Speaker 1: Welcome to It Could Happen here, a podcast about things
Speaker 1: falling apart um and and some other stuff from time
Speaker 1: to time. I'm Robert Evans UM and today we are
Speaker 1: going to chat once again with Romeo Kokoatski. Um. Romeo,
Speaker 1: you are a Ukrainian journalist and an anarchist. We chatted
Speaker 1: with you right before the Russian expanded invasion of Ukraine. UM,
Speaker 1: and now we're we're talking with you again now that
Speaker 1: the war has entered UM certainly a different phase as
Speaker 1: as Russian troops pull out of the north of the country,
Speaker 1: pull out from around Kiev and focus their remaining on
Speaker 1: blowed up forces to the fight around the dawn Bass. Um.
Speaker 1: How are you doing, Romeo? Yeah, thanks for having me
Speaker 1: on UM. It's been it's been tough. We'll get into
Speaker 1: this a little later on. But obviously learning that Um,
Speaker 1: a town not far from your own as undergone a
Speaker 1: genocide is not the easiest thing to live through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and knowing that that is not even the worst of
Speaker 1: the atrocities that we're going to discover in the coming
Speaker 1: weeks and months is is put the put the mental strain.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Yeah, I don't think I think thankfully.
Speaker 1: Very few people understand the experience of learning that a
Speaker 1: genocide has occurred next door essentially, um. And yeah, what
Speaker 1: you wanted to talk about specifically, obviously, when when we
Speaker 1: talk about the act of genocide, we're talking about the
Speaker 1: massacre in Bucca UM. An exact count butcha, sorry, an
Speaker 1: exact death count is not available right now. But I
Speaker 1: think at least two civilians killed is the last number
Speaker 1: I've gotten. Yeah, that's the last, like confirmed number. But
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of these people UM have been tossed
Speaker 1: into mass graves. They're lying around in various residencies. It's
Speaker 1: it's gonna, it's gonna be a long time before, yeah,
Speaker 1: able to to come to any kind of accurate account
Speaker 1: of how many residents were killed. Yeah, And for a
Speaker 1: brief overview of just kind of like what has been
Speaker 1: seen in the executions there. We have civilians often hands
Speaker 1: tied behind their backs, so they were clearly restrained, executed
Speaker 1: after having been restrained. Some of them were just left
Speaker 1: in the streets, some of them dumped into mass graves.
Speaker 1: UH Satellite imagery from before the town was liberated by
Speaker 1: Ukrainian forces shows corpses lying in the street in the
Speaker 1: same position they were discovered in when the Ukrainian military
Speaker 1: moved in, which is as solid open source confirmation of
Speaker 1: the genocide as you're going to get with any kind
Speaker 1: of genocide. Um. So that's that's the situation. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: usual crew of bad actors and u USHI defenders have
Speaker 1: kind of slid into the most common allegation I'm seeing
Speaker 1: at least online as people saying it must have been
Speaker 1: as Off battalion that did it, even though their four
Speaker 1: hundred and forty miles away um encircled by the Russian army. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know it's the it's the you're seeing like
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of bad open source responses to
Speaker 1: with people being like, well, why would the bodies if
Speaker 1: you look at the satellite imagery, why are the body
Speaker 1: so evenly spaced, which is just like they're not. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's just like people people recognizing that if you
Speaker 1: like circle ship on a grainy image and and tweet
Speaker 1: about how it's suspicious, you'll provide enough plausible deniability for
Speaker 1: other people to to doubt a genocide. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's the same ship we saw with Syria. There
Speaker 1: was some disgusting denial where someone was claiming that they
Speaker 1: could see bodies being carted away um by the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: for you know, investigation and reburial. Um, that the corpses
Speaker 1: were quote unquote moving. You can see you can see
Speaker 1: this guy's hand move. Yeah, you're looking at dead bodies.
