WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 96 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.359 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.440 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.280 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.800 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.520 there's got to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:31.440 you can make your own decisions. Welcome back to it 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.040 could happen here. A podcast that is being recorded far 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.680 too early in the morning with me to help me 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:45.200 stay conscious. Is my friend and coffee entrepreneur prop aka 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:46.520 Jason Petty Prop. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.159 How are you doing, buddy man, I'm wonderful on this 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:49.760 fine day. 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.199 I almost did an AKA song forgetting which shows? 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.200 I was like, oh wait, that's a zeigeis bit happens 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:57.080 to me all the time? 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:57.560 Yeah? 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.600 So which bit for which Show'm I suppose do? Right now? 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.080 Here's here's here's what we were talking about before the show, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.360 which is that we're both exhausted despite sleeping normally. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.160 This week. I feel like this. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.440 May be something to do with these aliens. Everybody's talking 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.040 about something's going on here. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.479 It's yeah, aliens or just this like kind of week 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.160 long sort of holiday festival. I've been a part of that. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.160 Apparently all of Black America has been participating in. 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:25.520 Mm hmmm. 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.399 We're all experiencing a level of bliss I don't think 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:30.800 we've had in a long time. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.080 That is, that is our subject of today, which is uh. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.800 I think the term generally being used for it is 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.880 the Montgomery riverboat brawl. That seems to be what we've 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:41.560 all settled on. 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.200 Yeah, they say the fade in the water. 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:53.000 I mean there's new, there's new spirituals and hymns. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.120 The Ballad of Black Aquaman. Yes, I love that kid. 0:01:58.120 --> 0:01:59.600 But we should before we get into all this, we 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:01.840 should have know what actually happened, because I'm gonna guess 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.280 there's at least a chunk of people listening who are like, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.360 what the fuck are you guys talking about. The short 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.880 of it is a couple of days ago, video dropped 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.919 two different clips I think are mainly what's what people 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.560 are watching of a fight at a riverboat dock in Montgomery, Alabama. 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.080 And basically what happens is you had this this river 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.960 boat and it's you know, Montgomery, Alabama's got a lot 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:28.919 of tourism. It's one of these big boats that holds 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.120 about two hundred and seventy people. I think, takes them 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:32.560 up and down the river. You know, you go up 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.799 and down the river, you look at the pretty things. 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:37.800 I assume there's there's beer or something. 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:38.040 You know. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.160 It's all sorts of cities do this. So this boat 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.280 is heading back into dock and they've got all these 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.399 people who want to get off the boat because they've 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.680 been on for a while and. 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.359 They have people to get back in a lot of 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:51.000 people to get the next one. 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know they have a set 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.920 spot that is their spot, and no one else is 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.920 to park their boat at the dock, as is usual 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.400 for a large business like this, and some dudes with 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.840 a pontoon boat have taken it up. 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:06.600 They've parked there. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.680 So the captain gets on the pa for quite a 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.280 while and is like, hey, guys, move your pontoon. Hey guys, 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.560 you got to get that pontoon out of here. Hey, y'all, 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.320 if you don't get that pontoon out of here, I'm 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.280 going to call the cops. And if you have open containers, 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.400 the cops are going to fuck you. You don't want that, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.960 So why don't you just move? And these guys get 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.760 like shitty at him and start like yelling at him 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.560 and cursing at him, flipping him the bird. So he 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.960 sends over his co captain, and the captain of the 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.720 boat from the videos if scene appears to be a 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.240 white dude. The co captain is a middle aged black man. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:43.920 He gets off the boat and he goes over to 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.480 just like move the pontoon boat right, which is a 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.680 thing that boat people do when situations like this occur. 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.120 It is not like an unheard of situation. And while 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.600 he's doing it, a whole bunch of the presumably the 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.920 dudes who own this pontoon boat boat who were all white, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.880 surround him and start attacking him. And then at one 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.640 point that looks like five or six people trying it, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.000 and he's, for the for the record, he's holding his own. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.960 He's doing as long as you can. Yeah, And then 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.279 a number of nearby people start running to his aid, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:21.880 including at least one of the kids on the river boat. 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.640 Uh hops out or like hops into the water and 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:27.320 like swims. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:30.880 Yeah you are talking about the rest of this, Yeah. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:31.680 Yeah. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.080 There's a Hood Politics episode recorded where I try to 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.359 do like initial reactions and try to add some some 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.040 like color to this, which will come out a little later. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.640 This will come out before that. But there's Yeah, so 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.960 you're watching the video, you can't it's all inaudible, so 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.440 you can't really hear except for the people recording. You 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:54.440 hear them talking to them talking, right, but judging from 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.120 there's so many context clues to understand what's happening. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.320 Right, So as the co. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.320 Captain, the black dude's getting off the boat to come 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.600 talk to these white boys right the way that you 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.159 could just you know, when someone's like and unfortunately for 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.400 white people, y'all can't when you're drunk. Just your skin 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.960 shows it, you know, I'm saying, like, so you can 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:19.080 just see, Okay, this dude's like, your skin's very flush 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.919 with color right now. So you're you're clearly drunk, you 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.920 know what I'm saying. And it's hot as hell because 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:30.560 it's Montgomery, Alabama, right, It's also Montgomery, Alabama. So you 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:35.080 just from seeing the interaction and the body language of 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.000 both people in this conversation, you're like, Okay, this conversation 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:43.040 is getting intense. And then and then once once the 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.480 uh the the white gentleman decides he's gonna put hands 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:47.440 on his black dude. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.599 The black dude throws his hat up into the air. 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.800 He shure does, he shares does as a Now, Robert, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.240 is that not a universal bet? 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:57.039 It is signal? 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.120 I would go so far as to say, it's like 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.440 that's damn near like a mortal combat opener. Right, Yeah, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.520 it is universal. 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:08.320 Hands. 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.360 Yes, it's like, all right, we got. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.520 To throw hands, right, So it's so good. So at 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:20.160 that point, that's when like clearly, like clearly, either these 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:25.440 white boys are very inebriated or have grossly underestimated the 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.680 feeling of collective identity black people have, because when they 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.039 decided to jump this man, you're in front of hundreds 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.640 of black people, oh yeah, who are all waiting in 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.520 line to get on this boat, right, who are already 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.080 pissed at you because you not moving right. So, so 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.560 when he does that, as you can see, there are 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.360 people running, you know, black men running as fast as 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.120 they can to kind of help you know this, uh, 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.159 this this co captain who by this point is being 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.000 stomped because he's overpowered by five people. And then you 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:02.560 see this young man swimming yeah to the shore, which 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.240 is like, he's a Yeah, I mean, that guy's a 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:04.960 national treasure. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:06.880 Now, so I don't know that guy, but I can 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.240 tell that we can tell a couple of things about him. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.040 One of them is that he reacts quickly in a crisis. 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.760 Yes, yeah, yeah. And the other is that pretty good swimmer. 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.600 Yeah, he must be a teenager, because how you're gonna 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.240 have the energy to swim there and then still start 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:25.400 doing work. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.920 Well and then pull yourself up onto a dock when yeah, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.080 clothing's all soaked. Very impressive feet. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:30.440 Yeah. 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.680 So anyway, so so as that happens, people finally catch up, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.560 the boat finally gets a chance to dock. Now these 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.720 other people who were on the boat and watched all 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.480 this happen are like, now it's our turn. So they 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:49.520 get off the boat, go to the pontoon. Shirts off again, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.560 another universal signal. If I've taken my T shirt off, 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.880 we're we're here, We're gonna throw down. So they start 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.520 throwing down. I mean it's women getting involved. And then 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.960 now now, now, now it becomes this this entire brawl right. So, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.000 and if you've ever been in situations where brawls break out, 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.920 they kind of move and shift as different people decide 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:13.840 they want a part of it, and other people get tired, 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.440 and somebody's finally, you know, his nosebleeding whatever. And while 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.520 this is happening, there's a few clips where you can 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.320 see whether they're security officers or police, they're. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.040 Kind of just watching, kind of like I don't know 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:28.920 if we needn't do anything about this just yet. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:35.640 Now, finally the brawl gets around the corner and a 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:42.360 brave old man, old head who sees his opportunity wile. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.000 Who is who has brought? Who has brought? But he's 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.000 got the soul of a sniper. This man is like 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.280 watching and waiting to act. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:57.720 Yes, yes, So at this point, uh, there are some 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.360 security officers involved who have finally been like, all right, man, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.160 maybe we just maybe we should stop this. And it's 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.720 almost like again you can't hear it, but judging by 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.920 their body language, the cops were kind of like, I 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:11.880 don't know, man, and white boys kind of ask for it, 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.040 like and you don't say so, I just kind of 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.600 watch it like, hey man, you ask for it, man, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.640 And this is what happened. You should have moved your boat, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:23.920 shouldn't have been talking shit like like like Kat Williams says, 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:25.800 shouldn't have been talking shit, you know. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.040 So so anyway they. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:34.920 Do this, and this this hero of a man grabs 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.400 a white folding chair and just wax a dude over 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.600 the head with it who was attempting to attack some 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.480 other people. Now clearly again if you've been in a brawl, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.280 maybe adding color that's not on the video, but like 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.559 if you've been in a brawl, you understand at some 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.640 point you're kind of blackout and you just you just 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.680 get punched drunk. So while he's hitting a guy with 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.040 a folding chair, the there's this other white lady who's 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.760 attempting to intervene with an interaction that one of the 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.360 security or cop guys is having with turns out which 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.439 with probably one of her compadres. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.160 And this is, by the way, a mixed gender brawl. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.320 There's there's like, yeah, this is not not just dudes 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:23.280 uh throwing hands, Yeah, yeah. 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.640 It's it's it's it's girls on girls, it's girls on dudes, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:26.600 it's dudes on girls. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:27.840 It's a brawl, you know. 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.240 So the officer, like officers do when you try to 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.480 intervene with them having interactions with with somebody. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:36.520 Pushes the lady away. 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.000 Now, now the lady's in riverbroke crocs, right, so her 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.040 feet just fall right through the crocs, right. She gets 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.800 pushed down and just happens to be in the eyesight 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:54.000 of this of this sixty old man with a folded chair. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:59.120 And while she's down, he just turns and just whacks 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.439 her over the head with this chair. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.920 He does, he shares it gives you the w W 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.319 E special I mean, just New World Order suck. 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.120 It just smacks her with a folding chair and at 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:17.040 that point, you it's almost like and again it's all audible, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.199 but you just see the officers go like. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:21.800 Ship man, yep, Now we gotta do something. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.480 Now, we gotta like the fuck man. Now we gotta 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:25.240 arrest you dude. 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.600 Right, So the cops finally go like what the fuck man, 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.120 They take the chair from the guy, and the dude 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.920 his body language is so like like he doesn't even 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.120 know what's happening, like I'm just swinging, you know. So 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.320 when the officer finally takes the chair and they like 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:41.679 they're like, dude, you. 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.080 Hit the lady, You hit the lady, hit the lady. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.160 We got yeah, we gotta do something. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.680 We got to arrest you now, right, and which, of 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.080 course the internet watching it, and even the person holding 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.080 even the person shooting the video, we all like, oh, yeah, nah. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:00.360 But he's definitely going to jail. 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.720 That guy going to jail. Everybody else yeah might be fine. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.480 He go to yeah and uh. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.480 And that's pretty much where where the video stops. 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.199 Yeah, so it has. 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.280 It has obviously gone everywhere since then, there's a lot 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.000 of writing about like, yeah, why this has like taken 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:22.439 off so much and been seen as so inspirational to people. 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.720 I think it's because it seems we've all seen like 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.120 too many videos that are just kind of the first 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.160 part of this where like, yeah, there's like a bunch 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.960 of racist white pean and by the way, there's at 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.640 least you can't hear it on the video, but people 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.240 have said that, like these folks when that co captain 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.360 came down, were like shouting the inward adam and stuff. Yeah, 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.360 so we've all seen the variants of this that are 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.360 just like, yeah, some some black men or black woman 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.360 getting abused by a bunch of racists, and this one 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:59.760 starts looking like that and then turns into like like 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.000 a beautiful come uppets, like these people picked a fight 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.720 against a man they thought was like alone and kind 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.880 of heavy set and older, and that they could like 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:14.600 wail on and just wound up getting absolutely housed. Based 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.320 on at least what I'm looking at here, looks like 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.240 three of the white folks involved in this have been 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.439 charged with crimes. The police are talking to the chair guy. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.320 It's unclear yet like what exactly charges he's gonna catch. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.640 He was on a he was on a radio show, 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.680 a morning show in Alabama, ware with just sort of 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.520 an internet personality that like in the black community, we're 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:41.319 all very familiar with. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.920 And so they asked her. 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.760 They asked him, like, the lady asked him like okay, okay, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.800 you had to chair, And the lady was already down, 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:56.640 like what what what happened? He said, It feels like 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.520 it's like we wrote this script where he goes man. 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:02.160 I blacked out. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.520 Yeah, he said, I just thought about rows of parks 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.839 and that lady that wouldn't give the seat to her. 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:11.720 I was like, I'll give her a chair. 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:18.080 But you know, fights are ugly things but also in 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.560 some ways beautiful things. It's a there's a lot going 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.520 on in this video. I'm not surprised that it's it's 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:28.600 been taken by so many people. There's some lessons I 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.120 think bystanders can take from this. From one thing, if 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.720 like fifty people are having a giant brawl, might want 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:36.360 to get out of there. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.800 Just leave, Yeah, just bounce. You should know to leave. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.400 Yeah, yeah, not a good thing to get in the 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.920 middle of. Second, if you're parked in someone else's boat spot, 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.480 maybe instead of shouting racial slurs, get your fucking boat moved. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:51.240 It's not. 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.360 It was like, Yeah, I think what it's It speaks 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:57.960 to so much because this was such an avoidable situation. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.160 You guess is completely avoidable. Bro, we just slide over 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.680 a little bit. I feel like if you've like if 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.640 you've driven a car on a highway, then you've seen 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:12.400 a semi truck and when the semi truck come, just get. 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.040 Out his way, Like, why is you picking this fight? 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:15.360 Man? 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.880 Just he can't. It's a big old at wheelerd. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:20.720 Just this is courtesy. 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.040 That's a bigger So I'm just saying, like, that's a 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:24.680 bigger boat than you. 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:26.000 You're more nimble, you. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.720 Can move, and clearly it's a line of people waiting 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:29.200 to get off. 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:30.720 I just don't understand. 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.680 Yeah, no, no, That's one of the things I think 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.840 that's involved here that's interesting to me is that there's 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.840 this This is not just I mean, like, obviously the 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.600 fact that these guys were biggots is a factor here, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:50.880 but there's also just this increasingly common freedom that the 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.320 most selfish people in our society feel to be like 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.520 aggressive about the fact that they don't owe anyone else, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.880 like basic like politeness, right, like the the very basic 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.600 Though two hundred and seventy people are being inconvenienced because 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.480 I parked my shit in the wrong space, I should bounce, 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.160 you know, I should probably at least say, oh, sorry, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.480 I fucked up. Instead like, no, we're gonna make this 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.120 a thing because like we get to park wherever the 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:19.040 fuck we want and fuck you like that. That kind 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:25.480 of attitude is like it's so frustrating, Like I can't 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.640 even get myself into the head of someone who would 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.560 do what these guys did and not like feel like 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.960 they were an asshole, Like I had to do the 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:36.800 thing every now and then I think most of us 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.160 do where like I park my car in like a 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.320 a like a red zone or something, because it's like 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.120 I got to be it's like there's no spaces. I'm 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.440 thirty students, right, Yeah, and you get out and someone seeing. 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:48.760 You like in the fucking red and they're. 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.760 Like, yes, you know, like I know, it's sorry. Well 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.160 at one point, man, I'm sorry, Like yeah, dude. 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.040 I'm so sorry. Bro, I'm so sorry. Look I'm gone, 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:57.520 I'm gone. 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:57.960 My bad. 0:16:58.120 --> 0:16:58.760 Yeah, totally. 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.800 And to have the the fucking hutzpa to just like, 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.080 look at a boat of two hundred and seventy people 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.000 be like, fuck all of you, like I want to 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.800 keep my stupid ass bart doing here for some reason. 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.080 Yeah, and then the willingness to be like, what the 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:12.639 fuck you gonna do about it? Well, we'll jump you 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.560 if you get that mad, and just and whether it's 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.720 whether you're adding to either the lack of like situational 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:27.040 awareness or just that that overall hutzpah, like you said 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:27.840 of just like. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:30.480 Whatever, I'll take all of. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:35.520 You, like really you really really like Yeah, I think 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.320 that there's there's a lot to color here too, with 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.800 the fact that first of all, this is take where 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.760 it's taking place. I mean we're still in Montgomery, Alabama here, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.960 and which and on a. 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:50.400 Dock that. 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:56.919 Was obviously and verifiably a dock where slaves were dropped 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.040 off at you know what I'm saying. So you have 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.600 that history, right, you have the history of the Montgomery 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:04.840 bus boycotts. You know what I'm saying, Like, this is 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.280 this is the city where Rosa Parks did the thing. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.640 You know what I'm saying, Like, this is where it happened. 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.000 So there's so much history in the city. And on 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.320 top of that, like I mean, there's high schools in 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.840 Alabama named Robert E. Lee, like Robert E. Lee High School, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.480 Like we're talking about we're talking about a place that 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:24.560 I mean what it was in the news in the 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.359 odts that Like I mean, there was a high school 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.960 that just desegregated, like in the year twenty something, like 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:36.080 they got there, Yeah, yeah, they just desegregated high school. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:36.720 Right. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.760 It made the news in twenty ten because they finally 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.800 had a desegregated prom. But that was just the prom. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.480 And it's just that the prom white school invited to black. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.960 They can't go to school together. They could just do 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.680 a dance with this this is where. This is the 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:59.240 state that this happened in. So you're like you're in 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.000 this like and I hate to like otherise them, but 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.000 I'm an otherise them in the sense that. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.800 This is some like multiverse bizarro world. 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:16.639 Where you were. Desegregation is recent, you know what I'm saying. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.760 So when you have that type of thing, first of all, 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:21.920 you have to have you have to remember, like both 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.840 of those things are sitting in sort of the collective 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.560 consciousness of that community, whether especially for the black people 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:30.200 who are like. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:32.840 This, this is the world we live in. 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.000 But we've also proven that if you push us far enough, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.840 you know what I'm saying, like, we're not gonna stand 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:39.159 for it. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:40.800 You know, We'll pick up a folded chair. 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:42.840 We'll pick up a folding chair, which has. 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.960 Become something of a symbol in the last new open carry. Yeah, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.280 I saw at least one TikTok video that was just 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.120 it was like there's like a couple of people watching 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.399 as this young black guy in a Walmart like was 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.840 holding up and like testing it like the way that you. 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:01.639 Will like a gun at the gun store. 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.800 He's like, yeah, man, the memes have been glorious. 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.040 I've seen folding chair ear rings, I've seen dot. 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.840 But the one is this that I said, uh, I 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.359 said Robert a video of the folding chair getting interviewed. 