Speaker 1: A media Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted
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Speaker 2: Welcome to karapn Here. I am Andrew of THETU channel
Speaker 2: Andrewism and today I'd like to take some time to
Speaker 2: discuss nations, clonialism and the people that constitute them. That
Speaker 2: is of course quite broad, but in the end I
Speaker 2: hope that folks are able to come with a sense
Speaker 2: of at least my version of the anarchist position on Nichans,
Speaker 2: the impact of colonization, the pychees of individuals within nitions,
Speaker 2: and the role of national liberation in social revolution. Today
Speaker 2: I'm joined by me Mia.
Speaker 3: Who oh boy, it great topic. Interesting topic, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, indeed, I think part of what makes the
Speaker 2: topic so interesting is because of how for lack of bets,
Speaker 2: it's how wiggly some of these tombs are how hard
Speaker 2: to pin down some of these definitions are. So it's
Speaker 2: very important to be clear at the outset what you
Speaker 2: mean by a nation, what you mean by national liberation,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. So what is a nation? What
Speaker 2: comes to mind for you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, I know I should have pre prepped
Speaker 3: an answer to this. I have a very difficult time
Speaker 3: conceiving of a nation is something that's separated from a state,
Speaker 3: which I know is something a lot of people try
Speaker 3: to do. For me, it's just been sort of permanently
Speaker 3: welded to the nation state in a way that makes
Speaker 3: it hard to sort of think about without conjoining the two.
Speaker 2: That's fair, That's fair. I think that that really is
Speaker 2: part of what we're going to end up discussing. Because,
Speaker 2: for one, you know, as we'll see, a lot of
Speaker 2: nations were formed through the process of colonization and through
Speaker 2: the process of incorporation into the global uh you know, superstructure,
Speaker 2: global system. And secondly, it is seen to be the
Speaker 2: ultimate aim of a nation, the greatest accomplishment of a nation,
Speaker 2: to eventually establish their own state, to have a state
Speaker 2: of their own. We call nations that don't have their
Speaker 2: own state state less nations, the Kurds being one of
Speaker 2: the most notable examples. But it really is commonly seen
Speaker 2: that the ultimate accomplishment is for the braation of your people,
Speaker 2: is that you establish a state to rule that people
Speaker 2: for themselves. Of course, what for themselves actually means becomes
Speaker 2: quite clear, as in many cases foreign rulers and the
Speaker 2: practices of foreign rulers just take on a local face.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's a Curtis joke that goes roughly,
Speaker 3: getting your own nation state means that you speak your
Speaker 3: police towrdure you in your own language. Oh, that's fantastic,
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like that. And language really is
Speaker 2: one of the aspects of what it is to be
Speaker 2: a nation, and it is not it's not necessarily the
Speaker 2: only aspect or primary aspect, but it is one aspect.
Speaker 2: For example, what is considered the Basque nation, those in
Speaker 2: northern Spain and part of southern southwestern France. I believe
Speaker 2: their identity is not entirely, but quite significantly tied to
Speaker 2: their language, because it is a language that is completely
Speaker 2: distinct from any other language found in Europe or really
Speaker 2: anywhere else in the world. The language is just one
Speaker 2: aspect the nation. A nation I mean not in the
Speaker 2: sense of a state or a country or political constitution,
Speaker 2: but in the sense of an imagined community of people.
Speaker 2: An imagined community of people. I think that imagined aspect
Speaker 2: of it is quite important as well. Student see, but
Speaker 2: an imagine the community of people formed on the basis
Speaker 2: of a common language, history, ancestry, society, or culture, who
Speaker 2: are conscious of their autonomy. So it's not enough that
Speaker 2: a group of people merely share a language, or share history,
Speaker 2: or share ancestry, or share society or share culture. It's
Speaker 2: important that firms we defined as a nation, that they
Speaker 2: are conscious of the fact that they share those things
Speaker 2: in common, and that they use that consciousness to develop
Speaker 2: some sense of an imagine shared identity, of imagined community,
Speaker 2: whether or not each individual in that community knows all
Speaker 2: the other individuals in that community. Nations are not necessarily
Speaker 2: geographically bound, like you know, certain conceptions of a nation maybe,
Speaker 2: but rather often diasporic, and some nations even united under
Speaker 2: a banner of nations, such as in the case of
Speaker 2: pan Africanism, which is a form of nation movement or
Speaker 2: pan nation movement that seeks to unite the thousands of
Speaker 2: ethnic groups and also the diaspora of the continents of
Speaker 2: Africa in response to the exploitation of outsiders. In fact,
Speaker 2: the pan Afka nation is really a quintessential example of
Speaker 2: how colonism creates nations while exploiting them. And although Native
Speaker 2: America in populations retained slightly more of their heritage than
Speaker 2: the displaced African population in North America, though this is
Speaker 2: not to deny what was lost their force. Displacement also
Speaker 2: created something of a shared ethnic identity, which is where
Speaker 2: you see movements like Red Power popping up during the
Speaker 2: height of Soviriety era. Prior to the process of colonization,
Speaker 2: they were distinct in their cultural groupings. This group would
Speaker 2: be Blackfoot, this group would be create, this group would.
Speaker 3: Be Sue or something right.
Speaker 2: This script would be Sue. But then as they had
Speaker 2: the shared experience of colonization, they began to develop a
Speaker 2: sense of shared identity against those who are colonize in them,
Speaker 2: a sense of solidarity that transcended their previous cultural distinctions
Speaker 2: and designations. Not that those designations don't still exist, but
Speaker 2: many have adopted a sort of panoration above that as
Speaker 2: a vehicle through which they can undertake their struggle. However,
Speaker 2: mere opposition between a colonized group and a colonizing force
Speaker 2: is not the only way that clonism creates new nations.
Speaker 2: Also through social stratification, through hybridization, through the imposition of
Speaker 2: new religions, through new education systems, new languages, and new
Speaker 2: administrative boundaries. All of those are ways in which cluonism
Speaker 2: can develop u nations. For example, the case of the Metis,
Speaker 2: a cultural intermingling and intermarriage between two radically different groups
Speaker 2: ended up with the birth of the new nation of
Speaker 2: the Maties in the unique colonial history of Canada, and
Speaker 2: as we've see in nations are often the targets of
Speaker 2: subraction and of subjugation and Eurasia, African peoples were stolen
Speaker 2: from the constant and thoroughly stripped of their languages, histories,
Speaker 2: and cultures, and continues to be oppressed throughout much of
Speaker 2: the so called New World. In the United States, African
Speaker 2: Americans faced centuries of systemic racism. In Brazil, the afric
Speaker 2: Brazilian population also faced similar historical discrimination. Similarly in Colombia
Speaker 2: and so on and so on. Indigenous nations across the
Speaker 2: world also continue to be denied their autonomy as minorities
Speaker 2: within a domineerian state. Palestinians and Israel have faced a
Speaker 2: long standing conflict due to the raisure of their self determination.
Speaker 2: Colgin and Released, as I've mentioned, spread across several countries
Speaker 2: and do not have a country of their own, so
Speaker 2: they have historically sought independence or at least autonomy. Aboriginal
Speaker 2: Australians have faced struggles related to land rights, cultural preservation
Speaker 2: and self governance, and although New Zealand has made progress
Speaker 2: in recognizing the rights of the diligious Maria people, Marian
Speaker 2: New Zealand have also dealt with issues related to land
Speaker 2: ownership and cultural preservation, whether be the Armenians under the
Speaker 2: Ottoman Empire in the past, or the current subjugation of
Speaker 2: Hawaiian Puerto Rico under the US, or the Tibetan population
Speaker 2: still under the firm of the Chinese state. Really could
Speaker 2: go on and on. I really could go on and on.
Speaker 2: Across the world, struggles have been an rb and fought
Speaker 2: by nations for the liberation and much of their suffering
Speaker 2: a struggle is thanks to the process of colonization. Our
Speaker 2: present national borders and demographics were largely shaped and dictated
Speaker 2: by the colonization and conquest of a few nations from Europe.
Speaker 2: But what is colonialism? Exactly? As one anthropologist Chris quote
Speaker 2: Right put it, colonialism is the establishment and control of
Speaker 2: a territory for an extended period of time by a
Speaker 2: sovereign power over a subordinate and other people which are
Speaker 2: segregated and separated from the rule and power. He goes
Speaker 2: on to say that features the colonal situation and include
Speaker 2: political and legal domination over the other society, relations of
Speaker 2: economic and political dependence, and institutionalized racial and cultural inequalities
Speaker 2: to impose their dominant physical force through raids, expropriation of
Speaker 2: labor and resources, imprisonment and objective murders. Enslavement of both
Speaker 2: the indigenous people and their land is the primary objective colonization.
Speaker 2: Through colonization, native cultures must be destroyed either strict crushed, empty, subsumed, cooperated,
Speaker 2: or dismantled. And since colonism relies on a dichotomy of
Speaker 2: superiority and inferiority, the colonialists must impose their own culture
Speaker 2: over the native population, from language to dressed to daily practice.
Speaker 2: That culture, which by the way, becomes native through that
Speaker 2: process of colonization, and that already gets into the whole
Speaker 2: discussion of what makes something native, what makes a people native.
Speaker 2: There are two definitions that I balance try and dance between,
Speaker 2: one being indigeneity through land relationship and the other being
Speaker 2: indignity through colonial relationship. And so I'm referring to the
Speaker 2: indignacy through colonial relationship when I say that a culture
Speaker 2: or people becomes native through that process of colonization, because
Speaker 2: prior to colonial inclusions, there was no non native to
Speaker 2: define themselves against. They just were. You'll need to define
Speaker 2: yourself as native to a place when an outsider or
Speaker 2: an invasive force is pushing you out of that place
Speaker 2: or trying to dominate you within that place. The old
Speaker 2: forms of colonization are largely over, but the spirit of
Speaker 2: colonization still lingers. It is a specter in the spheres
Speaker 2: of culture and politics and economics. The colonial complex created
Speaker 2: the world we see today and left quite the impression
Speaker 2: psychologically on both the colonized and the colonizer. French Tunisian
Speaker 2: writer Albert Mami wrote what I guess it to be
Speaker 2: a very essential work on the relationship between the colonizer
Speaker 2: and the colonized. That work that book is called the
Speaker 2: Colonized and the Colonized was published in nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 2: and it was written and of course in a very
Speaker 2: important time, in a time when many national liberation movements
Speaker 2: were quite active, and so this work is often held
Speaker 2: up with other important works in that anti colonial milieu,
Speaker 2: including France Phenons, The Direction of the Earth, Black Skin,
Speaker 2: White Masks, and IMA's discourse on clonialism. In the book
Speaker 2: The Colonized and the Colonized, now, he spent some time
Speaker 2: discussing the psychology of both, and he splits the condition
Speaker 2: psychological conditions the colonized and the colonized into four parts,
Speaker 2: the colonizer who accepts, the colonizer who refuses, the colonized
Speaker 2: who accepts, and the colonized who refuses. So first there's
Speaker 2: the colonizer who accepts. I've called that colonizer Christopher for
Speaker 2: obvious reasons, that being Columbus. And so the Christopher accepts
Speaker 2: his role as a colonizer, he becomes a colonist. That
Speaker 2: means he has to accept the fact that his position
Speaker 2: of privilege is non legitimate. So the any way he
Speaker 2: could really enjoy his position would be to absolve himself
Speaker 2: of the conditions of the guilt of the conditions under
Speaker 2: which he was attained. That's why Christopher forcifies history, creates
Speaker 2: racist mythology, rewrites laws, and attempts to whitewash his legacy.
Speaker 2: That's why he emphasizes his superiority while castness, persions, and
Speaker 2: the colonized. He has to do whatever it takes to
Speaker 2: justify his evils, to uplift himself to the skies while
Speaker 2: grinding those below him underground. Deep down, Christopher knows all
Speaker 2: of his master up, but he can't admit that to himself.
Speaker 2: He has to keep degrading the colonized, and so, just
Speaker 2: as the colonal situation manufactures the colonized, Christopher the colonialist
Speaker 2: is also transformed. Now he chairs on torture, discrimination, and massacre.
Speaker 2: He becomes a reactionary, a conservative, and a fascist. But
Speaker 2: the condemnation that he carries in his heart can ever
Speaker 2: truly be raised. It pisses him off that he relies
Speaker 2: in the colonize to maintain the colony, even though he
Speaker 2: came looking for profit and already has a homeland. But
Speaker 2: he has to direct his anger somewhere. So becomes a racist,
Speaker 2: and not just any racism, a racism. So fundamentally ingrained
Speaker 2: in his personality. Racism built on three major components. One
Speaker 2: there exists some major gulf between him and the colonized.
Speaker 2: Two that he can exploit these differences to his benefit,
Speaker 2: and three that these differences are absolute and cannot be changed. Therefore,
Speaker 2: he's able to remain separate from the community the colonized
Speaker 2: by holding any social mobility. And he's able to continue
Speaker 2: to justify superiority because honestly, circular logic, right, these people
Speaker 2: are inferior because they aren't at my level, and they
Speaker 2: aren't at my level because I keep them in it
Speaker 2: because I keep them in their inferior position, and on
Speaker 2: and on and on. Added bonus, of course, he gets
Speaker 2: to feel good about himself. While doing so, he becomes
Speaker 2: a humanitarian. Surely the colonize needed him to bring the
Speaker 2: light of civilization. Look at them, so stupid and sivile.
Speaker 2: All this is natural and need to know, so he
Speaker 2: has nothing to worry about. It is divine grace that
Speaker 2: has brought him to this place. It is a manifest
Speaker 2: destiny that he continues this tradition. And I mean if
Speaker 2: he enjoys a couple of perks in his quest to
Speaker 2: civilize them. Well, surely is just justice should be grateful Christopher,
Speaker 2: benevolent master of the natural order, no question. And really
Speaker 2: this is why missus there was right to say. The
Speaker 2: colonization dehumanizes even the most civilized man. It inevitably tends
Speaker 2: to change him who undertakes it that the colonizer, who,
Speaker 2: in order to ease his conscience, gets into the habit
Speaker 2: of seeing the other man as an animal, accustoms himself
Speaker 2: to treating him like an animal, and tends objectively to
Speaker 2: transform himself into an animal. No offense to animals, of course,
Speaker 2: I'm just quotients.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: On the flip side of the coin is the colonizer
Speaker 2: who refuses John. You see, not every colonizer becomes a
Speaker 2: colingless John tries to just the role, but he is
Speaker 2: still a colonizer. He tries to ignore his position of privilege,
Speaker 2: but he kind of escaped mentally from a concrete situation.
Speaker 2: He kind of refused the ideology of crinalism while continuing
Speaker 2: to live with its actual relationships, while continuing to benefit
Speaker 2: from the privileges he half heartedly denounces. See, colonial relations
Speaker 2: can't be boiled down to individual feelings, so it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter much materially. If John accepts or rejects it, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if he feels guilty or not. His identity
Speaker 2: is fundamentally defined in relation to colonization. He's still part
Speaker 2: of the oppression group. He shares in their good fortune
Speaker 2: and would likely share their faith. It makes it clear
Speaker 2: that the truth is between colonizer and colonized. There is
Speaker 2: only room for forced labor, intimidation, pressure, police, taxation, theft, rape,
Speaker 2: upulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self complacency, swinishness, brainless elites,
Speaker 2: degraded masses, no human contact, but relations of domination and submission.
Speaker 2: Was sh the colonizing man into a classroom monitor, an
Speaker 2: army sergeant, a prison guard, a slave driver, and the
Speaker 2: indigenous man into an instrument of production. Even if John
Speaker 2: is a leftist, a progressive trying his best to assist
Speaker 2: the national liberation to colonize people's he's still in a
Speaker 2: rough situation. Of course, not many colonizers have actually been
Speaker 2: you know about it like that. But even if John
Speaker 2: was to create a world or colonization, maybe hard for
Speaker 2: him to picture his situation change in all that much
Speaker 2: He's accustomed to privilege and so equality is probably going
Speaker 2: to feel like oppression. You can't imagine not being who
Speaker 2: he is with the comfortable domination of his culture and language,
Speaker 2: he's ever had to accommodate others before, he's had to think,
Speaker 2: oh wait, maybe I should try and learn their language,
Speaker 2: try and incorporate elements of their cultural moriors. He still
Speaker 2: holds the subtle vestiges of the racist ideology that his
Speaker 2: country was built on, and he will have to fight
Speaker 2: his own class interests and his own fellow colonizers. Revolution
Speaker 2: would require the decimation of his current identity and the
Speaker 2: rebooth of another. And that decision, that gargantuan task, maybe
Speaker 2: too challenging for some people to undertake. So, miir, what
Speaker 2: do you think of the position of the colonizer who
Speaker 2: accepts and the colonizer who refuses.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I think is interesting about
Speaker 3: this is that the original concept of privilege was something
Speaker 3: that came out of like this specific kind of analysis
Speaker 3: was about like like it was it was, it was
Speaker 3: about French settlers in Algeria, and you know, it was,
Speaker 3: it was, it was, it was. It was originally something
Speaker 3: along basically along these similar lines where it's like it
Speaker 3: doesn't really matter what your ideological beliefs are if you're
Speaker 3: sort of like a French settler in Algeria, like you
Speaker 3: just automatically have privilege that like other people didn't. And
Speaker 3: this has been sort of like I don't know, I
Speaker 3: like the original sort of context of what this analysis
Speaker 3: was has been sort of worn down. But I think
Speaker 3: I don't know, Like I think I think it is
Speaker 3: colonizers like this is this is a structural position, right,
Speaker 3: like you know, the the sort of you can't sort
Speaker 3: of individualism your way out of a structural condition. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I think that's something people sort of have this
Speaker 3: incredible capacity to sort of believe about themselves and it's
Speaker 3: just not really true. And that's something that's very difficult
Speaker 3: to sort of like actually substantively confront. But I think
Speaker 3: it's why this analysis of stuff.
Speaker 2: Is useful exactly exactly. It's not enough to just say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I don't think this is right, I think this is wrong.
Speaker 2: That doesn't change anything materially. It's when you act to
Speaker 2: challenge the dismantle, to confront, and to act in cell
Speaker 2: the arity with those facing those challenges in a material
Speaker 2: way that any of it really matters. I think it
Speaker 2: was particularly politin and of course Mami is writing this,
Speaker 2: and Cesaire wrote in a time when colonization is really
Speaker 2: at or rather the confrontation against colonizations really added to Zenith.
Speaker 2: And so for those of us in the twenty first century,
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three now who are looking back, we're saying,
Speaker 2: we might think, oh, well, surely this is a data analysis,
Speaker 2: a dated way of looking at these relationships. But upon
Speaker 2: through the inspection, it really continues to be quite topical
Speaker 2: when you look at, for example, self proclaimed allies. Looking
Speaker 2: at how Mami discusses the colonizer who refuses really gives
Speaker 2: you a sense of I think, at least how far
Speaker 2: you need to be willing to go in your allyship
Speaker 2: versus how far most people have reached. Even today, we
Speaker 2: can ask ourselves and those who maybe see themselves a
Speaker 2: bit in the colonizer who refuses, ask yourself, how far
Speaker 2: I mean you may recognize your privileges even while still
Speaker 2: you know in enjoying them, but how far might you
Speaker 2: be willing to go to see an end to this system?
Speaker 2: We speak about how the loss of privilege can make
Speaker 2: equality feel like oppression, but truly grappling with that. What
Speaker 2: would it mean, for example, English to no longer be
Speaker 2: the dominant language? You know, what would it mean for
Speaker 2: us to get used to will in which we might
Speaker 2: have to learn another language? And then I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about recently, even while occupying the position of a colonized subject,
Speaker 2: I speak English, and that is a privilege. I speak
Speaker 2: English natively, and I mean I'm trying to learn another language.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to learn Spanish, which is another colonized the language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sort of one of the other things. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, for me, it's it's like, Okay, you have English,
Speaker 3: it's this colonial language. You're a Chinese, which is like
Speaker 3: also colonial language. And I learned some Spanish. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: all right, and that's a third colonial language destruct the towers.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. And this when we get into this sort
Speaker 2: of discussion about like actually postclualism and anti colonial struggle
Speaker 2: and how you go about anti colualism, right, because there
Speaker 2: is one of their different approaches. One could take different paths.
Speaker 2: I suppose we could follow there's an anticlonial approach where
Speaker 2: we could say, you know what, let's just try and
Speaker 2: recreate pre colonial society. Right, So everybody tries to learn
Speaker 2: the languages that they feel as though they might have
Speaker 2: spoken if not under clonal system, if not, if Clonal's
Speaker 2: history had not happened. And then we try to re
Speaker 2: implement those languages, and reimpose those languages, and dismantle certain
Speaker 2: institutions and structures and whatever the case may be, try
Speaker 2: to basically erase the impact of colonization from history. And
Speaker 2: then there's another path where we recognize, well, maybe we
Speaker 2: cannot undo colonization, and truthfully we can't write. But going forward,
Speaker 2: how do we intend to dismantle and to rework and
Speaker 2: to create a new you know, taking from the past
Speaker 2: to build the future, but not being bound to that past.
Speaker 2: How do we, for example, let go of certain binds
Speaker 2: on language, or certain ways of communicating, or certain ways
Speaker 2: we organize systems, or certain customs and roles and obligations.
