Speaker 1: Hey there, I'm jess Mi Lady Confetti here. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Psyche and I am Hey Shady Lady, and welcome to
Speaker 1: Boss Level podcast, where we feature conversations with gas tube
Speaker 1: leveled up, bringing an x fie boost to the table.
Speaker 1: We pick the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and
Speaker 1: industries across the globe to help our listeners achieve their
Speaker 1: own boss level. We are not just creating a podcast,
Speaker 1: but a gamified, an engaged community. Listen to Boss Level
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Bobby Brown. You
Speaker 1: might know me as the makeup artist beauty expert, but
Speaker 1: today I'm here with a brand new podcast, The Important Things.
Speaker 1: On this new podcast, I'll be joined by my co
Speaker 1: host and dear friend, international best selling author and Julie Kumar.
Speaker 1: Each week, Bobby and I are looking for ways we
Speaker 1: can all learn to live more authentic, gratifying lives. You
Speaker 1: can look forward to learning from our amazing guests, including
Speaker 1: the incomparable Gloria Steinhum charity founder, Christy Turlington Burns, and
Speaker 1: many many more. Listen to the Important Things starting on
Speaker 1: March three, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Mama, what does the
Speaker 1: chicken say? Uh? What draft draft really? Giraft draw. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna get it all right. Just make sure you
Speaker 1: nail the big stuff, like making sure your kids are
Speaker 1: buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes.
Speaker 1: Get it right visits n h S a dot gov
Speaker 1: slash the Right Seat brought to you by the National
Speaker 1: Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the AD Council. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know.
Speaker 1: This is a compilation episode. So every episode of the
Speaker 1: week that just happened is here in one convenient and
Speaker 1: with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to
Speaker 1: a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening
Speaker 1: to the episodes every day this week, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: nothing new here for you, but you can make your
Speaker 1: own decisions. Hey, everybody, Uh, Robert Evans here, along with
Speaker 1: Garrison and Chris Um, we are pre empting the episode
Speaker 1: that will be airing after this because um of events
Speaker 1: that happened in Portland, Oregon this weekend. On Saturday the
Speaker 1: nineteen there was a weekly Racial Justice March UM. The
Speaker 1: March again it occurred. It's occurred every week for a
Speaker 1: couple of years now. UM. It is instensibly led by
Speaker 1: the mother of a Patrick Kimmins, who is a Portland
Speaker 1: a young black Portland man who was killed by the
Speaker 1: police a couple of years ago. UM, this is a
Speaker 1: regular thing. As a general rule, you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of folks in the right talking about this march is
Speaker 1: like an Antifa gathering. UM. This almost never gets any
Speaker 1: coverage whatsoever because as a general rule, UM, it's it's
Speaker 1: just a march where people, you know, protest police by lens.
Speaker 1: It's not something that that tends to to draw much attention, um,
Speaker 1: even within Portland's UM. This Saturday, a person who lived
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood where people were assembling for the march
Speaker 1: UM left their home confronted a group of women who
Speaker 1: were acting as corkers. Corking is a job at protests.
Speaker 1: It's a traffic safety thing. It's people on a mix
Speaker 1: of usually bikes, motorcycle scooters every now and you see
Speaker 1: like a one wheel and their job is to kind
Speaker 1: of route traffic around the march in order to keep
Speaker 1: people from getting hit by cars. Um, it is a
Speaker 1: safety thing. UM. These folks were confronted by this person.
Speaker 1: Reports on the ground that have been covered in local
Speaker 1: news from people who were there say that he started
Speaker 1: out yelling at them, calling them terrorists and UM, according
Speaker 1: to one person who was on the scene, within about
Speaker 1: ninety seconds began firing. Uh. He hit and killed one woman, UM,
Speaker 1: and he wounded for others. UM. And he himself was
Speaker 1: shot by a protester who was nearby, who was, to
Speaker 1: all everything we know so far, legally open carrying a rifle. UM.
Speaker 1: He is the shooter. UM is in critical condition in
Speaker 1: the hospital. UM. One of the people who was doing
Speaker 1: traffic security that night is dead. UM. I believe at
Speaker 1: least one is still in the hospital. The others have
Speaker 1: been released. Uh. That's that's the the actual like, that's
Speaker 1: those are the facts of the situation as they're known.
Speaker 1: The protester who returned fire quickly afterwards turned themselves and
Speaker 1: their rifle into the police. UM. You know, the police
Speaker 1: to the stuff that they do in these instances, and
Speaker 1: then released the person who had responded defensively to the shooting.
Speaker 1: And that's where we are right now. UM. Portland police
Speaker 1: have been very cag and saying anything about this. They
Speaker 1: have framed it as a clash between a homeowner and protesters. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing we can say, based on where this person
Speaker 1: came out of it does not appear that they were
Speaker 1: at home owner. Looks like they left a would have
Speaker 1: been like a rental thing. Not that that particularly matters,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting the framing with the police are choosing
Speaker 1: to use here. UM. And yeah, there's there's fairly little
Speaker 1: information as of right now. The name of the shooter
Speaker 1: has not been released by the police. UM. Neither has
Speaker 1: the name of the protester who responded UM to the gunfire.
Speaker 1: But we do know, you know a number of the
Speaker 1: people who were hit, We know the person who has deceased.
Speaker 1: Avoid kind of spreading anything more specific than that until
Speaker 1: there's there's evidence. There's not yet video of this, although
Speaker 1: one of the people who was there says they have
Speaker 1: a go pro that was taken by the police that
Speaker 1: may have something. I don't know the extent to which
Speaker 1: we will get that information. Again, the police have been
Speaker 1: acting to uh kind of make this look like a
Speaker 1: clash rather than what the evidence that like. Reporters at
Speaker 1: OPB in the Portland Mercury and even the Times have
Speaker 1: have found the interviews they've conducted, Um, it seems fair
Speaker 1: to say that this was a mass shooting, um that
Speaker 1: was stopped by a protester as opposed to what I
Speaker 1: would call a clash. Yes, but that's that It's obvious
Speaker 1: Portland police aren't going to want that narrative to come
Speaker 1: out very telling Lee. The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler,
Speaker 1: issued a statement where he talked about the shooting as
Speaker 1: a piece of the city's ongoing gun crime, did not
Speaker 1: mention the woman who was killed, did not mention the injured,
Speaker 1: but expressed his sympathy with the police for being so tired. Um,
Speaker 1: So you know that's Portland's Yeah, I mean it's pretty
Speaker 1: sick and like you shouldn't like it's not like dismissing
Speaker 1: it by saying it's Portland's saying like this is like no,
Speaker 1: there's there's been growing rather right from the city and
Speaker 1: people the past few years that have basically been encouraging
Speaker 1: something like this to happen. Um, And now that it has,
Speaker 1: it is also pretty sick looking at different like media
Speaker 1: framing and police framing and talking about it's a homeowner
Speaker 1: and how it was like, yeah, it was like a clash,
Speaker 1: not like an outright attack on people. Um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's it's bad, it's it's pretty gross. But what
Speaker 1: we can do right now is support the people who
Speaker 1: were there. Yeah, they go fund me for medical expences
Speaker 1: and you know, mental health effects in the Yeah, because
Speaker 1: just a bit, some of the wounded were themselves plugging
Speaker 1: up the bullet holes of other wounded while they had
Speaker 1: also been shot. Because it was a lot of the
Speaker 1: people doubled as medics or had some sort of medical training. Um,
Speaker 1: there were medics who were like threatened by police when
Speaker 1: they arrived on scene for not being willing to stop
Speaker 1: providing um pressure to a gunshot wound. Like a bunch
Speaker 1: of ugly stuff happened. There's a mix of ugly stuff
Speaker 1: and like stuff that seems ugly but it's pretty normal.
Speaker 1: Like the ambulance did not move in immediately, which obviously
Speaker 1: people on scene were very angry about. That is standard
Speaker 1: everywhere for like ambulances at active shootings, and it's just
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not pleasant, but it's also like they're
Speaker 1: not ever acting from as much information as the people
Speaker 1: who were there maybe have. I'm not I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: blame you know e, M T S or whatnot for
Speaker 1: following s OP in this situation. I will blame the
Speaker 1: police for their responses to stuff like this obviously, and
Speaker 1: the fact that, um, you know, it's it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: a satisfying police investigation will be conducted. That said, it
Speaker 1: does seem like we already, based on the early reporting
Speaker 1: that exists from again a number of different news organizations,
Speaker 1: number of different local journalists, that we have a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of the basics of what happened. UM. Obviously,
Speaker 1: more will come out in addition to you know, nothing
Speaker 1: but respect to the medics who responded. UM. I think
Speaker 1: it's worth acknowledging that the protester who shot the shooter
Speaker 1: UM seems to have from the evidence we have handled
Speaker 1: themselves as close to perfectly as you can in a
Speaker 1: defensive shooting. UM. They stopped the threat, UM, they went
Speaker 1: to the police, they turned in the rifle. They did not.
Speaker 1: And there's a number of reasons for this, including the
Speaker 1: act that, like the last time there was a shooting
Speaker 1: that was involved a left wing demonstrator, that person was
Speaker 1: hunted down and killed by U. S. Marshals. UM but
Speaker 1: it also I think helps when it comes to the
Speaker 1: legal stuff that's going to wash out on this the investigation.
Speaker 1: It really helps that this person dotted their eyes and
Speaker 1: crossed their ties to make it very clear that this
Speaker 1: was a UM A very like legal self defense situation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the folks who participate in
Speaker 1: these things don't particularly care about the law one way
Speaker 1: or the other. But in terms of how other people
Speaker 1: see what has happened and what the fallout to this is,
Speaker 1: and maybe the degree to which people properly put some
Speaker 1: blame on the city for this, I think it is
Speaker 1: helpful that the person who responded UM with their rifle
Speaker 1: to the shooting conducted themselves so carefully. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have I have a lot of respect for everybody
Speaker 1: on the ground. A lot of hard decisions had to
Speaker 1: be made UM, and it's seems like in a a
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario situation, the people who were on
Speaker 1: the ground handled themselves UM with a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: thoughtfulness and encourage. I think that's everything. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's not not much else to say at this
Speaker 1: moment right now, too safe, be careful, and again the
Speaker 1: go fund me. Just type type go fund me stand
Speaker 1: with Portland into Google. It will take you to the
Speaker 1: go fund me um and you can help folks out there.
Speaker 1: H Hello, welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about two of my favorite things,
Speaker 1: which is unions and coffee. UM. Joining me as a
Speaker 1: usual is Chris and Sophie. What do you guys think
Speaker 1: about about coffee and unions and the combination thereof big
Speaker 1: on unions like that, like like making them, like having
Speaker 1: them not big on coffee. It's too bitter. I can't
Speaker 1: do it. Unbelievable. Union's great coffee, great, Chris bad, Chris
Speaker 1: gets the wall. It's the ultimate canceling. That is canceling
Speaker 1: more intense. We are coming down all the coffee issue.
Speaker 1: I don't ever tell prop that, don't ever talk pop
Speaker 1: you don't like coffee. I worry. UM and anyway to
Speaker 1: join us to discuss coffee and unions is a union
Speaker 1: organizer and uh also someone with a podcast, so that's fun.
Speaker 1: Uh but Kayleie Schuler, Hello, Hello, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. You know what they say about union
Speaker 1: iced coffee, that's better. It tastes better. That's yeah, that
Speaker 1: is that is that is what I have heard much
Speaker 1: better quality. That is true. Maybe that's the problem that
Speaker 1: Chris has been having. Yeah, there are no unions here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the thing. That's a Chris jumped to
Speaker 1: jump to conclusions. But you failed, you failed to consider
Speaker 1: the uh, the coffee question. Um. Anyway, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about unions and coffee and Starbucks today because there's
Speaker 1: been a massive wave of Starbucks uh location unionizations around
Speaker 1: the country, and I like to start by kind of
Speaker 1: discussing the origin of this like wave of unionization efforts
Speaker 1: all across the states. Yeah. So, um, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: just stay right off the bat like, um, legalities, logistics,
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty is still not my forte and all
Speaker 1: of this. Um. So, I might not do the best
Speaker 1: job explaining it, but I'm going to do my best, um,
Speaker 1: and to get into the origin story of the whole movement.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to get into my origin story a
Speaker 1: little bit um with this effort. So. Um, I started
Speaker 1: working at Starbucks last year, and not long after I
Speaker 1: was approached by uh my fellow partner, my friend Tyler
Speaker 1: de Geer, and he's also one of our committee members
Speaker 1: here and he was like, hey, did you hear about
Speaker 1: what has happened in Buffalo? And as you guys probably know,
Speaker 1: Buffalo was the first to unionize UM, and so he
Speaker 1: was really excited about it. I was like, yeah, sounds cool.
Speaker 1: Probably not my thing though, UM, and he was like, no,
Speaker 1: it's it is like, just let's talk about it. I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, fine, we talked about it. I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, this makes so much sense. We should
Speaker 1: definitely do this. So um, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: this uh started in Buffalo. They reached out to Workers
Speaker 1: United because they knew that this was something they needed
Speaker 1: and wanted UM. And then when they successful unionized, I mean,
Speaker 1: it just sparked so much inspiration across the country and
Speaker 1: we hopped on really quick. UM. Other locations in Boston
Speaker 1: also hoped done not long after, and uh yeah, it
Speaker 1: kind of spread like wildfire. Yeah, it's been wonderful to
Speaker 1: watch the kind of wave of of of attempts and
Speaker 1: in some cases, like in a lot of cases, like
Speaker 1: successful attempts just kind of take you know, just go
Speaker 1: all like it's how fast They've been happening in so
Speaker 1: many different places around around the country. Um, I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk I like to talk about like why the
Speaker 1: Starbucks unionization kind of effort is so important, Like why
Speaker 1: why this is? Like of course, like unions are obviously
Speaker 1: like generally a net good, but like why specifically is
Speaker 1: it's is it important to unionize these Starbucks locations? Like
Speaker 1: what types of like um issues is the unization trying
Speaker 1: to kind of solve and give you know, workers better
Speaker 1: conditions at these at these stores and cafes. So this
Speaker 1: great question, and for so I want to start by
Speaker 1: saying Starbucks is a great place to work. I say
Speaker 1: that all the time. I reap the benefits. There are benefits,
Speaker 1: good ones. They pay minimum wage or whatever, Like the
Speaker 1: pay is decent, We have benefits. It's really a lot
Speaker 1: of people who work at our Starbucks day it's one
Speaker 1: of the better jobs they've had, and we deserve a
Speaker 1: union for It's I mean really in my brain, it's
Speaker 1: kind of akin to insurance. Right, you have it in
Speaker 1: case you need it if an emergency happens, you don't
Speaker 1: have to pay the whole um e er bill out
Speaker 1: of pocket. You've got some coverage coming from somewhere, right that,
Speaker 1: at least in my mind, is what this union is
Speaker 1: for UM. That being said, we also just want to
Speaker 1: obviously democratize our workplace. We want to have a spot
Speaker 1: at the bargaining table because we you know, we have HR,
Speaker 1: we have people to go to. But unions our partners
Speaker 1: looking out for partners and that's it. Starbucks looks out
Speaker 1: for partners and profit. You know, it's a business, it's
Speaker 1: a huge business. UM. So this would just give us
Speaker 1: UM a stronger sense of empowerment. And uh again, I
Speaker 1: really think of it kind of like insurance. It's just
Speaker 1: us making sure we're taken care of at all times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what what type of kind of you know, whenever
Speaker 1: the discussion of union's kind of starts at workplaces, there's
Speaker 1: always like an element of like secrecy and you know,
Speaker 1: being worried about you know, different types of suppression. So
Speaker 1: what types of kind of things have people been doing
Speaker 1: when the when the union is like trying to get
Speaker 1: trying to get trying to get off the ground to organize,
Speaker 1: like like are people using like signal chats? Like what
Speaker 1: what is what is like in this in these stores?
Speaker 1: How is how are we trying to get more people
Speaker 1: to like be comfortable with this idea and get like
Speaker 1: get started with the organizing process. That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: And we're still doing that work all the time. That
Speaker 1: work doesn't really end, especially because um, it's commonly known
Speaker 1: now so I don't feel as scared to say it.
Speaker 1: But there are being there is union busting happening. It's
Speaker 1: happening all the time. UM. And it's scary and it's intimidating,
Speaker 1: and it's meant to be and it's effective, you know. So, Um,
Speaker 1: we have a majority yes vote in my store. I
Speaker 1: already know that. But it also takes upkeep. It takes maintenance. UM.
Speaker 1: It takes checking in with people and you know, for
Speaker 1: my money, checking in and saying, hey, how are you
Speaker 1: feeling about this? Are you doing okay? Like I know
Speaker 1: that this is scary. I know that you're hearing things
Speaker 1: like do you have any questions? Um. It takes us
Speaker 1: doing our due diligence and researching the things that they're saying. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it's it's kind a constant thing
Speaker 1: as far as like technically how it's done. I mean
Speaker 1: lots of group chats, just like way too many group
Speaker 1: chats that that has been most of my experience with
Speaker 1: most most political organizing, A general is just way way
Speaker 1: too many group chats. Yeah, in terms of like what
Speaker 1: Starbucks is doing to start their like union busting response,
Speaker 1: is this website that they have launched. Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: know you've I know you've tweeted about this, uh about
Speaker 1: this site, So I would love to love to discuss it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I just went off. I didn't really think
Speaker 1: much of it, you know, I just I saw it
Speaker 1: on there and just was like, this is lies. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, for one, I'm trying to remember everything
Speaker 1: I've read and tweeted. But the one that's coming to
Speaker 1: mind is when they say this may affect your relationship
Speaker 1: with your store manager and it may make it difficult
Speaker 1: for to me, that is that may depends entirely on
Speaker 1: how much UM union busting Starbucks wants to do. If
Speaker 1: you want to tell our store managers that this will
Speaker 1: negatively impact our relationship with them, if that's how you
Speaker 1: want to frame it, then yeah, I probably will. UM.
Speaker 1: If you if you want to make it more difficult
Speaker 1: by not negotiating the contract easily with us, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: then that might happen. It's not that's not a union problem.
Speaker 1: That's a Starbucks problem that they are framing as a
Speaker 1: union problem. Um, yeah, I can't. What were the other
Speaker 1: things that I I would just like to also explain,
Speaker 1: like what the site is and what it's like trying
Speaker 1: to do. Oh sure, yeah, I mean it's it's UM's
Speaker 1: union investing. It's uh, it's giving it's given partners the
Speaker 1: facts that they need to know, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: it's we want to make sure that you are informed
Speaker 1: before you vote. Know, Um, that's what that is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this like sleekily designed page that has a list
Speaker 1: of facts about about organizing and all the reasons why
Speaker 1: it's going to negatively represent, negatively affect your relationship with
Speaker 1: the Starbucks corporation. Oh, this was one of the points said, Um,
Speaker 1: the union may not negotiate for some things you are
Speaker 1: hoping for, and some things you value now might go away.
Speaker 1: That is so ridiculous. That's a threat. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: threat that your well being will be changed, Like we
Speaker 1: might not negotiate this contract very nicely with you. That
Speaker 1: the union is us. They love to talk about the
Speaker 1: third party and oh, your your store manager is gonna
Speaker 1: have to work with a steward. The steward is going
Speaker 1: to be someone who already works in the store. Yes,
Speaker 1: the steward is us, The union is us. Why would
Speaker 1: we negotiate a contract that doesn't benefit us. That's so silly,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's very typical union busting kind of behavior.
Speaker 1: And if you know, if they can just if this
Speaker 1: type of propagandic you know, can just convince a few
Speaker 1: people and and and scare and scare only only a
Speaker 1: couple of the people, that will be enough to kind
Speaker 1: of cause division and shutdown efforts in the store. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's all that their goal is is
Speaker 1: to prevent you know, at least one more store from
Speaker 1: not doing it. That's like, as long as they do that,
Speaker 1: then it's then then then it's like successful. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: based on how many people work at an individual, individual store,
Speaker 1: that's not entirely unlikely, right is it? Will? You know
Speaker 1: it will? Like you you, union busting efforts do work
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, and that's why they still
Speaker 1: do them. Like that's absolutely absolutely yeah, And that's why
Speaker 1: it's it's really important for um, you know, if there
Speaker 1: are any partners listening to this, UM and partners by
Speaker 1: the way, is what you know we call ourselves at Starbucks. UM.
Speaker 1: The the social aspect of this within your store, the
Speaker 1: checking in with your partners and seeing how they're feeling
Speaker 1: about it, and having UM as many face to face
Speaker 1: conversations as you can have, and really really sticking by
Speaker 1: each other is really important because yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: these UM tactics are tried and true, they're effective, they're intimidating, UM,
Speaker 1: and so you have to really support each other through
Speaker 1: that and keep reminding each other like, no, there's a
Speaker 1: reason we're doing this this, this is actually still a
Speaker 1: good thing, you know, because on top of our jobs,
Speaker 1: and then a lot of partners are in school or
Speaker 1: they have families, like we already have a lot going on,
Speaker 1: and then we have to go into work and be
Speaker 1: reminded that our desire for a union is not valuable
Speaker 1: to Starbucks, and so they're going to make things harder
Speaker 1: by doing all the things they're doing. UM. You have
Speaker 1: to really really be there for each other through this process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, solidarity and one of the
Speaker 1: key of the key tenants of this type of you know,
Speaker 1: the type of organizing. I know, Chris is a pretty
Speaker 1: big union appreciator. I mean, I I like unions, but
Speaker 1: but Chris, Chris really really really really enjoy So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you, if you have anything, he likes them
Speaker 1: so much, he'll he'll even like unionized coffee. He'll be
Speaker 1: like this coffee still it will it will good work, Chris.