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.400 Yeah, oh he's. 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:22.320 One of the first of all, that's one of the 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:23.760 funniest accounts you could ever follow. 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:24.879 But he was just like you. 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:26.920 I was just sitting there and then we started doing 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:27.640 charity work. 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:29.000 And which account is that? 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.960 Oh yeah, Ace Vance a ce B A n CE. 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:39.240 He does just the most incredible voiceovers. Yeah, with the 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.240 chair was just like, who's heading out charities? 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:42.840 I was doing charity work. 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:49.360 Yeah, freely given ass whoopings like have a seat, might 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.400 step up, have a seat anyway. 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:53.560 It's so good. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.840 But I I I think that that is important. I 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:00.879 think another thing that I think is just see specifically 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:02.080 for like that it can. 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:02.800 Happen here. 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.080 Audience, which I one thing I love about the show 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.120 is like you you give y'all give so much historical 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.160 context to whatever we're looking at. You know what I'm saying, 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.720 as as almost like proof of concept that not only 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:18.639 can it happen here, it is happening here, you know 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:19.119 what I'm saying. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.920 And I think for this one, there was this interesting. 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:26.879 Moment. 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.800 This is another good follow for you. Guys got named Consciously. 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:35.359 Uh his name is the Consciously. He was like like 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:42.480 world renown like debater, a master debater. I'm just kidding, uh, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.440 but he was a world renowned debater. He was one 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.119 of the first like like him and his partner was 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.520 like the first black like co champions in like professional 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:53.840 debate or college level debate anyway. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:55.879 So he's a brilliant, brilliant thinker. 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.560 He's like you know, YouTube early year styles whatever, right anyway, 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.919 content creator. Anyway, he brought up this this point among 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.760 sort of the the black community that what came out 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:10.960 of this too was this hashtag of like yo were 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.439 we are not our ancestors, you know which, as I 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:24.359 understand the sentiment, it also shows sort of a lack 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:29.800 of historical knowledge of like really how our ancestors handled slavery. 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:31.760 Like yeah, like of the amount of resistance. 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:33.920 The amount of resistance we actually had, you know what 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.000 I'm saying. And and even just like I would even 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.240 courage just like a simple Google search of the amount 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.160 of rebellions, you know, you just whether you're talking about 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.560 the famous ones like the Haitian rebellion, which we did 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:47.320 a bastard's pot about, you know what I'm saying, We're 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:51.320 like these fool these fools threw off their their oppressors. 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:52.000 You have. 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.160 Nah Turner, you know what I'm saying, which I talk 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.960 about more on on on hood politics, but like I 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.720 my seventh grade like historical figure report was on net 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.520 Turner and I was busted like a suburban like middle 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:09.400 school for a little bit. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.359 So I'm walking into the suburban middle. 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.800 School with my NAT Turner paper. 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.840 My poor English teacher she hadn't been thinking. 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:21.720 I don't know what she was thinking. But anyway, Yeah, 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.560 you know what I'm saying. You have like there was one, 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:26.440 there was there were one in New York. There was 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.480 the one during the Thirteen Colonies. Like we have such 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.560 a history of like rebellion and resistance, Like don't think 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.240 not to mention slave ships that were overtaken, you know 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:38.159 what I'm saying by their captors, Like you know what 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:41.280 I'm saying, So like these things have there is a 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:44.640 rich history of us of US rebelling. So like it's 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:46.960 almost a point a point of lesson, a point of 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:48.640 learning for the black community too. 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:55.400 Yeah, yeah, I think that's uh, like a really useful 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.840 teachable moment. While everyone's kind of amped up about this 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.040 thing to talk about it. I've heard it described as 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.000 like left handed power, uh kind of in some books 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:06.840 that would talk about not just you know what we've 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:08.760 been chatting about, which are these kind of big moments 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.600 of insurrection among enslaved people, but like the everyday acts 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:15.400 of resistance by people who were enslaved, like while they 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.640 are you know, on the plantation stuff, different ways of 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:22.240 like pulling autonomy of like you know, teaching their kids 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.479 how to read, or you know, taking you know, getting 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.439 things like money or extra resources you know out of 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:32.640 the out of the people who are attempting to uh yeah, 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:36.440 to own them. Like methods of escape and resistance, you know, 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:41.120 all these methods of like preserving traditional art and religion 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:43.480 while you know, in chains like all that kind of 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:45.959 stuff is also Yeah, I hope it. I hope it 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:48.320 like spurs some of that, you know, the the the 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:53.280 folding chair can be added to a richtory of resistance. 0:24:53.440 --> 0:25:02.119 Yes, yes, and yeah, I'm also curious around like obviously 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.879 you and I on this on that are currently being recorded, 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:11.920 plus a lot of the community that both of us 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:18.720 represent like yeah, we're not pacifists like you at all, 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.680 you know what I'm saying. And I find that discourse 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:25.159 to be interesting too, and especially. 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:29.399 Around you know if you're you're and I'm like, you know, 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:31.760 neither is. 0:25:31.880 --> 0:25:37.919 The broader racist community, Like y're not pacifist either, Like 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:41.160 you ask for the smoke, you got the smoke. 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:44.080 Yeah, Like what is more American than this? 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.120 It's I think a more optimistic chapter, especially like as 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:52.320 we head into twenty twenty four, as we deal with 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:58.119 like kind of these continuing efforts to disenfranchise particularly black 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:03.000 voters across large chunks of South. I'm glad that we've 0:26:03.040 --> 0:26:08.560 got this, Uh what will hopefully continue to be a 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:13.080 powerful image for people to kind of rally behind. This 0:26:13.160 --> 0:26:15.200 is a this is a nice thing to have. It's 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:19.120 a I don't know, and it's interesting, like people things 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:21.359 are said in a video like this that is just 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:25.280 kind of like chaotic brawling, but it speaks to people 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:28.000 in a way that you know, a history textbook, uh 0:26:28.240 --> 0:26:31.560 maybe isn't going to reach them, because there's just something 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:36.520 so kinetic and powerful about like watching watching a large 0:26:36.560 --> 0:26:39.359 group of people realize that an injustice is going down 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:41.639 and then be like, well, I guess we've got to 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:44.000 throw throw hands to stop this shit. 0:26:44.520 --> 0:26:45.280 Yeah. 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:48.879 Yeah, It's a microcosm of like a century and a 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:51.840 half or so of or a couple of centuries of history. 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.280 Whether it's yeah, whether it's a absolutely the couple. 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:56.080 Centuries of history. 0:26:56.200 --> 0:27:02.080 And then you're like at at least ten years of witnessing, 0:27:03.640 --> 0:27:09.440 you know, black bodies being brutalized when no one, when 0:27:09.440 --> 0:27:11.520 no one was there to help, you know what i mean. 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:12.720 Just seeing the video and. 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:18.840 Yeah, and then seeing no recourse like okay, well there's 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:21.320 well there's never I mean, are we gonna wait for 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:23.840 the justice system? You know, the best thing we've gotten 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:27.840 so far is like no no knock warrants. I mean, thanks, 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:30.199 you know what I'm saying, Like, you know, at a 0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:35.120 state you know, like so so and and a lot 0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:37.440 of promises of police reform, you know what I'm saying. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:39.399 So you just you don't. 0:27:39.680 --> 0:27:43.719 I mean, like during Trump's presidency, there was I mean, 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:46.000 there was an uptick in lynching, Like you know what 0:27:46.000 --> 0:27:47.040 I'm saying, Like these fools. 0:27:46.800 --> 0:27:48.240 A getting old school, you know. 0:27:49.040 --> 0:27:54.119 So it is without hearing any video, without knowing anything 0:27:54.680 --> 0:27:58.600 that those men were actually saying, whether they were just 0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:01.840 running the mill pricks or just pricks, whatever it was. 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:06.760 It is a Again, if you're a if you're a 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:13.920 black person in Alabama, it is completely reasonable to believe 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:19.040 that if we wasn't there to help, that man would 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:21.240 have been on the bottom of that river. Yeah, that 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:23.359 man would have been strung up in a tree in 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:24.920 the woods and we hadn't never seen him again. 0:28:25.480 --> 0:28:26.480 Yeah. 0:28:26.560 --> 0:28:31.560 I mean, just the the the sheer like rapidity with 0:28:31.600 --> 0:28:34.880 which he was surrounded and put on the ground by 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:37.480 a large number of men did not suggest that they 0:28:37.520 --> 0:28:40.600 were that the uh, that the additional dudes who had 0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:42.520 arrived to wail on him were in a mood to 0:28:42.640 --> 0:28:44.280 like de escalate the situation. 0:28:44.440 --> 0:28:45.680 Yeah. 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:49.200 Yeah, And that's like, I mean, I feel like that's 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:55.600 like a reality that uh, you know, you this it's 0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:57.480 almost like for the rest of the country, it's like 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:01.640 this if you underst like, this is the reality we 0:29:01.680 --> 0:29:05.040 need you to understand when we say I could die, 0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:07.400 you know what I'm saying, Like when you talk about 0:29:07.600 --> 0:29:09.640 racism and not thing, it's just some people are stupid. 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:12.080 There's fucking bigots everywhere. Like no, when we say it's 0:29:12.120 --> 0:29:14.360 life or death, like you' that's what you're witnessing, Like 0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:17.600 he could have died that moment, you know what I'm saying. 0:29:18.080 --> 0:29:22.760 And I think at a at a whether it's front 0:29:22.760 --> 0:29:25.239 of mine or back of mine. That is something that 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:26.960 as a person of color, like you just kind of 0:29:27.040 --> 0:29:30.240 know that like this, this would this if it would 0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:32.400 have just been a fight, you know what I'm saying. 0:29:32.760 --> 0:29:34.360 Then, I think if it was just just. 0:29:34.280 --> 0:29:36.080 Been a brawl, like most people would have just stayed 0:29:36.080 --> 0:29:38.080 out of it, Like if them to just if. 0:29:37.920 --> 0:29:41.760 They just prescribe guys swinging on each other a smart play, 0:29:41.760 --> 0:29:44.320 if it's just two guys swinging on each other, just yeah, you. 0:29:44.320 --> 0:29:46.440 Take your phone on your watch, You're just like, all right, man, hey, 0:29:46.520 --> 0:29:48.360 get your licks in. You know, you cheer for your boy, 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:53.440 but like jump but when somebody jumps in, it's like, Okay, 0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:57.640 I'm gonna help the homie. But you jump in helping 0:29:57.680 --> 0:30:01.080 the homie in Montgomery, Alabama. But it's like, all right, 0:30:01.160 --> 0:30:05.719 yeah this he might die. So it's different. 0:30:08.200 --> 0:30:11.320 Anything else to get to on this, Man. 0:30:11.160 --> 0:30:15.840 I think I might be I think one more thing 0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:17.920 I think to add color to this, and I might 0:30:17.960 --> 0:30:25.000 be like aggrandizing, but I think it's also important because 0:30:25.520 --> 0:30:28.680 what I'm what I'm really interested in is just the collective, 0:30:30.200 --> 0:30:37.560 cathartic sort of feeling this has had. Is because there's 0:30:37.560 --> 0:30:41.960 so much built up tension. You have to talk about 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:44.200 the Florida of it all, you know what I'm. 0:30:44.040 --> 0:30:51.240 Saying, and being aware of the idea that like you're. 0:30:52.600 --> 0:30:56.680 Right in front of our face, like you're trying to 0:30:56.720 --> 0:31:00.120 erase history, you know what I'm saying. Like and and 0:31:00.760 --> 0:31:04.440 I just five minutes ago watched that prager you video 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:10.760 for kids about about Christopher Columbus and slavery, and it 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:13.920 was just like, well, you know, and this is approved, approved, 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:18.480 approved content for children, Like, well, you know, at least 0:31:18.480 --> 0:31:21.440 we didn't kill them, yeah, you know what I'm saying, 0:31:21.920 --> 0:31:24.760 And like, well, you know, you know, in Europe, we 0:31:24.840 --> 0:31:28.320 don't we draw the line at like cannibalism. And these 0:31:28.360 --> 0:31:31.760 people that we're enslaving like they practice. 0:31:31.360 --> 0:31:31.800 It, you know. 0:31:32.000 --> 0:31:36.000 So I guess it's kind of you know, maybe slavery's 0:31:36.040 --> 0:31:38.560 not bad, and slavery, I mean it's all over the world. 0:31:38.600 --> 0:31:40.760 They've always had slavery, you know what I'm saying. 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:44.040 So like they learned useful skills, yeah, I mean, you know. 0:31:44.120 --> 0:31:46.160 Okay, so there are skills in Africa. 0:31:46.280 --> 0:31:47.560 Like so you're trying to tell me. 0:31:49.560 --> 0:31:53.280 This this civilation's civilization that is the bedrock of civilizations 0:31:53.320 --> 0:31:54.800 where all the humanity come from. 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:56.440 You know what I'm saying, We didn't know how to 0:31:56.480 --> 0:31:58.360 do nothing right. 0:32:00.080 --> 0:32:03.960 Yeah, I don't know, Like if you're yeah, it's it's 0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:06.440 it's so frustrating because it's it's what you could. I 0:32:06.480 --> 0:32:08.560 think they're trying to like draw line between I don't know. 0:32:08.640 --> 0:32:12.200 The way slavery was often practiced in like the Mediterranean, 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:16.080 where there was a lot of manumission, people were often freed, 0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:18.560 and when they were freed, there was not like ongoing 0:32:18.600 --> 0:32:21.320 stigma against having been a former slave with like a 0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:25.880 racial slavery system. In the Americas that was completely different, 0:32:25.920 --> 0:32:28.840 where manumission very rarely happened, and when it did, you 0:32:28.880 --> 0:32:32.840 were still subject to heinous restrictions on your personal liberty. 0:32:32.880 --> 0:32:36.560 Like it's just not a comparison, Yeah, trying to use 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:41.080 the lack of awareness of just even the term slavery 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:43.120 and what you mean by that, you know what I'm saying, 0:32:43.480 --> 0:32:46.440 using it to your advantage. It's like, well, anyone you 0:32:46.480 --> 0:32:49.880 know who's read a book or two can be like, ah, 0:32:49.880 --> 0:32:50.880 what you did was different. 0:32:51.600 --> 0:32:53.880 You know what I'm saying, and you know and you 0:32:53.920 --> 0:32:54.280 know it. 0:32:54.400 --> 0:32:56.360 You know it's different. You know what I'm saying. 0:32:57.840 --> 0:33:03.480 Yeah, Like serfdom, you know, involuntary servitude, debt, slavery. Any whenever, 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:06.560 if there was ever two tribes and a tribe got 0:33:06.760 --> 0:33:09.800 raided by another one, there was slavery. Like I know, 0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:13.600 like that it exists since the dawn of time. Not 0:33:13.720 --> 0:33:15.760 what you talking about though, you know what I'm saying 0:33:15.960 --> 0:33:18.240 you and you know it. You know, so you're playing 0:33:18.280 --> 0:33:18.560 on that. 0:33:19.120 --> 0:33:23.880 So I just think like collectively us just like. 0:33:25.760 --> 0:33:29.840 Keep hearing this shit and keep having to like, you know, 0:33:30.000 --> 0:33:33.120 keep your cool and try to fight it in the 0:33:33.160 --> 0:33:36.600 ballots and just and just the. 0:33:36.280 --> 0:33:38.920 The just the mind fuck of like. 0:33:41.080 --> 0:33:45.840 These folks, y'all, really you're gonna you're gonna vote for 0:33:45.880 --> 0:33:49.880 a dude that's out on bail, that's a felon like 0:33:50.000 --> 0:33:55.760 this Sniggs face in seventy years and y'all really finna, 0:33:56.160 --> 0:33:58.760 y'all really finna you really trying to put this man. 0:33:58.640 --> 0:34:02.520 In office again? Like just it's such a mind fuck 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:05.360 that you're like, man, I just. 0:34:05.240 --> 0:34:06.560 Need to hit I just need to hit a white 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:08.600 lady with a chair, Like I don't, I just I'm 0:34:08.600 --> 0:34:11.960 just gonna hit a white lady to the chair. Yeah yeah, 0:34:12.000 --> 0:34:15.359 And we you know something I've I've brought up many 0:34:15.440 --> 0:34:19.600 times on the politics is understanding sort of like the 0:34:19.680 --> 0:34:24.520 collective sort of Black American psyche is we just processed 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:28.719 trauma through humor, like we when we make a joke 0:34:28.760 --> 0:34:31.160 out of everything, and it's really so we're just not 0:34:31.360 --> 0:34:36.399 like pushing random white people in the moving traffic, you. 0:34:36.360 --> 0:34:39.359 Know, just because if not, you'd being like what's his name? 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:42.759 James Baldwin says that he was like to be black 0:34:42.800 --> 0:34:46.200 in America is to I'm butchering the quote, but to 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:51.480 be constantly under the surface at a rage level that 0:34:51.520 --> 0:34:54.479 you're constantly trying to push down, you know what I'm saying. 0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:58.720 So I feel like the humor, why. 0:34:59.040 --> 0:35:01.759 Why we got so many jokes about like nah, chare 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:04.400 chair homie going to jail, Like here go your bail money? 0:35:04.400 --> 0:35:07.160 But it was amazing because like you just good job, 0:35:07.239 --> 0:35:09.319 you know, I'm saying, an aquaman coming out the water, 0:35:09.440 --> 0:35:13.399 Like why why we make jokes about it? Is like well, yeah, 0:35:13.440 --> 0:35:17.479 I mean this is it's funny and if not, we'd 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:18.719 be enraged all the time. 0:35:19.200 --> 0:35:27.239 Mm hmm, Well, prop amen, I do feel like this 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:28.880 is a good lead in for the fact that we 0:35:28.920 --> 0:35:32.600 are we are actively well preparing to do our Robert E. 0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:35.840 Lee episodes which have taken a lot of reading. But 0:35:36.040 --> 0:35:37.440 I think you're gonna enjoy. 0:35:37.760 --> 0:35:38.680 I can't wait. 0:35:39.200 --> 0:35:42.960 Yeah, because again I just like I'm already locking and 0:35:43.000 --> 0:35:44.560 loading the jokes like I can't. 0:35:44.960 --> 0:35:48.440 Yeah, he's he's such a baby, I think you Like 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:51.440 that was the thing that surprised me, Like I expected, like, Okay, well, 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:54.320 this guy's, you know, a bad person for obvious reasons, 0:35:54.320 --> 0:35:57.040 being the military leader of the Confederacy, but like the 0:35:57.080 --> 0:35:59.600 degree to which this dude is a fucking baby is 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:02.799 uh right. Yeah, we're gonna have a good time with 0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:03.360 this one. 0:36:03.600 --> 0:36:07.960 I also, I also, as a thought experiment, my question 0:36:08.040 --> 0:36:12.360 would be, Okay, Robert Evans, if you were in Montgomery 0:36:12.400 --> 0:36:16.200 at that moment, I just how would you handle that. 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:20.160 I mean, if I see a bunch of people wailing 0:36:20.239 --> 0:36:23.520 on a single dude, even outside of a situation where 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:26.160 it's clearly racist, I'm going to try to stop that 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:27.960 because I don't want to watch someone get beaten to 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:31.720 death in the street. Yeah, like, unless they have it coming. 0:36:31.800 --> 0:36:33.080 I don't know, if it's like a guy with a 0:36:33.120 --> 0:36:35.800 swastika armband and people are kicking him on the ground, 0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:38.320 I might not intervene I don't know, and that I 0:36:38.400 --> 0:36:40.160 might in that case, I might just to try to 0:36:40.200 --> 0:36:44.200 stop people from catching a fucking murder charge. But like, yeah, 0:36:44.239 --> 0:36:47.040 I feel like now at the point at which there's 0:36:47.080 --> 0:36:49.440 like sixty people fighting on the dock, I don't know 0:36:49.440 --> 0:36:51.960 that I'm I'm running into that. Like for one thing, 0:36:51.960 --> 0:36:54.800 it seems like enough people are there. But yeah, you see, 0:36:54.840 --> 0:36:56.919 you see a bunch of people like kicking the shit 0:36:57.000 --> 0:36:58.560 out of a man trying to do his job. 0:36:58.680 --> 0:36:59.840 You should try to. 0:37:00.640 --> 0:37:03.000 Yeah, yeah, like those fucking security should have gotten in 0:37:03.040 --> 0:37:06.480 there faster. But like, yes, I I would hope that 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:09.200 I would run in at that point an attempt to 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:14.520 stop this what was happening. Yeah, absolutely, that's good. And 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:16.560 I would have had the presence of mind to pick 0:37:16.640 --> 0:37:17.640 up that chair though the. 0:37:17.680 --> 0:37:21.239 Chair is Yeah, no, I just I would hope that, 0:37:21.440 --> 0:37:24.839 like it would be I just wonder, like because again, 0:37:24.920 --> 0:37:27.000 once you black out and get punch drunk, it's like 0:37:27.320 --> 0:37:31.719 I would hope that, like they that the black people 0:37:31.760 --> 0:37:34.359 around have the wherewithal to be like no, no, no, no, 0:37:34.520 --> 0:37:35.080 he's with us. 0:37:36.040 --> 0:37:38.600 Yeah, yeah, we'll say, yeah that dude's with us. No no, no, no, 0:37:38.760 --> 0:37:39.200 he's with us. 0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:40.440 He's good he's good, he's good. 0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:43.000 I think that's that's part of why you don't roll 0:37:43.040 --> 0:37:46.680 in when there's like sixty people fighting also at that point, yeah, yeah, 0:37:46.680 --> 0:37:48.640 it's it's hard to tell how do you how do 0:37:48.680 --> 0:37:51.640 you help? And if you've got like five people beating 0:37:51.640 --> 0:37:53.160 a man on the ground, it's easy to know how 0:37:53.160 --> 0:37:55.359 to help. You try to get that guy up and 0:37:55.400 --> 0:37:57.399 away from them. You try to get them off of him. 0:37:57.640 --> 0:38:00.239 If you've got what are effectively like two or three 0:38:00.320 --> 0:38:03.279 dozen fights going on on a doc, it's like, well, 0:38:03.400 --> 0:38:06.160 do you just like start throwing hands like yeah. 0:38:06.000 --> 0:38:11.680 Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody puts somebody Yeah, just like you know, 0:38:11.800 --> 0:38:14.160 you just grab like find children and just kind of 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:15.240 like let me just move. 0:38:15.160 --> 0:38:17.840 Y'all out the way, y'all back up? Yeah, yeah, yeah 0:38:17.880 --> 0:38:18.240 you should. 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:21.440 I think when you're anytime you're in encountering a situation 0:38:21.640 --> 0:38:23.839 like this, like your first is like. 0:38:24.000 --> 0:38:26.239 What can I do that will help? You? 0:38:26.280 --> 0:38:28.200 Know, again, it's easy if you if there's a guy 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:30.680 getting beaten, or if there's someone seriously injured that needs 0:38:30.680 --> 0:38:32.440 medical care, if it's at a point where it's like, 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:34.920 well this is just fucking chaos, then maybe you just 0:38:34.960 --> 0:38:38.759 watch yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:38:37.760 --> 0:38:40.040 Get it, get it, get a higher vantage point. Just 0:38:40.120 --> 0:38:42.439 make sure you can watch the watch where it's going. 0:38:42.480 --> 0:38:44.600 You don't want to get sucked in, you know, because 0:38:44.600 --> 0:38:45.520 you might get trampled. 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:46.160 You know what I'm saying. 0:38:46.560 --> 0:38:48.880 Yeah, yeah, keep your fucking don't. Don't fall into your 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:50.560 phone because ship like that spreads. 0:38:50.920 --> 0:38:56.000 Yes, yes, yes, yeah, so true. Yeah, well that's a 0:38:56.120 --> 0:39:02.760 usable piece of information. Yeah for this otherwise just jokes 0:39:02.800 --> 0:39:04.279 full podcast yep. 0:39:04.360 --> 0:39:06.640 Yeah, Well we all had a good time today. 0:39:06.640 --> 0:39:06.960 Prop. 0:39:07.080 --> 0:39:10.120 Where can the people find you if they if they 0:39:10.160 --> 0:39:10.880 would like to do that? 0:39:11.320 --> 0:39:13.719 Man, please, I am on the same network you are. 0:39:13.800 --> 0:39:17.919 I'm on the Hood Politics Pod. My socials are all 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:21.120 the they're all prop hip hop. Like you said, I 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:25.080 am a coffee business owner. It's terraform cold Brew. You 0:39:25.080 --> 0:39:28.319 could use promo code hood and get fifteen percent off 0:39:28.520 --> 0:39:32.879 your cold brew needs Please help me sell Please buy 0:39:32.880 --> 0:39:36.000 his coffee. Good Lord, I saw a lot of money 0:39:36.000 --> 0:39:39.879 into this shit. Please buy the coffee. But yeah, man, 0:39:39.920 --> 0:39:45.600 prop hip Hop and yeah and yeah and Hood Politics Pod. 0:39:45.719 --> 0:39:48.279 I'm on the network, man, and please check out the show. 0:39:49.080 --> 0:39:54.800 Yeah, check out Hood Politics, check out props Delightful Coffee 0:39:55.960 --> 0:40:00.680 and yeah, you can find us right here. Tomorrow, unless 0:40:00.680 --> 0:40:03.319 it's a weekend, in which case you can find us 0:40:03.360 --> 0:40:06.040 here when the weekend ends the next weekday. We're here 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:28.600 every weekday. We never stop. It could happen here. A 0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:34.239 podcast about frustrating people and frustrating times. That's not all 0:40:34.239 --> 0:40:37.680 it's about. Sometimes we talk about nice things like raising 0:40:37.760 --> 0:40:42.759 sheep or unionization efforts, you know, the endless struggle of 0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:46.800 working people to better the world. Yeah, but not today. 0:40:46.920 --> 0:40:49.960 Today we're having a real, real piece of shit episode 0:40:49.960 --> 0:40:52.120 about a real piece of shit, and it's gonna make 0:40:52.160 --> 0:40:55.560 everybody unhappy. Hello Garrison, Hello James. How are you both 0:40:55.600 --> 0:40:56.120 doing today? 0:40:56.800 --> 0:41:00.600 So much better for hearing that, Robert, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:03.400 Just ready to have a fine evening here yet about 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:06.320 something that's probably very fun. 0:41:06.600 --> 0:41:08.759 Yeah, go to bed. You don't have you don't have 0:41:08.800 --> 0:41:13.080 your Soda Stream disappointed in you. Yeah, James and I 0:41:13.120 --> 0:41:14.400 are now soda Stream pilled. 0:41:14.640 --> 0:41:18.200 I've not gotten the company Soda Stream yet. That hasn't 0:41:18.719 --> 0:41:20.000 must generational thing. 0:41:20.520 --> 0:41:25.120 Yeah, the unfortunately the company beverage is is Billy Beer. 0:41:25.480 --> 0:41:29.680 Uh Billy Carter Jimmy Carter's Brothers beer that was on 0:41:29.760 --> 0:41:32.160 sale for roughly a year in the nineteen seventies. 0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:36.160 Is it made of peanuts? If only? 0:41:36.680 --> 0:41:39.880 No, So today let's start. I got a question for you. 0:41:39.920 --> 0:41:41.520 Have either of you seen the Barbie movie? 0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:45.479 Yes? I have. I was it well done? 0:41:45.800 --> 0:41:45.960 Gear? 0:41:46.640 --> 0:41:48.400 Oh, I didn't go, buddy sol Gear. 0:41:49.680 --> 0:41:52.000 The said dressing was was nice? 0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:52.640 It was. 0:41:52.640 --> 0:41:56.399 It was a great lesson in like liberal recuperation. I'm sure, 0:41:56.520 --> 0:41:58.960 I'm sure. I'm sure it'll be great for like kids 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:01.920 who like don't know who like don't know what feminism is. 0:42:02.000 --> 0:42:03.640 But but yeah. 0:42:03.239 --> 0:42:06.040 Yeah, it seems I have not watched it either. It 0:42:06.080 --> 0:42:09.600 doesn't seem like my kind of movie, but it seems 0:42:09.600 --> 0:42:11.960 broadly act correct me if I'm wrong here, that it 0:42:12.000 --> 0:42:15.400 has what you might call like very very modest and 0:42:15.520 --> 0:42:20.520 fairly mainstream, approachable feminist messaging. Yeah, yeah, that seems like 0:42:20.560 --> 0:42:25.000 it's fair, which most people would not be particularly angry about. 0:42:25.880 --> 0:42:29.719 But a sizable chunk of the very online right, the 0:42:30.400 --> 0:42:32.480 chunk of the right, particularly that makes their living by 0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:35.400 having takes on shit has has has been up in 0:42:35.560 --> 0:42:38.120 arms ever since it came out, and particularly ever since 0:42:38.120 --> 0:42:41.360 it made more than a billion dollars in the box office. 0:42:41.480 --> 0:42:43.080 I'm sure a lot of people are aware that our 0:42:43.080 --> 0:42:46.600 old friend Ben Shapiro filmed a forty two minute video 0:42:46.680 --> 0:42:56.839 tearing it apart and his signature preteen stolen valor voice 0:42:56.360 --> 0:42:57.560 a boy. 0:42:59.040 --> 0:43:01.720 After I watched the movie, me and some friends tried 0:43:01.760 --> 0:43:04.560 to watch the Ben Shapiro video for fun. We made 0:43:04.600 --> 0:43:07.360 it like six minutes in, and that everyone forced me 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:07.880 to stop. 0:43:08.400 --> 0:43:09.399 Intolerable shit. 0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:14.680 Cowards. Cowards are cowards. But that's yeah. So elsewhere in 0:43:14.760 --> 0:43:18.120 the right and kind of the less mainstream acceptable chunks 0:43:18.120 --> 0:43:21.400 of what we'd call the insurgent right around here, various 0:43:21.440 --> 0:43:25.200 thought leaders attempted to declare the movie stealth conservative propaganda 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:27.439 as a way of insisting that its success was really 0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:30.560 due to it being anti woke. That's silly too. None 0:43:30.600 --> 0:43:33.120 of this is worth discussing in detail. I promise you 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:35.000 all this is not going to be a podcast about 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:37.560 the fucking Barbie movie. None of this is worth discussing 0:43:37.600 --> 0:43:41.000 in detail, save to say that Shapiro's anger at the movie, 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.279 and particularly its comic relief character Ken, seems to have 0:43:44.320 --> 0:43:47.680 been the more wide spread response from those kinds of people. Now, 0:43:48.000 --> 0:43:50.640 because I have made, over the years a lot of 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:54.560 poor decisions in my browsing and engaging habits over the years, 0:43:54.880 --> 0:43:58.200 Twitter sends me a lot of weirdo right wing responses 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:01.160 to everything that happens in the world, including this movie. 