Speaker 2: And I'm varying a bit from the intended topic of
Speaker 2: psychology of colonization, but I do want us to think
Speaker 2: about whether what role we regardless of what role we
Speaker 2: see ourselves in this discussion, how do we pursue an
Speaker 2: anti clar future. What does that look like? What paths
Speaker 2: should we be taken, and how might that path chafe
Speaker 2: against our current identity? How am that path chafe against
Speaker 2: our current privileges, our current comforts. Yes, we are as workers,
Speaker 2: all oppressed and exploited, but at the same time as
Speaker 2: we recognize there are certain privileges that some have over others,
Speaker 2: whether it be in the realm of race or gender,
Speaker 2: or ability or language. And if we are going to
Speaker 2: be pursuing a sequean so we have to ask ourselves,
Speaker 2: how might those privileges be affected? And have we truly
Speaker 2: confronted our comfort level with those privileges being affected. I
Speaker 2: think that's part of the broader effort of decolonizing the mind.
Speaker 2: And when I speak about it in my video and
Speaker 2: why Revolutionary's therapy, the idea of like really truly breaking
Speaker 2: down a lot of these ideas that we have about
Speaker 2: ourselves and about the world and questioning all of it,
Speaker 2: deconstructing and reconstructing all of it. But then when I
Speaker 2: get too far, of course, sincere called the colonization thingification.
Speaker 2: So let's turn our attention now to those things. Let's
Speaker 2: discussed the situation of the colonized in this case, Candice,
Speaker 2: and that defined by the images and myths that surround
Speaker 2: them and tell them who they are. The colonized have
Speaker 2: no way out of their condition within the colonial order.
Speaker 2: They aren't free to choose between being colonized or not
Speaker 2: being colonized. They just are colonized. And so Candace understands
Speaker 2: this in her whole life, She's had to grapple with
Speaker 2: the negative portraits of herself. They were created by the colonizer,
Speaker 2: all the images that were used to support the clonal
Speaker 2: situation that raised the colonizer and humbled the colonized. They
Speaker 2: justified the colonizer as privilege, that painted the colonized as
Speaker 2: inert and the colonizer as active. That made it seem
Speaker 2: as though the colonizer, as the colonizer, was doing the
Speaker 2: colonized a fever, that their labor was actually and the
Speaker 2: employment was actually necessary, that it was charity that the
Speaker 2: colonizer was bringing to their otherwise lazy masters. Being exposed
Speaker 2: to that kind of message and from a young age,
Speaker 2: really does a number on people, not just in the
Speaker 2: realm of colonization, but in other spheres as well. We
Speaker 2: see that with patriarchy, of course, how messages from an
Speaker 2: early age affect how boys and girls and others perceive
Speaker 2: themselves and perceive the world around them, and perceive others
Speaker 2: in the cloning context. This means that some who are
Speaker 2: colonized end up internalizing and accepting wholesale the messages that
Speaker 2: they're receiving. So kind of thinks to herself. Perhaps the
Speaker 2: colonizers right. Perhaps we are lazy, perhaps we are shifted,
Speaker 2: perhaps we are timid and weak, and this degrading portrait
Speaker 2: ends up being accepted. It's usually one of the final
Speaker 2: steps of colonization, the colonization of the mind. Once the
Speaker 2: colonize begins to tolerate rather than resist colonization, all they
Speaker 2: can really look to do is attempt to assimilate, which
Speaker 2: is impossible by a design. Does mean that Candice won't try.
Speaker 2: She sheds the memories of her ancestors and the practices
Speaker 2: institutions of her culture. She embraces the colonizers' will, and
Speaker 2: all these institutions is right and just. The colonizers selve,
Speaker 2: and the colonizers whip the colonizes God, and the colonizers' school.
Speaker 2: Her children are sent to these schools built by the
Speaker 2: colonizer to erase and replace a people's history, traditions, and language.
Speaker 2: She and her kin are imbued with double consciousness. She's
Speaker 2: trapped in the sunken place, performing for the colonizer in
Speaker 2: a home country that don't feels foreign. Double consciousness is
Speaker 2: a particularly useful concept, first coined by WB. Du Bois
Speaker 2: in the Souls of Black Folk in nineteen oh three.
Speaker 2: He was speaking specifically about African Americans, but the concept
Speaker 2: does apply in the contexts as well. Double consciousness is
Speaker 2: the dual self perception experienced by subordinate peoples in an
Speaker 2: oppressive society. It is looking at yourself through your own
Speaker 2: eyes and simultaneously looking at yourself through the eyes of
Speaker 2: a racist society, looking at who you are, and also
Speaker 2: looking at what the dominant society sees and thinks of
Speaker 2: who you are. Of course, the voice concept was further
Speaker 2: built upon, and you know, people speak about her things
Speaker 2: such as triple consciousness, and in some ways the idea
Speaker 2: of double consciousness is can't be tied with the conversation
Speaker 2: of intersectionality. But they are those who experience that double consciousness,
Speaker 2: and rather than reasserting their view of themselves and their people,
Speaker 2: they accept the negative view held by the dominant society.
Speaker 2: They surround themselves the language of that dominant society kindnesses
Speaker 2: world from the street signs, the documents to the courts,
Speaker 2: the bureaucracyeded industry, or use the colonizing language. While her
Speaker 2: mother tongue, the one used tenderly by her ancestors, the
Speaker 2: one that sustained in the most feelings, emotions and dreams,
Speaker 2: is he valued and degraded. Candice loses far more than
Speaker 2: she gains by history, a culture future. She rejects herself,
Speaker 2: self love and liberation itself. She rejects herself self, love
Speaker 2: and liberation itself. I tending to model herself after the colonizer,
Speaker 2: or rather crush herself into conformity, she gains self hate, shame,
Speaker 2: and alienation. She sees her own people through the eyes
Speaker 2: the condonations and accusations of the colonizer. She's atomized and
Speaker 2: estranged from her people and rejected by the colonizer, utterly defeated.
Speaker 2: But when he offers another path, an alternative mindset in
Speaker 2: the colonized who refuses. You see, like Candace, not knows
Speaker 2: that there will never be emancipation within the colonial relationship.
Speaker 2: But unlike Candace, they know that there is no liberty
Speaker 2: in a similation revolt is the only way out. An
Speaker 2: absolute condition requires an absolute solution, and there can be
Speaker 2: no compromise. Deliberation is a process of self recovery and
Speaker 2: autonomous dignity. They must shake off the force images and
Speaker 2: boldly attack the institutions of oppression. But even in their
Speaker 2: resistance that still bears the traces of colonization. They still
Speaker 2: share some of the values, techniques, and methods of the colonizer.
Speaker 2: They still speak the language the colonizer can understand. To
Speaker 2: be truly emancipated, that must work to rebuild a new,
Speaker 2: authentic and self assured identity for themselves and their people.
Speaker 2: That must reclaim and transform that which the colonizers consider negative,
Speaker 2: must take pride in all their wrinkles and moods, never
Speaker 2: shying away from their colonization, but accepting it as a
Speaker 2: fact of their experience, their history, and yet overcoming that colonization. However,
Speaker 2: there is the risk of continuing to define yourself in
Speaker 2: relation to protest, in relation to revolt, and in relation
Speaker 2: to colonization. At some point, maybe not now, but at
Speaker 2: some point not we'll need to move beyond that means.
Speaker 2: The definition what that future looks like is anyone's guests
Speaker 2: and also up to everyone to help build I hope
Speaker 2: you appreciated this. Sometimes meander and dive into the minds
Speaker 2: of the colonizer and the colonized. The fight is not over.
Speaker 2: The psychological, political, and economic consequences of colonization are still
Speaker 2: fell to this day. The mentalities and conditions that discussed
Speaker 2: still exist in very extents today. Hopefully this helps us
Speaker 2: to better understand client's impact on us, so that we
Speaker 2: can deconstruct that Leviathan together to create a freer and
Speaker 2: what diverse and more humane world. Next time, I'll be
Speaker 2: discussing the role of national liberation in the struggle for
Speaker 2: freedom and what precisely that would entail. As I didn't
Speaker 2: have time to get into it in this part. Welcome
Speaker 2: toake it happen Here. I am Andrew of theature channel
Speaker 2: of Andrewism. Last time I spoke about clonalism's effect on
Speaker 2: the psyche of the people within it, and today I
Speaker 2: want to talk about how people under the thumb of
Speaker 2: clonalism go about deliberation and how that struggle fits within
Speaker 2: some version of anomic asnalysis. National liberation is a struggle
Speaker 2: against the relationship of exploitation and domination inflicted upon a nation.
Speaker 2: It's a struggle against the domination of one people by another,
Speaker 2: often centered on questions of language, culture, welfare, equality, and land.
Speaker 2: It has consequences, and it's not something where you can
Speaker 2: just stand by mutually and ignore. In fact, ignoring national
Speaker 2: liberation struggles would been sided with national oppression. There's no
Speaker 2: centrist take here. There is no both sides to the
Speaker 2: oppression of a people by another. Of course, that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that national liberation struggles are free of critique or
Speaker 2: necessarily morally righteous. National libriation struggles are usually quite diverse.
Speaker 2: Within them, their many tendencies at play, from the most
Speaker 2: reactionary to the most revolutionary. I don't know if any
Speaker 2: immediity come to mind. Fiumia.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, there's I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 3: I always think about right is like China's a well,
Speaker 3: it kind of unique. I mean, there's there's a lot
Speaker 3: of countries that you get multiple like national liberation movements.
Speaker 3: China is kind of unique and that we had two
Speaker 3: nominally left wing national liberation movements and like one of them,
Speaker 3: one of them is the KMT who like the the
Speaker 3: the the the end of their natlib arc is like
Speaker 3: training a bunch of desk squads in El Salvador because
Speaker 3: they've gotten so good at killing peasants that like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is what they're doing with their life. And the
Speaker 3: other one is CCP and it's like, well, okay, like great,
Speaker 3: great job, guys, like liberated, We've liberated a lot of people.
Speaker 3: We've like you know, I don't know, it's it's I
Speaker 3: think I think there's sort of two ways of looking
Speaker 3: at that, where it's like you have on the one hand,
Speaker 3: you can look at it from the sort of like
Speaker 3: worker's perspective, where it's like, well, yeah, okay, so both
Speaker 3: you have your two national liberation movements and both of
Speaker 3: them end up machine gunning about a million workers depending
Speaker 3: on like you know, in offset from each other in
Speaker 3: about forty years. But you know, you have the Shaghai
Speaker 3: massacre and you have the cultural revolution. And then I
Speaker 3: think the other thing that's important when you're looking at
Speaker 3: like a gnatlib movement is like whose nation is being liberated?
Speaker 3: And this is something you get with like Indonesia. Right,
Speaker 3: you know, you have the national liberation movement, but then
Speaker 3: you simultaneously have like the occupation of West Papua.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like a Russia nest egg of national oppression,
Speaker 2: like the like Adonesia is being oppressed by the Dutch
Speaker 2: and then Indonesia and sulf oppression if you for West
Speaker 2: Papua and East Timor and all those different places.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you see this a lot with like, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. This is why, like I think I
Speaker 3: keep coming back to like whose nation is being liberated
Speaker 3: the thing because it's like, you know, you get this
Speaker 3: with a lot of like the sort of pan Air
Speaker 3: movements and it's like, well, okay, we're doing like resistance
Speaker 3: to sort of like French or British colonialism, and then
Speaker 3: like yes, this is this is okay if you are Arab,
Speaker 3: like God help you. If you're a Curred or like
Speaker 3: CD or like you know, so there's there's always these
Speaker 3: sort of I don't know, you have to be careful
Speaker 3: about who wins the national liberation.
Speaker 2: Movement exactly exactly, because not a whay a national liberations
Speaker 2: struggle is happening. They're most likely minorities that are not
Speaker 2: encapsulated in that you know, they're always going to be
Speaker 2: populations of people who are not of that nation. Within
Speaker 2: the territory of the national liberation struggle and then be
Speaker 2: on that they're also within national liberation struggles other ongoing struggles,
Speaker 2: including class struggle. While the oppressed classes might claim to
Speaker 2: national liberation struggle in an effort to defend against foreign
Speaker 2: subjugation and exploitation, the capitalist class is using that struggle
Speaker 2: for national liberation to consolidate their own power and monopolize
Speaker 2: their own exportation the working class. A lot of capitalists,
Speaker 2: their whole investment in national liberation boils down to I
Speaker 2: don't like the fact that I have to compete with
Speaker 2: foreign capitalists. I want to compete with local capitalists so
Speaker 2: I can come out on top. And yeah, that's not cool. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And then I think. Another thing that gets conflated when
Speaker 2: you start talking about national liberation the liberation of a
Speaker 2: nation is the concept of nationalism.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Nationalism is a program that has been proposed, or rather
Speaker 2: a suite of programs I've been proposed as the solutions
Speaker 2: national libration struggles, because I can't even say that nationalism
Speaker 2: is a single program. Nationalism itself is quite diverse, as
Speaker 2: we'll soon see. But nationalism is only one response, one
Speaker 2: possible response. It may be the most common response, but
Speaker 2: it's only one possible response to the national liberation struggle.
Speaker 2: And then it's also the terminology that gets modeled when
Speaker 2: you start talking about nationalism, right because, as I defined,
Speaker 2: national liberation is the struggle of an exploited people against
Speaker 2: a dominating group or against their domination, just generally necessarily
Speaker 2: against one specific group, could be multiple groups, but it's
Speaker 2: the struggle of a people against their domination. However, when
Speaker 2: you get into nationalism, there are forms of nationalism developed
Speaker 2: by oppressive groups, developed by the oppressors. Sometimes they developed
Speaker 2: on nationalism in order to more effectively oppress the people
Speaker 2: they oppress it, and so, and you know, you can
Speaker 2: even argue that there are cases where oppressed nations adopt
Speaker 2: nationalism as strategy for their liberation and end up pursuing
Speaker 2: a form of nationalism that is quite similar to that
Speaker 2: which they were being oppressed under. There's one immediate example
Speaker 2: that comes to mind, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I have like nine so I'm not entirely sure what
Speaker 3: you're pointing at or nine.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, what are you thinking of?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, okay, I wanted to talk about this. I
Speaker 3: think there's like a very there's like a kind of
Speaker 3: Chinese nationalism that does this a lot, but this is
Speaker 3: I think a kind of common thing of like they're
Speaker 3: one of the sort of responses to colonization that's pretty common.
Speaker 3: Is this really really this sort of like like quintupling
Speaker 3: down on patriarchy where you know, you like because one
Speaker 3: of the effects of colonization obviously is like the sort
Speaker 3: of like one of the sort of psychological things is
Speaker 3: is this sort of like you know, is this installation
Speaker 3: of inferiority into the minds of the people who being colonized.
Speaker 3: And so one of the ways people respond to this
Speaker 3: is by being like, no, like the colonizers are wrong,
Speaker 3: Like our men are actually really strong, and like our
Speaker 3: men are actually incredibly manly, and like we have really
Speaker 3: really like tight powerful controller of women. And you see
Speaker 3: this fucking everywhere, right, This is why all of like
Speaker 3: there's so many sort of like Chinese nationalists who are
Speaker 3: so obsessed with like these videos of like like basically
Speaker 3: indistinguishable from American right wing videos where they're just like
Speaker 3: walking around with no shirts on and being like, look
Speaker 3: at how strong I am. It's like you see you
Speaker 3: see this thing with like hn do for people too,
Speaker 3: where's like they do like exactly the same ship, Like
Speaker 3: it's all over the fucking place. You can see you
Speaker 3: can see the Taliban doing this now too, and it's
Speaker 3: like it's it's like it's you know, it's it's they
Speaker 3: very cool.
Speaker 2: They're seeing colonization as emasculating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and and and that's you know, and I
Speaker 3: think there's there's there's this mode of like reactionary anti
Speaker 3: colonialism where it's like they see it as emasculating and
Speaker 3: they see the problem with colonization was it stopped them
Speaker 3: from being an empire. You see this a lot which
Speaker 3: Chinese nationalism, where it's like, you know, like they're they're
Speaker 3: they're their effective problem with like the century humiliation was
Speaker 3: that they didn't get to keep being the Ching empire
Speaker 3: and get to keep colonizing other people. And that's like
Speaker 3: a very I don't know, I think that that that's
Speaker 3: a very common sort of like thing that happens when
Speaker 3: it's this is a very common sort of like ideological
Speaker 3: basis for sort of the right wing of anti colonial well,
Speaker 3: I don't know, even calling the anticolonial movement is kind
Speaker 3: of like being a bit generous, but yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it's a very common form of sort of right
Speaker 3: wing nationalism that emerges as a reaction to colonization.
Speaker 2: What immediately came to mind to me, and what I
Speaker 2: was thinking of was Zionism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that too.
Speaker 2: Not to be fair, it was rather correct me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong. It was a movement that existed prior to
Speaker 2: World War Two. No, yeah, yeah, right, And then you know,
Speaker 2: the experiences of World War Two took place, and there
Speaker 2: were different paths for the movement could have taken. And
Speaker 2: I don't want to invalidate the beginnings of the movement,
Speaker 2: considering the experiences of Jewish people for centuries in Europe
Speaker 2: and the oppression and the programs and so they faced.
Speaker 2: But what we've seen the fruit of one particular path
Speaker 2: that that movement undertook, and that path has led to
Speaker 2: another nation struggling for its liberation, and that being the Palestinians.
Speaker 2: The common example of distinction used is that of the
Speaker 2: distinction between white nationalism and black nationalism. White nationalism having
Speaker 2: a very clear history of violent supremacy and clualism, while
Speaker 2: black nationalism was established in response to that experience of
Speaker 2: subjugation and clualism and with the desire for self determination.
Speaker 2: The program nationalism specifically among oppressed nations has generally seen
Speaker 2: the oppressed nation as a united bloc national liberation movements,
Speaker 2: nationalist movements. Nationalists movements typically ignore class, they ignore gender,
Speaker 2: they ignore religion, and they ignore other divisions for the
Speaker 2: most part, in favor of the development of an independent state,
Speaker 2: which is usually some form of capitalist either a state
Speaker 2: capitalist welfare capitalists, or a neoliberal capitalist. A Nationalism is
Speaker 2: often weaponized and promoted by the ruined class in orders
Speaker 2: to unite the oppressed classes with their domestic oppressors, replacing
Speaker 2: foreign capitalists local capitalists, foreign generals local generals, and foreign
Speaker 2: government officials with local officials, in a word, to conceal
Speaker 2: the importance of class struggle. You see often in the
Speaker 2: cases of newly independent countries there's almost a brief haze
Speaker 2: of rather, let me speak not generally but from my
Speaker 2: own knowledge of my own history. Trying to Bago gain
Speaker 2: independence in nineteen sixty two from the British. This was
Speaker 2: after a very brief period where we experimented with a
Speaker 2: West Indian Federation, West Indies being a designation of the
Speaker 2: Caribbean by the British. The federation failed and so Trinidad
Speaker 2: and Tobago struck out on their own, and so trying
Speaker 2: Tobago became an independent country in nineteen sixty two, and
Speaker 2: there was really a sense of you know, joy and
Speaker 2: jubile and celebration because of that freedom. You know, it
Speaker 2: finally broke the shackles to the British. However, it was
Speaker 2: a very recently, a very constitutional independence. You know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't an independence brought forth by violent struggle. You know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a situation like Algeria. It was more so
Speaker 2: the British carefully groomed a generation of politicians and political
Speaker 2: leaders that would and business leaders that would take on
Speaker 2: the role that they were fulfilling in order to continue
Speaker 2: that colonial situation in under new management essentially and the
Speaker 2: more familiar management. And that very quickly became apparent to
Speaker 2: the population, which is why we had the Black Power
Speaker 2: Revolution in nineteen seventy. It was borne on to the
Speaker 2: frustration that new management when everything was pretty much the same.
Speaker 2: Many people who experienced the successes of independence and of
Speaker 2: nationalism that often bears out independence, they actually come to
Speaker 2: recognize that nationalism was not enough nationalism has repeatedly failed
Speaker 2: to solve poverty, to solve oppression and exploitation and suffer it.
Speaker 2: Or many states have become formally independent from their colonial
Speaker 2: masters thanks nationalist movements, new columnalism persevers and yet in
Speaker 2: spite of the continuation of oppression and suffering post independence,
Speaker 2: you end up seeing some people's response to that being
Speaker 2: greater nationalism rather than an exploration of other options. So
Speaker 2: it is this result of nationalism that has led to
Speaker 2: its criticism and opposition by anarchists. Again, there's a difference
Speaker 2: between nationalism and national liberation. But in that criticism of nationalism,
Speaker 2: I see some anarchists, while recognizing that they are class
Speaker 2: divisions in the nation, end up ignoring national divisions in
Speaker 2: a class in favor of some ideal and united working class.
Speaker 2: The truth is that the oppressed classes of some nations
Speaker 2: have benefited from the domination of the oppressed classes and
Speaker 2: other nations, So let's not do class reductionism. Nations that
Speaker 2: have had constant war waged against them for centuries tend
Speaker 2: to turn to nationalism for the national liberation. That's obvious.
Speaker 2: I think you know, you cut them some slack for
Speaker 2: not thinking about the global working class when they are
Speaker 2: literally under assault for the national identity. When you fighting
Speaker 2: clonial administrators and foreign armies, you're not studying the class war,
Speaker 2: which is why historically national liberation struggles use in nationalism
Speaker 2: have ignored class divisions among the oppressed nation, but not always.
Speaker 2: Black nationalism, for example, has always been a very diverse
Speaker 2: political movement with several currents and opposing perspectives within it.
Speaker 2: The common threat is of course, irresistance the predominance the
Speaker 2: white supremisist system and the assolution of lacks of sovereignity,
Speaker 2: recognizing that we have to free ourselves without wheat and
Speaker 2: for permission, Recognizing we have to protect ourselves from the
Speaker 2: continued assault of the empire of the empire, recognizing that
Speaker 2: we can be proud of and love or bodies or
Speaker 2: minds on our heritage, or rejection of your centrism. And
Speaker 2: yet some manifestations of black nationalism have been reactionary, capitalistic, morphobic,
Speaker 2: and patriarchal. Others have student stock opposition to those currents.
