Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hello, and welcome to It
Speaker 1: could happen here. This is Sharene and today is going
Speaker 1: to be the start of a little series about Libya.
Speaker 1: Why Libya, you may ask, Well, I wanted to learn
Speaker 1: about Libya, so selfishly I thought, why not record myself
Speaker 1: learning about Libya and maybe y'all can learn along with me. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there are so many countries right now that
Speaker 1: are in a state of unrest or turmoil or instability,
Speaker 1: and it's really important to know how we got here,
Speaker 1: know what those countries went through to reach this state
Speaker 1: of unpredictability and unease. So we're gonna start with Libya today.
Speaker 1: There are so many other countries I want to do
Speaker 1: this with, But I really love history and I love
Speaker 1: knowing the context of a country. So hopefully by the
Speaker 1: end of this will reach present day news about Libya
Speaker 1: and we'll have a foundation to talk about Libya in
Speaker 1: the future from a place of knowing. Let's go to
Speaker 1: seventy four BC all the way back to seventy four
Speaker 1: b C. The Romans conquered Libya and held control until
Speaker 1: six forty three a D. In sixty three a D.
Speaker 1: I'm Ad been Alas conquered Libya and spread Islam across
Speaker 1: northern Africa. He was the Arab commander who led the
Speaker 1: Muslim conquest of Egypt and is regarded as one of
Speaker 1: the most important figures in the history of Egypt because
Speaker 1: he introduced a Slam to the country. He also served
Speaker 1: as its governor in six forty to sixty six and
Speaker 1: again from six fifty eight to six sixty four a D.
Speaker 1: He founded a new city just north of the Roman
Speaker 1: fort of Babylon called Fostat. Today, the Mosque of Amas
Speaker 1: still marks the site of this city. He is a
Speaker 1: highly respected figure for Muslims. Now, let's fast forward to
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, when Libya became part of the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: At this point, the Ottoman Empire had accumulated a huge
Speaker 1: amount of territory and continued to do so. In sixteen
Speaker 1: forty three a d. The Ottoman Empire was at its
Speaker 1: largest extent. Go look at a map. It is a lot.
Speaker 1: It's known as one of history's most powerful empires, and
Speaker 1: it grew from a Turkish stronghold in Anatolia into a
Speaker 1: vast state that at its peak reached as far north
Speaker 1: as Vienna, Austria, as far east as the Persian Gulf,
Speaker 1: as far west as Algeria, and as far south as Yemen.
Speaker 1: It is a huge swath of land, and the Ottoman
Speaker 1: Empire on its own deserves many episodes. I think it's
Speaker 1: a very fascinating part of history, but we'll get there
Speaker 1: another time. Now, let's jump aheads centuries to the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds at the start of World War One. So
Speaker 1: this whole time, all these centuries, between the sixteenth century
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, the Ottoman Empire was in
Speaker 1: control of Libya and a lot of other territories surrounding it.
Speaker 1: But at the start of World War One, the Ottoman
Speaker 1: Empire was already in decline. The Ottoman army met with
Speaker 1: a disastrous defeat in the Italio Turkish War, that was
Speaker 1: between nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve and the Balkan Wars
Speaker 1: between nineteen twelve and nineteen thirteen, and both of these
Speaker 1: defeats resulted in the Ottomans being driven out of North
Speaker 1: Africa and nearly out of all of Europe. The Ottoman
Speaker 1: Empire officially ended in nineteen twenty two when the title
Speaker 1: of Ottoman Sultan was eliminated. Again, this was only a
Speaker 1: century ago, nWo. We think everything happened so long ago,
Speaker 1: but a century isn't that long. And uh, I feel
Speaker 1: like maybe the word empire makes something seem very far away,
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't. And maybe this is just a
Speaker 1: little prequel to me talking with the Ottoman Empire in
Speaker 1: a future episode. Who knows if that'll ever happened. Stay tuned,
Speaker 1: I suppose anyway. Turkey was declared a republic on October
Speaker 1: twenty nine of nineteen twenty three, when Mustafa command out
Speaker 1: of Took, who was an army officer, founded the Independent
Speaker 1: Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire deserves many episodes on
Speaker 1: its own, as I said, but let's go back to
Speaker 1: Libya for today. There was a stretch of time preceding
Speaker 1: the fall of the Ottoman Empire when Libya was under
Speaker 1: Italian rule. It started between nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve
Speaker 1: when Italy sees Libya from the Ottomans and then began
Speaker 1: a twenty year insurgency against Italian rule. In the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: Libyan resistance grew as the Sanusi dynasty joined in alongside
Speaker 1: the Mata Campaign. Just a quick little thing about the
Speaker 1: Sanusi dynasty. It was a Muslim political religious tatica which
Speaker 1: means a Sufi order and a clan in colonial Libya
Speaker 1: and the Sudan region, founded in Mecca in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: seven by the Grand Sanusi a k A Sanusi a Kabid,
Speaker 1: the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali A Sanusi. Sanusi was concerned
Speaker 1: with what he saw as both the decline of Islamic
Speaker 1: thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political integrity.
Speaker 1: I bring this up to note that by the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties this dynasty had been around for nearly a century,
Speaker 1: and so when it joins the Libyan resistance alongside Mata Campaign,
Speaker 1: it seems very significant. But in ninety one, Italy broke
Speaker 1: the resistance. The recombination of major armed operations and concentration
Speaker 1: camps for the rebel population is captured and executed. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, Italy united the provinces as the Colony
Speaker 1: of Libya and steps up Italian migration as part of
Speaker 1: an eventual plan for the incorporation of Libya into a
Speaker 1: greater Italy. In two the Allies oust Italians from Libya,
Speaker 1: which was then divided into three sections. There was Triplitania
Speaker 1: in the northwest, Fasan in the southwest, and Syrenica in
Speaker 1: the east. The French to control of Faysan and the
Speaker 1: British to control of the remaining Syrenica and Tripolitania. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, Libya becomes a dependent under King Idris
Speaker 1: Elsa Nusi, and in fifty six it grants two American
Speaker 1: oil companies a concession of some fourteen million acres. In
Speaker 1: sixty one, King DRIs, who was now in power for
Speaker 1: a decade, opens a one hundred and four mile pipeline
Speaker 1: which links its important oil fields in the interior to
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea, and this makes it possible to export
Speaker 1: Libyan oil for the very first time. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but that last sentence of um being able to export
Speaker 1: Libyan oil for the time seems like the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end for me. Again, how do we get here?
Speaker 1: This is how? Anyway? Let's continue from the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: which introduced the good Daffi era. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: King Idris was deposed in a military coup led by
Speaker 1: Colonel mom Mudaga Daffi. He pursues a pan Arab agenda
Speaker 1: by attempting to form mergers with several Arab countries, and
Speaker 1: also introduces state socialism by nationalizing most economic activity, including
Speaker 1: the oil industry. In nineteen seventy, Libya orders the closure
Speaker 1: of a British air base in the Buk and the
Speaker 1: giant US Wheelis Air Force base in Tripoli. Property belonging
Speaker 1: to Italian settlers is also nationalized. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: the national referendum approves the proposed Federation of Arab Republics
Speaker 1: the f a R, which was comprised of Libya, Egypt
Speaker 1: and Syria. However, the f a R never really takes off,
Speaker 1: and in seventy three, Colonel Gaddaffi's declaires a cultural revolution,
Speaker 1: which includes the formation of people's committees in schools, hospitals, universities,
Speaker 1: workplaces and administrative districts, and then Libyan forces proceed to
Speaker 1: occupy the Auzu Strip a northern Chad. In nine Gaddafi
Speaker 1: writes and publishes the Greek Book, which was a short
Speaker 1: book setting out the political philosophy of You Guessed It
Speaker 1: Libyan leader mom Mugga Daffy. It is said to have
Speaker 1: been inspired in part by the Little Red Book a
Speaker 1: k A quotations from Chairman Mount Stung. An English translation
Speaker 1: was issued by the Libyan People's Committee, and a bilingual
Speaker 1: English slash Arabic edition was issued in London by Martin
Speaker 1: Brian and O'Keefe in nineteen seventy six. During the Libyan
Speaker 1: Civil War, copies of this book were burned by anti
Speaker 1: che Daffi demonstrators in Libya. According to British author and
Speaker 1: former Greater London Council member George Tremlett, Libyan children spent
Speaker 1: two hours a week studying this book as part of
Speaker 1: their curriculum. Excerpts were broadcast every day on television and radio,
Speaker 1: and its slogans were also found on billboards and painted
Speaker 1: on buildings in Libya. This book was everywhere and internationally
Speaker 1: by Lectures and seminars on the Green Book had been
Speaker 1: held at universities and colleges in France, Eastern Europe, Colombia,
Speaker 1: and Venezuela. On a state visit to Libya in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales cited the
Speaker 1: Green Book as a major influence on his political beliefs
Speaker 1: and policies. The Green Book rejects both capitalism and communism,
Speaker 1: as well as representative democracy. Instead, it proposes a type
Speaker 1: of direct democracy overseen by the General People's Committee, which
Speaker 1: allows direct political participation for all adult citizens. It also
Speaker 1: talks about the crucial importance of complete freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: There's also a paragraph in the book about abolishing money
Speaker 1: that is simil learn to a paragraph and Frederick Engels
Speaker 1: Principles of Communism. Goodophi wrote, the final step is when
Speaker 1: the new socialist society reaches the stage where profit and
Speaker 1: money disappear. It is through transforming society into a fully
Speaker 1: productive society and through reaching in production a level where
Speaker 1: the material needs of the members of society are satisfied.
Speaker 1: On that final stage, profit will automatically disappear and there
Speaker 1: will be no need for money. As far as the
Speaker 1: reception of this book goes, though it wasn't great he was.
Speaker 1: Ambassador David Mack called the book quite jumbled, with various ideas,
Speaker 1: including quote a fair amount of xenophobia wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a strange mixture. When I told my mom I was
Speaker 1: researching Libya, she immediately mentioned this book to me, and
Speaker 1: she couldn't stop cracking up. She's still in disbelief that
Speaker 1: a leader wrote something like this and then forced his
Speaker 1: entire country to read it and basically praise him for it.
Speaker 1: So that was entertaining to watch, I will say that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, five years later, in seventy seven, Goddaffi declares
Speaker 1: a people's revolution, changing the country's official name from the
Speaker 1: Libyan Arab Republic to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamhadiya.
Speaker 1: He sets up revolutionary committees and this heralds the start
Speaker 1: of institutionalized chaos, economic decline, the abusive authoritarian power, and
Speaker 1: general arbitrary nous. This is a good place to take
Speaker 1: a little break, so b RB okay, we're back. Before
Speaker 1: the break, we talked about Daffi declaring a people's revolution
Speaker 1: and how ultimately all of us led to a lot
Speaker 1: of chaos and decline and the abuse of authoritarian power.
Speaker 1: So three years later, in nineteen eighty, Libyan troops intervened
Speaker 1: in the civil war in northern Chad. This is where
Speaker 1: the U s decides to insert itself, because it always does.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, the Libyan army has a confrontation
Speaker 1: with the US. The US shoots down to Libyan aircraft,
Speaker 1: which it said challenged its warplanes over the Gulf of Certa,
Speaker 1: which was claimed by Libya as its territorial water. In
Speaker 1: nine four, a British policewoman was shot dead outside the
Speaker 1: Libyan embassy in London while antich A Daffy protests were
Speaker 1: taking place. Because of this, the UK breaks off diplomatic
Speaker 1: relations with Libya entirely. But of course the United States
Speaker 1: isn't finished yet. It never is. In nine six, the
Speaker 1: US bombs Libyan military facilities as well as residential areas
Speaker 1: of Tripoli and Benghazi, killing a hundred and one people.
Speaker 1: They also bombed Goddaffi's house, which killed his adopted daughter.
Speaker 1: The US said that these raids were in response to
Speaker 1: the alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing of a Berlin
Speaker 1: disco frequented by US military personnel. Just a small tangent
Speaker 1: about the reported killing of Goaddaffi's adopted daughter, Hannah Goddaffi.
Speaker 1: This has been something that's drawn quite the controversy over
Speaker 1: the years. Apparently, Hannah may not have died, or the
Speaker 1: adoption may have been posthumous, or he may have adopted
Speaker 1: a second daughter and given her the same name after
Speaker 1: the first one died. After the Goddaffi family residence, which
Speaker 1: was in the bab at Aaiza compound and Tripoli, was
Speaker 1: taken by rebels, The New York Times reported evidence, complete
Speaker 1: with photographs, of Hannah's life after her declared death, when
Speaker 1: she became a doctor and worked in a Tripoli hospital.
Speaker 1: Her passport was reported as showing a birth date of
Speaker 1: November eleven, making her six months old at the time
Speaker 1: of the U S raid. In August afterwo thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: the Daily Telegraph reported on the finding of dental records
Speaker 1: relating to a Hannah Gaddaffi. This report, which also cites
Speaker 1: a spotting of Henna by Chinese officials, cites an unnamed
Speaker 1: Libyan government spokesman as stating that Gaddaffi had adopted a
Speaker 1: second daughter and named her Hannah in honor of the
Speaker 1: first one, who had been killed in the ninety six raid.
Speaker 1: In September two thousand eleven, the claim that Hannah had
Speaker 1: been killed in the six bombing was further disputed when
Speaker 1: a video recorded in nine by Gaddaffi's cameraman Mohammad Adi,
Speaker 1: was obtained by The Daily Telegraph. In the video, Roncadaffi
Speaker 1: and other members of the Goddaffi family refer to her
Speaker 1: by her name while playing football at a campsite. Hannah
Speaker 1: is rumored to have fled to Algeria with her mother
Speaker 1: and three siblings. That is some absurd shitt and I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring it up because it's such a crazy
Speaker 1: controversy that probably needs more digging into. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go back to Libya now. As I mentioned in six,
Speaker 1: the US bombed Libya and killed a hundred and one people,
Speaker 1: and again the United States said that these raids were
Speaker 1: in response to the alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing
Speaker 1: of a Berlin disco frequented by US military personnel. This
Speaker 1: will become important later on, but anyway, this takes us
Speaker 1: to December and the Lockerbie plane bombing. Pan AM Flight
Speaker 1: one oh three was a regularly scheduled pan Am transatlantic
Speaker 1: flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London
Speaker 1: and another stopover in New York City on the SPY one.
Speaker 1: While the aircraft wasn't flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie,
Speaker 1: it was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted
Speaker 1: on board, killing all two hundred and forty three passengers
Speaker 1: and sixteen crew members and what became known as the
Speaker 1: Lockerby bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed into a
Speaker 1: residential street in Lockerbie, which killed eleven residents with a
Speaker 1: total of two hundred and seventy fatalities. It is the
Speaker 1: deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: This bombing, this terrorist attack will come into play later
Speaker 1: similar to the Disco bombing. So it's very significant and
Speaker 1: also just a terrible thing that happened. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know about this being the deadliest terrorist attack in the
Speaker 1: history of the UK. So just a good important history here.
Speaker 1: So in nine nine, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Martania and
Speaker 1: Tunisia formed the Arab Mogreb Union or simply the Mograb
Speaker 1: Union in an effort to promote cooperation and economic integration
Speaker 1: in a common market. It is a political union and
Speaker 1: economic union trade agreement aiming for economic and future political
Speaker 1: unity among Arab countries and states that are located primarily
Speaker 1: in the Mogreb in North Africa. It was envisioned initially
Speaker 1: by mon Mugga Duffy as a superstate. The Magreb is
Speaker 1: basically the name for Northwest Africa, which includes the western
Speaker 1: part of North Africa and the Arab world. Following a
Speaker 1: three year joint investigation of the Locker rebombing by the
Speaker 1: FBI and the Dumfries and Galoway Constabulary a k a.
Speaker 1: The territorial police force responsible for Dumfries in Galloway, Scotland
Speaker 1: until April one, two thousand thirteen. After this joint investigation
Speaker 1: with them in the FBI, arrest warrants were issued for
Speaker 1: two Libyan nationals in November of nine. In response to this,
Speaker 1: in Nino, the U N imposes sanctions on Libya in
Speaker 1: an effort to force it's a handover for trial two
Speaker 1: of its citizens that were suspected of involvement in the
Speaker 1: Locker be bombing. One of whom of these people was
Speaker 1: a government employee. More on this later as we go on.
Speaker 1: In nine four, Libya returns the always was stripped to Chad,
Speaker 1: which they had been occupying since nineteen seventy three. In
Speaker 1: nine Godofi expels around thirty thousand Palestinians and protests of
Speaker 1: the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian Liberation Organization the PLO
Speaker 1: and Israel. A quick refresher here. There are two Osslo
Speaker 1: accords that make up the Asslo Accords. The first also
Speaker 1: accord was signed in Washington, the Sea, and the second
Speaker 1: one was signed in Tabia, Egypt. They marked the start
Speaker 1: of the Oslo Process, which was a supposed peace process
Speaker 1: aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on Resolution two
Speaker 1: forty two and Resolution three three eight of the United
Speaker 1: Nations Security Council and fulfilling the quote right of the
Speaker 1: Palestinian people to self determination. The Oslo Process began after
Speaker 1: secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and resulted in both the
Speaker 1: recognition of Israel by the PLO and the recognition by
Speaker 1: Israel of the p l O as the representative of
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people and as a partner in bilateral negotiations.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of Arabs and Arab countries disagreed with
Speaker 1: the Oslo Accords because they viewed it as defeat, as
Speaker 1: a surrender. My mom explained to me that a lot
Speaker 1: of Arrows didn't like or trust Yasid Artifact, who was
Speaker 1: the PLO leader during the Oslo peace process. A lot
Speaker 1: of people still don't like him to be and much
Speaker 1: of this dislike stemmed from his signing of the Oslo Accords.
Speaker 1: He died in two thousand and four at the age
Speaker 1: of seventy. We'll talk more about good Daffi's relationship to
Speaker 1: Artifact and how this changed after the Oslo Accords in
Speaker 1: our next episode, but for now, I'm going to leave
Speaker 1: you here. Have a have a good day. Goodbye, hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back. It could happen here. It's me again,
Speaker 1: It's Sharene and we're going to continue our discussion of
Speaker 1: Libya that we started yesterday. And um, yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: it's been interesting and I hope it continues to be
Speaker 1: interesting because I'm not going to stop. Okay, we left
Speaker 1: off our last episode after we talked about the Aslo
Speaker 1: Accords about how a lot of people distrusted and didn't
Speaker 1: like Yasar Rat a fact, who was the PLO leader
Speaker 1: during the Oslo Accords or the Oslo peace process. Rather
Speaker 1: mom Mud Gaddaffi was one of those people what disagreed
Speaker 1: with signing the accords because he viewed it as a surrender,
Speaker 1: as a defeat, and because of this, Gaddaffi expelled around
Speaker 1: thirty thousand Palestinians in protest at the Oslo Accords between
Speaker 1: the p l O a k A the Palestinian Liberation
Speaker 1: Organization in Israel. So I do think it's notable to
Speaker 1: mention that before Oslo Gaddaffi was on good terms without
Speaker 1: a fact. Out of fact, was on a plane and
Speaker 1: route to Tunisia and he was accompanied by his bodyguards
Speaker 1: and some assistants. The flight was scheduled to land in
Speaker 1: the Karifa Oasis air fields southeast of Libya to refuel. However,
Speaker 1: intense sandstorms impeded the vision of the pilots, who were
Speaker 1: forced to adjust the flight route. One hour and forty
Speaker 1: minutes after takeoff, the control tower in the Libyan capital
Speaker 1: received the following message special flight to Khartoum to Tunists
Speaker 1: cannot land, we fly on to Estada. We will attempt
Speaker 1: an emergency landing. Five minutes later, the plane disappeared from
Speaker 1: Libyan radar screens and wireless telecommunications were off. A state
Speaker 1: of emergency was declared. International media outlets immediately reported that
Speaker 1: out of Fats plane had disappeared in the Libyan desert.
