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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let

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Speaker 1: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode

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Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one

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Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to

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Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If

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Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,

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Speaker 1: there's gotta be nothing new here for you, But you

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Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hey everybody, Uh, Robert Evans here,

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Speaker 1: along with Garrison and Chris. Um, we are pre empting

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Speaker 1: the episode that will be airing after this because Um

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Speaker 1: of events that happened in Portland, Oregon this weekend. On

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Speaker 1: Saturday the nineteen there was a weekly racial justice march. UM.

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Speaker 1: The march again it occurred. Its occurred every week for

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Speaker 1: a couple of years now. UM. It is instensibly led

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Speaker 1: by the mother of a Patrick Kimmins, who is a

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Speaker 1: Portland a young black Portland man who was killed by

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Speaker 1: the police a couple of years ago. UM. This is

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Speaker 1: a regular thing. As a general rule, you'll see a

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Speaker 1: lot of folks in the right talking about this. March

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Speaker 1: is like an Antifa gathering. Um. This almost never gets

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Speaker 1: any coverage whatsoever. Because as a general rule, UM, it's

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Speaker 1: it's just a march where people, you know, protest police violence.

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Speaker 1: It's not something that that tends to draw much attention, UM,

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Speaker 1: even within Portland's UM. This Saturday, a person who lived

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood where people were assembling for the march

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Speaker 1: UM left their home confronted a group of women who

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Speaker 1: were acting as corkers. Corking is a job at protests.

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Speaker 1: It's a traffic safety thing. It's people on a mix

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Speaker 1: of usually bikes, motorcycle scooters every now and you see

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Speaker 1: like a one wheel and their job is to kind

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Speaker 1: of route traffic around the march in order to keep

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Speaker 1: people from getting hit by cars. UM. It is a

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Speaker 1: safety thing. UM. These folks were confronted by this person.

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Speaker 1: Reports on the ground that have been covered in local

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Speaker 1: news from people who were there say that he started

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Speaker 1: out yelling at them, calling them terrorists and um. According

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Speaker 1: to one person who was on the scene, within about

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Speaker 1: ninety seconds began firing. Uh. He hit and killed one woman, UM,

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Speaker 1: and he wounded four others UM. And he himself was

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Speaker 1: shot by a protester who was nearby, who was to

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Speaker 1: all everything we know so far, legally open carrying a rifle. UM.

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Speaker 1: He is the shooter. Um is in critical condition in

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Speaker 1: the hospital. UM. One of the people who was doing

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Speaker 1: traffic security that night is dead. UM. I believe at

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Speaker 1: least one is still in the hospital. The others have

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Speaker 1: been released. That's that's the the actual like, that's those

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Speaker 1: are the facts of the situation as they're known. The

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Speaker 1: protester who returned fire quickly afterwards turned themselves and their

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Speaker 1: rifle into the police. UM. You know, the police to

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Speaker 1: the stuff that they do in these instances, and then

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Speaker 1: released the person who had responded defensively to the shooting.

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Speaker 1: And that's where or we are right now. UM. Portland

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Speaker 1: police have been very cag and saying anything about this.

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Speaker 1: They have framed it as a clash between a homeowner

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Speaker 1: and protesters. UM. One thing we can say, based on

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Speaker 1: where this person came out of it does not appear

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Speaker 1: that they were a homeowner. Looks like they left a

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Speaker 1: would have been like a rental thing. Not that that

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Speaker 1: particularly matters, but it's interesting the framing with the police

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Speaker 1: are choosing to use here. UM. And yeah, there's there's

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Speaker 1: fairly little information as of right now, the name of

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Speaker 1: the shooter has not been released by the police. UM.

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Speaker 1: Neither has the name of the protester who responded UM

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Speaker 1: to the gunfire. But we do know, you know a

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Speaker 1: number of the people who were hit. We know the

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Speaker 1: person who has deceased. Avoid kind of spreading anything more

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Speaker 1: specific than that until there's there's evidence. There's not yet

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Speaker 1: video of this, although one of the people who was

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Speaker 1: there says they have a go pro that was taken

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Speaker 1: by the police that may have something. I don't know

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Speaker 1: the extent to which we will get that information. Again,

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Speaker 1: the police have been acting to uh kind of make

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Speaker 1: this look like a clash rather than what the evidence

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Speaker 1: that like reporters at OPB and the Portland Mercury and

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Speaker 1: even the Times have have found, the interviews they've conducted, UM,

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Speaker 1: it seems fair to say that this was a mass

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Speaker 1: shooting UM that was stopped by a protester, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to what I would call a clash YUM. But that's

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Speaker 1: that It's obvious Portland police aren't going to want that

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Speaker 1: narrative to come out very telling lee. The mayor of Portland,

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Speaker 1: Ted Wheeler, issued a statement where he talked about the

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Speaker 1: shooting as a piece of the city's ongoing gun crime,

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Speaker 1: did not mention the woman who was killed, did not

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Speaker 1: mention the injured, but expressed his sympathy with the police

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Speaker 1: for being so tired. Um, so you know that's Portland's Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's pretty sick and like you shouldn't like

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Speaker 1: it's not like dismissing it by saying it's Portland's saying

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Speaker 1: like this is like no, there's there's been growing rather

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Speaker 1: right from the city and people the past few years

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Speaker 1: that have basically been encouraging something like this to happen. Um,

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Speaker 1: and now that it has, it is also pretty sick

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Speaker 1: looking at different like media framing and police framing and

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Speaker 1: talking about it's a homeowner and how it was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was like a clash, not like an outright attack

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Speaker 1: on people. Um. Yeah, so it's it's it's bad. It's

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Speaker 1: it's pretty gross. But what we can do right now

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Speaker 1: is support the people who were there. Yeah, they go

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Speaker 1: fund me for medical expences and you know, mental health

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Speaker 1: effects in thee because it's a bit some of the

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Speaker 1: wounded were themselves plugging up the bullet holes of other

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Speaker 1: wounded while they had also been shot. Because it was

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Speaker 1: a lot of the people doubled as medics or had

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Speaker 1: some sort of medical training. Um, there were medics who

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Speaker 1: were like threatened by police when they arrived on scene

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Speaker 1: for not being willing to stop providing um pressure to

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Speaker 1: a gunshot wound. Like a bunch of ugly stuff happened.

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Speaker 1: There's a mix of ugly stuff and like stuff that

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Speaker 1: seems ugly but it's pretty normal. Like the ambulance did

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Speaker 1: not move in immediately, which obviously people on scene were

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Speaker 1: very angry about. That is standard everywhere for like ambulances

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Speaker 1: at active shootings, and it's just I mean, it's not pleasant,

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Speaker 1: but it's also like they're not ever acting from as

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Speaker 1: much information as the people who were there maybe have.

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna blame you know, e M

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Speaker 1: T S or whatnot for following s OP in this situation.

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Speaker 1: I will blame the police for their responses to stuff

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Speaker 1: like this obviously, and the fact that, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's unlikely that a satisfying police investigation will be conductive.

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Speaker 1: That said, it does seem like we already, based on

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Speaker 1: the early reporting that exists from again a number of

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Speaker 1: different news organizations, number of different local journalists, that we

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Speaker 1: have a pretty good idea of the basics of what happened. UM.

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Speaker 1: Obviously more will come out in addition to you know nothing,

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Speaker 1: but respect to the medics who responded, UM, I think

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Speaker 1: it's worth acknowledging that the protester who shot the shooter

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Speaker 1: UM seems to have, from the evidence we have handled

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Speaker 1: themselves as close to perfectly as you can in a

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Speaker 1: defensive shooting. UM. They stopped the threat, UM, they went

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Speaker 1: to the police, they turned in the rifle. They did not.

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Speaker 1: And there's a number of reasons for this, including the

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Speaker 1: fact that, like the last time there was a shooting

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Speaker 1: that was involved the left wing demonstrator, that person was

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Speaker 1: hunted down and killed by U. S. Marshals UM. But

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Speaker 1: it also I think helps when it comes to the

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Speaker 1: legal stuff that's going to wash out on this the investigation.

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Speaker 1: It really helps that this person dotted their eyes and

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Speaker 1: crossed their ties to make it very clear that this

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Speaker 1: was a UM A very like legal self defense situation. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of the folks who participate in

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Speaker 1: these things don't particularly care about the law one way

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Speaker 1: or the other. But in terms of how other people

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Speaker 1: see what has happened and what the fallout to this

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Speaker 1: is and maybe the degree to which people properly put

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Speaker 1: some blame on the city for this. I think it

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Speaker 1: is helpful that the person who responded UM with their

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Speaker 1: rifle to their shooting conducted themselves so carefully. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I have I have a lot of respect for everybody

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Speaker 1: on the ground. A lot of hard decisions had to

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Speaker 1: be made, UM, and it seems like in a a

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Speaker 1: the worst case scenario situation, the people who were on

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Speaker 1: the ground handled themselves UM with a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: thoughtfulness and encourage. I think that's everything. Yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: think there's not nothing much else to say at this

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Speaker 1: moment right now, to safe, be careful, and again the

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Speaker 1: go fund me. Just type type go fund may stand

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Speaker 1: with Portland into Google. It will take you to the

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Speaker 1: go fund me UM and you can help folks out there. Hello,

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Speaker 1: welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison, and today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about two of my favorite things, which is

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Speaker 1: unions and coffee. UM. Joining me as a usual is

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Speaker 1: Chris and Sophie. What do you guys think about about

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Speaker 1: coffee and unions and the combination thereof big on unions

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Speaker 1: like that, like like making them like having them not

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Speaker 1: big on coffee. It's it's too bitter. I can't do it. Unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Union's great coffee, great, Chris bad, Chris gets the wall.

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Speaker 1: It's the ultimate canceling. That is more intense. We are

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Speaker 1: coming down all the coffee issue. I don't ever tell

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Speaker 1: prop that. Don't ever talk prop. You don't like coffee.

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Speaker 1: I worry. Um and anyway to to join us to

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Speaker 1: discuss coffee and unions is a union organizer and uh

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Speaker 1: also someone with a podcast, so that's fun. Uh but

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Speaker 1: Kayleie Schuler, Hello, Hello, thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: You know what they say about unioniced coffee, that's better,

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Speaker 1: It tastes better. That's yeah, that is that is that

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Speaker 1: is what I have heard, much better quality. That is true.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's the problem that Chris has been having. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the that's the thing. That's a Chris jumped to

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Speaker 1: jump to conclusions. But you failed, you failed to consider

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Speaker 1: the uh the coffee question. Um. Anyway, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about unions and coffee and Starbucks today because there's

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Speaker 1: been a massive wave of Starbucks uh location unionizations around

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Speaker 1: the country. And I like to start by kind of

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Speaker 1: discussing the origin of this like wave of unionization efforts

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Speaker 1: all across the states. Yeah. So, um, you know, I'll

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Speaker 1: just stay right off the bat like, um, legalities, logistics,

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Speaker 1: the nitty gritty is still not my forte and all

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Speaker 1: of this. UM. So I might not do the best

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Speaker 1: job explaining it, but I'm going to do my best, um,

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Speaker 1: and to get into the origin story of the whole movement.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get into my origin story a little

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Speaker 1: bit um with this effort. So UM. I started working

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Speaker 1: at Starbucks last year, and uh, not long after, I

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Speaker 1: was approached by uh my fellow partner, my friend Tyler

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Speaker 1: de Geer, and he's also one of our committee members here,

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Speaker 1: and he was like, hey, did you hear about what

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Speaker 1: has happened in Buffalo? And as you guys probably know, uh,

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Speaker 1: Buffalo was the first to unionize um, and so he

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Speaker 1: was really excited about it. I was like, yeah, sounds cool.

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Speaker 1: Probably not my thing though, um and he was like, no,

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Speaker 1: it is, like, just let's talk about it. I was like,

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Speaker 1: all right, fine, we talked about it. I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this makes so much sense. We should definitely do this.

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Speaker 1: So um, as far as I know, this uh started

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Speaker 1: in Buffalo. They reached out to Workers United uh because

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Speaker 1: they knew that this was something they needed and wanted. UM.

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Speaker 1: And then when they successfully unionized, I mean, it just

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Speaker 1: sparked so much inspiration across the country and we hopped

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Speaker 1: on really quick. UM. Other locations in Boston also hopped

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Speaker 1: on not long after, and uh, yeah, it kind of

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Speaker 1: spread like wildfire. Yeah, it's been wonderful to watch the

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Speaker 1: kind of wave of of of attempts and in some cases,

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Speaker 1: like in a lot of cases of like successful attempts

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Speaker 1: just kind of take a you know, just go all

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Speaker 1: Like it's how fast they've been happening in so many

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Speaker 1: different places around around the country. UM, I'd like to

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Speaker 1: talk I like to talk about like why the Starbucks

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Speaker 1: unionization kind of effort is so important, Like why why

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Speaker 1: this is? Like of course, like unions are obviously like

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Speaker 1: generally a net good, but like why specifically is it's

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Speaker 1: is it important to unionize these Starbucks local shows? Like

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Speaker 1: what types of like UM issues is the unization trying

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Speaker 1: to kind of solve and give you know, workers better

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Speaker 1: conditions at these at these stores and cafes. So this

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Speaker 1: great question, And first I want to start by saying

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Speaker 1: Starbucks is a great place to work. I say that

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Speaker 1: all the time. I reap the benefits. There are benefits,

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Speaker 1: good ones. They pay minimum wage or whatever, like, the

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Speaker 1: pay is decent, We have benefits. It's really a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who work at our Starbucks day it's one

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Speaker 1: of the better jobs they've had. And we deserve a

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Speaker 1: union for It's I mean really, in my brain, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of akin to insurance. Right, you have it in

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Speaker 1: case you need it. If an emergency happens, you don't

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Speaker 1: have to pay the whole um e er bill out

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Speaker 1: of pocket. You've got some coverage coming from somewhere, right, That,

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Speaker 1: at least in my mind, is what this union is

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Speaker 1: for UM. That being said, we also just want to

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Speaker 1: obviously democratize our workplace. We want to have a spot

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Speaker 1: at the bargaining table because we you know, we have HR,

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Speaker 1: we have people to go to. But unions are partners

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Speaker 1: looking out for partners, and that's it. Starbucks looks out

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Speaker 1: for partners and profit. You know, it's a business. It's

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Speaker 1: a huge business. UM. So this would just give us

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Speaker 1: UM a stronger sense of empowerment. And uh again, I

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Speaker 1: really think of it kind of like insurance, it's just

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Speaker 1: us making sure we're taken care of at all times. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what what type of kind of you know, whenever the

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Speaker 1: discussion of union's kind of starts at workplaces, there's always

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Speaker 1: like an element of like secrecy and you know, being

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Speaker 1: worried about you know, different types of suppression. So what

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Speaker 1: types of kind of things that people been doing when

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Speaker 1: the when the union is like trying to get trying

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Speaker 1: to get trying to get off the around to organize,

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Speaker 1: like like are people using like signal chats? Like what

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Speaker 1: what is what is like in this in these stores?

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Speaker 1: How is how are we trying to get more people

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Speaker 1: to like be comfortable with this idea and get like

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Speaker 1: get started with the organizing process. That's a really good question.

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Speaker 1: And we're still doing that work all the time. That

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Speaker 1: work doesn't really end, especially because um, it's commonly known

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Speaker 1: now so I don't feel as scared to say it.

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Speaker 1: But there are being there is union busting happening. It's

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Speaker 1: happening all the time. Um, and it's scary and it's intimidating,

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Speaker 1: and it's meant to be and it's effective, you know. So, Um,

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Speaker 1: we have a majority yes vote in my store I

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Speaker 1: already know that, but it also takes upkeep. It takes maintenance. Um,

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Speaker 1: it takes checking in with people and you know, for

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Speaker 1: my money, checking in and saying, hey, how are you

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Speaker 1: feeling about this? Are you doing okay? Like I know

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Speaker 1: that this is scary. I know that you're hearing things

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Speaker 1: like do you have any questions? Um. It takes us

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Speaker 1: doing our due diligence and researching the things that they're saying. Um.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it's it's kind of a constant

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Speaker 1: thing as far as like technically how it's done. I

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Speaker 1: mean lots of group chats, just like, way too many

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Speaker 1: group chats. That that has been most of my experience

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Speaker 1: with most most political organizing in general is just way

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Speaker 1: way too many group chats. Yeah, in terms of like

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Speaker 1: what's Tucks is doing to start their like union busting response?

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Speaker 1: Is this website that they have launched? Yeah, I I

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Speaker 1: know you've I know you've tweeted about this, uh about

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Speaker 1: this site. So I would love to love to discuss it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I just went off. I didn't really think

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Speaker 1: much of it, you know, I just I saw it

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Speaker 1: on there and just was like, this is lies. Um.

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Speaker 1: I mean, well, for one. I'm trying to remember everything

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Speaker 1: I've read and tweeted, but the one that's coming to

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Speaker 1: mind is when they say this may affect your relationship

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Speaker 1: with your store manager and it may make it difficult

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Speaker 1: for to me, that is that may depends entirely on

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Speaker 1: how much um, union busting Starbucks wants to do. If

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Speaker 1: you want to tell our store managers that this will

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Speaker 1: negatively impact our relationship with them, if that's how you

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Speaker 1: want to frame it, then yeah, I probably will. Um.

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Speaker 1: If you if you want to make it more difficult

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Speaker 1: by not negotiating the contract easily with us, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: then that might happen. It's not that's not a union problem.

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Speaker 1: That's a Starbucks problem that they are framing as a

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Speaker 1: union problem. Um yeah, I can't. What were the other

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Speaker 1: things that I common it on. I just like to

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Speaker 1: also explain, like what the site is and what it's

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Speaker 1: like trying to do. Oh sure, yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: it's um, it's union investing. It's uh, it's giving it's

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Speaker 1: giving partners the facts that they need to know, you know, like,

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Speaker 1: it's it's we want to make sure that you are

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Speaker 1: informed before you vote. Know, Um, that's what that is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's this like sleekily designed page that has a list

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Speaker 1: of facts about about organizing and all the reasons why

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Speaker 1: it's going to negatively represent, negatively affect your relationship with

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Speaker 1: the Starbucks Corporation. Oh, this was one of the points. Said, Um,

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Speaker 1: the union may not negotiate for some things you are

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Speaker 1: hoping for, and some things you value now might go away.

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Speaker 1: That is so ridiculous. That's a threat. Yeah, that's a

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Speaker 1: threat that your well being will be changed, Like we

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Speaker 1: might not negotiate this contract ry nicely with you. That

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Speaker 1: it the union is us. They love to talk about

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Speaker 1: the third party and oh, your your store manager is

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Speaker 1: gonna have to work with a steward. The steward is

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Speaker 1: going to be someone who already works in the store. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the steward is us. The union is us. Why would

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Speaker 1: we negotiate a contract that doesn't benefit us. That's so silly,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's very typical union besting kind of behavior.

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Speaker 1: And if you know, if they can just if this

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Speaker 1: type of propaganda, you know, can just convince a few

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Speaker 1: people and and and scare and scare only only a

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Speaker 1: couple of the people that will be enough to kind

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Speaker 1: of cause division and shutdown efforts in the store. Right,

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Speaker 1: So that's that's that's all that their goal is is

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Speaker 1: to prevent you know, at least one more store from

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Speaker 1: not doing it. That's like as long as they do that,

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Speaker 1: then it's then then then it's like successful. Um. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And you know, based on how many people work at

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Speaker 1: an individual, individual store, that's not entirely unlikely, right is

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Speaker 1: it'll you know, it will, like you you, union busting

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Speaker 1: efforts do work in a lot of cases, and that's

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Speaker 1: why they still do them. Absolutely absolutely, yeah, And that's

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Speaker 1: why it's it's really important for UM. You know, if

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Speaker 1: there are any partners listening to this, UM. And partners,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is what you know we call ourselves

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Speaker 1: at Starbucks. UM. The the social aspect of this within

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Speaker 1: your store, the checking in with your partners and seeing

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Speaker 1: how they're feeling about it, and having UM as many

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Speaker 1: face to face conversations as you can have and really

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Speaker 1: really sticking by each other is really important because yeah,

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Speaker 1: like I said, these UM tactics are tried and true,

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Speaker 1: they're effective, they're intimidating, UM, and so you have to

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Speaker 1: really support each other through that and keep reminding each

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Speaker 1: other like, no, there's a reason we're doing this. This,

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Speaker 1: this is actually still a good thing, you know, because

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Speaker 1: top of our jobs, and then a lot of partners

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Speaker 1: are in school or they have families, Like we already

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Speaker 1: have a lot going on, and then we have to

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Speaker 1: go into work and be reminded that our desire for

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Speaker 1: a union is not valuable to Starbucks and so they're

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Speaker 1: going to make things harder by doing all the things

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Speaker 1: they're doing. Um, you have to really really be there

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Speaker 1: for each other through this process. Yeah, I mean that's,

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Speaker 1: you know, solidarity, one of the key of the key

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Speaker 1: tenants of this type of you know, the type of organizing.

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Speaker 1: I know, Chris is a pretty big union appreciator. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I I like unions, but but Chris, Chris really really,

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Speaker 1: really really enjoy So I'm wondering if you if you

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Speaker 1: have anything he likes them so much, he'll He'll even

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Speaker 1: like unionized coffee. He'll be like this coffee still, it

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Speaker 1: will it will good work. Chris love the some of

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Speaker 1: the there's some stores in Chicago that are unionizing, and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, hmmm, maybe maybe we should check them out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you should at least at least check about and say

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Speaker 1: like hi, it'd be like, yeah, great, what's a great

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Speaker 1: thing to do. Um, definitely go to those stores, go

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Speaker 1: up to the counter and offer you or um, order

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Speaker 1: your coffee, and then ask them to write like unions

373
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Speaker 1: strong or we love unions as your name. Um, because

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Speaker 1: when the baristas are making the coffee and they still

375
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Speaker 1: like see that sticker come through, it's we really love that, Chris.

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Speaker 1: They have great tea there too, ice cream. Yeah, the tea,

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Speaker 1: it's really good, or the chi Like listen, I'm saying

378
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Speaker 1: information though about like, yeah we have there's finally a

379
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Speaker 1: store that's like somewhat near Los Angeles where I am

380
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Speaker 1: that that is announced that they're unionizing, which is exciting,

381
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Speaker 1: like okay, California, way to join the party late, but

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Speaker 1: you know it's it's cool ahead. Yeah. One thing I'm

383
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Speaker 1: interested in is how how big is the shop, Like

384
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Speaker 1: how many people are are sort of like well, I'm

385
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Speaker 1: not not just like like just how many people there

386
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Speaker 1: like could potentially join the union, I mean anyone could.

387
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Speaker 1: I think we have about twenty. I could be so wrong,

388
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Speaker 1: but I think we have around twenty partners in our

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Speaker 1: store right now. Um and yeah, any well, yeah, just

390
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: about anybody could join that, not anyone who's salaried. Yeah, okay,

391
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Speaker 1: but I mean that seems that seems pretty common across

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Speaker 1: all the different stores. Is around that it's around like

393
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Speaker 1: twenty union eligible people per location. Seems roughly accurate based

394
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Speaker 1: on the stuff I've seen from you know, Seattle to

395
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Speaker 1: Philadelphia to Boston to Buffalo too, you know, all all

396
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Speaker 1: places in between. And yeah, so part part of part

397
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Speaker 1: of like the actual more organizational structure is a linked

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Speaker 1: to Work as United. Yes, part of the part of

399
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Speaker 1: the Service Employees International Union UM affiliate kind of a

400
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Speaker 1: family of unions UM who's kind of led the led

401
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: the campaign or you know, has been part of the

402
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: campaign UM to unionize the you know, thousands of locations

403
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Speaker 1: through the States, and yeah, I think around like eighty locations,

404
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Speaker 1: including two of the company's flagship ones inside Seattle and

405
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Speaker 1: New York, have have joined this this effort. And it

406
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Speaker 1: does seem like every day there's like more stores popping up.

407
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Speaker 1: Who are who are who are saying yeah, this is

408
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Speaker 1: a good idea. This is whether it be to you know,

409
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, some of our equipment is old, and

410
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it causes like keep burns because

411
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: it's not like maintenance properly or being like, yeah, there's

412
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Speaker 1: a lot of like sexual harassment caused by like some

413
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Speaker 1: like some like patrons that never gets addressed by management.

414
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Speaker 1: Um and or you know saying like yeah, I may

415
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Speaker 1: be deserved to be paid more than fifteen dollars an

416
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Speaker 1: hour UM. With rent being you know as high as

417
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Speaker 1: as high as it is, maybe we should be paying

418
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Speaker 1: over twenty bucks an hour. I don't know how everybody

419
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Speaker 1: else is doing, but my rent situation is interesting. So

420
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Speaker 1: rent has been ballooning in recent in recent months even

421
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Speaker 1: it's been it's been really going up, which I mean,

422
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Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll talk about it at some point on

423
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Speaker 1: the show here, but yeah, like there's a lot of

424
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of issues that ares being like, yeah,

425
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Speaker 1: maybe people should be paid more, people should be at

426
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Speaker 1: the bargaining table. There's a lot of things to address

427
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: to make it a safer workplace, to make it a

428
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 1: workplace where you're more respected. Um. And it's uh, it's

429
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: really nice to see people saying, yeah, I'm not gonna

430
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:47,959
Speaker 1: put up with the city more and we can do

431
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: something about it, because like there are mechanisms to to

432
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: do this right, that's why it's happening. So that's that's

433
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: very uh, very exciting to see is taking place. It

434
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: really is, and it you know, you make a lot

435
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,680
Speaker 1: of great points and bring up a lot of the

436
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: benefits of having a union, and its just like it

437
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: just surprises me how anti union Starbucks is is period um,

438
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: because it's just it's like, I don't know, you, Yeah,

439
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 1: you paint such a beautiful picture, because it is a

440
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: beautiful picture to have autonomy and um, respect and empowerment

441
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: in the workplace. You know, they they train us to

442
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: work through the lens of humanity, you know, by their

443
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 1: words and U it's pretty humane to let people have

444
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 1: a say, a real stay in the workplace, you know. Yeah,

445
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: I think it kind of exposes that type of you know,

446
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: pretty pretty corporate language, that formative. Yeah, exactly. It's um,

447
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: I am interested in like the other like kind of

448
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: union busting or soft union busting kind of stuff going

449
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: on even like before this website in terms of how

450
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: like man like how like management has been responding, um

451
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: and how more like like what like what like the

452
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: local responses to wind stores start talking about this, Yeah,

453
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: And and another fall up to that is I noticed

454
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: that COVID was mentioned on this on this website. Is

455
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: that being brought up within union busting at all or

456
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: is that brought I just it was like a huge

457
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,239
Speaker 1: red flag for me that they used like, well, we

458
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: helped you during COVID, we were there for you, which

459
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: really did not. That's like that's like that's like that's

460
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,919
Speaker 1: like abusive terminology. That is pretty manipulative to be like

461
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: we we helped you during a pandemic. It's it's like, well, yes,

462
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: as you should, because yeah, you're the place where I

463
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: was employed. I give something to you, you give something

464
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: to me. And yeah, and as I Twitter ranted in

465
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: the comment, you know, like with peace and love. We

466
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: had to beg to get our cafe closed out like

467
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: we we Like, it wasn't like we just uh cases

468
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: rose and they came in said, hey guys, we're gonna

469
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: close it like we had. We were calling and um

470
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: making a stink and I mean we were talking about striking,

471
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: but then remembered we're not unionized yet we didn't, but

472
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean it was we Yeah, we were

473
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 1: really fed up. Um people sitting in there for hours

474
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: with their faces out, you know, as cases were rising.

475
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 1: So UM, Yeah, great point. That's really pretty manipulative, because

476
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: like you should be helping us through covid. UM. That's

477
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: not like a that's not a benefit, that's just that's like, yeah,

478
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: it's not killing people. It's like should should be something

479
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: that's just kind of always there. Shouldn't shouldn't be an extra,

480
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. And I mean as far as UM,

481
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: you a sort of local UM interference, I guess I'll

482
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: say UM, I do want to say UM. In my case,

483
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: our store manager, UM, I really care about her. UM.

484
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: I have a great working relationship with her. I really

485
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: respect her. She's done a lot of good for our store. UM,

486
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: and she's really just doing the best she can having

487
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: conversations with us. UM. She has her opinions and feelings

488
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: about it, and I just try to listen to them,

489
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: and she listens to mine. UM. But there definitely Yeah,

490
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: I mean as soon as we filed for an election,

491
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: we started actually as soon as we started organizing, and

492
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: they sort of caught wind. UM. We started having barista meetings,

493
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: which are as vague as they sound, UM, And people

494
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: who had worked there longer than me said, we've never

495
00:29:56,160 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: had these before. UM. Maybe once you know and if years. Um,

496
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: So we started having all these meetings and not even

497
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: talking about the union at first, but all of a

498
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: sudden they wanted to hear from us and fix things

499
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: in the store and and all this stuff and be

500
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: super helpful and present. And then there definitely just was

501
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: a heightened corporate presence in the store. Um, people we've

502
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: never seen before coming in, like, hey, how are you doing?

503
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: Want to talk? It's like, no, you're a stranger. I

504
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: don't how to talk to you. Um. So that was weird. Um,

505
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, there's there's definitely definitely just a shift

506
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: in presence. Um. Again, any of these meetings and um, yeah,

507
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: it's been interesting. What what do you kind of how

508
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: do you see like the situation resolving? Like do you

509
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: do you like how how like do you have has

510
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: also like yeah, what's like the state of of of

511
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: your stores specifically? Yeah, so we are on our way

512
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: to an election. Um, we've requested an election. Uh so

513
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: we're really just like in a waiting period for that.

514
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly when it's gonna be. We've heard soon, um,

515
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: but who knows when that is? Um. We yeah, we

516
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: have some we we had to do a zoom hearing

517
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: for some of the legalities for things here in Massachusetts.

518
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: That was interesting. But yeah, so we're we're just waiting

519
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: for the election at this point. And the election is

520
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: what will uh you know, that's when we're gonna cast

521
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: our yes or no vote UM, and we will find

522
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: out whether or not we're gonna unionize. And I think

523
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: we will unionize. It's looking that way. I'm confident, UM,

524
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: and I really look forward to that. What do you think, UM, Like,

525
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: what do you see as happening after the vote is done, like, like,

526
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: assuming it is a vote yes, Like, how do you

527
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: think this will impact UM working at the store going forward?

528
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: It's gonna be interesting and it's going to be an adjustment,

529
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: right because from the time that we vote and we

530
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: vote yes, Let's say we vote yes and we're going

531
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: to unionize, there is it could take a long time.

532
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: It could take a year. We don't know. It could

533
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: take more and less UM to get from that vote

534
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: to you know, what we refer to as the bargaining

535
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: table UM to negotiating a contract with Starbucks UM. And

536
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:45,239
Speaker 1: in that time there are things UM. And again, if

537
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: partners are listening, you can do your research on this

538
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: on the n l r B website. UM there. You

539
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: know there are things that will be UM different in

540
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: that waiting period. Right, So, if if Starbucks decides to

541
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: release um a nationwide UM Spring raise, because why not

542
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: we love giving you raises, UM, we would be exempt

543
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: from that because we're in negotiations. Because we're in this

544
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: sort of in between spot. Um there, there are little

545
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: weird things that we might have to just be aware

546
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: of no going in UM in that sort of interim.

