Speaker 1: Happy earth Day. And by happy earth Day, I mean
Speaker 1: the Earth is dying and people are killing it. Yeah, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: Did it happened here the Earth Day episode?
Speaker 2: Now now, now, quick question me? What is Earth?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: The Earth is one of many, many, many planets in
Speaker 1: the universe. It was, it was, it's cagealed rock. There's
Speaker 1: some like melty ship in the middle of it. But
Speaker 1: on the outside there's a part of it that's nice
Speaker 1: to live on, and it'd be nice to continue to
Speaker 1: have it be that.
Speaker 2: Ah. Okay, that's this is different than what I had
Speaker 2: been raised to believe. But but but i'll i'll humor
Speaker 2: you here, please continue.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so okay, we were going to be talking
Speaker 1: today about on one of the many attempts to destroy
Speaker 1: the Earth. And also Garrison this year too.
Speaker 4: Hello, yes, hi, I'm I'm I'm here also for the
Speaker 4: Earth for the Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is a special episode featuring a bombing,
Speaker 1: so it ah, I love a good bombing. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is very exciting. Actually, tally speaking, it's two bombs. So
Speaker 1: it is near midnight on July tenth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: the crew of the Green peace boat Rainbow Warrior, which
Speaker 1: is docked in the harbor of Auckland, which is New
Speaker 1: Zealand's largest city. A thing that I learned Robb researching
Speaker 1: this episode.
Speaker 4: Wait, really, that's the New Zealand's largest city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's not. There's not a lot in New
Speaker 2: Zealand other than Hobbits and that one show about vampires.
Speaker 1: A lot of cheese too that they make, make a
Speaker 1: lot of make a lot of milk. So they Yeah,
Speaker 1: the greenpiest boat is. It's docked in this harbor. Most
Speaker 1: of the crew is asleep or some of them are
Speaker 1: playing cards, and they are They are relaxing after having
Speaker 1: celebrated the birthday of one of their crews. Suddenly, a
Speaker 1: massive shock rips through the boat. Water starts flooding into
Speaker 1: the ship. The lights go out, and the crew thinks
Speaker 1: they've been hit by a tug boat by accident that
Speaker 1: lasts a couple of minutes until a second explosion hits
Speaker 1: the boat.
Speaker 4: Mister President, a second explosion has hit the boat.
Speaker 2: Nine to eleven joke, Yes, very excellent, good work.
Speaker 1: So the crew the light like the people fleeing nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. The crew flees the boat, but they realize
Speaker 1: that their photographer, a guy named Fernando Perieira is missing,
Speaker 1: and peri Era like hasn't quite realized that the boat
Speaker 1: is like under attack, and so he runs back to
Speaker 1: his cabin to grab his camera, and then the second
Speaker 1: explosion hits and the boat sinks so fast that he
Speaker 1: never has a chance to get back up and he
Speaker 1: drowns to death. And the crew very quickly realizes that
Speaker 1: this is not an accident, and rescue divers discovered there
Speaker 1: are massive there's like massive holes in the ship from
Speaker 1: where it's been blown up from the outside, and they
Speaker 1: eventually determined that this boat, which is again a green
Speaker 1: piece boat that is doing non violence of with dis obedience,
Speaker 1: has been sunk by limpet mines.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, oh, I love a good limp at mine.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy that we're getting limp at in this episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're getting We're getting limpet mines. We're getting
Speaker 1: there'll be some special Forces boats later or I say
Speaker 1: boats is one boat, but yeah, we're gonna we're going
Speaker 1: through all of the sort of naval combat plates here. Excellent,
Speaker 1: but this raises the question who would commit such an
Speaker 1: act of terrorism on the I can't actually say on
Speaker 1: the soil of New Zealand because it's technically in the
Speaker 1: water of New Zealand.
Speaker 4: In the waters of New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, off the coast of New Zealand. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: we get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But okay, So to answer this question, we need
Speaker 1: to talk about the anti nuclear movements. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's been a kind of rewriting of history about what
Speaker 1: the anti nuclear movement was actually about to basically like
Speaker 1: sort of purely focused on the anti nuclear movement as
Speaker 1: something it's just about nuclear power, but that was never true.
Speaker 1: The movement was always way more larger than that, and
Speaker 1: a huge part of it was about opposing nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: both in terms of like opposing nuclear tests and in
Speaker 1: terms of fighting for nuclear disarmament on the fairly simple
Speaker 1: principle that having weapons that can kill everyone on Earth
Speaker 1: around is a bad idea.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, the bad idea if you don't want
Speaker 4: to destroy the entire Earth.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to destroy the Earth, that's a
Speaker 2: pretty good idea.
Speaker 1: Actually, unfortunately, I'm on a living kick right now, so
Speaker 1: I'm now destroying everything on Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's good that you can admit your bias
Speaker 2: upfront though.
Speaker 1: That's y Yeah, this is a very important thing in journalism.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, okay, so when we were talking bit about
Speaker 1: nuclear testing, because it doesn't it doesn't happen anymore nuclear testing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we used to just like detonate nuclear bombs like
Speaker 1: in the air.
Speaker 2: Damn right, your goddamn right, we did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it turns out this this kills enormous numbers
Speaker 1: of people. But the problem is that it kills them
Speaker 1: very slowly with increased cancer rates, which is very difficult
Speaker 1: to sort of track or like prove direct causality. And
Speaker 1: you know, this is aided by the fact that when
Speaker 1: countries are nuclear testing, they are almost always killing people.