Speaker 2: In particular, revolutionary black nationalism, unlike other forms of black nationalism,
Speaker 2: has consistently stood in opposition to all forms of oppression,
Speaker 2: including imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. In my view, and
Speaker 2: as many other black anarchists have noted, revolutionary black nationalism
Speaker 2: has a place in a struggle in conjunction with the
Speaker 2: struggle against patriarchy, capitalism, and the state, as we aim
Speaker 2: to prefigure world free of all forms of nomination. In
Speaker 2: spite of our critiques of how nationalism tends to manifest,
Speaker 2: it is not the only way to undertake national liberation.
Speaker 2: We can incorpor rate other fights within that struggle. We
Speaker 2: can recognize the importance of national liberation whilst staying true
Speaker 2: to all principles. Anarchism is an internationalist movement. It aims
Speaker 2: for an entirely new world, not just a pocket of
Speaker 2: change here and there. But we cannot be so focused
Speaker 2: on that international struggle that we ignore the very vital
Speaker 2: local and regional struggles taking place. Internationalism and class struggle
Speaker 2: are not in contradiction to national liberation struggle. I believe
Speaker 2: a real internationalism has to stand in solidarity with the
Speaker 2: working class and peasantry everywhere, including those of oppressed nationalities. However,
Speaker 2: at the same time, we cannot uncritically support national liberation struggles.
Speaker 2: We cannot afford to just write a blank check of support.
Speaker 2: It is necessary to engage politically national liberation movements and
Speaker 2: engage in dialogues with all of their complexities and contradictions,
Speaker 2: engaging with and uplifting the progressive elements within those national
Speaker 2: liberation struggles while criticizing the reactionary elements within those struggles.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's incredibly important. I don't know if
Speaker 3: intervene in them is the correct thing, is the best
Speaker 3: way to put it, But like you know, from the
Speaker 3: sort of like Eustasian perspective, it's like, yeah, so we
Speaker 3: had we had three successful national liberation movements like next
Speaker 3: to each other, and then after they won their national
Speaker 3: liberation movements, instead of like continuing the war against the
Speaker 3: US or whatever, they went to war with each other.
Speaker 5: So you know, you have to sort of like something something, something.
Speaker 3: Very clearly went wrong with our natlib movements when well,
Speaker 3: I mean obviously, like okay, something went very wrong with
Speaker 3: Kahmara Rouge, but.
Speaker 2: Like you know, that's that's understates and things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know that that's ity, but like you know,
Speaker 3: they're they're like obviously that like that the Khmara Rouge
Speaker 3: was fucked from the start. But you know the fact
Speaker 3: that like the US and Vietnam, like the Vietnamese like
Speaker 3: army finally defeats the American colonizers and then basically immediately
Speaker 3: or invaded by China is a sign that like something
Speaker 3: went terribly terribly wrong in the process of these struggles,
Speaker 3: and that like, I don't know, if you're we're going
Speaker 3: to do this properly, you have to make sure that
Speaker 3: like this ship doesn't happen, because you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: a just the product of this is just sort of
Speaker 3: unfathomable human tragedy of a much of colonized people fucking
Speaker 3: murdering each other for like nothing or you know, I
Speaker 3: guess like China's obediate I don't know, geopolitical realignment with
Speaker 3: the US and exchange for like industrial capital goods or
Speaker 3: some shit. So you know, you gotta you gotta make
Speaker 3: sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And that means intervening. Okay, like you said,
Speaker 2: you don't want to say intervene in necessarily, but it
Speaker 2: does require having these discussions rely on, like you don't
Speaker 2: wait until after a preventable tragedy takes place to try
Speaker 2: and prevent a tragedy. You know, if you're seeing signs
Speaker 2: of that, the potential for that, you know, probably do
Speaker 2: something about it. If one is so fragile that a
Speaker 2: criticism of the way that it's structured, or a criticism
Speaker 2: of an aspect of its ideology is enough to prevent
Speaker 2: it from succeeding, or prevent it from collapsing into internal divisions,
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be, then I don't think that
Speaker 2: it is robust enough to handle the struggle, uh, for
Speaker 2: a liberation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's like they're definitely you're definitely going to lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if it's easy for an ally to criticize
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe call something out and that's enough
Speaker 2: for everything to crumble, how easy do you think it's
Speaker 2: gonna be for like your actual enemy is to like
Speaker 2: come in and shake things up and like dismantle the
Speaker 2: organization from the inside. You know, if you if you
Speaker 2: don't have room for dissent from you know, your allies,
Speaker 2: from your compatriots, then what about your what do you
Speaker 2: think your enemies are going to try and capitalize on?
Speaker 2: They're going to try and fuel and empower that dissent
Speaker 2: and push it in different directions. So even further splinter
Speaker 2: the movement. You know, it's it's it's complicated, it's it's difficult.
Speaker 2: It's not something that I ever wanted to present myself
Speaker 2: as having all the answers for. But you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like certain things should be clear. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: we should try and preventednessues from getting worse if you see, like,
Speaker 2: for example, a cult of personality develop, and maybe do
Speaker 2: something about it before that culture personality has you know,
Speaker 2: guns on their side and the full power of the
Speaker 2: state apparatus behind them. I mean that's just me though.
Speaker 2: A truly internationalist position, in my view, recognizes that human
Speaker 2: unity can only be achieved through mutual respect, solidarity, alliance,
Speaker 2: and discourse among people. International revolution would require participation in
Speaker 2: national struggle for self determination and human dignity against imputerist domination.
Speaker 2: It will require shift, as I always say, in our powers,
Speaker 2: in our drives, in our consciousness. I think you want
Speaker 2: to have star tooth national liberation struggles. It really starts
Speaker 2: in that realm. And then also I think there are
Speaker 2: ways that we can as allies intervene into aspect of
Speaker 2: that process, you know, in confrontation, lending you know, material
Speaker 2: support to protests or occupations, in non cooperation, supporting strike funds,
Speaker 2: in prefiguration, providing resources. You don't want these acts of
Speaker 2: solidarity to get lost in NGOs or and organizations whatever
Speaker 2: you're trying to get things. Actually, that's a whole tangent.
Speaker 2: Let me just scratch that entirely. I'm going to go off.
Speaker 2: I'll leave off by saying that if we oppose male
Speaker 2: supremacy the patriarchy, we must support women's fight against it.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean blandly supporting, you know, bourgeois liberal curss feminism.
Speaker 2: It means listening to, learning from and collaboratively developing the
Speaker 2: revolutionary feminist project to liberate all women from patriarchal domination
Speaker 2: and ultimately all people. If workers aside a former union
Speaker 2: in many cases and existing union is pro capitalist and hierarchical,
Speaker 2: I had despite the structural issues with many unions, we
Speaker 2: still stand with the workers against the bosses, even as
Speaker 2: we try to convince them of the need for our transformation.
Speaker 2: Those unions of union militancy for position to bureaucracy in
Speaker 2: order to fully liberate them from class domination. Instead of
Speaker 2: merely engaged in dialogue with the oppressors, we can walk
Speaker 2: on tewg them. At the same time as what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to say, we can act in solidarity without being
Speaker 2: subservient to what we may perceive to be something that
Speaker 2: goes against our values. Solidarity, as I like to view it,
Speaker 2: is a discourse between people's about how we determine our
Speaker 2: own freedom. We may disagree with certain things. We can
Speaker 2: critique certain things we've seen again and again, certain mistakes
Speaker 2: being made over and over again, and movements, and we
Speaker 2: can call them out. But you know, you can have
Speaker 2: your principles. You can engage, and you should engage in
Speaker 2: the complexity and contradictions and national liberation struggles, offering critique
Speaker 2: where needs be, resistant reactionary, capitalist, patriarchal and status elements
Speaker 2: when they manifest, and providing support in any way that
Speaker 2: you are able in any way that they request that
Speaker 2: you be. People on some monoliths, think for yourself, will
Speaker 2: power to all the people, usual things. That's it for me.
Speaker 2: You can support me on patuon dot com slash saying
Speaker 2: true and follow me on YouTube at andreism. This has
Speaker 2: been it grappen here with myself and Mia be something.
Speaker 3: It's it could happen here. The thing that's happening is
Speaker 3: that shinzu Wabe is still dead. One year on. That
Speaker 3: man has not gone back from the dead. He is
Speaker 3: still absolutely the most assassinated man of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: twenty two. That well, you know, honestly, given how assassinated
Speaker 3: he is, we're giving him the credit for being the
Speaker 3: most asassinated man of twenty twenty three. And what was
Speaker 3: interesting about this assassination and we talked about I talked
Speaker 3: about this really briefly in my sort of intro thing
Speaker 3: to the last episode that we ran about the Abbe assassination.
Speaker 3: But this has been maybe the most successful political assassination
Speaker 3: not done by the CIA in the last like seventy years,
Speaker 3: like absolutely stunningly incredibly successful political assassination because specifically of
Speaker 3: the political impact that the assassination has had on the
Speaker 3: Unification Church probably better known as the Moonies, and how
Speaker 3: it's been forcing the sort of Unification Church aligned ruling
Speaker 3: Liberal Democratic Party of Japan to like have a serious
Speaker 3: of embarrassing scandals where they reveal their incredible intertwinement with
Speaker 3: the church apparatus and all of the culture they've been doing.
Speaker 3: And with me to talk about this is Alisa Majub
Speaker 3: who's an ex Unification Church member who got out and
Speaker 3: who works with Deprogramming Imperialism, which is a group that
Speaker 3: tell us the sort of still untold story of how
Speaker 3: the Unification Church has worked with the CIA and the
Speaker 3: Korean CIA and enormous parts of the sort of the
Speaker 3: apparatus of the American imperial war machine to cause untold
Speaker 3: suffering on the world. Lisa, Welcome, Welcome to the show. Welcome,
Speaker 3: welcome back.
Speaker 6: Thank you appreciate it. I'm glad to be back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you about this because
Speaker 3: we didn't really There's been a lot of very very
Speaker 3: interesting stuff happening in the last couple of months in Japan.
Speaker 3: But in order to do that, I think we need
Speaker 3: to sort of talk about what this assassination was actually about.
Speaker 3: So the shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami, killed Abe because he couldn't
Speaker 3: get to a He was trying to kill a high
Speaker 3: ranking Unification Church guy and he like couldn't get to him.
Speaker 3: And the reason he was trying to do this is
Speaker 3: that his mom had had given they like seventy thousand
Speaker 3: yen to the church. Co'm getting the number right, and
Speaker 3: had basically like you know, like this is I yeah,
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to you a bit about this
Speaker 3: before we go into more of the au bas stuff
Speaker 3: about how the church's financial abuse works and how you know.
Speaker 5: Like how how how how.
Speaker 3: This person's mom was compelled to sort of like literally
Speaker 3: give away all of their money to this cult.
Speaker 7: Right, Well, I would say it's sort of multi pronged
Speaker 7: approach that they use. They'll basically, oh, gosh, okay. So
Speaker 7: one of the main things that they'll do is they
Speaker 7: will charge people for ancestor liberation.
Speaker 6: Basically is that they'll say that.
Speaker 7: Your ancestors are going to go to heaven if you
Speaker 7: pay us this amount of money. And they'll have people
Speaker 7: do that for like generations and generations back in order
Speaker 7: to have their ancestors go to heaven.
Speaker 6: They do other spiritual sales, like the book.
Speaker 7: There was this one book from years ago that they
Speaker 7: they they charged people exorbitant fees on just because it
Speaker 7: was like some sort of like providential book of some sort.
Speaker 6: So spiritual sales are definitely like a main, a main
Speaker 6: focal point of this.
Speaker 7: Another thing that will happen is that like they'll they'll
Speaker 7: labor traffic people just straight up into like a lot
Speaker 7: of the time they would do fundraising teams where they
Speaker 7: would have people go out sell little trinkets and things
Speaker 7: on the street or flowers, uh, and come back and
Speaker 7: then give all that money to the coffers of the church.
Speaker 7: Another thing that they do is tithes. You're expected to
Speaker 7: give a certain amount of your income basically to the church,
Speaker 7: and if you don't, it's like they're not going to
Speaker 7: be like they're there. It's like certainly, you know, like
Speaker 7: you need to do better because you're not you're not
Speaker 7: doing enough for God kind of shit. So they have
Speaker 7: like a myriad ways that they really push people into
Speaker 7: spending money on them in their organizations, as well as
Speaker 7: having a ton of very successful businesses and capital ventures
Speaker 7: and whatnot. They make guns, you name it, and so
Speaker 7: it all sort of comes together just to this like
Speaker 7: very large wheelhouse of capital.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Japan's so so I think I should probably
Speaker 3: I'm realizing I'm probably assuming that everyone who's listening to
Speaker 3: this has listened to the previous stuff we've done on
Speaker 3: the Infocation Church, and I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 3: how true that is. So I guess we should talk
Speaker 3: a little bit we should back up a little bit
Speaker 3: and talk about just what the Inifogation church is, and
Speaker 3: I guess also the importance of Japan to it, because Yeah,
Speaker 3: from everything that I've understood, Japan's like, you know, like
Speaker 3: they have a bunch of sort of businesses that they
Speaker 3: run in Korea, but Japan's kind of like their chief
Speaker 3: financial nexus. Like the last thing I saw, I think
Speaker 3: it was like like they e'rected like one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: How did Japan in the last few years.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they they get, They get so much.
Speaker 7: That's their main it's their main financial powerhouse within the church.
Speaker 7: And part of that is because the church claims that
Speaker 7: because of the occupation of Korea that Japanese members have
Speaker 7: to pay more indemnity monetarily, so everything with like you know,
Speaker 7: all of the spiritual sales and stuff are just like
Speaker 7: exorbitantly higher for those members, and that is just an
Speaker 7: easy way for them to make a lot more money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which which is always a part of this thing.
Speaker 3: I thought is really interesting because you know, the church,
Speaker 3: and we've talked about this sort of a length in
Speaker 3: other places, but they are like hardcore right wing anti communists, yes,
Speaker 3: and like you know, have backed a lot of I
Speaker 3: mean just desk squads all over the world they backed
Speaker 3: they like they wound up backing poll Pot because like
Speaker 3: doing I Ran contrary twice wasn't enough for them. But
Speaker 3: a bunch yeah, yeah, it's like on once you once, once,
Speaker 3: you once you've once you've done a RAN contract multiple times,
Speaker 3: like you've got to there are very few places you
Speaker 3: can go other than like into polepot. But I think
Speaker 3: I think there's there's an interesting kind of game they're
Speaker 3: playing here because you know, on the one hand, so
Speaker 3: the party they're allied with in Japan, I mean there's
Speaker 3: like several parties they work with, but their biggest backer
Speaker 3: in the government is is the Liberal Democratic Party. And
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to hear me talk about
Speaker 3: the Liberal Democratic Party for a long long time, go
Speaker 3: listen to my Kishi episodes on Behind the Bastards, because
Speaker 3: that guy did one. So No, Masuki Kishi is the
Speaker 3: founder of the Liberal Democratic Party. He is a just
Speaker 3: horrific war criminal. I did like mass enslavement stuff like that,
Speaker 3: Like truly truly awful guy. He's like he's also the
Speaker 3: guy who just was in charge of like running the
Speaker 3: Japanese war machine dream World War two, and his grandson
Speaker 3: is is U shinzo Abe. But there's this, I think
Speaker 3: it's this interesting dynamic where you have, on the one hand,
Speaker 3: the Moonies are allying with these right wing guys who
Speaker 3: are either just straight up like like a lot of
Speaker 3: these people they're allying with are straight up like Nanjing denialists, right,
Speaker 3: they're like you know, they're they're they're people whose lines
Speaker 3: on Japanese colonization or either that it was good or
Speaker 3: we didn't do any crimes.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So it comes off pretty pretty you know, boldfaced
Speaker 7: and ironic and just very obvious that this is a
Speaker 7: money ploy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. But but I think it's interesting kind of
Speaker 3: politically too, because you know, like if you if you
Speaker 3: on the one hand push denihilism, but then on the
Speaker 3: other hand, you turn around and you're the only people
Speaker 3: going like, hey, look at all these crimes your government did,
Speaker 3: Like don't you owe like Korea so much? I feel
Speaker 3: like that's like it's a really like terrible and like
Speaker 3: it's just unbelievably cynical way of exploiting, like the exploiting
Speaker 3: just the whole ord is of Japanese imperialism to get.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, it's it's very underhanded, especially giving that I
Speaker 7: feel like there is been some evidence that I mean
Speaker 7: at least early church members, uh and those around them
Speaker 7: may have been collaborators at the time as well. So yeah,
Speaker 7: it's very disingenuine and a completely twisted way to go
Speaker 7: about anything.
Speaker 6: But people people buy into it and heavily.
Speaker 3: So yeah, one of the ways they've they've sort of
Speaker 3: done this is allying with with the Liberal Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: So nobody Takishi, who again is Abbi's grandfather, like, is
Speaker 3: the guy who brought the Unification Church into the party.
Speaker 3: And this was kind of a controversial thing because okay
Speaker 3: it was. It was kind of a controversial thing, not
Speaker 3: because the Unification Church is a cult, but because the
Speaker 3: Unification Church is Korean, which is like a dynamic that's
Speaker 3: at play here and this whole thing, which is you
Speaker 3: have this weird okay. So there's like two kinds of
Speaker 3: people who are anti Unification Church in Japan. It's you
Speaker 3: have like the leftists who are anti Unification Church because they're
Speaker 3: a cults and because they're you know, like a sort
Speaker 3: of Cat's Paul of American imperialism and then you have
Speaker 3: like these ultra right wingers who are like, these people
Speaker 3: are Koreans and so we hate them, which is like
Speaker 3: a I don't know, truly terrifying Japan dynamic Buthi. Kish's
Speaker 3: able to sort of overcome this and he okay. So
Speaker 3: this is the part that I don't know if you
Speaker 3: know more about this than I do. So every the
Speaker 3: stuff that I've seen about this talks about the Unification
Speaker 3: Church and the Yakuza kind of hammering out a deal
Speaker 3: to allow the Unification Church to like do the specific
Speaker 3: kinds of scams. And I've always assumed that Kishi broke
Speaker 3: at this because No Basika Kishi also is very very
Speaker 3: well connected with the Yakuza. He's been connected with the
Speaker 3: yakuza since like the twenties and thirties, So I always
Speaker 3: assumed that he brokeer this deal. But I'm not in
Speaker 3: talking sure, I don't know. I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: run into anything about it.
Speaker 7: So I know that some of it has to do
Speaker 7: with Asami Kuboki, I believe, But I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 7: if initial links do come through Kishi, I wouldn't. I
Speaker 7: would not be surprised about that I don't know where exactly, like,
Speaker 7: you know, initially that would make sense.
Speaker 6: That would make sense.
Speaker 7: Honestly because like going back to the sort of end
Speaker 7: of the Korean War and World War two, basically how
Speaker 7: all these you know, prisoners that were Class A war
Speaker 7: criminals got you know, they got let off the books
Speaker 7: because they decided to work for America now.
Speaker 6: And and and basically.
Speaker 7: These guys were the first guys who started like funding
Speaker 7: and financing and like supporting the church with like the
Speaker 7: help of like MacArthur and stuff. And MacArthur of course
Speaker 7: is the one who got Moon out of prison.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean there's a lot of sort of
Speaker 3: there's a lot of very very the the the LDP
Speaker 3: as a party is sort of directly like like directly
Speaker 3: it is formed by the Dullest Brothers interviewing with the
Speaker 3: sort of Japanese right and telling them like, you guys
Speaker 3: all have to like, you guys all have to put
Speaker 3: aside your differences and form this party so as to
Speaker 3: stop like even like a vaguely centered left government from
Speaker 3: coming to power.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the connections here are really deep. Like Kishi.
Speaker 5: Kishi literally sells.
Speaker 3: Unification Church their first building in Japan and that building
Speaker 3: is like his residence, so they are they are even
Speaker 3: deep and in it for the long haul.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and the multi generation yeah yeah, and this has
Speaker 8: been you know, sort of going on for a very
Speaker 8: long time, even after like Kishi's like specific kind of
Speaker 8: like fascist corruption faction kind of eventually falls out of
Speaker 8: favor in like the eighties because they they they kind
Speaker 8: of a series of deals with the Americans that are like
Speaker 8: too corrupt for the US that ends with like ends
Speaker 8: with a fascist porn star I like dry attempting to
Speaker 8: do a Kamakazi run.
Speaker 3: And a Yaka is a boss by flying a plane
Speaker 3: into his house, which is which is a whole thing.
Speaker 3: But you know, so that this kind of gets us
Speaker 3: to many generations of LDP, which is the Liberal Democratic Party,
Speaker 3: which has been the ruling party of Japan for most
Speaker 3: of it's sort of modern history. Many generations did this
Speaker 3: go by, and you know there's there's I think a
Speaker 3: really incredible symbiosis here where like the LDP has like
Speaker 3: consistently gotten them out of trouble of like stuff that
Speaker 3: like like they're they're you know, there's a famous example
Speaker 3: where Moon like shouldn't have been able to enter Japan
Speaker 3: because he would have been convicted of a felony in
Speaker 3: the US. And you know the and there's also like
Speaker 3: there's been a series of investigations into the Church have
Speaker 3: just gotten squashed because the LDPOLE know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're too powerful, They're they're in with the guys,
Speaker 7: are running things.
