WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 220 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.440 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.720 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.480 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.479 Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Last Friday, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.280 I teamed up with Lance from the Canadian based politics 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.680 show The Serfs to talk about the tragic events of 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:46.280 last week in tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. On Tuesday, February tenth, 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.960 an eighteen year old named Jesse Van Rutzler killed her 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.280 mother and stepbrother in their home, then took two guns 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.040 and went to tumblr Ridge Secondary School, where she killed 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.640 five students, one teacher, and finally her self. Two other 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.920 kids were critically injured with gunshot wounds but have survived. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.440 The shooter did attend tumblr Ridge Secondary School years ago, 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.919 but dropped out for the past three to five years. 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.960 It's kind of unclear. Jesse identified as a transgender girl. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.080 Tumblr Ridge is a very small town with just twenty 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:26.200 four hundred residents in northeastern British Columbia. This was the 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:31.440 worst school shooting in Canada since nineteen eighty nine. The 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.760 sequence of events during this incident were very similar to 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.640 the Lelouche shooting in Canada ten years ago, where the 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.319 gunman killed two family members at home before going to 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:47.520 a school. During our conversation, Lance and I discussed the 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.040 spread of misinformation, how the online writers tried to weaponize 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.480 the deaths of these people for their own political agenda, 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:58.200 and how the shooter's online activity shows a growing fascination 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.600 with mass shootings this past year. Here's that conversation. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.120 I'm sure everyone knows that right now in canada's a 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.079 nation in mourning. And I also did probably want to 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.560 start this out by reading the names of the deceased, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.959 because it's one of the things that the families have 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.560 been asking for. So the victims from the tumbler Ridge 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.040 Secondary School shooting are Abil Wanza who was twelve, Ezekiel Schofield, 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.040 who was thirteen, Kylie Smith who was twelve, Soey Benoit 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.120 who was twelve, Takaria Lampert who was twelve, Shanda avey 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.080 Iguanda Duran who's thirty nine, Emmitt Jacobs who was eleven, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.560 and Jennifer Jacobs who was thirty nine years old. So 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.399 I guess I'll start with Garrison. How have you been 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.000 processing and or tracking the story since it happened. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:54.560 Yeah, pretty horrifying incident that happened last Tuesday. Very soon 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.640 after it happened, there was like right wing narratives trying 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.160 to use the deaths of these children and family members 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.960 for their own political agenda, and I started tracking that 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.800 pretty soon, and then also trying to verify as much 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.639 information about the actual circumstances of the shooting and who 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.960 the shooter was, you know, around that same time. Things 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.160 have gotten pretty clear now a few days later, but 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.120 I mean, it's been a nightmare to sort through all 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.040 this stuff, especially all of like the political opportunism being 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.919 done by a variety of right wing influencers and you know, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.000 quote unquote news agencies. 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:34.720 Yeah. 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:36.760 I was doing the same thing, like right after the 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.800 event happened. I noticed that there was a lot of 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.000 for people who don't know, right wing online operatives like 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.560 the plub Reporter and Tuno News and cat Canada and 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.680 these are all very popular right wing social media accounts 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.680 on Twitter in Canada or at least based in Canada 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.400 for their origins, but then they usually get retweeted, quote 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.040 tweeted and amplified eventually by the far right in the 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.280 which has a very corrosive effect. And I think but 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.000 like by the time we're talking about this right now, 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.920 I saw that like Donald Trump Junior, the son of 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.600 the presidents of the United States, is doing an entire 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.119 I assume, blowed out of his mind rumble special on 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.560 the shooting just uniquely going after trans people the entire time. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.120 For a small little. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.360 Town of what like just over twenty four hundred people, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.240 it has to be beyond like a shell shock to 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.720 first have to go through something that's horrifying and then 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.400 deal with the international right wing apparatus. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.840 Yeah, and they're going through the motions right like, this 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.160 is not the first time, it won't be the last 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.600 time that they try to do something like this. It's 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.000 not getting as much traction I think as it used to. 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.000 There's a lot of other stuff happening in the States 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.760 around the time. Like news was breaking in the States 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.640 about the shooting that happened, it was Wednesday during Pam 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.280 Bondi's Epstein hearing. So there's been a lot of other 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.799 stuff happening, So I don't think they've gotten as much 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.880 like concentrated attention on this as some of the online 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:04.640 right has like wanted to, or you know, like the 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.040 Matt Walsh types, lips of tech talk that sort of thing. 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.840 But they're definitely giving it a go. It's gross, right, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:12.880 It's it's gross to use the deaths of all these people. 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.839 Yeah, absolutely, not to mention the way the entire thing's 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:20.240 been framed is abhorrent. I mean, obviously, you know, we're 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.320 speaking from a perspective where we don't want to vilify 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.880 an entire group based on one like, you know, horrifying 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.520 monster's actions kind of thing, right, because that doesn't happen 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.159 in the other direction for cist people. And that's what 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:33.719 you gotta be quick to point out. But I feel 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.960 like the Matt Walshes and the libs of TikTok have 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.279 and it's a horrifying thing to say, but like they're 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.640 perfect narrative, right. It's it's kind of like a twisted 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.120 way something that're actually quite pleased about. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.159 It almost seems like, yeah, they make a lot of 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:49.640 money off this. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:51.400 Yes, yeah, exactly. 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.960 They've profit off of human suffering and they try to 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:55.320 spread as much of it as possible. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.719 The first aspect I was trying to look at the 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.760 story from was what it was early, What are the 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.320 families themselves asking for? What does the you know, town 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:06.960 need long terms of support, that kind of stuff? Can 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:08.960 you move on from that? And then immediately it was well, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.880 now there's just an overwhelming, very apparent right wing mechanism 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:15.680 gearing up, and it's going to be kind of devastating 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.479 for a country like Canada that doesn't really have maybe 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.520 or isn't as used to having the eyes of the 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.960 world from the transphobic, you know, turf side of the internet. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:25.400 Yeah. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.719 I want to talk a little bit about Jennifer Strang, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:34.760 the mother of the shooter. Despite being a self described 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.240 you know, conservative libertarian, Jesse's mother publicly supported her transition 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.000 made posts in supported trans people. In July twenty twenty four, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.560 she shared a LGBTQ pride graphic reading good people don't 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.920 spend their time harassing marginalized communities and wrote quote as 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.320 a conservative leaning libertarian who lives in the North and 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.279 loves living in a small town. I really hope the 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.760 hate I see online is just bored old people and 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.760 not true hatred. Do better and educate yourself before spewing 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:04.560 bullshit online makes you look dumb evolve. I normally don't 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.240 say anything. I normally don't go on shit book to 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.160 see the keyboard warriors. And I know I can't control 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.000 or shield my kids from everything, but please, for the 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.720 love of fuck, can you get your shit together so 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:15.920 we don't have to bring our kids up in a 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.080 world full of hatred. Do you have any idea how 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:20.280 many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate? 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.520 Please stop the bullshitunquote. So pretty soon after the shooting, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.960 based on an early active shooter report describing the shooter 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.240 as a quote unquote female in address with brown hair, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.920 online right wing accounts started trying to identify who this 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.600 possible shooter was by looking at trans people in the 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.680 area of Tumbler Ridge. They misidentified one person who is 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.360 a relative of this shooter, but put out photographs of 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.240 them claiming that she was the shooter. This person is 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.160 now having to like lock down all of their accounts 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.720 and is scared to go outside do the horrific wave 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:57.840 of harassment they're facing. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.760 What is wild about that? 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.320 As the story is, I've seen accounts like the Blood 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.880 Reporter who popularized, you know, publishing that photo, but I 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.440 think Rachel Gilmore is the one who also pointed out 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.080 that there was the misuse of a photo in an 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.720 actual CBC Radio broadcast image thumbnail as well, which is 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.040 also kind of just shocking to hear because these are 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.080 again innocent people who might have targets now put on 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.200 their back because they're being directly identified as some kind 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.480 of a mass shooter or monster. And then in addition 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.440 to that, like now, I'm wondering how much of this 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.800 is going to be something that they're capable of containing, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.560 especially considering that it's been still proliferated. Like I saw 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.280 an account called bricks News, which I assumed would be 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.560 about bricks, you know, the economic lines between a number 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.440 of different nations, and instead was publishing the false photo 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.640 of again a completely innocent person and sad like I 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.960 think at the time, seventeen thousand likes, you know, hundreds 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.640 of thousands of impressions. It's really dangerous. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.480 I mean, yeah, I mean that's part of the intent here. 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.280 You know, places like kibiforms, Trailblazer a lot of this 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.280 quote unquote early research, and the point is to cast 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.480 as large of it as possible to damage as many 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:09.000 trans people as they can using horrific events like this. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.640 The cruelty is part of part of the point, and 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.720 you know, blame gets laid at a you know, a 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:20.320 combination of trends enabled mental delusion SSR rise and hormones, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.520 saying that those things are causing the shooting, well before 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.720 we have any evidence to determine what types of medications 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.840 someone could be on who they actually are, or any 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.840 possible motive. One kind of crude thing that I've seen 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.040 a lot is right wing accounts like you know, end wokeness, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.240 allegedly Jack Posovic saying that you know, the shooter qute 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.960 unquote gunned down thirty five kids to make it seem like, 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.040 you know, massacre of such a such a large magnitude, 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.599 right The number of kids that have been killed and 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.840 other other people as well obviously is like horrific. Thirty 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.679 five people were not shot in this shooting, though there 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.559 was twenty five people with non gunshot related injuries as 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.079 a result of the incident, and that is the number 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.839 that that people are framing as being you know, total 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.400 number of people shaw, which just isn't true. And then 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.040 they also very quickly start sharing you know, unsourced graphs. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.280 I'm sure you've seen stuff like this, right, saying that 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.760 you know, trans girls make up the highest demographic of 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.600 mass shooters per capita. You see these things go all 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:20.600 over the place. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.079 By the world's richest man. He's he's sharing that a 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:24.120 lot online right now. 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:26.600 Yeah, I mean, and this is this has been a 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.640 thing the past three years, right, this is something they've 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.880 been doing well before any any actual incident can be 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.959 even used to create data. They've they've created fake graphs 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.720 that show this. There's factors that get people to you know, 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:41.840 believe these sorts of things, right. There is certainly a 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.240 selection bias that determines which types of shootings gets like 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.079 a lot of media attention. And the other issue that 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.760 I've talked about a lot in previous shootings is there's 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.880 a lot of different definitions of a mass shooting, you know, 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.920 mass shooting versus a mass killing versus like a school shooting. Right, 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.520 all these are different terms. Even the term school shooting 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.040 can be used to refer to a variety of very 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.160 different incidents revolving around gun violence. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:07.400 Right. 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.319 There could be gang related violence at a school. There 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.400 could be shots fired as an escalation of a physical fight. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.680 Students bringing guns to school and accidentally firing them, which 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:18.959 happens more often than what you would think, like as 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.320 someone who just brings the gun in their backpack, not 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.200 intending to do a shooting, but it accidentally fires it 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.000 into school. This happens multiple times a year. There's you 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.719 know shootings there dormitories, right, those get counted as mass 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.920 shootings at like you know, a college dormitory. It's interpersonal violence. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.679 There's you know, neighborhood shooting set effect, but aren't targeting 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.520 the school like drive by shootings or even something like 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.719 the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which some people have categorized 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.559 as a school shooting because was on a college campus. Right. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.080 But these are all very different types of violence, right. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.000 These aren't like you know, intentional you know, mass shooting 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.280 violence where someone who's trying to shoot as many people 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.000 as possible and then usually kill themselves. 0:11:59.080 --> 0:11:59.240 Right. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.559 That's that's it's a different thing than a lot of 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.640 these other other things that I mentioned, But they all 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:05.920 get lumped under this one label of school shooting, and 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.120 all these different you know, data collection criteria could produce 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.800 very different stats. And depending whether you're measuring your injuries 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.880 versus deaths, you know, specific weapons like knives versus guns, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.720 and how many years are being sampled, or if there's 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.480 connections to other violent activity, there could be very very 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:23.920 different results in how you categorize, you know, mass killings 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.320 or mass shootings. The Mass Killing Database has six hundred 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.199 and thirty one incidents in the United States since two 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.319 thousand and six, of which about one to three gets 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.240 kind of unclear. One to three are done by people 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.120 who have been reported as transgender, which is an under 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.360 represented ample size. The Violence Project has one transgender mass 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.480 shooter in their database of about one hundred and ninety 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.439 five mass shootings, and according to the Gun Violence Archive, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.600 which also measures gunshot injuries not just deaths, fewer than 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.120 one in one thousand mass shooters over the past decade 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.280 have been identified as transgender. According to a Gallop poll 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.840 for twenty twenty three, about two percent of gen Z 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.240 identify as transgender, and if you also count like non 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.000 binary people, it brings it up to four percent. But 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.079 you can have all those stats on hand, if that 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.120 doesn't really do very much. Once you're arguing about statistics 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.880 and like semantics of terms, when kids have died, you're 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.760 kind of already starting to lose the emotional battle, right, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.640 Like I can say all of that, but like that's 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.360 not actually going to be helpful, right, Like fact checking 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.280 doesn't work to dissuade disinformation, And when you're dealing with 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.360 such an emotionally charge incident like kids being murdered, having 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.280 to read off a paragraph like that just doesn't really help. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:36.559 Right. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.880 Parents just want to know why this is happening and 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.400 what can be un to stop it. And all they 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.199 know is that, you know, since twenty twenty three, there 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.640 has been a series of shootings done by young people 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.480 who either attempted to or did transition genders. Right, That's 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.360 what they know, and they want to know, you know, 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.280 why this is happening and how to stop it. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:55.240 Yeah. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.160 One of the things that I've tried to push up against, 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.280 because you are getting a lot of Americans who are 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.640 pushing that narrative right now, is to point out, because 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.880 I've seen people saying, like this epidemic of trans mass 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.200 violence is a scorge and I think they're blending Canada 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.080 in the US into one nation because I was like, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.760 just to be clear, this is the first mass shooting 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.520 committed by a transperson in Canadian history ever. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.240 And there's a lot of trans people in British Columbia. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.920 Yeah, well across the country. I mean it's one of 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:24.800 those things for him like this, this is not an 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.680 epidemic of which like, oh my god, you have a 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.960 high probability of being hurt by a transperson in your life. 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.840 It couldn't be further from the truth, right, Like the 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.720 stats are still overwhelmingly in the other direction. You're more 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.680 likely to be the victim of physical or sexual violence 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.360 if you're transperson then if you're this person. 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.000 Yeah, no, that is another problem here is Yeah, a 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.280 lot of these you know, data collection tools aren't counting 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.000 balancing Canada. These are all stuff based into states. But 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.360 for you know, the culture war, it's not that hard 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.080 to you know, move that border up five hundred miles 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.640 to include things that are happening in Canada in a 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.560 rhetorical sense, for you know, your Matt Walsh's wokenesses, even 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:14.760 you know your Fox News anchors, right, yeah, this thing 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:16.880 that people are talking about on the right about this, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.560 you know, epidemic of trans violence. What this is also 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:24.160 done is created like a counter reaction from trans influencers 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.480 to whenever something horrible happens like this, to blame these 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.240 other groups like you know nine A or seven six four. Right, 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.600 this has become something that's also now been very consistent. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:35.640 You know, there is a kernel of truth in this. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.640 This is based on a real thing that has happened before, 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.720 but the invocation of this has often you know, expanded 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.800 greatly beyond it's actual Like, can you explain. 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.800 It for people who are completely unfamiliar because I remember, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.400 like even the year ago, I had just started reading 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.760 up I like, what is what is all this satanic 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.360 cult rituals with participation requirements of self harm and all 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:56.120 this stuff. 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.200 Like Okay, yeah, you see a lot of people now 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.720 when there's new coverage, you know, a lot of trans 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.200 people who have you know, accounts online, you know, talking 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.800 about how quote unquote satanic nazi pedophiles have groomed another 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.120 vulnerable queer kid into doing a mass shooting. There's a 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.840 viral tweet on semi viral tweet on Twitter right now 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.160 that reads, quote fuck anyone talking about trends and not 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.360 to Adam Waffin, this includes the cops and the media 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.400 like the CBC and BBC unquote. So yeah, what are 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.640 they talking about here? You know, Adam Waffin Satanic Nazi 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.440 pedophile cults. I said, you know nine A seven six 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.520 four right, these are originally you know, Ninea is this 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.960 older group, but as as contemporary Internet lore, it is 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:46.160 seen as this neo Nazi occultic organization that grooms people 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:51.160 into sexual exploitation or into doing violence like mass shootings. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.320 Seven six four is a extortion ring that operated mainly 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.680 on Telegram and Discord, which tried to get kids to 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.280 do self harm produce. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.400 Black mail room. Since is that true? 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.639 Yeah, they're active across a lot of places, but like 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.440 the organizing hubs were on Discord and Telegram and they 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.280 you know, attempted to get childs a tripbuse material out 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.080 of these kids and then use that to blackmail them 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.680 to get even more material than also encouraging self harm 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.040 and acts of violence. These have been real groups historically. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.720 They are getting cracked down upon pretty heavily, at least 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.760 in seven six four's case. Oh nine is not really 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.280 a real group anymore. Arguably, but it exists as like lore, 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.600 and there has been no instances of A seven six 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.800 four affiliated people doing public acts of violence. So in 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.320 this case there's been people who have you know, trans 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.720 people online or you know allies who have have said 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.040 that this shooting is another one of these instances where 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.040 these online groups of you know, Nazis and pedophiles have 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.959 you know, groomed someone into doing violence, and they have 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.080 produced some evidence for this. There was a Twitter account 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.080 that allegedly belonged to the shooter that had a profile 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.159 picture of a son and rat on top of a transflag, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.720 as well as the face of the christ Church shooter. 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.639 This account had posts glorifying white supremacist mass killers and 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.639 promoting the idea of creating a white homeland in the 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.160 Pacific Northwest. This was a Canada based account, but in 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:20.639 reality this was actually just another Nazis account who changed 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.119 their user name to match that of the Tumblr Ridge shooter. 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.600 And this was an attempt to troll people and just 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:32.000 spread disinformation, and this even fooled the ADL, whose research 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.720 standards have dropped dramatically the past three years. But a 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.880 few days ago, the ADL put out an article where 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.679 They credited posts made by this Twitter account to the 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.960 tumblr ridg shooter and claimed that a quote unquote preliminary 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:48.320 investigation showed that the shooter had showed interest in white supremacy. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.000 But this was not their real account. This was just 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.560 someone who also is a fan of mass shootings like 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.440 the shooter was, as we'll soon discuss, But this was 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.439 someone who was just trying to troll other other you know, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.159 researchers on Twitter and see how far their disinformation can spread. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.919 This is the consequence of an organization like the ADEL 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.920 doing preliminary research based on Kiwi of arms posts and 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:13.760 not actually verifying the information. 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.240 I mean, the fact that I think they're actively pursuing 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.280 Hassan Piker more than Elon Musk is pretty much all 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.640 I need to know in terms of where where they're prioritizing, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:25.400 you know, the search for racism. 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:26.520 Yeah, I can. 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.480 Get into the actual like online footprint of the shooter, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.560 which we we do have a decent idea of actually. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:34.480 Before you get to that, because I think that's what 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.000 everyone is kind of interested in. I just want to 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.280 wrap up that last part, so just to be clear, 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.879 when you were mentioning those groups, you know, seven six four, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:46.080 et cetera. There is no actual history of the shooter 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:51.199 having been into the Nazi the occults that kind of stuff. 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.719 Based on their presence, they have not been active in 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.840 like specific seven six four communities or have showed interest 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.280 in like you know, white prea to see neo Nazism 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.520 or you know, the the occult pedophile Nazism of O. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.119 Nine A. This is not observable in the online for 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:11.840 print that they have left, which is which is not 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.000 to say the online foot print they have left is 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.280 you know, normal and good. If anything, it does point towards, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.640 you know, significant factors that are causing kids to do 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.040 shootings like this, and we can trace it to a 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.240 number of shootings that have happened. But the O nine 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.679 A seven six four thing is more so like a 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:32.960 meme at this point that people similarly deploy the same 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.080 way that you know, the right deploys, you know, this 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.679 epidemic of trans violence. This has to become like a 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.200 counter meme to say that every time a trans person 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.560 does something bad, it's actually the fault of nine A 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:43.160 seven six. 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.720 Four, right, because there has been incidences in the past 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:47.520 that can point. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.600 Towards that, Yeah, there could be there could be suggestions 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:52.920 in the past, and and certainly when seven six four 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.600 was more active years ago. I mean a lot of 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.480 the kids they were grooming for child sexual abuse material 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.520 were all a lot of queer kits because those kids 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.800 are uniquely vulnerable and are looking for community. But I 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.640 mean that is the majority of kids affected by seven 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.120 six four are people who have been groomed into self 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.960 harm or producing a child techtropies material to circulate among 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.159 like the organizers of these of these groups. 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.160 So it turns out that there isn't really a connection 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.040 in those two directions. You're correct in putting out there. 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.080 There's a counter push like I did the same thing 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.160 with Charlie Kirk, right like I remember when the first 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:29.840 image of the Charlie Kirk shooter being in a crouper 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.760 hitba the frog style jumper. I was like, oh, this 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:34.840 has to be a grouper, right like this immediately where 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:36.959 my brain went because they do have a history of 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.040 targeting that community. So you know, you can understand why 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:40.800 there's a pushback. 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:43.960 Yeah, And I think people feel like they understand ideological 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.080 violence easier, like like violence caused by political ideology, and 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.800 are uncomfortable with the increasing amount of horrific public violence 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.040 that is seemingly linked to no political ideology. It's much 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.840 more like like nihilistic and scattershot, and that's like a 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.640 comfortable it's harder to understand like the causal forces producing 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:07.600 that rather than just saying, you know, oh, it's another Nazi, right, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.199 that's easy and at this point sadly easy thing for 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.680 people to understand because of you know, a very high 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:15.560 number of neo Nazi mass shootings that happened in the 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.200 past ten years. But it is not twenty seventeen anymore, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.800 and the circumstances that are inducing shootings like this have 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:24.359 have changed. 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:26.479 Can you talk about that, because, like you said, it's 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.520 a conversation that people don't want to have. Is it 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.880 because we are uncomfortable with the conversation itself or because 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.640 there's not enough information available yet to truly understand what 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.439 is leading these super online shooters slash nihilistic you know, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:41.919 deep in the memes style stuff. 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:44.440 Yeah, I think a mix of both. It is both 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.280 an emerging phenomenon so that people have to observe it 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.159 for a certain amount of time to see the pattern, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.720 and then also it's it's uncomfortable and it sucks. It 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:54.439 sucks to be in these places and like and like, 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:56.359 look at all this stuff, right Like I've been the 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:58.400 past few days, have been looking at you know, these 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.320 horrible forum posts and reading about all kinds of like 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.040 you know, bad stuff, and it sucks and no one 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.000 wants to do that. So I think it's a mix 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.080 of factors. But uh yeah, I do want to talk 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:12.040 about that. That's the kind of the I've kind of 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.480 like two sections that get into that, the first one 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.480 based on her actual online footprint, the second one on 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.480 more like you know, basic societal forces. I think is 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:24.439 getting people to go so far to the social like 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.359 margins that pushes them to places like where the shooter 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:32.840 hung out online. So in twenty twenty one, Jesse's mom 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.959 shared a link to her kids YouTube channel where quote 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.320 he posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:44.399 likes to do on quote. This YouTube account shared the 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.399 user name as Jesse's Reddit account. The earliest posts from 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:51.760 twenty nineteen were about like roadblocks gaming. Then in twenty 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.080 twenty one, Jesse started posting about firearms and shared a 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.159 photo of her Chinese sks, which is kind of like 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:01.160 an a case forty seven style gun, which she used 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.200 for hunting. Around twenty twenty three, she started posting about 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:10.120 quote unquote, starting MTF transitions soon and as well as 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:13.439 her phobia of needles. The police say that she started 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.719 transitioning before this, but the early syndication we have from 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:20.080 her online activity plus this around twenty twenty three. On 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:22.959 other posts on our slash Trends, she asked for advice 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:26.520 on girl's clothing, what to expect from HRT, and talked 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:31.159 about body dysmorphia. Her very last gender related post on 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:35.240 Reddit still refers to herself as pre HRT. Jesse made 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.440 a single post on our slash trans Guns in October 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:40.919 twenty twenty three, sharing a video of her firing a 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:44.280 Desert eagle handgun at a shooting range. At this point, 0:24:44.400 --> 0:24:46.959 around like the end of twenty twenty three, almost all 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:51.200 of her posts switch to being about psychedelic drug abuse, 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.040 asking how to vape or smoke weed without leaving a 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:58.440 smell in the house, being scammed by an online psychedelic 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:01.119 seller in Canada, and and asking if you can get 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:04.000 high off drinking the urine from a drug addict, and 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:06.560 asked on Reddit if it's safe to do five neo 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:11.680 DMT alone after she returned from the quote unquote psych ward. 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:15.520 She was admitted to a psychiatric facility after attempting to 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.280 burn down her home with account of aerosol while on 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:21.560 three grams of mushrooms. Jesse also said that she was 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:26.760 diagnosed with ADHD, autism, major depressive disorder, and OCD, and 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:29.239 it was prescribed a mix of different SSRIs, as well 0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:33.800 as an antipsychotic for sleep. In one comment on one 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:37.320 of her multiple Reddit posts asking about trying five MEODMT 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.840 after being arrested for arsen she wrote, quote, it is 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:44.359 a wonder I'm still alive yet I am speaks volumes, 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:46.440 But how much I've been trying to keep breathing when 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:51.000 all my effort goes towards keeping alive unquote. Her Reddit 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:54.879 activity drops off in April of twenty twenty four. This 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:57.000 could mean that she just stop using Reddit around then, 0:25:57.160 --> 0:25:59.080 or that she has deleted a whole bunch of posts. 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:01.879 She did scrub some of her online activity prior to 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:02.440 the shooting. 0:26:03.080 --> 0:26:03.320 Now. 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:05.680 In the aftermath of the shooting, the police have said 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:08.359 that they made multiple mental health related visits to the 0:26:08.359 --> 0:26:11.439 shooter's home the past few years and had previously confiscated 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:13.679 guns from the home, but the owner of the guns 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:17.439 it's unclear who exactly successfully petitioned for their return, and 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:21.280 Jesse did have a miner's firearms license, but that expired 0:26:21.280 --> 0:26:24.960 in twenty twenty four. It's unclear if the guns that 0:26:24.960 --> 0:26:27.560 were confiscated with the same ones used in the shooting. 0:26:28.119 --> 0:26:31.520 Jesse has posted a number of different photos of guns, 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:34.119 and we still don't know which exact ones were used. 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:35.639 We just know that there was a long gun and 0:26:35.680 --> 0:26:40.160 a handgun recovered. So though the shooters like Reddit activity 0:26:40.800 --> 0:26:45.359 ceases in early twenty twenty four, her online presence moved 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:49.720 to darker corners of the Internet, which demonstrate a declining 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:53.520 mental well being and a growing fascination with mass shootings. 0:26:54.200 --> 0:26:57.720 The past year, Jesse was active on an Internet form 0:26:57.800 --> 0:27:01.080 called Watch People Die, which is pretty much what it 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:04.360 sounds like. It's the website to host footage of real 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:04.920 life gore. 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:06.359 Yeah, it was like, is that what it sounds like? 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:06.840 It is? 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:10.320 Okay, right, you know, like snuff like real gore is 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:12.879 hosted there and shared, as well as a lot of 0:27:12.920 --> 0:27:15.760 you know, like edits of mass shooter footage of people 0:27:15.800 --> 0:27:19.560 filming themselves doing mass shootings that then circulates This forum 0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:24.600 is is way more of like a social orbit around 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:27.800 this recent wave of mass shootings than seven six four is. 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:30.679 And you know, there is there is some crossover, you know, 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:32.679 there is some seven six for people who are also 0:27:33.160 --> 0:27:35.320 you know, active on this form, people who used to 0:27:35.359 --> 0:27:37.560 be seven and six four, because that group is also 0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:40.040 you know, not really what it used to be, but 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.840 this form is its own thing rather than being linked 0:27:43.880 --> 0:27:46.560 to you know, explicit Nazi groups, you know, the occultic 0:27:46.800 --> 0:27:49.440 O nine A or the child's exploitation rings like seven 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:52.840 six four. That the shooter is verifiable online footprint suggests 0:27:53.320 --> 0:27:56.480 much more of a nexus of involvement with what I've 0:27:56.480 --> 0:27:59.879 been calling the school shooter fandom. They call it tease 0:28:00.520 --> 0:28:03.520 or the true crime community. And in the past two 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:07.000 years we've seen an increase in shootings based on this, 0:28:07.200 --> 0:28:10.879 like Neo columnbiner variety Right people doing copied cats of 0:28:10.880 --> 0:28:14.600 other school shootings. The Abundant Life Christian school shooting in 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:18.960 December twenty twenty four by Columbine caused player Natalie simitha Upnow, 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:22.920 who the Right falsely labeled as trans. There was also 0:28:23.000 --> 0:28:25.199 the Catholic school shooting in August twenty twenty five by 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:28.280 Robin Westman, who did at one point attempt gender transition 0:28:28.400 --> 0:28:32.000 but later regretted it and originally planned to attack an 0:28:32.040 --> 0:28:36.520 LGBTQ music venue. Westman was similarly obsessed with mass killers 0:28:36.800 --> 0:28:39.440 and wrote the name of Repnow on one of their rifles. 0:28:40.120 --> 0:28:42.760 Last April, a twenty two year old man in Florida 0:28:42.800 --> 0:28:45.200 was arrested for threatening to commit a mass shooting on Discord. 0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:47.880 The FBI believes that he was in communication with Samantha 0:28:47.920 --> 0:28:51.680 Repnow prior to her shooting, and they both discussed with 0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:56.160 each other plans for their mass killing attacks. In September 0:28:56.200 --> 0:28:59.480 twenty twenty five, a sixteen year old named Desmond Holly 0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:03.160 two kids before killing himself at Evergreen High School in Colorado. 0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:07.840 He also idolized Samantha Rupdown, replicated her selfies, and was 0:29:07.880 --> 0:29:10.960 active on the same forum Watch People Die that rep 0:29:10.960 --> 0:29:14.360 Noow herself was active on, so Jesse was on this form, 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:18.960 but Jesse also displayed other traits similar of the TCC group. 0:29:19.600 --> 0:29:23.280 Jesse created a mass shooting simulator game on Rodblocks, which 0:29:23.360 --> 0:29:25.600 was set in a mall where you act out a 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:28.760 shooting and killing people in the mall. I'll talk a 0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:31.280 little bit about this this forum specifically now right like, 0:29:31.520 --> 0:29:36.360 this forum essentially exists to desensitize people to extremely violent 0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:41.640 content that glorifies mass killings. Jesse's very first comment on 0:29:41.760 --> 0:29:44.480 Watch People Die was on a compilation video of mass 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:48.160 shooter footage, and she wrote quote, I appreciate this post. 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:52.080 She also commented on another thread of mass shooting footage quote, 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:55.960 I love these first person perspective type videos. When a 0:29:56.000 --> 0:30:02.760 shooter records his or her own actions, it's always the 0:30:02.800 --> 0:30:07.160 most worrying. Comment is something that you know, if police 0:30:07.200 --> 0:30:10.320 were aware of, should have should have been cause to 0:30:10.960 --> 0:30:14.520 prevent this from happening. Came about five months ago. In 0:30:14.560 --> 0:30:17.600 a thread on Watch People Die about the psychology of 0:30:17.680 --> 0:30:22.520 watching Gore, she wrote quote, I find it addictive. It's 0:30:22.560 --> 0:30:26.120 hard not to watch violent content. I'm just drawn to it. 0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:29.600 I don't think much of it, though to say it 0:30:29.680 --> 0:30:33.520 doesn't affect me is likely naive. I'm sure maybe subconsciously 0:30:33.560 --> 0:30:36.520 it does. It just doesn't feel like a big deal. 0:30:36.960 --> 0:30:39.440 I'm drawn to substances too. It's easy to get high 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:42.040 and just to zone out into videos of this stuff. 0:30:42.560 --> 0:30:46.800 Does it impact my mental health? Eh? Mine's probably already fucked. 0:30:47.280 --> 0:30:49.080 I tried to stay away from watching this type of 0:30:49.120 --> 0:30:51.880 thing before because it really sucks me in and it's 0:30:51.920 --> 0:30:55.360 a massive useless time dump, but I never really saw 0:30:55.400 --> 0:30:58.840 any benefit. I think the r words in the comment 0:30:58.920 --> 0:31:01.880 section are more father some mentally than the videos, so 0:31:02.080 --> 0:31:06.600 I try just not interact with dorks x D. And 0:31:06.720 --> 0:31:09.680 these sorts of these types of sentiments are not, like 0:31:09.800 --> 0:31:12.960 uncommon among people who regularly engage with this type of content. 0:31:13.600 --> 0:31:15.440 I think it's an inevidual thing to ask you. 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:17.360 But at this point, it almost seems as if like 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:22.120 the two biggest things that are often blamed for mass 0:31:22.120 --> 0:31:23.680 shooting that I have to push up against and I 0:31:23.680 --> 0:31:26.880 have been due to my whole life drugs and in 0:31:26.920 --> 0:31:31.440 the other case, hyper online radicalization. Right, the history that 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:33.400 you're painting here kind of seems like someone who needed 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:35.440 a variety of health. 0:31:36.560 --> 0:31:40.120 I'll reiterate that in like a sec Okay, yeah, I mean, 0:31:40.160 --> 0:31:42.960 as I was reading this, this reminded me a little bit. 0:31:43.040 --> 0:31:44.880 There was a shooting a few years ago at a 0:31:44.920 --> 0:31:48.400 Fourth of July parade, the Highland Park mass shooting. The 0:31:48.480 --> 0:31:51.280 sort of like writing that Jesse did in his post. 0:31:51.400 --> 0:31:53.760 It reminds me of a bit of the writing done 0:31:53.800 --> 0:31:55.720 by this this this other mass shooter to talk about 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:59.040 like getting like sucked into like like violent content or 0:31:59.240 --> 0:32:02.239 this like this idea of like it like beckons you 0:32:02.320 --> 0:32:05.240 further into the concept. It's like almost like hypnotic. Very 0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:10.400 similar writing done by this other other shooter. So one 0:32:10.440 --> 0:32:13.360 other post I'll reference that she made on this forum 0:32:14.360 --> 0:32:18.200 was a video of a father hanging himself in front 0:32:18.200 --> 0:32:22.720 of his children, and she claimed that her stepdad attempted 0:32:22.760 --> 0:32:25.520 the same thing, trying to kill himself in front of 0:32:25.560 --> 0:32:27.360 her when you know, she was just a little kid, 0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:30.880 and she wrote, quote, I wish his bitch ass would 0:32:30.920 --> 0:32:34.360 have died on the noose then, and there probably better 0:32:34.440 --> 0:32:38.120 than beating your kids unquote. So obviously, you know this 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:43.000 person had like long standing issues that at certain points 0:32:43.040 --> 0:32:45.120 seems like better, right, Like around twenty twenty one, they 0:32:45.120 --> 0:32:47.400 seemed to be doing better, right they were they were 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:50.480 making you know, YouTube content at about guns and hunting, 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:52.000 and felt like they had some more of like a 0:32:52.400 --> 0:32:55.040 had more of a stable social outlet. And then around 0:32:55.400 --> 0:32:58.719 twenty twenty three, with you know this this like abuse 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:02.560 of psychedelic drugs leading to this mass shooter obsession it's 0:33:02.600 --> 0:33:05.080 like a pretty a pretty clear picture of like a 0:33:05.120 --> 0:33:09.360 mental spiral. Two months before Jesse's own shooting, she did 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:14.440 visit the Watch People Die profile for Samantha Ruppnow, and 0:33:14.640 --> 0:33:16.600 if we're going to talk about like a causal factors, right, 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:19.920 and especially like in reference to you know this this 0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:21.680 this idea that you know, parents have where you know 0:33:21.720 --> 0:33:25.040 there there has been a sequence of trans people doing shootings. 0:33:25.160 --> 0:33:27.880 You can argue about you know, the per capita percent 0:33:28.000 --> 0:33:30.280 rates or like stats again, but that doesn't go so far. 0:33:30.800 --> 0:33:32.440 But at a certain point, I mean, we have to 0:33:32.520 --> 0:33:35.440 all be comfortable or maybe comfortable is the wrong word, 0:33:35.480 --> 0:33:36.920 but we have to like, you know, realize that like, 0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:40.480 as more people, you know, transition right genders, is not 0:33:40.560 --> 0:33:44.160 this like immutable thing. As more people attempt transitioning, there's 0:33:44.200 --> 0:33:46.920 gonna be some trans people who do bad things. This 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:48.760 happens with every social. 0:33:48.480 --> 0:33:49.120 Group of people. 0:33:49.880 --> 0:33:54.160 To borrow from sociologist Mark Worrel, who wrote about the 0:33:54.160 --> 0:33:59.360 social phenomenon of mass shootings, like destruction of others is 0:33:59.400 --> 0:34:03.240 the means towards another end, the desire for self destruction 0:34:03.760 --> 0:34:07.880 that the self was incapable of inflicting in isolation. A 0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:11.720 lot of the mass shootings and with suicide or trying 0:34:11.760 --> 0:34:14.400 to get the police to kill you through through suicide, 0:34:14.400 --> 0:34:17.839 like like the public shootings like this have a very 0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:21.399 strong suicidal component, and some people might not be able 0:34:21.440 --> 0:34:23.000 to do that themselves, so they need to create a 0:34:23.040 --> 0:34:25.920 social context in which they feel like they can. And 0:34:26.200 --> 0:34:27.920 at least in terms of the States and to a 0:34:27.960 --> 0:34:31.319 smaller degree in Canada, like these shootings like exist as 0:34:31.360 --> 0:34:35.640 like this like cultural ritual, this like ritual of destruction 0:34:35.760 --> 0:34:39.360 of the self, and destruction of the self can include 0:34:39.440 --> 0:34:42.360 the social apparatus that makes up the self. And for 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:44.840 like a young person, that's what that's that's their family 0:34:44.880 --> 0:34:47.560 in school, the two things that were targeted in this shooting. Right, 0:34:47.600 --> 0:34:50.120 this this network that makes up like my sense of 0:34:50.120 --> 0:34:52.440 self as a seventeen year old, eighteen year old, that's 0:34:52.440 --> 0:34:54.880 going to be my family, which is you know, uh 0:34:55.160 --> 0:34:58.160 for Jesse, that's that's her mom. She's been separated from 0:34:58.200 --> 0:35:01.080 her father for a while as well as her stepbrother. 