. These governments do not 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.400 care about what happened in Gaza. But what it shows 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.640 is that the fears around the Abraham recurts were completely founded. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.120 Ignoring the Israeli Pastadian conflict would lead to an escalation 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.160 in the violence. I think the World's Cup moment was 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.600 a preview back in twenty twenty two. It told us 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.280 something about where popular Arab opinion actually was, not where 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.960 governments claimed it was and not where Western media assumed 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.400 it was, but where it actually was. And it showed 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.320 us that organized strategic activism can channel that sentiment at 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.040 something visible and politically costly for the forces of normalization. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:07.800 Now. 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.120 Katar Youth, a post a normalization. Was a small group, 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.760 and they were operating under real restrictions in a country 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.840 that doesn't allow independent civil society, and they still managed 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:18.840 to turn a global sporting event into one of the 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.160 most visible expressions of Palestinian solidarity in years. And that 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.200 matters not because a football tournament, a soccer tournament, is 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:26.080 going to solve anything. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:27.040 It doesn't. 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.360 Palestinian families don't get their homes back because people flew 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.360 a flag in a stadium. But movements build over time 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.320 and through moments of visibility, through the accumulation of pressure, 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.320 and through the refusal to let the issue disappear into 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.280 a manufactured consensus that was never real to begin with. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.760 And today in twenty twenty six, this is not specific 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.120 to air of publics. Even Western publics have seen their 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.360 governments ignore genocide, have seen their rights recede as their 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.640 government's ally to protect genocide in a variety of ways. 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.520 Now I'll end with something a little more personal. When 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.480 I watched those World Croup crowds back in twenty twenty two, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.160 when I saw all these different Arabs, Moroccans and Tunisians 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.360 and Saudis, people from countries that have varying and complicated 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.280 relationships with this issue. All waiving the Palestinian flag, I 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.880 felt a kind of hope, and it's not naive. It's 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.360 not the hope that this will be resolved soon or easily, 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.520 but the hope that says Palestinians are not alone and 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.240 the cause is not forgotten. And the silence that has 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.840 been imposed on this question, attempted silence top down for 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.320 so long, is not the consent it pretends to be. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.760 Governments can sign a chords, but they can erase what 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.360 people know, and they cannot sign away what people feel. 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.640 When they watch a team lose and a flag goes 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.680 up in a stadium and thousands of people start chanting. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.200 Palestine keeps showing up uninvited at every table that tries 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.840 to exclude it, and I think it will keep doing that. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.400 Thank you so much for listening to it could happen here. 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:52.320 I'm don algirt. 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.480 Before we start. I want to make something inescapably clear. 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.600 I am not against human rights or the ideals they 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.720 embody and aspire to. Human rights are in fact a 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.399 flawed attempts at making the world a better place for 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.439 all human beings. And it is exactly those flaws that 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:24.440 I want to address here. Just having universal human rights 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.080 does not mean any progress or any improvements in that 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.760 regard are no longer necessary. To reach those there needs 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.600 to be in depth conversations and critiques. I've deliberately chosen 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.400 a provocative title to start this episode. If sad title 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.280 makes it through post production, because I think the best 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.240 way to have this conversation is if we temporarily strip 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.880 any blind assumptions. There should not, for the time being, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.600 be a's standard answer to just defouled back to So 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.320 let me say it again. The concepts and ideals of 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.840 universal human rights are good and well intended. This is 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.639 not a plea against either of those. This is just 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:02.679 to ensure that we can all engage with the flaws 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.200 and the criticisms that are currently late at the feat 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.239 above those human rights. Please don't hate me further. There 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.040 will be some abstract concept and theories here. I'll do 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.840 my best to explain them in Layman's terms. Unfortunately, the 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.040 Ivory Tower of the university is still a thing, and 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.320 I think this bit should be accessible to everyone, not 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.720 just university educated people. So if I'm being a bit 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.400 reductive or unnnuanced, it is to make it widely available. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.520 And with that, Hello everyone, welcome to this could happen here. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.399 I am Mick. I'm joined by the lovely James Stout. 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.119 Hi James, how are you doing? Hey good, I'm good. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.680 I'm excited about this. Yeah, we're going to go through 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.399 a lot today. When I pitched this, I thought it 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.720 would be just a fun thirty minute episode and now 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.040 we're at like five thousand words and ten pages of script. 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.040 So yeah, these things can get away from me. Yes, exactly. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.920 And there's always the content, it's always context. You can 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.520 just throw things out there. But I had to kill 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:10.480 some darlings unfortunately. But there we go. So to start off, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.480 we first have to explore a little bit about the 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.879 history of human rights and how they came to be. 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.119 When we are talking about right, we are speaking of 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.359 either a legal, a social, or an ethical rule that 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.280 is connected to legal systems, social conventions, or neu ethical 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.040 standpoints that are seen as normal for a certain group 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.920 at a certain time. Because they evolved, they change. These 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.840 rights are often inscribed, codified, or written down in either 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.960 legal documents or in the public consciousness. And what I 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.640 mean by the latter is like or make a queue 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.680 for the bus or the train. It's not something that's 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.080 often written down in illegal code or something. It's just 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:56.440 an unwritten rule that exists between the people the convention. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.240 Most likely, if you're going to skip cues, you'll never 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.360 be prosecuted or find for that. People will probably think 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.240 you're a bit of an asshole. So the Universal Declaration 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.199 of Human Rights was signed in nineteen forty eight by 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.520 the UN. Prior to this, the concept of human rights 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.080 was largely found in the idea of natural rights. The 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.879 very first historical notion of this that we know of 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:24.399 was in the Zoroastrian religion in the Iran region, which 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.639 thought that citizens have a fundamental right to enlightened leadership 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.159 and that people had the right to rise up against 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.639 those who are wicked. Similar ideas surrounding rights are also 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.760 found in ancient Greek philosophy, like the Epicurean school of 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.840 thought and the Stoics. Later, it was also explicitly named 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.760 by Roman philosophers, which they probably stole from the Greeks, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.960 like Cicero and Seneca, that that Cicero once said that 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.840 we are born for justice, and that right is based 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.800 not upon opinions, but upon nature. And I think This 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.680 is important into the Zubin not a bit. Romans were 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.080 very not a very religious, but it was a religious society. 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.359 They had tons of deities. But despite that, it's to 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.440 nature that Cicero make makes that claim. Yeah, as opposed 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:18.520 to God or God's right exactly. There's something innate or 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.280 something by virtue of being human that it gives you 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.439 those rights. Yeah, there was. In the seventeenth century was 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:31.080 the English philosopher John Locke, who discussed similar things, particularly 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.320 that fundamental rights as he called them, such as life, liberty, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.960 and a state. A state meaning property in this case 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.399 are things that could not be handed over or transferred 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.040 under the social contract. With social contract, it is often 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.439 meant that you, as an individual have surrendered some of 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.119 your rights and handed them over to the authority under 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.119 which you fall or to which you are subject. Often 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.639 this exchange translates to that the authority to which you 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.200 hand it over will then protect your remaining rights. Yeah. 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.400 Usually this is strained as consensual, as a voluntary deal 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.480 you make or have made with again, whichever authority happens 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.760 to hold control over you. I also think it's worth 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.159 noting that consent implies an active decision with like knowledge 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.080 and circumstances and the ability to consent. And this is 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.480 just my own personal gripe. Whenever people refer back to 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.320 the social contract, it's like I didn't agree to anything. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:32.040 I must have missed that meeting. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.480 But yet it relies on this like thought experiment, right, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.480 like this idea of like would someone in ex circumstance do? 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:39.760 Why? 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:41.000 I think this is. 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:43.760 What Hobbes does, right, Yes, Like I guess Hobb's lock 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:45.680 and Rousseau would be the people you'd want to read 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:47.640 if you wanted to learn more about this. In Rejava, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.639 they have an explicit social contract, right, which is like 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.240 a document, and people do get too consent on it. 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.679 I guess I should say consult rather than consent, right, 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.840 There was a long consultative process was part of the 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:04.320 formation of the metric and social contracting Java as opposed 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.359 to like requiring like universal consensus to be to be established. 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:12.399 Once again, ros Javaz leading away, Yeah, showing us all 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.720 the way. That's that's right to be unusual. Yeah, we 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.240 will be touching a little bit on Hobs and Rousseau. Okay, fine, 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:21.879 but this some of the latter bid up like the 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:26.199 virtue of being born hardly checks my boxes for active consent. 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.440 But yeah, you know, I think there's some bureaucrat out 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.640 there who will disagree with me on that. As you said, James, 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.159 the idea of the social contract came from philosophers like 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:42.080 Rousseau and Hobbes and our Court, who are contemporary understanding 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:46.080 of like social and political theory, and are also foundational 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:50.960 to like most liberal democracies, the ideas is following. At first, 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.920 there was like no state and no authority, and everyone 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.320 was in a state of nature where human existence was 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:01.480 harsh and brute and short. Yeah, nasty, brutish in short 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:04.680 is the like here's the exact words the Hobbs quite 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.440 that gets deployed a lot about people and things, yes, 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:10.840 ignoring the fact that Hobbes was an idiot. 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:13.720 Yeah, and that life without the state is not nasty, 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:14.520 brutish and short. 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:16.159 And we have a lot of examples of this. But no, 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:20.920 but it's this retroactive justification because this is how things 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:23.840 are now. So I am inventing a story to justify 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:25.040 how we end up here. 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.159 Yeah, Like Jim Scott, I guess kind of deals with 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.000 this a little bit right in the art of not 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:32.360 being governed when he's talking about the idea that those 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:36.080 who exist without the state are behind those who exist 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:38.359 within the state, as opposed to just on a different 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:39.840 pathway they've chosen to follow. 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:43.000 Yeah, because like we need we need the authority, and 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:45.919 you need a social contract because otherwise humanity is just 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:50.480 subject to its own worst impulses, like our hunger games 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:55.320 without the dystopian stuff inside it. Therefore, there is we 0:24:55.480 --> 0:24:58.119 need authority, which was created to keep this state of 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:02.040 nature at bay and make or keep us civilized. And 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.560 this also then ties in with like the monopoly on violence, 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:08.680 because that is one of the rights that you surrender 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:12.800 under this social contract and is given to specialized government 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:16.720 forces in order to use the violence that is necessary 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.120 to maintain order. As a small side note, the whole 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:22.960 state of nature thing is pretty much bullshit. On why 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:26.080 that is is discussed at length in the Dawn of 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:30.080 Everything by David Graber and David Wengro, But it would 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.520 be way to watch the also include here you'd have 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:33.760 to listen to me all week. 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:36.399 I do have an audiobook at the Door of Everything, 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:38.880 and it is it's a lot of audiobook, Like. 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:44.080 Yeah, it's such a massive book, just massive. Just as 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:47.000 a small clarification before we move on, there are many 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:50.720 more notable figures who've written about like natural rights, Francis 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:55.400 Hudgeon Hegel, and Thomas Pain. Clearly, there are also many 0:25:55.400 --> 0:25:58.600 more who did that in the American context, like Thomas Jefferson. 0:25:59.160 --> 0:26:02.560 But everyone listening to this nose the American stuff way 0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:05.840 better than I do, so I'll just skip that, including 0:26:05.840 --> 0:26:08.840 the parts where Jefferson was pretty selective on who counted 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:12.520 as a human being and who didn't. Many such cases here, 0:26:12.680 --> 0:26:16.560 many such cases. Unfortunately it has not gone away as 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:21.040 much as it should have. Yeah, So the biggest criticism 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:24.800 that we have here to address against natural rights is 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:28.560 that you can draw from facts. It's something that you 0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:31.000 say is out there, but you can prove it through 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:36.359 science or through empirical research, through data collection. It's something 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:40.720 that comes from tradition, authority, or morality. There is no 0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:43.200 argument to be made that it exists in the same 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:45.840 way as the coffee on my desk as I'm writing this. 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:50.320 To put it very bluntly, natural rights being inherent or 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:54.040 unalienable is just saying they exist because I say so. 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:57.639 It has just as much weight as me claiming that 0:26:57.720 --> 0:27:01.879 I now own James's chickens, which I now do. It 0:27:01.960 --> 0:27:02.840 is a fact you have. 0:27:02.840 --> 0:27:06.240 To fight me for them and surrendering them monopoly on shakins. Yes, 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:08.879 you know, you know where I live. You can you 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:10.000 can fat at them to me. 