0:44:01.640 --> 0:44:05.120 And one of these posts that I caught somewhere in 0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:07.560 late July or on the twenty second, twenty third, caught 0:44:07.600 --> 0:44:11.040 my eye. Now, this post features a vapor wave filtered 0:44:11.160 --> 0:44:14.520 kin photoshopped in front of a burning Viking long house, 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:19.359 accompanied by the text exit the long house. Now, when 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:21.680 you see something like this and you don't know what 0:44:21.719 --> 0:44:25.200 they're getting at, like, you have two choices. If you're like, 0:44:25.600 --> 0:44:28.960 you get like, I don't know, kids, a really demanding job, 0:44:29.440 --> 0:44:31.840 anything at all going on in your personal life, you 0:44:31.880 --> 0:44:35.279 scroll right past it. If you're me, you spend like 0:44:35.400 --> 0:44:40.000 four and a half hours reading various fascist essays about 0:44:40.000 --> 0:44:43.000 feminism to try to figure out what the fuck a 0:44:43.080 --> 0:44:45.919 long house has to do with the Barbie movie. Now, 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:48.920 the guy who had made this post is a low 0:44:49.040 --> 0:44:53.759 level fascist political columnist named Lomez. He is, He's kind 0:44:53.760 --> 0:44:56.920 of on me. He's a little bit of volapild. He 0:44:57.480 --> 0:45:01.839 doesn't he's not like a very major figure. He's kind 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:04.919 of several steps below anyone you've heard of. I would say, 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:08.440 like two or three steps standard deviations of fame below 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:12.000 like Jack Pisobiec, but his writing has a degree of 0:45:12.080 --> 0:45:15.520 purchase among the kinds of conservatives who trick Ron DeSantis 0:45:15.520 --> 0:45:18.600 into running in comprehensible campaign ads with son and rads in. 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:19.279 Them he has. 0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:21.919 He's like, he's got a little bit of influence among 0:45:22.000 --> 0:45:23.719 that kind of crew, and he's sort of in the 0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:26.640 conversation with a lot of those people. I took notice 0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:29.400 of his post because I'd seen the term long house 0:45:29.440 --> 0:45:32.360 being used by a couple of these guys off and on, 0:45:33.320 --> 0:45:36.399 and because Lomes's posts got like three thousand something likes, 0:45:36.440 --> 0:45:39.960 which meant that, yeah, there's some community out there that 0:45:39.960 --> 0:45:42.640 that gets what he's talking about. So on a whim, 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:45.200 I clicked to viewed the quote tweets for this post, 0:45:45.280 --> 0:45:47.760 and I found a post by a user named Siege, 0:45:48.120 --> 0:45:50.760 which is of course a reference to a book about 0:45:50.800 --> 0:45:53.839 carrying out acts of terrorism in order to bring about 0:45:53.840 --> 0:45:57.440 a white Ethno state. The post says, ken is you. 0:45:57.840 --> 0:46:02.400 He is an exaggerated Western man in the twenty first century, anxious, confused, 0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:05.239 chasing women who don't care about him. He exits the 0:46:05.280 --> 0:46:08.120 long House and discovers his own will to power. Like you, 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:10.960 he decides to bring this knowledge back to his fellow man. 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:14.000 And it's you know, I'm gonna I'll show you guys 0:46:14.000 --> 0:46:15.600 this this post here, it's. 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:20.439 Pretty it's pretty Nazi. Yeah, pretty pretty pretty Nazi. It's 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:23.000 not the best work on Ken, like he guys, looks 0:46:23.000 --> 0:46:23.480 like a blob. 0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:25.840 No, I will say I have a little bit of 0:46:25.880 --> 0:46:28.080 respect for the craft here that he didn't just go 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:31.080 to an ai that looks like somebody like crudely cut 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:36.600 a picture of kin that they have like color inverted 0:46:36.680 --> 0:46:39.560 and then photoshopped it into a picture of a long 0:46:39.600 --> 0:46:40.960 house with a fire behind it. 0:46:41.880 --> 0:46:42.560 Yeah, it's too. 0:46:45.480 --> 0:46:50.120 I will say Siege's description of Ken from the from 0:46:50.200 --> 0:46:52.919 the from the Barbie movie is pretty accurate to what's 0:46:52.920 --> 0:46:54.799 in the film. 0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:58.920 M that's good. So what is the long house? What 0:46:58.960 --> 0:47:01.399 the fuck does a long house have to do with 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:06.360 what are otherwise pretty standard neo Nazi esque messaging about, 0:47:06.400 --> 0:47:09.360 you know, the decadence and failure of modern man and 0:47:09.400 --> 0:47:12.760 all that kind of shit. And is this dumb fascist 0:47:12.760 --> 0:47:15.360 memes something that you need to care about now? Unfortunately 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:17.239 the answer to that is yes, because all of this 0:47:17.360 --> 0:47:22.880 ties back to one extremely influential, insurgent right wing ideologue 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:25.840 whose followers have been close to the presidency once before 0:47:25.880 --> 0:47:29.320 and may yet find themselves there again. That asshole is 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:33.320 an MI I T graduate named Kostin Alamaru who posts 0:47:33.400 --> 0:47:38.000 online under variations of the name Bronze Age Pervert. You guys, 0:47:38.760 --> 0:47:41.800 how aware are you of Bronze Age Pervert or BAP, 0:47:41.920 --> 0:47:42.879 as he's often known. 0:47:43.600 --> 0:47:48.560 Ah, I've heard of BAP, but maybe only in passing 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:51.560 because I wasn't familiar with Bronze Age pervert. Thank you, Yeah, 0:47:51.880 --> 0:47:55.239 thank you so much for sharing with me today, Robert. Oh, oh, 0:47:55.280 --> 0:47:57.799 you're going to be so much less happy, Garrison. Are 0:47:57.800 --> 0:47:59.400 you familiar with this fella? 0:47:59.760 --> 0:48:01.880 I I think I may have only seen stuff from 0:48:01.920 --> 0:48:04.799 him in passing. I'm not overly familiar now. 0:48:05.200 --> 0:48:07.600 Yeah, that was kind of my experience until like a 0:48:07.600 --> 0:48:09.879 month or so ago when I started really digging into 0:48:09.880 --> 0:48:14.160 the guy. And I don't feel better as a result 0:48:14.160 --> 0:48:17.200 of having done that. But yeah, we know that this 0:48:17.239 --> 0:48:20.640 guy's actual name is Kostin Alamariu because of a very 0:48:20.680 --> 0:48:23.120 recent Atlantic articles like a month ago that this guy 0:48:23.239 --> 0:48:26.200 got revealed in this article because this writer for the 0:48:26.239 --> 0:48:29.680 Atlantic was a friend of his, like at mit, like 0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:32.000 it was just somebody who like and recognized his voice 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:37.440 on a podcast. Now, this article, I find it frustrating 0:48:37.480 --> 0:48:39.200 for a number of reasons. I don't think it's great 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:43.640 analysis of BAP's work or what people find appealing in it, 0:48:44.200 --> 0:48:46.879 or a particularly honest, intellectual look at what this guy 0:48:46.920 --> 0:48:50.160 has to say. But it does have some interesting reveals, 0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:54.280 including the fact that bronze age perverts. First public media 0:48:54.320 --> 0:48:58.040 appearance was a parody audio tour for an exhibition at 0:48:58.040 --> 0:49:01.360 the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, written by bj Novak, 0:49:01.400 --> 0:49:06.440 who played Ryan in The Office. Yeah, so that's odd, 0:49:07.520 --> 0:49:11.400 and it's one of those BJ Novak is not a 0:49:11.440 --> 0:49:15.520 stealth Nazi, don't worry. But the video or the thing 0:49:15.560 --> 0:49:18.640 that they put together does kind of fit for like 0:49:18.719 --> 0:49:21.120 a fascist art project. And I I'm going to read 0:49:21.120 --> 0:49:24.600 how The Atlantic describes this audio tour they put together together, 0:49:25.040 --> 0:49:29.000 or put that they assembled together. Novak had recruited a 0:49:29.080 --> 0:49:32.080 Romanian classmate with a deep voice, and together they'd recorded 0:49:32.080 --> 0:49:34.560 an audio tour for the exhibition, Tales from the Land 0:49:34.600 --> 0:49:37.719 of Dragons a Thousand Years of Chinese Painting, with the 0:49:37.719 --> 0:49:40.399 help of friends. They then slipped cassettes containing their tour 0:49:40.440 --> 0:49:43.520 into the museum's official audio guides. Art lovers must have 0:49:43.560 --> 0:49:46.239 wondered about the thick Eastern European accent that greeted them 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:49.200 over the twang of a Chinese string instrument. The Romanians 0:49:49.200 --> 0:49:52.400 soon became opinionated. Personally, he said, I think this painting 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:54.920 is a piece of crap. Then deranged, he alluded to 0:49:54.960 --> 0:49:59.840 his disgusting anatomical abnormalities. He called his listeners decadent in 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:02.880 heerialless maggots, and confessed a desire to smash a glass 0:50:02.920 --> 0:50:06.200 case with a sledgehammer and rip a scroll to shreds 0:50:06.200 --> 0:50:08.799 with my teeth, which, by the way, are extremely long 0:50:08.840 --> 0:50:11.880 and sharp, more like fangs than human teeth. At last, 0:50:11.880 --> 0:50:14.400 he offered an interlude of idiot music while he fumbled 0:50:14.440 --> 0:50:17.520 with his script. This should keep you occupied, you drooling, imbecile, 0:50:17.560 --> 0:50:19.880 he bellowed at the listeners, by now either amused or 0:50:19.920 --> 0:50:24.240 complaining to management. So there's like there's like little little 0:50:24.480 --> 0:50:27.200 whiffs of degenerate art stuff in there, but it's also 0:50:27.320 --> 0:50:32.720 just kind of like like a little bit like Max 0:50:32.760 --> 0:50:35.239 head roomy kind of stuff, like where you're kind of 0:50:35.280 --> 0:50:39.960 tricking people into into into consuming this like parody artwork thing. 0:50:40.000 --> 0:50:42.480 Like again, I think this was a pretty innocent joke. 0:50:42.520 --> 0:50:47.160 On Novak's fall part. But Costin number one probably got 0:50:47.160 --> 0:50:50.319 picked for this because he's a He's got a thick 0:50:50.440 --> 0:50:53.719 Romanian accent that he very much plays up. He was 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:56.880 noted in this time as kind of talking like Dracula deliberately. 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.719 He also would always wear these like long and elaborate 0:50:59.719 --> 0:51:02.160 black coats so that he kind of looked like a 0:51:02.239 --> 0:51:05.239 Dracula type figure, like he was, you know, he was 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:07.520 he was doing a bit. He was putting on like 0:51:07.640 --> 0:51:10.680 a That was the image he wanted to He wanted 0:51:10.680 --> 0:51:13.759 to portray himself as to people's kind of like mysterious 0:51:13.800 --> 0:51:16.600 and Eastern Europeans sort of sort of figure. 0:51:17.120 --> 0:51:17.319 Now. 0:51:17.440 --> 0:51:20.960 Costin first started posting as Bronze age pervert on a 0:51:21.000 --> 0:51:24.400 series of obscure web forums in twenty ten. In the 0:51:24.400 --> 0:51:27.640 November of twenty thirteen, he joined Twitter and immediately fell 0:51:27.680 --> 0:51:31.080 in with a loose community that some people call frog Twitter. 0:51:31.160 --> 0:51:32.799 And these are you know who these guys are. It's 0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:35.960 like a general term for anonymous alt right adjacent posters 0:51:35.960 --> 0:51:39.600 with like pepe avatars. Yeah, and the other group the 0:51:40.160 --> 0:51:43.080 kind of related people that he fell in with and 0:51:43.120 --> 0:51:46.560 that he started to have traction with our adherents to 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:51.280 a fascist philosopher known as Curtis Jarvin or Minsius Moldbug. 0:51:51.360 --> 0:51:54.440 Curtis is his real name, Minsius Moldbug is the pseudonym 0:51:54.440 --> 0:51:56.200 he wrote under Now. 0:51:57.480 --> 0:52:01.040 I know it's a it's these people through this shit, man, 0:52:01.120 --> 0:52:05.400 it's just so pathetic, like play Dungeons and Dragons. 0:52:05.480 --> 0:52:09.000 Just a solid twenty percent of our fascist problems are 0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:11.719 like people didn't get a reliable D and D group 0:52:11.760 --> 0:52:14.840 early enough, like a lot of these I think Balder's 0:52:14.880 --> 0:52:16.680 Gate three is gonna save us from a lot of 0:52:16.719 --> 0:52:17.800 these guys in the future. 0:52:19.280 --> 0:52:22.600 It is the antifa computer game. Yeah. 0:52:22.760 --> 0:52:22.840 So. 0:52:23.280 --> 0:52:27.799 Curtis Yarvin aka Mensius is a UC Berkeley graduate in 0:52:27.880 --> 0:52:31.120 computer science who joined the tech industry and got pilled 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:33.960 on a strain of anti democratic libertarian theory. 0:52:35.000 --> 0:52:38.240 This is this is like a this is a pathway, man, Yeah, 0:52:38.280 --> 0:52:39.439 this is perfect well. 0:52:39.640 --> 0:52:44.480 Bronze age pervert also goes into tech after graduating from MIT. Right, 0:52:44.560 --> 0:52:46.640 and like, you know, a decent number of these guys 0:52:46.640 --> 0:52:50.160 come out of like Stanford and shit, like it's all, uh, 0:52:50.200 --> 0:52:52.120 it's all these guys who are, in fact, to some 0:52:52.200 --> 0:52:55.080 extent like intellectual elites, bronze age perverts. 0:52:55.160 --> 0:52:55.719 Dad is a. 0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:59.080 Teacher at MIT, like just kind of like you look 0:52:59.080 --> 0:53:01.279 at like Stephen Miller's background, Right. A lot of these 0:53:01.320 --> 0:53:05.320 guys come out of like liberal academia families. 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:08.960 But anyway, it's very common. 0:53:09.560 --> 0:53:14.000 Yeah, Curtis comes out of Yeah, gets into the tech industry, 0:53:14.000 --> 0:53:16.120 and he writes a book kind of while he's working 0:53:16.200 --> 0:53:18.160 and like he's a he's a founder and stuff for 0:53:18.400 --> 0:53:20.400 some company. He writes a book in two thousand and 0:53:20.440 --> 0:53:24.200 one titled Democracy, The God That Failed, follows it up 0:53:24.239 --> 0:53:26.640 with a series of blog essays, and his writing becomes 0:53:26.760 --> 0:53:31.960 very influential amongst Silicon Valley proto fascists. Jarvin's ideas in 0:53:32.040 --> 0:53:34.719 Brief is that the US is run and a lot 0:53:34.760 --> 0:53:37.479 of Western society is really run by what he calls 0:53:37.520 --> 0:53:40.920 the Cathedral, which is a mix of professors and journalists 0:53:40.960 --> 0:53:44.240 who act as a Brahmin class dominating the United States 0:53:44.480 --> 0:53:49.319 with a progressive state religion. He sees their egalitarian impulses 0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:53.520 as toxic the destruction of natural civic order, and advocates 0:53:53.520 --> 0:53:57.239 for his followers to design new architectures of exit to 0:53:57.320 --> 0:53:59.759 replace the Cathedral with what is effectively a right wing 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:04.560 to tatorship. The number one supporter of Curtis Yarvin's ideas 0:54:05.000 --> 0:54:08.960 and financial backer of him is Peter Teal. Teal has 0:54:09.000 --> 0:54:11.520 a funded Yarvin's work as a big fan of what 0:54:11.600 --> 0:54:14.400 he has to say and his philosophy, which is generally 0:54:14.400 --> 0:54:17.359 referred to as the Dark Enlightenment. And this is when 0:54:17.400 --> 0:54:20.640 we're talking about the Dark Enlightenment, we're talking like mid 0:54:20.800 --> 0:54:23.359 aughts is kind of when this stuff starts to really 0:54:23.360 --> 0:54:26.040 take off. This is before the alt right that kind 0:54:26.040 --> 0:54:29.480 of becomes really well known nationwide. Is a is A 0:54:29.719 --> 0:54:32.520 is a major term. This is like in the pre 0:54:32.640 --> 0:54:35.839 and right around gamer Gate period is when he's really 0:54:35.920 --> 0:54:38.600 starting to take off with a lot of folks. And 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:41.280 he certainly he feeds into the alt right to Trump, 0:54:41.480 --> 0:54:43.480 you know, and to that period of time. But he's 0:54:43.560 --> 0:54:47.040 much more on the the pseudo intellectual end of things 0:54:47.080 --> 0:54:49.239 as opposed to the like hitting folks in the street 0:54:49.360 --> 0:54:50.640 end of things. That's what he gets a lot of 0:54:50.640 --> 0:54:57.600 Peter Teal money. So, uh yeah, Bronze age pervert is 0:54:57.960 --> 0:55:02.840 kind of a He espouses a philosophy that rhymes with 0:55:03.360 --> 0:55:07.120 moldbugs with Jarvin's philosophy in many ways, but where Jarvin 0:55:07.239 --> 0:55:10.160 dresses his words and is writing up in a costume 0:55:10.280 --> 0:55:14.520 version of mainstream academic discourse. Bronze age Pervert is unapot 0:55:14.560 --> 0:55:18.640 apologetically online and weird, and he writes like somebody who 0:55:18.719 --> 0:55:22.080 spends too much fucking time on the Internet. A lot 0:55:22.120 --> 0:55:24.200 of his stuff is cloaked in things that are like 0:55:24.320 --> 0:55:27.080 half jokes, or at least want to be have plausible 0:55:27.080 --> 0:55:29.920 deniability of jokes, so that like, if you take them seriously, 0:55:29.960 --> 0:55:31.680 he can make fun of you for falling for the bit. 0:55:32.160 --> 0:55:36.239 But he describes himself on Twitter as an aspiring nudist, bodybuilder, 0:55:36.560 --> 0:55:41.719 free speech and anti zeno estrogen activist, so just the 0:55:41.760 --> 0:55:46.440 most irritating kind of guy, the normal guy. Much of 0:55:46.480 --> 0:55:51.200 his politics centers around a worship of ancient Greece, which 0:55:51.239 --> 0:55:56.560 he believes settled on the scientifically ideal human form. He 0:55:56.640 --> 0:55:59.920 believes men should engage in bodybuilding and nude sunbathing to 0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:02.799 emulate the Greeks. And you'll see sometimes his followers be like, oh, 0:56:02.800 --> 0:56:05.279 you're an idiot if you fell for that. But legitimately 0:56:05.360 --> 0:56:07.480 half of what this guy posts about is just pictures 0:56:07.480 --> 0:56:11.839 of bodybuilders and his pictures of himself being looking very 0:56:11.960 --> 0:56:15.600 jacked like he's he's it's it's that if that's all 0:56:15.640 --> 0:56:18.839 a bit. Then all he has is this silly bit 0:56:18.880 --> 0:56:22.920 because it is it is dominant in his content. BAP's 0:56:23.040 --> 0:56:26.799 Ancient Greek or baps ancient Greeks are incredibly straight and 0:56:26.880 --> 0:56:29.400 hate women with a passion. One of those things is 0:56:29.400 --> 0:56:35.200 more or less right Greek like upperclass Greeks, not super 0:56:35.200 --> 0:56:41.040 pro women. Yeah, not woke. The Cathedral, in his eyes, 0:56:41.160 --> 0:56:44.920 is an oppressive dictatorship of femininity, if not always of 0:56:44.960 --> 0:56:49.239 women over masculinity. Cancel culture is a particular topic of 0:56:49.280 --> 0:56:52.120 his ire, and he seems to see it as basically 0:56:52.160 --> 0:56:56.000 these that there are traditionally feminine methods of argumentation and conflict, 0:56:56.040 --> 0:56:57.920 whether or not women are the ones doing them in 0:56:57.960 --> 0:57:02.480 any given situation. Cancel culture is like the purest expression 0:57:02.520 --> 0:57:04.880 of this, and he believes that these kind of feminine 0:57:04.880 --> 0:57:10.120 methods of conflict destroy masculinity and and make cultural progress impossible. 0:57:10.360 --> 0:57:13.840 They chain men to this kind of like he sees. 0:57:14.239 --> 0:57:16.320 You know how, a lot of anarchists will talk about 0:57:16.360 --> 0:57:20.680 how ancient societies hunter gatherer societies and like were often 0:57:21.000 --> 0:57:25.280 more egalitarian than a lot of like medieval societies classical societies, 0:57:25.840 --> 0:57:28.640 and this is often a lot of folks do make 0:57:28.680 --> 0:57:32.040 the mistake of like idealizing these cultures. But like, that's 0:57:32.080 --> 0:57:34.640 a thing that gets talked about a lot positively by 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:40.920 some anarchists and I think obviously worth studying. He takes 0:57:40.920 --> 0:57:44.280 the opposite tact of like these ancient cultures like light, 0:57:44.520 --> 0:57:47.400 like people lived in the fucking mud and were miserable, 0:57:47.400 --> 0:57:49.840 and it was because they weren't a galitarian. It was 0:57:49.880 --> 0:57:53.560 because the women were dominating the men. Right, this is 0:57:53.600 --> 0:57:55.840 going to lead us to the long house in short order, 0:57:55.840 --> 0:57:58.680 but we have somewhat to cover right here. So he 0:57:58.800 --> 0:58:02.480 focuses a huge amount on anti egalitarian arguments and on 0:58:02.600 --> 0:58:07.040 supporting a culture dominated by strong, beautiful, powerful people who 0:58:07.080 --> 0:58:10.200 look like Greek statues and suppress women and anyone else 0:58:10.200 --> 0:58:14.720 who doesn't look sexy. Basically, you get to feel like 0:58:14.760 --> 0:58:16.800 that's a big part of it to this guy, like 0:58:16.840 --> 0:58:20.360 he wants a date a dictatorship of hot, violent men, 0:58:21.320 --> 0:58:21.680 that's his. 0:58:21.880 --> 0:58:24.280 That's a big part of what he argues with. Has 0:58:24.320 --> 0:58:29.320 he watched Lenny riefenstyles Olympia, because this scene, Oh god, yeah, 0:58:29.440 --> 0:58:30.320 I feel like that's. 0:58:30.160 --> 0:58:32.840 Playing in the back of this fucking mind at all times. 0:58:33.000 --> 0:58:33.840 Yeah. 0:58:33.960 --> 0:58:38.080 Now, bapp argues that the state in its present form 0:58:38.160 --> 0:58:41.000 preserves the lives of the weak and feeble minded, allowing 0:58:41.040 --> 0:58:43.680 them to oppress the naked Aryan bodybuilders, who by all 0:58:43.760 --> 0:58:47.400 rights ought to run things. The prime repository of his 0:58:47.400 --> 0:58:51.880 philosophy is his twenty eighteen book Bronze Age Mindset, which 0:58:51.960 --> 0:58:54.080 was at one point in the top one hundred and 0:58:54.080 --> 0:58:58.200 fifty books on Amazon. A former Trump White House official 0:58:58.200 --> 0:59:01.960 Toad Politico in twenty nineteen and if you're a young person, intelligent, 0:59:02.040 --> 0:59:04.520 adjacent in some way to the right, it's very likely 0:59:04.560 --> 0:59:07.960 you would have heard of it. In chapter thirty five 0:59:08.040 --> 0:59:12.160 of his book Bronze Age, the Bronze Age Mindset bap 0:59:12.280 --> 0:59:15.240 rights quote, should the tyranny that has descended on our 0:59:15.280 --> 0:59:17.400 age ever gain the power it seeks and then be 0:59:17.560 --> 0:59:20.800 challenged enough to feel itself in danger? The mass annihilations 0:59:20.840 --> 0:59:24.360 that will be carried out by homosexual, transsexual, and especially 0:59:24.440 --> 0:59:28.440 lesbian commissars will exceed in scale and cruelty anything that 0:59:28.480 --> 0:59:32.919 has yet happened in known history. Imagine lesbian Mulata commissars 0:59:32.920 --> 0:59:36.160 with young Martin sheen face and haircut manning the future 0:59:36.200 --> 0:59:39.960 Bergen Belsons installations that will span tens of miles. 0:59:40.560 --> 0:59:42.800 Yep sending you to the transgender goolag. 0:59:43.720 --> 0:59:48.120 Yeah, it's it's it's something else, And it's very funny 0:59:48.120 --> 0:59:52.880 because like that fucking the Atlantic writer here like talks 0:59:52.920 --> 0:59:56.320 about how he's he's got this like almost hypnotizing quality 0:59:56.360 --> 0:59:59.240 to his writing, and he's he's got this really like 0:59:59.880 --> 1:00:02.960 h fascinating mind that you just want to engage with, 1:00:03.000 --> 1:00:06.520 and it's I'll read you a fucking quote from this 1:00:06.560 --> 1:00:11.600 guy's profile on Bronze Age pervert and try not to gag. 1:00:11.960 --> 1:00:15.520 I consider myself a connoisseur of brilliant lunatics, and I 1:00:15.560 --> 1:00:18.400 have a high tolerance for their lunacy if it has 1:00:18.400 --> 1:00:22.400 compensating virtues of say humor or ingenuity. But even I 1:00:22.440 --> 1:00:25.640 find back worrisome what starts as comedy can become something 1:00:25.640 --> 1:00:29.680 more sinister and bap shtick. Well sometimes hilarious shows every 1:00:30.120 --> 1:00:33.440 sign of transforming into a mode of new far right radicalism. 1:00:34.040 --> 1:00:36.080 He goes on at a various point to be like, yeah, 1:00:36.080 --> 1:00:37.960 he likes this book that I like. So I was 1:00:38.000 --> 1:00:39.800 willing to put up with the fact that he was 1:00:40.600 --> 1:00:43.720 he was bigoted for years because like we would talk 1:00:43.760 --> 1:00:48.240 about literature together, you know, I just had so much 1:00:48.320 --> 1:00:51.600 respect for his mind that I was willing to be 1:00:51.640 --> 1:00:53.760 strung along for a long time. I know, I find 1:00:53.760 --> 1:00:54.400 this guy kind. 1:00:54.320 --> 1:00:59.800 Of connoisseur, Yeah, connoisseur, A connoisseur of pig ship. 1:01:00.480 --> 1:01:01.560 Yeah. 1:01:01.640 --> 1:01:04.520 I really love sifting through all the different types of 1:01:04.600 --> 1:01:05.640 donkey dogs. 1:01:05.720 --> 1:01:10.640 Yeah, I just can't stick quite enough ship. Uh Yeah, 1:01:13.400 --> 1:01:16.480 you know what make you become a cornish? There of 1:01:16.640 --> 1:01:19.240 dog shit? Internet content? What? 1:01:19.240 --> 1:01:19.439 What? 1:01:19.560 --> 1:01:21.120 James? What? James? 1:01:21.200 --> 1:01:21.400 What? 1:01:21.400 --> 1:01:24.040 Woman? Well, it's it's a Washington State Highway patrol. 1:01:24.360 --> 1:01:30.320 Uh, that's that's I hope they are ready for the 1:01:30.400 --> 1:01:31.600 lesbian commissars. 1:01:32.280 --> 1:01:37.120 Oh you know, I know I am. Yeah, there the 1:01:37.240 --> 1:01:37.960 work police. 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:39.960 Ah. 1:01:40.000 --> 1:01:41.200 And we'll back. 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:45.120 We're back, We're back, We're back, We're back. 1:01:45.760 --> 1:01:47.400 We're back. Oh yeah. 1:01:47.440 --> 1:01:50.440 So it was Joseph Conrad's novel Nostromo that that this 1:01:50.520 --> 1:01:52.959 Atlantic writer and UH and Bronze. 1:01:52.600 --> 1:01:53.880 Age Pervitt both loved. 1:01:54.160 --> 1:01:58.280 Yeah, co herorige another fucking paragraph. For many years we corresponded. 1:01:58.560 --> 1:02:01.920 Costin's messages arrived regularly, and the tone ranged from friendly 1:02:01.960 --> 1:02:04.680 and inquisitive to boorish and insulting. I went to South 1:02:04.680 --> 1:02:07.880 America on assignment. He sent long messages extolling the versues 1:02:07.920 --> 1:02:11.400 of Jouseph Conrad's Nostromo, which is selt there set there. 1:02:11.520 --> 1:02:13.840 A friend who reads books like Nostromo and can talk 1:02:13.880 --> 1:02:15.680 about them is a friend worth putting up with. 1:02:16.320 --> 1:02:20.400 South America. It's fucking not even a fucking country. 1:02:20.920 --> 1:02:25.600 Just yeah, incredible South America. And like, right after that, 1:02:25.680 --> 1:02:28.120 he says, after about ten years he took to calling 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:30.840 my friends, and then he uses a series of slurs. 1:02:31.160 --> 1:02:33.280 At some point he had begun bodybuilding, and he sent 1:02:33.320 --> 1:02:36.280 me a picture of himself shirtless with the message, do you. 1:02:36.320 --> 1:02:45.320 Like this pic of me? Again? Say a cuture guy. 1:02:45.600 --> 1:02:51.320 It's just a just a real genius. So Bronzets writings, Yeah, 1:02:52.880 --> 1:02:54.840 he's obsessing one of the. 1:02:54.720 --> 1:02:55.600 One of the Greeks. 1:02:55.600 --> 1:02:58.920 He's obsessed with because he's he claims it, like frames 1:02:58.960 --> 1:03:02.400 himself as an expert on Greek society, which he portrays 1:03:02.440 --> 1:03:05.600 as something of a paradise. But he only knows about 1:03:05.640 --> 1:03:08.400 like six guys, and one of them is Alcibieties And 1:03:08.440 --> 1:03:11.680 Alcibietes was an Athenian general and a statesman who was 1:03:11.720 --> 1:03:15.040 a big player in the Peloponnesian War. He defected from 1:03:15.400 --> 1:03:18.280 Athens to Sparta, and then from Sparta to the Persian 1:03:18.320 --> 1:03:21.840 Empire before being recalled and reinstated as an Athenian general. 1:03:22.080 --> 1:03:25.920 He is a real motherfucker and an interesting guy. And 1:03:25.960 --> 1:03:28.440 because he was so interesting and kind of he was 1:03:28.560 --> 1:03:31.000 very charismatic in his own time and this kind of 1:03:31.040 --> 1:03:35.320 like very shady figure two, he becomes an early celebrity. 1:03:35.320 --> 1:03:37.959 He's like one of the first famous people that's really 1:03:38.000 --> 1:03:40.120 out there. And a big part of why he stays 1:03:40.160 --> 1:03:43.600 famous is that Plato will write a lot about him 1:03:43.640 --> 1:03:46.440 and Socrates, right, and Plato's at writing I think after 1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:50.880 they're dead, So a lot of Alcibiades is like a 1:03:50.960 --> 1:03:54.320 character written by Plato as opposed to the actual historical 1:03:54.360 --> 1:03:57.880 fact about the dude. It's also worth noting, given how 1:03:57.960 --> 1:04:01.960 anti queer bap is, that Alies and Socrates were lovers. 1:04:02.440 --> 1:04:02.760 Uh. 1:04:02.800 --> 1:04:06.800 Socrates was like famously kind of a simp for Alcibieties, 1:04:06.880 --> 1:04:10.160 while Alcibieties was kind of a piece of shit to Socrates. 1:04:11.280 --> 1:04:13.800 A lot of fun stories about that. But these guys 1:04:13.840 --> 1:04:15.000 were not at all straight. 1:04:16.440 --> 1:04:20.360 Yeah, I mean, Pederastie was an institution in ancient Greece. 1:04:20.760 --> 1:04:23.320 That pederaste is the same as being no, no. 1:04:23.280 --> 1:04:24.840 I don't I don't think that's the same as what 1:04:24.880 --> 1:04:26.040 was going on with these duodoes. 1:04:26.320 --> 1:04:30.320 Yeah, these dudes are just yeah, yeah, yeah, happy for 1:04:31.040 --> 1:04:31.400 mm hmm. 1:04:31.960 --> 1:04:35.360 Bronze age perverts. Rants are profoundly silly to anyone who 1:04:35.480 --> 1:04:38.360 wasn't a deranged chud obsessing over white girls don't like 1:04:38.440 --> 1:04:41.480 him while shooting steroids into his ass. But because that's 1:04:41.520 --> 1:04:45.360 a fertile demographic, he has influence among some important conservatives 1:04:45.560 --> 1:04:46.320 form the White House. 1:04:46.480 --> 1:04:49.640 Shot in the technical sense of the word, yeah not not, 1:04:49.760 --> 1:04:54.640 after all, those steroids using too much. Well, and none of. 1:04:54.600 --> 1:04:57.439 These guys will let themselves touch a walms because they're 1:04:57.560 --> 1:05:00.640 they're so they're so horrified by the cons of women. 1:05:02.480 --> 1:05:06.120 So former White House speech writer Darren Beattie followed him 1:05:06.120 --> 1:05:09.360 on Twitter and interacted with his writing, as did Minnesota 1:05:09.360 --> 1:05:13.040 State Senator Roger Chamberlain. Curtis Jarvin called him his White 1:05:13.080 --> 1:05:16.479 House cell leader. This is interesting to me because BAP 1:05:16.600 --> 1:05:20.440 himself has encouraged his young followers to avoid supporting him 1:05:20.440 --> 1:05:22.840 in public and instead of hide their sympathies while taking 1:05:22.880 --> 1:05:27.040 positions in the government to institute his ideas. It's also 1:05:27.120 --> 1:05:29.920 worth noting that you can find some fans of bronze 1:05:30.040 --> 1:05:32.880 h pervert on the so called anti woke left. There's 1:05:32.880 --> 1:05:35.480 clips out there from the red Scare podcast, which the 1:05:35.560 --> 1:05:38.280 less set about the better, where the two hosts read 1:05:38.400 --> 1:05:41.800 segments of his book with a what seems like a 1:05:41.840 --> 1:05:44.800 degree of appreciation, calling it the good kind of racist. 1:05:45.240 --> 1:05:45.439 Yeah. 1:05:46.840 --> 1:05:49.400 Does that also makes sense in terms of their condess 1:05:49.560 --> 1:05:51.560 they're like anti feminist stuff that they did. 1:05:51.640 --> 1:05:51.880 Yes? 1:05:52.200 --> 1:05:55.800 Yes, And I think his his writings, he has a 1:05:55.880 --> 1:05:59.200 very like florid purple prose style. I don't think it's 1:05:59.440 --> 1:06:03.280 good writing. I don't find it particularly engaging. It's very 1:06:03.440 --> 1:06:08.360 channy and kind of exhausting. But people who are dumbfall 1:06:08.440 --> 1:06:11.600 for it. So yeah, yeah, he's hit his demo. 1:06:11.760 --> 1:06:12.040 Well. 1:06:12.480 --> 1:06:12.720 Now. 1:06:12.760 --> 1:06:16.040 His influence is significant enough that some conservatives have sought 1:06:16.040 --> 1:06:18.040 to explain it. I found a fun write up on 1:06:18.120 --> 1:06:22.080 americanmind dot org that describes his appeal this way. So, 1:06:22.160 --> 1:06:24.720 what exactly is the teaching of Bronze age mindset and 1:06:24.720 --> 1:06:27.000 why is it so attractive to so many young men? 1:06:27.200 --> 1:06:29.760 The answer I think is simple. It is a revitalized 1:06:29.800 --> 1:06:33.000 paganism obsessed with strength and beauty. It appeals to today's 1:06:33.040 --> 1:06:35.520 young men because these things, strength and beauty are exactly 1:06:35.520 --> 1:06:38.560 what contemporary society has tried so hard to deny them. 1:06:38.840 --> 1:06:41.640 The gospel of son and steel, of vitalism and strength 1:06:41.680 --> 1:06:43.960 and power are exactly would have been denied to the 1:06:44.000 --> 1:06:47.000 boys of the Western world, and their spirits militate against this. 1:06:47.360 --> 1:06:50.240 Everything great ever achieved, Bap tells us, was done through 1:06:50.320 --> 1:06:53.640 strong friendships between two men or brotherhoods of men. And 1:06:53.680 --> 1:06:56.720 this includes all great political things, all acts of political 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:57.640 freedom and power. 1:06:59.240 --> 1:07:01.640 Now, I should note. 1:07:01.520 --> 1:07:04.000 Part of what he's BAP gets at when he's talking 1:07:04.040 --> 1:07:06.760 about how these strong groups, friendships of between two men 1:07:06.840 --> 1:07:09.200 or small brotherhoods of men. He is a big advocate 1:07:09.200 --> 1:07:11.080 and one of the reasons why he is popular among 1:07:11.200 --> 1:07:13.640 like the Adam Waffen set is he's a big advocate 1:07:13.680 --> 1:07:16.720 of his followers forming small two, three, four man groups 1:07:17.000 --> 1:07:20.040 and training with weapons together and preparing for the future, 1:07:20.440 --> 1:07:22.600 you know, day of the rope style thing. He doesn't 1:07:22.640 --> 1:07:25.320 use that term, but he's he's speaking to those people 1:07:25.560 --> 1:07:28.320 from like a more educated mindset. And there's I think 1:07:28.360 --> 1:07:31.160 an extent to which you could see his writing as 1:07:31.960 --> 1:07:34.960 trying to pull in that kind of educated upper crust 1:07:35.120 --> 1:07:38.880 kids of the upper middle class, you know, with ivy 1:07:38.960 --> 1:07:42.080 league educations who go into politics trying to draw them 1:07:42.120 --> 1:07:46.040 in closer to the actual violent insurgent, right, at least 1:07:46.080 --> 1:07:49.040 in terms of the sympathies of their ideas and support 1:07:49.120 --> 1:07:53.320 for methods of organizing that are more traditionally found against 1:07:53.640 --> 1:07:57.360 you know, the Elohim city set, right. I think there 1:07:57.400 --> 1:08:00.880 is a degree of that going on here now. Bronze 1:08:00.920 --> 1:08:03.960 Age Pervert is more supportive of Trump than a lot 1:08:04.000 --> 1:08:06.520 of these guys, largely because he finds him funny and 1:08:06.560 --> 1:08:09.800 sees him as an avatar of disruption and destruction. 1:08:10.560 --> 1:08:10.760 Yeah. 1:08:10.760 --> 1:08:13.560 I think it's it's like an accelerationist support. 1:08:14.120 --> 1:08:18.000 Yeah, exactly exactly, which is actually honestly that Dore's that's 1:08:18.000 --> 1:08:21.240 perfectly logical because Trump is accelerating both the death of 1:08:21.640 --> 1:08:26.600 the kind of conservatism that is state loyal that is 1:08:26.640 --> 1:08:29.920 sort of system loyal, right, the George W. Bush kind 1:08:29.960 --> 1:08:31.080 of conservatism, which is a. 1:08:31.200 --> 1:08:33.759 Conservative system that's like the two thousands. 1:08:33.840 --> 1:08:34.000 Yeah. 1:08:34.120 --> 1:08:37.479 Yeah, and Trump is has done damage, terrible damage to 1:08:37.520 --> 1:08:40.080 that and damage to the structure of the state in 1:08:40.120 --> 1:08:42.560 the hole. So it doesn't it's to perfectly logical for 1:08:42.640 --> 1:08:44.519 him to support Trump. He's not like, this is not 1:08:44.600 --> 1:08:48.080 inconsistent with the other things that he talks about. One 1:08:48.080 --> 1:08:50.720 of the people that that Atlantic writer talked to is 1:08:50.760 --> 1:08:55.160 Michael Anton, a former Trump administration national security official who 1:08:55.160 --> 1:08:58.000 wrote a twenty nineteen essay and the Claremont Review of 1:08:58.000 --> 1:09:02.080 books about Bronze Age Pervert. He acknowledges that Bapp's work 1:09:02.200 --> 1:09:07.000 is racist, anti Semitic, anti democratic, misogynistic, and homophobic, but 1:09:07.080 --> 1:09:10.599 suspect suggested that, like, you know that that's all, that's 1:09:10.640 --> 1:09:13.280 not you know, that's not necessarily. 1:09:12.520 --> 1:09:13.799 What he really believes. 1:09:13.840 --> 1:09:16.160 Maybe it is, but the big reason why he does 1:09:16.200 --> 1:09:19.320 this is it key. It distracts leftists from his like 1:09:19.600 --> 1:09:22.800 his more serious, like secret heresies that are like the 1:09:22.920 --> 1:09:26.360 real deep, dark arcane wisdom at the center of it, 1:09:26.479 --> 1:09:30.160 like hang out with your bros and trading with guns 1:09:30.280 --> 1:09:35.520 or whatever. Or yeah, like heiden the fucking government and 1:09:35.880 --> 1:09:38.360 waiting for the right moment to strike, but then blow 1:09:38.400 --> 1:09:40.639 it all up when you make an ad for Ronda Santis, 1:09:41.640 --> 1:09:44.040 that kind of cleverness. 1:09:44.080 --> 1:09:44.479 Anyway. 1:09:45.080 --> 1:09:48.600 Anton writes that Bronze Age pervert quote speaks directly to 1:09:48.640 --> 1:09:52.160 a youthful dissatisfaction, especially among white males, with equality is 1:09:52.200 --> 1:09:56.559 propagandized and imposed in our day, a hectoring, vindictive, resentful, leveling, 1:09:56.600 --> 1:10:00.799 hypocritical equality that punishes excellence and publicly deny all differences, 1:10:00.800 --> 1:10:04.040 while at the same time elevating and enriching a decadent, incompetent, 1:10:04.120 --> 1:10:05.160 and corrupt elite. 1:10:05.960 --> 1:10:06.479 There you go. 1:10:07.479 --> 1:10:10.120 So what does all this have to do with long houses? Well, 1:10:10.360 --> 1:10:14.800 let's finally get to that. Longhouse describes a category of 1:10:14.880 --> 1:10:18.000 dwellings that have existed on basically every land mass and 1:10:18.040 --> 1:10:21.200 the planet in some form, stretching back to the Neolithic period. 1:10:21.560 --> 1:10:25.400 These are, in general, large halls, sometimes with private family 1:10:25.439 --> 1:10:28.800 rooms built into them, sometimes with communal sleeping arrangements, but 1:10:28.920 --> 1:10:33.240 always organized around a large, single communal hall. In ancient days, 1:10:33.280 --> 1:10:35.360 these are where feasts would be held and where groups 1:10:35.360 --> 1:10:38.519 of families or tribes would huddle together in long cold winters. 