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Speaker 1: Cool Media.

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Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let

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Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode

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Speaker 2: of the week that just happened is here in one

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Speaker 2: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to

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Speaker 2: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If

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Speaker 2: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,

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Speaker 2: there's going to be nothing new here for you, but

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Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to you could happen here here daily dose

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Speaker 3: of something a little unsettling. I'm Molly Conger, your occasional

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Speaker 3: host here on this feed, and the host of a

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Speaker 3: new weekly show from Cool Zone Media called Weird Little

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Speaker 3: Guys that I think you'll probably like. Today, I'm a

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Speaker 3: little shamelessly promoting my own show by giving you a

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Speaker 3: little taste of the kinds of stories I like to

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Speaker 3: dig into over on the Weird Little Guys feed. So

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Speaker 3: remember last month when Donald Trump got shot? I kind

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Speaker 3: of don't. It feels like it was years ago. I

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Speaker 3: barely remember who I was during those tense few days

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Speaker 3: where it seemed possible Trump would ride that momentum to victory.

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Speaker 3: Imagining posters of that photo of Trump with blood dripping

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Speaker 3: down his face, fist raised, and then kind of didn't

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Speaker 3: matter at all anymore. The shooter wasn't a Biden sleeper

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Speaker 3: agent sent to take down the opposition. He was just

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Speaker 3: some kid with a rifle and the kind of uniquely

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Speaker 3: American desire to cause chaos with it. And that was

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Speaker 3: really hard for a lot of people to swallow. What

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Speaker 3: do you mean it doesn't seem like he was politically motivated.

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Speaker 3: He shot the former president. He shot him while he

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Speaker 3: was on stage at a rally for his campaign to

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Speaker 3: retake the presidency. Everything about the situation is political. How

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Speaker 3: could the shooter have had any other motivation? Thomas Crooks

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Speaker 3: wouldn't be the first guy to take a shot at

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Speaker 3: a president or a presidential candidate for no reason at all.

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Speaker 3: Far from it. While I was doing research for the

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Speaker 3: first episode of my show, which theoretically you could pick

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Speaker 3: up your phone and subscribe to right now while you're

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Speaker 3: listening if you wanted to, it got lost on a

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Speaker 3: few side quests. That's always happening to me. But as

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Speaker 3: I breezed past a quick mention of George Wallace, the

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Speaker 3: four term governor of Alabama, best remembered for his rallying

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Speaker 3: cry of segregation now, segregation, tomorrow, segregation forever. I'm not

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Speaker 3: going to do it in his accent. I'll spay that.

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Speaker 3: I remember that he got shot while running for president too,

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Speaker 3: during the primary in nineteen seventy two. He was paralyzed

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Speaker 3: after surviving an attempted assassination on the campaign trail. Surely,

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Speaker 3: whoever shot a man like George Wallace did it out

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Speaker 3: of a deep ideological commitment to something right. Maybe a

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Speaker 3: civil rights activist opposed to Wallace's views on race, or

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Speaker 3: a McGovern voter concerned that Wallace's cynical attempt to gain

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Speaker 3: the Democratic Party nomination after winning five states as a

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Speaker 3: third party candidate in sixty eight might actually work. Or

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Speaker 3: maybe he was a diehard Nixon supporter who saw Wallace

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Speaker 3: as a spoiler, siphoning conservative votes away from Nixon. But

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Speaker 3: that's not what happened. When Arthur Bremer shot George Wallace

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Speaker 3: four times in the chest and stomach on May fifteenth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two. It had nothing at all to do

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Speaker 3: with Wallace's policy positions, or Nixon's or McGovern's. It didn't

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Speaker 3: even have really anything at all to do with George

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Speaker 3: Wallace Bremer had been planning for months to assassinate Richard Nixon,

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Speaker 3: but it turned out that was too hard. He just

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Speaker 3: wanted to shoot somebody important. I hesitate to draw too

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Speaker 3: many comparisons to the Trump shooter because there's a lot

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Speaker 3: we still don't know and may never know. But it

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Speaker 3: did come out early on that Crooks was equally interested

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Speaker 3: in shooting Joe Biden. Trump just happened to have a

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Speaker 3: campaign rally close to where he lived in Pennsylvania, and

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Speaker 3: that rally happened to have weak perimeter security. Crooks had

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Speaker 3: also looked into how to get close to FBI Director

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Speaker 3: Christopher Ray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and inexplicably, Kate Middleton. Yes,

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Speaker 3: that Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales. If Biden had

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Speaker 3: been campaigning in western Pennsylvania, or if Richard Nixon's security

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Speaker 3: hadn't been so tight, Crooks may have shot Biden and

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Speaker 3: Bremer may have killed Nixon. It doesn't seem like it

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Speaker 3: really mattered to either of them who they shot, as

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Speaker 3: long as they shot somewhat important. One of the funny

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Speaker 3: things about history is realizing that we've always been the

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Speaker 3: way that we are now there. Truly is nothing new

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Speaker 3: under the sun, because within hours of the attempt on

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Speaker 3: George Wallace's life, before any information was clear at all,

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Speaker 3: Nixon was demanding his aides put in a call to

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Speaker 3: the White House Deputy director of Communications, Kenneth Clawson, to

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Speaker 3: put out a statement that the shooter was a supporter

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Speaker 3: of George McGovern that was the front runner and the

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Speaker 3: Democratic primary, whom Nixon would go on to trounce terribly

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Speaker 3: at the election at the end of that year. So

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Speaker 3: Nixon saying, just say, we've got evidence, We've got unmistakable evidence.

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Speaker 3: Of course, they didn't have evidence of any kind, unmistakable

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Speaker 3: or not. And when the evidence did emerge, it certainly

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Speaker 3: didn't show the shooter working on the McGovern campaign, which

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Speaker 3: is the rumor Nixon was hoping to spread in those

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Speaker 3: early hours.

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Speaker 4: Bob, definitely, day person, you know what I mean, put

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Speaker 4: it right away that you put it to get that

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Speaker 4: before they hit on the way.

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Speaker 3: Now, we don't have thousands of hours of secret recordings

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Speaker 3: from inside the offices of today's Republicans, but we did

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Speaker 3: see something really similar in the immediate aftermath of the

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Speaker 3: Trump shooting. He's a Biden voter. He's a Democrat, he's

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Speaker 3: a radical leftist, he's Antifa. We can already tell. We

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Speaker 3: just know it's obvious. We have proof. The fact that

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Speaker 3: there was no proof of anything on day one doesn't matter.

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Speaker 3: It matters even less than no proof ever materialized. You

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Speaker 3: just have to get the rumor out first. You have

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Speaker 3: to make an impression while the cement is wet, and

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Speaker 3: sometimes that's permanent. One thing that is not on the

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Speaker 3: Nixon tapes, though, is a conversation that allegedly occurred that

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Speaker 3: afternoon in May nineteen seventy two that was reported by

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Speaker 3: Seymour Hirsh twenty years later in nineteen ninety two. Despite

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Speaker 3: a Supreme Court ruling in the seventies the tapes belonged

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Speaker 3: to the National Archives, the full volume of the Nixon

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Speaker 3: tapes were not made available to the public until two

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Speaker 3: thousand and seven. Now, Seymour Hirsh is not a making

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Speaker 3: stuff up kind of guy. I don't think he was

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Speaker 3: fabricating any part of this story. He's still alive and

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Speaker 3: has a sub stack at eighty seven years old. So

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Speaker 3: I don't want any beef with Seymour. That's not what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying. He has a decade's long career as an

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Speaker 3: investigative journalist and has a Pulitzer for exposing the cover

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Speaker 3: up of the Myli massacre. I don't think he's patting

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Speaker 3: the truth here. But in his nineteen ninety two New

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Speaker 3: Yorker piece called Nixon's Last cover Up, the Tapes he

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Speaker 3: wants the Archives to suppress, Hirsch wrote that the unreleased

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Speaker 3: tapes from the afternoon of the wall Is shooting contained

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Speaker 3: recordings of Nixon directing E. Howard Hunt, the retired CIA

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Speaker 3: officer who headed his White House plumbers, to break into

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Speaker 3: Bremer's apartment before the FBI could search it and to

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Speaker 3: plant McGovern campaign literature. Hunt's own autobiography admits only that

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Speaker 3: at Nixon's direction, Nixon advisor Charles Coulson did ask Hunt

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Speaker 3: to take a look around Brehmer's apartment. Even that this

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Speaker 3: is all taking place just a month before Hunt did,

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Speaker 3: in fact play a key role at the Watergate break in,

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Speaker 3: this isn't exactly unbelievable. I can absolutely believe that Richard

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Speaker 3: Nixon would ask E. Howard Hunt to break into a

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Speaker 3: building for some nefarious purpose, because we know he did

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Speaker 3: that at least once. And one thing the varying accounts

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Speaker 3: seemed to agree on is that Hunt was unable to

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Speaker 3: complete the assignment because the FBI had already sealed off

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Speaker 3: Bremer's apartment in Milwaukee before he got there. Hersh's peace

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Speaker 3: claimed the tapes contain recordings of Coulson breaking this news

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Speaker 3: to Nixon, that Hunt arrived too late and the apartment

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Speaker 3: was already under police guard, and further claims that on

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Speaker 3: the recordings, Nixon can be heard berating Coulson for not

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Speaker 3: doing more to slow down the FBI. Again, all completely

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Speaker 3: believable if you have even a passing knowledge of Richard Nixon,

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Speaker 3: and Colson himself related this account to Hirsh in nineteen

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Speaker 3: ninety two. The problem is we have the tapes now,

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Speaker 3: fifteen years after Hirsch's article was published. Researchers scoured the

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Speaker 3: newly released recordings for proof of this version of events,

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Speaker 3: and it isn't there. It's entirely possible that Colson is

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Speaker 3: recalling conversations that occurred outside the presence of the tape machine,

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Speaker 3: or is misremembering how much of this was actually spoken

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Speaker 3: aloud in what was simply understood. It's not out of

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Speaker 3: the realm of possibility that Colson is recalling something Nixon

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Speaker 3: definitely desired. It's just not all the tapes. Absence of

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Speaker 3: proof isn't proof of absence, of course, but we do

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Speaker 3: have a pretty complete record of Nixon's conversations on the

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Speaker 3: afternoon of May fifteenth, nineteen seventy two. Those missing eighteen

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Speaker 3: minutes are from a different frantic afternoon that summer. But

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Speaker 3: before we get to the rest of Richard Nixon's no good,

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Speaker 3: very bad day, here are some products and services. So

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Speaker 3: on May fifteen, Nixon got out of a budget meeting

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Speaker 3: around four pm, which was shortly after the shooting, and

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Speaker 3: that's when he first got the news. And we know

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Speaker 3: from the tapes that his first phone call was to

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Speaker 3: his own wife, pat and then he called George Wallace's wife, Cornelia.

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Speaker 3: He then asked Secretary of the Treasury John Connolly to

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Speaker 3: call Ted Kennedy to offer him full Secret Service protection,

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Speaker 3: which is not allowable under the structure of how that works,

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Speaker 3: but he wanted it done, presumably out of some combination

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Speaker 3: of the idea that Kennedy would be McGovern's vice presidential pick,

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Speaker 3: and maybe just the general idea that if people are

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Speaker 3: getting assassinated, you need to account for all your Kennedy's.

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Speaker 3: It's actually kind of wild to dig into the tapes

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Speaker 3: and see where everyone's heads were at that afternoon in

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Speaker 3: the Oval office. A recording from around seven pm captures

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Speaker 3: speculation that the shooting may have been a false flag

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Speaker 3: by Wallace's own people, but the idea is quickly dismissed.

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Speaker 3: He wouldn't have his own peace pople shoot him in

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Speaker 3: the stomach. That could kill you. They would have gone

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Speaker 3: for something less dangerous, like shooting him in the foot,

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Speaker 3: Which is a conversation we all had after the Trump shooting,

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Speaker 3: isn't it. Oh, maybe this is a stunt. Wait, why

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Speaker 3: would he have them fire at his head? That's so crazy, right,

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Speaker 3: it's I mean, it's the same conversation with different names

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Speaker 3: and body parts. Subbed him and this recording to captures

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Speaker 3: Nixon's top aids hoping that whoever did it was a

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Speaker 3: left wing NUTT.

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Speaker 5: Would be one of his own people to whatever to

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Speaker 5: shoot that man off, and.

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Speaker 6: They would have shot him in the foot or something.

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Speaker 6: Oh I haven't.

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Speaker 7: Wouldn't be is not one of then of people shoot

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Speaker 7: him on the store to kill him?

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Speaker 8: Oh?

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Speaker 5: I think the guy. The guy has to be a

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Speaker 5: nut of some kind. I just told the left wing right, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: I silly, I think I could ken it was really

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Speaker 5: elaborating now rather than the writing. And I tried to

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Speaker 5: bring out the ring the writing crack.

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Speaker 9: How hell to do that?

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Speaker 5: It showed him twisted the.

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Speaker 9: Start of plum people.

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Speaker 3: So Nixon tried to put a thumb on the scale

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Speaker 3: after the fact, But the exact nature of his meddling

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Speaker 3: will forever be up for debate, I guess, and the

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Speaker 3: Nixon tapes aren't the only unique primary source for in

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Speaker 3: down that day. In the early months of nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 3: as Arthur Bremmer prepared to shoot Nixon, gave up on

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Speaker 3: shooting Nixon and ultimately shot George Wallace, he was keeping

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Speaker 3: a diary, and in nineteen seventy three Harper's Magazine Press

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Speaker 3: published that diary. I couldn't find a physical copy of

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Speaker 3: the original bound book published by Harper's for less than

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Speaker 3: a small fortune, but it did find an archival scan

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Speaker 3: of the diary that was produced as evidence, and the

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Speaker 3: diary is a strange and fascinating document. Only the latter

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Speaker 3: half was published. He'd thrown away the first one hundred

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Speaker 3: and forty eight pages of fact. He notes on the

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Speaker 3: first page of the version that we have. In nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty a construction worker named Sherman Griffin found those first

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Speaker 3: one hundred and forty eight pages, so this again, eight

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Speaker 3: years after the shooting. He found them wrapped in plastic

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Speaker 3: inside of a backpack underneath the twenty seventh Street Viaduct

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Speaker 3: in Milwaukee. From prison, Arthur Remmer tried to sue Griffin

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Speaker 3: for ownership of the document, saying it would only be

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Speaker 3: used to embarrass him and it was his. He owned it.

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Speaker 3: I need back, But in nineteen eighty one a court

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Speaker 3: ruled that Griffin could keep it. I'm sure it was

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Speaker 3: more complicated in the end, all the back and forth

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Speaker 3: in court, but ultimately Finder's Keepers. The portion we do

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Speaker 3: have is a lot of things. It's full of typos

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Speaker 3: and disorganized thinking, and sexual fantasy and the mundane rambling

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Speaker 3: stream of consciousness of a guy going about his day

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Speaker 3: to day life as he tries to figure out how

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Speaker 3: to shoot the president. A few months after it was published,

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Speaker 3: The New York Review published an essay by Gorvadal speculating

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Speaker 3: that Brehmer hadn't written the diary at all as a

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Speaker 3: literary critic it was his professional opinion that Brehmer could

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Speaker 3: not have written such a document, so it was riddled

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Speaker 3: with typos. The doll believes they come and go and

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Speaker 3: are not believable in their structure and format, as though

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Speaker 3: the writer is remembering as he writes that he's supposed

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Speaker 3: to be a twenty one year old bus boy of

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Speaker 3: mediocre intelligence. He also doubts that Bremer was well read

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Speaker 3: enough to make reference to Soljhanitsyn's day in the Life

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Speaker 3: of A von Denisovich or quit as he crossed the

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Speaker 3: Great Lakes call me Ishmael. Both Denisovich and Ishmael are misspelled,

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Speaker 3: but that could be intentional, he says.

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Speaker 10: No.

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Speaker 3: Gore Vadahal believes or perhaps would only like you to think.

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Speaker 3: He believes it's hard to say that the diary was

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Speaker 3: falsified in its entirety by E. Howard Hunt. Nixon Spook

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Speaker 3: and Hunt was a prolific writer, giving Vidal a large

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Speaker 3: volume of material for comparison, and he claims there are

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Speaker 3: similarities in the writing styles, and also notes that both

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Speaker 3: Bremer and Hunt use the phrase Harry hippies. They have

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Speaker 3: a distaste for Harry hippies. I wasn't alive in nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventy two. Maybe a lot of people hated Harry hippies.

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Speaker 3: But again, just as Hirsch's claims what the secret apes

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Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety two were called into question when we

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Speaker 3: got the tapes in two thousand and seven, but All's

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Speaker 3: essay was published in nineteen seventy three, seven years before

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Speaker 3: the first half of the diary was found. So even

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Speaker 3: if you're inclined to believe Hunt was crafty enough to

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Speaker 3: construct this elaborate plot with a fake diary and a

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Speaker 3: patsy shooter, it's a real stretch to think he would

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Speaker 3: even bother writing one hundred and forty eight pages, wrapping

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Speaker 3: them in plastic, hiding them inside of a backpack, and

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Speaker 3: tucking that backpack into a little nook under a bridge

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Speaker 3: in Milwaukee to be found by a construction worker a

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Speaker 3: decade later. That part just doesn't make a.

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Speaker 10: Lot of sense.

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Speaker 3: But maybe Gorbadal was just doing an elaborate bit that

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Speaker 3: I don't understand. The legacy of that diary lives on

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Speaker 3: in some surprising ways. In those early days after the

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Speaker 3: Trump shooting, before we all forgot what ever happened, I

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Speaker 3: did see a lot of people point out that the

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Speaker 3: last time a president took a bullet it wasn't over politics.

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Speaker 3: John Hinckley Junior shot Reagan to impress Jodi Foster. Remember, Okay,

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Speaker 3: here's where I admit something kind of embarrassing. I've always

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Speaker 3: just accepted that statement at faceback. It makes no sense,

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Speaker 3: but he wasn't acting rationally, so it's not something I

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Speaker 3: felt like I needed to make sense of. He shot

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Speaker 3: Reagan to impress Jodi Foster. I guess he thought she'd

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Speaker 3: find that impressive. No need to interrogate that further. I

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Speaker 3: mean a lot of women might find it impressive if

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Speaker 3: you shot Ronald Reagan, so there's not a lot of

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Speaker 3: follow up to do on that. The thing is, i'd

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Speaker 3: never seen the movie Taxi Driver. I never pieced together

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Speaker 3: that he thought shooting the president would impress Jodi Foster

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Speaker 3: because she starred as the child sex worker in the

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Speaker 3: movie Taxi Driver, in which the protagonist Travis Bickle plans

294
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Speaker 3: to shoot a presidential candidate named Charles Palatine. Hinkley shot

295
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Speaker 3: Reagan to impress Jodi Foster makes I guess like a

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Speaker 3: little more sense if you have that cultural context, and

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Speaker 3: I fear I may have been the very last person

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Speaker 3: in America to find that out. So maybe everybody else

299
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Speaker 3: already knew this next part too. I don't know, but

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Speaker 3: Taxi Driver owes a lot to Arthur Bremmer, the guy

301
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Speaker 3: who shot George Wallace. Screenwriter Paul Schrader has always denied

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Speaker 3: that he based any part of the movie on Bremer's diary.

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Speaker 3: In a nineteen seventy six interview, Schrader says he was

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Speaker 3: inspired by the shooting itself in nineteen seventy two, but

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Speaker 3: that the script was actually finished before the diary was

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Speaker 3: published in seventy three, and he registered the script with

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Speaker 3: the WGA, So that is provably true, right. But he

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Speaker 3: told film comments Richard Thompson in seventy six, I want

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Speaker 3: to emphasize that the script was written before any of

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Speaker 3: the diary was published. After I read the diary, I

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Speaker 3: was very tempted to take some of the good stuff

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Speaker 3: from it and add it to Taxi Driver, but I

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Speaker 3: decided not to because of legal ramifications. Bremer is sitting

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Speaker 3: there in jail with nothing better to do than sue us,

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Speaker 3: which is why I made certain the script was registered

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Speaker 3: before the diary came out, and that nothing was changed

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Speaker 3: after the diary's publication, And that's actually kind of prescient

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Speaker 3: of him, come to think of it. He's saying this

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Speaker 3: in seventy six that Bremer could file some kind of

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Speaker 3: nuisance lawsuit from prison, and that's years before Bremer tried

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Speaker 3: to get half a million dollars and his diary back

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Speaker 3: from that construction worker. And I'm obviously not a film buff.

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Speaker 3: We all just found out that I've never seen a movie.

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Speaker 3: So he won't say Schrader is not telling the truth here.

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Speaker 3: And maybe somebody who knows more about film would say, well,

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Speaker 3: there's a difference between a script and a screenplay, right,

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Speaker 3: those are different things. The script was done, but he

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Speaker 3: still could have changed the look and feel of how

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Speaker 3: it was shot. Because there are some scenes in Taxi

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Speaker 3: Driver that, unless Scorsese and Trader had some kind of

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Speaker 3: deep psychic connection to whatever forces in the universe motivated

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Speaker 3: Arthur Bremmer, they absolutely came from the diary. I read

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Speaker 3: the diary before sitting down to see what the movie

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Speaker 3: was all about. So when Travis Pickele, the titular taxi driver,

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Speaker 3: pulls up outside of a building with his fare, Martin

336
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 3: Scorsese himself in the back seat. I was doing the

337
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,600
Speaker 3: Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme at my TV because the camera

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00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 3: pans to a woman in a window smoking a cigarette,

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Speaker 3: partially obscured by a gauzy curtain, And just a few

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Speaker 3: pages into Bremmer's diary, he describes a really similar scene

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Speaker 3: before he flew back to Milwaukee to try to cross

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Speaker 3: the border into Canada to shoot Richard Nixon in Ottawa.

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Speaker 3: He wrote this in his diary, My last night at

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Speaker 3: the Howard Johnson's in the Jamaica area in New York City.

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Speaker 3: I didn't sleep much. A beautiful naked lady across a

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Speaker 3: parking lot on the next motel out by her window

347
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Speaker 3: Florida ceiling, smoking cigarettes, and I had to watch her.

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Speaker 3: Her table room light was on and a thin veil

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Speaker 3: of curtain allowed me to watch her as she passionately

350
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Speaker 3: kissed a man who wore clothes. I never saw them

351
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Speaker 3: in each other's arms for more than a minute at

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Speaker 3: a time. They must have been fighting through binoculars. I

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Speaker 3: saw them gesture like Italians and open their mouths very wide,

354
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Speaker 3: very often. So maybe he finished the script before he

355
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Speaker 3: read the diary, but the diary absolutely influenced the way

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Speaker 3: the film was shot. According to Andrew Rausch's book on

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Speaker 3: the films of Bartin Scorsese, de Niro prepared for the

358
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Speaker 3: role by getting a New York taxi license and driving

359
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Speaker 3: around the city listening to a cassette tape of someone

360
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Speaker 3: reading the Diary aloud. The Diary is genuinely oh normally,

361
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Speaker 3: I'm firmly in the camp of please do not read

362
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Speaker 3: or recommend that others read the manifestos left behind by shooters.

363
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Speaker 3: There's not much to gain from it. It's what they

364
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,000
Speaker 3: want with that and the other. There's plenty of writing

365
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Speaker 3: on the topic, but I don't really think anyone will

366
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:19,760
Speaker 3: read Arthur Bremer's diary entry about leaving a nude massage

367
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Speaker 3: parlor frustrated that he's still a virgin, and feel inspired

368
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Speaker 3: to follow in his footsteps. But I do think it's

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Speaker 3: a fascinating document. I learned more about what's inside the

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Speaker 3: mind of a nihilist aspiring shooter from Bremer's diary than

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Speaker 3: I've learned from any self indulgent little manifesto left behind

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Speaker 3: by a mass shooter after failing to get his shot

373
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Speaker 3: at Nixon at the appearance in Ottawa in April, he wrote,

374
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Speaker 3: I just need a little opening and a second of time.

375
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Speaker 3: Nothing has happened for so long three months. The last

376
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Speaker 3: person I held a conversation with in three months was

377
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Speaker 3: a near naked girl rubbing my erect penis, and she

378
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Speaker 3: wouldn't let me put it through her failures. A few

379
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Speaker 3: pages later, he writes that he thought about getting really drunk,

380
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Speaker 3: but quote decided against it. Just wanted to pick a

381
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Speaker 3: fight with a bartender somewhere or someone get arrested, and

382
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Speaker 3: then where am I? I got something to do something

383
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Speaker 3: big before I ever get arrested again. He writes that

384
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Speaker 3: he's getting tired of writing he wants to be a

385
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Speaker 3: madman who kills, and then abruptly transitions to saying he

386
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:22,600
Speaker 3: goes crazy when hears Johnny Cash's new single, quoting the

387
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:24,959
Speaker 3: lyrics I shot you with my thirty eight and now

388
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:28,119
Speaker 3: I'm doing time, before noting that a baseball game had

389
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Speaker 3: been canceled that day due to rain. Honestly, the document

390
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Speaker 3: it reminds me the most of is the diary kept

391
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,400
Speaker 3: by Franklin Seacrest, the young man who set a synagogue

392
00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 3: on fire in Austin in twenty twenty one. Large portions

393
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Speaker 3: of his diary were produced as evidence in his trial,

394
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Speaker 3: and his diary is sort of similar in that it's

395
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,800
Speaker 3: a strange stream of consciousness accounting his frustrations with women,

396
00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 3: his daily activities, going to class, arguments with his mother,

397
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:56,920
Speaker 3: interspersed with these strange outbursts of violent desire, and they're

398
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Speaker 3: just sort of mixed in without any recognition that these

399
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 3: things are congruous. After taking two weeks away from his

400
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 3: diary to deal with the tragedy of failing to kill

401
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:09,480
Speaker 3: Richard Nixon, remember went to see Clockwork Orange. As he

402
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 3: watched the movie, he decided he would kill George Wallace instead,

403
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 3: though he lamented that this was a second rate target, writing,

404
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 3: I won't even rate a TV in terruption in Russia

405
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,720
Speaker 3: or Europe. When the news breaks, they never heard of Wallace.

406
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 3: If something big and nom flares up, I'll be at

407
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:25,960
Speaker 3: the bottom of the first page. In America, the editors

408
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 3: will say Wallace dead. Who cares? He won't get more

409
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:32,879
Speaker 3: than three minutes on network TV news. I don't expect

410
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:35,400
Speaker 3: anybody to get a big, throbbing erection from the news.

411
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,159
Speaker 3: You know, a storm in some country we never heard of,

412
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:41,680
Speaker 3: kills ten thousand people, Big deal, Pass the beer? What's

413
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Speaker 3: on TV tonight? I hope my death makes more sense

414
00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:47,680
Speaker 3: than my life. And just days before he finally took

415
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 3: his shot, he wrote, yesterday I even considered McGovern as

416
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Speaker 3: a target. If I go to prison as an assassin,

417
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Speaker 3: solitary forever, guards in my cell, etc. Or get killed

418
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 3: or suicided, what difference to me? Ask me why I

419
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 3: did it, and I'd say I don't know, or nothing

420
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:07,080
Speaker 3: else to do, or why not? Or I have to

421
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Speaker 3: kill somebody. It bothers me that there are about thirty

422
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,199
Speaker 3: guys in prison now who threatened the pres and we

423
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 3: never heard a thing about him except that they're in prison.

424
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,440
Speaker 3: Maybe what they need is organization. Make the first lady

425
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 3: a widow incorporated, chicken in every pot and a bullet

426
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 3: on every head, committee incorporated the whole to national convention

427
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 3: every year to pick the executioner. A winner will be

428
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 3: chosen from the best entry in forty thousand words or less,

429
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,280
Speaker 3: preferably less on the theme how to do a bang

430
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 3: up job getting people to notice you? Or get it

431
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 3: off your chest, make your problems Everybody's On May thirteenth,

432
00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:42,680
Speaker 3: two days before the shooting, Brehmer attended a Wallace rally

433
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,680
Speaker 3: in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There are photographs of Bremer at the

434
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 3: rally that day, and he even spoke to a police

435
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 3: officer who responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle

436
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,159
Speaker 3: park near the venue. Brehmer told the officer he just

437
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 3: wanted to be early to get a good spot at

438
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,160
Speaker 3: the rally and complied when asked to move his car.

439
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 3: His loaded thirty eight was in his jacket potet. He

440
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 3: writes in his diary that he could have taken his

441
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 3: shot that day, but at the last minute two teenage

442
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,400
Speaker 3: girls caught between him and his target, and he thought

443
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 3: they'd be disfigured or blinded if he fired through the

444
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 3: glass they were pressed up against, writing, I let Wallace

445
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 3: go only to spare these two stupid, innocent, delighted kids.

446
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:19,920
Speaker 3: His final entry, made the night before the shooting ends

447
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 3: with got a sign from campaign headquarters here to shield

448
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 3: the gun. Is there anything else to say? My cry

449
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:32,160
Speaker 3: upon firing will be a penny for your thoughts. Round

450
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 3: four pm on the fifteenth, after Wallace finished addressing a

451
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 3: crowd in Laurel, Maryland, Bremer pushed his way through the

452
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 3: people hoping to shake Wallace's hand and unloaded his thirty eight.

453
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 3: He struck Wallace four times and wounded four others, a

454
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,679
Speaker 3: state trooper, a campaign volunteer, Wallace's personal bodyguard, and a

455
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 3: secret Service agent. He was convicted and sentenced to sixty

456
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,159
Speaker 3: three years, later reduced to fifty three years on appeal.

457
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 3: He was denied parole in nineteen ninety six after arguing

458
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 3: it as hearing that shooting segregationist dinosaurs wasn't as bad

459
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 3: as harming mainstream politicians, but it was released in two

460
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 3: thousand and seven. George Wallace wrote to Bremer in prison

461
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety five, telling him that he forgave him

462
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 3: for the shooting and hoped to correspond a bit to

463
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:15,880
Speaker 3: get to know one another. Bremer never responded, and George

464
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 3: Wallace died in nineteen ninety eight. So we shot George

465
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: Wallace for no reason, and Robert de Niro's study of

466
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 3: the diary he left behind inspired the performance that made

467
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 3: Hinckley shoot Reagan. There's really nothing hard to believe at

468
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 3: all in the idea that Thomas Crooks wanted to shoot

469
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 3: the president just to be remembered as anyone at all.

470
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: Hi and Welcome to the podcast. It's b James and

471
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 1: today I am joined by Nick. Been doing some reporting

472
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: on a forest occupation in Hint, which is a place

473
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:05,719
Speaker 1: I used to live. Actually, Mick, would you like to

474
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: introduce yourself and sort of explain a little bit about

475
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: what you've been doing.

476
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 9: Of course, Hi, I'm Meck. I am incidentally reporting on

477
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 9: stuff and I thought this was a pretty neat thing

478
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 9: to report on that I think people should know more about,

479
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 9: and it's also kind of a fun thing.

480
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's very accessible for people, Like if you

481
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,719
Speaker 1: want to do like little forest occupying over the summer,

482
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: this is one that you can do pretty easily.

483
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, you can skip your European festival season and

484
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 9: just go help at the forest occupation, which is cheaper

485
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 9: and much more memorable.

486
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: Yeah you can. God, they used to have one of

487
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 1: those near the little town I lived in when I

488
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: was racing in Belgium, and it was a scene.

489
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 9: Yeah, just lovely times.

490
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, great times. We should maybe explain like a little

491
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: bit about Hunt as a city, because I think if

492
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: people have seen it, or they've maybe visited, like they've

493
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: been to the middle of town, right and they've they've

494
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: seen the castle and then the waterhouse bar or whatever,

495
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 1: and they've been one of those sugar noses, but like

496
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: they may not have seen the whole city. So can

497
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: you sort of characterize the city.

498
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 9: Of course, it's very diverse in the sense that the

499
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,959
Speaker 9: scenery changes a lot. You've got some of these like

500
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 9: really old buildings that are just like speaking to your imagination.

501
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 9: But then there's also almost like concrete deserts. Yeah, I

502
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 9: would almost call them, where like the view on the

503
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 9: street is just an incredible amount of gray in varying colors. Yeah,

504
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 9: thats it was a beautiful city. I don't mean to

505
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 9: thresh talk cantier at all, but at times it's just

506
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 9: really gray.

507
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 11: Yeah.

508
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've lots of memories of springtime and Flanders and

509
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: like gray sky and gray buildings and gray roads and yeah,

510
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: but also some very beautiful areas. So yeah, why did

511
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,239
Speaker 1: you go ahead and explain to us a little bit

512
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: about this forest occupation?

513
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 9: Okay, it's an occupation that's happening to a little north

514
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 9: of the city center. In terms of forest occupations, it's

515
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 9: remarkably accessible. So it's called the Womblehems Meson or ponds

516
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 9: for you English speakers. Out there, and it's part of

517
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 9: an industrial area called the Dauci, which is located just

518
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 9: west of the canal the Lever, which connects the port

519
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 9: of Hant, the third largest port in Belgium. The area

520
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 9: itself is about fourteen to fifteen hectares. I'm not sure

521
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 9: how to translate that to US numbers.

522
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yeah, neither terriblated American, doesn't matter.

523
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 9: There's internet, Yeah, and the ar area is largely been

524
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 9: left to its own for a pretty significant amount of

525
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 9: time past twenty years now. There's two areas within the ponds,

526
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 9: as I'm going to call them, a northern part and

527
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 9: a southern part, and later down the line i'll explain

528
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 9: why that is important before I continue further on the highlight.

529
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 9: I went there mainly as a form of solidarity and support.

530
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 9: I had asked if people would be willing to talk

531
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 9: to me about in a journalistic or reporting capacity, and

532
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 9: they agreed to that. But I'm not a local, and

533
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 9: I also don't want to pretend i am, although any

534
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 9: listener will hear my accent and know that. So yeah,

535
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 9: we'll be mainly talking about the southern area, and there's

536
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 9: destination plans before this area there's essentially two parties that

537
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 9: are working together to turn these green areas into the

538
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 9: gray concrete deserts that we just talked about. These parties

539
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 9: are the municipality of Kent and the Lane, a government

540
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 9: organization that handles public transport and Flanders. So over the years,

541
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 9: there have been several plans to build or develop the ponds,

542
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 9: but up until last week. We're recording this in the

543
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 9: week of August eighth, but up until last week, no

544
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 9: permits were issued to actually finalize or realize these plans.

545
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 9: The northern part was supposed to be turned into a

546
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 9: sort of training area for bus drivers, while the southern

547
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 9: part is intended to be a parking lot for public

548
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 9: transport buses. The activists currently residing in the forest are

549
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 9: by no means against the idea of public transport, but

550
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 9: do think that the destruction of this piece of datuare

551
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 9: is counterproductive for both the locals and for climate change reasons.

552
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 9: There is enough concrete in the city already, and they

553
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 9: argue that alternative solutions have not been giving the attention

554
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 9: they deserve.

555
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it wouldn't be hard to find.

556
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: Like I think they call it like a brown field

557
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: site like a former industrial site or in that area

558
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: of Flanders, to redevelop an old factory or a warehouse

559
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: complex or something. To do this rather than taking one

560
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: of the green spaces and destroying it and paving it over.

561
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,959
Speaker 9: You know, I don't know what the municipality was thinking,

562
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 9: but I'm sure there is like barren areas elsewhere that

563
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 9: can just as easily be repurposed in a way that

564
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 9: doesn't destroy nature. So the part that was most surprising

565
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 9: to me, and at the same time not at all,

566
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 9: is how this is being played out politically. To give

567
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 9: everyone a quick timeline, about twenty years ago, the municipality

568
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 9: designated these two zones that I talked about as to

569
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 9: be used for common use. I'll reumain it for those

570
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 9: speaking Dutch or Flemish well. At the same time the

571
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 9: ground was being bought by the public transport company the

572
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 9: lane plans for development started. There is even like an

573
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 9: unused tram bridge just outside the green zone and the occupation.

574
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 9: But for one reason or another, the permit to build

575
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 9: on the ground itself had expired, during which time nature

576
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 9: took it upon herself to reclaim the area. Now, what

577
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 9: I mentioned earlier is this difference between the north and

578
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 9: the south part. These are separated by train tracks, making

579
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 9: a very clear distinction between the two areas. The land

580
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 9: originally wanted to use the north part to make a

581
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 9: sort of training area, as I just said, but these

582
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 9: plans never materialized. At the same time, about three years ago,

583
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 9: another action group prevented the destruction of the northern part.

