Speaker 1: Also media. Hello everyone to welcome to if it can
Speaker 1: happen here a podcast where I have just been attacked
Speaker 1: for my identity as a British person by my colleague
Speaker 1: Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2: I gere it's going to happen again. Really, I never
Speaker 2: This podcast is not a safe space.
Speaker 1: Not for British people. Sadly, many many such places for us,
Speaker 1: including Britain, which is a country which is not doing
Speaker 1: so well right now. The Britain is still very safe.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about Britain today. I do, incidentally,
Speaker 1: I guess because I grew up in a country that
Speaker 1: has virtually no fucking public land I mean in the commons.
Speaker 2: Yes, actually kind of topical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. That is a question that actually, and
Speaker 1: so earlier this year in September, I was staying with
Speaker 1: which in people who are indigenous to the Northern Alaskan,
Speaker 1: Interior Arctic and Subarctic, and one of them was like, hey,
Speaker 1: how did you guys get so dislocated from your lands?
Speaker 1: One of my friends who I was talking to, and
Speaker 1: it was a really interesting question for you, right because
Speaker 1: they have lived on that same land for as long
Speaker 1: as human beings have existed in the Americas the twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand years something like that. Like, the answer is
Speaker 1: the enclosure of the commons, right, the answer is like
Speaker 1: proto capitalism is what removed folks like me from the
Speaker 1: land and identifying in a way that those people identify
Speaker 1: with the land. But in the United States, we do
Speaker 1: have a little bit or quite a lot actually of
Speaker 1: public land, right, various different types of public land, various
Speaker 1: different land protections that anyone can go to where you
Speaker 1: don't have to be in America or a citizen. Anyone
Speaker 1: can go to public lands and enjoy them. Unfortunately, Utah
Speaker 1: Senator quote unquote based Mike Lee is once again attempting
Speaker 1: to weaken protections on wilderness, which will render some of
Speaker 1: the small parts of the USA they have not been
Speaker 1: fundamentally damaged by capitalism, permanently and irrevocably changed. Are you
Speaker 1: familiar with Mike Lee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the senator from Utah, the senator from Utah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he's based as you have said, Yes, he's based.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He's a hashtag poster.
Speaker 1: He's a poster. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He operates a Twitter account which some might deem as
Speaker 2: offensive and tweets about current current events in a very
Speaker 2: provocative way. Yeah, usually in line with some kind of
Speaker 2: partisan sentiments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty fair.
Speaker 2: Specifically, following the assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband,
Speaker 2: made a series of tweets that were I guess, kind
Speaker 2: of insensitive, if not actually if not laying blame at
Speaker 2: the governor of Minnesota in this kind of ironic joking
Speaker 2: way where you have plausible deniability, but in general handled
Speaker 2: that situation very grossly. And I think that that's what
Speaker 2: most people might know his tweets for. But he's very active,
Speaker 2: He's he's tweets about many things, many a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if he thinks that, he posts it. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: most people will know him as a guy who made
Speaker 1: the extremely poor taste posts following those.
Speaker 2: Murders nightmare on walls the street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just nothing to be posting when some people have
Speaker 1: been murdered.
Speaker 2: I think in general, when people are murdered, I think
Speaker 2: we as humans should should post.
Speaker 1: The last Yeah yeah, right, if somebody has died, like,
Speaker 1: just don't post, you know, maybe not to say this
Speaker 1: is terrible, so your condolences or whatever, but realistically their
Speaker 1: family aren't looking on on Twitter dot com to see
Speaker 1: you who who's sending their condolences. But the sure as
Speaker 1: funk we'll find out if you try and make a
Speaker 1: funny about it. So to just don't just resist urge
Speaker 1: to post another urge that Mike Lee sadly have is
Speaker 1: I don't like that at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about Mike Lee's urgents.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's in the broadcastable space. Mike Lee has the
Speaker 1: urge to sell off public land. He has tried twice
Speaker 1: this year. We spoke about this a little bit on
Speaker 1: ed right, we talked about it in the context of
Speaker 1: the Big Beautiful Bill or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did try that like half a year ago.
Speaker 1: Yes he did. Well, Garrison, I regret to inform you
Speaker 1: that Mike Lee is back somehow.
Speaker 2: Mike Lee has returned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this time he has got a new thing.
Speaker 1: So last time, if you remember, he talked about selling
Speaker 1: off the public land to make affordable housing.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, yeah, not going to look into this any further.
Speaker 1: And that was exactly what he was relying on. That
Speaker 1: no one gave a shit about the millions of acres
Speaker 1: that we all get access to, and they would just
Speaker 1: trust him on that one.