Speaker 1: For approximately fifteen hours. It was thought that the plane
Speaker 1: had crashed and that out of Fat had died. It
Speaker 1: turned out, however, that the plane hit a sand dune
Speaker 1: in the Libyan desert and out of Fat was thrown
Speaker 1: a distance of thirty meters. The two pilots and the
Speaker 1: mechanic perished in this accident, and all the passengers were
Speaker 1: found wounded but alive, including out of Fat. I bring
Speaker 1: this up only to mention that I found a photo
Speaker 1: of out of Fat recovering in a hospital after this crash,
Speaker 1: covered in bandages, and Gaddafi is at his bedside. They're
Speaker 1: even holding hands in the photo. But that didn't matter
Speaker 1: to Gadaffi after OSLO, which he viewed again as a
Speaker 1: sort of betrayal to the Arab world. So back to
Speaker 1: when Gadaffi expels about thirty thousand Palestinians and protests of
Speaker 1: Auti Fat signing the OSLO accords, Gaddafi urged other Arab
Speaker 1: countries to follow his example and send home all Palestinians
Speaker 1: to expose what he said was Israel's plan to create
Speaker 1: a Palestinian state in name only. Speaking at a makeshift
Speaker 1: camp in the desert near the border with Egypt, Ladafi
Speaker 1: told a crowd of thousands that his expulsion of thousands
Speaker 1: of Palestinians was the greatest service to the aims of
Speaker 1: establishing a Palestinian homeland. In the speech, he said, the
Speaker 1: Zionist plan is to create a Palestine without Palestinians, he said,
Speaker 1: adding that other Arab countries are taking part in the
Speaker 1: Zionist plan by allowing the Palestinians to stay in their land.
Speaker 1: He very publicly criticized atifats signing of the accords with
Speaker 1: Israel and handing over authority in the West Bank to
Speaker 1: the Palestinian authority. His speech continued saying, overnight they told
Speaker 1: us that Israel was no longer the enemy we knew,
Speaker 1: they said the Palestinian cause was over. And because Libya
Speaker 1: believes them, it has asked the Palestinians to return to
Speaker 1: their home. So a little bit passive aggressive there, or
Speaker 1: maybe are really aggressive nonetheless, he disagreed with also accords
Speaker 1: and without effect, and a lot of other Arab countries
Speaker 1: did also. In Gadaffi handed over the two Lockerbie suspects
Speaker 1: for trial at campsized in the Netherlands after protracted negotiations
Speaker 1: and UN sanctions. The UN sanctions were suspended and diplomatic
Speaker 1: relations with the UK was restored after these suspects were
Speaker 1: handed over for trial. In January two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: the Netherlands finds one of the two Libyans accused of
Speaker 1: the Lockerbie bombing and Marahi, guilty and sentences him to
Speaker 1: life imprisonment. He was freed in two thousand nine on
Speaker 1: compact I shouldn't release grounds before dying of cancer in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. The other suspect, Bahima, is found
Speaker 1: not guilty and freed after the trial. In January two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, Libya and the US say they held
Speaker 1: talks to mend relations after years of hostility over what
Speaker 1: the Americans termed as Libya's sponsorship of terrorism. A year later,
Speaker 1: in January two thousand and three, Libya is elected chairman
Speaker 1: of the UN Human Rights Commission, despite opposition from the
Speaker 1: US and Human rights groups in August up to thousand
Speaker 1: and three. Seven months after this, Gaddafi accepted responsibility for
Speaker 1: the locker by bombing and a letter to the u
Speaker 1: N Security Council and Libya signed a deal worth two
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars and paid compensation to the families
Speaker 1: of the victims, although he maintained that he had never
Speaker 1: given the order for the attack. Acceptance of responsibility was
Speaker 1: part of a series of requirements laid out by UN
Speaker 1: resolution for sactions against Libya to be lifted. Libya said
Speaker 1: it had to accept responsibility due to Marati's status as
Speaker 1: a government employee. In September two thousand and three, a
Speaker 1: month later, the u N Security Council votes to lift sanctions,
Speaker 1: and in December of that same year, Libya said it
Speaker 1: will abandon programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. At
Speaker 1: this point, Gaddaffi has been in power for many, many decades,
Speaker 1: and similar to other dictators, he developed a cult of
Speaker 1: personality and his pictures were seen all over the country
Speaker 1: with his quotes. Remember the Green Book, Yes, that book.
Speaker 1: He had been in power for so long and this
Speaker 1: book was still distributed and praised, and he stayed in power.
Speaker 1: Like most dictators do. In March up two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Libya, and this is
Speaker 1: the first such visit since nineteen forty three. Gaddafi was
Speaker 1: clearly working on a return to respectability for Libya, and
Speaker 1: in August after thousand and four, Libya agreed to pay
Speaker 1: thirty five million dollars to compensate the victims of the
Speaker 1: bombing in the Berlin nightclub in n We talked about
Speaker 1: this briefly in our previous episode when I mentioned that
Speaker 1: in eighty six the US bombed Libya and killed a
Speaker 1: hundred and one people and said that these raids were
Speaker 1: in response to the alleged Libyan involvement of this bombing
Speaker 1: of a Berlin disco that was frequented by US military personnel.
Speaker 1: Fast forwarding to where we currently are two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: Libya has agreed to pay thirty five million to compensate
Speaker 1: these victims. This is a good place to take our
Speaker 1: first little break. Don't go anywhere, b RB. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're now in January two thousand and five and Libya's
Speaker 1: first auction of oil and gas exploration licenses heralds the
Speaker 1: return of US energy companies for the first time in
Speaker 1: more than twenty years. In February of two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: at least ten people are killed in clashes with police
Speaker 1: in Benghazi and part of a wave of international protests
Speaker 1: by some Muslims who are angered by a Danish newspaper
Speaker 1: risk cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Three months later,
Speaker 1: in May two thousand and six, the US says it
Speaker 1: is restoring full diplomatic ties with Libya, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, a lot of things happen. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, first, Libya took over the one month
Speaker 1: rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, marking a huge
Speaker 1: step returning to respectability after decades as a pariah of
Speaker 1: the West. Libya and the US also signed an agreement
Speaker 1: committing each side to compensate all victims of bombing attacks
Speaker 1: on the other citizens. Italian Prime Minister Sylvia Brosconi apologizes
Speaker 1: to Libya for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era,
Speaker 1: and they sign a five billion dollar investment deal by
Speaker 1: way of compensation. U S Secretary of State canti Is
Speaker 1: A Rice makes a historic visit in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: the highest level US official to visit Libya since nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three. Rice says relations between the West and Libya
Speaker 1: have entered quote a new phase. In February two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, Gadaffi is elected Chairman of the African Union
Speaker 1: by leaders meeting in Ethiopia. He sets out the ambition
Speaker 1: of the United States of Africa, even embracing the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: In June of that year, a thousand and nine, Gaddafi
Speaker 1: pays his first state visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial
Speaker 1: ruler and trading partner. What a plot twist? Wow? Who
Speaker 1: would have thought a century prior. In two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: Russia agrees to sell Libya weapons in a deal worth
Speaker 1: one point eight billion dollars. The deal is thought to
Speaker 1: include fighter jets, tanks, and air defense systems. The European
Speaker 1: Union and Libya sign an agreement designed to slow illegal migration.
Speaker 1: That same year, British oil company BP confirms it is
Speaker 1: about to begin drilling off of the Libyan coast. In
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, you start to see the seeds of
Speaker 1: an anti Gadaffi uprising, and Libyans rose up against the
Speaker 1: rule of Gaddaffi. And many took up arms. You might
Speaker 1: know that two thousand eleven more the beginning of many
Speaker 1: Arab springs in many countries, including Libya, and I guess
Speaker 1: this is also a good time to remind you that
Speaker 1: Gaddafi was always a dictator and ruled with fear, as
Speaker 1: dictators do. A lot happened in two thousand eleven. In February,
Speaker 1: inspired by revolt in other Arab countries, especially neighbor in
Speaker 1: Egypt and Tunisia, violent protests break out in Benghazi and
Speaker 1: spread to other cities, leading to escalating clashes between security
Speaker 1: forces and anti Goodaffi rebels. The government security forces responded
Speaker 1: by opening fire on the protesters. As an initially peaceful
Speaker 1: protest movement transformed into a fully fledged armed uprising against
Speaker 1: his forty two year rule. Gaddafi pledged to chase down
Speaker 1: the cock roaches and the rats who had taken up
Speaker 1: arms against him quote inch by inch, room by room,
Speaker 1: home by home, alleyway by alleyway, person by person. A
Speaker 1: brutal conflict began, with pro Gaddafi forces and discriminately showing
Speaker 1: civilian areas, arresting thousands of protests, ers and other suspective
Speaker 1: of supporting the opposition, holding many in secret attention and
Speaker 1: carrying out summary executions. In March two eleven, the U
Speaker 1: N Security Council authorizes a no fly zone over Libya
Speaker 1: and air strikes to protect civilians, over which NATO assumes command.
Speaker 1: In the months that follow, Libyan rebels initially captured territory,
Speaker 1: but are then forced back by better armed pro Gadaffi forces.
Speaker 1: In July, the International Contact Group on Libya formally recognizes
Speaker 1: the main opposition group, the National Transitional Council of the NTC,
Speaker 1: as the legitimate government of Libya. In August of thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Gaddafi goes into hiding after rebels swarm into his fortress
Speaker 1: compound in Tripoli. Let's take our second break here and
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk more of what happened in
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, because it seems like it's the year that
Speaker 1: never ended, b RB, and we're back. So as I
Speaker 1: mentioned before the break in August, at two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Gaddaffi went into hiding after the bubbles swarmed his fortress
Speaker 1: compound in Tripoli. In September, the African Union joins sixty
Speaker 1: countries which have recognized the NTC as the new Libyan authority.
Speaker 1: On October two thousand eleven, Gaddaffi is captured and killed
Speaker 1: as rebel fighters take his hometown of Serta after air
Speaker 1: burst bombs are fired from a NATO warplane, considerating dozens
Speaker 1: of Goadaffi fighters. Gaddaffi and other survivors are nearby a
Speaker 1: walled villa compound and soon thereafter they try to escape
Speaker 1: through the fields and two drainage pipes underneath a major
Speaker 1: road nearby. That is where the mus Rata military has
Speaker 1: found them. Musurata is a city in Libya, by the way.
Speaker 1: When militia fighters found good Daffi in his inner circle
Speaker 1: hiding next to the drainage pipes, one of his bodyguards
Speaker 1: threw a hand grenade at them, and this hand grenade
Speaker 1: bounced off the concrete wall and exploded in the midst
Speaker 1: of the leadership circle, killing Gaddaffi's defense minister of Ubucca Unus. Yes,
Speaker 1: actually happened. You had to have been there. This explosion
Speaker 1: sprayed shrapnel that wounded Gaddaffi and others, according to the
Speaker 1: survivors of the incident whom the Human Rights Watch interviewed.
Speaker 1: Gaddafi was immediately set upon by mus Rata fighters, who
Speaker 1: literally wounded him with a bayonet in his butt and
Speaker 1: then began pummeling him with kicks and blows. By the
Speaker 1: time Gaddaffi was loaded into an ambulance and transported to Musrata,
Speaker 1: his body appeared lifeless. It remains unclear whether he died
Speaker 1: from this violence, the shrapnel wounds, or from being shot
Speaker 1: later as some have claimed. Ultimately he died is the point.
Speaker 1: In that same morning of October, ms Ratta militia members
Speaker 1: separately apprehended mon Adoffi's son, must to him he was
Speaker 1: in charge of the military defensive Surta and had led
Speaker 1: the doomed convoy, and he tried to flee from the
Speaker 1: scene of the fighting. Three days later, the NTC declared
Speaker 1: Libya to be officially liberated and the announced plans to
Speaker 1: hold elections within eight months. November thousand eleven, Saifa Islam,
Speaker 1: the fugitive son of former Libyan leader ron Moodgadafi, is captured,
Speaker 1: becoming the last key Gadaffi family member to be seized
Speaker 1: or killed. Between January and March of two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: clashes erupt between former rebel forces in Benghazi in a
Speaker 1: sign of discontent with the NTC. The NTC again stands
Speaker 1: for a National Transitional Council, so when Ghazi based NTC
Speaker 1: officials campaign to re establish autonomy for the region, further
Speaker 1: increasing tension with the NTC in Tripoli. In August, this
Speaker 1: transitional government hands power to the General National Congress, which
Speaker 1: was elected in July. There's still significant unrest amongst civilians
Speaker 1: during this time in regards to a net leadership, and
Speaker 1: in February, protests erupt in response to the General National
Speaker 1: Congress's refusal to disband after they decided upon mandate expires.
Speaker 1: In May, the Libyan National Army renegade General Khalifa Hafta
Speaker 1: launches a military assault that includes air strikes against militant
Speaker 1: Islamist groups in Benghazi, and he tries to seize the
Speaker 1: parliament building, accusing the Prime minister at the time, Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Ahmed ma Teg, of being in thrall to Islamist groups.
Speaker 1: In June, Prime Minister mateg resigns after the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: rules his appointment illegal. A new parliament is chosen in elections,
Speaker 1: but the election is marred by a low turnout attributed
Speaker 1: to security fears and boycotts and the Islamists suffer heavy defeat.
Speaker 1: Fighting breaks out between forces loyal to the outgoing g
Speaker 1: n C and a new parliament. In July, the u
Speaker 1: N staff pulls out and the embassy shut down and
Speaker 1: foreigners are evacuated as the security situation deteriorates. Among all
Speaker 1: of this fighting, the Tripoli International Airport is also largely destroyed.
Speaker 1: Unsat As Shadiawa, which was a Solifus Islamist militia and
Speaker 1: al Qaeda aligned group that advocated for the implementation of
Speaker 1: sharia law across Libya see his control of most of
Speaker 1: Benghazi at this time. Later that year, in October, the
Speaker 1: u went on boy to Libya. Bernardina Leone proposed a
Speaker 1: National Unity government for Libya, and this new government was
Speaker 1: to be led by the Presidential Council of fayez As
Speaker 1: Sattage as prime Minister and three deputies from the country's eastern,
Speaker 1: Western and southern regions, as well as two ministers. UN
Speaker 1: Security General ben key Moon visits Libya during this time
Speaker 1: to continue the u N broker talks between the new
Speaker 1: parliament and the government based in Tarbuk and Islamis Libya
Speaker 1: DA Militia's holding Tripoli. The UN says that hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of civilians are displaced by these clashes and this
Speaker 1: takes us to but I think we're going to stop
Speaker 1: for today because a lot happens in and Uh, I'd
Speaker 1: rather not split it up into two episodes. So that's
Speaker 1: where I'm going to leave you guys for today, and
Speaker 1: UH you'll hear me tomorrow if you want to Foodbye, Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to It could happen here. You are
Speaker 1: listening to Sharne and our last installment of our Little
Speaker 1: Libya series. We're just gonna jump right back in. Our
Speaker 1: last episode ended off in and Libya when the U
Speaker 1: N Security General Van Ki Moon visited Libya to continue
Speaker 1: U N broker talks between the new parliament that was
Speaker 1: assigned and the government based in Torbrook and the Islamist
Speaker 1: Libya DON militias that were holding Tripoli at this time.
Speaker 1: The UN says that hundreds of thousands of civilians have
Speaker 1: been displaced by clashes. The Islamic State extremist militia then
Speaker 1: seizes control of the port of Journa and eastern Libya
Speaker 1: in January of the Libyan army and Tripoli based Militia
Speaker 1: Alliance declare a partial ceasefire after U N sponsored talks
Speaker 1: in Geneva. In February of Egyptian jets bomb Islamic State
Speaker 1: targets in Derna. A day after the group they're released
Speaker 1: a video showing the beheading of twenty one Egyptian Christians.
Speaker 1: The Libyan army offensive to retake Derna in March of
Speaker 1: that year fails to dislodge the group. The Islamic State
Speaker 1: establishes control over the poort city of Certa, which is
Speaker 1: halfway along the coast between Tripoli and Benghazi. In July,
Speaker 1: a TRIPLEI court sentences Gaddaffi's son say And Islam and
Speaker 1: eight other former officials to death for the crimes committed
Speaker 1: during the twenty eleven uprising against his father. He is
Speaker 1: later freed by an armed group. In January, the UN
Speaker 1: announces a new Tunisia based interim government, but neither Tobruck
Speaker 1: nor Tripoli parliaments agree to recognize its authority. Libyan politician
Speaker 1: Fayez Sarage is now the Chairman of the Presidential Council
Speaker 1: of Libya and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord.
Speaker 1: The Islamic State group attacks Rasla Nuth oil terminal and
Speaker 1: threatens to move on to Brega and Towbrook. In September
Speaker 1: of sixteen, the Libyan National Army of Ralifa Haftad, who
Speaker 1: was described as a renegade general, seizes key oil export
Speaker 1: terminals in East Libya. Haftad is a Libyan American politician,
Speaker 1: military officer, and the commander of a Towbrook based Libyan
Speaker 1: National Army. A year and a half prior, on March second,
Speaker 1: he was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to
Speaker 1: the elected legislative body, the Libyan House of Representatives. In
Speaker 1: December of pro government forces oust Islamic State militants from
Speaker 1: the coastal town of Surta, which they had seized eighteen
Speaker 1: months previously. In July seventeen, the Islamic State is ejected
Speaker 1: from Benghazi after three years of fighting. A year later,
Speaker 1: in July, Khalifa Hadad claims that his forces are fully
Speaker 1: in control of Derna, the last Islamic stronghold in the
Speaker 1: East and the only city in the region thus far
Speaker 1: outside his control. In April of twenty nineteen, weh DoD,
Speaker 1: a Libyan National Army, advances on Tripoli, sparking clashes with
Speaker 1: the forces of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord.
Speaker 1: In June of the u N back government drives forces
Speaker 1: out of Tarhuna, which was their last stronghold in the
Speaker 1: west of the country near Tripoli. At this point, Fayezes
Speaker 1: Saage had been Prime Minister of the Government of National
Speaker 1: Accord since its installment in as part of a u
Speaker 1: N led political agreement. Fighting was occurring between saage loyalists
Speaker 1: and those who opposed him, and Satage stated that he
Speaker 1: would be stepping down from his position by the end
Speaker 1: of October of This came after a month of protests
Speaker 1: in Tripoli. On October thirty one, however, Al Sadaj rescinded
Speaker 1: his decision to resign, but after the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum,
Speaker 1: he transferred his powers. On March fifteenth of one, so
Speaker 1: in marshaw One Abduhmi and Biba took over as prime
Speaker 1: Minister of the g n A the u N backed
Speaker 1: Government of National Accord in Tripoli. In the Libyan Political
Speaker 1: Dialogue Forum procedure for choosing a unified executive authority to
Speaker 1: lead into the December twenty one Libyan general election, Muhammad
Speaker 1: and Menphi ran on a joint ticket with abdud Hamiddiba
Speaker 1: as Prime Minister and Mussa Elkoni and Abdula Lafi as
Speaker 1: members of the Presidential Council. As Menphee serves as head
Speaker 1: of State. Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of residents
Speaker 1: in the Libyan town of Tahuna were abducted or reported
Speaker 1: missing between ten and twenty twenty after the local Elkanni
Speaker 1: militia known as the Kenayette, took control of the town.