Speaker 1: Buggy there. And by the way, when you move dead bodies,
Speaker 1: they move like pieces of the shock. It's you're driving
Speaker 1: over a street that has been churned over by tank
Speaker 1: treads and you're you're transporting human corpses. Those corpses are
Speaker 1: gonna get jostled around. Yeah, it's uh, definitely. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to be labor on this
Speaker 1: too much because I think we've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: how this this distant foe works. I think what you
Speaker 1: came on specifically to talk about and what's really worth
Speaker 1: getting into in some detail, is, um, this manifesto that
Speaker 1: was published on r i A, which is a large
Speaker 1: Russian government controlled UH news agency. Um, it's this I
Speaker 1: don't know how manifesto. It's fascist. You can find it
Speaker 1: if you if you just google uh r i A
Speaker 1: published is Russian fascist manifesto The New Voice of Ukraine
Speaker 1: has a translation of it up um if you want
Speaker 1: to read this thing, but it's it's pretty pretty striking,
Speaker 1: um and um. The kind of focus of this is
Speaker 1: on justifying the denazification campaign um and it opens one
Speaker 1: of the opening lines is when the theory that people
Speaker 1: are good the government is bad no longer holds true.
Speaker 1: Admitting this fact is the basis of the Denazification party
Speaker 1: all of its associated measures, and the fact itself is
Speaker 1: the subject matter of the policy. And that this came
Speaker 1: out within a day or two of the discovering of
Speaker 1: the elements of genocide and and um, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: is pretty predominant, I would say, like pretty noteworthy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I had to translate this and let me tell
Speaker 1: you it took um a pretty big, pretty big tone
Speaker 1: in my sanity for a couple of days here um.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna be honest as Ukrainian reading this, this
Speaker 1: was If you have ever I don't know if some
Speaker 1: of your listeners may have like been at protests UM
Speaker 1: counter protests against UM fascist or far right demonstrators where
Speaker 1: they're chanting that they will murder you. This is exactly
Speaker 1: how I felt. This is this is nothing less than
Speaker 1: someone reaching through the screen and telling me that they
Speaker 1: want to kill me and everyone I love personally, Um,
Speaker 1: because I am, because I want their independence. So there's
Speaker 1: this the kind of theme of this article. The tern
Speaker 1: that they use most often is denossification, and I think
Speaker 1: it really um, it is incredibly vital to explain just
Speaker 1: what this denotification means, because normally, like you and I, Robert,
Speaker 1: I think we both call our else anti fascists and
Speaker 1: we are pretty anti Nazi. Um that I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a pretty mainstream position to do not like
Speaker 1: Nazis and be anti Nazi. So the Russians use this
Speaker 1: term denazification to someone that has no context, no idea
Speaker 1: of what it refers to beyond the obvious meaning. Get
Speaker 1: rid of Nazis sounds like something even laudable. The problem
Speaker 1: is what the Russians mean by Nazis is not what
Speaker 1: you and I or any other normal, same rational human
Speaker 1: being would consider a Nazi. This article does not justify uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's thesis that Ukrainians are Nazis at all. In fact, um,
Speaker 1: there are there is a whole series of paragraphs um
Speaker 1: that states that Ukraine does not meet like any critidia
Speaker 1: of being Nazi. UM too. To quote a bit from
Speaker 1: this um, as horrible as it is, UM, it reads,
Speaker 1: there isn't, after all, a single important Nazi party, no fewer,
Speaker 1: no fully racist laws, only their curl tailed variance in
Speaker 1: the form of oppressions against forms language. As a result,
Speaker 1: there's no opposition in resistance to the regime. A particular
Speaker 1: feature of Nazified Ukraine is it's a morphosis eminent and
Speaker 1: ambivalentness which allows for the masking of Nazism as a
Speaker 1: desire to move towards a quote unquote independent and quote
Speaker 1: unquote European, uh Western and pro American path of development,
Speaker 1: in reality towards degradation, while insisting that quote unquote Ukraine
Speaker 1: doesn't have any Nazism, only private and singular excesses. So
Speaker 1: the micle itself an it's that Ukraine is not Nazi
Speaker 1: in any way that we would recognize the term. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's basically saying that like it's Nazi, it's not.
