Speaker 1: Cool media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 2: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 2: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 2: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 2: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 2: there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.
Speaker 3: Hello everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. My
Speaker 3: name is Dan al Kurd. I'm a professor of political
Speaker 3: science and a researcher of Arab and Palestinian politics. Since
Speaker 3: I last recorded an episode, those in power have been
Speaker 3: very busy. The world looks different from a month ago.
Speaker 3: What would the assault on Minneapolis, the kidnapping of Venezuelan
Speaker 3: President Maduro, the as of this recording, possible invasion of Greenland.
Speaker 3: It's been hard for even the best of us to
Speaker 3: keep up as nemic from the series. And Or would
Speaker 3: say the pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it.
Speaker 3: And that is the real trick of the imperial thought machine.
Speaker 3: It's easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.
Speaker 3: I will never not squeeze in an end or reference
Speaker 3: when I can, given that this is the state of
Speaker 3: the world. What's happening in Palestine has largely slipped out
Speaker 3: of most people's feeds and certainly the media headlines. But
Speaker 3: lots is happening, Lots of dangerous things are happening, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to take this episode to give an update
Speaker 3: of about what's been going on. Since the ceasefire was
Speaker 3: announced three months ago, four hundred and forty nine Palestinians
Speaker 3: have been killed by Israeli attacks and another one thousand,
Speaker 3: two hundred and forty six have been injured. Over one
Speaker 3: hundred of those killed were children. According to YUNISEF, the
Speaker 3: Gaza strip has been reduced even further with a new
Speaker 3: quote yellow line demarcating where Israeli troops will remain and
Speaker 3: where Palestinians are not allowed to go. They literally placed
Speaker 3: concrete yellow blocks on the ground in Gaza, and as
Speaker 3: the BBC notes from a report January sixteenth of this year,
Speaker 3: Israel continues to push the yellow line further and further
Speaker 3: into what remains of Gaza. The United Nations Office for
Speaker 3: the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs notes quote, the Israeli military
Speaker 3: remains deployed in over fifty percent of the Gaza strip
Speaker 3: beyond the yellow line, where access to humanitarian facilities and assets,
Speaker 3: public infrastructure, and agricultural land are either restricted or prohibited.
Speaker 3: In this context, and despite this context, the Trump administration
Speaker 3: has declared that Phase one of the ceasefire agreement is
Speaker 3: now over and that Phase two will commence.
Speaker 4: The US has announced the launch of the second phase
Speaker 4: of the Gaza ceasefire Agreement. Special Envoys Steve Whitcoff shared
Speaker 4: the news in a social media post, writing that Phase
Speaker 4: two establishes a t transitional, technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza,
Speaker 4: the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. He also
Speaker 4: wrote that it begins the full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza,
Speaker 4: primarily the disarmament of all unauthorized personnel. Whitkoff says the
Speaker 4: US expects AMASS to comply fully with its obligations, including
Speaker 4: the immediate return of the final deceased hostage, and warns
Speaker 4: that the failure to do so will bring serious consequences.
Speaker 3: Now, this is the declaration, even though really aside from
Speaker 3: the return of Israeli hostages. No part of the twenty
Speaker 3: point plan that the Trump administration put forward as the
Speaker 3: quote peace Plan was realized. On the ground, it is
Speaker 3: being let in, but not at the levels that it's needed.
Speaker 3: Attacks against Pastinians haven't stopped. Nonetheless, Phase two is apparently
Speaker 3: starting with the naming of members of the Board of Peace. Now,
Speaker 3: if listeners will recall from a previous episode, Trump declared
Speaker 3: himself the chair of this Board of Peace that's supposed
Speaker 3: to bring peace to the Middle East, and Tony Blair
Speaker 3: was tapped to run it, much to the outrage of
Speaker 3: anyone who witnessed Blair's cooperation and the destruction of Iraq. Now,
Speaker 3: this Board of Piece is going to run the Gaza
Speaker 3: strip and it's quote unquote technocratic government, and it's going
Speaker 3: to make sure how Masty militarizes and that Palestinians don't
Speaker 3: step out of line. The Board of Peace is one
Speaker 3: aspect of the Great Plan, Great Standing for Gaza Reconstitution,
Speaker 3: Economic Acceleration and Transformation Plan, a plan that apparently will
Speaker 3: turn Gaza into the quote riviera of the Middle East.
Speaker 3: The Huffington Post reported January seventeenth that Trump is setting
Speaker 3: a billion dollar price tag for any country that wants
Speaker 3: to participate on this board. Members so far include Tony Blair,
Speaker 3: Secretary of State, Marco Rubio son in law, Jared Kushner,
Speaker 3: US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, Mark Rowan,
Speaker 3: the CEO of Apollo Global Management, Israeli billionaire Yakir Gabay,
Speaker 3: and a number of others along the same vein. Among
Speaker 3: those Trump has invited include Vladimir Putin, famously very interested
Speaker 3: in peace and not at all in eradicating Ukrainian existence.
Speaker 3: Trump also sent a letter to Victor Orban, far right
Speaker 3: wing president of Hungary, to join the Board of Peace.
Speaker 3: Orbon has apparently accepted this invitation. To remind listeners, Orbon
Speaker 3: is one of Trump's models for authoritary takeover of democratic institutions.
Speaker 3: Orbon is also very close ties with Prime Minister Nittanyahu
Speaker 3: in Israel, despite his anti Semitic politics. Now, I thought
Speaker 3: the letter he sent to Orbon and to every other
Speaker 3: right wing politician he's been inviting was quite telling. In
Speaker 3: the letter, Trump invites Orbon to join, presumably with the
Speaker 3: billion dollar pay to play, and calls the Board of
Speaker 3: Peace a quote bold new approach to resolving global conflict.
Speaker 3: Reuter is reporting on this issue, an anonymous diplomat saying
Speaker 3: it's a trump United Nations that ignores the fundamentals of
Speaker 3: the UN charter. In fact, the charter of the Board
Speaker 3: of Peace doesn't even mention Gaza. So what is this
Speaker 3: bold new approach to resolving global conflict. It's apparently a
Speaker 3: resolution to conflict that includes a neocolonial oversight board run
Speaker 3: by white men to make sure the natives don't get
Speaker 3: too excited. Now, this oversight board is intended to manage conflict,
Speaker 3: because let's be clear, this isn't about solving conflict at
Speaker 3: the expense of the people who have been facing the
Speaker 3: brunt of this conflict. So we should take them at
Speaker 3: their word that this is going to be the way
Speaker 3: that global conflict is going to be resolved from now on.
Speaker 3: This is the blueprint. Gaza is only the test case,
Speaker 3: and in this new form of authoritarian conflict management, the
Speaker 3: world will operate without any pretensions under the premise of
Speaker 3: might is right. And if the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration
Speaker 3: and Transformation Plan is any indication, this plan is predicated
Speaker 3: on encouraging Palestinians to ultimately leave Gaza at least some
Speaker 3: significant segment of them. So not only might is right,
Speaker 3: but ethnic cleansing is a more than fine way to
Speaker 3: resolve a dispute. And finally, the plan is predicated on
Speaker 3: the idea that reconstruction is a business opportunity, so to review,
Speaker 3: might is right, ethnic cleansing is AOK, and war is
Speaker 3: a prime real estate development opportunity. Now things get even
Speaker 3: worse when we bring in the guy who's been tapped
Speaker 3: to be the director general of this board. Nikolay Maladanov
Speaker 3: is a Bulgarian politician an x UN envoy who has
Speaker 3: been tasked with quote, disarming Gaza. According to a report
Speaker 3: by Al Jazur published January fifteenth, he's the guy who's
Speaker 3: going to oversee the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza,
Speaker 3: the technocratic government, which is run by a Postinian bureaucrats,
Speaker 3: and make sure that they stay in line during the
Speaker 3: reconstruction phase. Somehow, these bureaucrats are supposed to reconstruct Gaza
Speaker 3: while not being able to operate in most of it anyway.
Speaker 3: Mad enough, this guy is really something. He's a Bulgarian
Speaker 3: diplomat that worked as a minister for one of the
Speaker 3: most corrupt governments in Bulgaria, a government that faced mass
Speaker 3: protest pretty persistently. He is part of a right wing
Speaker 3: populist party in Bulgaria. His father was also involved in politics,
Speaker 3: specifically in the Bulgarian Virgin of the Kgib before the
Speaker 3: transition from the communist regime. Since twenty twenty one, he's
Speaker 3: been working in an Amarati institution, the Unwar Gagaesh Diplomatic Academy,
Speaker 3: where he came out as a quote vocal proponent of
Speaker 3: the Abrahamic courts, the normalization agreements between Israel and several
Speaker 3: Arab states. Now it all checks out on that this
Speaker 3: is the guy who's going to be the director general.
Speaker 3: The fact that this person is the one being chosen
Speaker 3: for phase two of the ceasefire, and the fact that
Speaker 3: he has this kind of political background should make clear
Speaker 3: that the Plant for Gaza isn't just a blueprint for
Speaker 3: the world new levels of authoritarian conflict management with no pretense,
Speaker 3: but also a part and parcel of the US Israeli
Speaker 3: Imrati vision for the region. Now, this vision is one
Speaker 3: where Arab authoritarian regimes and Israel, with the US supporting,
Speaker 3: remake the Middle East into a quote modern, developed tolerant
Speaker 3: Middle East, essentially by pouring concrete over graves and building
Speaker 3: mega cities on top of rubble. Their vision of the
Speaker 3: Middle East is one that is authoritarian and contained. More
Speaker 3: citizens are subjects. These subjects can have some social freedoms
Speaker 3: and maybe some economic opportunities, but should never think that
Speaker 3: they can have an opinion on anything that happens to them.
Speaker 3: This is a vision where states like the UA the
Speaker 3: United Arab Emirates can arm militias to conduct ethnic cleansing
Speaker 3: in Sudan, and Israel can get away with ethnic cleansing
Speaker 3: in Palestine because ethnic cleansing and genocide are apparently a
Speaker 3: perfectly reasonable way of getting rid of undesirables. Now, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that this isn't how these states operated even
Speaker 3: before the genocide in Gaza, and I'm not saying it
Speaker 3: wasn't how the US allowed certain allies to operate even
Speaker 3: before Trump. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when
Speaker 3: Palestinians were indefinitely occupied and no one cared, or when
Speaker 3: Artzach was ethnically cleansed and Azerbaijan got away with it.
Speaker 3: President Biden gave his blessing to the destruction of Gaza
Speaker 3: after October seventh. After all, but there used to be
Speaker 3: a pretense, a pretense of international law and a quote
Speaker 3: liberal international order. There also used to be variation on
Speaker 3: these issues. This type of authority and conflict management wasn't
Speaker 3: always tolerated. In fact, Arab liberals who advocated for democracy
Speaker 3: would often say that the US this is different from
Speaker 3: China or Russia in that, at least it was committed
Speaker 3: to democracy and international law and human rights rhetorically, even
Speaker 3: if there was hypocrisy. They thought that that space between
Speaker 3: reality and rhetoric could be leveraged and exploited. But now
Speaker 3: there's nothing to be leveraged. Authoritarian conflict management is the
Speaker 3: motors separandee of powerful states, and according to Donald Trump's
Speaker 3: new doctrine, the Don Rohde Doctrine, each powerful state gets
Speaker 3: to do what it wants in its own sphere of influence.
Speaker 3: In fact, not only is territorial aggression valid, it's actually
Speaker 3: the way the world should work. According to all of
Speaker 3: Trump's spokespeople and parts of his administration, conquest is totally fine.
Speaker 3: Here's Stephen Miller on Greenland, for example.
Speaker 5: Under every understanding of law that has existed about territorial
Speaker 5: control for five hundred years. To control a territory, you
Speaker 5: have to be able to defend a territory, prove a
Speaker 5: territory inhabit a territory. Denmark has feeled that every single
Speaker 5: one of these tasks.
Speaker 3: So Gaza is indeed the blueprint for what happens to
Speaker 3: weaker states in war, or what happens in this case
Speaker 3: to stateless people deemed undesirable and expendable. Now, what are
Speaker 3: the Palestinians saying about all this? The technocratic government made
Speaker 3: up of Palestinian bureaucrats, is saying it's committed to a
Speaker 3: reconstruction of Gaza that is rooted in quote, peace, democracy
Speaker 3: and justice. The Palestinian Authority, the largely illegitimate and undemocratic
Speaker 3: governance body that apparently governs the West Bank somehow and
Speaker 3: represents Palestinians. They're putting out statements welcoming the Board of
Speaker 3: Peace and Trump's vision, maybe because they think this will
Speaker 3: earn them a seat at the table, or maybe it's
Speaker 3: a way to sideline their main opposition, Hamas, in whatever
Speaker 3: crumbs of Palestine they're allowed to control in the future.
Speaker 3: Hamas has said in a statement that they also welcome
Speaker 3: the formation of the Administrative Committee for the Kaza strips
Speaker 3: to quote a chief calm in Gaza while noting that
Speaker 3: they are working with mediators to get to the next
Speaker 3: stage of the ceasefire, and they accuses you of trying
Speaker 3: to break the ceasefire agreement. The Israeli government ironically rejects
Speaker 3: any Palstinian involvement, even at the technocratic level, and have
Speaker 3: vowed to take it up with their front Trump and
Speaker 3: the Palestinian people. Well, here is Gazen journalist Hendro Darev
Speaker 3: al Jazir English.
Speaker 4: And what has been the reaction in Gaza to that
Speaker 4: announcement of a move to Phase two.
Speaker 6: Well, just like you said, it an announcement, a symbolic
Speaker 6: announcement two Phase two. Palatinians did not see anything on
Speaker 6: the ground.
Speaker 7: There's no change.
Speaker 6: And despite all of that, we're still hearing drones as
Speaker 6: you can hear in the background. We also heard a
Speaker 6: couple of explosions since the early hours of the morning
Speaker 6: were demolishings are still going on across the Gazza strip, especially.
Speaker 8: After the yellow line.
Speaker 6: Palatinians are frustrated, they're very disappointed. They thought that Phase
Speaker 6: two would give them the freedom of movement.
Speaker 8: That would give them.
Speaker 6: Reconstruction of Gaza would also give them a little bit
Speaker 6: of what they lost. But on the ground, nothing happened,
Speaker 6: nothing changed. What we know so far is there are
Speaker 6: fifteen members that have been approved on to be ruling Gaza.
Speaker 6: But there are a lot of questions and concerns. How
Speaker 6: is this going to happen, What is going to happen
Speaker 6: to the people here, the reconstruction, the rough crossing, thousands
Speaker 6: who need to get education, and also people who need
Speaker 6: to travel abroad to either get their treatment to get
Speaker 6: to reunite with their family. So there's a lot of questions,
Speaker 6: but mainly there is a lot of frustration because there's
Speaker 6: nothing changing on the ground.
Speaker 3: People in Gaza are beyond exhaustion. Everyone wants some path
Speaker 3: forward out of this nightmare. But I really don't think,
Speaker 3: for all the reasons I described here today that this
Speaker 3: is it and we shouldn't let them, the Trumps and
Speaker 3: or Bonds and billionaires of the world, get away with
Speaker 3: the narrative that they're peacemakers and that apparently this is
Speaker 3: all in the name of tolerance and peace. That's it
Speaker 3: for me today. Thank you for listening, and hope you're
Speaker 3: all Staying Safe.
Speaker 8: Hello, Welcome to Cool People, did Cool Stuff Slash it
Speaker 8: could happen here episode And this is a little pickup
Speaker 8: we inserted because James and I Hi, James, Hi, Margaret
Speaker 8: and Margaret, that's James. We're on each other's shows this week.
Speaker 8: We just spent three days in Minneapolis culminating in the
Speaker 8: general strike last Friday, and we were there to cover
Speaker 8: the rapid response networks and the mutual aid networks that
Speaker 8: people have been building, and that's what we're going to
Speaker 8: be talking about in these two episodes. But the reason
Speaker 8: that we're recording this little pickup right here to listen
Speaker 8: to at the front of it is that nine hours
Speaker 8: after we finished recording these episodes, shortly after both of
Speaker 8: us had left the city, a man named Alex Pretty
Speaker 8: was killed by federal agents in what is obviously something
Speaker 8: that you all are familiar with. And we just kind
Speaker 8: of want to mark that because I think the tone
Speaker 8: in what we're talking about right now is we're so
Speaker 8: excited about these networks that people have been building. But
Speaker 8: obviously the tone would have changed a little bit had
Speaker 8: we recorded it only nine hours later, and we would
Speaker 8: have been talking about something slightly different. And that's just
Speaker 8: the breaks of podcasting.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the fundamental message, I guess wouldn't change, but we
Speaker 9: all know that that doing what these people do can
Speaker 9: have terrible costs, and we were reminded of that again.
Speaker 9: Yeah Saturday morning. I guess we should just say that, like,
Speaker 9: we agree his passing and we're sending her thoughts to
Speaker 9: his family and the people who loved him. Yeah, it's
Speaker 9: gonna be a really hard time for them.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, Hello, and welcome to Cool People Could Happen Here.
Speaker 8: I'm one of your hosts, Margaret Kiljoy, and with me
Speaker 8: today as my other host is James. Hi. Margaret, we
Speaker 8: are doing a special crossover episode of it Could Happen
Speaker 8: Here and Cool People who did cool stuff. And we're
Speaker 8: doing it because James and I are in sunny Minneapolis,
Speaker 8: which is true.
Speaker 9: The sun was out. Yeah, yeah, I saw the sun. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: I saw it through a cloud.
Speaker 8: Of cold, cold air, the vapor of our own breath freezing.
Speaker 8: I have seen more people today with frozen eyelashes than
Speaker 8: any other point in my life. But together.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I breathed into my goggles briefly and that froze,
Speaker 9: yeah from my eyes. Yeah, yeah, it was minus thirty
Speaker 9: fahrenheight feel I guess with wind shill, what is that
Speaker 9: and what is that in Celsius they come together at
Speaker 9: minus forty, So it's going to be like minus thirty five.
Speaker 8: I think something like that. It was.
Speaker 9: It was for those who are not familiar cold, very cold.
Speaker 8: And so the two of us came up to Minneapolis
Speaker 8: a few days ago and we have spent the past
Speaker 8: three days here talking to everyone we can about the
Speaker 8: rapid response networks that people have built to try to
Speaker 8: keep themselves and their neighbors safe from ice and federal
Speaker 8: oppression and the sort of federal occupation of the city,
Speaker 8: and so what we thought we would do this is
Speaker 8: kind of Neither of us have written scripts. Yet we
Speaker 8: are still here. We just had a fun, slightly hectic
Speaker 8: day where we spent only about twenty minutes reasonably sure
Speaker 8: we were getting arrested. We didn't get arrested. No, thank you, comrade. Train.
Speaker 8: Yeah we got on a LA rail and we're able
Speaker 8: to leave a kettle by a light rail, which is
Speaker 8: a new experience for me. Yeah, I'm very European. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and yeah, we came up here to talk to people
Speaker 8: and that's been the like the story that I'm most
Speaker 8: interested in, right, is that we have all of these
Speaker 8: stories that are absolutely true. The stakes are really high here,
Speaker 8: but the things that people are building here are really incredible,
Speaker 8: and people know that they're holding down ice here in
Speaker 8: a way that no one would have expected, I think,
Speaker 8: And I don't know, So, yeah, you want to Should
Speaker 8: we just talk about kind of our days? Yeah?
Speaker 9: I think I just want to ground people before we
Speaker 9: do that in that so much as if reporting on
Speaker 9: Minneapolis has focused on trauma, and so much reporting on
Speaker 9: migrants focuses on trauma, right, And I think people who
Speaker 9: have listened to our podcast know that that's not really
Speaker 9: a game, and so I understand when they hear that
Speaker 9: we've been in Minneapolis, I think we're going to talk
Speaker 9: about horrific things that we've seen. I want to talk
Speaker 9: more about the beautiful things that we've seen, because I
Speaker 9: think those get missed and they're super important, especially if
Speaker 9: you're listening in another city in the US which will
Speaker 9: face some degree of this or is facing some degree
Speaker 9: of this. Right, So I want to ground this in
Speaker 9: saying that rather than talking about the trauma people experiencing,
Speaker 9: which I'm sure will be incidental, I want to talk
Speaker 9: about how closely people are holding each other here and
Speaker 9: how special that is and what we can take from it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and like without obviously we're like, we're not trying
Speaker 8: to paint a rosy picture of what's happening here, because
Speaker 8: what's happening here is like I must I'm a cold
Speaker 8: hearted journalists, historian person, And I was crying the multiple
Speaker 8: times in the past couple days as people told me
Speaker 8: about some of the stuff they've experienced. But some of
Speaker 8: it has been you know, we've asked people, We've said, like, hey,
Speaker 8: what do you want people to take away from this?
Speaker 8: And one of the main things is that kind of
Speaker 8: a like hey, you can do it too kind of thing.
Speaker 8: And the other thing that people have talked about is
Speaker 8: like it would be really nice for people to see
Speaker 8: that what we're doing is amazing here, even if it's
Speaker 8: like coming out of such such horrendous adversity. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Like one of the things that I've taken throughout my
Speaker 9: career is in hard times, we can build beautiful things. Yeah,
Speaker 9: That's what I wrote my book about, really. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: what I've tried to report.
Speaker 8: On all out of the world.
Speaker 9: They think this is more evidence of that, and so
Speaker 9: like you're going to hear things which were amazing and
Speaker 9: the people who've done them are wonderful, but they're not
Speaker 9: uniquely special. You can do all these things too, and like,
Speaker 9: I want you to see that it is possible where
Speaker 9: you live.
Speaker 8: Yeah. So one of the first things that we did
Speaker 8: when we got here we talked about, you know, to
Speaker 8: put ourselves in the story. I drove a long way
Speaker 8: and James flew a long way and yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: I picked up Jane at the airport and we came
Speaker 8: to where we're staying and we were talking about like
Speaker 8: and it was late at night and we're like, all right,
Speaker 8: what are we what are we trying to do tomorrow?
Speaker 8: And what are we trying to see and what are
Speaker 8: we trying to learn? Yeah, And one of the main
Speaker 8: things one of the first questions we had was like,
Speaker 8: what's the scale of what's happening here? Yeah? Right, Like,
Speaker 8: like what were your impressions of the scale of what
Speaker 8: was happening? Mmm? We should talk about what's happening here.
Speaker 8: It's like really quickly, I bet you all know about
Speaker 8: it in the news. Why do I have a different
Speaker 8: tone of voice when I'm talking into a microphone in
Speaker 8: this way, and so usually I'm in a zoom call.
Speaker 8: But I staid, we're both sitting in a bedroom on
Speaker 8: opposite ends of the bedroom talking into microphones, and I
Speaker 8: somehow have a different cadence, and I don't know how
Speaker 8: I feel about it. Also, I've had to drink caffeine,
Speaker 8: which I don't do, because we've had to do an
Speaker 8: awful lot. And anyway, what was I about to ask you.
Speaker 9: How widespread stuff is?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 8: Yeah, like, well, what was your okay? We were to
Speaker 8: talk about what's happening here?
Speaker 9: But yeah, so if people aren't for media, werey ICE,
Speaker 9: which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They're the agency charged
Speaker 9: with removing people from the United States who are non citizens,
Speaker 9: right who are considered deportable. Specifically, the branch of Immigration
Speaker 9: and Customs Enforcement that we are seeing here is Enforcement
Speaker 9: Removal Operations aka e o O. We're also seeing border
Speaker 9: patrol right in the last year, actually more than a
Speaker 9: year now, right this began under the bad deministration with
Speaker 9: Operation Return to Sender in the Central Valley of California.
Speaker 9: We are seeing border patrol agents used to do internal
Speaker 9: enforcement right of people who are generally documented sometimes undocumented
Speaker 9: but always non citizens. They are detaining them in the street,
Speaker 9: they are detaining them outside schools, They're detaining them at
Speaker 9: the bus stop, They're detaining them at places to work.
Speaker 9: And when I say detaining, that's as they are grabbing
Speaker 9: people out of cars. They're snatching children and using them
Speaker 9: to bait out their parents. They're smashing people's car windows
Speaker 9: and pulling them out. They're barging into businesses. In one case,
Speaker 9: they at at a Mexican restaurant and then arrested the
Speaker 9: workers later that day. I've visited a lot of places
Speaker 9: where terrible things happen.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: The ship that is happening here, it's a ship that
Speaker 9: people come to America to get away from. Yeah, it
Speaker 9: is men in masks with guns pulling people who have
Speaker 9: done nothing wrong, who are here not harming anyone. People
Speaker 9: who do not have criminal records. Just for the I
Speaker 9: don't feel like I need to say that on this show,
Speaker 9: but I need to say that every time I talk
Speaker 9: about this. Right, like, the vast majority, something like eighty
Speaker 9: percent last time I know to the status of these
Speaker 9: people have no criminal records, and a criminal record could
Speaker 9: be something like fucking parking in the wrong place.
Speaker 8: I've been arrested. Yeah. Also, I don't care. I would
Speaker 8: give you a lot of crime. Everyone listening to this
Speaker 8: has done a lot of crime. Whether or not you've
Speaker 8: been caught, you're probably cried.
Speaker 9: Yeah you went a little bit too late through a
Speaker 9: red light whatever, Like, I don't think that matters, actually exactly,
Speaker 9: even if you're a lib, even if you believe it
Speaker 9: or justice system is fair, it should be fair for everyone.
Speaker 9: There shouldn't be different consequences for different people. Let's move
Speaker 9: past that, right, So, how wide spread is this? Margaret
Speaker 9: and I got in late, We sat up even later talking.
Speaker 9: We got the shitty vegan pizza.
Speaker 8: We ate it. We kind of was, yeah, I've had better.
Speaker 8: I won't name drop.
Speaker 9: We we woke up the next morning and within five
Speaker 9: minutes while waking up, we heard like beat beep.
Speaker 8: Coming down the street. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Both Margaret and I ran to the front door, spent
Speaker 9: a while trying to put on snow boots, and watched
Speaker 9: an Ice agent rolling down the street in what they
Speaker 9: normally drive in, right, which a rental SUVs with the
Speaker 9: windows blacked out, and people following them alerting the block
Speaker 9: the Ice was here, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and we're not downtown. We like picked an area
Speaker 8: that's like slightly lightly out of it, but we got
Speaker 8: warned that nowhere is goon free. Yeah, and they were right,
Speaker 8: nowhere is good free.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: I mean we have probably been within a thirty minute
Speaker 9: radius of the spot we're staying at for three or
Speaker 9: four days.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: We've seen ICE pile their car into a telephone pole.