Speaker 1: In residents reported that the militia off and abducted, detained, tortured, killed,
Speaker 1: and disappeared people who opposed them or were suspected of
Speaker 1: doing so. Some said that the militia also sees private
Speaker 1: property and stole their money. After the armed conflict. In June,
Speaker 1: there was a discovery of mass graves in the town
Speaker 1: of Tarhuna. Libyan authorities said they had retrieved more than
Speaker 1: two hundred bodies from more than five hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: five mass graves as of October of last year. Additionally,
Speaker 1: as of October of last year, the International Organization for
Speaker 1: Migration the IOM, estimated there were almost four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: internally displaced people in Libya. Including three hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: displaced since the beginning of the April twenty nineteen conflict
Speaker 1: in Tripoli and the surrounding areas. The displaced include many
Speaker 1: of the forty eight thousand former residents of the town
Speaker 1: of who in eleven were driven out by armed groups
Speaker 1: predominantly from z Rata because of their support for the
Speaker 1: former Baffy government. The spite reconciliation agreements with ms RATA authorities,
Speaker 1: They have been deterred from returning by the massive and
Speaker 1: deliberate destruction of the town and infrastructure between twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: predominantly by malicious from ms RATA, and the scarcity of
Speaker 1: public services by the g n A. To describe the
Speaker 1: election process in Libya as a clusterfunk would be an understatement,
Speaker 1: and as far as the most recent election or the
Speaker 1: attempt for the most recent election in various postponements have
Speaker 1: resulted from disputes about fundamental rules governing the election, including
Speaker 1: the voting timetable, the eligibility of the main candidates, and
Speaker 1: the eventual powers of the next president and the parliament.
Speaker 1: Its registration for the presidential candidates opened on November seventh
Speaker 1: of last year and lasted until November. In this time,
Speaker 1: several people registered their candidacy, including Zarifa Eslam Cal Daffi,
Speaker 1: the son of the former Libyan leader Momma Daffy, so
Speaker 1: Lifa Hafta, the commander of the Libyan National Army at
Speaker 1: F nine, the chairman of the La Libya party, and
Speaker 1: the current Prime Minister of Hamid de Baba. These men
Speaker 1: all register their candidacy in November of last year, and
Speaker 1: in total, ninety six men and two women registered as candidates.
Speaker 1: A preliminary list of seventy three presidential candidates was released
Speaker 1: by the h n e C the High National Election
Speaker 1: Commission on November. Five candidates were disqualified from the election,
Speaker 1: including study for the La Daffy and a bunch of
Speaker 1: others that I'm not going to say their names because
Speaker 1: I haven't said them yet and you don't need to know,
Speaker 1: but ultimately, Ladafi and a bunch of other people were
Speaker 1: disqualified under Article ten seven of the Electoral Law for
Speaker 1: having been convicted of a crime. Daffi was also disqualified
Speaker 1: under Article seve for not providing a certificate showing a
Speaker 1: clean criminal record. Another candidate, Zeidan, was disqualified under Article
Speaker 1: ten and two for having more than one nationality and
Speaker 1: under Article eleven for not having five thousand supporters. According
Speaker 1: to the electoral law, any appeals against the disqualifications are
Speaker 1: to be decided by the judiciary. On November twenty eight,
Speaker 1: the Tripoli Appeals Court rejected the candidacy of current Prime
Speaker 1: Minister of de Haney Debaba after accepting two appeals against
Speaker 1: his bid. The first appeal was filed by three presidential
Speaker 1: candidates as well as to Libyan Political Dialogue Forum members,
Speaker 1: while the second appeal was filed by presidential candidate Fatty Basha.
Speaker 1: On November thirty, Libyan Field Marshal a k a renegade
Speaker 1: General Khalifa haf Dad was disqualified from the presidential election.
Speaker 1: After these, a we A Court of First Instance accepted
Speaker 1: an appeal against his candidacy. On December one, four candidates
Speaker 1: were disqualified by the h n EC, including Debiba, and
Speaker 1: they were placed back on the ballot by a Tripoli
Speaker 1: a Court of National Appeal. December two, Sayf and sm
Speaker 1: Go Daffy was placed back on the ballot after the
Speaker 1: subad Court of Appeal accepted his appeal against his qualification
Speaker 1: from the list of candidates. See clusterfuck understatement, and then
Speaker 1: on December six, Kadifata returned to the presidential election after
Speaker 1: the Tripoli Court of Appeal rejected in November thirty ruling
Speaker 1: by the Lower Zawea Court. Let's take our first break
Speaker 1: for the love of God h B r B and
Speaker 1: we're back. And I don't believe in God, but anyway.
Speaker 1: Days before the first round was scheduled to take place,
Speaker 1: the election was already up in the air, with no
Speaker 1: official list of candidates presented to the public and no
Speaker 1: formal campaigning underway. On December twenty two, the Parliament of
Speaker 1: Libya confirmed the postponement. The chairman of the Election committee said,
Speaker 1: after consulting the technical, judicial and security reports, we inform
Speaker 1: you of the impossibility of holding the elections on the
Speaker 1: day of providing for by the electoral law, and in
Speaker 1: this statement he didn't give a new date. Foreign Policy
Speaker 1: summarized that the causes for the delay were that quote,
Speaker 1: the process was beleaguered by two interrelated issues, differences over
Speaker 1: the idea of holding a presidential election in the current
Speaker 1: context and the resulting failure to reach the required consensus
Speaker 1: on a framework for elections. The United Kingdom, France Germany,
Speaker 1: Italy and the United States urged Libya to set a
Speaker 1: new date for the delayed presidential election quickly. The h
Speaker 1: n e C insisted that the House of Representatives is
Speaker 1: responsible for setting a new date. The Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House Representatives said the Election Committee responsible for overseeing elections
Speaker 1: must set a definitive date for postponed presidential and legislative
Speaker 1: polls by the end of January of two, like several
Speaker 1: months ago. The UN Special Advisor on Libya, Stephanie Williams,
Speaker 1: who has pursued a new election date, told the AP
Speaker 1: that it was still quote very reasonable and possible for
Speaker 1: the country's two point eight million voters to cast their
Speaker 1: ballots by June of two, which would be in line
Speaker 1: with the U N brokered roadmap. On January twenty three, two,
Speaker 1: Interim Prime Minister Abdul Debaba called for constitution to be
Speaker 1: established before holding the delayed presidential and parliamentary elections. A
Speaker 1: month later, on February two, Debaba announced a plan to
Speaker 1: hold the elections in June of two. He later proposed
Speaker 1: holding the elections at the end of two so he
Speaker 1: just keeps on postponing it, because why not. You're in power.
Speaker 1: You don't want to give it up. Sure. In July
Speaker 1: of twenty two, the prime Minister, the interim Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Abiba made an unexpected alliance with his former enemy, the
Speaker 1: Eastern warlord renegade general Hadifa haf Dad, in a bid
Speaker 1: to cement a fragile ceasefire and end a month long
Speaker 1: oil blockade. Less than three years ago, half Dad self
Speaker 1: dialed Libyan National Army besieged Trivioli in a failed attempt
Speaker 1: to capture the capital. But in this unexpected alliance, in
Speaker 1: a highly symbolic gesture, the Libyan National Army's Chief of
Speaker 1: Staff At Naduti, was invited to visit the city for talks.
Speaker 1: The prospect of de Baiba and haf Dad varying their
Speaker 1: differences was really welcomed by the u N as it
Speaker 1: was struggling to maintain a ceasefire that had ended a
Speaker 1: previous six year civil war in However, barely a month
Speaker 1: later after this extended reconciliation, supposedly on August this year,
Speaker 1: deadly clashes occurred in Libya's capital between militias backed by
Speaker 1: two rival administrations pretending to a return to violence amid
Speaker 1: a long political stalemate In these clashes, at least twenty
Speaker 1: three people were killed and more than a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty people were wounded in the fighting. According to the
Speaker 1: Health Ministry, six hospitals were hit and ambulances were unable
Speaker 1: to reach area affected by the clashes. And the ministry
Speaker 1: said that these effectively are war crimes and they condemned
Speaker 1: these actions. The escalation threatens to shatter the relative calm,
Speaker 1: relative calm taken out with a grain of salt, whatever
Speaker 1: you want that to mean, Libya has had for most
Speaker 1: of the past two years. As we know after listening
Speaker 1: to me talking for all of these millions of minutes,
Speaker 1: Libya was sent into chaos after and NATO backed uprising
Speaker 1: that toppled and killed long time autocrat Rond Goaddaffi in
Speaker 1: Obviously Gadaffi was also bad, not saying that, but if
Speaker 1: things were or to chaotic during good Daffi and before Gaddaffi,
Speaker 1: taking him out in the way that he was taken
Speaker 1: out only led to more chaos, So the instability only
Speaker 1: got worse. The clashes that are happening pitted the Tripoli
Speaker 1: Revolutionaries Brigade militia led by hathum To Judy against another
Speaker 1: militia allied with Abda Rani, who was an in famous
Speaker 1: war lord known as Raniwa. This is according to local media.
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Debaba's government, which is based in Tripoli, claimed
Speaker 1: that the clashes broke out when one militia fired at another.
Speaker 1: The fighting, however, as highly likely part of an ongoing
Speaker 1: power struggle between INTERIMPM Debaba and his rival, Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Fati Bashaka, who is operating from the coast city of Surta.
Speaker 1: Both Baiba and Bashaka are backed by militias, and the
Speaker 1: latter was mobilizing in recent weeks to try to enter
Speaker 1: Tripoli to dislodge his rival. An attempt in May by
Speaker 1: Bashaka to install his government in Tripoli triggered clashes that
Speaker 1: ended with his withdrawal from the capital. The US Ambassador
Speaker 1: to Libya, Richard Norland, urged for de escalation before quote
Speaker 1: things get worse, and he also urged for the Libyan
Speaker 1: parties to agree on an early date for elections. Prime
Speaker 1: Minister to Baba's hold on power is very precarious. In
Speaker 1: July of this year, protests erupted in nine cities against
Speaker 1: corruption and power cuts. Debba was originally installed again as
Speaker 1: a temporary prime minister to run the country until the
Speaker 1: elections were due last December, but he hasn't given up
Speaker 1: that power because power is a disease, and when those
Speaker 1: elections were canceled amid constitutional arguments, he obviously decided to
Speaker 1: stay in power. And this is despite Libya's parliament demanding
Speaker 1: that he stepped down. So, as we've learned in this
Speaker 1: brief history of this country, Libya has been racked with
Speaker 1: internal divisions and instrument civil war conflict since the armed
Speaker 1: uprising of eleven of the longtime dictator La Daffi, and
Speaker 1: while international efforts to bring rival administrations together in a
Speaker 1: unity government succeeded in early this only created a fragile piece.
Speaker 1: The proliferation of weapons and autonomous militias, flourishing criminal networks,
Speaker 1: the interference of regional powers, and the presence of extremist
Speaker 1: groups have all contributed to the country's persistent lack of
Speaker 1: physical security. More than a decade of violence has displaced
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people, and human rights conditions have
Speaker 1: steadily deteriorated. The ceasefire I mentioned earlier was due to
Speaker 1: an occurrence in sixteen when forces loyal to Ralife Rail
Speaker 1: attempted Akutata against fayaz As Sage and the Presidential Council
Speaker 1: of the g NA. So in the Joint Libby and
Speaker 1: Military Commission that represented the l n A and the
Speaker 1: g n A, they reached a permanent ceasefire agreement in
Speaker 1: all areas of Libya. The agreement was effective immediately and
Speaker 1: it required that all foreign fighters leave Libya within three months,
Speaker 1: while a joint police force would patrol disputed areas, and
Speaker 1: the first commercial flight between Tripoli and Benghazi took place
Speaker 1: that same day. On March tenth, and Interimmunity Government was
Speaker 1: formed and it was slated to be in power as
Speaker 1: we know until the president election. But it's still in
Speaker 1: power now. So when when I'm talking about those peaceful
Speaker 1: quote unquote two years, I'm talking about this time between
Speaker 1: this permanent ceasefire in and now. And despite improvements following
Speaker 1: the ceasefire that was broken in October of political and
Speaker 1: military violence has remained common. Human rights violations are widespread
Speaker 1: and this includes unlawful killings and forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions.
Speaker 1: These conditions are further affected by the presence of various
Speaker 1: armed groups thousands of foreign mercenaries, a large migrant population
Speaker 1: and mass internal displacement, and so Libya has been in
Speaker 1: a tumultuous state since the start of the Arab Spring
Speaker 1: related the Libyan Crisis. Of the crisis resulted in the
Speaker 1: collapse of the Libyan Arab Dheria and the killing of
Speaker 1: Rommdga Daffi amidst the First Civil War of Libya and
Speaker 1: the foreign military intervention. The crisis was deepened by the
Speaker 1: fact sal violence in the aftermath at the First Civil War,
Speaker 1: and this resulted in the outbreak of the second Civil
Speaker 1: War that happened in the Control over the country is
Speaker 1: currently split between the House Representatives in Towbrook and the
Speaker 1: Government of National Unity in Tripoli and their respective supporters,
Speaker 1: as well as various jihaddest groups and tribal elements controlling
Speaker 1: parts of the country. And as we've learned, the violent
Speaker 1: protests are continuing to go on today and the country
Speaker 1: remains in a state of unrest to say the least.
Speaker 1: But I think this information is a good foundation to
Speaker 1: serve as a starting point if we talk about Libya
Speaker 1: going forward to really understand how this country came to
Speaker 1: be so unstable, because like most countries that are experiencing upheaval.
Speaker 1: It's usually because of a lot of different powers buying
Speaker 1: for control, international powers intervening, and just a lot of
Speaker 1: cluster fucking stuff that results in cluster fuck enus. So, Um,
Speaker 1: that's where we're going to end for today. I hope
Speaker 1: this was informative and I hope you appreciate some of
Speaker 1: the history. I definitely do. So. Yeah, until next time,
Speaker 1: go drink some water and stay hydrated and go head
Speaker 1: a dog. You should never say how I mistook one part.
Speaker 1: You can send those on a recording, rubbit. It's okay.
Speaker 1: It's with a president, so we can't be there. M
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have done. That's Jimmy Cotton, dude. Well he's
Speaker 1: never recovered, man. Yeah, you can see it in his
Speaker 1: eyes when he tried to rebuild those houses. Welcome to
Speaker 1: It could happen here the podcast where one of us
Speaker 1: committed a crime against Jimmy Carter, former president of the
Speaker 1: United States. Um, that might actually get us in trouble
Speaker 1: with the Secret Service, but you know what it's happening.
Speaker 1: It's happening, James. Well, they're gonna have to figure out
Speaker 1: which one it was. Yes, and that of course, second
Speaker 1: voice James Stout, who might wind up in Guantanamo for
Speaker 1: this because he's he's not a US citizen. But I
Speaker 1: feel pretty safe, and I feel like our guest for
Speaker 1: today is pretty safe. And I would like to introduce
Speaker 1: Stephen Manicelli. Uh. Stephen, you work for and are an
Speaker 1: editor at Protein Magazine. You've written for The Rolling Stone,
Speaker 1: You've written for a bunch of people, Dallas Voice, a
Speaker 1: number of different UM news websites, magazines, and you have
Speaker 1: been spending a big chunk of the last year or
Speaker 1: so in the streets in Dallas reporting on the escalating
Speaker 1: series of well, hopefully not escalating. I guess time will
Speaker 1: tell on that. But the series of right winging UM,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to I don't want to dignify
Speaker 1: them by calling them protests, but like right wing organized
Speaker 1: attempts to intimidate UH and spark violence at LGBT events
Speaker 1: in the DFW area, and some of the left wing
Speaker 1: protest counter against that, which has involved groups like the
Speaker 1: elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, who we've had on
Speaker 1: the show a few times, and has involved groups of
Speaker 1: armed leftists kind of UM in opposition to groups of
Speaker 1: armed right wingers. UM. Now, Stephen, the specific reason we're
Speaker 1: talking today is you were just the other day part
Speaker 1: of a panel put on by the Cato Institute, which
Speaker 1: is a libertarian think tank, titled Domestic Extremism and Political
Speaker 1: Violence the Threat to Liberty UM. Your fellow panelists were
Speaker 1: Mike German Mike is a former FBI agent who went
Speaker 1: undercover against the far right UM and now works for
Speaker 1: the Brennan Center. And Christopher Wiles, who is a professor
Speaker 1: of English and a director of American Studies at the
Speaker 1: Universe City of Connecticut and wrote the u s Anti
Speaker 1: Fascism Reader. UM. Now, this was interesting for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. Kind of in the lead up to this event,
Speaker 1: the kate I Institute published a graphic that showed a
Speaker 1: number of domestic armed organizations UM. And so in the
Speaker 1: same graphic you had groups like the Proud Boys and
Speaker 1: Patriot Front, as well as groups like Yellow Peril Tactical
Speaker 1: and the ELM Fork, John Brown Gun Club and the
Speaker 1: Socialist Rifle Association. Prior to the event, this sparked a
Speaker 1: bit of frustration from the left and some people suspecting
Speaker 1: that this was going to be kind of geared towards
Speaker 1: attacking left wing armed groups and smearing them, you know,
Speaker 1: as violent extremists in the same way that the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys are. Uh, that is not what happened. Um, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna open the floor up to you, Stephen, thank
Speaker 1: you for being on the show. Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that this is not sort of a
Speaker 1: critic criticism session that I'm gonna be sitting with y'all
Speaker 1: on In terms of yeah, my participation with a I
Speaker 1: hestitate to even use the word libertarian because of the
Speaker 1: historical definition of the term, but you know, conservative libertarian whatever,
Speaker 1: big L versus small L. I don't. Yeah, we could
Speaker 1: call them a right libertarian think to their rough bodies,
Speaker 1: right like literally founded by rough body. Yeah, they love
Speaker 1: them some Rothbard. Um didn't they like excommunicate him or
Speaker 1: something though? At Okay, I couldn't. I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: deep on the lower one thing. If you're doing my
Speaker 1: favorite meme with the two hands meeting in the middle middle,
Speaker 1: left libertarians and right libertarians have excommunicating members. Murray Rothbart
Speaker 1: is on an isle exile Murray Rothbart and Mary Books
Speaker 1: and united and cancelation. So yeah, I guess I'm not
Speaker 1: being canceled, which is is good UM. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: they had reached out to me in stept Timber about
Speaker 1: being on this panel, and they had mentioned UM the
Speaker 1: other guests, and frankly I was intrigued because you know,
Speaker 1: if people want to pay attention to the growing threat
Speaker 1: of fascism, I think that's pretty neat. And it seemed
Speaker 1: like an opportunity to do the thing that Glenn Greenwald
Speaker 1: claims that he does when he goes on Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 1: which is like reaching out to an audience that doesn't
Speaker 1: already agree with the things that I think UM, because
Speaker 1: he just goes on because their pals and they already
Speaker 1: all agree. So UM, I digress. I thought it was
Speaker 1: maybe an interesting forum and and I was really interested
Speaker 1: to hear UM from the other panelists, in particular UM
Speaker 1: because I had looked at what Mike German had written
Speaker 1: after his service in UM the FBI and as well
Speaker 1: as the author of the Anti Fascist Handbook, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if if Kato has invited all three of us, it's
Speaker 1: it's not gonna go too off the rails and terms
Speaker 1: of UM, you know, sort of the false equivalency problems
Speaker 1: or it just becoming a session to bash on groups
Speaker 1: that aren't really the part of the problem. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: the primary amount of bashing that went on was Mike German,
Speaker 1: former f by FBI h repeatedly viciously criticizing the police
Speaker 1: and the FBI for their complicity with far right street movements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mike's been pretty consistent, I spoken for like a couple
Speaker 1: of years, and I'm sure you people are probably aware
Speaker 1: of his presence by now, but he's been pretty consistent
Speaker 1: on bashing defense for failing to act on white supremacy
Speaker 1: for decades. And it's very It's there's a number of
Speaker 1: reasons this is interesting that we'll we'll be getting back into,
Speaker 1: but I really do recommend people take a listen to
Speaker 1: this conversation between y'all. Among other things, there's there's some
Speaker 1: good history in there. We'll talk about a couple of
Speaker 1: things that got introduced that I don't ad percent agree with.