Speaker 1: There's no fewer and there's no race like racialist laws. UM.
Speaker 1: But the thing that makes it a Nazi is want
Speaker 1: in closer union with Europe as opposed to Russia. UM.
Speaker 1: And of course it it notes like the so called
Speaker 1: laws against the Russian language, which I'm not aware of
Speaker 1: anything happening. I think what they're referring to is like
Speaker 1: attempts to encourage the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are no laws or sanctions language in Ukraine. There never
Speaker 1: have been. And in fact, when I was there, one
Speaker 1: of the difficulties I had with my interpreter is he
Speaker 1: he only spoke Ukrainian. And so you can, obviously you
Speaker 1: can speak with people who speak Russian if you speak Ukrainian,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit like confusing, and most people
Speaker 1: we were talking to spoke Russian natively. Like it's the
Speaker 1: the idea that it's somehow like been that the Russian
Speaker 1: language has been somehow like attacked in Ukraine. Um feels
Speaker 1: very silly as someone who like repeatedly encountered the Russian
Speaker 1: language while in Ukraine. Yeah, it's it's it's simply propaganda, um.
Speaker 1: And the fact is that the Russians define Ukrainian Nazism
Speaker 1: not as having Nazi values or a Nazi party or
Speaker 1: anything that we would associate with with Nazism, but in
Speaker 1: fact simply the simply that Ukraine wants to be independent
Speaker 1: of Russia. That in itself is proof positive to the
Speaker 1: Russians of our Nazism and nothing else. So when when
Speaker 1: people hear this word denossification, what they don't mean getting
Speaker 1: rid of like far right elements in Ukraine. No, they
Speaker 1: mean being anti Russian or being or simply wanting to
Speaker 1: be separate from Russia. Is itself a far right position
Speaker 1: in Russia's eyes, and that is enough to call for our,
Speaker 1: um pretty much complete extermination. Yeah, and you know, to
Speaker 1: kind of go into this article a little more. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I find m interesting about it
Speaker 1: is this line here, The fact that the Ukrainian electorate
Speaker 1: shows Poroshenko's piece Porshenko is the president before Zelinski and
Speaker 1: Zelinski's piece should not be misled. Um, I think they
Speaker 1: probably meant misread. Maybe Ukrainians are quite satisfied with the
Speaker 1: shortest path to piece through blitzkrieg, which the last two
Speaker 1: Ukrainian presidents transparently hinted at when they were elected. I
Speaker 1: how I don't understand how anything Ukraine has done could
Speaker 1: be considered a blitzkrieg um since they never invaded Russian
Speaker 1: territory and in fact lost territory to Russia in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. Um, that's a weird definition of a blitzkrieg.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can shed some light on what
Speaker 1: they might even mean on that, or is it just
Speaker 1: just complete fallacy. What they mean is basically that Ukraine
Speaker 1: in so within Russian probably and you have to understand,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a completely separate universe, a different reality.
Speaker 1: So the way every every single aspect of what you
Speaker 1: and I know does does not apply, like they don't
Speaker 1: live in our consensus whatsoever. So what they mean is
Speaker 1: that Ukraine blitz creaked the elimination of Russian speakers and
Speaker 1: um pro Russian culture and pro Russian sentiments in Ukraine
Speaker 1: during the year of my don Um in Russia's in
Speaker 1: Russia's reality, Ukraine carried out of genocide against these people
Speaker 1: in Ukraine in everywhere except the puppet authorities of the
Speaker 1: Luhanskan Danetsk People's republics. So basically Ukraine carried out this
Speaker 1: blitz creed. The reason Ukraine is so quote unquote nazified
Speaker 1: is because in the this Russian alternative reality, Ukraine genocide
Speaker 1: at all of the Russians, all the ethnic Russians, the
Speaker 1: writing speakers and even with pro Russian sentiments. And this
Speaker 1: is what they mean when they refer to this uh,
Speaker 1: this blitz creed that they that well um Ukraine went through.