547
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and then eventually, you know, those raises and

548
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:30,719
Speaker 1: any other things that we've sort of been waiting on

549
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: get brought to the bargaining table. Yeah. I think this

550
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: is an important thing for people to understand when when

551
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: you're doing union organizing, right is you know you have

552
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: this giant push and you have like you have to

553
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: have the push to get to get either recognition or

554
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: to get those the National Labor Relations Board vote. But

555
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: most unions that go under go under in like before

556
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: the first contract, and you have to like that's that's

557
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: something that you know when when you when you talk

558
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: to people who who are the professionally you can't union organizers,

559
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,479
Speaker 1: they talk they talk about this constantly, just like you

560
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: have to hold it together during during that period between

561
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: your first like bet, between when you when you're when

562
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: when you get recognized it when your vote ends that

563
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: first contract. And it's hard in a lot of ways. Yeah,

564
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: because the things we're talking about, like management will do

565
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: you know, they'll they'll intensify the union busting because they're

566
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: hoping the union will still fall apart. But if you

567
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,760
Speaker 1: hold it together and if you get that first contract

568
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: your union, like you know, you you now have a

569
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: union and you've basically stabilized and at that point, like

570
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: you now have a seat at the table and you

571
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: have to take your seat the table and fight. Yeah,

572
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 1: but it's a big responsibility when when you say hold

573
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: it together during that time, do you do you mean, like, um,

574
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,919
Speaker 1: just through those changes and that interim and that sort

575
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: of weird awkward phase, like you have to like just

576
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: hold it together like mentally and just kind of power

577
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 1: through it. Yeah. Well, also I mean you have to,

578
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: like you have to just keep making sure everyone's involved,

579
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 1: which is something that's difficult because especially after sort of

580
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: the initially people because people have also had like a

581
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: job to do it this entire time, right, they're still

582
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: they're still making coffee, they're still making the podcast, they're

583
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: still doing whatever, So you still have whatever. Have you

584
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: ever done? This is sort of beside the point, but

585
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: it's fun. Have you guys ever done like the sixteen

586
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: personalities personality assessment? At some point? I've never done it.

587
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 1: It's really fun. I just did it for school, and

588
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: it's the thing that tells you, like, I'm an i

589
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 1: n f J TV and my thing is the advocate. Sophie,

590
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: what's yours? You look like you had one ready to go.

591
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it was, but I remember having

592
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: to do it like fifteen times in school. Yeah. I also,

593
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,879
Speaker 1: I also forget what I the one that I did

594
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 1: for when I was in school as well. But I

595
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: brought it up because I'm thinking I want to send

596
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: it to my fellow organizers and be like, do this

597
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,240
Speaker 1: and we can sort of highlight what each other's strengths

598
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: are um and start playing into those because, like you

599
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: were saying, Chris, like it really is a team effort,

600
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: and I think it only really works if you are

601
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 1: utilizing people and respecting people's strengths, you know, because not

602
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: everyone has the same strengths. Like, yeah, you might be

603
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,399
Speaker 1: a kick as graphic designer. But like not everyone can

604
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: do that. You know, maybe they're better at hosting get togethers,

605
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: or they're better at writing emails or whatever. You know.

606
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, playing to strengths is so important in

607
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: the long run because yeah, it can take a year

608
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: to get to the negotiating table, which which like is horrible,

609
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: Like that shouldn't be like it should it shouldn't be

610
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:54,439
Speaker 1: that long. Um And you know, tactics such as like specifically,

611
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: you know, raising wages around a unionization effort so that

612
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: people in the union don't get it. That is like

613
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: another form of union investing. Like that is like like

614
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: I don't think they haven't thought that through, Like that

615
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: is that is part of that whole process being like

616
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: oh yeah you could have a union or you can

617
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: get higher wages now, Like that's like, that's that is

618
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 1: part of what's going on. It's because they want people

619
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:21,359
Speaker 1: to not sign on to have long term benefits, so

620
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: they're gonna offer these short term benefits. So like it

621
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: really is like because of how elongated the unionization process

622
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: can be, it gives a lot of time for people

623
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: to get burnt out. Um And and combating that like

624
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: combating being burnt out is one of the most important parts.

625
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's really it's really challenging sometimes. Oh

626
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:46,399
Speaker 1: my gosh, absolutely, I mean I love that conversation. I'm

627
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,919
Speaker 1: like a mental health dweeb. Um, it's it's my it's

628
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: what my my podcast is called Your Messy Friend, and

629
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: that's basically all I talk about is mental health. And yeah,

630
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: the burnout, I mean, I'm recovering for burnout right now.

631
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 1: You know, Um, it's very real. You have to make

632
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: sure that you know, while you're taking care of everybody

633
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: else and making these efforts, like you have to make

634
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: sure that you are checking with yourself every day and

635
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: making sure your needs are being met because giving from

636
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: an empty tank does not last long. As I'm sure

637
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,359
Speaker 1: you guys know. Yeah, if you uh, if if you're,

638
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 1: if you're, if the water in your espresso machine is out,

639
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: then nothing can flow through to make this for you exactly. See.

640
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: It was what an amazingly crafted metaphor. I just not

641
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: tortured it at all anyway. So what is the like

642
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: turnover rate at the store? Like, like, how how quickly

643
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: are people coming in and out of jobs? And how

644
00:38:53,719 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: has that been affecting organizing. The cool question. Um, we

645
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: haven't had a ton of people leave since I got there,

646
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: I mean, and I definitely I can pretty confidently say

647
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: none of those had to do with unionizing. Um, it

648
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: was all for just like different reasons. Um, we've had

649
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: quite a few more people come in recently, and I

650
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 1: would say that, Um. I mean it's it's weird because

651
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: our current store manager, uh was great. She was hired

652
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: around the same time that we really started amping up

653
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: union stuff. And you know, it's almost unfortunate because I

654
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: think she thought it was it was about her and

655
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: it just so wasn't you know. Um. But yeah, so

656
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: it's who knows if it was just because she was

657
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: there now or because of the union stuff or both.

658
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: But uh, they did start hiring quite a few more people, um,

659
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,080
Speaker 1: around the time that we started organizing, And yeah, I

660
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 1: mean it's you have to walk this fine line when

661
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: you have new people coming in. Of course, you want

662
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: to get to them and give them your info um

663
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: or at least give them resources to look into before

664
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: corporate gets to them. UM. But then you also they're

665
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: they're learning a new job. It's really fast paced and overwhelming,

666
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: Like you have to be careful not to totally overwhelm

667
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: them either. I mean that that's really something I've just

668
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: tried to keep in mind throughout the whole process. Is

669
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,399
Speaker 1: like when my friend Tyler approached me, I was like,

670
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is. I don't I don't

671
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 1: know if this is necessary for me. And now I'm

672
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: on the committee, you know, so you know what I mean. Like,

673
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 1: it's that thing where I'm like, Okay, if I could

674
00:40:50,480 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: be convinced, maybe anyone can. All right, is there um

675
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: any direct action that people who are listening or any

676
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: call to action you have for us that we can

677
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: prot to our listeners or links or anything that you

678
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: think would be useful for our people to know. That's

679
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: a cool idea. Yeah, thanks. Um. Like we mentioned before,

680
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: if you want to just like stop by your local

681
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: unionizing Starbucks and get a coffee with the name, you know,

682
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: unionized or union strong. That like that in person support,

683
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: especially when your first organizing, is really really helpful. Even

684
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: just stopping by to drop off a card or say hey,

685
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 1: good luck with unionizing. Um, that really means a lot. Um.

686
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: You can follow SB Workers United on Instagram and Twitter

687
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: and just engage with us UM reach out if you

688
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: need info about how to organize the people on Instagram

689
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 1: or so, I mean on all the platforms are just

690
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: like so on top of responding UM and uh, website.

691
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 1: I think we have a website, I would assume, so

692
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: I would assume at this point. Yeah, I mean, we

693
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: have a pretty pop in Instagram and Twitter, but UM, yeah,

694
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I'm forgetting anything. I think

695
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 1: that's that's about it. UM, and just making noise on

696
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: online is also really helpful. You know, I love when

697
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: people comment on Starbucks posts and they're like, yeah, how

698
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:38,800
Speaker 1: about unions though, yeah union. The website is s B

699
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: workers United dot org affiliated with the Workers United and

700
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: the Starbucks. You know, I think effort, which has ways

701
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: to donate or by by merch in support of the

702
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: union and that kind of stuff, which funds I'll go

703
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,879
Speaker 1: to the go to the campaign and you know, just

704
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: in case it wasn't clear, like and this is something

705
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: you'll hear from Starbucks. Is all of this about the

706
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 1: third party and Workers United is going to do this

707
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: and that, blah blah blah. We essentially, you know, we

708
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: work with that they promote our cause you know what

709
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: I mean, they're here to support our mission and our goals.

710
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd be amazed by how much partners do

711
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 1: for this, you know, united so much. But we we

712
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 1: do the nitty gritty every day, communicating with each other.

713
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: We're communicating nationally now we have a platform for that.

714
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:37,439
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, it's really cool and so like they are,

715
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: they're kind of like, I don't know, the supporting beams

716
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: of of everything we're doing, you know, it's us, yeah,

717
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: but like the actual makeup of it definitely is with

718
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: Starbucks employees, you know, and all the people I've been

719
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: in like Twitter conversations with our d m s who

720
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: are involved. It's like, yeah, like everyone who's like actively

721
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 1: involved in doing it all has worked in a Starbucks before,

722
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: um and still and still are like it is. It

723
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: is definitely being led by the workers. Um and yeah,

724
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: that's really great and really crucial. Um. Do you have

725
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: any do you have any other plugables either for yourself

726
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: or for yeah, anything else plug your Yeah, thanks guys, Um,

727
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: this was really fun. Thank you for having me on.

728
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: I love podcasting. UM. So yeah, I mentioned sp Workers

729
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:29,399
Speaker 1: United on Instagram and Twitter. Make sure you give them

730
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,359
Speaker 1: a follow, follow Barista's you find along the way. Who

731
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: are you know speaking up about this? Show them your support. Um,

732
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 1: my podcast is called your Messy Friend. You can find me.

733
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: I think wherever you get your podcasts, definitely Spotify that's

734
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 1: what I use. UM and yeah that's about it. Well,

735
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: thank you so much Kayleie for joining us today. You

736
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: talked about Starbucks and unions. UM, follow us online on Twitter, Instagram,

737
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: at Happened Here pod and cool Zone Media and I

738
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: think that does it? Does it for us? I can't

739
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: wait for y'all to win. Yeah, absolutely can't. Can't. Can't

740
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: wait for you guys to win. As soon as as

741
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: soon as Portland locations start going, I'll definitely go in

742
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 1: and support. But until then I will make coffee alone

743
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: in my my, my, my lonely, my my lonely espresso machine. Um.

744
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, thank you, thank you so much for for

745
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: coming on to talk. Thank you, thank you so much.

746
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: Welcome to It could Happen Here, a podcast about things

747
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: falling apart and even occasionally about trying to put them

748
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: back together. Today, as is too often the case, we're

749
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: going to be focused more on the falling apart thing,

750
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: because today we are talking about the situation in Ukraine. UM,

751
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: it is as I I type or not type because

752
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: I'm not writing, but you know, you get how I'm

753
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: used to thinking. As I say this. Russian troops have

754
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: just moved in to two regions in eastern Ukraine that

755
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: have been occupied by what are generally called Russian backed

756
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: separatists since two thousand and fourteen. Vladimir Putin gave a

757
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: speech that I will be we'll be talking about a

758
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: bit with our guest um and announced his intention to

759
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: recognize those breakaway sections of the country as independent republics. Uh.

760
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: And the area that he has chosen to recognize includes

761
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: about sevent territory that is currently occupied and held by

762
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian government. So it's a big mess. UH. This

763
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: is some have said like a soft version of the

764
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: invasion that people were expecting. I think it's probably more

765
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 1: accurate to say it's a slow start, um, compared to

766
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: what is potentially possible and very likely coming in the future.

767
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: To talk more about this and about being an anarchist

768
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: kind of trapped in between you know, NATO and Russia

769
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: and everything that's flinging around right now. Is Ukrainian journalist

770
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: Romeo Kokratski Romeo, Welcome to the show. Thanks a lot,

771
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Been a big fan of yours.

772
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: So it's an honor to be here. And you are

773
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: in your in Kiev right now, right? Yeah? Correct? And

774
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 1: and how is everybody keeps asking this all around? But

775
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: how is the mood? Um? As you know, to the

776
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: extent that there's a way of saying that, like I've i've,

777
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: you know, have things kind of taking a turn since

778
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: Putin actually made his first big play. I mean, as

779
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: much as journalists like to say, there is no magic

780
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: to instantly bull every resident in the city to find out, Yeah,

781
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: walk around and talk to everybody, just like all the

782
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 1: four million or whatever citizens in the city. Let me

783
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: just let me just ask him. Um. But like, there

784
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: definitely has been a turning point. Um. Like one of

785
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: the big refrains that I've seen, like personally and everyone

786
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: has been saying, right, is that Ukrainians are so calm.

787
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: Look at these pictures of them like shopping in malls

788
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: and like going to school. What else are you supposed

789
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: to do? What else are we supposed to do? But

790
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: I mean that this true, people have been calmed. But

791
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: since yesterday evening there definitely has been a shift, um,

792
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 1: and even casual conversation, uh in key of like I

793
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: was sitting, to paraphrase a famous columnists usual framing, I

794
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: was sitting in a cafe and overhearing the wait staff

795
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: chat amongst themselves. Um, and obviously the the the whole

796
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: conversation is, oh is Putin going to push into Kiev?

797
00:48:55,280 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: And anecdotally we're semi anecdotally, I guess, Um, apartment prices

798
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: in the western cities like in Lviv and uge World

799
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: have really spiped up, like incredibly so that people are

800
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call that. That's a depressing way to pay

801
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:15,360
Speaker 1: attention to, that a reason to pay attention to that, Like,

802
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it a mass panic. Um. There's no

803
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: like bank runs, no, like all the stores are stocked. No,

804
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: one's like hoarding. Um. But at the same time, there

805
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: is a study trickle of people going west and kind

806
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 1: of making plans at this point. Yeah, and UM, So

807
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,359
Speaker 1: this to kind of give people a little bit more

808
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: context before we get into some of the more political

809
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: dimensions of this um. Right now, there has not been

810
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:51,240
Speaker 1: a massive escalation um of violence outside of the areas

811
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: where there have been fighting for several years. You know,

812
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: there has been an escalation on the front line that's

813
00:49:55,480 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: existed since UM, but there has not been like troops

814
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 1: pouring across the border in other areas and stuff. And

815
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: that's obviously probably the number one worry. UM. It looks

816
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 1: like what's about to happen is or at least it's

817
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 1: hard to say, because Putin has recognized the borders of

818
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: this breakaway part of Ukraine as significantly larger than the

819
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: area they actually control, and he has moved troops, Russian

820
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: active duty troops into that area. Now, Russian troops, I'm

821
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: from what I've heard about three thousand have been in

822
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 1: the breakaway areas for years now, UM, but a significant yeah,

823
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: a significant number have been added now. And obviously the

824
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 1: fear is that because he has recognized the territory of

825
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: these these quote unquote in his terms breakaway republics is

826
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: being much larger than what they control, that Russian troops

827
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:51,239
Speaker 1: are going to participate with the separatists UM in attacking

828
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: and taking those territories from the Ukrainian government. UM. That's

829
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 1: one concern. Obviously. The the concern attached to that is

830
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: that it would be not at all inconceivable for a

831
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 1: conflict that started that way to spread to a much

832
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: wider part of Ukraine. Um, this is all coming alongside

833
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: a speech Putin gave that, unfortunately, is going to be

834
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:18,720
Speaker 1: one of those things people here about in history books. Um. Yeah,

835
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 1: out of it, God damn mind. And it's one of

836
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: those things. We will talk some more about how the

837
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: Western left sometimes I don't want to be like because

838
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: this is also largely the the online left, but how

839
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: the online left talks about Putin sometimes. This was not

840
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 1: a I want to return to the Soviet Union at speech.

841
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 1: This was I want to return to czarist Russia's borders

842
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 1: type speech. Like the guy has the Czarist imperial crest

843
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: emblazoned on the gates to his palace. So I'm really

844
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,919
Speaker 1: not sure what people would have expected. And unfortunately he's

845
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: better at his job than any of the last tsars

846
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: were because he's he's achieved a notable amount of success

847
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 1: towards that goal already. Um, and yeah, he he a

848
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 1: number of things that were it's one of those. Like

849
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: one of the things he said, which is a line

850
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: that folks like him in Russia have been saying for

851
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: a while, is that Ukraine. The existence of Ukraine as

852
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: an independent polity is a mistake. And as an anarchist,

853
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: you know, there's this like, well, yeah, I don't I

854
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: don't like the Ukrainian state. I don't like any state

855
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: in particular. But if you're if your only disagreement is

856
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: with the statehood of Ukraine and you're fine with the

857
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: statehod of Russia, you know, then then perhaps what you

858
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: actually think is that people in Ukraine should not have

859
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: any autonomy to disagree with the government in Moscow. Um.

860
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: And I think that's the case here. Um. There's a

861
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: there's similarities between how Putin and those like him in

862
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 1: Russia treat Ukrainians um with how for example, the Turks

863
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: treat Kurds in the southern part of the country. There's

864
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 1: this this thing you'll hear a lot from Turkey, where like,

865
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 1: there's no Kurds in Turkey, They're they're mountain Turk who

866
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: have lost their their language. And there's this denial from

867
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: Putin in the Russians that Ukrainians are a people, that

868
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: they exist, and this this is a something that has translated.

869
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,879
Speaker 1: Most people have heard versions of this, and just any

870
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: of the coverage you've heard of Ukraine if you've ever

871
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: heard of it referred to as the Ukraine. What that

872
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: is is part of a very old um line that

873
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: kind of exists to allow Russians to deny the existence

874
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: of Ukrainians as a people and make it make it

875
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: seem more like it's just kind of a geographic region,

876
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: which is not the case. And why you wouldn't refer

877
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 1: to you wouldn't call it the Ukraine anymore than you

878
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: would call it the Canada. Um, it just isn't the

879
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 1: way you, you say, should say that. But um. Yeah,

880
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: So I think that's at least enough of a background

881
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 1: to get into the real media what we want to

882
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:51,479
Speaker 1: talk about. So, and I'm just gonna kind of open

883
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: this up to you to chat about what you'd like

884
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 1: to say and what you think needs to be gotten

885
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 1: across to the international left, because internationalism is something we

886
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: value a lot here and it has been hard to

887
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: find in this conflict. Yeah, Like, growing up in the

888
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: York in the nineties, one of the core values I

889
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: kind of absorbed, I guess through osmosis is the value

890
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: that every single person I met, regardless of whatever corner

891
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: of the world they came from, is the exact scene

892
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:33,319
Speaker 1: beings me, UM, and it wasn't. And and that kind

893
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: of realization was one of the things that I guess

894
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:41,439
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say pushed, but UM conspired to to turn

895
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:47,439
Speaker 1: me into a leftist, a socialist Marxist UM. And part

896
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: of that, especially when I was learning about what the

897
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:54,720
Speaker 1: hell all these isms were, UM, was internationalism, the idea

898
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:59,360
Speaker 1: that well, our struggle isn't within the the fabricated borders

899
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: of what ever UM polity has has decided to impose

900
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,400
Speaker 1: their their authority. UM. But internationally, every single worker is

901
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 1: the same as every other worker. We're all struggling with

902
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: the same issues, we're all fighting the same forces, UM,

903
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:20,759
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, we have the same enemies. Ah. Now

904
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:25,360
Speaker 1: fast forward to two h I go online and what

905
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: do I see? Well, Ukrainians are all Nazis or Ukraine

906
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 1: shouldn't exist, or how can we support either of those?

907
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 1: It's two fascist states fighting each other. And I'm sorry,

908
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: Ukraine has got a population of forty four million. You

909
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:42,879
Speaker 1: want to tell me that every single one of those

910
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 1: forty four million or Nazis Like people didn't even say

911
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: that about Germany. They were literally the Nazi state, I

912
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: mean the United States, um for that man like, we

913
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: had four years of Trump and openly fascist authoritarian lee

914
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 1: and no one seems to say, well, I guess the

915
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: U s should be bombed. Well, I guess there are some.

916
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:08,799
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely there's definitely people that yeah, but

917
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 1: generally speaking that's not exactly the view that people take right. Um.

918
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 1: So it's it's been a long process of disappointment. Well,

919
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,359
Speaker 1: I say, long, Um, there's always been the kind of

920
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: well what are these people really think about Ukraine? But

921
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 1: breaft of such a strong impetus to take a side,

922
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: I guess, um, it hasn't been in the forefront. And

923
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:39,279
Speaker 1: now every day I see people that I would have

924
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:45,000
Speaker 1: considered comrades, that I would have considered um friends and brothers,

925
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: just kind of turned their back on me. Because I

926
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: live here, right, any any aggression, any action that's taken

927
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:57,839
Speaker 1: will literally affect me physically sitting here and cue. Um.

928
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:02,960
Speaker 1: So it's been it's been really really immensely disheartening to

929
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,880
Speaker 1: see that every single value UM that I thought the

930
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 1: Left was supposed to value, that that I thought the

931
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: left was built on um by people with rows emojis

932
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: or hammering sickles in their user names or whatever the

933
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: hell it is, and we should probably talk about some

934
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: of why this is and what the what the history

935
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: is here. So, the most kind of direct thing that

936
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: people can point to when they when they call Ukraine

937
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: a fascist state or when they talk about this is

938
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: the existence of the ass Off Battalion the AS of

939
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: Italian as a paramilitary organization. That means it's it's not

940
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: officially a part of the governmental military structure, but it

941
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 1: it does receive it has received arms from the government

942
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: and it UH functions as part of Ukraine's defense forces

943
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 1: UM for the for the purposes of fighting off the

944
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: Russian back separatists UM and the AS of Italian and Nazis.

945
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 1: There's there's you know, the the you can There's been

946
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of reporting on that. On that matter,

947
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 1: it's a big problem in the Ukrainian government deserves a

948
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: significant amount of criticism for the degree to which as

949
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:14,400
Speaker 1: OFF has been allowed to continue existing UM. But there's

950
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: also a lot that gets left out when people focus

951
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: on that, including the fact that, for example, the political

952
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: wing of as Off right sector, which is kind of

953
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:24,000
Speaker 1: the that it would be fair to call that the

954
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 1: umbrella term for like the far right parties in the

955
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 1: Ukraini Ukrainian government have been pretty effectively siloed away from

956
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: political power through very active measures to about like what

957
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 1: is one percent of um like representation, and so it

958
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,080
Speaker 1: didn't actually pass the threshold tantor the new barliament. Yeah,

959
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 1: they're they're nonentity politically, they're just non popular there. Um

960
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 1: campaigns failed, their models fail, their agitation fails. Ukrainians do

961
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: not want to vote for Nazis. Yeah, and it's it is.

962
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: It is a an ugly situation. I I remember talking

963
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: with when I was reporting on the mightn uprisings, which

964
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 1: is when, again for people who aren't up on recent

965
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 1: Ukrainian history, they had a president who tried to do

966
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,480
Speaker 1: a dictatorship um, and people rose up and fought him

967
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 1: in the streets. Um. It was a very gnarly time.

968
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 1: About two hundred people were shot by government forces. Um.

969
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 1: And eventually the president was forced to flee the country,

970
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: which is what precipitated everything that's happening now, because that

971
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 1: president was pretty closely tied with Putin and the people

972
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: fighting him. UM, we're not all they were not pro

973
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 1: NATO rebels, but they were more definitely more supportive of

974
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 1: closer ties with Western Europe than they were with Russia. UM.

975
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:42,160
Speaker 1: And that again, those are kind of the precipitating events

976
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 1: for everything that happened that's happening now. Um. And some

977
00:59:46,520 --> 00:59:51,200
Speaker 1: of the people who were fighting the president's forces were fascists. UM.

978
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:52,960
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things. I remember talking with

979
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: protesters at the time who were like, well, am I

980
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 1: supposed to get in fight with them at the same

981
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 1: time as I'm trying not to get shot by riot police.

982
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 1: It's like, what what do you expect me to do?

983
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 1: And it is a nasty situation, and it's one of

984
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: those things. UM. I don't know, Like I don't know

985
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: what to tell people about that, because it's it's it's ugly,

986
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: and it's uncomfortable and it's messy. And that's also Ukrainian history.

987
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ugly, uncomfortable, messy things here is

988
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:27,200
Speaker 1: there's with every country's history. It doesn't mean people in

989
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:31,640
Speaker 1: Kiev deserve to have their housing blocks pounded by Russian artillery.

990
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that people in Vadivka deserve to have their

991
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: homes pounded by artillery. UM. And whatever criticisms you want

992
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 1: to make about how the Russian government or how the

993
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government has handled as Off, And there are many

994
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:46,000
Speaker 1: criticisms to make that's not really relevant to the people

995
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 1: living in these areas having their homes destroyed on a

996
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: daily basis by mortar fire. I just want to make

997
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: like a couple of things really clear. The as Off

998
01:00:55,600 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 1: Battallion is like a thousand guys like Macs. And the reason,

999
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:04,800
Speaker 1: one of the reasons at least that they rose to

1000
01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:09,120
Speaker 1: such prominence in the beginning wasn't only there um ability

1001
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: to mobilize in the early stages of the Russian war

1002
01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:15,560
Speaker 1: against Ukraine. It was also because they had very strong

1003
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 1: financial backing um from the former Interior Minister um Arsenivakav.

1004
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 1: And Ivakav is no longer in power, UH. And one

1005
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:28,960
Speaker 1: of the things you can see immediately was the like

1006
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:34,760
Speaker 1: almost nullifying of fascist street marshes and fascist demonstrations UM

1007
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: in Kiev outside the President's office. That all vanished because

1008
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:43,560
Speaker 1: more like in Ukraine, ideology is not very strong. And

1009
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 1: this is something UM that I've noticed a lot of

1010
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 1: people UH from the US in Europe have trouble understanding

1011
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 1: about Ukrainian politics. People here are not really ideological. Our

1012
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 1: parties don't map UM. Aside from a couple of outliers

1013
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: like rights actor UM, it doesn't really map to any

1014
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 1: left right access UM. People typically will always want the

1015
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:09,720
Speaker 1: same policies, like they always want a pension, they always

1016
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:12,800
Speaker 1: want UM universal healthcare to be better, they always want

1017
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 1: the roads fixed. UM generally policy something most Ukrainians actually

1018
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: agree on UM. As a result, most of our elections

1019
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:24,040
Speaker 1: are purely personality based. That's one of the reasons m

1020
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: Zelenski Voladimer's Lenski Orur current president. One was because he

1021
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:32,760
Speaker 1: was a well known comedian. Yeah, and people liked his personality,

1022
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: and he put out a whole TV show as a

1023
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 1: pr stunt um before launching his campaign, and people voted

1024
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: for that personality the on screen h And so when

1025
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 1: there was far right activity, and again I want to

1026
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:53,240
Speaker 1: stress that that activity, even the street activity, has almost disappear,

1027
01:02:53,760 --> 01:02:58,040
Speaker 1: it's because the far right is typically used in Ukraine

1028
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: as a political tool by one. All of our were

1029
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: one interest group against another. That's why when the money disappeared,

1030
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:09,440
Speaker 1: they disappeared. Because the leaderships, the leadership of these fascist

1031
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 1: groups typically speaking, we're not UM that ideological themselves. But

1032
01:03:15,920 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: they did like having USUV s and they did like

1033
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 1: buying guns and um, hiring hookers and doing drugs. Like

1034
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:25,680
Speaker 1: they liked the money and that's why they did it.

1035
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:28,640
Speaker 1: And they would convince a bunch of teenagers to go

1036
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: out and wave a couple of torches and march or chant.

1037
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 1: But these guys were really purely in for the money. Um.

1038
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: And again you can tell that because when their financial

1039
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 1: backer disappeared there in order to be found. Yeah, And

1040
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 1: it's one of those one of the things that is

1041
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 1: very frustrating to me. I can't remember one of the

1042
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: earliest projects that I did that was like a for

1043
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:53,720
Speaker 1: belling cat as we were there was a Pride march

1044
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: in Kiev that got attacked by Nazis. This was a

1045
01:03:56,280 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 1: couple of years back, and we were kind of trying

1046
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 1: to identify the individu Jewel fascists who are like beating

1047
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 1: people in the street, and it's spending hours pouring over

1048
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: that footage. It makes it incredibly frustrating that there are

1049
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: people outside of the country boiling it down to while

1050
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:14,560
Speaker 1: all of those people are fascists, all of those people

1051
01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:16,160
Speaker 1: are part of a fascist state, and it's like no

1052
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: a lot of those people. Quite a few Ukrainians have

1053
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: fought Nazis in the streets, you know. Um, that's a

1054
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 1: reality of the situation. And it's it's um and it

1055
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 1: it's it's ugly in part because if you actually want

1056
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 1: to look at what's been happening, uh with the Russian

1057
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:41,720
Speaker 1: back separatists, there's a lot of fascists over there. Um,

1058
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:45,600
Speaker 1: there's a lot of paramilitary organizations and like far right

1059
01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:49,720
Speaker 1: groups that have been used by the Russian government. Yeah, yeah,

1060
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: literally literally because they're fascist leader Yeah, like Lagner, like

1061
01:04:55,240 --> 01:05:00,080
Speaker 1: many Nazis. It's it's it's hard to to understand to

1062
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:04,520
Speaker 1: sleep from my perspective, um, because not only is Russian

1063
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 1: fascism have far more influence on Russian policy than any

1064
01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:12,800
Speaker 1: Ukrainian fascists has ever had in Ukrainian policy. Um, it's

1065
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: also that the Russian project and the narrative they use. Um.

1066
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: There there's this joke they call are not really joke,

1067
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: a slurred they call they call Ukrainians Nazi's been darists, um.

1068
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:30,440
Speaker 1: For those who don't open Darrow was a Ukrainian nationalist

1069
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 1: leader partisan fought against the Soviets UH, and he his

1070
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:41,920
Speaker 1: organization was implicated in quite a few war crimes, significant

1071
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:46,600
Speaker 1: number of war crimes, war crimes. UH so clearly been

1072
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:50,680
Speaker 1: near himself, probably not a great guy, Yeah, but to

1073
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: delegitimize all Ukrainian kind of independence movements that I've propped

1074
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 1: up over the years, the Soviet government and now the

1075
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: Russian government has always he's insisted that there is no

1076
01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 1: legitimate way for Ukraine to be independent. We're all Nazi

1077
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:10,360
Speaker 1: Bandarists no matter what. And that's why you had UM.