0:35:01.800 --> 0:35:04.319 And then also this school that she used to used 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:07.240 to go to. Right, that's the sort of that's the 0:35:07.280 --> 0:35:10.279 network that makes up your idea of this social and 0:35:11.080 --> 0:35:13.760 like I said before, like as the trans community, grows, 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:18.520 there's gonna be some overlap between antisocial you know, mentally 0:35:18.680 --> 0:35:22.560 unwell individuals who act out a mass killing as a suicide, 0:35:23.200 --> 0:35:27.920 and disintegrated and socially underregulated people who try transitioning as 0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:31.560 a way to ease tensions, both internally and externally. And 0:35:31.600 --> 0:35:34.319 if anything, I think transitioning can often be maybe one 0:35:34.360 --> 0:35:36.640 of the healthiest ways to attempt to relieve some of 0:35:36.640 --> 0:35:41.960 these tensions. But like being trans is like a marginal 0:35:42.040 --> 0:35:46.279 position in society, right, and the people who commit school 0:35:46.320 --> 0:35:49.799 shootings and suicide through mass shootings are at like the 0:35:49.960 --> 0:35:55.200 very very extreme end of social dysregulation and like marginal isolation, 0:35:56.000 --> 0:36:00.000 and some people in those latter categories will also try 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:04.200 transitioning as a method of social regulation. And in Jesse's case, 0:36:04.400 --> 0:36:06.920 like considering all their posts about like mental health and drugs, 0:36:07.200 --> 0:36:11.240 never once is being trans cited as like a point 0:36:11.280 --> 0:36:13.399 of their distress, Like that's the thing that's causing them 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:15.680 the distress. It is it is a method of relief, 0:36:16.200 --> 0:36:18.680 at least according to like their own writing on Reddit, 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:20.839 like this the cause of the distress or all these 0:36:20.840 --> 0:36:24.480 are these other things, and like people can blame mass 0:36:24.480 --> 0:36:27.960 shootings or mass killings on like any number of specific factors, right, 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:32.320 such as access to weapons, whether that's knives, firearms, bullying, 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:36.600 substance abuse, mental health and lacking mental health services and 0:36:36.640 --> 0:36:40.440 like mental health oversight. But like the common base factor 0:36:40.760 --> 0:36:43.919 across you know, most of those things is that there's 0:36:43.960 --> 0:36:47.719 like social disintegration and deregulation happening. That that's like a 0:36:47.760 --> 0:36:51.560 failure to balance like egoism and altruism, right, like a 0:36:51.600 --> 0:36:54.600 healthy individual sense of self as well as a place 0:36:54.640 --> 0:36:57.719 of belonging within a larger social group, and like we 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:01.759 need a mix of freedom and available structured paths for 0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:07.680 social life. Ritualistic outbursts of suicidal violence against society happen 0:37:07.880 --> 0:37:12.120 when these things are extremely unregulated and someone falls out 0:37:12.160 --> 0:37:14.920 of the social fabric. And like marginal classes like trans 0:37:14.960 --> 0:37:19.960 people can be particularly affected by social disintegration and deregulation. 0:37:20.600 --> 0:37:23.160 And like it's important to note here, like this isn't 0:37:23.520 --> 0:37:27.040 caused by some like vague medical condition like gender dysphoria, 0:37:27.080 --> 0:37:30.720 Like that that's not causing the violence, right, prescribed estrogen, 0:37:31.200 --> 0:37:34.160 it's not a causal forcedness. We don't even know if 0:37:34.600 --> 0:37:38.200 Robin Westman or or Jesse was even on estrogen. We 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:41.920 don't know, but these things aren't aren't causal, but you know, 0:37:42.239 --> 0:37:45.400 these are social positions that include you know, these larger 0:37:45.440 --> 0:37:48.960 social factors that affect large populations. One of those populations 0:37:48.960 --> 0:37:51.560 can be trans people. There's a lot of social disintegration 0:37:51.840 --> 0:37:53.759 that affects the cists men currently, they do a lot 0:37:53.760 --> 0:37:58.759 of shootings and yeah, the overwhelming majority. You can also 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:01.399 graph these things on class lines. Lots of people who 0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:04.920 go and do public shootings either themselves or their families 0:38:05.320 --> 0:38:08.759 are suffering from economic instability or or people in like 0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:11.399 the middle class as well, which it has this this 0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:14.920 this other problem in like Durkheim's med methodology of suicide, 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:16.480 which I'm kind of pulling from a little bit here, 0:38:16.760 --> 0:38:19.440 is like this thiss, this sense of like overregulation can 0:38:19.480 --> 0:38:23.200 also produce in unhealthy balance. So it's either you know, 0:38:23.320 --> 0:38:26.000 very overregulated people you know, like like Elon Musk has 0:38:26.120 --> 0:38:28.440 too much freedom, has too much too much like access 0:38:28.480 --> 0:38:30.440 to like money and possibilities, that he's then a very 0:38:30.480 --> 0:38:33.080 dysfunctional person. This can happen you know with some probably 0:38:33.080 --> 0:38:35.239 like you know, like middle class kids as well. Uh, 0:38:35.280 --> 0:38:37.840 that can produce violent outbursts. But a lot of the 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:40.480 time it's you know, lower middle class or lower class 0:38:40.480 --> 0:38:44.400 conditions that can lead to violence, and sometimes sometimes it 0:38:44.440 --> 0:38:46.759 does not go to the extreme of doing you know, 0:38:46.800 --> 0:38:49.040 a mass killing. It can often just result in like 0:38:49.040 --> 0:38:52.600 petty crime, which is do you arguably a more healthy 0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:55.640 method of regulation compared to something like a mass shooting, 0:38:55.640 --> 0:38:57.880 which is like, you know, the most desperate, the most marginal, 0:38:58.040 --> 0:39:08.040 like active suicide that we could like envision as a society. 0:39:11.560 --> 0:39:14.400 I just wanted to specifically say when it came to factors, 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:18.400 you're distinctly not saying that video games where we're in 0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:21.200 any way responsible, and then I know you're not, But 0:39:21.239 --> 0:39:23.360 I just like people should know that when you mentioned Roadblocks, 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:26.120 people like I had I think my mom and someone 0:39:26.160 --> 0:39:28.560 else asked like, oh, well, what's the storyline for Roadblocks? 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:30.600 And I was like, it's like asking what's the story 0:39:30.600 --> 0:39:33.640 for Minecraft? Right, I was like, yeah, I was like, 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:36.560 these these are world building. It's it's it's similar to 0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:40.680 seeing someone basically trying journal out their thoughts, right. I 0:39:40.680 --> 0:39:44.359 think in that she was building these these mass shooting simulators, 0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:48.359 that wasn't her being influenced I say, by some kind 0:39:48.360 --> 0:39:51.759 of like template that Roadblocks had. That was her showing yeah, 0:39:51.840 --> 0:39:53.680 creating something to express something else. 0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:56.080 Yeah, and and that sort of like like cause player 0:39:56.120 --> 0:39:59.440 replication very common among this you know growing community of 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:02.200 did the true crime community that the school shooter fandom, 0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:05.000 which which attracts a lot of people in marginal populations, right, 0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:07.440 Like the fact that Samantha Rupp now is like one 0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:10.360 of the first like you know, assists female school shooters, 0:40:10.400 --> 0:40:12.600 like is notable here and like a lot of like 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:16.720 the early like Columbine fandom on Tumblr was was young girls. 0:40:17.200 --> 0:40:19.520 The fact that TCC is attracting like a wider net 0:40:19.560 --> 0:40:23.160 than just cis males, I think is interesting, but it 0:40:23.200 --> 0:40:26.640 points to these other social forces. I think condensing it 0:40:26.680 --> 0:40:30.120 down to being like a certain mixture of SSRIs and 0:40:30.840 --> 0:40:32.200 HRT is what's causing this. 0:40:32.320 --> 0:40:34.279 Like there's psychedelics for that. 0:40:35.000 --> 0:40:37.040 Yeah, or psychedelics, right, I mean, like anything, these things 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:40.759 can exist within a healthy equilibrium, Right, Psychedelics can be 0:40:40.760 --> 0:40:42.200 a very healthy tool for people to deal with like 0:40:42.239 --> 0:40:47.160 mortality and yeah, no, absolutely right, you know, whether that's 0:40:47.200 --> 0:40:50.160 you know, MDMA, ketamine or like mushrooms, Like mushrooms are 0:40:50.160 --> 0:40:53.600 being used to treat people who have cancer, right, to 0:40:53.680 --> 0:40:55.719 help them get comfortable with with this idea of their 0:40:55.760 --> 0:40:59.440 own mortality. These things can exist within a healthy equilibrium 0:40:59.480 --> 0:41:01.799 of the social but they can also exist in an 0:41:01.880 --> 0:41:05.600 unhealthy non equilibrium, right. And I think the types of 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:08.600 ways that Jesse was writing about psychedelics online, I think 0:41:08.719 --> 0:41:12.279 demonstrates a very unhealthy use of these drugs, especially as 0:41:12.320 --> 0:41:15.040 like you know, like a sixteen year old, right, Like. 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:17.440 It's well, it sounds like self medication. It sounds like 0:41:17.480 --> 0:41:20.680 unsupervised medication. And it also sounds like something that was 0:41:20.719 --> 0:41:22.600 most likely acting as an accelerant. Right, Like, if you 0:41:22.640 --> 0:41:24.680 already have a host of other problems, if you are 0:41:24.680 --> 0:41:28.800 introducing a very large amount of incredibly powerful like you know, 0:41:28.880 --> 0:41:32.480 psychostimulants into you know what you're in ingestine every day, 0:41:32.480 --> 0:41:36.440 then it's going to have potentially very very dangerous outcomes. 0:41:36.840 --> 0:41:37.160 Yeah. 0:41:37.320 --> 0:41:41.440 Again, these are largely correlating factors, not cause, not causal forces. 0:41:41.480 --> 0:41:41.600 Right. 0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:45.480 The causal forces is this like social disintegration and deregulation, 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:48.800 of which, you know, abuse of psychedelics can do a 0:41:48.840 --> 0:41:50.960 lot of damage to your sense of self and your 0:41:50.960 --> 0:41:53.400 sense of self within like a larger a larger community. 0:41:53.440 --> 0:41:56.719 And the fact that I think like specifically, you know, 0:41:56.840 --> 0:41:59.640 the lacking mental health services lacking like oversight of these 0:41:59.640 --> 0:42:01.920 things in terms like a palsy outlook, Like these are 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:04.719 things that we as a society should be putting more 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:07.280 work into. If you actually want to start solving this problem, 0:42:07.680 --> 0:42:09.719 you can get into you know, larger, larger things about 0:42:09.719 --> 0:42:12.600 you know, the alienation of like quote unquote late stage capitalism, 0:42:12.600 --> 0:42:14.360 which you know also can be a factor in this. 0:42:15.120 --> 0:42:17.000 Another accelerant, right, Like, I think a lot of these 0:42:17.000 --> 0:42:19.800 are accelerants, right, every other thing that you've been listening, 0:42:19.880 --> 0:42:21.920 and then it seems to me like you know, this 0:42:22.080 --> 0:42:25.879 compounded upon this, which compounded upon this and eventually led 0:42:26.120 --> 0:42:28.720 you know, someone to looking up more and more extreme content. 0:42:28.880 --> 0:42:29.120 Yeah. 0:42:29.640 --> 0:42:31.520 Well, one thing that I do want to mention, which 0:42:31.520 --> 0:42:34.360 i've i've kind of seen seen discussed, is like that 0:42:34.440 --> 0:42:37.200 this term like radicalization saying that you know, she was 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:41.200 like radicalized into this like violent content. This is more 0:42:41.239 --> 0:42:43.839 of like a like a semantic note. I'm not sure 0:42:43.880 --> 0:42:47.240 how useful like the term radicalization is in this case. 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:50.720 If anything, I think she was like desensitized to horrific 0:42:50.760 --> 0:42:54.319 acts of violence through repeated viewing, and was in within 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:56.879 communities that encouraged this sort of thing. I think that's 0:42:56.880 --> 0:42:58.600 the way that I'm framing it as opposed to you know, 0:42:58.719 --> 0:43:02.000 radicalization makes makes you think of politics and like ideology. 0:43:01.520 --> 0:43:04.120 Right right or not, Nazism or white supremacy or something 0:43:04.160 --> 0:43:05.320 like that, right, yeah. 0:43:05.160 --> 0:43:07.520 Yeah, And it's like it's not that they're getting like 0:43:07.600 --> 0:43:10.719 politically radical, it's that they're they're dropping out of the 0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:16.440 social fabric and desensitizing themselves to this concept of like, 0:43:16.480 --> 0:43:19.400 you know, horrific like societally targeted violence. 0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:21.839 I know now that like obviously the right wing is 0:43:22.320 --> 0:43:25.480 decided that they're uniquely going to be attacking trans people. 0:43:25.680 --> 0:43:28.360 I'm not sure if you're aware of the shooter's father's 0:43:28.400 --> 0:43:32.200 statements that were just made recently. The father intentionally uses 0:43:32.280 --> 0:43:35.680 terms like I am the biological father, refers to her 0:43:35.719 --> 0:43:38.879 with him pronouns, says that he was allowed to raise her, 0:43:39.000 --> 0:43:41.040 that she was taken from him. Part of me is 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.400 also really fearful that this is going to be maybe 0:43:44.440 --> 0:43:47.160 the future of the the Matt Walsh lips at TikTok circuit. 0:43:47.200 --> 0:43:50.239 Right here, we have the case, like the number one 0:43:50.239 --> 0:43:53.120 horror story that every right wing you know, personality always 0:43:53.120 --> 0:43:53.919 talks about, right. 0:43:54.200 --> 0:43:56.239 Or that myth that Elon musk perpetuates. 0:43:56.320 --> 0:43:59.360 Yeah, exactly, that this is somehow negatively impacting their children. 0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:00.880 No, Yeah, that's a good thing to keep an eye on. 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:02.759 I haven't have not seen that in. 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.719 Terms of like, you know, your analysis, and I appreciate it, 0:44:05.719 --> 0:44:07.279 by the way a lot. I hadn't thought of it 0:44:07.360 --> 0:44:09.719 that in those terms, in terms of like disconnecting from 0:44:09.719 --> 0:44:12.800 the social fabric itself? Is there things that can be done? 0:44:12.920 --> 0:44:16.080 Like is the recommendations beyond like obviously you know, late 0:44:16.120 --> 0:44:19.200 stage capitalism and mass alienation and not solving that. 0:44:19.160 --> 0:44:19.719 To more sure? 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:23.439 So yeah, I mean I'm not sure if I'm gonna 0:44:23.440 --> 0:44:25.640 be able to solve that on a stream. 0:44:27.840 --> 0:44:32.560 No, you have to. Isn't it called that could happen here? 0:44:32.640 --> 0:44:33.680 Let's let it happen. 0:44:35.600 --> 0:44:37.120 I mean yeah, Like there's a lot of things that 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:40.160 we can do, like even just like increasing like social services, right, 0:44:40.200 --> 0:44:42.600 like the like fun funding social services can be a thing, 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:46.120 Like what what can we do to strengthen the social fabric? 0:44:46.200 --> 0:44:46.359 Right? 0:44:46.360 --> 0:44:50.000 Give people available paths for their life? You know that's 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:53.720 through you know, education, free college, make make life actually 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:55.840 feel like you have a way to exist within a 0:44:55.920 --> 0:45:00.360 social matrix. Canada already has you know, comp the state's 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:04.759 fairly restrictive gun laws. Those are a factor, but there's 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:06.759 even mass killings like this that happen, you know in 0:45:06.800 --> 0:45:09.959 Europe where people find other means of enacting them besides guns. 0:45:10.200 --> 0:45:12.919 Japan that sits swords and knives oftentimes. Yeah. 0:45:13.200 --> 0:45:16.360 Right, yeah, So like these things have some based social 0:45:16.640 --> 0:45:19.759 social aspects that are going to be the things that 0:45:19.880 --> 0:45:22.400 you're solving. Is is kind of more challenging rather than 0:45:22.440 --> 0:45:25.080 just you know, taking away guns, making drugs that are 0:45:25.080 --> 0:45:28.399 already illegal harder to get right. These things aren't aren't 0:45:28.400 --> 0:45:31.960 going to actually eliminate this problem, but I mean, funding 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:35.160 social services can can be an aspect of this. Having 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:39.279 more comprehensive mental health care, you know, free healthcare check ins, 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:40.960 you know, if that's a big thing in the States. 0:45:41.080 --> 0:45:44.080 Canada has that to some degree, but still there's obviously 0:45:44.200 --> 0:45:46.759 room for improvement. But I mean, yes, solving these like 0:45:46.840 --> 0:45:49.239 larger social problems, that's like it's the question of the 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:50.080 twenty first century. 0:45:50.520 --> 0:45:52.920 Yeah, And I mean, you know, based on the story 0:45:52.960 --> 0:45:55.000 that you're telling and the research you did, it does 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:58.120 really seem like this is one of those cases where 0:45:59.000 --> 0:46:01.439 this doesn't happen off but when you see it get 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:04.359 to that end state this this is pretty much right, 0:46:04.480 --> 0:46:08.080 the patterns become a lot more evident, the obsession with 0:46:08.120 --> 0:46:11.520 the prior shootings, the mental health episodes, and now the 0:46:11.640 --> 0:46:15.919 combining that with you know, very very prolific psychedelic drug use, 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:17.680 and then here we are. 0:46:17.800 --> 0:46:20.560 I mean, this person should not have had guns right 0:46:20.760 --> 0:46:23.080 at a certain point. Their guns were taken away, our 0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:26.240 guns and haus were taken away. If police knew about 0:46:26.280 --> 0:46:28.360 their activity on these forums, I'm sure this wouldn't have 0:46:28.360 --> 0:46:30.799 been returned. So there's there's there's certain things like you know, 0:46:30.880 --> 0:46:34.719 parents being more aware of these sorts of like online spaces, 0:46:34.800 --> 0:46:37.840 the school shooter fandom, you know, picking up signs of 0:46:37.840 --> 0:46:39.799 you know, social isolation. How much how much time your 0:46:39.880 --> 0:46:42.239 kid is just spending alone on the internet and you 0:46:42.320 --> 0:46:44.799 might not be knowing what they're doing. So solving that's 0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:46.759 you know hard because because the solution for a lot 0:46:46.800 --> 0:46:48.319 of a lot of you know states is just like 0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:52.040 increased surveillance on platforms like you know, discord age verification. 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:55.239 But those types of you know, guardrails don't exist on 0:46:55.280 --> 0:46:57.480 a forum site like watch People Die, right, you can 0:46:57.640 --> 0:46:59.960 you can have a very you know, safe regulated discord 0:47:00.280 --> 0:47:02.520 which just pushes people to you know, even more niche 0:47:02.520 --> 0:47:04.919 even more dangerous parts of the internet. You know, Watch 0:47:04.960 --> 0:47:07.279 People Die started as a Reddit page that was you know, 0:47:07.360 --> 0:47:10.520 taken down like seven years ago. Now it's you know 0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:13.000 a far a far less regulated, you know, thing that 0:47:13.000 --> 0:47:15.560 that kids are spending a decent amount of time on. 0:47:16.400 --> 0:47:18.120 But you know, being aware of you know, the risks 0:47:18.160 --> 0:47:20.680 of this type of like social isolation, you know, is 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:24.319 also also a start. And ideally we do not have 0:47:24.360 --> 0:47:28.160 a forum site, you know, dedicated to glorifying mass killings. 0:47:28.760 --> 0:47:31.920 But banning a website is not so simple. It's easier 0:47:32.120 --> 0:47:34.439 than done, you know, figuring out a way to take 0:47:34.480 --> 0:47:36.560 that down, right, I mean, same problem with you know, 0:47:36.640 --> 0:47:39.399 like eight kun or like you know eight chan back 0:47:39.400 --> 0:47:40.720 in the day four chan. 0:47:41.520 --> 0:47:44.719 And eventually, but this one seems blatant to the point 0:47:44.719 --> 0:47:46.799 of illegality, and I don't, I know, you don't have 0:47:46.840 --> 0:47:48.080 time for me to start a topic. 0:47:48.120 --> 0:47:49.640 But like other things, I. 0:47:49.640 --> 0:47:52.719 Mean, like eight qun's also illegal, right, they host a 0:47:52.719 --> 0:47:54.759 lot of illegal content there. Finding a way to take 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:56.799 it down is still tricky. You know, there's a lot 0:47:56.840 --> 0:47:59.920 of websites host illegal stuff just because it's you know illegal, 0:48:00.080 --> 0:48:02.720 does does does not mean it's gonna it's gonna be solved. 0:48:02.960 --> 0:48:05.520 Like the legal pathway there is is tricky. 0:48:05.360 --> 0:48:07.400 But isn't the rule of some typically that if a 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:09.480 lot of those companies that provide them with the necessary 0:48:09.480 --> 0:48:12.960 like d DOS security, they're like through line seems to 0:48:13.000 --> 0:48:14.920 be as long as it's not illegal, right, Like if 0:48:14.960 --> 0:48:17.719 you're not running a child poor or sorry child sexual 0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:20.839 abuse material website, if you're not running like an assassination 0:48:21.000 --> 0:48:23.240 or cryptocurrency like drug site, you're fine. 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:25.399 Like, but that just does in practice doesn't work. 0:48:26.000 --> 0:48:30.600 I'm unsure of the current hosting situation of Watch People Die, 0:48:31.040 --> 0:48:32.840 but I wouldn't be surprised if they went through the 0:48:32.840 --> 0:48:35.160 same kind of loopholes by registering at like a certain 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:37.680 foreign country with has that had that that's very loose guidelines, 0:48:37.760 --> 0:48:39.800 like you know, that was the thing with like a 0:48:39.960 --> 0:48:42.920 KUN for a while. But yeah, I'm actually unsure if 0:48:43.160 --> 0:48:45.320 the current the current like setup that Watch People that 0:48:45.440 --> 0:48:49.120 has Yeah, I've been talking about you know TCC and 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.640 this the school should defand them increasingly the past two years. 0:48:51.680 --> 0:48:55.359 And it's really tragic that it is something that i've 0:48:55.560 --> 0:48:57.279 that is you know, a pattern that is that is 0:48:57.280 --> 0:49:00.560 continuing right, this is like the really the main force 0:49:00.640 --> 0:49:04.600 across these shootings, whether you're you know, assist girls, this boy, 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:08.720 a trans girl, trans guy, whatever, whatever demographic you know, racial. 0:49:08.960 --> 0:49:12.279 You know, there was the the Antioch school shooting in 0:49:12.480 --> 0:49:14.640 January twenty twenty five that was done by this like 0:49:14.760 --> 0:49:19.160 black ironic neo Nazi, similarly linked to TCC as well, 0:49:19.560 --> 0:49:23.279 Like whatever the demographic is. The through line that we're 0:49:23.280 --> 0:49:26.799 seeing is this is this just like nihilistic obsession with 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:28.880 like the act of school shooting and this like fandom 0:49:28.920 --> 0:49:30.279 that has developed around it. 0:49:30.560 --> 0:49:32.319 Do you find the media picks up on that at all? 0:49:32.320 --> 0:49:34.160 Like like no, You've done a lot of research into 0:49:34.280 --> 0:49:35.200 do they reach out to you? 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:36.399 Like do they never say? 0:49:36.560 --> 0:49:40.000 Every every once in a while. But it takes them time. 0:49:40.440 --> 0:49:43.200 It took them about three years after like the peak 0:49:43.239 --> 0:49:45.239 of seven six four to start reporting on seven six four, 0:49:45.320 --> 0:49:47.399 And now there's seven six four articles all the time, 0:49:47.680 --> 0:49:49.439 but it took them about three years to like ketch 0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:52.640 up to it. I wouldn't be surprised if in a 0:49:52.719 --> 0:49:55.920 year and a half we get tons of articles about TCC, 0:49:56.480 --> 0:49:58.560 But a lot of legacy media is very slow to 0:49:58.600 --> 0:50:01.520 this sort of thing. My own internet presence also exists 0:50:01.600 --> 0:50:04.840 kind of in the margins. My monitoring is is in 0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:08.279 the margins, but those margins can have you know, very 0:50:08.400 --> 0:50:12.799 very uh destabilizing social effects. But it does take a while. 0:50:12.800 --> 0:50:14.560 I mean, same thing with the FBI, right, It took 0:50:14.560 --> 0:50:17.080 them years to get on top of seven six four, 0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:19.239 even though people were like reporting this stuff in like 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:22.239 twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, But before seven six four was 0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:26.440 even that organization. There was previous iterations called the CVLT. 0:50:26.960 --> 0:50:29.080 But like you know that that style of thing was 0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:32.279 was was a problem for years, and the FBI did 0:50:32.280 --> 0:50:34.799 not really get on it until much later, and the 0:50:34.880 --> 0:50:38.160 media then followed suit. Right, I do think I just 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:41.280 don't have trust in you know, the current the current 0:50:41.480 --> 0:50:45.919 American enforcement that retty to really be on it right now. 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:48.840 You know, I can't. I'm unsure of how that works 0:50:48.840 --> 0:50:52.680 in Canada at this point, but certainly certainly I don't 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:55.200 think Cashputel's FBI is going to be you know, on 0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:59.239 this one super super well, even though they been trying to, 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:01.959 you know, push some stuff like the nihilist violent extremism label, 0:51:02.239 --> 0:51:03.839 which does cover stuff like this. 0:51:04.520 --> 0:51:07.439 But I know this is controversial, but in my opinion, 0:51:07.440 --> 0:51:09.880 it almost feels as if Cash Mattel is actively trying 0:51:09.920 --> 0:51:13.600 to push narratives that will benefit this entire story that 0:51:13.640 --> 0:51:15.600 we're talking about in the opposite direction, right, like if 0:51:15.640 --> 0:51:17.840 you're trying to push the narrative that Charlie Kirk's shooter 0:51:17.920 --> 0:51:19.520 and we're not going to change topics, but I'm just 0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:21.719 you know, bring this up because you mentioned Cashptel. You're 0:51:21.719 --> 0:51:23.920 trying to push that narrative that he was in fact 0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:27.240 trans or inspired by trans ideology or inspired by furries 0:51:27.320 --> 0:51:29.960 or furry culture, et cetera. They've tried everything, and now 0:51:30.040 --> 0:51:32.000 now we're at the point where it's like the loosest 0:51:32.000 --> 0:51:34.600 of connections. It's like, well, there may have been a 0:51:34.760 --> 0:51:37.799 lover who is or is not may or may not 0:51:37.840 --> 0:51:39.280 be trends or non binary. 0:51:39.320 --> 0:51:41.319 We're not sure, but that's enough. We got it. Cash 0:51:41.360 --> 0:51:42.400 Hotel will push the story. 0:51:42.719 --> 0:51:44.480 I mean, yeah, this is this administration comes out of 0:51:44.480 --> 0:51:46.880 the same kind of network of influencers who try to 0:51:47.120 --> 0:51:51.720 grossly use horrific events to their own ideological advantage, including 0:51:51.760 --> 0:51:53.919 too you know, attack groups of people that they find 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:55.839 to be bad as. 0:51:55.760 --> 0:51:57.920 Wild because it turns out they're all pedophiles. 0:52:00.200 --> 0:52:03.759 They're all part of an elite group of insiders, and 0:52:04.000 --> 0:52:05.360 so let's start talking about. 0:52:05.160 --> 0:52:12.560 The fscene files for next time. My brain, Like, I know, 0:52:12.600 --> 0:52:14.000 I'm just joking. I'm just joking. 0:52:14.760 --> 0:52:18.280 Where can everyone find you and your incredible work outside 0:52:18.280 --> 0:52:20.920 of listening to the amazing it could happen here podcast? 0:52:21.400 --> 0:52:24.400 Yeah, well, I mean, I occasionally post about Yawi on 0:52:24.400 --> 0:52:27.399 on x the Everything app at by shown in type. 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:29.680 I'm trying to post more about Yaowe on Blue Sky. 0:52:29.719 --> 0:52:31.880 There's just just not as much of it. But you know, 0:52:31.920 --> 0:52:33.360 maybe I should be the change I want. 0:52:33.200 --> 0:52:35.680 To see the environment. 0:52:35.800 --> 0:52:38.720 It's more so that there's just not as many Yawi 0:52:38.840 --> 0:52:42.480 artists on Blue Sky. A lot of Yawi artists are 0:52:42.560 --> 0:52:46.720 shockingly Japanese, and this Japan has a very large presence 0:52:46.719 --> 0:52:48.480 on next Everything app at least at the moment. I 0:52:48.520 --> 0:52:51.400 know some of their like AI image stuff is pushing, 0:52:51.680 --> 0:52:55.640 is pushing people to other platforms, but it's slow. But yeah, 0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:57.920 I'm on, I'm on. I'm on those two places. I 0:52:57.960 --> 0:53:03.560 also occasionally post photography at Instagram also by shown end type. 0:53:03.640 --> 0:53:05.840 And I suppose if you enjoyed listening to me getting 0:53:05.880 --> 0:53:08.759 informed by the only information you heard here today, you 0:53:08.800 --> 0:53:10.880 should check out YouTube dot com slash at the Surf 0:53:10.920 --> 0:53:14.359 Times where I post videos, and this one too will 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:14.840 be there. 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:17.400 Hey you can look at uh yeah, me in a 0:53:17.400 --> 0:53:19.240 black turtle neck talk about sad things. 0:53:20.800 --> 0:53:22.760 There you go if you If you enjoyed the audio 0:53:22.840 --> 0:53:25.080 version and you want to see the the visual version 0:53:25.120 --> 0:53:27.200 of it, head on down to YouTube dot com slash 0:53:27.239 --> 0:53:27.879 at the Surf Times. 0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:30.520 Thank you so much for joining us today. Okay, I 0:53:30.520 --> 0:53:31.120 appreciate it. 0:53:31.200 --> 0:53:32.080 Yeah, thanks for having me. 0:53:32.520 --> 0:53:34.240 It was it was a ton of fun. Well actually 0:53:34.280 --> 0:53:36.080 it was sad, but it was. It was very informative. 0:53:36.320 --> 0:53:39.360 Yeah, that's the that's the needle I'd try to threat absolutely. 0:53:53.200 --> 0:53:55.840 Hello, everyone, welcome to it could happen here. 0:53:56.080 --> 0:53:57.200 My name is Mink. 0:53:58.080 --> 0:54:02.560 I'm here with Shames and At Georgio and we're going 0:54:02.600 --> 0:54:06.200 to be talking about the documentary Isa Safari. 0:54:06.680 --> 0:54:09.280 Yeah, Hi Mick, thanks for thanks for having us. 0:54:09.480 --> 0:54:12.000 Hi everyone, good to be here. Georgia. Do you want 0:54:12.000 --> 0:54:12.960 to introduce yourself. 0:54:13.280 --> 0:54:18.439 I am Georgio. I am a Bosnian genocide researcher. I'm 0:54:18.440 --> 0:54:22.960 also the founder of the educational tool Voices from Ladrina, 0:54:23.480 --> 0:54:28.160 which is a new educational resource on the genocide in 0:54:28.440 --> 0:54:33.319 Eastern Bosnia in particular, which allows researchers to follow the 0:54:33.320 --> 0:54:37.960 events of the genocide through a simulated social media style 0:54:38.200 --> 0:54:41.960 news feed, so the words of the survivors and the 0:54:42.000 --> 0:54:45.800 perpetrators come to life via the medium of social media. 0:54:46.320 --> 0:54:50.440 I'm also a member of the fantastic mutual aid group 0:54:50.560 --> 0:54:54.040 Lambeth Mutual Aid in South London. You can follow us 0:54:54.160 --> 0:54:58.280 on Instagram at Lambeth Mutual Aid and you can follow 0:54:58.320 --> 0:55:03.440 me on the Hellhole that is ex at Georgio con 0:55:03.880 --> 0:55:07.439 conn is Ko and not conn as in a conman. Yeah, 0:55:07.680 --> 0:55:09.520 that's I think the key information. 