Speaker 1: Well they're almost always dropping this the yukes on indigenous land,
Speaker 1: which means that they're killing people who are the government
Speaker 1: and most of the countries just like does not care about.
Speaker 1: And you know, you can you can literally map colonialism
Speaker 1: and sort of the value that a given like a
Speaker 1: given state placed on people's lives by where they tested
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. So, for example, the US tested nuclear bombs
Speaker 1: and places like the Bikinia Toll, the Marshall Islands, a
Speaker 1: former tribal land in Nevada in New Mexico, and in Hatesburg, Mississippi. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Jesus ribs, all those are bad except except Mississippi. No, no,
Speaker 1: that was also bad because I guess, get guess, get
Speaker 1: guess what race the population of Hatesville, Mississippi was. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, they got paid ten dollars to get
Speaker 1: real located quote unquote, yeah, this is this is this
Speaker 1: is not a white it's not a white city. They
Speaker 1: are blowing up with a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 4: Not like it's not like a gated community for white
Speaker 4: men in their fifties or something.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: No, no. The only good nuclear testing we did was
Speaker 2: back in the day when they used to set off
Speaker 2: nukes right outside of Vegas and so all of the
Speaker 2: Vegas people would watch the nukes go off and then
Speaker 2: get irradiated. That was that was kind of funny. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also they also were radiated the area fifty one people
Speaker 1: one time, and that was also extremely fun.
Speaker 2: They sure did. And there was that like guy, I
Speaker 2: think it was uranium. There was like one of the
Speaker 2: dudes who was on the Manhattan Project. There was this
Speaker 2: like dude who there was like an accident and he
Speaker 2: just sucked down a bunch of nuclear fuel and they
Speaker 2: had to like he could never work in a lab
Speaker 2: again after that, and he every for like decades afterwards.
Speaker 2: His breath tested positive for like radioactivity, but he loved
Speaker 2: to be like eighty something like it didn't it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to have heard him. He said it tasted kind
Speaker 2: of like like sour candy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he's tasted there forbidden nuclear water. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: one else has to. Now we know what it tastes like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh oh yeah. Donald Donald Mastik was he was
Speaker 2: sprayed in the face with liquid plutonium chloride and swallowed some.
Speaker 2: But apparently that's fine, So there you go. Everybody drinks
Speaker 2: some plutonium, you'll live a long life.
Speaker 1: So the US, I guess, I guess also tests it
Speaker 1: on their nuclear scientists. But yeah, so that those were
Speaker 1: the US. The USSR testa nukes and Kazakhstan, which there's
Speaker 1: an amazing story about Barria going where there's nobody. Nobody
Speaker 1: lives in this part. Nobody lives in Kazakstan, so we'll
Speaker 1: be fine.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, Baria, people, in fact you live there.
Speaker 1: China tests this nukes on a site called lop Nor,
Speaker 1: which is in shing John because of course it is,
Speaker 1: and the French do their test in the Sahara in
Speaker 1: Algeria until the Algerian Revolution forces them out, which good
Speaker 1: for them, death of betrayers, the Algerian Workers' councils, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But this means that the French
Speaker 1: now no longer being able to bomb like thesessions in
Speaker 1: Algae area. Yeah, they they they start testing the nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons on particularly the Moreau. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: pronounce this summarily sorry, what is a toll in the
Speaker 1: in the south the South Pacific?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that sounds close enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, Yeah, And so they they start these tests
Speaker 1: like in secret. So there are there are people on
Speaker 1: islands nearby who don't know that Theo's nukes going off,
Speaker 1: Like they don't even have bomb shelters. Right, it's really
Speaker 1: allowed these days.
Speaker 2: Anybody notice how loud it's gotten here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, you know, you could see the fucking
Speaker 1: mushroom cloud right Like these people, you know, the French
Speaker 1: military sciences are like, oh, it's fine, They're not going
Speaker 1: to be in the fall out. They're unbelievably in the
Speaker 1: fallout radius.
Speaker 2: If anyone ever tells you you're not in a fallout radius.
Speaker 2: That's your first sign that you are, in fact in
Speaker 2: a fallout radius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's never it's never a great it's never a
Speaker 1: great sign. I don't think that's happening.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone has ever assured a group of
Speaker 2: people that they're not going to be exposed to radiation
Speaker 2: and been telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If if they had
Speaker 1: merely gone to these people and said you're not going
Speaker 1: to be exposed to radiation, it would have been better,
Speaker 1: because then then at least it would have had a chance.
Speaker 1: They just didn't tell these people at all. They were
Speaker 1: testing a news sure, they just blew it up great,
Speaker 1: and so they detonate like they detonate nukes all over Polynesia.
Speaker 1: In Actually a few years ago, there was a there
Speaker 1: was a thing called the Moreau Files, which was a
Speaker 1: bunch of investigative journalist Scots together. They got a bunch
Speaker 1: of classified French military documents. They did they got some
Speaker 1: scientists together, and they did a whole thing about you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of influence that the effects of this nuclear
Speaker 1: testing has. And I'm just going to read from that quote.
Speaker 1: According to our calculations based on a scientific reassessment of
Speaker 1: the doses received, approximately one hundred and ten thousand people
Speaker 1: were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time time.