Speaker 9: We've seen spent munitions on the floor, Ice tear gas
Speaker 9: and people a few blocks from us, but they were
Speaker 9: gone by the time we got there. And I don't
Speaker 9: want to get this out like front and center at
Speaker 9: the start, it was not Ice who kettle protesters. Today,
Speaker 9: it was Hennepin County Sheriff's office. It was not Ice
Speaker 9: who arrested people who approached them with their hands in
Speaker 9: the air trying to work out what was going on.
Speaker 9: That was Helipin County Sheriff's office. I've seen press conferences
Speaker 9: with Minneapolis police. I don't know what their deal is.
Speaker 9: I'll tell you the Hennepin County Sheriff's office for actively
Speaker 9: participating in this. Right, I'm not buying this local cops good.
Speaker 9: This will shock listeners. I'm not buying the local cops good.
Speaker 9: Federal cops. Bad narrative when cops get asked what site
Speaker 9: they're on? Now the side of the other cops.
Speaker 8: Well, it's interesting because the thing that you have is
Speaker 8: that you have you know, there's the great classic like
Speaker 8: if those were neutral in times of oppression or siding
Speaker 8: with the oppressors, right, Yeah, because the overall situation here,
Speaker 8: it seems to be, is that you do have much
Speaker 8: more the oppressive force here as an outside forces compared
Speaker 8: to any other protest movement I've seen in the United States.
Speaker 8: People are very aware that it is outsiders who have
Speaker 8: come to their city to steal their neighbors.
Speaker 7: Yeah, right, And.
Speaker 8: So because of that, the federal forces are the forces
Speaker 8: everyone's mad at, whereas a lot of the people who
Speaker 8: are standing up to federal forces are neutral or fine
Speaker 8: with police, and even like the concept of other federal agencies.
Speaker 8: They just don't want people snatching neighbors. Now that's not universal,
Speaker 8: but it's like some of the people we've talked to. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but what state level law enforcement has decided is that
Speaker 8: they are committed to keeping the peace and they can't
Speaker 8: keep the peace against ice, which they probably on some
Speaker 8: level morally know that they need into but they don't
Speaker 8: and instead they're like, all right, well we can mess
Speaker 8: up with the you know.
Speaker 9: The protest. We protested the great protested, right.
Speaker 8: But yeah, like when we saw people drive down honking
Speaker 8: the very first thing that we experienced in this town,
Speaker 8: and we weren't sure what it was. We were like,
Speaker 8: that is that people following ice and honking. And I
Speaker 8: had done a fair amount of research before I came,
Speaker 8: and I kind of knew about the whistles, and but
Speaker 8: I didn't really know about this like incredible network that
Speaker 8: people have built.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that what we saw was not in any way exceptional, right,
Speaker 9: that was just a standard treat on a Wednesday morning.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And so we get into we get into my
Speaker 8: vehicle and we start driving. You know, we have some
Speaker 8: places we think we're going to go check out. We
Speaker 8: have some you know, friends who are local who are
Speaker 8: going to talk to us. And we get like two
Speaker 8: blocks three blocks before we find people protecting Somali daycare. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Right, we uh, well before that, right, we went to
Speaker 9: the food c up to get food. Yeah, And we
Speaker 9: went into the food we got our food, and on
Speaker 9: the way out, we see this big old sign on
Speaker 9: the door which is like we're closed on the twenty
Speaker 9: third ice out of Minnesota. Yeah, I sat in Minneapolis
Speaker 9: whatever it is, and it's in English and Spanish, and
Speaker 9: it's like, in solidarity with our migrant neighbors, we're not opening.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And like.
Speaker 9: Obviously it's a food cut op, right, it's not a
Speaker 9: reactionary space that sort of planted a seed for me, Like, ah,
Speaker 9: like this is a big ass business, you know, like
Speaker 9: like it's not a business that necessarily relies on migrant labor.
Speaker 9: But I can see it being a space for people
Speaker 9: in solidarity. I wonder how why that is right? And
Speaker 9: they even in the time we've been here, I've seen
Speaker 9: businesses put those up that didn't happen. We were going
Speaker 9: out on Wednesday, right, like people being like, nah, this
Speaker 9: isn't right, but yeah, to go back. We What happened
Speaker 9: was that Margaret was driving. I was riding next to Margaret.
Speaker 9: I saw a group of people, one guy ahead, kind
Speaker 9: of tanned trousers on and I was like stop, Margaret.
Speaker 9: Margaret slowed down, signaled and turned into the parking lot.
Speaker 9: Of these folks were apt and they they had seen
Speaker 9: us right ham on the brakes and turn up in
Speaker 9: a vehicle with that estate plates. Then we then we
Speaker 9: better go speak to these people. We probably scared them.
Speaker 8: What's fin is we thought we scared them. No, yeah,
Speaker 8: they're not scared of us. No, they're looking to see
Speaker 8: if they're onto us. And it's such a huge difference,
Speaker 8: right right, because when people are scoping us out, they're
Speaker 8: not like, oh, that might be ice. They're like, is
Speaker 8: that ice? Let's fucking get them.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, like if that's ice, we need to roll right,
Speaker 9: we need to we need to let people know, we
Speaker 9: need to start honking, we need start whistling.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So we get out, walk over and we start talking
Speaker 9: to these people. And like, the person who was most
Speaker 9: forth right, most forthcoming was an older lady. I mean
Speaker 9: she shared her ragel. I think it's fine to say.
Speaker 9: I think seventy six. Yeah, it's probably a round zero
Speaker 9: fair andheigh, like even like that warmer than that, right, so,
Speaker 9: like you know minus ten celsius something there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, plate's not wearing a hat. Yeah, just give a fuck. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I'm chilly in my brand new winter clothes. Yeah, I
Speaker 8: live outside in the mountain. I don't live outside anymore,
Speaker 8: but I live in the mountains.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing all my nice technical gear show
Speaker 9: on to Parker and yeah, and she's just like so zealous,
Speaker 9: is like she's so happy to be doing what she's doing,
Speaker 9: and so proud of herself for being the person who
Speaker 9: did it. Yeah, and in an earnest way, like in
Speaker 9: a way that a self congratulatory way, but just in
Speaker 9: a like I am one hundred percent convinced I'm in
Speaker 9: the right, and I will talk to you. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: I will say it with my whole chest. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 9: do you want to share some of the stuff you said?
Speaker 9: I thought it's really.
Speaker 8: One of the things that she said that, yeah, Like
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, she I didn't get the impression
Speaker 8: she was like a wild political radical or something, right,
Speaker 8: and she's just like, you know, my father fought fascists
Speaker 8: in France and Italy, and like he would be proud
Speaker 8: of me, and like, yeah, I'm sure he would be. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and I'm.
Speaker 9: Sure it would be disgusted at what's fucking happening.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And you know, and while we're talking, the Somali
Speaker 8: family who's daycare it is, comes out and gives us
Speaker 8: symbosas and we're like no, no, no, no, we're journalists. You
Speaker 8: don't have to give us anything. We're like not even helping.
Speaker 8: We're like, they're like, you're here, you're with us, you
Speaker 8: are taking food?
Speaker 9: Yeah, guy, like no where some monies we feed people
Speaker 9: like yeah, what's your deally vegetarian?
Speaker 8: We're like, we're with vegan.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So he comes out, goes back, comes out with vegan ones. Yeah,
Speaker 9: like they were delicious.
Speaker 8: Yeah, No, there's the best food I've ever eaten. As
Speaker 8: we're standing there, more people come and go. So you're like, Okay,
Speaker 8: this is happening here, right, you know, no pun intended.
Speaker 8: And we as we we leave, we talk to a
Speaker 8: few more people we leave, and and some of the
Speaker 8: other people we talk to are like and the people
Speaker 8: from different scenes, it's not you know, like.
Speaker 9: It's not just an old lady scene, right, it's a
Speaker 9: diverse crowd, right.
Speaker 8: And you know, we talk to a father who I
Speaker 8: tangentially know through the metal scene, who is like, yeah,
Speaker 8: my kid goes to school here. Yeah, like no one
Speaker 8: is taking kids while I can stand here, you know,
Speaker 8: And he was like, I have work to be doing it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: He's like, we're supposed to be recording this band today
Speaker 8: or whatever, and he's like, no, I'm here, I'm doing this.
Speaker 8: There's no sadness, you know, there's.
Speaker 9: No He's like, this is what I have to be doing.
Speaker 8: It's the most important thing to do. Every two blocks
Speaker 8: there are people on the corner, usually two people, sometimes alone.
Speaker 8: And those what we later learned because we were like,
Speaker 8: holy shit, there's ice watchers everywhere. Yeah, those are just
Speaker 8: the marked people we see. That's the minority. There are
Speaker 8: people driving constantly in very organized but entirely decentralized networks
Speaker 8: of rapid response where they have come together in these
Speaker 8: like hyper local Signal loops. Signal is an encrypted messaging
Speaker 8: app that you can use on any device Android iPhone.
Speaker 8: The government can't break its encryption. However, there's no truly
Speaker 8: safe system.
Speaker 9: It's the safest when we have and it will amount
Speaker 9: that he deletes mess user after a period of day if.
Speaker 8: You set it up to yeah, and which you should.
Speaker 8: And so people are using this system, and you know
Speaker 8: a ton of these people had never heard of Signal
Speaker 8: before in their life and now they're using this system.
Speaker 8: And also we talked to folks and people felt that
Speaker 8: like a certain level of transparency about the networks they're
Speaker 8: building is very useful.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we should probably address this head on, like just
Speaker 9: to be super clearly. Yeah, everything we are sharing is
Speaker 9: because people have implored us to share it.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: We did not sneak in and find its information. People
Speaker 9: openly gave it to us because they wanted you to
Speaker 9: hear it.
Speaker 8: Right, Because they understand that this is the kind of
Speaker 8: system that is currently proving effective and they want people
Speaker 8: to learn from what they're doing, and so they've created
Speaker 8: hyper local systems like block by block. We have groups
Speaker 8: where neighbors are able to check in on neighbors and
Speaker 8: people are able to say, hey, I saw this thing right, yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, And so there is constant presence all over town.
Speaker 8: And when I say town, we spent our time in Minneapolis,
Speaker 8: but we have talked to a lot of people always
Speaker 8: say the same Paul is doing a similar thing, suburbs
Speaker 8: are doing a similar thing, even some small towns elsewhere
Speaker 8: in Minnesota. You're starting to do this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't quite know where the town is, but
Speaker 9: if people are local, Like a few years ago, I
Speaker 9: went to a massive renfare here and already outed myself
Speaker 9: it's okay. I brought a cloak I must wear and folks.
Speaker 9: Folks all the way out there are doing it too.
Speaker 9: Which is that was that place had a rural Midwest vibe,
Speaker 9: let me tell you.
Speaker 8: And so people are doing this all over.
Speaker 9: I have never seen unity like this, No, Like the
Speaker 9: only time I've seen a city this much in lockstep
Speaker 9: is when I was in Comishlo in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8: And where is that.
Speaker 9: Comishlo is the capital of what is generally referred to
Speaker 9: as Rajava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Speaker 9: And at that time we were being bombed by Turkey.
Speaker 9: Turkey takes offense at Kurdish people having any autonomy. And
Speaker 9: this is what that felt like, because there is someone
Speaker 9: invading your town and taking your friends.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and everyone.
Speaker 9: I remember there were funerals, right, so one bomb killed
Speaker 9: thirty four, say, show the internal security forces, and remember
Speaker 9: everyone rolled out for the funeral like it was like
Speaker 9: a general strike. And that's what it feels like here,
Speaker 9: Like you could walk through town the day that happened
Speaker 9: and see people were sad and but they were sharing
Speaker 9: their sadness. And here people are mad and they're sharing
Speaker 9: their anger but also their love for one another.
Speaker 8: Yeah, even when someone was killed by Ice. This did
Speaker 8: not stop people from doing this work. Yeah, it brought
Speaker 8: more people out to do this work because people are like, no, this, this,
Speaker 8: this work needs to be done. And on some level
Speaker 8: the scale is that, right, Like, because if someone is
Speaker 8: seeking asylum, like, no one runs unless they have a reason,
Speaker 8: you know, And so sending people back to the places
Speaker 8: that they've sought asylum from often just means killing people.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, look at the things that have happened
Speaker 9: in the last month. Right, gay men being sent back
Speaker 9: to Iran, where the punishment for that is death. People
Speaker 9: from this community, Korene people right being sent back to
Speaker 9: Mianmar where we know that they are directly delivered to
Speaker 9: a military prison. They are sending people back to Mauritania,
Speaker 9: where again you can be punished for being queer by death. Right, Like,
Speaker 9: what is happening here is that people's lives are at stake.
Speaker 9: I think sometimes people think, oh, we think of Vinie.
Speaker 9: You go out a place where life is less, you know,
Speaker 9: you don't.
Speaker 8: Have a target.
Speaker 9: No, that's not the deal. We're sending people back to Venezuela. Right,
Speaker 9: We're sending people from the US to Venezuela. The US,
Speaker 9: notably just kidnapped the president of Venezuela. Those people aren't
Speaker 9: going to have a nice time, right, And if you
Speaker 9: were a US intelligence agency and you wanted to insert
Speaker 9: people into Venezuela, that's how.
Speaker 8: You would do it. Yeah.
Speaker 9: And Venezuela knows that venez we are then that dumb
Speaker 9: and they are very paranoid. Yeah, and they are a
Speaker 9: state which has a great deal of ability to do
Speaker 9: finance based on that paranoia.
Speaker 8: And so people are aware of the stakes and they're
Speaker 8: they're doing something about it. And what's cool. It's so
Speaker 8: interesting because at the same time, but you know, there's
Speaker 8: a little bit of like, yeah, we're built different and
Speaker 8: certainly around the cold. That is absolutely true. And there
Speaker 8: is all of this stuff in the history of at
Speaker 8: least Minneapolis that people have built resistance out of, right,
Speaker 8: you know, all of this very active multiculturalism going back decades.
Speaker 8: We've talked to organizers who grew up and you know,
Speaker 8: we talked to an organizer grew up in the American
Speaker 8: Indian movement and was talking about like black and Indigenous
Speaker 8: solidarity going back to the sixties and seventies, right, and
Speaker 8: you know, and was saying, like there's all of this
Speaker 8: multicultural and solidarity. There's also all of these like cultural events, right.
Speaker 8: They have this huge Mayday parade right, or festival every year.
Speaker 8: It's funny, I've spent a lot time in Minneapolis, but
Speaker 8: I've never actually been here for this, but everyone's always
Speaker 8: talking about it, where basically people go to this park
Speaker 8: and build puppets and build giant puppets together. But it's
Speaker 8: it's decentralized, and so there's all of this history of
Speaker 8: decentralized organizing. And in twenty twenty, of course, you know,
Speaker 8: the the uprising kind of began here and people are
Speaker 8: very aware of that, and so they have all of
Speaker 8: these networks that have been built for years, and they
Speaker 8: weren't necessarily like crazy active in the intervening years. But
Speaker 8: people know each other on some level. And that's the
Speaker 8: thing though, because we expected kind of I expected people
Speaker 8: being like, ah, yes, they had all of these deep interconnections,
Speaker 8: and most people were talking to are like, no, I
Speaker 8: know my neighbors. Now do you know six months ago
Speaker 8: we had the we have these like small seeds, right,
Speaker 8: and so there, so people here are and aren't special
Speaker 8: about that, but do you know what is special? Else?
Speaker 8: I can buy I shut it to think, Margaret. I
Speaker 8: think what's special is the fact that you and I
Speaker 8: run anti capitalist podcasts. It's special as a lot of meanings. Yeah,
Speaker 8: that are inter by advertisements. Yeah, it is. It is different.
Speaker 8: It is a thing. And here they are.
Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you please in certain name of advertiser here
Speaker 9: for buying us a low grade vegan pizza which still
Speaker 9: cost us more than fifty dollars.
Speaker 8: Andrew back.
Speaker 9: Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about like
Speaker 9: the structures that exist, right, and I think probably the
Speaker 9: way to do that is to break this down into
Speaker 9: two distinct I guess categories. And I think these are
Speaker 9: distinct in terms of organizing for the most part. Right,
Speaker 9: one is mutual aid and one is rapid response. And
Speaker 9: I just want to break down why people are doing
Speaker 9: mutual aid.
Speaker 8: First.
Speaker 9: First of all, we're doing mutual aid because it is
Speaker 9: the way that we build a better world by taking
Speaker 9: care of one another without trying to extract profit from
Speaker 9: one another. Why they're doing it is because people right
Speaker 9: now who are at risk of deportation are afraid to
Speaker 9: leave their homes.
Speaker 8: They are living like a lot of Jewish people lived
Speaker 8: in nuts.
Speaker 9: This is a this is a comparison to somebody whose
Speaker 9: grandparents fled the Holocaust made for us today.
Speaker 8: Like Jewish people did Nazi Germany. Right.
Speaker 9: The difference is this time they know their neighbors have
Speaker 9: their back. Yeah, and so they're afraid to go out.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: Schools are offering remote education because kids are afraid to
Speaker 9: go to school because ice has been hitting school bus stops.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: People can't go out and get groceries, and they can't
Speaker 9: go to their jobs, so they can't pay their bills.
Speaker 9: And so that requires if we want to take care
Speaker 9: of people, we have to feed them. We have to
Speaker 9: help them pay their bills, meet their material needs, get
Speaker 9: their kids educated. That is a heavy lift. Capitalism extracts
Speaker 9: are pretty heavy fee for paying rent. Right, we give
Speaker 9: most of our lives, yeah, capital so that we can
Speaker 9: get food and pay rent, clothes and shit. We have
Speaker 9: to do that without that here, right, And people are
Speaker 9: doing it. So they are organizing food drop off, they're
Speaker 9: organizing diaper banks, they're organizing to give people rides who
Speaker 9: might not feel safe driving by themselves. Yeah, they're taking
Speaker 9: people's kids some often.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 9: A scenario that I'm very familiar with is citizen children
Speaker 9: born to non citizen parents, So those kids, no one
Speaker 9: is safe when you have this many people running around
Speaker 9: with weapons, right and very poor training and then a
Speaker 9: lot of anger and yeah, not very good at driving
Speaker 9: in the snow. But their kids are still able to
Speaker 9: go out and go to school. But it's about idea
Speaker 9: for their parents are taken, right. So you're seeing people
Speaker 9: organizing school runs, getting food for people. Then you've got
Speaker 9: businesses that are owned by migrants, right like there, or
Speaker 9: businesses that are largely staffed by migrants. So it's trying
Speaker 9: to keep those places afloat so that community can continue
Speaker 9: to care for itself. But when it's workers can't come
Speaker 9: in or what if the majority of the clian tell
Speaker 9: of the business of migrants, well maybe people volunteer to
Speaker 9: do delivery, right, so that that business can stay afloat
Speaker 9: and those migrants can still get the foods that make
Speaker 9: them feel safe at a time when they don't feel safe.
Speaker 9: Whatever it is, right, people are meeting each other's needs
Speaker 9: without trying to extract like financial compensation from each other.
Speaker 8: And to talk about the decentralized nature of this again,
Speaker 8: and it's like hyper local, like no org. Many orgs,
Speaker 8: but no one org. Stepped in and was like, ah,
Speaker 8: this is the way to do it. Here's this top
Speaker 8: down flow chart. Instead. All of these groups started in
Speaker 8: different ways, like we've talked to people from like different neighborhoods,
Speaker 8: where like ah, it all started like this, and then
Speaker 8: they paint a completely different picture from people from three
Speaker 8: blocks over.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And like you know, someone was like the mutual
Speaker 8: aid here started with one mom who was like, while
Speaker 8: I'm making food, yeah, and in her own kitchen made food. Yeah.
Speaker 8: And then it was like I will carry the entire
Speaker 8: weight of the world as necessary upon my shoulders.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then other people.
Speaker 8: Were like, okay, I'll help you lift this. I think
Speaker 8: of the have you seen the meme about like I
Speaker 8: can't lift weights with my anarchist friends. No, I can't
Speaker 8: lift weights with my anarchist friends because every time I
Speaker 8: did pick up the bar bell, like thirty of my
Speaker 8: friends come over and help me lift the bar bells
Speaker 8: while singing John Henry.
Speaker 9: Yeah it's perfect.
Speaker 8: And that's like what's happening here? Yeah, you know. And
Speaker 8: so so one person starts doing this thing and people say, oh,
Speaker 8: that's a good idea, and there are these other networks
Speaker 8: that can then tie that in and people will be
Speaker 8: heavily involved in one network and have a little bit
Speaker 8: of an understanding what's happening in the other networks. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but enough people are talking to each other that they're
Speaker 8: learning best practices, they're learning what doesn't doesn't work, and
Speaker 8: they're also changing to get to mean the threat.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think the thing is here that no one's
Speaker 9: coming in with like tax deductible funding.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Right, this is just people taking care of people.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: That has been sustainable for some time, right, like since
Speaker 9: since mid December we're now in late January. That is
Speaker 9: a thing that like there is a need for money, yeah,
Speaker 9: to keep making that happen. And that is an area
Speaker 9: where people outside of Minneapolis going to help if they
Speaker 9: want to. So I just want to flag that, Yeah,
Speaker 9: and we will drop some resources at the end of
Speaker 9: these two episodes, and we'll drop at the end of
Speaker 9: the first episode and hopefully you'll, if you feel so inclined,
Speaker 9: you'll be able to help financially. But yeah, let's talk
Speaker 9: about rapid response. ICE is not as large of an
Speaker 9: agency as they wish there was. You know, there's so
Speaker 9: much news about how hard of a time they're having
Speaker 9: hiring people to the point where they like hired the
Speaker 9: like leftist journalist too, was like, yeah, applied as a joke,
Speaker 9: you know here.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 8: And so they've they've had the surge here, the flood
Speaker 8: they called it, I believe of agents here and you
Speaker 8: know there's about three thousand I think the ice agents
Speaker 8: in the city. Yeah, I think it was met first
Speaker 8: surge here midway flood was Chicago, Okay, And they can't
Speaker 8: do that everywhere at once. So if you play video games,
Speaker 8: Minneapolis is tanking. Did do you know the concept of tanking? Yeah,
Speaker 8: you'd ask to be a video game Dungeons Dragons, I know,
Speaker 8: I know they do it. Yeah, you can tank in
Speaker 8: Dungeons and Dragons, but the actual weirdly, I think the
Speaker 8: concept of tanking comes not from Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah,
Speaker 8: later additions that this is a nerd tangent.
Speaker 9: Anyway, James and Margaret talked about Dungeons Dragons eptomology.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the concept is that one person stands there and
Speaker 8: takes the damage while other people heal that person and
Speaker 8: do damage to the people attacking that person or prepare themselves. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 8: in the video game version, as you you know, one
Speaker 8: person takes all the damage while everyone else is also
Speaker 8: helping do the damage back. Yes, that's literally just the
Speaker 8: world of warcraft version. But Minneapolis is tanking. The Twin
Speaker 8: Cities and Minnesota are tanking, and all of the ice
Speaker 8: agents that are here aren't somewhere else. And one of
Speaker 8: the ways that they're making that possible it is through
Speaker 8: rapid response and rapid response that's what the name says.
Speaker 8: That is a way to respond rapidly. Which is the
Speaker 8: other Okay, this is the other question I had coming in.
Speaker 8: Why does this work? This was my thought. I was like,
Speaker 8: why does blowing whistles at ice agents make them not
Speaker 8: able to kidnap people?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So I was like, does this work? That was one
Speaker 8: of the main questions we ask people. The answer is yes,
Speaker 8: it doesn't work all the time. This is still a
Speaker 8: tragic situation where everyone involves is kind of traumatized to
Speaker 8: medium to greater degrees. I don't want to say the
Speaker 8: lesser degrees. But what happens is is that if the
Speaker 8: ice agents are out numbered, they usually don't successfully abduct anyone,
Speaker 8: even though they're the only harmed people in the situation.
Speaker 8: Even though they theoretically the way that police would act.
Speaker 8: Being outnumbered. It helps, but it's not as much of
Speaker 8: a game changer. Yeah, with ICE being wildly unpopular occupying
Speaker 8: force so far at least currently, outnumbering them seems to
Speaker 8: often stop abductions. At first, I believe decemberish, the way
Speaker 8: that ICE was handling things was these big, spectacular raids
Speaker 8: that we've seen in a lot of places. Thirty agents
Speaker 8: are showing up and raiding this place, right, and so
Speaker 8: if you get a call about that, a rapid response
Speaker 8: can be twenty minutes, it can be thirty minutes. You
Speaker 8: can show up and you're still part of fighting against
Speaker 8: this happening. And this is what's happening all over the country, right. Yeah,
Speaker 8: So ICE here adapted and started moving faster and faster. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and so now often these abductions take two or three minutes.
Speaker 8: So they were like, how do we get a crowd
Speaker 8: in two minutes? And when when an organizer first, like
Speaker 8: everyone here as an organizer, When a person who does
Speaker 8: this first suggested that's to me, my thought was like,
Speaker 8: well you don't, Yeah, that's impossible, it's not They do it, yeah,
Speaker 8: and they do it because everyone here in Minneapps like
Speaker 8: I cannot everyone everyone, but I I haven't run across
Speaker 8: too many counterexamples. Yeah, is themselves willing to respond, yeah like,
Speaker 8: and so when you hear people honking and whistles outside,
Speaker 8: you go outside.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean we heard someone was mentioning that they
Speaker 9: had seen and to be clear, this morning again the
Speaker 9: real feel was in the minus thirties celsius and fahrenheit,
Speaker 9: which is the last Friday if you're but they have
Speaker 9: said they were on the block, they heard some honking,
Speaker 9: they come outside their theybis were outside and cut off
Speaker 9: pajama pants and crogs, screaming and blowing whistles.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right, like, and.
Speaker 9: You we saw it, even when someone mistook us for
Speaker 9: ice agents. Right and within a couple of minutes, a
Speaker 9: couple of people are come and we were to girl
Speaker 9: with journalists like yeah, long hair like yeah exactly like
Speaker 9: crusty like you can you can see us coming but
Speaker 9: out of state plates.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: A city is made of people, right like that. The
Speaker 9: people are out there, the blood pumping through the veins
Speaker 9: of a city. It's not made buildings, and there are
Speaker 9: people everywhere, and when all of them are willing to
Speaker 9: show up, right or half of them.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well, in the entire time we have seen here, the
Speaker 9: only person who has expressed any negativity about what is
Speaker 9: happening is a person in a truck today who was
Speaker 9: honking at a large protest that we were part of
Speaker 9: in a way that was clearly adversarial. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: literally one person.
Speaker 8: He was also stuck.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he was also stuck and had been stuck for
Speaker 9: some time, and it struggling with a merged situation that happened.
Speaker 8: When we actually don't know his political opinions. He was unhappy,
Speaker 8: he was.