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:15.040 Yeah. So what has happened is by putting these natural 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:17.920 rights into law, we can make them like real or 0:27:17.960 --> 0:27:21.239 tangible in the sense that there is something you can 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:24.400 point to, like that thing says it, or this law 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:27.840 says it. It transforms natural rights from something that is 0:27:28.400 --> 0:27:32.480 scientifically baseless into like a part of the social contract 0:27:33.080 --> 0:27:36.480 and thus should be upheld by whatever authority, state, or 0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:39.919 government you happen to be subject to. The creation of 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:43.679 constitutions in democracies is like a very explicit attempt to 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:46.800 make rights real. But as we all know, they're also 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.560 not infallible. In the wake of the horrors of the 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:54.560 Second World War, the international community drafted and voted on 0:27:54.760 --> 0:27:58.679 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was a massive 0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:01.840 step at the time. Of the fifty eight member states 0:28:01.880 --> 0:28:05.360 at the time, forty eight voted in favor, two did 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:09.440 not participate, an AID abstained from voting. For those who 0:28:09.440 --> 0:28:12.600 are paying attention, there are so little countries that voted 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:16.240 on it, because judges were less countries back then, and 0:28:16.280 --> 0:28:19.040 an exact number is very hard to find because all 0:28:19.119 --> 0:28:22.880 data sets and all definitions just differ. To this day, 0:28:22.960 --> 0:28:25.520 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is still one of 0:28:25.520 --> 0:28:29.639 the most significant milestones of the twentieth twentieth century. It 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:33.040 has pretty neutral language in terms of culture, religion, or 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:37.600 any particular political system. It also became a stepping stone 0:28:37.640 --> 0:28:42.120 for the International Bill of Human Rights and several different treaties, 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:45.440 with all one hundred and ninety three UN member states 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:48.360 as of now as signing at least one or more 0:28:48.400 --> 0:28:51.800 of those treaties. Yeah, I can't understate how massive that 0:28:51.880 --> 0:28:57.280 achievement is, and before we were actually criticizing it, I 0:28:57.360 --> 0:29:01.080 do think it's right to recognize it. And that isn't perfect, 0:29:01.160 --> 0:29:03.240 which is why we're also going to kick against its 0:29:03.520 --> 0:29:07.120 shinbone for a while. So to the surprise of no one, 0:29:07.680 --> 0:29:10.640 human rights are flawed but good. They've also been used 0:29:10.640 --> 0:29:14.640 pretty disingenuously, and that is where, like this start, they 0:29:14.640 --> 0:29:19.040 have often been used as a justification for war to 0:29:19.080 --> 0:29:23.000 obscure or hide other motivations, like I think of the 0:29:23.040 --> 0:29:26.360 Iraq war. No, not that one. The Iraq in the 0:29:26.400 --> 0:29:30.000 invasion of Kuwait in the in nineteen ninety, the Saddam 0:29:30.080 --> 0:29:33.480 government publicly stated that they wanted to support the revolutionary 0:29:33.520 --> 0:29:37.959 government in Kuwait, that it was for our solidarity. They 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:41.040 also cited that the current administration over there was incredibly 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:45.080 unpopular and thus they had to invade for greater political 0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:48.760 and economic freedom for the Kuwaiti people. What was widely 0:29:48.800 --> 0:29:52.400 seen as like, the actual motivations were oil resources and 0:29:52.920 --> 0:29:57.200 more regional control because of course, yeah, Russia has also 0:29:57.320 --> 0:29:59.400 used human rights as a reason for invading. 0:30:00.160 --> 0:30:03.040 Yeah, you look very surprised at that, shapes I was 0:30:03.040 --> 0:30:05.240 about to say the same thing, like Russia left to. 0:30:05.240 --> 0:30:08.720 Do this, Yes, they did it in two thousand and eight, 0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:12.160 with like when they invaded Georgia because they had to 0:30:12.160 --> 0:30:16.000 protect Russian citizens and peacekeepers, while it was mainly about 0:30:16.200 --> 0:30:20.520 like preventing native expansion in the newly independent Georgia. The 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:23.280 same thing happened in twenty fourteen when they first invaded 0:30:23.360 --> 0:30:28.080 Ukraine because Russian speakers had to be protected from Ukrainian fascists. 0:30:28.640 --> 0:30:31.720 There was also the Serbian forces in Bosnia and Kosovo, 0:30:32.240 --> 0:30:36.280 where the Serbs were under threats and Indias campaign into 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:40.760 East Pakistan now known as Bangladesh, although in that latter 0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:44.240 one the motivations seem a bit more muddled because it 0:30:44.320 --> 0:30:47.160 appears there's some genuine concern there for human rights or 0:30:47.320 --> 0:30:51.640 humanitarian aid, but again modeled limited time. 0:30:52.080 --> 0:30:55.880 And I think like it's always telling like where states 0:30:55.920 --> 0:30:59.520 decide it's important to go to war for human rights 0:30:59.520 --> 0:31:00.440 and the right. 0:31:00.760 --> 0:31:05.160 Yeah, we're very selective when these rights need to be 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:08.680 enforced or when there's violence needed for it to be enforced. 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:09.200 Yeah. 0:31:09.440 --> 0:31:11.840 No one's rolling out to defend the human rights of 0:31:12.040 --> 0:31:14.200 hina people in Memma, for example. 0:31:14.400 --> 0:31:18.200 No exactly, And like I think you said this at 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:20.760 some point, but like when in Me and mar the 0:31:20.800 --> 0:31:24.480 revolution started, there was like an explicit appeal to like human. 0:31:24.280 --> 0:31:28.560 Rights, Yeah, and like a very well lucidated appeal to 0:31:28.600 --> 0:31:31.480 like R two P right, the right to protect. I 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:34.520 think I have to check responsibility to protect. It's what 0:31:34.640 --> 0:31:37.720 R two P stands for, not right, but responsibility. So 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:42.600 it's a responsibility of a state to intervene in the 0:31:42.600 --> 0:31:47.400 internal affairs of another state if human rights are being 0:31:47.440 --> 0:31:50.680 abused in that state. It's best of my understanding of 0:31:50.720 --> 0:31:53.280 it anyway, And this is as it spake strange to 0:31:53.280 --> 0:31:57.120 me by many many young people in Mema. I actually 0:31:57.160 --> 0:32:00.600 spoke to a young person in Memma who would orchestrated, 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:03.880 at great risk of their life, a massive R two 0:32:03.920 --> 0:32:07.400 P like floating sort of symbol that could be seen 0:32:07.400 --> 0:32:10.160 from the air. I guess, like explicitly to alert the 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:13.560 world that our human rights are being violated, and we 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:16.600 have human rights, so surely the people who guarantee those 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:20.960 rights question mark will intervene to protect those rights. So 0:32:21.200 --> 0:32:25.520 like you saw signs explicitly calling on a SCN, on 0:32:25.600 --> 0:32:30.040 the UN, on the European Union, on the United States, 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:32.680 and like also people trying to make signs that are 0:32:32.760 --> 0:32:36.160 very funny so that they would go viral in English 0:32:36.560 --> 0:32:39.280 because they wanted the world to see them. When they 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:41.040 figured if the world's all they'd be like, huh, human 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:43.960 rights are being violated. And it took a lot of 0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.520 dead people for I think, because that's a very entrenched 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:48.080 view that many of us have, right, that we have 0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:51.200 these rights, we do it writes any matter insofar as 0:32:51.240 --> 0:32:55.480 they are someone's prepared to use force to protect them 0:32:55.720 --> 0:32:59.960 in this instance, and nobody was apart from the people 0:33:00.200 --> 0:33:03.840 of Memma themselves, right, So they like right, space discourse 0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:07.960 still very very common there. Now those rights are backed 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:10.720 up by people who you know, initially used home made 0:33:10.720 --> 0:33:13.720 and three D printed firearms and now have better firearms. 0:33:14.280 --> 0:33:16.560 But like, the reason those people have those rights could 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:19.480 stay for for them, not because the rights enforced themselves 0:33:19.760 --> 0:33:21.680 or any other state decided to enforce them. 0:33:21.760 --> 0:33:26.440 No, exactly. It is pretty revealing that when a people 0:33:26.520 --> 0:33:30.600 desperately in need for their rights to be upheld by 0:33:30.640 --> 0:33:34.400 some force or by some army or whatever, and they're 0:33:34.440 --> 0:33:38.240 making explicit appeals towards and the international community as a 0:33:38.240 --> 0:33:41.720 wholes like, nah, they get a closer right than there is, 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:46.640 but they were unalienable, so yeah, great, they still technically 0:33:46.680 --> 0:33:51.160 had them sort of maybe right, Yeah, they should have 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:55.600 bought a premium package. And also yes, the US invasion 0:33:55.600 --> 0:33:57.800 of Iraq in two thousand and three, yeah, I did 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:00.640 not forget. It was very much justified. There's a mission 0:34:00.640 --> 0:34:04.120 of liberation and freeing people from a dictator. Well it 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:07.600 was much again oil and influence, as it always says, 0:34:08.160 --> 0:34:10.880 which is why you will now have to listen to 0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:14.160 ads so cools and media can get some much needed 0:34:14.200 --> 0:34:29.200 oil and influence. Nice, and we're back now loaded with 0:34:29.280 --> 0:34:33.080 petro dollars. It is time to dive deeper into the critiques. 0:34:33.960 --> 0:34:38.080 So someone whose work was incredibly influential in the realm 0:34:38.120 --> 0:34:42.520 of philosophy and ethics was Simon Veil James. I think 0:34:42.640 --> 0:34:43.520 you may have heard of her. 0:34:44.239 --> 0:34:47.440 Yeah, she was with the De Ruti column in the 0:34:47.480 --> 0:34:51.439 International Group. She burned herself frying eggs in a house 0:34:51.600 --> 0:34:53.160 they liberated and had to go home. 0:34:53.719 --> 0:34:56.080 Yeah, she is a fascinating figure. 0:34:56.640 --> 0:35:00.200 Yeah, that someone who just like forest gumps through through 0:35:00.440 --> 0:35:04.000 like the history of amazing things in that time period. 0:35:04.200 --> 0:35:06.400 Yes, it was like I have written this down in 0:35:06.440 --> 0:35:08.160 the script, but when she was eight or nine she 0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:12.080 refused to eat chocolate or something. It's solidarity with the 0:35:12.200 --> 0:35:14.960 soldiers overseas or the soldiers who were fighting in World 0:35:15.000 --> 0:35:20.400 War One. There's tons of like incredible stuff in there. Amazing. 0:35:20.440 --> 0:35:23.319 I didn't know that. Like, she taught at the university, 0:35:23.719 --> 0:35:26.719 but then in nineteen thirty four she took a leave 0:35:26.760 --> 0:35:30.280 of absence from teaching to work anonymously in two different 0:35:30.400 --> 0:35:34.960 labor factories because she better wanted to understand the working class. 0:35:35.920 --> 0:35:38.640 A few years later she would join the anarchist do 0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:42.080 Ruti column as you said, and fight in the Spanish 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.040 Civil War, where she very badly wanted to fight despite 0:35:45.080 --> 0:35:48.839 her outspoken pacifism, but her comrades held her back because 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:51.919 she was incredibly near sighted that they were like, yeah, 0:35:51.960 --> 0:35:55.520 we don't trust you with this machine gun, which fair. Yeah. 0:35:56.200 --> 0:35:59.400 And she died eventually at a very young age in 0:35:59.480 --> 0:36:02.880 nineteen forty three due to her poorer health. That is, 0:36:03.000 --> 0:36:05.799 while she was sick, she would only eat whatever she 0:36:05.920 --> 0:36:09.120 thought the residents of Nazi occupied France would be able 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:12.600 to eat, and refuse to eat more. As her biographer 0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:16.640 Richard Reese summed up as for her death, whatever explanation 0:36:16.760 --> 0:36:19.080 one may give of it, it will amount in the 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:22.480 end to saying that she died of love. Well, that's bad. 0:36:22.520 --> 0:36:24.640 As in my book, Yeah, yeah, that's a cool way 0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:26.120 of phrasing two it is BEAUTI presented. 0:36:26.719 --> 0:36:26.959 Yeah. 0:36:27.719 --> 0:36:31.000 Simon was very critical of the concept of rights, and 0:36:31.200 --> 0:36:35.520 she much preferred to speak of obligations. The latter, she argued, 0:36:35.680 --> 0:36:38.839 are much more fundamental than rights, because rights are only 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:43.200 meaningful to the extent that others respect those rights. To her, 0:36:43.400 --> 0:36:48.120 rights are relative and related to certain conditions, while obligations 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:52.200 exist outside those conditions. On the surface, this may seem 0:36:52.200 --> 0:36:55.200 like the same criticism we had earlier that they only 0:36:55.239 --> 0:36:58.319 exist out there and only because I say so. But 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:01.640 I think she moves further than that, because she sees 0:37:01.680 --> 0:37:06.960 a system that has its foundation on these obligations, specifically 0:37:06.960 --> 0:37:09.560 what she calls the need for a soul to hear. 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:12.400 These needs are the things that we as human beings 0:37:12.520 --> 0:37:17.960 require to thrive, food, shelter, medicine, but also like equality, 0:37:18.280 --> 0:37:21.560 freedom of opinion, and security in the form of not 0:37:21.600 --> 0:37:24.720 having any persistent fears. There are many more in her book. 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:27.239 I'm not going to delve a buch deeper in it 0:37:27.280 --> 0:37:30.319 because I think, like the just this out there, this 0:37:30.440 --> 0:37:33.480 may seem like a very theoretical difference, but let me 0:37:33.520 --> 0:37:36.560 illustrate what I think is a very strong example of 0:37:36.600 --> 0:37:40.279 like rights versus obligations. I have stolen this metaphor from 0:37:40.320 --> 0:37:43.960 the philosophized this podcast, Okay, from the episode in which 0:37:44.040 --> 0:37:48.680 the host discusses the modern day concentration camp and Georgio Agambin. 0:37:49.080 --> 0:37:52.280 So all the credit to that host for this metaphor. 0:37:53.000 --> 0:37:55.920 So let's get back to those chickens that used to 0:37:55.960 --> 0:37:58.520 belong to James, but that I now own, like it 0:37:58.600 --> 0:38:01.759 is my right in a legal and economic sense to 0:38:01.800 --> 0:38:03.839 sell these at the market, and it is my right 0:38:03.880 --> 0:38:05.879 to sell them for any price that I think they 0:38:05.880 --> 0:38:08.719 are worth, just as it is my right to very 0:38:08.800 --> 0:38:11.280 quickly go out of business because nobody wants to buy 0:38:11.280 --> 0:38:14.480 my five thousand dollars chickens. And now I'm going to 0:38:14.520 --> 0:38:17.200 be a bit provocative. I just feel free to respond. 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:22.479 What if someone were to be forced into prostitution, either 0:38:22.520 --> 0:38:27.399 by coercion or violence? Okay, why is that wrong? Why 0:38:27.480 --> 0:38:31.600 is that disgusting and abhorrent? Yeah, for many reasons. Is 0:38:31.640 --> 0:38:34.640 the reason for that because this person has a legal 0:38:34.719 --> 0:38:39.000 right to not be forced into prostitution? Or is there 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:40.320 something else going on there? 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:42.600 But there's a lot there's a lot more going on there, right, 0:38:42.640 --> 0:38:44.839 Like it's apart because it's like disgusting to us as 0:38:44.880 --> 0:38:47.400 people that someone's supposed to do this without that consent 0:38:47.560 --> 0:38:53.520 and without consenting like actively to doing a thing that 0:38:53.960 --> 0:38:57.440 they are being forced to do against their will exactly. 0:38:57.480 --> 0:39:01.360 But it speaks to the nature of right that your 0:39:01.360 --> 0:39:03.640 first instinct is not to say, oh, but that's against 0:39:03.640 --> 0:39:05.880 the law. Yeah, your first instinct is to say, like, 0:39:06.200 --> 0:39:10.239 oh jeez, that's fucked up. Yeah, that's wrong, and it 0:39:10.280 --> 0:39:14.239 is wrong because what you're doing is like violating the agency, 0:39:14.320 --> 0:39:18.160 the autonomy, the dignity, the sense of belonging to themselves 0:39:18.160 --> 0:39:20.960 and their bodies. It is something that it is much 0:39:20.960 --> 0:39:24.440 more a gut feeling, something that is that exists out there, 0:39:25.040 --> 0:39:30.320 rather than like pointing to a law twenty three, subsection two, 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:34.600 paragraph three, whatever, three. And we can put it in 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:38.480 a more concrete example like The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:41.480 In short, for those who are not familiar with either 0:39:41.520 --> 0:39:45.960 the book or the show, it's about a patriarchal, totalitarian republic, 0:39:46.360 --> 0:39:50.400 very religious, where some women are forcibly assigned to powerful 0:39:50.440 --> 0:39:53.200 and high status men to bear children for them. Now, 0:39:53.239 --> 0:39:57.480 in this society, the sexual violence, the forced pregnancies, the births, 0:39:57.680 --> 0:40:01.480 they're entirely legal, like the people doing it, and that's 0:40:01.560 --> 0:40:04.800 not just the men in those books. They are doing 0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:07.200 it within their rights. It is legal what they're doing. 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:10.520 But also going to ask you as like the listener, 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:12.319 does that make it any less fucked up? 0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:15.600 Yeah, Like, I guess we can argue the same thing 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:18.279 in any Islamic state, right, there were people who were 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:20.719 forced into slavery, sexually assaulted. 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:25.919 Sexual violence was commonplace. It was at least accepted. 0:40:26.160 --> 0:40:28.440 I'm not familiar with the exactly legal structures of the 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:30.920 Islamic state with regard to epicentainly that it was widespread 0:40:31.040 --> 0:40:35.120 and not condemned, and like that doesn't matter. It was 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:39.400 still wrong. It was still disgusting, right, which is why people, 0:40:39.480 --> 0:40:43.319 including people in Kurdistan, decided to take up arms against it, 0:40:43.480 --> 0:40:47.879 and very rightfully. So, yeah, I guess they're like universal 0:40:48.000 --> 0:40:51.319 human rights were violated. That their rights, and that is 0:40:51.400 --> 0:40:54.160 the Islamic States so much as that was a state, which. 0:40:53.920 --> 0:40:56.960 It was, we're not, yeah, and we'll get there, because 0:40:57.000 --> 0:40:59.920 there's like a difference between the a so having universal 0:41:00.080 --> 0:41:04.319 right and having a sovereign that is going to respect them. 0:41:05.040 --> 0:41:08.400 So yeah, sorry for that painful metaphor. I think that 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:11.760 that both of these make it clear, although maybe painfully clear, 0:41:12.200 --> 0:41:14.440 like legality has nothing to do with it, like the 0:41:14.560 --> 0:41:17.480 rights have nothing to do with it. It's your human 0:41:17.560 --> 0:41:20.560 response and lack or the fact that you have a 0:41:20.640 --> 0:41:25.200 sense of decency that makes something like wrong or right. Heah, 0:41:26.000 --> 0:41:28.359 So the right to not be preyed upon can be 0:41:28.400 --> 0:41:31.360 taken away as all right, but the sense of injustice 0:41:31.520 --> 0:41:35.960 of wrongness will not. There exists an obligation to the 0:41:35.960 --> 0:41:39.600 people in your community, regardless of which community or the 0:41:39.680 --> 0:41:42.520 size of it, to not do horrific shit like that 0:41:43.080 --> 0:41:46.439 and in the process destroy part of someone's solemn being. 0:41:47.239 --> 0:41:49.879 The lack of any empirical data does not mean that 0:41:49.960 --> 0:41:52.640 there isn't something there, even if it's just like a 0:41:52.680 --> 0:41:57.200 gut feeling or a sense of justice. Will and myself 0:41:57.280 --> 0:42:00.480 would say it's wrong because we have an obligation to 0:42:00.480 --> 0:42:04.360 to respect them that by like just being born human, 0:42:04.680 --> 0:42:07.040 you have to have your agency and your autonomy and 0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:10.960 your dignity respected. But do you know what will destroy 0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:16.160 your soul and being products service is support this podcast? 0:42:16.400 --> 0:42:30.520 It definitely is. They already have And we're back after 0:42:30.600 --> 0:42:35.200 the identity crushing stream of surducts and products or whatever. 0:42:36.360 --> 0:42:39.680 So quickly recap what we said before the break, which 0:42:39.719 --> 0:42:41.919 is that you can say that there is something beyond right, 0:42:42.160 --> 0:42:45.880 as rights can conveniently be taken away when those empower 0:42:45.960 --> 0:42:48.600 think that is what they need to do. It is 0:42:48.640 --> 0:42:51.759 what Simon Ville would call the difference between being a 0:42:51.880 --> 0:42:55.960 subject and being an object, being a subject to something 0:42:56.160 --> 0:42:58.880 in the sense that you can be subject to a 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:02.960 queen through that lens. Being a subject means that you're 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:07.080 only seen as something that is value rights in relation 0:43:07.320 --> 0:43:10.759 to the queen. Okay, there is a relational aspect here 0:43:10.800 --> 0:43:15.640 that defines what over who you are. Being seen as 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:18.799 an object here means that you exist like in and 0:43:18.840 --> 0:43:22.000 of yourself, and that you're not defined because of the 0:43:22.040 --> 0:43:24.279 definition of something else. I think a good way to 0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:26.920 view this is the think of someone's child, son or 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:31.000 daughter and thinking of that same person as just themselves. 0:43:31.880 --> 0:43:34.799 Like in the first one, it's the relation that you emphasize. 0:43:35.280 --> 0:43:38.080 In the latter, you just see them as a person, 0:43:38.320 --> 0:43:41.839 regardless of like linear image or relation. Yeah, I fear 0:43:41.880 --> 0:43:44.400 this next part could be rather complex, but I'll do 0:43:44.520 --> 0:43:47.960 my best to go into like Layman's terms. It evolves 0:43:47.960 --> 0:43:51.879 some pretty complex philosophy about authors whom many people have read. 0:43:51.960 --> 0:43:55.920 But do you understand Yeah, myself included, I'm an idiot. 0:43:56.040 --> 0:43:58.160 I'm just trying to make it make sense and make 0:43:58.200 --> 0:44:02.080 it like clear and legible for everyone who hasn't read 0:44:02.120 --> 0:44:05.440 these offers, and I probably wouldn't recommend reading them. So 0:44:06.000 --> 0:44:10.200 we're speaking of Hannah Arrant and Georgio Aghamben both made 0:44:10.200 --> 0:44:13.120 some major critiques of human rights, and these are in 0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:17.439 relation to each other. To an extent. So the start off, 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:21.560 they make distinctions and definitions on what it is to 0:44:21.719 --> 0:44:25.560 be human and what it is to be recognized as 0:44:25.600 --> 0:44:30.080 a human being. Ran uses the terms zoe and bios 0:44:30.120 --> 0:44:33.759 for this, like the Greek terms Okay, zoe is the 0:44:33.840 --> 0:44:38.080 idea and the concept of life in a purely biological 0:44:38.120 --> 0:44:43.680 sense as just a biological unit that breathes, that consumes, 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:47.200 that defecates. Okay. Think of someone living alone in the 0:44:47.239 --> 0:44:50.480 mountains without anyone else nearby or any contact with other 0:44:50.560 --> 0:44:55.000 human beings. Like, biologically, yes, they are human, They're just 0:44:55.040 --> 0:44:59.360 no denying that. But in terms of bios meaning a 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:02.680 life that has meaning and it is political, it becomes 0:45:02.760 --> 0:45:06.120 less obvious that that personal learning the mountains like can 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:08.000 be recognized as human. 0:45:08.400 --> 0:45:10.520 Sure, yeah, Like part of being human is being part 0:45:10.520 --> 0:45:12.560 of a community, right, Like we only are able to 0:45:12.600 --> 0:45:15.960 fully realize ourselves in the context of other people. 0:45:16.400 --> 0:45:19.680 Exactly, And that is what what I'm getting at without 0:45:19.719 --> 0:45:21.440 saying that this person of the balance is not a 0:45:21.520 --> 0:45:25.520 human being, but they're isolated and not part of a community. 