584
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 9: Now this is where I find it really interesting. The

585
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 9: terrain is still owned by the line and the municipality,

586
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 9: but they intend to give custody to a local environmental

587
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 9: group called Naturepunt, but only if the plans for the

588
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 9: southern part, where there's an occupation right now, are completed.

589
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 9: Oh yes, yes, interesting. Yeah. While I was talking to

590
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 9: my source, I was reading between the lines there as

591
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 9: a sort of an attempt to play these multiple environmental

592
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 9: organizations against each other, a sort of divide and conquer.

593
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: M Yeah, very new theorious.

594
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 9: When I asked my source about that, they said that

595
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 9: it was up to mediate whether or not I would

596
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,479
Speaker 9: call it that, but that the existence of these plants

597
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 9: is just a reality.

598
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: Now.

599
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 9: I will not claim, probably for legal reasons, that there's

600
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 9: definitely some attempt to set these parties up against each other.

601
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 9: But from the information that I have, like if I

602
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 9: were a betting man, I know where i'd put my money.

603
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting, So like not true to put

604
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: it is not present in the forest occupation on the

605
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: southern side, is that right? Not that I'm aware of,

606
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: And so they'd stand to like they'd gain custody of

607
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: the northern society of the people on the southern side failed.

608
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 9: Exactly, how anfair he is, exactly, And if the southern

609
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 9: side now succeeds in preventing like the tearing down of

610
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 9: the trees, then the northern side could become you know,

611
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 9: threatened again, and then this whole circus starts all over again.

612
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So both of them have the avested interest

613
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: in one of these well, in theory, the municipality maybe

614
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: would like them to think that both of them have

615
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: an interest in the paving over of one of these areas.

616
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 9: But exactly, like someone has to lose in this equation.

617
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 9: And I find it interesting that that it's happening like this,

618
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 9: especially because hands kind of promotes itself on these green

619
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,959
Speaker 9: zones that are mixed throughout the city and that are

620
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 9: then accessible for people by bike or for running or walking,

621
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 9: And then in that same breath there's also still the

622
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 9: oh yeah, one of these species of nature we need

623
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 9: to tear down because we need more concrete. Yeah, those

624
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 9: two views just don't align.

625
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: Right, And like we said, there's no shortage of Concretely,

626
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: this is a very sort of post industrial area. It's

627
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: not like this is like a public facing thing that

628
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: needs to be in one area to be accessible to people, right,

629
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: Like they could store their buses, train their bus drivers,

630
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere else in Flanders. It's not like it

631
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: needs to be right in town.

632
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 9: Now. I'm certain there are other areas where you could

633
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 9: just as easily make a parking lot for buses. Yeah.

634
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 9: As for like a training grounds, I'm not sure how

635
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 9: that would work. But then again there I think there's

636
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 9: roads enough in the city for people to practice, like

637
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 9: even like industrial areas not to have very much traffic,

638
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 9: so that could still work without having to like again

639
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 9: get rid of a piece of forest just so people

640
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 9: can drive around in buses.

641
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

642
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 9: But again, this is not an argument against public transport,

643
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 9: more in the like hypocrisy and senselessness of the plans

644
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 9: that are on the table right now.

645
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and kind of trying to make people choose between

646
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: two things when they should be perfectly possible to have.

647
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 9: Both, right exactly. I'm guessing it would also be more

648
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 9: cost effective if you take some other parts, because I'll

649
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 9: dive into that later. But there's also like pollution in

650
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 9: these areas that needs to be taken care of. So

651
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 9: just from a cost effective standpoint, I think there should

652
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 9: be alternative options that will keep everyone happier.

653
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 8: Yeah.

654
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: So, yeah, described me your visit there, like, describe how

655
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: it was and what you winness there?

656
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 9: Okay, Well I went there at the end of July.

657
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 9: I stayed a few days and it was really weird

658
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 9: because you're coming from again a tram stop, then you

659
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 9: have to walk for a bit and all of the

660
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 9: sudden it's like you're in a forest. It was. It

661
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 9: was really surreal almost to know that you're in the

662
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 9: middle of a big city but also have that kind

663
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,760
Speaker 9: of like isolation from the sounds of traffic.

664
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's lovely, right, It's nice that's that's

665
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: available at least for now.

666
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I understand one hundred percent why people want

667
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 9: to keep that green space close to their homes.

668
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

669
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 9: So the ponds are a mix of terrain like there's

670
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 9: like water hungry, like swampy areas when the ring has

671
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 9: been falling. There's lush grass fields with like little curvy

672
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 9: impromptu paths to take. And there's some parts where the

673
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 9: trees have been growing for long enough that people can

674
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 9: now build treehouses in them, which to me is quite

675
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 9: a good indicator that not much development or care has

676
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 9: been done in this terrain. There's an absolutely insane amount

677
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 9: of BlackBerry bushes, much to mydy light. And yeah, it's

678
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 9: just for an area that is relatively small in the

679
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 9: bigger picture. It just surprised me how many different faces

680
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 9: it has. It was a delight to be there. Locals

681
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 9: tend to use the area for walks or picnics, or

682
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 9: to take their dogs out. I've seen multiple people stopping

683
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 9: by just to pick the blackberries. The city itself calls

684
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 9: this entire area a green zone and a climate access

685
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 9: their words. What can has done is trying to create

686
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,439
Speaker 9: a network of zones and roads that are accessible by car,

687
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 9: but not so much that there is a lot of

688
00:36:55,719 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 9: traffic on these roads, which makes them ideal for cycling, running, recreation,

689
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 9: or even transports if you would so choose. The website

690
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 9: of can itself promotes these areas is good for the

691
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 9: flora and fauna, for the environment, and subsequently for residents.

692
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 9: Then you need to be thinking of absorption of rainwater,

693
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 9: or keeping local populations of animals and plants healthy, or

694
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 9: just the cooling effect that nature has.

695
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, compared to black top.

696
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 9: Exactly like fully, concrete cities tend to like not really

697
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 9: release their warmth as quickly as nature does it. And

698
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 9: it was surprising because it was really hot when I

699
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 9: was there, but in the shade of the trees, it

700
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 9: was perfectly doable up until the point where you actually exercised,

701
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 9: and then suddenly it was less cool. But different story again.

702
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 9: The website from the municipality itself acknowledges the importance of

703
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 9: the area for an endangered species of lizard and the

704
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 9: efforts that the city took to make sure that it

705
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 9: can still thrive there. More concretely, one person I spoke

706
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 9: to said that there are thirty nine protected species of

707
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 9: plants and animals living there, protected under both Flemish and

708
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 9: European law. So I'm not really sure why that's discarded

709
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 9: into the calculation. I'm not a municipality person. I don't

710
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 9: know also, I believe there have been sightings of foxes there,

711
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 9: mainly because we were told by the activists not to

712
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,280
Speaker 9: eat the blackberries that are too close to the ground

713
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 9: due to the parasites that foxes may carry and can

714
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 9: subsequently like infect.

715
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: People with Oh wow, yeah interesting.

716
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 9: You know what else carries parasites, James?

717
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: Is it the goods and services that we rely on

718
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 1: to pay for this podcast?

719
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 9: Exactly, there's a fifty percent chance that these products and

720
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 9: services will give you one or another incurable parasite.

721
00:38:55,280 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: Wonderful, and we're back. And you mentioned that there was

722
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: a problem with pollution in the wilderness space, you can explain,

723
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: like what kind of pollution then entails.

724
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 9: Of course, in the past there has been like a

725
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 9: pollution of both the groundwater and the soil in and

726
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 9: of itself. That's not that remarkable. I've been told by

727
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 9: someone that Flanders has multiple spots where you can come

728
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 9: into contact with different forms of pollution. In the ponds,

729
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 9: there is both pollution in the soil and in the groundwater.

730
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 9: The soil itself contains asbestos, although it should be noted

731
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 9: that that is within like the acceptable regulatory norms. As

732
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 9: a refresher for listeners. Asbestos danger lies mainly in the

733
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 9: breaking or fracturing of the material, and the fibers that

734
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 9: release through that process is what makes asbestos so hazardous.

735
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 9: An effective way to mitigate is to make sure that

736
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 9: these fibers do not get into the air, for which

737
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,479
Speaker 9: water tends to work. Wonders so, at least in terms

738
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 9: of asbestos, it seems very simple and cost effective to

739
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 9: just leave it undisturbed, because it's already an area that

740
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 9: likes to swallow up water, which then will isolate the

741
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 9: asbestos from the air and thus make it less harmful.

742
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 9: The water is contaminated with vocis. That's an acronym for

743
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:33,720
Speaker 9: a variety of volatile organic compounds with some chlorine attached

744
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 9: to it. I don't know. I'm not a chemist. These

745
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 9: chemicals have several uses and applications in a variety of industry.

746
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 9: One of my sources told me that the specific chemical

747
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 9: is one point for dioxane, which is used as a solvent.

748
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 9: It's not the type of stuff you want to drink

749
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 9: or inhale, but serious exposure from contaminated soil or water

750
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 9: is pretty rare from what I've read. As my source

751
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 9: pointed out to content eminence in the water will overtime

752
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 9: degrade organically, a process called phytoremediation, where the presence of

753
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 9: plants and microorganisms and fungi will degrade the material and

754
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 9: reduce the toxicity. While reading into this, I found that

755
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 9: the same is true to an extent for asbestos, which

756
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 9: can be a source of like inorganic nutrients for these microorganisms.

757
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 9: So while you could point out that phytoremediation is a

758
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 9: longer process than sanitation, I personally think that it's just

759
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 9: common sense that letting nature do its work understir might

760
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 9: be significantly cheaper and more sustainable compared to putting additional

761
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 9: chemicals and substances in the ground to neutralize these vocis

762
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 9: also just a fun little side quest here. But in

763
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,239
Speaker 9: order to monitor the area, the line employed a concierge

764
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 9: to walk the terrain on a daily basis. I'm unsure

765
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 9: if you can spot upcoming or in merging contamination with

766
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 9: the naked eye, but not my money that they used

767
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:04,879
Speaker 9: to pay the guy.

768
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: So this guy just his job was to walk around

769
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: the ponds.

770
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 9: Yeah, pretty much. I'm told he had like a little

771
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 9: hut or a little shack from which he worked. The

772
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 9: guy was still working there at the time the activists

773
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 9: moved in, but the shack is gone, and so is

774
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 9: the gonecierge. I'm not sure about the details of what

775
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 9: happened there, but what I do find extremely funny is

776
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 9: that now officials and spokespersons from the development site are

777
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 9: claiming that the area is dangerous and that it is

778
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 9: for their own well being that the activists leave as

779
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 9: soon as possible, which doesn't really make sense to me,

780
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 9: Like either this argument is like incredibly disingenuous, or they

781
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 9: fucked over someone by paying them to take this incredibly

782
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 9: the risky job of walking over contaminated terrain.

783
00:42:56,760 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not to mention like all the people who

784
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: they allowed toward their dogs and click blackberries there and things.

785
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 9: Exactly if it was that dangerous that people should not

786
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 9: be there, then I'm fairly certain they could muster better

787
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 9: fences than they did at the moment. Like I'm not

788
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 9: sure on offense economy in the broader sense, but there

789
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 9: should at least have been signs on the fences, and

790
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 9: there were none. So yeah, we're getting to the octupist groups.

791
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 9: The group that is currently occupying the trees is an

792
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 9: assembly of people who care deeply about the area itself.

793
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 9: I spoke on the record with one of them and

794
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 9: I would like to play this clip to let them

795
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 9: introduce themselves.

796
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 11: I'm Elvid and one of the activists of the Window

797
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 11: Myths occupation which he occupied since the twenty of June,

798
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 11: and we occupy this because it's endangered. Is the lend,

799
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 11: which is the public transports company in Flanders, wants to

800
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 11: destroy this fifteen hector of nature for building a bus

801
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 11: deput so like a parking for buses.

802
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 9: Okay, do you want to tell us about what what

803
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,720
Speaker 9: you you and the group of activisties have done here.

804
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 12: Yeah.

805
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 11: So we live in the trees as much as possible,

806
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 11: and we we sleep there to make an eviction harder

807
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 11: and to have more power in our in our action,

808
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 11: like it's way more difficult for them to get us

809
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 11: out if we are on height and use other tactics

810
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 11: to to block them. And they also kndot start cutting

811
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:47,760
Speaker 11: trees when we are in in the trees another trees?

812
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 9: How is that for you?

813
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 8: It's intends.

814
00:44:54,640 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 11: Always and occupation of course, but also places of where Yeah,

815
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 11: very experiment with living together and where everyone's welcome.

816
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 8: There are no door bells no walls.

817
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 11: Furst are very open place where everyone can just come

818
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 11: in and feel like they are welcome, and it's not

819
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 11: owned by someone.

820
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: It's not.

821
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,439
Speaker 11: Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's belonging to someone, which

822
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 11: you can easily.

823
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 8: Have with the house, I think.

824
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,479
Speaker 11: But here there's all the space to make stuff, to live,

825
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 11: to take time for yourself, which makes it very healthy,

826
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 11: I think to live here by being in nature, people

827
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 11: are just more happy I think in general than in

828
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 11: the city and in the house. And yeah, we are

829
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 11: mainly building three houses. As you can hear, maybe probably.

830
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 9: So as you've heard that was it's one of the

831
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 9: activists that I spoke to. As you've also probably heard,

832
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 9: is that there is construction going on in the trees.

833
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,919
Speaker 9: There's multiple treehouses there at the moment, and that's where

834
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 9: they sleep. When I spoke further to our vidz, he

835
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 9: made clear like the demands that activists have, which is

836
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,280
Speaker 9: mainly that they don't want the needless destruction of this area.

837
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,879
Speaker 9: There's intention is to remain in the trees and make

838
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 9: it hard, if not impossible, for the trees to be felt.

839
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 9: There are multiple treehouses with enough stability and space for

840
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 9: multiple people on top of that they are preparing for

841
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 9: a possible eviction, all while also living happily and communally,

842
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 9: like every night they cook together, they're having dinner together.

843
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 9: I found it incredibly healing and wholesome to just have

844
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 9: a meal around a small fire with like a group

845
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 9: of like minded people, not hearing traffic or other urban noises.

846
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 9: A bright spot was one evening where someone played a

847
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 9: Dutch protest and just on the guitar satirizing an unamed

848
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 9: US president for his role in the Vietnam War, which

849
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,800
Speaker 9: can't escape US politics even in the middle of a forest.

850
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 9: So then I would like to play a second clip,

851
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 9: and how do you want to talk about how your

852
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 9: relationship is with the neighbors around here?

853
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 11: Yeah, the neighbors they started their own action committee for

854
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 11: more than three years ago, I think, and they have

855
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 11: already saved one piece of the Wildenhelm's myths, which is

856
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 11: on the north part of the training will. So this

857
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 11: one is now safe. It's only three hectors. But it

858
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:48,880
Speaker 11: was also the land who wanted to destroy it for.

859
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 8: Making a say, a place to practice to drive with the.

860
00:47:55,880 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 9: Bush like a training ground for bus drivers exactly.

861
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 11: So just put concrete on this swampy area to them

862
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 11: once in a while drive for the bus there as

863
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 11: if there is no other.

864
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 8: Concrete in the city to practice d.

865
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 11: But this is no safety and now the neighbors are

866
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 11: also for this big piece of the Williams Myths are

867
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 11: now going to start the court case against the decision

868
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 11: because the Ministry of thout the the Ministry of Environment,

869
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:36,720
Speaker 11: they approved the permits for the style plants for the business.

870
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 9: Okay, uh, that was yesterday that that was announced. So

871
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 9: how are you feeling. How are you feeling right now?

872
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 9: Do you have any plans on how to continue to

873
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,760
Speaker 9: fight against the bulldozing of this place.

874
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 11: Yeah, we are not surprised that she approved it. It

875
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 11: was we saw it coming a bit. But it's just

876
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 11: very ridiculous. And we will keep fighting, of course, because

877
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 11: this is a very Hypocrates and saying that we have

878
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:15,760
Speaker 11: to save that nature. But in the meantime she proved

879
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 11: decisions to destroy them this kind of nature. So we

880
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 11: just continue to fight and the neighbors do it.

881
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,919
Speaker 8: With the court case. We keep yeah, we stay here

882
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 8: and we keep building and pepre for an eviction.

883
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. That diversity of taxet cooperation, I think

884
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: is really valuable in these kind of struggles. Can you

885
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 1: explain a little bit more about that, like how that works.

886
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 9: Well, I think it was just the stars that aligned

887
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:52,439
Speaker 9: for this particular goal. There is a neighborhood committee that's

888
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 9: also heavily opposed to the destruction of this area, but

889
00:49:56,760 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 9: it's mainly a well, a neighborhood committee. These are people

890
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 9: who will stand up to like the municipality, but entirely

891
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 9: through the legal system or the judicial system. And I

892
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 9: think this committee was like at least a year or

893
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:16,879
Speaker 9: two maybe even more old before the occupation happened. And

894
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 9: the occupation also happens separately from the committee, So you

895
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 9: kind of have this, you know, alliance now between like

896
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 9: a group of people who will take more direct action

897
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 9: against the plans to destroy the place and this group

898
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 9: who is going to do that by filing court cases

899
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 9: against the plans that the land and the municipality are

900
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 9: trying to realize right now. It's really funny always because

901
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 9: one of my sources said, the people who are occupying

902
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,919
Speaker 9: for us came down like angels. The activists really don't

903
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 9: like to be called that, but it's sort of yeah,

904
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:57,280
Speaker 9: just they have a common they have a common goal

905
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:01,439
Speaker 9: and for that, they're working together, and from what I've seen,

906
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,320
Speaker 9: there is very warm and friendly contact between the groups.

907
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 9: I've seen multiple neighbors come by with like food or

908
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 9: building materials, like think of screws or nails, or like

909
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 9: wooden beams for construction. I think there was one person who,

910
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 9: like every Sunday, brings pancakes. I'm not sure if.

911
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:22,720
Speaker 1: They still do that, but it's pretty cool.

912
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 9: Yeah, exactly. I've seen people come by and drop off

913
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 9: like bags of like dried beans and lentils. I think

914
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 9: it's really fascinating that how organically these two groups sort

915
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 9: of come together and in their common goal, but also

916
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 9: that the two different strategies kind of strengthen.

917
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: Each other, right, Yeah, Like obviously you've got people who

918
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't think of occupying forests, but then they find themselves

919
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: in solidarity with people who do. And I think that's

920
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: really cool that, like you said, there was no prior communication.

921
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 1: These folks just arrived, began the occupation, and the locals

922
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: will like, guess, this is exactly what we needed. Thank you.

923
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 9: In so far as I understood it, that's how it happened.

924
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 9: As I said earlier, like the combination of text tactics

925
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,839
Speaker 9: just make their path towards their goal so much more

926
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 9: tangible because by occupying the forests, they can't start like

927
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 9: early construction in the area, or I know some municipalities

928
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 9: or cities kind of begin with the with the destruction

929
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 9: prior to having permission. But then it's like, oh, yeah,

930
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 9: we've already started, so it's of no use anymore. Which

931
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 9: I'm not sure how common it is in other countries,

932
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 9: but I've heard of that in a with an activist

933
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 9: circles in the Netherlands and all the wild Is committee

934
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 9: is like doing the court cases and filing legal motions

935
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 9: and yeah, I think I think it's a really warm

936
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 9: and friendly contact.

937
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so it's kind of nice to see exactly.

938
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 9: Okay, I have one other clip. How does it make

939
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 9: you feel that the neighbors are so supportive as you

940
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 9: said that they're bringing food on a regular basis. I've

941
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,359
Speaker 9: seen I think a few who brought materials even like

942
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 9: screws or nails. What does that do with your morale

943
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 9: or your motivation?

944
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think we wouldn't really be here if they

945
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 11: would be broad the busy puts, But of course they

946
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 11: are not because It's just a very stupid idea to

947
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:43,399
Speaker 11: destroy this valuable nature fruit. But yeah, we we help

948
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 11: each other a lot, and we yeah, we keep each

949
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 11: other strong by supporting each other. And they were very

950
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 11: moved by us being here. And they even cats, they're angels,

951
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 11: which you don't like to be good.

952
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's it, Okay.

953
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 9: Is there anything else you would like to share or

954
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 9: to have on on the record.

955
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 11: Yeah, we would like to invite everyone to come here.

956
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,880
Speaker 11: There's more inforant wonder mist and that snow blocks that

957
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 11: are and yeah, there will still be the whole court case,

958
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 11: so there was a chance we stay longer. But they

959
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:40,360
Speaker 11: also have the legal right to to evictors.

960
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:41,319
Speaker 8: Which would also be paying for it.

961
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 10: Yeah.

962
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: Obviously people who share will be familiar with Like for

963
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: ourt occupation in Atlanta, what's the state respond to this

964
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: look like?

965
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 9: For a long time, there has been very little state response.

966
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 9: While I was there, the permit to develop the area

967
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 9: was granted, but for the most part, there's occasional a

968
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 9: car that drives by. I did receive word that a

969
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 9: few days ago, a few cops came in onto the terrain,

970
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:25,279
Speaker 9: took pictures of everything, and the next morning there was

971
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 9: a drone flying over the camp. Yeah. Yes, so things

972
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 9: are like tensing up a bit and we'll have to

973
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,759
Speaker 9: see how We'll have to see how it goes. Obviously,

974
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 9: like the case is still like in the judicial so

975
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,879
Speaker 9: we'll have to see what comes from that. But up

976
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 9: until now, things have been quiet and peaceful.

977
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, because I think people sometimes obviously make the

978
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: US really strive to lead the world in police violence,

979
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: but I think that those people underestimate the capacity of

980
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:00,720
Speaker 1: European dates stay violent.

981
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:04,799
Speaker 9: That's definitely true. Like our lack of guns makes it

982
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,759
Speaker 9: that not many people are getting shot by police, but

983
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 9: against activists or protests, police can be pretty pretty violent.

984
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 9: I don't have much experience with Belgium police myself. I've

985
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:20,799
Speaker 9: heard conflicting stories about them. I was at the May

986
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 9: first celebration in Brussels, became incredibly prepared, and then it

987
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 9: was all okay, literally nothing note worthy to mention. But

988
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:33,359
Speaker 9: then when I speak to other people, I hear like, oh,

989
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 9: you know, Belgium police worse than the Dutch. But then

990
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 9: that very also varies from city to city, and that's

991
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 9: a whole nother rabbit hole to go down into. Yeah,

992
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 9: so for now, not much police action against the activists.

993
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 9: Not sure if or when that will.

994
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 1: Change, right, So if people wanted to they said everyone

995
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: was welcome. Yes, and I presume they can drop in

996
00:56:57,640 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: for the day, or they can go and stay ruperiod,

997
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: or they can you know, commit staying until the forest

998
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,439
Speaker 1: to say, is it easy to access? Can you walk there?

999
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,440
Speaker 1: Could you like I take I guess ironically maybe could

1000
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:11,360
Speaker 1: you take a bus?

1001
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 9: And there is a trem that stops pretty close by.

1002
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 9: They have an Instagram account that I don't know from

1003
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 9: the top of my head because I don't use Instagram.

1004
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: We'll link in the notes.

1005
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 9: I think if you just search for like a woomble

1006
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 9: mesa or womble hemp meths and you'll find something. You

1007
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 9: can contact them there and they can give you more

1008
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 9: details on how exactly to get there. Yeah, you can

1009
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 9: come by for a day, you can comby for two weeks,

1010
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:43,360
Speaker 9: that's up to you. You're welcome there. What I would

1011
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 9: like to urge everyone is if you plan on going there,

1012
00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 9: contact them about the supplies they need. When I arrived there,

1013
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 9: I got some like some small kitchen knives and like

1014
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 9: literally for cutting veggies, and some canned foods and some

1015
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 9: first aid supplies because it is largely donation based what

1016
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 9: they're doing there. So yeah, anything that you can spare

1017
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 9: or can purchase for them would be greatly appreciated. To

1018
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 9: check the website, check their Instagram. There might be a

1019
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,680
Speaker 9: Facebook page. I think there is a Facebook page for

1020
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 9: those still using Facebook, So yeah, I would recommend it, like,

1021
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 9: go over there, help out. They're very friendly people if

1022
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 9: you're interested in doing something like this. This is like

1023
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 9: a very entry level thing.

1024
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you said, it's not just like a good

1025
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: thing to do, it's also a nice fun thing to do.

1026
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 1: Like it's these spaces could be really healing, just live

1027
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 1: being among like minded people like you said, and in

1028
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 1: nature exactly.

1029
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 9: And like when I was there, they gave like a

1030
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 9: climbing workshop, so they taught me how I should climb

1031
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 9: a tree with like gear around my waist and everything.

1032
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: It's cool.

1033
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 9: Yeah, and follow the agreements that people make between each

1034
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:03,280
Speaker 9: other site that there's not really any rules. You're free

1035
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,360
Speaker 9: to come for a day, you're free to stay for

1036
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 9: two weeks, that's entirely up to you. Just it's nice

1037
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 9: to help out, and even if it's just help with

1038
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 9: cutting vegetables for dinner. Yeah, that's already incredibly appreciated. And

1039
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 9: in the meantime people can do other stuff that needs

1040
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 9: to happen around the camp. And yeah, in terms of activism,

1041
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 9: this is a small step to do, but it can

1042
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 9: also just be a really good experience for yours, for

1043
00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 9: you and all the while helping the locals and helping

1044
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 9: the activists, which is the sort of mutual aid that

1045
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 9: I would prefer to see a lot more.

1046
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:39,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1047
00:59:39,720 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's great that it's integrated with the community,

1048
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 1: and I think it's great that it's accessible for people

1049
00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: and hopefully folks will go bring something that they need.

1050
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 1: It's cool that they can, you know, share skills. I've

1051
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: learned a lot in different activist spaces. I think that's

1052
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: really cool. Mick, is there anywhere that people can follow

1053
00:59:58,640 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 1: you if they'd like to.

1054
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 9: Yes, I have a Twitter account now because I don't

1055
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 9: see enough horrible shit. It's at two Sober Possums or

1056
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 9: under the name Mick Smith, m I c K S

1057
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 9: M I T. I don't think i've posted anything yet,

1058
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 9: so I'll think of something funny. But feel free to

1059
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 9: reach out there if for reasons. Yeah, I'm cool with that.

1060
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: Great well, thank you very much. I was. I think

1061
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:27,439
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. I hope people will go. If you go,

1062
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 1: you know, send us a little message, let us know

1063
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 1: how your experience was in the forest.

1064
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 3: I'd love that.

1065
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 1: It would make me happy.

1066
01:00:33,400 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 2: Likewise, what's jd My advances? This is it could happen

1067
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 2: here a podcast that's not Behind the Bastards. But today

1068
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:09,760
Speaker 2: we're doing a little mini episode on our future possible

1069
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 2: vice president JD Vance Garrison. How are you feeling today,

1070
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:17,480
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the program.

1071
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 9: Thank you.

1072
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 7: I'm feeling pretty good.

1073
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:19,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1074
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 7: Yeah, I got a great five hours of sleep. I'm

1075
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 7: good to go.

1076
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 2: Oh, I slept eleven Good for you.

1077
01:01:24,520 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 7: No, I've also been in the researching bad people whole

1078
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 7: which keeps me up late at night.

1079
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have to do the Walls episodes tonight so

1080
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 2: we can go back to back on the vps. But

1081
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 2: I decided to start with JD. Vance, And you know,

1082
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:41,920
Speaker 2: I had debated with myself is this guy worth a

1083
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 2: full bTB episode? And I decided ultimately like no, you know,

1084
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 2: I just don't think there's enough to him yet that

1085
01:01:49,080 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 2: he deserves that. Perhaps that will change in the future.

1086
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:55,440
Speaker 2: But what I wanted to do was give the listener,

1087
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:58,280
Speaker 2: who I'm guessing has mostly just heard a few disjointed

1088
01:01:58,280 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 2: things about JD.

1089
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:03,640
Speaker 7: A few few things, one or two things, maybe one specific.

1090
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:06,920
Speaker 2: Thing, one specific They probably they're probably aware of Hillbilly Elogy.

1091
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:09,280
Speaker 2: That was like a pretty pretty big book in the day,

1092
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:12,120
Speaker 2: and the movie was panned and that was kind of news.

1093
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:15,120
Speaker 2: They probably heard the couch fucking stuff. And then they've

1094
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 2: heard allegations that he's like a straight up fascist, and

1095
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 2: you know, he thinks that single women should be dragged

1096
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 2: out into the street and shot or something like that.

1097
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 7: If you have a cat and you're a single woman,

1098
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 7: you are onto logically evil.

1099
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a sociopath. And so I wanted to

1100
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 2: provide some context for how he went from if you

1101
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,920
Speaker 2: can remember back to twenty sixteen, he was a liberal

1102
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:38,040
Speaker 2: darling for having written Hillbilly Elogy.

1103
01:02:38,160 --> 01:02:38,360
Speaker 10: Right.

1104
01:02:38,400 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 2: He was this guy, this like never Trump conservative who

1105
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:44,400
Speaker 2: was explaining to everyone how the evil of trump Ism

1106
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 2: had infested and you know, latched onto the minds of

1107
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 2: small town Americans. Right, That's kind of how he was

1108
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:54,360
Speaker 2: framed today, where he's like this hard right maga guy,

1109
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 2: literally Trump's you know, future right hand man, with what

1110
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 2: sounds like explicitly dictatorial ambitions, and the mystery of this story,

1111
01:03:02,800 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 2: all of it comes down to Peterteel Right. Many such cases, Yeah,

1112
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:10,920
Speaker 2: as is often the case, he's a major part of

1113
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:14,080
Speaker 2: life why things wind up where they are. The bones

1114
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 2: of JD's background story are kind of important, so I'm

1115
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:18,440
Speaker 2: just going to give them rapidly. He was born in

1116
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 2: August nineteen eighty four in Middletown, Ohio, born under the

1117
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 2: name James Donald Bowman, but his parents divorced when he

1118
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 2: was a toddler. His dad, his biodad, is pretty much

1119
01:03:28,520 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 2: out of the picture right away. He is eventually adopted

1120
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,040
Speaker 2: by his mother's third husband, whose last name is Hamil,

1121
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 2: and that's the name he's going to serve in the

1122
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 2: Marines under. His mother was not very together. There's a

1123
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:41,360
Speaker 2: lot of neglect and poverty and some drug abuse in

1124
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 2: his early life before his grandparents moved him from Kentucky

1125
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:47,440
Speaker 2: to Ohio. Now a lot of ink has been spilled

1126
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 2: when the subject of Vance's supposedly autobiographical book, Hillbilly Elegy,

1127
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:53,720
Speaker 2: which paints him as a member of the aggrieved and

1128
01:03:53,760 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 2: abused white underclass, the forgotten men of American politics, I'm

1129
01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 2: not interested in relitigating this stupid book, except to say

1130
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,120
Speaker 2: that I had a kind of similar background. My dad

1131
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 2: was in the picture, but socioeconomically it was kind of similar.

1132
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 2: We grew up in a very poor and troubled small town.

1133
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:13,480
Speaker 2: Eventually my caretakers got me out of there into a

1134
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,280
Speaker 2: more functional part of the country. And I can see

1135
01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 2: I see JD's book as kind of cynically positioned to

1136
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:22,360
Speaker 2: take advantage of the liberal outpouring of sympathy for rural

1137
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 2: whites that followed Trump's twenty sixteen victory, an attempt to

1138
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 2: position himself as someone who can explain why this part

1139
01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:31,240
Speaker 2: of the country swept Trump into power. Now, the reality

1140
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 2: is that this part of the country did not sweep

1141
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:35,200
Speaker 2: Trump into power. The core of Trump support in twenty

1142
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:39,280
Speaker 2: sixteen were aggrieved, but financially comfortable, suburban white people. Vance

1143
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 2: did not write about poor folks addicted to oxy in

1144
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:44,520
Speaker 2: the hollers with any real empathy. He painted them as

1145
01:04:44,560 --> 01:04:47,360
Speaker 2: helpless fools and mental children, in himself as better for

1146
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:49,080
Speaker 2: getting out. And that's really all I have to say

1147
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 2: on the matter. To me, his early life suggests a

1148
01:04:52,400 --> 01:04:54,600
Speaker 2: young man who wanted to set himself up for a

1149
01:04:54,680 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 2: career in public life and took the most expedient actions

1150
01:04:57,560 --> 01:05:00,360
Speaker 2: to do so. And that is the context in which

1151
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:03,200
Speaker 2: I see his service in the US Marine Corps. He

1152
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 2: joined the Marines and got himself the job that would

1153
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 2: get him as close to action as possible without requiring

1154
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:11,800
Speaker 2: that he actually do anything. His specific gig was public

1155
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,200
Speaker 2: affairs for a marine aircraft wing, So he is writing

1156
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:18,120
Speaker 2: about the shit that this aircraft wing is doing, which

1157
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 2: is about the least job that you can actually have

1158
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:23,440
Speaker 2: in the military. He wrote that he was quote lucky

1159
01:05:23,440 --> 01:05:27,240
Speaker 2: to escape any real fighting. After finishing his term, he

1160
01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 2: got a BA in polysci And I'm not saying that

1161
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:32,560
Speaker 2: you have to fight for you know, most of what

1162
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:35,280
Speaker 2: the military does is not literally fighting. I'm just saying

1163
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 2: I see his specific positioning himself with this job as

1164
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:42,800
Speaker 2: him wanting to have Marine on his CV when he

1165
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 2: goes into politics. Right, that's my allegation, right, not that

1166
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 2: there's anything wrong with not.

1167
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:51,440
Speaker 7: Fighting, sure, I mean, and it's also just good to

1168
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:55,560
Speaker 7: point out considering most of the rights attacks against Walls

1169
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:59,440
Speaker 7: right now are also about him not actually like seeing combat,

1170
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:02,960
Speaker 7: and Advance has gone after him for that specifically. Yeah,

1171
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:07,960
Speaker 7: trying to like allude to like Advance having more combat experience. Yeah,

1172
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:11,240
Speaker 7: both men did not like fire bullets at enemy combatants.

1173
01:06:11,520 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 2: No, and most people don't. But what I see with

1174
01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 2: Vance's service is I did this because it was a

1175
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 2: line in my resume, whereas you don't do twenty four

1176
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 2: years in the National Guard like just to set up

1177
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 2: your political career. Now, you do that because you want

1178
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 2: to be in the National Guard.

1179
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:31,120
Speaker 7: Yes, Waltz was definitely more like a career man in

1180
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:31,600
Speaker 7: that sense.

1181
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:35,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. After finishing his term, he got a

1182
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 2: BA in polysci and philosophy from Ohio State and during

1183
01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 2: his first year in college he worked for a Republican

1184
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:42,840
Speaker 2: States senator. He's going to work for a couple of

1185
01:06:42,920 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 2: Republicans in his college in grad school, you know, law

1186
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 2: school years. Then he attended Yale Law School, where he

1187
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:51,960
Speaker 2: made friends with Jamil Giovanni, who would go on to

1188
01:06:52,000 --> 01:06:55,520
Speaker 2: be a Conservative parliamentarian in Canada. He was mentored by

1189
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:58,320
Speaker 2: Professor Amy Chua, who wrote a book about being a

1190
01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 2: Tiger mom that made a lot of people angry and

1191
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:02,560
Speaker 2: was beloved by the chunk of the country who thinks

1192
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,680
Speaker 2: the children have it too easy. Chua helped to convince

1193
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:08,840
Speaker 2: him to write Hillbilly Elegy, which might be her worst sin,

1194
01:07:08,920 --> 01:07:11,760
Speaker 2: almost definitely is her worst sin. I can forgive some

1195
01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:14,120
Speaker 2: terrible acts towards children if you don't write the book

1196
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:17,920
Speaker 2: Hillbilly Elogy. It was when Vance graduated from Yale that

1197
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:20,240
Speaker 2: he first made contact with the man who would come

1198
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 2: to define his adult political journey. Peter Teel, the PayPal

1199
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 2: co founder and serial entrepreneur investor, had taken a rapid

1200
01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 2: turn from his earlier libertarian politics thanks to a growing

1201
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:34,400
Speaker 2: interest in a line of political philosophy known mostly as

1202
01:07:34,600 --> 01:07:38,880
Speaker 2: neo reactionary or NRX thought, although today you'll more often

1203
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:41,520
Speaker 2: hear it described as the new right. I'm not in

1204
01:07:41,520 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 2: love with either of those terms for this particular chunk

1205
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 2: of the right, But I think neo reactionary is better

1206
01:07:47,240 --> 01:07:47,760
Speaker 2: than new.