Speaker 1: Some of the some of the there's some sorts in
Speaker 1: Chicago that are unionizing, and I'm like, hmmm, maybe it
Speaker 1: should maybe should check them out. Yeah, you should at
Speaker 1: least at least check about and say like hi and
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, great, what's a great thing to do. Um,
Speaker 1: definitely go to those stores, go up to the counter
Speaker 1: and offer you, um, ordering your coffee, and then ask
Speaker 1: them to write like unions strong or we love unions
Speaker 1: as your name. Um, because when the baristas are making
Speaker 1: the coffee and they still like see that sticker come through,
Speaker 1: it's we really love that, Chris. They have great tea
Speaker 1: there too, ice cream tea. It's really good, or the
Speaker 1: chide like, listen, I'm saying information though about like yeah
Speaker 1: we have there's finally a store that's like somewhat in
Speaker 1: near Los Angeles where I am that that is announced
Speaker 1: that they're unionizing, which is exciting, Like, Okay, California, way
Speaker 1: to join the party late, but you know, it's it's cool,
Speaker 1: go ahead. Yeah. One thing I'm interested in is how
Speaker 1: how big is the shop, Like how many people are
Speaker 1: sort of like, well, I'm not not in the like,
Speaker 1: just how many people there like could potentially join the union.
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone could. I think we have about twenty.
Speaker 1: I could be so wrong, but I think we have
Speaker 1: around twenty partners in our store right now. Um, and yeah,
Speaker 1: any well, yeah, just about anybody could join that not
Speaker 1: anyone who's salaried. Yeah, okay, but I mean that seems
Speaker 1: that seems pretty common across all the different stories. Is
Speaker 1: around that it's around like twenty union eligible people per location.
Speaker 1: Seems roughly accurate based on the stuff I've seen from
Speaker 1: you know, Seattle to Philadelphia to Boston to Buffalo too,
Speaker 1: you know, all all places in between. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: part part of part of like the actual more organizational
Speaker 1: structure is a linked to work as United. Yes, part
Speaker 1: of the part of the Service Employees International Union UM
Speaker 1: affiliate kind of a family of unions UM who's kind
Speaker 1: of led the lad the campaign or you know, has
Speaker 1: been part of the campaign UM to unionize the you know,
Speaker 1: thousands of locations through the States and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: around like eighty locations, including two of the company's flagship
Speaker 1: ones inside Seattle and New York have have joined this
Speaker 1: this effort. And it does seem like every day there's
Speaker 1: like more stores popping up. Who are who are who
Speaker 1: are saying yeah, this is a good idea. This is
Speaker 1: whether it be to you know, be like, yeah, some
Speaker 1: of our equipment is old, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it causes like keep burns because it's not like maintenance properly,
Speaker 1: or being like yeah, there's a lot of like sexual
Speaker 1: harassment caused by like some like some like patrons that
Speaker 1: never gets addressed by management UM and or you know
Speaker 1: saying like yeah, I may be deserved to be paid
Speaker 1: more than fifteen dollars an hour UM. With rent being
Speaker 1: you know, as high as as high as it is,
Speaker 1: maybe we should be paying over twenty bucks an hour.
Speaker 1: I don't know how everybody else is doing, but my
Speaker 1: rent situation is interesting. So rent has been ballooning in
Speaker 1: recent in recent months, even it's been it's been really
Speaker 1: going up, which I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it at some point on the show here. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of there's a lot of issues
Speaker 1: that as being like, yeah, maybe people should be paid more,
Speaker 1: people should be at the bargaining table. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things to address to make it a safer workplace,
Speaker 1: to make it a workplace where you're more respected. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's uh, it's really nice to see people saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put up with the city more and
Speaker 1: we can do something about it, because like there are
Speaker 1: mechanisms to to do this, right, that's why it's happening.
Speaker 1: So that's that's very uh, very exciting to see is
Speaker 1: taking place. It really is, and it you know, you
Speaker 1: make a lot of great points and bring up a
Speaker 1: lot of the benefits of having a union, and its
Speaker 1: just like it just surprises me how anti union Starbucks
Speaker 1: is is period um, because it's just it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you, Yeah, you paint such a beautiful picture,
Speaker 1: because it is a beautiful picture to have autonomy and um,
Speaker 1: respect and empowerment in the workplace. You know, they they
Speaker 1: train us to work through the lens of humanity, you know,
Speaker 1: by their words, and uh, it's pretty humane to let
Speaker 1: people have a say, a real stay in the workplace,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I think it kind of exposes that
Speaker 1: type of you know, pretty pretty corporate language, that formative. Yeah, exactly. It's, um,
Speaker 1: I am interested in like the other like kind of
Speaker 1: union busting or soft union busting kind of stuff going
Speaker 1: on even like before this website in terms of how
Speaker 1: like manage like how like management has been responding, um,
Speaker 1: and how more like like what like what like the
Speaker 1: local responses to wind stores start talking about this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and another follow up to that is, I noticed
Speaker 1: that COVID was my on this on this website. Is
Speaker 1: that being brought up within union busting at all? Or
Speaker 1: is that brought I just it was like a huge
Speaker 1: red flag for me that they used like, well, we
Speaker 1: helped you during COVID we were there for you, which
Speaker 1: really did not. That's like that's like, that's like that's
Speaker 1: like abusive terminology. That is pretty manipulative to be like
Speaker 1: we we helped you during a pandemic. It's it's like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: as you should, because yeah, you're the place where I
Speaker 1: was employed. I give something to you, you give something
Speaker 1: to me. And yeah, and as I Twitter ranted in
Speaker 1: the comment, you know, like with peace and love. We
Speaker 1: had to beg to get our cafe close, you know,
Speaker 1: like we we like it wasn't like we just uh
Speaker 1: cases rose and they came in said, hey guys, we're
Speaker 1: gonna close it. Like we had we were calling and
Speaker 1: um making a stink and I mean we were talking
Speaker 1: about striking, but then remembered we're not unionized. Yes we didn't,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, I mean it was we Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were really fed up, um people sitting in there for
Speaker 1: hours with their faces out, you know, as cases were rising.
Speaker 1: So UM yeah, great point. That's really pretty manipulative because
Speaker 1: like you should be helping us through covid. UM. That's
Speaker 1: not like a that's not a benefit. That's just that's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not killing people. It's like should we should be
Speaker 1: something that's just kind of always there, shouldn't shouldn't be
Speaker 1: an extra you know. Yeah. And I mean as far
Speaker 1: as um, you know, sort of local um interference, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll say UM. I do want to say um.
Speaker 1: In my case, our store manager, UM, I really care
Speaker 1: about her. UM. I have a great working relationship with her.
Speaker 1: I really respect her. She's done a lot of good
Speaker 1: for our store. UM. And she's really just doing the
Speaker 1: best she can having conversations with us. Um. She has
Speaker 1: her opinions and feelings about it, and I just try
Speaker 1: to listen to them, and she listens to mine. Um.
Speaker 1: But there definitely Yeah, I mean as soon as we
Speaker 1: filed for an election, we started actually as soon as
Speaker 1: we started organizing, and they sort of caught wind. Um.
Speaker 1: We started having barista meetings, which are as vague as
Speaker 1: they sound, um, And people who had worked there longer
Speaker 1: than me said, we've never had these before. Um, maybe once,
Speaker 1: you know, in a few years. Um. So we started
Speaker 1: having all these meetings and not even talking about the
Speaker 1: union at first, but all of a sudden they wanted
Speaker 1: to hear from us and fix things in the store
Speaker 1: and and all this stuff and be super helpful and present.
Speaker 1: And then there definitely just was a heightened corporate presence
Speaker 1: in the store. Um, people we've never seen before coming in, like, hey,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Want to talk? It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're a stranger. I don't lot to talk to you. Um.
Speaker 1: So that was weird. UM. But yeah, yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: definitely definitely just a shift in presence. Um. Again, any
Speaker 1: of these meetings and Um, yeah, it's been interesting. And
Speaker 1: what what do you kind of how do you see
Speaker 1: like the situation resolving? Like do you do you like
Speaker 1: how how like do you have has also like yeah,
Speaker 1: what's like the state of of of your stores specifically? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we are on our way to an election. Um,
Speaker 1: we've requested an election. Uh so we're really just like
Speaker 1: in a waiting period for that. We don't know exactly
Speaker 1: when it's gonna be. We've heard soon, um, but who
Speaker 1: knows when that is? Um? We yeah, we have some
Speaker 1: we we had to do a zoom hearing for some
Speaker 1: of the legalities for things here in Massachusetts. That was interesting.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so we're we're just waiting for the election
Speaker 1: at this point. And the election is what will uh
Speaker 1: you know, that's when we're going to cast our yes
Speaker 1: or no vote. Um, and we will find out whether
Speaker 1: or not we're gonna unionize. And I think we will unionize.
Speaker 1: It's looking that way. I'm confident, um, and I really
Speaker 1: look forward to that. What do you think, um, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you see is happening after the vote is done? Like,
Speaker 1: like assuming it is a vote yes, Like, how do
Speaker 1: you think this will impact um? Working at the store,
Speaker 1: going forward, it's gonna be interesting and it's going to
Speaker 1: be an adjustment, right because from the time that we
Speaker 1: vote and we vote yes, Let's say we vote yes
Speaker 1: and we're going to unionize, there is it could take
Speaker 1: a long time. It could take a year, we don't know.
Speaker 1: It could take more and less UM to get from
Speaker 1: that vote to you know, what we refer to as
Speaker 1: the bargaining table UM to negotiating a contract with Starbucks. UM.
Speaker 1: And in that time there are things UM and again,
Speaker 1: if partners are listening, you can do your research on
Speaker 1: this on the n l r B website. UM there,
Speaker 1: you know, there are things that will be UM different
Speaker 1: in that waiting period. Right, So, if if Starbucks decides
Speaker 1: to release UM a nationwide UM spring raise, because why
Speaker 1: not we love giving you raises, UM, we would be
Speaker 1: exempt from that because we're in negotiations, Because we're in
Speaker 1: this sort of in between spot. UM there there are
Speaker 1: little weird things that we might have to just be
Speaker 1: aware of no going in UM in that sort of interim.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and then eventually, you know, those raises and
Speaker 1: any other things that we've sort of been waiting on
Speaker 1: get brought to the bargaining table. Yeah, I think this
Speaker 1: is an important thing for people to understand when when
Speaker 1: you're doing union organizing, right is you know, you have
Speaker 1: this giant push and you have like you have to
Speaker 1: have the push to get to get either recognition or
Speaker 1: to get this the National Labor Relations Board vote. But
Speaker 1: most unions that go under go under in like before
Speaker 1: the first contract, and you have to like that's that's
Speaker 1: something that you know when when you when you talk
Speaker 1: to people who who are the professionally you need organizers,
Speaker 1: they talked, they talked about this constantly. You have to
Speaker 1: hold it together during during that period between your first
Speaker 1: like bet between when you when you're when when you
Speaker 1: get recognized it when your vote ends that first contract.
Speaker 1: And it's hard in a lot of ways, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they think you're talking about like management will do you know,
Speaker 1: they'll doyn't in tensify the union busting because they're hoping
Speaker 1: the union will still fall apart. But if you hold
Speaker 1: it together and if you get that first contract your union,
Speaker 1: like you know, you you now have a union and
Speaker 1: you've basically stabilized, and at that point, like you now
Speaker 1: have a seat at the table and you have to
Speaker 1: take your seat the table and fight. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: a big responsibility when when you say hold it together
Speaker 1: during that time, do you do you mean, like, um,
Speaker 1: just through those changes and that interim and that sort
Speaker 1: of weird awkward phase, like you have to like just
Speaker 1: hold it together like mentally and just kind of power
Speaker 1: through it. Yeah. Well, also I mean you have to,
Speaker 1: like you have to just keep making sure everyone's involved,
Speaker 1: which is something that's difficult because, Yeah, especially after sort
Speaker 1: of the initially, because people have also have like a
Speaker 1: job to do it this entire time, right, there's still
Speaker 1: they're still bake in coffee, they're still making the podcast,
Speaker 1: they're still doing whatever soever. Have you ever done? This
Speaker 1: is sort of beside the point, but it's fun. Have
Speaker 1: you guys ever done like the sixteen personalities personality assessment?
Speaker 1: At some point? I've never done it. It's really fun.
Speaker 1: I just did it for school, and it's the thing
Speaker 1: that tells you, like, I'm an i n f J
Speaker 1: TV and my thing is the advocate Sophie. What's yours?
Speaker 1: You look like you had one ready to go. I
Speaker 1: don't remember what it was, but I remember having to
Speaker 1: do it like fifteen times in school. Yeah. I also
Speaker 1: I also forget what I the one that I did
Speaker 1: for when I was in school as well, But I
Speaker 1: I brought it up because I'm thinking I want to
Speaker 1: send it to my fellow organizers and be like, do
Speaker 1: this and we can sort of highlight what each other's
Speaker 1: strengths are, um and start playing into those because like
Speaker 1: you were saying, Chris, like it really is a team effort,
Speaker 1: and I think it only really works if you are
Speaker 1: utilizing people and respecting people's strengths, you know, because not
Speaker 1: everyone has the same strengths. Like, yeah, you might be
Speaker 1: a kick as graphic designer, but like not everyone can
Speaker 1: do that. You know, maybe they're better at hosting get togethers,
Speaker 1: or they're better at writing emails or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, playing to strengths is so important in
Speaker 1: the long run, because, yeah, it can take a year
Speaker 1: to get to the negotiating table, which which like is horrible,
Speaker 1: Like that shouldn't be like it should it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: that long. Um. And you know, tactics such as like specifically,
Speaker 1: you know, raising wages around a unionization effort so that
Speaker 1: people in the union don't get it. That is like
Speaker 1: another form of union investing, Like that is like like,
Speaker 1: don't think they haven't thought that through, Like that is
Speaker 1: that is part of that whole process, being like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you could have a union or you can get higher
Speaker 1: wages out Like that's like, that's that is part of
Speaker 1: what's going on. It's because they want people to not
Speaker 1: sign on to have long term benefits, so they're going
Speaker 1: to offer these short term benefits. So like it really
Speaker 1: is like because of how elongated the unionization process can be,
Speaker 1: it gives a lot of time for people to get
Speaker 1: burnt out. Um and and combating that, like combating being
Speaker 1: burnt out is one of the most important parts. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really it's really challenging sometimes. Oh my gosh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I love that conversation. I'm like a mental
Speaker 1: health dweeb. Um, it's it's my it's what my my
Speaker 1: podcast is called Your Messy Friend, and that's basically all
Speaker 1: I talk about is mental health. And yeah, the burnout.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm recovering from burnout right now. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: it's very real. You have to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: while you're taking care of everybody else and making these efforts,
Speaker 1: like you have to make sure that you are checking
Speaker 1: with yourself every and making sure your needs are being met,
Speaker 1: because giving from an empty tank does not last long.
Speaker 1: As I'm sure you guys know. Yeah, if you uh, if,
Speaker 1: if you're, if you're, if the water in your espresso
Speaker 1: machine is out, then nothing can flow through to make
Speaker 1: this for you exactly. See. It was what an amazingly
Speaker 1: crafted metaphor. I just not tortured at all anyway. So
Speaker 1: what is the like turnover rate at the store? Like, like,
Speaker 1: how how quickly are people coming in and out of jobs?
Speaker 1: And how has that been affecting organizing? The cool question. Um,
Speaker 1: we haven't had a ton of people leave since I
Speaker 1: got there, I mean, and I definitely I can pretty
Speaker 1: confidently say none of those had to do with unionizing. Um,
Speaker 1: it was all for just like different reasons. Um, we've
Speaker 1: had quite a few more people come in recently, and
Speaker 1: I would say that, Um, I mean, it's it's weird
Speaker 1: because our current store manager, who was great, she was
Speaker 1: hired around the same time that we really started amping
Speaker 1: up union stuff. And you know, it's almost unfortunate because
Speaker 1: I think she thought it was it was about her,
Speaker 1: and it just so wasn't you know. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's who knows if it was just because she
Speaker 1: was there now or because of the union stuff or both.
Speaker 1: But uh, they did start hiring quite a few more people,
Speaker 1: um around the time that we started organizing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's you have to walk this fine line
Speaker 1: when you have new people coming in. Of course, you
Speaker 1: want to get to them and give them your info
Speaker 1: um or at least give them resources to look into
Speaker 1: before corporate gets to them. Um. But then you also
Speaker 1: they're they're learning a new job. It's really fast paced
Speaker 1: and overwhelming, Like you have to be careful not to
Speaker 1: totally overwhelm them either. I mean that that's really something
Speaker 1: I've just tried to keep in mind throughout the whole process.
Speaker 1: Is like when my friend Tyler approached me, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is necessary for me. And now I'm
Speaker 1: on the committee, you know, so you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: it's that thing where I'm like, Okay, if I could
Speaker 1: be convinced, maybe anyone can, all right, is there um
Speaker 1: any direct action that people who are listening, or any
Speaker 1: called action you have for us that we can provide
Speaker 1: to our listeners or links or anything that you think
Speaker 1: would be useful for our people to know. That's a
Speaker 1: coo idea. Yeah, thanks. UM, Like we mentioned before, if
Speaker 1: you want to just like stop by your local unionizing
Speaker 1: Starbucks and get a coffee with the name you know,
Speaker 1: unionized or union strong. That like that in person support,
Speaker 1: especially when your first organizing, is really really helpful. Even
Speaker 1: just stopping by to like drop off a card or
Speaker 1: say hey, good luck with unionizing. UM, that really means
Speaker 1: a lot. UM. You can follow SB Workers United on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter and just engage with us, UM reach
Speaker 1: out if you need info about how to organize. The
Speaker 1: people on Instagram or so, I mean on all the
Speaker 1: platforms are just like so on top of responding UM,
Speaker 1: and uh, website, I think we have a website, I
Speaker 1: would so I would assume at this point. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we have a pretty pop in Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: But UM, yeah I don't. I don't think I'm forgetting anything.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's about it. UM, and just making
Speaker 1: noise on online is also really helpful. You know. I
Speaker 1: love when people comment on Starbucks posts and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how about unions though. Yeah, the website is s B
Speaker 1: Workers United dot org affiliated with the Workers United and
Speaker 1: the Starbucks I think effort which has ways to donate
Speaker 1: or by by merch in support of the union and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, which funds I'll go to the
Speaker 1: go to the campaign and you know, just in case
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear, like and this is something you'll hear
Speaker 1: from Starbucks. Is all of this about the third party
Speaker 1: and Workers United is going to do this and that,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. We essentially, you know, we work with that.
Speaker 1: They promote our cause, you know what I mean, They're
Speaker 1: here to support our mission and our goals. I mean,
Speaker 1: you'd be amazed by how much partners do for this,
Speaker 1: you know, so much. But we we do the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty every day, communicating with each other. We're communicating nationally
Speaker 1: now we have a platform for that. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. And so like they are, they're kind
Speaker 1: of like, I don't know, the supporting beams of everything
Speaker 1: we're doing. You know, it's us. Yeah, but like the
Speaker 1: actual makeup of it definitely is with Starbucks employees, you know,
Speaker 1: and all the people I've been in like Twitter conversations
Speaker 1: with our d m s who are involved. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like everyone who's like actively involved in doing it all,
Speaker 1: has worked at a Starbucks before, um and still and
Speaker 1: still are like it is. It is definitely being led
Speaker 1: by the workers. UM and yeah, that's really great and
Speaker 1: really crucial. UM do you have any do you have
Speaker 1: any other plugables for yourself or for yeah anything else
Speaker 1: in odd plug your pod? Yeah? Thanks guys, UM, this
Speaker 1: was really fun. Thank you for having me on. I
Speaker 1: love podcasting. UM so yeah, I mentioned sp Workers United
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter. Make sure you give them a follow.
Speaker 1: Follow baristas you find along the way. Who are you
Speaker 1: know speaking up about this? Show them your support. UM.
Speaker 1: My podcast is called your Messy Friend. You can find me.
Speaker 1: I think wherever you get your podcasts definitely Spotify That's
Speaker 1: what I use. UM and yeah that's about it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much Kayleie for joining us today. You
Speaker 1: talked about Starbucks and unions. UM can follow us online
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, at Happened Here pod and cool Zone
Speaker 1: Media And I think that does it does it for us.