Speaker 2: Based Mike Lee and his abundance exactly.
Speaker 1: It's him and there's o run shaking hands when it
Speaker 1: comes to affordable housing, but something they care about very much,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, something that Mike Lee has campaigned on for years.
Speaker 1: He did not stick Landing on that because people read
Speaker 1: the proposal and they noticed that it was going to
Speaker 1: do nothing for housing affordability whatsoever. If it did create
Speaker 1: any housing at all, it was going to be like
Speaker 1: super rich people's McMansions. You know, this was not going
Speaker 1: to do anything to move the needlearn affordable housing in
Speaker 1: the US. This time, he has found a cause which
Speaker 1: receives even less scrutiny. Can you guess what it is, Garrison.
Speaker 2: Ah, for why we need to sell the public lands. Yes,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to not just look ahead on your script.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a document in front of you which,
Speaker 1: as he asked, it, so close your eyes. I feel
Speaker 1: like there's like two or three things in the US
Speaker 1: where everyone just seems to turn a blind eye to,
Speaker 1: like I.
Speaker 2: Mean, this is it for like is it for like
Speaker 2: developing land for like oil data centers?
Speaker 1: Uh, that probably is what's happening. But he's he's smart
Speaker 1: enough not to say that, right.
Speaker 2: Super Gold magic card as in the as in the
Speaker 2: film Eddington. I mean, I would guess the data centers,
Speaker 2: but that that's that I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: It's border security. Oh great, of course, right. You could
Speaker 1: have said anti terrorism and probably got there to you.
Speaker 1: But no, it is. It is securing US southern well
Speaker 1: all aboarders, actually southern border, northern border, Eastern and western
Speaker 1: maritime borders. Obviously they're they're looking to prevent any more
Speaker 1: people coming in from Canada. Was not a border stick
Speaker 1: that that is correct? That borders because literally, so you
Speaker 1: go to search something.
Speaker 2: Full off the map of the United States, I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't think you. Maybe I'm misremembering, but you does
Speaker 2: not a border state.
Speaker 1: Is absolutely not a border state.
Speaker 2: Gas.
Speaker 1: It's actually not.
Speaker 2: A border state. It is above Arizona, which.
Speaker 1: Is yeah, so that is perhaps what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Mike Lee has found a way to sell off public
Speaker 1: lands without selling off U to ohur public lands. Oh
Speaker 1: in this case, not really sell off, but destroy and
Speaker 1: degrade in a way which is very clearly going to
Speaker 1: lead to commercial exploitation. Right, what Lee proposes, what Lee's
Speaker 1: bill has a bunch of cosponsors. I believe the only
Speaker 1: border State Senator co sponsoring it is head cruise that
Speaker 1: makes sense, big public lands, respector. But Lee's bill would
Speaker 1: allow the Department of Homeland Security to quote inventory illegal
Speaker 1: roads and trails on public land within one hundred miles
Speaker 1: of the border and then convert them into navigable roads.
Speaker 1: That that is the part that makes no sense, right,
Speaker 1: Like when you look at Lee's statements, and I will
Speaker 1: read one of Lee's statements here. So this is a
Speaker 1: statement on the Senate Energy Committee web page where they
Speaker 1: talk about Energy Natural Resources Committee. His quote from Mike
Speaker 1: Lee explaining his bill quote, Biden's open border chaos is
Speaker 1: destroying America's crown duels. I'm going to pause here to
Speaker 1: note this. According to my watch, we're at November seventh,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, while your watches rog Yeah, we are
Speaker 1: once again asking the most important question of our time.
Speaker 2: It was President who is He used the president tense.
Speaker 1: It didn't It's not even like talking about twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and pretending that Trump was a president. He's doing it.
Speaker 2: Right now that the art Quorterer policies are destroying our
Speaker 2: natural airs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were a year after the election. You've had
Speaker 1: time to come to terms with this. You can't just
Speaker 1: keep pointing at Joe, but apparently I guess you can.
Speaker 2: They're going to keep doing that for three more years
Speaker 2: until there's a new guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So let's go on with Chairman Lee, his
Speaker 1: chairman of this Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee. Right, Families
Speaker 1: who want to enjoy a safe hike or camp out
Speaker 1: are instead finding trash piles, burned landscapes, and trails closed
Speaker 1: because rangers are stuck cleaning up the fallout. Cartels are
Speaker 1: exploiting the disorder, using these lands as cover for their operations.
