Speaker 1: Oh, welcome to it could happen here. I'm Robert Evans,
Speaker 1: recording from a deeply unsettling airbnb right near the border
Speaker 1: of Texas and Mexico. UM. I'm here with my good
Speaker 1: friend James Stout. Say hello to the people. Hi everyone,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about well, let me let me
Speaker 1: introduce briefly. You'll you'll see the episodes soon enough. We're
Speaker 1: down here reporting on um a mixture of of of
Speaker 1: right wing militancy, government militarization of the border, and the
Speaker 1: attempts by people trapped in the middle to survive and
Speaker 1: avoid those authoritarian structures. So today, James and they're going
Speaker 1: to talk about molotov cocktails. Um, but first, James, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about this airbnb. We're in for a
Speaker 1: second because you book this motherfucker deeply. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So what happens when you have like less than twenty
Speaker 1: four hours before you arrive and need a place for
Speaker 1: more than two people is uh you really get into
Speaker 1: the depth of Airbnb And I've found this place, which
Speaker 1: how to describe it? Um? Yeah, yeah, unsettling? Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: it it just feels wrong. I can't put my finger
Speaker 1: quiet on whe there is a basement which definitely has
Speaker 1: like murder vibes, and there's not basements in Texas normally,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's crumbling and unsettling. There's a some
Speaker 1: pump that doesn't appear connected to anything. There's puddles of
Speaker 1: standing water. Um. I think there's like nine bedrooms in
Speaker 1: this house. Yeah, but only one like is upstairs, and
Speaker 1: it seems to have like like to be designed to
Speaker 1: command an arqui fier around the house. Then there are
Speaker 1: other bedrooms which are like kind of in this stable block.
Speaker 1: What else is weird? Like three of the bedrooms are
Speaker 1: separate from the main house and in a built in
Speaker 1: a way that it looks like a roadside motel. And
Speaker 1: then there's a main house that has like four living
Speaker 1: room for We're sitting at a large kitchen table right now,
Speaker 1: which spins around a central access. For some inexplicable reason,
Speaker 1: we have the overwhelming feeling that something horribly wrong was
Speaker 1: done in this space because it doesn't everything is a
Speaker 1: little off. None of the decorations look like people. This
Speaker 1: is some sort of trap house, but we cannot identify
Speaker 1: the kind. I think you desc it best when you
Speaker 1: said it's like one of those this person does not
Speaker 1: exist photos but of a home and you can't work
Speaker 1: out what's wrong. But it's not human and it's not right.
Speaker 1: So we just had to get that out of our
Speaker 1: systems because it's been deeply unsettling the last couple of days.
Speaker 1: We're here now, James, you wrote an article about Molotov
Speaker 1: cocktails that got you in a bit of a fascinating situation.
Speaker 1: I want to just kind of walk me through what
Speaker 1: happened there and what the fallout was. Yeah, well, the
Speaker 1: one that started it was about how to tear down statues,
Speaker 1: and that was for popular mechanics. In In that article,
Speaker 1: I interviewed a couple of experts and one of them
Speaker 1: explained how to make something called firm um Thermite's like
Speaker 1: an exothermic reaction. You mix a couple of things, they
Speaker 1: get hot, They get hot enough to melt some metal.
Speaker 1: So if you were interested in bringing down a statue
Speaker 1: of a bigot, that might be helpful to you. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's legal basically all of the US to
Speaker 1: possess their might, and pretty simple to make. Not that
Speaker 1: you know, you can google it. You can figure that
Speaker 1: out yourself. Yeah, I'm not telling you how to make it.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that it exists, exists, and is surprisingly legal. Yes,
Speaker 1: and if you need to weld some ship underwater or
Speaker 1: join together some train tracks, it's the right tool for
Speaker 1: the job. Yeah, if you happen to be I know
Speaker 1: a lot of the Russian Army in Ukraine listens to
Speaker 1: this podcast. If you happen to be in the process
Speaker 1: of abandoning hundreds of millions of dollars in armor, thermite
Speaker 1: can allow you to stop Ukrainian farmers from towing it
Speaker 1: back to their homes. Yeah, but don't do that if
Speaker 1: you're a Russian soldier. Just just run um go to
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians. So I'll let you call your mom. They're
Speaker 1: nice and okay. So I write the story for pop
Speaker 1: Mac Right. It's it's just a useful guide to people
Speaker 1: who are looking to safely disposed of a racist statue. Right.