1078
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:12,880
Speaker 1: There's a picture a couple of days ago of a

1079
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:19,200
Speaker 1: solidarity marshin Kiev UM with UH some of Kiev's LGBT

1080
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: community holding up Bandara's flags, not because they're gay Nazis,

1081
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:31,560
Speaker 1: because it's a way of, yeah, retaking this slur back

1082
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:35,200
Speaker 1: from the Russians. And it's all part of the complicating

1083
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: factor here is that because of how geo politics worked

1084
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: out in that period of time, there are very uncomfortable

1085
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:49,600
Speaker 1: but kind of inextricable ties between UH Ukrainian, the basic

1086
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:52,960
Speaker 1: idea of Ukraine being a nation independent from Russia and

1087
01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:56,720
Speaker 1: anti communism, and because of what was going on in

1088
01:06:56,800 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 1: anti communism in that period of time, we're talking the

1089
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,520
Speaker 1: thirties and forties. It means that a decent number of

1090
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:08,200
Speaker 1: those early Ukrainian nationalists were either directly implicated with the

1091
01:07:08,240 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 1: Nazis like Bandera, or at least had uncomfortable ties. And

1092
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: that's a messy part of history that shouldn't be shied

1093
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: away from. But for example, the same thing is true

1094
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: of Finland. Like you can say the exact same thing

1095
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: about sucking Finnish nationalism, Finnish sovereignty and whatnot, um, And

1096
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:29,520
Speaker 1: people don't call Finland a Nazi nation, um even though Yeah,

1097
01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: the fact that they were stuck between the USSR and

1098
01:07:32,200 --> 01:07:34,640
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany means that there were a lot of Fins

1099
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:36,600
Speaker 1: in that period of time who made some real fucked

1100
01:07:36,640 --> 01:07:41,200
Speaker 1: up choices, um like. But also there's a lot that

1101
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: has to be like, you can't adequately discuss why those

1102
01:07:45,080 --> 01:07:46,880
Speaker 1: choices were made if you don't talk about, for example,

1103
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:49,840
Speaker 1: the holodomor you know, which was the starvation genocide of

1104
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:54,480
Speaker 1: several million Ukrainians by the Soviet government. Like people to

1105
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 1: go back even further, um and to I don't know, Bernard,

1106
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:02,640
Speaker 1: my leftist production a little bit, if you go back

1107
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:06,960
Speaker 1: to the Civil War itself, where um, a lot of

1108
01:08:07,000 --> 01:08:11,120
Speaker 1: this started most of the nationalist groups, I would say

1109
01:08:11,240 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 1: nearly all of them. There were one or two monarchists

1110
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: minor monarchist groups in Ukraine, but the grand majority of

1111
01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:21,760
Speaker 1: them were in fact socialism or socialist. They had like

1112
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:25,160
Speaker 1: the hammer and sickle and wheat on their currency and everything,

1113
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:29,519
Speaker 1: because at the time that was what one votes UH

1114
01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:35,320
Speaker 1: from the peasantry. But when the Bolsheviks crushed every independent

1115
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:40,800
Speaker 1: Ukrainian social movement in exchange for bureaucrats that they imported

1116
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: from the Empire and just shoved into Ukrainian cities, H, Well,

1117
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:49,680
Speaker 1: then you had Ukrainians that wanted to be independent and

1118
01:08:49,720 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 1: wanted to have a better life than under the Tsar. Well,

1119
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 1: now suddenly they don't even have that support um from

1120
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:02,760
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks UH. And obviously, as a Ukrainian UM, I

1121
01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:06,240
Speaker 1: can't talk about this without bringing up Nestro Macnu, who

1122
01:09:06,360 --> 01:09:09,080
Speaker 1: was a anarchist leader, the leader of the Ukrainian Black

1123
01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:13,040
Speaker 1: Army UM during the Civil war. And what happened to them, Well,

1124
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:16,800
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks betrayed them and killed all of them, and

1125
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:19,639
Speaker 1: of course the movement UH and then smeared them all

1126
01:09:19,840 --> 01:09:23,800
Speaker 1: is UM. How to file rapist cannibals if I remember correctly. Yeah, Yeah,

1127
01:09:23,880 --> 01:09:27,519
Speaker 1: there's a lot of of of disinformation you can find

1128
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:30,760
Speaker 1: about that time, just like today, you know, only the

1129
01:09:30,840 --> 01:09:35,519
Speaker 1: names have changed exactly. So if there is no other

1130
01:09:35,640 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 1: outlet for Ukrainian nationalism and the group that you thought

1131
01:09:41,280 --> 01:09:45,719
Speaker 1: maybe an ally in UH destroying the empire in granting

1132
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:48,960
Speaker 1: you self determination, turns out to be a continuation of

1133
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:54,200
Speaker 1: that exact empire. Well it's pretty logical. Maybe not right,

1134
01:09:54,240 --> 01:09:56,840
Speaker 1: but it is pretty logical for people go to the

1135
01:09:57,040 --> 01:09:59,080
Speaker 1: for people to go to the other extremes. And it's

1136
01:09:59,120 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 1: one of those One of the things I think that

1137
01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:04,040
Speaker 1: should be noted more, as we talked about earlier, is

1138
01:10:04,080 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 1: that one of these stories of Ukrainian politics, particularly in

1139
01:10:08,439 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 1: the last got close to a decade since the Maidan,

1140
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:18,080
Speaker 1: is that mainstream Ukrainian political leaders and Ukrainian voters have

1141
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:22,320
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly rejected that sort of nationalism this time around, UM

1142
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:25,080
Speaker 1: and have gone out of their way to silo it

1143
01:10:25,120 --> 01:10:28,240
Speaker 1: out of active political power, UM in a way that

1144
01:10:28,280 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 1: one could argue is more successful than has been done

1145
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:36,600
Speaker 1: in the United States. UM. And absolutely we didn't ye Trump, Yeah, no,

1146
01:10:36,720 --> 01:10:41,200
Speaker 1: you get you guys basically elected John Stewart. UM. Pretty

1147
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 1: much I mean that was his Um. Yeah, it was

1148
01:10:44,760 --> 01:10:48,720
Speaker 1: his whole thing. He put on satirical political sketches, that

1149
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:54,000
Speaker 1: was the entire show. Um. We did basically elect John Stewart.

1150
01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:57,280
Speaker 1: And you know, I have my criticisms of Zelenski, um

1151
01:10:57,320 --> 01:11:00,600
Speaker 1: as a lot of people do. Uh. And one of

1152
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:03,439
Speaker 1: the things we love saying in Ukraine whenever people are like, oh,

1153
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: look at all the look at all the Nazis there,

1154
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:09,240
Speaker 1: We're so not We're so anti semitic that we elected

1155
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:12,880
Speaker 1: a Jewish comedian that's how. That's how anti semitic we are.

1156
01:11:13,680 --> 01:11:16,640
Speaker 1: That we have huge minorris standing in the middle of

1157
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:19,960
Speaker 1: Kiev during the high holidays, that's how. That's how anti

1158
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:24,320
Speaker 1: semitic we are. Yeah. And and Zelinski's uh prime minister

1159
01:11:24,720 --> 01:11:27,400
Speaker 1: is also a Jewish Man, which makes Ukraine the second

1160
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 1: country in the world to have a Jewish president and

1161
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 1: prime minister. Um. Yeah, like we don't care because it's

1162
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:36,320
Speaker 1: not it doesn't even come up in campaigns like what

1163
01:11:36,439 --> 01:11:40,559
Speaker 1: even when Romney was running uc Democratic campaigns, um painting

1164
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:44,720
Speaker 1: is a scary Mormon or the ads implying in a

1165
01:11:45,640 --> 01:11:48,599
Speaker 1: moment you don't even have that level of religious antipathy

1166
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:53,560
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. It's it's it's just a much more complicated

1167
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:56,360
Speaker 1: We're actually talking about the problems of the far right

1168
01:11:56,479 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 1: and and to fascism, you know, in Ukraine. It's a

1169
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,360
Speaker 1: much more complicated story than a lot of people on

1170
01:12:03,320 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 1: you know, social media or whatnot want to give it

1171
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:08,200
Speaker 1: credit to because it's just easy to some things up

1172
01:12:08,200 --> 01:12:11,640
Speaker 1: in one sentence and not have to care about a

1173
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:15,400
Speaker 1: looming humanitarian catastrophe. But that is what we are looking at.

1174
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:19,479
Speaker 1: If this invasion, it will be bad. If Russia uses

1175
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:23,080
Speaker 1: active forces in order to take the remainder of those

1176
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:27,240
Speaker 1: two provinces from the Ukrainian government, it will be a

1177
01:12:27,479 --> 01:12:33,960
Speaker 1: nightmare of almost unimaginable consequence. If the invasion proceeds on

1178
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:37,719
Speaker 1: the wider scale that is possible at this point, um.

1179
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:42,280
Speaker 1: And it is no, no no, no, please yeah. UM. I've

1180
01:12:42,320 --> 01:12:45,639
Speaker 1: been a dumor on this basically since I first heard

1181
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:49,880
Speaker 1: about the build up, um, because Putin has made it

1182
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:52,720
Speaker 1: very clear over the years what he considers Ukraine to be.

1183
01:12:52,800 --> 01:12:56,240
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, he doesn't think that Ukraine should exist

1184
01:12:56,560 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 1: as like a polity. Um. And as a result, I

1185
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: have pretty much this whole time been pretty sure that

1186
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:08,639
Speaker 1: he's going to attack you. Um. And now we're coming

1187
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:13,639
Speaker 1: to a very definite tipping point. Um. Just today, Putin's

1188
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:17,120
Speaker 1: made a lot of moves. UM. Like you mentioned, he

1189
01:13:17,800 --> 01:13:21,879
Speaker 1: authorized military force to be used um in the Damas.

1190
01:13:21,880 --> 01:13:24,479
Speaker 1: And actually he's gone further. He's authorized military force to

1191
01:13:24,520 --> 01:13:28,479
Speaker 1: be used abroad, UH, which I mean obviously that means

1192
01:13:28,560 --> 01:13:32,160
Speaker 1: Ukraine where else that's where his like the about I

1193
01:13:32,200 --> 01:13:36,679
Speaker 1: think seven of the entire Russian Army is currently around

1194
01:13:36,800 --> 01:13:40,640
Speaker 1: Ukraine or close enough that they can reinforce um without

1195
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:43,400
Speaker 1: a lot of yeah, at least of the active duty,

1196
01:13:43,400 --> 01:13:49,080
Speaker 1: because the Russian military there's a small actually competent right yeah, yeah, yes,

1197
01:13:50,040 --> 01:13:55,560
Speaker 1: but the professional the contract soldiers, yes, Um. And especially

1198
01:13:55,600 --> 01:13:59,599
Speaker 1: on the northern border, Uh, there are a lot of

1199
01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:03,559
Speaker 1: battalion attach groups that are basically sitting and waiting, I

1200
01:14:03,600 --> 01:14:07,200
Speaker 1: guess for whatever the order will be eventually, um. And

1201
01:14:07,240 --> 01:14:12,720
Speaker 1: in Belarus, And since Putin has given this authorization to

1202
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:17,320
Speaker 1: operate abroad, and he stated that he recognizes these puppet

1203
01:14:17,320 --> 01:14:21,200
Speaker 1: authorities as I qual him um that he recognizes their

1204
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:25,880
Speaker 1: borders as the entirety of the Donetsk luconsk o BLUs,

1205
01:14:25,880 --> 01:14:29,120
Speaker 1: which again only a third of those territories are under

1206
01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:33,200
Speaker 1: the de facto control of public authorities. Two thirds of

1207
01:14:33,200 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 1: both provinces are still under Ukrainian government control, including the

1208
01:14:38,479 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: the critical port city of Marieuple. And now that Putin

1209
01:14:42,160 --> 01:14:47,280
Speaker 1: has authorized forced to be used abroad, well, it's kind

1210
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:51,760
Speaker 1: of I mean, at least it is incredibly obvious to

1211
01:14:51,800 --> 01:14:54,520
Speaker 1: me what the next steps are from the Russian perspective.

1212
01:14:54,720 --> 01:14:58,960
Speaker 1: If I want to subjectate you right, um, and I

1213
01:14:59,000 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 1: think a big failing he is people in the West,

1214
01:15:01,960 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: especially the western left, um, no, very little of for example,

1215
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:10,360
Speaker 1: the Chessian Wars, oh god, especially the Second War, and

1216
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:15,800
Speaker 1: what happened to Rosnie, Yeah, Africa during that war, and

1217
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:20,080
Speaker 1: what the Russians did the subjects that population. And if

1218
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:23,760
Speaker 1: anyone thinks that Putin treasures Ukrainian lives any more than

1219
01:15:23,800 --> 01:15:26,439
Speaker 1: he did Chechen lives, then I've got a bridge of

1220
01:15:26,479 --> 01:15:29,280
Speaker 1: the proto sell them. Though you should act now because

1221
01:15:29,360 --> 01:15:32,160
Speaker 1: the valley's gonna drop real fast. Yeah, And it's one

1222
01:15:32,200 --> 01:15:36,280
Speaker 1: of those if you, as a good leftist, have spent

1223
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:39,680
Speaker 1: a significant amount of time reading about the horrific crimes

1224
01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:43,320
Speaker 1: of of imperialist nations in Africa and Southeast Asia. In

1225
01:15:43,439 --> 01:15:49,120
Speaker 1: the America's um, what the Russian Federation did there is

1226
01:15:49,439 --> 01:15:52,760
Speaker 1: on that scale. It's it's absolutely on that scale. It was.

1227
01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:58,840
Speaker 1: It was a titanically ugly war. UM. And I mean

1228
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:01,400
Speaker 1: any modernly you can look at what they did in

1229
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:05,000
Speaker 1: Syria yea, or what they are doing in Syria, what

1230
01:16:05,040 --> 01:16:07,960
Speaker 1: they continue to do in Syria. UM. But as it

1231
01:16:08,000 --> 01:16:11,720
Speaker 1: turns out, UM, Syrians learned this lesson that I am

1232
01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:16,160
Speaker 1: learning now about big portions of the UM Western left

1233
01:16:16,880 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Yeah, which is that if you

1234
01:16:19,560 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 1: can find, for example, some Syrian rebels who are shitty

1235
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:28,040
Speaker 1: and Islamists or whatever, you can tar every single person

1236
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:31,120
Speaker 1: whoever stood up against Bashar al assad as A as

1237
01:16:31,120 --> 01:16:34,920
Speaker 1: a terrorist UM, which is really easy, especially if you're

1238
01:16:34,920 --> 01:16:40,120
Speaker 1: getting paid Kremlin money to advance that line and you

1239
01:16:40,120 --> 01:16:44,880
Speaker 1: your name is Ben Norton. This brings us to the

1240
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:48,280
Speaker 1: place where there really aren't clear answers, which is like

1241
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:50,760
Speaker 1: what can be done? And it is one of those

1242
01:16:50,760 --> 01:16:54,880
Speaker 1: things where it's like, well, uh, that's not an easy question,

1243
01:16:54,960 --> 01:16:57,439
Speaker 1: because you do have to when you start grappling with

1244
01:16:57,479 --> 01:17:00,800
Speaker 1: like all right, well, like should what should NATO do?

1245
01:17:00,920 --> 01:17:04,040
Speaker 1: What should other European non NATO nations do? Like what

1246
01:17:04,040 --> 01:17:09,840
Speaker 1: what what is actually capable of? Like potentially altering or

1247
01:17:09,880 --> 01:17:13,160
Speaker 1: disrupting the courses of action here while we're talking about

1248
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:16,400
Speaker 1: the Russian state, which has a lot of nukes. Um,

1249
01:17:16,520 --> 01:17:19,240
Speaker 1: we're talking about a situation that could spiral out of

1250
01:17:19,280 --> 01:17:23,040
Speaker 1: control in a way that very few situations globally are

1251
01:17:23,120 --> 01:17:26,360
Speaker 1: capable of potentially spiring spiraling out of control. And so

1252
01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 1: it is a not a situation where anyone who tells

1253
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:32,960
Speaker 1: you this is clearly the thing to do that will work,

1254
01:17:33,200 --> 01:17:36,000
Speaker 1: is I think trying to is probably full of ship

1255
01:17:36,120 --> 01:17:39,400
Speaker 1: and a little unhinged um because this is a real

1256
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:44,920
Speaker 1: fucking ugly one. Um. But some of what has been done, Um,

1257
01:17:45,040 --> 01:17:46,960
Speaker 1: we just got the news today that I think we

1258
01:17:47,080 --> 01:17:49,240
Speaker 1: both found surprising, but it is very positive that the

1259
01:17:49,280 --> 01:17:53,679
Speaker 1: Germans have canceled construction of the Nord Stream to pipeline,

1260
01:17:53,720 --> 01:17:57,680
Speaker 1: which is a gas pipeline from Russia into the EU.

1261
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:00,760
Speaker 1: Um that a lot of folks were saying Germany was

1262
01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:03,679
Speaker 1: not going to take any sort of stances, solid stances

1263
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:07,520
Speaker 1: on Ukraine's behalf because of that pipeline, because of how Germany,

1264
01:18:07,560 --> 01:18:10,519
Speaker 1: along with a lot of Western Europe, is tremendously reliant

1265
01:18:10,560 --> 01:18:13,799
Speaker 1: upon Russian gas exports, um for just like keeping themselves

1266
01:18:13,800 --> 01:18:18,080
Speaker 1: heated in the winter. UM, so that's a positive move.

1267
01:18:18,280 --> 01:18:21,840
Speaker 1: I I tend to be critical of the ability of

1268
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:25,280
Speaker 1: sanctions to do much. UM. And if we're looking historically

1269
01:18:25,280 --> 01:18:28,800
Speaker 1: at sanctions, particularly to how they're most often implied, they

1270
01:18:28,840 --> 01:18:31,519
Speaker 1: have a tendency to just harm regular people more than

1271
01:18:31,560 --> 01:18:32,720
Speaker 1: they have to do it. Like we can look at

1272
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:35,960
Speaker 1: the sanctions in Iraq right which which were part of

1273
01:18:36,000 --> 01:18:39,960
Speaker 1: why something like a million people starved. Um. We are

1274
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:42,840
Speaker 1: talking about different kinds of sanctions in general, and we're

1275
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:45,960
Speaker 1: talking about the sanctions being imposed by NATO countries against

1276
01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:49,559
Speaker 1: the Russian state right now. They're largely sanctions against members

1277
01:18:49,640 --> 01:18:53,840
Speaker 1: of the Duma. UM, There's there's a lot. It's not

1278
01:18:54,040 --> 01:18:56,439
Speaker 1: the same as looking at like what was being done

1279
01:18:56,640 --> 01:19:00,840
Speaker 1: to Saddam's Iraq. That said, I'm still very hesitant to

1280
01:19:00,880 --> 01:19:03,880
Speaker 1: say I think that sanctions are going to disrupt Putin's

1281
01:19:03,960 --> 01:19:07,160
Speaker 1: course of action. I'm curious what you think can and

1282
01:19:07,240 --> 01:19:10,760
Speaker 1: should be done here, you know, like what is do

1283
01:19:10,800 --> 01:19:12,679
Speaker 1: you have any kind of clear idea in your own

1284
01:19:12,680 --> 01:19:16,120
Speaker 1: head about what might have a disruptive effect on on

1285
01:19:16,160 --> 01:19:19,840
Speaker 1: what Putin is doing? Learned to teleport and shoot Putin

1286
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:22,280
Speaker 1: in the head with a nimillionator. I mean that would

1287
01:19:22,280 --> 01:19:25,800
Speaker 1: be that'd be great. There's there's a can we that

1288
01:19:25,840 --> 01:19:29,719
Speaker 1: tear had we that teleportation capacity, there would be a list.

1289
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:35,960
Speaker 1: You know, put my skill points into that. But realistically speaking,

1290
01:19:37,120 --> 01:19:39,920
Speaker 1: the Russian state is authitarian. It doesn't really care what

1291
01:19:39,960 --> 01:19:42,200
Speaker 1: its own citizens think. It definitely doesn't care what other

1292
01:19:42,240 --> 01:19:47,240
Speaker 1: people think. However, Um, Russia has been, at least in

1293
01:19:48,439 --> 01:19:54,400
Speaker 1: um the modern realm, relatively image conscious. UM. Which is

1294
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:58,599
Speaker 1: why I think one thing that could work, for example

1295
01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:03,519
Speaker 1: or not, could work, but would perhaps force the Russian

1296
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:07,040
Speaker 1: state to consider its actions a little bit more carefully.

1297
01:20:07,160 --> 01:20:09,320
Speaker 1: And I want to be very clear when I talk

1298
01:20:09,360 --> 01:20:12,679
Speaker 1: about the Russian state, I'm talking about Putin himself. Yeah,

1299
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:18,479
Speaker 1: the government. He has no there's no like other decision

1300
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:23,000
Speaker 1: makers in Russia. And that was actually perfectly encapsulated um

1301
01:20:23,080 --> 01:20:26,559
Speaker 1: during his speech the other day where he just outright,

1302
01:20:27,160 --> 01:20:31,120
Speaker 1: um like eviscerated the head of his foreign intelligence service.

1303
01:20:31,640 --> 01:20:34,640
Speaker 1: I'm live TV for the whole world to see just

1304
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:39,160
Speaker 1: utterly humiliated the guy for no real reason, just because

1305
01:20:39,160 --> 01:20:42,320
Speaker 1: he can and you could see that. And we're talking

1306
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:48,440
Speaker 1: about Russia's top spy. I mean, beyond Puttin himself stammering

1307
01:20:48,640 --> 01:20:52,120
Speaker 1: like a frightened school child when Puttin addressed him, just

1308
01:20:52,880 --> 01:20:55,560
Speaker 1: with just a hint of sharpness. Um. So when I

1309
01:20:55,600 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: say to the Russian state, I'm referring literally to the

1310
01:20:58,479 --> 01:21:05,160
Speaker 1: body in prison of of Vladiman Prune Um. And like, honestly, yeah,

1311
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:07,600
Speaker 1: I would love to see people pick at Russian embassies

1312
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:12,720
Speaker 1: and make demonstrations and marches and so on. Um. Do

1313
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,840
Speaker 1: I think that will have a practical real effect, to

1314
01:21:16,880 --> 01:21:20,240
Speaker 1: be honest, No, say with the sanctions. Um, I'm sure

1315
01:21:20,280 --> 01:21:24,880
Speaker 1: Putin's pet oligarchs and members of his party and the

1316
01:21:25,840 --> 01:21:30,800
Speaker 1: uh the people that in theory keep him in power. Um,

1317
01:21:30,920 --> 01:21:36,200
Speaker 1: the oligarchs, the the polimentarians, the mafia lords and so on.

1318
01:21:36,600 --> 01:21:39,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're gonna be pretty mift if their yachts

1319
01:21:39,200 --> 01:21:42,599
Speaker 1: and their multimillion dollar properties in Miami and New York,

1320
01:21:42,600 --> 01:21:46,200
Speaker 1: in London and the villasm the French Riviera when when

1321
01:21:46,200 --> 01:21:50,320
Speaker 1: all that gets taken, I'm sure they'll they'll be pretty annoyed. Um.

1322
01:21:50,320 --> 01:21:53,519
Speaker 1: But I don't think Putin cares. I think that he

1323
01:21:53,680 --> 01:22:01,080
Speaker 1: has a really irrational um desire to subjugate Eve specifically, Um.

1324
01:22:01,160 --> 01:22:06,280
Speaker 1: He sees Kiev as um what we call in Russian,

1325
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:10,040
Speaker 1: the mother of all Russian cities. Yeah, it's the um

1326
01:22:10,200 --> 01:22:13,679
Speaker 1: the place of the Kievan Ruce. Yeah, the word Russian

1327
01:22:13,760 --> 01:22:17,000
Speaker 1: comes from Kievan Ruce, you know, exactly exactly. And I

1328
01:22:17,120 --> 01:22:21,839
Speaker 1: just don't think that Putin is going to turn away

1329
01:22:21,880 --> 01:22:26,000
Speaker 1: from that goal because a couple of his buddies are

1330
01:22:26,040 --> 01:22:28,720
Speaker 1: complaining that they're mega yachts got taken in by the

1331
01:22:28,720 --> 01:22:32,040
Speaker 1: British authorities or whatever. Nor do I think they're gonna

1332
01:22:32,200 --> 01:22:34,080
Speaker 1: care that. You know, there are a couple of marchers

1333
01:22:34,080 --> 01:22:37,479
Speaker 1: outside of embassies in New Yorker something. Um, but that

1334
01:22:37,560 --> 01:22:40,559
Speaker 1: may help spur the world as a whole, the international

1335
01:22:40,600 --> 01:22:44,960
Speaker 1: community into taking a harder line stance against because Simeon

1336
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:47,719
Speaker 1: comes time and again. Um, Like, the guy's a gangster,

1337
01:22:48,000 --> 01:22:50,639
Speaker 1: he's he's like a security service thug. If you've ever

1338
01:22:51,320 --> 01:22:56,320
Speaker 1: like interacted with like a petty like sergeant, police sergeant

1339
01:22:56,400 --> 01:22:59,679
Speaker 1: or something that has just a bit of authority and

1340
01:23:00,000 --> 01:23:03,720
Speaker 1: prety much show imunity that that's put into a te um.

1341
01:23:03,800 --> 01:23:10,160
Speaker 1: The dude thinks he's over educated, uh and the cleverest nimble, Yeah,

1342
01:23:10,200 --> 01:23:12,040
Speaker 1: I think, But for really the way he talks, in

1343
01:23:12,080 --> 01:23:14,880
Speaker 1: the way he's acts, he's just a bully. He's he's

1344
01:23:14,960 --> 01:23:17,840
Speaker 1: he's got the same basic personality as like Villan Wether,

1345
01:23:18,040 --> 01:23:21,679
Speaker 1: you know, the fucking head of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

1346
01:23:21,720 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 1: He's like, not like a beat cop, but like one

1347
01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:26,400
Speaker 1: of the cops who rises to run a union or

1348
01:23:26,439 --> 01:23:31,439
Speaker 1: run a city police department. Yeah, he's good at consolidating power.

1349
01:23:31,520 --> 01:23:35,360
Speaker 1: He's good at at exercising organizing others to exercise violence

1350
01:23:35,400 --> 01:23:37,439
Speaker 1: on his behalf. But yeah, at the end of the day,

1351
01:23:37,439 --> 01:23:43,280
Speaker 1: he is primarily a bully. And it's one of those Um,

1352
01:23:43,400 --> 01:23:48,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, when it comes to arms shipments,

1353
01:23:48,120 --> 01:23:52,400
Speaker 1: that is a historically Again, if you look at the

1354
01:23:52,479 --> 01:23:57,000
Speaker 1: history of partic like let's just say specifically NATO shipping

1355
01:23:57,080 --> 01:24:00,639
Speaker 1: arms places most of the time, that does not improve

1356
01:24:00,920 --> 01:24:03,599
Speaker 1: the situation for people in that country. That that has

1357
01:24:03,640 --> 01:24:06,400
Speaker 1: been a historical reality of arms Shipment's not just with

1358
01:24:06,479 --> 01:24:09,040
Speaker 1: NATO as a general rule everywhere, when you ship more

1359
01:24:09,080 --> 01:24:14,240
Speaker 1: guns into an area, that that rarely improves quality of life. Um.

1360
01:24:14,280 --> 01:24:18,559
Speaker 1: But we are not talking about a country that has

1361
01:24:18,600 --> 01:24:23,880
Speaker 1: had any kind of centralized political legitimacy or what not collapse.

1362
01:24:23,880 --> 01:24:25,240
Speaker 1: You're not talking about a country that is in the

1363
01:24:25,320 --> 01:24:30,400
Speaker 1: middle of tearing itself apart between thirty or forty different sides. Um,

1364
01:24:30,439 --> 01:24:33,559
Speaker 1: it's not the same situation as well, let's ship a

1365
01:24:33,560 --> 01:24:36,800
Speaker 1: bunch of guns to Libya, you know. Um. It just

1366
01:24:36,960 --> 01:24:41,400
Speaker 1: isn't there different histories, different political realities on the ground.

1367
01:24:41,760 --> 01:24:43,920
Speaker 1: I don't know that I actually think any amount of

1368
01:24:44,000 --> 01:24:49,320
Speaker 1: arms shipments would dissuade Putin from advancing either. Um. But

1369
01:24:49,520 --> 01:24:53,280
Speaker 1: I I don't know what else to do. I certainly

1370
01:24:53,280 --> 01:24:55,559
Speaker 1: am not against the idea of like, Okay, guys have

1371
01:24:55,680 --> 01:24:57,160
Speaker 1: some A G T M s, you know, have some

1372
01:24:57,200 --> 01:25:01,320
Speaker 1: wire guided missiles, have some javelins, um, because like, what

1373
01:25:01,360 --> 01:25:03,800
Speaker 1: else are you gonna do? Um? I mean, we're not

1374
01:25:03,880 --> 01:25:06,479
Speaker 1: going to and I'm certainly not saying we should send

1375
01:25:06,560 --> 01:25:10,240
Speaker 1: US troops in um because again we have to consider

1376
01:25:10,280 --> 01:25:14,479
Speaker 1: the nuclear situation too. UM. What do you think is?

1377
01:25:15,400 --> 01:25:18,040
Speaker 1: Where are your thoughts there? Um? Because this is something

1378
01:25:18,040 --> 01:25:21,280
Speaker 1: that I I'm very I'm very mixed on, although again

1379
01:25:21,280 --> 01:25:24,320
Speaker 1: I'm broadly fine with Yeah, I mean, at least give

1380
01:25:24,360 --> 01:25:30,480
Speaker 1: people the ability to fight back. Yeah, it's a difficult one, especially,

1381
01:25:31,640 --> 01:25:35,120
Speaker 1: like you noted, the military industrial complex has very rarely

1382
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:39,479
Speaker 1: improved any situation the world anywhere. Yep, this might be

1383
01:25:39,520 --> 01:25:42,880
Speaker 1: one of the few exceptions, UM, because the fact is

1384
01:25:43,200 --> 01:25:47,280
Speaker 1: that Ukraine doesn't really have the tools to defend these

1385
01:25:47,600 --> 01:25:50,960
Speaker 1: to defend ourselves we have, UM, or at least our

1386
01:25:51,280 --> 01:25:53,599
Speaker 1: government claims that we have the strongest army in Europe, which,

1387
01:25:53,680 --> 01:25:55,800
Speaker 1: to be honest, with all the defense cuts that Europe

1388
01:25:55,840 --> 01:25:59,200
Speaker 1: can come, that may be true at least on the

1389
01:25:59,240 --> 01:26:04,439
Speaker 1: ground sense. Certainly the most combat experienced army in here. Yeah, absolutely, UM.

1390
01:26:04,479 --> 01:26:07,439
Speaker 1: But what we lack entirely is air power and air

1391
01:26:07,479 --> 01:26:11,519
Speaker 1: defense UM. And what Russia has in spades is air

1392
01:26:11,520 --> 01:26:15,240
Speaker 1: power and air defense. And as we saw UM when

1393
01:26:15,360 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 1: the US invaded Rock, Well, you can destroy conventional army

1394
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:24,000
Speaker 1: in a couple of days by just bombing the ship

1395
01:26:24,080 --> 01:26:27,559
Speaker 1: out of it uh. And the Russians have quite a

1396
01:26:27,560 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 1: few missiles UM aimed straight at Kiev and quite a

1397
01:26:32,200 --> 01:26:35,439
Speaker 1: view planes waiting on standby, I presume to bomb the

1398
01:26:35,439 --> 01:26:38,320
Speaker 1: ship out of Kiev. Uh. And it would be nice

1399
01:26:38,360 --> 01:26:42,960
Speaker 1: to have some way to to defend ourselves against that UM.

1400
01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:46,240
Speaker 1: But again there's there's not much that can be sent. Yeah.

1401
01:26:46,280 --> 01:26:49,280
Speaker 1: Of course stingers and javelins and so on, UM. That

1402
01:26:49,400 --> 01:26:53,160
Speaker 1: will all help raise the costs of the occupation that

1403
01:26:53,240 --> 01:26:58,360
Speaker 1: follows the initial bombardment But if Putin goes for the

1404
01:26:58,400 --> 01:27:02,360
Speaker 1: strategy that Assade has used in Syria, which is bomb

1405
01:27:02,400 --> 01:27:05,680
Speaker 1: the living ship out of every civilian residential area in

1406
01:27:05,680 --> 01:27:10,800
Speaker 1: the city until the people just submit or are all dead, um, well,

1407
01:27:10,840 --> 01:27:13,080
Speaker 1: there's not really too much we can do about that.

1408
01:27:13,680 --> 01:27:19,080
Speaker 1: And that is like, there is a lot that individual

1409
01:27:19,560 --> 01:27:23,160
Speaker 1: that that trained and motivated soldiers with small arms and

1410
01:27:23,240 --> 01:27:28,320
Speaker 1: munitions like javelins can do even to resist a country

1411
01:27:28,520 --> 01:27:32,880
Speaker 1: with with overwhelming air power. The corollary to that is

1412
01:27:32,960 --> 01:27:37,080
Speaker 1: that in doing that a lot of stuff, everyone around

1413
01:27:37,080 --> 01:27:40,280
Speaker 1: them dies, the city is turned into a graveyard. Um.