Speaker 1: This bill gives land managers and border agents tools to
Speaker 1: restore order and protect these places for the people they
Speaker 1: were meant to serve. He's doing the thing where he
Speaker 1: says one thing and then his build does something completely different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what he is saying is, on the face of it,
Speaker 1: somewhat ridiculous. But what he's claiming he's going to do
Speaker 1: is protect these lands. Right. What the bill allows them
Speaker 1: to do is to find roads that are not permitted
Speaker 1: and turn them into navigable roads.
Speaker 2: So just actually pave roads, yes, in the protected wildlife in.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, well crucially in wilderness areas. Right. So the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four Wilderness Act does not allow for there
Speaker 1: to be any mechanized access. Lee's bill proposes not just
Speaker 1: to amend the Wilderness Act for within one hundred miles
Speaker 1: of the border, but to amend it entirely to allow
Speaker 1: for the construction of roads.
Speaker 2: So that they can police the public lands better. That's
Speaker 2: that's what he's saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Well, he's one of his claims is for
Speaker 1: search and rescue, and that there are already exemptions that
Speaker 1: allow for mechanize search and rescue access, right, like things
Speaker 1: like helicopters, right, helicopters. Yeah, if you get and even
Speaker 1: like you get like motorized gurneys, you can use thesar
Speaker 1: things like that, right, like the even ATVs. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a threat to human lives.
Speaker 2: A Toyota tacoma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you'd struggle in most wilderness lands with
Speaker 1: the Tacoma, but yeah, you could. You could give it
Speaker 1: a college try. But it's ludicrous. He hasn't even made
Speaker 1: an effort to join the dots, you know. It also
Speaker 1: calls for fire mitigation by clearing fuels and building fire breaks,
Speaker 1: and includes a provision that would quote address invasive or
Speaker 1: non native species.
Speaker 2: In the wilderness area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what are you going to go in there
Speaker 1: and round us?
Speaker 2: Everyone's planting and spreading invasive species.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, of course they are invasive species right late,
Speaker 1: Like if you go to parts of where I live,
Speaker 1: like you'll see mustard, which is not an indigenous species
Speaker 1: because the climate's changing and people move around the world,
Speaker 1: and like, lots and lots of animals that weren't like
Speaker 1: here twenty thousand years ago are here now.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can make an argument for managing these areas.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's coming at this from an environmental
Speaker 2: conservation standpoint.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what the non native species thing
Speaker 1: is about other than like just like nativism for plants,
Speaker 1: Like I genuinely can't work it out. If anyone has
Speaker 1: any ideas, please let me know. It also attempts to
Speaker 1: inventory damage done to public lands by my grants, like
Speaker 1: what wildfires are caused by migrants? How many national parks
Speaker 1: are trashed by migrants?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Yeah, as opposed to the Americans citizens
Speaker 2: who treat these areas like dogshit. Yeah, is who simply
Speaker 2: just don't do their jobs because they're too lazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like the literally thousands of people a year
Speaker 1: who fucking drag their refrigerator or television onto public land
Speaker 1: and execute it by firing squad. Yeah. Like yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: make a bill about that. I mean, you want to
Speaker 1: do something nice for public land. I want to give
Speaker 1: a definition of wilderness from Howard. I think it's zamasav
Speaker 1: and he ever read his name with a Wilderness Society,
Speaker 1: who more or less wrote act It defines wilderness as
Speaker 1: quote a wilderness in contrast with those areas where man
Speaker 1: and his own works dominate the landscape is hereby recognized
Speaker 1: as an area where the earth and its community of
Speaker 1: life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a
Speaker 1: visitor and who does not remain. I don't actually really
Speaker 1: like that definition. I like wilderness, but I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan of the idea of like quote unquote unti wilderness. Right,
Speaker 1: like every bit of what is now the United States
Speaker 1: is a place where indigenous people have been living and
Speaker 1: surviving for tens of thousands of years, long before it
Speaker 1: was the United States. It's not untouched. It's just not
Speaker 1: fucked by extractive capitalism in a way that a lot
Speaker 1: of our land has been in the last two hundred.
Speaker 2: Years, there could be touching without a fuck, that's what
Speaker 2: you're saying. Person.
Speaker 1: I saw this mischievous look come on their face, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know which direction they were going to take it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't expect that one.
Speaker 2: Now this is podcasting.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, Yeah, we've just left the news reel. Let's
Speaker 1: do an advertising break so we can't come back from that.
Speaker 1: All right, we've returned de scandalized myself. Lee is currently
Speaker 1: making his claims right that this will somehow make the
Speaker 1: border safer and make people on public lands safer.