Speaker 3: And I think this just kind of brings us to
Speaker 3: the immediate Abbe stuff, which I think is really interesting,
Speaker 3: which is that like Abbe, okay, so long ago, in
Speaker 3: a galaxy, far far away dream Kishi's generation, the CIA
Speaker 3: was like literally running LDP elections like this is the
Speaker 3: CIA would go in with individual candidates and they would
Speaker 3: go in to sort of play the vote. They would
Speaker 3: go in and they would have like CIA assets doing
Speaker 3: canvassing for them. And what I think is really interesting
Speaker 3: is that like from what I what I've seen, it
Speaker 3: seems like Abbe basically replaced the CIA with the Moonies
Speaker 3: in the two thousands, where he was having the church
Speaker 3: do exactly the same thing the CIA did of like
Speaker 3: like hey, if you're ally with us, we will like
Speaker 3: you know, we will like go district by district and
Speaker 3: campaign for you and like use our influence networks.
Speaker 6: It's funny how that keeps happening.
Speaker 9: Yeah, hmmm, Yeah, it's really the sort of long arc
Speaker 9: of But it's funny too because it's like like quite
Speaker 9: frankly like at this point, like from the CIA's point
Speaker 9: of view, like it's utterly unclear to me.
Speaker 3: If it matters at all whether the LDP or like
Speaker 3: their absolutely identical opposition party like comes into power. But
Speaker 3: there's still just this kind of like like the ghost
Speaker 3: of the CIA from like when they actually had to
Speaker 3: stop the communists in like the cifty sixties and seventies,
Speaker 3: I guess a bit through the eighties. It's just sort
Speaker 3: of still there and still doing like all of the
Speaker 3: same things that Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know who else?
Speaker 3: Actually I don't think they've ever advertised on this show,
Speaker 3: but you know who probably wouldn't be that out of
Speaker 3: place given the Reagan coin people. I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: it's ads, it's we're doing them. I hope they don't
Speaker 3: suck and we're back. Okay, So this is something I
Speaker 3: wanted to ask you. How So, in the last few months,
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of developments in terms of the
Speaker 3: reaction to the Church in Japan and how the Church
Speaker 3: has been reacting to the sort of swings in public
Speaker 3: sentiment that have been happening. So yeah, I guess I
Speaker 3: want to tesk you. So, how what's been happening inside
Speaker 3: the Japanese government since all of the stufface sort of
Speaker 3: been coming out?
Speaker 7: So uh, it seems to be that there has been
Speaker 7: quite a kerfuffle because quite a few members of both
Speaker 7: the LDP and other parties have ties to the Unification Church.
Speaker 7: So I've got some stats here, and forgive me if
Speaker 7: these are not the most current. I tried my best
Speaker 7: to find the most current, the most current numbers out
Speaker 7: here about this, but I was having a little bit
Speaker 7: of trouble due to translations. So let's see, I've got
Speaker 7: at least three hundred thirty four prefectural Assembly members in
Speaker 7: Japan have had dealings with the Unification Church or its affiliates,
Speaker 7: with over eighty percent of them belonging to the ruling LDP,
Speaker 7: according to Kyoto News, So Prime Minister of Fumiyo Kushita
Speaker 7: said that the government was in the final stage of
Speaker 7: considering whether to seek a court order to dispand the
Speaker 7: Unification Church. But also, you know his new cabinet, Well,
Speaker 7: they've got some ties. Okay, at least four lawmakers who
Speaker 7: admitted having ties to the church. The number of LVP
Speaker 7: lawmakers was ties to the churches around one hundred and eighty.
Speaker 6: And the second Tenary General has.
Speaker 7: Said that one hundred and seventy nine of the three
Speaker 7: hundred and seventy nine parliamentarians reported with links to the
Speaker 7: church and related organizations. And these relationships have ranged from
Speaker 7: attending church events to accepting donations and receiving elections support.
Speaker 6: And then at least.
Speaker 7: Three hundred and thirty four prefectural councils had contact with
Speaker 7: the US seeing related words. So there's a lot going
Speaker 7: on that basically is, there's a lot has come out
Speaker 7: about who is involved. However, the u SEE is still
Speaker 7: pretty much just denying everything. The pre trial proceedings for
Speaker 7: Yamagami began on October thirteenth. It's going to be closed door,
Speaker 7: so it'll probably be a while a little bit until
Speaker 7: the information trickles out about that. Hopefully they'll have some
Speaker 7: like I don't know if like what closed door means
Speaker 7: in that specific situation, I still have journalists in there,
Speaker 7: not hopefully, but yeah, a lot has been coming out
Speaker 7: and people have been calling for a lot of change,
Speaker 7: it seems, but how much is.
Speaker 6: Actually going to happen, especially.
Speaker 7: When they're saying now it's going to be like maybe
Speaker 7: one to three years for the deliberation on the case
Speaker 7: for dissolving the church, which means that the church will
Speaker 7: have ample time to move all of its funds and
Speaker 7: set up new new lines of money funneling.
Speaker 3: Basically, yeah, which I think, Yeah, I don't know, like
Speaker 3: I I have, I have very little faith that even
Speaker 3: even this sort of like outswing of public pressure is
Speaker 3: going to like actually seriously cause a liberal Democratic party
Speaker 3: to like really go after the church because, like I mean,
Speaker 3: like Abe, like part of the reason Abe got assassinated
Speaker 3: was that, like I think, like in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: he he get he like he was like he like
Speaker 3: said a video of of like of a speech like
Speaker 3: to a like to a man Elaine Unification Church, Evette.
Speaker 3: I think it was the same one that it might
Speaker 3: have been the same one that Trump said it too.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was it was a different event, but like yeah,
Speaker 3: like that, I don't know. I have a difficult time,
Speaker 3: I don't know, kind of like believing that they're the
Speaker 3: like this, like even if this crackdown does come that's
Speaker 3: going to be effective. I don't know what your thoughts
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 7: I'm excited that there is some movement in that direction. However,
Speaker 7: I do worry that it won't really make as much
Speaker 7: of a dent into the functioning of the movement as
Speaker 7: some people think it could, given that there seems to
Speaker 7: be a lot of time for them to recuperate funds,
Speaker 7: and they've been doing a lot of things it seems
Speaker 7: to make up for funds, as well as the fact
Speaker 7: that they already just have so much money and so
Speaker 7: many funds in the first place. It's hard to say
Speaker 7: how much they even have and how much this would
Speaker 7: make a dent into it were.
Speaker 6: It to happen, So it's hard to say.
Speaker 7: And I also do worry that that'll just sort of
Speaker 7: incentivize them to sort of further radicalize people in a
Speaker 7: very dangerous far right direction and sort of going into that.
Speaker 7: There have been some sort of recent developments within the
Speaker 7: church since all of this has come out, basically, and
Speaker 7: people are calling for some sort of justice and some
Speaker 7: sort of understanding of what's going on, which you know,
Speaker 7: the church continues to deny, but recently Hawk Jahan who
Speaker 7: is now the leader of the Mainline Church, has been
Speaker 7: meeting with the youth in multiple countries UH and recently
Speaker 7: at Japan, she sat down and told them that they
Speaker 7: are a Kamakazi group basically to save Japan in the world.
Speaker 7: So I can't imagine it's ever really, it like, it
Speaker 7: never has ended well when somebody says that to an
Speaker 7: occult leader says that to their constituents, it never goes well.
Speaker 7: And you know, acts of violence against oneself like self
Speaker 7: emolation or other things murder have not been you know,
Speaker 7: out of the realm of things that people in the
Speaker 7: Unification of Church have done in the past. So it
Speaker 7: does kind of worry me. And she's actually hot. Jahan
Speaker 7: is actually going to be meeting I believe it's the
Speaker 7: weekend of the seventh UH in Vegas with the Youth
Speaker 7: of America. So I wonder if she's going to be
Speaker 7: saying similar things at that event.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that wouldn't surprise me, it would.
Speaker 7: Seem I have a feeling it seems to be since
Speaker 7: she's been going around and meeting, because she's also met
Speaker 7: with the youth of Europe in the Middle East, that
Speaker 7: there's like a concerted effort here to sort of get
Speaker 7: youth engagement up, which leads me into a couple of
Speaker 7: other things here. I know that for a couple of
Speaker 7: years now, the Global Peace Foundation, which is under Preston Moon,
Speaker 7: has been involved with like different like music festivals and
Speaker 7: things with K pop artists and stuff. But recently there
Speaker 7: was actually an event this year is supposed to happen
Speaker 7: called twenty twenty three Korean Dream Festa for Korean United,
Speaker 7: and then the original poster it was said that it
Speaker 7: was Global Peace Foundation that was one of the groups
Speaker 7: that was leading this. A lot of fans have soaken up,
Speaker 7: and I know at least one of the groups has
Speaker 7: pulled out, so clearly at least within that within that
Speaker 7: prong of the U see that there's there's there's some
Speaker 7: very active like trying to outreach to the youth, which
Speaker 7: I think I think I would be able to say
Speaker 7: is pretty across the board at this point. I think
Speaker 7: they're all trying some new strategies because they see that
Speaker 7: people are leaving, and especially with the number of people
Speaker 7: that have been speaking up lately, they really want to
Speaker 7: keep those numbers.
Speaker 6: And engage new people as well. Part of this also.
Speaker 7: Makes me think that might be why Sean Moon is
Speaker 7: doing the sort of like Maga rapper thing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, yeah, you know, because he could he
Speaker 3: could just be like it's possible, but yeah.
Speaker 7: But it does strike me as something that's like, hmm,
Speaker 7: maybe this is a way to get kids into the movement,
Speaker 7: you know, Like I don't really know. Part of me
Speaker 7: is also wondered why if if that is part of
Speaker 7: why Caleb Moppin has showed up at Mooney things now.
Speaker 10: Like yeah, just yeah, uh that guy, that guy, But like, yeah,
Speaker 10: it just makes me wonder about like different onboarding ramps
Speaker 10: that might be being tapped because there's potentially, you know,
Speaker 10: like a little bit of a lull here and there's.
Speaker 6: Going to be a financial dip in this specific chain.
Speaker 6: I don't really know. I can't claim to I have suspicions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it makes I think as
Speaker 3: a theory, it makes sense, like you, I mean, the
Speaker 3: ufcation churches, the Unification Church has always tried to sort
Speaker 3: of stick itself into like different cultural trends, and I think, right,
Speaker 3: I like for what I voted stood like, I don't
Speaker 3: I don't think the last time they really tried the
Speaker 3: U strategy worked very well, like in the late twenty
Speaker 3: early twenty tens.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, no, it didn't. It didn't work particularly well.
Speaker 7: I wonder, however, you know, times are changing. If they
Speaker 7: happen to get one or two good strategists on board,
Speaker 7: that could change everything, honestly, But I also don't necessarily
Speaker 7: know that this is going to go well for them,
Speaker 7: seeing is that they're deeply uncool. It's a real big issue,
Speaker 7: like that's the main issue for like trying to get
Speaker 7: youth engagement up. I feel like, you know, I don't know, Uh,
Speaker 7: there's only so cool you can make it sound, which
Speaker 7: is nothing like no.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean it is interesting that they're kind
Speaker 3: of like the mop in things specifically is really interesting
Speaker 3: because it's it's it seems like, I don't know, it
Speaker 3: seems like they're trying to tap into this like just
Speaker 3: like whatever weird currents of like new right like stuff
Speaker 3: they can get their hands on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it seems like that honestly to me too. And
Speaker 7: it's also specifically ironic considering that Caleb used to hit
Speaker 7: me up for information on the Moonies a lot before I.
Speaker 6: Figured that was right. He was a creep.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, and uh before I figured out he was
Speaker 7: a creep and like not somebody I wanted to be
Speaker 7: talking to.
Speaker 6: So he knows all this shit about them and.
Speaker 7: Continues and like willfully yeah, is engaging with them, which
Speaker 7: to me is just like mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like if you if you're if you're gonna
Speaker 3: sell out, like at least at least sell out into
Speaker 3: a podcast, don't sell out to a fucking cult like
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 6: Come on, it's just ridiculous stuff.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really terrible.
Speaker 6: I don't know, like, yeah, it's the mashup we didn't need.
Speaker 3: And this I think this has been eased to something
Speaker 3: else I wanted to ask about. So other than the
Speaker 3: sort of like youth strategy stuff, has there been a
Speaker 3: reaction from like the Rod of Iron ministry or like
Speaker 3: the other sort of like uh, splinter fractions of the
Speaker 3: church to the to the stuff that's been happening in
Speaker 3: Japan like have and also ask the everything like as best,
Speaker 3: like everything that I've seen seems suggest that the if
Speaker 3: they were gonna like if they were gonna disband the church,
Speaker 3: it would only be the main branch. Has there been like,
Speaker 3: has the statement going after the other branches too, or.
Speaker 7: So in that respect, I am actually still kind of
Speaker 7: unclear and have some research questions I need to on
Speaker 7: that matter. As far as I've been aware, the other
Speaker 7: branches have been reasonably quiet about it. It doesn't mean
Speaker 7: that they're not internally doing things. I know that they
Speaker 7: both have large populations in Japan as well of membership,
Speaker 7: so it would make sense that they would be trying
Speaker 7: to figure something out.
Speaker 6: However, I don't actually know if.
Speaker 7: Legally they are going to be gone after the same
Speaker 7: way as the mainline church, and that's something I just
Speaker 7: need to clear up myself. But honestly, they haven't been
Speaker 7: speaking as much about it as I thought they might.
Speaker 6: That doesn't mean that they're not. It also just might
Speaker 6: mean that they're not publishing it, you know.
Speaker 7: But part of me also wants to know if the
Speaker 7: reason that you know, hak Jahan is coming to America
Speaker 7: that certain weekend is because that's exact same weekend that
Speaker 7: the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival is happening, and she
Speaker 7: just doesn't want to get beheaded by her sons who
Speaker 7: want to behead her. So yeah, because it's like, ah,
Speaker 7: she knows they're they're doing that weekend. I mean, I
Speaker 7: don't know, like that's it's just maybe silly speculation. But
Speaker 7: at the same time, they have literally said that they
Speaker 7: want to behead her.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I wouldn't be.
Speaker 6: From them if I were her.
Speaker 3: Yeah that that that that that entire fight is really
Speaker 3: a like like no matter it's either a like the
Speaker 3: eat pop or let them fight or the no matter
Speaker 3: who wins, we lose kind of thing.
Speaker 6: Right, It's just quite a mess.
Speaker 7: Like I can say that I have a lot of
Speaker 7: family drama, but nothing compared to this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just wild. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So there was a show that was originally going to
Speaker 7: be called The Devil's Whispers that was to be aired
Speaker 7: in Japan, but of course the UC complained a little bit,
Speaker 7: and they said that the program included a dramatization.
Speaker 6: They said that basically, they.
Speaker 7: They claimed that this dramatized program which was showing past
Speaker 7: tense of the group to recruit believers, including uh hiding
Speaker 7: the group's name in door to door sales taxics designs
Speaker 7: disguised as charitable. First of all, in HK, the channel
Speaker 7: that was going to air it, first of all, change
Speaker 7: the name to Dangerous Whispers, instead of the Devil's Whispers,
Speaker 7: But the church also tried to tried to make them
Speaker 7: cancel like the show from happening and airing. As far
Speaker 7: as I'm aware, I think it actually did air a
Speaker 7: couple of nights ago though.
Speaker 3: Glad gle g glad they got it through. But like
Speaker 3: the fact, yeah the name changed, like really.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm like, still, it's pretty ridiculous, Like maybe they
Speaker 7: changed it, but I think what they had said it
Speaker 7: was like sometimes in post production will change the name
Speaker 7: for whatever reason or something like that. But it's like,
Speaker 7: are you sure it's not because the church complained.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, so I don't really know. Well I guess,
Speaker 3: I guess. I guess no. One more thing I wanted
Speaker 3: to talk a bit about, which is that, And this
Speaker 3: is something we've been seeing already, is people talking about like, oh,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't spand the church on religious freedom grounds. And
Speaker 3: that's something that the U see has been really really
Speaker 3: successful at sort of hiding behind you when anyone tries
Speaker 3: to go after them, like they did this in the
Speaker 3: seventies and eighties, when there were campaigns to like prosecute
Speaker 3: them for just the crimes they were doing. Was that
Speaker 3: a bunch of sort of like like not just not
Speaker 3: just right wing groups, but sort of like like like
Speaker 3: civil libertarian groups, like like we're like, oh, you can't
Speaker 3: do this because if you if if they go after
Speaker 3: the UFI Gacia Church, they're going to be able to
Speaker 3: go after like any religious groups. And that's just like
Speaker 3: not true, Like it's just not true. These people are
Speaker 3: not like whatever you're you know, in terms of sort
Speaker 3: of whatever, like the crimes of like a normal religious
Speaker 3: group group are like the church is not a normal
Speaker 3: religious group. They have been funding desk squads for like
Speaker 3: longer than most of the people listening to the show
Speaker 3: have been alive. And yeah, I don't know. I just
Speaker 3: want to sort of like like just make people aware
Speaker 3: of it. They're going to try this shit again. And
Speaker 3: it was it was bullshit less and he did it.
Speaker 6: It's bullshit now, yeah, one hundred percent. And that's that's
Speaker 6: the thing that keeps annoying me. Well, it's not nothing.
Speaker 7: There are many things about this that annoy me and
Speaker 7: make me very enraged, But one of them is that
Speaker 7: the playbook doesn't change. Yeah, no, it's very very straightforward.
Speaker 7: This is how it's going to work. I'm kind of
Speaker 7: wondering also if the cult is going to sort of
Speaker 7: like roll out new providential edicts that will like potentially
Speaker 7: be like, oh no, this is going to be our
Speaker 7: new country that we get the most money out of,
Speaker 7: or this maybe or something like, you know, just something
Speaker 7: that they're going to say that God has made it
Speaker 7: this way so that like, yeah, you can change those.
Speaker 6: Money money funneling tunnels.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. The only prediction that I can
Speaker 3: make and I'm absolutely sure of is that it's going
Speaker 3: to be wild and it's going to suck.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm looking forward to how this is going to
Speaker 7: play out, honestly, especially given all of the like Kamakazi
Speaker 7: squad comments and stuff, makes me ill, It makes it
Speaker 7: makes me scared, It makes me not feel confident about
Speaker 7: the way that this is going to turn out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm kind of of two minds of this because
Speaker 3: like I'm hoping this will go well and this will
Speaker 3: actually work and that like even if the church tries
Speaker 3: to lash out, it's like doesn't work very well. I
Speaker 3: do think also the way that this assassination has like
Speaker 3: been turning just random like regular people in Japan who
Speaker 3: don't really know anything about the Church against them has
Speaker 3: been really really interesting and powerful in a way that
Speaker 3: was I mean not the I don't know, so there's
Speaker 3: I've been saying is like the top of the show
Speaker 3: kind of as a joke, but like, this really has
Speaker 3: been a very successful like political assassination in that it
Speaker 3: hasn't like, it hasn't back it hasn't yet backfired in
Speaker 3: a way that helps the church, and it seems to
Speaker 3: have really don't know, it seems it seemed to have
Speaker 3: very powerfully achieved this objective of getting people to go, wait,
Speaker 3: hold on, who is this cult that is like not
Speaker 3: I don't know, running is maybe too strong of a word,
Speaker 3: but has like completely embedded itself in the in Japan's
Speaker 3: ruling class.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, yeah, people are asking questions.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, which which I think is good. And I
Speaker 3: don't know, I hope the other thing I'm hoping is
Speaker 3: that this like people start doing this in like the
Speaker 3: US and in Korea and in like all of the
Speaker 3: other places that they've been doing shit like this, because
Speaker 3: this isn't just.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because that's been global and there have been so
Speaker 7: many people that have been victims of this group that
Speaker 7: I know a lot of us in America have also
Speaker 7: started speaking out about it, and the media here has
Speaker 7: not been quite as interested in picking up, uh, what
Speaker 7: we have to say. To a degree, they have been,
Speaker 7: but it's usually you know, sensationalized.
Speaker 6: And made a little weird and just yeah, yeah the point,
Speaker 6: oh sorry, yeah, go on, yeah, like there's.
Speaker 3: A there's a really this is something like I've read
Speaker 3: a lot of sort of American coverage of this alongside
Speaker 3: the Japanese coverage, and I mean, like I expect this
Speaker 3: of the Japanese. Wow, Okay, I guess I expect this
Speaker 3: of both, like parts of the coverage, but there is
Speaker 3: there has been very very little, if any willingness to
Speaker 3: like talk about the church's connection to the CIA, and
Speaker 3: they're you know, people will talk about them like as
Speaker 3: an anti communist group, but right like yeah, like the
Speaker 3: don't take that extra step, yeah yeah, like you have
Speaker 3: like it's they're not just in it. Like there there
Speaker 3: there are lots of anti communist groups. I mean, there
Speaker 3: are no anti communist groups that are good, right, but
Speaker 3: like there are lots of anti communist groups that never
Speaker 3: funded death squads in like not what was what was
Speaker 3: the actual number like sixteen I had I had I
Speaker 3: had a count at one point of the number of
Speaker 3: countries they funded desk squads in. But like like most
Speaker 3: most most most people haven't like like funded coups in
Speaker 3: Bolivia and like you know, kept like allowed to ran
Speaker 3: Contra to happen by keeping the Contras in the war,
Speaker 3: or like sent weapons of the mousia Hadeen like yo,
Speaker 3: like they they really they they really they've I don't know,
Speaker 3: like I I mean, I like I guess, like you know,
Speaker 3: in terms of the sort of like this is the
Speaker 3: bourgeois press stuff it like it like it makes sense
Speaker 3: ideologically why people don't want to talk about their connections
Speaker 3: to the CIA and like the operations they pulled in
Speaker 3: the US and all of the just imperials that they've
Speaker 3: been doing. But it's it's really depressing because yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 7: It feels demoralizing sometimes because people only want to tell
Speaker 7: part of the story when it's like not too crazy
Speaker 7: and out there sounding for them. It's like, no, I
Speaker 7: tell you what, the actual story behind this group is
Speaker 7: crazier and more out there than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's that's
Speaker 3: been an important I mean that's I think why the
Speaker 3: work you're doing is really important because thank you, like
Speaker 3: you have to actually make like you're you're one of
Speaker 3: the few people like actually making these connections. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I really I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 7: I appreciate that you appreciate it because it's sometimes it's it's.