Speaker 1: That there's some good history in there, and I think
Speaker 1: more to the point, you get a lot of updates
Speaker 1: from your report in Dallas and a lot of kind
Speaker 1: of summaries of that which I find very valuable and
Speaker 1: think will be valuable to people who have maybe been
Speaker 1: following it less. And then also it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: get Mike's perspective as someone he was in It was
Speaker 1: late eighties, early nineties, he was doing a lot of
Speaker 1: undercover stuff on the West Coast and neo Nazi movements. UM,
Speaker 1: and so hearing him discuss the way in which the
Speaker 1: FBI s programs targeted at the far right work and
Speaker 1: don't work was really interesting to me. Oh. Absolutely, that
Speaker 1: was the sort of the side of the story that
Speaker 1: I knew the least about. UM. Christopher Viles, the professor,
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote the handbook, UM, you know, I
Speaker 1: think he provided a very important set of historical information
Speaker 1: that kind of helped iron out some of the issues
Speaker 1: in terms of the framing craps. Yes, and some of
Speaker 1: the inconsistencies which I think we can dive into a
Speaker 1: little bit, or rather inaccuracies that kind of got slipped
Speaker 1: by UM and we weren't really able to address in
Speaker 1: the course of the conversation. But hearing him just put
Speaker 1: it so bluntly kind of took the wind out of
Speaker 1: me in a good way where I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have anything else to add here, No, notes,
Speaker 1: um because he really made the point that yes, some
Speaker 1: of these organizations were cannon glove with police officers at
Speaker 1: the local level, even at the federal level. He's witnessed it.
Speaker 1: He has a number of experiences that he cited where
Speaker 1: the FBI is basically saying, uh, do not talk about
Speaker 1: your case is involving white supremacists and these similar type
Speaker 1: of groups, because there are people in the agency who
Speaker 1: are sympathetic. Um And I think that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I ended up on the panel because in part the
Speaker 1: story that I've been covering around here with this harassment
Speaker 1: campaign over the past few months of lgbt Q groups
Speaker 1: and events, part of the story is that policing has
Speaker 1: not really done anything to prevent uh you know, this
Speaker 1: incitement and harassment from continuing and occasionally turning violent. Not
Speaker 1: in the sense of weapons being used other than bear
Speaker 1: me so far, but in the sense the physical violence
Speaker 1: and uh you know, slurs and violent threats being hurled
Speaker 1: at people. UM. So, I I think that Mike's points
Speaker 1: for really timely and well said, and frankly, he's the
Speaker 1: kind of person that they needed to come from because
Speaker 1: otherwise they just kind of get smacked away as leftist
Speaker 1: talking point by people who probably have some internal biases
Speaker 1: or prejudices, prejudices that prevent them from engaging with it
Speaker 1: when it comes from the wrong person in the wrong way.
Speaker 1: And there were a number of interesting kind of discussions happening.
Speaker 1: One of the thing that I was happy about is that, well,
Speaker 1: the initial framing, I think there was a lot of
Speaker 1: fear that all of these left wing groups, we're going
Speaker 1: to get lumped in with groups that have, to put
Speaker 1: it bluntly, tried to overthrow democracy. Um. Right, we should
Speaker 1: point out that that's how the FBI does do it, right,
Speaker 1: like they for instance, the group white supremacists with like
Speaker 1: black identity groups, is racial identity extremists or statistics that
Speaker 1: way like that, That's that's how the FEDS see this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they didn't, which is which is good. It's
Speaker 1: like a form of obfuscation to do so. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, why would they do that. Well, maybe there's
Speaker 1: a few reasons they might do that, especially if you
Speaker 1: ask someone like Mike um, and you know, it's such
Speaker 1: a blind spot for obvious the ideological reasons for so
Speaker 1: many people involved. Yeah, and it's it's Um, it was
Speaker 1: interesting because there was this bit in the middle of
Speaker 1: it where Mike, you know, being a former fed, walked
Speaker 1: through kind of like, well, it makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: given the fact that law enforcement is not able to
Speaker 1: be trusted in a lot of instances and often is
Speaker 1: working hand in glove with these far right groups that
Speaker 1: want to harm marginalize people, that they would seek to
Speaker 1: arm themselves. Um. And that prompted from the the fellow
Speaker 1: who was actually um kind of the organizing the the event,
Speaker 1: Patrick Eddington, who's a senior fellow at the Cato Institute,
Speaker 1: him to point out and he was I would have
Speaker 1: to say broadly fair um. And generally he seemed a
Speaker 1: little bit kind of um uh. He he had this
Speaker 1: attitude you all, you get sometimes around libertarians where he
Speaker 1: was like there was a moment where he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad some on the left to finally started accepting
Speaker 1: the Second Amendments and stuff like that. Um. But but
Speaker 1: he had a he had a moment where he expressed
Speaker 1: a concern, UM, which was his fear about the possibility
Speaker 1: that if you keep having these events, at some point
Speaker 1: you're going to have two groups of people who are
Speaker 1: armed shoot at each other, um, which is we have.
Speaker 1: We've been right up to that line. You have had
Speaker 1: exchanges of fire, just thinking. In Portland, you had a
Speaker 1: moment where as a single right wing individual with a
Speaker 1: handgun fired into a group of people, thankfully didn't hit
Speaker 1: any two people in the anti fascist side fired back
Speaker 1: and forced him to flee. Um, you had a moment
Speaker 1: earlier this year in Portland where a right winger shot
Speaker 1: into a group of unarmed people doing traffic security, killed
Speaker 1: a sixty one year old woman, wounded I think five
Speaker 1: other people, and then was shot and stopped by a leftist. Um,
Speaker 1: you obviously had Um a proud boy while a member
Speaker 1: of Patriot Prayer shot and killed during an altercation, but
Speaker 1: not an exchange of fire. The only person who fired
Speaker 1: was the person who killed that that individual. So none
Speaker 1: of those are quite two groups of people with guns
Speaker 1: exchanging fire, you know, in a sustained way. Uh, none
Speaker 1: of those even entirely approached kind of what happened at
Speaker 1: like Greensville. But they're all on that spectrum. And while
Speaker 1: I think this guy there's a degree to which he's
Speaker 1: kind of spooked at seeing leftists with guns, I do
Speaker 1: think that that's a reasonable thing to be concerned with
Speaker 1: because when and if we hit that point, it's going
Speaker 1: to be an inflection moment for I think the entire country,
Speaker 1: right right. I think the reality is that most normal people,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to use the word to describe them,
Speaker 1: people aren't brain poisoned and plugged into the internet and
Speaker 1: about all these things or or having to deal with
Speaker 1: them and are affected by them in real life. They
Speaker 1: might see these groups and just cast them all under
Speaker 1: the same umbrella. You know, there's a good meme I
Speaker 1: chuckled at that came out afterwards, where it had had
Speaker 1: the slide showing on all of the groups, the right
Speaker 1: wing groups and the left and groups sort of armed
Speaker 1: groups in you know, the United States, and then replacing
Speaker 1: them all with just domestic cleaning products. Like, yes, they
Speaker 1: all have something in common. They have weapons, and they're
Speaker 1: armed to some degree, but beyond that, they all have
Speaker 1: distinctions and we shouldn't drawn equivalency. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Mike did a very elegant job of drawing that distinctionaries
Speaker 1: as these people not only have a right to defend themselves,
Speaker 1: but they probably have a good reason to given all
Speaker 1: of these things. He was basically writing the lyrics to
Speaker 1: rage against the Machine song, and um, I was a
Speaker 1: little astonished by that, and he made a very clear
Speaker 1: point to say, like, yeah, there are people who are
Speaker 1: aggressors and there are people who aren't. We can find
Speaker 1: a distinction in that. And if we're just now getting
Speaker 1: concerned about this violence, well maybe we should ask why
Speaker 1: we've had such a big blind spot for so long.
Speaker 1: And he got right to the core of it. It's
Speaker 1: these ideologies deeply baked into our institutions of white supremacist
Speaker 1: right supremacy, uh, basically all the way back to colonization,
Speaker 1: and you know, dealing with that is necessary for us
Speaker 1: to deal with the broader problem. And I think he
Speaker 1: was very clear to say, like the things that were
Speaker 1: required to get to that point of like a potential
Speaker 1: shootout would be a total breakdown in policing. And so
Speaker 1: he played place the blame at the feet of the police,
Speaker 1: practically said it's their goddamn fault that people feel the
Speaker 1: need to do this, because if they just focused on
Speaker 1: the crimes that Proud Boys commit in the Dallas area, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, basically minor assaults and stuff, they would trace
Speaker 1: it back to the people that are committing them, and
Speaker 1: they would cut down on these escalations because the same
Speaker 1: people are the ones that show up to these events
Speaker 1: time and time again. It's worth rub you talk about
Speaker 1: like an inflection point, right, and and we spoke about
Speaker 1: like failures in policing too. I think part off there
Speaker 1: reason that we see things are super duper exceptional right
Speaker 1: now is the way that we teach history in schools here.
Speaker 1: And part of the things we don't teach are like
Speaker 1: that this has happened before, right, like the Battle of
Speaker 1: Hayes Pond being a paramount example. If we look at
Speaker 1: the like the standoff at Wounded Knee or the second
Speaker 1: Battle of Wounded Knee, or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and throughout the civil rights movement, right there's a book
Speaker 1: by Rob Williams about a contemporary book about the use
Speaker 1: of firearms in the Civil rights movement that people can
Speaker 1: read like all of this stuff did happen then. And
Speaker 1: this same tension that we're feeling now about like a
Speaker 1: society putting itself apart and when it leads to a
Speaker 1: civil war also happened then and people felt this then
Speaker 1: two and we we well, the progress was made at
Speaker 1: that time. We didn't fix everything, right, like that's why
Speaker 1: we're having this discussion now. But like, I think the
Speaker 1: fact that we've removed so much of the specifically the
Speaker 1: violence and the use of guns from our discussion with
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement sometimes leads us to see what's
Speaker 1: happening now was like really particularly exceptional, and it's not like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always been the case of marginalized folks that have
Speaker 1: resorted to the same tools that he used to oppress
Speaker 1: them to defend themselves. And why wouldn't they write, like
Speaker 1: like Mike said, like Steve said, there's a very good
Speaker 1: and clear reason for oppressed people to want to defend
Speaker 1: themselves in their communities. The only analog that we were
Speaker 1: able to bring up in the conversation is like the
Speaker 1: pink pink panthers, pink panthers, which was, you know, something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't know about, And we
Speaker 1: did get a little bit of opportunity to discuss, you know,
Speaker 1: the black panthers and how community defense is a different
Speaker 1: set of reasons for arming yourself and having knowledge of
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment and all those sorts of things. Then
Speaker 1: you know, going outside an event hosted by an organization
Speaker 1: you have no interest in belonging to wearing your guns
Speaker 1: on your body to send a message. That's a very
Speaker 1: menacing form of free speed. And I think another good
Speaker 1: moment to bring up when we talk about this would
Speaker 1: be the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, which was a
Speaker 1: series of race riots targeting black people in the United
Speaker 1: States that also involved large groups and communities, particularly in cities,
Speaker 1: of Black Americans taking up arms and defending themselves. Um
Speaker 1: and and was fairly enormous, and it's deftyal hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of people were killed. Um It's it's really a
Speaker 1: pretty nightmarish moment in history. But it's the thing when
Speaker 1: you have groups and we're about to have someone on
Speaker 1: from from Yellow Parel tactical, when you have groups that
Speaker 1: are specifically organizing and saying like we are organizing, we
Speaker 1: are teaching skills for people to become armed because we
Speaker 1: are afraid that we and people like us will be victimized.
Speaker 1: It's stuff like the Red Summer that they're directly looking at.
Speaker 1: It's not theoretical, you know. Yeah, you're Frank carl Um
Speaker 1: from Arranged TV have some good videos about a lot
Speaker 1: of these different things. If people are interested in looking
Speaker 1: them up. Yeah, um, and I think probably we should
Speaker 1: bring on our next guest for tonight. Uh and and
Speaker 1: Stephen will be staying on as well. Snow from Yellow
Speaker 1: Peril Tactical. Snow, do you want to introduce yourself and
Speaker 1: your organization for folks who may not be as as
Speaker 1: familiar with the stuff as we are. We we briefly
Speaker 1: covered y'all a little bit earlier in this but yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. My name is Snow. My pronouns
Speaker 1: the sheet or they, and I am one of the
Speaker 1: many members of Yellow Peril Tactical. We are a collective
Speaker 1: of leftist Asian Americans under the shared ideology of being
Speaker 1: anti authoritarian. Um. And we talk about all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: but particularly how to develop firearms skills and also community
Speaker 1: defense and the occasional ship post and Uh. First questions,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about this Cato Institute things that Stephen
Speaker 1: was on. Have you had a chance to listen to
Speaker 1: that yet since y'all watched it twice and I have
Speaker 1: or paid notes? Yeah? Yeah, why why don't we start here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Go off? You know, Okay, Like the chat was lit.
Speaker 1: When we first saw that we were mentioned, we were like, Wow,
Speaker 1: we fucking made it because originally we started as a
Speaker 1: ship post account and then we were like, oh, people
Speaker 1: actually care, um, And this is just one of those
Speaker 1: moments where, uh, I don't know, it felt like really
Speaker 1: surreal that Kato would even give a funk about us,
Speaker 1: because we do all of this in our free time.
Speaker 1: You know, this is like nobody pays us right, um.
Speaker 1: And so we had a lot of skepticism going into it, um.
Speaker 1: And in a sense, uh, we're a bit on the
Speaker 1: defensive kind of preparing for a lot of false equivalent
Speaker 1: rhetoric um and a lot of just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe like orientalism as we all um, just given the
Speaker 1: history of how like Westerners have viewed Asian culture um.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, like the consensus has been that we were
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised of how balanced it was. I thought overall
Speaker 1: it was very intriguing, and I got some good some
Speaker 1: good quotes written down, But I don't know if you
Speaker 1: want to go into those now or later or what?
Speaker 1: Can we start with having I really want to like
Speaker 1: anchor this in having you explained what community defense means,
Speaker 1: like so people can understand why, and then we can
Speaker 1: go from what people say to you yeah. Um, So
Speaker 1: earlier y'all were talking about, like, um, the nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: riots and actually reminded me of like the Pacific Coast
Speaker 1: Race riots of nineteen seven, and a bunch of were
Speaker 1: like murdering and committing violence against Asian people, right, And
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven was not that long ago. Um. And
Speaker 1: in a sense, it never has gone away. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think um Chris File said it put
Speaker 1: it nicely when he was like, you know, in the
Speaker 1: backdrop of a lot of anti Asian violence. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just that it's been a lot more prevalent among Asians specifically.
Speaker 1: That doesn't stop you know, like Boba liberalism, identity politics
Speaker 1: from happening where there's not like a grand division of
Speaker 1: like what's going on at large. Um. But we know
Speaker 1: that like our communities are under attack and the cops
Speaker 1: don't give a funk about us, and if anything, they
Speaker 1: just make it worse most of the time. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so it's truly up to us because you know, cops
Speaker 1: don't prevent crime. They come after and they funk it up. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's not something that has come easily to me personally.
Speaker 1: I've been in denial about it. For a lot of
Speaker 1: years around thinking like if I just avoid going out
Speaker 1: late at night, if I am always walking with a buddy,
Speaker 1: if I just you know, spend twenty minutes looking for
Speaker 1: a closer part working spot, it'll prevent me from being harmed.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, like that's just me being in denial, um.
Speaker 1: And part of it another realization is like being strapped,
Speaker 1: I can seal carry every day. That's not going to
Speaker 1: deter someone from attacking me because of how I look
Speaker 1: without doxing myself. I just look alternative, right, um. And
Speaker 1: knowing that that puts me at risk has never deterred
Speaker 1: me from wanting to express myself with how I look.
Speaker 1: But I know the risks and that doesn't stop people
Speaker 1: from me. But part of it is like I'm not
Speaker 1: going down without a fucking fight, Like my ancestors have
Speaker 1: come too fucking far. We kicked out the French, we
Speaker 1: kicked out the US, right, and now I'm in their turf.
Speaker 1: I've infiltrated the wire, but that doesn't mean but you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that it's going to stop them from
Speaker 1: harming us. Um. And you know, we know that we
Speaker 1: can't live in a fever dream where every single fascist
Speaker 1: on this planet will be gone. Um, but at the
Speaker 1: very least, like my life goal is to make them
Speaker 1: think twice. And I'm scared a little bit. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because you you bring up sort of what I think
Speaker 1: is a really good point, which is that like, even
Speaker 1: if you're if you're in your day to day life,
Speaker 1: the fact that you're carrying a gun isn't going to
Speaker 1: stop somebody from starting, you know, an interaction with you
Speaker 1: that could turn violent because you just look the way
Speaker 1: that you look. I do want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what's kind of the opposite thing, and it
Speaker 1: is sort of part of why I think folks were
Speaker 1: a little on edge when this event got announced and
Speaker 1: you know that graphic came out that had as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: the Yellow Peril tactical alongside you know, these these these
Speaker 1: other groups. And there's one of the things that kind
Speaker 1: of results from the way gun culture works is that
Speaker 1: there's a very recognizable kind of um uniform um that
Speaker 1: you see, particularly you've seen it with the Boogleoo Boys,
Speaker 1: you see it with groups like the Proud Boys. It's
Speaker 1: the it's the thing where you've got a plate carrier,
Speaker 1: a belt, you know, an a are some other kind
Speaker 1: of long gun helmets and and usually other tactical gear
Speaker 1: on it um. And this kind of this outfit so
Speaker 1: to speak, has kind of evolved over time. It really
Speaker 1: is a result of the War on Terror, and it's
Speaker 1: both an aesthetic choice and there's a huge number of
Speaker 1: companies that exist, particularly on the right to provide people
Speaker 1: with aesthetic options for kind of having all of this
Speaker 1: gear that are are sort of ideologically simple simpatico with
Speaker 1: them um. But it's also just actually a practice. Well
Speaker 1: some of this stuff is less practical than others, but
Speaker 1: the basics of the of the get up exist because
Speaker 1: it's what worked, right. There's one of the things people
Speaker 1: noted when the Taliban took back over in Afghanistan is
Speaker 1: that all of their special operations guys were dressed the
Speaker 1: same way that US fighters, just because it's just what works.