Speaker 1: They quickly killed everyone who was pro Us and now
Speaker 1: uh and now everyone else, everyone who has left is
Speaker 1: a Nazi um like the The latter part of this
Speaker 1: paragraph really makes that clear. They say it was this
Speaker 1: method of quote unquote appeasement of internal anti fascists through
Speaker 1: total terror that was used in Odessa, hark evening for
Speaker 1: tost Mariable and other Russian cities. So not only are
Speaker 1: are these Ukrainian cities Russian, this quote unquote appeasement that
Speaker 1: they're referring to is a sarcastic way of referring to
Speaker 1: their um supposed genocide of these people, of of Russian speakers,
Speaker 1: of um ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Again, that is not
Speaker 1: only untrue, it's also ludicrous because everyone in Ukraine is
Speaker 1: has some Russian ancestry, because it's a mixed country. Everyone
Speaker 1: is everything, Like the entire Eastern European region is not
Speaker 1: some make enclave. It is in fact a melting pot
Speaker 1: um which the Soviet Union worked very hard to change.
Speaker 1: One of the things I kept encountering in f Difka,
Speaker 1: which was still under fire today and was under fire
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, for an idea of like how
Speaker 1: long chunks of the country have been in Like now
Speaker 1: it's spread all over Ukraine, but parts of Ukraine have
Speaker 1: been under continuous artillery fire for nearly a decade. UM.
Speaker 1: But I kept encountering these old ladies who had grown
Speaker 1: up in the Soviet Union, and we're saying, like, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't understand why they're doing this. They they like
Speaker 1: I've always considered myself Russian, and and now this is happening,
Speaker 1: like I don't understand it. I don't understand it. It It
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. And in terms of like the
Speaker 1: denialism that we've been seeing lately. UM. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons I I argued for because we had a debate
Speaker 1: in the UM in the editor's room at Envy when
Speaker 1: we were UM, when we were looking at this piece,
Speaker 1: we had a debate over where whether we're going to
Speaker 1: translate end UM publish it, and I pushed really hard
Speaker 1: UM to do so because I think there is no
Speaker 1: greater way to push back these UM claims of genocide
Speaker 1: denial that we we are seeing popping up um across
Speaker 1: various parts of UM of the Western laughter and the
Speaker 1: anti imperialist left or whatever you call it UM. And
Speaker 1: I think there's no better way to push back against
Speaker 1: the arguments than to present the Russians own words to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is such an openly genocidal fascist peace um
Speaker 1: using pure the pure logic of of quite like of
Speaker 1: just fascism. That is impossible. I think to really um
Speaker 1: say that they is like a fabrication or the like.
Speaker 1: The Russians aren't like this. Well, they're telling you in
Speaker 1: their own words, this is what they're like. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think the like putting focus on this isn't This
Speaker 1: wasn't written by you know, some um like far right
Speaker 1: extremists for some minor like online site that has like
Speaker 1: an audience of two thousand, like Russian fascist whatever. No,
Speaker 1: this was a major article published in one of the
Speaker 1: Russian main media outlets by a respected political scientist within Russia. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the thing that I think really needs
Speaker 1: to be gotten across is the degree to which I
Speaker 1: think there's a desire to believe that the Putin regime
Speaker 1: is like on its last legs and that most people
Speaker 1: recognize how fucked up the political status quo is there,
Speaker 1: and that's support for the regime is like pretty minimal
Speaker 1: as a result. Um. And I I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: seeing the evidence of that. And when I talked to
Speaker 1: I just we just did an interview with the Russian
Speaker 1: anarchist who his attitude was very much that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: most people broadly by the propaganda. Um. It is not
Speaker 1: like the it's possible that's going to change over time,
Speaker 1: because again, the severe casualties Russia has taken have not
Speaker 1: really had a chance to totally filter out socially into Russia.