1207
01:07:47,640 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 7: Right, not as bad as dark Enlightenment.

1208
01:07:50,120 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 2: It's not as bad as dark and we'll talk the

1209
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:54,960
Speaker 2: worst of these three terms, by far the worst of

1210
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 2: the three terms. So I tend to stick with neo reactionary.

1211
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 2: Although if you hear new right being used' that's also

1212
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:02,400
Speaker 2: what this refers to.

1213
01:08:02,560 --> 01:08:05,000
Speaker 7: That's a term I've used sometimes. Yeah, yeah, what time

1214
01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:07,919
Speaker 7: period is is is this like twenty seventeen, like where

1215
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 7: are we at here?

1216
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:12,520
Speaker 2: Twenty eleven is when he sees Peter Teal speak at Yale,

1217
01:08:12,720 --> 01:08:15,880
Speaker 2: which he describes as like the moment around which his

1218
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:16,639
Speaker 2: life pivots.

1219
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:18,920
Speaker 7: So this is pre the publishing of his book.

1220
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, he publishes he'llbilli Elogy in twenty sixteen.

1221
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:24,280
Speaker 7: Okay, so he kind of got in on the ground

1222
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 7: floor of some of this kind of stuff.

1223
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:28,280
Speaker 2: Yes, he is very early in Teal world. He is

1224
01:08:28,280 --> 01:08:29,600
Speaker 2: one of the first, He's going to be one of

1225
01:08:29,640 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 2: We're getting to that. But I want to talk about

1226
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:33,439
Speaker 2: what neo reactionaries are because the rest of this isn't

1227
01:08:33,439 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 2: going to make sense unless we go into that.

1228
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:35,719
Speaker 7: So sure.

1229
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 2: Vanity Fair writer James Pogue rather ably described the New

1230
01:08:39,240 --> 01:08:42,240
Speaker 2: Right as a worldview in direct competition to the liberal

1231
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:45,800
Speaker 2: idea that economic growth and technological innovation would lead us

1232
01:08:45,840 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 2: to a better future. Instead, the growth of big tech surveillance,

1233
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:52,400
Speaker 2: nanny state governance, and social justice culture war dominance has

1234
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:56,080
Speaker 2: created a system of oppression that will destroy everything good

1235
01:08:56,120 --> 01:08:59,599
Speaker 2: in the world if not stopped. The primary high priest

1236
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 2: of this fool of thought is Curtis Yarvin. Who in

1237
01:09:02,080 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 2: the early aughts from about two thousand and seven twenty fourteen,

1238
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:10,720
Speaker 2: blogged prolifically as Mincius Moldbug. Now Yarvin is a computer programmer.

1239
01:09:10,800 --> 01:09:12,760
Speaker 2: He is this guy who has had for most of

1240
01:09:12,760 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 2: his career this desire to create a new computer operating

1241
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 2: system that would like fix the way in which knowledge

1242
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:22,200
Speaker 2: is disseminated in a way that sounds kind of magical

1243
01:09:22,240 --> 01:09:24,559
Speaker 2: to me. He never quite gets it working. And he

1244
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:29,160
Speaker 2: blogs about political philosophy the same way he talks about programming,

1245
01:09:29,200 --> 01:09:32,440
Speaker 2: which he has this dream for a way to reorient

1246
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 2: society after a soft, kind of peaceful coup. He always

1247
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:39,040
Speaker 2: emphasizes how peaceful it needs to be, that will be,

1248
01:09:39,400 --> 01:09:41,360
Speaker 2: you know. Again, it's his way if he wants to

1249
01:09:41,400 --> 01:09:44,759
Speaker 2: program society to make it work perfectly, you know, based

1250
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:47,360
Speaker 2: on his sort of set of values. And he writes

1251
01:09:47,360 --> 01:09:52,160
Speaker 2: a series of essays about how he wants to reorient society.

1252
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:56,400
Speaker 2: And these essays become kind of the central underpinning ethos

1253
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:58,840
Speaker 2: of the messi assortment of philosophies that we call neo

1254
01:09:58,880 --> 01:10:00,880
Speaker 2: reactionaries the new right.

1255
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 1: Now.

1256
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:04,640
Speaker 2: The basic idea is that this liberal nightmare healthscape can

1257
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:07,360
Speaker 2: only be stopped and turned back by replacing democracy with

1258
01:10:07,439 --> 01:10:11,240
Speaker 2: an essentially monarchic system. Pogue describes Jarvin as arguing for

1259
01:10:11,400 --> 01:10:14,120
Speaker 2: quote a Caesar like figure to take power back from

1260
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:17,240
Speaker 2: this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarchical regime

1261
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:20,040
Speaker 2: run like a startup. As early as twenty twelve, he

1262
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:24,080
Speaker 2: proposed the acronym rage retire all government employees as a

1263
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:26,479
Speaker 2: shorthand for a first step and the overthrow of the

1264
01:10:26,520 --> 01:10:29,799
Speaker 2: American regime. What we needed, Yarvin thought, was a national

1265
01:10:29,880 --> 01:10:33,800
Speaker 2: CEO or what's called a dictator. Now. A lot of

1266
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 2: guys in the aughts become enraptured by Jarvin's ideas because

1267
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:40,639
Speaker 2: the way Jarvin writes, he spends most of his free

1268
01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:43,439
Speaker 2: time because he gets bought out of a company he's in,

1269
01:10:43,479 --> 01:10:45,560
Speaker 2: and he doesn't wind up like super rich, but he

1270
01:10:45,600 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 2: winds up comfortable enough that he's for a while just

1271
01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:50,720
Speaker 2: spending like five hundred bucks a month on books and

1272
01:10:50,760 --> 01:10:54,080
Speaker 2: reading like old reactionary tracts, like books from the eighteen

1273
01:10:54,200 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 2: hundreds of like monarchists arguing against the Enlightenment and socialism alike.

1274
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 2: And so he peppers his essays with a lot of

1275
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 2: different kind of archaic flourishes a lot of Latin, a

1276
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:11,000
Speaker 2: lot of like references to Greek and Roman philosophical figures,

1277
01:11:11,040 --> 01:11:14,400
Speaker 2: and that is fucking catnip for a certain kind of guy.

1278
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:17,320
Speaker 7: No, it makes it makes it seem like esoteric. It's

1279
01:11:17,320 --> 01:11:19,720
Speaker 7: like it's kind of like, yes, liked hidden knowledge. It's

1280
01:11:19,760 --> 01:11:22,679
Speaker 7: being like rediscovered that like holds the key to fix

1281
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:23,559
Speaker 7: all of our problems.

1282
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:28,240
Speaker 2: Yes, he is. If you've read Enders game, he's doing

1283
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 2: what Ender's brother does an Enders game, where he's writing

1284
01:11:31,360 --> 01:11:34,599
Speaker 2: his little essays for the Internet, trying to like overthrow

1285
01:11:34,640 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 2: the government using them. And there's a certain certain kind

1286
01:11:37,360 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 2: of guy who is just deeply attracted to that idea.

1287
01:11:40,040 --> 01:11:42,400
Speaker 2: One of those kinds of guys is a philosopher called

1288
01:11:42,479 --> 01:11:46,559
Speaker 2: Nick Land. Land is an interesting character. We talk about

1289
01:11:46,600 --> 01:11:49,720
Speaker 2: him a little during our AI Cult episodes. He's a

1290
01:11:49,800 --> 01:11:52,559
Speaker 2: dude who comes out of academia and kind of has

1291
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:57,160
Speaker 2: has now moved around to essentially like fascist political philosophy

1292
01:11:57,200 --> 01:12:00,000
Speaker 2: would be kind of the quickest way to describe Land today.

1293
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:02,880
Speaker 2: Although he's a complicated fellow. But he is the guy

1294
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:06,040
Speaker 2: who who comes up with the term dark enlightenment for

1295
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:08,640
Speaker 2: Curtis's writing. And this is the way in which a

1296
01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:11,240
Speaker 2: lot of these guys, A lot of the guys especially

1297
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:14,479
Speaker 2: who are going to come into Jarvin's work around, you know,

1298
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:17,160
Speaker 2: the mid aughts are going to think about it right

1299
01:12:17,200 --> 01:12:20,840
Speaker 2: where it's this, he has pulled the wool from my eyes. Right,

1300
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:24,400
Speaker 2: he has made it clear how doomed democracy is, that

1301
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:27,200
Speaker 2: it's fundamentally evil. And now that I've had this dark revelation,

1302
01:12:27,240 --> 01:12:29,519
Speaker 2: I can never look at the world the same way again.

1303
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:31,960
Speaker 7: Right, And like Land was trying to do the same

1304
01:12:32,000 --> 01:12:35,120
Speaker 7: thing for like the previous like fifteen years, and he

1305
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:39,160
Speaker 7: attracted a small batch of like kind of like academic followers,

1306
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 7: A whole bunch of his colleagues kind of got more

1307
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:44,640
Speaker 7: popular than him because they were slightly more reasonable in

1308
01:12:44,680 --> 01:12:45,680
Speaker 7: many ways.

1309
01:12:45,400 --> 01:12:47,920
Speaker 2: Because Lance writing is never going to be like the

1310
01:12:48,000 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 2: most viral thing on earth, right, like no, yeah, and

1311
01:12:52,400 --> 01:12:54,840
Speaker 2: mode Bugs is a little better written for that, although

1312
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:58,000
Speaker 2: both of them are too dense. The guys who are

1313
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:00,120
Speaker 2: going to, like like Vance is going to be the

1314
01:13:00,120 --> 01:13:01,880
Speaker 2: guys who are going to take his theories into like

1315
01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:04,719
Speaker 2: mainstream politics, are going to need to trim the fat off.

1316
01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:08,040
Speaker 2: You know. It's also worth noting Jarvin is the guy

1317
01:13:08,080 --> 01:13:11,200
Speaker 2: who introduces the term the red pill to right wing politics.

1318
01:13:11,560 --> 01:13:12,639
Speaker 7: Right, Oh, I didn't know that.

1319
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,880
Speaker 2: Yes, as far as I've ever seen, Jarvin is the

1320
01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:19,960
Speaker 2: guy who like starts using the red pill in like

1321
01:13:20,000 --> 01:13:22,680
Speaker 2: a really concerted way to describe, like coming to these

1322
01:13:22,760 --> 01:13:25,599
Speaker 2: understandings about you know, race science has a decent amount

1323
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:27,840
Speaker 2: to do with it earlier in Yarvin's writing career. But

1324
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:30,720
Speaker 2: like all of these ideas that we now call neo reactionary,

1325
01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:34,080
Speaker 2: like that's that's a Jarvin original. He thinks the matrix

1326
01:13:34,160 --> 01:13:36,720
Speaker 2: is a work of genius, of course, which it is,

1327
01:13:36,760 --> 01:13:40,559
Speaker 2: but maybe not in the way that he thinks slightly. Yeah,

1328
01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:44,760
Speaker 2: So anyway, Peter Teel falls in love because Teal is

1329
01:13:44,760 --> 01:13:47,200
Speaker 2: by by two thousand and nine, Teal's writing stuff about

1330
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:50,400
Speaker 2: how he thinks democracy is incompatible with liberty. Right, And

1331
01:13:50,400 --> 01:13:52,800
Speaker 2: when Peter Teel refers to liberty, he's not talking about

1332
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,240
Speaker 2: like your freedom to like to love the people that

1333
01:13:56,280 --> 01:13:58,840
Speaker 2: you want to love, or do with your body what

1334
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:00,640
Speaker 2: you want to do with your body, talking about his

1335
01:14:00,720 --> 01:14:02,680
Speaker 2: freedom as a guy with a lot of money to

1336
01:14:02,840 --> 01:14:05,760
Speaker 2: not have to pay taxes. Right, that's primarily what all

1337
01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:08,840
Speaker 2: of these guys mean by freedom. So Teal by two

1338
01:14:08,840 --> 01:14:12,160
Speaker 2: thousand and nine is already enraptured with these anti democratic ideas,

1339
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 2: and he finds Jarvin. It's kind of unclear to me,

1340
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:17,640
Speaker 2: does Jarvin actually start him on that road or I

1341
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:20,000
Speaker 2: think it's more that he has started down that road,

1342
01:14:20,360 --> 01:14:22,719
Speaker 2: and he thinks Jarvin is doing a really good job

1343
01:14:22,880 --> 01:14:26,040
Speaker 2: of setting up what he's been thinking. So he starts

1344
01:14:26,080 --> 01:14:28,479
Speaker 2: pumping money into Jarvin. He funds some of his like

1345
01:14:28,560 --> 01:14:32,479
Speaker 2: software ambitions. He's just kind of generally supporting him, and

1346
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:35,760
Speaker 2: he begins pumping money increasingly over the early to mid

1347
01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:39,000
Speaker 2: aughts into an array of influencers and thinkers who are

1348
01:14:39,040 --> 01:14:41,519
Speaker 2: in alignment with what we might call mold buggy in

1349
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:44,559
Speaker 2: thought right, and he's doing that up to this present day,

1350
01:14:44,840 --> 01:14:47,639
Speaker 2: Pog writes. Teal has also funded things like The Edge

1351
01:14:47,680 --> 01:14:50,120
Speaker 2: Lordy and Post Left. Infected New People sent him a

1352
01:14:50,160 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 2: film festival which ended his week long run of parties

1353
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:55,080
Speaker 2: and screenings in Manhattan just a few days before nat

1354
01:14:55,160 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 2: Con began. He's long been a big donor to Republican

1355
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:01,559
Speaker 2: political candidates, but in recent years has grown increasingly involved

1356
01:15:01,560 --> 01:15:04,200
Speaker 2: in the politics of this younger and weirder world, becoming

1357
01:15:04,200 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 2: something like an afarious godfather or genial rich uncle, depending

1358
01:15:07,400 --> 01:15:10,559
Speaker 2: on your perspective. Podcasters and art world figures now joke

1359
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 2: about their hope to get so called Teal bucks. And

1360
01:15:13,920 --> 01:15:17,360
Speaker 2: if you're familiar with like the Red Scare podcast and

1361
01:15:17,400 --> 01:15:20,200
Speaker 2: those ladies you're familiar with, like the Dime Square set,

1362
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:24,120
Speaker 2: a lot of them are into neo reactionary thought and

1363
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:27,760
Speaker 2: are the people that that paragraph is referring to right now.

1364
01:15:27,800 --> 01:15:31,719
Speaker 2: While podcasters and cultural influencers have long been useful to Teal,

1365
01:15:32,040 --> 01:15:34,439
Speaker 2: he's also tried to collect up and coming politicians with

1366
01:15:34,560 --> 01:15:37,360
Speaker 2: uneven success. In twenty eleven, he gave a talk at

1367
01:15:37,439 --> 01:15:39,720
Speaker 2: Yale while Vance was still a student, and discussed the

1368
01:15:39,720 --> 01:15:43,559
Speaker 2: stagnation of technological progress in the United States. Vance wrote

1369
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:46,280
Speaker 2: that Teal was then quote possibly the smartest person I'd

1370
01:15:46,280 --> 01:15:49,000
Speaker 2: ever met, And this moment is the moment that his

1371
01:15:49,080 --> 01:15:52,439
Speaker 2: whole life pivots around meeting Peter Teal at Yale in

1372
01:15:52,479 --> 01:15:54,599
Speaker 2: twenty eleven. We're going to talk about what comes after,

1373
01:15:54,680 --> 01:15:58,240
Speaker 2: But Garrison, you know what isn't receiving any money from

1374
01:15:58,280 --> 01:15:58,800
Speaker 2: Peter Teal.

1375
01:15:59,320 --> 01:16:01,479
Speaker 7: We also can say that there's no way to know

1376
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:02,080
Speaker 7: what he's doing.

1377
01:16:02,160 --> 01:16:05,479
Speaker 2: Right, It's entirely possible. It's entirely possible that we are

1378
01:16:05,520 --> 01:16:08,880
Speaker 2: funded one by Peter Teal, And if so, thank you.

1379
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:10,280
Speaker 7: Got to get those Teal books.

1380
01:16:20,479 --> 01:16:23,720
Speaker 2: And we're back. I've just uncovered that Peter Teal is

1381
01:16:23,760 --> 01:16:27,160
Speaker 2: the mind behind Chumba Casino Garrison. This goes so much

1382
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:28,040
Speaker 2: deeper than I thought.

1383
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:31,799
Speaker 7: What if Peter Tiel instead just got really into sports betting,

1384
01:16:31,960 --> 01:16:35,240
Speaker 7: you know, instead of dealing with all this weird like

1385
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:42,240
Speaker 7: esoteric traditionalist, like like eighteen eighties racism philosophy. What what

1386
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:44,840
Speaker 7: if instead he just got really into I don't know,

1387
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:47,240
Speaker 7: the Bucks that's probably a sports team, right.

1388
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:50,040
Speaker 2: He put eight billion dollars on the Raiders.

1389
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:51,719
Speaker 7: He took a bath.

1390
01:16:51,800 --> 01:16:52,439
Speaker 2: He's fucked.

1391
01:16:53,000 --> 01:16:56,080
Speaker 7: He got addicted to it too, gone. We can save

1392
01:16:56,160 --> 01:16:58,880
Speaker 7: so many lives. Sports betting really couldn't save lives.

1393
01:16:59,120 --> 01:17:02,759
Speaker 2: I've always said that Vance decided to abandon his planned

1394
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:04,559
Speaker 2: career in law, although I'm not sure I believe that

1395
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:05,679
Speaker 2: was ever his intended path.

1396
01:17:05,840 --> 01:17:06,600
Speaker 7: Absolutely not.

1397
01:17:07,000 --> 01:17:10,559
Speaker 2: No, he does a couple of years in law, and

1398
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:13,360
Speaker 2: he claims that Teal also is who made him decide

1399
01:17:13,400 --> 01:17:16,600
Speaker 2: to convert to Christianity by defying the social template. I

1400
01:17:16,640 --> 01:17:19,759
Speaker 2: had constructed that Christians were dumb and atheists were smart.

1401
01:17:20,080 --> 01:17:21,920
Speaker 2: I don't know how much to believe that he's actually

1402
01:17:21,920 --> 01:17:22,479
Speaker 2: a Catholic.

1403
01:17:22,720 --> 01:17:25,719
Speaker 7: Maybe I don't know, but like there's this whole new

1404
01:17:25,840 --> 01:17:28,480
Speaker 7: batch of like yes people who are like a philosophically

1405
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:30,840
Speaker 7: Catholic or like yeah, they're Catholic in like a quote

1406
01:17:30,880 --> 01:17:35,000
Speaker 7: unquote Hegelian sense when when they instruct these like larger

1407
01:17:35,080 --> 01:17:38,480
Speaker 7: models of like human evolution and they view like Christianity

1408
01:17:38,479 --> 01:17:40,880
Speaker 7: as this like yes, sing that will drive the human

1409
01:17:40,920 --> 01:17:44,599
Speaker 7: species towards its like perfected form. And definitely the dark

1410
01:17:44,720 --> 01:17:48,080
Speaker 7: Enlightenment to people are a significant chunk of kind of

1411
01:17:48,080 --> 01:17:50,840
Speaker 7: what caused you to develop. And we're seeing that now

1412
01:17:50,880 --> 01:17:53,439
Speaker 7: with like these fake movements like the Hegelian egirles, which

1413
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:55,439
Speaker 7: are kind of like with the like weird step child

1414
01:17:55,439 --> 01:17:59,599
Speaker 7: of some of these like Dimes Square like influencer philosophy stuff.

1415
01:17:59,680 --> 01:18:03,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would say he's definitely not a Catholic

1416
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:05,840
Speaker 2: in the sense that your aunt is right.

1417
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:08,360
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no, no, no no no.

1418
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:10,200
Speaker 2: He is a Catholic in the sense that, like he

1419
01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:13,759
Speaker 2: believes there are things about social order and the roles

1420
01:18:13,800 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 2: that people should have in society that Catholicism gets right.

1421
01:18:17,720 --> 01:18:21,160
Speaker 2: And that's the sense in which he's a Catholic. Right,

1422
01:18:21,800 --> 01:18:24,879
Speaker 2: So in twenty sixteen, the same year that Vance publishes

1423
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:29,519
Speaker 2: Hillbilly Elegy and becomes a liberal darling, he joins Mythral Capital,

1424
01:18:29,680 --> 01:18:33,040
Speaker 2: a venture capital firm founded by Teal Peter Teel Advance.

1425
01:18:33,160 --> 01:18:35,920
Speaker 2: All of these guys pretty much every time they create

1426
01:18:35,960 --> 01:18:38,120
Speaker 2: a company, it's named after something in the Lord of

1427
01:18:38,120 --> 01:18:38,559
Speaker 2: the Rings.

1428
01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:40,879
Speaker 7: Fucking A. J. R. R. Tolkien bullshit.

1429
01:18:41,439 --> 01:18:43,479
Speaker 2: He would be so unhappy with this.

1430
01:18:43,920 --> 01:18:46,439
Speaker 7: Because Tolkien was also a Catholic monarchist, but in a

1431
01:18:46,560 --> 01:18:47,520
Speaker 7: very different.

1432
01:18:47,160 --> 01:18:51,760
Speaker 2: Way, in a super different way. Yes. So the two

1433
01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:54,080
Speaker 2: young men that Teal adopts that he makes what are

1434
01:18:54,120 --> 01:18:58,400
Speaker 2: called generational bets in is Blake Masters and JD. Vance.

1435
01:18:58,439 --> 01:19:00,720
Speaker 2: And his bet is that if I really bankroll and

1436
01:19:00,800 --> 01:19:04,759
Speaker 2: back these guys, they are going to be major figures

1437
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:09,320
Speaker 2: in US politics right for decades to come. And his

1438
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:11,320
Speaker 2: first step is he makes them rich. He helps them

1439
01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:13,960
Speaker 2: get jobs and stuff that they get wealthy in. You know,

1440
01:19:14,200 --> 01:19:16,559
Speaker 2: Masters is recruited in the same way as Vance. He's

1441
01:19:16,560 --> 01:19:18,840
Speaker 2: given a cushy job in venture capital. He's handed a

1442
01:19:18,840 --> 01:19:20,680
Speaker 2: shitload of Teal books to see what he can make

1443
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:22,680
Speaker 2: of them. And Vance is, you know, both of them

1444
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:24,720
Speaker 2: are decent enough at this Vance is okay at it,

1445
01:19:24,760 --> 01:19:27,400
Speaker 2: and within two years he gets hired for one hundred

1446
01:19:27,400 --> 01:19:30,280
Speaker 2: and fifty million dollar fund out of Washington that focuses

1447
01:19:30,320 --> 01:19:33,559
Speaker 2: on finding young companies and overlooked US cities, places that

1448
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:36,559
Speaker 2: weren't seen as traditionally tech hups. Soon after this, he

1449
01:19:36,600 --> 01:19:38,840
Speaker 2: goes into business on his own, if we can call

1450
01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:41,360
Speaker 2: it on your own when Peter Teal is the guy

1451
01:19:41,360 --> 01:19:43,679
Speaker 2: who backs your new company entirely, right.

1452
01:19:43,760 --> 01:19:46,800
Speaker 7: Sure, I do love that that Peter Teel somehow picked

1453
01:19:46,840 --> 01:19:50,639
Speaker 7: the two most uncharismatic up and coming dudes.

1454
01:19:51,080 --> 01:19:54,440
Speaker 2: I mean, look at Peter, what does he know about charisma?

1455
01:19:54,680 --> 01:19:58,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, but like it is fun that he made these

1456
01:19:58,200 --> 01:20:01,120
Speaker 7: two bets, and Mark Kelly just destroyed one of them.

1457
01:20:01,439 --> 01:20:05,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, criticize the bad for what you will, but one

1458
01:20:05,360 --> 01:20:09,400
Speaker 2: of these weirdos go up against an astronaut on a

1459
01:20:09,479 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 2: public debate.

1460
01:20:11,360 --> 01:20:15,200
Speaker 7: Jesus Christ, you know, say what you will about electoralism.

1461
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:17,880
Speaker 7: I'm excited to see the Walls Vance debate because I

1462
01:20:17,880 --> 01:20:18,679
Speaker 7: think it'll be funny.

1463
01:20:18,880 --> 01:20:22,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, because Vance has big daddy issues and Walls

1464
01:20:22,680 --> 01:20:26,160
Speaker 2: has strong daddy energy, so we could be in for

1465
01:20:26,200 --> 01:20:30,160
Speaker 2: a very interesting night. So Vance forms his own venture

1466
01:20:30,240 --> 01:20:33,640
Speaker 2: capital form Narya Capital. This is another lord of the

1467
01:20:33,720 --> 01:20:36,759
Speaker 2: Rings reference. Narya is one of the rings of power,

1468
01:20:37,080 --> 01:20:40,880
Speaker 2: which the rings of power are bad, very famously. You're

1469
01:20:40,920 --> 01:20:44,800
Speaker 2: part of a con. An evil monster creates them to

1470
01:20:45,160 --> 01:20:48,639
Speaker 2: enslave you. If you are wearing one of the rings

1471
01:20:48,680 --> 01:20:53,360
Speaker 2: of power, you have been enslaved by Saarron. That's the point.

1472
01:20:54,160 --> 01:20:55,679
Speaker 7: They're very famously bad.

1473
01:20:55,800 --> 01:20:56,000
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1474
01:20:56,040 --> 01:20:59,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. And of course one of the major investments Naria

1475
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:02,960
Speaker 2: Capital makes is into Pallentier, which is also named.

1476
01:21:03,600 --> 01:21:06,360
Speaker 7: Also famously used by the Evil Wizard.

1477
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:10,879
Speaker 2: Yes, famously used by the Evil Wizard. Now, in twenty sixteen,

1478
01:21:11,000 --> 01:21:13,840
Speaker 2: Vance portrayed himself as a never Trumper, calling the future

1479
01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:16,160
Speaker 2: president want to be dictator? Well, ye know how many

1480
01:21:16,160 --> 01:21:18,280
Speaker 2: people in America didn't he Rape is one of the

1481
01:21:18,320 --> 01:21:20,840
Speaker 2: things Vance says about Trump. So he is like not

1482
01:21:21,560 --> 01:21:25,080
Speaker 2: holding his punches against the man broken clock. But behind

1483
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:28,000
Speaker 2: the scenes he is in the process of being anointed

1484
01:21:28,040 --> 01:21:29,960
Speaker 2: by the teal crowd, who again see him as a

1485
01:21:30,000 --> 01:21:32,600
Speaker 2: bet in the future of American politics. Now, this is

1486
01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:34,760
Speaker 2: not something I can claim to know with confidence, but

1487
01:21:34,800 --> 01:21:37,519
Speaker 2: it seems to me from the extant information that Vance's

1488
01:21:37,520 --> 01:21:40,760
Speaker 2: anti trumpism was performative, calculated to sell books. When he

1489
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:42,479
Speaker 2: thought he might have a future with a new more

1490
01:21:42,520 --> 01:21:47,360
Speaker 2: conservative Democratic Party triangulating to battle populous trump Ism. The

1491
01:21:47,360 --> 01:21:49,839
Speaker 2: fact that he remained close to Teal during this whole period,

1492
01:21:49,840 --> 01:21:52,679
Speaker 2: and that Teal spoke at the twenty sixteen RNC strikes

1493
01:21:52,720 --> 01:21:54,759
Speaker 2: me as evidence of a lack of any core political

1494
01:21:54,800 --> 01:21:57,800
Speaker 2: beliefs beyond a personal desire for power. Now, it is

1495
01:21:57,840 --> 01:22:00,720
Speaker 2: worth noting that, as a younger man, none of the

1496
01:22:00,800 --> 01:22:04,639
Speaker 2: signs of social conservatism. He is always an economic conservative.

1497
01:22:04,680 --> 01:22:06,559
Speaker 2: He's willing to work with Republicans right. He's one of

1498
01:22:06,560 --> 01:22:09,680
Speaker 2: these guys who you could definitely see economically being in

1499
01:22:09,720 --> 01:22:12,320
Speaker 2: line with their Republicans. But he does not evince any

1500
01:22:12,400 --> 01:22:16,439
Speaker 2: kind of bigotry in his early life, particularly towards LGBT people.

1501
01:22:16,800 --> 01:22:18,840
Speaker 2: One of his best friends from law school is a

1502
01:22:18,840 --> 01:22:22,559
Speaker 2: transgender woman, Sophia and Nelson. He describes her in Hillbilly

1503
01:22:22,600 --> 01:22:25,960
Speaker 2: Elogy as an extremely progressive lesbian and wrote in an

1504
01:22:25,960 --> 01:22:28,439
Speaker 2: email to her, I recognize now that this may not

1505
01:22:28,560 --> 01:22:30,640
Speaker 2: accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that

1506
01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:33,040
Speaker 2: I am really sorry. I hope you're not offended, but

1507
01:22:33,080 --> 01:22:36,799
Speaker 2: if you are, I'm sorry. Love you, JD. Sophia responded

1508
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:38,920
Speaker 2: the next day, saying if you had written gender queer,

1509
01:22:39,040 --> 01:22:41,439
Speaker 2: radical pragmatist, nobody would know what you mean.

1510
01:22:42,040 --> 01:22:43,960
Speaker 7: Many such cases, right.

1511
01:22:44,680 --> 01:22:46,360
Speaker 2: The text of their emails has been shared with The

1512
01:22:46,400 --> 01:22:49,240
Speaker 2: New York Times by Nelson. After Vance took a hard

1513
01:22:49,280 --> 01:22:52,000
Speaker 2: turn to lean into the rights anti trans bigotry. This

1514
01:22:52,160 --> 01:22:54,479
Speaker 2: was a move that pleased Teel himself, who has a

1515
01:22:54,720 --> 01:22:57,559
Speaker 2: very law He has been anti trans and pushing anti

1516
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:01,320
Speaker 2: trans rhetoric for years before this was a mainstream thing

1517
01:23:01,360 --> 01:23:04,200
Speaker 2: on the right, before the Matt Walsh types really started

1518
01:23:04,200 --> 01:23:07,360
Speaker 2: pivoting Republican messaging around it. Right, Yeah, And I'm going

1519
01:23:07,400 --> 01:23:10,120
Speaker 2: to quote from the Times here. Nelson, now a public

1520
01:23:10,120 --> 01:23:12,800
Speaker 2: defender in Detroit, said they visited each other's homes, talked

1521
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:15,639
Speaker 2: on zoom during the pandemic, and exchanged long emails discussing

1522
01:23:15,680 --> 01:23:17,920
Speaker 2: a range of subjects, from minutia of daily life to

1523
01:23:17,960 --> 01:23:21,320
Speaker 2: weighty discussions of current events and public policy issues. Nelson

1524
01:23:21,360 --> 01:23:24,559
Speaker 2: attended mister Vance's wedding in Kentucky in twenty fourteen. They

1525
01:23:24,600 --> 01:23:27,360
Speaker 2: pondered doing a podcast together. He suggested they call it

1526
01:23:27,439 --> 01:23:30,439
Speaker 2: The Lunatic Fringe, but Nelson and mister Vance had a

1527
01:23:30,479 --> 01:23:32,600
Speaker 2: falling out in twenty twenty one when Vance said he

1528
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:36,120
Speaker 2: publicly supported an Arkansas ban on gender affirming care from minors,

1529
01:23:36,360 --> 01:23:39,320
Speaker 2: leading to a bitter exchange that deeply hurt Nelson. He

1530
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:42,240
Speaker 2: achieved great success and became very rich by being a

1531
01:23:42,280 --> 01:23:44,519
Speaker 2: never Trumper who explained the white working class to the

1532
01:23:44,560 --> 01:23:47,719
Speaker 2: liberal elite. Nelson said, now he's amassing even more power

1533
01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:51,160
Speaker 2: by expressing the exact opposite. And I think that's interesting.

1534
01:23:51,200 --> 01:23:53,840
Speaker 2: It does kind of point to the whole There's no

1535
01:23:54,000 --> 01:23:56,880
Speaker 2: core to this guy. There's nothing that he has ever

1536
01:23:56,960 --> 01:24:02,720
Speaker 2: really cared about other than positioning himself most advantageously. And

1537
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:05,719
Speaker 2: I really do think that that gets at what actually

1538
01:24:05,800 --> 01:24:07,439
Speaker 2: is inside JD. Vance.

1539
01:24:07,600 --> 01:24:10,120
Speaker 7: I mean, I mean, a proximity to political power is

1540
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:12,599
Speaker 7: the driving force for a lot of yeah, a lot

1541
01:24:12,640 --> 01:24:15,040
Speaker 7: of like people who get into politics.

1542
01:24:15,240 --> 01:24:18,559
Speaker 2: Yes, frankly, yes, like yes, yeah, that's that's it. Now,

1543
01:24:18,600 --> 01:24:20,679
Speaker 2: it's relevant that twenty twenty one was the year Vance

1544
01:24:20,720 --> 01:24:23,200
Speaker 2: chose to pivot away from never Trump rhetoric and lean

1545
01:24:23,200 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 2: into the right wing culture war bullshit. Narya had been

1546
01:24:26,160 --> 01:24:28,320
Speaker 2: founded in twenty nineteen. It had been backed by one

1547
01:24:28,360 --> 01:24:30,880
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars from Peter Teal, as well as funding

1548
01:24:30,920 --> 01:24:34,759
Speaker 2: by Eric Schmidt and Mark Andresen. Their investments included Strive

1549
01:24:34,840 --> 01:24:38,599
Speaker 2: asset management and investment funds started by Vivek Ramashwami, who

1550
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:40,200
Speaker 2: was Teal's classmate at Yale.

1551
01:24:40,439 --> 01:24:42,440
Speaker 7: Oh I did not know they were classmates.

1552
01:24:42,640 --> 01:24:45,639
Speaker 2: Uh huh, oh, yeah, it's the class the shit fell on.

1553
01:24:46,240 --> 01:24:48,200
Speaker 2: For two years, he'd been allowed to keep up the

1554
01:24:48,240 --> 01:24:51,479
Speaker 2: fiction of a principled economic conservative who was horrified by

1555
01:24:51,479 --> 01:24:53,639
Speaker 2: the bigotry and corruption of Trump World. But by twenty

1556
01:24:53,680 --> 01:24:56,720
Speaker 2: twenty one, with Trump out of office and Biden's presidency underway,

1557
01:24:56,920 --> 01:24:59,719
Speaker 2: Teal made it clear that he needed something else from Vance.

1558
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:02,320
Speaker 2: We get our best texture of what Vance believed by

1559
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:05,040
Speaker 2: late twenty twenty one from Pogue's Vanity Fair piece, which

1560
01:25:05,080 --> 01:25:07,840
Speaker 2: was written about a neo reactionary summit in October of

1561
01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:11,400
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. Quote. Vance believes that a well educated

1562
01:25:11,439 --> 01:25:15,040
Speaker 2: and culturally liberal American elite has greatly benefited from globalization,

1563
01:25:15,200 --> 01:25:17,640
Speaker 2: the financialization of our economy, and the growing power of

1564
01:25:17,680 --> 01:25:20,320
Speaker 2: big tech. This has led an ivy League intellectual and

1565
01:25:20,439 --> 01:25:23,720
Speaker 2: management class a quasi aristocracy. He calls the regime to

1566
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:26,280
Speaker 2: adopt a set of economic and cultural interests that directly

1567
01:25:26,320 --> 01:25:28,840
Speaker 2: opposed those of people in places like Middletown, Ohio, where

1568
01:25:28,880 --> 01:25:31,040
Speaker 2: he grew up in the vancy. In view, this class

1569
01:25:31,080 --> 01:25:32,920
Speaker 2: has no stake in what people on the new right

1570
01:25:33,000 --> 01:25:35,840
Speaker 2: call the real economy, the farm and factory jobs that

1571
01:25:35,920 --> 01:25:39,320
Speaker 2: months disdained class life in Middle America. This is a

1572
01:25:39,320 --> 01:25:41,920
Speaker 2: fundamental difference between New right figures like Vance and the

1573
01:25:41,960 --> 01:25:44,880
Speaker 2: Reaganite right wingers of their parents' generation. To Vance, and

1574
01:25:44,920 --> 01:25:48,519
Speaker 2: he said, this culture war is class warfare. Vance recently

1575
01:25:48,560 --> 01:25:50,360
Speaker 2: told an interviewer, I got to be honest with you,

1576
01:25:50,439 --> 01:25:52,640
Speaker 2: I don't really care about what happens to Ukraine, a

1577
01:25:52,720 --> 01:25:54,760
Speaker 2: flick at the fact that he thinks the American led

1578
01:25:54,760 --> 01:25:57,760
Speaker 2: global order is as much about enriching defense contractors and

1579
01:25:57,840 --> 01:26:00,439
Speaker 2: think tank types as it is about defending America's interest.