1:10:39.160 --> 1:10:41.840 Bronze Age Pervert conceives of the long house as an 1:10:41.840 --> 1:10:45.320 example of the miserable lives primitive and shameful cultures not 1:10:45.400 --> 1:10:49.240 his beloved Greeks, lived in before modernity. In his writing, 1:10:49.240 --> 1:10:51.400 he makes it clear that his fear is rule by 1:10:51.439 --> 1:10:55.120 degenerates and our fallen modernity will cause society to regress 1:10:55.120 --> 1:10:58.479 to this prehistoric misery. Now part of his hatred of 1:10:58.520 --> 1:11:01.080 what he calls long house culture is that, in his mind, 1:11:01.160 --> 1:11:04.800 these dwellings were dominated by women who forced men to 1:11:04.840 --> 1:11:09.200 live inside the smoky, cloying, stinking confines. This is not 1:11:09.320 --> 1:11:11.880 really accurate to any kind of history. I expect his 1:11:11.960 --> 1:11:14.799 conception here comes largely from the fact that long houses 1:11:14.840 --> 1:11:18.120 are often suspected because we know relatively little about many 1:11:18.120 --> 1:11:20.720 of the cultures that had them, are often suspected of 1:11:20.760 --> 1:11:24.479 having been organized among matrilineal lines. In other words, if you, 1:11:24.520 --> 1:11:26.800 as a dude, merry a lady, you move into her 1:11:26.840 --> 1:11:29.559 family's long house. Right, this does sink out. There are 1:11:29.640 --> 1:11:32.880 modern cultures that that had long houses or have long 1:11:32.880 --> 1:11:35.360 houses who also live this way, the Iroquois being a 1:11:35.360 --> 1:11:38.240 good example. Right, there was a long house culture and 1:11:38.920 --> 1:11:42.680 where which house lived in was matrilineal. But it is 1:11:42.720 --> 1:11:46.120 a mistake to characterize matrilineal as meaning like the women 1:11:46.160 --> 1:11:49.599 are completely in charge, because they were not an Iroquois culture, 1:11:49.680 --> 1:11:55.120 nor many other cultures where longhouses existed. Vikings lived in longhouses, 1:11:55.280 --> 1:12:01.360 and you might recognize their society as not precisely anti masculine. Yeah, 1:12:01.400 --> 1:12:05.200 the work vikings, Yeah, the woke vikings. So this is 1:12:05.320 --> 1:12:07.840 more of a problem though with the conceptions of the 1:12:07.880 --> 1:12:10.920 Longhouse that are spread by Bab's followers, because again, he's 1:12:11.000 --> 1:12:13.720 using it as a shorthand for the fact that this 1:12:13.840 --> 1:12:18.240 kind of like prehistoric darkness of egalitarianism is going to 1:12:18.280 --> 1:12:21.959 destroy the only thing that, in his view, can bring progress, 1:12:21.960 --> 1:12:26.719 which is small groups of beautiful men enforcing their will 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:29.680 through violence. Right, that's what he talks about when he's 1:12:29.720 --> 1:12:33.000 talking about the Long House. His followers tend to use 1:12:33.040 --> 1:12:35.160 the long House as a short end, more of a 1:12:35.160 --> 1:12:37.679 shorthand for the kind of stuff Curtis Yarvin gets at 1:12:37.680 --> 1:12:41.080 with the cathedral, a catch all term for progressive modernity, 1:12:41.360 --> 1:12:43.080 women who get to say no to sex and have 1:12:43.120 --> 1:12:47.120 their own credit cards, trans people on hormones, vegan meat, substitutes, 1:12:47.160 --> 1:12:51.200 and yes, the Barbie movie Now. I open this episode 1:12:51.280 --> 1:12:55.240 with a post about that movie by Lomez, an adherent 1:12:55.320 --> 1:12:58.439 of Baptism who wrote an interminable article on the Long 1:12:58.479 --> 1:13:01.920 House for a website called First Things, which describes itself 1:13:01.960 --> 1:13:05.679 as America's most influential journal of religion and public life. 1:13:06.880 --> 1:13:07.360 I love it. 1:13:07.600 --> 1:13:09.400 Yeah, I bet it is, buddy, And you can tell 1:13:09.439 --> 1:13:11.080 because they always let you know straightaway. 1:13:11.160 --> 1:13:13.720 Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, they really got to hit 1:13:13.760 --> 1:13:16.080 that up for you. I'm going to quote from that now. 1:13:16.760 --> 1:13:18.799 Even for those of us who use it, the longhouse 1:13:18.800 --> 1:13:21.760 evades easy summary. Ambivalent to its core, the term is 1:13:21.800 --> 1:13:24.479 at once politically earnest and the punchline to an elaborate 1:13:24.520 --> 1:13:27.880 in joke. Its definition must remain elastic lest it lose 1:13:27.920 --> 1:13:31.040 its power to lampoon the vast constellation of social forces 1:13:31.080 --> 1:13:34.439 it reviles. It refers at once to our increasingly degraded 1:13:34.479 --> 1:13:38.320 mode of technocratic government, but also to wokeness, to the progressive, liberal, 1:13:38.360 --> 1:13:41.920 and secular values that pervade all major institutions. The most 1:13:41.960 --> 1:13:44.040 important feature of the long house, and why it makes 1:13:44.080 --> 1:13:47.520 such a resonant and controversial symbol of our current circumstances, 1:13:47.760 --> 1:13:50.920 is the ubiquitous rule of the den mother. More than anything, 1:13:51.000 --> 1:13:53.880 the long House refers to the remarkable over correction of 1:13:53.920 --> 1:13:57.960 the last two generations towards social norms centering feminine needs 1:13:58.000 --> 1:14:01.720 and feminine methods for controlling direct and modeling behavior. As 1:14:01.760 --> 1:14:04.519 of twenty twenty two, women held fifty two percent of 1:14:04.560 --> 1:14:08.040 professional managerial roles in the US. Women earn more than 1:14:08.080 --> 1:14:11.640 fifty seven percent of bachelor degrees, sixty one percent of 1:14:11.760 --> 1:14:15.280 master's degrees and fifty four percent of doctoral degrees. And 1:14:15.320 --> 1:14:18.919 because they're overrepresented in professions such as human resource management 1:14:19.200 --> 1:14:23.320 and compliance officers that determined workplace behavioral norms, they have 1:14:23.320 --> 1:14:26.000 an outsized influence and professional culture, which itself has an 1:14:26.000 --> 1:14:30.920 outsized influence on American culture more generally so the wall 1:14:31.439 --> 1:14:33.680 taken over human resources. 1:14:34.760 --> 1:14:36.960 He sounds like he loves to fight with his fosaurus 1:14:37.160 --> 1:14:39.960 when he's writing that, Like, yeah, at every point, like 1:14:40.479 --> 1:14:45.080 he's just using unnecessarily long word. Yeah, it's it's I mean, 1:14:45.080 --> 1:14:49.280 it's also just like women have are dominating society because 1:14:49.320 --> 1:14:53.080 they they're getting more bachelor's degrees. Yep, that's what it is. 1:14:53.680 --> 1:14:57.719 Huh okay, uh huh. Yeah, that's a famously useful bachelor's degree, 1:14:57.720 --> 1:15:01.880 which always leads to employment and power to tremendous wealth. 1:15:01.920 --> 1:15:02.040 Oh. 1:15:02.080 --> 1:15:05.240 Also, and the idea that like human resources are in 1:15:05.280 --> 1:15:09.360 some degree to somehow setting the terms culturally as opposed 1:15:09.400 --> 1:15:15.000 to responding to the needs of corporations to mitigate risk. Right, 1:15:15.400 --> 1:15:19.160 Like right, that's what HR actually is. It's not setting 1:15:19.200 --> 1:15:25.599 an agenda, it is avoiding lawsuits, it is minimizing exposure whatever. 1:15:26.200 --> 1:15:29.559 H Lomez also goes on to quote Richard Hannania, an 1:15:29.560 --> 1:15:33.000 influential conservative thought leader who is revealed recently to be 1:15:33.080 --> 1:15:35.799 a neo Nazi, or at least someone who regularly wrote 1:15:35.840 --> 1:15:38.519 neo Nazi things in neo Nazi parts of the web 1:15:38.680 --> 1:15:41.439 and wants to be seen as respectable. Now, well, we'll 1:15:41.439 --> 1:15:45.479 talk about him later. Lomez approvingly notes that Hannania echoes 1:15:45.520 --> 1:15:48.839 a bapist talking point when he discusses how female domination 1:15:48.920 --> 1:15:52.840 of HR has given them control over public and private institutions. 1:15:53.680 --> 1:15:57.280 Now again, the way Lomez is talking about this shit 1:15:57.439 --> 1:16:00.519 is not actually in line with how bronze a pervert 1:16:00.600 --> 1:16:03.839 conceives of the longhouse. And one of the funnier results 1:16:03.880 --> 1:16:06.240 of everything that I've been talking about today is that 1:16:06.280 --> 1:16:08.840 bronze age pervert now spends much of his time on 1:16:08.880 --> 1:16:12.280 Twitter angrily tweeting at his followers that they're using the 1:16:12.320 --> 1:16:13.200 long house wrong. 1:16:14.640 --> 1:16:15.479 I'm gonna read you. 1:16:15.400 --> 1:16:18.519 What post it is from July twenty seventh, longhouse has 1:16:18.560 --> 1:16:19.920 gone crazy out of control. 1:16:20.040 --> 1:16:21.000 Usually misused. 1:16:21.240 --> 1:16:24.160 It's not a synonym for feminism or matriarchy, nor for 1:16:24.240 --> 1:16:27.000 group consensus, though those are part of the story. It's 1:16:27.040 --> 1:16:29.639 a concrete image from pre airy in Europe. Of lower 1:16:29.680 --> 1:16:37.479 life and of most traditional societies. Baby Got Away from You. Yeah, 1:16:37.880 --> 1:16:40.200 and some of his ire is likely due to the 1:16:40.240 --> 1:16:43.920 fact that his followers, who are largely very young, tend 1:16:44.000 --> 1:16:47.280 to apply what they see as his analysis to children's movies. 1:16:50.200 --> 1:16:54.400 He's here's a real good one. Yeah, this is a 1:16:54.760 --> 1:16:57.439 it's a post for a picture of like the female 1:16:57.560 --> 1:17:02.360 villain from the movie Tangled by Activated Sleeper. If you 1:17:02.400 --> 1:17:05.400 want a good example of the nebulous long house, look 1:17:05.479 --> 1:17:09.040 no further than mother gothal Fane narcissism driven by resentment 1:17:09.040 --> 1:17:11.639 and envy of the young, whose primary and most effective 1:17:11.640 --> 1:17:16.200 weapons are gaslighting, manipulation, and the rhetoric of fanatical safety ism. 1:17:16.960 --> 1:17:17.759 It's good stuff. 1:17:18.479 --> 1:17:20.680 Thank you, Activated Sleeper. 1:17:20.800 --> 1:17:27.160 For you Activated Sleeper exposing that great cutting, cutting commentary 1:17:27.200 --> 1:17:30.520 on the twenty twelves Tangled. 1:17:33.439 --> 1:17:33.719 Now. 1:17:34.320 --> 1:17:37.080 One of my favorite recent examples of how many of 1:17:37.120 --> 1:17:39.559 these guys use the long house was a post in 1:17:39.600 --> 1:17:42.639 the off my Chest reddit which went viral on Twitter. 1:17:42.920 --> 1:17:44.880 The post is by a woman who says that she 1:17:45.000 --> 1:17:47.439 interrupted her husband while he was telling a story and 1:17:47.479 --> 1:17:49.760 he was like, hold up, Tony Minner, talking as like 1:17:49.800 --> 1:17:52.080 a joke, and she got angry at this, and they 1:17:52.080 --> 1:17:55.840 had a fight. One popular bapist response to this story, 1:17:55.920 --> 1:17:58.280 fifteen hundred likes in counting when I found it, stated, 1:17:58.640 --> 1:18:01.040 men attempt to take one meeting step out of the 1:18:01.080 --> 1:18:03.719 long house, and the locks get ten times bigger. 1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:06.680 Jesus Christ. It is. 1:18:07.040 --> 1:18:10.519 It is very silly to like bring up actual history 1:18:10.520 --> 1:18:12.160 with this, but one of the points you'll find and 1:18:12.240 --> 1:18:15.679 like writing about long houses traditionally is that because everyone 1:18:15.800 --> 1:18:17.840 was cooped up in the winter comes spring, the women 1:18:17.840 --> 1:18:20.800 were generally like doing everything they good to get the 1:18:20.840 --> 1:18:23.160 men to fucking leave and go hunter something. They get 1:18:23.200 --> 1:18:25.680 the fuck out of that thing, get out of here, Like, 1:18:25.840 --> 1:18:29.040 go do something else. We need something we need like 1:18:29.080 --> 1:18:32.559 a fucking week or two without you hanging around. Go 1:18:32.600 --> 1:18:38.000 to yeah, go to war, do something. Jesus Christ. Nobody 1:18:38.120 --> 1:18:42.080 likes being cooped up in a fucking long house anyway. 1:18:42.720 --> 1:18:46.360 That's that's the long house. That's uh, bronze age pervert. 1:18:46.400 --> 1:18:49.120 It is kind of worth noting because these guys are 1:18:49.200 --> 1:18:53.760 convinced that like they are the intellectual vanguard of this 1:18:53.840 --> 1:18:58.000 movement that's going to overturn what is classically described as liberalism, 1:18:58.040 --> 1:19:01.040 this idea that like people have like rights that are 1:19:01.040 --> 1:19:05.200 worth protecting and shit that that's a failed idea. It's 1:19:05.200 --> 1:19:08.680 obviously failed. Look at how ugly buildings are today. Then 1:19:08.720 --> 1:19:11.519 they'll post some picture of like the Chicago World's Fair. 1:19:12.560 --> 1:19:18.080 These people are like weirdly adjacent to the the Tataria 1:19:18.280 --> 1:19:21.479 conspiracy theory that one hundred years ago the world was 1:19:21.560 --> 1:19:24.479 ruled by this like vast advanced Russian empire that made 1:19:24.520 --> 1:19:27.080 all the nice buildings, and then World War two was 1:19:27.120 --> 1:19:29.439 a secret excuse for the rulers of the world to 1:19:29.479 --> 1:19:32.920 destroy all the good architecture and that's why buildings are ugly. 1:19:33.680 --> 1:19:38.640 I definitely seen like this bad guy in those in 1:19:38.680 --> 1:19:41.759 those like circles of people who are like like culture 1:19:41.880 --> 1:19:46.639 critic or like Greek Greek enjoyer or whatever. Like yeah, 1:19:46.800 --> 1:19:50.439 those pictures of like like old expensive architecture stuff and 1:19:50.760 --> 1:19:54.240 mixed in with like like either like uh mostly mostly 1:19:54.280 --> 1:19:57.880 like brutalist like modern architecture and be like what happened. 1:19:59.000 --> 1:20:04.800 Which way, Well, for one thing, like the society that 1:20:04.880 --> 1:20:07.680 people like you insisted upon this one in which like 1:20:07.840 --> 1:20:11.240 value is maximized at all costs. So we we took 1:20:11.320 --> 1:20:13.800 windows out of my school that was built in that 1:20:13.880 --> 1:20:15.720 brutalist periods because. 1:20:15.439 --> 1:20:16.160 It kept. 1:20:17.640 --> 1:20:22.360 Because like it's like because some like Prince bankrupted their 1:20:22.400 --> 1:20:26.120 country building this pretty building, and that's why we don't 1:20:26.160 --> 1:20:26.879 do that anymore. 1:20:26.880 --> 1:20:30.679 Idiot like you thought, like, yeah, jacked dudes with guns 1:20:30.680 --> 1:20:33.880 should run everything started a series of wars that bankrupted 1:20:33.880 --> 1:20:37.080 those countries and they had to sell their nice buildings 1:20:37.080 --> 1:20:38.920 to the Americans. 1:20:38.920 --> 1:20:41.280 Why we got the London Bridge, I assume. 1:20:41.720 --> 1:20:43.960 But it's it's definitely all that all in like in 1:20:44.000 --> 1:20:48.920 that in that same rough rough Twitter mill you. I mean, 1:20:48.960 --> 1:20:51.599 it's certainly now that you've explained all of this at 1:20:51.640 --> 1:20:54.880 Longhouse stuff, it certainly makes sense why they're kind of 1:20:54.920 --> 1:20:56.559 fawning over the Barbie movie. 1:20:56.560 --> 1:20:58.240 And I mean very. 1:20:58.080 --> 1:20:59.960 Clearly Ken is going to become one of these like 1:21:00.080 --> 1:21:03.320 memable characters because of what he does in the film. 1:21:04.280 --> 1:21:06.519 It's he's he's going to join the pantheon of like 1:21:06.520 --> 1:21:09.040 American Psycho and uh. 1:21:08.720 --> 1:21:10.799 All of Ryan Gosling's other roles. 1:21:12.720 --> 1:21:15.280 It's it is fascinating how Ry Goslin kind of has 1:21:15.320 --> 1:21:18.800 become like the literal poster child for much of like 1:21:18.880 --> 1:21:22.760 the dissident like anti feminist rite just because of the 1:21:22.760 --> 1:21:24.120 types of roles that he's taken. 1:21:25.160 --> 1:21:26.599 But yeah, I mean, it's it's. 1:21:26.479 --> 1:21:29.240 Really cautionary tale male actors. 1:21:29.560 --> 1:21:32.080 It certainly makes sense in context of the Barbie movie 1:21:32.120 --> 1:21:34.479 in terms of how they kind of structured all of 1:21:34.520 --> 1:21:39.440 the like social critique in that in that movie. But 1:21:39.439 --> 1:21:42.920 but yeah, this is very silly. I mean, uh, it's 1:21:43.320 --> 1:21:45.639 I'm excited I won't have to hear much more about 1:21:45.680 --> 1:21:51.639 like the uh, the stunning poetic prose of Bronze Age. 1:21:51.760 --> 1:21:52.240 Perfect. 1:21:52.640 --> 1:21:55.920 Yeah, fucking the Atlantic every time. Never. 1:21:56.720 --> 1:21:59.439 It's it's so like weird because there's there's this whole 1:21:59.439 --> 1:22:01.880 thing that open in the article where he's talking about 1:22:01.880 --> 1:22:05.479 how like, you know, the the first strains of this 1:22:05.600 --> 1:22:10.400 new anti democratic, you know, anti liberal thinking in academia 1:22:10.439 --> 1:22:13.400 came out through philosophy students who you know, realized that 1:22:13.400 --> 1:22:16.280 their professors just took for granted, you know, the the 1:22:16.680 --> 1:22:19.200 truth about things like the value of human rights and 1:22:19.439 --> 1:22:21.920 didn't weren't ready for their arguments against them. And it 1:22:21.960 --> 1:22:23.720 was these like these people who didn't want to be 1:22:23.800 --> 1:22:26.559 told not to think in certain ways. No, man, they 1:22:26.600 --> 1:22:30.680 were assholes. They're asshole rich kids who needed somebody to 1:22:30.720 --> 1:22:34.920 hit him in the fucking face. They need they need 1:22:34.960 --> 1:22:38.439 a folding chair deployed on them, Like yeah, yeah, we 1:22:38.880 --> 1:22:39.400 got to see. 1:22:39.840 --> 1:22:43.000 I demand a shutdown of all coastal universities until we 1:22:43.000 --> 1:22:44.599 figured out what the fuck is going on. 1:22:44.800 --> 1:22:47.880 Yeah yeah, I'm sorry if you were pretending that you are, 1:22:47.920 --> 1:22:52.000 like somehow in the insurgent underground, uh as the son 1:22:52.080 --> 1:22:54.439 of an M I T professor, going Tom I T 1:22:54.640 --> 1:22:57.640 yourself like you fucking diletant. 1:22:57.800 --> 1:22:58.160 That's all. 1:22:58.240 --> 1:23:00.439 That's all this fucker is is a dilat hunt. And 1:23:00.479 --> 1:23:02.479 that's all most of the people following here. It's a 1:23:02.479 --> 1:23:05.080 mix of dilettants and guys who are going to shoot 1:23:05.160 --> 1:23:10.439 up walmarts anyway, right, cool. 1:23:10.200 --> 1:23:15.040 Give them, give him a follow, give him a follow, Yeah, 1:23:15.520 --> 1:23:19.000 checking out activated sleeper and I've learned a lot already. 1:23:19.080 --> 1:23:23.120 So oh yeah, yeah, you're getting killed by him? Yeah yeah, yeah, 1:23:23.200 --> 1:23:26.000 pretty much. I you know, as much as one can 1:23:26.080 --> 1:23:28.519 be ill by a fourteen year old. But yeah, really 1:23:28.560 --> 1:23:33.080 interesting stuff here. I think fair to say that this 1:23:33.160 --> 1:23:35.920 is an insight into a world. Oh buddy, fuck me, 1:23:36.000 --> 1:23:38.600 all right, yeah wait, we're not talking about that. We 1:23:38.640 --> 1:23:40.879 are not talking about his bedroom wall by everyone. 1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:43.240 Oh oh wait, now I got a lotch James, what 1:23:43.320 --> 1:23:45.040 did we can bleep it? 1:23:45.160 --> 1:23:46.640 You have to at least tell us what you. 1:23:46.800 --> 1:23:50.840 Oh wow, his his pinned. It's fucking good. I'm not 1:23:50.840 --> 1:23:54.320 sure to get betteran playing Yeah no, what's on the veterans? 1:23:54.760 --> 1:23:58.479 And what looks like is that a German national? Like 1:23:58.520 --> 1:24:04.600 a German in there? Is that Imperial Germany? Yeah? I 1:24:04.600 --> 1:24:06.200 think this guy is a kaiser Reich. 1:24:06.360 --> 1:24:06.639 Dude. 1:24:09.840 --> 1:24:14.000 Impressive, I'm sure, I'm sure all the ladies in there. 1:24:14.040 --> 1:24:17.080 I gotta I gotta show you guys this pinned tweet 1:24:18.160 --> 1:24:21.599 and then I'll read it. It's all caps fed. Let 1:24:21.640 --> 1:24:23.719 me tell you how much I want a FED post. 1:24:23.960 --> 1:24:26.519 There are a hundred billion neurons within my brain. If 1:24:26.560 --> 1:24:28.439 a FED post was written on each and every one 1:24:28.560 --> 1:24:30.920 those neurons, it would not equal one billionth of the 1:24:30.960 --> 1:24:33.400 compulsion I feel feel the FED post at this micro 1:24:33.520 --> 1:24:37.519 instant fed post, FED post that means posting about doing 1:24:37.560 --> 1:24:38.639 a terrorism So that. 1:24:40.360 --> 1:24:42.880 This is the type of tweet that could either come 1:24:42.960 --> 1:24:47.680 from the sun like like mentally unwell leftist. 1:24:47.520 --> 1:24:53.320 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The flag he has, just to be clear, 1:24:53.360 --> 1:24:56.560 it's a franco Is flag of Spain, which, okay, is 1:24:56.600 --> 1:24:59.040 something that something that we will have to talk about, 1:24:59.120 --> 1:25:03.080 which is the American right has been embracing franco As 1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:07.120 like based and good uh for a while now like 1:25:07.200 --> 1:25:10.479 it's just kind of returned to Catholic tradition and like 1:25:11.000 --> 1:25:12.840 it's just anti woke crusader. 1:25:13.840 --> 1:25:15.960 I do like call of the suggestion follows here on 1:25:16.040 --> 1:25:19.280 activity Sleepers page, son Optimist. 1:25:20.560 --> 1:25:23.600 Aleric, the Barbarian Emperor Philippus. 1:25:25.960 --> 1:25:28.080 These people are such birds. 1:25:28.600 --> 1:25:32.720 Here's he's reached a post from Bronze Age Jacob Eurowski 1:25:33.120 --> 1:25:35.480 Jews are like the one ring for politics. 1:25:37.600 --> 1:25:41.240 I think I think, I think I think we reached 1:25:41.360 --> 1:25:45.120 the I think we reached peak peakfulness. I don't think. 1:25:45.320 --> 1:25:48.320 Yes. I hope you've all learned a lot from this. 1:25:49.640 --> 1:25:52.320 Have a wonderful week, every wonderful week, and funk you 1:25:52.479 --> 1:25:55.639 for making me write this to our listeners. 1:26:11.080 --> 1:26:13.280 Welcome to Dick It Appon Here, a podcast where if 1:26:13.280 --> 1:26:15.280 you're listening to this episode is the middle of the week, 1:26:15.360 --> 1:26:18.200 you probably know you know what this podcast is, you 1:26:18.280 --> 1:26:22.639 know what it's about. I'm your host, Mia Wong. Now, 1:26:23.040 --> 1:26:25.240 if you've been reading the news about China at all 1:26:25.280 --> 1:26:27.800 in the past few years, you've probably at least heard 1:26:28.439 --> 1:26:32.200 of China's Belton Road initiative, probably followed by a stream 1:26:32.240 --> 1:26:35.800 of almost panicked fear mongering about China displacing America's role 1:26:35.880 --> 1:26:38.679 in the world and luring countries, and the debt traps 1:26:38.720 --> 1:26:41.080 that allow the CCP to seize control of the country's 1:26:41.120 --> 1:26:45.600 assets and then its entire foreign policy, and all of 1:26:45.680 --> 1:26:50.880 this begs the question what actually is Belton Road. This 1:26:51.560 --> 1:26:56.000 is not a simple question because Belton Road isn't really 1:26:56.120 --> 1:27:01.160 a coherent, single project at all. It is effectively a 1:27:01.280 --> 1:27:05.160 marketing term slapped onto an enormous array of loans, investments, 1:27:05.760 --> 1:27:09.679 some things that are effectively grants, infrastructure projects, and special 1:27:09.760 --> 1:27:13.480 economic zones across the world. The money for these projects 1:27:13.640 --> 1:27:16.280 comes from a variety of Chinese banks and sometimes just 1:27:16.479 --> 1:27:20.479 like government agencies like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 1:27:20.640 --> 1:27:24.280 involve a vast array of different Chinese companies and contractors. 1:27:25.840 --> 1:27:28.559 So what are these banks and companies and governments actually 1:27:28.680 --> 1:27:34.040 up to. I'm going to run through three examples to 1:27:34.240 --> 1:27:37.960 get a sense of the kind of program that composes 1:27:38.040 --> 1:27:44.479 Belton Road. One very common program is extending lines of 1:27:44.640 --> 1:27:48.519 credit to state oil companies of oil producers in order 1:27:48.600 --> 1:27:52.040 to secure china supply of oil. I'm starting here because 1:27:52.080 --> 1:27:54.840 this is not typically what people think of when someone 1:27:54.920 --> 1:27:58.719 brings up Belton Road, and it gets at a couple 1:27:58.840 --> 1:28:04.080 of the central complexities of Belton Road. One is, you know, 1:28:04.320 --> 1:28:07.960 a lot of this stuff is just, in some sense 1:28:08.040 --> 1:28:13.160 almost ban all attempts to just sort of secured natural 1:28:13.400 --> 1:28:18.840 resources by paying money for them and investing money in them, 1:28:19.000 --> 1:28:23.719 which is you know, very very standard sort of capitalist behavior. 1:28:24.280 --> 1:28:27.640 But another complexity of this aspect of Belton Road is 1:28:27.720 --> 1:28:32.120 that these loans to oil producers were happening well before 1:28:32.200 --> 1:28:35.800 Belton Road ever existed. The credit lines were simply absorbed 1:28:35.880 --> 1:28:38.639 into Belton Road when the project was announced in twenty thirteen, 1:28:38.760 --> 1:28:41.880 and now these loans are considered Belton Road projects. This 1:28:42.080 --> 1:28:44.720 is a very common thread in Belton Road. Much of 1:28:44.800 --> 1:28:47.680 the vaunted one trillion dollars of investment in Belton Road 1:28:47.720 --> 1:28:51.960 projects comes from, you know, the extension of pre existing projects, 1:28:51.960 --> 1:28:54.160 which really sort of puts into perspective all of those 1:28:54.280 --> 1:28:58.000 like very very scary like maps that you'll see where 1:28:58.000 --> 1:29:00.679 they're like one hundred blah blah blah countries have accepted 1:29:01.479 --> 1:29:05.320 Belton Road projects. It's like, well, yeah, okay, like how 1:29:05.400 --> 1:29:07.519 much of that's new and how much of that is 1:29:08.320 --> 1:29:12.320 just people who had like some random agreement with China. 1:29:12.400 --> 1:29:12.960 Beforehand. 1:29:14.320 --> 1:29:17.640 Now, lest you think the fact that China is giving like, 1:29:18.280 --> 1:29:20.800 you know, a bunch of money to like Brazil State 1:29:20.840 --> 1:29:24.280 Oil Company, means that like this, the whole Belton Road 1:29:24.320 --> 1:29:27.519 thing has something to do with socialism. Here's a quote 1:29:27.560 --> 1:29:31.960 from China's thirteenth five Year Plan quote, we will speed 1:29:32.080 --> 1:29:36.719 up efforts to implement the free Trade Area strategy, gradually 1:29:36.920 --> 1:29:41.040 establishing a network of high standard free trade areas. We 1:29:41.080 --> 1:29:44.839 will actively engage in negotiations with other countries and regions 1:29:44.960 --> 1:29:49.200 along the route of Belton of the along the routes 1:29:49.360 --> 1:29:52.040 of the Belton Road Initiative on the building of free 1:29:52.160 --> 1:29:56.439 trade areas. Now, this is the ancient neoliberal dream. 1:29:56.560 --> 1:29:56.760 It is. 1:29:56.920 --> 1:29:59.040 It is a dream of a world where corporations can 1:29:59.080 --> 1:30:03.200 freely move their comb use across borders while maintaining, you know, 1:30:03.560 --> 1:30:08.679 zones of just unlimited exploitation of workers and special economic zones. Now, 1:30:09.360 --> 1:30:13.760 speaking of sort of the condition of workers, let us 1:30:13.840 --> 1:30:18.200 move to a more typical belt and road project, Jamaica's 1:30:18.320 --> 1:30:23.080 North South Highway. In twenty fourteen, at the astounding cost 1:30:23.200 --> 1:30:27.720 of seven hundred million dollars, the Jamaican government opened the 1:30:27.840 --> 1:30:32.120 North South Highway. Here's from an article that was republished 1:30:32.120 --> 1:30:36.840 in laoson quote. Since Jamaica needed a Chinese loan to 1:30:36.960 --> 1:30:41.160 finance the highway, Chinese Harbor Engineering Company was granted the 1:30:41.280 --> 1:30:44.719 right to own and operate the highway for fifty years 1:30:44.760 --> 1:30:48.800 as part of the arrangement. Also, the tolls collected on 1:30:48.840 --> 1:30:51.559 the highway cannot be used for debt servicing and rather 1:30:52.320 --> 1:30:58.080 go to the China Harbor Engineering Company directly as profit. Additionally, 1:30:58.320 --> 1:31:01.800 the tolls are astronomical by local standards. To drive the 1:31:01.920 --> 1:31:04.000 length of the highway, and a standard car costs the 1:31:04.080 --> 1:31:09.040 equivalents of over twelve dollars each way. This is well 1:31:09.120 --> 1:31:11.760 out of reach for the vast majority of Jamaican's where 1:31:11.760 --> 1:31:15.479 the average monthly salary is about six hundred dollars and 1:31:15.600 --> 1:31:18.160 only sixty percent of workers have a waged or salaried 1:31:18.200 --> 1:31:22.400 position at all. Many of my respondents wondered for whom 1:31:22.720 --> 1:31:26.040 was this highway. The answer may lie in the additional 1:31:26.120 --> 1:31:31.960 concessions granted to the China Harbor Engineering Company, primarily twelve 1:31:32.080 --> 1:31:34.479 hundred acres of land across the highway to be held 1:31:34.520 --> 1:31:38.479 in perpetuity. Apparently, this will be used to construct hotels 1:31:38.520 --> 1:31:42.479 and adjoining infrastructure by Chinese companies for Chinese tourists, a 1:31:42.680 --> 1:31:46.080 kind of economic enclay from which locals would not benefit directly, 1:31:46.120 --> 1:31:50.040 as acknowledged by the then Jamaican Minister of Transport. Now, 1:31:50.520 --> 1:31:54.360 this sucks for Jamaican workers who you know, didn't get 1:31:54.360 --> 1:31:56.200 any of the money from the contract, which you know 1:31:56.400 --> 1:31:58.000 went through Chinese firms. 1:31:59.200 --> 1:32:00.599 That input and these workers. 1:32:01.280 --> 1:32:02.720 And it's also not. 1:32:04.439 --> 1:32:06.840 A great deal for. 1:32:08.439 --> 1:32:12.240 Like the Jamaican government, which is enormous about of debt 1:32:13.400 --> 1:32:19.000 and gets seemingly very little for this. And this begs 1:32:19.040 --> 1:32:23.760 the question why do countries agree to this? Now, the 1:32:23.880 --> 1:32:27.840 short answer is that they need money for development projects, 1:32:27.960 --> 1:32:31.080 and you know, for a poor country, that money is 1:32:31.320 --> 1:32:35.280 very hard to come by. Part of the popularity of 1:32:35.360 --> 1:32:39.640 the project is that economies who've been through the you know, 1:32:39.800 --> 1:32:44.679 the just devastating process of IMF structure reforms, who've had 1:32:45.000 --> 1:32:48.760 literally their entire economy and social system torn apart, who 1:32:48.880 --> 1:32:52.040 have literally watched food being taken from the mouths of 1:32:52.040 --> 1:32:55.200 their children in order to pay off IMF loans, are 1:32:55.280 --> 1:33:00.120 looking for literally any alternative. And as we've discussed on 1:33:00.200 --> 1:33:03.960 this show before, Jamaica itself was the first country to 1:33:04.200 --> 1:33:07.000 be looted by the IMF as the Social Democratic government 1:33:07.120 --> 1:33:08.680 was forced to shred as well for a state in 1:33:08.760 --> 1:33:11.960 its economy in the seventies as a condition for getting 1:33:12.000 --> 1:33:16.519 IMF loans. This history and the current day threat more 1:33:17.120 --> 1:33:19.560 of these structural adjustments should you attempt to go to 1:33:19.640 --> 1:33:23.200 the IMF for more loans, make it more likely that 1:33:23.280 --> 1:33:26.120 countries will turn to Belton Road rather than the IMF 1:33:26.640 --> 1:33:29.160 to deal with their complete lack of development and to 1:33:29.320 --> 1:33:31.920 stave off economic crises resulting from the fact that their 1:33:31.960 --> 1:33:35.160 government has completely run out of money. And this is 1:33:35.200 --> 1:33:39.000 something even liberal imperialist institutions will admit. Here's from the 1:33:39.040 --> 1:33:43.400 Council on Foreign Relations Belton Road Task Force report quote. 1:33:44.240 --> 1:33:47.879 In contrast to loans from traditional providers of development finance, 1:33:48.439 --> 1:33:52.320 China's loans are generally not concessional, and the Chinese Development 1:33:52.439 --> 1:33:55.280 Bank and the Export Import Bank of China expect to 1:33:55.320 --> 1:33:59.599 make a return on their investments. The loans also lack 1:33:59.680 --> 1:34:05.000 Paul conditionality, They contain fewer no exceptions of host country 1:34:05.120 --> 1:34:09.320 economic policy or political reforms. Now, the Council on Foreign 1:34:09.400 --> 1:34:14.519 Relations concludes this with a very slick line that goes 1:34:14.680 --> 1:34:20.719 quote for many Belton Road initiative countries, especially authoritarian regimes. 1:34:21.640 --> 1:34:25.160 This is an attractive package, especially compared with other lenders 1:34:25.200 --> 1:34:30.080 who insist on reforms tied to loans. Now, okay, when 1:34:30.080 --> 1:34:33.200 do you hear the words, you know, when do you 1:34:33.360 --> 1:34:37.160 hear that authoritarian regimes don't want to do the quote 1:34:37.320 --> 1:34:40.280 reforms tied to loans. That makes it sounds like the 1:34:40.400 --> 1:34:44.639 quote unquote reforms are like, you know, you dictators seed 1:34:44.720 --> 1:34:47.640 power to a democracy. Woke at IMF funding. That is 1:34:48.080 --> 1:34:52.160 not that is not how i am F loan conditions work. 1:34:52.880 --> 1:34:57.760 What those reforms actually entail is much closer to sell 1:34:57.880 --> 1:35:00.160 every state out asset in the country to abund of 1:35:00.200 --> 1:35:02.439 American investors. We will leave your children to. 1:35:02.520 --> 1:35:04.880 Die, now, you know. 1:35:04.920 --> 1:35:07.240 And this leads into some other stuff that the Council 1:35:07.280 --> 1:35:10.439 on Foreign Relations talks about a lot, which is, you know, 1:35:10.800 --> 1:35:15.080 they have entire giant sections about corruption on Belton Road programs, 1:35:15.120 --> 1:35:18.639 to which you know, the immediate response is like, man, 1:35:19.000 --> 1:35:21.960 do you know how much money the IMF gave Pinochet? 1:35:22.400 --> 1:35:26.439 They gave him over a billion dollars in nineteen eighties, 1:35:26.520 --> 1:35:31.480 money that he is like three billion dollars in today's money. Now, clariously, 1:35:32.320 --> 1:35:35.320 the other people who gave Pinochet a boatload of money 1:35:36.400 --> 1:35:39.160 was the Chinese Communist Party, although you know, orders of 1:35:39.240 --> 1:35:43.400 magnitude last, because this is this is like the seventies 1:35:44.200 --> 1:35:47.640 Chinese Communist Party who do not have much money, but 1:35:47.840 --> 1:35:49.800 they had enough money apparently to give a bunch of 1:35:49.920 --> 1:35:54.439 the pinochet. And it's at this point that I want 1:35:54.520 --> 1:36:00.320 to remind everyone that China is the third largest voting 1:36:00.439 --> 1:36:05.280 member of the IMF, which is a real issue for 1:36:05.479 --> 1:36:09.040 both the sort of liberal and pro CCP accounts of 1:36:09.120 --> 1:36:12.600 the conflict between the CCP and the IMF over providing loans. 1:36:12.760 --> 1:36:16.360 Because you know, contrary to the way both. 1:36:16.200 --> 1:36:18.160 Of these groups seem to think about sort of the 1:36:18.280 --> 1:36:22.360 modern capitalist economy, China is not a you know, an 1:36:22.439 --> 1:36:25.360 old communist radical like throwing stones at the liberal order 1:36:25.400 --> 1:36:28.559 from outside the house. They are parts of the global 1:36:28.640 --> 1:36:32.760 financial institutions. And to the extent that like you know, 1:36:33.600 --> 1:36:36.280 China can be fighting an institution that it is also 1:36:36.400 --> 1:36:39.040 a part of right to the sense of to the 1:36:39.120 --> 1:36:42.320 sent that that even makes sense to talk about. What 1:36:42.479 --> 1:36:45.960 you're really talking about is just inter capitalist competition over 1:36:46.080 --> 1:36:50.360 who gets to give people loans. Now, there's other interesting 1:36:50.479 --> 1:36:53.439 stuff in this report, like an admission that the Chinese 1:36:54.240 --> 1:36:57.440 you know, the sort of Chinese debt trap narrative is overblown, 1:36:57.920 --> 1:37:01.799 and this is true. The sort of like case study 1:37:02.000 --> 1:37:05.000 in about like a Chinese company taking a port in 1:37:05.080 --> 1:37:11.880 Sri Lanka is not It's not exactly like the story 1:37:11.920 --> 1:37:14.800 that everyone thinks it is. And you know, like the 1:37:14.880 --> 1:37:18.120 Chinese company like got the port after like a bidding 1:37:18.240 --> 1:37:19.240 process and stuff. 1:37:20.000 --> 1:37:21.360 So you know, and this is true. 1:37:23.120 --> 1:37:24.680 And the fact that it's been used sort of like 1:37:24.800 --> 1:37:27.599 hyped up to do fear mongering is absolutely true. However, 1:37:29.400 --> 1:37:33.920 the thing the Council in Foreign Relations can't actually sort 1:37:33.960 --> 1:37:37.439 of say is that the actual conclusion that you get 1:37:37.560 --> 1:37:41.479 if you look closely at sort of combination of you know, 1:37:42.000 --> 1:37:44.840 country like Sri Lanka that has both IMF loans and 1:37:45.560 --> 1:37:52.080 like loads from China is that all of the lenders 1:37:52.520 --> 1:37:56.080 in the global capitalist economy absolutely suck and they all 1:37:56.160 --> 1:37:58.640 exploit the working class and the deador countries like in 1:37:58.760 --> 1:38:04.560 their own ways. Do you know who else exploits the 1:38:04.640 --> 1:38:09.880 working class of debtor countries? It is the products and 1:38:09.920 --> 1:38:16.160 services that support this podcast and we're back now. What 1:38:16.439 --> 1:38:20.800 is notable about Belton Road is that Belton Roads infrastructure 1:38:20.840 --> 1:38:26.000 projects usually do actually get built, but for all of 1:38:26.160 --> 1:38:29.559 the sort of screaming about like China's geopolitical expansion, its 1:38:29.560 --> 1:38:33.120 attempt to subvert the Democrats, subvert the democratic order. The 1:38:33.280 --> 1:38:36.360 actual reason why these projects, unlike you know, so many 1:38:36.439 --> 1:38:40.360 other large scale development projects, actually happen and you know, 1:38:40.560 --> 1:38:45.400 actually do get built, is much more banal. It is 1:38:45.479 --> 1:38:49.880 a product of internal Chinese economics. So to explain this, 1:38:49.960 --> 1:38:52.160 I'm going to turn to another example of a type 1:38:52.200 --> 1:38:57.160 of Belton Road project giving countries loans to buy telecommunications 1:38:57.200 --> 1:39:00.599 and internet equipment from Chinese companies. Here's some dot org. 1:39:01.800 --> 1:39:06.040 China's demand for infrastructure, including communications and internet gear, is 1:39:06.120 --> 1:39:08.040 not as high as it used to be, said Chinese 1:39:08.080 --> 1:39:12.000 Development Big President Jang Gigi. So what can we do 1:39:12.200 --> 1:39:16.080 with the excess production capacity. We can only send it abroad. 1:39:17.200 --> 1:39:19.959 We may give you loans to buy Chinese equipment and materials, 1:39:20.000 --> 1:39:23.480 but there must be a Chinese element, Jang told AFP 1:39:23.680 --> 1:39:26.920 of his bank's loans to help Chinese firms abroad. Now 1:39:27.760 --> 1:39:30.240 this is an interesting quote for a number of reasons. 1:39:31.040 --> 1:39:34.639 Recent sort of American and also Canadian. The Canadians went 1:39:34.880 --> 1:39:39.000 wild over this concern around Chinese telecom companies. Have you 1:39:39.080 --> 1:39:42.519 know argued that the spread of Chinese economy communication technology 1:39:42.600 --> 1:39:45.720 is like a geopolitical power grab by the CCP, a 1:39:45.880 --> 1:39:48.839 Chinese development bank. However, kind of like lets the actual 1:39:48.960 --> 1:39:52.439 game slip, which is that the reason for these loans, 1:39:52.600 --> 1:39:55.160 and you know, a major impetus for the sort of 1:39:55.320 --> 1:39:59.120 broader Belt and Road initiative is finding a solution to 1:39:59.240 --> 1:40:04.799 Chinese production over capacity, which is the giant structural problem 1:40:04.960 --> 1:40:08.200 which sort of hangs like the doom of Damocles over 1:40:08.240 --> 1:40:13.679 the Chinese economy. And this is incredibly important. Foreign policy 1:40:13.720 --> 1:40:16.559 analysts have a tendency which is replicated in the media 1:40:17.040 --> 1:40:20.519 to think about Belton Road is fundamentally a geopolitical tool. 1:40:21.240 --> 1:40:25.240 Take for example, this line from Foreign Policy quote will 1:40:25.439 --> 1:40:29.320 the developing world fall through China sway? Many policy makers 1:40:29.360 --> 1:40:32.560 in Washington, DC certainly fear so, which is one of 1:40:32.600 --> 1:40:36.640 the reasons they have created the new International Development Finance Corporation, 1:40:37.160 --> 1:40:39.120 which is slated to begin operating at the end of 1:40:39.200 --> 1:40:41.960 this year. Like the Marshall Plan, which in post World 1:40:42.040 --> 1:40:45.360 War two years used generous economic aid to fight the 1:40:45.439 --> 1:40:51.280 appeal of Soviet Communism in Western Europe, the International Development 1:40:51.400 --> 1:40:55.080 Finance Corporation aims to help Washington push back against Beijing 1:40:55.240 --> 1:41:00.400 sweeping Belton Road initiative. Now, fascinatingly, the authors don't seemed 1:41:00.439 --> 1:41:03.720 to understand what the Marshall Plan actually was. Now, the 1:41:03.800 --> 1:41:08.479 Marshall Plan, you know, despite what you will like probably 1:41:08.600 --> 1:41:13.640 read in sort of like mainstream like diplomatic histories, was 1:41:13.800 --> 1:41:19.320 not like originally was not really driven by anti communism 1:41:19.360 --> 1:41:22.040 at all. It was in large part a product of 1:41:22.240 --> 1:41:26.439 massive industrial overcapacity in post war In the post war US, 1:41:26.560 --> 1:41:30.439 particularly in the automotive sector, demand from the domestic American 1:41:30.479 --> 1:41:35.000 market couldn't support the enormously expanded auto industry's industrial capacity. 