0:45:26.520 --> 0:45:29.479 Think of like making meaningful moments together with like those 0:45:29.520 --> 0:45:32.160 dear to you. That that is in a sense the 0:45:32.239 --> 0:45:36.560 meaning that the term bios kind of points to Yeah, 0:45:36.880 --> 0:45:39.200 living alone in the woods also means like there's no 0:45:39.239 --> 0:45:43.360 community or no sovereign power to hold someone accountable or 0:45:43.440 --> 0:45:49.760 to uphold they're supposedly unalienable rights. As a little pointer between, 0:45:50.280 --> 0:45:55.120 I'm going to use like state power, sovereign or government 0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:58.480 pretty much interchangeably, because I don't want to repeat the 0:45:58.520 --> 0:46:02.880 same words but or say power every two sentences. I 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:05.640 think that would make for a boring listening. But just 0:46:05.680 --> 0:46:09.239 so you use the listener, not that that is somewhat intentional. 0:46:10.400 --> 0:46:13.080 So it is in the context of the man in 0:46:13.120 --> 0:46:16.160 the mountains that we should interpret Zoe and bios, not 0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:19.319 like as in literal black and white checkboxes, but like 0:46:19.400 --> 0:46:23.279 as a nuanced lens to look through. And if we 0:46:23.360 --> 0:46:26.440 look through this lens, then the following pops up. For 0:46:26.520 --> 0:46:30.200 someone to have BIOS, there needs to be a community. 0:46:30.239 --> 0:46:32.880 There needs to be a sovereign or, as a Hanna 0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:36.439 Arrent would say, a political community. That can be any 0:46:36.440 --> 0:46:41.600 group of people, any country, political identity, or ideology. That 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:45.280 doesn't really matter for you to belong to a political community, 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:49.480 whichever one of those categories it is. But that is 0:46:49.600 --> 0:46:53.560 the most fundamental right. According to Hannah Rent, and we'll 0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:57.279 get into why. She also calls it like the right 0:46:57.560 --> 0:47:01.040 to have rights, the right to belong to political community 0:47:01.080 --> 0:47:05.120 that in turn cherishes you and upholds those rights for you. 0:47:05.760 --> 0:47:07.239 The man in the woods has no one to do 0:47:07.320 --> 0:47:11.320 that for him. He lacks a certain political and legal 0:47:11.440 --> 0:47:15.680 recognition of his humanity that comes with like being part 0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:18.920 of community. Yeah, if we think of people on the move, 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:22.879 of migrants, or of stateless people, then we can look 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:27.319 at them as not having a political community. And in 0:47:27.360 --> 0:47:29.880 the context of bios is, aren't puts it there is 0:47:29.920 --> 0:47:34.520 also of political community to emphasize their humanity or uphold 0:47:34.600 --> 0:47:38.759 their human rights. Yeah, because there is no system or 0:47:38.840 --> 0:47:42.520 sovereign that can like uphold them or enforce those ideas. 0:47:43.160 --> 0:47:48.880 Sometimes like they're able to act collectively to protect each other. 0:47:49.640 --> 0:47:52.759 Right like within that, but that is a different thing. Right. 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:55.680 That's that I guess you could call the obligation right, 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:57.480 that is their obligation to each. 0:47:57.320 --> 0:48:01.319 Other that they are fulfilled when they do that. 0:48:01.440 --> 0:48:04.760 Right like that, As you say that no powerful entity 0:48:04.840 --> 0:48:07.920 is obliged to protect their rights, you could look at 0:48:07.920 --> 0:48:09.600 the example of outdoor attention in the US. 0:48:09.719 --> 0:48:09.919 Right. 0:48:10.040 --> 0:48:12.080 I remember once I was out. 0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:15.279 Feeding people in outdoor attention with prop Actually he also 0:48:15.320 --> 0:48:19.319 has a podcast on this network. And we ran into 0:48:19.360 --> 0:48:21.200 this guy had like a he had like a polo 0:48:21.280 --> 0:48:23.040 on and I said, the fuck you didn't Who the 0:48:23.040 --> 0:48:25.560 fuck is this? They had like nice shoes, and I 0:48:25.600 --> 0:48:27.680 was like, what's happening here? The guy was from the 0:48:27.680 --> 0:48:30.560 Office of the Immigration Detention on but to it because 0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:32.200 you have a bunch of rights in the US, right, 0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:34.120 Like that person came along and had a clipboard and 0:48:34.160 --> 0:48:37.359 they did a bunch of stuff and it didn't matter. Right, 0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:39.600 there's people, a bunch of those people's rights were being violated. 0:48:39.600 --> 0:48:42.399 I'm sure the person ticked a bunch of boxes on there, 0:48:42.520 --> 0:48:45.160 like which rights are being violated for him? It didn't 0:48:45.160 --> 0:48:47.880 feed those people. We did, didn't keep them warm that night. 0:48:48.000 --> 0:48:50.680 We did, didn't build them a shelter. We did right 0:48:50.800 --> 0:48:53.600 like it was us for filling our obligations to each other, 0:48:53.760 --> 0:48:56.880 not their theoretical rights under the state, which mattered exactly. 0:48:57.320 --> 0:48:59.400 And just to point out, like the prior to that 0:48:59.480 --> 0:49:02.719 not necessary saily part of your political community, but you 0:49:02.840 --> 0:49:05.560 just feel that it does your obligation as a human 0:49:05.560 --> 0:49:08.000 being to like I can help these people, I can 0:49:08.080 --> 0:49:09.640 feed them, I can keep. 0:49:09.480 --> 0:49:13.120 Them warm, Yeah, exactly, like and is it Locke who 0:49:13.120 --> 0:49:15.080 does ask? Not for whom the bell tolls? It tolls 0:49:15.080 --> 0:49:19.920 for thee maybe not Hemingway. Hemingway wrote the book, but 0:49:19.960 --> 0:49:24.160 it's based on No, it's a man shit. We got 0:49:24.160 --> 0:49:26.520 to google this because otherwise that's not for whom the 0:49:26.520 --> 0:49:30.640 bell tolls. John Dunn, So other John, I think about 0:49:30.640 --> 0:49:33.279 that a lot. It's something I would hear like, occasionally 0:49:33.320 --> 0:49:35.520 referenced him in reference to the international brigades in the 0:49:35.560 --> 0:49:38.880 Spanish Civil War, included by John McCain, who wrote in 0:49:38.920 --> 0:49:41.960 a bitterery for the last American International Brigadier to die, 0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:44.560 which is like one of the less shitty things John 0:49:44.600 --> 0:49:47.919 McCain did, which he did many shitty things, terrible things, 0:49:48.400 --> 0:49:51.279 but like inherenting, that is the idea that like the 0:49:51.280 --> 0:49:53.360 bell here being the funery bell, right, that like I 0:49:53.360 --> 0:49:58.200 guess when humanity is devalued, my humanity is devalued, and 0:49:58.280 --> 0:50:01.800 like I am not fully realizes a person if people 0:50:01.880 --> 0:50:06.560 are being stripped of their dignity in my presence, in 0:50:06.600 --> 0:50:08.759 my community, so like those people are not part of 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:11.640 my community, but like my community is being devalued because 0:50:11.760 --> 0:50:15.040 humanity is being devalued in my community. And the way 0:50:15.080 --> 0:50:17.560 I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen is by 0:50:18.040 --> 0:50:21.480 stepping in in order to protect those people, to keep 0:50:21.520 --> 0:50:24.879 those people safe, to show those people that fundamentally, human 0:50:24.960 --> 0:50:27.480 dignity is guaranteed by the humans and not by other states. 0:50:27.800 --> 0:50:32.680 Yeah, very well said. So I have one last example here. 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:37.000 If there's too many examples for the listener, I apologize, 0:50:37.040 --> 0:50:39.520 but i just want to make it clear. So I've 0:50:39.520 --> 0:50:42.680 done my best to find examples and explain them. The 0:50:42.760 --> 0:50:46.120 Sentinel Least people in the Bay of Bengal. I think 0:50:46.160 --> 0:50:48.239 most of you have heard of them. They are like 0:50:48.280 --> 0:50:51.440 an indigenous people on that are isolated on a single 0:50:51.480 --> 0:50:54.239 island and they've had little to no contact with the 0:50:54.280 --> 0:50:58.400 mainland or air quotes modern world. Yeah, I think in 0:50:58.440 --> 0:51:00.359 twenty eighteen or something, there was a missionary. 0:51:00.560 --> 0:51:00.719 Yeah. 0:51:00.760 --> 0:51:03.000 Every few years, some ball end will try and go 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:05.200 and give them the Bible and they'll kill them or 0:51:05.239 --> 0:51:09.680 fire arrows at them or yeah. Yeah those people. Yeah. Now, 0:51:10.239 --> 0:51:13.279 like I can't guarantee that this is how what is 0:51:13.320 --> 0:51:16.279 going on because I haven't spoken to them, obviously, but 0:51:16.960 --> 0:51:19.960 I'm guessing that they don't speak of human rights and 0:51:20.080 --> 0:51:23.680 we the nonsentinelice people don't really speak of their right 0:51:23.760 --> 0:51:27.120 to healthcare, their rights to freedom of opinion. My point 0:51:27.200 --> 0:51:29.799 is more that like, unless there is contact with them 0:51:30.160 --> 0:51:33.120 and they become like a political community, there are no 0:51:33.160 --> 0:51:35.880 really not any human rights for them to speak of 0:51:36.440 --> 0:51:39.560 a bold like in a sense, they don't have human 0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:42.800 rights because there is no contact and nothing to appold 0:51:42.920 --> 0:51:46.319 or enforce at this point, James, this is where we 0:51:46.360 --> 0:51:49.480 are going to isolate ourselves on an island until it 0:51:49.560 --> 0:51:51.000 is time for part two. 0:51:51.400 --> 0:51:51.560 Yeah. 0:51:51.600 --> 0:51:55.520 Perfect, Looking forward to seeing you very soon again for 0:51:55.680 --> 0:51:58.279 our next shin kicking badass mm hmm. 0:51:58.400 --> 0:52:01.640 And I am fashioning about to defend us from Christian 0:52:01.680 --> 0:52:02.840 missionaries in boats. 0:52:02.960 --> 0:52:06.239 Yes, let us also throw like spears and arrows at 0:52:06.480 --> 0:52:23.320 missionaries coming to our isolated island. Yep, hey everyone, welcome 0:52:23.360 --> 0:52:26.560 back to it could happen here. I am still Mick, 0:52:26.719 --> 0:52:30.400 and I'm still with James. If for some reason you 0:52:30.440 --> 0:52:33.680 haven't listened to the first parts, I would strongly urge 0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:36.120 you to do that first, because we're going to dive 0:52:36.160 --> 0:52:38.960 straight in here, and I'm afraid you're going to miss 0:52:38.960 --> 0:52:41.680 a lot of context and a lot of explanation as 0:52:41.719 --> 0:52:45.920 to what's going on. So yes, our next shin kicking 0:52:46.000 --> 0:52:50.839 bad ass is Georgio Khamben. I mentioned him before. Some 0:52:50.880 --> 0:52:54.239 of you may have heard from him because around the 0:52:54.280 --> 0:52:57.720 COVID pandemic his work became incredibly popular all of a sudden. 0:52:58.360 --> 0:53:02.720 He follows is a similar philosophical path that Theatana Arentz 0:53:03.040 --> 0:53:06.280 already laid out, but he goes like a few steps further. 0:53:06.920 --> 0:53:08.920 I'm sorry to say that we have once again some 0:53:09.120 --> 0:53:13.800 concepts to explore before we get the go deeper. Argumbh 0:53:14.440 --> 0:53:19.600 strongly uses the concept of a homo seser. It's a 0:53:19.680 --> 0:53:23.800 Latin term used during some time in the Roman Republic. 0:53:24.440 --> 0:53:27.960 It means sacred man or a cursed man. It is 0:53:28.000 --> 0:53:32.360 a person who is banned from society, might be killed 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:36.680 by anybody, but must not be sacrificed in a religious ritual. 0:53:37.000 --> 0:53:41.560 So Argamben sees this as someone who is exiled from 0:53:41.600 --> 0:53:46.720 society and also not recognized as someone fits or worthy 0:53:46.760 --> 0:53:51.120 of being used in religious rituals like In fact, the 0:53:51.200 --> 0:53:54.560 Roman state has declared that this person is just a 0:53:54.560 --> 0:53:58.760 biological life form. Okay, that's in essence what this boils 0:53:58.760 --> 0:54:03.080 down to holds like the sovereign power over this person. 0:54:03.719 --> 0:54:06.400 Because it is like the Roman state that could enforce 0:54:06.440 --> 0:54:09.759 this or retract it, but for all intents and purposes, 0:54:10.000 --> 0:54:14.440 like the homosaeser is like stripped of humanity from political community, 0:54:15.280 --> 0:54:19.680 essentially rightless. And this also like a really weird position 0:54:20.280 --> 0:54:24.320 because you're still sort of subject to the state without 0:54:24.360 --> 0:54:27.800 the state wanting anything to do with you. Yeah, almost 0:54:27.840 --> 0:54:32.520 like a very one directional relationship. And agambh in turn 0:54:33.080 --> 0:54:36.400 adapts this concept of the homo siser into his state 0:54:36.440 --> 0:54:39.160 of exception. In his work of the same name, he 0:54:39.239 --> 0:54:42.960 lays out how in times of emergency usually this is 0:54:43.000 --> 0:54:46.400 what like the German philosopher Carl Schmidt often referred to, 0:54:46.920 --> 0:54:49.760 but agambenn is taking it in a much cooler direction 0:54:49.840 --> 0:54:53.720 than Carl Schmidt ever did. In times of emergency where 0:54:54.280 --> 0:54:58.600 on a political level, the decision is made to increase 0:54:58.680 --> 0:55:01.920 the legal power of the sol system. This increase can 0:55:01.960 --> 0:55:05.680 be an addition of new laws or the adulment of others, 0:55:06.080 --> 0:55:08.880 but the question of how legal this is this increase 0:55:08.920 --> 0:55:13.480 in power is often a very very gray area, like 0:55:13.840 --> 0:55:17.160 martial laws is a good example. Like there is a real, 0:55:17.280 --> 0:55:21.239 perceived or imaginary threats to the country or society and 0:55:21.280 --> 0:55:25.320 thus whoever is in power invokes martial law and suddenly 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:28.520 all bets are off because they can't be restricted by 0:55:28.600 --> 0:55:32.600 law in order to deal with that situation. Yeah, Like 0:55:32.719 --> 0:55:35.359 many a dictator has like invoked martial law just so 0:55:35.400 --> 0:55:37.200 they could like crush down on everything. 0:55:37.600 --> 0:55:39.880 Yeah, I think there were so many places where I 0:55:39.880 --> 0:55:41.480 could think of where there's been like a state of 0:55:41.520 --> 0:55:45.080 exception or a state of emergency for decades, right, I 0:55:45.080 --> 0:55:47.960 mean to an extent, since the United States passed a 0:55:48.000 --> 0:55:51.040 Patriot Act, or like you know, in the United States, 0:55:51.120 --> 0:55:54.960 we famously have the First ten Amendment to the Constitution, 0:55:55.000 --> 0:55:56.600 which are referred to as a Bill of Rights, right, 0:55:56.640 --> 0:55:59.360 which enshrine many things in states are supposed to do 0:55:59.400 --> 0:56:02.520 to us unless you happen to be in the border 0:56:02.600 --> 0:56:06.880 enforcement zone or subject to some of these like sneak 0:56:06.920 --> 0:56:09.480 and peak warrants that the Patriot Act allows, right, or 0:56:09.920 --> 0:56:13.799 other piece of legislation as well. Right, Like, there are many, many, 0:56:13.800 --> 0:56:14.680 many examples of this. 0:56:15.280 --> 0:56:18.000 Yeah, where Hannah Arnd has like very distinct like this 0:56:18.200 --> 0:56:20.960 a way and the bios and argambenz sort of sees 0:56:21.000 --> 0:56:24.680 like an in between area where yeah, you become this 0:56:24.800 --> 0:56:27.560 homosaser where like you're not really the one, you're not 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:30.840 really the other, and in that gray area, just anything 0:56:30.880 --> 0:56:31.360 can happen. 0:56:31.719 --> 0:56:37.200 Yeah, I think that like humans without rights concept is yeah, useful. 0:56:37.360 --> 0:56:40.799 Yeah, and they become so fluid in a bad way. 0:56:40.960 --> 0:56:44.200 Like if I were to arrive at like LAX, if 0:56:44.239 --> 0:56:47.040 I make the wrong joke while I'm in the gray zone, 0:56:47.080 --> 0:56:50.520 then probably every one of my ob will be searched 0:56:50.560 --> 0:56:53.680 for like drugs or other things. But once I step 0:56:53.719 --> 0:56:56.799 out of LAX, then like the LAPD can't do that 0:56:56.920 --> 0:57:01.760 to me, right without a whole different bureaucratic legal animal 0:57:01.960 --> 0:57:04.720 that they'll have to deal with. Yeah, but like physically 0:57:04.800 --> 0:57:08.520 I just took three steps yeah right, yeah, yeah. 0:57:09.200 --> 0:57:12.160 Or like if you think of the rights the migrants 0:57:12.200 --> 0:57:14.560 and refugees have, right, like they can be in the 0:57:14.600 --> 0:57:17.520 same space as someone but have completely different rights. Think 0:57:17.520 --> 0:57:19.480 about how there were hindred people are in the camps 0:57:19.480 --> 0:57:23.480 in Bangladesh, for example, like a Bangladeshi person could come 0:57:23.520 --> 0:57:27.120 there that they would have very different experiences of the 0:57:27.160 --> 0:57:29.880 state in their rights, especially if they tried to walk. 0:57:29.640 --> 0:57:33.520 Out of there. Yeah together, Or like Palestinians living in 0:57:34.560 --> 0:57:37.320 certain areas and the Palestinians will need to be able 0:57:37.320 --> 0:57:40.520 to identify themselves at each checkpoint where they have to 0:57:40.560 --> 0:57:44.520 wait two hours and Israeli personal just walk through it 0:57:44.520 --> 0:57:48.040 and wave through the guards. Yeah, they're the exception, so 0:57:48.080 --> 0:57:49.560 they can be treated differently. 0:57:50.200 --> 0:57:54.120 Yeah, you literally have roads that they can't go on, right, Like, Yeah, 0:57:54.120 --> 0:57:57.120 a Palestinian and Israeli person is a good example. Right, 0:57:57.120 --> 0:57:59.920 they could be holding hands walking together an entry checkpoint. 0:58:00.960 --> 0:58:03.480 From the moment they entered to the moment they left. 0:58:03.480 --> 0:58:08.160 They would have completely diverting experiences and the whole different 0:58:08.240 --> 0:58:12.160 set of like legal rights and legal protections. 0:58:12.640 --> 0:58:15.120 Yeah. Another example that I wrote down here was like 0:58:15.320 --> 0:58:19.200 the pandemics and the lockdowns, because I know, at least 0:58:19.200 --> 0:58:21.240 in the Netherlands one we had lockdowns. It was very 0:58:21.360 --> 0:58:25.200 unclear as to if it was constitutionally even allowed to 0:58:25.240 --> 0:58:28.640 do that and if the crisis was severe enough to 0:58:28.880 --> 0:58:33.480 justify those measures on a legal level. Right, Yeah, that's 0:58:33.520 --> 0:58:37.000 also a discussion here. Yes, Well, I'm not an expert 0:58:37.040 --> 0:58:39.560 on the US, so I can only use my own example. 0:58:39.640 --> 0:58:42.640 Year At this point, this is where all the critiques 0:58:42.680 --> 0:58:45.320 sort of start to blend together, and this is where 0:58:45.360 --> 0:58:47.680 I hope like it's going to make the most sense. 0:58:48.280 --> 0:58:51.840 As Simon Vale already said, like rights are conditional and 0:58:51.960 --> 0:58:56.360 require power to uphold them for you as a subject. 0:58:57.000 --> 0:59:00.280 What we run into now is this distinction between being 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:04.200 human as a biological unit or as a political one, 0:59:04.680 --> 0:59:08.400 because the latter has access to rights the former doesn't, 0:59:08.560 --> 0:59:12.760 and as a consequence, that person becomes this homosaser in 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:16.560 a sense, outside of society and the protections that that offers. 0:59:17.120 --> 0:59:19.920 You get all the downsides of being a subject, but 0:59:19.960 --> 0:59:23.560 none of the benefits, like the social contract sort of 0:59:23.680 --> 0:59:28.400 becomes revoked. The tricky part is that our can also 0:59:28.440 --> 0:59:33.240 treat you differently based on like biological categories or political categories, 0:59:33.800 --> 0:59:36.360 like prison labor is a very good example of this. 0:59:37.200 --> 0:59:41.520 Under the thirteenth Amendment, slave labor was made illegal except 0:59:42.120 --> 0:59:45.160 as a punishment. So as soon as power can give 0:59:45.200 --> 0:59:49.360 you a punishment, some of your rights just dissipate. Yeah, 0:59:49.680 --> 0:59:52.400 Like another one is healthcare. Like if you're a this 0:59:52.520 --> 0:59:57.280 woman experiencing like a menopausal issues, it's relatively easy to 0:59:57.320 --> 1:00:00.560 get like hormone treatments, but if you're at and ruin, 1:00:01.480 --> 1:00:05.520 it suddenly becomes incredibly difficult or downright illegal to get 1:00:05.560 --> 1:00:09.760 those very same hormones. And that's also like this categorization 1:00:10.080 --> 1:00:16.120 in order to treat someone differently. So what I think 1:00:16.120 --> 1:00:19.160 I'm trying to say is that our can also navigate 1:00:19.200 --> 1:00:21.520 in such a way that even if you are part 1:00:21.600 --> 1:00:24.680 of a political community, it can negate the rights and 1:00:24.680 --> 1:00:28.520 the human rights that should come with it by categorizing 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:32.800 you differently. Like this is a gumbance, like massive critique, 1:00:33.240 --> 1:00:37.120 because rather than you getting human rights and getting them 1:00:37.160 --> 1:00:41.200 respected by power, it makes you dependent on power to 1:00:41.640 --> 1:00:45.760 recognize and honor it. Yeah, in a way, human rights 1:00:46.040 --> 1:00:51.080 become a liability instead of a protection because power, the sovereign, 1:00:51.200 --> 1:00:54.600 the state can still decide whether or not to recognize 1:00:54.640 --> 1:01:09.680 you as like biological or political. So one of the 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:14.240 most tangible and powerful examples of this not being recognized 1:01:14.680 --> 1:01:19.080 comes from our good friend James President Gregory Woogie Bush 1:01:19.160 --> 1:01:23.760 and his seaside resort in Guntanamo Bay. I think I 1:01:23.760 --> 1:01:27.680 had that too correct. Under international law, you're still entitled 1:01:27.680 --> 1:01:30.320 to have certain human rights when you are detained as 1:01:30.320 --> 1:01:32.680 a prisoner of war. Yeah, I'll be citing a little 1:01:32.680 --> 1:01:35.680 bit from the third Geneva Convention in which this was 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:40.400 like ratified. The status of POW's only applies in international 1:01:40.560 --> 1:01:45.200 armed conflict. POWs are usually members of armed forces or 1:01:45.240 --> 1:01:47.880 of one of the parties to a conflict who fall 1:01:47.920 --> 1:01:50.520 into the hands of the opposing party. The Third Geneva 1:01:50.560 --> 1:01:53.600 Convention also classifies other categories of people who have the 1:01:53.680 --> 1:01:59.000 right to POW status or maybe treated as such. POW's 1:01:59.120 --> 1:02:03.560 must be treated humanly in all circumstances. They are protected 1:02:03.680 --> 1:02:08.560 against any act of violence, as well as against intimidation, insults, 1:02:08.560 --> 1:02:13.200 and public curiosity. The International Humanitarian Law also defines the 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:20.320 minimum acceptable conditions of the tension, covering such issues as accommodation, food, clothing, hygiene, 1:02:20.400 --> 1:02:23.360 and medical care. So you know where this is going. Yeah, 1:02:23.520 --> 1:02:28.400 because Greg water Walker Bush circumvented this all by proclaiming 1:02:28.440 --> 1:02:31.880 that certain people were not prisoners of war but rather 1:02:32.280 --> 1:02:36.400 enemy combatants and as such not subject to the protections 1:02:36.440 --> 1:02:39.800 of the Geneva Convention. It's a beaten switch that is 1:02:39.840 --> 1:02:44.200 as smart as it is like diabolical, because the power 1:02:44.240 --> 1:02:48.800 simply switches around the political community that applies to you, 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:52.040 and suddenly they can do whatever they want to you 1:02:52.240 --> 1:02:54.439 because you're just the biological unit. 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:55.080 Yeah. 1:02:55.120 --> 1:02:57.520 Like it's a linguistic switcheru. Yeah. 1:02:57.720 --> 1:03:01.480 And it shows how our rights are perceived in us. 1:03:01.600 --> 1:03:04.520 Lord come from the state as a guarantor of them. Right, Like, 1:03:04.760 --> 1:03:08.240 because these people were quote unquote terrorists and they weren't 1:03:08.240 --> 1:03:12.120 fighting on behalf of a state. Therefore obligations to them 1:03:12.200 --> 1:03:16.800 and to the state that we're at war with don't exist, 1:03:18.080 --> 1:03:21.240 and like so they therefore they don't have rights because 1:03:21.240 --> 1:03:24.680 there is not a state to say, hey, you're violating them, 1:03:24.720 --> 1:03:29.120 even though many many Americans, including in many many court cases, 1:03:29.200 --> 1:03:31.960 said hey, you're violating their rights, and even when they 1:03:32.000 --> 1:03:34.400 were citizens of other countries like British people were in 1:03:34.400 --> 1:03:35.200 Guantanamo Bay. 1:03:35.280 --> 1:03:38.120 Yeah, from all over the world. Yeah. Also, I think 1:03:38.120 --> 1:03:40.920 that there never has been a single conviction because of 1:03:41.160 --> 1:03:44.040 whatever the fuck happened in Guantanamo Bay. Yeah, they have 1:03:44.080 --> 1:03:45.160 their own special court. 1:03:45.200 --> 1:03:47.920 I don't know if they've convicted people there, but they 1:03:47.920 --> 1:03:49.200 definitely have a court there. 