WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 73 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.359 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.360 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.240 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.760 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.680 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.520 there's got to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:27.480 you can make your own decisions. The sun never sets 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.840 on the British Empire because God doesn't trust the British 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.440 in the dark. Welcome to It could happen here a 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.000 podcast at hold. So the only good American tradition is 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.080 rebellion against the British. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.080 today we're gonna be talking about the happenings in their 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:47.120 perfidious Albion. Joining me live from one of the most 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.920 accursed states currently in existence is Sophie from Mars, the 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.520 co host of Red Planet a week you Leftist Brown Table, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.360 who does many other wonderful things that involve anarchism and 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.720 organizing and stuff. Sophie, how how are you? How are 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.920 you hanging in there in this sort of incusingly failed 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.520 state in the very good. That was a very good introduction. 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:09.800 I do think that Britain is largely out of God's 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.160 sight and by consequence, outside of his love. So I 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.640 think he summed it up pretty well. I mean, I'm okay. 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.160 I had an experience to minor hate crime today, so 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.200 it's another normal day of being a trans person in 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.560 the UK. Some guy tried to film me on his 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.760 phone and I was like, hey, I can see that 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.640 you're filming me, and he didn't like argue you and 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.440 be like no I wasn't, so I know that he was. 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.600 It was very cool. Yeah, yeah, Turf Turf Island continues 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.680 to be incredibly normal. And by incredible normal, I mean this. Look. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.039 Look at the at the end of World War Two, 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.800 lots of states were divided into pieces. The UK should 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:47.920 have been one of them. I hold, but on it now, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.760 Oh that's true. I mean trans people, we are working 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.240 on destroying of the Union. Yeah, this is this is 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.880 all bad. It created incredible stuff coming. I really thought 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.560 it was going to be Brexit, that that final we destroyed. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.840 He had a kingdom and of trans people that finally 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.200 did it. Truly incredible stuff. So you want to ask 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:14.480 me what it's like to be British, you know, Okay, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.360 So I well, I mean, should we both do like 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:19.720 accents for this one? Should we should we both feel like, 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:25.080 oh my governor, let's rumphy, So what eo pie and 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:32.440 smashed peas? Oh okay? So I okay. You know, I 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.960 spent some time looking at like sort of British export 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.040 charts and like as much stuff in the British economy, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.919 and none of them at any point had Britain's chief export, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.680 which is jokes about Britain. No I no, no, no, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.239 wondering your economies and shamboos. Export is like white supremacist 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.040 war crimes. That's true. But the thing is like they're 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.040 they're they're the UKs of like ability to export white 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.639 supremacist war crimes is at an all time low. It's 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.440 kind of like it. It's really funny. I was in Armenia, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.560 like fairly recently for sagery, and I went to a 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.239 talk by someone who like used to work in DC 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.040 and I worked with the Armenian government, and they were 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.880 talking about like how what kind of external support they 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.240 could expect for like the conflict without as a baishan, 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.840 and someone brought up Britain and he was just like, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.959 Britain's not really a player on the international stage any Yeah, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.079 it's it's not that funny, but it's kind of like 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.520 a sign of what the UK actually is now, which 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.600 is since you also at eleven, the British were like 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.320 one of the first people who decided they were going 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.680 to bomb Godoffy. But the problem is the British, the 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.640 British like air Force was capable of dropping of doing 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.720 like maybe like three or four bombing runs before they 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.320 just straight up ran out of fuel. And the whole 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:50.760 thing was like they like they had to draw the 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:52.960 U West in because the British no longer like had 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.720 they had like actual build chair capability to do imperialism anymore. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.200 So I think things are think think things are not 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.960 great in the in the sort of white supremacy factory. 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.040 We really we have reached like a really bizarre point 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.520 where our ruling class is divided. Like um, the whole 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.720 story of like the Dullest Brothers and the creation of 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.240 the CIA is like we are going through that inner 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:14.960 of us at this point. But we've had one of 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.440 the most interventionist histories of any country ever and now 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.760 our ruling class is divided between we should carry on 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.279 doing interventionism because it benefits us to be the worst, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.280 most ghoulish, vampiric country conceivable, and we shouldn't do that 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.800 because it costs money. And why are we spending money 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:37.599 on brown people? Yeah, which just two terrible possessions, baffling out. Yeah, 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.120 it's it's fun, it's it's it's it's a good time 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.760 in the UK. So, you know, speaking of speaking of 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:45.800 it being a good time with the UK, I so 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.680 I saw, I've seen this before and I didn't like, 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:50.600 I didn't quite believe it. And I look at the 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.080 numbers and we were talking about this a bit before 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.320 we got on, but it looks like the UK right 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.520 now is pet projected economic performance is worse than Rusha's, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.680 which is incredible because that is a country that is 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.760 like under just unbelievably debilitating sanctions and is also like 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.839 losing a war. And the UK's economy is more fucked 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.080 than a country that he's being shot with missiles. Like wow, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.800 I mean we are we we are also losing a war, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.160 but it's it's a war of ideas, that's true. So yeah, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.680 I think I think we should probably when when When 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.880 When when we last left the United Kingdom on this show. 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:33.000 I think it was I think Liz Trust had just 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.360 been overthrown and we were now on UK is no 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:42.360 one what their second consecutive unelected prime minister? So no, no, Mia, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.360 Mia a second consecutive Oh no, right, because I never no, no, no, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.760 no no. They elected Boris Johnson. Right, So this is 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:50.640 this is a good place to stop. This is a 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.960 really good place to stop. Since Tony Blair, we haven't 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.839 had a Prime minister who we elected to into power 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.560 like no, sorry, since David Cameron. We did actually elect 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.960 David Cameron, but kind but only kind of like kind 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.920 of maybe so like we had we had Blair, who 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.560 is terrible and is worth getting into for a whole 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.280 discussion in a minute. And then we had Brown who 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.680 was his chancellor so kind of like vice president who 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.120 stepped in and then he lost to Cameron. Only Cameron 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:24.760 like had a coalition. That's why I say it's like 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.120 it's kind of yeah, he had the Lib Dem thing, 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.840 and the Lib Dems decided to literally go back and 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.240 everything that's ever done and the main so the main 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:35.840 thing that was happening with the Lib Dems was they 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.640 promised to protect student loan prices from going up, and 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.520 like they had got massive support from young people and 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.680 anyone who can see why it's good to be able 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:49.279 to offer young people an education, especially because like Blair 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:54.240 had this big famous speech where he was like education, education, education, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.720 that's my excellent Tony Blair impression. Um he um. And 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.560 and that's also worth getting into as a it's a 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.800 very multifaceted level of parasitic fuckery his whole education thing. 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.320 But because he had focused on education, loads of people 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.320 were really passionate about it. And then the Lib Dems 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.640 were like, we're going to stop them from making university 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.560 fees nine thousand pounds a year, and that was what 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:20.840 got the Lib Dems an enormous amount of the vote, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.400 and then they made a coalition with the Tories and 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.880 then immediately went back on it and made it. And 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.160 that's why my student loans are ridiculous. Even though I 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.920 dropped out, My student loans are higher than my partners 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.240 and I dropped out in my second year and she 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.960 dropped out after doing like six years of the same 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.720 degree because she had the lower fee, but I am. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.240 So then there was Cameron again, but without the lib 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.120 Dems because everyone's sick of them, a no onimal level 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.320 of them. Ever, again, the lib Dems are just a 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.080 funny side story. There are lots of like funny and 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.520 cringe side stories in British electoral politics, where like it 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.840 doesn't matter that much because they'll never get into power, 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.480 but like the succession of absolute like clowns who've been 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.480 in charge of this party or that party just is 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.800 really funny. Like the lib Dems have had a homophobe, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.240 but they had Nick Klagg. Then they had a homophobe 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.200 who said that being gay was a sin, and they 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.960 had someone called Joe what she called Swanson, Yeah, I 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.280 think I think that's sw Swinson something like this, and 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.960 she started talking this incredible like neoliberal like if you've 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.280 ever seen the thick of it, like shed She sounded 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:28.560 like a character from the thick of it. She was 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.800 talking about like people having skills, wallets and shit like this. 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.000 She also, I think killed a squirrel. There was a 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.520 whole thing about that. Boy. Then you know, analogously, there's 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.120 like the Communist Party of Great Britain, which I hope 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.000 to get into elated because that is a fascinating story. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.600 But anyway, the Tory party is the one that matters 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.560 the most for now. So we had Cameron, then who 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.640 do we have Theresa May? Because Cameron bet big on 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.480 us not voting for Brexit, and then Nigel Farage and 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.920 Boris Johnson et cetera came in and were like save 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.880 the NHS migrants blah blah blah, and then we voted 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.920 for Brexit. So then we had Theresa May by default 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:07.880 because Cameron had left. So this is what I mean that, 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.360 like the Tory potty has this ongoing strategy of just 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.120 like swapping someone in and then like calling a general 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.599 election really soon afterwards, and the incumbent's gonna win. So 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.560 it's like, I don't consider that to be like someone 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.280 winning an election if they're already in through rap fockery. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.360 Although I feel I feel like it's it's still slow. 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.480 At least there was an election for them, which is 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.440 more of what's happening now. Yeah, it's it's definitely devolved, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.080 like it's definitely gotten worse, but like I think we're 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:42.000 on like the seventh by my account, But like, yeah, 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.920 it was like Cameron, then then May, then Boris Johnson 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.960 and then sorry, yes bars Johnson and then Liz Trust 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.000 and now it's uh Sunac, because like, can I get 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.640 them the wrong way around anyway? Nonac literally didn't have 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.920 an opposition in the Tory Party leadership election, like he 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.160 won by default. It's that That's how dire it's gotten. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.439 Like they wanted Boris Johnson to come back and try again, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.280 and he decided he wasn't going to bother and because 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.319 of that, there was no one to run against Sunac, 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:21.240 so he just won by default. Stuff. Yeah and okay, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.719 so and Sunac's the fascinating character as well, because like 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.880 he is incredibly green and I don't mean environmentalists, I 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.199 mean like he knows fucking nothing and he's currently going 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.280 through this like there's there was a measurable phenomenon with 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.800 David Cameron where he was really naive and he went 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:37.640 through the neoliberal thing of being like I'm going to 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.920 cut the red tape. Oh no, that's not working. I 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:44.000 need massively authoritarian policies. Oh no, that's not working. Maybe 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:46.360 this is a flawed ideology and just like just towards 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.559 the end of his term he was like, maybe this 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.240 isn't working, and then they get rid of him. Sunac 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.920 is currently like very firmly in the stage of like 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.760 trying to do as much libertarianism as possible and realizing 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.040 that the state can only do libertarianism if they also 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.920 as authoritarian as possible. Yeah, and I think, you know, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:07.719 I was going to get this in a bit, but 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:09.400 I think that there's a couple of things have been 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.640 happening simultaneously. One is that like, okay, so we had 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.920 there there there there was. There was the incredibly brief 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.520 phenomenon of trusts an omics of like there are the 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:25.599 British is attempt to like like actually really sort of 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.120 I don't even know it's like because because British politics 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.920 is always neoliberal, but like, dude, dude, do do a 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.200 kind of neoliberalism that like no, no nobody has seen 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.000 since Like I saw people conscribing it as like trying 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.959 to do reagan Omics about the dollar. But I think 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.120 it's actually stupider than that, because like eight, there are 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.000 there aren't places where you could conceivably pull off reagan 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.719 Omics about the dollar, right, but like you have to 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.960 have like kind of an economy, which is the thing 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.240 the UK no longer has after they shot themselves in 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.240 the foot, Like one thousand times with Bregsit. Yeah, um, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.400 let's trust published like a plan for what she was 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.800 gonna do in terms of economic reforms, and it crashed 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.839 the pound unbelievably, like just just like people not even 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.360 the plan, like not even the policies being implemented. People 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:18.960 sold the plan and the pound like hobbed in value overnight. Yeah, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.840 And like I there is stuff that I have seen, 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.319 like like in the wake of trusts anomics and in 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.120 the wake of like sort of rec stuartrac attempting to 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.480 piece together like even sort of functional government that like 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.040 I never thought I would see, Like I I mean, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.760 I guess I had seen the IMF saying hold on, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.480 you have to stop doing lesterity before, but like I 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.280 didn't think i'd see that for the about the UK. No, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.800 it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Like the other thing that I've 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.319 seen that's just genuinely like I can't believe is I've 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.719 seen mainstream newspaper outlets pretty things about the economy that 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.240 you were just not allowed to say. Like I have 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.439 seen mainstream newspapers admit that economic growth was actually better 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.000 in the inflation racked in class war torn seventies, and 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.240 it is now which is like that is like this 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.320 single thing you were not allowed to say at all 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.880 of economics because if if you, if, if you actually 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.520 pull out the growth rate chart and point out that 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.400 economic growth was actually better in the seventies and it 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.440 wasn't any successive decade. I everyone immediately shoots you because 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.480 that because you know you can prove and what you 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.959 can prove in one chart that doesn't order in the 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.120 media class in the UK. And you point out that, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.679 like the seventies was by any metric better than now, 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.040 you are no longer invited to the eyes wide shot 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.200 potties where you can like suck and fuck Boss Johnson, 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.040 and that is like the highest privilege in British society. 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:40.960 So you obviously want that. Yeah you can, you can, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:42.760 you can, you can no longer fuck the pig. I 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:47.959 think things of this nature because bed Room quickly was 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.640 interviewed and he it was like front page kiss Tama 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.120 saying I would kiss a Tori, and I just shed it, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.280 being like, look, we already know David Cameron fucked a pig. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.559 Yeah god Sama saying he would kiss the Tory is 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:06.000 just yeah, that's just a cherry on top. Yeah, So okay, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.280 I want to ask a little bit about what is 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.160 going on in the in the in the British economy, 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.400 because I have spent some time attempting to figure out 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.160 what the fuck even is the British economy and as 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.480 as as best I've been able to determine, it produces, okay, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.840 produces financial quote unquote financial services, which seems to be 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.360 the UK sort of polite euphanism for doing money laundering 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.560 for like both the regular bourdoisie and for this enormous 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.480 class of like kleptocrats and petrol oligarchs who like get 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.840 their money by extracting it directly from the state. Yeah. Um, 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.000 it seems like that. It seems like you have that layer, 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.600 you're the layer below them, who are just like somehow 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.400 more landlords per capita than exists in like any other 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.040 place that has ever existed. And then below that there's 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.160 this quote unquote service economy thing. Yeah. I think you're 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.640 getting it. I think you're pretty much getting it. I think, okay, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.520 there are two sides to British politics. This this economic 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.680 one that you're pointing out, which is, like, let me 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.480 put a pin in the economics right that the economy 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.200 of the UK is unbelievable and if we'll get to 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:08.840 it in a second. And then there's the like the 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.960 the electoral politics that they try to like that is 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.680 just a fast to try to like keep people from 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.760 ever looking too closely at the economics, like ever looking 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.280 with a sensible lens of the economics. The electoral politics 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.600 is just like eternal war on a set of marginalized communities, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.400 young people, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, sex workers, trans people, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:39.840 black and minority ethic Britain's the GT community travelers enormously 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.240 Like that was something that like a lot of people 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.960 thought that like New Labor under Blair was like so 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.520 progressive and was like ending races. It was a big 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.680 like Obama adjacent moment for us and like, but they 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.920 were horribly racist to travelers and that's escalated in recent 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.560 years to like if people are familiar with the police 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:01.680 Crimes Sentencing in Courts bill, like that got somewhat defanged, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.880 but like one of the worst parts of the bill 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.040 still got through was just like ending the right to Rome, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.600 which is effectively just a genocide against travelers. YEA. When 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.440 I mentioned sex workers, like a lot of British sex 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.320 workers are pushing for any kind of legal reform that 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.760 would be better. But like our most progressive politician like 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.640 Jeremy Corbyn literally like still supports the Nordic model like 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:29.560 it's um, it's a nightmare. Um. Socially, the political side 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:31.480 of that, the social side of the politics in the 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.800 UK is just war on as I say, like dividing 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:40.040 up the entire population into marginalized groups forever eternally, like 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.080 saving this idea of like the blue collar working class 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.520 white man who also earns like eighty thousand pounds a year, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.000 and and that's the that's the ideal voter, even though 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.320 that's no one. Um. And then there's the economics. Okay, 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.120 so the and all of that is a smoke screen 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.520 for the economics. So like you said, um, lowest level, 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.440 there's the service economy, because we, like the rest of 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.440 the Imperial Corps, exported all our industrial stuff to the 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:13.320 imperial periphery. When our industrial sectors got unionized, we are 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.840 now a service economy. So practically all jobs in the 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.440 UK are poor people providing some kind of service for 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:24.560 rich people. Um. Then like you say, there's the landlords 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.600 above that we have we have a wild time with landlords, 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:30.600 and that there is there is a plus sight to that, 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.800 which is that that like our tenants unions are fantastic, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.720 Like we have we have such a boom in tenants unions. 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.200 I've been interviewing activists and organizers for a couple of 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.959 years now, and in the US, you guys are doing 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.520 okay with tenants unions. You've got a bigger challenge because 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.320 pop shop with guns to evict people. So that is like, 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.439 that is a crazy time. But like we have such bigger, 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.520 stronger tenants unions and like I think the possibility of 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.840 something like a full scale rent strike happening in the 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:02.920 UK is actually pretty like pretty feasible. Um, the US 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.159 just don't like get that shit. Like I I had 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.200 when back back, back, back back when, back when I 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.720 was an incredibly naive youth. Most in the DSA we 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.080 had an entire like massive battle in my chapter about 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.920 whether about whether we should do tennis organizing, and I 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:18.680 was on the side of, well, yeah, obviously we should, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.200 we should do. I'm like I had one of the 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.160 fucking Chicago DSA leadership people like in in this meeting 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.080 said to my face and I quote, how how does 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:33.120 building tennis unions build working class power. What what these 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.720 people are? Clowns absolute clowns. I just like every every 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.040 every time they walk down the street, their giant noses 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.000 go hog like a clown. I'm not I'm not gonna 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.200 be in. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna engage in 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.720 anti clowns flan here. I I do not. I think 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.920 it's very unfair on clowns to get fathom to the DS. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.760 That's true. That's um I got. That's soling Paradise where 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.280 she says like, I don't want to be the head 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:00.960 of the local D say chapter, I just want to 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.520 be on the Digimon the movie soundtrack. I'm like, fuck yes, 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:11.480 okay speak speaking of the Digimon the Movie soundtrack, very nice, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.320 very nice. Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe we'll get sponsored 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.440 by by by Digimon the movie. That was Maybe that 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.880 hasn't add for Digimon the movie. Yeah, yeah, I hope 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.840 it's it's gonna be fucking gold again or like we're 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.240 please okay, just like once again, other we have talked 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.240 about this on multiple shows. Now please stop dmning other 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.720 Sophie about about about the stupid gold ads. We know 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:42.560 they're there. Which way, Yeah, dope, buy gold. Yeah, and 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:44.840 we're back. I hope you would. I hope, I hope 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.560 you now went to digimond Uh. They got they they 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.080 got little monsters to turn into things with giant guns 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.320 bombed with digimon. The movie ADS has reshaped your brain 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:01.320 to the high consciousness digimon consciousness. Um, let's talk about 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.760 financial services. You mentioned this very briefly, but this is 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.840 actually so like, Okay, most people in the UK working 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.920 in like fucking Uber or like deliveru or some other 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:22.440 nightmarish service sector job. Then there's the petty bourgeois who 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.320 are so overwhelmingly landlords now and then and then there 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.080 are mega landlords. We have a ton of like mega 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.080 landlords who. Something really insidious about that, by the way, 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.240 is that we have a lot of like housing associations 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:34.840 that have claimed to be like for the good of 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.400 the tenant and claimed to be like socially progressive trying 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.960 to help people out, and they actually own like thousands 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:44.520 of properties, and like there are people with like through 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.600 the Tenants Union. My partner knows someone who it was 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.640 like raining in her flat because the leaks were so bad. 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:52.640 It was like rain indoors and she had like black 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:54.920 mold and then off her lights are working and that 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.800 was like that was a housing association. They are some 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.000 of the worst landlords. And then above them, the UK 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.240 is running one of the biggest money laundering operations in 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:10.000 the world, maybe the biggest I think it's don't I 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.000 don't know, like maybe maybe I don't. I don't even 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.760 I don't even think like the Cayman Islands or like 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.240 or the Bahamas have like that kind of like or 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:20.280 Panama has that kind of through points. No, we're really 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.879 familiar with like Switzerland and like you say, Panama and 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.800 the Cayman Islands, and some people are somewhat familiar with 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.040 island as being like tax havens. Yeah, but like none 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.480 of these actually compare to Britain because Britain like sport 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.280 all of these relationships with the entire world because it 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.480 invaded them and now it has those like the British 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.720 Empire ended in name and legal function, but did not 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.520 end in terms of financial services. Like that is our 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.480 that is our grip on power is like that we yeah, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.600 we just launder a bunch of rich people's money. Um. 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.680 There's a great documentary called The Spider's Web which talks 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.159 about this and like the head of her majesty is oh, 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.359 I guess it's his majesty now the king just taking 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:09.919 this opportunity to say fuck the king. Um HMRC. Anyway, 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.119 the head of HMRC like literally just works for the 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.520 money launderers, like the people who are just trying to 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.320 bring through like billions of dollars to launder. Um. Yeah. 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:22.760 Like when I say about like the rest of our 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.719 politics being a smokescreen, it's because like this is everything 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.320 for the British ruling class, Like it's all about them 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.280 trying to lawn the money. And like I think that 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:38.080 like the the recent rise in like far right populism 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:40.560 or attempt at that in the UK, which by the way, 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.080 I don't think it's going as well as they wish 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.600 it was anymore. But like well because they did, because 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:47.080 they did briggs In it turns out Bridge it was 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:51.240 really bad idea. Yeah, Like I remember there was something 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:52.639 for a while a while ago, I was in some 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.879 forum thread where they were just put posting like Trump 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.119 supporters realized they're going to die because of Trump. Um. 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.920 It's a very similar phenomenon in the UK. Like you, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:03.840 there's a lot of and I don't really delight in 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:05.840 it because it's just it's just like looking a lot 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.479 of working class, working class people suffering. Um. But there 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.760 is a very like, very obvious and noticeable trend of 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.240 like people who voted for Brexit realizing that it's completely 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.920 fucked everything about their life. Um. But when there was 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.520 this attempt at like raising far right um like false 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.359 class consciousness in a very Trumpian way, Um, that was 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.040 all like a very big attempt at the smoke screen 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.320 because like if there's have you ever seen Johnny English, 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:38.879 there's this fucking Rowan Atkinson film where he like is 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:42.960 a he winds up being like a spy. And the 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.800 villain in that film is French of course, because you 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:50.520 know the French so evil compared to Britain, I guess 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:55.000 and so on. Um, and uh, that guy who's played 0:23:55.000 --> 0:24:00.080 by John Malkovich wants to get the British throne and 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:04.520 then sell Britain to private investors to turn the entire 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:09.120 island into a prison. And it created modern Britain. Yeah, 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:13.680 it's just outlining modern British politics. Yeah. So so like 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:20.320 in terms of social policy, like it would suit the 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.440 ruling class of Britain very very nicely. If Britain was 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:28.879 just one big jail because like they are only inconvenience 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.440 by having to cater to any kind of population. Like 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:35.560 if the British population just all died, the Tories would 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:37.960 be having such a good time, Like they would fucking 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:40.280 love it if there was absolutely no one to govern 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:43.800 over and Britain could just like on paper, have a 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:46.680 population of sixty million and then they could use that 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.760 for the money laundering. Yeah, but actually you go here 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:52.119 and it's just a complete like ghost island, like that 0:24:52.359 --> 0:24:55.919 everyone is gone. Yeah, I mean it is that. It's 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:58.959 just it is just for money laundering. Like I think 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:01.760 the London Stock Exchange just the oldest stock exchange. I think, 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.800 I'm not sure, but like obviously it's had a long 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:08.800 time to develop and like it's yeah, the the U. 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:12.160 There is more fiscal capital or marks would have called 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:14.840 fictitious capital in the world now than there is like 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:21.280 real capital or financial capital. Um. And yeah, a huge 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:23.719 amount of it goes through the London Stock Exchange um 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:28.080 and through like yeah, through through the services of of 0:25:28.359 --> 0:25:33.680 HMAC and through like the various schemes that it's really funny. 0:25:33.680 --> 0:25:36.400 I had to um, I had to this. I don't 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:38.760 think this is like as insidious sounds. But I was 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:40.879 filling up my tax return recently and there was a 0:25:41.040 --> 0:25:44.000 there was a question that MS like just straight basically 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:46.240 asked like have you participated in one or more tax 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:50.639 avoidance schemes? And I was like, this is a normal country. 0:25:50.840 --> 0:25:53.919 This is a this is a really normal, normal country, 0:25:56.920 --> 0:25:59.639 Like they just asked you. And like when when my 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:01.560 partner I saw this, because she was filling out hers, 0:26:01.720 --> 0:26:03.760 she was like, is this just a trick question to 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:05.720 get you to like dob yourself into the cops. And 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:08.480 I was like, no, No, this is a this is 0:26:08.520 --> 0:26:11.480 a normal question in case you are a very very 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:14.240 rich person who has engaged in a tax away and 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:16.520 you want to just report that and then the hust 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:22.720 will be like, cool, good job avoiding paying taxes. You 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:26.760 know when I always sort of like running through my 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:31.240 research for this, I remember to David Graver quote about 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:33.600 the British economy where he said something to the effect 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:36.760 of the United kingdoms chief product is the facility of 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:39.560 its working class, which is what allows oligarchs to just 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:41.440 like put their money there because they know that they're 0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:42.920 gonna have a butler or no one's ever going to 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:48.159 steal it. Yeah. Yeah, but you know, the sort of 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:51.840 other side of of the graver in the UK arc is, 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:54.440 you know, towards the end of his life, like he 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:56.840 starts writing a lot about the revolt of the carrying 0:26:56.880 --> 0:26:59.600 classes and about this sort of like he was talking 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:02.200 about he was talking about stuff that was happening like 0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:06.760 Chosen eighteen nineteen. Yeah, a lot about like but the 0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:10.240 shot actually too, because there's a lot of uh and 0:27:10.280 --> 0:27:13.320 he was directly involved in some organizing and stuff the IMF. 0:27:14.080 --> 0:27:16.760 Yeah yeah, but you know it was interesting to me 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:19.560 about this is like, oh, I don't want to let 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:21.960 it go by without saying the IMF must be destroyed 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:25.440 at all costs. Oh, yes, policy I have about the 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:31.000 like yeah, the actually demonic, real demons exist and they 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:34.760 called the International Monetary Fund. Yeah. I talked about this 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:37.600 in my Neoliberalism episode. And this is another sort of 0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:40.439 grape barism thing, right, is the sort of being at 0:27:40.480 --> 0:27:42.359 tuned to the fact that all of this sort of 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:44.920 like red tape cutting bullshit is actually just a smoke 0:27:44.960 --> 0:27:48.160 screen for an incredibly sort of unbelievably violent or impressive 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:50.520 bureaucracy and the sort of the global wing of the 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:54.240 violent or impressive bureaucracy is the IMF. Yeah, and well 0:27:54.280 --> 0:27:56.160 it's a really weird what I was saying before about 0:27:56.200 --> 0:27:59.800 like Cameron realizing that neoliberalism doesn't work towards the end 0:27:59.800 --> 0:28:01.520 of the time that he was in office, Like what 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:03.560 I'm referring to is that he wrote a letter to 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:06.439 his constituency, to his local council that he's supposed to represent, 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:10.159 and he said that like they'd been complaining that they 0:28:10.160 --> 0:28:13.000 didn't have the money to do the things they needed 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:14.879 to do, and he was like, well, you should just 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:16.840 cut out the red tape, Like you should just clear 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:19.080 out the back room bureaucracy. That's the thing that's costing 0:28:19.119 --> 0:28:21.200 you all the money. And I think with sometimes to 0:28:21.240 --> 0:28:23.320 reflect on this, where I think he gets that idea 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:25.320 from is that he's seen how well it works for 0:28:25.400 --> 0:28:28.080 the for the ruling class. He's like, the more red 0:28:28.200 --> 0:28:30.119 tape we cut, the more we get rid of regulations, 0:28:30.200 --> 0:28:32.440 the more money we make. And so he's like, that 0:28:32.960 --> 0:28:37.680 is simple. Then minus red tape equals more money. And 0:28:37.800 --> 0:28:40.600 they replied to him like, what the fuck are you 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:44.680 talking about. There is no back room bureaucracy. You cut 0:28:44.800 --> 0:28:48.520 our budget with austerity policies. That's why there's no money. 0:28:48.880 --> 0:28:53.680 And he was like, oh fuck, Like yeah, well, and 0:28:54.040 --> 0:28:57.040 I you know this, this this seems to have like 0:28:59.040 --> 0:29:03.240 escalated to levels the UK that are like sort of 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:05.640 genuinely catastrophic. I mean, you know, one thing I've sort 0:29:05.640 --> 0:29:07.160 of been quietly going on is like the sort of 0:29:07.240 --> 0:29:11.560 quiet privatization of the NHS. Yeah, which is yeah, the 0:29:11.600 --> 0:29:13.800 aliens is the National Health Service or is trans people 0:29:13.840 --> 0:29:17.720 call it a no healthcare service. I haven't had that 0:29:17.760 --> 0:29:21.160 one before. That's very good. Yeah, but you know, okay, 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:24.720 but I'm currently a good demonstration of that. Actually, I 0:29:24.800 --> 0:29:27.320 am currently trying to get onto the pilot scheme trans Plus, 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:30.920 which basically gets you to the end of the waiting list. 0:29:31.080 --> 0:29:33.200 And if they if the pilot scheme goes well, hopefully 0:29:33.280 --> 0:29:36.600 we'll we'll be getting rid of the hopefully, like this 0:29:36.800 --> 0:29:39.960 is the good alternative, right And to get onto it, 0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:42.760 I need to get my referral, which my GP told 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:45.200 me they did but didn't do. So to do that, 0:29:45.360 --> 0:29:47.560 I need to get my current QP to write the 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:49.600 referral to the GIC and include a note that says 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:51.600 this was meant to be done in August twenty twenty 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:55.040 and to do that. I called up the GP office 0:29:55.040 --> 0:29:56.880 the other day and they said I was on the 0:29:56.920 --> 0:29:59.240 phone with the GP and I said, go to the 0:29:59.320 --> 0:30:02.000 GICs web site, click on if the section that says 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:03.520 you know you're a GP and you're looking to refer 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:07.200 a patient. And she was like, oh, I can't do 0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:09.920 that because of our computer systems. So what I'm going 0:30:09.960 --> 0:30:11.840 to need you to do is go to the website 0:30:11.880 --> 0:30:13.920 yourself and click on the thing that says you're a 0:30:14.000 --> 0:30:17.240 GP even though you're not, and download that form and 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:20.400 then email it to our office and then call the 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:24.960 office and then get them to make the referral. This 0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:28.760 is the good alternative. This is the good alternative compared 0:30:28.800 --> 0:30:31.360 to just waiting for like fifteen years and then killing myself. 0:30:31.680 --> 0:30:34.280 This is the good option for healthcare on for trans 0:30:34.360 --> 0:30:37.880 people in the UK right now. Yeah, it's a yeah 0:30:37.960 --> 0:30:40.440 like as as as as as as like shitty as 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:42.760 American trans health care is a lot of the time, 0:30:43.360 --> 0:30:46.760 it is somehow well okay, unless you're in a place 0:30:46.800 --> 0:30:50.640 that has made it illegal now, which is fun. It's 0:30:50.720 --> 0:30:54.760 it's a lot less fucked than the UK's I really 0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:57.800 thought we were. We were like outdoing the GOP states. 0:30:58.120 --> 0:30:59.840 Like for for just a second there we were like 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:03.040 inching ahead and how much our country hates trans people, 0:31:03.440 --> 0:31:05.200 and then like all these bands came out that were 0:31:05.240 --> 0:31:07.880 just like taking trans kids away from their parents or whatever. Yeah, 0:31:07.880 --> 0:31:12.160 it's like, okay, they clearly won. Yeah, but now anyway, 0:31:12.640 --> 0:31:16.520 we'll see. We'll see whether you know, whether like the 0:31:16.720 --> 0:31:19.680 Rowling Bill comes in in twenty twenty four or something 0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:23.600 that like, yeah, it's just like execute transgenders on site. 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:30.120 What would not surprise me at all? The Oh god, 0:31:31.720 --> 0:31:35.440 it's fun being just the scapegoat for everything it's ever 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:39.280 gone wrong. Ever. Hi, this is Mia in post. This 0:31:39.440 --> 0:31:43.239 episode was recorded just days before Briennaji, is sixteen year 0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:45.760 old trans girl, was stabbed to death in a town 0:31:45.800 --> 0:31:49.880 near Liverpool. Um, we haven't talked about it really on 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:53.720 the show over the last few weeks because very little 0:31:53.800 --> 0:31:56.800 of what I and what I think the rest of 0:31:56.880 --> 0:31:59.400 the crew have had to say about Brienna GI's murder 0:31:59.560 --> 0:32:02.440 between sort of the racking sobs that you get another 0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:06.400 transperson taking from us is even remotely publishable. What I 0:32:06.480 --> 0:32:08.480 can say is that some of the wealthiest and most 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:10.960 powerful people the institutions in the world are trying to 0:32:11.040 --> 0:32:14.480 exterminate us and the BBC, the New York Times, JK. 0:32:14.720 --> 0:32:17.400 Rowling in every major British political party, and the American 0:32:17.480 --> 0:32:20.320 ones to have blot in their fucking hands and should 0:32:20.320 --> 0:32:24.280 be treated accordingly. And on that pleak note. Yeah, we 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:27.720 can go back to the rest of the episode. Yeah, 0:32:27.760 --> 0:32:31.440 it is wild being a country that like supposedly like 0:32:31.560 --> 0:32:33.760 what the thing we probably have the to be the 0:32:33.840 --> 0:32:38.080 proudest of in our entire history is creating a system 0:32:38.160 --> 0:32:40.200 for socialized medicine where people have free, a point of 0:32:40.280 --> 0:32:45.440 use healthcare. And since it was created, the ruling class 0:32:45.480 --> 0:32:47.440 have tried as hard as possible to destroy it, and 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:50.160 they're finally succeeding. I'm actually having friends are telling me 0:32:50.240 --> 0:32:53.240 recently that they're going to like hospitals, and the hospitals 0:32:53.280 --> 0:32:55.160 are telling them that they know they're privatized, and they 0:32:55.320 --> 0:32:57.800 like they can't they'll have to charge them because they're 0:32:57.840 --> 0:33:02.480 not like contracted to and chests walk anymore. So that's 0:33:02.680 --> 0:33:06.440 you know, that that's succeeding at that I we've probably 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:10.320 wandered away from the point of what we're trying to say. I. Yeah, 0:33:10.760 --> 0:33:13.400 I have resentful feelings to do with healthcare in the UK. 0:33:13.800 --> 0:33:17.719 I'm currently playing with my comfort knife. Yeah, I mean, 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:21.800 I think I I I think this is sort of 0:33:22.640 --> 0:33:25.000 circling around to the thing I wanted to talk about next, 0:33:25.080 --> 0:33:27.840 which is that, like, you know, on the one hand, 0:33:27.960 --> 0:33:31.800 we have this sort of like just just the sort 0:33:31.800 --> 0:33:35.560 of monumental collapse of anything that could like conceivably make 0:33:35.640 --> 0:33:39.720 the UK a society. But on the other hand, people 0:33:40.640 --> 0:33:42.200 whether like we live in a society, and I'm like, 0:33:42.240 --> 0:33:44.480 if you're in the UK sharing this, you are wrong. Yeah, 0:33:44.520 --> 0:33:47.560 you live in an economy. Yeah, it's live in an economy. 0:33:48.360 --> 0:33:50.640 It's it's pretty blue. It would be fucking great to 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:57.000 live in a society I wish, But you know, on 0:33:57.120 --> 0:34:00.240 the other hand, Dave Dave David Graver's final final production 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:02.840 has like now come true, which is that we are 0:34:02.920 --> 0:34:06.040 now actually like the UK is now sort of starting 0:34:06.120 --> 0:34:08.839 to see the full scale revolt of the carrying classes. Yes, 0:34:09.040 --> 0:34:11.200 and that has come in the form of walk. I 0:34:11.400 --> 0:34:12.640 I have no idea what this episode is going to 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:18.120 come out. Sorry, everything's chaos right now, but as of 0:34:18.239 --> 0:34:23.839 time of recording, I guess tomorrow that something like half 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:26.279 a million people are going on strike and lo one 0:34:26.320 --> 0:34:28.799 and behold who was going on People went on strike 0:34:28.880 --> 0:34:31.680 last week? Oh? Was it last week? Yeah? Yeah, am 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.520 I have I Okay, I'm a dumbass, isn't well? Aren't 0:34:34.520 --> 0:34:37.840 there more tomorrow when the episode comes out. On the 0:34:37.920 --> 0:34:41.000 first of February, over half a million people went on 0:34:41.080 --> 0:34:44.080 strike and there massive demonstrations and matches across the country. 0:34:44.239 --> 0:34:46.719 It's the biggest strike and biggest matches that we've seen 0:34:46.760 --> 0:34:50.160 in like over a decade um. We haven't seen much 0:34:50.200 --> 0:34:54.960 as this size since protests against the Iraq War. Yeah. Yeah, 0:34:55.120 --> 0:34:58.760 and well okay, so in Chalah there'll be more effective 0:34:58.760 --> 0:35:03.279 than the rock war protest. But yeah, I mean, I 0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:05.839 think it's interesting if you look at the people who 0:35:05.880 --> 0:35:09.239 are who are striking, it is it is people who 0:35:09.280 --> 0:35:12.200 do care labor. It's teachers, who's nurses, it's ambulance drivers, 0:35:12.239 --> 0:35:14.640 people in civil sts like train and bus drivers who 0:35:14.680 --> 0:35:18.560 are like still on strike, and various capacities. A point 0:35:18.600 --> 0:35:19.719 to pull you up on there, but it agrees with 0:35:19.760 --> 0:35:21.440 your point even more in terms of the rebellion of 0:35:21.480 --> 0:35:26.400 the caring classes. The current drive of the strikes from 0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:30.359 the RMT that's rail, maritime and transport workers pick up 0:35:30.360 --> 0:35:33.200 the RMT. My boys are incredible, Nick Lynch, shout out, 0:35:33.360 --> 0:35:37.840 love you to pieces. The current strikes are actually driven 0:35:38.000 --> 0:35:42.239 by the janitorial staff, who are like some of the 0:35:42.280 --> 0:35:44.919 worst treated and worst paid among all of the train 0:35:44.960 --> 0:35:48.480 and transport staff like bus drivers and train drivers and 0:35:48.520 --> 0:35:50.520 someone have joined in on it. And that, as you're saying, 0:35:50.640 --> 0:35:52.400 is like is still part of the like rebellion of 0:35:52.400 --> 0:35:55.759 the caring classes. But it's even more so because it's 0:35:55.760 --> 0:35:58.680 literally like the cleaners who were like, yeah, this is fucked, 0:35:58.719 --> 0:36:01.239 we need better wages. Yeah, And there's been one aye, 0:36:01.280 --> 0:36:03.200 And I think like we're like postal workers are also 0:36:03.400 --> 0:36:08.239 on strike, this other I'm pretty I'm pretty sure other 0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:11.480 people are also on strike. Two that I'm leaving out here. Uh, 0:36:11.719 --> 0:36:16.239 let's see. So ambulance strivers, civil servants, teaches, nus is 0:36:17.280 --> 0:36:22.279 uh training workers, Yeah, like the university that's true. Yeah, 0:36:22.400 --> 0:36:26.080 university workers there are that there are, but I do 0:36:26.200 --> 0:36:28.279 not care about this. I have to assolid arity for them. 0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:31.920 Bought an agents on strike. Strike baby, never come back 0:36:31.960 --> 0:36:36.560 to work. You striking. We are starting the ambolition of 0:36:36.640 --> 0:36:39.440 work with you. Congratulations you are now you have now 0:36:39.600 --> 0:36:42.239 finally become the vanguard of the working class, it's which 0:36:42.280 --> 0:36:44.320 which it's what is what you fucking cops have always 0:36:44.360 --> 0:36:47.439 wanted you get to do it now. Yeah, well cops 0:36:47.560 --> 0:36:51.080 is an interesting thing as well, because like h on 0:36:51.800 --> 0:36:54.520 Red Planet every Sunday apm two eleven pm UK time, 0:36:55.160 --> 0:36:59.200 check it out. We um we have a running prediction 0:36:59.480 --> 0:37:02.399 to do with the with the police that like, as 0:37:02.480 --> 0:37:07.280 their job, as class warfare becomes more naked, the police's 0:37:07.400 --> 0:37:10.040 job is more and more obviously just what it's always been, 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:13.560 to put down the working class. But as your job 0:37:14.040 --> 0:37:17.799 just becomes like smashing like bottled water stands that people 0:37:17.960 --> 0:37:20.000 put up in a heat way to help homeless people, 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:22.759 and like trying to evict people and trying to like 0:37:22.880 --> 0:37:26.440 stop people who are striking for better pay. And also 0:37:26.680 --> 0:37:29.279 everyone around you constantly calls you a pig and like 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:32.319 degrades you and is like are you enjoying what you're doing? 0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:34.200 Do you have a good life? Are you liking this job? 0:37:34.640 --> 0:37:37.480 We'll see like lots of police quitting. And actually this 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:40.800 month the Telegraph, who can't really be trusted, but this 0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:44.919 does into a larger pattern. The Telegraph reported that more 0:37:45.040 --> 0:37:47.520 cops had quit than had been recruited in the last 0:37:47.560 --> 0:37:50.680 month and that's what an overall pattern that has been 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:52.719 going on for a while. To be fair of that 0:37:52.840 --> 0:37:56.360 that I don't know. In the US, every single newspaper 0:37:56.440 --> 0:37:59.759 says that every weakness never true. So yes, I don't 0:37:59.800 --> 0:38:04.200 know actual figures. Like it does look like the I mean, 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:07.040 cops quitting in the UK has been on the rise 0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:12.600 since like like early last year, um and enormously as well. 0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:16.120 And you can tell because like the Met has been 0:38:16.160 --> 0:38:19.279 putting out loads of recruitment ads, which like is really 0:38:19.360 --> 0:38:22.080 second No, I a little sorry about this. Actually they 0:38:22.120 --> 0:38:25.160 have this ad in wait is it nearly time for ads? 0:38:25.200 --> 0:38:29.320 Because I could add pivot. Yeah, I was in I 0:38:29.440 --> 0:38:31.480 was so. I was in peck Complex Cinema, which is 0:38:31.800 --> 0:38:36.399 Peckham Is is like a cheap community cinema. Um, it's 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:39.640 like uh yeah, it's it's they deliberately keep it cheap 0:38:39.640 --> 0:38:41.160 so that people can enjoy it and it's an events 0:38:41.160 --> 0:38:44.200 space and whatever, and we were about to watch a movie. 0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:46.479 I forget what now, but like there was this ad 0:38:46.680 --> 0:38:49.719 for the for joining the Met police that was like 0:38:50.040 --> 0:38:52.680 this black guy talking about how he was really worried 0:38:52.680 --> 0:38:55.480 about his sister joining the police because she's a black 0:38:55.560 --> 0:38:57.399 woman and she's a Muslim, and he was worried she's 0:38:57.400 --> 0:39:00.120 gonna face all this discrimination, but actually she's having a 0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:03.960 great time and everyone loves her, so it was totally 0:39:04.040 --> 0:39:07.080 okay the whole time. And now I have this personal policy, 0:39:07.360 --> 0:39:10.279 which is if there is an ad for crypto, an 0:39:10.320 --> 0:39:13.840 ad for joining the Met, the Army, whatever, and no 0:39:14.040 --> 0:39:17.719 one else, and if no one is yelling at the 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:22.080 screen because they are being subjected to fascist propaganda, that 0:39:22.440 --> 0:39:24.279 then then it's going to be me who's yelling. So 0:39:24.360 --> 0:39:28.520 I just started yelling because like because like two weeks 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:30.759 earlier when I was watching this ad, like Chris Carver 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:34.240 had been had been shot dead by Met police officers 0:39:34.280 --> 0:39:36.200 in South London, a black man, right, and they have 0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:38.400 a black man here telling us that actually the Met's 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:41.239 really cool and doesn't do any racism. And I was 0:39:41.320 --> 0:39:43.399 just yelling and yelling about it. And I was yelling 0:39:43.440 --> 0:39:46.279 about like fucking if people aren't familiar with the case 0:39:46.320 --> 0:39:49.200 of like Sarah Everard who was kidnapped and assaulted and 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:52.000 murdered by Wayne Cousins and Met police officer, like you know, 0:39:52.040 --> 0:39:53.680 I'm just I was just going off about all this 0:39:53.719 --> 0:39:56.200 stuff because I'm just like, I like I was just 0:39:56.320 --> 0:39:59.360 responding directly to the ad like, how are they running 0:39:59.400 --> 0:40:02.360 this shit as if we don't know all of this 0:40:02.520 --> 0:40:04.799 and just lift listing off everything that came into mind, 0:40:04.840 --> 0:40:07.480 because again it's my fault, it's my personal policy. I'm 0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:09.680 not going to get any trouble for it. And someone 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:13.160 should be yelling when you're subjected to propaganda. Yeah. Anyway, 0:40:13.320 --> 0:40:17.759 speaking of propaganda, here's an act joining the Washington State 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:24.240 Highway Patrol. And we're back from your fascist propaganda session. 