1414
01:27:40,320 --> 01:27:44,240
Speaker 1: I've I've seen that with my own eyes, and that's

1415
01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:47,280
Speaker 1: that's I mean, got to be the thing if you're

1416
01:27:47,320 --> 01:27:49,960
Speaker 1: looking at this with any kind of reasonable lies and

1417
01:27:50,040 --> 01:27:53,120
Speaker 1: not just like trying to find a political angle to

1418
01:27:53,160 --> 01:27:56,240
Speaker 1: support that has to be your main concern is that

1419
01:27:56,920 --> 01:28:00,360
Speaker 1: the potential here is for a tremendous loss of life

1420
01:28:00,520 --> 01:28:04,799
Speaker 1: and also for the creation of millions of refugees. Um.

1421
01:28:04,840 --> 01:28:09,040
Speaker 1: And this is something in another of audio clip that

1422
01:28:09,080 --> 01:28:12,160
Speaker 1: you published a bit earlier on Twitter you say, which

1423
01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:15,720
Speaker 1: is that like, if this goes as badly as it can,

1424
01:28:16,080 --> 01:28:21,960
Speaker 1: no matter what your politics are, this will become your problem. Yeah,

1425
01:28:22,240 --> 01:28:26,120
Speaker 1: I stand behind that absolutely, because there are a lot

1426
01:28:26,120 --> 01:28:31,920
Speaker 1: of Ukrainians and while most of us have no desire

1427
01:28:32,000 --> 01:28:35,280
Speaker 1: to live under the Russian yoke, the majority of us

1428
01:28:35,280 --> 01:28:39,320
Speaker 1: are not trained fighters. Were just people, just regular people.

1429
01:28:39,320 --> 01:28:42,840
Speaker 1: And I know, especially in the US, UM, with our

1430
01:28:43,360 --> 01:28:48,200
Speaker 1: like out of control gun culture, imagining like they're the

1431
01:28:48,560 --> 01:28:52,760
Speaker 1: singular guy, you know, they're they're the macho man with

1432
01:28:52,760 --> 01:28:56,120
Speaker 1: with all the guns, take down the government all by themselves.

1433
01:28:57,360 --> 01:28:59,720
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's a fantasy. It's a fiction. Um, that

1434
01:28:59,840 --> 01:29:03,800
Speaker 1: is how things work. Uh. And quite frankly, most people

1435
01:29:03,920 --> 01:29:08,519
Speaker 1: are not psychologically suited to combat. That's why armies take

1436
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:10,800
Speaker 1: so long to break soldiers down to teach them to

1437
01:29:10,880 --> 01:29:13,719
Speaker 1: murder people, because that is not something humans do naturally.

1438
01:29:13,920 --> 01:29:18,080
Speaker 1: And the majority of people subjected to that kind of

1439
01:29:18,160 --> 01:29:21,719
Speaker 1: violence will run. And again, there are forty four million

1440
01:29:21,880 --> 01:29:24,479
Speaker 1: of us, and they will run and run and run.

1441
01:29:24,920 --> 01:29:27,400
Speaker 1: Pretty much everyone in the world. You saw this with Syria,

1442
01:29:27,600 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 1: sell this with Libya. Um, you've seen this pretty much

1443
01:29:30,720 --> 01:29:33,479
Speaker 1: with every single place that has experienced massive violence in

1444
01:29:33,479 --> 01:29:37,519
Speaker 1: the modern world. Um, that's the reaction. Yeah, and that's

1445
01:29:37,560 --> 01:29:40,320
Speaker 1: when we run. We bring all of our biases and

1446
01:29:40,360 --> 01:29:47,559
Speaker 1: problems and cultural predilections to you m hm. And it's yeah,

1447
01:29:47,600 --> 01:29:50,639
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's really that out to end on

1448
01:29:50,880 --> 01:29:54,280
Speaker 1: and it is you get a lot of folks you

1449
01:29:54,320 --> 01:29:58,320
Speaker 1: know who who rightly you know, focus on and think

1450
01:29:58,320 --> 01:30:01,400
Speaker 1: a lot about revolutionary struggles in places like Vietnam and

1451
01:30:02,160 --> 01:30:05,120
Speaker 1: um in an Afghanistan and will point out that like, well,

1452
01:30:05,640 --> 01:30:10,840
Speaker 1: you don't need to have as advanced to military as

1453
01:30:10,880 --> 01:30:15,599
Speaker 1: your opponent to win. And again, just the corollary to that, all, Yeah,

1454
01:30:15,800 --> 01:30:18,600
Speaker 1: the corollary to that is that like, yeah, but millions

1455
01:30:19,000 --> 01:30:22,439
Speaker 1: of people die. Millions of people died in Afghanistan, millions

1456
01:30:22,439 --> 01:30:26,519
Speaker 1: of people died in Vietnam. Um, that's that, that is

1457
01:30:26,560 --> 01:30:29,640
Speaker 1: the reality. Yeah, you can resist an imperial power with

1458
01:30:29,720 --> 01:30:33,599
Speaker 1: minimal technology, but you're not going to leave that fight

1459
01:30:33,680 --> 01:30:37,479
Speaker 1: with a family alive still, you know, Like that's that's

1460
01:30:37,520 --> 01:30:42,040
Speaker 1: how it goes. Um. So let's all say a little

1461
01:30:42,560 --> 01:30:48,439
Speaker 1: prayer for I don't know, peace, Uh, I hope the

1462
01:30:49,760 --> 01:30:54,920
Speaker 1: worst doesn't happen. Um. What has there been kind of

1463
01:30:55,080 --> 01:30:59,439
Speaker 1: mobilization that you've seen within the the activist the anarchist

1464
01:30:59,439 --> 01:31:03,040
Speaker 1: community and in Kiev, um to you know, any kind

1465
01:31:03,080 --> 01:31:04,680
Speaker 1: of mutual aid stuff like or is it just one

1466
01:31:04,720 --> 01:31:08,240
Speaker 1: of those situations where it hasn't started happening yet and

1467
01:31:08,280 --> 01:31:10,479
Speaker 1: nobody really knows what would even be useful to do

1468
01:31:10,840 --> 01:31:15,840
Speaker 1: if it does. I'll say this, Um, it may come

1469
01:31:15,880 --> 01:31:19,240
Speaker 1: as a little bit of a shock, but anarchists not

1470
01:31:19,640 --> 01:31:26,040
Speaker 1: typically the best organised. Yeah. Um. Specifically, like a lot

1471
01:31:26,240 --> 01:31:29,439
Speaker 1: of my UH friends who are active in the anarchist

1472
01:31:29,960 --> 01:31:34,240
Speaker 1: um movement in Ukraine have simply joined the territorial defense

1473
01:31:34,280 --> 01:31:40,960
Speaker 1: battalions or the regular army and will simply fight as soldiers. Um.

1474
01:31:41,120 --> 01:31:45,920
Speaker 1: There has been a very strong I don't know if

1475
01:31:45,960 --> 01:31:49,800
Speaker 1: you called denial um. A colleague of mine used the

1476
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:52,160
Speaker 1: term doomed optimism, and I really like the side of that,

1477
01:31:52,240 --> 01:31:54,080
Speaker 1: so let's go with that. Yeah, there's been this really

1478
01:31:54,120 --> 01:31:57,000
Speaker 1: strong doomed optimism amongst Ukrainians that the worst will not

1479
01:31:57,080 --> 01:32:00,120
Speaker 1: happen and there's no real reason to prepare for anything,

1480
01:32:00,240 --> 01:32:03,880
Speaker 1: because well, things are going to be fine. Um. And

1481
01:32:04,000 --> 01:32:06,519
Speaker 1: that's what our government tells us as well, things are

1482
01:32:06,560 --> 01:32:09,880
Speaker 1: going to be fine. They don't see any massive attack

1483
01:32:09,960 --> 01:32:12,320
Speaker 1: groups or I mean, I feel like that's contradicted by

1484
01:32:12,560 --> 01:32:14,519
Speaker 1: the the open source intelligence that I've been looking at.

1485
01:32:15,040 --> 01:32:18,800
Speaker 1: But I I am just one guy. I obviously don't

1486
01:32:18,840 --> 01:32:23,680
Speaker 1: have the intelligence apparatus of a nation state. UM. So

1487
01:32:23,840 --> 01:32:28,400
Speaker 1: I mean maybe they're right, Um, but generally speaking, people

1488
01:32:28,439 --> 01:32:35,000
Speaker 1: have just been joining the army, going to um tactical trainings. Um.

1489
01:32:35,040 --> 01:32:37,639
Speaker 1: But this is all very basic stuff like going the woods,

1490
01:32:38,080 --> 01:32:41,200
Speaker 1: learn how to set up camp and you know, clean

1491
01:32:41,240 --> 01:32:44,840
Speaker 1: a rifle kind of kind of things. Um. Nothing like

1492
01:32:44,920 --> 01:32:47,920
Speaker 1: combat training, because where would you get that except by

1493
01:32:48,000 --> 01:32:50,200
Speaker 1: joining the army and going to the front. Yeah, it's

1494
01:32:50,200 --> 01:32:52,599
Speaker 1: the kind of training that might keep in the event

1495
01:32:52,640 --> 01:32:54,599
Speaker 1: of a full conflict when out of ten of those

1496
01:32:54,600 --> 01:32:56,720
Speaker 1: people alive long enough to learn how to fight. Yeah,

1497
01:32:56,760 --> 01:32:59,519
Speaker 1: and and that might be worth it. Yeah, I mean yeah,

1498
01:32:59,560 --> 01:33:02,599
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like yes, not not to say

1499
01:33:02,720 --> 01:33:06,519
Speaker 1: people shouldn't be doing that, because people should do whatever

1500
01:33:06,560 --> 01:33:10,880
Speaker 1: they can. Um, how are you kind of a close

1501
01:33:10,880 --> 01:33:15,559
Speaker 1: out like as this Like doom scrolling is the thing

1502
01:33:15,560 --> 01:33:17,760
Speaker 1: we all talk about, and there's there's plenty image just

1503
01:33:17,760 --> 01:33:20,200
Speaker 1: sitting here in Portland. We just had a mass shooting

1504
01:33:20,200 --> 01:33:22,000
Speaker 1: on a protest this weekend, and so there's a lot

1505
01:33:22,040 --> 01:33:24,720
Speaker 1: of doom scrolling going on in my community. But we're

1506
01:33:24,720 --> 01:33:26,760
Speaker 1: not staring down the barrel of a hundred and ninety

1507
01:33:26,840 --> 01:33:31,559
Speaker 1: thousand soldiers you know, potentially uh, hitting us from the

1508
01:33:31,600 --> 01:33:35,760
Speaker 1: air and ground simultaneously. How do you How are you

1509
01:33:35,840 --> 01:33:39,439
Speaker 1: like focusing on the stuff that you can do anything

1510
01:33:39,439 --> 01:33:42,719
Speaker 1: about and the stuff that you can productively handle without

1511
01:33:43,040 --> 01:33:48,760
Speaker 1: losing yourself in that obvious amounts of cannabis. That's good.

1512
01:33:48,760 --> 01:33:53,160
Speaker 1: I'm glad you guys have decent pod access. Yeah. I

1513
01:33:53,200 --> 01:33:55,640
Speaker 1: actually don't know what I'll do if, um, if my

1514
01:33:55,760 --> 01:34:00,400
Speaker 1: current supplies got out to be quite honest, um, but

1515
01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:07,080
Speaker 1: I mean it's been definitely a struggle. Um. And the

1516
01:34:07,240 --> 01:34:10,120
Speaker 1: past couple of days, especially my mental health has not

1517
01:34:10,240 --> 01:34:19,160
Speaker 1: been especially great. Um. But again, I'm one dude. Like,

1518
01:34:19,560 --> 01:34:22,479
Speaker 1: I'm not in very good shape. I have or vision,

1519
01:34:22,560 --> 01:34:25,120
Speaker 1: one of my eyes don't work, I'm diabetic. Like, I'm

1520
01:34:25,160 --> 01:34:27,439
Speaker 1: not gonna go out and grab a rifle and start

1521
01:34:27,520 --> 01:34:30,479
Speaker 1: killing every rooskie I see, you know. Um. But at

1522
01:34:30,479 --> 01:34:32,439
Speaker 1: the same time, I've got a job to do. I

1523
01:34:33,640 --> 01:34:37,639
Speaker 1: as an English language journalist in Ukraine. Um, I have

1524
01:34:38,160 --> 01:34:41,080
Speaker 1: this is your busy season, Yeah, it's my busies. Like

1525
01:34:42,439 --> 01:34:44,920
Speaker 1: one of my jobs is to counter Russian distin information

1526
01:34:45,120 --> 01:34:48,640
Speaker 1: and too like tell people the truth of what is

1527
01:34:48,640 --> 01:34:52,200
Speaker 1: going on here. Um, And that role will only get

1528
01:34:52,280 --> 01:34:58,040
Speaker 1: more important if the the conflict expands, um from from

1529
01:34:58,120 --> 01:35:01,120
Speaker 1: the scope that it is now. Uh so how am

1530
01:35:01,160 --> 01:35:05,560
Speaker 1: I doing? Well? I'm still alive, um, having off myself

1531
01:35:06,800 --> 01:35:11,559
Speaker 1: and uh I'm still I'm still working. So I think

1532
01:35:11,600 --> 01:35:14,160
Speaker 1: as as good as I can be under the circumstances.

1533
01:35:14,479 --> 01:35:19,160
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, UM, well I hope your weeds supply stays

1534
01:35:19,160 --> 01:35:25,000
Speaker 1: stable um at the very fucking fingers. Yeah. Um. All right, Well,

1535
01:35:25,120 --> 01:35:27,880
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the show, Romeo. UM,

1536
01:35:27,920 --> 01:35:29,400
Speaker 1: do you have anything you want to plug kind of

1537
01:35:29,400 --> 01:35:32,719
Speaker 1: as we as we go out here? Um, just if

1538
01:35:32,840 --> 01:35:37,000
Speaker 1: you really want to know about what's going down in Ukraine,

1539
01:35:37,680 --> 01:35:40,519
Speaker 1: I am co host of the podcast called Ukraine Without

1540
01:35:40,600 --> 01:35:44,120
Speaker 1: Hype and find it on any podcast platform. Um. And

1541
01:35:44,160 --> 01:35:47,280
Speaker 1: if you really want to get a look out what's

1542
01:35:47,280 --> 01:35:50,960
Speaker 1: going on in English um with only a tinge of

1543
01:35:51,040 --> 01:35:55,559
Speaker 1: leftist bias, um, then tune in. You can follow us

1544
01:35:55,560 --> 01:35:59,120
Speaker 1: on Twitter Hype Ukrane um and again on any podcast

1545
01:35:59,200 --> 01:36:03,360
Speaker 1: platform that you use. So it is later awesome, Well

1546
01:36:03,680 --> 01:36:09,280
Speaker 1: check out Romeo there, check out this podcast, and you know,

1547
01:36:09,680 --> 01:36:12,599
Speaker 1: just try to keep your eyes on the situation and

1548
01:36:13,200 --> 01:36:18,360
Speaker 1: don't let yourself be uh overwhelmed by what some random

1549
01:36:18,400 --> 01:36:21,640
Speaker 1: person on Twitter tries to sum it up. As you know,

1550
01:36:21,840 --> 01:36:39,880
Speaker 1: people are more complicated than that. It could happen here

1551
01:36:40,800 --> 01:36:46,160
Speaker 1: coming to you live from my room in Chicago. But

1552
01:36:46,160 --> 01:36:48,920
Speaker 1: but importantly we were coming to your life, and it

1553
01:36:48,960 --> 01:36:52,200
Speaker 1: could happen here Central where the gamers have seized the pod.

1554
01:36:52,880 --> 01:36:57,120
Speaker 1: It is me, Christopher, it is Garrison. Hello, fellow gamer. Hello,

1555
01:37:00,080 --> 01:37:03,920
Speaker 1: and in the gaming trenches with my razor headset on,

1556
01:37:04,520 --> 01:37:08,840
Speaker 1: looking into my uh the video powered view flinder, and

1557
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:12,120
Speaker 1: I'm ready to continue on the fight. It's gonna be great.

1558
01:37:12,120 --> 01:37:16,120
Speaker 1: We're talking about talking about gaming, We're talking about the military,

1559
01:37:16,160 --> 01:37:18,040
Speaker 1: we're talking about why the two of them crossing is

1560
01:37:18,080 --> 01:37:22,360
Speaker 1: extremely bad. And uh, with us to talk about this

1561
01:37:22,920 --> 01:37:28,080
Speaker 1: are two people who are somewhat less clownish than we are. Um.

1562
01:37:28,120 --> 01:37:30,599
Speaker 1: This is Katie and Chris from Gamish for Peace, which

1563
01:37:30,640 --> 01:37:33,360
Speaker 1: is an initiative of Vesterans for Peace. We welcome to

1564
01:37:33,400 --> 01:37:37,679
Speaker 1: the show. Hello, Hey, thank you. I take offensive being

1565
01:37:37,920 --> 01:37:41,640
Speaker 1: called less clownish, and I'm just trying to live up

1566
01:37:41,640 --> 01:37:44,679
Speaker 1: to your standard. I'll have you know. I am very

1567
01:37:44,760 --> 01:37:47,720
Speaker 1: very clownish and clumsy and all of those good things.

1568
01:37:47,720 --> 01:37:55,840
Speaker 1: And he trusted me with weapons. Oh god, So I

1569
01:37:55,920 --> 01:38:02,439
Speaker 1: guess starting out, I want to talk about I guess

1570
01:38:02,640 --> 01:38:05,920
Speaker 1: very generally the history of counter recruitment, because this is

1571
01:38:05,920 --> 01:38:08,799
Speaker 1: something that's been going on in the U. S. Military

1572
01:38:09,160 --> 01:38:11,800
Speaker 1: for I mean, it really is like from from what

1573
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:13,519
Speaker 1: I could tell, like about as long as there's been

1574
01:38:13,720 --> 01:38:17,240
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment for the military. But I was wondering

1575
01:38:17,280 --> 01:38:20,599
Speaker 1: if we could start I don't know, maybe maybe maybe

1576
01:38:20,600 --> 01:38:24,000
Speaker 1: around sort of the Vietnam era when you when there's

1577
01:38:24,160 --> 01:38:27,519
Speaker 1: you know, very very serious and intense sort of left

1578
01:38:27,560 --> 01:38:30,960
Speaker 1: wing kind of recruitment, and then we can go from there. Yeah. Yeah.

1579
01:38:31,120 --> 01:38:36,040
Speaker 1: So coming out of Vietnam, you have Vietnam veterans against

1580
01:38:36,040 --> 01:38:41,719
Speaker 1: the war forming, uh, and there's a massive pushback on uh,

1581
01:38:41,880 --> 01:38:45,000
Speaker 1: the draft. Uh. The anti war movement is pretty much

1582
01:38:45,040 --> 01:38:48,760
Speaker 1: at its strongest, and Vietnam veterans against the war over

1583
01:38:48,840 --> 01:38:52,880
Speaker 1: time becomes a veteran for peace. Veterans for Peace has

1584
01:38:52,920 --> 01:38:55,679
Speaker 1: a long legacy of sitting at the front of the

1585
01:38:55,720 --> 01:39:01,479
Speaker 1: anti war movement peace movement, participating in nuclear abolition work,

1586
01:39:01,920 --> 01:39:06,240
Speaker 1: kind of recruitment work, the escalation work out of Save

1587
01:39:06,280 --> 01:39:09,759
Speaker 1: Our v A, helping veterans get assistance with disability benefits,

1588
01:39:09,800 --> 01:39:14,360
Speaker 1: and making sure that the traumas that veterans suffer and

1589
01:39:14,400 --> 01:39:19,000
Speaker 1: the communities of UM impacted by the military suffer are

1590
01:39:19,120 --> 01:39:24,479
Speaker 1: getting treatment for the care UH deported veterans because Vietnam

1591
01:39:24,600 --> 01:39:27,559
Speaker 1: that's served and then got deported and that continues to

1592
01:39:27,640 --> 01:39:32,479
Speaker 1: this day. UH SO Veterans for Peace at a multi

1593
01:39:32,479 --> 01:39:38,160
Speaker 1: pronged approached, the anti war efforts UH and UH two

1594
01:39:38,200 --> 01:39:44,679
Speaker 1: thousands around UH two thousand seven, Ish Iraq Afghanistan Iraq

1595
01:39:44,760 --> 01:39:47,599
Speaker 1: Veterans against the War later known as Iraq Afghanistan Veterans

1596
01:39:47,640 --> 01:39:49,599
Speaker 1: Against the War comes along, and that's a new generation

1597
01:39:49,640 --> 01:39:53,759
Speaker 1: of veterans carrying along built on the legacy of Veterans

1598
01:39:53,760 --> 01:39:57,400
Speaker 1: for Peace and being non veterans against the war. UM.

1599
01:39:57,400 --> 01:40:00,479
Speaker 1: You know, there's a long history of Coffee ops g

1600
01:40:00,680 --> 01:40:07,200
Speaker 1: I Resistance, UM Outreach doing work with veterans, trying consciences,

1601
01:40:07,320 --> 01:40:12,040
Speaker 1: objective object or work UM g I resisted work in

1602
01:40:12,040 --> 01:40:14,479
Speaker 1: in there, and there's just a long legacy of just

1603
01:40:15,200 --> 01:40:19,920
Speaker 1: betteran sharing their experiences and coming back and really ah

1604
01:40:20,080 --> 01:40:22,840
Speaker 1: wanting to make sure nobody else goes through that and

1605
01:40:22,880 --> 01:40:24,960
Speaker 1: making sure that they get the help they need and

1606
01:40:25,040 --> 01:40:28,599
Speaker 1: kind of slow that that beat of the war drune

1607
01:40:28,840 --> 01:40:31,640
Speaker 1: that seems to media seems to always be picking up.

1608
01:40:32,960 --> 01:40:38,519
Speaker 1: And that's where we came in. That's definitely a good

1609
01:40:38,520 --> 01:40:41,799
Speaker 1: way to put it now, especially born out of the pandemic,

1610
01:40:41,840 --> 01:40:44,280
Speaker 1: a lot of the recruiting had to move online. They

1611
01:40:44,360 --> 01:40:46,720
Speaker 1: didn't really have if they wanted to keep recruiting, they

1612
01:40:46,720 --> 01:40:49,519
Speaker 1: had to go online, and that's where a majority of

1613
01:40:49,560 --> 01:40:52,200
Speaker 1: the newest generation is they are watching Twitch. Twitch had

1614
01:40:52,240 --> 01:40:57,040
Speaker 1: a viewership like pretty much competing with Netflix streaming UM

1615
01:40:57,080 --> 01:40:59,120
Speaker 1: as of this summer, and I'm sure that hasn't really

1616
01:40:59,160 --> 01:41:01,920
Speaker 1: changed much. I'm sure it is just as popular UM

1617
01:41:02,040 --> 01:41:04,439
Speaker 1: and the audience for Twitch skews very young. So that's

1618
01:41:04,439 --> 01:41:08,040
Speaker 1: really what started to worry members of Veterans for Peace, like, Okay,

1619
01:41:08,080 --> 01:41:11,520
Speaker 1: we might need to ramp up truth and recruitment UM initiatives,

1620
01:41:11,520 --> 01:41:14,360
Speaker 1: which is what Games for Peace came out of. Because

1621
01:41:14,400 --> 01:41:17,240
Speaker 1: the thing is, if you're forming a paras social relationship

1622
01:41:17,280 --> 01:41:20,960
Speaker 1: with these younger kids by streaming and forming those laserships,

1623
01:41:21,080 --> 01:41:23,920
Speaker 1: getting them on discord and talking to them, you're getting

1624
01:41:23,920 --> 01:41:26,479
Speaker 1: a one sided view of what military services about, and

1625
01:41:26,520 --> 01:41:31,200
Speaker 1: you are definitely not getting the uh, imperialist informed viewpoint

1626
01:41:31,360 --> 01:41:34,519
Speaker 1: for sure. UM. So Venemans for Peace kind of came

1627
01:41:34,520 --> 01:41:39,360
Speaker 1: out of that. That's like very insidious looking, uh, hidden

1628
01:41:39,560 --> 01:41:42,840
Speaker 1: and subtle way of of recruiting using the video games

1629
01:41:42,880 --> 01:41:45,680
Speaker 1: that have already historically been used for recruiting purposes. So

1630
01:41:45,720 --> 01:41:48,200
Speaker 1: it's like a double it's like a double whammy that

1631
01:41:48,280 --> 01:41:51,320
Speaker 1: got on us there for those not inundated in the

1632
01:41:51,600 --> 01:41:55,400
Speaker 1: game or warfare like we are. Um, how let's I

1633
01:41:55,400 --> 01:41:57,720
Speaker 1: think we should briefly describe what twitches because I know

1634
01:41:57,760 --> 01:42:02,000
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably probably isn't actually away of

1635
01:42:02,000 --> 01:42:04,760
Speaker 1: of Twitch. That's the words we are down in these

1636
01:42:04,800 --> 01:42:13,800
Speaker 1: trenches finding off the cyber net stop. Um. Yeah, So

1637
01:42:13,840 --> 01:42:16,600
Speaker 1: I guess twitches like a live stream platform that is

1638
01:42:16,600 --> 01:42:21,200
Speaker 1: primarily used for live streaming people playing video games, and

1639
01:42:21,439 --> 01:42:24,320
Speaker 1: people kind of help their own like brands and like

1640
01:42:24,400 --> 01:42:28,080
Speaker 1: personalities and like para social relationships with an audience via

1641
01:42:28,120 --> 01:42:30,440
Speaker 1: them playing these games and kind of adding their commentary,

1642
01:42:31,040 --> 01:42:33,240
Speaker 1: you know, variety of games. You know, sometimes it's like

1643
01:42:33,280 --> 01:42:36,320
Speaker 1: mostly chatting with people like inside like a group chat

1644
01:42:36,320 --> 01:42:38,600
Speaker 1: while playing a game. Um, or you know, it's some

1645
01:42:38,600 --> 01:42:42,519
Speaker 1: of more focused on the game itself. It kind of varies,

1646
01:42:42,600 --> 01:42:44,840
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's a it's a it's it's arguably the

1647
01:42:44,880 --> 01:42:47,120
Speaker 1: biggest live streaming platform. I think it was brought by

1648
01:42:47,120 --> 01:42:51,439
Speaker 1: Amazon a few years ago. Um. And yes, there is

1649
01:42:51,479 --> 01:42:54,400
Speaker 1: a there is a US there's a there's a few

1650
01:42:54,479 --> 01:42:58,640
Speaker 1: US like military channels on there that are actually like

1651
01:42:59,240 --> 01:43:02,479
Speaker 1: relatively popular. Um. I guess the other thing to kind

1652
01:43:02,479 --> 01:43:05,439
Speaker 1: of get into for some background is, like you mentioned,

1653
01:43:05,479 --> 01:43:08,200
Speaker 1: you already kind of alluded to this, like the history

1654
01:43:08,320 --> 01:43:12,880
Speaker 1: of the U. S Military using video games for propaganda

1655
01:43:12,920 --> 01:43:15,840
Speaker 1: because they've been they've been one of like the earliest

1656
01:43:15,840 --> 01:43:19,479
Speaker 1: funders of games for this reason, I think getting into

1657
01:43:19,560 --> 01:43:23,320
Speaker 1: that history is like interesting, um, and something that some

1658
01:43:23,360 --> 01:43:25,800
Speaker 1: people are definitely aware of, but a lot of times

1659
01:43:25,800 --> 01:43:28,960
Speaker 1: can get overlooked, despite you know, Call of Duty being

1660
01:43:29,160 --> 01:43:32,839
Speaker 1: one of the biggest video game franchises in the world. Yeah. Absolutely,

1661
01:43:32,920 --> 01:43:37,360
Speaker 1: the military is involvement in video game video can design

1662
01:43:37,800 --> 01:43:40,840
Speaker 1: using as recruitment, using it primary Initially, at first it

1663
01:43:40,960 --> 01:43:43,639
Speaker 1: was thought of as a training tool and they started

1664
01:43:43,680 --> 01:43:46,439
Speaker 1: looking at it for training. Um. If you think back

1665
01:43:46,479 --> 01:43:50,800
Speaker 1: to like early nineties Doom, the original Doom had a

1666
01:43:50,960 --> 01:43:56,160
Speaker 1: mod released called the Marine Mod. It was a modification

1667
01:43:56,240 --> 01:43:59,360
Speaker 1: designed for the Marine Corps to use to train marines

1668
01:43:59,400 --> 01:44:02,120
Speaker 1: in as early the early nineties when Doom was at

1669
01:44:02,120 --> 01:44:05,760
Speaker 1: its height. And then then that grows from there. You

1670
01:44:05,840 --> 01:44:09,280
Speaker 1: have first to fight, Uh, what is it. UH. Game

1671
01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:12,519
Speaker 1: called First to Fight features Marine Corps marines and dress

1672
01:44:12,560 --> 01:44:16,960
Speaker 1: Blues where you're tactically UH fighting a battle in UM

1673
01:44:17,120 --> 01:44:19,120
Speaker 1: in which you never want to do. If you know

1674
01:44:19,160 --> 01:44:21,360
Speaker 1: anything about the Marine Corps Blues, you do not want

1675
01:44:21,400 --> 01:44:25,280
Speaker 1: to be doing anything in those that isn't getting drunk exactly.

1676
01:44:26,720 --> 01:44:30,639
Speaker 1: Drunk and dancing and blues all they're good for. UM. Yeah,

1677
01:44:30,840 --> 01:44:32,760
Speaker 1: so you have you have a First to Fight and

1678
01:44:32,800 --> 01:44:36,719
Speaker 1: then it turns into Call of Duty America's Army, which

1679
01:44:37,040 --> 01:44:40,879
Speaker 1: thankfully just got pulled down all its platform from its platform.

1680
01:44:40,960 --> 01:44:44,080
Speaker 1: That's a huge win. But the Army started design getting

1681
01:44:44,120 --> 01:44:49,120
Speaker 1: into the development of video games for training, UH and

1682
01:44:49,280 --> 01:44:52,360
Speaker 1: then got into it for as recruiting, and America's Army

1683
01:44:52,439 --> 01:44:54,960
Speaker 1: is a perfect highlight of that where they just flat

1684
01:44:55,000 --> 01:44:58,719
Speaker 1: out had recruitment posters and training things UH in there

1685
01:44:58,800 --> 01:45:01,720
Speaker 1: with links to how to get to recruiters or get

1686
01:45:01,720 --> 01:45:06,160
Speaker 1: more information about joining the military joining the army. UM

1687
01:45:06,320 --> 01:45:09,519
Speaker 1: you have armor to UH. You could you could argue

1688
01:45:09,760 --> 01:45:15,160
Speaker 1: and draw the line from military training simulators to pub

1689
01:45:15,200 --> 01:45:18,719
Speaker 1: G Underground, which is one of the uh most biggest

1690
01:45:19,320 --> 01:45:22,639
Speaker 1: Battle Royale games, which is where you get Fortnite out

1691
01:45:22,640 --> 01:45:25,240
Speaker 1: of so you can draw these lines straight from the

1692
01:45:25,280 --> 01:45:30,120
Speaker 1: military's involvement in designing training and recruitment materials to what

1693
01:45:30,200 --> 01:45:34,519
Speaker 1: our kids are playing the most these days. And really

1694
01:45:34,560 --> 01:45:36,880
Speaker 1: one of the most kind of sick factors of this

1695
01:45:37,840 --> 01:45:41,519
Speaker 1: is like how much games have been designed and pushed

1696
01:45:41,520 --> 01:45:46,599
Speaker 1: towards basically training people for um like uh, I guess

1697
01:45:46,760 --> 01:45:49,920
Speaker 1: we're trying to think of the term, but like combat

1698
01:45:49,960 --> 01:45:52,360
Speaker 1: at a distance in terms of like ding like drone combat.