Speaker 1: You see the same outfits on Ukrainian and Russian spec
Speaker 1: ops guys um. And one of the things when we
Speaker 1: when we're looking at kind of domestically, when you have
Speaker 1: people who are organizing and going out in the world
Speaker 1: armed as part of a public event, is that to
Speaker 1: people who are not familiar with what's going on, it
Speaker 1: can be hard to tell them about sometimes, and that
Speaker 1: is that strikes me the thing that the left particularly
Speaker 1: needs to deal with because both in kind of in
Speaker 1: the media and also out in the field, you don't
Speaker 1: want to be mistaken for groups like the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: and Steve and I want to start kind of with
Speaker 1: you here because I think you're you're reporting has always
Speaker 1: done a really good job of kind of making that
Speaker 1: difference clear. If you kind of have any thoughts on that,
Speaker 1: and then we'll we'll go back to you snow. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really interesting problem, the proliferation of tactical
Speaker 1: um aesthetics and the ideological sort of turn in the
Speaker 1: production of weaponry and accessories. I mean, there's like goddamn
Speaker 1: tactical eight franchises, which is making me lose my mind
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Um and that is a
Speaker 1: is a real distinct thing that I see all the
Speaker 1: time around here, and and I think there's subtle things
Speaker 1: that groups do to try to distinguish themselves. Obviously are patches,
Speaker 1: but in order to see a patch, you have to
Speaker 1: be close enough to someone in order to even find
Speaker 1: it legible. So then okay, you have flags, but then
Speaker 1: you also have to know what these flags are. Something
Speaker 1: that some groups around here have done when they're you know,
Speaker 1: sort of protecting an LGBTQ event is still have um
Speaker 1: flags affiliated with the LGBTQ movement, but once again you
Speaker 1: have to know what those are. And one more people
Speaker 1: know what those are these days, so that's a way
Speaker 1: in order to distinguish themselves. But it still takes a
Speaker 1: second for you to see a group of armed people
Speaker 1: and then process you know, exactly all of these sort
Speaker 1: of semiotic markers of who they are and what they're doing. Um,
Speaker 1: because if they have a different set of those things,
Speaker 1: it can be a very different set of conclusions that
Speaker 1: you can walk away from if you identify them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in Texas, the right does love carrying these flags
Speaker 1: and wearing these patches, so it makes it very clear
Speaker 1: who has consistently shown up to these events. Um. But
Speaker 1: like the reaction of normal people, if a group of
Speaker 1: armed people are leading a protest is to kind of
Speaker 1: be like, what the heck double take? Maybe they will
Speaker 1: start filming it because it's the craziest thing that they've
Speaker 1: seen that week. Um. And ultimately you know they have
Speaker 1: to kind of know some contextual clues in order to
Speaker 1: even make these distinctions, particularly when you're talking about groups
Speaker 1: like um, you know, John Brown Clubs or Yellow Peril,
Speaker 1: where you're there's concerns around OP SACK or in PHO SAK,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to necessarily reveal your identities because
Speaker 1: you're already a part of a group that's facing violence
Speaker 1: at a disproportionate rate, and maybe you're you know, potentially
Speaker 1: targeted by the FBI at a disproportionate rate. Like the
Speaker 1: former FBI officer interestingly noted during the conversation that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you may have an even harder time sort of distinguishing
Speaker 1: yourself and in making it known who you are. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting challenge. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: have uh, sort of any lessons from it other than that,
Speaker 1: you know, these classic signifiers also seem to work. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're kind of kitchy or um you know, seem ridiculous,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of the same thing, like you said
Speaker 1: about the spec ops, stuff like it's been used for centuries.
Speaker 1: Stuff like this has been used for a long time
Speaker 1: because it works because you immediately can comprehend is this
Speaker 1: person with a gun here? To kill me or to
Speaker 1: protect me. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really interesting because I
Speaker 1: obviously I have a complicated history with flags, but there's
Speaker 1: few better ways to to inform other people about what
Speaker 1: a group of folks is doing than having one. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as you're not conducting an ambush and that's
Speaker 1: an offensive maneuver. And then suddenly you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: as long as you're cool with being like, we're here
Speaker 1: and this is what we're doing, a flag is exactly
Speaker 1: the thing that you might want. So no, one of
Speaker 1: the things I've I've always paid attention to and appreciated
Speaker 1: about yellow Perils the way and what's y'all social media
Speaker 1: and y'all's kind of forward face is both unapologetically focused
Speaker 1: on firearms, focused on training, and also feels completely different
Speaker 1: from any of the sort of right wing kind of
Speaker 1: groups that that focus on some of the state, even
Speaker 1: when you're doing stuff that's like videos of people shooting
Speaker 1: and training, Um, do you want to talk? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just anything in general on this subject that you've
Speaker 1: you've felt. But that's something I've always particularly noticed about y'all. Yes, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um, we try really hard. You should see
Speaker 1: the group chet UM. But it's it's something that you
Speaker 1: know when historically Asian Asians represented in firearms culture tend
Speaker 1: to be conservative folks who fit within the norm or
Speaker 1: you know, proximity to whiteness. And that's something that we
Speaker 1: are not at all interested in, UM. And we know
Speaker 1: that comes at a risk. That's why one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why are identifiable tattoos are clothing and our faces
Speaker 1: are always blurred one because we don't want cult of
Speaker 1: celebrity around individuals. UM. But too it's like part of
Speaker 1: that is a lot of folks generally, but especially on
Speaker 1: the right, will kind of have this very grandiose uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, uh, buffers sense of legitimacy just because
Speaker 1: they have cool you know, video editing, they have like
Speaker 1: the nicest guns, they have a lot of guns. UM.
Speaker 1: And our thing is like, you don't need all that.
Speaker 1: What you do need is to train with what you
Speaker 1: got and are target audience are folks who don't know
Speaker 1: ship about firearms or just getting into it and needs
Speaker 1: some more reputable to go. UM. And we take that
Speaker 1: very seriously, UM, because I only got into firearms like
Speaker 1: two years ago, UM, And so that is fresh in
Speaker 1: my memory, and I know very well what that's like, um,
Speaker 1: and how intimidating it could be. So a lot of
Speaker 1: our work is to try to demystify it and really
Speaker 1: break it down to a way that like it doesn't
Speaker 1: like we don't make people feel like they have to
Speaker 1: be at a certain level already to even enter into
Speaker 1: the firearms world. Like we want to meet people where
Speaker 1: they're at and encourage people. So like, you know, do
Speaker 1: our drill of the month and like tell us your score,
Speaker 1: and then do it next month and tell how to
Speaker 1: tell us how you did better, And so it's really
Speaker 1: encouraging people to get better on an individual basis, Um,
Speaker 1: we encourage people to go out with their friends, um.
Speaker 1: But we also try to throw in like community international
Speaker 1: solidarity with our fundraisers in there too, So we try
Speaker 1: to do a lot of different things. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like if we help just eapen
Speaker 1: a handful of shooters get better at defending themselves or
Speaker 1: their community, like it's all worth it. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: want to ask next and I'll ask you both again
Speaker 1: kind of same question. Where do you see the armed
Speaker 1: left moving? Particularly in this next year's We kind of
Speaker 1: get through our last or start go through our last
Speaker 1: blessed year before election? Um, what are some things that
Speaker 1: that are on your radar? What are some things that
Speaker 1: you're sort of expecting to see? What are some things
Speaker 1: that you're worried about? Saying a lot, it's a big ques.
Speaker 1: I try to keep it to a year, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know, I like I worry a lot.
Speaker 1: I try not to get too caught up in it
Speaker 1: because life will surprise you, you know. Um, But I
Speaker 1: think ultimately, like where I live, we are facing down
Speaker 1: a really tight governor race in which if the Republican
Speaker 1: candidate wins UM, a lot of work that has been
Speaker 1: put to, you know, codify abortion rights, workers rights, things
Speaker 1: like that, will be reversed by this governor. Um. And
Speaker 1: it's something that a lot of people are worried about,
Speaker 1: myself included, and where I live, even within city limits,
Speaker 1: there are white supremacists flags, Confederate flags, even just like
Speaker 1: a couple of miles from my house, And so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of fear around that becoming even more emboldened.
Speaker 1: Even though we managed to fight back a lot and deterred,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that they're not taking this moment the right,
Speaker 1: the fast right to restrategize and to recalibrate what they
Speaker 1: want to do next. Um. And so it kind of
Speaker 1: feels like we're in the calm before the storm. Oh man. Uh,
Speaker 1: not like the J six storm. That's not what I mean,
Speaker 1: but like genuinely what it will actually look like, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be I don't think there's
Speaker 1: gonna be like you know, we meet at the football
Speaker 1: field and we have like our drummers out and like
Speaker 1: our little pipe players out, and then we have a
Speaker 1: thought of that it's gonna be like urban like warfare,
Speaker 1: is what I think. Um. And a lot of other
Speaker 1: people think that too. And you just throw in climate
Speaker 1: change as a treat like we don't know what the
Speaker 1: literal climate is going to be like. Um. And so
Speaker 1: it really just feels like there's multiple fronts right now.
Speaker 1: But it seems like climate change or the fascist will
Speaker 1: kill me before my smoking habit will And a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that too. Yeah, I mean, I I
Speaker 1: do anecdotally know a lot of people who justify their
Speaker 1: sick at use with Mike. Look, there's wildfires all around
Speaker 1: my house. I'm not worried about the Marboros. It is.
Speaker 1: It is October and the city of Portland is blanketed
Speaker 1: and smoke. I don't know if the cigarettes are going
Speaker 1: to get me. Stephen, did you did you want to
Speaker 1: go next? Yeah? Well, I mean, you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that a ship posting account gained some traction, maybe there's
Speaker 1: hope yet. Um, I don't know, but ship posting will
Speaker 1: save us in the end. It's it's another one on
Speaker 1: the board for ship posting. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: So looking forward to what are we dealing with? Well,
Speaker 1: Texas is uh deep in it right now. Um, we're
Speaker 1: one of the sort of laboratories of fascism in the
Speaker 1: United States at the moment, sort of a spear tip
Speaker 1: of a lot of really bad stuff really just like
Speaker 1: you know, codifying in the state, oppressive things, things that
Speaker 1: they just talk about in other states. Um. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: our governor's race, Uh, basically it doesn't either, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of split things because our lieutenant governor runs independently
Speaker 1: of the governor. And you know, the House is a
Speaker 1: whole other thing. Yeah, if it goes far right, Um,
Speaker 1: which a ton of money has been spent, billions and
Speaker 1: billions from people in the industry that's primarily responsible for
Speaker 1: destroying the planet are um pushing that to make it happen,
Speaker 1: and so that all works their way, then yeah, we're
Speaker 1: probably going to get some uh seriously bad laws, really
Speaker 1: bad state sponsored violence, a variety of forms, and yeah,
Speaker 1: people are already thinking to themselves like do I want
Speaker 1: to live in the state anymore? Um. But that's also
Speaker 1: basically what the extreme people on the right want is
Speaker 1: to either just get rid of these people one way
Speaker 1: or another. UM. And so some people don't want that. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Some people don't have a choice to leave because it's
Speaker 1: expensive to move and they may be tied to their
Speaker 1: families and other sorts of things. So, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: like to predict the future because history is we keep
Speaker 1: pumping shells into it and it keeps getting back up,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just gonna happen, And I don't really
Speaker 1: know exactly. I just I'm very thankful that there are
Speaker 1: people and groups in my state that are trying to
Speaker 1: protect vulnerable people UM, and people working to hopefully make
Speaker 1: it not super bad. UM. So I think like the
Speaker 1: optimistic view is that it won't be all totally terrible, horrible,
Speaker 1: but it'll be still kind of same same. Um, you know, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of like how I see broad speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: the big projection cone. Otherwise, Um, I'm not sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ship is going to be fucked up, but at least
Speaker 1: we'll have friends. Hopefully it'll be wavy and it will
Speaker 1: be about the friends that we make along the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll listen to joke. Do either of you have anything
Speaker 1: else you'd like to talk about or or or bring
Speaker 1: up or say before we kind of bring this to
Speaker 1: a close. I guess I'm just like I was kind
Speaker 1: of surprised how h decent that the panel went. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the anti fascist coalition can be broad because
Speaker 1: it is a sort of anti thing. It's not necessarily positivist.
Speaker 1: But you know, maybe that's another episode to describe, you know,
Speaker 1: why it's important to also perhaps have a positivist message
Speaker 1: along with what you're trying to do in response to fascism. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, like more discussions like this hopefully will happen,
Speaker 1: and I think they could be improved by like not
Speaker 1: all four panelists being white dudes. That would probably be helpful. Um,
Speaker 1: as a thought, Yeah, well yeah, that that was actually
Speaker 1: the first thing I wrote on my my note page
Speaker 1: is that it was for I should have said that earlier,
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm just playing. But I think one
Speaker 1: thing I want to add is like, similar to what
Speaker 1: you were saying, Stephen, was kind of like what is
Speaker 1: the pro positive thing? And ultimately, like to me, it's
Speaker 1: like the city that I live in, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of decentralized mutual A groups that got a lot of
Speaker 1: people through the pandemic and still provide daily relief to
Speaker 1: people consistently. Like I'm in like a million fucking signal
Speaker 1: chats where people post a need and it gets met eventually,
Speaker 1: and it's like I'm pro that mutual aid and like
Speaker 1: it's something that I mean, maybe it's the only thing
Speaker 1: that will really get us through whatever is to come UM.
Speaker 1: And that's just like pro community building UM and coalition building,
Speaker 1: whatever that looks like in your community. Maybe if we
Speaker 1: want to talk about mutual aid you can. I know,
Speaker 1: you guys do a lot of fundraises. I think that's
Speaker 1: a really cool thing certain distinguishes you from a lot
Speaker 1: of other gun clubs. So maybe you want to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of those, maybe plug those, you know,
Speaker 1: I would plug our fontwork patches, but we just sold
Speaker 1: out of the second batch. It's a it is. We
Speaker 1: didn't think people would care that much, especially the first round,
Speaker 1: and so the second round we only ordered a hundred
Speaker 1: and it's pulled out in a day. Those are supporting
Speaker 1: the resistance in Me and mar right, yes, yes, people
Speaker 1: are getting them by donating directly to Liberate Me and
Speaker 1: mar and then someone sends them a cool while word
Speaker 1: hatch um. And it's one of many fundraisers we've done.
Speaker 1: We recently have done a couple for folks in Ukraine. UM.
Speaker 1: We help them funds an ambulance out there. UM. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the Instagram handle right now. UM. We've also
Speaker 1: done a bunch for like a group in Portland, for example,
Speaker 1: Black and Beyond the Binary. UM. I think we've done
Speaker 1: to actually for Liberate Me and Mar UM, but it's
Speaker 1: just something that you know, we don't do this for money,
Speaker 1: and we also want to support other groups doing things
Speaker 1: that we support, especially like popular fronts that are fighting
Speaker 1: back against authoritarian regimes. UM and hoping that you know,
Speaker 1: if ship hits the fan here, that people will do
Speaker 1: that for us to UM because we really value international
Speaker 1: solidarity and you know, as corny as it is, we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're like we got us, you know, we
Speaker 1: fend us, not George Soros, but um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: something that brings us joy to be able to help
Speaker 1: and um, as mostly anarchists, we really believe that, like,
Speaker 1: we are all that we have and we can't wait
Speaker 1: for someone else to to, you know, a benefactor to
Speaker 1: come and save us, because that ship is just not
Speaker 1: going to happen. Yeah, it's great. Where can folks find
Speaker 1: you on the interweb they want to follow along? We
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram at Yellow dot Peril dot Practical.
Speaker 1: You have to spell it out, I think, because I
Speaker 1: think we're shadow band right now. Our Twitter, regrettably is
Speaker 1: y P T Actual. We also have a website just
Speaker 1: Yellow Peril Tactical dot com. We just took it so
Speaker 1: no one else could. Um, but that's where you can
Speaker 1: mainly find us. We are primarily on Instagram, um, but
Speaker 1: most of our stuff is on Twitter. If you really
Speaker 1: want to see a ship post, go on Twitter. We
Speaker 1: recently got into it with this person and Oregon over
Speaker 1: the gun control measure. Um, and let me tell you
Speaker 1: it was a hoot, but also a little like maddening
Speaker 1: because this guy, Yeah, this guy actually ties into how
Speaker 1: we opened the episode because he was he's a local
Speaker 1: liberal uh thought leader guy who uh saw two pictures
Speaker 1: of people with guns, one of them being fascists and
Speaker 1: one of them being one of y'all and was like,
Speaker 1: clearly these are the same thing. Um, it was a
Speaker 1: good time vote now on one fourteen in my opinion, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're in the state of Oregon. But we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that at a later point. Stephen, Um, you want
Speaker 1: to plug you first off, obviously, really good work UM
Speaker 1: on the panel. I want to plug that for folks
Speaker 1: because I think it is really worth a listen. Um,
Speaker 1: as everyone is here said, there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: historical information in there and uh and and your contributions
Speaker 1: are invaluable. So folks can check that out. If you
Speaker 1: just google Cato Institute Domestic Extremism and Political Violence, you'll
Speaker 1: find it. And how else can people find you? Stephen?
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter. UM, I will
Speaker 1: make sure that my handle is there. It's at Steve
Speaker 1: van Zetti. Ste van Zetti as in the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the two that got killed by the state unjustly. Um.
Speaker 1: Because it's anti Italian discrimination. So um right, digress um,
Speaker 1: the you can find me there. Protean is obviously something
Speaker 1: that I work with, and I would say check that
Speaker 1: out as well. It's at prodi and mag. Uh that
Speaker 1: has a website prodian mag dot com. Um, and anything
Speaker 1: else that you want to know about me you can
Speaker 1: either find on Twitter or Google. There's really only like
Speaker 1: two guys named Stephen Monta Chelli in the entire state
Speaker 1: United States, and the other ones like a C. P
Speaker 1: A in his sixties, so it's just not that one. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can find me there. Excellent. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got to end on a Saco and
Speaker 1: Vanzetti reference. And uh yeah, everybody go help somebody. Could
Speaker 1: it happen here? I don't know, but I get paid
Speaker 1: whether or not we find an answer to that question.
Speaker 1: This has been the introduction to the podcast. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone else, Hello, Hello, good morning afternoon. This is Garrison.
Speaker 1: We have Sharene and we also have our friend prop
Speaker 1: from Hood Politics here. Hello. Greetings, y'all talk to me nice.
Speaker 1: I fully respect the transparency about like, well you get
Speaker 1: paid regardless, yeah, exactly, exactly when or not. We learned
Speaker 1: if it could happen here. Here's the thing. When I
Speaker 1: used to teach high school, which believe it or not,
Speaker 1: I did taught ninth graders. We was like maybe eight
Speaker 1: years apart at the time, and uh uh there was
Speaker 1: at one point and I taught Inner City and it
Speaker 1: was it was at one point, I uh, I got
Speaker 1: this idea from one of my like uh like mentor
Speaker 1: teachers where I was like, okay, check this out. So
Speaker 1: I made you remember overhead transparencies. Yeah, I do for sure.
Speaker 1: So I made one of my check It was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put this because I'm just gonna put
Speaker 1: this up here because like y'all can do your work
Speaker 1: or not. YO said, like I get paid either way.
Speaker 1: I care. That's why I show up and I try
Speaker 1: so hard, you know, but you're not hurting me by
Speaker 1: whatever bellion you're practicing here like this this is who
Speaker 1: ends at three o'clock. At three oh five, I forgot
Speaker 1: everything you said to me, you know, so you're not
Speaker 1: hurting me. Now. If you want to make me earn this,
Speaker 1: then let's get busy, you know. And it was like,
Speaker 1: no man gonna earn this. I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's go to it. You know, I was a great teacher,
Speaker 1: do you know, I mean I may have turned off
Speaker 1: a few people, but I don't know that. Do you
Speaker 1: know what does hurt me proper? What hurt you? Oh? God, Garrett,
Speaker 1: the main streaming eventI semitic rhetoric. Um, you did a
Speaker 1: good job there, Garrison. Great? You know what, you know
Speaker 1: what put putting in for a commendation for you. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get a little trophy from the company for that one. Hey, homie,
Speaker 1: that was Garrison. That was Yeah, so a varsity bro,
Speaker 1: was varsity fan. Unfortunately, today we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: Kanye West. There's a lot of elements to this topic
Speaker 1: of discussion between the media's coverage of what's happened, isn't
Speaker 1: it ye now Garrison? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So the thing is like it like at some point
Speaker 1: probably now I am I have refused to talk about
Speaker 1: same yeah you know, uh and specifically even covering it,
Speaker 1: you know, on the pod. But it's definitely time to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, whose man's is this? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: like come on, somebody can get somebody can get your
Speaker 1: man's here. You know what I'm saying, um, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different kind of parts of this between
Speaker 1: how the media has been covering it the past month,
Speaker 1: his own like history of like attention grabbing spectacle, the
Speaker 1: whole mental health side of things. There's religion has uptakeing
Speaker 1: the meta comments, and how the rights has been reacting.