Speaker 2: This is such the thinnest justification that you're throwing in
Speaker 2: like this is so I severely doubt he sincerely even
Speaker 2: believes this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the border patrol have access to all
Speaker 1: these lands, right, like I see I think the cumber
Speaker 1: Wilderness of state Wilderness. I see border patrol in there
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: I can see. There's many reasons for why our republic
Speaker 2: and might be interested in like building road infrastructure in
Speaker 2: these places and border security. Frankly, is insulting that you're
Speaker 2: that he's even trying to use that as a zeitgeist justification.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucking ludicrous. Like the Trump administration is speed
Speaker 1: running extractive capitalism on our public lands. Right, just yesterday
Speaker 1: when we're recordings recording on Friday, Joe Biden as president.
Speaker 1: As you will remember, Friday seven November twenty twenty, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration nominated. Okay, I've outed myself. I'm not a
Speaker 1: Biden I'm not a Biden truther. The Trump administration dominated
Speaker 1: Steve Pierce to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Piers
Speaker 1: is a former New Mexico congressman who has supported brilling
Speaker 1: and fracking on federal land. He's also a serial loser
Speaker 1: in congressional and state races in New Mexico. I think
Speaker 1: he lost a Senate and a gubernatorial race, and he
Speaker 1: has voted to shrink existing public lands. The Trump admin
Speaker 1: did this before, right. People will probably if they're engaged
Speaker 1: in public land advocacy, they will remember the attempts to
Speaker 1: save the Bears Ears National Monument from oil exploitation, right,
Speaker 1: which again is in Utah. Utah is for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Utah is a hotbed of anti public lands settlement. Amusingly,
Speaker 1: the previous nominee for the leadership of the BLM had
Speaker 1: to be removed when emails condemning Trump's response to January
Speaker 1: sixth came to light she I guess failed the loyalty test.
Speaker 1: Trump has also put Doug Bergham at the head of
Speaker 1: the Department of the Interior. Right, if you're wilar with
Speaker 1: Bergham's shtick, guest.
Speaker 2: His name sounds incredibly familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was governor I believe in North Dakota. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like he did this pivot on like culture war issues
Speaker 1: where he had previously been not opposed to abortion, for example,
Speaker 1: and he just like took a massive swing to the
Speaker 1: right in order to kind of align with the Muga
Speaker 1: position over time. So he's not lying the Department of
Speaker 1: the Interior. I wrote about this on my newsletter that
Speaker 1: I write because when he was nominated, he received a
Speaker 1: letter of support from the Outdoor Recreation round Table, a
Speaker 1: bunch of outdoor brands, notably ARII was one of the
Speaker 1: brands that supported nomination. Bergham is another big oil and
Speaker 1: gas guy, right, He's a guy who has talked about
Speaker 1: the need for energy exploitation on public land. I have
Speaker 1: a whole scripted series and in working on about specifically
Speaker 1: drilling in the Arctic refuge. But this goes far far
Speaker 1: beyond that, right, this could potentially affect every piece of
Speaker 1: public land, every national park, every national monument in the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: And drill baby drill, Yes, drill baby.
Speaker 1: Drill is pretty much our approach to public land these days. Amusingly,
Speaker 1: ARII was shamed into rescinding their support of Bergham for that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the few instances where people probably posted their
Speaker 1: way to a change in in some in some kind
Speaker 1: of some kind of policy. I guess, even though it's
Speaker 1: only ARII policy. I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how we got to this idea of public land
Speaker 1: and the sort of way that it's sometimes referred to,
Speaker 1: and in a where I would prefer we talked about it.
Speaker 1: I guess the idea we have right now is that
Speaker 1: there are various tiers of public land. Right, there's Bureau
Speaker 1: of Land Management land, which is often the least protected.
Speaker 1: We have national parks, we have National monuments, we have
Speaker 1: national forests, and we have wilderness, right, wilderness being among
Speaker 1: the most protected. The problem with this approach is that
Speaker 1: ecosystems don't necessarily respect property lines. Right. So let's take
Speaker 1: for example, the witch in Alaska. Right, they have hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of acres of their own, but their traditional
Speaker 1: way of life, and indeed, like their existence depends on
Speaker 1: the existence of the porcupine cariboo herd. The porcupine caribou
Speaker 1: herd makes the longest migration of any land mammal on Earth,
Speaker 1: and it carves on the coastal plane, the coastal plain.
Speaker 1: The gwich In way of saying it would be I
Speaker 1: have heard this said a lot of times. My sincere
Speaker 1: apologies if I don't get it right, like I'm trauma best.