Speaker 1: I think people are still becoming aware of the scale
Speaker 1: of losses, and it's going to take some time for
Speaker 1: that knowledge to to release circulate. UM. But I think
Speaker 1: this article represents how a very large chunk of the
Speaker 1: Russian populace are are seeing what's going on in Ukraine. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing,
Speaker 1: with this kind of logic that we see in this article,
Speaker 1: there's not much you can't justify, right, Like, there's very
Speaker 1: little that uh, if you if people believe what's being
Speaker 1: said in this article, there's very little you couldn't do.
Speaker 1: There's very few weapons you couldn't deploy. Right. That's one
Speaker 1: of the arguments this is making is that you have
Speaker 1: to exact soldiers who have been notified, Um, have to
Speaker 1: be wiped out completely. Um, there's there's no soldiers that
Speaker 1: who have been notified. Anyone who has ever taken arms
Speaker 1: against Russia and anyone who has ever supported anyone who
Speaker 1: has taken arms against Russia, which at the current moment
Speaker 1: is over of the Ukrainian population must and I quote
Speaker 1: from this must be liquidated. Yeah, not not. Um. It
Speaker 1: makes an argument a little higher up that these people
Speaker 1: can't be re educated, so they can't even be sent
Speaker 1: to camps two goologs. Um, they can't be made to
Speaker 1: do forced labor. They must be liquidated, eliminated. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this is nothing less than simply saying, well, we are
Speaker 1: going to have to kill the grand majority of Ukrainians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know what more like you
Speaker 1: can for the folks who are kind of on the
Speaker 1: because there's there's this tendency I think within the chunks
Speaker 1: of the left that are not they haven't lost their minds,
Speaker 1: They're not they don't buy the Russian propaganda. They do
Speaker 1: see what's happening in Ukraine is terrible, they see the
Speaker 1: war is terrible, but they still have this attitude of, well,
Speaker 1: the best thing is to end it quickly, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, we should, we should push for some sort
Speaker 1: of negotiation. And first off, I'm saying, like, whatever the
Speaker 1: Ukraine as a country decides is acceptable to them in
Speaker 1: terms of peace. I'm not going to argue against one
Speaker 1: way or the other because that's not my place. But um,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see how you can negotiate with
Speaker 1: people who have this attitude towards you, um and and
Speaker 1: towards the existence of your people. Like, I really don't
Speaker 1: see long term where there's kind of an option for
Speaker 1: peace for Ukraine with this kind of rhetoric existing in
Speaker 1: Russia outside of smashing the Russian military to the greatest
Speaker 1: extent possible. Yeah, I mean I feel the same way,
Speaker 1: And that is a very terrifying thoughts. It's not crazy,
Speaker 1: like yeah, because my general latitude towards wars is that
Speaker 1: it's best when they're over. Yeah, exactly right. I have
Speaker 1: no I have no strong desire to see to like
Speaker 1: bomb Russian cities. Well, I mean, okay, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a little bit of lie. But no one, no one,
Speaker 1: no one can blame someone living in Ukraine right now
Speaker 1: for feeling a bit of a desire for for vengeance,
Speaker 1: even though I don't think that's particularly likely to help matters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably not. And I generally don't want to um see
Speaker 1: like a world war in Europe or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But I I really when I racked my brains of
Speaker 1: what can be done, like how you can live with
Speaker 1: like the these people aren't you know, thousands of climbers
Speaker 1: away or on the other side of the continent. They're
Speaker 1: literally the neighboring state. Um And I I just I
Speaker 1: don't have any answers of how Ukraine is supposed to
Speaker 1: move forward while Russia remains in its current configuration. Like
Speaker 1: I don't see a future, um a coexistence of any
Speaker 1: kind that's possible when they are literally calling for our extermination.