Speaker 6: Weird work to do, Like I just read a lot
Speaker 6: about horrible things, and.
Speaker 7: You know, I mean, like I was saying that I
Speaker 7: can take a toll on you to a degree, and
Speaker 7: sometimes I'll have to take breaks from it, but at
Speaker 7: the end of the day, I'm always going to go
Speaker 7: back to it because, like I think it's worth doing,
Speaker 7: because the stuff needs to be talked about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I guess do you have anything else that
Speaker 3: you wanted to say.
Speaker 7: Before I'll just plug deprogramming, imperialism, those two words. I
Speaker 7: think there's an underscore on our Instagram. Let me just
Speaker 7: double check. If there's an underscore, we will.
Speaker 3: Put links to this in the description.
Speaker 6: Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 3: And yeah, fuck these.
Speaker 7: People, yeah for real, they've done some really bad stuff.
Speaker 3: So hopefully, hopefully this is finally after like so many
Speaker 3: generations of terrible crimes they've been doing that. This is
Speaker 3: finally the one that's going to fucking crush them.
Speaker 7: We can hope, you know, yeah, you can very much
Speaker 7: hope though. And the more people are talking about it
Speaker 7: the better. The more people understand, like the history behind
Speaker 7: the movement, the better.
Speaker 6: So thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, this has been it can happen here.
Speaker 3: You can find us assuming Twitter still exists, when this
Speaker 3: goes up on Twitter, Instagram, haf in here pod. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can find sources of goals on media. Yeah, go
Speaker 3: go into the world, destroy imperialism and crush the remains
Speaker 3: of these dog shit ass cults.
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, I am also going cool.
Speaker 1: Let's go, let's suck it up.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Maybe that should be our intro. Keep it Yeah,
Speaker 5: you leave it all in Daniel. This is how.
Speaker 1: Fucking up my cool zone media.
Speaker 5: That's a great question, Robert, It's one we don't like
Speaker 5: to answer. The answer is yeah, Reaganagan coins. Yeah, we've
Speaker 5: got into it.
Speaker 1: Oh that's what's funding James. It's a common mistake mixing
Speaker 1: those two words up.
Speaker 5: Okay, I see yeah, yeah, I thought it was because
Speaker 5: we got to a dispute about who is going to
Speaker 5: get the next gold coin that they send us, No,
Speaker 5: every every month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh, that's that's what funds are. Incredible work,
Speaker 1: your incredible work mostly over at the border.
Speaker 12: That's right.
Speaker 5: Yep. Before enough, very good, thank you, magic man.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right before and after I go, I dive like Scrooge
Speaker 5: mc duck into my giant pile of gold coins. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and it helps me recover. But yeah, talking of the border,
Speaker 5: I am not the only one with a giant pile
Speaker 5: of gold coins who has been going to the border
Speaker 5: because friend of the show Elon Musk, has also been taking.
Speaker 1: Well you got to bring him into this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, certainly, Rubbert, he brought himself into this.
Speaker 1: Why he got to bring himself out?
Speaker 5: Yeah, really, this wasn't my believe me, buddy. I would
Speaker 5: like nothing more than to never hear his name again,
Speaker 5: but unfortunately addressed.
Speaker 1: I would like to hear it again, but specifically I
Speaker 1: would like to hear the sentence from a news anchor
Speaker 1: Elon Musk eaten by a crocodile. Yes, I was just
Speaker 1: thinking crocodile in a failed motorcycle stunt in the Florida Keys.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd settle with like hippopotamus, crocodile.
Speaker 1: Any semi aquatic animal eating him would be pretty amusing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if a managi ate him, I'd be fucking pumped.
Speaker 5: We'd love to see it. Yeah, if any one carnivor
Speaker 5: amanity yeah yeah, yeah, it's been training its whole life
Speaker 5: for this. Yeah, that'll be in our next merch drop. Okay,
Speaker 5: so yeah, Elmo in some kind of I don't know,
Speaker 5: like punished woody cosplay.
Speaker 13: It was the very costumish, it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. We have a saying in Texas for
Speaker 1: people who wear cowboy hats and cowboy boots when they shouldn't,
Speaker 1: and it's all had no cattle, and that is he
Speaker 1: is the definition of that.
Speaker 13: Classes I think really punched it up, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he just looked like a balland like I can't
Speaker 5: it's really remarkable that he can be that wealthy and
Speaker 5: always looks so awkward and like you could just pay
Speaker 5: someone to buy you clothes, bro, and like, at least
Speaker 5: Jeff Bezos got your when he got really rich. Elon
Speaker 5: must still looks like Humpty dumpty, not to like does
Speaker 5: look Besis looks weirdest freaking like a plastic They.
Speaker 1: All look weird, and I don't care about the fact
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk is. You know, he's not jagged or swollen,
Speaker 1: but he's not a wildly abnormal body shape for a man.
Speaker 1: And what is fucking fifty's like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he's older than I imagine.
Speaker 1: I'm shit on him for playing at something he clearly
Speaker 1: is not, because no man has ever been further from
Speaker 1: being a cowboy.
Speaker 5: Yes, that is true, he has very few cattle. Yeah,
Speaker 5: there's no shame in anyone's body shape. It's just funny
Speaker 5: to mock Elon Musk, I guess.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Elon turned up at the border and he decided
Speaker 5: that he was going to learn about the border, and
Speaker 5: the way that he decided he was going to learn
Speaker 5: about the border was by assembling a collection of cops
Speaker 5: and one representative to lie to him about the border,
Speaker 5: which many of you who follow things like Journalist and
Speaker 5: will be aware that cops lie actually quite a lot,
Speaker 5: and that is what happened here unsurprisingly. So I guess
Speaker 5: I just want to take this chance to a update
Speaker 5: everyone on what's been happening since we last upbated everyone
Speaker 5: what's been happening at the border, and be just address
Speaker 5: some of these myths.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: Something we talked about over the break was like lots
Speaker 5: of people between now and the end of the year
Speaker 5: will be seeing family members who they might not see
Speaker 5: very often, and they might not see them too now
Speaker 5: in the next election. And there are a lot of
Speaker 5: myths specifically about migration that we will maybe copy in
Speaker 5: another episode. But I think there's some valuable stuff here
Speaker 5: that people can address. If people in your circle have
Speaker 5: been influenced by Elon Musk citizen journalism, then I think
Speaker 5: it's really important to just point out that it's all
Speaker 5: bullshit then so easily discoverably bullshit. Now, obviously not everyone
Speaker 5: spends as much time at the southern border of the
Speaker 5: United States as I do, and not everyone lives on
Speaker 5: the border. Must doesn't live on the border either, and
Speaker 5: he clearly thinks that people who do exist in some
Speaker 5: kind of world West fantasia where people you know, wear
Speaker 5: cowboy hats and cowboy boots. But like for most of us,
Speaker 5: for many of us, it's is our day to day reality,
Speaker 5: and so it's easy to go, I guess, and talk
Speaker 5: to some cops and like wave at some people who
Speaker 5: have been corralled up like like they like cattle or
Speaker 5: some kind of animals, right, yeah, right, like not engaging
Speaker 5: with them as people and throughout this right like, at
Speaker 5: no point in his little border screed, which I don't
Speaker 5: think you have to watch, by the way, if you
Speaker 5: haven't watched it, like I'm very now.
Speaker 1: You're not you're not going to like benefit from it.
Speaker 5: No, you won't learn shit.
Speaker 13: But there is there is a clip I found that's
Speaker 13: like a minute long on YouTube from the live stream
Speaker 13: where the like maybe like most ninety percent of it
Speaker 13: is him trying to flip the camera to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was that was very funny. Yeah that yes,
Speaker 5: real iron man vibes from the guy who can't reverse
Speaker 5: his camera and then he ends up just holding it
Speaker 5: the way around in yeah this intellectual yeah no titan
Speaker 5: Elil musk So. I think the first part is that
Speaker 5: when he starts to well, first he says as an
Speaker 5: immigrant myself, which is like, yeah, brock, I'm an immigrant
Speaker 5: to the differences. I didn't have to walk across the
Speaker 5: desert carrying my child and then be detained in open
Speaker 5: air concentration camp while people around me got fucking hypothermia
Speaker 5: and then questioned about the legitimacy of my travel and
Speaker 5: right to be here, and then I'm able to work
Speaker 5: for years. Migration experiences are different, different, and you don't
Speaker 5: have a right to condescend to people who are often
Speaker 5: among some of the least fortunate people in the world,
Speaker 5: just because your mum was a Canadian citizen and you
Speaker 5: came here to go to school, Like, it's not the
Speaker 5: fucking same. And I say this as someone who came
Speaker 5: here to go to school, right, Like, it's.
Speaker 1: The same as if like I were to take a
Speaker 1: fucking flight from North Africa to Spain and be like, well,
Speaker 1: having migrated to Spain from America, Like, it's really not
Speaker 1: a dangerous journey. Yeah, it's a completely different situation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, yeah, And you compare yourself to Amelia Heart
Speaker 5: and the same, it's no different. So, yeah, like Elon
Speaker 5: Musk came to this country in a very different circumstance
Speaker 5: to many of these people. The first claim that's made
Speaker 5: in this video, which is which is bullshit. It's this
Speaker 5: quote unquote open border policy. Now, at no point do
Speaker 5: any of these like old men in hats define what
Speaker 5: they mean by open border policy. And that's because it
Speaker 5: doesn't exist. It's not a thing. There is no open
Speaker 5: border policy. There has never been an open border policy Biden's.
Speaker 5: So I was in Tijuana at the Pedwest people know where.
Speaker 5: That is so at that point in time that on
Speaker 5: the day Biden was inaugurated, I was there, right. I
Speaker 5: was there because a large group of migrants were waiting
Speaker 5: to see if Joe Biden would change anything, and they
Speaker 5: had been stuck in Tijuana for month years in some cases.
Speaker 5: I spoke to people who had been sexually assaulted. I
Speaker 5: spoke to people who had been robbed. I spoke to
Speaker 5: people who lived in fear for their lives right, and
Speaker 5: they were not safe in Mexico and wanted to come
Speaker 5: to the United States. And they had seen the way
Speaker 5: Biden campaigned, and they hoped that he would do something better.
Speaker 5: Did he fuck know? He did not. For years, he
Speaker 5: continued the same policies that Trump put in place in
Speaker 5: COVID Biden Title forty two more people than Trump did. Right,
Speaker 5: The Title forty two policy was in place for much
Speaker 5: longer under Biden than it was under Trump. It's completely
Speaker 5: untrue to suggest that Biden not, at any point in
Speaker 5: his presidency opened up the border. What did happen in May.
Speaker 5: As people will be aware, is that Title forty two ended.
Speaker 5: It didn't end because Biden decided it had to end.
Speaker 5: It ended because the emergency for COVID nineteen ended. And
Speaker 5: Title forty two is not immigration law, its public health law.
Speaker 5: And so with the end of this policy, that allowed
Speaker 5: the government to do things that would not normally be
Speaker 5: able to do because it was a quote unquote emergency,
Speaker 5: they were not able to do this extraordinary and extraordinarily
Speaker 5: cruel thing, which which was Title forty two. Right, That
Speaker 5: wasn't a Biden choice, that that was an end, that
Speaker 5: was a decision forced upon him. Indeed, the Biden administration
Speaker 5: defended Title forty two in court. What has happened since
Speaker 5: then is that migrant numbers have dropped. They have decreased
Speaker 5: since the end of Title forty two. That's because lots
Speaker 5: of people saw the harsh anti migration rhetoric that was
Speaker 5: coming from the Biden White House, right, Mayorcus out there
Speaker 5: spouting stuff about bands you'll be banned from seeking asylum
Speaker 5: for five years if your court crossing between ports of entry,
Speaker 5: and that led to people thinking they had to cross
Speaker 5: before the end of Title forty two. Right now, what
Speaker 5: Title forty two did do is create a massive backlog
Speaker 5: of asylum applications because we weren't processing those applications and
Speaker 5: we were bouncing people back to Mexico, where as I've
Speaker 5: hopefully already illustrated, they were not safe. They didn't feel
Speaker 5: that that was a safe third country for them, and
Speaker 5: so in the months after Title forty two, those people
Speaker 5: have tried to cross and to make their asylum applications right.
Speaker 5: They're supposed to use app called CBP one. As we've
Speaker 5: documented in very great detail, that app is completely unfit
Speaker 5: for purpose. And people can listen to my title forty
Speaker 5: two episodes, they can listen to the interview when it
Speaker 5: did with Jake and Austin about CBP one. The issues
Speaker 5: with it are many. The facial liveness scan that it
Speaker 5: does doesn't work for people who have darker skin, It
Speaker 5: requires Wi Fi, it requires Internet connectivity. These are things
Speaker 5: that no long migrants have, and that the migrants who
Speaker 5: do have tend to be richer and tend to be whiter,
Speaker 5: so it facilitates a certain type of migrant. At one
Speaker 5: point in I believe April of this year, forty percent
Speaker 5: of the CBP one applications that were CBP one appointments
Speaker 5: that were made for Sylum applications were made for people
Speaker 5: who spoke Russian. If we spoke Russian on not forty
Speaker 5: percent of the migrants that was in Tijuana. And I guess
Speaker 5: what that means is that people who you know, especially
Speaker 5: in my experience, people from African countries are unable to
Speaker 5: apply for appointments using CBP one. Also, it's only available
Speaker 5: in a couple of languages, or three languages I believe, English, Spanish,
Speaker 5: and Haitian Creole. If you don't speak those languages is
Speaker 5: going to be a lot harder. There are many other
Speaker 5: issues with CBP one and other apps that DHS uses.
Speaker 5: But what has happened since the end of title forty
Speaker 5: two in May right is people have tried. This backlog
Speaker 5: has begun to sort of people have started to try
Speaker 5: and present their applications. And what's happening now is that
Speaker 5: people are crossing in very large numbers. That's not untrue
Speaker 5: that happens at this time of year. So the last
Speaker 5: kind of quote unquote normal years we had were I
Speaker 5: suppose twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. If people cast their
Speaker 5: minds back to the November of twenty eighteen. You remember
Speaker 5: that was the Trump midterms, and you remember the quote
Speaker 5: unquote migrant caravan that are Identijuana at that time with
Speaker 5: thousands of people. The reason that people are always traveling
Speaker 5: at this time of year is because it is easier
Speaker 5: to travel in the months and I was hot, right,
Speaker 5: So we will see more people arriving the next few months.
Speaker 5: That's part of seasonal migrationments because of demand for work.
Speaker 5: If you're working harvesting things right as a day laborer,
Speaker 5: that happens at the end of the summer. This is
Speaker 5: part of a normal and natural cycle. People have always
Speaker 5: traveled since human beings have existed to take advantage of
Speaker 5: different conditions, different access to resources. But the idea that
Speaker 5: at some point Biden instituted an open border policy is nonsense.
Speaker 5: Biden has closed that border, right, He's built walls through
Speaker 5: Friendship Park, He's built walls in Texas, he's built walls
Speaker 5: in California, He's funded DHS more. That border is certainly
Speaker 5: not open. The large groups of people that you are
Speaker 5: seeing going through the asylum process under US immigration law,
Speaker 5: as they have under every other president. They come into
Speaker 5: the United States, they do an initial interview and they're
Speaker 5: released with a notice to appear in court. That's always
Speaker 5: been the case. Now are those notices to appear for
Speaker 5: dates at further in the future now, Absolutely, And that's
Speaker 5: because our system is backlogged. Right, because we spent all
Speaker 5: our fucking money on giving border patrol, the black Hawks,
Speaker 5: giving our cops tanks, whatever it is that we spend
Speaker 5: our money on, we haven't spent it on making it
Speaker 5: easier and quicker for these people to get their asylum
Speaker 5: claims adjudicated. One of the claims that they make in
Speaker 5: the video I'm skipping out of the order that they
Speaker 5: make them in is that the repute he speaking to
Speaker 5: representative who's a representative for the Southern border region of Texas.
Speaker 5: He's in Eagle Past, Texas, right, which is an area
Speaker 5: which I've seen a lot of migration. The guy says
Speaker 5: there's no repatriation here. Of course, there isn't any repatriation there.
Speaker 5: That's not what happens in Eagle Pass right. People come,
Speaker 5: some of them will be immediately repatriated if they are
Speaker 5: found to be For instance, know that in May somebody
Speaker 5: who was found to be on the United States terrorism
Speaker 5: watch list tried to enter the country. That that person
Speaker 5: wasn't released with a notice to appear right, that person
Speaker 5: was immediately bounced into either return to their country or
Speaker 5: more likely in their case, incarcerated. Some people will be
Speaker 5: detained there. Some people will be repatriated there, but that's
Speaker 5: because like Del Rio, Texas or Eagle Pass doesn't repatriate people.
Speaker 5: That's not their role. The courts are the ones who
Speaker 5: decide who is eligible for asylent right. And it's worth
Speaker 5: noting that this fiscal year, so that's through August of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three, recording in October, but I couldn't find
Speaker 5: September stats. Immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure
Speaker 5: orders for thirty nine point four percent of completed cases,
Speaker 5: totaling two hundred and twenty three thousand, five hundred and
Speaker 5: seventy deportation orders. So it's absolutely ludicrous to say that
Speaker 5: there's no repatriation. Nearly half of those cases when they
Speaker 5: come to court result in repatriation. It's and then the
Speaker 5: representative claims that he called the president of Guatemalan the
Speaker 5: Guatemalan president said will take people back. Great, of course
Speaker 5: they will. That that's how international law works. It's not
Speaker 5: the Guatemalan president's job to decide who is decide who
Speaker 5: is allowed asylum in the United States. That's the job
Speaker 5: of the immigration courts. They are deeply flawed. But it's
Speaker 5: ludicrous to suggests that these people are not being sent back,
Speaker 5: because a deeply problematic number of them are being sent back,
Speaker 5: often to very dangerous situations. And I think it's it's
Speaker 5: deeply misleading and it's troubling to see like elected officials
Speaker 5: making these claims. I know that elected officials just lie to,
Speaker 5: you know, to to reinforce the narrative, but it's still troubling.
Speaker 5: Another claim they were like he was really shocked that
Speaker 5: people were playing golf next to the border. The US
Speaker 5: border is thousands of miles long, like we live, like
Speaker 5: for those of us, for whom it's not like an
Speaker 5: oddity to come and cause play at it's where we live.
Speaker 5: And of course we do stuff near the border because
Speaker 5: it's our home. Like I was camping near the border
Speaker 5: this week. I ride my bike near the border all
Speaker 5: the time. There are other golf courses near the border,
Speaker 5: there are parks near the border, and there's a Tommy
Speaker 5: Hill figure discount store near the border in Santa Sedro, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's our home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's This is something that when we were
Speaker 1: at the Butterfly Sanctuary, a friend of ours who had
Speaker 1: kind of lived on the border for forever, Marianna, brought
Speaker 1: up a lot, which is that like prior to the
Speaker 1: you know, September eleventh in particular, these were just like communities,
Speaker 1: Like the fact that there was a border was more
Speaker 1: theoretical than anything else. You would cross pretty free. I
Speaker 1: have friends in southern California that go into Mexico for
Speaker 1: the week and you didn't have a pass border or anything.
Speaker 1: Like families you know, would cross to be with each
Speaker 1: other and stuff like. It was, yeah, the way it is.
Speaker 5: Even post nine eleven. Like for those of us who
Speaker 5: are fortunate enough to have Century, which is an expert,
Speaker 5: you can skip the line basically because you've been pre cleared.
Speaker 5: I go to Tijuana to have dinner pretty often, Like
Speaker 5: I'll take the trolley down there and then walk through
Speaker 5: with my bicycle and then ride my bike to the
Speaker 5: gastropark or something, have dinner, have a couple of beers,
Speaker 5: rid my back back, take the trolley back. It's nice evening.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, I don't know how cold it is now,
Speaker 13: but like a lot of like people that work like
Speaker 13: nine to five retail jobs or whatever it is, they
Speaker 13: would just like leave tou Wana and come back, like dad,
Speaker 13: My dad had hired a bunch of those workers. Yeah,
Speaker 13: and it was just like normal, was very normal to
Speaker 13: do that.
Speaker 5: More so now because San Diego is less affordable than
Speaker 5: it as it has been.
Speaker 13: Like, Yeah, I think the people that don't live near
Speaker 13: a border or like believe the Rickulus claims me about it.
Speaker 13: I think they imagine the border is like in this
Speaker 13: barren wasteland and it's just like a chain link fence
Speaker 13: or something. I don't think they understand what it actually is.
Speaker 1: They imagine like this desolate, yellow filtered scene from Breaking Bad. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: like movies like fucking Sakaria right where it's this this
Speaker 1: constant series of gunfights and like like violence occurs on
Speaker 1: the border. It's the same thing. It's actually a version
Speaker 1: of the same shit that's happened with like San Francisco
Speaker 1: and Portland.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have like a riot on a block, or
Speaker 1: you'll have like a store get robbed, and then people
Speaker 1: develop this because it gets so hyped by the media
Speaker 1: there's you can't go into these cities. They're death zones.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It was like no man, like a fucking most most
Speaker 1: of its nature, right, like that's the fucking border.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just a place like it's it's not in
Speaker 5: any way remarkable like that.
