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Speaker 1: Al Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People who

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Speaker 1: did cool stuff. You're a weekly reminder that when there's

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Speaker 1: bad things, there's people trying to do good things, either

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Speaker 1: in response to it or on their own. Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: bad things exist because people try and do good things,

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Speaker 1: and then people try and do bad things as a result.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Mardak Kiljoy and with me today is

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Speaker 1: my guest who This is as a fun reversal because

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Speaker 1: last time we talked, I was a guest on his podcast.

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Speaker 1: Instead it's Ron Placone. Hi, how are you.

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Speaker 2: Hi'm Margaret. Good to see you again. And yeah, longtime listener,

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Speaker 2: first time caller for your podcast, So yeah, Sally be here.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. For people who want

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Speaker 1: to listen to more of us talking, they can listen

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Speaker 1: to an episode of your podcast one thousand with Ron Placone. Yep,

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Speaker 1: what else can people find on that podcast?

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Speaker 2: So that's a podcast. I'm going on a life quest

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Speaker 2: to interview one thousand people who have inspired me in

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Speaker 2: some way. So interviews are won and done and I

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Speaker 2: try to cover as much ground as I can, and

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Speaker 2: you are among the guests. I always say, if you're

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Speaker 2: a fan of punk rock music, lefty politics, radical academics,

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Speaker 2: and just kind of people who have had significant pivots

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Speaker 2: in life. Journalists, activists, comedians, filmmakers. You're going to enjoy

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Speaker 2: this podcast. I've had everything from sex workers to journalists,

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Speaker 2: to communists to anarchists, to people who I have no

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Speaker 2: idea what their politics are, but it's something very interesting

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Speaker 2: that I wanted to talk about, and yeah, everything in between.

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Speaker 2: So it's a fun show.

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Speaker 1: Cool all right. So, oh, I forgot to do the

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Speaker 1: rest of the introductions, so our producer Sophie. But Sophie

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Speaker 1: isn't here today, but we do have a new audio engineer, Eva.

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Speaker 1: Everyone has to say hi to Eva.

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Speaker 2: Hi Eva, Hello Eva.

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Speaker 1: So I had this whole episode planned out that I

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Speaker 1: was going to do that you were going to be

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Speaker 1: the guest. I'm not going to tell you what it

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Speaker 1: is because I'm going to do it later with someone else,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sorry it all got derailed by last week's news,

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Speaker 1: two weeks AGO's news. By the time you're listening to this, Okay,

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Speaker 1: the big news story of the week, this is that

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Speaker 1: part sarcasm. Almost no one outside of me and the

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Speaker 1: few people I think, picked up on this particular news

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Speaker 1: story I am talking, of course, the biggest story last week.

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Speaker 1: Did you hear about the twenty one year old American

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Speaker 1: hippie who called themselves an anti fascist who died in Ukraine?

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Speaker 2: I did not, So.

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Speaker 1: There isn't I say called themselves an anti fascist. Their

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Speaker 1: name was Michael Gloss. They were not cool people who

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Speaker 1: did cool stuff. They died in Ukraine as an internationalist

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Speaker 1: volunteer in Vladimir Putin's army.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, Actually, now that you mentioned this, I think

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Speaker 2: I did hear something, but I did not hear much

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Speaker 2: of the details, nor did I hear the anti fascist part.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean a lot of the news stories

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Speaker 1: are specifically leading with the fact that this person's mother

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Speaker 1: was CIA deputy minister, But I genuinely believe that that

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Speaker 1: is unrelated. Really Okay, yeah, I'm gonna explain why. So

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Speaker 1: don't worry. We're not going to do an episode about

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Speaker 1: Michael Gloss, but we're going to use Michael Gloss as

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Speaker 1: a start to this story.

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Speaker 2: Okay, okay, all right, I'm excited.

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Speaker 1: Michael Gloss was a hippie wanderer from the States who

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Speaker 1: made their way to Russia, and the reason I'm using

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Speaker 1: they them pronouns for this person. All news articles are

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Speaker 1: referring to them as he, but according to their social

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Speaker 1: media profile from when they were sixteen years old, they

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Speaker 1: were using they them, and I have no I have

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Speaker 1: no update providing a different pronoun from their own position.

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Speaker 1: They were a hippie wanderer from the US who made

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Speaker 1: their way to Russia and inspired by what I'm going

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Speaker 1: to call the Tanky distortion field, they signed up for

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Speaker 1: the Russian Army, whereupon they invaded Ukraine and got got.

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Speaker 1: Their Instagram was largely unused since they were sixteen, so

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Speaker 1: I have no idea how the conceived of gender at

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Speaker 1: the end of their life, but I do know that

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Speaker 1: their politics took a turn from anti authoritarian to and

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Speaker 1: when I say tanky, I'm being very specific right here,

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Speaker 1: because I specifically mean someone who believes in really strange

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Speaker 1: things about the modern world. Have you, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how far outside of my own sphere. Are you familiar

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Speaker 1: with this concept of a tanky?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I was actually listening to I believe it

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Speaker 2: was your last episode.

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Speaker 1: It's true.

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Speaker 2: I didn't get to listen to the whole thing, but

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Speaker 2: I listened to some of it, and you know that

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Speaker 2: was historical. What tanky actually is in our contemporary sense.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've said this a couple of times. Applying

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Speaker 2: it to the contemporary sense. I'm still not totally sure

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Speaker 2: I know exactly what a tanky is because I have

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Speaker 2: seen it use so many different ways. I myself have

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Speaker 2: even been called one where I'm like, what do you mean?

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Speaker 2: I think some people they use the word tanky to

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Speaker 2: describe anyone who's critical of American foreign policy, right, you know,

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Speaker 2: so it's like it's one of those things. Whenever that

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Speaker 2: term is thrown out there, I have to ask the

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Speaker 2: person for moore description, like, what does that mean to you?

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Speaker 1: It's been abused this particular word, And I would argue

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Speaker 1: this primarily being abused by, like I would say, sort

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Speaker 1: of the liberal and centrists who are applying it to

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Speaker 1: anyone who's basically left of them. And yeah, anyone who's

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Speaker 1: critical of the United States or whatever.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure those are the people who said that

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Speaker 2: to me. Yeah, I didn't get to take a survey,

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Speaker 2: but you know, I saw the Twitter handles.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the rest about Michael Gloss

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Speaker 1: and then see how to tie that into what I

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Speaker 1: would claim as a Tanky in the modern context. I

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Speaker 1: started writing this whole essay about Michael Gloss, about the

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Speaker 1: Tanky worldview, the distortion field of reality that would lead

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Speaker 1: a would be anti fascist to die in the service

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Speaker 1: of one of the most tremendously authoritarian states on the

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Speaker 1: planet right now, Russia under Putin. I'll probably finish that

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Speaker 1: essay at some point. But then I realized I was like,

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Speaker 1: this is more than an essay. I'm completely redoing my

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Speaker 1: script for the week. I saved all my notes for

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Speaker 1: the other scripts and started over because I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about three international anti fascists who died in Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: who died fighting Putin. And they each came from a

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Speaker 1: different position that led them to believe, for very good

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Speaker 1: reason that confronting Putin was a necessary thing to advance

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Speaker 1: the struggles that they believed in. These three who I'm

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about this week, they died defending

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Speaker 1: a humanitarian corridor on April nineteenth, twenty twenty three. There

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Speaker 1: are three anarchists. One was Russian and he had witnessed

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Speaker 1: and fought tooth and nail against the rise of Putin

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Speaker 1: and authoritarianism. For his entire adult life, and actually starting

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Speaker 1: when he was a teenager, for twenty years he fought

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Speaker 1: against putin. One was an Irish activist, a singer who

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Speaker 1: comes from a small Irish speaking community off the west

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Speaker 1: coast of Ireland, who spent all of his life helping

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Speaker 1: refugees and fighting against oil pipelines. And one was a

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Speaker 1: black American former marine who helped found an anarchist community

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Speaker 1: center in Cleveland, Ohio. Those are our cool people this week.