Speaker 1: And when I write it, I think their readership might
Speaker 1: lean pretty conservative, or they felt like that was a
Speaker 1: safe space. Anyway, It immediately became like the epicenter of
Speaker 1: the culture war for like a week, including triggering one
Speaker 1: Benjamin Shapiro, who then sub tweeted me like a coward
Speaker 1: and asked when I'll be writing my story about Molotov cocktails,
Speaker 1: which I subsequently wrote. So that that gets us to
Speaker 1: the Molotov cocktail story. I was in Russia today as well,
Speaker 1: now banned media outlet No No No. I wrote it
Speaker 1: for a British magazine called Huck. I've described like Hucker
Speaker 1: is like like Vice, but less tragic, like after Vice
Speaker 1: went bad Huck School. Um, and so yeah, Ben Ben
Speaker 1: was upset. Ben orchestrated this kind of right way panic
Speaker 1: around the story. Uh, they canceled pop Mac for a while,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a piece about the history and I
Speaker 1: guess chemistry of moloto and they're rolling democratization movements. That
Speaker 1: was really fascinating to me. So yeah, that's how we
Speaker 1: got to the Molotov story. And you want to give
Speaker 1: me kind of some cliffs notes on the history of
Speaker 1: the Molotov and it's rolling because what I know about
Speaker 1: Molotov cocktails, I assume it's named after Molotov, of the
Speaker 1: Molotov ribbon trop packed, right, Lav Molotov? Yeah, um, And
Speaker 1: I know I have been near a couple of them
Speaker 1: going off. I nearly got lit on fire by one,
Speaker 1: and I watched a colleague get let on fire by another.
Speaker 1: So I am aware of what they do. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: why don't you walk us through kind of the close
Speaker 1: notes of the history of molotovs. Yeah, absolutely, so. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you'll go on the Internet and
Speaker 1: you're reading about history and it will turn out not
Speaker 1: to be right, and that that's often the case with
Speaker 1: Molotov cocktails. So, yes, they named after Lav Molotov. We
Speaker 1: can get to why they named that way in a second.
Speaker 1: But their origin is actually with Franco's nationalist fascist, national fascists,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, national Catholic troops in
Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War. So early on in the Spanish
Speaker 1: Civil War nineties seven ish, the Republic had some Soviet
Speaker 1: tanks and they were using these against the ABRO. They
Speaker 1: were using these against the nationalists, and nationalists were throwing
Speaker 1: what they then called petrol bombs at the tanks too.
Speaker 1: Great effect is those old tanks had rubber on the
Speaker 1: wheels that turned the tracks and those would melt. So
Speaker 1: that's when they were first used. And if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with what a Molotov cocktail is, it's an improvised
Speaker 1: incendiary device. It's a glass thing filled with a flammable
Speaker 1: thing topped with some kind of cloth with a flame
Speaker 1: that the goth is burning. And when you throw it,
Speaker 1: obviously the glass thing breaks, the flammable liquid comes out,
Speaker 1: and the flame catches a liquid and you have a fireball.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the first time we kind of see them
Speaker 1: is used it in Spanish War. We see references to
Speaker 1: them in like British media in the nineteen thirties when
Speaker 1: British reporters were going out to watch the Spanish Civil
Speaker 1: War and they were like, Wow, what a development, what
Speaker 1: a technology, and so they used there. But where they
Speaker 1: get their names in Finland, right when the Soviets invade Finland.