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:28.320 I hope you didn't enjoy it. I hope you yelled 0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:31.919 the whole time. Yeah, And I guess I I guess 0:40:31.960 --> 0:40:33.880 the thing that is genuinely sort of different between the 0:40:33.880 --> 0:40:36.920 American and British polices that the British police like the 0:40:37.440 --> 0:40:40.320 American police is like every single American city is like 0:40:40.960 --> 0:40:44.080 at least well, okay, so it's they're they're technically only 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:47.120 about forty percent police budget by volume, but that that 0:40:47.440 --> 0:40:51.000 that doesn't county about by googling forty percent police, well 0:40:51.320 --> 0:40:53.640 you will you will see a variety of things here, 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:55.799 but like you know, tech, technically it's it's it's it's 0:40:55.840 --> 0:40:58.320 technically only about forty percent of the city's budget. Byvolume, 0:40:58.320 --> 0:40:59.960 but that's because that doesn't count the amount of money 0:41:00.040 --> 0:41:03.479 police just steal. But in the UK they actually kind 0:41:03.560 --> 0:41:07.120 of like they were kind of stupid and they seem 0:41:07.160 --> 0:41:09.680 to actually have kind of done neoliberalism to the cops, 0:41:09.800 --> 0:41:11.279 which is very funny because it means that you get 0:41:11.320 --> 0:41:13.560 Jeremy Corbyn like running on hiring more cops and it's 0:41:13.600 --> 0:41:16.960 like yeah, sir, Like what no, it's yeah. Like it's 0:41:17.000 --> 0:41:20.120 like like you've been you've been protesting like apotheide and 0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:22.600 illegal wars and all of this stuff, like thirty five 0:41:22.719 --> 0:41:24.400 years and you're like, we should have more cops. What 0:41:24.480 --> 0:41:26.480 the fuck are you talking about? Man? I remember what 0:41:26.600 --> 0:41:29.200 I was. I was watching people who like used to 0:41:29.280 --> 0:41:32.440 be like autonomist in like fucking twenty eleven being like, no, 0:41:32.560 --> 0:41:35.040 we need more cops. Like they were literally beating you up. 0:41:35.120 --> 0:41:38.719 What the fuck is Oh my god that guy who 0:41:38.760 --> 0:41:43.160 fractured my skull. I need more of that. Yeah, No, 0:41:43.320 --> 0:41:45.560 it's pretty fun. There is like an enormous amount of 0:41:45.600 --> 0:41:49.520 British brain going on where even I was like, most 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:52.480 progressive politicians will support support ship like that, and like 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:54.879 I said earlier, like the nautic model, right, like we yeah, 0:41:55.640 --> 0:41:59.960 there are there are limits to the British imagination? Um? Yeah, 0:42:00.160 --> 0:42:01.920 because we've been doing this shit a long time, we've 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:08.120 really perfected the brain ones. Yeah, I mean I have okay, 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:11.400 so my my my, my, my my my. Least progressive 0:42:11.520 --> 0:42:14.439 theory is that there there's there, there's something. There's something 0:42:14.520 --> 0:42:20.080 called large population island brain, which affects, it affects. The 0:42:20.280 --> 0:42:23.200 UK and Japan are the two sort of models of 0:42:23.320 --> 0:42:28.040 this where you like being being on an island and 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:31.000 then also running an empire drives you, makes you like 0:42:31.080 --> 0:42:34.839 absolutely psychotic in like very very specific ways that are 0:42:34.920 --> 0:42:37.680 like both the same. It's like you you have a 0:42:37.760 --> 0:42:42.160 massive nonce culture, like the way you imperially similar parable 0:42:42.200 --> 0:42:47.279 public nonsense is thriving recently. Gary Glitter recently got out 0:42:47.280 --> 0:42:48.799 of president and then immediately went on as the far 0:42:48.960 --> 0:42:52.320 right TV network gb News and said that woke cancel, 0:42:52.520 --> 0:43:00.560 woke cancel culture is the biggest problem. Yeah, like it's it's, it's, it's. 0:43:02.200 --> 0:43:04.560 It is a very grim state of affairs. Yeah, is 0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.680 is what I will say about both the UK and Japan, 0:43:07.760 --> 0:43:10.440 although I guess to be fair, to be fair to Japan, 0:43:10.840 --> 0:43:13.600 they did just assassinate their ex prime minister and probably 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:16.680 the most like history, like probably the most successful historical 0:43:16.680 --> 0:43:19.880 assassination not done by the CIA and like a hundred 0:43:20.000 --> 0:43:24.680 years or something like really incredible work on the part 0:43:24.680 --> 0:43:27.080 of the man with the electric blunderbuss. The UK, however, 0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:30.440 not not there yet. I mean, where's that? You know, 0:43:30.480 --> 0:43:34.000 where's our where's our homemade blunderbusses? Come on, come on, 0:43:34.120 --> 0:43:36.040 got step it up, guy. This is not full for 0:43:36.280 --> 0:43:39.840 leftist terrorism. I am not police. Please ignore what I 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:42.440 just said. I will say this thing about the British too, 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:44.600 Like one of the sort of British psychosis that I 0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:47.200 think about a lot is like the specter of knife crime, 0:43:47.920 --> 0:43:51.399 because it's like, okay, one hands, Like on the one hand, 0:43:51.440 --> 0:43:53.239 like yeah, like okay, so like people get stabbed and 0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:56.279 it sucks. On the other hand, like like having having 0:43:56.400 --> 0:43:58.680 having grown up in the US in a country where 0:43:58.760 --> 0:44:02.360 like all of our can gardeners are basically being trained 0:44:02.400 --> 0:44:04.719 to like storm met like do you like human wave 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:07.439 attacks and mashooters? Just like how how are you guys? 0:44:07.640 --> 0:44:09.920 Like how are you guys? Like like how is this 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:12.279 the thing that you guys are like like you have 0:44:12.440 --> 0:44:15.880 police brain about is knife crime? Like I think no, 0:44:16.320 --> 0:44:18.560 I think that like the knife crime thing is a 0:44:18.640 --> 0:44:21.400 very American perspective on British politics, Like we don't actually 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:24.040 talk about it that much. Oh thank god. Okay, it's 0:44:24.160 --> 0:44:27.120 really like an American conservative talking point that like if 0:44:27.120 --> 0:44:29.080 you get rid of the guns, they'll just stab each other. 0:44:29.200 --> 0:44:30.759 So look at the UK, they don't have guns and 0:44:30.760 --> 0:44:34.799 they're just stabbing each other. Um, Like some conservatives still 0:44:34.840 --> 0:44:36.799 care about knife crime here. That was a big wave 0:44:36.840 --> 0:44:38.560 of caring about it when again it was like a 0:44:38.600 --> 0:44:41.360 few years labor were like doing their races, like the 0:44:41.640 --> 0:44:44.600 the the hush hush racist policies to try and like 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:49.120 brutalize the working class, especially in black neighborhoods. Um. But 0:44:49.280 --> 0:44:52.360 like no, I mean, the cop brain is like in everything. 0:44:52.560 --> 0:44:55.440 It's just it's not it's not like it's every I 0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:58.439 think British brain is just an evolved form of cop brain. 0:44:58.640 --> 0:45:01.680 It's like when cop brain affects everything in life, then 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:04.480 you then you are British. Yeah, and I get I guess. 0:45:04.480 --> 0:45:06.919 I guess. Also it's like it's you have caught brand 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:09.600 and an also landlord brand at the same time. It's 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:14.720 just like a truly sort of dastardly come but housing. 0:45:15.120 --> 0:45:20.359 That's true, I say it was my fucking well, I guess, 0:45:20.400 --> 0:45:25.040 I guess, Okay, I I think I have I am no, 0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:26.680 that's not true. I haven't gotten it yet, but I 0:45:26.800 --> 0:45:30.000 am vast approaching that the two weeks since my apartment 0:45:30.040 --> 0:45:32.960 was last flooded by sewage mark and I'm very excited 0:45:32.960 --> 0:45:39.440 about this. Love love love love love love, landlords love renting. 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:48.120 It's we hear love landlords falling on me. Hey, at 0:45:48.200 --> 0:45:51.440 least not up god, Oh oh boy, that's a new 0:45:51.800 --> 0:45:56.200 Oh fun. Okay, this is this has been, This has 0:45:56.239 --> 0:45:59.520 been the the MEA's apartment is falling apart update. Well, 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:01.720 should we talk more about the rebellion of the caring classes? 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:03.640 Because I think that's a really I think that's a 0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:08.000 really pointed and worthwhile grape of prediction. I'm a big grapehead. 0:46:08.120 --> 0:46:10.040 I have a friend who I just get onto discord 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:13.640 chat with and we as we put it grape out. Um. 0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:17.560 I like to say, I'm getting the grape from beyond 0:46:17.600 --> 0:46:22.360 the Grave of twenty four seven. But the but the 0:46:22.719 --> 0:46:25.040 rebellion of the caring classes is a really poignant thing 0:46:25.120 --> 0:46:30.960 to talk about because neoliberalism does not care about reproductive 0:46:31.040 --> 0:46:35.680 labor in the slightest and where like where older forms 0:46:35.680 --> 0:46:40.320 of capitalism had had that covered because women were basically 0:46:40.400 --> 0:46:46.279 fucking slaves. Um. They now the now like reproductive labor 0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:49.560 has to be done by professionals because everything must be marketized, 0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:53.560 and of course, being the most essential labor, it's the 0:46:53.680 --> 0:46:56.239 gonna be the one with the shittiest working conditions and 0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:59.520 the lowest pay. That's that's neoliberalism for you. If if 0:46:59.560 --> 0:47:04.120 every if it must happen, it must be dogshit um. 0:47:04.880 --> 0:47:07.920 And so like this is where we see the rebellion 0:47:07.960 --> 0:47:10.480 of the carrying classes now, especially with the with the 0:47:10.560 --> 0:47:12.719 set of the service sector economy, so like within the 0:47:12.760 --> 0:47:16.960 imperial core, everyone's being put into some kind of care 0:47:17.120 --> 0:47:22.520 job essentially, and they're treated like shit. And now they're 0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:24.960 starting to actually form unions and fight back, which is 0:47:25.440 --> 0:47:30.319 really fucking cool. Yeah. I want to briefly interject here 0:47:30.360 --> 0:47:33.200 with a thing everyone gets wrong about Margaret Thatcher, which 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:35.799 is that every every everyone in their mom will will 0:47:35.840 --> 0:47:38.799 say that fucking quote about there is no society, there's 0:47:38.840 --> 0:47:41.879 only the individual. Except they never they never leave out 0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:44.640 the next part of that sentence, which they always leave 0:47:44.680 --> 0:47:46.719 out the part of it that they always leave out 0:47:46.840 --> 0:47:50.400 at the end is that the actual line goes. And 0:47:51.120 --> 0:47:53.040 it's slightly weird because it was it was it was 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:56.360 in response to a question. But basically the line is 0:47:56.640 --> 0:47:59.319 there's no such thing as society. There are only individuals 0:47:59.400 --> 0:48:02.439 and the family. There are men and women and they're 0:48:02.440 --> 0:48:05.160 a families as well. Yeah, because yeah, and well and 0:48:05.200 --> 0:48:08.000 also yeah, yeah, to to be clear, to be clear, 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:10.880 idea Margaret Thatcher not a friend of the trans is 0:48:12.360 --> 0:48:15.960 shockingly wow looking, I guess. But but but I think 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:19.200 I think this family parts also very important, because yeah, definitely, 0:48:19.320 --> 0:48:21.600 you know, like like neoliberalism has these it has these 0:48:21.640 --> 0:48:25.000 two conflicting tendencies, right, it has this one tendency that 0:48:25.239 --> 0:48:28.560 is like what it's it's trying it's trying to use 0:48:28.640 --> 0:48:31.759 the family to create labor in two different ways at 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:34.840 the same time. One is it's it's treating it's treating 0:48:34.880 --> 0:48:36.960 each person in a family as an individual who can 0:48:37.000 --> 0:48:40.200 go produce value for people. But then secondarily, right, like 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:44.480 you know, neoliberalism isn't in an ideology of incredible alienation 0:48:44.520 --> 0:48:47.359 and an incredible sort of atomization. Yeah, and also it's 0:48:47.400 --> 0:48:49.920 it's it's it's an economy based on it's you know, it, 0:48:51.320 --> 0:48:54.080 but simultaneously it has to be able to do reproductive labor. 0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:57.080 And the way that it sort of like bridges the 0:48:57.160 --> 0:48:59.400 gap of this contradiction is with this sort of alliance 0:48:59.440 --> 0:49:01.840 it has with the religious right and was sort of 0:49:01.960 --> 0:49:04.279 like religious conservatism in general, because it can it can 0:49:04.320 --> 0:49:05.960 put up this false and this is where all the 0:49:06.000 --> 0:49:08.239 trade calf shit comes from. This is where all of 0:49:08.280 --> 0:49:11.600 the sort of like trad wife like, oh hey you can, 0:49:11.680 --> 0:49:14.080 you can. When she's saying there are individual men and 0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:17.359 women and there are families, there's an implicit thing there 0:49:17.480 --> 0:49:21.120 where she's saying families, like she she is leaving out 0:49:21.239 --> 0:49:27.520 children as people because children are properties are family and 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:30.960 also like whatever reproductive labor has done to to make 0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:33.920 those children into a into individual men and women, that 0:49:34.280 --> 0:49:37.000 doesn't that's just part of the family, Like she's there's 0:49:37.000 --> 0:49:40.200 a lot of heavy lifting happening in there are families, 0:49:40.320 --> 0:49:43.400 right yeah, and and and I think the other part 0:49:43.440 --> 0:49:44.600 of us, right it is like this is this is 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:46.960 the sort of like the sort of like new liberalism 0:49:47.040 --> 0:49:49.160 has this sud of populism that it generates that's about 0:49:49.280 --> 0:49:50.960 sort of like the family, and like the church like 0:49:51.040 --> 0:49:53.560 this this the sites of sort of like like this 0:49:53.680 --> 0:49:55.480 is how you resist sort of social alienation as you 0:49:55.560 --> 0:49:59.279 do these things. But like both liberalism has like a 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:03.080 huge focus on consensus politics, where they they say, these 0:50:03.160 --> 0:50:05.600 are the resources that are available, and you will get 0:50:05.640 --> 0:50:08.719 a say in how they're distributed in your community. You 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:11.440 can come together and engage in the electoral process and 0:50:11.520 --> 0:50:14.279 consensus politics and we all agreed on what and that's 0:50:14.440 --> 0:50:16.760 this is all just process to manufacture consent because actually 0:50:16.960 --> 0:50:19.719 there are infinite resources available because we lawn the money 0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:21.839 for the rest of the entire fucking world. And if 0:50:21.920 --> 0:50:24.600 this were like any other country that would have any 0:50:24.719 --> 0:50:28.840 kind of like uh trickle down to get into the 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:34.040 Reaganomics effect for the rest of the population. But being Britain, uh, 0:50:34.320 --> 0:50:37.960 you know, the country that invented concentration camps and workhouses. No, 0:50:38.400 --> 0:50:41.040 absolutely not not a not a red scent is going 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:45.759 to be touched by the by the pause. Yeah, And 0:50:46.040 --> 0:50:49.160 I mean that that kind of like I don't know 0:50:49.520 --> 0:50:51.440 that that I think like that that also sort of 0:50:51.480 --> 0:50:53.600 goes back to just like the containment of the working class. 0:50:53.680 --> 0:50:55.440 The British working class is like a political force and 0:50:55.480 --> 0:50:57.960 that's starting to commandow. But even then, like you know, 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:01.400 this is is my what one of my one of 0:51:01.400 --> 0:51:03.120 the things that I say that guess people the most 0:51:03.160 --> 0:51:07.399 mad at me is that like there's like, okay, one 0:51:07.480 --> 0:51:12.120 in two days strikes are kind of like like, you know, 0:51:13.120 --> 0:51:16.120 every single year, India has the largest general strike in 0:51:16.239 --> 0:51:18.879 human history, and it's one day and it does nothing. 0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:20.560 And the only times it hasn't done nothing other times 0:51:20.560 --> 0:51:23.279 when people have actually like kept going on strike or 0:51:23.360 --> 0:51:26.399 like you know mar March to farmers protests to one 0:51:26.560 --> 0:51:29.520 two day strikes are a good practice to show that 0:51:29.680 --> 0:51:32.560 we could hold out for as long as possible. They 0:51:32.600 --> 0:51:35.239 shouldn't be like the whole thing, and you know, okay, 0:51:35.280 --> 0:51:38.160 And like I've talked about this before when when I've 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:39.920 sort of like interviewed nurses on this show, and like 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:43.879 like there are absolutely times is especially especially in well, 0:51:43.920 --> 0:51:45.400 I actually I don't know if this is if this 0:51:45.520 --> 0:51:47.600 works the same way in the British nursing sector, but 0:51:47.760 --> 0:51:51.840 like there's there's absolutely like there are absolutely technical reasons 0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:54.360 why you want to do a limited duration strike is 0:51:54.440 --> 0:51:56.120 especially in the nursing sector, that have to do with 0:51:56.800 --> 0:52:00.360 how like how the contracts work bringing in scabs. But 0:52:00.480 --> 0:52:02.560 like one in two days strikes are kind of like 0:52:03.280 --> 0:52:06.680 they're more symbolic than they are sort of like, yeah, 0:52:06.719 --> 0:52:08.879 an actual entrument of class war. And and I think 0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:11.520 part of something that you have to engage within the 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:13.960 British process. And this is this is also true in 0:52:14.000 --> 0:52:16.480 the US, but our unions are like there's like two 0:52:16.560 --> 0:52:19.400 of them and they represent about seven people, so it 0:52:19.600 --> 0:52:21.520 winds up being less of a deal unless you're like 0:52:21.640 --> 0:52:24.840 a UC grad student on strike. But it is also 0:52:25.040 --> 0:52:27.960 that like in Britain, the trade unions are just like 0:52:28.120 --> 0:52:33.160 actively directly sort of like feeding into this incredibly dogshit 0:52:33.320 --> 0:52:37.680 like yeah, political machine, which is well, okay, yeah, this 0:52:37.800 --> 0:52:40.799 is an interesting question. This is an interesting like thing 0:52:40.880 --> 0:52:44.400 to think through because so if people are familiar, we 0:52:44.520 --> 0:52:48.600 had Thatcher bringing in the way of a neoliberalism, you know, 0:52:48.640 --> 0:52:53.880 along with everyone's favorite guy, Ronald Mommy Reagan, and she 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:58.279 waged war on the minas especially, but the unions in 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:01.320 general across the UK and crushed the unions. And for 0:53:01.400 --> 0:53:03.840 this she is forever remembered as a saint by the 0:53:03.960 --> 0:53:07.799 ruling class and by the conservatives. But this was, as 0:53:07.840 --> 0:53:09.480 I said earlier, like this was a part of a 0:53:09.520 --> 0:53:13.600 trend in the imperial core where the most strongly unionized 0:53:13.680 --> 0:53:18.279 sectors which were manufacturing and industrial and like mining were 0:53:19.000 --> 0:53:21.239 those unions had to be crushed so that that label 0:53:21.280 --> 0:53:24.600 and then that labor was outsourced to the imperial periphery, right, 0:53:25.080 --> 0:53:29.440 and now we're jobs in sectors where there are no unions, 0:53:30.520 --> 0:53:33.399 and there are these huge corporate unions in the UK, 0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:37.400 like Unison that like basically claimed to be able to 0:53:37.480 --> 0:53:40.319 represent any worker, which you know, if you're a fan 0:53:40.360 --> 0:53:42.320 of the IWW, you shout out to the wobbles, like, 0:53:42.440 --> 0:53:45.680 you know, that's that sounds pretty cool. But then no, 0:53:46.560 --> 0:53:49.080 it's a massive yellow union. If people aren't familiar with 0:53:49.120 --> 0:53:52.120 the yellow unions, we should hopefully be having an episode 0:53:52.120 --> 0:53:54.080 of a Red Planet soon about just like making the 0:53:54.160 --> 0:53:56.640 distinction so that people can tell them apart really quickly. 0:53:56.680 --> 0:54:00.320 But like yellow unions first came into existence in ants, 0:54:00.400 --> 0:54:05.080 I think, and it was this pointedly, this pointed change 0:54:05.239 --> 0:54:08.360 from red unions who are actually fighting class warfare and 0:54:08.400 --> 0:54:11.879 actually trying to like stop the capitalist notion of work 0:54:12.280 --> 0:54:15.439 to a yellow union, which was like a corporate union. 0:54:15.520 --> 0:54:19.239 And generally speaking, it would originally be like the corporation 0:54:19.400 --> 0:54:22.400 who was having their unions, like their workers were rebelling. 0:54:22.800 --> 0:54:24.960 They would form a union that was employed by the 0:54:25.040 --> 0:54:27.680 corporation and then be like, look it's a union, guys, 0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:29.840 you can join that and you'll get better conditions. And 0:54:29.920 --> 0:54:33.440 it was a trap. But now we have, with the 0:54:33.600 --> 0:54:37.839 miracle of neoliberalism, we have those that just their own 0:54:37.920 --> 0:54:40.720 corporate entity and they're like, we can represent any worker 0:54:41.160 --> 0:54:44.840 because we are a massive union with an entrenched corporate 0:54:44.880 --> 0:54:48.920 structure who have like direct ties and constant political deals 0:54:49.000 --> 0:54:52.160 with the with the like political establishment, which like you know, 0:54:52.360 --> 0:54:55.680 our Labor Party should rename itself at this point, like 0:54:55.800 --> 0:54:58.920 it is actively anti union, especially the unions that are 0:54:58.960 --> 0:55:04.440 fighting for the actual working class, like the today, Like 0:55:05.120 --> 0:55:07.520 as of recording this, like an hour and a half ago, 0:55:08.080 --> 0:55:12.120 there is a Tory MP who used to be a 0:55:12.280 --> 0:55:15.360 Labor MP until twenty eighteen has just been made like 0:55:15.440 --> 0:55:17.520 the vice chair of the Tory Party and he's like 0:55:18.320 --> 0:55:20.120 obviously a dog shit guy, but it's a really good 0:55:20.160 --> 0:55:23.200 demonstration of how like the labor is now just the 0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:28.040 red Tories. Um Tory now comes in red um they 0:55:29.160 --> 0:55:32.920 these these massive unions. My point is like it is 0:55:33.719 --> 0:55:37.600 again a neoliberalization of everything, and it's a neoliberalization of 0:55:37.920 --> 0:55:40.480 unions where they get to just be a massive corporate 0:55:40.520 --> 0:55:44.320 structure competing in like a free market of unions. Like 0:55:44.880 --> 0:55:48.200 they're trying to like compete to offer workers the best thing, 0:55:48.280 --> 0:55:50.640 and like, oh, we're most likely to succeeded out of 0:55:50.640 --> 0:55:52.719 demands because we have the most workers behind us. But 0:55:52.880 --> 0:55:56.040 like practically everyone knows that what they're actually going to 0:55:56.120 --> 0:55:58.439 get for the workers who are with them is dog shit. 0:55:58.600 --> 0:56:01.239 Like my friend was talking to a nurse at one 0:56:01.280 --> 0:56:04.440 of these matches on the first affab and she was 0:56:04.520 --> 0:56:08.040 just saying, like she was with Unison and then they 0:56:08.120 --> 0:56:10.719 said that what they were like actually pushing for was 0:56:11.080 --> 0:56:13.480 was still like under inflation and still like it just 0:56:13.760 --> 0:56:16.440 just wouldn't be worthwhile at all. So she's changing to 0:56:16.520 --> 0:56:20.160 be with the Royal College of Nursing instead. Yeah, we had, 0:56:20.160 --> 0:56:22.880 we had enormous yellow unions in the UK. It's a 0:56:23.000 --> 0:56:25.920 really issue facing British labor organizing. Um, we're going to 0:56:26.000 --> 0:56:29.200 talk more about that in the Future of organizing in 0:56:29.239 --> 0:56:31.560 the UK in the next episode. For now, this has 0:56:31.600 --> 0:56:33.759 been it could Happen here. You can find us in 0:56:33.800 --> 0:56:37.120 the usual places on Twitter and Instagram, dust the British Empire, 0:56:52.960 --> 0:56:55.600 It's it could Happen Here A podcast where I think 0:56:55.680 --> 0:56:58.560 Turf Island is legitimately my only remaining British joker. I 0:56:58.600 --> 0:57:02.759 think I've gone through basically every other one. So yeah, 0:57:02.840 --> 0:57:05.360 welcome book up to us talking about Turf Islands. This 0:57:05.560 --> 0:57:09.120 is part two of our interview with Sophie from Mars 0:57:09.360 --> 0:57:13.279 and Yeah, we're going to talk about how to make 0:57:13.360 --> 0:57:20.560 the UK less shit. Yay. The US have gotten to 0:57:20.640 --> 0:57:23.200 a point like a like a level of unionization that 0:57:23.320 --> 0:57:25.880 decreases every year, to the point where like it's people 0:57:25.960 --> 0:57:28.560 think of just like being in any union as like 0:57:28.600 --> 0:57:31.320 a socialist position, and it's like, guys, I I I 0:57:31.440 --> 0:57:35.360 have really bad nimes wish about yeah, like like it's 0:57:35.440 --> 0:57:40.720 it's really not that yeah and yeah, but but but 0:57:40.800 --> 0:57:43.400 I think there's this there's also this sort of like 0:57:45.480 --> 0:57:47.520 I don't know, like one one one of the things 0:57:47.600 --> 0:57:50.360 you have to deal with when when you're dealing with 0:57:50.480 --> 0:57:53.640 the with like really very large unions, I don't do 0:57:53.720 --> 0:57:55.200 anything like this is the thing in China and that 0:57:55.240 --> 0:57:57.960 happens constantly is like, yeah, China technically as one of 0:57:57.960 --> 0:58:02.120 the world's large largest unions. It like the last time 0:58:02.200 --> 0:58:05.760 that union did anything was actually, weirdly, the less time 0:58:05.760 --> 0:58:07.560 that you didn't do anything. Was in was drink tienemen 0:58:07.840 --> 0:58:11.320 and then ever since then they have done literally jack shit. 0:58:11.800 --> 0:58:15.720 Like every room was like, oh my fucking god, hold on, 0:58:17.480 --> 0:58:20.280 oh no, But like yeah, you get these things that 0:58:20.280 --> 0:58:23.440 are like technically unions, but you know, they don't do anything. 0:58:23.480 --> 0:58:25.600 They cooperate with bosses. They also and this is something 0:58:25.600 --> 0:58:27.520 you also see in the US. Well you don't really 0:58:27.600 --> 0:58:29.240 use China. You don't see this in China because there's 0:58:29.240 --> 0:58:30.920 they have one un trade union they have they have 0:58:30.960 --> 0:58:32.800 a state trade union federation because she is. In the 0:58:32.920 --> 0:58:34.440 US a lot where you get these really shitty things 0:58:34.480 --> 0:58:37.080 where like so someone will be organizing union campaign and 0:58:37.120 --> 0:58:39.440 like another union will come will like swoop in and 0:58:39.640 --> 0:58:41.800 be like, ah, hey, look at these people, like well 0:58:41.840 --> 0:58:43.320 we'll give you like a better cut, and and they're 0:58:43.360 --> 0:58:49.920 doing this like basically because like the okay, there are 0:58:49.920 --> 0:58:52.040 there are there are unions that are like actually there 0:58:52.040 --> 0:58:54.000 are unions that are actually unions, which is to say 0:58:54.040 --> 0:58:55.560 like there are there are unions that are sort of 0:58:55.560 --> 0:58:57.840 instruments of the working class and organizational to us. And 0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:00.320 then there are unions that are like we're forming a 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:02.080 union so we can increase our member roles. So we can, 0:59:02.240 --> 0:59:05.360 like you know, like we could be in so far 0:59:05.480 --> 0:59:07.560 is we're interested in expanding. We're interested in expanding because 0:59:07.560 --> 0:59:09.760 if we expand, more people will pay money into our bureaucracy. 0:59:10.120 --> 0:59:13.800 And that's a real like that that's a real issue. 0:59:13.840 --> 0:59:18.760 And I don't know, like it's interesting. It's interesting to 0:59:18.800 --> 0:59:21.400 me to see rather the sort of one day strikes 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:24.200 that have been happening in the UK kind of like 0:59:25.760 --> 0:59:27.840 I don't know esco is not the right word, but well, 0:59:27.920 --> 0:59:30.800 I if we're gonna if we're discussing what should happen, 0:59:31.080 --> 0:59:34.520 what's gonna happen next? Um? And I mean again, you 0:59:34.560 --> 0:59:36.160 don't know when this podcast is gonna come out, so 0:59:36.240 --> 0:59:38.000 like it could could be who knows, it could Like 0:59:38.040 --> 0:59:39.880 I might offer some predictions here and you might be 0:59:39.920 --> 0:59:42.520 able to like just look at the UK use and 0:59:42.680 --> 0:59:45.720 directly be like Sophie was full of shit. Um. But 0:59:45.880 --> 0:59:48.320 like also we should talk about young people in a minute, 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:52.240 because that's like pretty crucial to understanding UK politics. But um, 0:59:53.080 --> 0:59:56.919 but uh, the government right now, like I said before 0:59:56.920 --> 0:59:59.840 about Sunac, like he's trying to put in these massively 1:00:00.000 --> 1:00:03.080 authoritarian policies because he's realizing that like without them you 1:00:03.120 --> 1:00:06.240 can't do neoliberalism effectively. And one of them is, like, 1:00:06.520 --> 1:00:08.400 like I said about the pCFC bill, which was already 1:00:08.520 --> 1:00:10.560 in the works before soon that came in, but like 1:00:10.760 --> 1:00:12.240 now it's come you know, now it's come through, and 1:00:12.320 --> 1:00:13.960 they're doing like a second wave of trying to do it. 1:00:14.080 --> 1:00:16.600 They have the Online Safety Bill, which is not for 1:00:17.000 --> 1:00:20.560 anyone to be safe online. It's trying to like control 1:00:20.680 --> 1:00:23.800 freedom of the press basically like it's it's it's it's 1:00:23.920 --> 1:00:26.840 most extreme proposal is basically that like people who are 1:00:26.840 --> 1:00:29.160 anti capitalist and who are reporting on the news should 1:00:29.160 --> 1:00:34.280 be arrested normal British momentum. And but one of these 1:00:34.320 --> 1:00:36.560 ones is he's trying to just ban strikes, like he's 1:00:36.600 --> 1:00:40.000 effectively trying to ban strikes. The technical mechanism of it 1:00:40.160 --> 1:00:42.439 is that they are bringing in a bill that will 1:00:42.520 --> 1:00:48.760 demand a minimum level of service for certain industries if 1:00:48.920 --> 1:00:53.160 the like, and it doesn't say what those minimum levels 1:00:53.200 --> 1:00:56.120 would be, but the MPs can decide on it later 1:00:56.920 --> 1:00:59.000 if they want, like set it to be whatever they want, 1:00:59.000 --> 1:01:01.640 and obviously they could a minimum to just be complete 1:01:01.720 --> 1:01:04.720 normal service. But even if they don't, like, setting a 1:01:04.760 --> 1:01:07.080 minimum service defeats the point of a strike, and I 1:01:07.240 --> 1:01:09.560 think that if we're talking about what what will happen next, 1:01:09.800 --> 1:01:12.600 we have this enough as enough movement right now. I'm 1:01:12.640 --> 1:01:14.680 not I have mixed feelings about it. I have some 1:01:14.920 --> 1:01:19.400 some suspicions. I am not the biggest fan of electoral politics, 1:01:19.480 --> 1:01:22.240 and I do feel like it has the whole knox 1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:25.400 of something that could like launch a political party at 1:01:25.440 --> 1:01:28.920 any minute, and then it'll it'll it'll completely recuperate all 1:01:29.040 --> 1:01:30.800 energy that it has and every other bit of energy 1:01:30.840 --> 1:01:36.000 that will die off. But I think that the response 1:01:36.680 --> 1:01:40.600 to legislation trying to ban strikes is probably going to 1:01:40.680 --> 1:01:43.240 be an escalation from these one and two day strikes 1:01:43.280 --> 1:01:46.160 into like holding out for as long as they possibly 1:01:46.240 --> 1:01:50.280 can to demand concessions from the government and then like 1:01:50.960 --> 1:01:53.680 once you're in that territory you're actually talking about, you know, 1:01:54.120 --> 1:01:56.959 do a voice for you're you're actually like it's it's 1:01:57.160 --> 1:01:59.880 it's as the as flobots would say, compassion as fast 1:01:59.880 --> 1:02:04.880 as as you can go time. Um where I think 1:02:05.000 --> 1:02:08.200 that the movement of union of unions and class consciousness 1:02:08.200 --> 1:02:12.800 that's currently what rising in the UK is not going 1:02:12.920 --> 1:02:15.680 to respond by like lying down and taking it when 1:02:15.760 --> 1:02:17.920 the government tries to ban strikes. I think that it's 1:02:17.920 --> 1:02:21.560 going to escalate. And speaking of escalation, is it time 1:02:21.640 --> 1:02:26.160 for ads? Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, they're gonna look, the 1:02:26.640 --> 1:02:29.760 Washington State Highway Patrol is going to escalate things right 1:02:29.800 --> 1:02:34.000 into your school very quickly. So here's here's an ad 1:02:34.080 --> 1:02:39.720 for an escalating, worsening crisis of cryptocurrency and by sophie 1:02:39.760 --> 1:02:46.480 coin the only currency which supports the working class. And 1:02:46.760 --> 1:02:48.560 we're back. God, this is this is reminding me of 1:02:48.800 --> 1:02:55.040 the lib coom oxidizable currency. David Harvey NFT thing. Oh 1:02:55.200 --> 1:02:58.560 he was so bad, incredibly funny. Not not my fault 1:02:58.600 --> 1:03:02.440 that you're okay, that is completely that is a completely 1:03:02.480 --> 1:03:09.800 unrelated aside. Oh yeah, well let us get back to Yeah. 1:03:10.760 --> 1:03:12.680 Can I can I talk about young people for a man? 1:03:12.880 --> 1:03:14.400 Because I do? Yeah. I think this is a really 1:03:14.440 --> 1:03:17.160 important thing. That's probably going to be me just like 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:19.840 info dumping at you for a little bit, because I 1:03:20.320 --> 1:03:22.640 feel very passionately about I also think it's very important 1:03:22.960 --> 1:03:27.480 to understand the UK politics. It's that Britain hates young 1:03:27.600 --> 1:03:32.360 people so much, like it's inconceivable to people who live 1:03:32.400 --> 1:03:36.080 in other countries how much the media class, the political class, 1:03:36.120 --> 1:03:40.560 like the ruling class like hates the young so fucking 1:03:40.680 --> 1:03:43.920 much like if only under thirty fives could have voted 1:03:44.040 --> 1:03:46.800 in any of our recent elections, every borough in the 1:03:46.960 --> 1:03:51.520 UK would have been labor. That's less true now because 1:03:51.560 --> 1:03:54.880 our labor is run by the fucking head of the 1:03:54.960 --> 1:03:57.440 Crown Prosecution Service, but like when it was Corbyn, it 1:03:57.480 --> 1:03:59.680 would have all been labor. And then if if people 1:04:00.400 --> 1:04:03.520 I think like sixty could vote, it's like all conservative 1:04:05.120 --> 1:04:08.520 like there is they hate young people because they know 1:04:08.720 --> 1:04:11.480 that like social revolution will come from young people, and 1:04:11.600 --> 1:04:13.880 they know that young people have like just a vastly 1:04:14.000 --> 1:04:18.200 different understanding of the world. This is another Graverism, right, 1:04:18.360 --> 1:04:20.720 if we're gonna if we're gonna grape out like Graver 1:04:20.920 --> 1:04:23.560 said that, like that you could probably see that a 1:04:23.640 --> 1:04:27.240 revolution has taken place if one generation and the next 1:04:27.320 --> 1:04:31.520 generation effectively speak a different language, like if their understanding 1:04:31.560 --> 1:04:34.680 of the world is so is completely irreconcilable. And I 1:04:34.760 --> 1:04:37.000 think that one one interesting thing about Turf Island is 1:04:37.040 --> 1:04:40.240 that like trans rights are a really clear manifestation of that, 1:04:40.360 --> 1:04:44.480 where people under thirty five are entirely in supportive trans rights, 1:04:44.480 --> 1:04:47.400 they're entirely in supportive like self idea, you know, self 1:04:47.440 --> 1:04:52.200 determination of gender and like improving the healthcare situation and 1:04:52.480 --> 1:04:56.360 like informed consent healthcare and everything, and then people above 1:04:56.480 --> 1:04:59.800 that like practically entirely against it. And it's it's just 1:05:00.040 --> 1:05:03.280 like we have this, we have this absolutely wild generational 1:05:03.320 --> 1:05:07.360 divide in the UK, and they've been trying to reign that, 1:05:07.600 --> 1:05:10.440 like bring that under control with various policies for a 1:05:10.520 --> 1:05:15.000 long time. So Tony Blair must be destroyed at all courts. No, 1:05:15.200 --> 1:05:18.560 that's the IMF. Tony Blair multiple things at the same 1:05:18.600 --> 1:05:20.400 time should go to jail in a world where no 1:05:20.440 --> 1:05:22.800 one else goes to jail. No, yeah, that one, that 1:05:22.880 --> 1:05:28.720 one works. Um, Tony Blair. Margaret Thatcher's greatest achievement had 1:05:28.760 --> 1:05:31.400 this speech where he was like education, education, education, and 1:05:31.560 --> 1:05:33.480 he was basically like, we are going to make it 1:05:33.600 --> 1:05:37.480 so everyone goes to university. And he also did a 1:05:37.520 --> 1:05:39.680 lot of other reforms to do with getting people into schools. 1:05:39.680 --> 1:05:42.560 It was very it was it was it was contemporary 1:05:42.640 --> 1:05:46.040 with and very comparable too, like bushes, no child left 1:05:46.080 --> 1:05:49.560 behind kind of stuff. Oh god. So he did a 1:05:49.600 --> 1:05:52.320 lot of stuff to try to like clamp down on 1:05:52.600 --> 1:05:55.880 youth and also create a pipeline for young people to 1:05:55.920 --> 1:05:58.800 get through high school and then go to university. Um 1:05:59.040 --> 1:06:01.760 he Also when I speaking of about clamping down on youth, 1:06:02.080 --> 1:06:06.400 uh Mia, are you familiar with the asbo oh, isn't 1:06:06.640 --> 1:06:11.240 the fucking sonic gun things? We're think a lot of 1:06:11.280 --> 1:06:14.360 different think a different deranged British thing. This is a 1:06:14.480 --> 1:06:16.720 this is a policy measure. It's just it's not it's 1:06:16.720 --> 1:06:18.960 not a weapon. It's um. I mean, it is a 1:06:19.040 --> 1:06:22.160 weapon of class offer, but it's um. It's the antisocial 1:06:22.240 --> 1:06:26.240 behavior order. And basically this is part of the UK's 1:06:26.280 --> 1:06:30.440 system of exclusions, right, Like we have a system set 1:06:30.520 --> 1:06:33.680 up where young people can be excluded from a career 1:06:33.760 --> 1:06:36.120 path and then like a path to just like being 1:06:36.160 --> 1:06:40.800 a functional human being in society uh at At Basically, 1:06:40.920 --> 1:06:43.560 any moment, right, if a teacher takes against you, they 1:06:43.600 --> 1:06:46.560 think you're rude, they think you're misbehaving, they can exclude you. 1:06:46.640 --> 1:06:49.120 Then that goes onto your educational record, and then you know, 1:06:49.160 --> 1:06:50.920 you might get a permanent exclusion, which is what we 1:06:51.000 --> 1:06:53.840 call being expelled from school now, right, and then that 1:06:54.120 --> 1:06:57.440 is like statistically sets people on a massive path towards 1:06:57.600 --> 1:07:01.479 ending up in like juvenile offense centers, like because they've 1:07:01.520 --> 1:07:03.360 been kicked out of a school, and other schools don't 1:07:03.400 --> 1:07:04.760 want to take a kid who's been kicked out of 1:07:04.800 --> 1:07:06.720 a school, right, and then then what are they doing 1:07:06.760 --> 1:07:09.560 with their time? Like there are no fucking youth centers, 1:07:09.600 --> 1:07:11.840 there are no community centers, like they've been all been 1:07:11.920 --> 1:07:16.520 completely destroyed by new neoliberalism. Um. So like we have 1:07:16.600 --> 1:07:19.600 the system of exclusions and and and as bo's are 1:07:19.880 --> 1:07:22.000 a big part of that, as both sends of anti 1:07:22.040 --> 1:07:27.160 social behavior order. And basically it's like it's not just 1:07:27.360 --> 1:07:34.160 like a warning, it's like it comes from It's like again, 1:07:34.160 --> 1:07:36.440 it's something that's going on to a permanent record, and 1:07:36.800 --> 1:07:39.400 if you then commit crimes, you're going to be punished 1:07:39.480 --> 1:07:43.320 more severely because you've been warned already. Um. It's like 1:07:44.040 --> 1:07:47.680 it's it was, it was. It was introduced and then 1:07:47.800 --> 1:07:50.120 like cheered on by the ghouls who run our country, 1:07:50.440 --> 1:07:54.800 like because it was going to deal with chavs, which 1:07:54.880 --> 1:07:59.040 was our term for young working class people, um, just 1:07:59.120 --> 1:08:03.400 our pejorative of being young and poor. Um. But it 1:08:03.480 --> 1:08:08.120 obviously also was there to target like young young black kids, 1:08:08.200 --> 1:08:12.800 young brown kids, young traveler kids, um and like and 1:08:13.080 --> 1:08:14.800 that was you know, that was Blair like clamping down 1:08:14.880 --> 1:08:17.600 on any kind of existence outside of the pipeline that 1:08:17.640 --> 1:08:19.600 he was setting up for just being in school. There 1:08:19.680 --> 1:08:21.800 was also this massive focus on like attendance came in 1:08:21.920 --> 1:08:24.280 around the same time that like schools would punish people 1:08:24.280 --> 1:08:27.000 for for having missed any time at all. Like when 1:08:27.040 --> 1:08:30.360 I was going to high school, we had like school 1:08:30.400 --> 1:08:33.320 assemblies where they would tell us about the importance of attendance, 1:08:33.400 --> 1:08:36.120 like over and over and over again, like probably a 1:08:36.280 --> 1:08:39.479 hundred times a term. They would tell people that, Like 1:08:39.520 --> 1:08:42.280 they would tell the kids that, like attendance is the 1:08:42.360 --> 1:08:44.800 most important thing, and like the difference in your grades 1:08:44.840 --> 1:08:47.040 will be enormous if you missed like a single lesson 1:08:47.160 --> 1:08:49.280 or a single week of school. And they would like 1:08:49.360 --> 1:08:53.000 give awards to kids who had perfect attendance that yeah, yeah, 1:08:53.920 --> 1:08:59.360 and deranged as um and then like um, So that 1:08:59.479 --> 1:09:02.920 was Blair, And it's continued to to kind of intensify 1:09:03.000 --> 1:09:05.679 that same thing for a long time. But like very 1:09:05.800 --> 1:09:09.640 recently this is again Sunax authoritarian policies. We've brought in 1:09:09.880 --> 1:09:15.759 something called Prevent Now. Prevent is a multifaceted civilian surveillance 1:09:15.840 --> 1:09:19.880 program where basically people can be referred to prevent, which 1:09:20.000 --> 1:09:25.519 is capitalist, white supremacist, Western centric re education. It's a 1:09:25.560 --> 1:09:27.840 it's a re education program. It's it's if people are 1:09:28.040 --> 1:09:33.280 considered to be holding extremist views, expressing extremist opinions, then 1:09:33.320 --> 1:09:36.040 they can be referred to Prevent. Now, like a lot 1:09:36.120 --> 1:09:39.439 of the people in my kind of social circle will 1:09:39.520 --> 1:09:42.439 like meme about prevent because like all the language is 1:09:42.439 --> 1:09:46.519 about like making extremist content or whatever, and obviously that's 1:09:46.560 --> 1:09:49.840 what I do for a living. But like, but people 1:09:49.880 --> 1:09:52.680 would you know, make a tweet about how they think 1:09:52.720 --> 1:09:55.040 that like the Prime minister's a dickhead and then be like, oh, 1:09:55.120 --> 1:09:57.240 I'm going to get referred to prevent. And then it 1:09:57.320 --> 1:09:59.400 was noticeable that like, actually know, none of us are 1:09:59.439 --> 1:10:02.400 being referred to prevent, right, So like this isn't this 1:10:02.640 --> 1:10:05.680 isn't for us. It's actually been put in place for 1:10:05.800 --> 1:10:08.920 two specific purposes. I do know someone who's been I 1:10:09.000 --> 1:10:11.040 do know someone who knows someone who's been referred to prevent. 