1580
01:26:00,720 --> 01:26:02,679
Speaker 2: I do care about the fact that in my community

1581
01:26:02,760 --> 01:26:04,680
Speaker 2: right now, the leading cause of death among eighteen to

1582
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:07,600
Speaker 2: forty five year olds is Mexican fentanyl. His criticisms of

1583
01:26:07,600 --> 01:26:10,519
Speaker 2: big tech as enemies of Western civilization often get lost

1584
01:26:10,520 --> 01:26:12,800
Speaker 2: in the run of Republican outrage over Trump being kicked

1585
01:26:12,800 --> 01:26:15,360
Speaker 2: off Twitter and Facebook, although they go much deeper than this.

1586
01:26:15,720 --> 01:26:18,200
Speaker 2: Dance believes that the regime has sold an elusive story

1587
01:26:18,200 --> 01:26:20,960
Speaker 2: that consumer gadgets and social media are constantly making our

1588
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:23,680
Speaker 2: lives better, even his wages stagnate and technology feeds an

1589
01:26:23,680 --> 01:26:28,200
Speaker 2: epidemic of depression. Now he is backed entirely by social

1590
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:30,879
Speaker 2: media money. Sure Teel is one of the major backers

1591
01:26:30,920 --> 01:26:34,400
Speaker 2: of Facebook. Right, of course, he is supported entirely by

1592
01:26:34,439 --> 01:26:36,639
Speaker 2: the money of the people he claims to hate, who

1593
01:26:36,680 --> 01:26:38,080
Speaker 2: he claims are destroying America.

1594
01:26:38,200 --> 01:26:40,280
Speaker 7: I do find this to be really interesting because it's

1595
01:26:40,320 --> 01:26:44,920
Speaker 7: like a more conservative right reaction to like right wing neoliberalism. Right,

1596
01:26:45,439 --> 01:26:47,360
Speaker 7: this is so different. Even though all these guys like

1597
01:26:47,400 --> 01:26:50,000
Speaker 7: kind of talk about how they're like they're like Reaganites, right,

1598
01:26:50,120 --> 01:26:53,760
Speaker 7: They're really not. Now they're going back to a much

1599
01:26:53,800 --> 01:26:57,799
Speaker 7: more nineteen like twenties style of conservatism. Almost yes, before

1600
01:26:57,840 --> 01:27:00,880
Speaker 7: like the Southern split before like like a new Deal

1601
01:27:00,920 --> 01:27:03,720
Speaker 7: and we solidified more of like the Democrats being this

1602
01:27:03,800 --> 01:27:07,240
Speaker 7: liberal party, this this more fiscally conservative party on the right,

1603
01:27:07,400 --> 01:27:09,599
Speaker 7: and then that kind of gave way to like Thatcher

1604
01:27:09,640 --> 01:27:13,120
Speaker 7: right England and the neoliberal takeover of the entire world.

1605
01:27:13,280 --> 01:27:15,599
Speaker 7: It's like they're looking at how like neoliberalism has been

1606
01:27:15,640 --> 01:27:19,559
Speaker 7: totally subsumed even by like the Democrats and like you know,

1607
01:27:19,800 --> 01:27:22,680
Speaker 7: centrist left liberals, and they're reacting to it with this

1608
01:27:22,800 --> 01:27:27,120
Speaker 7: much more socially conservative backlash. Yes, and that is really

1609
01:27:27,160 --> 01:27:29,080
Speaker 7: the entirety of what's happened to the Republican Party the

1610
01:27:29,160 --> 01:27:31,160
Speaker 7: last the last four years. And Trump's only a small

1611
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:33,320
Speaker 7: part of that, because even Trump doesn't really care about

1612
01:27:33,320 --> 01:27:35,960
Speaker 7: some of these types of like culture war issues now

1613
01:27:36,640 --> 01:27:38,800
Speaker 7: that these guys care about, Like these guys are even

1614
01:27:38,840 --> 01:27:40,479
Speaker 7: like further to the right of Trump on like most

1615
01:27:40,520 --> 01:27:43,439
Speaker 7: things in this kind of social vein and like where

1616
01:27:43,439 --> 01:27:46,920
Speaker 7: you're viewing like you said, like a like culture war

1617
01:27:47,000 --> 01:27:50,400
Speaker 7: is class war in terms of like this culture war

1618
01:27:50,479 --> 01:27:53,280
Speaker 7: is like beating down like the poor white working class.

1619
01:27:53,560 --> 01:27:55,679
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, these small.

1620
01:27:55,479 --> 01:27:58,680
Speaker 7: Town farms aren't the real economy. They simply aren't. The

1621
01:27:58,760 --> 01:28:01,120
Speaker 7: real economy is cal of Ornia and Texas.

1622
01:28:01,360 --> 01:28:04,280
Speaker 2: These beliefs, there's an element to which they sound compelling

1623
01:28:04,320 --> 01:28:06,320
Speaker 2: because parts of this are the stuff that everyone on

1624
01:28:06,360 --> 01:28:09,840
Speaker 2: the left has complained about neoliberalism, but like his solutions

1625
01:28:09,840 --> 01:28:12,559
Speaker 2: are fantasies. Like, for one thing, the people who are

1626
01:28:12,600 --> 01:28:14,920
Speaker 2: backing him are the same kinds of people and often

1627
01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:17,920
Speaker 2: the same people who were very much gung ho behind

1628
01:28:17,920 --> 01:28:20,880
Speaker 2: getting rid of American factory jobs in order to maximize

1629
01:28:20,880 --> 01:28:24,719
Speaker 2: their profits and the consolidation of farmland into these giant

1630
01:28:24,760 --> 01:28:26,639
Speaker 2: agricultural conglomerates, right, Like.

1631
01:28:26,920 --> 01:28:29,880
Speaker 7: He abandoned this part of the country because yes, because

1632
01:28:29,920 --> 01:28:32,200
Speaker 7: he knows it sucks. Like, yes, it's not like a

1633
01:28:32,240 --> 01:28:35,479
Speaker 7: pleasant place to live, like a decent life. It's very hard,

1634
01:28:35,520 --> 01:28:36,440
Speaker 7: it's very difficult.

1635
01:28:36,640 --> 01:28:39,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's in part because these kind of people

1636
01:28:39,600 --> 01:28:41,960
Speaker 2: who came out of the Reagan era, like have no

1637
01:28:42,200 --> 01:28:46,000
Speaker 2: use for factory workers or farmers in the United States.

1638
01:28:46,400 --> 01:28:49,800
Speaker 2: All of that can be consolidated into these vast enterprises

1639
01:28:49,840 --> 01:28:52,479
Speaker 2: that when there are human workers necessary, we can just

1640
01:28:52,600 --> 01:28:56,879
Speaker 2: grab undocumented people from across the border. Right anyway, speaking

1641
01:28:56,920 --> 01:29:11,000
Speaker 2: of grabbing people, these ads will grab you. Dah, We're back.

1642
01:29:11,960 --> 01:29:16,639
Speaker 2: So by late twenty twenty one, Curtis Jarvin is still

1643
01:29:16,720 --> 01:29:19,840
Speaker 2: a major figure in the neo reactionary movement. Vance has

1644
01:29:19,880 --> 01:29:23,920
Speaker 2: started quoting him kind of obliquely, and in fact, during

1645
01:29:23,920 --> 01:29:27,720
Speaker 2: this twenty twenty one National Conservative Conference that Pogue pivots on,

1646
01:29:28,400 --> 01:29:32,280
Speaker 2: Vance makes direct reference to something that Yarvin has written

1647
01:29:32,280 --> 01:29:35,240
Speaker 2: his ideas about, like we need this red Caesar when

1648
01:29:35,280 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 2: he says during an interview, we are in a late

1649
01:29:37,760 --> 01:29:40,559
Speaker 2: Republican period. If we're going to push back against it.

1650
01:29:40,600 --> 01:29:42,360
Speaker 2: We're going to have to get pretty wild and pretty

1651
01:29:42,360 --> 01:29:44,000
Speaker 2: far out there and go in directions that a lot

1652
01:29:44,040 --> 01:29:47,920
Speaker 2: of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with. And you know

1653
01:29:47,960 --> 01:29:51,120
Speaker 2: what that means is this late Republican he's talking about

1654
01:29:51,160 --> 01:29:54,679
Speaker 2: Republican Rome before Caesar, you know, makes his play for power.

1655
01:29:54,800 --> 01:29:58,040
Speaker 2: Like that's explicitly what he is comparing it to. And

1656
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:00,320
Speaker 2: it's because Jarvin's big thing is, we don't I don't want

1657
01:30:00,320 --> 01:30:02,280
Speaker 2: a left or a right wing dictator. We want a

1658
01:30:02,360 --> 01:30:05,840
Speaker 2: king for the whole country right that's going to represent everybody,

1659
01:30:06,200 --> 01:30:08,360
Speaker 2: which is just not what kings do, It's not what

1660
01:30:08,439 --> 01:30:09,120
Speaker 2: dictators do.

1661
01:30:09,760 --> 01:30:11,599
Speaker 7: This is so clearly there's also just like a fascist

1662
01:30:11,680 --> 01:30:14,320
Speaker 7: line of argument, like an actual like actual like like

1663
01:30:14,439 --> 01:30:17,960
Speaker 7: ideologically fascist, and no people call like, you know, Reagan

1664
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:22,400
Speaker 7: a fascist, but like he's not, He's a neoliberal. Neoliberals suck. Yes,

1665
01:30:22,439 --> 01:30:25,679
Speaker 7: these guys are going back like actual like fascist political theory.

1666
01:30:26,080 --> 01:30:28,320
Speaker 7: That's what Mullbug is reading, that's what he's writing about.

1667
01:30:28,680 --> 01:30:31,120
Speaker 2: And in twenty twenty one, Vance is saying this, I

1668
01:30:31,120 --> 01:30:33,320
Speaker 2: think Trump is going to run again in twenty twenty four.

1669
01:30:33,400 --> 01:30:34,880
Speaker 2: I think that what Trump should do if I was

1670
01:30:34,880 --> 01:30:37,200
Speaker 2: giving him one piece of advice, Fire every single mid

1671
01:30:37,280 --> 01:30:40,280
Speaker 2: level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace

1672
01:30:40,320 --> 01:30:42,559
Speaker 2: them with our people. And when the courts stop, you

1673
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:45,439
Speaker 2: stand before the country and say the Chief Justice has

1674
01:30:45,439 --> 01:30:48,120
Speaker 2: made his ruling, now let him enforce it. Which he's

1675
01:30:48,200 --> 01:30:51,519
Speaker 2: quoting Andrew Jackson there, But he's describing like the end

1676
01:30:51,520 --> 01:30:52,559
Speaker 2: of democracy, a.

1677
01:30:52,600 --> 01:30:56,080
Speaker 7: Dictatorial takeover, right, and laying out with a plan that

1678
01:30:56,200 --> 01:30:58,679
Speaker 7: is very similar to a Project twenty twenty five y which

1679
01:30:58,640 --> 01:31:01,160
Speaker 7: I know Vance does have something small connections too, because

1680
01:31:01,200 --> 01:31:03,040
Speaker 7: a lot of his friends were involved in the planning

1681
01:31:03,040 --> 01:31:03,240
Speaker 7: of that.

1682
01:31:03,720 --> 01:31:05,600
Speaker 2: But you can see Project twenty twenty five and what

1683
01:31:05,680 --> 01:31:08,360
Speaker 2: Vans is saying here, These are all downstream of what

1684
01:31:08,479 --> 01:31:11,360
Speaker 2: Jarvin's saying in twenty twelve of this rage acronym, replace

1685
01:31:11,400 --> 01:31:14,200
Speaker 2: all government employees, right to retire all government employees. You know,

1686
01:31:14,800 --> 01:31:16,160
Speaker 2: by the way, you will be glad to know that

1687
01:31:16,200 --> 01:31:18,920
Speaker 2: by twenty twenty one, Yarvin has stopped openly using the

1688
01:31:19,000 --> 01:31:22,479
Speaker 2: term dictator. So that's good. He just he just calls

1689
01:31:22,479 --> 01:31:23,800
Speaker 2: it a monarchy a lot.

1690
01:31:23,880 --> 01:31:25,720
Speaker 7: Now, Oh, okay, that's good. Yeah, that's good.

1691
01:31:25,880 --> 01:31:29,040
Speaker 2: Now. JD's pivot, which he often credits with his conversion

1692
01:31:29,040 --> 01:31:32,280
Speaker 2: to Catholicism, although you can see he's been on this

1693
01:31:32,479 --> 01:31:35,439
Speaker 2: road for much longer than that. Was perfectly timed for

1694
01:31:35,479 --> 01:31:38,200
Speaker 2: his Senate run in twenty twenty two. Peter Teel was

1695
01:31:38,240 --> 01:31:41,160
Speaker 2: his biggest donor, providing fifteen million to the superpack that

1696
01:31:41,240 --> 01:31:42,960
Speaker 2: backed him, which at the time at least was the

1697
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:45,559
Speaker 2: largest amount ever given to boost a Senate candidate.

1698
01:31:45,680 --> 01:31:47,920
Speaker 7: Yeah, is fifty million for a Senate run is crazy?

1699
01:31:48,080 --> 01:31:50,960
Speaker 2: It's nuts. JD had been a long shot candidate at

1700
01:31:50,960 --> 01:31:54,000
Speaker 2: first because he's very unlikable, but the Teal money allowed

1701
01:31:54,000 --> 01:31:55,960
Speaker 2: for a major ad blitz and the kind of media

1702
01:31:56,080 --> 01:31:58,920
Speaker 2: prep work that only a well funded pack can provide.

1703
01:31:59,520 --> 01:32:02,479
Speaker 2: His pack published the data on an open Medium page

1704
01:32:02,560 --> 01:32:06,000
Speaker 2: with a username at protect Ohio values forms, which allowed

1705
01:32:06,000 --> 01:32:08,400
Speaker 2: the pack to send info and advice to Vance without

1706
01:32:08,479 --> 01:32:12,320
Speaker 2: violating federal campaign finance loss. Vance had been hit early

1707
01:32:12,400 --> 01:32:14,960
Speaker 2: for comments made a few years back negative to Trump,

1708
01:32:15,000 --> 01:32:17,040
Speaker 2: but he clawed his way back into the MAGA good

1709
01:32:17,040 --> 01:32:20,599
Speaker 2: graces by appearing on Breitbart News, Tucker Carlson's Fox Show,

1710
01:32:20,640 --> 01:32:23,360
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon's war Room podcast, and most of all, by

1711
01:32:23,360 --> 01:32:26,559
Speaker 2: positioning to himself as a violent opponent of immigration from

1712
01:32:26,600 --> 01:32:29,880
Speaker 2: a write up in Politico. In February, Thompson, Who's the

1713
01:32:29,920 --> 01:32:32,160
Speaker 2: guy running the pack, posted a memo to the medium

1714
01:32:32,160 --> 01:32:34,320
Speaker 2: site arguing that Vance had an opening to zero win

1715
01:32:34,360 --> 01:32:36,960
Speaker 2: on immigration and border security, noting that he had a

1716
01:32:36,960 --> 01:32:39,360
Speaker 2: personal connection to the issue given his mother's struggles with

1717
01:32:39,400 --> 01:32:41,439
Speaker 2: drug addiction. The issue was near and dear to the

1718
01:32:41,479 --> 01:32:44,160
Speaker 2: primary voters, the memo argued, and crucially could help in

1719
01:32:44,240 --> 01:32:47,280
Speaker 2: nabbing Trump's support. To win a Trump endorsement, a candidate

1720
01:32:47,320 --> 01:32:49,240
Speaker 2: has to show a growing ballot share. To get that,

1721
01:32:49,280 --> 01:32:51,840
Speaker 2: a candidate has to own a critical issue, the memo read,

1722
01:32:52,080 --> 01:32:55,200
Speaker 2: JD can do that, and that's exactly what JD does.

1723
01:32:55,520 --> 01:32:58,000
Speaker 2: When he takes the stage at the Conservative Political Action

1724
01:32:58,120 --> 01:33:00,799
Speaker 2: Conference in Florida later that month, he focuses his speech

1725
01:33:00,920 --> 01:33:03,720
Speaker 2: entirely on immigration, and when his campaign goes up with

1726
01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:06,280
Speaker 2: its first TV ad, it shows a direct to camera

1727
01:33:06,400 --> 01:33:08,960
Speaker 2: Vance telling viewers that he nearly lost his mother to

1728
01:33:09,040 --> 01:33:13,400
Speaker 2: poison coming across our border. Now by mid April, Trump

1729
01:33:13,400 --> 01:33:16,559
Speaker 2: has become convinced that Vance's past mean remarks were water

1730
01:33:16,680 --> 01:33:18,760
Speaker 2: under the bridge, and he calls an associate of Peter

1731
01:33:18,880 --> 01:33:21,960
Speaker 2: Teal to say, Hey, I'm moving closer to endorsing Vance.

1732
01:33:22,360 --> 01:33:25,360
Speaker 2: Teal by this point has also introduced Vance to David Sachs,

1733
01:33:25,360 --> 01:33:28,320
Speaker 2: who adds another million dollars to his super PACs war chest.

1734
01:33:28,760 --> 01:33:31,640
Speaker 2: On April fifteenth, Convinced by Vance's rising poll numbers and

1735
01:33:31,640 --> 01:33:35,599
Speaker 2: impressive fundraising, Trump makes an official endorsement. This helps pull

1736
01:33:35,680 --> 01:33:37,639
Speaker 2: Vance over the top, and he ekes out a narrow

1737
01:33:37,640 --> 01:33:40,960
Speaker 2: win in the election that followed. The next year, Vance

1738
01:33:41,040 --> 01:33:44,400
Speaker 2: repaid the favor, writing a January Wall Street Journal op

1739
01:33:44,439 --> 01:33:46,799
Speaker 2: at where he endorses Trump as a candidate. In twenty

1740
01:33:46,840 --> 01:33:49,280
Speaker 2: twenty four. This was back in. This is the start

1741
01:33:49,280 --> 01:33:52,040
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three. The Republican primary is just gearing up,

1742
01:33:52,040 --> 01:33:54,080
Speaker 2: and the end of it is in enough doubt. You

1743
01:33:54,120 --> 01:33:56,080
Speaker 2: can remember back then. It sounds silly now, but people

1744
01:33:56,160 --> 01:33:59,280
Speaker 2: really thought DeSantis had a shot, right, And so he

1745
01:33:59,439 --> 01:34:02,360
Speaker 2: is Vance. This is kind of in before any of

1746
01:34:02,400 --> 01:34:05,920
Speaker 2: the other major Republican figures and backing Trump for his

1747
01:34:06,479 --> 01:34:07,639
Speaker 2: reducts round right.

1748
01:34:07,720 --> 01:34:09,240
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's like one of the first to fall in

1749
01:34:09,320 --> 01:34:09,760
Speaker 7: line here.

1750
01:34:09,960 --> 01:34:12,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a few people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders

1751
01:34:12,479 --> 01:34:14,600
Speaker 2: had been seen as a potential Trump VP pick, but

1752
01:34:14,640 --> 01:34:18,400
Speaker 2: she waits months to actually endorse Trump. Officially, so Vance

1753
01:34:18,439 --> 01:34:20,799
Speaker 2: gets in on the ground floor, and this impresses Trump

1754
01:34:20,920 --> 01:34:22,680
Speaker 2: that he is someone who he can count on to

1755
01:34:22,720 --> 01:34:25,680
Speaker 2: be loyal. Vance wins more praise the next month, when

1756
01:34:25,720 --> 01:34:29,120
Speaker 2: a train carrying hazardous materials to rails in East Palestine.

1757
01:34:29,120 --> 01:34:31,599
Speaker 2: In Ohio, Trump makes a visit to the town as

1758
01:34:31,640 --> 01:34:34,040
Speaker 2: one of the first stops on his campaign, and Vance

1759
01:34:34,200 --> 01:34:36,639
Speaker 2: organizes the visit and he does apparently a good job

1760
01:34:36,680 --> 01:34:39,000
Speaker 2: of this. Trump says to his entourage, this guy is

1761
01:34:39,040 --> 01:34:40,720
Speaker 2: turning out to be fucking incredible.

1762
01:34:41,320 --> 01:34:41,439
Speaker 10: Now.

1763
01:34:41,520 --> 01:34:44,479
Speaker 2: By this point, Vance has befriended Trump's oldest son, Donald

1764
01:34:44,479 --> 01:34:47,040
Speaker 2: Trump Junior, and set himself to the task of well

1765
01:34:47,080 --> 01:34:49,360
Speaker 2: and truly kissing ass to get on that twenty twenty

1766
01:34:49,360 --> 01:34:52,600
Speaker 2: four ticket. By late January of this year, Vance and

1767
01:34:52,600 --> 01:34:55,400
Speaker 2: his team had received enough friendly feedback from Trump World

1768
01:34:55,400 --> 01:34:57,559
Speaker 2: that they decided to invest in a full court press.

1769
01:34:57,920 --> 01:35:01,080
Speaker 2: Vance began showing up on TV networks that I'm considered enemies,

1770
01:35:01,120 --> 01:35:03,840
Speaker 2: doing a reverse Buddhaj edge and throwing himself into the

1771
01:35:03,920 --> 01:35:06,160
Speaker 2: enemy camp to take shots on behalf of the boss.

1772
01:35:06,600 --> 01:35:09,200
Speaker 2: He also devoted himself to raising money for Trump from

1773
01:35:09,240 --> 01:35:12,559
Speaker 2: the Silicon Valley VC set. Most of these guys were

1774
01:35:12,600 --> 01:35:15,960
Speaker 2: Teals friends dudes like David Sachs. What finally put him

1775
01:35:15,960 --> 01:35:18,519
Speaker 2: over the top, though, was an article Donald Trump Junior

1776
01:35:18,560 --> 01:35:21,360
Speaker 2: gave his dad from bright Bart News about the man

1777
01:35:21,479 --> 01:35:24,799
Speaker 2: then seen as Trump's most likely VP pick, Doug Bergham,

1778
01:35:25,040 --> 01:35:28,479
Speaker 2: governor of North Dakota. The article's title was, Carl Rove

1779
01:35:28,600 --> 01:35:32,439
Speaker 2: endorses Doug Burgham for Vice President and I do love that.

1780
01:35:32,560 --> 01:35:35,479
Speaker 2: Carl Rove's endorsement is the fucking kiss of death right

1781
01:35:35,560 --> 01:35:39,479
Speaker 2: now for a fucking VP candidate. Very funny place for

1782
01:35:39,560 --> 01:35:42,200
Speaker 2: his story to have wound up. Not a bad call

1783
01:35:42,240 --> 01:35:44,400
Speaker 2: by Trump, though, I gotta say, actually it is a

1784
01:35:44,400 --> 01:35:46,920
Speaker 2: bad call for Trump. But also I get it. I

1785
01:35:46,960 --> 01:35:49,559
Speaker 2: read one Politico article that argues this was the final

1786
01:35:49,600 --> 01:35:52,479
Speaker 2: straw for Trump. It was this Carl Rove article. I

1787
01:35:52,520 --> 01:35:55,200
Speaker 2: can't actually speak to that. It is worth noting that

1788
01:35:55,280 --> 01:35:57,680
Speaker 2: in the months leading up to the RNC, Trump is

1789
01:35:57,720 --> 01:36:00,880
Speaker 2: also being subjected to a charm campaign by all of

1790
01:36:00,960 --> 01:36:04,679
Speaker 2: Peter Teal's friends. This huge pile of wealthy Silicon Valley

1791
01:36:04,720 --> 01:36:08,160
Speaker 2: investors from the Washington Post quote. In the weeks before

1792
01:36:08,240 --> 01:36:11,479
Speaker 2: former President Donald Trump announced his vice presidential pick, some

1793
01:36:11,560 --> 01:36:14,080
Speaker 2: of tech's biggest names launched a quiet campaign to push

1794
01:36:14,160 --> 01:36:17,000
Speaker 2: for one of their own. Ohio Senator JD. Vance, the

1795
01:36:17,040 --> 01:36:20,759
Speaker 2: former president, fielded repeated calls from tech entrepreneur David Sachs,

1796
01:36:21,000 --> 01:36:24,760
Speaker 2: pallanteer advisor Jacob Helberg, and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Teal,

1797
01:36:24,880 --> 01:36:27,800
Speaker 2: Vance's former employer and mentor employing him to add the

1798
01:36:27,840 --> 01:36:30,800
Speaker 2: one time Silicon Valley investor to the ticket. According to

1799
01:36:30,800 --> 01:36:33,680
Speaker 2: three people familiar with the entreaties, all caps, we have

1800
01:36:33,720 --> 01:36:36,320
Speaker 2: a former tech VC in the White House. Greatest country

1801
01:36:36,320 --> 01:36:40,920
Speaker 2: on Earth. Baby. Delian Ashparov, of a partner at Teal's

1802
01:36:40,920 --> 01:36:44,160
Speaker 2: founder's fund, wrote on X after the announcement of Vance's nomination.

1803
01:36:44,360 --> 01:36:49,240
Speaker 2: Delian Sparova s Parov something like that, Jesus Christ, I

1804
01:36:49,320 --> 01:36:54,920
Speaker 2: know it's fucking exhausting, but that is, you know, the JD.

1805
01:36:55,040 --> 01:36:56,960
Speaker 2: Vance story, more or less, that's where he comes from.

1806
01:36:56,960 --> 01:36:59,040
Speaker 2: That's who wants him to be the VP. It's all

1807
01:36:59,040 --> 01:37:01,280
Speaker 2: of these fucking ghouls who want to own the world

1808
01:37:01,320 --> 01:37:05,719
Speaker 2: and become It's these people who have achieved the highest

1809
01:37:05,800 --> 01:37:09,240
Speaker 2: level of financial success you can achieve in any society

1810
01:37:09,320 --> 01:37:12,680
Speaker 2: on the earth right now, and they found that it's

1811
01:37:12,760 --> 01:37:15,120
Speaker 2: kind of empty. And it's kind of empty in part

1812
01:37:15,160 --> 01:37:17,479
Speaker 2: because people can still be mean to you, and they

1813
01:37:17,520 --> 01:37:19,800
Speaker 2: don't have to care what you believe just because you

1814
01:37:19,880 --> 01:37:20,799
Speaker 2: have a lot of money.

1815
01:37:21,920 --> 01:37:26,040
Speaker 7: They don't like neoliberal capitalism because it fundamentally still has

1816
01:37:26,120 --> 01:37:29,240
Speaker 7: a shred of like a democratic value. Yeah, and that

1817
01:37:29,360 --> 01:37:32,360
Speaker 7: makes them too mad. Yeah. So instead they are going

1818
01:37:32,439 --> 01:37:35,000
Speaker 7: back to like a much a much more like archaic

1819
01:37:35,120 --> 01:37:39,040
Speaker 7: system where they can still maintain their personal wealth while

1820
01:37:39,080 --> 01:37:43,360
Speaker 7: being like very influential through like a dictatorial means. They're

1821
01:37:43,360 --> 01:37:46,639
Speaker 7: still like fundamentally capitalists, but almost in like a more

1822
01:37:46,720 --> 01:37:49,479
Speaker 7: like fascistic feudal sense, like they.

1823
01:37:49,320 --> 01:37:52,200
Speaker 2: Want to be lords. Well, that's exactly it, that's what

1824
01:37:52,280 --> 01:37:54,920
Speaker 2: they really want. They are terrified of death. And what

1825
01:37:54,960 --> 01:37:57,439
Speaker 2: they're terrified of more than anything. What scares the mostly

1826
01:37:57,479 --> 01:37:59,639
Speaker 2: about death is the idea that like all the success

1827
01:37:59,680 --> 01:38:01,360
Speaker 2: they've scene goes away.

1828
01:38:01,600 --> 01:38:02,920
Speaker 7: It's meaningless, it doesn't matter.

1829
01:38:03,080 --> 01:38:07,160
Speaker 2: Fundamentally, all of this passes. No one is on top forever,

1830
01:38:07,520 --> 01:38:09,840
Speaker 2: nobody is like matters.

1831
01:38:09,520 --> 01:38:11,960
Speaker 7: No one's in a care about PayPal in twenty years.

1832
01:38:12,040 --> 01:38:15,040
Speaker 2: That's the price of time, right, and they want to

1833
01:38:15,200 --> 01:38:19,120
Speaker 2: stop the clock. That's fundamentally what near reactionaries are. There

1834
01:38:19,120 --> 01:38:22,959
Speaker 2: are people who think I am special, I am super special.

1835
01:38:23,439 --> 01:38:27,040
Speaker 2: The world should be oriented around recognizing how special I

1836
01:38:27,080 --> 01:38:31,200
Speaker 2: am forever, and anything I can do to turn back

1837
01:38:31,240 --> 01:38:34,880
Speaker 2: the clock is necessary justified like that. That's what these

1838
01:38:34,880 --> 01:38:36,520
Speaker 2: people are. That's what they believe fundamentally.

1839
01:38:36,920 --> 01:38:40,400
Speaker 7: Like imagine being so mad that no one will remember

1840
01:38:40,439 --> 01:38:42,960
Speaker 7: PayPal in two hundred years, that you try to install

1841
01:38:43,000 --> 01:38:46,120
Speaker 7: a fascist takeover yes, Yes, of the United States of

1842
01:38:46,160 --> 01:38:46,880
Speaker 7: America so.

1843
01:38:46,840 --> 01:38:51,160
Speaker 2: That PayPal always matters. It's these fucking guys anyway, Garrison.

1844
01:38:51,280 --> 01:38:54,559
Speaker 2: That's the James Donald Vance story. Not his name.

1845
01:38:54,600 --> 01:38:55,160
Speaker 7: Is that his name?

1846
01:38:55,320 --> 01:38:57,760
Speaker 2: No, of course not. Maybe I forget. I forget. I

1847
01:38:57,800 --> 01:39:01,240
Speaker 2: always forget what JD stands for, who can? Who gives

1848
01:39:01,240 --> 01:39:04,040
Speaker 2: a shit? Hopefully he's not going to matter much longer.

1849
01:39:04,640 --> 01:39:06,240
Speaker 7: This is this is this is this is My biggest

1850
01:39:06,240 --> 01:39:08,760
Speaker 7: thing going going into November, is that you know, if

1851
01:39:08,800 --> 01:39:11,360
Speaker 7: the Democrats win on on on, like on their ticket,

1852
01:39:11,680 --> 01:39:14,320
Speaker 7: that still means plenty of bad things around the world. Yeah,

1853
01:39:14,360 --> 01:39:17,880
Speaker 7: but I also really don't want these freaks in there,

1854
01:39:18,400 --> 01:39:21,400
Speaker 7: Like I really don't want them. They're they're like they're

1855
01:39:21,439 --> 01:39:24,000
Speaker 7: like spooky. They're trying to do like this like like

1856
01:39:24,200 --> 01:39:26,760
Speaker 7: esoteric larp in like the White House, like come on,

1857
01:39:27,080 --> 01:39:27,719
Speaker 7: and most.

1858
01:39:27,520 --> 01:39:29,920
Speaker 2: Of the things that need to happen for the world

1859
01:39:30,000 --> 01:39:32,760
Speaker 2: to get better can't happen while these people are in

1860
01:39:32,840 --> 01:39:35,599
Speaker 2: power right like or close to power like they there

1861
01:39:35,680 --> 01:39:38,800
Speaker 2: needs to be damage done to them, and I'm I'm

1862
01:39:38,840 --> 01:39:41,960
Speaker 2: hopeful about that if nothing else in this election.

1863
01:39:41,880 --> 01:39:44,439
Speaker 7: And like electoral damages is only like one type. They

1864
01:39:44,439 --> 01:39:46,640
Speaker 7: have to be like culturally humiliated, like they have to

1865
01:39:46,640 --> 01:39:49,400
Speaker 7: be like culturally like rejected, being like no, like you

1866
01:39:49,400 --> 01:39:52,640
Speaker 7: you are not actually the wizards of culture that you

1867
01:39:52,760 --> 01:39:54,880
Speaker 7: kind of want to be, like no one likes what

1868
01:39:54,960 --> 01:39:56,640
Speaker 7: you do, no one likes what you believe like that

1869
01:39:56,640 --> 01:39:58,760
Speaker 7: that it has to be like this this larger this

1870
01:39:58,920 --> 01:40:01,880
Speaker 7: larger like col battle. That's why they have like the

1871
01:40:01,880 --> 01:40:04,559
Speaker 7: culture wars. This is like super important thing. That's why

1872
01:40:04,600 --> 01:40:07,240
Speaker 7: they're so scared of like queer and trans people, especially

1873
01:40:07,360 --> 01:40:09,559
Speaker 7: queer and trans people like that are like influential, whether

1874
01:40:09,600 --> 01:40:11,320
Speaker 7: they be like you know, like teachers, whether they be

1875
01:40:11,320 --> 01:40:14,599
Speaker 7: working like in media, making movies, television, writing books. That's

1876
01:40:14,600 --> 01:40:16,000
Speaker 7: where they're so freaked out with that kind of stuff.

1877
01:40:16,000 --> 01:40:17,360
Speaker 7: That's what they're trying to get out of schools. That's

1878
01:40:17,360 --> 01:40:20,920
Speaker 7: why they're trying to stop Woke Disney. It's because they

1879
01:40:20,960 --> 01:40:23,360
Speaker 7: know that no one's gonna want to listen to these

1880
01:40:23,360 --> 01:40:25,720
Speaker 7: freaks when like gay people can make a good art

1881
01:40:25,920 --> 01:40:29,360
Speaker 7: or like give a good history lesson. Yeah, that's like

1882
01:40:29,400 --> 01:40:32,720
Speaker 7: there's that's like the strongest like anecdote to these like

1883
01:40:32,920 --> 01:40:37,559
Speaker 7: just really really bizarre like esoteric ramblings about wanting to

1884
01:40:37,600 --> 01:40:41,360
Speaker 7: go back to like nineteen ten like racist science, just weird,

1885
01:40:41,479 --> 01:40:42,000
Speaker 7: weird shit.

1886
01:40:42,439 --> 01:40:46,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. I think that these guys delved too

1887
01:40:46,120 --> 01:40:48,600
Speaker 2: deep and too greedily if we're going to continue the

1888
01:40:48,640 --> 01:40:51,040
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings references, which by God, they're not

1889
01:40:51,080 --> 01:40:53,840
Speaker 2: going to let us stop doing so. And I think

1890
01:40:53,880 --> 01:40:55,599
Speaker 2: that there was this thing we used to I used

1891
01:40:55,640 --> 01:40:57,479
Speaker 2: to talk about a lot when I tried to explain

1892
01:40:57,560 --> 01:41:02,400
Speaker 2: like far right terminology to people back twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen,

1893
01:41:02,479 --> 01:41:06,160
Speaker 2: five decades ago, a thousand years ago. That's my l

1894
01:41:06,280 --> 01:41:09,280
Speaker 2: ron moment. I was there Garrison a thousand years ago.

1895
01:41:10,280 --> 01:41:13,120
Speaker 2: We talked about like the term hide your power level, right,

1896
01:41:13,280 --> 01:41:16,000
Speaker 2: which these Nazis used to use, and they've just completely

1897
01:41:16,080 --> 01:41:18,439
Speaker 2: given up on that. No, and the thing that they

1898
01:41:18,439 --> 01:41:20,479
Speaker 2: are seeing there was like all this. I was reading

1899
01:41:20,479 --> 01:41:22,400
Speaker 2: that twenty twenty two article by Poe, which I think

1900
01:41:22,439 --> 01:41:24,800
Speaker 2: is a really important snapshot because it's these people about

1901
01:41:24,800 --> 01:41:27,320
Speaker 2: to head into twenty twenty four and they they know

1902
01:41:27,520 --> 01:41:30,800
Speaker 2: before the dims do how badly down Biden is. Right,

1903
01:41:30,840 --> 01:41:34,759
Speaker 2: the Democrats have not really taking seriously what a dangerous

1904
01:41:34,800 --> 01:41:37,639
Speaker 2: position Joe Biden was going to be in for reelection yet.