Speaker 1: I think that's also kind of the question of how
Speaker 1: do we have There's this this phrase that you heard
Speaker 1: a lot, particularly kind of in the in the post
Speaker 1: World War two period of like the need for rules
Speaker 1: based international order, and the United States was as much
Speaker 1: apart as anyone of making sure that that was never
Speaker 1: anything more than a than a friendly lie. Right, you
Speaker 1: had a couple of brief moments here and there where
Speaker 1: it was attempted to be imposed, um, Yugoslavia or well,
Speaker 1: you know, Bosnia being kind of a clear example, but
Speaker 1: it was always you know, in between a bunch of
Speaker 1: illegal wars on behalf of a bunch of different states,
Speaker 1: and illegal fundings of of insurgent groups and all sorts
Speaker 1: of sketchy stuff and kind of culminated. And I think
Speaker 1: you can we keep going back to Syria, which is
Speaker 1: an important part of like what allowed what's happening in
Speaker 1: Ukraine to happen. But the invasion of Iraq by the
Speaker 1: United States was another one. Right, This idea that like
Speaker 1: and and the things that like torture and stuff by
Speaker 1: US force, is this this the fact? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what the Russian diplomats. Yeah, that's what Russian diplomats always
Speaker 1: bring up in UM, in the U N and in
Speaker 1: other like international bodies whenever they're pressed on this question
Speaker 1: human rights. They always invariably pointed the US and say, well,
Speaker 1: the US did this, this and this and the rock. Um,
Speaker 1: how come the US gets to do whatever it wants
Speaker 1: with no pushback, and the implication being that Russia also
Speaker 1: believes it should be able to do whatever it wants
Speaker 1: with no pushback. And obviously like the fact that the
Speaker 1: United States committed war crimes does not mean that Russia
Speaker 1: should get to commit war crimes. But from like a
Speaker 1: point of view of like, if we're looking at things
Speaker 1: from an international perspective, yeah, if the United States is
Speaker 1: going to do ship like that, well other countries are
Speaker 1: going to do ship like that, and see it as like,
Speaker 1: well there there isn't like why why are we bound
Speaker 1: by an international order but not you and I. One
Speaker 1: of the things that so fright about the kind of
Speaker 1: rhetoric coming out of Russia is that it it shows
Speaker 1: those kind of dreams that people had in the wake
Speaker 1: of World War Two, which again there was no like
Speaker 1: Golden Age after World War Two. The United States went
Speaker 1: right to regime change in Africa and Latin America, all
Speaker 1: sorts of fucked up ship. But it shows that like
Speaker 1: any kind of international hope of something like that ever existing,
Speaker 1: has has fallen apart. We are we are if people
Speaker 1: want something like that. And I do believe that some
Speaker 1: sort of rules based international order. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about like you and global government. I'm talking about broad
Speaker 1: ranging international agreements that, for example, you don't get to
Speaker 1: fire chemical weapons at civilians, you know, Like, um, I
Speaker 1: think that would be nice, a nice thing to exist,
Speaker 1: And I think part of what we're seeing here is
Speaker 1: that any chance of having that has kind of been
Speaker 1: reset to zero. Um. Not that it was ever a reality,
Speaker 1: but I think the kind of I think the rhetoric
Speaker 1: around the fact that ever existed has completely dissolved now. Um.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's not like particularly bad, because it's bad
Speaker 1: for people to believe something exists when it doesn't, because
Speaker 1: that that international order never did really exist, But um,
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing here is kind of the
Speaker 1: final collapse of any belief that, uh, there's an inner
Speaker 1: there are international standards of morality and behavior for states. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of reasons why. UM. Ukraine's
Speaker 1: President Lanski gets a lot of props from from a
Speaker 1: lot of people right now. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that has absolutely I personally rate as absolutely as the
Speaker 1: kids say based in recent days was the Lensky's addressed
Speaker 1: um in from the u N where he called them
Speaker 1: basically cowards. If they don't kick Russia out and they
Speaker 1: can't even enforce their main um, their main goal, which
Speaker 1: is peace, um, then they should dissolve. And honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't see any any issues with that argument. That seemed yeah,
Speaker 1: completely rational. What what is the point of this organization
Speaker 1: if it cannot even do something as simple or not simple,
Speaker 1: but if it cannot do something as straightforward as punish
Speaker 1: the perpetrators of John side, what exactly is the point
Speaker 1: of it? That's exactly kind of where I am, which
Speaker 1: is like, why are we like right now we have
Speaker 1: this issue where like after Russian evidence of Russian genocide
Speaker 1: was uncovered, Russia is set to the the UN, the
Speaker 1: Human rights uh what you call it? Um that they
Speaker 1: are yeah, herman rights canceled, that they're a permanent member
Speaker 1: of and like like basically filed a complaint against Ukraine
Speaker 1: for doing the genocide that they did. Um. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know there's talk about we could dissolve and reform
Speaker 1: the Council without Russia, we could kick like there's there's options,
Speaker 1: I guess in a parliamentary sense, but broadly speaking, when
Speaker 1: one of the people sitting on that Council has is
Speaker 1: in the process of carrying out a genocide, which they
Speaker 1: are justifying in this way through their through their media organs.