1:10:11.200 --> 1:10:13.720 And the person they know who's referred to prevent is 1:10:13.920 --> 1:10:18.400 a is a child, right, is a teenager because she 1:10:18.479 --> 1:10:22.639 works with trans youth, and like, being referred to prevent 1:10:22.880 --> 1:10:26.680 is really there as a system to control Muslim populations 1:10:27.040 --> 1:10:29.280 and young people, Like that's what it's really there to 1:10:29.400 --> 1:10:33.720 target and trying to clamp down on young people expressing 1:10:33.880 --> 1:10:36.639 any kind you know, the Muslim side of that, it's 1:10:36.760 --> 1:10:39.280 it's that has its own entire discussion. You could have 1:10:39.560 --> 1:10:44.320 to do with Islamophobia and like terror and like there's 1:10:44.320 --> 1:10:47.960 a whole thing, like you know, the complete unwillingness of 1:10:47.960 --> 1:10:49.760 the US and UK and all the other states from 1:10:49.920 --> 1:10:54.519 to acknowledge that like extremist Islamic terror is right wing terror. 1:10:54.600 --> 1:10:56.479 So then you if you merge those categories, you would 1:10:56.479 --> 1:10:58.920 see that actually the far right is the biggest threat 1:10:58.920 --> 1:11:01.559 to everyone all whatever. This is a whole other thing. 1:11:02.200 --> 1:11:06.759 Young people in the UK are under constant, like bart, 1:11:07.000 --> 1:11:11.600 under this constant barrage of like media pressure, shaming, stigmatism, 1:11:11.920 --> 1:11:16.439 and it's because they they are expected to either get 1:11:16.520 --> 1:11:19.640 a degree and succeed and get your hundred k a 1:11:19.760 --> 1:11:23.200 year salary job in whatever, or you are a piece 1:11:23.240 --> 1:11:25.679 of shit and you will go to jail. And obviously 1:11:25.760 --> 1:11:27.479 the reality for most people is you're going to get 1:11:27.520 --> 1:11:30.360 your degree or drop out and then you're going to 1:11:30.439 --> 1:11:33.720 wind up working in some kind of service sector job actually, right, 1:11:33.920 --> 1:11:37.280 or if you're lucky, a fairly easy like office job 1:11:37.320 --> 1:11:40.320 where you can quiet quit and just doss off all day. Right, 1:11:40.640 --> 1:11:44.000 But like the attacks on young people serves a very 1:11:44.040 --> 1:11:47.439 specific function, and it's because they're aware of that rebellion 1:11:47.479 --> 1:11:50.599 of the caring classes, and they're aware of the social 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:53.760 revolutionary potential of young people, and they're trying to stop it, 1:11:54.080 --> 1:11:55.880 like trying as hard as they can to stop it. 1:11:56.120 --> 1:11:57.880 And their mechanism for doing that is that there's this 1:11:57.960 --> 1:12:01.439 pipeline from birth until the end of your university degree 1:12:01.439 --> 1:12:03.280 and then hope and then allegedly you get a job, 1:12:03.400 --> 1:12:07.080 but you don't really or else, as I say, you 1:12:07.240 --> 1:12:11.559 probably wind up in jail. The university thing is also 1:12:11.640 --> 1:12:15.000 really really interesting because Grab again, fucking everyone take a shot. 1:12:15.280 --> 1:12:18.560 Grab pointed out that like revolution often comes out of 1:12:18.680 --> 1:12:24.080 cases where the population isn't looking at like someone else 1:12:24.160 --> 1:12:27.840 gets something, Like the population doesn't look at the ruling 1:12:27.920 --> 1:12:31.840 class getting everything and then getting nothing and think that's unjust. 1:12:31.880 --> 1:12:34.400 We should overthrow them. Right. This is how monarchy and 1:12:35.040 --> 1:12:37.720 kingdoms was able to perpetuate for such a long time. 1:12:38.200 --> 1:12:41.479 It's when they think that someone else who they consider 1:12:41.600 --> 1:12:44.439 comparable is getting something and they're not getting it. That's 1:12:44.479 --> 1:12:48.040 when they feel the injustice. And like, I think this 1:12:48.320 --> 1:12:52.559 education education, education speech and this moment and this policy 1:12:52.600 --> 1:12:55.439 set the neoliberalism and Blair and everyone since then has 1:12:55.439 --> 1:12:57.640 tried to kick into kick into action is going to 1:12:57.680 --> 1:13:00.200 turn out to be probably the biggest shooting themselves in 1:13:00.240 --> 1:13:04.000 the foot historically that we could measure, because they've basically 1:13:04.360 --> 1:13:07.160 made it that every person, like every young person in 1:13:07.160 --> 1:13:10.920 the UK must try to go to university. Not wanting 1:13:10.960 --> 1:13:14.200 to go to university is considered socially like backwards, and 1:13:14.360 --> 1:13:17.040 like then people go to university and then we all 1:13:17.120 --> 1:13:19.680 find that there are not jobs in the UK for 1:13:19.840 --> 1:13:22.280 everyone who's gotten a degree, because they basically set up 1:13:22.520 --> 1:13:24.920 the whole country to be a diploma mill. Like the 1:13:25.040 --> 1:13:27.560 whole entire country has this pipeline if everyone's going to 1:13:27.640 --> 1:13:29.920 get a degree and then and then what because there 1:13:30.040 --> 1:13:32.880 aren't fucking jobs, And that's going to create that sense 1:13:32.960 --> 1:13:37.479 that like we are not getting what we deserve. Um. Yeah, 1:13:37.520 --> 1:13:41.439 I think that the the marketization and the like opening 1:13:41.520 --> 1:13:44.799 up all these universities to be like profit driven diploma 1:13:44.880 --> 1:13:49.639 mills is has radicalized an enormous number of young people, 1:13:50.120 --> 1:13:52.320 which which I think is really interesting because a lot 1:13:52.360 --> 1:13:54.720 of Tory policy and like you know, like like what 1:13:54.960 --> 1:13:56.160 one of the one of the things the Tories did 1:13:56.479 --> 1:13:58.160 right right after they came to power, like right after 1:13:58.240 --> 1:14:00.760 two hunsand and eight was immediate imediately went to war 1:14:00.840 --> 1:14:03.280 against sort of higher education, right, and immediately it started 1:14:03.280 --> 1:14:06.080 to doing increasing fees, and this is you know, this 1:14:06.400 --> 1:14:07.960 is what produces the l two thousand and ten like 1:14:08.080 --> 1:14:10.800 student movement. And it's really interesting to me that like 1:14:11.600 --> 1:14:14.000 it really kind of seems like, I don't know if 1:14:14.240 --> 1:14:16.880 for them, the cure was worse than the disease, because 1:14:16.960 --> 1:14:19.360 like you know, they they they they they survived two 1:14:19.400 --> 1:14:21.720 thousand and eight, right, and there was a real moment 1:14:21.760 --> 1:14:23.640 where it looked like globally that the ruling class was 1:14:23.680 --> 1:14:25.560 not going to survive three thousand and eight and that 1:14:25.880 --> 1:14:28.240 like they were they were all about to come down 1:14:28.760 --> 1:14:30.680 and okay, so they survived that, but like, yeah, it 1:14:31.040 --> 1:14:33.600 really it really feels like they've sort of this is 1:14:33.640 --> 1:14:35.400 similar thing has happened in the US, right, which is 1:14:35.439 --> 1:14:38.160 like it turns out if if if if you turn 1:14:38.240 --> 1:14:42.360 an entire class of your population into just like basically 1:14:42.520 --> 1:14:46.960 like bait, basically basically the debt peons, those people get 1:14:47.040 --> 1:14:52.519 really really really pissed off. Yeah, it's like, you know, Okay, 1:14:52.560 --> 1:14:54.320 so you don't have a bunch of highly educated people 1:14:54.320 --> 1:14:57.040 who are very very very angry at people who forced 1:14:57.080 --> 1:15:00.800 the Potaking is always pointing out have been through university, 1:15:00.880 --> 1:15:02.960 which is a culture where they're going to be exposed 1:15:03.000 --> 1:15:05.880 to way more leftist ideas. Yeah, I mean, like, like, 1:15:06.040 --> 1:15:08.000 I like this is something I think about a lot, 1:15:08.080 --> 1:15:13.120 which is like I I think I knew I knew 1:15:13.280 --> 1:15:16.439 one openly gay person in high school, Like there were 1:15:16.560 --> 1:15:19.439 zero trans people, and I got I got to like 1:15:19.560 --> 1:15:22.960 the first time I was at least one, well you know, 1:15:23.280 --> 1:15:25.519 look I I I had no idea, and a part 1:15:25.520 --> 1:15:27.240 of reason I no idea, like like that the first 1:15:27.280 --> 1:15:30.400 time I like met someone who was like openly trans 1:15:30.560 --> 1:15:33.559 was like literally the first time I walked onto campus. Yeah, 1:15:33.560 --> 1:15:35.599 and like like one of the first people I meet 1:15:35.760 --> 1:15:37.720 was like a trans guy who fucking rips. I hope 1:15:37.880 --> 1:15:40.160 I was having a good day. Yeah, and like like that, 1:15:40.400 --> 1:15:43.760 like you know, and I think there's this tendency in 1:15:43.800 --> 1:15:45.920 the US, particularly, there's this tendency to look at the 1:15:46.000 --> 1:15:49.519 university and look at like, yeah, like obvious obviously if 1:15:49.640 --> 1:15:51.920 if if if, if you're going to school in the US, 1:15:51.920 --> 1:15:53.240 and also if you're going to school in the UK, 1:15:53.360 --> 1:15:55.320 you are going to run into a Marxist professor who 1:15:55.360 --> 1:15:58.120 tries to break your strikes, right, Like that's that's that's 1:15:58.160 --> 1:16:00.360 the thing that's true. Like there are bunch of right 1:16:00.400 --> 1:16:02.920 wingers on campus. Like I went to the University of Chicago. 1:16:03.000 --> 1:16:06.759 I have seen my own fucking econ departments. Our movement, 1:16:06.760 --> 1:16:10.080 if that is largely toughs like our Kathleen Stoker whoever, 1:16:10.160 --> 1:16:12.800 if you're familiar, like yep, yep, yeah, our right wing 1:16:12.840 --> 1:16:16.240 professors are almost always toughs. Yeah. But like, like you know, 1:16:16.320 --> 1:16:18.720 and there's there's this real tendency to sort of like 1:16:20.000 --> 1:16:23.280 completely disregard the university as like a thing that can 1:16:23.400 --> 1:16:25.680 produce anything remotely leftist. And I and I think that's 1:16:25.680 --> 1:16:29.840 just wrong. Like there's there's there, like there there was 1:16:29.880 --> 1:16:31.640 a reason a whole bunch of the universities in the 1:16:31.760 --> 1:16:34.720 US we're redesigned after sixty eight, Like they're there there, 1:16:34.840 --> 1:16:37.320 there's there's a reason why, like one of them. If 1:16:37.439 --> 1:16:39.439 you're doing a military coup in a Latin American country, 1:16:39.439 --> 1:16:40.920 one of the first things you do was roll tanks 1:16:40.960 --> 1:16:44.040 onto college campuses. Yeah, if you tanks onto the college campuses. 1:16:44.080 --> 1:16:45.680 Those students are going to fight you until like all 1:16:45.680 --> 1:16:48.280 of them are fucking dead. Like yeah, that's a you know, 1:16:48.400 --> 1:16:51.080 like that that's like as as as as as much 1:16:51.120 --> 1:16:54.599 as you know, you can even look at hippie hippies 1:16:54.640 --> 1:16:58.000 and hot hats thing, right, Yeah, the media image the 1:16:58.040 --> 1:17:02.400 conservatives created, I think it was Nixon, Like the hippies 1:17:02.400 --> 1:17:05.080 and the blue collar working class are incompatible and cannot 1:17:05.080 --> 1:17:08.759 work together. And the hippies are old, university educated effect 1:17:08.920 --> 1:17:12.439 liberals and working class people are conservative reactionaries, and that's 1:17:12.479 --> 1:17:16.880 like largely stuck until you get actual class consciousness building. 1:17:16.920 --> 1:17:18.439 Like this is something we're seeing massively in the UK 1:17:18.600 --> 1:17:21.960 right now. It's like the union, the growing union movement 1:17:22.080 --> 1:17:26.120 like has so many university educated people involved in it 1:17:26.200 --> 1:17:29.280 because like as soon as you start developing class consciousness, 1:17:29.360 --> 1:17:32.320 that that notion you're talking about, like that the universities 1:17:32.520 --> 1:17:37.120 can't produce something leftis just like flies out the window massively. Yeah, 1:17:37.160 --> 1:17:39.479 And I think that's why the US there's like this 1:17:39.600 --> 1:17:43.040 massive effort to sort of like I'm just gonna call 1:17:43.040 --> 1:17:45.360 it a fucking PSI up because it is like there's 1:17:45.400 --> 1:17:47.120 this massive PSI up to get people to like not 1:17:47.439 --> 1:17:50.599 think that, like being a barista is like I think 1:17:50.640 --> 1:17:52.720 there produces value, and it's like I'm going to beat 1:17:52.720 --> 1:17:55.240 you to death with a copy of episode of these things. 1:17:55.320 --> 1:17:57.479 It's like it's like with serial killer. Wait wait wait 1:17:57.520 --> 1:17:59.960 if you're like if you're like, well, what's the different 1:18:00.000 --> 1:18:02.800 it's a serial killer and a cop who kills a 1:18:02.840 --> 1:18:05.080 bunch of people. The differences that the couple will never 1:18:05.120 --> 1:18:07.760 be found guilty. Right, Like once you start like, once 1:18:07.800 --> 1:18:10.120 you start looking at what you could call a SSIE up, 1:18:10.160 --> 1:18:13.080 you're like, oh, the whole of capitalist media as a 1:18:13.160 --> 1:18:15.840 PSI up. Like yeah, but you know, I think the 1:18:16.080 --> 1:18:19.439 very specific thing here is like okay, if if if, 1:18:19.560 --> 1:18:22.559 if you look at who was in the UAW right now, right, 1:18:23.439 --> 1:18:25.680 the UAW is composed of two kinds of people. It 1:18:25.800 --> 1:18:28.439 is composed of people the remaining people who work in 1:18:28.439 --> 1:18:31.000 the auto industry, and it is composed of grad student unions, 1:18:31.479 --> 1:18:34.960 right Yeah, And I think I saw statistic recently. I 1:18:35.320 --> 1:18:36.960 think it's true of the way I wasn't able to 1:18:37.040 --> 1:18:39.799 verify it, which is that like thirty percent by volume 1:18:39.880 --> 1:18:42.599 of the UAWS total membership right now are from are 1:18:42.640 --> 1:18:46.040 from workers in the university of California system, like the 1:18:46.200 --> 1:18:49.120 you know, the the the the the actual class configuration 1:18:49.920 --> 1:18:52.360 that that that is happening right now. It is this 1:18:52.600 --> 1:18:56.479 very weird sort of alliance of industrial workers and then 1:18:56.560 --> 1:18:58.439 people and then people who've been like people people who 1:18:58.439 --> 1:19:00.840 are highly educated who've been like picked into really shitty 1:19:00.880 --> 1:19:04.080 service jobs. And that's a real like and that's the 1:19:04.160 --> 1:19:06.559 reason I I genuinely I think the reason you see 1:19:06.600 --> 1:19:08.640 so much of this sort of like like the right 1:19:08.680 --> 1:19:11.439 wing population around some of like the productive like working 1:19:11.520 --> 1:19:14.639 classic is specifically because this is this is a genuinely 1:19:14.800 --> 1:19:17.800 very powerful political lines. Even people like Lula, who like 1:19:18.080 --> 1:19:20.000 Lula like fucking hate it. Like you can you can 1:19:20.120 --> 1:19:23.000 go back and read like a million hilarious Lula quotes 1:19:23.320 --> 1:19:26.040 about like how much he hates fucking student radicals from 1:19:26.080 --> 1:19:28.479 like nineteen seventy three. He was just like a football 1:19:28.520 --> 1:19:30.400 fan guy, right, like he was just yeah, but like 1:19:30.560 --> 1:19:32.439 but even even even after becomes a labor leader like 1:19:32.479 --> 1:19:34.120 he he he has he spends a whole bunch of 1:19:34.120 --> 1:19:35.840 time like kicking all the student maoists out of his 1:19:36.080 --> 1:19:38.120 out of his like strikes and stuff, and like like 1:19:38.200 --> 1:19:40.160 he has this great line that was like this guy 1:19:40.240 --> 1:19:42.240 walks into the door. I looked at his hands and 1:19:42.360 --> 1:19:44.559 they were perfectly smooth, and I said, and I said 1:19:44.600 --> 1:19:50.360 to myself, this man is a Trotskyite. But like even 1:19:50.640 --> 1:19:52.640 you know, Lula, who was like he was like the 1:19:53.360 --> 1:19:56.599 like has left around the world. It's very like other 1:19:56.640 --> 1:19:59.559 Trotskyites in the room with you right now. Yeah, well 1:19:59.560 --> 1:20:02.280 I to to to to be fair, to be fair 1:20:02.360 --> 1:20:06.320 there he wasn't actually actually yeah, in the UK, it's 1:20:06.400 --> 1:20:07.880 much more like all the Maoists in the room with 1:20:07.920 --> 1:20:09.680 you right now. That's sh but like like you know, 1:20:09.760 --> 1:20:12.439 but like like even even Lula like basically had to 1:20:12.439 --> 1:20:15.280 abandon that completely because you know, like the it it 1:20:15.360 --> 1:20:17.080 turns out that like you can't actually like you know, 1:20:17.320 --> 1:20:20.120 as as as the sort of union's decayed in Brazil 1:20:20.240 --> 1:20:22.280 as they did everywhere else. I mean, brazilso has friendly 1:20:22.320 --> 1:20:25.040 loge unions, but like Brazil, bil the kind of industrial 1:20:25.120 --> 1:20:27.320 stuff that like existed in Brazil and like the eighties 1:20:27.439 --> 1:20:30.240 is gone, right yeah, and you know, it's like, well, okay, 1:20:30.280 --> 1:20:32.120 even even now, like yeah, he's his base has a 1:20:32.160 --> 1:20:34.080 bunch of like it has has is it has a 1:20:34.120 --> 1:20:36.600 bunch of just like university educated people working service jobs, right, 1:20:36.960 --> 1:20:40.800 and you know, like there's no there's no actual like 1:20:42.080 --> 1:20:45.799 they're there. There's no version of a functional leftist political 1:20:45.840 --> 1:20:49.479 coalition that doesn't have that. And it's obviously significant that 1:20:49.600 --> 1:20:52.120 two of the most prominent leftist theorists of the last 1:20:52.240 --> 1:20:56.280 like twenty years, David Graeber and Mark Fisher both walked 1:20:56.280 --> 1:20:59.400 in education. Yeah, right, like and Glacia was pointing out 1:20:59.439 --> 1:21:01.720 the whole like second shift stuff, kind of like we 1:21:01.800 --> 1:21:03.800 were talking about ut before with like reproductive labor, and 1:21:03.840 --> 1:21:06.320 he was talking about how like exhausted people are because 1:21:06.320 --> 1:21:07.439 they do their job and then that you know, and 1:21:07.840 --> 1:21:10.200 it's not it's it's not just women anymore. Like this, 1:21:10.400 --> 1:21:13.200 this this labor is expected of everyone. I mean, still 1:21:13.400 --> 1:21:16.360 disproportionately women and disproportionately women of color. But like, you know, 1:21:16.479 --> 1:21:20.000 he was telling a story about like his colleagues working 1:21:20.040 --> 1:21:22.519 in a high school that they that the only time 1:21:22.560 --> 1:21:25.360 they could find to organize or first complain about their 1:21:25.400 --> 1:21:27.640 working conditions and then organized was like when they went 1:21:27.680 --> 1:21:30.560 to the pub after work together. Right, yeah, well, I 1:21:30.640 --> 1:21:32.599 think it's also like I'm pretty sure it's a true, 1:21:32.600 --> 1:21:34.200 which I know it's true, agree, but like the like 1:21:35.000 --> 1:21:37.240 those those were both people from working class families who 1:21:37.280 --> 1:21:39.280 went into academia, which is a very sort of like 1:21:40.960 --> 1:21:42.920 I don't know, it's it's it's it's a very like 1:21:43.000 --> 1:21:45.559 I guess potent combination for how how you get people 1:21:46.240 --> 1:21:48.400 into radical politics. And I think I think this is yeah, yeah, 1:21:48.400 --> 1:21:50.320 again going back to sort of like totally Blair shooting 1:21:50.360 --> 1:21:52.640 himself from the foot, which is like, okay, so you 1:21:52.800 --> 1:21:54.880 you're now you're you're now forcing a bunch of working 1:21:54.920 --> 1:21:58.800 class people into universities, yeah, and then saddling the student debt. 1:21:58.840 --> 1:22:03.760 And it's like I wonder, I wonder, what will understanding 1:22:03.800 --> 1:22:06.679 of the world around you at the cost of becoming 1:22:06.720 --> 1:22:08.840 a debt pon, which will make your understanding of the 1:22:08.880 --> 1:22:12.400 world around you a very radical one very quickly. Yeah, 1:22:12.400 --> 1:22:14.800 And it's like okay, like like the there there is 1:22:14.840 --> 1:22:17.240 a certain extent to which millennials gets sort of less 1:22:17.280 --> 1:22:18.760 radical overtime, but like if you look at the less 1:22:18.800 --> 1:22:22.519 radical overtime, it's like they go from autonomous to corbinites. No, 1:22:22.840 --> 1:22:25.560 and that's still not great if you're like yes, but 1:22:25.760 --> 1:22:30.680 like yeah, it's friends conservative as the age is like 1:22:30.880 --> 1:22:34.080 largely not affecting millennials and gen Z And like, I 1:22:34.200 --> 1:22:36.360 think that I mean, one of the most obvious things 1:22:36.520 --> 1:22:39.200 point to as the climate crisis, right, like previous generations 1:22:39.240 --> 1:22:42.080 when not growing up being like the world will not 1:22:42.200 --> 1:22:44.920 be here when I reach retirement age unless we act. 1:22:45.439 --> 1:22:48.559 I don't think it's impossible for people to sell out 1:22:48.600 --> 1:22:51.200 like that. There are still a limited number of sellout 1:22:51.320 --> 1:22:53.439 jobs you could take, right, But the problem is there's 1:22:53.439 --> 1:22:56.200 just there's there's not enough of them in order to 1:22:56.320 --> 1:22:58.679 like actually buy people off on mass and like any 1:22:58.680 --> 1:23:00.479 other thing, particularly was like you know, the I supposed 1:23:00.479 --> 1:23:02.360 to make you work conservative this property ownership, I'm like, 1:23:02.920 --> 1:23:05.600 who the fuck is going to buy a house? Like, 1:23:05.960 --> 1:23:10.000 oh yeah, what, like I wonder under one circumstances, Yeah, 1:23:10.040 --> 1:23:13.080 Like yeah, I am past the age when my parents 1:23:13.200 --> 1:23:15.160 bought a house. I am past the age when my 1:23:15.240 --> 1:23:19.160 grandparents bought a house. And I know, like one person 1:23:19.280 --> 1:23:22.640 who's bought a house my age, who's like working for 1:23:22.840 --> 1:23:26.400 a like a privatized rail company, and who's who's partner 1:23:26.680 --> 1:23:30.080 like works for the police, Like, oh boy, no one's 1:23:30.120 --> 1:23:33.920 getting houses. Yeah, I mean like my I was, I 1:23:34.000 --> 1:23:35.639 was ausally do my friends like a who has a house, 1:23:35.800 --> 1:23:39.080 Like I have a friend who bought a condo? Yeah, 1:23:39.439 --> 1:23:41.840 Like but that's the thing like that, that's that that 1:23:42.200 --> 1:23:43.920 was that was another thing that was like they got 1:23:43.960 --> 1:23:45.760 health with their parents, and it's like health of your 1:23:45.800 --> 1:23:47.640 parents doesn't even get you a fucking house anymore, like 1:23:49.080 --> 1:23:53.639 a condo. I got, like I got like a little 1:23:53.680 --> 1:23:56.479 bit of money after my dad died, and it was 1:23:56.720 --> 1:24:01.040 enough to partially help for my my my surgery and 1:24:01.240 --> 1:24:04.840 then like fight off like rent debt for a few months, 1:24:04.920 --> 1:24:08.360 and that was all and it just disappeared, right, It's like, yeah, 1:24:09.800 --> 1:24:11.080 and you know what I mean. I mean, I think, 1:24:11.080 --> 1:24:16.040 I think, like like Britain's inflation is somebody is worse, 1:24:16.360 --> 1:24:19.679 way worse than the US is, which is truly stunning 1:24:20.520 --> 1:24:23.960 and makes me like want to cry because oh my god, 1:24:24.479 --> 1:24:28.080 like yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's something else. It's 1:24:28.120 --> 1:24:31.680 truly so economically the UK is. And again we have 1:24:31.760 --> 1:24:33.160 to just keep on coming back to the fact that 1:24:33.600 --> 1:24:35.320 Britain is just a smoke screen, like the whole of 1:24:35.400 --> 1:24:39.080 British society barely barely exists and is just like a 1:24:39.160 --> 1:24:42.360 collection of reactionary buzzwords, and then like a ton of 1:24:42.479 --> 1:24:46.720 people who are increasingly angryer and angrier about it. I 1:24:46.720 --> 1:24:48.599 don't know, I had a really good conversation a little 1:24:48.600 --> 1:24:51.200 while ago with like an old woman who lives in 1:24:51.520 --> 1:24:55.320 my like neighborhood. We met through some like community project stuff, 1:24:55.640 --> 1:24:57.439 and she just came by while we were hanging out 1:24:57.479 --> 1:25:01.080 on the stoop and U, yeah, we were just talking 1:25:01.120 --> 1:25:03.160 about Boris Johnson. It was right after Boris Johnson had 1:25:03.200 --> 1:25:07.120 come in and she was in like she was basically 1:25:07.160 --> 1:25:10.880 getting revolution pilled, like she like she was not at 1:25:10.920 --> 1:25:13.160 all a political person for as long as I've known her. 1:25:13.479 --> 1:25:16.280 And then like it was just yet another of the 1:25:16.400 --> 1:25:19.839 like revolving door, like like the Tory Party is currently 1:25:19.920 --> 1:25:22.760 running the boss rush strategy that they just like keep 1:25:22.800 --> 1:25:25.000 on swapping out Tory prime ministers as fast as they 1:25:25.040 --> 1:25:29.120 can and like and and I said to her, like, 1:25:30.080 --> 1:25:34.639 when people realize that, by definition, no one will ever 1:25:34.840 --> 1:25:39.200 hold the office who respects what the office is allegedly for, 1:25:39.479 --> 1:25:42.320 like serves the people or whatever. When people realize that, like, 1:25:42.720 --> 1:25:45.760 it's not just that like coincidentally, all of our prime 1:25:45.800 --> 1:25:48.720 ministers went to Eton and all of those like when 1:25:48.760 --> 1:25:50.479 they were in when they were then in Oxford, they 1:25:50.520 --> 1:25:53.080 were in like the Bullingdon Boys Club. It's not a coincidence. 1:25:53.360 --> 1:25:55.840 It's like that's the pipeline is how you get there. Like, 1:25:55.960 --> 1:25:58.280 when people realize that and they realize that no one 1:25:58.320 --> 1:26:00.800 will ever hold the office of prime as to who 1:26:00.960 --> 1:26:04.360 is there to to serve the country, They're gonna realize 1:26:04.400 --> 1:26:06.240 that they have to take care of each other instead, 1:26:06.320 --> 1:26:08.160 and we have to build something that we have to 1:26:08.280 --> 1:26:10.400 we have to build society from the ground up. And 1:26:10.479 --> 1:26:13.760 she was like yeah, she was like, yeah, I think 1:26:13.840 --> 1:26:18.400 that's what's literally happening in our community right now. Yeah, 1:26:18.439 --> 1:26:21.720 And I think that's sort of encouraging because like I 1:26:21.760 --> 1:26:26.760 don't know, like just the absolute wreckage that was Corbinism 1:26:26.880 --> 1:26:28.840 of just like the complete shit show of how that 1:26:29.040 --> 1:26:33.080 entire project went. Yeah, Like I know it's caused some 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:36.599 people to sort of like basically like you know, every 1:26:36.680 --> 1:26:39.400 every every every every successor generation of politics has like 1:26:39.880 --> 1:26:41.720 the person who used to be a Trotskyite who is 1:26:41.800 --> 1:26:44.640 now like a labor minister or is now like a 1:26:44.760 --> 1:26:47.960 fucking Tory minister. You're a pee boot judge and Kamala Harris, 1:26:48.000 --> 1:26:50.800 who are both raised by market academics. Yeah yeah, well 1:26:50.800 --> 1:26:55.880 I mean even like like Google, I am blink Goo Google, 1:26:55.960 --> 1:27:00.320 who build a Blasio's wife is Okay? She was she was, 1:27:00.360 --> 1:27:01.760 she was one of the founding members. They go, he'd 1:27:01.760 --> 1:27:05.320 be a river collective. Oh wow, yeah, like there's a 1:27:05.360 --> 1:27:10.120 lot of shit like that. Yeah, but like yeah, you know, 1:27:10.160 --> 1:27:13.599 but like it as much as this is a thing, 1:27:14.479 --> 1:27:17.800 I don't know, And insofar as it seems like the 1:27:17.920 --> 1:27:19.960 UK has the potential to be something that's not this, 1:27:20.800 --> 1:27:23.400 it's it seems like it's cool. It genuinely seems like 1:27:23.439 --> 1:27:24.720 it's going to be through labor and it's going to 1:27:24.760 --> 1:27:27.639 be through sort of street actions and organizing that's that's 1:27:27.720 --> 1:27:30.200 not taking places at the Labor Party. And I think hoping, 1:27:30.439 --> 1:27:33.799 like practically everyone I know who was invested in Corbyn 1:27:34.800 --> 1:27:38.639 is now like no party could possibly solve the problems 1:27:38.680 --> 1:27:42.200 of the UK because they watched like a guy, Oh 1:27:42.320 --> 1:27:45.120 here's a great movie recommendation, a very British coup. If 1:27:45.160 --> 1:27:47.000 people haven't seen this, and it's it's pretty obscure, so 1:27:47.080 --> 1:27:49.120 you probably haven't. But like it's it's just about a 1:27:49.160 --> 1:27:50.719 guy who is on the side of the working class 1:27:50.760 --> 1:27:53.240 becoming Prime Minister and then how the media likes like 1:27:53.640 --> 1:27:56.200 character assassinate him and have him removed from power, and 1:27:56.439 --> 1:27:59.400 like it's almost beat for beat what happened to Corbyn 1:27:59.439 --> 1:28:03.960 and it was made like the nineties. Um, but like, uh, 1:28:04.640 --> 1:28:06.960 you know, a guy comes along and floats like very 1:28:07.120 --> 1:28:11.439 mild social Democrat policies, and the entire media class says 1:28:11.439 --> 1:28:13.320 that he's going to like drag the country back to 1:28:13.439 --> 1:28:17.879 the seventies, and like there's there's like um like soldier 1:28:18.160 --> 1:28:20.639 like they're they're like units in the army doing target 1:28:20.720 --> 1:28:23.679 practice on pictures of him, and like people openly declaring 1:28:23.720 --> 1:28:25.800 that they will assassinate him if he comes into power 1:28:25.880 --> 1:28:28.120 and shit like this, and it's just like and then 1:28:28.240 --> 1:28:31.439 like people within the party work to sabotage his election. 1:28:31.520 --> 1:28:33.639 The election in twenty seventeen was lost by like two 1:28:33.680 --> 1:28:36.120 thousand votes, you know, and then it's pushed out and 1:28:36.160 --> 1:28:40.120 replaced by the worst imaginable neoliberal top top cop ghoul 1:28:40.400 --> 1:28:46.760 Kia Starma um. And like that spectacle has radicalized people 1:28:47.040 --> 1:28:51.320 so hard. Like I don't know, yeah, I don't think 1:28:51.360 --> 1:28:55.720 I know anyone who who who who supported Corbyn who 1:28:55.840 --> 1:28:59.639 now thinks that our problems can be solved without mass 1:29:00.200 --> 1:29:05.240 rising or at least like without union power basically like 1:29:05.880 --> 1:29:09.519 kicking the shit out of the government. I don't like, yeah, 1:29:09.560 --> 1:29:13.000 I don't really the the UK is we are we 1:29:13.200 --> 1:29:19.240 are don't vote pilled, I think, yeah, which which I 1:29:19.320 --> 1:29:25.360 think is yeah, I don't know like it. It strikes 1:29:25.400 --> 1:29:28.320 me in my sort of like I don't know my 1:29:28.720 --> 1:29:31.439 cursory knowledge of British history that like the most effective 1:29:32.240 --> 1:29:34.679 sort of British left wing political movements in a long 1:29:34.800 --> 1:29:38.040 time was the poll tech stuff in the nineties, which 1:29:38.120 --> 1:29:41.000 was defeated like into almost entirely by accommodation of street 1:29:41.040 --> 1:29:45.200 movements and like non party organizing. Yeah, and you know, 1:29:45.400 --> 1:29:46.960 I don't know that the UK's did a very weird 1:29:47.000 --> 1:29:49.000 position where it's like I don't know if there's a 1:29:49.000 --> 1:29:50.400 way it could have been different, but it's like it 1:29:50.800 --> 1:29:52.840 very much looked like the like like the sort of 1:29:53.080 --> 1:29:56.280 just like the incredibly furthest right, like just like absolute 1:29:56.360 --> 1:29:58.760 most shit parts of British society. We're going like far 1:29:58.840 --> 1:30:01.280 right parts of praciety, We're gonn the empower forever. But 1:30:01.479 --> 1:30:04.360 then somehow they managed to do the thing that social 1:30:04.360 --> 1:30:07.840 democratic governments always do, which is like they they managed 1:30:07.840 --> 1:30:10.000 to produce a series of of like changes in in 1:30:10.240 --> 1:30:13.680 the UK's class structure such that like they produced an 1:30:13.840 --> 1:30:17.120 entire like like they they like they you know, well 1:30:17.160 --> 1:30:19.600 I mean they they got their worst nightmare, which that 1:30:19.640 --> 1:30:21.360 they actually got into power and got to do all 1:30:21.400 --> 1:30:23.599 their policies. It turns out if you actually do all 1:30:23.600 --> 1:30:26.960 of their policies, the entire world implodes. And with with that, 1:30:27.040 --> 1:30:28.720 with that, with that, with with without some kind of 1:30:28.720 --> 1:30:30.840 functional opposition to make sure if they don't literally like 1:30:31.360 --> 1:30:35.360 press press to destroy the economy button. They were article 1:30:35.400 --> 1:30:38.759 that was like Sunak is going to raise energy bills 1:30:38.880 --> 1:30:42.200 like forty percent in April, and I just like, I 1:30:42.640 --> 1:30:45.120 just being like, they're just daring the working class to 1:30:45.240 --> 1:30:48.280 overthrow them at this point, Like, yeah, it's not that, 1:30:48.439 --> 1:30:51.280 but like I've seen the same take. Um. The leftist 1:30:51.320 --> 1:30:53.720 journalist Owen Jones said a little while like when lisz 1:30:53.760 --> 1:30:55.400 Trust was in he was like, I'm pretty sure she's 1:30:55.439 --> 1:30:58.640 actually an undercover Trutskit trying to initiate revolution by doing 1:30:58.680 --> 1:31:02.200 the worst policies possible. Like it really feels like that sometimes. 1:31:02.240 --> 1:31:04.639 But it is just like, as you say, the nightmare 1:31:04.720 --> 1:31:08.080 of their politics that like they can't they are just 1:31:08.360 --> 1:31:12.639 um incapable of conceiving of the harm that they're doing. 1:31:12.840 --> 1:31:15.360 And speaking of being incapable of conceiving of the harm 1:31:15.400 --> 1:31:20.000 that they're doing, here's an ad for Raytheon. I don't 1:31:20.000 --> 1:31:23.280 know something. So when I said before about like the 1:31:23.400 --> 1:31:27.120 generational divide and how reactionary like older people in the 1:31:27.240 --> 1:31:30.320 UK are, that applies to some of our like our 1:31:30.560 --> 1:31:34.600 older leftists as well. So there is this like offshoot 1:31:34.640 --> 1:31:37.360 of the of CPGB, the Communist Potty of Great Britain 1:31:37.560 --> 1:31:41.759 called CPGB mL the Communist Ploty of Great Britain Marxist Leninist. 