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:50.000 Yeah. 1:03:50.200 --> 1:03:52.920 I didn't know about the convictions, but I remember teaching 1:03:52.960 --> 1:03:56.720 a sociology course and getting into Guantanamo Bay quite a lot, 1:03:56.720 --> 1:03:59.320 but that was some time ago. I've had students who 1:03:59.360 --> 1:04:02.640 were who served at Guantanamo O Mai fuck, And I 1:04:02.680 --> 1:04:05.640 think it's fair to say that like that, the psychological 1:04:05.720 --> 1:04:08.600 damage that does to everybody involved should not be underestimated. 1:04:08.640 --> 1:04:10.480 Like it's It goes back to your idea of like 1:04:11.480 --> 1:04:16.360 we have an inherent gut feeling of right and wrong, 1:04:16.840 --> 1:04:20.920 and participating in something that you know to be wrong 1:04:21.440 --> 1:04:22.439 isn't good for you. 1:04:22.800 --> 1:04:23.080 It's not. 1:04:23.200 --> 1:04:26.400 It's not the same as being tortured and waterboarded, but 1:04:26.720 --> 1:04:28.919 knowing that you are in a place. To be clear, 1:04:28.960 --> 1:04:31.120 I don't know anyone who has participated in any of 1:04:31.200 --> 1:04:35.480 that like enhanced interrogation bullshit, But just being a fucking 1:04:35.560 --> 1:04:39.120 cook in a place where that happens is still damaging, 1:04:39.200 --> 1:04:41.800 I'm sure to you and your sense of being a 1:04:41.840 --> 1:04:44.520 person who believes in their obligation to others. 1:04:44.760 --> 1:04:48.040 Yeah, like I would not. I would not trust anyone 1:04:48.080 --> 1:04:51.720 who wouldn't be affected by that. Yeah, yeah, exactly like that. 1:04:51.720 --> 1:04:54.360 That person that the Burston was not affected by that 1:04:54.520 --> 1:04:57.880 is like either a psychopath or like that inside. Yeah, 1:04:57.920 --> 1:05:00.960 I'm not going to be nuanced about that. But this 1:05:01.040 --> 1:05:03.960 is like the core of like the entire critique against 1:05:04.040 --> 1:05:07.800 human rights, because it is simply the state decides that 1:05:07.840 --> 1:05:10.840 you look part of a political community or just cuts 1:05:10.880 --> 1:05:13.720 you off from it, and suddenly we can play like 1:05:13.840 --> 1:05:17.720 Hotel California at twenty four to seven and drive you insane. Yeah, 1:05:17.880 --> 1:05:21.040 or a lack of sleep, too old or too cold. 1:05:21.400 --> 1:05:23.960 It's so weird to have something that we are taught 1:05:24.040 --> 1:05:29.120 is like unalienable. It's actually just like the premium option, 1:05:29.440 --> 1:05:32.000 but you can't buy it, Like there is a power 1:05:32.040 --> 1:05:33.680 that has to say, oh no, this person has the 1:05:33.680 --> 1:05:38.000 premium package and you get to have human rights, like 1:05:38.040 --> 1:05:40.720 it is this right to have rights. As Aaron said, 1:05:40.840 --> 1:05:44.560 that makes it really weird because you're still dependent and 1:05:44.760 --> 1:05:48.520 unless recognized, you're still just just an animal existing out there. 1:05:48.640 --> 1:05:51.480 It's yeah, so, and this is why I thought it 1:05:51.520 --> 1:05:55.120 would be a good idea to have this discussion, because 1:05:55.760 --> 1:05:57.480 I think we can look at every pretty much any 1:05:57.480 --> 1:05:59.720 continent at the moment and see things they're like, oh, 1:06:00.200 --> 1:06:02.200 you can see this pattern everywhere. 1:06:02.560 --> 1:06:05.200 Yeah, it's very relevant to the United States right now, 1:06:05.280 --> 1:06:08.040 right because like we've got you know, Lakey Department of 1:06:08.040 --> 1:06:10.080 Home Land Security going out there and doing stuff which 1:06:10.120 --> 1:06:13.320 is violative of people's rights, both in US and international 1:06:13.360 --> 1:06:16.520 law terms, and like there's been a response right by 1:06:16.560 --> 1:06:18.560 certain groups people, And I understand, right, if you have 1:06:18.800 --> 1:06:21.360 spent your whole life seeing like rights as guaranteed by 1:06:21.360 --> 1:06:23.840 the state, and the state is of anevolent actor, then 1:06:24.000 --> 1:06:26.120 it's hard to make that mind switch. I do understand that, 1:06:26.320 --> 1:06:29.400 but like it actually doesn't matter, and this is very 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:31.640 hard for some people to gra judging by my replies 1:06:31.640 --> 1:06:36.720 on bskuy dot app, Yeah that's actually illegal. It doesn't matter, right, 1:06:36.800 --> 1:06:38.800 Like people just being like, oh, they can't do that 1:06:38.880 --> 1:06:42.040 while they're doing it. It doesn't matter that they're violating 1:06:42.120 --> 1:06:44.160 like half the Bill of Rights in a two minute period. 1:06:44.720 --> 1:06:48.240 They're still doing it. There is no accountability because the 1:06:48.240 --> 1:06:52.040 state doesn't hold itself accountable. So like when we need 1:06:52.120 --> 1:06:55.920 to think of a framework where like our assumptions can 1:06:55.960 --> 1:06:58.919 line up with reality, you come back to obligations because 1:06:58.960 --> 1:07:02.240 look at what Yeah, what do you think is right 1:07:02.280 --> 1:07:06.320 and wrong to happen to people. Yeah, we'd meet that 1:07:06.360 --> 1:07:09.040 a lot with outdoor attention actually, like when we were 1:07:09.320 --> 1:07:11.960 feeding people, Like you'd be like, hey, just trying to 1:07:11.960 --> 1:07:13.840 get help from folks, you know, they trying to be like, hey, 1:07:13.880 --> 1:07:17.080 you know, we're trying to feed these folks and help 1:07:17.160 --> 1:07:19.480 us out, give us whatever. Like people will be asking 1:07:19.520 --> 1:07:22.680 friends and their community and then folks will be like, 1:07:22.720 --> 1:07:24.400 well they can't do that, they have the right. 1:07:24.320 --> 1:07:25.760 To blah blah blah blah blah. 1:07:25.960 --> 1:07:28.160 You'd be like, oh, do you want to come tell them? Like, 1:07:28.800 --> 1:07:31.880 we'll see how it goes, I guess, but like they 1:07:31.920 --> 1:07:35.000 are doing it, and we have an obligation to take 1:07:35.040 --> 1:07:36.760 care of them. And like, I think people have become 1:07:36.840 --> 1:07:41.800 very comfortable outsourcing their obligation to the state without realizing 1:07:41.800 --> 1:07:45.760 that they therefore they no longer get to decide who 1:07:45.840 --> 1:07:47.240 gets right to when when you do that. 1:07:48.240 --> 1:07:51.920 Yeah, I think it's important to highlight like this, this 1:07:52.000 --> 1:07:55.360 little switcher room. If you think of like the Palestine protests, 1:07:55.920 --> 1:07:59.880 like they can't outright band protests because then you're you're 1:08:00.480 --> 1:08:04.520 very much violating the constitution, right, Yeah, but if you say, like, oh, no, 1:08:04.640 --> 1:08:06.680 but this is not because they're protesting, this is because 1:08:06.680 --> 1:08:10.720 it's anti Semitic and we need to protect these other people. Yeah, 1:08:10.920 --> 1:08:12.960 Like the acts that are happening on the ground have 1:08:13.080 --> 1:08:15.760 not really changed, but the way you can approach this 1:08:15.880 --> 1:08:18.479 from a legal and a political level become a whole 1:08:18.479 --> 1:08:21.640 different ballgame. And I think that that doesn't pertain to 1:08:21.720 --> 1:08:25.519 human rights as much as like the example you mentioned, 1:08:25.520 --> 1:08:30.040 but it is again this dait and switch that keeps happening. Yeah, 1:08:30.080 --> 1:08:33.360 And I'm sure everyone listening can think of times or 1:08:33.520 --> 1:08:39.160 examples of that, and it is not great. Yeah, it's 1:08:39.160 --> 1:08:53.680 not great. Yeah, that is all I have. Unfortunately, I 1:08:53.720 --> 1:08:56.559 don't have any advice or anything or how to deal 1:08:56.640 --> 1:09:00.880 with this for you as the listener. Yeah, it doesn't 1:09:00.920 --> 1:09:03.800 help to tell if the cop they're violating your human rights, 1:09:03.800 --> 1:09:05.439 they won't listen. Yeah. 1:09:05.439 --> 1:09:07.719 I think it could be easy for people to assume 1:09:07.760 --> 1:09:10.920 that this is a hopeless thing, right like that, like 1:09:11.000 --> 1:09:14.200 because the rights only matter when the state decides they 1:09:14.200 --> 1:09:17.720 matter that therefore they didn't matter. But it can also 1:09:17.800 --> 1:09:20.640 be a hopeful thing because like maybe if we look 1:09:20.680 --> 1:09:22.200 at the example I wrote back to my book, right 1:09:22.240 --> 1:09:25.600 of the CBS when they were in Shengal and they 1:09:25.680 --> 1:09:28.040 were on their mountain right and the Islamic state I 1:09:28.080 --> 1:09:29.760 think it was Isis at that time, not sure if 1:09:29.760 --> 1:09:33.120 it had declared itself the Islamic State, yet was surrounding 1:09:33.120 --> 1:09:35.200 them and like very much coming to violate every single 1:09:35.200 --> 1:09:37.400 concept of rights and decency that one can imagine for 1:09:37.439 --> 1:09:41.680 a human being. Right and our Remember I'm interviewing a 1:09:41.760 --> 1:09:46.799 Yepe Gay commander about this in Rajaba and him saying, 1:09:47.240 --> 1:09:50.479 obviously I'm translating care An a direct quotation, but we 1:09:50.479 --> 1:09:52.439 were very disappointed in the states of the world at 1:09:52.439 --> 1:09:55.320 that moment, and so we decided to go ourselves. And 1:09:55.439 --> 1:09:58.719 like it was a very small number, right, different accounts 1:09:58.720 --> 1:10:02.719 have had different numbers. I think entirely Kurdish. We can 1:10:03.240 --> 1:10:05.240 we can debate of if a Zd people are Kurdish 1:10:05.360 --> 1:10:06.880 or not, but like, it's not the place for that 1:10:06.960 --> 1:10:12.200 isn't no people from the YPG who went to the 1:10:12.280 --> 1:10:16.880 mountain and eventually built corridor with their blood, with their bodies, 1:10:17.280 --> 1:10:22.120 right to allow those people to come to Java. Now 1:10:22.120 --> 1:10:24.519 I'm fortunately those people. It's a very good example. Now 1:10:24.560 --> 1:10:26.920 I think about actually, right, so those people acted as 1:10:26.960 --> 1:10:31.400 guarantors of someone else it's rights by fulfilling their obligation. Now, 1:10:31.439 --> 1:10:34.040 if we look at where the Azd people are in 1:10:34.120 --> 1:10:36.439 some part not everything called a Zed person, but many 1:10:36.560 --> 1:10:38.799 Zed people are still in refugee camps in Iraq. 1:10:38.920 --> 1:10:40.479 Right, the conditions that they are in. 1:10:41.000 --> 1:10:42.800 We hear a lot about how bad conditions are for 1:10:43.080 --> 1:10:45.680 people in the Islamic state prisons or were. We do 1:10:45.760 --> 1:10:47.680 not hear as much about how bad conditions are for 1:10:47.720 --> 1:10:50.600 the Azdi people. But they are bad, right, they have 1:10:50.680 --> 1:10:52.960 a right to a much better life. The states of 1:10:53.000 --> 1:10:55.800 the world are not fulfilling that right, they are not 1:10:56.200 --> 1:10:59.360 fulfilling their obligation to these people who did nothing other 1:10:59.400 --> 1:11:01.479 than live the way they've lived for thousands of years. 1:11:01.520 --> 1:11:04.880 And because that way was considered to be heretical by 1:11:04.880 --> 1:11:07.280 the Islamic state, they were targeted for genocide right, and 1:11:08.040 --> 1:11:10.519 would have been killed in much greater numbers were it 1:11:10.640 --> 1:11:12.640 not for those people who were willing to fulfill their 1:11:12.640 --> 1:11:15.519 obligation to go and defend them. And then the states 1:11:15.520 --> 1:11:17.559 of the world have let them down again, and so 1:11:17.760 --> 1:11:20.599 you know, tried to try to find a future for themselves. 1:11:20.680 --> 1:11:24.160 So like it's, uh, we're very good at that. Yeah, yeah, 1:11:24.240 --> 1:11:26.040 this is the thing that we do. I may have 1:11:26.080 --> 1:11:29.400 a hopeful example. Us I told you, James, that I 1:11:29.439 --> 1:11:33.479 had a random person living in my house. Yeah, and well, 1:11:33.520 --> 1:11:36.360 for you the listeners, like through the community, it became 1:11:36.360 --> 1:11:39.160 nonlust that there was someone who had fled an unsafe 1:11:39.760 --> 1:11:44.800 home situation legal adults. But I'm not entirely sure how 1:11:44.840 --> 1:11:49.360 much it should say, but it sounded very serious and 1:11:49.439 --> 1:11:52.920 we took it very seriously. And I had a spare 1:11:53.000 --> 1:11:55.799 room at that time. I did not know this person. 1:11:56.080 --> 1:11:58.040 I only have a first name. I never learned a 1:11:58.040 --> 1:12:01.880 second name. Or anything, never asked for idea. I thought 1:12:01.880 --> 1:12:04.400 to myself, Like, the world I want to live in 1:12:04.520 --> 1:12:10.639 is one where someone can feel safe in situations like that. Yeah, 1:12:11.160 --> 1:12:15.080 So despite me being a pretty introverted person, like I 1:12:15.120 --> 1:12:18.280 was like, Okay, come live here, because you need someplace 1:12:18.320 --> 1:12:20.040 to get back on your feet. You need somewhere to 1:12:20.080 --> 1:12:22.519 be safe. And that is a way which you can 1:12:22.640 --> 1:12:26.640 like uphold your obligations to other people also with like 1:12:27.439 --> 1:12:32.160 the safety security without persistent fear, a roof over their heads, 1:12:32.680 --> 1:12:36.000 even just a place to cool down a bit and 1:12:36.720 --> 1:12:40.080 figure things out. And it would wreck my own political 1:12:40.080 --> 1:12:42.719 convictions to be able to help in such a situation 1:12:42.800 --> 1:12:45.439 and not do it because I find it a little 1:12:45.520 --> 1:12:49.280 uncomfortable to have a stranger living in my house. Also, 1:12:49.280 --> 1:12:53.360 for the record, nothing was stolen, nothing weird or bad happened. 1:12:53.640 --> 1:12:57.400 This person just lived here for a week and moved on. Yeah, 1:12:57.439 --> 1:12:58.960 but that is a way in which like you can 1:12:59.040 --> 1:13:01.760 also in an a small way, like fulfill your your 1:13:01.800 --> 1:13:06.680 obligation to other people and to live in accordance with 1:13:06.800 --> 1:13:11.360 like your own convictions and your own moral an ideological compus. Yeah, 1:13:11.400 --> 1:13:13.240 I think that's a great example of how you can 1:13:14.240 --> 1:13:17.280 act according to your obligation, right, get it, And we 1:13:17.280 --> 1:13:20.200 can all do that in different ways, right, different senses, 1:13:20.320 --> 1:13:22.920 And like that's one thing. Like I liked what you 1:13:22.960 --> 1:13:26.800 said a lot that if the world you want to 1:13:26.880 --> 1:13:29.160 live in is one where that person can feel safe, 1:13:29.600 --> 1:13:32.400 and like we only do that by building it ourselves. 1:13:33.000 --> 1:13:37.080 My perception of politics is that, like we are wasting 1:13:37.120 --> 1:13:39.639 our time asking the state to build that world for us, 1:13:40.040 --> 1:13:42.040 and instead we can build it like peace by piece 1:13:42.280 --> 1:13:46.240 along the way. And I know people like perceive anarchism 1:13:46.280 --> 1:13:48.719 to be like a chaotic and violent, but like most 1:13:48.720 --> 1:13:51.080 of the time when you're doing anarchism, you're making someone 1:13:51.200 --> 1:13:56.200 food or giving someone a blanket, like very really nice, 1:13:56.240 --> 1:13:58.519 pleasant things to be doing. And like it makes me 1:13:58.600 --> 1:14:01.439 feel better that we can make a world where that 1:14:01.600 --> 1:14:06.320 happened through our individual actions. Yeah, very nice. David Graeber 1:14:06.920 --> 1:14:10.360 a metaphor the air for the digging a well. So 1:14:11.000 --> 1:14:13.680 like Mia likes to say, like put a transgirl on 1:14:13.720 --> 1:14:18.759 your couch, Yeah, that's also protecting you in rights. Yes, yeah, yeah, 1:14:18.800 --> 1:14:21.880 I'm sorry, I just thought of it, but yeah, put 1:14:21.920 --> 1:14:23.840 someone on your couch who is in dire need of 1:14:23.880 --> 1:14:27.639 a safe place. Yeah, but be also safe yourself. Clearly. 1:14:28.439 --> 1:14:31.160 I think that's all we have. James. This was depressing 1:14:31.160 --> 1:14:33.559 and then uplifting enough. Yeah, that's what we do here. 1:14:33.760 --> 1:14:36.400 I don't care. Yeah, well, take care of everyone, and 1:14:36.680 --> 1:14:37.679 until next time. 1:14:51.200 --> 1:14:54.719 Welcome back to it could happen here, a podcast about 1:14:54.800 --> 1:14:59.439 it continuing to happen here. I'm Robert Evans, and today 1:14:59.760 --> 1:15:02.599 I've I got a friend of the pod, Laura Jadid 1:15:02.840 --> 1:15:05.720 in the studio, well not literally in the studio, you 1:15:05.760 --> 1:15:08.920 know how things work with the internet, folks. And last 1:15:08.960 --> 1:15:12.519 weekend Laura traveled to the Great American State Fair in 1:15:12.520 --> 1:15:17.080 our nation's beautiful capital of Washington, DC, where she witnessed 1:15:17.120 --> 1:15:20.360 a lovely celebration of America's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 1:15:20.360 --> 1:15:22.519 with no inclement weather whatsoever? Is that right, Laura? 1:15:23.040 --> 1:15:25.519 No, it was charming and beautiful and very professionally done 1:15:25.520 --> 1:15:26.719 and everyone had a lovely time. 1:15:27.560 --> 1:15:30.880 Awesome stuff, Laura, Yeah, let's start. Was this just kind 1:15:30.880 --> 1:15:32.559 of as soon as he said he was doing this, 1:15:32.640 --> 1:15:34.040 you were like, well, I have to be there. This 1:15:34.160 --> 1:15:36.639 is just simply not an option for me to miss. 1:15:37.080 --> 1:15:39.240 I mean, I definitely wanted to go. I actually was 1:15:39.280 --> 1:15:40.640 in town for a different I was there for a 1:15:41.360 --> 1:15:45.200 religious extremist conference, which is a whole different. We we ended early, 1:15:45.240 --> 1:15:47.519 and I was like, you know, I've got several hours 1:15:47.520 --> 1:15:50.080 before I need to return home. Why didn't I go 1:15:50.160 --> 1:15:51.680 have a nice time an affair. I've been to a 1:15:51.800 --> 1:15:52.360 fair in a while. 1:15:52.520 --> 1:15:54.720 To go to a fair, Yeah, So, how was it? 1:15:55.040 --> 1:15:57.040 Walk us through, like step by step kind of your 1:15:57.080 --> 1:16:00.720 experiences at this wonderful event celebrating two hundred fifty years 1:16:00.840 --> 1:16:02.040 as technically a country. 1:16:02.920 --> 1:16:05.679 Yes, well, I would say the highlight, other than the weather, 1:16:05.680 --> 1:16:07.920 which we'll get into, was going into there. There's these 1:16:07.960 --> 1:16:11.680 little rooms where they've got booths for states and territories 1:16:11.760 --> 1:16:15.160 and departments of the government and random sponsors. And my 1:16:15.280 --> 1:16:17.920 favorite booth I think was probably the Department of Justice 1:16:17.960 --> 1:16:22.599 because it was completely empty. And by empty, I don't 1:16:22.600 --> 1:16:24.800 mean there wasn't anybody there. I mean that there was 1:16:24.840 --> 1:16:29.240 a card table, three folding chairs, a battered backdrop, and 1:16:29.560 --> 1:16:30.160 nothing else. 1:16:30.720 --> 1:16:30.960 Sure. 1:16:31.240 --> 1:16:34.680 Yeah, yeah, it was incredible. I'm perfect. It was so 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:35.439 heavy handed. 1:16:35.640 --> 1:16:36.160 That's great. 1:16:36.280 --> 1:16:38.360 You know, I know people who use subtext and they're 1:16:38.360 --> 1:16:40.920 all cowards, and there are no cowards in this administration. 1:16:41.240 --> 1:16:44.600 Yeah, your photos of that were really funny. So I 1:16:44.640 --> 1:16:47.200 guess the layout is like it almost sounds like a 1:16:47.320 --> 1:16:49.160 trade show or something. We've got like these booths for 1:16:49.200 --> 1:16:51.240 each of the states and bunch of government agencies and 1:16:51.320 --> 1:16:52.439 then like what all was going on? 1:16:52.840 --> 1:16:54.800 Yeah, it's like if a ren fare and a trade 1:16:54.840 --> 1:16:56.599 show had a baby, and the baby had the worst 1:16:56.640 --> 1:17:01.080 aspects of both. It was incredible, Like you enter it, 1:17:01.120 --> 1:17:03.040 and I will say this, so you know, people, you've 1:17:03.040 --> 1:17:05.439 probably seen pictures. Everyone's i think seen pictures of what 1:17:05.560 --> 1:17:07.760 this thing looks like. Yeah, and the fourth of July 1:17:07.920 --> 1:17:09.400 was different, and that there were a lot of people 1:17:09.439 --> 1:17:11.000 there because that's the day. People came from all over 1:17:11.040 --> 1:17:12.960 the country to celebrate the fourth July and d s 1:17:13.280 --> 1:17:16.000 so it was crowded, but everything else was somehow worse 1:17:16.520 --> 1:17:19.760 than it looked in the pictures, because like you know, 1:17:20.160 --> 1:17:22.160 you can see the pictures of like the timou Arch 1:17:22.200 --> 1:17:23.920 and you see how bad it looks, but there's nothing 1:17:24.120 --> 1:17:26.439 like walking towards it, and from a distance it's like, oh, 1:17:27.000 --> 1:17:29.000 that's an odd thing in the middle of a field, 1:17:29.040 --> 1:17:30.599 but it looks fine. And then the closer you get, 1:17:30.640 --> 1:17:32.479 the worse it looks. And it's just this this kind 1:17:32.520 --> 1:17:37.120 of slow dawning horror of this like uncanny Valley object. 1:17:37.720 --> 1:17:40.679 There are the two long buildings that were just going 1:17:40.800 --> 1:17:42.800 by either side basically for like the length of the 1:17:42.920 --> 1:17:46.280 Washington Mall, just little like tent slash trailer buildings with 1:17:46.400 --> 1:17:49.320 canvas staple to them. And the canvas had this illusion 1:17:49.360 --> 1:17:51.960 of columns and baba leafs and stuff like that. And 1:17:52.280 --> 1:17:55.320 we've seen, you know, that's in pictures. But yeah, walking 1:17:55.560 --> 1:17:58.759 down the mall and seeing that optical illusion not shift 1:17:58.840 --> 1:18:01.560 with your perspective is just it's like being in a 1:18:01.680 --> 1:18:04.080 really badly rendered video game but it's real and you're 1:18:04.120 --> 1:18:06.240 touching grass at the same time, and it's just the 1:18:06.360 --> 1:18:10.360 whole thing is so eerie and strange. Yeah. 1:18:10.880 --> 1:18:14.240 Yeah, So what can you tell me about like the audience, Like, 1:18:14.280 --> 1:18:16.479 what's the vibe like on the ground when you when 1:18:16.479 --> 1:18:17.960 you show up at least for the first portion of 1:18:18.000 --> 1:18:19.400 this before the weather starts to change. 1:18:19.800 --> 1:18:21.559 Yeah. So I've been to a lot of right wing 1:18:21.600 --> 1:18:23.160 events kind of what I do. I've been, you know, 1:18:23.240 --> 1:18:24.680 I go to a lot of these, and this was 1:18:24.800 --> 1:18:28.080 less Maga forward. I'm not saying there were no Trump 1:18:28.120 --> 1:18:30.160 hats or Trump shirts, but they were. It was mostly 1:18:30.200 --> 1:18:33.439 just like America Hell yeah, but everybody there was was 1:18:33.560 --> 1:18:36.680 very clearly Republican. Everyone assumed everyone else was a Republican. 1:18:36.960 --> 1:18:40.120 The booth operators assumed everybody was a Republican, a pretty 1:18:40.160 --> 1:18:43.920 pretty fa safe assumption. It was maga light, I'd say, 1:18:44.240 --> 1:18:46.160 I mean, it was almost more horrifying in that way, 1:18:46.160 --> 1:18:47.800 because it felt like it was kind of realizing their 1:18:47.840 --> 1:18:50.640 fantasy of like all real Americans supporting Trump. You know, 1:18:50.720 --> 1:18:52.920 these were all the real Americans out here celebrating America. 1:18:52.960 --> 1:18:55.320 It was regular folks who think Trump's doing a great 1:18:55.400 --> 1:18:57.960 job and aren't at all disgusted by this fair So 1:18:58.080 --> 1:19:00.719 the vibes were kind of cheerfully brand I'd. 1:19:00.560 --> 1:19:04.360 Say, cheerfully rancid. Yeah, what a great term to describe 1:19:04.400 --> 1:19:07.360 the country as a whole. Right now, do you have 1:19:07.400 --> 1:19:09.920 any kind of like top fhaves, Like of the of 1:19:10.040 --> 1:19:12.040 the things you saw, like on the ground, they're like, 1:19:12.040 --> 1:19:13.280 what stuff really stuck out to you? 1:19:13.800 --> 1:19:14.000 Yeah. 1:19:14.600 --> 1:19:17.680 So, initially, before the weather went to hell and by 1:19:17.840 --> 1:19:19.920 focus changed, I decided, because you know, there's been a 1:19:19.960 --> 1:19:22.840 lot of articles about how absolutely got awful and dumb 1:19:22.880 --> 1:19:25.120 and silly the sarahs, I decided to do something a 1:19:25.120 --> 1:19:26.719 little different. I was going to go to every single 1:19:26.800 --> 1:19:29.960 state and territory booth and rank them, and the variety 1:19:30.040 --> 1:19:33.120 in the state and territory booths I found interesting. You know, 1:19:33.320 --> 1:19:36.400 you had Oregon. Actually I gave out some like fake 1:19:36.520 --> 1:19:38.479 awards when I wrote about this on my sub stack, 1:19:38.560 --> 1:19:40.960 and Oregon won the most fuck You award. It's close, 1:19:41.080 --> 1:19:43.200 but it was just this very small booth. Two of 1:19:43.240 --> 1:19:46.280 the walls blank white canvas, kind of plastic y, and 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:48.120 then there was just like a thing that said Oregon 1:19:48.200 --> 1:19:50.240 the beever state, and there was kind of a little 1:19:50.320 --> 1:19:52.559 banner of some of the things that are in Oregon, 1:19:52.680 --> 1:19:56.320 and a Columbia sports like bag just kind of clipped 1:19:56.360 --> 1:19:58.200 to it with like like just a you know, a 1:19:58.320 --> 1:20:00.840 kitchen clip. I was like, yeah, that that wins this. 1:20:01.240 --> 1:20:02.719 Yeah that Oregon. 1:20:02.800 --> 1:20:06.640 Baby. It was great. It was great. And then you 1:20:06.720 --> 1:20:09.560 had like Puerto Rico, which was clearly sponsored by the 1:20:09.640 --> 1:20:11.400 businesses that want people to go to Puerto Rico for 1:20:11.439 --> 1:20:13.000 the tax breaks. And it was very lush and there 1:20:13.040 --> 1:20:15.720 were big screens and it was populated entirely by hot 1:20:15.720 --> 1:20:17.680 Puerto Rican guys. You were teaching Middle America how to 1:20:17.720 --> 1:20:19.639 salsa and everyone enjoyed that very much. 1:20:19.760 --> 1:20:21.240 So, oh yeah, that sounds good. 1:20:21.400 --> 1:20:26.839 Yeah, Georgia's was completely about poultry. AI generated entirely pictures 1:20:26.840 --> 1:20:28.719 of poultry sponsored by Purdue Chicken. 1:20:29.080 --> 1:20:31.000 Uh huh. That's what I think of when I think 1:20:31.040 --> 1:20:31.599 of Georgia. 1:20:32.080 --> 1:20:35.599 Of course, poultry obviously, Yeah, the infamous Georgia poultries. Yes. 1:20:36.360 --> 1:20:38.639 And so it was like some states went all out. 1:20:38.760 --> 1:20:40.639 Some states kind of were like, you should visit our states. 