Speaker 1: All Zone Media, Hello and welcome. It could happened here
Speaker 1: the podcast where I take.
Speaker 2: An entire kindline, put it in my mouth at once,
Speaker 2: and then try not to suffocate.
Speaker 1: That's that's what's already happened. You missed that.
Speaker 2: Maybe if you were a subscriber to Cooler Zone Media,
Speaker 2: you would have been you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm not doing that, not doing them with FCC.
Speaker 3: Note, Cooler Zone Media will not provide you access to
Speaker 3: footage of games choking on a client far.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's sounding in a premium package. But we're not
Speaker 2: here today to talk about snacks. Sadly that will get
Speaker 2: another podcast. We are here today to talk about my
Speaker 2: recent trip to the daddy En Gap in Panama. So
Speaker 2: I guess to start off with we should probably explain,
Speaker 2: like do you think me or I need to explain
Speaker 2: like where it.
Speaker 3: Is and what look I I went to school with
Speaker 3: a kid who actually this happened multiple times the more
Speaker 3: I know, I'm thinking back on it, like people who
Speaker 3: thought that the Arabian Peninsula was in Mexico, So like,
Speaker 3: in fact, you need to explain this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, yeah, okay, I'm just imagining that what got
Speaker 2: it mixed up, mixed up with the Yucatan.
Speaker 3: It was really sort of oh wow, incredible stuff happening
Speaker 3: in by schools.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, So for those of you who are not familiar,
Speaker 2: the Dadian Gap is an area between Colombia and Panama
Speaker 2: that has historically, like I've seen a lot of characterizations
Speaker 2: of this which I think erased the existence to indigenous people,
Speaker 2: which shouldn't be shocking given the corporate media, right. But yeah,
Speaker 2: people have lived in this area for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: They have happy and fulfilled lives. They thrive.
Speaker 2: There is no desolate place. It's just a place that
Speaker 2: hasn't made itself amenable to capitalism. Really, it's a place
Speaker 2: between Colombia and Panama where there are no roads, there
Speaker 2: are not navigable rivers. It is extremely mountainous. It's one
Speaker 2: of the most humid places on Earth. It is covered
Speaker 2: in incredibly dense jungle. There are fast flowing rivers which
Speaker 2: you have to cross as you travel there. And for
Speaker 2: about half a million migrants last year, it was the
Speaker 2: only way that they could come from South America to
Speaker 2: Central America and they continue their journey on to North America.
Speaker 3: From a minder saying like, this isn't just people like
Speaker 3: from South America, Like, there's a bunch of other people
Speaker 3: who come into South America because it's easier to get
Speaker 3: in who are taking this route too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: So for most people who are coming to want to
Speaker 2: come to the United States, they can't fly directly the
Speaker 2: United States, right, it's quite rare to get their asylum
Speaker 2: that way, very rare. And there's a HNV Cuba, Haiti,
Speaker 2: Nicaragua Venezuela program which in theory allows that it's backed
Speaker 2: up for like two years. So most people will fly
Speaker 2: to a country in South America. The most regular one
Speaker 2: is Brazil because Brazil doesn't impose visas on countries that
Speaker 2: don't impose visas on it, and then from there they
Speaker 2: begin making their way north. Geography understanders will realize that
Speaker 2: Brazil is a very long way from the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very bad. Like that's that's not good. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not good at all.
Speaker 2: Short of Argentina, you really you really couldn't get that
Speaker 2: much further away, you know, in the continental Southern America.
Speaker 2: So what people tend to do, especially so I spoke
Speaker 2: to just off the top of my head. People from Nepal,
Speaker 2: people from India, people from Venezuela, people from Colombia, people
Speaker 2: from Angola, people from Cameroon, Togo, Iran. I spoke to
Speaker 2: a Kurdish guy that he was from Iran. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think off the top of my head. That's most
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 3: Probably China, I know there's I didn't speak to any
Speaker 3: Chinese migrants.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 2: I went fully prepared with like a machine to translate
Speaker 2: and everything, and I didn't see any Chinese migrants, which
Speaker 2: is quite surprising. Haitian people, of course, the special Locitian people.
Speaker 2: The Chinese were coming through the dairy and gap in
Speaker 2: big numbers.
Speaker 1: Last year.
Speaker 2: The only thing I heard about Chinese migrants was that
Speaker 2: someone had seen the remains of someone who they described
Speaker 2: as Chinese. Yeah. So if you're not familiar with the journey,
Speaker 2: it is the most dangerous part of the migration route
Speaker 2: in the Americas right. It's one of the most dangerous
Speaker 2: migration routes on Earth. People have to walk for between
Speaker 2: two days and a week. I've heard even fifteen days,
Speaker 2: but the accounts I had maxed out a week. There
Speaker 2: is nowhere to get water, there is nowhere to get food.