1:31:42.160 --> 1:31:47.120 Oh boy, they are fascinating. So basically so basically there 1:31:47.280 --> 1:31:48.840 was let me just let me just let me just 1:31:48.880 --> 1:31:52.640 refresh my memory. But like there was, um, there was 1:31:52.680 --> 1:31:57.599 a split from the from from CPGB a couple decades ago, 1:31:57.640 --> 1:32:01.960 I think where people were just like where where basically 1:32:02.000 --> 1:32:03.360 it was it was to do with the politics of 1:32:03.400 --> 1:32:05.960 like supporting North Korea, and like there was some Maoists 1:32:06.040 --> 1:32:08.840 involved and shit like this. Um, there are some people 1:32:09.000 --> 1:32:12.439 who involved who have done some like wild stuff in 1:32:12.600 --> 1:32:17.120 leftist terms, Like there was someone who was involved with 1:32:17.200 --> 1:32:19.519 the Spanish Civil War and then like moved to China 1:32:19.600 --> 1:32:22.760 and took like positions in Mao's government during the Cultural Revolution, 1:32:23.360 --> 1:32:26.160 like a boy who is like now, I think the 1:32:26.920 --> 1:32:31.439 Honorary President of CPGBML. That's um Isabel Crook. But basically 1:32:31.479 --> 1:32:35.960 what happened was um when the when cpgb kind of 1:32:36.240 --> 1:32:38.920 split apart in the sixties, one of the splinter groups 1:32:39.000 --> 1:32:43.439 was called the Revolutionary Marxist Leninist League and then and 1:32:43.600 --> 1:32:48.080 then that immediately splintered as well, and they and then 1:32:48.160 --> 1:32:50.719 they had a thing called the Association of Communist Workers 1:32:51.000 --> 1:32:54.439 and that was founded by Harpell bra Now this is 1:32:55.280 --> 1:32:57.600 bear in mind the Bras for a second b R 1:32:57.680 --> 1:33:02.559 A R because this is really interesting. So basically Harpell 1:33:02.600 --> 1:33:07.559 bra Um, Yeah, he's he's old as dirt now he's 1:33:07.560 --> 1:33:10.960 still kicking around. He does some like um like vaud 1:33:11.120 --> 1:33:16.080 chats with like everyone's favorite real definitely real communist Caleb 1:33:16.160 --> 1:33:21.080 morpen Um and the Bras because of their role in 1:33:21.160 --> 1:33:24.120 this like splinter group and then the founding of CPGBML, 1:33:25.280 --> 1:33:29.640 it's kind of like a dynastic family of communists. Like 1:33:30.800 --> 1:33:33.240 so Harpall Bra is the father of Joeti bra who's 1:33:33.240 --> 1:33:38.040 like a notorious tough communist and and like she isn't 1:33:38.120 --> 1:33:43.280 officially in charge of CpG BML, but like apparently nothing, 1:33:43.560 --> 1:33:45.720 nothing is allowed that goes against her. So it's like 1:33:45.960 --> 1:33:51.920 they've they've actually put a dynasty in place. Oh boy. Yeah. Um. 1:33:52.240 --> 1:33:53.840 But as I say, that's all, that's all part of 1:33:53.880 --> 1:33:56.920 the fact that like them, the older people in the 1:33:57.040 --> 1:34:01.120 UK are just like shockingly reactionary. It's good stuff. It's 1:34:01.160 --> 1:34:04.160 good stuff. Like they're trying to do like working class 1:34:04.240 --> 1:34:07.720 organizing around how much they hate trans people. It's really good. 1:34:08.280 --> 1:34:12.120 Oh yeah. I mean that's the one thing I'll say 1:34:12.120 --> 1:34:15.960 about the US, which is that like, like we don't 1:34:16.080 --> 1:34:18.560 have as many like there are lib Turfs, but like 1:34:18.680 --> 1:34:23.400 the lib Turfs don't really sort of like like that 1:34:23.560 --> 1:34:28.080 they're they're they're kind of walled off from like toism 1:34:28.240 --> 1:34:31.000 is a very British thing I don't like. I yeah, 1:34:31.200 --> 1:34:32.840 like I've seen Americans worry about it a lot. I 1:34:32.880 --> 1:34:34.360 don't think it's going to take off with you guys, 1:34:35.160 --> 1:34:39.040 because we have a politics of British exceptionalism, which is 1:34:39.080 --> 1:34:42.280 directly contrasted to US politics. Like it's very similar to 1:34:42.400 --> 1:34:46.640 like how can like Canadian liberals work where like everything 1:34:47.240 --> 1:34:49.200 every place where we can be progressive. We try to 1:34:49.240 --> 1:34:51.400 pride ourselves on not being as bad as the US, 1:34:51.920 --> 1:34:56.639 and so like the specter of the GOP not only 1:34:56.760 --> 1:34:59.880 like does not only do toffs literally receive money from 1:35:00.080 --> 1:35:03.200 far right evangelical Christian groups from the US, but like 1:35:03.680 --> 1:35:07.080 the fact that the GP, the GOP is there, gives 1:35:07.160 --> 1:35:11.280 like supposed feminists in the UK this cover to pretend 1:35:11.320 --> 1:35:15.040 they're still progressives because like this, they support abortion until 1:35:15.080 --> 1:35:18.880 the candidate comes along who hates trans people, who also 1:35:18.960 --> 1:35:23.080 wants to know to make abortion illegal. Um, I don't 1:35:23.120 --> 1:35:25.559 think that. I don't know, I could be proven wrong 1:35:25.560 --> 1:35:28.160 about this, but I don't think that, like, uh, turfs 1:35:28.960 --> 1:35:30.680 get a foothold in the US in the same way 1:35:30.680 --> 1:35:35.280 because you're like reactionaries just function a bit a bit differently, 1:35:35.400 --> 1:35:40.080 And like the trying to like, um, divide the progressive 1:35:40.200 --> 1:35:43.760 left with turfs is a very conscious strategy that's kind 1:35:43.800 --> 1:35:47.960 of like been designed and constructed for the UK, Like 1:35:48.520 --> 1:35:52.360 it's it's yeah, it's it's liberals who are like, we 1:35:52.439 --> 1:35:54.960 are so progressive because we're not the US, who are 1:35:55.000 --> 1:35:58.120 then amenable to tough talking points in the UK who 1:35:58.160 --> 1:35:59.640 are really really out of touch. And again there's like 1:35:59.640 --> 1:36:03.360 the general rational thing. But like I think that I 1:36:03.479 --> 1:36:07.120 think that tough Island will continue to be notoriously tough Island. 1:36:07.240 --> 1:36:09.760 Like I think that tough ism will continue to be 1:36:09.840 --> 1:36:14.880 a very very very British phenomenon. I have seen what 1:36:14.880 --> 1:36:17.519 you're talking about with like swafs in the US because like, yeah, 1:36:17.720 --> 1:36:19.479 I mean, I will say, like the other cultry I 1:36:19.520 --> 1:36:22.639 think is particularly really bad with this in Mexico has 1:36:22.640 --> 1:36:26.480 an enormous turf problem, like in ways that are incredibly 1:36:26.560 --> 1:36:29.840 dangerous for about this on this podcast. But yeah, it's 1:36:30.120 --> 1:36:33.040 very bleak. Um. Yeah, I don't know. The US, Yeah, 1:36:33.080 --> 1:36:35.080 the US, the dangers mostly from the far right and 1:36:35.160 --> 1:36:38.120 also from people like who who are like libs but 1:36:38.200 --> 1:36:42.960 who are like really like like I don't know, like 1:36:43.040 --> 1:36:47.479 New New York Times collaborator types. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I 1:36:47.520 --> 1:36:50.040 mean it's the same thing here we have like I 1:36:50.040 --> 1:36:52.320 don't know if you know the comedian Rob Delaney, Um, 1:36:52.680 --> 1:36:54.680 he's American, but he moved to the UK and he 1:36:54.760 --> 1:36:57.520 has been, you know, fighting for a long time alongside 1:36:57.560 --> 1:37:00.800 like union movements. I think he's like mostly a liberal, 1:37:00.880 --> 1:37:02.439 Like he calls himself a socialist, but I don't think 1:37:02.520 --> 1:37:04.559 he's I don't think he would call himself a communist 1:37:04.640 --> 1:37:09.040 or anything like this. Um, But like he said that 1:37:09.080 --> 1:37:12.120 when he moved to the UK, he was like, you're 1:37:12.200 --> 1:37:15.680 always pointing to American media by being like, look how 1:37:15.720 --> 1:37:19.080 bad Fox News is, but truly every outlet of the 1:37:19.200 --> 1:37:25.000 UK media is Fox News, Like yeah, yeah, the UK 1:37:25.200 --> 1:37:28.080 media is like somehow more fucked than the American media, 1:37:28.080 --> 1:37:30.320 which really amazing. That has to do with that, that 1:37:30.479 --> 1:37:34.120 that that that ties in really strongly with out without 1:37:34.120 --> 1:37:37.760 a tradition of I was gonna say the lovable public 1:37:37.840 --> 1:37:41.840 nonsens again, No, that's not it. The bad thing, the 1:37:41.920 --> 1:37:45.280 evil thing, Tony Blair there it is, um Yeah, Tony 1:37:45.360 --> 1:37:48.280 Blair was so close with Rupert Murdoch that he literally 1:37:48.320 --> 1:37:51.400 fucked Rupertmodock's wife. He's literally like she's the godfather of 1:37:51.600 --> 1:37:54.200 Rupertmodock's kids or the other way around. I remember, like 1:37:54.439 --> 1:37:56.519 he is he is like that with Rupert. There's a 1:37:56.520 --> 1:38:00.439 famous picture of like Blair reading the Sun and fuck 1:38:00.520 --> 1:38:04.639 the Sun reading the Sun newspaper and like the headline 1:38:04.720 --> 1:38:08.720 is like we love Blair or whatever. Sidebar. Briefly, my 1:38:08.840 --> 1:38:11.000 uncle died in the Hillsborough disaster. If people aren't familiar 1:38:11.000 --> 1:38:13.760 with that, I explained the whole thing. But like the 1:38:14.240 --> 1:38:18.920 passion with which I want the Sun newspaper destroyed in 1:38:19.000 --> 1:38:22.439 the most literal sense possible, Yeah, fucking come and arrest me. 1:38:22.520 --> 1:38:24.400 I will I will stand up in court and say 1:38:25.320 --> 1:38:28.200 this is on behalf of my goddamn family. I am 1:38:28.200 --> 1:38:34.080 allowed to have this opinion. But but like the way 1:38:34.160 --> 1:38:36.240 that like new Labor was able to tie it all 1:38:36.360 --> 1:38:40.240 together as this, like the progressive newspapers and the reactionary newspapers, 1:38:40.280 --> 1:38:45.160 it's all working for the ruling class, and then like neoliberalism, 1:38:46.000 --> 1:38:48.720 you know, benefits them enormously. So like we have where 1:38:48.800 --> 1:38:52.040 before we had the kind of faintest illusion of their 1:38:52.080 --> 1:38:54.559 being like a left wing media and a right wing media. 1:38:55.000 --> 1:38:57.040 Now it's like there's the ruling class media, and then 1:38:57.080 --> 1:39:01.720 there are like tiny, tiny, tiny independent leftist media sources. Right, 1:39:01.760 --> 1:39:05.800 there's like yeah YouTubers like me. There's like Novara Media, 1:39:06.200 --> 1:39:11.400 there's Owen Joey. Yeah, they're like they're like Trotskyites, like 1:39:11.720 --> 1:39:14.920 making newspapers to fund their like well mostly to fund 1:39:14.960 --> 1:39:18.080 making more newspapers, to be honest, but like you know, um, 1:39:18.880 --> 1:39:20.920 you know, and and they're they're just these tiny little 1:39:20.960 --> 1:39:23.759 crumbs and the rest of the media is just fucking 1:39:24.000 --> 1:39:26.479 dog shit to the point where like it's actually quite funny, 1:39:26.520 --> 1:39:28.559 Like it's gotten to the point where they're complacent because 1:39:28.600 --> 1:39:31.400 they're so not used to dealing with anything that represents 1:39:31.439 --> 1:39:34.760 the working class that they like. They recently had Mike Lynch, 1:39:34.840 --> 1:39:38.280 the head of the RMT union, on a bunch of 1:39:38.400 --> 1:39:41.400 different like UK talk shows where they were they were 1:39:41.479 --> 1:39:43.920 expecting to be able to like gotcha him with the 1:39:44.160 --> 1:39:48.240 most transparent bullshit m Yeah. Richard Madley said to him, like, 1:39:48.720 --> 1:39:52.080 what about the spirit of Christmas, your stripes ability to 1:39:52.280 --> 1:39:54.120 go home and see their family? And he was like, 1:39:54.640 --> 1:39:57.600 what about workers getting paid better? Dick head? And it 1:39:57.760 --> 1:40:00.320 was just like it was just like game over me really, 1:40:00.439 --> 1:40:02.400 like they are so not used to talking to anyone 1:40:02.439 --> 1:40:04.479 who cares about the working class that when someone like 1:40:04.600 --> 1:40:08.040 it just not even an especially radical just like a 1:40:08.160 --> 1:40:11.599 union leader comes on to their show, he just owns them, 1:40:11.680 --> 1:40:15.840 like he just butts that goddamn biscuits like it's it's amazing. Yeah. 1:40:15.880 --> 1:40:17.880 We we had this with the rail strike. We're like, 1:40:18.360 --> 1:40:20.040 I remember, how was it businesses that are it was 1:40:20.120 --> 1:40:22.280 it was one of the business press guys had had 1:40:22.360 --> 1:40:24.560 someone they were like they were talking to like a 1:40:24.680 --> 1:40:28.640 rail worker. Yeah, and you can see on air this 1:40:28.920 --> 1:40:31.920 guy realizing that these people have zero days off a 1:40:32.000 --> 1:40:35.439 year and going what the fuck? Yeah. Yeah, sort of 1:40:35.560 --> 1:40:37.559 like like even even the like business class guys were 1:40:37.600 --> 1:40:40.400 like wait, hold on, like what do you mean you 1:40:40.479 --> 1:40:43.760 have zero days off a year? Like what It's like, Yeah, 1:40:44.120 --> 1:40:46.960 there's like a human empathy that like that they are 1:40:47.000 --> 1:40:49.320 not expecting to be a problem for them because like 1:40:49.479 --> 1:40:53.240 they're all parasitic fucking goals. And then like they come 1:40:53.280 --> 1:40:55.720 into contact but that they've been lied to about the 1:40:56.080 --> 1:40:58.360 lives that the working classes have to live. Yeah, and 1:40:58.400 --> 1:40:59.920 then a working class class and comes on and just 1:41:00.080 --> 1:41:02.559 tells them like, oh no, it's like this, and they're like, oh, 1:41:03.160 --> 1:41:06.760 we should do something about the Yeah. It's like yeah, 1:41:06.800 --> 1:41:08.240 And that's sort of like I don't know that that's 1:41:08.280 --> 1:41:10.080 that's sort of that sort of shield, Like it's kind 1:41:10.080 --> 1:41:14.720 of the kind of installation that gets built up just yeah, 1:41:15.040 --> 1:41:18.519 do you do you have anything else you want to say? Stuff? 1:41:19.520 --> 1:41:26.040 Fuck the police? Uh um, listen to Red Planet. Yeah, okay, 1:41:26.040 --> 1:41:28.280 I'm plugging stuff. I'm going to say I'm spy from US. 1:41:28.360 --> 1:41:31.759 I make video essays on YouTube about politics, philosophy, sometimes 1:41:31.760 --> 1:41:35.479 about media. I did a little bit of about Yay 1:41:35.720 --> 1:41:38.000 going on info Wars and all his anti semitism and stuff. 1:41:38.040 --> 1:41:41.720 Pretty recently, I'm doing something about climate doumerism and how 1:41:41.760 --> 1:41:43.920 I believe that the world is not ending. It's just 1:41:44.200 --> 1:41:47.200 the collapse of the imperial core. And people are projecting 1:41:47.720 --> 1:41:53.760 the inability to get Starbucks and Deliverux as the apocalypse. Um, 1:41:54.600 --> 1:41:56.560 that should be out sometime soon ish. But what I 1:41:56.640 --> 1:41:59.080 really want you it could happen here. Listener to check 1:41:59.120 --> 1:42:01.200 out is Red Planet because I think you'll really like it. 1:42:01.479 --> 1:42:05.400 It's a it's a weekly leftist round table where we 1:42:05.479 --> 1:42:07.599 talked about how to make the world a better place. Um, 1:42:08.280 --> 1:42:10.920 it's every Sunday eight pm to eleven pm UK time. 1:42:11.640 --> 1:42:13.640 Please Google to figure out what that is for you. 1:42:13.960 --> 1:42:16.360 It's on Twitch dot tv slash red Planet Live, and 1:42:16.479 --> 1:42:18.000 we also have a podcast feed if you want to 1:42:18.000 --> 1:42:21.120 catch up on all the archive. Episodes should be available 1:42:21.520 --> 1:42:24.960 wherever podcasts are sold. Um, it's called Red Planet, and 1:42:25.040 --> 1:42:27.960 it's a good time. And we also, I mean we 1:42:28.040 --> 1:42:30.200 have a lot of we have some some some solid 1:42:30.240 --> 1:42:32.080 overlap where it could happen to year. Actually, we recently 1:42:32.120 --> 1:42:36.720 interviewed maya crime you as well, so you know, if 1:42:36.760 --> 1:42:38.720 you want to content, we had a good chat with 1:42:38.880 --> 1:42:42.439 that and I can't imagine you don't because she's delightful, 1:42:43.920 --> 1:42:49.080 wonder wonderful person, wonderful, wonderful little kitty cat. Uh yeah, 1:42:49.200 --> 1:42:50.840 this has been It can happen here. You can find 1:42:50.920 --> 1:42:53.320 us in the places. You can wage a tonal war 1:42:53.360 --> 1:42:57.120 against the British imperialist ruling class. You can do this 1:42:57.400 --> 1:43:00.920 from your home. Yep, I've cool. I've been, Sophie. I've 1:43:00.920 --> 1:43:03.360 been playing with a Browning three six four switch blade, 1:43:04.080 --> 1:43:05.920 only in my house where it is legal to have it. 1:43:07.880 --> 1:43:10.479 And I apologize again to Daniel for all the clicking noises. 1:43:26.920 --> 1:43:30.880 Hello everyone, and welcome. It could happen here once again, 1:43:30.960 --> 1:43:35.920 hosted by myself Andrew along with the rest of the crew, 1:43:37.240 --> 1:43:41.320 Mea and James. All right, and today I want to 1:43:41.360 --> 1:43:44.640 take a minute to talk about Ubuntu, and not the 1:43:45.160 --> 1:43:51.920 Linux software, but the African philosophy. Ubuntu is philosophical concepts 1:43:52.040 --> 1:43:54.280 for those who don't know, derived from some of the 1:43:54.400 --> 1:43:58.800 diverse and disposed indigenous traditions of the roughly three hundred 1:43:58.840 --> 1:44:02.880 and sixty million and band To speaking peoples of Africa. Bantu, 1:44:03.000 --> 1:44:05.639 coming from the Zulu wood for people, is a language 1:44:05.640 --> 1:44:08.800 family spoken by approximately four hundred distinct ethnic groups and 1:44:08.920 --> 1:44:13.200 splinter approximately four hundred and forty six eighty distinct languages 1:44:13.240 --> 1:44:16.080 slash dialects born as a result of the great band 1:44:16.120 --> 1:44:18.960 to migrations that I could in two major waves about 1:44:19.040 --> 1:44:21.800 three thousand and two thousand years ago across Central, East 1:44:21.920 --> 1:44:30.280 and South Africa. Contrary to the maxim I think. Therefore, 1:44:30.439 --> 1:44:36.320 I am Ubuntu, roughly translated from the Guni Bantu languages 1:44:36.439 --> 1:44:42.040 like Osa and Zulu, means humanity and more specifically humanity 1:44:42.120 --> 1:44:48.880 towards others. I am because you are. There are of course, 1:44:49.000 --> 1:44:51.840 various names to the concept from language to language and 1:44:51.920 --> 1:44:57.679 ethnic group to ethnic group, including Boto, Muntu, Mundu, Batu, Utu, etc. 1:44:58.479 --> 1:45:02.760 But Ubuntu is definitely the mo was prominent and internationally recognized. 1:45:03.800 --> 1:45:07.439 According to the African Journal of Social Work, Buntu is 1:45:07.800 --> 1:45:11.719 a collection of values and practices the people of Africa 1:45:11.960 --> 1:45:16.880 or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. Rather, 1:45:17.000 --> 1:45:20.439 nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, 1:45:20.760 --> 1:45:23.880 they all point to one thing. An authentic individual human 1:45:23.920 --> 1:45:30.120 being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental, 1:45:30.320 --> 1:45:35.520 and spiritual world. This, of course, is not unique to Africa. 1:45:36.640 --> 1:45:39.800 What's any specific culture or any specific ethnic group. I 1:45:39.880 --> 1:45:44.080 think we're finally sort of mirroring ideas in a variety 1:45:44.160 --> 1:45:46.599 of contexts, because I think it really is something that's 1:45:46.600 --> 1:45:51.720 fundamentally human. But I think it is good to look 1:45:51.760 --> 1:45:57.240 at how these ideas have manifested in those more specific contexts. 1:45:58.200 --> 1:46:03.200 I mean, in the aura literature of South Africa with 1:46:03.320 --> 1:46:06.879 Buon Tursman existence. From as early as the mid nineteenth century, 1:46:08.840 --> 1:46:12.200 the reported translations for the term have covered the field 1:46:12.280 --> 1:46:17.760 of human nature, humanness, humanity, virtue, goodness, and kindness, and 1:46:17.880 --> 1:46:20.080 so it's meant to be a sort of a parallel 1:46:20.240 --> 1:46:25.080 to the abstract idea of humanity as a philosophy or 1:46:25.160 --> 1:46:29.200 as a world view. Of Puntu really was popularized in 1:46:29.240 --> 1:46:31.880 the beginning of the nineteen fifties, most of them being 1:46:31.920 --> 1:46:35.280 the writings of Jordan Cushion Gabane published in the African 1:46:35.400 --> 1:46:40.360 Drum magazine. From then into the nineteen seventies, bunt began 1:46:40.400 --> 1:46:45.200 to be used as a specific form of African humanism, because, 1:46:45.240 --> 1:46:47.479 of course, in that sixties and seventies period you had 1:46:47.880 --> 1:46:53.160 a lot of afrocentric and pan African and black power 1:46:53.320 --> 1:46:59.479 ideas coming to prominence around the world. This is, of 1:46:59.560 --> 1:47:03.880 course all so coincided with the period of decolonization, or 1:47:03.960 --> 1:47:07.479 rather formal political independence was taken place in nineteen sixties, 1:47:08.400 --> 1:47:14.439 and this desire for these newly independent countries to pursue Africanization, 1:47:15.120 --> 1:47:18.480 to sort of let go of some of the symbolic 1:47:18.680 --> 1:47:22.439 aspects of colonial rule. Of course, that process has not 1:47:22.760 --> 1:47:26.839 really been completes and in many ways the post colonial 1:47:26.920 --> 1:47:33.080 status is equivalent to the colonial status. But in some 1:47:33.240 --> 1:47:39.320 ways some leaders were trying to pursue sort of a 1:47:39.439 --> 1:47:44.639 new African specific humanism as a philosophy for the Bushoning 1:47:44.680 --> 1:47:46.960 countries at the time. This is a part of the 1:47:47.000 --> 1:47:49.720 episode where we tell everyone to read Fano again. Of 1:47:49.840 --> 1:47:54.639 course read Fano and reads is there? But I found 1:47:54.680 --> 1:47:58.120 interested is that this this term Buntu's idea of Ubuntu 1:47:58.479 --> 1:48:03.880 particularly found it's It was basically picked up in Zimbabwe 1:48:04.640 --> 1:48:09.439 and in South Africa in a very specific context where 1:48:10.760 --> 1:48:15.519 there was a transition to majority rule. In nineteen eighty, 1:48:16.680 --> 1:48:20.760 ubuntu Ism or hun who is um was presented as 1:48:20.800 --> 1:48:27.080 the political ideology of newly independent Zimbabwe. A guy named 1:48:27.160 --> 1:48:35.519 Stan lack Ajwt Sam Kange published treatise basically on hun 1:48:35.520 --> 1:48:39.560 who is Ambunduism or zimbabwe Indigenous political philosophy, and he 1:48:39.760 --> 1:48:46.599 was basically trying to outline what the three major maxims 1:48:46.680 --> 1:48:49.280 that she this philosophy should be. Of course, I would 1:48:49.360 --> 1:48:54.960 note that his interpretation being a statesman was notably hierarchical, 1:48:55.760 --> 1:48:58.599 but for the reasons I will go into a bit later, 1:48:58.800 --> 1:49:03.240 I don't believe that makes the core of unto necessarily hierarchical. 1:49:04.439 --> 1:49:06.320 But the three maxims that he had in mind for 1:49:06.720 --> 1:49:09.560 Untuism or who who is um was that to be 1:49:09.720 --> 1:49:13.479 human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing humanity of others, 1:49:13.960 --> 1:49:17.920 and on that basis establish in respectful human relations with them. 1:49:18.600 --> 1:49:21.360 The second maxim means that if and when one is 1:49:21.439 --> 1:49:24.439 faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation 1:49:24.479 --> 1:49:26.760 of life of another human being, that one should up 1:49:26.760 --> 1:49:29.759 for the preservation of life. And then the third maxim 1:49:32.240 --> 1:49:36.280 says that the king owed his status, including all the 1:49:36.280 --> 1:49:38.599 powers associated with it, to the will of the people 1:49:38.720 --> 1:49:42.320 under him. As I think that's where you get most 1:49:42.360 --> 1:49:47.600 prominently the sense of hierarchy that would pervade Cittain interpretations 1:49:48.080 --> 1:49:51.160 of UBUNTU, This idea of a sort of a benevolent 1:49:51.400 --> 1:49:56.759 rulership that these benevolent statesmen and kings and prime ministers 1:49:56.800 --> 1:50:01.280 of presidents that they would they were just exercising the 1:50:01.320 --> 1:50:02.840 will of the people. And of course this is a 1:50:03.080 --> 1:50:13.400 mythology that is interpreting, reinterpreted across various different regimes. In 1:50:13.520 --> 1:50:16.439 South Africa, in the nineteen nineties, boon two as a 1:50:16.600 --> 1:50:20.000 concept was used as sort of a guiding ideal for 1:50:20.120 --> 1:50:22.040 the transition from a part time to majority rule. I 1:50:22.120 --> 1:50:26.960 think around this time is when the international community started 1:50:27.000 --> 1:50:31.120 to hear more about the term ubun two, particularly as 1:50:31.160 --> 1:50:33.840 it appears in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution of 1:50:33.880 --> 1:50:38.040 South Africa published nineteen ninety three. There's a need for understanding, 1:50:38.120 --> 1:50:40.880 but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not 1:50:41.000 --> 1:50:43.880 for retaliation. I need for uboon two, but not for 1:50:44.160 --> 1:50:50.240 victimization end quote. Of course, as we see in South 1:50:50.280 --> 1:50:57.720 Africa today, that didn't play out very well. The understanding 1:50:57.840 --> 1:51:04.000 has not reached that points, reparations has not fully been achieved. Um. 1:51:04.200 --> 1:51:09.840 And there's a I would say distinct lack of ubuntu. Yeah, 1:51:09.840 --> 1:51:12.760 they kind of brought in Bank of America instead, which 1:51:13.479 --> 1:51:17.640 it didn't go great. Right, Yeah, they do. It's very um, 1:51:18.040 --> 1:51:22.559 it's very big. In Kinya Rwanda, Ubu Muntu I think. Um, 1:51:22.960 --> 1:51:25.840 but like you'll see the phrase or that that were 1:51:25.880 --> 1:51:27.760 a lot around Rwanda, and like if you go to 1:51:27.840 --> 1:51:32.439 the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum, you'll see it a lot there, right, 1:51:32.560 --> 1:51:37.799 Like that is the country that has with some authoritarian issues, 1:51:38.000 --> 1:51:42.639 like has quite aside the differences which would previously allowed 1:51:42.680 --> 1:51:46.679 the genocide to happen. I guess that's fair to say. Yes, yes, 1:51:47.960 --> 1:51:51.960 that's what the Tutsi and the Hutu. Yeah, yeah, and 1:51:52.080 --> 1:51:56.400 the tire you often get missed out. Um yeah, but 1:51:56.640 --> 1:52:00.760 yeah they Yeah, that's actually yeah, terrible terrible thing. If 1:52:01.120 --> 1:52:04.160 people ever go to Rwanda, would highly recommend going to Rwanda, 1:52:04.280 --> 1:52:06.760 Like the Kigali genos erb or a museum is an 1:52:07.200 --> 1:52:11.120 important thing. It's a very very well curated museum of Yeah, 1:52:11.160 --> 1:52:14.120 like you said, a terrible terrible thing that happened in 1:52:14.360 --> 1:52:19.559 South Africa. The transition to democracy and announcement Dal's presidency 1:52:19.560 --> 1:52:22.800 in nineteen eighty four, like I said, really brought the 1:52:22.960 --> 1:52:28.960 term to more well known outside the use and one 1:52:28.960 --> 1:52:32.200 of the people who was a main main proponent of 1:52:32.320 --> 1:52:36.000 that was Desmond Tutu, who was the chairman of the 1:52:36.160 --> 1:52:43.639 South Africa and Truth and Reconciliation Commission and also a preacher. 1:52:44.400 --> 1:52:51.040 He sort of advocated a Ubuntu theology that was really 1:52:51.120 --> 1:52:56.320 formative in the development of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 1:53:01.439 --> 1:53:04.360 He sort of moved the idea of Untu from simply 1:53:04.479 --> 1:53:07.439 an African philosophy based on African values or community and 1:53:07.520 --> 1:53:12.080 kinship to Christian values and identity with the Creator God. 1:53:14.320 --> 1:53:16.320 It was a sort of a strategy in an attempt 1:53:16.360 --> 1:53:19.960 to recover from the pains and brokenness of apartheid, you know, 1:53:20.400 --> 1:53:24.400 anchoring Uuntu into these into the Christian ideals of forgiveness 1:53:24.560 --> 1:53:30.160 and reconciliation as gifts from God for peaceful communal coexistence. 1:53:33.040 --> 1:53:40.120 And I hopefully not being tweet offensive when I say 1:53:40.200 --> 1:53:45.000 this to me, that's a quintessential example of how Christian 1:53:45.040 --> 1:53:50.880 pacification hampers to colonization efforts, because I've seen often that 1:53:51.160 --> 1:53:55.320 Christian notion of forgiveness and reconciliation two ins the blame 1:53:55.400 --> 1:53:59.439 onto the victims for not forgiven and expects little to 1:53:59.520 --> 1:54:04.280 nothing from the offender Excepaian and apology offense, not even 1:54:04.280 --> 1:54:07.880 any restitution or reparations. And so for all the talk 1:54:07.920 --> 1:54:14.439 of Ubuntu theological Ubuntu and otherwise situations, South Africa is 1:54:14.479 --> 1:54:18.040 still very much whack. And I think that that idea 1:54:18.240 --> 1:54:20.920 that oh well this is is in the past, it's over, 1:54:21.439 --> 1:54:25.920 get over it kind of thing is problematic, and it's 1:54:26.360 --> 1:54:27.720 so then it needs to be resolved the things so 1:54:27.800 --> 1:54:31.360 that the colonization is going to take place. Right, So, 1:54:31.520 --> 1:54:37.360 putting aside the theological applications some one problematic theological applications, 1:54:37.880 --> 1:54:41.240 the UBUNTU wild view is echoed in some senses worldwide, 1:54:41.640 --> 1:54:45.000 you know, social ecology when vv or mutually all these 1:54:45.120 --> 1:54:50.080 concepts point to our interconnected us as people and really 1:54:50.120 --> 1:54:52.520 point to the interconnectness that we have as people that 1:54:52.640 --> 1:54:57.640 our systems I'm certainly not built to support. We say 1:54:57.680 --> 1:55:00.560 that we see that in capitalism, you know, and doesn't 1:55:00.560 --> 1:55:03.240 embrace the interconnectness of all people. It places us in 1:55:03.280 --> 1:55:07.200 opposition with another. It atomizes us, it individualizes us. It 1:55:07.280 --> 1:55:11.120 alienates us from people, from ourselves and from others, so 1:55:11.320 --> 1:55:16.400 we must compete and stuff for the sake of survival. Alienation, 1:55:16.640 --> 1:55:19.840 of course, in a capitalist contexts referring to our separation 1:55:20.000 --> 1:55:22.960 of our abilities from ourselves, making us into the mere 1:55:23.040 --> 1:55:27.040 tools for the use and benefit of our bosses. I know, 1:55:27.120 --> 1:55:29.480 the workplace is definitely not something that we have. Is 1:55:30.160 --> 1:55:33.120 that it is based on mutual aid or woundtu you know, 1:55:34.080 --> 1:55:37.160 rather than working together, working harmoniously, having access to the 1:55:37.200 --> 1:55:42.480 means of production and sharing in an equally place, in 1:55:42.560 --> 1:55:48.880 situation of a feud, of competition, of struggling constantly and 1:55:49.080 --> 1:55:54.320 being squeezed and wrung out for whatever our bosses can 1:55:54.440 --> 1:55:59.880 get from us. Yeah, it's when you said, like earlier, 1:56:00.120 --> 1:56:03.360 that one of the key tenants was right, Like recognizing 1:56:03.440 --> 1:56:06.640 humanity and other people affirms your own humanity. And I 1:56:06.720 --> 1:56:09.720 might be paraphrasing that, but like that's exactly what capitalism 1:56:09.800 --> 1:56:13.200 doesn't do. It just sees people as like a tool 1:56:13.320 --> 1:56:16.240 to create more capital, to create more more income. Like 1:56:16.480 --> 1:56:20.400 it doesn't recognize humanity. It sees you as a means, 1:56:20.480 --> 1:56:23.760 not an ends, right exactly, And I mean unlike in 1:56:23.800 --> 1:56:26.680 a communal system where your service to others, you know, 1:56:26.760 --> 1:56:31.040 it's mutual, it's reciprocal, it's voluntary. We find ourselves in 1:56:31.080 --> 1:56:33.800 a situation where we must give away our labor, our time, 1:56:33.840 --> 1:56:36.720 and really our whole lives just to survive. But that 1:56:37.160 --> 1:56:41.520 giving is not done out of the goodness of our 1:56:41.560 --> 1:56:45.680 hearts or or as part of a system, a sort 1:56:45.720 --> 1:56:49.880 of a network of supports, a safety nets or anything. 1:56:49.960 --> 1:56:55.480 It's just clawing towards survival, you know, disconnected from the 1:56:55.560 --> 1:56:59.760 well being of the whole. Yeah, very much. Everything around 1:56:59.880 --> 1:57:04.040 us has been you know, manufactured, it's been transport, has 1:57:04.080 --> 1:57:08.400 been assembled and sold by other people, right, people just 1:57:08.640 --> 1:57:13.040 like us, workers, just like us. M Those people have 1:57:13.280 --> 1:57:15.720 lives just like our words. They have all the same 1:57:15.760 --> 1:57:20.280 struggles that we do. But instead of relating to these people, 1:57:20.520 --> 1:57:23.920 instead of freely sharing the fruit to our labor, relating 1:57:23.960 --> 1:57:25.880 to the things that we have to buy, or we 1:57:25.920 --> 1:57:29.200 don't see the work in people behind them. Yeah. I 1:57:29.320 --> 1:57:33.040 think another aspect of it is that which I find 1:57:33.080 --> 1:57:35.440 particularly strange about, you know, the hundhu is Am or 1:57:35.520 --> 1:57:42.720 Buntoism that some Kang was trying to advocate, is that 1:57:42.800 --> 1:57:48.240 I don't believe that UBUNTU or mutual lead, or any 1:57:48.240 --> 1:57:50.960 of the principles that are Bunto exposes is something that 1:57:51.080 --> 1:57:54.720 this stage is compatible with. M I don't think this 1:57:54.760 --> 1:57:57.920 STA is compatible with the acknowledgment of one's responsibility to 1:57:58.000 --> 1:58:01.360 their fellow humans and the world around them. You know, 1:58:01.400 --> 1:58:05.720 the state has built an exclusion on domination and deprivation 1:58:05.800 --> 1:58:09.400 and the hierarchical division of the state, generating this sort 1:58:09.400 --> 1:58:12.800 of inequality and decision making power and influencing about over 1:58:12.800 --> 1:58:18.920 own affairs. It's about depriving certain people and elevating others, 1:58:20.120 --> 1:58:22.320 whereas UBUNTU is supposed to be about the importance of 1:58:22.400 --> 1:58:24.720 the humanity of both the individual in the community and 1:58:24.840 --> 1:58:29.920 about how all people are connected in a way that 1:58:30.560 --> 1:58:33.640 is meant to support and add to and contribute and 1:58:34.680 --> 1:58:40.560 clean and service one another. If that makes sense. You 1:58:40.600 --> 1:58:43.880 don't like the idea of this sort of community where 1:58:43.920 --> 1:58:48.120 everyone is giving and sharing and taking and everybody has 1:58:48.160 --> 1:58:53.320 something to contribute to this human whole. I feel like 1:58:53.400 --> 1:58:57.440 there's something that's lost when that whole is disrupted by 1:58:58.200 --> 1:59:00.440 certain people being elevated to a start, to us of 1:59:00.680 --> 1:59:05.480 having more power over others. I mean, part of that 1:59:05.640 --> 1:59:09.360 humanity has to entail freedom to self organized, freedom to 1:59:09.440 --> 1:59:14.879 ls who, freedom to disassociate, decision making power, autonomy, you know, Otherwise, 1:59:14.920 --> 1:59:17.840 what kind of humanity is that? Really? How can people 1:59:17.880 --> 1:59:21.400 access their full humanity in themselves if they're being deprived 1:59:21.480 --> 1:59:24.560 by others on how can those others who are depriving 1:59:24.960 --> 1:59:28.480 people have access their full humanity when they're depriving others. 1:59:29.200 --> 1:59:31.200 If you get what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I think 1:59:31.240 --> 1:59:34.960 that's perfectly right. Yeah, And I mean pretty much the 1:59:34.960 --> 1:59:39.360 same thing with the system I mean with the capitalism, 1:59:39.440 --> 1:59:43.000 with the state, I mean patriarchy, which also elevates some 1:59:43.080 --> 1:59:46.640 people above others and denies those marginalized others full access 1:59:46.640 --> 1:59:51.080 to humanity. All of us are restricted in some ways 1:59:51.200 --> 1:59:55.960 from understanding ourselves, in ourselves and through others by the 1:59:56.200 --> 2:00:02.360 ideology and system of patriarchy. And of course the schools 2:00:02.360 --> 2:00:05.560 are out saying, but what could be more incompatible with 2:00:05.720 --> 2:00:09.000 the Buntu than clunialism. You know, it doesn't simply deny 2:00:09.160 --> 2:00:12.360 the humanity of those that exploit. It also strips the 2:00:12.440 --> 2:00:17.400 humanity the exploiters. I mean, as a Missa my referenced 2:00:17.440 --> 2:00:23.120 earlier wrote in Discourse and Cluinalism, colonization works to decivilize 2:00:23.160 --> 2:00:26.320 the colonizer, to brutalize him in the sentence of the 2:00:26.480 --> 2:00:28.800 in a true sense of the wood, to degrade him 2:00:29.080 --> 2:00:34.680 and to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race, hatred, 2:00:34.760 --> 2:00:37.680 and more relativism. And we must show that each time 2:00:37.720 --> 2:00:40.160 a head is cut off or an eye put out 2:00:40.240 --> 2:00:44.080 in Vietnam and in France, they accept the fact each 2:00:44.120 --> 2:00:48.240 time a little girl is assaulted, and in France they 2:00:48.280 --> 2:00:51.720 accept the fact. Each time a Madagascar is tortured, and 2:00:51.840 --> 2:00:55.959 in France they accept the fact. Civilization acquires another deadweight, 2:00:56.400 --> 2:01:00.080 a universal regression takes place, a gang green sets in, 2:01:00.440 --> 2:01:03.120 a center of infection begins to spread. And that at 2:01:03.160 --> 2:01:06.280 the end of all these treatise treaties that have been violated, 2:01:06.560 --> 2:01:09.400 all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive 2:01:09.440 --> 2:01:12.400 expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have 2:01:12.480 --> 2:01:15.400 been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots who have 2:01:15.480 --> 2:01:17.920 been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride 2:01:18.000 --> 2:01:21.080 has been encouraged, all the boostfulness that has been displayed, 2:01:21.680 --> 2:01:24.240 a poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe, 2:01:24.280 --> 2:01:31.839 and slowly, but surely, the continent proceeds towards savagery. Powerful 2:01:31.880 --> 2:01:40.920 words as usual from that great Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. So, 2:01:40.960 --> 2:01:42.760 I mean, I think there's a lot of potential in 2:01:42.920 --> 2:01:45.640 the interpretation of a boon too, right, which is both 2:01:45.680 --> 2:01:47.400 a flaw and a strength. And when I get into 2:01:47.440 --> 2:01:51.560 the criticism a bit more you'll see why. But regardless, 2:01:52.320 --> 2:01:55.760 of course, there's value to be clean from dios understandings 2:01:55.800 --> 2:01:58.520 there's power in finding our roots to secure our future. 2:01:59.120 --> 2:02:03.080 And whether a partnership and affinity group, an organization, a community, 2:02:03.160 --> 2:02:07.400 or beyond. This basic principle of recognizing the authentic individual 2:02:07.520 --> 2:02:11.040 human being as part of a larger and more significant relational, 2:02:11.200 --> 2:02:16.839 communal society, of environmental and spiritual world is vital process 2:02:17.200 --> 2:02:21.280 of social revolution, of confronting the powerful, to protests and 2:02:21.360 --> 2:02:26.440 occupations and reclamations and expropriations, in refusing to cooperate with 2:02:26.480 --> 2:02:29.720 the powers of being through strikes and boycotts and mutinies 2:02:29.760 --> 2:02:32.840 and other forms of interaction, and then building new institutions 2:02:32.920 --> 2:02:37.880 like cooperatives and popular assemblies and libraries of things. All 2:02:37.960 --> 2:02:41.720 of those things, all those aspects of social revolution allow 2:02:41.800 --> 2:02:47.560 us to assert ourselves, to recognize the mutual and ecality 2:02:47.640 --> 2:02:52.160 and connection of all people. You know, a police smithly 2:02:52.200 --> 2:02:56.080 boone two is open and available to others. Its a 2:02:56.200 --> 2:02:58.760 flaming to others. I feel threatened that others are able 2:02:58.800 --> 2:03:03.360 and good, and so by recognizing with the boons you know, 2:03:03.400 --> 2:03:06.000 recognize and it, you're part of a greater whole. That 2:03:06.200 --> 2:03:10.320 whole is diminished when others are humiliated, or diminished when 2:03:10.400 --> 2:03:16.000 others are tortured or oppressed, and so someone with boon 2:03:16.040 --> 2:03:18.960 to someone who recognizes the interconnectness of all humanity is 2:03:19.000 --> 2:03:21.680 someone who has to be engaged in some form of 2:03:21.720 --> 2:03:24.600 social revolution, who has to be engaged in trying to 2:03:24.720 --> 2:03:28.120 free people, help people free themselves so that they can 2:03:28.280 --> 2:03:32.680 engage in their own humanity and so add to your 2:03:32.720 --> 2:03:36.959 own humanity in turn. And when it comes to the commons, 2:03:37.360 --> 2:03:41.600 common ownership, you know, the reversal of the enclosure movement, socialization, 2:03:41.680 --> 2:03:44.600 what if you want to call it, that is also 2:03:44.760 --> 2:03:50.160 something that ultimately is about the bonds between people, about 2:03:50.280 --> 2:03:54.680 the distribution of the means of production and of the 2:03:55.320 --> 2:03:58.840 fruits of all of our labor so that all can enjoy, 2:03:59.000 --> 2:04:03.000 so it all can have a vested interest in our 2:04:03.080 --> 2:04:09.120 collective prosperity. When it comes to you know, community work, 2:04:10.920 --> 2:04:16.520 you know, unto is about this idea that we can 2:04:16.960 --> 2:04:19.680 work together, you know, in growing our food and distributing 2:04:19.760 --> 2:04:25.880 when we need. This idea that being a mother or 2:04:25.920 --> 2:04:28.800 being a father, being a parent, it's not just about 2:04:29.280 --> 2:04:32.400 being that to your own biological children, but rather in 2:04:32.520 --> 2:04:37.720 recognizing that we are all connected in that way. It's 2:04:38.320 --> 2:04:45.720 it's like a it's like an understanding that there should 2:04:45.760 --> 2:04:49.440 not be this idea of or funds right, this idea 2:04:49.560 --> 2:04:52.080 that we're all meant to look out for each other, 2:04:52.600 --> 2:04:56.320 that no person is meant to be cut off from 2:04:57.240 --> 2:05:02.800 the sort of care it is necessary for caring into 2:05:03.640 --> 2:05:06.360 a fully realized person. I mean, even in the realm 2:05:06.440 --> 2:05:10.360 of education, you see potential applications if we're gountu in 2:05:10.480 --> 2:05:13.440 recognizing that everyone has different skills and strengths, that people 2:05:13.440 --> 2:05:16.360 are not isolated, and that through mutual support they can 2:05:16.480 --> 2:05:21.320 help each other to complete themselves. As Ortry Tang argues, 2:05:22.680 --> 2:05:25.400 I mean, I think there needs to be an education 2:05:25.480 --> 2:05:33.600 that recognizes the importance of community, society, and environmental well being, 2:05:34.760 --> 2:05:39.520 one that emphasizes the connection between all those things, one 2:05:39.560 --> 2:05:46.240 that involves interaction, participation, recognition, respect, and inclusion as core 2:05:46.320 --> 2:05:56.000 tenants of the learning process, of students learning from facilitators 2:05:56.080 --> 2:05:59.120 and the facilitators learning from students. Of recognizing that we 2:05:59.200 --> 2:06:02.920 hold both positions, and that those positions are held from 2:06:02.920 --> 2:06:05.680 the moment we're born to the moment we eventually pass 2:06:05.800 --> 2:06:10.880 on as rich as the potential of unto. Maybe I 2:06:10.880 --> 2:06:12.600 don't want to put it out as if it's some 2:06:12.720 --> 2:06:17.920 sort of like flawless and perfect philosophy. Right, it's not 2:06:18.120 --> 2:06:21.080 above critique. It's not immune, as I mentioned before, to 2:06:21.280 --> 2:06:27.440 hierarchical interpretations and applications. It's very much right for liberal sensibilities, 2:06:27.520 --> 2:06:32.240 as we've seen Departments of State speaking of Untu diplomacy 2:06:34.320 --> 2:06:40.600 and unto foreign policy and that sort of thing. Some 2:06:40.800 --> 2:06:43.680 Kang's idea that you know, part of UBUNTUO is that 2:06:43.720 --> 2:06:46.600 the king always a status including all the powers associated 2:06:46.600 --> 2:06:49.720 with it to build the people under him. I mean 2:06:49.840 --> 2:06:53.280 right now and for a while now, Boons has not 2:06:53.360 --> 2:06:58.240 had a single solid framework of what exactly entails, what 2:06:58.320 --> 2:07:02.600 it makes up, what it doesn't. There's still a lot 2:07:02.640 --> 2:07:08.400 of fuzziness and inconsistency within different people's interpretations of the 2:07:08.480 --> 2:07:13.040 definition of Untu. As one scholar in Yasha and Booti 2:07:13.800 --> 2:07:19.040 has noted, there's an interpretation, So an interpretation of a 2:07:19.080 --> 2:07:23.280 Buntu that sea is Africans has you know, naturally interdependence 2:07:23.320 --> 2:07:25.720 and harmony is seeking that humanity is given to a 2:07:25.800 --> 2:07:29.800 person buying through of the persons. But there's a sort 2:07:29.840 --> 2:07:35.920 of a trap in that because humanity is also pretty messy. 