1:20:40.680 --> 1:20:43.799 Some states were like, we sold this booth to a company, 1:20:44.360 --> 1:20:46.360 and then some states were like, this is a booth, 1:20:46.520 --> 1:20:47.160 we are here. 1:20:47.400 --> 1:20:51.120 Yeah, we're legally required, Yes, we have we. 1:20:51.160 --> 1:20:54.000 Have fulfilled our required to have an object at this fair. 1:20:54.320 --> 1:20:54.519 Yeah. 1:20:54.800 --> 1:20:57.440 And then there were these like little flashes of normalcy 1:20:57.560 --> 1:21:01.440 and this otherwise very abnormal event were almost more disconcerting 1:21:01.479 --> 1:21:03.160 because it was like a glimpse of what might have been. 1:21:03.320 --> 1:21:06.800 Like the DC Metro had a full scale subway car, 1:21:07.280 --> 1:21:10.280 like three subway cars linked up mock up railroad and 1:21:10.400 --> 1:21:12.400 you go inside it. It was like a museum of 1:21:13.040 --> 1:21:15.880 the history of the Metro and how it's helped DC 1:21:16.160 --> 1:21:18.559 and how it was built and fun facts about the Metro, 1:21:18.640 --> 1:21:20.600 and it's like kind of a boring exhibit, but it 1:21:20.760 --> 1:21:24.599 was an apolitical celebration of a real achievement. Oh yeah, 1:21:24.920 --> 1:21:27.519 yeah right, and so you know, naturally freedom two fifty 1:21:27.600 --> 1:21:29.640 hits that behind one of the long Low buildings, and 1:21:29.720 --> 1:21:32.320 also a twenty four to seven Christian Revival tent, just 1:21:32.400 --> 1:21:35.679 to be sure nobody accidentally stumbled on anything that wasn't 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:36.480 just weird. 1:21:36.240 --> 1:21:38.000 As hell, just to make sure there wasn't anything that 1:21:38.160 --> 1:21:41.800 like Americans broadly could enjoy exactly. 1:21:41.560 --> 1:21:44.000 We can't have that, like, yeah, it has to be here, 1:21:44.040 --> 1:21:45.160 but you don't have to put it out of the 1:21:45.160 --> 1:21:45.920 way to worry about it. 1:21:46.040 --> 1:21:48.040 Everything's gotta be culture war oriented. 1:21:48.240 --> 1:21:48.479 Yeah. 1:21:48.600 --> 1:21:51.519 Yeah, so that was kind of the most normal if 1:21:51.560 --> 1:21:53.719 I had to pick a most abnormal, and it's it's tough, 1:21:53.880 --> 1:21:55.800 it's it's a that's a that's a crowded field. 1:21:56.000 --> 1:21:56.200 Yeah. 1:21:56.320 --> 1:22:02.200 The Department of Education booth was completely yes, banners by 1:22:02.400 --> 1:22:03.800 far right organizations. 1:22:04.200 --> 1:22:06.240 Awesome, Great, I love see that. 1:22:06.520 --> 1:22:06.720 Yeah. 1:22:06.800 --> 1:22:10.679 So yeah, just purely the most like racist homeschooling, forward 1:22:10.840 --> 1:22:15.040 cut school funds, vouchers, yay, like, oh, teach kids, Vietnam 1:22:15.160 --> 1:22:18.479 didn't happen, gay people don't exist kind of bullshit. Great, 1:22:19.040 --> 1:22:19.920 what a turning point. 1:22:20.080 --> 1:22:22.400 Yeah, oh yeah, yeah very much. America is a Christian nation. 1:22:22.640 --> 1:22:25.960 Yeah yeah, So weirdly, I was. I was surprised TSA 1:22:26.040 --> 1:22:28.360 wasn't in there, one of the ones trigger You obviously, 1:22:28.560 --> 1:22:30.720 you know, the Premier University of America, Prager You was 1:22:30.760 --> 1:22:33.280 in there. Also a thing called Patriot Academy, which I 1:22:33.320 --> 1:22:35.000 wrote an article about them in twenty twenty two, not 1:22:35.080 --> 1:22:37.360 realizing they would be part of our education system at 1:22:37.400 --> 1:22:40.320 the time. But I went to their constitutional self defense 1:22:40.400 --> 1:22:43.120 course at the Whitnington Center in New Mexico, where we 1:22:43.240 --> 1:22:45.879 learned how to shoot handguns and also about the biblical 1:22:45.920 --> 1:22:47.240 origins of our constitution. 1:22:47.560 --> 1:22:48.519 So that's good. 1:22:48.760 --> 1:22:50.679 Yeah, it seems like a good thing to teach kids. 1:22:51.040 --> 1:22:53.439 It seems like a really good program to implement, maybe, 1:22:53.560 --> 1:22:54.879 you know, in our school systems. 1:22:55.760 --> 1:22:59.439 Yeah, I'm not optimistic about the fact that that's the 1:22:59.720 --> 1:23:01.439 depart of Educations booth. 1:23:02.520 --> 1:23:04.320 Yeah, but it's not Baltimore. 1:23:04.760 --> 1:23:07.960 Not great. Yeah, any other like weird kind of culture 1:23:08.000 --> 1:23:11.439 war signifiers at the booths that are particularly noteworthy. 1:23:11.880 --> 1:23:13.600 I mean, so this has been discussed elsewhere, but it 1:23:13.640 --> 1:23:16.720 curely can't be mentioned enough. It feels like very emblematic. 1:23:16.800 --> 1:23:18.640 If the time we're in there was like a I 1:23:18.720 --> 1:23:20.400 think it was the American I don't think it was 1:23:20.439 --> 1:23:22.960 the Innovator's Hall. It was America Made in America Hall. 1:23:23.000 --> 1:23:25.519 It was like a much larger building with a lot 1:23:25.640 --> 1:23:28.240 more exhibits, and right in the center of it, taking 1:23:28.360 --> 1:23:30.439 up the majority of the real estate, like the largest 1:23:30.479 --> 1:23:35.679 by far, just portraits after portrait, large oil paint portraits 1:23:35.720 --> 1:23:38.840 of the American flag, including a cross draped in the 1:23:38.840 --> 1:23:42.160 American flag, because because why not. And the artist whose 1:23:42.280 --> 1:23:45.439 name I guess is Scott Lebido. There's a quote by 1:23:45.560 --> 1:23:50.000 him above his beautiful works of exactly one subject which says, 1:23:50.080 --> 1:23:52.920 and I quote, I have flirted eye to eye with Mona, 1:23:53.000 --> 1:23:57.000 Lisa and Paris. I have touched the thick, painful brushstrokes 1:23:57.040 --> 1:23:59.960 of van Go and I gasped in awe at nickel 1:24:00.080 --> 1:24:04.519 angelo Sistine Chapel. Yes, still to this day, my favorite 1:24:04.560 --> 1:24:08.200 work of art is Dot Dot Dot, the star spangled banner. 1:24:08.240 --> 1:24:12.800 Oh my god. I'm on this guy's website right now. 1:24:13.360 --> 1:24:15.880 And the first thing on the Scott Lobido website to 1:24:16.040 --> 1:24:19.519 sign my petition to install a giant permanent flag at 1:24:19.600 --> 1:24:23.280 ground zero, New York City got one hundred and sixteen 1:24:23.320 --> 1:24:25.400 thousand signatures. Yeah that that really matters. 1:24:25.600 --> 1:24:27.320 Yeah, yeah, No, And if there's one thing the ground 1:24:27.400 --> 1:24:29.680 zero needs. It's more American flag in the nine to 1:24:29.680 --> 1:24:32.200 eleven Museum. It's not very American. You would never know 1:24:32.439 --> 1:24:34.360 going down there about patriotism at all. 1:24:34.880 --> 1:24:37.680 He also has a documentary about him that I think 1:24:37.800 --> 1:24:40.200 is just an ad streaming on Amazon Prime and Aple TV, 1:24:40.400 --> 1:24:42.240 called The Relentless Patriot. 1:24:44.320 --> 1:24:46.479 Oh god, relentless is a fair adjective. 1:24:46.640 --> 1:24:46.840 Yeah. 1:24:47.120 --> 1:24:49.679 I found the paintings very relentless personally. 1:24:49.840 --> 1:24:52.920 Yeah, his art is incredible stuff here, there's some very 1:24:53.120 --> 1:24:57.000 for over thirty years, America's artist Scott Lobido in America's 1:24:57.040 --> 1:24:59.880 artist Scot Lobido, every first letter in that is capitalized, 1:25:00.160 --> 1:25:04.880 has respectfully painted thousands of renditions of old glory on schools, homes, firehouses, 1:25:04.920 --> 1:25:08.679 police stations, cars, and canvases. Scott's past is rather colorful. Okay, 1:25:08.840 --> 1:25:11.960 so he's some sort of criminals. Yeah, amazing shit. I 1:25:12.040 --> 1:25:14.040 really want to know that is colorful life prior to 1:25:14.120 --> 1:25:14.559 this point. 1:25:15.560 --> 1:25:16.240 Oh my god. 1:25:16.640 --> 1:25:18.160 I like to imagine it with some kind of like 1:25:18.280 --> 1:25:20.040 petty staff and he's like, you know what would make 1:25:20.120 --> 1:25:22.760 me way more money? Yeah, it's just aging. 1:25:22.600 --> 1:25:26.439 Fucking crude American flag drawings with Donald Trump in them, 1:25:26.800 --> 1:25:28.880 or a fist in one of his works of home. 1:25:29.000 --> 1:25:31.439 Wow, like like a BLM fist or just a fist. 1:25:31.600 --> 1:25:33.680 No, it's like a fist in a flag and the 1:25:33.720 --> 1:25:36.519 fist is covered in like paint that's like flag colored. 1:25:37.840 --> 1:25:38.439 That makes sense. 1:25:38.920 --> 1:25:40.800 I'm on Facebook here, he's got a video of it. 1:25:40.880 --> 1:25:42.640 Let's wait for this fucking thing to start. But it 1:25:42.680 --> 1:25:45.760 looks like, yeah, he's unveiling a piece of art. I'm 1:25:45.760 --> 1:25:47.479 trying to click through the unveiling because I don't care 1:25:47.520 --> 1:25:48.920 what this fucker has to say. But it looks like 1:25:48.960 --> 1:25:51.599 it's just a middle finger. Yeah, it's just a middle finger. Wow. 1:25:51.760 --> 1:25:54.320 And I think that's a four fingered hand. I know 1:25:54.640 --> 1:25:56.439 there's a fifth. There's a fifth. It's just not a 1:25:56.600 --> 1:25:59.240 very well, it's not like a good like the proportions 1:25:59.280 --> 1:26:01.880 are really bad on this anyway. I'm sorry we're taking 1:26:01.920 --> 1:26:03.639 pitting way too much time on Scott Lebda. 1:26:05.840 --> 1:26:07.640 I mean, I will say, if America had to have 1:26:07.640 --> 1:26:09.920 an artist right now, a poorly drawn middle finger, you 1:26:09.960 --> 1:26:10.760 can do worst you can. 1:26:11.240 --> 1:26:14.599 Art's represent porcult middle finger. Yes, oh my god, speaking 1:26:14.640 --> 1:26:18.680 of poorly sculpted middle fingers, Maybe our advertisers sell that. 1:26:18.840 --> 1:26:32.080 I don't know, that's not my job and I'm bad 1:26:32.800 --> 1:26:35.880 with Laura. Let's continue. What next do you want to 1:26:35.880 --> 1:26:38.800 tell us about the Great American State? Also, it's not 1:26:38.920 --> 1:26:40.600 a state fair. It's like the Federal it's like the 1:26:40.720 --> 1:26:41.639 National Fair. 1:26:41.840 --> 1:26:44.240 So yeah, like the states were there, but kind of 1:26:44.320 --> 1:26:45.360 as stars. 1:26:45.680 --> 1:26:47.120 Yeah, so I don't know. 1:26:47.240 --> 1:26:49.600 I mean, the fair was just it was. It was 1:26:49.640 --> 1:26:52.719 pretty boring. There was the fairest wheel of the merry 1:26:52.760 --> 1:26:54.960 ground from the World Fair was probably the funnest thing there. 1:26:55.040 --> 1:26:56.600 That was from you know, a time when America did 1:26:56.720 --> 1:26:59.720 things well. But you know, it was just kind of 1:26:59.760 --> 1:27:02.200 a lot of what I've just said. That is, until 1:27:02.520 --> 1:27:05.680 the rain started, and I think that might be a 1:27:05.760 --> 1:27:09.160 decent place to go, because it seemed that despite this 1:27:09.479 --> 1:27:12.320 having been forecast for about a week, they had made 1:27:12.360 --> 1:27:14.760 no plans whatsoever. What would happen if it actually did 1:27:15.120 --> 1:27:15.800 rain at all? 1:27:16.120 --> 1:27:18.599 Sure if that sounds like the Trump administration, Yeah, yeah, 1:27:18.720 --> 1:27:19.920 God wouldn't let that happen. 1:27:20.160 --> 1:27:22.360 Oh God loves America. Why would he let it rain? 1:27:22.560 --> 1:27:25.920 Absolutely not. So at a certain point in the fair, 1:27:26.000 --> 1:27:28.639 my phone was dying. I had forgotten my charging brick 1:27:28.680 --> 1:27:30.680 at home, and I decided to charge it at the 1:27:30.720 --> 1:27:32.600 Department of Justice. Booths since no one was using it. 1:27:33.000 --> 1:27:34.559 So I stuck in there and I, you know, plugged 1:27:34.600 --> 1:27:36.400 in my pay for the Department of Justice. You know, 1:27:36.439 --> 1:27:38.439 our tax dollars, say for that, damn. 1:27:38.320 --> 1:27:40.400 My tax dollars. Yes, and no one you know, So 1:27:40.479 --> 1:27:42.760 I occupied the Department of Justice, plugged in my phone, 1:27:43.040 --> 1:27:45.680 and about five minutes after that, this announcement starts going 1:27:45.720 --> 1:27:47.640 out over the speakers on Loop for like, you know, 1:27:47.720 --> 1:27:49.320 at least an hour and a half, just you know, 1:27:49.800 --> 1:27:52.960 due to inclement weather, the fair has been quote temporarily postponed. 1:27:53.160 --> 1:27:54.920 Please make your way to the exits and then we'll 1:27:54.960 --> 1:27:57.280 let you back in when the storm blows over. And 1:27:57.720 --> 1:27:59.479 you know, I've waited an hour to get in light 1:27:59.560 --> 1:28:01.920 most people, and it was very hot, and they'd taken 1:28:01.960 --> 1:28:03.839 my nice pen away, and I was kind of salty 1:28:03.840 --> 1:28:05.360 about that. I didn't want to wait in line again, 1:28:05.360 --> 1:28:07.760 and I'm like, I have electricity here, I have my 1:28:07.880 --> 1:28:10.400 backup pen. They didn't find I have sour patch kids, 1:28:10.439 --> 1:28:12.519 and I'm just gonna hang out. So I did that 1:28:12.640 --> 1:28:14.519 for a while until the fair people found me and 1:28:14.640 --> 1:28:16.840 kicked me out. And then when I went outside, I 1:28:16.880 --> 1:28:18.720 found that I was not alone in this logic that 1:28:18.760 --> 1:28:20.559 a lot of fairgoers were like, well, just get wet 1:28:20.640 --> 1:28:23.160 here instead of getting wet out there, right because they 1:28:23.200 --> 1:28:24.840 were telling us, you know, we'll go shelter in your 1:28:24.920 --> 1:28:27.040 cars or in the surrounding buildings. And you know, we 1:28:27.160 --> 1:28:30.160 were encouraged not to bring cars because it's Washington, d C. 1:28:30.800 --> 1:28:32.400 And there were a lot of people and there's only 1:28:32.439 --> 1:28:35.120 so much parking, so people didn't have cars. And this 1:28:35.320 --> 1:28:38.880 is you know, seven pm on a Nationville holiday in 1:28:38.960 --> 1:28:41.400 the middle of DC, so that the buildings mostly weren't 1:28:41.400 --> 1:28:44.639 open either, so you know, rather than go be wet outside, 1:28:44.680 --> 1:28:47.400 people decided to be wet inside. And this went on 1:28:47.520 --> 1:28:49.720 for about an hour until the cops showed up and 1:28:49.920 --> 1:28:51.720 in a scene that I think would be recognizable to 1:28:51.760 --> 1:28:54.760 you as well, a line of cops just kind of 1:28:55.200 --> 1:28:58.240 trundling down the fare and motorcycles. The big difference between 1:28:58.280 --> 1:29:00.280 this and any other protest was at the cops were 1:29:00.400 --> 1:29:03.640 nice and not screaming or deploying tear gas and just 1:29:03.720 --> 1:29:07.759 kind of herded everyone out, you know, past the throngs 1:29:07.880 --> 1:29:11.559 of thousands already trying to get back in because there 1:29:11.640 --> 1:29:13.560 was nowhere else for people to go except for the 1:29:13.600 --> 1:29:16.200 block traffic for blocks and blocks and blocks, which is 1:29:16.240 --> 1:29:22.040 what they did in the rain. It was yeah, And 1:29:22.200 --> 1:29:24.000 so you've got a crowd of people who are both 1:29:24.120 --> 1:29:26.760 soaking wet and dehydrated, which is a great combination, and 1:29:27.240 --> 1:29:30.000 people start dropping as people are wont to do, and 1:29:30.200 --> 1:29:33.439 so ambulances are coming through the crowd constantly. And you 1:29:33.520 --> 1:29:35.439 know this line that we always hear about protests, how 1:29:35.479 --> 1:29:37.280 they're you know, they're blocking traffic and what if an 1:29:37.320 --> 1:29:40.280 emergency vehicle needed to come in. Well, that was very 1:29:40.360 --> 1:29:43.040 much in play, but for some reason that was okay 1:29:43.120 --> 1:29:45.560 in this case. They just put on their sirens and 1:29:45.600 --> 1:29:48.880 went two miles per hour and got through. For what 1:29:49.000 --> 1:29:50.600 I want to say, about an hour. This was just 1:29:50.680 --> 1:29:53.599 everyone standing around waiting to get back in, getting out 1:29:53.600 --> 1:29:55.320 of the way for ambulances, everyone getting more and more 1:29:55.360 --> 1:29:58.400 tightly packed until the crowd shreunded into little like freaky 1:29:58.520 --> 1:30:01.240 lurches and shoves. Was that, you know, it's like we're 1:30:01.280 --> 1:30:03.960 on the verge of stampede here because they've planned this 1:30:04.120 --> 1:30:06.559 so well that what else was going to happen. They 1:30:06.600 --> 1:30:08.800 weren't going to go home. It was temporarily postponed, so. 1:30:09.240 --> 1:30:12.479 Right, you want to come back, Yeah, they said, temporary. Yeah, 1:30:12.680 --> 1:30:14.439 terrible idea, right, yes, like. 1:30:15.080 --> 1:30:17.599 Don't go home, hang out here, wait outside the gates 1:30:17.640 --> 1:30:20.120 and get soaking wet, because this is safer than being 1:30:20.200 --> 1:30:22.240 inside the fare where you could like do things instead 1:30:22.240 --> 1:30:24.240 of just standing around and being angry. 1:30:24.640 --> 1:30:27.280 Yeah. It's both saying like, we want you to stay 1:30:27.479 --> 1:30:29.840 out where you will be in danger, but also we 1:30:29.880 --> 1:30:31.599 want to put you into a situation where a lot 1:30:31.640 --> 1:30:32.960 of you have to move at once. 1:30:33.600 --> 1:30:37.360 Yes, yes, and it'll be upset and the security will 1:30:37.360 --> 1:30:38.160 be overwhelmed. 1:30:38.560 --> 1:30:38.760 Yeah. 1:30:39.120 --> 1:30:41.719 Yeah, it was. It was brilliant, really really brilliant stuff. 1:30:41.920 --> 1:30:44.479 And you know, the storm continued to get worse. It 1:30:44.520 --> 1:30:47.160 did not improve. It just got more and more rainy, 1:30:47.640 --> 1:30:50.000 and people were more and more determined to stay. I 1:30:50.000 --> 1:30:51.639 mean there was a little bit of attrition, but mostly 1:30:51.880 --> 1:30:54.240 you know, and I fell into a group that was 1:30:54.439 --> 1:30:56.600 more determined than most. They were, you know, following the 1:30:56.640 --> 1:30:58.880 ambulances in because the ambulances were making space. It was 1:30:58.880 --> 1:31:01.160 a good way to move up to completely antisocial in 1:31:01.200 --> 1:31:04.240 this way. Eventually, this group got far enough down the 1:31:04.240 --> 1:31:05.880 street that it seemed like we were going to make 1:31:05.880 --> 1:31:07.680 it in, and we kept moving a little bit and 1:31:08.080 --> 1:31:10.200 there was the chants of USA. I believe God Bless 1:31:10.280 --> 1:31:14.040 America was sung at one point, but the progress slowed 1:31:14.680 --> 1:31:17.639 and then it stopped, and then music began to play 1:31:17.760 --> 1:31:21.040 just beyond us inside the fence, and the crowd became 1:31:21.080 --> 1:31:24.479 a bit more agitated, and God Blessed the USA started playing, 1:31:24.520 --> 1:31:26.519 and that was a huge catastrophe because you know, that 1:31:26.640 --> 1:31:28.640 means the speech is about to start, and we were 1:31:28.680 --> 1:31:31.240 going to miss Trump speaking, which was a problem. And 1:31:31.360 --> 1:31:34.120 then Trump started speaking, and this was the moment that 1:31:34.200 --> 1:31:36.800 I think that the crowd just completely broke their will 1:31:36.960 --> 1:31:41.040 and spirits broke because the reverberation from the poorly placed 1:31:41.080 --> 1:31:43.479 speakers were such that you could not understand him. It 1:31:43.600 --> 1:31:45.560 was kind of a nightmare world for me in a 1:31:45.600 --> 1:31:48.400 different way because you could hear Trump's cadence and voice, 1:31:48.800 --> 1:31:50.840 but not his words. It was just this like psychotic 1:31:51.000 --> 1:31:54.160 babble of nothing just watching over us. 1:31:54.800 --> 1:31:58.360 Yeah, reading transcripts of it, even, it was just like, honestly, 1:31:58.439 --> 1:32:01.120 it's like it's like asmrs yeah, right, Like it's just 1:32:01.240 --> 1:32:04.280 he's He's creating at this point, like a soundscape for 1:32:04.400 --> 1:32:06.519 them to kind of exist inside for a little while. 1:32:07.120 --> 1:32:09.040 Yeah. Yeah. And then amplified by the fact that it 1:32:09.120 --> 1:32:11.080 was coming at us, you know, from several directions out 1:32:11.120 --> 1:32:15.000 of sync, so truly incomprehensible. Just this weird, trumpy and 1:32:15.040 --> 1:32:18.360 gibberish watching over this crowd, and the boo that erupted 1:32:18.400 --> 1:32:20.160 when they realized they couldn't hear their leaders speak. 1:32:20.280 --> 1:32:23.840 It was just primal, like that's funny, it's great. 1:32:24.120 --> 1:32:25.920 I was having the I mean, I was soaking wet, 1:32:26.160 --> 1:32:27.120 having the best time. 1:32:27.240 --> 1:32:30.479 Yeah, they're all in withdrawal. Yeah, yeah, it's like no, 1:32:31.560 --> 1:32:33.080 and so you know, he. 1:32:33.160 --> 1:32:36.280 Speaks for a while and midnight passes and there have 1:32:36.360 --> 1:32:38.599 been no fireworks. So the fourth of July, the two 1:32:38.680 --> 1:32:42.360 hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, has now 1:32:42.400 --> 1:32:46.160 passed in DC with zero fireworks whatsoever. But you know, 1:32:46.640 --> 1:32:49.720 everyone was excited for eight hundred and fifty thousand fireworks 1:32:49.760 --> 1:32:51.680 to go off, which they eventually started to do at 1:32:51.720 --> 1:32:55.280 around you know, twelve fifteen, completely obscured by the trees, 1:32:55.640 --> 1:32:58.679 completely obscured. Yeah, could not see them at all after 1:32:58.760 --> 1:32:59.360 all that waiting. 1:33:00.680 --> 1:33:02.559 Yeah, I saw your pictures and stuff from it. It's 1:33:02.560 --> 1:33:04.840 like you can in like the top corner above a tree, 1:33:04.920 --> 1:33:07.400 you can see little bits of an explosion peeking out 1:33:07.920 --> 1:33:11.920 just the worst fireworks show, so frustrating. 1:33:12.040 --> 1:33:15.519 Oh bad, Oh my god. So I'm walking out and 1:33:15.560 --> 1:33:18.519 they're playing Journey. You know, first stop believing, like I 1:33:18.600 --> 1:33:20.960 have stopped believing, and yeah, then bon Jovi's living on 1:33:21.040 --> 1:33:22.960 a prayer. I'm not really living on anything at this point. 1:33:23.200 --> 1:33:24.840 The smoke is so thick. Even if we could have 1:33:24.920 --> 1:33:27.200 seen it was just an orange glow on the horizon, 1:33:27.280 --> 1:33:29.879 it's just brackling of bombs. 1:33:30.040 --> 1:33:35.400 It's just awesome. Well, we will conclude this story and 1:33:35.520 --> 1:33:39.360 your experience at the Great American State Fair, but first, 1:33:39.760 --> 1:33:53.639 here's one last at break. Okay, so how many times 1:33:53.720 --> 1:33:56.800 I'm curious would you estimate you heard Lee Greenwood's God 1:33:56.840 --> 1:33:59.000 Bless the USA during your time there? 1:34:00.120 --> 1:34:02.120 Leave it or not? Just before Trump came out? 1:34:02.240 --> 1:34:03.800 Just the one, which was good. 1:34:03.840 --> 1:34:05.519 That's not surprised as well. 1:34:05.640 --> 1:34:07.479 I assumed it would be playing NonStop, but I guess 1:34:07.479 --> 1:34:08.599 that's like Trump's theme saw. 1:34:09.040 --> 1:34:12.080 Yeah, yeah, they wanted to keep it like for him. 1:34:12.120 --> 1:34:14.320 It's like a WWF thing, that's like what plays him 1:34:14.360 --> 1:34:15.160 on stage. 1:34:14.960 --> 1:34:18.840 Or whatever exactly. Yeah, you know, I feel like this 1:34:18.960 --> 1:34:22.680 was a small rebellion because there was music playing inside 1:34:22.760 --> 1:34:24.760 of the State Fair. But what you had was like 1:34:25.080 --> 1:34:27.800 Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville is I'm like staring at the arch 1:34:28.080 --> 1:34:30.000 just I mean, they played Fortunate Son, which I guess 1:34:30.040 --> 1:34:31.320 isn't surprising. 1:34:31.160 --> 1:34:34.200 Not surprising, not really proper, but it's not really proper. 1:34:34.640 --> 1:34:37.560 Katie Perry's Firework played several times because I mean, you know, 1:34:37.760 --> 1:34:40.280 of course firework fourth of July. So it wasn't really 1:34:40.400 --> 1:34:42.920 like a big patriotic music fest. It was just kind 1:34:42.960 --> 1:34:46.160 of like pop music that was barely related and or 1:34:46.200 --> 1:34:46.880 a little sad. 1:34:47.560 --> 1:34:53.519 It was yeah, yeah, odd, odd, Well anything else about 1:34:53.520 --> 1:34:54.920 the event at all that you feel like is really 1:34:54.960 --> 1:34:56.920 worth getting into here at the at the end of 1:34:57.000 --> 1:35:00.559 our tale, I mean, the the fact. 1:35:00.320 --> 1:35:02.880 That there isn't I feel like, isn't itself something like there? 1:35:02.960 --> 1:35:07.080 It was so empty, It was such an empty thing. Yeah, 1:35:07.320 --> 1:35:11.439 everything was so sad, lazy, small and lazy and trashy 1:35:11.600 --> 1:35:12.120 and cheap. 1:35:12.600 --> 1:35:16.439 The feeling I kept having was that it all felt 1:35:16.640 --> 1:35:19.960 AI generated. Yes, even the stuff that like couldn't have been, 1:35:20.120 --> 1:35:23.080 Like the arch looked like an AI generated image just 1:35:23.120 --> 1:35:24.880 stuck in the real world and like a lot of 1:35:24.920 --> 1:35:26.439 the booths. I mean, there was a lot of AI 1:35:26.840 --> 1:35:29.120 art there, but it just yea, all of your pictures. 1:35:29.120 --> 1:35:31.360 I kept thinking of It's like my friend is trapped 1:35:31.439 --> 1:35:36.000 in like an AI generated version of reality. That's really lazy. 1:35:36.400 --> 1:35:38.160 It's exactly like it. That is such a good way 1:35:38.200 --> 1:35:39.840 to put it. It really did. It was just like 1:35:39.920 --> 1:35:42.519 the ethos of AI infused this place. Like yeah, it's 1:35:42.640 --> 1:35:46.160 kind of like if you described I mean, I feel 1:35:46.200 --> 1:35:47.800 like I'm very everything to the back rooms right now 1:35:47.800 --> 1:35:49.800 because I just watched it, not a little obsessed, but like. 1:35:51.280 --> 1:35:53.960 A lot of back rooms vibes this person watching the 1:35:54.040 --> 1:35:54.840 back rooms. 1:35:54.800 --> 1:35:57.680 Yea, and yet I mean it really was like if 1:35:57.720 --> 1:35:59.920 something described what a building was and then someone who 1:36:00.080 --> 1:36:02.400 never seen one before was like, oh like this right, 1:36:02.520 --> 1:36:06.000 like yeah, sure like that. Yeah, yeah, just no, it 1:36:06.160 --> 1:36:08.519 was so soulless. I mean, you know, whether or not 1:36:08.600 --> 1:36:10.640 you care for America, I personally, you know, like my 1:36:10.920 --> 1:36:12.840 country's got a lot of problems. I would like a 1:36:12.880 --> 1:36:14.479 lot of them to be better, but you know, I 1:36:14.600 --> 1:36:17.120 live here, I'd like it to be nice. And it 1:36:17.280 --> 1:36:20.800 was just kind of embarrassing. It was sad that this 1:36:21.479 --> 1:36:23.400 is really what we are right now. We are just yeah, 1:36:23.439 --> 1:36:29.120 this like soulless AI esque phoned in sad part is 1:36:29.360 --> 1:36:31.040 like that even part is not even the right word, 1:36:31.200 --> 1:36:33.839 like radically far right bullshit. 