1:41:35.320 --> 1:41:37.200 And so the auto industry went to Congress and tried 1:41:37.200 --> 1:41:39.680 to get them to rebuild Europe as like, you know, 1:41:39.920 --> 1:41:43.680 another market that they could sell there, you know, that 1:41:43.880 --> 1:41:45.840 they could sell cars to that could absorb the product 1:41:45.880 --> 1:41:48.599 or of throbic capacity. The only way they could actually 1:41:48.640 --> 1:41:50.640 get this to work was to tie it to a 1:41:50.760 --> 1:41:54.519 raft of anti communism. And this is now how the 1:41:54.600 --> 1:41:56.880 project is remembered as this, you know, as this sort 1:41:56.880 --> 1:42:01.840 of like grand anti communists like political strategy, you know. 1:42:02.320 --> 1:42:05.840 And in this sense, Belton Road can be understood as 1:42:06.000 --> 1:42:09.280 China's Marshall Plan. It is a bold attempt to forge 1:42:09.280 --> 1:42:13.840 an international solution to its domestic economic problems. And this 1:42:14.160 --> 1:42:17.680 means to actually understand what Belton Road is, we need 1:42:17.800 --> 1:42:21.840 to go back to the beginning. In response to the 1:42:21.920 --> 1:42:24.720 financial collapse of two thousand and eight, China carry out 1:42:24.840 --> 1:42:28.759 what was until COVID the largest stimulus in human history, 1:42:29.200 --> 1:42:34.240 an incomprehensibly large Kinesian program focused on internal infrastructure development 1:42:34.880 --> 1:42:38.280 designed to shock the Chinese economy back into shape, and 1:42:38.439 --> 1:42:42.479 it worked for about one year. In twenty ten, the 1:42:42.600 --> 1:42:46.400 Chinese economy hit ten percent a year on yr GDP growth, 1:42:46.439 --> 1:42:50.639 and it has been falling ever since. In twenty eleven, 1:42:50.760 --> 1:42:53.599 the round of global uprisings kicked off by the Arab Spring, 1:42:53.720 --> 1:42:55.720 hit China in the form with the Wukan riots and 1:42:55.800 --> 1:42:59.160 a wave of strikes, and by twenty thirteen, a year 1:42:59.240 --> 1:43:03.560 into the first new Chinese presidents, Chichiping, the economy was 1:43:03.640 --> 1:43:06.040 doing terribly and the government was still not out of 1:43:06.080 --> 1:43:10.880 the woods politically either. In response, the government announced two 1:43:11.000 --> 1:43:14.559 programs within about four months of each other, Belton Road 1:43:14.880 --> 1:43:18.679 and the so called Mini Stimulus, another Chinese stimulus package 1:43:18.680 --> 1:43:23.120 aimed at improving Chinese rails at the proper term for it, 1:43:24.160 --> 1:43:28.080 and it ended improving the Chinese train network. Now, these 1:43:28.160 --> 1:43:32.080 two programs were effectively the same response to the economic 1:43:32.160 --> 1:43:35.679 crisis fased by the CCP. Rising wages of strike activity 1:43:35.760 --> 1:43:39.720 and later environmental protests were threatening the profitability of the 1:43:39.800 --> 1:43:43.440 Chinese manufacturing sector in its traditional coastal urban sector. 1:43:43.240 --> 1:43:43.879 Is like Shenzhen. 1:43:46.640 --> 1:43:50.120 The solution then was to move Chinese capital towards the 1:43:50.280 --> 1:43:53.960 interior of the country, into more rural areas with lower wages, 1:43:54.600 --> 1:43:58.960 and then build an infrastructure network to export Chinese commodities abroad. 1:44:00.479 --> 1:44:03.840 This move serves several purposes at the same time. On 1:44:03.960 --> 1:44:06.479 the one hand, cheaper rural workers are less likely to 1:44:06.640 --> 1:44:09.880 organize either strikes or environmental protests. On the other hand, 1:44:11.280 --> 1:44:14.479 some kind of rural investment could secure rural factional support 1:44:14.520 --> 1:44:16.639 for the Party at a time when the rural Ukon 1:44:16.800 --> 1:44:21.800 riots meant that such support was anything but assured. But 1:44:22.000 --> 1:44:25.759 even in twenty thirteen, it was clear that the vaunted 1:44:25.880 --> 1:44:28.679 Chinese transition to a consumer economy was going to fail 1:44:29.000 --> 1:44:33.880 because and this is really blindingly obvious if you think, 1:44:34.000 --> 1:44:36.000 if you think about how the Chinese economy works for 1:44:36.120 --> 1:44:40.879 like ten seconds, Okay, in order to have a consumer economy, 1:44:41.320 --> 1:44:45.640 you must have a class of consumers. Now, this requires 1:44:45.760 --> 1:44:49.479 average people to have a thing called money, and both 1:44:49.600 --> 1:44:53.760 Jesionping and the Chinese capitalist class were broadly just absolutely 1:44:54.280 --> 1:44:59.800 resolutely refuse to do anything that involves paying Chinese workers more, 1:45:00.439 --> 1:45:03.160 which is what you need to make this happen, and 1:45:03.320 --> 1:45:06.880 they just refuse to do it. It is genuinely stunning. 1:45:07.280 --> 1:45:07.839 Xi Jinping. 1:45:08.120 --> 1:45:12.720 Xi Jinping would literally rather force like the force the 1:45:12.840 --> 1:45:15.760 randomly the head like the CEOs of corporations to give 1:45:15.880 --> 1:45:19.080 money to charity and call it a government program before 1:45:19.240 --> 1:45:23.960 he would like fucking raise a minimum wage. So you know, 1:45:25.240 --> 1:45:27.080 if you're in twenty thirteen, right, you can see the 1:45:27.160 --> 1:45:30.439 writing on the wall. You can see the Chinese economy 1:45:30.640 --> 1:45:34.519 isn't going to like turn into a consumer economy. There's been, 1:45:34.760 --> 1:45:37.000 you know, there's been some transition into like a service 1:45:37.040 --> 1:45:39.519 based economy, but like you know, ask ask the US 1:45:39.640 --> 1:45:41.960 how growth that a service based economy works for you. 1:45:44.120 --> 1:45:46.559 And because they've seen the writing on the wall, Chinese 1:45:46.600 --> 1:45:50.160 capitalists start looking for ways to make money overseas, and 1:45:50.640 --> 1:45:54.400 this overlaps with a growing demand to do something with 1:45:54.560 --> 1:45:59.400 the enormous reserves of American dollars that China has from 1:45:59.479 --> 1:46:01.920 like basically propping up the US economy by buying like 1:46:02.000 --> 1:46:05.320 a trillion dollars of US bonds in the two thousands 1:46:05.360 --> 1:46:07.200 and early twenty tens. And like you think I'm joking 1:46:07.240 --> 1:46:09.720 when I say, like e trillion dollars, but it is 1:46:09.800 --> 1:46:15.040 actually around a trillion dollars. Well, okay, this is where 1:46:15.080 --> 1:46:20.800 I need to make an enormous disclaimer. Why okay, it 1:46:20.960 --> 1:46:25.080 is atrociously difficult to get reliable economic statistics out of China, 1:46:25.240 --> 1:46:29.639 to the point where, like the Chinese central government when 1:46:29.720 --> 1:46:33.719 they get data from their own provinces, who are legally 1:46:33.840 --> 1:46:37.800 required to report data to them, they have to mess 1:46:38.080 --> 1:46:41.559 with the data to make it make literally any sense 1:46:41.600 --> 1:46:44.960 at all. They have these they have these equations that 1:46:45.479 --> 1:46:48.080 that they like apply to the statistical data from the 1:46:48.160 --> 1:46:51.760 provinces they get that are effectively attempts to calculate how 1:46:51.840 --> 1:46:54.280 much the provinces are lying to the central government and 1:46:54.360 --> 1:46:56.200 how you know, and try to figure out a way 1:46:56.240 --> 1:46:59.479 to fix it. And you know, they are doing things. 1:46:59.560 --> 1:47:03.200 They are doing things like that, they're doing things out 1:47:03.240 --> 1:47:06.320 of like the old late Soviet Union. They are they 1:47:06.360 --> 1:47:10.320 are they are using satellite pictures to check how much 1:47:10.479 --> 1:47:13.439 light there is from factories at nights. They are like 1:47:13.960 --> 1:47:17.400 measuring how many freight trains are like going into a 1:47:17.520 --> 1:47:20.719 province and trying to use that to estimate their actual 1:47:20.800 --> 1:47:21.920 industrial capacity. 1:47:22.560 --> 1:47:23.559 It is wild. 1:47:23.680 --> 1:47:27.960 And that is just the CCP trying to figure out 1:47:28.760 --> 1:47:36.400 its own numbers. And that means, right that the numbers 1:47:36.439 --> 1:47:42.000 the CCP actually decides to release when they're done trying 1:47:42.040 --> 1:47:44.880 to get the data to look kind of real so 1:47:44.960 --> 1:47:46.839 they can understand what's going on in their own economy. 1:47:48.600 --> 1:47:48.760 You know. 1:47:48.920 --> 1:47:51.479 So there's that data which is unreliable because again, like 1:47:52.479 --> 1:47:54.640 you're dealing with, everyone is lying to you, but what 1:47:54.720 --> 1:47:56.960 the data is, but in the data of the CCP 1:47:57.080 --> 1:48:00.760 actually releases. Oh boy, So we're gonna come back to 1:48:00.840 --> 1:48:03.479 this in a little bit. But Chinese youth unemployment right 1:48:03.479 --> 1:48:06.320 now is twenty percent. And the CCP's response to this 1:48:06.560 --> 1:48:09.040 is they've announced that they refused to release any more 1:48:09.080 --> 1:48:14.160 youth unemployment numbers until they finish like recalculating it or something. 1:48:14.479 --> 1:48:18.120 So great stuff, amazing stuff happening in the world of 1:48:18.200 --> 1:48:19.439 Chinese satistical addicxes. 1:48:19.600 --> 1:48:23.200 It is awful. I don't wish this on anyone. 1:48:24.680 --> 1:48:28.880 Yeah, Now, all of this is to say that the 1:48:29.000 --> 1:48:32.880 case I'm about to make is probably true, Like there's 1:48:32.920 --> 1:48:35.680 like a ninety percent chance that what I'm about to 1:48:35.720 --> 1:48:38.000 say is true, but we don't one hundred percent know 1:48:38.120 --> 1:48:41.040 because it relies on Chinese economic data that is incredibly sketchy, 1:48:41.560 --> 1:48:43.439 and a lot of this has turned into this sort 1:48:43.479 --> 1:48:47.040 of like game of financial hide and seek with all 1:48:47.080 --> 1:48:49.960 these assets that are in weird places. But what seems 1:48:50.040 --> 1:48:51.840 to have happened is that a lot of built in 1:48:51.920 --> 1:48:54.479 road projects are being funded by Chinese for inch just 1:48:54.560 --> 1:48:56.680 change research, which is those trillions of dollars of like 1:48:57.280 --> 1:48:59.800 bonds I was talking about earlier. Of that, you know, 1:49:00.160 --> 1:49:02.320 we're moved from the People's Bank of China which is 1:49:02.400 --> 1:49:05.400 China Central Bank to like other banks, and then those 1:49:05.520 --> 1:49:09.640 banks use that to do investments. And this appears to 1:49:09.680 --> 1:49:11.400 be some of the money that was used to fund 1:49:11.400 --> 1:49:13.439 belt and road projects. And this is where things get 1:49:13.640 --> 1:49:18.639 very sketchy. Now, these banks seem to initially have been 1:49:18.720 --> 1:49:21.960 flushed with capital, which you know, contributed to a massive 1:49:22.240 --> 1:49:24.519 like as as the product is initially starting and up 1:49:24.520 --> 1:49:27.240 through about twenty eighteen, like it's just you know, it 1:49:27.320 --> 1:49:29.799 just keeps the amount of money going into this keeps increasing, 1:49:29.920 --> 1:49:32.479 keeps increasing, and then twenty eighteen, it starts to slow. 1:49:33.160 --> 1:49:35.639 And then after the pandemic, and particularly after like twenty 1:49:35.680 --> 1:49:39.760 twenty twenty two, like the amount of money that's going 1:49:39.800 --> 1:49:44.040 into belt road projects has imploded, and the amounts of 1:49:44.320 --> 1:49:51.080 loans that the CCP is writing off has just diminished enormously. Now, Okay, 1:49:52.160 --> 1:49:56.200 this is the sketchy part. You will see a lot 1:49:56.320 --> 1:49:58.599 of people if you look into this, who are going 1:49:58.680 --> 1:50:03.920 to argue that the reason that these loans have sort 1:50:03.920 --> 1:50:05.960 of dried up and the reason that this has been 1:50:06.000 --> 1:50:09.439 decreasing is that China is like burning through its reserve 1:50:09.520 --> 1:50:13.200 of foreign exchange, like it's burnning out of its burning 1:50:13.240 --> 1:50:15.760 burning through its reserve of like US dollars that it 1:50:15.840 --> 1:50:21.519 has its banks. This may be true, maybe it's probably 1:50:21.680 --> 1:50:25.200 not true of like twenty eighteen, because and this is 1:50:25.200 --> 1:50:28.920 the thing that's been discovered very recently, a lot of 1:50:29.400 --> 1:50:33.880 Chinese's like a lot of things that like are technically 1:50:34.160 --> 1:50:37.760 foreign exchange reserves were like technically aren't qualified classified as 1:50:37.760 --> 1:50:41.240 foreign exchange reserves because they've been weird stuff has happened 1:50:41.240 --> 1:50:43.600 to the balance sheet. I don't know, it's kind of 1:50:43.640 --> 1:50:46.040 a mess, but like it seems like China has way 1:50:46.200 --> 1:50:49.240 way larger. They have these things called shadow reserves that 1:50:49.400 --> 1:50:51.960 are the things that they've been using to like turn 1:50:52.080 --> 1:50:56.280 for x into like investments, and this seems to this 1:50:56.400 --> 1:50:59.519 seems to indicate that China has like way way larger 1:50:59.600 --> 1:51:03.679 foreign exchange reserves then it tacnically are on the balance sheet. 1:51:04.560 --> 1:51:09.479 So what the actual relationship between how much forward exchange 1:51:10.320 --> 1:51:12.920 reserves China has and how much money is putting into 1:51:12.960 --> 1:51:13.400 belt in run. 1:51:13.520 --> 1:51:14.000 We don't know. 1:51:14.720 --> 1:51:17.600 It's a disaster, but what we do know is that 1:51:18.080 --> 1:51:24.200 these investments were not like sort of like mere geopolitical tools, right, 1:51:24.439 --> 1:51:27.519 These investments were actually designed to make money, and that 1:51:27.720 --> 1:51:30.439 means that they were and still are, an attempt to 1:51:30.560 --> 1:51:33.280 solve sort of the weakness of the Chinese economy by 1:51:33.360 --> 1:51:36.880 finding ways to invest capital with better returns than the 1:51:37.040 --> 1:51:42.080 absolutely terrible and increasingly dogshit rates that you can find 1:51:42.120 --> 1:51:43.719 in China. And this is something that we've been seeing, 1:51:44.520 --> 1:51:47.680 you know, in the last year, We've been watching sort 1:51:47.720 --> 1:51:50.360 of the dogs come like the chickens come home to 1:51:50.520 --> 1:51:52.439 roost for the Chinese economy, where like, you know, all 1:51:52.479 --> 1:51:54.960 this debt build ups paying off. Why I say it 1:51:55.000 --> 1:51:56.720 paying off all this debt build up is you know, 1:51:56.960 --> 1:51:59.960 like really starting to damage the economy, like the housing 1:52:00.320 --> 1:52:04.920 is kind of imploding, and you know, Belton Road was 1:52:05.439 --> 1:52:07.920 supposed to be sort of the answer to this. Right, 1:52:08.000 --> 1:52:11.439 If you combined, if you combine the fact that we 1:52:11.600 --> 1:52:13.559 know for a fact that these loans are an attempt 1:52:13.560 --> 1:52:15.519 to actually like generate returns, and we also know that 1:52:15.600 --> 1:52:17.400 these loans are a way to sort of stimulate demand 1:52:17.439 --> 1:52:20.200 for Chinese goods that there's no domestic market for, we 1:52:20.360 --> 1:52:23.439 get this clear picture of what's really driving Belton Road. 1:52:23.560 --> 1:52:26.640 It's the crisis of Chinese capital, which in and of 1:52:26.720 --> 1:52:29.000 itself is just sort of a global reflection of the 1:52:29.040 --> 1:52:32.720 global crisis of overproduction under consumption that's haunted the world 1:52:32.760 --> 1:52:38.320 since the nineteen seventies. Now, there's one last aspect of 1:52:38.400 --> 1:52:40.360 Belton Road that we need to talk about that gets 1:52:40.439 --> 1:52:43.200 way less attention than any other aspect of the initiative. 1:52:44.360 --> 1:52:48.160 Belton Road also acts as a work program for a 1:52:48.280 --> 1:52:52.920 very specific kind of Chinese worker. Belton Road projects, as 1:52:52.960 --> 1:52:56.439 you see in Jamaica, are run by Chinese corporations almost always, 1:52:56.479 --> 1:52:59.679 I mean occasionally other firms get contracted. Mostly it's Chinese 1:52:59.680 --> 1:53:03.559 corporate and they import Chinese workers to do the work. 1:53:04.360 --> 1:53:06.640 And you know, we've looked at it from the Jamaican end, 1:53:06.960 --> 1:53:09.439 where you know, Jamaican workers are getting screw odd jobs 1:53:09.479 --> 1:53:12.120 and wages, but we should also look at it from 1:53:12.160 --> 1:53:17.439 the perspective of Chinese workers as well. Working in China, 1:53:17.520 --> 1:53:21.400 as we've discussed elsewhere extensively sucks ass. Wages are dogshit, 1:53:21.520 --> 1:53:24.040 the hours are inhuman, and there's intense competition for what. 1:53:24.120 --> 1:53:24.960 Jobs do exist. 1:53:25.800 --> 1:53:28.479 On the other hand, salaries for Chinese workers on built 1:53:28.479 --> 1:53:31.400 in road projects are much much higher than they are 1:53:31.479 --> 1:53:36.320 for the same job in China. Amazingly, Chinese corporations abroad 1:53:36.920 --> 1:53:40.360 actually have less ability to just not pay people for 1:53:40.520 --> 1:53:44.560 their work, which is, you know, the thing that you know, 1:53:44.760 --> 1:53:46.439 usually the first thing that rich people are trying to 1:53:46.479 --> 1:53:48.280 do when they when they have our face with having 1:53:48.320 --> 1:53:51.720 to pay someone in Chinese corporations absolutely constantly attempt to 1:53:51.840 --> 1:53:56.160 just not pay their workers. And as a bonus to that, 1:53:56.240 --> 1:53:58.439 on top of the fact that you're like actually getting paid, 1:53:58.479 --> 1:54:00.439 and you're getting paid way more of you would for 1:54:00.479 --> 1:54:04.719 working a job in China, these these Belton road jobs 1:54:04.760 --> 1:54:07.840 have a much faster promotion track and the cost of 1:54:07.960 --> 1:54:11.240 living is much lower than it is in China. Which 1:54:11.280 --> 1:54:14.160 allows workers to save money and cent remittances back home. 1:54:15.040 --> 1:54:18.200 That mean this means that Belton Road jobs, which are specifically, 1:54:18.360 --> 1:54:21.599 you know, in sort of like nationalist circles, conceptualized as 1:54:21.720 --> 1:54:26.600 quote Africa, which is oh boy, is seen as you know, 1:54:27.200 --> 1:54:29.560 it's seen as a way out for Chinese workers. And 1:54:29.600 --> 1:54:31.439 we actually talked about this a long time ago in 1:54:31.520 --> 1:54:35.320 our Lying Flat anti work episodes. Part of the origins 1:54:35.360 --> 1:54:37.560 of Lying Flat was his reaction to this sort of 1:54:37.640 --> 1:54:40.920 like nationalist discourse but like finding your own personal Africa 1:54:41.080 --> 1:54:44.960 to break out of like Chinese involution. And you know, 1:54:45.120 --> 1:54:49.920 from this kind of like ulternationalist, like really racist like concept, 1:54:50.000 --> 1:54:53.040 you get this like left wing backlash of co opting 1:54:53.120 --> 1:54:55.240 of like the refusal to work that is you know, 1:54:55.360 --> 1:54:59.879 lying flat. But for our purposes right now, the important 1:55:00.040 --> 1:55:03.480 thing about this is Belton Road was a solution to 1:55:03.600 --> 1:55:06.640 a sort of new like highly educated Chinese working class 1:55:06.760 --> 1:55:11.080 who you know, were suddenly realizing that like this education 1:55:11.200 --> 1:55:13.440 that they put literally everything into and this like they 1:55:13.600 --> 1:55:15.840 sunk their entire lives into, was just going to get 1:55:15.840 --> 1:55:20.680 them nowhere. And you know, Belton Road appeared as a 1:55:20.760 --> 1:55:25.000 sort of mirage of way out. But it's not it's 1:55:25.080 --> 1:55:28.200 not a way out for Chinese workers. It's it's its 1:55:28.200 --> 1:55:30.400 own kind of imperialism. It's the same sort of shit 1:55:30.480 --> 1:55:32.920 that oil companies do where they said highly paid American 1:55:33.000 --> 1:55:36.160 workers to oil wells in Nigeria to avoid having to 1:55:36.280 --> 1:55:38.800 deal with, you know, a class of skilled and politically 1:55:38.840 --> 1:55:42.120 sophisticated Nigerian oil workers. It's the same kind of sort 1:55:42.120 --> 1:55:44.720 of racial divide and conquer that funds Chinese workers at 1:55:44.760 --> 1:55:50.040 the expense of workers in Jamaica, and that ultimately is 1:55:50.160 --> 1:55:53.160 the core of both Belton Road and the American response 1:55:53.200 --> 1:55:56.280 to Belton Road. It is a desperate attempt to keep 1:55:56.360 --> 1:55:59.120 the embers of capital burning by lighting the working class 1:55:59.160 --> 1:56:02.240 on fire, feeding it to the flames. 1:56:18.240 --> 1:56:21.560 Hi. Everyone, it's me James today and I'm joined by 1:56:21.720 --> 1:56:24.720 Meghan Bodette, who's the director of research at the Kurdish 1:56:24.760 --> 1:56:28.200 Peace Institute. We're picking up where we left off at 1:56:28.200 --> 1:56:32.040 the end of last week to discuss more about the 1:56:32.640 --> 1:56:37.080 Autonomous Administration in North and Eastyria and perhaps more specifically, 1:56:37.120 --> 1:56:42.280 to talk about the detainees the ISIS detainees in the 1:56:42.360 --> 1:56:44.200 Al Whole camp and in other camps around there. 1:56:45.040 --> 1:56:48.320 How are you, Megan, I'm doing well, thank you, James, 1:56:48.400 --> 1:56:50.760 thank you for having me on for this important conversation 1:56:50.880 --> 1:56:55.040 about a really critical security and humanitarian issue that we're 1:56:55.040 --> 1:56:56.560 seeing in north east Syria these days. 1:56:57.200 --> 1:57:00.280 Yeah, thanks, thanks for joining us. So I think start 1:57:00.320 --> 1:57:02.880 out with would you be comfortable giving a sort of 1:57:03.920 --> 1:57:09.160 baseline explanation of what's happening with these ISIS detainees and why, 1:57:09.680 --> 1:57:12.120 despite the fact that many of them are citizens of 1:57:12.240 --> 1:57:14.800 other countries, they haven't been a returned there. 1:57:15.640 --> 1:57:18.480 Yeah, that's a very important place to start with. So essentially, 1:57:18.600 --> 1:57:22.520 after the territorial defeat of ISIS in twenty and nineteen 1:57:22.880 --> 1:57:27.600 by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the International Coalition, the 1:57:27.920 --> 1:57:31.040 Syrian Democratic Forces and the Autonomous Administration, which is the 1:57:31.040 --> 1:57:35.360 political body governing Northeast Syria ended up with tens of 1:57:35.480 --> 1:57:40.680 thousands of ISIS detainees and the family members of these 1:57:41.080 --> 1:57:44.760 ISIS members as well. And in the Alhol camp you 1:57:44.880 --> 1:57:49.480 now have a population of essentially ISIS affiliated women and 1:57:49.760 --> 1:57:53.440 the children of ISIS members who are now housed in 1:57:53.560 --> 1:57:58.360 that camp as well. And this camp is a serious 1:57:58.440 --> 1:58:01.520 humanitarian issue. You have these children who are in very 1:58:01.560 --> 1:58:05.960 difficult conditions. It's a massive security problem for these surrounding 1:58:06.080 --> 1:58:09.160 Syrian and Iraqi communities that were victimized by ISIS and 1:58:09.240 --> 1:58:13.280 the world. ISIS openly wants to reconstitute itself. It is 1:58:13.440 --> 1:58:17.440 operating inside the camp clandestinely to reconstitute itself. It wants 1:58:17.520 --> 1:58:20.320 to break prisoners out and go right back to its 1:58:20.400 --> 1:58:24.960 genocidal policies against minorities in the region like Zidis and Christians, 1:58:25.040 --> 1:58:27.760 and to continue terror attacks not only in Iraq and 1:58:27.840 --> 1:58:31.080 Syria but around the world. It's also a real drain 1:58:31.200 --> 1:58:34.879 on the resources of the Autonomous Administration and the SDF themselves, 1:58:35.240 --> 1:58:37.640 who we have to remember are not a state actor, 1:58:37.720 --> 1:58:39.920 but are dealing with the sort of problems that even 1:58:39.960 --> 1:58:43.560 the wealthiest and most militarily established state actors would have 1:58:43.680 --> 1:58:46.880 trouble with. So they've ended up in this unenviable position 1:58:46.960 --> 1:58:50.400 of having to take care of essentially criminals from around 1:58:50.440 --> 1:58:54.120 the world who came to their country to commit mass atrocities, 1:58:54.720 --> 1:58:57.440 while the victims of these ISIS crimes across Northern and 1:58:57.520 --> 1:59:01.400 Eastern Syria and victims of the subst Turkish invasions that 1:59:01.520 --> 1:59:04.240 a Northern and Eastern Syria suffered during and after the 1:59:04.280 --> 1:59:08.040 fight against ISIS really lack basic resources. Now, this is 1:59:08.120 --> 1:59:09.680 something I heard a lot on the ground when I 1:59:09.760 --> 1:59:12.320 was in the region in February and March, speaking to 1:59:12.360 --> 1:59:15.560 people from Afrin, which was invaded and occupied by Turkey 1:59:15.640 --> 1:59:19.840 in twenty eighteen, and to people from Serkanya and Telabyad, 1:59:19.920 --> 1:59:22.680 which were invaded and occupied by Turkey in twenty nineteen. 1:59:23.320 --> 1:59:27.000 Many of them asked rightly why there were so many 1:59:27.160 --> 1:59:32.000 resources from international bodies and NGOs and governments provided towards 1:59:32.320 --> 1:59:36.800 the ISIS detainees in al Hole and the ISIS affiliated 1:59:36.840 --> 1:59:40.240 individuals there, when their communities, their families who had done 1:59:40.320 --> 1:59:43.360 nothing other than simply living in areas that Turkey decided 1:59:43.360 --> 1:59:46.520 to invade and occupy, who were displaced because of that 1:59:46.760 --> 1:59:50.080 in what experts, including myself, would refer to as ethnic cleansing. 1:59:50.600 --> 1:59:53.800 These communities are receiving nothing from the international community. You know, 1:59:53.880 --> 1:59:57.880 they feel forgotten and they have some serious questions about that. 1:59:58.600 --> 2:00:01.240 Of course, the Autonomous Administration has many needs and many 2:00:01.320 --> 2:00:05.480 pressing security problems that it simply can't devote enough resources 2:00:05.520 --> 2:00:08.680 to when it's tasked with managing the world's ISIS members. 2:00:09.320 --> 2:00:11.280 So in a recent study that we published at the 2:00:11.360 --> 2:00:14.800 Kurdish Peace Institute by journalist Matt Broomfield, who spent a 2:00:14.840 --> 2:00:17.160 lot of time on the ground in northeast Syria during 2:00:17.200 --> 2:00:19.920 and after the defeat of ISIS. He found that just 2:00:20.120 --> 2:00:23.600 four percent of foreign ISIS fighters held by Syrian Kurdish 2:00:23.640 --> 2:00:28.040 authorities have been repatriated since twenty nineteen four percent. The 2:00:28.120 --> 2:00:31.320 most of the repatriations have been women and children, not 2:00:31.480 --> 2:00:34.560 the fighters themselves, who are housed in prisons. But of 2:00:34.600 --> 2:00:36.960 course the women and children are a humanitarian issue and 2:00:37.000 --> 2:00:39.760 a security issue too, so think about that. Those are 2:00:39.880 --> 2:00:41.640 really dangerous numbers. 2:00:42.400 --> 2:00:47.000 Yeah, And I think that differentiation between fighters and women 2:00:47.080 --> 2:00:49.960 and children is interesting and perhaps one we should like 2:00:50.080 --> 2:00:53.760 pick apart a little bit, because we talked about this 2:00:53.800 --> 2:00:57.839 before we recorded. There's a betrayal certainly of like Western 2:00:57.880 --> 2:01:01.920 women who went to join ISIS as having been sort 2:01:01.920 --> 2:01:05.920 of victims in their own right, which some of them 2:01:05.960 --> 2:01:07.960 were very young, right and might not have been making 2:01:08.840 --> 2:01:11.560 adult choices at that time. And that's one thing. But 2:01:11.680 --> 2:01:14.520 like a lot of these people willingly participated in an 2:01:14.640 --> 2:01:19.400 extremely oppressive and violent regime, and they sort of a 2:01:19.520 --> 2:01:22.880 being that they're often not portrayed as such in the press. 2:01:22.960 --> 2:01:23.680 Is that fair to say? 2:01:24.280 --> 2:01:27.160 Absolutely? Look what I always go back to when I 2:01:27.600 --> 2:01:30.840 talk about this issue is reading accounts from Uzb women 2:01:30.920 --> 2:01:35.040 and children who survived ISIS captivity, who said on multiple 2:01:35.080 --> 2:01:38.080 occasions that the women were no less brutal than the men, 2:01:38.880 --> 2:01:42.400 and that they were willing participants in every aspect of 2:01:42.720 --> 2:01:47.560 the worst of ISIS crimes of genocide, of crimes against humanity, 2:01:47.600 --> 2:01:50.680 against the zd people and of course all the other 2:01:50.760 --> 2:01:54.280 peoples that ISIS targeted. So that I think when you 2:01:54.440 --> 2:01:58.960 have these genocide survivors saying that no, these women participated 2:01:59.040 --> 2:02:02.800 fully in these crimes. They facilitated these crimes, They made 2:02:02.960 --> 2:02:07.360 this system of genocide of crimes against humanity possible. That's 2:02:07.400 --> 2:02:09.640 something we have to listen to. And I'm glad that 2:02:09.680 --> 2:02:12.400 you bring up the Western media portrayal because you really 2:02:12.520 --> 2:02:16.400 you see this idea that the women could not have 2:02:16.480 --> 2:02:20.440 been perpetrators themselves, when what we hear on the ground 2:02:20.680 --> 2:02:22.800 is that that's not true, and what legal cases have 2:02:22.880 --> 2:02:25.400 begun to find is that that's not true either. There's 2:02:25.520 --> 2:02:30.160 been trials in Europe for ISIS affiliated women for their 2:02:30.240 --> 2:02:34.560 complicity in acts of genocide against the Auzeti community. And 2:02:34.720 --> 2:02:37.440 you know, one point that you hear very commonly on 2:02:37.560 --> 2:02:40.760 the ground is that. How can there have only been 2:02:41.320 --> 2:02:43.600 one or two, just a handful of trials. I'm not 2:02:43.640 --> 2:02:47.240 sure the exact number. But after all of these people missing, 2:02:47.360 --> 2:02:51.040 all of these people killed, how are all of these 2:02:51.120 --> 2:02:53.560 ISIS members? And that's why I said, you know ISIS 2:02:53.600 --> 2:02:56.000 affiliated women, because I don't think I do agree with you. 2:02:56.120 --> 2:02:58.320 It's a disservice to just refer to them as ISIS 2:02:58.400 --> 2:03:03.160 brides or whatever sensationalistic media framing you have. These people 2:03:03.160 --> 2:03:06.120 simply aren't being put on trial. And one of the 2:03:06.200 --> 2:03:08.720 reasons for that is that when we come to female 2:03:08.760 --> 2:03:12.040 members of ISIS, there is this perception, both in media 2:03:12.240 --> 2:03:17.120 and from governments, from international institutions, that these women are 2:03:17.240 --> 2:03:22.560 victims that because they're women, because they subscribed willingly to 2:03:22.800 --> 2:03:27.360 a political and ideological system that was very, very oppressive 2:03:27.400 --> 2:03:31.720 of women, that puts women only into certain roles as housewives, 2:03:31.840 --> 2:03:34.960 as mothers of the next generation of ISIS, that these 2:03:35.000 --> 2:03:37.680 women couldn't have committed atrocities. 2:03:37.120 --> 2:03:37.880 But they have. 2:03:38.720 --> 2:03:39.080 They did. 2:03:40.080 --> 2:03:41.720 And you know what we're hearing right now, and some 2:03:41.840 --> 2:03:44.240 of the reporting that's coming out of Northeast Syria is 2:03:44.280 --> 2:03:49.400 that even within the camps, these women have continued to 2:03:49.920 --> 2:03:53.800 commit some of the most serious abuses that ISIS has 2:03:53.840 --> 2:03:58.960 been committing. There's reports that they have raped, sexually assaulted 2:03:59.720 --> 2:04:03.000 the teenage boys who are in the camp in order 2:04:03.120 --> 2:04:09.360 to essentially become pregnant and raise more children to create 2:04:09.480 --> 2:04:11.880 that next generation of ISIS that they seek to create. 2:04:12.640 --> 2:04:16.400 And so this continued perpetration of sexual violence against these 2:04:16.480 --> 2:04:19.880 boys who've done nothing other than had the misfortune to 2:04:19.920 --> 2:04:22.440 have their parents be members of ISIS. You know, this 2:04:22.600 --> 2:04:25.360 is a very very serious allegation. The reporting about this 2:04:25.640 --> 2:04:28.480 is something that needs to be taken very seriously. Like 2:04:28.600 --> 2:04:30.720 I said, this is a massive human rights crisis for 2:04:30.880 --> 2:04:34.960 these children and it is you know, these women are 2:04:35.320 --> 2:04:38.320 no less dangerous and no less culpable for their crimes 2:04:38.560 --> 2:04:42.200 than their male counterparts who joined ISIS. 2:04:42.760 --> 2:04:44.520 Yeah, I think that's just very fair to say, And 2:04:44.600 --> 2:04:47.080 it's somewhat of a like sexist outlook to be like 2:04:47.120 --> 2:04:49.320 a women couldn't have had agency in the way that 2:04:49.920 --> 2:04:54.320 men clearly have been held accountable for. And I think 2:04:54.560 --> 2:04:58.240 it's the last issue you raised. It's obviously pretty horrible, 2:04:59.320 --> 2:05:02.600 but also we should at least dig into a little bit. 2:05:02.720 --> 2:05:06.600 I think like the ongoing like not only the abuse 2:05:06.640 --> 2:05:09.200 of children, but like the sort of attempt to indoctrinate 2:05:09.320 --> 2:05:13.320 children into that same like extremist ideology, the attempts to 2:05:13.440 --> 2:05:15.960 even like I've seen videos of kids training with little 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:20.600 wooden guns, and yeah, I'm sort of raising another generation 2:05:20.720 --> 2:05:24.120 of people who believe in this kind of hateful outlook. 2:05:24.560 --> 2:05:27.280 And can you talk a little bit about how common 2:05:27.360 --> 2:05:29.720 that is or how I guess you don't know entirely, 2:05:29.840 --> 2:05:31.200 but can you speak to that a little bit. 2:05:31.800 --> 2:05:33.840 Yeah, I mean that is something that none of us 2:05:33.960 --> 2:05:36.640 know how common it is because of the sort of 2:05:36.680 --> 2:05:40.080 difficulty of accessing that information. But if you look at 2:05:40.200 --> 2:05:43.840 what is coming in from sources from North and East Syria, 2:05:44.040 --> 2:05:49.600 from international reporting on the camp, these women are indoctrinating 2:05:49.640 --> 2:05:54.200 their children into the ISIS ideology. They have said many 2:05:54.280 --> 2:05:56.760 times over and many of their communications that their goal 2:05:57.040 --> 2:06:01.080 is to raise the next generation of ISIS fighter. There's 2:06:01.160 --> 2:06:03.560 no reason to believe that the majority of these women 2:06:03.640 --> 2:06:07.320 have given up on their beliefs, and there is evidence 2:06:07.480 --> 2:06:10.720 that this is what they're trying to do. And of course, 2:06:10.760 --> 2:06:13.440 when you look at the broader situation that these children 2:06:13.480 --> 2:06:17.680 are in, it's a situation that's exceedingly conducive to radicalization 2:06:17.920 --> 2:06:20.720 because of the poor conditions in the camps because of 2:06:21.160 --> 2:06:24.000 the fact that they remain with their mothers, many of 2:06:24.040 --> 2:06:27.000 whom believe firmly in ISIS ideology and who see the 2:06:27.120 --> 2:06:30.560 role of women in ISIS as doing exactly that, as 2:06:30.720 --> 2:06:37.040 passing down this ideology. And you know, when these children 2:06:37.360 --> 2:06:39.920 they can't be safely repatriated to their countries, they can't 2:06:39.960 --> 2:06:42.080 be put into safe environments where they can receive the 2:06:42.160 --> 2:06:46.040 support they need, the positive influences, they need, any kind 2:06:46.120 --> 2:06:50.120 of medical or psychological help that they need in these conditions, 2:06:50.880 --> 2:06:55.120 it's inevitable that you're going to have the continuation of 2:06:55.320 --> 2:06:59.440 this ISIS ideology being perpetrated and the adults there, these 2:06:59.480 --> 2:07:05.040 women cantinuing to pass this down on these children, who 2:07:05.160 --> 2:07:08.120 again have done nothing to be put in the situation 2:07:08.280 --> 2:07:11.200 that they're in. They're continuing to be victimized by the 2:07:11.360 --> 2:07:15.480 actions of their parents and the other ISIS members. So 2:07:16.240 --> 2:07:19.080 and the international community too, as it fault here for 2:07:19.680 --> 2:07:24.200 refusing to repatriate at least these children and to try 2:07:24.760 --> 2:07:28.280 ISIS perpetrators of war crimes, criinds against humanity and genocide. 2:07:28.840 --> 2:07:31.280 Yeah, in some cases they've even been like had their 2:07:31.320 --> 2:07:33.920 citizenship stripped from them of the countries that they came from, 2:07:34.520 --> 2:07:36.840 the UK have done that for example, right, which is 2:07:36.960 --> 2:07:42.720 kind of just failing to do anything to acknowledge it, 2:07:42.840 --> 2:07:45.120 like this is an international problem that they. 2:07:45.120 --> 2:07:45.760 Have help completely. 2:07:46.880 --> 2:07:49.320 And that's something we can get into, is the international 2:07:49.760 --> 2:07:54.800 dynamic surrounding these issues, because it's obviously very closely related 2:07:54.840 --> 2:07:57.480 to the ISIS issue, but it touches on so many 2:07:57.560 --> 2:07:59.800 other very internationalized conflicts as well. 2:08:00.280 --> 2:08:04.200 Yeah, let's do that. Perhaps before we explain the way 2:08:05.120 --> 2:08:08.040 the nations that are more distant from this are engaging 2:08:08.080 --> 2:08:10.560 with it, we should talk about how nations that are 2:08:10.560 --> 2:08:14.040 more proximal to this are engaging within specifically how at 2:08:14.160 --> 2:08:18.200 times it seems like Turkish drone strikes, which we've discussed 2:08:18.240 --> 2:08:21.840 previously on our podcasts so people be familiar with them, 2:08:22.400 --> 2:08:27.800 have the very least not helped the SDF to keep 2:08:27.880 --> 2:08:32.000 these camps secure, right, And in some cases it's you 2:08:32.120 --> 2:08:35.440 can see, like there's a video that the YPJ have 2:08:35.880 --> 2:08:39.520 of like these people celebrating a drone strike inside the camp, 2:08:40.240 --> 2:08:42.800 And can you talk about the impact these drone strikes have. 2:08:43.480 --> 2:08:49.000 Look something that has been reported by journalists, by local sources, 2:08:49.280 --> 2:08:53.040 and by all sorts of international researchers and experts since 2:08:53.200 --> 2:08:55.720 the earliest days of the war against ISIS is that 2:08:56.560 --> 2:09:00.920 Turkey wanted ISIS to succeed in it's mission of taking 2:09:01.040 --> 2:09:05.200 over northern Iraq and northern Syria in order to not 2:09:05.480 --> 2:09:10.080 only destroy Kurdish political and military structures operating there, including 2:09:10.320 --> 2:09:13.400 the YPG, the YPJ, the later the SDF, and the 2:09:13.480 --> 2:09:18.120 Autonomous Administration, but also to destroy the social base for 2:09:18.320 --> 2:09:22.120 any form of Kurdish autonomy, any kind of multi ethnic 2:09:22.240 --> 2:09:25.760 project to potentially be able to exist there, either now 2:09:26.120 --> 2:09:30.480 or in the future. And this facilitation of the rise 2:09:30.520 --> 2:09:34.000 of ISIS reached such a level that you've had legal 2:09:34.080 --> 2:09:38.440 experts through the Yazidi Justice Committee, which published an in 2:09:38.560 --> 2:09:42.520 depth report on this last year, find based on a 2:09:42.600 --> 2:09:46.080 review of the evidence that Turkey was quote complicit in 2:09:46.200 --> 2:09:50.080 the commission of genocide end quote by ISIS by allowing 2:09:50.120 --> 2:09:52.760 fighters to cross its borders to join the group, allowing 2:09:52.800 --> 2:09:56.800 ISIS related economic activity to go on, and other forms 2:09:56.880 --> 2:09:59.560 of facilitation of the rise of ISIS when it was 2:09:59.600 --> 2:10:04.040 committee its most serious crimes. So this is not something new. 2:10:04.800 --> 2:10:08.960 The way that these drone strikes specifically impact this issue. 