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Speaker 2: They all sound pretty cool just right out the gate there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I like them even more than I expected to.

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Speaker 1: And that's I mean, you know, they died trying to

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Speaker 1: defend a humanitarian corridor and all of this stuff, so

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Speaker 1: I'm like set up to like them, but I feel

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Speaker 1: like I missed out by not meeting any of these people.

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Speaker 1: But Michael Gloss before we gloss over him. That's the

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Speaker 1: only time I'll do that.

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Speaker 2: I see what you did there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, thanks. It was really subtle that one. Most

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Speaker 1: of the news stories about Michael Gloss focus on the

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Speaker 1: fact that their mother, Julianne Galina, is the Deputy Director

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Speaker 1: for Digital Innovation for the CIA. This is a job

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Speaker 1: that she got about last year. She helps onboard new

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Speaker 1: technology for the CIA. Not a fan of the CIA,

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Speaker 1: But you don't say no, yeah, no for some weird reason. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as it terms out, you can actually be critical of

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Speaker 1: authoritarianism wherever it is. You don't actually have to pick

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Speaker 1: one country good and therefore the other country bad or

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Speaker 1: the other way around.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, none of us are ever going to be on

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Speaker 2: cable news with that attitude, but continue that's true.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if this is why, like the cap of

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Speaker 1: my fame is based on the fact that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to do several weeks in a row talking about the

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Speaker 1: problems with falling into authoritarian viewpoints based on misunderstanding of communism.

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Speaker 1: That's a classic thing that everyone likes talking about.

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Speaker 2: I think, oh yeah, misunderstanding communism, talking about foreign conflicts

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Speaker 2: with any type of nuance, I don't get a microphone

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Speaker 2: cut everywhere except for places like this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, people don't like to hear it.

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Speaker 2: Nope.

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Speaker 1: Michael's mother CIA. Their father is Larry Gloss, a Navy

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Speaker 1: vet who fought in the First Iraq War and also

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Speaker 1: does cybersecurity. Their Instagram handle is it ball for twenty

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Speaker 1: and ball is like spelled like the demon or whatever

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Speaker 1: that I don't know anything about I'm going to lose

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Speaker 1: all my metal points. Most of their posts are from

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty, when they were probably about sixteen years old,

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Speaker 1: and they show someone exploring radical politics. This part made

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Speaker 1: me sad. When I first heard this story, I was like,

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Speaker 1: fucking dipshit, fucking went and fought and died in Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: Fucked them right, and then I ended up just sad.

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Speaker 1: When they were sixteen, they were exploring radical politics. And

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Speaker 1: I don't expect anyone to have a coherent political worldview

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Speaker 1: when they're sixteen years old. If you tried to challenge

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Speaker 1: me based on my political positions when I was sixteen,

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Speaker 1: I would not hold up either. When Michael was sixteen,

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Speaker 1: they posted a lot of anti authoritarianism. They self identified

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Speaker 1: as an anarchist. They were also a COVID conspiracist, saying

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Speaker 1: that the COVID death numbers were inflated, and they went

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Speaker 1: to climate protests and you know, there's news articles about

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Speaker 1: them yelling like you're killing your own child, that people

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Speaker 1: working in like climate destroying you know, fields, And they

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Speaker 1: were also an eagle scout. They went to college to

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Speaker 1: study human ecology and then they dropped out in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three to go be a hippie and turkey and

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Speaker 1: start dressing in robes with a big antler necklace and

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Speaker 1: letting people call them Jesus.

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Speaker 2: Okay, did they amass a following throughout this or.

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Speaker 1: They did not? Okay, but they were hanging out with

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Speaker 1: Do you know much about the Rainbow Family.

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Speaker 2: I do not.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited to get to explain all these horrible

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Speaker 1: interesting things to you the Rainbow Family. And I'm actually

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Speaker 1: kind of officially neutral on I feel like if I

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Speaker 1: did way more research, i'd stop being neutral. But they're hippies.

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Speaker 1: So the Rainbow Family are people who really like going

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Speaker 1: to rainbow gatherings and they like gathering in the woods.

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Speaker 1: It's like burning Man without money. I know burning Man

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Speaker 1: doesn't have money within it, but you have to have

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Speaker 1: a lot of money to like do it.

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Speaker 2: The people who show up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I

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Speaker 2: got you.

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Speaker 1: It's festival culture. Modern festival culture kind of comes out

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Speaker 1: of a similar thing. It's yeah, it tends to be

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Speaker 1: a working class, slightly rural, intensely interesting subculture that has

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Speaker 1: lots of positives and negatives, and probably more negatives and positives.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know enough about it to say it

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Speaker 1: certainly didn't go well for Michael Gloss. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people within the Rainbow family were very critical of what

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Speaker 1: they went on to do.

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Speaker 2: Well, if they showed up and their opener was hey,

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Speaker 2: I'm Jesus and you can call me that, I could

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Speaker 2: see how it wouldn't work out.

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Speaker 1: I phrased it as they let people call them Jesus,

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Speaker 1: because I don't think they called themself Jesus. Oh, they

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Speaker 1: just didn't seem to mind when people did. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of posts of them on this like like Russian

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Speaker 1: social media that they were posting to where they just

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Speaker 1: literally are like, oh, I lost my regular clothes. Now

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Speaker 1: I have to wear a robe and a cloak And

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Speaker 1: you're like, no, you just want to wear like no shame,

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Speaker 1: Like I got nothing against that part of it, you know,

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Speaker 1: mm hm. And they would spend like months at a

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Speaker 1: time at these festivals, but they would also do activism

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Speaker 1: whenever they could. They would work to fix up buildings

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Speaker 1: in Turkey, they were damaged by earthquakes. And then they

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Speaker 1: moved to Georgia, the country, not the state, and they

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Speaker 1: decided to cross into Russia. And this is the part

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Speaker 1: that most articles gloss over because I think they don't

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Speaker 1: understand the modern Tanky distortion field.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: He would camp out with a big Soviet flag over

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Speaker 1: his tent, and all of his posts started being about

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Speaker 1: the importance of a multipolar world. If you hear people

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Speaker 1: talking about this multipolar world thing, I'm not sure whether.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean somewhat you can fill in some gaps, but.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Basically, there are authoritarian communists who believe that the

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Speaker 1: USSR could have done no wrong when it was the US.