Speaker 1: Can't wait for you all to win, ye, can't can't
Speaker 1: can't wait for you guys to win. As soon as
Speaker 1: as soon as Portland locations start going, I'll definitely go
Speaker 1: in and support, but until then I will make coffee
Speaker 1: alone in my my, my, my lonely, my my lonely
Speaker 1: espresso machine. Um. But yeah, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for flour coming on to talk. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Hey there, I'm jess Mi Lady Confetti here. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Psyche and I am Hey Shady Lady, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Boss Level podcast, where we feature conversations with gas
Speaker 1: tube leveled up bringing an x FE roost to the table.
Speaker 1: That was always my response, bec this is like I
Speaker 1: am like a unicorn here right, like because there's not
Speaker 1: allowed of like out of the closet female gamers, female gamers,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of them. Like it was like
Speaker 1: a battlefield, like this is our cool boys club and
Speaker 1: here no sorry, Henny, this is a very dark corner
Speaker 1: and I'm a lot of light and right. We picked
Speaker 1: the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across
Speaker 1: the globe to help our listeners achieve their own boss level.
Speaker 1: We are not just creating a podcast, but a gamified
Speaker 1: an engaged community. Listen to Boss Level on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: If I could be you and you could be me
Speaker 1: for just one hour, If you could find a way
Speaker 1: to get inside each other's mind, walk a mile in
Speaker 1: my shoes, wacome mile in my shoes. Shoes. We've all
Speaker 1: felt left out, and for some that feeling lasts more
Speaker 1: than a moment. We can change that. Learn how it
Speaker 1: belonging begins with us. Dot org brought to you by
Speaker 1: the App Council. Welcome out in the machines. Look for
Speaker 1: your children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest.
Speaker 1: It's a storybook world for you. Look and see a tree.
Speaker 1: They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms
Speaker 1: outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They
Speaker 1: see a windy path that could lead to adventure, and
Speaker 1: they see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world?
Speaker 1: Find a forest near you and start exploring and discover
Speaker 1: the forest. Dot org brought to you by the United
Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. Welcome to it
Speaker 1: could happen here a podcast about things falling apart and
Speaker 1: even occasionally about trying to put them back together. Today,
Speaker 1: as is too often the case, we're going to be
Speaker 1: focused more on the falling apart thing, because today we
Speaker 1: are talking about the situation in Ukraine. Um it is
Speaker 1: as I type, or not type because I'm not writing,
Speaker 1: but you know, you get how I'm used to thinking.
Speaker 1: As I say this. Russian troops have just moved in
Speaker 1: to two regions in eastern Ukraine that have been occupied
Speaker 1: by what are generally called Russian backed separatists since two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. Vladimir Putin gave a speech that I
Speaker 1: will be we will be talking about a bit with
Speaker 1: our guest um and announced his intention to recognize those
Speaker 1: breakaway sections of the country as independent republics. UH. And
Speaker 1: the area that he has chosen to recognize includes about
Speaker 1: seventy territory that is currently occupied and held by the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government. So it's a big mess. UH. This is
Speaker 1: some have said like a soft version of the invasion
Speaker 1: that people were expecting. I think it's probably more accurate
Speaker 1: to say it's a slow start, um, compared to what
Speaker 1: is potentially possible and very likely coming in the future.
Speaker 1: To talk more about this and about being an anarchist
Speaker 1: kind of trapped in between you know, NATO and Russia
Speaker 1: and everything that's flinging around right now is Ukrainian journalist
Speaker 1: Romeo Kratski. Romeo, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Been a big fan of yours.
Speaker 1: So it's an honor to be here. And you are
Speaker 1: in your in Kiev right now, right? Yeah? Correct? And
Speaker 1: and how is everybody keeps asking this all around? But
Speaker 1: how is the mood? Um? As you know, to the
Speaker 1: extent that there's a way of saying that, like I've
Speaker 1: i've you know, have things kind of taking a turn
Speaker 1: since Putin actually made his first big play. I mean,
Speaker 1: as much as journalists like to say, there is no
Speaker 1: magic mudometer to cha to instantly bowl every resident in
Speaker 1: the city to find out walk around and talk to everybody,
Speaker 1: just like all the four million or whatever citizens in
Speaker 1: the city. Let me just let me just ask him. Um.
Speaker 1: But like, there definitely has been a turning point. Um.
Speaker 1: Like one of the big refrains that I've seen, like
Speaker 1: personally in that one has been saying, right is that
Speaker 1: Ukrainians are so calm. Look at these pictures of them
Speaker 1: like shopping in malls and like going to school. What
Speaker 1: else are you supposed to do? Honestly, what else are
Speaker 1: we supposed to do. But I mean that this true
Speaker 1: people have been called but since yesterday evening there definitely
Speaker 1: has been a shift, um, and even casual conversation, uh
Speaker 1: in key of like I was sitting, to paraphrase a
Speaker 1: famous columnists usual framing, I was sitting in a cafe
Speaker 1: and overhearing the wait staff chat amongst themselves. Um, and
Speaker 1: obviously the the the whole conversation is, oh is Putin
Speaker 1: going to push into Kiev? And anecdotally we're semi anecdotally,
Speaker 1: I guess, um, apartment prices in the western cities like
Speaker 1: in Leviv and us Grade have really spiked up, like incredibly, U.
Speaker 1: So people are I wouldn't call that that's a depressing
Speaker 1: way to pay attention to, that a reason to pay
Speaker 1: attention to at Like, I wouldn't call it a mass panic. Um.
Speaker 1: There's no like bank runs, no, like all the stores
Speaker 1: are stocked. No, one's like hoarding. Um. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, there is a study trickle of people going
Speaker 1: west and kind of making plains at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and UM, so this to kind of give people a
Speaker 1: little bit more context before we get into some of
Speaker 1: the more political dimensions of this UM Right now, there
Speaker 1: has not been a massive escalation, UM of violence outside
Speaker 1: of the areas where there have been fighting for several years.
Speaker 1: You know, there has been an escalation on the front
Speaker 1: line that's existed since UM, but there has not been like,
Speaker 1: you know, troops pouring across the border in other areas
Speaker 1: and stuff. And that's obviously probably the number one worry. UM.
Speaker 1: It looks like what's about to happen is or at
Speaker 1: least it's hard to say, because put has recognized the
Speaker 1: borders of this breakaway part of Ukraine as significantly larger
Speaker 1: than the area they actually control, and he has moved troops,
Speaker 1: Russian active duty troops into that area. Now, Russian troops,
Speaker 1: I'm from what I've heard about three thousand have been
Speaker 1: in the breakaway areas for years now, UM, but a
Speaker 1: significant yeah, a significant number have been added now. And
Speaker 1: obviously the fear is that because he has recognized the
Speaker 1: territory of these these quote unquote in his terms breakaway
Speaker 1: republics is being much larger than what they control, that
Speaker 1: Russian troops are going to participate with the separatists UM
Speaker 1: in attacking and taking those territories from the Ukrainian government. UM.
Speaker 1: That's one concern, obviously, the the concern attached to that
Speaker 1: is that it would be not at all inconceivable for
Speaker 1: a conflict that started that way to spread to a
Speaker 1: much wider part of Ukraine. Um, this is all coming
Speaker 1: alongside a speech Putin gave that unfortunate. He is gonna
Speaker 1: be one of those things people here about in history books. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: God damn mind. And it's one of those things. We
Speaker 1: will talk some more about how the Western left sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like because this is also
Speaker 1: largely the the online left, but how the online left
Speaker 1: talks about Putin sometimes. This was not a I want
Speaker 1: to return to the Soviet Union at speech. This was
Speaker 1: I want to return to czarist Russia's borders type speech.
Speaker 1: Like the guy has the czarist imperial crest emblazoned on
Speaker 1: the gates to his palace. So I'm really not sure
Speaker 1: what people would have expected. And unfortunately he's better at
Speaker 1: his job than any of the last tsars were because
Speaker 1: he's he's achieved a notable amount of success towards that
Speaker 1: goal already. Um, and yeah, he a number of things
Speaker 1: that were it's one of those like one of the
Speaker 1: things he said, which is a line that folks like
Speaker 1: him in Russia have been saying for a while is
Speaker 1: that you Ukranes, the existence of Ukraine as an independent
Speaker 1: polity is a mistake. And as an anarchist, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this like, well, yeah, I don't I don't like
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian state. I don't like any state in particular.
Speaker 1: But if you're if your only disagreement is with the
Speaker 1: statehood of Ukraine and you're fine with the state of Russia,
Speaker 1: you know, then then perhaps what you actually think is
Speaker 1: that people in Ukraine should not have any autonomy to
Speaker 1: disagree with the government in Moscow. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the case here. Um. There's a there's similarities between
Speaker 1: how Putin and those like him in Russia treat Ukrainians
Speaker 1: um with how, for example, the Turks treat Kurds in
Speaker 1: the southern part of the country. There's this this thing
Speaker 1: you'll hear a lot from Turkey, where like, there's no
Speaker 1: Kurds in Turkey, They're they're mountain Turks who have lost
Speaker 1: their their language. And there's this denial from Putin in
Speaker 1: the Russians that Ukrainians are a people, that they exist,
Speaker 1: and there this this is a something that has translated.
Speaker 1: Most people have heard versions of this and just any
Speaker 1: of the coverage you've heard of Ukraine, if you've ever
Speaker 1: heard of it referred to as the Ukraine. What that
Speaker 1: is is part of a very old um line that
Speaker 1: kind of exists to allow Russians to deny the existence
Speaker 1: of Ukrainians as a people and make it make it
Speaker 1: seem more like it's just kind of a geographic region,
Speaker 1: which is not the case. And why you wouldn't refer
Speaker 1: to you wouldn't call it the Ukraine anymore than you
Speaker 1: would call it the Canada. Um, it just isn't the
Speaker 1: way you, you say, should say that. But um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think that's at least enough of a background
Speaker 1: to get into the real media of what we want
Speaker 1: to talk about. So, and I'm just going to kind
Speaker 1: of open this up to you to chat about what
Speaker 1: you'd like to say and what you think needs to
Speaker 1: be gotten across to the international left, because internationalism is
Speaker 1: something we value a lot here and it has been
Speaker 1: hard to find in this conflict. Yeah, Like growing up
Speaker 1: in New York in the nine ease, one of the
Speaker 1: core values I kind of absorbed, I guess through osmosis
Speaker 1: is the value that every single person I met, regardless
Speaker 1: of whatever corner of the world they came from, is
Speaker 1: the exact same beings me, UM, And it wasn't. And
Speaker 1: and that kind of realization was one of the things
Speaker 1: that I guess, I wouldn't say pushed, but UM conspired
Speaker 1: to to turn me into a leftist, a socialist, Marxist UM.
Speaker 1: And part of that, especially when I was learning about
Speaker 1: what the hell all these isms were UM, was internationalism,
Speaker 1: the idea that well, our struggle isn't within the the
Speaker 1: fabricated borders of whatever UM polity has has decided to
Speaker 1: impose their their authority UM. But internationally, every single worker
Speaker 1: is the same as every other worker. We're all struggling
Speaker 1: with the same issues, We're all fighting the same forces, UM,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, we have the same enemies. Now fast
Speaker 1: forward too, Uh, I go online and what do I see? Well,
Speaker 1: Ukrainians are all Nazis or Ukraine shouldn't exist, or how
Speaker 1: can we support either of those? It's two fascist states
Speaker 1: fighting each other. And I'm sorry, Ukraine has got a
Speaker 1: population of forty four million. You want to tell me
Speaker 1: that every single one of those forty four million or
Speaker 1: Nazis like people don't even say that about Germany. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were literally the Nazi state, I mean, nor the
Speaker 1: United States, um for that man, Like, we had four
Speaker 1: years of Trump and openly fascist authoritarian leader, and no
Speaker 1: one seems to say, well, I guess the U s
Speaker 1: should be bombed. Well, I guess there are some. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's definitely there's definitely people who say that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, that's not exactly of the view that
Speaker 1: people take, right. Um. So it's it's been a long
Speaker 1: process of disappointment. Well, I say, long, Um, there's always
Speaker 1: been the kind of well what are these people really
Speaker 1: think about Ukraine? But breaft of such a strong impetus
Speaker 1: to take a side, I guess, um that hasn't been
Speaker 1: in the forefront. And now every day I see people
Speaker 1: that I would have considered comrades, that I would have
Speaker 1: considered um friends and brothers, just kind of turned their
Speaker 1: back on me. Because I live here, right, any any aggression,
Speaker 1: any action that's taken will literally affect me physically sitting
Speaker 1: here and cube. Um. So it's been it's been really
Speaker 1: really immensely disheartening to see that every single value um
Speaker 1: that I thought the left was supposed to value that
Speaker 1: that I thought the left was built on UM between
Speaker 1: by people with rows emojis or hammering sickles in their
Speaker 1: user names, or whatever the hell it is. And we
Speaker 1: should probably talk about some of why this is and
Speaker 1: what the what the history is here. So, the most
Speaker 1: kind of direct thing that people can point to when
Speaker 1: they when they call Ukraine a fascist state or when
Speaker 1: they talk about this is the existence of the ass
Speaker 1: Off Battalion the AS of Italian as a paramilitary organization.
Speaker 1: That means it's it's not officially a part of the
Speaker 1: governmental military structure, but it it does receive has received
Speaker 1: arms from the government, and it UH functions as part
Speaker 1: of Ukraine's defense forces UM for the for the purposes
Speaker 1: of fighting off the Russian back separatists UM and the
Speaker 1: AS of Italian and Nazis. There's there's you know, the
Speaker 1: the you can There's been a tremendous amount of reporting
Speaker 1: on that. On that matter, it's a big problem in
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian government deserves a significant amount of criticism for
Speaker 1: the degree to which as OFF has been allowed to
Speaker 1: continue existing UM. But there's also a lot that gets
Speaker 1: left out when people focus on that, including the fact that,
Speaker 1: for example, the political wing of as off right sector,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the that would be fair to
Speaker 1: call it the umbrella term for like the far right
Speaker 1: parties in the ukrain Ukrainian government have been pretty effectively
Speaker 1: siloed away from political power through very active measures to
Speaker 1: about like what is one percent of um like representation,
Speaker 1: and so it didn't actually pass the threshold tantra the
Speaker 1: new barliament. Yeah, they're they're nonentity politically, they're just non
Speaker 1: popular there um campaigns failed, their models fail, their agitation fails.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians do not want to vote for Nazis. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it is. It is a an ugly situation. And
Speaker 1: I remember talking with when I was reporting on the
Speaker 1: midn uprisings, which is when, again for people who aren't
Speaker 1: up on recent Ukrainian history, they had a president who
Speaker 1: tried to do a dictatorship m and people rose up
Speaker 1: and fought him in the streets. Um. It was a
Speaker 1: very gnarly time. About two d people were shot by
Speaker 1: government forces UM. And eventually the president was forced to
Speaker 1: flee the country, which is what precipitated everything that's happening
Speaker 1: now because that president was pretty closely tied with Putin
Speaker 1: and the people fighting him. Um, we're not all they
Speaker 1: were not pro NATO rebels, but they were more definitely
Speaker 1: more supportive of closer ties with Western Europe than they
Speaker 1: were with Russia. UM. And that again, those are kind
Speaker 1: of the precipitating events for everything that happened that's happening now. Um.
Speaker 1: And some of the people who were fighting the president's
Speaker 1: forces were fascists. Um. And it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: I remember talking with protesters at the time who were like, well,
Speaker 1: am I supposed to get in fight with them at
Speaker 1: the same time as I'm trying not to get shot
Speaker 1: by riot police, Like what what do you expect me
Speaker 1: to do? And it is a nasty situation, and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things. Um. I don't know, Like I
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell people about that, because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's ugly, and it's uncomfortable and it's messy.
Speaker 1: And that's also Ukrainian history. There's a lot of ugly, uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: messy things here is there's with every country's history. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean people in Kiev deserve to have their housing
Speaker 1: blocks pounded by Russian artillery. Doesn't mean that people Indivka
Speaker 1: deserve to have their homes pounded by artillery UM. And
Speaker 1: whatever criticisms you want to make about how the Russian
Speaker 1: government or how the Ukrainian government has handled as Off,
Speaker 1: and there are many criticisms to make, that's not really
Speaker 1: relevant to the people living in these areas having their
Speaker 1: homes destroyed on a daily basis by mortar fire. I
Speaker 1: just want to make like a couple of things really clear.
Speaker 1: The as Off Batallion is like a thousand guys like Max.
Speaker 1: And the reason, one of the reasons at least that
Speaker 1: they rose to such prominence in the beginning wasn't only
Speaker 1: there um ability to to mobilize in the early stages
Speaker 1: of the Russian war against Ukraine. It was also because
Speaker 1: they had very strong financial backing UM from the former
Speaker 1: Interior Minister um Arsenovakav and Ivankav is no longer in power. UH.
Speaker 1: And one of the things you can see immediately was
Speaker 1: the like almost nullifying of fascist street marshes and fascist
Speaker 1: demonstrations UM in Kiev outside the President's office. That all
Speaker 1: vanished because more like in Ukraine, ideology is not very strong.
Speaker 1: And this is something UM that I've noticed a lot
Speaker 1: of people UH from the US in Europe have trouble
Speaker 1: understanding about Ukrainian politics. People here are not really ideological.
Speaker 1: Our parties don't map aside from a couple of outliers
Speaker 1: like rights actor UM, it doesn't really map to any
Speaker 1: left right access UM. People typically will always want the
Speaker 1: same policies, like they always want a pension, they always
Speaker 1: want UM universal health care to be better, they always
Speaker 1: want the roads fit UM generally policy something most Ukrainians
Speaker 1: actually agree on UM. As a result, most of our
Speaker 1: elections are purely personality based. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: Zelenski Voldemer's Lenski, our current president, one was because he
Speaker 1: was a well known comedian. Yeah, and people liked his personality,
Speaker 1: and he put out a whole TV show as a
Speaker 1: PR stunt before launching his campaign, and people voted for
Speaker 1: that personality based on screen. H And so when there
Speaker 1: was far right activity, and again I want to stress
Speaker 1: that that activity, even the street activity, has almost disappeared.
Speaker 1: It's because the far right is typically used in Ukraine
Speaker 1: as a political tool by one oligarc We're one interest
Speaker 1: group against another. That's why when the money disappeared, they disappeared.
Speaker 1: Because the leaderships, the leadership of these fascist groups typically speaking,
Speaker 1: we're not um that ideological themselves. But they did like
Speaker 1: having USUV s, and they did like buying guns and
Speaker 1: um hiring hookers and doing drugs. Like they liked the
Speaker 1: money and that's why they did it. And they would
Speaker 1: convince a bunch of teenagers to go out and wave
Speaker 1: a couple of torches and march or chant. But these
Speaker 1: guys were really purely for the money. Um And again
Speaker 1: you can tell that because when their financial backer disappeared,
Speaker 1: I don't in order to be found. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: one of those one of the things that is very
Speaker 1: frustrating to me. I can't remember one of the earliest
Speaker 1: projects that I did that was like a for belling
Speaker 1: cat as we were there was a Pride march in
Speaker 1: Kiev that got attacked by Nazis. This was a couple
Speaker 1: of years back, and we were kind of trying to
Speaker 1: identify the individual fascists who are like beating people in
Speaker 1: the street, and it's spending hours pouring over that footage.
Speaker 1: It makes it incredibly frustrating that there are people outside
Speaker 1: of the country boiling it down to while all of
Speaker 1: those people are fascists, all of those people are part
Speaker 1: of a fascist state. It's like, no, a lot of
Speaker 1: those people, quite a few Ukrainians have fought Nazis in
Speaker 1: the streets, you know. Um, that's the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: And it's it's um, and it's it's ugly in part
Speaker 1: because if you actually want to look at what's been happening,
Speaker 1: uh with the Russian back separatists, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fascists over there. Um. There's a lot of paramilitary organizations
Speaker 1: and like far right groups that have been used by
Speaker 1: the Russian government. Yeah. Yeah, literally literally them because they're
Speaker 1: fascist leader yeah Liken like many Nazis. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to to understand, honestly from my perspective, um, because
Speaker 1: not only is Russian fascism have far more influence on
Speaker 1: Russian policy than any Ukrainian fascists has ever had in
Speaker 1: Ugrainian baals Um, it's also that the Russian project and
Speaker 1: the narrative they use. Um. There there's this joke they
Speaker 1: call are not really joke, a slurred they call they
Speaker 1: call Ukrainians nazy's been darists um for those who don't
Speaker 1: Open Darrow was a Ukrainian nationalist leader partisan fought against
Speaker 1: the Soviets UH and he his organization was implicated in
Speaker 1: quite a few war crimes, significant number of war crimes,
Speaker 1: war crimes. UH so clearly been near himself, probably not
Speaker 1: a great guy, yeah, but to delegitimize all Ukrainian kind
Speaker 1: of independence movements that I've propped up over the years,
Speaker 1: the Soviet government and now the Russian government has always
Speaker 1: always insisted that there is no legitimate way for Ukraine
Speaker 1: to be independent where all Nats He's been Darists no
Speaker 1: matter what. And that's why you had UM. There's a
Speaker 1: picture a couple of days ago of a solid erry
Speaker 1: Marsha Kiev UM with UH some of Kiev's LGBT community
Speaker 1: holding up Bandera's flags, not because they're gay Nazis, because
Speaker 1: it's a way of yeah, retaking this slur back from
Speaker 1: the Russians. And it's all part of the complicating factor
Speaker 1: here is that because of how geo politics worked out
Speaker 1: in that period of time, there are very uncomfortable but
Speaker 1: kind of inextricable ties between UH Ukrainian, the basic idea
Speaker 1: of Ukraine being a nation independent from Russia and anti communism,
Speaker 1: And because of what was going on in anti communism
Speaker 1: in that period of time we're talking the thirties and forties.