1905
01:41:38,160 --> 01:41:40,679
Speaker 2: But they also think that like, wow, all these young

1906
01:41:40,720 --> 01:41:43,639
Speaker 2: people are showing up at our lame parties. That means

1907
01:41:43,640 --> 01:41:46,640
Speaker 2: there's a broader sweep. All young people are becoming like

1908
01:41:46,720 --> 01:41:49,040
Speaker 2: closer to reactionarys.

1909
01:41:48,360 --> 01:41:50,400
Speaker 7: Becoming like all weird treadcats.

1910
01:41:50,840 --> 01:41:54,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're capturing the culture. And that's just absolutely not

1911
01:41:55,080 --> 01:41:57,559
Speaker 2: what was happening. And it would have been obvious if

1912
01:41:57,600 --> 01:42:01,000
Speaker 2: like they had been capable of actually like listening to people.

1913
01:42:01,400 --> 01:42:04,680
Speaker 2: But what we're seeing now is they did the most

1914
01:42:04,720 --> 01:42:07,440
Speaker 2: dangerous thing you could do. Is they predicted and understood

1915
01:42:07,479 --> 01:42:11,360
Speaker 2: one thing about the future, but nothing else right, And

1916
01:42:11,400 --> 01:42:14,960
Speaker 2: so they understood the weakness that Joe Biden represented and

1917
01:42:15,040 --> 01:42:18,479
Speaker 2: kind of the weakness of his control over the Democratic Party,

1918
01:42:18,800 --> 01:42:22,400
Speaker 2: but they did not understand that, like other things are possible, right,

1919
01:42:22,479 --> 01:42:26,000
Speaker 2: and including the fact that like Joe Biden and largely

1920
01:42:26,040 --> 01:42:28,760
Speaker 2: the other people who were running the Democratic Party might

1921
01:42:28,800 --> 01:42:32,040
Speaker 2: come to understand that weakness too, And after a disastrous

1922
01:42:32,080 --> 01:42:36,080
Speaker 2: debate and a shooting, go, you know what, let's change course.

1923
01:42:37,840 --> 01:42:40,720
Speaker 2: And I really think that that, above all else might

1924
01:42:40,760 --> 01:42:43,760
Speaker 2: be what fucks them is they completely came out of

1925
01:42:43,800 --> 01:42:46,680
Speaker 2: the woodwork. They were tired of having to pretend they

1926
01:42:46,680 --> 01:42:49,439
Speaker 2: didn't want a king. They thought their time had come,

1927
01:42:49,600 --> 01:42:52,200
Speaker 2: and perhaps it has not. Well still, we'll all see,

1928
01:42:52,240 --> 01:42:52,960
Speaker 2: we'll all see.

1929
01:42:53,200 --> 01:42:56,000
Speaker 7: Well, I'm super excited to hear what kind of just

1930
01:42:56,240 --> 01:43:01,360
Speaker 7: unhinged and bizarre things Tim Walls has done. Yeah, in

1931
01:43:01,439 --> 01:43:02,560
Speaker 7: the next tale.

1932
01:43:02,760 --> 01:43:05,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just going to accuse him of having been

1933
01:43:05,360 --> 01:43:07,720
Speaker 2: the Zodiac killer. You know that that's worked on a

1934
01:43:07,720 --> 01:43:08,360
Speaker 2: couple of guys.

1935
01:43:08,400 --> 01:43:09,040
Speaker 7: Seems to work.

1936
01:43:09,080 --> 01:43:12,200
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, So we're just going to do that. Call

1937
01:43:12,240 --> 01:43:15,320
Speaker 2: it a night. Anyway, this has been JD vance. We've

1938
01:43:15,360 --> 01:43:18,720
Speaker 2: been it could happen here, Go to Hell, I love you,

1939
01:43:19,520 --> 01:43:22,320
Speaker 2: Clean your couch, Clean your couch. Shit, I need to

1940
01:43:22,360 --> 01:43:47,160
Speaker 2: do that. Welcome back to It could happen here a

1941
01:43:47,320 --> 01:43:52,599
Speaker 2: podcast about Tim Walls. And in this episode, Garrison and

1942
01:43:52,640 --> 01:43:56,639
Speaker 2: I are going balls to the walls. Are you happy

1943
01:43:56,680 --> 01:43:57,400
Speaker 2: with that? Garrison?

1944
01:43:58,000 --> 01:43:59,799
Speaker 7: What's skivitying your Biden?

1945
01:44:01,200 --> 01:44:02,120
Speaker 2: What does that even mean?

1946
01:44:02,560 --> 01:44:04,640
Speaker 7: All right, let's get going some fucking.

1947
01:44:04,479 --> 01:44:07,439
Speaker 2: Ging z bullshit Garrison because I won't take part in it.

1948
01:44:08,439 --> 01:44:11,599
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm excited to hear about how Walls is either

1949
01:44:12,160 --> 01:44:14,760
Speaker 7: great or terrible or probably a mix of both.

1950
01:44:15,200 --> 01:44:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, he's a politician and a pretty successful one,

1951
01:44:18,960 --> 01:44:20,840
Speaker 2: so it's definitely going to be a mix of both.

1952
01:44:21,280 --> 01:44:24,320
Speaker 2: For jd Vance, I figured the most relevant thing to

1953
01:44:24,360 --> 01:44:26,240
Speaker 2: do is to talk about, like what does he actually

1954
01:44:26,280 --> 01:44:28,320
Speaker 2: believe and where does he come from in the right,

1955
01:44:28,880 --> 01:44:31,479
Speaker 2: because people had gotten pieces of that, but I feel

1956
01:44:31,479 --> 01:44:34,479
Speaker 2: like unless you put it all together, it's not as useful.

1957
01:44:34,560 --> 01:44:37,720
Speaker 2: So I hope we did that with Walls. He's not

1958
01:44:38,080 --> 01:44:40,920
Speaker 2: a guy where there's anything sinister for you to know,

1959
01:44:41,000 --> 01:44:42,759
Speaker 2: So I think the useful thing is kind of going

1960
01:44:42,800 --> 01:44:45,479
Speaker 2: through his whole political biography and just kind of talk about,

1961
01:44:45,520 --> 01:44:48,880
Speaker 2: like what is this guy done in his public life? Right,

1962
01:44:49,240 --> 01:44:50,960
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I wanted to do here, so

1963
01:44:51,000 --> 01:44:53,800
Speaker 2: that people actually know, you know, whether or not you

1964
01:44:54,240 --> 01:44:56,479
Speaker 2: are making your mind up about whether or not to vote,

1965
01:44:56,520 --> 01:44:59,880
Speaker 2: you're voting for harm reduction, you're anti electoral Here's this

1966
01:45:00,080 --> 01:45:02,000
Speaker 2: guy who may or may not wind up being the

1967
01:45:02,120 --> 01:45:04,519
Speaker 2: vice president, and here's what he's actually done in the

1968
01:45:04,560 --> 01:45:07,120
Speaker 2: past when he's had any kind of power. It's worth

1969
01:45:07,120 --> 01:45:09,680
Speaker 2: noting that kind of at this point here, Walls is

1970
01:45:09,880 --> 01:45:13,120
Speaker 2: maybe the most popular politician at his level in the country.

1971
01:45:13,640 --> 01:45:15,680
Speaker 2: This has happened very suddenly, but he's got something like

1972
01:45:15,720 --> 01:45:20,799
Speaker 2: a plus sixteen net favorability among moderates, which is insane.

1973
01:45:21,080 --> 01:45:21,760
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a lot.

1974
01:45:22,080 --> 01:45:23,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild.

1975
01:45:23,600 --> 01:45:25,560
Speaker 7: As someone who's looked at a lot of the favorability

1976
01:45:25,640 --> 01:45:28,920
Speaker 7: ratings the past six months. Yeah, that is astonishingly high,

1977
01:45:29,120 --> 01:45:31,120
Speaker 7: especially gotpared to where we were like two months ago

1978
01:45:31,160 --> 01:45:34,880
Speaker 7: with Skibbity Biden, which was yeah, very low, quite dire.

1979
01:45:35,200 --> 01:45:39,360
Speaker 2: He's incredibly popular with the normies because basically everyone in

1980
01:45:39,400 --> 01:45:42,960
Speaker 2: the country has positive memories of a guy like Tim Walls,

1981
01:45:43,360 --> 01:45:46,040
Speaker 2: like whether it was like your favorite social studies teacher

1982
01:45:46,200 --> 01:45:50,320
Speaker 2: or your dad. There is like a kind of rotund, balding,

1983
01:45:50,640 --> 01:45:54,559
Speaker 2: very mechanically capable man probably somewhere in your life that

1984
01:45:54,600 --> 01:45:57,599
Speaker 2: you have fond memories of, and Walls dredges those up.

1985
01:45:57,960 --> 01:45:59,839
Speaker 7: We are of a very Freudian country.

1986
01:46:00,240 --> 01:46:02,960
Speaker 2: Yes, for an idea of how like rapidly people have

1987
01:46:03,080 --> 01:46:05,120
Speaker 2: gone from not really knowing who this guy is to

1988
01:46:05,200 --> 01:46:08,080
Speaker 2: loving him. On August eighth, a UGU of Survey should

1989
01:46:08,120 --> 01:46:10,960
Speaker 2: him with a net favorability rating of plus eleven, which

1990
01:46:11,000 --> 01:46:13,519
Speaker 2: was up from plus one, and a survey conducted in

1991
01:46:13,680 --> 01:46:17,040
Speaker 2: late July. In the same time frame, Jade Vance has

1992
01:46:17,040 --> 01:46:18,800
Speaker 2: seen his approval ratings steadily drop.

1993
01:46:19,120 --> 01:46:21,479
Speaker 7: Yeah, isn't he like at like negative points?

1994
01:46:21,600 --> 01:46:21,800
Speaker 12: Oh?

1995
01:46:21,920 --> 01:46:25,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, by any stretch of the imagination, at

1996
01:46:25,240 --> 01:46:27,640
Speaker 2: negative points. And if you're just kind of looking at

1997
01:46:27,680 --> 01:46:30,080
Speaker 2: Tim's life, which we're not really getting into because we

1998
01:46:30,120 --> 01:46:31,879
Speaker 2: have limited time here and it's not the most important

1999
01:46:31,880 --> 01:46:34,120
Speaker 2: thing I thought we could be talking about. But he

2000
01:46:34,160 --> 01:46:36,840
Speaker 2: has a long history of doing decent things in his

2001
01:46:36,880 --> 01:46:40,439
Speaker 2: personal life kind of most notably in the early nineties,

2002
01:46:40,439 --> 01:46:43,120
Speaker 2: like ninety three ninety four, he sponsored the Gay and

2003
01:46:43,200 --> 01:46:46,240
Speaker 2: Lesbian Alliance at his high school. And his reasoning was that,

2004
01:46:46,280 --> 01:46:48,280
Speaker 2: you know, he was a soldier in the National Guard

2005
01:46:48,320 --> 01:46:50,479
Speaker 2: and the football coach at that point, and he decided,

2006
01:46:50,960 --> 01:46:53,680
Speaker 2: you know, him sponsoring the club in particular would have

2007
01:46:53,720 --> 01:46:55,880
Speaker 2: the biggest impact. And I honestly, I think that's the

2008
01:46:55,960 --> 01:46:57,200
Speaker 2: kind of thing that might have saved lives.

2009
01:46:57,360 --> 01:46:57,559
Speaker 10: Yep.

2010
01:46:57,680 --> 01:46:59,759
Speaker 2: Good thing to have done. Anyway, this isn't an episode

2011
01:46:59,760 --> 01:47:01,799
Speaker 2: about his life and background. We're not going to litigate,

2012
01:47:01,880 --> 01:47:03,640
Speaker 2: which we're not going to always any time litigating the

2013
01:47:03,640 --> 01:47:07,080
Speaker 2: attacks on his military career, which seemed to confusingly say

2014
01:47:07,120 --> 01:47:09,320
Speaker 2: that after extending his time in the Guard by four

2015
01:47:09,400 --> 01:47:12,320
Speaker 2: years to participate in Operation during Freedom, he owed his

2016
01:47:12,400 --> 01:47:14,519
Speaker 2: soldiers staying on even longer to fight in Iraq. I

2017
01:47:14,520 --> 01:47:16,960
Speaker 2: could make the point that no grunt in any US

2018
01:47:17,080 --> 01:47:19,439
Speaker 2: war ever found themselves in the shit and said, boy,

2019
01:47:19,439 --> 01:47:22,519
Speaker 2: I wish the commands Sergeant major was here. But given

2020
01:47:22,520 --> 01:47:25,200
Speaker 2: that JD Vance was played onto stage at the RNC

2021
01:47:25,439 --> 01:47:27,360
Speaker 2: to a song with the refrain we got to get

2022
01:47:27,360 --> 01:47:29,800
Speaker 2: out of Iraq and take our country back, I just

2023
01:47:29,840 --> 01:47:32,240
Speaker 2: don't think these attacks are worth acknowledging it. All right,

2024
01:47:32,479 --> 01:47:34,960
Speaker 2: the right has already acknowledged that was a stupid war

2025
01:47:35,000 --> 01:47:37,240
Speaker 2: to fight in. Walls decided not to fight in it.

2026
01:47:37,360 --> 01:47:40,120
Speaker 2: Good for him now when it comes to the current

2027
01:47:40,200 --> 01:47:42,200
Speaker 2: war that is on everyone's minds, or one of the

2028
01:47:42,200 --> 01:47:44,800
Speaker 2: wars that's on everyone's minds. Walls is fine on Ukraine,

2029
01:47:44,960 --> 01:47:46,680
Speaker 2: but when it comes to the war that he's not

2030
01:47:46,800 --> 01:47:50,000
Speaker 2: fine on the genocide in Gaza. Walls is in no

2031
01:47:50,080 --> 01:47:53,280
Speaker 2: way that I can find really better than Kamala Harris.

2032
01:47:53,760 --> 01:47:55,960
Speaker 2: But he did take a stand against the Iraq war

2033
01:47:56,000 --> 01:47:57,880
Speaker 2: back when that mattered, which is I guess a little

2034
01:47:57,880 --> 01:48:00,719
Speaker 2: bit of a point, but again doesn't really matter today,

2035
01:48:01,080 --> 01:48:03,280
Speaker 2: And in any case, we're far afield from the subject,

2036
01:48:03,320 --> 01:48:07,520
Speaker 2: which is what has Tim done in politics. So Tim's

2037
01:48:07,840 --> 01:48:10,120
Speaker 2: political career he came late in life to that. He

2038
01:48:10,160 --> 01:48:12,759
Speaker 2: was a social studies teacher. For a couple of decades,

2039
01:48:12,800 --> 01:48:15,800
Speaker 2: he was a coach. He lived in Nebraska, then moved

2040
01:48:15,840 --> 01:48:18,639
Speaker 2: to Minnesota, and in two thousand and six, after retiring

2041
01:48:18,640 --> 01:48:22,519
Speaker 2: from the guard he was elected to Minnesota's first congressional district.

2042
01:48:22,920 --> 01:48:25,599
Speaker 2: Now this was a tough campaign. His opponent in this

2043
01:48:25,720 --> 01:48:29,440
Speaker 2: race was a sixth term Republican incumbent, Gil Gutneckt.

2044
01:48:29,560 --> 01:48:32,160
Speaker 7: Wait wait, wait, wait, good necked good Neckt.

2045
01:48:32,160 --> 01:48:35,160
Speaker 2: I'm guessing his family were knights, and it was used

2046
01:48:35,160 --> 01:48:37,040
Speaker 2: to be like good night or something like that, like

2047
01:48:37,120 --> 01:48:41,080
Speaker 2: gut k n Echt. But I don't know enough about

2048
01:48:41,160 --> 01:48:43,600
Speaker 2: ancient German to tell you if that's really where his

2049
01:48:43,640 --> 01:48:47,040
Speaker 2: last name came from. Yeah, yeah, But Walls came in

2050
01:48:47,120 --> 01:48:49,200
Speaker 2: that he kind of goes against this guy who had

2051
01:48:49,240 --> 01:48:52,200
Speaker 2: promised not to run for another term and then decided, actually,

2052
01:48:52,200 --> 01:48:53,880
Speaker 2: I don't want to give up power. Not a thing

2053
01:48:53,920 --> 01:48:56,479
Speaker 2: that's ever happened again, and Walls kind of came in

2054
01:48:56,520 --> 01:48:59,680
Speaker 2: both when this guy had violated his promise to not

2055
01:49:00,080 --> 01:49:04,040
Speaker 2: run again and near the peak of disillusionment and exhaustion

2056
01:49:04,560 --> 01:49:07,880
Speaker 2: with neo cons Right, this is kind of the twilight

2057
01:49:08,080 --> 01:49:11,960
Speaker 2: of the Bush years. Even conservative Americans are pretty fucking

2058
01:49:12,040 --> 01:49:16,080
Speaker 2: tired of the Republican Party right this second, and Walls

2059
01:49:16,200 --> 01:49:19,360
Speaker 2: exhibited a notable ability to connect with rural Americans who

2060
01:49:19,439 --> 01:49:23,040
Speaker 2: mostly voted read. He did so with basically no funding

2061
01:49:23,160 --> 01:49:25,600
Speaker 2: or larger national operation behind him. From a write up

2062
01:49:25,600 --> 01:49:28,080
Speaker 2: in The New York Times, he had no money, no nothing,

2063
01:49:28,120 --> 01:49:31,280
Speaker 2: said Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who that cycle worked

2064
01:49:31,280 --> 01:49:34,639
Speaker 2: on House Democrats recruitment team under their campaign chief Rama Manuel.

2065
01:49:35,080 --> 01:49:37,240
Speaker 2: He had a grassroots campaign that he had put together

2066
01:49:37,280 --> 01:49:38,960
Speaker 2: that I just knew was going to be dynamite. So

2067
01:49:39,000 --> 01:49:41,240
Speaker 2: I went back and I told Rama Manuel, this guy's

2068
01:49:41,240 --> 01:49:43,200
Speaker 2: going to win. He's great, and rom looked at me

2069
01:49:43,280 --> 01:49:46,559
Speaker 2: like I was crazy. Walls was a dark horse candidate

2070
01:49:46,600 --> 01:49:49,720
Speaker 2: and would claim around that time that his whole inspiration

2071
01:49:49,800 --> 01:49:52,000
Speaker 2: for getting into politics was when he tried to take

2072
01:49:52,080 --> 01:49:55,000
Speaker 2: two students to a rally for President George Bush and

2073
01:49:55,040 --> 01:49:57,280
Speaker 2: they were kicked out because one student had a John

2074
01:49:57,400 --> 01:50:00,679
Speaker 2: Kerry button. Now I found a blog by the Republican

2075
01:50:00,760 --> 01:50:03,479
Speaker 2: staffer who kicked them out where he admits he made

2076
01:50:03,479 --> 01:50:05,360
Speaker 2: a dumb call. He was kind of trying to be

2077
01:50:05,360 --> 01:50:08,559
Speaker 2: a dick. He had seen Walls out protesting against Bush

2078
01:50:08,840 --> 01:50:10,960
Speaker 2: like the day before, and he knew he was going

2079
01:50:11,000 --> 01:50:12,679
Speaker 2: to kick them out of the rally, but he made

2080
01:50:12,680 --> 01:50:15,120
Speaker 2: them stand in line for a long time before he

2081
01:50:15,200 --> 01:50:17,160
Speaker 2: kicked them out, and he was like, I shouldn't have

2082
01:50:17,160 --> 01:50:20,760
Speaker 2: done that. But his angle was that Walls wanted to

2083
01:50:20,800 --> 01:50:22,880
Speaker 2: get denied and kicked out so that he could make

2084
01:50:22,920 --> 01:50:24,519
Speaker 2: a big deal about it and use it as a

2085
01:50:24,520 --> 01:50:27,479
Speaker 2: line on the campaign trail. That's probably what happened.

2086
01:50:27,920 --> 01:50:31,479
Speaker 7: Regardless, this is a very funny little domino leading to

2087
01:50:31,640 --> 01:50:32,439
Speaker 7: big domino.

2088
01:50:33,120 --> 01:50:36,160
Speaker 2: Everyone likes Walls, who tends to meet him. Joe Biden

2089
01:50:36,560 --> 01:50:38,280
Speaker 2: for the last year or two has seems been trying

2090
01:50:38,280 --> 01:50:39,760
Speaker 2: to get him to do more events with Walls, just

2091
01:50:39,800 --> 01:50:42,160
Speaker 2: because he put Biden in a good mood. I think

2092
01:50:42,160 --> 01:50:44,280
Speaker 2: that's a big reason why Kamala picked him. He just

2093
01:50:44,280 --> 01:50:46,719
Speaker 2: seems to be a very likable guy. But he's very

2094
01:50:46,760 --> 01:50:49,160
Speaker 2: okay with lying to get what he needs. I mean,

2095
01:50:49,200 --> 01:50:50,080
Speaker 2: he's a politician.

2096
01:50:50,120 --> 01:50:50,840
Speaker 7: He's a politician.

2097
01:50:51,080 --> 01:50:53,479
Speaker 2: Another good example of this would be his duy. Right

2098
01:50:53,560 --> 01:50:56,160
Speaker 2: when he was thirty one, he got a duy, and

2099
01:50:56,600 --> 01:50:58,960
Speaker 2: he is at times claimed basically that's why I decided

2100
01:50:58,960 --> 01:51:01,599
Speaker 2: to like, I stopped drinking. I changed my life, I moved,

2101
01:51:01,600 --> 01:51:03,960
Speaker 2: you know, I got my shit together. But his campaign

2102
01:51:04,000 --> 01:51:06,320
Speaker 2: manager made a statement recently, Oh, he wasn't drunk. He

2103
01:51:06,360 --> 01:51:08,840
Speaker 2: just couldn't hear the cop. I don't know who to trust,

2104
01:51:08,840 --> 01:51:11,839
Speaker 2: politician or cop in this case, but the CoP's attitude

2105
01:51:11,920 --> 01:51:13,720
Speaker 2: is like, well, I would be fine if he had

2106
01:51:13,760 --> 01:51:16,639
Speaker 2: just like fixed his shit up, but he definitely was drunk.

2107
01:51:16,880 --> 01:51:19,280
Speaker 2: And I don't have any trouble believing that a man

2108
01:51:19,320 --> 01:51:22,720
Speaker 2: in rural Nebraska, a football coach in rural Nebraska, drove

2109
01:51:22,800 --> 01:51:23,360
Speaker 2: drunk once.

2110
01:51:23,520 --> 01:51:26,040
Speaker 7: Right, No, that is not the most surprising thing in

2111
01:51:26,080 --> 01:51:26,439
Speaker 7: the world.

2112
01:51:26,680 --> 01:51:29,000
Speaker 2: So I think he's a guy who's certainly he's not

2113
01:51:29,360 --> 01:51:31,840
Speaker 2: naive political actor, right, He's not one of these guys

2114
01:51:31,880 --> 01:51:34,479
Speaker 2: who's so so good and pure that he's not willing

2115
01:51:34,520 --> 01:51:37,120
Speaker 2: to like fudge in order to make shit work for him.

2116
01:51:37,120 --> 01:51:39,679
Speaker 2: And that's probably what he did at this Bush event

2117
01:51:39,880 --> 01:51:42,599
Speaker 2: right now. That said, it would be hard to overstate

2118
01:51:42,600 --> 01:51:44,960
Speaker 2: what a difficult task he picked for himself and trying

2119
01:51:44,960 --> 01:51:48,400
Speaker 2: to unseat Gutneck. At the time that Walls ran, Minnesota's

2120
01:51:48,439 --> 01:51:51,240
Speaker 2: first district had been held by one other Democrat in

2121
01:51:51,280 --> 01:51:54,320
Speaker 2: the last hundred years, so he was the second Democrat

2122
01:51:54,360 --> 01:51:56,640
Speaker 2: in a century to win in that district, and as

2123
01:51:56,640 --> 01:51:59,000
Speaker 2: soon as he left, by the way, a Republican took back.

2124
01:51:59,040 --> 01:52:02,439
Speaker 2: Over his six terms in Congress, he was one of

2125
01:52:02,439 --> 01:52:05,240
Speaker 2: the more interesting legislators in the country. Walls was a

2126
01:52:05,360 --> 01:52:08,519
Speaker 2: risk taker, supporting liberal votes on major issues even when

2127
01:52:08,520 --> 01:52:12,400
Speaker 2: he was politically vulnerable. He opposed Republican legislation to make

2128
01:52:12,439 --> 01:52:16,240
Speaker 2: doctors vulnerable to criminal penalties for performing abortions. He supported

2129
01:52:16,280 --> 01:52:19,240
Speaker 2: a climate cap and trade bill on greenhouse gas emissions

2130
01:52:19,280 --> 01:52:22,040
Speaker 2: that failed, and this really pissed some folks off. He

2131
01:52:22,120 --> 01:52:24,920
Speaker 2: supported the Affordable Care Act, and kind of one of

2132
01:52:24,960 --> 01:52:27,400
Speaker 2: the more notable things about him is there's stories of

2133
01:52:27,520 --> 01:52:29,920
Speaker 2: when he was running for reelection, he would do town

2134
01:52:29,960 --> 01:52:33,040
Speaker 2: halls in southern Minnesota and he would get attacked by

2135
01:52:33,120 --> 01:52:35,880
Speaker 2: these red voters who had supported him early on for

2136
01:52:35,960 --> 01:52:39,400
Speaker 2: backing the Affordable Care Act, and rather than like backing off,

2137
01:52:39,439 --> 01:52:41,599
Speaker 2: he would lean into it and argue with them and

2138
01:52:41,640 --> 01:52:45,040
Speaker 2: try to convince them. And you know, his numbers with

2139
01:52:45,360 --> 01:52:50,280
Speaker 2: conservative rural Republicans got worse and worse every cycle basically,

2140
01:52:50,320 --> 01:52:52,559
Speaker 2: so you could argue how good he was, but it

2141
01:52:52,640 --> 01:52:54,719
Speaker 2: is worth something to me that he didn't back off.

2142
01:52:54,760 --> 01:52:57,200
Speaker 2: He didn't do the well this might, you know, fuck

2143
01:52:57,240 --> 01:52:59,559
Speaker 2: up my chances of reelection. Like he's never really been

2144
01:52:59,680 --> 01:53:02,760
Speaker 2: that kind of guy. There's things that he believes and

2145
01:53:02,800 --> 01:53:05,280
Speaker 2: he will just kind of like jam his flag into

2146
01:53:05,360 --> 01:53:08,920
Speaker 2: the mud over them. That said, Tim was a pragmatist.

2147
01:53:09,080 --> 01:53:11,559
Speaker 2: He voted for a resolution calling for the withdrawal of

2148
01:53:11,640 --> 01:53:14,799
Speaker 2: US forces from Iraq within ninety days, but when that failed,

2149
01:53:14,840 --> 01:53:17,559
Speaker 2: he voted in favor of continuing funding for the wars

2150
01:53:17,600 --> 01:53:21,280
Speaker 2: in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim also received an a from

2151
01:53:21,320 --> 01:53:23,559
Speaker 2: the NRA during much of his time in office, voting

2152
01:53:23,560 --> 01:53:25,880
Speaker 2: against gun control based on what seemed to be a

2153
01:53:26,000 --> 01:53:29,360
Speaker 2: natural inclination to firearms and hunting. Walls may have been

2154
01:53:29,400 --> 01:53:31,680
Speaker 2: the best shot in the Minnesota National Guard during the

2155
01:53:31,680 --> 01:53:33,960
Speaker 2: time when he was there. He's apparently a very good shot.

2156
01:53:34,280 --> 01:53:36,640
Speaker 2: He is an avid and skilled turkey hunter, and if

2157
01:53:36,680 --> 01:53:38,360
Speaker 2: you talk to people who want game in the US,

2158
01:53:38,400 --> 01:53:41,280
Speaker 2: Turkey is one of the more difficult game to hunt.

2159
01:53:41,880 --> 01:53:45,120
Speaker 2: He developed a reputation as a guy who wouldn't apologize

2160
01:53:45,160 --> 01:53:47,559
Speaker 2: for voting with liberals, but who would go across the

2161
01:53:47,560 --> 01:53:50,280
Speaker 2: aisle when it mattered. During his time on the Veterans

2162
01:53:50,320 --> 01:53:53,880
Speaker 2: Affairs Committee, which he ultimately chaired, he voted with Republicans

2163
01:53:53,880 --> 01:53:56,480
Speaker 2: to make it easier for the VIA to fire employees,

2164
01:53:56,720 --> 01:54:00,000
Speaker 2: even with union opposition, and he also pushed through change

2165
01:54:00,120 --> 01:54:03,080
Speaker 2: just to improve GI Bill college access for veterans post

2166
01:54:03,160 --> 01:54:05,559
Speaker 2: nine to eleven. One of the things I find interesting

2167
01:54:05,560 --> 01:54:07,880
Speaker 2: about his record is that in twenty eighteen, he voted

2168
01:54:07,880 --> 01:54:10,920
Speaker 2: against most of his party opposing an overhaul of the

2169
01:54:11,040 --> 01:54:15,000
Speaker 2: VA healthcare system. He agreed everyone agrees that the system

2170
01:54:15,040 --> 01:54:17,800
Speaker 2: needed to be overhauled, but he argued the proposal in

2171
01:54:17,840 --> 01:54:21,200
Speaker 2: place would force the VIA to cannibalize itself, basically starving

2172
01:54:21,200 --> 01:54:23,960
Speaker 2: the organization to try and fix it. And his attitude was, well,

2173
01:54:23,960 --> 01:54:25,880
Speaker 2: it needs to get fixed. I'm not going to vote

2174
01:54:25,920 --> 01:54:28,080
Speaker 2: for a change that might be worse than what we

2175
01:54:28,200 --> 01:54:32,160
Speaker 2: currently have. While chairing this committee, Walls made strong connections

2176
01:54:32,200 --> 01:54:35,720
Speaker 2: to Nancy Pelosi, who like basically everyone really came to

2177
01:54:35,880 --> 01:54:37,360
Speaker 2: like Walls, and she's going to be one of the

2178
01:54:37,400 --> 01:54:39,840
Speaker 2: people who's one of the strongest voices for picking him

2179
01:54:39,920 --> 01:54:43,600
Speaker 2: as VP, and we will be back to talk about

2180
01:54:43,600 --> 01:54:45,840
Speaker 2: more of that. But first, Garrison, you know who else

2181
01:54:45,880 --> 01:54:46,959
Speaker 2: loves Nancy Pelosi?

2182
01:54:47,120 --> 01:54:50,760
Speaker 7: Probably these products and services. If they come from San Francisco.

2183
01:54:50,320 --> 01:54:52,520
Speaker 2: They're based in the Bay Area. She will break their

2184
01:54:52,600 --> 01:55:06,720
Speaker 2: kneecaps if they don't like her enough. Ah, and we're back.

2185
01:55:07,440 --> 01:55:11,200
Speaker 2: So one of the big shifts for Tim during his

2186
01:55:11,280 --> 01:55:14,360
Speaker 2: time in Congress was away from the NRA. This started

2187
01:55:14,440 --> 01:55:17,560
Speaker 2: after in twenty seventeen, after the Las Vegas mass shooting,

2188
01:55:17,680 --> 01:55:20,120
Speaker 2: and then after the Parkland mass shooting, and then in

2189
01:55:20,120 --> 01:55:22,800
Speaker 2: February of twenty eighteen, he writes an op ed supporting

2190
01:55:22,840 --> 01:55:25,880
Speaker 2: what he calls common sense gun reform and donates the

2191
01:55:26,000 --> 01:55:29,360
Speaker 2: NRA contributions to his campaign That cycle to some sort

2192
01:55:29,400 --> 01:55:33,000
Speaker 2: of I think gun control cause. Walls's common sense gun

2193
01:55:33,040 --> 01:55:35,680
Speaker 2: regulations include an assault weapons ban, and he is currently

2194
01:55:35,720 --> 01:55:37,840
Speaker 2: in line with the Democratic Party on that if you

2195
01:55:37,840 --> 01:55:41,120
Speaker 2: were curious. That same year, twenty eighteen, he launched his

2196
01:55:41,160 --> 01:55:44,440
Speaker 2: campaign for governor of Minnesota. By this point, Walls had

2197
01:55:44,440 --> 01:55:47,440
Speaker 2: bled much of his ability to win rural red votes.

2198
01:55:47,480 --> 01:55:49,920
Speaker 2: It is accurate to say he was only really good

2199
01:55:49,920 --> 01:55:53,120
Speaker 2: at this during his early years in Congress, his margins

2200
01:55:53,120 --> 01:55:55,400
Speaker 2: grew a lot narrower over time, and once he hit

2201
01:55:55,400 --> 01:55:57,960
Speaker 2: the governor's office, his support was largely in the cities.

2202
01:55:58,000 --> 01:56:00,920
Speaker 2: Now it's one of those things where I think there's

2203
01:56:01,280 --> 01:56:03,400
Speaker 2: been debate, Like some people have arguable he's not maybe

2204
01:56:03,400 --> 01:56:05,360
Speaker 2: not the best VP pick because he actually isn't all

2205
01:56:05,360 --> 01:56:07,720
Speaker 2: that good at getting these red rural votes. But I

2206
01:56:07,800 --> 01:56:10,400
Speaker 2: just don't see that as where the elections coming down to.

2207
01:56:10,520 --> 01:56:15,600
Speaker 2: Walls has great favorables with like suburban white people and

2208
01:56:16,160 --> 01:56:20,600
Speaker 2: a particularly suburban like moderates, and that is like one

2209
01:56:20,640 --> 01:56:23,120
Speaker 2: of the most important demographics to win. So I don't

2210
01:56:23,160 --> 01:56:25,640
Speaker 2: believe the fact that he's he's kind of bled his

2211
01:56:25,680 --> 01:56:30,040
Speaker 2: support with rural conservatives is really necessarily a mark against

2212
01:56:30,120 --> 01:56:33,200
Speaker 2: him in an electoral sense. One thing I do appreciate

2213
01:56:33,200 --> 01:56:35,800
Speaker 2: about Walls is how direct he is to people I dislike.

2214
01:56:36,360 --> 01:56:39,080
Speaker 2: He decides in twenty eighteen to run for governor, and

2215
01:56:39,160 --> 01:56:40,960
Speaker 2: during that run he has a meeting with a bunch

2216
01:56:40,960 --> 01:56:44,240
Speaker 2: of business leaders at a luxury hotel. The president of

2217
01:56:44,240 --> 01:56:48,240
Speaker 2: a machining company asks if Walls felt corporate taxes hurt workers,

2218
01:56:48,480 --> 01:56:52,360
Speaker 2: and Walls replied, we're not taxing people, We're taxing corporations,

2219
01:56:52,560 --> 01:56:54,440
Speaker 2: and I want to quote from a CNBC write up

2220
01:56:54,760 --> 01:56:56,360
Speaker 2: for Jeff Baker, it was a bit of an O

2221
01:56:56,480 --> 01:56:58,880
Speaker 2: shit moment. That's not what I wanted to hear, said Baker,

2222
01:56:58,920 --> 01:57:02,879
Speaker 2: president of McFarlane truck Lines. There's a lot of stories

2223
01:57:02,960 --> 01:57:06,040
Speaker 2: like that. He's been very willing to tax the wealthy

2224
01:57:06,080 --> 01:57:09,680
Speaker 2: and to tax corporations to pay for things like children's lunches.

2225
01:57:10,080 --> 01:57:13,560
Speaker 2: This is a consistent Walls move and it's something that

2226
01:57:13,640 --> 01:57:16,920
Speaker 2: he absolutely is unapologetic about, and I think that's fine.