Speaker 1: Why they got their name is that Molotov claimed that
Speaker 1: his planes were not dropping bombs. You'll see like a
Speaker 1: history of gas lighting in Russian Foreign Polo Soviet foreign
Speaker 1: policy here. Um he claimed they weren't dropping bombs. He
Speaker 1: claimed that they were bringing aid to the people of Finland, right,
Speaker 1: And Finland was like, this is ridiculous. So they kind
Speaker 1: of started calling the bombs Molotov's bread baskets, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon everything that was shipped was associated with Molotovs. Bombers
Speaker 1: were Molotov's chickens. Blackout curtains were Molotov's curtains, And so
Speaker 1: the they switched many of their state alcohol factories to
Speaker 1: making Molotov cocktails, and so they started calling these these
Speaker 1: pets what work called petrol bombs Molotov cocktails, and that's
Speaker 1: how the names duck. It is neat that Russia has
Speaker 1: such a long history of causing other nations to retool
Speaker 1: their domestic liquor production towards making bombs to throw a
Speaker 1: Russian soldiers and like how what we now adas on
Speaker 1: from from nineteen se like it's it's not always Russian tanks,
Speaker 1: but it's nearly always Russian tanks, right like Spain, and
Speaker 1: the Russian tanks are obviously like in Republic in Spain
Speaker 1: is much preferable to Franco Finland hungry in nineteen fifty six, right, um,
Speaker 1: and today in Ukraine you see people throwing bottles of
Speaker 1: petrol with flames on top of Russian tanks. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have a long history, yeah, I mean, and it's it's
Speaker 1: among other things like especially if you don't have easy
Speaker 1: access to firearms and and no access to explosives and
Speaker 1: stuff like, it's it's not a force equalizer, but it
Speaker 1: does allow you to to do certain things in militarily
Speaker 1: that that would be harder to do, um if you
Speaker 1: were like trying to manufacture something a little bit more
Speaker 1: like it's easier than making a grenade, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it does much more damage than a rock, but
Speaker 1: it's not much harder to come by for most people. Right.
Speaker 1: And one really interesting thing I read about them was
Speaker 1: by this academic who I really like his work. It's
Speaker 1: called Ali Cadiva, and he's Iranian, and he's looked at
Speaker 1: like democratization movements all over the world. Right, so, how
Speaker 1: do authoritarian regimes collapse? And his research suggested that like
Speaker 1: peaceful extreme like extreme like quote unquote peaceful protests tend
Speaker 1: not to work, and insurgencies hadn't had that high of
Speaker 1: a success rate. But his papers called stick stones and
Speaker 1: Molotov cocktails and like, his research suggested, like, if you're
Speaker 1: prepared to do violence against property by hitting it with
Speaker 1: a stick, throughing stone, throwing a Monotov cocktail, then you
Speaker 1: are more likely to have success in toppling a regime.
Speaker 1: So like, because they're accessible to people who don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have guns, aren't doing insurgencies. They've had this really interesting
Speaker 1: role in arming non state actors or arming liberation movement
Speaker 1: throughout history. I mean, that's really interesting because it would
Speaker 1: seem to suggest, like a reading of that paper would
Speaker 1: seem to suggest that, yeah, it's not so much like
Speaker 1: being willing to carry out like a militant movement, but
Speaker 1: being willing to destroy things as one of the primary
Speaker 1: signs that like you have a chance of actually overthrowing
Speaker 1: an authoritarian regime is like your your ability to prepare
Speaker 1: to to do damage, um, like of a financial nature.
Speaker 1: Like is that kind of the argument is making. I
Speaker 1: think the argument he's making is that, like, and it's
Speaker 1: an argument that can't be made enough. Right, the damage
Speaker 1: to property is not the same as damage to people,
Speaker 1: and violence against property in the name of liberation or
Speaker 1: justice is okay and tends to work. And but yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to have some skin in the game. You
Speaker 1: have to be prepared to fund some ship up if
Speaker 1: you if you want to bring down a regime which
Speaker 1: is prepared to use violence against you. That's kind of
Speaker 1: talking about the use of these tools within liberatory struggles.