2:10:09.440 --> 2:10:12.680 They're part of the broader Turkish campaign of aggression against 2:10:12.720 --> 2:10:16.720 Northeast Syria. Obviously, the two ground invasions of Afrin and 2:10:16.840 --> 2:10:20.360 of Sera Kanya and Talabyad had very negative impacts on 2:10:20.400 --> 2:10:24.640 the fight against ISIS and the drone strikes. Now, first 2:10:24.680 --> 2:10:27.200 of all, they make it difficult for any SDF or 2:10:27.280 --> 2:10:30.840 autonomous administration structure to simply do the day to day 2:10:30.920 --> 2:10:34.560 work of providing security and providing the government. You know, 2:10:34.640 --> 2:10:36.840 if a government official or a member of the local 2:10:36.880 --> 2:10:41.280 security forces has to modify their behavior, has to modify 2:10:41.320 --> 2:10:44.120 where they go, how they interact with their constituents. You know, 2:10:44.200 --> 2:10:46.880 what kind of missions they can conduct to avoid being 2:10:47.000 --> 2:10:49.560 assassinated in a drone strike, They're simply not going to 2:10:49.600 --> 2:10:53.640 be as effective. Right, So this is a problem in 2:10:53.800 --> 2:10:57.320 many areas. It certainly impacts the counter ISIS mission, and 2:10:57.480 --> 2:11:03.600 Turkey has specifically started to increasingly target ans, SDF and 2:11:04.080 --> 2:11:08.320 Asayish internal security forces personnel who are directly engaged in 2:11:08.480 --> 2:11:12.800 counter ISIS missions. We saw this in late twenty twenty 2:11:12.840 --> 2:11:16.800 two when there were severe Turkish air operations following a 2:11:16.880 --> 2:11:21.240 bombing in Istanbul that Turkey, based on all evidence, falsely 2:11:21.480 --> 2:11:25.640 attempted to attribute to Kurdish groups despite there being no 2:11:25.920 --> 2:11:34.080 real evidence supporting that claim. These attacks targeted civilians, civilian infrastructure, 2:11:34.760 --> 2:11:38.879 and SDF forces engaged in key counter ISIS missions, including 2:11:39.520 --> 2:11:43.480 SDF forces involved in securing the Alhole Camp. And now 2:11:43.600 --> 2:11:46.280 we've even started to see in addition to these anti 2:11:46.440 --> 2:11:50.760 SDF anti Autonomous Administration drone strikes, Turkey's been using drones 2:11:50.840 --> 2:11:55.600 to fire essentially warning shots at the international coalition led 2:11:55.640 --> 2:11:58.600 by the US and the other coalition countries itself. We 2:11:58.720 --> 2:12:00.800 saw this in November when there were a drone strike 2:12:00.880 --> 2:12:04.680 on the joint SDF coalition base where the SDF and 2:12:04.800 --> 2:12:08.760 the international community worked together to plan ongoing counter ISIS missions, 2:12:09.400 --> 2:12:12.880 and earlier this year, in i believe April of this year, 2:12:13.320 --> 2:12:16.800 the drone strike on Sulimania International Airport in Iraqi, Kurdastan, 2:12:16.920 --> 2:12:21.280 where there was a joint SDF coalition convoy where SDF 2:12:21.320 --> 2:12:24.320 Commander in Chief Muslim Kobani was present and US forces 2:12:24.360 --> 2:12:29.120 were also present. That strike, for all intents and purposes, 2:12:29.640 --> 2:12:33.320 was Turkey's attempt not only to threaten the SDF and 2:12:33.400 --> 2:12:37.040 the Autonomous Administration, but to threaten the coalition as well, 2:12:37.240 --> 2:12:42.120 specifically for its continuing counter isis partnership with Syrian Kurds. 2:12:42.320 --> 2:12:45.040 So this has risen to a level where Turkey is 2:12:45.080 --> 2:12:48.600 not only using these to disrupt governance and security at 2:12:48.680 --> 2:12:51.840 the local level in the Autonomous administration, it's not only 2:12:51.960 --> 2:12:56.680 using them against locally led SDFYPG led counter ISIS missions, 2:12:57.160 --> 2:13:01.080 but Turkey is using drones to threaten the entire global 2:13:01.240 --> 2:13:05.200 counter ISIS campaign, of which on paper is formally a member. 2:13:05.400 --> 2:13:08.720 So there you go, Yeah, and Turkey is kind of 2:13:08.760 --> 2:13:12.240 it's we've talked about this again before, how it pressured 2:13:13.040 --> 2:13:17.480 like newer NATO members Finland and Sweden to even stop 2:13:17.560 --> 2:13:22.000 accepting Kurdish refugees, right, It's yeah, while at the same 2:13:22.040 --> 2:13:25.000 time being a member of NATO and as you say, 2:13:25.120 --> 2:13:29.560 also like drone striking other members of NATO. It's certainly 2:13:30.000 --> 2:13:34.640 like it's making it as hard as possible for people 2:13:34.880 --> 2:13:37.760 in this part of the world to have the stability 2:13:37.920 --> 2:13:40.080 and peace and the things that they fought so hard 2:13:40.160 --> 2:13:42.960 for for such a long time. I wonder if you 2:13:43.000 --> 2:13:46.640 can talk about, like, so, what is the into as 2:13:46.680 --> 2:13:48.920 far as the international community exists, which is a pretty 2:13:48.960 --> 2:13:53.280 nebulous thing to really kind of pin down, but is 2:13:53.840 --> 2:13:56.720 what is specifically like this US led coalition to the 2:13:56.760 --> 2:13:59.600 feat ISIS. I think they call it doing to help, 2:13:59.840 --> 2:14:03.360 and I guess a little more broadly, building on that, 2:14:04.360 --> 2:14:07.600 this coalition has a very narrow focus in a place 2:14:07.640 --> 2:14:11.560 where there are a lot of different aggresses to include 2:14:12.160 --> 2:14:16.520 various other Islamist groups, to include the Turkish State and 2:14:16.600 --> 2:14:21.000 obviously the day the state in Syria. Can you explain 2:14:21.000 --> 2:14:23.520 a little bit about how the mission of this coalition 2:14:23.840 --> 2:14:27.080 is narrow in a way that helps it doing the 2:14:27.160 --> 2:14:29.520 things that people on the ground they need to ensure 2:14:29.560 --> 2:14:30.360 peace and stability. 2:14:31.160 --> 2:14:34.200 Yeah, exactly. That's a really important question because, as you said, 2:14:35.160 --> 2:14:40.080 this international relationship with North Eastyria is very narrowly built 2:14:40.320 --> 2:14:43.839 on a counter ISIS focus, which means a military focus. 2:14:44.280 --> 2:14:49.040 So there's relationships between security forces and security forces. What 2:14:49.160 --> 2:14:52.600 we don't see our political relationships. And this connects to 2:14:52.840 --> 2:14:56.080 a wide variety of issues related to this immediate problem 2:14:56.360 --> 2:15:01.000 of ISIS, of securing ISIS prisoners, of bringing perpetrators of 2:15:01.080 --> 2:15:04.480 genocide and war crimes to justice, but it also connects 2:15:04.480 --> 2:15:07.480 to the deeper problem of the kind of long term 2:15:07.600 --> 2:15:12.480 stability in Syria that's necessary to end this ongoing civil war, 2:15:12.640 --> 2:15:14.800 to bring justice to the victims of ISIS and to 2:15:14.920 --> 2:15:18.400 all other abuses and atrocities during the twelve years of 2:15:18.480 --> 2:15:21.880 conflict in Syria, and to prevent the next endless war 2:15:22.440 --> 2:15:26.040 in this region from inevitably taking place in the future. 2:15:26.960 --> 2:15:30.400 So we have this narrow military partnership. The reason that 2:15:30.560 --> 2:15:33.560 this relationship evolved in this way was going back to 2:15:34.120 --> 2:15:37.960 the role of Turkey, because the United States and its 2:15:38.000 --> 2:15:42.080 European allies had no other option but to partner with 2:15:42.440 --> 2:15:45.400 Kurdish groups if they wanted to achieve a territorial defeat 2:15:45.440 --> 2:15:48.040 of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. There was no force 2:15:48.120 --> 2:15:51.400 other than the SDF and the YPG and the YPGA 2:15:51.480 --> 2:15:56.600 at that time that would be capable of the military 2:15:57.560 --> 2:16:01.640 responsibility of defeating ISIS. It was essentially, if people remember 2:16:01.720 --> 2:16:05.960 the resistance of the YPG and the YPJ at Kobani 2:16:06.600 --> 2:16:10.720 in northeast northeastern Syria, that held out long enough where 2:16:10.840 --> 2:16:13.720 the United States and the international Coalition realized that their 2:16:13.840 --> 2:16:16.320 only option if they wanted to defeat ISIS on the 2:16:16.360 --> 2:16:20.480 ground was to partner with these forces. Before that, also, 2:16:20.960 --> 2:16:25.200 we're recording this in August, the situation in Sinjar where 2:16:25.240 --> 2:16:28.800 ISIS had gone in had committed genocide against the Azdi community, 2:16:29.240 --> 2:16:31.560 and we're the only people who were able to actually 2:16:31.680 --> 2:16:35.680 come in and help Uzidis defend themselves and evacuate refugees 2:16:35.720 --> 2:16:39.280 to safety in Syria, where again the YPG, the YPJ 2:16:39.800 --> 2:16:44.320 and the PKK gorillas as well. Because these Kurdish forces 2:16:44.400 --> 2:16:48.120 were able to help local civilians in Sinjar defend themselves 2:16:48.200 --> 2:16:51.520 and evacuate so many refugees to safety, it forced the 2:16:51.600 --> 2:16:55.600 international community's hand to act. The PKK intervened in Sinjar 2:16:55.720 --> 2:16:59.320 to start the humanitarian mission on August fourth, US air 2:16:59.360 --> 2:17:03.240 strikes began on August seventh. It was this local response 2:17:03.280 --> 2:17:06.800 from these non state actors that forced the international community, 2:17:07.200 --> 2:17:10.080 you know, these states with actual treaty obligations to respond 2:17:10.120 --> 2:17:14.520 to and prevent massatrocities, to take action. But because Turkey 2:17:14.640 --> 2:17:17.440 views the PKK as a terrorist group, it views the 2:17:17.520 --> 2:17:20.720 YPG and the YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK and 2:17:20.760 --> 2:17:24.480 therefore as a terrorist group. The entire counter ISIS mission 2:17:24.520 --> 2:17:27.360 from the very beginning was faced with this question of 2:17:27.440 --> 2:17:29.960 how these states that wanted to fight ISIS could do 2:17:30.200 --> 2:17:34.119 so without offending their relationships with Turkey as a member 2:17:34.160 --> 2:17:38.800 of NATO and an ally in other respects. So this 2:17:38.920 --> 2:17:42.080 connects specifically to the ISIS issue, not only because the 2:17:42.560 --> 2:17:46.320 contradiction here dates back to the counter ISIS campaign, but 2:17:46.520 --> 2:17:52.280 because actual international trials for ISIS members, actual security policies 2:17:52.400 --> 2:17:56.160 that could address the problems in al Hole, would legitimize 2:17:56.640 --> 2:17:59.960 the SDF and the autonomous administration on the international stage, 2:18:00.600 --> 2:18:04.200 and would legitimize the political philosophies behind what they're doing, 2:18:04.879 --> 2:18:07.680 all of which Turkey deems to be a very serious 2:18:07.800 --> 2:18:11.240 national security threat to its existence. I mean, imagine you 2:18:11.320 --> 2:18:15.480 have a Kurdish woman judge questioning an ISIS member responsible 2:18:15.600 --> 2:18:20.840 for potentially European and American casualties, certainly responsible for casualties 2:18:20.920 --> 2:18:24.280 and all sorts of abuses across Iraq and Syria, about 2:18:24.320 --> 2:18:27.440 the evidence that we have that the international community has, 2:18:27.560 --> 2:18:31.040 that Northeast Syria has, about how Turkey facilitated ISIS actions, 2:18:31.600 --> 2:18:34.080 you know, with the YPG and the YPG there for security, 2:18:34.160 --> 2:18:37.240 with international observers from the US and other coalition countries 2:18:37.280 --> 2:18:41.440 facilitating providing legal and security support. That would absolutely destroy 2:18:41.520 --> 2:18:45.600 Turkey's narrative about what individuals and entities are terrorists and 2:18:45.720 --> 2:18:49.920 which ones have actually contributed not only to the territorial 2:18:50.000 --> 2:18:54.960 militarily defeat of ISIS, but to social and political and 2:18:55.080 --> 2:18:57.680 governance projects that are able to prevent, you know, the 2:18:57.760 --> 2:19:02.120 resurgence of the next eye ISIS. So, you know, this 2:19:02.480 --> 2:19:06.279 kind of fear of building political relationships with the Autonomous 2:19:06.280 --> 2:19:11.160 Administration with legitimate this fear of legitimizing the Autonomous Administration 2:19:11.360 --> 2:19:15.520 project and helping it address security problems in a way 2:19:15.600 --> 2:19:18.480 that would you know, both increase its standing and legitimacy 2:19:18.600 --> 2:19:23.400 locally and internationally, and would show how the actions of 2:19:23.440 --> 2:19:28.400 states like Turkey contributed to prolonging and intensifying the civil 2:19:28.440 --> 2:19:32.680 war in Syria. States simply don't want to do that yet. 2:19:34.120 --> 2:19:35.720 But you know, when we look at the long term 2:19:35.840 --> 2:19:40.240 consequences of whether it's allowing Turkey to continue aggressive actions 2:19:40.280 --> 2:19:42.960 against North East Syria and more broadly, to pursue a 2:19:43.000 --> 2:19:46.760 military solution to its Kurdish conflict, whether it's allowing ISIS 2:19:46.840 --> 2:19:50.119 atrocities to go unpunished, you know, leaving communities that were 2:19:50.160 --> 2:19:54.320 impacted by ISIS to be essentially re traumatized and left 2:19:54.480 --> 2:19:58.119 to live in difficult conditions, you know, not receiving justice 2:19:58.760 --> 2:20:01.960 and allowing these ISIS MAS members to continue to have 2:20:02.240 --> 2:20:06.360 the space to attempt to reconstitute their group and go 2:20:06.600 --> 2:20:10.280 back to the kind of atrocities they were committing and 2:20:10.320 --> 2:20:13.800 attacks they were carrying out worldwide in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen. 2:20:14.520 --> 2:20:16.800 In the long run, this sort of appeasement of Turkey 2:20:16.920 --> 2:20:19.600 over the issue of the Kurdish question and the role 2:20:19.680 --> 2:20:23.440 of the Autonomous Administration, it's going to create the start 2:20:23.560 --> 2:20:26.240 of the next endless war in the Middle East. And 2:20:27.000 --> 2:20:28.959 you know, if policymakers want to avoid that, they need 2:20:29.040 --> 2:20:32.000 to be addressing these problems from a pro peace perspective, 2:20:32.160 --> 2:20:35.280 from a perspective that brings about justice, you know, political 2:20:35.360 --> 2:20:38.680 solutions based on democracy, on gender equality, on the equality 2:20:38.720 --> 2:20:41.800 of all communities in the region, all of these values 2:20:41.879 --> 2:20:44.680 that while imperfectly the Autonomous Administration is really. 2:20:44.600 --> 2:20:45.320 Trying to fight for. 2:20:46.440 --> 2:20:48.560 Yeah, I think it's super important to point out that 2:20:48.800 --> 2:20:53.440 this isn't a necessarily a like Turkey versus Kurdish people 2:20:54.040 --> 2:20:56.760 like wo dichotomy or like those aren't the only people 2:20:56.800 --> 2:20:59.359 impacted by this, right, Like the I think the majority 2:20:59.360 --> 2:21:02.160 of the A, yes, it's not Kurdish people, right, and 2:21:02.480 --> 2:21:04.840 I think we are adf also are not Kurdish. 2:21:06.120 --> 2:21:09.120 I mean, there's a very good paper by doctor Amy 2:21:09.120 --> 2:21:13.320 Austen Holmes, who wrote in an analysis of this conflict 2:21:13.400 --> 2:21:17.080 and the sort of Turkey SDF security dynamics, that what 2:21:17.160 --> 2:21:20.880 we would refer to as the Turkish Kurdish conflict or 2:21:20.879 --> 2:21:24.520 the Turkey PKK conflict is actually a conflict that impacts 2:21:24.600 --> 2:21:28.760 every ethnic and religious group in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. 2:21:29.680 --> 2:21:31.360 And of course you have and we could do an 2:21:31.480 --> 2:21:34.160 entire other episode on this. You know, there are certainly 2:21:34.240 --> 2:21:37.040 Kurds who support Erdwan and the AKP, whether from an 2:21:37.120 --> 2:21:40.440 Islamist perspective or on the basis of class interests. And 2:21:40.560 --> 2:21:43.680 you have Turks ethnic Turkish people who went to North 2:21:43.720 --> 2:21:45.879 East Syria during the height of the fight against ISIS 2:21:45.920 --> 2:21:49.440 as members of socialist groups to provide humanitarian aid and 2:21:49.560 --> 2:21:52.040 to join Kurdish forces in their fight against ISIS. On 2:21:52.120 --> 2:21:57.880 the ground, you have Yuzids, Christians, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, Arabs. 2:21:58.000 --> 2:22:00.360 All different ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria are very 2:22:00.440 --> 2:22:03.520 much impacted by this conflict, and particularly because of the 2:22:03.560 --> 2:22:07.440 Autonomous Administration's multi ethnic and multi religious model. And while 2:22:07.480 --> 2:22:11.400 the autonomous administration system certainly has it's shortcomings and hasn't 2:22:11.400 --> 2:22:15.280 been able to perfectly overcome years and years of sectarian 2:22:15.360 --> 2:22:18.360 and religious and ethnic challenges. It has made a real 2:22:18.400 --> 2:22:21.560 attempt at including all of the peoples of the region. 2:22:21.600 --> 2:22:23.920 And that's one of the reasons why despite all of 2:22:23.959 --> 2:22:26.840 these Turkish attacks, despite the threat of ISSIS, you know, 2:22:26.920 --> 2:22:30.840 these communities have continued to band together and participate in 2:22:31.000 --> 2:22:34.760 SDF and autonomous administration structures in order to try to 2:22:34.800 --> 2:22:38.279 build governance and real post ISIS security. So it's certainly 2:22:38.360 --> 2:22:43.119 not just a very narrowly defined Turkish Kurdish issue. It's 2:22:43.160 --> 2:22:47.840 an issue of civil rights, of political rights, of long 2:22:47.959 --> 2:22:51.000 term security and stability, of what kind of society and 2:22:51.080 --> 2:22:54.320 what kind of governance can and should exist in this region, 2:22:54.959 --> 2:22:57.960 where many Kurds and many other ethnic and religious minorities 2:22:58.000 --> 2:23:03.920 would argue the europe imposition of artificial borders and nation 2:23:04.120 --> 2:23:08.000 states onto areas that were multi ethnic and multi religious 2:23:08.200 --> 2:23:11.920 for thousands and thousands of years was the source of 2:23:12.560 --> 2:23:15.000 a lot of these problems that we see today, not 2:23:15.160 --> 2:23:18.200 only with ISIS, not only with the Syrian war, with 2:23:18.360 --> 2:23:21.000 the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, as well with many of 2:23:21.040 --> 2:23:24.720 the issues that we're seeing in Iraq, in Iran, all 2:23:24.760 --> 2:23:27.360 over the region. So it goes much deeper than that, 2:23:28.879 --> 2:23:31.680 And I think that understanding, you know, the very deep 2:23:31.840 --> 2:23:35.000 historical roots of these issues is what can start to 2:23:35.080 --> 2:23:38.840 point us to the actual very radical solutions that would 2:23:38.840 --> 2:23:41.360 be necessary to get long term peace and security. 2:23:42.520 --> 2:23:45.720 Yeah, and that those on I think solutions, Like you said, 2:23:45.760 --> 2:23:50.039 many nation states still exercising kind of pseudocolonial control over 2:23:50.160 --> 2:23:53.520 these places or trying to or trying to at least 2:23:54.120 --> 2:23:57.360 sort of use force to extract wealth that are really 2:23:57.440 --> 2:24:01.119 open to So it creates it's just sort of half asked, 2:24:01.360 --> 2:24:04.360 like you've said that this sort of limited support for 2:24:04.440 --> 2:24:07.920 any some parts of a project, which it doesn't work 2:24:08.160 --> 2:24:10.360 if you only support part of this project right as 2:24:10.360 --> 2:24:14.880 we're seeing. I wonder if people are interested in following 2:24:15.440 --> 2:24:19.200 more about this. I think it's something that like so 2:24:19.360 --> 2:24:23.000 much of the coverage this whole area focuses on, like 2:24:23.120 --> 2:24:27.160 specifically women in our whole right or women who went 2:24:27.240 --> 2:24:30.400 to join isis where can people find out more about 2:24:31.040 --> 2:24:34.560 like the what sources would you suggest for following goings 2:24:34.600 --> 2:24:35.680 on in this area? 2:24:36.320 --> 2:24:39.279 So yeah, I would say following local Syrian and Kurdish 2:24:39.360 --> 2:24:42.080 news sources would be a good place to start. You 2:24:42.240 --> 2:24:45.160 have sites like North Press where I've written before, that 2:24:45.320 --> 2:24:50.000 provide good perspectives from Syrian Kurdish writers. You have a 2:24:50.120 --> 2:24:54.200 human rights organizations working on the ground, groups like Syrians 2:24:54.280 --> 2:24:56.760 for Truth and Justice that's done a lot of documentation 2:24:57.120 --> 2:25:00.440 of issues, like for example, ISIS members who've joined Turkey 2:25:00.520 --> 2:25:04.720 backed groups in the occupied areas. You have arguably one 2:25:04.760 --> 2:25:07.440 of the best English language resources, not only for their 2:25:07.480 --> 2:25:10.880 own publications, but for researchers and journalists to reach out to, 2:25:11.520 --> 2:25:14.520 the Ulsheva Information Center that does a lot of good 2:25:14.560 --> 2:25:16.240 work on their own and also a lot of really 2:25:16.320 --> 2:25:21.439 incredible work to facilitate the work of international researchers and journalists. 2:25:22.080 --> 2:25:24.680 You have the Kurdish media sites like kolar News that 2:25:24.840 --> 2:25:27.920 will give good updates on what the Autonomous Administration is 2:25:28.000 --> 2:25:31.840 doing and saying from their perspective. Of course, there are 2:25:31.879 --> 2:25:35.600 a lot of official pages and sites for Autonomous Administration 2:25:35.760 --> 2:25:39.040 and SDF institutions as well. Those tend to be in 2:25:39.160 --> 2:25:41.520 Kurdish or Arabic, so of course if you know either 2:25:41.520 --> 2:25:44.840 of those languages you can follow them. For English, you 2:25:45.040 --> 2:25:49.680 have some of the SDF affiliated sites that have been translated. 2:25:49.840 --> 2:25:53.560 The YPG Information and Documentation Office have done a lot 2:25:53.640 --> 2:25:57.440 of work on this issue of ISIS and the related 2:25:57.520 --> 2:26:02.120 security challenges, they publish an English, they provide good information 2:26:02.360 --> 2:26:07.039 from that security perspective, and then really, I think any 2:26:07.160 --> 2:26:12.960 sources on social media online that provide good perspectives from 2:26:13.000 --> 2:26:16.320 people who are on the ground, who are providing reputable information, 2:26:17.080 --> 2:26:19.840 whether it's from a human rights side of things, from 2:26:20.120 --> 2:26:23.840 the security side of things, from the administration side of things, 2:26:24.760 --> 2:26:27.280 it's good to get that full spectrum of perspectives of 2:26:27.360 --> 2:26:29.320 what different actors are doing and seeing. 2:26:30.320 --> 2:26:31.240 And then, of course I'd be. 2:26:31.280 --> 2:26:35.360 Remiss if I did not promote my own institution. We 2:26:35.600 --> 2:26:39.080 have published coverage of certainly the ISIS issue in North 2:26:39.120 --> 2:26:44.640 East Syria, but also a lot on the wider political, humanitarian, 2:26:44.760 --> 2:26:49.920 and security challenges related to these interlocking conflicts in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, 2:26:50.440 --> 2:26:56.200 Kurdistan that have sort of formed the very unstable basis 2:26:56.480 --> 2:27:01.400 on which these developments relevant to global security issues like 2:27:01.480 --> 2:27:04.440 ISIS are taking place. So you can certainly read what 2:27:04.560 --> 2:27:05.440 we've been publishing. 2:27:06.040 --> 2:27:07.760 Yeah, I think that's an excellent list of resources, and 2:27:08.040 --> 2:27:10.720 lots of the ones that I've been using, other ones 2:27:10.800 --> 2:27:13.640 that you've mentioned, I would just I suppose warned people, 2:27:14.240 --> 2:27:19.440 especially the latest YPJ Information and Documentation Center video and 2:27:19.520 --> 2:27:24.840 our whole comes with a heavy content warning for violence 2:27:25.840 --> 2:27:27.760 that you will see there, which is it's documenting things 2:27:27.800 --> 2:27:30.119 that happen. It's not like they are doing the violence. 2:27:30.160 --> 2:27:30.440 They're not. 2:27:30.600 --> 2:27:33.160 But still, if that's something you don't want to see, 2:27:33.240 --> 2:27:36.280 that's probably a video you don't want to watch, Megan, 2:27:36.360 --> 2:27:39.600 is there anything people can do to help like this? 2:27:40.200 --> 2:27:42.520 I was thinking when we were talking of like I 2:27:42.640 --> 2:27:46.039 met a Kurdish man a month ago at the border 2:27:46.879 --> 2:27:52.120 being held by immigrats and customs enforcement, But it's not 2:27:52.240 --> 2:27:55.640 a topic that gets much coverage in the US, and 2:27:55.680 --> 2:27:59.199 as a result, like people both there and people coming 2:27:59.280 --> 2:28:02.720 here don't get the compassion that let's say Ukrainian people 2:28:02.760 --> 2:28:07.680 who are also fleeing conflict do get. And you can 2:28:07.720 --> 2:28:09.440 see that in a way that they're literally treated differently 2:28:09.440 --> 2:28:11.400 in immigration laws. So is there anything people can do 2:28:11.760 --> 2:28:12.120 to help? 2:28:12.640 --> 2:28:12.800 Well? 2:28:12.800 --> 2:28:15.800 I would say that the first thing is exactly like 2:28:15.920 --> 2:28:18.560 we're doing now on this discussion, and like you as 2:28:18.600 --> 2:28:21.920 a listener listening to this conversation are doing by hearing 2:28:21.959 --> 2:28:26.720 from us and following this issue, encourage media research, human 2:28:26.840 --> 2:28:30.360 rights groups, analysts, and all others who do work in 2:28:30.480 --> 2:28:33.240 any of these fields to cover this issue in its 2:28:33.360 --> 2:28:37.720 full political and security context. Look, we can't only talk 2:28:37.800 --> 2:28:40.879 about North and Ew Syria when there's a crisis. ISIS 2:28:40.959 --> 2:28:43.720 did not come out of nowhere in twenty fourteen. The 2:28:43.800 --> 2:28:46.760 Turkish invasion did not come out of nowhere in twenty nineteen. 2:28:47.640 --> 2:28:51.920 And had we as a society and certainly our institutions 2:28:51.959 --> 2:28:55.760 been more informed and more aware of the root conditions 2:28:56.000 --> 2:28:59.960 causing these outbursts of violence, these outbursts of violence may 2:29:00.120 --> 2:29:03.080 not have happened, They might have been addressed before they happened. 2:29:03.560 --> 2:29:05.480 And so what does it mean to build that awareness? 2:29:05.560 --> 2:29:07.720 That means everything from writing a letter to your local 2:29:07.840 --> 2:29:12.360 newspaper to producing a report at your university with input 2:29:12.440 --> 2:29:14.840 from institutions in North East Syria, some of these local 2:29:14.920 --> 2:29:17.880 media and human rights organizations that we've talked about, to 2:29:18.000 --> 2:29:20.480 hosting an event for your community group on the state 2:29:20.680 --> 2:29:25.160 of this broadly defined conflict in Turkey and Iraq and 2:29:25.280 --> 2:29:29.000 Syria in Kurdistan between the Turkish state and these Kurdish 2:29:29.080 --> 2:29:31.600 groups that, in addition to fighting against ISIS, have been 2:29:31.640 --> 2:29:36.120 struggling for autonomy, self determination, equality between men and women, 2:29:36.240 --> 2:29:40.240 equality of people of different religious beliefs of different ethnic backgrounds. 2:29:41.000 --> 2:29:43.720 Long before ISIS was on the agenda and Northeast Syria 2:29:43.720 --> 2:29:46.000 it was on the agenda. We at the Kurdish Peace 2:29:46.040 --> 2:29:48.600 Institute are always available to help you do this. You 2:29:48.680 --> 2:29:50.920 can reach out to us on our contact page. We 2:29:51.000 --> 2:29:53.960 have information on everything from submitting content of your own 2:29:54.680 --> 2:29:58.080 to resources for reaching out to us for media appearances. 2:29:58.680 --> 2:30:00.879 Of course, there's all the sources I'm mentioned as well, 2:30:01.120 --> 2:30:04.080 and there are other episodes of this wonderful podcast with 2:30:04.240 --> 2:30:09.160 very talented expert speakers and interviewers as well who've spoken 2:30:09.240 --> 2:30:13.560 about issues related to Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan. You can 2:30:13.640 --> 2:30:18.480 advocate for greater political support for the Autonomous Administration, for 2:30:18.560 --> 2:30:21.840 an end to Turkey's aggressive actions against Northeast Syria and 2:30:22.240 --> 2:30:26.160 its ongoing human rights violations in the occupied areas of 2:30:26.360 --> 2:30:30.040 Afriin and russ A Line, and for international political support 2:30:30.200 --> 2:30:35.080 for a democratic, just peaceful solution to the Turkish Kurdish conflict. 2:30:35.760 --> 2:30:37.480 This is, i think, at the end of the day, 2:30:37.520 --> 2:30:40.640 the root of all of these problems that we're seeing here, 2:30:41.800 --> 2:30:45.320 and if this conflict were to be resolved, if Turkey 2:30:45.360 --> 2:30:48.400 were no longer to take an aggressive militaristic approach to 2:30:49.640 --> 2:30:53.000 the very concept of Kurdish autonomy, the very social base 2:30:53.120 --> 2:30:56.680 of Kurdish communities that has the capacity to seek and 2:30:56.840 --> 2:31:00.280 organize for autonomy itself. This would mean an end to 2:31:00.680 --> 2:31:03.960 authoritarianism in Turkey, which has been leading Turkey to all 2:31:04.000 --> 2:31:08.120 sorts of destabilizing behavior and certainly in miserating countless Turkish citizens. 2:31:08.720 --> 2:31:10.800 This is one of the reasons why not only Kurds, 2:31:10.879 --> 2:31:13.440 but many Turkish people of all ethnicities as well have 2:31:13.560 --> 2:31:16.800 been fleeing Turkey to Europe and even to the United States. 2:31:17.280 --> 2:31:21.640 Has been the escalating persecution, poverty, and difficulty of life 2:31:21.760 --> 2:31:25.520 under Erdowan, which is directly connected to air Dowan's choice 2:31:25.640 --> 2:31:28.680 in twenty fifteen to end piece talks with the Kurdish 2:31:28.760 --> 2:31:32.400 movement in order to consolidate his total power over the 2:31:32.480 --> 2:31:37.000 state using war and far right nationalism. This would end 2:31:37.360 --> 2:31:40.720 not only these difficult conditions within Turkey, this persecution, this 2:31:40.920 --> 2:31:44.920 economic devastation, this oppression of all oppressed segments of society. 2:31:45.400 --> 2:31:48.240 It would end Turkey's aggressive foreign policy in the region 2:31:48.280 --> 2:31:51.160 as well, which would be hugely important for allowing North 2:31:51.200 --> 2:31:54.520 East Syria the stability it means to put ISIS members 2:31:54.560 --> 2:31:58.080 on trial, hold them accountable for what they've done, begin 2:31:58.280 --> 2:32:02.240 to rebuild, give post isis communities of future. Allow these 2:32:02.320 --> 2:32:04.920 people who have suffered so much to defeat this group, 2:32:05.440 --> 2:32:08.440 of course for themselves, but really for all humanity to 2:32:08.560 --> 2:32:11.400 be able to build new lives, recover and have a 2:32:11.520 --> 2:32:14.960 say in their future, and by doing that, to pursue 2:32:15.000 --> 2:32:18.480 a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Right now, northe 2:32:18.480 --> 2:32:22.600 Assyria is the only major part of Syria outside of 2:32:23.160 --> 2:32:28.720 government control that has a system that is semi functional 2:32:29.400 --> 2:32:31.440 despite all of the setbacks of the war and the 2:32:31.520 --> 2:32:34.320 economic crisis, which again could be a whole other episode, 2:32:34.720 --> 2:32:37.880 which has empowered women, which has empowered different ethnic and 2:32:37.920 --> 2:32:40.600 religious communities, They could be part of a political solution 2:32:40.760 --> 2:32:44.120 in Syria. Turkey's war on the Kurdish movement, you know, 2:32:44.280 --> 2:32:47.080 is preventing that. This goes into a lot of challenges 2:32:47.120 --> 2:32:50.240 in Iraq as well, with increasing Turkish military operations. They're 2:32:50.320 --> 2:32:52.920 related to the conflict that have made life extremely difficult 2:32:52.959 --> 2:32:56.160 for many different Iraqi communities. But again, all of this, 2:32:57.040 --> 2:33:01.240 this conflict, you could argue, is the largest and most 2:33:01.320 --> 2:33:03.880 impactful and certainly one of the longest running. You know, 2:33:04.000 --> 2:33:07.200 for forty years now of the modern Middle East. It 2:33:07.320 --> 2:33:11.080 is an international conflict. The United States European governments, like 2:33:11.200 --> 2:33:13.960 we saw with the example of the US and European 2:33:14.040 --> 2:33:17.400 position on NATO accession and the concessions to Turkey made there, 2:33:18.000 --> 2:33:21.920 have been very involved in supporting militarily and politically Turkey's 2:33:21.920 --> 2:33:26.200 efforts to resolve this conflict militarily and to deny the 2:33:26.280 --> 2:33:30.120 Kurdish people their rights by force. And we you listening 2:33:30.160 --> 2:33:33.279 to this are communities in all of these different countries 2:33:33.320 --> 2:33:35.680 that have a stake in this conflict. We're the ones 2:33:35.720 --> 2:33:37.640 you can change that. And you can do that on 2:33:37.720 --> 2:33:40.160 two different tracks. So One, you can build awareness in 2:33:40.200 --> 2:33:43.400 your own community. You can build connections between your community 2:33:43.520 --> 2:33:46.920 groups and institutions in North East Syria, in Turkey, in 2:33:47.000 --> 2:33:50.039 different places impacted by this conflict in order to find 2:33:50.080 --> 2:33:53.520 ways that you can help respond to specific needs, work 2:33:53.560 --> 2:33:57.119 on specific projects together. And two, in the long run, 2:33:57.680 --> 2:34:01.440 use those connections, your knowledge you gain from those connections, 2:34:01.640 --> 2:34:04.279 the resources you create as you reach out to the media, 2:34:04.840 --> 2:34:08.240 as you meet different people working on this, to reach 2:34:08.360 --> 2:34:12.040 out to decision makers and show this is an issue 2:34:12.120 --> 2:34:15.200 that their constituents care about. This is an issue that's 2:34:15.320 --> 2:34:18.039 not something that governments can do without a response from 2:34:18.160 --> 2:34:21.160 public opinion. And this is an issue where there is 2:34:21.520 --> 2:34:25.680 organized pressure to change policy, you know, in favor of peace, 2:34:25.840 --> 2:34:29.400 in favor of stability, in favor of political solutions. Because 2:34:29.400 --> 2:34:31.480 when we do that, and there's lots of examples of 2:34:31.560 --> 2:34:34.800 how different communities and organizations have done that, when we 2:34:34.879 --> 2:34:37.240 do that on a large enough scale, we're not only 2:34:37.440 --> 2:34:41.840 addressing a humanitarian problem, we're not only contributing to peace 2:34:41.920 --> 2:34:44.400 and stability in the region. But at the end of 2:34:44.440 --> 2:34:47.720 the day, we can find solutions for these conflicts that 2:34:47.920 --> 2:34:51.240 mean that there won't be another rise of Isis, there 2:34:51.280 --> 2:34:54.880 won't be another Turkish invasion and occupation of northern Syria, 2:34:55.520 --> 2:34:59.320 and there will be models for political and social transformation 2:35:00.040 --> 2:35:02.240 that can help us end conflicts in other parts of 2:35:02.280 --> 2:35:05.080 the world as well. So there's lots of ways to contribute. 2:35:05.400 --> 2:35:08.520 I hope you're inspired to do so. And I think 2:35:08.720 --> 2:35:12.440 that just listening to this conversation, hearing about what's going on, 2:35:12.680 --> 2:35:15.040 and thinking about what you can do, that's already the 2:35:15.080 --> 2:35:17.959 first step. You're already there, and that's the most important thing. 2:35:18.680 --> 2:35:21.040 Yeah, great, thanks Bigin. That's a really good I think 2:35:21.360 --> 2:35:23.960 place to end because it gives some people something to do. 2:35:24.200 --> 2:35:26.720 I think far too often, like it's really easy and 2:35:26.760 --> 2:35:28.560 the immedia to just point at something and say it's 2:35:28.600 --> 2:35:32.520 bad and then walk away and not sort of leave 2:35:32.560 --> 2:35:35.680 people a way to help or do something. So I 2:35:35.800 --> 2:35:37.720 really appreciate you doing that. Is there any where people 2:35:37.720 --> 2:35:40.800 can find you on the internet, So you can find. 2:35:40.680 --> 2:35:43.920 All of my research and writing at Kurdishpeace dot org, 2:35:44.480 --> 2:35:46.360 as well as all of the research and writing of 2:35:46.480 --> 2:35:49.480 our brilliant contributors, many of whom are on the ground 2:35:49.600 --> 2:35:52.800 in Northern Syria, themselves in other parts of the region, 2:35:53.000 --> 2:35:56.080 or who have extensively traveled to that region for their work. 2:35:56.959 --> 2:35:59.480 I encourage you to read all of our content, and 2:36:00.080 --> 2:36:03.760 you follow our social media pages as well at Kurdish 2:36:03.840 --> 2:36:07.480 piece org on Twitter, and yes, you can read not 2:36:07.600 --> 2:36:09.000 only my work but the work of a lot of 2:36:09.040 --> 2:36:12.160 other really great people. But I'm very lucky to collaborate. 2:36:11.680 --> 2:36:14.800 With amazing Thanks so much for your time, Megan, Thank you. 2:36:14.959 --> 2:36:15.240 James. 2:36:31.080 --> 2:36:34.680 Hi everyone, it's just me James today and I'm joined 2:36:34.680 --> 2:36:39.360 today by James Cordero and Jacqueline Ariano. They're both from 2:36:39.440 --> 2:36:43.480 Border Kindness, which is a group that does border aid 2:36:44.320 --> 2:36:47.800 chiefly like water drops and support to keep people alive 2:36:47.959 --> 2:36:51.040 as they're making their journey across the desert here in 2:36:51.160 --> 2:36:53.880 San Diego. Is that a fair characterization of what you 2:36:53.920 --> 2:36:54.240 guys do. 2:36:54.959 --> 2:37:00.680 Yeah, we do work all across the border in California. Currently, 2:37:01.000 --> 2:37:03.480 some of us we're based out of San Diego. What 2:37:03.600 --> 2:37:08.280 we do are water drops in eastern San Diego County 2:37:08.959 --> 2:37:10.200 and Imperial Counties. 2:37:10.600 --> 2:37:10.760 Yeah. 2:37:10.800 --> 2:37:10.959 Yeah. 2:37:11.000 --> 2:37:15.040 The organization is based primarily in Mexicali, Baja California, on 2:37:15.120 --> 2:37:17.279 the Mexico side, and that's where it was founded. 2:37:17.720 --> 2:37:19.039 Okay, corresponds to the. 2:37:19.120 --> 2:37:22.120 Arrival of the migrant caravans in twenty eighteen. We've personally 2:37:22.200 --> 2:37:25.320 been doing drops since twenty sixteen, but we brought the 2:37:25.400 --> 2:37:27.640 program over to Border Kindness a little over a year ago, 2:37:28.560 --> 2:37:31.000 and we operate programs on both sides of the border. 2:37:31.520 --> 2:37:33.680 Primarily James and I are involved with water Drop, but 2:37:33.800 --> 2:37:37.760 we also as an organization, have a school on the 2:37:37.840 --> 2:37:41.080 Mexico side. We have operated in a pro bono clinic 2:37:41.160 --> 2:37:44.959 on the Mexican side, and currently we're providing direct aid 2:37:45.280 --> 2:37:49.000 with the families of migrant farm workers in Imperial and 2:37:49.360 --> 2:37:50.199 Riverside Counties. 