2227
01:57:17,040 --> 01:57:19,840
Speaker 2: Minnesota currently taxes corporate income at nine point eight percent,

2228
01:57:19,960 --> 01:57:22,480
Speaker 2: the highest rate in the nation. Walls did not back

2229
01:57:22,520 --> 01:57:24,680
Speaker 2: down on this during his time in office. In fact,

2230
01:57:24,680 --> 01:57:27,800
Speaker 2: that CNBC report found that quote Walls's policy battles have

2231
01:57:27,840 --> 01:57:30,880
Speaker 2: a common theme. Walls supported either higher taxes on the

2232
01:57:30,960 --> 01:57:34,640
Speaker 2: rich or businesses, and corporate leaders fought back. One of

2233
01:57:34,640 --> 01:57:36,920
Speaker 2: their fights was over a one percent ser tax on

2234
01:57:37,000 --> 01:57:40,600
Speaker 2: passive investment income over a million dollars. Another was a

2235
01:57:40,680 --> 01:57:43,240
Speaker 2: tax on the wealthy. Walls signed into law that limits

2236
01:57:43,240 --> 01:57:46,200
Speaker 2: standard and itemized deductions for households with gross incomes over

2237
01:57:46,240 --> 01:57:49,880
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Due to Republican control

2238
01:57:49,920 --> 01:57:53,640
Speaker 2: of the legislature. Walls's first term was not hugely eventful

2239
01:57:53,760 --> 01:57:57,120
Speaker 2: up until the COVID nineteen pandemic. This is because Republicans

2240
01:57:57,160 --> 01:57:59,600
Speaker 2: retained control of the state legislature and were able to

2241
01:57:59,640 --> 01:58:02,360
Speaker 2: stop much of his plan perform. We did get to

2242
01:58:02,360 --> 01:58:05,360
Speaker 2: see more of the politician Tim Walls during COVID when

2243
01:58:05,360 --> 01:58:08,480
Speaker 2: he stood up against Republican resistance more common sense pandemic

2244
01:58:08,600 --> 01:58:11,200
Speaker 2: safety regulations. He earned a lot of hate from the

2245
01:58:11,280 --> 01:58:13,440
Speaker 2: right for some of the more extreme COVID restrictions in

2246
01:58:13,480 --> 01:58:16,480
Speaker 2: the country, which were put in place in Minnesota. In particular,

2247
01:58:16,560 --> 01:58:19,040
Speaker 2: Walls threatened citizens with up to ninety days in jail

2248
01:58:19,120 --> 01:58:21,600
Speaker 2: during the shelter in place period and threatened twenty five

2249
01:58:21,640 --> 01:58:25,760
Speaker 2: thousand dollars fines for meeting in public. Minnesota instituted a

2250
01:58:25,840 --> 01:58:28,560
Speaker 2: COVID hotline where people could inform on their neighbors if

2251
01:58:28,600 --> 01:58:31,720
Speaker 2: they saw rules being broken. And I get why the

2252
01:58:31,800 --> 01:58:34,880
Speaker 2: right is uncomfortable with this. I'm not fully comfortable with

2253
01:58:34,920 --> 01:58:38,240
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff either, But given what was going

2254
01:58:38,280 --> 01:58:39,840
Speaker 2: on at the time, I'm not going to slam the

2255
01:58:39,880 --> 01:58:42,240
Speaker 2: man for trying to save lives in a very uncertain

2256
01:58:42,320 --> 01:58:46,160
Speaker 2: and desperate situation. You know it beats the nothing that

2257
01:58:46,200 --> 01:58:48,640
Speaker 2: a lot of state governors did, so I guess that's

2258
01:58:48,720 --> 01:58:51,280
Speaker 2: kind of where I stand on that shit. Not long

2259
01:58:51,320 --> 01:58:55,520
Speaker 2: after the pandemic lockdown started, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.

2260
01:58:55,960 --> 01:58:59,200
Speaker 2: Walls mobilized the National Guard after three days of riots,

2261
01:58:59,280 --> 01:59:02,120
Speaker 2: earning praise from President Trump on June first, who said

2262
01:59:02,200 --> 01:59:05,120
Speaker 2: what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in

2263
01:59:05,160 --> 01:59:08,920
Speaker 2: and dominated, and it happened quickly. And this is you know,

2264
01:59:09,000 --> 01:59:11,440
Speaker 2: the National Guard do a lot of very violent shit

2265
01:59:11,680 --> 01:59:13,760
Speaker 2: coming into crackdown on these protests. I know a lot

2266
01:59:13,840 --> 01:59:16,920
Speaker 2: of people who were the ones cracked down upon. It's

2267
01:59:16,960 --> 01:59:19,880
Speaker 2: one of those things where, yeah, he's a governor, you know,

2268
01:59:19,960 --> 01:59:22,800
Speaker 2: I think pretty much any governor in this situation would

2269
01:59:22,800 --> 01:59:25,080
Speaker 2: have sent in the National Guard in that sort of.

2270
01:59:25,040 --> 01:59:28,280
Speaker 7: Situation, especially after the burning of the Third Precinct.

2271
01:59:28,040 --> 01:59:31,280
Speaker 2: Especially after the Priconct got burnt. Which doesn't excuse it.

2272
01:59:31,280 --> 01:59:34,320
Speaker 2: It's just like, well, yeah, he's not an anarchist, right like,

2273
01:59:34,360 --> 01:59:38,040
Speaker 2: he's not your communist like revolutionary hero. He is the

2274
01:59:38,040 --> 01:59:41,560
Speaker 2: governor of Minnesota. I'm just really not surprised that this happened.

2275
01:59:42,080 --> 01:59:45,440
Speaker 2: It's you know, a pretty normal thing for a guy

2276
01:59:45,720 --> 01:59:49,520
Speaker 2: in his position to have done yeah now, like every

2277
01:59:49,520 --> 01:59:52,280
Speaker 2: other dim in creation. During the height of the uprising,

2278
01:59:52,320 --> 01:59:55,720
Speaker 2: Walls voice support for a wide host of police accountability reforms.

2279
01:59:56,000 --> 01:59:59,120
Speaker 2: He even voiced some degree of support for Indian qualified immunity,

2280
01:59:59,440 --> 02:00:01,720
Speaker 2: but this did not last long, and as the backlash

2281
02:00:01,760 --> 02:00:04,680
Speaker 2: against police reforms swelled up after the election, Walls joined

2282
02:00:04,680 --> 02:00:07,280
Speaker 2: many iems and pulling back and even quashing moves for

2283
02:00:07,400 --> 02:00:11,080
Speaker 2: greater police accountability. When he ran for reelection, he did

2284
02:00:11,120 --> 02:00:14,760
Speaker 2: so as a tough on crime, law enforcement friendly democrat.

2285
02:00:14,920 --> 02:00:19,360
Speaker 2: Right many such cases. Now, he did push through some

2286
02:00:19,800 --> 02:00:24,160
Speaker 2: accountability measures. He used fifteen million in COVID funds to

2287
02:00:24,200 --> 02:00:27,960
Speaker 2: pay for grants for community violence prevention. He pushed through

2288
02:00:28,200 --> 02:00:31,760
Speaker 2: some requirements to increase data sharing from the police Licensing Board.

2289
02:00:32,160 --> 02:00:34,760
Speaker 2: He pushed through a demand for state law enforcement to

2290
02:00:34,920 --> 02:00:37,560
Speaker 2: share footage of police killings with the family of the

2291
02:00:37,680 --> 02:00:40,880
Speaker 2: victim within five days. These are, I think we can

2292
02:00:40,920 --> 02:00:46,160
Speaker 2: all say, minor accountability moves, very very very minor, he said.

2293
02:00:46,160 --> 02:00:48,800
Speaker 2: Of these moves. They build trust in police, they build

2294
02:00:48,800 --> 02:00:51,200
Speaker 2: trust in the systems, They build trust among communities, and

2295
02:00:51,240 --> 02:00:53,800
Speaker 2: they provide the community with some basic closure and understanding

2296
02:00:53,800 --> 02:00:56,600
Speaker 2: for families. Nothing builds trust, like a video of your

2297
02:00:56,600 --> 02:00:58,040
Speaker 2: cousin getting shot in the back.

2298
02:00:58,360 --> 02:01:00,640
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have the biggest accountability thing that you get.

2299
02:01:01,000 --> 02:01:02,440
Speaker 7: First look at the murder video.

2300
02:01:02,760 --> 02:01:08,040
Speaker 2: I don't know, Okay, I like, yes, I do think

2301
02:01:08,080 --> 02:01:11,200
Speaker 2: you probably have to legislate that because otherwise police just

2302
02:01:11,240 --> 02:01:13,160
Speaker 2: won't give it up at all. But like, yeah, I

2303
02:01:13,200 --> 02:01:14,840
Speaker 2: wouldn't hang my hat on that.

2304
02:01:14,960 --> 02:01:18,840
Speaker 7: It is ignoring the main issue at play, Yeah, which

2305
02:01:18,840 --> 02:01:21,480
Speaker 7: is the fact that we have murder right videos.

2306
02:01:21,760 --> 02:01:24,760
Speaker 2: It's like, come on now. There were some bigger reforms,

2307
02:01:24,760 --> 02:01:28,280
Speaker 2: including limitations on no knock warrants, although again not like

2308
02:01:28,320 --> 02:01:30,320
Speaker 2: a ban or anything, but it lacked a lot of

2309
02:01:30,320 --> 02:01:32,600
Speaker 2: the stuff that activists in the state had pushed for,

2310
02:01:32,760 --> 02:01:35,720
Speaker 2: including limits on police stops of motorists, and Walls had

2311
02:01:35,760 --> 02:01:38,600
Speaker 2: agreed that there needs to be more movement in this direction,

2312
02:01:38,680 --> 02:01:42,240
Speaker 2: particularly after the murder of Philando Casteele. It also left

2313
02:01:42,240 --> 02:01:45,000
Speaker 2: out and asked for end to the statute of limitations

2314
02:01:45,000 --> 02:01:48,960
Speaker 2: for wrongful death cases against officers. Walls had personally voiced

2315
02:01:49,000 --> 02:01:53,000
Speaker 2: support for a ban on officers with white supremacist gang affiliations,

2316
02:01:53,240 --> 02:01:56,600
Speaker 2: but this was also left out. Ultimately, State Rep. John

2317
02:01:56,640 --> 02:01:59,120
Speaker 2: Thompson said to Walls at the time, you have the

2318
02:01:59,160 --> 02:02:01,560
Speaker 2: power to do so, and all I've been getting from

2319
02:02:01,600 --> 02:02:04,040
Speaker 2: your office is lip service. And I mean that we

2320
02:02:04,080 --> 02:02:06,400
Speaker 2: don't need a news conference from you, governor. We need

2321
02:02:06,440 --> 02:02:10,200
Speaker 2: a leader. So you're not gonna get a lot of

2322
02:02:10,240 --> 02:02:13,640
Speaker 2: police reform under Tim Walls. That's just a pretty consistent

2323
02:02:13,720 --> 02:02:16,680
Speaker 2: reality of the guy that said he can be forced

2324
02:02:16,680 --> 02:02:18,920
Speaker 2: to do some things if you scare him enough. So

2325
02:02:19,280 --> 02:02:22,120
Speaker 2: you know, keep that in mind. I guess first, keep

2326
02:02:22,160 --> 02:02:24,160
Speaker 2: in mind these ads, and then we'll talk about the

2327
02:02:24,240 --> 02:02:33,080
Speaker 2: environment and stuff, which is a happier story for Walls.

2328
02:02:36,400 --> 02:02:40,320
Speaker 2: We're back. So Walls ran for reelection under the slogan

2329
02:02:40,440 --> 02:02:44,080
Speaker 2: one Minnesota, and he managed another solid victory. Up to

2330
02:02:44,120 --> 02:02:46,520
Speaker 2: this point, you would say he'd been a pretty standard

2331
02:02:46,600 --> 02:02:49,480
Speaker 2: dim governor in a swing state. But something happened in

2332
02:02:49,520 --> 02:02:52,280
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty two midterms that changed the course of

2333
02:02:52,320 --> 02:02:55,520
Speaker 2: Walls's career in maybe the nation. The Democrats won a

2334
02:02:55,520 --> 02:02:59,080
Speaker 2: slim majority in the state legislature. As David Schultz, a

2335
02:02:59,120 --> 02:03:02,760
Speaker 2: political science perform or at Hamlin University, told CNN, Walls's

2336
02:03:02,800 --> 02:03:06,120
Speaker 2: message immediately jerked away from one Minnesota to damn the

2337
02:03:06,160 --> 02:03:10,879
Speaker 2: torpedoes and fuck the Republicans. Quote that agenda included codified

2338
02:03:10,920 --> 02:03:14,280
Speaker 2: protections for abortion access, restored voting rights for felons who've

2339
02:03:14,280 --> 02:03:17,840
Speaker 2: completed their sentences, driver's licenses for people regardless of their

2340
02:03:17,920 --> 02:03:21,520
Speaker 2: legal status, a state child tax credit, free public college

2341
02:03:21,520 --> 02:03:24,440
Speaker 2: for families making less than eighty thousand annually, protections for

2342
02:03:24,480 --> 02:03:27,879
Speaker 2: gender affirming care, a paid family and medical leave program.

2343
02:03:28,200 --> 02:03:30,880
Speaker 2: Walls signed legislation to move the state towards achieving one

2344
02:03:30,920 --> 02:03:33,600
Speaker 2: hundred percent clean energy by twenty forty and to establish

2345
02:03:33,640 --> 02:03:37,040
Speaker 2: a universal free school meal program that provides breakfast and lunch.

2346
02:03:37,760 --> 02:03:40,680
Speaker 2: And that is a real solid spate of shit for

2347
02:03:40,720 --> 02:03:42,640
Speaker 2: a governor to get done. And all of this is

2348
02:03:42,680 --> 02:03:45,480
Speaker 2: about in a year, right, Like most of the shit

2349
02:03:45,480 --> 02:03:48,240
Speaker 2: that Walls has gotten done as governor has been very recently,

2350
02:03:48,560 --> 02:03:51,800
Speaker 2: because the dims had just taken back control, right, and

2351
02:03:51,840 --> 02:03:55,520
Speaker 2: it's very narrow control. Amy Koch, a Republican and former

2352
02:03:55,600 --> 02:03:59,120
Speaker 2: Minnesota Senate majority leader, said Walls definitely had not governed

2353
02:03:59,160 --> 02:04:02,040
Speaker 2: like a moderate, and un like other governors with trifecta control,

2354
02:04:02,400 --> 02:04:06,200
Speaker 2: had not emphasized in making deals with Republicans. Everything that

2355
02:04:06,240 --> 02:04:08,280
Speaker 2: went forward was signed. She said, I'm not sure what

2356
02:04:08,320 --> 02:04:10,040
Speaker 2: that says about him, but it definitely puts a Dent

2357
02:04:10,120 --> 02:04:12,440
Speaker 2: in his argument that he's just this moderate Democrat from

2358
02:04:12,480 --> 02:04:15,480
Speaker 2: the Midwest. And this is why progressives, many of them,

2359
02:04:15,720 --> 02:04:19,000
Speaker 2: are excited about Walls, is that when he actually had

2360
02:04:19,040 --> 02:04:22,080
Speaker 2: the opportunity, he was willing to say, Fuck the Republicans,

2361
02:04:22,160 --> 02:04:23,960
Speaker 2: let's get some shit done. I don't care that we

2362
02:04:24,000 --> 02:04:27,840
Speaker 2: only have one vote, right, yeah. Now, Walls has stated that,

2363
02:04:27,880 --> 02:04:31,120
Speaker 2: in his opinion, political capital exists to be spent improving

2364
02:04:31,160 --> 02:04:34,000
Speaker 2: people's lives. And this is an area where you can

2365
02:04:34,040 --> 02:04:36,040
Speaker 2: say that he's put his money where his mouth is, right,

2366
02:04:36,080 --> 02:04:40,360
Speaker 2: this is how he actually governed. Now, it's worth noting. Obviously,

2367
02:04:40,400 --> 02:04:43,120
Speaker 2: he also promised to burn political capital on major police

2368
02:04:43,120 --> 02:04:45,120
Speaker 2: reform and he gave that up. So you know, the

2369
02:04:45,120 --> 02:04:46,680
Speaker 2: fact that he says he's going to do something like

2370
02:04:46,720 --> 02:04:48,840
Speaker 2: any politician, not a guarantee it's going to happen.

2371
02:04:49,360 --> 02:04:51,800
Speaker 7: Well, and some of one of the more upsetting things

2372
02:04:51,800 --> 02:04:54,280
Speaker 7: but not surprising things, is now that Kamala has basically

2373
02:04:54,320 --> 02:04:56,760
Speaker 7: secured the nomination, she has rolled back many of the

2374
02:04:56,760 --> 02:04:58,920
Speaker 7: progressive policies that she ran on in twenty twenty when

2375
02:04:58,920 --> 02:05:01,040
Speaker 7: those seems to be more pre popular, right, you know,

2376
02:05:01,200 --> 02:05:04,480
Speaker 7: that's not necessarily Walls, that is that's Kambala. But but

2377
02:05:04,520 --> 02:05:07,040
Speaker 7: they're running on the same ticket. And again, like, it's

2378
02:05:07,040 --> 02:05:09,400
Speaker 7: not surprising that she's not advocating for Medica for all

2379
02:05:09,440 --> 02:05:12,240
Speaker 7: now that she is the actual nominee, right, But it

2380
02:05:12,280 --> 02:05:14,320
Speaker 7: still is, you know, disappointing for people who are like, hey,

2381
02:05:14,640 --> 02:05:17,440
Speaker 7: her actual policies four years ago were actually relatively progressive,

2382
02:05:17,880 --> 02:05:19,880
Speaker 7: and now they are slightly more kind of in line

2383
02:05:20,240 --> 02:05:24,120
Speaker 7: with like the mainstream Democratic Party views on most of

2384
02:05:24,160 --> 02:05:24,800
Speaker 7: these issues.

2385
02:05:25,040 --> 02:05:27,160
Speaker 2: Right. And again, one of the reasons, maybe for a

2386
02:05:27,200 --> 02:05:30,240
Speaker 2: little bit of hope, is that Walls has not really

2387
02:05:30,280 --> 02:05:33,880
Speaker 2: been that guy during his time with the executive power, right,

2388
02:05:33,920 --> 02:05:36,040
Speaker 2: and kind of the area where he's been best maybe

2389
02:05:36,080 --> 02:05:39,200
Speaker 2: actually is climate change. Right, This is the thing dim

2390
02:05:39,240 --> 02:05:42,360
Speaker 2: seem to like to compromise on the most. And Tim's

2391
02:05:42,360 --> 02:05:44,720
Speaker 2: history here is interested in me, particularly because he's got

2392
02:05:44,760 --> 02:05:48,000
Speaker 2: he doesn't have a perfect record, but it's genuinely pretty positive.

2393
02:05:48,440 --> 02:05:51,080
Speaker 2: His major achievement was a policy passed in twenty twenty

2394
02:05:51,120 --> 02:05:53,839
Speaker 2: three that required Minnesota to have a carbon free electric

2395
02:05:53,880 --> 02:05:56,000
Speaker 2: grid by twenty forty. Now, this is the kind of

2396
02:05:56,040 --> 02:05:59,440
Speaker 2: legislation that could just be virtue signaling, but Walls didn't

2397
02:05:59,480 --> 02:06:01,520
Speaker 2: just say yep, we'll get it. Done by twenty forty,

2398
02:06:01,520 --> 02:06:04,160
Speaker 2: when I won't be the fucking governor anymore. He backed

2399
02:06:04,160 --> 02:06:07,120
Speaker 2: it up by approving a historic amount of state spending

2400
02:06:07,160 --> 02:06:11,440
Speaker 2: on energy. The legislation included rebates on climate friendly technology

2401
02:06:11,560 --> 02:06:14,240
Speaker 2: like air source heat pumps and electric vehicles, as well

2402
02:06:14,280 --> 02:06:16,760
Speaker 2: as spending to improve home insulation and one hundred million

2403
02:06:16,800 --> 02:06:21,200
Speaker 2: dollars for city extreme weather preparedness. Walls also signed a

2404
02:06:21,200 --> 02:06:23,680
Speaker 2: bill to cut red tape for winden solar farms and

2405
02:06:23,680 --> 02:06:26,920
Speaker 2: transmission lines, and the speed up permitting for infrastructure needed

2406
02:06:26,920 --> 02:06:28,960
Speaker 2: to replace colon gas plants. So it was not just

2407
02:06:29,000 --> 02:06:31,720
Speaker 2: a yeah, we'll definitely do this. It was a well,

2408
02:06:31,720 --> 02:06:33,600
Speaker 2: there's certain things that need to happen for this to

2409
02:06:33,600 --> 02:06:36,200
Speaker 2: be possible, and I am going to work to make

2410
02:06:36,240 --> 02:06:37,920
Speaker 2: it easier to do those things. I'm going to make

2411
02:06:37,920 --> 02:06:40,880
Speaker 2: sure that we're passing legislation that makes it easier to

2412
02:06:40,920 --> 02:06:43,720
Speaker 2: do those things. And that that shows me someone who

2413
02:06:43,760 --> 02:06:46,040
Speaker 2: sees this as important as not just a thing that's

2414
02:06:46,120 --> 02:06:48,320
Speaker 2: virtue signaling, but as we need to figure out what

2415
02:06:48,400 --> 02:06:52,480
Speaker 2: the actual concrete steps are to make this doable, and

2416
02:06:52,520 --> 02:06:54,160
Speaker 2: that's something that gives me a little bit of hope.

2417
02:06:54,560 --> 02:06:57,080
Speaker 2: The more questionable side of his environmental history is the

2418
02:06:57,080 --> 02:07:00,920
Speaker 2: Inbridge Line three pipeline, which he and state regulators approved

2419
02:07:00,920 --> 02:07:04,360
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. This angered a lot of local environmental

2420
02:07:04,360 --> 02:07:07,480
Speaker 2: groups and several indigenous tribes in the area. The pipeline

2421
02:07:07,520 --> 02:07:10,040
Speaker 2: was argued to be necessary because the old one was

2422
02:07:10,120 --> 02:07:12,280
Speaker 2: corroding and a spill risk, and of course, when the

2423
02:07:12,280 --> 02:07:17,000
Speaker 2: new pipeline was constructed, workers punctured multiple aquifers. This seems

2424
02:07:17,040 --> 02:07:19,320
Speaker 2: to have been a case of Walls being the politician

2425
02:07:19,320 --> 02:07:22,440
Speaker 2: that he is. Trade unions supported the project because jobs,

2426
02:07:22,800 --> 02:07:24,800
Speaker 2: and it's also worth noting this is twenty twenty, so

2427
02:07:24,840 --> 02:07:27,280
Speaker 2: the dims do not have a majority in the legislature,

2428
02:07:27,320 --> 02:07:29,560
Speaker 2: and there's just a lot less of a stick available

2429
02:07:29,600 --> 02:07:31,320
Speaker 2: to Walls at this point. So you know, maybe he

2430
02:07:31,320 --> 02:07:34,800
Speaker 2: would have ruled differently, or maybe he would have acted differently,

2431
02:07:35,000 --> 02:07:37,440
Speaker 2: you know, have been in a more friendly situation.

2432
02:07:37,800 --> 02:07:41,120
Speaker 7: Yeah. I reported on this back in twenty twenty one. Yeah,

2433
02:07:41,160 --> 02:07:44,160
Speaker 7: we did a two part series on stop Line three

2434
02:07:44,480 --> 02:07:48,839
Speaker 7: where I traveled to the pipeline. Yeah, it's not surprising,

2435
02:07:49,040 --> 02:07:52,440
Speaker 7: especially with pressure from trade unions to approve this pipeline.

2436
02:07:52,800 --> 02:07:55,240
Speaker 7: From what I've seen, he did not have much to

2437
02:07:55,320 --> 02:07:59,560
Speaker 7: do with the police crackdown on protesters. I've seen that alleged.

2438
02:08:00,040 --> 02:08:01,920
Speaker 7: I'm not finding much to back that up. There's a

2439
02:08:01,960 --> 02:08:05,080
Speaker 7: lot of like county sheriffs and other task forces working

2440
02:08:05,120 --> 02:08:08,360
Speaker 7: directly with the pipeline company, like you know, Walls never

2441
02:08:08,840 --> 02:08:11,560
Speaker 7: used National Guard against these people. I don't see much

2442
02:08:11,880 --> 02:08:15,240
Speaker 7: from him being personally involved in suppressing these protests beyond

2443
02:08:15,240 --> 02:08:17,760
Speaker 7: the fact that he's the governor. Like he's the top

2444
02:08:17,800 --> 02:08:20,240
Speaker 7: guy in charge. He could shut that all down if

2445
02:08:20,680 --> 02:08:22,839
Speaker 7: but he also doesn't need to be like actively involved

2446
02:08:22,840 --> 02:08:26,320
Speaker 7: for that to happen, right, police will do it themselves, right,

2447
02:08:26,360 --> 02:08:29,400
Speaker 7: And that seems to be mostly what took place.

2448
02:08:29,480 --> 02:08:30,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems fair to say.

2449
02:08:31,000 --> 02:08:33,920
Speaker 7: And most of the extreme charges that top line three

2450
02:08:33,920 --> 02:08:36,880
Speaker 7: protesters were getting, like a felony theft for locking down

2451
02:08:37,280 --> 02:08:41,720
Speaker 7: onto construction equipment mostly have since all been dismissed in

2452
02:08:41,760 --> 02:08:44,040
Speaker 7: the courts or at least taken down to a lower

2453
02:08:44,080 --> 02:08:45,440
Speaker 7: and more appropriate charge.

2454
02:08:45,640 --> 02:08:48,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, like with everything about this guy, he's

2455
02:08:48,400 --> 02:08:51,360
Speaker 2: not perfect. He's not without some fucked up things in

2456
02:08:51,360 --> 02:08:55,000
Speaker 2: his background. He's a politician, but on ballance a better

2457
02:08:55,120 --> 02:08:59,600
Speaker 2: history on environmental stuff than most governors in the country.

2458
02:09:00,000 --> 02:09:03,160
Speaker 2: I should also note here under Walls, Minnesota passed the

2459
02:09:03,240 --> 02:09:06,720
Speaker 2: nation's most comprehensive ban on PFAS chemicals, a category of

2460
02:09:06,760 --> 02:09:09,320
Speaker 2: industrial compounds that do not break down and run off

2461
02:09:09,480 --> 02:09:11,560
Speaker 2: and have been associated with a bunch of cancers and

2462
02:09:11,600 --> 02:09:14,200
Speaker 2: other health risks. It is a band that rolls out

2463
02:09:14,240 --> 02:09:17,600
Speaker 2: over an eight year timeframe, so you know, maybe it's

2464
02:09:17,640 --> 02:09:20,640
Speaker 2: not like who knows how well it will actually get executed,

2465
02:09:20,640 --> 02:09:23,360
Speaker 2: but literally no other state has passed a ban this strong.

2466
02:09:23,400 --> 02:09:26,800
Speaker 2: So I'm putting it in the ups for Walls category. Now,

2467
02:09:27,680 --> 02:09:29,920
Speaker 2: that is kind of what I had to say. I

2468
02:09:29,920 --> 02:09:32,760
Speaker 2: didn't want to end talking a little bit more about Palestine,

2469
02:09:32,760 --> 02:09:35,680
Speaker 2: because again, Walls has a very mixed record here at best.

2470
02:09:36,400 --> 02:09:39,360
Speaker 2: While he was in the House, he received APAX endorsement

2471
02:09:39,520 --> 02:09:42,080
Speaker 2: and spoke at the group's twenty ten conference, where he said,

2472
02:09:42,080 --> 02:09:45,600
Speaker 2: this Israel is our truest and closest ally in the region,

2473
02:09:45,640 --> 02:09:48,320
Speaker 2: with a commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties,

2474
02:09:48,560 --> 02:09:51,800
Speaker 2: surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood. You know, I might

2475
02:09:51,880 --> 02:09:54,920
Speaker 2: quibble with me most of that, well, except with our

2476
02:09:54,960 --> 02:09:57,080
Speaker 2: closest ally in the region. That's kind of hard to

2477
02:09:57,160 --> 02:10:01,440
Speaker 2: argue with. After October seventh, he or state flags flown

2478
02:10:01,440 --> 02:10:04,920
Speaker 2: at half staff and condemned the Hamas attacks. In early March,

2479
02:10:04,920 --> 02:10:08,240
Speaker 2: he began endorsing calls for a permanent working ceasefire a

2480
02:10:08,240 --> 02:10:11,000
Speaker 2: few days after Harris called for a six week ceasefire.

2481
02:10:11,600 --> 02:10:15,840
Speaker 2: He's made statements about how the uncommitted protesters should be

2482
02:10:15,880 --> 02:10:18,880
Speaker 2: listened to, the same thing about college protesters. But he

2483
02:10:18,960 --> 02:10:22,200
Speaker 2: is not. He's not backing an embargo, right, He's not

2484
02:10:22,640 --> 02:10:25,640
Speaker 2: you know, pushing any kind of like stick to actually

2485
02:10:25,720 --> 02:10:29,040
Speaker 2: force Netanyahu's hand in any way. You would not say

2486
02:10:29,080 --> 02:10:32,760
Speaker 2: he's the worst Democrat on Gaza, but he's not, you know,

2487
02:10:33,600 --> 02:10:35,120
Speaker 2: particularly good either.

2488
02:10:35,320 --> 02:10:38,080
Speaker 7: He didn't lie about volunteering with the IDF. He did not.

2489
02:10:38,280 --> 02:10:40,560
Speaker 2: He did not lie about volunteering with the IDF as

2490
02:10:40,560 --> 02:10:43,040
Speaker 2: a teenager. That's that's one thing we can say.

2491
02:10:43,640 --> 02:10:46,360
Speaker 7: But unfortunately the bar is quite low these days.

2492
02:10:46,440 --> 02:10:50,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know that's Tim Walls a political biography.

2493
02:10:50,680 --> 02:10:52,839
Speaker 2: I hope you now can walk away being like, Okay,

2494
02:10:52,960 --> 02:10:55,040
Speaker 2: that's that's more or less who Tim Walls is.

2495
02:10:55,520 --> 02:10:57,600
Speaker 7: I do. I do feel it's important to end with

2496
02:10:57,720 --> 02:11:01,200
Speaker 7: one more kind of anecdote about Walls that I learned

2497
02:11:01,240 --> 02:11:05,480
Speaker 7: this morning, Okay, is that on I believe his first

2498
02:11:05,600 --> 02:11:08,160
Speaker 7: date with his with his suite to be wife. When

2499
02:11:08,160 --> 02:11:11,400
Speaker 7: he was teaching geography, he took her to see the

2500
02:11:11,480 --> 02:11:16,560
Speaker 7: movie Falling Down, the nineteen ninety three Michael Douglas masterpiece,

2501
02:11:16,720 --> 02:11:21,160
Speaker 7: incredibly based, which I feel like every single politician should

2502
02:11:21,200 --> 02:11:22,280
Speaker 7: be forced to watch.

2503
02:11:23,080 --> 02:11:26,240
Speaker 2: I would make it a mandatory part of graduation. You know,

2504
02:11:26,400 --> 02:11:28,560
Speaker 2: that was that was an important movie for me.

2505
02:11:29,840 --> 02:11:32,480
Speaker 7: It is a pretty funny first date movie. It's not

2506
02:11:32,560 --> 02:11:34,320
Speaker 7: the worst, you know, It's not like it's not like

2507
02:11:34,360 --> 02:11:37,440
Speaker 7: American Psychoach, which is also a great movie, but you know,

2508
02:11:37,480 --> 02:11:40,240
Speaker 7: it is. It is a curious first pick. But I

2509
02:11:40,240 --> 02:11:42,240
Speaker 7: think it is important that whoever is sitting in the

2510
02:11:42,240 --> 02:11:45,640
Speaker 7: White House is familiar with Falling Down. Yeah, as it

2511
02:11:45,680 --> 02:11:48,640
Speaker 7: as it kind of displays American male violence.

2512
02:11:48,880 --> 02:11:53,120
Speaker 2: It predicted a kind of guy who was just starting to, like, yeah,

2513
02:11:53,240 --> 02:11:56,360
Speaker 2: creep up into public consciousness when the movie came out,

2514
02:11:56,400 --> 02:11:58,960
Speaker 2: and who now commits a mass shooting every four weeks.

2515
02:11:59,240 --> 02:12:02,760
Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah, So I think that is a very funny anecdote.

2516
02:12:03,000 --> 02:12:06,120
Speaker 2: Watch Falling Down, folks. It's a great date movie. You know,

2517
02:12:06,240 --> 02:12:09,560
Speaker 2: maybe double Parrot with Event Horizon and really really gets an.

2518
02:12:09,480 --> 02:12:10,360
Speaker 7: Ax in Christ.

2519
02:12:12,800 --> 02:12:14,440
Speaker 2: All right, Garret, that's the end of the episode, how

2520
02:12:14,480 --> 02:12:15,400
Speaker 2: you feeling pretty good?

2521
02:12:15,440 --> 02:12:18,200
Speaker 7: Pretty good? Honestly, well, you know, not great. You know,

2522
02:12:18,400 --> 02:12:21,720
Speaker 7: actually the whole situation politically in the country is kind

2523
02:12:21,720 --> 02:12:22,320
Speaker 7: of a nightmare.

2524
02:12:22,400 --> 02:12:24,000
Speaker 2: It's fine, it's fine.

2525
02:12:24,040 --> 02:12:26,320
Speaker 7: Somehow, I feel slightly better than I did two months ago.

2526
02:12:26,680 --> 02:12:28,440
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you, this is the best it's been

2527
02:12:28,480 --> 02:12:31,200
Speaker 2: in a while, and maybe maybe the best in the

2528
02:12:31,280 --> 02:12:32,400
Speaker 2: ll ever be again.

2529
02:12:32,680 --> 02:12:35,280
Speaker 7: Which also just points to how low the bar is

2530
02:12:35,280 --> 02:12:35,720
Speaker 7: at the moment.

2531
02:12:35,800 --> 02:12:40,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Look, best case scenario, Matt Walsh

2532
02:12:41,160 --> 02:12:45,720
Speaker 2: is mad. It is a little further than mad. We'll see,

2533
02:12:45,760 --> 02:12:48,080
Speaker 2: We'll see if we can get like a welfare check

2534
02:12:48,120 --> 02:12:50,919
Speaker 2: over at his house. Anyway. That's the end of the episode.

2535
02:12:51,160 --> 02:13:22,560
Speaker 2: Good night and good luck, Carl Walls.

2536
02:13:26,120 --> 02:13:28,839
Speaker 1: In the last few weeks, indeed the last few months,

2537
02:13:29,160 --> 02:13:30,480
Speaker 1: the eyes of the world have been on the a

2538
02:13:30,520 --> 02:13:33,440
Speaker 1: Trustees aflicted on the people of Palestine on a daily basis.

2539
02:13:34,320 --> 02:13:37,080
Speaker 1: For the first time in most of our lifetimes, tens

2540
02:13:37,080 --> 02:13:39,200
Speaker 1: of thousands of people have taken to the streets to

2541
02:13:39,200 --> 02:13:42,040
Speaker 1: lift their voices for a stateless station of Palestine and

2542
02:13:42,120 --> 02:13:46,000
Speaker 1: against Israel's une checked mass murder of civilians. It's something

2543
02:13:46,080 --> 02:13:48,720
Speaker 1: I never thought I would see in the US, and

2544
02:13:48,840 --> 02:13:50,880
Speaker 1: one of my first visits here, I was staying at

2545
02:13:50,880 --> 02:13:53,000
Speaker 1: a bed and breakfast in the Bronx in late December.

2546
02:13:53,600 --> 02:13:55,400
Speaker 1: It was cold and now I was wearing a kafir

2547
02:13:55,440 --> 02:13:58,400
Speaker 1: to stay warm, as I still often do. I remember

2548
02:13:58,400 --> 02:14:00,120
Speaker 1: wearing it while I was talking to small guys. That's

2549
02:14:00,160 --> 02:14:02,160
Speaker 1: what I was waiting for the train, and we talked

2550
02:14:02,160 --> 02:14:05,160
Speaker 1: about Palestine for a long time. I ended up giving

2551
02:14:05,200 --> 02:14:06,760
Speaker 1: one of them my kafir and he gave me some

2552
02:14:06,760 --> 02:14:09,600
Speaker 1: cool badget so I still have one jacket somewhere. I

2553
02:14:09,640 --> 02:14:12,360
Speaker 1: was hopeful after that, but since then I've lived here

2554
02:14:12,400 --> 02:14:14,720
Speaker 1: for more than a decade. It was really not for

2555
02:14:14,760 --> 02:14:17,240
Speaker 1: about fifteen years that I saw someone else in the

2556
02:14:17,360 --> 02:14:20,480
Speaker 1: US without a direct connection to Palestine who wanted to

2557
02:14:20,480 --> 02:14:23,240
Speaker 1: show up for the Palestinians. It's an important cause, and

2558
02:14:23,280 --> 02:14:25,240
Speaker 1: it's one that we've been supporting here on our podcast

2559
02:14:25,280 --> 02:14:28,040
Speaker 1: with our coverage and speaking for myself also with my

2560
02:14:28,080 --> 02:14:31,879
Speaker 1: presence when I can. But as the word looked at Gaza,

2561
02:14:32,280 --> 02:14:36,280
Speaker 1: bombs also fell on Kurdistan. It's equally hard, if not harder,

2562
02:14:36,400 --> 02:14:38,840
Speaker 1: to find solidarity for the Kurdish freedom movement in the

2563
02:14:38,920 --> 02:14:43,040
Speaker 1: United States. I have a Kurdish Kafir as well. A

2564
02:14:43,120 --> 02:14:45,080
Speaker 1: Kurdish migrant that there met in the mountains gave it

2565
02:14:45,120 --> 02:14:47,440
Speaker 1: to me on one cold night last year after I

2566
02:14:47,440 --> 02:14:47,960
Speaker 1: said good.

2567
02:14:47,840 --> 02:14:48,360
Speaker 9: Evening to him.

2568
02:14:48,360 --> 02:14:51,640
Speaker 1: In Comanche. Stinks of campfires and cigarettes and I wearried

2569
02:14:51,680 --> 02:14:54,840
Speaker 1: all the time. I don't think anyone has ever recognized

2570
02:14:54,880 --> 02:14:58,320
Speaker 1: it l alone said anything positive about it. But someone

2571
02:14:58,320 --> 02:15:00,200
Speaker 1: did once ask me if it was a rast thing.

2572
02:15:01,320 --> 02:15:04,000
Speaker 1: So while our eyes have been on Gaza, those of

2573
02:15:04,040 --> 02:15:07,000
Speaker 1: Turkish drones and warplanes have been on the mountains of

2574
02:15:07,040 --> 02:15:10,600
Speaker 1: southern Kurdistan. Bombs have been going off in Kurdistan for

2575
02:15:10,600 --> 02:15:14,880
Speaker 1: a very long time. Indeed, before Gernica, Britain was dropping

2576
02:15:14,920 --> 02:15:17,560
Speaker 1: bombs on people in the Middle East without paintings to

2577
02:15:17,600 --> 02:15:21,960
Speaker 1: commemorate it. Stick boundaries and alliances have changed a lot

2578
02:15:22,000 --> 02:15:26,200
Speaker 1: since those first bombs, as has technology, but the fact

2579
02:15:26,240 --> 02:15:28,680
Speaker 1: that death from above has remained a consistent tool of

2580
02:15:28,760 --> 02:15:32,640
Speaker 1: the colonial state hasn't changed. When I was in Kurdistan

2581
02:15:32,720 --> 02:15:35,680
Speaker 1: in October of twenty twenty three, it was amidst almost

2582
02:15:35,720 --> 02:15:39,240
Speaker 1: constant drone strikes. I had to conduct my interviews in

2583
02:15:39,240 --> 02:15:42,320
Speaker 1: a climate of secrecy and concern, somewhat for my own

2584
02:15:42,320 --> 02:15:45,160
Speaker 1: safety but also for the safety of my interviewees who

2585
02:15:45,200 --> 02:15:48,200
Speaker 1: took great and serious personal risks to come and meet me.

2586
02:15:49,000 --> 02:15:52,000
Speaker 1: One of the people I met was Zagarros Heuer, a

2587
02:15:52,080 --> 02:15:58,040
Speaker 1: spokesman for the Kurdistan Communities Union or in Kurdish Komasievakin Kurdistdani.

2588
02:15:58,640 --> 02:16:01,960
Speaker 1: It's generally known as a casey k by It's Curtis's initials.

2589
02:16:02,360 --> 02:16:04,880
Speaker 1: Recently I connected with Zagros again and I asked him

2590
02:16:04,920 --> 02:16:06,840
Speaker 1: to explain the latest rounte of aggression.

2591
02:16:07,080 --> 02:16:10,480
Speaker 6: Hello, dear James, I hope you're doing well. As far

2592
02:16:10,520 --> 02:16:13,640
Speaker 6: as your first question is concerned, I can say that

2593
02:16:13,720 --> 02:16:20,120
Speaker 6: this operation has started from sixteenth of April, six days

2594
02:16:20,240 --> 02:16:24,720
Speaker 6: before advanced visit to Baghdad, and in the last weeks

2595
02:16:25,240 --> 02:16:31,839
Speaker 6: the Tekish Army has extended these operations and this invading

2596
02:16:31,920 --> 02:16:37,520
Speaker 6: army has moved further deep into the Iraqi territory and

2597
02:16:37,840 --> 02:16:43,720
Speaker 6: the Kurdistan region. Now they have set up checkpoints, they

2598
02:16:43,840 --> 02:16:50,520
Speaker 6: stop civilians, they interrogate them. According to CPT report, CPT

2599
02:16:50,720 --> 02:16:57,560
Speaker 6: stands for Community Community Peace Making Teams. It is a

2600
02:16:57,720 --> 02:17:03,400
Speaker 6: civil society organization active in Iraq and Curlison region of Iraq.

2601
02:17:04,240 --> 02:17:10,920
Speaker 6: According to CPT report, in the last months, there has

2602
02:17:10,959 --> 02:17:16,760
Speaker 6: been two hundred thirty eight bombardments in those areas and

2603
02:17:16,879 --> 02:17:20,800
Speaker 6: the two thousand hectares of agricultural land have been burned

2604
02:17:22,000 --> 02:17:26,959
Speaker 6: to ashes. And now six hundred two villages are under

2605
02:17:27,000 --> 02:17:31,560
Speaker 6: the threat of displacement and one hundred and sixty two

2606
02:17:31,600 --> 02:17:34,240
Speaker 6: of them have already been displaced. They have been raised

2607
02:17:34,240 --> 02:17:39,080
Speaker 6: to earth. From the start of this year, according to

2608
02:17:39,200 --> 02:17:44,000
Speaker 6: CPT data, oney seven hundred attacks have been have been

2609
02:17:44,040 --> 02:17:52,600
Speaker 6: done and this comes against the backdrop of attacks in

2610
02:17:52,640 --> 02:17:57,280
Speaker 6: twenty twenty three where one thousand, five hundred forty eight

2611
02:17:57,400 --> 02:17:58,840
Speaker 6: bombardments have taken place.

2612
02:17:59,360 --> 02:18:02,119
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with the kk on whose behalfs

2613
02:18:02,160 --> 02:18:04,520
Speaker 1: Agros is speaking, you can think of it as the

2614
02:18:04,600 --> 02:18:08,200
Speaker 1: umbrella group that unites of various Kurdish freedom movements in Bakur,

2615
02:18:08,640 --> 02:18:14,480
Speaker 1: North Bashur or South, Rajava or West, and Rodjulat or

2616
02:18:14,560 --> 02:18:18,280
Speaker 1: East to use the Kurdish terms. These parts of the

2617
02:18:18,360 --> 02:18:22,120
Speaker 1: Kurdish homeland are found in different states respectively. They are

2618
02:18:22,120 --> 02:18:26,240
Speaker 1: in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. In each of these states,

2619
02:18:26,640 --> 02:18:30,920
Speaker 1: Kurdish people represent a minority. Under the Assad regime in Syria,

2620
02:18:31,160 --> 02:18:34,080
Speaker 1: Syrian Kurds were stripped of their citizenship and forced out

2621
02:18:34,120 --> 02:18:35,879
Speaker 1: of their homes and what is known as the Arab

2622
02:18:35,920 --> 02:18:39,840
Speaker 1: Belt program. In Turkey, they've been bombed, banned from speaking

2623
02:18:39,879 --> 02:18:42,760
Speaker 1: their language, and even have their very existence denied by

2624
02:18:42,800 --> 02:18:46,240
Speaker 1: the state. In Iran, tens of thousands of Kurds were

2625
02:18:46,280 --> 02:18:48,800
Speaker 1: killed when they rose up for autonomy in nineteen seventy nine,

2626
02:18:48,840 --> 02:18:51,599
Speaker 1: and they still cannot teach their children in their own language.

2627
02:18:52,040 --> 02:18:56,240
Speaker 1: In Iraq, they were subjected to genocidal violence, chemical weapons,

2628
02:18:56,720 --> 02:18:59,560
Speaker 1: and the murder enforced Arabization of tens of thousands of

2629
02:18:59,680 --> 02:19:02,160
Speaker 1: Kurds what is known as the anphal If you ever

2630
02:19:02,200 --> 02:19:06,000
Speaker 1: find yourself in Solomania or Slimani as it's known in Kurdish,

2631
02:19:06,440 --> 02:19:09,280
Speaker 1: you can visit the incredible museum there, which documents a

2632
02:19:09,320 --> 02:19:11,920
Speaker 1: tortured history of the Kurdish people at the hands of

2633
02:19:11,920 --> 02:19:15,920
Speaker 1: the Iraqi state. It's a very moving place. On entering

2634
02:19:15,920 --> 02:19:18,680
Speaker 1: the museum, you'll walk through a hallway that's covered from

2635
02:19:18,680 --> 02:19:23,000
Speaker 1: floor to ceiling with broken pieces of mirrors. Each represents

2636
02:19:23,000 --> 02:19:26,760
Speaker 1: a life cut short during the Anphile. After this entrance,

2637
02:19:27,160 --> 02:19:30,520
Speaker 1: the first exhibit you'll see has a large sign that says,

2638
02:19:31,280 --> 02:19:33,879
Speaker 1: in those days, we had no friends but the mountains.

2639
02:19:35,160 --> 02:19:38,040
Speaker 1: It's an old and sometimes overused aphorism about the Kurds,

2640
02:19:38,120 --> 02:19:41,320
Speaker 1: but it's not untrue. In the mountains of southern Kurdistan.

2641
02:19:41,720 --> 02:19:44,959
Speaker 1: The Kurdistan Freedom Movement aims to liberate the Kurdish people

2642
02:19:45,040 --> 02:19:47,600
Speaker 1: from all four states and indeed from the state altogether,

2643
02:19:48,480 --> 02:19:50,440
Speaker 1: and it's in these mountains that's found a place where

2644
02:19:50,440 --> 02:19:54,160
Speaker 1: it could avoid state violence. The mountains of Kurdistan have

2645
02:19:54,280 --> 02:19:58,600
Speaker 1: long provided a safe place, and especially in recent years,

2646
02:19:58,680 --> 02:20:02,680
Speaker 1: the mountains of Iraqi curtiss done controlled by Bathet Talabani's

2647
02:20:02,720 --> 02:20:05,880
Speaker 1: Patriotic Union of Kurdis DAN, which shares power in the

2648
02:20:05,959 --> 02:20:09,760
Speaker 1: Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq with the Kurdistan Democratic Party

2649
02:20:10,080 --> 02:20:14,039
Speaker 1: headed by Masud Barzani. The Kurdish Freedom Movement that is

2650
02:20:14,080 --> 02:20:18,039
Speaker 1: the KSEYK has been able to exist largely without the state. This,

2651
02:20:18,200 --> 02:20:20,200
Speaker 1: of course, has always been unpopular in Anchor, and it

2652
02:20:20,240 --> 02:20:23,880
Speaker 1: didn't Baghdad. A recent offensive by Turkey seek not only

2653
02:20:24,000 --> 02:20:28,039
Speaker 1: to displace the PKK that's the Kurdistan Workers Party which

2654
02:20:28,080 --> 02:20:30,440
Speaker 1: is part of the k c K and its allies

2655
02:20:30,480 --> 02:20:33,760
Speaker 1: from the mountains, but also to extend their state control there.

2656
02:20:34,520 --> 02:20:34,680
Speaker 9: Now.

2657
02:20:35,280 --> 02:20:36,960
Speaker 1: I could go on find a diversion about James C.

2658
02:20:37,080 --> 02:20:39,320
Speaker 1: Scott here, but that's another episode that I'm working on,

2659
02:20:39,680 --> 02:20:43,880
Speaker 1: so I'll spare you instead. I asked Mohammed Hamasila, a

2660
02:20:44,000 --> 02:20:47,520
Speaker 1: Kurdish historian, to explain the impact of this latest round

2661
02:20:47,560 --> 02:20:50,400
Speaker 1: of aggression and how local people felt about it.

2662
02:20:50,680 --> 02:20:58,840
Speaker 12: People he had in the p K controlled area, what

2663
02:20:58,920 --> 02:21:03,879
Speaker 12: are even in could the son who who selves our

2664
02:21:03,959 --> 02:21:09,440
Speaker 12: sympathy with pick Ak sympathy with the sympathy so they

2665
02:21:09,640 --> 02:21:16,440
Speaker 12: see that that the really extra stuggle against an enemy

2666
02:21:16,560 --> 02:21:21,880
Speaker 12: went to invent the whole sun went to move Some

2667
02:21:22,200 --> 02:21:25,720
Speaker 12: want to burn the vocal stand is in my point

2668
02:21:25,760 --> 02:21:29,160
Speaker 12: of view, it's it's not that the case of of

2669
02:21:29,800 --> 02:21:33,520
Speaker 12: Peak a k of and there are there they have

2670
02:21:33,720 --> 02:21:37,360
Speaker 12: the same issue on the same stand with with with

2671
02:21:38,120 --> 02:21:45,360
Speaker 12: with the with the Sirian part of of star people

2672
02:21:45,840 --> 02:21:51,000
Speaker 12: here so especially getting one or not the pewty control.

2673
02:21:51,120 --> 02:21:51,600
Speaker 9: I think that.

2674
02:21:53,320 --> 02:21:57,080
Speaker 12: With the the struggle of Java, the struggle of of.

2675
02:21:58,760 --> 02:22:02,039
Speaker 9: And they did very issue.

2676
02:22:03,360 --> 02:22:10,560
Speaker 12: For their people and they have actually very concrete program

2677
02:22:11,400 --> 02:22:12,560
Speaker 12: for the future.

2678
02:22:12,920 --> 02:22:15,880
Speaker 1: Turkey, however, seeing the existence of the movement as a

2679
02:22:15,959 --> 02:22:18,880
Speaker 1: threat to its national security, has begun a campaign to

2680
02:22:18,920 --> 02:22:20,760
Speaker 1: eliminate the movement wherever it finds it.

2681
02:22:21,640 --> 02:22:21,880
Speaker 10: As M.

2682
02:22:21,920 --> 02:22:24,600
Speaker 1: Hubbard mentioned, the history of the Kurdish people in Turkey

2683
02:22:24,720 --> 02:22:27,200
Speaker 1: is one that's riddled with state of violence, and it's

2684
02:22:27,280 --> 02:22:29,960
Speaker 1: that which I want to discuss today. Turkey has long

2685
02:22:30,080 --> 02:22:33,280
Speaker 1: vacillated between the genocidal denial of the existence of Kurdish people,

2686
02:22:33,800 --> 02:22:35,920
Speaker 1: recognizing that they exist only in so far as it

2687
02:22:36,000 --> 02:22:38,879
Speaker 1: allows them to be targets for bombing. We could really

2688
02:22:38,920 --> 02:22:42,840
Speaker 1: start this history almost anywhere in the twentieth century. Indeed,

2689
02:22:43,160 --> 02:22:46,279
Speaker 1: following a series of suppressed rebellions, the entirety of northern

2690
02:22:46,360 --> 02:22:49,160
Speaker 1: Kurdistan was closed military area in which Turkey did not

2691
02:22:49,360 --> 02:22:52,160
Speaker 1: allow foreigners from nineteen twenty five to nineteen sixty five.

2692
02:22:53,000 --> 02:22:55,080
Speaker 1: But I want to start it just after a coup

2693
02:22:55,120 --> 02:22:59,040
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, when Abdullah Oujerlan had recently founded the

2694
02:22:59,120 --> 02:23:02,640
Speaker 1: PKK or Kerdistein Workers' Party and was beginning to view

2695
02:23:02,640 --> 02:23:05,800
Speaker 1: a vision of Kurdish liberation that was rooted in a Marxist,

2696
02:23:05,879 --> 02:23:10,000
Speaker 1: Leninist and socialist analysis and ideas of national liberation. Soon

2697
02:23:10,080 --> 02:23:13,080
Speaker 1: after the nineteen eighty coup, Turkey began to refer to

2698
02:23:13,120 --> 02:23:15,880
Speaker 1: the Kurds as Mountain Turks, and although it doesn't do

2699
02:23:15,959 --> 02:23:18,959
Speaker 1: this as much anymore, it did recently release school books

2700
02:23:19,000 --> 02:23:22,879
Speaker 1: in Diarbacere, a majority Kurdish region that made no reference

2701
02:23:22,920 --> 02:23:25,360
Speaker 1: to the Kurds or their language, and asserted that people

2702
02:23:25,440 --> 02:23:29,480
Speaker 1: that spoke a dialect of Turkish don't they speak Kurdish.

2703
02:23:30,720 --> 02:23:33,520
Speaker 1: It's this denial of their very existence. Zagreus told me

2704
02:23:33,879 --> 02:23:36,000
Speaker 1: they made the Kurdish Freedom Gorillas take up arms in

2705
02:23:36,080 --> 02:23:38,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, which is actually forty years ago yesterday.

2706
02:23:38,840 --> 02:23:40,240
Speaker 1: You're listening to this on the day it comes out.

2707
02:23:40,879 --> 02:23:47,040
Speaker 6: But after the military of nineteen eighty and the inhuman

2708
02:23:47,240 --> 02:23:53,160
Speaker 6: tortures in the notorious prison of the Arbaker Armed City,

2709
02:23:53,959 --> 02:23:59,000
Speaker 6: the movement embarked on a strategy of legitimate self defense

2710
02:23:59,120 --> 02:24:04,160
Speaker 6: and which manicure struggle against the Turkish state, starting from

2711
02:24:05,080 --> 02:24:07,520
Speaker 6: fifteen of August nineteen eighty four.

2712
02:24:08,040 --> 02:24:10,560
Speaker 1: Since then, there have been periods of ceasefire and periods

2713
02:24:10,600 --> 02:24:14,160
Speaker 1: of conflict, with tens of thousands of lives lost. Both

2714
02:24:14,240 --> 02:24:16,800
Speaker 1: sides have killed civilians as part of their attacks on

2715
02:24:16,879 --> 02:24:20,359
Speaker 1: the other. The most recent fire was signed in twenty thirteen,

2716
02:24:20,879 --> 02:24:24,280
Speaker 1: and as a result, the PKK began slowly withdrawing to

2717
02:24:24,360 --> 02:24:28,040
Speaker 1: the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. In twenty fifteen, when the

2718
02:24:28,160 --> 02:24:31,800
Speaker 1: Syrian Kurdish YPG and YPGA fighters were leading the battle

2719
02:24:31,800 --> 02:24:35,600
Speaker 1: against ISIS. Turkey broke the ceasefire between the PKK and

2720
02:24:35,640 --> 02:24:39,280
Speaker 1: itself began attacking the Kurdish fighters, forcing them into a

2721
02:24:39,360 --> 02:24:42,360
Speaker 1: war on two fronts. As far as Turkey is concerned,

2722
02:24:42,400 --> 02:24:49,080
Speaker 1: the YPG, YPJ, KCK, ybs in a Zed Areas and

2723
02:24:49,160 --> 02:24:52,320
Speaker 1: all other elements of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement are just

2724
02:24:52,400 --> 02:24:54,800
Speaker 1: different names for the PKK, which it considers to be

2725
02:24:54,879 --> 02:24:59,119
Speaker 1: a terrorist organization. Everyday life for Kurdish people in Turkey

2726
02:24:59,160 --> 02:25:02,400
Speaker 1: can be hard. I've spoken to hundreds, if not thousands

2727
02:25:02,440 --> 02:25:05,400
Speaker 1: of them in the last year, often sitting around fires

2728
02:25:05,440 --> 02:25:08,680
Speaker 1: in the mountains, working together to build wooden shelters for

2729
02:25:08,720 --> 02:25:11,400
Speaker 1: their children, or sharing the balls of beans that my

2730
02:25:11,480 --> 02:25:14,240
Speaker 1: friend's cooked because the state refused to feed the people

2731
02:25:14,320 --> 02:25:17,280
Speaker 1: it was detaining in the open air for days. These

2732
02:25:17,320 --> 02:25:21,320
Speaker 1: aren't conversations I recorded, because that wouldn't be safe. There's

2733
02:25:21,320 --> 02:25:24,080
Speaker 1: a very real danger of these folks not getting asilum

2734
02:25:24,360 --> 02:25:26,560
Speaker 1: and being sent back to a country where they've seen

2735
02:25:26,600 --> 02:25:30,800
Speaker 1: their friends murdered, their election results denied, their job applications

2736
02:25:30,840 --> 02:25:33,680
Speaker 1: thrown away, and their language suppressed. Having them on the

2737
02:25:33,720 --> 02:25:35,800
Speaker 1: record would be a huge risk to their safety. And

2738
02:25:36,680 --> 02:25:39,320
Speaker 1: not every interaction I have with people, even people I'm

2739
02:25:39,360 --> 02:25:41,600
Speaker 1: writing about, has she turned into content to go between

2740
02:25:41,640 --> 02:25:45,200
Speaker 1: the adverts. So sometimes I just do things because I

2741
02:25:45,320 --> 02:25:47,360
Speaker 1: like to do them. If you'd like to know more

2742
02:25:47,400 --> 02:25:49,440
Speaker 1: about these stories, you could find a link to a

2743
02:25:49,480 --> 02:25:51,480
Speaker 1: piece I wrote for the Kurdish Piece Institute in the

2744
02:25:51,520 --> 02:26:11,080
Speaker 1: show notes. Anyway, here's an ad break. The situation in

2745
02:26:11,160 --> 02:26:14,560
Speaker 1: Iraq is different. The Kurdish's an Actoma's region enjoys a

2746
02:26:14,600 --> 02:26:17,560
Speaker 1: great degree of autonomy from Baghdad. They're chiefly run by

2747
02:26:17,560 --> 02:26:21,560
Speaker 1: two parties, the KDP and the p UK. The KDP

2748
02:26:21,959 --> 02:26:24,600
Speaker 1: enjoys influence in a Bile or how La and Kurdish

2749
02:26:25,080 --> 02:26:28,080
Speaker 1: in Slomania. The p UK is in control. In these areas,

2750
02:26:28,480 --> 02:26:31,920
Speaker 1: especially those of the KDP, a more neoliberal vision of

2751
02:26:32,040 --> 02:26:35,560
Speaker 1: Kurdish identity is pursued. And how Laeri saw skyscrapers lit

2752
02:26:35,640 --> 02:26:38,680
Speaker 1: up all night, huge mansions, but also the whole areas

2753
02:26:38,680 --> 02:26:40,680
Speaker 1: of the city struggling to get by or sometimes not

2754
02:26:40,760 --> 02:26:43,640
Speaker 1: even having actives a year around water. The vision of

2755
02:26:43,720 --> 02:26:46,320
Speaker 1: Kurdish identity here is not a threatening to Turkey, and

2756
02:26:46,440 --> 02:26:48,480
Speaker 1: the KDP seems to take the line that the PKK

2757
02:26:48,720 --> 02:26:51,520
Speaker 1: or to keep it struggle within the Turkish borders. The

2758
02:26:51,640 --> 02:26:54,440
Speaker 1: p UK has been more sympathetic to the KDK. The

2759
02:26:54,520 --> 02:26:58,160
Speaker 1: PKK it's often in the mountains near Slamanian du Howk

2760
02:26:58,520 --> 02:27:02,040
Speaker 1: that Turkey targets Kurdish rillers and their infrastructure. For the

2761
02:27:02,120 --> 02:27:05,840
Speaker 1: last forty years, Turkey has remained extremely hostile to division

2762
02:27:05,879 --> 02:27:09,400
Speaker 1: of Curdish liberation, with the democratic and federal system that

2763
02:27:09,520 --> 02:27:12,640
Speaker 1: Ojerland and the movement that follows him have adopted. I

2764
02:27:12,760 --> 02:27:15,720
Speaker 1: asked Zagorros to explain the connection between the Kurdish struggling

2765
02:27:15,720 --> 02:27:18,280
Speaker 1: in North and East Syria, which many listens will probably

2766
02:27:18,320 --> 02:27:21,119
Speaker 1: be familiar with, and the element to the Kurdish freedom

2767
02:27:21,160 --> 02:27:23,280
Speaker 1: movement in other parts of Kurdistan, which they might not

2768
02:27:23,360 --> 02:27:26,680
Speaker 1: be familiar with, and I'll ask interview. I spoke to

2769
02:27:26,800 --> 02:27:29,480
Speaker 1: Zagros about history in Spain. Now it is history. To

2770
02:27:29,480 --> 02:27:32,360
Speaker 1: give me a history lesson. By the way, he calls

2771
02:27:32,360 --> 02:27:37,200
Speaker 1: the Ojilan leader appo here Raber appo in Kurdish, it's

2772
02:27:37,240 --> 02:27:40,400
Speaker 1: a common contraction that's used all over Kurdistan, and Appo

2773
02:27:40,520 --> 02:27:42,840
Speaker 1: is also the evocative form of the Commandji word for

2774
02:27:42,879 --> 02:27:43,720
Speaker 1: a paternal uncle.

2775
02:27:44,240 --> 02:27:48,800
Speaker 6: A leader uncle migrated to the Middle East. He migrated

2776
02:27:48,840 --> 02:27:53,240
Speaker 6: to Syria and Lebanon. I mean months before the military

2777
02:27:53,320 --> 02:27:57,040
Speaker 6: coup in Turkey is the military coup of nineteen eighty.

2778
02:27:58,400 --> 02:28:01,080
Speaker 6: He went there on his own. There was only one

2779
02:28:01,400 --> 02:28:06,800
Speaker 6: comrade with him. First he entered the city of Kogani

2780
02:28:07,560 --> 02:28:14,080
Speaker 6: and from the he found his way to Lebanon to Beirut.

2781
02:28:14,640 --> 02:28:18,080
Speaker 6: In Lebanon he made relations with the Palatinian groups. He

2782
02:28:18,240 --> 02:28:21,200
Speaker 6: even took part in the resistance of the Palastinian groups

2783
02:28:21,240 --> 02:28:26,480
Speaker 6: against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. For nearly twenty years,

2784
02:28:26,959 --> 02:28:30,480
Speaker 6: he waged the freedom of cruggle from Lebanon and Syria.

2785
02:28:31,120 --> 02:28:36,040
Speaker 6: In doing so, he educated, he trained, and organized the

2786
02:28:36,120 --> 02:28:41,520
Speaker 6: Kurdish people in Rajawa Kerkistan. In this sense, his struggle

2787
02:28:41,680 --> 02:28:47,240
Speaker 6: is twofold. First day. He developed self awareness in the

2788
02:28:47,280 --> 02:28:51,120
Speaker 6: people of Rajawa with regard to the natural and cultural identity,

2789
02:28:51,200 --> 02:28:56,040
Speaker 6: and brought the Rajawa people together, who had been divided

2790
02:28:56,120 --> 02:29:02,280
Speaker 6: by the many Arab builds and demographic change operations of

2791
02:29:02,440 --> 02:29:08,840
Speaker 6: the bath regime. All these organizational activities were done despite

2792
02:29:08,879 --> 02:29:12,720
Speaker 6: the Sudian regime, and he managed to run a delicate

2793
02:29:13,760 --> 02:29:18,760
Speaker 6: balance to foil the repressive measures of the Syrian regime.

2794
02:29:18,920 --> 02:29:22,640
Speaker 1: There I just interject here to explain these terms. Bath

2795
02:29:22,680 --> 02:29:25,480
Speaker 1: Is Syria and Haffazala Said and his son Bashi al

2796
02:29:25,480 --> 02:29:28,560
Speaker 1: A Said attempted to divide and deny the existence of

2797
02:29:28,600 --> 02:29:31,360
Speaker 1: the Kurdish people in many ways. Some of these included

2798
02:29:31,400 --> 02:29:35,360
Speaker 1: omitting them from censuses, denying them citizenship, prohibiting the public

2799
02:29:35,440 --> 02:29:38,600
Speaker 1: use of their language, and demographic transfers to installed belts

2800
02:29:38,640 --> 02:29:42,439
Speaker 1: of Arab people in areas that were majority Kurdish. Nonetheless,

2801
02:29:42,879 --> 02:29:45,800
Speaker 1: as I'd also saw benefit allowing the PKK to exist

2802
02:29:45,879 --> 02:29:48,840
Speaker 1: within his borders, especially in the parts of Lebanon that

2803
02:29:48,959 --> 02:29:51,600
Speaker 1: Syria occupied, in order to use them as a tool

2804
02:29:51,640 --> 02:29:52,520
Speaker 1: against other states.

2805
02:29:53,280 --> 02:29:58,480
Speaker 6: Secondly, he got this Nationally and culturally aware people of

2806
02:29:58,600 --> 02:30:05,280
Speaker 6: Rajena support the struggle in North Kydalstan. Therefore, thousands of

2807
02:30:05,840 --> 02:30:10,879
Speaker 6: Rajawa youth were first organized and educated in villages in cities,

2808
02:30:11,920 --> 02:30:15,840
Speaker 6: and then they joined the guerrilla struggle and fought in

2809
02:30:16,400 --> 02:30:22,520
Speaker 6: North Kandestan in Baku Kalistan. This struggle served to unite

2810
02:30:23,080 --> 02:30:29,640
Speaker 6: Rajawa and North Karalistan Baku Karalistan and developed shared national

2811
02:30:30,920 --> 02:30:37,560
Speaker 6: political awareness and attitudes. Thousands of Rojawa youth boys and

2812
02:30:37,760 --> 02:30:41,800
Speaker 6: girls film martyr in the ranks of the guerrilla struggle.

2813
02:30:42,840 --> 02:30:45,520
Speaker 6: Leader Apple tried to reach out to all cities, to

2814
02:30:45,640 --> 02:30:48,320
Speaker 6: all villages, to all families, and even to all individuals

2815
02:30:48,400 --> 02:30:54,240
Speaker 6: in Rojawa, Kedistan. This has created a strong national, social, cultural,

2816
02:30:55,240 --> 02:30:59,120
Speaker 6: and let's say, a philosophical point between Leader Apple and

2817
02:30:59,200 --> 02:31:04,080
Speaker 6: the Rajava people. And because a neglected and divided people

2818
02:31:04,640 --> 02:31:06,240
Speaker 6: had igunited around him.

2819
02:31:06,560 --> 02:31:08,920
Speaker 1: This isn't an episode about the entire history of the PKK,

2820
02:31:09,160 --> 02:31:11,680
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't be the person to write that, but

2821
02:31:12,080 --> 02:31:15,080
Speaker 1: I will attempt to speed run it here anyway. Up

2822
02:31:15,160 --> 02:31:18,119
Speaker 1: I was arrested in Arabia in nineteen ninety nine. Ever

2823
02:31:18,200 --> 02:31:20,840
Speaker 1: since then he's been held in prison, often without access

2824
02:31:20,879 --> 02:31:23,080
Speaker 1: to visitors or his lawyers, and at some points on

2825
02:31:23,160 --> 02:31:26,600
Speaker 1: an island where he was a solitary prisoner surrounded by hundreds,

2826
02:31:26,600 --> 02:31:29,720
Speaker 1: if not thousands, of guards. His human rights are almost

2827
02:31:29,840 --> 02:31:32,840
Speaker 1: universally knowledge to have been violated by this arrangement, and

2828
02:31:32,959 --> 02:31:36,920
Speaker 1: despite a quarter century of detention and Turkish moves towards Europe,

2829
02:31:37,360 --> 02:31:39,240
Speaker 1: there seems to be no willingness on a part of

2830
02:31:39,320 --> 02:31:42,000
Speaker 1: the Turkish state to release him. In his time in jail,

2831
02:31:42,360 --> 02:31:44,959
Speaker 1: he began to read more and correspond with many thinkers,

2832
02:31:45,080 --> 02:31:49,360
Speaker 1: including Murray Bookchin. Bookchin influenced his thinking a great deal,

2833
02:31:50,000 --> 02:31:53,600
Speaker 1: and gradually, through this and other influences, Arsland moved away

2834
02:31:53,640 --> 02:31:57,560
Speaker 1: from a Marxist Leninist analysis and national liberation goals and

2835
02:31:57,720 --> 02:32:02,160
Speaker 1: instead began to conceive feminist and ecological revolution that decentralized power,

2836
02:32:02,760 --> 02:32:05,040
Speaker 1: ensured all authority positions were shared by a man and

2837
02:32:05,080 --> 02:32:08,160
Speaker 1: a woman, and valued the environment as much or more

2838
02:32:08,240 --> 02:32:12,520
Speaker 1: than the economy. This libertaria left ideology came to be

2839
02:32:12,600 --> 02:32:16,000
Speaker 1: known as democratic confederalism, and it is a guiding ethos

2840
02:32:16,080 --> 02:32:18,360
Speaker 1: for Java and indeed the Casey Care as a whole.

2841
02:32:19,360 --> 02:32:21,800
Speaker 1: The civil war in Syria provided an opening that the

2842
02:32:21,879 --> 02:32:26,000
Speaker 1: Kurdistan Freedom movement took advantage of as ASAD forces withdrew

2843
02:32:26,040 --> 02:32:29,600
Speaker 1: from their regions to fight elsewhere. Didn't spring from the

2844
02:32:29,680 --> 02:32:33,119
Speaker 1: ground in twenty eleven, but instead they'd spent decades building

2845
02:32:33,160 --> 02:32:36,480
Speaker 1: a movement that they felt could replace the state. Today,

2846
02:32:36,560 --> 02:32:39,359
Speaker 1: millions of people live, work and play under a democratic

2847
02:32:39,400 --> 02:32:42,320
Speaker 1: confederist ideology in the Autonomous Area of North and East Syria,

2848
02:32:42,360 --> 02:32:45,640
Speaker 1: where it was last year. It's not paradise, but it's

2849
02:32:45,680 --> 02:32:48,800
Speaker 1: a special place, and by any metric, life there is

2850
02:32:48,840 --> 02:32:51,360
Speaker 1: better than in the rest of Syria. Right now. For

2851
02:32:51,440 --> 02:32:54,879
Speaker 1: over a decade, they've navigated a complex system of adversaries,

2852
02:32:55,040 --> 02:32:58,760
Speaker 1: including the Syrian State, the Islamic State, and the Turkish State.

2853
02:32:59,360 --> 02:33:01,560
Speaker 1: Just this week, all three of them have tried to

2854
02:33:01,640 --> 02:33:06,160
Speaker 1: attack Rajava. More than fifteen thousand people men and women

2855
02:33:06,760 --> 02:33:10,000
Speaker 1: have died in the decade long war against the Islamic State, which,

2856
02:33:10,400 --> 02:33:14,360
Speaker 1: contrary to much reporting, remains ongoing. I sexually car bombed

2857
02:33:14,360 --> 02:33:16,600
Speaker 1: a place not far from where I stayed last October

2858
02:33:17,160 --> 02:33:21,200
Speaker 1: after I'd come home. At times, the USA has supported

2859
02:33:21,240 --> 02:33:23,440
Speaker 1: the people of Vjavre in their battle against Islamic State,

2860
02:33:23,720 --> 02:33:26,240
Speaker 1: but it's also stood by as Turkish bombs fell on them.

2861
02:33:26,640 --> 02:33:29,240
Speaker 1: But though Rajava is by far the biggest territorial area

2862
02:33:29,280 --> 02:33:32,640
Speaker 1: which to democratic confederalism is in practice, much as a

2863
02:33:32,720 --> 02:33:35,440
Speaker 1: movement remains in the mountains of southern Kurdistan in what

2864
02:33:35,600 --> 02:33:38,960
Speaker 1: is technically Iraqi territory, there are many more Kurdish people

2865
02:33:39,000 --> 02:33:42,160
Speaker 1: in Turkey, and as a recent election results show, revolution

2866
02:33:42,240 --> 02:33:44,360
Speaker 1: by the ballot box is not really an option for them.

2867
02:33:45,000 --> 02:33:48,439
Speaker 1: Rajavre enjoys autonomy, but it is still very much ideologically

2868
02:33:48,520 --> 02:33:50,840
Speaker 1: twinned with the part of the movement that remains in

2869
02:33:50,879 --> 02:33:54,080
Speaker 1: the mountains and dedicated to its struggle against the Turkish state.