Speaker 1: What's a gwandai goodly means a sacred place where life begins.
Speaker 1: It's a very sacred place. Gwitchin don't go there themselves
Speaker 1: because it's a sacred place. But it is not in
Speaker 1: their land. It is part of the Arctic refuge, a
Speaker 1: place where the Trump administration is selling oil and gas leases. Right,
Speaker 1: So if the cariboo can't carve, it doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: still matters to the Guichin have all this land, but
Speaker 1: they won't have their cariboo right because the herd will
Speaker 1: be so disrupted by oil and gas relin where it's
Speaker 1: carving that it will then disrupt that whole landscape. Right
Speaker 1: without Cariboo, that landscape would be fundamentally different. So right now,
Speaker 1: the way we talk about public lands, I think we
Speaker 1: talk about them like in terms of leisure, right Like
Speaker 1: often they're scene as having a value. Like I guess
Speaker 1: the classic example would be maybe don't remember this gig
Speaker 1: Patagonia when an advertising campaign called the places we play
Speaker 1: in the last Trump administration, it's not it, right Like,
Speaker 1: that is not cool. I think if we only see
Speaker 1: wilderness as a place where, like folks go outside to
Speaker 1: do send the na on climbing routes and fucking shreds
Speaker 1: and mountain bike trails, bro, then we fundamentally like missed
Speaker 1: the value of it, right Yeah, this goes back a
Speaker 1: long long time. For instance, if we look back in
Speaker 1: ninety twenty nine with specifically with the protection of the
Speaker 1: Arctic Refuge, we can see this piece that Bob Marshall wrote.
Speaker 1: Bob Marshall was a forest at the time, but he's
Speaker 1: kind of important in this creating this idea of like
Speaker 1: wilderness and wilderness protections. He talked about the quote unquote
Speaker 1: emotional values of the frontier being preserved in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: which again I think kind of tells us a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of what's going on here.
Speaker 2: It's a very very Theodore Roosevelt brained approach to conservation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Like we can go out there and we
Speaker 1: can all pretend to be like the guys who participated
Speaker 1: in the genocide of indigenous peoples of North America. I
Speaker 1: guess like he also he considered using the definition attract
Speaker 1: of solitude and savageness, which, again, like it says a
Speaker 1: lot about it's removing the people from the land, right, like,
Speaker 1: both literally and in our conception of it. And I
Speaker 1: don't think we should do that. Right when we talk
Speaker 1: about wilderness, we need to talk about it hand in
Speaker 1: hand with the indigenous people of this country and their
Speaker 1: traditional management practices which allowed this place to be unspoiled
Speaker 1: until folks started to exploit it in the last couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years. They'll take an ad break, hopefully we
Speaker 1: get something for like fracking or some other petrochemical industry,
Speaker 1: and it will be right back. We are back and
Speaker 1: we are talking about Senator Mike Lee again, Garrison, would
Speaker 1: you like to guess which industries have emerged on the
Speaker 1: top of Senator might Lee's donor list When I cruise
Speaker 1: unto open secrets.
Speaker 2: Is it fracking and drilling.
Speaker 1: It's actually real estate. He's got a ton of money
Speaker 1: from real estate. About six hundred and sixty five thousand.
Speaker 1: Six hundred and sixty five thousand is not that much
Speaker 1: money when you consider the millions of acres of public
Speaker 1: lands which would be completely and permanently altered by this, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really should be asking for a lot more
Speaker 2: money to sell off secure the bag. If you're going
Speaker 2: to do this, it's grossly undervalue. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always look at campaign donations and I kind of
Speaker 1: expect them to be in the billions or trillions when
Speaker 1: like you're looking at just this massive and permanent change
Speaker 1: in government policy.
