Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Why do you listen to this podcast? It may be
Speaker 2: because it's a strange comfort in naming the thing that's
Speaker 2: breathing down on X Today. I want to archive this
Speaker 2: past year of systemic collapse, a pile up of small
Speaker 2: and large failures we can start to make sense of
Speaker 2: in retrospect. If we don't look back at our past
Speaker 2: and the patterns within it, if we don't keep these
Speaker 2: more months and events in our memory, it's very, very
Speaker 2: easy to get stuck into a perpetually overwhelming present.
Speaker 3: Welcome to take it up in here.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrew Sage, the guy behind andrewism on YouTube, and
Speaker 2: I'm here with.
Speaker 1: James Stout, the guy you're here all the time this podcast.
Speaker 3: Welcome to your podcast. It's nice.
Speaker 1: It's nice to do one with you.
Speaker 2: Are you ready to take a look at some of
Speaker 2: the stories that shaped Hunt twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's been a hell of a year, so this
Speaker 1: she be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't expect to be exhaustive, but
Speaker 2: we can, you know, talk about some of the incidents
Speaker 2: in climate, in politics and technology and geopolitics, and through
Speaker 2: all that, I want to ask what these stories are
Speaker 2: teaching us as anarchists, activists, and just people trying to
Speaker 2: live in a society. Yeah, so I suppose first we
Speaker 2: could talk about the climate and infrastructural situations, some of
Speaker 2: them that took place this year. It really covered all
Speaker 2: of the elements. We had heat, flooding, drought, fire storm.
Speaker 2: According to the World Meteorological Organization, global temperatures in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five ranked among the hottest on record.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 2: The WMO put twenty twenty five as likely this second
Speaker 2: or third warmest year in the observation record.
Speaker 3: So a little round of applause for hitting some miles stars.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's good to be winning.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Power systems also have been overloaded under air conditioning demand,
Speaker 2: leading into rolling blackouts in cities and rural areas, schools
Speaker 2: closing during heat waves, and mortality rising among the elderly
Speaker 2: and precarious. International agencies have warned that extreme heat is
Speaker 2: producing double digit crop losses and mass livestock die offs
Speaker 2: in some cases. Brazil in particular, felt that heat in
Speaker 2: agriculture and supply chains. Staple production and food imports both
Speaker 2: suffer due to the heat, and those ripples are going
Speaker 2: to be felt for the rest of us too, because
Speaker 2: Brazil is a bread basket of sorts. It's a top
Speaker 2: exporter of tons of really important agricultural products, and the
Speaker 2: monsoons also arrived with quite a mood this year. South
Speaker 2: Asia's five rains came very heavy and very persistent. In
Speaker 2: many please urban drainage field neighborhoods became isolated by the waters.
Speaker 2: Trains and roads were unusable for days. Bangladeshian parts of
Speaker 2: India saw a catastrophic flooding that took hundreds of lives
Speaker 2: and displaced millions. Over in the Horn of Africa, wells
Speaker 2: ran low, pastures, field and small farmers suffered under the
Speaker 2: pressures of the drought. Their water distribution systems were not
Speaker 2: built to withstand multi year dry spells, and saw hunger
Speaker 2: crisises ended up escalating, particularly in Somalia. Yeah, North America
Speaker 2: and Europe also had severe wildfires this year. At this point,
Speaker 2: it's very easy to kind of see them as a
Speaker 2: new normal, you know. Canada's turned twenty five season pushed
Speaker 2: agencies into one of their largest domestic wildfire responses in years.
Speaker 2: Firefighters were stretched, entire towns had to evacuate, and Southern
Speaker 2: Europe in particuliar a Greece and Spain also saw fast
Speaker 2: moving fires that consumed homes and utilities and left landscapes
Speaker 2: scorched and infrastructure severely weakened. And then, of course they
Speaker 2: were the hurricanes. This year, the Caribbean was slammed by
Speaker 2: Hurricane Melissa, a very slow and powerful storm that devastated Jamaica, Cuba,
Speaker 2: Haiti and others, tearing up infrastructure and leaving large swaths
Speaker 2: without power for weeks. The storm's exceptional energy is, of
Speaker 2: course thanks to climacy, and so all these events and
Speaker 2: I'm definitely leaving outs. I believe their review a few things.
Speaker 2: For one, I think it's clear that our systems can't
Speaker 2: handle the new extremes being brought about by climacy. They
Speaker 2: may have been built for previous normals, but not this.
Speaker 2: And this is something that climate scientists have been worn
Speaker 2: and about for some time. You know, our electrical grids
Speaker 2: were sized for incremental loads, so they couldn't handle these
Speaker 2: simultaneous peak demands. Urban stormwater management was built for a
Speaker 2: particular volume of water over a particular period of time.