2870
02:33:55,000 --> 02:33:58,400
Speaker 1: Turkey in return, has crossed the border with Iraq to

2871
02:33:58,520 --> 02:34:01,959
Speaker 1: attack the KCK and anyone else you gets called the crossfire.

2872
02:34:02,920 --> 02:34:05,840
Speaker 1: As Gross explained, this is not new, but the recent

2873
02:34:05,959 --> 02:34:07,200
Speaker 1: change has been notable well.

2874
02:34:08,000 --> 02:34:14,040
Speaker 6: During the eighties, nineties and even after two thousand, the

2875
02:34:14,120 --> 02:34:19,959
Speaker 6: Turkish Army used to do military operations to the other

2876
02:34:20,080 --> 02:34:23,400
Speaker 6: side of the border into the Iraqi border for several months,

2877
02:34:24,240 --> 02:34:27,720
Speaker 6: to a draw back to the other side of the

2878
02:34:27,760 --> 02:34:33,520
Speaker 6: border to its own border afterwards after several months, and

2879
02:34:34,040 --> 02:34:38,560
Speaker 6: in that period it only had limited number of barracks

2880
02:34:38,600 --> 02:34:43,720
Speaker 6: and bases in the Iraqi and the Iraqi territory. The

2881
02:34:43,879 --> 02:34:48,280
Speaker 6: change now is that Teki has built a new military

2882
02:34:48,400 --> 02:34:54,480
Speaker 6: roads from Scratch to the Credit Sad region to northern Iraq.

2883
02:34:55,280 --> 02:34:58,840
Speaker 6: It has built more than one hundred big and small

2884
02:34:59,080 --> 02:35:03,480
Speaker 6: military basis barracks in the area and has no intention

2885
02:35:03,600 --> 02:35:07,360
Speaker 6: to withdraw. As I said, the ultimate goal is to

2886
02:35:08,400 --> 02:35:12,000
Speaker 6: is to annex all these lands to the Turkish territory.

2887
02:35:12,320 --> 02:35:16,160
Speaker 1: Today, Turkish troops can be found deep inside Iraq according

2888
02:35:16,200 --> 02:35:19,680
Speaker 1: to the Community Peacemaker teams. Since December of twenty seventeen,

2889
02:35:20,120 --> 02:35:23,320
Speaker 1: Turkish forces have built over forty bases anywhere from nine

2890
02:35:23,360 --> 02:35:26,560
Speaker 1: to twenty five kilometers into Iraqi, Kurdistan's territory south of

2891
02:35:26,600 --> 02:35:30,560
Speaker 1: its border end quote. They have dispatched hundreds of troops

2892
02:35:30,600 --> 02:35:34,200
Speaker 1: and military vehicles into another state, set up checkpoints, and

2893
02:35:34,320 --> 02:35:37,120
Speaker 1: even killed civilians a member of the Kig's military. The

2894
02:35:37,160 --> 02:35:43,560
Speaker 1: Peshmerga fighting has caused massive wildfires. For example, in Sagale village,

2895
02:35:43,640 --> 02:35:46,200
Speaker 1: about fifty five percent of the agricultural land has been

2896
02:35:46,280 --> 02:35:51,280
Speaker 1: burned by Turkish attacks. Incidentally, Turkish selling the Autonomous area

2897
02:35:51,360 --> 02:35:54,000
Speaker 1: of North and East Syria has also caused similar fires

2898
02:35:54,040 --> 02:35:57,640
Speaker 1: and destruction of crops in agricultural areas. The Kurdish freedom

2899
02:35:57,640 --> 02:36:00,959
Speaker 1: movement is very well established in the mountains southern Kurtis Down,

2900
02:36:01,520 --> 02:36:04,000
Speaker 1: where they live in tunnels and caves. These they're not

2901
02:36:04,160 --> 02:36:06,119
Speaker 1: caves of tunnels like you played in a little child.

2902
02:36:06,360 --> 02:36:10,280
Speaker 1: We're talking about villages underground. This makes tracking them very hard.

2903
02:36:10,840 --> 02:36:13,400
Speaker 1: As we heard another episode, many of the fighters said

2904
02:36:13,400 --> 02:36:16,800
Speaker 1: to Curtis Down as Syrian Arabs, repurposed by Turkey and

2905
02:36:16,879 --> 02:36:19,760
Speaker 1: ginned up on anti Kurdish sentiment. But this is perhaps

2906
02:36:19,800 --> 02:36:22,160
Speaker 1: the least concerning of the ways that the tunnels are

2907
02:36:22,200 --> 02:36:25,040
Speaker 1: being attacked. Zagros explained. Some of the other things that

2908
02:36:25,080 --> 02:36:25,800
Speaker 1: they've seen.

2909
02:36:26,240 --> 02:36:30,840
Speaker 6: Is that they use dogs. They tie explosives to the

2910
02:36:30,920 --> 02:36:34,160
Speaker 6: dogs and send the dogs into the tunnels and they

2911
02:36:34,360 --> 02:36:38,120
Speaker 6: explode the doves wire remote control.

2912
02:36:38,360 --> 02:36:40,840
Speaker 1: In addition to the dogs, he says that the Turkey

2913
02:36:40,879 --> 02:36:43,560
Speaker 1: state uses chemical weapons inside the tunnels, and they are

2914
02:36:43,560 --> 02:36:47,840
Speaker 1: also reports of suicide bombers deathonating themselves. The KTK also

2915
02:36:47,959 --> 02:36:52,279
Speaker 1: claims the Turkey uses thermobaric bombs sometimes called bunker busters,

2916
02:36:52,400 --> 02:36:55,000
Speaker 1: which create a huge pressure wave from subsequent vacuum.

2917
02:36:55,400 --> 02:36:59,360
Speaker 6: Also, they are using tenmobodic bombs. We have documented the

2918
02:36:59,440 --> 02:37:04,200
Speaker 6: use of these thermobotic bumps. There are remnants of these bumps.

2919
02:37:04,680 --> 02:37:08,240
Speaker 6: They are using thermobotic or vacuum bumps against the tunnels,

2920
02:37:09,160 --> 02:37:13,720
Speaker 6: and they are using some form of explosives which are

2921
02:37:14,760 --> 02:37:19,840
Speaker 6: more powerful than thermobotic bumps. Got some freedom grillas have

2922
02:37:19,920 --> 02:37:22,360
Speaker 6: developed literature for it because they do know what kind

2923
02:37:22,400 --> 02:37:25,080
Speaker 6: of explosive we did. But it has the effect of

2924
02:37:25,120 --> 02:37:29,280
Speaker 6: a nuclear bomb. We got some freedom grilla called nuclear bomb.

2925
02:37:30,320 --> 02:37:33,760
Speaker 6: They call it so because the effects are high are

2926
02:37:33,840 --> 02:37:36,800
Speaker 6: higher than the thermobotic bombs.

2927
02:37:37,280 --> 02:37:39,600
Speaker 1: I asked Mohammed to explain how people reacting to the

2928
02:37:39,680 --> 02:37:40,400
Speaker 1: current situation.

2929
02:37:41,320 --> 02:37:46,240
Speaker 12: You know, you know in some parts of I coul

2930
02:37:46,320 --> 02:37:52,279
Speaker 12: understand actually the areas under the control or the influence

2931
02:37:52,440 --> 02:37:59,720
Speaker 12: of CHA instead of KDP. And you know that people

2932
02:37:59,800 --> 02:38:03,520
Speaker 12: here have dislike this issue is like the Parson of

2933
02:38:03,720 --> 02:38:08,240
Speaker 12: Turkey to this area. It's not just in past telling

2934
02:38:08,360 --> 02:38:14,000
Speaker 12: people besides the Picaka elements and telling people and building

2935
02:38:14,600 --> 02:38:18,600
Speaker 12: the whole agricultural area and you know, so and so on.

2936
02:38:19,200 --> 02:38:21,480
Speaker 9: So it's kind of an inversion.

2937
02:38:21,640 --> 02:38:26,240
Speaker 12: And but here some people on forces in in the

2938
02:38:26,440 --> 02:38:30,520
Speaker 12: southern part of Kurdasa or you know, Iraqi for Dastan

2939
02:38:31,480 --> 02:38:36,520
Speaker 12: like the sympathy with the Picaky sympathy, okay, as they

2940
02:38:38,000 --> 02:38:44,680
Speaker 12: see that, they're so they're struggling against Turkey because if

2941
02:38:44,720 --> 02:38:46,680
Speaker 12: there is no big a gay, even there is no

2942
02:38:46,800 --> 02:38:52,360
Speaker 12: bigger gay, the Turkish forces will will not withdraw from

2943
02:38:52,480 --> 02:38:57,400
Speaker 12: Kutsa when it controlled, any area of iraqis to be

2944
02:38:57,560 --> 02:39:02,840
Speaker 12: saved or Southa, it will not withdraw. And it's it's

2945
02:39:03,000 --> 02:39:06,720
Speaker 12: excuse is speaker ky, But thanks so on Earth this

2946
02:39:07,440 --> 02:39:08,480
Speaker 12: telling something else.

2947
02:39:09,000 --> 02:39:12,320
Speaker 1: Despite what both my guests have seen as alienation of

2948
02:39:12,360 --> 02:39:16,000
Speaker 1: the local population, Turkey's continuing with its attacks. I asked

2949
02:39:16,040 --> 02:39:18,560
Speaker 1: aggress what do you thought the goals of this Turkish

2950
02:39:18,560 --> 02:39:19,600
Speaker 1: invasion of Iraqua.

2951
02:39:19,879 --> 02:39:24,440
Speaker 6: The invasion and annexation of these lens is the prime

2952
02:39:24,520 --> 02:39:30,680
Speaker 6: goal of Turkey. This goal is a long term goal

2953
02:39:31,760 --> 02:39:36,080
Speaker 6: of the Turkish state since it has been created after

2954
02:39:36,160 --> 02:39:42,640
Speaker 6: the Luzan Agreement. It has two aspects. Firstly, Turkey lays

2955
02:39:42,760 --> 02:39:48,119
Speaker 6: claim to what was once part of the Ottoman Empire

2956
02:39:48,680 --> 02:39:52,360
Speaker 6: one hundred years ago. Lays claims to the cities like

2957
02:39:52,520 --> 02:39:57,400
Speaker 6: Mussil and Kirkuk and claims that these these are lens

2958
02:39:57,520 --> 02:40:02,840
Speaker 6: of a Turkey. So the the invasion operation in the

2959
02:40:02,959 --> 02:40:06,680
Speaker 6: area of Batina isap in Matina and Avashin. In the

2960
02:40:06,800 --> 02:40:10,280
Speaker 6: areas around the cities of Armedia, Dea luxA and the Hook,

2961
02:40:11,160 --> 02:40:15,440
Speaker 6: there are attempts to take control of these mountainous areas

2962
02:40:16,200 --> 02:40:25,320
Speaker 6: and to materialize those long range goals. Turkey already has

2963
02:40:25,360 --> 02:40:30,360
Speaker 6: a has a big military base near Musul I think

2964
02:40:30,480 --> 02:40:33,280
Speaker 6: fifteen to twenty kilometers in northern Musuil. It is called

2965
02:40:33,280 --> 02:40:37,240
Speaker 6: the Bashika Base. So if Teki manages to invade all

2966
02:40:37,320 --> 02:40:40,880
Speaker 6: these areas in Badina I mean in the cities of

2967
02:40:41,280 --> 02:40:44,400
Speaker 6: the Hook, mountainous areas of the Hook, Turkey would be

2968
02:40:44,440 --> 02:40:49,880
Speaker 6: able to create a land bridge between these areas and

2969
02:40:50,800 --> 02:40:53,400
Speaker 6: its base in Musil, and it will be far easier

2970
02:40:53,560 --> 02:40:58,240
Speaker 6: for Turkey too. Let's say an ex city of Muslim

2971
02:40:58,240 --> 02:41:06,160
Speaker 6: and Kirkuktu It's lands. Secondly, Turkey has a long term

2972
02:41:06,400 --> 02:41:11,720
Speaker 6: goal of democratic demographic change in Kurdistan. As you know,

2973
02:41:11,840 --> 02:41:16,160
Speaker 6: Kurdistan is a land, the ancestral land of the Kurts,

2974
02:41:16,640 --> 02:41:21,280
Speaker 6: being divided between four countries Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria

2975
02:41:22,200 --> 02:41:25,680
Speaker 6: being divided by borders. People from one side of the

2976
02:41:25,760 --> 02:41:27,720
Speaker 6: border are Kurdish, put on the other side of the

2977
02:41:28,080 --> 02:41:32,959
Speaker 6: ark Kurdish. In many cases, the borderline go through the cities.

2978
02:41:33,040 --> 02:41:35,560
Speaker 6: They divide the cities. They have divided the villages. They

2979
02:41:35,600 --> 02:41:40,000
Speaker 6: have divided the tribes they have they have divided large populations.

2980
02:41:40,360 --> 02:41:43,640
Speaker 6: They have even divided families. This is one of the

2981
02:41:43,760 --> 02:41:45,600
Speaker 6: characteristic of the border in Kurdistan.

2982
02:41:45,959 --> 02:41:47,640
Speaker 1: In fact, Turkey has Pigan so I think of an

2983
02:41:47,640 --> 02:41:51,120
Speaker 1: Arab belt program is owned in Syria seeking to resettle

2984
02:41:51,160 --> 02:41:55,080
Speaker 1: Syrian refugees. Turkish backs Syrian anti government rebels in the area,

2985
02:41:55,200 --> 02:41:57,720
Speaker 1: so it took from Java in military operations over the

2986
02:41:57,840 --> 02:42:01,440
Speaker 1: last eight years. This is part of Turkey's plan to

2987
02:42:01,520 --> 02:42:04,040
Speaker 1: return as many as a million Syrian migrants to a

2988
02:42:04,080 --> 02:42:06,320
Speaker 1: country still in the grips of a brutal civil war,

2989
02:42:07,080 --> 02:42:09,720
Speaker 1: and pushed the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

2990
02:42:10,040 --> 02:42:14,400
Speaker 1: back from the Turkish borders or crush it altogether. For Turkey,

2991
02:42:14,520 --> 02:42:17,879
Speaker 1: there's no distinction between Java and the PKK, and thus

2992
02:42:17,959 --> 02:42:21,119
Speaker 1: Turkey claims the entirety of Ajava is a haven for terrorism.

2993
02:42:22,120 --> 02:42:25,760
Speaker 1: Many Kurdish fighters and international volunteers who fought Isis for

2994
02:42:25,920 --> 02:42:28,520
Speaker 1: years died fighting the Turkish army in a Frien and

2995
02:42:28,560 --> 02:42:31,000
Speaker 1: the many other territories at Turkey has expanded into since

2996
02:42:31,000 --> 02:42:34,200
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. The fighting there was fierce and saw the

2997
02:42:34,240 --> 02:42:37,560
Speaker 1: wig and the wipej the men's and women's armed forces

2998
02:42:37,680 --> 02:42:41,480
Speaker 1: of Rejava battling a NATO army with modern armor and

2999
02:42:41,600 --> 02:42:47,240
Speaker 1: modern airpower. After taking significant losses, they retreated and I

3000
02:42:47,280 --> 02:42:49,680
Speaker 1: asked Sagarus what this means for people living in a

3001
02:42:49,720 --> 02:42:52,720
Speaker 1: free who had just managed to return to some semblance

3002
02:42:52,760 --> 02:42:56,080
Speaker 1: of normalcy after Assad's forces left and attack from me

3003
02:42:56,160 --> 02:42:57,840
Speaker 1: on Nusra Front became less frequent.

3004
02:42:58,240 --> 02:43:02,480
Speaker 6: This is genocide. I'man forcing people to leave their lands

3005
02:43:02,680 --> 02:43:07,240
Speaker 6: and replacing those people with people which are not from

3006
02:43:07,360 --> 02:43:11,440
Speaker 6: that land. Forcing people to leave the ancestral land lands

3007
02:43:11,560 --> 02:43:14,880
Speaker 6: which they have lived on for thousands of years, for

3008
02:43:15,000 --> 02:43:20,080
Speaker 6: more than ten thousand years, and getting Arab Jihades Cheching

3009
02:43:20,160 --> 02:43:23,640
Speaker 6: jihadis to live in those areas, it is a genocide

3010
02:43:24,240 --> 02:43:28,520
Speaker 6: along with the ecocide which is now taking place. Thousands

3011
02:43:28,600 --> 02:43:33,520
Speaker 6: of hectares of forests of agricultural land are now burning.

3012
02:43:33,600 --> 02:43:38,600
Speaker 6: So what Turkey does is femicide, is ecoside, is genocide

3013
02:43:38,840 --> 02:43:43,200
Speaker 6: in Kurdistan and these let's say, what now happens to

3014
02:43:43,280 --> 02:43:45,680
Speaker 6: the curse is the same thing that happened to the

3015
02:43:45,879 --> 02:43:50,360
Speaker 6: Armenians one thousand years ago. The genocide of the Armenians

3016
02:43:51,040 --> 02:43:54,600
Speaker 6: was done by the people who had the same mentality

3017
02:43:54,720 --> 02:43:57,959
Speaker 6: and the same mindset of are the one I can say.

3018
02:43:58,120 --> 02:44:02,520
Speaker 6: So these areas are very strategic for the Kurds. They

3019
02:44:02,720 --> 02:44:07,000
Speaker 6: bind the four parts of Kurdistan together demographically. And now

3020
02:44:07,520 --> 02:44:15,360
Speaker 6: Arduan wants to draw a Jihadis buffer zone between these areas.

3021
02:44:16,959 --> 02:44:21,879
Speaker 6: If occurred from Syria wants to go to the Kurdistan

3022
02:44:22,280 --> 02:44:24,760
Speaker 6: under the invasion of Turkey, we call it North Kurdistan.

3023
02:44:25,560 --> 02:44:29,920
Speaker 6: He will have to go through cities and areas populated

3024
02:44:30,000 --> 02:44:33,360
Speaker 6: by Arab jihadists, by Chech and jihadists by Turkman jihadists

3025
02:44:34,200 --> 02:44:37,600
Speaker 6: by jihadists have been which have been collected from around

3026
02:44:37,640 --> 02:44:41,760
Speaker 6: the world. So this buffer zone, which is more than

3027
02:44:41,879 --> 02:44:46,560
Speaker 6: one thousand kilometers long according to Arduna's plan and thirty

3028
02:44:46,640 --> 02:44:52,040
Speaker 6: to forty kilometers wide, is expected to be inhabited to

3029
02:44:52,160 --> 02:44:58,560
Speaker 6: be settled by the Jahadis which Ardouan has gathered from

3030
02:44:59,040 --> 02:45:02,840
Speaker 6: x d ASH members ext not remembers Al Qaeda.

3031
02:45:15,440 --> 02:45:15,840
Speaker 2: At present.

3032
02:45:15,920 --> 02:45:19,119
Speaker 1: It's Turkish occupation. It's a situation in parts of Syria,

3033
02:45:19,640 --> 02:45:21,960
Speaker 1: but it's also increasingly becoming likely it will be the

3034
02:45:22,040 --> 02:45:24,840
Speaker 1: situation in parts of Iraq. This is often the case,

3035
02:45:25,440 --> 02:45:28,600
Speaker 1: say to trying to use divisions in Kurdistant to their advantage,

3036
02:45:29,000 --> 02:45:31,320
Speaker 1: and Turkey in particular is relying on the well worn

3037
02:45:31,400 --> 02:45:34,560
Speaker 1: excuse of counter terrorism to mount its incursions deep into

3038
02:45:34,600 --> 02:45:37,000
Speaker 1: a rock. Here's Mohammed explaining.

3039
02:45:36,600 --> 02:45:41,640
Speaker 12: That Pek is thinking like in such a way to

3040
02:45:41,760 --> 02:45:46,040
Speaker 12: support to support maybe pick again. They don't say orally

3041
02:45:46,120 --> 02:45:55,600
Speaker 12: that that thing, and KDP says that follow the instruction

3042
02:45:56,080 --> 02:46:02,800
Speaker 12: of Turkey and the actually here, the force an influence

3043
02:46:02,920 --> 02:46:07,880
Speaker 12: of Turkey and even Iran in the Buty controlled area

3044
02:46:08,680 --> 02:46:15,200
Speaker 12: is very strong and people here as people of the nation,

3045
02:46:16,520 --> 02:46:22,680
Speaker 12: I am not feeling comfort with such impassion such issues.

3046
02:46:23,120 --> 02:46:27,039
Speaker 12: So we are lot like the owner of our right

3047
02:46:27,360 --> 02:46:32,560
Speaker 12: decision in the area. So we're divided within Iran, Iran

3048
02:46:32,840 --> 02:46:36,040
Speaker 12: and Turkey and so on, so and we are not

3049
02:46:36,320 --> 02:46:41,800
Speaker 12: depending on our people. You know, thousands of people kill

3050
02:46:42,080 --> 02:46:50,160
Speaker 12: for the nation, analysts, you know, hopes and now people

3051
02:46:50,280 --> 02:46:56,160
Speaker 12: are frustrate with such such issues, with such situation.

3052
02:46:56,680 --> 02:46:58,760
Speaker 1: Mahmad also said that was really frustrating for him to

3053
02:46:58,800 --> 02:47:02,520
Speaker 1: see Curish politicians influence by the states that they've been

3054
02:47:02,560 --> 02:47:03,880
Speaker 1: trying to escape for a century.

3055
02:47:04,320 --> 02:47:08,640
Speaker 12: So we are here illustration from the north, Turkey, from

3056
02:47:08,720 --> 02:47:13,600
Speaker 12: the east, Iran, from the south, Iraq and all are

3057
02:47:13,720 --> 02:47:20,040
Speaker 12: they working that the people who pay thousands thousands of

3058
02:47:20,360 --> 02:47:24,200
Speaker 12: of of you know Martyr Souther and so of uh,

3059
02:47:25,120 --> 02:47:28,600
Speaker 12: you know, loss of the people. Why you are not

3060
02:47:29,600 --> 02:47:34,600
Speaker 12: depending on your will or the force of your people,

3061
02:47:35,280 --> 02:47:40,520
Speaker 12: Why you are became like like a feather, a feather

3062
02:47:41,840 --> 02:47:46,640
Speaker 12: to the to the windsor of so forth, which are

3063
02:47:47,160 --> 02:47:51,640
Speaker 12: not you're they're not your friends. Even in the east

3064
02:47:51,680 --> 02:47:55,600
Speaker 12: and the North and the south, there are not new

3065
02:47:56,120 --> 02:47:59,560
Speaker 12: But if you depend on your own people, on your

3066
02:47:59,680 --> 02:48:05,680
Speaker 12: own historical hard and we have you know, we have

3067
02:48:05,920 --> 02:48:09,120
Speaker 12: the legacy of this issue. We have the legacy of

3068
02:48:09,440 --> 02:48:12,320
Speaker 12: struggle in this area from nineteen sixstiers.

3069
02:48:13,160 --> 02:48:17,000
Speaker 1: Indeed, the evasion of southern Kurdistan would not be possible

3070
02:48:17,200 --> 02:48:21,040
Speaker 1: without the consent of both the Iraqi and Kurdistan regional authorities.

3071
02:48:21,720 --> 02:48:26,480
Speaker 1: Sagress mentioned. Turkish President Worship Type du One visited Baghdad

3072
02:48:26,640 --> 02:48:29,480
Speaker 1: on April the twenty second. This was his first visit

3073
02:48:29,520 --> 02:48:33,360
Speaker 1: to Iraq since twenty eleven. During the visit, Iraqan Turkey

3074
02:48:33,440 --> 02:48:36,720
Speaker 1: signed the Joint Security Agreement allowing Turkey to conduct military

3075
02:48:36,760 --> 02:48:42,240
Speaker 1: operations deep within Iraqi territory. In return, Iraqi received desperately

3076
02:48:42,320 --> 02:48:44,080
Speaker 1: needed water from Turkey and.

3077
02:48:44,160 --> 02:48:47,840
Speaker 6: Now in those areas, tens of thousands of Turkish troops,

3078
02:48:48,520 --> 02:48:53,160
Speaker 6: hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, drones, rods have been deproved

3079
02:48:53,200 --> 02:48:56,680
Speaker 6: to the area. They are active every day, and they

3080
02:48:56,760 --> 02:49:00,480
Speaker 6: are invading northern Iraq at a time and when the

3081
02:49:00,600 --> 02:49:05,360
Speaker 6: border guards of Iraqi Iraqi Army border guards are standing

3082
02:49:05,440 --> 02:49:10,280
Speaker 6: by and just watching. As you may know, as the

3083
02:49:10,320 --> 02:49:14,199
Speaker 6: result of the agreement between the Iraqi State and Turky State,

3084
02:49:15,080 --> 02:49:18,800
Speaker 6: Iraqi border guard forces, let's say they were decided to

3085
02:49:18,879 --> 02:49:23,160
Speaker 6: be sent to the Iraqi Turkish border but now these

3086
02:49:23,240 --> 02:49:27,320
Speaker 6: border guards are not under the Turkish Iraqi border. The

3087
02:49:27,400 --> 02:49:31,760
Speaker 6: border that we now these border guards have been deployed

3088
02:49:32,480 --> 02:49:37,440
Speaker 6: forty kilometers thirty kilometers deep into the Iraqi territory. They

3089
02:49:37,520 --> 02:49:40,680
Speaker 6: don't go to the border. They are guarding the invading

3090
02:49:40,720 --> 02:49:41,480
Speaker 6: Turkish army.

3091
02:49:41,720 --> 02:49:44,080
Speaker 1: For the people of the region, this means yet more

3092
02:49:44,160 --> 02:49:48,360
Speaker 1: trauma and more displacement. They're already more than one million

3093
02:49:48,440 --> 02:49:50,960
Speaker 1: displaced people in southern Kuristar. Some of them are living

3094
02:49:51,000 --> 02:49:54,520
Speaker 1: in pretty terrible conditions. I've seen those refugee camps when

3095
02:49:54,560 --> 02:49:58,600
Speaker 1: I was there last October, but these operations have created more.

3096
02:49:59,320 --> 02:50:03,360
Speaker 1: Here's just one anecdotic displacement shared by CPT on their website.

3097
02:50:03,920 --> 02:50:06,680
Speaker 13: We met a man named Kakbashir who had tried to

3098
02:50:06,680 --> 02:50:09,680
Speaker 13: build a cafe here. His dreams of a cafe had

3099
02:50:09,720 --> 02:50:12,840
Speaker 13: been shattered by Turkish artillery and small arms fire coming

3100
02:50:12,879 --> 02:50:16,040
Speaker 13: from the Turkish base on the hillside nearby. He was

3101
02:50:16,120 --> 02:50:19,400
Speaker 13: originally from Segedde village, but had been displaced to Ghani

3102
02:50:19,520 --> 02:50:22,880
Speaker 13: Village by the Turkish military five years ago due to

3103
02:50:22,959 --> 02:50:25,520
Speaker 13: the loss of his farm in Seagatee. He has planted

3104
02:50:25,600 --> 02:50:28,360
Speaker 13: some vegetables next to the side of his cafe He

3105
02:50:28,440 --> 02:50:31,280
Speaker 13: gave each CPT member some sweet basil and invited us

3106
02:50:31,320 --> 02:50:34,800
Speaker 13: to his village. When we arrived, a man dressed in

3107
02:50:34,920 --> 02:50:39,520
Speaker 13: immaculate traditional Kurdish clothes stood transfixed staring into the valley.

3108
02:50:40,360 --> 02:50:44,640
Speaker 13: He was staring at Mejia Village his home. Mijia is

3109
02:50:44,720 --> 02:50:47,200
Speaker 13: one of at least nine villages displaced by the recent

3110
02:50:47,240 --> 02:50:51,360
Speaker 13: Turkish operation. Kakbashir told us that displaced people from the

3111
02:50:51,480 --> 02:50:54,120
Speaker 13: valley would visit this place daily to gaze upon their

3112
02:50:54,160 --> 02:50:55,960
Speaker 13: cut off towns and farmland below.

3113
02:50:57,240 --> 02:51:00,080
Speaker 1: Despite month of shading embalming, the military trunk holds the

3114
02:51:00,160 --> 02:51:03,720
Speaker 1: Kurdistan Freedom Movement remain intact, and the more obvious damage

3115
02:51:03,720 --> 02:51:07,560
Speaker 1: has been done to civilians rather than military targets. The hPG,

3116
02:51:07,800 --> 02:51:10,320
Speaker 1: which is the fighting arm of the Bikka, has been

3117
02:51:10,360 --> 02:51:14,320
Speaker 1: able to obtain loitering anti aircraft munitions shut down several drones,

3118
02:51:14,760 --> 02:51:16,880
Speaker 1: but it's still unable to shoot down fighter jets like

3119
02:51:16,920 --> 02:51:19,680
Speaker 1: the US provided F sixteens to the currently bombing them.

3120
02:51:20,240 --> 02:51:23,360
Speaker 1: For civilians without mounting caves or tunnels to hide in.

3121
02:51:23,760 --> 02:51:26,440
Speaker 1: The impact is severe and people who have faced oppression

3122
02:51:26,480 --> 02:51:30,720
Speaker 1: and persecution from Saddam Hussein Isis, numerous other states and

3123
02:51:30,800 --> 02:51:34,480
Speaker 1: groups are now once again being displaced. I want to

3124
02:51:34,560 --> 02:51:36,800
Speaker 1: finish up with the end of Zagorro's message to me,

3125
02:51:37,440 --> 02:51:39,640
Speaker 1: in which he made a comparison with Palestine, like I

3126
02:51:39,800 --> 02:51:43,240
Speaker 1: did at the start on the day of thus intrude Zagros.

3127
02:51:43,440 --> 02:51:45,960
Speaker 1: Bombs made in the US had just been falling from

3128
02:51:46,000 --> 02:51:49,880
Speaker 1: Israeli planes on too civilians in Palestine again, and we

3129
02:51:50,000 --> 02:51:52,920
Speaker 1: discuss the fact that all the solutions being discussed hinged

3130
02:51:52,920 --> 02:51:55,840
Speaker 1: around the need for states, one state or two states

3131
02:51:55,959 --> 02:51:58,760
Speaker 1: to solve the problem. But this was a problem created

3132
02:51:58,840 --> 02:52:01,600
Speaker 1: by states, and it was state sending bombs to another

3133
02:52:01,640 --> 02:52:05,039
Speaker 1: state to drop on children. Both in Kurdistan and in Palestine.

3134
02:52:05,520 --> 02:52:08,960
Speaker 1: There was a problem. Here's a cross reflection on nearly

3135
02:52:09,040 --> 02:52:12,480
Speaker 1: ten months of bombing in Palestine and Kurdistan. And I

3136
02:52:12,600 --> 02:52:14,840
Speaker 1: just want to explain here that Abu Baka or Baghdadi

3137
02:52:14,920 --> 02:52:16,800
Speaker 1: was at one point the leader of ISIS. He's dead

3138
02:52:16,879 --> 02:52:20,080
Speaker 1: now and when he says Dash, he's referring to the

3139
02:52:20,240 --> 02:52:21,800
Speaker 1: former so called Islamic state.

3140
02:52:22,120 --> 02:52:26,320
Speaker 6: The struggle that is now waged in the mountains of

3141
02:52:26,840 --> 02:52:34,760
Speaker 6: Kurdistan against the invading Turkish army. It is a continuation

3142
02:52:35,200 --> 02:52:41,920
Speaker 6: of the struggle against Dash in Iraq and Assyria, because

3143
02:52:42,480 --> 02:52:48,080
Speaker 6: ideologically there is no difference between Ardovan and Abba Baghadadi.

3144
02:52:48,879 --> 02:52:53,320
Speaker 6: Baghdadi first took Musul, and now Aldovan wants to invade

3145
02:52:53,400 --> 02:52:59,840
Speaker 6: Mussul too. Aldowan attacks all those places which have been

3146
02:53:00,040 --> 02:53:05,240
Speaker 6: hubs of resistance against Dash. He attacks Sinjar, he attacks Kobani,

3147
02:53:05,320 --> 02:53:09,520
Speaker 6: He attacks Candil Mountains, which are the home of those

3148
02:53:09,640 --> 02:53:14,080
Speaker 6: who inspired and organized the fight against Aj. On the ground,

3149
02:53:16,320 --> 02:53:21,560
Speaker 6: Erdogan's army is Dash in native uniforms, in native fatigues.

3150
02:53:22,760 --> 02:53:27,360
Speaker 6: In recent days, Arduan accuses Natenno of committing genocide against

3151
02:53:27,400 --> 02:53:32,760
Speaker 6: the Palacinians. Ntenno also accuses Erdogan of committing genocide against

3152
02:53:32,800 --> 02:53:36,800
Speaker 6: the Kurts. In fact, what these two men say against

3153
02:53:36,800 --> 02:53:41,560
Speaker 6: each other is is, to some extent right, both of

3154
02:53:41,680 --> 02:53:45,240
Speaker 6: them have been commissioned by the forces of capitalist modernity

3155
02:53:45,920 --> 02:53:51,480
Speaker 6: to eliminate two people, to eliminate the Curs and the Palatinians.

3156
02:53:53,080 --> 02:53:57,680
Speaker 6: What n'itanejo does against the Palacinians is exactly what Erdoonan

3157
02:53:57,920 --> 02:54:02,040
Speaker 6: is doing against the Kurts. What is needed is to

3158
02:54:02,280 --> 02:54:06,160
Speaker 6: draw the attention of the world's public opinion to the

3159
02:54:06,240 --> 02:54:11,720
Speaker 6: atrocities of Dugan's regime and the genocidal and ecosidal crimes

3160
02:54:11,800 --> 02:54:16,400
Speaker 6: he commits against the Kurdish people and their land, which

3161
02:54:16,480 --> 02:54:22,560
Speaker 6: is Kurdistan. The struggle in Palestine and Kurdistan are one struggle,

3162
02:54:22,800 --> 02:54:27,720
Speaker 6: the struggle of two people against genocide and examination. Both

3163
02:54:27,760 --> 02:54:32,560
Speaker 6: struggle needs support from the youth, from the women all

3164
02:54:32,600 --> 02:54:39,279
Speaker 6: around the world, from democratic forces, from intellectuals, students, unions, workers,

3165
02:54:39,560 --> 02:54:43,720
Speaker 6: from all people. People need to be united against Ardowan

3166
02:54:43,800 --> 02:54:47,400
Speaker 6: as they were united against Dash, as they are now

3167
02:54:47,520 --> 02:54:52,480
Speaker 6: united against the genocidal attacks in Palestine. The Turkish regime

3168
02:54:53,640 --> 02:54:57,760
Speaker 6: can be protested everywhere in many ways. Turkish goods and

3169
02:54:58,040 --> 02:55:02,240
Speaker 6: commodities can be boycotted because they are the source of

3170
02:55:02,360 --> 02:55:07,680
Speaker 6: funds for Ardowan's war machine, for Ardowan's genocidal army. The

3171
02:55:07,680 --> 02:55:11,040
Speaker 6: delegations can be formed and they can come to visit

3172
02:55:11,120 --> 02:55:13,720
Speaker 6: Kurdistan and see with their own eyes the extent of

3173
02:55:14,120 --> 02:55:19,280
Speaker 6: ecoside and genocide in Kurdistan. Free journalists can shed more

3174
02:55:19,400 --> 02:55:24,879
Speaker 6: light on the atrocities of Aardovan in Kurdistan. Revolutionary youth,

3175
02:55:25,040 --> 02:55:29,200
Speaker 6: revolutionary people, men and women can come and join the

3176
02:55:29,320 --> 02:55:33,280
Speaker 6: struggle in the mountains of Kurdistan. Kurdistan is your home.

3177
02:55:38,600 --> 02:55:41,720
Speaker 2: Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week

3178
02:55:41,840 --> 02:55:43,680
Speaker 2: from now until the heat death of the universe.

3179
02:55:44,800 --> 02:55:47,120
Speaker 3: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

3180
02:55:47,360 --> 02:55:50,000
Speaker 9: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

3181
02:55:50,080 --> 02:55:52,240
Speaker 9: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

3182
02:55:52,320 --> 02:55:55,720
Speaker 9: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

3183
02:55:56,360 --> 02:55:58,400
Speaker 9: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated

3184
02:55:58,520 --> 02:56:01,520
Speaker 9: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources.

3185
02:56:01,720 --> 02:56:02,520
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.