Speaker 2: It's that easy, folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why we are launching a crowdfunding campaign
Speaker 1: to buy back or the public lands. We're not No
Speaker 1: one should own them. We should not be buying them back,
Speaker 1: that they should be protected. It's kind of remarkable how
Speaker 1: many of our public lands this would impact, right within
Speaker 1: one hundred miles at a border that gives us two
Speaker 1: thirds of the United States population. The general definition that
Speaker 1: DHS has operated with also includes all of the Great
Speaker 1: Lakes as quote unquote international waterways, so that takes in
Speaker 1: like a good chunk of the Midwest, right, it would
Speaker 1: then go one hundred miles from the shore of any
Speaker 1: of the Great Lakes. I've seen this reported on very
Speaker 1: poorly or not at all. A lot of the people
Speaker 1: who are better at talking about public lands are like
Speaker 1: the hunting fishing, like hook and bullet media. They will
Speaker 1: talk about it more in my experience, and like the
Speaker 1: straight up outdoor media right, which is where I've made
Speaker 1: my career at least somewhat for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: They will also go harder for it, like it's generally
Speaker 1: a more conservative world. But like they will they will
Speaker 1: go after politicians who sell public lands. But I think
Speaker 1: if you're incapable of understanding that, like the border as
Speaker 1: a zone of exception, the border as a zone without
Speaker 1: constitutional rights is a problem, and this selling of the
Speaker 1: public lands is part of that problem, then like it's
Speaker 1: very hard to have a complete analysis of this. So
Speaker 1: like I've seen a lot of analysis without any seemingly
Speaker 1: where the rights don't understand the United States operates this
Speaker 1: one hundred mile border enforcement zone, right, and that you,
Speaker 1: as a US citizen or as an non sensim have
Speaker 1: fewer rights within that enforcement zone. I have seen a
Speaker 1: lot of analysis which doesn't take into account this weird
Speaker 1: assessing of migrant damage to public land, Like, in what
Speaker 1: world is that a useful allocation of governments? Like there
Speaker 1: are places right where, Like if I think about the
Speaker 1: places where the Biden administration did outdoor attention, that land
Speaker 1: escape was damaged because people had fires to stay warm,
Speaker 1: and that fire cause is scarring right in our desert landscapes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that landscape is damaged, Like how are you going to
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? There were like a
Speaker 1: thousand people a day coming through at one point. Are
Speaker 1: you going to find them all and charge them more
Speaker 1: for like misdemeanor California fire? But also there's a tiny
Speaker 1: provision of this bill that I found that suggests that
Speaker 1: migrants cannot be housed on federal public land unless they
Speaker 1: are housed in a detention center. Yeah, yeah, great, thanks.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the case before, Like you couldn't
Speaker 1: really just be like, well, I mean, by the administration
Speaker 1: did just say right, you all campaigre and we'll come
Speaker 1: get you in a week. But there wasn't really a
Speaker 1: legal precedent for that. They just went ahead and did it.
Speaker 1: I guess what I want to end up with is, like,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously very passionate about this. I guess I'm kind
Speaker 1: of a public land super user. You do be camping,
Speaker 1: Yeah I do. I am a Yeah, I am a
Speaker 1: camping guy. If there's one thing that defines to me,
Speaker 1: it's going camping. I try and sleep outside least once
Speaker 1: a month. But yeah, most of my happiest memories in
Speaker 1: life are like moving under my own power through the mountains.
Speaker 1: That is when I'm happiest. That is how I deal
Speaker 1: with my shit. That is what I do with myself
Speaker 1: after every single one of the traumatic work trips that
Speaker 1: you that you seem to love listening to, right like that,
Speaker 1: that is how I cope with the fact that my
Speaker 1: job is to turn trauma into stuff to go in
Speaker 1: between chumper casino ads. So, yeah, I love public lands.
Speaker 1: But you should too, even if you don't recreate on
Speaker 1: public lands. Right. So that's the public lands are called
Speaker 1: America's best idea. I don't like that because inherent in
Speaker 1: having public lands is a removal of them from indigenous people, right,
Speaker 1: and indigenous people losing their sovereignty over those lands. But
Speaker 1: as things that the state has done with land goes.
Speaker 1: Protecting it for future generations is one of the good ones, right,
Speaker 1: Like there are some truly special places. The vastness of
Speaker 1: the Western United States is why I live here. I
Speaker 1: cycled across the United States in twenty ten, and I
Speaker 1: was just blown away by, like the scale of the
Speaker 1: landscapes without significant human damage. That's still something I'm blown
Speaker 1: away by. Yeah, you know, fifteen years later. I spend
Speaker 1: as much time as I can, and not just like
Speaker 1: national parks. I think a lot of people, if they've
Speaker 1: visited public land, were associated with national parks. I'd really
Speaker 1: encourage you to like hit up national forests, wilderness lands
Speaker 1: like places where there it's not a line or a
Speaker 1: ticket kiosk, Like you can have a really special wilderness
Speaker 1: experience there. But even if you don't want to, that
Speaker 1: doesn't appeal to you, if it's not something that you
Speaker 1: feel like physically or otherwise comfortable doing that. The fact
Speaker 1: that it will be there for future generations, the fact
Speaker 1: that there is potential to return this land to the
Speaker 1: indigenous people of North America without giant fucking minds scars
Speaker 1: and roads cut through it right now is something that
Speaker 1: we should fight for and like public lands. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where like I have conversations with dudes
Speaker 1: who do not agree with me politically at all, like
Speaker 1: people who definitely voted for Donald Trump who are also
Speaker 1: furious about this shit. And if you can help people
Speaker 1: see that this is part of a bigger problem, Like
Speaker 1: if this can be a place where we can build
Speaker 1: a coalition, that is a good thing. And it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that like to take action, you can
Speaker 1: just live out and go on the internet and write
Speaker 1: to your senator, call your representative, Like you can do
Speaker 1: these things which are so easy, low risk, and like
Speaker 1: it's a sort of engagement that like neoliberal bipartisan politics
Speaker 1: wants you to have. Right, it's not hard, but in
Speaker 1: this instance, you can do something really good by doing that.