Speaker 1: Good god, so they radiated like the entire population of Polynesia.
Speaker 1: This is this is great.
Speaker 2: So I mean that's not ideal. That's not ideal. I'll
Speaker 2: give them that.
Speaker 1: And Okay, so I obviously nuclear testing has negative effects
Speaker 1: on humans. I feel like I don't need to explain
Speaker 1: how nuclear testing has Dropping a nuclear bomb on a
Speaker 1: place has a negative effect on the environment, that seems sure.
Speaker 1: Are you sure?
Speaker 2: Pretty obvious? I think we're all more or less caught
Speaker 2: up on nuking things being bad for them, except well,
Speaker 2: except for underwater aquatic lizards, which seem to do really
Speaker 2: well when exposed to nuclear tests.
Speaker 1: Yeah they look, they can. They have atomic breath.
Speaker 2: Now they've got absolutely yeah, big big. They get to
Speaker 2: star in a movie with a surprising number of members
Speaker 2: of the cast of Simpsons. Yeah, it's it's all, it's
Speaker 2: all upsee. Oh and that Ferris Buehler I think was
Speaker 2: in it. So that's pretty good. Yeah, did these people
Speaker 2: get to star in a movie with Ferris bueller, No.
Speaker 1: They died of radiation poisons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's unfortunate. That's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so these tests and some other tests of
Speaker 1: the US are doing. The Marshall Islands are the origin
Speaker 1: of Green Piece. So there there have been environmental groups
Speaker 1: like the Sierra Club have been involved in anti nuclear
Speaker 1: activism because again, bad, bad for the environment, dropping dukes.
Speaker 1: But okay, so the activism that the Sierra Club people
Speaker 1: are doing is based on bearing witness, and the Green
Speaker 1: Piece people rightly are like, fuck bury witness. They are
Speaker 1: dropping nuclear bombs. We are going to try to stop
Speaker 1: these bastards.
Speaker 4: The way you can beat a bad guy with the
Speaker 4: nuclear bomb is a good guy with the nuclear bomb.
Speaker 4: I'm introducing a new initiative to arm all Green Peace members. Okay,
Speaker 4: the personal, personal tactical nuke no da crocket.
Speaker 1: This is this is I am not kidding. France's rationale
Speaker 1: for why they have nukes, which is that the thing
Speaker 1: is literally called like this like the weak deterring the
Speaker 1: strong or something. And it's like, ma'am, you are France,
Speaker 1: Like come on, okay, yeah, sure, France is acting for
Speaker 1: the protection of the week against the strong.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, my I mean, look, I would, if
Speaker 2: I had the option, I would keep a nuke in
Speaker 2: my basement, you know, just in case, Yeah, someone someone
Speaker 2: comes to my house. You know, we've got I've got
Speaker 2: the option then, right, like what what if? Because like
Speaker 2: right now, okay, say Pakistan decides to try to rob
Speaker 2: my house. I don't have a counter to their nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 2: But if I keep you know, and I'm not even
Speaker 2: talking about like six to ten megatons in my basement,
Speaker 2: that's enough, I think to discourage aggression. Right or if
Speaker 2: like my neighbor decides to call the city on me,
Speaker 2: you know, I've got an option.
Speaker 1: There's a problem with this plan, which to how are
Speaker 1: you getting the nuke from your apartment to Pakistan?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's if they come to my house, right,
Speaker 2: that way I can I can nuke all of my
Speaker 2: stuff so they won't want it, and that way they
Speaker 2: won't rob me in the first place.
Speaker 1: Right, This this makes about as much sense as actual
Speaker 1: nuclear actual nuclear doctrine. Yeah, it's it's worked.
Speaker 2: For decades, miya, Like, I don't know what your problem
Speaker 2: is here. If it if it's worked for for all
Speaker 2: of these great powers, you know it can work for me.
Speaker 2: Or I could do what the British do and send
Speaker 2: you know, some of my some of my people out.
Speaker 2: I could send James or Garrison out underwater with a
Speaker 2: nuclear weapon and just have them always waiting in the
Speaker 2: sea to nuke my adversaries if somebody takes me out,
Speaker 2: much like the British nuclear fleet. See, we we as a.
Speaker 1: U when race are really good at coming up with
Speaker 1: good ideas. We have our ideas. Our ideas are amazing,
Speaker 1: they rock. We never have any bad ones.
Speaker 2: It is funny that there's just like some guys who
Speaker 2: are expected to like follow a dead man's orders at
Speaker 2: the end of the world for unclear reasons. Like there's
Speaker 2: just a letter and it's like, if all of your
Speaker 2: loved ones die, open this letter and do whatever it says.
Speaker 2: You are really funny when you think about them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so okay, So in the late sixties and EARI
Speaker 1: seventy there's people who are like, this is a terrible idea,
Speaker 1: we should not, in fact drop nuclear bombs. And these
Speaker 1: groups in the late sixties become green Peace in nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Okay, great for them, good for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so we've talked about the like the
Speaker 1: French having to move the nuclear program into into the Pacific.
Speaker 1: After being read out of Algeria, green Peace starts doing
Speaker 1: direct actions against French nuclear testing mm hm and so so.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, Dave mctagger's, one of the founders
Speaker 1: of Greenpeace, sails his boat into a French nuclear testing area. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: I I I have my issues sort of in principle
Speaker 1: with like nonviolence as you're like pure organizing political principle.