Speaker 1: It means that a decent number of those early Ukrainian
Speaker 1: nationalists were either directly implicated with the Nazis like Bandera,
Speaker 1: or at least had uncomfortable ties. And that's a messy
Speaker 1: part of history that shouldn't shied away from. But for example,
Speaker 1: the same thing is true of Finland, Like do you
Speaker 1: can say the exact same thing about sucking Finnish nationalism,
Speaker 1: Finnish sovereignty and whatnot, um, And people don't call Finland
Speaker 1: a Nazi nation um even though yeah, the fact that
Speaker 1: they were stuck between the U S s R. And
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany means that there were a lot of Fins
Speaker 1: in that period of time who made some real fucked
Speaker 1: up choices, um like. But also there's a lot that
Speaker 1: has to be like, you can't adequately discuss why those
Speaker 1: choices were made if you don't talk about, for example,
Speaker 1: the holodomor you know, which was the starvation genocide of
Speaker 1: several million Ukrainians by the Soviet government. Like honestly, to
Speaker 1: go back even further, um and to I don't know,
Speaker 1: burnish my leftist prodountion a little bit. If you go
Speaker 1: back to the Civil War itself, where UM a lot
Speaker 1: of this started. Most of the nationalist groups, I would
Speaker 1: say nearly all of them. There were one or two
Speaker 1: monarchy minor monarchist groups in Ukraine, but the grand majority
Speaker 1: of them were in fact socialism or socialist. They had
Speaker 1: like the hammer and sickle and wheat on their currency
Speaker 1: and everything, because at the time that was what one
Speaker 1: votes UH from the peasantry. But when the Bolsheviks crushed
Speaker 1: every independent Ukrainian social movement in exchange for bureaucrats that
Speaker 1: they imported from the Empire and just shoved into Ukrainian cities, H, Well,
Speaker 1: then you had Ukrainians that wanted to be independent and
Speaker 1: wanted to have a better life than under the CSAR. Well,
Speaker 1: now suddenly they don't even have that support UM from
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks. UH. And obviously, as a Ukrainian UM, I
Speaker 1: can't talk about this without bringing up Nestro Macnu, who
Speaker 1: was a anarchist leader, the leader of the Ukrainian Black
Speaker 1: Army UM during the Civil War and what happened to them, Well,
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks betrayed them and killed all of them, and
Speaker 1: of course the movement UH and then smeared them all
Speaker 1: is um how to file rapist cannibals if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of of of disinformation you can find
Speaker 1: about that time, just like today, you know, only the
Speaker 1: names have changed exactly. So if there is no other
Speaker 1: outlet for Ukrainian nationalism and the group that you thought
Speaker 1: maybe an ally in UH destroying the empire in granting
Speaker 1: you self determination turns out to be a continuation of
Speaker 1: that exact empire, well it's pretty logical. Maybe not right,
Speaker 1: but it is pretty logical for people go to the
Speaker 1: for people to go to the other extream. And it's
Speaker 1: one of those One of the things I think that
Speaker 1: should be noted more, as we talked about earlier, is
Speaker 1: that one of these stories of Ukrainian politics, particularly in
Speaker 1: the last got close to a decade since the Maidan,
Speaker 1: is that at mainstream Ukrainian political leaders and Ukrainian voters
Speaker 1: have overwhelmingly rejected that sort of nationalism this time around,
Speaker 1: UM and have gone out of their way to silo
Speaker 1: it out of active political power, UM in a way
Speaker 1: that one could argue is more successful than has been
Speaker 1: done in the United States. UM. And absolutely we didn't trump. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you get you guys basically elected John Stewart. Um pretty much.
Speaker 1: I mean that was his Um. Yeah, it was his
Speaker 1: whole thing. He put on satirical political sketches, that was
Speaker 1: the entire show. Um, we did basically elect John Stewart.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have my criticisms of Zelenski, um
Speaker 1: as a lot of people do. Uh. And one of
Speaker 1: the things we love saying in Ukraine whenever people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at all the look at all the Nazis there,
Speaker 1: We're so not We're so anti semitic that we elected
Speaker 1: a Jewish comedian. That's how. That's how anti semitical we are.
Speaker 1: That we have huge minoures standing in the middle of
Speaker 1: Kieva during the high holidays, that's how. That's how antisemitic
Speaker 1: we are. Yeah. And and Zelinski's uh prime minister is
Speaker 1: also a Jewish man, which makes Ukraine the second country
Speaker 1: in the world to have a Jewish president and prime minister. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like we don't care because it's not it doesn't even
Speaker 1: come up in campaigns like what even when Romney was running,
Speaker 1: you'd see Democratic campaigns painting is a scary Mormon or
Speaker 1: the ads implying and you don't even have that level
Speaker 1: of religious antipathy in Ukraine. It's it's it's just a
Speaker 1: much more complicated We're actually talking about the problems of
Speaker 1: the far right and and a fascism, you know, in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's a much more complicated story than a lot of
Speaker 1: people on you know, social media or whatnot want to
Speaker 1: give it credit to, because it's just easy to some
Speaker 1: things up in one sentence and not have to care
Speaker 1: about a looming humanitarian catash strophie. But that is what
Speaker 1: we are looking at. If this invasion, it will be bad.
Speaker 1: If Russia uses active forces in order to take the
Speaker 1: remainder of those two provinces from the Ukrainian government, it
Speaker 1: will be a nightmare of almost unimaginable consequence. If the
Speaker 1: invasion proceeds on the wider scale that is possible at
Speaker 1: this point. Um and no, no, please, yeah, UM. I've
Speaker 1: been a dumor on this basically since I first heard
Speaker 1: about the build up. Um because Putin has made it
Speaker 1: very clear over the years what he considers Ukraine to be.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, he doesn't think that Ukraine should exist
Speaker 1: as like a polity. Um. And as a result, I
Speaker 1: have pretty much this whole time been pretty sure that
Speaker 1: he's going to attack you. UM. And now we're coming
Speaker 1: to a very definite tipping point. Um. Just today put
Speaker 1: has made a lot of moves, UM. Like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: he authorized military force to be used um in the
Speaker 1: Damas and actually he's gone further. He's authorized military force
Speaker 1: to be used abroad, UH, which I mean obviously that
Speaker 1: means Ukraine. Where else that's where his like the about
Speaker 1: I think seventy of the entire Russian army is currently
Speaker 1: around Ukraine or close enough that they can reinforce um
Speaker 1: without a lot of ye, at least of the active duty,
Speaker 1: because the Russian military there's a smaller actually competent, right
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yes, yeah, but the professional the contract soldiers yes, um.
Speaker 1: And especially on the northern border, Uh, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of battalion tact groups that are basically sitting and waiting,
Speaker 1: I guess for whatever the order will be eventually, um.
Speaker 1: And in Belarus, and since Putin has given this authorization
Speaker 1: to operate a rod and he stated that he recognizes
Speaker 1: these puppet authorities as I qual him um, that he
Speaker 1: recognizes their borders as the entirety of the Donetsk luconsk
Speaker 1: oh BLUs, which again only a third of those territories
Speaker 1: are under the de facto control of the public authorities.
Speaker 1: Two thirds of both provinces are still under Ukrainian government control,
Speaker 1: including the the critical port city of Marineople. And now
Speaker 1: that Putin has authorized forced to be used abroad, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of I mean, at least it is incredibly
Speaker 1: obvious to me what the next steps are from the
Speaker 1: Russian perspective if I want to subjugate you, right, um,
Speaker 1: And I think a big failing here is people in
Speaker 1: the West, especially the western left. Um, no, very little
Speaker 1: of for example, the Chechian Wars, especially the Second War,
Speaker 1: and what happened to Rosnie. Yeah, um, Africa during that war,
Speaker 1: and what the Russians did the subjects that population. And
Speaker 1: if anyone thinks that Putin treasures Ukrainian lives any more
Speaker 1: than he did Chechen lives, then I've got a bridge
Speaker 1: of the protosylum. Though you should act now because the
Speaker 1: valley's gonna drop real fast. Yeah. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those if you, as a good leftist, have spent a
Speaker 1: significant amount of time reading about the horrific crimes of
Speaker 1: of imperialist nations in Africa and Southeast Asia. In the
Speaker 1: America's UM. What the Russian Federation did there is on
Speaker 1: that scale. It's it's absolutely on that scale. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a titanically ugly war. UM. And any modernly
Speaker 1: we can look at what they did in Syria or
Speaker 1: what they are doing in Syria, what they continue to
Speaker 1: do in Syria. UM. But as it turns out, UM,
Speaker 1: Syrians learned this lesson that I am learning now abou
Speaker 1: portions of the UM Western left a long time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is that if you can find, for example, some
Speaker 1: Syrian rebels who are shitty and Islamists or whatever, you
Speaker 1: can tear every single person whoever stood up against Bashar
Speaker 1: al assad as A as a terrorist UM, which is
Speaker 1: really easy, especially if you're getting paid Kremlin money to
Speaker 1: advance that line and you your name is Ben Norton.
Speaker 1: This brings us to the place where there really aren't
Speaker 1: clear answers, which is like what can be done? And
Speaker 1: it is one of those things where it's like, well, uh,
Speaker 1: that's not an easy question, because you do have to
Speaker 1: when you start grappling with like all right, well, like
Speaker 1: should what should NATO do? What should other European non
Speaker 1: NATO nations do? Like what what what is actually capable
Speaker 1: of like potentially altering or disrupting the courses of action
Speaker 1: here while we're talking about the Russian state, which has
Speaker 1: a lot of nukes, Um, we're talking about a situation
Speaker 1: that could spiral out of control in a way that
Speaker 1: very few situations globally are capable of potentially spiring spiraling
Speaker 1: out of control. And so it is a not a
Speaker 1: situation where anyone who tells you this is clearly the
Speaker 1: thing to do that will work, is I think trying
Speaker 1: to is probably full of ship and a little unhinged um,
Speaker 1: because this is a real fucking ugly one. Um. But
Speaker 1: some of what has been done. Um, we just got
Speaker 1: the news today that I think we both found surprising,
Speaker 1: but it is very positive that the Germans have canceled
Speaker 1: construction of the Nord Stream to pipeline, which is a
Speaker 1: gas pipeline from Russia into the EU. Um that a
Speaker 1: lot of folks were saying Germany was not going to
Speaker 1: take any sort of stances, solid stances on Ukraine's behalf
Speaker 1: because of that pipeline, Because of how Germany, along with
Speaker 1: a lot of Western Europe, is tremendously reliant upon Russian
Speaker 1: gas exports. Um, for just like keep themselves heated in
Speaker 1: the winter. UM. So that's a positive move. I I
Speaker 1: tend to be critical of the ability of sanctions to
Speaker 1: do much. UM. And if we're looking historically at sanctions,
Speaker 1: particularly how they're most often implied, they have a tendency
Speaker 1: to just harm regular people more than they have to
Speaker 1: do it. Like we can look at the sanctions in
Speaker 1: Iraq right which which we're part of why something like
Speaker 1: a million people starved. Um. We are talking about different
Speaker 1: kinds of sanctions in general, and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: sanctions being imposed by NATO countries against the Russian state
Speaker 1: right now. They're largely sanctions against members of the Duma. UM,
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot. It's not the same as looking
Speaker 1: at like what was being done to Saddam's Iraq. That said,
Speaker 1: I'm still very hesitant to say I think that sanctions
Speaker 1: are going to disrupt Putin's course of action. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you think can and should be done here, you know,
Speaker 1: like what is do you have any kind of clear
Speaker 1: idea in your own head about what might have a
Speaker 1: disruptive effect on on what Putin is doing? Learned to
Speaker 1: teleport and shoot Putin in the head with a nimillionator.
Speaker 1: I mean that would be that would be great. There's
Speaker 1: a can we that had we that teleportation capacity, there
Speaker 1: would be a list. You know, we never put my
Speaker 1: skill points into that. UM. But realistically speaking, the Russian
Speaker 1: state is authoritarian. It doesn't really care what its own
Speaker 1: citizens think. It definitely doesn't care what other people think. However, UM,
Speaker 1: Russia has been, at least in um the modern realm,
Speaker 1: relatively image conscious UM, which is why I think one
Speaker 1: thing that could work, for example or not, could work,
Speaker 1: but would perhaps force the Russian state to consider its
Speaker 1: actions a little bit more carefully. And I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear when I talk about the Russian state,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Putin himself. Yeah, the government, he has
Speaker 1: no there's no like other decision makers in Russia. And
Speaker 1: that was actually perfectly encapsulated UM during his speech the
Speaker 1: other day where he just outright, um like eviscerated the
Speaker 1: head of his foreign intelligence service. I'm live TV for
Speaker 1: the whole world to see just utterly humiliated the guy
Speaker 1: for no real reason, just because he can and you
Speaker 1: could see that. And we're talking about Russia's top spy.
Speaker 1: I mean, beyond Puttin himself stammering like a frightened school
Speaker 1: child when Puttin addressed him, just with just a hint
Speaker 1: of sharpness. Um. So when I say to the Russians, say,
Speaker 1: I'm referring literally to the body in person of of
Speaker 1: of Vladiman Puttin. Um, and like, honestly, yeah, I would
Speaker 1: love to see people pick it Russian embassies and make
Speaker 1: demonstrations and marches and so on. Um do I think
Speaker 1: will have a practical, real effect, to be honest. No,
Speaker 1: same with the sanctions. Um, I'm sure Putin's pet oligarchs
Speaker 1: and members of his party and the uh the people
Speaker 1: that in theory keep him in power. Um, the oligarchs,
Speaker 1: the the prolmentarians, the mafia lords and so on. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're gonna be pretty mift if their yachts and
Speaker 1: their multimillion dollar properties in Miami and New York, in London,
Speaker 1: and the villainism the French Riviera when when all that
Speaker 1: gets taken, I'm sure they'll they'll be pretty annoyed. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't think Putin cares. I think that he
Speaker 1: has a really irrational um desire to subjugate Kiev, specifically, Um,
Speaker 1: he sees Kiev as Um what we call in Russian
Speaker 1: the mother of all Russian cities. Yeah, it's the um,
Speaker 1: the mainplace of the Kivan Ruce. Yeah, the word Russian
Speaker 1: comes from Kievan rus you know, exactly exactly. And I
Speaker 1: just don't think that Putin is going to turn away
Speaker 1: from that goal because a couple of his buddies are
Speaker 1: complaining that they're mega yachts got taken in by the
Speaker 1: British authorities or whatever. Nor do I think they're gonna
Speaker 1: care that. You know, there are a couple of marchers
Speaker 1: outside of embassies in New York or something. Um, but
Speaker 1: that may help spur the world as a whole, the
Speaker 1: international community into taking a harder line stance against because
Speaker 1: timing comes time and again. Um, Like, the guy's a gangster,
Speaker 1: he's he's like a security service thug. If you've ever
Speaker 1: like interacted with like a petty like sergeant, police sergeant
Speaker 1: or something that has just a bit of authority and
Speaker 1: pretty much show immunity that that's put into a t
Speaker 1: um the dude thinks he's over educated, uh and the
Speaker 1: cleverest manble Yeah, I think, but reality, the way he talks,
Speaker 1: in the way he's acts, he's just a bull. He's
Speaker 1: he's he's got the same basic personality as like Villanueva,
Speaker 1: you know, the fucking head of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 1: He's like, not like a beat cop, but like one
Speaker 1: of the cops who rises to run a union or
Speaker 1: run a city police department. Yeah, he's good at consolidating power.
Speaker 1: He's good at at exercising or organizing others to exercise
Speaker 1: violence on his behalf. But yeah, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, he is primarily a bully. And it's one
Speaker 1: of those Um, I don't know. Like when it comes
Speaker 1: to arms shipments, that is a historically Again, if you
Speaker 1: look at the history of particular like let's just say
Speaker 1: specifically NATO shipping arms places most of the time, that
Speaker 1: does not improve the situation for people in that country.
Speaker 1: That that has been a historical reality of arms Shipment's
Speaker 1: not just with NATO as a general rule everywhere, when
Speaker 1: you ship more guns into an area, that that rarely
Speaker 1: improves quality of life. Um. But we are not talking
Speaker 1: about a country that has had any kind of centralized
Speaker 1: political legitimacy or what not collapse. You're not talking about
Speaker 1: a country that is in the middle of tearing itself
Speaker 1: apart between thirty or forty different sides. Um. It's not
Speaker 1: the same situation as while at ship a bunch of
Speaker 1: guns to Libya, you know. Um, it just isn't there
Speaker 1: different histories, different political realities on the ground. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I actually think any amount of arms shipments
Speaker 1: would dissuade Putin from advancing either. Um, But I I
Speaker 1: don't know what else to do. I certainly am not
Speaker 1: against the idea of like, Okay, guys have some A
Speaker 1: G T M s, you know, have some wire guided missiles,
Speaker 1: have some javelins, um, because like, what else are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? Um? I mean, we're not going to And
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not saying we should send US troops in
Speaker 1: um because again we have to consider the nuclear situation too. Um.
Speaker 1: What do you think is where are your thoughts there? Um?
Speaker 1: Because this is something that I I'm very I'm very
Speaker 1: mixed on, although again I'm broadly fine with Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: at least give people the ability to fight back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a difficult one, especially like you noted, the military
Speaker 1: industrial complex has very rarely improved any situation in the
Speaker 1: world anywhere. Yep, this might be one of the few exceptions, UM,
Speaker 1: because the fact is that Ukraine doesn't really have the
Speaker 1: tools to defend these to defend ourselves we have UM,
Speaker 1: or at least our government claims that we have the
Speaker 1: strongest army in Europe, which, to be honest, with all
Speaker 1: the defense cuts that Europe can come made, that may
Speaker 1: be true at least on the ground sense. Certainly the
Speaker 1: most combat experienced army and here yeah, absolutely UM. But
Speaker 1: what we lack entirely is air power and air defense UM.
Speaker 1: And what Russia has in spades is air power and
Speaker 1: air defense. And as we saw UM when the US
Speaker 1: invaded Rock, Well, you can destroy conventional army in a
Speaker 1: couple of days by just bombing the ship out of
Speaker 1: it uh. And the Russians have quite a few missiles
Speaker 1: UM aimed straight at Kiev UH, and quite a view
Speaker 1: planes waiting on standby, I presume to bomb the ship
Speaker 1: out of Kiev UH. And it would be nice to
Speaker 1: have some way to to defend ourselves against that UM.
Speaker 1: But again there's there's not much that can be said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, stingers and javelins and so on, UM. That
Speaker 1: will all help raise the costs of the occupation. That
Speaker 1: follows the initial bombardment. But if Putin goes for the
Speaker 1: strategy that ASSAD has used in Syria, which is bomb
Speaker 1: the living ship out of every civilian um residential area
Speaker 1: in the city until the people just submit or are
Speaker 1: all dead, um, well, there's not really too much we
Speaker 1: can do about that. And that is like, there is
Speaker 1: a lot that individual that that trained and motivated soldiers
Speaker 1: with small arms and munitions like javelins can do even
Speaker 1: to resist a country with with overwhelming air power. The
Speaker 1: corollary to that is that in doing that a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff everyone around them dies. The city has turned
Speaker 1: into a graveyard. Um. I've I've seen that with my
Speaker 1: own eyes. And that's that's I mean, got to be
Speaker 1: the thing if you're looking at this with any kind
Speaker 1: of reasonable lies and not just like trying to find
Speaker 1: a political angle to support, that has to be your
Speaker 1: main concern is that the potential here is for a
Speaker 1: tremendous loss of life and also for the creation of
Speaker 1: millions of refugees. Um. And this is something in another
Speaker 1: of audio clip that you published a bit earlier on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you say, which is that like, if the goes as
Speaker 1: badly as it can, no matter what your politics are,
Speaker 1: this will become your problem. Yeah. I stand behind that absolutely,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of Ukrainians and while most
Speaker 1: of us have no desire to live under the Russian yoke,
Speaker 1: the majority of us are not trained fighters. Were just people,
Speaker 1: just regular people. And I know, especially in the US,
Speaker 1: um with our like out of control gun culture, imagining
Speaker 1: like they're the singular guy, you know, they're they're the
Speaker 1: macho man with with all the guns. They take down
Speaker 1: the government all by themselves. I'm sorry, it's a fantasy.
Speaker 1: It's a fiction. Um, that is not how things work. Uh.
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, most people are not psychologically suited to combat.