Speaker 1: So I would encourage you to do that. Mike Lee's
Speaker 1: bill is currently in committee, I believe the Energy and
Speaker 1: Natural Resources Committee TBD whether it gets out of there.
Speaker 1: But he has tried twice, like since the summer, to
Speaker 1: significantly destroy this incredible thing that we all have access
Speaker 1: to in the United States. He will continue to try.
Speaker 1: This is clearly something that he he has an agenda for,
Speaker 1: so like I would really encourage people to keep an
Speaker 1: eye out and we will keep reporting on it. Anything
Speaker 1: else you want to talk about public landscare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a different approach to dealing with
Speaker 2: like protected wilderness land. Prop one to amend the state
Speaker 2: Constitution just passed in New York. Basically what happened like
Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, they were building this Olympic sports
Speaker 2: complex and violation of the wilderness like protection like state
Speaker 2: like act or part of the Constitution. And to deal
Speaker 2: with that, I'm not sure what's taken this long, but
Speaker 2: to deal with this, they have just days ago voted
Speaker 2: to amenda constitution to set aside twenty five hundred acres
Speaker 2: of mountain land nearby but not on this complex, and
Speaker 2: to turn that into protected land to then continue the
Speaker 2: operation and like maintenance of the sports complex. The proposition
Speaker 2: was worded a bit weird, but I think in effect
Speaker 2: this just results in there being in in the end
Speaker 2: of more public land or more protected land specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the complex that already exists can then continue to
Speaker 2: function because the lands already it was already used.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like they sort of built it and then
Speaker 1: ask permission, like I guess one hundred years later almost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like land swaps happen, they like and like like sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll see people being like, oh, this is public land
Speaker 1: being sort of like sometimes landswaps are very menial, right,
Speaker 1: like if there's a little parcel of national forest land
Speaker 1: or like it can it's a piece that like it's
Speaker 1: next to a school and the school needs a playing
Speaker 1: field and those. Yeah, things like that. Land swaps do happen.
Speaker 1: And as long as we're not like losing anchorage to
Speaker 1: oil and gas or to like mcmahonson building, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we can be flexible.
Speaker 2: No, I mean if anything this this this will set
Speaker 2: us side thousands of acres of land to not have
Speaker 2: that happen to it. Yeah in the mountains of like
Speaker 2: that runax Oric. Yes, and then this complex can now
Speaker 2: continue to get maintained. I think if this, if this
Speaker 2: didn't pass, they would like restrictions would fall upon the
Speaker 2: capacity of this complex started to be operating.
Speaker 1: That's dumb because you have a place which is like
Speaker 1: it's not going back, right, Like, once you've built stuff, you.
Speaker 2: Should use it. The damage has been dying, I should
Speaker 2: use it here and then protect more land exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and luckily this this thing barely passed. It was. It
Speaker 2: was pretty closing around fifty two percent. Yes, most of
Speaker 2: the votes for no did come from people, I think
Speaker 2: living in New York City. I think mostly because of
Speaker 2: the the proposition was worded. It was worded in an
Speaker 2: odd way because it made it sound like you're like
Speaker 2: sacrificing currently protected land at the complexes on. So I
Speaker 2: think people who are approaching it's from like kind of
Speaker 2: an ecological standpoint, a conservation standpoint. Yeah, like misunderstood or
Speaker 2: had or had some like differing view on like the
Speaker 2: value of protecting the current land and the complex is
Speaker 2: on versus establishing thousands of acres of more lands to
Speaker 2: be protected nearby.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean initiatives and propositions are often written
Speaker 1: in a particularly bizarre way, and it's a it's not
Speaker 1: like like the California Prop fifty was like two lions.