Speaker 1: And the primary danger is the fact that people are
Speaker 1: stopped from having access to like things like water that
Speaker 1: they need, yeah, by the state.
Speaker 5: So maybe it's a good time to talk about some
Speaker 5: of the dangers that migrants are facing right now. In
Speaker 5: the last couple of weeks, it's maybe since we last recorded,
Speaker 5: I believe five migrants have been shot on the southern
Speaker 5: side of the border. People. So like this week in
Speaker 5: southern California, it's much colder. I know it's hot in
Speaker 5: lots of parts of the country. It wasn't here. We
Speaker 5: had rain. We're recording on like the first second of October.
Speaker 5: But last weekend was very cold. I was in a
Speaker 5: camp near Hakumba on Friday night through late Friday night
Speaker 5: maybe into Saturday morning, and.
Speaker 3: It was cold. It was wet.
Speaker 5: Temperatures were getting like into the single digits celsius, into
Speaker 5: the forties and fifties fahrenheit when it's wet, and it's
Speaker 5: that kind of temperature that's when you start worrying about
Speaker 5: people getting hypothermia, which is exactly what happened right. People
Speaker 5: were sick, people had to be evacuated. On Friday night,
Speaker 5: I was heating up milk for a baby, like a
Speaker 5: tiny little baby in my camping stove, so that the
Speaker 5: baby could have milk like not freezing temperatures. Right, it
Speaker 5: gave someone my gortex jacket. I was there with James
Speaker 5: and Jacqueline from Boarder Kindness and some other friends. I
Speaker 5: know some of them listen to the podcast, and it
Speaker 5: makes me really happy that people who listen to this
Speaker 5: like take the time out of their busy lives to
Speaker 5: show up and help other people. Like that's one of
Speaker 5: the coolest things that about what we do.
Speaker 1: We're very proud of those people and everyone else, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pick up the slack, come on guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I know on that topic, like, there are
Speaker 5: a relatively few of us. It's a very remote area
Speaker 5: where we were. You know, you need a truck to
Speaker 5: get to it. Maybe a decent clearance car would be fine,
Speaker 5: but there were like six of us at one point.
Speaker 5: It is not easy to do that. Day in and
Speaker 5: day out. It really affects you to see someone's little
Speaker 5: baby sleeping in the dirt and they're asking you, like,
Speaker 5: you know, can I have a jacket and you've already
Speaker 5: given someone your jacket? Can I have a sleeping bag
Speaker 5: and you've given away all the sleeping bags you have? Like,
Speaker 5: it's fucked. It's not good for you. And I know
Speaker 5: it's taken a toll on those people, and it would
Speaker 5: be great if more people could come. As James Jaqueline said,
Speaker 5: we're vetting everyone because there are people who would like
Speaker 5: to do harm to migrants and people who don't like migrants.
Speaker 5: And so if you go back and listen to the
Speaker 5: episode or the relevant links and email addresses to volunteer there,
Speaker 5: even if you just send money, it's better to send
Speaker 5: money then to send us stuff. We've had a ton
Speaker 5: of I spent a decent chunk of Friday afternoon going
Speaker 5: through donated stuff. Some of it's great, some of it
Speaker 5: I'm afraid. Like, if a jacket is has giant holes
Speaker 5: in it for you, it also has giant holes in
Speaker 5: it for someone who's less rich than you, and it
Speaker 5: doesn't keep them any warmer than it keeps you, so like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's better if people send money, but that's
Speaker 5: taken its toll on people. It's taking its toll on
Speaker 5: the people in the camps too, not to say that
Speaker 5: they're not in very good spirits. Like it's so I
Speaker 5: was there at about ten o'clock at night when people
Speaker 5: What happens, right is people walk around the gaps in
Speaker 5: the wall, which again didn't come up in Elon Musk's video.
Speaker 5: Right there are giant, yawning gaps in the wall because
Speaker 5: they were trying to build as much of it as
Speaker 5: possible before the twenty twenty election, and so they skipped
Speaker 5: the hard parts. So people walk through where the wall stops,
Speaker 5: they're met by border patrol. Border patrol then drives them.
Speaker 5: I don't mean drive somebody like put them in the
Speaker 5: back of the vehicle. I mean drive them like you
Speaker 5: would drive cattle, by going behind them in a vehicle
Speaker 5: and pushing them forward and walks them into the camp, right,
Speaker 5: and then they arrive in the camp, and it's it's
Speaker 5: they arrive and like I was going up to ascertained,
Speaker 5: you know what sort of group it was? Were they
Speaker 5: people who were in severe distress? Right, like hypothermic or
Speaker 5: hurt or injured. I know someone came later in a
Speaker 5: week who had a very bad injury, who had fallen
Speaker 5: maybe trying to climb the wall. And so you're going
Speaker 5: to kind of trite that group, right, And some people
Speaker 5: were really start they're in America, like, and then they
Speaker 5: wanted to give me like a hug or a fist
Speaker 5: bump and be like, yeah, I'm here. Obviously some of
Speaker 5: them weren't prepared. None of them were prepared for sleeping outside.
Speaker 5: And then generally, like there have been large kind of
Speaker 5: just shelters made out of cacti or brush or scrub
Speaker 5: or whatever's there, which tend to be based around like
Speaker 5: national groups, right, just people have their community so that
Speaker 5: it's one for Colombian people, Brazilian people, punt Jabi, Sikh people.
Speaker 5: There were Kurdish people, Turkish, a lot of Turkish people,
Speaker 5: Afghan people, and so they kind of because they can
Speaker 5: talk to each other, they'll be like, hey, come over here,
Speaker 5: Afghan friend, like you know, we'll look after you. We've
Speaker 5: got this shelter set out, we've got a fire going,
Speaker 5: get yourself warm. And then those people can spend anywhere
Speaker 5: from one to three days there before they're taken out right,
Speaker 5: and so like, it's an extremely bad situation and it
Speaker 5: will only get worse, So weather gets worse. Talking of
Speaker 5: things which which are bad, should should we should we
Speaker 5: take this opportunity to pivot to things that people don't
Speaker 5: need to buy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they definitely need to buy them, James, because pass anyway,
Speaker 1: here's ads.
Speaker 5: All right, we're back, hopeful you have repleted. You're a
Speaker 5: pile of goldgoyins. So I wanted to return to addressing
Speaker 5: some words of disinformation that Elon Muskot from Men and
Speaker 5: cowboy hats. One of the things they talked about a
Speaker 5: lot was that they talk about numbers, right, They're like, oh,
Speaker 5: there are two million, there are four million. At no
Speaker 5: point do they say what these numbers represent. Are these
Speaker 5: numbers net migration? Are they border crossings between ports of entry?
Speaker 5: Are they the number of asylum cases? Are they the
Speaker 5: number of encounters the border patrol has had? Because as
Speaker 5: we know, right, an encounter doesn't necessarily mean individual. If
Speaker 5: one person crosses two or three times, that's two or
Speaker 5: three encounters, right, And they never talk about that because
Speaker 5: they're just pulling this shit out their asses. If you
Speaker 5: want information, these people are not people to get it from.
Speaker 5: None of them are even working in border enforcement.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: These were sheriffs that he spoke to. They talk a
Speaker 5: lot about how there are quote unquote two million of them,
Speaker 5: but the real number is four or five million because
Speaker 5: of the quote unquote gotaways a people who have not
Speaker 5: been processed at all. Right, They have entered between ports
Speaker 5: of entry and then are undocumented. This is nonsense. People
Speaker 5: don't want to be undocumented. People are here because they
Speaker 5: believe they have a legitimate asylum claim. They are fleeing violence, right,
Speaker 5: they have one of the We've been over to five
Speaker 5: categories that you can get asylum for before on the podcast.
Speaker 5: I won't read them out again, but I have seen people.
Speaker 5: For instance, I saw one person who they were transported
Speaker 5: to the hospital. The hospital let them out on the
Speaker 5: street in San Diego. They took a cab back to
Speaker 5: the border because they don't want to just be floating
Speaker 5: around in the US with no papers and able to work,
Speaker 5: worried that like a parking ticket or a traffic stock
Speaker 5: could send them back to wherever they'd fled from. Right,
Speaker 5: Because they've fled because they're afraid of something, and they
Speaker 5: don't want to be sent back.
Speaker 13: I think something that really bothered me in the video
Speaker 13: was how much they emphasize that, Like, remember, most of
Speaker 13: these people that can be escaping prison, they're all in
Speaker 13: they used to be incarcerated. And I'm just like, what, Like,
Speaker 13: that's not it's just like this fear mongering tactic that's
Speaker 13: so silly and trying to make people all believe that
Speaker 13: there's everyone at the border are just like prison inmates essentially.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other side, all you often get is like, well,
Speaker 1: they're all young men heading over, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times of this like some of this is like racial panic,
Speaker 1: they're gonna you know, take our women or whatever. Some
Speaker 1: of this is like, you know, men are soldiers, you know,
Speaker 1: it's military. The reality is that, like, especially when you're
Speaker 1: talking about like the migrants who are crossing the fucking
Speaker 1: dairy and gap, this is an incredibly dangerous journey. Young
Speaker 1: men are generally a little more capable physically of it.
Speaker 1: And also it's you know, especially given some realities of
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, these cultures, that's who you
Speaker 1: expect to go and make money and send it back
Speaker 1: to their families like that that's just like it's they're
Speaker 1: not invading you. You know, this is like, these are
Speaker 1: the people who are going to work jobs and send
Speaker 1: money back to their families.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like we live in a society which is both patriarchial,
Speaker 5: patriarch and misogynist. Right, They're able to command a higher
Speaker 5: wage and they can use that to keep their families alive.
Speaker 5: I've spoken to lots of families for whom the young
Speaker 5: men left the country there in first earned money somewhere else,
Speaker 5: and then was able to raise enough money to get
Speaker 5: the rest of their family smuggled out or to facilitate
Speaker 5: their transport and then bring them to the US because
Speaker 5: they thought it wasn't safe for them there. Also, like,
Speaker 5: if you're a military aged male in some countries Russia
Speaker 5: or lots of countries in the sahell, now you could
Speaker 5: be forcibly drafted right into one of any number of
Speaker 5: conflicts that you want no part of. And I wouldn't
Speaker 5: want to do that either. I'd want to leave right
Speaker 5: And I've spoken to people who have fled that kind
Speaker 5: of situation this week. So Yeah, of the gender balance,
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's very hard to get a sense
Speaker 5: of the actual gender balance because border patrol tends to
Speaker 5: process women and children first, and especially unaccompany children of
Speaker 5: course first, but it's very hard to get into the
Speaker 5: actual gender balance without like looking at border patrol statistics,
Speaker 5: and they take a month or two to come out generally. Yeah,
Speaker 5: they talk about people with tear drop tattoos. I would
Speaker 5: estimate that I have seen tens, if not hundreds of
Speaker 5: thousands of people at the southern border. I've never seen
Speaker 5: anyone with the tear drop tattoo a leg. You'd have
Speaker 5: to be all to have.
Speaker 13: They described these like hordes of people trying to get
Speaker 13: into your home.
Speaker 5: Yes, I genuinely think that someone looked up I don't know,
Speaker 5: like Latino gangster on Google images, like right before, like
Speaker 5: racist Google images or whatever, like before they before they
Speaker 5: went down to the border. Like, I've never seen anyone
Speaker 5: with a tear drop tattoo. You'd have to be a
Speaker 5: bit of a lemon to like present yourself for asylum
Speaker 5: with obvious like stuff like that. They're asolutely going to
Speaker 5: ask you about your tattoos, or they'll ask you about everything.
Speaker 5: It's just laughable, it's ridiculous. It's all based in myth
Speaker 5: and not in reality. And what troubles me the most
Speaker 5: I think is I don't know how many people have
Speaker 5: watched Elon Musk's live stream, right, and hopefully most of
Speaker 5: them that did saw someone completely incapable of like asking
Speaker 5: interrogated questions, or reversing the camera on his phone, or
Speaker 5: look dressing like a cowboy. But there has been, to
Speaker 5: my knowledge, no national network coverage of what's happening in
Speaker 5: a cumber right. There has been limited local coverage of
Speaker 5: what's happening in U Cumba. What that has has already
Speaker 5: stopped because like it was a kind of one and
Speaker 5: done situation for a lot of outlets, but it's not
Speaker 5: one and done for the people who are volunteering, and
Speaker 5: it's not one and done for the people who are
Speaker 5: still arriving right like there are we're going to see
Speaker 5: more of this in between now and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: The border is clearly an area that both parties, I guess,
Speaker 5: have decided that they can grandstand on and can show
Speaker 5: himself as being quote unquote tough on migration, Like, no,
Speaker 5: I don't want to live in a world where our
Speaker 5: leaders are tough on little babies who just walked across
Speaker 5: a desert like that's a fucked up thing to be
Speaker 5: tough on. It could be tough on corporate corruption if
Speaker 5: you want to like front up to someone. And I
Speaker 5: think the Republicans are going to push on by iten
Speaker 5: being weak on the border. There will be more migration
Speaker 5: this year than we have seen a long time because
Speaker 5: we created a backlog, right because climate change is worse
Speaker 5: every single year, and like I think, as we've documented
Speaker 5: extensively on our show, parts of the world are becoming
Speaker 5: less and less survivable. I went to the Martial Landers
Speaker 5: this summer. They are disappearing, So of course people are
Speaker 5: going to want to come to somewhere where they feel safe.
Speaker 5: There are record numbers of people crossing the Dairy and
Speaker 5: Gap right now. That is something that will result in
Speaker 5: record numbers of people showing up a border.
Speaker 1: And for every group of people who make it across
Speaker 1: the Dairy and Gap, there's folks who don't like. Taking
Speaker 1: that journey on foot without kind of access to modern
Speaker 1: quality overlanding equipment is like putting a bullet in a
Speaker 1: revolver and playing a game of Russian Roulette. Like it's
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous.
Speaker 5: Yes, not to mention that you'll be preyed upon, like
Speaker 5: all the way and they talked about the trains. Actually
Speaker 5: that video as well, how the migrants control the trains
Speaker 5: fuck off? Like I have seen people who have lost
Speaker 5: limbs on trains, right like these that's an incredible jumping
Speaker 5: on a moving train. It's not an advisable form of
Speaker 5: transport and it's not a safe one. And the fact
Speaker 5: that people feel they have to take it suggests that
Speaker 5: what they are fleeing feels even less safe to them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: I don't have children, but like if I was to
Speaker 5: take my kids and grab onto a moving train, I
Speaker 5: would only do that if I thought that what I
Speaker 5: was fleeing was less safe than that moving train. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And to talk about the.
Speaker 13: Last resort literally, like that's how desperate you are to
Speaker 13: better situation. It's not like I don't know, it just
Speaker 13: makes me the rhet the rhetoric is all backwards about that.
Speaker 5: Yes, Like when you look at what some of these
Speaker 5: people are fleeing, right, Like on Friday, I was helping
Speaker 5: hand out water bottles and I was there was a
Speaker 5: Punjabi man helping me, right Like he was one of
Speaker 5: the volunteers who who was like helping us to distribute
Speaker 5: food and helping us to communicate with people in the
Speaker 5: language they could understand. Very nice guy. And I was
Speaker 5: thinking about like the stuff that's happening in India right now,
Speaker 5: right like and the way that that country is becoming
Speaker 5: increasingly like monolithic. I guess Hindu nationalists. I guess you
Speaker 5: could call it. And that's fair, right, Robert, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: like mod it's not getting any safer for them there,
Speaker 5: and I've seen tons more seek people than I've ever
Speaker 5: seen at the border before.
Speaker 1: No, there was a a I mean, fuck, it's it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily safe in Canada, right where one of those
Speaker 1: guys got murdered recently.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well they have been in America too, right, someone
Speaker 5: shut up a good water thinking it was a mosque
Speaker 5: because they fucking differentiate between different faiths and they sort
Speaker 5: of turban.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in Canada, I believe it was a
Speaker 1: Sikh man who got assassinated at the behest of the
Speaker 1: Modi government. Oh wow, Jesus Christ. Yeah, Western intelligence led
Speaker 1: to Canada accusing India of SEK activists assassination. It's a
Speaker 1: fella named I just want to make sure because this
Speaker 1: is a story people should we may do some more
Speaker 1: direct coverage on this, but yeah, there was a guy
Speaker 1: named Hardeep Singh Nijar who was a Sikh separatist activist
Speaker 1: and was gunned down by two mask men in British Columbia.
Speaker 1: India denies that this was at their behest, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is and this is by the way, it's
Speaker 1: not just a thing that India does. Political assassinations from
Speaker 1: authoritarian directed by authoritarian countries in Western countries have become
Speaker 1: more and more common, right. A lot of this started
Speaker 1: with with what Russia was doing, the poisoning, the Scarpol
Speaker 1: poisonings and stuff. But like this is growing more calm,
Speaker 1: and is this sort of like rules based international order
Speaker 1: that I think to some extent we all kind of
Speaker 1: tricked ourselves into thinking existed increasingly breaks down. But that's
Speaker 1: all to say, there's a good reason why a lot
Speaker 1: of Sikhs might be trying to come into the US
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, there's a good reason why I'm seeing so
Speaker 5: many of them on the border. There's a good reason
Speaker 5: why I'm seeing a ton more people from Russia, right Yeah.
Speaker 5: And they don't want to go on record, and that's
Speaker 5: because they're very afraid, right, They've come from a totalitarian
Speaker 5: state which can hunt them down, as Robert just illustrated,
Speaker 5: anywhere in the world, and so they don't want to talk, right,
Speaker 5: I'm seeing people coming from Columbia, Hondora, Squaff and Marla.
Speaker 5: One of the things that Musk was shocked about was that, like,
Speaker 5: not all of these people in Mexican. I don't know
Speaker 5: how big he thinks Mexico is and what he believes
Speaker 5: the population of Mexico to be, but at one minute
Speaker 5: he it's two million a year. Does he think Mexico
Speaker 5: is just like dwindling and there are like eight people left?
Speaker 5: Like Mexico is a large country, but like it does
Speaker 5: not provide us with millions of migrants a year, and
Speaker 5: more of that like comically impossible narrative, right, Like whatever
Speaker 5: I mean people and people are going to believe it.
Speaker 13: It's just part of the show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it confirms a lot of biases that always exist.
Speaker 5: And I guess hopefully we've dismissed some of that nonsense.
Speaker 5: And I think I don't. I think people who listen
Speaker 5: to this generally have empathy anyway, But hopefully this has
Speaker 5: given you some tools to talk about this to other people.
Speaker 5: What they will say is like I'm not a big
Speaker 5: representative caller. I called my representative to help with a
Speaker 5: migration case for someone from Myanmar who asked for our help.
Speaker 5: She was useless. But maybe this is an area where
Speaker 5: like the federal government has water buffalos, right, big water containers,
Speaker 5: it has MRIs. If these were American citizens and this
Speaker 5: was a hurricane or an earthquake, that shit would be there.
Speaker 5: It's not because they don't think that they matter as much.
Speaker 5: San Diego County has declared emergency and so they can't
Speaker 5: do anything. That's complete fucking nonsense. They again, they could
Speaker 5: if these were American citizens, they would if these people
Speaker 5: were like white wealthy people living in Lahoya. They're choosing
Speaker 5: not to because they don't think it will hurt them
Speaker 5: and like it. Maybe it won't, right, But I think
Speaker 5: you can make a meaningful difference by donating your money,
Speaker 5: because the only people who are helping are the dozen
Speaker 5: or so folks right like who all convoyed out there
Speaker 5: on Friday night down a dirt road in our trucks
Speaker 5: and handed out the beans and rice and ritz crackers.
Speaker 5: But you can make a difference of your money. The
Speaker 5: border kindness links are put in the description. Again, you
Speaker 5: can also make a difference, maybe by calling your representative
Speaker 5: and shaming them, because this is a government created problem,
Speaker 5: and the government like sticking its hands up in the
Speaker 5: air and being like, oh no, what a surprise, we'd't
Speaker 5: know how to do. Yes, they knew this was coming, right,
Speaker 5: these people, many of them have walked from Colombia. We
Speaker 5: knew these people were arriving. We've been putting this off
Speaker 5: since COVID, for three years, since the start of the
Speaker 5: COVID pandemic. I should say COVID is very much alive.
Speaker 5: I've seen some people who like obviously weren't able to
Speaker 5: rap a test everyone, but there are a lot of
Speaker 5: sick people coughing right, There were people with scabies. There
Speaker 5: were people who were very unwell. That again, if you
Speaker 5: detained people in congregate settings and the only masks are
Speaker 5: the ones that we bring as volunteers, and that's going
Speaker 5: to happen, right, We'll probably get some infectious disease that
Speaker 5: they'll get to share with Even if you don't care
Speaker 5: about other people, Sure it'll come by you and the
Speaker 5: arts eventually. Right when freaking chicken gun yod, that's not
Speaker 5: vectored in that fashion, but you know, cholera or something
Speaker 5: rocks up in America. So I would urge people to
Speaker 5: do something because so few people are and the only
Speaker 5: people who are helping our mutual aid groups who are
Speaker 5: overstretched and stressed and tired and broke. And so if
Speaker 5: you can help, you should, and well, like whatever that
Speaker 5: looks like to you, if you want to volunteer, that's great.
Speaker 5: I would urge you to go through the channels that
Speaker 5: are set so you don't just show up and look
Speaker 5: at yourself or someone else.
Speaker 3: In trouble.