2:07:35.960 --> 2:07:39.200 The relationships between between people can also be very messy. 2:07:39.240 --> 2:07:42.560 It's not all sunshine and rainbows. You know, a broken 2:07:42.640 --> 2:07:48.040 relationship is as authentically human as a harmonious relationship. You know, 2:07:49.040 --> 2:07:51.920 a broken relationship can also be more ethical than a 2:07:52.000 --> 2:07:58.320 harmonious relationship. Booti points to, for example, the freedom that 2:07:58.440 --> 2:08:01.720 follows from a break from a pressure that follows from 2:08:01.760 --> 2:08:06.280 a break from a relationship of domination to want of freedom. 2:08:07.240 --> 2:08:11.760 And of course this idea that harmony's relationships are incapable 2:08:11.760 --> 2:08:16.320 of being oppressive is false. You know, a harmonious relationship 2:08:16.360 --> 2:08:20.680 can be quite oppressive. In the Dynamics team, people that 2:08:20.760 --> 2:08:27.320 are hidden under that veal of Honkey dory, you know. So, 2:08:27.440 --> 2:08:31.680 I mean there's a lot of there's a lot too ubuntu, 2:08:32.480 --> 2:08:34.720 there's a lot of good to be cleaned, a lot 2:08:34.800 --> 2:08:40.120 of potential pitfalls to be avoided. So you know, take 2:08:40.200 --> 2:08:43.800 what's the value, leave what's not, engage critically, what's your plans, 2:08:43.880 --> 2:09:02.200 and have a good dye. Hi everyone, welcome to it 2:09:02.280 --> 2:09:05.680 could happen here. A podcast which Bipopular Demand today is 2:09:05.680 --> 2:09:08.960 about livestock as we will be going forward. It's me, 2:09:09.120 --> 2:09:12.480 It's Garrison, and we're talking about species of sheep. Don't 2:09:12.520 --> 2:09:14.520 not really, We're not talking about species of sheep, much 2:09:14.600 --> 2:09:16.760 to my disappointment. Not yet, but that will be coming. 2:09:16.800 --> 2:09:20.120 We're going to be getting into clined texuls mules that 2:09:20.200 --> 2:09:22.680 kind of think big sheep stuff. But now today we're 2:09:22.680 --> 2:09:28.160 actually joined by John, and John has been subjected to 2:09:28.240 --> 2:09:30.320 my weight introduction, but we're not We're not talking about 2:09:30.320 --> 2:09:34.640 sheep today. We're talking about active transport infrastructure and we're 2:09:34.720 --> 2:09:37.400 talking about how cities tend to build that in certain 2:09:37.440 --> 2:09:40.960 communities and not in others. So welcome to the show, John, Yeah, 2:09:41.040 --> 2:09:43.840 thanks for having me. I'll say that my partner would 2:09:43.840 --> 2:09:46.640 have been overjoyed if the podcast was actually about species 2:09:46.680 --> 2:09:51.120 of sheep, So she's tired of hearing me talk about bikes, 2:09:51.120 --> 2:09:54.640 I'm sure, so, but here we are. Yeah, thanks for 2:09:54.720 --> 2:09:58.800 having me, John Stalin. I'm an assistant professor at University 2:09:58.800 --> 2:10:03.680 of North Carolina, Greensboro. Great. Yeah, So I think to 2:10:03.760 --> 2:10:07.000 start off with if if you could kind of outline 2:10:08.320 --> 2:10:11.560 what sort of like I guess, I guess people might 2:10:11.640 --> 2:10:15.240 not be familiar at all with bike infrastructure, certainly if 2:10:15.280 --> 2:10:16.920 they live in some parts of the US or like 2:10:17.080 --> 2:10:19.440 more rural areas, and sort of what it looks like 2:10:19.560 --> 2:10:21.800 and what cities have been doing in the last few 2:10:21.880 --> 2:10:24.640 years building bike infrastructure, and then how that relates to 2:10:24.800 --> 2:10:28.960 the I guess the income disparities within cities. Yeah, I 2:10:29.000 --> 2:10:32.600 mean that's a that's a big question, something that I 2:10:33.080 --> 2:10:36.680 tackled in my book, which came out in twenty nineteen. 2:10:36.800 --> 2:10:40.920 But then I haven't haven't kept up with it quite 2:10:40.960 --> 2:10:43.480 as much. I've been trying to start work working on 2:10:43.560 --> 2:10:46.240 other projects. But you know, I keep I keep tabs 2:10:46.240 --> 2:10:48.960 on things a little bit um. I mean, basically, if 2:10:49.000 --> 2:10:53.440 we're talking about the the standard rundown of infrastructure, the 2:10:54.560 --> 2:11:00.400 the I would say, the most common thing that people 2:11:00.440 --> 2:11:02.760 think about and probably the most common thing that's built 2:11:02.840 --> 2:11:06.320 in part because it's quite cheap, especially over they say 2:11:06.320 --> 2:11:09.560 the last twenty years, is the bike lane. You know, 2:11:09.640 --> 2:11:14.000 a bike lane is usually about three to five feet wide, 2:11:15.120 --> 2:11:19.879 and it's in to the far right of the roadway 2:11:19.920 --> 2:11:22.120 if you're in the United States or you know, if 2:11:22.160 --> 2:11:26.040 you're driving on the right tends to be where glass collects, 2:11:26.160 --> 2:11:31.680 tends to be where car doors are it. And so 2:11:31.920 --> 2:11:36.600 that nevertheless was you know, very common in places that 2:11:36.680 --> 2:11:41.200 we're building bicycle infrastructure. That's what was being built in 2:11:41.840 --> 2:11:46.840 I would say the last ten to fifteen years, there's 2:11:46.880 --> 2:11:49.720 been a push to do more what people might call 2:11:49.920 --> 2:11:55.960 Dutch style protected bike lanes. Either they're protected by a 2:11:56.040 --> 2:12:02.720 buffer of kind of plastic post that don't prevent an 2:12:02.800 --> 2:12:06.920 emergency vehicle from kind of getting where it needs to go, 2:12:07.040 --> 2:12:09.400 but also don't prevent drivers from just driving into the 2:12:09.440 --> 2:12:15.800 bike lane. Really, so you'll see those and then you 2:12:15.880 --> 2:12:19.480 know parking protected bike lanes. So the protected bike lanes 2:12:19.720 --> 2:12:27.080 started became the big demand from bicycle infrastructure planning practitioners, 2:12:27.280 --> 2:12:32.040 especially in cities like Portland's, you know, San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, 2:12:32.760 --> 2:12:35.520 New York City, etcetera, etcetera. Something that was actually protected 2:12:35.600 --> 2:12:43.240 by a curb usually really usually it's still like some 2:12:43.360 --> 2:12:46.880 kind of a plastic curb right or cars right, and 2:12:47.040 --> 2:12:50.920 you're not seeing a lot of you know, concrete or 2:12:50.960 --> 2:12:53.800 brick curb work like you'll see in the Netherlands or 2:12:53.840 --> 2:12:56.680 something like that. And then, interestingly enough, another piece of 2:12:56.760 --> 2:12:59.800 infrastructure that there was a funny kind of maya culpa 2:13:00.640 --> 2:13:06.640 or not mea culpa, but a reevaluation of it was 2:13:06.720 --> 2:13:10.280 the sharrow, which is just a sort of a chevron 2:13:10.360 --> 2:13:13.440 symbol in the middle of a car lane intended to 2:13:13.600 --> 2:13:16.600 remind drivers that cyclists are allowed to be there, but 2:13:16.720 --> 2:13:20.240 sort of put cyclists in the location where they would 2:13:20.320 --> 2:13:24.040 sort of garner the most hatred. And there was a 2:13:24.200 --> 2:13:29.080 recent recent editorial from Dave Snyder, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:32.640 It was a big, big pioneer just in general bicycle infrastructure. 2:13:32.680 --> 2:13:37.400 I interviewed him for my dissertation and he talked about 2:13:37.440 --> 2:13:40.440 how they don't work. That was a mistake. It was 2:13:40.600 --> 2:13:44.920 mistake kind of splitting the difference, making it seem like 2:13:45.000 --> 2:13:47.120 you didn't have to take any space away from cars 2:13:47.360 --> 2:13:50.160 in order to fit pikes into the roadway. So I 2:13:50.160 --> 2:13:51.960 don't know if that's kind of more than you wanted 2:13:52.040 --> 2:13:53.960 from that. No, No, that's great because I think a 2:13:54.000 --> 2:13:56.320 lot of folks might not have seen all these different things. Certainly, 2:13:56.400 --> 2:13:59.000 Like if you're like me and you wrote your bike 2:13:59.040 --> 2:14:01.160 every day, you know each of these different things, and 2:14:01.600 --> 2:14:02.960 some of them make you feel safer for some of 2:14:03.000 --> 2:14:05.680 them don't, and some of them are just kind of tokenistic. 2:14:06.320 --> 2:14:08.760 I think a lot of this kind of gets to 2:14:08.840 --> 2:14:11.080 a bigger discussion, which which is one waybe we can 2:14:11.160 --> 2:14:13.120 touch on, which is like who the city is for? 2:14:14.680 --> 2:14:17.840 When we're building cities in this country, certainly it seems 2:14:17.840 --> 2:14:20.840 like we've built them around cars. With a few exceptions 2:14:20.880 --> 2:14:24.600 like older cities and stuff, and increasingly, like if you 2:14:24.760 --> 2:14:26.960 ask for space that and you are not a car, 2:14:27.800 --> 2:14:30.320 then you know to include people wanting to live on 2:14:30.360 --> 2:14:32.240 the streets, right that cars have free places to go 2:14:32.280 --> 2:14:36.720 at night, but people don't. And so like this reallocation 2:14:36.760 --> 2:14:41.320 of space I think gets to a bigger question, which is, yeah, 2:14:41.360 --> 2:14:44.160 maybe something you can speak to. Yeah, So I mean 2:14:44.200 --> 2:14:46.960 the question of I think you can think of who 2:14:47.640 --> 2:14:51.880 both in terms of the mode of transport, it's very 2:14:52.000 --> 2:14:59.320 car dominant society, right, and car car driving is even 2:14:59.400 --> 2:15:02.560 on the rise in places like Copenhagen. Right, there's kind 2:15:02.560 --> 2:15:04.640 of a lot of fretting among my supply advocates in 2:15:05.040 --> 2:15:11.360 Copenhagen about the rise of car usage. So there's the 2:15:11.440 --> 2:15:14.040 quite the sort of the mode of transport. But you know, 2:15:14.160 --> 2:15:16.440 cars aren't people, right, as you sort of pointed out 2:15:16.480 --> 2:15:18.840 just then and then so there's another layer to it 2:15:19.040 --> 2:15:22.440 that intersects with it, which is cities being increasingly sort 2:15:22.480 --> 2:15:29.440 of oriented towards attracting higher income residents, right, kind of 2:15:29.560 --> 2:15:34.960 creating an attractive urban environment. There's a there's a kind 2:15:34.960 --> 2:15:39.960 of an intersection with the interest in attracting kind of 2:15:40.080 --> 2:15:44.800 high tech or creative or knowledge intensive types of jobs, right, 2:15:45.000 --> 2:15:49.920 your software programmers, you know, I think it was Chicago 2:15:50.040 --> 2:15:52.440 mayor Roman Manuel. I use this in lectures all the time. 2:15:52.600 --> 2:15:56.000 He said something like, um, you can't be for a 2:15:56.120 --> 2:16:00.400 high tech, a creative city economy and not be pro byte. Right. 2:16:00.600 --> 2:16:07.800 So there's this there's this idea that you know, maybe 2:16:08.120 --> 2:16:12.440 a little bit spurious, or it might be kind of 2:16:13.360 --> 2:16:17.840 loose causality, but there's this idea that the kinds of 2:16:17.960 --> 2:16:20.160 workers that you want in your city that are either 2:16:20.280 --> 2:16:25.440 going to take high paying jobs and increase the property 2:16:25.560 --> 2:16:32.040 tax base or themselves create new startups, entrepreneurial energy, arts, 2:16:32.160 --> 2:16:36.039 culture and uh and things like that, right that they 2:16:36.120 --> 2:16:39.960 are they are attracted by bicycle infrastructure or bicycling or 2:16:40.640 --> 2:16:45.280 bicycle culture in some respects. So there's that that kind 2:16:45.280 --> 2:16:51.320 of the the irony, of course, is that those workers 2:16:52.520 --> 2:16:55.480 you know, guilty I have a car, right, typically bring 2:16:55.600 --> 2:17:00.360 cars with them, right, And so yes, maybe they don't 2:17:00.440 --> 2:17:02.560 want to use them on a daily basis, like I 2:17:02.680 --> 2:17:04.720 don't use my car on a daily basis. I don't 2:17:04.800 --> 2:17:08.080 use my car to get to work, right, But they 2:17:09.400 --> 2:17:13.120 you know, are often kind of having it both wings, 2:17:13.480 --> 2:17:15.760 right in a lot of ways in terms of you know, 2:17:15.879 --> 2:17:18.280 buildings will be built with garages, right, and that's only 2:17:18.360 --> 2:17:23.000 recently starting to be eroded, right as just a you know, 2:17:23.120 --> 2:17:28.080 a one to one parking ratio and a transit connected building. Yeah, 2:17:28.400 --> 2:17:31.360 and so when we're talking about it, the combination of 2:17:31.480 --> 2:17:33.959 these two things, right, like affluent areas or cities trying 2:17:33.959 --> 2:17:37.800 to attract affluent people and cities trying to build bike infrastructure. 2:17:38.280 --> 2:17:41.879 And something I've observed where I live, which is San Diego, 2:17:42.080 --> 2:17:44.640 is that we've built a lot of bike lanes, but 2:17:44.800 --> 2:17:49.480 only connecting privileged communities to places where people do high 2:17:49.480 --> 2:17:53.360 income work. And it seems like increasingly like riding your 2:17:53.400 --> 2:17:56.880 bike safely is a privilege that it's only afforded to 2:17:56.920 --> 2:17:59.879 a certain group of people. Is that something that's broader 2:18:00.000 --> 2:18:04.400 than just in my town, I'd say so. I mean, 2:18:04.480 --> 2:18:07.680 I think you see this in in where I did 2:18:07.800 --> 2:18:09.960 a lot of my research in the San Francisco Bay area, 2:18:10.200 --> 2:18:14.800 also did research in Philadelphia and Detroit and Austin as well. 2:18:14.840 --> 2:18:17.840 That's not in the book, but yeah, that's it's common, 2:18:17.879 --> 2:18:20.959 and there's a few different There's kind of a there's 2:18:21.040 --> 2:18:26.600 a degree of cumulative causality as we would say in 2:18:26.879 --> 2:18:32.160 economic geography, right, you have going back to say the 2:18:32.280 --> 2:18:40.560 nineteen nineties, you had bicycle advocates primarily recreational, primarily middle class, 2:18:40.720 --> 2:18:46.080 largely white, recreational cyclists, or and you start to seem 2:18:46.600 --> 2:18:50.520 participants in by squad becacy organizations also being kind of 2:18:50.760 --> 2:18:58.160 bicycle commuters. The kinds of jobs that were growing in 2:18:58.320 --> 2:19:01.360 urban centers in the nineteen nineties, in two thousands or 2:19:01.640 --> 2:19:05.520 you know, the first decade of this millennium, right, are 2:19:05.560 --> 2:19:10.720 the kinds of you know, if not high tech, the 2:19:10.840 --> 2:19:15.400 sort of professional technical type of employment right, growing in 2:19:15.520 --> 2:19:27.119 urban centers. And there's relatively affordable housing in gentrifying neighborhoods 2:19:27.720 --> 2:19:32.920 that makes it feasible and desirable actually that you could 2:19:33.800 --> 2:19:38.080 you could, you know, find a fairly affordable house and 2:19:38.280 --> 2:19:41.640 be able to bike to work right two to three miles, right, 2:19:41.760 --> 2:19:44.760 rather than the commute in from the suburbs or the 2:19:44.879 --> 2:19:49.840 commute out from the urban center to jobs at the suburbs. Right. Um, 2:19:51.560 --> 2:19:55.960 So I think that you get a lot of the 2:19:56.120 --> 2:19:59.200 initial energy around the bicycle movement if you look at 2:19:59.280 --> 2:20:02.000 critical mass, if you look at the San Francisco Bicycle 2:20:02.080 --> 2:20:04.680 Coalition and its early days Again, these are things I'm 2:20:04.720 --> 2:20:07.879 familiar with a lot of this sort of the political 2:20:08.000 --> 2:20:15.200 mobilization is around making those types of journeys easier, more doable. Right. 2:20:15.480 --> 2:20:18.280 You also have the phenomenon where the neighborhoods that are 2:20:18.360 --> 2:20:23.400 getting gentrified in this time are your sort of classic 2:20:24.120 --> 2:20:30.039 innermost streetcar suburbs developed around one hundred years ago, fairly 2:20:30.160 --> 2:20:33.720 walkable themselves. They have a mix of commercial and residential. 2:20:33.959 --> 2:20:37.400 They aren't buy in large industrial neighborhoods, right, the industrial 2:20:37.400 --> 2:20:39.760 neighborhoods where you still have a lot of truck traffic, 2:20:39.959 --> 2:20:45.000 where in industry be got more industry or de industrialization 2:20:45.160 --> 2:20:50.320 really hollowed out the economic base where you have you know, 2:20:50.840 --> 2:20:57.320 large roadways, you have you know disinvestment and kind of 2:20:57.400 --> 2:21:02.800 a mix of small retail or um lower income population. 2:21:04.760 --> 2:21:09.560 Those were not um. Those were not areas where there 2:21:09.640 --> 2:21:13.680 were that were attracting the kinds of people who would 2:21:13.720 --> 2:21:18.240 be listened to when they're demanding bicycle infrastructure. Right, there's 2:21:18.240 --> 2:21:21.720 still lots of cyclists in those neighborhoods. UM in a 2:21:21.840 --> 2:21:28.400 place like East Oakland or um uh North Philadelphia or 2:21:28.520 --> 2:21:30.560 something like that, right where there are a lot of 2:21:30.600 --> 2:21:35.199 people who ride bicycles, but they don't they're not organized politically, 2:21:35.840 --> 2:21:40.840 uh under the sort of the block of of of cyclists. Um. 2:21:42.040 --> 2:21:46.600 And so there's this sort of paradox or in the 2:21:46.879 --> 2:21:49.640 way that I came around to this project was I 2:21:49.800 --> 2:21:53.640 was working in a bike shop in Philadelphia, and I 2:21:55.680 --> 2:21:59.600 was sort of one of those white hipsters on fixies. 2:21:59.800 --> 2:22:02.760 Right at the same time, I spent a lot of 2:22:02.800 --> 2:22:07.680 my day speaking Spanish, talking with and helping people fix 2:22:07.760 --> 2:22:11.959 their bikes, mostly Latin American immigrants who were working as 2:22:12.120 --> 2:22:16.320 dishwashers or delivering food, buying bikes at Walmart because it's 2:22:16.320 --> 2:22:18.320 what they could afford, even though they knew that they 2:22:18.360 --> 2:22:21.480 were crapped, they just couldn't afford anything better, trying to 2:22:21.600 --> 2:22:26.400 get the most out of those bikes. And so there's 2:22:26.440 --> 2:22:29.680 this funny dichotomy. On the one hand, it's like you 2:22:29.800 --> 2:22:35.160 have the cool bike already creative scene that is sort 2:22:35.200 --> 2:22:38.200 of trying to be encouraged maybe, And on the other hand, 2:22:38.240 --> 2:22:40.680 a lot of the people who are actually making do 2:22:42.160 --> 2:22:45.080 on bicycles are not sort of part of that vision, 2:22:45.240 --> 2:22:51.240 I guess for the city. Right when I think about 2:22:51.400 --> 2:22:55.279 things in spatial terms as well, right, if you imagine 2:22:55.440 --> 2:22:59.120 going back to the journeys to work from a sort 2:22:59.160 --> 2:23:03.600 of close in residential neighborhood that is experiencing a lot 2:23:03.640 --> 2:23:06.840 of turnover, a lot of middle class you know, mostly white, 2:23:06.879 --> 2:23:11.600 but not necessarily exclusively white, in migrants, the types of 2:23:11.760 --> 2:23:16.800 journeys that a lot of you know, I'll take Durham 2:23:16.920 --> 2:23:21.600 for example, where I live now, which is not there's 2:23:21.640 --> 2:23:24.160 not a lot of good bicycle infrastructure. There's a little 2:23:24.280 --> 2:23:26.840 there's not a lot of good bicycle infrastructure, but there's 2:23:27.040 --> 2:23:29.560 some job growth in the downtown area. There's certainly a 2:23:29.600 --> 2:23:32.640 lot of job growth in the sort of the suburbs. 2:23:35.360 --> 2:23:38.560 But in terms of the kinds of jobs that, um, 2:23:39.680 --> 2:23:42.920 you know, working class jobs that are being created at 2:23:43.040 --> 2:23:46.520 Amazon fulfillment centers, those are at the urban periphery, right, 2:23:46.600 --> 2:23:49.800 They're not places that even in a kind of a 2:23:50.800 --> 2:23:55.320 gentrifying neighborhood, even if bicycle infrastructure were created. This sort 2:23:55.360 --> 2:24:00.879 of the directionality of the feasible commute kind of runs 2:24:00.959 --> 2:24:05.000 against the feasible bicycle community, sort of runs against the 2:24:05.160 --> 2:24:10.360 very kind of spread out and scattered commutes in the 2:24:10.520 --> 2:24:19.720 sort of retail, wholesale, warehousing, manufacturing, etc. Etc. The sectors 2:24:19.760 --> 2:24:22.840 that are experiencing job sprawl rather than a sort of 2:24:22.879 --> 2:24:28.120 a concentrated, concentrated job growth in in the sort of 2:24:28.120 --> 2:24:30.480 the urban center, right, So that's another aspect to it 2:24:30.600 --> 2:24:33.760 as well. Bike advocacy is very interesting to me. Like 2:24:33.800 --> 2:24:36.800 I was a bike messenger, I was a bike racer 2:24:36.959 --> 2:24:39.119 like these, I've made my living riding a bike. I've 2:24:39.120 --> 2:24:41.480 also just ridden my bike to get to work. And 2:24:42.160 --> 2:24:46.760 bike advocacy really hasn't reflected a broad swath of cyclists 2:24:46.800 --> 2:24:49.320 for a very long time. Do you think that's why 2:24:49.600 --> 2:24:54.640 we don't see like better infrastructure in some of these 2:24:54.720 --> 2:24:58.760 like d industrializing areas for instance, And does that lead 2:24:58.840 --> 2:25:01.920 directly to it being dangerous, Like you would be to 2:25:02.400 --> 2:25:04.640 ask of their statistics to show that, like it's more 2:25:04.680 --> 2:25:08.000 dangerous to ride your bike. So I'll say a couple 2:25:08.040 --> 2:25:16.760 of things. The the the directionality or the causality is 2:25:16.760 --> 2:25:18.960 a little bit complicated. I would say, certainly there was 2:25:19.040 --> 2:25:23.200 some evidence that bicycle advocates weren't in the early days, 2:25:23.240 --> 2:25:25.240 and there was a big sort of cultural shift in 2:25:25.320 --> 2:25:29.199 bicycle advocacy in the nineteen nineties. Part of the nineteen nineties. 2:25:29.720 --> 2:25:32.000 You have a lot of cyclists who are actually opposed 2:25:32.200 --> 2:25:37.280 to bicycle infrastructure we still have. They are still a 2:25:37.480 --> 2:25:41.560 loud being a rish voice in San Diego. Yeah, exactly. 2:25:41.640 --> 2:25:45.840 The vehicular cyclists, right, yeah, yeah, could you explain that? Sure? 2:25:46.360 --> 2:25:52.800 So vehicular cyclists. It was a philosophy expounded by John 2:25:52.959 --> 2:25:59.360 Forrester might have his book right here, Yeah, in the book, 2:25:59.480 --> 2:26:02.920 and it's not in the book Effective Cycling. Um. Where 2:26:03.120 --> 2:26:07.720 it was the idea was that cyclists should be riding 2:26:07.840 --> 2:26:12.680 like cars, right, which means riding fast, center of the lane, 2:26:13.640 --> 2:26:18.320 behaving exactly like a car. And they were very opposed 2:26:18.400 --> 2:26:22.000 to any infrastructure that would sort of create be created 2:26:23.160 --> 2:26:29.360 especially for bicyclists, on the basis which there was maybe 2:26:29.440 --> 2:26:32.040 some slight truth to this, that that cyclists would be 2:26:32.160 --> 2:26:37.560 banned from roads that didn't have dedicated bicycle infrastructure. There 2:26:37.680 --> 2:26:43.720 was a little bit of concern that was there was 2:26:44.560 --> 2:26:46.840 I think I remember reading about a little bit of 2:26:47.200 --> 2:26:51.640 actual talk among legislators and planners that bicyclists would be 2:26:51.760 --> 2:26:54.920 kept off of main roads. And I think their to 2:26:55.120 --> 2:27:00.280 their credit, they saw the creation of bicycle infrastructure at 2:27:00.400 --> 2:27:07.000 that time as basically designed to get cyclists out of 2:27:07.040 --> 2:27:09.400 the way of motorists, right, and so it was mainly 2:27:10.120 --> 2:27:13.720 to advance the interests of motorists, right, but they were 2:27:13.879 --> 2:27:19.879 very hostile to um, they're very hostile to a sort 2:27:19.920 --> 2:27:23.800 of a Dutch style model, which like, you know, these 2:27:23.879 --> 2:27:27.880 were guys who like to ride fast and like you don't. 2:27:28.400 --> 2:27:33.440 You can't ride fast in the Netherlands. Yea, not everyone's 2:27:33.600 --> 2:27:36.000 physically able nor really wants to go forty miles an 2:27:36.040 --> 2:27:38.880 hour on a road next to cars, exactly, right. So 2:27:39.680 --> 2:27:45.320 it was very much around a strong, fit, confident cyclist 2:27:46.120 --> 2:27:49.720 who knew all the laws of the road, road really fast. 2:27:50.320 --> 2:27:57.560 Was very assertive. Um. It obviously lent itself towards a 2:27:57.760 --> 2:28:03.680 sort of a boomer type, right, a sort of adventurous type. 2:28:05.320 --> 2:28:09.880 And it was very much that we that bicycl advocates 2:28:09.920 --> 2:28:14.440 should advance the interests of cyclists, not try to grow 2:28:14.640 --> 2:28:17.760 the number of people cycling, right. And so the shift 2:28:17.879 --> 2:28:21.680 towards that maybe the critical mass moment is not the 2:28:21.760 --> 2:28:23.720 only thing, but this is that's sort of a good 2:28:23.879 --> 2:28:27.480 moment to kind of tag it to the nineteen ninety 2:28:27.520 --> 2:28:32.879 two first critical mass era, but you know Earthday vehicle 2:28:32.920 --> 2:28:35.440 for a small planet, all this sort of growing interest 2:28:35.520 --> 2:28:41.120 in bicycling. Yeah, the shift towards more people should be 2:28:41.200 --> 2:28:44.000 doing this. Yeah, can you explain critical mass to people 2:28:44.040 --> 2:28:46.400 who haven't like participated, because I think it's quite a 2:28:46.480 --> 2:28:52.000 unique and interesting phenomenon. Sure, yeah, absolutely so. Critical mass 2:28:52.280 --> 2:28:58.200 began in San Francisco in I think the first critical 2:28:58.280 --> 2:29:05.320 mass was nineteen ninety two, and it was began sort 2:29:05.360 --> 2:29:09.000 of as like a group of people working, you know, 2:29:09.160 --> 2:29:12.760 broadly working office jobs who were sort of kind of 2:29:12.840 --> 2:29:18.280 culturally anarchistic or you know, had these sort of anarchist 2:29:18.400 --> 2:29:24.120 or situation as kind of ideas and who were kind 2:29:24.160 --> 2:29:27.640 of organizing months themselves to ride home as a group, right, 2:29:27.840 --> 2:29:30.360 And they started getting this idea of sort of having 2:29:30.480 --> 2:29:38.480 these monthly ride together um happenings, right, they called it. 2:29:38.600 --> 2:29:41.400 They didn't call them protests, and they weren't organized rides. 2:29:41.520 --> 2:29:47.440 They were uh, sort of rolling festivals, was the idea. 2:29:47.879 --> 2:29:51.840 I think the first the first name that they came 2:29:51.920 --> 2:29:55.279 up with, which mercifully didn't stick, was like the commute 2:29:55.400 --> 2:29:59.240 clot right. So it was also about kind of jamming 2:29:59.440 --> 2:30:04.280 up the regularity of the Friday evening commute, so it 2:30:04.320 --> 2:30:07.520 would be like the first Friday of every month at 2:30:07.560 --> 2:30:10.520 commute time. Right. Um. Some of these I think still 2:30:10.560 --> 2:30:14.840 happen in Portland, Oh, yeah, Yeah, it's it's the critical 2:30:14.920 --> 2:30:18.000 Mass still happens. Um. There's a you know, one of 2:30:18.040 --> 2:30:20.000 the chapters in my book, I sort of trace this 2:30:20.360 --> 2:30:24.320 arc of critical Mass through to the more kind of 2:30:25.600 --> 2:30:31.039 bike party oriented exactly the slow role type of model, 2:30:31.640 --> 2:30:35.360 which I think is interesting because it's a little bit 2:30:35.879 --> 2:30:40.879 it's consciously less confrontational. It's not held at a time 2:30:41.040 --> 2:30:45.920 that would clog up, um sure, clog up evening traffic. Uh. 2:30:46.400 --> 2:30:50.120 It's designed to attract kind of families, people who aren't 2:30:50.120 --> 2:30:53.680 trying to have confrontations with drivers or police. Right. One 2:30:53.720 --> 2:30:57.120 of the things that sort of really put um put 2:30:57.240 --> 2:31:00.760 bicycle infrastructure on the agenda in San Francisco was this 2:31:01.040 --> 2:31:08.400 mass arrest of Critical Mass in nineteen ninety seven, supposedly 2:31:08.520 --> 2:31:11.640 because the mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown at the time, 2:31:11.800 --> 2:31:14.760 got stuck in one in his limo and was like 2:31:15.280 --> 2:31:17.640 furious and so asked the police to crack down next time. 2:31:17.959 --> 2:31:22.400 It was a huge it was. It backfired massively politically, 2:31:22.480 --> 2:31:26.280 but it also created this opening for the the San 2:31:26.320 --> 2:31:32.000 Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which actually was an organization. Critical Mass 2:31:32.120 --> 2:31:34.920 was not an organization, right, It gave them this opportunity 2:31:35.040 --> 2:31:39.120 to say, well, what cyclists want is, you know, to 2:31:39.200 --> 2:31:42.360 actually build out the bike plan that supposedly exists, but 2:31:42.520 --> 2:31:46.720 nobody has been doing anything about it, right, So I 2:31:46.760 --> 2:31:49.520 mean that's probably maybe more than you wanted to know. 2:31:49.680 --> 2:31:52.680 But sort that that arc of critical mass as this 2:31:52.840 --> 2:31:56.600 sort of countercultural moment that created this opening for a 2:31:56.680 --> 2:32:03.800 more formal bicycle planning uh an advocacy organization or a 2:32:03.840 --> 2:32:08.800 set of organizations to emerge, right, Um, and maybe it's unfair. 2:32:08.920 --> 2:32:10.240 I think I probably do it in the book. It's 2:32:10.240 --> 2:32:11.920 a little bit unfair probably to call it a kind 2:32:11.920 --> 2:32:15.400 of depoliticization, but there was certainly a degree of kind 2:32:15.440 --> 2:32:20.800 of like explicit politics of sort of reclaiming the city 2:32:20.879 --> 2:32:25.240 more broadly from a kind of left perspective that does 2:32:25.800 --> 2:32:28.520 disappear somewhat in the sort of the rhetoric of the 2:32:28.560 --> 2:32:31.000 bike movement. Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely lost some of 2:32:31.040 --> 2:32:34.000 that like radical edge where these types of these types 2:32:34.040 --> 2:32:36.320 of you know, when when when like a hundred or 2:32:36.400 --> 2:32:39.400 two hundred people on bikes takeover streets in Portland every 2:32:39.440 --> 2:32:41.560 once in a while, it is way more in the 2:32:41.640 --> 2:32:44.560 form of like a big party, it's like it's it's 2:32:44.640 --> 2:32:46.840 it's like it's like a it's like a roving block party. 2:32:47.080 --> 2:32:49.879 It does not have that same level of like, yeah, 2:32:49.959 --> 2:32:53.680 almost like situationist creating a happening or creating a situation 2:32:53.800 --> 2:32:56.240 that that that affects the regular politics and affects the 2:32:56.280 --> 2:32:59.600 regular way that the city functions. Yeah, I mean, yeah, 2:32:59.640 --> 2:33:03.960 that being said, the sort of the successors, like bike 2:33:04.040 --> 2:33:06.520 Party in San Jose was a huge one, and this 2:33:06.800 --> 2:33:10.080 that bike party model kind of spread throughout California were 2:33:10.160 --> 2:33:13.960 often much bigger than Critical Mass, right, Um, a lot 2:33:14.040 --> 2:33:17.800 of times more diverse as well. Right, So there's there's 2:33:17.800 --> 2:33:22.160 a really interesting kind of politics around. Is the is 2:33:22.200 --> 2:33:25.040 the politics in the sort of explicit slogans or is 2:33:25.120 --> 2:33:30.640 the politics in sort of like showing people that there 2:33:30.800 --> 2:33:34.840 is a kind of collectivity that they might be part 2:33:34.920 --> 2:33:38.160 of simply by virtue of like moving through urban space 2:33:38.240 --> 2:33:40.560 in a different way. And for a lot of people 2:33:40.600 --> 2:33:43.200 it was their first time riding a bike in the 2:33:43.360 --> 2:33:46.920 city because they were so afraid of cars otherwise. Right, 2:33:47.000 --> 2:33:51.080 he had safety in numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it definitely, Um, 2:33:51.480 --> 2:33:53.119 I know for a lot of people that was the case. 2:33:53.120 --> 2:33:55.160 Like I've done some critical masses, I mean the UK, 2:33:55.280 --> 2:33:58.560 we had reclaimed the streets as well, like a similar 2:33:58.680 --> 2:34:01.240 vibe I remember in the Earth, I guess the first 2:34:01.280 --> 2:34:04.640 decade of this century, like there would be critical mass 2:34:04.720 --> 2:34:09.280 rights before antig eight protests, like I remember in Octorado 2:34:09.320 --> 2:34:12.440 in Scotland and things not into before that, and like 2:34:12.840 --> 2:34:15.160 before rather G eight protests would be mass rights. And 2:34:15.240 --> 2:34:20.320 it's a very different scene to like bike advocacy now, right, yeah, yeah, 2:34:20.600 --> 2:34:22.440 And you saw this a little bit with like the 2:34:22.560 --> 2:34:30.360 Occupy movement, the at least my experience of them, the 2:34:30.560 --> 2:34:33.199 sort of early wave of the Black Lives Matter movement 2:34:33.280 --> 2:34:36.920 in twenty fourteen with the killing of Trayvon Martin, there 2:34:37.040 --> 2:34:46.240 were a lot the bicycles seemed like an intuitive protest 2:34:46.400 --> 2:34:49.360 mode for many people, and that's probably sort of some 2:34:49.480 --> 2:34:52.920 of the cultural political tools of critical mass that sort 2:34:52.959 --> 2:34:58.400 of surface here and there. But I think for the 2:34:58.640 --> 2:35:02.800 twentieth anniversary, Chris Carlson, who was one of the early organizers, 2:35:03.520 --> 2:35:07.000 called it talks about critical mass all over the world, 2:35:07.080 --> 2:35:09.400 and that San Francisco felt kind of like the hole 2:35:09.440 --> 2:35:11.360 in the middle of the donut, right, like it sort 2:35:11.400 --> 2:35:15.720 of created this reverberation, but then it actually withered to 2:35:15.879 --> 2:35:20.600 a degree in in the center and often the narrative is, well, 2:35:21.640 --> 2:35:25.400 you're you're getting like you're winning, right, so critical mass 2:35:25.480 --> 2:35:28.280 is no longer necessary because you're getting bike lanes, you're 2:35:28.360 --> 2:35:33.359 getting um you know, you're getting investment, you're getting attention 2:35:33.520 --> 2:35:38.920 from planners, etc. Etc. Right. Obviously, Yeah, the gains, whatever 2:35:39.000 --> 2:35:43.280 they are, are pretty kind of geographically circumscribed. And that 2:35:43.400 --> 2:35:45.040 kind of relates back to how we kind of started 2:35:45.080 --> 2:35:48.199 by talking about how, you know, some cities are putting 2:35:48.240 --> 2:35:51.720 more development into bike infrastructure, but how it's being developed 2:35:51.840 --> 2:35:55.200 is not actually serving people who like I have to 2:35:55.320 --> 2:35:57.200 use a bike to commute because they don't owe a 2:35:57.280 --> 2:35:59.000 car and they can't afford a car, Like it's it's 2:35:59.000 --> 2:36:01.440 it's getting used to people who actually already have a 2:36:01.520 --> 2:36:03.800 lot of resources. And like an interesting case and point 2:36:03.879 --> 2:36:07.040 in this is the belt Line in Atlanta, which like 2:36:07.200 --> 2:36:09.680 started off in the you know as an idea in 2:36:09.920 --> 2:36:13.360 nineteen ninety nine with wanting to create like a giant 2:36:13.440 --> 2:36:18.240 loop using like public transit, having having rail going around 2:36:18.280 --> 2:36:21.320 the city, having bike having bike paths going all around 2:36:21.360 --> 2:36:24.080 the city, being able to like connect the city with 2:36:24.280 --> 2:36:28.480 these with these like spaces for like green space and 2:36:28.520 --> 2:36:32.480 affordable housing, and instead the project kind of manifested as 2:36:32.560 --> 2:36:36.040 this like like is this project that was had up 2:36:36.080 --> 2:36:38.680 by real estate companies to replace a whole bunch of 2:36:38.840 --> 2:36:43.640 low income neighborhoods with the massive amounts of like expensive 2:36:43.680 --> 2:36:48.000 restaurants and luxury condos and you know, putting putting the 2:36:48.080 --> 2:36:51.039 belt line and as a path to to create these 2:36:51.120 --> 2:36:57.240 like expensive, like gentrifying areas around the city. And it's 2:36:57.280 --> 2:37:00.080 how like these ideas can start off so good and 2:37:00.200 --> 2:37:03.800 that when they get like, you know, actually done, it's 2:37:03.840 --> 2:37:07.200 manifested in a way that is actually like not helpful 2:37:07.240 --> 2:37:10.320 to people who need this type of thing at all. Yeah, yeah, 2:37:10.400 --> 2:37:14.080 I mean the belt Line. I don't know enough about it. 2:37:14.160 --> 2:37:15.800 I've read I've read a little bit of the sort 2:37:15.800 --> 2:37:18.560 of academic literature, and I've been there, and it is 2:37:18.600 --> 2:37:23.120 really kind of interesting how it is. This It is 2:37:23.200 --> 2:37:31.200 this huge investment in the reconversion of infrastructure right to 2:37:31.440 --> 2:37:35.560 sort of restore the value of the land surrounding it, 2:37:35.760 --> 2:37:39.800 right sort of old rail, old industrial infrastructure. And that's 2:37:39.840 --> 2:37:44.960 something that I don't think that you can you're ever 2:37:45.520 --> 2:37:48.160 you know, people there are studies here and there that 2:37:48.640 --> 2:37:52.000 try to demonstrate the kind of the economic value of 2:37:52.120 --> 2:37:57.680 bicycle infrastructure. The contribution to tax, tax receipts, etc. Etc. 2:37:58.520 --> 2:38:02.040 But it gets pretty hard to parse the causality, um, 2:38:03.240 --> 2:38:08.480 especially when you're you know, especially when compared to something 2:38:08.640 --> 2:38:13.040 that is really sort of overhauling the space, right, I 2:38:13.120 --> 2:38:17.360 don't you know the belt belt line is it's I 2:38:17.480 --> 2:38:22.240 think probably it's success from a sort of financial perspective 2:38:22.320 --> 2:38:26.320 has to do with it being a multi use path, 2:38:26.760 --> 2:38:32.760 right yea, rather than it being bicycle infrastructure, um, and 2:38:33.040 --> 2:38:37.959 sort of being being framed as this much broader type 2:38:37.959 --> 2:38:42.680 of thing, right rather than um, a bike lane on 2:38:42.760 --> 2:38:45.880 a street, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not great 2:38:45.920 --> 2:38:47.879 to write down, like at least on the weekend, because 2:38:47.879 --> 2:38:51.520 you'll just be slow, full of full of people. It's 2:38:51.560 --> 2:38:54.160 full of Like when I when I when I was 2:38:54.240 --> 2:38:56.760 visiting last year during the start of summer, I went 2:38:56.840 --> 2:38:59.600 with a friend to the area by Ponce City Market, 2:38:59.640 --> 2:39:02.279 which is kind of a great example of the gentrifying 2:39:02.440 --> 2:39:05.600 force of of the belt Line, but also like, yeah, 2:39:05.680 --> 2:39:07.760 there's people who's trying, people who are trying to ride 2:39:07.800 --> 2:39:10.359 bikes around, but there's like kids on rollers, kids everywhere. 