Speaker 1: What is the fucking point of having that. It's just
Speaker 1: like it was like the night of the invasion. I
Speaker 1: sat and I watched everything happening in the U n
Speaker 1: UM and my my thought the whole time, as like
Speaker 1: every all of these international representatives were like, you can't
Speaker 1: do this right, you have to stop. You have to
Speaker 1: stop like try like begging for there to be some
Speaker 1: sort of peace in Russia. Just going ahead and doing it.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know what we what we saw? UM.
Speaker 1: It not dissimilar to some of the ship that happened
Speaker 1: and then leading to the Iraq War, where it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well a lot of people agreed, this is fucked up.
Speaker 1: I guess that doesn't mean anything. Um. And it did
Speaker 1: mean anything. Uh. And uh that's why have it? Like
Speaker 1: why why pretend that it means anything? UM? I guess
Speaker 1: that's where I am. I mean, it's it's the same
Speaker 1: um to draw parallel to to US politics. It's it's
Speaker 1: the same as UM like the Democratic Party during the
Speaker 1: Trump era saying oh, Mr President, you can't do all
Speaker 1: of these obviously legal things you're doing that's bad. You
Speaker 1: should stop, Like here's here investigations that prove that you're
Speaker 1: doing the bad things. Please stop, Mr President, with all
Speaker 1: the violated the Emoluments Clause, okay, like okay, are you
Speaker 1: going to enforce it? Enforce any of this? Like without enforcement,
Speaker 1: all of this condemnation is literally just noise. It doesn't react,
Speaker 1: It doesn't result in anything in the material world that
Speaker 1: will have an effect in curtailing or restricting this behavior
Speaker 1: now or the future. And if you cannot do that,
Speaker 1: then what I like to call it, what you have
Speaker 1: the job program for yuppies. Yeah, yes, international rules based order.
Speaker 1: I when I was in Iraq during the war against
Speaker 1: Dices and hanging out primarily with not just Kurds, but
Speaker 1: like Kurds who were natives of mosle Um when we
Speaker 1: were kind of back in her bill away from the front.
Speaker 1: The number one organization, the number one group that they
Speaker 1: complained about, was not the United States, nor was said isis.
Speaker 1: It was the United Nations, who were generally viewed to
Speaker 1: be a bunch of you like they saw them the
Speaker 1: way like people see like trust fund kids. They were
Speaker 1: a bunch of rich assholes tooling around in land rovers,
Speaker 1: staying in nice hotels and burning money on fucking bullshit. UM.
Speaker 1: And and that's I don't know. It's so the idea
Speaker 1: of the United Nations as what it was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, we should things like what then
Speaker 1: Bazis did shouldn't be allowed to get nearly as far
Speaker 1: as they did. And perhaps if all of the Nations
Speaker 1: were sitting together and saying, well, that's bad, right, we
Speaker 1: don't want people doing that, um, maybe some of these
Speaker 1: bad things would stop happening. UM. And what it has
Speaker 1: turned into is, yeah, it's a jobs program for fucking yuppies.
Speaker 1: It's it's not that there aren't individual things within the
Speaker 1: U n I've certainly been to a lot of places,
Speaker 1: particularly refugee camps, that had infrastructure because of u n
Speaker 1: h c R, even though that's a very flawed organization. UM.