Speaker 1: That's why armies take so long to break soldiers down
Speaker 1: to teach them to murder people, because that is not
Speaker 1: something humans do. Actually, and the majority of people subjected
Speaker 1: to that kind of violence will run. And again there
Speaker 1: are forty four million of us, and they will run
Speaker 1: and run and run. Pretty much everyone in the world.
Speaker 1: You saw this with Syria, sell this with Libya. Um,
Speaker 1: you've seen this pretty much with every single place that
Speaker 1: has experienced massive violence in the modern world. Um, that's
Speaker 1: the reaction. Yeah, and it's when we run, we bring
Speaker 1: all of our biases and problems and cultural predilections to
Speaker 1: you m hm. And it's yeah, I mean that's that's
Speaker 1: really the note to end on and it is you
Speaker 1: get a lot of folks you know who who rightly
Speaker 1: you know, focus on and think a lot about revolutionary
Speaker 1: struggles in places like Vietnam and um in an Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and will point out that like, well, you don't need
Speaker 1: to have as advanced to military as your opponent to win.
Speaker 1: And again, just the corallarity to that, all, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: corellary to that is that like, yeah, but millions of
Speaker 1: people die. Millions of people died in Afghanistan, millions of
Speaker 1: people died in Vietnam. Um, that's that, that is the reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can resist an imperial power with minimal technology, but
Speaker 1: you're not going to leave that fight with a family
Speaker 1: alive still, you know, Like that's that's how it goes. Um.
Speaker 1: So let's all say a little prayer for I don't know, peace, Uh,
Speaker 1: I hope the worst doesn't happen. Um. What has there
Speaker 1: been kind of mobilization that you've seen within the the
Speaker 1: activist the anarchist community in in Kiev, um too? You know,
Speaker 1: any kind of mutual aid stuff like or is it
Speaker 1: just one of those situations where it hasn't started happening
Speaker 1: yet and nobody really knows what would even be useful
Speaker 1: to do if it does. I'll see this, Um. It
Speaker 1: may come as a little bit of a shock, but
Speaker 1: anarchists not typically the best organized. UM. Specifically like a
Speaker 1: lot of my uh the friends who are active in
Speaker 1: the anarchist um movement in Ukraine have simply joined the
Speaker 1: territorial defense battalions or the regular army and will simply
Speaker 1: fight as soldiers. UM. There has been a very strong
Speaker 1: I don't know if you called denial UM. A colleague
Speaker 1: of mine used the term doomed optimism, and I really
Speaker 1: like the sound of that, so let's go with that.
Speaker 1: There's been this really strong doomed optimism amongst Ukrainians that
Speaker 1: the worst will not happen and there's no real reason
Speaker 1: to prepare for anything, because well, things are going to
Speaker 1: be fine, um. And that's what our government tells us
Speaker 1: as well, things are going to be fine. They don't
Speaker 1: see any massive attack groups or I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like that's contradicted by the the opens intelligence that I've
Speaker 1: been looking at. But I I am just one guy.
Speaker 1: I obviously don't have intelligence apparatus of a nation state. UM.
Speaker 1: So I mean maybe they're right, Um, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: people have just been joining the army, going to um
Speaker 1: tactical trainings. Um. But this is all very basic stuff
Speaker 1: like going the woods, learn how to set up camp
Speaker 1: and you know, clean a rifle kind of kind of things. UM.
Speaker 1: Nothing like combat training, because where would you get that
Speaker 1: except by joining the army and going to the front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the kind of training that might keep in the
Speaker 1: event of a full conflict when out of ten of
Speaker 1: those people alive long enough to learn how to fight,
Speaker 1: and and that might be worth it. Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like, yes, not not to say
Speaker 1: people shouldn't be doing that, because people should do whatever
Speaker 1: they can. Um, how are you kindada close out like
Speaker 1: as this Like doom scrolling is the thing we all
Speaker 1: talk about, and there's there's plenty image sitting here in Portland.
Speaker 1: We just had a mass shooting on a protest this weekend,
Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of doom scrolling going on
Speaker 1: in my community. But we're not staring down the barrel
Speaker 1: of a hundred and ninety thousand soldiers, you know, potentially uh,
Speaker 1: hitting us from the air and ground simultaneously. How do
Speaker 1: you How are you like focusing on the stuff that
Speaker 1: you can do anything about and the stuff that you
Speaker 1: can productively handle without losing yourself in that opious amounts
Speaker 1: of cannabis. That's good. I'm glad you guys have decent
Speaker 1: pod access. Yeah. I actually don't know what I'll do if, um,
Speaker 1: if my current supplies got out to be quite honest, um,
Speaker 1: But I mean it's been definitely a struggle. Um. And
Speaker 1: the past couple of days, especially my mental health has
Speaker 1: not been especially great. Um. But again, I'm one dude, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not in very good shape. I have or vision,
Speaker 1: one of my eyes don't work, I'm diabetic. Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go out and grab a rifle and start
Speaker 1: killing every rooskie I see, you know. Um. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I've got a job to do. I
Speaker 1: as an English language journalist in Ukraine. Um, I have
Speaker 1: this is your busy season, Yeah, it's my busies. Like
Speaker 1: one of my jobs is to counter Russian distealinformation and
Speaker 1: to like tell people the truth of what is going
Speaker 1: on here. Um, And that role will only get more
Speaker 1: important if the the conflict expands, um from from the
Speaker 1: scope that it is now. Uh So how am I doing? Well?
Speaker 1: I'm still alive, um, having off myself and uh I'm
Speaker 1: still I'm still working. So I think as as good
Speaker 1: as I can be under the circumstances. Yeah yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: well I hope your weeds supply stays stable um at
Speaker 1: the very fucking fingers. Yeah. Um. All right, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show, Romeo. UM,
Speaker 1: do you have anything you want to plug kind of
Speaker 1: as we as we go out here? Um, just if
Speaker 1: you really want to know about what's going down in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: I am co host of the podcast called you Grain
Speaker 1: without Hype and find it on any podcast platform um.
Speaker 1: And if you really want to get a look out
Speaker 1: what's going on in English um with only a tinge
Speaker 1: of leftist bias, um, then tune in. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter Hype Ukraine um and again on any
Speaker 1: podcast platform that you you so desire. Awesome, Well check
Speaker 1: out Romeo there, check out this podcast, and you know,
Speaker 1: just try to keep your eyes on the situation and
Speaker 1: let yourself be uh overwhelmed by what some random person
Speaker 1: on Twitter tries to sum it up. As you know,
Speaker 1: people are more complicated than that. And we're live here
Speaker 1: outside the Perez family home, just waiting for the and
Speaker 1: there they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom is
Speaker 1: coming out the front door strong with a double arm
Speaker 1: kid carry. Looks like Dad has the bags. Daughter is
Speaker 1: bringing up the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed.
Speaker 1: Diapers and toys are everywhere. Oh but Mom has just
Speaker 1: nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And
Speaker 1: now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine
Speaker 1: or ten, has secured herself and the booster seat. Dad
Speaker 1: zips the bag clothes and they're off. Ah, but looks
Speaker 1: like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on
Speaker 1: the roof of the car, and there it goes. It's
Speaker 1: a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't sweat
Speaker 1: the small stuff. Just nailed the big stuff, like making
Speaker 1: sure your kids are buckled correctly in the right seat
Speaker 1: for their agent's eyes. Learn more. Nhtsa dot girl slash
Speaker 1: the right seed. Visit n h s a dot go
Speaker 1: slash the rain set right to you by Nitta and
Speaker 1: the head council. Hey, it's de Lieper I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you about my brand new podcast, Deleper at your Service.
Speaker 1: I'll be sitting down with the world's most inspiring minds
Speaker 1: to uncover what makes them tick, what they've learned from
Speaker 1: their successes, failures, and the obstacles life has thrown at them.
Speaker 1: We're going deep with people revolutionizing not just their own industries,
Speaker 1: but also culture more broadly. From Least Today Oh, the
Speaker 1: author redefining what it means to tell women's stories, to
Speaker 1: the fashion industry virtuoso Olivier Roosting. You'll even hear me
Speaker 1: break bread with some of the most iconic and disseous
Speaker 1: names in pop culture, like Sir Elton John. After a
Speaker 1: lot of upsets, a lot of disappointments, a lot of betrayals,
Speaker 1: It's turned out to be the most wonderful life right
Speaker 1: now that I've could ever imagined. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: share all of this and more with you. Listen to
Speaker 1: do Really But at Your Service on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: What grows in the forest trees, Sure you know what
Speaker 1: else grows in the forest, our imagination, our sense of wonder,
Speaker 1: and our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect
Speaker 1: from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other.
Speaker 1: The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
Speaker 1: near you and start exploring. I discover the forest dot Org,
Speaker 1: brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
Speaker 1: the AD Council. It could happen here, coming to you
Speaker 1: live from my room in Chicago. But but importantly we
Speaker 1: were coming to your life, and it could happen here
Speaker 1: Central where the gamers have seized the pod. It is me, Christopher,
Speaker 1: it is Garrison. Hello, fellow gamer. Hello, and in the
Speaker 1: gaming trenches with my razor headset on, looking into my
Speaker 1: uh the video powered view flinder, and I'm ready to
Speaker 1: continue on the fight. It's gonna be great. We're talking
Speaker 1: about talking about gaming, We're talking about the military. We're
Speaker 1: talking about why the two of them crossing is extremely bad.
Speaker 1: And UH with us to talk about this are two
Speaker 1: people who are somewhat less clownish than we are. Um.
Speaker 1: This is Katie and Chris from Gamers for Peace, which
Speaker 1: is an initiative of Vesterans for Peace. We welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hello, Hey, thank you. I take a fensive
Speaker 1: game called less clown I'm just trying to live up
Speaker 1: to your standard. I'll have you know. I am very
Speaker 1: very clownish and clumsy and all of those good things,
Speaker 1: and he trusted me with weapons. Oh God. So I
Speaker 1: guess starting out, I want to talk about, I guess
Speaker 1: very generally the history of counter recruitment, because this is
Speaker 1: something that's been going on in the U. S. Military
Speaker 1: for I mean, it really is like from from what
Speaker 1: I could tell, like about as long as there's been,
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment for the military. But I was wondering
Speaker 1: if we could start I don't know, maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 1: around sort of the Vietnam era when you when there's
Speaker 1: you know, very very serious and intense sort of left
Speaker 1: wing kind of recruitments, and then we can go from there. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So coming out of Vietnam, you have Vietnam veterans against
Speaker 1: the war forming UH and there's a massive pushback on uh,
Speaker 1: the draft. Uh. The anti war movement is pretty much
Speaker 1: at its strongest, and Vietnam veterans against the war over
Speaker 1: time becomes a veteran for peace. Veterans for Peace has
Speaker 1: a long legacy of sitting at the front of the
Speaker 1: anti war movement peace movement, participating in nuclear abolition work,
Speaker 1: kind of recruitment work, the escalation work out of Save
Speaker 1: Our v A, helping veterans get assistance with disability benefits
Speaker 1: and making sure that the traumas that veterans suffer and
Speaker 1: the communities of UM impacted by the military suffer are
Speaker 1: getting treatment for the care UH deported veterans because Vietnam
Speaker 1: that's served and then got deported, and that continues to
Speaker 1: this day. So Veterans for Peace at a multi pronged approached,
Speaker 1: the anti war efforts UH and UH two thousands, around
Speaker 1: UH two thousand seven, Ish Iraq Afghanistan Iraq Veterans Against
Speaker 1: the War later known as Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Against the
Speaker 1: War comes along, and that's a new generation of veterans
Speaker 1: carrying a long built on the legacy of Veterans for
Speaker 1: Peace and being non veterans against the war. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a long history of coffee shops, g I Resistance
Speaker 1: UM Outreach doing work with veterans, trying constances objective object
Speaker 1: or work UM GI resisted work in in there, and
Speaker 1: there's just a long legacy of just veterans sharing their
Speaker 1: experiences and coming back and really ah wanting to make
Speaker 1: sure nobody else goes through that and making sure that
Speaker 1: they get the help they need and kind of slow
Speaker 1: that that beat of the war drum that seems to
Speaker 1: media seems to always be picking up. And that's where
Speaker 1: we came in. That's definitely a good way to put
Speaker 1: it now. UM, especially born out of the pandemic, a
Speaker 1: lot of the recruiting had to move online. They didn't
Speaker 1: really have if they wanted to keep recruiting, they had
Speaker 1: to go online, and that's where a majority of the
Speaker 1: newest generation is they are watching Twitch. Twitch had a
Speaker 1: viewership like pretty much competing with Netflix streaming UM as
Speaker 1: of this summer, and I'm sure that hasn't really changed much.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it is just as popular UM and the
Speaker 1: audience for twitch skews very young. So that's really what
Speaker 1: started to worry members of Veterans for Peace, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we might need to ramp up truth and recruitment UM initiatives,
Speaker 1: which is what Games for Peace came out of. Because
Speaker 1: the thing is, if you're forming a paras social relationship
Speaker 1: with these younger kids by streaming and forming those laserships,
Speaker 1: getting them on discord and talking to them, you're getting
Speaker 1: a one sided view of what military services about, and
Speaker 1: you are definitely not getting the uh imperialist informed viewpoint
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, so Venomans repeace kind of came out
Speaker 1: of that. That's like very insidious looking, uh, hidden and
Speaker 1: subtle way of recruiting using the video games that have
Speaker 1: already historically been used for recruiting purposes. So it's like
Speaker 1: a double it's like a double way me. They got
Speaker 1: on us there for those not inundated in the game
Speaker 1: or warfare like we are. Um, how let's I think
Speaker 1: we should briefly describe what twitches because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people probably probably isn't actually aware of of Twitch.
Speaker 1: That's whereas we are down in these trenches finding off
Speaker 1: the cyber net stoff bad sah um. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: guess twitches like a live stream platform that is primarily
Speaker 1: used for live streaming people playing video games, and people
Speaker 1: kind of help their own like brands and like personalities
Speaker 1: and like para social relationships with an audience via them
Speaker 1: playing these games and kind of adding their commentary, you know,
Speaker 1: variety of games. You know, sometimes it's like mostly chatting
Speaker 1: with people like inside like a group chat while playing
Speaker 1: a game, um or you know, some of more focused
Speaker 1: on the game itself. It kind of varies, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's it's arguably the biggest live
Speaker 1: streaming platform. I think it was brought by Amazon a
Speaker 1: few years ago. Um, and yes, there is a there
Speaker 1: is a US There's a there's a few US like
Speaker 1: military channels on there that are actually relatively popular. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess the other thing to kind of get into
Speaker 1: for some background is, like you mentioned, you already kind
Speaker 1: of alluded to this, but like the history of the U.
Speaker 1: S Military using video games for propaganda because they've been
Speaker 1: they've been one of like the earliest funders of games
Speaker 1: for this reason. I think getting into that history is
Speaker 1: like interesting, um and something that some people are definitely
Speaker 1: aware of, but a lot of times can get overlooked
Speaker 1: despite you know, Call of Duty being the one of
Speaker 1: the biggest video game franchises in the world. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: the military and involvement in video game video can design
Speaker 1: using as recruitment, using it primary Initially, at first it
Speaker 1: was thought of as a training tool and they started
Speaker 1: looking at it for training. Um. If you think back
Speaker 1: to like early nineties Doom, the original Doom had a
Speaker 1: mod released, Uh, called the Marine mod It was a
Speaker 1: modification designed for the Marine Corps to use to train
Speaker 1: marines and as early as the early nineties when Doom
Speaker 1: was at its height, and then then that grows from there.
Speaker 1: You have First to Fight. Uh what is it? UH?
Speaker 1: Game called First to Fight features Marine Corps marines and
Speaker 1: dress blues where you're tactically uh, fighting a battle in
Speaker 1: um in which you never want to do. If you
Speaker 1: know anything about the Marine Corps Blues, you do not
Speaker 1: want to be doing anything in those that isn't getting
Speaker 1: drunk exactly. Drunk and dancing and blues is all they're
Speaker 1: good for. Um. Yeah, so you have you have a
Speaker 1: First to Fight and then it turns into Call of
Speaker 1: Duty America's Army, which thankfully just got pulled down all
Speaker 1: its platform from its platform. That's a huge win. But
Speaker 1: the Army started design getting into the development of video
Speaker 1: games for training, uh and then got into it for
Speaker 1: as recruiting, and America's Army is a perfect highlight of
Speaker 1: that where they just flat out had recruitment posters and
Speaker 1: training things uh in there with links to how to
Speaker 1: get to recruiters or get more information about joining the military.
Speaker 1: Joining the Army um, you have armor to uh, you
Speaker 1: could you could argue and draw the line from military
Speaker 1: training simulators to pub G Underground, which is one of
Speaker 1: the uh most biggest Battle Royale games, which is where
Speaker 1: you get Fortnite out of. So you can draw these
Speaker 1: lines straight from the military's involvement in designing training and
Speaker 1: recruitment materials to what our kids are playing the most
Speaker 1: these days. And really one of the most kind of
Speaker 1: sick factors of this is like how much games have
Speaker 1: been designed and pushed towards basically training people for um,
Speaker 1: like uh, I guess we're trying to think of the term,
Speaker 1: but like combat at a distance in terms of like
Speaker 1: drawing like drone combat, there's just like they started just
Speaker 1: using Xbox controllers for some like drone missions. Like like
Speaker 1: it's like they're specifically looking at the pipeline of specifically
Speaker 1: young males who get into this type of gaming and
Speaker 1: trying everything they can to push them into a career
Speaker 1: where they just kill people in overseas countries using the
Speaker 1: same technology, using you know, using video game controllers, using
Speaker 1: like you know, operating systems very similar to what we're
Speaker 1: being used in video games. And I mean like in
Speaker 1: video games are a very effective propaganda tool if you're
Speaker 1: thinking like, okay, I mean I just enjoy playing more games.
Speaker 1: It's not like, what's what's the big deal? Like sure,
Speaker 1: like I also enjoy playing war games. Sometimes they can
Speaker 1: be a fun um, you know, I like this, like
Speaker 1: tactics based games. But these have been shown to be
Speaker 1: very effective that recruitment, to the point that video game
Speaker 1: footage and video games were like one of isis favorite
Speaker 1: recruitment and propaganda tactics as well, like this is it's
Speaker 1: a it's a thing, like it's not it's not just
Speaker 1: like oh, it's fine, Like no, these these things are
Speaker 1: actually kind of a profit of Yeah. Um, they are
Speaker 1: very effective in that manner as a recruiting a tool,
Speaker 1: and there is a real synergy between gaming developers and
Speaker 1: the d o D because of how effective, uh you know,
Speaker 1: that recruiting can be, or the recruiting tool can be. Um.
Speaker 1: Similar to movies, you know, the military entertainment complex is
Speaker 1: a term thrown around a lot for good reason. You know,
Speaker 1: you have there is a black box of politics. Whenever
Speaker 1: you're watching a movie that picks uh yeah, some sort
Speaker 1: of power structure against whatever the villain is doing. There's there.
Speaker 1: There's always something there, and video games are not too
Speaker 1: different from that. You just have a little bit more
Speaker 1: say and where the story goes, but maybe not even
Speaker 1: it depends on the development. But um, there's article in
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic that was it was actually like about
Speaker 1: a book, um from because Dexter Thomas Warplay, and it's
Speaker 1: all about video gaming and the relationship with the military.
Speaker 1: And they said the Pentagon avoids pitiful, expensive efforts to
Speaker 1: create their own training simulators, and developers get fat government
Speaker 1: checks so they can help fund these new games, new
Speaker 1: virtual reality things under the guys of it being a
Speaker 1: useful training tool for training in like virtual virtual reality environments,
Speaker 1: which it scares me already. Um. And then game developers
Speaker 1: are like, great, I can get a government grant, so
Speaker 1: even if this flops, we still got the money out
Speaker 1: of it. That's not an uncommon phenomena. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: in terms of like filmmaking, Yeah, like there's been there's
Speaker 1: rules for like Pentagon contracts with film studios to be
Speaker 1: like if you want to use you know, u S
Speaker 1: military equipment or personality, to follow these specific rules to
Speaker 1: portray the military in this light, um, which often do
Speaker 1: get followed because people want to use the cool equipment
Speaker 1: and stuff. You know, I'm still angry that my that
Speaker 1: my beloved Transformers got cooked by the U. S. Military
Speaker 1: and all of their films um as a result of
Speaker 1: films are pretty pretty bad. Um yeah, I'll have you
Speaker 1: know they are film are you know? I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: can't even keep you straight. I hope I as a
Speaker 1: as someone with many many star scream action figures, I
Speaker 1: I dream of one day of having good Transformers movies, classic,
Speaker 1: the you know, the eighties classic, Um, You've Got, You've
Speaker 1: Got the Touch, um, and the Bumblebee film is okay,
Speaker 1: but it's even still that one got cooked. That one
Speaker 1: got cooked by the military pretty pretty severely. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny that you mentioned isis using dr gaming. There's
Speaker 1: just a recent report came out. It's linked to the
Speaker 1: u N. I believe it's linked to the U N.