1:36:34.720 --> 1:36:40.400 Yeah it's gross, yeah yeah gross. Yeah, it's like funny 1:36:40.720 --> 1:36:43.839 in a cosmic sense, but mostly depressing to be honest. 1:36:44.280 --> 1:36:47.280 Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed my time there because I enjoyed 1:36:47.320 --> 1:36:49.800 depressing horrible things. But I can't I can't say that, 1:36:49.920 --> 1:36:51.320 like if I was giving a Yelp preview. 1:36:51.600 --> 1:36:54.360 It feels right in this era of America to be 1:36:54.520 --> 1:36:55.920 like depressed and disappointed. 1:36:56.640 --> 1:36:59.280 Yeah, yeah, like the people. And I caught myself doing 1:36:59.320 --> 1:37:01.000 this too, like this, this is a a representation of 1:37:01.040 --> 1:37:01.360 who we are? 1:37:01.439 --> 1:37:01.880 Like, yes it is. 1:37:02.000 --> 1:37:05.280 No, this is a pretty good Yeah, this is exactly 1:37:05.360 --> 1:37:07.400 who we are the more or less. 1:37:10.520 --> 1:37:12.439 Yeah, four point five stars nailed it. 1:37:12.560 --> 1:37:14.280 Yeah. I say that a lot like whenever someone's like, 1:37:14.360 --> 1:37:16.040 this isn't who we are? Isn't it. 1:37:18.680 --> 1:37:18.840 Us? 1:37:19.560 --> 1:37:22.040 I am, and this feels like us to me. 1:37:25.400 --> 1:37:25.599 Yeah. 1:37:26.920 --> 1:37:29.720 Periodically, during like the riots in twenty twenty, I'd post 1:37:29.760 --> 1:37:31.439 some footage and one of the comments would be like, 1:37:31.560 --> 1:37:33.600 this isn't the America I grew up And it's like, 1:37:33.640 --> 1:37:34.760 I'm know when I grew up in. 1:37:38.800 --> 1:37:40.200 I mean, it wasn't the one I grew up in, 1:37:40.240 --> 1:37:42.760 but that's because I lived in areas where the police works. 1:37:43.000 --> 1:37:45.439 So yeah, it was always there. I just wasn't visiting it, 1:37:45.560 --> 1:37:45.680 you know. 1:37:46.000 --> 1:37:50.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well Laura, anything else pluggables to plug 1:37:50.800 --> 1:37:51.400 at the end here. 1:37:51.479 --> 1:37:53.200 Oh yeah, well you can. You can check out. I've 1:37:53.200 --> 1:37:56.559 got a newsletter at firewalledmedia dot com. I am Laura 1:37:56.640 --> 1:37:59.439 Jdeed on basically every social media platform, mostly active on 1:37:59.520 --> 1:38:01.559 Blue Sky now, but theoretically on all of the other 1:38:01.600 --> 1:38:03.479 ones as well. And yeah, come come check me out. 1:38:03.479 --> 1:38:05.160 I am the only Orige Deed in the world, so 1:38:05.240 --> 1:38:06.160 I'm very easy to find. 1:38:06.560 --> 1:38:09.880 Excellent. All right, Well, thank you Laura, and thank you 1:38:09.960 --> 1:38:13.280 all for listening. We'll be back at some point in 1:38:13.360 --> 1:38:15.960 the future. Well, actually, dumon, you know how this works. 1:38:30.000 --> 1:38:36.040 This is happening, This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder. 1:38:36.200 --> 1:38:38.880 That's right, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the 1:38:38.880 --> 1:38:41.600 White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. 1:38:42.040 --> 1:38:45.599 I'm Garrison Davis Dame, joined by Mia Wong and Robert Evans. 1:38:46.400 --> 1:38:48.880 This episode, we're covering the week of July first to 1:38:49.200 --> 1:38:54.479 July eighth, or some small things. Last week, Ben Gavier, 1:38:54.720 --> 1:38:58.519 the Israeli National Security minister canceled an upcoming trip to 1:38:58.600 --> 1:39:02.519 New York City for the UN Police Summit amidst calls 1:39:02.560 --> 1:39:05.000 for him to be arrested for war crimes. 1:39:07.000 --> 1:39:08.960 That's good, that's good to see. It's nice to see 1:39:09.000 --> 1:39:11.720 that he's feel scared even a little, you know. 1:39:12.120 --> 1:39:16.439 Yes, yeah, the planned protest outside of the UN took place, 1:39:16.720 --> 1:39:19.120 even though Ben Gavier did not travel to the city. 1:39:20.160 --> 1:39:23.439 No one really knows if Mitch McConnell is actually still alive, 1:39:23.920 --> 1:39:27.639 as he remains hospitalized after being omitted in mid June 1:39:28.280 --> 1:39:33.240 for suffering cardiac arrest. On Tuesday, a bunch of Republicans 1:39:33.280 --> 1:39:38.080 senators said that they for sure talked to him multiple 1:39:38.200 --> 1:39:39.880 mites about all his favorite topics. 1:39:39.880 --> 1:39:43.559 Definitely not AI generated images and shit. 1:39:43.800 --> 1:39:44.000 Yeah. 1:39:44.160 --> 1:39:44.360 Yeah. 1:39:44.800 --> 1:39:48.679 There's really no clear indication on what his current mental 1:39:48.800 --> 1:39:52.840 state is. Laura Lumer has said that he's effectively braindead. 1:39:53.040 --> 1:39:57.719 Not a reliable source either at all, but the audio 1:39:58.080 --> 1:40:01.040 from the nine to one to one call yeah, indicates 1:40:01.040 --> 1:40:03.120 there was CPR being performed. 1:40:03.160 --> 1:40:06.680 So based purely on that, what Lumour says is very 1:40:06.840 --> 1:40:10.280 likely because when people at McConnell's age need CPR and 1:40:10.520 --> 1:40:13.600 are like at the time at which EMS arrives. This 1:40:13.760 --> 1:40:17.599 is not an uncommon result, like what Lumur suggested. 1:40:17.760 --> 1:40:21.519 Yeah, we could see a historic weekend at Bernie's even 1:40:21.560 --> 1:40:24.560 in American politics. Yeah, if Republicans want to hold on 1:40:24.720 --> 1:40:28.440 to this Senate seat without doing a special election. 1:40:28.560 --> 1:40:31.080 Honestly, it'd be the best way to honor his memory. Like, 1:40:31.160 --> 1:40:34.559 that's the appropriate way to honor Mitch McConnell's memory. One 1:40:34.720 --> 1:40:38.759 last filibuster, kind of breaking the law one last time 1:40:39.000 --> 1:40:41.080 to stack things in the gfp's deck. 1:40:42.320 --> 1:40:44.280 I also want to note the friend of the show, 1:40:45.120 --> 1:40:49.599 Myra Lazine from trans News Network, did request comment about 1:40:49.720 --> 1:40:52.960 the status of McConnell from his office and has not 1:40:53.080 --> 1:40:53.880 received a reply. 1:40:54.120 --> 1:40:56.640 We will let you know if if we. 1:40:56.720 --> 1:41:00.240 Get any kind of confirmation from their press steal he 1:41:00.400 --> 1:41:01.280 is in fact alive. 1:41:02.240 --> 1:41:05.200 And our colleague James Stout, who will have a special 1:41:05.280 --> 1:41:09.120 segment later on this episode, also wanted us to note 1:41:09.520 --> 1:41:12.599 that San Diego has begun defunding and closing more than 1:41:12.720 --> 1:41:14.360 thirty public toilets today. 1:41:14.920 --> 1:41:16.519 Cool to that. 1:41:16.720 --> 1:41:21.479 I will add, in a not humble brag fashion, that Mom, 1:41:21.600 --> 1:41:24.360 Donnie and the MTA announced a new plan to expand 1:41:24.560 --> 1:41:29.680 bus routes great the same day anyway, you can have 1:41:29.800 --> 1:41:33.920 either world people, but not if you live in California. Actually, 1:41:34.360 --> 1:41:37.720 no toilets or slightly faster buses. The two choices of 1:41:37.760 --> 1:41:42.160 American politics, Yeah, the two choices that are presented to voters. 1:41:42.520 --> 1:41:46.479 Well, okay, I'm going to present a third choice, which 1:41:46.520 --> 1:41:48.519 is I do want to talk briefly about something that's 1:41:48.520 --> 1:41:51.400 happening in France right now. There is an attempt that 1:41:51.520 --> 1:41:53.599 has passed the Lower House and is pending a vote 1:41:53.600 --> 1:41:56.320 from the Upper House as we speak, to pass a 1:41:56.800 --> 1:42:00.040 police immunity law. I don't know what exactly the the 1:42:00.160 --> 1:42:01.840 term to describe it is, but it is a law 1:42:02.000 --> 1:42:07.599 that would automatically treat any police killing as justified until 1:42:07.720 --> 1:42:12.640 proven otherwise. This is obviously an extremely dangerous bill. It 1:42:13.080 --> 1:42:15.559 effectively allows the police to, as long as there are 1:42:15.640 --> 1:42:19.839 no witnesses, kill someone and not be investigated or removed 1:42:20.000 --> 1:42:23.760 for it. So that is still technically making its way 1:42:23.840 --> 1:42:27.840 through the French Parliament, but very much looks like it 1:42:27.880 --> 1:42:32.719 could pass. It is extremely bleak cool. Yeah, just obviously 1:42:32.800 --> 1:42:34.360 this is a bill backed by the French far right 1:42:34.400 --> 1:42:37.080 that's also being backed by a bunch of the French 1:42:37.320 --> 1:42:41.519 quote unquote center right, and yeah, quite bad. 1:42:42.560 --> 1:42:47.479 Speaking of bad, let's get on to our first main 1:42:47.600 --> 1:42:50.680 story this week. As many of you know, there's been 1:42:50.720 --> 1:42:54.360 a major update in the main Senate race. On Monday, 1:42:54.400 --> 1:42:57.879 a woman named Jenny Rassico came forward with an allegation 1:42:58.040 --> 1:43:02.879 that Graham Platner raped her into one. Rascoe told Politico 1:43:02.960 --> 1:43:05.360 and CNN that she and Plattner had been seeing each 1:43:05.400 --> 1:43:07.920 other on and off for about two years, and then 1:43:08.000 --> 1:43:10.639 one night in twenty twenty one, Platner entered her home 1:43:10.720 --> 1:43:14.400 quote unquote heavily intoxicated, despite Rassico explicitly telling him not 1:43:14.520 --> 1:43:18.120 to come over. Once inside, Platner forced himself on her 1:43:18.200 --> 1:43:21.120 while she resisted and repeatedly told him to stop, and 1:43:21.240 --> 1:43:25.240 then he raped her. Rascoe told Politico that Platta did 1:43:25.280 --> 1:43:27.840 not remember what he did the next morning, but shortly 1:43:27.880 --> 1:43:30.680 thereafter she caught off contact with him after telling him 1:43:31.000 --> 1:43:33.320 what happened that night was not consensual. 1:43:34.080 --> 1:43:37.960 Yep, I guess this is what it took. Unfortunately, and like, 1:43:38.000 --> 1:43:42.120 I'm sorry this lady had to come forward and say this. Yeah, 1:43:42.479 --> 1:43:46.439 but you know, it does look like this has done 1:43:46.560 --> 1:43:50.840 the job finally of ending this guy's career. I mean, 1:43:50.880 --> 1:43:54.040 I guess we'll see anything could happen still, but I 1:43:54.080 --> 1:43:55.240 don't know what else to say. 1:43:56.160 --> 1:44:01.719 Her specific allegation is heavily corroborated in the reporting. Politico 1:44:01.960 --> 1:44:05.800 interviewed the woman's next boyfriend, who in twenty twenty three 1:44:05.960 --> 1:44:09.960 she told him about what happened with Platner, and also 1:44:10.000 --> 1:44:14.160 reviewed emails to a therapist discussing the sexual assault. Politico 1:44:14.280 --> 1:44:17.719 published some private Facebook messages between Rascoe and a friend 1:44:17.760 --> 1:44:20.639 of hers, whom she warned against getting involved with Platner. 1:44:21.240 --> 1:44:25.360 And that was years before he ran for office. I'll 1:44:25.400 --> 1:44:27.000 read some of those texts here. 1:44:27.200 --> 1:44:27.479 Quote. 1:44:27.760 --> 1:44:30.120 He can be charming and funny, and he's a decently 1:44:30.200 --> 1:44:33.519 intelligent person. He's not all bad, but I ended up 1:44:33.560 --> 1:44:35.840 in a bad situation with him, and I will just 1:44:36.320 --> 1:44:40.880 very politely call him consensually careless at times. She followed 1:44:40.960 --> 1:44:45.719 up by writing, when drunk plus PTSD, he lies also 1:44:46.360 --> 1:44:48.839 doesn't listen to you when drunk, unquote. 1:44:49.439 --> 1:44:52.920 And it's still remarkable, honestly, how much slack she was 1:44:53.040 --> 1:44:58.680 trying to cut him in that message, like unnecessarily empathetic 1:44:58.800 --> 1:45:01.280 way of expressing that to someone else about a person 1:45:01.280 --> 1:45:03.240 who had done that to you. Yeah, I don't know, 1:45:03.320 --> 1:45:04.439 that's what struck me about that. 1:45:05.080 --> 1:45:08.040 One of the most devastating parts of this is that 1:45:08.479 --> 1:45:14.120 Rasico told Politico that she previously withheld this accusation because 1:45:14.320 --> 1:45:16.879 she agrees with Plattner's political platform. 1:45:17.479 --> 1:45:17.799 Quote. 1:45:18.240 --> 1:45:20.160 One of the reasons I didn't come forward sooner was 1:45:20.439 --> 1:45:23.400 the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his 1:45:23.560 --> 1:45:27.280 politics but not supporting him as a person. I just 1:45:27.360 --> 1:45:29.040 want the truth out there. I just want people to 1:45:29.120 --> 1:45:32.120 have a whole scope of who he is as a person. 1:45:32.439 --> 1:45:32.879 Unquote. 1:45:33.360 --> 1:45:33.559 Yeah. 1:45:34.400 --> 1:45:37.800 After Resco made this allegation, which is Platner's first public 1:45:37.800 --> 1:45:43.520 allegation of rape or sexual assault, Lindsay Feifeld, the Republican 1:45:43.600 --> 1:45:46.479 operative who was at the center of the New York 1:45:46.520 --> 1:45:51.080 Times report on Platner last month, told The Washington Post 1:45:51.600 --> 1:45:57.120 that Platinner sneakily removed condoms during sex Jesus, which is 1:45:57.439 --> 1:45:59.200 also a form of sexual assault. 1:45:59.600 --> 1:45:59.800 Yeah. 1:46:00.720 --> 1:46:04.200 In a video released on Monday, Platner denied the allegations 1:46:04.280 --> 1:46:07.280 and said quote, we are taking time to reflect on 1:46:07.439 --> 1:46:12.679 the best path forward. Following the allegation, Platner lost high 1:46:12.760 --> 1:46:18.320 profile endorsements many of his volunteers, and support from community organizations. 1:46:19.280 --> 1:46:23.240 The thirty thousand member actives organization Made People's Alliance, whom 1:46:23.320 --> 1:46:26.400 Platner was a member of, withdrew their endorsement and told 1:46:26.479 --> 1:46:29.680 him to step down. The Democrat nominee for governor had 1:46:29.720 --> 1:46:33.439 a Pinigree, who Platners supported as a rank choice candidate, 1:46:33.640 --> 1:46:35.960 released a statement calling for him to drop out of 1:46:36.000 --> 1:46:39.839 the race. Quote for Maine, for the future of control 1:46:39.920 --> 1:46:42.320 of the US Senate, and because no party should stand 1:46:42.360 --> 1:46:45.639 behind a candidate facing allegations of assault, grand Platner should 1:46:45.640 --> 1:46:48.880 exit the race immediately. Democrats need a nominee who can 1:46:48.880 --> 1:46:52.080 beat Susan Collins in November. Grand Platner is no longer 1:46:52.200 --> 1:46:56.120 that candidate. Grand Platner tapped into something real voters hungry 1:46:56.200 --> 1:47:00.040 for change, showed up with real passion and energy. That 1:47:00.320 --> 1:47:03.479 energy doesn't have to go away. It needs a new 1:47:03.600 --> 1:47:08.360 candidate to carry it forward. That last little section by 1:47:08.720 --> 1:47:10.719 Hannah is part of what I was trying to express 1:47:10.880 --> 1:47:14.600 in my recent peace outlining the campaign's platform and on 1:47:14.760 --> 1:47:18.799 the ground strategy, and I think looking back at his campaign, 1:47:19.000 --> 1:47:22.360 it really is worth trying to understand why it worked 1:47:22.439 --> 1:47:25.920 as well as it did up to this point. Up 1:47:25.960 --> 1:47:29.360 to this allegation, this election has highlighted that there can 1:47:29.439 --> 1:47:32.519 be a considerable gap in the way certain candidates are 1:47:32.560 --> 1:47:35.439 talked about online and how they are viewed by the 1:47:35.640 --> 1:47:39.600 local organizations or the local electorate. Now, at least the 1:47:39.760 --> 1:47:43.360 organizations are breaking with Platner. We don't have a great 1:47:43.680 --> 1:47:48.320 idea yet of how voters see him post these allegations, 1:47:49.040 --> 1:47:52.120 but there was a series of focus groups that The 1:47:52.160 --> 1:47:57.160 Bulwark ran in June with a group of main women 1:47:57.880 --> 1:48:01.400 who supported Platner but said that they would draw the 1:48:01.520 --> 1:48:05.479 line at an allegation of sexual assault. So my last 1:48:05.640 --> 1:48:08.960 episode was focusing on trying to explain how he won 1:48:09.000 --> 1:48:12.679 the primary and how his relationships with unions and local 1:48:12.760 --> 1:48:15.880 activistcripts contributed to that campaign success. And there is a 1:48:15.920 --> 1:48:19.759 reason that I waited until after the primary to discuss 1:48:19.800 --> 1:48:23.080 that platform in detail. And we had done some piecemeal 1:48:23.320 --> 1:48:26.960 reporting on some of his other scandals, but the information 1:48:27.040 --> 1:48:29.280 circulated on Blue Sky right Now about Daniel Morov, who 1:48:29.320 --> 1:48:32.240 was mentioned in the piece was not as publicly accessible 1:48:32.280 --> 1:48:34.840 when that episode was written, and I think a piece 1:48:35.160 --> 1:48:38.479 fully evaluating or relitigating all the personal issues with Platner 1:48:38.640 --> 1:48:40.960 or some of his staff would have needed to be 1:48:41.040 --> 1:48:43.200 a separate episode which is why that piece starts off 1:48:43.240 --> 1:48:47.599 with mentioning all of the main scandals before narrowing its 1:48:47.720 --> 1:48:51.519 focus on why he won the nomination and focusing on 1:48:51.760 --> 1:48:54.679 why he won the nomination so handily, like over fifty 1:48:54.760 --> 1:48:58.000 points against a Democrat establishing candidate. I think it's really 1:48:58.040 --> 1:49:01.080 important to understand what's happening in American politics right now. 1:49:01.200 --> 1:49:05.559 Right Yeah, Platner got the most votes in state primary history. 1:49:06.200 --> 1:49:09.160 He did eighty three town halls, a master over fifteen 1:49:09.240 --> 1:49:15.240 thousand volunteers, and a semiotic analysis of Platner as a 1:49:15.439 --> 1:49:21.200 person doesn't tell us how his campaign attracted such historic 1:49:21.280 --> 1:49:25.120 support in Maine. Right, politics isn't just about vibes and 1:49:25.680 --> 1:49:29.720 symbols or even individual character, but rather structural forces, And 1:49:30.040 --> 1:49:33.400 there is a distinctness at the root of politics between 1:49:33.920 --> 1:49:39.519 symbols and like the real forces of society. Those forces 1:49:39.640 --> 1:49:43.200 can be esthetically flexible and adapt a lot of different symbols. 1:49:43.800 --> 1:49:47.439 For every grand Platner right a bad guy who represented 1:49:47.479 --> 1:49:50.720 good politics in Maine, there are many more people who 1:49:50.760 --> 1:49:54.840 represent very bad politics who dress themselves up in a 1:49:54.960 --> 1:49:56.840 spotless like moral symbology. 1:49:57.439 --> 1:49:58.040 Look at right now. 1:49:58.280 --> 1:50:02.040 There's a lot of Democratic like party figures who are 1:50:02.080 --> 1:50:05.680 taking a lap people who have supported Andrew Cuomo and 1:50:05.960 --> 1:50:09.680 the Clintons who are saying, like, aha, I told you so, 1:50:09.960 --> 1:50:12.479 who couldn't have seen this coming? And like that that's 1:50:12.680 --> 1:50:15.360 grossed on its face because of the types of behavior 1:50:15.439 --> 1:50:19.519 they are very clearly okay with excusing to put forward 1:50:19.640 --> 1:50:22.240 their candidates. But also I think this this this reaction 1:50:22.360 --> 1:50:24.040 of like, who couldn't see this coming? Right, there's all 1:50:24.080 --> 1:50:27.519 these red flags. This also like fails to like understand 1:50:27.560 --> 1:50:31.280 how we got to this point, Like Platter wasn't chosen 1:50:31.320 --> 1:50:34.640 to be the nominee by online leftists, but rather the 1:50:34.800 --> 1:50:39.120 people have made But there are contributing factors that led 1:50:39.200 --> 1:50:43.160 us to a very very precarious situation, including the lack 1:50:43.200 --> 1:50:45.960 of serious vetting by some of the consultants working on 1:50:46.000 --> 1:50:49.200 this campaign, oh as well as Chuck Schumer is clearing 1:50:49.439 --> 1:50:53.240 the field of other Democratic candidates, which helped create this 1:50:53.360 --> 1:50:57.720 effectively one on one Mills v. Platinir matchup, while other 1:50:58.240 --> 1:51:01.559 qualified candidates were pushed into the governor's race. And now 1:51:01.720 --> 1:51:04.200 some of those people might be going after the Senate 1:51:04.240 --> 1:51:08.519 nomination following the assumed dropout of Platner. 1:51:08.560 --> 1:51:09.839 In these next few days. 1:51:10.240 --> 1:51:12.479 We do have to wonder and by the time people 1:51:12.520 --> 1:51:14.680 listen to this, there's a good chance. I guess this 1:51:15.080 --> 1:51:18.400 won't matter. But like, what if he decides to just 1:51:18.479 --> 1:51:21.360 fuck the party right? Like what if they don't sort 1:51:21.400 --> 1:51:24.240 all this out? It's not an impossible situation from where 1:51:24.280 --> 1:51:26.360 we're sitting right now. I don't think it's the likeliest, 1:51:26.439 --> 1:51:28.320 but it's not impossible. From where we are right now. 1:51:28.960 --> 1:51:30.760 It's not impossible, and that it is an interesting kind 1:51:30.760 --> 1:51:34.280 of thing to think about. Yeah, consultants like Morse Cats 1:51:34.360 --> 1:51:36.360 are urging him to drop out, and there is a 1:51:36.439 --> 1:51:39.559 lot of reports coming out that are suggesting that he will. 1:51:40.360 --> 1:51:43.240 And to this point, a Platner has been a very 1:51:43.280 --> 1:51:48.640 effective conveyor of a working class centric platform, and his 1:51:48.960 --> 1:51:53.639 resilience as a candidate through his other well publicized personal issues, 1:51:54.120 --> 1:51:57.920 have proven a real hunger for a new kind of politics. 1:51:58.760 --> 1:52:02.880 But by making himself the avatar of that movement in Maine, 1:52:03.320 --> 1:52:07.320 he has also severely compromised the movement. There's a lot 1:52:07.360 --> 1:52:11.960 of people who supported his campaign despite his past, based 1:52:12.000 --> 1:52:15.560 on this idea that those past experiences led him to 1:52:15.760 --> 1:52:19.360 this working class politics. His campaign was predicated on that 1:52:19.439 --> 1:52:21.799 he was not the same person who made those awful 1:52:21.840 --> 1:52:24.360 Reddit posts a decade ago, but the details in the 1:52:24.360 --> 1:52:28.200 recency of this right allegation suggests that is not really 1:52:28.280 --> 1:52:32.360 the case. This allegation affirms a larger pattern of behavior 1:52:32.439 --> 1:52:36.719 which is itself disqualifying and illuminates false and misleading statements 1:52:36.800 --> 1:52:43.000 Platner has made to supporters, which further undermined his integrity, reliability, 1:52:43.040 --> 1:52:45.720 and the trust necessary for an electorate, for unions and 1:52:45.800 --> 1:52:48.400 community organizations to put forward a candidate with faith that 1:52:48.479 --> 1:52:51.320 he will follow through on the working class platform that 1:52:51.720 --> 1:52:56.000 he adopted. This redemption story that the campaign ran with 1:52:56.640 --> 1:53:00.559 attracted a lot of supporters, supporters who Platum are assured 1:53:00.960 --> 1:53:04.280 that no new damaging allegations would be coming out against him. 1:53:04.520 --> 1:53:07.880 Then this not only betrays the trust of those supporters 1:53:07.920 --> 1:53:10.720 and its volunteers, but it also puts the viability of 1:53:10.800 --> 1:53:14.280 their shared working class politics at risk based on their 1:53:14.320 --> 1:53:19.960 association with him and especially this new accusation of rape. 1:53:20.680 --> 1:53:23.200 I think there's two things that are sort of important 1:53:23.240 --> 1:53:27.680 to keep in mind when thinking about this. One is 1:53:27.840 --> 1:53:31.920 that it's quite common for someone who is a rapist 1:53:32.000 --> 1:53:35.080 to also be extremely charismatic, to be a good communicator, 1:53:35.120 --> 1:53:39.400 to be very skilled at manipulating social situations, and that 1:53:40.080 --> 1:53:42.559 none of the things that they can be good at 1:53:43.240 --> 1:53:45.799 like make it okay for them to be a rapist. 1:53:45.880 --> 1:53:48.599 But also that's how a lot of the people who 1:53:49.240 --> 1:53:51.960 are able to do these kinds of things are able 1:53:52.120 --> 1:53:55.120 to maintain themselves and are able to survive. That's how 1:53:55.120 --> 1:53:57.800 a lot of politicians you get into this place are 1:53:57.840 --> 1:54:00.560 able to just you know, survived by the fact that 1:54:00.600 --> 1:54:03.800 they have credible rate allegations, Like we should mention, you know, 1:54:03.880 --> 1:54:06.479 for example, that there are significant credible rate allegations against 1:54:06.479 --> 1:54:08.720 the President of the United States, a thing that has 1:54:08.760 --> 1:54:10.320 not stopped him from being elected twice. 1:54:10.479 --> 1:54:14.360 A conviction not just deleegation, it's a conviction found. 1:54:14.240 --> 1:54:15.400 Liable in civil court. 1:54:15.760 --> 1:54:18.720 Yeah, multiple allegations, right, like you know, and then I 1:54:18.800 --> 1:54:21.599 think the second issue here, right, and this is something 1:54:21.640 --> 1:54:23.880 you were mentioning when you're talking about like the problem 1:54:23.920 --> 1:54:25.920 with him making himself the avatar of this sort of 1:54:26.040 --> 1:54:29.120 like movement of structural forces is that this is just 1:54:29.200 --> 1:54:31.040 to some extent, one of the risks and one of 1:54:31.200 --> 1:54:34.040 the challenges you face when you're attempting to run a 1:54:34.120 --> 1:54:36.840 working class movement that is centered around a charismatic figure. 