Speaker 1: I can't deny that a lot of people got access
Speaker 1: to basic survival gear that was necessary because of u
Speaker 1: n h c R UM United Nations Humanitarian Crisis Relief. UM.
Speaker 1: But overall it's just it's nothing. You know, there was
Speaker 1: there's a really I think my favorite piece of graffiti ever, um,
Speaker 1: which was spotted in um Sarajevo during the Serbian encirclement
Speaker 1: and and shelling of that city. Um. And it's uh
Speaker 1: spray painting of you in in the style of the
Speaker 1: UN's logo, and then underneath it united nothing um. And
Speaker 1: And that was the attitude of a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the city as they like watched the UN bicker
Speaker 1: over what was to be done about the fact that
Speaker 1: an army had surrounded a city full of civilians and
Speaker 1: was pounding the high rise apartment buildings with artillery and
Speaker 1: tank cannons all day long. Man, that sure sounds real familiar.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing that never happened. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: know what that sounds, um, but I mean, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's anyway, Um, Romeo, has anything else you wanted to
Speaker 1: get through today as we stare at this thing, this
Speaker 1: bad thing. Honestly, I just as much as normally I
Speaker 1: would encourage people to not pollute their brains with with
Speaker 1: thatcher stage prop in this case, I would recommend people
Speaker 1: read through um my translation at the New Voice. If
Speaker 1: you don't trust me for whatever reason, you can pull
Speaker 1: up the original and google translated machine translate it yourself.
Speaker 1: It'll be a serviceable translation, and just read it for yourself, UM,
Speaker 1: because I want to make it very clear that Russia
Speaker 1: is no longer simply like some hyper capitalist, kleptocratic oligarch state.
Speaker 1: It is literally fascist. It is using fascist rhetoric and
Speaker 1: fascist techniques to eliminate an ethnic group it considers to
Speaker 1: be inferior to its own, um, in order to take
Speaker 1: its land and resources for itself. It is. There is
Speaker 1: no greater distillation of fascism on this planet right now
Speaker 1: than the Russian Federation. Yeah, they're doing and I really
Speaker 1: would like people to understand, especially if you consider yourself
Speaker 1: anti imperialist or anti fascist or anything, the Russian Federation
Speaker 1: is a fascist government um, on the level of Nazi Germany,
Speaker 1: and it is attempting to uh to literally this article
Speaker 1: is called is called what shall we do with the Ukrainians? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian question, you know, um. And this article is
Speaker 1: proposing a solution to the Ukrainian question. So again UM.
Speaker 1: Mostly that's what I would like to leave your listeners,
Speaker 1: Robert with an understanding. UM. And again you don't have
Speaker 1: to trust me, you can go and read this for yourself. Um,
Speaker 1: that the the greatest fascist threat on this planet right
Speaker 1: now is not the United States of America, as shocking
Speaker 1: as that may sound, um, and as hard as that
Speaker 1: maybe to buy. Uh, it is the Russian Federation and
Speaker 1: it is right now trying to genocide the country and
Speaker 1: the people that I belong to. Yeah. Um, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe make a note of that, folks, put
Speaker 1: that in here in your mental rolodex. Um. It's uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I I I hope you continue to
Speaker 1: stay safe. I'm glad your area of Ukraine is at
Speaker 1: least less under under the gun than it was earlier
Speaker 1: in this war. Um. I'm glad broadly speaking, that the
Speaker 1: Russian Federation has bitten off a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: more than they were able to chew um, and now
Speaker 1: are doing their chewing without nearly as many teeth. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I hope that process continues, and I hope
Speaker 1: the siege of Mariopolis lifted. Yeah, thanks a lot. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate um letting letting me make an appearance, and
Speaker 1: um going through us with me, and uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we share the same hopes here. Yeah, all right, everybody,
Speaker 1: that's the episode, Go go away. It Could Happen Here
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Speaker 1: for listening.