Speaker 1: But if you are willing to sail your boat under
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb to stop it from going off, that
Speaker 1: is that is pretty based.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I have trouble. I have trouble like coming
Speaker 2: up with any any any critiques of that.
Speaker 1: No, this rips and like the other thing is like,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't This isn't a stunt, right, like
Speaker 1: they are they are actually prepared to get nuked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's that seems like a pretty commitment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it's it's sick. And so they refuse to
Speaker 1: leave and the French, the French Navy eventually gets so
Speaker 1: pissed off that a French Navy ship rams their boat
Speaker 1: like a fucking try ream in.
Speaker 2: Where to get them alone.
Speaker 1: So they're they're forced out because they're rammed by a
Speaker 1: triream I of us. We've all been there, so sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes you just get you just get rammed. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it happens so true. So they they green Peace tries
Speaker 1: to go to the International Court of Justice to get
Speaker 1: a ruling to force France to stop the testing, and
Speaker 1: the French government steaks out what I I I claim
Speaker 1: is like the primary status political principle, which is that
Speaker 1: what is justice to a man holding a gun? And
Speaker 1: they just absolutely ignore the International Court of Justice. So
Speaker 1: they in ninety seventy four, they're trying to do another
Speaker 1: set of nuclear tests and this time, you know, so
Speaker 1: green Peace is like, okay, well we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: send like a flotilla of boats out this time.
Speaker 4: Did you just say a flotilla?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Is that a word? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's a group of boats.
Speaker 4: Scarce, that's like a that's like a murder of crows thing.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, but it's a very common name for a
Speaker 1: bunch of boats.
Speaker 4: I've never I've never heard that before.
Speaker 2: Now you have flotilla, Yeah. L Ron Hubbard had a
Speaker 2: flotilla of boats that he made Teenager's pilot and jump
Speaker 2: off of when he was angry at them.
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking about this. I think this
Speaker 1: is actually the first flotilla of boats that we've had
Speaker 1: on any of our shows that.
Speaker 2: Is good, that's not that's not commanded by l Ron Hubbard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like the Moodies, it's a it's a whole
Speaker 1: it's a whole sort of line of bad. But this
Speaker 1: is this is a good flotilla. But the Navy this
Speaker 1: time is like, Okay, we're not going to mess around
Speaker 1: with these people, like and you know, let them get
Speaker 1: inside the testing zone.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: They so they just bored mctabart's ship and just beat
Speaker 1: the shit out of him and his crew. And so
Speaker 1: the the the French Navy claims that like, oh, the
Speaker 1: Green Peace people just like turned around on their own,
Speaker 1: and uh, mctiggert, you know, Tiger's like very badly visibly hurt.
Speaker 1: So he like shows up to the press and the
Speaker 1: French Navy goes, oh, I mean he's like mctiger is
Speaker 1: like he is he he is, but blind in one
Speaker 1: eye for several months, like he is very very badly beaten,
Speaker 1: and the French Navy claims that was actually the result
Speaker 1: of a fall, which I will allow you to draw
Speaker 1: your own conclusions. Adure. Yeah, I'll I'll let you draw
Speaker 1: your own conclusions. But parallels between the state and domestic abusers.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Unfortunately for the French Navy, the green Peace
Speaker 1: crew have managed to like get the beatings on camera,
Speaker 1: and they're able to smuggle like the film canister off
Speaker 1: the boat and get it to the newspapers, and so
Speaker 1: the newspapers the next day just have a bunch of
Speaker 1: like pictures showing the French Navy just beating the shit
Speaker 1: out of these like random green piece people, and this
Speaker 1: eventually actually works. Right, there's there's there's sort of there's
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a sort of political pressure campaign
Speaker 1: that Greenpeace is waging. There are these there are these
Speaker 1: campaigns in the French courts to get the government to stop,
Speaker 1: and eventually, in nineteen seventy four, the French government agrees
Speaker 1: to stop conducting atmospheric tests and nuclear weapons. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: do you know who else stopped conducting atmospheric testing after
Speaker 1: years of public pressure campaigns? The US and the USSR, Yes,
Speaker 1: but also the products and services.
Speaker 2: Oh that supports this podcast. Yeah, no, I meant most
Speaker 2: of them. Most of them. Ah, we're back, and you
Speaker 2: know that I'm hearing now that we did have an
Speaker 2: ad from Blue Apron in there, who does continue like
Speaker 2: low earth orbit atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's the only way to get your food boxes to
Speaker 2: you in a timely manner. They have to use the
Speaker 2: Orian drive, which is a special spacecraft engine that relies
Speaker 2: on popping nuclear weapons out of the back of a
Speaker 2: spaceship and using them to accelerate it to near light speed.
Speaker 2: It's actually that's a you can look that up. It's
Speaker 2: a pretty cool idea. We should do it.
Speaker 1: It is very funny to me that it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we have this incredibly convoluted drive that's powered by nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons and it gets you to around the speed of light.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's it's not even convoluted. It's literally just the
Speaker 2: spaceship poops out of nuke and it makes it go faster. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a fun idea. I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I think it's a fun idea.
Speaker 1: Is but like it can't even get you to like
Speaker 1: the next Solar System very fast.