Speaker 1: There's there's there's a lot a lot of stuff based
Speaker 1: on you know, a few a few not not great statements,
Speaker 1: and a lot of interesting things have revolved around him.
Speaker 1: Just pick your favorite subversive artists from fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: and then picture that person doing this, just like on,
Speaker 1: come on, My favorite subversive artists from fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: might have been Dave Chappelle. You know, my my favorite
Speaker 1: subversive artist from fifteen years ago, it was probably Steve
Speaker 1: from Blues Clues. Hey, Steve remains remains solid. He's yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a hero. Oh wait, no, I'm now seeing on
Speaker 1: Deadline that he has recently embraced white nationalism words tattooed
Speaker 1: on the back of his head next to the blue
Speaker 1: paw print. Oh dear, Steve is fine, he's kidding, that
Speaker 1: didn't happen, but yeah, absolutely, Because you're like and knowing
Speaker 1: all of it's it is, And I hope I'm not.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not co opting this whole show, but
Speaker 1: it's it is. The Tyra Banks clip from America's Top
Speaker 1: Model words like we we believe, we all believed in you,
Speaker 1: just furious, like we got damn it. We believed in you.
Speaker 1: You know yeah yeah. And as the perspective of like
Speaker 1: a younger person who wasn't really around for I guess
Speaker 1: when Kanye was better, this stuff has not been surprising
Speaker 1: to be because I've only been watching him the past decade,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what we're gonna talk about. I
Speaker 1: would it would probably be fair to call me like
Speaker 1: a casual knower of Kanye, but I'm I'm I'm much
Speaker 1: older than you, Garrison, And so I remember George Bush
Speaker 1: doesn't care about black people, which was like, that's the
Speaker 1: height of all that seems that seems accurate. That was
Speaker 1: the high water point when we were like he's for
Speaker 1: the generation, this is this is a new breed, because
Speaker 1: but what's what's what's ill is like it was obviously
Speaker 1: a sign of his manicness. Looking in retrospect, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he was in a manic episode. I mean and the
Speaker 1: other thing is that he really just has a history
Speaker 1: of basic contrarianism, so he'll he'll he'll oppose George W.
Speaker 1: Bush because that's the contrarian thing to do. At the
Speaker 1: moment post on eleven, everyone was very pro Obama. Someone
Speaker 1: said he's gonna be pro Trump because he's gonna he's
Speaker 1: gonna try to be that some of and that's only
Speaker 1: been a pattern throughout his career. It just such to
Speaker 1: see it go ahead. I'm not I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on his music. I wasn't particularly a fan. But the
Speaker 1: thing I know that, like everyone talked about his motherfucker's
Speaker 1: sampled blood on the leaves, like and now that's a
Speaker 1: But also at the time it was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is you know, he's he's he's he's trying to say something.
Speaker 1: And now there's a degree to which it's like, well,
Speaker 1: was that just the most contrarians a move he could
Speaker 1: be making, right, Yeah, And like what you said, prop
Speaker 1: But like initially when this when the when the T
Speaker 1: shirt and stuff was happening at Paris Fashion Week, I
Speaker 1: really did not want to talk about this because I
Speaker 1: thought it was just another one of Kanye's publicity stunts
Speaker 1: kind of in line with his mega hat and Trump
Speaker 1: appearances from a few years ago. And I didn't want
Speaker 1: to like play into the media cycle of just amplifying
Speaker 1: these stunts that Kanye does, which I think kind of
Speaker 1: feeds into and encourages this kind of behavior. But then
Speaker 1: Kanye went on Tucker and started hosting on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and things have gotten a lot worse since then, And
Speaker 1: now I feel like it actually is we should now
Speaker 1: actually talk about this because there's some interesting things going
Speaker 1: on um and ideally we can talk about it in
Speaker 1: a way that's actually useful and that we can gain
Speaker 1: insights from and not just you know, highlighting the bigoted
Speaker 1: and unhinged things that a public figure has said. So
Speaker 1: and I think kind of feigning with shock her surprisement
Speaker 1: at his recent actions and behavior and statements is mostly
Speaker 1: not useful, like as opposed to just like clearly condemning
Speaker 1: bigotry and anti semitism and doing like the platforming and
Speaker 1: also upon this, upon the news of the t shirt
Speaker 1: stunt and the pointless matter stuff and anti semitism, I
Speaker 1: was not actually really surprised because I kind of saw
Speaker 1: this as a natural evolution of the logical progression of
Speaker 1: the type of bit that Kandie has been doing, particularly
Speaker 1: for the past five years, and that's kind of the
Speaker 1: angle that we're going to approach this with. I think
Speaker 1: we should probably start by talking about, well, the types
Speaker 1: of alignments Kanye has had over the course of his
Speaker 1: career towards Christianity and how that kind of reached the
Speaker 1: peak in so you can see the kind of earliest
Speaker 1: tense of this type of thing. It's pretty dumb a
Speaker 1: song like Jesus Walks into Us and four um, and
Speaker 1: then he kind of does some cool stuff. We get
Speaker 1: to the album ease Us, which kind of revolves around
Speaker 1: self like deification. I never expected to hear you say
Speaker 1: Jesus awesome, okay, which is which is a pretty good album,
Speaker 1: and it kind of it's it's it's before he gets
Speaker 1: actually into like Christ. It's it's more like God as
Speaker 1: like a spiritual force that you can interact with and
Speaker 1: you can like align can like align yourself with um
Speaker 1: can I can I fill in the can I fill
Speaker 1: in the absolutely walks area? Yeah? Like important important context
Speaker 1: about Kanye one is understanding how the South Side of
Speaker 1: Chicago is, you know, and it's like to be black.
Speaker 1: There's like, you're not. How do I say? This church
Speaker 1: is as normal as dinner with in in our community,
Speaker 1: specifically in the South side of Chicago. Of course, of course,
Speaker 1: your daddy's a deacon. Of course, your mom teaches Sunday school.
Speaker 1: Of course, the most hardened of criminals will stop and
Speaker 1: talk to mother Johnson when they see her on the
Speaker 1: side of the road because she was your Sunday school teacher,
Speaker 1: you know, so and you still come every Sunday. Like
Speaker 1: it's just such a part so the Christian idea, it's
Speaker 1: such a part, an integral part of our of our community,
Speaker 1: and of course of his because he's just one of us,
Speaker 1: you know, um that of course he's going to do
Speaker 1: a song called Jesus Walks, you know, um of course,
Speaker 1: and of course he actually probably the whole time, believed
Speaker 1: he was a Christian, you know, because of because we
Speaker 1: all are, you know, saying like and unless you come
Speaker 1: from like the f ol I or like Nation Islam
Speaker 1: stuff situation like specifically just what black people were just
Speaker 1: we just went to church, you know. So in all
Speaker 1: of our all of our musicians, you take the greatest
Speaker 1: musicians of any of our times, they used to be
Speaker 1: choir singers, they used to be in the worship band,
Speaker 1: like we just it's just a part of our life,
Speaker 1: you know. So so for him to do that was
Speaker 1: not strange. What was strange was him thinking it was unique.
Speaker 1: That was the part that was so weird about like
Speaker 1: why you think this is there's like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: the aspect of thinking that some of the gospel type
Speaker 1: of stuff he was doing was unique, which yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: it was unique for me on such such a large platform,
Speaker 1: but it was not new. And the the the other
Speaker 1: thing that is different is that there is a difference
Speaker 1: between the type of the type of like black churches
Speaker 1: you're talking about and white Christian evangelical born again very
Speaker 1: different around conversion, which is what he starts getting into.
Speaker 1: And yeah, what he became, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But that's not that's why I was like, let me
Speaker 1: give it. That's so that's why I like, at first,
Speaker 1: and I'm speaking as somebody who also came from like
Speaker 1: a very person of color experience and with Christianity and
Speaker 1: then finding you know, sort of white evangelicalism and thinking
Speaker 1: because we're using the same words that we're talking about
Speaker 1: the same thing, and then about five minutes sitting at
Speaker 1: that table, you're just like, oh oh, you just kind
Speaker 1: of like make the little piece outside and let me
Speaker 1: slide out, because clearly we don't believe the same things.
Speaker 1: You know. I first found your music as I was
Speaker 1: kind of me and my family were exiting evangelicalism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was a very useful kind of depth that
Speaker 1: was still using some familiar language, but it was like
Speaker 1: going in a better direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. So
Speaker 1: I think that the next kind of notable thing is
Speaker 1: the more gospel esque album Life of Pablo, allegedly inspired
Speaker 1: by the life of the biblical Paul. And there's the
Speaker 1: song Ultra Ultra light Beam, which features contemporary gospel superstar
Speaker 1: Kirk Franklin and Chance the Rapper, who is also a
Speaker 1: very open Christian. Yeah. Uh. Then he GANI has a
Speaker 1: few years of dealing with mental health stuff. He gets hospitalized,
Speaker 1: he comes out of the hospital, and then in April,
Speaker 1: he some somewhere around sixteen, he kind of endorses Trump
Speaker 1: kind of um. But then but then in April West
Speaker 1: sends out a series of tweets expressing admiration for Trump,
Speaker 1: including that he felt he was his brother and they
Speaker 1: both have quote dragon energy. Um people like Trance of
Speaker 1: Rapper initially came to West defend saying that black people
Speaker 1: don't have to be Democrats, which he later apologized for,
Speaker 1: and a lot of tweets that were up that are
Speaker 1: now gone. Yes, and then one of the kind of
Speaker 1: worst inclinations of where things are kind of going was
Speaker 1: a fucking TMZ interview which was supposed was which was
Speaker 1: supposed to be about Congye's support of Trump, but then
Speaker 1: he went on to make some pretty gross comments about
Speaker 1: black people choosing to be enslaved. I don't think people
Speaker 1: necessarily understand what happened last week with the Great America
Speaker 1: America great again? Hat What are you trying to do
Speaker 1: with the message you're sending? Well, it was really just
Speaker 1: my subconscious It was a feeling I had, you know,
Speaker 1: like people were taught how to think, we're taught how
Speaker 1: to feel. We don't know how to think for ourselves.
Speaker 1: We don't know how to feel for ourselves. People say
Speaker 1: feel free, but they don't really want us to feel free.
Speaker 1: And uh, I felt a freedom and first of all,
Speaker 1: just doing something that everybody tells you not to do.
Speaker 1: I just loved Trump. Do you hear about slavery for
Speaker 1: four hundred years, for four hundred years, that sounds like
Speaker 1: a choice, Like he was there for four hundred years,
Speaker 1: and it's all of y'all, you know, like it's like
Speaker 1: we're mentally in prison. I like the word prison because
Speaker 1: slavery goes to to direct to the idea of blacks.
Speaker 1: It's like slavery holocaust, Holocaust students, slavery is blacks. So
Speaker 1: prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks
Speaker 1: and whites being one race. Uh, that we're one were
Speaker 1: the human race. And fun fact, like Van who stood
Speaker 1: up to him, I think to this day, especially among
Speaker 1: like black media figures, he's, as far as I can remember,
Speaker 1: like one of the only that confronted him in the
Speaker 1: moment boldly didn't mince his words. You could tell he
Speaker 1: was like almost weeping, because I mean that's the way
Speaker 1: I felt watching it, where it was just like oh
Speaker 1: what do you what are you saying? Like it's just
Speaker 1: it's just so hurtful because you're like you can't believe,
Speaker 1: like come on, man, like drop the act, bro, Like
Speaker 1: now now we're all suffering. It's like it's almost like
Speaker 1: I get I get it. We get it looking back, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even college dropout, that record was just him being Now
Speaker 1: I used to think it was like revolutionary. No, it's
Speaker 1: just him being a contrarian. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: go to college, you know now I know, like, oh man,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as deep as I thought it was. You know,
Speaker 1: so you're thinking, yeah, at the moment, you're like genius,
Speaker 1: Like dark Trested Fantasy was like the most amazing album
Speaker 1: I had ever heard up to that point, brilliant, and yeah,
Speaker 1: thats as you guys are talking. There's like sprinkles of
Speaker 1: religious stuff in that one, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: his stuff and he just takes it one stuff too
Speaker 1: far because I just remember thinking like, oh, this guy's
Speaker 1: a musical genius. And then when you see that genius
Speaker 1: kind of turn on itself, it's just really disappointing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out Van for like fronting him and directly saying
Speaker 1: you're wrong. This hurts and I can't believe you say that,
Speaker 1: and you owe your community and apology. That was pretty dopey.
Speaker 1: So after that incident, he took to Twitter dot com
Speaker 1: to clarify, slash, defend, slash, double down on his slavery
Speaker 1: comments talking about being mentally enslaved and how it's we
Speaker 1: need to you know, this is just an example, like
Speaker 1: and how his comments were just an example of of
Speaker 1: free thought. It's just an idea, and once again I'm
Speaker 1: being attacked for presenting new ideas. And then he ended
Speaker 1: this kind of tweet thread with a fake Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: quote saying I freed a thousand slaves. I could have
Speaker 1: freed a thousand more. Offinitely they knew they were slaves,
Speaker 1: which is not not a real Harriet doubled quote. Now
Speaker 1: that that doesn't seem like a thing she would say
Speaker 1: at all, and all of all the tweets related deleted,
Speaker 1: but it was it was kind of doubling down on
Speaker 1: some of the same rhetoric. And then allegedly, um, some
Speaker 1: of the TMZ staffers have also now come out and
Speaker 1: said that he's said some andy semitic things during during
Speaker 1: the interview that we're cut out. Now that's not verified
Speaker 1: and TMZ is obviously not a great source, um, but
Speaker 1: just an interesting note on him possibly saying some other
Speaker 1: things that people were thought were kind of weird and
Speaker 1: just thought that we may as well just cut this
Speaker 1: out because it doesn't seem super relevant at the time anyway.
Speaker 1: So around the same time in eighteen, Kanye befriended someone
Speaker 1: named Candice Owens, who was at the time the communications
Speaker 1: director for the far right group Turning Point USA, led
Speaker 1: by man with face too small for his head, Charlie
Speaker 1: kirk Um. Kanye tweeted quote that he loved the way
Speaker 1: Candice Owens thinks. Um. Candace Owens basically makes all of
Speaker 1: her money by being paid by rich conservative white men
Speaker 1: to say that racism isn't a problem anymore. Uh. Days
Speaker 1: after his candas owns tweet, when there was the mega
Speaker 1: hat wearing TMZ visit, he was accompanied by to TMZ
Speaker 1: by Candace Owen's. Uh. That's something that a lot of
Speaker 1: people miss is that Owens is Owens is a is
Speaker 1: a core vector point for all of the stuff around
Speaker 1: Kanye UM and much of Kanye's rhetoric in this vein
Speaker 1: of like slavery being thought to control, a lot of
Speaker 1: that directly comes from Owens. That that that's the talking points.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, all of those talking points come directly from
Speaker 1: Owen's which come from her being paid by the Koch brothers.
Speaker 1: UM and then obviously West solidified his position in the
Speaker 1: pro Trump camp with the heavily publicized Whitehouse visit in
Speaker 1: late October eighteen where Kanye give like a ten minute
Speaker 1: long monologue while wearing the Mega hat. And that's fine.
Speaker 1: I love this guy right here. Let me get this guy.
Speaker 1: I love this guy right here. That's really, that's really
Speaker 1: and that's from the heart. I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: you in that position, but that's from the heart. These
Speaker 1: are like the intersections that are being vector in this
Speaker 1: scenario in this thing is like like I said, like
Speaker 1: I didn't, I did not want to cover this, but
Speaker 1: now that it's like it's clearly necessary to do, just
Speaker 1: for even for this context. Like there's a certain I
Speaker 1: I save. I save the word coon, Like coon is
Speaker 1: not something you throw around like that's to me, it's
Speaker 1: the yeah, it is. It's far as far as a
Speaker 1: black person or me as somebody who works in justice
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, it is the worst thing I
Speaker 1: can call you, you know what I'm saying, So like
Speaker 1: I save that term. And and it's because of the
Speaker 1: same reason why it's hard for the totality of our
Speaker 1: of the black community to ever really fully disavow somebody.
Speaker 1: It's because of our history of collective suffering, like are
Speaker 1: we've survived because of our communal protection of each other.
Speaker 1: So even when somebody is losing it, it's just like baby,
Speaker 1: just come home, baby, Okay, listen, No he having a
Speaker 1: bad day, you know. I mean, you just you want
Speaker 1: so much to protect them because you understand how much
Speaker 1: internalized like self hate and racism, how much you internalize
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, so you just want so bad,
Speaker 1: so bad to be like okay, Candice, let's turn the
Speaker 1: cameras off, like you getting your money, right, that's this,
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing, right, you just come on,
Speaker 1: you can tell us, you just give you getting your money,
Speaker 1: just tell us, you know, it's like you know, no,
Speaker 1: fam you don't really believe it's do you? You know?
Speaker 1: And and then we get to be like baby, don't
Speaker 1: get your money like that, like, don't don't get your
Speaker 1: money on based on our suffering like you because you're
Speaker 1: thinking that there's no there's no way, there's no way
Speaker 1: this is really you, you know, and so so so
Speaker 1: when you put those two together, it's like like why
Speaker 1: did it take us so long to disavow R? Kelly?
Speaker 1: Why did it take us so long to this. Why
Speaker 1: is Chris Brown still a star? You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: It's because it's it's because of that. It's just you
Speaker 1: don't ever wanted like you gotta save you gotta save coon.
Speaker 1: You gotta save that for when you really mean it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Uh, for me personally, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just I don't pull that word out off in
Speaker 1: And then there's moments when you're just like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what else to call it, is like, I just you.
Speaker 1: If you if you are selling your own people out
Speaker 1: for the purpose of making money, that's coon, that's coonery.
Speaker 1: Like I don't and it's it's just hard for me
Speaker 1: to say it. But anyway, go on, tell us more
Speaker 1: about Candice Owns, the girl that suited the girl that
Speaker 1: suited her school suit or school board for racism. She dead, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she sure dead. We'll get back to Owens in a bed.
Speaker 1: By the time nineteen started, uh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: when Kanye went public about his born and in conversion
Speaker 1: to Christianity and kind of his full pivot towards the
Speaker 1: I guess mostly kind of untapped mainstream Christian rap market,
Speaker 1: which is kind of I'm going to try to frame
Speaker 1: some of his decisions here as being more monetarily driven,
Speaker 1: then would a lot of people assume because I can
Speaker 1: totally understand these as business choices, especially coming after the
Speaker 1: Trump visit, his his his state of alignment with Trump
Speaker 1: and friendship with Canadace Owens handed him a partially alieneded
Speaker 1: fan base, accompanied by a new wave of fans from
Speaker 1: right wing Christian evangelicals to all right, you know, turning
Speaker 1: point you was, say, daily wire type supporters. And then
Speaker 1: by the beginning of twenty nineteen, West kind of tamped
Speaker 1: down on some of his explicit Trumpian political persona type stuff,
Speaker 1: and in its place came this weekly pseudo Christian gathering
Speaker 1: known as the Sunday Service, just like a weekly mostly
Speaker 1: invite only, choir packed music gathering that changes locations every week.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that properties owned by Kanye sometimes that churches outdoors
Speaker 1: all all around the country. Yes see. And this is
Speaker 1: this is where things get uncomfortably start to get uncomfortably culty.
Speaker 1: This is where things get quite culty. And it's like
Speaker 1: and and and and and don't get it, like, let
Speaker 1: me not, let me not cap They were objectively dope
Speaker 1: like as as music concerned, these are objective. And that's
Speaker 1: and that's the hard part about Kanye, where it's just like, look,
Speaker 1: you go back, you go back a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: That was not untrue. If people's temple, they had great artists,
Speaker 1: they put on great music. That was a big part
Speaker 1: of their appeal. And and and Kanye for Sunday's Service
Speaker 1: hired a lot of extremely talented people to lead up
Speaker 1: those programs that yeah, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: like legendary gospel singers, you know, and very recognizable names.