Speaker 9: Just That's the only person I've seen express any upset.
Speaker 9: Like every person I can guess out at the supermarket,
Speaker 9: the people who we have run into a coffee shops right, like, yeah,
Speaker 9: Randos outside the Dollar General store. Yeah, people we see
Speaker 9: in the street. But people we see in the street
Speaker 9: are standing it. It's cold as fuck. No one, it's
Speaker 9: just like vibing on a park bench currently. But everyone, yeah,
Speaker 9: is one hundred in.
Speaker 8: It on the fuck these guys page, Yeah, like we
Speaker 8: we today we heard about an ice vehicle that crashed
Speaker 8: indoor pole And this is actually fairly calm, and I
Speaker 8: believe because one they don't know how to drive in ice, yeah,
Speaker 8: and Minneapolis is icy, and they were driving like a
Speaker 8: I don't know whether the vehicles all we were driving not.
Speaker 8: It was a Ford escape, yeah, but it was some
Speaker 8: not altering tires.
Speaker 9: Yeah, No, those were pretty those were some Californior ass
Speaker 9: to ice.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And it's just crashed in a pole in a
Speaker 8: like pretty impressive way, like they had to be gone
Speaker 8: at a decent speed.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 9: They both hair bags are deployed, the radiator was done,
Speaker 9: the engine block was you know, like, Yeah, they'd crumpled
Speaker 9: the front of the car. It's because they drive erratically
Speaker 9: when people are driving behind them try and get rid
Speaker 9: of them, and they are driving ill equipped, both skill
Speaker 9: wise and vehicle wise.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And so we showed up. Yeah, an hour and
Speaker 8: a half after the crash. They just abandoned the vehicle.
Speaker 8: They're like, they came and got some of their stuff
Speaker 8: out of the car, toss some to your guys, Yeah,
Speaker 8: tossed them. S here, guys. We saw the canister on
Speaker 8: the ground of SATs gas and they just left it
Speaker 8: there and they were not going to clean it up.
Speaker 8: I don't believe they will ever clean it up. That'll
Speaker 8: be on the local police or whoever, you know, city
Speaker 8: And we're standing there and a guy drives by and
Speaker 8: he's just a normal man. Yeah, no distinguishing features, no
Speaker 8: man yet, no belief to be a subcultural or lefty
Speaker 8: or someone drives by and it is like, oh shit,
Speaker 8: is everyone okay? And I was like, oh, that's a
Speaker 8: nice vehicle and he just starts laughing the park say
Speaker 8: his car. He gets down and this happens over and
Speaker 8: this is must have been happening over and over over
Speaker 8: an hour to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: What else I noticed then was like, so we were
Speaker 9: walking up and this this this person popped out of
Speaker 9: their house and was like, hey, what's happening.
Speaker 8: We're like, oh, I spitfed it into this pole. Yeah.
Speaker 9: And they were like okay, if you guys need anything,
Speaker 9: like I'm here, I'm taking care of some kids or
Speaker 9: an elder.
Speaker 8: I can't remember, but they were like, you need to
Speaker 8: come in the house. It's called just come to come
Speaker 8: knock on the door, like you need a hot drink,
Speaker 8: you know, like and one more press. We're not like hello,
Speaker 8: we are the activists, you know. Yeah, like you know,
Speaker 8: I'm to be clear, I'm wearing a helmet mark. Were
Speaker 8: both wearing helmets with with big blue press patches on them.
Speaker 8: So one of the things I noticed is like, and
Speaker 8: it's been repeated a bit and then reported on a
Speaker 8: little bit, like these three D printed whistles, right, Yeah.
Speaker 9: One of the ways that people identify someone was saying
Speaker 9: them that people know you're cool.
Speaker 8: It's like people are.
Speaker 9: All carrying whistles around the next like almost I was
Speaker 9: just keeping an eye on this is as we met
Speaker 9: people throughout the last few days. Everybody had a caribbean
Speaker 9: with their keys and a whistle on it, or a
Speaker 9: whistle on their neck, or there was a whistle on
Speaker 9: a lanyard on their wrist. It's like a little market.
Speaker 8: And what's interesting is we've talked to people about how
Speaker 8: at the beginning, I mean a lot of people are
Speaker 8: like this seems kind of silly. Yeah right, You're like, oh,
Speaker 8: they're the federal I mean they're the Gestapo, right yeah yeah,
Speaker 8: and we have whistles and so it seems so absurd. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but there's so many parts of it they hate. They
Speaker 8: want to operate in secrecy. Yeah. Yeah, we see watchers
Speaker 8: on every corner. We don't see ice, like this is
Speaker 8: a city under occupation. But it's like visibly under occupation
Speaker 8: by its own defenders. Yeah right, it is like infiltrated
Speaker 8: by federal agents. Not like you don't you know, I've
Speaker 8: been in places where you have like the the police
Speaker 8: rolling around in their tank things with yeah, and like
Speaker 8: this isn't that because they can't actually express much force.
Speaker 9: They can't even be seen as you go. They're trying
Speaker 9: their very hardest to right. They have tinted vehicles, they
Speaker 9: cover their faces. They keep getting different rentals so people
Speaker 9: can't recognize it. Yeah, like they are trying their best
Speaker 9: to blend in and failing.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And everyone having a whistle. So not only is
Speaker 8: it effective because it draws attention to them, it makes
Speaker 8: you a defender. It's a very cheap and easy way.
Speaker 8: You hand them a whistle, and you're handling them responsibility.
Speaker 8: You're saying like you are now it's like I mean,
Speaker 8: it's handing some of their goddamn sword.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 9: It a like night Fantasy land way right, Yeah, like
Speaker 9: you're one of us when we take care of each other,
Speaker 9: and you are going to defend people. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 9: going to defend people by casting these people Like it's
Speaker 9: so interesting because I'm so used to thinking like power
Speaker 9: doesn't need to hide, right, Like, yeah, you know when
Speaker 9: journalists are like, oh, well, what they really fear is
Speaker 9: the truth, and you know, I'm like, well.
Speaker 8: Power doesn't need to hide.
Speaker 9: By the power is not with the folks driving around
Speaker 9: and occupying the city right now. The more relevant power
Speaker 9: is with the folks standing on street corners who don't
Speaker 9: feel the need to hide, who want afraid, right.
Speaker 8: And like, this is part of why I hate saying
Speaker 8: things like this. I think we're gonna win. Yeah, And
Speaker 8: I haven't felt that way in years, And like, yeah,
Speaker 8: I think that this spirit, the spirit that is animating
Speaker 8: this city is the thing that will get us through it.
Speaker 8: And when I say when when conditions are all weird
Speaker 8: and hard and we're going to lose a lot of people,
Speaker 8: like we're going to lose a lot of like.
Speaker 9: Grabbing people up the street here every day to spy
Speaker 9: ale of.
Speaker 8: This because when I'm like, oh, people are stopping so
Speaker 8: many abductions, they're also everyone we've talked to has stop
Speaker 8: abductions and failed to stop abductions. Yeah, and that haunts
Speaker 8: a lot of them. I think I think so too,
Speaker 8: And yeah, people are really torn between those two things.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'll just say that like as someone who's been
Speaker 9: in it for a minute when it comes to like
Speaker 9: advocacy for migrants, right. Yeah, If I go back three
Speaker 9: years ago to twenty twenty three, it was one hundred
Speaker 9: crusties and anarchists and Quakers and Sikhs who were feeding
Speaker 9: thousands of people in the desert, right and in a
Speaker 9: big city metro area of three million people forty five
Speaker 9: minutes away. People didn't believe me when I told them
Speaker 9: it was happening, because nobody gave a shit, to include
Speaker 9: the local media. Then I was in La right in
Speaker 9: summer this year, and there were young folks there who
Speaker 9: were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, right,
Speaker 9: and did really inspire instud really inspiring stuff and very
Speaker 9: brave stuff. And so many of them were those kids
Speaker 9: who are in that situation where they are citizens and
Speaker 9: their parents are not. Yeah, and they believe in the
Speaker 9: right to a freedom of expression of speech, and they
Speaker 9: came to use it.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: But I could walk five blocks from there and it
Speaker 9: could have.
Speaker 8: Been any other day in La right. Yeah.
Speaker 9: I went to a fancy coffee shop. I overpaid for
Speaker 9: coffee because.
Speaker 8: The white people didn't give a shit. I mean, or
Speaker 8: if you didn't for the most part. No, you're right,
Speaker 8: could have been.
Speaker 9: They cared. I think they cared. A lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 9: it's terrible was happening. Yeah, but you know, some people
Speaker 9: spoke to me about their film script. We say, lay write,
Speaker 9: that's a given. But it did not feel like the
Speaker 9: city was locked in.
Speaker 8: This feels different to that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it feels more locked in than it even felt
Speaker 9: in twenty twenty. Yeah, because everybody's fesis is an external thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but do you know what doesn't like doing transitions
Speaker 8: right now? It's me. I don't actually like doing it,
Speaker 8: but that is my job. And here's a maths and
Speaker 8: we're back. The external threat part is really fascinating and
Speaker 8: is like a key to a lot of this. I believe,
Speaker 8: you know, the difference between the tone of twenty twenty,
Speaker 8: where it was this nationwide internal threat. This is still
Speaker 8: absolutely present, right, is absolutely all of the problems from
Speaker 8: twenty twenty, yeah are still here. Yeah, earlier today and
Speaker 8: we watched them arrest a lawyer. Yeah, and we'll get
Speaker 8: to that. But the thing I've been thinking about is
Speaker 8: that in protest movements you often say things like oh,
Speaker 8: what radicalized you? Or I got radicalized by this, or yeah,
Speaker 8: this isn't radical, even though it's higher stakes, more risk, like, yeah,
Speaker 8: it's not radical to say, Man, I don't think you
Speaker 8: should kidnap literal children, you know, I don't think it's normal.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like, which is why very normal people are very
Speaker 9: pissed off.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and like and one of the things has come
Speaker 8: up from multiple people, you know, and and the internet
Speaker 8: commenters will say, well, then why they vote this way?
Speaker 8: And that's just a that doesn't get us anywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 8: what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, we've talked to
Speaker 8: a bunch of people who are like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 8: Republican business has closed for the general strike. Or my
Speaker 8: neighbor who is very conservative, is pissed as hell.
Speaker 9: Yeah I saw a sign today and we'll get to
Speaker 9: the big protest. I sorry, what would Ronald Reagan do?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: The person right, So this person has not just thought that. Yeah,
Speaker 9: they have got out their pens and paper and their
Speaker 9: crafting supplies. They've made that sign, They've got their ass
Speaker 9: down to the middle of town and it is minus ten,
Speaker 9: minus fifteen, and they are out and about with their
Speaker 9: what would Ronald Reagan sign, right, because they have that
Speaker 9: pissed off and.
Speaker 8: No one's mad at them. Yeah, because at a certain
Speaker 8: point it doesn't matter. Yeah, rather they were here. Yeah,
Speaker 8: like exactly, And like the thing I've been thinking about
Speaker 8: a lot is that glad you're here gets so much
Speaker 8: further than what took you so long. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 8: just is a line the federal government has crossed it.
Speaker 8: And the more people who are aware of that, the better.
Speaker 9: Yeah. I think it's really important that part of the
Speaker 9: organizing here has been so wide and so inclusive and
Speaker 9: so broad and.
Speaker 8: Yet so focused. Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's so focused on keeping their neighbors safe. And
Speaker 9: that's it can be so broad because most people think
Speaker 9: that's the right thing to do. That is what is
Speaker 9: allowing them to do this right now. Yeah, And it
Speaker 9: doesn't matter where someone was yesterday or in November of
Speaker 9: twenty twenty four, if they're on a street corner today
Speaker 9: looking out for their neighbors.
Speaker 8: And I'll say that I'm not going to name them,
Speaker 8: but to shout out part of the reason I'm here
Speaker 8: is that like someone I know who I don't know,
Speaker 8: if they have a political ideology to their name, just
Speaker 8: you know, a young queer person I know was talking
Speaker 8: to them a couple of weeks ago, and they were
Speaker 8: telling me about how, you know, I didn't understand the
Speaker 8: scope of the rapid response networks, but it's hard to
Speaker 8: see from outside.
Speaker 9: Yes, yeah, yeah, and necessarily it's something that people don't
Speaker 9: always talk about to everyone, right.
Speaker 8: Right, totally, And so, you know, talking to this person
Speaker 8: and they're like, oh, earlier today, I you know, went
Speaker 8: and stood in front of apartment building because of ICE.
Speaker 8: And I was like, your apartment building and They're like, no,
Speaker 8: about a block away, and I'm like okay, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 8: I just want to go stand out front to make
Speaker 8: sure ICE didn't get in. And I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 8: don't quite understand, you know. And then they're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 8: and I you know, I go to the hotels where
Speaker 8: Ice are at and me and my friends sit there
Speaker 8: and write down license plates and and I'm just like,
Speaker 8: and I'm imagining this is just like an activity they're doing.
Speaker 8: I don't quite understand, you know, But I'm like, why
Speaker 8: are you doing it?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 8: And not that not that it's a it's an obvious
Speaker 8: answer on some level, but they're like because I told
Speaker 8: myself I was someone who would do it's right. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and I think that in all of our hearts, we
Speaker 8: tell ourselves that when it comes down to it, we
Speaker 8: do it's right. And like, you know, people like talking
Speaker 8: about like comparisons between now in Nazi Germany and the
Speaker 8: rise of fascism, and they're like, you know, there's the
Speaker 8: meme about like how on end and up fascists if
Speaker 8: you're failing an open note test? Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: but Minneapolis doesn't fail in the open note test.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, they are passing with flying colors, right, Like yeah,
Speaker 9: I mean yeah, I think you know you and I
Speaker 9: have both history appreciators, and history has taught us a lot, right,
Speaker 9: the big coalitions do better than small one or ones
Speaker 9: a fracturing tow a million pieces that like, leadership isn't
Speaker 9: what we need. Participation is what we need. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 9: you see a lot of it in action here. And
Speaker 9: like all of us, right, like anyone who's spent any
Speaker 9: time reading, writing, learning, listening to history whatever sort, what
Speaker 9: would I do? We're finding out is that yeah, we're
Speaker 9: not learning at having thought what would I do? And
Speaker 9: most people have said, well, I wouldn't be one of
Speaker 9: the ones who did something. Yeah, so they're doing something.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And I think about maybe my last thought for
Speaker 8: today is that when ice abducts people, which they do
Speaker 8: every day, Yeah, did they just disappear people? Right? They
Speaker 8: just show up? They pull someone over literally just for
Speaker 8: being brown, to be really transparent. Yeah, Like the the
Speaker 8: police have come out and been like, could you please
Speaker 8: stop pulling over all of the brown cops? Yeah? Right, yeah.
Speaker 8: Like and when they when they pull someone over, they
Speaker 8: just take them and they leave the car, sometimes running,
Speaker 8: sometimes in drive, yeah, and just drive away. And I
Speaker 8: was like, are we walking into a ghost town? Right?
Speaker 8: Are we going to see this everywhere? And like, in
Speaker 8: my three days here, I haven't seen the abandoned vehicle
Speaker 8: except the ice abandoned vehicle that get crashed. But it
Speaker 8: is happening every day, and we have talked to people
Speaker 8: who see it every day. And a very common activity
Speaker 8: is the ghastly approaching an abandoned vehicle abandons though the
Speaker 8: vehicle that has been has been stolen, and trying to
Speaker 8: figure out who the fuck it was, and going through
Speaker 8: and finding the information to contact people's loved ones and
Speaker 8: say like, hey, your your wife has been stolen. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, and like and that, and we were talking
Speaker 8: to you know, a decent number of the people that
Speaker 8: we talked to about this were Jewish, and they're you know,
Speaker 8: talking about like this is what my family told me about. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, and like that was one of the first
Speaker 8: things that someone told me that really made me cry.
Speaker 8: This whole thing has been like really challenging all my
Speaker 8: cynicism and detached us from from hard things. But hearing
Speaker 8: those stories and then just seeing the people who do that,
Speaker 8: which could be anybody. Yeah, because people step up. It's
Speaker 8: a god I just I say, I can only imagine it,
Speaker 8: you know, but it like that is a daily reality.
Speaker 8: Here is someone was just stolen. Yeah, a person was
Speaker 8: just stolen, and I have to go through their effects
Speaker 8: to figure out who they were. Yeah.
Speaker 9: I guess when we were speaking about that, I was
Speaker 9: thinking about experiences I've had in the desert right where
Speaker 9: you find someone's bag, Yeah, as they're walking through and
Speaker 9: it's got too hot, they've taken off their bag, and
Speaker 9: you go through all the little ephemera, the little things
Speaker 9: that people thought were worth carrying across the world, and
Speaker 9: you try to piece together their life and work out
Speaker 9: who they are, and you look at picture of their children,
Speaker 9: and you look at picture through their spouse and their home,
Speaker 9: and you hope that they're okay, right, And in this instance,
Speaker 9: they're not right. And it's not the abstract violence of
Speaker 9: the structures of borders and walls and surveillances that have
Speaker 9: killed them or taken them. In this instance, right, it's
Speaker 9: five people in masks in a car over there, and
Speaker 9: it's happening in the middle of cities where people can
Speaker 9: see it.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: Part of the function of the border is to take
Speaker 9: the violence away from where people can see it. And
Speaker 9: they got away with that for so long that they
Speaker 9: figured they could just bring it into cities. And it
Speaker 9: makes my heart so proud that when people could see it,
Speaker 9: they said, fuck, no, you're not doing this in my town.
Speaker 9: Because for so long I've believed that if people could,
Speaker 9: Like the reason I'm a journalist, right, the reason that
Speaker 9: I have spent the better part of ten years I'm
Speaker 9: like receiving trauma is because I really believe in my
Speaker 9: heart that people could if people could see the cruelty,
Speaker 9: they would care and they would do something. Yeah, And
Speaker 9: like this confirms that for me, Right, people can see
Speaker 9: it and they have cared and they have done something amazing, right,
Speaker 9: and that makes me so proud of them.
Speaker 8: Yeah. The paradise built in hell, this soulment put it.
Speaker 8: You know, people are finding community and a really active
Speaker 8: way and learning what people can do for each other
Speaker 8: and the levels in which people are plugging in. You know,
Speaker 8: there's the whole long standing cliche that for every front
Speaker 8: line access, there's ten support people. Yeah, and you're like,
Speaker 8: well here, it's those lines aren't so clearly delineated because
Speaker 8: on some level, you know, we've talked to people who
Speaker 8: have been like, oh my my neighbor who you know
Speaker 8: has so many mobility issues that they can't leave their house. Yeah,
Speaker 8: they're just hanging on the front porch.
Speaker 9: Yeah, on the front line. Yeah, exactly, because the front
Speaker 9: line comes to you.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Like we talked to someone earlier who was pepper
Speaker 8: spray this morning while walking their dog. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: because while walking their dog they witnessed masked agent. It's
Speaker 8: stealing a person. Yeah, well I'm about do it for
Speaker 8: part one if it could cool people here. M hmm,
Speaker 8: And uh, we'll be back on Wednesday or whenever. It
Speaker 8: We actually don't know what the scheduling is going to
Speaker 8: be of this particular episode. Yeah, we'll be back.
Speaker 9: In the subsequent episode of the podcast video listening to you.
Speaker 8: That's right, that's right, and yeah, you're gonna final Let
Speaker 8: me say this, right.
Speaker 9: I was really sad when I came here because my
Speaker 9: friends were dying Reshaba. Yeah, and I wish I was
Speaker 9: with them in a strange way, Yeah, because I know
Speaker 9: the sense of togetherness they feel and I felt that
Speaker 9: here and that was really special for me because I
Speaker 9: would struggle to be dealing with this alone.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and we're gonna we're gonna talk a bit more
Speaker 8: about rapid response stuff. And there's also just a point
Speaker 8: some articles people. There's a series of articles that came
Speaker 8: out from crimethink, which is crimethink dot com that have
Speaker 8: talked about some of the structures of rapid response networks.
Speaker 8: And people here are putting together a lot of resources
Speaker 8: about what they have and haven't learned. And we're going
Speaker 8: to be talking about some of those things that people
Speaker 8: have learned and things like that. But it's really worth
Speaker 8: understanding wherever you are because you're also that person who
Speaker 8: can hang out on your front porch. I mean not
Speaker 8: necessarily literally you hang out on your front porch. But
Speaker 8: it's like the idea is when the entire city mobilizes,
Speaker 8: it works. And I think that when we realize that
Speaker 8: we can mobilize the entire country, it works. That's my theory. Yeah,
Speaker 8: see you all soon.
Speaker 9: Hi, friends, it's me James. I'm back and I'm back
Speaker 9: because we ask some people on the ground if they
Speaker 9: could provide us with some links to places where people
Speaker 9: could donate that have been vetted that they knew would
Speaker 9: be going to people helping people on the ground, and
Speaker 9: they provided us with a lot of different links. So
Speaker 9: I'm going to tell you what each of these links are,
Speaker 9: and if you'd like to donate, you can just scroll
Speaker 9: on down whichever app you're using to the podcast show
Speaker 9: notes and you can click one of the one of
Speaker 9: the links below. So there's rent support for neighbors in Phillips,
Speaker 9: rent support for neighbors in Central, rent support for neighbors
Speaker 9: in Powderhorn, supplies for political art making, protective gear for
Speaker 9: legal observers, diapers and menstrual supplies. There are Abolish iced
Speaker 9: T shirts that you can purchase. There is a fundraiser
Speaker 9: for north Star Frontline Street Medics and the Twin Cities
Speaker 9: Swirlitariat bail fund. There are links for both of Venmo
Speaker 9: and cash app donation there. Hi, friends, it's me James,
Speaker 9: and I just wanted to explain as you're listening to this.
Speaker 9: We recorded this around midnight on Friday, after having spent
Speaker 9: I think three days four nights in Minneapolis, and the
Speaker 9: tone of what we recorded here is hopeful. I remain
Speaker 9: hopeful and inspired by the people we met in Minneapolis,
Speaker 9: and I remained so proud of everything they've done. But
Speaker 9: about nine hours after we sent this off to our editors,
Speaker 9: Alex Pretty was killed by two Border Patrol agents. And
Speaker 9: the tone of this would have been different if we
Speaker 9: had recorded after that, And that's just the nature of
Speaker 9: the work we do. But we don't want anything in
Speaker 9: the hopeful tone here to suggest that we don't grieve
Speaker 9: his passing, that we aren't thinking of the people who
Speaker 9: loved him right now, because we understand that they're going
Speaker 9: through a very difficult time. But we still want you
Speaker 9: to learn from what's happening in Minneapolis and from what
Speaker 9: people are doing there, and we hope that you remember
Speaker 9: that as you literally say.
Speaker 8: And I think that honestly, those two things that we
Speaker 8: have to balance just as we deal with the state
Speaker 8: of the world. Is just you know, everyone we talked
Speaker 8: to this is so present on their minds. Is both
Speaker 8: an awareness of the beauty of the things that they
Speaker 8: are building and also an awareness of the darkness that
Speaker 8: has caused them to need to build these things. But anyway,
Speaker 8: we hope you enjoy these episodes and are following more
Speaker 8: closely with more current news about what's happening, and are
Speaker 8: talking to the people around you wherever you are about
Speaker 8: how you will keep yourself and your neighbors safe and yep,
Speaker 8: thank you.
Speaker 9: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Could Happen Here podcast,
Speaker 9: which is what happens when two podcasts love each other
Speaker 9: and go to Minneapolis go on a trip to Minneapolis
Speaker 9: in the winter, where it is called I am one
Speaker 9: of your hosts today. My name is James Stout, and
Speaker 9: I am very lucky to be joined by my friend
Speaker 9: Margaret Kiljoy.
Speaker 8: Hello, welcome to the thing that we're doing. Should we
Speaker 8: talking about today? We talked last time about some rapid
Speaker 8: response to mutual a and there's more to be said
Speaker 8: about that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, today is the twenty third.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's the past for you all.
Speaker 14: M M.
Speaker 9: But it's present for us. Yeah, it's amazing our podcasting
Speaker 9: work like that.
Speaker 8: Today was the second realish, real general strike I've been
Speaker 8: to in my life. Yeah. First one was in Oakland
Speaker 8: during Occupy Okay, so they pulled off a pretty serious
Speaker 8: general strike. Thousands of US shut down the ports. It
Speaker 8: was really beautiful. But yeah, that was poss Today.
Speaker 9: No one I had to shut shit down really, with
Speaker 9: the exception of the Federal building, which we will discuss. Yeah,
Speaker 9: it's been remarkable. We've been here, it's Tuesday, it's Friday.
Speaker 9: How just the momentum has grown. Like seeing we went
Speaker 9: past someplace I think it was like a place of
Speaker 9: repaired like electronics of some description. They just had a
Speaker 9: little thing being like attention, we're not opening on Friday,
Speaker 9: Like yeah, it's these businesses which have no reason, you know,
Speaker 9: like these outward facing reasons too. You know, it's not
Speaker 9: even businesses which rely on the community for business and
Speaker 9: have to signal the community that they're with them, right,
Speaker 9: it's just people who are being like yeah, nah, no,
Speaker 9: you know, like that seems shut. Yeah, let's we got
Speaker 9: to do something. Let's all close down and go protest.
Speaker 9: One thing that I was sent and share this with you, Margaret.
Speaker 9: Some unkind was a list of businesses that are like, yo,
Speaker 9: we will not be participating in like profit making today,
Speaker 9: but if you need X, that's what we do.
Speaker 8: Come by.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like if you know, if you're hungry, if you're cold,
Speaker 9: if you need a cup of coffee, what if you
Speaker 9: need a bicycle fix whatever it is, like if you
Speaker 9: want to screenprint abolish ice on a shirt, swing my
Speaker 9: Like we'll just be opened up for the community. Comes
Speaker 9: a high like we don't want your mind, we just
Speaker 9: want your solularity. Like I thought that was cool.
Speaker 8: And on some level it's been happening for a while
Speaker 8: to like to talk talk about how yesterday we went
Speaker 8: to power out Grounds. Yeah right, there is an indigenous
Speaker 8: own coffee shop called power Grounds. They're actually worth donating
Speaker 8: directly too because of their mutual aid projects. That will
Speaker 8: probably be in the list of things that we include.
Speaker 8: And you go in and the coffee is free now,
Speaker 8: and you know, we were like, well, we want to
Speaker 8: pay you for tea, and they were like, you can
Speaker 8: pay us for tea.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And we were able to like put some money
Speaker 9: behind in case someone else came in and need.
Speaker 8: Right, But the entire space has been taken over by
Speaker 8: a mutual aid organization. Yeah, and it's you know, Indigenous run.