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Speaker 1: This is one position that I don't share, but they

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Speaker 1: then carry that onward when I talk about the modern

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Speaker 1: mindset of this particular subsection of people. They believe that

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Speaker 1: modern Russia is essentially still the voice for freedom in

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Speaker 1: the world. And it's interesting because even some of these

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Speaker 1: articles that I read was like, actually, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people have moved to Russia because of politics in the

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Speaker 1: past couple years. Yeah, conservatives. Conservatives have moved to Russia

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Speaker 1: because they're like, hey, a country that outlaws gay people.

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Speaker 1: You know, there haven't been a lot of communists moving

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Speaker 1: to Russia. I would argue that when you're presented with

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Speaker 1: a political issue, what we need to do is think

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Speaker 1: to ourselves what is right in this situation and not think, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm a Democrat who I believe this. I'm a Republican,

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Speaker 1: I believe this. I'm a communist, I believe this. I'm

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Speaker 1: an anarchist. So I believe this, and you actually have

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Speaker 1: to go about it the other way. You have to

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Speaker 1: be like, what do why I believe about this thing?

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Speaker 1: Is there a label that is useful to call me

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Speaker 1: as relates to that? That's my argument. Take the invasion

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Speaker 1: of Ukraine. I don't think to myself, what is the

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Speaker 1: anarchist position on the invasion of Ukraine? And that is

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Speaker 1: the position I will take. Instead, I look at the

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Speaker 1: situation as a person. I listen to people on the ground,

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Speaker 1: I look at the history, I look at the context,

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Speaker 1: and I say, oh, Russia is doing an imperialism. I

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Speaker 1: hope they fail at doing that. And so that's my

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Speaker 1: argument of how to arrive at this sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But in this thing that I'm going to continue to

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Speaker 1: rudely call the Tanky distortion field, which I probably shouldn't

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Speaker 1: call because some people's like brains turn off when you

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Speaker 1: say that word, because it's used as a pejorative. Rudely

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Speaker 1: in different ways, but I'm going.

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Speaker 2: To nonetheless hell of a band name.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Yeah. Everything is run through this tanky filter.

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Speaker 1: Everything is run through an ideological filter. Russia invading Ukraine

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Speaker 1: is good because NATO is bad, even though Ukraine famously

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Speaker 1: isn't in NATO, and therefore whatever Russia does there is justified.

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Speaker 1: The multi polar world idea is that, and there's like

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Speaker 1: kernels of truth in a lot of this, right. Their

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Speaker 1: idea is that since the US economic and military hegemony

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Speaker 1: over the world is bad, which is true, it is,

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Speaker 1: it's a bad thing, it would be therefore good to

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Speaker 1: have a strong counter force that's not even an inherently

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Speaker 1: bad idea, so it'd be a second pull to the

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Speaker 1: political world. But they use it to mean anyone who

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Speaker 1: fights against the US is my ally and is anti imperialism.

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Speaker 1: So like only the US can be imperialism. Iran not

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Speaker 1: imperialist force according to this position. Russia not an imperialist

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Speaker 1: force according to this And it's honestly one of the

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Speaker 1: easiest ways to sort of be like, oh, you're literally

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Speaker 1: living in a distortion field, You're living in an echo

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Speaker 1: chamber where you have like hit upon certain ideas. These

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Speaker 1: like axioms that cannot be challenged. If you talk to

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Speaker 1: people from Iran, it is an imperialist force in the

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Speaker 1: Swanna region, like Russia is an imperialist force in the

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Speaker 1: region that is in You know, that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: the US isn't a greater imperialist force.

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Speaker 2: But I think it's one of those things. It's almost

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Speaker 2: human nature. People are kind of just naturally inclined to

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Speaker 2: want a good guy and a bad guy totally. Like

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Speaker 2: the world is a very simple comic book, and we

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Speaker 2: need a good guy and a bad guy. So Russia bad,

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Speaker 2: us good or vice versa, and it's one of those things. Well, unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: the world's a lot more complex like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the whole like more than one thing can

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Speaker 1: be bad at once is like such a basic concept

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Speaker 1: to me. But it's not one that is universally shared.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's not universally shared at all. And again,

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Speaker 2: in certain circles, it's not going to win you any friends,

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Speaker 2: it's not going to get you elected in this country. No,

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Speaker 2: and that's the way it goes.

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Speaker 1: No, And people also therefore don't understand like complexities of

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Speaker 1: geopolitics essentially, right, because you have like like take World

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Speaker 1: War two. Universally, people are like Germany bad besides the

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Speaker 1: people that we can immediately write off. But the people

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Speaker 1: who think Germany bad often therefore say so, therefore the

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Speaker 1: US good, therefore the uss are good. But neither one

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Speaker 1: will accept that the US and the USSR were allies

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Speaker 1: in that war, and so like, clearly bad people were

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Speaker 1: fighting against even worse people. And if you're like pro US,

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Speaker 1: you still got to hand it to the Soviets, and

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Speaker 1: if you're pro Soviet, you still got to kind of

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Speaker 1: hand it to the US. And people do not, And

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Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm like, well, these are both evil

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Speaker 1: forces that fought an even greater evil force, and so

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Speaker 1: it goes that's what geopolitics is. I don't know, you know,

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Speaker 1: our poor searcher Michael Gloss, and I think searcher is

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Speaker 1: kind of what I hit upon this. This person after

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Speaker 1: they died, their father was like, this was mental illness problem,

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Speaker 1: whereas a lot of their Rainbow family friends were like

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Speaker 1: they fell into conspiracy nonsense. They fell down this like

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Speaker 1: rabbit hole. And I think that, like many things can

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Speaker 1: be true at once, you know, right, but it's like

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Speaker 1: otherwise rational people also fall down conspiracy holes and start

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Speaker 1: believing increasingly unhinged things. Our poor searcher, who looks like

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Speaker 1: Jesus takes an Arabic name while in Turkey, and they

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Speaker 1: fall for this, and they start flying a Soviet flag,

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Speaker 1: and they go to Moscow and they sign up for

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Speaker 1: the military, and this part's like almost heartbreaking. They show

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Speaker 1: up and they're like, oh, I want Russian citizenship because

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Speaker 1: I'm going to heal the world. I'm going to solve

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Speaker 1: climate change. Russia is the force to do it. It

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Speaker 1: is the force for good in this world. And also

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Speaker 1: when I join the military, they're going to look at

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Speaker 1: my college background. I have a couple of years of

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Speaker 1: college and I'm going to do engineering work. I won't

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Speaker 1: have to pick up a gun. The Russian does not

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Speaker 1: give a fuck. This American is a body to put

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Speaker 1: into harm's way. They assigned Gloss immediately to an assault unit,

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Speaker 1: basically the role with the shortest life expectancy, and then

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Speaker 1: drop that confused kid into a meat grinder. They were

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Speaker 1: killed by artillery fire on April fourth, twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't confirmed until very recently that they died

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Speaker 1: fighting in the Russian military. And so there was like

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Speaker 1: an obituary that their family put up that I believe

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Speaker 1: has since been taken down, where they were like our

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Speaker 1: son died, you know, doing what he loved or whatever.

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Speaker 1: That's the story of Michael Gloss.

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Speaker 2: That's yeah. What kind of rabbit holes were they diving

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Speaker 2: down most recently? Was it all just kind of they're

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Speaker 2: in the Russian military now or were there some other

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Speaker 2: subsets going on too?