1699
01:45:52,800 --> 01:45:55,640
Speaker 1: There's just like they started just use the Xbox controllers

1700
01:45:56,200 --> 01:45:59,800
Speaker 1: for some like drone missions. Like like it's like there

1701
01:45:59,840 --> 01:46:03,160
Speaker 1: are specifically looking at the pipeline of specifically young males

1702
01:46:03,160 --> 01:46:05,879
Speaker 1: who get into this type of gaming and trying everything

1703
01:46:05,920 --> 01:46:09,280
Speaker 1: they can to push them into a career where they

1704
01:46:09,320 --> 01:46:13,760
Speaker 1: just kill people in overseas countries using the same technology,

1705
01:46:13,880 --> 01:46:17,599
Speaker 1: using you know, using video game controllers, using like you know,

1706
01:46:18,240 --> 01:46:21,640
Speaker 1: operating systems very similar to what we're being used in

1707
01:46:21,720 --> 01:46:23,840
Speaker 1: video games. And I mean, like in video games are

1708
01:46:23,840 --> 01:46:26,400
Speaker 1: a very effective propaganda tool. If you're thinking, like, okay,

1709
01:46:26,560 --> 01:46:28,960
Speaker 1: I mean I just enjoy playing more games. It's not like,

1710
01:46:29,000 --> 01:46:31,160
Speaker 1: what's what's the big deal? Like sure, like I also

1711
01:46:31,280 --> 01:46:34,360
Speaker 1: enjoy playing war games. Sometimes they can be a fun

1712
01:46:34,439 --> 01:46:37,040
Speaker 1: um you know, I like this like tactics based games,

1713
01:46:37,080 --> 01:46:39,439
Speaker 1: but these have been shown to be very effective at recruitment,

1714
01:46:39,520 --> 01:46:41,519
Speaker 1: to the point that video game footage and video games

1715
01:46:41,520 --> 01:46:45,839
Speaker 1: were like one of isis favorite recruitment and propaganda tactics

1716
01:46:45,880 --> 01:46:48,760
Speaker 1: as well, like this is it's a it's a thing,

1717
01:46:48,960 --> 01:46:51,960
Speaker 1: like it's not it's not just like oh, it's fine,

1718
01:46:52,160 --> 01:46:54,680
Speaker 1: Like no, these these things are actually kind of a

1719
01:46:54,680 --> 01:46:58,120
Speaker 1: profit of Yeah. Um, they are very effective in that

1720
01:46:58,160 --> 01:47:01,160
Speaker 1: manner as a recruitential and there is a real synergy

1721
01:47:01,240 --> 01:47:05,880
Speaker 1: between gaming developers and the d o D because of

1722
01:47:05,960 --> 01:47:09,240
Speaker 1: how effective uh, you know that recruiting can be, or

1723
01:47:09,479 --> 01:47:13,200
Speaker 1: the recruiting tool can be. Um, similar to movies. Uh,

1724
01:47:13,320 --> 01:47:16,080
Speaker 1: you know, the military entertainment complexes is a term thrown

1725
01:47:16,120 --> 01:47:18,840
Speaker 1: around a lot for good reason. You know, you have

1726
01:47:19,040 --> 01:47:22,120
Speaker 1: there is a black box of politics. Whenever you're watching

1727
01:47:22,280 --> 01:47:25,080
Speaker 1: a movie that picks uh yeah, some sort of power

1728
01:47:25,120 --> 01:47:29,280
Speaker 1: structure against whatever the villain is doing. There's there, there's

1729
01:47:29,280 --> 01:47:32,360
Speaker 1: always something there, and video games are not too different

1730
01:47:32,439 --> 01:47:34,320
Speaker 1: from that. You just have a little bit more say

1731
01:47:34,320 --> 01:47:36,200
Speaker 1: and where the story goes, but maybe not even it

1732
01:47:36,240 --> 01:47:39,519
Speaker 1: depends on the development. But um, there's article in in

1733
01:47:39,640 --> 01:47:43,200
Speaker 1: the Atlantic that was it was actually like about a book,

1734
01:47:43,360 --> 01:47:48,559
Speaker 1: um from beincause Dexter Thomas Warplay, and it's all about

1735
01:47:48,880 --> 01:47:52,640
Speaker 1: video gaming and the relationship with the military. And they

1736
01:47:52,720 --> 01:47:56,000
Speaker 1: said the Pentagon avoids pitiful, expensive efforts to create their

1737
01:47:56,000 --> 01:47:59,439
Speaker 1: own training simulators, and developers get fat government checks so

1738
01:47:59,520 --> 01:48:03,759
Speaker 1: they can help fund these new games, new virtual reality

1739
01:48:03,880 --> 01:48:07,360
Speaker 1: things under the guys of it being a useful training

1740
01:48:07,360 --> 01:48:11,880
Speaker 1: tool for training in like virtual virtual reality environments, which

1741
01:48:12,439 --> 01:48:16,639
Speaker 1: it scares me already. Um. And then game developers are like, great,

1742
01:48:16,680 --> 01:48:18,679
Speaker 1: I can get a government grant, so even if this flops,

1743
01:48:19,120 --> 01:48:20,720
Speaker 1: we still got the money out of it. That's not

1744
01:48:20,720 --> 01:48:25,000
Speaker 1: an uncommon phenomena. Yeah, I mean in terms of like filmmaking, Yeah,

1745
01:48:25,040 --> 01:48:28,360
Speaker 1: like there's been there's rules for like Pentagon contracts with

1746
01:48:28,640 --> 01:48:30,599
Speaker 1: film studios to be like, if you want to use

1747
01:48:30,680 --> 01:48:33,559
Speaker 1: you know, U. S. Military equipment or personality, to follow

1748
01:48:33,560 --> 01:48:37,320
Speaker 1: these specific rules to portray the military in this light, um,

1749
01:48:37,439 --> 01:48:39,479
Speaker 1: which often do get followed just because people want to

1750
01:48:39,560 --> 01:48:41,840
Speaker 1: use the cool equipment and stuff. You know. I'm still

1751
01:48:41,880 --> 01:48:44,960
Speaker 1: agree that my that my beloved Transformers got cuted by

1752
01:48:44,960 --> 01:48:49,200
Speaker 1: the U. S. Military and all of their films as

1753
01:48:49,240 --> 01:48:53,720
Speaker 1: a result of films are pretty pretty bad. Um. Yeah,

1754
01:48:54,040 --> 01:48:57,160
Speaker 1: I'll have you know. They are film art. No, I'm sorry,

1755
01:48:57,160 --> 01:49:00,080
Speaker 1: I can't even keep your straight. I hope as a

1756
01:49:00,080 --> 01:49:04,120
Speaker 1: as someone with many many star scream action figures, I

1757
01:49:04,120 --> 01:49:07,160
Speaker 1: I dream of one day of having good Transformers movies.

1758
01:49:08,960 --> 01:49:11,479
Speaker 1: I mean, you got the classic, the you know, the

1759
01:49:11,520 --> 01:49:16,120
Speaker 1: eighties classic, Um, You've got You've got the Touch, um

1760
01:49:16,200 --> 01:49:18,760
Speaker 1: and the bubblebe film is okay, but it's even still

1761
01:49:18,800 --> 01:49:20,400
Speaker 1: that one got cooked. That one got cooked by the

1762
01:49:20,439 --> 01:49:25,120
Speaker 1: military pretty pretty severely. Yes, it's it's funny that you

1763
01:49:25,160 --> 01:49:30,679
Speaker 1: mentioned isis using video gaming. Uh, there's just a recent

1764
01:49:30,720 --> 01:49:34,160
Speaker 1: report came out. It's linked to the u N. I

1765
01:49:34,160 --> 01:49:37,000
Speaker 1: believe it's linked to the u N. Council on Counter

1766
01:49:37,080 --> 01:49:41,720
Speaker 1: Terrorism or Office counter Terrorism. Uh, talking about violent extremism

1767
01:49:41,800 --> 01:49:44,960
Speaker 1: and gaming, the link between video games and violent extremism.

1768
01:49:44,960 --> 01:49:46,680
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting is it's not so much at

1769
01:49:46,680 --> 01:49:49,559
Speaker 1: the video games themselves are the issue. It's the gaming

1770
01:49:49,560 --> 01:49:53,599
Speaker 1: adjacent space. It's it's the para social relationship development, it's

1771
01:49:53,680 --> 01:49:58,439
Speaker 1: the meme, and it's the what what we've what we've

1772
01:49:58,479 --> 01:50:01,640
Speaker 1: known in in the gaming world for a while as

1773
01:50:01,680 --> 01:50:04,599
Speaker 1: associated with like the behaviors and culture around gamer Gate

1774
01:50:04,680 --> 01:50:08,320
Speaker 1: and things things like that where we see this uh,

1775
01:50:08,520 --> 01:50:14,639
Speaker 1: this toxic culture that um is easy to cultivate inside

1776
01:50:14,680 --> 01:50:17,880
Speaker 1: these spaces and and be co opted for more to

1777
01:50:17,960 --> 01:50:23,200
Speaker 1: various things. UM. And that doesn't that's that doesn't mean

1778
01:50:23,200 --> 01:50:26,520
Speaker 1: that the military isn't banking or utilizing those same principles

1779
01:50:26,560 --> 01:50:31,000
Speaker 1: to to get its recruiting messages across. The military is

1780
01:50:31,080 --> 01:50:35,439
Speaker 1: another violent extreme position, right. You're whether it's you're the

1781
01:50:35,520 --> 01:50:40,840
Speaker 1: violent arm of capitalism and the state or or violent

1782
01:50:41,280 --> 01:50:45,800
Speaker 1: like domestic terrorists or something like that, you're still um

1783
01:50:45,920 --> 01:50:50,519
Speaker 1: opting into or your position is still getting mobilized towards

1784
01:50:50,520 --> 01:50:54,880
Speaker 1: potentially doing violence. And these gaming adjacent spaces are make

1785
01:50:54,960 --> 01:50:58,280
Speaker 1: it really easy for recruiters of all sorts to be

1786
01:50:58,439 --> 01:51:02,040
Speaker 1: in there and push people to more of that side

1787
01:51:02,040 --> 01:51:04,400
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah. One of the things I remember when

1788
01:51:04,439 --> 01:51:06,600
Speaker 1: I was like a teenager on Twitch was like, so

1789
01:51:06,640 --> 01:51:08,519
Speaker 1: I watched just like a lot of harsh Stone streams, right,

1790
01:51:08,520 --> 01:51:10,439
Speaker 1: and this is like these were, you know, like completely

1791
01:51:10,520 --> 01:51:13,680
Speaker 1: mainline hard stone streams. And there was there was this

1792
01:51:13,800 --> 01:51:18,080
Speaker 1: artist who everyone called Kebab the German and uh, yeah,

1793
01:51:18,160 --> 01:51:20,840
Speaker 1: so it turns out that Kebab the German was a miss.

1794
01:51:20,840 --> 01:51:24,599
Speaker 1: It was like a shortening like abbreviation of his actual name,

1795
01:51:24,600 --> 01:51:28,400
Speaker 1: which was removed Kebab, And this guy's stuff was just

1796
01:51:28,439 --> 01:51:32,920
Speaker 1: being played on like every major like like Twitch, like

1797
01:51:32,920 --> 01:51:35,160
Speaker 1: all the major harshonal streaments who just playing groove Kebab

1798
01:51:35,439 --> 01:51:37,720
Speaker 1: songs and it was like and this this was just

1799
01:51:37,760 --> 01:51:40,000
Speaker 1: like what like this is just what Twitch was in

1800
01:51:40,120 --> 01:51:45,719
Speaker 1: like fourteen fifteen, and yeah, like there there's so much

1801
01:51:45,960 --> 01:51:48,240
Speaker 1: like the the the extent to which just this sort

1802
01:51:48,280 --> 01:51:52,360
Speaker 1: of like i mean just overtly fascist like milieu would

1803
01:51:52,400 --> 01:51:55,040
Speaker 1: just seep into just like you know, here was a

1804
01:51:55,040 --> 01:51:57,519
Speaker 1: bunch of people playing a card game and like it

1805
01:51:57,560 --> 01:51:59,600
Speaker 1: wasn't and it wasn't even like like I mean some

1806
01:51:59,600 --> 01:52:02,000
Speaker 1: of these which were like really reactionally like I've seen

1807
01:52:02,240 --> 01:52:06,360
Speaker 1: I've seen streamers who like will like watch videos of

1808
01:52:06,400 --> 01:52:10,120
Speaker 1: like cops doing right like raids on people's houses on stream,

1809
01:52:10,240 --> 01:52:12,960
Speaker 1: like you know, like you have those people who are

1810
01:52:12,960 --> 01:52:14,640
Speaker 1: like really florright, but some of these people were just

1811
01:52:14,680 --> 01:52:15,960
Speaker 1: like I don't know, they're just a lot of them

1812
01:52:16,000 --> 01:52:19,040
Speaker 1: are just regular people, like the regular people themselves extremists

1813
01:52:19,439 --> 01:52:24,760
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, just value Yeah. Well even then like

1814
01:52:24,800 --> 01:52:26,280
Speaker 1: some of them just like I think with like like

1815
01:52:26,320 --> 01:52:28,800
Speaker 1: with with with with like with the Germans like they

1816
01:52:28,840 --> 01:52:31,000
Speaker 1: just didn't know, like they just they just like didn't

1817
01:52:31,360 --> 01:52:33,160
Speaker 1: know what was going on, and so they were just

1818
01:52:33,240 --> 01:52:35,240
Speaker 1: you know, spreading all of this stuff and it was

1819
01:52:35,320 --> 01:52:41,040
Speaker 1: like it was horrifying. Yeah. Absolutely, And actually I'm glad

1820
01:52:41,080 --> 01:52:43,720
Speaker 1: you mentioned that because about a year ago, the Army

1821
01:52:43,880 --> 01:52:46,559
Speaker 1: Sports Channel got in trouble because one of the streamers

1822
01:52:46,560 --> 01:52:50,160
Speaker 1: didn't catch on to to there were two user names

1823
01:52:50,200 --> 01:52:53,639
Speaker 1: that were explicitly white supremacist. One of them was um

1824
01:52:54,000 --> 01:52:58,559
Speaker 1: six million was not enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, real, real gross.

1825
01:52:58,600 --> 01:53:02,040
Speaker 1: And I guess like just the whole idea of multitasking

1826
01:53:02,080 --> 01:53:04,479
Speaker 1: between playing a game, trying to interact with chat, and

1827
01:53:04,520 --> 01:53:06,920
Speaker 1: trying to make sure you're you're on screen and all

1828
01:53:06,960 --> 01:53:09,759
Speaker 1: of those things. They didn't realize it, or they willfully

1829
01:53:09,840 --> 01:53:11,599
Speaker 1: didn't realize it. I don't know which one, and I'm

1830
01:53:11,640 --> 01:53:13,559
Speaker 1: not going to make a judgment either way, but they did.

1831
01:53:13,640 --> 01:53:15,519
Speaker 1: They had to shut down that stream, and I don't

1832
01:53:15,520 --> 01:53:17,240
Speaker 1: think they streamed for a couple of weeks after that.

1833
01:53:17,280 --> 01:53:21,880
Speaker 1: They had to like reassess some some things because they're like, hey, actively,

1834
01:53:22,200 --> 01:53:25,080
Speaker 1: you know, white supremacists people are on your stream, you

1835
01:53:25,080 --> 01:53:27,479
Speaker 1: should probably you should probably do something about that. And

1836
01:53:27,560 --> 01:53:30,000
Speaker 1: I feel like if you're the U. S Military streaming

1837
01:53:30,000 --> 01:53:33,040
Speaker 1: on Twitch, that someone's job should just be to prevent

1838
01:53:33,080 --> 01:53:37,080
Speaker 1: that from happening. Like yeah, but the resources. Yeah, but

1839
01:53:37,200 --> 01:53:39,639
Speaker 1: like they kind of have this problem though, because Twitch

1840
01:53:39,680 --> 01:53:43,240
Speaker 1: has a there's a there's a huge just like like core,

1841
01:53:43,360 --> 01:53:46,840
Speaker 1: like a large enough base of Twitch users are just

1842
01:53:46,960 --> 01:53:51,120
Speaker 1: like fascist or like hard right wingers that do things

1843
01:53:51,240 --> 01:53:53,160
Speaker 1: like like there have been a persistent problem on Twitch

1844
01:53:53,200 --> 01:53:57,160
Speaker 1: for for years now of like these hate raids. It's

1845
01:53:57,200 --> 01:54:00,439
Speaker 1: like people doing mass raids on like anyone who's white

1846
01:54:00,520 --> 01:54:03,320
Speaker 1: and anyone who's like not just white dude, and just

1847
01:54:03,320 --> 01:54:06,040
Speaker 1: like hate rating their channels and like spamming the chat

1848
01:54:06,120 --> 01:54:09,880
Speaker 1: with like slurs and stuff like that. And you know

1849
01:54:10,120 --> 01:54:14,280
Speaker 1: when when that's you know, and that that's too large,

1850
01:54:14,479 --> 01:54:18,400
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like those those are the people, like you

1851
01:54:18,439 --> 01:54:20,720
Speaker 1: know that that's a large enough part of Twitch that

1852
01:54:20,960 --> 01:54:23,360
Speaker 1: like even even even if you're like taking the most

1853
01:54:23,439 --> 01:54:26,200
Speaker 1: charitable thing, which that the US, like the Army is

1854
01:54:26,240 --> 01:54:29,439
Speaker 1: not overtly recruiting white supremacists, which like okay, but like

1855
01:54:29,479 --> 01:54:31,599
Speaker 1: even even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, right,

1856
01:54:31,600 --> 01:54:33,960
Speaker 1: like that that's a large enough part of just what

1857
01:54:34,000 --> 01:54:37,080
Speaker 1: Twitch is. They haven't a center in front of blind

1858
01:54:37,080 --> 01:54:41,879
Speaker 1: eye and and radicalization, specifically right wing and white nationalist

1859
01:54:41,920 --> 01:54:45,000
Speaker 1: radicalization in the military is well studied and well established

1860
01:54:45,080 --> 01:54:49,200
Speaker 1: as an existing phenomena. I knew someone personally who uh

1861
01:54:49,560 --> 01:54:52,800
Speaker 1: got caught trying to smuggle weapons for a new or

1862
01:54:52,880 --> 01:54:56,880
Speaker 1: Nazi group. And that's all I'll say on that. Boy. Yeah, yeah, no,

1863
01:54:57,000 --> 01:54:58,800
Speaker 1: it is a thing, and it hits really close. It

1864
01:54:58,880 --> 01:55:00,760
Speaker 1: is definitely a phenomena to have was in the military.

1865
01:55:00,880 --> 01:55:05,320
Speaker 1: And um, these paramilitary Nazi groups actively recruit from people

1866
01:55:05,320 --> 01:55:07,440
Speaker 1: coming out in the military because they have the trainings

1867
01:55:07,480 --> 01:55:11,600
Speaker 1: that they want. And I mean, I trying to figure

1868
01:55:11,600 --> 01:55:13,480
Speaker 1: out a way to tie this back to recruiting online.

1869
01:55:13,480 --> 01:55:15,200
Speaker 1: But it's like, with all of this in mind, it

1870
01:55:15,320 --> 01:55:18,960
Speaker 1: is very insidious that the target is explicitly young kids.

1871
01:55:19,280 --> 01:55:21,280
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that just to be like, oh,

1872
01:55:21,360 --> 01:55:22,760
Speaker 1: you know, because we've got a lot of We've gotten

1873
01:55:22,760 --> 01:55:25,560
Speaker 1: pushed back with saying, well, the military doesn't recruit kids.

1874
01:55:25,560 --> 01:55:28,400
Speaker 1: They you can only sign up in their seventeen about

1875
01:55:28,480 --> 01:55:34,000
Speaker 1: that as a kid, that all that is a kid.

1876
01:55:34,560 --> 01:55:38,560
Speaker 1: Second of all, it's like the thing is it's it's

1877
01:55:38,600 --> 01:55:41,640
Speaker 1: it's just like grooming children. That's that's what it is.

1878
01:55:42,280 --> 01:55:45,120
Speaker 1: It is. It's the same process of grooming. That's that's

1879
01:55:45,160 --> 01:55:47,520
Speaker 1: what's going on. One of one of my best friends

1880
01:55:47,520 --> 01:55:49,720
Speaker 1: growing up, like because it was my best friend for

1881
01:55:49,800 --> 01:55:52,040
Speaker 1: like a decade, Like I met him in first grade.

1882
01:55:52,040 --> 01:55:53,640
Speaker 1: He was my friend for the entirety of school and

1883
01:55:53,680 --> 01:55:56,720
Speaker 1: then he got like because his parents sent him away

1884
01:55:56,800 --> 01:55:59,320
Speaker 1: to like, uh one of one of those like uh

1885
01:55:59,680 --> 01:56:04,400
Speaker 1: like summer like like military school camp, and he was

1886
01:56:04,480 --> 01:56:07,040
Speaker 1: just never the same afterwards, and he's like a fascist now,

1887
01:56:07,680 --> 01:56:12,880
Speaker 1: and yeah, that sucks. Yeah, that does suck. That there's

1888
01:56:12,920 --> 01:56:16,040
Speaker 1: not a better word for that. That that sucks because yeah,

1889
01:56:16,120 --> 01:56:18,200
Speaker 1: they can't sign up until they're seventeen, but that's not

1890
01:56:18,280 --> 01:56:21,880
Speaker 1: the point. Isn't convince seventeen year olds. The point the

1891
01:56:21,880 --> 01:56:24,320
Speaker 1: points to ingrain this idea in them when they're like

1892
01:56:24,360 --> 01:56:27,240
Speaker 1: sucking twelve years old on the internet. And that is

1893
01:56:27,280 --> 01:56:29,560
Speaker 1: just what grooming is, right, starting it when you're when

1894
01:56:29,560 --> 01:56:31,560
Speaker 1: they're young, so when they're old enough, they will be

1895
01:56:31,560 --> 01:56:33,840
Speaker 1: able to sign up for the thing. Like that's that's

1896
01:56:34,040 --> 01:56:36,360
Speaker 1: what the process is, and that's what like, you know,

1897
01:56:36,520 --> 01:56:39,000
Speaker 1: military propaganda reqruipment has been doing for a long time,

1898
01:56:39,040 --> 01:56:40,640
Speaker 1: but the specifically the way it's being done on the

1899
01:56:40,640 --> 01:56:44,680
Speaker 1: internet around gaming is extrasidious. It was literally it is

1900
01:56:44,680 --> 01:56:48,400
Speaker 1: explicitly said by one of UM A recruiting officer, Dr. E.

1901
01:56:48,600 --> 01:56:51,400
Speaker 1: Case Wardinsky, and I apologize if I'm pronouncing that wrong.

1902
01:56:51,440 --> 01:56:53,960
Speaker 1: But then he literally said, we have to confront this

1903
01:56:54,040 --> 01:56:56,160
Speaker 1: question of will you wait until they're seventeen or will

1904
01:56:56,200 --> 01:56:58,800
Speaker 1: we start talking to them at age twelve thirteen, fourteen

1905
01:56:58,880 --> 01:57:01,760
Speaker 1: fifteen when a form the set of things they were

1906
01:57:01,760 --> 01:57:04,120
Speaker 1: thinking about doing with their life. Because we're literally saying

1907
01:57:04,200 --> 01:57:07,440
Speaker 1: we want to groom children. It's like, yeah, so I

1908
01:57:07,440 --> 01:57:08,840
Speaker 1: think now would be the time to kind of get

1909
01:57:08,880 --> 01:57:12,480
Speaker 1: into the countering side of things. It's like, yes, this

1910
01:57:12,560 --> 01:57:14,080
Speaker 1: is a this is a big problem, as we've laid

1911
01:57:14,120 --> 01:57:17,200
Speaker 1: out the past twenty minutes of what can we do

1912
01:57:17,400 --> 01:57:21,280
Speaker 1: about it? Yeah, so what can we do about it?

1913
01:57:21,520 --> 01:57:26,160
Speaker 1: There's um a good deal that we can do about it? Right,

1914
01:57:26,880 --> 01:57:31,400
Speaker 1: um we we Veterans for Peace, the Truth and Recruitment

1915
01:57:31,840 --> 01:57:36,200
Speaker 1: UH working Group came up with an idea for the

1916
01:57:36,200 --> 01:57:40,960
Speaker 1: Gamage for Peace initiative concerned veterans and gamers and UH

1917
01:57:41,040 --> 01:57:43,600
Speaker 1: and allies. Because Veterans for Peace isn't just comprised of

1918
01:57:43,720 --> 01:57:48,440
Speaker 1: veterans themselves, it's also allies and accomplices UM came together

1919
01:57:48,480 --> 01:57:51,160
Speaker 1: and started forming the an online community of our own

1920
01:57:51,720 --> 01:57:56,320
Speaker 1: UM where we have kind of adopted some four channels.

1921
01:57:56,320 --> 01:57:59,360
Speaker 1: Have changed this concept of four channels to change. One

1922
01:57:59,560 --> 01:58:04,360
Speaker 1: do education, talking about UH, sharing our experiences as veterans,

1923
01:58:04,720 --> 01:58:10,400
Speaker 1: talking about and unpacking recruitment tactics and techniques. UH. Start

1924
01:58:10,440 --> 01:58:14,240
Speaker 1: talking being extremely vocal and raise awareness around the recruitment

1925
01:58:14,280 --> 01:58:17,960
Speaker 1: techniques that we've we've already been talking about, right. Uh. Second,

1926
01:58:18,320 --> 01:58:21,560
Speaker 1: we're doing some mentorship and leadership stuff. Starting to develop

1927
01:58:21,880 --> 01:58:26,320
Speaker 1: programs in local communities that offer alternatives to the economic draft. Right,

1928
01:58:26,560 --> 01:58:29,640
Speaker 1: like just throwing it back to where we started talking

1929
01:58:29,680 --> 01:58:31,920
Speaker 1: about coming out of Vietnam. It has already said that

1930
01:58:31,960 --> 01:58:34,720
Speaker 1: sergeant hard Times is the best recruiter and it posts

1931
01:58:34,800 --> 01:58:37,480
Speaker 1: posts the drafts we went when we went to an

1932
01:58:37,480 --> 01:58:40,400
Speaker 1: all volunteer force. You have to have a reason to join,

1933
01:58:40,640 --> 01:58:43,560
Speaker 1: and there's a thing called the economic draft, and it's

1934
01:58:43,600 --> 01:58:46,680
Speaker 1: the impoverished conditions that many kids and people face that

1935
01:58:46,800 --> 01:58:49,320
Speaker 1: forced them to go into the military. Right. You don't

1936
01:58:49,320 --> 01:58:51,840
Speaker 1: have healthcare coming out of high school, you're in an

1937
01:58:51,840 --> 01:58:54,640
Speaker 1: abusive home, you're not talking to a guidance counselor no

1938
01:58:54,760 --> 01:58:56,360
Speaker 1: college is coming to You don't know how to pay

1939
01:58:56,400 --> 01:58:58,520
Speaker 1: for college, You don't know where what you're going to

1940
01:58:58,600 --> 01:59:00,760
Speaker 1: do because you're eight in and on your own. And

1941
01:59:00,760 --> 01:59:03,080
Speaker 1: that's what we keep telling kids. So you have the

1942
01:59:03,080 --> 01:59:07,200
Speaker 1: economic draft, which encourage gives an opportunity for recruiters to go, hey,

1943
01:59:07,240 --> 01:59:11,240
Speaker 1: this this program will solve everything. And what what people

1944
01:59:11,280 --> 01:59:13,320
Speaker 1: don't realize is what's being asked is are you willing

1945
01:59:13,320 --> 01:59:15,520
Speaker 1: to kill for a camaro? Are you willing to kill

1946
01:59:15,600 --> 01:59:17,000
Speaker 1: just to have a roof of your head? Are you

1947
01:59:17,040 --> 01:59:20,080
Speaker 1: willing to kill for medicare? Right? So we're starting to

1948
01:59:20,600 --> 01:59:24,880
Speaker 1: focus on developing mentorship and leadership programs UM include helping

1949
01:59:24,960 --> 01:59:28,200
Speaker 1: kids and young adults get into college or find mutual

1950
01:59:28,240 --> 01:59:31,120
Speaker 1: aid programs and within their communities start doing stuff locally

1951
01:59:31,160 --> 01:59:34,640
Speaker 1: because this is the problem is pervasive. Right. Not everybody

1952
01:59:34,760 --> 01:59:36,800
Speaker 1: needs to escape abuse of home and it is fine

1953
01:59:36,840 --> 01:59:39,560
Speaker 1: staying in their community, but doesn't know how to survive

1954
01:59:39,560 --> 01:59:41,600
Speaker 1: within the community because they don't have the resources there.

1955
01:59:41,920 --> 01:59:43,920
Speaker 1: And we also look at the what's going on in

1956
01:59:43,920 --> 01:59:46,960
Speaker 1: the world today and and recognize that things must be

1957
01:59:46,960 --> 01:59:49,880
Speaker 1: done at a local level. UM and you can be

1958
01:59:50,360 --> 01:59:52,840
Speaker 1: part of leading that change. Right. Ingesting some of our

1959
01:59:53,040 --> 01:59:57,520
Speaker 1: world concerns. We ourselves do direct actions. We go to

1960
01:59:58,000 --> 02:00:01,440
Speaker 1: gaming conventions, speak out, try to actually do counter recruitment

1961
02:00:01,520 --> 02:00:05,240
Speaker 1: right where the recruiters are. We just it's really pervasive.

1962
02:00:05,240 --> 02:00:06,720
Speaker 1: If you, if you if you go to any kind

1963
02:00:06,720 --> 02:00:08,800
Speaker 1: of con or any kind of can, any kind of

1964
02:00:08,840 --> 02:00:11,760
Speaker 1: like game fest or whatever, um, you know, comic cons,

1965
02:00:11,960 --> 02:00:16,800
Speaker 1: there will always be multiple military recruitment boots there, like

1966
02:00:16,800 --> 02:00:20,800
Speaker 1: like Navy, Marines, Army National Guard, like all of them.

1967
02:00:21,000 --> 02:00:24,560
Speaker 1: That they will all all be there. And it's not

1968
02:00:24,560 --> 02:00:28,880
Speaker 1: not my favorite thing to see. No, no, it's frustrating. Yeah,

1969
02:00:29,440 --> 02:00:33,200
Speaker 1: board games aren't even safe, right. The Army Esports team

1970
02:00:33,280 --> 02:00:35,640
Speaker 1: has a forty K team, So if you play Warhammer

1971
02:00:35,680 --> 02:00:40,160
Speaker 1: forty K, they have nationally or internationally ranked forty K

1972
02:00:40,280 --> 02:00:44,040
Speaker 1: team playing in the major circuits. You know, it's most

1973
02:00:44,080 --> 02:00:47,920
Speaker 1: insulting about that, sorry, Chris, most insulting about that. And

1974
02:00:47,960 --> 02:00:50,000
Speaker 1: I know this because one of the streams that we do,

1975
02:00:50,080 --> 02:00:52,240
Speaker 1: I host it is called ad Slam because we started

1976
02:00:52,240 --> 02:00:55,600
Speaker 1: out as like roasting military recruitment ads, but it kind

1977
02:00:55,600 --> 02:00:58,760
Speaker 1: of morphed into just like general veteran and military depictions

1978
02:00:58,760 --> 02:01:01,880
Speaker 1: and media and to them was on the or at

1979
02:01:01,920 --> 02:01:06,560
Speaker 1: least referenced the Army e Sports Warhamerpoty K Team. And

1980
02:01:06,800 --> 02:01:09,520
Speaker 1: you know how people will like take their figurines really seriously,

1981
02:01:09,560 --> 02:01:11,840
Speaker 1: they paint them. They look really cool. The Army like

1982
02:01:11,840 --> 02:01:13,960
Speaker 1: spray painted them gold and it's called the Day. And

1983
02:01:14,000 --> 02:01:16,320
Speaker 1: I'm like, really, you have all of these resources, you

1984
02:01:16,360 --> 02:01:19,480
Speaker 1: are using the recruiting budget which is ridiculous and astronomical,

1985
02:01:19,560 --> 02:01:22,120
Speaker 1: and you spray painted them gold. Are you kidding me?