Speaker 8: We talked to someone from AIM American Indian Movement about
Speaker 8: the work they've been doing there, and you know, which
Speaker 8: is that they've been you know, basically just turning it
Speaker 8: into like making sure everyone has everything they need. Yeah.
Speaker 8: By creating these places that are good to hang out in,
Speaker 8: you make really good rapid response places.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 8: You know, this is the first person we heard from
Speaker 8: about just like I was like, how does this work?
Speaker 8: How does the rap response work? And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 8: there's more of us than there are them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, we shun keep showing up.
Speaker 8: Like and uh yeah, so like you know, people are
Speaker 8: people are hanging out there and so you know, and
Speaker 8: it's it's right in a place where Ice likes to
Speaker 8: fuck with people. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well it's like for people who aren't familiar with that block, right, Like,
Speaker 9: I've read a lot about AIM. It's I'm interesting like
Speaker 9: that Franklin Avenue. I believe it's where AIM began.
Speaker 8: Right, Well, that's an understanding with Community Watch, which is
Speaker 8: what's happening now.
Speaker 9: Exactly, was doing patrols to keep their community safe.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So it's a cool little full circle movement. So this
Speaker 9: is a space which is obviously designed to like center
Speaker 9: and protect indigenous folks. Yeah, but they were just like, yeah,
Speaker 9: anyone who's out there doing the work, please come by.
Speaker 9: We got snack packs for you because we made We've
Speaker 9: got four different soups, got a vegan soup, we got
Speaker 9: a gluten free soup. Like, like, they were more than
Speaker 9: happy for folks to come by.
Speaker 8: Get fed, Yeah, gett warm. Yeah, big big thing here, people,
Speaker 8: you know, sort of make light of. You know, there's
Speaker 8: the whole quip that really works on me, which is
Speaker 8: the like Ice made the classic Nazi mistake they invaded
Speaker 8: a winter people in winter, and that's true. But it
Speaker 8: is exceptionally cold right now.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like we last night, I think, due to an
Speaker 9: error on my part, were locked out of the place
Speaker 9: we are staying. Yeah, I think it's fairly clear that
Speaker 9: I fucked up there. Yeh, that's fine. It becomes a
Speaker 9: risk to your well being pretty quickly. Yeah, to put
Speaker 9: it in another way, how cold it is today. I
Speaker 9: took the battery out of Margaret's vehicle and blue hot
Speaker 9: air from a head dryer on it. Sometime so we
Speaker 9: could try and start it.
Speaker 8: So a jump would work, because yeah, a jump wouldn't
Speaker 8: work without also heating up for the battery.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the battery didn't have enough coal cranking.
Speaker 8: Yeah to get Yeah, despite being a brand new battery.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you need different tires for your truck, You need
Speaker 9: different oil for your vehicle, You need your battery to
Speaker 9: be warm.
Speaker 8: Yeah, people have engine block. Heater is for gas engines.
Speaker 8: I don't even have a diesel. Okay. So this morning
Speaker 8: we knew as the general strike. We went and got
Speaker 8: enough supplies to have enough food without having to go
Speaker 8: shopping today. And you know, we get up and we
Speaker 8: knew that there was going to be a direct action
Speaker 8: this morning at the Whipple building. And the Whipple Building
Speaker 8: is Oh, I wish once, once this whole thing is scripted,
Speaker 8: you will understand all this better. But there is a
Speaker 8: building that used to be a fort. And it was
Speaker 8: a fort in ye oldie even more murder of indigenous
Speaker 8: people times. And it was the fort from which they
Speaker 8: would go out and capture people. Yeah, and that is
Speaker 8: what it is again. It is the center of the
Speaker 8: ice operations here. It is where everyone has taken both
Speaker 8: citizen and non citizen for processing, and there's like one
Speaker 8: way in and one way out, and there have been
Speaker 8: people I keep talking about we were talking about this
Speaker 8: hyper local rapid response. Yeah, there's been people at the
Speaker 8: Whipple building, at this wrap of a place with one
Speaker 8: way in and one way out.
Speaker 9: These places a fortress ass building.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right where it's really easy to kidnap people because
Speaker 8: the kidnap place is right there. Yeah, there have been
Speaker 8: people there are basically every day. Yeah, and like just
Speaker 8: blatantly being like we are here to track you all
Speaker 8: anti ice people have been there every day. Yeah. So
Speaker 8: there was a call to go to it this morning
Speaker 8: and so we did and you know as press. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and he did not get there on time because my
Speaker 8: car absolutely that start. Yeah yeah, but multiple people came
Speaker 8: to rescue us.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like multiple people showed up to help out of
Speaker 8: towners who aren't even core of were We weren't there
Speaker 8: to get stuff done. We're just here to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Like someone came to or for us to jump. Someone
Speaker 9: else was like, hey, did you get a jump? Yes,
Speaker 9: someone was like do you want to ride? Do you
Speaker 9: need to borrow my vehicle?
Speaker 8: Yeah? And these weren't people we known very long.
Speaker 9: But yeah, the longest we've known these people was since Tuesday.
Speaker 8: It's Friday, and so people come up, get the vehicle working,
Speaker 8: we drive there, and the whole time both of us
Speaker 8: are moderately outdoorsy people, right, put it mildly in your
Speaker 8: case and to be accurate in my case. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 8: and we spent the whole time be like do we
Speaker 8: have enough gear? Yeah? Do we have enough winter gear?
Speaker 8: You know we both have these new insulated boots we
Speaker 8: got for this trip. Yeah, and like I live in
Speaker 8: the mountains. You were a literal sports person. Yeah. I
Speaker 8: enjoyed to be in the matter. Yeah.
Speaker 9: When I have time, I will go into the mountains
Speaker 9: and sleep outside.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Is cold? Is it was cold?
Speaker 9: You know there's a cold when your noseheads freeze when
Speaker 9: you breathe in and then yeah, then there's a cold
Speaker 9: when you're like my eyes are like actually icing over. Yeah,
Speaker 9: Like this is alarmingly cold.
Speaker 8: Is the coldest day here since twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen?
Speaker 8: Is what we learned.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And you know when I talked to my friend
Speaker 8: before I came, I was like, it's going to be
Speaker 8: horrendously cold. Are people still going to show up, and
Speaker 8: you know, my friend who lives here is like, well
Speaker 8: we will Ice will be miserable. Yeah, and we saw
Speaker 8: probably ten thousand people outside today. Yeah, between the two protests,
Speaker 8: mostly the larger one.
Speaker 9: Yeah. So we roll up right and there is a
Speaker 9: small shield wall barricading one of the waves that Ice
Speaker 9: gets into the Whipple building to incarcerated people who they
Speaker 9: have snatched. There are probably half a dozen shields and
Speaker 9: then two big corrugated steel which is the level of
Speaker 9: bravery of that. Yeah, that is audacious. Yeah, because there
Speaker 9: were maybe one hundred people in that whole formation, right,
Speaker 9: and the shield walls facing two ways.
Speaker 8: We check it out.
Speaker 9: As we arrive, we see what we later learn was
Speaker 9: an Italian camera operator that had been mased in the face.
Speaker 9: I just want to break down again, Like we've made
Speaker 9: light of the cold, and it's funny that it's cold.
Speaker 9: You get maced, right, Generally you want to pour water
Speaker 9: on your face.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: The clock is ticking pretty quickly once you start pouring
Speaker 9: liquid on exposed skin in these temperatures.
Speaker 8: The clock is ticking. Unexpos skin in these temperatures, any
Speaker 8: exposed skin is dangerous. I have this like basically balaklava
Speaker 8: that I like, I don't wear to protest. That's sketchy. Yeah,
Speaker 8: And then I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna like die
Speaker 8: if I don't wear this thing that covers every inch
Speaker 8: of my face. Yeah, Like I.
Speaker 9: Have a helmet with goggles, and I wasn't wearing the
Speaker 9: goggles for particularly, like I didn't think I was going
Speaker 9: to get a pepper ball in the eye. I needed
Speaker 9: the air not to touch my eyes. So like, this
Speaker 9: is amazing, is serious?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 9: And I saw that and I saw them pouring water
Speaker 9: and I was like, oh shit, actually that's quite grave.
Speaker 9: And they actually did have a staged water truck the
Speaker 9: spray people. They didn't spray people with water. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: that's what we heard where there was a water truck
Speaker 9: staged in the in the parking lot. To be clear,
Speaker 9: like that could have killed someone really easily.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So then that was one entrance. We were like, let's
Speaker 9: go to go back the other entrance to see.
Speaker 8: What the whole scene is here.
Speaker 9: As we're walking, first of all, we come past someone
Speaker 9: with one of those like trolleys that people pull. They
Speaker 9: have the better part of like a thousand tangs in
Speaker 9: foot warmers and they are stoked to be given them
Speaker 9: out right, So we handwarmers inside our gloves. Then we
Speaker 9: see someone who's pulled up in a minivan. That is
Speaker 9: the warming car. People do get cold, they get in
Speaker 9: there and they warm them up. We come around, someone
Speaker 9: has snacks. Someone's playing public enemy. As we come around further,
Speaker 9: we see this is the place that I are coming
Speaker 9: in with people. Right, consider are people who were there
Speaker 9: shouting at them. I saw a couple it's like snowballs thrown,
Speaker 9: and like, yeah, there were people who are throwing snowballs, right,
Speaker 9: But there were also folks who just turned out to
Speaker 9: be like, you know, I'm more of a that's not
Speaker 9: my vibe. But if you would like a snack while
Speaker 9: you're throwing them, I'm here for you. No one was like, hey,
Speaker 9: don't do that. Everyone was showing up in their own way,
Speaker 9: and that was really cool.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's like one of the things that you know,
Speaker 8: I asked at one point, I was like, what's the
Speaker 8: like discourse like about you know, the usual thing that
Speaker 8: divides people about, Like I'm going to use air quoter.
Speaker 8: You can't see, but violence are non violence which are
Speaker 8: like complicated age, right, you know, and you know, and
Speaker 8: there's obviously people like we've met people who've been like
Speaker 8: and we're non violent, and they're like really excited, and
Speaker 8: that's an important party.
Speaker 9: Who had yellow vests on being like peaceful observer, don't shoot.
Speaker 8: Right, And then there's also people who are like, we
Speaker 8: didn't see any of it, but there's graffiti all over town.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, like fuck peace justice doesn't.
Speaker 8: Bring him back. Yeah, And I was like, what's the
Speaker 8: discourse like between these groups, and everyone we've talked to
Speaker 8: is like, there isn't time for that. Ah, we go
Speaker 8: shit to be doing. Yeah, And like you know, even
Speaker 8: when people are discussing things, they'll try to start having
Speaker 8: a discussion and someone's like, hey, Ice is on that corner. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and not that these discussions aren't worth it. Well, I
Speaker 8: famously my pins post on Blue Sky's discourse is the
Speaker 8: mind Killer. But like, and you can see it just
Speaker 8: like right here, right, because there's people who are like,
Speaker 8: when you show up with shields at a shield wall
Speaker 8: at blocking a federal agents from being somewhere, you're clearly
Speaker 8: being mildly antagon right. It is a it's a rowdy
Speaker 8: thing to do, and you know, and at the same time, right,
Speaker 8: Like we didn't make it to this because they were
Speaker 8: happening at the same time more or less, but not
Speaker 8: very far away at the airport. We're not the news
Speaker 8: in this particular case. It could happen here is a
Speaker 8: news show, but this is still not the news. We're
Speaker 8: reporting right now, like one hundred and fifty clergy people
Speaker 8: were restless of all disobedience because the airport's being used
Speaker 8: to transport people away. Did real quick tangent about that.
Speaker 8: I think it's really beautiful because there's so much you
Speaker 8: know that the national presses of course, like these anti
Speaker 8: Christian people attack church, and like, you know, the churches
Speaker 8: are on our side, except like one or two.
Speaker 9: If we were staying next to our church. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: like we get up in the morning that first day,
Speaker 9: we heard the honking and we see like, yeah, the
Speaker 9: church has got a sign being like yeah, I've knowniced ice.
Speaker 9: It seems bad. Yeah, I don't think it's not what
Speaker 9: Jesus would have done.
Speaker 8: Yeah. So we're at the thing and you know, we're like, okay,
Speaker 8: this is happening, and we start seeing the police getting
Speaker 8: ready to use munition.
Speaker 9: Right, we come back from the first place to where
Speaker 9: the shield wall was right, right, shield wall is no
Speaker 9: longer there.
Speaker 8: We think, huh, weird, no shield wall. And then there's
Speaker 8: a line of police. Oh look at that.
Speaker 9: It's Hennepin County sheriff Department. Yeah, and yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 8: No, no, I mean that's the thing is, it's always
Speaker 8: really sad when you come back and expect to see
Speaker 8: a shield wall and instead there's a line of police. Yeah.
Speaker 8: And they are yelling dispersal orders at the at the
Speaker 8: shield wall, which is already banked burst. Yeah. They're like
Speaker 8: they're they've been they've been pushed away. We can't there
Speaker 8: one hundred yards away. Yeah, Like we just like straight
Speaker 8: up can't see them. And we are told and no
Speaker 8: uncertain terms by some other folks who are standing this
Speaker 8: is not a large crowd. The crowd has been moved,
Speaker 8: and we're just kind of yeah, they're craps between us
Speaker 8: in our car.
Speaker 9: One, two, three, four, five, six of us. Yeah, there's
Speaker 9: six of us. And I was going, I was counting
Speaker 9: people in my head. I can I can't stay sick.
Speaker 8: No, No, you're right, And two of the people were
Speaker 8: standing next to are like, yeah, if you cross this
Speaker 8: red line. They told us that if we us this
Speaker 8: red line, the National Guard will shoot us dead and
Speaker 8: it we did not test that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm not sure if they would a bit near
Speaker 9: young over song about it.
Speaker 8: Right, and we're not Ohio, it would be fine and
Speaker 8: Ministry to National Guard. Yeah, and so they they are
Speaker 8: not letting us go. Yeah.
Speaker 9: To be clear, the red line would have signified we
Speaker 9: were entering into like a military area.
Speaker 8: Right totally with no like barricades or anything like that.
Speaker 9: And just they had barricades further along right, Yeah, to
Speaker 9: make vehicles weave yet drive straight up.
Speaker 8: It's the side of a public road where the light
Speaker 8: rail station. So there's the line of police and they're
Speaker 8: mostly facing away from us. There's about two people facing
Speaker 8: towards us. Are cars between them. We are marked press.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and wearing a bright red helmet with presstickers on it.
Speaker 8: Blue helmet with presto because black.
Speaker 9: The first the cops keep pushing the shield wall further
Speaker 9: away from us, and we hear them on the l rad.
Speaker 9: This has been declared an lawful assembly. I did hear
Speaker 9: somebody shout by who? That is a very good question, honestly.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Unfortunately, the Hennepin County Sheriff's department were not very interested
Speaker 9: in answering questions. Yeah, And the way that we learned
Speaker 9: this is that a couple of people I would call
Speaker 9: them older folks just from looking at them from a distance.
Speaker 8: They weren't the young rowdies holding shields.
Speaker 9: They were absolutely not know There was an older gentleman
Speaker 9: in a male presenting person in carharts yeah right, who
Speaker 9: walked up coveralls yeah yeah, with hands up right, very
Speaker 9: clearly hands up and seemed to be asking or talking.
Speaker 8: Yeah. It was like probably going up to being like, hey,
Speaker 8: what's happening? Yeah, like whatever, Yeah, can I go over there?
Speaker 9: That person was arrested, Yeah, so was another person who
Speaker 9: was with them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and they were told they were arrested on the
Speaker 8: l rad. We could hear that. Yeah you are on
Speaker 8: Dora Ros Yeah. Yeah, that was very strange.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Then a bus arrived, more cops got out, and those
Speaker 9: two people were put on the bus.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Three people, there's three, three of them, three to book.
Speaker 9: Yeah, okay, the majority of the police in turn to
Speaker 9: face us, yeah all six.
Speaker 8: By now there's probably twelve of us. Yeah, because because
Speaker 8: other people are like, hey, my car's over there too, Yeah.
Speaker 9: There in between us and where we parked our cars
Speaker 9: right now, Yeah, and then they turn the l rad
Speaker 9: around right and then they tell us that they have
Speaker 9: issued a dispersal order due to something about like a
Speaker 9: legal conduct, which again, we are standing on the platform
Speaker 9: with a light rail station at this point, and I
Speaker 9: have seen no one do anything other than stand around.
Speaker 9: I've seen someone through us, No, but up somewhere else
Speaker 9: we're in a different location. And then they say we
Speaker 9: have five minutes to disperse, and they they give us
Speaker 9: a cardinal direction. We have to disperse east.
Speaker 8: Onto a road that no one with us knew what was. Yeah,
Speaker 8: we're all looking like we're in a kind of weirdricade.
Speaker 9: I had previously tried to walk up to this line
Speaker 9: and be like, can we go through to our car please?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we would like to disperse, Yeah, because at this
Speaker 8: point we're like this is just going bad.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we're pressed now to be there, right, We're here
Speaker 9: to report and if we get arrested, we can't report
Speaker 9: and there's.
Speaker 8: Nothing to report on.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because the cops have cattled us with two other press.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the rest of the Italian news crew who can't
Speaker 8: don't have a camera. But they're still trying to do reporting,
Speaker 8: but brave as hell. Yeah, because they're just still standing
Speaker 8: there and they're like, yeah, you know, fake Italian accents,
Speaker 8: and they're just like our camera person got made.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they'll be fine, but they got made.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: And so the cops had very clearly indicated that they
Speaker 9: were not interested in that arrangement. So we went back
Speaker 9: to standing there, wondering which way was east. I was
Speaker 9: trying to get under my last to my watch. I
Speaker 9: could pull up a company.
Speaker 8: I had figured out which way was east. I even
Speaker 8: had a suspicion about how to go that way. But
Speaker 8: I am willing. I believe I'm talking to other people
Speaker 8: who are elsewhere there that day, that day, today, this morning.
Speaker 8: It's been a long day. I don't normally drink caffeine.
Speaker 8: I am on caffeine. I believe that is where the
Speaker 8: other line of police was starting to kettle people from you.
Speaker 8: It seems like, so I actually believe they were not
Speaker 8: actually offering us away out at all.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I, on the other hand, was readers. I couldn't
Speaker 9: get to my watch was I knew it was before noon,
Speaker 9: so I was looking for where the sun was, and
Speaker 9: I knew some celestial navigation and at that point we saw. Well,
Speaker 9: actually at that point we went to the train platform
Speaker 9: and a light rail train was going not towards our
Speaker 9: carpet away from it, but it didn't open the doors
Speaker 9: when it came to the platform. Yeah, we were like,
Speaker 9: we want to go though, I said, Margaret, We're fucked.
Speaker 9: Margaret said, get ready to run. I guess yeah. And
Speaker 9: then as they were advancing towards us, comrade light rail
Speaker 9: train arrived.
Speaker 8: Everyone got on the train literally last minute.
Speaker 9: Yeah, scootle straight past the police line. And then we
Speaker 9: got off and commenced walking around to try and find
Speaker 9: a way back to our vehicle.
Speaker 8: So that was our morning and that was I mean, whatever,
Speaker 8: it's weird, the party is least affected, but to be
Speaker 8: like really just transparent about it. This is the coldest
Speaker 8: day of my life. I've experienced negative temperatures before. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I haven't experienced negative thirty something wind chill. Yeah, Like
Speaker 8: we were seeing people getting off the light rail. Everyone's
Speaker 8: eye lashes had frost in them. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Anyway, just to just to keep hitting that point. Well,
Speaker 9: like that was one of my concerns with detainment, right
Speaker 9: with like cops ledgendarily don't treat people in their custody
Speaker 9: very well, right, and I was very worried about right two,
Speaker 9: they did seem to be getting the people they arrested
Speaker 9: quickly on that bus. Yeah, but like that my worries, right,
Speaker 9: you got if you lose a glove when you're being handcuffed,
Speaker 9: that's not a that's you know, that's serious.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's like maybe you lose your fingers now at
Speaker 8: the end of that like because it's like genuinely like
Speaker 8: a I know, we keep harping on it, but it's
Speaker 8: just it's a it's a present characteristic. Yeah, my car
Speaker 8: is a mess right now because we can't clean it
Speaker 8: because that involves standing outside in like negative eighteen or whatever.
Speaker 8: The fuck. All of these numbers have become meaningless to
Speaker 8: me at this point anyway. You know what keeps me warm, Margaret,
Speaker 8: the handwarmers we purchased with the money that we get
Speaker 8: from advertisements. Yeah.
Speaker 9: I was gonna say, thinking about thinking about how the
Speaker 9: products and services support the show love to support me
Speaker 9: and the work I do, But I don't think they
Speaker 9: actually know what I do. And to look at our
Speaker 9: listening numbers to be honest.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think they don't hear our transitions in troubles
Speaker 8: shirt and they don't and here they are ander back.
Speaker 8: So we go to this and then we go to
Speaker 8: the clear highlight of the day, which is the ice
Speaker 8: vehicle crashed into Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is when we decided we got to We
Speaker 9: received words and an ice vehicle had t boned telephone.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah, I was doing a blue sky thread and
Speaker 8: I was like, Nope, that's a shorter thread because we
Speaker 8: got to go. Yeah.
Speaker 9: I'm not as good as Margaret is at skating when
Speaker 9: I'm at things, so I'm so used to being in
Speaker 9: places where it would be a risky to everyone involved. Yeah,
Speaker 9: posted I was there. Yeah, so we yeah, we go, right,
Speaker 9: we park a few bucks away. Once we see flashing lights. Yeah,
Speaker 9: we start booging up the street at fast walk pace,
Speaker 9: which is about as fast as you're gonna go when
Speaker 9: it's an inch of ice on everything. Yeah, and we
Speaker 9: see this car that has fair there's traffic coming roundabout
Speaker 9: that clearly they were not expecting to be there. It
Speaker 9: looks like they've they've been trying to go straight over
Speaker 9: to round about and.
Speaker 8: Have Yeah, they're just like the front of their car
Speaker 8: is just crashed in a fifteen mile per hour street. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, like a street where like you would expect a
Speaker 9: child to be riding a bicycle in the summer.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and it's like it's one of those streets that's
Speaker 8: like cars on both sides, one lane rane one lane
Speaker 8: that two cars have to pass each other by backing up. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and they clearly just blew through it. They don't give
Speaker 8: a fuck. And that's like a thing we've heard over
Speaker 8: and over from the people who who tail them is
Speaker 8: that they they drive erradically, they drive, they drive recklessly
Speaker 8: because they are they think they're immune to all consequences. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and they are. They are until someone like the only
Speaker 8: people giving them consequences are the people of the city,
Speaker 8: not in the city itself or the state.
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is the thing. Actually, I'll just I have
Speaker 9: spent more time than nearly everyone at the southern border
Speaker 9: of the United States in more places right in California,
Speaker 9: in Texas, in New Mexico, in Arizona.
Speaker 8: I've been up and down the border.
Speaker 9: There is one thing that unites the border experience, be
Speaker 9: it on torn or Dumb Reservation in Arizona, be in
Speaker 9: San Diego, being New Mexico, or in the Rio Grand
Speaker 9: Valley of Texas and is that border patrols driving is
Speaker 9: a risk to everyone. And you can hear the most
Speaker 9: straight up right wing people if they I love what
Speaker 9: they're doing. I don't want the mirgrats in my country,
Speaker 9: but I wish they wouldn't drive like digs and like
Speaker 9: they've killed.
Speaker 8: People on the Autumn reservation.
Speaker 9: Right, this is serious and that what is happening once
Speaker 9: again is that the border is coming to a city
Speaker 9: and people are seeing this is not new, it's new here.
Speaker 8: The driving erratically is such a perfect though example of
Speaker 8: what power does to people, Like you have an unaccountable force,
Speaker 8: and they will do horrible things. Yeah, they will do
Speaker 8: major horrible things like kidnapping people, and they'll do petty
Speaker 8: I don't care. I am just drunk on power things.
Speaker 9: But they will leave the cars and drive when they
Speaker 9: pull them out right like the second to popic Dew Park,
Speaker 9: or like yeah in this case, will they will case
Speaker 9: a telephone pole?
Speaker 8: Right anyway, So then we decide we're going to the
Speaker 8: big march downtown. Yeah, you know, because the general strike
Speaker 8: has a component that is a big march downtown. And
Speaker 8: the single most important thing about that to me was
Speaker 8: again to keep harping on it the cold, because I
Speaker 8: know a lot of people who go to these sorts
Speaker 8: of marches, right, and these are the sorts of marches
Speaker 8: that a lot of people go to who don't necessarily
Speaker 8: a ton of other political activity. Although here it probably
Speaker 8: feels a little different because a lot of the people
Speaker 8: go into that march who probably are the kind of
Speaker 8: sign holding going to the big march kind of people
Speaker 8: are also quite possibly at the very least showing up
Speaker 8: on air whistles.
Speaker 9: Yeah, doing the work right there, buying the groceries, whatever
Speaker 9: it is. Yeah, Like I think one thing, I was strucked.
Speaker 9: So we're walking towards march, and it is one of
Speaker 9: the genders you get us a lot when you're going
Speaker 9: to a big action, right, you feel like a salmon
Speaker 9: and everyone's just swimming up and swimming in the stream
Speaker 9: together or you know whatever, tuna and you're all going
Speaker 9: towards the same space. And that's cool. That's always nice
Speaker 9: to feel the size.
Speaker 8: And then we get there and it's big, like there's
Speaker 8: a lot of.
Speaker 9: People, and it's cold. Like I know, we keep talking
Speaker 9: on about the cold, it is cold as shit. Margaret's
Speaker 9: ear was a little bit out. We were both worried
Speaker 9: about Margaret's ear. Yeah, like it's you want to ensure it,
Speaker 9: like skin coverage in these temperatures. Yeah, we get there
Speaker 9: and like so they're meeting in like a big square
Speaker 9: and then they're marching through the street, right, Yeah, and
Speaker 9: there are also people on like there are internal walkways
Speaker 9: between buildings above the street and all of them around
Speaker 9: with people with signs or cheering and stuff. And the
Speaker 9: thing I noticed as we got there was like, immediately
Speaker 9: we set foot in that square, we're once again being
Speaker 9: offered hot cocoa hand warmers. There's a guy with like
Speaker 9: a you know, there's orange insulatd containers that they use
Speaker 9: it like sports like a gator. Then he's got soup
Speaker 9: in it. Yeah, he's backpacking the super it's vegan and
Speaker 9: gluten free and he's handing out soup. There are multiple
Speaker 9: people who have just set up to care for people
Speaker 9: because it's cold and people might need caring for, right, Like,
Speaker 9: there are all kinds of facilities there to like look
Speaker 9: after folks. Yeah, we received some hand warmers. I think
Speaker 9: I think you and I both took some hand warmers.