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Speaker 1: So they were in telegram channels and they were on

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Speaker 1: Russian social media, and I believe that they crossed into

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Speaker 1: Moscow to meet up with friends that they knew through

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Speaker 1: these like telegram channels in the Rainbow family. But again,

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Speaker 1: the Rainbow family I do not believe holds the Tanky line.

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Speaker 1: There are just many people within it who do. Apparently

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Speaker 1: I had no idea that there were, but you know,

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Speaker 1: that is heavily implied in our sources. There's a couple

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Speaker 1: different articles that go through. I only found the American

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Speaker 1: social media, which is mostly older, But then I read

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Speaker 1: a lot of the articles that polled their Russian social

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Speaker 1: media to talk about things, and there are other things

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Speaker 1: that they were convinced that bricks was the future. You know,

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Speaker 1: the idea of having an economic power that isn't based

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Speaker 1: on the dollar, which again I'm probably neutral on I

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Speaker 1: don't know.

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Speaker 2: But.

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Speaker 1: It still doesn't mean I'm gonna go invade a sovereign

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Speaker 1: country in the right army of an authoritarian.

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Speaker 2: Again, that falls into the nuggets of truth component, where

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Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, there's some nuggets the truth here, but

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Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that this is one hundred percent good

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Speaker 2: idea either.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, speaking of things that you should totally listen

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Speaker 1: to and base your worldview on, here's advertisers and we're back.

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Speaker 1: I want to contrast the story of Michael Gloss with

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Speaker 1: the story of three other internationalist anti fascists who are

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Speaker 1: also killed by artillery fire in Ukraine. They were killed

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Speaker 1: trying to stop Putin, not fighting for Putin. But in

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Speaker 1: order to tell their story, I'm going to start with contest.

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Speaker 1: Everyone knows context. I mean, if you listen to the show,

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Speaker 1: you probably have learned to put up with it. After

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Speaker 1: the collapse of the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety one,

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Speaker 1: do you know how many people have been in charge

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Speaker 1: of Russia since it's become Russia not the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: Well I didn't know this, so I had a guess

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Speaker 1: I guess.

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Speaker 2: I don't though, because my guess would only be a

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Speaker 2: small handful, because I mean, Putin's around for a while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been two people in charge, and both

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Speaker 1: of them were basically assigned to that position. Boris Yeltsen

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Speaker 1: oversaw the transition from a state capitalist of economy to

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Speaker 1: a liberal capitalist economy, privatizing everything. This wasn't really a

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Speaker 1: transition to democracy. It could have been a lot of

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Speaker 1: Soviet states transitioned to liberal democracy or whatever. Right, But

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Speaker 1: Boris Yeltsen was impeached in nineteen ninety three, and so

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Speaker 1: Yeltsin's troops stormed the Parliament building. So he stayed in power,

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Speaker 1: because it turns out power is what matters. It's probably

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Speaker 1: gonna come up again in the script, but like, I

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Speaker 1: actually think that what's happening in Russia and particularly Putin,

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Speaker 1: is the single clearest example of what Trump wants to

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Speaker 1: do of anything that I've run across. I'll pitch it

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Speaker 1: as we go, because there's some comparisons to me. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: people were like, this is bad. You can't keep doing

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Speaker 1: this shit. So by nineteen ninety one, he resigned and

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Speaker 1: he appointed his hand picked successor Vladimir Putin as president.

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Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin was then elected in this like I'm going

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Speaker 1: to call an election like tomorrow. Good fucking luck, you know.

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Speaker 2: H Unfortunately, ninety five percent of the people really liked

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Speaker 2: the guy, so you know, it worked out exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he has been elected and re elected in two thousand,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, twenty twelve, twenty eighteen, and twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four. Putin was a former KGB guy, so a

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Speaker 1: secret police guy during the Soviet era, and he has

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Speaker 1: been backed by collection of oligarchs basically forever. This is

434
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: part of why I think he's a role model for Trump.

435
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: I know we're all grasping for historical parallels like Mussolini

436
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:43,719
Speaker 1: and Hitler and Franco and every other dictator ever, but

437
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: Putin feels like the most on the nose because the

438
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 1: Russian state is in the hands of a few powerful

439
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: oligarchs literally what we would just call billionaires here, Like

440
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: if someone was writing about the US honestly from outside,

441
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: they would refer to our billionaires as the oligarchy class.

442
00:23:57,320 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 2: Totally. I mean, they're all this. I mean I refer

443
00:23:59,000 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 2: to them as that.

444
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's accurate. Save stuff Putin is at the helm

445
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: to protect their interests and vice versa. There is no

446
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. His political rivals wind up dead and

447
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: barely concealed attacks. And you just see this, Like Trump

448
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: is really into strongman politics, right, He's really into just

449
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:20,719
Speaker 1: openly being like, yeah, what if I just torture everyone?

450
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: I don't know, why would I do due process of law?

451
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: Who cares?

452
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,360
Speaker 2: How can we get the military boar involved here? How

453
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 2: can we just got to get them on the streets

454
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 2: just just at all ours? Why not? I can assign this?

455
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: Putin sees himself in a long legacy of Russian leaders

456
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: like the Tsars and Stalin, and so there is a

457
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: kernel of truth to the whole tanky thing, where like

458
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 1: Putin's basically the USSR, just only the authoritarianism part.

459
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, the bad part.

460
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's much better to be a woman in

461
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: the USSR than it isn't Putin's Russia. And like, again,

462
00:24:57,840 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: I'm not a big Soviet fan, but better to be

463
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: a woman in Russia than in the US at the

464
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: time too, you know, well in comparison to men. I

465
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: don't know whatever. Anyway, Putin's hold on popular support relies

466
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: on the sort of strong daddy figure archetype who will

467
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: keep everyone safe and happy as long as everyone obeys,

468
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: exactly like the kind of stuff that Trump says and

469
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: has like maga repeat. That's the core of my argument,

470
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: this oligarch run thing with a strong man leader that's

471
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: still basically built around capitalism.

472
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel safe when I see the dude

473
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: on a horse with no shirt on. But that's just me.

474
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 2: I mean.

475
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: Putin came out of the gate a bastard. He started

476
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: centralizing media control. He reinstated the old Soviet era and

477
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: national anthem, although with new lyrics. But Putinism developed over time.

478
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: The other reason I find the comparison useful is that

479
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: I think it gives a sense of time scale. Putinism

480
00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: has like developed over the past twenty five years, and

481
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: in order to understand that transition, I want to follow

482
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: up one of today's main characters, a Russian anarchist who

483
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: committed his life to stopping Putin. His name was Dmitri Petrov. Well,

484
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: that was one of his names. He had a lot

485
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,439
Speaker 1: of different names. His birth name was Dmitri. People have

486
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: called him both Dima and Dimi for short. In the

487
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: Russian anarchist movement. People called him ecologue, which translates to

488
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: a cologist, because of his commitment to eco anarchism. Once

489
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: he started fighting in Ukraine and presumably before that, in Roshava,

490
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: he went by Iliya Leshi and Iliya is a common

491
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 1: Kurdish name. And just to be clear, when people go

492
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: and fight in Roshava against like Isis and things like that,

493
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: it is normal and accepted in not cultural appropriation for

494
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: them to take or be given Kurdish names. Okay, So

495
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: he goes by Ilia Leshi. Ilia is a common Kurdish name,

496
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: and Leshi is a Slavic mythological figure, a reference to

497
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: the protector of the forest.