Speaker 5: Or just make things harder. But yeah, there are meaningful
Speaker 5: ways that people can help. Very few people are and
Speaker 5: largely I think that's because the border exists as some
Speaker 5: kind of World West fantasy for most people consuming media
Speaker 5: in America. And hopefully, yeah, if you, if you encounter
Speaker 5: someone who believes that this will help you, give you
Speaker 5: a little bit of information, a little bit of some
Speaker 5: tools to dismiss some of that stuff.
Speaker 13: Yeah, dismiss and demystify really, because it's just thingless, imaginary,
Speaker 13: big bad wolf that no one really understands.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally, Like it's nonsense that everyone in America's a migrant.
Speaker 5: They are indigenous people here now and they always have been,
Speaker 5: but a lot of people have some kind of migration story.
Speaker 5: And like, I don't give a fuck if your great
Speaker 5: grandpa came here quote unquote legally the barriers were not
Speaker 5: in place yet. There wasn't a wall when your me
Speaker 5: mar came from wherever she came from. But like in
Speaker 5: all of our communities, like this country doesn't work with
Speaker 5: that the labor of recently arrived for migrants. And like
Speaker 5: I think, if you look at the news, I go
Speaker 5: to places where wars are happening, right, That's part of
Speaker 5: my job, so does Robert, you know. And then I
Speaker 5: see those people at the border. The reason they're here
Speaker 5: is because they're fleeing something worse, and I think, like
Speaker 5: maybe grounding it in that, I don't think anyone would
Speaker 5: want a little baby to be sleeping in there. I
Speaker 5: know some pretty conservative people who were pretty outraged by
Speaker 5: what happened in May, and it's worse now. And yeah,
Speaker 5: no one in their right mind wants a little baby
Speaker 5: to be shivering out in the desert. You know, no
Speaker 5: one in their right mind wants a mother to be
Speaker 5: breastfeeding and sleeping underneath a cardboard box because that's all
Speaker 5: she has you know, like the it's not even if
Speaker 5: you believe in it's very liberal construct to America as
Speaker 5: a welcoming nation and they shouldn't be who we are
Speaker 5: and shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: How we treat people.
Speaker 5: And if you believe that nation shouldn't exist in borders
Speaker 5: of bullshit, then no one should be treated like that,
Speaker 5: and it's on all of us to help. I guess yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: anything else, guys, No, I think that's about it. Magic. Okay,
Speaker 5: thank you for joining me for this heartwarming episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, everybody that's going to do it for
Speaker 1: us here at It could happen here until next time.
Speaker 14: You know, stuff, welcome to it could happen here. I'm
Speaker 14: Garrison Davis. This is going to be another episode which
Speaker 14: we're discussing the Defend the Forest and Stop Copcity movement
Speaker 14: in Atlanta, Georgia. This struggle has always tied together a
Speaker 14: lot of the aspects that we focus on on this show,
Speaker 14: between the collapsing climate, political escalation, and how everything just
Speaker 14: feels like it's kind of getting worse. But through that
Speaker 14: there's people who respond to this crisis of neoliberalism and
Speaker 14: band together and figure out how to sort through all
Speaker 14: of this shit and all that is continuing as the
Speaker 14: City of Atlanta and State of Georgia unveil new state
Speaker 14: repression tactics to chill any resistance to the construction of
Speaker 14: this ninety million dollar police training facility that we have
Speaker 14: covered in depth in this show the past few years.
Speaker 14: A few months ago there was another three part series
Speaker 14: about the sixth Week of Action in June, but new
Speaker 14: things have happened since then. The referendum has been submitted,
Speaker 14: so that is all in process. But the same day
Speaker 14: the construction was scheduled to begin, the State of Georgia
Speaker 14: indicted sixty one people on RICO charges. RICO is an
Speaker 14: acronym referring to the Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Speaker 14: This specific act is meant to legally target organizations, and
Speaker 14: organizations can relate to anything between you know, traditional incorporated
Speaker 14: organizations or something as loose as like a pickup basketball team,
Speaker 14: which is how the state is able to paint whole
Speaker 14: communities of people who are just connected by similar values
Speaker 14: as being a quote unquote organization. The RICO Act in practice,
Speaker 14: is basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now
Speaker 14: I'm not a lawyer, but I do know lawyers, so
Speaker 14: for this episode, I brought on Mo Cohen, a lawyer
Speaker 14: specializing in state repression. So without further ado, here is
Speaker 14: my conversation with them. Mo, Hello, thank you for joining
Speaker 14: me today.
Speaker 4: No grab lim, It's my pleasure.
Speaker 14: So in late August, the Fulton County District Attorney and
Speaker 14: other kind of legal entities with the State of Georgia
Speaker 14: unveiled a whole bunch of RICO charges against I believe
Speaker 14: sixty one people relating to the Stop Coop City quote
Speaker 14: unquote movement. It's part of, like like I said, it's
Speaker 14: an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked
Speaker 14: about pretty in depth before.
Speaker 5: But before we get into the actual like rico.
Speaker 14: Charges, I first want to kind of talk about the
Speaker 14: raid that happened against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund earlier this year,
Speaker 14: and a whole bunch of like financial crime charges that
Speaker 14: they've been trying to use to suppress the bail fund organizing.
Speaker 14: I think we've talked about this kind of briefly on
Speaker 14: the show before, but we've never really gotten very much
Speaker 14: in depth about it, and from my perspective, a lot
Speaker 14: of these reco charges are very much related to the
Speaker 14: repression of the Solidarity Fund mode. I assume you're familiar
Speaker 14: with the Solidarity Fund raid and the charges against against
Speaker 14: the Network for Strong Communities.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Do we talk a little bit about that event. I
Speaker 14: think that that happened in May of this year, I believe, so.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: a very well grounded or legally warranted indictment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And certainly the way that the way that law enforcement
Speaker 4: went in to retrieve those three people who were indicted
Speaker 4: was a little extra particularly given the nature of the allegations.
Speaker 4: I think people who are accused of financial crimes don't
Speaker 4: typically get taken out with a SWAT team. But I
Speaker 4: don't think it was a huge surprise that the district
Speaker 4: attorney brought those charges, because this kind of rego indictment
Speaker 4: was anticipated. Yes, and those kinds of financial charges or
Speaker 4: allegations of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for
Speaker 4: bringing this kind of sweeping rego indictment.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 14: And I think like in like the weeks and months
Speaker 14: prior to the SWAT raid against the Solidarity Fund in May,
Speaker 14: people at the Solidarity Fund were basically warning that they were.
Speaker 14: They were like suspecting that they would that there would
Speaker 14: be some form of reco charges used against the movement,
Speaker 14: and everyone was kind of like preparing for that. That
Speaker 14: was definitely that was definitely talked about as like as
Speaker 14: a potential like a tactic of of suppression. You know
Speaker 14: when you say that the types of like financial crime
Speaker 14: like fraud charges that that were brought against this the
Speaker 14: sole Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted. That
Speaker 14: is something that the judge in the bond hearing kind
Speaker 14: of agreed with. The judge was unimpressed, Yes that I
Speaker 14: I I I I listened to the uh I listened
Speaker 14: to the hearing, and the judge is very skeptical of
Speaker 14: the prosecution's claims and basically told the prosecution like, if
Speaker 14: you like actually want this to like succeed like in
Speaker 14: actual like court, you know, once once this progresses, you're
Speaker 14: you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case
Speaker 14: because this all seems kind of like nonsense. But you
Speaker 14: know that that didn't stop the prosecutors and the uh
Speaker 14: I believe it's the Attorney General Office as well of
Speaker 14: Georgia of using using kind of some stuff from this
Speaker 14: from this raid against the Solidarity Fund and trying to
Speaker 14: kind of tie together this grand conspiracy narrative that we.
Speaker 5: Now see in this uh in this Rico indictment.
Speaker 14: So let's I guess, let's let's talk a little bit
Speaker 14: about the Rico indictment at this At this point, So,
Speaker 14: Rico is a very like scary word, right, Like this
Speaker 14: is like I feel like everyone kind of knows about
Speaker 14: like rico, like like a pop culture like it's like
Speaker 14: geist sense. But do I actually like talk about like
Speaker 14: what these types of rico charges actually are because like
Speaker 14: you know, most people, even if they charged with the crime, right,
Speaker 14: most people don't ever like have to deal with like
Speaker 14: rico as like a concept.
Speaker 5: So do it?
Speaker 14: You know, if if you're like a resident of protest
Speaker 14: to get like you know, pedestrian in roadway, there's like
Speaker 14: a litany of other kind of basic charges that cops
Speaker 14: will throw at you. Rico is a bit more serious,
Speaker 14: Like it's kind of it's kind of like a scary ordeal,
Speaker 14: you know, same thing with like the domestic terrorism charges
Speaker 14: that that that have been used the past year.
Speaker 4: So yes, what is a lot more serious.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what exactly is rico?
Speaker 4: Rico is uh. While it was initially a federal law
Speaker 4: that was passed in an effort to target specifically organized crime,
Speaker 4: because federal prosecutors were having a difficult time prosecuting these
Speaker 4: sort of individual offenses that were being committed by dispersed
Speaker 4: groups of individuals who are all acting, maybe not in concert,
Speaker 4: but in the service of a larger criminal enterprise. There's
Speaker 4: a couple of important things that I want to say
Speaker 4: just upfront.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: The first thing is this is not the first time
Speaker 4: that RICO has been used against movement people. The second
Speaker 4: thing I want to say is that all prosecutions are
Speaker 4: political prosecutions, and RICO is no different. Although federal RICO
Speaker 4: and ostensibly Georgia State RICO were developed and passed in
Speaker 4: an effort to target organized crime, that is not how
Speaker 4: they've been primarily used. And I think it is really
Speaker 4: significant to note that after a lot of the people
Speaker 4: of color solidarity movements like the Black Panthers, the Black
Speaker 4: Liberation Army, AIM, the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these
Speaker 4: groups were all really weakened by Cohen Telpro and the
Speaker 4: community groups that remained were then labeled as gangs and
Speaker 4: prosecuted under RICO and so I just you know, everything
Speaker 4: that happens in this conversation, we have to sort of
Speaker 4: hold in our minds that this particular movement is not
Speaker 4: the first movement and not the first community who has
Speaker 4: had rego leveled against it as a form of state repression.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and specifically Fultland County. It looks like the the
Speaker 14: batche of indictments that we're using these reco charges. It
Speaker 14: looks like this was at least according to the to
Speaker 14: the Atlantic Constitution Journal people this this was the same
Speaker 14: grand jury that did the ricodictments against former President Donald
Speaker 14: Trump as well for this, for this, for this batch
Speaker 14: of charges. And they've used they've used reco charges against
Speaker 14: like young black wrappers in the past. This is a
Speaker 14: thing that the Fulton County Office has has done before. Yes,
Speaker 14: and as like we have like Rico's this is like
Speaker 14: a criminal racketeering thing against the mob. In terms of
Speaker 14: like what RICO actually is, Like is it its own
Speaker 14: separate charge or is it like is it a way
Speaker 14: to like apply other felony charges, Like you know, can
Speaker 14: can you just be charged with RICO or is there
Speaker 14: have to be like other other crimes that you're accused
Speaker 14: of for them to actually like use this use this
Speaker 14: charge against these activists.
Speaker 4: RICO is its own criminal offense, but it relies upon
Speaker 4: there having been other criminal offenses committed in the service
Speaker 4: of a larger criminal enterprise or a conspiracy to try
Speaker 4: to do crimes in the service of a larger criminal enterprise.
Speaker 4: And one of the reasons that it is.
Speaker 15: So broad in sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already
Speaker 15: very broad in SWEEP and Georgia Rica in particular is
Speaker 15: notorious for being even broader.
Speaker 4: One of the reasons it is so attractive to prosecutors
Speaker 4: is precisely because it can capture these large groups of
Speaker 4: people with very little actual criminal conduct.
Speaker 14: Okay, so yeah, that's kind of one of the things
Speaker 14: that we want to talk about is I read the
Speaker 14: indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as
Speaker 14: it was made public. It is it is a long document.
Speaker 14: The first patch of it is just like it's almost
Speaker 14: like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like like
Speaker 14: what anarchism is is how it is. How the document starts,
Speaker 14: and then it gets into all these like alleged alleged
Speaker 14: like offenses that are not necessarily criminal nature, but they're
Speaker 14: all in the service of pushing forward this conspiracy to
Speaker 14: stop the construction of this police training facility. So there's
Speaker 14: a lot of like kind of like a like random
Speaker 14: almost asked and I and stuff in there that that
Speaker 14: they're that they're eluding is is a quote unquote an
Speaker 14: overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You know, anything
Speaker 14: from like buying glue or buying like food supplies, and
Speaker 14: they're they're including or or things like like like writing
Speaker 14: your name.
Speaker 5: As A C, A, B.
Speaker 14: They're they're they're including that as as as as an
Speaker 14: as an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, which
Speaker 14: is kind of silly, it doesn't make very much sense.
Speaker 14: But like these also these is this is like a
Speaker 14: very serious case as well though, because this is like
Speaker 14: you know, the people people, you know, facing twenty years
Speaker 14: in prison on top of like the domestic terrorism charges. Well, uh,
Speaker 14: do you know what else is a overt act in
Speaker 14: furtherance of a conspiracy? It is the the uh, the
Speaker 14: advertising that allows us to continue this show. It's all,
Speaker 14: it's all, it's all all part of the plan. So yes,
Speaker 14: every every single ad is a co conspirator. So take that, uh,
Speaker 14: Ronald Reikan coin. Okay, we are we are back. We
Speaker 14: could talk about a bit more about the actual indictment,
Speaker 14: uh in a sec I do kind of want to
Speaker 14: first talk about who are facing these charges, right, because
Speaker 14: these are these are sixty one people, and it looks
Speaker 14: like for when I was looking through, one of the
Speaker 14: first things that you noticed is like, oh, they're mostly
Speaker 14: charging people who have already been charged before. There's not
Speaker 14: so many new people added to this case. It's mostly
Speaker 14: people who've already been arrested and charged. Can you kind
Speaker 14: of like talk about the scope of these sixty one
Speaker 14: people who are included in this indictment.
Speaker 4: Yes, so, as I was saying, the scope of Georgia
Speaker 4: Rico is extremely broad, and some of the criminal acts
Speaker 4: that can serve as a predicate for charging Rico are
Speaker 4: these extremely unremarkable acts that we would typically think of
Speaker 4: as being very normal protest related behavior, and some of
Speaker 4: them are things like domestic terrorism. And so I don't
Speaker 4: think it is an accident that all of those people
Speaker 4: were charged with domestic terrorism in the beginning months of
Speaker 4: this of this sort of push to overcharge the stock
Speaker 4: Cup City activists, And in fact, I think one of
Speaker 4: the things that tipped us off at that point that
Speaker 4: Rico was in the pipeline was that people were being
Speaker 4: charged with domestic terrorism, which is one of the predicate
Speaker 4: offenses for Rico, and so many of the people who
Speaker 4: are on this indictment are the people who are already
Speaker 4: charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged with domestic terrorism.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, they were overcharged. I think the opinion
Speaker 4: of most attorneys. They were overcharged. They were charged in
Speaker 4: that manner, not because the allegations against them are serious.
Speaker 4: In fact, if you look at the allegations in those
Speaker 4: domestic terrorism indictments or they're not even indictments yet, most
Speaker 4: of them in those domestic terrorism charges, in the documents
Speaker 4: that are associated with those arrests, the allegations are, you know,
Speaker 4: as I said, these absolutely unremarkable, garden variety sort of
Speaker 4: criminal trespass allegations, by and large, the allegations against people,
Speaker 4: and they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having
Speaker 4: mud on your like having on your knees. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: so a lot of the allegations. One of the things
Speaker 4: that's remarkable about Rico, and frankly about the domestic terrorism stuff,
Speaker 4: is that both of those statutes allow for the sort
Speaker 4: of bootstrapping of one offense into a much more serious
Speaker 4: offense if certain conditions are met with respect to the
Speaker 4: domestic terrorism Statute. A very large number of garden variety
Speaker 4: offens is like criminal trespassing, can be transformed into domestic
Speaker 4: terrorism if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated.
Speaker 4: In the case of So, what we have here is
Speaker 4: a situation where a bunch of people got charged with
Speaker 4: domestic terrorism, not because they were doing something really dramatic
Speaker 4: or violent, but because whatever it was they were doing
Speaker 4: was perceived as being an effort to influence public policy.
Speaker 4: So we transformed a very minor offense into a very
Speaker 4: serious offense. That serious offense then became the predicate offense
Speaker 4: for Rico, which is an even more serious offense.
Speaker 14: Yeah, And from my understanding at least in terms of
Speaker 14: a lot of the people in the sixty one indictments
Speaker 14: are the Sexton One people in the indictment is from
Speaker 14: the arrests that happened at the music festival last Menstrue,
Speaker 14: and a lot of these people were only charged with
Speaker 14: domestic terrorism, which is interesting because usually domestic terrorism in
Speaker 14: Georgia is like an enhancement charge, but lots of the
Speaker 14: people weren't actually charged with any of the other other
Speaker 14: charges yet the prosecutors just argued, because we're charging with
Speaker 14: the domestic terrorism, it's like inferred that they must have
Speaker 14: done some other crimes that we haven't yet specified. But
Speaker 14: in the way that works for the for the Rico indictments,
Speaker 14: because I think you need to have already had like
Speaker 14: like I think there's like a prerequisitive like two other
Speaker 14: like felonious charges. What they did in the in these
Speaker 14: reco charges is go back to the music festival and
Speaker 14: break down every single thing that happened there that they're
Speaker 14: alleging these people did as separate instances like like planning
Speaker 14: to go to the place, you know, marching to the place,
Speaker 14: being at the place, Like they broke it down to
Speaker 14: have all these separate things so that they could like
Speaker 14: shoehorn it into this Rico indictment. So there's a lot
Speaker 14: of like a you know, revisionist history going on here,
Speaker 14: very kind of different arguments than what the actual like
Speaker 14: domestic terrorism of bond hearings had in like a previous months.
Speaker 5: But yeah, there is at least at least one.
Speaker 14: Person in the indictments who is newly I think I
Speaker 14: I think possibly a few others, but I haven't quite checked,
Speaker 14: but there at least one person, which is a very
Speaker 14: interesting case. It's this, it's this guy who worked at
Speaker 14: the uh the Flock camera company who I saw that
Speaker 14: who they are alleging was was passing off information about
Speaker 14: where cameras were were we're located. And this is an
Speaker 14: extremely interesting case because he is he is not included
Speaker 14: in any other previous charges, but that is at least
Speaker 14: one of the people who who are kind of new
Speaker 14: additions to this indictment. One thing I didn't want to
Speaker 14: mention because you've you've said, you've you've kind of mentioned
Speaker 14: a few times that these are these are state level
Speaker 14: reco charges. Those are kind of different than federal reco charges.
Speaker 14: Do you want to kind of get into like the
Speaker 14: difference between state and federal charges and specifically how kind
Speaker 14: of the ones in Georgia work versus the the the
Speaker 14: federal rego that you know, kind of inspired different states
Speaker 14: to kind of add their own style of rico.
Speaker 4: The big difference between the federal RICO statute, which is
Speaker 4: already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like Scalia,
Speaker 4: who is notoriously not far left activist. Right, I'm not
Speaker 4: a supporter of leftists in any meaningful way. I think
Speaker 4: described the federal Rico Statute I think is intolerably vague.
Speaker 4: So the Federal Rico Statute is already very broad in
Speaker 4: its scope. It already does this thing that we were
Speaker 4: discussing of pulling in many, many people by associating them with,
Speaker 4: you know, this criminal enterprise. The Georgia Ricos Statute is
Speaker 4: even more broad. The Georgia Ricos Statute uses a lot
Speaker 4: of the same terms, right, a pattern of racketeering activity. Right,
Speaker 4: It uses a lot of the same concepts, but it
Speaker 4: defines those concepts in ways that are even broader, even
Speaker 4: easier to apply. So I think the thing that is
Speaker 4: significant about Rico is that, similar to like what we
Speaker 4: would see with conspiracy, where you know, not every person
Speaker 4: involved in a conspiracy needs to have been participating in
Speaker 4: every single criminal instance of criminal conduct in order to
Speaker 4: be implicated.
Speaker 14: They don't even need to like know the other co
Speaker 14: conspirators necessarily.
Speaker 4: So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes, And
Speaker 4: that is sometimes the case with maybe other reco indictments.
Speaker 4: We certainly have seen some stuff like gang prosecutions where
Speaker 4: the people involved don't know each other. Typically, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: actually expect to see something that broad. When a prosecutor
Speaker 4: wants to indict someone for engaging in criminal conduct, they
Speaker 4: need to have individualized probable cause that that individual did
Speaker 4: the crime one of the things, and you can't attribute
Speaker 4: one person's behavior to another person. Rico offers a way
Speaker 4: around that. To use Rico in the way that the
Speaker 4: prosecutors in Georgia are doing, among other things, enables them
Speaker 4: to engage in a sort of collective punishment of people
Speaker 4: who they perceive as holding certain ideologies. And those people
Speaker 4: can be engaged in lawful behavior and even in constitutionally
Speaker 4: protected behavior, but if they can and characterize any of
Speaker 4: that behavior as having been an overt act in furtherance
Speaker 4: of the conspiracy, the fact that this person bought glue
Speaker 4: and was reimbursed for the glue, yeah, can function to
Speaker 4: allow the prosecutor to attribute all of this other criminal
Speaker 4: conduct to the person who bought glue.
Speaker 14: Basically, there, people can you know, be hit with charges
Speaker 14: that are being you know, alleged against actions of other people,
Speaker 14: but they're all getting like roped up together and they're
Speaker 14: all facing these charges together, that's right.