Speaker 9: And there wasn't at least where we were like a speaker.
Speaker 9: There was some chanting at this point, like I would
Speaker 9: love to include a be a roll of chanting. Unfortunately
Speaker 9: it was so cold that both my voice recorders refused
Speaker 9: to work.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, one by one, every electronic device that James
Speaker 8: brought ate shit, and I like, you know I much
Speaker 8: you'll listen to my shit. I'm much more of a
Speaker 8: ViBe's podcaster, where I like just observe and then write
Speaker 8: everything down. James is a proper podcaster and journalist and like, uh,
Speaker 8: you know, as b roll of things, not as much
Speaker 8: today yet.
Speaker 9: Everybody, my voice recorder, which has been through the Darien
Speaker 9: Gap as it tended this Syrian civil war, it's been
Speaker 9: to the place where the US dropped a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 9: She didn't make it out of Minneapolis. It's gone to
Speaker 9: Valhalla now, yeah, which is sad. I even tried to
Speaker 9: record on my phone, but my phone just black screened on.
Speaker 8: Me, like this comedy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it was pretty funny when when the cell phone tired,
Speaker 9: it was like previously I had been painting a picture
Speaker 9: fuel using my nose to unlock the phone and then
Speaker 9: like actuate apps because I didn't want to take my
Speaker 9: glove off.
Speaker 8: We would we would take turns taking our hands out
Speaker 8: of gloves to touch buttons on things, yeah, or.
Speaker 9: To like adjust each os clothes or like, yeah, someone
Speaker 9: worts me doing the phone thing and they gave me
Speaker 9: a nod like yeah doing the nose phone.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah totally, And like, I don't know, I just
Speaker 8: I keep talking about how the sense of togetherness it's inspiring.
Speaker 8: Like full disclosure, I'm not a big rally person. I'm
Speaker 8: much personally more interested in mutual aid and direct action.
Speaker 8: I'm disinterested in it when it seems like a way
Speaker 8: for people to check off that they've done their resistance.
Speaker 9: Yeah, definitely if that feels like you're warm fuzzy and
Speaker 9: that's all you want.
Speaker 8: But in this case, it was more I don't know
Speaker 8: for certain, it was more of a warm fuzzy for
Speaker 8: people who are also just doing this hard thing day
Speaker 8: in and day out.
Speaker 9: It felt like when you and your friends, like, you know,
Speaker 9: when you're doing a hard, long neutral aid thing, right,
Speaker 9: you know, like or let's say you're in days a
Speaker 9: prodict that feeds people every week and once a year
Speaker 9: you get together and have a dinner together. Right, it
Speaker 9: felt a bit like that, or like yeah, you know
Speaker 9: a little bit like when we were feeding people in
Speaker 9: the desert, we would sit down afterwards and was talking
Speaker 9: about this with someone. Today we would like eat vegan
Speaker 9: MRIs out of the packet like people.
Speaker 8: Eat go goots.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because we were too tired to walk of food
Speaker 9: while we were hungry. But we would spend a little
Speaker 9: bit of time in community and celebrate what we've done.
Speaker 9: What was cool though, was like sometimes after those big
Speaker 9: actions you feel a little lonely, but like it felt
Speaker 9: like that was just everyone going over there, but like
Speaker 9: there was also everyone elsewhere as you kind of went
Speaker 9: around the city, you.
Speaker 8: Know, right, Like it wasn't like that was the end
Speaker 8: of it. Yeah, And I was I was worried it would,
Speaker 8: you know, draw people away from other things. But you know,
Speaker 8: even this huge crowd was only a tiny portion of
Speaker 8: the people doing things in the city. And people are
Speaker 8: still doing things. And at one point I was like, hey,
Speaker 8: it's it's maybe it's Thursday. We were like, hey, we
Speaker 8: saw less people out today. Was that because the coal
Speaker 8: was starting to dry? People inside? And we talked to
Speaker 8: some and they're like, no, ice was less out today
Speaker 8: than it was yesterday. But if ice had come out,
Speaker 8: all of those people would have come out again. They
Speaker 8: were all staged and ready to go. And one of
Speaker 8: the things, actually, the warm fuzzy thing that feeling. One
Speaker 8: of the things that we talked to is that people
Speaker 8: are very aware that they're organizing for the long haul,
Speaker 8: like yeah, you know, I again, I'm I don't have
Speaker 8: the news in front of me. But the word on
Speaker 8: the ground here is people being like, we think ice
Speaker 8: might be here till June, right, and so people are like,
Speaker 8: how do we do that? You know? And one of
Speaker 8: the things is that, like there are people providing things
Speaker 8: to the people doing things, you know, the people whose
Speaker 8: job is to provide things for other people are having
Speaker 8: people provide things for them. Yeah, And there's this moment
Speaker 8: I think about all the time. I'll accidentally do like
Speaker 8: the you know, I was at this protest in the
Speaker 8: Netherlands and the cops try to grab my friend. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and they try to grab him because he's screaming the
Speaker 8: Netherlands as a police state, which they try to make
Speaker 8: their point by trying to grab him, right, So everyone
Speaker 8: holds on to him. So the cops start just beating
Speaker 8: the crap out of the people holding on to him.
Speaker 8: So people start grabbing onto the people who are holding
Speaker 8: on to the person. They start trying to beat the
Speaker 8: people who are holding non of the people who are
Speaker 8: holding on to the people who are holding non of
Speaker 8: the people. By the time it gets to like four
Speaker 8: layers out, the cops are just like, yeah, fucking yeah,
Speaker 8: fuck this all right. The center person is never arrested,
Speaker 8: you know. And that's what solidarity is. But that's also
Speaker 8: a lot of the mutual aid stuff, like we're talking
Speaker 8: about to people who are like, yeah, we work day
Speaker 8: in and day out on this stuff, and other people
Speaker 8: are like massage therapists and regular therapists are talking with us,
Speaker 8: you know, and like people are building the infrastructure to
Speaker 8: try and make it sustainable, and who knows. I don't
Speaker 8: know whether you can truly sustain what's happening here, right,
Speaker 8: but like they're gonna fucking try. Yeah.
Speaker 9: The way I like to explain anarchism to people, it's
Speaker 9: sometimes the confusion, right that people think anarchism is a
Speaker 9: predilection for chaos and violence, and that's not what it is.
Speaker 9: I like to explain that anarchism at its core is
Speaker 9: building ways of caring for one another that don't reinforce
Speaker 9: ways of controlling one another. Yeah, and that's what people
Speaker 9: are doing here, right, Yeah, under any name. Yeah, it
Speaker 9: doesn't mean that the rest of it is really ephemeral.
Speaker 8: A lot of them are anarchists, but not not anywhere
Speaker 8: near the majority of them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but I think that we can use what Gym's
Speaker 9: got called the anarchist squint right, and sees people building
Speaker 9: networks here that make the state unnecessary. Yeah, irrelevant right now.
Speaker 9: The violence is still very much relevant, but others. Right,
Speaker 9: the Feds are going to cut funding. Yeah, they can
Speaker 9: cut foods damps in Minnesota. Yeah, people are still going
Speaker 9: to get food to their neighbors.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: They can cut education funding. We heard that there are
Speaker 9: schools which have a very diverse background. And by the
Speaker 9: diverse here, I don't just mean like people of different races,
Speaker 9: but also people of different income brackets.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: And the wealthier parents are like, which families aren't able
Speaker 9: to work? How do I help them make their rent?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Oh god, it was funny when yeah, people were like, oh,
Speaker 8: you know the thing where like the rich parents are
Speaker 8: like really excited to help everyone and feed everyone. I
Speaker 8: was like, no, that, Yeah, that's how you realize that
Speaker 8: it's not the stereotype like it should be.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it should be. Well, I think folks are really like, huh,
Speaker 9: what are the world without? These people look like worse?
Speaker 9: I don't want that. Yeah, Like what do I have
Speaker 9: that I can use to stop that? I have my time,
Speaker 9: I have my body, I have my money. Let me
Speaker 9: give them all of them? Yeah, yeah, I thought that
Speaker 9: was very cool. I think the the specific thing that
Speaker 9: has made people I saw little signs. They have the
Speaker 9: name for one of the guys from Liam, the young,
Speaker 9: very very young kid, right, the five year old kid
Speaker 9: with the Superman on it was yeah, grabbed the spider Man. Yeah,
Speaker 9: he was grabbed the other day. I saw a lot
Speaker 9: of people with science about that like.
Speaker 8: Made me want to cry.
Speaker 9: And just seeing the signs with these little outrages continue
Speaker 9: to bring people out of their safe, warm comfort bubbles
Speaker 9: and be like no, like I am going to do
Speaker 9: whatever it takes, my money, my time, whatever, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah you know William van s Bronson. Yes, for people
Speaker 8: who are listening, there was an IWW member named William
Speaker 8: von s Bronson who was killed by ice a number
Speaker 8: of years ago now because he decided that he would
Speaker 8: go and try to set some ice stuff on fire.
Speaker 8: Middle of the night.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it was busses, right, unoccupied buses to
Speaker 9: be clear.
Speaker 8: Yeah, middle of the night, empty buses, the busses that
Speaker 8: they're using to kidnap people. And the cops showed up
Speaker 8: and killed him. Yeah right, And he was seen as
Speaker 8: kind of this this lone wing nut. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: and I'm watching it and I'm like, this man is
Speaker 8: going to be written about history books. That's like a
Speaker 8: guy actually started doing something early about this. And in
Speaker 8: his statement that he wrote, I'm not telling people that
Speaker 8: this was a wise action for him to have taken, whatever,
Speaker 8: But in his statement he wrote, he wrote a line
Speaker 8: something like, I am off to fulfill my childhood promise
Speaker 8: to myself to be noble, and like he knew he
Speaker 8: was going to die doing that action, right. That certainly
Speaker 8: seems to be the tone from the letter. But that
Speaker 8: line the idea of fulfilling your promise to yourself to
Speaker 8: be noble, And the thing that is beautiful here is
Speaker 8: that you can now do that with people and effectively.
Speaker 8: And I think that a lot of the things that
Speaker 8: stop people from taking action is a belief that it
Speaker 8: would be shot in the dark. It would be alone thing.
Speaker 8: It wouldn't It wouldn't accomplish anything, right, because most actions
Speaker 8: you can take yourself don't accomplish nearly as much. And
Speaker 8: to be clear that the people who built rapid response
Speaker 8: networks here they learn from other cities. They learn from Chicago,
Speaker 8: who learned from la Right, that is the lineage that
Speaker 8: I've heard presented. Yeah, but they have developed and expanded
Speaker 8: because this is actually a bigger thing than operation on ices,
Speaker 8: part than either of those. But so people can do
Speaker 8: We've been put on this earth to do, which is
Speaker 8: be our best selves. And I think that there's even
Speaker 8: as hard as it is for people, I think that
Speaker 8: there's a dark beauty that they get to know who
Speaker 8: they are, and they get to know that they are
Speaker 8: people who will make sandwiches, you know, because that's the thing,
Speaker 8: and they will risk everything to make sandwiches. They will
Speaker 8: risk everything to follow ice vehicles and honk it. Like
Speaker 8: imagine following a murderer down the street, going this man's
Speaker 8: a murderer. Man right here shoots people.
Speaker 9: Well, not just that, right, this person has the power
Speaker 9: to kill me and not face constant.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's what they're shouting at people. Yeah, and everyone
Speaker 8: is shouting at that them. Yeah, yeah, and it works.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it's people who you wouldn't expect the people
Speaker 9: you would expect, both together alongside each other.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I think a lot about how, like how much things
Speaker 9: have changed in this country in a year. Lots of
Speaker 9: it's bad, right, But like, abolish ice was a pretty
Speaker 9: niche position in twenty twenty. Let me tell you you
Speaker 9: didn't really hear it, right, Abolish ice is a compromise
Speaker 9: position now as the centrist position.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that is reform ice center right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, I think reform ice is in some parts
Speaker 9: of the Republican body, right, Abolish ice is pretty much
Speaker 9: in between the two.
Speaker 8: Yeah. The political parties haven't caught up to this fact.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but they'd never do. They always take longer than
Speaker 9: everyone else. But let me tell you, there was you know,
Speaker 9: what would Ronald Reagan guy do? When you've lost? What
Speaker 9: would Ronald Reagan guy do? You're in fucking trouble? Yeah,
Speaker 9: total this country.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I love how it's like we talked to
Speaker 8: a lot of people with a lot of different political ideas.
Speaker 8: Most people didn't have this is my political ideology and expressed. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but like you know, people are like just blunt, like, well,
Speaker 8: it would be better if the politicians were doing it,
Speaker 8: and they're not.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's this lady who Again the lady said, oh,
Speaker 9: there's a local cops.
Speaker 8: You don't have to worry about them. Yeah.
Speaker 9: A couple of days later it turned out, but she
Speaker 9: was like, it would be great about politicians are with us,
Speaker 9: but they're not, So we're gonna do it ourselves.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like that's all you need.
Speaker 9: The lady's done more anarchism than your your average internet
Speaker 9: anarchist who Zoosh's out there fed posting every day. Yeah
Speaker 9: all right, Yeah, that's that's really all you need.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well we're gonna take one more ad break.
Speaker 9: That's all you really need is advertisements.
Speaker 16: And it goes a little something like this, and we're
Speaker 16: about I feel.
Speaker 8: Warmed in my belly by those advertisements.
Speaker 9: Yeah hopefully you buy something that you don't need.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I hopefully you skip past them.
Speaker 9: But yeah, you know they double tap the old headphone button.
Speaker 9: It normally goes twenty seconds.
Speaker 8: See the problem is that I like, I don't usually
Speaker 8: I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I don't
Speaker 8: have cooler zone media because I have Android. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 8: I know, so the ads come home.
Speaker 9: Remember if you tag I write, okay, if you have
Speaker 9: any issues regarding the yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, that'll that will definitely work. Yeah. And so
Speaker 8: sometimes when I'm like, because I listen to a lot
Speaker 8: of podcasts while I'm like doing like woodworking or like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: doing some of my hands. Yeah, and so I like,
Speaker 8: I'm like, I don't want to put down the saw
Speaker 8: in order to yeah, press the button.
Speaker 9: So I do it with my with my left earl
Speaker 9: against my shoulder. That's how I skip them. Yeah, because
Speaker 9: I don't have cooler zone media.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but maybe you do.
Speaker 9: Which if you only a diversion about shit, it doesn't
Speaker 9: bother you.
Speaker 8: Lucky, Lucky. We will have a lot more reporting. This
Speaker 8: isn't the end of the episode, but we'll have a
Speaker 8: lot more reporting about Minneapolis and the structures that people
Speaker 8: are building, and Minneapolis and Saint Paul and the outlying areas.
Speaker 8: Someone kind of correctly checked me on the fact that
Speaker 8: I keep saying Minneapolis, it's just spend my day and
Speaker 8: things are different, but things are different blocked by block,
Speaker 8: but a lot of that we really want to kind
Speaker 8: of do, right, and we're going to write scripted but
Speaker 8: we're just really kind of in it right now and
Speaker 8: really want to talk about this. And what part of
Speaker 8: the reason we want to talk about this so soon
Speaker 8: is because things happen really fast, and just that everyone
Speaker 8: we've talked to has told us that they they want
Speaker 8: people to know, you know, the horrors are getting out
Speaker 8: on some level, which is good. It is actually good
Speaker 8: that people are learning all these horrible things. But a
Speaker 8: lot of the scale of the resistance isn't getting out
Speaker 8: and afficacy of the resistance as in getting out, and
Speaker 8: people want people to know because they want people to
Speaker 8: know that they can do it too.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like, I so someone had like like a shocking
Speaker 9: these someone had a stupid opinion on the internet. Someone
Speaker 9: had said that, like talking about this makes it dangerous
Speaker 9: to these people.
Speaker 8: No, first of all, I think, I mean, there are
Speaker 8: things that we don't know, that we shouldn't we wouldn't say.
Speaker 9: But like sure, there are things that yeah, yeah, there
Speaker 9: are things that we wouldn't ask about or that people
Speaker 9: wouldn't give us interviews about if you thought they were dangerous.
Speaker 8: Right, But like.
Speaker 9: What makes it safe is that everyone is doing it, right.
Speaker 9: What makes us safe is that there are more of
Speaker 9: us and what people asked us to do with share
Speaker 9: this because they are safe for ifew do it too. Yeah, right,
Speaker 9: there are hens of millions of people who are just
Speaker 9: as outraged as that older lady that we met on
Speaker 9: the first day. And what keeps that lady safe and
Speaker 9: your neighbor safe and her neighbors safe, and people who
Speaker 9: you've never met safe and yourself? Yeah, and yourself is
Speaker 9: you doing it too?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 9: Like if it stops here, if you can't grab migrants
Speaker 9: off the street here, then you can't grab dissidence off
Speaker 9: the street somewhere else, right, And.
Speaker 8: Like you know, we've seen all over graffiti and you know,
Speaker 8: we saw a huge piece of graffiti at the ice
Speaker 8: building base.
Speaker 9: I read it into the mic, Actually it was my
Speaker 9: mic was working.
Speaker 17: First we came to the undocumented, and I said nothing
Speaker 17: because I wasn't undocumented. Then they came for the Somalis,
Speaker 17: and I said nothing because I was not Somali. Then
Speaker 17: they came for the activists, and I said nothing for
Speaker 17: I was not an activist.
Speaker 9: Then they came for me.
Speaker 8: I am so grateful that we live in a generation
Speaker 8: that has read that poem.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, and seemingly taken it to heart.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and more people have than I thought, and I
Speaker 8: think I think all the time about solidarity. It was
Speaker 8: shocked in this and you know, obviously the moment that
Speaker 8: makes me cry on the most regular basis is of
Speaker 8: course the charge of the row here him, when the
Speaker 8: riders of Rohan ride to Gondor to face the anyway,
Speaker 8: even though Gondor wasn't there for them. Where was Gondor?
Speaker 8: But part of the reason that I love solidarity so
Speaker 8: much is because, like I keep joking that I'm going
Speaker 8: to write the Misanthropic Introverts Guide to Socialism m because
Speaker 8: like I misanthropic introvert at that heart, right, I also
Speaker 8: love people, right, Yeah, and I most just I love
Speaker 8: most people over there. Yeah. And I grew up not
Speaker 8: proud to say, pretty self interested, right, And I was
Speaker 8: like very lost in my own head and kind of selfish.
Speaker 8: And and I very quickly esponed as meeting anarchists and
Speaker 8: meeting people who believed in responsibility and freedom was like, oh,
Speaker 8: I am safer and more free and more able to
Speaker 8: express my full self if I am part of a
Speaker 8: community of solidarity.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And so even though in the immediate moment it is
Speaker 8: more dangerous. Like there's the old joke about like you
Speaker 8: don't have to be faster than the bearer, you just
Speaker 8: have to be faster than your friend. Yeah. That is
Speaker 8: the single worst idea in the world.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because then bands eating people.
Speaker 8: Right, So if there is a monster and you can
Speaker 8: outrun someone, so you think you're safe, you now have
Speaker 8: to be the fastest person. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, right, you're safe until you're not.
Speaker 8: To be part of a community that turns around and
Speaker 8: fights the monster might be more dangerous for yourself in
Speaker 8: the immediate sense. And being someone who stands up is that. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it is that saying like, well, even though in the
Speaker 8: short term it is more dangerous for me to stand up.
Speaker 8: By having been participated in a society where we stand
Speaker 8: up for each other, I am safer.
Speaker 18: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And so even if that means like my literal death,
Speaker 8: like I will have been safer, even if you get
Speaker 8: like weirdly utilitarian about it, yeah, and aggregate, you are safer. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and so is everyone else. And so it's not a
Speaker 8: it's not a charity, it's a it's a solidarity.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 9: No, like solidarity is in a sense it's in your
Speaker 9: own self interest because we want to live in a
Speaker 9: world where people take care of each other, right, not
Speaker 9: just you know, like yeah, just in case we need
Speaker 9: to be taken care of. But because I often think
Speaker 9: about that, I think it's John Stuart mill Right asked,
Speaker 9: not for him, the bell tolls, the bell tolls for
Speaker 9: thee Like what he's saying there is not what's that
Speaker 9: bell ringing. What he's saying is I participate in humanity,
Speaker 9: and so when humanity is devalued in his case talking
Speaker 9: about bell or funery bell, right, when humanity is devalued,
Speaker 9: my humanity is devalued.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: And therefore, in this case where the bell is ringing
Speaker 9: for me, I am a human and when they undermine
Speaker 9: our common humanity, therefore the undermine this thing that I have.
Speaker 9: And I won't let them do that because I participate
Speaker 9: in humanity. And so as it happens, there's a person
Speaker 9: who's been subjected to inhuman violence, and so I will
Speaker 9: stand up for humanity, and in doing so, I will
Speaker 9: stand up for making a humanity that will stand up
Speaker 9: for me.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And like I.
Speaker 9: Think about a lot because John McCain wrote it in
Speaker 9: an obituary for the last American, Yeah, Lincoln Brigade volunteer.
Speaker 9: And I don't agree with John McCain on anything really, right,
Speaker 9: but I do on that, And like I was thinking
Speaker 9: about that today when I saw what would Ronald Reagan do?
Speaker 10: Guy.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because Jean McKay was the man who believe something.
Speaker 8: He believed things I don't agree with. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 8: of racist shit. Yeah.
Speaker 9: John McCain clearly thought that the Lincoln Brigadiers were on
Speaker 9: the right side of history, right, right, And like Winston
Speaker 9: Churchill's nephew for in the International Brigades, right, folks with
Speaker 9: whom I share very little.
Speaker 8: In terms of politics.
Speaker 9: A lot of British upper class people fought in the
Speaker 9: International Brigades. Yeah, they probably weren't anarchists, but they were
Speaker 9: anti fascists. They were better anti fascists than the people
Speaker 9: who stayed at home. And yeah, you couldn't tweet in
Speaker 9: nineteen thirty six, but they would have been if they could. Yeah, right,
Speaker 9: because they were willing to put their bodies on the line. Yeah,
Speaker 9: and many of them died. Many of them are buried
Speaker 9: in Smain and Spanish people remember them fondly.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right.
Speaker 9: They have annual ceremonies to remember the sacrifice. They made
Speaker 9: before any of the people who are attending those ceremonies
Speaker 9: are alive. And if more people had said, yeah, I'll
Speaker 9: go right like the bells ringing for me. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 9: not going to stand for a world where this happens.
Speaker 9: I'm going to fight for World War it doesn't, then
Speaker 9: we might not have had the Holocaust, right, we might
Speaker 9: not have had the Second World War, It might not
Speaker 9: have had Stalingrad.
Speaker 8: And also all the people who found Stalingrad are the
Speaker 8: reasons that didn't get worse. Yeah yeah right, World War
Speaker 8: two could have been worse. Yeah yeah, yeah, it would
Speaker 8: have been worse if people.
Speaker 9: Hadn't fo yeah right, Yeah, we had staling gred, so
Speaker 9: the Holocaust wasn't. More so that in Europe doesn't speak Germany, right, Like,
Speaker 9: every single one of those people who stood up to
Speaker 9: stop that probably wished that they'd stood up earlier, And
Speaker 9: every single one of those people who stood up earlier
Speaker 9: probably wish the more people that joined them. I think
Speaker 9: about that a lot. It's not news to anyone who
Speaker 9: listened to this that I wrote my PhD underspandied civil warrant.
Speaker 8: Think about it every day. Yeah, if you wanted the
Speaker 8: non dramatic version of all this. You're listening to the
Speaker 8: Wrongs podcast?
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, But I think a lot about like what
Speaker 9: we should learn from that, right? I translated a piece
Speaker 9: for a Zene Strangers in the Tangled will.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, it's a publishing collective that I work with.
Speaker 9: And I translated a piece by a Belgian anarchist who's
Speaker 9: referred to as a constellation of acronyms. But Charles Riddle
Speaker 9: was his birth name. Louis Mercier Vega was his name
Speaker 9: he lived with for most of his life. And he
Speaker 9: wrote this piece called Refuting the Legend, where he talks
Speaker 9: about like what he feels that he owes the people
Speaker 9: who die, right, And I think about that lot, Like
Speaker 9: the thing that he comes up with is that he
Speaker 9: owes the people who died the truth so that we
Speaker 9: can learn from it and do better. And he shouldn't
Speaker 9: just make them into heroes. He should make them into
Speaker 9: real people with flaws, so that people can understand their
Speaker 9: flaws and they can know what we.
Speaker 8: Can do better. I think about that a lot.
Speaker 9: Right, so many people have gone before us, so many
Speaker 9: brave people have gone before us, and we owe it
Speaker 9: to them to learn right and I think we have.
Speaker 9: Like when I was thinking about this, when that older
Speaker 9: lady said to us, all, my father was in the
Speaker 9: Second World War, like, and I think about it again,
Speaker 9: I saw the poem today, Like we have to learn
Speaker 9: from that experience, right, and you'd have to stop it now,
Speaker 9: not when it.
Speaker 8: Comes for you. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that we
Speaker 8: talked to multiple people, some of their families had survived
Speaker 8: the Holocaust.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the reason they were in America. In many cases
Speaker 9: grandparents had come here to feed the art court.
Speaker 8: Who were making comparisons to that. And You're like, they're
Speaker 8: not doing that lightly. And I feel like almost, you know,
Speaker 8: when we talk with the sort of grandiose things, I'm like,
Speaker 8: I almost feel like I'm like, oh, we're talking about
Speaker 8: people with whistles, Like yeah, but we're not. I mean
Speaker 8: we all we're talking about people with whistles. Let's hope
Speaker 8: it stops it whistles, right, And that is what is
Speaker 8: effective right now? And it like is you know, it's
Speaker 8: spreading something and it it's gonna be so interesting to
Speaker 8: see what comes of this. Everything will be changing, you know,
Speaker 8: there's no reason to specifically set up everything that you
Speaker 8: all do in whatever city or town you live in
Speaker 8: exactly the same as they do it here. But there's
Speaker 8: like so many things to learn from them, and more
Speaker 8: than anything else, the thing to learn from them is
Speaker 8: like you just show up. Yeah, it's not that every
Speaker 8: single person in the city has quit their job to
Speaker 8: do this full time, right, Obviously economies don't function like that.
Speaker 8: But you don't have to quit your job to walk
Speaker 8: outside your house when you hear someone yell help, which
Speaker 8: is what is happening with whistles and honking yeah right,
Speaker 8: and just spreading a culture of we take care of
Speaker 8: each other and neighborliness, right, and that is like, weirdly
Speaker 8: fundamentally it is an American cultural idea. We're just bad
Speaker 8: at it. We've kind of forgotten a lot of it. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, it's like because obviously isolation is a big
Speaker 8: part of American individualism is a big part of it.