498
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 2: So far, all this guy's like, all of his names

499
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:05,400
Speaker 2: have been really really badass, Like they all have that,

500
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 2: I know, like all these staves. You're like, I wouldn't

501
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 2: want to owe that guy money like he did, but

502
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 2: I'd also i'd want to have a beer with this guy,

503
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 2: Like he seems like a cool dude.

504
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: I know, he has so many good names, Like you're like,

505
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: save some good names for everyone else.

506
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

507
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: Most of what he did and most of what he wrote,

508
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: he did anonymously, especially when he was working underground in

509
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: Putin's Russia. Some of the quotes attributed to him are

510
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,719
Speaker 1: simply people's best guesses looking at public communicates and essays

511
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: that were produced by the movements he was part of,

512
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: because he has a somewhat distinctive writing style, and he

513
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: did a lot of the writing for the underground movements

514
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: he was in part of. And now that he's dead,

515
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 1: people can be like, oh, yeah, that guy you're talking

516
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: about modelt having cop cars. That was totally Dimitri.

517
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 2: You know that's awesome.

518
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: Once I'm dead, you can blame all kinds of crimes

519
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: all I'm alive. I didn't do any of them. He

520
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: was born probably in the mid eighties or so. He

521
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: was radicalized, I believe by his father, or at least

522
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 1: he was exposed to radical ideas by his father. His

523
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: dad would talk to him about the Maknovists in Ukraine

524
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: during the Russian Civil War, who were ostensibly allied with

525
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: the Red Army in the war against capitalism, but then

526
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,959
Speaker 1: the Red Army came and crushed them, and so this

527
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: is a whatever I've done like six episodes or something

528
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 1: about them. At least his dad also started taking him

529
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: to the oldest independent bookstore in Moscow called Fallen Star,

530
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: where he started reading the anarchist magazine Altonom. By two

531
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: thousand and four, when he was still in school, we

532
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: started his own anarchist newspaper with his friends, called Heretic

533
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: and at this point not now unfortunately for reasons we'll

534
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: talk about. The anarchist movement in Russia was pretty strong

535
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: and he started working with food not bombs, which was

536
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: a brave thing to do in Russia at the time.

537
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: Fascists used to bomb food not bombses in Russia, which

538
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: is explicitly not allowed.

539
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 2: It's in the name, but like literally allowed bombs here.

540
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 2: They usually just arrest people for trying to feed hungry people.

541
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: But no, I know, I was thinking about that. I

542
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: was like, ah, super crazy, dangerous to be a food

543
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: not bombser there. And I'm like, I mean people get

544
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: arrested for it all the time in the oh yeah state,

545
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: totally yeah, but usually not bombed.

546
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 2: I mean, hey, who knows what the next couple of

547
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 2: years have as store, but so far.

548
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: That's a good point. It Russia has an image of

549
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: the future is a dark concept, but not what I'm

550
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: convinced is wrong. He started getting involved in ecological protests.

551
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: He defended Bitzvesky Park, which is the biggest park in Moscow.

552
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: He worked with an anarchist union doing like labor organizing,

553
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: and a lot of what he was doing. A lot

554
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: of the anti fascism in this period was focused on

555
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: confronting Nazi street violence. This is a very common pattern

556
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:52,239
Speaker 1: in history. Fascists build up to controlling state power by

557
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: dominating the streets with paramilitary fascist violence. This had happened

558
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: in Italy, it happened in Germany. They try. I had

559
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: to do it in the UK, but just to continue

560
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: to shout out all my older old episodes. At the

561
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: Battle of Cable Street, Irish Catholics and immigrant Jews teamed

562
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: up to beat the piss out of the fascists in

563
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: the street and throw like potatoes with razor blades in

564
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: them at them, and shit.

565
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 2: Now, that's a unique Irish resource if I've ever heard one,

566
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 2: I know, and.

567
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: I actually think there's a chance that that was a

568
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: newspaper application of like, oh the Irish, they probably put

569
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: razor blades and potatoes, But I'm like, yeah, but it's

570
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: cool though. If you're throwing the Nazis.

571
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 2: Got to be at least one person that did it,

572
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: so you know, I say it exactly, yeah, or someone

573
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 2: saw that newspaper and then did it. Yeah they oh

574
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: good idea, Yeah, exactly totally.

575
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: The journalists was just dreaming up their fantasy they were like,

576
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: and then they drowned them all in the Yeah. And

577
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: it's also a pattern we're seen in the US about

578
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: fascist violence on the street level leading to capture of

579
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: the state and fascist violence exerted by states just a

580
00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit, which is actually part of

581
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: why I think things might change. But there's been less

582
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: street fighting and like proud boy activity since the second

583
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: Trump presidency. And I would argue it's not because those

584
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,239
Speaker 1: groups are weaker, but literally because they're stronger. And now

585
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: we have ICE doing the violence. I mean, ICE has

586
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: always been doing the violence, but now it's just like

587
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: now you have like ICE volunteers grinning while they smash

588
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: open cars with sledgehammers. I actually met some Russian anarchists

589
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: during this period at one point at a gathering in Finland.

590
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: They had crossed a very difficult border to come tell

591
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: us about their experiences fighting fascists in the streets and

592
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: about the number of their friends who had died or

593
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: being tortured in prison, and it really put I was

594
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: there to talk about like fiction, and I was just like, oh, hey,

595
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: I'm super serious to it from It really put my

596
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: problems in perspective.

597
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 2: You know, were you the closer? Did you have to

598
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 2: go last?

599
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: No? No, they knew I was not. The draw was

600
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: because that this was like fifteen Yeah.

601
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 2: Talking about friends go to prison, all the brutality they've

602
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 2: been through, and then you gotta be hey, uh so

603
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 2: this novel that's not nonfiction. Put some different shoes on.

604
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're gonna switch it up.

605
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I'm very grateful that I did not have.

606
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 2: Sometimes stuff like that happens to be because I'll be

607
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 2: invited to do an event and stuff like that, and

608
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 2: everybody is, of course very well meaning, but you know,

609
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: it's not always the easiest move in the world. What

610
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 2: you know, you're there to kind of give a little

611
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: bit of humorous relief and have the clown shoes on,

612
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 2: and the person before you is talking about some healthcare

613
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 2: tragedy or something like that. It's like, yeah, geez, guys,

614
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 2: we gotta can we do a little bit of a

615
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 2: palate cleanser or something here. It's like this isn't.

616
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just come out and blow an airhorn and

617
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: then just like, oh, I didn't even thought about how

618
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: hard are we going to do comedy? Yeah, like fundraisers

619
00:32:59,400 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: and stuff.

620
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it depends on the circumstance, but yeah,

621
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: sometimes you kind of get a reset a room, like

622
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 2: a normal person's scheduling that thing. They're not going to

623
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 2: think of stuff like that, but you know.

624
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, well what they could think of instead maybe as

625
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: a palate cleanser. Perfect, they could just listen to a

626
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: bunch of advertisements and be reminded of the fact that

627
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: they live in a capitalist system and just be so

628
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: grateful that you live in a capitalist system and you

629
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: can choose minor differences between things that you can't afford

630
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: because of the terrible wages. Here's ads and we're back.

631
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: So Dmitri probably Ecologue at this point was involved in

632
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: these street fights against Baptists. Working to defend Georgian refugees

633
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: was like one of the big Basically, all of the

634
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,479
Speaker 1: different ethnic groups, including ethnic groups that are like present

635
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: within Russia, don't even have to cross a border to

636
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: do it. We're all being horribly mistreated by the white supremacists.

637
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,959
Speaker 1: At least two of his friends were murdered during this period.

638
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: The late oughts was a hard time to be an

639
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: anarchist in Russia. Fascists working alongside the state started killing activists,

640
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: including journalists and lawyers. But people fought back, not just anarchists,

641
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: just people fought back against the rise of Putin. There

642
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: were public demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people out

643
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: against Putinism, and this is like kind of around the

644
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: time Putin's really coming into his own. Anti fascists worked

645
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,919
Speaker 1: to protect the crowd from police violence. There were clandestine

646
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: actions happening pretty much every night. And this is across

647
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: Russia and also Belarus, which is in a very parallel position.

648
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 1: They have another Lukashenko is this guy who just has

649
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: been in power ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, or

650
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety four, I think he's been in power.

651
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: We don't know all of the actions that Dimitri did,

652
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: because it's not a good idea to tell people if

653
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: you've molotov cop cars of a fascist government. But we

654
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: know some of his actions. For example, in two thousand

655
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: and nine, Dimitri model to have a bunch of cop

656
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: cars of the fascist government. One flash point during this

657
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: time was an ecological protest, and this is one of

658
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: the things that helped humanize this. Like you know when

659
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: you look at Russia's this, oh they're fascist state, and

660
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: therefore you sort of imagine the progressives and the radicals

661
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: and the anarchists as being like completely different people made

662
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: from an stern stuff. They're all men of iron, like

663
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 1: stalin it means man of iron. But they got together

664
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: to defend a forest from being cut down to make

665
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: a toll road. And that was like one of their

666
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: big protests, defending a forest near Moscow called Kimky Forest.

667
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: There was like foxes in elk and bor and shit

668
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: that lived there, and people were like, no, we're going

669
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: to fight the hell out of you over this. When

670
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 1: the cutting started in twenty ten, activists of all stripes

671
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: started occupying the forest. And this was all deeply tied

672
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,439
Speaker 1: to anti fascism and anti Putinism and anarchism and big

673
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: happy movement. I'm exaggerating, but in a eulogy for him,

674
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: one friend of Dimitri's recounted the following story quote, once

675
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: we wandered through the autumn forest at night, disabling construction

676
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: equipment and one girl lost her sneaker. She just stepped

677
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: on the ground and it swallowed her leg. I think,

678
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: like in muddle. She pulled her leg out, but the

679
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: shoe remained somewhere underground. Well. Dima took off his shoes,

680
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: gave her his sneakers, put bags on his feet, and

681
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,240
Speaker 1: went on like that. People asked him, are you not cold?

682
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: Do you want to change? Eventually? He said, if it

683
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 1: becomes unbearable, then we will change. But he ended up

684
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: walking around in bags all night. That's who he was.

685
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 2: Wow.

686
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: And it it's funny because it would be just a

687
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: cute story if he was on a hike. But he's

688
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: like committing felonies in the middle of the night, destroying

689
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: a construction equipment and he's.

690
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: Like, oh, yeah, we're back. Just got that's all I got.

691
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 2: This is why I get multiple badass names. I'll give

692
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 2: my shoes stranger in need.

693
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. This protest culminated when people stormed the local

694
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: government offices or tried to. Five hundred anti fascists and

695
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,279
Speaker 1: anarchists were arrested, and Russian cops have no qualms about

696
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 1: torturing people by like tying electrodes.

697
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 2: To the shiteesh.

698
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 1: So the fact that a KGB guy is running the

699
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: government is very evident. In Russia, a lot of anti

700
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 1: fascists started fleeing the country. At this point. It feels

701
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: the image of the future where you have this like

702
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: just slowly tightening vice on society and radical politics but

703
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: also just daily life.

704
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, I mean during that time, I mean

705
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 2: that was when he was banning random punk bands from

706
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: entering the country and stuff like that because that they,

707
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: like mentioned, you believe in their songs and stuff. I mean,

708
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 2: it was it was a wild time.

709
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: I remember one of my Greek friends was talking about

710
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: taking a train into Russia because he really wanted to go.

711
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: I have always be met too Russia've always wanted to

712
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: take the Trans Siberian yea, yeah, but like it's going

713
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: to be a different world before I'm going to Russia.

714
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: This friend of mine, he has to go into Russia.

715
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: And in order to travel in Russia at that time

716
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: and now it's probably even harder, he needed a specific

717
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: visa with like his entire itinerary down to the minute

718
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: on it, right, and if you deviate from that you

719
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: can go to jail. And so he shows up and

720
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: he's allowed the next day, and this train shows up

721
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: at like eleven fifty five pm. It's like five minutes

722
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: early to the border, and so this man is yelling

723
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: at him in Russian and he's like, I don't really

724
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: speak any Russian, and you know, the woman sitting next

725
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: to him is trying to interpret I don't know whether

726
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: from Greek or English or what. And the guard is

727
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 1: just like this, says, you can't be here till tomorrow.

728
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: What are you doing here? And he's like, it's it's

729
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,959
Speaker 1: five minutes from now, my guy, you know, midnight hits

730
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: and he's still arguing with this man and he's like,

731
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: it's midnight, can I come in now? And the guy

732
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: is like fuck it, gives them back his papers and

733
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: then he says thank you in Russian and the guys,

734
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: you spoke Russian this whole time, you blind bastard.

735
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 2: You know, I thought you were gonna say. The guy

736
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 2: just said you're welcome, just like, well it's midnight, and whin.

737
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, that would be like a that's like

738
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: a German cop, not a Nazi German cop, but a

739
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: modern German cop is just a stickler for the rules,

740
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: you know, but like otherwise polite. This is why I

741
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: never went to Russia.

742
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,479
Speaker 2: You don't want to risk that early train. You really don't.

743
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: No, no, just no early trains to Russia. And so

744
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 1: the street protests started getting put down successfully and anti

745
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: fascist started fleeing the country, and basically, with you know,

746
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: opposition being crushed, he started centralizing control even more. Dmitri

747
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 1: didn't leave yet though. In twenty eleven, he and some

748
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: friends blew up a cop station along a toll road

749
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, and someone probably Dimitri,

750
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: wrote a story about how what happened. They set the

751
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: bomb off using a pool of gasoline, but the first

752
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: match didn't light it, so someone probably Dimitri had to

753
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: run back and throw another match. And it's interesting because

754
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: in all of his personal writings later he talks about

755
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,240
Speaker 1: how he's like kind of a scaredy cat, and I'm.

756
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 2: Like, doesn't sound like it, my dude, he brought the

757
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 2: second match with no shoes. That part's not even in

758
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 2: the Yeah, he's not even the thing.

759
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's like, shoesn't getting caught. He doesn't need

760
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: to put bags on your feet, can't track the footprints

761
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: that way. As Putin's power grew stronger and stronger. The

762
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: people of Ukraine were starting to get sick of their

763
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: government being basically Putin's toadies, and so they threw themselves

764
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: a little revolution. It started off as a social movement,

765
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: but it became a revolution and it was a wildly

766
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: mixed politics revolution. This is called the Maiden Protests or

767
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: euro Maiden, which is also a.