2:37:50.720 --> 2:37:53.320 Nice. Yeah, that's a lot of very important things. I 2:37:53.400 --> 2:37:57.080 don't get enough money or attention. So you said you 2:37:57.160 --> 2:37:59.440 started about a year ago. I bet you bet. You've 2:37:59.480 --> 2:38:03.480 been doing the border drops for what's that seven sometime 2:38:03.600 --> 2:38:08.160 seven years? Yeah, since twenty sixteen, And I wonder like 2:38:09.160 --> 2:38:11.879 if we could start by and we can get into 2:38:11.879 --> 2:38:15.440 some of the details later. But I've been reporting on 2:38:15.520 --> 2:38:18.440 the border for that long and there certainly have been 2:38:18.560 --> 2:38:22.400 notable changes, And I wonder what changes you've seen, Like 2:38:22.920 --> 2:38:25.400 we go back to like pre twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, 2:38:25.480 --> 2:38:29.560 like that was before the whole wall shenanigans, So like, 2:38:30.040 --> 2:38:32.760 do you guys want to describe what changes you've seen 2:38:32.879 --> 2:38:36.840 in patterns of migration, and like I guess how safe 2:38:36.959 --> 2:38:40.680 that journey is or isn't, and how that's changed. 2:38:43.520 --> 2:38:49.120 Well, as far as patterns, I think it's definitely increased, 2:38:49.840 --> 2:38:56.200 definitely by the as far as seeing the amounts of 2:38:57.640 --> 2:39:02.520 supplies being used, the traces of you know, migrants crossing 2:39:02.640 --> 2:39:07.120 through in the desert in the mountains, seeing the amount 2:39:07.280 --> 2:39:12.800 of border patrol apprehensions and interactions with people that cross, 2:39:14.080 --> 2:39:18.240 and the overall militarization of the border. 2:39:18.800 --> 2:39:21.920 Yeah, yeah, And I think like as far one of 2:39:21.959 --> 2:39:24.240 the biggest changes that we've seen on the border overall, 2:39:24.440 --> 2:39:26.920 and that has reflected in the water Drop as well, 2:39:27.879 --> 2:39:30.240 is a change in the demographics of people that are 2:39:30.280 --> 2:39:32.920 coming through. Even as recently as when we started in 2:39:32.959 --> 2:39:38.400 twenty sixteen, there were much more of like the trend 2:39:39.360 --> 2:39:42.920 that was generally kind of like stereotypically the case of 2:39:43.000 --> 2:39:45.840 like who was crossing, which was men of origin of 2:39:45.959 --> 2:39:49.039 working age crossing to work and send send money back 2:39:49.080 --> 2:39:49.720 to their families. 2:39:50.160 --> 2:39:51.880 Yeah, that's obviously. 2:39:51.480 --> 2:39:55.800 Still a large part of who is coming through, but 2:39:56.040 --> 2:40:03.840 in the most recent three to five years especially, the 2:40:04.080 --> 2:40:07.080 demographics are changing not just by country of origin to 2:40:07.160 --> 2:40:09.720 include all over the world and reflecting like this global 2:40:09.800 --> 2:40:13.960 migration crisis that's going on, but also the reasons and 2:40:14.200 --> 2:40:15.960 like the desperation is changing. 2:40:16.080 --> 2:40:18.520 So now it's not just like economic migration. 2:40:18.920 --> 2:40:24.320 There is asylum seekers, refugees, and it is just changing 2:40:24.480 --> 2:40:27.440 in tone of like why they're migrating and in what 2:40:27.560 --> 2:40:28.440 ways they're migrating. 2:40:29.200 --> 2:40:32.960 Yeah, yeah, definitely, I've noticed that. And like as the 2:40:33.000 --> 2:40:35.199 climate continues to change, right, like more and more people 2:40:35.240 --> 2:40:37.080 come from those countries and you've seen that too that 2:40:37.120 --> 2:40:41.880 are most heavily impacted by climate change. Yeah, yeah, and 2:40:42.040 --> 2:40:44.080 that makes a journey as it gets harder and harder 2:40:44.080 --> 2:40:45.920 in the desert, like that makes a journey more and 2:40:46.040 --> 2:40:46.760 more perilous. 2:40:46.840 --> 2:40:50.080 I guess they've come from farther too, and they're the 2:40:50.200 --> 2:40:53.720 least sometimes like not at all familiar with the weather, 2:40:54.000 --> 2:40:57.120 with the terrain, what they're up against with like how 2:40:57.200 --> 2:41:00.600 you have to move in border town. If you're not 2:41:00.680 --> 2:41:02.440 from a border town, you don't really know how to 2:41:02.560 --> 2:41:05.240 move and who to trust or more importantly, who not 2:41:05.320 --> 2:41:08.480 to trust. Yes, yeah, and the people there's a lot 2:41:08.520 --> 2:41:11.520 of pitfalls to just arriving at the border, even from 2:41:11.760 --> 2:41:15.680 like internal migration, like within Mexico, people arrive to the 2:41:15.720 --> 2:41:17.880 border and don't really know how to operate like the 2:41:18.000 --> 2:41:22.760 day to day there, and it's really made an already 2:41:22.840 --> 2:41:24.359 incredibly dangerous situation. 2:41:24.240 --> 2:41:26.240 Like just just totally perilous. 2:41:26.920 --> 2:41:31.119 As more people have migrated from different countries around the world, 2:41:31.560 --> 2:41:35.480 you're also seeing people who have been on that journey 2:41:35.600 --> 2:41:38.560 just to get to the United States line for longer 2:41:38.600 --> 2:41:40.680 amounts of time that you know, instead of maybe just 2:41:40.800 --> 2:41:43.600 weeks or a month, you're talking about months on months 2:41:44.080 --> 2:41:47.560 that people have been traveling you know, by foot, by train, 2:41:47.720 --> 2:41:50.760 by bus, you know, sometimes by plane, however, they can 2:41:51.200 --> 2:41:57.240 and we've seen, you know, we've seen like invoices for 2:41:57.440 --> 2:42:01.320 like hotel stays that people traveling from Turkey came and 2:42:01.360 --> 2:42:06.240 they stayed like Inkan Koum for like a month. So 2:42:06.520 --> 2:42:10.720 like I mean, people are gone from their from their homelands, 2:42:11.040 --> 2:42:14.120 you know, longer amounts of time now that you know, 2:42:14.400 --> 2:42:17.520 isn't a comfortable thing. So it's not like you can 2:42:17.920 --> 2:42:20.440 ax and not like you can you know, rest and 2:42:20.720 --> 2:42:23.080 you know mentally and physically everything like that. So it's 2:42:23.520 --> 2:42:26.640 definitely making that part harder for people crossing. 2:42:27.200 --> 2:42:30.160 Yeah, for sure, Like I'm seeing more and more migrants 2:42:30.280 --> 2:42:34.240 from from Africa and like they are very much like 2:42:34.400 --> 2:42:37.400 it's the community for them is hard to find sometimes, 2:42:37.560 --> 2:42:41.520 like you know that, like there are different spaces for them, 2:42:41.760 --> 2:42:44.840 and like they they end up in like distinct spaces 2:42:44.920 --> 2:42:47.800 from from other like migrant too, coming from other areas, 2:42:47.840 --> 2:42:49.360 and I know it can be very perilous for them, 2:42:49.560 --> 2:42:52.040 like you say, just just moving around border towns and 2:42:52.200 --> 2:42:57.440 navigating the pitfalls of that. Yeah, it's it's becoming like 2:42:57.520 --> 2:42:59.280 a more and more difficult and I guess could have 2:42:59.360 --> 2:43:03.320 complicated issue, but I think what's not particularly complicated is that, Like, 2:43:03.440 --> 2:43:05.440 no one should have to walk across the desert without water, 2:43:05.560 --> 2:43:09.040 right like that, It's it's pretty basic. So maybe we 2:43:09.120 --> 2:43:13.240 could go through what a water drop is and like 2:43:13.480 --> 2:43:15.200 what just if we could walk through, like you know, 2:43:15.280 --> 2:43:18.119 how far you guys walk, What you're leaving at there, 2:43:18.200 --> 2:43:20.200 what you find that people take, what you find that 2:43:20.240 --> 2:43:23.480 they need in their journeys. And you were talking about 2:43:23.520 --> 2:43:26.039 the receipts. I found tons of those and plane tickets 2:43:26.080 --> 2:43:28.640 and stuff like the things that you find that help 2:43:28.720 --> 2:43:32.359 you understand how better to help people. I guess. 2:43:36.240 --> 2:43:38.920 You want to talk about like how far the drops 2:43:38.959 --> 2:43:40.320 are generally and all of that. 2:43:40.640 --> 2:43:44.199 Yeah, so right now, it just depends on the season, 2:43:44.280 --> 2:43:49.480 the weather, you know, the length of the drops we hike, 2:43:49.959 --> 2:43:52.160 you know, a lot of our drops. We also utilize 2:43:52.760 --> 2:43:55.960 four x fours to get us closer to areas to 2:43:56.000 --> 2:43:58.320 start our hikes, so we don't have to walk even 2:43:58.360 --> 2:44:01.720 more miles. That helps us out in you know, being 2:44:01.760 --> 2:44:04.600 able to carry more supplies you with less walking in 2:44:04.680 --> 2:44:08.760 some areas. But when it's cooler times and the temperatures 2:44:08.800 --> 2:44:11.600 are you know, below eighty degrees, you know, we can 2:44:11.720 --> 2:44:14.960 hike you know anywhere up to I think the max 2:44:15.080 --> 2:44:21.440 that we did was like just about twenty. But on 2:44:21.600 --> 2:44:24.840 the average, you know, the cool weather hikes will do, 2:44:25.760 --> 2:44:29.280 you know, right around ten miles or so, and then 2:44:29.320 --> 2:44:32.920 when it gets hot and the desert gets really hot 2:44:32.959 --> 2:44:34.600 out there, you know, like over one hundred and ten 2:44:34.640 --> 2:44:37.840 degrees on a constant basis and starting to get over 2:44:37.879 --> 2:44:40.680 one hundred and twenty degrees, you know, we can maybe 2:44:40.760 --> 2:44:45.400 do about five miles by foot. We've kind of ran 2:44:45.480 --> 2:44:49.320 a trial and air this season as far as trying 2:44:49.360 --> 2:44:52.080 to push further to see how far we can go, 2:44:52.840 --> 2:44:56.600 and we attempted seven miles and that I mean we 2:44:56.760 --> 2:44:59.800 all were gassed right around the five mile mark. So 2:45:00.440 --> 2:45:03.879 we have to set limits because not only is the distance, 2:45:03.959 --> 2:45:07.960 but the time spent underneath the sun without shade, and 2:45:08.040 --> 2:45:11.280 that exposure is you know, what drives the internal body 2:45:11.320 --> 2:45:12.959 temperature up and everything like that, and if you don't 2:45:12.959 --> 2:45:14.440 have a chance to cool down, that's when your body 2:45:14.480 --> 2:45:17.280 starts to wear out. You get heat exhaustion, and you know, 2:45:17.320 --> 2:45:19.600 we want to avoid heat stroke at all costs, and 2:45:19.640 --> 2:45:22.080 we're trying to make sure everyone's safety is accounted for, 2:45:22.680 --> 2:45:23.960 so we have to kind of cap that in the 2:45:24.080 --> 2:45:25.680 in the summertime to like five miles. 2:45:26.040 --> 2:45:28.960 Yeah, yeah, sure, we have to definitely make pushes in 2:45:29.040 --> 2:45:31.280 the winter to stockpile the areas that are just simply 2:45:31.360 --> 2:45:35.520 not accessible in the summer months. And the strategic and 2:45:35.640 --> 2:45:39.040 like paying attention to what are entry points and can 2:45:39.120 --> 2:45:41.039 we hit those entry points or exit points. 2:45:41.080 --> 2:45:42.279 So maybe we can't. 2:45:44.000 --> 2:45:47.959 Really access a route throughout its entirety, but we can 2:45:48.280 --> 2:45:53.080 hit certain points of it more safely as a team 2:45:53.320 --> 2:45:57.680 during these like incredibly hot months. But we leave supplies 2:45:57.720 --> 2:46:00.920 of water, food, and protective clothing. And the protective clothing 2:46:01.040 --> 2:46:03.720 varies depending on season. So I mean a lot of 2:46:03.720 --> 2:46:06.280 people don't really take into consideration how cold it gets 2:46:07.440 --> 2:46:10.400 in these areas. It gets wall below freezing in the winter. 2:46:11.000 --> 2:46:13.359 In the mountains of East San Diego County, it snows. 2:46:15.560 --> 2:46:17.600 You know, some drops have gotten snowed out. We haven't 2:46:17.640 --> 2:46:20.600 been able to complete them because of the snow. And 2:46:21.680 --> 2:46:25.200 so the protective clothing varies in the summer. It's things 2:46:25.360 --> 2:46:31.000 like bandanas, cooling towels, hats, socks we leave throughout the year. 2:46:32.200 --> 2:46:40.120 People's footwear not being appropriate almost almost always. Yeah, blister 2:46:40.280 --> 2:46:42.400 can be a death sentence out there. So if you 2:46:42.440 --> 2:46:45.039 get a blister and you're not able to keep up 2:46:45.080 --> 2:46:47.039 with your group, there's a really good chance that you're 2:46:47.040 --> 2:46:50.119 going to get left. So something like having dry socks 2:46:50.160 --> 2:46:52.760 to change into can very well save somebody's life. So 2:46:52.840 --> 2:46:55.640 we leave socks throughout the year, pop top cans of 2:46:55.680 --> 2:46:56.200 food and. 2:46:56.360 --> 2:46:57.040 Of course water. 2:46:57.600 --> 2:47:05.880 In the wintertime, we leave sweatshirts, beanie like mittens, gloves, scarves, jackets, 2:47:06.000 --> 2:47:12.120 sometimes puffy jackets, sometimes blankets, you know, stuff to keep 2:47:12.240 --> 2:47:15.920 people warm when the temperatures you know, can be freezing 2:47:16.080 --> 2:47:18.240 for you know, most of the day. You know, in 2:47:18.360 --> 2:47:21.040 those you know, harsh months of like January and February 2:47:21.120 --> 2:47:25.000 where eastern Sandiwo County gets the like the winter storms, 2:47:25.520 --> 2:47:28.640 the freezing cold, you know, when roads get shut down, 2:47:28.680 --> 2:47:31.360 we can't even access so as Jacqueline mentioned, you know, 2:47:31.959 --> 2:47:35.200 when it is cooler, we try to go as much 2:47:35.240 --> 2:47:37.800 as we can, as far as we can to stockpile 2:47:37.879 --> 2:47:42.000 as much as possible for when the weather prohibits us 2:47:42.040 --> 2:47:42.959 from doing so otherwise. 2:47:43.640 --> 2:47:45.600 Yeah, and just give people a sense of like the 2:47:45.640 --> 2:47:49.000 temperature swings, Like I've been in the mountains down by 2:47:49.080 --> 2:47:52.440 the border at like twenty degrees fahrenheit, which is like 2:47:53.040 --> 2:47:57.959 minus ten ish celsius, I think, And yeah, also at 2:47:58.000 --> 2:48:00.680 one hundred and twenty, which is like almost fifty celsius, 2:48:00.800 --> 2:48:03.120 and so you can they didn't swing that much in 2:48:03.240 --> 2:48:06.199 one day. But there are days when it's above forty 2:48:06.240 --> 2:48:08.680 degrees celsius and also below freezing in the same day. 2:48:08.879 --> 2:48:09.600 Like it's. 2:48:10.959 --> 2:48:14.000 It can be really. Yeah, it's a perilous place. It's 2:48:14.000 --> 2:48:15.920 that's why people don't live there as a rule, Like 2:48:16.200 --> 2:48:21.040 it's not a place that's kind to people. So I wonder, 2:48:21.320 --> 2:48:23.840 like a lot of people, I know, we did a 2:48:23.959 --> 2:48:26.640 series on title forty two. We spoke to a lot 2:48:26.680 --> 2:48:28.120 of people, and a lot of people reached out and 2:48:28.160 --> 2:48:31.280 they like they want to help, and I understand that 2:48:32.040 --> 2:48:34.320 the border I think for a lot of people, it's 2:48:34.440 --> 2:48:37.520 like I think reporting on the borders as a rule 2:48:37.640 --> 2:48:40.720 is not great, like that we tend to see migrants 2:48:40.760 --> 2:48:43.840 as numbers and not as people a lot when when 2:48:44.120 --> 2:48:46.200 people report on the border, right, and that that's kind 2:48:46.240 --> 2:48:48.720 of it happens with with more liberal outlets as well 2:48:48.760 --> 2:48:53.320 as more right wing outlets. But I wonder, like a 2:48:53.760 --> 2:48:56.040 how people who aren't in town, Like if you're not 2:48:56.200 --> 2:48:58.000 in if you don't live in the border lands, right, 2:48:58.800 --> 2:49:00.600 it's so you live in the middle of them America, Like, 2:49:01.080 --> 2:49:03.600 how can they help? What can they do to kind 2:49:03.640 --> 2:49:07.120 of support the prices that you're doing making this horrible thing? 2:49:07.120 --> 2:49:07.760 It will kind of. 2:49:10.760 --> 2:49:15.280 We have on all of our social media and as 2:49:15.360 --> 2:49:18.119 well as on our website ways that people can help. 2:49:19.760 --> 2:49:23.600 We have wish lists for items if people help want 2:49:23.600 --> 2:49:26.720 to contribute in that way, and that's literally like contributing 2:49:26.760 --> 2:49:31.480 the items that we leave. We also have donation links, 2:49:31.560 --> 2:49:34.440 so if people want to help financially, that goes a 2:49:34.720 --> 2:49:39.800 huge way in order to facilitate everything that we do. 2:49:41.120 --> 2:49:45.960 It's i mean, gas is incredibly expensive to the supplies 2:49:46.000 --> 2:49:47.720 that we don't get donated by a wish list have 2:49:47.800 --> 2:49:51.160 to be purchased, that sort of thing. So providing material 2:49:51.360 --> 2:49:55.080 aid is one way of contributing. And then aside from that, 2:49:55.920 --> 2:50:00.440 I think just following along with this work and sharing 2:50:00.520 --> 2:50:02.959 it and changing the conversation because, like as you said, 2:50:03.280 --> 2:50:08.640 reporting on the border can be really tricky. People tend 2:50:08.720 --> 2:50:11.440 to not just utilize migrants, but utilize the border as 2:50:11.480 --> 2:50:14.600 a region in order to have talking points for either 2:50:14.680 --> 2:50:17.320 like media outlets or people campaigns or that sort of thing, 2:50:17.959 --> 2:50:20.160 and the border gets treated as sort of like its 2:50:20.240 --> 2:50:25.400 own foreign area that's not related to either country, like 2:50:25.440 --> 2:50:28.680 nobody wants to take responsibility for it. And you know, 2:50:28.879 --> 2:50:31.320 residents of the United States also are complicit in that 2:50:31.480 --> 2:50:32.920 because they don't really they just. 2:50:32.959 --> 2:50:34.080 Talk about the border. 2:50:34.200 --> 2:50:36.240 They don't say like, this is something that's happening in 2:50:36.360 --> 2:50:41.400 my country. So I think sharing and discussing and becoming 2:50:41.480 --> 2:50:44.040 informed of what's going on, and also feeling like that 2:50:44.200 --> 2:50:48.000 kinship and ownership of like, hey, this is happening. I 2:50:48.080 --> 2:50:50.360 mean for people, it doesn't have to be as far 2:50:50.400 --> 2:50:51.520 as like the middle of the country. A lot of 2:50:51.560 --> 2:50:53.360 people in San Diego don't eat, really engage in. 2:50:53.440 --> 2:50:55.120 Yere, they don't don't bother. 2:50:55.480 --> 2:50:57.440 You know, it feels like so far away, even though 2:50:57.440 --> 2:51:01.959 it's like twenty minutes away. Meanwhile, peopeople are dropping dead 2:51:02.920 --> 2:51:05.960 so close to where people live and they choose to 2:51:06.080 --> 2:51:06.959 turn a blind eye. 2:51:07.000 --> 2:51:07.680 So I think. 2:51:09.680 --> 2:51:13.360 Kind of demystifying that for ourselves and sharing in that 2:51:13.760 --> 2:51:15.039 it goes a long way as well. 2:51:15.720 --> 2:51:18.720 Yeah, definitely, I think that's that's very true. It's always 2:51:18.760 --> 2:51:23.360 amazing to me, like how twenty eighteen or the other 2:51:23.400 --> 2:51:24.920 big one I guess would be the end of title 2:51:25.000 --> 2:51:27.760 forty two, which was this year in May, like people 2:51:27.879 --> 2:51:30.520 will become more aware of what's happening and turn up 2:51:30.560 --> 2:51:34.320 and like it's so very radicalizing from other people in 2:51:34.400 --> 2:51:37.120 a positive way, like get engaged m in a way 2:51:37.160 --> 2:51:40.840 they haven't been engaged before. But it's I know, it's 2:51:40.959 --> 2:51:43.840 like it shouldn't be, like we shouldn't be saying we 2:51:43.920 --> 2:51:47.200 ever get used to how like cruel our border infrastructure 2:51:47.280 --> 2:51:49.160 is and what it does for us, But people are 2:51:49.240 --> 2:51:55.280 just blown away every time. Absolutely, Yeah, but I think 2:51:55.280 --> 2:51:57.520 you're right, like witnessing it is very important, even if 2:51:57.560 --> 2:51:59.600 you know you can't done it financially, if you can't 2:51:59.600 --> 2:51:59.920 get down. 2:52:00.080 --> 2:52:03.400 Yeah, yeah, definitely just share stuff that, you know, if 2:52:04.240 --> 2:52:07.760 you know our organization posts something on social media, you know, 2:52:08.080 --> 2:52:10.560 I mean it has to be taken as the truth 2:52:10.560 --> 2:52:12.760 because we're out there firsthand. We're the ones on the 2:52:12.800 --> 2:52:18.000 ground seeing reporting back, and by sharing that, you get 2:52:18.440 --> 2:52:21.280 people you know in different parts of the country or 2:52:21.320 --> 2:52:23.800 even you know, different parts of the world seeing like 2:52:23.959 --> 2:52:28.120 the realities of the US Mexico border, because you know, 2:52:29.680 --> 2:52:32.879 most people in the United States don't know. If they 2:52:32.879 --> 2:52:35.760 don't don't see it, they'll live near it. So that's 2:52:36.000 --> 2:52:41.000 you know, something that most people rely on the media 2:52:41.680 --> 2:52:44.040 and what they see on the nightly news, and you 2:52:44.120 --> 2:52:48.560 know even that, you know, the big media outlets don't 2:52:48.640 --> 2:52:54.760 take the most realistic or don't share the most realistic 2:52:56.040 --> 2:52:59.640 parts of the border, you know, only to you know, 2:52:59.760 --> 2:53:03.440 kate to their you know, their sponsors or cater to 2:53:03.520 --> 2:53:06.720 their crowds, and so a lot of people will get 2:53:06.879 --> 2:53:10.520 like the headlines, but they don't get the real deal, 2:53:10.720 --> 2:53:12.640 like you know, what's going on down the border, and 2:53:12.720 --> 2:53:16.640 so sharing is is a big part of you know, 2:53:16.879 --> 2:53:20.560 how the word spreads of the work that we do 2:53:20.720 --> 2:53:22.120 in other organizations as well. 2:53:22.959 --> 2:53:26.000 Yeah, I think that's very very valid. It was interesting 2:53:26.040 --> 2:53:27.560 to me recently. I didn't if you guys saw this, 2:53:27.760 --> 2:53:32.680 but like the floating border barrier in Texas and like 2:53:33.160 --> 2:53:35.120 very like this week, people have been reporting that it 2:53:35.240 --> 2:53:37.800 has the blades on it, which it does, and that's 2:53:38.320 --> 2:53:41.280 fucked up, like they shouldn't. It's horrible, but like it 2:53:41.360 --> 2:53:43.600 was kind of illiterative that I guess none of that 2:53:43.720 --> 2:53:46.280 are that none of the nationalitists had someone who'd seen it, 2:53:46.560 --> 2:53:49.039 because the blades have been there for like months where 2:53:49.040 --> 2:53:51.119 the prototype sat there. They were in the twenty twenty 2:53:51.240 --> 2:53:55.680 solicitation to like it just seemed odd to me that 2:53:56.160 --> 2:53:58.280 someone had to tweet a video for them to like 2:53:58.440 --> 2:54:01.000 understand because they go no one had walked up to 2:54:01.000 --> 2:54:03.760 it and checked it out, which I don't know. I 2:54:03.800 --> 2:54:06.199 think it's hard to do border reporting in New York personally, 2:54:06.360 --> 2:54:12.520 But yes, you're interested in the northern border. So I 2:54:12.640 --> 2:54:14.800 wanted to ask about Title forty two because I think 2:54:14.879 --> 2:54:17.480 our listeners are pretty well informed on what that was 2:54:18.360 --> 2:54:21.600 and what happened before and after that. So did you 2:54:21.720 --> 2:54:25.640 guys notice when that came into effect? Just to recap 2:54:25.680 --> 2:54:28.640 I guess for people, Title forty two allowed border patrol 2:54:28.680 --> 2:54:34.040 to bounce people straight back south without processing them and 2:54:34.640 --> 2:54:37.560 in nearly all cases without hearing that their claims were 2:54:37.600 --> 2:54:41.800 asylum if they had, and then those people were sometimes 2:54:41.879 --> 2:54:44.760 latterally translated across the border to a border town where 2:54:44.800 --> 2:54:47.800 they may not have had contacts or family or any resources. 2:54:48.560 --> 2:54:51.400 And it often resulted in most people finding themselves in 2:54:51.440 --> 2:54:53.600 an even more difficult situation than they already were, or 2:54:53.640 --> 2:54:57.400 trying to cross in more difficult and dangerous places to 2:54:57.480 --> 2:55:00.680 avoid that. So did you guys notice any changes like 2:55:01.000 --> 2:55:03.680 around and that came in what March or twenty twenty? 2:55:03.760 --> 2:55:05.600 As soon as they could as soon as they found 2:55:05.640 --> 2:55:13.279 an excusing in COVID, and not so much. 2:55:14.840 --> 2:55:17.800 From what we see because we don't come across people 2:55:18.040 --> 2:55:23.800 too often face to face. Did notice that once the 2:55:24.080 --> 2:55:29.040 policy was put into place, meaning Title forty two, and 2:55:29.200 --> 2:55:32.760 you know, with the pandemic starting, we did notice a 2:55:32.879 --> 2:55:37.080 big uptick on the amount of people coming through. We've 2:55:37.560 --> 2:55:42.120 seen you know before that you know, just a handful 2:55:42.120 --> 2:55:44.720 of people maybe like that. We'd come across a lot 2:55:44.760 --> 2:55:48.520 of times, those people crossing at nighttime and it wasn't 2:55:48.560 --> 2:55:51.280 something that we came across much. But after that went 2:55:51.320 --> 2:55:54.440 into effect in twenty twenty, we started running into a 2:55:54.480 --> 2:55:58.520 lot more people. We started seeing people that knew, you know, 2:55:58.959 --> 2:56:03.640 somewhat of you know, the policy, and that people would 2:56:03.680 --> 2:56:07.960 try multiple times every day to you know, cross through, 2:56:08.000 --> 2:56:11.320 and if they got apprehended and got you know, taken 2:56:11.360 --> 2:56:15.880 into Mexico, they tried again that same day. And so 2:56:16.000 --> 2:56:18.400 we noticed a lot more of our supplies being used, 2:56:18.480 --> 2:56:22.320 a lot more foot traffic, and a lot more you know, 2:56:22.440 --> 2:56:25.800 interactions with us. We started seeing a lot more interactions 2:56:25.920 --> 2:56:29.440 with you know, board patrol and people crossing through. And 2:56:29.600 --> 2:56:35.280 so when the policy was coming to an end, the 2:56:35.440 --> 2:56:40.440 only thing that we really saw increase was the amount 2:56:40.520 --> 2:56:44.800 of people trying to get in before you know, quote 2:56:44.879 --> 2:56:49.240 unquote got closed off, you know, before like the bands 2:56:49.280 --> 2:56:51.800 would go into effect and you know, like the no 2:56:52.200 --> 2:56:54.480 you know, you can re enter for a you know 2:56:54.480 --> 2:56:56.400 a certain amount of years and all that kind of stuff. 2:56:56.879 --> 2:57:00.400 So like the camp in Hukumba, you know, you see 2:57:00.520 --> 2:57:09.240 you know, thousands of people showing up as that you know, stopped, 2:57:09.520 --> 2:57:13.680 as Top forty two stopped. We really can't notice too 2:57:13.760 --> 2:57:19.640 much yet that less people are crossing through compared to 2:57:20.600 --> 2:57:25.880 the beginning the middle of the policy. Our supplies are 2:57:25.920 --> 2:57:29.600 still being used at a high rate, still see a 2:57:29.680 --> 2:57:32.320 fair amount of traffic come through, you know, these these 2:57:32.400 --> 2:57:36.280 corridors and everything like that. So it's kind of hard 2:57:36.800 --> 2:57:43.520 on our end. But you know, we also know that 2:57:44.000 --> 2:57:50.600 people who do cross not at a porta entry by foot, 2:57:51.440 --> 2:57:53.760 whether it's over a fence, whether it's around a fence, 2:57:53.840 --> 2:57:56.800 whether it's through the desert, over the hills. We know 2:57:57.000 --> 2:58:05.680 that people are still being apprehended, processed, and released with 2:58:05.800 --> 2:58:10.480 their asylum claims. So it's hard, as you know, on 2:58:10.560 --> 2:58:14.240 the board to know exactly what's going on because a 2:58:14.360 --> 2:58:15.520 policy can say one thing. 2:58:16.320 --> 2:58:18.080 Yeah, it doesn't matter exactly. 2:58:18.120 --> 2:58:22.840 Like the residential administration can say one thing, the DHS 2:58:22.920 --> 2:58:27.280 can say one thing, and completely different is happening, you 2:58:27.360 --> 2:58:32.480 know right right there. I don't know. I mean, I 2:58:32.640 --> 2:58:36.519 can't really say honestly how much it's changed from our perspective. 2:58:37.600 --> 2:58:39.600 I think when these things happen, like it's always really 2:58:39.640 --> 2:58:42.400 difficult because like I think the three of us are 2:58:42.440 --> 2:58:45.199 aware of there's the things that are put in place, 2:58:45.720 --> 2:58:48.320 and that's how they're going to be applied in theory, 2:58:49.000 --> 2:58:50.360 and then those of us that have been doing this 2:58:50.520 --> 2:58:53.320 work can anticipate how it's going to have an impact 2:58:53.400 --> 2:58:54.039 in practice. 2:58:54.640 --> 2:58:55.280 So, like. 2:58:57.280 --> 2:59:00.400 The things that are occurring now in order to so 2:59:00.640 --> 2:59:01.920 called like curb. 2:59:02.520 --> 2:59:07.720 The influx of people like using an app or having 2:59:07.879 --> 2:59:11.240 like on certain things, like all of these things like 2:59:11.600 --> 2:59:15.240 we know and we don't have like any faith that 2:59:15.320 --> 2:59:18.520 they were put in in good faith, and we know 2:59:18.800 --> 2:59:24.400 like that we can anticipate, Okay, you're gonna be banned 2:59:24.440 --> 2:59:28.440 if you don't go in through these like really ridiculously 2:59:28.560 --> 2:59:31.959 inaccessible means, and that that word is going to get 2:59:31.959 --> 2:59:34.480 around that people are going to freak out, They're not 2:59:34.560 --> 2:59:36.320 going to bother and they're going to hit the desert, 2:59:36.400 --> 2:59:38.840 and that's what we're seeing. Whether we can actually like 2:59:38.840 --> 2:59:41.840 attribute it directly to like these policy changes, what I 2:59:41.879 --> 2:59:45.000 think we can attribute it more directly to is like one, 2:59:45.160 --> 2:59:49.280 global migration, regardless of policy, is increasing all over the world, 2:59:49.800 --> 2:59:53.440 and that desperation doesn't like really wait for any kind 2:59:53.440 --> 2:59:59.199 of policy change. Two is like the misinformation and sort 2:59:59.240 --> 3:00:02.120 of like chatter that people are hearing about like this 3:00:02.280 --> 3:00:05.840 pos changing. Oh I heard that, like if you don't 3:00:05.920 --> 3:00:07.560 use this app, they're going to put you in jail. 3:00:07.640 --> 3:00:09.800 And like just like literally these things that we're hearing 3:00:09.879 --> 3:00:13.640 on the border that is funneling people directly into the 3:00:13.720 --> 3:00:16.920 desert because they want to avoid any kind of interaction 3:00:17.040 --> 3:00:19.280 with border patrol. Even if they have like what would 3:00:19.360 --> 3:00:25.240 be a you know, like an asylum claim. People aren't 3:00:25.840 --> 3:00:30.120 trusting because there's so much change and uncertainty at like 3:00:30.400 --> 3:00:35.440 a policy level. There's no accessibility to this information, there's 3:00:35.480 --> 3:00:38.240 no clarity to this information. Nobody knows what's going on, 3:00:38.400 --> 3:00:40.480 whether it's people that are working in border aid or 3:00:40.560 --> 3:00:43.960 people that are seeking asylum. So people are just you know, 3:00:44.120 --> 3:00:47.360 taking their chances and hitting the desert. And regardless of 3:00:47.400 --> 3:00:50.320 the policy change, like ever since the last like you know, 3:00:50.480 --> 3:00:53.720 like we said like three to five years, the increase 3:00:53.840 --> 3:00:57.039 has been like exponential every single year. 3:00:57.080 --> 3:00:58.160 It just continues increasing. 3:01:00.160 --> 3:01:03.280 I wanted to add in, is that so the Title 3:01:03.320 --> 3:01:06.760 forty two policy was used, you know, in conjunction with 3:01:06.879 --> 3:01:10.000 the you know, national emergency with COVID and all that 3:01:10.120 --> 3:01:16.960 kind of stuff with the country, you know, ending the 3:01:17.280 --> 3:01:23.840 national emergency, they couldn't you know, couldn't justify keeping Title 3:01:23.879 --> 3:01:28.720 forty two in effect. And in a way, I feel 3:01:28.800 --> 3:01:36.880 that the administration was just playing you know, political chess 3:01:37.680 --> 3:01:45.280 and using people, vulnerable people as pawns. And so the 3:01:45.400 --> 3:01:49.039 rhetoric coming out and you know, the you know, we're 3:01:49.080 --> 3:01:50.959 taking a hard stance and this that and the other, 3:01:51.879 --> 3:01:56.360 a crackdown on immigration, and that I feel it was 3:01:56.920 --> 3:02:02.480 the current presidential administration just trying to appeal to a 3:02:02.600 --> 3:02:08.600 larger audience or when the election comes up next year, 3:02:08.920 --> 3:02:11.000 you know, can you say, hey, look did this, did that, 3:02:11.240 --> 3:02:14.240 did this? And the way the numbers have been skewed 3:02:14.360 --> 3:02:19.320 for apprehensions, you know, that's when you'd have like say 3:02:19.400 --> 3:02:23.960 in San Luis and Yuma, Arizona, you would see you know, 3:02:24.120 --> 3:02:26.840 hundreds and thousands of people every day showing up to 3:02:26.959 --> 3:02:30.119 present themselves for asilence. Those all got recorded as apprehension numbers. 3:02:30.640 --> 3:02:33.640 So you've got in one month, you know, however many 3:02:33.800 --> 3:02:40.080 you know, thousands. Now Title forty two ends. Now that 3:02:40.280 --> 3:02:43.880 number shrinks down. Now that looks better, That looks tougher 3:02:43.959 --> 3:02:46.800 on you know, immergion. That looks like you're doing this, 3:02:46.879 --> 3:02:51.160 that and the other. Meanwhile, you have people just you know, 3:02:51.240 --> 3:02:55.920 being vulnerable, being you know, in limbo, you know, on 3:02:55.959 --> 3:02:57.520 the other side of the border, or you have them 3:02:57.560 --> 3:02:59.959 taking to the mountains and deserts and taking the dangerous 3:03:00.160 --> 3:03:05.960 trek just so they can be apprehended and you know, 3:03:06.680 --> 3:03:10.000 plead their case and try to get asylum and try 3:03:10.040 --> 3:03:14.040 to get released into the United States. So people that 3:03:14.200 --> 3:03:16.920 are being used as ponds in this political theater that 3:03:16.959 --> 3:03:20.560 we always talk about. As always, it doesn't matter the administration, 3:03:20.720 --> 3:03:23.800 whether it's blue, whether it's red, whether it's orange, whether 3:03:23.879 --> 3:03:26.600 it's old, whether it's you know, money, it's all money. 3:03:26.920 --> 3:03:34.320 And unfortunately, you know, we have to constantly like dispel 3:03:35.080 --> 3:03:37.520 a lot of that false narrative that comes out, and 3:03:37.600 --> 3:03:40.000 it gets exhausting, but I mean it's what we have 3:03:40.120 --> 3:03:42.000 to do because you're not going to find that out 3:03:42.040 --> 3:03:42.640 any other way. 3:03:43.560 --> 3:03:46.440 Yeah, you're really not. I think that's the next one point. 3:03:46.760 --> 3:03:48.960 And the point about apprehensions is good, right, they always 3:03:49.000 --> 3:03:53.520 reported and I've heard like NPR do this report apprehensions 3:03:53.560 --> 3:03:55.760 as if they're individuals, which they were not under Title 3:03:55.800 --> 3:03:57.600 forty two. Like if you cross five times in a 3:03:57.720 --> 3:03:59.920 day and get apprehended and sent back five times, that's 3:04:00.000 --> 3:04:04.760 five apprehensions. It's one person, And they were deliberately using 3:04:04.840 --> 3:04:07.440 that to make this to seem like more people are coming, 3:04:07.480 --> 3:04:09.160 and as you say, now it will seem like less 3:04:09.200 --> 3:04:13.320 because that doesn't happen anymore. I think your point about 3:04:13.720 --> 3:04:16.800 like the jacking and the points about the misinformation is 3:04:17.160 --> 3:04:20.800 super crucial and one that again often isn't reported. But 3:04:21.040 --> 3:04:25.199 like I'm not a lawyer, and I can't give people 3:04:25.280 --> 3:04:29.000 legal advice, but constantly when I'm in Tijuana, when I'm 3:04:29.280 --> 3:04:33.200 in Sonora, when anywhere where I'm like on the southern 3:04:33.280 --> 3:04:35.039 side of the border or on this side of the border, 3:04:35.160 --> 3:04:37.320 people will ask me, or when the people are trapped 3:04:37.320 --> 3:04:41.119 in between the two fences that constitute the border, people 3:04:41.160 --> 3:04:43.720 will say, hey have you had this? Hey I got this, 3:04:43.800 --> 3:04:46.480 and they'll play like voice messages on WhatsApp often or 3:04:46.560 --> 3:04:51.320 show me a WhatsApp and we'll go over like that's 3:04:51.400 --> 3:04:53.640 not my understanding, you know, like I don't think that's 3:04:53.680 --> 3:04:58.879 the case, but it's it's I understand you're vulnerable, you're scared, 3:04:58.920 --> 3:05:01.800 and this shit like I have a PhD and speak 3:05:01.840 --> 3:05:04.280 all the concerned languages, and I don't understand it fully, 3:05:04.600 --> 3:05:08.880 Like it's it's complicated and petrifying if this is your 3:05:08.959 --> 3:05:12.520 only hope of like a dignified life, and I think 3:05:12.520 --> 3:05:15.000 it's something that people don't understand. It's how hard it 3:05:15.120 --> 3:05:18.400 is for those people to get decent information about like 3:05:18.480 --> 3:05:22.480 what there's quote unquote supposed to do, especially when we 3:05:22.640 --> 3:05:25.119 have this app, which like I don't have a ton 3:05:25.160 --> 3:05:27.360 of foyers in around the app, but I don't think 3:05:27.480 --> 3:05:29.720 I'll ever get any documents back from the FAD to 3:05:29.760 --> 3:05:33.800 be honest, but yeah, it's it's so toerocious. I think 3:05:34.120 --> 3:05:34.920 it's ridiculous. 3:05:35.840 --> 3:05:39.400 Yeah no, then the information that people receive isn't even accurate. 3:05:40.360 --> 3:05:44.520 Like so whenever there is that somebody like say has 3:05:44.600 --> 3:05:47.600 come to like our office downtown in Mehigali and like 3:05:48.240 --> 3:05:51.040 you know, run in their paperwork and say, like I 3:05:51.120 --> 3:05:54.200 have a court date they're all like there was a 3:05:54.280 --> 3:05:57.520 time like during you know MPP and all of that, 3:05:57.879 --> 3:06:00.640 like where people were being giving court dates on Sundays 3:06:00.840 --> 3:06:05.480 or being given court dates in Texas when they were 3:06:06.040 --> 3:06:08.920 sent back after their arrest in Arizona to MEXICALI like, 3:06:09.640 --> 3:06:13.959 just crazy stuff. Like if people are even lucky enough 3:06:14.080 --> 3:06:17.200 to get somebody to help guide them through the process, 3:06:17.640 --> 3:06:19.880 it's not even like a certainty that the information that 3:06:19.920 --> 3:06:23.240 they're provided is even going to be accurate on purpose, 3:06:23.520 --> 3:06:27.160 Like people are given inaccurate information to wade through this 3:06:27.280 --> 3:06:31.360 process that doesn't seem to make sense to anyone. It's 3:06:31.520 --> 3:06:37.240 it's wildly like convoluted. I mean that's the intention, right, 3:06:37.440 --> 3:06:40.560 Like it's not meant to be navigated in any way. 3:06:41.400 --> 3:06:43.600 No, no, it's not. It's meant to be belove I think. 3:06:43.720 --> 3:06:45.800 And like even with the work that our friends at 3:06:46.280 --> 3:06:49.000 Alato do and other legal aid groups, I was speaking 3:06:49.040 --> 3:06:51.480 to an Ethiopian friend who I met in Tijuana and 3:06:51.560 --> 3:06:53.640 he lives in US and he helps other folks now 3:06:53.720 --> 3:06:57.280 who have arrived more recently, and he was saying that 3:06:57.520 --> 3:07:00.720 like getting a lawyer to represent you can cost you 3:07:01.600 --> 3:07:05.080 maybe five grand, maybe twelve, and you might not have 3:07:05.280 --> 3:07:08.480 the legal right to work, right, so where is that 3:07:08.560 --> 3:07:11.200 money supposed to come from? And then do you know 3:07:11.440 --> 3:07:14.680 if if your language is you know, aroma or something, 3:07:14.760 --> 3:07:17.280 it's that much harder to navigate that system, to find 3:07:17.400 --> 3:07:20.680 useful resources to explain it to you. And it's yeah, 3:07:20.920 --> 3:07:23.440 it's people like to talk about like how I know 3:07:23.560 --> 3:07:27.640 that their family did legal legal quote unquote migration when 3:07:27.760 --> 3:07:29.760 there weren't these checks in place and they didn't have 3:07:29.840 --> 3:07:32.640 to do any of this shit, And I don't know, 3:07:32.920 --> 3:07:36.320 it's I don't think people realize how brutalizing the system 3:07:36.480 --> 3:07:38.880 is until they've seen it first hand. 3:07:39.000 --> 3:07:40.439 That there the point. 