Speaker 2: Well, nothing probably ever can, which is why we're all
Speaker 2: doomed to die alone in the dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very sad. Other thing that's sad, Okay, So the
Speaker 1: French government agrees to stop doing tests in the atmosphere, right, however,
Speaker 1: this is just atmospheric tests. I never agreed to stop
Speaker 1: doing like non atmospheric tests. So in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: the French government is gearing up to do another round
Speaker 1: of nuclear testing, and green Peace is once again bringing
Speaker 1: a flotilla to try to stop them. Now green Peace
Speaker 1: are already in nineteen eighty five, they've been involved in
Speaker 1: another anti nuclear well okay, really it's this, it's all
Speaker 1: the same anti nuclear campaign. But so the other people
Speaker 1: who are dropping nukes in the Pacific are the US.
Speaker 1: And when they they nuke the Marshall Islands, the people
Speaker 1: of this island called Runga Lap began suffering from radiation exposure,
Speaker 1: even though they were also once again told by the
Speaker 1: American government that they were fine. And so the US
Speaker 1: is going to drop another nuke and they refuse to
Speaker 1: evacuate these people, and so green Peace like brings their boats,
Speaker 1: like brings the Rainbow Warrior, and so these people ask
Speaker 1: like green Peace for help. So green Peace like evacuates
Speaker 1: them all to another island and like brings like construction
Speaker 1: materials and supply so they can like set up on
Speaker 1: a new island. And it's this really I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a really sort of grim look into what,
Speaker 1: you know, like what this nucrot has that actually means,
Speaker 1: which is that a bunch of people who've been living
Speaker 1: in a place for hundreds of years are forced to
Speaker 1: flee for their lives, like you know, the state won't
Speaker 1: the state won't even like ethnically cleanse them, right, like
Speaker 1: they are forcibly relocated from their homes, but the state
Speaker 1: won't even do it because the state's like, no, it's fine,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna die radiation poisoning. And so they have
Speaker 1: to get someone else to like move them, and it's,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's really bleak. These people survive, which
Speaker 1: is good, but the US doing neucrotesting in the Marshall Islands,
Speaker 1: which I'm betting at least forty percent of you don't
Speaker 1: know of the US control. Yeah, it sucks, so okay,
Speaker 1: So they get done with this evacuation, they're back in
Speaker 1: Auckland and then their flagship they're able to Worrior gets bombed,
Speaker 1: and Greenpeace talks later about how they actually got really
Speaker 1: lucky because you know, when I remember when I said earlier,
Speaker 1: there are people who were still awake, like playing cards.
Speaker 1: If those people had been in their cabins, a bunch
Speaker 1: of them basically would have drowned immediately because the cabins
Speaker 1: got flooded instantly by the first bomb. So they got
Speaker 1: very lucky. Only one person died. I to this day,
Speaker 1: I do not understand why the people who did this
Speaker 1: thought they could do this without killing anyone. It's baffling
Speaker 1: to me. I don't know. At least they claim they
Speaker 1: weren't trying to kill anyone. So New Zealand police start investigating.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, there's been a like a terrorist attack
Speaker 1: on a boat in our harbor.
Speaker 2: Sure, and that seems like a thing you'd look into. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I get that.
Speaker 1: They get very, very lucky. And they get lucky because
Speaker 1: there are two people in this boating club who are
Speaker 1: like watching the harbor trying to see if it like
Speaker 1: trying to catch someone who's been stealing diving equipment. And
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night they see a man
Speaker 1: in a black wetsuit carrying a Zodiac inflatable speedboat ashore
Speaker 1: and get into a fan. Now, okay, so it's including
Speaker 1: me which bottle of Zodiac? This is for people not
Speaker 1: familiar with boats. Zodiac makes something called the mill Pro,
Speaker 1: which is a a like it's an inflatable speedboat that
Speaker 1: is used by like most of the world's special forces units.
Speaker 1: And so these two guys are like, this is really sketchy.
Speaker 1: They and so they they're you know, they put two
Speaker 1: and two together when they realize that a boat's been
Speaker 1: blown up, and they're like, oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: probably these guys. So they go to the police and
Speaker 1: they're able to get the license plate of the van,
Speaker 1: and so the staff at this like van depot have
Speaker 1: to like sit there and like stall the two people
Speaker 1: in the van and keep them from leaving long enough
Speaker 1: for the cops to show up with something. I really
Speaker 1: really desperately want a video of this just sounds really funny.
Speaker 2: I do love the idea of like the average people
Speaker 2: who work at like a car rental company being asked like, hey,
Speaker 2: could you do like a little bit of counter terrorism
Speaker 2: for us today? Just like a sco SHIVI it in
Speaker 2: between denying people rentals because they don't have a credit card.
Speaker 1: It's amazing and okay, So that the cops show up
Speaker 1: and they arrest these this couple who are claiming to
Speaker 1: be newly weds, but the New Zealand government quickly discovers
Speaker 1: that both these people have forged passports from Sweden, and
Speaker 1: so they discover their real names. And uh, by god,
Speaker 1: is that the mercies? That is a man with Get
Speaker 1: it is the French c I A. They have planted
Speaker 1: this bomb and there's the French.
Speaker 4: Ci A called hold on, because we can't just say
Speaker 4: the French c I A.
Speaker 1: It's the Directorate General for External Security or the g
Speaker 1: s E. That's a much worse much Definitely.