768
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 2: Bit Oh yeah.

769
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 1: I actually had this rule where normally, if some one

770
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:01,839
Speaker 1: says something would be a good band name, they're wrong.

771
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: That's like one of my like axioms. But maybe it's

772
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: just because Iron Maiden is such a Yeah, no.

773
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 2: You're a maid. Well were you on board with what

774
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 2: was it like Tanky distortion or something like that.

775
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 1: Oh, Tanky distortion field. Yeah, if it sounded like social distortion.

776
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: The problem is that going into it, I wouldn't know

777
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: whether it's like pro or anti Tanky. But if they

778
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: did it right, no one else would know either, right,

779
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: because you would like sing about things that almost make sense,

780
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: but then like at the last minute turn into the Netherlands.

781
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 1: You know that would be kind of clever.

782
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it could be really beta depending on

783
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: how they went about it.

784
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the best idea is that half of

785
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 1: the band be Marcus Lemonists and half of the band

786
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: be either social democrats or anarchists, and so they don't

787
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: even have internal consistency.

788
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 2: And you know what, the time really goes by in

789
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 2: the van because of their conversations just keep going. It's

790
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:58,439
Speaker 2: not always cordial, but yeah, and then they just drive

791
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: into Russia so they can turn them ten minutes midnight.

792
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 2: Like I thought our song ten minutes before midnight was different.

793
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: I thought it was about the army. They always show

794
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 2: up five minutes before soundcheck always.

795
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. So the euromaide in protests was the Ukrainian

796
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:24,919
Speaker 1: government was like, we want to sign a packed tying

797
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 1: us closer to the EU, but the president was like, no,

798
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: fuck you, I like putin instead, so we refuse to

799
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: sign it. So protests picked up. And this was an

800
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: ideologically diverse movement, which is to say they were fascists

801
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: and anti fascists both involved. Basically there was people who

802
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: liked democracy, people who liked anti authoritarianism, and Ukrainian nationalists

803
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: who are like, no, we want our own far right thing,

804
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: just independent from Russia, which is kind of a classic

805
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: composition of shit in Ukraine to be real, going back

806
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: in into the moochnists, there was like anti authoritarians, and

807
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 1: there's also Ukrainian nationalists. The protests started off, as best

808
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: as I can tell, the protests started off more democratic

809
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: in character and became more nationalists as time went on.

810
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: The anarchists publisher Crime Think contrasts the Ukrainian movement to

811
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: the Yellowves movement in France from twenty eighteen twenty nineteen,

812
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: and they argue that quote the Yellow Vest movement of

813
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen in France offers an example

814
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: of a social movement in which nationalists initially had an advantage,

815
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 1: but anarchists and anti fascists managed to outflank them. And

816
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: so it's like when people are mad at the status quo,

817
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: everyone gets together to be like, well, all I hate

818
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: the status quo, and then you like look around and

819
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: you're like wait, but some of you all are bad.

820
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's kind of like, well, wait a second, why

821
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,320
Speaker 2: do you hate the status quo. Let's work out some

822
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: of the details.

823
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.

824
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

825
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if they're Nazis exactly.

826
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Some types we're talking about duots, flexities and stuff

827
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 2: like that. But there are other types where it is

828
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 2: quite simple and quite simple. For instance, Yazi enemy one

829
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 2: hundred percent of the time. Done.

830
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 1: But you get into this messy, messy thing, right where

831
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: both sides of the Ukrainian Russian conflict have ideologically committed

832
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: fascists in their racks. Yep, right, But I would argue

833
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: that when you look at the Ukrainian side, there's both

834
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: ideologically committed fascists and ideologically committed anti fascists in separate units.

835
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: And on the Russian side, the only ideologically committed anti

836
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: fascist was an American who dressed like Jesus who got

837
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: dropped into the war zone. You know, I tend to

838
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: agree with you, right, Like you're like, oh, don't do

839
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: anything with fucking Nazis, But you're like, it wouldn't make

840
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: sense to Oh, it's fucking no, no shit, it's so messy. Yeah,

841
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 1: but yeah, in general, and then like overall, I think

842
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: that the euromade and protests were good, right, but it's

843
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 1: like the nationalist character was a problem, and so there

844
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: were people working within them to try and outflank the

845
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: fascists among the people in Ukraine trying to outflank the

846
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,720
Speaker 1: fascists was Dmitri, the Russian guy. He went to Kiev

847
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: to throw down in the Ukrainian protests and helped form

848
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: an anarchist regiment, delivering food to protesters and offering a

849
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: connection to the anti Putin protests in Moscow, which must

850
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: have been cool, right, You're like, oh, here come Russians

851
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: talking about this huge movement in Russia that supports us,

852
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: that also hates Putin, right, and it helps remind them

853
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: that this isn't about like, oh I hate Russians, which

854
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: is like, there's like no better way to undermine nationalism

855
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: than to be like, your enemy isn't Russian people, Your

856
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:39,760
Speaker 1: enemy is Vladimir Putin.

857
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 2: And that's the stuff they will not. I mean, there

858
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 2: were all those protests going on in Moscow and elsewhere,

859
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 2: people protesting what Putin was doing, and it's like they're

860
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 2: never going to show you that on the news. They

861
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 2: don't want you to see that.

862
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: No. Dmitri wrote about his experiences, talking about as the

863
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: protest became more militarized, I can't help but appreciate that

864
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: every everything is organized so seriously. However, the situation also

865
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: has a drawback, perhaps more significant than its advantages. The

866
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: presence of professional or quasi professional military men inevitably means

867
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: the collapse of any kind of democracy in the movement,

868
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: since by decision of their commanders, these people can impose

869
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: this or that order on everyone else in an organized

870
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 1: way by force, and then that protest movement. The Euromaidan

871
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: movement climax at the end of February in twenty fourteen,

872
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 1: when over one hundred protesters were killed about fourteen cops

873
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: were killed. I think Dimitri wrote the following about the

874
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: fighting on February eighteenth, quote, it is important to use

875
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: your fear so that it helps you avoid getting into

876
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: certain troubles, but does not flow into panic and flight. Personally,

877
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: I had an incessant fear that a bullet or a

878
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: grenade would hit me. I have known for a long

879
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: time that I am far from being a daredevil, and

880
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 1: I say that without any hint of coquetry. Now, for

881
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: the first time, I became interested in the essence of

882
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: such a feeling as courage. Next to fear, there was

883
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:12,919
Speaker 1: a feeling similar to emptiness, a silent obligation to stay

884
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: and act. It is almost never formulated verbally, It just

885
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: is maybe courage is just about that. Furthermore, it is

886
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: important to begin to act meaningfully and not just stance

887
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: or stupidly rush back and forth. And I just this

888
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: idea that courage is the emptiness that sits next to

889
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: fear and tells you that you can't leave, you have

890
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: to get things done.

891
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,399
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I also, I mean I actually connected more

892
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,919
Speaker 2: and that stands out with the assessment of fear. Yeah,

893
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 2: you know, like I've never really unpacked the idea of

894
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 2: using fear constructively, so that's pretty cool to me. I

895
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 2: really like it.