Speaker 2: You have to walk through mud that can come up
Speaker 2: to your waist, You have to cross rivers that are
Speaker 2: higher than you are tall. You have to climb boulders
Speaker 2: shemier across cliff faces. The accounts I heard and the
Speaker 2: things I saw were pretty horrible, like and we've kind
Speaker 2: of had a fun introduction, but I would rather go
Speaker 2: back to the uncertainty I had of like being in
Speaker 2: Syria last year and knowing that there were bombs falling
Speaker 2: on people every night, then have to see some of
Speaker 2: that stuff again. It's horrific, Like I can't really. I'm
Speaker 2: obviously working on a scripted series and we'll have that
Speaker 2: out soon. But like, in terms of the things that
Speaker 2: we do to each other, a humans like little children
Speaker 2: die in the darying gap all the time. People carry
Speaker 2: their babies across rivers on their shoulders. People carry other
Speaker 2: people's babies when people are too tired from carrying their
Speaker 2: own children.
Speaker 1: And not everyone who enters leaves.
Speaker 2: Right, it's if you drink the water from the river,
Speaker 2: you'll probably die because there are dead bodies and upstream right,
Speaker 2: there's human waste in that river. If you fall and
Speaker 2: break your leg you'll die if you run out of water.
Speaker 2: You're not really in a place where anyone has any
Speaker 2: spare water to give you.
Speaker 1: It's horrific.
Speaker 2: Every single account of the gap that I heard was
Speaker 2: that no one should do it, that it's it's terrible,
Speaker 2: that it's in human, it's like nothing people have ever seen.
Speaker 2: But people don't have a choice, right, it's the only
Speaker 2: way for people I spoke to, probably I have over
Speaker 2: one hundred interviews recorded, you know, I spoke to more
Speaker 2: people than that. The bast bulk of them were from
Speaker 2: Venezuela and a place where I used to live, and like,
Speaker 2: I understand that they lots of them have children, some
Speaker 2: of them are bringing their children, some of them are
Speaker 2: going ahead and trying to send money, right remittances back
Speaker 2: to their children, right, And everyone said the same thing,
Speaker 2: that there's no future for them in their country, that
Speaker 2: they don't see a way of succeeding, of raising their families,
Speaker 2: of having a future for themselves. There I met a
Speaker 2: trans lady from Venezuela who was saying that, like, there
Speaker 2: are legal things in place that won't allow her to
Speaker 2: have her gender affirmed by documents, right, she wasn't able
Speaker 2: to graduate with her degree.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like things are just completely deliberately torpedo.
Speaker 2: Your life just being who you are as yourself. Right,
Speaker 2: people aren't doing this because they want this fictional housing
Speaker 2: assistance or whatever it is that Trump and jadivans. People
Speaker 2: are doing this because they don't see a future for themselves.
Speaker 2: I spoke to Iranian women right who had been on
Speaker 2: the road for nearly a year trying to avoid prosecution
Speaker 2: at home for having participated in protests for like basic
Speaker 2: human rights. Yeah, it's just the things I heard and
Speaker 2: saw were deeply, deeply upsetting, And I.
Speaker 1: Think it's retally important that we.
Speaker 2: I guess, kind of bear witness to this because it
Speaker 2: doesn't really get discussed when the US media talks about migration.
Speaker 2: Maybe if we're lucky, they'll come to the southern border
Speaker 2: for a day, right and do some rassionistic piece on it,
Speaker 2: But like, pretty often they talk about migrants, but they
Speaker 2: don't talk to them, and so, like, I think it's
Speaker 2: important that we talk to them, and I think it's
Speaker 2: important that we face up to the fact that like
Speaker 2: this is a choice that the people who have been
Speaker 2: elected in this country have made. They've decided that the
Speaker 2: only way, For instance, the only place to use CBP
Speaker 2: one right is in southern Mexico or north of Mexico City.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what CVP one is for people who
Speaker 1: don't remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, So CBP one is an app that allows
Speaker 2: people to apply for an interview for asylum.
Speaker 1: Just to sort of skip ahead, I guess people.
Speaker 2: Understand that they have to use CBP one, and they
Speaker 2: understand that they can only do it in Mexico. And
Speaker 2: the people who I met in the Darienna are now
Speaker 2: in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They take a series of buses north. Not all of them,
Speaker 2: I'd explain why, but some of them haven't been able
Speaker 2: to leave Panama yet. They take a series of buses
Speaker 2: north and they get to the Guatemala Mexico boarder and
Speaker 2: they cross in Tapatula and then they work out the
Speaker 2: CBP one is not compatible with the vast majority of
Speaker 2: cell phones. It doesn't work with older Android like Samsung phones.
Speaker 1: Oh my fucking god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it works with iPhones and I didn't see
Speaker 2: a thing or person with an iPhone. If you're wealthy,
Speaker 2: you can avoid the DADDI en right. There are ways
Speaker 2: you can go around in a boat. There are ways
Speaker 2: that you can sort of take a shorter route. The
Speaker 2: route that I was on is the route that people
Speaker 2: who do not have the resources to avoid this dreadful
Speaker 2: journey take. And now they get to Mexico and they
Speaker 2: realize that, yeah, you have to get to Mexico to
Speaker 2: make the application right, and the way to get there
Speaker 2: is to cross the dairy end. And then when you
Speaker 2: get there, you realize that this thing requires you'd have
Speaker 2: a special telephone that you don't have.
Speaker 1: And it's just very bleak.
Speaker 3: It's a level of human evil, both in the sense
Speaker 3: of it has been actively designed like this and in
Speaker 3: the sense that they don't give a shit, like the
Speaker 3: fact that that fucking app doesn't work on Android, it
Speaker 3: doesn't work old or Androids, the fact that the app
Speaker 3: fucking sucks shit like the entire way. Yeah, like everything
Speaker 3: about this, Johnny. It's designed to be painful, to kill people,
Speaker 3: to strip away like the hope that people have. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's and it's designed to do this to like
Speaker 3: attempt to satiate the fucking insane bloodlust of like seven
Speaker 3: dipshits and fucking like rural southern Illinois. And it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: there's literally nothing you can do to ever appease these people.
Speaker 3: The only the only thing that will ever appease them
Speaker 3: is their own death. Like, nothing you're ever going to
Speaker 3: do to these fucking immigrants is ever going to make
Speaker 3: these people like like you could, You could, fucking you
Speaker 3: could put these people in a country that has zero
Speaker 3: immigrants at all, and they would still scream about it.
Speaker 3: There's there's nothing you can fucking do. And people have
Speaker 3: decided that in order to basically people have decided in
Speaker 3: order to try to get like a one percent higher
Speaker 3: margin in an election, they're probably still going to lose,
Speaker 3: going to just fucking inflict inhuman suffering on unbelievably large
Speaker 3: numbers of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I think that's the thing I want people
Speaker 2: to really like grasp is like somebody has made a decision.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should take an ad break here, advertising break, all.
Speaker 1: Right, we're back.
Speaker 2: So specifically, I want to talk about what the US
Speaker 2: is doing right now in Panama, what it started doing
Speaker 2: since July. Right, That's why I wanted to go when
Speaker 2: I did. Panama had to change the presidency in July.
Speaker 2: We have Molina as president now and he's promised to
Speaker 2: close the Darien. Right, if your source was his social media,
Speaker 2: then you would think it was closed. I saw about
Speaker 2: a thousand people a day crossing it. None of them
Speaker 2: had seen a barrier, none of them had seen the
Speaker 2: razor wire. But he's posted about they didn't know that
Speaker 2: it was using. What they did know was that the
Speaker 2: US had an election in November, and everybody wants to
Speaker 2: get here before that. Yeah, you know, I tried to
Speaker 2: explain that, like we actually don't transition power immediately right,
Speaker 2: that that happens in January, but everybody is concerned to
Speaker 2: get here before the election. And what the US is
Speaker 2: doing in Panama is the US is currently funding deportations
Speaker 2: and I like saw that happening firsthand. With this is
Speaker 2: this is honestly one of those things which just really
Speaker 2: fucks me up and like I need to like I
Speaker 2: know it just I tried to record stuff at the time.
Speaker 1: And I just it's all just me saying this sucks.
Speaker 1: This is terrible.
Speaker 3: This like what it looks like is so you leave
Speaker 3: bab Jaqito, right, which is Barjiquito is an indigenous village.
Speaker 3: It's a village of the Ember people who were wonderful.
Speaker 3: There were nothing but kind to me.
Speaker 2: I stayed in their houses for a week and slept
Speaker 2: in my hammock in the house, I shared their food,
Speaker 2: held their little babies like they were incredible and client
Speaker 2: hosts and very grateful to them. From Baljaquito, which is
Speaker 2: this tiny village right. The population of Barjaquito triples every day.
Speaker 2: Five hundred people live there. A thousand people roll up
Speaker 2: every day and then they're transported in dugout canoes, like
Speaker 2: a tiny canoe that is carved out from the trunk
Speaker 2: of a tree.
Speaker 1: They're two stroke bolted on the bag. I think I
Speaker 1: posted a pitch on Twitter. If not, I will do.
Speaker 2: The micros are taken upstream. They pay twenty five bucks
Speaker 2: each and they're taken five hours upstream. If they don't
Speaker 2: have the money, there's three canoes every day that are
Speaker 2: provided for free, and they generally try and make sure
Speaker 2: that all the women and children getting those canoes right.
Speaker 2: One of the things that MBAA has done has made
Speaker 2: everyone wear life jackets just because a lot of these
Speaker 2: people can't swim right. They've been crossing rivers above their heads.
Speaker 2: They told me that they made human chains, right, so
Speaker 2: everybody sort of locks their arms together because the rivers
Speaker 2: wash people away. They're transported from Bajuguesel to a place
Speaker 2: called Lajas Blancas, which is the first migrant reception center
Speaker 2: in Panama. So they're now leaving like they don't have
Speaker 2: reservations in Panama. But they're in the Embra Wunan Cormarka.
Speaker 2: And then when they get there, they're in the dai
Speaker 2: En Commarca. So they're in sort of outside of an
Speaker 2: almost entirely indigenous state of Panama and in like what
Speaker 2: you would consider like Panamanian government custody. I guess when
Speaker 2: they enter in Lahas Blancas, and when they get there,
Speaker 2: they register, right, they show their passport, they do all
Speaker 2: that stuff. And that's where like un has Shelters with
Speaker 2: the Red Cross has a facility there, the highs Has
Speaker 2: of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Global Brigades, all these
Speaker 2: big NGOs that you're used to seeing in these places
Speaker 2: have facilities there. But to leave Las Blancas, they need
Speaker 2: sixty bucks per person to get on a bus, right,
Speaker 2: and if they don't have sixty bucks to get on
Speaker 2: the bus, I was told these buses are owned by
Speaker 2: Panamanian parliamentary deputies.
Speaker 1: But I haven't been able to confirm that unch fucking crush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone is putting fifty five people on a bus,
Speaker 2: taking sixty bucks from each of them, and sending about
Speaker 2: twenty buses a day.
Speaker 1: Like someone is making a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people will remember that one of these buses crashed
Speaker 2: last year, killing forty two migrants. But the really big
Speaker 2: thing is it's not the bus. It's not the ten
Speaker 2: hour bus ride. Like those people are so happy to
Speaker 2: be getting on the bus because they're continuing. It's the
Speaker 2: people who don't have sixty bucks and like, yeah, they've
Speaker 2: made it this far with a combination of whatever savings
Speaker 2: they had.
Speaker 1: And like incredible tenacity.
Speaker 2: Right, Like they pay someone in Columbia obviously to bring
Speaker 2: them so to get to the start of their walk
Speaker 2: in deli En. They leave from neck or Clean, Columbia,
Speaker 2: come across on a lancha like a speedboat, and then
Speaker 2: they walk up to the Columbian border where the guides
Speaker 2: and leave them.
Speaker 1: Now the guides are obviously like this area is controlled by.
Speaker 2: The golf cartel in Columbia, right, so they have safe
Speaker 2: pass through that area. None of them had anything bad
Speaker 2: to say about that area. It's when the guides leave
Speaker 2: them and they're on their own into Panama. That's when
Speaker 2: they didn't have water, they didn't have food because no
Speaker 2: one's told them they need water and food to be fair,
Speaker 2: right like that they weren't. I didn't think it was
Speaker 2: going to take as long as it was, be as
Speaker 2: hard as it was. It's not. So I've learned a
Speaker 2: little bit from tiktoks and stuff, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: bring a bit more. But four days of water is
Speaker 2: a lot of water, Like speaking from experience, backpack in
Speaker 2: the desert. If you don't have the right equipment, it's
Speaker 2: hard to carry. So yeah, shuit is heavy, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: like you do. Like that's the other part, Like.
Speaker 1: If you want four liters a person, right, that's like
Speaker 1: going to be four kilograms and that's a day. So
Speaker 1: most like that. By four days, what is it in pounds?
Speaker 2: Eight point eight pounds, it's four liters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're also carrying this like through the fucking jungle,
Speaker 3: which is just like everything's wet all the time, right,
Speaker 3: you're sweating, you're crossing rivers, your feet are always wet,
Speaker 3: like everyone's feet when they arrived and last blankerts, I
Speaker 3: took pictures of this. But they all have these crappy
Speaker 3: boots that they buy Nika clean Plumbia and every bin
Speaker 3: in Bajiquito is full of these boots because they suck.
Speaker 3: And people like the blisters I saw, and like people
Speaker 3: getting trench foot right, like where the entire skin on
Speaker 3: their foot is just ready to slough off like a glove.
Speaker 3: Like everyone buys these crocs from a vendor in Bajiquito there,
Speaker 3: but like they can get through all that. They everyone
Speaker 3: who I met in Bajo Chiquito, everyone who I met
Speaker 3: on the trail, had made right. They through tenacity and
Speaker 3: like a lot of people said it like it's a roulette.
Speaker 2: You go in there and you hope for the best.
Speaker 2: Not everyone makes it, but most of them do. So
Speaker 2: the people who had made it get to go to
Speaker 2: Lahas Blancats, right, and if they can't afford the boat
Speaker 2: from Bait to the last Blankers, they can walk. It's
Speaker 2: non fine, it's very hours of walking, right. I mention
Speaker 2: some of those guys one day and I gave them
Speaker 2: water filters stuff.
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to walk.
Speaker 2: With them, but I was able to like talk with them,
Speaker 2: and I spoke to them again when they arrived, right,
Speaker 2: and they get to Last Blancats and they're just if
Speaker 2: they don't have sixty bucks and they don't have it,
Speaker 2: and then they stay there sometimes for months, and this
Speaker 2: is not a place to stay for months. Like they
Speaker 2: have little casitas which they have for like this one
Speaker 2: for unaccompanied children, and then others I think are allocated
Speaker 2: to families. But it's not much more than four walls
Speaker 2: in a roof, and most people don't even get that right.
Speaker 2: Most people are looking for a flat spot to pitch
Speaker 2: the shitty tent that they bought in Colombia. And then
Speaker 2: they're just stuck there. And there's obviously a relatively new policy.
Speaker 2: They used to take five free people per bus, but
Speaker 2: they don't anymore. Like from bar Jigito they have three
Speaker 2: free boats a day, right, But leaving lasast Blancas, if
Speaker 2: you don't have the money, then you don't leave. And
Speaker 2: the people I spoke to there who are stuck there
Speaker 2: are still stuck there. People have been stuck there for
Speaker 2: more than a month. Their children aren't going to school,
Speaker 2: they're sleeping on the ground. If this is not a
Speaker 2: place that's designed to be a long term residence, it's
Speaker 2: designed to be like one night and moving through and
Speaker 2: every day new people arrive who can't afford it, and
Speaker 2: so the population is growing and growing and growing, and
Speaker 2: there seems to be no solution. No one I spoke
Speaker 2: to could point to what they want them to do right,
Speaker 2: Like they're being given free food by the government.
Speaker 1: Some of them said the food wasn't great.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's halal like sometimes some of
Speaker 2: them said they'd seen foods that had pork in it.
Speaker 2: But I didn't see any food to have pork in
Speaker 2: it when I was there, so maybe that's been changed.
Speaker 1: But they're just stuck there. Yeah, there's nothing they can do. Right.
Speaker 2: If they want to have money transferred there, they can
Speaker 2: do it through a local intermediary who charges to twenty
Speaker 2: five percent fee. So now if you don't have sixty yeah,
Speaker 2: like you need seventy five bucks now right to get
Speaker 2: your sixty bucks. Now, multiply that by a family of fire.
Speaker 2: You can start to see why it becomes inaccessible to people.
Speaker 3: And that's that's a lot of money. Like if you're
Speaker 3: in this position, like that's yeah.
Speaker 2: It costs so much more to travel on busesm and
Speaker 2: by foot. Across the Americans and it would to fly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like all of them would love to fly, but they
Speaker 2: can't because we have this system that makes everyone money
Speaker 2: apart from the migrants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like it didn't fucking it didn't fucking
Speaker 3: used to be like this. Like when my family came
Speaker 3: to the US, like we didn't have to like, you know,
Speaker 3: we had a bunch of fucking harrowing shit to like
Speaker 3: flee the Japanese and like get to Taiwan. But it
Speaker 3: was like like when my parents, like and like their
Speaker 3: parents like came to the US, they just they fucking
Speaker 3: flew in. None of this fucking has to be the
Speaker 3: way any of this shit works. It didn't used to
Speaker 3: be the way any of this shit works. And it's
Speaker 3: like like these are people from countries, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, obviously, like my parents were like leading
Speaker 3: from Taiwan to the US, right, which makes it easier,
Speaker 3: but these are also these are people from places that
Speaker 3: the US fucking hates, Yeah, and so like you you
Speaker 3: would expack them to get like at least somewhat similar
Speaker 3: treatment to people who came from like Taiwan, which is
Speaker 3: at the time, you know, like US ally anti China stuff,
Speaker 3: but like, no, we've just decided to just feed the
Speaker 3: people to a fucking meek grinder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it gets me to my next fucking trauma dump,
Speaker 2: the sick an outbreak before the Yeah, yeah they're back.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So yeah, as me I mentioned, right, these are places
Speaker 2: that the US considers to be dictatorial or impressive regimes
Speaker 2: right around Venezuela, Cuba three that come to mind of
Speaker 2: people that I met, right, And so a lot of
Speaker 2: these people have what's called a temporary protected states in
Speaker 2: the US. It doesn't mean that they necessarily can't be deported.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they can, but sometimes it makes it a bit
Speaker 2: harder right to deport to those countries. Panama, it's not
Speaker 2: governed by United States immigration law. Yeah, we gave On
Speaker 2: the day that Molino took office, Alejandro Majorcas, himself the
Speaker 2: child of minrants from Cuba, I believe, went to Panama,
Speaker 2: attended the inauguration, and then announced this six million dollar
Speaker 2: aid package right which the US was going to give
Speaker 2: to fun deportations from Panama directly. And I got to
Speaker 2: see those deportations happening, right, like you'll hear them in
Speaker 2: my scripted series. But like watching somebody take a dad
Speaker 2: away from his baby, or a mother away from her children,
Speaker 2: or one man's brother away from his brother. Like it's
Speaker 2: just heartbreaking. These people have crossed the daddy in right.
Speaker 2: They've undertaken a journey. Like I've done a lot of mountaineering.
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of climbing. I like to fuck
Speaker 2: around outside, but like, I've never done anything where I
Speaker 2: didn't know if I was going to come back. Really,
Speaker 2: and like they've done that. They've taken this incredibly difficult journey.
Speaker 2: And then when they get to the other side, you you, you, you,
Speaker 2: and you, they get picked out and they get deported
Speaker 2: back right on flights that are paid for by your
Speaker 2: tax dollars and my tax dollars. And this includes flights
Speaker 2: to Cuba. This includes flights to Venezuela, right places that
Speaker 2: the US considers to be like dictatorial regimes. And now
Speaker 2: these people are back in Cuba. They're back in Venezuela,
Speaker 2: but their government knows that they tried to leave and
Speaker 2: they've spent all their fucking savings, so they're back in
Speaker 2: square one. I spoke to a few Colombians. They've also
Speaker 2: deported a lot of Colombian people most of the Colombian
Speaker 2: people I spoke to in last Blancats were deported. They
Speaker 2: called all the Colombian nationals to choose the office and
Speaker 2: then these I was told that they were only deporting
Speaker 2: people who had like warrants, like pending cases. But when
Speaker 2: these people got back to Colombia, they were just free
Speaker 2: to go, right, Like if you have a pending case
Speaker 2: and someone delivers you to the government. I'm not an
Speaker 2: expert in Colombian law enforcement, but it seems like that
Speaker 2: would be a good time to prosecute that case. And
Speaker 2: these people tell me that they've been let go. None
Speaker 2: of them told me if they had warrants. Now, like,
Speaker 2: I'm just going off what they said. But that night
Speaker 2: they were texting me pictures themselves in handcuffs. By the
Speaker 2: next day they were back in medine telling me that
Speaker 2: they'd been sent home, including like I was talking to
Speaker 2: a lady just before we recorded, who she doesn't know
Speaker 2: where her children's father, her husband is right, And lots
Speaker 2: of people will have like I guess what's the English translation,
Speaker 2: like free unions, Like when they're like married for legal reasons,
Speaker 2: they don't go and have a wedding, but they're considered
Speaker 2: to be married common law marriage, I guess would be
Speaker 2: the phrase, right, like they've lived together for a number
Speaker 2: of years, share a house, etc. Often have children, but
Speaker 2: they're not like they never had a wedding. So I
Speaker 2: don't know if that document makes difference, But I watched
Speaker 2: people have their children taken out their arms and be
Speaker 2: shoved in the back of trucks and be deported, and like,
Speaker 2: that fucking sucks. That is not something that I want
Speaker 2: to see again. And it happens every single day there,
Speaker 2: and it happens because your taxes are paying for it.
Speaker 2: Didn't used to happen, and now it does, and it's
Speaker 2: just heartbreaking. Like I don't really like it's there's nothing
Speaker 2: you can do. You know that there's no you know,
Speaker 2: I can't do anything to stop it. You can't do
Speaker 2: anything to stop it, right, Like what you can vote
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump, who would like to machine gun every
Speaker 2: asylum secret at the border if you got a chance,
Speaker 2: Or you can vote to Kamala Harris, who has presided
Speaker 2: over record migrant deaths every year of her administration, who's
Speaker 2: sending your money to port people in Panama, who knows
Speaker 2: that the choices that she's made are resulting in like
Speaker 2: death in Panama, death here right, Like there were four
Speaker 2: people who died, and then the heat wave in the
Speaker 2: first week of September, four people who died in o
Speaker 2: Time mount and wilderness in a tiny area ten miles
Speaker 2: across of border in San Diego, and my friends had
Speaker 2: to go insert their bodies, and my friends found their remains,
Speaker 2: and I had to confront the fact that, like, this
Speaker 2: is the toll of the rhetoric, Like this is what
Speaker 2: the rhetoric costs. The other thing I want to mention
Speaker 2: is that like, even in the most desperate moments of
Speaker 2: their lives, everyone looked out for one another in a
Speaker 2: way that like we don't hear. Like one of the
Speaker 2: things that really struck me was that, like everyone's kids
Speaker 2: are just kind of out and about, right, no one's
Speaker 2: particularly afraid of anyone hurting their kids, Like all of
Speaker 2: these kids. And I saw people who had got split
Speaker 2: up in the Gap find each other again in Bahochikito,
Speaker 2: and like, you know, there were strangers who had carried
Speaker 2: someone's children for two days because that other person was
Speaker 2: so tired or they had another child they needed to carry,
Speaker 2: and like, yeah, I'm strangely comfortable, I guess in refugee camps,
Speaker 2: Like I went to Panama City afterwards, and like I
Speaker 2: couldn't have it. It was too much for me, and I
Speaker 2: had to stay in my hotel room and like I
Speaker 2: guess it was just difficult. But like I feel safe
Speaker 2: in those places. I feel comfortable, and like in a
Speaker 2: sense it's well, you see the best of us and
Speaker 2: the worst of us. I guess, like I can't imagine
Speaker 2: being in a place where I know I could lose
Speaker 2: my life if I slip and fall, and then thinking well,
Speaker 2: I've got to carry this little kid.
Speaker 1: Never met this kid before. I don't share a language.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: There was a group from Angola and they'd been carrying
Speaker 2: Venezuelan and children. Right, they can't even talk to one another,
Speaker 2: but they potentially.
Speaker 3: Risk their lives to help. Yeah, it's it's it's pretty
Speaker 3: fucking bleak.
Speaker 2: I'm staying in touch with everyone I met, and they're
Speaker 2: telling me about their journeys to the border. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 2: thing that comes next is eight to nine month delay
Speaker 2: as they apply for a CVP one appointment, And like
Speaker 2: I wish I could offer something hopeful. I guess what
Speaker 2: I'll say is what I always say that, like there
Speaker 2: isn't anyone you can vote for who will fix this,
Speaker 2: Like you can vote for Coil West with Jill Stein,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not going to vote for someone who fucking
Speaker 2: supports the policy sort of creating refugees in Syria, right whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting that that's a solution either. Like the
Speaker 2: things that you need to do are like there is
Speaker 2: a person helping migrants in your community. I spoke to
Speaker 2: a Jesuit shelter. I'll put them in my scripted episode.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not a big religious shelter guy, but these
Speaker 2: guys were fucking great. These guys are saving people's lives
Speaker 2: and making sure that people have the basic necessity like
Speaker 2: literally turning up at the refuge camp and making sure
Speaker 2: everyone had toilet roll and toothbrushes and things that, yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't need for one night, but you're going to
Speaker 2: be there for a month you don't have. You know,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do? Spend five bucks on
Speaker 2: toothbrush and toothpaste, But that's five less bucks you have
Speaker 2: for your bus fare, right So, like I'll put them
Speaker 2: out there. I would love to do a fundraiser, Like
Speaker 2: if anyone can work out how to facilitate transfers to
Speaker 2: migrants who are in the camp for free. That would
Speaker 2: be great, Uh, Like that would be a service that
Speaker 2: would make things considerably easier for people. But the way
Speaker 2: that you fix this is showing up, Like it's showing
Speaker 2: up at the border if you live near the border,
Speaker 2: it's showing up in your community. It's countering this like
Speaker 2: with people in your family and your circle, Like there's
Speaker 2: a tacit agreement. I think in the entire corporate media
Speaker 2: that migrants are humans without rights, Like they're just numbers
Speaker 2: to these people, because I don't see them talking to migrants, right,
Speaker 2: Like these are people who you know, like I help
Speaker 2: them change their babies, I carried their bags for them,
Speaker 2: I played with their kids so they could go take
Speaker 2: a shower like that. They're people just like anyone else.
Speaker 2: Of course they are right that, Like, Yeah, they're important
Speaker 2: to me, and it's fucking miserable to see my tax
Speaker 2: dollars used to make these people suffer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these people should be more important than the fucking
Speaker 3: sons of boat dealers. Who's fucking got the land they
Speaker 3: live because their ancestors fucking shot a bunch of people. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like that's That's what's happening here, is that these people
Speaker 3: who are you know, some of the most courageous people
Speaker 3: in the entire world, are being sacrificed to appease a
Speaker 3: bunch of fucking shits. It's a level of evil that
Speaker 3: is just unfathomable. Yeah, I think, like we really shouldn't.
Speaker 2: I'm somewhat ranting now, but like, yeah, the pivot that
Speaker 2: even the Democrats have done in the last four years,
Speaker 2: right like, those people need to be held accountable for
Speaker 2: what is resulting in like babies dying.
Speaker 1: Like I saw dead kids.
Speaker 2: I saw that because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden whichever
Speaker 2: other fucking Democrat senators and representatives keep voting for this shit,
Speaker 2: decided that it was okay for those babies to die
Speaker 2: because they didn't want Fox News to say mean stuff
Speaker 2: about them or NBC to say mean stuff about them,
Speaker 2: right like, And of course they're trying to move that
Speaker 2: stuff as far away from you as possible. Of course
Speaker 2: they want the deportations to be done in Panama, not here,
Speaker 2: so you don't see it in your community.
Speaker 1: And of course they want people.
Speaker 2: To die a crossing the Darien and not on our
Speaker 2: border because that's removed, and you don't hear it reported
Speaker 2: on right, Like it's not a Venezuelan woman died on Thursday.
Speaker 2: We're recording this on Tuesday, like Wednesday. You don't see
Speaker 2: that reported, right, You don't see that there are little kids'
Speaker 2: bodies in the jungle reported because it's out of sight
Speaker 2: and out of mind, And like, I guess the thing
Speaker 2: you can do is constantly bring it back into people's
Speaker 2: minds and make them accountable for their choices. And like,
Speaker 2: I guess this is the point where the electoralists get
Speaker 2: mad at me. I'm not voting for someone who chose that, yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: and I never could, Like I couldn't live with myself
Speaker 2: if I did. I know a system which reduces our
Speaker 2: political engagement taking a box every four years is asinine
Speaker 2: and child like, Like I would much rather be out
Speaker 2: there every day helping people than voting once every four years.
Speaker 2: And like, you can do both, of course you can.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's not a voting solution for this, Like
Speaker 2: it requires all of us to do a lot of
Speaker 2: work because we're so far down the path which ends
Speaker 2: in a really terrible place. Right, it's already a terrible
Speaker 2: place that these people's lives don't matter, and that their
Speaker 2: children's lives don't matter, and that we shouldn't care if
Speaker 2: they're dying in the jungle. And we've got a lot
Speaker 2: of work to do to get back from that, because
Speaker 2: apparently it's okay with a lot of people in this country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think part of the reason why it's gotten
Speaker 3: this bad is that the social movements that had pushed
Speaker 3: the Democrats in a slightly better direction in the late
Speaker 3: twenty tens stopped social movement thing. So you know, the
Speaker 3: only thing that these people will respond to is like
Speaker 3: they're actually being mass mutilizations and them be feeling politically
Speaker 3: threatened by it. So you know, we've done it before,
Speaker 3: we can do it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The biggest march in this country's history was the March
Speaker 2: of migrants, Right, we can do that again. So many
Speaker 2: of us, myself included, came here to have a chance
Speaker 2: a better future. And like, even if you didn't share
Speaker 2: some solidarity with people like showing up in massive numbers,
Speaker 2: Yet these movement stopped social movementing and people fell out
Speaker 2: of a little things. But like, this shit is important,
Speaker 2: and I think we can build some bridges and we
Speaker 2: need to do something to stop this because it's horrific. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so it's a genocide in Ghaza, like we can.
Speaker 2: We need to do something to stop that too, but
Speaker 2: we're not going to do it through voting.
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