0:55:10.880 --> 0:55:13.520 Okay, great, then we're going to do the following. I've 0:55:13.560 --> 0:55:17.759 prepared roughly one page of context here for those of 0:55:17.800 --> 0:55:20.719 you who remember a few months ago it was announced 0:55:20.760 --> 0:55:25.080 that the Italian prosecutors want to try and find the 0:55:25.160 --> 0:55:29.640 people who participated in the Sarajevo safari, and we'll be 0:55:29.680 --> 0:55:33.520 talking about the a documentary that highlights and tries to 0:55:33.600 --> 0:55:37.120 shed the lights on what happened there. The main accusation 0:55:37.400 --> 0:55:41.920 is that the Army of Republica Srbska, which is an 0:55:42.160 --> 0:55:46.799 entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, that they charged lots of 0:55:46.840 --> 0:55:51.279 moneies for tourists to come over and shoot at civilians, 0:55:51.520 --> 0:55:57.880 which is yeah, obviously horrible, Yeah, horrific. Nowadays, Bosli in 0:55:57.920 --> 0:56:01.839 Herzegovina has divided into two parts, which is like the 0:56:01.840 --> 0:56:06.120 Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the republic A serb Ska, 0:56:06.680 --> 0:56:11.240 which is essentially the territory that the republic A Cerviska 0:56:11.440 --> 0:56:16.600 Army gained during the war. Because I don't want to 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:19.200 be there any confusion as to who the parties are, 0:56:19.600 --> 0:56:27.120 but it's pretty much two entities living in one nation state. Yes, So, 0:56:27.280 --> 0:56:30.480 after I've given some context on what happened during the 0:56:30.480 --> 0:56:33.640 Balkan Wars which led up to this event, we're going 0:56:33.680 --> 0:56:37.680 to be talking with Georgio about the documentary. Unfortunately, the 0:56:37.719 --> 0:56:42.360 documentary is not available with English subtitles, so I'm glad 0:56:42.440 --> 0:56:45.600 we were having you with us, Georgio, to illuminate us 0:56:45.600 --> 0:56:49.960 a bit more So, I also want to preface that 0:56:50.600 --> 0:56:54.040 obviously it's not a thorough history of what happened there. 0:56:54.320 --> 0:56:57.399 That would be way too much information to condense into 0:56:57.440 --> 0:57:02.160 one episode. Also, while this episode will focus on the 0:57:02.160 --> 0:57:05.479 plight of the Bosnian people, I do want to note 0:57:05.480 --> 0:57:09.000 that pretty much every site in this entire conflict did 0:57:09.040 --> 0:57:13.719 horrendous things committed atrocities, and I think I would be 0:57:14.480 --> 0:57:17.640 britmiss if I didn't mention that. So we're going to 0:57:17.680 --> 0:57:21.040 start with, like so many things. The Second World War 0:57:21.440 --> 0:57:25.320 around the formation of Yugoslavia as a communist state, with 0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:28.520 the Serbian city of Belgrade being the center of power. 0:57:29.160 --> 0:57:32.000 The Balkans were a major point of conflict during World 0:57:32.040 --> 0:57:34.800 War II, with a lot of different parties and state 0:57:34.840 --> 0:57:39.480 actors trying to gain control over the region. Germany, Italy, Hungary, 0:57:39.640 --> 0:57:43.720 Bulgaria and Albania as some of the main actors. A 0:57:44.000 --> 0:57:48.680 variety of alliances and other entities were formed, which will 0:57:48.800 --> 0:57:52.400 later be used in ethnic and ethnic nationalist discourse as 0:57:52.440 --> 0:57:57.360 a way to highlight the specific ethnic grievances. As a federation, 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:06.440 Yugoslavia contained multiple ethnicity Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrants, and Muslims, 0:58:07.080 --> 0:58:10.680 which would later become the called Bosniaks. And that's how 0:58:10.840 --> 0:58:13.680 I will be referring to them. So at the end 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:16.680 of World War two, Joseph Tito would be the dictator 0:58:16.680 --> 0:58:20.000 of Yugoslavi Ivia and he would try to counteract all 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:23.920 this ethnic descent and friction by promoting something that he 0:58:24.000 --> 0:58:28.040 called brotherhood and unity, which sort of buot Tito on 0:58:28.200 --> 0:58:32.439 a pedestal as a fatherly figure under whom everyone from 0:58:32.440 --> 0:58:36.600 all the different factions and ethnicities would be equal as 0:58:37.080 --> 0:58:41.480 Yugoslav people. This was only partially successful. The friction was 0:58:41.520 --> 0:58:45.800 never really resolved, and after the death of Tito in 0:58:45.840 --> 0:58:49.919 the eighties marked the beginning of the end. It coincided 0:58:49.960 --> 0:58:52.920 with an economic crisis that sort of made all the 0:58:53.040 --> 0:58:58.760 different republics where all the different ethnicities were centered beholden 0:58:58.800 --> 0:59:01.360 to themselves became a bit of a free for all. 0:59:01.840 --> 0:59:06.640 So after that point, like ethno politics and nationalism became 0:59:06.640 --> 0:59:07.520 the focus. 0:59:07.200 --> 0:59:08.600 Of all politics. 0:59:08.680 --> 0:59:13.040 Just to be really concrete, like with ethno nationalism, we 0:59:13.200 --> 0:59:16.480 mean like a form of nationalism that is based solely 0:59:16.520 --> 0:59:22.160 on ethnicity, not on citizenship or participation in a community. 0:59:22.520 --> 0:59:26.040 It's a lighter version of the blood and soil politics 0:59:26.080 --> 0:59:30.680 that became very synonymous with a certain German period of time. 0:59:31.480 --> 0:59:36.000 So what happened with this ethnic centric discourse is that 0:59:36.760 --> 0:59:40.880 perceived and real grievances became central to almost all politics, 0:59:41.400 --> 0:59:46.160 most notably, but not certainly exclusively under a Slobodon melosophych 0:59:46.840 --> 0:59:51.560 who came to power late eighties in Serbia. Ethnic rhetoric 0:59:51.560 --> 0:59:54.320 would be the focal point for his politics and a 0:59:54.400 --> 0:59:57.479 sense to power. He would say things that would turn 0:59:57.520 --> 1:00:01.160 into slogans, and with that kept sure the vital part 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:03.880 of the the animosity that a large part of the 1:00:03.880 --> 1:00:08.560 Serbian population would feel phrases like a weak Serbia means 1:00:08.560 --> 1:00:12.280 a strong Yugoslavia, hinting at the decline of Serbian power 1:00:12.440 --> 1:00:16.520 and the way they perceived this sort of slow fracturing 1:00:16.560 --> 1:00:21.080 that Yugoslavia was going through. Another one was in response 1:00:21.160 --> 1:00:26.960 to a Kosovari Serp was allegedly beaten by a Kosovari Albanian, 1:00:27.400 --> 1:00:31.800 and Melosovitch said, no one should dare beat you, meaning 1:00:31.840 --> 1:00:36.080 that by virtue of being a Serbian they should be 1:00:36.120 --> 1:00:39.480 granted some sort of additional status or some sort of 1:00:39.520 --> 1:00:42.720 untouchability because they were ethnic Serbs. 1:00:44.040 --> 1:00:46.040 These examples served. 1:00:45.800 --> 1:00:49.000 To make clear that the changing and growing public opinion 1:00:49.120 --> 1:00:52.480 among the Serbs was that the only way for them 1:00:52.520 --> 1:00:56.200 to be secure and say was as a national state 1:00:56.400 --> 1:00:59.800 controlled by the Serbs. So the whole idea was that 1:01:00.000 --> 1:01:03.160 they would control the entirety of Yugoslavia and that their 1:01:03.280 --> 1:01:06.280 ethnic group would be in control of the majority of 1:01:06.320 --> 1:01:09.920 the political institutions that were present there. As I think 1:01:10.000 --> 1:01:12.240 you both can imagine, this did not go over well 1:01:12.280 --> 1:01:13.400 with other ethnic groups. 1:01:13.880 --> 1:01:15.960 Yeah, so we're just. 1:01:16.040 --> 1:01:18.600 Not very keen on being part of the federation controlled 1:01:18.600 --> 1:01:22.480 by the Serbs. In March of nineteen ninety eight, the 1:01:22.520 --> 1:01:26.960 Croatian War of Independence started, and later that year Slovenia 1:01:27.000 --> 1:01:30.720 did the same. Both decents that sparked the war already 1:01:31.000 --> 1:01:36.600 with the Serbs. Bosnia and Herzegovina followed later. A referendum 1:01:36.640 --> 1:01:39.320 was held in early nineteen ninety two on whether or 1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:42.760 not they were going to secede. They chose to secede, 1:01:43.160 --> 1:01:46.400 and in March of that year, Serbian forces attacked Bosnia 1:01:46.960 --> 1:01:49.320 and claimed towns in terrain that they deemed to be 1:01:49.680 --> 1:01:53.360 Serbian territory. Near the end of May, the Yugoslav People's 1:01:53.520 --> 1:01:57.640 Army attempted to gain control over the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, 1:01:57.920 --> 1:02:00.280 but filled to do so completely at this when the 1:02:00.320 --> 1:02:04.400 battle became a prolonged siege that would last until February 1:02:04.520 --> 1:02:07.360 of ninety six. Just to add a little bit more 1:02:07.400 --> 1:02:13.920 about the location, Geographically speaking, defending sa Rijevo was really difficult. 1:02:14.480 --> 1:02:18.200 The city lies between several mountains, which made it very 1:02:18.280 --> 1:02:23.080 easy for Serbine forces to set up artillery, ordinance and snipers. 1:02:23.560 --> 1:02:25.840 These would have very long lines of sights and greater 1:02:26.000 --> 1:02:28.800 range due to the elevated positions that they were set 1:02:28.840 --> 1:02:31.040 up in. If you look at a map of Sarajevo 1:02:31.160 --> 1:02:34.720 with like the terrain a for Google Maps or something, 1:02:35.040 --> 1:02:38.240 you can see how much elevation there is all around 1:02:38.280 --> 1:02:42.160 the city. Roads and passes leading out of the city 1:02:42.200 --> 1:02:45.200 were blocked by Serbian forces, and once they had full 1:02:45.200 --> 1:02:47.600 control of the airport, there was little to no way 1:02:47.640 --> 1:02:52.479 for foods, medicine, or reinforcements to be deployed there. Within 1:02:52.520 --> 1:02:56.880 the city itself, Serbine forces also controlled a majority of 1:02:57.400 --> 1:03:01.919 major military positions, with additional sniper's being positioned around them. 1:03:02.880 --> 1:03:07.640 Multiple areas became incredibly dangerous to cross or approach, particularly 1:03:07.680 --> 1:03:10.880 the main road leading towards the air courts. It became 1:03:10.920 --> 1:03:14.040 known as sniper Alley. And I think it is in 1:03:14.160 --> 1:03:20.440 this context that we should start to discuss the documentary allegations. So, yeah, 1:03:21.080 --> 1:03:23.160 anything to add from either of you. 1:03:23.960 --> 1:03:24.440 Yeah, it might. 1:03:24.520 --> 1:03:29.520 It might serve to explain how in the greater European 1:03:29.640 --> 1:03:35.480 political landscape, entities on the right. I guess in the 1:03:35.480 --> 1:03:42.720 global North generally it began to sympathize with actors in 1:03:42.760 --> 1:03:45.840 the former Yugoslavia, right, And how like maybe we can 1:03:46.000 --> 1:03:49.680 draw some lines between them based on their definition of nation, 1:03:50.000 --> 1:03:53.200 what they considered the nation to be. If that's something 1:03:53.240 --> 1:03:55.200 you'd like to explain to people. 1:03:55.840 --> 1:03:56.880 Yeah, absolutely. 1:03:57.200 --> 1:04:00.840 I think what's really important to stress is that when 1:04:00.920 --> 1:04:04.040 it came to Bosnia, and it's still the case to 1:04:04.080 --> 1:04:09.320 this day, to a lesser degree, the Bosnian Muslims, the 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:15.560 Bosniacs found themselves at this very peculiar intersection of oppression 1:04:16.360 --> 1:04:23.760 in which you had the Western European right framing the 1:04:23.840 --> 1:04:30.480 war against Bosnia as a restoration of Christian Europe. This 1:04:30.760 --> 1:04:34.640 was what John Major, how John Major was talking about it, 1:04:34.720 --> 1:04:38.160 who was then the Prime Minister of the UK. It's 1:04:38.200 --> 1:04:41.840 also the kind of language we heard from mitteent in 1:04:41.880 --> 1:04:47.280 France and to some extent in the Clinton administration. After 1:04:47.400 --> 1:04:53.240 Bill Clinton read that horrendous book Balkan Ghosts by Kaplan, 1:04:53.720 --> 1:04:57.080 his administration's rhetoric began to change and sort of framed 1:04:57.080 --> 1:05:01.920 this as this inevitable, you know, claud between these perpetually 1:05:02.920 --> 1:05:07.280 fighting tribes in the Balkans. You know, the legacies of 1:05:07.680 --> 1:05:12.040 that rhetoric are still heard in today's journalism. You know, 1:05:12.320 --> 1:05:16.800 I can't count the amount of times in even left leaning, 1:05:16.960 --> 1:05:23.200 supposedly Western journalistic publications, I've seen the word Balkanization being 1:05:23.240 --> 1:05:26.520 thrown around, you know. And this is what I'm talking 1:05:26.560 --> 1:05:32.440 about in terms of the intersection of dehumanization, exoticization, and 1:05:32.600 --> 1:05:38.439 oppression that particularly Bosnia and the Muslims of Bosnia Bosniacs 1:05:38.440 --> 1:05:42.520 have found themselves at. And so you had that on 1:05:42.560 --> 1:05:46.360 the one side coming from the right. And by the way, 1:05:46.440 --> 1:05:52.200 the Serbs nationalists knew this. They tailored their rhetorics so 1:05:52.200 --> 1:05:57.760 so so effectively to present this case of we are 1:05:57.840 --> 1:06:04.200 fighting Europe's battle again Islamist extremists. But at the same 1:06:04.320 --> 1:06:10.560 time you had the Western European political left, and by 1:06:10.640 --> 1:06:16.240 political left, I mean your Marxist Leninists, that sort of 1:06:16.520 --> 1:06:20.520 tradition within the political left in Western Europe, sort of 1:06:21.120 --> 1:06:28.160 buying into this co opting of anti fascist discourse from 1:06:28.200 --> 1:06:32.720 the Miloshevich regime. Yeah, you know, Mike reference the Noah 1:06:32.720 --> 1:06:37.440 Wunschel dare Vitu speech in Kosovo, which was actually in 1:06:37.600 --> 1:06:44.560 response to a at best hyperbolized, at worst fictitious claim 1:06:45.200 --> 1:06:50.960 that the Kosovo Serbs were basing this institutional violence, and 1:06:51.200 --> 1:06:55.120 that co opting of that rhetoric that the Milashovich regime 1:06:55.200 --> 1:06:59.880 did so well as these anti imperialists fighting against the 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:03.640 the you know, evil acxis of the West did kind 1:07:03.680 --> 1:07:06.760 of work to some degree when we're thinking about the 1:07:07.120 --> 1:07:11.400 response of the political parties on the left in Western 1:07:11.480 --> 1:07:15.400 Europe that were very sort of anti any intervention. And 1:07:15.520 --> 1:07:18.960 we can have a conversation about you know, NATO intervention 1:07:19.480 --> 1:07:23.360 and how problematic that was. But this very black and 1:07:23.440 --> 1:07:26.520 white thinking, very black and white rhetoric coming from those 1:07:26.720 --> 1:07:29.800 political actors in the West, well, this has nothing to 1:07:29.920 --> 1:07:32.720 do with us. Don't buy into the rhetoric that there 1:07:32.760 --> 1:07:36.440 are bad things happening. Is you know, everyone's doing bad things. 1:07:37.000 --> 1:07:40.920 Therefore we shouldn't do anything to put any pressure on 1:07:41.080 --> 1:07:44.840 the Muoshevich regime. And so the reason why I'm bringing 1:07:44.840 --> 1:07:47.200 this all up is because if people can understand that, 1:07:47.760 --> 1:07:53.000 then it becomes more understandable how Bosnia was left to burn, 1:07:54.080 --> 1:07:58.360 how the Bosnian Muslims in particular, who are being targeted 1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:03.360 by sub forces and Croat forces both on the basis 1:08:03.600 --> 1:08:08.920 of their religious and ethnic identities. They found themselves completely abandoned, 1:08:09.360 --> 1:08:12.640 and obviously that abandonment really is embodied. 1:08:12.320 --> 1:08:17.479 In the arms embargo that served none of the victims. 1:08:17.600 --> 1:08:23.320 It only served the Yugoslav army, which was effectively funding 1:08:23.640 --> 1:08:27.879 and sponsoring the Serb forces who were committing genocide in Bosnia, 1:08:28.320 --> 1:08:31.879 and of course the Krowat forces Zagreb had the Croatian 1:08:32.560 --> 1:08:36.559 regime funding them. So this arms embargo, which was supposed 1:08:36.560 --> 1:08:39.080 to be this, you know, for want of a better word, 1:08:39.320 --> 1:08:43.280 neutral stance for the world to take, was not neutral 1:08:43.280 --> 1:08:45.240 at all. Of course, as we know, there's no such 1:08:45.320 --> 1:08:49.280 thing as neutrality, blah blah blah. But this was really 1:08:49.600 --> 1:08:53.639 how it became possible for such a high number of people, 1:08:54.640 --> 1:09:00.600 the vast majority Muslim people, to be killed while the 1:09:00.720 --> 1:09:02.160 genocide was being televised. 1:09:02.360 --> 1:09:03.679 Yeah, super important. 1:09:04.160 --> 1:09:07.400 You brought up Bill Clinton reading that book. 1:09:08.120 --> 1:09:10.360 I thought of putting it in there, but I didn't 1:09:10.360 --> 1:09:15.960 want to smirch Bill Clinton's good name here. Essentially, what 1:09:16.160 --> 1:09:20.920 the book does is it's sort of correct me if 1:09:20.920 --> 1:09:24.080 I'm wrong. It sort of puts forth this clash of 1:09:24.160 --> 1:09:29.280 civilizations kind of rhetoric where these two people are so different, 1:09:29.640 --> 1:09:33.760 are so different, they will always inevitably clash and fight 1:09:33.880 --> 1:09:38.719 and kill each other as sort of a biologically determined factors. 1:09:38.960 --> 1:09:39.400 Almost. 1:09:40.560 --> 1:09:43.000 Yeah, I mean we see a similar sort of thing. 1:09:43.360 --> 1:09:46.680 I mean, there were specificities to Palestine, but we see 1:09:46.720 --> 1:09:50.519 a similar sort of thing with the sort of liberal 1:09:51.200 --> 1:09:57.360 humanistic rhetoric of let's view the whats happening in Gaza 1:09:57.600 --> 1:10:01.240 as beyond ethnic labels, you know, and we're going to 1:10:01.320 --> 1:10:05.960 see the humanity behind everyone, and you know we you know, 1:10:06.040 --> 1:10:10.000 I saw as a German comedian who was putting up 1:10:10.080 --> 1:10:15.120 posters of Palestinians who had been killed and Israelis who 1:10:15.160 --> 1:10:18.000 had been killed, and removing the ethnic labels and just 1:10:18.040 --> 1:10:21.600 putting human killed. And it's going back to this what 1:10:21.760 --> 1:10:25.200 you're talking about in terms of here are two communities 1:10:25.439 --> 1:10:28.160 that are already fighting each other, and we lose sight 1:10:28.280 --> 1:10:31.360 of everyone's humanity as a result. And if they would 1:10:31.400 --> 1:10:33.960 just stop fighting, if they were just you know, stopped 1:10:34.120 --> 1:10:37.080 for a second and look beyond the labels, then the 1:10:37.120 --> 1:10:39.320 world would be a better place. And it's all, in 1:10:39.439 --> 1:10:42.920 my opinion, tied up in the same illogic as that 1:10:43.120 --> 1:10:45.280 book was getting it. 1:10:45.880 --> 1:10:49.720 It's sort of I don't see color yes approach, but 1:10:50.520 --> 1:10:53.759 the conflicts yes, yes, yes, Oka, Yeah yeah, a similar 1:10:53.840 --> 1:10:57.519 narrative that's deployed in Syria and mean marriagely like to 1:10:57.680 --> 1:11:01.200 go to response of neoliberalism when they have absolutely no 1:11:01.360 --> 1:11:04.120 understanding of a situation beyond that there is conflict there 1:11:04.120 --> 1:11:07.240 and people are dying, right Like, It's a very easy 1:11:07.320 --> 1:11:09.880 response for anyone in a politician or an indio or 1:11:10.120 --> 1:11:11.519 who wants to write a ship book. 1:11:12.320 --> 1:11:15.200 It's very easy to do that and to sell that 1:11:15.640 --> 1:11:17.839 narrative right for rerapeeding to people who don't. 1:11:17.680 --> 1:11:18.600 Know fuck all about it. 1:11:19.680 --> 1:11:23.760 Yeah, yeah, And I also want to add another thing 1:11:23.880 --> 1:11:29.759 because nowadays Bosnian Herzegovina as a is divided into two parts, 1:11:30.240 --> 1:11:33.560 which is like the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 1:11:33.920 --> 1:11:38.400 the republic A serb Ska, which is essentially the territory 1:11:38.560 --> 1:11:43.280 that the republic A Cerviska Army gained during the war. 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:47.000 Because I don't want to be there any confusion as 1:11:47.040 --> 1:11:49.760 to who the parties are, but it's pretty much two 1:11:49.960 --> 1:11:52.479 entities living in one. 1:11:53.800 --> 1:11:54.559 Nation state. 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:58.600 Yes, this was also like a recurring theme when I 1:11:58.760 --> 1:12:01.880 was in Bosnia. From my mastrtisis that there is a 1:12:02.200 --> 1:12:06.759 deep sentiment with the people, but also politically that Bosnia 1:12:06.920 --> 1:12:10.160 X were left to their faith because Bosnian hearts giving 1:12:10.240 --> 1:12:13.680 us the only Muslim majority country in Europe, and there 1:12:13.800 --> 1:12:15.160 is a very. 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:17.800 Deep feeling of like, the reason that we were left 1:12:18.200 --> 1:12:19.280 out in the colt. 1:12:19.120 --> 1:12:22.040 That we were abandoned is because it was a Muslim 1:12:22.120 --> 1:12:25.439 majority country. And I think that's just a very important 1:12:25.479 --> 1:12:29.160 thing to highlight, because that is also a starting point 1:12:29.200 --> 1:12:32.439 of the vilification of Muslims by virtue of being Muslim, 1:12:33.040 --> 1:12:37.000 that sort of ideological war of the West versus the 1:12:37.120 --> 1:12:42.200 Eastern Muslims that sort of started to coalesce at around 1:12:42.320 --> 1:12:42.760 that time. 1:12:43.560 --> 1:12:45.240 I think I don't know if i'd say it was 1:12:45.280 --> 1:12:50.040 the start, but what I would say is the legacies 1:12:50.840 --> 1:12:57.760 of Europe's obsession with the Ottoman Empire really came to 1:12:57.880 --> 1:13:01.680 the fore in Bosnia because because a lot of the 1:13:01.800 --> 1:13:06.679 rhetoric and the discourses that were being produced by Serb 1:13:06.800 --> 1:13:13.400 forces hinged around this idea that we, the Serbs, are 1:13:13.479 --> 1:13:17.559 finishing the job that we started in the Balkan Wars 1:13:17.800 --> 1:13:22.400 of the eighteen hundreds and nineteen hundreds. We are finishing 1:13:22.479 --> 1:13:26.560 the job of getting rid of this remnant of the 1:13:26.640 --> 1:13:31.280 Ottoman Empire. The Muslims in Bosnia, And in fact, you know, 1:13:31.520 --> 1:13:35.519 I always go to a piece of footage from the 1:13:35.560 --> 1:13:39.400 eleventh of July nineteen ninety five when the General of 1:13:39.479 --> 1:13:44.960 the Army of the Republic Assavska Ratkomladic, who is serving 1:13:45.000 --> 1:13:49.679 a life sentence for genocide, his forces entered. They invaded 1:13:49.760 --> 1:13:54.639 sore Brnitza, Serebrenitza had fallen, and he says to the camera, 1:13:55.000 --> 1:13:57.839 we have come here to take revenge on the Turks. 1:13:58.760 --> 1:14:02.120 And I think that really embodies what I'm trying to 1:14:02.240 --> 1:14:06.160 say here, which is that these legacies of this clash 1:14:06.240 --> 1:14:09.799 of civilizations that were sort of prominent in the various 1:14:09.880 --> 1:14:13.800 wars against the Ottomans came back and they were redeployed. 1:14:13.920 --> 1:14:18.559 They were reactivated by sub forces in particular, but also 1:14:18.680 --> 1:14:22.040 crap forces to a lesser degree. And you know, I 1:14:22.120 --> 1:14:25.000 go back to what I was saying before, John Major, saying, 1:14:25.040 --> 1:14:28.759 this is a painful but inevitable restoration of Christian Europe 1:14:29.439 --> 1:14:33.880 on some level. On some level, Western Europe was buying 1:14:33.960 --> 1:14:38.120 into it on some level. So yeah, I don't think 1:14:38.160 --> 1:14:40.240 it was the start of the vilification of Muslims, but 1:14:40.280 --> 1:14:43.760 I think that it was intertwined with previous legacies that 1:14:43.880 --> 1:14:44.720 were reactivated. 1:14:45.400 --> 1:14:48.280 Yeah, and this was very much like the zeitgeist at 1:14:48.320 --> 1:14:52.160 that time, right, like Huntington's writing Clash of Civilizations. Then, 1:14:53.400 --> 1:14:57.360 seems like a lot of the response in much of 1:14:57.400 --> 1:14:59.200 the world to the end of the Cold War was 1:14:59.280 --> 1:15:04.960 to we ate another enemy, and that became Islam. That's 1:15:05.040 --> 1:15:10.520 sort of the discourse after Fukuyama. Sorry to mention Fukuyama, 1:15:11.200 --> 1:15:14.120 but like people didn't want there to be apart from him, 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:19.320 like an end to the conflict of how to organize 1:15:19.360 --> 1:15:22.640 our societies and because that's a ludicrous thesis, and so 1:15:22.760 --> 1:15:26.400 they they're very much I think a lot of the 1:15:26.800 --> 1:15:30.680 sort of fear that plays such an important role in 1:15:30.760 --> 1:15:35.680 politics in many of our countries was remobilized in this 1:15:35.840 --> 1:15:39.080 orientalist packaging towards most of the people that, as you say, 1:15:39.120 --> 1:15:44.000 built on centuries of bigotry. My only engagement with the 1:15:44.640 --> 1:15:47.280 conflict when I was much younger was that somebody who 1:15:47.920 --> 1:15:52.160 I knew through cycling had previously been a football hooligan. 1:15:52.400 --> 1:15:54.800 I think that's probably how we would describe himself. There 1:15:54.880 --> 1:15:58.760 was a great deal of exchange in fan violence, I 1:15:58.840 --> 1:16:02.240 guess would be the academic between the former Yugoslavia and 1:16:02.280 --> 1:16:05.880 the rest of Europe, which is so interesting and not 1:16:05.920 --> 1:16:07.479 a great way to learn about things. 1:16:09.040 --> 1:16:09.639 I mean, what's. 1:16:09.520 --> 1:16:12.240 Interesting is that there has been a direct connection between 1:16:12.400 --> 1:16:17.919 the far right nationalist gangs, the paramilitaries that committed a trustees, 1:16:18.240 --> 1:16:22.280 and some of the Serbian football clubs, and in particular 1:16:22.360 --> 1:16:24.360 the ultras in those. 1:16:24.200 --> 1:16:27.800 Clubs, because those football clubs were the sort of. 1:16:28.240 --> 1:16:33.120 Gateway for mafia bosses to transition back into normal society. 1:16:33.560 --> 1:16:37.160 So yeah, it's a very interesting area of the of 1:16:37.240 --> 1:16:38.639 the broader conflict. 1:16:40.040 --> 1:16:43.000 I think at this point we should get back on 1:16:43.280 --> 1:16:46.560 back on track a bit. Yes, let's talk about the 1:16:46.640 --> 1:16:48.920 thing we came to talk about. Yeah, well, we're going 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:52.080 to talk about the siege of Sarajevo and the documentary 1:16:52.360 --> 1:16:57.719 Sarajevo Safari. But first we should experience the prolonged siege 1:16:57.960 --> 1:16:59.160 of advertisements. 1:17:12.040 --> 1:17:15.840 And we're back, as we said before we left to 1:17:16.000 --> 1:17:20.960 bestias with advertisements. We should talk about this, the Sarajevo Safari. 1:17:21.120 --> 1:17:25.280 I guess maybe should we just begin by summarizing the 1:17:25.560 --> 1:17:29.240 the maybe allegation is still the correct word. I don't 1:17:29.280 --> 1:17:32.000 know the events that are documented in the film. 1:17:32.120 --> 1:17:32.560 Let's say that. 1:17:33.360 --> 1:17:38.439 Yeah, so the Sarajevo Safari Documentary was a is a 1:17:38.520 --> 1:17:44.800 documentary that was made by Slovenian filmmaker Miran and it 1:17:45.520 --> 1:17:51.120 presents longstanding allegations that there was a form of war 1:17:51.320 --> 1:17:56.639 tourism taking place during the Siege of Sarajevo, in which 1:17:57.240 --> 1:18:03.880 affluent non Bosnians paying very high fees to shoot at 1:18:03.960 --> 1:18:08.000 civilians from sniper positions being held by the Army of 1:18:08.120 --> 1:18:13.560 the public. These allegations and the narrative of the documentary 1:18:13.760 --> 1:18:19.759 is presented through witness testimony, including an anonymous former intelligence agent, 1:18:20.720 --> 1:18:25.400 and the film and the sort of the testimonies that 1:18:25.560 --> 1:18:29.680 are part of the film claim that this war tourism, 1:18:29.920 --> 1:18:35.120 or this safari, this hunting human hunting game effectively business, 1:18:36.000 --> 1:18:43.040 was a sophisticated, organized and secret operation. One of the 1:18:44.120 --> 1:18:47.880 most shocking allegations that the documentary brings to light is 1:18:48.360 --> 1:18:54.240 that these non Bosnian forists want of a better words, 1:18:54.960 --> 1:19:00.639 would pay even more money to shoot at children. Now 1:19:01.439 --> 1:19:05.439 in total, I mean that we don't have exact figures 1:19:05.640 --> 1:19:09.720 for various reasons that are very complicated. It's estimated that 1:19:09.880 --> 1:19:16.000 over eleven thousand people were murdered in Sarajevo from these snipers. 1:19:16.360 --> 1:19:21.360 So the fact that this documentary is presenting these allegations 1:19:22.000 --> 1:19:25.760 that it wasn't just a Serb affair and that there 1:19:25.840 --> 1:19:31.280 were other nationals taking part in these crimes is huge. 1:19:31.840 --> 1:19:32.559 It is huge. 1:19:33.240 --> 1:19:36.640 Yeah, So that's kind of the gist of what the 1:19:36.720 --> 1:19:40.000 documentary is trying to put across. Obviously, there's more that 1:19:40.080 --> 1:19:42.560 I could say about the context and about sort of 1:19:42.760 --> 1:19:46.519 the context of the of the case that has been 1:19:46.720 --> 1:19:50.720 taken up in Italy, but you know, we can talk 1:19:50.760 --> 1:19:53.639 about that as we as we go go along. 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:54.559 Yeah. 1:19:54.680 --> 1:19:57.400 I think one of the allegations is also that there's 1:19:57.560 --> 1:20:03.479 like tourists from the United States, from Canada, from Russia 1:20:03.720 --> 1:20:07.040 and also from Italy to not go down the rabbit 1:20:07.080 --> 1:20:10.040 hole instantly, I just want there to ask you, Giorgio, 1:20:10.160 --> 1:20:13.560 because I first heard about this film. 1:20:13.720 --> 1:20:18.520 When I was in Sarajevo, and back then, well, my first. 1:20:18.400 --> 1:20:20.760 Instinct was that this has to be some sort of 1:20:20.840 --> 1:20:24.920 conspiracy theory, and that is partly to do with the 1:20:25.000 --> 1:20:27.000 person I interviewed back then and the way it was 1:20:27.080 --> 1:20:32.040 presented to me during that interview, but also because I 1:20:32.080 --> 1:20:34.640 don't think any of us is shocked that the atrocities 1:20:34.680 --> 1:20:37.959 and the crimes against humanity of war. But this somehow 1:20:38.600 --> 1:20:44.600 feels like another level. So what was your first impression 1:20:45.439 --> 1:20:49.599 Bosnian genocide researchery to something like this happening. 1:20:50.560 --> 1:20:58.720 My first reaction was, I mean, I don't want to 1:20:58.760 --> 1:21:01.920 take away from the gravity of the documentary. I was shocked, 1:21:01.960 --> 1:21:09.280 but not surprised. So it is shocking that this sort 1:21:09.320 --> 1:21:15.880 of spectacle of violence was happening to that extent. In 1:21:16.000 --> 1:21:19.479 the same way that it's shocking that the concentration camps 1:21:19.560 --> 1:21:26.320 of Omasca, all of those concentration camps were being televised 1:21:27.080 --> 1:21:30.320 and were still in operation. I mean, yes, eventually the 1:21:30.640 --> 1:21:33.280 international pressure shut them down, but it took a long time. 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:38.000 That is all shocking. It is shocking that the peace 1:21:38.040 --> 1:21:42.480 agreement that brought a formal end to the conflict legitimized 1:21:42.720 --> 1:21:47.679 simultaneously the political project of the Republicaska by recognizing the entity. 1:21:48.160 --> 1:21:51.960 All of these things are shocking. So for me, the 1:21:52.000 --> 1:21:57.679 allegations of the documentary all into this broader abject failure 1:21:58.360 --> 1:22:02.639 and complicity of so called international community in the crimes 1:22:02.680 --> 1:22:05.080 that were being committed in Bosnia. So that is why 1:22:05.120 --> 1:22:08.799 I'm not surprised. I was shocking. The content is shocking. 1:22:09.479 --> 1:22:12.440 The fact that it was able to happen is not surprising, 1:22:13.280 --> 1:22:21.040 and I think the documentary speaks to the broader complicity 1:22:21.479 --> 1:22:25.600 of so many layers of society in the atrocities that 1:22:25.720 --> 1:22:29.800 were being committed. You know, let's be real, let's be 1:22:30.000 --> 1:22:36.160 really really blunt here. The countries from which the tourists 1:22:36.840 --> 1:22:40.640 came are not the only countries that are implicated in 1:22:40.720 --> 1:22:44.280 the atrocities of the war and genocide in Bosnia. You 1:22:44.680 --> 1:22:50.120 had far right volunteers from Greece who were being trained 1:22:50.560 --> 1:22:54.320 by Ratko Mladtch's army, who. 1:22:54.280 --> 1:22:54.680 Were in. 1:22:56.520 --> 1:22:59.760 On the eleventh of July, that the Greek state has 1:23:00.120 --> 1:23:07.240 never investigated. You had banks in Cyprus that were allowing 1:23:07.360 --> 1:23:11.920 Miloshevich to funnel his money into them during the embargo. 1:23:12.600 --> 1:23:15.760 You know, there are so many states who on some 1:23:16.080 --> 1:23:20.240 level have played a role in the atrocities that have 1:23:20.560 --> 1:23:27.680 not held themselves or their nationals accountable. So, yeah, that 1:23:27.880 --> 1:23:30.840 is my reaction, if that makes sense to you guys. 1:23:31.160 --> 1:23:34.400 You know, yeah, we live in a in a age 1:23:34.439 --> 1:23:38.800 where they get most people's thoughts are directly transcribed to 1:23:39.040 --> 1:23:42.040 their social media profiles at all times, right, and I 1:23:42.160 --> 1:23:49.040 think it is probably easier than it has ever been 1:23:49.320 --> 1:23:53.599 for us to bear witness to it genocide as multiple 1:23:53.640 --> 1:23:56.200 genisides are recurring, like at the time that we're recording, right, 1:23:56.280 --> 1:24:00.920 But obviously that's the most I wouldn't even say the 1:24:00.960 --> 1:24:03.040 most well documented, the one that certainly gets the most 1:24:03.040 --> 1:24:05.240 social media attention. It's the one happening in Gaza for 1:24:05.800 --> 1:24:09.400 pretty obvious reasons. People are probably better placed now to 1:24:09.640 --> 1:24:13.320 understand this in the context of a genocide than they 1:24:13.360 --> 1:24:17.600 would have been five years ago, even right that the 1:24:17.680 --> 1:24:21.559 project of a genocide has happened so in the open, 1:24:22.560 --> 1:24:25.560 and then they have seen nations which claim to be 1:24:25.640 --> 1:24:28.960 opposed to these things, and institutions which were created to 1:24:29.000 --> 1:24:33.679 stop genocides do nothing. So I think it's probably easier 1:24:33.720 --> 1:24:37.839 than ever for people to understand the dehumanization that happens 1:24:37.960 --> 1:24:42.120 and the way that these things progress. But I wonder 1:24:42.280 --> 1:24:46.640 like it's just such a like you said, make like 1:24:47.640 --> 1:24:51.920 it's one thing to go to war, right, and it's 1:24:51.920 --> 1:24:55.400 another thing to have war come to you, Like I 1:24:55.479 --> 1:25:00.519 have traveled to report on wars, but the you said, like, 1:25:00.600 --> 1:25:03.040 war isn't trying to be violent, and in this particular war, 1:25:03.640 --> 1:25:07.479 acts of inhuman violence happened often and from a great 1:25:07.520 --> 1:25:10.280 deal of actors, right, but like, it's one thing when 1:25:10.360 --> 1:25:12.679 it is your community that is under threat, your family 1:25:12.760 --> 1:25:15.000 have been killed, and then you respond with violence, Like 1:25:15.080 --> 1:25:17.600 it doesn't make it right, but that is how war is. 1:25:18.280 --> 1:25:20.840 It's another thing to pay to hop on a flight 1:25:22.400 --> 1:25:26.360 and go and shoot a child like that is particularly craven. 1:25:27.560 --> 1:25:31.600 So I wonder, like it seems like the cases that 1:25:31.720 --> 1:25:34.000 the prosecutions are mostly focusing on, like people from the 1:25:34.040 --> 1:25:38.000 Italian far right, do you have an idea of like 1:25:38.320 --> 1:25:42.360 this was for them part of that project of like 1:25:43.439 --> 1:25:46.600 like doing a second a conquista right for want of 1:25:46.680 --> 1:25:50.040 a better term, like purging Muslim people from Europe, or 1:25:50.080 --> 1:25:54.439 if it was simply the thrill of killing other humans. 1:25:54.640 --> 1:25:59.120 I think it would be remiss to try and detach 1:25:59.320 --> 1:26:02.840 the thrill of killing humans from who those humans are. 1:26:03.880 --> 1:26:05.200 That's my honest opinion. 1:26:05.760 --> 1:26:06.200 That's fair. 1:26:06.640 --> 1:26:08.320 I think, you know, I. 1:26:10.080 --> 1:26:16.880 Know less about the granular details of these people from Italy, 1:26:17.160 --> 1:26:18.960 from the far right who were going to do this, 1:26:19.640 --> 1:26:23.360 But if I think about what I know about the 1:26:23.520 --> 1:26:26.479 Greek far right volunteers, where we have a bit more 1:26:26.520 --> 1:26:30.599 information to go on and why they were going to Bosnia. 1:26:31.400 --> 1:26:35.760 This was all about fighting the Turks. This was all 1:26:35.840 --> 1:26:40.559 about helping our Christian brothers, the Serbs, in their fight 1:26:40.720 --> 1:26:47.040 against the Muslims. And I suspect that it wasn't too 1:26:47.160 --> 1:26:51.880 dissimilar in the political imaginary of the Italian far rights, 1:26:52.439 --> 1:26:54.360 and not just the Italian far right, I mean, as 1:26:54.400 --> 1:26:56.720 we said, from all the other countries where they were 1:26:56.760 --> 1:27:00.839 coming from. So yeah, I think there was a framing 1:27:01.720 --> 1:27:07.320 that was behind a lot of this international participation that 1:27:07.600 --> 1:27:12.680 the Serb nationalists were very aware of, and they were 1:27:12.800 --> 1:27:16.360 very deliberate in the discourses that they were producing. I'll 1:27:16.400 --> 1:27:19.840 give another example. When I was working at the Memorial Center, 1:27:20.000 --> 1:27:23.920 I was read in Cere. I was reading the transcripts 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:27.720 of the Assembly of the Publicska during the war, and 1:27:28.400 --> 1:27:33.080 in those transcripts I can count on one hand the 1:27:33.200 --> 1:27:38.880 amount of times that Serb nationalist officials referred to Bosnian. 1:27:38.520 --> 1:27:40.479 Muslims as Bosnian Muslims. 1:27:40.960 --> 1:27:45.519 They were, in the vast majority of cases referred to 1:27:45.680 --> 1:27:53.080 as either Turks or Islamists, or terrorists or even Ustasia, 1:27:53.720 --> 1:27:56.559 who for anyone listening who may not be aware, were 1:27:56.720 --> 1:28:02.439 the Croatian See aligned regime that took control of what 1:28:02.680 --> 1:28:07.040 is today Bosnia Herzegovina and also what is today Croatia 1:28:07.320 --> 1:28:10.960 during the Second World War. And so you know, this 1:28:11.240 --> 1:28:14.960 course is they are produced for a reason. And I 1:28:15.080 --> 1:28:17.080 know I'm going a little bit, you know, sort of 1:28:17.479 --> 1:28:21.559 full core and whatever. I don't like talking in that way, 1:28:21.640 --> 1:28:24.639 but I will try to keep it as accessible as possible. 1:28:25.720 --> 1:28:32.000 When people produce discourses, it's to create not only a 1:28:32.080 --> 1:28:35.000 sense of what is true and what is false, but 1:28:35.120 --> 1:28:37.920 also it's to create this feeling of truth. 1:28:38.439 --> 1:28:39.519 It's what feels right. 1:28:40.120 --> 1:28:45.719 So you know, it felt right to so many members 1:28:45.760 --> 1:28:49.200 of the far right to take up arms and hop 1:28:49.280 --> 1:28:53.920 on a plane or whatever and go to Bosnia to fight, 1:28:54.560 --> 1:28:59.480 you know, without questioning what actually the war in genocide 1:28:59.600 --> 1:28:59.920 was about. 1:29:00.600 --> 1:29:01.519 It felt right. 1:29:02.080 --> 1:29:05.280 And so that's how these discourses, that's what they served 1:29:05.479 --> 1:29:08.280 to create this feeling of this is the truth and 1:29:08.400 --> 1:29:09.880 this is the right thing for us to do. 1:29:10.560 --> 1:29:13.120 Yeah, that was a very long winded answer. I apologize, 1:29:14.160 --> 1:29:14.920 no you doing it. 1:29:15.680 --> 1:29:18.240 It reminds me a lot of the discourses that we 1:29:18.439 --> 1:29:24.000 saw in Myanmar preceding the genocide of the Hina people, right, like, 1:29:24.680 --> 1:29:27.439 very rarely did we see them referred to by that 1:29:27.560 --> 1:29:30.720 name or as of them being natives of me and 1:29:30.840 --> 1:29:34.000 maa right or them having been there for centuries. They're 1:29:34.040 --> 1:29:36.840 referred to as terrorists. They're referred to as bangladeshues. They're 1:29:36.880 --> 1:29:39.800 referred to as illegal immigrants. They're often referred to as 1:29:39.880 --> 1:29:42.639 members of the Islamic state for Iraq and al Sham, 1:29:42.760 --> 1:29:46.519 which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of those last two words. 1:29:47.280 --> 1:29:50.519 But it's important, I think, to see these commonalities because 1:29:51.080 --> 1:29:54.080 we should be able to identify these things and then 1:29:54.240 --> 1:29:55.880 like see how dangerous they are. 1:29:56.600 --> 1:29:59.640 Yeah. Absolutely, you know. 1:29:59.640 --> 1:30:04.360 Who doesn't produce discourses that make people hope on flights 1:30:04.400 --> 1:30:07.840 to other countries. I'm not sure we can say that 1:30:07.960 --> 1:30:12.080 these days, let's hope. Yeah, that's true, But we have 1:30:12.160 --> 1:30:16.280 to think of something, so I guess this will do it. Yeah, 1:30:16.320 --> 1:30:18.200 I can't have golden pivots all the time. 1:30:28.960 --> 1:30:30.720 All right, we are back. 1:30:31.720 --> 1:30:33.760 Should we talk a little more in depth about like 1:30:34.200 --> 1:30:38.519 this practice of human safaris, right, or at least the 1:30:38.720 --> 1:30:41.680 allegations that are made so well. 1:30:41.720 --> 1:30:46.080 I am curious Georgia, because I was still reading into 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:51.280 this a bit earlier today. And one of the testimonies 1:30:51.360 --> 1:30:57.880 that popped up during the trial of Dragolosch not Slowbodone. 1:30:58.680 --> 1:31:01.120 I'm not sure if they're related. To be honest, probably not. 1:31:02.400 --> 1:31:07.880 But there's an American called Sean Jordan who testified at 1:31:07.880 --> 1:31:12.040 the International Criminal Courts. He led a volunteer fighter fighter 1:31:12.280 --> 1:31:15.800 units during the siege, but he also says that some 1:31:15.960 --> 1:31:20.280 of the people he worked with also had seen tourists 1:31:20.400 --> 1:31:25.439 in other areas and most stars named specifically. Is there 1:31:25.479 --> 1:31:30.559 any more detail in there about this happening in other 1:31:30.640 --> 1:31:33.920 areas of Bosnia or other places. 1:31:34.400 --> 1:31:39.880 Well about most that in particular, I am not sure 1:31:39.920 --> 1:31:46.120 because I've not heard myself of those allegations. Obviously, there 1:31:46.439 --> 1:31:51.200 was the Greek Volunteer Guard who were in places like Cerebronitza, 1:31:51.360 --> 1:31:54.400 but also with sche Grad. They went on after the 1:31:54.520 --> 1:31:58.880 war to become well, actually sorry, I'll correct myself. Even 1:31:59.000 --> 1:32:02.920 at that time they were part of the what later 1:32:03.040 --> 1:32:08.400 became Golden Dawn, the far right now criminal organization was 1:32:08.560 --> 1:32:12.120 a political party, so that you know, you had that 1:32:12.400 --> 1:32:17.760 happening in terms of tourists non combatants. I am not 1:32:17.920 --> 1:32:21.360 aware of other places where it was happening on a 1:32:21.479 --> 1:32:27.160 large scale, like in Sarajo, So yeah, I'm not perhaps 1:32:27.200 --> 1:32:30.080 the best place to go into more detail about that, 1:32:30.680 --> 1:32:34.759 but I will definitely talk to my contacts in Mostad 1:32:35.520 --> 1:32:37.760 about the allegation any allegations there. 1:32:38.600 --> 1:32:42.920 Yeah, I guess one thing that I want to ask is, 1:32:43.000 --> 1:32:47.080 like we're seeing a very limited persecution right in Italy, 1:32:47.160 --> 1:32:50.640 and I think maybe also in somewhere in like is 1:32:50.680 --> 1:32:54.320 it in Belgium or the Netherlands? I thought I read 1:32:54.360 --> 1:32:57.200 that there was another prosecution, not not to confuse its 1:32:57.200 --> 1:33:02.960 few countries make sorry, but for the people who survived 1:33:03.920 --> 1:33:07.880 the genocide, right, what does this You can't speak on 1:33:07.920 --> 1:33:11.920 their behalf, of course, but like, on the one hand, 1:33:12.320 --> 1:33:16.360 it is some very small move towards justice, but at 1:33:16.439 --> 1:33:19.200 least it's a movement. But on the other hand, right, 1:33:19.280 --> 1:33:22.160 like the deaths of their family members have been played 1:33:22.200 --> 1:33:24.200 out in this documentary and it must be very difficult 1:33:24.200 --> 1:33:29.719 to understand just just how like, I don't know, casually 1:33:30.280 --> 1:33:35.600 like life was taken during the this genocide. Yeah, do 1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:38.479 you think it helps healing? Like I guess I'm struggling 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:40.360 to phrase out as a question, but you know, like 1:33:40.840 --> 1:33:44.280 I'm interesting to know how this this this lands. From 1:33:44.320 --> 1:33:45.599 that perspective, I guess. 1:33:46.840 --> 1:33:56.000 The general mood among survivors in Bosnia is that no 1:33:56.120 --> 1:33:58.080 one cares about what happened to us. 1:33:58.920 --> 1:34:01.160 These films that go on. 1:34:01.280 --> 1:34:05.760 To get awards potentially, and they know, the filmmakers get 1:34:05.800 --> 1:34:08.160 a pat on the back and all of that. They 1:34:08.320 --> 1:34:12.280 sort of there's a lot of cynicism around that. And 1:34:12.400 --> 1:34:16.679 we saw this in particular in regard to cor Valdis 1:34:16.760 --> 1:34:18.960 either I'm not sure if you both watched that, but 1:34:19.760 --> 1:34:26.600 that recent one was that twenty twenty one, maybe a 1:34:26.640 --> 1:34:29.240 few years ago, which if anyone who hasn't watched it 1:34:29.479 --> 1:34:34.600 is a film that depicts the genocide Insteadza and you know, 1:34:34.920 --> 1:34:37.600 and that won some awards that I can't remember the 1:34:37.800 --> 1:34:41.360 titles of them, but you know, the sort of response 1:34:41.400 --> 1:34:47.400 among particularly the Bosniak community was one of mixed emotions. Yes, 1:34:47.479 --> 1:34:50.519 on the one hand, it was, you know, something that 1:34:50.560 --> 1:34:53.519 they were willing to support, you know, they would hold 1:34:53.640 --> 1:34:57.840 screenings of the film, they would you know, collaborate with 1:34:58.560 --> 1:35:02.160 the director. But on the other hand, there was this 1:35:02.280 --> 1:35:05.400 sense of okay, and now what. And I think from 1:35:05.439 --> 1:35:08.800 the conversations that I've had with Bosniaks and from the 1:35:09.000 --> 1:35:13.240 articles that I've read in response to this documentary, there's 1:35:13.280 --> 1:35:17.880 a similar sort of mood of yeah, this is really important, 1:35:18.560 --> 1:35:21.400 and we have been making these allegations for a long time. 1:35:21.560 --> 1:35:23.800 Or we've been aware of the allegations for a long time. 1:35:24.320 --> 1:35:27.599 Why is it getting attention now? What's going to happen now? 1:35:28.160 --> 1:35:31.280 Can we trust that the Italians will that Italy will 1:35:31.439 --> 1:35:35.479 actually carry on with this investigation and that justice will 1:35:35.520 --> 1:35:39.080 be had? And also, you know, the notion of justice 1:35:39.160 --> 1:35:43.120 is so fraught in Bosnia as well. I think that 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:47.639 sort of to imagine that we are on this path 1:35:48.400 --> 1:35:52.519 towards you know, this linear path towards absolute healing and 1:35:52.560 --> 1:35:57.479 absolute justice and reconciliation, I think is a sort of 1:35:57.680 --> 1:36:00.839 a notion that that comforts a lot of wet an NGOs. 1:36:01.560 --> 1:36:06.080 It's not necessarily reflective a reality on the ground. So yeah, 1:36:06.840 --> 1:36:09.360 I don't think I would reconnecting this with any sense 1:36:09.400 --> 1:36:10.719 of healing at this stage. 1:36:11.400 --> 1:36:12.800 Yeah, I think that makes sense. 1:36:13.640 --> 1:36:16.439 It can be easy to see it as like, well, 1:36:16.479 --> 1:36:20.720 it's out in the open now. People have watched a 1:36:20.800 --> 1:36:24.920 film about it, right, you know, like I think a 1:36:24.960 --> 1:36:30.200 lot about the genocaid these are UCD people, and how 1:36:30.479 --> 1:36:36.720 like it essentially just has been liting what twelve years 1:36:36.760 --> 1:36:40.200 ago now and it's been entirely forgotten. Yeah, but most people, 1:36:40.320 --> 1:36:42.600 many of those people, you know, I have been to 1:36:42.800 --> 1:36:46.559 where they are and in terrible condition to refugee camps 1:36:47.800 --> 1:36:51.160 in Iraqi court. It is done right, and yeah, people 1:36:51.200 --> 1:36:53.960 are aware of it. Every now and again someone writes 1:36:54.000 --> 1:36:59.280 something about it. But like those people are no closer 1:36:59.360 --> 1:37:03.160 to any form of healing. You know that they still 1:37:03.240 --> 1:37:05.840 kin't of even many cases have not returned to their homes. 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:08.200 I mean, this is the thing in you know, particularly 1:37:08.360 --> 1:37:13.479 in the in the Publicska entity. You know, bosniactual living 1:37:13.520 --> 1:37:18.280 in that entity, they face material procarity on an everyday basis. 1:37:18.760 --> 1:37:23.920 They face threats, they face genocide, triumphalism every year when 1:37:24.000 --> 1:37:28.439 the celebrates the bounding of the entity, all of these 1:37:28.680 --> 1:37:32.519 everyday violences don't go away because of a film. And 1:37:32.640 --> 1:37:35.760 I think that Bosniacs that I have come to know 1:37:36.400 --> 1:37:40.719 in living in the entity of the public Aska really 1:37:41.560 --> 1:37:45.040 carry that sense of we're dealing with shit every day. 1:37:45.680 --> 1:37:51.559 Every day, we are facing material battles, and we're doing 1:37:51.600 --> 1:37:56.080 it alone most of the time. So yeah, it's very 1:37:56.160 --> 1:38:00.880 difficult to put an optimistic, hopeful twist on on these things. 1:38:01.240 --> 1:38:04.439 Yeah, I remember I was one year later than you 1:38:04.560 --> 1:38:09.880 were there. I was also at the memorial in Serberditza Potochari, 1:38:11.720 --> 1:38:14.000 and I remember I'm not going to name a name, 1:38:14.040 --> 1:38:15.880 but there was someone who was living in the area 1:38:16.120 --> 1:38:20.639 who spoke to us, and someone from my group wanted 1:38:20.680 --> 1:38:23.680 to film that. And I remember that the men was 1:38:23.840 --> 1:38:27.479 very very adamant that, hey, I do not want to 1:38:27.560 --> 1:38:28.040 be filmed. 1:38:29.200 --> 1:38:33.080 I already need to walk these streets. That is enough. 1:38:33.520 --> 1:38:37.760 You should have asked for permission. I also remember like 1:38:37.880 --> 1:38:41.280 put in posters when walking through through Cerebit nizza and 1:38:41.920 --> 1:38:46.400 on certain windows. Yeah yeah, yeah, But I also want 1:38:46.439 --> 1:38:49.120 to cut in with something else, because after James mentioned 1:38:49.200 --> 1:38:52.800 that other countries were prosecuting as well, I quickly googled something. 1:38:53.640 --> 1:38:59.720 Apparently Italy has already named a suspect in the investigation. Interesting, Yes, 1:39:00.720 --> 1:39:04.560 now eighty year old man. Yeah, yeah, who was a 1:39:04.880 --> 1:39:08.600 truck driver. Yes, this is something that that had come up. 1:39:09.040 --> 1:39:11.200 When I was writing everything. 1:39:12.080 --> 1:39:15.120 I had assumed that this was something that was extremely 1:39:16.240 --> 1:39:19.400 I don't know, expensive, I suppose just because it's so 1:39:19.640 --> 1:39:23.280 fucked up and that yeah, like it's that once it 1:39:23.400 --> 1:39:26.280 was someone who they're eighty now would have been fifty 1:39:26.320 --> 1:39:29.320 at the time, so someone who was not young, and 1:39:29.920 --> 1:39:33.760 I had a relatively working class profession, like it's it's 1:39:33.840 --> 1:39:36.519 that's that just isn't the profile I had in my head, 1:39:37.479 --> 1:39:39.040 and I just wanted if you knew any more about 1:39:39.080 --> 1:39:40.479 developments in the case that might like. 1:39:40.880 --> 1:39:44.679 I mean, to be really honest, I don't have much 1:39:44.840 --> 1:39:50.120 more to contribute in terms of that of the suspect 1:39:50.240 --> 1:39:54.920 and what this what's going on? Yeah, you know, I 1:39:55.040 --> 1:39:59.280 think it was he was summoned to testify last week. 1:39:59.560 --> 1:40:02.840 I think were going to tetify on the eleventh, or 1:40:03.520 --> 1:40:06.880 maybe the ninth. I think maybe the ninth, but I 1:40:08.080 --> 1:40:12.040 haven't heard anything beyond that. So I mean, in terms 1:40:12.080 --> 1:40:14.200 of what you were saying about the profile of the suspect, 1:40:14.760 --> 1:40:16.880 I mean, yes, on the one hand, it goes against 1:40:16.920 --> 1:40:21.560 the whole idea that it was wealthy tourists only. But 1:40:22.200 --> 1:40:29.519 let's also remember that in terms of domestic participation, there 1:40:29.680 --> 1:40:34.879 was a lot of capital to be gained by serving 1:40:35.920 --> 1:40:41.200 the publica Sakska project. I mean, you had everything from 1:40:42.080 --> 1:40:49.760 civilian Serb civilian truck drivers who helped to deport civilians 1:40:50.720 --> 1:40:54.360 Bosnia activilians. You had Serb civilians who were hired to 1:40:54.720 --> 1:40:59.120 dig secondary and tertiary graves, mass graves. There was an 1:40:59.280 --> 1:41:05.320 array of positions capital that was created for people who 1:41:05.479 --> 1:41:09.960 had very little and I think that's important to bear 1:41:10.200 --> 1:41:13.559 to bear in mind. Obviously that's what that's in reference 1:41:13.600 --> 1:41:17.640 to the domestic to the participation of civilians within. 1:41:17.520 --> 1:41:18.559 The former Yo Slavia. 1:41:19.280 --> 1:41:23.759 What the story behind this Italian truck driver is remains 1:41:23.760 --> 1:41:26.679 to be seen, but that's where my mind goes when 1:41:26.760 --> 1:41:28.679 you were talking about, you know, his profile. 1:41:29.160 --> 1:41:30.960 Yeah, I mean there is there are things to be 1:41:31.080 --> 1:41:35.360 gained internationally through that same participation in that same project, right, 1:41:35.479 --> 1:41:40.960 like not necessarily like from the Serbian project, but like 1:41:41.439 --> 1:41:44.360 in terms of one's status in groups, in terms of 1:41:44.760 --> 1:41:48.280 like social capital on the right. I guess we shouldn't 1:41:48.280 --> 1:41:51.840 ignore that. I don't maybe it should just remind us, 1:41:52.080 --> 1:41:55.840 like especially these struggles can all seem so disparate, right, 1:41:55.920 --> 1:41:58.519 but they're not. Like the struggle against a domestic right 1:41:58.600 --> 1:42:02.439 in Italy was basically the same thing as the or 1:42:02.439 --> 1:42:05.000 at least you know, shared the shared shared an enemy 1:42:05.320 --> 1:42:10.479 with the attempts to fight back against this genocidal violence there. 1:42:12.320 --> 1:42:16.400 Yeah, I think it is important to keep in mind that. 1:42:17.320 --> 1:42:20.120 I think when we all initially thought of the type 1:42:20.160 --> 1:42:22.800 of person who would do something like this and pay 1:42:22.880 --> 1:42:25.360 money for this, we all had an image in our 1:42:25.439 --> 1:42:29.479 head of the type that type, and I do think 1:42:29.520 --> 1:42:32.479 it's very important to then take into account that it 1:42:32.600 --> 1:42:37.400 can also be everyday people who are who can be 1:42:37.600 --> 1:42:39.360 capable and willing to do something like this. 1:42:40.880 --> 1:42:41.080 Yeah. 1:42:41.640 --> 1:42:45.040 Also another suspect who is not named but is mentioned 1:42:45.040 --> 1:42:45.799 in this article. 1:42:46.720 --> 1:42:47.160 It's from the. 1:42:47.200 --> 1:42:50.759 Study with times just to be transparent. It's a banker 1:42:51.400 --> 1:42:54.400 and so fits a lot better with like the image 1:42:54.439 --> 1:42:55.280 we had in our heads. 1:42:55.800 --> 1:42:56.000 Yeah. 1:42:56.600 --> 1:43:00.720 Yeah, something to add about the documentary's context. One of 1:43:00.840 --> 1:43:06.080 the people who testified in the documentary is a man 1:43:06.240 --> 1:43:11.960 called Eddin Subashich, who was a former Bosnian intelligence agent. 1:43:12.920 --> 1:43:15.160 Now the reason why I'm bringing him up is because 1:43:15.439 --> 1:43:20.120 he actually says I believe he says it in the 1:43:20.160 --> 1:43:22.280 documentary or he may have said it in a subsequent 1:43:22.360 --> 1:43:27.200 interview or double check. He has said that himself and 1:43:27.400 --> 1:43:33.479 the Bosnian Intelligence Agency first informed the Italian Intelligence Service 1:43:33.760 --> 1:43:37.759 about what they believed what they had evidence was happening 1:43:38.000 --> 1:43:42.680 in terms of the Sarierisafari. They first informed them in 1:43:43.120 --> 1:43:46.439 nineteen ninety three, and then a few months later, in 1:43:46.520 --> 1:43:50.840 March nineteen ninety four, the Italian Intelligence Service informed them 1:43:50.880 --> 1:43:53.880 that the matter had been closed. So that's just some 1:43:54.000 --> 1:43:59.600 interesting context to sort of think about in terms of 1:44:00.120 --> 1:44:03.240 perhaps some of the skepticism and cynicism that Bosniacs have 1:44:03.560 --> 1:44:08.040 about where this is going and the potential for change 1:44:08.240 --> 1:44:09.599 that could come as a result. 1:44:11.160 --> 1:44:15.120 Are there projects into solidarity with the people and the 1:44:15.320 --> 1:44:18.120 tendance of people who survive this you think people can 1:44:18.200 --> 1:44:18.720 engage with. 1:44:20.439 --> 1:44:26.440 I think that I would encourage people to follow Bosnians 1:44:26.479 --> 1:44:30.040 for Palestine on Instagram because what they are doing is 1:44:30.120 --> 1:44:34.720 that they are being very intentional in highlighting the commonalities 1:44:34.880 --> 1:44:42.599 between the violence against Palestinians and what Bosniacs in particular 1:44:43.240 --> 1:44:45.400 endured during the war and genocide. 1:44:46.120 --> 1:44:46.360 Cool. 1:44:47.120 --> 1:44:55.439 I would also point people towards a very interesting grassroots 1:44:55.880 --> 1:44:58.920 I don't know exactly what they are in terms of 1:44:58.960 --> 1:45:02.040 are there non I don't know if they're an association 1:45:02.640 --> 1:45:09.400 or just a grassroots initiative. They're called it's a Bosnian title. 1:45:09.479 --> 1:45:15.360 They're called oshtra nola o str a new word m 1:45:15.600 --> 1:45:20.599 u la, and they are based in the Publicska entity. 1:45:21.680 --> 1:45:26.160 But they are a group of young activists from all 1:45:26.439 --> 1:45:30.240 ethnic backgrounds, all of the three major ethnic groups in 1:45:30.439 --> 1:45:35.560 Bosnias that Serb Croat in Bosnia, who take an explicitly 1:45:35.960 --> 1:45:40.679 anti capitalist approach to their work, so they are very interesting. 1:45:40.800 --> 1:45:42.760 And the fact that they're doing what they're doing to 1:45:42.880 --> 1:45:50.240 fight against the corruption of the PUBLICABSKA authorities and ethno nationalism, 1:45:50.479 --> 1:45:53.600 and they're doing that within the entity, I think it 1:45:53.760 --> 1:45:56.320 is really quite extraordinary. So you can also follow them 1:45:56.479 --> 1:45:59.880 on Instagram and keep up to date with what they're doing. 1:46:00.000 --> 1:46:02.920 I mean, they're always there's always either a march happening 1:46:03.560 --> 1:46:07.559 in solidarity with Palestine, or there was recently a reading 1:46:07.680 --> 1:46:10.240 of names of all the murdered children of Sarah or 1:46:10.720 --> 1:46:14.320 alongside all of the murdered children of Gaza in the 1:46:14.880 --> 1:46:19.160 recent wave of the genocide in Gaza. So there's a 1:46:19.200 --> 1:46:23.040 lot of very interesting stuff happening which people from all 1:46:23.080 --> 1:46:25.519 around the world can at least follow on social media. 1:46:26.200 --> 1:46:29.360 And if you're in or around Bosnia then of course 1:46:29.439 --> 1:46:31.599 you can meet some of these people in person, which 1:46:31.680 --> 1:46:32.000 is great. 1:46:32.520 --> 1:46:32.720 Yeah. 1:46:33.640 --> 1:46:37.120 Yes, for closing thoughts, I was splicitly surprised to read 1:46:37.160 --> 1:46:41.519 that they have suspects, so I'll take this win. And 1:46:41.640 --> 1:46:46.679 I also feel I should have seen this earlier. But Georgia, 1:46:46.800 --> 1:46:50.360 thank you for for coming on and having a chat 1:46:50.479 --> 1:46:52.960 with us about horrifying stuff. 1:46:53.640 --> 1:46:57.080 Thank you for inviting me our pleasure let's go. 1:46:57.160 --> 1:47:01.599 Pet puppy, we get a feed white chickens. 1:47:03.720 --> 1:47:20.400 All right, Welcome to it could Happen here podcasts about 1:47:20.439 --> 1:47:23.519 things falling apart and how to put them back together again. 1:47:24.640 --> 1:47:30.280 I'm your host, Mia Wong. Over the course of about 1:47:30.360 --> 1:47:35.120 a month, the general strike went from a pipe dream 1:47:35.320 --> 1:47:38.559 that even the most optimistic organizers didn't think could happen 1:47:38.720 --> 1:47:46.000 until potentially maybe twenty twenty eight to something that happened. 1:47:46.040 --> 1:47:46.160 Here. 1:47:47.680 --> 1:47:52.280 We saw a one day general strike in Minneapolis, and 1:47:52.400 --> 1:47:57.840 everything is different now. People from SEIU are calling for 1:47:58.000 --> 1:48:04.559 general strikes. It's become a demand, it's become a tactic, 1:48:04.640 --> 1:48:07.719 and it's become a term that is on the tongues 1:48:07.840 --> 1:48:10.320 of people who never would dare speak of it before. 1:48:11.400 --> 1:48:14.280 And on this show, we are going to talk about 1:48:14.400 --> 1:48:18.520 the history of general strikes, how they happen, how they're organized, 1:48:19.720 --> 1:48:24.320 how they succeed, how they fail, and what the contemporary 1:48:24.439 --> 1:48:26.560 history of the tactic looks like. 1:48:27.880 --> 1:48:28.080 Now. 1:48:28.960 --> 1:48:33.880 When I originally planned this first episode, I was going 1:48:33.960 --> 1:48:39.320 to do a overview of about one hundred years of 1:48:40.240 --> 1:48:42.360 the history of general strikes to try to get us 1:48:42.560 --> 1:48:45.559 roughly to the modern era. And then as soon as 1:48:45.600 --> 1:48:47.479 I said, well, not as soon as I started writing 1:48:47.560 --> 1:48:50.400 that deeper into the process than it should have been, 1:48:50.479 --> 1:48:52.920 I realized there was absolutely no way I could cover 1:48:53.040 --> 1:48:54.440 one hundred years of general. 1:48:54.240 --> 1:48:55.280 Strikes in one episode. 1:48:56.479 --> 1:49:01.160 What I kept coming back to was one specific strike, 1:49:02.280 --> 1:49:05.920 a strike that most of you have never heard of, 1:49:07.439 --> 1:49:10.719 so the general strike in Shanghai in nineteen twenty five, 1:49:11.360 --> 1:49:15.720 what became known as the May the thirtieth Movement. I 1:49:15.840 --> 1:49:20.240 want to begin here because intellectually most of you have 1:49:20.320 --> 1:49:24.479 never heard of it. Emotionally you already know everything about it. 1:49:25.560 --> 1:49:25.720 Now. 1:49:26.439 --> 1:49:29.240 I have written about this strike before. It was, in 1:49:29.360 --> 1:49:32.920 fact the first thing I ever wrote about for Behind 1:49:33.000 --> 1:49:36.679 the Bastards, an episode about a Chinese warlord named Jong 1:49:36.760 --> 1:49:41.840 zhong Chong. But about a quarter of those episodes were 1:49:42.080 --> 1:49:47.000 about what became the May the thirtieth Movement. And so 1:49:47.400 --> 1:49:51.080 I am going to recap a little bit of what 1:49:51.200 --> 1:49:53.800 I talked about in that episode and talk about some 1:49:53.960 --> 1:49:58.880 different stuff. And yeah, we're going to get you introduced 1:49:58.960 --> 1:50:03.800 to how you get a general strike, and you know 1:50:04.120 --> 1:50:08.160 how the course of these things can go. With a 1:50:08.280 --> 1:50:13.280 strike that will look shockingly familiar to anyone who has 1:50:13.360 --> 1:50:15.479 lived through this year, which is to say, this is 1:50:15.520 --> 1:50:20.799 a strike that starts when an occupying army has taken 1:50:20.920 --> 1:50:25.519 over a city and starts fucking killing people. So a 1:50:25.640 --> 1:50:28.360 little bit of background about what is going on in 1:50:28.520 --> 1:50:31.880 China in the nineteen twenties. Nineteen twenty five is in 1:50:31.960 --> 1:50:34.679 the middle of what is called the warlord period in China, 1:50:34.760 --> 1:50:38.479 which is a period where I don't go listen to 1:50:38.520 --> 1:50:42.280 the Bastard's episode. The short version of this is that 1:50:43.600 --> 1:50:48.639 after the nineteen eleven revolution that had overthrown this Chinese 1:50:48.680 --> 1:50:51.879 imperial system, China became split between a bunch of warlords 1:50:51.880 --> 1:50:54.160 composed out of different sort of parts of the armies. 1:50:55.320 --> 1:50:59.880 Now also in this period, large parts of China are 1:51:00.120 --> 1:51:04.519 under the direct control of foreign occupiers. These are countries 1:51:04.600 --> 1:51:08.120 like Japan, the UK, France, Russia. I think there's an 1:51:08.120 --> 1:51:13.679 American concession sort of in there somewhere, and these countries 1:51:14.240 --> 1:51:18.720 just own parts of China and for our purposes, they 1:51:18.840 --> 1:51:23.760 also own parts of Shanghai and these things both the 1:51:23.920 --> 1:51:26.880 territories they occupy sometimes literally, you know, the occupation is 1:51:27.320 --> 1:51:30.080 they own a rail line. When I say they own 1:51:30.120 --> 1:51:32.080 a rail line, it's not just a company or even 1:51:32.120 --> 1:51:34.959 the country owning the rail line. They physically own the territory, 1:51:35.400 --> 1:51:40.519 so it's theirs. Like this rail line belongs to Japan, 1:51:41.080 --> 1:51:43.920 and so the land around the rail line belongs to Japan, 1:51:44.040 --> 1:51:46.360 and they can enforce their laws in it. And this 1:51:46.600 --> 1:51:49.680 is how it works. Also in Shanghai, inside of these 1:51:49.720 --> 1:51:53.760 concessions there is an armed occupation. And in Shanghai there 1:51:53.800 --> 1:51:58.440 are British or friends or Japanese police and military personnel 1:51:58.479 --> 1:52:01.000 there who do law enforcement and we'll just kill you 1:52:02.000 --> 1:52:05.760 where my dear listener, have we seen this before? I 1:52:05.920 --> 1:52:10.200 leave that as an exercise to the reader. Listener, Yes, 1:52:10.280 --> 1:52:14.439 I guess, I guess you're the listener. Now, this state 1:52:14.479 --> 1:52:19.240 of affairs came to a head in May nineteen twenty 1:52:19.320 --> 1:52:23.720 five when a Japanese foreman was meeting with Chinese union 1:52:23.840 --> 1:52:27.719 organizers and what was basically supposed to be a contract 1:52:27.760 --> 1:52:31.519 negotiation session. There's a team of Japanese foremen and business 1:52:31.560 --> 1:52:36.200 people there and a group of Chinese union organizers, and 1:52:37.360 --> 1:52:40.920 the details of what exactly happened are very very sketchy, 1:52:41.520 --> 1:52:45.360 but a brawl broke out, and the conclusion of the 1:52:45.479 --> 1:52:50.080 brawl was that a Japanese foreman killed a fairly well 1:52:50.200 --> 1:52:55.520 known local union leader. Now, the police had also arrested 1:52:55.600 --> 1:52:57.960 several of the workers who have been in the negotiations, 1:52:58.640 --> 1:53:02.920 and continued to hold them even after a massive demonstration 1:53:03.240 --> 1:53:06.760 for the Chinese organizer who'd been killed funeral so on 1:53:06.880 --> 1:53:10.040 May the thirtieth, protesters gathered outside of a police station 1:53:10.280 --> 1:53:13.600 run by the British to demand the release of their comrades. 1:53:15.280 --> 1:53:20.000 This set off a climac to confrontation that changed the 1:53:20.080 --> 1:53:24.320 face of Chinese history forever. The British open fire on 1:53:24.439 --> 1:53:29.680 the crowd killed ten people and wounded fifty more. Now 1:53:30.479 --> 1:53:34.120 half a decade ago, when I first wrote about this 1:53:34.479 --> 1:53:39.040 for a Cool Zone, I read a quote from the 1:53:39.120 --> 1:53:43.400 great Chinese author and anarchist bad Jin. This is quoted 1:53:43.479 --> 1:53:47.000 from author Waldron's book from Warden Nationalism, China's Turning Point 1:53:47.040 --> 1:53:51.280 nineteen twenty forty nineteen twenty five, and I want to 1:53:51.400 --> 1:53:54.360 return to it now for reasons that I think will 1:53:54.400 --> 1:53:58.479 immediately become a parent. This is about a student who 1:53:58.560 --> 1:54:03.360 witnessed the killings at the entrance to Union Road. He 1:54:03.479 --> 1:54:05.760 saw the child who had been killed a short while 1:54:05.880 --> 1:54:10.280 before he thought about half an hour ago, the crowd 1:54:10.400 --> 1:54:13.200 was marching peacefully towards the police station to ask the 1:54:13.320 --> 1:54:17.280 police to set free students who had been unjustly arrested. 