Speaker 1: But they're not I guess they're liberate Restril isn't I
Speaker 1: have the beholder that's talking about the use of these
Speaker 1: tools and kind of like street movements that are agitating
Speaker 1: for change. But we also have this military history UM,
Speaker 1: which I think is much more muddled in terms of
Speaker 1: its actual efficacy as a as a weapon, its ability
Speaker 1: to deny area, it's ability to destroy UM or damage
Speaker 1: like enemy uh like combat ability. Do you do you
Speaker 1: have any kind of sense of like how effective Like
Speaker 1: we're seeing all these people in Ukraine arming themselves with
Speaker 1: cocktails UM, evidence of of of you know, the efficacy
Speaker 1: of these in combat is a lot murkier UM, at
Speaker 1: least within the present conflict. Do you have a sense
Speaker 1: of how historically they useful they tend to be for that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think depending on the age of the and and
Speaker 1: then the type of the vehicle you're attacking. Right, So
Speaker 1: like these old Russian tanks, UM, what they would do
Speaker 1: a lot was make something which is not quite what
Speaker 1: we would see if the monotor of cocktails, I had
Speaker 1: a whole blanket that was soaked in petrol, and that
Speaker 1: would get caught up in the track and then it
Speaker 1: would destroy that. There was a bit of rubber on
Speaker 1: on the wheel interface with the tracks that it would
Speaker 1: melt and that would immobilize the tank and then folks
Speaker 1: could to swarm it from all angles. That was kind
Speaker 1: of the move there, and then I think they've been
Speaker 1: more useful in Ukraine than one might have expected. Because
Speaker 1: of the nature of some of the Russian military vehicles.
Speaker 1: They tend to carry their fuel on the outside. They
Speaker 1: also because of the mud, they'll carry lots of pieces
Speaker 1: of wood that they can use to put under their
Speaker 1: wheels like you would you know, like sand ladders on
Speaker 1: the truck, so those tend to catch fire more easily.
Speaker 1: I know the b MPs also have fuel storage on
Speaker 1: the back door, which is is pretty optimal for if
Speaker 1: you want to walk up behind someone and set something
Speaker 1: on fire. So that they've worked pretty well there. In
Speaker 1: other places, yeah, they seem to be more of annoyance,
Speaker 1: Like I know, I've spoken to people who have been
Speaker 1: in the military in the UK and like the big
Speaker 1: thing in Northern Ireland right again right, you have a
Speaker 1: sort of a liberatory movement there, and so they were
Speaker 1: very popular, but they didn't seem to do much of them,
Speaker 1: cause people distress, cause people personally jury sometimes but not
Speaker 1: particularly too They weren't game changing in terms of like
Speaker 1: the monopoly on violence there. But yeah, they seem to
Speaker 1: be very very I think they're better when you have
Speaker 1: a ton of people throwing them. I think you have
Speaker 1: a lot of people setting things on fire, that tends
Speaker 1: to be it causes people to stop. And I think
Speaker 1: with Russia being lacking in excellent leadership, it seems like
Speaker 1: we could say in Ukraine and some of their soldiers
Speaker 1: maybe lacking in training, and with the fact that they
Speaker 1: tend to carry fuel externally so their vehicles catch fire.
Speaker 1: If you can just convince some conscripts that their vehicle
Speaker 1: is on fire, they are going to get out, run away.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that a lot, right, a lot of
Speaker 1: people running away. Yeah. I think when I think about,
Speaker 1: like outside of military uses, where I've seen molotovs be
Speaker 1: most effective in like the time I've been covering conflict
Speaker 1: that the first thing that comes up is the Maidan
Speaker 1: Revolution Ukraine, where people were throwing some of the same
Speaker 1: people throwing mollotops at Russian troops. Now we're through a
Speaker 1: mix of throwing by hand and like catapult devices were
Speaker 1: launching sometimes hundreds of molotovs in a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: and like melting tank treads to the ground, which is
Speaker 1: definitely like that's a that's obviously it was affected. It's
Speaker 1: also almost a different kind of weapons system when you're
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with that kind of volume grad molotov launcher. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then I can think about, like, there's this really
Speaker 1: amazing video that you can find if you look of
Speaker 1: Greek anarchists on bicycles swarming past a Greek police station
Speaker 1: and throwing it looked like about a dozen molotovs at once,
Speaker 1: and and just like sacking a police station that way
Speaker 1: and then biking right the funk off and like disappearing
Speaker 1: into the city um, which is which you know, seemed
Speaker 1: like a more effective tactic than some of the ways
Speaker 1: I've seen them use where it's like a person throwing
Speaker 1: a molotov um and then the cops get really fucking angry,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't really do that much damage to them,
Speaker 1: and then people get or they hit the wrong person.