Speaker 4: We're gonna we're gonna go back to calling it the French.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna read the secret police. I think we
Speaker 2: can all agree. Secret police need to have three letter
Speaker 2: acrons C I A, g R, U, F B I. Like,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work with four. You need to have
Speaker 2: one kind of sinister sounding name, like the maccabaat but
Speaker 2: like the DGS. Oh my, I'm sorry that sounds like
Speaker 2: a bank. Yeah, I mean it is, the it's the
Speaker 2: Direction General.
Speaker 1: Get it. Daggs absolutely trash.
Speaker 2: You have been you have been suppressing people for so long,
Speaker 2: and you don't have a better secret police name than that.
Speaker 2: That's shameful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. By the way, their address A six.
Speaker 2: That's a great fucking name for your secret name.
Speaker 1: Good, incredible or.
Speaker 2: Am I five whatever the real one is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyways, if you if you ever want to go
Speaker 1: like take a visit to these people, they're at their
Speaker 1: headquarters is on one forty one Boulevard Mortier, Paris, France.
Speaker 1: It's at forty eight eighty seven forty four north to
Speaker 1: four oh six seven. Elude.
Speaker 2: I don't need to go back to France. Yeah, go
Speaker 2: fuck with the DGSSE. I'm not that big a It's fine.
Speaker 1: So they catch these agents whose names are I shit,
Speaker 1: you not Gene Camas and Jean Luke Kisstaire.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: No, So the police catch these two, there's like ten
Speaker 1: to other well, there's like eight other people involved. Two
Speaker 1: of them get I think like maybe two one or
Speaker 1: two of them get caught in Australia. But the Australian
Speaker 1: police aren't able to hold them long enough for the
Speaker 1: forensic evidence to come in, so they have to release
Speaker 1: them and they flee and there's this whole thing where
Speaker 1: like they flee at a yacht and then again on
Speaker 1: a submarine and the submarine shoots the yacht to sink it.
Speaker 1: As it's a whole thing, and I actually, okay, it
Speaker 1: probably is worth mentioning here that as as as silly
Speaker 1: as the French CIA's name sound name sounds like, they
Speaker 1: have one of the most extensive networks of surveillance, the
Speaker 1: sabotage of any intelligence agency in the world. It never
Speaker 1: gets talked about, but they have people everywhere. They are lethal.
Speaker 1: They absolutely suck. But yeah, so they get caught and
Speaker 1: the French order an investigation, and their first investigation concludes
Speaker 1: that like, well, we asked, well, okay, so these people
Speaker 1: are our spies, right, but we just asked them the
Speaker 1: spy on green Peace. We didn't ask them to do
Speaker 1: a bombing. And everyone's like okay, yeah, sure, French government.
Speaker 1: So the French yeah yeah, well no, okay, so you
Speaker 1: you you may have caught two of our spies dragging
Speaker 1: a Zodiac boat. Well with a guy, a guy at
Speaker 1: a website dragged zodiac boat into a van, but doesn't
Speaker 1: mean he did the bombing. And the French media does
Speaker 1: their own investigation and like quickly concludes that like not
Speaker 1: not only did the French order the bombing, the bombing
Speaker 1: was personally signed off on by French Defensive Minister Charles
Speaker 1: Herdu and also quite possibly French President Frenchois Mitterrand.
Speaker 2: And well, okay, at least Mitaarran's got a good name
Speaker 2: for an evil president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is interesting, right because if you know
Speaker 1: your French history, for tho those of you who know
Speaker 1: your French history, you will note that Midiarran is a
Speaker 1: man to the French left. He's the prime minister, he's
Speaker 1: the president from the from France's Socialist party.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: He has like, okay, he has a program of amnesty
Speaker 1: for Italian communist terrorists. Were like, if you're able to
Speaker 1: make it to France, they won't extradut you.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: The communists would never have a new killer bomb.
Speaker 1: So it's very famously on Antonio Negri, who's the guy
Speaker 1: who writes a bunch of books that are very famous
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, he's like, he's one of
Speaker 1: the founders of the Autonomists. He flees to he uses
Speaker 1: this to flee to France after the Italian government accused
Speaker 1: him of being the mastermind of the Red Brigades, who
Speaker 1: had just kidnapped and killed for more Prime Minister Alden Morrow.
Speaker 1: So Negrid gets himself parliamentary immunity by getting elected as
Speaker 1: an MP and then flees to France, which is just
Speaker 1: very funny, and then Metaran refuses to extra d item.
Speaker 1: So okay. So on the one that you would think
Speaker 1: that midiran And is like, I don't know, kind of
Speaker 1: cool I.
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't think so, I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Miniran I okay. So in terms of sort
Speaker 1: of being sympathetic, Midran is like a is a kind
Speaker 1: of different kind of neoliberal than the kind that we
Speaker 1: that we sort of know. So I would classify in
Speaker 1: terms of sort of neoliberal like neoliberal politicians right, like
Speaker 1: neoliberal heads of countries. I think there's sort of like
Speaker 1: three kinds of them. There are sort of the right
Speaker 1: wing hardliners people like Thatcher, like Pinochet and Reagan. The
Speaker 1: Reagan's weirdly, Reagan is slightly less hardline than like Thatcher is.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so okay, so there's no there's those people.