1986
02:01:22,160 --> 02:01:24,320
Speaker 1: Come on? And it's just an insulting that it was

1987
02:01:24,360 --> 02:01:27,040
Speaker 1: so low effort, but they still get the praise. Um.

1988
02:01:27,560 --> 02:01:30,200
Speaker 1: A lot of people report like having positive viewpoints of

1989
02:01:30,240 --> 02:01:34,640
Speaker 1: the military after interacting with members of you know, the

1990
02:01:34,680 --> 02:01:37,839
Speaker 1: Eastward Team or the Booth or whatever. So I'm I'm

1991
02:01:37,880 --> 02:01:40,640
Speaker 1: genuinely annoyed that it's also low effort on that matter

1992
02:01:40,640 --> 02:01:44,440
Speaker 1: and they're still getting a positive response. Bothers me, that's

1993
02:01:44,480 --> 02:01:48,360
Speaker 1: a perfect highlight because being there on like the hate

1994
02:01:48,440 --> 02:01:51,000
Speaker 1: using military terms nowadays, but being their boots on ground,

1995
02:01:51,520 --> 02:01:56,640
Speaker 1: you know, uh at it at these conventions, uh doing

1996
02:01:57,080 --> 02:02:01,360
Speaker 1: providing truth and recruitment right, talking about alternative Uh really

1997
02:02:01,400 --> 02:02:05,080
Speaker 1: just being there in front of recruiters and and talking

1998
02:02:05,120 --> 02:02:09,440
Speaker 1: to the people that they're targeting and family members, letting

1999
02:02:09,480 --> 02:02:12,680
Speaker 1: them know like, hey, we as veterans, right, don't let

2000
02:02:12,720 --> 02:02:16,960
Speaker 1: this be what shapes your child's future or your future. Right,

2001
02:02:17,040 --> 02:02:21,760
Speaker 1: there's other opportunities for you. Um and and you know,

2002
02:02:22,000 --> 02:02:25,720
Speaker 1: whether that's if you're into gaming, start designing games, right, Like,

2003
02:02:25,760 --> 02:02:28,600
Speaker 1: there's there's so many opportunities within the gaming community that

2004
02:02:28,600 --> 02:02:31,280
Speaker 1: doesn't want to put you into the military pipeline also, right,

2005
02:02:31,400 --> 02:02:34,520
Speaker 1: So it's not the game's fault. It's not like it's

2006
02:02:34,680 --> 02:02:39,200
Speaker 1: it's that the state's using right now, right, um and

2007
02:02:39,200 --> 02:02:42,320
Speaker 1: then we're trying to form some our owny sports teams also, right,

2008
02:02:42,400 --> 02:02:45,040
Speaker 1: so we can compete directly against them, kick their as

2009
02:02:45,080 --> 02:02:47,960
Speaker 1: in some of the tournaments that they host. Um. You know,

2010
02:02:48,200 --> 02:02:50,200
Speaker 1: my my dream is to see some gamers for Peace

2011
02:02:50,280 --> 02:02:54,560
Speaker 1: jerseys getting awarded like some trophy next to the Army

2012
02:02:54,680 --> 02:02:57,760
Speaker 1: sports team and just dunking on them so across all

2013
02:02:57,800 --> 02:03:00,360
Speaker 1: the if we lose, if we're up there, we still

2014
02:03:00,360 --> 02:03:02,000
Speaker 1: get to dunk on them. See, we had so much

2015
02:03:02,000 --> 02:03:03,760
Speaker 1: more fun. We don't have to go clean up barracks

2016
02:03:03,840 --> 02:03:07,040
Speaker 1: room after this. Like the ultimate goal being us being

2017
02:03:07,080 --> 02:03:10,560
Speaker 1: able to provide tangible alternatives. So a kid coming out

2018
02:03:10,560 --> 02:03:12,840
Speaker 1: of high school thinking like, well, I either go into

2019
02:03:12,920 --> 02:03:14,400
Speaker 1: a lot of debt to go to college or I

2020
02:03:14,480 --> 02:03:17,520
Speaker 1: join the military. If we can get um not a

2021
02:03:17,520 --> 02:03:19,520
Speaker 1: hold of them, that seems predatory, but if we can

2022
02:03:19,520 --> 02:03:23,840
Speaker 1: talk to them, or our organization can provide that alternative

2023
02:03:23,880 --> 02:03:25,640
Speaker 1: and say, oh, well, you don't really have to do that.

2024
02:03:25,680 --> 02:03:27,760
Speaker 1: We have a scholarship program that we can offer you,

2025
02:03:27,880 --> 02:03:30,840
Speaker 1: or we can provide a lite, at the very least

2026
02:03:30,960 --> 02:03:33,120
Speaker 1: education about what they're really getting into so they can

2027
02:03:33,160 --> 02:03:36,080
Speaker 1: make a better informed decision. Because the main problem that

2028
02:03:36,120 --> 02:03:37,760
Speaker 1: I have with the way that recruiting works is that

2029
02:03:37,800 --> 02:03:40,680
Speaker 1: you are not getting a view of what life would

2030
02:03:40,680 --> 02:03:42,480
Speaker 1: actually be like. You are not getting a view of

2031
02:03:42,520 --> 02:03:44,840
Speaker 1: what you're fighting for. The There's a whole lot of

2032
02:03:44,880 --> 02:03:46,880
Speaker 1: like these vague concepts that they tell you that you're

2033
02:03:46,880 --> 02:03:50,120
Speaker 1: fighting for and then you're supposed to feel great about

2034
02:03:50,200 --> 02:03:54,120
Speaker 1: doing but none of those are real in practice, liberty

2035
02:03:54,320 --> 02:03:56,520
Speaker 1: or protecting the homeland, none of that is what you're doing.

2036
02:03:56,640 --> 02:04:01,360
Speaker 1: You're helping Northrop Grumman create a profit. Right Like, there's

2037
02:04:01,480 --> 02:04:03,880
Speaker 1: uh and so at least, at the very least someone

2038
02:04:03,880 --> 02:04:06,600
Speaker 1: who thinks that they have no other options, and in

2039
02:04:06,680 --> 02:04:09,320
Speaker 1: this country that might not be too far off right.

2040
02:04:09,680 --> 02:04:12,040
Speaker 1: We don't have a universal health care system. That was

2041
02:04:12,080 --> 02:04:13,880
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I joined the Marine Corps

2042
02:04:13,960 --> 02:04:16,360
Speaker 1: that I knew I would get healthcare and I knew

2043
02:04:16,360 --> 02:04:18,000
Speaker 1: I would get money to go to college and not

2044
02:04:18,040 --> 02:04:20,640
Speaker 1: be in this loan debt that I was in. So

2045
02:04:20,800 --> 02:04:24,040
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not alone in that. And UM, if maybe

2046
02:04:24,080 --> 02:04:27,720
Speaker 1: we can even just provide a more holistic view of

2047
02:04:28,000 --> 02:04:31,320
Speaker 1: what decision that you're making, that would be considered a

2048
02:04:31,360 --> 02:04:34,880
Speaker 1: win to us. So that was my soapbox. One of

2049
02:04:34,920 --> 02:04:40,400
Speaker 1: the important things is trying to push back on the

2050
02:04:40,440 --> 02:04:44,400
Speaker 1: motion offarious things that we're seeing right, whether that's games

2051
02:04:44,400 --> 02:04:48,560
Speaker 1: that are becoming way to train, some training simulator. Uh.

2052
02:04:48,760 --> 02:04:50,960
Speaker 1: There's another campaign that Gamage for Peace work on, and

2053
02:04:51,040 --> 02:04:55,440
Speaker 1: Veterans for Peace worked on the platform six Days with Care.

2054
02:04:55,720 --> 02:05:00,680
Speaker 1: The Council on American and Islamic Relations U pushing back

2055
02:05:00,680 --> 02:05:03,240
Speaker 1: on again called Six States in Flucia, which was delayed

2056
02:05:03,280 --> 02:05:06,880
Speaker 1: to quarter four two of this year, So we got

2057
02:05:06,880 --> 02:05:09,240
Speaker 1: it was pushed by a year, whether through our efforts

2058
02:05:09,280 --> 02:05:12,280
Speaker 1: or for whatever reason, but it was pushed by a year. Um.

2059
02:05:12,360 --> 02:05:16,839
Speaker 1: And this game is dubbed a murder simulator, uh, because

2060
02:05:17,040 --> 02:05:21,120
Speaker 1: it is. We look at other games like Escape from

2061
02:05:21,120 --> 02:05:26,040
Speaker 1: tarkov as as teaching fundamental skills through tried and true

2062
02:05:26,080 --> 02:05:31,280
Speaker 1: teaching methodologies for military skills. Um. You know, we were

2063
02:05:31,360 --> 02:05:35,640
Speaker 1: talking about counter recruitment and truth and recruitment to give

2064
02:05:35,960 --> 02:05:39,920
Speaker 1: people an opportunity to make informed, have an informed decision

2065
02:05:40,000 --> 02:05:42,720
Speaker 1: about their participation in the war machine. But also we're

2066
02:05:42,720 --> 02:05:45,440
Speaker 1: trying to push back directly on the war machine and

2067
02:05:45,440 --> 02:05:49,120
Speaker 1: and say hey, there's better uses of our money for

2068
02:05:49,680 --> 02:05:52,600
Speaker 1: for as as a government to take care of our people.

2069
02:05:52,600 --> 02:05:55,760
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fundamental things. There's the contributions to

2070
02:05:55,760 --> 02:06:00,600
Speaker 1: the climate crisis. Is the military's number one, uh impact

2071
02:06:00,640 --> 02:06:04,520
Speaker 1: or of the on the climate war is never green

2072
02:06:04,560 --> 02:06:09,880
Speaker 1: You can't green watch the military. Um, the you know,

2073
02:06:10,160 --> 02:06:14,680
Speaker 1: we have just so much going on around all the

2074
02:06:14,680 --> 02:06:17,000
Speaker 1: ways that people don't realize that militaries involved. We have

2075
02:06:17,160 --> 02:06:21,880
Speaker 1: the future of German warfare, kill, cloud technology, gaming technology,

2076
02:06:21,920 --> 02:06:25,280
Speaker 1: and the military and militarism is so tightly wound right

2077
02:06:25,320 --> 02:06:27,760
Speaker 1: now that just pushing back and trying to parse those

2078
02:06:27,800 --> 02:06:30,880
Speaker 1: two things apart is one of the things that is

2079
02:06:30,880 --> 02:06:35,200
Speaker 1: most effective for counter recruitment and also for mobilizing people

2080
02:06:35,240 --> 02:06:38,040
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, we actually deserve better, Like get

2081
02:06:38,040 --> 02:06:42,600
Speaker 1: out of my gaming space. And like, get me some food, sovereignty,

2082
02:06:42,720 --> 02:06:46,840
Speaker 1: get me, get me like, let's let me be part

2083
02:06:46,840 --> 02:06:49,800
Speaker 1: of my community. Get out of the gaming space and

2084
02:06:49,880 --> 02:06:55,760
Speaker 1: stop using what is fun and has actual educational value,

2085
02:06:56,240 --> 02:07:00,760
Speaker 1: mental health benefits, physical health benefits, commune to impact social

2086
02:07:00,800 --> 02:07:04,520
Speaker 1: impact like this, this gaming tool, this gaming technology we

2087
02:07:04,560 --> 02:07:07,800
Speaker 1: have can be used for so much good. Uh, but

2088
02:07:07,920 --> 02:07:10,280
Speaker 1: we need to disentangle the military's usage from it and

2089
02:07:10,280 --> 02:07:14,960
Speaker 1: and stop framing our our time, our time enjoy that

2090
02:07:15,040 --> 02:07:18,160
Speaker 1: we enjoy with our friends and family. Uh through this

2091
02:07:18,280 --> 02:07:21,760
Speaker 1: lens at the military forces to view with her. Because

2092
02:07:21,800 --> 02:07:23,760
Speaker 1: there are so many great games out there, like like

2093
02:07:23,800 --> 02:07:26,040
Speaker 1: we are in one of like right now we have

2094
02:07:26,080 --> 02:07:28,800
Speaker 1: the most amount of games ever released, most amount of

2095
02:07:28,800 --> 02:07:32,480
Speaker 1: good games like always being announced and released all the time.

2096
02:07:32,960 --> 02:07:35,520
Speaker 1: There's so many great stuff to play, and yeah, there's

2097
02:07:36,160 --> 02:07:38,400
Speaker 1: anything that can be done to push people away from

2098
02:07:38,440 --> 02:07:41,800
Speaker 1: stuff that kind of promotes this you know, colonial imperial

2099
02:07:41,840 --> 02:07:45,640
Speaker 1: it's kind of mindset um is great, right, Like That's

2100
02:07:45,640 --> 02:07:48,480
Speaker 1: why I kind of appreciate the cartoony aspects of Fortnite.

2101
02:07:48,520 --> 02:07:52,080
Speaker 1: Even though I hate playing Fortnite and we'll never really do, so,

2102
02:07:52,600 --> 02:07:54,920
Speaker 1: I still appreciate it as opposed to like the heavily

2103
02:07:55,360 --> 02:07:58,640
Speaker 1: militaristic kind of aesthetics that other you know, similar Battle

2104
02:07:58,720 --> 02:08:02,760
Speaker 1: Royals show, um. Because I mean because with with with

2105
02:08:02,920 --> 02:08:05,640
Speaker 1: as many games out there as there is, Yeah, I

2106
02:08:05,680 --> 02:08:09,839
Speaker 1: think any kind of attempts to push people away from

2107
02:08:09,880 --> 02:08:13,360
Speaker 1: the more problematic aspects of you know, specifically shooting games,

2108
02:08:13,880 --> 02:08:17,680
Speaker 1: UH is great. Yeah, And just noting that when you're

2109
02:08:17,680 --> 02:08:21,720
Speaker 1: playing these games, especially if they are relatively close to reality, UM,

2110
02:08:21,960 --> 02:08:26,240
Speaker 1: understand the impact that you can have by pointing out

2111
02:08:26,720 --> 02:08:31,280
Speaker 1: simply that your friend doesn't respawn in real life. Right.

2112
02:08:31,680 --> 02:08:34,520
Speaker 1: And also keep in mind if you are playing a

2113
02:08:34,520 --> 02:08:37,000
Speaker 1: game that that is close to a recent reality, that

2114
02:08:37,080 --> 02:08:40,080
Speaker 1: you could be playing through someone's actual trauma. So I'm

2115
02:08:40,120 --> 02:08:42,080
Speaker 1: not telling you not to play the games if they are.

2116
02:08:42,440 --> 02:08:44,560
Speaker 1: We've gone over a couple of like Squad uh and

2117
02:08:44,560 --> 02:08:47,680
Speaker 1: and others that are like very very realistic um in

2118
02:08:47,920 --> 02:08:51,240
Speaker 1: their application. Just keep in mind when you're playing it

2119
02:08:51,320 --> 02:08:54,800
Speaker 1: that maybe look at it through that lens, like would

2120
02:08:54,840 --> 02:08:56,760
Speaker 1: how would you feel if you were playing through a

2121
02:08:56,800 --> 02:09:00,000
Speaker 1: game but it was the exact moment of your trauma.

2122
02:09:00,040 --> 02:09:02,000
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying from the military side, I

2123
02:09:02,040 --> 02:09:05,280
Speaker 1: mean from from the people who were being bombed side,

2124
02:09:05,680 --> 02:09:09,400
Speaker 1: you know, so just just want to have more people

2125
02:09:09,560 --> 02:09:12,240
Speaker 1: be more mindful with what they consume and how. And

2126
02:09:12,280 --> 02:09:14,360
Speaker 1: again I'm not telling you not to consume it, just

2127
02:09:14,400 --> 02:09:16,240
Speaker 1: telling you to to think a little bit about it

2128
02:09:16,280 --> 02:09:20,320
Speaker 1: and what that type of media can do while having

2129
02:09:20,320 --> 02:09:25,640
Speaker 1: that baggage onto it. And there is a place for

2130
02:09:26,640 --> 02:09:30,360
Speaker 1: that's in the military experience in gaming. Right Like when

2131
02:09:30,360 --> 02:09:32,280
Speaker 1: I was in when I was deployed to Iraq, I

2132
02:09:32,320 --> 02:09:33,960
Speaker 1: took an Xbox Stege six year over there with me

2133
02:09:34,040 --> 02:09:37,040
Speaker 1: in the bottom my sea bag and we had on

2134
02:09:37,200 --> 02:09:40,640
Speaker 1: camp filution, we had a local area network of Xboxes

2135
02:09:40,800 --> 02:09:42,280
Speaker 1: in all the cants when we sat there and played

2136
02:09:42,280 --> 02:09:44,640
Speaker 1: Halo and and Gears of War and when that dropped

2137
02:09:44,640 --> 02:09:47,800
Speaker 1: walls there, right, Like, that's how we stay in touch

2138
02:09:47,840 --> 02:09:51,600
Speaker 1: with each other. It's how we process like auditory things

2139
02:09:51,760 --> 02:09:55,080
Speaker 1: and and and our combat experiences. Right, That's that's valid

2140
02:09:55,120 --> 02:09:58,960
Speaker 1: sublimation and processing of our traumatic experience as a thing.

2141
02:09:59,560 --> 02:10:02,200
Speaker 1: And games have that And that's not a military exclusive

2142
02:10:02,240 --> 02:10:06,080
Speaker 1: thing or veteran exclusive thing. That's for all communities. Um.

2143
02:10:06,120 --> 02:10:07,720
Speaker 1: But what we have to do is add context and

2144
02:10:07,800 --> 02:10:12,160
Speaker 1: nuanced when we're playing these games and go oh, um,

2145
02:10:12,200 --> 02:10:15,200
Speaker 1: there's another side to this story. That's the local civilian

2146
02:10:15,240 --> 02:10:19,800
Speaker 1: that just had a bomb cave in the ceiling. Right. Uh,

2147
02:10:19,840 --> 02:10:24,880
Speaker 1: there's there's these these instances where we've removed that because

2148
02:10:24,880 --> 02:10:26,960
Speaker 1: we're so focused on the competitive nature instead of the

2149
02:10:26,960 --> 02:10:29,440
Speaker 1: storytelling in the full scope of what that game is

2150
02:10:29,920 --> 02:10:34,000
Speaker 1: allowing us to process. Um. And that's why I don't like,

2151
02:10:34,040 --> 02:10:37,640
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming recruiters or blaming like coming up to

2152
02:10:38,560 --> 02:10:40,839
Speaker 1: people in the military and going, you know, you're horrible.

2153
02:10:40,960 --> 02:10:43,480
Speaker 1: It's not the right thing. Hey, I was there, right,

2154
02:10:43,560 --> 02:10:45,640
Speaker 1: I did the six years in the Marine Corps, and

2155
02:10:45,640 --> 02:10:50,400
Speaker 1: and um, you know, instead of going, hey, you're a

2156
02:10:50,440 --> 02:10:52,800
Speaker 1: horrible person or things like that, like we're trying to

2157
02:10:52,840 --> 02:10:56,120
Speaker 1: offer them them the recruiters and other military members of

2158
02:10:56,160 --> 02:10:58,360
Speaker 1: the community that go, hey, you're allowed to speak out

2159
02:10:58,360 --> 02:11:00,320
Speaker 1: against the things that you know were bullsh it while

2160
02:11:00,360 --> 02:11:02,200
Speaker 1: you're in there. Because if I knew it was a

2161
02:11:02,240 --> 02:11:04,320
Speaker 1: bullshit while I was in there, and I couldn't speak out,

2162
02:11:04,320 --> 02:11:06,000
Speaker 1: I didn't know I had a community to speak out

2163
02:11:06,000 --> 02:11:09,959
Speaker 1: to or with. And we're trying to offer community to them. Um.

2164
02:11:10,040 --> 02:11:13,080
Speaker 1: And that's beyond beyond just video games, but that's drone

2165
02:11:13,120 --> 02:11:16,600
Speaker 1: operators and infantry eyes and and people that are just

2166
02:11:16,600 --> 02:11:19,520
Speaker 1: fed up with what they see in a system that

2167
02:11:19,600 --> 02:11:23,440
Speaker 1: is supporting a crumbling infrastructure. Right, Like, Um, you can

2168
02:11:23,480 --> 02:11:27,839
Speaker 1: only deploy so many times without developing either becoming completely

2169
02:11:27,840 --> 02:11:30,520
Speaker 1: dead on the inside or having developing some semblance of

2170
02:11:30,560 --> 02:11:34,520
Speaker 1: empathy that goes, Hey, deep down, I know something's wrong here,

2171
02:11:34,560 --> 02:11:36,920
Speaker 1: and I just don't know how to uh Like, I

2172
02:11:36,920 --> 02:11:39,520
Speaker 1: don't know what that feeling is. Well, that feeling is

2173
02:11:39,760 --> 02:11:41,960
Speaker 1: is just empathy for the human condition and not wanting

2174
02:11:41,960 --> 02:11:45,480
Speaker 1: to see people traumatized through war. Right, Um, that that

2175
02:11:45,720 --> 02:11:49,040
Speaker 1: idea of us going into like even post nine eleven,

2176
02:11:49,160 --> 02:11:51,840
Speaker 1: like immediate post nine eleven events early on they had

2177
02:11:51,880 --> 02:11:54,040
Speaker 1: they went there with the right, right idea, I want

2178
02:11:54,040 --> 02:11:57,879
Speaker 1: to defend my community. I want to be do do service,

2179
02:11:58,480 --> 02:12:00,920
Speaker 1: right like I don't have another option. Yeah, I'm an

2180
02:12:00,920 --> 02:12:05,400
Speaker 1: economic drafty, but all in all here to help people. Yeah,

2181
02:12:05,400 --> 02:12:08,160
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was a genuine thought, Like,

2182
02:12:08,320 --> 02:12:11,120
Speaker 1: it was a genuine idea, right people, you can very

2183
02:12:11,160 --> 02:12:14,920
Speaker 1: much disagree with like the intentionality the propaganda that like

2184
02:12:15,160 --> 02:12:18,040
Speaker 1: governments were doing to promote the war and the unjust

2185
02:12:18,040 --> 02:12:22,080
Speaker 1: reasons for that, but for the but for the regular people, right, Yeah,

2186
02:12:22,280 --> 02:12:25,760
Speaker 1: it was, it was, it was genuine feelings that caused

2187
02:12:25,760 --> 02:12:29,440
Speaker 1: that to happen, and overlooking that, I think MSS what

2188
02:12:29,640 --> 02:12:33,000
Speaker 1: makes the recruitment to work. You know, if if if

2189
02:12:33,120 --> 02:12:35,120
Speaker 1: you just look at all the people who join the

2190
02:12:35,120 --> 02:12:37,720
Speaker 1: military as being like, oh, they're just like bad people

2191
02:12:37,720 --> 02:12:39,960
Speaker 1: who want to kill you know, brown people. You're like,

2192
02:12:40,160 --> 02:12:43,160
Speaker 1: but that's you can think that, but that doesn't actually

2193
02:12:43,240 --> 02:12:46,800
Speaker 1: do anything to understand how recruitment actually works. And then

2194
02:12:46,800 --> 02:12:48,360
Speaker 1: if you can't do that, then you don't know how

2195
02:12:48,400 --> 02:12:51,760
Speaker 1: to actually counter it. Right exactly, if you are a

2196
02:12:51,840 --> 02:12:54,680
Speaker 1: veteran and you feel like we do this whole thing

2197
02:12:54,760 --> 02:12:58,160
Speaker 1: was bullshit you and that can be uh an incredibly

2198
02:12:58,200 --> 02:13:01,800
Speaker 1: alienating experience. I've been there, because it feels like with

2199
02:13:01,880 --> 02:13:05,120
Speaker 1: the amount of veterans we saw the January six events, um,

2200
02:13:05,160 --> 02:13:07,040
Speaker 1: all the veterans that you see that get through to

2201
02:13:07,360 --> 02:13:10,400
Speaker 1: the right wing side of the culture of war, I

2202
02:13:10,440 --> 02:13:12,720
Speaker 1: just want to say that we see you. You're not alone,

2203
02:13:12,760 --> 02:13:16,200
Speaker 1: you are you are not crazy. I promise you. We

2204
02:13:16,440 --> 02:13:18,400
Speaker 1: we are trying to build a community of people like

2205
02:13:18,480 --> 02:13:21,760
Speaker 1: that who understand it and promote healing through that community,

2206
02:13:21,800 --> 02:13:24,720
Speaker 1: political education through that so that you can create resiliency

2207
02:13:24,840 --> 02:13:28,280
Speaker 1: within your community and as well as at least put

2208
02:13:28,320 --> 02:13:32,440
Speaker 1: a little bit of pressure on the military entertainment complex

2209
02:13:32,480 --> 02:13:38,080
Speaker 1: and the military recruiting apparatus. Yeah, fuck the military, Fuck

2210
02:13:38,120 --> 02:13:42,520
Speaker 1: war war, It's truth, all right, Tea two. If anything

2211
02:13:42,680 --> 02:13:47,800
Speaker 1: specific that you want to plug, yes, join our discord. UH.

2212
02:13:47,880 --> 02:13:50,000
Speaker 1: You can find if you search the discord, you can

2213
02:13:50,400 --> 02:13:52,960
Speaker 1: look up Gamers for Peace and you will see us

2214
02:13:53,600 --> 02:13:56,120
Speaker 1: on Twitch. We are Veterans for Peace all one word,

2215
02:13:56,160 --> 02:13:59,720
Speaker 1: and we stream several times the week gaming content content

2216
02:13:59,800 --> 02:14:03,840
Speaker 1: of out um different alternatives to military service content, breaking

2217
02:14:03,880 --> 02:14:08,640
Speaker 1: down propaganda and recruiting efforts, as well as other political

2218
02:14:08,760 --> 02:14:12,240
Speaker 1: education things. Sometimes it's just a random community game night

2219
02:14:12,240 --> 02:14:14,200
Speaker 1: as well. Um, actually, no, that's not random. Those are

2220
02:14:14,200 --> 02:14:19,320
Speaker 1: on Thursdays, so there. Um, Chris, should I should we

2221
02:14:19,360 --> 02:14:26,120
Speaker 1: add anything? I got something? Um? Uh? The if if

2222
02:14:26,720 --> 02:14:28,440
Speaker 1: one of the first things you can do besides going

2223
02:14:28,480 --> 02:14:30,640
Speaker 1: to discord and checking us out on Twitch. UH. We

2224
02:14:30,760 --> 02:14:34,560
Speaker 1: actually have an online digital direct action campaign going on

2225
02:14:35,240 --> 02:14:38,280
Speaker 1: UH that we're pushing to allow content creators on Twitch

2226
02:14:38,480 --> 02:14:40,840
Speaker 1: as a platform to be able to opt out of

2227
02:14:40,880 --> 02:14:45,360
Speaker 1: military ads UH on their channels. So that is our

2228
02:14:46,120 --> 02:14:49,040
Speaker 1: campaign that we currently have ongoing. There's a petition it

2229
02:14:49,200 --> 02:14:54,520
Speaker 1: is uh bit dot Lee Slash, Twitch Military ad Opt

2230
02:14:54,560 --> 02:14:57,200
Speaker 1: out is the u r L. They'll take you right

2231
02:14:57,240 --> 02:15:01,600
Speaker 1: to the Twitch petition that feedback your Twitch. We're looking

2232
02:15:01,600 --> 02:15:05,320
Speaker 1: to hit a thousand at least a SAP on that petition,

2233
02:15:05,840 --> 02:15:08,480
Speaker 1: UH to get some get a response from Twitch, and

2234
02:15:08,520 --> 02:15:11,800
Speaker 1: then go from there, allowing content creators to take ownership

2235
02:15:11,800 --> 02:15:15,760
Speaker 1: of their of the the ads and stuff that are

2236
02:15:15,840 --> 02:15:18,440
Speaker 1: on their channels, at least when it comes to military

2237
02:15:18,480 --> 02:15:22,880
Speaker 1: recruitment UH, and then going from there. UH. We also

2238
02:15:23,800 --> 02:15:28,080
Speaker 1: UH are doing actions and planning things constantly. So beyond lookout,

2239
02:15:28,160 --> 02:15:30,880
Speaker 1: joined the discord all that good stuff. Oh, if you

2240
02:15:30,880 --> 02:15:33,040
Speaker 1: need help navigating that, I'm a mod in the discord

2241
02:15:33,520 --> 02:15:37,800
Speaker 1: at plantipa she slash today and you'll find me. We'll

2242
02:15:37,960 --> 02:15:40,880
Speaker 1: try to put that link for the petition in the

2243
02:15:40,920 --> 02:15:43,839
Speaker 1: show notes so people can find out with a with

2244
02:15:43,600 --> 02:15:49,800
Speaker 1: a with with an easy click. Awesome. Perfect, All right, Well,

2245
02:15:50,120 --> 02:15:52,400
Speaker 1: thank you too for joining us. We are it could

2246
02:15:52,400 --> 02:15:57,600
Speaker 1: happen here at happened here pod in the places, in

2247
02:15:57,640 --> 02:16:01,520
Speaker 1: the places, the places you know, all the places, they're

2248
02:16:01,520 --> 02:16:07,880
Speaker 1: all there. H Well, thank you everyone for listening, and yeah,

2249
02:16:08,040 --> 02:16:10,720
Speaker 1: go play. I don't know Mario Kart eight or something,

2250
02:16:10,920 --> 02:16:13,840
Speaker 1: you know, something something fun. I don't know. I enjoyed.

2251
02:16:13,880 --> 02:16:17,320
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the Mario Kart games as a as as

2252
02:16:17,360 --> 02:16:21,000
Speaker 1: someone of my age, very very very integral to my

2253
02:16:21,120 --> 02:16:26,200
Speaker 1: driving education. So yeah, go play Mario Kart eight buck

2254
02:16:26,240 --> 02:16:45,800
Speaker 1: war War not another generation. Oh boy, it could happen

2255
02:16:45,920 --> 02:16:50,960
Speaker 1: here is the podcast that you're listening to. All right,

2256
02:16:51,600 --> 02:16:54,200
Speaker 1: St Andrew, that that's my job done today? Why why

2257
02:16:54,200 --> 02:16:56,640
Speaker 1: don't you take over? Good job. I'm proud of you,

2258
02:16:57,040 --> 02:17:01,560
Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome everybody. Another wonderful episode of it could

2259
02:17:01,560 --> 02:17:10,160
Speaker 1: happen here today. Open to take a look at another book, well,

2260
02:17:10,280 --> 02:17:14,160
Speaker 1: two books, this time, this time works of fiction, and

2261
02:17:15,000 --> 02:17:21,080
Speaker 1: this time by an English, unfortunately writer named Alice Huxley. Right,

2262
02:17:21,160 --> 02:17:24,560
Speaker 1: we'll be looking at Ireland and Free of New World,

2263
02:17:25,080 --> 02:17:32,000
Speaker 1: the sort of twins of speculative science fiction. I would say.

2264
02:17:33,800 --> 02:17:38,880
Speaker 1: Aldice Huxley was, like I said, an English writer and philosopher,

2265
02:17:39,320 --> 02:17:43,600
Speaker 1: and he actually wrote a lot of books, um fifty

2266
02:17:43,800 --> 02:17:46,760
Speaker 1: in his lifetime. To be precise. He was also a

2267
02:17:46,760 --> 02:17:52,200
Speaker 1: French teacher who interestingly enough, taught George Owell. But I

2268
02:17:52,240 --> 02:17:56,680
Speaker 1: did not know from yeah, but from what what his

2269
02:17:56,800 --> 02:18:02,119
Speaker 1: past students have said. He wasn't a particularly good teacher, Okay,

2270
02:18:02,160 --> 02:18:06,199
Speaker 1: but he was a good speaker. Um. He was also

2271
02:18:06,240 --> 02:18:11,800
Speaker 1: a very very big fan of psychedelics and mysticism and philosophy,

2272
02:18:12,000 --> 02:18:16,279
Speaker 1: and particularly like advit I don't know if I'm pronounced

2273
02:18:16,280 --> 02:18:20,560
Speaker 1: that correctly, but advate vendata, which is like a Hindu

2274
02:18:20,600 --> 02:18:24,120
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. Yeah, I know. He's He's even referenced a

2275
02:18:24,160 --> 02:18:27,720
Speaker 1: lot and like occultist and chaos magic books written like

2276
02:18:27,840 --> 02:18:31,880
Speaker 1: post the sixties. He's yeah, yeah, yeah, he's He's like, um,

2277
02:18:32,760 --> 02:18:39,440
Speaker 1: that guy, it's his name again, Alan Watts. Yeah guy, yeah.

2278
02:18:40,400 --> 02:18:45,160
Speaker 1: Also very interestingly, Um, Huxley actually had LSD injected into

2279
02:18:45,240 --> 02:18:52,440
Speaker 1: his veins. It's a basic Yeah. He was like he

2280
02:18:53,000 --> 02:18:56,760
Speaker 1: was dying, as you know one does on their deathbed,

2281
02:18:57,520 --> 02:19:00,800
Speaker 1: and that is the traditional thing to do traditionally. Yes,

2282
02:19:01,280 --> 02:19:03,480
Speaker 1: while in the process of dying, because he had like

2283
02:19:03,600 --> 02:19:07,160
Speaker 1: advanced learning your cancer, he had to write to his

2284
02:19:07,240 --> 02:19:14,839
Speaker 1: wife Laura. He was just like LSD intermuscular. He's like, okay,

2285
02:19:15,120 --> 02:19:21,560
Speaker 1: Jackson him fucking muscle. And she doesn't inject him with

2286
02:19:21,640 --> 02:19:24,760
Speaker 1: one do she injects him with two doses and then

2287
02:19:24,800 --> 02:19:29,680
Speaker 1: he dies like several hours later. Incredibly based what away

2288
02:19:29,720 --> 02:19:34,640
Speaker 1: to go? Staggeringly based and honestly, if if he was

2289
02:19:34,680 --> 02:19:37,000
Speaker 1: like speaking on the deathbed. I would really love to know,

2290
02:19:37,120 --> 02:19:39,240
Speaker 1: like what that experience was like, like, are you just

2291
02:19:39,360 --> 02:19:44,680
Speaker 1: like dancing through hell? Like what's going on? I mean

2292
02:19:45,520 --> 02:19:47,680
Speaker 1: it could it could think I can see of being

2293
02:19:48,160 --> 02:19:53,880
Speaker 1: the most amazing thing and also extreme plainly terrified. Right

2294
02:19:55,160 --> 02:19:59,560
Speaker 1: as a general rule, when like Pete, they've done studies

2295
02:19:59,600 --> 02:20:04,640
Speaker 1: on like giving different kinds of psychedelics, usually silocybin mushrooms

2296
02:20:04,640 --> 02:20:08,840
Speaker 1: to um people who are in hospice and it it

2297
02:20:09,000 --> 02:20:13,320
Speaker 1: generally reduces their fear of death. Yeah, they they go

2298
02:20:13,400 --> 02:20:16,240
Speaker 1: in peace. Yeah, yeah, it just makes them like, ah,

2299
02:20:16,280 --> 02:20:19,760
Speaker 1: you know what, everything is the same as everything else,

2300
02:20:19,920 --> 02:20:23,120
Speaker 1: and we're the imagination of the universe. I'm going to

2301
02:20:23,200 --> 02:20:30,080
Speaker 1: go back into space, which is fine. Good for them, Yeah, yeah,

2302
02:20:30,120 --> 02:20:33,160
Speaker 1: good for them, good for them. If I want my

2303
02:20:33,160 --> 02:20:34,520
Speaker 1: death bed, I a pread wouldn't want to be thinking

2304
02:20:34,520 --> 02:20:38,680
Speaker 1: about death either. Yeah. I mean that assumes that, you know,

2305
02:20:38,720 --> 02:20:40,520
Speaker 1: we get a deathbed, you know, and that's the kind

2306
02:20:40,560 --> 02:20:42,200
Speaker 1: of wild thing about death. You don't know when it's

2307
02:20:42,240 --> 02:20:46,000
Speaker 1: going to happen. But so it too into the topic

2308
02:20:46,000 --> 02:20:54,359
Speaker 1: of discussion. Brief New Wild and Ireland right to summarize

2309
02:20:54,480 --> 02:20:57,119
Speaker 1: the plots of booth, I guess I'll start with Brief

2310
02:20:57,160 --> 02:20:58,959
Speaker 1: New will it is the more famous of the two.

2311
02:20:59,040 --> 02:21:01,200
Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people have hood of

2312
02:21:01,240 --> 02:21:04,240
Speaker 1: Island compared to Brief New World because briefe like New

2313
02:21:04,280 --> 02:21:08,480
Speaker 1: World and high School. But I have not read Island exactly,

2314
02:21:08,959 --> 02:21:10,800
Speaker 1: and it's like it's released as a lot of out

2315
02:21:10,840 --> 02:21:14,960
Speaker 1: society that that that we read about the Dystupias, but

2316
02:21:15,040 --> 02:21:20,560
Speaker 1: not the Utupias. But anyway, Brief New World, you know,

2317
02:21:20,560 --> 02:21:24,480
Speaker 1: it's really up there with like in terms of um,

2318
02:21:24,520 --> 02:21:30,320
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's notoriety. Um. It is like one

2319
02:21:30,360 --> 02:21:35,640
Speaker 1: of the quintessential dystopias. It's set like several hundred years

2320
02:21:35,680 --> 02:21:39,920
Speaker 1: into the future, like four which you know, to place,

2321
02:21:41,200 --> 02:21:45,119
Speaker 1: which is several decades ago. Brief New World was set

2322
02:21:45,240 --> 02:21:50,480
Speaker 1: in two thousand and fifty four, two thousand five hty ce,

2323
02:21:51,480 --> 02:21:57,040
Speaker 1: so several Star Direct times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But however,

2324
02:21:57,240 --> 02:22:01,680
Speaker 1: in the book, it isn't called two thousand five. It's

2325
02:22:01,720 --> 02:22:07,000
Speaker 1: called six three to a F a F standing for

2326
02:22:07,200 --> 02:22:11,440
Speaker 1: after Ford. Because in this world, and I'm sure we'll

2327
02:22:11,480 --> 02:22:15,640
Speaker 1: get into this a bit, Henry Ford, the Assembly, lying guy,

2328
02:22:15,959 --> 02:22:21,440
Speaker 1: the monet guy, he is basically god. He is the

2329
02:22:21,480 --> 02:22:23,680
Speaker 1: god of their world, you know. So yeah, that wouldn't

2330
02:22:23,680 --> 02:22:27,400
Speaker 1: be ideal. They say things like by Ford's name and

2331
02:22:27,440 --> 02:22:32,879
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, you know, and his school sort

2332
02:22:32,879 --> 02:22:38,040
Speaker 1: of simply line structure. Um. It's basically it's chopolated to

2333
02:22:38,200 --> 02:22:43,040
Speaker 1: society as a whole. Right, there's this world state where

2334
02:22:43,320 --> 02:22:48,800
Speaker 1: emotions and individuality a condition out of children, and everyone

2335
02:22:48,840 --> 02:22:53,279
Speaker 1: belongs to everyone else, and you know there's children are

2336
02:22:53,320 --> 02:22:59,240
Speaker 1: created in like factories and generated to be part of

2337
02:22:59,320 --> 02:23:04,560
Speaker 1: specific classes, whether it be alpha, beta, gamma, telta, or epsilon.

2338
02:23:05,280 --> 02:23:09,440
Speaker 1: So it's like it's kind of like, what's what, what's

2339
02:23:09,520 --> 02:23:12,840
Speaker 1: what's happening today? You know, in terms of the Greek

2340
02:23:12,879 --> 02:23:16,280
Speaker 1: alphabet um, we are the alphas who are bred to

2341
02:23:16,280 --> 02:23:18,320
Speaker 1: be like the leaders and stuff, and you're the absilons

2342
02:23:18,320 --> 02:23:23,120
Speaker 1: who are bred to be like the menial libras, and

2343
02:23:23,200 --> 02:23:26,160
Speaker 1: you have the folks in between, and like they're literally conditioned,

2344
02:23:26,240 --> 02:23:29,000
Speaker 1: you know, so like in the factory, in the baby

2345
02:23:29,080 --> 02:23:32,200
Speaker 1: making factory, which is in this case literal and not

2346
02:23:32,280 --> 02:23:35,840
Speaker 1: a euphemism for the womb um. You know, they like

2347
02:23:37,480 --> 02:23:41,360
Speaker 1: poled back on oxygen or they apply sitting chemicals or

2348
02:23:41,360 --> 02:23:44,480
Speaker 1: sitting hormones in order to like condition people, so they

2349
02:23:44,480 --> 02:23:49,800
Speaker 1: don't do like genetic um like coding or whatever. They

2350
02:23:49,879 --> 02:23:53,840
Speaker 1: just they do a chemical concoctions in those sort of

2351
02:23:53,879 --> 02:23:57,760
Speaker 1: test tubes. And yeah, I mean the story of the

2352
02:23:57,760 --> 02:24:01,480
Speaker 1: world is really how it's affecting, like that's on the

2353
02:24:01,480 --> 02:24:04,400
Speaker 1: top level of people within it and sort of contrasted

2354
02:24:04,440 --> 02:24:08,879
Speaker 1: with sort of reservations that exist in their world where

2355
02:24:08,920 --> 02:24:14,320
Speaker 1: people are a bit less restricted. Um. And it ends

2356
02:24:14,360 --> 02:24:20,439
Speaker 1: pretty tragically, but the next book also ends it tragically.

2357
02:24:20,720 --> 02:24:24,960
Speaker 1: The extra for being Island, which is like the utopian

2358
02:24:25,360 --> 02:24:27,480
Speaker 1: twin for a Brief New World in a lot of

2359
02:24:27,480 --> 02:24:30,320
Speaker 1: ways in terms of memory, mirroring a lot of the

2360
02:24:30,400 --> 02:24:36,080
Speaker 1: same themes that Brief New World explores. Right, So in

2361
02:24:36,200 --> 02:24:42,080
Speaker 1: Ireland there's this specific island called Parlor, which is um fictional.

2362
02:24:42,400 --> 02:24:45,560
Speaker 1: I mean, there was an area in India called Parlor,

2363
02:24:46,440 --> 02:24:49,080
Speaker 1: but the island of Parlor in this world is like

2364
02:24:49,200 --> 02:24:52,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't exist, right, And it's basically seen as this

2365
02:24:52,200 --> 02:24:56,600
Speaker 1: oasis of happiness and freedom and where it's inhabitants of

2366
02:24:56,959 --> 02:25:03,400
Speaker 1: resisted capitalism and consumers um and technology. Right then this journalist,

2367
02:25:03,840 --> 02:25:09,160
Speaker 1: another British guy named Will farnaby Um pulls up on

2368
02:25:09,200 --> 02:25:12,800
Speaker 1: their island and he's basically trying to scoop out the

2369
02:25:12,800 --> 02:25:18,560
Speaker 1: island for exploitation because he's friends with this industrialist who's

2370
02:25:18,560 --> 02:25:23,360
Speaker 1: trying to like extract oil from the region. And while

2371
02:25:23,400 --> 02:25:27,400
Speaker 1: he's going through the Ireland and really going through the

2372
02:25:27,480 --> 02:25:30,360
Speaker 1: society going through the book, there are a lot of

2373
02:25:30,400 --> 02:25:32,520
Speaker 1: monologues and stuff. I mean, this book is kind of

2374
02:25:32,560 --> 02:25:35,720
Speaker 1: heavy on the monologues and the discussions. It's kind of

2375
02:25:35,760 --> 02:25:39,879
Speaker 1: like Alice Sucksley's soup box for all his ideas, just

2376
02:25:40,120 --> 02:25:43,359
Speaker 1: laying them all out there. Right. So Will enters Palace

2377
02:25:43,400 --> 02:25:46,360
Speaker 1: a cynic, but by time he comes out, he's like

2378
02:25:47,440 --> 02:25:52,560
Speaker 1: he's had like layers on layers of epiphanies. And I

2379
02:25:52,560 --> 02:25:54,640
Speaker 1: don't know for those who have been reading to one

2380
02:25:54,640 --> 02:26:01,880
Speaker 1: of everything recently. Um in chapter two there the authors

2381
02:26:01,959 --> 02:26:04,039
Speaker 1: David When Grown, David Group. But this sort of outline

2382
02:26:04,600 --> 02:26:07,120
Speaker 1: some of the discussions that were happening that were happening

2383
02:26:07,160 --> 02:26:10,920
Speaker 1: between Europeans and Indigenous Americans at the time of arrival,

2384
02:26:11,480 --> 02:26:16,280
Speaker 1: and how those discussions were shaping both um apparentily the

2385
02:26:16,280 --> 02:26:21,720
Speaker 1: Europeans view of society. Interestingly, it's kind of like reflected

2386
02:26:21,760 --> 02:26:24,080
Speaker 1: here because you know, I have this white man who

2387
02:26:24,080 --> 02:26:27,640
Speaker 1: pulls up with all his English ideas and it's basically

2388
02:26:28,280 --> 02:26:33,560
Speaker 1: these indigenous inhabitants and parlor basically deconstructing his ideas through dialogue, UM,

2389
02:26:33,600 --> 02:26:39,760
Speaker 1: and through debate and discussion, and unfortunately it doesn't end

2390
02:26:39,959 --> 02:26:43,520
Speaker 1: very well. Despite you know, being convinced of the purity

2391
02:26:43,520 --> 02:26:46,480
Speaker 1: and brilliance of the polonies we have lived in, Um,

2392
02:26:46,520 --> 02:26:49,800
Speaker 1: he already made the deal with the industrialist and pola

2393
02:26:50,280 --> 02:26:54,800
Speaker 1: um Is has basically been sold by an by neighboring

2394
02:26:54,840 --> 02:27:02,879
Speaker 1: country and so it's downfall is now inevitable and that's

2395
02:27:02,879 --> 02:27:06,200
Speaker 1: how it ends. Oh and also UM will want to

2396
02:27:06,240 --> 02:27:10,200
Speaker 1: be kind of as like an LSD. Well'sund really LSD.

2397
02:27:10,240 --> 02:27:12,280
Speaker 1: But it's like a psychedelic trip. Yeah, it's like a

2398
02:27:12,320 --> 02:27:18,080
Speaker 1: combination like pilocybin almost yeah, yeah, and true how that

2399
02:27:18,160 --> 02:27:21,400
Speaker 1: Sucksley fashion? Yeah Yeah, there's like a lot of the

2400
02:27:21,480 --> 02:27:26,120
Speaker 1: tropes and like themes that were president Brave New World

2401
02:27:26,560 --> 02:27:30,200
Speaker 1: exists in island, but as like their inversion so like

2402
02:27:30,240 --> 02:27:33,680
Speaker 1: in terms of like it showed like the like Brave

2403
02:27:33,720 --> 02:27:38,879
Speaker 1: New World that's written before Huxley had psychedelics. It was

2404
02:27:39,120 --> 02:27:41,720
Speaker 1: like his his version of drug use is so different

2405
02:27:41,720 --> 02:27:45,800
Speaker 1: in that book. It's more like a pacifying drug Um,

2406
02:27:46,080 --> 02:27:48,760
Speaker 1: whereas the drug use in Island. It's more like an

2407
02:27:49,080 --> 02:27:51,960
Speaker 1: like an enlightening drug. So, but there's a whole bunch

2408
02:27:52,000 --> 02:27:55,280
Speaker 1: of themes that like parallel but are also inverted on

2409
02:27:55,320 --> 02:27:59,000
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, exactly exactly, And we're gonna get into

2410
02:27:59,040 --> 02:28:03,680
Speaker 1: those themes just now. But to summarize, Brave New World

2411
02:28:03,800 --> 02:28:08,720
Speaker 1: is basically humans becoming less than human because of all

2412
02:28:08,760 --> 02:28:15,640
Speaker 1: these technological and sociological um efforts, where as Ireland is

2413
02:28:15,680 --> 02:28:20,000
Speaker 1: like the opposite we had. You know, humans are able

2414
02:28:20,040 --> 02:28:24,040
Speaker 1: to come into the fullness of the humanness um while

2415
02:28:24,160 --> 02:28:28,039
Speaker 1: still using science, except in a way to enhance their

2416
02:28:28,120 --> 02:28:32,600
Speaker 1: quality of life. I don't know if I missed any

2417
02:28:32,640 --> 02:28:35,320
Speaker 1: aspect of either plots that and if you want to

2418
02:28:35,400 --> 02:28:40,680
Speaker 1: like touch on a real quick no, no, no reallyy okay, yeah,

2419
02:28:40,720 --> 02:28:41,800
Speaker 1: I mean I will say the one thing is it

2420
02:28:41,879 --> 02:28:45,120
Speaker 1: just because Brave New World also has this sort of

2421
02:28:45,160 --> 02:28:50,520
Speaker 1: like weird like going to a reservation plot that's like, yeah,

2422
02:28:50,920 --> 02:28:52,920
Speaker 1: kind of a b plot, but you see, sort of

2423
02:28:53,040 --> 02:28:56,600
Speaker 1: it's another one of those things instead of like I

2424
02:28:56,600 --> 02:29:01,440
Speaker 1: don't know if inverteds the right word, but the sort

2425
02:29:01,440 --> 02:29:05,800
Speaker 1: of context of it is very very different in Island

2426
02:29:05,840 --> 02:29:10,640
Speaker 1: than it isn't Brave New World. Yeah, yeah, because I mean,

2427
02:29:10,680 --> 02:29:15,640
Speaker 1: in a sense you have this outside protagonist who is

2428
02:29:16,440 --> 02:29:23,400
Speaker 1: introduced to this alternate way of living UM and is

2429
02:29:23,400 --> 02:29:29,120
Speaker 1: transformed by it, you know, except in Brief New World,

2430
02:29:29,280 --> 02:29:34,400
Speaker 1: you know, he ends up killing himself and in Ireland,

2431
02:29:35,200 --> 02:29:40,760
Speaker 1: well he already sold out the island. You know. I

2432
02:29:40,800 --> 02:29:43,560
Speaker 1: will say, UM, one criticism that I want to get

2433
02:29:43,600 --> 02:29:46,000
Speaker 1: out of the way before we get into like the

2434
02:29:46,040 --> 02:29:49,400
Speaker 1: concepts and you know how they might apply to politics

2435
02:29:49,640 --> 02:29:55,040
Speaker 1: as a whole. Really is Huxley, like a lot of

2436
02:29:55,080 --> 02:30:00,640
Speaker 1: authors and thinkers and ideologus of his time, has this

2437
02:30:01,959 --> 02:30:10,800
Speaker 1: very unsettling a fixation on overpopulation. It's kind of like

2438
02:30:10,800 --> 02:30:13,680
Speaker 1: what we were talking about UM with the last book

2439
02:30:13,680 --> 02:30:17,039
Speaker 1: we discussed here UM, this sort of weird fixation and

2440
02:30:17,080 --> 02:30:20,200
Speaker 1: over population and you know, people dying out and that

2441
02:30:20,280 --> 02:30:29,040
Speaker 1: kind of thing UM in in parliam in Ireland there's

2442
02:30:29,080 --> 02:30:35,200
Speaker 1: a sort of acceptance of UM of population as something

2443
02:30:35,240 --> 02:30:39,160
Speaker 1: that needs to be you know, avoided until I guess

2444
02:30:39,160 --> 02:30:43,520
Speaker 1: it brings us to the first theme, which is the

2445
02:30:43,680 --> 02:30:49,720
Speaker 1: use of contraception in both books, right, Like, on one hand,

2446
02:30:49,760 --> 02:30:55,040
Speaker 1: you have in Brave New World where there's like mandatory

2447
02:30:55,080 --> 02:30:59,240
Speaker 1: contraception and people are literally not allowed to like naturally

2448
02:30:59,680 --> 02:31:02,959
Speaker 1: give both. You know, they have to have babies through

2449
02:31:03,000 --> 02:31:08,720
Speaker 1: test you, whereas in parlor, you know, there's reproductive education

2450
02:31:08,920 --> 02:31:14,039
Speaker 1: and reproductive choice and expressive sex. And it's really like

2451
02:31:14,080 --> 02:31:18,320
Speaker 1: a complete contrast. So I guess I want to do

2452
02:31:18,400 --> 02:31:24,640
Speaker 1: something like I like speculating and thinking about how anarchy

2453
02:31:24,879 --> 02:31:27,600
Speaker 1: would operate. UM. I think there needs to be a

2454
02:31:27,600 --> 02:31:32,240
Speaker 1: lot more of that in terms of UM creative works

2455
02:31:32,280 --> 02:31:35,600
Speaker 1: and discussions. I mean, like there was at the Cafe

2456
02:31:35,840 --> 02:31:39,520
Speaker 1: by mal Tester, and there are some like utopian fictions

2457
02:31:39,520 --> 02:31:45,280
Speaker 1: out there, but I like less than utopian, but still

2458
02:31:46,520 --> 02:31:50,880
Speaker 1: interesting explorations of anarchist society. It's like there's Lucky the

2459
02:31:50,920 --> 02:31:54,320
Speaker 1: Quins that is possessed. It is interesting to me that

2460
02:31:54,760 --> 02:31:58,440
Speaker 1: even in mainstream sort of imagining, whenever there's an attempt

2461
02:31:58,560 --> 02:32:01,680
Speaker 1: to envision a utopia, there's nearly always a lot of

2462
02:32:01,720 --> 02:32:06,560
Speaker 1: anarchist principles involved in that. It's basically impossible to imagine

2463
02:32:06,600 --> 02:32:10,800
Speaker 1: a utopia without aspects of anarchist theory making it into

2464
02:32:10,840 --> 02:32:13,440
Speaker 1: it exactly. And it tends to be like some elements

2465
02:32:13,440 --> 02:32:16,600
Speaker 1: of anti work in there, and like you know, like

2466
02:32:17,800 --> 02:32:24,360
Speaker 1: to post work, post hierarchy, freedom of association. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

2467
02:32:24,720 --> 02:32:27,039
Speaker 1: as I kind of want to look at that, look

2468
02:32:27,040 --> 02:32:30,400
Speaker 1: at these works through that lens as well. Here mostly Island,

2469
02:32:30,480 --> 02:32:35,039
Speaker 1: considering Island is a clue so actually than free New

2470
02:32:35,040 --> 02:32:43,400
Speaker 1: World is Yeah, i'd say so just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah,

2471
02:32:43,600 --> 02:32:50,200
Speaker 1: Like when you look at how sexual liberation is treated

2472
02:32:50,240 --> 02:32:54,320
Speaker 1: in Ireland, it is pretty much an echo of what

2473
02:32:54,400 --> 02:32:58,840
Speaker 1: anarchists was seeing about free love in like nearly twenty

2474
02:32:59,120 --> 02:33:01,520
Speaker 1: like late nineties Sentry. You know, because I feel like

2475
02:33:01,560 --> 02:33:05,680
Speaker 1: I'm a good one, like free choice and contraceptive access

2476
02:33:05,840 --> 02:33:10,000
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, reproductive choice, free love. It's

2477
02:33:10,080 --> 02:33:16,280
Speaker 1: really in Paula, I would see, Um they have this

2478
02:33:16,400 --> 02:33:20,400
Speaker 1: sort of elements as well of like communal child rearing,

2479
02:33:21,760 --> 02:33:25,000
Speaker 1: I mean in Um, which is another thing I spoke

2480
02:33:25,000 --> 02:33:27,960
Speaker 1: about that and like my video in December on the family,

2481
02:33:28,360 --> 02:33:32,879
Speaker 1: like the fact that humans basically evolved in an alloparental arrangement,

2482
02:33:33,000 --> 02:33:36,800
Speaker 1: in a corporative reading arrangement. Yeah, there's because of capitalism

2483
02:33:37,080 --> 02:33:39,680
Speaker 1: moved away from that. Yeah, there's a lot of if

2484
02:33:39,720 --> 02:33:42,760
Speaker 1: you if you study how kind of different societies that

2485
02:33:42,800 --> 02:33:45,360
Speaker 1: were not capitalists handled child rearing, there's a lot of

2486
02:33:45,400 --> 02:33:49,320
Speaker 1: like very interesting. I think my favorite is it was

2487
02:33:49,440 --> 02:33:54,600
Speaker 1: some indigenous group in Um South America, whose like cultural

2488
02:33:54,680 --> 02:33:58,680
Speaker 1: belief was that you didn't you didn't have like one

2489
02:33:59,160 --> 02:34:02,000
Speaker 1: man have sex with a woman, and that like leads

2490
02:34:02,840 --> 02:34:06,280
Speaker 1: conceiving a child. It starts the process. And so once

2491
02:34:06,320 --> 02:34:08,680
Speaker 1: you've started the process of making a child, the woman

2492
02:34:08,720 --> 02:34:11,000
Speaker 1: then is going to pick out all of the guys

2493
02:34:11,040 --> 02:34:13,280
Speaker 1: that she thinks have traits that she wants to be

2494
02:34:13,560 --> 02:34:15,959
Speaker 1: like part of the child she's making and has sex

2495
02:34:16,000 --> 02:34:19,440
Speaker 1: with them, because you're like gradually building the child by

2496
02:34:19,480 --> 02:34:23,039
Speaker 1: having like adding additional sperm to it, which means that

2497
02:34:23,440 --> 02:34:25,680
Speaker 1: when they have the kid, all of those guys that

2498
02:34:25,720 --> 02:34:28,720
Speaker 1: she had sex pregnant have a responsibility to rear the

2499
02:34:28,800 --> 02:34:31,959
Speaker 1: child and teach it things, which I think is objectively

2500
02:34:32,000 --> 02:34:34,160
Speaker 1: the best way to treat kids. I mean, even like

2501
02:34:34,680 --> 02:34:37,880
Speaker 1: it's that's such an interesting metaphysical concept in terms of

2502
02:34:37,920 --> 02:34:41,160
Speaker 1: like what constitutes like even like the the idea of

2503
02:34:41,200 --> 02:34:43,840
Speaker 1: genetic makeup, because even though it's not like literally true,

2504
02:34:44,240 --> 02:34:47,280
Speaker 1: it's still like if you can convince yourself of that

2505
02:34:47,400 --> 02:34:50,199
Speaker 1: in your head, then it kind of is physically true,

2506
02:34:50,840 --> 02:34:52,440
Speaker 1: and it will it will be true enough for the

2507
02:34:52,560 --> 02:35:00,280
Speaker 1: kid because like really because most of the father those

2508
02:35:00,320 --> 02:35:03,640
Speaker 1: treats are gonna like manifest in the child anyway because

2509
02:35:03,640 --> 02:35:05,600
Speaker 1: they were raised by them. Therefore, I think we should

2510
02:35:05,640 --> 02:35:10,400
Speaker 1: all agree to just act like it works that way. Yeah,

2511
02:35:10,440 --> 02:35:12,000
Speaker 1: but I mean like and also like in terms of

2512
02:35:12,000 --> 02:35:15,200
Speaker 1: like the group living in Island versus like Brave New

2513
02:35:15,200 --> 02:35:17,960
Speaker 1: World everywhere else, it's always like you don't you have

2514
02:35:18,040 --> 02:35:21,080
Speaker 1: group living because you've lost like the idea of individuality,

2515
02:35:21,240 --> 02:35:24,520
Speaker 1: right versus groups living in Island is more like you

2516
02:35:24,520 --> 02:35:27,800
Speaker 1: know how like anarchists have like group homes and that's

2517
02:35:27,840 --> 02:35:30,840
Speaker 1: it's it's very similar to group living allows you to

2518
02:35:31,040 --> 02:35:33,880
Speaker 1: be the best version of yourself because the best version

2519
02:35:33,879 --> 02:35:38,240
Speaker 1: of yourself exists in the community. Yeah, exactly. There's like

2520
02:35:38,320 --> 02:35:40,480
Speaker 1: there's like a barista or whatever. There's a kind of

2521
02:35:40,520 --> 02:35:42,480
Speaker 1: like like a jokey fruition fist. I think about a

2522
02:35:42,480 --> 02:35:44,320
Speaker 1: lot where it's like if you see a block and

2523
02:35:45,080 --> 02:35:46,560
Speaker 1: like you're looking at it like a black block, right,

2524
02:35:46,600 --> 02:35:48,840
Speaker 1: It's like the way you can tell that there are

2525
02:35:48,920 --> 02:35:50,640
Speaker 1: mooise involved is if you see a bunch of people

2526
02:35:50,680 --> 02:35:54,120
Speaker 1: actually like legitimately wearing all the same thing. It's like

2527
02:35:54,120 --> 02:35:56,280
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's like it's it's really like it's

2528
02:35:56,320 --> 02:36:00,440
Speaker 1: it's it's extremely rare that like even even when you're

2529
02:36:00,480 --> 02:36:02,240
Speaker 1: doing this for security reasons that you can get a

2530
02:36:02,280 --> 02:36:05,320
Speaker 1: bunch of anarchists who actually literally all wear exactly the

2531
02:36:05,360 --> 02:36:08,800
Speaker 1: same thing, because it's like it's like, yeah, you have

2532
02:36:08,840 --> 02:36:10,200
Speaker 1: this sort of like I mean, okay, this is this

2533
02:36:10,240 --> 02:36:13,680
Speaker 1: is not like always true, but like it's it's I

2534
02:36:13,720 --> 02:36:16,520
Speaker 1: don't know, you you you have this thing where even

2535
02:36:16,560 --> 02:36:18,920
Speaker 1: when you're like even when anarchists are like trying to

2536
02:36:18,959 --> 02:36:21,840
Speaker 1: sort of like fade into a single mass, it's like

2537
02:36:22,480 --> 02:36:25,240
Speaker 1: be like like they literally can't do it because everyone

2538
02:36:25,480 --> 02:36:29,480
Speaker 1: has this sort of like this individual definitely seeing people

2539
02:36:29,600 --> 02:36:32,080
Speaker 1: be bad at block more often than I've seen them

2540
02:36:32,080 --> 02:36:34,520
Speaker 1: be good at it, Yeah, it's like whi I mean

2541
02:36:34,560 --> 02:36:36,880
Speaker 1: like the actual hiding part of it. Yeah yeah, but

2542
02:36:37,080 --> 02:36:42,480
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it's it's it's it's there's there's

2543
02:36:42,520 --> 02:36:45,720
Speaker 1: there there there there's a way of sort of egalitarianism

2544
02:36:45,720 --> 02:36:48,120
Speaker 1: in sociality where like you treat everyone as if they

2545
02:36:48,120 --> 02:36:51,120
Speaker 1: were exactly the same and like and you know, and

2546
02:36:51,120 --> 02:36:52,879
Speaker 1: there there's models of this word. It's like yeah, it's

2547
02:36:52,879 --> 02:36:55,360
Speaker 1: like okay, you actually try to like force everyone to

2548
02:36:55,400 --> 02:36:57,000
Speaker 1: be exactly the same, where like everyone to be exactly

2549
02:36:57,040 --> 02:36:59,120
Speaker 1: same in the class and like that sucks. And you

2550
02:36:59,120 --> 02:37:01,840
Speaker 1: shouldn't do it. And the alternative to that is everyone

2551
02:37:02,080 --> 02:37:03,880
Speaker 1: is just sort of like in a group, but they're

2552
02:37:03,920 --> 02:37:09,080
Speaker 1: all like I don't I'm not entirely sure if this

2553
02:37:09,080 --> 02:37:11,520
Speaker 1: don't make any sense, but it's I don't know, there

2554
02:37:12,080 --> 02:37:15,760
Speaker 1: are a group thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the purpose

2555
02:37:15,840 --> 02:37:18,400
Speaker 1: of the group is to like maintain like you know,

2556
02:37:18,440 --> 02:37:21,640
Speaker 1: maybe like maintain the differentiation of the individual. Yeah, to

2557
02:37:21,720 --> 02:37:24,160
Speaker 1: foster what makes the dividence is really good at being

2558
02:37:24,520 --> 02:37:26,920
Speaker 1: like their own person and give them the tools that

2559
02:37:27,000 --> 02:37:29,920
Speaker 1: can you can set that up. Yeah, I think exactly.