1:54:18.280 --> 1:54:21.599 They thought the police were human beings, endowed with reason 1:54:21.720 --> 1:54:25.439 and human sympathy, that human blood flowed in their veins. 1:54:26.160 --> 1:54:29.120 They thought that uniforms and weapons could not have destroyed 1:54:29.160 --> 1:54:33.879 their human nature. But reality proved they were bloodthirsty beasts. 1:54:34.840 --> 1:54:37.960 On the most crowded street of the city, they deliberately 1:54:38.040 --> 1:54:42.200 slaughtered unarmed people. For this, there was no precedent in 1:54:42.320 --> 1:54:47.240 Chinese history. The imperialist oppression that had endured for so 1:54:47.440 --> 1:54:50.280 many years ached like a deep wound in his heart. 1:54:51.160 --> 1:54:55.360 He struggled inwardly. He felt the time for patience was over. 1:54:56.440 --> 1:54:59.240 He felt he wanted to spill his blood, to sacrifice 1:54:59.280 --> 1:55:03.200 his young life, that he might show that not all 1:55:03.280 --> 1:55:06.880 among his people were lambs that allowed themselves to be 1:55:07.000 --> 1:55:10.480 led without resistance to slaughter. He looked again at the 1:55:10.560 --> 1:55:13.920 corpse of the murdered child. His eyes shone with fire. 1:55:14.800 --> 1:55:17.320 His whole body began to burn, as though on fire, 1:55:18.280 --> 1:55:27.800 his heart be violently. You, dear listener, understand this. When 1:55:27.840 --> 1:55:31.520 I first quoted this passage in twenty twenty one, it 1:55:31.720 --> 1:55:36.400 was about George Floyd. Now it's about Renee Good and 1:55:36.560 --> 1:55:43.480 Alex Pretty you understand the horror, the suffering, the rage, 1:55:44.440 --> 1:55:50.400 the overwhelming fire to do something. You understand that they 1:55:50.440 --> 1:56:06.840 are like us, and you understand why they fought. What 1:56:07.080 --> 1:56:12.880 followed was the largest to that point general strike in 1:56:13.000 --> 1:56:17.640 the history of Shanghai. Two hundred thousand people walked off 1:56:17.720 --> 1:56:20.560 the job almost immediately in the first wave of strikes. 1:56:21.480 --> 1:56:25.200 The strike spread to almost every major city in China 1:56:25.840 --> 1:56:30.160 in some form or another. Massive student protests began tire 1:56:30.280 --> 1:56:35.040 cities Roses one, two hundred and fifty thousand people went 1:56:35.080 --> 1:56:39.720 on strike. In Hong Kong, students, workers, business owners, and 1:56:39.840 --> 1:56:44.920 gangsters stood precariously as one to drive out the armed 1:56:44.960 --> 1:56:50.080 men occupying their cities. In an instant, the world changed. 1:56:51.600 --> 1:56:55.120 Things that were impossible the day before suddenly began commonplace. 1:56:55.920 --> 1:57:00.640 People flooded the streets, they were attacked by cops, fought back, 1:57:01.840 --> 1:57:08.920 and for three months they held on. Now this was 1:57:09.280 --> 1:57:15.800 a much rougher time than even contemporary twenty twenty six America. 1:57:17.320 --> 1:57:19.240 We are in a little bit going to get to 1:57:19.360 --> 1:57:21.560 the part where a bunch of people's heads get put 1:57:21.600 --> 1:57:26.480 on spikes by the government. And you know, unlike nineteen 1:57:26.520 --> 1:57:31.360 twenty five Shanghai, for example, American cities are not, contrary 1:57:31.480 --> 1:57:34.320 to the beliefs of a significant portion of the American 1:57:34.360 --> 1:57:41.600 conservative population, run by networks of organized crime who control 1:57:42.320 --> 1:57:46.920 every facet of political life and also economic life and 1:57:47.000 --> 1:57:49.960 also social life, to the extent that if you're a 1:57:50.080 --> 1:57:54.040 union organizer in nineteen twenty Shanghai, you are effectively a 1:57:54.200 --> 1:57:57.760 mob organizer, both in the sense that you probably have 1:57:57.920 --> 1:57:59.840 to belong to one of the organizations and to the 1:58:00.080 --> 1:58:04.240 extent that the people you are actually organizing this time 1:58:04.480 --> 1:58:07.720 are like you're organizing the mob guys who bring in 1:58:07.880 --> 1:58:12.040 workers to serve as the mirgant worker population. This is 1:58:12.080 --> 1:58:15.080 also actually an important aspect of the strikes nineteen twenty five, 1:58:15.120 --> 1:58:17.640 which is that much of the labor population in Shanghai 1:58:18.200 --> 1:58:20.520 are mirgrant workers have been brought in from other parts 1:58:20.560 --> 1:58:24.360 of the country by organized crime. Now obviously that's not 1:58:25.880 --> 1:58:29.360 it is not really how migrant labor works in the 1:58:29.480 --> 1:58:33.120 United States, but you know, to some extent, the pressures 1:58:33.160 --> 1:58:36.440 of the labor discipline are very similar in that right, 1:58:36.520 --> 1:58:39.080 the threat that has held over the heads of migrant 1:58:39.120 --> 1:58:42.840 workers is that armed men will come in the night 1:58:42.960 --> 1:58:46.000 for you. And right now what we are witnessing is 1:58:46.080 --> 1:58:49.080 the armed men coming into the night. But you know, 1:58:49.320 --> 1:58:51.240 as much as I talk about sort of the differences 1:58:51.320 --> 1:58:56.120 between these movements, I think the immediate question for our 1:58:56.240 --> 1:59:01.720 purposes is are there things that we can learn from 1:59:01.800 --> 1:59:08.280 this movement? And I think the answer is yes. But 1:59:08.360 --> 1:59:11.080 in order to get to the what can we learn 1:59:11.160 --> 1:59:14.000 from this? We have to talk a bit about how 1:59:14.080 --> 1:59:16.440 the movement collapsed. So I said that the movement held 1:59:16.480 --> 1:59:19.120 on for about three months. That was in Shanghai. The 1:59:19.240 --> 1:59:22.080 history of some of the other cities is different, and 1:59:22.160 --> 1:59:25.280 we kind of don't have time to. For example, divert 1:59:25.440 --> 1:59:29.200 talk about general strike in Hong Kong, where the primary 1:59:29.320 --> 1:59:32.240 method that people used was they simply left the city 1:59:32.880 --> 1:59:37.640 and went back home, which solved some of the problems 1:59:37.680 --> 1:59:39.880 that we're going to be talking about in a little bit. 1:59:40.640 --> 1:59:46.680 But okay, in Shanghai, what happened to this movement and 1:59:47.920 --> 1:59:51.560 why did it fall apart? So I think there are 1:59:52.040 --> 1:59:54.520 roughly three factors, and I think the first two are 1:59:54.600 --> 1:59:56.760 actually more important than the third one, which might be 1:59:56.840 --> 1:59:59.600 surprising when we get to them. But the first two 1:59:59.680 --> 2:00:03.400 factors were people being able to eat and the pressure 2:00:03.480 --> 2:00:08.920 that that put on the unions, and secondarily, betrayal from 2:00:08.920 --> 2:00:11.560 the business elites that they had allied with to get 2:00:11.600 --> 2:00:14.520 the strikes to work. And the third is pere repression. 2:00:14.920 --> 2:00:17.800 And the scale of the peer repression here is astonishing. 2:00:17.840 --> 2:00:19.320 I mean some of the like one of the guys 2:00:19.360 --> 2:00:24.400 who runs this strike is just executed by the state. Again, 2:00:24.440 --> 2:00:26.280 we're going, I'm promising we're gonna get to the heads 2:00:26.320 --> 2:00:27.040 on pikes in a bit. 2:00:28.480 --> 2:00:29.879 But the repression isn't. 2:00:29.720 --> 2:00:33.640 What killed the strike. It was the problem of how 2:00:33.720 --> 2:00:35.720 do people eat? And it was the pressure from the 2:00:35.760 --> 2:00:38.520 business elite. So we're going to talk about the business 2:00:38.560 --> 2:00:41.560 elite first. Now, when I say the business elite here 2:00:42.200 --> 2:00:44.800 in the early days of the movement, and this is 2:00:44.840 --> 2:00:48.080 a tension that's going to sort of haunt the Chinese 2:00:48.160 --> 2:00:52.240 Nationalist Party for its entire existence until it splits from 2:00:52.240 --> 2:00:55.800 the Communist completely and even later than that. They're in 2:00:55.920 --> 2:01:00.040 a very very uneasy alliance with left wing student and 2:01:01.000 --> 2:01:03.800 workers who are rapidly becoming left wing, because this is 2:01:03.800 --> 2:01:08.320 also a city that was not enormously politicized until now 2:01:08.400 --> 2:01:11.880 and suddenly becomes politicized in ways it seemed impossible like 2:01:12.000 --> 2:01:15.720 a few years before. But there's a tension between them 2:01:15.720 --> 2:01:19.720 because initially these sort of patriotic business owners are really 2:01:19.800 --> 2:01:22.360 really pissed off that the foreign occupiers are murdering people 2:01:22.400 --> 2:01:25.800 in their city, and sort of nationalists and communist leaders 2:01:25.800 --> 2:01:28.920 are able to sort of broker alliances with them, and 2:01:28.960 --> 2:01:31.280 they're able to broke her alliances with organized crime, which 2:01:31.320 --> 2:01:34.280 is less important for our purposes. I cannot emphasize enough 2:01:34.680 --> 2:01:37.200 how important the organized crime people are in the history, 2:01:37.560 --> 2:01:40.120 to the extent that like Chen Kai Shek, who you 2:01:40.520 --> 2:01:43.800 may know as like the leader of the Nationalist Party 2:01:43.800 --> 2:01:45.840 and the guy who's eventually going to run Taiwan after 2:01:45.960 --> 2:01:49.600 losing the Civil war, Chenkai Shek was an organized crime 2:01:49.680 --> 2:01:52.920 guy like he was in the Green Gang, So, like 2:01:53.400 --> 2:01:57.360 you know, very important to their story, less important to 2:01:57.440 --> 2:01:59.880 our story. But they act in a very similar way 2:02:00.640 --> 2:02:03.320 shoot the business owners, which is that in the beginning, 2:02:03.480 --> 2:02:05.640 and this is something that we saw in Minneapolis too, 2:02:05.800 --> 2:02:08.360 tweing their one day general strike, which is that a 2:02:08.440 --> 2:02:11.000 lot of business owners, either out of you know, just 2:02:11.240 --> 2:02:17.960 actual genuine rage and grief over just the raw fucking 2:02:18.160 --> 2:02:21.440 horror of these monsters grabbing people from their homes and 2:02:21.480 --> 2:02:25.120 shooting people in the streets, cooperated and shut their businesses 2:02:25.200 --> 2:02:27.760 down for the day. Now obviously there are other business 2:02:27.760 --> 2:02:33.160 owners who do this because they are producers? Am I 2:02:33.280 --> 2:02:36.880 allowed to say that? They look that side and were like, 2:02:36.960 --> 2:02:38.680 it doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the 2:02:38.760 --> 2:02:41.920 winds are blowing, right, you know, they saw what was 2:02:42.000 --> 2:02:46.120 going on, and we're like, Okay, either my workers aren't 2:02:46.120 --> 2:02:49.840 going to show up, or if I don't publicly support this, 2:02:51.400 --> 2:02:54.160 it's gonna get real fucked for me, because everyone else 2:02:54.200 --> 2:02:57.120 around does. And that meant that there was a lot 2:02:57.160 --> 2:03:01.040 of cooperation from businesses. But we also saw very quickly 2:03:01.120 --> 2:03:04.360 after like a kind of a whole bunch of businesses 2:03:05.200 --> 2:03:08.920 and like sports organizations too, like signed a thing that 2:03:09.120 --> 2:03:11.600 was like, ah, we need to restore order, do do 2:03:11.720 --> 2:03:15.160 do do do maybe and the occupation, but also please 2:03:15.360 --> 2:03:18.240 stop causing disruptions protesters. 2:03:29.040 --> 2:03:30.840 Now, in the Chinese. 2:03:30.520 --> 2:03:33.000 Case, what we see as the strike goes on is 2:03:33.080 --> 2:03:37.720 that the business elites began to see the the strikes themselves, 2:03:37.840 --> 2:03:40.560 and the marches and the fighting with the police, and 2:03:40.680 --> 2:03:43.120 particularly the fact that they were also not making money 2:03:43.160 --> 2:03:45.480 and they were also putting their own money into keeping 2:03:45.520 --> 2:03:50.240 the strikes going as a problem because they are business 2:03:50.280 --> 2:03:52.240 people and the only thing that they really care about 2:03:52.240 --> 2:03:55.720 fundamentally is making money. There's a Marx line I wish 2:03:55.760 --> 2:03:58.880 I had here about like what the national character of 2:03:58.920 --> 2:04:01.480 Britain was, that it turned that it's only fundamental principle 2:04:01.600 --> 2:04:04.360 is land rent, and that that's like this, right, Like, 2:04:04.440 --> 2:04:07.040 at some point these people are like, okay, well, given 2:04:07.080 --> 2:04:11.320 the choice between imperialist occupation and me losing money and 2:04:11.400 --> 2:04:14.680 my workers gaining power, I will choose imperialist occupation. And 2:04:14.840 --> 2:04:18.960 this is something that in cross class movements like this, specifically, 2:04:19.040 --> 2:04:21.000 if you are trying to do a general strike, you're 2:04:21.080 --> 2:04:23.560 eventually going to have to deal with this, which is 2:04:23.640 --> 2:04:28.920 that a lot of particularly large businesses, and you know, 2:04:29.040 --> 2:04:32.080 some small business owners will fall in line with this too, right, 2:04:32.600 --> 2:04:35.320 will eventually get to a point where they're like, I 2:04:35.360 --> 2:04:39.840 would rather keep making money than you know, not have 2:04:40.080 --> 2:04:43.440 my neighbors taken away. And that is unbelievably fucking bleak. 2:04:44.360 --> 2:04:47.280 But that's you know, like that's one of the things 2:04:47.320 --> 2:04:54.160 that killed this general strike in China. And eventually, in 2:04:54.320 --> 2:04:57.760 the face of this, right, we come to the second problem, 2:04:57.800 --> 2:05:01.120 which that people needed to eat. So the union federation 2:05:01.280 --> 2:05:03.960 that's set up had been just sort of giving people 2:05:04.080 --> 2:05:08.200 money so that they could eat but they eventually start 2:05:08.240 --> 2:05:09.840 to run out of money, and they don't really have 2:05:10.000 --> 2:05:13.800 a way to organize the sort of production movement and 2:05:13.920 --> 2:05:16.800 logistics of providing ifone with food without relying on the 2:05:16.880 --> 2:05:20.160 bankrolling of those business owners. You know, this becomes a 2:05:20.200 --> 2:05:23.040 problem because it means that they're suddenly getting attacked by 2:05:23.960 --> 2:05:26.240 portions of the workers who aren't supposed to be their 2:05:26.240 --> 2:05:29.120 base because they don't have food. And those people also 2:05:29.240 --> 2:05:32.080 just start like walking up the Chamber of Commerce meetings 2:05:32.120 --> 2:05:34.120 and walking in and beating up the Chamber of Commerce 2:05:34.160 --> 2:05:37.200 people for not paying them, and then like eating the 2:05:37.240 --> 2:05:39.880 banquet food the cheap room commerce is a great story 2:05:40.760 --> 2:05:44.080 in the book called Shanghai on Strike. While Elizabeth Ferry, 2:05:44.120 --> 2:05:47.440 who's the renowned scholar of Chinese labor history, about this 2:05:48.040 --> 2:05:51.840 very funny. There's lots of absolutely wild stories from this strike. 2:05:52.440 --> 2:05:54.840 What are the sort of recurring themes of this period 2:05:54.880 --> 2:05:58.040 of union organizing it? Again, this is a really rough time, right, 2:05:58.480 --> 2:06:02.320 Imagine like gangster movie nineteen, like twenties New York, and 2:06:02.520 --> 2:06:06.920 like that's Shanghai, but like the gangs are way way, 2:06:07.120 --> 2:06:11.080 way way stronger. So like the way politics works to 2:06:11.160 --> 2:06:13.760 a large extent is that people beat the share out 2:06:13.760 --> 2:06:15.720 of each other, and like hall hits on each other, 2:06:16.040 --> 2:06:20.120 and the city is technically speaking, it's run by like 2:06:20.400 --> 2:06:23.200 what is a warlord army, and then beneath the warlord 2:06:23.320 --> 2:06:27.040 army there are all of these organized criminal organizations. But like, 2:06:27.640 --> 2:06:30.960 you know, the unions have this thing called dog beating brigades, 2:06:31.760 --> 2:06:38.000 where the dog beating brigades, like if you like publicly 2:06:38.120 --> 2:06:41.320 started scabbing you very publicly were standing against the strike, 2:06:41.440 --> 2:06:43.320 Like the dog beating brigade would show up in the 2:06:43.360 --> 2:06:44.840 middle of the night and it was just like a 2:06:44.920 --> 2:06:47.280 bunch of guys with hatchets and it would just like 2:06:47.400 --> 2:06:49.200 beat the shit out of you. And this was just 2:06:49.280 --> 2:06:51.600 like a normal thing that was happening between these strikes. 2:06:51.880 --> 2:06:54.680 So this whole period of Chinese history is nuts. 2:06:55.000 --> 2:06:57.600 It's wild. There's so much shit going on. 2:06:58.240 --> 2:07:02.280 That's just I don't know, they had the dog beating brigades. 2:07:03.880 --> 2:07:06.280 I guess in the American context we'd call them like 2:07:06.760 --> 2:07:10.800 like the scabby beating brigades or whatever. But you know, 2:07:11.480 --> 2:07:15.280 it's a rough time for everyone. But what they kind 2:07:15.320 --> 2:07:18.120 of don't have Without sort of business owners, they're never 2:07:18.320 --> 2:07:21.840 really able to sort of seize control of production and 2:07:22.840 --> 2:07:27.400 repurpose it towards you know, keeping everyone fed. And I 2:07:27.440 --> 2:07:29.560 will say this is something that actually I think we 2:07:29.760 --> 2:07:32.720 are better at than they were in the sense of 2:07:32.880 --> 2:07:36.680 we are better at running to logistics of getting a 2:07:36.720 --> 2:07:38.800 bunch of people's food and the stuff that they need 2:07:38.880 --> 2:07:40.800 to survive. And that's something we can look at in 2:07:40.840 --> 2:07:44.600 Minneapolis where and this is obviously coming from people's money, 2:07:44.800 --> 2:07:47.960 but a lot of the organizing in Minneapolis is about 2:07:48.000 --> 2:07:51.080 getting people who can't leave their homes food. We've also 2:07:51.200 --> 2:07:55.360 seen in the last day or so tenant and labor 2:07:55.680 --> 2:07:59.360 union leaders are talking about a rent strike in Minneapolis, 2:07:59.520 --> 2:08:02.160 which can help people, you know, not get effected because 2:08:02.160 --> 2:08:04.000 they can't go to work. But it's also something that 2:08:04.320 --> 2:08:05.880 if you're going to do a general strike, yeah, you 2:08:05.960 --> 2:08:08.960 probably also have to do a rent strike, but if 2:08:09.000 --> 2:08:10.800 you want to keep a general strike going, and this 2:08:10.880 --> 2:08:12.600 is something that we're going to get to a lot 2:08:12.720 --> 2:08:17.320 more in later episodes, the Seattle general strike is a 2:08:17.440 --> 2:08:18.080 very large. 2:08:17.920 --> 2:08:18.520 Example of this. 2:08:19.080 --> 2:08:20.480 If you want to keep this thing going, you have 2:08:20.560 --> 2:08:22.760 to take control of the places where you're working and 2:08:23.840 --> 2:08:28.840 you know, have them provide the food for people and 2:08:28.920 --> 2:08:32.320 have them provide the resources that people need. But in 2:08:32.440 --> 2:08:35.120 this sort of context, almost everyone who's involved in this, 2:08:35.280 --> 2:08:38.600 this is their first general strike. What really happens here, right, 2:08:38.720 --> 2:08:40.800 is that the unions are forced to call off the strike. 2:08:40.840 --> 2:08:44.200 They get minor concessions in exchange from the foreign bosses. 2:08:44.840 --> 2:08:47.520 But what it does is politicize the entire city, and 2:08:47.600 --> 2:08:50.320 it politicizes all of China in a way that is 2:08:50.400 --> 2:08:53.320 going to shape all of the politics in the country forever. 2:08:54.360 --> 2:08:56.840 I guess, like it's the thing that creates modern China 2:08:56.960 --> 2:08:59.880 is the politicization that comes out of this period. You know, 2:09:00.280 --> 2:09:03.480 it's what sort of transforms Chinese politics or something that 2:09:03.640 --> 2:09:06.360 was purely the almost purely the domain of worldlords into 2:09:06.440 --> 2:09:09.960 something that's now the domain of the nationalists and the communists. 2:09:09.960 --> 2:09:12.760 And obviously, you know, the military conflict is a large 2:09:12.800 --> 2:09:14.120 thing in this that we don't really have time to 2:09:14.160 --> 2:09:19.560 get into. But you know, this period transforms the entire 2:09:20.280 --> 2:09:23.600 politics of China. Right, People who had never thought about 2:09:23.640 --> 2:09:26.520 politics before, people who had never you know, who had 2:09:26.600 --> 2:09:29.120 never like heard the words imperialism or like heard the 2:09:29.200 --> 2:09:33.520 words like militarism, right, are suddenly in the streets talking 2:09:33.560 --> 2:09:35.760 about it, and they're talking about general strikes, and they're 2:09:35.800 --> 2:09:39.160 talking about how how can we run these occupying armies out? 2:09:40.080 --> 2:09:43.240 And I want to sort of mention how this whole 2:09:43.320 --> 2:09:45.760 thing ends, right, which that people keep organizing and they 2:09:45.880 --> 2:09:49.400 keep fighting. And one year later, in nineteen twenty six, 2:09:50.000 --> 2:09:53.760 the first of the uprisings begins, now, the first uprising, 2:09:53.800 --> 2:09:56.080 and these three uprisings are all sort of like hauled 2:09:56.160 --> 2:09:58.760 by the Chinese Communist Party and their unions. 2:09:59.640 --> 2:10:00.520 The first, this one. 2:10:00.680 --> 2:10:03.840 Fails horribly, and the warlords put the heads of workers 2:10:03.880 --> 2:10:06.960 they'd killed on pikes. They have these squads where there's 2:10:06.960 --> 2:10:10.760 two guys with broadswords and a guy with like a 2:10:10.880 --> 2:10:13.400 sheriff's badge effectively, who go door to door and if 2:10:13.400 --> 2:10:16.160 they find someone who they think had like handed out leaflets, 2:10:16.200 --> 2:10:17.440 they would execute. 2:10:17.040 --> 2:10:18.480 Them on the spot. 2:10:18.680 --> 2:10:20.600 This is the kind of repression that they're dealing with. 2:10:21.360 --> 2:10:24.400 And they did it again. They tried again in nineteen 2:10:24.440 --> 2:10:27.280 twenty seven, and that one failed. And at the second time, 2:10:27.320 --> 2:10:29.960 by the way, it's worth mentioning was supposed to be 2:10:30.240 --> 2:10:34.080 a general strike coordinated with an uprising, and they fucked 2:10:34.160 --> 2:10:35.640 up the coordination of it, but it did also. The 2:10:35.680 --> 2:10:37.920 second one was a three hundred thousand strong general strike, 2:10:38.560 --> 2:10:42.760 and the third stry was an eight hundred thousand strong 2:10:42.880 --> 2:10:47.120 general strike, and they stays the intrection and they run 2:10:47.200 --> 2:10:50.280 the warlord armies out of the city, and for a 2:10:50.480 --> 2:10:54.360 sort of brief glorious moment, Shanghai is in the hands 2:10:54.440 --> 2:10:59.000 of its workers, and theyre subsequent betrayal and slaughter by 2:10:59.040 --> 2:11:03.600 the USSR and Shang Kai Shack, mostly Shang Kai Shak. 2:11:03.880 --> 2:11:05.160 The USSR is also. 2:11:05.000 --> 2:11:07.640 At fault here for telling them to keep allying with 2:11:07.760 --> 2:11:10.040 Shan Kai Shak and the nationalists. That's the story for 2:11:10.120 --> 2:11:15.600 another time. But I think to close we are used 2:11:15.640 --> 2:11:20.480 to thinking that the times that we live in our unprecedented, 2:11:21.240 --> 2:11:25.560 and in some ways they are. But people have fought 2:11:25.920 --> 2:11:31.440 our struggles before. People have fought and died and won 2:11:32.400 --> 2:11:36.880 to stop the brain of men with guns over our cities. 2:11:38.160 --> 2:11:40.480 And if we learn the lessons of both their time 2:11:40.600 --> 2:11:43.600 and ours, if we use that knowledge to act in 2:11:43.680 --> 2:11:49.160 the moment of crisis, we can win conscience, history, and 2:11:49.240 --> 2:11:53.040 the cries of the suffering demanded. So let's go win 2:11:53.160 --> 2:11:56.800 the war. We have a world to win and nothing 2:11:56.880 --> 2:11:57.920 to lose but our chains. 2:12:13.640 --> 2:12:16.960 This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder our weekly 2:12:17.000 --> 2:12:19.720 newscast covering What's happening in the White House, the Crumbling World, 2:12:19.760 --> 2:12:22.240 and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis to Dame, 2:12:22.320 --> 2:12:25.600 joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Robert Evans. This 2:12:25.680 --> 2:12:30.400 episode recovering the week February eleventh to February eighteenth. Some 2:12:30.920 --> 2:12:34.920 small news items up top. Last week, the FDA declined 2:12:34.920 --> 2:12:39.040 to review a new flu vaccine from Maderna. In February twelfth, 2:12:39.520 --> 2:12:42.960 Tom Homan announced that Operation Metro Surge has concluded and 2:12:43.120 --> 2:12:46.160 quote significant drawdown has already been underway this week and 2:12:46.240 --> 2:12:49.840 will continue through the next week un quote. Zarmmdani has 2:12:49.920 --> 2:12:52.400 ordered a new audit of city agencies to ensure compliance 2:12:52.440 --> 2:12:55.320 with sanctuary city laws in New York. And Stephen Colbert 2:12:55.480 --> 2:12:58.560 says that CBS refused to air his interview with Texas 2:12:58.560 --> 2:13:04.200 Democratic Senate James Tellerico, citing the FCC's equal time rule. 2:13:04.680 --> 2:13:07.600 Despite this rule historically having an exception for late night 2:13:07.640 --> 2:13:12.440 talk show interviews. Last month, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened 2:13:12.440 --> 2:13:14.920 to enforce the rule regardless of the well established president 2:13:15.040 --> 2:13:19.120 that excluded talk show interviews. And finally, the owner of 2:13:19.280 --> 2:13:21.800 a warehouse facility in Hutchins Texas so so that they 2:13:22.160 --> 2:13:24.400 won't sell or lease the building to the federal government 2:13:24.480 --> 2:13:27.800 as a detention facility. The city's mayor and council all 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:31.640 opposed the project. Seizure by eminent domain is still possible. 2:13:32.240 --> 2:13:35.920 Yeah, And I guess with that, there's been campaigns in 2:13:36.040 --> 2:13:39.720 a couple of other small, traditionally conservative rural areas to 2:13:39.880 --> 2:13:44.000 not lease facilities for ICE. And it's still a little unclear, 2:13:44.000 --> 2:13:45.920 and I suspect it's kind of column A Columbie. How 2:13:46.000 --> 2:13:49.080 much of this is, you know, nimbiism and how much 2:13:49.120 --> 2:13:51.240 of this is resistance to ice specifically. 2:13:52.240 --> 2:13:54.600 Yeah, we covered a little of that in the episode 2:13:54.600 --> 2:13:57.760 I did on Social Circle, which is in Georgia last week. 2:13:58.000 --> 2:13:59.440 But I think it's fair to say both. 2:13:59.720 --> 2:14:01.720 Yeah, And obviously when I say nimbism, I don't mean 2:14:01.720 --> 2:14:04.080 it in a bad way. It's bad to have this 2:14:04.200 --> 2:14:06.080 in your back yard. But like their issue wasn't a 2:14:06.120 --> 2:14:08.000 moral one in some cases. 2:14:08.120 --> 2:14:09.240 Yeah, in some cases. 2:14:09.280 --> 2:14:12.640 I think in some cases it's their little columny, little 2:14:12.760 --> 2:14:13.080 column B. 2:14:13.520 --> 2:14:14.640 Yeah, it's hard to tell. 2:14:15.000 --> 2:14:17.920 Yeah, And I think like it's worth noting, for instance, 2:14:17.960 --> 2:14:21.400 hearing in southern California, right a town called Dulzura, pretty 2:14:21.440 --> 2:14:23.600 small town. Maybe you've heard of it from when the 2:14:23.680 --> 2:14:26.720 KKK did border patrols there back in the day. But 2:14:26.920 --> 2:14:29.720 the Border patrol are trying to build a big new 2:14:29.800 --> 2:14:32.280 facility there and have been for some time called New 2:14:32.360 --> 2:14:33.040 brown Field. 2:14:33.880 --> 2:14:36.680 There has been local opposition to that among people. 2:14:36.440 --> 2:14:38.200 Who are very like people who I have spoken to 2:14:38.400 --> 2:14:42.320 are otherwise conservative, and like, some of it is, yeah, 2:14:42.320 --> 2:14:43.960 I don't want this changing the character of the town. 2:14:44.040 --> 2:14:46.320 I don't want a giant detention center that would eclipse 2:14:46.360 --> 2:14:48.760 the population of this very small town. 2:14:49.400 --> 2:14:51.640 Some of them is also like, I don't want them 2:14:51.640 --> 2:14:52.800 to be locking up people out here. 2:14:52.880 --> 2:14:55.080 We have a nice life out here, and you know, 2:14:55.200 --> 2:14:57.520 we have little lots of fields and horses and space, 2:14:57.640 --> 2:15:00.000 and it seems like it would be really fucked up 2:15:00.320 --> 2:15:01.600 to have people detained out here. 2:15:01.720 --> 2:15:02.960 Like I think that that. 2:15:03.320 --> 2:15:07.520 Nimby impulse can sometimes like could still combine with even 2:15:07.560 --> 2:15:10.840 people who are not, you know, abolitionists. They don't want 2:15:10.960 --> 2:15:13.440 to be confronted with the horrors directly next to them. 2:15:14.080 --> 2:15:16.879 Yep. And we'll talk a little bit more about the numbers, 2:15:17.400 --> 2:15:21.160 like ICE's polling numbers, like how popular they are with Americans. 2:15:21.240 --> 2:15:23.600 But one of the things we've seen this year. Is 2:15:23.720 --> 2:15:27.200 that like they've been shedding support even from Republicans, So like, 2:15:27.560 --> 2:15:30.200 you know, whatever debate we have here, that's like certainly 2:15:30.280 --> 2:15:31.320 not a non factor. 2:15:32.280 --> 2:15:32.720 Definitely. 2:15:33.240 --> 2:15:35.560 I think it's now time for us to talk about 2:15:35.640 --> 2:15:40.000 the biggest news story this week, which is that Shilah 2:15:40.040 --> 2:15:43.800 buff was arrested in New Orleans during Marty Grab after 2:15:43.920 --> 2:15:48.800 getting into a series of fights. Who he was in 2:15:48.880 --> 2:15:51.760 the movie Holes? Oh yeah, he was also in a 2:15:51.800 --> 2:15:54.280 different production called Holes, but not based on a book. 2:15:54.680 --> 2:15:56.080 He was in Holes. I forgot. 2:15:56.320 --> 2:15:57.360 Yeah, it was in both Holes. 2:15:57.480 --> 2:16:03.160 So I don't know who I've never Yeah, he's a he's. 2:16:03.000 --> 2:16:05.360 A child actor who was a who was very popular 2:16:05.560 --> 2:16:09.640 during the early two thousands and has gone. He played 2:16:09.800 --> 2:16:12.880 the Indiana Jones's son in the reboot event or in 2:16:12.920 --> 2:16:15.360 the new in the fourth Indiana Jones movie God and 2:16:15.440 --> 2:16:18.160 then he is he has He has since kind of 2:16:18.360 --> 2:16:24.080 fallen into madness and disrepute. He's a spousal abuser. He's 2:16:24.360 --> 2:16:28.440 repeatedly assaulted people in public. He showed up on that 2:16:28.560 --> 2:16:32.120 webcam White supremacists were drinking milk on once for reasons 2:16:32.160 --> 2:16:34.560 that are still to this day somewhat unclear to me. 2:16:34.920 --> 2:16:36.720 And he got into a fight in Marty Gras, which 2:16:36.800 --> 2:16:38.360 is just just just a fun little bit of news. 2:16:38.440 --> 2:16:41.040 My favorite part of this is that he assaulted a guy. 2:16:41.360 --> 2:16:43.760 He was repeatedly restrained by members of a bar, and 2:16:43.840 --> 2:16:45.760 whenever they would let him go because they just wanted 2:16:46.000 --> 2:16:47.640 him to leave, they didn't want to call the cops, 2:16:48.000 --> 2:16:50.040 he would then continue to attack the guy he was 2:16:50.080 --> 2:16:52.920 assaulting until they forced to. They were forced to call 2:16:52.959 --> 2:16:56.160 the police and have him arrested. And I've been in 2:16:56.240 --> 2:16:58.480 Marty Gras over the last few days, and let me 2:16:58.560 --> 2:17:01.920 tell you, getting arrested by the police during Marti Gras 2:17:02.320 --> 2:17:05.080 not easy. I don't have a lot to say about 2:17:05.120 --> 2:17:07.200 that other than I was surprised by the number of 2:17:07.560 --> 2:17:11.080 very political floats that I saw, particularly at least one 2:17:11.160 --> 2:17:15.640 that was entirely paper mache ice GY's in a very 2:17:15.800 --> 2:17:18.720 like non flattering way. There were a lot of like 2:17:19.080 --> 2:17:22.440 costumes and a number of references on floats. There's a 2:17:22.480 --> 2:17:26.080 couple of pretty hideous caricatures of Trump on floats, and 2:17:26.200 --> 2:17:30.360 they all got like a widely positive reaction. And I 2:17:30.480 --> 2:17:33.040 find this interesting. And I'm bringing this up because the 2:17:33.400 --> 2:17:35.680 research that I've largely been doing for the EV this 2:17:35.760 --> 2:17:37.560 week is trying to get a handle on, like where 2:17:37.720 --> 2:17:41.720 Americans are polling right now and how popular or unpopular 2:17:42.000 --> 2:17:45.440 is the president and his agenda, because like we see 2:17:45.720 --> 2:17:48.920 articles every week about like Trump's polls hit a new low, 2:17:49.720 --> 2:17:53.120 or the most recent article that I think it's gallup 2:17:53.240 --> 2:17:57.039 is no longer going to be doing presidential like popularity polling. 2:17:57.600 --> 2:17:58.960 But I wanted to get a look at, like how 2:17:59.080 --> 2:18:02.040 the actual like part and their agendas are holding up. 2:18:02.200 --> 2:18:06.680 And it's a pretty shocking gap between September October, like 2:18:06.840 --> 2:18:11.360 fall of last year and today. So in September of 2:18:11.480 --> 2:18:16.080 twenty twenty five, per Yugov, the Democratic Party had about 2:18:16.080 --> 2:18:20.080 a sixty four percent unfavorable so like sixty four percent 2:18:20.120 --> 2:18:23.440 of polled Americans didn't like the Democratic Party and a 2:18:23.520 --> 2:18:26.280 little less than thirty four percent of Americans had a 2:18:26.400 --> 2:18:29.400 favorable opinion of the Democratic Party. And if you actually 2:18:29.400 --> 2:18:32.440 look at the graphs for those that you GOV presents, 2:18:32.480 --> 2:18:35.320 they're basically making like a wineglass shape, right, So what 2:18:35.440 --> 2:18:39.920 that means is unfavorability is moving up and favorability is 2:18:40.040 --> 2:18:42.880 moving down rapidly, Like at the time at which those 2:18:42.920 --> 2:18:45.440 bulls were taken in September of last year, Meanwhile, the 2:18:45.520 --> 2:18:49.400 Republican Party. Neither party was popular, but the Republican Party 2:18:49.440 --> 2:18:52.920 the wineglass shape was a lot more muted, more like 2:18:53.000 --> 2:18:56.280 a shot glass. Fifty five point four percent of Americans 2:18:56.320 --> 2:19:00.320 pulled by Yugov expressed a unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, 2:19:00.560 --> 2:19:03.480 at about forty two point three expressed a favorable opinion. 2:19:03.879 --> 2:19:08.160 You can compare this to October twenty twenty five polling 2:19:08.280 --> 2:19:12.360 by Pew Research, which showed something similar. Sixty four percent 2:19:12.560 --> 2:19:16.959 of Americans were frustrated with the Republican Party, seventy five 2:19:17.000 --> 2:19:20.040 percent of Americans reported being frustrated with the Democratic Party. 2:19:20.440 --> 2:19:23.320 Forty nine percent of Americans polled replied that they were 2:19:23.440 --> 2:19:27.080 angry at the Republican Party, fifty percent reported being angry 2:19:27.120 --> 2:19:30.560 at the Democratic Party. Similarly, Republicans, thirty six cent of 2:19:30.560 --> 2:19:33.959 Americans felt hopeful about the Republican Party, twenty eight percent 2:19:34.000 --> 2:19:37.880 of Americans felt hopeful about the Democratic Party, and then 2:19:38.040 --> 2:19:41.000 twenty seven percent of Americans were proud of the Republican 2:19:41.080 --> 2:19:45.480 Party sixteen percent Democratic Party. Those are pretty bleak numbers 2:19:45.680 --> 2:19:49.360 for the Democrats coming in the fall of twenty twenty five. 2:19:49.560 --> 2:19:53.880 Like that is kind of black pilling. Stuff. Right, This 2:19:54.280 --> 2:19:56.280 was in the fall of last year, pretty rapid change 2:19:56.280 --> 2:19:59.240 from where things had been about four years ago. For example, 2:19:59.320 --> 2:20:03.039 in September two, only twenty one, about sixty four percent 2:20:03.160 --> 2:20:05.920 of Americans had expressed frustration with the Democratic Party as 2:20:05.920 --> 2:20:08.880 opposed to seventy five percent four years later. So that's 2:20:08.920 --> 2:20:13.320 all fall of last year. Now, between when the polls 2:20:13.360 --> 2:20:15.920 that I read to you came out and now we've 2:20:15.959 --> 2:20:18.920 had a cup several major things happen. One of the 2:20:19.000 --> 2:20:23.880 more significant was the long shutdown, which was disasters for 2:20:24.040 --> 2:20:27.800 Republican favorability and for Trump's own favorability. And we also 2:20:27.920 --> 2:20:31.320 had a significant I mean, obviously in LA and in Chicago, 2:20:31.440 --> 2:20:34.120 Ice had been doing very terrible and very like you know, 2:20:34.720 --> 2:20:38.520 I guess I should say, like documented crimes, like horrible 2:20:38.600 --> 2:20:41.960 things that were spread widely on social media. But that 2:20:42.160 --> 2:20:46.279 has also accelerated massively in the first couple of weeks 2:20:46.480 --> 2:20:50.040 of twenty twenty six. And what we're seeing now in 2:20:50.200 --> 2:20:54.040 more recent polls taken in late January and from anywhere 2:20:54.040 --> 2:20:56.400 from like kind of early January to late January and 2:20:56.480 --> 2:21:01.240 early February is a significant reversal. So NBC News is 2:21:01.320 --> 2:21:04.960 Decision Desk coalated a bunch of different polls like Daily Mail, Marquette, 2:21:05.000 --> 2:21:10.160 Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, YouGov, Fox News, Emerson, and over 2:21:10.200 --> 2:21:13.400 the last month or so, you're looking at an average 2:21:13.480 --> 2:21:16.960 spread of all of these polls of about negative nineteen 2:21:17.080 --> 2:21:21.720 point nine percent favorability for the Republican Party and about 2:21:21.840 --> 2:21:25.680 negative twelve point eight percent favorability for the Democratic Party. 2:21:26.000 --> 2:21:27.720 So when you think back to those numbers from last fall, 2:21:27.920 --> 2:21:33.000 that's a pretty dramatic change, and it kind of correlates 2:21:33.040 --> 2:21:35.560 to a dramatic change in Trump's own favorability, which has 2:21:35.560 --> 2:21:38.800 gone down by about twelve percent per the average of 2:21:38.920 --> 2:21:42.280 those polls that kind of aggregated by NBC News Desk 2:21:43.080 --> 2:21:45.760 their article notes quote. Ipso's polling released in late January 2:21:45.879 --> 2:21:48.680 found fifty one percent of Americans say Trump' immigration policy 2:21:48.800 --> 2:21:51.520 is on the wrong track. Amazingly, just a year ago, 2:21:51.600 --> 2:21:54.520 American said Republicans have a better plan, policy, and approach 2:21:54.600 --> 2:21:57.480 than Democrats on immigration by a twenty two point margin. 2:21:58.040 --> 2:22:01.480 Now that advantage is down to five points pints. So 2:22:01.920 --> 2:22:05.000 while Trump is underwater with immigration, his and the Republican 2:22:05.040 --> 2:22:08.520 Party's policies towards immigration are still more popular than the 2:22:08.560 --> 2:22:12.080 Democratic Party's response. Is to immigration, but they have also 2:22:12.280 --> 2:22:16.119 collapsed in terms of like. The gap between those two things, again, 2:22:16.200 --> 2:22:18.880 twenty two point margin to a five point lead is 2:22:18.959 --> 2:22:23.240 a is a pretty dramatic narrowing. And one of the 2:22:23.360 --> 2:22:27.320 things that has come along with this is an increasing 2:22:27.840 --> 2:22:31.720 agreement among Americans that ICE has not only gone too far, 2:22:32.120 --> 2:22:35.840 but needs to be if not abolished entirely, then severely curtailed, 2:22:35.840 --> 2:22:39.560 and a lot of Americans, this shocking amount, currently support 2:22:39.640 --> 2:22:45.440 abolishing ICE entirely. A PBS News, NPR Merist poll released 2:22:45.480 --> 2:22:48.160 recently found that a majority of Americans feel ICE is 2:22:48.240 --> 2:22:51.920 making the country less safe and has gone too far. 2:22:52.520 --> 2:22:56.280 Six in ten Americans disapprove of what ICE is doing, 2:22:56.400 --> 2:22:59.080 only about three and ten approve of it, So by 2:22:59.120 --> 2:23:04.000 a two to one margin, Americans disapprove ICE's operations to 2:23:04.360 --> 2:23:08.800 approve of their behavior. This is a very like political breakdown. 2:23:08.840 --> 2:23:12.480 About ninety one percent of Democrats disapprove of Ice, sixty 2:23:12.520 --> 2:23:16.400 cent of Independence disapprove of ICE. Meanwhile, seventy three percent 2:23:16.480 --> 2:23:19.879 of Republicans approve of ICE, but even that number has 2:23:20.000 --> 2:23:24.640 dropped fairly recently. Right In fact, the percentage of Americans 2:23:24.680 --> 2:23:27.760 that believe ICE hasn't gone far enough dropped from eighteen 2:23:27.800 --> 2:23:31.400 percent to twelve percent over the last year, and only 2:23:31.440 --> 2:23:33.880 about twenty two percent of Americans feel like Ice is 2:23:33.920 --> 2:23:36.400 doing a good job compared to twenty six percent of 2:23:36.480 --> 2:23:41.599 Americans a year ago. So we're seeing like pretty unequivocally 2:23:42.000 --> 2:23:48.720 Americans rejecting the Republican tactics on immigration, and they tend 2:23:48.800 --> 2:23:53.080 to be blaming Ice for it, right, Like, That's one 2:23:53.120 --> 2:23:54.800 of the things that's most interesting to me is that 2:23:54.959 --> 2:23:58.080 both Ice and President Trump have seen the most dramatic 2:23:58.160 --> 2:24:01.800 collapses in public support. Would suggests to me that, like 2:24:02.040 --> 2:24:06.279 Americans are kind of tying these two things together. Currently, 2:24:06.440 --> 2:24:09.400 per Yugov, as of January twenty fourth, twenty twenty six, 2:24:09.879 --> 2:24:13.200 more Americans support abolishing ICE than oppose it. Now, this 2:24:13.240 --> 2:24:15.680 is not mean a majority of American support abolishing Ice. 2:24:15.720 --> 2:24:18.600 I've seen some people mistate that forty six percent of 2:24:18.760 --> 2:24:22.160 US adults, as pulled by Yugov, somewhat or strongly support 2:24:22.200 --> 2:24:26.000 abolishing Ice, twelve percent are not sure. Forty one percent 2:24:26.160 --> 2:24:30.560 somewhat or strongly oppose abolishing Ice. Yeah, that's still pretty striking. 2:24:31.120 --> 2:24:33.280 Yeah, say yeah, a plurality. 2:24:33.400 --> 2:24:36.280 Right, Maybe now would be a good time to talk 2:24:36.320 --> 2:24:40.160 a little bit about like where Democrats, different Democrats are, 2:24:40.160 --> 2:24:43.039 different wings of the Democrat Party are on abolishing ice, 2:24:43.280 --> 2:24:45.320 because I think it's one of these areas where like 2:24:46.440 --> 2:24:50.439 the further up the party you go, the more detached 2:24:50.640 --> 2:24:54.680 from that public opinion you get. So maybe you will 2:24:54.720 --> 2:24:58.400 start the Keem Jeffries, Democrat leader in the House, hit 2:24:58.520 --> 2:25:00.720 him on the Joy Read Show on the topic of 2:25:00.760 --> 2:25:01.600 abolishing ice. 2:25:02.240 --> 2:25:05.440 Why not lead and say abolish ice, because what you're 2:25:05.440 --> 2:25:09.200 telling us is you want our taxpayer dollars to pay 2:25:09.680 --> 2:25:13.640 for a lawless, massed, armed agency to continue terrorizing our cities. 2:25:14.080 --> 2:25:16.320 And I'm trying to figure out how you, as a 2:25:16.440 --> 2:25:19.959 leader can be telling Americans that their taxpayer dollars should 2:25:19.959 --> 2:25:20.600 be going twice. 2:25:21.000 --> 2:25:23.800 I don't understand anything that you just said. When I've 2:25:23.840 --> 2:25:26.280 loved English well, I don't understand anything that you've just 2:25:26.400 --> 2:25:30.920 said to me when I've made clear that taxpayer dollars 2:25:31.160 --> 2:25:34.480 should be used to make life more affordable for the 2:25:34.520 --> 2:25:37.680 American people, not brutaliza kill them. That's the whole reason 2:25:37.760 --> 2:25:40.320 we're in this fight right now. That's the whole reason 2:25:40.360 --> 2:25:42.800 the DHS is getting ready to shut down. 2:25:43.200 --> 2:25:46.440 That's abolish me, Joy, abolish Ice. 2:25:46.640 --> 2:25:49.960 That is a Listen, I'm going to use the language 2:25:50.000 --> 2:25:51.880 that I want to use. You can use the language 2:25:51.920 --> 2:25:52.680 that you want to use. 2:25:54.680 --> 2:26:00.600 You can see Jeffries visibly kind of tense when the 2:26:00.680 --> 2:26:03.800 phrase abolish ice is use right, like he's yeah, he 2:26:03.920 --> 2:26:06.560 wants nothing to do with it. His immediate responses is 2:26:06.680 --> 2:26:10.160 to go to affordability. I do want to note that 2:26:10.959 --> 2:26:13.200 when he was previously asked if he would use the 2:26:13.280 --> 2:26:16.760 appropriations process to rain in ice, he did exactly the 2:26:16.879 --> 2:26:17.480 same thing. 2:26:18.320 --> 2:26:21.160 But why not use the appropriations to rain in ice 2:26:21.240 --> 2:26:23.039 leader for an operation? 2:26:23.200 --> 2:26:26.200 No, what I'm what I'm focused on right now, Chad 2:26:26.640 --> 2:26:29.160 is to make life better for the American people by 2:26:29.240 --> 2:26:31.880 extending the affordable care and tax credits, which, by the way, 2:26:32.160 --> 2:26:35.959 a lot of folks in this institution believe was not possible. 2:26:37.120 --> 2:26:39.800 But Democrats made clear before the. 2:26:39.840 --> 2:26:42.280 Government was shut down that we were in this fight 2:26:42.520 --> 2:26:44.840 until we win this fight on behalf of the American 2:26:46.360 --> 2:26:47.920 lower the costs, save health care. 2:26:48.160 --> 2:26:48.840 That's our objection. 2:26:49.080 --> 2:26:52.280 Why not that he does the same thing, right, he 2:26:52.560 --> 2:26:55.160 goes back to affordability, which is something that Democrats have 2:26:56.200 --> 2:26:58.360 done for the last year and a half. Right, when 2:26:58.520 --> 2:27:02.040 asked to take a strong leadership stance and ice. Far 2:27:02.120 --> 2:27:04.280 too much of their leadership has instead like tried to 2:27:04.320 --> 2:27:06.960 deflect to affordability. I do want to note that, like 2:27:07.800 --> 2:27:11.520 they are now doing exactly what he was deflecting from there, right, Yeah, 2:27:11.800 --> 2:27:14.200 and that was only less than a month ago. 2:27:14.480 --> 2:27:17.920 It's interesting because it's like this cowardice on like specific 2:27:18.160 --> 2:27:21.560 terms and messaging. Yeah, even though they are using the 2:27:21.600 --> 2:27:23.760 probations process to try to rain an ice like that 2:27:23.879 --> 2:27:25.879 is that, Yeah, that is what they are doing now, 2:27:26.200 --> 2:27:29.680 But it's like a complete complete cowardice or actually like yeah, 2:27:29.800 --> 2:27:33.039 trying to like use like public pressure to your advantage 2:27:33.360 --> 2:27:34.119 at the moment. 2:27:33.920 --> 2:27:37.320 Like, yeah, he's doing the thing and almost like failing 2:27:38.000 --> 2:27:40.400 to It's not that he's doing the thing, you know, 2:27:40.480 --> 2:27:41.920 as many of us would wish he did, but like 2:27:42.000 --> 2:27:45.680 he's failing to take the easy win. Yeah, like because 2:27:45.720 --> 2:27:49.160 of like you say this like institutional cowardice or like 2:27:49.240 --> 2:27:52.800 these It's like there's some kind of red line rhetorically 2:27:53.240 --> 2:27:57.160 for jeffrees and other leadership Democrats that they will not cross. 2:27:57.879 --> 2:28:00.400 And I have to believe that some of that comes 2:28:00.520 --> 2:28:04.200 from what they see as like the long legacy of 2:28:04.240 --> 2:28:05.560 twenty twenty or. 2:28:05.640 --> 2:28:07.920 Like perceptions of the democratic party is like too far 2:28:08.000 --> 2:28:09.920 to the left, is too extreme or something. 2:28:10.240 --> 2:28:13.400 Yeah, they that like specifically the perception that they like 2:28:13.480 --> 2:28:16.880 attempted to abolish the institution of policing, which was not 2:28:17.080 --> 2:28:19.840 really anything that they had. There was not in their 2:28:19.840 --> 2:28:23.160 policy platform. Right, they were not Democrat leaders saying We're 2:28:23.160 --> 2:28:26.039 going to do away with the cops. In fact, Biden 2:28:26.160 --> 2:28:27.840 was talking about how we need to fund the police, 2:28:27.920 --> 2:28:29.600 not defund the police in twenty twenty. 2:28:29.760 --> 2:28:29.920 Right. 2:28:30.080 --> 2:28:32.720 Yeah, but nonetheless, like that, there seems to be this 2:28:33.080 --> 2:28:35.880 real legs. It's very hard for them to break that 2:28:36.000 --> 2:28:42.000 rhetorical boundary. It's not entirely just jeffreyes on this. Seven 2:28:42.080 --> 2:28:44.440 Dems cross party lines in late January to vote for 2:28:44.440 --> 2:28:48.199 a DHS funding bill. So we've got Representative Henry Quella 2:28:48.480 --> 2:28:49.439 of Texas. 2:28:49.240 --> 2:28:51.840 Worst the worst Democratic congressman. 2:28:52.480 --> 2:28:55.160 Yeah, shit, fucking. 2:28:57.560 --> 2:29:01.280 Texas stems hit different and like specifically like Rio Grande 2:29:01.320 --> 2:29:03.680 Valley Democrats are a different breed. 2:29:04.040 --> 2:29:05.080 God, he sucks so much. 2:29:05.600 --> 2:29:10.279 There's Jared Golden of Maine, Mary Glusen camp Perez Washington, 2:29:10.879 --> 2:29:14.560 Laura Gillen, John Davis of North Carolina, Laurie Gillen is 2:29:14.640 --> 2:29:18.960 New York, Tom Swosey of New York and Vicente Gonzales 2:29:19.040 --> 2:29:20.080 of Texas. 2:29:21.120 --> 2:29:21.680 This is it. 2:29:21.680 --> 2:29:23.960 There's not a position that he's unique to. 2:29:24.120 --> 2:29:27.920 Jeffrey's right, Like, this's this idea that like, perhaps there 2:29:27.959 --> 2:29:30.480 needs to be some reform of ICE, but bit abolishing 2:29:30.520 --> 2:29:33.480 it would go far too far. Other Democrats have introduced 2:29:33.520 --> 2:29:36.600 an act which would essentially move funding from ICE to 2:29:36.840 --> 2:29:41.120 local law enforcement. So it would take that seventy five 2:29:41.200 --> 2:29:44.640 billion dollar budget allocation to ICE and move it to 2:29:45.280 --> 2:29:45.879 local cops. 2:29:45.959 --> 2:29:46.039 Right. 2:29:46.120 --> 2:29:50.000 This is called the Providing Useful Budgets for Localities to 2:29:50.240 --> 2:29:55.800 invest in cops by substituting six appropriations from federal enforcement 2:29:55.959 --> 2:29:57.240 to yield results Act. 2:29:58.280 --> 2:30:00.440 Holy shit, what are. 2:30:00.280 --> 2:30:02.720 These people's favorabilities? Like negative one. 2:30:02.720 --> 2:30:07.680 Trillion for sent Yeah, it's what we call a backronym 2:30:08.280 --> 2:30:10.520 in that they have started with the word public safety 2:30:10.720 --> 2:30:14.280 and then made a really horrendous attempt turning that into 2:30:14.280 --> 2:30:17.840 an acronym. There is also like a wing of the 2:30:17.879 --> 2:30:22.240 Democratic Party right there on the left which is more 2:30:22.320 --> 2:30:25.600 forthright about abolishing ICE. His clip of AOC talking about 2:30:25.720 --> 2:30:28.240 why I should be abolished, and this is at an 2:30:28.320 --> 2:30:31.080 event in Queen's Yeah, ICE is. 2:30:31.080 --> 2:30:36.080 A very young agency relative to many others enforcements of 2:30:36.120 --> 2:30:42.960 people who committed crimes that were undocumented or had visas 2:30:43.280 --> 2:30:45.520 used to be under the Department of Justice. And in 2:30:45.600 --> 2:30:48.120 the Department of Justice, if someone wants to come to 2:30:48.200 --> 2:30:50.920 your house, you need a judge. You mean, you need 2:30:50.959 --> 2:30:54.640 an entire judicial process, You need a warrant to ensure 2:30:54.640 --> 2:30:57.359 that your constitutional liberty should take are respected. 2:30:58.280 --> 2:30:58.960 You need all of it. 2:30:59.440 --> 2:31:02.480 What they did was that they took ICE out, well, 2:31:02.520 --> 2:31:05.720 they took Immigration Enforcement out of the DOJ, which had 2:31:05.840 --> 2:31:08.640 very tight rains on what you're allowed to do. They 2:31:08.760 --> 2:31:12.080 take that they put it into this new agency that 2:31:12.120 --> 2:31:13.960 they put at the time, which is a Department of 2:31:14.000 --> 2:31:16.960 Homeland Security. First of all, in what world does FEMA 2:31:17.240 --> 2:31:20.160 belong under the same umbrella as ICE. It makes no 2:31:20.560 --> 2:31:26.800 sense at all, no sense at all. And what happened 2:31:27.080 --> 2:31:30.760 is that once you take that enforcement piece out of 2:31:30.840 --> 2:31:35.360 that agency, they then start to answer to nobody, even 2:31:35.400 --> 2:31:39.440 though ICE technically, statutorily their responsibility is just supposed to 2:31:39.480 --> 2:31:45.560 be on immigration enforcement. They are now expanding their data 2:31:45.600 --> 2:31:49.200 collection to US citizens, to everyone on this soil. They 2:31:49.240 --> 2:31:52.760 are waiving these phones around and saying that they're implementing 2:31:52.840 --> 2:31:57.120 facial recognition technology to a centralized database. We have to 2:31:57.240 --> 2:32:00.920 fight this tooth and nail. We need to defund We 2:32:01.120 --> 2:32:05.200 need to not allow this to be collected by private companies. 2:32:05.600 --> 2:32:07.160 A lot of what we need to do is not 2:32:07.360 --> 2:32:11.320 just revisit Section seven oh two. We need to abolish ICE, 2:32:12.560 --> 2:32:15.920 and we need to have comprehensive. 2:32:15.320 --> 2:32:16.680 Changes block that up. 2:32:19.000 --> 2:32:21.400 One thing I do want to note about her statements 2:32:21.480 --> 2:32:23.959 is that during the appropriations process, she did give statements 2:32:24.320 --> 2:32:27.880 about how she was pushing to defund ICE as an agency, 2:32:28.320 --> 2:32:31.240 and this did cause a reaction from some i'll call 2:32:31.280 --> 2:32:34.680 them over the online leftists, claiming that it had changed 2:32:34.720 --> 2:32:38.080 positions from wanting to abolish to defund, that this is 2:32:38.440 --> 2:32:40.160 some sort of slide, And then she then had to 2:32:40.480 --> 2:32:43.920 follow up with saying, well, currently, the way to restrict 2:32:44.000 --> 2:32:46.440 ICE and lead to abolishing it is through defunding it. 2:32:46.680 --> 2:32:49.520 So that's what we're doing through the appropriations process. No, 2:32:49.720 --> 2:32:51.520 my position has not changed. I still think that the 2:32:51.560 --> 2:32:53.120 agency should be abolished. 2:32:53.480 --> 2:32:53.680 Yeah. 2:32:54.520 --> 2:32:54.720 Yeah. 2:33:07.600 --> 2:33:09.880 There's a broad issue we had, which was that at 2:33:09.920 --> 2:33:12.120 the end of twenty twenty, as a result of all 2:33:12.160 --> 2:33:14.920 of the federal agents that were in American cities and 2:33:15.000 --> 2:33:18.920 had been video brutalizing citizens and places like Portland, there 2:33:19.000 --> 2:33:22.520 was a lot of anger about DHS. In particular, I 2:33:22.560 --> 2:33:25.040 wrote a column for Business Insider about like, look, this 2:33:25.920 --> 2:33:28.480 agency is going to remain under Biden, but if we 2:33:28.600 --> 2:33:31.600 don't cut the legs out from under the entire agency, 2:33:31.680 --> 2:33:35.000 it's basically set up to be the president's secret police. 2:33:35.840 --> 2:33:40.360 And broadly speaking, the Democrats didn't do anything to stop it. 2:33:40.520 --> 2:33:42.720 But I also, like, I guess where I am on 2:33:42.840 --> 2:33:48.039 this is I think it's kind of counterproductive at this point. 2:33:48.440 --> 2:33:51.200 The failures of the Biden administration, I think are quite 2:33:51.280 --> 2:33:54.080 manifest in what the Trump administration is doing right now. 2:33:54.879 --> 2:33:58.160 And what I want to focus on is the fact 2:33:58.200 --> 2:34:01.439 that we've had, in the space of several months, Americans 2:34:01.920 --> 2:34:05.360 become more than twice as likely to support abolishing ICE, 2:34:06.240 --> 2:34:09.280 which is both a fragile coalition because the fact that 2:34:09.320 --> 2:34:12.360 the number has changed so rapidly means that it could 2:34:12.400 --> 2:34:15.760 potentially change back. Like, I don't feel solid in counting 2:34:16.080 --> 2:34:19.520 on that to be the permanent state of affairs, but 2:34:19.800 --> 2:34:24.039 it introduces an opportunity, and it's an opportunity to build 2:34:24.480 --> 2:34:28.520 support to destroy this agency. And I think it's probably 2:34:28.560 --> 2:34:31.520 too much to hope for DHS as a whole and 2:34:31.640 --> 2:34:35.160 anything close to the near term. But the fact that 2:34:35.480 --> 2:34:39.200 during the Biden administration so much got punted on. I 2:34:39.240 --> 2:34:42.400 don't know, like we're past that. We have the opportunity, now, 2:34:43.000 --> 2:34:46.240 we have the anger. Now I do I retain my 2:34:46.400 --> 2:34:48.240 worry And I would say almost one of my biggest 2:34:48.240 --> 2:34:51.240 political fears is that twenty twenty six and twenty twenty 2:34:51.240 --> 2:34:53.800 eight go well for Democrats. They do again what happened 2:34:53.840 --> 2:34:55.200 under the Biden administration. 2:34:55.520 --> 2:34:57.320 Yeah, and they leave all these things intact. 2:34:57.720 --> 2:35:00.320 But one of the big differences that we haven't right 2:35:00.400 --> 2:35:03.480 now is that at no point was abolishing ice polling 2:35:03.520 --> 2:35:06.160 the way it is right now during the Biden or 2:35:06.200 --> 2:35:10.520 the first Trump administration. Yeah, And I think we have 2:35:10.640 --> 2:35:13.480 to take advantage of that. There's momentum right now, Like 2:35:13.600 --> 2:35:14.720 this is a crucial. 2:35:14.440 --> 2:35:16.440 Time, not just like we're talking here in terms of 2:35:16.600 --> 2:35:19.800 like abolishing ice moves us back to the two thousand 2:35:19.840 --> 2:35:24.120 and three norm right, Like what it doesn't do is 2:35:24.200 --> 2:35:26.760 fixed the fundamental issue here, which is that there are 2:35:26.920 --> 2:35:30.040 not legal pathways for people to come to the US, 2:35:30.720 --> 2:35:33.440 and there need to be. And like I think like 2:35:33.600 --> 2:35:35.600 now is the time for people who are involved in 2:35:35.680 --> 2:35:40.520 democratic politics right to agitate for like a genuine reform package. 2:35:40.640 --> 2:35:43.200 I don't think we will ever see support like this 2:35:43.400 --> 2:35:49.680 again for legalization of undocumented people, for dreamers, right, or 2:35:49.800 --> 2:35:54.039 people who are impacted by deferred action for childhood arrivals, 2:35:54.480 --> 2:35:57.680 which is a policy that became to place under Obama. Like, 2:35:57.920 --> 2:36:02.120 now is the time for substeps actual immigration reform. I 2:36:03.160 --> 2:36:05.119 say this knowing that this will not fix a problem. 2:36:05.480 --> 2:36:08.480 Like more than most people you know, I have seen 2:36:08.520 --> 2:36:12.640 the horrors of our immigration system firsthand, but like there 2:36:12.800 --> 2:36:16.080 is a moment right now that we could change things. 2:36:16.000 --> 2:36:16.760 For the better. 2:36:17.240 --> 2:36:21.440 And I share roberts worry that if Democrats get like 2:36:21.480 --> 2:36:24.880 an easy win even in the midterms, that we might 2:36:25.000 --> 2:36:28.400 not get that. And like what we saw rounder Biden 2:36:28.600 --> 2:36:31.480 was a big pointer to what we're seeing under Trump 2:36:31.640 --> 2:36:37.280 that essentially the DHS was almost impossible for him to control. Yeah, 2:36:37.800 --> 2:36:40.279 in that he acquiesced to oads, he is still responsible 2:36:40.280 --> 2:36:41.520 for them, like the buckstops with him. 2:36:41.560 --> 2:36:42.119 He's president. 2:36:42.320 --> 2:36:45.520 I'm not certain that he planned it, but nonetheless it 2:36:45.640 --> 2:36:47.680 continued to happen for months and months and months out 2:36:47.720 --> 2:36:51.040 of his presidency, right, Like it was very obvious the 2:36:51.120 --> 2:36:53.360 way this was going to go if we got another 2:36:53.640 --> 2:36:58.760 Trump presidency, and if they do that again, we're just 2:36:58.800 --> 2:37:00.959 setting the table for things to get worse again. 2:37:01.879 --> 2:37:06.080 Right, And I think James, the task before us is twofold, right, 2:37:06.160 --> 2:37:09.840 because on one hand, we have to reform the system 2:37:09.920 --> 2:37:14.640 by which people gain legal acceptance to live in this country, 2:37:15.120 --> 2:37:17.760 and that also includes I think there needs to be 2:37:17.800 --> 2:37:22.840 a push for some sort of federal law that will 2:37:22.879 --> 2:37:25.840 make it impossible or at least much harder, to reverse 2:37:26.440 --> 2:37:30.000 these acceptances and to do things like nullify or cancel 2:37:30.160 --> 2:37:32.880 green cards and permanent residency like the administration is doing 2:37:33.000 --> 2:37:36.200 right now. Like both, we need increased pathways and we 2:37:36.280 --> 2:37:40.000 need increased resilience to promise people that hey, if you 2:37:40.160 --> 2:37:43.000 go through all of these hoops to become a legal 2:37:43.080 --> 2:37:46.560 resident or a citizen or whatever, it can't just get 2:37:46.640 --> 2:37:49.640 pulled away the next time a Republican wins office. 2:37:49.959 --> 2:37:50.199 Yeah. 2:37:50.840 --> 2:37:52.840 And then on the other side of things, you have 2:37:53.040 --> 2:37:59.240 this vast, uncontrollable militant agency built as the armed wing 2:37:59.360 --> 2:38:02.199 of the president. And see that has to be destroyed 2:38:03.440 --> 2:38:06.080 because it can't exist in a democracy. 2:38:06.160 --> 2:38:07.480 Yeah, it's no compatible. 2:38:07.600 --> 2:38:09.640 And then you have I mean, I would extend that 2:38:09.720 --> 2:38:12.000 to DHS as a whole, but it's my same issue 2:38:12.040 --> 2:38:14.520 with like if we can defund ICE. Right now, I'm 2:38:14.800 --> 2:38:17.160 always in favor of taking away some of their money. 2:38:17.440 --> 2:38:19.240 That's not the extent of what I think should happen 2:38:19.280 --> 2:38:22.440 to ICE. It's just a yeah, like it's a salient, right, 2:38:22.600 --> 2:38:24.760 Like you have to look at it that way. Like 2:38:24.879 --> 2:38:27.520 it it would be as if you're you're like, well, 2:38:27.879 --> 2:38:30.480 it's not worth winning the Battle of Stalingrad because that 2:38:30.560 --> 2:38:33.240 doesn't give us Berlin. It's like, well, but these are steps, 2:38:33.360 --> 2:38:36.560 you know, you try to damage and reduce the agency's 2:38:36.680 --> 2:38:40.080 power and ability to function, Yeah, while you're continuing. And 2:38:40.160 --> 2:38:42.240 I guess the worry about that too is that if 2:38:42.280 --> 2:38:44.200 you do defund ICE, if they because we've had some 2:38:44.680 --> 2:38:47.800 Trump has made a couple comments about worrying that, like 2:38:48.040 --> 2:38:51.200 we need to reduce kind of the tempo at which 2:38:51.240 --> 2:38:54.400 ICE is operating because it's bad for them. So that 2:38:54.560 --> 2:38:57.120 is kind of one of my concerns that maybe if they, 2:38:57.520 --> 2:38:59.840 if they pull back on the throttle a little bit, 2:39:00.320 --> 2:39:04.640 the rage will decline enough that there's not this kind 2:39:04.680 --> 2:39:08.720 of motivation behind abolishing. But I feel like that's just 2:39:08.760 --> 2:39:10.959 a fear you kind of have to eat, as opposed 2:39:11.000 --> 2:39:14.960 to not trying to stop and reduce the harms the 2:39:15.040 --> 2:39:17.480 agency does in the immediate term while you're working long 2:39:17.560 --> 2:39:21.520 term for abolition. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did want to 2:39:21.600 --> 2:39:25.720 talk a little about other numbers, because immigration is obviously 2:39:25.959 --> 2:39:28.800 a major issue for American voters. It's an issue people 2:39:29.040 --> 2:39:30.760 pick who they're going to vote for the presidency on. 2:39:30.879 --> 2:39:33.360 It's one of them, but it's not the main one. 2:39:33.520 --> 2:39:36.960 As a general rule, throughout most of modern political history, 2:39:37.840 --> 2:39:41.440 the kind of the top issue for Americans is the economy. 2:39:41.720 --> 2:39:44.640 And if the economy is bad, it is very hard 2:39:44.720 --> 2:39:47.280 for your party to stay in power. If the economy 2:39:47.400 --> 2:39:49.600 is good, it is a lot easier for your party 2:39:49.640 --> 2:39:52.920 to stay in power. Right, Like, these are fairly basic 2:39:53.040 --> 2:39:55.680 facts of political life in the United States, always with 2:39:55.840 --> 2:39:58.840 some caveats, but that it bears looking at how do 2:39:58.959 --> 2:40:02.160 Americans feel about the economy and who do they blame 2:40:02.280 --> 2:40:04.760 for the fact that they feel badly about the economy? 2:40:05.440 --> 2:40:08.480 And per Politico, which carried out a recent survey, about 2:40:08.520 --> 2:40:10.880 forty six percent of Americans say the cost of living 2:40:11.320 --> 2:40:14.000 is the worst they can remember it ever being. This 2:40:14.160 --> 2:40:17.039 includes thirty seven percent of people who voted for Trump 2:40:17.120 --> 2:40:22.400 in twenty twenty four and Americans pretty like significantly agree 2:40:23.000 --> 2:40:26.320 that this is a Trump problem. Inflation, the fact that 2:40:26.520 --> 2:40:30.039 they can't afford things is on him because he's the present. Again, 2:40:30.200 --> 2:40:34.080 forty six percent of Americans say it's Trump's economy and 2:40:34.160 --> 2:40:38.440 his administration is responsible for rising costs. And this is 2:40:38.520 --> 2:40:43.600 true both among Republicans and Democrats, which is very interesting 2:40:43.720 --> 2:40:46.080 to me. A percentage of Americans, based on the vote 2:40:46.080 --> 2:40:50.120 in the twenty four election, fifty three percent of Harris 2:40:50.240 --> 2:40:52.480 voters in twenty twenty four say the cost of living 2:40:52.600 --> 2:40:54.440 is the worst they've seen it, and again, thirty seven 2:40:54.480 --> 2:40:57.240 percent of Trump voters in twenty twenty four feel the 2:40:57.320 --> 2:41:00.800 same way. So that is it's an example of something 2:41:00.879 --> 2:41:03.720 that we've talked about and wondered about on the show 2:41:03.760 --> 2:41:06.240 a lot, which is like how much does reality break 2:41:06.360 --> 2:41:09.600 through the fever swamps? And this is suggesting that, like 2:41:09.720 --> 2:41:14.160 to a pretty solid degree, that actually Trump is I 2:41:14.280 --> 2:41:16.920 still think he's got a floor of somewhere around thirty 2:41:16.920 --> 2:41:19.400 percent of Americans who will follow him into the pits 2:41:19.440 --> 2:41:22.200 of hell, even if it means shoveling themselves into it. 2:41:22.879 --> 2:41:25.680 But that number used to be like forty percent, right, 2:41:25.840 --> 2:41:29.119 and it does seem to be declining. This is being 2:41:29.200 --> 2:41:33.360 treated as a five alarm fire among the Trump White House, 2:41:33.959 --> 2:41:36.080 which is interesting me for a couple of reasons. You know, 2:41:36.240 --> 2:41:39.560 anytime you talk with especially people and left about but 2:41:39.640 --> 2:41:42.800 also increasingly a lot of Democrats about the midterm elections 2:41:42.840 --> 2:41:44.920 in the twenty twenty eight elections, I think you have 2:41:44.959 --> 2:41:46.600 to deal with his people saying, but are there going 2:41:46.640 --> 2:41:47.320 to be elections? 2:41:47.600 --> 2:41:47.720 Right? 2:41:48.480 --> 2:41:52.160 And you know it's I don't dismiss those concerns out 2:41:52.160 --> 2:41:54.880 of hand, obviously in part because the administration is talking 2:41:54.959 --> 2:41:57.400 right now about having ice agents and polling places, right, 2:41:57.760 --> 2:42:00.920 you do have to acknowledge that as a con But 2:42:01.040 --> 2:42:02.920 at the same time, I think if you're looking at 2:42:02.959 --> 2:42:06.080 this rationally, you have to note that the Trump administration 2:42:06.240 --> 2:42:09.080 internally is acting as if there will be elections and 2:42:09.200 --> 2:42:12.240 that those will be competitive elections. They are worried about 2:42:12.280 --> 2:42:15.240 the economy, they are worried about their polling, and they 2:42:15.280 --> 2:42:18.000 are taking actions to try to mitigate the worries that 2:42:18.080 --> 2:42:20.240 they have, which they wouldn't be doing if they were 2:42:20.320 --> 2:42:23.280 already sure there's never going to be another election, right, 2:42:23.360 --> 2:42:25.480 And that is important to remember. It doesn't mean there's 2:42:25.520 --> 2:42:27.880 not a danger, doesn't mean they won't try shit if 2:42:27.920 --> 2:42:31.120 they lose but it does mean that they are treating 2:42:31.240 --> 2:42:35.000 these political issues as political issues that they have to 2:42:35.120 --> 2:42:38.039 deal with via messaging. There was an article in Fox 2:42:38.120 --> 2:42:42.640 News recently about Trump's team huddling to decide on midterm messaging. 2:42:42.840 --> 2:42:45.080 I'm going to quote from that now. The meeting, which 2:42:45.160 --> 2:42:47.680 was confirmed to Fox News by sources familiar with the gathering, 2:42:47.760 --> 2:42:49.840 was hosted by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds 2:42:49.879 --> 2:42:52.400 and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, who is steering 2:42:52.400 --> 2:42:55.480 Trump's political strategy. According to sources, the message during a 2:42:55.560 --> 2:42:59.160 slide presentation by chief polster and Chief Strategists and strategist 2:42:59.200 --> 2:43:01.480 Tourney Fabrizio, was that the economy will be the top 2:43:01.520 --> 2:43:03.600 issue in the minds of voters, and the White House 2:43:03.680 --> 2:43:07.199 needs to spotlight its efforts on easing affordability. The meeting 2:43:07.280 --> 2:43:09.080 was held as the GOP ares to defend their control 2:43:09.120 --> 2:43:11.120 of the Senate and their razor thin House majority in 2:43:11.200 --> 2:43:15.240 November's midterm elections. Republicans are also dealing with the presidents 2:43:15.280 --> 2:43:18.560 continued underwater approval ratings and a slew of surveys, including 2:43:18.560 --> 2:43:21.680 the latest Fox News pulling, that indicates Americans are pessimistic 2:43:21.720 --> 2:43:26.120 about the economy and publicly. The administration's claim is that 2:43:26.200 --> 2:43:28.200 Americans are happy with the economy. The economy is the 2:43:28.240 --> 2:43:30.240 best it's ever been. Look At how good the doo is. 2:43:30.280 --> 2:43:34.879 It's over fifty thousand, right. But everything we're hearing internally, 2:43:35.200 --> 2:43:37.680 like all of the reports that from people inside the 2:43:37.720 --> 2:43:39.920 administration about like what's going on day to day, is 2:43:39.959 --> 2:43:42.240 that they're wide awake and worried over the fact that 2:43:42.360 --> 2:43:46.720 their economic numbers are completely fucking dog shit. Now, what 2:43:46.760 --> 2:43:50.720 does this mean for the midterm elections? Well, very few 2:43:50.760 --> 2:43:53.720 people that I have found who are like credible analysts 2:43:54.560 --> 2:43:58.000 don't expect the Democrats to retake the House, right. 2:43:58.520 --> 2:44:03.080 Meaning, most credible analysts do think the Dems are likely 2:44:03.240 --> 2:44:04.280 to retake the House. 2:44:06.040 --> 2:44:09.320 That said, there's a fairly few people who expect a 2:44:09.360 --> 2:44:14.000 twenty eighteen style Democratic blowout among the professional bull watchers 2:44:14.040 --> 2:44:18.000 and stuff, which is, if you remember the Democrats flipped 2:44:18.040 --> 2:44:22.160 about forty one seats. There's a couple of reasons for this, right, 2:44:22.520 --> 2:44:24.520 And I found a good article in The Hill that's 2:44:24.560 --> 2:44:29.960 kind of analyzing like why we shouldn't be expecting some 2:44:30.080 --> 2:44:32.680 of the exuberants that you're seeing on social media about 2:44:32.760 --> 2:44:35.440 like early elections and how bad Trump's numbers are is 2:44:35.520 --> 2:44:39.840 maybe making people overly optimistic about like flipping all of 2:44:40.000 --> 2:44:45.080 Congress to Democratic control, which is not currently the likeliest outcome. 2:44:45.200 --> 2:44:47.240 And there's a couple of reasons for this. One of 2:44:47.280 --> 2:44:50.039 them is that as unpopular as Trump is, and I've 2:44:50.120 --> 2:44:53.720 hit on that quite a lot, the Democratic Party's overall 2:44:53.840 --> 2:44:57.320 favorability is at about thirty three percent, which is nine 2:44:57.400 --> 2:45:01.760 points lower than the Republican parties reability and you know, 2:45:02.320 --> 2:45:04.240 depending on the poll, five to ten points lower than 2:45:04.240 --> 2:45:06.520 Trump's own favorability. This is based on a Marquette Law 2:45:06.520 --> 2:45:10.600 School poll. Right, So Trump is very unpopular, so with 2:45:10.680 --> 2:45:13.400 the Republican Party. But people don't like the Democrats the 2:45:13.440 --> 2:45:16.640 Democratic Party as a whole. People like individual Democrats, a 2:45:16.680 --> 2:45:18.680 lot of people like their Congress person, a lot of 2:45:18.720 --> 2:45:20.640 people like whoever it is they want to see as 2:45:20.680 --> 2:45:23.520 the presidential candidate. You know, you can look at you know, 2:45:23.640 --> 2:45:26.400 you've got folks who really like Mamdani, are really like 2:45:26.480 --> 2:45:30.640 pritzkerp But as a whole, voters, including Democratic voters, don't 2:45:30.680 --> 2:45:34.320 feel very positively towards the Democratic Party, in many cases 2:45:34.400 --> 2:45:37.280 more negatively still than they feel about the Republican Party 2:45:37.320 --> 2:45:40.440 that started to turn around. But if you're kind of 2:45:40.560 --> 2:45:42.920 hoping that there's going to be like a full on 2:45:43.080 --> 2:45:46.720 switch that makes it immediately possible to successfully impeach President Trump, 2:45:47.360 --> 2:45:51.520 that is extraordinarily unlikely to come in twenty twenty six, right, 2:45:51.560 --> 2:45:54.920 which doesn't mean that it's unlikely to have a good result. 2:45:55.280 --> 2:45:58.920 Republicans losing control of Congress is a good result. 2:45:59.320 --> 2:45:59.440 Right. 2:46:00.240 --> 2:46:02.480 There's just a lot less. I mean, there's a lot less. 2:46:02.520 --> 2:46:04.920 Even if you're kind of taking the unfavorability of the 2:46:04.959 --> 2:46:07.600 Democratic Party out of it. There's a lot fewer seats 2:46:07.800 --> 2:46:10.240 up for grabs right now. In twenty eighteen, and when that, 2:46:10.520 --> 2:46:13.800 you know, the Democrats flipped forty one seats. There were 2:46:13.800 --> 2:46:16.879 seventy five competitive races this year. Heading into the midterms, 2:46:17.360 --> 2:46:20.800 there were only eighteen. Right, there's a lot less that 2:46:20.959 --> 2:46:24.720 can flip. And I don't think Republicans are likely to 2:46:24.800 --> 2:46:29.000 lose control of the Senate, right, And the polling shows 2:46:29.080 --> 2:46:31.560 things being pretty razor thin there. Democrats have about a 2:46:31.600 --> 2:46:36.160 four percent advantage according to economist you gov polling right 2:46:36.280 --> 2:46:40.120 now in the congressional midterms, and there's a three point 2:46:40.200 --> 2:46:42.840 margin of error, so you're looking at like a lead, 2:46:43.000 --> 2:46:47.959 but not enough of one for a complete fucking blowout, right, 2:46:48.520 --> 2:46:51.200 there has been some more positive data, like kind of 2:46:51.360 --> 2:46:54.120 right before we came on to record this, Like I 2:46:54.280 --> 2:46:57.080 looked at some charts by Focal Data that was kind 2:46:57.080 --> 2:46:59.560 of breaking down midterm voting and tensioned by groups and 2:46:59.600 --> 2:47:03.320 looking at like likely voters, And this is always kind 2:47:03.360 --> 2:47:06.440 of a little bit like voodoo, right in terms of 2:47:06.520 --> 2:47:08.760 how you're trying to, like, well, how likely is a 2:47:08.920 --> 2:47:11.960 likely voter and how do we like factor in realistically 2:47:12.000 --> 2:47:15.120 are they going to show up anyway? If you're kind 2:47:15.160 --> 2:47:18.240 of assuming that like people who self report as likely 2:47:18.360 --> 2:47:20.880 voters will only actually vote about a third of the time. 2:47:21.560 --> 2:47:25.040 Per this study, Democrats are ahead by about seven points 2:47:25.080 --> 2:47:27.720 in a generic house ballot. So you know, that's kind 2:47:27.760 --> 2:47:30.560 of where we are right now. I think we're looking 2:47:30.680 --> 2:47:33.480 at a midterm season that's going to go well for 2:47:33.720 --> 2:47:36.440 the Democrats. But I don't think we're looking at a 2:47:36.560 --> 2:47:41.879 midterm season that delivers us from the Republican Party being 2:47:41.959 --> 2:47:45.960 able to ram through legislation. I think our kind of 2:47:46.040 --> 2:47:49.200 best case scenario is one in which they have to 2:47:50.080 --> 2:47:55.240 give major concessions because the Democrats have you know, flipped 2:47:55.640 --> 2:47:58.480 the House at the very least like and that's big, 2:47:58.680 --> 2:48:01.040 but I don't think. I don't think Trump's going to 2:48:01.080 --> 2:48:04.320 get impeached starting January of next year. 2:48:05.040 --> 2:48:05.240 Yeah. 2:48:05.760 --> 2:48:07.560 The one thing I will say about the polling data 2:48:07.680 --> 2:48:11.400 is that so obviously Democrats tend to perform better in 2:48:11.440 --> 2:48:13.880 special elections because to vote in a special election, you 2:48:14.000 --> 2:48:16.400 have to be a higher interest voter. And that also 2:48:17.120 --> 2:48:22.240 special election cycles get driven by immediate like anger over stuff, 2:48:22.280 --> 2:48:25.119 and there's a bunch of different factors that dry special 2:48:25.160 --> 2:48:29.000 election turnout. And also the Democrats have been absolutely obliterating 2:48:29.040 --> 2:48:31.800 the Republicans in all the special elections that have been 2:48:31.840 --> 2:48:35.520 happening recently, or even in the cases where they're lose, 2:48:35.560 --> 2:48:37.720 they're losing by very small margins in. 2:48:37.720 --> 2:48:39.280 Places where Trump was winning blowouts. 2:48:39.400 --> 2:48:41.920 Yeah, so I think if you want to be optimistic, 2:48:41.959 --> 2:48:46.000 I think that's the case for optimism. But also, yeah, like, 2:48:46.720 --> 2:48:48.480 we're not going to have all of our problems magically 2:48:48.560 --> 2:48:50.360 solved by the mid terms. 2:48:50.520 --> 2:48:53.920 Yeah. Yes, to specify on that what you were saying, 2:48:54.040 --> 2:48:58.440 there was a special election in Tennessee and Republican Matt 2:48:58.520 --> 2:49:02.480 Van Epps beat the Democrat Often Bane by nine points, 2:49:03.000 --> 2:49:05.920 but Trump had won in twenty twenty four there by 2:49:05.959 --> 2:49:06.840 twenty two points. 2:49:08.040 --> 2:49:10.120 Yeah, and like like a few we talked about this 2:49:10.200 --> 2:49:10.560 on the show. 2:49:10.560 --> 2:49:12.080 But like last year there was there was an election 2:49:12.200 --> 2:49:15.080 in like a special election in western Iowa that Trump 2:49:15.160 --> 2:49:17.039 had won by double digits and the Democrats won by 2:49:17.040 --> 2:49:22.440 double digits, and that kind of thing shouldn't be happening. 2:49:22.920 --> 2:49:23.640 It sure shouldn't. 2:49:23.800 --> 2:49:27.480 No it is, And yeah, you know, so that's that's 2:49:27.520 --> 2:49:28.600 the optimistic case. 2:49:28.879 --> 2:49:31.400 And hey, like I've just come in saying like, hey, 2:49:31.480 --> 2:49:35.080 don't expect Congress to be completely flipped, but like, you know, 2:49:35.280 --> 2:49:37.640 it's the times are crazy. Who knows what else? Who 2:49:37.680 --> 2:49:39.640 knows how many more people Ice is going to murder? 2:49:39.840 --> 2:49:42.920 Who knows like what other like how bad the economy's 2:49:42.959 --> 2:49:43.480 going to get. 2:49:43.959 --> 2:49:46.520 We might have invaded Canada by then, Like who knows. 2:49:47.760 --> 2:49:50.760 Anything's on the table, anything's still on the table. We're 2:49:50.840 --> 2:49:53.640 just kind of looking at shit from February. 2:49:53.840 --> 2:49:55.760 Yeah, yeah, and some of this shit will depend on 2:49:55.959 --> 2:50:00.960 like what atrocities they commit in the week and days 2:50:01.520 --> 2:50:04.800 before the midterm election. Right then, I think we see 2:50:05.040 --> 2:50:08.640 surges around certain the killing of Rene Good, the killing 2:50:08.680 --> 2:50:11.800 of Alex pretty right. We see those things shift public 2:50:11.879 --> 2:50:19.400 opinion dramatically, and the ongoing snatching of immigrants and deportations 2:50:19.440 --> 2:50:21.400 and sending people back to places where they be tortured 2:50:21.400 --> 2:50:26.040 and killed. Like that's kind of the background and it 2:50:26.120 --> 2:50:29.000 makes people angry, but like it's these these these specific 2:50:29.120 --> 2:50:46.080 actions which seem to shift public opinion dramatically. All Right, 2:50:46.200 --> 2:50:49.199 So on that topic, I guess we should talk about 2:50:49.240 --> 2:50:52.800 the quote unquote shutdown, and specifically the shutdown of the 2:50:52.840 --> 2:50:55.440 Department of Homeland Security. Right. I guess the first thing 2:50:55.520 --> 2:50:57.800 to clarify is this isn't a government shut down in 2:50:57.840 --> 2:50:59.800 the sense of the shutdown we saw last year, right 2:50:59.840 --> 2:51:02.160 that lasted like forty plus days. 2:51:02.640 --> 2:51:04.360 Right, It's a partial shutdown. 2:51:05.160 --> 2:51:06.480 It's a partial shutdown. 2:51:06.840 --> 2:51:08.840 What's happening right now is the Democrats are holding up 2:51:08.879 --> 2:51:11.840 further funding for DHS until the administration agrees to some. 2:51:12.080 --> 2:51:13.760 Concessions that they have asked for. 2:51:14.840 --> 2:51:19.200 This is unlikely to impact ICE and CBP a very 2:51:19.240 --> 2:51:22.760 great deal for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the Tax 2:51:22.840 --> 2:51:26.720 and Spending Cuts Bill right, twenty twenty five bill funded 2:51:26.800 --> 2:51:33.039 them to an absolutely unfathomable degree, I think sixty five 2:51:33.120 --> 2:51:37.360 and seventy million, respectively. More quickly, it will affect other 2:51:37.480 --> 2:51:43.199 agencies under DHS Those includes Transport Security Administration, Federal Emergency 2:51:43.280 --> 2:51:47.320 Management Administration, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard. Some 2:51:47.560 --> 2:51:50.640 TSA workers will be working that they will likely not 2:51:50.959 --> 2:51:55.920 be receiving pay. This is pretty common right that they're 2:51:55.920 --> 2:51:59.080 deemed does quite unquite essential workers, and that means that 2:51:59.440 --> 2:52:01.760 they will be expected to work. What we saw last 2:52:01.840 --> 2:52:04.920 time was that as the shutdown dragged on, people were 2:52:04.959 --> 2:52:08.000 calling in sick or not coming into work because they 2:52:08.040 --> 2:52:10.640 were taking other jobs right because they had bills to pay. 2:52:11.360 --> 2:52:15.040 The reason this is happening is because Democrats successfully managed 2:52:15.080 --> 2:52:18.160 to get Trump to separate DHS funding from another spending 2:52:18.280 --> 2:52:21.280 bill which passed through and founded the rest of the 2:52:21.320 --> 2:52:26.280 federal government. They are demanding an end to masking. I 2:52:26.320 --> 2:52:29.280 should clarify specifically like masking in the dents of law 2:52:29.400 --> 2:52:33.200 enforcement officers wearing gators over their faces, a return to 2:52:33.240 --> 2:52:37.640 opposites displaying their name, badge, and ID number, increased oversight 2:52:37.680 --> 2:52:41.600 of detention conditions, coordination with local law enforcement, and end 2:52:41.640 --> 2:52:44.960 to the detention of US citizens, targeted enforcement and not 2:52:45.320 --> 2:52:50.120 roving patrols, and a unified use of force and uniform 2:52:50.240 --> 2:52:54.520 conduct policy for CBP and ICE. And then an end 2:52:54.720 --> 2:52:58.560 to raids using Form two point fifteen and just going 2:52:58.640 --> 2:53:00.920 to note here them moving before we're going to refer 2:53:01.040 --> 2:53:03.880 to that using it it's that name, and not call 2:53:03.920 --> 2:53:08.600 it an administrative warrant because an administrative warrant like kind 2:53:08.640 --> 2:53:11.320 of implies the action of a judge. But these are 2:53:11.440 --> 2:53:14.160 forms that are filled out right that it is not 2:53:14.840 --> 2:53:17.320 the same early aspected as a warrant, and that's a 2:53:17.400 --> 2:53:22.160 judicial warrant. The Republican counterproposals so far have shown pretty 2:53:22.200 --> 2:53:25.279 little common ground on this, aside from other body cameras 2:53:25.360 --> 2:53:30.080 where Gnome did implement body cameras. As I said, ICE 2:53:30.240 --> 2:53:33.960 and CBP will continue doing what they do right. I 2:53:34.200 --> 2:53:37.600 was at the border on Saturday and I saw tons 2:53:38.160 --> 2:53:42.880 of CBP patrols. They do not seem to have slowed 2:53:42.959 --> 2:53:47.640 down with their wall construction. That that may overtime slow down. 2:53:47.840 --> 2:53:50.160 They won't be paying like the workers week by week 2:53:50.240 --> 2:53:52.879 on those contracts. They will be paying a contractor who 2:53:52.920 --> 2:53:55.440 might be paying a subcontractor, so that would take time 2:53:55.600 --> 2:53:59.360 to slow down. The things that will slow down are 2:53:59.480 --> 2:54:03.520 things like the oversight functions to DHS, potentially administrative and 2:54:03.720 --> 2:54:06.720 hiring functions, things like that, right. 2:54:06.640 --> 2:54:08.800 But the actual like on the ground patrolling. 2:54:09.000 --> 2:54:12.440 Most of those people are deemed as essential workers, so 2:54:12.640 --> 2:54:16.120 it seems so undlikely that we will see, for instance, 2:54:16.240 --> 2:54:20.520 fewer CBP patrols at the border or fewer ero iscera 2:54:20.640 --> 2:54:24.360 agents like tasked with doing these ongoing raids. So yeah, 2:54:24.440 --> 2:54:26.840 talking about DHS, I want to talk a little bit 2:54:26.879 --> 2:54:29.160 more about the Coast Guard. I think it's likely that 2:54:29.280 --> 2:54:31.480 some people won't be aware that the Coast Guard is 2:54:31.520 --> 2:54:34.680 an element of the DHS. They're also a branch of 2:54:34.720 --> 2:54:36.720 the military, right they're the only branch of the military 2:54:36.720 --> 2:54:40.760 that's under the DHS. Yes, so they like considered veterans, 2:54:40.800 --> 2:54:45.080 but they're not on the DoD or the DOW as 2:54:45.120 --> 2:54:48.120 you can now call it. The NBC has a piece 2:54:48.320 --> 2:54:51.400 suggesting that there is, I guess a split in the 2:54:51.440 --> 2:54:54.959 Coast Guard between lower ranks and higher ranks, and specifically 2:54:55.120 --> 2:54:58.560 they're talking about feeling that Coast Guard is moving away 2:54:58.680 --> 2:55:01.680 from its court mission, which is search and rescue. They 2:55:01.760 --> 2:55:05.000 highlight one incident in February of last year when a 2:55:05.080 --> 2:55:08.760 Coast guardsman went overboard and a Coast Guard See one 2:55:08.879 --> 2:55:13.080 thirty was detailed to participate in the search for that 2:55:13.200 --> 2:55:13.880 Coast guardsmen. 2:55:14.040 --> 2:55:14.160 Right. 2:55:14.800 --> 2:55:17.320 It had previously been detailed for a deportation flight, but 2:55:17.440 --> 2:55:19.680 it was really tasked to assist with the search. According 2:55:19.720 --> 2:55:23.640 to the Peace quote, non verbally instructed the acting Commandant 2:55:23.720 --> 2:55:27.480 of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, to pull the 2:55:27.560 --> 2:55:29.959 plane off the search and rescue mission so it would 2:55:30.000 --> 2:55:32.640 not miss the immigrant flight as part of DHS's so 2:55:32.760 --> 2:55:36.440 called alien expulsion operations. According to two US officials and 2:55:36.480 --> 2:55:39.680 a Coastguard official, as a result, what happened is that 2:55:39.760 --> 2:55:43.080 local Coast Guard officials in San Diego scrambled to find 2:55:43.120 --> 2:55:46.720 two C twenty seven's that could fulfill that deportation flight. 2:55:47.520 --> 2:55:49.840 In doing so, that freed out the sea one thirty 2:55:50.000 --> 2:55:52.200 to then go return to participate in the search. 2:55:52.320 --> 2:55:52.440 Right. 2:55:52.720 --> 2:55:55.480 They did continue searching, I believe, for one hundred and 2:55:55.520 --> 2:55:58.600 ninety hours, but they never found the missing Coast guardsmen. 2:55:58.720 --> 2:56:03.240 Right cannot and will never be able to conclusively prove 2:56:03.400 --> 2:56:05.240 that all of this back and forth with this C 2:56:05.400 --> 2:56:09.080 one thirty had any impact on that. But this incident 2:56:09.120 --> 2:56:12.800 has clearly had an impact on morale, and it suggested 2:56:12.920 --> 2:56:15.280 general shift in priorities away from search and rescue and 2:56:15.360 --> 2:56:19.800 towards doing more border enforcement. Right under NOME seven hundred 2:56:19.800 --> 2:56:22.039 and fifty flights have been redirected from their regular work 2:56:22.080 --> 2:56:26.440 to instead deport migrants. This comes after she removed a 2:56:26.520 --> 2:56:29.760 high ranking Coast Guard official from her house so that 2:56:29.959 --> 2:56:33.680 Nope could live at the house. Wait what Yeah, yeah, 2:56:34.400 --> 2:56:36.840 she kicked the Coastguard person out of their house. 2:56:36.959 --> 2:56:37.959 Yeah, this was last year. 2:56:39.080 --> 2:56:43.920 She moved with like very short notice she moved onto Ah, yeah. 2:56:43.800 --> 2:56:44.800 She moved onto a base. 2:56:46.120 --> 2:56:50.480 Yeah with Lewandowski right, that might be the case, goes 2:56:50.760 --> 2:56:53.640 there was like a few people in like the cabinet 2:56:53.800 --> 2:56:54.240 or orbit. 2:56:54.400 --> 2:56:56.560 Yes, yes, I thought you meant like they were cohabiting. 2:56:56.959 --> 2:57:02.160 Oh no, no, no, okay, yeah, okay, a full domestic life. Yeah, okay, 2:57:02.200 --> 2:57:05.760 I was. I don't want to doubt you, but that 2:57:05.840 --> 2:57:07.920 would have been in news to me. Yes, a number 2:57:08.000 --> 2:57:12.119 of Trumps, like executive officials, are living on bases more 2:57:12.240 --> 2:57:13.080 than is usual. 2:57:13.959 --> 2:57:15.720 I think the Millers maybe do as well. 2:57:16.160 --> 2:57:16.600 But yeah. 2:57:17.160 --> 2:57:19.800 She also purchased two Gulf Stream jets to fly her around. 2:57:20.400 --> 2:57:23.400 Unlike most government jets, which tend to be returned towards 2:57:23.480 --> 2:57:26.360 what's called a sterile state after use. That just means 2:57:27.000 --> 2:57:29.720 that they go back to being completely clean, like they're 2:57:29.800 --> 2:57:33.800 like a generic jet. They're not your jet. Nome prefers 2:57:33.840 --> 2:57:37.000 to keep some personal items aboard the Gulf streams, but 2:57:37.200 --> 2:57:41.000 one of these items, a heated blanket, was left behind 2:57:41.240 --> 2:57:43.520 after her jet broke down she had to switch planes. 2:57:43.879 --> 2:57:47.440 Coylewandowski reportedly sheltered at the Coast Guard flight staff and 2:57:47.520 --> 2:57:51.199 demanded they turn around before attempting to fire the pilot, 2:57:51.320 --> 2:57:53.440 who fused to do so. 2:57:53.959 --> 2:57:57.119 Jesus right, I need I need my blanky. 2:57:57.240 --> 2:57:58.119 I need my blanky. 2:57:58.200 --> 2:57:58.760 Turn around. 2:57:59.000 --> 2:58:01.680 Yeah, I think she'd she had a rough week. I 2:58:01.720 --> 2:58:03.280 guess one of the blankets. 2:58:03.560 --> 2:58:07.040 These are absolutely just like the softest fascists that have 2:58:07.120 --> 2:58:10.400 ever ruled the country. Like it, turn off flight around 2:58:10.440 --> 2:58:12.720 because I left my beaby blanket. 2:58:12.480 --> 2:58:14.800 Like yeah, right, like I oh god. 2:58:15.120 --> 2:58:18.960 Fortunately, I guess they de escalated that one and continued 2:58:18.959 --> 2:58:22.680 the flight blanket free, trying to fire the fi. 2:58:24.760 --> 2:58:24.960 Yeah. 2:58:25.080 --> 2:58:29.040 I think it is interesting to look at coast guards morale, right, Like, 2:58:29.120 --> 2:58:33.040 Coast Guard's traditional mission has been search and rescue and 2:58:33.160 --> 2:58:37.760 then the interdiction of like drug vessels, and they have 2:58:37.920 --> 2:58:42.320 been doing a great deal of border enforcement stuff and 2:58:42.480 --> 2:58:46.000 removal stuff. And it is obviously like people who have 2:58:46.080 --> 2:58:48.000 been at the Coast Guard for a long time not 2:58:48.120 --> 2:58:50.200 what they joined the Coast Guard to do. I will 2:58:50.240 --> 2:58:52.840 just say that there are very few areas in which 2:58:52.920 --> 2:58:56.240 the United Kingdom has worked shit out, but the lifeboats 2:58:56.360 --> 2:58:59.200 are one of them. They are mentioned in Mutual Aid. 2:58:59.600 --> 2:59:02.600 The Royal National Lifeboat Institute has an article on for 2:59:02.720 --> 2:59:06.440 Popkin on their website incredible and it is. It is 2:59:06.520 --> 2:59:10.359 one of the really genuinely good things about Britain. By contrasting, 2:59:10.440 --> 2:59:13.039 they are not part of our government security apparatus. 2:59:13.240 --> 2:59:15.440 Yeah, because that makes no sense. The entire agency of 2:59:15.520 --> 2:59:17.480 DHS makes no sense whatsoever. 2:59:17.680 --> 2:59:18.520 Yeah, it's just. 2:59:18.520 --> 2:59:20.160 Because, Yeah, there are better ways to do this. 2:59:20.560 --> 2:59:22.080 I mean it makes again, it makes a lot of 2:59:22.160 --> 2:59:24.160 sense as the president's private army. 2:59:24.680 --> 2:59:24.880 Yeah. 2:59:26.080 --> 2:59:30.800 For our final segment in this episode, some tragic news. 2:59:31.680 --> 2:59:35.800 On Monday afternoon, February sixteenth, two people were killed in 2:59:35.840 --> 2:59:38.720 a shooting at a hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 2:59:39.320 --> 2:59:43.280 Before the shooter died by suicide. Three others were shot 2:59:43.360 --> 2:59:46.280 but survived their injuries. In the aftermath of the strategy, 2:59:46.440 --> 2:59:49.480 people across the right and the left have both used 2:59:49.560 --> 2:59:54.200 this shooting offensively and defensively in the culture war because 2:59:54.200 --> 2:59:57.800 of the shooter's general identity and far right conspiratorial politics, 2:59:58.280 --> 3:00:03.040 even though evidence points to wards this being targeted domestic violence. 3:00:03.760 --> 3:00:06.320 The deceased or the shooter's ex wife and eldest son, 3:00:06.840 --> 3:00:10.119 and the deceased ex wife's parents were critically wounded but survived, 3:00:10.320 --> 3:00:14.080 as did a family friend. The shooter's other son was 3:00:14.320 --> 3:00:18.320 on the ice playing hockey while the shooting took place. Ordinarily, 3:00:18.440 --> 3:00:20.640 we would not talk about an instant like this in 3:00:20.760 --> 3:00:24.040 the news because there's a lot of domestic violence shootings 3:00:24.040 --> 3:00:26.480 that happened across the United States every week, and not 3:00:26.560 --> 3:00:29.360 all of them become national news stories. This is news 3:00:29.520 --> 3:00:32.840 because of its weaponization in the political culture war, but 3:00:33.000 --> 3:00:35.960 under most methodologies like this incident would not even be 3:00:36.080 --> 3:00:39.320 categorized as a mass shooting. Yeah, because less than four 3:00:39.360 --> 3:00:44.360 people died, it does qualify under the Gun Violence Archive criteria, 3:00:44.480 --> 3:00:47.640 which counts injuries not debts, in which this would be 3:00:47.800 --> 3:00:52.240 the forty first shooting in the US this year. But 3:00:52.360 --> 3:00:55.119 after the shooting took place, right wing accounts and influencers 3:00:55.160 --> 3:00:57.080 started using this as a part of their trans mass 3:00:57.120 --> 3:01:01.840 shooter narrative. On Monday night, the Pawtucket Police that they 3:01:01.879 --> 3:01:05.720 believed the shooting stemmed from a family dispute. The shooter 3:01:05.879 --> 3:01:09.240 was fifty six years old with six kids. About ten 3:01:09.320 --> 3:01:12.199 years ago, the shooter started identifying as a transgender woman 3:01:12.640 --> 3:01:16.959 and used the name Roberta Espisito. The legal last name 3:01:17.200 --> 3:01:18.320 is Dorgan. 3:01:18.879 --> 3:01:20.560 They're not hispanic oh. 3:01:22.560 --> 3:01:25.720 The shooter was divorced about five to six years ago, 3:01:26.360 --> 3:01:30.360 and Dorgan's ex wife lists the grounds for divorce in 3:01:30.440 --> 3:01:35.160 the documents as quote, gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic and personality 3:01:35.160 --> 3:01:40.240 disorder traits. Then she crossed that out and instead wrote 3:01:40.720 --> 3:01:45.840 quote irrevocable differences which caused the remediable breakdown of the 3:01:46.000 --> 3:01:53.280 marriage unquote. The shooter was extremely active on Twitter, made 3:01:53.400 --> 3:01:57.680 anti semitic and conspiratorial posts, and frequently interacted with a 3:01:57.840 --> 3:02:01.560 large assortment of mega influencers, as well as far right, 3:02:01.800 --> 3:02:05.400 neo Nazi, and conspiracy theory influencers like Nick Fuentes and 3:02:05.560 --> 3:02:10.600 Alex Jones. Dorgan also shared pictures of a massive like 3:02:10.920 --> 3:02:14.959 ss toten CoV tattoo on their right arm and wrote 3:02:15.000 --> 3:02:18.560 on Twitter quote postop trans to the right of Hitler 3:02:19.120 --> 3:02:23.840 and quote you can be pro LGBT and pro Trump unquote. 3:02:24.560 --> 3:02:28.160 From looking through their Twitter, it it mostly appears to 3:02:28.200 --> 3:02:32.119 be someone who is suffering from extreme mental distress. It's 3:02:32.200 --> 3:02:34.600 hard to, you know, chart how much of the political 3:02:34.640 --> 3:02:37.280 beliefs that can be just split on Twitter are like 3:02:37.440 --> 3:02:40.840 genuinely held versus how much they relate to long standing 3:02:40.879 --> 3:02:43.360 mental health issues this person suffered from, which I'll get 3:02:43.360 --> 3:02:46.200 into in a sec I'm still a little hung up 3:02:46.240 --> 3:02:48.760 on the name. The name also, I think relates to 3:02:48.959 --> 3:02:51.360 just this person's very very not well. 3:02:51.400 --> 3:02:54.360 Okay, they're just trying to pace people off flick with correct. 3:02:54.480 --> 3:02:57.480 I think everything about this person can be seen as 3:02:57.520 --> 3:03:02.840 an expression of like antisociality, politics, their presentation, their name. 3:03:03.520 --> 3:03:03.640 Now. 3:03:03.959 --> 3:03:07.480 While right wing news agencies and influencers have used this 3:03:07.560 --> 3:03:10.720 horrifying instant of domestic violence for their trans mass shooter 3:03:10.840 --> 3:03:14.720 narrative framing every transperson is at risk of randomly becoming 3:03:14.760 --> 3:03:18.400 a mass killer while ignoring this shooter's own extremist politics, 3:03:18.920 --> 3:03:21.200 people on the left have blamed this strggedy on the 3:03:21.240 --> 3:03:24.040 shooter being a quote unquote far right Trump supporter or 3:03:24.080 --> 3:03:28.000 a quote unquote Nazi groper, and this is in part 3:03:28.040 --> 3:03:31.000 a defensive reaction against the right zone like misleading and 3:03:31.080 --> 3:03:34.280 non source claims about a statistical epidemic of trans violence. 3:03:35.000 --> 3:03:38.160 But laying blame on Make America Great Again and the 3:03:38.240 --> 3:03:42.680 MAGA movement doesn't really get us much closer to understanding 3:03:42.920 --> 3:03:47.480 this violence. We're so used to defaulting to this heartizan 3:03:47.760 --> 3:03:52.240 culture war like ideological explanation for the cause of public violence, 3:03:52.280 --> 3:03:55.080 whether that's you know, for the right, trans ideology or 3:03:55.680 --> 3:03:59.600 neo Nazism, even though both in this case and the 3:03:59.640 --> 3:04:01.760 shooting in Canada last week, which I talked about a 3:04:01.800 --> 3:04:05.120 few days ago on the show, this was like anti social, 3:04:05.440 --> 3:04:08.960 unstable and self destructive individuals who killed family members and 3:04:09.040 --> 3:04:13.320 then created a deadly public situation leading them to kill themselves. 3:04:13.920 --> 3:04:18.320 Despite Nazi tattoos and Twitter posts, this hockey game shooting 3:04:18.480 --> 3:04:23.760 was not ideologically motivated violence. This was targeted interpersonal violence 3:04:23.760 --> 3:04:27.600 against family stemming from extreme mental health issues. This goes 3:04:27.640 --> 3:04:30.640 beyond like right left politics. This shooter just seemed to 3:04:30.680 --> 3:04:34.080 be drawn to anything seen as extreme or anything that 3:04:34.200 --> 3:04:38.440 produced anti social effects. The daughter of the shooter briefly 3:04:38.560 --> 3:04:42.440 spoke to local news on Monday, saying that the shooter 3:04:42.760 --> 3:04:45.360 was her father and that the shooter had quote unquote 3:04:45.520 --> 3:04:49.600 mental health issues and was quote unquote very sick. The 3:04:49.680 --> 3:04:52.199 Rhode Island Coalition Against Mister Violence said in a statement 3:04:52.240 --> 3:04:55.400 Monday night. Quote, while details are still emerging, we know 3:04:55.600 --> 3:04:58.920 that violence within families and intimate relationships can have devastating 3:04:59.080 --> 3:05:02.040 and far reaching out impacts. Domestic violence does not stay 3:05:02.080 --> 3:05:05.200 behind closed doors. It affects children, extended family members, and 3:05:05.480 --> 3:05:06.279 entire communities. 3:05:06.800 --> 3:05:07.240 Unquote. 3:05:08.040 --> 3:05:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to do 3:05:10.080 --> 3:05:12.760 analysis of it, it's that the thing that's actually a 3:05:12.800 --> 3:05:17.520 predictive for violence is domestic violence. And this is another 3:05:17.600 --> 3:05:19.440 really horrible to mastic violence incidents. 3:05:19.680 --> 3:05:22.119 But yeah, it's pretty tragic. 3:05:22.720 --> 3:05:22.959 Yeah. 3:05:23.879 --> 3:05:26.760 Interestingly, there was some news that came out today, which 3:05:26.800 --> 3:05:30.640 is Wednesday, that one of the other sons of this 3:05:30.760 --> 3:05:36.279 shooter was arrested a few years ago in North Providence 3:05:37.000 --> 3:05:40.879 for setting fires to a black church, which did appear 3:05:40.959 --> 3:05:46.280 to be ideologically motivated violence. Police found notebooks inside of 3:05:46.720 --> 3:05:50.800 this person's home filled with hateful writings quote, gutten down 3:05:50.840 --> 3:05:54.240 everyone that isn't white. If one is white, spread the gospel, 3:05:54.320 --> 3:05:58.280 always give our bloodline a chance unquote. So this incident 3:05:58.440 --> 3:06:03.000 of arson the black church is definitely ideologically motivated. 3:06:03.800 --> 3:06:03.959 Yeah. 3:06:04.040 --> 3:06:08.039 It's been a great, extremely normal country, and this person 3:06:08.160 --> 3:06:09.920 was sentenced to six years in prison. 3:06:10.160 --> 3:06:13.879 Oh wow, So the person that's the son of the person, the. 3:06:13.879 --> 3:06:15.680 Son of the shooter, one of the sons of the shooter. 3:06:16.000 --> 3:06:17.320 Yeah, they had several sense. 3:06:17.640 --> 3:06:18.680 Yeah, just a. 3:06:19.040 --> 3:06:22.320 Pretty tragic series of incidents with this family. 3:06:22.440 --> 3:06:25.880 I do find it really disturbing that the thing that 3:06:25.959 --> 3:06:28.039 you mentioned here where people just kind of drop into 3:06:28.120 --> 3:06:30.840 a channel when it comes to responding to a tragedy 3:06:31.000 --> 3:06:33.280 like this, like and I find it really upsetting when 3:06:33.320 --> 3:06:37.480 I see it from like yeah, left and progressive organizations 3:06:37.800 --> 3:06:40.360 that promote firearms training or like. 3:06:41.000 --> 3:06:42.600 I just find it really kind of. 3:06:43.040 --> 3:06:46.240 Disappointing, I guess, to see people dropping into these same 3:06:46.440 --> 3:06:51.320 kind of callous and dismissive responses. It's just something that's 3:06:51.360 --> 3:06:54.119 been weighing on me recently. I am a person who 3:06:54.160 --> 3:06:57.440 owns guns, but it's still I don't know, I'm disappointed, 3:06:57.480 --> 3:06:57.800 I guess. 3:06:58.280 --> 3:06:58.480 Yeah. 3:06:59.200 --> 3:07:02.720 All right, well we reported the news. 3:07:03.520 --> 3:07:05.640 Put a transcroll on your couch, yeap. 3:07:06.040 --> 3:07:08.680 And if you have some news that you think we 3:07:08.760 --> 3:07:12.720 should report, tips, you can do so by emailing Cool 3:07:12.800 --> 3:07:15.840 Zone Tips at proton dot me. If you have someone 3:07:15.920 --> 3:07:17.520 that you would like to be a guest on our 3:07:17.560 --> 3:07:20.760 show or topic that you think Roberts should cover from 3:07:20.760 --> 3:07:22.760 behind the bustards. We will make another email for that, 3:07:23.080 --> 3:07:25.119 but if you could just not email the tip line. 3:07:25.120 --> 3:07:28.480 If you're a publicist and you email, I will block you. 3:07:29.800 --> 3:07:38.240 We reported the news. Hey, We'll be back Monday with 3:07:38.520 --> 3:07:41.320 more episodes every week from now until the heat death 3:07:41.360 --> 3:07:42.000 of the Universe. 3:07:42.760 --> 3:07:45.240 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:07:45.440 --> 3:07:48.480 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:07:48.600 --> 3:07:52.080 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:07:52.240 --> 3:07:55.760 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:07:55.840 --> 3:07:58.160 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 3:07:58.200 --> 3:08:00.480 in episode descriptions. Thanks listening