2:39:10.760 --> 2:39:13.760 There's it's it's it's pretty packed. It's getting it's it's 2:39:13.800 --> 2:39:17.080 getting pretty pretty warm um. But there's other parts that 2:39:17.120 --> 2:39:20.040 are like you know that are that are more isolated 2:39:20.120 --> 2:39:21.920 where it is much more of like a of like 2:39:22.000 --> 2:39:24.720 a commute path. But it's it's interesting. It's just like 2:39:24.800 --> 2:39:26.840 it like weaves in and out of these like retail 2:39:27.320 --> 2:39:32.440 and luxury apartment um, you know pop up exactly, and 2:39:32.520 --> 2:39:35.279 and all that stuff is is relative, is like relatively 2:39:35.360 --> 2:39:38.279 new for all the stuff that is like specifically surrounding 2:39:38.320 --> 2:39:42.080 the surrounding like the construction of the belt line. Yeah, 2:39:42.640 --> 2:39:46.480 and I mean the um, I think that you maybe 2:39:46.600 --> 2:39:49.880 see this just a little bit with like you know, 2:39:50.560 --> 2:39:53.640 the direction that I've taken this thinking about it is 2:39:54.280 --> 2:39:56.920 more the sort of the types of urban strategies that 2:39:57.000 --> 2:40:01.640 have begun to incorporate bicycle infrastructure, right, or active transportation 2:40:01.720 --> 2:40:07.400 more generally as the kind of big driving forces, rather 2:40:07.520 --> 2:40:11.720 than like is this bike lane here causing gentrification? It's 2:40:11.840 --> 2:40:15.560 usually it's often the other way around, right. Bicycle infrastructure 2:40:15.640 --> 2:40:21.880 sort of emerges as a result of gentrification, right or 2:40:22.360 --> 2:40:27.039 as a result of the in migration of people who 2:40:27.160 --> 2:40:30.640 are going to be listened to right because of their status, 2:40:30.800 --> 2:40:35.920 because of their income, because they have kind of existing 2:40:37.560 --> 2:40:43.600 capacities in organizing for these types of things, right, It's 2:40:44.280 --> 2:40:48.560 I think what's interesting is one of the one of 2:40:48.600 --> 2:40:51.280 the positions I've sort of come around to, right is 2:40:52.000 --> 2:40:57.680 thinking more about um not like should we do bicycle 2:40:57.760 --> 2:41:01.400 infrastructure because it might kind of create the perception of 2:41:01.480 --> 2:41:04.920 gentrification or cause gentrification or something like that, and instead, 2:41:05.040 --> 2:41:07.600 like you know what, one of the things that gentrification 2:41:08.560 --> 2:41:11.920 results from when you're thinking about amenities that sort of 2:41:12.080 --> 2:41:16.320 lead to the revalorization of urban space is that they 2:41:16.360 --> 2:41:19.360 are in some way special, right. And so if the 2:41:19.480 --> 2:41:25.160 question is the specialness of this particular place, you know, Garrison, 2:41:25.240 --> 2:41:31.400 as you said, what makes say, you know, the kinds 2:41:31.440 --> 2:41:33.560 of places where you can safely ride a bike are 2:41:33.800 --> 2:41:37.640 fairly unique, right, They're not well distributed, right, And so 2:41:38.000 --> 2:41:41.760 from my perspective, it's sort of the more routine they 2:41:41.879 --> 2:41:47.440 become as an as as you know, including them into 2:41:47.959 --> 2:41:54.000 urban space, the less special the places where they are 2:41:54.200 --> 2:41:59.000 built become. Right. And it's so routine that it wouldn't 2:41:59.040 --> 2:42:03.440 be worth mentioning, right, It's like mentioning that there is 2:42:03.600 --> 2:42:06.720 a sewer line, right, Like it's like mentioning that it 2:42:06.920 --> 2:42:10.240 has connection to city water, which okay, yeah, and you know, 2:42:10.400 --> 2:42:13.520 at the at the urban edge where I live. Um, 2:42:14.200 --> 2:42:16.280 I don't live at the urban edge, but at the 2:42:16.440 --> 2:42:20.720 urban edge in the southeast. Um, you know there isn't 2:42:20.720 --> 2:42:23.560 always connection to the city water. Um. Yeah, like trying 2:42:23.560 --> 2:42:25.560 to get it normalized to the point where it's like 2:42:25.800 --> 2:42:28.080 obvious that it's something that is like a part of 2:42:28.120 --> 2:42:30.720 the city. It's like yeah, like right, of course, it's 2:42:30.920 --> 2:42:32.840 it's just as normal as like a sidewalk or a 2:42:32.920 --> 2:42:35.760 road or like a power line, which when fair. I 2:42:35.800 --> 2:42:38.040 don't have any sidewalks on my street, and most of 2:42:38.080 --> 2:42:40.680 the streets around me have a sidewalk on on one side. 2:42:40.760 --> 2:42:45.600 Only Portland. Portland also has very has very few sidewalks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 2:42:45.959 --> 2:42:47.560 you have this. Yeah. I lived in Belgium for a 2:42:47.600 --> 2:42:49.480 while when I was racing. It like, I lived in 2:42:49.520 --> 2:42:51.560 a town that was very much just to look, lots 2:42:51.600 --> 2:42:54.800 of Belgium is shitty, gray coal mining towns. I left Belgium. 2:42:54.879 --> 2:42:57.320 But this is the thing, and like, yeah, they would 2:42:57.360 --> 2:42:59.959 never have beat you know. The bike infrastructure is unremarked. 2:43:00.400 --> 2:43:02.320 It was just a thing that everyone used to go 2:43:02.400 --> 2:43:04.800 to the shops to go to school. It wasn't right 2:43:04.879 --> 2:43:09.400 lest like selling point for a branch restaurant yeah, and 2:43:09.520 --> 2:43:12.600 I think it's this kind of thing where it's bigger 2:43:12.680 --> 2:43:15.760 than just the infrastructure. Right. A lot of the places 2:43:15.800 --> 2:43:19.680 where bicycle infrastructure has been really successful, right are these 2:43:19.760 --> 2:43:25.879 sort of dense, relatively dense areas, actually not the densest areas, 2:43:26.000 --> 2:43:29.119 right where everything was in walking distance, but the area 2:43:29.240 --> 2:43:34.800 is kind of just beyond there, right where where there 2:43:34.800 --> 2:43:41.520 are you know, shops, places of employment, services, etc. Etc. 2:43:42.560 --> 2:43:46.720 All sort of within reasonable biking distance or maybe long 2:43:46.879 --> 2:43:52.400 walking distance, right, but too short to really merit a 2:43:52.640 --> 2:43:56.520 trip on a bus or a train, right, and you know, 2:43:57.640 --> 2:44:00.280 short enough that maybe some of us would feel a 2:44:00.280 --> 2:44:02.320 little bit silly getting in the car to go do it. Right, 2:44:02.440 --> 2:44:06.560 So that that kind of zone is also not terribly 2:44:06.680 --> 2:44:09.039 common in the United States, right. A lot of those 2:44:09.120 --> 2:44:12.320 places got destroyed to build highways, right, or got destroyed 2:44:12.400 --> 2:44:17.240 to build kind of suburban style shopping malls, and so 2:44:17.440 --> 2:44:22.080 that's part of their part of their specialness. But going 2:44:22.160 --> 2:44:28.280 back to the idea of you know, people in the 2:44:28.440 --> 2:44:32.240 places where people were really relying on bicycles, right, that 2:44:32.400 --> 2:44:36.720 there isn't necessarily infrastructure. It's partially a data issue. Going 2:44:36.760 --> 2:44:38.920 back to your data question, right, the way that we 2:44:39.000 --> 2:44:44.280 collect data on bicycling is people people bicycling to work. Right. 2:44:45.800 --> 2:44:49.680 If people aren't in the workforce or they happen to 2:44:49.840 --> 2:44:56.119 not have a job, that is not counted in the census, right, 2:44:56.720 --> 2:45:00.320 even if you bicycle to the train like I do. 2:45:00.640 --> 2:45:03.000 Like if I get to fill out the census, I'm 2:45:03.040 --> 2:45:06.680 going to fill out train, right, because that's the bulk 2:45:06.720 --> 2:45:11.160 of my journey when I commute. And so it skews 2:45:11.440 --> 2:45:14.680 your perception of where infrastructure might be needed if you're 2:45:14.800 --> 2:45:22.320 using data toward places that where people are commuting by bicycle, right, 2:45:23.280 --> 2:45:25.680 rather than you know, commuting is only a quarter to 2:45:25.800 --> 2:45:27.760 a third of all trips, right, rather than all the 2:45:27.840 --> 2:45:31.160 other trips that we don't know about. Right. And sometimes 2:45:31.240 --> 2:45:35.560 we measure them with passive measurement, like pressure sensors in 2:45:35.600 --> 2:45:39.880 the streets. Sometimes active measurement like people doing bicycle counts 2:45:40.000 --> 2:45:43.040 on particular days. Right, there's a whole history of that. 2:45:43.200 --> 2:45:46.000 Now we're using Strava. But then we're getting a small 2:45:47.280 --> 2:45:49.640 like we're getting a very rich data set about a 2:45:49.720 --> 2:45:55.400 small subset of cyclists and hoping that that extends to most, 2:45:55.480 --> 2:45:59.320 if not all cyclists. And then to your question started, 2:46:00.640 --> 2:46:05.280 I'll pause right to your question about the the the 2:46:07.080 --> 2:46:12.120 data question, right, how how deadly or how dangerous are 2:46:13.320 --> 2:46:17.120 various streets that don't have bike lanes. There is a 2:46:17.240 --> 2:46:20.920 big problem of the missing denominator. Right, We don't know 2:46:21.040 --> 2:46:23.800 how many people cycles, so we don't know the rates 2:46:23.879 --> 2:46:29.240 of injury on these particular roadways in the way in 2:46:29.360 --> 2:46:32.680 the same way that we do know car volumes and 2:46:32.920 --> 2:46:35.400 can have a better sense of the rates of injury 2:46:37.600 --> 2:46:41.920 based on collisions. Right, But you do see clusters of 2:46:41.959 --> 2:46:48.960 collisions in places where you know where they're large roads 2:46:49.080 --> 2:46:53.840 meeting where basically no very few if any traffic engineers 2:46:53.879 --> 2:46:57.000 would sign off on taking away some of that car 2:46:57.080 --> 2:47:01.560 capacity to create more safety for cycle. And of course 2:47:01.800 --> 2:47:08.480 those those kind of compound. Those factors kind of compound, Right. 2:47:08.560 --> 2:47:11.240 You maybe have an industrial area, it's a big interface 2:47:11.360 --> 2:47:15.120 with a large urban arterial or an off ramp to 2:47:15.200 --> 2:47:18.080 a highway. Right, these kind of all go together with 2:47:18.600 --> 2:47:25.119 um with potentially sort of lower lower income area are 2:47:25.160 --> 2:47:31.080 sort of a lower um less pressure to improve that 2:47:32.200 --> 2:47:38.040 that area. Yeah, So I'm thinking when I think about 2:47:38.080 --> 2:47:41.800 like how the bike movement missed an opportunity to be better, 2:47:41.800 --> 2:47:43.959 I always think about like this moment in twenty twenty 2:47:44.040 --> 2:47:46.880 when this man called Dijon Kizzie was killed by police 2:47:47.400 --> 2:47:51.760 in LA and the incident which led to the cops 2:47:51.760 --> 2:47:54.200 shooting him began because the cops tried to pull him 2:47:54.240 --> 2:47:56.039 over for running a stop sign on a bike, right, 2:47:56.080 --> 2:47:59.320 which is a thing that tenth of thousands of white 2:47:59.360 --> 2:48:02.320 dudes into Dex do every single day. In this kind 2:48:02.320 --> 2:48:06.440 of not a word was spoken by the bike movement, 2:48:06.440 --> 2:48:09.160 at least that I saw by bike folks, you know, 2:48:09.320 --> 2:48:12.920 in sort of solidarity or a position to what had happened. Right, 2:48:13.160 --> 2:48:18.200 It just it was just another thing that went mourned 2:48:18.200 --> 2:48:21.560 to buy thousands of people and ignored by others. So like, 2:48:23.000 --> 2:48:25.520 it made me think about it how we build Maybe 2:48:25.560 --> 2:48:27.080 it's wrong to think about how we build a better 2:48:27.160 --> 2:48:29.440 bike movement, and maybe it's better to think about how 2:48:30.400 --> 2:48:32.680 we make it unremarkable that you bike, right, we make 2:48:32.720 --> 2:48:35.120 it like not an identity thing. But how do we 2:48:35.240 --> 2:48:38.760 make cities where people are safe riding bikes I guess, 2:48:38.920 --> 2:48:41.280 regardless of whether they're wearing spandex or they're just trying 2:48:41.320 --> 2:48:44.520 to get to the shop ups. Yeah, I mean that's 2:48:44.560 --> 2:48:49.320 a really kind of an important question. And in my research, 2:48:49.680 --> 2:48:51.640 a lot of people were grappling with that. There was 2:48:51.680 --> 2:48:55.840 an incident that mercifully didn't result in someone being killed 2:48:55.959 --> 2:48:58.160 or seriously injured. But you know, a guy was pulled 2:48:58.160 --> 2:49:01.720 off of his bike by a police beaten up in 2:49:01.959 --> 2:49:04.640 San Francisco, and there was a big march afterwards, and 2:49:04.800 --> 2:49:07.960 some of the some bisuple advocates did show up, but 2:49:08.040 --> 2:49:12.440 it was not framed as this is something that you 2:49:12.520 --> 2:49:15.920 know is affecting us as cyclists, right, this is or 2:49:16.080 --> 2:49:20.160 that affecting some of us as cyclists, right, and an 2:49:20.200 --> 2:49:22.280 injury to one as an injury at all. Right, that's 2:49:22.360 --> 2:49:24.400 not that's not it was not the kind of the 2:49:24.520 --> 2:49:28.320 frame that that people were using to mud from what 2:49:28.440 --> 2:49:33.520 I could tell, right, Um, and you had bicycle you know, 2:49:33.600 --> 2:49:36.760 black bicycle advocates in East Oakland who didn't really frame 2:49:36.800 --> 2:49:41.320 themselves as bieula advocates necessarily in the traditional um or 2:49:41.400 --> 2:49:44.480 the mold that is sort of determined by the sort 2:49:44.520 --> 2:49:48.640 of the hegemonically kind of white middle class advocacy organizations. Right, 2:49:48.720 --> 2:49:52.800 But they were very much bicycle advocates who you know, um, 2:49:54.200 --> 2:49:56.440 a lot of were a lot of a lot of 2:49:56.520 --> 2:50:00.120 what they did was sort of like teaching people to 2:50:00.280 --> 2:50:04.560 ride correctly so that they would have fewer interactions with police, 2:50:04.680 --> 2:50:10.959 right or um kind of managing interactions with with police 2:50:11.000 --> 2:50:15.119 and you know, hopefully becoming well enough known as cyclists 2:50:15.160 --> 2:50:18.640 that they weren't kind of subject to the kinds of 2:50:19.160 --> 2:50:24.400 interactions that you know where people police end up killing somebody. Right. Um, 2:50:25.320 --> 2:50:27.320 Now that I live in a place where very few 2:50:27.400 --> 2:50:30.600 people bicycle to work or for much of anything, right, 2:50:30.720 --> 2:50:37.520 I'm thinking a bit more holistically about uh, you know, 2:50:37.600 --> 2:50:39.960 it's now kind of a buzz buzzword, but you know, 2:50:40.040 --> 2:50:44.480 a kind of a more car optional um city right 2:50:45.000 --> 2:50:48.400 where you don't need to have a car to do 2:50:48.600 --> 2:50:52.480 various things. You know, I'm I'm involved with bicycle advocates here, 2:50:53.080 --> 2:50:55.960 but like when I when I look around, I see 2:50:56.080 --> 2:51:00.560 like a bus stop that is a stick in a 2:51:00.760 --> 2:51:04.360 median right. There's no bench, there's no sidewalks to get 2:51:04.400 --> 2:51:07.200 to it, there's no crosswalks or anything like that. And 2:51:08.240 --> 2:51:11.480 I mean, I think that one of the bigger one 2:51:11.520 --> 2:51:14.720 of the bigger questions is to make a place that's 2:51:15.480 --> 2:51:21.480 safe for cyclists, safe for people walking, safe for people 2:51:21.560 --> 2:51:24.640 walking their bikes, or safe for people walking to transit. 2:51:24.879 --> 2:51:31.840 Right is reducing the kind of the space and the 2:51:32.520 --> 2:51:35.720 way that space and speed go together, right, that are 2:51:35.760 --> 2:51:38.360 devoted to cars, and a lot of that is like 2:51:41.640 --> 2:51:46.640 reducing the the the distances that people need to travel 2:51:46.959 --> 2:51:49.480 right for various things. Right. This gets into this sort 2:51:49.520 --> 2:51:52.080 of the fifteen minute city stuff, which is that it's 2:51:52.120 --> 2:51:54.480 been really wild to see it being turned into this 2:51:54.720 --> 2:52:01.040 like QAnon type, you know, Agenda twenty one, und black 2:52:01.120 --> 2:52:05.240 helicopters type of conspiracy theory, right, because I think of 2:52:05.320 --> 2:52:10.040 it as a very kind of milk toast type of 2:52:10.120 --> 2:52:13.200 policy framework that's honored in the breach, right, sort of 2:52:13.240 --> 2:52:16.400 like complete streets there's a carve out for unless the 2:52:16.480 --> 2:52:18.800 traffic engineer says it's not really feasible, and then we 2:52:18.879 --> 2:52:21.680 won't really question that judgment. We just won't do it, right. So, 2:52:22.800 --> 2:52:25.640 I mean, I do think it's bigger than modes of 2:52:25.720 --> 2:52:29.400 transport are really bigger than people's individual decisions or even 2:52:29.560 --> 2:52:33.520 like what the sort of once you are in your 2:52:33.600 --> 2:52:39.520 mode of transport, what the sort of behavioral matrix is? Right, 2:52:39.640 --> 2:52:43.200 It's sort of like what what is your life consist of? Right? Um, 2:52:43.920 --> 2:52:48.119 what what do you do to like preserve your dignity 2:52:48.240 --> 2:52:50.960 with your coworkers? Right? All of these kinds of things 2:52:51.080 --> 2:52:56.120 that feed people towards towards driving, except in you know, 2:52:56.440 --> 2:53:00.400 very specific places that you know have become special in 2:53:00.440 --> 2:53:03.320 the United States. I mean there's a lot, there's a 2:53:03.400 --> 2:53:06.680 lot to say, right. It is really it's much bigger 2:53:06.720 --> 2:53:11.760 than than bicycling. Um, it's the sort of the built environment. 2:53:11.840 --> 2:53:14.320 And I think one of the things that what I 2:53:14.520 --> 2:53:18.600 land on in the book, maybe belatedly, right because these 2:53:18.680 --> 2:53:22.960 these these things take years, is is this the way 2:53:23.040 --> 2:53:28.960 that bicycling is still kind of this interstitial solution, Right. 2:53:29.080 --> 2:53:33.520 It's sort of like kind of picking up scraps here 2:53:33.560 --> 2:53:36.039 and there in the built environment. Right, It's like picking 2:53:36.120 --> 2:53:39.640 up some of the loose ends right in how cities 2:53:39.680 --> 2:53:45.280 are organized that makes them frustrating difficult to navigate, right. Um. 2:53:45.480 --> 2:53:48.720 And you know, I think a lot of the energy, 2:53:48.920 --> 2:53:53.640 not exclusively certainly, And bicycle advocacy has become much more 2:53:53.760 --> 2:53:56.440 diverse in part through like listening to a lot of 2:53:56.480 --> 2:54:02.720 the voices of advocates of color and women advocates, and 2:54:03.120 --> 2:54:08.160 you know, um, kind of thinking beyond that sort of 2:54:08.320 --> 2:54:11.760 stereotypical you know, not just the middle aged man in 2:54:11.840 --> 2:54:14.840 micro but like the the sort of middle aged guy 2:54:14.920 --> 2:54:18.640 on us early. Right, you know that that maybe successor 2:54:18.800 --> 2:54:22.120 to the middle aged man in micro right, and certainly 2:54:22.200 --> 2:54:27.480 calling myself out, but the it's still very kind of 2:54:27.520 --> 2:54:32.920 an interstitial thing, right, Um. It's and the thing about 2:54:33.040 --> 2:54:38.040 the urban transportation systems in the United States is that 2:54:38.280 --> 2:54:41.360 they leave a lot of interstices, right, There's a lot 2:54:41.480 --> 2:54:45.040 of areas that are poorly served by anything but cars, 2:54:45.200 --> 2:54:48.440 and honestly poorly served by cars. You know, in Oakland 2:54:49.160 --> 2:54:51.560 you had people a lot of the sort of the 2:54:52.600 --> 2:54:56.920 maybe not anger but certainly annoyance at bicycle advocacy and 2:54:57.000 --> 2:55:01.960 bicycle infrastructure would and I think you see this in 2:55:02.040 --> 2:55:04.560 Portland too, where it's like we've been asking for sidewalks, 2:55:04.600 --> 2:55:07.879 We've been asking the city to to like fill these potholes, 2:55:08.520 --> 2:55:11.840 and instead there's these bike lanes that people who just 2:55:12.080 --> 2:55:14.640 got here are asking for, right, And so maybe that's 2:55:14.640 --> 2:55:19.280 a failure of solidarity on people coming, you know, people 2:55:19.360 --> 2:55:22.360 moving to a neighborhood. They they're like, why is it 2:55:22.600 --> 2:55:26.879 so torturous to get somewhere by bike? Rather than kind 2:55:26.920 --> 2:55:30.040 of maybe stopping and saying, all right, what what what 2:55:30.200 --> 2:55:34.480 have people been demanding here before I got here? Right? Um? 2:55:35.000 --> 2:55:37.080 And how can I sort of contribute to that as well? 2:55:37.160 --> 2:55:40.560 And sort of kind of merge our agendas potentially. Um, 2:55:41.120 --> 2:55:43.200 but it is this sort of it's a it's an 2:55:43.400 --> 2:55:49.320 interstitial um solution, right. And so from for me, you know, 2:55:49.480 --> 2:55:53.560 the bigger the bigger questions are sort of what what 2:55:53.879 --> 2:56:00.240 role will bicycles play when we start to really take 2:56:00.440 --> 2:56:06.080 seriously the kind of broader urban structure, So you don't 2:56:06.120 --> 2:56:08.800 have these sort of islands of bike ability inside a 2:56:08.920 --> 2:56:13.360 sea of automobility. Right, Um, do you have a situation 2:56:13.480 --> 2:56:16.160 where it actually becomes more practical to walk and take 2:56:16.240 --> 2:56:18.720 transit than it is to bike, right? I would call 2:56:18.840 --> 2:56:21.960 that a that a win, right? And I think you know, 2:56:22.320 --> 2:56:24.880 there's a there's a there's a degree to which we 2:56:24.959 --> 2:56:27.960 can get fixated on the particular mode of transport, I 2:56:28.000 --> 2:56:29.800 think because we all kind of like fell in love 2:56:29.840 --> 2:56:32.680 with bicycles and that was the sort of the the 2:56:33.640 --> 2:56:37.920 gateway drug into thinking about like transport and cities and 2:56:38.080 --> 2:56:40.840 how people move around and the sort of the history 2:56:40.920 --> 2:56:44.040 of urban planning. Right. So I mean these are all 2:56:44.160 --> 2:56:47.240 I don't know if I really kind of offered anything 2:56:47.320 --> 2:56:50.360 that sort of puts it all together nicely, right, Um, 2:56:51.120 --> 2:56:56.039 But the idea that it really does need to become 2:56:56.200 --> 2:57:00.040 normalized and if it actually sort of disappears in a 2:57:00.200 --> 2:57:03.400 process of being normalized and it stops being a signifier 2:57:03.680 --> 2:57:09.280 of environmental rectitude or something like that. And you know, 2:57:09.440 --> 2:57:11.520 if I could walk to a grocery store instead of 2:57:11.600 --> 2:57:14.440 having a bike to a grocery store, I would prefer that, 2:57:14.640 --> 2:57:18.160 honestly where I am right now, right, even though I 2:57:18.240 --> 2:57:22.080 love cycling, right and it's something that I'll never stop doing. Right. 2:57:22.160 --> 2:57:25.320 So I think kind of thinking more holistically about what 2:57:25.600 --> 2:57:29.000 kinds of cities we need to have to move beyond, 2:57:30.800 --> 2:57:34.680 move beyond automobility, both from a climate perspective and a 2:57:34.800 --> 2:57:41.279 social justice perspective and just almost like a thermodynamic perspective. 2:57:43.560 --> 2:57:46.160 So I mean that maybe that's the moving up to 2:57:46.240 --> 2:57:50.360 the level of physics is where one kind of place 2:57:50.440 --> 2:57:54.520 to end. Yeah, I think that's very good. Yeah. Is 2:57:54.560 --> 2:57:58.480 there anything you'd like to plug? Maybe people where people 2:57:58.520 --> 2:58:00.520 can find your book, where people can follow you online, 2:58:00.680 --> 2:58:02.920 and I think like that any sort of projects you're 2:58:02.959 --> 2:58:07.600 interested in, sure, Yeah, So, um My, you can find 2:58:07.640 --> 2:58:10.720 me on Twitter. I'm at jo st e h l 2:58:10.800 --> 2:58:14.320 i N. My book is now, it's few years old. 2:58:14.360 --> 2:58:17.400 It's twenty nineteen with University of Minnesota Press. It's all. 2:58:17.600 --> 2:58:23.840 It's called Cyclescapes of the Unequal City, and my latest 2:58:23.879 --> 2:58:29.199 work I'm actually looking at, um the politics of highway removal. 2:58:29.959 --> 2:58:33.480 So maybe scaling up in terms of infrastructure, thinking about 2:58:34.000 --> 2:58:38.080 sort of bigger the kind of the great clanking gears 2:58:38.200 --> 2:58:43.680 of urbanism rather than you know, this little tiny stretch 2:58:43.800 --> 2:58:46.840 of pavement on the side that's that's full of glass 2:58:46.879 --> 2:58:48.720 and car doors and stuff like that. So, but of 2:58:48.800 --> 2:58:51.400 course they all kind of fit together through what are 2:58:51.480 --> 2:58:54.720 the what how does the fabric of the built environment 2:58:54.800 --> 2:58:57.959 have to change in order to grapple with climate change, 2:58:58.520 --> 2:59:02.160 inequality and sort of making a sort of a more 2:59:02.320 --> 2:59:06.520 human type of city. Yeah, I think it's great. I 2:59:06.520 --> 2:59:08.360 think it's a wonderful place. Tran, thank you so much 2:59:08.360 --> 2:59:10.800 for giving us some of your afternoon. John. Yeah, thank you. 2:59:11.160 --> 2:59:13.360 I really appreciate you taking the time, and it was 2:59:13.400 --> 2:59:17.120 a really fun conversation. Hi podcast fans, it's me. It's Jones. 2:59:17.200 --> 2:59:19.120 And it's just a tiny little pickup that I wanted 2:59:19.160 --> 2:59:20.640 to add to the end of this episode because I'm 2:59:20.680 --> 2:59:24.760 neglected to mention that Si Klista Zene did call out 2:59:25.040 --> 2:59:27.920 the police killing of Dijon Kizzy very explicitly and had 2:59:28.160 --> 2:59:30.760 an excellent peace on it, as they do on lots 2:59:30.800 --> 2:59:34.080 of other things. They are incredibly wonderful and you can 2:59:34.160 --> 2:59:37.040 find them at si KLISTA zene c y c l 2:59:37.120 --> 2:59:42.000 I s t A z i ne dot com. They 2:59:42.240 --> 2:59:44.440 are not representative of the rest of the bike media, 2:59:44.560 --> 2:59:47.160 so well worth looking at if you like bikes and 2:59:48.240 --> 2:59:51.800 not the police murdering people. They're a wonderful publication. Okay, 2:59:51.840 --> 3:00:11.519 thanks bye, welcome too. It could happen here a podcast 3:00:11.760 --> 3:00:17.440 about things falling apart and sometimes putting things back together. 3:00:18.120 --> 3:00:21.080 And you know, today we're doing an episode that's kind 3:00:21.080 --> 3:00:25.720 of more on the intellectual and emotional end of a 3:00:25.879 --> 3:00:29.200 very specific set of things falling apart, and rather than 3:00:30.080 --> 3:00:33.080 clumsily try to introduce it myself, I'm going to bring 3:00:33.200 --> 3:00:36.280 on the person who who I think some of the 3:00:36.720 --> 3:00:38.600 thoughts that have kind of been going through my head, 3:00:38.600 --> 3:00:40.120 I know they've been going through the heads of a 3:00:40.160 --> 3:00:41.600 lot of the folks that we have here at cool 3:00:41.640 --> 3:00:45.560 Zone for quite some time now. Thoughtslime, you are a 3:00:46.480 --> 3:00:51.840 YouTuber and a good YouTuber who does a number of videos. 3:00:52.080 --> 3:00:54.720 Some of your recent ones are thoughts on ai art, 3:00:55.600 --> 3:00:58.240 A timeline of Elon's Twitter mistakes. You did a really 3:00:58.320 --> 3:01:02.640 fun video on the QAnon Queen of Canada, who is 3:01:03.280 --> 3:01:07.760 a pretty problematic character. Welcome to the show, Thanks for 3:01:07.840 --> 3:01:10.360 having me, Happy to be here. Do you want to 3:01:10.400 --> 3:01:12.720 just kind of start by reading us that thread? Because 3:01:12.720 --> 3:01:14.240 you posted this on Twitter the other day and I 3:01:14.720 --> 3:01:17.000 started chatting with it, and then we moved over to 3:01:17.120 --> 3:01:20.280 DMS and decided we should kind of do a little 3:01:20.360 --> 3:01:24.959 more formal thing. Yeah. So basically I said that I'm 3:01:25.040 --> 3:01:28.400 constantly considering making a Why I Left the Left video 3:01:28.480 --> 3:01:31.200 about how my views have not changed one iota, but 3:01:31.280 --> 3:01:34.440 I've become completely disillusioned about my role in communicating them. 3:01:35.800 --> 3:01:37.800 Part of the reason I shifted my focus to trying 3:01:37.879 --> 3:01:40.440 to be just entertaining is because deep down, I don't 3:01:40.440 --> 3:01:42.680 really see a lot of value in getting people on 3:01:42.920 --> 3:01:45.520 my side anymore. I don't think it does anything or 3:01:45.640 --> 3:01:47.840 means anything. But the best I can do is give 3:01:47.879 --> 3:01:51.240 you information and hopefully a laugh. I used to feel 3:01:51.280 --> 3:01:53.879 like I was participating in something bigger than I think 3:01:53.920 --> 3:01:55.840 A lot. Then I think I really am that I 3:01:55.959 --> 3:01:58.640 was helping in some small, in some small way towards 3:01:58.680 --> 3:02:02.160 a sort of shift towards more revolutionary mass consciousness. I 3:02:02.240 --> 3:02:04.519 think that was a bit of a childish fantasy. In retrospect, 3:02:05.280 --> 3:02:08.320 sometimes people will say, you made me an anarchist, and like, Buddy, 3:02:08.600 --> 3:02:10.320 I don't even think it matters that I myself am 3:02:10.320 --> 3:02:12.800 an anarchist, and I regret that that sort of we're 3:02:12.879 --> 3:02:15.200 fighting the good fight mentality has allowed some of the 3:02:15.240 --> 3:02:17.959 worst grifters on the platform to flourish by manipulating people's 3:02:17.959 --> 3:02:21.280 passions for their own weird, petty reasons. I think what 3:02:21.400 --> 3:02:22.920 I do has a lot of value, but I'm just 3:02:22.959 --> 3:02:25.240 saying that I think I perceive that value to be 3:02:25.640 --> 3:02:27.200 is a lot different than what I thought it was 3:02:27.280 --> 3:02:30.600 a few years ago. Is basically what I had to say, Yeah, 3:02:31.440 --> 3:02:34.480 that I think does such a good job of nailing 3:02:35.320 --> 3:02:39.119 the problem that I've been kind of dealing with emotionally 3:02:39.160 --> 3:02:41.360 as well, which is it's it's not It'd be easy 3:02:41.400 --> 3:02:43.920 to sum it up as like I no longer believe in, 3:02:44.280 --> 3:02:47.840 you know, trying to transmit you know, leftist ideas or 3:02:48.320 --> 3:02:52.760 political analysis, or that I don't believe in the value 3:02:52.840 --> 3:02:56.760 of like trying to inform people about the world, because 3:02:56.760 --> 3:02:59.640 that's not how I feel. But there is there has 3:02:59.720 --> 3:03:01.920 been a shift, and I think probably the high point 3:03:02.000 --> 3:03:05.360 for the version of me that was optimistic about the 3:03:05.440 --> 3:03:10.160 ability to use mass media to build power and the 3:03:10.240 --> 3:03:12.600 ability to take effective action on the left. I think 3:03:12.680 --> 3:03:15.680 that kind of crescendoed I'm gonna, I'm gonna say June 3:03:15.720 --> 3:03:19.680 of twenty twenty, um, and it had a pretty sharp 3:03:19.879 --> 3:03:23.480 drop after that point. And I both think it's it's 3:03:23.600 --> 3:03:27.400 valuable to still acknowledge kind of how remarkable what happened 3:03:27.440 --> 3:03:29.440 in twenty twenty was. For all of its flaws and 3:03:29.560 --> 3:03:34.039 all of the really messy fallout from it, we saw 3:03:34.200 --> 3:03:38.040 an ups an uprising of unprecedented scale. And part of 3:03:38.160 --> 3:03:41.560 why the crackdown in response has been so narly is 3:03:42.080 --> 3:03:43.960 that it scared the hell out of a lot of 3:03:44.040 --> 3:03:50.640 really unpleasant people. Um. And the media had a significant 3:03:50.720 --> 3:03:52.280 role to play in that, both in the fact that 3:03:52.360 --> 3:03:53.960 there were a lot of people who were who were 3:03:54.080 --> 3:03:58.280 kind of already organizing and radicalized when the ship started 3:03:58.280 --> 3:04:02.000 to hit the fan, and that as things happened, um, 3:04:02.600 --> 3:04:05.320 you know, the what was happening in the streets, what 3:04:05.400 --> 3:04:07.960 the police were doing, the different kind of marches and 3:04:08.200 --> 3:04:12.360 and different campaigns that were being started got spread to people. 3:04:12.680 --> 3:04:15.160 And I do think that you know, folks, you know, 3:04:15.320 --> 3:04:17.320 like you and me were a part of that. Although 3:04:17.680 --> 3:04:20.000 it never is far from my mind that the most 3:04:20.080 --> 3:04:24.080 influential piece of media that was that was recorded and 3:04:24.160 --> 3:04:28.720 disseminated during twenty twenty was the video of George Floyd 3:04:28.959 --> 3:04:32.320 being murdered, which was filmed by you know, someone who 3:04:32.400 --> 3:04:34.640 just happened to be nearby and had the courage to 3:04:34.720 --> 3:04:39.040 film it. Not a professional journalist, not a not an influencer, 3:04:39.240 --> 3:04:42.680 not a not somebody who was a professional political thinker, 3:04:42.800 --> 3:04:47.600 and everything else combined didn't have the influence of that video. Yeah, 3:04:47.640 --> 3:04:49.240 I think that that kind of gets to the heart 3:04:49.280 --> 3:04:51.920 of it, right, is that like we we express support 3:04:52.480 --> 3:04:54.640 for ideas, and thus people tend to treat us as 3:04:54.680 --> 3:04:58.440 though we are the progenitors of those ideas, or the 3:04:58.959 --> 3:05:01.760 the guardians of those ideas, or the leaders of a 3:05:02.400 --> 3:05:08.000 kind of decentralized proxy party of some kind. Yeah, it's 3:05:08.120 --> 3:05:13.440 it's it's both, because I think, thankfully there's that. I mean, 3:05:13.480 --> 3:05:16.160 there's there's always going to be every everyone who makes 3:05:16.800 --> 3:05:20.520 popular media gets forms a little cult, and so there's 3:05:20.520 --> 3:05:23.200 always going to be a number of people who, you know, 3:05:23.360 --> 3:05:27.400 take any given person in the media more seriously than 3:05:27.480 --> 3:05:30.879 they deserve, and that that includes the both of us. 3:05:30.959 --> 3:05:33.480 And that's that's not attempting to be that's not attempting 3:05:33.560 --> 3:05:35.240 to be like Humble or anything. That is simply a 3:05:35.360 --> 3:05:38.119 fact of how mass media works. Um. I do think 3:05:38.200 --> 3:05:41.080 we've seen. I think there's been a mix of a 3:05:41.200 --> 3:05:45.800 healthy pushback against looking at people who are doing creating 3:05:45.879 --> 3:05:49.880 popular media as more than what they are and more 3:05:49.959 --> 3:05:52.440 than what that media is capable of being. I think 3:05:52.480 --> 3:05:54.879 there has been a pushback against that in the last 3:05:54.920 --> 3:05:56.840 couple of years. It's been healthy, and I think there's 3:05:56.840 --> 3:06:01.360 been a pushback that's been unhealthy. People have forgotten some 3:06:01.480 --> 3:06:04.320 of the lessons of like one. I think a good 3:06:04.360 --> 3:06:08.160 example would be there was a very justified backlash against 3:06:09.280 --> 3:06:11.280 and when I say streamers here, I'm referring to people 3:06:11.280 --> 3:06:13.680 who are actually in the streets streaming during riots and 3:06:13.760 --> 3:06:16.240 protests and whatnot, right and that, and the justified part 3:06:16.240 --> 3:06:18.560 of that backlash was due to the fact that past 3:06:18.600 --> 3:06:23.120 a certain point, particularly those video those streams were primarily 3:06:23.200 --> 3:06:26.560 being used by law enforcement, both to get charges on 3:06:26.680 --> 3:06:29.160 people and to just to know where folks were as 3:06:29.160 --> 3:06:32.320 an intelligence gathering method. And I think that the backlash, 3:06:32.440 --> 3:06:35.000 which was understandable, and there was a lot of ugly behavior, 3:06:35.040 --> 3:06:38.520 including people who kind of got in after the early 3:06:38.640 --> 3:06:41.000 portions of that in order to make shitloads of money 3:06:41.200 --> 3:06:43.560 by you know, streaming people getting the shit beat out 3:06:43.560 --> 3:06:46.200 of them by the cops, and that was I think 3:06:46.760 --> 3:06:52.000 very justified, a pretty aggressive social response to that, but 3:06:52.080 --> 3:06:53.520 I think it's also caused a lot of people to 3:06:53.560 --> 3:06:56.480 forget that. A huge part of why things kicked off 3:06:56.520 --> 3:06:58.440 in twenty twenty and why so many people got involved 3:06:58.520 --> 3:07:01.840 was Nico from Uniform Corn on the ground every night 3:07:01.920 --> 3:07:05.320 in Minneapolis doing one of the most impressive pieces of 3:07:05.760 --> 3:07:08.240 citizen journalism that I think we've seen in this country. 3:07:09.640 --> 3:07:12.600 And so I do think that some of what's frustrating 3:07:12.680 --> 3:07:15.400 here is that it's difficult for people. It's difficult for 3:07:15.560 --> 3:07:19.199 us as a community to take some of the proper 3:07:19.360 --> 3:07:22.440 lessons from these things that are happening from the push 3:07:22.520 --> 3:07:25.000 and pull of the conflict that we all find ourselves in, 3:07:25.560 --> 3:07:28.760 in part because the nature of the way people express 3:07:29.200 --> 3:07:34.560 their understanding of these lessons via social media is very 3:07:34.680 --> 3:07:37.040 geared towards flattening them and making it a very simple 3:07:37.080 --> 3:07:38.760 matter of this is bad or this is good, and 3:07:38.920 --> 3:07:41.120 not well in this period of time, this worked and 3:07:41.160 --> 3:07:43.720 then it didn't. You know, there's no real sense of 3:07:43.840 --> 3:07:49.320 proportionality in these discussions. It isn't just a matter of like, hey, 3:07:49.959 --> 3:07:52.080 you fucked up. You should probably take this down, or 3:07:52.200 --> 3:07:53.960 this could be dangerous if you leave this up, or 3:07:53.959 --> 3:07:56.400 if you continue to do this. It's more so like 3:07:57.080 --> 3:07:58.920 what are you a cop? What are you some kind 3:07:58.959 --> 3:08:02.320 of cop doing this? Yeah, you know, let's let's spread 3:08:02.400 --> 3:08:05.800 that rumor around and it I mean, yeah, the cop 3:08:05.879 --> 3:08:08.200 jacketing thing is is kind of one part of the problem. 