Speaker 1: Council on Counter Terrorism or Office counter Terrorism, uh, talking
Speaker 1: about violent extremism and gaming the link between video games
Speaker 1: and violent extremism. And what's really interesting is it's not
Speaker 1: so much that the video games themselves are the issue.
Speaker 1: It's the gaming adjacent space. It's it's the para social
Speaker 1: relationship development. It's the meme and it's the what what
Speaker 1: we've what we've known in the gaming world for a
Speaker 1: while as associated with like the behaviors and culture around
Speaker 1: gamer Gate and things things like that, where we see this, uh,
Speaker 1: this toxic culture that um is easy to cultivate inside
Speaker 1: these spaces and and be co opted for morna various things. UM.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't that's that doesn't mean that the military
Speaker 1: isn't banking or utilizing these same principles to to get
Speaker 1: its recruiting messages across. The military is another violent extreme position, right,
Speaker 1: You're whether it's you're the violent arm of capitalism and
Speaker 1: the state or or violently like domestic terrorists or something
Speaker 1: like that, you're still um opting into or your position
Speaker 1: is still getting mobilized towards potentially doing violence. And these
Speaker 1: gaming adjacent spaces are make it really easy for recruiters
Speaker 1: of all sorts to be in there and uh push
Speaker 1: people to more of that side of things. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the things I remember when I was like a
Speaker 1: teenager on Twitch was like, so I watched just like
Speaker 1: a lot of harsh Stone streams, right, and this is
Speaker 1: like these were you know, like completely main light hard
Speaker 1: stone streams, and there was there was this artist who
Speaker 1: everyone called Kebab the German and uh yeah, so it
Speaker 1: turns out that Cabab the German was a miss. It
Speaker 1: was like a shortening like abbreviation of his actual name,
Speaker 1: which was removed Kebab. And this guy's stuff was just
Speaker 1: being played on like every major like like Twitch, like
Speaker 1: all the major harshal streaments, which is playing groove of
Speaker 1: Kebab songs. And it was like and this this was
Speaker 1: just like what like this just what Twitch was in
Speaker 1: like and yeah, like there there's so much like the
Speaker 1: the the extent to which just this sort of like
Speaker 1: i mean just overtly fascist like melieu would just seep
Speaker 1: into just like you know, here's a bunch of people
Speaker 1: playing a card game and like it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: even like like I mean, some of these streamers were
Speaker 1: like really reaction like I've seen I've seen t T
Speaker 1: streamers who like will like watch videos of like cops
Speaker 1: doing raid like raids on people's houses on stream. Like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you have those people who are
Speaker 1: like really far right, but some of these people were
Speaker 1: just like I don't know, they're just a lot of
Speaker 1: them are just regular people. There's regular people themselves extremists. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just sort of curly Yeah. Well even then, like
Speaker 1: some of them just like I think with like like
Speaker 1: with with with with like with the Germans, like they
Speaker 1: just didn't know, like they just they just like didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on, and so they were just
Speaker 1: you know, spreading all of this stuff and it was
Speaker 1: like it was horrifying. Yeah. Absolutely, And actually I'm glad
Speaker 1: you mentioned that because about a year ago, the Army
Speaker 1: Sports Channel got in trouble because one of the streamers
Speaker 1: didn't catch on to to there were two user names
Speaker 1: that were explicitly white supremacists. One of them was um
Speaker 1: six million was not enough. Yeah uh yeah yeah, real,
Speaker 1: real gross. And I guess like just in the whole
Speaker 1: idea of multitasking between playing a game, trying to interact
Speaker 1: with chat, and trying to make sure you're you're on
Speaker 1: screen and all of those things, they didn't realize it,
Speaker 1: or they willfully didn't realize it. I don't know which one,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to make a judgment either way,
Speaker 1: but they did. They had to shut down that stream,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they streamed for a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks after that they had to like reassess some some
Speaker 1: things because they're like, hey, actively, you know, white supremacists
Speaker 1: people are on your stream, we should probably you should
Speaker 1: probably do something about that. And I feel like if
Speaker 1: you're the U. S Military streaming on Twitch, that someone's
Speaker 1: job should just be to prevent that from happening. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: but the resources, Yeah, but like they kind of have
Speaker 1: this problems, thou be because Twitch has a there's a
Speaker 1: there's a huge just like like core, like a large
Speaker 1: enough base of Twitch users are just like fascist or
Speaker 1: like hard right wingers that do things like like there
Speaker 1: there have been a persistent problem on Twitch for for
Speaker 1: years now of like these hate raids, like people doing
Speaker 1: mass raids on like anyone who's not white and anyone
Speaker 1: who's like not just white dude, and just like hate
Speaker 1: rating their channels and like spamming the chat with like
Speaker 1: slurs and stuff like that. And you know when when
Speaker 1: that's you know, and that that's too large, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: like those those are the people, like you know that
Speaker 1: that's a large enough part of Twitch that like even
Speaker 1: even even if you're like taking the most charitable thing,
Speaker 1: which is that the US, like the Army, is not
Speaker 1: overtly recruiting white supremacists, which like okay, but like even
Speaker 1: even if you give them the benefit of the doubt,
Speaker 1: right like that, that's a large enough part of just
Speaker 1: what twitch is that they haven't incentive in front of
Speaker 1: blind eye and and radically zation, specifically right wing and
Speaker 1: white nationalist radicalization in the military is well studied and
Speaker 1: well established as an existing phenomena. I knew someone personally
Speaker 1: who uh got caught trying to smuggle weapons for a
Speaker 1: New Nazi group, and that's all I'll say on that. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it is a thing, and it hits really close. It
Speaker 1: is definitely a phenomena that happens in the military, and um,
Speaker 1: these paramilitary New Nazi groups actively recruit from people coming
Speaker 1: out in the military because they have the training set
Speaker 1: they want. And I mean, I trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to tie this back to recruiting online, but
Speaker 1: it's like, with all of this in mind, it is
Speaker 1: very insidious that the target is explicitly young kids. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that just to be like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: because we've got a lot of we've gotten pushed back
Speaker 1: with saying, well, the military doesn't recruit kids. They you
Speaker 1: can only sign up from their seventeen as a kid.
Speaker 1: That least, all that is a kid. Second of all,
Speaker 1: it's like the thing it's it's it's just like grooming children.
Speaker 1: That's that's what it is. Like, it's the same process
Speaker 1: of grooming. That's that's what's going on. Yeah, one of
Speaker 1: one of my best friends growing up, like because it
Speaker 1: was my best friend for like a decade, Like I
Speaker 1: met him in first grade. He was my friend for
Speaker 1: the entirety of school and then he got like because
Speaker 1: his parents sent him away to like uh one of
Speaker 1: one of those like uh like summer like like military
Speaker 1: school camp, and he was just never the same afterwards,
Speaker 1: and he's like a fascist now. And yeah, that's sucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah that does suck. That. There's not a better word
Speaker 1: for that. That that sucks because yeah, they can't sign
Speaker 1: up until they're seventeen, But that's not the point. Isn't
Speaker 1: convince seventeen year olds the points the points to ingrain
Speaker 1: this idea in them when they're like sucking twelve years
Speaker 1: old on the internet, And that is just what grooming is,
Speaker 1: right starting it when you're when they're young, so when
Speaker 1: they're old enough, they will be able to sign up
Speaker 1: for the thing. Like that's that's what the process is,
Speaker 1: and that's what like, you know, military propaganda equipment's been
Speaker 1: doing for a long time, but the specifically the way
Speaker 1: it's being done on the internet around gaming is actual insidious.
Speaker 1: It was literally it is explicitly said by one of
Speaker 1: um A recruiting officer, Dr. E. Case Wardinsky, And I
Speaker 1: apologize if I'm pronouncing that wrong, But then he literally
Speaker 1: said we have to confront this question. I will you
Speaker 1: wait until they're seventeen or will we start talking to
Speaker 1: them at age twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen when they form
Speaker 1: the set of things they were thinking about doing with
Speaker 1: their life, because we're literally saying we want to groom children.
Speaker 1: Is like, yeah, so I think now would be the
Speaker 1: time to kind of get into the countering side of things.
Speaker 1: Is like, yes, this is a this is a big problem,
Speaker 1: as we've laid out the past twenty minutes of what
Speaker 1: can we do about it? Yeah, so what can we
Speaker 1: do about it? There's um a good deal that we
Speaker 1: can do about it? Right, um, we we veterans for peace,
Speaker 1: the truth and recruitment. UH working group came up with
Speaker 1: an idea for the Gamage for Peace initiative, concerned veterans
Speaker 1: in gamers and UH and allies because Veterans for Piece
Speaker 1: isn't just comprised the veterans themselves, it's also allies and accomplices.
Speaker 1: UM came together and started forming the an online community
Speaker 1: of our own UM where we have kind of adopted
Speaker 1: some four channels. Have changed this concept of four channels
Speaker 1: to change. One do education talking about UH, sharing our
Speaker 1: experiences as veterans, talking about and unpacking recruitment tactics and techniques. UH.
Speaker 1: Start talking being extremely vocal and raise awareness around the
Speaker 1: recruitment techniques that we we've already been talking about, right. UH. Second,
Speaker 1: we're doing some mentorship and leadership stuff, starting to develop
Speaker 1: programs in local communities that offer alternatives to the economic draft. Right,
Speaker 1: like just throwing it back to where we started talking
Speaker 1: about coming out of Vietnam. It was already said that
Speaker 1: sergeant hard Times is the best recruiter and it posts
Speaker 1: posts the drafts we went when we went to an
Speaker 1: all volunteer force, you have to have a reason to join,
Speaker 1: and there's a thing called the economic draft. And it's
Speaker 1: the impoverished conditions that many kids and people face that
Speaker 1: forced them to go into the military. Right, you don't
Speaker 1: have healthcare coming out of high school, you're in an
Speaker 1: abusive home, you're not talking to a guidance counselor no
Speaker 1: college is coming to you don't know how to pay
Speaker 1: for college, you don't know where what you're going to
Speaker 1: do because you're eighteen and on your own. And that's
Speaker 1: what we keep telling kids. So you have the economic Draft,
Speaker 1: which encourage gives an opportunity for recruiters to go, hey,
Speaker 1: this this program will solve everything. And what what people
Speaker 1: don't realize is what's being asked is are you willing
Speaker 1: to kill for a camaro? Are you willing to kill
Speaker 1: just to have a roof of your head? Are you
Speaker 1: willing to kill for medicare? Right? So we're starting to
Speaker 1: focus on developing mentorship and leadership programs um include helping
Speaker 1: kids and young adults get into college or find mutual
Speaker 1: aid programs and within their communities, start doing stuff locally
Speaker 1: because this is the problem is pervasive. Right, Not everybody
Speaker 1: needs to escape abuse of home and it is fine
Speaker 1: staying in their community, but doesn't know how to survive
Speaker 1: within the community because they don't have the resources there.
Speaker 1: And we also look at the what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world today and and recognize that things must be
Speaker 1: done at a local level. Um and you can be
Speaker 1: part of leading that change right in teresting some of
Speaker 1: the our world concerns. We ourselves do direct actions. We
Speaker 1: go to a gaming conventions, speak out, try to actually
Speaker 1: do counter recruitment right where the recruiters are. We just
Speaker 1: it's really pervasive. If you if you if you go
Speaker 1: to any kind of con or any kind of can
Speaker 1: any kind of like game fest or whatever, um, you know,
Speaker 1: co comic cons, there will always be multiple military recruitment
Speaker 1: booths there, like like Navy, Marines, Army nationally are like
Speaker 1: all of them that they will all all be there.
Speaker 1: And it's not not my favorite thing to see. No, no,
Speaker 1: And now it's frustrating. Yeah, board games aren't even safe, right.
Speaker 1: The Army E Sports team has a forty K team,
Speaker 1: So if you play Warhammer forty K, they have nationally
Speaker 1: or international ranked forty K team playing in the major circuits.
Speaker 1: You know what's most insulting about that? Sorry Chris, but
Speaker 1: it's most insulting about that and I know this because
Speaker 1: one of the streams that we do I hosted, is
Speaker 1: called ad Slam because we started out as like roasting
Speaker 1: military recruitment ads, but it kind of morphed into just
Speaker 1: like general veteran and military depictions and media. And one
Speaker 1: of them was on the or at least referenced the
Speaker 1: Army E Sports warhammerport K team. And you know how
Speaker 1: people will like take their figurines really seriously, they paint them.
Speaker 1: They look really cool. The Army like spray painted them
Speaker 1: gold and it's called the Day And I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: you have all of these resources, you are using the
Speaker 1: recruiting budget, which is ridiculous and astronomical, and you spray
Speaker 1: painted them gold? Are you kidding me? Come on? And
Speaker 1: it's just an insulting that it was so low effort,
Speaker 1: but they still get the praise. Um a lot of
Speaker 1: people report like having positive viewpoints of the military after
Speaker 1: interacting with members of you know, the Eastward Team or
Speaker 1: the Booth or whatever. So I'm I'm genuinely annoyed that
Speaker 1: is also low effort on that matter, and they're still
Speaker 1: getting a positive response and bothers me, that's a perfect
Speaker 1: highlight because being there on like hate using military terms nowadays,
Speaker 1: but being their boots on ground, you know, uh at
Speaker 1: at these conventions, uh, doing providing truth and recruitment, right,
Speaker 1: talking about alternatives, Uh really just being there in front
Speaker 1: of recruiters and and talking to the people that they're
Speaker 1: targeting and family members, letting them know, like, hey, we
Speaker 1: as veterans, right, don't let this be what shapes your
Speaker 1: child's future or your future. Right. There's other opportunities for you. Um.
Speaker 1: And and you know, whether that's if you're into gaming,
Speaker 1: start designing games, right, Like, there's there's so many opportunities
Speaker 1: within the gaming community that doesn't want to put you
Speaker 1: into the military pipeline also, right, So it's not the
Speaker 1: game's fault. It's not like it's it's a tool that
Speaker 1: the state's using right now, right. Um. And then we're
Speaker 1: trying to form some our Army sports teams also, right,
Speaker 1: so we can compete directly against them, kick their ass
Speaker 1: in some of the tournaments that they host. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my my dream is to see some gamers for Peace
Speaker 1: jerseys getting awarded like some trophy next to the Army
Speaker 1: sports team and just dunking on them. So across all
Speaker 1: the but if we lose, if we're up there, we
Speaker 1: still get to dunk on them. See we had so
Speaker 1: much more fun. We don't have to go clean up
Speaker 1: barracks room after this. Like the ultimate goal being us
Speaker 1: being able to provide tangible alternatives. So a kid coming
Speaker 1: out of high school thinking like, well, I either go
Speaker 1: into a lot of debt to go to college or
Speaker 1: I joined the military. If we can get um not
Speaker 1: a hold of them, that seems predatory, but if we
Speaker 1: can talk to them or our organization can provide that
Speaker 1: alternative and say, oh, well, you don't really have to
Speaker 1: do that. We have a scholarship program that we can
Speaker 1: offer you, or we can provide a lite, at the
Speaker 1: very least education about what they're really getting into so
Speaker 1: they can make a better informed decision. Because the main
Speaker 1: problem that I have with the way that recruiting works
Speaker 1: is that you are not gettinging a view of what
Speaker 1: life would actually be like. You are not getting a
Speaker 1: view of what you're fighting for. That there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of like these vague concepts that they tell you
Speaker 1: that you're fighting for and then you're supposed to feel
Speaker 1: great about doing, but none of those are real in practice.
Speaker 1: Liberty or protecting the homeland. None of that is what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You're helping Northrop Grumman create a profit, right
Speaker 1: like there's UH, and so at least, at the very
Speaker 1: least someone who thinks that they have no other options,
Speaker 1: and in this country that might not be too far off. Right.
Speaker 1: We don't have a universal health care system. That was
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I joined the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: that I knew I would get health care, and I
Speaker 1: knew I would get money to go to college and
Speaker 1: not be in this loan debt that I was in.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely not alone in that. And UM, if
Speaker 1: maybe we can even just provide a more holistic view
Speaker 1: of what decision that you're making, that would be considered
Speaker 1: a win to us. So that was my soapbox. One
Speaker 1: of the important things is trying to push back on
Speaker 1: the motion nefarious things that we're seeing, right, whether that's
Speaker 1: games that are becoming way to train training simulator. UH.
Speaker 1: There's another campaign that Games for Peace worked on and
Speaker 1: Veterans Peace worked on the platform Six Days with Care.
Speaker 1: The Council on American and Islamic Relations UH pushing back
Speaker 1: on again called six Days in Flutia, which was delayed
Speaker 1: to quarter four two of this year. So we got
Speaker 1: it was pushed by a year, whether through our efforts
Speaker 1: or for whatever reason, but it was pushed by a year. Um.
Speaker 1: And this game is dubbed a murder simulator, uh because
Speaker 1: it is. We look at other games like Escape from
Speaker 1: Tarkov As as teaching fundamental skills through tried and true
Speaker 1: teaching methodologies for military skills. Um. You know, we were
Speaker 1: talking about counter recruitment and truth and recruitment to give
Speaker 1: people an opportunity to make informed, have an informed decision
Speaker 1: about their participation in the war machine. But also we're
Speaker 1: trying to push back directly on the war machine and
Speaker 1: and say hey, there's better uses of our money for
Speaker 1: for as as a government to take care of our people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fundamental things. There's the contributions to
Speaker 1: the climate crisis. Is the military is the number one
Speaker 1: impact uh impact or of the on the climate. Uh.
Speaker 1: War is never green. You can't green watch the military. Um.
Speaker 1: The you know, we have just so much going on
Speaker 1: around all the ways that people don't realize that military
Speaker 1: is involved. We have the future of German warfare, kill,
Speaker 1: cloud technology, gaming technology, and the military and militarism is
Speaker 1: so tightly wound right now that just pushing back and
Speaker 1: trying to parse those two things apart is one of
Speaker 1: the things that is most effective for counter recruitment and
Speaker 1: also for mobilizing people to be like, hey, we actually
Speaker 1: deserve better, like get out of my gaming space and
Speaker 1: like get me some food, sovereignty, get me, get me like,
Speaker 1: let's let me be part of my community. Get out
Speaker 1: of the gaming space and stop using what is fun
Speaker 1: and has actual educational value, mental health benefits, physical health benefits,
Speaker 1: communal impact, social impact like this, this gaming tool, this
Speaker 1: gaming technology we have can be used for so much good. Uh,
Speaker 1: but we need to disentangle the military's usage from it
Speaker 1: and and stop framing our our time, our time enjoy
Speaker 1: that we enjoy with our friends and family through this
Speaker 1: lens at the military forces to view it through. Because
Speaker 1: there are so many great games out there, like like
Speaker 1: we are in one of like right now, we have
Speaker 1: the most amount of games ever released, most amount of
Speaker 1: good games like always being announced and released all the time.
Speaker 1: There's so many great stuff to play, and yeah, there's
Speaker 1: anything that can be done to push people away from
Speaker 1: stuff that kind of promotes this. You know, Colonial Imperial's
Speaker 1: kind of mindset, UM is great, right, Like, that's why
Speaker 1: I kind of appreciate the cartoony aspects of Fortnite, even
Speaker 1: though I hate playing Fortnite and will never really do, so,
Speaker 1: I still appreciate it as opposed to like the heavily
Speaker 1: militaristic kind of aesthetics that other you know, similar Battle
Speaker 1: Royals show, UM. Because I mean, because with with with
Speaker 1: as many games out there as there is, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think any kind of attempts to push people away from
Speaker 1: the more problematic aspects of you know, specifically shooting games,
Speaker 1: uh is great. Yeah. And just noting that when you're
Speaker 1: playing these games, especially if they are relatively close to reality, UM,
Speaker 1: understand the impact that you can have by pointing out
Speaker 1: simply that your friend doesn't respawn in real life. Right.
Speaker 1: And also keep in mind if you are playing a
Speaker 1: game that that is close to a recent reality, that
Speaker 1: you could be playing through someone's act trauma. So I'm
Speaker 1: not telling you not to play the games if they are.
Speaker 1: We've gone over a couple of like Squad uh and
Speaker 1: and others that are like very very realistic um in
Speaker 1: their application, Just keep in mind when you're playing it,
Speaker 1: that maybe look at it through that lens, like would
Speaker 1: how would you feel if you were playing through a
Speaker 1: game but it was the exact moment of your trauma.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying from the military side, I
Speaker 1: mean from from the people who were being bombed side,
Speaker 1: you know. So just just want to have more people
Speaker 1: be more mindful with what they consume and how. And
Speaker 1: again I'm not telling you not to consume it, just
Speaker 1: telling you to to think a little bit about it
Speaker 1: and what that type of media can do while having
Speaker 1: that baggage onto it. And there is a place for
Speaker 1: that's in the military experience in gaming. Right Like when
Speaker 1: I was in when I was just deployed to Iraq,
Speaker 1: I took an Xbox three six year over there with
Speaker 1: me in akin to bottom my sea bag and we
Speaker 1: had on campfulution. We had a local area network of
Speaker 1: Xboxes in all the cans. When we sat there and
Speaker 1: played Halo and and Gears of War and when that
Speaker 1: dropped walls there, right, Like, that's how we stay in
Speaker 1: touch with each other. It's how we process like auditory
Speaker 1: things and and and our combat experiences. Right That's that's
Speaker 1: valid sublimation and processing of of our traumatic experience as
Speaker 1: a thing, and games have that, and that's not a
Speaker 1: military exclusive thing or veteran exclusive thing. That's for all communities. Um.