2560
02:37:30,200 --> 02:37:34,039
Speaker 1: Like culturally, we have like problems thinking about that because

2561
02:37:34,800 --> 02:37:37,720
Speaker 1: like the sort of American version of individuality has to

2562
02:37:37,760 --> 02:37:40,439
Speaker 1: do with like no, no, no, you're you're an individual

2563
02:37:40,480 --> 02:37:42,600
Speaker 1: because you have no connections to anyone else. And it's like,

2564
02:37:42,640 --> 02:37:45,800
Speaker 1: well this sucks and it is bad because and that

2565
02:37:45,879 --> 02:37:48,360
Speaker 1: kind of goes back to the whole spoon building a

2566
02:37:48,400 --> 02:37:51,760
Speaker 1: baby concept. I didn't think I would ever use that

2567
02:37:51,840 --> 02:38:02,680
Speaker 1: freeze individuals only individuals because their combination of influences are

2568
02:38:02,800 --> 02:38:05,879
Speaker 1: unique to them. Yeah, well not just that. I mean

2569
02:38:05,920 --> 02:38:08,280
Speaker 1: obviously it's a gene's a component, and I'll know a lot,

2570
02:38:08,360 --> 02:38:12,560
Speaker 1: but I think key aspect of it is that you know,

2571
02:38:12,720 --> 02:38:16,480
Speaker 1: because we are reason these different environments surrounded by different people,

2572
02:38:16,480 --> 02:38:19,400
Speaker 1: we have different experiences. That's what builds us up. You know,

2573
02:38:19,440 --> 02:38:21,240
Speaker 1: Like I can I can already name off the top

2574
02:38:21,240 --> 02:38:24,000
Speaker 1: of my head, like a bunch of like defining movements

2575
02:38:24,000 --> 02:38:27,240
Speaker 1: from my childhood. You know that basically changed my course,

2576
02:38:27,360 --> 02:38:29,440
Speaker 1: you know, like the one time I got cyber bullied,

2577
02:38:29,520 --> 02:38:32,560
Speaker 1: not basically like shifted my perspective and my approach the

2578
02:38:32,600 --> 02:38:34,800
Speaker 1: internet to that kind of thing. You know, it's like

2579
02:38:35,720 --> 02:38:42,400
Speaker 1: it really, I really can't imagine how someone could come

2580
02:38:42,400 --> 02:38:46,520
Speaker 1: away with the idea that an individual is just an

2581
02:38:46,560 --> 02:38:49,000
Speaker 1: individual on their own. Yeah, they just they just pop

2582
02:38:49,040 --> 02:38:52,480
Speaker 1: out and are that thing. Yeah, I mean yeah, because

2583
02:38:52,520 --> 02:38:54,800
Speaker 1: like a large portion of you was built up of

2584
02:38:55,640 --> 02:38:59,879
Speaker 1: previous you, and previously like exists, like your previous existences

2585
02:39:00,480 --> 02:39:04,320
Speaker 1: makes a large portion of yourself. And like sure you

2586
02:39:04,320 --> 02:39:06,560
Speaker 1: can say you have a little bit of like ego

2587
02:39:06,680 --> 02:39:10,360
Speaker 1: from the start, like your actual self self that that

2588
02:39:10,560 --> 02:39:12,680
Speaker 1: you know, contributed to the way you interpret events, which

2589
02:39:12,720 --> 02:39:16,240
Speaker 1: then will in turn build your personality. But I think

2590
02:39:16,280 --> 02:39:19,040
Speaker 1: these things are not opposing. These things work in tandem.

2591
02:39:19,080 --> 02:39:22,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, yes, it is the whole group living components

2592
02:39:22,600 --> 02:39:25,120
Speaker 1: and also in that group living components. You notice and

2593
02:39:25,440 --> 02:39:28,800
Speaker 1: at one point in the book, Um, one of the

2594
02:39:28,879 --> 02:39:33,640
Speaker 1: children like basically in passing mentions that you know, they

2595
02:39:33,680 --> 02:39:36,680
Speaker 1: don't want to go by a certain person because they

2596
02:39:36,720 --> 02:39:39,240
Speaker 1: are mad at them or whatever. And so they basically

2597
02:39:39,280 --> 02:39:42,480
Speaker 1: have that freedom to remove themselves from that situation and

2598
02:39:42,560 --> 02:39:46,920
Speaker 1: go on, um, sleep at another house or another space

2599
02:39:47,480 --> 02:39:51,199
Speaker 1: until that sort of situation is resolved. And I think

2600
02:39:51,280 --> 02:39:57,760
Speaker 1: that also would really be a crucial element of society,

2601
02:39:57,800 --> 02:40:00,600
Speaker 1: particularly for children, having that freedom of associate and freedom

2602
02:40:00,640 --> 02:40:07,000
Speaker 1: of movement, because imagine how many abusive situations could be

2603
02:40:07,280 --> 02:40:10,879
Speaker 1: avoided over him. Indeed, if children had the ability to

2604
02:40:10,920 --> 02:40:14,879
Speaker 1: come out of it. You know, we strict children of

2605
02:40:14,959 --> 02:40:22,040
Speaker 1: choice and allows these sorts of dynamics to persist. Yeahstand

2606
02:40:22,040 --> 02:40:25,760
Speaker 1: these dynamics that persist in the next generation and so

2607
02:40:25,879 --> 02:40:28,360
Speaker 1: on and so on. It's this thing that's having a

2608
02:40:28,400 --> 02:40:31,080
Speaker 1: resurgence in the United States right now and is like

2609
02:40:31,160 --> 02:40:33,879
Speaker 1: at the core of all of the book banning in

2610
02:40:33,920 --> 02:40:36,920
Speaker 1: the anti trans legislation, which is this idea that like

2611
02:40:37,879 --> 02:40:40,920
Speaker 1: kids shouldn't have a choice because that would interfere with

2612
02:40:40,959 --> 02:40:43,840
Speaker 1: parents having absolute control over the life of their child.

2613
02:40:43,920 --> 02:40:46,480
Speaker 1: And then includes the control to like, if a child

2614
02:40:46,560 --> 02:40:49,800
Speaker 1: says I'm this or I'm that, the parent can say

2615
02:40:49,840 --> 02:40:54,920
Speaker 1: absolutely not. Yeah, exactly if you had like this, if

2616
02:40:54,959 --> 02:40:58,600
Speaker 1: you sort of like too with like someone from from

2617
02:40:58,640 --> 02:41:01,720
Speaker 1: the past or someone who lives in like a cooperative

2618
02:41:01,720 --> 02:41:04,879
Speaker 1: reading arrangement, that the pear and the child is the

2619
02:41:04,959 --> 02:41:08,200
Speaker 1: pearance property entirely, it would look at you like real

2620
02:41:08,280 --> 02:41:11,800
Speaker 1: funny because the child is part of the community, doesn't

2621
02:41:11,800 --> 02:41:14,560
Speaker 1: belong to anyone, you know, if it belongs to anything.

2622
02:41:14,600 --> 02:41:17,320
Speaker 1: It just belongs to the community as a whole, as

2623
02:41:17,400 --> 02:41:25,360
Speaker 1: as we all do. Yeah. But yeah, another element I

2624
02:41:25,440 --> 02:41:30,520
Speaker 1: think I find, um, I find really interesting and the

2625
02:41:30,520 --> 02:41:34,760
Speaker 1: way that probably society operates is that and I guess

2626
02:41:34,760 --> 02:41:40,160
Speaker 1: in comparison to brieve New World, unlike in brief New World,

2627
02:41:40,160 --> 02:41:45,240
Speaker 1: where drugs are used like UM likes, and like all

2628
02:41:45,360 --> 02:41:49,720
Speaker 1: drugs are used for a pacification and control and self

2629
02:41:49,800 --> 02:41:52,320
Speaker 1: medication and that kind of thing to sort of like

2630
02:41:52,879 --> 02:41:56,880
Speaker 1: chill you out and prevent you from basically going mad

2631
02:41:57,440 --> 02:42:02,400
Speaker 1: in a mad society. Um in Pala, you know, Chunky's

2632
02:42:02,520 --> 02:42:07,760
Speaker 1: is used for bonding and for enlightenment and for social

2633
02:42:07,840 --> 02:42:12,000
Speaker 1: connection and social cohesion. It is really really using that

2634
02:42:12,000 --> 02:42:15,800
Speaker 1: that he changes what drugs do in his books, like

2635
02:42:15,920 --> 02:42:22,000
Speaker 1: after he starts doing them. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, Now,

2636
02:42:22,040 --> 02:42:24,520
Speaker 1: I actually don't know. You know, I used to have

2637
02:42:24,600 --> 02:42:27,640
Speaker 1: because I I had the opposite arc with with drugs,

2638
02:42:27,680 --> 02:42:30,959
Speaker 1: where I started doing them when I was very young

2639
02:42:31,120 --> 02:42:33,760
Speaker 1: and had the belief that like they were kind of

2640
02:42:33,800 --> 02:42:37,200
Speaker 1: inherently this mind opening tool that could be used to

2641
02:42:37,240 --> 02:42:42,360
Speaker 1: expand the borders of reality within human beings, and as

2642
02:42:42,400 --> 02:42:44,959
Speaker 1: an adultum in part through some of the research I've

2643
02:42:45,000 --> 02:42:47,360
Speaker 1: done on the far right, come to understand, like, no,

2644
02:42:47,480 --> 02:42:50,600
Speaker 1: you can also use them to reinforce the very limited,

2645
02:42:50,720 --> 02:42:53,240
Speaker 1: terrible things you already believe, And there are folks who

2646
02:42:53,280 --> 02:43:00,000
Speaker 1: do that quite effectively of appeal you esotericism kind of. Yeah,

2647
02:43:00,160 --> 02:43:01,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if I just made up that too.

2648
02:43:02,400 --> 02:43:06,360
Speaker 1: I like, I like that term. It's thinking of it's

2649
02:43:06,360 --> 02:43:08,560
Speaker 1: an accurate it's an accurate term to describe the thing

2650
02:43:08,600 --> 02:43:15,000
Speaker 1: we're talking about. I'm taking it, okay, Well, yeah, yeah,

2651
02:43:15,040 --> 02:43:18,200
Speaker 1: I mean that that's absolutely correct, because I mean, yeah,

2652
02:43:19,080 --> 02:43:22,560
Speaker 1: like those sort of psycho psychedelic substances and stuff. Yeah,

2653
02:43:22,560 --> 02:43:25,720
Speaker 1: they can open your mind, but they are as they

2654
02:43:25,760 --> 02:43:29,720
Speaker 1: are ultimately drawing from your mind, drawing from your past

2655
02:43:29,760 --> 02:43:33,199
Speaker 1: experiences and beliefs in some capacity. The way I always

2656
02:43:33,240 --> 02:43:36,959
Speaker 1: describe it is that, like, psychedelics are an acceleberance to

2657
02:43:37,000 --> 02:43:39,360
Speaker 1: the fire that you've already built, and they can make

2658
02:43:39,400 --> 02:43:42,080
Speaker 1: it flare up, and it can be really cool and awesome,

2659
02:43:42,440 --> 02:43:44,880
Speaker 1: and it can flare up and be utterly terrified and

2660
02:43:45,000 --> 02:43:46,720
Speaker 1: be like oh no, no, no, no, no no no no,

2661
02:43:47,400 --> 02:43:50,320
Speaker 1: but it's always kind of amplifying the things that are

2662
02:43:50,360 --> 02:43:54,560
Speaker 1: you've already built through like the kindling of yourself. Yeah.

2663
02:43:55,040 --> 02:43:59,440
Speaker 1: It psychedelics do not create things um within you, but

2664
02:43:59,560 --> 02:44:03,160
Speaker 1: they can lead you to realize things you wouldn't already realize,

2665
02:44:03,240 --> 02:44:06,600
Speaker 1: or they can lead you to reinforce things that you're

2666
02:44:06,640 --> 02:44:08,480
Speaker 1: already doing. And it kind of depends on what you

2667
02:44:08,560 --> 02:44:10,560
Speaker 1: go into it with. It's like you know, Leary said,

2668
02:44:10,600 --> 02:44:12,760
Speaker 1: it's I think it was leally set setting in dose,

2669
02:44:12,920 --> 02:44:15,840
Speaker 1: and like your mind set is one of the most

2670
02:44:15,920 --> 02:44:18,520
Speaker 1: important things for what's actually going to happen when you

2671
02:44:18,720 --> 02:44:25,199
Speaker 1: when you take psychedelics. Yeah, and if you're a Nazi,

2672
02:44:25,760 --> 02:44:28,959
Speaker 1: you can get better being a Nazi from taking as

2673
02:44:29,360 --> 02:44:32,360
Speaker 1: if you're a Nazi, you're gonna see Hitler pull up, Yes,

2674
02:44:32,520 --> 02:44:35,400
Speaker 1: my son, continue the good work. That's That's the thing

2675
02:44:35,440 --> 02:44:37,200
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't understand when I've tried to,

2676
02:44:37,280 --> 02:44:38,720
Speaker 1: like when I tried to talk to people who are

2677
02:44:38,760 --> 02:44:41,640
Speaker 1: like really obviously pro psychedelics and like, yeah, they're so

2678
02:44:41,760 --> 02:44:43,800
Speaker 1: like freeing that you think about new ways, And then

2679
02:44:43,840 --> 02:44:46,400
Speaker 1: I explained to them, there's like, well this isn't this

2680
02:44:46,440 --> 02:44:49,039
Speaker 1: is an easy segue. But if somehow the conversation goes

2681
02:44:49,040 --> 02:44:50,920
Speaker 1: to the point to be talking about all the Nazis

2682
02:44:50,959 --> 02:44:54,000
Speaker 1: who do psychedelics and and then like do like weird

2683
02:44:54,120 --> 02:44:58,480
Speaker 1: esoteric rituals while doing like like psyched drugs, they can

2684
02:44:58,560 --> 02:45:02,560
Speaker 1: confuse these people because like how could you be a Nazi? Well,

2685
02:45:02,680 --> 02:45:05,240
Speaker 1: you're you know, in that mindset, and like, well it's

2686
02:45:05,240 --> 02:45:07,039
Speaker 1: actually for all of yeah, for all these reasons that

2687
02:45:07,040 --> 02:45:11,160
Speaker 1: we've discussed, it can actually assist within that like it's

2688
02:45:11,200 --> 02:45:15,680
Speaker 1: like fantastical, genocidal, conspiratorial thinking. It can really can really

2689
02:45:15,680 --> 02:45:17,800
Speaker 1: give that a lot, a lot of credence in someone's brains,

2690
02:45:17,879 --> 02:45:20,440
Speaker 1: because especially if you've spoken to someone who has taken

2691
02:45:20,480 --> 02:45:23,600
Speaker 1: psychos and I've had a specific kind of experience, you

2692
02:45:23,640 --> 02:45:26,120
Speaker 1: can't talk them all to that experience. Yeah, as far

2693
02:45:26,160 --> 02:45:29,080
Speaker 1: as they consume that is that is solidified in the mind.

2694
02:45:29,320 --> 02:45:31,840
Speaker 1: You know, this is reality. I just had a glimpse

2695
02:45:31,920 --> 02:45:37,240
Speaker 1: that the reality kind of thing, you know. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

2696
02:45:37,280 --> 02:45:38,800
Speaker 1: It's one of those like if you want, if you

2697
02:45:38,840 --> 02:45:43,200
Speaker 1: want an illustration of how psychedelics do not work the

2698
02:45:43,240 --> 02:45:46,840
Speaker 1: way some people claim, just make a note of the

2699
02:45:46,879 --> 02:45:50,199
Speaker 1: fact that at every street fight between fascists and anti

2700
02:45:50,240 --> 02:45:54,360
Speaker 1: fascists in Portland, both sides, every single person had fucking

2701
02:45:54,560 --> 02:45:59,879
Speaker 1: weed on them, Like the fucking the far right like

2702
02:46:00,120 --> 02:46:03,440
Speaker 1: smoking pot as much as everybody else. Um, they just

2703
02:46:03,520 --> 02:46:10,600
Speaker 1: also do cocaine. Where is where is? Antifa does yeah, yeah,

2704
02:46:10,640 --> 02:46:14,240
Speaker 1: and does ketamine. The Proud Boys do cocaine, and they

2705
02:46:14,280 --> 02:46:18,160
Speaker 1: both have everybody's got joints, and both people and people

2706
02:46:18,200 --> 02:46:21,040
Speaker 1: and people on both sides have dropped acid and taking shrimps.

2707
02:46:21,920 --> 02:46:24,360
Speaker 1: Yeah I can. I can say this from a point

2708
02:46:24,360 --> 02:46:27,200
Speaker 1: of journalistic certainty because during one of the rallies where

2709
02:46:27,240 --> 02:46:30,160
Speaker 1: there was a permitted event at the Federal Park, the

2710
02:46:30,200 --> 02:46:33,400
Speaker 1: police were there and telling people they could not take

2711
02:46:33,440 --> 02:46:36,320
Speaker 1: weed onto the Federal Park because it was federally illegal,

2712
02:46:36,760 --> 02:46:42,040
Speaker 1: and every like both sides, people were like alright, shit, Michael,

2713
02:46:42,080 --> 02:46:44,360
Speaker 1: turning back because they couldn't walk on with the weed

2714
02:46:44,360 --> 02:46:48,080
Speaker 1: in their pockets. That's gonna who kind of wounds to

2715
02:46:48,080 --> 02:46:50,720
Speaker 1: me because m I don't know if you all saw

2716
02:46:50,760 --> 02:46:54,320
Speaker 1: this teet I put on recently, Like there's still this

2717
02:46:55,320 --> 02:47:00,080
Speaker 1: resistance to drugs and particularly to like kind of this

2718
02:47:00,760 --> 02:47:03,360
Speaker 1: and you would think that, you know, after decades of

2719
02:47:03,680 --> 02:47:10,040
Speaker 1: research and decades of understanding and really decades, not even decades,

2720
02:47:10,240 --> 02:47:14,240
Speaker 1: centuries of its use in various you know, religious and

2721
02:47:14,240 --> 02:47:18,279
Speaker 1: spiritual practices that by now, you know, in a post

2722
02:47:18,360 --> 02:47:21,880
Speaker 1: colonial country would reach the point where you know, we

2723
02:47:22,040 --> 02:47:28,760
Speaker 1: let it go and we deternalize it. But although the

2724
02:47:28,879 --> 02:47:31,520
Speaker 1: we're kind of in the process of it, we still

2725
02:47:31,560 --> 02:47:36,640
Speaker 1: have this situation where the police are like constantly burning

2726
02:47:36,720 --> 02:47:39,960
Speaker 1: down like fields of cannabis. Like they pull up and

2727
02:47:39,959 --> 02:47:44,640
Speaker 1: they're like, we just seized and burned down like one

2728
02:47:44,680 --> 02:47:48,680
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of cannabis and arrested. This is than

2729
02:47:48,800 --> 02:47:54,240
Speaker 1: the others, Like, why are we still at this point

2730
02:47:54,320 --> 02:48:03,439
Speaker 1: where um, basic basic like plants and tubs and medicines

2731
02:48:03,520 --> 02:48:08,240
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Still he saying this stigma it's not grounded

2732
02:48:08,240 --> 02:48:11,600
Speaker 1: in any sort of reality or logic. You know, it's

2733
02:48:11,680 --> 02:48:19,360
Speaker 1: just colonially, you're a prejudice. But that was brief aside, Yeah, yeah,

2734
02:48:19,879 --> 02:48:22,959
Speaker 1: I the only thing I have much left to see

2735
02:48:23,720 --> 02:48:29,160
Speaker 1: boat Island and brief New World. Well, you know, listeners,

2736
02:48:29,280 --> 02:48:32,720
Speaker 1: go home, put on some Hitler speeches, drop some absolutely

2737
02:48:33,120 --> 02:48:37,440
Speaker 1: absolutely not that is the worst idea. Do not do that,

2738
02:48:37,840 --> 02:48:42,959
Speaker 1: Go to the woods, go do basically literally anything else

2739
02:48:43,120 --> 02:48:47,320
Speaker 1: besides that specific thing. It's that specific thing that is different.

2740
02:48:47,400 --> 02:48:51,160
Speaker 1: Different people can can disagree. No, like that is like

2741
02:48:51,240 --> 02:48:52,879
Speaker 1: one of the worst things to do to your own

2742
02:48:52,920 --> 02:48:56,680
Speaker 1: brain and psyche. Absolutely not. Yeah, just do whatever, whether

2743
02:48:56,879 --> 02:49:01,200
Speaker 1: literally anything else. Watch Star Trek, put on, put on

2744
02:49:01,240 --> 02:49:03,400
Speaker 1: off the I have. I've watched a lot of Star

2745
02:49:03,440 --> 02:49:06,160
Speaker 1: Trek while tripping. See, there's there's so many better things

2746
02:49:06,200 --> 02:49:11,200
Speaker 1: to do that that thing you've said. Mm hm, go

2747
02:49:11,320 --> 02:49:15,560
Speaker 1: watch the movie Conspiracy starring Kenneth brand Of a shipload

2748
02:49:15,560 --> 02:49:20,040
Speaker 1: of mescal and that could be funny. They don't even

2749
02:49:20,080 --> 02:49:25,400
Speaker 1: know what mescaline is, neither instructions. Do not compute if

2750
02:49:25,440 --> 02:49:31,680
Speaker 1: if acid made time different? What? Yeah, that's kind of mescaline.

2751
02:49:31,680 --> 02:49:37,040
Speaker 1: I mean, mescaline is like the the active thing inside pot. Yeah,

2752
02:49:37,440 --> 02:49:40,920
Speaker 1: mescalin is is a psychedelic the most intense time dilation

2753
02:49:40,959 --> 02:49:43,320
Speaker 1: I've ever experienced, where like you will feel like weeks

2754
02:49:43,320 --> 02:49:47,119
Speaker 1: have passed and it's been like seven hours. Um, it's

2755
02:49:47,120 --> 02:49:50,760
Speaker 1: pretty dope. I definitely recommend mescal and everybody go take

2756
02:49:50,800 --> 02:49:56,800
Speaker 1: mescaline even where at that, Um, well you if you,

2757
02:49:56,959 --> 02:49:59,760
Speaker 1: if you, there is a way to get the cact

2758
02:50:00,120 --> 02:50:02,720
Speaker 1: which are legal pretty much everywhere because they're just cactuses

2759
02:50:02,760 --> 02:50:05,119
Speaker 1: and a lot of people use them decoratively, and then

2760
02:50:05,400 --> 02:50:09,240
Speaker 1: using a what do you call the pressure cooker, you

2761
02:50:09,240 --> 02:50:11,720
Speaker 1: can you can get the mescal and out of the cacti.

2762
02:50:11,879 --> 02:50:13,520
Speaker 1: I've known people who have done it. I have not

2763
02:50:13,680 --> 02:50:16,240
Speaker 1: personally done it. Obviously, that would that would that would

2764
02:50:16,240 --> 02:50:18,800
Speaker 1: be a crime. Never criminal. We would never, we would

2765
02:50:18,840 --> 02:50:22,000
Speaker 1: never advocate that. Yeah, but but there are ways too.

2766
02:50:22,120 --> 02:50:25,000
Speaker 1: There are ways that like a person with minimal resources

2767
02:50:25,080 --> 02:50:28,720
Speaker 1: can get mescal and out of out of the right cactus.

2768
02:50:28,879 --> 02:50:32,880
Speaker 1: And people have done it, you know, So there's the

2769
02:50:32,879 --> 02:50:45,440
Speaker 1: criminals have done people. There's this thing anyway. Yeah, alright,

2770
02:50:45,440 --> 02:50:48,400
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew, that was awesome. I'm gonna go to read

2771
02:50:48,400 --> 02:50:51,800
Speaker 1: Island now. Um it's a good world. And I haven't

2772
02:50:51,800 --> 02:50:54,680
Speaker 1: read this. I would write bummed, I guess at the

2773
02:50:54,760 --> 02:50:58,160
Speaker 1: end of this, I am kind of bummed that as

2774
02:50:58,280 --> 02:51:02,440
Speaker 1: as imaginative guy as he was, his This was his

2775
02:51:02,480 --> 02:51:05,480
Speaker 1: final book too, well, in his utopian story had to

2776
02:51:05,560 --> 02:51:11,160
Speaker 1: end with it being crushed essentially by industrial expansion. Yeah,

2777
02:51:11,240 --> 02:51:13,280
Speaker 1: and like co option, I mean like it is it is,

2778
02:51:13,440 --> 02:51:15,960
Speaker 1: it is interesting. Yeah, this this was his final book.

2779
02:51:16,200 --> 02:51:20,240
Speaker 1: This was like his like send off in like in

2780
02:51:20,280 --> 02:51:23,800
Speaker 1: a way. That's that's an interesting component, right because like

2781
02:51:24,000 --> 02:51:27,039
Speaker 1: in Ireland yet like the utopian society, but there is

2782
02:51:27,760 --> 02:51:33,840
Speaker 1: a king, yeah, and a queen mother, but not they

2783
02:51:33,840 --> 02:51:37,560
Speaker 1: don't have like the kind of power that you know,

2784
02:51:37,560 --> 02:51:42,200
Speaker 1: we were typically, Um we still upon kings and queen mothers.

2785
02:51:42,280 --> 02:51:45,160
Speaker 1: You know, they're still they're still able to destroy the

2786
02:51:45,280 --> 02:51:49,680
Speaker 1: society ultimately by collaborating with the military dictator enighbor and

2787
02:51:49,800 --> 02:51:55,440
Speaker 1: the industrialist oil guy. But I mean they are not

2788
02:51:55,640 --> 02:51:58,000
Speaker 1: really that involved in the day today run into their society,

2789
02:51:58,040 --> 02:52:03,080
Speaker 1: you know, like Hallo would be the same with without them.

2790
02:52:03,120 --> 02:52:06,520
Speaker 1: And interestingly, the reason they were taking parts in the

2791
02:52:06,600 --> 02:52:10,920
Speaker 1: destruction upon these societies because they were educated in Europe

2792
02:52:11,240 --> 02:52:16,920
Speaker 1: by Christians and then went back to Parlo. Yeah, it's

2793
02:52:16,959 --> 02:52:19,800
Speaker 1: interesting because he's kind of playing with it. Sounds like

2794
02:52:19,840 --> 02:52:23,760
Speaker 1: the same thing Token was, because like Jared Tolkien at

2795
02:52:23,760 --> 02:52:25,680
Speaker 1: the end of his life kind of identified himself as

2796
02:52:25,720 --> 02:52:28,560
Speaker 1: like this weird sort of monarchist anarchist where he wanted

2797
02:52:28,600 --> 02:52:32,080
Speaker 1: there to be thought the ideal society was one in

2798
02:52:32,120 --> 02:52:35,279
Speaker 1: which people, you know, there was people could not exercise

2799
02:52:35,320 --> 02:52:38,480
Speaker 1: power over each other, but there was a little hierarchy,

2800
02:52:38,520 --> 02:52:40,840
Speaker 1: and that you had a king who couldn't actually do anything,

2801
02:52:40,879 --> 02:52:45,200
Speaker 1: whose purpose was to act as a figurehead. Um and

2802
02:52:45,360 --> 02:52:47,800
Speaker 1: I I don't entirely get what he was going through here.

2803
02:52:47,800 --> 02:52:49,720
Speaker 1: He wrote a lot on the subject himself. And it's

2804
02:52:49,760 --> 02:52:52,360
Speaker 1: interesting that Huxley is kind of playing with the same idea,

2805
02:52:52,480 --> 02:52:55,520
Speaker 1: but is is obviously being like, well, this is a

2806
02:52:55,560 --> 02:53:00,000
Speaker 1: bad idea. You know, it could only work for so long, um, YadA, YadA.

2807
02:53:00,080 --> 02:53:02,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find that compelling. Again, I want

2808
02:53:02,560 --> 02:53:04,600
Speaker 1: to read this, and that's something I may dig into more.

2809
02:53:04,720 --> 02:53:07,879
Speaker 1: Is kind of like how Token conceived of the ideal

2810
02:53:07,959 --> 02:53:12,800
Speaker 1: sort of monarchy versus how how Huxley was thinking about it.

2811
02:53:12,840 --> 02:53:17,480
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of interesting. Yeah, well that's gonna

2812
02:53:17,480 --> 02:53:19,840
Speaker 1: do it for us here, and it could happen here.

2813
02:53:20,760 --> 02:53:28,160
Speaker 1: Uh Garrison tour dot com to sponsored to dot com. No,

2814
02:53:28,400 --> 02:53:33,400
Speaker 1: just drop some acid and Google Hitler. Okay again, like seriously,

2815
02:53:33,480 --> 02:53:36,600
Speaker 1: don't don't, don't literally do anything else. Don't do that.

2816
02:53:37,920 --> 02:53:42,120
Speaker 1: The woods are lovely, the beach is magnificent. Talk to

2817
02:53:42,160 --> 02:53:46,119
Speaker 1: the ocean. It's so much mountain mountain unless you yea

2818
02:53:46,280 --> 02:53:51,840
Speaker 1: like something. Yeah yeah, go to a to have go

2819
02:53:51,920 --> 02:53:56,680
Speaker 1: to a comic con U literally think my suggestions. I

2820
02:53:56,720 --> 02:54:00,520
Speaker 1: will talk about that experience at a later date. All right,

2821
02:54:01,120 --> 02:54:10,120
Speaker 1: that is uh, that is the show. Hey, We'll be

2822
02:54:10,160 --> 02:54:13,520
Speaker 1: back Monday with more episodes every week from now until

2823
02:54:13,520 --> 02:54:15,760
Speaker 1: the heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here

2824
02:54:15,800 --> 02:54:18,439
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts

2825
02:54:18,440 --> 02:54:21,040
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media

2826
02:54:21,120 --> 02:54:22,879
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the I Heart

2827
02:54:22,959 --> 02:54:26,000
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

2828
02:54:26,520 --> 02:54:28,640
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated

2829
02:54:28,720 --> 02:54:32,200
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks

2830
02:54:32,200 --> 02:54:32,720
Speaker 1: for listening.