896
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 1: It very much humanizes this person who can look like

897
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: a you know, a paragon of something, you know, like

898
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 1: just a like ah, it's just the person who always

899
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:09,919
Speaker 1: did what was right, never afraid of anything, and fought

900
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: and fought and fought and then eventually died saving lives.

901
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: What a hero, you know. And like, I mean, I

902
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: think this person's essentially a hero. I intentionally call the

903
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,399
Speaker 1: show cool people did cool stuff, not heroes, because there's

904
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: problems with calling people heroes. But like, sure, the Putin

905
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: loving president was kicked the fuck out, which led to

906
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: Russia enacting crimea when you know, caused the current ker fluffle.

907
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: Putin's power seemed cemented in Russia at this point, and

908
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: with the movement kind of falling apart, Dmitri started traveling

909
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: around and just visiting beautiful places. He kept a blog

910
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,279
Speaker 1: about going to see nature, and along the way he

911
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: got his PhD in history, heed did a lot of anthropology.

912
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: Where'd he do his PhD at university in Moscow somewhere?

913
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, Okay, And he still hasn't fled the country.

914
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 1: He went to Ukraine, but that's it, oh, okay, Yeah.

915
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: So ever since twenty fourteen, Dmitri had been working to

916
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: support the people in Roshava, the northeastern Syria region that

917
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: we usually call Roshava, that is experimenting with bottom up

918
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: democracy in a system that they call democratic and federalism,

919
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: which I actually think I've never done an episode straight

920
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: up about. But you can listen to another school Zone

921
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: media podcast called The Women's War by Robert Evans that

922
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,240
Speaker 1: talks all about this. Like a lot of anarchists and leftists,

923
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: Dimitri was intrigued, so he went during the fiercest part

924
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 1: of the war against ISIS and stayed there for six months.

925
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: Then he came home, only to be forced to flee,

926
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: But what happened when he fled? I mean, we know

927
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: he gets killed with a mortar blast eventually, but what

928
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: else happened? We'll talk about it on Wednesday. That's my cliffhanger.

929
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 1: It's not the best cliffhanger because again, we all know

930
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 1: what happens, but there's more people to talk about. We

931
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: haven't talked about the Cleveland, we haven't talked about the

932
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: Irish singer. There's so much more. But you got any

933
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: like thoughts with where we're at or anything like that.

934
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so far this is pretty wild. I'm

935
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,919
Speaker 2: interested in the next two that are going to jump

936
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 2: in here as well. Yeah, curious to kind of see

937
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 2: where this goes because I feel like, yeah, we know

938
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 2: the eddig, but I feel like there's going to be

939
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 2: a lot of gaps to fill in.

940
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Well, what if people have a whole bunch

941
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: of time between now and Wednesday? Do you have any

942
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: recommendations of the movies they could watch or podcast to

943
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 1: listen to?

944
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 2: Thanks, Margaret. Yeah, you know, I have a movie out now.

945
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 2: It is called Left It Wall. It is a quirky

946
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 2: indie comedy that kind of satirizes the GameStop incident that happened.

947
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 2: Our story is completely fictional, but it sort of nods

948
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 2: to that event. You can get that now on Apple TV.

949
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 2: It is on YouTube Movies, It is on Google Play,

950
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:51,800
Speaker 2: it is on Amazon. It is out there. You know.

951
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:53,839
Speaker 2: If you type it into your Smart TV left it wall,

952
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: it will come up. Or you can go to my

953
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: website romplicone dot com and all the left it wall

954
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 2: info is there. So please check out my movie. It's

955
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 2: out now. Yeah, it's a fun time. You could totally

956
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 2: watch it between now and Wednesday. You got plenty of time,

957
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 2: so give it a watch. And you can find it

958
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 2: all on my tour dates and stuff like that at

959
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 2: romplicone dot com as well.

960
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: And you do have to start now though, because it

961
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: is a twenty seven hour movie, I believe it's.

962
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 2: A short one. Actually it's only sixty two minutes. It's

963
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 2: a short movie. I feel like we're in an era

964
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 2: where short movies are are kind of needed. Sometimes it's

965
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,320
Speaker 2: like they really try to make it a marathon, and

966
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 2: there's a time and place for that if you're following

967
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: a series or something. But I kind of like a

968
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 2: short movie, which also my budget permitted for it. The

969
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 2: budget also permitted for a short movie.

970
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:44,239
Speaker 1: I like the like two and a half hour three

971
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,320
Speaker 1: hour movies if I get into it, but usually totally

972
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: when it's well done.

973
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of times when I watch movies these days,

974
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 2: one of my takeaways is this could have been twenty

975
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 2: minutes shorter, yeah, or like thirty minutes shorter.

976
00:51:57,920 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: I think, especially they can almost always cut from the clock.

977
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 1: If it's an action movie, the climax just goes on

978
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: for roughly too long.

979
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, totally totally, Like I got it, the stakes

980
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 2: are already as eyes are getting.

981
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:15,479
Speaker 1: Is that this does nothing for me narratively. I don't

982
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 1: really care about cargo Fast. I mean, I care about

983
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 1: cargo Fast as related.

984
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 2: But but but what if it's faster and furious, sir?

985
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: I do like those movies. I gotta admit, that's my

986
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: most basic bitch thing.

987
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 2: You know, I've never seen one.

988
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: They're really wholesome masculinity. That's what's wild about that. They're like,

989
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: I mean not entirely, and I'm not it's been a

990
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: while since I watched them, but like overall, they're this

991
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: attempt at this like criminal masculinity that's like just like

992
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,759
Speaker 1: loves your family and shit. You know, like it's like

993
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:50,919
Speaker 1: an anti Andrew Tap.

994
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like I have to watch one

995
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 2: at some point just because it's just been in the

996
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:57,399
Speaker 2: zeitgeist for so long.

997
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 1: They do break people out of prison too, that's pretty cool.

998
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, interesting now. I do have a bit

999
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:07,320
Speaker 2: of a like a weird attachment there because a lifetime

1000
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 2: ago I taught community college and one time I was

1001
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 2: just doing the lesson or whatever and I made a

1002
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:17,359
Speaker 2: reference to nineteen eighty four and uh and I go, yeah,

1003
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:20,879
Speaker 2: you know, like a nineteen eighty four, and nobody had

1004
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 2: any reaction.

1005
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 1: They were like, I don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

1006
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 2: And I go, I mean some of y'all have read

1007
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, right, and still just blank stairs And

1008
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: I go, nobody in this room has ever read nineteen

1009
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 2: eighty four. And they're all still just looking at me

1010
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 2: with blank stares. This one student raises his hand and

1011
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 2: I go, Okay, someone read nineteen eighty four. So so

1012
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:47,480
Speaker 2: I called on him and he goes, well, mister placone,

1013
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:49,800
Speaker 2: you've never seen any of the Fast and Furious movies.

1014
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 2: That yeah, And I died a little bit inside that.

1015
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: So that's the free and post could war right there.

1016
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: That's the dividing line is nineteen eighty four versus fast

1017
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:04,800
Speaker 1: and furious.

1018
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 2: That's it.

1019
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 1: Apparently all right, well, we will talk to you all

1020
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Hi everyone. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff

1021
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts

1022
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: on cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia dot com,

1023
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1024
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.