Speaker 1: But what we have to do is add context and
Speaker 1: nuance to when we're playing these games and go, oh, um,
Speaker 1: there's another side to this story. That's the local civilian
Speaker 1: that just had a bomb cave in ceiling. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's these these instances where we've removed that because
Speaker 1: we're so focused on the competitive nature instead of the
Speaker 1: storytelling in the full scope of what that game is
Speaker 1: allowing us to process. Um. And that's why I don't like,
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming recruiters or blaming like coming up to
Speaker 1: h up in the military and going, you know, you're horrible.
Speaker 1: It's not the right thing. Hey, I was there, right,
Speaker 1: I did six years in the Marine Corps and and um,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of going hey, you're a horrible person
Speaker 1: or things like that, like we're trying to offer them them,
Speaker 1: the recruiters and other military members of the community that go, hey,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to speak out against the things that you
Speaker 1: know were bullshit while you're in there. Because I knew
Speaker 1: it was a bullshit while I was in there, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't speak out. I didn't know I had a
Speaker 1: community to speak out to or with, And we're trying
Speaker 1: to offer community to them. Um. And that's beyond beyond
Speaker 1: just video games, but that's drone operators and infantry guys
Speaker 1: and and people that are just fed up with what
Speaker 1: they see in a system that is supporting a crumbling infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Right Like, Um, you can only deploy so many times
Speaker 1: without developing either becoming completely dead on the inside or
Speaker 1: having developing some semblance of empathy that goes, Hey, deep down,
Speaker 1: I know something's wrong here, and I just don't know
Speaker 1: how to uh like, I don't know what that feeling is. Well,
Speaker 1: that feeling is is just empathy for the human condition
Speaker 1: and not wanting to see people traumatized through war. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: that that idea of us going into like even post
Speaker 1: nine eleven, like immediate post nine eleven events early on,
Speaker 1: they had they went there with the right the right idea.
Speaker 1: I wanted to defend my community. I want to be
Speaker 1: do do service right like I didn't have another option. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm an economic drafty, but oh at all, I'm really
Speaker 1: here to help defend my people. Yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a genuine thought, Like it was a genuine idea. Right,
Speaker 1: people you could very much disagree with, like the intentionality
Speaker 1: and the propaganda that like governments were doing to promote
Speaker 1: the war and the unjust reasons for that, but for
Speaker 1: the but for the regular people, right, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: it was it was genuine feelings that caused that to happen.
Speaker 1: And overlooking that, I think MSS what makes the recruitment
Speaker 1: to work. You know, if if if you just look
Speaker 1: at all the people who join the military as being like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're just like bad people who want to kill you know,
Speaker 1: brown people. You're like, that's you can think that, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't actually do anything to understand how recruitment actually works.
Speaker 1: And then if you can't do that, then you don't
Speaker 1: know how to actually counter it, right exactly, if you
Speaker 1: are a veteran and you feel like we do this
Speaker 1: whole thing was bullshit you and that can be uh
Speaker 1: an incredibly alienating experience. I've been there because it feels
Speaker 1: like with the amount of veterans we saw the January
Speaker 1: six events, um, all the veterans that you see that
Speaker 1: get through to the right wing side of the culture
Speaker 1: of war, I just want to say that we see you.
Speaker 1: You're not alone, you are you are not crazy, I
Speaker 1: promise you. We we are trying to build a community
Speaker 1: of people like that who understand it and promote healing
Speaker 1: through that community, political education through that, so that you
Speaker 1: can create resiliency within your community and as well as
Speaker 1: at least put a little bit of pressure on the
Speaker 1: military entertainment complex and the military recruiting apparatus. Yeah, fuck
Speaker 1: the military, fuck war a war. It's truth, all right
Speaker 1: to you two. If anything specifically you want to plug, yes,
Speaker 1: join our discord. You can find if you search the discord,
Speaker 1: you can look up Gamers for Peace and you will
Speaker 1: see us on Twitch. We are Veterans for Peace all
Speaker 1: one word, and we stream several times a week gaming
Speaker 1: content content about um different alternatives to military service, content
Speaker 1: breaking down propaganda and recruiting efforts, as well as other
Speaker 1: political education things. Sometimes it's just a random community game
Speaker 1: night as well. Um, actually no, that's not random. Those
Speaker 1: are on Thursdays. So there, Um, Chris, should I should
Speaker 1: do we add anything? I got something? Um? Uh, the
Speaker 1: if if one of the first things you can do
Speaker 1: besides going to discord and checking us out on twitch. Uh,
Speaker 1: we actually have an online can digital direct action campaign
Speaker 1: going on UH that we're pushing to allow content creators
Speaker 1: on Twitch as a platform to be able to opt
Speaker 1: out of military ads UH on their channels. So that
Speaker 1: is our campaign that we currently have ongoing. There's a
Speaker 1: petition it is uh bit dot lee slash Twitch Military
Speaker 1: ad opt Out is the u r L. They'll take
Speaker 1: you right to the Twitch petition that feedback through Twitch. UH.
Speaker 1: We're looking to hit a thousand at least a SAP
Speaker 1: on that petition UH to get some get a response
Speaker 1: from Twitch, and then go from there allowing content creators
Speaker 1: to take ownership of their of the the ads and
Speaker 1: stuff that are on their channels, at least when it
Speaker 1: comes to military recruitment UH, and then going from there. UH.
Speaker 1: We also UH are doing actions and planning things constantly,
Speaker 1: so be on the lookout joined the discord all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. Oh. If you need help navigating that, I'm
Speaker 1: a mod in the discord at plant ipa she slash
Speaker 1: today and you'll find me. We'll try to put that
Speaker 1: link for the petition in the show notes so people
Speaker 1: can find out with a with a with with an
Speaker 1: easy click. Awesome, perfect, All right, Well, thank you to
Speaker 1: you for joining us. We are it could happen here,
Speaker 1: at happened here pod in the places, in the places,
Speaker 1: the places you know, all those places, they're all there.
Speaker 1: H Well, thank you everyone for listening. And yeah, go
Speaker 1: play I don't know, Mario Kart eight or something. You know,
Speaker 1: something something fun. I don't know. I enjoyed. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the Mario Kart games as a as as someone of
Speaker 1: my age, very very very integral to my driving education.
Speaker 1: So yeah, go play Mario Kart eight. Buck War not
Speaker 1: another generation. M hm Hi, I'm Elizabeth Dutton and I'm
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton. Wait sorry, do you want to say your name? No,
Speaker 1: I'm good, good, go ahead. We're the hosts of Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 1: People love true crime, right, the mystery, the intrigue, the
Speaker 1: human frailty totally. But what a lot of us don't
Speaker 1: like is the blood and the guts and the mayhem.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait wait, some of us do like the mayhem. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let's be real, there's nothing funny about murder. Okay.
Speaker 1: That's our show gives you stories like the kidnapping of
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra Jr. And the Max Headrooms signal hijacking. Oh,
Speaker 1: so you mean ridiculous stories like the UK cat Shaver
Speaker 1: and Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos. Yeah, stories like the dudes
Speaker 1: who stole Buzzy, the animatronic whatever he was from Disney World,
Speaker 1: and the woman whose husband tried to kill her but
Speaker 1: came back from the dead and surprised him at her
Speaker 1: own funeral. Yeah, that does sound good. You can find
Speaker 1: this new podcast, Ridiculous Crime all over the place, the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, the Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast. I don't know how you live Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to our show. I'm Zoe de Chanelle
Speaker 1: and I'm so excited to be joined by my friends
Speaker 1: and cast Meats Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to
Speaker 1: recap our hit television series New Girl. Join us every
Speaker 1: Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll
Speaker 1: share behind the scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes,
Speaker 1: revealed the truth behind the legendary game True American, and
Speaker 1: discuss how this show got made with the writers, guest stars,
Speaker 1: and directors who made the show so special. Fans have
Speaker 1: been begging us to do a New Girl recap for years.
Speaker 1: And we finally made a podcast where we answer all
Speaker 1: your burning questions like is there really a bear? In
Speaker 1: every episode of New Girl. Plus each week you'll hear
Speaker 1: hilarious stories like this at the end, when he says
Speaker 1: you got some schmid on your face. I feel like
Speaker 1: I pitched that joke. I believe that. I feel like
Speaker 1: I did. I'm not on a thousand percent I want
Speaker 1: to say that was I tossed that one out. Listen
Speaker 1: to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh boy, it could happen. Here is the podcast that
Speaker 1: you're listening to. All right, st Andrew that that's my
Speaker 1: job done today? Why why don't you take over? Good job.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you. Thank you. Welcome everybody to another
Speaker 1: wonderful episode of it could happen here to d open
Speaker 1: to take a look at another book, well two books,
Speaker 1: this time this time works of fiction, and this time
Speaker 1: by an English, unfortunately writer named Alice Huxley. Right, we'll
Speaker 1: be looking at Island and Free of New Wild, the
Speaker 1: sort of twins of speculative science fiction. I would say
Speaker 1: Alice Huxley was like I said, an English writer and philosopher,
Speaker 1: and he actually wrote a lot of books, um fifty
Speaker 1: in his lifetime to be precise. He was also a
Speaker 1: French teacher who interestingly enough taught George ol But I
Speaker 1: did not know from yeah, but from what m what
Speaker 1: his past students have said. He wasn't a particularly good teacher, okay,
Speaker 1: but he was a good speaker. Um. He was also
Speaker 1: a very very big fan of psychedelics and mysticism and philosophy,
Speaker 1: and particularly like advise I don't know if IM pronounced
Speaker 1: that correctly, but advoate vendata, which is like a Hindu
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. Yeah, I know, he's He's even referenced a
Speaker 1: lot and like occultist and chaos magic books written like
Speaker 1: post the sixties. He's yeah, yeah, yeah, he's He's like
Speaker 1: um that guys like his name again Alan Watts, Yeah guy, yeah,
Speaker 1: also very interesting. Um. Huxley actually had LSD injected into
Speaker 1: his veins a basic Yes, he was like he was dying,
Speaker 1: as you know one does on their deathbed, and that
Speaker 1: is the traditional thing to do traditionally. Yes, while in
Speaker 1: the process of dying, because he had like advanced learning
Speaker 1: your cancer, he had to write to his wife Laura,
Speaker 1: he was just like lsd intermuscular. He's like, okay, Jackson,
Speaker 1: inject him fucking muscle. And she doesn't inject him with
Speaker 1: one dose. She injects him with two doses and then
Speaker 1: he dies like several hours later. Incredibly based what Awa
Speaker 1: staggeringly based, And honestly, if if he was like speaking
Speaker 1: on the deathbed, I would really love to know, like
Speaker 1: what that experience was, like, like are you just like
Speaker 1: dancing through like what's going on? I mean it could
Speaker 1: it could think I can see of being the most
Speaker 1: amazing thing and also extreme plainly terrified. Right as a
Speaker 1: general rule, when like Pete, they've done studies on like
Speaker 1: giving different kinds of psychedelics, usually silocybin mushrooms to um
Speaker 1: people who are in hospice and it it generally reduces
Speaker 1: their fear of death. Yeah they go in peace. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: it just makes them like, ah, you know what, everything
Speaker 1: is the same as everything else, and we're the imagination
Speaker 1: of the universe. I'm going to go back into space,
Speaker 1: which is fine. Good for them, Yeah yeah, good for them,
Speaker 1: good for them. If I want my death bed, I
Speaker 1: already wouldn't want to be thinking about death either Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that assumes that, you know, we get a
Speaker 1: death bed, you know, and that's the kind of wild
Speaker 1: thing about death. You don't know when it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But to return into the topic of discussion Brief New
Speaker 1: World and Ireland, right, to summarize the plots of both,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll start with Brief New Wild It is
Speaker 1: the more famous of the two. I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have hood of Island compared to Brief
Speaker 1: New World because Brief New World and High School. But
Speaker 1: I have not read Island exactly, and it's like it's
Speaker 1: released as a lot about society. That that that we
Speaker 1: read about the dystopias, but not the youtubeias. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Brief New World, you know, it's really up there with
Speaker 1: like in terms of um, you know, it's it's notoriety. Um.
Speaker 1: It is like one of the quintessential dystopias. It's set
Speaker 1: like several hundred years into the future, like which you know,
Speaker 1: to place which it's several decades ago. Brave New World
Speaker 1: was set in two thousand and fifty four, two thousand five,
Speaker 1: huty see, so several direct times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But however,
Speaker 1: in the book it isn't called two thousand five. It's
Speaker 1: called six three to a F a F standing for
Speaker 1: after Ford. Because in this world, and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: get into this a bit, Henry Ford, the assembly lying guy,
Speaker 1: the monet guy, he is basically god. He is the
Speaker 1: god of their world. You know, Yeah, that wouldn't be ideal.
Speaker 1: They say things like by Ford's name and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, you know, and his school sort of assembly
Speaker 1: line structure. Um, it's basically a chopolated to society as
Speaker 1: a whole. Right, there's this world state where emotions and
Speaker 1: individuality of condition out of children and everyone belongs to
Speaker 1: everyone else, and you know, there's children are created in
Speaker 1: like factories and generated to be part of specific classes,
Speaker 1: whether it be alpha, beta, Gamma, delta, or epsilon. So
Speaker 1: it's like it's kind of like what's what's what's happening today?
Speaker 1: You know, in terms of the Greek alphabet um, we
Speaker 1: have the alpha's who are bred to be like the
Speaker 1: leaders and stuff, and you're the absilons who are bred
Speaker 1: to be like the menial libras, and you have the
Speaker 1: folks in between, and like they are literally conditioned, you know,
Speaker 1: So like in the factory in the baby making factory,
Speaker 1: which is in this case literal and not a euphemism
Speaker 1: for the womb um. You know, they like poled back
Speaker 1: on oxygen or they apply certain chemicals sitting hormones in
Speaker 1: order to like condition people. So they don't do like
Speaker 1: genetic um like coding whatever. They just they do a
Speaker 1: chemical concoctions in those sort of test tubes. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the story of the world is really how
Speaker 1: it's affecting, like that's on the top level of people
Speaker 1: within it and sort of contrasted with sort of reservations
Speaker 1: that exist in their world where people are a bit
Speaker 1: less restricted. Um. And it ends pretty tragically, But the
Speaker 1: next book also ends tragically. The extra for being Island,
Speaker 1: which is like the utuopian twin for a Brief New
Speaker 1: World in a lot of ways, in terms of memory,
Speaker 1: mirroring a lot of the same themes that Brief New
Speaker 1: World explores. Right, So in Ireland there's this specific island
Speaker 1: called Parlor, which is um fictional. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: an area in India cold Parlor, but the island of
Speaker 1: Parlor in this world is like it doesn't exist, right,
Speaker 1: and it's basically seen as this oasis of happiness and
Speaker 1: freedom and where it's inhabitants of resisted capitalism and consumerism
Speaker 1: and technology. Right then this journalist, another British guy named
Speaker 1: Will Farnaby Um pulls up on their island and he's
Speaker 1: basically trying to scoop out the island for exploitation because
Speaker 1: he's friends with this industrialist who's trying to like extract
Speaker 1: oil from the region. And while he's going through the
Speaker 1: island and really going through the society going through the book,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of monologues and stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: this book is kind of heavy on the monologues and
Speaker 1: the discussions. It's kind of like Alice Hucksley's soup box
Speaker 1: for all his ideas, just laying them all out there. Right.
Speaker 1: So Will enters palace a cynic, but by time he
Speaker 1: comes out, he's like he's had like layers on layers
Speaker 1: of epiphanies. And I don't know for those who have
Speaker 1: been reading to one of everything recently. Um. In chapter
Speaker 1: two there the authors David when Grown David Group. But
Speaker 1: this sort of outline some of the discussions that were
Speaker 1: happening that were happening between Europeans and Indigenous Americans at
Speaker 1: the time. Of arrival and how those discussions were shaping
Speaker 1: both um apparently the Europeans view of society. Interestingly, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like reflected here because you know, I have
Speaker 1: this white man who pulls up with all his English ideas,
Speaker 1: and it's basically these indigenous inhabitants and parlor basically deconstructing
Speaker 1: his ideas through dialogue, UM, and through debate and discussion,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it doesn't end very well. Despite you know,
Speaker 1: being convinced of the purity and brilliance of the poloniese
Speaker 1: we have lived in UM, he already made the deal
Speaker 1: with the industrialist and Paula um Is has basically been
Speaker 1: sold by an by neighboring country and so it's downfall
Speaker 1: is now sadly inevitable. And that's how it ends. Oh
Speaker 1: and also UM will want to be kind of as
Speaker 1: like an LST Well sound really LSD, but it's like
Speaker 1: a psychedelic trip. Yeah, it's like a combination like and
Speaker 1: almost yeah, yeah and true how this Hucksley fashion. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of the tropes and like its
Speaker 1: themes that were President Brave New World exists in island,
Speaker 1: but as like their inversion, so like in terms of
Speaker 1: like it showed like the like Brave New World has
Speaker 1: written before Huxley had psychedelics. It was like his his
Speaker 1: version of drug uses so different in that book. It's
Speaker 1: more like a pacifying drug um, whereas the drug used
Speaker 1: in Ireland it's more like a like an enlightening drugs.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole bunch of themes that like parallel
Speaker 1: but are also inverted on each other. Yeah, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get into those themes just now. But
Speaker 1: to summarize, for if New World is basically humans becoming
Speaker 1: less than human because of all these technological and sociological
Speaker 1: um efforts, where as Ireland is like the opposite. We ha,
Speaker 1: you know, humans are able to come into the fullness
Speaker 1: of the humanness um while still using science except in
Speaker 1: a way to enhance their quality of life. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I missed any aspect of either plots that
Speaker 1: and if you want to like touch on a real
Speaker 1: quick no, no, no really, okay, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: all said one thing is interested because Brave New World
Speaker 1: also has this sort of like weird like going to
Speaker 1: a reservation plot that's like, yeah, kind of a b plot,
Speaker 1: but you see sort of it's another one of those
Speaker 1: things instead of like I don't know if invert its
Speaker 1: the right word, but the sort of context of it
Speaker 1: is very, very different in Island than it isn't Brave
Speaker 1: New World. Yeah, yeah, because I mean in a sense
Speaker 1: you have this outside of protagonist who is introduced to
Speaker 1: this alternate way of living UM and is transformed by it.
Speaker 1: You know, except in Brave New Wild, you know, he
Speaker 1: ends up killing himself and in Island, well he already
Speaker 1: sold out the island. You know. I will say, UM
Speaker 1: one criticism that I want to get out to the
Speaker 1: way before we get into the concepts and you know
Speaker 1: how they might apply to politics as a whole. Really
Speaker 1: is Huxley, like a lot of authors and thinkers and
Speaker 1: ideologues of his time, has this very unsettling h fixation
Speaker 1: on overpopulation. It's kind of like what we were talking
Speaker 1: about UM with the last book we discussed here UM,
Speaker 1: this sort of weird fixation and over population and you know,
Speaker 1: people dying out and that kind of thing. UM. In
Speaker 1: in Parlia and in in Ireland, there's a sort of
Speaker 1: acceptance of UM of population as something that needs to
Speaker 1: be you know, avoided until I guess it brings us
Speaker 1: to the first the which is the use of contraception
Speaker 1: in both books. Right, Like, on one hand, you have
Speaker 1: in Brief New World where there's like mandatory contraception and
Speaker 1: people are literally not allowed to like naturally give birth,
Speaker 1: you know, they have to have babies through test you.
Speaker 1: Whereas in Parlor, you know, there's reproductive education and reproductive
Speaker 1: choice and expressive sex. And it's really like a complete contrast.
Speaker 1: So I guess I want to do something like I
Speaker 1: like speculating and thinking about how anarchy would operate. UM,
Speaker 1: I think there needs to be a lot more of
Speaker 1: that in terms of um creative works and discussions. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there was at the Cafe by my Tester, and
Speaker 1: there are some like utopian fictions out there, but and
Speaker 1: I like less than utopian, but still interesting explorations of
Speaker 1: anarchist society. It's like it's lucky the quins that is possessed.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me that even in mainstream sort
Speaker 1: of imagining, whenever there's an attempt to envision a utopia,
Speaker 1: there's nearly always a lot of anarchist principles involved in that.