3:08:08.200 --> 3:08:10.080 But I want to focus a little bit on what 3:08:10.160 --> 3:08:12.560 you were talking about in terms of what do you 3:08:12.760 --> 3:08:15.840 think as you're kind of looking at you know, and 3:08:16.080 --> 3:08:19.920 we're all kind of staring twenty twenty four as it approaches, 3:08:21.000 --> 3:08:25.600 what do you think is useful from media that that 3:08:25.720 --> 3:08:31.400 attempts to analyze and share perspectives that are that are 3:08:31.680 --> 3:08:34.560 left wing, that are anarchists inclined. What do you think 3:08:34.720 --> 3:08:39.320 is actually the value that can be added to attempts 3:08:39.400 --> 3:08:44.360 to achieve greater justice in our society. Well, I think 3:08:44.400 --> 3:08:48.360 the answer is twofold. I think firstly, anything that drives 3:08:48.400 --> 3:08:52.520 people to like real life organizing and taking action outside 3:08:52.560 --> 3:08:58.120 of online spaces is obviously useful. UM. Beyond that, though, like, 3:08:58.240 --> 3:09:03.880 I think there is some value to just exposing people 3:09:03.920 --> 3:09:07.800 to ideas that they might not have found otherwise. But 3:09:07.920 --> 3:09:11.440 I think that, um, that a lot of that has 3:09:11.680 --> 3:09:13.720 been accomplished now. I feel like a lot of people 3:09:13.760 --> 3:09:16.880 are more familiar with with kind of the leftist the 3:09:17.280 --> 3:09:22.119 leftist idehology one on one type of content that people 3:09:22.200 --> 3:09:25.760 might expect in that way. So yeah, I would say 3:09:25.800 --> 3:09:29.160 those are the two value propositions. I wonder if you 3:09:29.200 --> 3:09:32.680 think a lot about because one thing that concerns me obviously, UM. 3:09:33.400 --> 3:09:37.640 Any community develops a language that is to some extent 3:09:37.879 --> 3:09:42.760 its own, UM, and that's that's a that's part of politics, 3:09:42.920 --> 3:09:45.080 you know, political analysis, if you're looking at things with 3:09:45.120 --> 3:09:48.560 a Marxist analysis, or if you're analyzing things you know 3:09:48.879 --> 3:09:53.600 based on your understanding of generations of anarchist political philosophy. 3:09:53.640 --> 3:09:55.800 There's terms that you're going to use that that other 3:09:55.920 --> 3:09:58.880 thinkers have created, that are the terms that people use 3:09:58.920 --> 3:10:03.080 to discuss those ideas. But it is sometimes kind of 3:10:03.160 --> 3:10:05.080 a thin line between that and the thing that colts 3:10:05.120 --> 3:10:06.920 do where they come up with a bunch of specific 3:10:07.080 --> 3:10:09.720 terms that no one else uses in order to separate 3:10:09.800 --> 3:10:13.960 a community from the rest from everyone else. And obviously 3:10:13.959 --> 3:10:15.920 I don't think there's any intentionality there. I don't think 3:10:15.920 --> 3:10:19.520 people who are talking about you know, the dialectic or 3:10:19.600 --> 3:10:23.120 whatever are attempting to separate their listeners from the mass 3:10:23.200 --> 3:10:26.120 of humanity. But I do think that happens sometimes. And 3:10:26.720 --> 3:10:32.360 when I listen sometimes to conversations on the left about justice, 3:10:32.400 --> 3:10:35.800 in particular about social justice, I wonder, like, well, how 3:10:35.920 --> 3:10:38.960 is somebody who isn't like reading all this shit going 3:10:39.120 --> 3:10:42.080 to interpret this? Is it just going to like sound 3:10:42.120 --> 3:10:44.600 like nonsense to them? And I think maybe like part 3:10:44.640 --> 3:10:48.840 of the purpose, the positive purpose of mass media that 3:10:48.959 --> 3:10:52.320 looks at things from the left is trying to communicate 3:10:52.400 --> 3:10:54.680 with folks who are not going to sit down or 3:10:54.720 --> 3:10:56.720 at least who have not yet sat down and done 3:10:56.720 --> 3:10:59.400 a whole bunch of reading on the history and the politics, 3:10:59.440 --> 3:11:01.760 but whose heart are in the right place, and who 3:11:01.879 --> 3:11:05.640 I would like to be able to engage in conversations 3:11:06.080 --> 3:11:09.360 with folks who maybe kind of get their heads a 3:11:09.440 --> 3:11:14.160 little bit too full of specific terminology. Sometimes I think 3:11:14.200 --> 3:11:18.200 it's it's a specific balancing act because on the other hand, 3:11:18.280 --> 3:11:19.920 like you also have to give your audience a little 3:11:19.959 --> 3:11:25.440 credit that they're absolutely but I think that like you 3:11:25.560 --> 3:11:27.520 have to be able to meet people where they're at. 3:11:27.600 --> 3:11:30.280 But at the same time, like, if someone has expressed 3:11:30.360 --> 3:11:35.080 this idea in a way that's already sufficient, like it's it's, uh, 3:11:35.440 --> 3:11:38.480 why do the work of like trying to re explain that, 3:11:38.640 --> 3:11:41.240 you know. But that being said, I think there is 3:11:41.240 --> 3:11:45.160 a tendency to just assume people already are on our 3:11:45.200 --> 3:11:49.480 side or understand ideas to the level of complexity that 3:11:49.600 --> 3:11:52.280 we might like and that people are on board with, 3:11:52.480 --> 3:11:56.520 like what even something as simple as what capitalism means. 3:11:56.840 --> 3:11:59.720 You know, all the time you see people online who 3:11:59.800 --> 3:12:04.800 will say that, Like a musician will post their band 3:12:04.920 --> 3:12:07.120 campage and people will be like, oh, I thought you 3:12:07.200 --> 3:12:11.960 were anti capitalist. You know. Yeah, it's it's like you know, 3:12:13.120 --> 3:12:15.040 but like you also can't get caught up in the 3:12:15.920 --> 3:12:21.560 kind of um weaponized ignorance that the people you know 3:12:21.800 --> 3:12:25.640 like you. You can't make someone understand something if they 3:12:25.720 --> 3:12:29.440 have a particular reason not to want to. So I 3:12:29.720 --> 3:12:33.240 absolutely agree that, like there's the danger of that that 3:12:33.440 --> 3:12:38.480 group in speak, uh, but it's it's a it's a 3:12:38.560 --> 3:12:40.720 difficult problem to solve. I think the kind of approach 3:12:40.800 --> 3:12:43.080 I take to it most of the time is that 3:12:43.200 --> 3:12:48.560 I tend to write my scripts as the as though 3:12:48.680 --> 3:12:53.680 I am uh just the like like a child. Like 3:12:53.800 --> 3:12:56.880 I try to write as though I'm speaking to a 3:12:56.959 --> 3:13:00.520 five year old, you know, Yeah, I mean, and I 3:13:00.640 --> 3:13:03.040 think I also I think a lot about and this 3:13:03.200 --> 3:13:05.440 is something you know here at cool Zone I've brought 3:13:05.520 --> 3:13:08.680 we brought on a couple of years ago, people who 3:13:08.959 --> 3:13:13.240 you know, are now making podcasts for the team who 3:13:13.720 --> 3:13:16.080 when we brought them on had a lot less experience 3:13:16.800 --> 3:13:20.720 writing scripts and making media for mass consumption. And one 3:13:20.760 --> 3:13:22.680 of the things that I found it was kind of 3:13:22.760 --> 3:13:26.000 like my job to do repeatedly was to point out, 3:13:26.040 --> 3:13:28.280 like Okay, stop, go actually go back to that term 3:13:28.320 --> 3:13:31.000 because you you just you know, said a term that 3:13:31.520 --> 3:13:33.600 I think means a specific or you just referenced a 3:13:33.680 --> 3:13:36.880 thing from history that I think that people are interested 3:13:36.920 --> 3:13:38.720 in and should know about. But you do have to 3:13:38.840 --> 3:13:42.000 like go in and explain it and walk people through it. 3:13:43.280 --> 3:13:45.320 And that's kind of part of That's really one of 3:13:45.360 --> 3:13:48.920 the challenges I find, particularly with um with Behind the 3:13:49.000 --> 3:13:53.600 Bastards right where we're talking sometimes about these complicated social 3:13:53.680 --> 3:13:56.360 movements and moments in history, and it's this kind of 3:13:56.440 --> 3:13:59.680 tug of war between you want to respect the intelligence 3:13:59.800 --> 3:14:02.720 of the audience and you want to give them enough 3:14:02.800 --> 3:14:05.040 detail that they have contexts and that that can maybe 3:14:05.120 --> 3:14:08.120 understand multiple sides of it. But also you can't get 3:14:08.200 --> 3:14:10.440 bogged down in every detail otherwise you're never going to 3:14:10.520 --> 3:14:12.920 finish the damn thing. And we can't all be Dan 3:14:13.080 --> 3:14:17.520 Carlin making ten hour long podcasts unfortunately. I do like 3:14:18.160 --> 3:14:20.879 there's a degree to which I'm quite jealous of his work, 3:14:21.920 --> 3:14:24.200 the way he set up his workload. But I would 3:14:24.240 --> 3:14:29.000 just never be able to think of that many boxing analogies. Yeah, 3:14:29.040 --> 3:14:31.640 I don't. I don't know very much about boxing. I 3:14:31.680 --> 3:14:33.720 would probably just like throw in a whole lot of 3:14:33.760 --> 3:14:36.600 balls mahoney analogy, Yeah, a lot of For me, it 3:14:36.640 --> 3:14:38.800 would be a lot of super punch out references. Like 3:14:38.920 --> 3:14:42.520 hell yes, stan Lee would always say to comic book 3:14:42.560 --> 3:14:46.160 writers that every comic is somebody's first comic, and so 3:14:46.640 --> 3:14:49.480 you kind of have to consider that, like every piece 3:14:49.520 --> 3:14:52.160 of messaging you do might this might be like the 3:14:52.320 --> 3:14:54.879 first time someone is stepping out of a completely different 3:14:54.959 --> 3:14:58.560 ideological bubble than you might expect, and so you know, 3:14:58.640 --> 3:15:00.600 it kind of has the messaging kind has to stand 3:15:00.640 --> 3:15:03.000 on its own. But I think that's also like a 3:15:03.160 --> 3:15:06.080 unique problem to mass media because it also means that, 3:15:06.200 --> 3:15:08.480 in a sense, it's much harder to like build on 3:15:08.760 --> 3:15:13.360 previous work. It's harder to go from your one on 3:15:13.480 --> 3:15:16.160 one content and then get to the more advanced subjects, 3:15:16.480 --> 3:15:19.160 because someone could just start at the more advanced part 3:15:19.200 --> 3:15:22.440 and get lost. I think that's a really apt way 3:15:22.520 --> 3:15:25.280 of describing what I also find as one of the 3:15:25.400 --> 3:15:29.800 central problems, because a ton of the episodes of Bastards, 3:15:29.920 --> 3:15:33.920 especially the stuff when we focus on fascists, builds on itself. 3:15:34.040 --> 3:15:39.280 Right you, your understanding of fascism in Romania will be 3:15:39.400 --> 3:15:43.120 influenced and is to some degree. You don't really you 3:15:43.200 --> 3:15:47.000 can't understand fascism in Romania without understanding fascism and vimar 3:15:47.040 --> 3:15:49.840 fascism in Italy, fascism in the United States during the 3:15:49.920 --> 3:15:54.480 same period, and vice versa. And so my hope is 3:15:54.520 --> 3:15:56.760 that the people who catch all of the episodes are 3:15:56.840 --> 3:16:02.199 building a really complex and durable understanding of the problem 3:16:02.320 --> 3:16:04.879 through it. But it's also the struggle of like, well, 3:16:04.920 --> 3:16:06.160 a lot of people who are just going to be like, 3:16:06.600 --> 3:16:09.440 oh shit, I know Hitler, but I maybe I'm not 3:16:09.560 --> 3:16:12.040 interested in hearing about romania, you know, and I'm not 3:16:12.080 --> 3:16:14.840 going to click on those episodes. And there's nothing against people. 3:16:14.920 --> 3:16:17.480 Like when I listen to podcasts, I find myself doing 3:16:17.560 --> 3:16:19.760 the same thing where it's like there's a million episodes 3:16:19.800 --> 3:16:21.280 of this show, I'm not going to listen. I don't 3:16:21.280 --> 3:16:23.560 I don't have the time to listen to all of them. Sure. Yeah, 3:16:23.959 --> 3:16:27.760 And that touches on another problem, which is that, you know, 3:16:27.959 --> 3:16:31.760 the subjects that people like us tend to cover are 3:16:31.879 --> 3:16:35.080 biased towards what we think people will find interesting, yeah, 3:16:35.520 --> 3:16:38.240 you know, and beyond that, like what we ourselves find 3:16:38.320 --> 3:16:41.080 interesting to research, Yeah, and what in what you can 3:16:41.240 --> 3:16:43.560 And this is a thing that I try to point 3:16:43.600 --> 3:16:46.160 out on my subreddit sometimes when people are like I 3:16:46.240 --> 3:16:47.959 can't believe you haven't done this guy or that guy, 3:16:48.000 --> 3:16:51.080 and it's like, well, that doing that research is going 3:16:51.120 --> 3:16:53.080 to fuck me up, and like, so I'm not going 3:16:53.120 --> 3:16:55.040 to do it yet. I'm gonna do this thing. That's funny. 3:16:55.040 --> 3:16:56.840 I'm gonna read about the liver king this week. I 3:16:56.959 --> 3:16:58.920 need I need a break. So the liver king is 3:16:58.959 --> 3:17:03.480 who we're talking about. Yeah, everybody needs a liver king 3:17:03.560 --> 3:17:06.640 in their life at some point. Yeah, it's like, um, 3:17:07.480 --> 3:17:10.240 I read the Turner Diaries for one video. Yeah, And 3:17:10.800 --> 3:17:13.200 I've been constant. People have been constantly like, oh, you 3:17:13.200 --> 3:17:16.199 should read Camp of the Saints, you should read Siege. 3:17:16.240 --> 3:17:18.000 And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want to. 3:17:18.520 --> 3:17:20.080 First of all, I don't even know if I want 3:17:20.160 --> 3:17:23.840 those things on my hard drive. Yeah. Yeah, Camp of 3:17:23.920 --> 3:17:26.840 the Saints is a little easier, but yeah, maybe maybe 3:17:26.959 --> 3:17:29.320 one of those a year and no more. That's like 3:17:29.440 --> 3:17:34.760 the most I would recommend from like a mental health standpoint. 3:17:35.560 --> 3:17:38.360 It's also like you don't need to read the full 3:17:38.400 --> 3:17:40.160 text of all of those. I mean, that's part of 3:17:40.200 --> 3:17:41.760 the thing is that like you can get a lot 3:17:42.360 --> 3:17:46.640 by checking in some exerpts and reading scholarly papers analyzing 3:17:46.720 --> 3:17:49.720 this stuff, and they're there always will be that, um, 3:17:50.040 --> 3:17:53.760 and I think to a significant standpoint, like it's more 3:17:53.920 --> 3:17:58.120 important to understand, you know. And this isn't true for everybody, 3:17:58.120 --> 3:18:00.600 because there's some people who you know, are scholars of 3:18:00.680 --> 3:18:03.000 this stuff, and you do need to to to do 3:18:03.120 --> 3:18:05.480 the deep reading. But if you want to understand the 3:18:05.720 --> 3:18:09.600 degree to which Siege and the Turner Diers Diaries influence 3:18:09.680 --> 3:18:11.800 the mass shootings that we see in the United States 3:18:11.840 --> 3:18:13.520 state that are carried out by the far right. You 3:18:13.560 --> 3:18:15.280 don't need to read those books to do that, right. 3:18:15.320 --> 3:18:18.000 There's plenty of really good scholarly analysis and that's part 3:18:18.040 --> 3:18:20.160 of what you and I try to do for people. 3:18:20.879 --> 3:18:23.080 Um and what what other you know, folks who are 3:18:23.320 --> 3:18:27.360 creating this kind of media other journalists do for folks. Yeah, 3:18:27.440 --> 3:18:31.240 I will. I would say that I strongly balk at 3:18:31.440 --> 3:18:36.240 the I don't consider myself a journalist. Um yeah, I mean, 3:18:36.280 --> 3:18:40.160 and I don't consider that's something people talk about as well. 3:18:40.280 --> 3:18:42.959 On the subreddit, I get a lot of like comments 3:18:43.040 --> 3:18:46.160 on people appreciating the journalism in the series, and we 3:18:46.320 --> 3:18:49.320 do in some of our shows, like you know we 3:18:49.440 --> 3:18:51.760 did we went to the Border, mean mar last year. 3:18:51.840 --> 3:18:55.039 Garrison just got back from cop City. But like Bastards, 3:18:55.120 --> 3:18:58.560 isn't journalism, you know, sometimes it's like celebrating journalism, but 3:18:58.640 --> 3:19:01.600 it's it's it's inner detainment that I hope has like 3:19:01.720 --> 3:19:05.480 an educational quality to it. Yeah, it's I don't. I 3:19:05.560 --> 3:19:08.480 don't say this to belittle myself. I just don't see 3:19:08.520 --> 3:19:10.959 that as as the function of my job. I think, 3:19:11.040 --> 3:19:14.400 like like I have I have in the in the 3:19:14.560 --> 3:19:18.160 course of my work, occasionally done journalism by accidents. I 3:19:18.240 --> 3:19:21.880 did a long interview where I had like about the 3:19:22.040 --> 3:19:24.600 chas and and kind of the misconceptions that people had, 3:19:24.640 --> 3:19:26.920 and I had some you know, talks with people within 3:19:27.080 --> 3:19:29.879 and like that is technically, on its face a piece 3:19:29.920 --> 3:19:33.520 of journalism for sure. You know, absolutely it's not what 3:19:33.760 --> 3:19:39.600 I consider my uh strength or role to be well. 3:19:39.600 --> 3:19:41.240 And I honestly this goes back to what we were 3:19:41.240 --> 3:19:44.560 talking about with the young woman who filmed the video 3:19:44.879 --> 3:19:49.400 of of George Floyd. Um. Journalism is a profession, but 3:19:49.480 --> 3:19:52.200 it's also just like a set of tools, and that 3:19:52.440 --> 3:19:55.200 you know, sometimes you will use those tools in order 3:19:55.280 --> 3:19:57.840 to do other things. You know that that's that's certainly true. 3:19:58.520 --> 3:20:01.080 I'm curious you and I. You and I both kind 3:20:01.120 --> 3:20:06.920 of uh like make our our our work work uh differently. 3:20:07.240 --> 3:20:10.880 M Mine's ad supported obviously, So my conversation with fans, 3:20:11.560 --> 3:20:13.560 you know, outside of like when I'm doing a live 3:20:13.640 --> 3:20:15.880 show is primarily through we have a subreddit and we 3:20:15.959 --> 3:20:19.840 have Twitter, um, and that's uh, you know, there's some 3:20:19.959 --> 3:20:23.840 difficulty there. For one thing, like every single guest we have, 3:20:24.080 --> 3:20:26.120 there are people who will be like, this is the 3:20:26.200 --> 3:20:28.480 best guests you've ever had? And this person is the 3:20:28.520 --> 3:20:31.360 worst guest you've ever had, and there's absolutely no way 3:20:31.400 --> 3:20:34.680 to make decisions based on that, right, it's just so much. Um. 3:20:35.400 --> 3:20:38.280 You you've got a different relationship, or at least a 3:20:38.320 --> 3:20:41.400 different method of I think communicating. I imagine it's different, 3:20:41.600 --> 3:20:45.440 um because because your your Patreon supported I'm interested in 3:20:45.680 --> 3:20:47.760 how have I if at all? Have you seen kind 3:20:47.760 --> 3:20:51.800 of the conversations about what people want from you and 3:20:52.640 --> 3:20:54.360 you know the way in which you've been talking with 3:20:54.400 --> 3:20:58.520 your fans. How have you seen that change since twenty twenty? Well, Um, 3:20:59.360 --> 3:21:02.480 I think one of the major ways is since I've 3:21:02.600 --> 3:21:06.560 kind of taken a step back from this explicitly political content, 3:21:06.840 --> 3:21:09.760 it's a lot of people have kind of encouraged me 3:21:09.840 --> 3:21:12.840 to go more in that direction, and I have seen 3:21:12.959 --> 3:21:16.000 like a big drop in my support as a result. 3:21:18.760 --> 3:21:22.760 I think that it's it's a tricky balance to strike again. 3:21:22.920 --> 3:21:27.160 Many of these things are like such a balancing act 3:21:27.280 --> 3:21:32.199 because I always am careful to remind people that, like, hey, 3:21:33.200 --> 3:21:35.960 you can support me on Patreon if you like what 3:21:36.120 --> 3:21:37.800 I'm doing and want there to be more of it, 3:21:38.280 --> 3:21:41.280 but please don't operate under the assumption that doing so 3:21:42.400 --> 3:21:46.480 is activism or contributes to activism, because it is not 3:21:47.000 --> 3:21:52.200 you are not like making the revolution more than exactly 3:21:52.360 --> 3:21:54.480 you know, you are getting a little drawing that I'm 3:21:54.520 --> 3:21:56.320 going to put at the end of my video, like 3:21:56.440 --> 3:22:00.720 that's that's the value proposition here, Yeah, and I think that, 3:22:00.959 --> 3:22:03.720 you know, it's it's a I don't The reason I 3:22:03.800 --> 3:22:08.240 don't accept ad ad reads on Thoughtslime I do on 3:22:08.360 --> 3:22:12.320 scaredy Cats is because I don't want the perception that 3:22:12.520 --> 3:22:15.640 my views are going to be limited or held back 3:22:15.760 --> 3:22:18.800 by you know, the desire to seek out advertisers, which, 3:22:19.200 --> 3:22:22.720 whether or not I would have the integrity to withstand 3:22:22.879 --> 3:22:27.280 like it, it would create the illusion. But that creates 3:22:27.360 --> 3:22:30.400 the problem of well, now I kind of have to 3:22:30.520 --> 3:22:33.880 do what I think that my audience will want, and 3:22:34.040 --> 3:22:36.920 that's its own kettle of fish, Like I am I 3:22:37.040 --> 3:22:40.040 pushing people to donate more than than they might be 3:22:40.120 --> 3:22:42.840 comfortable with, and so that's you know, I don't I 3:22:42.879 --> 3:22:45.560 don't really know like the the ethics of it, to 3:22:45.720 --> 3:22:49.760 be perfectly frank, there have been times when people have 3:22:49.959 --> 3:22:52.400 made big donations and I've had to message them and 3:22:52.480 --> 3:22:54.960 say like, hey, I think you should you should probably 3:22:55.040 --> 3:22:57.880 take this money back. You probably weren't thinking straight when 3:22:57.920 --> 3:22:59.720 you sent me this money. I think you should probably 3:22:59.760 --> 3:23:02.960 have it back. Yeah, that's such an interesting thing for 3:23:03.080 --> 3:23:05.879 me because it also you know, I've I've thought about 3:23:05.920 --> 3:23:08.400 that myself quite a lot. You know. I had a 3:23:08.480 --> 3:23:10.920 decision to make when we first started doing these shows 3:23:10.959 --> 3:23:12.480 about how it was going to be done, and I 3:23:13.000 --> 3:23:16.440 took the ad supported corporate route, and I've been very 3:23:16.520 --> 3:23:19.080 happy with that so far. There's a lot of things 3:23:19.120 --> 3:23:22.240 that's let us do. There's certainly downsides to it, um, 3:23:22.560 --> 3:23:26.240 you know, including occasionally advertising for the Washington State Highway Patrol. 3:23:28.160 --> 3:23:29.720 But um, you know, it's one of those things. I 3:23:29.840 --> 3:23:32.120 made a comment, and this is part one of the 3:23:32.280 --> 3:23:35.000 one of the frustrating things about making media for a 3:23:35.120 --> 3:23:38.240 large audience is there's always going to be people who 3:23:38.280 --> 3:23:40.720 will like read into what you've said something you never meant. 3:23:40.720 --> 3:23:43.240 I made a comment once about like, you know, because 3:23:43.480 --> 3:23:45.240 we get people asking, well, why don't you do a 3:23:45.320 --> 3:23:47.600 Patreon or whatever? Why do you do it this way? 3:23:47.680 --> 3:23:50.600 And I just made a comment like expressing what you 3:23:50.680 --> 3:23:53.240 had just expressed, like, well, you know, I feel weird 3:23:53.360 --> 3:23:56.160 sometimes asking for money and if I can just like 3:23:56.240 --> 3:23:58.520 get money from a big company and you know, hire 3:23:58.760 --> 3:24:01.640 my friends and do my work. I feel okay doing that. 3:24:01.760 --> 3:24:04.039 It's how most of my career has worked. So that's 3:24:04.080 --> 3:24:07.000 what I'm most comfortable doing. And yes, there were people 3:24:07.040 --> 3:24:09.960 who took from that, like well, Robert doesn't think it's 3:24:10.000 --> 3:24:11.920 ethical to have a Patreon. It's like half of my 3:24:12.080 --> 3:24:14.720 friends make their living son Patreon. I do not have 3:24:14.879 --> 3:24:19.040 an ethical problem with supporting yourself that way. I will 3:24:19.080 --> 3:24:21.920 say that when I heard you mentioned that in an episode, 3:24:22.000 --> 3:24:25.440 and it did send a chill down my spine briefly. No, 3:24:25.640 --> 3:24:28.600 I mean I think like Cody Johnston, who I've worked 3:24:28.640 --> 3:24:32.240 with for what fifteen years now, has a massive Patreon. 3:24:32.680 --> 3:24:35.520 Tom and Dave Boyd lived with some of my best friends. 3:24:35.640 --> 3:24:38.760 You know, yeah, like it's I think it's perfectly it's 3:24:38.879 --> 3:24:41.360 it's certainly no less ethical, and you can make a 3:24:41.440 --> 3:24:44.200 case people do that it's more ethical than being ad supported. 3:24:44.600 --> 3:24:46.760 It's just like, I mean, some of it just comes 3:24:46.800 --> 3:24:48.520 down to like what kind of stuff are you making 3:24:48.600 --> 3:24:51.320 and what kind of like person are you and what's 3:24:51.640 --> 3:24:55.520 going to work best with you as like a creative 3:24:55.560 --> 3:24:57.840 method in a way of interacting with fans. And they 3:24:57.879 --> 3:25:00.520 have downsides and they have positives. You know, it's also 3:25:00.640 --> 3:25:03.680 like a matter of of what you're able to do 3:25:03.840 --> 3:25:06.480 to certain extents, because like, I don't know how to 3:25:06.920 --> 3:25:10.280 get advertisers. Yeah, any advertisers that I've ever gotten on 3:25:10.400 --> 3:25:12.680 my my horror channel have just reached out to me, 3:25:13.040 --> 3:25:15.560 and like, I don't know if I'm getting as much 3:25:15.600 --> 3:25:16.960 money out of them as they should be. I have 3:25:17.080 --> 3:25:18.920 no idea. I just I just kind of wing it. 3:25:19.080 --> 3:25:21.879 You know, like if you have that background in radio 3:25:22.080 --> 3:25:24.880 or broadcasting or what have you, like it, can you 3:25:24.920 --> 3:25:26.920 know that it's it's a much more viable option for 3:25:27.000 --> 3:25:29.120 some people than it is for others. Yeah. Yeah, I 3:25:29.160 --> 3:25:31.120 Mean a lot of why it works for me the 3:25:31.200 --> 3:25:33.359 way that it does is because I've had a fifteen 3:25:33.440 --> 3:25:36.640 year career in not in broadcasts, but you know, in 3:25:37.120 --> 3:25:40.760 comedy writing and whatnot. And so I mean that's how 3:25:40.800 --> 3:25:43.440 I got the I got my podcast hosted on my 3:25:43.520 --> 3:25:45.840 Heart in the first place, and that's like a thing. 3:25:46.400 --> 3:25:48.320 And this is actually one of the things that concerns 3:25:48.360 --> 3:25:50.520 me most about the ship that's happening with AI right now, 3:25:50.640 --> 3:25:53.560 because you know, there's this, Uh, the folks that kind 3:25:53.600 --> 3:25:57.360 of I came into making media for all of us 3:25:57.440 --> 3:26:00.760 started as fairly a political comedy. I mean that's Cody 3:26:00.840 --> 3:26:03.600 Johnston write some more news. Cody was making videos about 3:26:03.640 --> 3:26:07.400 like chat roulette and penises when we when we all 3:26:07.440 --> 3:26:11.600 started working together, very funny videos, but like we were 3:26:11.680 --> 3:26:16.640 making silly things. Um, and everyone has kind of uh 3:26:17.160 --> 3:26:23.000 moved into making like, you know, pretty pretty serious fact 3:26:23.080 --> 3:26:26.880 based media. Um. You know, Cody does a very popular, 3:26:27.040 --> 3:26:31.800 very political kind of current events show. And we were 3:26:31.879 --> 3:26:36.320 able to get good at making the kind of media 3:26:36.400 --> 3:26:38.760 that we made and build the connections that we built 3:26:38.760 --> 3:26:41.400 and build the audiences that we built because we had 3:26:42.040 --> 3:26:44.800 years of time where you could make a decent living 3:26:45.440 --> 3:26:48.200 writing stuff for the Internet. And I see the kind 3:26:48.240 --> 3:26:50.480 of shit that I'm afraid AI is going to do 3:26:51.840 --> 3:26:54.760 to these jobs where people would get their start as 3:26:54.840 --> 3:26:56.760 writers and whatnot. Maybe it wasn't the best, you know, 3:26:56.840 --> 3:26:58.360 it's not that you're not doing the best writing you're 3:26:58.400 --> 3:27:00.600 ever going to do the jobs that get replace by AI. 3:27:01.080 --> 3:27:02.959 But it's a foot in the door, and I keep 3:27:03.040 --> 3:27:05.800 feeling I feel like I keep seeing the room for 3:27:05.920 --> 3:27:08.080 people to put their foot in the door get smaller 3:27:08.160 --> 3:27:11.000 and smaller every year, and that's that worries me a lot. 3:27:11.920 --> 3:27:15.400 I definitely know what you mean. I also feel that 3:27:15.560 --> 3:27:20.400 like there's a fear among some people that like, you 3:27:20.520 --> 3:27:24.160 get crowded out of these spaces the more people there 3:27:24.240 --> 3:27:26.840 are doing this sort of thing, and I kind of 3:27:26.920 --> 3:27:32.240 feel like that's not the case. I'd like the AI stuff. 3:27:32.280 --> 3:27:36.080 I definitely share your concerns, but yeah, the the institutional 3:27:36.160 --> 3:27:40.760 barriers and people's way, like I think that like to 3:27:40.920 --> 3:27:44.080 be frank, like, I started doing this on a shitty 3:27:44.120 --> 3:27:51.199 two hundred dollars computer and a completely legal video editing software, 3:27:51.600 --> 3:27:55.760 but I love video editing software. I found it in 3:27:55.800 --> 3:27:58.400 a dumpster and I used that, so you know, and 3:27:58.480 --> 3:28:01.840 then like through that, I was able to be able 3:28:01.879 --> 3:28:04.800 to afford a fancy camera in some lights and you know, 3:28:05.640 --> 3:28:07.960 but like I didn't know what I was doing, Like 3:28:08.000 --> 3:28:10.400 it was all self taught. And I think there has 3:28:10.480 --> 3:28:14.440 to be that kind of DIY attitude, yeah, for people. 3:28:14.480 --> 3:28:16.640 And it is something I try to encourage in people, 3:28:16.760 --> 3:28:19.520 is that like, just just do it like I did it, 3:28:19.640 --> 3:28:21.840 you can do it. Yeah, you know. I think that's 3:28:21.879 --> 3:28:24.200 a great point because I am coming at this from 3:28:24.240 --> 3:28:28.240 the old man dumerist perspective of somebody who like the 3:28:28.360 --> 3:28:30.560 world has changed from the way it was when I'm 3:28:30.640 --> 3:28:32.920 young when I was young, and people don't get their 3:28:33.000 --> 3:28:36.720 career started that way anymore. And your point is very 3:28:36.840 --> 3:28:41.920 valid that while changes in the industry have closed specific doors, 3:28:42.480 --> 3:28:46.480 they've also created some and I think probably in the 3:28:46.560 --> 3:28:48.840 long run, it is better for people to get their 3:28:48.840 --> 3:28:51.879 foot in the door doing what you did than rewriting 3:28:51.879 --> 3:28:55.160 a bunch of press releases about tech gadgets for a 3:28:55.280 --> 3:28:58.160 shady website that takes advantage of the Google algorithm, which 3:28:58.160 --> 3:29:00.880 has always started my career. I think that's actually a 3:29:01.000 --> 3:29:03.320 really valid I think, Yeah, I don't. I don't. I 3:29:03.360 --> 3:29:06.640 don't think that's a It depends on your end goal too, right, 3:29:06.720 --> 3:29:09.960 But I think like the thing that becomes incumbent on 3:29:10.160 --> 3:29:13.840 on people like me is to like help people, you know, 3:29:14.280 --> 3:29:17.040 Like I've experienced a certain amount of success and so, 3:29:17.920 --> 3:29:19.880 and I attribute that largely to the fact that, like 3:29:20.400 --> 3:29:22.040 when I was just starting out, like I had no 3:29:22.200 --> 3:29:24.680 idea how to make people see my shit. I'd like, 3:29:24.760 --> 3:29:26.600 I did not know what I was doing. Yeah, and 3:29:27.240 --> 3:29:29.000 a bigger creator just reached down and it's like, hey, 3:29:29.040 --> 3:29:30.960 can I share your video? I think it's really good, 3:29:31.400 --> 3:29:34.760 And it kind of snowballed from there. So my philosophy 3:29:34.800 --> 3:29:38.400 has always been like you take these uh you know, 3:29:38.600 --> 3:29:42.560 you you make space for to lift people up with you. 3:29:43.520 --> 3:29:47.240 And in doing so, it's not an entirely selfless gesture either, 3:29:47.360 --> 3:29:50.920 because in doing so, if if there's an extremely talented 3:29:51.000 --> 3:29:54.320 person who succeeds partially because you help them, now you 3:29:54.440 --> 3:29:57.560 have a connection to an extremely talented person. You know, yeah, 3:29:57.879 --> 3:30:03.240 Like that's that's a sen for lack of a better term, 3:30:03.600 --> 3:30:06.800 mutual aid in a very yeah, loose sense. I suppose 3:30:07.959 --> 3:30:10.360 that reminds me of something a good friend of mine 3:30:10.400 --> 3:30:13.720 and a colleague at Cracked who now helps run the 3:30:13.800 --> 3:30:17.920 Small Beans podcast network said to me years and years 3:30:17.959 --> 3:30:21.560 ago when he was directing a video, which is, I 3:30:21.640 --> 3:30:24.000 want to spend the rest of my career getting hired 3:30:24.040 --> 3:30:27.880 and fired by my friends. Which is I think a 3:30:28.000 --> 3:30:30.360 nice way of looking at it. And there's a degree 3:30:30.360 --> 3:30:32.240 to which it's a very old Hollywood way of looking 3:30:32.320 --> 3:30:34.880 at it, But it doesn't. It also works very well 3:30:35.040 --> 3:30:37.840 in this It can work very well in this new, 3:30:38.760 --> 3:30:43.560 this new kind of ecosystem that is still being put together. 3:30:44.760 --> 3:30:47.080 And I do think that it's because I see a 3:30:47.160 --> 3:30:49.720 lot and I don't. I'm not someone who does a 3:30:49.760 --> 3:30:52.080 lot of time like I like to watch. I watch 3:30:52.160 --> 3:30:53.680 like the stuff that you put together, the stuff h 3:30:53.760 --> 3:30:58.279 Bomber guy puts together where it's actual like videos on topics, 3:30:58.320 --> 3:31:00.959 and I'm learning something this stuff that that Dan Olsen 3:31:01.000 --> 3:31:03.840 puts together. You know, I'm not so much into And 3:31:03.920 --> 3:31:05.640 this is not I'm not attacking anybody. I'm not like 3:31:05.720 --> 3:31:08.120 trying to shoot on the field. But personally I don't 3:31:08.160 --> 3:31:11.039 watch like the just kind of like stream stuff a lot, 3:31:11.480 --> 3:31:13.160 and I it does seem like there's a lot of 3:31:13.240 --> 3:31:16.960 conflicts between people in that, and I'm wondering, you know, 3:31:17.680 --> 3:31:21.040 my hope is that there's more people building connections to 3:31:21.280 --> 3:31:24.520 create resiliency between the people who are are trying to 3:31:24.720 --> 3:31:28.840 make good shit and trying to make stuff that people 3:31:29.280 --> 3:31:31.240 enjoy and that has an impact on people and that 3:31:31.360 --> 3:31:35.120 even changes people in positive ways. And it sounds like 3:31:35.240 --> 3:31:37.640 from what from what you're talking about, you know, honestly 3:31:37.720 --> 3:31:40.480 from what I experience too, I do think that's more 3:31:40.560 --> 3:31:43.040 the case than like the drama that that goes viral 3:31:43.120 --> 3:31:46.280 on Twitter from time to time. Yeah, I think, you know, 3:31:46.400 --> 3:31:49.640 I hope I hope so too. I think that that 3:31:50.360 --> 3:31:54.800 it's it's very easy to piss people off and it's 3:31:54.879 --> 3:31:58.400 much harder to get people's attention by being kind. But 3:31:58.959 --> 3:32:03.040 you know, I like, look, you know, how many nice 3:32:03.080 --> 3:32:05.360 comments do I gain in a day? Can't count? But 3:32:05.520 --> 3:32:08.080 like the one shitty comments will always stick out. It's 3:32:08.120 --> 3:32:10.400 the same way like if if I have a thousand 3:32:10.760 --> 3:32:15.640 pleasant interactions with someone else, uh, nobody notices. But if I, 3:32:15.840 --> 3:32:17.880 you know, get into if I pick a fight with somebody, 3:32:18.480 --> 3:32:21.360 you know, it's people are going to remember forever. I 3:32:21.480 --> 3:32:23.840 think that's the thing that unsettles me most. And this 3:32:23.959 --> 3:32:27.199 isn't actually even just like this isn't about streaming media 3:32:27.440 --> 3:32:29.520 or left wing media or whatever. This is a problem 3:32:29.560 --> 3:32:33.320 of social media that You're right, it's the it's the 3:32:33.480 --> 3:32:36.640 fights that always get most of the attention as opposed 3:32:36.680 --> 3:32:40.760 to them. I mean not entirely, because some of like 3:32:40.840 --> 3:32:43.440 the big moments is particularly in recent left wing media 3:32:43.520 --> 3:32:46.800 things like um, you know, people doing these giant streams 3:32:46.840 --> 3:32:48.800 that raise huge amounts of money for a cause. So 3:32:48.920 --> 3:32:52.000 that that certainly is a thing that happens and does 3:32:52.720 --> 3:32:54.920 get a lot of attention when it does happen. But 3:32:55.320 --> 3:32:57.320 you are fighting against and I think we have to 3:32:57.400 --> 3:33:02.000 be consciously fighting against this system that does to engender conflict. Yes, 3:33:03.240 --> 3:33:06.480 it's also kind of difficult and I and you know, 3:33:06.600 --> 3:33:08.480 keep in mind this is this is perhaps coming from 3:33:08.480 --> 3:33:12.320 a bias perspective when there are individuals and I'm not 3:33:12.400 --> 3:33:15.960 going to name names who do see that as an 3:33:16.000 --> 3:33:21.680 easy source of generating attention. Uh, it's it's very easy 3:33:21.879 --> 3:33:23.800 to the same way that, like, if I'm going to 3:33:23.879 --> 3:33:26.800 make a video on a subject, I will frame it 3:33:26.920 --> 3:33:30.240 as like I'm disagreeing with Ben Shapiro or I'm disagreeing 3:33:30.360 --> 3:33:34.280 with Jordan Peterson. It's very easy to go look at 3:33:34.320 --> 3:33:36.560 thought slime, there's a big piece of shit because he 3:33:36.800 --> 3:33:39.520 thought this when when actually this is the truth. That's 3:33:39.600 --> 3:33:42.320 more attention grabbing than just you know, a kind of 3:33:42.440 --> 3:33:47.520 neutrally positioned argument. Yeah, so it's a it's a it's 3:33:47.560 --> 3:33:51.520 a tricky problem. Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the 3:33:51.600 --> 3:33:55.360 ones that, um that I think on quite a lot. Well, um, 3:33:55.640 --> 3:33:57.440 I think that's most of what I wanted to talk 3:33:57.520 --> 3:34:01.160 about today. Did you want to like throwing anything else 3:34:01.920 --> 3:34:04.840 or if not, we can go to plugs. Yeah, I mean, 3:34:04.879 --> 3:34:07.200 I'm good, that's pretty much it. I will say that 3:34:07.640 --> 3:34:09.560 one of the things that tends to bother me the 3:34:09.640 --> 3:34:14.200 most is people will occasionally say to me that they'll 3:34:14.240 --> 3:34:16.760 send a message thing you seem like a really good person, 3:34:17.360 --> 3:34:21.280 and I will say thank you. But please don't feel 3:34:21.320 --> 3:34:25.560 that way about content creators, because why would I make 3:34:25.959 --> 3:34:29.080 a work that portrayed myself as a bad person? And 3:34:29.200 --> 3:34:31.800 while I, in my mind think I am a good person, 3:34:32.240 --> 3:34:35.520 I think it sets the dangerous precedent that you could 3:34:35.520 --> 3:34:38.480 allow yourself to be emotionally manipulated by someone else who 3:34:38.560 --> 3:34:41.720 might not be well the name of the game. When 3:34:41.760 --> 3:34:45.080 you are creating media, particularly when you're creating media that's 3:34:45.240 --> 3:34:49.920 meant to make people feel things, part of that is manipulation, right. 3:34:50.360 --> 3:34:53.800 Manipulate is not an inherently negative term. You know, Stanley 3:34:53.879 --> 3:34:56.720 Kubrick is trying to manipulate you when he makes a movie. 3:34:57.640 --> 3:35:00.440 I'm trying to persuade you, Yeah, you do it does 3:35:00.560 --> 3:35:04.400 It is incumbent upon the audience for their own protection 3:35:04.480 --> 3:35:06.560 to keep that in mind. And it's incumbent upon ethical 3:35:06.640 --> 3:35:10.800 people who make stuff to not create cults, at least 3:35:10.840 --> 3:35:15.280 not create too many cults. Yeah, as much as you 3:35:15.360 --> 3:35:17.440 can avoid it, for sure. Yeah, all right, you want 3:35:17.480 --> 3:35:21.000 to plug your plugables. Sure, you can find my work 3:35:21.080 --> 3:35:23.920 at YouTube dot com. Slash Thoughtslime or thoughtslime dot com. 3:35:24.320 --> 3:35:28.800 You also find my horror content at YouTube dot com 3:35:28.879 --> 3:35:32.880 slash Scaredycats TV. Scaredycats was taken. That's me, That's what 3:35:33.000 --> 3:35:38.680 I do. I make videos about fartsand or butts. Well, 3:35:38.800 --> 3:35:40.960 thank you so much for coming on the show. That 3:35:41.240 --> 3:35:43.879 is going to be it for us today. We will 3:35:43.879 --> 3:35:49.800 be back probably tomorrow. Hey, we'll be back Monday with 3:35:50.080 --> 3:35:52.879 more episodes every week from now until the heat death 3:35:52.920 --> 3:35:55.480 of the Universe. It Could Happen Here as a production 3:35:55.520 --> 3:35:58.520 of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 3:35:58.640 --> 3:36:01.080 visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check 3:36:01.160 --> 3:36:03.920 us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 3:36:04.040 --> 3:36:06.560 you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It 3:36:06.600 --> 3:36:10.680 Could Happen Here, updated monthly at Coolsonemedia dot com slash sources. 3:36:10.920 --> 3:36:11.720 Thanks for listening.