Speaker 1: And again giving that that his history and context, and
Speaker 1: then the context is just Black people in general. Part
Speaker 1: of it felt like at the time, Okay, he's trying
Speaker 1: to return to his roots. It's like this is what
Speaker 1: you grew up in, and you realized, like maybe you've
Speaker 1: gone too far. Maybe it's like I'm so far into
Speaker 1: this Hollywood world, you know, I'm starting to like So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm gonna do my best to like like
Speaker 1: anyone does, like, let me return back to what I
Speaker 1: know was the safest moment in my life, and it
Speaker 1: was Sunday Services. So it's like I gave him the
Speaker 1: benefit I am. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: Because it's like, that's what we all do. You return home,
Speaker 1: you start praying again. You know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 1: just would I would totally believe that if it weren't
Speaker 1: for the fact that he tried to trademark the terms
Speaker 1: Sunday Services, right Like, once you start doing that, you're like, huh,
Speaker 1: I wonder what's actually going on a minute. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: performers and attendees had to sign and D A S
Speaker 1: and here to a strict address code that changed every week. Um.
Speaker 1: The service featured gospel inspired remixes of classic songs from
Speaker 1: different genres, and also strike choir led gospel tunes with
Speaker 1: the occasional biblical servant, often often given by like a
Speaker 1: white guy in his thirties or sometimes Kanye Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 1: It's probably mostly known for attracting celebrities to come and
Speaker 1: then also playing at Coachella in t Yeah, well there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with Coachella, so yeah nothing nothing ever bad's
Speaker 1: half of that Coachella there, and they're just normal booking
Speaker 1: promoters that are just looking at numbers and saying these
Speaker 1: people will buy tickets. So I know I showed this
Speaker 1: to you, Garrison prop have you ever seen the movie, Um, Marjo, No,
Speaker 1: I have not. There's a couple of it's about the
Speaker 1: evangelical movement right at the start of the religious right, okay,
Speaker 1: the Fallwell Days and everything, And there's a couple of
Speaker 1: moments that show an early megachurch with a majority black
Speaker 1: congregation and incredible singers and incredible music acts and then
Speaker 1: a bunch of like old white people running things and
Speaker 1: taking all the money. Um, I don't know, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: makes me think about that. I don't know entirely. The
Speaker 1: and the thing is like, like I said, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: obviously as a fan of the show, you know I'm familiar,
Speaker 1: you know, getting same with your your history and even
Speaker 1: you describing your history of church is just like that's
Speaker 1: just not my experience, Like that wasn't the church we
Speaker 1: were in, because I was just in a whole different tradition.
Speaker 1: So when you when you come across and I like,
Speaker 1: I can't stress this enough, when you come across you know,
Speaker 1: the Nashville of it all, the like the CCM of
Speaker 1: it all, like in in and these bigger, you know, suburban,
Speaker 1: mega white churches like you again you think you're saying
Speaker 1: the same thing, like you you just it's this weird
Speaker 1: like and I know one of the things for me
Speaker 1: was like and then Oscar Grant happened, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And then Mike Brown happened, and then I'm
Speaker 1: like and then you realize like, oh yeah, no, we're not,
Speaker 1: We're not. And then that begins. Then you start questioning
Speaker 1: your all background, like dude, well like well what did
Speaker 1: we believe? And we was kids, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And then looking at the Sunday looking at this Sunday service,
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, this is this is youth group.
Speaker 1: That's we did a youth group. You just you know,
Speaker 1: you get a good singer and they remix a Jodacye
Speaker 1: song and just praise in it. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is You're just singing up a
Speaker 1: pop song and you're just giving it Christian words. This
Speaker 1: isn't clever, Like you know, we've we've been doing this,
Speaker 1: you know. And and but then like like yeah, like
Speaker 1: the same thing like once you exit that like you
Speaker 1: know that subculture and you start like breathing the air
Speaker 1: and you're just like, oh, so you so you're telling
Speaker 1: me Muslims don't have horns and aren't you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, going to immediately going to, well, it's not
Speaker 1: like that. It turns out there just wonderful human beings
Speaker 1: that believe beautiful things. Then you start looking back and
Speaker 1: you're going, damn, maybe I was kind of maybe I
Speaker 1: did kind of drink that cool aid, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about, you know, when we're talking about
Speaker 1: how kind of the white suburban church can be sometimes
Speaker 1: saying the same words but also be very different. We'll
Speaker 1: be talking about Joel Osteen in a little bit. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: oh yes, yes, the smile and prata like I'm telling
Speaker 1: you dig like you just you just and then yeah,
Speaker 1: once you once, once the veil comes off and you
Speaker 1: realize like the way these people are talking to you.
Speaker 1: And for me, it was like, oh shit, you use
Speaker 1: the same the same words you're using about my experience,
Speaker 1: you're using about the queer community, I'm using about the
Speaker 1: trans community. And then you start going, oh ship, oh okay,
Speaker 1: oh it's on now you know what I'm saying. Now
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, nah, I'm cool on all this. Let
Speaker 1: me let me go, let me go to Ethiopia, you know,
Speaker 1: just let me see what y'all think about this, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, any anyway, yeah, that that that that aspect
Speaker 1: and then I mean, I'm I'm I'm rambling because it's
Speaker 1: such it's so close to home. This Kanye said, is
Speaker 1: so close to home that like, you're like, because I
Speaker 1: can see how you'd fall for it. It's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say. I can see how he'd fall for it,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of at the height of his Sunday
Speaker 1: Service stuff in twenty nine is when Kanye started openly
Speaker 1: talking about his born again conversion to Christianity. I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote a Fox News article quote, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you must be born again. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian
Speaker 1: shared their Christian faith in a big way over this weekend.
Speaker 1: Adam Tyson, a pastor from the southern California, told Fox
Speaker 1: News recently that he's been leading West in a Bible
Speaker 1: study for months now and would quote teach from God's
Speaker 1: Word about how salvation is only by grace alone, through
Speaker 1: faith alone, in Christ alone. Great cutting edge journalism. I
Speaker 1: also reformed Calvinist talk. Yeah, it is always interesting and
Speaker 1: I guess meaningless because they don't have to be consistent.
Speaker 1: But I can remember when Kanye said what he said
Speaker 1: about George Bush after Katrina and the degree to which
Speaker 1: Fox News treated him like a fucking ghoul, like like
Speaker 1: the incarnation. Some of the cruelest and most racist ship
Speaker 1: I ever saw on Fox News was focused around that.
Speaker 1: But no, now he's now he's publicly praying, so like
Speaker 1: he's back on our side. We're all good. You know?
Speaker 1: That was that clip was It was around the time
Speaker 1: of like ring tones. It was my ring tone. I'm
Speaker 1: saying George Bush doesn't care about black people. That was
Speaker 1: my ring tone. One of those things. Fucking somebody needed
Speaker 1: to say it. Somebody needed to say it. Somebody needed
Speaker 1: to say it. Yo. And then when you see like
Speaker 1: out of y'all remember this, but George George Bush did
Speaker 1: a post like presidential interview and they asked him like,
Speaker 1: what was your like lowest point in when your president?
Speaker 1: He was like when Kanye said I didn't care about
Speaker 1: black people, Like not the multiple invasions, not the two
Speaker 1: times you invaded foreign country, none of that, none of
Speaker 1: a war crimes, none of that cool. When you said
Speaker 1: you won't care about black people, that is I I
Speaker 1: gotta say though, that's also kind of because I remember
Speaker 1: when he said that how happy everybody was, just because
Speaker 1: it was nice to see George Bush sad. But it's
Speaker 1: also kind of another harbinger of well, that's maybe too
Speaker 1: much cultural power for one man should have all that
Speaker 1: we got there. Yeah, because definitely added inside knew how
Speaker 1: to make guess it definitely added to Kanye's cash because
Speaker 1: it was like, bro, you you did it. You took
Speaker 1: down a president. Yeah, you know the last rapper town
Speaker 1: the president. Yes, the last rapper to take down the
Speaker 1: president was easy and iced tea, like it took a
Speaker 1: long time before we could get somebody lay easy. We're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, the Jerry Curl juice dripping on
Speaker 1: the White House like that's that's eat, that's easy, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And then you know with body
Speaker 1: counting cop killer from iced tea, like that was the
Speaker 1: last time anybody was able to take out a president,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm like, you didn't you and the
Speaker 1: annals a history now, fam that's what we thought at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think I think stuff like that made him think.
Speaker 1: He's like he transcended blackness the same way thinks he has.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I think that mentality plays,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, a lot into the Messiah complex that
Speaker 1: he clearly has. Yeah. After the Kim kar Ashian baptism
Speaker 1: and the Adam Tyson Bible study groups, Kanye started talking
Speaker 1: much more openly about the like the evangelical style born
Speaker 1: again conversion that he had in t While at the
Speaker 1: biggest mega church in the country based out of Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: Kanye talked about his recent conversion to Christianity to the
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand people president at the churches regular Sunday service,
Speaker 1: Kanye declared that he no longer cares for fame and money,
Speaker 1: but it's only in the service of God. And in
Speaker 1: conversation with the celebrity pastor Joel Osteen at the church,
Speaker 1: Kanye said, quote, the only superstar is Jesus, and I
Speaker 1: know that God has been calling me for a long
Speaker 1: time and the devil has been distracting me for the
Speaker 1: long time. Here's a pro tip. The only time you'll
Speaker 1: ever hear someone say I no longer care for money,
Speaker 1: it's because their riches God right as they have enough
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, you have more than you could spend
Speaker 1: in a in a radio interview, Kanye into into detail
Speaker 1: about his conversion, saying that he began reading the Bible
Speaker 1: during his hospitalization for mental health issues and started a
Speaker 1: quote writing and copying out Bible versus which is not Listen, y'all.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to be just like blatantly anti Bible,
Speaker 1: but if you're in the hospital for mental issues, they
Speaker 1: should let people they should not let you access any
Speaker 1: religious text at all, like any any religious text. This
Speaker 1: is but like, like this whole the story is it
Speaker 1: is standard inner city church talk, like this is par
Speaker 1: for the course. You're like, look, dude, you know, you
Speaker 1: go up and you give you give your testimony and
Speaker 1: testimony service. You know, I was listen, I was outside,
Speaker 1: I was doing all the gangs. I was with all
Speaker 1: the girls. And then one day I was high, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in nine gangs and I was and I
Speaker 1: was at a four day binger and I just looked
Speaker 1: up and I said, God, if you could get me
Speaker 1: out of this, you know. And then over in the
Speaker 1: corner I saw Bible like it's it's standard, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there's so much about it that standard. Also, just
Speaker 1: to Evangela again, I brought up the whole. I no
Speaker 1: longer care about money. But every one of these rich
Speaker 1: megachurch pastors who is making hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: a year will have speeches where they're like, I don't
Speaker 1: care the money means nothing to me. It's all for
Speaker 1: God everything, like is the only real star up here?
Speaker 1: Like it's it's it's all very again if you're I
Speaker 1: think this hit people like a brick who aren't familiar
Speaker 1: having had experienced, particularly like strains of Southern Christianity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the way Kanye has been talking makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. But it's also I think that chunk of
Speaker 1: people were all flumeexed by the black Israelism stuff, which
Speaker 1: I'm guessing we're gonna talk. Yeah, that that's more North Beast.
Speaker 1: And yes, that the Hebrews were like stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go, so stay there A lot of thoughts. So
Speaker 1: around this time in nineteen is when Kanye announced that
Speaker 1: he's no longer making secular music, which is a term
Speaker 1: I heard a lot as a kid music music Absolutely not, no,
Speaker 1: no way, that's worldly, man worldly. When the last time
Speaker 1: I heard the phrase worldly, Yes, yeah's worldly. I'm in
Speaker 1: the world. That's right, that's right. So this led to
Speaker 1: his late twenty nineteen album Jesus Is King. It's objectively
Speaker 1: it's a good alfl um it is, but it's also
Speaker 1: borderline Christian dominionist in some themes. Um. The very first
Speaker 1: words in the album are God is King, we are
Speaker 1: the Soldiers um, And that song ends with the Army
Speaker 1: of God and we are the Truth um. So you
Speaker 1: know that that goes into the entire ideas about like
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God where the soldiers. So in this idea,
Speaker 1: there's there's like there's this battle between the antagonism against
Speaker 1: the godly community from the forces of spiritual darkness, and
Speaker 1: you know, shout out and woo woo's in there. There's
Speaker 1: for every Christian rapper of the world who had this
Speaker 1: guy make one one record and then cover everybody's charts,
Speaker 1: so now no one cares about your how you've been
Speaker 1: serving at these like you know camp Canna cooks, you know,
Speaker 1: rap it in these twelve year old white kids and
Speaker 1: trying to get your trying to get your albums out,
Speaker 1: and then this will Kanye just cleans up your whole genre.
Speaker 1: He had the pretty funny song, in my opinion, closed
Speaker 1: on Sunday. You might check fil A, which I think
Speaker 1: is funny. Now that is that's actually pretty good. But
Speaker 1: the man is talented. No one's arguing about it's also
Speaker 1: probably sincere because saw it ends with Jesus, listen and obey.
Speaker 1: So like it's you know, um no, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's it's funny. It's funny that it is. There's
Speaker 1: this there's this like with hip hop, you know, as
Speaker 1: a rapper, there's this like fine line between clever bars
Speaker 1: and dad jokes like that it's you you you gotta
Speaker 1: teeter on that. And I was like, yo, you are
Speaker 1: dancing on that on that border with this one, you know. So,
Speaker 1: Evangelicals kind of embraced Kanye in this period. Some were
Speaker 1: obviously skeptical based on him being a black person and
Speaker 1: his in his general past, but overall a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of people were happy to have kind of to
Speaker 1: use him as a token figure almost um Kanye in
Speaker 1: in a In a Guardian piece titled Kanye West is
Speaker 1: spreading the Gospel of white evangelicals, Malika Habali writes, quote,
Speaker 1: like other black conservatives, the rapper and designer down plays
Speaker 1: racism while promoting bootstrap virtue signaling while signifying black cultural
Speaker 1: and religious traditions. His album is peppered with samples of
Speaker 1: Black church staples like James Cleveland's God Is West advances
Speaker 1: the gospel of white evangelicals. Although he has challenged conventions
Speaker 1: in nearly every aspect of his artistic life, Kanye West
Speaker 1: has been born again as a conservative, and that that
Speaker 1: whole article is a really good piece kind of going
Speaker 1: into how how specifically he's the type of thing he's
Speaker 1: engaging with is distinct from like the Black church tradition,
Speaker 1: and it's just like Joel Osteen shiit alut and then
Speaker 1: the hill all exactly exactly do you cover Hill? Are
Speaker 1: we gonna talk about Hill Song at all? I don't
Speaker 1: have anything of Hill Song in this script. The script
Speaker 1: is already too long. It might it might need to
Speaker 1: be a two parter at this point. Will probably do
Speaker 1: Hill Song on bTB at some point. Hill Song was
Speaker 1: a big part of my childhood. Yea is a big
Speaker 1: part of the whole fascism. It's yeah, I really feel
Speaker 1: like I really feel like just as just secular, just
Speaker 1: just the idea of just like secular, like academia. Anybody
Speaker 1: who studies culture. I feel like the effects of something
Speaker 1: like a hill song is always siloed into this like
Speaker 1: study of religion, you know what I mean, This is
Speaker 1: just this state, but like really the cultural societal impact
Speaker 1: global like of something like a hill song stretches so
Speaker 1: far past just a theological or religious thing. I think.
Speaker 1: I don't think people really understand like the influence something
Speaker 1: like a hill song would have. And just like any
Speaker 1: other thing, it's like, you know, a sward in there,
Speaker 1: mess cool people there, you know what I'm saying, go
Speaker 1: on me, you know what I mean. There's some stuff
Speaker 1: that I was just like, all right, yeah, y'all weird
Speaker 1: those but you know, but generally it's like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you just be DMX went to Hillsong, New York,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like, so this the type
Speaker 1: of influence over so much of the even just pop music.
Speaker 1: It's like you'll understand like like top you know, number
Speaker 1: of Top forty pop songs were actually written by their
Speaker 1: worship band, like just stuff like that. Like that, the
Speaker 1: effects of something like a hill song, I feel like,
Speaker 1: is grossly under under reported and underrated. Another interesting note
Speaker 1: um the University of Virginia professor Ashton Crawley wrote for
Speaker 1: NPR and saying, quote, Kanye West has used the concept
Speaker 1: of salvation to disallow thoughtful engagement with his politics because
Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting sidebar to kind of everything
Speaker 1: we've talked about, especially with his with his more evangelical
Speaker 1: stuff coming directly after his Trump stuff. UM. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on inside Kanye's head, nor
Speaker 1: can I judge his sincerity of faith, but I can
Speaker 1: certainly see the business aspect of brownding yourself as basically
Speaker 1: the first like extremely mainstream Christian rap artist in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: I can totally I can see from a business perspective
Speaker 1: what happened in with his politics. I can I can
Speaker 1: see how this may have been a gamble that he took.
Speaker 1: Um so throughout after his Sunday service can of era,
Speaker 1: Kanye was kind of running for president, but like not really.
Speaker 1: It mostly seems to be a publicity thing. Um. His
Speaker 1: campaign obviously did not result in him becoming naming president,
Speaker 1: but it did result in his wife divorcing him in
Speaker 1: favor of Pete Davidson. Uh. The most notable aspect of
Speaker 1: his campaign is in July, at a rally in North Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Kanye broke down into here is as he
Speaker 1: as he claimed that him and his wife had discussed
Speaker 1: aboarding their first child. UM. This allegedly at his wife
Speaker 1: mortified and quote deeply worried over Kanye's mental state, which
Speaker 1: eventually led to their divorce. Kanye continued and continues to
Speaker 1: focus on abortion. UM, but he continued to talk about
Speaker 1: that throughout his quote unquote campaign and in interviews. UM.
Speaker 1: Later that September, he said that God revealed to him,
Speaker 1: quote the black genocide that is abortion. Um. God revealed
Speaker 1: that to him. Is this the same line? Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: say this. I don't have a lot of nice things
Speaker 1: or a lot to say at all about Kim Kardashian,
Speaker 1: But one of the first thing I thought back when
Speaker 1: he got institutionalized during his mental health outbreak is like, oh,
Speaker 1: people actually care about him, Like he actually has people
Speaker 1: in his life who love him and are making him
Speaker 1: seek help. UM, which a lot of very famous people
Speaker 1: who have you know, psychotic episodes and stuff don't don't
Speaker 1: have that. Right. No one around them is willing to
Speaker 1: be critical enough to be like, you need help, right, now, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem like she really tried to help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to think that, like like on you on
Speaker 1: our like bingo card, that the adult in the room
Speaker 1: was going to be Kim Kardashian. Yeah, he would have
Speaker 1: not predicted that, you know her, her actions in the
Speaker 1: marriage make sense to me. Yeah. So with all of
Speaker 1: that context, this finally leads us to our main topic
Speaker 1: of discussion. We haven't got there yet. Recent actions cove
Speaker 1: and s leaked to white supremacy and anti Semitism. So
Speaker 1: this most recent circus started at the beginning of October
Speaker 1: during Paris Fashion Week, where Kanye literally hand in hand
Speaker 1: with far right media personality kendas Owen's debuted his new
Speaker 1: line of T shirts while wearing a long sleeve that
Speaker 1: read White Lives Matter. Now this is this The slogan
Speaker 1: is obviously response to blm UM, but the more formal
Speaker 1: like White Lives Matter movement is is like an explicitly
Speaker 1: neo Nazi group tied to the area in resistance society,
Speaker 1: the National Socialist movement and the loyal white nights of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Kan. So it's like the the actual
Speaker 1: group is explicitly like Nazis, but obviously the slogan is
Speaker 1: not it's easy to coup with the slogan white Lives matter,
Speaker 1: Like it's not like that's not like where did he
Speaker 1: get that from? Like? Come on? So Kanye's promotion of
Speaker 1: the slogan was obviously celebrated by many neo fascist online celebrities.