Speaker 1: It's basically impossible to imagine a utopia without aspects of
Speaker 1: anarchist theory making it into it exactly, and it tends
Speaker 1: to be like some elements of anti work in there,
Speaker 1: and like you know, like to post work, post hierarchy,
Speaker 1: freedom of association. Yeah, yeah, yeah, as I kind of
Speaker 1: want to look at that, look at these works through
Speaker 1: that lens as well. Here mostly Island considering Island is
Speaker 1: a clue so actual than Reeve New World is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say so just a little bit. Yeah, yeah, Like
Speaker 1: when you look at how sexual liberation is treated in Ireland,
Speaker 1: it is pretty much an echo of what anarchists were
Speaker 1: saying about free love in like nearly twenty than likely
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, you know, because I feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: gold one, like free choice and contraceptive access and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, reproductive choice, free love. It's really in Paula,
Speaker 1: I would see, UM they have this sort of elements
Speaker 1: as well of like communal child rearing, I mean in UM,
Speaker 1: which is another thing I spoke about that and like
Speaker 1: my video in December on the family, like the fact
Speaker 1: that humans basically evolved in an allow parental arrangement, in
Speaker 1: a corporative reading arrangement. Yeah, because of capitalism has moved
Speaker 1: away from that. Yeah, there's a lot of if you
Speaker 1: if you study how kind of different societies that were
Speaker 1: not capitalists handled child rearing, there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: very interesting I think my favorite is and it was
Speaker 1: some indigenous group in um South America who's like cultural
Speaker 1: belief was that, um, you didn't you didn't have like
Speaker 1: one man have sex with a woman, and that like
Speaker 1: leads conceiving child. It starts the process. And so once
Speaker 1: you've started the process of making a child, the woman
Speaker 1: then is going to pick out all of the guys
Speaker 1: that she thinks have traits that she wants to be
Speaker 1: like part of the child she's making, and has sex
Speaker 1: with them, because you're like gradually building the child by
Speaker 1: having like adding additional sperm to it, which means that
Speaker 1: when they have the kid, all of those guys that
Speaker 1: she had sex pregnant have a responsibility to rear the
Speaker 1: child and teach it things, which I think is objectively
Speaker 1: the best way to treat kids. It's that's such an
Speaker 1: interesting metaphysical concept in terms of like what constitutes like
Speaker 1: even like the the idea of petic makeup, because even
Speaker 1: though it's not like literally true, it's still like if
Speaker 1: you can convince yourself of that in your head, then
Speaker 1: it kind of is physically true, and it will it
Speaker 1: will be true enough for the kid because like because
Speaker 1: most all these different fathers, exactly father's treats are gonna
Speaker 1: like manifest in the child anyway because they were raised
Speaker 1: by them. Therefore, I think we should all agree to
Speaker 1: just act like it works that way. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean like and also like in terms of like the
Speaker 1: group living in Island versus like Brave New World everywhere else,
Speaker 1: it's always like you don't you have group living because
Speaker 1: you've lost like the idea of individuality, right versus groups
Speaker 1: living in Island is more like you know how like
Speaker 1: anarchists have like group homes and that's it's it's very
Speaker 1: similar to group living allows you to be the best
Speaker 1: version of yourself, because the best version of yourself exists
Speaker 1: in the community. Yeah, there's like there's like a barista
Speaker 1: or whatever. There's a kind of like a jokey ration fist.
Speaker 1: I think about a lot where it's like if you
Speaker 1: see a block and like you're looking at it like
Speaker 1: a black block, right, It's like the way you can
Speaker 1: tell that there are a mouse involved is if you
Speaker 1: see a bunch of people actually like legitimately wearing all
Speaker 1: the same thing, it's like like it's it's it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's really like it's it's it's extremely rare that like,
Speaker 1: even even when you're doing this for security reasons, that
Speaker 1: you can get a bunch of anarchists to actually literally
Speaker 1: all wear exactly the same thing, because it's like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have this sort of like I mean, okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is not like always true, but like it's
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, you you you have this thing
Speaker 1: where even when you're like even when anarchists are like
Speaker 1: trying to sort of like fade into a single mass,
Speaker 1: it's like like like they literally can't do it because
Speaker 1: everyone has this sort of like this individual step. Definitely
Speaker 1: seeing people be bad at block more often than I've
Speaker 1: seen them be good at it. Yeah, it's like I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, like the actual hiding part of it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, like it's it's it's, it's there's,
Speaker 1: there's there there there's a way of sort of egalitarianism
Speaker 1: and sociality where like you treat everyone as if they
Speaker 1: were exactly the same and like and you know, and
Speaker 1: there there's models of this word. It's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like okay, you actually try to like force everyone to
Speaker 1: be exactly the same, where like everyone to be exactly
Speaker 1: the same in the class, and like that sucks and
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do it. And the alternative to that is
Speaker 1: everyone is just sort of like in a group. But
Speaker 1: they're all like I don't I remember entirely. Sure, this
Speaker 1: don't make any sense, but it's I don't know, there
Speaker 1: are yeah. Yeah, it's like like the purpose of the
Speaker 1: group is to like maintain like you know, maybe like
Speaker 1: maintain the differentiation of the individual. Yeah, to foster what
Speaker 1: makes the dividence is really good at being like their
Speaker 1: own person and give them the tools that can you
Speaker 1: can set that up. Yeah. I think like culturally we
Speaker 1: have like problems thinking about that because like the sort
Speaker 1: of American version of individuality has to do with like
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, you're you're an individual because you have
Speaker 1: no connect actions to anyone else. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: this sucks. It is bad because and I kind of
Speaker 1: goes back to the whole spoon building a baby concept.
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would ever use that freeze individuals
Speaker 1: only individuals because their combination of influences are unique to them. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: not just that. I mean obviously it's just as a
Speaker 1: component and I'll know a lot, but I think key
Speaker 1: aspect of it is that, you know, because we are
Speaker 1: raising the different environments around by different people, we have
Speaker 1: different experiences. That's what builds us up. You know, Like
Speaker 1: I can I can already name off the top of
Speaker 1: my head, like a bunch of like defining movements from
Speaker 1: my childhood, you know that basically changed my course, you know,
Speaker 1: like the one time I got cyber bullied, not basically
Speaker 1: like shifted my perspective and my approach the internet to
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You know, it's like it really,
Speaker 1: I really can't imagine how someone could come away with
Speaker 1: the idea that an individual is just an individual on
Speaker 1: their own. Yeah, they just they just pop out and
Speaker 1: are that thing. Yeah, I mean yeah, because like a
Speaker 1: large portion of you was built up of previous you,
Speaker 1: and previously like exists, Like your previous existence is what
Speaker 1: makes a large portion of yourself. And like sure you
Speaker 1: can say you have a little bit of like ego
Speaker 1: from the start, like your actual self self that that
Speaker 1: you know, contributed to the way you interpret events, which
Speaker 1: then will in turn build your personality. But I think
Speaker 1: these things are not opposing. These things work in tandem.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yes, it is like the whole group Liven components.
Speaker 1: And also in that group li components, you notice and
Speaker 1: at one point in the book, um, one of the
Speaker 1: children like basically in passing mentions that you know, they
Speaker 1: don't want to go by a certain post soon because
Speaker 1: they amoud at them or whatever. And so they basically
Speaker 1: have that freedom to remove themselves from that situation and
Speaker 1: go on, um, sleep at another house or another space
Speaker 1: until that sort of situation is resolved. And I think
Speaker 1: that also would really be a crucial element of society,
Speaker 1: particularly for children having that freedom of association and freedom
Speaker 1: of movement, because imagine how many abusive situations could be
Speaker 1: avoided over him. Indeed, if children had the ability to
Speaker 1: come out of it. You know, we strict children of choice,
Speaker 1: and as it allows these sorts of dynamics to persist, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which then these to dynamics that persist in the next
Speaker 1: generation and so on and so on. It's this thing
Speaker 1: that's having a resurgence in the United States right now.
Speaker 1: And it is like at the core of all of
Speaker 1: the book banning in the anti trans legislation, which is
Speaker 1: this idea that like kids shouldn't have a choice because
Speaker 1: that would interfere with parents having absolute control over the
Speaker 1: life of their child, and then includes the control to like,
Speaker 1: if a child says I'm this or I'm that, the
Speaker 1: parent can say absolutely not. Yeah, exactly if you had
Speaker 1: like this U if you sort of like too with
Speaker 1: like someone from from the past or someone who lives
Speaker 1: in like a corpative reading arrangement, that the pear and
Speaker 1: the child is the pearance property entirely, it would look
Speaker 1: at you like real funny because the child is part
Speaker 1: of the community, doesn't belong to anyone, you know, if
Speaker 1: it belongs to anything. It just belongs to the community
Speaker 1: as a who as as we all do. Yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 1: another element I think that I find UM, I find
Speaker 1: really interesting and the way that probably society operates is that.
Speaker 1: And I guess in comparison to Brief New World. Unlike
Speaker 1: in Brief New World where true so use like UM
Speaker 1: likes and like all drugs are used for pacification and
Speaker 1: control and self medication, that kind of thing sort of
Speaker 1: like chill you out and prevent you from basically going
Speaker 1: mad in a mad society. UM in parlor, you know,
Speaker 1: drunk is used for bonding and for enlightenment and for
Speaker 1: social connection and social cohesion. And it is really really
Speaker 1: usting that that he changes what drugs do in his books,
Speaker 1: like after he starts doing them. Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I actually don't know, you know, I used to
Speaker 1: have because I I had the opposite arc with with drugs,
Speaker 1: where I started doing them when I was very young
Speaker 1: and had the belief that like they were kind of
Speaker 1: inherently this mind opening tool that could be used to
Speaker 1: expand the borders of reality within human beings, and as
Speaker 1: an adult, um in part through some of the research
Speaker 1: I've done on the far right, come to understand like, no,
Speaker 1: you can also use them to reinforce the very limited,
Speaker 1: terrible things you already believe. And there are folks who
Speaker 1: do that quite effectively, like that sort of appeel you
Speaker 1: esotericism kind of Yeah, I don't know if I just
Speaker 1: made up that too. I like I like that term.
Speaker 1: It's it's just thinking of it's an accurate it's an
Speaker 1: accurate term to describe the thing we're talking about. I'm
Speaker 1: taking it Okay, Well, yeah, yeah, I mean that that's
Speaker 1: absolutely correct, because I mean, yeah, like those sort of
Speaker 1: psycho psychedelic substances and stuff, Yeah, they can open your mind,
Speaker 1: but there are also they're ultimately drawing from your mind,
Speaker 1: drawing from your past experiences and beliefs in some capacity.
Speaker 1: The way I always describe it is that like psychedelics
Speaker 1: are an accelerant to the fire that you've already built,
Speaker 1: and they can make it flare up, and it can
Speaker 1: be really cool and awesome, and it can flare up
Speaker 1: and be utterly terrified and be like oh no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, but it's always kind of amplifying the things
Speaker 1: that are you've already built through like the kindling of yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It Psychedelics do not create things um within you, but
Speaker 1: they can lead you to realize things you wouldn't already realize,
Speaker 1: or they can lead you to reinforce things that you're
Speaker 1: already doing. And it kind of depends on what you
Speaker 1: go into it with. It's like you know, Leary said,
Speaker 1: it's I think it was Leary set setting in dose,
Speaker 1: and like your mind set is one of the most
Speaker 1: important things for what's actually going to happen when you
Speaker 1: when you take psychedelics. Yeah, and if you're a Nazi,
Speaker 1: you can get better being a Nazi from taking that
Speaker 1: you're a Nazi. You're gonna see Hitler pull up on, Yes,
Speaker 1: my son, continue the good work. That's That's the thing
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't understand when I've tried to,
Speaker 1: like when I tried to talk to people who are
Speaker 1: like really obviously like pro psychedelics and like, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: so like freeing they can think about new ways, And
Speaker 1: then I explained to them there's like, well this isn't
Speaker 1: this is an easy segue. But if somehow the conversation
Speaker 1: goes to the point to be talking about all the
Speaker 1: Nazis who do psychedelics and and then like do like
Speaker 1: weird esoteric rituals while doing like psycho drugs, they can
Speaker 1: confuse these people because like how could you be a Nazi? Well,
Speaker 1: you're you know, in that mindset, and like, well, it's
Speaker 1: actually for all of you for all these reasons that
Speaker 1: we've discussed. It can actually assist within that like like fantastical,
Speaker 1: genocidal conspiratorial thinking. It can really can really give that
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of credence in someone's brains, because
Speaker 1: especially if you've spoken to someone who is taking psycho
Speaker 1: that like and I've had a specific kind of experience,
Speaker 1: you can't talk them all to that experience. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: far as they consume that is, that is solidified in
Speaker 1: the mind. You know, this is reality. I just had
Speaker 1: a glimpse that the reality kind of thing, you know. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of those like if you want, if you
Speaker 1: want an illustration of how psychedelics do not work the
Speaker 1: way some people claim, just make a note of the
Speaker 1: fact that at every street fight between fascists and anti
Speaker 1: fascists in Portland, both sides, every single person had fucking
Speaker 1: weed on them, like the fucking the far right like
Speaker 1: smoking pot as much as everybody else. Um, they just
Speaker 1: also do cocaine. Where is where is Antifa does? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Antifa does ketamine. The Proud Boys do cocaine, and they
Speaker 1: both have everybody's got joints and both people and people
Speaker 1: on both sides have dropped acid and taken shrimps. Yeah
Speaker 1: I can. I can say this from a point of
Speaker 1: journalistic certainty because during one of the rallies where there
Speaker 1: was a permitted event at the Federal Park, the police
Speaker 1: were there and telling people they could not take weed
Speaker 1: onto the federal park because it was federally illegal, and
Speaker 1: every like both sides. People were like, alright, shit, Michael,
Speaker 1: turning back because they couldn't walk on with the weed
Speaker 1: in their pockets. That's gonna open up a whole kind
Speaker 1: of room to me, because m I don't know if
Speaker 1: you all saw this tweet that I put out recently,
Speaker 1: like there's still this resistance to drugs and to particularly
Speaker 1: to like cannabis. And you would think that, you know,
Speaker 1: after decades of research and decades of understanding and really decades,
Speaker 1: not even decades, centuries of its use in various you know,
Speaker 1: religious and spiritual practices that by now you know, in
Speaker 1: a post colonial country would reach the point where, you know,
Speaker 1: we let it go and we determinalize it. But although
Speaker 1: the we're kind of in the process of it, we
Speaker 1: still have this situation where the police are like constantly
Speaker 1: burning down like fields of cannabis. Like they pull up
Speaker 1: and they're like, we just seized and burned down like
Speaker 1: one million dollars worth of cannabis and arrested this. The
Speaker 1: others like, why are we still at this point where um,
Speaker 1: basic basic like plants and herbs and medicines and whatnot
Speaker 1: are still here saying this stigma. It's not grounded in
Speaker 1: any sort of reality or logic. You know, it's just colonially.
Speaker 1: You're a prejudice. But that was brief aside. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I the only think I have much left to sea,
Speaker 1: boat island and brief New World. Well, you know, listeners,
Speaker 1: go home, put on some Hitler speeches, drop some absolutely
Speaker 1: absolutely not. That is the worst idea. Do not do that,
Speaker 1: Go to the woods, go do lest literally anything else
Speaker 1: besides that specific thing. It's that specific thing that is different.
Speaker 1: Different people can can disagree like that is like one
Speaker 1: of the worst things to do to your own brain
Speaker 1: and psyche. Absolutely not. Yeah, just do whatever, whether literally
Speaker 1: anything else. Watch Star Trek, put on put on off
Speaker 1: the air. I have. I've watched a lot of Star
Speaker 1: Trek while tripping. There's there's so many better things to
Speaker 1: do that that thing you've said. Mm hm, go watch
Speaker 1: the movie Conspiracy starring Kenneth brand Of a shod of mescal.
Speaker 1: That could be funny. They don't even know what mascalind
Speaker 1: is neither. Instructions. Do not compute if if acid made
Speaker 1: time different. What. Yeah, that's kind of mescaline. I mean,
Speaker 1: mescaline is like the the active thing inside pat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mescalin is is a psychedelic the most intense time dilation
Speaker 1: I've ever experienced, where like you will feel like weeks
Speaker 1: have passed and it's been like seven hours. Um, it's
Speaker 1: pretty dope. I definitely recommend mescal and everybody go take
Speaker 1: mescal in even where Um, well you if you, if you,
Speaker 1: there is a way to get the cacti, which are
Speaker 1: legal pretty much everywhere because they're just cactuses and a
Speaker 1: lot of people use them decoratively, and then using a
Speaker 1: what do you call the pressure cooker, you can you
Speaker 1: can get the mescal and out of the cacti. I've
Speaker 1: known people who have done it. I have not personally
Speaker 1: done it. Obviously, that would that would that would be
Speaker 1: a crime. Never criminals, we would never we would never
Speaker 1: advocate that. Yeah, But but there are ways too. There
Speaker 1: are ways that like a person with minimal resources can
Speaker 1: get mescal and out of out of the right cactus.
Speaker 1: And people have done it, you know, So there's the
Speaker 1: criminals have done bad people. There's this anyway. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew, that was awesome. I'm gonna go to read
Speaker 1: Island now. Um, it's a good I haven't read this.
Speaker 1: I would write bummed. I guess at the end of this,
Speaker 1: I am kind of bummed that as as imaginative a
Speaker 1: guy as he was, his this was his final book. Well,
Speaker 1: in his utopian story had to end with it being
Speaker 1: crushed essentially by industrial expansion. Yeah, and like co option,
Speaker 1: I mean like it is it is, it is interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this was his final book. This was like his
Speaker 1: like send off in like in a way that's that's
Speaker 1: an interesting component, right because like in Ireland yet it's
Speaker 1: like the utopian society, but there is a king, yeah,
Speaker 1: and a queen mother, but not they don't have like
Speaker 1: the kind of power that you know we were typically
Speaker 1: um be still upon king's queen mothers, you know, yea
Speaker 1: still they're still able to destroy the society ultimately by
Speaker 1: collaborating with the military dictate to enable and the industrialist
Speaker 1: oil guy. But I mean they are not really that
Speaker 1: involved in the day to be run into their society,
Speaker 1: you know, like Polo would be the same with without them.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, the reason they were taking parts in the
Speaker 1: destruction upon the society is because they were educated in
Speaker 1: Europe by Christians and then went back to Pabo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because he's kind of playing with it. Sounds
Speaker 1: like the same thing Token was, because like Jared Token,
Speaker 1: at the end of his life kind of identified himself
Speaker 1: as like this weird sort of monarchist anarchist where he
Speaker 1: wanted there to be that the ideal society was one
Speaker 1: in which people, you know, there was people could not
Speaker 1: exercise power over each other, but there was a little hierarchy,
Speaker 1: and that you had a king who couldn't actually do anything,
Speaker 1: who's purpose was to act as a figurehead. Um. And
Speaker 1: I I don't entirely get what he was going through here.
Speaker 1: He wrote a lot on the subject himself, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting that Huxley is kind of playing with the same idea,
Speaker 1: but is is obviously being like, well, this is a
Speaker 1: bad idea. You know, it could only work for so long, Um, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find that compelling. Again, I want
Speaker 1: to read this, and that's something I may dig into more.
Speaker 1: Is kind of like how Token conceived of the ideal
Speaker 1: sort of monarchy versus how how Huxley was thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of interesting. Yeah, well that's gonna
Speaker 1: do it for us here and it could happen here. Uh,
Speaker 1: Garrison tour dot com. No to sponsored dot com. No,
Speaker 1: just drop some acid and Google Hitler. Okay again, Like, seriously,
Speaker 1: don't don't don't literally do anything else. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: The woods are lovely, the beach is magnificent. Talk to
Speaker 1: the ocean. It's so much mountain Google mountain unless yeah,
Speaker 1: like we could go in or something. Yeah, yeah, go
Speaker 1: to a to have go to a comic con. Uh
Speaker 1: literally my suggestions. I will talk about that experience at
Speaker 1: a later date. All right, that is that is the show. Hey,
Speaker 1: we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from
Speaker 1: now until the heat death of the universe. It could
Speaker 1: Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from cool zone Media, visit our website cool
Speaker 1: zone media dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen here,
Speaker 1: updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Hey everyone. Last year I published my
Speaker 1: first novel, After the Revolution um as an e book
Speaker 1: and as a podcast series. Well, now it's coming as
Speaker 1: a paperback book through a K Press, and if you
Speaker 1: just google a k Press after the Revolution, you will
Speaker 1: be taken to the page where you can preorder it
Speaker 1: and get a signed copy. Now, so please go to
Speaker 1: a k Press after the Revolution and find my book,
Speaker 1: preorder it, and I will love a percent of you
Speaker 1: who do that. So thanks. Look for your children's eyes
Speaker 1: and you will discover the tue magic of a forest.
Speaker 1: Find a forest near you and start exploring it. Discover
Speaker 1: the forest dot org, brought to you by the United
Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. Have you ever
Speaker 1: wanted to learn about cryptocurrency but don't know where to start, Well,
Speaker 1: the coin Bureau podcast is here to help. My name
Speaker 1: is Guy. I'm the host of the biggest crypto channel
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and I've persuaded my old friend Mike to
Speaker 1: sit down and talk crypto with me. Together, we're going
Speaker 1: to explore this crazy world right from the beginning. Sound good, Mike,
Speaker 1: sounds great? Guy. Listen to the coin Vireau podcast on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get my podcasts.