1:54:37.440 --> 1:54:40.360 Because there is always just a decent chance that like 1:54:40.960 --> 1:54:43.240 they've done something horrible like this is a problem with 1:54:43.400 --> 1:54:46.160 just like the structure of electoral democracy, right, Yeah, this 1:54:46.280 --> 1:54:48.919 is a structural problem with the way that electoral democracy 1:54:48.960 --> 1:54:51.760 is about selecting your rulers and the fact that people 1:54:51.760 --> 1:54:53.760 who want to become rulers also just have a higher 1:54:53.840 --> 1:54:56.680 chance of being able to get away with shit like this, 1:54:57.440 --> 1:54:59.520 and that's something that you have to manage to make 1:54:59.560 --> 1:55:03.240 sure that, like your movements are not just one guy 1:55:03.520 --> 1:55:06.080 who can fuck the entire thing over by being a 1:55:06.120 --> 1:55:06.640 piece of shit. 1:55:07.000 --> 1:55:12.080 Yeah, and yeah, Rasco specifically talking about how she hesitated 1:55:12.120 --> 1:55:16.040 to come forward because she agrees with this, with this politics, 1:55:16.080 --> 1:55:18.600 with this movement, I mean, is completely devastating, and that 1:55:18.680 --> 1:55:22.480 this reminds me of you know, the allegations, right, Like 1:55:23.280 --> 1:55:26.680 sexual assault is a problem across everything from you know, 1:55:26.840 --> 1:55:30.080 like non hierarchical anarchist organizing to the labor movement to 1:55:30.240 --> 1:55:35.040 electoral campaigns. Not every rapist is going to have a 1:55:35.760 --> 1:55:39.160 Nazi tattoo. Bad politics now is going to have is 1:55:39.200 --> 1:55:42.040 going to have bad politics, right, and like re looking 1:55:42.080 --> 1:55:44.360 at the sort of many red flags this has I 1:55:44.400 --> 1:55:46.280 think a lot of people saw that like something like 1:55:46.360 --> 1:55:50.480 this is a possibility, but a possibility is not an inevitability. Yeah, 1:55:50.760 --> 1:55:53.240 And for a lot of people, especially in Maine, right, 1:55:53.320 --> 1:55:56.920 the political platform and the community ties that Platner established 1:55:57.320 --> 1:56:00.440 outweighed the many red flags of Platner as a person. 1:56:00.920 --> 1:56:03.400 He kind of pushed that to of a very a 1:56:03.520 --> 1:56:05.600 very far limit, like farther than I've seen in a 1:56:05.640 --> 1:56:08.200 lot of electoral campaigns of how far he was able 1:56:08.280 --> 1:56:14.160 to maintain support. Yeah, rather than that illustrating something uniquely 1:56:14.320 --> 1:56:18.720 special about Platner as a person, that shows the depth 1:56:18.800 --> 1:56:22.000 of the desire to unseat who's in Collins and the 1:56:22.160 --> 1:56:25.600 lack of trust in the democratic establishment. Now, this rape 1:56:25.600 --> 1:56:30.880 allegation is obviously completely discrediting by itself, and also because 1:56:30.880 --> 1:56:35.400 of how it clearly illuminates this pattern of lying and dishonesty. 1:56:35.840 --> 1:56:39.080 I think that that compounds a lot of the issues 1:56:39.120 --> 1:56:40.800 that people have been talking about with Platner for a 1:56:40.880 --> 1:56:43.560 long time. And you know, like even something like the tattoo, right, 1:56:43.720 --> 1:56:45.960 even if he did not know what the tattoo was 1:56:46.040 --> 1:56:46.680 when he got it. 1:56:47.000 --> 1:56:49.280 Which I never believed, like, and we said that when 1:56:49.400 --> 1:56:52.640 at the time that that's that was never a credible story, right. 1:56:52.880 --> 1:56:55.360 Fellow Marines in his group who also got the tattoo, 1:56:55.360 --> 1:56:57.000 Where any of you by Zeto, They said they didn't 1:56:57.040 --> 1:56:58.040 know what it was. 1:56:58.440 --> 1:57:01.160 That's not what I'm talking about. He stated that he 1:57:01.280 --> 1:57:03.760 had not realized prior to it coming out that it 1:57:03.880 --> 1:57:06.080 is Nazi, after he had said that he loved the 1:57:06.160 --> 1:57:10.040 movie Come and See, which that image is repeatedly. That 1:57:10.200 --> 1:57:12.440 was when I was like, well, he's a liar, right, yes, 1:57:12.600 --> 1:57:14.800 we said, we talked about this on air, by the way, Yeah, 1:57:14.920 --> 1:57:15.640 just to be clear. 1:57:15.960 --> 1:57:19.880 Yes, and debating whether or not he is a Nazi 1:57:20.520 --> 1:57:25.200 overlooks the other very clear issues exemplified by the tattoo, 1:57:25.880 --> 1:57:29.800 you know, recklessness, poor judgment. And then considering these new allegations, 1:57:30.200 --> 1:57:33.120 you know, Platner's dishonesty right, based on the conflicting reports 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:37.560 of when he learned of the tattoos Nazi associations, and 1:57:37.720 --> 1:57:39.600 I think that bolster's the fact that he has a 1:57:39.720 --> 1:57:42.680 pattern of lying and especially like lying to get into 1:57:42.800 --> 1:57:47.960 power multiple times these past few months, Platner has reassured senators, supporters, 1:57:48.000 --> 1:57:52.280 and volunteers that no new allegations would be coming out 1:57:52.360 --> 1:57:56.080 against him, even while he was aware that Jenny Rascoe 1:57:56.520 --> 1:57:59.800 was speaking without lets like The New York Times, Platner 1:57:59.840 --> 1:58:03.800 had until July thirteenth to drop out of the race 1:58:04.080 --> 1:58:07.520 to be removed from the ballot, and the party has 1:58:07.640 --> 1:58:10.040 until July twenty seventh to select a new candidate to 1:58:10.160 --> 1:58:13.400 appear on the November ballot. There's a lot of conflicting 1:58:13.520 --> 1:58:16.280 reporting on when exactly Plattner is going to drop out 1:58:16.320 --> 1:58:19.640 and why he has not yet, And I might do 1:58:19.680 --> 1:58:21.920 an update on this based on what will change in 1:58:22.000 --> 1:58:24.840 the next few hours the next day, but as of 1:58:24.960 --> 1:58:27.840 right now, there is seemingly a conflict or kind of 1:58:27.880 --> 1:58:31.240 like a power struggle between his campaign and the Democratic 1:58:31.280 --> 1:58:35.680 Party on deciding the transparency of the process to select 1:58:35.760 --> 1:58:38.000 the next candidate. There's been a few people from the 1:58:38.080 --> 1:58:40.280 governor's race, as I mentioned, who's thrown their hat in 1:58:40.320 --> 1:58:43.320 the ring. Troy Jackson has file paperwork. He was the 1:58:43.400 --> 1:58:47.640 only DSA endorsed candidate in the main governor's race, alsodorsed 1:58:47.640 --> 1:58:51.280 by Sanders. Doctor Nurov shaw a kind of more like 1:58:51.480 --> 1:58:55.600 moderate progressive, announced his intention and as part of his 1:58:55.640 --> 1:59:00.600 announcement he mentioned opposition to Israel. He's kind of trying 1:59:00.600 --> 1:59:03.000 to move in the direction of Platinir's politics. Even though 1:59:03.040 --> 1:59:07.160 traditionally he has been more of a moderate liberal. We'll 1:59:07.200 --> 1:59:09.760 find out in the next few days if the platform 1:59:09.800 --> 1:59:13.680 and campaign style that was so successful can transfer to 1:59:13.840 --> 1:59:17.200 someone else, because I think this campaign has provided a 1:59:17.360 --> 1:59:21.240 very effective blueprint of in person engagement, town halls, leaning 1:59:21.320 --> 1:59:25.480 on local organizing connections, and having those connections in organized 1:59:25.520 --> 1:59:28.840 labor helped determine a platform. A platform that has stuff 1:59:28.920 --> 1:59:31.520 like Medicare for all, tax rich, no money for Israel, 1:59:31.560 --> 1:59:35.160 Supreme Court reform, destroying citizens United, but also stuff like 1:59:35.280 --> 1:59:39.880 investing in manufacturing public utilities, building clean energy, and strengthening 1:59:40.200 --> 1:59:45.520 labor organizing laws. Yeah, quick update here. A few hours 1:59:45.600 --> 1:59:51.480 after recording, Platna released a lengthy eleven minute video maintaining 1:59:51.600 --> 1:59:56.280 these allegations are false and attacking the corporate media system 1:59:56.320 --> 1:59:59.560 and the quote unquote political establishment. Towards the end of 1:59:59.600 --> 2:00:03.560 the video, he announced the campaign is suspending operations and 2:00:03.920 --> 2:00:08.080 said he will withdraw from the race, though he has 2:00:08.200 --> 2:00:11.839 not yet officially dropped out of the race, and reports 2:00:11.880 --> 2:00:15.320 indicate he will not do so until Monday, which is 2:00:15.480 --> 2:00:20.120 the deadline. Also on Wednesday night, we got a better 2:00:20.240 --> 2:00:23.120 look at what the replacement process is going to be 2:00:23.920 --> 2:00:28.240 and instead of an open caucus, basically a mini primary. 2:00:28.880 --> 2:00:31.720 The main state Democrats have decided to go forward with 2:00:31.960 --> 2:00:37.360 a six hundred person nominating convention, with five hundred delegates 2:00:37.520 --> 2:00:42.200 elected proportionally by county committees and one hundred delegates from 2:00:42.400 --> 2:00:45.800 the state committee. This is not the most open or 2:00:45.920 --> 2:00:49.480 democratic option the state party could have gone forward with, 2:00:50.240 --> 2:00:53.440 and could cause some real blowback from voters who will 2:00:53.480 --> 2:00:56.360 be unable to participate in choosing the nominee. 2:00:57.600 --> 2:01:00.080 Well, we should talk about I guess the right and 2:01:00.280 --> 2:01:04.000 Grim of it all. Yeah, sure so, Ryan Grim with 2:01:04.080 --> 2:01:07.680 drop Side News published earlier and breaking points as well. Yeah, 2:01:07.720 --> 2:01:10.520 and breaking points earlier today this Wednesday the eighth, when 2:01:10.560 --> 2:01:14.560 we recorded that essentially the initial reports had not mentioned 2:01:15.000 --> 2:01:17.600 a couple of what they felt were relevant facts, one 2:01:17.640 --> 2:01:21.680 of which was that before texting him not to come over, 2:01:21.800 --> 2:01:24.160 she had texted about needing a massage on her glutes, 2:01:24.160 --> 2:01:26.680 which I don't see as super relevant. 2:01:27.040 --> 2:01:27.080 No. 2:01:27.400 --> 2:01:30.920 I think the argument being made, particularly by dropside, is that, like, well, 2:01:30.960 --> 2:01:33.560 this was still a relevant detail that was not included. 2:01:34.280 --> 2:01:36.200 The other thing that wasn't that report that is more 2:01:36.280 --> 2:01:40.200 relevant is the fact that Politico had details about this 2:01:40.360 --> 2:01:43.960 assault way before they released them right like, way before 2:01:43.960 --> 2:01:46.000 it actually came out that may have been relevant to voters. 2:01:46.000 --> 2:01:48.600 They do think that's a fair critique. I don't agree 2:01:48.920 --> 2:01:51.640 with the relevance at all of her mentioning that she 2:01:51.760 --> 2:01:54.440 needed a massage. That's not an invitation to sex that 2:01:55.000 --> 2:01:57.360 doesn't like. I see that as entirely unrelevant, And I 2:01:58.120 --> 2:02:01.320 think that this is within a tradition of that particular 2:02:01.480 --> 2:02:07.440 journalist defending people that he likes from allegations that are credible. 2:02:07.640 --> 2:02:11.120 I don't particularly respect this decision, but it's relevant. 2:02:11.800 --> 2:02:14.360 It's a pretty gross move to take this moment and 2:02:14.400 --> 2:02:18.520 then try to inject any amount of doubt into what's 2:02:18.600 --> 2:02:23.600 happened and peddling this politely i'll say soft rape apologia. 2:02:24.280 --> 2:02:27.440 That's it's disgusting. There's this a very similar thing coming 2:02:27.680 --> 2:02:31.760 from the Young Turks, from an Kasparian and Chenk. I'm 2:02:31.840 --> 2:02:35.920 happy that the majority report people turned on Graham like 2:02:36.000 --> 2:02:42.280 immediately apologized for defending him throughout these these past these 2:02:42.320 --> 2:02:45.480 past few months and said that they were wrong about 2:02:45.600 --> 2:02:47.760 him as a person. Yeah, I'm glad they did that. 2:02:48.040 --> 2:02:50.960 But what Grimm did hear and what the Young Turks 2:02:51.000 --> 2:02:54.520 are doing is just completely despicable. Yeah, I think it's 2:02:54.640 --> 2:02:56.240 I think it's gross repulsive. 2:02:56.360 --> 2:02:56.560 Yeah. 2:02:56.880 --> 2:03:00.680 I don't think there's any reason to bring that specific 2:03:00.760 --> 2:03:04.200 detail up other than to try to inject out like you. 2:03:04.200 --> 2:03:07.600 Said, Yeah, I want to say just one thing about 2:03:07.840 --> 2:03:11.000 the way that consent works, which is that if you 2:03:11.280 --> 2:03:14.320 withdraw consent at any time, no matter what happened before, 2:03:14.440 --> 2:03:18.000 it is withdrawn. That's that's how it works. And if 2:03:18.040 --> 2:03:21.640 anyone like, regardless of what happened until that moment, you 2:03:21.760 --> 2:03:24.280 have to continue consenting. And if you stop consenting, the 2:03:24.320 --> 2:03:27.120 moment you stop consenting like you have stopped consenting, it 2:03:27.240 --> 2:03:30.160 becomes assault. I just I want to be extremely clear 2:03:30.200 --> 2:03:32.440 about that because people are trying to muddy the waters 2:03:32.480 --> 2:03:35.120 about this, and this is just an important thing for 2:03:35.160 --> 2:03:37.400 people to understand about the way that consent works. 2:03:37.680 --> 2:03:39.520 I think that would be even more relevant if she'd 2:03:39.520 --> 2:03:42.280 said come over and then said don't later. But like 2:03:42.480 --> 2:03:46.560 what she said was not even starting the Yeah, no, 2:03:46.840 --> 2:03:48.920 it's not even that, but but I I just want 2:03:48.920 --> 2:03:51.040 to be clear about it. According to Grim's report, she 2:03:51.200 --> 2:03:53.400 did not even ask him for a massage. 2:03:53.560 --> 2:03:53.720 Yeah. 2:03:54.120 --> 2:03:56.360 His entire motivation to do this is so is so 2:03:56.520 --> 2:03:58.880 suspib Like, hey, he's trying to say this is about 2:03:58.880 --> 2:04:02.560 like journalistic in tegrity and how Politico and CNN we're 2:04:02.640 --> 2:04:06.400 dishonest with yeah, Rasaco's you know claims, and like that's 2:04:06.560 --> 2:04:09.320 that's it's completely absurd. I think anyone with half a 2:04:09.360 --> 2:04:11.000 brainon cell can see what he's trying to do here, 2:04:11.040 --> 2:04:11.840 and it's and it's gross. 2:04:11.960 --> 2:04:13.280 I simply don't agree with that. 2:04:13.720 --> 2:04:13.880 Yeah. 2:04:13.920 --> 2:04:16.320 Yeah, And I think I think the other thing that's 2:04:16.800 --> 2:04:20.840 kind of very bleak about this is that like there 2:04:21.000 --> 2:04:25.560 is more proof here than yeah, most people who are 2:04:25.600 --> 2:04:29.440 sexually assaulted are going to have right, and this is 2:04:29.520 --> 2:04:32.680 still the reaction that that it's getting from like fortunately 2:04:32.840 --> 2:04:35.240 not a very large number of people, but still people 2:04:35.280 --> 2:04:36.040 who have large. 2:04:35.880 --> 2:04:37.760 But still pretty influential yeah people. 2:04:37.880 --> 2:04:40.200 Yeah, yeah, And and that's you know, like this is 2:04:40.480 --> 2:04:43.400 part of the reason why, you know, when this shit 2:04:43.520 --> 2:04:47.680 happens everywhere from like five person anarchist collectives up to 2:04:47.840 --> 2:04:50.120 like the DSA, up to like the Democratic Party up 2:04:50.160 --> 2:04:52.120 to the like the president of the fucking United States, 2:04:52.640 --> 2:04:55.440 why this ship plays out like this because this is 2:04:55.520 --> 2:04:59.640 just a structural factor of politics writ large, is that 2:05:00.080 --> 2:05:01.560 you are going to have to deal with people who 2:05:01.640 --> 2:05:03.720 fucking do this and their fight to get away with 2:05:03.800 --> 2:05:05.960 it and people who try to run cover for them. 2:05:06.560 --> 2:05:06.760 Yeah. 2:05:06.960 --> 2:05:08.360 I think this is part of why I have an 2:05:08.360 --> 2:05:10.919 issue sometimes with folks when there's like a new allegation 2:05:11.000 --> 2:05:14.560 against like a conservative politician or like a right wing 2:05:14.840 --> 2:05:17.440 church figure or something, and they're like, it's always these guys, 2:05:17.480 --> 2:05:20.360 and it's like, no, it's every Like pedophilia is all 2:05:20.400 --> 2:05:23.080 over the place. It exists in left wing organizations and 2:05:23.160 --> 2:05:25.240 right wing organizations. And when you start being like, well, 2:05:25.280 --> 2:05:27.000 this is a thing the bad people do, not a 2:05:27.040 --> 2:05:30.080 thing the good people do, then you've created a place 2:05:30.160 --> 2:05:33.120 in which the people who do that have cover, Like 2:05:33.240 --> 2:05:35.160 that's that's what you're doing when you're like, now, bad 2:05:35.240 --> 2:05:37.000 people do that, so no one that I agree with 2:05:37.080 --> 2:05:37.800 would Yeah. 2:05:38.200 --> 2:05:40.400 Yeah, Like sexual violence and getting away with it, that's 2:05:40.440 --> 2:05:43.400 a structural force, right, Like that, that's something that is 2:05:43.520 --> 2:05:47.320 brought about by like large scale structural forces that, regardless 2:05:47.360 --> 2:05:51.200 of what people stated, politics are transcendose divides and people 2:05:51.280 --> 2:05:53.880 do it. Anyways, Well, let's go on a break and 2:05:53.960 --> 2:05:58.080 then we will return with more news because more things 2:05:58.120 --> 2:05:59.560 happened this past week. 2:06:11.320 --> 2:06:15.280 All Right, we're back, and you know, there's simply nothing 2:06:15.360 --> 2:06:18.720 to say, but it's time for a little musical interlude. 2:06:20.200 --> 2:06:26.120 Locky jazz rocky jazz bo. 2:06:26.440 --> 2:06:28.240 Sorry, lock. 2:06:30.440 --> 2:06:37.000 Locky jazz bo rocky jazz bo. Ah, Oh god, that 2:06:37.160 --> 2:06:39.760 just hits every single time. It's been too long. Yeah, 2:06:39.840 --> 2:06:43.120 it really has, it really has, it really has. The 2:06:43.240 --> 2:06:46.080 time makes fools of us all mia. What's happening in 2:06:46.160 --> 2:06:46.880 tariffs today? 2:06:47.440 --> 2:06:50.040 The tariffs have been in committee, which is why the 2:06:50.080 --> 2:06:52.200 tariff song has been It has been in the box. 2:06:52.280 --> 2:06:55.840 But they are no longer in committee. So long long ago, 2:06:56.080 --> 2:06:59.280 in a galaxy far far away, which is to say, February, 2:06:59.680 --> 2:07:03.840 in a slightly different department, we talked about the possibility 2:07:03.920 --> 2:07:06.640 of Trump replacing the tariffs that the Supreme Court struck 2:07:06.720 --> 2:07:10.080 down by using a series of different sets of tariffs. 2:07:10.600 --> 2:07:14.440 One of the sets that we mentioned are tariffs imposed 2:07:14.480 --> 2:07:17.000 by using Section three ZHO one of the US Trade 2:07:17.040 --> 2:07:20.000 Act of nineteen seventy four. This allows the administration to 2:07:20.160 --> 2:07:23.560 carry out an investigation into unfair trade practices and that 2:07:23.600 --> 2:07:27.960 imposed teriffs after the investigation is concluded. Now, the administration 2:07:28.720 --> 2:07:33.280 basically set one of these investigations in motion, effectively the 2:07:33.400 --> 2:07:38.120 moments the ruling was decided in February and on July second, 2:07:38.360 --> 2:07:42.840 they returned with their conclusions, which Lo and Behold found 2:07:42.960 --> 2:07:46.839 that fifty four countries were failing to take appropriate measures 2:07:46.880 --> 2:07:50.560 to quote impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the 2:07:50.640 --> 2:07:54.400 importation of goods produced with forced labor. Now these countries, 2:07:54.560 --> 2:07:57.400 on top of Russia and China, include traditional US allies 2:07:57.480 --> 2:08:00.520 like Israel, Japan, South Korea, and India. 2:08:01.320 --> 2:08:04.760 I think you mean the Islamic Republic of Japan. I'm sorry, 2:08:04.880 --> 2:08:07.280 I had to. I just I could not let that 2:08:07.400 --> 2:08:11.480 one escape me. I missed that reference. Did someone trum 2:08:11.720 --> 2:08:15.720 Trump today said the words the Islamic Republic of Japan? 2:08:16.360 --> 2:08:19.200 Whether I think he did not mean to say the 2:08:19.360 --> 2:08:20.920 Islamic Republic of Japan. 2:08:21.520 --> 2:08:26.680 What country has taken fewer Islamic refugees than Japan? Like, 2:08:26.760 --> 2:08:29.000 I don't even understand down that could be like a 2:08:29.160 --> 2:08:30.320 conservative bugbear? 2:08:30.880 --> 2:08:35.120 He says, the Islamic Republic of Japan fired missiles at 2:08:35.280 --> 2:08:35.960 US shifts. 2:08:36.040 --> 2:08:38.720 Okay, Okay, he just misspoke. He misspoke. He's trying to 2:08:38.760 --> 2:08:43.720 say Ron It's just a normal senior moment from our 2:08:43.800 --> 2:08:46.920 president as he launches or continues a series of illegal 2:08:46.960 --> 2:08:51.000 attacks on foreign countries. Just a normal senior moment from 2:08:51.040 --> 2:08:57.000 our president. We're good, We're good, everything's fine us. Incredible 2:08:57.040 --> 2:09:02.240 stuff happening here that yeah, or that it cannot produce. Actually, admittedly, 2:09:03.200 --> 2:09:06.560 this is not the first time in our lifetimes that 2:09:06.720 --> 2:09:09.120 our president has not been able to correctly name the 2:09:09.160 --> 2:09:12.600 country which he is bombing. There isn't sure, isn't. It's 2:09:12.680 --> 2:09:16.000 not even the second president that this has happened to 2:09:16.120 --> 2:09:18.440 in our lifetime. No, I'm not certain. 2:09:18.520 --> 2:09:19.160 It's the third. 2:09:19.880 --> 2:09:23.280 Like three out of four. I'm pretty sure Bill Clinton. 2:09:22.960 --> 2:09:24.960 Could do it, So that's like three out of five. 2:09:25.160 --> 2:09:28.120 But I'm not one hundred percent. He's a country boy. 2:09:28.240 --> 2:09:30.640 He probably fucked it up once. Now, we didn't bomb 2:09:30.680 --> 2:09:32.600 as many people when he was president, but we didn't 2:09:32.640 --> 2:09:33.480 bomb no people. 2:09:33.560 --> 2:09:37.160 That's probably true. Good God, good god. 2:09:37.400 --> 2:09:41.400 Okay, So sorry, sorry, my apologies, it's okay, it's okay, 2:09:41.960 --> 2:09:44.200 returning for this this bleak interlude. 2:09:44.280 --> 2:09:47.440 So again, countries that the US are saying like are 2:09:47.560 --> 2:09:50.640 not enforcing this prohibition on the importation of goods abuses 2:09:50.680 --> 2:09:53.720 for slabor. So these again include a bunch of traditional 2:09:53.840 --> 2:09:57.560 US allies like Japan, South Korea, India, and Israel, which 2:09:57.600 --> 2:10:00.600 is sort of interesting. It also says quote the following 2:10:00.680 --> 2:10:04.000 six economies have failed to effectively enforce a prohibition on 2:10:04.600 --> 2:10:08.400 the importation of goods produced with forced labor. Canada, Ecuador, 2:10:08.680 --> 2:10:13.320 the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico, and Pakistan. So on this 2:10:13.480 --> 2:10:18.120 list that is the entire EU, Canada, Mexico, China, India, Japan, 2:10:18.240 --> 2:10:20.360 South Korea, Brazil, and Turkey, which is a list of 2:10:20.360 --> 2:10:23.600 the world's largest economies. And then also there's a few 2:10:24.040 --> 2:10:29.000 kind of oddball ones like poor Sri Lanka, which they 2:10:29.160 --> 2:10:30.960 really have something out for Sri Lanka. I don't know 2:10:31.000 --> 2:10:33.240 exactly why it keeps showing up on these terif lists, 2:10:33.520 --> 2:10:36.840 despite the fact that these poor people have been just 2:10:37.200 --> 2:10:41.480 suffering unbelievably devastating economic consequences for a very long time. 2:10:42.120 --> 2:10:44.640 Now I am in the unfortunate position of having to 2:10:44.800 --> 2:10:48.760 agree with California's Attorney General, a thing I am not 2:10:48.920 --> 2:10:52.120 typically doing. But he did in fact say something which 2:10:52.160 --> 2:10:55.120 is true that this list of countries is in fact 2:10:55.240 --> 2:10:57.000 ninety nine percent of all US imports. 2:10:57.760 --> 2:11:01.160 So okay. Now we can. 2:11:01.120 --> 2:11:04.800 Obviously note here the hypocrisy of imposing teriffs for forced 2:11:04.880 --> 2:11:08.160 labor in a country whose constitution specifically allows forced labor 2:11:08.200 --> 2:11:11.120 for prisoners, and note that you know, forced labor of 2:11:11.200 --> 2:11:13.120 various kinds from a dentuer service you to debt, p 2:11:13.240 --> 2:11:15.839 andage to various kinds of slavery have been key elements 2:11:15.880 --> 2:11:18.000 to the development of capitalism from the beginning. But this 2:11:18.120 --> 2:11:19.880 is not about forced labor at all, as I think 2:11:19.920 --> 2:11:25.360 anyone who is even remotely paying attention will understand. So 2:11:25.760 --> 2:11:29.920 the tariff rates are nominally tied to setting up systems 2:11:29.960 --> 2:11:32.640 that ensure that goods produced with forced labor aren't being 2:11:32.680 --> 2:11:35.760 sent to the US. With countries who are like out 2:11:35.800 --> 2:11:38.240 of compliance with the US system would do that getting 2:11:38.240 --> 2:11:40.400 a twelve percent twelve point five percent tariff rate, and 2:11:40.400 --> 2:11:43.560 countries who are complying facing ten percent teriff rates. That's 2:11:43.600 --> 2:11:46.800 at least the theory. The practice is not that, as 2:11:46.840 --> 2:11:50.000 the diplomat notes quote. The proposed teriff rates, however, cannot 2:11:50.040 --> 2:11:53.360 be explained by human rights concerns alone. Thailand and Vietnam 2:11:53.400 --> 2:11:57.200 at the Philippines have not established import prohibition systems meeting 2:11:57.360 --> 2:11:59.960 US standards and face a twelve point five percent tariff. 2:12:00.400 --> 2:12:03.280 Malaysia and Cambodia likewise lacks US systems, but phase a 2:12:03.320 --> 2:12:07.240 tariff for fully ten percent. So this is just a 2:12:07.400 --> 2:12:11.040 fairly naked attempt to reimpose the set of tariffs that 2:12:11.040 --> 2:12:15.080 Trump initially imposed in February in the wake of that 2:12:15.120 --> 2:12:17.560 Supreme Court decision. We talked about those in a different episode. 2:12:18.000 --> 2:12:20.880 They are up for a July twenty fourth deadline, so 2:12:20.880 --> 2:12:22.640 it's pretty clear that this report is time to come 2:12:22.680 --> 2:12:26.200 out in a way to allows these tariffs, which are 2:12:26.680 --> 2:12:29.000 very very similar to the ones that were already in place, 2:12:29.760 --> 2:12:35.240 to go into effect. Now, it's worth noting that those 2:12:35.320 --> 2:12:37.920 tariffs had some bad court rulings. They're probably not going 2:12:37.960 --> 2:12:40.080 to last long enough to get like a good Supreme 2:12:40.120 --> 2:12:43.120 Court ruling on it before they come out of effect. 2:12:44.240 --> 2:12:46.680 So those ones probably won't be lifted by a court 2:12:46.760 --> 2:12:49.080 order just because there's not enough time. But there's a 2:12:49.120 --> 2:12:51.440 good chance that these terroriffs are also not going to survive. 