Speaker 1: Nick Fuentez of America first forwarded the post, saying that
Speaker 1: quote anti white racism and white Lives matter are now mainstream.
Speaker 1: This is an unambiguous win. Um and then A. Tucker
Speaker 1: was very quick to do a segment on his show
Speaker 1: where he wondered what the T shirt was really about.
Speaker 1: Days ago, during Action Week in Paris, West, accompanied by
Speaker 1: his friend Candice Owens, unveiled a T shirt that read
Speaker 1: simply white Lives Matter. The response from the fashion industry
Speaker 1: in international media was instantaneous and uniform shock, horror rage.
Speaker 1: There was no excuse for this, thundered The New York Times.
Speaker 1: West is legitimizing extremism, shrieked Rolling Stone, etcetera, etcetera. What
Speaker 1: was strikingly missing from the coverage, whoever, was any explanation
Speaker 1: for why West did this? What was the T shirt about?
Speaker 1: No one seemed to think to ask him, much less
Speaker 1: to listen to what he had to say. Instead, the
Speaker 1: enemies of his ideas dismissed West, as they have for years,
Speaker 1: as mentally ill, too crazy to take seriously. Look away,
Speaker 1: ignore him. He's a mental patient. There's nothing to see here.
Speaker 1: I don't know who's who's to say, who who's to say?
Speaker 1: Really surprised all the all Lives Matter people weren't in
Speaker 1: such an uproar about that. Yeah. The next Monday, Kanye
Speaker 1: wrote on Instagram, quote everyone knows that Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: was a scam. Now it's over your welcome unquote. This
Speaker 1: is this is this is right. This is like direct
Speaker 1: Candace Owen's ship in a way that will explain later.
Speaker 1: Um but so, a few days after Kanye and models
Speaker 1: for his new uh Easy lineup don the White Lives
Speaker 1: Matter t shirts at Paris Fashion Week, he himself made
Speaker 1: an appearance, um to quote Rolling Stone on the show
Speaker 1: Where White Lives Matter the Most, Tucker Carlson's Fox News show,
Speaker 1: Tuck Across It Tonight. Honestly, solid, solid turn of phrase. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a good way to write that. Good. Thank
Speaker 1: thank you, comrade rolling Stone. So you made reference to
Speaker 1: the white Lives Matter T shirt she brought out at
Speaker 1: Paris Fashion Week. Why did you do that? And what
Speaker 1: did it mean? You know, I did I do certain
Speaker 1: things from a feeling. I like, I just I just
Speaker 1: channeled the energy. It just feels right. It's using a
Speaker 1: gut instinct, a connection with God and just brilliance. You know,
Speaker 1: because if you ask, like Tanya Harding how she did
Speaker 1: the triple flip or the triple spin, she was in
Speaker 1: so much practice that when it was time for her
Speaker 1: to skate in a in a competitive format, it just happened.
Speaker 1: Like it happened outside of practice, that happened in the
Speaker 1: real format. And that's what happened. That's what's happening. Is
Speaker 1: God is like preparing us for the real for the
Speaker 1: real battles, and we are we are in a battle
Speaker 1: with the media, like the majority of the media has
Speaker 1: a godless agenda. Oh that's a brilliant so uh. In
Speaker 1: the cliff, he talks about this idea coming to him
Speaker 1: as like a feeling. Um. This is basically the same
Speaker 1: explanation that he gave for wearing the Mega hat. It's
Speaker 1: like a spontaneous gut instinct or feeling. The spontaneous decision
Speaker 1: to make model and sell over priced printed T shirts
Speaker 1: that about like wearing a kilt. I remember for one
Speaker 1: of the records, he said he had that feeling over
Speaker 1: that he was going to do it in Chicago because
Speaker 1: he wanted to set young black man free. So he's
Speaker 1: gonna wear a kilt. Uh. He also said when he
Speaker 1: was going to run for president that it just happened
Speaker 1: in the shower and he just started laughing and he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonnaround for president. I'm gonna be the president.
Speaker 1: I don't like not believe him that these exact like
Speaker 1: come this way like exactly, Like, yeah, that probably, but
Speaker 1: it's it's funny to frame the decision to like do
Speaker 1: these very planned out things as just a single, like
Speaker 1: gut gut moment of spontaneous instinct, because making and producing
Speaker 1: T shirts takes like it's like a process. And he
Speaker 1: talked about as if he decided to do this like
Speaker 1: right before going on stage at Paris Fashion Week, which like, no,
Speaker 1: like this was like a decision that you made and
Speaker 1: you then took steps to execute um. So in then
Speaker 1: in that section of the interview, Kanye did go on
Speaker 1: to dismiss the assertion that his behavior is a result
Speaker 1: of any mental health issues. Um. Then, in a segment
Speaker 1: talking about Lizzo and body positivity, Tucker and Kanye had
Speaker 1: this exchange referencing body weight being demonic and a part
Speaker 1: of quote, black genocide. It's actually clinically unhealthy and for
Speaker 1: people to owe to promote that. Um, it's said it's demonic.
Speaker 1: You know what would I ask you? I've noticed this? Also,
Speaker 1: why do you think they would want to promote unhealthiness
Speaker 1: among the population. It's a genocide of the black race.
Speaker 1: They want to kill us in any way they can.
Speaker 1: Kanye then goes on to talk about like abortion also
Speaker 1: being black genocide, which he has been talking a lot
Speaker 1: about in the past few weeks. Um, Yeah, that Lizzo clip, Like, man,
Speaker 1: it's that was like just like I mean like I
Speaker 1: can only wait, I can only think of like vulgar
Speaker 1: phrases to describe it where it's just like it just
Speaker 1: it just kicked me in my balls, dude, like we're
Speaker 1: already on the ground. Just that's what if it's just
Speaker 1: felt like a ball stomp or it's just like you
Speaker 1: don't have to come on, man, you're a you're down,
Speaker 1: bad bro. Like, really, I got nothing, man, Like, why
Speaker 1: are you going to I'm gonna like, it's exhausting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm trying to say. It's exhausting. Were just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of all of the coverage is exhausting, and feeding
Speaker 1: in and like, the feeding into it as media spectacle
Speaker 1: only encourages this type of like unhealthy behavior and it
Speaker 1: does not help. Like it it doesn't help to be
Speaker 1: a regular person on social media having like strangers interact
Speaker 1: with you in a weird way, let alone, if if
Speaker 1: you're one of the most famous people in the world, like,
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not healthy. I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: from New Republic, and this is kind of about his
Speaker 1: White Lives Matter shirt and his initial Tucker Carlson appearance
Speaker 1: quote little more than a troll, another tiresome and mediocre
Speaker 1: provocation to stirrup attention by using a contrarian slogan that
Speaker 1: until now was mostly associated with far right white supremacists.
Speaker 1: West has in recent years made more waves with his
Speaker 1: efforts to trigger the libs than he has with his music.
Speaker 1: White Lives Matters is still gonna associated with hate groups,
Speaker 1: but he got what he sought attention and amplification from
Speaker 1: Republicans and right wing media, West earned to sit down
Speaker 1: with Fox News on Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about
Speaker 1: his boy Trump and the response he has received his
Speaker 1: overall negaification. Carlson was hardly alone and celebrating West for
Speaker 1: not only rejecting Black Lives matter, but promoting the same
Speaker 1: sense of white grievance and victimization that he has trumpeted
Speaker 1: on his Fox News program for years. The Republican House
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee Twitter account spent hours slabbing over the interview,
Speaker 1: taking a victory lap of sorts for It's a new
Speaker 1: generation of edge Lords and the A tweet from the
Speaker 1: the Judiciary gop account is still up that just reads
Speaker 1: Kanye period elon period Trump period, which my god, if
Speaker 1: that's the state of the of the Republican Party, like
Speaker 1: this your king yah ah. So at first, Kanye appeared
Speaker 1: to relish in the T shirt controversy, writing on Instagram
Speaker 1: that my one T shirt took all the attention. After
Speaker 1: the T shirt incident, Adidas said that they were placing
Speaker 1: its lucrative sneaker deal under review. The previous month, Kanye
Speaker 1: exited his deal with the Gap, and you know several
Speaker 1: contemporaries of Kanye did push back on this ship that
Speaker 1: he was pulling um, including a rapper Sean Diddy Combs
Speaker 1: who Can, who condemned the design in a video on
Speaker 1: Instagram and said, don't wear the shirt, don't buy the shirt,
Speaker 1: don't play with the shirt. This is not a joke. Um.
Speaker 1: And what happened next took things to a new level
Speaker 1: of grotesqueness. West spent the next few days spewing anti
Speaker 1: Semitic vitriol online, first on on Instagram, where Kanye posted
Speaker 1: screenshots from a private message exchange between him and Combs
Speaker 1: where he suggested that Combs was being controlled by Jewish people, saying,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use you as an example to show the
Speaker 1: Jewish people that told you to call me that no
Speaker 1: one can threaten or influence me. So obviously not great,
Speaker 1: playing at being influenced by yes bye bye, like by
Speaker 1: fossil fuel billionaires essentially. Um, but yeah, obviously not playing
Speaker 1: not great, playing right into the kind of ideas that
Speaker 1: Jewish people like control into the entertainment industry and like
Speaker 1: have direct influence on what people say, you know, basic
Speaker 1: anti Semitism stuff. Um. So soon after this, his Instagram
Speaker 1: account was suspended, and then after he was locked out
Speaker 1: of his account, Kandie decided to re join Twitter dot
Speaker 1: com after a two year hiatus, and it was welcomed
Speaker 1: back by Elon Musk saying well, welcome back friend um.
Speaker 1: Minutes minutes later, minutes after elon is welcoming of Elon
Speaker 1: of of of minutes minutes later after after Elon's welcoming
Speaker 1: of of of Kanye West, Cannie tweeted, I'm a bit
Speaker 1: sleepy tonight, which is a weird way to open this tweet.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm a bit sleepy tonight. Okay, but
Speaker 1: what but when I wake up, I'm going death con
Speaker 1: three on Jewish people, Jewish jew Jewish people in all caps.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is is that I can't actually be
Speaker 1: anti Semitic because black people are actually jew Also, you guys,
Speaker 1: I don't say the whole word jewey. That was a
Speaker 1: that was a TV joke. That wasn't Garrison being You
Speaker 1: guys have twyted with me and tried to black ball
Speaker 1: anyone who are whoever opposes your agenda, with the follow
Speaker 1: up tweet saying, who do you think created cancel culture?
Speaker 1: Which so that's also Okay, I I do want to
Speaker 1: stop at that. That is a much deeper Nazi reference
Speaker 1: than you might guess. There's a called the culture of Critique.
Speaker 1: There was a deep understanding among the gi Nazis back
Speaker 1: in the twenties and thirties that literary criticism that like
Speaker 1: the idea of sort of cultural criticism, that these were
Speaker 1: all Jewish plots in order to like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: actually similar to a lot of what the rights is today,
Speaker 1: in order to like make white people feel bad and
Speaker 1: shamed about their culture um Nazis. Today, there's a book
Speaker 1: called a culture of the Culture of Critique or a
Speaker 1: culture of Critique that's about the same thing. This is
Speaker 1: actually a really deep idea. And Robert, are you saying
Speaker 1: that the cultural Marxists at the Frankfurt School invented political
Speaker 1: correctness to undermine Western civilization? Now I'm saying that, yes,
Speaker 1: But I'm also saying in a deeper sense that the
Speaker 1: Jews invented the concept of feeling bad about bad things
Speaker 1: in order to make white people feel bad about conquering
Speaker 1: the world, which was the original. That's that's that's the
Speaker 1: o G ship. Before we water this ship down, before
Speaker 1: before it becomes cultural Marxism back when it's good old
Speaker 1: fashioned cultural Bolshevism. Yes, cultur So that's the one version. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the I don't know the iPhone, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. You want you want a BlackBerry racism? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. So this is basically a lot of like
Speaker 1: textbook anti semitism um mixed in with some black Hebrew
Speaker 1: Israelite shit um about you know, being the true chosen
Speaker 1: people of God, kind of akin to like the if
Speaker 1: people listen to the show, they'll they might be familiar
Speaker 1: with like the Nazi Christian identity idea of white Christians
Speaker 1: being the real Israelites. Here, Yeah, it started, so we
Speaker 1: get the start of black Israelism in the Northeast into
Speaker 1: the Midwest. I think it's Kansas and New York City
Speaker 1: are two of the big early cities in the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's number one anti Semitic from the start.
Speaker 1: An awful lot of it is based around like a
Speaker 1: hatred of Jewish people, um. But it's also this like
Speaker 1: idea that there's X number thirteen lost is tribes of
Speaker 1: Israel and then the black people are the lost tribes
Speaker 1: of Israel, and so there would be mixes of like
Speaker 1: taking actual elements of like Hebrew religious worship and uh
Speaker 1: mixing them in with kind of weirder stuff. Anyway, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's has a long history. It is concentrated. Like
Speaker 1: the part of this like if you have ever spent
Speaker 1: time in like New York, like Philly or whatever, you
Speaker 1: have run into black israel Lites on the street like there,
Speaker 1: it's it's a thing that you will encounter. Um, there's
Speaker 1: not a ton of them. I think most essens like
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty thousand, but they're they're very vocal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The phrase now with like most of the Hebrew reals lights.
Speaker 1: It's like the two children in Israel are the black
Speaker 1: Latino and this so called Native American or this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's this this idea and here's where here's where
Speaker 1: it gets tantalizing and complicated in I'm saying this as
Speaker 1: a black man. You know, is you open your Bible
Speaker 1: and at the back of every bible got a map,
Speaker 1: and you're looking at it and you're going, well, is
Speaker 1: where the ship take place? Right? So you're like, well,
Speaker 1: how come y'all only teaching us about Europeans. You only
Speaker 1: talking about every painting got these white people. Everybody. You're
Speaker 1: just like, no, this don't this ship don't make sense,
Speaker 1: this can't be it. And then I'm getting I'm getting
Speaker 1: deep cuts here. It's like you. And then you get
Speaker 1: into the Book of Acts, where it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: the Bible, like where the gospel spreads. And the first
Speaker 1: time they leave, the first time they leave Israel is
Speaker 1: Stephen meeting in Ethiopian, just meeting the Ethiopian Unich, and
Speaker 1: the Ethiopian goes to where where was Moses when Moses?
Speaker 1: Others back in the Exitus story, where was Moses? Where
Speaker 1: did Moses go when he fled? When he fled Egypt,
Speaker 1: he went to Midian, he went to Ethiopia. So you're like,
Speaker 1: this ship took place in Africa, right, and at the time,
Speaker 1: we you still believe like the Sinai Peninsula as North Africa,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're like, these are brown skin people.
Speaker 1: Why is your narrative and everything you tell me about
Speaker 1: white people? So if you still believe, if you were
Speaker 1: still sort of like in all of the story and
Speaker 1: the person thislike this subversive you know, socialist, you know,
Speaker 1: anti imperialistic, ampi, anti empire character of Jesus that you
Speaker 1: know you're Arab and Muslim friends still understand as as
Speaker 1: you know, as he says like a person, then you're like, yo,
Speaker 1: we might be talking about the same man here, and
Speaker 1: he was as brown as us. So and if you're
Speaker 1: like and if you're like the God, you're like, dude,
Speaker 1: the gospel with South we hit, we hit in Ethiopia,
Speaker 1: there's accident the first Christian city, like at some point
Speaker 1: you like, the ship didn't go north until four years later.
Speaker 1: So you you just draw this conclusion that like, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna box me out, my only response, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna box me out of all of the clear history
Speaker 1: that took place among brown skinned people, then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be like, I have no choice but to be like, well,
Speaker 1: fuck y'all, not a true Israel over here. And if
Speaker 1: you read again, if you you can't not possibly be
Speaker 1: black and read the book of Exodus and be like, well, ship,
Speaker 1: that's us. You know what I'm saying. You can't like,
Speaker 1: how do you not see it? You know? So so
Speaker 1: it's it's so alluring, especially again when you go to
Speaker 1: the when the white pass are talking about like, well,
Speaker 1: your poverty is your choice, and hey, well you know,
Speaker 1: and your reform Calvinist person was like, well that was
Speaker 1: the Lord's divine will. You were you know, you were
Speaker 1: divinely ordained, you know, to be suffering people. And at
Speaker 1: least at least you got the Gospel because you were
Speaker 1: a slave. Maybe God was solving. You're like, fuck that
Speaker 1: that can't possibly be to God I'm reading about in
Speaker 1: this book, you know, so you're like, Okay, well I
Speaker 1: guess you know what I'm saying. And then it's like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm ranting on this because I feel like
Speaker 1: like it's especially for this audience to really understand that context.
Speaker 1: You this this street in a lot of ways, like
Speaker 1: it became like this street religion. It gives these young
Speaker 1: men dignity, you know what I'm saying. You're you're offering
Speaker 1: them a sense of history and importance and dignity and
Speaker 1: and and order that we you usually just get from
Speaker 1: the streets. You know what I'm saying. It's not happening
Speaker 1: in the Sunday school because at church that's just oh black,
Speaker 1: that's just old women singing these hymns in the big hats,
Speaker 1: it's like I'm not getting that sort of like that
Speaker 1: that masculine hit, if you will, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So like this a lot of this faith like it
Speaker 1: really it attracts young men because it's like it's like
Speaker 1: we it's like we needed that order, We needed somebody
Speaker 1: to like come and like be a little more military
Speaker 1: about us. But then tied this longer history. Because if
Speaker 1: the only history you hear about yourself is your oppression
Speaker 1: for somebody to be like, no, you've chosen people to God,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be like, well, hell yeah, you know. And
Speaker 1: then again, I can't stress this enough. Part of this
Speaker 1: is in reaction to what white evangelical did by trying
Speaker 1: to erase brown people from the history. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's like I'm I can't. I'm like, that's
Speaker 1: clear he clearly your picture is Michael Angelo's booth thing
Speaker 1: of of that's that's an Italian man like that can't
Speaker 1: possibly be the dude in these books, you know. So
Speaker 1: you like, I mean he was Jesus was black, Like
Speaker 1: I would like you just that's your only conclusion, and
Speaker 1: you like and these people are saying, yeah, you're right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, well, shoot, I'll rock with y'all,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's it's definitely unclear what the
Speaker 1: extent of Kanye's belief and stuff around black Israelite type
Speaker 1: stuff is. He's still has a lot of the evangelical
Speaker 1: type stuff going on and what he's saying, so he
Speaker 1: could have just picked up these types of things from
Speaker 1: cultural osmosis. We'll hear a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: he has to say about this in the next episode,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna have to I'm gonna have to call
Speaker 1: it there. That's going to be a day and join
Speaker 1: us after the weekend for a special special part two
Speaker 1: on on on the Feed talking about more of the same,
Speaker 1: more of the same thing, but getting slightly worse. Um.
Speaker 1: And it turns out when you get kicked out Twitter
Speaker 1: that that doesn't stop you from saying bad things. You
Speaker 1: just start saying that other places. Um. So anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that. I very impressed, Garrison. Hey, we'll be back
Speaker 1: Monday with more episodes every week from now until the
Speaker 1: heat death of the Universe. It could happen here is
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website, cool zone media dot com,
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Speaker 1: find sources for It could happen here, updated monthly at
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