Speaker 4: So you can like, the allegation that there is a
Speaker 4: criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people and
Speaker 4: various acts, even lawful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with
Speaker 4: a tempting to further that criminal enterprise. And so the
Speaker 4: allegation that this criminal enterprise exists is the fundamental core
Speaker 4: of this indictment. Now you read the indictment and it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's laughable. They're making these claims that, you know,
Speaker 4: if it weren't so serious, if this weren't so serious,
Speaker 4: we'd all be rolling on the floor. The idea that
Speaker 4: mutual aid is sinister. It really to me when I
Speaker 4: read this indictment, I thought, wow, this is just fascinating,
Speaker 4: because what's happening here is that Georgia is saying the
Speaker 4: quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real.
Speaker 4: We all know that the American legal system functions to
Speaker 4: repressed assent, to impose prior restraints on first amend and
Speaker 4: protected behavior, to chill speech, to frighten people into submission. Right,
Speaker 4: we understand that it is this coercive system, but there
Speaker 4: is at least a sort of set of rules that
Speaker 4: purport to prioritize fairness, that purport to value concepts of
Speaker 4: due process, and the Rico Statute, and in particular, the
Speaker 4: Reco Statute as it is being used here, really functions
Speaker 4: so explicitly to circumvent those rules that we can that
Speaker 4: they're just they're not even trying anymore. They're not even
Speaker 4: trying to pretend that they care about individual probable cause,
Speaker 4: about the First Amendment, and I would say, most frighteningly
Speaker 4: about the sixth Amendment, which is the right to counsel,
Speaker 4: because they have gone way beyond the pale in alleging
Speaker 4: that things like accessing legal help, or accessing bail, or
Speaker 4: having legal observers or you know, providing anti repression trainings
Speaker 4: are in some manner sinister acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Speaker 4: And I am really I don't know what will happen here.
Speaker 4: I really can't begin to guess, because I feel like
Speaker 4: it is no longer possible for me to be surprised
Speaker 4: by the nonsense that is coming out of this jurisdiction.
Speaker 4: I don't know what will happen, but I am very,
Speaker 4: very curious to see how the bench, how the judges
Speaker 4: in Georgia respond to these allegations that involve making it
Speaker 4: part of a criminal conspiracy to prove legal assistance. You know,
Speaker 4: this is to me like one of the most concerning
Speaker 4: aspects of this of this indictment, because as absurd as
Speaker 4: it is, this could have very serious consequences.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean, that's something people have been talking about
Speaker 14: with Atlanta for a while now. Is that because of
Speaker 14: how many you know, criminal cases there is around the
Speaker 14: top top city of like movement, whatever kind of the
Speaker 14: result of those cases is going to be is going
Speaker 14: to set a very influential precedent for future for future
Speaker 14: kind of eco defense campaigns, future like any anything relating
Speaker 14: to like like civil rights, you know, uh, police abolition,
Speaker 14: or even even even things it's like benign is like
Speaker 14: police reform, like any any kind of like any kind
Speaker 14: of like grassroots activist, whatever kind of movement that's going
Speaker 14: to happen in the future is going to be affected
Speaker 14: by how these cases go. Because not only is you know,
Speaker 14: as as you mentioned, the you know, Act to Bail
Speaker 14: Fund being being in like access to to to lawyers
Speaker 14: and so and legal support is being used in these
Speaker 14: reco charges, they were also alleging that by having a
Speaker 14: you know, a bail fund number on your arm, that
Speaker 14: was like, you know, that was evidence that that that's
Speaker 14: that this person intended to do crimes. And then you know,
Speaker 14: as as evident in support of these domestic terrorism charges,
Speaker 14: which is you know, an extremely dangerously legal claim to
Speaker 14: to to be to be talking about. And we've been
Speaker 14: dealing with that in Atlanta for months now, and it's
Speaker 14: you know, it's created this really chilling effect on the
Speaker 14: ground that you know, you can you can be you know,
Speaker 14: doing something as simple as marching in the street and
Speaker 14: now have not only to like terrorism charges, having reco
Speaker 14: charges for stuff that is very clearly like First Amendment activity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is really fascinating to me that
Speaker 4: the law enforcement apparatus in Georgia is basically engaging and
Speaker 4: really concerted state repression against this movement, which is highly
Speaker 4: visible and highly legible as state repression. And then when
Speaker 4: people respond appropriately by anticipating that they may be subject
Speaker 4: to state repression by writing the jail support number on
Speaker 4: their arm, not because they believe that they intend to
Speaker 4: go out and do crimes, but because they know that
Speaker 4: unremarkable acts of First Amendment protected conduct may result in
Speaker 4: intense state repression. The law enforcement apparatus then responds by
Speaker 4: rationalizing their repression further. I mean, it's just we can
Speaker 4: see the sort of post hoc fallacy at work in
Speaker 4: real time. It's not clear to me how much of
Speaker 4: the hypocrisy is self aware. Sure, you know who else
Speaker 4: doesn't talk to cops?
Speaker 5: Product? I cannot guarantee that.
Speaker 14: I'm not sure these companies have the same.
Speaker 5: Standards that you and I have.
Speaker 4: They don't have shared values.
Speaker 5: In terms of our willingness to to to talk with
Speaker 5: the police.
Speaker 4: But they probably has good defense lawyers.
Speaker 14: Oh yes, all of all of these products and services
Speaker 14: that support this podcast definitely do have good defense lawyers.
Speaker 12: That is true.
Speaker 14: So listen, listen to their important messages.
Speaker 4: There is actually a part of this indictment that I
Speaker 4: think deserves some very serious attention.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely So.
Speaker 4: Typically when we're thinking about RICO, we're thinking about like
Speaker 4: white collar crime, and we're thinking about the use of
Speaker 4: GO to target groups that are doing unlawful things in
Speaker 4: order to profit. This indictment seems to allege that stop
Speaker 4: Coop City activists are raising money to do crime, which
Speaker 4: is sort of the opposite right, and as as we said,
Speaker 4: the crime that they're alleging, by and large is really petty.
Speaker 4: And there does seem to be one major act of
Speaker 4: violence that is alleged in this indictment, and I think
Speaker 4: we need to talk about it for a second because
Speaker 4: that one alleged act of violence involves the claim that
Speaker 4: Manuel torteguita Tehran who was murdered by police, was firing
Speaker 4: upon officers, and that is an incredibly central claim in
Speaker 4: this indictment. That really is I think the hook on
Speaker 4: which they're hanging a lot of the seriousness of the allegations,
Speaker 4: and it is an incredibly disingenuous claim and it's an
Speaker 4: incredibly dangerous claim. The evidence that they're using to support
Speaker 4: that claim is the statement of a third party who
Speaker 4: was not present. It's a regrettable statement that they've dug
Speaker 4: up from some group balance you know, you know, thousands
Speaker 4: of miles away from the Atlanta Forest and there's no
Speaker 4: reason to credit that statement, but they are using it
Speaker 4: to support this claim. That is, as I said, it's
Speaker 4: it's critical to their argument, and it is extremely disingenuous
Speaker 4: and it's extremely dangerous for for the office of a
Speaker 4: prosecutor which you know, for what it's worth, is supposed
Speaker 4: to pursue justice and not convictions. It is just intolerable
Speaker 4: to me that that somebody thought this was an acceptable
Speaker 4: thing to put into a legal document.
Speaker 5: And like you you were talking about how you know,
Speaker 5: they're using statements from the scenes dot no Block subsite,
Speaker 5: which anyone can submit to. There's no barrier of evidence
Speaker 5: for submitting to. And one interesting aspect that I didn't
Speaker 5: want to mention is that for many of the kind
Speaker 5: of the little like you know, accounts that they that
Speaker 5: they have in their indictment, it's it's just referencing people,
Speaker 5: you know, claiming that they did crimes on on on
Speaker 5: this website. But they're they're attributing the the either like
Speaker 5: co authorship of these claims to the people at the
Speaker 5: Solidary count, which they've laid out no evidence in supporting that.
Speaker 5: That's it's it's one of the more bizarre aspects of
Speaker 5: this indictment because they make every they claim that every
Speaker 5: single post on scenes is somehow the solid Different people
Speaker 5: are in part responsible for it, which is absolutely absurd
Speaker 5: that there's there's They've they've produced nothing, no piece of
Speaker 5: evidence in support of this claim. But that is one
Speaker 5: of the core parts of their indictment because much much
Speaker 5: of what they're filling this indictment with, you know, they're
Speaker 5: talking about how there's people do you know, doing crimes
Speaker 5: in San Francisco, in in Portland, in like Minneapolis, like
Speaker 5: all across like in New York, all across the country. Right,
Speaker 5: this is part of like the criminal conspiracy angle, which
Speaker 5: were very clearly from my perspective, this is, you know,
Speaker 5: people all across the country who care about a cause,
Speaker 5: and so they're doing something in their own city. It's
Speaker 5: there's there's no there's no conspiracy to it. It's it's
Speaker 5: people taking their own individual action. But they're they're trying,
Speaker 5: they're trying to tie this into the solidarity fund in
Speaker 5: a very bizarre way. You know, I'll be.
Speaker 14: Curious to see if they ever try to produce evidence
Speaker 14: to support that claim in court. But it's it's it's
Speaker 14: so laughable on the face. So you're like, how can
Speaker 14: how can three people with with a bail fund be
Speaker 14: be connected to these direct actions happening all across the country.
Speaker 4: Well, that's not literally what they're claiming, though, right, And
Speaker 4: I think this is this is where we see this
Speaker 4: difference of perspective mattering a lot. The kind of distributed
Speaker 4: network of autonomous solidarity that exists in this instance is
Speaker 4: something that is totally foreign two people who are very
Speaker 4: used to having hierarchy in their lives. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think i've I've talked about this before, I think
Speaker 4: on this show about the fact that when the far
Speaker 4: right organizes, they organize in ways that are familiar to
Speaker 4: police and prosecutors. Right. They organize in these very martial,
Speaker 4: hierarchical ways where there's a clear chain of command. Now,
Speaker 4: often their chain of command is very still and involves
Speaker 4: people having titles like dragons and wizards. But it's legible, right,
Speaker 4: It's legible to law enforcement. They understand there's someone in charge,
Speaker 4: and there's someone who answers to the person in charge.
Speaker 4: Having a situation where we have a website that is unmoderated,
Speaker 4: hosted by or supported by some group and totally open
Speaker 4: is something that I think, you know, police and prosecutors
Speaker 4: might have a little bit of difficulty understanding, right, because
Speaker 4: it's inconceivable to them that there is not a hierarchy,
Speaker 4: that there's not a chain of command. It's like, you know,
Speaker 4: I've actually had to drop footnotes in federal court filings
Speaker 4: to explain to judges and to explain to opposing counsel
Speaker 4: that Antifa is like a set of practices and not
Speaker 4: a membership organization. Yes, right, and that trying to trying
Speaker 4: to address Antifa as though it were an organization is
Speaker 4: similar to trying to address the world of Batman fans, right,
Speaker 4: Like these are all people who might self identify in
Speaker 4: some way, but you couldn't really identify them as a group,
Speaker 4: and they don't know each other and they're not so
Speaker 4: identifying in any way for each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Well, and as that relates to the no Blogs website,
Speaker 14: like it's they have they have not laid out any
Speaker 14: evidence of who is running this website at like who
Speaker 14: who is who's operating it, who's hosting the servers, none
Speaker 14: of that. None of that information is included in the indictment.
Speaker 14: So the fact that they're trying to tie this to
Speaker 14: Solidarity Fund in some ways is very is very bizarre,
Speaker 14: just because there was like a link on this website
Speaker 14: to donate to the Solidarity Fund, but any anyone could
Speaker 14: put a link there like that's like I've put links
Speaker 14: to the Solidarity Fund in the show notes of this podcast, right,
Speaker 14: I'm I'm not I'm not connected to them in any
Speaker 14: in any other way. So just just having having that
Speaker 14: be this this kind of aspect and even even if
Speaker 14: somehow Solidarity Fund were running running running this whole website,
Speaker 14: which there's no evidence they are, this feels like would
Speaker 14: also relate to like a section two thirty case where
Speaker 14: people who host content are not responsible for the actual
Speaker 14: like like they're they're not like the I'm not a
Speaker 14: super big lob person, but this usually applies to like
Speaker 14: social media sites and other places that host user generated content,
Speaker 14: that the actual site itself is not responsible for the
Speaker 14: user generated content that is that is that is on
Speaker 14: this site. So it's anyway, there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 14: you know, various various aspects of this claim that don't
Speaker 14: don't make any sense to me. But it's verically that
Speaker 14: they're trying to wrap all of these no blogs posts
Speaker 14: in because that's the most that's most like the evidence
Speaker 14: they have, which is extremely weak, you know, it's it's
Speaker 14: it's in some ways a good sign that all they
Speaker 14: have are these anonymous posts on this website with no
Speaker 14: actual you know, idea of who made them or if
Speaker 14: they're true or not. But that's the kind of that's
Speaker 14: the that's a lot of a lot of what a
Speaker 14: lot of what they are going off or are just
Speaker 14: these website posts which well, a lot of these things.
Speaker 4: I don't even know if they could make them admissible
Speaker 4: or under what theory, because you know, we don't. I
Speaker 4: don't know how they would attribute them, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: look their public statements. I suppose they can bring them
Speaker 4: in just as public statements that have been made. But
Speaker 4: the indictment is a mess, and it is full of
Speaker 4: baffling claims and unsupported claims and claims that are demonstrably untrue.
Speaker 4: And nevertheless, I am concerned that they may get some
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't practice in that jurisdiction. I'm
Speaker 4: not familiar. You know, I've never defended a RICO case.
Speaker 4: Just to be clear, you know, my my wheelhouse is
Speaker 4: state repression. This is clearly that. But I'm not tremendously
Speaker 4: familiar with litigating rico, and I'm not you know, I
Speaker 4: would like to have some faith in the legal system,
Speaker 4: but that faith has been worn rather thin, and it
Speaker 4: has particularly been worn thin after watching you know, all
Speaker 4: of the abuses that have taken place in this particular case. So,
Speaker 4: you know, I am really concerned. I'm really concerned about
Speaker 4: the constitutionality of this statute and of the domestic Terrorism Statute.
Speaker 4: I am concerned about what will happen in the courts
Speaker 4: if this proceeds. That said, it is entirely possible that
Speaker 4: this is like many many criminal cases that are brought
Speaker 4: in the context of protest movements. It is entirely possible
Speaker 4: that the primary thing motivating these cases is an effort
Speaker 4: to fractionate and drain and distract and criminalize, in the
Speaker 4: popular imagination, the movement to stop cop City. They may
Speaker 4: be more interested in doing those things than they are
Speaker 4: in obtaining any convictions or proceeding to trial, and they
Speaker 4: may well succeed. You know, Look, prosecution is a very
Speaker 4: very effective way to to undermine movement solidarity, and it's
Speaker 4: a very effective way to undermine popular support, and it's
Speaker 4: a very effective way to make it impossible for people
Speaker 4: to actually focus on their movement goals because they have
Speaker 4: to spend all of their time doing court support and
Speaker 4: hiring lawyers and talking to me.
Speaker 5: Right, And.
Speaker 4: When you're talking to me, you're probably not doing a
Speaker 4: lot of public education or signature gathering or forest defense. Right, So,
Speaker 4: you know, I guess what I would say is like,
Speaker 4: this is a very clear example of state repression. It
Speaker 4: is extremely disruptive. I'm sure that the people who are
Speaker 4: included on this indictment have good reason to be quite anxious.
Speaker 4: But that said, as I frequently remind people, state repression
Speaker 4: is not new. It exists all of the time, whether
Speaker 4: or not we can see it. Right, even if we
Speaker 4: didn't have this indictment, there would be other things happening.
Speaker 4: And the most powerful weapon that the state has to
Speaker 4: quell social movements is fear. And so the solution to
Speaker 4: state repression is not self censorship. It is not staying home.
Speaker 4: It is courage.
Speaker 14: I think that's one of the more you know, interesting
Speaker 14: things about what's been happening in Atlanta the past two
Speaker 14: years is that every time the state has kind of
Speaker 14: unveiled a new suppression tactic, right, it's whether it's like
Speaker 14: you know, increased raids and domesti terrorism charges, you know,
Speaker 14: all of this, the Solidarity fund raid, you know, trying
Speaker 14: to compromise people's ability to access bail funds. Every time
Speaker 14: there's been this this kind of new attempt. It has
Speaker 14: not caused people to back down. It's caused them to
Speaker 14: actually like strengthen their solidarity with each other and keep
Speaker 14: on and keep on going. I think that's because all
Speaker 14: of these things have been seen from the start as
Speaker 14: very clear tactics of state repression. It is actually like
Speaker 14: catalyze people to actually like care for each other more
Speaker 14: and and and and recognize what is going on so
Speaker 14: they can respond appropriately and and and not let all
Speaker 14: of these all of these very like chilling tactics, but
Speaker 14: consciously make sure that you recognize that so that you
Speaker 14: don't let it really like you know, affect your ability
Speaker 14: to continue continue doing the work that you feel is
Speaker 14: so important. And that's absolutely been one of the things
Speaker 14: that's been very unique to watch in Atlanta. I think, uh,
Speaker 14: I think we've kind of covered lots of lots of
Speaker 14: what I wanted to get into. In case you have
Speaker 14: any other kind of things of note or any like
Speaker 14: any like a resources you want to you want.
Speaker 5: To point people towards.
Speaker 14: I think I think we'll be kind of close to
Speaker 14: wrapping up here.
Speaker 4: I do not do social media, so I have nothing
Speaker 4: to plug. I think the best resources that are out
Speaker 4: there are The Center for Constitutional Rights has uh zine
Speaker 4: called if an Agent knox YEP and the Electronic Frontier
Speaker 4: Foundation has a website called Surveillance Self Defense. And I
Speaker 4: would recommend everyone familiarize themselves with both of those things,
Speaker 4: and for the love of God, encrypt your phone and
Speaker 4: use signal.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, I love the things about that indictment that
Speaker 5: was so.
Speaker 4: That just made me roll my eyes until they popped
Speaker 4: out the back of my head. Was this casting of
Speaker 4: the use of encrypted technology as being extremely sinister, and
Speaker 4: I thought, my god. You know, privacy is good actually, and.
Speaker 12: It's literally in the Constitution like it is in fact
Speaker 12: the case that the government is not entitled to all
Speaker 12: information about us, which is why we have curtains and doors.
Speaker 14: Yes, no, there's certainly many many funny aspects of the
Speaker 14: Reco case. Hopefully, you know, people, this will all, you know,
Speaker 14: turn out to be not very legally viable and in
Speaker 14: ten years we can just laugh about it. But I mean,
Speaker 14: you know, it's people have been talking about, you know,
Speaker 14: the increased possibility for these types of grand juries. You
Speaker 14: know this this was a grand jury in the case
Speaker 14: of these Reco indictments, where they used Special Agent Ryan
Speaker 14: Long of the GBI is their only witness.
Speaker 4: I was noticing this. I thought, my god, you only
Speaker 4: had one witness for all of these allegations. Well, no,
Speaker 4: wonder your indictment reads like it was. All right, Yes,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna stop talking shit about their indictment.
Speaker 14: While recognizing this is state oppression, there's still like, you know,
Speaker 14: an ongoing fear of grand juries and like further indicts
Speaker 14: in Atlanta, because you have to this is very like
Speaker 14: life and death work, and this is a very life
Speaker 14: and death situation, so you know, very there's very very
Speaker 14: clear uh practices like like using signal and shutting the
Speaker 14: fuck up, which are very important when you know when
Speaker 14: you're when you when you're doing this sort of thing.
Speaker 14: One other thing is that, uh, for for a while
Speaker 14: after the Solidarity Fund was rated, they were not you know,
Speaker 14: taking in donations. They they were outsourcing it to the net,
Speaker 14: to the National Bill Fund. I believe they are they
Speaker 14: are back this. The Solidarity Fund website is now once
Speaker 14: again taking taking donations to help people who are facing
Speaker 14: this repression, for legal support, for counsel, all all these
Speaker 14: sorts of things. And because this case just keeps on growing,
Speaker 14: you know, they're they're always kind of needing, needing, needing
Speaker 14: more resources to get people lawyers, to get people out
Speaker 14: of jail, all of these sorts of things. So you
Speaker 14: can you can once again donate at the at the
Speaker 14: at L solidarity site. So that is that is also
Speaker 14: kind of new news as of as of the past few,
Speaker 14: uh few weeks. Thank you mom for talking about this. Uh,
Speaker 14: this is very enlightening.
Speaker 4: It's my pleasure. And I guess the last thing I'll
Speaker 4: say is I do as always want to remind all
Speaker 4: of your listeners that there is never ever a compelling
Speaker 4: reason to speak to police or answer their questions before
Speaker 4: you talk to a lawyer. And so if please start
Speaker 4: asking you questions, the one and only thing you need
Speaker 4: to say is I am going to remain silent and
Speaker 4: I want to speak with my attorney. And if they
Speaker 4: knock on your door or call you on the phone,
Speaker 4: you can say I am represented by counsel. Please leave
Speaker 4: your name and number and my lawyer will call you.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 14: You can print up the little sheet that tells you
Speaker 14: what to say, put it, put it next to your
Speaker 14: or join the join the number of punk houses that
Speaker 14: have that have the.
Speaker 5: Sheet next to their next to their front door.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Absolutely, well again, thank you Byra, Thank you for listening
Speaker 14: for everybody.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, do not do not talk to cops.
Speaker 1: Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
Speaker 1: from now until the heat death of the universe.
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