Speaker 1: Like it is, it is a tool with a high
Speaker 1: degree of chance for error if you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Yeah, it's there's a decent skill requirement. You
Speaker 1: also really don't want to have anything flammable on your
Speaker 1: hands or shirt or anything like that. Like I've seen
Speaker 1: people really end up badly after trying to make a
Speaker 1: molotov and just hurting themselves trying to light it or
Speaker 1: throw it. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not one of
Speaker 1: those things that like you want to casually suggest people
Speaker 1: use because the odds of actually injuring yourself with it
Speaker 1: are pretty high if you're not being careful, um, and
Speaker 1: if you if you're going into a situation where you
Speaker 1: think people might have molotov's natural fibers. People natural fibers,
Speaker 1: not synthetics. Yeah, well is your friend welding gloves? Your friend? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be caught on fire. So let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how, like what are the
Speaker 1: different kinds of constructions of molotops you've seen people using
Speaker 1: and how they changed over time. You talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about kind of the early Spanish ones where like
Speaker 1: full blankets and stuff. Yeah, I think one of the
Speaker 1: interests where we go from Spain to to Finland right
Speaker 1: where we're seeing the same thing basically petrol or maybe
Speaker 1: ethanol or something like that inside a bottle with with
Speaker 1: just a wig or a something sort of. I know
Speaker 1: in Spanish Civil War they were using jars a lot
Speaker 1: like jam jars. But when things started to develop, I
Speaker 1: think is in the UK, so in Britain, and you
Speaker 1: actually have this guy called Tom Wintringham who went to
Speaker 1: Spain as a walk correspondent and decided to become a
Speaker 1: soldier and then returned to the UK and tried to
Speaker 1: share what he'd learned with British people right in this
Speaker 1: article he wrote for a Picture Post, and he was
Speaker 1: very much into Monotov cocktails is a great way of
Speaker 1: fighting an invasion, much like actually the old guy you heard,
Speaker 1: did you hear the guy who called into NPR recently? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was outstanding, just just turning NPR into our how
Speaker 1: to do gorilla warfare. And so what they did they
Speaker 1: made this thing called the number seventy six grenade, and
Speaker 1: they made six million of them. I think Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: and they still in them. It's funny, they'll still find
Speaker 1: them in like when they'll be digging the foundation for
Speaker 1: a building, they'll be like, oh shit, this is not
Speaker 1: a box of beer. And what those had was a
Speaker 1: strip of rubber that they dropped in it. It was
Speaker 1: in a bottle with a cap, and it had a
Speaker 1: phosphorus ignitor actually, so you didn't have to light it,
Speaker 1: you just hosted it. And yeah, and those are extremely effective.
Speaker 1: The rubber dissolves and then that allows the flaming liquid
Speaker 1: to adhere better to the person or thing that is hit. Right,
Speaker 1: and you're almost like making a napalm bark, yes exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the phosphorus will last for a long time. It's
Speaker 1: much less risky to the thrower. And you can also
Speaker 1: have the whole box of them and just keep throwing them, right.
Speaker 1: You don't have to light each one, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have someone else like each one. So those seem
Speaker 1: pretty effective. I don't know if they were ever really
Speaker 1: used in anger, because obviously the Nazis never landed in
Speaker 1: the UK, but yeah, that was that was a pretty
Speaker 1: big development, and that kind of set the tone for
Speaker 1: the other developments which I've seen, at least. I'm not
Speaker 1: like a molotov expert. But people put sugar in them,
Speaker 1: people put polystyrene in them, or what do you call that?
Speaker 1: What does sugar in them do? I think it gives
Speaker 1: it a higher viscosity and I think they sort of
Speaker 1: it maybe melts when they are like sticks, and it
Speaker 1: creates like a sticky kind of hot like like if
Speaker 1: you're making toffee. I would imagine, Um, the big thing
Speaker 1: I've seen people putting in them is various like plastics. Right,
Speaker 1: So when you look at the you've seen these videos
Speaker 1: of old ladies in Ukraine with cheese graters just grating
Speaker 1: like packing styrofoam, and they put that in there, and
Speaker 1: that that does the same thing, right, creates a more
Speaker 1: viscous kind of napalm which adheres to the thing that
Speaker 1: you throw it at. And that I think if you're
Speaker 1: talking about persuading someone that their tank is on fire,
Speaker 1: if it keeps burning for ten twenty seconds, you know
Speaker 1: you don't have a very long time to get out
Speaker 1: of a BMP, so you're going to start getting out.