3:07:40.640 --> 3:07:43.760 Like the and the confusion, like putting people in danger 3:07:44.240 --> 3:07:47.200 is the whole point. And it's intentional. Like so if 3:07:47.200 --> 3:07:49.520 somebody's there and like you said, like they speak there, 3:07:50.320 --> 3:07:54.640 they're not able to even like wrap their heads around 3:07:54.680 --> 3:07:57.959 the process, letl on access like the resources in order 3:07:58.040 --> 3:08:01.400 to navigate that system. Then Yota approaches them and tells 3:08:01.480 --> 3:08:04.039 them like, oh, I can take you over here to Romrosa. 3:08:04.560 --> 3:08:06.360 All you have to do is pay me three hundred 3:08:06.360 --> 3:08:09.000 American instead of five thousand for this, Like, eh, you're 3:08:09.000 --> 3:08:11.480 probably not going to win that case. The town's a 3:08:11.560 --> 3:08:14.120 mile away. The town's a mile away, and it's a 3:08:14.200 --> 3:08:16.720 straight shot and you'll get there in half a day 3:08:17.480 --> 3:08:19.760 and then you're good to go. And I mean we've 3:08:19.840 --> 3:08:21.920 heard the most wild stories, like even from people in 3:08:21.959 --> 3:08:24.920 the middle of the desert lost saying they told me 3:08:25.000 --> 3:08:27.080 it was two mile walk and that there was they 3:08:27.120 --> 3:08:29.080 were hiring in the town on the other side of 3:08:29.160 --> 3:08:32.640 that hill. Yeah, like, and I mean, like who wouldn't 3:08:32.720 --> 3:08:35.039 at that point it's like you don't have a country 3:08:35.080 --> 3:08:37.960 to go back to. Yeah, Like it's no longer like, oh, 3:08:38.000 --> 3:08:40.560 I'm fleeing my I'm migrating from my country because there's 3:08:40.600 --> 3:08:42.320 no work. No, there is no country to speak of, 3:08:42.520 --> 3:08:46.400 at least not for you. And you're here and this 3:08:46.520 --> 3:08:49.440 Goyota presents you this upper like so it's misinformation and 3:08:49.600 --> 3:08:53.000 exploitation like every single step of the way. And a 3:08:53.080 --> 3:08:57.160 lot of the time people's most straightforward avenue is through 3:08:57.200 --> 3:09:01.440 the desert, even though it's like unbelievable, hardened, very very 3:09:01.520 --> 3:09:05.600 often deadly. That's like the surest shot that they have 3:09:05.879 --> 3:09:08.680 and they take it because I mean it wouldn't. 3:09:09.200 --> 3:09:11.080 Yeah, No, it's it's not like yet, like you say, 3:09:11.120 --> 3:09:13.160 people aren't like you know, doing the numbers and thinking 3:09:13.160 --> 3:09:15.000 they'll make more money in the US. It's like I 3:09:15.080 --> 3:09:18.120 will die if I stay, or someone who's already killed 3:09:18.160 --> 3:09:20.720 someone I love, and I have to leave now, and 3:09:20.959 --> 3:09:26.960 especially when like the Trump administration, like the people aren't aware, 3:09:27.000 --> 3:09:29.000 Like towards the end of the Trump administration, Trump started 3:09:29.040 --> 3:09:31.760 making claims in presidential debates about the number of miles 3:09:31.800 --> 3:09:34.879 of wall he was he had built as far as 3:09:34.920 --> 3:09:36.320 I can work out, he pulled out of his ass, 3:09:36.720 --> 3:09:41.640 and then the like then they started rushing to build 3:09:41.680 --> 3:09:45.160 more wall, and they I asked them how they came 3:09:45.240 --> 3:09:46.960 up with that number, and then they like they did 3:09:47.040 --> 3:09:48.520 this thing where they were like, oh, well, we repaired 3:09:48.560 --> 3:09:50.360 this much wall and they were like eight miles of 3:09:50.400 --> 3:09:54.920 border wall prototype and like cool man, Like they didn't 3:09:54.920 --> 3:09:58.560 build that much wall, but they started skipping the harder parts, 3:09:58.760 --> 3:10:02.480 right like Valley of the Moon, even that boulder Pilo 3:10:02.480 --> 3:10:06.560 outside of Cumba, Like there are areas that don't have 3:10:06.840 --> 3:10:10.520 wool and those areas that are harder, and then that's 3:10:10.560 --> 3:10:13.360 where people try and cross and like I love to 3:10:13.400 --> 3:10:16.040 go outside. I'm a pretty fit person, and like the 3:10:16.160 --> 3:10:18.800 value of the Moon is hard going, like if you're 3:10:18.840 --> 3:10:21.320 not going up the road, like that's tough travel and 3:10:21.600 --> 3:10:23.760 that's where people don't have a choice bed to cross, 3:10:23.879 --> 3:10:26.440 right right, Yeah. 3:10:27.320 --> 3:10:30.440 That's where and that's where, like you in May, it 3:10:30.680 --> 3:10:33.440 was I think with the first second week in May, 3:10:34.160 --> 3:10:37.199 when you know, just a few days before Total forty 3:10:37.240 --> 3:10:40.360 two was ending, that's where thousands of people came through. 3:10:41.280 --> 3:10:44.720 Was through that area down into the town of Cumba, 3:10:45.520 --> 3:10:47.440 and a lot of people, i mean we're talking about 3:10:47.480 --> 3:10:51.080 you know, thousands came through there, and a lot said 3:10:51.120 --> 3:10:55.840 that they paid upwards to one thousand dollars ahead two 3:10:57.000 --> 3:11:00.560 coyotes that brought them there and said, hey, when you 3:11:00.720 --> 3:11:03.680 get down there, you just follow this road. Once you 3:11:03.760 --> 3:11:05.120 get down to the bottom, there's gonna be a buzz 3:11:05.160 --> 3:11:07.039 waiting for you. It'll take you in. And then they 3:11:07.080 --> 3:11:09.959 got the stranded for days after going through that terrain. 3:11:10.560 --> 3:11:13.600 The temperature that's when like the season really started shifting, 3:11:14.120 --> 3:11:17.680 so the nights were really cold, the daytime highs were 3:11:17.720 --> 3:11:21.960 pretty hot. And I mean that was the you know 3:11:22.120 --> 3:11:23.200 designed you know. 3:11:25.440 --> 3:11:29.720 Cruelty the invasion that gave the semblance of the invasion. 3:11:30.240 --> 3:11:34.120 Because you could huddle people together and then claim that 3:11:34.160 --> 3:11:36.880 you weren't detaining them that right, exactly. 3:11:37.000 --> 3:11:39.040 They weren't free to leave, they said the border patrol 3:11:39.080 --> 3:11:41.160 told them that they had arrest them if they left 3:11:41.280 --> 3:11:45.120 the I mean I say camp loosely because it was 3:11:45.560 --> 3:11:50.320 just like out in an open field with that people 3:11:50.640 --> 3:11:53.480 you know, cut down branches and turn into shelters and 3:11:54.280 --> 3:11:57.240 use areas that they cut down for like fires, campfires 3:11:57.280 --> 3:12:01.240 and knights to stay warm. And you know, border patrol 3:12:01.640 --> 3:12:06.080 probably didn't expect that a people locally in Hukumba were 3:12:06.120 --> 3:12:09.720 going to care or be that the word would get 3:12:09.760 --> 3:12:15.840 out and so their crual practices that they were in 3:12:16.000 --> 3:12:19.480 acting on like the first day or two of people 3:12:19.640 --> 3:12:23.960 showing up and being stranded no food, no water, then 3:12:24.600 --> 3:12:27.879 it kind of backfired. And then you know, I believe 3:12:27.959 --> 3:12:29.600 you went out there as well. You saw how many 3:12:29.680 --> 3:12:32.800 people showed up to care, and like we were working 3:12:32.840 --> 3:12:36.480 around the clock to try to you know, organize and 3:12:37.000 --> 3:12:43.200 make food, prepare food pack, collect donations everything. And you 3:12:43.320 --> 3:12:47.600 know that's I've gone through that terrain and you know, 3:12:47.720 --> 3:12:51.800 after all that was closed down and looking through as 3:12:52.280 --> 3:12:55.040 you know, as we did like trash cleanups and people 3:12:55.160 --> 3:12:58.840 you know, would have their last remaining food and water 3:12:59.320 --> 3:13:02.200 that you could see coming through across you know, the 3:13:02.240 --> 3:13:05.280 area where they were brought to and like people shedding 3:13:05.320 --> 3:13:07.840 clothes because the temperatures were so warm dur in the 3:13:07.920 --> 3:13:10.800 daytime and then just wondering like okay, so they shed 3:13:10.800 --> 3:13:12.760 their clothes and now they're like freezing down the bottom 3:13:12.760 --> 3:13:14.600 of the hill and the terrain's too tough to go 3:13:14.680 --> 3:13:15.720 all the way back up. 3:13:16.600 --> 3:13:18.480 Yeah, and you know it. 3:13:19.320 --> 3:13:23.400 Yeah, there's no fence over there. And the fences, you know, 3:13:23.480 --> 3:13:25.600 we've said have always been kind of built for the 3:13:25.720 --> 3:13:30.520 most part where people can see them. It gives the 3:13:30.640 --> 3:13:34.240 appearance to the rest of the country that's not out there, 3:13:34.240 --> 3:13:37.600 that there's a fence across the whole border, and you know, 3:13:37.800 --> 3:13:39.640 go into a lot of areas where we see that 3:13:40.200 --> 3:13:43.199 that's not the case. And also we see where border 3:13:43.280 --> 3:13:48.120 fences stop and migration makes its way right around the 3:13:48.240 --> 3:13:48.600 edge of that. 3:13:49.280 --> 3:13:51.480 Yeah, in the old time, but the. 3:13:51.520 --> 3:13:56.039 Disk now has increased longer for the walks because instead 3:13:56.040 --> 3:13:58.240 of just being able to walk through like an open area, 3:13:59.080 --> 3:14:01.240 now you have to go miles out of the way 3:14:01.440 --> 3:14:03.640 to get around to an opening in the fence or 3:14:03.840 --> 3:14:08.080 go up and over a mountain, and you know, doing 3:14:08.120 --> 3:14:12.640 that in the summertime, you exhaust yourself from the strategies, 3:14:12.720 --> 3:14:16.000 hike on top of the unbearable heat, and then you 3:14:16.200 --> 3:14:19.720 pass away, you know, an eighth of a mile from 3:14:19.760 --> 3:14:22.640 a fence, you know, as someone that we know that 3:14:22.800 --> 3:14:24.600 happened to them a couple of years ago. So it's 3:14:26.200 --> 3:14:28.480 as you're saying, like the fences and like where they're 3:14:28.520 --> 3:14:33.720 not put it's it's just a point of cruelty and 3:14:33.840 --> 3:14:36.200 part of the prevention through deterrence policy that's been going 3:14:36.240 --> 3:14:43.520 on for you know, almost thirty years now, and definitely yeah, 3:14:43.640 --> 3:14:45.960 and the CBP one app app and all the kind 3:14:45.959 --> 3:14:48.920 of stuff that's just another extension of prevention through the 3:14:49.000 --> 3:14:52.760 turns by making it harder for people and pushing people 3:14:52.879 --> 3:14:55.280 to ways that they can try to get through or 3:14:55.560 --> 3:14:56.800 you know what they think they can try to get 3:14:56.800 --> 3:15:00.320 through easier. And as Jacklin said, it's just it's become 3:15:00.520 --> 3:15:03.560 more and more deadier. And every year the numbers go 3:15:03.720 --> 3:15:07.320 up of confirmed US, but that doesn't count the amount 3:15:07.320 --> 3:15:08.920 of people that go missing every year. 3:15:09.760 --> 3:15:12.400 Yeah, or the people who like Border patrol to find 3:15:12.480 --> 3:15:15.080 and they you know, their numbers are any the people 3:15:15.120 --> 3:15:17.160 who they found, and that's the areas that are going 3:15:17.400 --> 3:15:20.920 like if people die for the North or yeah, or 3:15:20.959 --> 3:15:21.520 the death. 3:15:21.360 --> 3:15:25.440 That they they deliberately miscategorize as non migrant death. They're 3:15:25.520 --> 3:15:28.720 just John Doe's Jane Doe whatever, you know. They just 3:15:28.760 --> 3:15:32.040 say like, oh, you know, cause of death unclear, or 3:15:32.240 --> 3:15:34.520 cause of death for exposure, but they don't necessarily call 3:15:34.560 --> 3:15:38.000 it a migrant death even though someone you know, traveling 3:15:38.080 --> 3:15:43.720 with a backpack and the desert. Yeah, and they you know, 3:15:44.400 --> 3:15:47.880 like say that they were migrating just because they had 3:15:48.160 --> 3:15:50.440 you know, under and passport on them. 3:15:51.720 --> 3:15:52.760 That all the time too. 3:15:52.959 --> 3:15:55.160 So all of this is like we don't know the 3:15:55.200 --> 3:15:57.600 scope of their cruelty. Like it's just scary, is that, 3:15:57.840 --> 3:16:00.920 Like it's so much bigger than we even know, even 3:16:00.959 --> 3:16:02.760 like those of us that are like in it every day. 3:16:03.760 --> 3:16:07.040 Yeah, there's no numbers like I would in a sense 3:16:07.080 --> 3:16:08.720 love to in a sense would be horrible. I don't 3:16:08.760 --> 3:16:10.640 think it should matter, Like I don't think it should 3:16:10.680 --> 3:16:12.800 matter how many people, Like every single one of those 3:16:12.879 --> 3:16:15.440 is a tragedy, and it's somewhat's mumal or dad or 3:16:16.440 --> 3:16:21.760 brother or sister. I kind of wanted to to maybe 3:16:21.879 --> 3:16:25.400 talk about like one incident that if if you're comfortable 3:16:25.480 --> 3:16:27.800 doing it like that, you might be familiar with that, 3:16:27.879 --> 3:16:31.720 I think can give people a sense of how dehumanizing 3:16:31.800 --> 3:16:34.960 this is and how cruel this is. You guys, I 3:16:35.000 --> 3:16:38.640 know you're familiar with it, but the young women who 3:16:38.640 --> 3:16:43.040 died on the shrine trail in was it winter of 3:16:43.120 --> 3:16:44.680 twenty twenty or winter of twenty twenty one? 3:16:46.040 --> 3:16:49.280 Yes, that was February twenty twenty. 3:16:49.959 --> 3:16:55.039 Yeah, yeah, it's right before COVID. So for people who 3:16:55.200 --> 3:16:58.240 aren't as familiar, can I spoke a little bit about 3:16:58.280 --> 3:17:01.440 it in our series, but can you describe kind of 3:17:01.600 --> 3:17:05.360 the process that if you're comfortable, I know it's like 3:17:05.440 --> 3:17:08.800 a it's a pretty horrible thing, but can you describe 3:17:09.000 --> 3:17:12.400 like like how they crossed and what happened to them? 3:17:13.920 --> 3:17:16.760 I mean, we can give you like some of the 3:17:16.840 --> 3:17:19.760 background that was like in a newspaper article that we 3:17:19.879 --> 3:17:20.520 had come to learn. 3:17:21.120 --> 3:17:25.000 Yeah, sure, we have a like direct communication. Yeah yeah, yeah, 3:17:25.840 --> 3:17:27.760 you're not in content. I just like I think it 3:17:27.800 --> 3:17:31.560 would be helpful for people to realize that, like, you know, this, 3:17:32.000 --> 3:17:34.240 this is what happened to them, and then also that 3:17:34.320 --> 3:17:37.039 you guys have been able to respond after that happened 3:17:37.080 --> 3:17:40.720 to like at least try and and help like deploy 3:17:40.840 --> 3:17:42.520 kind of resources to that a bit less of a 3:17:42.600 --> 3:17:43.840 treacherous crossing. 3:17:44.520 --> 3:17:53.920 So as the situation was unfolding, it was nighttime and 3:17:55.840 --> 3:17:59.920 there was like a freak storm that came through eastern 3:18:00.040 --> 3:18:04.680 San Diego County around around the area of I think 3:18:04.879 --> 3:18:13.480 like Live Oak Springs Mount Laguna area, and it was 3:18:13.640 --> 3:18:18.119 just you know, raining and cold before, but like later 3:18:18.240 --> 3:18:20.840 on that day it kind of turned into snow and 3:18:21.440 --> 3:18:27.680 turned into heavy winds, like zero visibility snowstorm. And these 3:18:27.920 --> 3:18:34.080 three sisters that were from Wahaka, who've crossed over for 3:18:34.280 --> 3:18:40.600 work multiple times, came worked, went back home, you know, 3:18:40.959 --> 3:18:46.879 for you know, whatever season, came back, worked, went back home. 3:18:47.640 --> 3:18:51.040 And it was my understanding that they were trying to 3:18:51.440 --> 3:18:54.040 save up enough money from what they made here in 3:18:54.040 --> 3:18:56.600 the United States to open up their own business. 3:18:57.720 --> 3:18:58.039 And so. 3:19:00.920 --> 3:19:07.080 The day came when they were crossing over the they 3:19:07.160 --> 3:19:09.520 came through, I think like in the Campo area, I 3:19:09.640 --> 3:19:17.600 think it was, and they were led by two brothers 3:19:18.400 --> 3:19:25.280 that had crossed previously in the same spot and knew 3:19:25.400 --> 3:19:28.000 the trail of which to go, but I believe it 3:19:28.160 --> 3:19:31.120 was their first time actually leading people through and not 3:19:31.320 --> 3:19:37.280 just themselves coming through, so they you know, they remember 3:19:37.360 --> 3:19:42.600 the way, got up close to where the shrine is 3:19:42.680 --> 3:19:45.360 of the shrine trail, there's a little shrine up there 3:19:45.440 --> 3:19:52.720 that people would you know, leave little little symbols and 3:19:52.840 --> 3:20:01.920 tokens and little items behind, mostly to you know, the 3:20:02.000 --> 3:20:08.720 Virgin of Wa Loupe. And from that point it is 3:20:09.000 --> 3:20:12.360 that that's the last time you can be hiking on 3:20:12.440 --> 3:20:15.560 that trail that far north and turn around and still 3:20:15.600 --> 3:20:18.000 see Mexico. Anything beyond that, it's kind of like the 3:20:19.360 --> 3:20:22.240 point of like you can't see Mexico, Like you've got 3:20:22.320 --> 3:20:25.160 to keep moving forward, You've already gone, you know. At 3:20:25.200 --> 3:20:29.120 this point it's close to thirty I think air miles, 3:20:29.440 --> 3:20:32.280 so like you know, you know, walking miles is a 3:20:32.360 --> 3:20:36.600 lot more than that. Yeah, And they were at this 3:20:39.240 --> 3:20:46.600 kind of like rock boulder outcropping just about five minutes 3:20:47.320 --> 3:20:53.760 walk shy of the shrine when the sisters couldn't keep 3:20:53.840 --> 3:20:58.440 going anymore and because of the extreme weather in the 3:20:58.480 --> 3:21:02.520 extreme cold, they were soaking wet from the rain and 3:21:02.640 --> 3:21:06.160 then the you know, sub freezing temperatures with the snowstorm, 3:21:07.520 --> 3:21:12.680 they couldn't keep going anymore, and so they were kind 3:21:12.680 --> 3:21:18.000 of huddled up underneath of this boulder. It's the only 3:21:18.080 --> 3:21:19.960 spot that kind of gave like a little bit of 3:21:20.520 --> 3:21:25.080 shelter from that storm. Yet, I mean those rocks are 3:21:25.320 --> 3:21:28.480 you know ice cubes, you know, being out there that long. 3:21:29.240 --> 3:21:34.040 So the two brothers I believe left to try to 3:21:34.080 --> 3:21:37.640 get cell phone signal because you know, you're you're up 3:21:37.680 --> 3:21:40.480 pretty high in the mountains. I think that elevation up 3:21:40.520 --> 3:21:44.199 there on the mountain, I think it's somewhere around five 3:21:44.360 --> 3:21:48.039 thousand feet. More so that that location where that we're 3:21:49.480 --> 3:21:56.760 where they passed away, and the brothers that took off 3:21:56.760 --> 3:21:59.359 to try to get cell phone range to calm you know, ems, 3:22:00.000 --> 3:22:01.720 which turns out to be you know, border patrol in 3:22:01.760 --> 3:22:05.199 that region, and so got to hold a border patrol. 3:22:05.760 --> 3:22:12.640 Uh border patrol arrived to where the brothers were, and 3:22:12.840 --> 3:22:16.119 first thing, you know, before you know, rushing to try 3:22:16.160 --> 3:22:19.800 to make a rescue anything, they you know, detained and 3:22:20.000 --> 3:22:25.920 arrested the brothers for you know, for you know, human smuggling, trafficking, 3:22:26.040 --> 3:22:29.120 you know, just you know, being colliotes, and then they 3:22:29.240 --> 3:22:34.680 put in efforts of trying to rescue. By the time 3:22:35.120 --> 3:22:37.560 I believe that they got to the three sisters, two 3:22:37.560 --> 3:22:40.560 of them had already passed away, and there was one 3:22:40.680 --> 3:22:49.840 that was still barely alive. Unconscious and due to the whether, 3:22:49.920 --> 3:22:55.760 as Border Patrol has stated, the agents, the four star 3:22:56.160 --> 3:23:00.280 you know rescue agents, the search and trauma rescue, they 3:23:00.440 --> 3:23:04.720 had to take off. They couldn't airlift the last remaining 3:23:05.000 --> 3:23:09.200 sister out because there's zero visibility. The helicopter couldn't even 3:23:09.360 --> 3:23:12.720 get like find them, couldn't get like anywhere close to them, 3:23:12.879 --> 3:23:16.240 couldn't hover because the wind was blown so hard. It 3:23:16.400 --> 3:23:19.200 was just about a whiteout condition. So, I mean, the 3:23:19.320 --> 3:23:29.680 most you know fucked situation possible, and Border Patrol in 3:23:29.840 --> 3:23:36.240 order to make sure it didn't turn into from a 3:23:36.400 --> 3:23:41.320 triple fatality to however many of them there were, I 3:23:41.360 --> 3:23:43.320 think there was three or four's that were out there, 3:23:43.879 --> 3:23:47.640 so to you know, in order to save their lives, 3:23:48.400 --> 3:23:54.600 they took off. They put the last remaining sister like 3:23:54.720 --> 3:24:01.680 in a like a puffy overall type of situation, and 3:24:02.480 --> 3:24:05.600 they they had taken her wet clothes, they cut her 3:24:05.640 --> 3:24:09.000 wet clothes off her, and you know, we're actively trying 3:24:09.040 --> 3:24:11.959 to warm her with like heat packs and wrapping her, 3:24:12.560 --> 3:24:15.120 and so they took off and kind of just like 3:24:15.360 --> 3:24:19.560 left her, you know, with basically, as I said, the 3:24:19.879 --> 3:24:24.600 best you know chances possible of survival even though someone 3:24:24.640 --> 3:24:27.160 being left on their own in that condition there's zero 3:24:27.320 --> 3:24:33.080 chances of survival. Border patrol took off, allegedly injured themselves, 3:24:33.560 --> 3:24:38.680 you know, in doing so, got frostbited, et cetera. I 3:24:38.760 --> 3:24:40.840 think it was the next day, came back out for 3:24:41.120 --> 3:24:44.040 the would turn out to be the recovery, and all 3:24:44.120 --> 3:24:48.320 three sisters had passed away, you know, from you know, 3:24:48.400 --> 3:24:53.400 freezing to death. And so as we learned about that, 3:24:53.640 --> 3:24:58.240 you know, as the situation was unfolding, we reached out 3:24:58.320 --> 3:25:03.480 to the the journalist who wrote the article in local 3:25:03.600 --> 3:25:08.600 San Diego Union Tribune. His name is Alex Riggins, and 3:25:09.879 --> 3:25:13.120 through you know, some back and forth contact, he was 3:25:13.240 --> 3:25:17.800 covering the trial of the two brothers that brought the 3:25:17.959 --> 3:25:22.680 sisters through their in court for their deaths, and reached 3:25:22.680 --> 3:25:24.879 out to see if we could find out any information, 3:25:25.200 --> 3:25:28.960 if Alex could let us know, like maybe where the 3:25:29.000 --> 3:25:33.040 shrine trail was, or maybe where the location of the 3:25:33.280 --> 3:25:37.520 recovery was, just something that we would have so we 3:25:37.600 --> 3:25:39.960 can put it on a map, figure out how to 3:25:40.040 --> 3:25:44.280 get there, and give boots on the ground to leave supplies, 3:25:45.280 --> 3:25:48.760 you know, a few times a year, whether it's going 3:25:48.840 --> 3:25:51.080 to be really hot, or really cold. We wanted to 3:25:51.120 --> 3:25:56.000 make sure that, you know, we responded to the crisis 3:25:56.160 --> 3:25:59.280 as we found out about it. There's something that we 3:26:00.480 --> 3:26:05.360 unfortunately have had to do all too common in this 3:26:05.480 --> 3:26:08.599 work is that's unfortunately. 3:26:08.200 --> 3:26:10.880 In the way that we learn, yeah, when it's too late. 3:26:10.959 --> 3:26:12.359 Sometimes yeah, yeah. 3:26:12.280 --> 3:26:14.680 A lot of you have to learn efforts too late. 3:26:14.879 --> 3:26:18.400 And that's part of our you know, expansion of areas 3:26:18.440 --> 3:26:23.240 that we cover. That's how we learn stuff, and that's 3:26:23.280 --> 3:26:28.360 how we work at preventing you know, further suffering and 3:26:28.600 --> 3:26:33.520 further deaths. So we got more or less a good 3:26:33.760 --> 3:26:36.720 location and one of our team members at the time, 3:26:37.959 --> 3:26:42.360 he h he went out on a weekday that he 3:26:42.400 --> 3:26:45.440 had off, and he just went kind of driving around 3:26:45.480 --> 3:26:49.600 in the area and start hiking out in this area 3:26:49.680 --> 3:26:53.960 that looked like from the photos that were in the 3:26:54.000 --> 3:26:58.200 newspaper could have been this location. And he put in 3:26:58.280 --> 3:27:03.880 a long hike that day and he found the clothing 3:27:04.400 --> 3:27:11.560 that was removed from the last he found the like 3:27:11.640 --> 3:27:17.879 the puffy overalls. He found a bunch of medical equipment, 3:27:18.000 --> 3:27:22.800 like emergency equipment that was used for you know, the 3:27:22.879 --> 3:27:28.520 three sisters during that process. And shortly after that, I 3:27:28.560 --> 3:27:30.160 think it was just like a couple of weeks, we 3:27:31.760 --> 3:27:36.840 got together h some of our strongest hikers, and we 3:27:37.000 --> 3:27:39.720 decided to go out there and leave a bunch of supplies. 3:27:39.760 --> 3:27:44.959 And that is it is a hard, hard hike, whether 3:27:45.120 --> 3:27:48.280 you're you know, carrying thirty five forty pounds on your 3:27:48.360 --> 3:27:51.240 back or you're just carrying, you know, a backpack with 3:27:51.400 --> 3:27:53.560 like a bottle of water and some food. Like, it's 3:27:53.600 --> 3:27:56.960 hard no matter what. So we got up there and 3:27:57.000 --> 3:27:59.600 we left supplies. And you know, we've been going back 3:27:59.760 --> 3:28:04.400 you before, seasons change, where it gets hot, it gets cold, 3:28:04.440 --> 3:28:08.600 and we track to see if you know, anything has 3:28:08.640 --> 3:28:13.880 been taken. And it doesn't appear that that trail gets 3:28:14.000 --> 3:28:17.800 too much use, but it does get some use. Yeah, 3:28:18.520 --> 3:28:22.720 So you know, I don't know if if the three 3:28:22.800 --> 3:28:25.000 sisters passing away there had anything to do with like 3:28:25.360 --> 3:28:30.160 future travel for people on the trying trail or or what, 3:28:30.440 --> 3:28:35.160 but you know, we made that commitment in their honor 3:28:35.520 --> 3:28:38.680 and to prevent anything like this ever happening again. 3:28:39.280 --> 3:28:45.240 Yeah, sent me a very sad, very sad situation, and like, yeah, 3:28:45.520 --> 3:28:48.000 it so many things have to go wrong and so 3:28:48.160 --> 3:28:51.240 many people have to turn a blind eye. I guess 3:28:51.480 --> 3:28:53.959 for the three people to die like. 3:28:54.800 --> 3:28:55.600 You know, there's. 3:28:57.440 --> 3:29:00.520 Platant negligence on the part of border Patrol very regularly, 3:29:01.200 --> 3:29:04.880 given that they are supposedly like as James mentioned, the 3:29:05.200 --> 3:29:11.280 emergency medical service that's out there, and there is outright blatant, 3:29:11.840 --> 3:29:15.840 deadly discrimination that occurs when it comes to providing emergency 3:29:15.879 --> 3:29:20.280 services for migrants. In this case, they prioritize apprehension over 3:29:20.640 --> 3:29:26.600 saving people. Every moment is going to count and regardless 3:29:26.640 --> 3:29:29.600 of what the conditions were, those are the conditions, and 3:29:29.760 --> 3:29:33.320 that's the story that they're reporting. I think we rightfully 3:29:33.400 --> 3:29:35.879 are skeptical of anything that they say when it comes 3:29:35.959 --> 3:29:41.920 to rescues and how they prioritize doing so when we 3:29:42.120 --> 3:29:46.959 have seen entirely the opposite occur on a regular basis 3:29:47.280 --> 3:29:52.640 when they have the opportunity to provide aid them electing 3:29:52.760 --> 3:29:56.240 to do so. You know, going back to Hakumba, when 3:29:56.280 --> 3:29:58.520 people were out there and they had nothing, They weren't 3:29:58.600 --> 3:30:01.960 being provided a city water for days and days and days. 3:30:02.400 --> 3:30:03.400 Order Patrol could have done that. 3:30:03.680 --> 3:30:06.200 If they are the emergency services, they could have provided 3:30:06.320 --> 3:30:10.040 emergency aid. When it comes to a rescue like this. 3:30:10.320 --> 3:30:13.120 They have the agency. They are the agency. They have 3:30:13.240 --> 3:30:18.640 the agency to deprioritize processing somebody for apprehension and prioritizing rescue, 3:30:18.680 --> 3:30:21.440 and they chose not to do it. Like time and 3:30:21.520 --> 3:30:23.520 time and again, we see these situations and I think, 3:30:23.640 --> 3:30:25.920 like when you know, before we started recording, and you asked, like, 3:30:26.000 --> 3:30:27.760 what's the thing that like we want to talk about 3:30:27.800 --> 3:30:29.800 that doesn't often get talked about, And. 3:30:29.879 --> 3:30:32.400 I think it's this. I think it's the. 3:30:34.080 --> 3:30:37.960 It's not just like the surveillance and the patrolling and 3:30:38.000 --> 3:30:40.240 all of that stuff that to humanizes migrants, but like 3:30:40.920 --> 3:30:44.480 when they're in danger, they're regarded as less than human 3:30:44.600 --> 3:30:47.800 by the because the only agency that's out there to 3:30:47.920 --> 3:30:50.039 help them is like the reason that they're in danger 3:30:50.120 --> 3:30:56.279 in the first place. So we have come across multiple 3:30:57.520 --> 3:30:59.960 search and rescues that aren't migrant related, just being out 3:31:00.040 --> 3:31:03.200 in the desert where either a US citizen or in 3:31:03.320 --> 3:31:07.480 one instance, a tourist was lost in the desert, and 3:31:07.640 --> 3:31:12.480 the response is night and day. When there's a migrant 3:31:12.520 --> 3:31:18.400 that's lost and we are calling for assistance, you know, 3:31:18.680 --> 3:31:22.640 any kind of can a search be initiated, can we 3:31:22.800 --> 3:31:27.120 get like the response is so blase and minimal, and 3:31:27.240 --> 3:31:33.120 there's no accounting, there's no holding them accountable for acting 3:31:33.280 --> 3:31:38.840 or failing to act right, and it's blatant, like and 3:31:38.920 --> 3:31:42.199 I think that's the thing that like the general public 3:31:42.240 --> 3:31:45.560 that isn't involved in this work like should know about 3:31:46.080 --> 3:31:50.240 how cruel it is and how little the response is 3:31:50.360 --> 3:31:53.320 when somebody is lost, when they're dying, when they're dead, 3:31:53.680 --> 3:31:58.120 like us having to call the coroner repeatedly to have 3:31:59.240 --> 3:32:03.280 children's bone picked up. That would not happen if that 3:32:03.440 --> 3:32:06.200 child was not presumed my grant. So this is like 3:32:06.280 --> 3:32:08.879 we have story after story after story of like situations 3:32:08.959 --> 3:32:12.320 like this is just one tragedy, but there's a lot 3:32:12.400 --> 3:32:16.240 of could have, should have, would have like on the 3:32:16.480 --> 3:32:21.440 end of like eight organizations that we carry, And it 3:32:21.560 --> 3:32:26.440 doesn't seem to ever be like a shared weight with 3:32:26.640 --> 3:32:28.920 any of the agencies that actually have the ability to 3:32:29.040 --> 3:32:31.039 respond to this kind of thing in like an organized way. 3:32:31.040 --> 3:32:32.520 They don't care, they don't do anything about it. 3:32:33.320 --> 3:32:37.920 Yeah, and there's like so much money spent on our border, right, 3:32:38.120 --> 3:32:41.680 Like I remember in Houcumber, I was like sitting underneath 3:32:41.720 --> 3:32:44.040 this thing for shade and then I like coming like, 3:32:44.040 --> 3:32:46.080 oh yeah, just think us a million dollars, right, that 3:32:46.200 --> 3:32:50.120 little trailer with the solar panels that intercepts the signals, like, 3:32:50.959 --> 3:32:52.920 and they didn't give these people a bottle of water, 3:32:53.400 --> 3:32:57.520 like all the water came from other people, from random 3:32:57.720 --> 3:33:01.879 San Diego people who bought it, right, Like, and it's 3:33:02.120 --> 3:33:05.000 just such a strange priority, Well, not strange, it's a 3:33:05.080 --> 3:33:08.400 cruel and horrible priority choice, right to prioritize that kind 3:33:08.440 --> 3:33:13.600 of like enforcement of a human lives like which are 3:33:13.920 --> 3:33:16.879 being lost. And it's the same like you know, ever 3:33:16.959 --> 3:33:18.840 bolted in Arizona or a time, I spend a lot 3:33:18.879 --> 3:33:21.959 of time there. I spent a lot of time here, 3:33:22.560 --> 3:33:25.400 reported in Texas a couple of times. Like, it's the 3:33:25.480 --> 3:33:28.320 same all across the border, right, the priority is not 3:33:28.440 --> 3:33:32.400 rescuing people. It's and it's not even particularly enforcing the 3:33:32.520 --> 3:33:35.520 law as it's written, it's just stopping people coming. 3:33:35.360 --> 3:33:40.720 Here selectively though, yeah, selectively, because they do let a 3:33:40.760 --> 3:33:44.199 significant amount of people through, Like even like in Hakumba, 3:33:44.600 --> 3:33:49.080 when people that weren't familiar with this whole kind of 3:33:49.280 --> 3:33:51.560 like smoke and mirror show of the border were coming 3:33:51.640 --> 3:33:53.520 and responding, they were saying, like, well, why are they 3:33:53.640 --> 3:33:57.200 letting them through? Why is this open over here? Why 3:33:57.280 --> 3:34:00.600 is like the amount of surveillance, you know, We've had 3:34:00.640 --> 3:34:02.160 people come out on water drops and say like, oh, 3:34:02.200 --> 3:34:03.320 should we be hiding the water? 3:34:03.400 --> 3:34:04.160 Should we be doing this? 3:34:04.280 --> 3:34:04.440 And that? 3:34:04.520 --> 3:34:06.600 Should we like they have eyes on the whole desert, 3:34:07.000 --> 3:34:12.120 So yeah, it's they do there. The point is to 3:34:12.160 --> 3:34:16.080 stop people from coming through, but not completely right, is 3:34:16.120 --> 3:34:18.000 that labor that's coming through. 3:34:18.800 --> 3:34:19.160 Yeah, that. 3:34:21.120 --> 3:34:23.800 They're they're selective, and how much they like, you know, 3:34:24.320 --> 3:34:28.000 how much the gasket is being opened and shut. 3:34:28.959 --> 3:34:31.640 Yeah, and in different sectors at different times, like it 3:34:32.000 --> 3:34:34.360 seems like things are done and even like, yeah, there 3:34:34.400 --> 3:34:37.000 are The other thing I think that people who don't 3:34:37.040 --> 3:34:39.640 live on the border don't realize is to what degree 3:34:40.080 --> 3:34:42.960 every single person here, whether they give a shit or not, 3:34:43.400 --> 3:34:47.400 is surveiled because they live near the border. Like, yeah, 3:34:47.440 --> 3:34:49.840 but we saw them twenty eighteen with a lot of 3:34:50.240 --> 3:34:52.760 a lot of friends of mine who can't go to 3:34:52.879 --> 3:34:58.160 Mexico anymore, right, who have flagged passports. Yeah you too, Yeah, 3:34:59.240 --> 3:35:01.640 so many people I know. I Yeah, I don't know 3:35:01.680 --> 3:35:03.200 how I went over a ton at that time, but 3:35:03.440 --> 3:35:07.600 I guess managed to avoid it. But yeah, it's it's that. 3:35:07.879 --> 3:35:10.120 And then like I have been in the middle of 3:35:10.240 --> 3:35:15.280 nowhere in the desert and found cameras, surveillance towers, right like, 3:35:16.800 --> 3:35:20.680 stuff that would not be the constitution is largely irrelevant, 3:35:20.879 --> 3:35:25.160 but like there wouldn't be legal or just like unjustifiable 3:35:25.400 --> 3:35:29.440 anywhere else, And like this spans from here to like 3:35:29.520 --> 3:35:33.800 our Otum friends in Arizona to Texas, right like, if 3:35:33.840 --> 3:35:37.480 you live on the border, like or any within one 3:35:37.560 --> 3:35:40.120 hundred miles of the border, right, the border can come 3:35:40.200 --> 3:35:41.920 to you. It doesn't matter if you care or not. 3:35:42.000 --> 3:35:46.000 It doesn't matter if you consider yourself to be like 3:35:46.320 --> 3:35:49.400 an immigrant to the US, or if you've sort of 3:35:50.120 --> 3:35:51.920 decided that that doesn't apply to you or you don't 3:35:51.920 --> 3:35:55.200 care about those people like then it doesn't matter that 3:35:55.320 --> 3:35:58.520 surveillance still impacts you, and often it impacts like our 3:35:58.560 --> 3:36:02.040 indigenous friends, right like my my all time friend Kumii 3:36:02.160 --> 3:36:05.160 friends had the grave yards bulldose to build the wool. 3:36:05.879 --> 3:36:08.680 And yeah, even if you don't care, even if you 3:36:08.720 --> 3:36:11.440 think the wall is great, that your cell phone still 3:36:11.440 --> 3:36:12.480 there through distinct ray down. 3:36:13.680 --> 3:36:15.760 I know, it's wild, Like how much people who are 3:36:15.879 --> 3:36:19.680 like very you know, right wing anti like. 3:36:20.560 --> 3:36:23.040 You know, pro like freedom and all this stuff like 3:36:23.280 --> 3:36:27.400 will very readily give up those freedoms and in exchange 3:36:27.480 --> 3:36:32.160 for like constant surveillance, like if it justifies the means 3:36:32.200 --> 3:36:34.360 of like you know, their big try or like whatever, 3:36:34.480 --> 3:36:37.320 like their worldview is like they're they're suddenly like very 3:36:37.400 --> 3:36:40.000 pro border patrol, very pro CP, very T. Well that's 3:36:40.040 --> 3:36:42.400 like in direct conflict with like everything else that they're saying. 3:36:42.720 --> 3:36:45.119 Right, but yeah, it's freedom for who I guess. 3:36:45.959 --> 3:36:49.280 Yeah, well also goes with the same people are saying, well, well, 3:36:49.600 --> 3:36:50.840 not breaking the law, then what do you have to 3:36:50.920 --> 3:36:53.680 do about Yeah, well everything starts with the border. So 3:36:53.920 --> 3:36:57.920 the surveillance, the facial recognition, the plate scanners, all that 3:36:57.959 --> 3:37:00.960 stuff started the border. And now we see that just recently, 3:37:01.200 --> 3:37:04.640 like the San Diego City Council approved to have the 3:37:05.320 --> 3:37:07.800 like the streetlight eras and all that kind of the 3:37:08.000 --> 3:37:11.080 lamps and all those you know, hundreds of cameras that 3:37:11.160 --> 3:37:12.720 are going to be out there with that same type 3:37:12.720 --> 3:37:17.200 of technology, and like, well, if you're not breaking the law, 3:37:17.200 --> 3:37:19.320 it's like okay, we'll give a little bit of time 3:37:19.400 --> 3:37:23.119 until you're not breaking law, and then like stuff still happens. 3:37:23.240 --> 3:37:27.960 I mean, that's that's how you know things, you know, Snowball. 3:37:28.200 --> 3:37:31.520 Hey, everyone. Shortly after we finished talking about why San 3:37:31.560 --> 3:37:36.960 Diego's lamp posts are also spies. My internet once again died. 3:37:38.080 --> 3:37:40.000 So that's what we're going to end it today. It's 3:37:40.000 --> 3:37:43.480 already been a long episode. But what I would like 3:37:43.560 --> 3:37:47.959 you all to know is that you can find Border 3:37:48.040 --> 3:37:51.000 Kindness online. You can find them on Instagram. You can 3:37:51.080 --> 3:37:55.160 find James there Brolo el Cordero prott to be able 3:37:55.200 --> 3:37:56.840 to work out how to spell that, and you can 3:37:56.879 --> 3:37:59.240 find them on Facebook, and you can find them on Instagram, 3:38:00.120 --> 3:38:03.000 and you can pretty much find them anywhere you go 3:38:03.120 --> 3:38:07.959 on the internet by searching Border Kindness, and like James said, 3:38:08.080 --> 3:38:10.720 they in his I'm looking at his Instagram profile right now, 3:38:10.840 --> 3:38:14.160 so it's Brolo el Cordero. I guess b r O 3:38:14.520 --> 3:38:17.640 l O e l c O r d e r O. 3:38:18.520 --> 3:38:20.720 James has a wish list, an Amazon wish list, so 3:38:20.760 --> 3:38:22.760 if if you're not close to San Diego, then you 3:38:22.840 --> 3:38:25.960 can you can just click on that and buy them something. 3:38:26.040 --> 3:38:28.320 I'm sure you could collect donations and send those as well. 3:38:29.200 --> 3:38:30.640 So there are a lot of different ways you could help. 3:38:31.600 --> 3:38:33.600 But I hope you all enjoyed this. If you're in 3:38:33.680 --> 3:38:35.680 town and you want to help, go hike with them 3:38:35.959 --> 3:38:37.800 and you can reach out to them on social media 3:38:37.879 --> 3:38:40.440 as well, and I'm sure they'd be happy to hear 3:38:40.520 --> 3:38:45.520 from you. Thanks so much for listening, Goodbye, Hey. 3:38:45.640 --> 3:38:48.720 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 3:38:48.800 --> 3:38:50.440 now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:38:51.080 --> 3:38:53.400 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:38:53.680 --> 3:38:56.320 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:38:56.360 --> 3:38:58.560 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 3:38:58.600 --> 3:39:02.000 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 3:39:02.440 --> 3:39:04.560 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:39:04.640 --> 3:39:07.640 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 3:39:07.840 --> 3:39:08.640 Thanks for listening.