2:12:51.880 --> 2:12:55.000 But the California Attorney General is part of a very 2:12:55.160 --> 2:12:58.360 large group of state attorney generals which features the attorney 2:12:58.440 --> 2:13:02.120 general of almost every state with a Democratic governor, which 2:13:02.200 --> 2:13:03.480 I'm not going to read the list out because it's 2:13:03.480 --> 2:13:06.400 a bunch of them, but they are once again suing 2:13:06.440 --> 2:13:11.040 the administration over these tariffs. So here here we are 2:13:11.120 --> 2:13:17.000 again riding the tariff roller coaster, and yeah, we're back 2:13:17.520 --> 2:13:20.120 with the Trump administration trying to impose ten to twelve 2:13:20.120 --> 2:13:21.800 percent tariffs on most of the economies in the. 2:13:21.760 --> 2:13:27.320 World, speaking of the Islamic Republic of not Japan. No boy, 2:13:27.760 --> 2:13:30.879 here is James Stout with a special segment. 2:13:32.840 --> 2:13:34.720 So what I want to talk about today is this 2:13:34.920 --> 2:13:38.360 lawsuit recently filed by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, 2:13:38.520 --> 2:13:44.800 represented by Public Citizen, which has some incredible accusations about 2:13:44.800 --> 2:13:48.840 what the United States government has done to people who 2:13:48.920 --> 2:13:53.080 are Iranian nationals seeking asylum in the United States. Specifically, 2:13:53.240 --> 2:13:55.800 they're alleging that the US government has just closed confidential 2:13:55.880 --> 2:13:59.040 information on Iranian national seeking asylum in the USA to 2:13:59.320 --> 2:14:02.760 the Iranian government. I am going to reference a complaint 2:14:02.880 --> 2:14:04.960 and quote from a length quite a bit here, because 2:14:05.000 --> 2:14:08.560 these accusations are crazy. Not crazy in that I think 2:14:08.560 --> 2:14:11.760 they're false. I don't think they're false, crazy in that 2:14:11.880 --> 2:14:15.360 they are abhorrent and disgusting, especially when you consider that 2:14:15.600 --> 2:14:18.440 the United States government has consistently talked about the rights 2:14:18.480 --> 2:14:22.120 of people in Iran while all the time violating those 2:14:22.200 --> 2:14:25.480 same rights. So let's quote from that complaint. 2:14:25.800 --> 2:14:26.120 Quote. 2:14:26.520 --> 2:14:30.320 Many of the asylum seekers are pro democracy protesters, members 2:14:30.400 --> 2:14:33.360 of religious minorities such as evangelical Christians or members of 2:14:33.400 --> 2:14:36.440 the LGBTQ community, who seek refuge in the United States 2:14:36.520 --> 2:14:39.880 because of grave dangers they face in Iran. It's closing 2:14:39.880 --> 2:14:43.560 their confidential information to the Iranian government, violates the asylum seekers' 2:14:43.560 --> 2:14:47.560 confidentiality rights, endangers their family members and acquaintances who may 2:14:47.640 --> 2:14:50.480 still be residing in Iran, and puts those who are 2:14:50.680 --> 2:14:54.760 subject to removal to Iran directly or through chain refilement 2:14:54.840 --> 2:14:59.520 via third countries at risk persecution, torture, and death following 2:14:59.520 --> 2:15:01.920 their ribal in it run. If you're not familiar with 2:15:02.000 --> 2:15:04.200 Jane Refileman, it's sending someone to a third country that 2:15:04.240 --> 2:15:06.400 will then send them to the place that the USA 2:15:06.760 --> 2:15:09.160 can't or won't send them due to concerns of persecution 2:15:09.280 --> 2:15:12.360 or torture. So it's an end ran around international law. 2:15:12.400 --> 2:15:15.160 It's barred by the ninety fifty one Refugee Convention and 2:15:15.240 --> 2:15:18.320 the UN Convention against Torture, but the US has been 2:15:18.360 --> 2:15:21.720 doing it a lot under the Trump two point zero regime. 2:15:22.320 --> 2:15:24.760 In the course of my work, I have met Iranians 2:15:24.840 --> 2:15:28.520 from all of the groups described in this complaint, as 2:15:28.560 --> 2:15:30.520 well as those who are ethnic minority is in country 2:15:30.560 --> 2:15:33.120 in addition to being parts of the groups described in 2:15:33.240 --> 2:15:37.280 this complaint. Can think of a group of young Iranian women, 2:15:37.320 --> 2:15:39.720 I men the Dadian Gap who I spent a good 2:15:39.760 --> 2:15:41.920 deal of time talking to you really lovely folks of 2:15:42.120 --> 2:15:42.800 man with them as well. 2:15:42.840 --> 2:15:43.800 Actually I think about it. 2:15:43.960 --> 2:15:46.720 You can hear them in my Darien series. I met 2:15:46.760 --> 2:15:50.360 some Iranian Christians in outdoor attention, a number of them. Remember, 2:15:50.400 --> 2:15:53.320 one of them was having a heart problem, so it's 2:15:53.440 --> 2:15:55.160 been a deal of time trying to help her and 2:15:55.240 --> 2:15:58.520 get her medical attention. As I've covered before in this show, 2:15:59.040 --> 2:16:02.600 throughout the USA, when Israel's bombing campaign on Iran, Iran 2:16:02.680 --> 2:16:05.560 has kept killing its own citizens. In the last couple 2:16:05.640 --> 2:16:09.320 of weeks, it has engaged some of the armed Kurdish 2:16:09.400 --> 2:16:12.800 groups and there have been casualties on both sides. The 2:16:12.920 --> 2:16:15.920 process of the US government sharing these records with Iran. 2:16:16.000 --> 2:16:19.280 The suit alleges began in March of twenty twenty five. 2:16:20.000 --> 2:16:23.440 It seems to have continued when the US was bombing 2:16:23.600 --> 2:16:27.000 Iran that year. It seems to have continued while Iran 2:16:27.240 --> 2:16:30.800 massacred thousands of its own citizens in January of this year, 2:16:31.520 --> 2:16:35.640 and it continued throughout the United States and Israel's current 2:16:35.800 --> 2:16:39.960 war on Iran. Indeed, a flight left for Iran on 2:16:40.200 --> 2:16:43.480 January the twenty fifth of this year, as the dead 2:16:43.560 --> 2:16:46.800 from the pro democracy protests were only recently in their graves. 2:16:47.800 --> 2:16:50.480 Iran doesn't have an embassy in the US, and these 2:16:50.520 --> 2:16:53.480 affairs go through the Iranian Interest Section of the Pakistani embassy. 2:16:54.120 --> 2:16:56.560 It was to that Iranian Interest section that the State 2:16:56.640 --> 2:17:00.440 Department reached out in March of twenty twenty five. According 2:17:00.480 --> 2:17:03.760 to the lawsuit quote, the March twenty twenty five meeting 2:17:03.879 --> 2:17:06.840 produced an agreement between the United States government and the 2:17:06.959 --> 2:17:11.080 Iranian government, under which ICE and Iranian government officials have 2:17:11.240 --> 2:17:14.840 begun holding monthly meetings to share the immigration files and 2:17:14.959 --> 2:17:19.160 information of Iranians in ICE custody. In addition, since the 2:17:19.240 --> 2:17:22.760 March twenty twenty five meeting, US government officials have periodically 2:17:22.879 --> 2:17:27.320 mailed or hand delivered immigration files of Iranians in ICE custody, 2:17:27.640 --> 2:17:31.280 who the Iranian government then goes onto. Alleged that ICE 2:17:31.360 --> 2:17:34.720 has provided officials from the Iranian Interest Section with access 2:17:34.800 --> 2:17:38.360 to people that it has detained and worked with the 2:17:38.440 --> 2:17:41.440 Iranian government to pressure these people to waive their rights. 2:17:42.120 --> 2:17:44.520 This is going to be them signing quote unquote voluntary 2:17:44.600 --> 2:17:47.440 deportation paperwork where very clear is not voluntary when they're 2:17:47.440 --> 2:17:50.320 held against their will and pressure to do it. But 2:17:50.760 --> 2:17:53.440 that's what you'll hear it called quote. Many of the 2:17:53.480 --> 2:17:56.440 Iranian detainees did not consent to meet with the Iranian 2:17:56.520 --> 2:17:59.760 Intersection officials, but were required to do so by ice. 2:18:00.480 --> 2:18:04.400 According to Iranian detainees who met with an Iranian Intersection official, 2:18:04.720 --> 2:18:08.200 the official had knowledge of their immigration cases, including the 2:18:08.280 --> 2:18:12.600 details of their asylum applications. These nonconsensual meetings with the 2:18:12.640 --> 2:18:15.880 Interestsection officials solidify the detainee's belief that they have been 2:18:15.959 --> 2:18:19.800 identified to the very same repressive government that they had fled. 2:18:20.640 --> 2:18:23.959 The United States government allowed the Iranian government to select 2:18:24.080 --> 2:18:28.240 the Iranians deported to Iran. According to this complaint, some 2:18:28.440 --> 2:18:31.959 of those people were then interrogated by an intelligent section 2:18:32.200 --> 2:18:36.000 of the IRGC on their rival in Iran. Some of 2:18:36.120 --> 2:18:39.320 these people had detailed on their application as they must 2:18:39.640 --> 2:18:42.120 to make a good asylum application right, that they had 2:18:42.200 --> 2:18:46.360 participated in the twenty twenty two jan Azadi movement Woman 2:18:46.760 --> 2:18:51.560 Life Freedom. There's a Kurdish slogan of the Kurdish Freedom 2:18:51.600 --> 2:18:56.080 movement that was used by pro democracy protesters in Iran 2:18:56.480 --> 2:19:02.240 after the murder of Jinamini by Iraan police. This sparked 2:19:02.240 --> 2:19:04.280 a whole movement. I'm sure you could find a great 2:19:04.320 --> 2:19:06.440 deal of good writing on that movement. It was very 2:19:06.480 --> 2:19:09.760 well covered. I have met women who took part in 2:19:09.879 --> 2:19:11.920 that movement. As I said before, you can hear some 2:19:12.040 --> 2:19:15.680 of them in some of my podcasts. They tried with 2:19:16.200 --> 2:19:19.160 every fiber of their being to make it round better. 2:19:20.040 --> 2:19:23.080 They saw their friends die to try and make it 2:19:23.200 --> 2:19:26.440 round better, and then they fled because it was made 2:19:26.560 --> 2:19:28.520 very clear to them that the state was willing to 2:19:28.600 --> 2:19:32.039 fill the streets with blood before it changed. Now those 2:19:32.120 --> 2:19:35.160 people are obviously afraid of telling the truth on their 2:19:35.200 --> 2:19:39.640 asylum applications or even to their lawyers, especially while they're 2:19:39.680 --> 2:19:43.640 in detention, because they now know that that information could 2:19:43.640 --> 2:19:46.280 be delivered directly into the hands of the Iranian government. 2:19:46.560 --> 2:19:48.600 They may have sat in their applications. I was part 2:19:48.640 --> 2:19:51.400 of this movement because I'm opposed to the government, and 2:19:51.520 --> 2:19:55.240 now that information is being delivered to the government. They 2:19:55.720 --> 2:19:58.040 came here to experience some of the freedoms that their 2:19:58.080 --> 2:20:01.920 friends died for dead. They were hand delivered to the 2:20:02.000 --> 2:20:04.520 regime that they had fled from the US did not 2:20:04.640 --> 2:20:08.520 ask for any protections or guarantees for their safety. At 2:20:08.520 --> 2:20:11.360 the very same time, the USA was using the rights 2:20:11.400 --> 2:20:14.320 Iranian people as a pretext for its war in era. 2:20:14.920 --> 2:20:18.040 It did this as it was depriving people of those 2:20:18.280 --> 2:20:22.560 very same rights back here. This is disgusting. I will 2:20:23.480 --> 2:20:26.200 link to the complaint in the sourceage you'd like to 2:20:26.240 --> 2:20:28.600 read it yourself. I'm going to keep an eye on 2:20:28.640 --> 2:20:32.840 this one. Even amongst the horrors of the second Trump administration, 2:20:33.000 --> 2:20:35.120 this is just particularly apparent. 2:20:36.080 --> 2:20:38.400 We'll go on a break and then return for one 2:20:38.480 --> 2:20:39.600 more batch of news. 2:20:49.920 --> 2:20:50.680 We are back. 2:20:51.640 --> 2:20:55.560 Next up two shootings by ice, which have both occurred 2:20:55.720 --> 2:20:59.800 just this last week, exactly half a year after the 2:21:00.040 --> 2:21:02.520 shooting of Renee Good Robert. 2:21:03.400 --> 2:21:09.560 Video captured Wednesday morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania showed Ice attempting 2:21:09.640 --> 2:21:15.520 to arrest an undocumented immigrant from Mexico named Clemente Laura Hernandez. 2:21:16.160 --> 2:21:19.200 There's video of this incident. You can see like a 2:21:19.280 --> 2:21:22.520 black car with flashing lights, like an unmarked police car 2:21:23.040 --> 2:21:26.720 blocking like a white suv. Agents get out of the 2:21:26.800 --> 2:21:29.280 car and rush the suv and again they just kind 2:21:29.320 --> 2:21:31.520 of look like guys with guns in a moment, and 2:21:31.600 --> 2:21:33.440 one of them starts screaming that he's going to shatter 2:21:33.520 --> 2:21:36.800 the window and yelling at the driver. At that point, 2:21:36.879 --> 2:21:40.680 the driver pulls away in a panic. They hit the black, 2:21:41.040 --> 2:21:44.440 unmarked car that had been blocking them. They speed off, 2:21:44.920 --> 2:21:47.080 the fucking Ice points out there, going wrong way down 2:21:47.120 --> 2:21:50.840 a one way street, and they hit another uninvolved civilian 2:21:50.920 --> 2:21:52.520 vehicle and it was like, yeah, they were panicked because 2:21:52.840 --> 2:21:55.920 an unmarked car drove up and gunman ran out and 2:21:56.040 --> 2:21:58.000 started surrounding and screaming at them. 2:21:58.320 --> 2:21:59.119 It scared them. 2:21:59.200 --> 2:22:01.360 That's the kind of shit that happens in countries where 2:22:01.360 --> 2:22:03.920 the cartels are in charge of everything, if you pretend 2:22:04.000 --> 2:22:06.240 that like Ice is in any meaningful way different from 2:22:06.240 --> 2:22:09.760 a cartellary gang. As of us recording this, this person 2:22:09.800 --> 2:22:12.560 has not been taken into custody. I hope they stay 2:22:12.640 --> 2:22:18.760 that way. Also earlier this week in Houston, Texas, Lorenzo 2:22:18.879 --> 2:22:22.880 Salgado Arajo, who is fifty two years old, was driving 2:22:23.040 --> 2:22:25.920 in the East End when the same basic thing happened. 2:22:26.040 --> 2:22:29.920 Unmarked cars surround him, guys with guns get out. He 2:22:30.080 --> 2:22:34.720 gets really scared and he drives off and he gets shot. 2:22:34.840 --> 2:22:37.920 As he's driving away. ICE accused him of having weaponized 2:22:38.000 --> 2:22:41.760 the vehicle. He was taken to the hospital where he died. 2:22:42.120 --> 2:22:45.400 Salgado a Rajo had no criminal record, he had been 2:22:45.560 --> 2:22:48.760 in the country for more than thirty years. He was 2:22:48.800 --> 2:22:52.120 in a car with several people, including his brother. There's 2:22:52.160 --> 2:22:55.600 no evidence whatsoever of any kind of violence in his past. 2:22:55.840 --> 2:22:57.680 There's no evidence that he wanted to hurt anyone. There's 2:22:57.680 --> 2:23:00.560 no evidence that he was doing anything but being terrified 2:23:00.680 --> 2:23:05.520 by unmarked, armed men surrounding him. His son has come 2:23:05.560 --> 2:23:07.360 out and said that if he knew they were ICE, 2:23:07.440 --> 2:23:10.200 he certainly would have stopped and complied. He had no 2:23:10.400 --> 2:23:14.320 idea what was happening, which again seems very credible to me. 2:23:14.760 --> 2:23:18.400 There's already been a cavalcade of people coming out to 2:23:18.800 --> 2:23:23.080 demand an independent and impartial investigation into what happened, including 2:23:23.200 --> 2:23:27.040 US Representative Sylvia Garcia, who's a Democrat from Texas, and 2:23:27.240 --> 2:23:31.400 obviously his son and Alejandra Salinas, a Houston City council manager, 2:23:31.440 --> 2:23:34.120 also called for an immediate and partial investigation. I don't 2:23:34.160 --> 2:23:37.880 know what good I think that's going to do. Like, realistically, 2:23:38.360 --> 2:23:41.119 for one thing, no law enforcement entity could be trusted 2:23:41.120 --> 2:23:43.879 to conduct an independent and partial investigation of ice period, 2:23:44.200 --> 2:23:47.840 especially right now. For another, there's literally no way to 2:23:48.120 --> 2:23:50.640 guarantee that they will be held to account even if 2:23:50.959 --> 2:23:53.600 the evidence, and I think it suggests that they were 2:23:53.680 --> 2:23:55.960 acting entirely wrongly and murdered a man like I don't 2:23:55.959 --> 2:23:58.000 believe anything's going to happen to this guy at this point. 2:23:58.160 --> 2:24:02.080 So I guess I support the idea of an independent 2:24:02.120 --> 2:24:04.600 and impartial investigation. I just don't think that's going to 2:24:04.840 --> 2:24:06.280 get us anywhere yet. 2:24:06.480 --> 2:24:08.120 Yeah, I mean, I think I think if we want 2:24:08.160 --> 2:24:11.520 an actual independence, like impartial investigation, it's going to have 2:24:11.600 --> 2:24:14.280 to happen after this. This administration regime is out of power, 2:24:14.959 --> 2:24:17.360 and that's the thing that can be done, right, But 2:24:17.640 --> 2:24:19.600 it's going to just take a bunch of time until 2:24:19.800 --> 2:24:22.520 these people don't have control of all of the state 2:24:22.560 --> 2:24:25.880 security services. And in the meantime, they're just going to 2:24:25.959 --> 2:24:29.040 keep doing the same shooting over and over again. There's 2:24:29.080 --> 2:24:32.800 been growing protests in Houston these past few days. This 2:24:32.959 --> 2:24:36.440 is some audio recorded Tuesday published by Reuters. 2:24:36.720 --> 2:24:39.879 People are here to work, Families are dying, people are dying, 2:24:40.040 --> 2:24:42.440 but are doing murdering innocent Mexican people. 2:24:42.800 --> 2:24:43.640 They come to work. 2:24:44.160 --> 2:24:45.879 They come here to work, So what if they don't 2:24:45.920 --> 2:24:53.080 got papers? So what they're welcome? 2:24:53.240 --> 2:24:57.360 Yeah, Trump did this to us. What happened to taking 2:24:57.400 --> 2:24:59.960 the murderers out? What happened to take in the rapist own? 2:25:00.240 --> 2:25:03.320 What happened to taking the drug dealers down? Not innocent people? 2:25:03.879 --> 2:25:06.880 That's not what you said, President Trump. You didn't say that. 2:25:07.400 --> 2:25:11.040 Since then, the protests have only grown. On Wednesday evening, 2:25:11.240 --> 2:25:14.920 hundreds of people marched in Magnolia Park on the street 2:25:15.080 --> 2:25:20.440 where Lorenzo Salgado O Rajo was shot by ice four 2:25:20.959 --> 2:25:27.920 our last segment, Let's talk about America two fifty. So 2:25:29.000 --> 2:25:31.720 this past weekend marked the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 2:25:31.800 --> 2:25:35.840 of the United States, and things went off without a hitch. 2:25:36.040 --> 2:25:39.560 I heard the Great American State Fair was lots of fun, 2:25:40.160 --> 2:25:44.280 that it was totally packed, that no parts of any 2:25:44.360 --> 2:25:48.960 stages on nearly killed dancers as they were setting up 2:25:49.040 --> 2:25:52.920 the event, That there was no severe weather events that 2:25:53.120 --> 2:25:53.800 disrupted it. 2:25:54.000 --> 2:25:55.360 I heard it was fun. 2:25:56.480 --> 2:25:59.840 And adding to the fun was President Trump, who spent 2:26:00.240 --> 2:26:03.080 much of the fourth of July weekend talking about the 2:26:03.240 --> 2:26:06.960 growing threat of communism and the need to pass the 2:26:07.200 --> 2:26:11.360 Save America Act. Following the Supreme Court's ruling in support 2:26:11.600 --> 2:26:16.600 of counting mail in ballots. In Trump's July fourth speech 2:26:16.640 --> 2:26:20.720 commemorating the historic occasion of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, 2:26:21.440 --> 2:26:24.840 the President said that to keep America great, we must 2:26:25.000 --> 2:26:29.560 pass the Save America Act, the troubled voter restriction bill 2:26:29.640 --> 2:26:33.840 that has failed to pass Congress. Quote, all voters must 2:26:33.920 --> 2:26:37.720 provide a little thing called proof of citizenship. There will 2:26:37.760 --> 2:26:42.320 be no mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, 2:26:42.480 --> 2:26:46.359 or travel. And you won't have cheating on the elections anymore. 2:26:46.560 --> 2:26:47.560 It's very simple. 2:26:47.959 --> 2:26:53.680 Unquote. Speaker Johnson has indicated his plan to pass another 2:26:53.840 --> 2:26:59.640 version of the Save Act through reconciliation. The bill's repeatedly 2:27:00.080 --> 2:27:02.840 installed in the Senate, and that has bolstered a lot 2:27:02.879 --> 2:27:06.280 of Trump's frustrations these past few months. Now, following the 2:27:06.280 --> 2:27:09.960 Supreme Court ruling, it appears that Republicans will take another 2:27:10.040 --> 2:27:13.960 crack at it. But Trump also spent much of the 2:27:14.200 --> 2:27:20.280 America two fifty address railing against communism. Quote, America will 2:27:20.360 --> 2:27:23.640 never be a communist country. It's like a cancer. You 2:27:23.760 --> 2:27:25.480 got to cut it out, and you got to cut 2:27:25.560 --> 2:27:29.720 it out fast. The communist system is the opposite of 2:27:29.879 --> 2:27:33.360 the American system, and the communist system has never worked. 2:27:34.440 --> 2:27:38.000 Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, 2:27:38.400 --> 2:27:42.160 only to have that menace rear its ugly head right 2:27:42.400 --> 2:27:48.440 back here in America. Unquote real, real nineteen fifties style 2:27:48.920 --> 2:27:56.560 reactions to seven social Democrats getting elected. But I think 2:27:56.680 --> 2:28:00.400 that the fact that how scared he is and people, 2:28:00.440 --> 2:28:02.600 including on the Democratic Party side, and you know, there's 2:28:02.640 --> 2:28:05.480 been a wave of articles from the Atlantic really scared 2:28:05.520 --> 2:28:08.720 of the more kind of social democratic, democratic socialist direction 2:28:08.800 --> 2:28:12.039 that the party's been going, really frightened. In fact, I think, 2:28:12.200 --> 2:28:15.320 like a few days ago, Trump even said the words 2:28:15.360 --> 2:28:18.520 as social democrat and said they're just communists. But the 2:28:18.600 --> 2:28:21.720 fact that Trump had to learn what social democrat is 2:28:22.280 --> 2:28:25.160 is a really interesting indicator of where we are at 2:28:25.200 --> 2:28:25.880 as a country. 2:28:26.280 --> 2:28:26.520 M H. 2:28:27.840 --> 2:28:30.600 On the eve of July fourth, Trump gave another speech 2:28:30.720 --> 2:28:34.400 at Mount Rushmore after speaking to the AI ghost of 2:28:35.480 --> 2:28:40.760 Roseveldt God. And during this Mount Rushmore speech, he spoke 2:28:40.840 --> 2:28:44.160 at length about how communism is a quote moral threat 2:28:44.280 --> 2:28:47.320 to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, 2:28:47.720 --> 2:28:51.480 including World War One, World War two, Pearl Harbor or 2:28:51.600 --> 2:28:52.640 even nine to eleven. 2:28:53.640 --> 2:28:55.720 World War One is simply not a threat to our country. 2:28:56.040 --> 2:28:58.199 Not in any way, shape or form was our country 2:28:58.240 --> 2:29:01.040 threatened at any point in World War Onebviously, some Americans 2:29:01.080 --> 2:29:03.440 were killed as a result of Germany attacking shipping, but 2:29:03.560 --> 2:29:04.879 in no way were we in danger. 2:29:06.160 --> 2:29:09.480 Yeah, Like, does she understand that Pearl Harvard was part 2:29:09.520 --> 2:29:10.119 of World War two? 2:29:10.240 --> 2:29:10.280 Like? 2:29:10.320 --> 2:29:13.640 Does he like get that he was just shooting buzzwords off? 2:29:13.800 --> 2:29:14.840 I think that's all that was. 2:29:15.200 --> 2:29:19.400 Yeah, incredible guide to control the largest nuclear weapons arsenal 2:29:19.480 --> 2:29:20.120 in human history. 2:29:22.320 --> 2:29:26.440 Trump also called communism the enemy of the Constitution, the 2:29:26.640 --> 2:29:31.840 enemy of July fourth, seventeen seventy six. Quote, on the 2:29:32.000 --> 2:29:35.120 eve of this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of American heritage, 2:29:35.280 --> 2:29:38.440 we resolve and swear for all to hear that the 2:29:38.520 --> 2:29:42.720 citizens of the United States of America will vanquish communism quickly. 2:29:43.680 --> 2:29:47.240 President Trump also had this banger line, which is the 2:29:47.280 --> 2:29:49.920 only clip I actually want to play of this speech. 2:29:50.320 --> 2:29:54.320 Boy, you can be loyal to Carl Box, or you 2:29:54.440 --> 2:29:58.439 can be loyal to America. You can be a communist, 2:29:58.560 --> 2:30:01.240 or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. 2:30:01.760 --> 2:30:06.080 As for those who pedal Marxist lies about our heritage, 2:30:06.520 --> 2:30:10.960 tell our children that we live on stolen land, or 2:30:11.080 --> 2:30:12.840 that our heroes were oppressors. 2:30:13.600 --> 2:30:17.160 They're doing something much worse than slandering our past. They 2:30:17.200 --> 2:30:20.880 are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let 2:30:20.920 --> 2:30:21.440 that happen. 2:30:22.080 --> 2:30:24.960 You can be loyal to Karl Marx, You can be 2:30:25.120 --> 2:30:30.240 loyal to America. So true, So true, President Donald Trump. 2:30:31.879 --> 2:30:35.400 It's just really stunning thinking about this is how the 2:30:35.520 --> 2:30:39.119 President of the United States is spending the two hundred 2:30:39.120 --> 2:30:42.800 and fiftieth anniversary of the country that he thinks it 2:30:42.959 --> 2:30:47.240 is important to start bringing this stuff up. I just 2:30:47.320 --> 2:30:52.120 thought that was a little interesting tidbit that happened this weekend. Anyway, 2:30:52.800 --> 2:30:55.080 I think that is all we have for news this week. 2:30:55.680 --> 2:30:58.200 Okay, well, I guess it's been. It hasn't been a 2:30:58.240 --> 2:31:00.680 short news week, but you know, we don't always have 2:31:00.760 --> 2:31:02.480 to talk for an hour and twenty minutes about the 2:31:02.480 --> 2:31:04.840 shit that's happening. You now kind of know what's happening. 2:31:04.959 --> 2:31:08.120 No, this is just a fifty five to one hour 2:31:08.200 --> 2:31:10.640 and three minutes with James Segment said, yeah, a short 2:31:10.720 --> 2:31:11.400 news week. 2:31:11.600 --> 2:31:14.040 Yeah, a short news week. All right, go go with 2:31:14.160 --> 2:31:15.480 christ my friends, we. 2:31:15.600 --> 2:31:16.320 Reported the news. 2:31:16.959 --> 2:31:17.879 We reported the news. 2:31:25.280 --> 2:31:28.400 Hey, We'll be back Monday, with more episodes every week 2:31:28.520 --> 2:31:30.360 from now until the heat death of the universe. 2:31:31.160 --> 2:31:33.640 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 2:31:33.840 --> 2:31:36.880 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:31:36.959 --> 2:31:40.480 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 2:31:40.600 --> 2:31:44.160 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:31:44.240 --> 2:31:46.520 now find sources for It Could Happen Here, listed directly 2:31:46.600 --> 2:31:48.840 in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.