Speaker 1: I would imagine. Well, that does point to like interesting
Speaker 1: reality of like not just this war all war, but
Speaker 1: like specifically in the context of territorial kind of volunteers
Speaker 1: who are on paper terribly out gunned. Um. But the
Speaker 1: psychological dimension is that, like you said, if you can
Speaker 1: convince people they may be in an armored vehicle that
Speaker 1: has unquestioned supremacy over the partisans attacking them. But if
Speaker 1: you can convince them they are on fire, they will
Speaker 1: make decisions that lead them to no longer have the
Speaker 1: advantage in terms of firepower. It's not impossible to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you saw that. I think there's some footage
Speaker 1: from my dad of them sort of ambushing some armored vehicles.
Speaker 1: And yet once you throw half a dozen molotov cocktails
Speaker 1: from above at windows, you can only get as people
Speaker 1: to abandon their vehicle and run away. That's the goal.
Speaker 1: If they get out, there are a lot more vulnerable
Speaker 1: to further attacks from molotov cocktails or anything else. Right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it. It really plays into that
Speaker 1: kind of guerrilla or sort of like underdog side of conflict. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's interesting to them about me.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I just finished this series that
Speaker 1: ould heavily with like three D printed weapons, homemade guns
Speaker 1: and stuff. But you know, there's a lot that you,
Speaker 1: as the state can do to reduce people's access to firearms,
Speaker 1: or even to reduce people's access to like knives that
Speaker 1: are bigger than kitchen knives. A lot you can do
Speaker 1: to reduce people's access to conventional arms, but everywhere has
Speaker 1: got liquor. Yeah, exactly, it's almost impossible to stop people
Speaker 1: having them. Right. If you have gasoline, diesel, alcohol and
Speaker 1: glass things and fabric and lighter, you have access to these.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're accessible to everyone, and they are incredibly effective.
Speaker 1: Like they're probably the most effective thing that you could
Speaker 1: make in your home if you were doing an insurgency.
Speaker 1: You're fighting Russian invaders in this case. Yeah, well, James,
Speaker 1: was there anything else you wanted to get into on
Speaker 1: the subject of molotobs or other forms of cocktails? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me think I should probably say that it's probably
Speaker 1: illegal to make them in the United States. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are specific ways you legally hand but you you
Speaker 1: need a number of different permits. Yeah. Yeah, you do
Speaker 1: have to ask the government. So I probably wouldn't suggest
Speaker 1: to do Yes, you have to I probably wouldn't suggest
Speaker 1: doing that, But no, I think it's always interesting to
Speaker 1: look at these like, if we want to move towards
Speaker 1: a world where there is less authority more freedom, then
Speaker 1: these things which take away the state's monopoly on the
Speaker 1: ability to do violence should always be and not necessarily
Speaker 1: like things that we want that it's interesting. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that's fascinating to me. Obviously, Ukraine
Speaker 1: is a pretty standard government within the global or at
Speaker 1: least up until this point, has been like they are.
Speaker 1: They are a state that has done a number of
Speaker 1: ugly things in its past, and we'll do them in
Speaker 1: the future. But they're in this fascinating moment where the
Speaker 1: government has really set down any claim to a monopoly
Speaker 1: on force in a lot of fascinating ways, the kind
Speaker 1: of widespread here's how to make a molotov, here's how
Speaker 1: to disabled And one of the things that's ascening the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government very famously sent around sheets which are like,
Speaker 1: here is where to throw molotovs to do the most damage.