Speaker 1: There's the sort of like third way neoliberals like Clinton,
Speaker 1: and Tony Blair, who are like I guess like liberals
Speaker 1: in the American sense, but are still sort of like
Speaker 1: real hardliners on economics. And then there's a group of
Speaker 1: people I would call like the the quote unquote socialist neoliberals,
Speaker 1: like Midrans and Italy's longtime Socialist Party prime minister Betino,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if I can actually call him
Speaker 1: the most corrupt man in Italian politics, but like he's
Speaker 1: like at least in the top five, but he's prime
Speaker 1: minister for like twenty years, and he's also like this,
Speaker 1: So these are these are people who are nominally socialist
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about like doing socialism, but then are
Speaker 1: also like implementing neoliberalism. And you know, I think the
Speaker 1: closest thing to this in the US is like if
Speaker 1: Carter had beaten Reagan, we still would have gotten neoliberalism,
Speaker 1: but it would have been sort of like softer than
Speaker 1: it was under Reagan. So you know, you have your
Speaker 1: sort of kinder, gentular form of neoliberalism. And do you
Speaker 1: know who else advocates for a kinder, ingentular form of neoliberalism?
Speaker 2: Oh not Blue Apron No, they support going right back
Speaker 2: to the old days. We're talking like East India Trading Company.
Speaker 2: In fact, as we speak, Blue Aprons flotilla is on
Speaker 2: the coast of India right now, ready ready to try
Speaker 2: their hand at making another raj in Calcutta.
Speaker 1: I wish you could all see Garrison's face.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, It's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 2: Ah, we're back.
Speaker 1: So all right. The consequence of this is that, you know,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that Midaran is like nominally a socialist,
Speaker 1: he is completely committed to nuclear testing as part of
Speaker 1: his nuclear deterrence program.
Speaker 4: Funny funny, How that funny? How that always happens?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. Now, supporting colonialism is not out of
Speaker 1: character for veteran who is part of a previous coalition
Speaker 1: government in the fifties had presided over the guillotining of
Speaker 1: Algerian rebels. But his his reaction to his government and
Speaker 1: possibly also him personally bombing the Rainbow Warrior is not good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's nice to hear, at least not a not a
Speaker 1: great look, buddy. Yeah. So so, because French people are
Speaker 1: extremely normal, the reaction in the French public about their
Speaker 1: government carrying out a terrorist attack is that there's a
Speaker 1: giant nationalist upswell, and people get really angry because they're
Speaker 1: demanding that the two French intelligence agents who again are
Speaker 1: serving ten year manslaughter sentences in New Zealand for bombing
Speaker 1: a ship involved in non violent civil disobedience in the
Speaker 1: harbor of a country that France is not at war with.
Speaker 1: People are mad that they are like being held in
Speaker 1: prison and they're demanding they be released.
Speaker 4: That makes sense from like the French nationalists sides.
Speaker 2: It's the French far right.
Speaker 1: They're pretty pretty far right, like like again like they
Speaker 1: lots like lots of just like non far right people
Speaker 1: in France get involved in this, and they had this
Speaker 1: whole thing about the way they talk about it is
Speaker 1: amazing that they talk about it in terms of liberating them.
Speaker 1: It's like they just murdered a guy with a bomb,
Speaker 1: like the multiple but they used two bines to blow
Speaker 1: this ship up. Like And so the Minigan's government's response
Speaker 1: is they start putting sanctions on New Zealand's exports.
Speaker 4: That's funny, that's funny.
Speaker 1: And this is this is a huge deal for New
Speaker 1: Zealand because there they have a you know, New Zealand's
Speaker 1: economy is like in large part in agricultural based export economy,
Speaker 1: and they export just an enormous amount of cheese to France.
Speaker 4: I did not know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so I New Zealand is like one of
Speaker 1: the words leading dairy producers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I thought they mostly just made those like elfin Dwarf
Speaker 4: and Wizard movies.
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, I mean they do make a lot
Speaker 2: of money producing limbus cakes, which which can keep you
Speaker 2: going for an entire week.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm realizing, I'm realizing now I'm not gared.
Speaker 1: Do you know the story of how of how New
Speaker 1: Zealand was like dragged into supporting the Iraq war and
Speaker 1: sending troops to a rock? No, okay, okay, I need
Speaker 1: to tell the stories. I'm realizing there's some of our
Speaker 1: listeners who might not have heard this a lot time
Speaker 1: I told the story. Okay, So in the Wiki leaks papers,
Speaker 1: it comes out that New Zealand. New Zealand sent troops
Speaker 1: to a rock because so New Zealand had had a
Speaker 1: milk for oil program where they would trade milk to
Speaker 1: a rock for oil, and the US threatened that after
Speaker 1: the after they invaded a Rock, they were going to
Speaker 1: cut off the milk for oil deal. And this was
Speaker 1: this was like Fonterra. They're like the giant, Like milk
Speaker 1: Cooperative in in New Zealand was so powerful, and the
Speaker 1: New Zealand government was like, fine, don't don't don't cut
Speaker 1: off our dairy, our milk for oil program, we will
Speaker 1: go to war. So yet New ze New Zealand. New
Speaker 1: Zealand did not go to war from oil. And New
Speaker 1: Zealand went to war for the milk market.
Speaker 2: And and that's why we called it a coalition of
Speaker 2: the willing yep. New Zealand is a truly a cursive place.
Speaker 2: And and you know, and the it is. I don't think
Speaker 2: New Zealand's the cursed one, and that is true.