Speaker 1: This is several paragraphs of so I can see how
Speaker 1: it would have been confusing to people. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: this also happens at a state level all the time, right,
Speaker 1: Like states have public lands too. You'll see like a
Speaker 1: patchwork of state and federal and private land, especially like
Speaker 1: in some national forests in the West. Right, But that's
Speaker 1: something that is especially in Republican rund states now people
Speaker 1: should be very aware of in their own states. It's
Speaker 1: like the GOP didn't used to be massively anti public lands.
Speaker 1: This is a new thing for them, right, They always
Speaker 1: felt that they needed there. I guess maybe that they
Speaker 1: needed their like hunting, fishing, shooting, crowd.
Speaker 2: No, but environmentalism is now wokeafied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a post to al Gore thing
Speaker 2: of now. The Conservatives associate a lot of this language
Speaker 2: with like climate change algorisms that it's his this woke element.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very strange. It's funny. I'll often when I'm
Speaker 1: out about, you know, like exploring in the back country,
Speaker 1: I run into guys who are out there like they're
Speaker 1: either hunting or like looking for places to hunt. I
Speaker 1: think we'll be like, oh, yeah, well there aren't as
Speaker 1: many of the turkeys or the deer or the whatever
Speaker 1: is there used to be. But then it's very hard
Speaker 1: for people who now can't say climate change is real
Speaker 1: to find a way of like having permission to say
Speaker 1: what they want to say because they've seen it with
Speaker 1: their own eyes. Yeah. Better. Also, they don't want to
Speaker 1: say it, but.
Speaker 2: No, I mean I did an episode about this after
Speaker 2: the R and C because I talked with Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this like Republican conservation group about how they're trying to
Speaker 2: bring back like put the conservative back in conservation Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think generally, generally the idea of them
Speaker 1: conserving anything is pretty much off the table at this point.
Speaker 1: But yeah, people getting out in public land, will you
Speaker 1: will understand climate change. You spend long enough going to
Speaker 1: the same spot, and you're going to see what that means.
Speaker 1: So it has a lot of benefits. Go outside this weekend,
Speaker 1: go camping. It's great desert season right now. If you're
Speaker 1: within range of a desert, go camping in the desert.
Speaker 1: Look at the stars to find a dark sky area
Speaker 1: if that's your thing. ARII who had the like, don't
Speaker 1: go shopping on Black Friday. Go outside. You don't remember this,
Speaker 1: It's okay, this is just shit.
Speaker 2: That's I you know, I am pro gazing at the
Speaker 2: flickering lights of civilization Garrison.
Speaker 1: No one wants to see the fucking flickering lights of civilization.
Speaker 1: I do, I do, I don't. I want to see
Speaker 1: the stars. I camped in Chaco Canyon earlier this year.
Speaker 1: Banger of a national park. That's my it's my final tip.
Speaker 1: View of the Great House at Chaco Canyon was the
Speaker 1: largest building constructed in the United States until eighteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, it is vast. It's one of the
Speaker 1: least visited parks in the system because you have to
Speaker 1: go like seventeen miles down in dirt road. Sure, but
Speaker 1: incredible that these are the ancestral Pueblo and it's right
Speaker 1: like the people who are the ancestors of the Pueblo
Speaker 1: tribes today. But it's an amazing place to go. Check out.
Speaker 1: You should all go, not at once. There's not enough
Speaker 1: space for all of you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just throlling through Mike Lee's Twitter account.
Speaker 1: Now, oh yeah, you got any bangers?
Speaker 2: Uh? Not really really not really. I mean he's he's
Speaker 2: whining about Zoron and posting a lot about Charlie Kirk
Speaker 2: and that's mostly See, he.
Speaker 1: Doesn't even talk about this stuff because no one likes it.
Speaker 1: He got hammered by a bunch of like very right
Speaker 1: wing rancher types on Twitter last time he tried to
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 1: I think he knows better because a lot of people.
Speaker 1: You can also graze cattle on public land. Right, there's
Speaker 1: been a whole standoff about this. Long time listeners will
Speaker 1: remember the Bundy situation. But yeah, linked to I guess
Speaker 1: he's also pissed those people off. Now. I just went
Speaker 1: to search for the news coverage of this. The only
Speaker 1: thing we can find is a Washington Examiner. So it's
Speaker 1: it's just us and them. Got the video. The auto
Speaker 1: players on the Washington Examiner page is petrifying.
Speaker 2: The true bastions of journalists and the Washington.
Speaker 1: Horseshoes theory come to life. Oh god, all right, I
Speaker 1: go outside. This week's last weekend. Don't go to we
Speaker 1: go outside. Go outside tomorrow. Bye.
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