Speaker 1: Different Russian vehicles are also Ukrainian vehicles. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: also those vehicles now belong to random farmers Like I
Speaker 1: saw that. It was a thing with the Ukrainian equivalent
Speaker 1: of the I R S who said, like, don't worry,
Speaker 1: you don't need to declare this tank on your income tax. Right,
Speaker 1: how does one tax a person who has a tank? Yeah,
Speaker 1: or in the case of some of them, has a
Speaker 1: twenty million dollar anti aircraft system, who is the tax
Speaker 1: man who is willing to go and collect that, Like
Speaker 1: they have become ungovernable, right, Yeah, I mean it's we're
Speaker 1: they are in the thick of it, and maybe for
Speaker 1: the rest of all of our lives. Nobody knows how
Speaker 1: long this thing is going to last. But if if
Speaker 1: the war does end in any kind of reasonable time frame,
Speaker 1: the what's Ukraine going back to. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they go back to being a normal state when they
Speaker 1: have when they have opened the floodgates to everyone. Is
Speaker 1: the army now? Well, I think it's a Yeah, it
Speaker 1: calls into question number things, right, like that maybe you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily always need is very strict disciplinary and structure
Speaker 1: to fight very effectively. But also yeah, that like do
Speaker 1: you need the state? Right? People are just doing their
Speaker 1: own thing right now, and I yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you really take that back, Like how do you
Speaker 1: go and collect the tanks from people? They know how
Speaker 1: to kill tanks, that's what they've been doing. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government in the future, if we imagine a time
Speaker 1: of people piece, it will be quite a while before
Speaker 1: there's any chance of like, well we better send in
Speaker 1: the riot troops to crack down on this protest. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get those riot troops to go
Speaker 1: anywhere near there. Yeah, Like, yeah, it's testing out this
Speaker 1: armed society as a polite society thesis. Right. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how the police return to a country
Speaker 1: which is seemingly at least holding off, if not defeating,
Speaker 1: a military superpower. Yeah. It is a fascinating question, and
Speaker 1: and no one really has a clear answer, but I
Speaker 1: do think it's interesting. Of course they have embraced the
Speaker 1: molotov as you've kind of made the case here that's
Speaker 1: it really has this history as this great kind of
Speaker 1: democratizing force within the conflicts between people and governments and
Speaker 1: governments and governments. Yeah, and and people in capital, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you're prepared to destroy capital goods like people
Speaker 1: have done for centuries, and that that seems to be
Speaker 1: the way to make change, right. It's kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: I think, to reflect on from our me and my podcast,
Speaker 1: I thought was that they had very strict gun ownership
Speaker 1: laws before this, very very strict, apart from from one
Speaker 1: ethnic group called the June. But what they've promised to
Speaker 1: do afterwards, at least according to our sources, is to
Speaker 1: allow people to keep and bear arms, right, because I
Speaker 1: guess they kind of have to write because A they
Speaker 1: can't stop them anymore. These people are three D printing
Speaker 1: guns and be the only way they got freedom or
Speaker 1: if this is if they if they're able to defeat
Speaker 1: the Tapmador, then the only way they've they've become free
Speaker 1: is through fighting for their freedom, and it seems that
Speaker 1: they're not going to be willing to give that up,
Speaker 1: especially for the ethnic groups there. So Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to see, like what kind of a state emerges
Speaker 1: from a sort of uh, what's the sort of word? Like,
Speaker 1: like it's it's not an authoritarian structure, right, the militaries
Speaker 1: are not, like a lot of people in Ukraine are
Speaker 1: not necessarily authoritarian instructures. So what emerges for the state
Speaker 1: when we've had this horizontal resistance? Yeah, these are These
Speaker 1: are fascinating questions and ones that I think we'll all
Speaker 1: be continuing to ask and answer for for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: For now, do you have anything you want to plug
Speaker 1: before we were all out? James M No, You should
Speaker 1: listen to our podcast on MIMMA. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter. That's my name at James Stout Patreon. I
Speaker 1: write some other things. I teach at the community college.
Speaker 1: If you want to take some history courses, we can
Speaker 1: learn about molotovs. Have a lecture about that. But otherwise, no,
Speaker 1: that's about all. Well, that's going to do it for
Speaker 1: us here until next time. Don't make a molotov if
Speaker 1: it's illegal where you live. But but do think about
Speaker 1: molotovs because, as the last couple of weeks have shown us,
Speaker 1: you could buy next week be living in a state
Speaker 1: where it's very legal to make molotov cocktails. That could
Speaker 1: happen to any of us. You never know, you know,
Speaker 1: you never know, so you know, do some reading online,
Speaker 1: use a use of VP a VPN to do that
Speaker 1: reading browser. If you're gonna be how to make molotov,
Speaker 1: do some very careful reading, and um, you know, keep
Speaker 1: an eye on the world. It could happen here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool Zone media, dot com, slash sources, thanks for listening.