Speaker 1: But they also like, this is the this is the
Speaker 1: second time that New Zealand is going to capitulate to
Speaker 1: like through the demands of a violating perialists in order
Speaker 1: to save their cheese market.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's like a fair criticism of New Zealand.
Speaker 2: But as an American, I do feel like I don't
Speaker 2: really have much room to like talk shit on this particular.
Speaker 1: It is our fault that this is happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just am not gonna blame New Zealand for this, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's fair.
Speaker 1: That's fair. I will kind of blame them for this one.
Speaker 1: This is also France's fault. So what what they're able
Speaker 1: to do is they're able to well, okay partially also
Speaker 1: so like eight of the other people who are involved
Speaker 1: in this bombing like are just got out free, and
Speaker 1: so New Zealand is like, hey, will you guys like
Speaker 1: send us these people so we can try them in
Speaker 1: fact like no, absolutely not, in fact, we will impost
Speaker 1: sanctions on you. And what they're able to do is
Speaker 1: they're able to force New Zealand to like enter youn
Speaker 1: arbitration even though again they've already arrested and convicted these
Speaker 1: two guys right because they obviously did it, and the
Speaker 1: un and typical un fashion goes okay, So France is
Speaker 1: powerful and New Zealand isn't, so fuck them, and they
Speaker 1: negotiate a deal where like these two French officers are
Speaker 1: gonna be like released and stationed in this like tiny
Speaker 1: island at the French control for three years. And so
Speaker 1: the French doesn't they don't even do that. They pull
Speaker 1: these guys out in less than two years. So New
Speaker 1: Zealand is doesn't. It doesn't go great I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I say it doesn't go great for them
Speaker 1: in the short term, they suffer a series of catastrophic defeats.
Speaker 1: In the mid term. The French eventually get ordered to
Speaker 1: pay eight point one million dollars to Greenpeace, who use
Speaker 1: the money to make another boat called a Rable Warrior
Speaker 1: two and continue to like sale fleets to stop French
Speaker 1: nuclear testing. And I'm gonna I'm gonna read some green
Speaker 1: Peace's website quote. In nineteen ninety five, the Rainbow Warrior
Speaker 1: two was bordered by French com as it led further
Speaker 1: protests against nuclear testing Amia Toll. When green Peace activists
Speaker 1: were asked for their names, they only gave one, Fernando Perieira,
Speaker 1: which is the name of the guy who the French
Speaker 1: had killed earlier. So they have their I'm Spartacus moments,
Speaker 1: and you know, eventually it takes a very very long time,
Speaker 1: but they win. In nineteen ninety six, France and China
Speaker 1: do like one last nuclear test and then signed the
Speaker 1: Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Indian and Pakistan do a
Speaker 1: pair test each in nineteen eighty nine, but since then
Speaker 1: no country has tested a nuclear weapon except North Korea
Speaker 1: who does it all the time. But you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what Greenpeace is supposed to do about North
Speaker 1: Korea testing nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, you can't and it is I
Speaker 2: will say this, like from a real politique point of view,
Speaker 2: you know, there's an argument to be made that, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the the kind of balance of nuclear power certainly provides
Speaker 2: a degree of protection to some countries. But my argument
Speaker 2: would be not having tested your weapons makes them more frightening.
Speaker 2: If you're France and you're like, look, man, anyone who
Speaker 2: tests us. We don't know what's gonna happen when we
Speaker 2: fire these things. We don't know if they're going to
Speaker 2: go to the right place. We have no idea what
Speaker 2: will happen when we fire our nukes. So come on
Speaker 2: and fuck with us, but literally anything could happen. That
Speaker 2: just seems like a better threat to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to advocate that one, but.
Speaker 2: I think that's the stance. I think that's the stance.
Speaker 2: You know, build increasingly large weapons and never test them
Speaker 2: so that we just know if shit goes down, we
Speaker 2: could all die.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, well it doesn't it doesn't involve nuclear testing.
Speaker 1: So I'm coming around to this.
Speaker 2: Position, never never test them. Just build increasingly large doomsday
Speaker 2: devices and be like, no one knows what'll happen if
Speaker 2: we have a war. Why not, maybe none of them work.
Speaker 2: We all get to really think about what we've been doing,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: I in all seriously though, this is a massive victory.
Speaker 1: There are there are millions upon millions of people across
Speaker 1: the world, and millions of people who have yet to
Speaker 1: be born who are going to live their lives free
Speaker 1: of the effect of radiation poisoning because people stood up
Speaker 1: and fought nuclear testing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 1: This is the message that I want to sort of
Speaker 1: end Earth Day with with, which is the people who
Speaker 1: are destroying this world are incredibly powerful, and they are
Speaker 1: willing to kill protesters in order to keep their power
Speaker 1: and keep made me the world further. But if you
Speaker 1: just keep fighting them, no matter what that throw you,
Speaker 1: if you just every every single time they hit you,
Speaker 1: if you just come back and keep fighting them again,
Speaker 1: you can win. And this is this is the way
Speaker 1: that it happens.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, that's that's a good that's a nice
Speaker 2: that's a nice note to end on. So everybody get
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 4: And getting nuked once and then everything's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get nuked once and you'll be okay. Like that
Speaker 2: science to drink the plutonium. It's surprisingly easy to not
Speaker 2: die when you get exposed to unbelievable quantities of radiation.
Speaker 2: That seems like a responsible note to end on.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening,