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 gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hello, podcast fans, it's me today,
Speaker 1: it's James. It's Ernie James. We're giving you some updates
Speaker 1: on the UC strike, but we record these before some
Speaker 1: changes happened. Progress, you could call it, maybe it's not progress,
Speaker 1: depends on where you're at a position wise with that.
Speaker 1: But there are two interviews today. One's going to explain
Speaker 1: a little bit about the bargaining and the differences between
Speaker 1: rank and file on the bargaining team. The other one
Speaker 1: is going to explain the very important and radical and
Speaker 1: progressive access needs demands that were made. And it seems
Speaker 1: like ultimately not at least, I'm not on the table
Speaker 1: in this tentative agreement. So that's a tentative agreet out
Speaker 1: for voting right now. If you have been on the
Speaker 1: internet today Saturday, and if you've been on today you
Speaker 1: will have seen it presented as if the strike was over.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily the case, right the contractors up for
Speaker 1: ratification and it's ratified by union members who have to
Speaker 1: vote on it. A number of people who are organizing
Speaker 1: for a no vote, especially people who are in departments
Speaker 1: or parts of the university, which would qualify follower tears
Speaker 1: of pay. The contract has tiered pay, has tiered pay,
Speaker 1: birtht geographically and depict based on what kind of work
Speaker 1: you're doing. Um So a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: left at the bottom of those tears are obviously feeling
Speaker 1: like they've they've been out of strike for five weeks
Speaker 1: and haven't got what they wanted. A lot of people
Speaker 1: who are in those higher tears are also feeling like
Speaker 1: they should be expressing solidarity with their fellow workers at
Speaker 1: the bottom. But you will have seen like a lot
Speaker 1: of reporting. Some of it came up very very quickly
Speaker 1: after the after the attemptive agreement was made, which it's
Speaker 1: odd and perhaps is because the union appears to be
Speaker 1: the union staff. I should say to people who are
Speaker 1: who are making these in the terms some of the
Speaker 1: people who are who are in favor of this contractor
Speaker 1: using a PR company which appears to have maybe seeded
Speaker 1: some stories and some publications, but we can't be sure.
Speaker 1: Certainly they were very quick to press. So I would
Speaker 1: urge you to listen to this as sort of a
Speaker 1: coda to some of what you might be reading. There
Speaker 1: are two things. You can listen to them separately. You
Speaker 1: can listen one after the other. We won't have any
Speaker 1: podcasts for a while over the over the break, so
Speaker 1: I will speak to you again in the new year,
Speaker 1: and I hope you enjoyed both these interviews. Mohammed, can
Speaker 1: you just explain, first of all, tell folks at which
Speaker 1: campus you're at and maybe what you're studying and where
Speaker 1: you are in the in the giant structure that is
Speaker 1: like the U A, W U C S D. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so I'm at you see San Diego. I'm a fifth
Speaker 1: year in the PhD program in the Department of Ethnic Studies.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I specifically study like Muslim racialization and sectarianism
Speaker 1: in the US UM and how that yah, how that
Speaker 1: looks up to like imperialism, settler cornialism, UM gender formations,
Speaker 1: things like that, UM and I suppose my place within this,
Speaker 1: as you say, like the labyrinth of U C S D,
Speaker 1: ANU AW politics. UM. Right now, I'm just a ranking
Speaker 1: final member UM. However, a couple of years ago I
Speaker 1: was UM the unit chair for San Diego, So I
Speaker 1: was actually on the bargaining team previously UM, and that
Speaker 1: was at the beginning of the pandemic UM, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of like COVID bargaining for example, UM, I
Speaker 1: sort of like oversaw that. And prior to that, I
Speaker 1: UM was organizer with the COLA movement and so I
Speaker 1: helped organize the wildcat strike UM GREA at San Diego. Yeah. Nice, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a long history off union ORGANA. It's good. And
Speaker 1: so can you explain to folks a little bit about
Speaker 1: because you mentioned the bargaining team there, right, and maybe
Speaker 1: people wouldn't be familiar with the distinctions in union organization.
Speaker 1: Obviously this is in Italy and in the nineties, so
Speaker 1: you don't bargain with the entire union on mass e sadly,
Speaker 1: but they do. The university meets with a certain group
Speaker 1: of union representatives. So can you explain like who they
Speaker 1: are and how they're selected to start with? Maybe yeah, absolutely, UM.
Speaker 1: So there are essentially two levels of three levels of
Speaker 1: leadership UM within the union. So at the top, in
Speaker 1: terms of statewide leadership, you have the Executive Board UM,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, like president, vice presidents for North
Speaker 1: and South campuses, UM, trustees, treasurers, things like that UM.
Speaker 1: And then you have campus based leadership and that's split
Speaker 1: between head stewards that are apportioned to campuses based on
Speaker 1: their population in size UM. And then you have to
Speaker 1: kind of sort of like head leadership positions, one being
Speaker 1: the unit chair and the other being the recording secretary.
Speaker 1: And so the bargaining team for the whole union is
Speaker 1: composed of the unit chair and the sec from each
Speaker 1: campus UM. And at this time around we've added someone
Speaker 1: from you see, San Francisco. They're usually not represented, like
Speaker 1: in the past bargaining cycles they haven't been, So there
Speaker 1: are now nineteen people on UM the u W two
Speaker 1: eight six five bargaining team, whereas previously there had been
Speaker 1: a team UM. Yeah, and I guess that's sort of
Speaker 1: like final level of of leadership that combines both campus
Speaker 1: level and statewide leadership is what's called the Joint Council UM.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of the hierarchy of the structure of
Speaker 1: the union. Okay, yeah, it's fascinating. They just went to
Speaker 1: an odd number because I want to get onto some
Speaker 1: think next, which is this division like this that I
Speaker 1: think people are calling them b T ten and b
Speaker 1: T nine, right, Yeah, which which could a bit b
Speaker 1: T nine at b T nine if you if you
Speaker 1: didn't have the the UCSF person, which would have been
Speaker 1: a whole larger sort of mess. N Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: would have been great. So what is this division like
Speaker 1: there there are two distinct I guess positions as as
Speaker 1: regards bargaining, So prectually could explain a little bit of that. Yeah, absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I think just you know, this might be obvious,
Speaker 1: but just to preface with the fact that, um, even
Speaker 1: within these so called camps of like b T T
Speaker 1: N b T nine, there's a lot of heterrogen aggy, right.
Speaker 1: And so we saw this voting block emerge in the
Speaker 1: first week of the strike mainly around UM the wages
Speaker 1: demand and how um you know, one of the central
Speaker 1: pieces of that original demand, the way that it was
Speaker 1: crafted was that it was aimed at bringing members out
Speaker 1: of rent burdon and so rent Burton. I'm sure folks
Speaker 1: have talked about this before, but it's defined as paying
Speaker 1: more than of your monthly income in rent. And so
Speaker 1: that translated in terms of our demand to a minimum
Speaker 1: base wage of dollars a year, along with wage increases
Speaker 1: that are attacked on to UM, the increase in like
Speaker 1: the median rental price UM for housing and so uh,
Speaker 1: in that vote, we saw you know, the split emerge
Speaker 1: ten nine, and then we saw UM again this kind
Speaker 1: of split paralleled in the vote to have open or
Speaker 1: closed Bardening sessions and the fact that ten people voted
Speaker 1: to have closed sessions. And again, you know, since then
Speaker 1: another big concession. I'm going to use the term concession,
Speaker 1: even though there's a lot of consternation coming from like
Speaker 1: u AW leadership, because concession is technically when you lose
Speaker 1: something you've already had, you already have. And so when
Speaker 1: it comes to like the Disability and Access article, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, something that we proposed and which you demand,
Speaker 1: that was crafted through and by uh, you know disability
Speaker 1: just as activists and disabled workers was mandatory supervisor training
Speaker 1: and that was dropped UM. And again we saw that
Speaker 1: along the same lines of ten and nine UM and
Speaker 1: so you know, I think ideologically speaking, if I were
Speaker 1: to kind of you know, analyze this and give my
Speaker 1: I take, it's that the nine people I think are
Speaker 1: more committed to UM, I suppose being like representative of
Speaker 1: UH their campus concerns UM. And so, for example, some
Speaker 1: of those b T nine members I was on the
Speaker 1: bargaining team with a few years ago, and you know,
Speaker 1: they and I didn't necessarily agree on a lot of
Speaker 1: issues UM. But now because their campuses have been vocally
Speaker 1: in support of demands like a cost of living adjustment
Speaker 1: of COLA or in support of UM, you know, not
Speaker 1: dropping the amount of child care that we can get
Speaker 1: folks reimbursed for UM. You know, actually listening to their
Speaker 1: membership has caused them to kind of quinde quote side
Speaker 1: with UM other bargaining team members which may have other
Speaker 1: ideological commitments beyond just the contract right and so commitment
Speaker 1: to progressively defunding you see p d R at the
Speaker 1: police department and sort of putting those funds elsewhere within
Speaker 1: the university system UM. And so yeah, I mean I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we see that kind of split and emerge UM,
Speaker 1: you know now with this bargaining cycle. But this is
Speaker 1: also a split that's existed within the union for a while.
Speaker 1: And so you look historically at the contracts cycle, right,
Speaker 1: UM two thousand eleven, and there's always been this kind
Speaker 1: of division, and it's red. It's represented in American labor
Speaker 1: more broadly between kind of like socio political unionism on
Speaker 1: one end and we're like liberal or business unionism on
Speaker 1: the other. And so it's not really at least it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprising to us that a lot of those
Speaker 1: BT ten members or a majority of folks on the
Speaker 1: statewide executive board are aligned with what's called like the
Speaker 1: administrative Caucus at the u a W international level, or
Speaker 1: they're vocally supportive of current UW President Ray Curry. And
Speaker 1: in the latest general elections UM, even though officially the
Speaker 1: local didn't take a stance UM. On social media, there's
Speaker 1: photos of our union president posing with Ray Curry UM
Speaker 1: for the crease ador any team UM. And so there
Speaker 1: are those kind of like larger structural alignments as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course if people are unaware and even yeah,
Speaker 1: but like you said, within the union as a whole,
Speaker 1: like and within the whole American unionization, right, we have
Speaker 1: the a f l C I oh, which includes unions
Speaker 1: which are of police officers. And then we have I
Speaker 1: know that the UCSD locals of you at least so
Speaker 1: you see locals I should say, of u AW have
Speaker 1: made statements about that being an issue, but it's it's
Speaker 1: still a thing that's happening. And yeah, it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: and follow especially in this country, that labor organization is
Speaker 1: always progressive in its in its other politics, right, absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was really cool that a lot of
Speaker 1: the demands that were made were progressive when when the
Speaker 1: star began, right, like there was a cops of campus demand,
Speaker 1: there was access needs demand and things like that, like
Speaker 1: access to childcare for people. And some of them some
Speaker 1: of them were economics, some of them were not economics
Speaker 1: some of them which has always been a thing with
Speaker 1: student organizing. Right, we can go back and I'm not
Speaker 1: really good at masks. We can get back to night
Speaker 1: and we can we can look at like students making
Speaker 1: political demands and that changing the demands that unions made
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. And I think it's cool that
Speaker 1: that you will have those going in. Where are we
Speaker 1: at with the bargaining now? Like it it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like cops are leaving campus from what I can see
Speaker 1: right now, yeah, I think, um, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: complicated right now because we've just recently entered voluntary pre
Speaker 1: impast mediation UM. And so a lot of the big
Speaker 1: outstanding articles wages, childcare, the remission of UH nonresident supplemental tuition,
Speaker 1: which disproportionately affects international students right makes them quota postre
Speaker 1: more costly to the university. UM. So a lot of
Speaker 1: those open things now are being discussed through this mediator UM.
Speaker 1: And I think even within that process, UM, we see
Speaker 1: a lot of the same issues emerging that have been
Speaker 1: present for the entirety of the bargaining processes, which mainly
Speaker 1: is that UM. Again, my position on this is that
Speaker 1: our bargaining team hasn't been pushing enough UM. And you
Speaker 1: see that kind of on two levels. One at the
Speaker 1: actual table UM, there's a lot of passivity. And so
Speaker 1: when you know the barbaining team is kind of explaining
Speaker 1: their decision to membership, it's mainly UM. You know, they're
Speaker 1: saying things like, well, we reduced the wages demand by
Speaker 1: eleven thousand dollars, like right away, because that's what would
Speaker 1: be more amenable to the university. And of course that
Speaker 1: is not true, right because the u C came back
Speaker 1: to us with like a dollar offer something like that,
Speaker 1: like pitifule low um. And so again there's a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, concessionary I think moves UM. And there's
Speaker 1: the desire to to kind of close the gap with
Speaker 1: the university essentially, and again that kind of betrays UM.
Speaker 1: I think a fundamental misunderstanding from our bargaining team that somehow,
Speaker 1: if we are respectable enough, if we present enough rational
Speaker 1: arguments that you see will respect that right, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: sort of like give in to our demands. UM. That
Speaker 1: will somehow goad them to come in our direction. Whereas
Speaker 1: you know, we should see that you see as like
Speaker 1: one of the largest bosses, one of the largest landlords
Speaker 1: in the country. UM. And so of course they're gonna
Speaker 1: try to scures us out of as much as they
Speaker 1: can because that's their function. UM. And so on one end,
Speaker 1: I think we've seen a lot of core demands get dropped.
Speaker 1: We've seen um uh intense like weakening of our position
Speaker 1: as well as the really incredible black transparency UM. And
Speaker 1: so I mentioned before the fact that most bargaining meetings
Speaker 1: or most bargaining sessions have been closed doors. UM. The
Speaker 1: fact that a number of like private like sidebars have
Speaker 1: taken place, and oftentimes membership gets like very vague emails
Speaker 1: or or we're you know, told like progress was made.
Speaker 1: You know, we won certain things, but then the technicality
Speaker 1: of those wins is completely left out of the picture. UM.
Speaker 1: Even more recently, bargaining team members voted to uh, make
Speaker 1: the votes at the table private. And so after dropping
Speaker 1: the coal to demand, you know, folks were upset and
Speaker 1: obviously reaching out to the bargaining team, showing up to
Speaker 1: caucuses and being upset, and so from there, the bargaining
Speaker 1: team framed this as quote court harassment and essentially voted
Speaker 1: to make all the votes private. UM. And so you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of moves like that that, you know,
Speaker 1: make it clear that the union leadership is trying to
Speaker 1: preserve the union rather than preserve its membership right in
Speaker 1: prisoner of the well being of those folks. And so
Speaker 1: I think at the table again we see this kind
Speaker 1: of passive or concessionaire UM strategy. And on the ground,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the strikes at all these campuses,
Speaker 1: we see something similar where you know, the majority of
Speaker 1: the actions that we took in the first two to
Speaker 1: three weeks of the strike was just picketing, right, And obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, the picket is a powerful tool to picket,
Speaker 1: is a very symbolic tool. But in a you know,
Speaker 1: industry like the academy, picketing doesn't serve the same purpose
Speaker 1: as it might like at a factory. Right, we're not
Speaker 1: actually shutting down the workplace. It's a great show of
Speaker 1: force in a way because you have thousands of people out,
Speaker 1: but obviously, when we're being required to sign up for
Speaker 1: twenty hours of picketing to get our strike pay, folks
Speaker 1: get exhausted. We will have you know, like huge marches
Speaker 1: through campus, go to a rally and it will be
Speaker 1: two hours of people talking um and that exhaust people.
Speaker 1: And even when it comes to you know, like you
Speaker 1: see Davis, they had the undergrads actually had like an
Speaker 1: amazing direct action where they blockaded the campus every single
Speaker 1: day um and that of course led to a legal
Speaker 1: response from the university and the union leadership. You know,
Speaker 1: rather than challenge that or you know, take take measures
Speaker 1: to make sure that those folks could organize autonomously of
Speaker 1: them um started uh, like harassing and discipline folks basically
Speaker 1: UM for taking taking part in solidarity actions that may
Speaker 1: push up against the law. UM. And so what we
Speaker 1: see as like a concessionary attitude at the table, I
Speaker 1: think is translated as a very or is translated into
Speaker 1: like respectability politics UM on the ground UM Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I think that's an makeing way of phrasing it. And
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of what what you're definitely suggesting and
Speaker 1: what it seems that we've seen. So when is that
Speaker 1: leave people? And I think some of the things that
Speaker 1: have been suggested to be like in in the sort
Speaker 1: of current proposals both from the union of the university,
Speaker 1: would leave people with a contract that they would find
Speaker 1: I'm guessing unsatisfactory, right, especially after for four and a
Speaker 1: half five weeks of being out of and and possible
Speaker 1: withholding of pay right which we can get onto. But
Speaker 1: where does that leave people? Like what what sort of
Speaker 1: feeling amongst your So obviously you can't speak for the
Speaker 1: rank of file across the whole university, but what's was
Speaker 1: the sort of feeling amongst the rank and file with
Speaker 1: regards to what do we do if we get this
Speaker 1: offer which doesn't give us the things that we went
Speaker 1: out for in the first place. Yeah. UM, I think
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of just polarization around that question. UM.
Speaker 1: I've heard from a number of folks. Unsurprisingly. I think
Speaker 1: people who UM are material at least treated a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Right, we get higher pay already UM from
Speaker 1: the university being all right with it, you know. But
Speaker 1: that's that's the most that I hear. I haven't heard anyone,
Speaker 1: even the most staunch supporter of the union establishment, say
Speaker 1: that this contractor at least what is bound to come
Speaker 1: to the table at this point, is going to be satisfactory,
Speaker 1: is going to actually be desirable. It's just seen as like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the best we can get, and we might
Speaker 1: as well settle in like every sense of the word UM.
Speaker 1: But that being said, there is a large contingent again,
Speaker 1: folks that are totally fine with that, or they're tired
Speaker 1: of striking, or they're seeing a lot of retaliation from
Speaker 1: their supervisors, and the union I think has failed to
Speaker 1: um not only respond to that retaliation and to like
Speaker 1: reensure and empower members, but it's also failed to you know,
Speaker 1: the technical term and organizing would be innoculated. Right. UM,
Speaker 1: there is a huge, in my opinion, organizational failure to
Speaker 1: make clear exactly what could happen to folks when we
Speaker 1: go on strike, or to prepare us to hear the
Speaker 1: talking points from the university UM, and how to you know,
Speaker 1: collectively organize against it, to build up a kind of
Speaker 1: consciousness to resist internalizing that and to say like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to strike because my jobs at risk
Speaker 1: or something. And it's like, yeah, of course, right, that's
Speaker 1: the point, you know, it's like where we're taking that action, UM,
Speaker 1: And so on one end, right, I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: number of reasons as to why, and the kind of
Speaker 1: hinted at that, but there is a large contingent of
Speaker 1: of people who UM would just be okay and they're
Speaker 1: going to vote us. UM. But I also think, right,
Speaker 1: and as I'm sure you know you've you've seen around
Speaker 1: social media or you've talked to other folks who are
Speaker 1: on this side of voting no UM. You know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the consternation there comes again from
Speaker 1: the fact that we've dropped so much UM and kind
Speaker 1: of have left our most vulnerable members out to drive UM.
Speaker 1: So whether that comes from you know, reducing the amount
Speaker 1: of childcare or dependent health care or UM you know
Speaker 1: again dropping those like really core elements of the disability
Speaker 1: and access needs UM articles. When it comes to dropping
Speaker 1: COLA and dropping our wages down to a point where
Speaker 1: we would still be in not just rent burden, but
Speaker 1: severe rent burden. UM. It's been leading a lot of
Speaker 1: folks to, uh, you know, promote the idea that we're
Speaker 1: going to vote no UM regardless because even if the
Speaker 1: remaining articles you know, are better than we expected UM
Speaker 1: and they get tentatively agreed to, there's already too much
Speaker 1: that's been lost to make this uh an adequate contract, right,
Speaker 1: not even great, not even satisfactory, but just adequate. UM.
Speaker 1: And so you know, of course that kind of UH division,
Speaker 1: as you might say, UM, has brought up a lot
Speaker 1: of tensions, especially in the last few days. UM. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think now we're seeing a broader gap
Speaker 1: between these two like sides UM, where there are folks
Speaker 1: that are pretty much again set on voting yes because
Speaker 1: it's good enough UM, and there are other folks who
Speaker 1: are pretty staunching in voting now and trying to build
Speaker 1: up that movement UM. And I think the point we're
Speaker 1: at now at least speaking from that like vote no
Speaker 1: side is that, Um, we really need to outline and
Speaker 1: be transparent with membership where we can go from there,
Speaker 1: Like how do we demystify the process or the process
Speaker 1: the possibility of impasse? Um. You know, that's been a
Speaker 1: concept that's thrown around a lot by UNI leadership and
Speaker 1: is never fully unpacked. Um. And so it's like a
Speaker 1: fearmongering tool that's that's been, in my opinion at least
Speaker 1: like used to subdue member militancy. UM. So that's one issue.
Speaker 1: Another issue is like how do we reopen certain articles?
Speaker 1: How do we build this quote unquote long haul strike
Speaker 1: to gain more than we've already you know, um given
Speaker 1: up at this point, And so I think a lot
Speaker 1: of those technicalities that are up in the air are renewed,
Speaker 1: sort of like areas of organizing focus. UM. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to abandon some of those demands which
Speaker 1: we're not economic. Yeah, those can still be Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess there's my point in really speculating how many
Speaker 1: people will vote yes or no. We'll see once once
Speaker 1: we see the agreement. And yeah, but like can you
Speaker 1: give us an update then on where striking gets some progressively,
Speaker 1: how did it gets longer? Right, people don't want to
Speaker 1: stand on a picket for five weeks, six weeks. They
Speaker 1: don't they want to go home for the holidays. They
Speaker 1: have this pressure that's been leveraged, perhaps unfairly and sometimes
Speaker 1: like erroneously that their students will face immigration or graduation consequences,
Speaker 1: which is largely untrue. So, like, can you talk about
Speaker 1: there's there's a chance that people won't be getting paid
Speaker 1: right in December? Has that happened to any one? What's
Speaker 1: the latest with that? Um SO? A lot of what's
Speaker 1: been going around UM in terms of issues with pay,
Speaker 1: A lot of the news I've seen concerns post docs,
Speaker 1: so folks from the local fifty eight who actually just
Speaker 1: signed an approse that tenantive agreement um SO. The university
Speaker 1: has put out some language implying that they'll retroactively dock
Speaker 1: pay UM and so UM Yeah, I can't like speak
Speaker 1: to the technicalities of that UM but that's definitely a
Speaker 1: concern I've seen floating around UM, and I know that
Speaker 1: they're actively organizing around it. UM for a s c
Speaker 1: S and UH student researchers. UM we none of us
Speaker 1: have been docked pay yet um we all got paid
Speaker 1: for December. Um, in part because I just think the
Speaker 1: university has a really hard time keeping track of who's
Speaker 1: on strike. On top of the fact that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone's already complained to you about
Speaker 1: you see path, but the parallel system that got rolled
Speaker 1: out yeah a few years ago. Um, it's terrible. It's
Speaker 1: an absolutely fucking nightmare. Yeah. Um. And so I think
Speaker 1: it would be a massive achievement for them to even
Speaker 1: be able to withhold folks pay through that system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They struggled to pay people in the first including myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, um yeah, absolutely, and so um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it is it is a real concern. But
Speaker 1: at this point, um, at least to my knowledge, no
Speaker 1: one in five or s r U has been affected
Speaker 1: by by pay withholding. And then let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: the grade withholding, which is now like today, is today
Speaker 1: right that the grades should be doing. Obviously many people
Speaker 1: are not filing those grades, and which again it's another
Speaker 1: example of sue the UC just being a bureaucratic disaster.
Speaker 1: But we can skip past that. So the grades are
Speaker 1: not being being filed, can we talk about some of
Speaker 1: the suggestions that have been made by the university. I
Speaker 1: know one of them was that students on like F
Speaker 1: one visas might face consequences. That's not true, as best
Speaker 1: having been one visa has better understand it, and that
Speaker 1: students on think on grant and scholarships might face consequences.
Speaker 1: So can you explain sort of what they've said and
Speaker 1: then perhaps prehaps offer some insight into into why you
Speaker 1: think that that might be misleading? Yeah? Absolutely, UM, so
Speaker 1: exactly what you're saying. Um, you know, folks and vulnerable
Speaker 1: categories such as people on academic probation or whose financial
Speaker 1: aid is dependent on being in like you know, good
Speaker 1: standing um or yeah, like international students. Um. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of uh fairmongering and misleading information out
Speaker 1: there that these students might be you know, kicked out
Speaker 1: of school, they might be reported, they might um face
Speaker 1: uh you know again like financial consequences. UM. But it's
Speaker 1: important also to recognize that uh having a grade remain blank,
Speaker 1: it doesn't affect folks g p A, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: folks affect folks academic standing um. And for international students, um.
Speaker 1: You know, the best that we understand, and we've actually
Speaker 1: communicated with Universities International students offices and what they say
Speaker 1: is that, UM, it's enrollment that matters, not necessarily having
Speaker 1: the grade, and so UM even if you know, let's
Speaker 1: say like all of someone's grades are withheld, they've still
Speaker 1: enrolled in the requisite number of credits UM, and so
Speaker 1: that that standing in terms of a visa wouldn't be
Speaker 1: affected UM. And the same goes for even something as
Speaker 1: simple as moving onto the next course in a sequence UM,
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, again, the withholding of a grade
Speaker 1: doesn't affect UM that kind of like progress or academic
Speaker 1: standard UM. And as a show like technical note, a
Speaker 1: lot of folks are again concerned that like, well, wouldn't
Speaker 1: this blank grade lead to an incomplete or wouldn't it
Speaker 1: lead to an F UM? And in terms of the incomplete,
Speaker 1: there's a reason why we're not filing everyone with an eye.
Speaker 1: We're leaving the grades blink because an incomplete is costly,
Speaker 1: it's more work for everyone, and so we're avoiding that.
Speaker 1: And UM, blank grades don't default to an F until
Speaker 1: the following semester or following term ends. And so for
Speaker 1: us at U C S D UM since many of
Speaker 1: us are withholding grades. They those blank grades wouldn't turn
Speaker 1: to and F until the end of winter around March.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anyone expects to strike to go
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, it will be truly historical. And yes,
Speaker 1: So how has he had the graduate response been then? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um, it's difficult because I know at certain campuses,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned you see Davis earlier, there's been huge
Speaker 1: undergrad involvement there. UM. At San Diego, I think the
Speaker 1: response has been a bit mixed. UM. I know many
Speaker 1: of my students, for example, we're supportive of the strike UM.
Speaker 1: And within you know, my department Ethnic Studies, we did
Speaker 1: try to get students more involved, Like we held teachings
Speaker 1: UM to get students to come out. And you know
Speaker 1: the class I'm teeing for right now is called Land
Speaker 1: and Labor and so we talked about you know, U, C. S. D,
Speaker 1: right and and the relationship to like colonialism, capitalism, landed
Speaker 1: labor um. And so we've tried to integrate you know,
Speaker 1: not just um, you know, student and engagement and support,
Speaker 1: but also to use this as another form of study, right,
Speaker 1: as a form of study that's not that's outside the
Speaker 1: kind of like bureaucratic mess that is the university with
Speaker 1: its nonsense UM. I think what's difficult at San Diego
Speaker 1: is that, UM, you know, political engagement has historically come
Speaker 1: in waves. Obviously at all universities. Folks come and go,
Speaker 1: but it's particularly acute, I think at San Diego where
Speaker 1: there's massive moments of like upheaval and like folks coming
Speaker 1: out in the thousands, like we saw back in UM
Speaker 1: around the pandemic, around the uprisings UM during the summer,
Speaker 1: around even the Cola movement, right, which was a little
Speaker 1: bit before that, we saw huge numbers of undergrads come out,
Speaker 1: in part because we were able back then at least
Speaker 1: to connect our demands to their concerns. Right. The fact
Speaker 1: that psychological services on campus are horribly underfunded, Right, people
Speaker 1: have to wait a whole quarter to get even the
Speaker 1: intake of planet UM. The fact that again like they're
Speaker 1: getting screwed over with housing just as much as we
Speaker 1: are UM paying you know, over ten or fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year in it for a dorm um. And
Speaker 1: so you know, that connection back then, I think, really
Speaker 1: drew out the undergrads. And that's what's really lacking Now again,
Speaker 1: I think because of the way that the union has
Speaker 1: framed the struggle quite narrowly as not just what affects workers,
Speaker 1: but what what affects the majority of workers. UM, that's
Speaker 1: left out a lot of the broader concerns. That has
Speaker 1: foreclosed a lot of broader critiques of the university. And
Speaker 1: so when it comes to something like the cops off
Speaker 1: campus demand, the fact that we have bargain team members
Speaker 1: at u c l A, for example, literally lie and
Speaker 1: say that it's never been on the table UM, it's
Speaker 1: really indicative of how the union is trying to frame this.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that you know, again those broader
Speaker 1: conversations around the UC being a landlord around them, the
Speaker 1: way that you know, profit it and resources are inequitably
Speaker 1: distributed through the university infrastructure, right, those things drop out
Speaker 1: of the conversation about our strike, UM, and if we
Speaker 1: do bring it up, we're seen as dissidents or something
Speaker 1: like that, or radical UM. And so the fact that
Speaker 1: those things have dropped out, I think has led to
Speaker 1: us seeing the situation like we see at UCSD where
Speaker 1: the undergrads are almost ambivalent, if not hostile, because we
Speaker 1: haven't done a good enough job engaging them. We haven't
Speaker 1: also organized alongside and with them. Um. Rather it's been
Speaker 1: like come support your t A s and not like
Speaker 1: we're fighting together, right, And so it's yeah, it betrayed.
Speaker 1: It gives the impression that this is like a very
Speaker 1: one way um or you know, like an interdirectional form
Speaker 1: of support, where in reality, you know, we should be
Speaker 1: building up those ties of solidarity and that you know,
Speaker 1: we should be focusing not just on winning a contract,
Speaker 1: but then building and sustaining this movement against the university
Speaker 1: in a much larger or broader sense. Yeah, because I'm
Speaker 1: speaking from experience, I know a lot of those undergrads
Speaker 1: feel very disempowered in their relations with the university and
Speaker 1: and some of the demands, like the access needs demand,
Speaker 1: you know, the demand for improved student counseling, psychological services,
Speaker 1: things like that. But that would benefit directly everyone on campus.
Speaker 1: And then it's a shame not to see that. It's
Speaker 1: a shame to see that sort of left to the
Speaker 1: side when I think it could build a more effective movement. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem to go like you said, campus by
Speaker 1: campus department, your your department like has historically been a
Speaker 1: lot more engaged than others. I think it's fair to
Speaker 1: say so. And so we've reached the Christmas break now
Speaker 1: great have been withheld. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought was like sort of a nuclear option or like
Speaker 1: a step up, which he doesn't seem to have been, like,
Speaker 1: it really hasn't done anything. And and the you see
Speaker 1: it entered into the university and the union have entered
Speaker 1: into a voluntary pre impassed mediation. When do you, like,
Speaker 1: if you were just speculating, and when do you think
Speaker 1: we'll see like a resolution, because it's already slipped out
Speaker 1: of coverage, right like if I look at our local
Speaker 1: newspaper that they've stopped reporting on it, which doesn't help absolutely. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I think you know, it's it's difficult to speculate in
Speaker 1: part because as we've seen with past bargaining updates, they
Speaker 1: tend to drop bombshells on us. Um, like with the
Speaker 1: whole coal of demands being you know, severely cut down.
Speaker 1: We found about we found out about that like two
Speaker 1: hours before the bargaining which is out like ten pm.
Speaker 1: And so it's totally possible by like that by the
Speaker 1: end of this week we'll have a tentative agreement, like
Speaker 1: you know, folks have been speculating on that. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me. I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised. UM.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, I I do think that
Speaker 1: we've been able to build up sufficient pressure on the
Speaker 1: union establishment or the leadership UM that I think there
Speaker 1: it might be a bit more hesitant right to take
Speaker 1: that sudden of a move or to kind of come
Speaker 1: out of left field or something like that. UM. And
Speaker 1: so you know, there is a distinct possibility, especially with
Speaker 1: the holidays coming up, that this might go into the
Speaker 1: new year. UM. And obviously that would be like my
Speaker 1: hope to go as long as possible, yea. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's incredibly tough, and I think that's
Speaker 1: causing a lot of anxiety UM. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: a disorganizing energy, right to not know when something like
Speaker 1: this might happen, because there is such an utter lack
Speaker 1: of communication or um, you know, democratic input UM. And
Speaker 1: I think in terms of you know, the the coverage
Speaker 1: or the great strike, UM, what's really unfortunate, I think
Speaker 1: is the way that I I've heard, you know, from
Speaker 1: the horse's mouth, right certain barning team members saying that
Speaker 1: withholding grades isn't an important form or isn't an impactful
Speaker 1: form of labor withholding because the university doesn't care. And
Speaker 1: historically we've seen that they really do care and within
Speaker 1: activity strikes, withholding finals is a massive thing, right, And
Speaker 1: I think that in order to really um realized the
Speaker 1: impact that that will have on the institution, we have
Speaker 1: to go for a few more weeks into the winter quarter. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, right now even to try to um
Speaker 1: build up some more UM. I guess, like you know,
Speaker 1: pr around great withholding UM. There are folks doing research
Speaker 1: and trying to calculate like quantify um what like you know,
Speaker 1: each credit would mean in like real dollars. And then
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, hundreds of students grades are
Speaker 1: being withheld for a three or four hour like three
Speaker 1: or four credit UM class and what that translates to
Speaker 1: into money? Um? And so yeah, yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: we live what the university does, right, it turns its
Speaker 1: capital into into into income essentially through like leveraging its
Speaker 1: credibility for credential and and charging people masses of rent
Speaker 1: for living there increasingly, and you can't take away the
Speaker 1: housing right, which is it's made just so survivingue, but
Speaker 1: you can't take away this this this product. Yeah and
Speaker 1: and and there have been um you know, there are
Speaker 1: a number of petitions out there, for example, UM UH
Speaker 1: for undergrads to request like a reimbursement of their tuition
Speaker 1: for any classes that haven't been held or grades that
Speaker 1: have been withheld UM and I think that's a really
Speaker 1: fantastic way to engage them and to put pressure on
Speaker 1: the university. There's also been UM attempts or at least
Speaker 1: you know, UM some strategizing on on our end on
Speaker 1: how to uh have the grade strike impact the university's
Speaker 1: accreditation UM and so we are trying to look for
Speaker 1: avenues to increase the pressure from this kind of like
Speaker 1: strategic move Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, Yeah. It must be difficult,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Like is you develop relationships with undergraduate and
Speaker 1: especially when you're teaing in your department of class you
Speaker 1: care about. It's a shame to to lose that opportunity
Speaker 1: to talk to people about important things like landed labor.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sure it's difficult to not have that
Speaker 1: chance to even check in at the end of the
Speaker 1: end of the term and just say like that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been fun. What have we learned? Yeah? Absolutely, um,
Speaker 1: And I think you know, for a lot of us
Speaker 1: who are a s c S. You know, we're doing
Speaker 1: this not just for ourselves but for our students, right,
Speaker 1: because we care about education. We recognize that the university
Speaker 1: as an institution is actually corrosive right to a quality education.
Speaker 1: And so absolutely, I think like there is a sense
Speaker 1: of loss. I think the fact that I can't, like
Speaker 1: you're saying, close out my class, the fact that I can't, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really invest in my students the way I
Speaker 1: want and not trying to blame that on the strike,
Speaker 1: but trying to blame that on the conditions that have
Speaker 1: brought us to strike in the first police. Right. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get like full marxistm on me,
Speaker 1: but like, yeah, the further alien atd you are from
Speaker 1: your labor, then the the less that the experiences for
Speaker 1: your undergraduates. And that is definitely a thing that happens
Speaker 1: at the university. You become more and more inlalienated. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the joy dies I say with a PhD in doing
Speaker 1: the work in academia and mohmmed is there anything else
Speaker 1: people should know about the strike like that we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about mm hmm see UM. I I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, one one important thing is that both for
Speaker 1: folks within the university system and from you know, the outside,
Speaker 1: is to kind of place this strike in historic context. UM.
Speaker 1: I think when the union leadership has spoken about this
Speaker 1: at all, it's mainly around the size of the strength,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's it's historic because we have you know,
Speaker 1: forty eight thousand possible strikers UM from throughout the u
Speaker 1: c S. And that's kind of misleading because I think
Speaker 1: the real kind of like historic potential within the struggle
Speaker 1: is UM for example, establishing a precedent of what a
Speaker 1: researcher strike looks like. Part of the reason it's so
Speaker 1: difficult for us to not only you know, mobilize researchers,
Speaker 1: but also you know UM push back against retaliation is
Speaker 1: because there is no set structure for what that kind
Speaker 1: of strike looks like, right, UM. There is no effective
Speaker 1: way that we have to UM counter the possible impacts
Speaker 1: on these people's futures UM. And so I think that
Speaker 1: you know, really emphasizing that to folks is UM is key.
Speaker 1: Another thing is um the cola demand. Right, the fact
Speaker 1: that we are trying to or at least we've tried
Speaker 1: to tack um our wage increases not just to um
Speaker 1: inflation or the consumer price index, but to the median
Speaker 1: increase in rental prices. UM. That would be huge. And
Speaker 1: that's not just big for us as as workers within
Speaker 1: this local but that does set the precedent for all
Speaker 1: workers in the US. And I think that you know
Speaker 1: we really by we, I mean like the union as
Speaker 1: a whole apparatus has not stressed the importance of that
Speaker 1: or the kind of like monumental shift that I could,
Speaker 1: um kind of provoke in the landscape of American labor broadly,
Speaker 1: just so if people aren't aware, Like, like rent in
Speaker 1: California has gone up a way more than double, almost
Speaker 1: almost triple the rate of inflation, and working people people
Speaker 1: who are members of unions by a large tend to
Speaker 1: be people who don't own property, but they tend to
Speaker 1: be people who rent property, right, And I can see
Speaker 1: by your your unfinished concrete ceiling that you're you're renting
Speaker 1: from the UC, which is the biggest landlord in California.
Speaker 1: So like you're right that this is a very historic
Speaker 1: thing is that rent increase for Cola. Is that tried
Speaker 1: to median rent in the state or is it median
Speaker 1: rent across you see rented uh, like like apartments. So
Speaker 1: I think the actual language So this is part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that because it was dropped so quickly
Speaker 1: at the table, we weren't even even able to get
Speaker 1: into the vicissitudes of the demand itself. UM. And so
Speaker 1: from my understanding, the increase would be based on UM
Speaker 1: the like least affordable or essentially the largest increase that
Speaker 1: will see at any of the campuses, and everyone's wage
Speaker 1: would be increased to that when we look at the
Speaker 1: base wage k UM that was tacked onto again a
Speaker 1: kind of like median income or a median rental price
Speaker 1: throughout the state as well. And so actually fifty four
Speaker 1: k would be exactly enough to get me out of
Speaker 1: rent burden. So anything less than that would actually still
Speaker 1: keep me in rent burdon UM And so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: kind of how they Yeah, which rent bedon is it's
Speaker 1: far too normal, I have to think, especially in California. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that and like collective bargaining is tenants as well as
Speaker 1: workers is fascinating, right, Like it's something we've seen, but
Speaker 1: not in a large scale like and and like you
Speaker 1: on on rent strike yet but yes, and as as
Speaker 1: as a side note, yeah, UM, we did have a
Speaker 1: couple of rent strikes in UH within the UC system
Speaker 1: in the past few years at Berkeley at u C
Speaker 1: l A and here UM and so I was actually
Speaker 1: part of organizing UM in the aftermath of COLA at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the pandemic. UM, I helped organize the
Speaker 1: first rent strike UM within h D h U C
Speaker 1: S D grat House UM. And so we have we
Speaker 1: have also seen that. But that's another way that the
Speaker 1: union has kind of limited the scope of this movement.
Speaker 1: Because there's been so much focus on us as only
Speaker 1: workers and the bread and butter issues, we kind of
Speaker 1: lose sight of the way that withholding rent, as you're saying,
Speaker 1: is another way of like really getting at the heart
Speaker 1: of the U c S profit engine. Yeah, yeah, and yes,
Speaker 1: it is a shame that these like yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want to, I think a historical perspective of course, like
Speaker 1: a Paris, it's like the monolith of student political organizing,
Speaker 1: I guess, and student political organizing changing the established structures
Speaker 1: of the left, which which is it's some of what
Speaker 1: you had demanded was very similar to that in a sense,
Speaker 1: and that it was societal and political as much as
Speaker 1: it was an economic right. And American unions tend to
Speaker 1: phrase themselves in terms of respectable liberal politics, not that.
Speaker 1: So it's a shame to see that. Go, I guess absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think you know. This actually came up in
Speaker 1: a in a meeting UM, which kind of astounded me,
Speaker 1: but again didn't on one hand astounded me. Another hand
Speaker 1: was completely sort of like to be expected, which is
Speaker 1: someone saying, we need to make this movement um as
Speaker 1: accessible as possible to workers without an activist bone in
Speaker 1: their body. Um. And so again there's always that appeal
Speaker 1: to the right, always the appeal to the most conservative
Speaker 1: reactionary force, and always at the expense right of the
Speaker 1: folks who are the most vulnerable, always at the expense
Speaker 1: of expanding this movement. And so as you're saying something
Speaker 1: that is more socio and socially and politically engaged, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think most people come activist when they have to
Speaker 1: live in their car because they can't reford to live
Speaker 1: in the EUC housing when they work at the EC.
Speaker 1: But that is not everyone, of course. And all right, Mohammed,
Speaker 1: where can people find you? Do you have social media?
Speaker 1: Do you, as I said, you want to share with
Speaker 1: you first, to share like your unions or um something
Speaker 1: else I guess on on Twitter? Um, I am at
Speaker 1: a Islamo Marxist um and so yeah, yeah, so folks
Speaker 1: can find me there. Um. Otherwise, I mean, if there
Speaker 1: are folks within the u se Um that are organizing, um,
Speaker 1: within any of the like vote no channels, I'm sure
Speaker 1: folks could find their way to me. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think just in general, like following the rank and
Speaker 1: file and COLA associated accounts on on social media, trying
Speaker 1: to you attend as many means as possible, is is
Speaker 1: really how I think folks can get more in tune
Speaker 1: with the struggle. Yes, that's great, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: of your time. I appreciate it. And yeah, best of
Speaker 1: luck with everything. Thanks so much. So. I'm joined today
Speaker 1: by Megan Lynch, who's the founder of and a volunteer
Speaker 1: for u SEE Access Now, which has been one of
Speaker 1: the important bodies lobbying for increased access needs for people
Speaker 1: with disabilities at the u SEE as part of this strike. Hi, Megan,
Speaker 1: how are you doing Hi, I'm doing well. How about
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me great? Thanks, thanks for coming on. Megan.
Speaker 1: Can you explain and maybe explain a little bit about
Speaker 1: you see, access now first and then we can get
Speaker 1: into sort of what the issues were and what the
Speaker 1: demands were. Well, let me start with clarifying what access
Speaker 1: needs are. Generally, I wouldn't want to I want to
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to have more access needs because it
Speaker 1: would mean that I need more things that I need
Speaker 1: to negotiate getting them met. So an access need is, uh,
Speaker 1: I have something that I need somebody to to. You know,
Speaker 1: the inaccessible environment that we have often it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of default inaccessibility, and so having an access needs means that,
Speaker 1: you know, I need to work out how to be
Speaker 1: in that environment. And sometimes you can even be in
Speaker 1: a really well accessible environment, and uh, it would be
Speaker 1: hard for people to meet your access need without again
Speaker 1: trying to come to some kind of agreement. So there's
Speaker 1: a difference between accessibility and access needs and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to clarify that. Thank you. I think that's very important.
Speaker 1: And so could you explain then what what sort of
Speaker 1: issues people were running into before the strike, like what
Speaker 1: what sort of things where they're that limited people's access
Speaker 1: to university spaces or education or work. Well, still very
Speaker 1: much going on, and in fact it's actually increased during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Um the only time where things got a
Speaker 1: little better for some of us is, uh, you know
Speaker 1: in March when everybody you know, and this is what
Speaker 1: often happens, is that something when suddenly people who don't
Speaker 1: identify as disabled needs something, and there's enough of that,
Speaker 1: then there's there's no problem. Nobody has to submit medical documentation,
Speaker 1: nobody has to get special permission. It's really not a
Speaker 1: big rigmarole, right, But uh, when you identify as disabled
Speaker 1: and you say I have this as an access need,
Speaker 1: then suddenly, you know, you get you get the Spanish
Speaker 1: inquisition in terms of whether you you you deserve this
Speaker 1: thing that your tax dollars have been paying for at
Speaker 1: your institution anyway, So, um, it really runs the gamut
Speaker 1: for you know. I guess what I could best talk
Speaker 1: about is my own situation and uh what led to
Speaker 1: the formation of UC access now. So, um, I arrived
Speaker 1: here before the start of fall as a fifty year
Speaker 1: old disabled grad student, So I'm already in a kind
Speaker 1: of unusual position ship by being fifty or four years
Speaker 1: old here and then disabled on top of it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I was set to t a my first quarter here,
Speaker 1: and I could spot even before the quarters started that
Speaker 1: the kinds of cycle recks they have here at UC Davis,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, usually lauded for being quote unquote
Speaker 1: bike friendly. Uh, we're not accessible to me, and that
Speaker 1: they would eventually, you know, I could do it once
Speaker 1: or twice without hurting myself, but over time I was
Speaker 1: gonna be hurt and that would get in the way
Speaker 1: of me being able to do my duties as a
Speaker 1: t A. Not to mention anything I need to do
Speaker 1: for myself, because I was writing, like a lot of
Speaker 1: disabled cyclists, I don't ride the standard upright bicycle. I
Speaker 1: ride a recumbent bicycle with underseat steering, and the recks
Speaker 1: are not usually a big deal. Places I've lived in
Speaker 1: a number of different cities in California, Berkeley, Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: see a lot of places have what are you know
Speaker 1: you acts you know, which is similar kind of to
Speaker 1: a Sheffield rack for foes folks who know those, except
Speaker 1: you know, not quite as big. So it's not like
Speaker 1: it's this special you know, you don't go to a
Speaker 1: special adaptive store for this rack. It is a more
Speaker 1: accessible rack, and most cities are sensibly using them, but
Speaker 1: for here, because despite their bike friendly reputation, they actually
Speaker 1: want to prioritize space for cars. They have made these
Speaker 1: racks that are so close together and not supportive, etcetera,
Speaker 1: that the only part I could ever lock my bike
Speaker 1: too would be the ends, and that's what everybody else
Speaker 1: wants to take first. Um, And it wouldn't even be
Speaker 1: easy to the ends because again, these are really very
Speaker 1: specifically they have wheel wells, and the relationship between the
Speaker 1: locker thing and the wheel well is exactly the space
Speaker 1: of part you would do if you had sort of
Speaker 1: a standard adult size upright bike. And honestly they're not
Speaker 1: even good for people who ride those. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you go and you see Davis subreddit, you will
Speaker 1: see sometimes threads where people are bullying people who want
Speaker 1: to get a cruiser bike because they're like, those things
Speaker 1: take up too much room. No, it's not that they
Speaker 1: didn't take up too much room, it's that the racks
Speaker 1: are very poorly designed. There are things, but they are SUVs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they rather they would rather bully somebody about their choice
Speaker 1: of bike than to say, hey, these are really what
Speaker 1: a waste of taxpayer money to get these these bike
Speaker 1: racks that not only don't work for a lot of
Speaker 1: disabled people, but don't even work for people who are
Speaker 1: riding cargo bikes or using a trailer or you know
Speaker 1: other things you would want to do. So so anyway,
Speaker 1: I went first to the Disabled Students Center here, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, the rationing and policing agency for disabled people.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's amazing to me like this, these
Speaker 1: are the people and they would literally call themselves experts
Speaker 1: on disability and accessibility. And they said to me, gosh,
Speaker 1: it never occurred us that that would need to be accessible.
Speaker 1: This is on a campus where they're trying to encourage
Speaker 1: you to leave your car at home at least some
Speaker 1: of us, right, and uh, and it's also how you
Speaker 1: get to school and to work, right, So why wouldn't
Speaker 1: I need that to be accessible? And so they I
Speaker 1: asked for something as simple as can you sign a letter?
Speaker 1: They wouldn't do it, you know, can you said they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't back me up at all. So then I
Speaker 1: go directly to the Transportation of parking services. They were like,
Speaker 1: it's not covered under a d A, which is not true,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then they were like the solution
Speaker 1: they wanted to pose with it. You know. Eventually when
Speaker 1: I finally after months, got a meeting, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: give us your schedule of classes and will install one
Speaker 1: of these racks at each building you're at. As if
Speaker 1: my schedule isn't going to change each quarter, is that
Speaker 1: a better use of Yeah, is that a better use
Speaker 1: of tax money to send a crew around to like
Speaker 1: to to to Jackhamber Concrete at a different location for
Speaker 1: each quarter of acording to each disabled cyclist class that changes,
Speaker 1: just get the right rack. So that that's when I
Speaker 1: went to the union, and even in the union at
Speaker 1: that time, you know, it was really clear it wasn't
Speaker 1: just with that issue. I had other issues, but this
Speaker 1: was definitely getting in the way of my work as
Speaker 1: a t A because it was hurting my hands very badly,
Speaker 1: and in fact I had fallen a couple of times
Speaker 1: and my bike had fallen on top of me and
Speaker 1: like nobody helps you that, you just sit there watching
Speaker 1: you like a turtle trying to get So there's things
Speaker 1: like that. There's things like um even just the housing
Speaker 1: here in terms of for instance, if I had had
Speaker 1: the luck of having a romantic partner, if I'd had
Speaker 1: the wealth and the ability to choose to have children,
Speaker 1: I would have been able to get grad housing. But
Speaker 1: as a disabled person who has an access need to
Speaker 1: be close to campus, I was I had zero priority whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and so I very nearly ended up starting that quarter
Speaker 1: how thing to live out of my car because you know,
Speaker 1: and I would think it would be pretty clear that
Speaker 1: a fifty four year old disabled grad student might actually have,
Speaker 1: uh maybe have more have fewer options in housing than
Speaker 1: somebody who's in their twenties and isn't disabled. But but
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not saying that parents don't need
Speaker 1: family housing or anything like that, but what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is very clearly I think some disabled people do have
Speaker 1: strong access needs to have accessible housing near campus. And
Speaker 1: that's very much not something that they bothered themselves with
Speaker 1: here at UC Davis. So you know, there's other things
Speaker 1: in terms of online accessibility and other things, but that
Speaker 1: those are the things that that affected me that I
Speaker 1: think are worth mentioning simply because they they're both unusual
Speaker 1: things people don't tend to think of right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, and it is a very uh, it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult system to navigate. Like, like you said, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that's already stood out is
Speaker 1: this this demand for like documenta shoan, frenny, any sort
Speaker 1: of accommodation that you might need that they can make
Speaker 1: it very hard to remember in um, I was teaching
Speaker 1: at UCSD and I shattered my pelvis, uh, and like
Speaker 1: that made moving at all extremely difficult for me, and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't give me a parking pass and like then
Speaker 1: then proceeded to offer me once their diabetes, which is
Speaker 1: a whole like like interesting, like it's sort of calculation
Speaker 1: of which one of those things will definitely stop you walking.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it was extremely sort of humiliating, I
Speaker 1: guess from a personal perspective, and degrading and time consuming
Speaker 1: and unnecessary. And so what were the demands then at
Speaker 1: the start of this strike, right, there was an access
Speaker 1: needs element to the demands being made by the union.
Speaker 1: So perhaps we can go through Maybe first we can
Speaker 1: go through how you went from uh like this bike correct,
Speaker 1: which didn't accommodate but pretty pretty basic need right to
Speaker 1: trans for yourself to campus, how do we get from
Speaker 1: there to the union? Having access needs to minds as
Speaker 1: part of the strike. So as far as you see
Speaker 1: Access Now, it's involvement with it. UM. We went on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and published the demandifesto in
Speaker 1: July of so, uh, the months between you know, the
Speaker 1: fall when I made you know, went through these processes
Speaker 1: and when I finally decided, Okay, nobody's doing anything about this,
Speaker 1: and I don't see any other organizations, so let's you know,
Speaker 1: jump into this um. By July, Uh, you see, Access
Speaker 1: Now was contacted by somebody who was an officer within
Speaker 1: u A W fifty ten and that's the post Doc
Speaker 1: and and Academic Researcher Union, and they had seen our work,
Speaker 1: you know, via social media and whatnot and said, you know,
Speaker 1: we're about to go into contract bargaining and we'd really
Speaker 1: like to talk about disability issues. So we had a
Speaker 1: meeting with them, and we actually had we did a
Speaker 1: presentation also to them, uh for their social justice and
Speaker 1: in our series. But we also had a meeting with
Speaker 1: a number of people from fifty in terms of let's,
Speaker 1: you know, let's think creatively here, let's let's be ambitious
Speaker 1: about what it is, you know, because the thing is
Speaker 1: is that a lot of what people tend to do,
Speaker 1: particularly particularly when they're not disabled, but even some disabled
Speaker 1: people can do this because internalized able ism is a
Speaker 1: really hard to throw off. We're sort of you know,
Speaker 1: and this is true of other oppressions too. You know,
Speaker 1: we're all sort of used to this system that has
Speaker 1: this policing, austerity, etcetera. You know, we all get schooled
Speaker 1: into not hoping for much anymore because we're just so used.
Speaker 1: You know, in my life time, I've lived through decades
Speaker 1: of this kind of regularite bologne. So so it takes
Speaker 1: a while to think big about these things. But that's
Speaker 1: what we were trying to do. And so we sort
Speaker 1: of brainstormed with them as several UC Access Now members
Speaker 1: and several fifty eight ten members in terms of the
Speaker 1: sorts of things that could be uh asking for. And
Speaker 1: so if if there's time and you don't mind, I
Speaker 1: can give you a view of that because the other
Speaker 1: stuff is online. But this isn't so again, this is
Speaker 1: sort of just a spitballing document. But we were like,
Speaker 1: you know, all ads for post doc positions on all platforms,
Speaker 1: they have to be accessible. Now some some of this
Speaker 1: and some of what we're talking about is stuff that
Speaker 1: you see is actually legally obligated to do and just
Speaker 1: has not been doing. Um. That would be one of them.
Speaker 1: UM training. You know, most emergency access plans are not
Speaker 1: made with the input of disabled people, and they don't
Speaker 1: even mention us. So you know, there are considerations for
Speaker 1: accessibility for different types of disabilities, different people. Uh. We
Speaker 1: have several buildings on UC Davis campus here that have
Speaker 1: little placards right in the lobby that's say a they
Speaker 1: say something like, if you depend on uh, visual alarm
Speaker 1: systems in an emergency, please let somebody else know you're
Speaker 1: in this building. Blah blah blah. And it's like even
Speaker 1: the way that's phrased, because you know, quote unquote abled people,
Speaker 1: are you dependent on a sound alarm system to get
Speaker 1: out in a fire. But they but they don't phrase it,
Speaker 1: you know, as dependence when it's for them, right, They
Speaker 1: only phrase it as dependence when it's for somebody who's
Speaker 1: death or hard of hearing. So we've got several buildings
Speaker 1: on campus where they know that it's not up, it's
Speaker 1: not up to even not even just a d A.
Speaker 1: But just like basic human decency, people will die in
Speaker 1: that building. Deaf and hard of hearing, people will not
Speaker 1: know that there's a fire or another emergency alarm system
Speaker 1: going off because we couldn't be bothered to pony up
Speaker 1: for some lights. Um. So that that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: In terms of an emergency action plan, these things have
Speaker 1: to be done. There has to be training not only
Speaker 1: for the supervisors but really for you see itself, because
Speaker 1: the whole system is just you know, a cram full
Speaker 1: of able is um. You know, online working is key
Speaker 1: to accessibility. So it has to be a regular option,
Speaker 1: not just something for the pandemic. It should have been
Speaker 1: the whole time, and it also shouldn't you know, be
Speaker 1: a big burst up to it. There are some and
Speaker 1: you know they're like kind of things you would think
Speaker 1: of as smaller that we put in here simply because
Speaker 1: again we're trying to think creatively, which is you know,
Speaker 1: reimbursements for instance. I mean that's a general problem with
Speaker 1: grad students and whatnot. Is that the university, which has
Speaker 1: far more resources than we do, it's sort of you know,
Speaker 1: taking its time reimbursing us for things that we've had
Speaker 1: to get right, and so the debt is actually being
Speaker 1: heaped onto the people least able to support it. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to disabled people, that is going to
Speaker 1: be even more of a burden because most disabled people
Speaker 1: have a higher cost of living and often have a
Speaker 1: lower income to boot. So we put you know that
Speaker 1: in there. Put in reimbursements for costs incurred working at
Speaker 1: home or or or you know, in other ways remotely
Speaker 1: for an employer. That's section to eight oh two of
Speaker 1: the California Labor Code. Um uh, you know, sick policy
Speaker 1: in terms of like commuter checks, which you know, or
Speaker 1: some other kind of thing for public transit. The child
Speaker 1: care spaces and lactation rooms are accessible because you know
Speaker 1: the union will like lobby for that right, but you
Speaker 1: need to be you need to be express about the
Speaker 1: idea that these things need to be accessible. Like people
Speaker 1: don't think of everything needed to be accessible, but really
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah, and that sends a very sort of
Speaker 1: condescending message about like what you know, different people with
Speaker 1: different diffabilities might or might not be doing at which
Speaker 1: obviously isn't great that the US doing that. And so
Speaker 1: like I really I thought these demands were fascinating because
Speaker 1: it's not what we often talk about when we talk
Speaker 1: about rights that we talk about strikes often purely in
Speaker 1: terms of economics, right like UH, in in the US,
Speaker 1: I can include things like non way to benefits like healthcare,
Speaker 1: but it in sort of most instances we talk about
Speaker 1: striking bread and butter terms like they have gone out
Speaker 1: and they want this much money to come back. And
Speaker 1: I think that strikes have the potential to build much
Speaker 1: greater solidarity by doing things like this, by incorporating these
Speaker 1: I guess social justice demands is one way of phrasing it.
Speaker 1: This basic human decency to minds will be another way
Speaker 1: of saying it. And it really Yeah, it really impressed
Speaker 1: me that this was part of the package of demands
Speaker 1: from the union. How have things gone? Are you comfortable
Speaker 1: talking about how things have gone since the strike began? Well,
Speaker 1: I certainly don't know everything backwards and forwards, because honestly,
Speaker 1: it would be hard for any one person to do
Speaker 1: it all. It's all extremely complex in terms of not
Speaker 1: in terms of like you know, things on the ground,
Speaker 1: but in terms of the language in contracts and the
Speaker 1: process and bargaining. UH. There's a difference between like things
Speaker 1: that are tradition traditional to do as opposed to things
Speaker 1: that are actually the law, and then of course the
Speaker 1: actual enforcement and law. So anyway, this has been going
Speaker 1: on for a whole year, and as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: like penetrating it as your average person, it can be
Speaker 1: very difficult. So I will certainly give you, you know,
Speaker 1: my view of it as so far as I've seen it,
Speaker 1: but um, we do have. Uh So, so we helped
Speaker 1: with like sort of spitballing and they took it from there.
Speaker 1: And what they started out with was not as you know,
Speaker 1: ambitious as the spitball document. Um, I think it tends.
Speaker 1: I think that got replicated a lot throughout the unions,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, my advice as somebody from the
Speaker 1: outside just thinking about negotiations in general. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: they're gonna cut you down, right, so why would you
Speaker 1: be the one to cut you down. You know they're
Speaker 1: gonna do it right, you think big, let them cut
Speaker 1: you down. And and unfortunately there were the majority voices
Speaker 1: in the bargaining teams tended often to be at least
Speaker 1: where the access needs articles were concerned, um, tended to
Speaker 1: be kind of let us cut ourselves down. Uh So
Speaker 1: the starting doc for ten, although you know, it's still
Speaker 1: had things in it that were very like if we
Speaker 1: have the original version of ten instead of what actually
Speaker 1: the folks you know voted on voted yes on recently, Uh,
Speaker 1: it would still be a revolutionary document in in US
Speaker 1: labor history. I think, you know, I don't. I've never
Speaker 1: heard in the news of anything any uh more ambitious
Speaker 1: than that. But but definitely it was down from what
Speaker 1: we were starting with, which you know, um so, But
Speaker 1: I think what happened was that you know, fifty eight
Speaker 1: ten came out and they were trying to coordinate and
Speaker 1: learn from each other to different units. Right. So then
Speaker 1: folks on s R you and U A W also
Speaker 1: uh worked on the access needs articles and and the
Speaker 1: access needs articles even in themselves was a change because
Speaker 1: the previous versions of these things were phrases reasonable accommodations,
Speaker 1: which is language that stems from the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Speaker 1: And even that phrase is something that is really outdated
Speaker 1: because it is the idea, the ideas who is deciding
Speaker 1: what's reasonable, right the person who has no lived experience
Speaker 1: of disability or this gigantic public institution that is funded
Speaker 1: including by disabled people's tuitions and fed fees and whatnot
Speaker 1: in taxes. But you know where's my money go. It
Speaker 1: goes into building an inaccessible university, right, So why am
Speaker 1: I supposed to let you judge what is reasonable? I
Speaker 1: think it's incredibly unreasonable that you use my money to
Speaker 1: build a university that not is not only hard for
Speaker 1: me to be at, but it is actively hostile to
Speaker 1: my health. Um and so you know, and just the
Speaker 1: word accommodations centers and codifies that inaccessibility as being the norm,
Speaker 1: and anything you do different from it is like you
Speaker 1: being accommodating. We'll get that, get the hell out over
Speaker 1: here with that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes much
Speaker 1: more sense to phrase it in those ways. And like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like it was, as you said, a very
Speaker 1: ambitious goal and one that not only those things got transferred,
Speaker 1: which is I mean that that can happen in strikes.
Speaker 1: But it's also like it's it's a non economic thing
Speaker 1: that the university could have given to you all of
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have had to have, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the university has a lot of money, and it would
Speaker 1: it would be very possible for it to pay grad
Speaker 1: to its students aways they asked for at the start
Speaker 1: and post grad post docs and could be paid the
Speaker 1: way to say, asked for to your and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: really have the university. They could they could, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a million ways they could fund that. But well,
Speaker 1: I think that gets to the crux of why they
Speaker 1: don't do this, because the thing is is that if
Speaker 1: if you really think about it this way, and it
Speaker 1: takes a little doing, because again we're sort of school
Speaker 1: dot to, but it is a form of misappropriation of
Speaker 1: public funds. If all of the public is funding this institution,
Speaker 1: and we do that through our state and our federal taxes,
Speaker 1: we do and then of course if we get in
Speaker 1: we're doing it through tuition of feeds, and then of
Speaker 1: course the grants the university gets are also federal grants
Speaker 1: and this sort of thing. Um, then what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you're taking money that comes from all of the
Speaker 1: public and pre pandemic figures in terms of like this
Speaker 1: is before the mass disabling event that the pandemic is
Speaker 1: the of America, adult Americans had at least one disability.
Speaker 1: So you're taking money from those folks, and you're saying,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to build this public university in
Speaker 1: a way that is not only like tolerable by you,
Speaker 1: but like a place where you could thrive. It doesn't
Speaker 1: even reach tolerable. It actually drives a lot of us
Speaker 1: out of here. It worse in health, and I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that it has killed people. So we So
Speaker 1: what happens? The reason I mentioned this is because that
Speaker 1: misappropriation to funds. You know, that's the incentive, right, what
Speaker 1: can if if if you're going off this austerity mindset
Speaker 1: that you shut off like people from things they need, right,
Speaker 1: what happens to that money? Well, we have an admin
Speaker 1: that is completely bloated in size. We have every single
Speaker 1: chancellor getting a raise during a pandemic that they completely
Speaker 1: blew in terms of public health protections, in terms of
Speaker 1: accessibility even to people when they needed it during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Like if they hadn't been fighting accessibility that long, we
Speaker 1: would have handled the pandemic better because we would have
Speaker 1: had better online pedagogy already available and developed. So it
Speaker 1: is that's a kind of jump that people don't make.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what's going on. That's why they have
Speaker 1: the interest in putting this rationing and policing bureaucracy together too, Like,
Speaker 1: not many disabled people even get here because this is
Speaker 1: of course not the only ablest institution. It's hard to
Speaker 1: even get here. But then when you get here, they
Speaker 1: want to reduce who can get their access needs met,
Speaker 1: and then the access needs being met is such a gauntlet,
Speaker 1: and only the most privileged of disabled people can get that.
Speaker 1: And so you know, as far as disabled people at
Speaker 1: at you see who are in the system so to speak,
Speaker 1: you know, our registered or whatever that's going to not
Speaker 1: at all be representative of the public. That's going to
Speaker 1: be mostly white folks with some access to privilege. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And I think you've given a good sort
Speaker 1: of elucidation of why this is a struggle that obviously
Speaker 1: everyone should be part of, everyone should be getting behind,
Speaker 1: because it's like it's it's all of us who are
Speaker 1: invested in this in order of us are paying for
Speaker 1: this university which isn't accessible right now. So I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what's your advice, because there are unprecedented numbers of people
Speaker 1: forming unions right like Starbucks being one example that we
Speaker 1: see a lot of coverage of, but all across the
Speaker 1: country there are more people forming unions there and more
Speaker 1: people going on to strike. How should they organize around
Speaker 1: similar things like, how should they organize around getting these
Speaker 1: access needs met? Well, I think I think you have
Speaker 1: to start by sweeping your old side of the street,
Speaker 1: which is that you have to make sure that you
Speaker 1: or union communications, your meetings, uh, everything about your union
Speaker 1: is accessible. And if you don't know how to do that,
Speaker 1: then that's where you start. You start with learning what
Speaker 1: accessibility is and how to make things accessible. Because what
Speaker 1: we found when we started, uh, when we came out
Speaker 1: kind of UC access Now did was you know, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, in a society where there are quite
Speaker 1: strong financial punishments for even to say, you know, even
Speaker 1: identifying as disabled. And what I mean by that is like, say,
Speaker 1: again here on UC Davis, you were talking about how
Speaker 1: hard it was for you to get parking right, you know,
Speaker 1: when you had s chatter Paul Pelvis, how it was
Speaker 1: to go every single day here on campus. There are
Speaker 1: able to employees driving trucks and vans that they drive
Speaker 1: straight up to the door of the building on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: blocking egress for actual disabled people and actually blocking fire
Speaker 1: regress out of the building. Because that's what's you know,
Speaker 1: because they can't be bothered to walk twenty ft from
Speaker 1: the legal space that they have already have the privilege
Speaker 1: of being on campus compared to everybody else, right, but
Speaker 1: they but they had to have it even more convenient
Speaker 1: to that, and then they drive straight up to the door.
Speaker 1: Right Nobody gives them. Nobody says boo about that. Nobody
Speaker 1: says you need to get a medical documentation, Nobody says
Speaker 1: you're getting fined and you'r and you you don't get
Speaker 1: to drive this campus truck again or whatever. None of
Speaker 1: that goes on. What would happen, I guarantee you if
Speaker 1: that employee identified as disabled all of a sudden, then
Speaker 1: they would come down on that person for what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's it's a real so because of these things, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of incentive for people to hide their disability
Speaker 1: because you get there's a lot of stigma, but there's
Speaker 1: also a real, quite real financial hit to it. And
Speaker 1: uh and so what happens once you sort of create
Speaker 1: a safer space to talk about it, people will start
Speaker 1: damning you, you know, and they will let you know
Speaker 1: that they're starting to have problems on the job or whatever.
Speaker 1: They may not be ready to come out. For those
Speaker 1: like some people, it's obvious they're disabled, right, it's not
Speaker 1: even like they have a choice about quote unquote coming
Speaker 1: out right. But for other people it's not obvious unless
Speaker 1: they tell you, and they they have a lot of
Speaker 1: incentive to not you know, identify that way. Um. But
Speaker 1: when you make your union a safe and inclusive and
Speaker 1: accessible place, you will find that you have already been
Speaker 1: making assumptions about what your union membership is. So you
Speaker 1: already have members who are disabled, it's just that they're
Speaker 1: not telling you about it. But furthermore, if your union
Speaker 1: starts really um becoming an accessible inclusive place, you know,
Speaker 1: not performative, really being there, like your your communications are accessible,
Speaker 1: you you're clearly um educating yourselves around able is um
Speaker 1: educating yourselves around accessibility. So like when you have your meeting,
Speaker 1: it's not in a room that isn't wheelchair accessible, that
Speaker 1: doesn't have a working elevator on that floor. You know,
Speaker 1: all these things that people kind of don't think about
Speaker 1: until uh, they're the one with the broken leg. Um.
Speaker 1: Then that really goes some way to helping you organize things,
Speaker 1: and you will find you already have members that you
Speaker 1: can tap, you know, because they'll start to feel more
Speaker 1: for more involved once they see you're willing to go
Speaker 1: to bad from them. And what I would say that
Speaker 1: peaks folks should learn from the U see U a
Speaker 1: w experience right now. And this doesn't just refer to
Speaker 1: disabled workers, it's really other marginalized workers, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're in a contract bargaining situation and it's clear
Speaker 1: that like you're the bargaining chip, Like why would that
Speaker 1: why would that group want to hang with you? You're
Speaker 1: you're saying, support us and what we want, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna desert you when it's your time. You weren't gonna
Speaker 1: depend on the fact that everybody likes more pay and
Speaker 1: we're just gonna say, Okay, you're gonna stick with us
Speaker 1: and and work, you know, with the union no matter
Speaker 1: what it's like. Now a lot of people are gonna go, well,
Speaker 1: I'm sticking you know, you clearly don't support me, So
Speaker 1: I don't see why I need to go with you
Speaker 1: and put myself at risk because if you win, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get the raise anyway. And uh, and if you
Speaker 1: don't win, well then that's good for you because now
Speaker 1: you know how it feels like to be tossed aside,
Speaker 1: you know, so, so you have to really be there
Speaker 1: for your marginalized workers. You know, it has to be
Speaker 1: this non performative thing. But the but the thing is
Speaker 1: is that if you are non performative about it, you
Speaker 1: are you're making the workplace not only better from disabled
Speaker 1: workers you already have, but you are making it better
Speaker 1: for yourself. Because every single one of us pretty much
Speaker 1: is going to be disabled either temport earlier permanently at
Speaker 1: some point in our lives. It is the easiest club
Speaker 1: to join. And you know, I think as we found
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. You know, people, a lot of people
Speaker 1: they make this They say, oh, online sucks, Online school sucks.
Speaker 1: Why does it suck because you never invested in it.
Speaker 1: It's like several several decades and old, you never invested
Speaker 1: in it. You never put any effort or money into it.
Speaker 1: Like that's you know, So if you want your workplace
Speaker 1: to be a good quality workplace for you, that is
Speaker 1: not only just like a place you barely you know,
Speaker 1: feel okay going to, but like someplace you really we
Speaker 1: spend most of our lives in the workplace. You know,
Speaker 1: Students right, So it should be someplace that really makes
Speaker 1: us feel better and fulfilled, because nobody works well when
Speaker 1: they're stressed out. Nobody, you know, you're not productive when
Speaker 1: you're constantly stressed. So this really to be a win
Speaker 1: win all around. And and you're think about it this
Speaker 1: way also, which is that you know, and this is
Speaker 1: particularly applicable when it comes to you see, and you know,
Speaker 1: the pandemic is another great example of this is this
Speaker 1: has gotten a little bit of focus on the press,
Speaker 1: but I don't think as much as it deserves, which
Speaker 1: is that you have this not only an event where
Speaker 1: millions of people died globally, right, which you have. You
Speaker 1: have quite a few people, they have long COVID, they
Speaker 1: have other things. People who arrive at you see, and
Speaker 1: particularly who go you know, get to the point they've
Speaker 1: got their degree or whatever. You know, these are people
Speaker 1: who are trained, highly educated, trained in a certain thing.
Speaker 1: They're making contributions to their field. Do you really want
Speaker 1: it to be that we lose all the knowledge that
Speaker 1: these people have, all the the institutional memory and experience
Speaker 1: that these people have, just at a time when we're
Speaker 1: facing an incredible crises as a planet. You know, in
Speaker 1: terms of climate change and in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: the attacks on democracies and things, or just even what
Speaker 1: the people mean to their community, right, you know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the fabric of your community if you make it.
Speaker 1: If you have an inaccessible workplace, if you have an
Speaker 1: inaccessible school, if you have places you know in the
Speaker 1: public square that are not accessible, you're making it so
Speaker 1: that when somebody becomes disabled, and that person could be you,
Speaker 1: you may never be able to practice the thing that
Speaker 1: you love and you've trained for your whole life, and
Speaker 1: the community loses what you could bring to this at
Speaker 1: a time when we need more than ever every all
Speaker 1: hands on deck to be like solving climate change and
Speaker 1: other problems that face us. Yeah, yeah, that is it's
Speaker 1: very well said. Actually that yeah, certainly made a very
Speaker 1: good case. So I want to I mean obviously that
Speaker 1: the negotiations are still ongoing at least four uh the
Speaker 1: s I U and for a I think for as well, Um,
Speaker 1: so what can people do to support the demands that
Speaker 1: have been made? How can people maybe who are not
Speaker 1: part of the union, who are not part of the
Speaker 1: u C even or preps undergrad to are part of
Speaker 1: the U S but not part of the union. How
Speaker 1: how can they show solidarity and support here? Well, I
Speaker 1: think part of this is, you know, not giving up
Speaker 1: on the idea that we can press for the original
Speaker 1: access needs article. I know there's all sorts of like
Speaker 1: you know, technical rules about regressive bargaining, but honestly, I
Speaker 1: think you see has broken a lot of the rules
Speaker 1: of bargaining. So I don't see why that doesn't you
Speaker 1: know what It's like, what's good for the goose is
Speaker 1: good for the gander as far as I'm concerned. But
Speaker 1: there's also even outside of bargaining. You know, as I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of these things are things that you see
Speaker 1: routinely breaks. A d A you see routinely breaks There's
Speaker 1: other parts of disability law in terms of sex five
Speaker 1: oh for the Rehabilitation Act, and there's some California law
Speaker 1: as well as my understanding of it. So you know,
Speaker 1: you see, just as they have this rationing and policing
Speaker 1: agency bureaucracy, and it's two separate silos, one for students
Speaker 1: and one for workers, and they do that. Like even
Speaker 1: the fact that they do that communicates that it's not
Speaker 1: about offering accessibility as a default, because why would you
Speaker 1: have two silos for that. Well, you have two silos
Speaker 1: for that because the law that affects students and affects
Speaker 1: workers are slightly different. So what you're coming from is
Speaker 1: this aspect of we are dedicated to only doing the
Speaker 1: barest minimum of the minimum required by law, so we
Speaker 1: don't even want to meet that minimum required by law.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, you know, you want to offer
Speaker 1: minimum wage, but if you can get away with it,
Speaker 1: you're not even going to meet minimum wage. And you
Speaker 1: have a lot of lawyers in a bureaucracy to make
Speaker 1: it possible for you to do that. That's what you
Speaker 1: see does um So that kind of stuff is stuff
Speaker 1: that outside even a labor contract, you should be able
Speaker 1: to write the governor, right, the lieutenant governor who's actually
Speaker 1: got a seat on the board of regents rights your
Speaker 1: California legislators. You know, when there was a there was
Speaker 1: a nimby who sued cow. This was in the news
Speaker 1: this year. There was a nimby who sued cow to
Speaker 1: make it so the caw con make housing and and
Speaker 1: or to cow to make it so the cow was
Speaker 1: going to have to limit how many it was admitting.
Speaker 1: Because in the opinion of that group, like they weren't
Speaker 1: building enough housing to take care of their students, and
Speaker 1: they were crowding at Berkeley and blah blah blah. The
Speaker 1: outrage about that from parents who wanted to send their
Speaker 1: kids to cow was so great that like within a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, the governor and the legislators had passed
Speaker 1: something to address that. If you put that kind of
Speaker 1: pressure on the governor of the lieutenant governor and the
Speaker 1: you know, your state legisslators, they will make sure that
Speaker 1: the UC Office of the President feels that pressure because
Speaker 1: these are things, these are laws. You know, at the
Speaker 1: we had more ambitious things beyond law. But some of
Speaker 1: the things that we were that are trying to do
Speaker 1: in this contract are really just things that they're already
Speaker 1: required by law to do but aren't doing. We were
Speaker 1: trying to give it and make it so there was
Speaker 1: more teeth there, because clearly the federal and state teeth
Speaker 1: weren't good enough. So we um, we have a resist
Speaker 1: spot petition out there, but you know, to make it
Speaker 1: a little easier to contact your if you're a California resident,
Speaker 1: the resist pot petition would work that way. But if
Speaker 1: but if not. You know, like I said, if you
Speaker 1: if you if you're a parent of a student here,
Speaker 1: you can write. If you're an alumni, you know, you
Speaker 1: can write, just really hammer them about it. Okay, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I think I think writing does make a difference. And
Speaker 1: I think especially for an institution that I don't quite
Speaker 1: know how financially dependent they are in donations, but they
Speaker 1: certainly do like to solicit them, actually if you're an alumnus,
Speaker 1: because think they solicit them for me a lot. I
Speaker 1: do not have that much money. So yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for sharing all of that with us. And
Speaker 1: I thought that's really really interactive. How can people find
Speaker 1: you and how can people find you? See access now
Speaker 1: if they want to find you online? Uh, we are
Speaker 1: on Twitter as access you see at access you see um.
Speaker 1: We are on Facebook and Instagram as well. Actually is
Speaker 1: also linked in for the more business people. Uh you
Speaker 1: see access now um. And you can also reach us
Speaker 1: at you see access now at gmail dot com if
Speaker 1: you wanted to email us. Wonderful. Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And just to finish that briefly, we are going to
Speaker 1: try and make a transcript. It's available at the same
Speaker 1: time the episode goes out and so folks would like
Speaker 1: to read it that way if that's easier for them,
Speaker 1: than We're going to make sure that we have that
Speaker 1: for this one. So yeah, if you're if you're listening,
Speaker 1: or if you think someone else that you know would
Speaker 1: like this and this it doesn't work for them, and
Speaker 1: we're going to do that. Thank you so much, Megan
Speaker 1: for giving us some of your afternoon. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope you see some support and I wish you the
Speaker 1: best of luck with everything. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Woo and welcome to it could happen here. My name
Speaker 1: is Sharene and today you are stuck with me. Yes,
Speaker 1: what a treat for all of you beautiful people out there.
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do an episode about the World
Speaker 1: Cup for a while, but I felt like there was
Speaker 1: just so much to cover, and it was also happening
Speaker 1: in real time, so I want to wait a bit
Speaker 1: so I could have enough stuff to pull from. I
Speaker 1: will say I am recording this on Monday, December nineteenth.
Speaker 1: It is the day after the weekend where France lost
Speaker 1: to Argentina, and Argentina are now our World Cup champions.
Speaker 1: I'm happy about that. And then Morocco did lose last
Speaker 1: week to France, which was devastating to me and my
Speaker 1: family and the rest of the Arab world because we
Speaker 1: would have loved to see them beat their colonizers, but
Speaker 1: they got really far, and I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the impact that that's had. They did coming forth when
Speaker 1: they lost to Croatia this weekend as well, so just
Speaker 1: in case y'all needed to know that, But I will
Speaker 1: say I am really happy for Argentina, and maybe it
Speaker 1: was because Morocco lost to France, but I wasn't mad
Speaker 1: seeing France losing, and all the celebrations I've seen from
Speaker 1: people celebrating Argentina have been so heartwarming and yeah, but anyway,
Speaker 1: I wanted to focus on something that I think has
Speaker 1: been so unprecedented and beautiful and singular and I think
Speaker 1: deserves more coverage, and that is this show of Palestinian
Speaker 1: solidarity that has been happening during the World Cup. It
Speaker 1: is so cool, and I want to talk about why
Speaker 1: it's happening, the circumstances that could lead to this happening,
Speaker 1: and what it means, because I think it's very significant
Speaker 1: moving forward when it comes to Palestinian rights since Palestinian support,
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. There's a great article by
Speaker 1: British Palestinian writer Hams Aisha titled Palestine is the biggest
Speaker 1: winner at this year's World Cup. And this article did
Speaker 1: such a good job compiling some key moments, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to be referencing from it a lot as we
Speaker 1: continue this episode. Okay, here we go. Despite the Western
Speaker 1: media doing its best to ignore it, the World Cup
Speaker 1: has seen a huge tidal wave of Palestinian solidarity and
Speaker 1: it's united the Arab world in a really special way
Speaker 1: and also highlighted just how many people Arab and non
Speaker 1: Arab alike support the Palestinian cause. And so, not to
Speaker 1: be too cheesy, the biggest winners of this World Cup,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, haven't even had a team at all competing,
Speaker 1: and that's the Palestinians. The World Cup has been characterized
Speaker 1: by unforeseeable developments and dramatic quote unquote upsets, which it's
Speaker 1: a word I don't even really like, even if it's
Speaker 1: grammatically correct when it's used in fucking sports jargon. But
Speaker 1: I don't like it because it kind of sounds like
Speaker 1: a bad thing, because it's like upset bo who. But really,
Speaker 1: I think surprises like this are a really good thing
Speaker 1: because what these upsets usually mean is simply that the
Speaker 1: underdog one, which is a narrative I will always support.
Speaker 1: So these surprises really started with Argentina's lost to Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: which shocked everyone. The faces in the stadium, draws on
Speaker 1: the floor, everyone was shocked. I watched it with my mom.
Speaker 1: It was it was incredible and it was truly a
Speaker 1: beautiful game. I highly recommend you at least watch some
Speaker 1: clips from it. It was fucking cool and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it came out of nowhere. Was really beautiful. And after
Speaker 1: this victory, Kingston, man of Saudi Arabia, ordered that day
Speaker 1: that they won a public holiday to say the least.
Speaker 1: Everyone was losing their minds and these surprises seemed to
Speaker 1: be endless in this World Cup, mostly because, as I said,
Speaker 1: the obvious teams were losing to the underdogs. And coming
Speaker 1: out of this one of the most consistent themes has
Speaker 1: been this overarching Palestinian solidarity that has unfolded, particularly among
Speaker 1: fans of Arab Nations. World Cup was already significant on
Speaker 1: its own It's held in Gotha, making it the first
Speaker 1: World Cup to be held in the Arab world and
Speaker 1: the Muslim world, and only the second held entirely in
Speaker 1: Asia after the two thousand two tournaments in South Korea
Speaker 1: and Japan. The Arab world is obsessed with soccer. An
Speaker 1: understatement to say obsessed, I should you not. It's a
Speaker 1: huge part of Arab culture, Middle Eastern culture, and so
Speaker 1: this was already a huge deal to start with. And
Speaker 1: I think these two things together, the fact that it's
Speaker 1: very cultural and the fact that this is the first
Speaker 1: time it's been on an Arab stage. I think these
Speaker 1: two things together created the seed for Arabs and Middle
Speaker 1: East owners to really come together in a way we've
Speaker 1: never really seen. And this first World Cup in the
Speaker 1: Arab world has captured in this symbolic way, this reality
Speaker 1: where Western powers have receded in the face of their challengers. Morocco.
Speaker 1: They reached the semifinals and they played France, their colonizers,
Speaker 1: which was so symbolic. Saudi Arabia humiliated one of the
Speaker 1: tournament favorites, Argentina, and then Tunisia did the same to
Speaker 1: its former colonizer France Japan. They beat Germany and Spain.
Speaker 1: This traditional power and battle in global soccer and what
Speaker 1: it means for geopolitics. I feel like it can no
Speaker 1: longer be taken for granted or ignored. As many as
Speaker 1: five million Moroccans live abroad, mostly in Europe, and they've
Speaker 1: celebrated the team's victories in huge street celebrations in France
Speaker 1: and Belgium and Spain and the Netherlands, and just internationally.
Speaker 1: For Moroccans living outside of Morocco and for so many
Speaker 1: other migrants from the Arab world or Africa, they've been
Speaker 1: driven by decades of desperation in their home countries to
Speaker 1: risk everything to reach Europe, only to suffer abuse and contempt.
Speaker 1: So this achievement after achievement was a huge pivotal milestone.
Speaker 1: And I think this drive has been coupled with the
Speaker 1: show of Palestinian pride and thought out as well. There
Speaker 1: was no Palestinian team at the World Cup, and yet
Speaker 1: the Palestinian flag was everywhere, not only in the hands
Speaker 1: of celebrating Moroccan players and fans, but also at every
Speaker 1: game and on the streets of Dha and it was
Speaker 1: just overwhelming and so amazing to see. And these displays
Speaker 1: they shocked some Israeli journalists who had been assured by
Speaker 1: their own government that the US brokered Abraham Accords that
Speaker 1: had happened between Israel and Morocco and other Arab states.
Speaker 1: They thought that this signaled that the Arab world had
Speaker 1: relinquished any pretense of advocacy for Palestinian rights. But as
Speaker 1: we see with a lot of sports, soccer creates its
Speaker 1: own form of civil society. And especially because it's a
Speaker 1: huge international game in a way that no other sport
Speaker 1: really is, and also being played in a region where
Speaker 1: civil society has largely been suppressed by authoritarians, it's made
Speaker 1: it clear in this World Cup that the Arab public
Speaker 1: is not willing to follow their unelected leaders and accepting
Speaker 1: the brutal against Palestinians and what human rights organizations have
Speaker 1: called Israel's apartheid system a k a. Israel's ethnic cleansing
Speaker 1: of Palestinians, violence, brutality, murder. The list can go on.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard me on my soapbox before, but
Speaker 1: it always bears repeating. My point is that the Arab
Speaker 1: public and the people in these Arab nations do not
Speaker 1: represent and do not necessarily believe in these leaders that
Speaker 1: again they did not elect it's all authoritarian dictatorships and
Speaker 1: just corrupt government that I mean, we can get into
Speaker 1: history another time, but the disablement of so many of
Speaker 1: these governments have been because of the Western world, say
Speaker 1: the least, I don't know, a different episode. I'm getting distracted, sorry.
Speaker 1: Even countries that did not qualify for the World Cup
Speaker 1: are surging with this united pride and pro Palestinian sentiment.
Speaker 1: The Palestinian cause is obviously near and dear to the
Speaker 1: hearts of many Arabs across the world. And again, not
Speaker 1: only is this the first time the World Cup has
Speaker 1: been hosted in an Arab country, it's also probably the
Speaker 1: first time there has been such a large gathering and
Speaker 1: concentration of Arabs across nationalities gathered all in one place.
Speaker 1: And again, at almost every single game, there have been
Speaker 1: fans holding the Palestinian flag or banners that say Free
Speaker 1: Palestine in the stadium. In their matches against Australia and Belgium, respectively,
Speaker 1: Tunisia and Moroccan fans each unfurled a huge Free Palestine
Speaker 1: flag in the forty minute, which is very significant because
Speaker 1: this is in reference to the ninet Necba, which translates
Speaker 1: to the catastrophe. The Necaba deserves millions of episodes on
Speaker 1: its own, but essentially it was the mass expulsion and
Speaker 1: ethnic cleansing of at least seven hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: Palestinian refugees in ninety eight when the state of Israel
Speaker 1: was formed. A side note that I do want to
Speaker 1: mention here is that there's an incredible film on Netflix
Speaker 1: right now that you should all go watch. It's called
Speaker 1: Farha f A r h A. It's about the Neckba
Speaker 1: and there's never been a film like this before. And
Speaker 1: the Israeli government has been doing this like smear campaign
Speaker 1: against it and has been calling it all sorts of
Speaker 1: terrible things. But the other side, Palestinian supporters and Palestinians,
Speaker 1: they've made it so successful. They've outdone the haters, I
Speaker 1: guess to say the least, and it's doing really well.
Speaker 1: And it's because of these supporters that it is doing
Speaker 1: so well. So I mean, sorry to get a little
Speaker 1: bit tangential here, but I really encourage you to watch
Speaker 1: Farha on Netflix right now. There's never been a film
Speaker 1: about this catastrophe, the Neckba, so I highly encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to watch or even just like put it on in
Speaker 1: the background while you're doing something else, so it counts
Speaker 1: as views. Just keep supporting it. I think this is
Speaker 1: a really important time and it feels really significant that
Speaker 1: this is all happening at the same time. So anyway,
Speaker 1: go out to that film. But Tunisia and Moroccan fans
Speaker 1: each at the forty minute in reference to this catastrophe,
Speaker 1: they unfurled this huge free Palestine flag, and by waving
Speaker 1: that Palestinian flag, Moroccan fans and players expressed a very
Speaker 1: public descent from the choices of their government and of
Speaker 1: the Western powers and as well as other Arab autocrats
Speaker 1: to abandon the Palestinians to their fate. And as they advanced,
Speaker 1: Morocco was able to sustain the attention on these issues,
Speaker 1: and their players proved time and time again that they
Speaker 1: are more than deserving to be playing on this world stage.
Speaker 1: Morocco was also the first African team to make the
Speaker 1: semifinals of the World Cup, which is also a significant
Speaker 1: achievement and a lovely slap in the face to anyone
Speaker 1: who doubted them. The Moroccan defense was incredible, maybe some
Speaker 1: of the best defense I've ever seen, but due to
Speaker 1: soccer's globalization. The top players in soccer have for decades
Speaker 1: all played in Europe's elite leagues, and this was the
Speaker 1: first World Cup in which all five African teams were
Speaker 1: coached by African coaches rather than by European ones, and
Speaker 1: Morocco's coach in particular appears to have made an exceptionable difference.
Speaker 1: During Tunisia's game against France, a Gunesian fan ran onto
Speaker 1: the pitch and he waved a Palestinian flag, cartwheeling in
Speaker 1: the process. The crowd erupted into chance of Palestine as
Speaker 1: he was dragged away by security, and in a different
Speaker 1: match at the stadium, fans chanted with spirit and blood,
Speaker 1: we will redeem you Old Palestine. They chanted this in Arabic.
Speaker 1: And this occurred on the International Day of Solidarity with
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people November twenty nine, and it felt very poetic.
Speaker 1: And then when Morocco knocked the former champions Spain out
Speaker 1: of the tournament, the Moroccan team posed for the standard
Speaker 1: celebratory team photo and instead of holding the Moroccan flag,
Speaker 1: they all held a Palestinian one. A winning team holding
Speaker 1: up the flag of another country has literally never happened before,
Speaker 1: and the fact that it's a Palestinian flag. I don't know,
Speaker 1: man chills, I'm obsessed, obsessed, but okay, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm going to get more rambily and distracted. So before
Speaker 1: I do that, let's take a break. I could not
Speaker 1: think of a witty segue to get there, but here
Speaker 1: are some ads. Okay, we're back. I also wanted to
Speaker 1: mention what, in my opinion, is the most iconic image
Speaker 1: of the World Cup, and that is when Morocco's Sophia
Speaker 1: and Buffal was dancing with his mom after his team's
Speaker 1: brilliant upset victory over Portugal in the quarterfinals. They were
Speaker 1: dancing and happy, and she's wearing a hijab, and it
Speaker 1: was just this you're display of joy and um it
Speaker 1: just it felt really familiar to me, and it felt
Speaker 1: that way to a lot of Middle Easterners and Arabs
Speaker 1: and Moroccans. This moment, this dancing between him and his mom,
Speaker 1: it was a statement of pride and of priorities and
Speaker 1: a reminder that as the mother of another great football player,
Speaker 1: Zenna Dean's Adan, she once said that quote some things
Speaker 1: are bigger than football. Buffall and his mother, like the
Speaker 1: majority of Morocco's players and coaches. They live in European
Speaker 1: cities and they're part of that continent's vast, marginalized and
Speaker 1: embattled migrant underclass. Again, she wore a hijab, something that
Speaker 1: she would be barred from doing if she was a
Speaker 1: teacher or a public servant in France. Against all of that,
Speaker 1: this moment on the field was captured in a moment
Speaker 1: of unbridled joy. It was so pure and so human
Speaker 1: and just reminded everyone, I hope reminded me and my
Speaker 1: family of who we are. And again, I think this
Speaker 1: is really significant when you think about the geopolitical implications
Speaker 1: that we've seen during these games, with countries like Morocco
Speaker 1: playing against the teams of the countries that colonized them
Speaker 1: a k a. When they played with France, it really
Speaker 1: feels like this beautiful blossoming of culture against all odds
Speaker 1: of trying to suppress it. So outside the stadiums, this
Speaker 1: theme remained the same when it came to Palestinian solidarity.
Speaker 1: A Saudi Arabian vendor selling flags of different countries. He
Speaker 1: went viral after he was spotted giving customers an extra
Speaker 1: Palestinian flag as a free gift with any purchase, and
Speaker 1: so this uplifting message that has been repeated time and
Speaker 1: time again during this World Cup is that Palestine can
Speaker 1: never be removed from the hearts of the people. And
Speaker 1: there are so many heartwarming videos like the one I mentioned,
Speaker 1: and I urge everyone to follow Palestinian accounts to keep
Speaker 1: up if you're curious. I know the World Cup is
Speaker 1: technically over now, but these videos are so fun and
Speaker 1: joyful to watch. I really felt so much joy watching them.
Speaker 1: This outpouring of support for Palestine is reminiscent of an
Speaker 1: earlier time in history when the Arab world was also
Speaker 1: united in its support for Palestine. The Palestinian cause was
Speaker 1: once a driving force in the policy direction of the
Speaker 1: Arab world, and it reached its zenith in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties when nations like Syria, Jordan and Egypt they went
Speaker 1: to war against Israel with the anti imperial objective of
Speaker 1: regional Arab unity in Palestinian liberation. However, those aspirations were
Speaker 1: stomped out in nineteen sixty seven when Israel quote unquote
Speaker 1: one the Six Day War or the June War, which
Speaker 1: is also known as the nineteen sixty seven Arab Israeli
Speaker 1: War or the Third Arab Israeli War. Just a very
Speaker 1: quick history lesson here. This war was fought between Israel
Speaker 1: and a coalition of Arab states, and it ended after
Speaker 1: Israeli tanks and infantry advanced on a heavily fortified region
Speaker 1: of Syria called the Golden Heights. They successfully captured the
Speaker 1: Goal and Heights. After this, the next day, on June
Speaker 1: tenth and nineteen sixty seven, a U N brokered ceasefire
Speaker 1: took effect and the Sixth Day War came to an
Speaker 1: abrupt end. The casualties between the two opposing sides are
Speaker 1: basically incomparable. I'm gonna say some stats here, but despair
Speaker 1: with me. Between seven hundred and seventy six and nine
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three Israelis were killed and four thousand
Speaker 1: and five hundred and seventeen were wounded. Fifteen Israeli soldiers
Speaker 1: were captured. Arab casualties were far greater. Between nine thousand
Speaker 1: and eight hundred and fifteen thousand Egyptian soldiers were listed
Speaker 1: as killed or missing in action. An additional four thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty eight Egyptian soldiers were captured. Jordanian
Speaker 1: losses are estimated to be seven hundred killed in action
Speaker 1: with another two thousand and five hundred wounded. The Syrians
Speaker 1: were estimated to have sustained between a thousand and two thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred killed in action, between three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: seven and five Syrians were captured. It's an incomparable, an
Speaker 1: insurmountable loss, and I might go as far to say
Speaker 1: it was a massacre because it was so unbalanced. Casualties
Speaker 1: were also suffered by the u n e F, the
Speaker 1: United Nations Emergency force that was stationed on the Egyptian
Speaker 1: side of the border. In three different episodes, Israeli forces
Speaker 1: attacked a U n e F convoy as well as
Speaker 1: camps in which UN e F personnel were concentrated, as
Speaker 1: well as the un e F headquarters in Gaza, and
Speaker 1: this resulted in one Brazilian peacekeeper and fourteen Indian officials
Speaker 1: killed by Israeli forces, with an additional seventeen peacekeepers wound.
Speaker 1: Did in both groups, that's your history lesson for today,
Speaker 1: at least for now. But as you can't imagine that
Speaker 1: this was a huge loss for the Arab world. In
Speaker 1: addition to stealing the gold and heights. This war led
Speaker 1: Israel to seizing and occupying all remaining Palestinian territories, and
Speaker 1: as you know or should know by now, Israel has
Speaker 1: maintained its control of the land at the expense of
Speaker 1: the Palestinians, with Arab leaders not able to do much
Speaker 1: in protest over these years, especially after this nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven loss, a lot of Arab leaders almost seemed indifferent.
Speaker 1: When we fast forward to something happened that seemed like
Speaker 1: a decisive death blow to the hopes of Palestinian solidarity
Speaker 1: in the Abraham Accords were signed, and these were a
Speaker 1: series of joint normalization statements between Israel and Arab countries
Speaker 1: that would theoretically pave the way for increased business and
Speaker 1: diplomatic relations. The implication was that Israel could afford to
Speaker 1: maintain it's apartheid rule and still enjoy warm relations with
Speaker 1: the Arab world because their politicians too, We're happy to
Speaker 1: willfully neglect the Palestinians. Officials from Bahayan, the UAE, and
Speaker 1: Morocco all signed the supposed quote unquote peace treaty with Israel. However,
Speaker 1: as we've seen from this year's World Cup, the Arab
Speaker 1: people do not agree with their politicians or their decisions. Again,
Speaker 1: most of these decision makers are not elected by their people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of corruption at play, and I think
Speaker 1: it's very important to always separate a government from its people,
Speaker 1: as we're seeing, especially in Iran right now, which is
Speaker 1: something that makes me very emotional and deserves to be
Speaker 1: talked about more. I can't do a justice in this
Speaker 1: one sentence, but I urge you all to keep spreading
Speaker 1: awareness about Iran. Please. What they're doing to protesters is
Speaker 1: inhumane and truly medieval. Recent polls indicate that the Arab
Speaker 1: public widely disapproves of the Abraham Accords, strongly disagreeing with
Speaker 1: the prospect of normalizing ties with Israel as long as
Speaker 1: the Palestinians remain oppressed. But if there were still any
Speaker 1: lingering doubts that these accords our bullshit had not wanted.
Speaker 1: The experience of Israeli journalists and Clethod can be seen
Speaker 1: as this decisive confirmation that the treatment of Palestinians will
Speaker 1: actually be what dictate the trajectory of normalization. Israeli journalists
Speaker 1: broadcasting live have been interrupted by rallies of people chanting
Speaker 1: pro Palestinian slogans and waving Palestinian flags. An Egyptian man
Speaker 1: went viral after he leaned into the camera and said,
Speaker 1: live on Israeli television, Viva Palestine. Fans refusing to speak
Speaker 1: to Israeli channels has also been a hilarious common occurrence.
Speaker 1: One particular exchange included Moroccan fans posing for the camera
Speaker 1: before swiftly walking off upon realizing it was for an
Speaker 1: Israeli media outlet. The reporter's response was one of shock,
Speaker 1: repeatedly citing that a piece agreement had been signed by Morocco,
Speaker 1: thereby assuming that the Moroccan people themselves endorsed the notion
Speaker 1: that Israel's crimes could be whitewashed and forgotten. And again,
Speaker 1: highly recommend you watch these videos. They have brought me
Speaker 1: a joy that I haven't felt in literal years, and
Speaker 1: it's just beautiful and most importantly hilarious to see. Highly recommend.
Speaker 1: There are silver lining sometimes to life, and I feel
Speaker 1: like there are enough terrible things happening where a little
Speaker 1: joy is fine. And seeing Israeli journalists being accumulated, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you world. There's a thread on Twitter of World
Speaker 1: Cup football fans refusing to speak to Israeli channels. I'll
Speaker 1: try to put that in the notes and where, but regardless,
Speaker 1: highly recommend looking up these videos. Just again beautiful, beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned, Israeli journalists often seem bewildered as
Speaker 1: to why they are being boycotted. An Israeli reporter told
Speaker 1: The New York Times, I really changed my mind here.
Speaker 1: We are not human beings for them. They want to
Speaker 1: wipe us out from the map, which is obviously not true,
Speaker 1: and language like this is one of many Zionist talking
Speaker 1: points that are all stupid. And while Israeli journalists speculated
Speaker 1: about being wiped out, that is in fact the lived
Speaker 1: reality for Palestinians under Israeli rule. Also, there is a
Speaker 1: video that was captured, and I'm sure there are many
Speaker 1: more instances like this where it was not captured on video,
Speaker 1: but the Israeli police were violently cracking down on Palestinians,
Speaker 1: including children, who were celebrating Morocco's previous winds and occupied
Speaker 1: East Jerusalem. They were celebrating Rocco becoming the first African
Speaker 1: or air country to reach the Semifinals, and they were
Speaker 1: literally beaten up. There's no defense in this video That's
Speaker 1: the thing that I can't get over is the idea
Speaker 1: facts in a way that is so indefensible and so obvious.
Speaker 1: And you can say maybe the similar things about the
Speaker 1: police here. It's mind blowing that they've been able to
Speaker 1: terrorize Palestinians for basically a century now. I also want
Speaker 1: to play this video. Well, you're gonna hear the audio.
Speaker 1: There's a Palestinian activist online that I really admire. He's
Speaker 1: always posting really great things, and he sometimes posts funny
Speaker 1: things which are very funny. But his name is Slaa
Speaker 1: and his handle is s b e I h dot jpg.
Speaker 1: And there is a video that he posted about basically
Speaker 1: what Israel has been doing just throughout even the past
Speaker 1: week when this World Cup is happening, and I feel
Speaker 1: like he'll say it better than me paraphrasing it, so
Speaker 1: here he is. Let's go through everything Israel has been
Speaker 1: doing to Palestinians in the past week or so, during
Speaker 1: all this hype of Morocco making it to the semi finals.
Speaker 1: And these are the reasons why so many people are
Speaker 1: carrying and waving the Palestinian flag at the World Cup
Speaker 1: right now, including the Moroccan team. After their matches. First,
Speaker 1: we have Palestinians who are celebrating Morocco's winds being attacked
Speaker 1: by Israeli occupation forces. They're out here waving the Morocco flag,
Speaker 1: trying to celebrate with them, and of course it has
Speaker 1: to be cut short with Israeli soldiers coming and hitting everyone.
Speaker 1: Then we have a sixteen year old child named Jennezekadine
Speaker 1: who was on the roof of her house when she
Speaker 1: was shot in the face by Israeli forces during another
Speaker 1: illegal raid of the city of Genine. We have another
Speaker 1: sixteen year old Palestinian child, a boy named Yeti Maui,
Speaker 1: who was also killed by Israeli forces in west of Romola.
Speaker 1: On top of those two, we have four Palestinian men
Speaker 1: also killed by Israeli forces Jehad Hamid Ladock damage and
Speaker 1: Israeli forces demolished another Palestinian home in a town near Jericho.
Speaker 1: Then another Palestine home in the town of Laban. Israeli
Speaker 1: occupation forces fired tear gas at journalists who were covering
Speaker 1: the Palestinian protests against the illegal Israeli settlement expansions in
Speaker 1: the town of bid Desion. You'd think that we're done,
Speaker 1: but there's more. We have an Israeli soldier brutally beating
Speaker 1: a young Palestinian man in Nabilis. The soldier sits on
Speaker 1: top of him and punches him in the head. And
Speaker 1: the east of Hebron, Israeli forces cut down fifty olive
Speaker 1: trees belonging to Palestinian farmers. And of course Israeli settlers
Speaker 1: continue to break into a Uxam moss under the protection
Speaker 1: of Israeli occupation forces. This is why everyone's living in
Speaker 1: a Palestinian flag at the World Cup. This is why
Speaker 1: that tun Asian man randomly ran through the match with
Speaker 1: the Palestinian flag, or why Israeli reporters are being ignored
Speaker 1: and shunned. These are the reasons. Why not because anti
Speaker 1: Semitism is because Israel is literally killing Palestinians. You'd rather
Speaker 1: just blame it all on anti Semitism instead of simply
Speaker 1: holding Israel a acountable for their actions. Everything I just
Speaker 1: listed happened in the past like ten days, putting aside
Speaker 1: everything that Israel has been doing to Palestinians for the
Speaker 1: past well almost a hundred years now. So don't be
Speaker 1: surprised when people stand with the people of Palestine. Last
Speaker 1: week marked six months since El Jazira journalist Sharine was
Speaker 1: assassinated by Israeli forces, and while her death did attract
Speaker 1: more coverage than as usual, in part to her being
Speaker 1: an American citizen, it was unfortunately not an exception. Since
Speaker 1: the year two thousand fifty, Palestinian journalists have been murdered,
Speaker 1: many many more civilians, including children, have been murdered. So
Speaker 1: if media representatives or journalists from an apartheid state can't
Speaker 1: seem to understand why the reception to their presence has
Speaker 1: been so cold, they just are better off examining why
Speaker 1: that is and why their government is actually the one
Speaker 1: attempting to wipe a people off the map. Even in
Speaker 1: the weeks during this World Cup, Israel has killed multiple Palestinians,
Speaker 1: has murdered multiple Palestinians. They killed a sixteen year old
Speaker 1: girl when she was on her roof searching for her cat.
Speaker 1: She was shot four times, twice in the head. How
Speaker 1: can you justify that they're claiming it was an accident.
Speaker 1: But it's similar to what police say here when they
Speaker 1: shoot someone multiple times in the back and then blame
Speaker 1: it on the person that they murdered. In the family
Speaker 1: that they destroyed X y Z, etcetera, etcetera. And just
Speaker 1: to put it in perspective, Israeli forces have killed over
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifteen Palestinians this year, making it the
Speaker 1: deadliest year and over a decade. Israel is the one
Speaker 1: who does not see Palestinians, as has proven time and
Speaker 1: time again by their actions as human beings. Something so
Speaker 1: significant is that the public support of Palestinians solidarity has
Speaker 1: not been confined to only fans of Arab nations. Brazilian
Speaker 1: fans also proudly raised the Palestinian flag, and Uruguay supporters
Speaker 1: have been spotted donning the Kofeia, which is the symbolic
Speaker 1: black and white scarf that has become a symbol of
Speaker 1: Palestinian resistance, and they're also wearing pro Palestinian shirts, with
Speaker 1: fans insisting the Palestinian people deserve freedom. One clip that
Speaker 1: also went viral on social media featured an English fan who,
Speaker 1: during an interview with an Arabic channel, confessed that as
Speaker 1: Arabic wasn't really that strong, and then he shouted free
Speaker 1: Palestine and great Arabic and then he broke into this free, free,
Speaker 1: free chant with everyone around him again joyful, beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1: That just proves that this kind of support works, and
Speaker 1: it grows and it spreads, and so all of this
Speaker 1: really goes to show is that while Arab governments have
Speaker 1: been normalizing relations with Israel, that sentiment is not reflected
Speaker 1: in the streets, and Arabs and non Arabs alike are
Speaker 1: more passionate than ever about the Palestinian cause. Some Palestinians
Speaker 1: living in Cutold have referred to the World Cup as
Speaker 1: a quote golden opportunity to introduce our cause, and this
Speaker 1: intent has been received enthusiastically, to say the least. And
Speaker 1: yet in the face of such an unavoidable talking point,
Speaker 1: there's been a striking, if not unsurprising, radio silence from
Speaker 1: Western media. It's a huge reason why I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about this in an episode. I found it so
Speaker 1: strange that my family and friends who were tuned into
Speaker 1: the World Cup, we're constantly talking about something that hasn't
Speaker 1: been covered at all by Western media, at least not
Speaker 1: in a real honest way. If anything, the World Cup
Speaker 1: has ignited a Islamophobic and orientalists tropes in some Western
Speaker 1: news coverage, which I think is so shameful. For example,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go through a little list that Al
Speaker 1: Jazeera shared. A Dutch newspaper published a cartoon of Moroccan
Speaker 1: men stealing the World Cup trophy. And this image, they're
Speaker 1: on a bike and they're grabbing this trophy from a
Speaker 1: white man. They're depicted as not white, obviously, and it
Speaker 1: just reinforces these stereotypes of young Arab men in the
Speaker 1: Netherlands being seen as criminals. Another example is Okay, so
Speaker 1: when Muslims put up an index finger, it's what we
Speaker 1: call dak weed, which is to signify the oneness of God,
Speaker 1: because Islam there's only one God, just like all the
Speaker 1: Big Three as far as religions go. But when these
Speaker 1: Muslim teams are winning, the gestures from the players, like
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see a player raising an index finger, are
Speaker 1: raising two index fingers. And so this fucking German TV
Speaker 1: news anchor responded to Moroccos excess by suggesting that these
Speaker 1: players that are raising their index fingers are showing support
Speaker 1: for Isis. And some fans have responded to this with humor,
Speaker 1: but at the same time it's like you're laughing only
Speaker 1: because it's sad and maddening. Another example is a cartoon
Speaker 1: in a French newspaper. It depicted Cathos national team as
Speaker 1: bearded caricatures that were playing soccer holding rifles and machete's.
Speaker 1: Is such an ugly cartoon and I have no idea
Speaker 1: why they insist on making these artistic depictions. I think
Speaker 1: they know because it's gone people riled up in the past.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they're like poking the bear. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of annoying. That's so childish in my opinion, but again,
Speaker 1: terrible depiction of Arabs, what's new. And then another example
Speaker 1: is a photo caption in a British newspaper stated that
Speaker 1: Cathodies are not used to seeing women in Western clothing,
Speaker 1: when in reality about population is from other countries, including
Speaker 1: western ones, and this caption was later removed. Another example,
Speaker 1: yes there's still more, is that a French journalist joked
Speaker 1: about there being a lot of Mosques in Clethod as
Speaker 1: if that was something like notable to be aware of. Yeah, no, ship,
Speaker 1: people are sucking Muslim And then a Danish TV channel
Speaker 1: literally compared Morocco's players who were celebrating by hugging their
Speaker 1: mothers on the field. They compared them with monkeys on
Speaker 1: live television TV two News. They showed a segment in
Speaker 1: which the anchor Sore and Lippert he held up an
Speaker 1: image of monkeys embracing while talking about Morocco's national team
Speaker 1: players hugging their mothers. And while comparing black and brown
Speaker 1: people with monkeys is a common, unsurprising racist trope, it
Speaker 1: was still pretty upsetting to see what happened in this
Speaker 1: year of two whatever. I just think the obvious orientalist
Speaker 1: nature of Western news really um came out in full
Speaker 1: force for some of this coverage. But yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think these kind of depictions and coverage, it reinforces stereotypes
Speaker 1: that are harmful and shameful, and it further makes immigrants
Speaker 1: and people of color in countries that they immigrant to
Speaker 1: just get terrorized. And I just wanted to bring up
Speaker 1: some examples to remind you that news sucks most of
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, the World Cup and all the joy
Speaker 1: and pride that's come from it is all my family,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure most air families have talked about for
Speaker 1: the last month, and I feel like it barely registers here.
Speaker 1: You have no idea how happy I've seen my parents,
Speaker 1: and my mom in particular just text me updates, are
Speaker 1: watching a game with me. We're all so united in
Speaker 1: a way that I haven't felt before, and it's just
Speaker 1: really beautiful, and it reminds you that borders are all
Speaker 1: made up and in the end, we're all the same
Speaker 1: people fighting for the same things. Notoriously, large sections of
Speaker 1: US and British media have engaged in the practice a
Speaker 1: deceptive framing and untrue coverage when it comes to covering
Speaker 1: Israel's treatment of Palestinians. We've seen this in inaccurate headlines,
Speaker 1: the twisting of words, and the general constant anti Palestinian
Speaker 1: and pro Israel bias that is almost always present when
Speaker 1: Western media talks about Palestine, and if Palestine rises in
Speaker 1: the political agenda, western media is quick to disparage it.
Speaker 1: In the UK, when a Labor Party candidate made reference
Speaker 1: to Palestine during a campaign in one the liberal leaning
Speaker 1: New Statesman magazine referred to it as quote unhinged and
Speaker 1: an obsession. British Palestinian writer again Hamazali sha rights in
Speaker 1: his article do people suffering from decades of cruelty deserve support?
Speaker 1: Apparently not if they're Palestinian. It's characteristic of this bias
Speaker 1: that while human rights have been a hot topic throughout
Speaker 1: the World Cup, and fans across the world are being
Speaker 1: commanded to speak out against injustice. The outpouring of Palestinian
Speaker 1: solidarity has largely been ignored, and this, unfortunately isn't surprising,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't make it any less disappointing, he continues,
Speaker 1: as it maintains its rule. Israel has spent years, with
Speaker 1: unconditional assistance from the Western world, cracking down and suppressing
Speaker 1: Palestinian solidarity. We are under no illusions that the outpouring
Speaker 1: of support at the World Cup will cause the occupation
Speaker 1: to grind to a halt or prevent Palestinians from being killed.
Speaker 1: As a British Palestinian, he says, I often see the
Speaker 1: misery of my family who are living under occupation gets
Speaker 1: swept under the carpet by the international community. As a result,
Speaker 1: it's hard not to exist in a perpetual state of despondency.
Speaker 1: But seeing the Palestinian flag hoisted so proudly during the
Speaker 1: World Cup has been heartening because it provides new grounds
Speaker 1: for hope and it shows that this is by no
Speaker 1: means a solo struggle and that the commitment to palestinean
Speaker 1: liberation remains as unshakable as ever. That was the end
Speaker 1: of his article, and uh, that's a great place to
Speaker 1: end because that was fucking great and poetic. And I
Speaker 1: hope that you also go watch the movie on Netflix.
Speaker 1: It's really important and it all goes hand in hand
Speaker 1: with supporting the Palestinian people and continuing to raise awareness
Speaker 1: because that's a huge reason why we've gotten this far,
Speaker 1: and the culmination of all of that being broadcast from
Speaker 1: the World Cup internationally. It's just been really really incredible
Speaker 1: and beautiful to watch. And uh, yeah, that's the episode
Speaker 1: until next time. I don't know, go watch. That's the
Speaker 1: only thing I can really say. And I hope you
Speaker 1: all have nice holidays whatever you do. Um yeah, have fun, goodbye,
Speaker 1: Welcome Today could happen here. It's it's the last episode
Speaker 1: that that that we're that I'm recording this year. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm your host. Be along, and today we are going
Speaker 1: to tell you a story of the Republican Party using
Speaker 1: extensive political violence and attempt to manipulate an election to
Speaker 1: install their unelected presidential Canada as dictator of the United States.
Speaker 1: And of by this, of course, I am referring not
Speaker 1: to the election, but to the election of two thousand's okay,
Speaker 1: So for for for those of you who do not
Speaker 1: remember this story, and this is okay. I was like
Speaker 1: three when this was happening. But weirdly, I have a
Speaker 1: very very this is legitimately one of my first memories.
Speaker 1: Is just I have the words engraved into my mind
Speaker 1: hanging chads, and so we we we will get to
Speaker 1: what exactly that is. But the two thousand election was
Speaker 1: one of the most chaotic elections in the history of
Speaker 1: the United States. Now, the US has a long history
Speaker 1: of really really weird elections. I mean, you know, from
Speaker 1: from from the serbspective of sort of like is the
Speaker 1: U s representative democracy? I think there's a pretty good
Speaker 1: argument that no election until like after the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act is even sort of a legitimate election. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, and and so far as you like consider
Speaker 1: elections to be legitimate, which you know, okay, but you
Speaker 1: know that the US is no is no stranger to
Speaker 1: someone winning an election than not taking office. There are,
Speaker 1: in fact, there are if you if you go back
Speaker 1: into American history, there are two different elections that are
Speaker 1: called the corrupt bargain Um. There's uh, John Quincy Adams,
Speaker 1: and I think it's makes this really really weird alliance
Speaker 1: with the original American political Slee's ball Henry Clay to
Speaker 1: get himself and solved as president. Although that that that's
Speaker 1: an election that's like truly an election where there are
Speaker 1: no heroes, where it's it's John Quincy Adams Henry Clay
Speaker 1: allying to bring down Andrew fucking Jackson. So you know,
Speaker 1: no no heroes there. There. There's there's another election after Reconstruction,
Speaker 1: which is the end of Reconstruction, where the Republican Party
Speaker 1: literally trades and like trades ending Reconstruction for putting their
Speaker 1: president in office. After a truly genuinely wild set of
Speaker 1: voting results happens, we're like all of the votes are
Speaker 1: in a box and the two parties are fighting over
Speaker 1: like who's going to count the votes because the guy
Speaker 1: who counts the votes from like the box is the
Speaker 1: person who's going to determine who wins the election. And
Speaker 1: so there's this whole negotiated thing where the eight d
Speaker 1: like racist Southern Democrats, are like, okay, we'll we'll give you,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll give you this election if you promised the
Speaker 1: pull troops out of the South. So okay, you know,
Speaker 1: American elections have always been sort of more fraudulent than
Speaker 1: people give them credit for. But the two thousand election,
Speaker 1: even by the standards of like an American election, is
Speaker 1: some bullshit. So let's let's let's go back. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to the origin of the story. The year is
Speaker 1: two thousand. For the last time in human history, humanity
Speaker 1: has taken collective action to stopping in penny catastrophe, having
Speaker 1: by the heartrending labor of a bunch of siss admins,
Speaker 1: including a guy that I knew growing up who spent
Speaker 1: fucking New Year, who literally spent New Year's Eve until
Speaker 1: the bell ring, like basically in a closet with a
Speaker 1: bunch of computers at his job trying to make sure
Speaker 1: what UK wouldn't happen. But you know, we did it,
Speaker 1: Actually we we actually did it. There was there was
Speaker 1: there was like, you know, there was human collective action
Speaker 1: to stop a major catastrophe from happening. And Al Gore,
Speaker 1: a Democrat who claims to have invented the Internet, is
Speaker 1: running against Harvard educated Harvard and actually Yale educated oil
Speaker 1: man caused playing as a cowboy whose name is George Bush,
Speaker 1: and I, oh god, I don't know, I don't I
Speaker 1: feel like people have kind of forgotten how really genuinely
Speaker 1: sleazy George Bush was. Like he he has this sort
Speaker 1: of public like, you know, one of the reasons he
Speaker 1: wins elections, and he has his public images like the
Speaker 1: guy who you know, like everyone like he he's the
Speaker 1: presidential candidate you'd want to have a beer with. But again,
Speaker 1: like literally everything from he's like public mannerisms down to
Speaker 1: like the minutia of his accent to like the stupid
Speaker 1: cowboy hat that he wears. All of this this is
Speaker 1: a bullshit, right, This is a fucking Harvard guy, And
Speaker 1: all of this is you know, completely intricately manufactured by
Speaker 1: a set a set of like very very very like
Speaker 1: sleazy but incredibly ruthless and efficient Republican political operatives. Now,
Speaker 1: George Bush's father is George H. W. Bush, who was
Speaker 1: the first and only director of the CIA to become president.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but Bush bushes running on this sort of
Speaker 1: neo conservative alliance of Texas oil men, evangelical hardliners, and
Speaker 1: weapons contractors. Um. The weapons contractors part uh winds up
Speaker 1: being incredibly relevant when nine eleven happens, and both Bush
Speaker 1: and Dick his code what's it called vice presidential I
Speaker 1: guess candidate at the time, but it is vice presidential selection.
Speaker 1: Dick Cheney, who is like Dick Cheney like saying that
Speaker 1: he's like the physical human embodiments of the military industrial
Speaker 1: complex is under selling how closely tied um Dick Cheney
Speaker 1: is to the military dustrial complex. And you know, like
Speaker 1: this is this is part of the reason why the
Speaker 1: warn Rock happens because again, like this entire coalition is
Speaker 1: just like it is, it is the it is is
Speaker 1: the sort of height of the military petro dollar coalition,
Speaker 1: just a a coalition of pere evil like fueled by
Speaker 1: war profits and homophobia. And but you know, part part
Speaker 1: of part of what's been happening in in this entire
Speaker 1: period is this is this is the year after the
Speaker 1: Battle of Seattle on the anti globalization movement hasn't been
Speaker 1: smashed again. This is there's other things. This is pre
Speaker 1: nine eleven, right, This is this is a very very
Speaker 1: short period of time where like in between the Battle
Speaker 1: of Seattle and UH eleven, where American politics are very
Speaker 1: very very weird, and you get another thing that we
Speaker 1: don't really have now, but from the nineties until about
Speaker 1: nine eleven kind of existed where that which was that
Speaker 1: there was a period where third party is kind of
Speaker 1: mattered ish like Ross Pirot like in the nineties. Arguably
Speaker 1: maybe could have won the election if vietn't just like
Speaker 1: given up. But yeah, you know. And one of the
Speaker 1: sort of products of this is that the Green Party
Speaker 1: is actually a real thing in in two thousands in
Speaker 1: a way that they're kind of not right. And then
Speaker 1: this has been this this sort of unfolding of a
Speaker 1: bunch of left wing social movements into which is absolutely
Speaker 1: disastrous attempt to enter party politics. Um, but they pull,
Speaker 1: you know, and this is the thing that no one
Speaker 1: has ever heard the end of, but they pull a
Speaker 1: bunch of votes into Ralph Nader in Florida, which winds
Speaker 1: up being a big deal. But the product of this
Speaker 1: is that this election is on a just on a
Speaker 1: knife's edge. Both sides of this election are unbelievably close.
Speaker 1: The entire election comes down to Florida. Now, the problem
Speaker 1: with the entire election coming down to Florida is that
Speaker 1: the American electoral system is a fucking joke. It is
Speaker 1: a disaster. It is a a genuine embarrassment. The United
Speaker 1: States is a country that has more resources than like,
Speaker 1: it has enough resources that, like Genghis Khan would weep like,
Speaker 1: it has a genuinely unfathomable amounts of resources, and its
Speaker 1: election system is basically run by a bunch of weird
Speaker 1: dipshit like party if like local like a weird patchwork
Speaker 1: of like completely underfunded and overworked local government officials who
Speaker 1: never have real budgets and who just spends like two
Speaker 1: months not sleeping with their like three co workers trying
Speaker 1: to make the elections work. And this is really weird
Speaker 1: because like most places on Earth that have elections, um,
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, a national thing that sort of
Speaker 1: does the elections in the US, Like no, no, it
Speaker 1: relies heavily on volunteers. It's just like this weird patchwork
Speaker 1: quilt of stuff, and Florida being Florida, a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff goes very wrong very quickly. Um. There There's two
Speaker 1: very famous ballot problems, the most famous of which is
Speaker 1: hanging chads. So okay, okay, what what what? What is
Speaker 1: the hanging chat For people who have forgotten? Are people
Speaker 1: who you know, weren't alive then, which I realize is
Speaker 1: I man, the fact that the fact that I have
Speaker 1: coworkers who are not alive for hanging chads is really
Speaker 1: really disturbing thought. But okay, so what is a hanging
Speaker 1: chat um? The answer is that in Florida, the way
Speaker 1: this ballot works is that you have to physically punch
Speaker 1: holes in your ballot. And you know, you punch a
Speaker 1: hole in the place, like, okay, so today, right when
Speaker 1: you fill in a ballot, you have to like fill
Speaker 1: in a square right with a pencil in in in Florida,
Speaker 1: you have to like hole punch that square. This is
Speaker 1: maybe the worst ballot design I can possibly imagine, and
Speaker 1: it goes terribly wrong. A bunch of these whole punches
Speaker 1: basically don't actually remove all the paper. And there's there
Speaker 1: are so many ways, so many ways that this gets
Speaker 1: sucked up. The hanging chat is the most famous one.
Speaker 1: That hanging so a chad Basically, it's the piece of
Speaker 1: paper that when you punch the thing with like the
Speaker 1: whole punch it's supposed to like, it's the paper that
Speaker 1: comes out of the hole. Right. Hanging chad is when
Speaker 1: you do the whole punch thing. But the chat is
Speaker 1: still connected to the piece of paper by like one corner.
Speaker 1: But but but again less less. Do you think there's
Speaker 1: only one way that these ballots get sucked up? No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's there are like, there are an unfathomable number of
Speaker 1: ways that these ballots don't punch correctly. They're they're swinging
Speaker 1: door chairs, there's tried chairs, there's did bull chairs, there's
Speaker 1: pregnant chats. It's unbelievable. And a bunch of people's votes
Speaker 1: just don't get counted because these ballots. The reason they're
Speaker 1: doing these whole bunch ballots that these are these are
Speaker 1: you know, this is what it's supposed to be, like
Speaker 1: the fancy new like voting technology. Right then, then the
Speaker 1: new vote technology is the voting machines. And the way
Speaker 1: the voting machine works is basically, the voting machine can
Speaker 1: check if if if there's a hole there, and if
Speaker 1: there's a hole in the paper, then it counts you
Speaker 1: as the accounts that as the vote. But if the
Speaker 1: entire chad hasn't been punched out, it won't count your vote.
Speaker 1: This is a problem. And there's another problem, uh, and
Speaker 1: and that problem is the butterfly ballot. So the butterfly
Speaker 1: ballot was original. Is this ballot they're using in Florida
Speaker 1: that was originally designed to help elderly voters? Um, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. The goal all of the ballot is
Speaker 1: to have larger thought sizes to make it more accessible
Speaker 1: for people. Which this is good, right, like, okay, I
Speaker 1: I support I support accessible design. Is put accessible design
Speaker 1: for voting. The problem is this ballot is designed like ship.
Speaker 1: The way it works is there's a two page ballot
Speaker 1: with like a crease in the middle. Right. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a book, right, like you unfold the
Speaker 1: book in the middle of the ballot, you know, And
Speaker 1: on both of these pages there are like the different
Speaker 1: different candidate names and parties. The problem is, in order
Speaker 1: to pick a candidate, you have to punch just like
Speaker 1: a whole. You have to punch one of the one
Speaker 1: of these served circles. But these circles are in a
Speaker 1: line down the middle of the crease of the ballot, right,
Speaker 1: so you have you have candidates on both You should
Speaker 1: you should google what these look like because it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to explain. But basically what's happening is that
Speaker 1: there are there are different party names on each side
Speaker 1: of the ballot. But then in order to pick which
Speaker 1: party you're voting for, you have to pick for a
Speaker 1: specific hole that's supposed to be next you the like
Speaker 1: the candidate you supported in the in the middle of
Speaker 1: the page. Of the problem is these are all on
Speaker 1: a line, right. They're on a straight line, which means
Speaker 1: that two candidates can be like across from each other
Speaker 1: on the same page or on on opposite pages. And
Speaker 1: then there's two holes that are like right next because
Speaker 1: because the holes are both in the middle of the ballot, right,
Speaker 1: so that you have these situations where for example, for
Speaker 1: and this is the one that's important. Inside of the
Speaker 1: there's like two lines and then there's like it says
Speaker 1: al Gore and Lieberman in it, right, and inside of
Speaker 1: those two lines in the in the in the middle
Speaker 1: of the page, there are two holes, and one of
Speaker 1: these holes votes for Core. But the other one of
Speaker 1: those holes, I is for the candidate on the other
Speaker 1: side of the page, which is Reformed Party candidate Crimtinal
Speaker 1: Fascist Goal path Bu Canon. And the result of this,
Speaker 1: it says, people start looking through these things. Pap Bu
Speaker 1: Canon has a bunch of voters from Democratic Party strongholds
Speaker 1: and like also particularly like like a bunch of like
Speaker 1: Democratic Catholic voters vote for Buchanan, and Buchanan himself is like,
Speaker 1: there's no way this is real. Like Buchanan's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's a figure will probably like one day do
Speaker 1: a like we'll probably talk about more on this podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that those behind the Baschard's episode about him, he is
Speaker 1: a he is a fucking Nazi. Uh, he sucks ass.
Speaker 1: But he's also so he's from a kind of evangelical
Speaker 1: who like really really really fucking hates Catholics. And you know,
Speaker 1: so there's a bunch of these Catholic like Democratic voters
Speaker 1: he voted for this guy, and everyone's like, what the
Speaker 1: funk happened here? The thing that happened here is all
Speaker 1: these people got confused. And yes, so this is a
Speaker 1: disaster on a hundred million levels. And when we come
Speaker 1: back from ads, we will talk about the product of
Speaker 1: all of this, which is not good. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So on election night, the media starts to call Florida
Speaker 1: for Gore based an exit pulling, but they start getting
Speaker 1: calls for Republican political operatives saying hold no, hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, it's actually too close to call. And the
Speaker 1: initial count from Florida has the Republican Party ahead. But
Speaker 1: when I say the Hublican Party is ahead, they were
Speaker 1: ahead by like six votes. And so this triggers a
Speaker 1: mandatory recount. But and this, and this is another problem
Speaker 1: with this, right we we we we've gone through at
Speaker 1: length all of the problems with these ballots. Right the
Speaker 1: recall that they do is a recall using the voting machines.
Speaker 1: And those voting machines our guess what the ones that are.
Speaker 1: If if you if you rerun a funked up Chad
Speaker 1: ballot through the same voting machine, it's going to get
Speaker 1: a fucked up result. So okay, So they run this
Speaker 1: again and the difference in votes comes down to fle
Speaker 1: five hundred votes. At this point, Gore's campaign requests a
Speaker 1: manual recount. They want people to look at the balance
Speaker 1: by hand and figure out who people actually voted for,
Speaker 1: because these machines are a fucking shit show. But in
Speaker 1: any kind of sort of like you know, and even
Speaker 1: remotely competent or saying like democratic political system, there would
Speaker 1: be a bunch of people doing this like they're there.
Speaker 1: You know, like when when an election happens, they would
Speaker 1: be just a very very large number of people mobilized
Speaker 1: to make sure that it runs smoothly. There's not. There's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of like unbelievably overworked and underpaid. Some
Speaker 1: people are people who also people who are just sucking volunteers,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of just random like unbelievably exhausted, like
Speaker 1: local election officials who have to do this recount. And
Speaker 1: this is where the Bush campaign sees their chance to
Speaker 1: steal the election. So the election happens on November seven,
Speaker 1: and on November eleven, the Bush campaign sues to stop
Speaker 1: the recount. Now, we talked on a previous episod known
Speaker 1: a while back about the Democrats how they have this
Speaker 1: line in the two thousand's about how they're part of
Speaker 1: the quote reality based community, and how this is a
Speaker 1: reflection of you know, if you look at the whole quote,
Speaker 1: which is from a Republican political strategist, I what's actually
Speaker 1: what they're saying here is that what's happening is that
Speaker 1: the Democrats observe reality. Well, the Republicans set out to
Speaker 1: define reality. And this is the moment, this election is
Speaker 1: where we get to see how the dynat we we
Speaker 1: we we we get to like really first see these
Speaker 1: these principles in action. I'm gonna read from the Washington
Speaker 1: Post here. Unlike the Gore campaign, which focused on filing
Speaker 1: motions in Florida courts to keep the recount going in
Speaker 1: key counties like Miami Dodd, the Bush campaign waged a broader,
Speaker 1: costlier effort on multiple fronts. Blakeman said it was a
Speaker 1: three pronged effort. He said, it was a court battle,
Speaker 1: it was a recount organization, and it was also a
Speaker 1: pr effort because although the voting effort ended, the campaign
Speaker 1: never did until there was a definitive winner. So what
Speaker 1: happens here is Republicans start this massive media blitz to
Speaker 1: convince people that Bush actually won the election. And this
Speaker 1: this is a really really important moment in sort of
Speaker 1: American history because it's one of the things that solidifies,
Speaker 1: um It's one of the things that solidifies sort of
Speaker 1: like like owning the lib for example. It's like a
Speaker 1: major point, and it's like like one of like the
Speaker 1: key focal points of America of Republican politics. And this
Speaker 1: is eventually gonna consume like all of their politics right
Speaker 1: until when we get this sort of you know, like
Speaker 1: now right where that's like owning the Libs is the
Speaker 1: only thing this is about. You know, this this had
Speaker 1: owning the Libs is kind of like it's it's been
Speaker 1: a part of Republican politics for a long time. But
Speaker 1: this is where we really start to see it sort
Speaker 1: of consuming everything. And Okay, if you look at their
Speaker 1: like like what they're saying, by modern standards, it is
Speaker 1: incredibly weak ship. Right, this is like this is a
Speaker 1: culture that is just a bourge from the es. Nobody
Speaker 1: has invented real posted yet, but it is really on
Speaker 1: the lip stuff. Like they have this whole campaign where
Speaker 1: they call the Goyal Libramain campaign sore loser Man, and
Speaker 1: everyone has like sore loser man hats and like they
Speaker 1: have all these like printed signs and like T shirts
Speaker 1: and they're selling merch and you know, and so you know,
Speaker 1: they're running basically an OP and they're running an OPT
Speaker 1: to convince everyone that like, no, actually we legitimately won
Speaker 1: this election and it's over and the recounts just people
Speaker 1: being but heard they lost. And this is where things
Speaker 1: get really really weird. So in Miami, DoD where there's
Speaker 1: a manual recount going on. A bunch of protesters in
Speaker 1: fancy suits show up and starts screaming at election workers. Now,
Speaker 1: if this was the old Democratic Party machine like LBJ
Speaker 1: would have personally pushed six of these guys out a window,
Speaker 1: and the recount would have been run by like sixty
Speaker 1: of the earliest dudes, the entire Chicago mob. But this
Speaker 1: is the the incredibly decrepit two thousand Democratic Party, who
Speaker 1: have replaced all their mob guys with consultants. And these
Speaker 1: people legitimately, like you know, they believe in the rules
Speaker 1: and the norms and the process. And the result of
Speaker 1: this is that Bush literally destroys the entire United States,
Speaker 1: and I think, like irrevocably damaged, like the entirety of
Speaker 1: the of you know, like what what whatever is left
Speaker 1: to the American democratic system. So how how this has achieved?
Speaker 1: But back in Miami DoD this Democratic Party operative is
Speaker 1: seen walking around the recount area with a ballot. Now
Speaker 1: this is a blank ballot, right, this guy is going
Speaker 1: to see He's going with an election official to go
Speaker 1: see if he can replicate like the like how the
Speaker 1: hay h has stuff happens to prove that like this
Speaker 1: is what's going on. But they Problicans see this guy
Speaker 1: and they immediately start screaming about how the Democrats are
Speaker 1: staling in the election, and they like beat this ship
Speaker 1: out of this guy, and just a full on riot
Speaker 1: starts in this government building and it works. The recount stops.
Speaker 1: The election workers are terrified. The recount. Yeah, like the
Speaker 1: all like everything stopped for the day. They can't do anything.
Speaker 1: And the next day the recount is fully stopped. It
Speaker 1: never resumes, and the Republicans are sunned by this. They
Speaker 1: assumed that, like, you know, the political operatives doing the rioting,
Speaker 1: we're gonna like face some oppositions to the Democrats on
Speaker 1: the ground for you know, like literally assaulting and intimidating
Speaker 1: a bunch of election workers in order to like stop
Speaker 1: votes from being counted. But there's they they don't, there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing, there's no resistance at all. Um. Here's a
Speaker 1: quote from Douglas Hay, who is there a Republican political
Speaker 1: operatives who is one of the organizers of the Brooks
Speaker 1: Brothers riot, who he tried to do a redemption arc
Speaker 1: in the media to sort of like be like, oh
Speaker 1: I was part of the Brooks Brothers riot. But even
Speaker 1: I think the stop the steel stuff is bad, which,
Speaker 1: like I think man doth protest too much. Um, here's
Speaker 1: just the quote. I still don't understand how it was
Speaker 1: that we completely outmatched the Democrats, Hey says, and this
Speaker 1: is how Bush wins the election the Supreme Court, which
Speaker 1: again it should also be know the Streme Court is
Speaker 1: staffed by a bunch of George H. W. Bush appointees. Um.
Speaker 1: Eventually here's the Clayic case and decides that the constitution
Speaker 1: says that the winner the winner has to be declared
Speaker 1: by a certain times, so there's no time for a recount,
Speaker 1: and they have the election to Bush. And this is achieved.
Speaker 1: And this is possible because of the Brooks Brothers riot
Speaker 1: and the Brooks Brothers, right, is what this whole sort
Speaker 1: of republican opertor things comes to be known because they're
Speaker 1: all wearing Brooks Brothers suits. Um. Now, okay, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people involved in this riot who are
Speaker 1: like at the core of modern republican politics. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Neil Gorrich and Amy COLEMYN. Barritt, and I think there's
Speaker 1: actually one other like Paris and Republicans of elevated senior office.
Speaker 1: There are multiple people on the Supreme Court today who
Speaker 1: were on the Wish legal team when they were doing this.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's also the question of the extent
Speaker 1: to which roger Stone is involved. If you asked roger Stone,
Speaker 1: he claims to have organized literally this entire thing. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: other people who were involved with they claimed that roger
Speaker 1: Stone was like fucked off at a hotel somewhere else
Speaker 1: and didn't was just sort of around and didn't actually
Speaker 1: organize it. But either way, this set up precedent for
Speaker 1: how you can rig an election, which is if you
Speaker 1: if you can seize the majority on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Was sort of like when you know, you can put
Speaker 1: your sort of loyal minions there and then you can
Speaker 1: have an initial count of an election that looked that
Speaker 1: that that looks like it's favoring you, even if that's
Speaker 1: not actually true. If you then have an initial count
Speaker 1: of an election that says that you win, and then
Speaker 1: you can stop and then you were able to stop
Speaker 1: votes from being counted, uh from November until January, you
Speaker 1: will win the election. That that that that is the
Speaker 1: precedents that was installed by by the two thous election
Speaker 1: and if you look at the Stop the Still campaign,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what Trump is trying to do. And
Speaker 1: literally Roger Stone is also trying to do this, right, Um,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is this is what stop
Speaker 1: is Still is. I you can you can find Trump
Speaker 1: talking about this months before the election, right this, this,
Speaker 1: this is why he was trying to do his whole
Speaker 1: thing about about the mail in ballots because he and
Speaker 1: Roger Stone and sort of all the political operators whore
Speaker 1: involved in the circles were like, okay, so we know
Speaker 1: that like a bunch of Democrats are gonna do mail
Speaker 1: in ballots because of COVID because they don't want to
Speaker 1: be there at the ballots. They know that the initial
Speaker 1: count is going to favor them. And I think people
Speaker 1: have forgotten this, but if you remember the the night
Speaker 1: of the election in I remember like like even a
Speaker 1: bunch of my friends who were like people who were
Speaker 1: you know, like like fairly serious, like I don't know
Speaker 1: politics nowhere, people were really deeply invested in politics, like
Speaker 1: thought that Trump had won the election because what would
Speaker 1: have been counted on that night was just was just
Speaker 1: the sort of initially wasn't counting the mail in ballots,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, the plan was just to de legitimate
Speaker 1: mail in ballots in the eyes of of sort of
Speaker 1: the well mostly the Republican based, but like sort of
Speaker 1: the American populacets the whole, and then have a bunch
Speaker 1: of people physically assault these centers to get them to
Speaker 1: stop the places with these votes are being counted, to
Speaker 1: get them to stop the count and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't work I think partially because but yeah,
Speaker 1: those feelings, Like one of the things is that you
Speaker 1: know you can't if you're gonna do a play like this,
Speaker 1: you have to run it like you you are relying
Speaker 1: on the sort of physical intimidation of the court workers.
Speaker 1: But mostly what you need to do is make sure
Speaker 1: that it's stuck in a court fight. And the problem
Speaker 1: is that like the sort of modern like trump Ace
Speaker 1: people like they don't have any competent lawyers. The root
Speaker 1: of Giuliani is like trying to do this ship or whatever.
Speaker 1: But like that guy, I don't know that that guy
Speaker 1: may have known what a law was in like ninety three,
Speaker 1: but his brain has been just melted by like inhaling
Speaker 1: cigars smoke and truly copious about of drugs, so you know,
Speaker 1: they're not they're not really able to sort of pull
Speaker 1: this off. But Bush is and the result of this
Speaker 1: is the American reaction about eleven is the war in
Speaker 1: the Rock is basically the the the sort of complete
Speaker 1: annihilation of like the content like this is slightly an exaggeration,
Speaker 1: but like the concept of freedom in the US, like
Speaker 1: the ability for you not to be constantly surveiled, the
Speaker 1: ability for you to like you know, live live in
Speaker 1: a society in which there's like every single thing you
Speaker 1: do isn't being monitored by a thousand different kinds of
Speaker 1: police stations who are all sharing your tweets so they
Speaker 1: can fucking grab people out off of the road, sucking
Speaker 1: unmarked fans, right, Like, that's all stuff that is a
Speaker 1: specific product of the sort of kind of fascism at
Speaker 1: the Bush administration deploys and they're a we'll do this
Speaker 1: because they just try to stole an election, and now
Speaker 1: we all we all sort of just live in in
Speaker 1: the permanent afterlife of the Brooks Brothers riot. This is
Speaker 1: what January sixth was. This is what stop the Steel is,
Speaker 1: and it's what the that's what the modern Republican Party
Speaker 1: is so yeah. It's happy holidays everyone. I hope you
Speaker 1: have a good new Year. And uh inslaw. We will
Speaker 1: destroy these fashion Republican bastards and make sure that none
Speaker 1: of them ever get to do this again. Hello, Ulu,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of It could happen here with
Speaker 1: a twist. Um, this is the holiday special answer for that. UM,
Speaker 1: So you know, buckle up, you know Santa might make
Speaker 1: an appearance. UM. I don't want to take a moment
Speaker 1: to discuss, you know, this whole idea of Christmas. This
Speaker 1: practice is globally celebrated cultural festivity, and I guess on
Speaker 1: the not to be stereotypically leftist, but the issues I
Speaker 1: have with it alongside UM, I think some of the
Speaker 1: ah best UM and most I think UM hopeful elements
Speaker 1: within it. I don't know about the rest of you. UM.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm joined by Garrison andterest for
Speaker 1: I'm very excited we get we get to finally talk
Speaker 1: about the issue that I've been wanting to talk about
Speaker 1: ever ever since we started the show. How telling your
Speaker 1: kids that Santa exists is actually child abuse? This is
Speaker 1: very exciting. I'm glad we can have this civil discussion
Speaker 1: to to to cover these these hard hitting topics that
Speaker 1: are impacting us most in Are you trying to say
Speaker 1: this like a Santin's abolitionist or something. Yes, I think
Speaker 1: the fact that we condone lying to children in this
Speaker 1: way every Christmas is I'm sorry, but that's that's so
Speaker 1: politically unrealistic. I don't know how you have a platform.
Speaker 1: Can't take that seriously. Um, it teaches our kids not
Speaker 1: to trust us. Um. It starts. It is really an
Speaker 1: extension of the great Man theory that Santa as this
Speaker 1: man is the only one capable of delivering all these presents.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's quite. Are you trying
Speaker 1: to say so it's a manifestation of patriarchy. That's right,
Speaker 1: it is. It is quite. It's it's quite problematic. Um.
Speaker 1: You know those elves are not getting paid. You know
Speaker 1: that Santa has tried to bust unions at his workshop
Speaker 1: every year. Um. I don't think this reindeer are treated
Speaker 1: very well. Um. There is a whole, a whole lot
Speaker 1: of issues here. Yeah, it's a normalization of the surveillance state.
Speaker 1: It right on the shelf classic, Yeah, elf on the
Speaker 1: shelf came to rise after the Patriot Act was introduced
Speaker 1: to condition American children into thinking it's okay to always
Speaker 1: be watched. This is it's it's this, this, this is sick.
Speaker 1: Parents are culpable in promoting this myth. Um, I think
Speaker 1: this needs to be addressed. You know what I think,
Speaker 1: you know what I think. I think you all need
Speaker 1: to be Christmas bill. I don't know about show, but
Speaker 1: I love I love Christmas, I think, Um, I think
Speaker 1: it's I think we need to take a Christmas bill. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, of course the actual gift getting hasn't been
Speaker 1: the best. Especially want to get past une, just like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what it is then. But you know, the
Speaker 1: the unity and the joy and the excitement, I mean
Speaker 1: what about that? You know, the color, the food and
Speaker 1: the drink, getting people together, um, catching up. You know,
Speaker 1: celebrated in many different ways, religiously and non religiously. And
Speaker 1: of course it's not even celebrated at all, um in
Speaker 1: some places and with some people. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are other religious observances and holidays around this time.
Speaker 1: They don't like Kannaka and concer and whatever else. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of us are most
Speaker 1: familiar with Christmas, and I think we're, you know, mostly
Speaker 1: familiar with the origins of Christmas. That's not the kind
Speaker 1: of episode we're getting into here. Um. I think you know,
Speaker 1: we all known about Jesus and you and sat Anlia
Speaker 1: and all that fun stuff. Knows it about Charles Dickens
Speaker 1: and Scrooge and of course the the diagram of Scrooge
Speaker 1: and cringe. And you know whether or not those two
Speaker 1: concepts will a lap. But I want to look more
Speaker 1: to these sort of you know, ideas of what Christmas is,
Speaker 1: what it means, you know, um, and really how a
Speaker 1: lot of our society's issues come to the forefront around
Speaker 1: this time of year. Um, the scourge of Scrooge is
Speaker 1: particularly apparent. I mean, for many, Christmas is basically capitalism
Speaker 1: on steroids. For one, UM and Santa have to sort
Speaker 1: of promote that from an early age as a propaganda
Speaker 1: tool of the capitalists, as I'm sure would m would.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Great. Well that's the
Speaker 1: episode everybody. Again. I hope you I hope you have
Speaker 1: a good holiday season. Oh wait, I think Andrew is
Speaker 1: more to say. Yeah, I think we're wrapping up a
Speaker 1: little bit EARLYI there, you know, but you know, we
Speaker 1: can't talk about the fact that you know, Santa really
Speaker 1: is um a big fan of this like ultimate now
Speaker 1: you know, there's GDP growth sull of inducing this this
Speaker 1: pro growth ist capitalist production for production, seek consumption for
Speaker 1: consumption sake, like the idea that Santa expects children to
Speaker 1: write and request something from him every single year. Um,
Speaker 1: that he he, he stakes an entire holiday upon his
Speaker 1: own business and upon his own you know production, whole
Speaker 1: industrial apparatus a center around this one event, um. And
Speaker 1: I mean the sort of consumption we see around Christmas season,
Speaker 1: it's like it ramps up, you know, online stores, department stores,
Speaker 1: malls just burst in with with people um looking to
Speaker 1: bye bye bye all around the world. In America, at
Speaker 1: least twenty nineteen so Americans spent over one trillion dollars
Speaker 1: just in the Christmas see done. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: glorious excess, honestly. And of course there's also the excessive
Speaker 1: you know, decorating and shopping and drinking and the us
Speaker 1: and sort of arrities with those things. And that sort
Speaker 1: of over indulgence is part of what's seriously harm on
Speaker 1: the planet. Not to you know, blame individuals and exclusively
Speaker 1: because you know, obviously the sort of thing is encouraged
Speaker 1: by you know, advertising and by the entire industries that
Speaker 1: builds around around this, this idea of consumerism. But the
Speaker 1: holiday is basically, you know, you know, it's become this
Speaker 1: thing where the focal point is to indulge, to splooge,
Speaker 1: to consume um. And you see a lot of Christmas
Speaker 1: movies too, I mean Christmas of the Crowns is when
Speaker 1: particularly iconic example. And with all this you know consumerism,
Speaker 1: it feels like we lose sight of the purpose, you know,
Speaker 1: of the gift giving. I don't think we've lost our
Speaker 1: selves less nature. I think we've lost some of the
Speaker 1: within it. I think it's by design a natural tendency
Speaker 1: to care for the people in our lives are sort
Speaker 1: of exploited. Um, you know, we're expected by the systems,
Speaker 1: are super hyper competitively in spirital coupitlism. But now we
Speaker 1: have to be super generous and caring around this time
Speaker 1: of year. But just in a way that just so
Speaker 1: happens to profit campus anyway. It's like, yeah, yeah, be generous,
Speaker 1: be caring and stuff by this gift for you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you loved one and I will pocket the change.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it has to be that way.
Speaker 1: But the commercialization of what we're wants wholly days is
Speaker 1: you know, it tends to do that. And of course
Speaker 1: with all these soup kitchens and can food drives and
Speaker 1: Red Cross Santa's outside groceries, building and for some donations.
Speaker 1: Um and by the way, it don't donate the Red
Speaker 1: Cross that kind of problematic. Salvation Army do not do
Speaker 1: not donative salvation Salvation my bad, I'm back. I think
Speaker 1: that's confusing them. Red Cross just takes credit for anarchist
Speaker 1: projects in the relief of disasters and salation Harmy hates
Speaker 1: gay people, so it also has also has shot anarchists.
Speaker 1: I think they don't talk about very much. Well damn,
Speaker 1: that should probably be an episode. Yeah, there's another way
Speaker 1: of that, but yeah, yeah, you know, it's like all
Speaker 1: this stuff is happening, and it's like this sort of
Speaker 1: performance of all of a sudden, we care about, um,
Speaker 1: what's the name of that little kid from Christmas Carol,
Speaker 1: Tiny Tim? All of a sudden, we care about Tiny Tim.
Speaker 1: In a system that literally requires an impoverished base of people,
Speaker 1: you know, poverty is certainly this virtue that we we
Speaker 1: look to help Tom meliorate to be careful. You know,
Speaker 1: we we want to uplift the tiny him as we're
Speaker 1: gonna warm the hearts of the Scrooge McDuck's of the
Speaker 1: world the rest of the year. It's just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: in this underclass is a patrol and the class needs
Speaker 1: to exist. I think the extension of our tendency towards
Speaker 1: mutually throughout the year and across bonds of kid and
Speaker 1: on kind of like, um, it's something that we should
Speaker 1: pursue um to prefigure a gift economy um, not just
Speaker 1: around a particular season, but year round. I think that
Speaker 1: is both while exercise to look into and of course
Speaker 1: I think an ideal you would want to see. I
Speaker 1: guess we could call us my Christmas wish UM readjustment
Speaker 1: to this sort of consumption around this time of year,
Speaker 1: the one that is done with a sort of ad
Speaker 1: growth mindset. One of his cognizance of local condition is
Speaker 1: the one that seeks to reduce food miles, socalize the
Speaker 1: production can some shown. So that's I guess wish number
Speaker 1: one Christmas wish number one. Let's um, let's make a
Speaker 1: gift economy rather than a capitalist gift consumption day. And
Speaker 1: of course I think our next Christmas wish on this
Speaker 1: topic would be a wish for work abolition. You know,
Speaker 1: with all that consumption happening around this time, yet it
Speaker 1: really does a number on the service and manufacturing and
Speaker 1: delivery and SOT and so forth workers around the world.
Speaker 1: You know, work sucks in general, but it's extra sucks
Speaker 1: around this time of year. Um, you know, with sweatshop labor,
Speaker 1: with retail hell around this season, it's really opposite of
Speaker 1: peace on you for a good chunk of the working class.
Speaker 1: You could call it the season for overworking. And it's
Speaker 1: not just for um, you know, gears, token oppressed group,
Speaker 1: you know, the elves, like the other workers that the
Speaker 1: exploits it that we should probably be championing. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: we talked about this in a couple of China episodes
Speaker 1: that I did. But one of the big reasons for
Speaker 1: the sort of huge like workers up risings in China
Speaker 1: in the last like a few weeks was that like
Speaker 1: basically a bunch of people got locked into a factory
Speaker 1: because Fox Gone and Apple were trying to hit their
Speaker 1: Christmas like production targets. And people started fighting the cops
Speaker 1: because they were like, this actually sucks. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be stuck in here being lied to by how
Speaker 1: much I'm going to get paid so that these companies
Speaker 1: can have their Christmas sales. I mean, yeah, definitely. I
Speaker 1: think it's completely fair to say that the worker elves
Speaker 1: are very mistreated. Um. But with the exception I think
Speaker 1: of specifically the elf on the shelf elves. I don't
Speaker 1: think those count as workers. Elves are cops. They only
Speaker 1: function as niches for the surreal state. So yes, the
Speaker 1: elf workers are are mistreated um and should unionize and
Speaker 1: and should should deserve way more support and possibly even
Speaker 1: the abolition of of work. But the elf on the
Speaker 1: shelf elves are not workers. I think that's a that's
Speaker 1: an important distinction. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the class strators
Speaker 1: more than anything, exactly. Yeah, very blatantly. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: really is, you know, the season for overworken. You know,
Speaker 1: with all this, it's very interesting that that's really what
Speaker 1: triggered the protests in China. I mean, I would love
Speaker 1: to see celebrations and festivals have given in any sort
Speaker 1: of an archic society, but it doesn't fail. No, it's
Speaker 1: at the right these festivities UM built on the exploitation
Speaker 1: of others. I mean, what kind of celebration it's we
Speaker 1: had when people are suffering in such a capacity to
Speaker 1: produce that sort of celebration. And speaking of suffering, I think, um,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who suffer through family
Speaker 1: around this time of year. And I think some people
Speaker 1: actually appreciate having to work through the holidays because it
Speaker 1: means they don't have to deal with said family. And
Speaker 1: I mean family is a big focus and the sort
Speaker 1: of culture of Christmas. But you know, unlike the greeting
Speaker 1: cards and the billboards and stuff, not everyone's family is
Speaker 1: picture perfect and holiday is often open a lot of
Speaker 1: wounds and heightened re read for a lot of people. UM.
Speaker 1: People consume to hear people um, and a lot of
Speaker 1: toxicity and intoxication is brought under one roof during TRUSTMA celebrations,
Speaker 1: bigotree abuse, that sort of thing. It's not a fun
Speaker 1: time for some people. And I think it's important in
Speaker 1: the season and in general to let go of this
Speaker 1: sort of patriarchal and restricting designation of family in favor
Speaker 1: of something that is more subject to choice, to agency,
Speaker 1: to consent to you know, more expanded forms of kinship,
Speaker 1: bringing people together who care for and enjoy and want
Speaker 1: to share each other's company, you know, create a new traditions,
Speaker 1: to build new bonds of solarity and care. UM. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, opportunities like these, Seasons like these enable us
Speaker 1: to demonstrate the veracity of the liberation that can be
Speaker 1: had in our projects. I think it's something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people need around this season because mental health
Speaker 1: boways seem to worsen around this time of year. They
Speaker 1: often toxic culture of Christmas could be clearly bad people's
Speaker 1: mental health. You know, it's loneliness and depression and suicide
Speaker 1: and the struggle to care for your basic needs that
Speaker 1: alone and joy the season, and it takes some big
Speaker 1: tool on people's well being. You know, it's easy to
Speaker 1: they all just go to therapy and whatever. But with
Speaker 1: the inaccessibility of therapy and the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: therapy is not necessarily a salve for material conditions, UM.
Speaker 1: There needs to be a social safety net in place.
Speaker 1: They must be healing in community and not just an
Speaker 1: exolution UM. And so I think the season is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to reflect on that and to you know,
Speaker 1: try to avail ourselves to those whom we fay might
Speaker 1: be suffering at this time. And if you yourself a
Speaker 1: suffering and it's trying to reach out and sort of
Speaker 1: engage in that sort of mutual mutual aid and mutual support,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot that we can reframe and
Speaker 1: reconsider surrounding Christmas. I mean, for a season of kindness
Speaker 1: and given it unfortunately hoots a lot of people, um,
Speaker 1: but that can change, you know, through solidarity, through generosity,
Speaker 1: through kinship, solidarity organized in the bottom of the extension
Speaker 1: of the principle of mutually into everyday life. Redirecting our
Speaker 1: generosity around this time from giving to the pockets of
Speaker 1: billionaires to given to the people, um. To display our
Speaker 1: capacity for well doing, to think locally, to think d
Speaker 1: I y, to think meaningful rather than to just add
Speaker 1: another thing to the Amazon card. And of course not
Speaker 1: just physically giving gifts, but as being generous with our
Speaker 1: time and our love and our care because we do
Speaker 1: need each other, um, not just in this time, but
Speaker 1: in general. I think bred Santa had some entertaining suggestions
Speaker 1: of the season. To bred Santa, of course, being Peter Kropotkin,
Speaker 1: he figured that we should all pose as Santa Clause
Speaker 1: perhaps there as a subversion of what he represents as
Speaker 1: a capitalist. We all pools as Santa Claus or as St. Nicholas,
Speaker 1: and to infiltrate the stores and give way the toys.
Speaker 1: Um and one postcard Krobakin route that of the night
Speaker 1: before Christmas, we'll all be about while the people are sleeping.
Speaker 1: We will realize or cloud will expropriate goods from the
Speaker 1: stores because that's fair, and distribute them widely to those
Speaker 1: we need care. So yeah, Merry Christmas and half of
Speaker 1: your holidays to all and to all are good. Fight
Speaker 1: for freedom. You can of course find me on YouTube
Speaker 1: at androids um dot com slash and underscore seeing True,
Speaker 1: and if you want, you can support me on picture
Speaker 1: on dot com slash saying true. That's it for me
Speaker 1: for this year, for it could happen here, So you're
Speaker 1: next year great destroist icons Center Clause. Hey, we'll be
Speaker 1: back Monday with more episodes every week from now until
Speaker 1: the heat death of the Universe. It could happen here
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
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Speaker 1: for listening.