Speaker 2: They can handle these volumes of water that are pouring
Speaker 2: down from above. And also what management systems in more
Speaker 2: arid regions weren't prepared for years of drought, and so
Speaker 2: the systemic shocks of this year have been very devastating
Speaker 2: for infrastructure, and unlike their propaganda, which tasted they are
Speaker 2: necessary for our survival, for our well being, to manage society.
Speaker 2: State responses to these catastrophes were often reactive and chronically delayed.
Speaker 2: Government intervention and international aid helped in some places, I'm
Speaker 2: not denying that, but communities have also often found themselves
Speaker 2: on their own, having to improvise survival strategies. And of
Speaker 2: course with every disaster there is an extremely long tale
Speaker 2: of recovery after the initial crisis has passed. So we
Speaker 2: may leave the news cycle, but their people still dealing
Speaker 2: with the consequences and will be dealing with it in
Speaker 2: the year to come. But these disasters continue to show
Speaker 2: the ingenuity and capability of ordinary people to organize, support,
Speaker 2: distribute aid, facilitate evacuation, share resources, and so on. So
Speaker 2: we're not powerless. We don't have to be dependent on
Speaker 2: slow bureaucracies. Develop resilience. It starts with us as people
Speaker 2: being proactive, especially you know, I would say, don't wait
Speaker 2: for the disaster to happen in your area to develop
Speaker 2: a response plan. Invest your time and energy in this
Speaker 2: coming year in horizontal capacities, skill training, community trills, share
Speaker 2: two libraries, seed and food sovereignty projects, local medical knowledge,
Speaker 2: decentralize energy and water projects. I don't place much on
Speaker 2: the demands of the state, but they are also sometimes
Speaker 2: granted to may be able to apply for that. Can
Speaker 2: you know, secure some resources in community hands, And of
Speaker 2: course keep documenting these incidents as they are happening. You know,
Speaker 2: don't wait for a disaster to hit your area to
Speaker 2: learn the lessons that other places had to learn, you know,
Speaker 2: go and see where your vulnerabilities lie them others have
Speaker 2: done to respond, train people were necessary, and just try
Speaker 2: and keep up the good faith. Would you say there
Speaker 2: was a particular environmental crisis we're naturals, asked to the
Speaker 2: year that released it out to you.
Speaker 1: I mean to me. I think the ones that I
Speaker 1: just because they're personally related to places I've been were
Speaker 1: the earthquake in Myanmar, right where we saw not only
Speaker 1: people die as a result of natural disaster, but people
Speaker 1: die as a result of the state considering it's desire
Speaker 1: to keep people in Memma away from the world more
Speaker 1: important than their lives, right, like the state choosing not
Speaker 1: to allow search and rescue teams from France, for example,
Speaker 1: to enter and instead like you know, folks I know
Speaker 1: who are fighting in the revolution in Memma, like laying
Speaker 1: down their arms and trying to work out how to
Speaker 1: pull collapse buildings apart before the people in them died.
Speaker 1: I think that it really was like the poly crisis
Speaker 1: and then the the flooding of Indigenous communities in Alaska,
Speaker 1: right the coastal communities that we saw like a month
Speaker 1: or so ago, And that one hit me particularly hard because, like,
Speaker 1: these people have been screaming for a decade that climate
Speaker 1: change has come. It's not coming, it's come right like
Speaker 1: the like the end is not nigh for them, The
Speaker 1: end is here. The ways of life are being destroyed
Speaker 1: by climate change, and the whole community's got wiped out
Speaker 1: right just before winter, and in a place which has
Speaker 1: one of the hardest winters on Earth. All their food caches, right,
Speaker 1: because these are people who tend to to fish for
Speaker 1: a lot of food, so the cash food they don't
Speaker 1: go to the store were also wiped out. Like It's
Speaker 1: just one of those examples of like one can't be
Speaker 1: prepared enough to deal with things in one can't control, right,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we can't control is
Speaker 1: climate change, and it's coming for all of us.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's coming for some people first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's always going to be indigenous, more marginalized people, right,
Speaker 1: whose plight is ignored. Like people can say climate change
Speaker 1: isn't real because they have the relative privilege of not
Speaker 1: having their homes destroyed. And like, rebuilding those communities will
Speaker 1: be very, very hard because the only way to get
Speaker 1: there is on a tiny little plane or a boat.
Speaker 1: And everything they've got there has taken generations to build
Speaker 1: and it's all gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So those two really struck me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think my take away is from what you shared
Speaker 2: there is that the state will often get in the way. Yes,
Speaker 2: of our survival will all well be in Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that you know, the crisis is here and it's already
Speaker 2: hitting people, and just the people are being hit right
Speaker 2: now are the ones designated as sacrificial arms. Yeah, in
Speaker 2: a sense for the continued pursuit of economic growth and progress.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So twenty five also saw an accelerated political coming of age.
Speaker 2: You know, gen Z has not been all teenagers for
Speaker 2: a very long time. Now it's been mostly adults or
Speaker 2: soon to be mostly adults at this point, depending on
Speaker 2: where you draw the line, and that generation our my
Speaker 2: generation has shown up in the numbers for the past
Speaker 2: few years, but particularly this year, inspiring millions. You know,
Speaker 2: gen Z became a very visible political force in the
Speaker 2: headlines across very different geographies. Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, Peru,
Speaker 2: and Mexico all had uprisings driven by a mix of
Speaker 2: grievances rather be corruption, the cost of living, lack of services,
Speaker 2: violent policing, and a feeling that all institutions had nothing
Speaker 2: to offer. These movements were not a monolith, you know,
Speaker 2: but they did have some common templates, you know. They
Speaker 2: organized digitally on platforms like discord or telegram, and they
Speaker 2: mobilized very quickly, a lot faster than states were originally
Speaker 2: able to keep up with.
Speaker 3: In Madagascar, the youth.
Speaker 2: Had mobilized during water, power cuts and broader corruption, which
Speaker 2: eventually toppled the rule in government and triggered military moves
Speaker 2: in the form of a kulita. But it doesn't seem
Speaker 2: so far that anything fruitful, stable or lasting has come
Speaker 2: out of their cause quite yet. Right now, Madagascar is
Speaker 2: a military kernel for president, so it remains we see
Speaker 2: in what that leadership brings. In Morocco, the movement gen
Speaker 2: Z two on two organized demand better education and healthcare,
Speaker 2: decent housing and jobs, and were eventually met with state
Speaker 2: pushback in the form of arrests and infiltrations. No, they
Speaker 2: eventually want some concessions from the government in the form
Speaker 2: of greater funding in this sectors demanded and draft bills
Speaker 2: that incentivize youth participation in the official channels of But
Speaker 2: it remains we've seen how long that will quell the tide,
Speaker 2: because it seems to me at least that this is
Speaker 2: the classic tactic of, you know, incorporating a radical movement
Speaker 2: into the machinations of the state to temper its energy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in Kenya we saw mass mobilization against police brutality that
Speaker 2: was met with yet more police brutality and extra judicial
Speaker 2: killings now numbering in the sixties, with a very clear
Speaker 2: aim for the suppression of descent. So far, none of
Speaker 2: their goals have really been recognized or achieved as a movement,
Speaker 2: and it seems as though they've similed down due to
Speaker 2: the share violence that they are faced in response. In Nepal,
Speaker 2: perhaps the most famous of these stories for this year,
Speaker 2: the student led uprisings topple the corrupt government and forced
Speaker 2: concessions with an election coming up next year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: But again, what comes next is yet to be seen.
Speaker 2: Whether it be lasting, empowering, or sustainable is an open question.
Speaker 2: It's another uprising where in my view, the fundamental institutions
Speaker 2: have not been overcome, and thus their goals will not
Speaker 2: be achieved mediately. But I think every movement, every generation,
Speaker 2: has their place for political development and figuring out some
Speaker 2: of these shortcomings of these approaches. But I think because
Speaker 2: of how tight the timeline is for the need for
Speaker 2: like radically drastic action for the sake of the planet
Speaker 2: and for the people on it. Yeah, I really wish
Speaker 2: that these lessons were learned a bit quicker, you know,
Speaker 2: that we didn't have to go through these same cycles
Speaker 2: of you know, missteps again and again with movements. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, but it remains to be seen whether that
Speaker 2: sort of political development can be accelerated as the crisis accelerates. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I feel for the youth, like like now these
Speaker 1: revolutions a sense of urgency is so high, right because
Speaker 1: the system, Like, if you're a millennial, I guess you
Speaker 1: grew up. If you're me, maybe I'm saying here, like
Speaker 1: really you grew up. You know, you were told like
Speaker 1: things will always get better and you will work hard,
Speaker 1: and like just like your folks, you will buy a
Speaker 1: house in the house will get more valuable and that
Speaker 1: will be nice and blah blah blah. Right if you
Speaker 1: live in in this sort of the colonial core, and
Speaker 1: that didn't work out for most of us, but for
Speaker 1: gen Z folks, it's like the town that you live
Speaker 1: and will continue to exist is up for debate, right,
Speaker 1: Like the climate that you were born in will be
Speaker 1: completely distinct from the one that you have children raise
Speaker 1: children in. Probably the urgency of the need for change
Speaker 1: is so much with young people today, right, Like you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the economy that my generation was promised doesn't exist for us,
Speaker 1: but the planet that gen Z was promised isn't going
Speaker 1: to exist for them. And the information system is so
Speaker 1: fucked for young people today, right, and so captured by
Speaker 1: corporate and state interests. And yet despite that, or maybe
Speaker 1: because of that, we've seen some of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: revolutions that I can recall, Right, Like, when I speak
Speaker 1: to gen Z folks in Myanmar, they approach the revolution
Speaker 1: in a distinct way from the way that like the
Speaker 1: revolutions I'm familiar with from the nineties and two thousands did,
Speaker 1: but also just from like a very human desire for
Speaker 1: a better world, for quality, for a beautiful life, and
Speaker 1: so like I'm very hopeful at the same time as
Speaker 1: I feel for people of the younger generation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of cause for
Speaker 2: hope that such numbers can be mobilized. But I would
Speaker 2: love to see those numbers they're mobilized in the countries
Speaker 2: that we've been talking about a more radical than simply
Speaker 2: bringing demands to the state or or changing up one
Speaker 2: government for another, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean in the case of me and Marlika,
Speaker 1: that's certainly like that is the case, right, Like then
Speaker 1: they're not thinking about changing one running party for another.
Speaker 1: They're thinking about changing the way governance works, right, They're
Speaker 1: like bringing democracy to people. To be clear, there isn't
Speaker 1: really a coherent set of exact demands for the revolution,
Speaker 1: but many of the young people they speak to are
Speaker 1: looking at how can we create a model that doesn't
Speaker 1: allow for a genocide to happen against one group, that
Speaker 1: doesn't allow for the military to walk into one building
Speaker 1: and take away everyone's future. And I think that's very beautiful.
Speaker 3: Exactly, that's that's inspiring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think asking those questions and asking even
Speaker 2: more questions, I think that's how this generation is going
Speaker 2: to get to, you know, certain conclusions about whether this
Speaker 2: current project should continue. Yeah, it's current state project, this
Speaker 2: current capitalist project, this current patriarchal project. The more questions
Speaker 2: get asked, the more answers get illuminated, and the closes,
Speaker 2: I think we can get to a viable and liberatory alternative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely the case. And I think some of
Speaker 1: this is just like some of it we have to
Speaker 1: work out on the way and that's okay. Like I
Speaker 1: think the twentieth century, the idea of a revolution was
Speaker 1: like this violent seizure of state power, often by a
Speaker 1: vanguard group with a very specific project that they were
Speaker 1: looking to implement, right, And in the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen that. All the time. We have seen
Speaker 1: a lot more of like this is bad and it
Speaker 1: has to change, and we're going to make it change,
Speaker 1: and we'll work out which direction we're moving as we go.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then that's blatantly ideological, I'd say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like, I think that's a good thing because
Speaker 1: what we've seen, I mean, I mean, we have seen
Speaker 1: like this, this idea that revolutions have to stick to
Speaker 1: a strict pathway have horrific consequences for humanity, right, like
Speaker 1: them thinking of the Gulag, you know, like and then
Speaker 1: thinking of the strict ideology which allowed the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: to become this place where where you created, like you know,
Speaker 1: the things that all were were about in nineteen eighty four. Right,
Speaker 1: it is better that a revolutionarized on what the people
Speaker 1: want as they continue to move through it, rather than
Speaker 1: saying we will tell the people what they need and
Speaker 1: will be the one steering the ship here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that will model is not going to get us
Speaker 2: all to this nop. So obviously, my observation of the
Speaker 2: political shifts of this year has really exposed the flaws
Speaker 2: of traditional politics and parties, how they've largely sued as
Speaker 2: gatekeepers to suppress, to absorb and blunt.
Speaker 3: The energy is the.
Speaker 2: Masses, and I'm sure theotential of spontaneous uparisons, but I
Speaker 2: think this year also show that we cannot keep rising
Speaker 2: up again and again and again and again, you know,
Speaker 2: feeding bodies to the brutal police forces and prison systems,
Speaker 2: you know, from movements to matters. Beyond these episodes of disruption,
Speaker 2: I believe they need to develop infrastructure. You know, let's
Speaker 2: let's do something that lasts longer than a headline, and
Speaker 2: of course the actions that you know, I'm not denying
Speaker 2: that some of these movements are in each and building infrastructure.
Speaker 2: It's just that those sorts of efforts are less likely
Speaker 2: to make the international use headlines. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 2: I love to see these essentralized mobilizations. I just want
Speaker 2: to see them pay with something more prefigurative politics that
Speaker 2: can sustain them, that can expand the zones of freedom,
Speaker 2: that can tune their momentum into lasting change. I will
Speaker 2: say that I appreciate these movements have embraced tactical variety.
Speaker 2: You know that they it's largely understood the need for anonymity.
Speaker 2: But I don't want them to keep forward into this
Speaker 2: trap of this sort of dissipation of energy. They get
Speaker 2: a government concession and they dissipate that there's not a
Speaker 2: long term ambition, or they're not enough steps being taken
Speaker 2: to resist infiltration and surveillance through operational security.
Speaker 3: I think that if that you know, OPSEEC is.
Speaker 2: Not present, it's very easy for these movements get disrupted
Speaker 2: from within. You know, platforms like this SCORD have already
Speaker 2: proven themselves to be ops in on to these kinds
Speaker 2: of causes. They will willingly sell people out. But I
Speaker 2: have a lot of hope when I say that tentatively,
Speaker 2: but we can stand up for something that some of
Speaker 2: mine can read run somewhere, Because even though an uprising
Speaker 2: like the one in Nepal or Morocco hasn't taken place
Speaker 2: in Trinidadia, I mean we've been under a state of
Speaker 2: emergency for the entire time that this new government has
Speaker 2: been in power. I will say that I often in
Speaker 2: you know, casual conversation here rumbling. So we need to
Speaker 2: do what Nepal did, you know, We need to do
Speaker 2: a proved it.
Speaker 3: And I think that's.
Speaker 2: The power the potential of these kind of moments. Even
Speaker 2: if they don't lead to something lasting in the immediate aftermath,
Speaker 2: they still save as an inspiration. They still open up
Speaker 2: the landscape of possibilities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's so Commandante Marcus used to say it was
Speaker 1: like to open up a pinprick of light in the
Speaker 1: curtain of darkness exactly. Yeah, it's to show people what's possible.
Speaker 2: That's a perfect expression. I actually never did that quote before.
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to read Loze that stuff. I think
Speaker 1: you had some wonderful ways of expressing things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gen Z's not going to save anyone.
Speaker 2: You know, as a generation, we're just as susceptible to
Speaker 2: flaws and resurrections as any other. There are those who
Speaker 2: are invested in welfare and anti corruption, and there are
Speaker 2: those who are invested in reactionary popularism. But the waves
Speaker 2: of uprisings I think are mostly positive. And I just
Speaker 2: hope that that that spark can light a fire. And
Speaker 2: the way that we get that spark to light that
Speaker 2: fire when we put fuel in place, fuel like networks,
Speaker 2: fuel like collectives, unions and so on. Well, when speaking
Speaker 2: of unions, I forgot to mention this. Yeah, India actually
Speaker 2: had a coalition of major trade unions stage and nationwide
Speaker 2: protests and strikes.
Speaker 3: This year against the new labor codes. That's cool, so
Speaker 3: shout out to them as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially in a state which is it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily you know, like you will, they will cut down
Speaker 1: pretty hard on you in India if you stand up
Speaker 1: against the state.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and so to wrap this section, I think I'll
Speaker 2: say that five protests show a fraction of offer frustration.
Speaker 2: But they also show that we can't just keep screaming
Speaker 2: into the void. You know, the ruptures that come in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six and beyond need to start from somewhere.
Speaker 3: Other than scratch.
Speaker 2: If you want to say tech crises now, I think
Speaker 2: as EI continued to boom in twenty twenty five, we
Speaker 2: saw a massive build out of physical infrastructure data centers,
Speaker 2: server farms, water hungry cooling systems, and energy hungry hardware.
Speaker 2: It's very easy to think of the Internet as a cloud,
Speaker 2: but it's a very physical thing.
Speaker 3: It demands land, water, and electricity.
Speaker 2: It strains local communities, It drains local communities of resources.
Speaker 2: The water use of data centers in particular, can eat
Speaker 2: up millions of liters of water daily, taken away from
Speaker 2: households and agricultural needs. In fact, data centers in the
Speaker 2: US now consume more than four percent of total electricity,
Speaker 2: with over half still being powered by fossil fuel jesus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like how much electricity we use in the US,
Speaker 1: Like we go hard on electric right, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so four percent. It's quite a jump from something
Speaker 2: that basically didn't exist ten years ago, five.
Speaker 3: Years ago exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so all this.
Speaker 2: Scaling up of AI is pushing us much faster towards
Speaker 2: the limits of growth.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It feels like we are being ruled by accelerationists at times,
Speaker 2: you know. And all the while we have these tech
Speaker 2: bros pushing their tech savior gospel on us, even though
Speaker 2: it's very clear that AI is just another vector of extraction, consumption,
Speaker 2: and inequality. Yeah, there's just another way for the owners
Speaker 2: of profit to gain greater control of our data and
Speaker 2: greater surveillance of our lives. What I am proud of
Speaker 2: is that people continue to speak out against it, to
Speaker 2: challenge it, to question it, to call it out wherever
Speaker 2: they see it. They are people who refuse to support,
Speaker 2: you know, YouTube channels that are pushing out AI music
Speaker 2: or EI visuals or II scripts. People who refusing to
Speaker 2: support you know, pages and profiles that have those kinds
Speaker 2: of things, or companies that use those sort of that software.
Speaker 2: We have to keep that energy up. We have to
Speaker 2: keep it going, and we're as seeing to build things
Speaker 2: that will increase our ability to operate outside of the
Speaker 2: AI fueled corporate overlord Internet that many of us currently
Speaker 2: exist as pseudo safs within. Yeah, you know, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of roof open source software intgital commands that are
Speaker 2: out of the hands of corporations that we can venture into.
Speaker 2: You know, tech is contested terrain that the tech ordagarchus
Speaker 2: are currently winning. But that terrain is something that we
Speaker 2: can continue to challenge into the new year, definitely. But
Speaker 2: geopolitics in five was a catalog of catastrophes from continuing
Speaker 2: was fueled by cast properties to straight up genocides. So
Speaker 2: in Palestini we saw this year repeated rounds of siege,
Speaker 2: bombardment and cruelty, repeated cease fire violations and the part
Speaker 2: of Israel, all enabled by America's military support and political cover.
Speaker 2: To this day, food, water, and medical provisions continue to
Speaker 2: be strained as a result of Israel's genocidal ambitions in Sudan.
Speaker 2: The fractures they have only worsened as the bloodshed famously
Speaker 2: can be seen from space. Millions have been internally displaced.
Speaker 2: The casualties are currently incalculable, and the fighting between the
Speaker 2: Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces rages on,
Speaker 2: all supported by regional power including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 2: the UAE. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflicting
Speaker 2: armed groups supported by the government of the DRC and
Speaker 2: the neighboring Rwanda, respectively, have continued attacking communities and infrastructure,
Speaker 2: inflicting mass rapes, and engaging in other war crimes, all
Speaker 2: while funded by mining operations in one of the most
Speaker 2: resource rich regions in the world. In Yemen, the violence
Speaker 2: continues for tens of millions as the Saudi that coalition,
Speaker 2: the UAE and Western powers continues to supply arms, logistics,
Speaker 2: and diplomatic cover for the displacement, collapse, and brutality inflicted
Speaker 2: upon the civilians of the country. In Ukraine, the war
Speaker 2: with Russia continues to consume resources and lives. In the
Speaker 2: Caribbean Sea, the US ramped up its violence as the
Speaker 2: targets and bombs boats and international waters that it alleges
Speaker 2: are carrying drugs and appears to be gear enough for
Speaker 2: some kind of operation against as we are and resistant
Speaker 2: groups continue to fight against the military junta, which continues
Speaker 2: to receive economic and political cover from neighboring China. Now
Speaker 2: this isn't exhaustive, so because even if I missed any
Speaker 2: of the major stories from this year.
Speaker 3: There's so many.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's so sad to think about,
Speaker 1: like this new drone war that we're starting in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: and we will probably start another one in this hell soon.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very easy for those things to seem
Speaker 1: tangential to our lives. I have experienced what it's like
Speaker 1: to be in a place where drones are killing people
Speaker 1: every day. What that does to you, Just like not
Speaker 1: knowing who's going to get killed tonight, right it probably
Speaker 1: won't be you, very unlikely, it might be might be
Speaker 1: someone you saw today, might be someone you'd ever met.
Speaker 1: Dozens of people get killed, but thousands of people have
Speaker 1: to live in with this sense of fear, and maybe
Speaker 1: after a while you get used to it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I don't think we realize like potential of the
Speaker 1: human joy, even though it's not like a in this case,
Speaker 1: not like a ground war, right like for many people
Speaker 1: don't see it as a war. The terrible trauma that
Speaker 1: that causes. It is not just to the people who
Speaker 1: are killed in their families, but to so many other
Speaker 1: people who have to live with the knowledge that, like
Speaker 1: they could be killed in the world wouldn't care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that the mental torment and trauma, even
Speaker 2: if you survive, yeah, something like Palestine or something like Sudan, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's going to stay with you for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life and reverberate in future generations. Even generations that
Speaker 2: they not experience the genocide directly, do not experience the
Speaker 2: war directly, they're still going to feel that in their
Speaker 2: bones in the way that you know, the generations and
Speaker 2: the experience that interact with them in the stories that
Speaker 2: they tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, that trauma lives for a long time, right,
Speaker 1: and trauma creates sometimes a cycle of violence.
Speaker 3: Right, Like.
Speaker 1: It's not a good thing. Yeah, But the idea of
Speaker 1: drone warfare is the idea that these like clean surgical strikes.
Speaker 1: That's not how war works, that's not how killing works,
Speaker 1: that's not how explosive warheads work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember in Rajavrez sat down with a family who
Speaker 1: had lost their son who had just turned fourteen, and
Speaker 1: like thinking of the waves of repercussion from that one bomb,
Speaker 1: and hundreds of bombs fell that year, you know, and
Speaker 1: then that was just interior. Thousands of these drone bombs
Speaker 1: fell all around the world, and for the most part,
Speaker 1: people didn't remark on it and didn't care. But that's
Speaker 1: happening more now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's very very easy to zoom out
Speaker 2: and just think of the pure statistics, the pure numbers,
Speaker 2: because when you actually zoom in and even an individual
Speaker 2: incident that is an entire lifetime affected, multiple lifetimes affected
Speaker 2: by even one building being leveled or one bullet being fired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there's a reason we don't we
Speaker 1: put on war like that, right, Like I tried to
Speaker 1: when I write my stuff, because like everyone's life is
Speaker 1: the most valuable thing they have, and every death of
Speaker 1: the tragedy. But it's hard on the reporter, Like it's
Speaker 1: not sustainable, fox you up and be people. People wouldn't
Speaker 1: like wars if we get like you see it to
Speaker 1: an extent in the way that the European nations talked
Speaker 1: about World War One, right, like to get a significant
Speaker 1: number of upper class British people to be opposed to
Speaker 1: the concept of warfare. It's quite a remarkable endeavor, right
Speaker 1: like that those are people who have gone to schools
Speaker 1: whose sole purpose was to raise them as military officers
Speaker 1: for empire from the age of five. But we saw
Speaker 1: it after World War One, because the war wasn't abstract,
Speaker 1: right it was close by the people dying, one of
Speaker 1: different class or race. They were everyone, and especially young
Speaker 1: upper class men who became officers, right like. But somehow
Speaker 1: along the way since then, we've lost that and we've
Speaker 1: we've we've convinced ourselves that that this is something that like,
Speaker 1: it's in a human tragedy, even if it doesn't involve us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned in World War One in particular,
Speaker 2: because I actually sat down to finally watch or Quiet
Speaker 2: on the Western Front. Oh yeah, last night I watched
Speaker 2: like the first five minutes and I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I could watch this right now, and
Speaker 2: we want to watch something else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: And that's a movie, you know, it's not even the
Speaker 2: real thing. It's a fictional depiction of the occurrence. And
Speaker 2: I felt like I was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't like watching those films. I don't
Speaker 1: watch those films gives me bad memories dreams. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I can't understand how we have this ability to
Speaker 1: we have fucking VR now, right, like sogents can practice
Speaker 1: operations in VR. But like in a world where we
Speaker 1: can have so many experiences, experienced things that we would
Speaker 1: never experience otherwise, we have inflicted a genocide through starvation
Speaker 1: on the people of Palestine. Like in a world where
Speaker 1: we can see and know more about other people's lives
Speaker 1: than ever, we've done this thing. Like I don't want
Speaker 1: to harp on the fact that, like Israel's built on
Speaker 1: the idea of never again and here they are doing
Speaker 1: it again, right, But like it's just so sad that
Speaker 1: like we're in this world where we can know and
Speaker 1: share more things, and yet it's resulted in somehow are
Speaker 1: still not seeing our common humanity. I mean more people
Speaker 1: have I guess. Also, like one thing that has happened
Speaker 1: this year, in the last two years that like when
Speaker 1: I came here, I would never have believed that you
Speaker 1: would get thousands of American people out to call for
Speaker 1: the basic human rights of Palestinian people. Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: a thing that American people who are aware of so
Speaker 1: like that is something that over the last two years,
Speaker 1: think we have seen solidarity some of that's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there has been a shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of that solidarity I think has been misguided.
Speaker 2: But I think some of the I guess anti Israel
Speaker 2: shift has come less from a concern for Palestinians and
Speaker 2: more so for the sort of you know, we don't
Speaker 2: want our tax gord dollars they spent. They want it's
Speaker 2: spent on us. Or it's more of an internally minded
Speaker 2: sort of America first ideology.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And they're straight up antisemitic bigotry as well.
Speaker 2: But there has been that solidarity shift as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like there has been that, like a global solidarity,
Speaker 1: and like even as a millennial, right, like from the
Speaker 1: age of thirteen, right when I was a kid, when
Speaker 1: nine to eleven happened, and even I guess the first
Speaker 1: War in the Persian Gulf. The media project of most
Speaker 1: of the nations in which I've lived has been to
Speaker 1: demonize Muslim people, people specifically living in the Middle East, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's more of a racialized tree than
Speaker 2: a particularly religious milia tree. I mean, it does take
Speaker 2: that religious courting, and there are religion specific elements to
Speaker 2: the bigatory, but it does tend to be more racialized
Speaker 2: that yeah, because I already know that some people will
Speaker 2: be like, oh, well, I just don't like Islam as
Speaker 2: because of its authoritarian and inclinations.
Speaker 3: Where the case.
Speaker 2: Maybe, but it's a bit more than just religious beast bigotry.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's not just a philosophical disagreement, right,
Speaker 1: Like it took on, like you say, this racial character
Speaker 1: and so like to see people noting their common humanity.
Speaker 1: Like I was just talking to someone about this the
Speaker 1: other day. You familiar with miss Rachel? Yeah, yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it is inconceivable. It would have been inconceivable when I
Speaker 1: was in high school that an American children's entertainer would
Speaker 1: be like, well, I guess you had the Dixie Chicks,
Speaker 1: But it's not the same. It would would be like continually,
Speaker 1: not to take away from what they did. I think
Speaker 1: they were very brave actually, but you know, to be
Speaker 1: able to stand up for the lives of young children
Speaker 1: in Palestine so consistently, yeah, so vociferously for so long,
Speaker 1: that's very hot. That gives me, you know, a great
Speaker 1: sense of hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, I think as an indication of just how much
Speaker 2: there has been a shift, and of course she has
Speaker 2: been bullied and targeted relentlessly since. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: it does indicate that people are willing to vice that
Speaker 2: kind of bullying and these that kind of attack that
Speaker 2: I suppose segment of empire for the sake of stand off.
Speaker 3: What's right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I guess I think it's so it's impressive
Speaker 1: right that, like, yeah, people have bullied and attacked her,
Speaker 1: but like, also she has been so brave and so
Speaker 1: consistent and not just miss Rachel. To be clear, there
Speaker 1: are many many other people who've done this and has
Speaker 1: been able to continue to do that because so many
Speaker 1: people have been like, no, these are just children. Where
Speaker 1: the fuck you? Why are you arguing that it's wrong
Speaker 1: to say we shouldn't kill children? What the fuck is
Speaker 1: wrong with you? Yet a lot of people showed up
Speaker 1: against the war in Iraq too, But like, it's good
Speaker 1: to see that that media project has not succeeded, because
Speaker 1: it's been two decades my life that it's been trying
Speaker 1: to succeed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we've been seeing so very familiar
Speaker 2: dynamics across the jibisical crises that I've sort of mentioned there.
Speaker 2: We have this external patronage of global powers and regional
Speaker 2: powers that seem to be sustaining these fights that were
Speaker 2: in lives over years, because if they wouldn't getting that
Speaker 2: constant flow of money for weapons and weapons support and
Speaker 2: military support, these wars will not be able to last
Speaker 2: as long as they have, you know. But it's these
Speaker 2: outside actors in Sudan and in Palestine that are supporting
Speaker 2: the fight and supporting the barrage important to suffering, and
Speaker 2: not supporting the aid necessary to support people. You know,
Speaker 2: there's been a very slow and insufficient piece of humanity
Speaker 2: response due to funding gaps, access constraints, and the politicization
Speaker 2: of aid. And there are people who have managed to
Speaker 2: act directly, not waiting for any official channels. In the
Speaker 2: case of the flotilla, something else that happened this year
Speaker 2: that I found particularly admirable, But it hasn't been enough
Speaker 2: so far. It hasn't broken through quite yet, and people
Speaker 2: are still without much of the necessary aid it will
Speaker 2: sustain even their survival. We also see that even as
Speaker 2: these wars are ragion in these regions, in many cases
Speaker 2: the extraction is continuing, particularly in Congo and Sudan, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's very critical that we continue to speak
Speaker 2: out against these wars as we get into twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: where we see them, we document what's happening, We keep
Speaker 2: a record offline of what's going on in dependently because
Speaker 2: another thing I've noticed this year is how blatantly the
Speaker 2: news media is showing its colors, you know. And that's
Speaker 2: where independent media is meant to fill the gaps, even
Speaker 2: though it may not have as many resources as industream media,
Speaker 2: you know, So things like this podcast is Herefore, it's
Speaker 2: something that I think when the listeners can take responsibility
Speaker 2: in being part of in gathering information and archiving information,
Speaker 2: in sharing sources and direct connects so that the information
Speaker 2: gets out there. And so as we wrap up this
Speaker 2: retrospective for twenty twenty five, two things in particular stand
Speaker 2: out to me. One is that our system is brittle
Speaker 2: as hell, and two that people are resilient as hell
Speaker 2: and taken together, I believe it's an indication that we
Speaker 2: are indeed in a world of transition, and it's still
Speaker 2: uncertain and as to how it will turn out, the
Speaker 2: future hasn't been written yet, We don't know. We do
Speaker 2: have the ability to choose what we do next. So
Speaker 2: if you look towards a new year, think about something
Speaker 2: you want to build or strengthen, whether it be a skill,
Speaker 2: a relationship, a practice, a project of some kind that
Speaker 2: conceive you and those around you going forward. That's what
Speaker 2: I have for today. All power to all the people,
Speaker 2: Happy New Year, Peace.
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