Speaker 8: But like everyone's a little bit happy when they get
Speaker 8: to like, oh you need it, you need a lawnmower.
Speaker 9: Or yeah, when I get to fix my neighbor's truck. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: I love that. Yeah, get out and give some moment
Speaker 9: a change.
Speaker 8: So and one of the things that we to to
Speaker 8: maybe kind of end on, and the thing that I
Speaker 8: want to end on. You know, we're asking people like
Speaker 8: what they wish other people knew, what other people could know.
Speaker 8: And there's a couple of things that people mentioned, and
Speaker 8: we'll write more about this and pump podcasts more about this.
Speaker 8: But one of the things that people mentioned is they
Speaker 8: wish they had started earlier about knowing their neighbors. M hm.
Speaker 8: Obviously it wasn't too late. It's the whole like like
Speaker 8: with any kind of preparedness, right, You're like, you wish
Speaker 8: you so heady, Yeah, but you know now is the
Speaker 8: best you know, yesterday is the best time, and today
Speaker 8: is the next best time. Yeah, right, And like just
Speaker 8: literally knowing them, not necessarily becoming their friends, like a
Speaker 8: lot of people are like no, I wasn't friends with them,
Speaker 8: I just sort of knew them, you know. And then
Speaker 8: also one of the other things that people just as
Speaker 8: another thing people mentioned that they wanted people to know
Speaker 8: is that when you build these networks, you need to
Speaker 8: build autonomy into them at every level. You need to
Speaker 8: build the idea that the person who is following ICE
Speaker 8: is at the end of the day in charge of
Speaker 8: how they do that. Like even if you know, you know,
Speaker 8: people are like, oh, Ice is over here. You can't
Speaker 8: say everyone go do this, you can someone can suggest that, yeah, right.
Speaker 8: But having built autonomy into these networks makes them so
Speaker 8: much stronger, and in an interesting way, partly because it
Speaker 8: makes them less predictable to Ice.
Speaker 9: Right, because you never know what I'm gonna what that
Speaker 9: comfortable when they're not comfortable.
Speaker 8: With Yeah, So like that is basically a diversity of
Speaker 8: tactics makes movements strong. If they don't know how we
Speaker 8: are going to behave they can't you know, and not
Speaker 8: just like if everyone's rowdy, no, like you're going to
Speaker 8: be real combination and when the rowdy and non rowdy
Speaker 8: support people support each other. Anyway, those are the kind
Speaker 8: of last thoughts I have before I actually sit down
Speaker 8: and look at all my notes and write something real.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think for me, it's everyone here said that
Speaker 9: like that. It was funny when people were like, we
Speaker 9: were like, how did you start organizing? They were like,
Speaker 9: you know, last July we had a blog party and
Speaker 9: a pot luck. Yeah, and it just seemed to be
Speaker 9: just a thing until it became the foundation of this
Speaker 9: thing that exists now.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, if there's one thing you can do. It won't
Speaker 9: cost you any money, it will take you a little
Speaker 9: bit of time, and it will probably make your life better.
Speaker 9: It is go out on your block and meet your neighbors.
Speaker 9: And I know that can be hard for people. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I know it can be scary.
Speaker 8: But we're talking like trans motherfuckers who are doing this too.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's people who are who have
Speaker 9: more at stake than I do. Yeah right, Like I'm
Speaker 9: the cisgender white man for people listening, The best thing
Speaker 9: you can do is start to form community, and it
Speaker 9: could be in so many ways. One thing that like
Speaker 9: I really like to do is like I have, throughout
Speaker 9: my life developed certain skills and certain hobbies, and I
Speaker 9: love to share those with people. You know, if there
Speaker 9: is someone in my neighborhood they've got a bike outside,
Speaker 9: they're trying to fix a puncher, I'm going to go
Speaker 9: help them because I've done that ten thousand times.
Speaker 8: Yeah right.
Speaker 9: Whatever it is that is your thing that you like
Speaker 9: to talk about, that you're good at, that you know about,
Speaker 9: think of a way you could share that with people.
Speaker 9: Maybe you like to bake, maybe you like to knit,
Speaker 9: maybe whatever, it doesn't matter, It doesn't.
Speaker 8: Oh there's people with like free hats and scarves at
Speaker 8: these things.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could just be the person who
Speaker 9: knits the scarves. That's your way to contribute. If that's
Speaker 9: your way to meet your neighbors, right, put on a
Speaker 9: knitting circle, to put on a baking thing. I like
Speaker 9: to grow plants, so I'm always growing plants, and I'm
Speaker 9: stoked when my neighbors stop buy and say, hey, I
Speaker 9: really like your bass or plant and I want to
Speaker 9: make which is how they pronounce it when they yes,
Speaker 9: they do, yeah, when they say to me, because otherwise
Speaker 9: I look at them and say, get out of my home,
Speaker 9: you know, and they want if they want to make something,
Speaker 9: I give them some, right, or if they say, hey,
Speaker 9: I just need a couple of tomatoes, and I noticed,
Speaker 9: of course I'm going to give them right.
Speaker 8: Whatever that is.
Speaker 9: Your neighbors away for a couple of weeks. Hey, do
Speaker 9: you want me to look after the house? Your car
Speaker 9: won't start? Let me jump it, right. I have one
Speaker 9: of those little jumper packs. I love to use a
Speaker 9: little jumper pack.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah. If you have a tool and someone needs
Speaker 8: the tool, having a multi tool on you is the
Speaker 8: best way to feel good. All the time because someone's like,
Speaker 8: oh I wish I had a rent or not I
Speaker 8: wish i'd yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9: And there you go, like Superman do those things now.
Speaker 9: I know we have Margaret and I both hop on
Speaker 9: about this, but like, this is how you build a
Speaker 9: better world. It starts on your block. It starts by
Speaker 9: building a better neighborhood, building a better street, building a
Speaker 9: better apartment complex. Lived in an apartment complex. It could
Speaker 9: be hard to see people in an apartment complexes because
Speaker 9: people sort of get in the lift and put the
Speaker 9: look at the floor, put a little sign up, just
Speaker 9: be like, hey, we're going to have a pot. Look, Hey,
Speaker 9: the little bit in between the pavement and the road's
Speaker 9: kind of fucked up. Anyone else want to help me
Speaker 9: put some plants in it this springtime?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 9: Yeah, whatever it is that is your thing, start using
Speaker 9: that to build community, because it's community that's going to
Speaker 9: get you through this.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And it's like, you know, I don't always like
Speaker 8: targeting to people, but I just when I'm in a
Speaker 8: new place, I'm just like, hey, I just moved here,
Speaker 8: nice to meet you. I'm so and so. Do you
Speaker 8: need my phone number? And I can do the kind
Speaker 8: of like, you know, I want you to my phone
Speaker 8: number because I want you to call me instead of
Speaker 8: the cops. I'm being too loud, right, But like you're
Speaker 8: going to make a little bit of a faux pas
Speaker 8: in certain communities by being like, hey, we should know
Speaker 8: each other. Yeah, but usually just to hey we should
Speaker 8: know each other isn't actually offending as many people as
Speaker 8: you think.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like I know a lot of people don't live
Speaker 9: in cities too, or some people were like I grew
Speaker 9: up very very rural. Yeah, but actually like we had
Speaker 9: to know each other because like there wasn't really anyone
Speaker 9: else you could go.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah in my mind, I'm like when I live rural,
Speaker 8: and I'm like, that's how you have to know people.
Speaker 9: Like yeah, like I remember someone's horse fell in wealthy
Speaker 9: be bad a swimming pool, Like, yeah, I lifted the
Speaker 9: horse out by myself.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, my neighbors pick out the pools walking out
Speaker 8: of my property. Yeah, it's not as big of a
Speaker 8: deal as lowers falling in, but just constantly my neighbors
Speaker 8: like my pig got out again?
Speaker 9: Yeah, like like were there are a million reasons why
Speaker 9: in rural areas or I'd hope you were you would
Speaker 9: know people anyway. But again, like, hey, I'm so and
Speaker 9: so I just moved here. I just wanted to say, Hi,
Speaker 9: maybe you bake something whatever, take something over. Most people
Speaker 9: aren't going to be mad at you.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Well that's kind of our preliminary stuff and we're
Speaker 8: going to be doing so much more with it, but
Speaker 8: we just kind of wanted to get some ideas out
Speaker 8: while we were both in the same place in this
Speaker 8: shockingly beautiful city. Yeah, around people who are so fucking inspiring, Like, yeah,
Speaker 8: everyone we talk to is so inspiring. And even if
Speaker 8: the like the tragedy of it, you know, I feel
Speaker 8: so weird being like, here's the hopeful stuff. When I'm
Speaker 8: like we're describing it very horrible land of kidnappers, We're like,
Speaker 8: it's just like literally kidnappers have descended upon the city
Speaker 8: and like to kidnap people that will fund the kidnappings. Yeah,
Speaker 8: for cool people did cool stuff. That's the core idea
Speaker 8: of the show is that when people, you know, it's
Speaker 8: the intro it's when people are trying to do bad things.
Speaker 8: There's people trying to do good things. And so that's why, uh,
Speaker 8: taking a break from history content talk about something that's
Speaker 8: just fucking happening right now. It is cool people doing
Speaker 8: cool stuff up here, and or maybe more than cool
Speaker 8: because it's freezing.
Speaker 9: Yeah, freezing people doing cool stuff.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Feel free to workshop at home, Yeah, a better
Speaker 8: way to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 9: I'm coming back from a place more hopeful than I left.
Speaker 9: I know, that's my thing that I do. But like,
Speaker 9: I really believe that in the darkest times we can
Speaker 9: build beautiful things. And I don't believe that any less
Speaker 9: after being here. Yeah, that's great thing about being a goth,
Speaker 9: beauty and the dark stuff.
Speaker 8: That's like. Anyway, we will talk to you all, just
Speaker 8: for me next week and for James, who knows, probably
Speaker 8: freaking tomorrow. Yeah, a couple of days here. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 8: yeah that my job is hard anyway. Yeah, good luck
Speaker 8: with everyone, and take care of your neighbors and fuck ice.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Thanks everyone for listening to all of this. And if
Speaker 8: at the end of this you are thinking that you
Speaker 8: would like to help some of the people who are
Speaker 8: on the ground, we asked people that we trusted on
Speaker 8: the ground to provide us with links to different fundraisers
Speaker 8: and basically, you know, I never share a fundraiser unless
Speaker 8: I can support it with my whole heart, and I
Speaker 8: would support it with my own wallet. The links themselves
Speaker 8: are going to be in the show notes, but there's
Speaker 8: a couple different ones. There's rent Support for Neighbors and Phillips,
Speaker 8: which is a neighborhood rent support for neighbors in Central
Speaker 8: Rent support for neighbors, and Powderhorn Supplies for political art making,
Speaker 8: Protective gear for legal observers, diapers and menstrual supplies is
Speaker 8: another fundraiser. Abolish ice shirts, including the shirt I am
Speaker 8: wearing right now as I record this, North Star Frontline
Speaker 8: Street Medics and the Twin Cities swol A tariot Ale
Speaker 8: fund and they'll be links to both Venmo and cash
Speaker 8: app for that one. Anyway, thank you to everyone, and
Speaker 8: take care of each other.
Speaker 14: Hello, and welcome back to It could happen here. I'm
Speaker 14: your occasional host, Molly Conger, and today we're going to
Speaker 14: be talking about something that is happening here, doxing Nazis. Specifically,
Speaker 14: I'm talking to Christmasias about his new book, To Catch
Speaker 14: a Fascist, The Fight to Expose the Radical Right. Chris,
Speaker 14: thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, Molly, it's such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 14: I'm so excited to talk about this book. You sent
Speaker 14: me a copy of it recently. I don't think I
Speaker 14: remembered until I was reading it and I talked to
Speaker 14: you while you were writing it.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes you did. Yeah, yeah, you're one of
Speaker 7: the many, many people I talked to, and you are
Speaker 7: quoted in the book. In fact, I can't remember if
Speaker 7: you told it to me or if I cite it
Speaker 7: from somewhere else, But you once compared the research that
Speaker 7: goes into doxing unmasking nazis to basically investigating your ex's
Speaker 7: Instagram account, which I thought was an amazing comparison, because
Speaker 7: you're basically saying, like, this type of work is excess
Speaker 7: if you've done that type of slew thing.
Speaker 14: Which is not something I'm admitting to doing. I got
Speaker 14: brazy about my exes. I'm just saying it is something
Speaker 14: many women are very good at, exactly, Yes, and they
Speaker 14: don't realize it's a transferable skill.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 14: But for those who don't know, christ mrher Mathias has
Speaker 14: been covering the far right for more than a decade, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 14: you were with Huffington Post for a long time, and
Speaker 14: you've been independent for a couple of years.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I was at huff Post for like almost fourteen years,
Speaker 7: and about ten of those I know, it's wild, and
Speaker 7: ten of those years I was covering the far right,
Speaker 7: which is how I ended up in Charlottesville in twenty
Speaker 7: seventeen for Unite the Right rally, which is something Mollie
Speaker 7: and I have talked a lot about before. And Yeah,
Speaker 7: after I got back from Charlottesville, my editor at the
Speaker 7: time was like, this is your beat now covering the
Speaker 7: far right. So I was kind of like among this
Speaker 7: like initial crew of like digital media journalists who suddenly
Speaker 7: found themselves on the like the right wing extremism beat.
Speaker 7: And pretty quickly, you know, I realized while I was
Speaker 7: trying to unmask people in the far right that there
Speaker 7: were already people doing that work and they were anti
Speaker 7: fascist activists.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and so to prepare for today, I listened to
Speaker 14: a couple of interviews you've done about the book so far.
Speaker 14: It comes out first week of February.
Speaker 7: February third. Yeah, We're we're close. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 14: I was listening to those interviews and I was thinking about,
Speaker 14: you know, this is a different audience like you don't
Speaker 14: need to explain to people who listened to it could
Speaker 14: happen here when Antifa is or.
Speaker 8: What docxing is.
Speaker 14: Yes, but I think the book very delicately and unapologetically
Speaker 14: explains those things to people who might be afraid of them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean that was the entire intent of the book,
Speaker 7: and I'm so glad you picked up on that. You know,
Speaker 7: I think I kind of imagined writing this book for
Speaker 7: my parents, for like kind of you know, boomer liberals,
Speaker 7: if you will, or centrists and other people just I
Speaker 7: think that have a lot of misapprehension about Antifa understandably,
Speaker 7: And you know, the kind of the goal of the
Speaker 7: book was to to demystify what antifa is, explain it
Speaker 7: to a wider audience, and to make kind of more
Speaker 7: radical politics that Antifa represents more palatable to a wider audience.
Speaker 7: And the way I tried to do that was to
Speaker 7: make the book a bit of a thriller so that
Speaker 7: was accessible, and make it into like a spy narrative.
Speaker 7: And I'm hoping that the very kind of average reader
Speaker 7: will be able to dive into this and come out
Speaker 7: understanding more radical leftist politics that maybe wasn't accessible to
Speaker 7: them before.
Speaker 14: That's such a hard needle to threat because like I
Speaker 14: could give this book to my dad, right right, But
Speaker 14: I also enjoyed reading it. Yay, good for the listener.
Speaker 14: You should go out and get this. It's not just
Speaker 14: for your dads. You will like it to the cold
Speaker 14: open right, like the introductory chapter, start sort of in
Speaker 14: media res with your framework of the book.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 14: This Vincent Washington, this infiltrator inside Patriot Front. And the
Speaker 14: thing is I know about Vincent Washington. I read the
Speaker 14: leaks that Vincent was responsible for. I was actually the
Speaker 14: one who told Thomas Rousseau in person about the leak.
Speaker 8: What I didn't know that book?
Speaker 14: Oh yes, for the listener, Vincent Washington is not a
Speaker 14: real person. Cully is a real person, but that's not
Speaker 14: his real name. Yes, right, So within Patriot Front, they
Speaker 14: all get a pseudonym and then their last name is
Speaker 14: like their state. So Vincent Washington was a man whose
Speaker 14: name is not Vincent, who might be from Washington, and
Speaker 14: he infiltrated Patriot Front and he leaked all of their
Speaker 14: rocket chats. And the day that leak was published, it
Speaker 14: was January twenty first, twenty twenty two. Yes, it was
Speaker 14: the day of the March for Life. Yes, So Patriot
Speaker 14: Front was in Washington, DC, and I had a suspicion
Speaker 14: that Patriot Front would be there. They don't announce that
Speaker 14: the kind of thing ahead of time, but I was
Speaker 14: pretty sure they were going to be there. So I
Speaker 14: went to Washington, d C. And we were standing outside
Speaker 14: the National Archives and Thomas Rousseau had a little bullhorn.
Speaker 14: He had like twenty or thirty guys and the little
Speaker 14: matching fits, and they were so tickled with themselves. They
Speaker 14: were so tickled. People were just falling all over themselves
Speaker 14: because these like scary Nazis were on the street. And
Speaker 14: I actually I have a video. I'll embed it in
Speaker 14: the final.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, Molly, Hey guys, your rocket.
Speaker 14: Chat just got leads on DIA secrets. Unicorn Ryan just
Speaker 14: dropped your rocket Chat everything, all your dms, all your
Speaker 14: dms Matadeia, the video we're just gonna make fun of you.
Speaker 2: The videos that you.
Speaker 14: Send your network leaders, those all have Metadeia and Unicorn
Speaker 14: Ryan is posting.
Speaker 18: Them right now.
Speaker 7: Holy shit, Molly, how did I not ask you about
Speaker 7: this for the book?
Speaker 8: I could have put this in there. Oh, my god.
Speaker 14: It was incredible because you know, Thomas were so later
Speaker 14: was like, oh, it's like not big. He looked scared.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, he looked scared.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's like I know.
Speaker 14: About Vincent, but seeing the story from his side of
Speaker 14: things was so different. Like I use these leaks all
Speaker 14: the time, but I, you know, never get to know
Speaker 14: about the leaker.
Speaker 7: Oh my god. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. So again, this
Speaker 7: is kind of my goal for the book, was that
Speaker 7: these kind of anti fascist spies, and I feel like
Speaker 7: most Americans don't know that Antifa had so many spies
Speaker 7: over the last ten years that were infiltrating these groups.
Speaker 7: You know, they were the hidden hand behind thousands of
Speaker 7: news stories because they collected all of this invaluable intelligence,
Speaker 7: you know, hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of private messages
Speaker 7: that these white supremacists were sending to each other, which
Speaker 7: then were posted on a database on Unicorn Riot, which
Speaker 7: you know, wonderful researchers like yourself and other people used
Speaker 7: to mine for clues and details that they could use
Speaker 7: to identify all of these previously sseunonymous Nazis. So for example,
Speaker 7: you know, and I wish I could have seen the
Speaker 7: look on Thomas's face. I can't wait to see that video.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean, like they released I believe it
Speaker 7: was like four hundred gigabytes worth of rocket Chat messages
Speaker 7: and you know, videos and photos and stuff.
Speaker 14: With metadata still attached to them.
Speaker 7: Exactly with metadata still attached to them, which we'll get
Speaker 7: to in a second. By the way, there's a good
Speaker 7: story about the metadata, but you know, ultimately that data
Speaker 7: would contribute to doc saying unmasking I think about eighty
Speaker 7: members of Patriot Front, which is just remarkable, and I think,
Speaker 7: you know, part of the story I was trying to
Speaker 7: tell was that these anonymous anti fascists who are doing
Speaker 7: this work, you know, anonymously, like they're not doing it
Speaker 7: for acclaim or glory. They're doing it because they see
Speaker 7: it as a form of community self defense. And you know,
Speaker 7: what they were doing, you know, I think outstripped the
Speaker 7: efforts of major media news organizations, you know, academic institutions,
Speaker 7: civil rights organizations, oh no doubt, law enforcement definitely, like
Speaker 7: they were doing more work to destabilize and destroy far
Speaker 7: right groups. Then I would argue, really anyone else.
Speaker 14: And then this subsequent work that builds off of that
Speaker 14: by civil rights groups filing these like Large Klan Act lawsuits.
Speaker 14: Those lawsuits don't exist without these leaks. Sins v. Kessler
Speaker 14: doesn't exist without these leaks. The three lawsuits against Patriot
Speaker 14: Front don't exist without.
Speaker 7: These leaks, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 14: And I've been thinking a lot about this this week,
Speaker 14: right because it was the anniversary of Richard Spencer getting
Speaker 14: punched in the face five years ago.
Speaker 7: Happy anniversary, Happy.
Speaker 14: Anniversary to those who celebrate. And that was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 14: And I think we can all agree that it's so
Speaker 14: funny to watch Richard Spencer get punched in the face.
Speaker 14: But every year you see people say and that's what
Speaker 14: stopped him, and he was never heard from again and
Speaker 14: he shut up forever after that.
Speaker 7: Right, that's not true. That's not true at all.
Speaker 14: Like I love, I love the guy that punched him
Speaker 14: in the face, but that didn't end it, Yes exactly.
Speaker 14: An infiltrator did.
Speaker 7: An infiltrator did, And I think again, you know, kind
Speaker 7: of the goal of the book is that most Antifa
Speaker 7: in the public imagination is most often associated with Nazi punching,
Speaker 7: and you know, for good reason, Like most people learned
Speaker 7: about Antifa in twenty seventeen from videos like the video
Speaker 7: of Richard Spencer getting punched. It's so interesting to look
Speaker 7: back and realize that no one in America knew what
Speaker 7: the fuck Antifa was before twenty seventeen, and then by
Speaker 7: the end of that year, everyone had heard that word
Speaker 7: or knew that word.
Speaker 14: It was the boogeyman.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was the Boogeyman, and it was added to
Speaker 7: the Webster Dictionary. Oxford Dictionary shortlisted it for word of
Speaker 7: the Year. Like it's a remarkable climb for you know,
Speaker 7: a piece of language, a word. But the like viral
Speaker 7: videos that catapulted that word into the lexicon kind of
Speaker 7: obscured the bulk of the work that Antifa was doing,
Speaker 7: which was espionage and intelligence gathering and kind of like
Speaker 7: the creation of this remarkable underground informal intelligence agency that
Speaker 7: like just completely fucked up so many fascist groups, and like,
Speaker 7: you know, at the end of twenty seventeen, Spencer famously
Speaker 7: said Antifa is winning, and he was referring not only
Speaker 7: to getting punched everywhere he went, but to these very
Speaker 7: efforts to identify all of his followers, who knew that
Speaker 7: if their Nazism was public, they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 7: operate in public life, they wouldn't be able to hold
Speaker 7: down a job, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 14: Because I guess both the Nazi punching and the Nazi
Speaker 14: docsing they are different means to a similar end, which
Speaker 14: is to enact a consequence, right, so that if you're
Speaker 14: going to be a Nazi in public, there's going to
Speaker 14: be a fucking consequence, whether that means you get decked
Speaker 14: in the jaw, or it means all of your neighbors
Speaker 14: know what you said online, your mom knows what you
Speaker 14: said online, like people know who you are.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly the way I always describe it is the
Speaker 7: digital equivalent of ripping the white hood off of a klansman.
Speaker 7: You know, back in the eighties and nineties, anti racist activists,
Speaker 7: like with groups like Anti Racist Action, you know, would
Speaker 7: post flyers in namehoods that said meet your local Nazi, right,
Speaker 7: And what they were doing was not only warning the
Speaker 7: community that that guy down the block is liable to
Speaker 7: commit violence against people you know and love, but like
Speaker 7: you were getting at, they were creating a social cost
Speaker 7: for being a fascist. They're basically leveraging an existing societal
Speaker 7: taboo against explicit white supremacy and fascism to ensure a consequence.
Speaker 7: It basically says, it tells people, if you're going to
Speaker 7: join one of these groups, we're going to name and
Speaker 7: shame you. You're going to lose your job, your girlfriend's
Speaker 7: going to dump you, you might lose your apartment, your family,
Speaker 7: you might not want to talk to you anymore, like
Speaker 7: you're going to be a pariah. And I think it
Speaker 7: was really effective. I mean, you know, obviously, the animating
Speaker 7: question of my book, of course, is what happens when
Speaker 7: that taboo starts to disappear?
Speaker 14: But it's not gone yet.
Speaker 7: It's not gone.
Speaker 14: Some of the other interviews I was looking at, people
Speaker 14: are saying, well, is there value in this anymore? Because
Speaker 14: you can work for the State Department and be a
Speaker 14: Nazi now right, you can do the White House social
Speaker 14: media being Nazien now like, is there still any value
Speaker 14: in this? And I think the answer is obviously yes.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 14: They wouldn't wear masks if they didn't have to wear masks, yes, right,
Speaker 14: Like some of them aren't mask off quote unquote, but
Speaker 14: like not all of them. Patriot Front still marches in masks.
Speaker 14: Ice agents still abduct children in masks. They're covering their
Speaker 14: faces because they know what they're doing is wrong.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly, And I think it's also as much of
Speaker 7: a mask off moment as we might be living in
Speaker 7: in some ways. You know, this act of research and
Speaker 7: identifying the threat is still so important because it's you know,
Speaker 7: preserving that societal taboo. It's still saying that that social
Speaker 7: cost is something we still want to preserve, and it
Speaker 7: is you know, I think very interesting that the anti
Speaker 7: fascist work now is kind of pivoting towards identifying ICE
Speaker 7: agents and MAGA, and the Trump administration is horrified of
Speaker 7: this tactic of identifying ICE agents, and for good reason,
Speaker 7: because you know the story I try to tell my book,
Speaker 7: like this tactic played a really big part in destroying
Speaker 7: fascist groups. They know that it could destroy their ethnic
Speaker 7: cleansing projects. And when you look at the polls like
Speaker 7: since reine a good, the favorability for ICE is just plummeted,
Speaker 7: and the support for slogans like abolish ICE have skyrocketed.
Speaker 7: So like that societal taboo against kind of white supremacismsm right,
Speaker 7: that's being displayed by ICE is definitely still there.
Speaker 14: And you ground this sort of in the history too.
Speaker 14: In the book, in the chapter about sort of the
Speaker 14: history of unmasking, whether that's with digital docsing or you know,
Speaker 14: identifying members of the Klan, there was still a social
Speaker 14: cost of being identified as a Klansman in the nineteen twenties. Yeah,
Speaker 14: like there was there was no social taboo against being
Speaker 14: racist in the twenties, but there was a social cost
Speaker 14: to being identified as a clansman. And I think we're
Speaker 14: we find ourselves in the same unfortunate place.
Speaker 7: Yeah, totally, I mean, and honestly, that was one of
Speaker 7: my favorite parts about researching the book, was diving into
Speaker 7: the efforts to unmask the clans. Obviously there were efforts
Speaker 7: to unmask the First Clan, but you know, one of
Speaker 7: my favorite stories about unmasking the Second Clan took place
Speaker 7: in Buffalo, New York, and there was actually a very
Speaker 7: large Clan chapter in Buffalo. You know, the Second Clan
Speaker 7: wasn't confined to the South.
Speaker 8: It was everywhere.
Speaker 7: It was in the Northeast and the midwest, right, and
Speaker 7: it was animated not only by anti black racism and
Speaker 7: anti Semitism, but also by anti Catholicism. They were really
Speaker 7: angry at this new wave of immigrants from Eastern and
Speaker 7: southern Europe.
Speaker 14: They didn't allow Catholics in until the seventies. They had
Speaker 14: to have a big summit about it. Yes, yeah, yes,
Speaker 14: when they decided that Catholics are white.
Speaker 7: Yes exactly. And this is I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 7: so much to unpack because like obviously, like my family's Catholic,
Speaker 7: and I enjoy all the privilege of being white. But
Speaker 7: like you know, back then, like you know, so Catholics
Speaker 7: were you know this other.
Speaker 14: You had a dual loyalty to this mysterious king.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly. So at any rate, the Klan in Buffalo
Speaker 7: is really big, and you know, in one night they
Speaker 7: even have this elaborate cross burning ceremony where eight hundred
Speaker 7: people take the oath for the Klan. The mayor of Buffalo, though,
Speaker 7: is Catholic and forms a coalition with you know, Black
Speaker 7: Buffalonians and Jewish Buffalonians, and the mayor ends up enlisting
Speaker 7: a spy to go undercover into the Klan. One night,
Speaker 7: the clan's secret headquarters in Buffalo are ransacked, broken into
Speaker 7: in ransacked, and suddenly this list of the clan's membership
Speaker 7: ends up in the hands of the mayor. The mayor
Speaker 7: has makes some like deft denials of any involvement, but
Speaker 7: says that he's going to post the lists downtown. The
Speaker 7: list is posted downtown, so many people show up to
Speaker 7: look at the list to see who among their neighbors
Speaker 7: is in the clan that they end up having to
Speaker 7: move the list I believe, to a warehouse to fit
Speaker 7: all the people so that they could form a line.
Speaker 7: And then in the ensuing weeks and months, clan owned
Speaker 7: businesses are boycotted and vandalized. Clansmen turn up to their
Speaker 7: jobs only to learn that they've been fired, and before
Speaker 7: long the klan just completely falls apart. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 7: Clan headquarters down in Georgia heard about what was happening
Speaker 7: in Buffalo and was really alarmed by it, so they
Speaker 7: send an investigator to Buffalo to figure out who the
Speaker 7: spy is. They figure out who the spy is, and
Speaker 7: they get in a shootout and they both die Jesus Christ,
Speaker 7: which like underscores you know the stakes of this work sometime.
Speaker 14: Right, which is why you know the Richard Spencer Puncher
Speaker 14: and the infiltrators. They do their best to stay anonymous
Speaker 14: because the Steaks are lethal. Yeah, right, they will kill
Speaker 14: you back. Yes, organizations can't survive sunshine, and they're so
Speaker 14: aware of that that. Yeah, people have been killed for this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, You and I have both faced our share
Speaker 7: of harassment and stuff. But there's older tales of you know,
Speaker 7: anti racist action. Back in the nineties, two of its members,
Speaker 7: you know, anti racist skinheads, were in Nevada, lured out
Speaker 7: to the desert by Nazis under false pretenses and executed
Speaker 7: in the desert.
Speaker 14: It is fourth of July weekend, right, Yes, we still
Speaker 14: honor them on the fourth of July exactly.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Their names are escaping me right.
Speaker 14: Now, Spitting Newborn and Daniel Shrsey.
Speaker 7: Yes, And there is a fantastic Orlando Weekly feature article
Speaker 7: about I Believe Spit that I think is one of
Speaker 7: the best pieces I've read in a long time that
Speaker 7: maybe we can put in the notes I think people
Speaker 7: would really enjoy. Absolutely, and you know, and then there's
Speaker 7: more recent examples of that too. You know, over the
Speaker 7: last five years, there was three members of the base,
Speaker 7: which is like a neo Nazi organization. Obviously, I love
Speaker 7: that your listeners know all.
Speaker 14: This, by the way, no what they could use the recap, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: But know who these groups are at least, but they
Speaker 7: were arrested for conspiring to kidnap and murder to anti
Speaker 7: fascist activists in Georgia.
Speaker 14: It was a couple living in a kind of remote
Speaker 14: area and they had a very detailed plan to burn
Speaker 14: down their home and like kill them in their beds
Speaker 14: and kill their pets.
Speaker 8: And I mean it was Yeah.
Speaker 14: If not for the FBI agent who was their friend, yeah,
Speaker 14: that couple would have been killed.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, it's it's really wild to consider the.
Speaker 14: FBI agent was friends with the Nazis. I should clarify
Speaker 14: there is almost always an FBI agent who is friends
Speaker 14: with the Nazi. Yes, And that's that's the important thing, right,
Speaker 14: you know, Like these anti fascists are infiltrating these groups,
Speaker 14: and so is the FBI. Right, Like a lot of
Speaker 14: these hate groups, somebody is either a paid informant, freelance informant,
Speaker 14: or an actual undercover agent. And that's great, I guess,
Speaker 14: but a lot of times they will prioritize keeping their
Speaker 14: agent undercover, yes, over using the information to protect anyone.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 14: And when we do it, when anti fascists do that,
Speaker 14: we are invested in protecting our communities. Not building a case.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 14: You don't need to take this to a grand jury.
Speaker 14: You don't need to keep a guy in there for
Speaker 14: twenty years waiting for the big fish. You're protecting a community.
Speaker 7: Yes, I mean, there's an example of that in the book.
Speaker 7: There was a kind of this white whale in anti
Speaker 7: fascist circles that people were trying to identify. And he
Speaker 7: was a leader in the Ball Patrol, which of course
Speaker 7: is this community of Nazis that praises his mass shooters
Speaker 7: and tries to encourage other Nazis to commit mass shootings.
Speaker 7: And he was eventually identified as this guy named Andrew
Speaker 7: Casserat in Sacramento, California. I remember Vic, yeah, and his
Speaker 7: his pseudonym was Vic Mackie. Yeah, and anti fascists identified him.
Speaker 7: I published a story at huff Post. It emerges later
Speaker 7: that Andrew Cassat was already on like the no fly lists, yes.
Speaker 14: Which means the government already knew who that fucking man
Speaker 14: was when he was he was recording a podcast about
Speaker 14: shooting me in my womb through my vagina, and the
Speaker 14: government already knew who he was, yes.
Speaker 7: And which is just insane. And you know, and they'll
Speaker 7: claim it's like investigative secrecy, like it's some kind of
Speaker 7: some kind of pragmatism, but it's like for what, Like
Speaker 7: they're posing an urgent.
Speaker 14: Threat for one thing, I felt safer. And I was
Speaker 14: safer once I knew who he was, once someone did
Speaker 14: the work of identifying that man, and I could say
Speaker 14: with certainty he is in California, he is not near me.
Speaker 14: I was safer, Yes, And like anti fascist gave me
Speaker 14: that the government did not give me that. The government
Speaker 14: would never have given me.
Speaker 7: That, yes, exactly. And I think it's also you know, obviously,
Speaker 7: you know, a big tenant of militant anti fascism is
Speaker 7: that you don't trust law enforcem or the state in
Speaker 7: this fight. And not only for the reasons we're describing now,
Speaker 7: but there's like this historical irony in when the FBI
Speaker 7: or law enforcement in general infiltrates white supremacist groups, they
Speaker 7: end up finding a bunch of their buddies, and these
Speaker 7: white supremacist groups, like they end up identifying a lot
Speaker 7: of police officers. And I think it just goes to
Speaker 7: show the ways in which, obviously law enforcement and white
Speaker 7: supremacist groups often share similar goals.
Speaker 14: Very much so, and sometimes once they have a guy
Speaker 14: in there. I mean, I'm sure it happens still to
Speaker 14: this day. We don't have the records of it happening now,
Speaker 14: but we have the sort of sixties and seventies era
Speaker 14: co intel pro records now that do show that. You know,
Speaker 14: they had tons of FBI agents infiltrating the clan, allegedly
Speaker 14: to disrupt the clan, but that's not what they were doing.
Speaker 14: They were steering the clan into disrupting the civil rights movement.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, but I mean most famously the Greensboro massacre
Speaker 7: where you know, the clan and an other white supremacist
Speaker 7: murdered some anti fascist communist activists, and then it emerged
Speaker 7: afterwards that an FBI agent was in the group but
Speaker 7: didn't report kind of their plans for violence.
Speaker 14: Over and over again. Yeah, and those five people died
Speaker 14: for it. Yeah, exactly, which is why I will always
Speaker 14: trust an anti fascist infiltrator over an FBI agent. Yes,
Speaker 14: I loved the historical parallels, right, you know, so you
Speaker 14: take doxing all the way back to the second Clan.
Speaker 14: You know, this outside agitator narrative is not new, It's
Speaker 14: something Martin Luther King Junior wrote about you were seeing
Speaker 14: that now, right, Like, you know, these people protesting their
Speaker 14: outside agitators. This isn't the real community. The real community
Speaker 14: wouldn't behave like this. It's the same as it ever was, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7: I mean I think you know, since Antifa kind of
Speaker 7: exploded into the American consciousness, MAGA and the rights seized
Speaker 7: on Antifa as a boogeyman, and they trusted that kind
Speaker 7: of liberals and centrists were going to throw Antifa under
Speaker 7: the bus, right, that like they were going to come
Speaker 7: to Antifa's defense necessarily or even acknowledge a lot of
Speaker 7: times that Antifa existed, and you know, that allowed them
Speaker 7: to create this boogeyman of like epic proportions. So like
Speaker 7: in twenty seventeen, after Charlottesville, a synonymous pro Trump troll
Speaker 7: called Microchip starts a petition to declare Antifa a quote
Speaker 7: domestic terrorist organization. This petition goes viral, gets like three
Speaker 7: hundred thousand signees, and Microchip ends up giving an interview
Speaker 7: to Politico where he's very upfront and frank about why
Speaker 7: he's doing this, and it's not because the White House
Speaker 7: is actually going to declare Antifa domestic terrorist organization.
Speaker 8: Oops.
Speaker 7: Oops, there's no federal domestic terror statute to even do that.
Speaker 7: Antifa is not an organization. He's very explicit to say,
Speaker 7: I'm doing this to set up Antifa as a punching
Speaker 7: bag and to deflect and distract from the far rights,
Speaker 7: very real violence.
Speaker 14: Pretty wild that he said it.
Speaker 8: He just said it. Yeah, said it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it's like that he admitted it.
Speaker 14: Meme, Oh my god, he admitted it.
Speaker 7: He admitted yeah. Yeah. And you know, over the next
Speaker 7: few months, every time there's a mass shooting, you have
Speaker 7: folks like Jack Pisobic and other kind of disinformation artists
Speaker 7: jumping in when you know there's not a lot of
Speaker 7: information yet to blame these mass shootings on Antifa.
Speaker 14: I mean, there's a weird troll who still thinks I'm
Speaker 14: responsible for January sixth.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, exactly. Very impressive work, by the way. You know,
Speaker 7: so they're using Antifa that way to like distract and deflect.
Speaker 7: They're blaming Antifa for wildfires and trained derailments and all
Speaker 7: this crazy shit. And then you know there's a little
Speaker 7: bit of a wall. And then in twenty twenty, the
Speaker 7: George Floyd uprisings happen, and you know, the George Floyd
Speaker 7: uprisings are one of the biggest mass uprisings in American history.
Speaker 7: It's completely grassroots and organic, and it is led by
Speaker 7: black protesters in their communities inspired by uprisings again in Minneapolis.
Speaker 14: It's too soon for history to be repeating.
Speaker 7: I know, it's really crazy, but Antifa, the Antifa boogeyman,
Speaker 7: now is repurposed as kind of this outside agitator's trope
Speaker 7: on steroids. Right, So Trump and all these magget influencers
Speaker 7: rush to blame Antifa for fomenting these mass uprisings, which
Speaker 7: is absurd.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Sure, and Antifa activists were at these uprisings, but you know,
Speaker 7: they weren't instigating them, like nor would they have the
Speaker 7: organizing power to instigate such a massive uprising like that.
Speaker 7: When the right is doing this, it's an effort to
Speaker 7: make these uprisings seem artificial or you know, kind of
Speaker 7: astroterm something you can dismiss, something you can dismiss as
Speaker 7: inorganic and artificial. And it's a way of like distracting
Speaker 7: from the very real grievance at the heart of these demonstrations,
Speaker 7: which is that we want cops to stop killing black people.
Speaker 7: So throughout the summer of twenty twenty, the Antifa panic
Speaker 7: reaches like absurd levels where you know, there are rumors,
Speaker 7: viral rumors of busloads of Antifa roaming the countryside looking
Speaker 7: to burn down white businesses. You know, again, Antifa's blamed
Speaker 7: for wildfires in the West. All of a sudden, you
Speaker 7: get these paramilitary groups, militia groups out West using these
Speaker 7: Antifa rumors as a pretext to literally occupy towns, entire towns.
Speaker 7: You know, you have forty white dudes in full camo
Speaker 7: and vests carrying big guns patrolling the streets on the
Speaker 7: lookout for this Antifa menace. You know, there's like story
Speaker 7: about in a Standpoint, Idaho, which is this gorgeous town
Speaker 7: in the Panhandle, and these like group of like high
Speaker 7: school kids go on a Black Lives Matter march across
Speaker 7: a bridge, and all of a sudden they're being followed
Speaker 7: by these like middle aged white dudes carrying AR fifteen's
Speaker 7: and calling them racial slurs Jesus Christ. So like, basically,
Speaker 7: the Antifa boogeyman in twenty twenty is repackaged again not
Speaker 7: only to sew division on the left, and to create
Speaker 7: this outside agitator's narrative, but to create this pretext for
Speaker 7: vigilante violence. And there was a lot of vigilante violence
Speaker 7: that occurred in twenty twenty of course, you know, now
Speaker 7: we're in twenty twenty six, and we saw last throughout
Speaker 7: last year as well. The Antifa boogeyman again is being,
Speaker 7: you know, summoned to call whoever opposes the Trump regime's
Speaker 7: effort to ethnically cleanse the United States, you know, domestic terrorists.
Speaker 14: Right, The enemy is simultaneously very weak and very strong
Speaker 14: in their minds, right, like, yeah, we're all a bunch
Speaker 14: of soy boys who live in our mom's basements, but
Speaker 14: we were also a massive, networked, armed organization with unlimited fundings.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly, exactly, And you know, obviously Trump claimed to
Speaker 7: formally designate Antifa a domestic terror group in September.
Speaker 14: Doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 8: He did say it. He did say it, and.
Speaker 7: Then he held a Antifa round table at the White
Speaker 7: House with a lot of our friends anty no Jack Pisovic.
Speaker 7: But you know, as farcical as it all is, it's
Speaker 7: also deeply dangerous and alarming. In September, Trump designates Antifa
Speaker 7: domestic terror group. And then last month they murder Renee
Speaker 7: Good and cold blood and what do they do. They
Speaker 7: call her domestic terrorists after the fact.
Speaker 14: Exactly, it's pretext.
Speaker 7: It's all pretexts, because.
Speaker 14: If you create this sort of shadowy network of unidentified
Speaker 14: agitators who are responsible for unspecified but very bad crimes,
Speaker 14: you can kill anyone.
Speaker 7: Say it with them, Yeah, exactly. I wrote a piece
Speaker 7: for The Nation recently about how there's a tendency in
Speaker 7: response to like this escalating mega hysteria about Antifa. There's
Speaker 7: a tendency among liberals and centrists to dismiss Antifa as
Speaker 7: not existing, to altimately say that it's not even a thing,
Speaker 7: or to say, well, antifa just means anti fascists, so
Speaker 7: we're all antifa, but like to me that entirely this
Speaker 7: is the point, like a like, Antifa is real, and
Speaker 7: it refers to like a very real subculture and a
Speaker 7: very real tradition, militant tradition of anti fascist organizing. And
Speaker 7: if liberals and centrists can't acknowledge that Antifa is real
Speaker 7: and come to their defense, then you know, the people
Speaker 7: doing this work might be in some danger. And I
Speaker 7: think it's important to show them some solidarity right now.
Speaker 14: It's such a complicated reality, right because it's not a group, yeah,
Speaker 14: but it is. It's also it's a thousand different groups
Speaker 14: of two or three or ten. It's not like a
Speaker 14: nationwide membership organization. You know, it is just an idea,
Speaker 14: but it's also a history, a set of tactics. It's
Speaker 14: all of those things, and it's none of those things.
Speaker 14: And it's different depending on who you ask and why
Speaker 14: you're asking.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, And like anyone can do it, you know,
Speaker 7: like right like anyone can take up the mantle of
Speaker 7: like militant anti fascist work.
Speaker 14: A lot of people are doing it on their own.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think like that's what's been so kind
Speaker 7: of inspiring to me about Minneapolis and the uprisings right is,
Speaker 7: you know, everything that community is doing right now is
Speaker 7: a grassroots, organic response, and they're doing it because no
Speaker 7: one else is going to do it for them.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: There's this axiom that we talk about a lot in
Speaker 7: anti fascist spaces and anarchist spaces and black liberation movements.
Speaker 7: You know, this axiom of we protect us, and you
Speaker 7: know that is on very big display right now in
Speaker 7: Minneapolis where you have people doing what anti fascist activists
Speaker 7: were doing to Nazis in twenty seventeen, which is monitoring them,
Speaker 7: following them, disrupting them. They are figuring out where they
Speaker 7: are staying, where they're eating, and pressuring those businesses and
Speaker 7: those hotels not to serve them. They are showing up
Speaker 7: outside their hotels doing noise demos, they are identifying them.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and I think you know, we protect us is
Speaker 14: such a you know, it's such a short, pithy phrase,
Speaker 14: but you don't know what it means until you feel it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 14: Like I think in Minneapolis people are feeling it. They're
Speaker 14: protecting each other, right. You know, here in Charlottesville after
Speaker 14: Unite the Right, you know, when local authority figures were
Speaker 14: saying things about Antifa, you would have you know, white
Speaker 14: grandma's get up there and say, don't you say that
Speaker 14: about antifa? Right, don't you say that about antifa? You
Speaker 14: know it is a word I didn't know a month ago,
Speaker 14: but they saved my life. Yes, right that once you
Speaker 14: have experienced that kind of community solidarity, that that we
Speaker 14: protect us ethos, once you've seen it, you know what
Speaker 14: it means, yes, exactly, And nobody's going to tell you different.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And like you know, it's also it's just so
Speaker 7: clear in Minneapolis that like the Democratic Party and you know,
Speaker 7: law enforcement, the local police are not doing anything, you know,
Speaker 7: like they're not They're.
Speaker 14: The people that are supposed to protect you. Aren't going to,
Speaker 14: aren't going to The police will watch you get beaten
Speaker 14: in the street, yes, yes, exactly, and your center, your
Speaker 14: senator will say nothing when the President calls you a terrorist.
Speaker 7: Yes, And so you know, I think it just kind
Speaker 7: of goes to show that this kind of militant, anti
Speaker 7: fascist tradition is it's an organic response to conditions. It
Speaker 7: is like an insurgent form of community self defense. As
Speaker 7: horrifying as the footage coming out of Minneapolis is, especially
Speaker 7: that photo this week of the five year old God
Speaker 7: being detained, which I can't get out of my head
Speaker 7: and which makes my blood.
Speaker 14: Boil thinking of it, I can't cry on the recording.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, it makes me want to cry too.
Speaker 14: Something that really struck me reading the book. You know,
Speaker 14: I was saying, like, you know, I read Vincent Washington's leaks,
Speaker 14: but he didn't know anything about Vincent. You said that
Speaker 14: he told you he was moved to start taking this
Speaker 14: kind of militant action by the Portland Max train stabbing. Yeah,
Speaker 14: I mean that stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know. And I think one of the more
Speaker 7: moving parts of researching this book was realizing that all
Speaker 7: of the anti fascists doing this work had brushes with
Speaker 7: fascist violence in their communities, and that's what inspired them
Speaker 7: to do it. You know, Vincent was in Portland in
Speaker 7: twenty what year was that was seventeen May twenty seventeen, right,
Speaker 7: and he gets on a train at Hollywood Station in Portland,
Speaker 7: goes to a friend's place, has a good time, and
Speaker 7: then later reads the news and realizes that had he
Speaker 7: taken one train before his that left about a minute before,
Speaker 7: he could have been in this car where this white
Speaker 7: supremacist named Jeremy Christian started harassing to black Muslim girls.
Speaker 7: He is haranguing them, telling them to get out of America.
Speaker 7: When three men intervene, Jeremy Christian slashes the throats of
Speaker 7: the three men and two of them die. God, we're
Speaker 7: gonna get emotional on this, but like one of the.
Speaker 14: Last times, this one really really gets to me. I've
Speaker 14: sort of brushed up against the story and a couple
Speaker 14: of things I've written, And I mean it's one of
Speaker 14: the most moving encounters you know, of all of these
Speaker 14: sort of moving pieces, right that a Nazi committing violence
Speaker 14: against a Somali immigrant. Right, that's so relevant today, ordinary
Speaker 14: people intervening. Only one of them was sort of an
Speaker 14: active anti fascist in his community, the young man that survived,
Speaker 14: Micah Fletcher. The other two were just everyday dudes, every
Speaker 14: day dudes. They didn't have anti fascist politics. But they
Speaker 14: saw a Nazi threatening a little girl.
Speaker 7: They saw Nazi threatening a little girl, and they lost
Speaker 7: their lives. And as one of them, and I'm blanking
Speaker 7: on his name right now, it's Talisian. Yeah, was lying
Speaker 7: bleeding out. He said, tell everyone on this train, I
Speaker 7: love them. So I actually flew to Portland's a few
Speaker 7: days later and ended up interviewing his girlfriend. Oh my god,
Speaker 7: you kept a journal of their relationship and read me
Speaker 7: passages from it, and like, you know, how beautiful the
Speaker 7: relationship was. They had just moved in together, they were
Speaker 7: growing a garden together, and before he left that morning
Speaker 7: he get on that train, he said something really wonderful
Speaker 7: just about how much he loved her. So, you know,
Speaker 7: basically his day started and ended with these expressions.
Speaker 14: Of love that would always really rex me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 14: But seeing that that was sort of you know, as
Speaker 14: someone who got into this work after seeing what happened
Speaker 14: where I live, Yes exactly, it was. It was very
Speaker 14: striking to me that you know, it was the same
Speaker 14: for Vincent. It was something that he was not involved in.
Speaker 14: He didn't he didn't witness this stabbing, but he was
Speaker 14: so close to it. It felt so intimate to him,
Speaker 14: and he felt like, well, I have to do something.
Speaker 7: Yes exactly. And there were so many other examples that
Speaker 7: I name in the book of these really horrendous hate
Speaker 7: crimes taking place in Portland and Seattle and across the
Speaker 7: Pacific Northwest, which you know historically has been a hub
Speaker 7: for white supremacist organizing. So you know, for Vincent, if
Speaker 7: the threat felt very real to people he knew and loved,
Speaker 7: which is why he decided to go undercover into Patriot
Speaker 7: Front and to fuck up Patriot Front. He had done
Speaker 7: some other anti fascist work before that, like kind of
Speaker 7: monitoring the Proud Boys, but then, you know, I think
Speaker 7: when the Proud Boys were on a bit of a
Speaker 7: decline after January sixth he started to look at groups
Speaker 7: that operated more in the dark and were more secretive,
Speaker 7: and he decided to focus on Patriot Front.
Speaker 14: And how prescient at that time. I mean, Patriot Front
Speaker 14: in twenty seventeen didn't exist in early twenty seventeen, but
Speaker 14: sort of as they rebranded into twenty eighteen from Vanguard America.
Speaker 14: I mean, how prescient of him to know that that
Speaker 14: would be the place to go.
Speaker 7: Yeah, No, totally like that. That's where I think the
Speaker 7: energy was and like kind of the anonymous organizing was going,
Speaker 7: and you know, and what he did was really remarkable.
Speaker 7: I think a lot of anti fascist infiltrations and spy
Speaker 7: work is done online. You know, people just creating a
Speaker 7: username in an avatar and they can manage to do
Speaker 7: most of the espionage from behind a computer screen.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 7: One of the more significant acts of espionage during this
Speaker 7: era is like that goes undercover into Identity Europa and
Speaker 7: again manages to get reams and reams of their private messages,
Speaker 7: which end up on Unicorn Riot and that destroyed them too,
Speaker 7: destroyed them and you know those messages, the panic and
Speaker 7: the discord like database ends up identifying one hundred Nazis
Speaker 7: in Identity Europa, which is just remarkable. The anti fascist
Speaker 7: spy that did this I talked to and he just
Speaker 7: had to do an interview with an Identity Europa leader
Speaker 7: to get into the group and I got to listen
Speaker 7: to that recording and it's remarkable. But you know, after that,
Speaker 7: he didn't have to do that much in person, you know,
Speaker 7: method acting to pretend to be a Nazi vincent. However
Speaker 7: did he you know, for five months he was going hiking.
Speaker 7: He was going hiking, man like, because Patriotfront requires you
Speaker 7: to go on missions and hikes and you know, kind
Speaker 7: of group activities. He had to do shit in person.
Speaker 7: So like this dude was acting like deserves an oscar,
Speaker 7: you know. So he climbed Mount Rain for two nights
Speaker 7: with thirteen other Nazis, Oh my god. And by the way,
Speaker 7: at this point had earned the trust of his local
Speaker 7: chapters so much that he was named the official photographer
Speaker 7: and videographer for the chapter, which is just delicious.
Speaker 14: They're so smart, smart, so smart. I mean it's like
Speaker 14: it's like that Simpsons bit, right, Like videotaping this crime
Speaker 14: spree was the best idea we ever take video of everything.
Speaker 14: They do yes, and then because of these leaks, we
Speaker 14: see that in several lawsuits against Patriot Front right like
Speaker 14: they are recording video as they you know, vandalize civil
Speaker 14: rights monuments and things like that, and then they got
Speaker 14: sued in three places.
Speaker 7: Yes, and it's it's basically the stringer bell like, are
Speaker 7: you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? You know me,
Speaker 7: they are, and they are, so you know, eventually all
Speaker 7: this data that Vincent collects. And by the way, so
Speaker 7: he's in the group for about five months, He's scheduled
Speaker 7: to go to their big march in DC, but the
Speaker 7: last minute claims he can't because the FBI knocks on
Speaker 7: his door. That's a lie. He's just doing that to
Speaker 7: scare Patriot Front when Patriofront gets to DC and goes
Speaker 7: on their march. So anti fascists in DC know their plans,
Speaker 7: and they know where they are parking their vehicles for
Speaker 7: this march. They know where Patriofront is going to march.
Speaker 7: And let's just say, some Nazi cars get redecorated.
Speaker 14: Some tires did not make it out of DC that night.
Speaker 7: Tires did not make it out of DC, some windshields
Speaker 7: did not survive. There is some graffiti. Patriotfront gets back
Speaker 7: to their U hauls. First off that they used to
Speaker 7: get transported into d C from suburban Maryland. Their U
Speaker 7: hauls are fucked up. They get back to Maryland finally
Speaker 7: and to see all their cars fucked up, so you know,
Speaker 7: there's an act of sabotage. They realize they have an infiltrator.
Speaker 7: Before long they realize that it's the man they know
Speaker 7: is Vincent, and I think they think that that's it,
Speaker 7: like there'll be a few doses, but you know that
Speaker 7: it didn't seem like he hacked their server. But then
Speaker 7: of course a month later, all of their messages end up,
Speaker 7: everything end up on Unicorn. Riot You tell Thomas Russou
Speaker 7: the news of this, Oh that was such a treat. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I can't, I can't believe we've never talked about this.
Speaker 7: And over the course of the next few months years,
Speaker 7: so many Patriot Front members are identified, and there's also
Speaker 7: some other delicious details like Vincent, after his infiltration is over,
Speaker 7: he has all this Patriot Front propaganda material that he
Speaker 7: kind of took along the way, banners, pamphlets, shields. So
Speaker 7: what he does on New Year's is he makes a
Speaker 7: pire Towering Pire of this material and lights it on fire,
Speaker 7: makes a really beautiful video set to old lang Syne
Speaker 7: and post it online for Patriot Front to see, and
Speaker 7: I think kind of warning them that, like you know,
Speaker 7: there might be some more coming, some more docs coming,
Speaker 7: some more stuff coming. And the thing is is, like
Speaker 7: Vincent's story is just one story, one kind of remarkable
Speaker 7: story of anti fascist spywork over the last ten years.
Speaker 7: There are so many other stories that I heard about that,
Speaker 7: for various reasons I couldn't put in the book, or
Speaker 7: there wasn't room for in the book. But it's just, yeah,
Speaker 7: I feel very privileged that I got to tell this
Speaker 7: story that not many people know.
Speaker 14: It was such a great framework for the book because
Speaker 14: it's not just about that particular infiltration, but it sort
Speaker 14: of provides this this running framework, this sort of introduction
Speaker 14: to the concept. I thought it was very nicely done.
Speaker 14: I was excited to learn about Vincent because I have only,
Speaker 14: like I said, read his leaks and then the lawsuits
Speaker 14: that had inspired and then the lawsuit against him, right, yeah,
Speaker 14: which was dismissed last week. Yes, it was congratulations Vincent,
Speaker 14: Yes it was.
Speaker 7: Yes. The book gets into this a little bit, but
Speaker 7: Patriot Front does end up ascertaining what it believes is
Speaker 7: Vincent's real identity, and they file a lawsuit in federal
Speaker 7: court in Washington, and it had been ongoing for the
Speaker 7: last year or two, but was finally dismissed in court
Speaker 7: this week. Yeah, or last week.
Speaker 14: So congratulations to the person who may or may not
Speaker 14: have been Vincent.
Speaker 7: Yes, I'll never know.
Speaker 14: It didn't make it didn't make it to a How
Speaker 14: think it ever made it to a hearing?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 14: I said I wouldn't take up a ton of your time,
Speaker 14: but I can't let you go without talking about red Beard.
Speaker 7: Oh my god.
Speaker 14: This is the first concrete confirmed published docs of red Beard.
Speaker 8: Oh my god.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I can't believe it's taken us this long to
Speaker 7: talk about it. Thank you for reminding me.
Speaker 14: So for the listener. You know, we talk about how
Speaker 14: this is, this is worth that is accessible to everyone,
Speaker 14: but it is not for everyone. And Red Beard to
Speaker 14: someone I have read so many incorrect doxes of And
Speaker 14: that's why it is so important. It's so important to
Speaker 14: be sure of what you're writing, because I've read one
Speaker 14: hundred failed doxes of this man. Yeah, and this one's real.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So red Beard, to those who don't know, again,
Speaker 7: was kind of this white whale and anti fascist circles
Speaker 7: white supremacists will basically insomuch as he was one of
Speaker 7: the men filmed in Charlottesville in twenty seventeen beating DeAndre Harris.
Speaker 7: For those that don't remember, DeAndre Harris was a black
Speaker 7: counterprotester resident of the Charlottesville area. He was a nineteen
Speaker 7: year old teacher for special ed students and he ends
Speaker 7: up in a scuffle with Nazis that are leaving Charlottesville,
Speaker 7: leaving the rally, and they end up in a parking
Speaker 7: garage where five of them beat him while he's on
Speaker 7: the pavement with metal poles and other weapons, and it's
Speaker 7: captured on camera. I think it's one of the more
Speaker 7: distressing things to watch from Charlottesville. I actually happened to
Speaker 7: be in the garage at the time, was running towards
Speaker 7: DeAndre when one of the Nazis pulled a gun and
Speaker 7: started waving it around, so I ducked behind a car.
Speaker 7: By the time I got up, DeAndre was stumbling away.
Speaker 7: There was a pool of blood on the pavement.
Speaker 14: Wait, I have to go back to the footage. Who
Speaker 14: was it that pulled the gun.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure it is.
Speaker 14: Oh, were you over on the police station side of
Speaker 14: the divider.
Speaker 7: I think I was running pack.
Speaker 14: I had to go back and find you in the footage. Yeah,
Speaker 14: I think the guy who pointed a gun at you
Speaker 14: is Teddy von Nucomb.
Speaker 7: Oh my god. Well if we can make that idea that.
Speaker 14: Because he pulled because he pulled the gun he did.
Speaker 14: I mean, somebody else may have pulled a gun, but
Speaker 14: Teddy pulled a gun.
Speaker 7: Okay, I need to look at a photo of Teddy
Speaker 7: van Nucam it all happened so fad Oh, oh it's
Speaker 7: that guy. Yeah, Oh my god, Oh my god. Okay,
Speaker 7: all right, let's talk about this.
Speaker 14: Way Molly here recording. After the interview was over, I
Speaker 14: went back and reviewed that footage, and my memory did
Speaker 14: fail me a little bit.
Speaker 9: Here.
Speaker 14: I was thinking about the right moment right after the
Speaker 14: victim and that beating has sort of broken away from
Speaker 14: the main portion of the assault and he's running away.
Speaker 14: The video taken by Unicorn Riot hands over to follow him,
Speaker 14: and as the camera sweeps across the area on the
Speaker 14: other side of the parking garage, you can see a
Speaker 14: Nazi named Teddy von Nucomb, that's his real name, changed it.
Speaker 14: He takes a swing at the victim with what looks
Speaker 14: like a baton, and at the same moment somebody does
Speaker 14: pull a handgun, but it's an unidentified man standing right
Speaker 14: behind Teddy von Nucom. I had the image mixed up
Speaker 14: in my recollection. Sorry about that. Teddyvon Nucum, as I
Speaker 14: said in the interview, is dead. He shot himself in
Speaker 14: the chest in twenty twenty three, the morning he was
Speaker 14: supposed to go on trial for fentanyl trafficking. I wish
Speaker 14: I could tell you who the little nazie, what the
Speaker 14: gun is, but it looks like there's no ID on him,
Speaker 14: not yet anyway. Sorry for the listener. This is something
Speaker 14: I think Chris and I have both spent probably one
Speaker 14: hundred hours looking at frame by frame video from seventeen
Speaker 14: angles of this particular assault for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 14: Right right, So, it was this brutal gang assault on
Speaker 14: this young black man, and four people went to prison
Speaker 14: for it, yes, and some people didn't.
Speaker 7: Some people didn't. And one of them was a you know,
Speaker 7: kind of a bigger white dude with a big red
Speaker 7: beard wearing a baseball cap who from then on earned
Speaker 7: the nickname Redbeard. There are all these like you mentioned,
Speaker 7: kind of.
Speaker 14: A million just like every fat guy with a red
Speaker 14: beard on the East Post has been identified as red Beard.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly. And it was like all these like kind
Speaker 7: of amateur online sleuths. I think Sean King was in
Speaker 7: the mix for this back in the day, you know,
Speaker 7: trying to idea this guy. No one can find him.
Speaker 7: A lot of people are fossily identified. The Charlottesville Police
Speaker 7: Department can't find him. A detective puts out like a
Speaker 7: call for help, but nothing comes in eventually. And where
Speaker 7: my book kicks off in this story is there's a
Speaker 7: group of anti fascist researchers called Ignite the Right that
Speaker 7: is dedicated to identifying every Nazi that turned up in
Speaker 7: Charlottesville in twenty seventeen. And they create a database of
Speaker 7: all these photos and videos and a list of all
Speaker 7: the people that have been identified, and the list of
Speaker 7: names that they are identifying keeps on growing and growing,
Speaker 7: and they're identifying some like really crazy names. Like one
Speaker 7: of the stories I ended up doing was about a
Speaker 7: police officer who was working as Richard Spencer's personal Donnelly
Speaker 7: John Donnelly security guard in Charlottesville. So they're doing a
Speaker 7: lot of really significant docs is like that, but they
Speaker 7: still can't find red Beard. Eventually, they decide to use
Speaker 7: facial recognition, which is interesting. You know, obviously I think
Speaker 7: anti fascists out of principle are opposed to facial recognition software.
Speaker 7: But I think, you know, you kind of can't show
Speaker 7: up to a gunfight with a knife kind of situation.
Speaker 14: What that's still I think is not enough in this case, right,
Speaker 14: because the commercially available facial recognition software that you know,
Speaker 14: the average non law enforcement person would have access to
Speaker 14: really struggles with round faces like his and big beards.
Speaker 14: So he's got a big beard and a hat and
Speaker 14: his face is very round, and so it's going to
Speaker 14: pull a lot of just sort of round faced redheads, yes.
Speaker 7: Exactly, and so like either, you know, there's it's a
Speaker 7: very important and anti fascist work. A facial recognition hit
Speaker 7: is never one hundred percent, you have to corroborate it.
Speaker 14: It's not enough.
Speaker 7: So they finally use facial recognition for Redbeard and they
Speaker 7: get a hit, and the hit is a baby faced,
Speaker 7: beardless like nineteen year old white dude in a army
Speaker 7: uniform at a at a base in Georgia, and he's
Speaker 7: about to shake the hand of President George W.
Speaker 8: Bush.
Speaker 7: And the reason he's photographed for this is because Bush
Speaker 7: is making a visit to this military base. I believe
Speaker 7: it's Fort Benning to announce his troop surge in Iraq.
Speaker 7: So a lot of these people are about to be
Speaker 7: sent off to his war.
Speaker 14: And then he brought the war home.
Speaker 7: And then he brought the war. Oh man, Yeah, brought
Speaker 7: the war home. And then so the anti fascist zoom
Speaker 7: in on this photo, but the name tag is Blory,
Speaker 7: so they can't figure out who Red Beard is yet.
Speaker 7: To make a long story short, I end up filing
Speaker 7: a public information request to the George W. Bush Library
Speaker 7: in Texas.
Speaker 14: Right, because they would have had to vet everyone who
Speaker 14: was there.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly, and if the president's yeah, and you know
Speaker 7: my angle on it is that I ask for higher
Speaker 7: resolution photos. We get the higher resolution photos and zoom
Speaker 7: in and sure enough, there is his last name, Hilman.
Speaker 7: Now all we have is the last name. So there's
Speaker 7: a lot more work to do. These anti fascists go
Speaker 7: through military yearbooks. They don't find anything. They go through
Speaker 7: so many social media accounts, until eventually, one day they
Speaker 7: see a Facebook account that belongs to a man named
Speaker 7: Jay Heilman.
Speaker 14: It's crazy he still had Facebook all these years later.
Speaker 7: Oh it's it's wild. And there are photos of him
Speaker 7: in the military being sent overseas somewhere. And then they
Speaker 7: take no notice of this one particular detail, which is
Speaker 7: that there is this meme he posts of fucking Tom
Speaker 7: Hardy from The Dark Knight and he's saying the fire rises, right,
Speaker 7: it's that meme of him saying the fire rises, which,
Speaker 7: of course, in like the Dark Knight is supposed to
Speaker 7: mean like all this like death and destruction is about
Speaker 7: to commence, Like it's a phrase you hear in fascist
Speaker 7: circle sometimes kind of us like a half joke. But
Speaker 7: what was interesting about the meme wasn't so much the
Speaker 7: meme itself, but where and when Facebook said it was posted.
Speaker 14: He left the location deatha on it.
Speaker 7: He left the location on it, which was Charlottesville, Virginia,
Speaker 7: August twelfth, twenty seventeen. So that is how they unlock
Speaker 7: the identity of Red Beard. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 7: more to the story in the book, and I think
Speaker 7: I will be identifying Red Beard in a news story
Speaker 7: somewhere soon, so look out for that.
Speaker 14: I love to hear it. Make Joe Platania answer for
Speaker 14: his refusal to prosecutes.
Speaker 7: Yes, yea.
Speaker 14: And it's not enough to say the victim doesn't want
Speaker 14: to cooperate, because you don't need victim cooperation to prosecute
Speaker 14: malicious wounding in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Speaker 8: Sorry, Joe, you heard it here first.
Speaker 14: I was hooting and hollering when I got to that
Speaker 14: part of the book. I can't believe it because I
Speaker 14: had heard he had heard through the grape vine that
Speaker 14: the prosecutor was aware of his identity and had chosen
Speaker 14: not to prosecute. But I didn't know his identity. So
Speaker 14: what a thrill?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was a real journey. My ex at the
Speaker 7: time joked that there was a third person in our
Speaker 7: relationship and that person was red Beard, because I was
Speaker 7: so obsessed with trying to find him.
Speaker 14: I mean, truly, truly a white whale. Yeah, in I
Speaker 14: guess several senses of the word.
Speaker 7: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 14: But like I said, I promised I wouldn't take up
Speaker 14: a ton of your time. I'm just so excited about
Speaker 14: this book, about this story. It's not just for your
Speaker 14: dad who doesn't know what antiva is. Yes, I thought
Speaker 14: it was thrilling. I learned a lot about some guys
Speaker 14: I've been thinking about for years.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, that means the world to me, MOLLI thank you.
Speaker 7: And you also have been such an important voice in
Speaker 7: these spaces in helping me out over the year, so
Speaker 7: I appreciate it.
Speaker 14: I'm so thrilled. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 14: People can pre order the book to Catch a Fascist
Speaker 14: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right by Christopher Matthias.
Speaker 14: You can pre order it now from Simon and Schuster
Speaker 14: and it comes out February third. Wherever you buy your books,
Speaker 14: don't buy it at Amazon. I'm going to make sure
Speaker 14: my local anarchist bookstore has put it in order for it.
Speaker 14: You should all do the same. What else do you
Speaker 14: want to plug? Where can people find you online?
Speaker 7: Yeah? So I'm freelancing these days for different places. Guardian
Speaker 7: MS now the Nation Slate, so look out for me there,
Speaker 7: but you can mostly just find me on Let's Go
Speaker 7: Matthias on Blue Sky, and I'm still on the Nazi site,
Speaker 7: but don't really post there anymore.
Speaker 14: At Let's Go Matthias as well wonderful and like I said,
Speaker 14: make sure you pre order that book.
Speaker 15: It is a fun read.
Speaker 14: Buy a copy for your dad who's scared of Antifa.
Speaker 7: Yes, please, thank thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 13: This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 13: news cast covering what's happening in the White House, the
Speaker 13: crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 13: Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans.
Speaker 13: This episode, we're covering the week of January twenty first
Speaker 13: to January twenty eighth. Massive snowstorm across most of the country,
Speaker 13: at least the real parts of the country, which is
Speaker 13: the East coast in the south. Now, and wow, there
Speaker 13: is a lot of snow. It makes me feel kind
Speaker 13: of like a penguin just walking off to the mountains
Speaker 13: by myself, weathering the weather. Finally, I feel akin to
Speaker 13: the President, who is now so a suicidal penguin.
Speaker 9: At the wrong end of the globe.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, well, you know, as soon as they start the remigration,
Speaker 13: they're going to be deporting penguins Stuffland Greenland. Yeah, it's
Speaker 13: held in a military detention camp off of Greenland. Now
Speaker 13: that we might own a tiny bit of our military base.
Speaker 13: Still very unclear what the details of that Greenland deal are.
Speaker 2: No, he just wanted to be able to say he
Speaker 2: made a deal. And I don't know if it's going
Speaker 2: to be any different than the status quo was before.
Speaker 2: But he'll claim victory and so will his supporters, and we'll.
Speaker 8: All move on as we kind of already have.
Speaker 2: Yep, there's too much other bullshit going on.
Speaker 9: That is the motto for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 13: Some of that bullshit is the third immigration enforcement related
Speaker 13: shooting in Minneapolis in just three weeks, James, do you want.
Speaker 8: To start with that?
Speaker 9: So, yeah, I was in Minneapolis. I was actually just
Speaker 9: in Minneapolis Airport when this happened. On Saturday of this week,
Speaker 9: Alex Pretty was shot by two CBP agents in Minneapolis
Speaker 9: while he was filming an immigration raid in which ICE
Speaker 9: agents attempted to pursue someone into a donut shop that
Speaker 9: seemed to have locked the doors. Pretty seemed to be
Speaker 9: trying to assist a woman who had been pushed to
Speaker 9: the ground by agents when the agents grabbed him, maceed him,
Speaker 9: beat him, disarmed him, and then shot him several times.
Speaker 9: Pretty he was thirty seven. It was a Veterans Affairs
Speaker 9: icy Unice and when this confrontation with immigration agents began,
Speaker 9: he was legally carrying a sig P three twenty handgun
Speaker 9: concealed inside his waistband. I can go on and summarize
Speaker 9: the video for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's obviously
Speaker 9: quite distressing, so you know, if you're gonna watch it,
Speaker 9: just know that you're going to see someone die. Video
Speaker 9: shows several agents beating Pretty. This one grabs a handgun
Speaker 9: from his inside waistband holster. Very quickly after this, ten
Speaker 9: shots are fired by at least two agents. Can here
Speaker 9: at one point an agent shouting gun, gun, He's got
Speaker 9: a gun. Yeah, And then in the aftermath, another video
Speaker 9: shows agents asking where is the gun, So it doesn't
Speaker 9: appear that the agent who cleared Pretty's gun informed the
Speaker 9: other agents that that had.
Speaker 13: Happened, though the agent that first fired at Pretty was
Speaker 13: standing right behind the agent that disarmed him and is
Speaker 13: literally like looking down at where the gun is being
Speaker 13: removed as he then seconds later starts shooting yeah. Preddy
Speaker 13: falls to the ground, then more agents fire on his
Speaker 13: body as it lays flat on the ground.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: The CBP initial use of force review, which was sent
Speaker 9: to Congress today suggested that on Wednesday, Yeah, this is Wednesday,
Speaker 9: the twenty eighth, two agents fired. So we know at
Speaker 9: least two agents fired right where it's not entirely clear.
Speaker 9: I don't think if all of these were CBP agents,
Speaker 9: but at least one one of the agents who fired
Speaker 9: shots was an eight year CBP veteran. Then a range
Speaker 9: safety officer, Greg Bovino has declined to identify them because
Speaker 9: he said that.
Speaker 8: Would be doxing. That's not what that word usually means.
Speaker 9: No, DHS has claimed that Pretty had two extra magazines
Speaker 9: on his person, but I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 9: What they provided was a photograph of a sig P
Speaker 9: three twenty with a red dot site and a slide lock,
Speaker 9: backed clearly on the front seat of a vehicle with
Speaker 9: two charge courts next to it.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 9: That's that's not normally how evidence is treated in a crime.
Speaker 9: That is an unusual way to go about that. But
Speaker 9: in mild the DHS Secretary Christie Nome has told reporters
Speaker 9: that Pretty attacked and impeded law enforcement and was brandishing
Speaker 9: his weapon. Videos don't show that the only time that
Speaker 9: you see his weapon is when it is removed by
Speaker 9: the agent who takes it out of this waistband.
Speaker 13: Pretty appears to be holding his black cell phone for
Speaker 13: the entirety of this interaction.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it's very clear that it's a cell phone,
Speaker 9: right CBP agents us inches obviously from the phone in
Speaker 9: his face. Yeah, there is no reasonable claim.
Speaker 2: Now, as a rule, throughout the interaction, there was never
Speaker 2: any confusion that would have led them to believe he
Speaker 2: had a gun in his hand or to be unaware
Speaker 2: that he had been disarmed. Yeah, there's no argument for that.
Speaker 9: You can't make a case for that reasonably. People will
Speaker 9: do unreasonably.
Speaker 8: I don't care.
Speaker 9: The allegation that he attacked members repeated by FBI Director
Speaker 9: Cash Patel in the interview he gave to Fox News.
Speaker 9: I'm going to give a little video of Nomes claim.
Speaker 19: This individual impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them.
Speaker 19: State the facts as they unfolded on the street today.
Speaker 19: We were doing a targeted operation against an illegal criminal,
Speaker 19: and this individual came with a weapon and dozens of
Speaker 19: rounds of ammunition and attacked them, And these agents took
Speaker 19: action to defend their lives and to defend the lives
Speaker 19: of the people around them, and it acted according to
Speaker 19: their training.
Speaker 9: CBP Commander at Large potentially no longer Commander at Large,
Speaker 9: Gregory Bavino, claimed that Pretty had assaulted federal agents, and
Speaker 9: throughout a press conference at Baveno, Gave referred to Pretty
Speaker 9: as a suspect and the people who killed him as victims.
Speaker 9: Vino also claimed that Pretty planned to quote, massacre law enforcement.
Speaker 11: Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk
Speaker 11: into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic
Speaker 11: and stand in the middle of the road and then assault,
Speaker 11: delay and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for
Speaker 11: a reason? Did he fall victim to that violent and
Speaker 11: heated rhetoric by a mayor Fry, a governor Waltz. Look, Dan,
Speaker 11: they're trying to portray Board of all agents and ICE
Speaker 11: agents as Gestapo, Nazi and many other words. Did this
Speaker 11: individual fall victim as many others have Okay, that one
Speaker 11: type of heated rhetoric.
Speaker 15: I want to stay focused on this incident right now,
Speaker 15: because what you were saying is that he went there
Speaker 15: to try to stop this law enforcement operation. All of
Speaker 15: the video that we have seen shows him documenting it
Speaker 15: with his cell phone, which is a lawful thing to do.
Speaker 15: And the only time he seemed to interact with law
Speaker 15: enforcement is when they went after him, when he was
Speaker 15: trying to help an individual who law enforcement pushed down.
Speaker 15: So where do you have the evidence to show that
Speaker 15: he was trying to impede that law enforcement operation.
Speaker 11: Sure, Dana, First, he was there in the scene. He
Speaker 11: was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforcement
Speaker 11: to the place that's not illegal.
Speaker 15: He wasn't impeding it. He was filming it, which is
Speaker 15: a legal thing to do in the United States.
Speaker 11: And Dana, let's don't freeze frame adjudicate this now. He
Speaker 11: was there for a reason, and that reason was to
Speaker 11: impede law enforcement too. And here, and here's a good point, Dana,
Speaker 11: is the fact that de escalation techniques were utilized during
Speaker 11: this action. Those de escalation techniques, whether it was physically
Speaker 11: trying to remove them from that law enforcement scene, that
Speaker 11: active law enforcement scene in which law enforcement.
Speaker 9: I wanted to include little bit more there because I
Speaker 9: feel like that's one of the few times we've seen
Speaker 9: him not just able.
Speaker 2: To deliver his right where someone's pushed a little Yeah.
Speaker 9: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 12: Well, and there's a thing in the video that I
Speaker 12: think is really effective where you know, you can hear
Speaker 12: him lying about the video, and then the video is
Speaker 12: playing next to it and you can just see what
Speaker 12: is happening, and then he's just saying shit, Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 9: Good piece of television news.
Speaker 8: Gost.
Speaker 9: That's another worst piece I've seen him saying they used
Speaker 9: the escalation techniques as you watch, half a dozen guys
Speaker 9: makes him in the face and then beat him.
Speaker 8: Yeah it is.
Speaker 9: I mean, there's this line I think a lot about
Speaker 9: Chapter seven of nineteen eighty four, which was the party
Speaker 9: told you not to believe your eyes, and is it
Speaker 9: was their final most important command. I mean, I don't
Speaker 9: If this ain't that, then I don't know what is.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean yeah, they don't even try to convincingly
Speaker 13: lie at this point.
Speaker 2: Like they just keep to the narrative that has been
Speaker 2: set at the top.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well not even in this case at the top. It
Speaker 2: was kind of set at like the upper middle ycause
Speaker 2: the top has been backing off from this narrative at
Speaker 2: least a little bit.
Speaker 13: We'll get to the kind of back and forth in
Speaker 13: a sack. But I mean, it's very clear from this
Speaker 13: that they just consider blowing a whistle to be impeded,
Speaker 13: like that's that's all the justification that they need. Stay
Speaker 13: consider his presence there as long as you are physically
Speaker 13: presence there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything you do that they don't like is assaulting
Speaker 2: an officer at this point.
Speaker 13: Yes, it's kind of a minor point. But also his
Speaker 13: pronunciation of gestapo.
Speaker 9: Stopo, he does that every time.
Speaker 8: It's like, dude, we can we know, we know.
Speaker 13: Yeah, he's like, he's wearing that coat, he's wearing the
Speaker 13: fit come on and yeah, no, it's it's pretty insane.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the articles that are like, no, he's just
Speaker 2: wearing a traditional old style military coat. It's not stuff foker.
Speaker 8: Guys.
Speaker 9: Come on, man, I've seen a lot of Border Patrol agents, guys.
Speaker 9: No one else wears that coat. He picked that coat
Speaker 9: because of how it looks. Ye, to my knowledge, that's
Speaker 9: not a uniform piece for the Border Patrol.
Speaker 2: No, and he's never been in the military. Yeah you
Speaker 2: know what he is and is a secret police unit anyway.
Speaker 9: Sorry, Yeah, no, I think it's a good it's worth
Speaker 9: being that one. I want to talk about this ACLU lawsuit, right,
Speaker 9: So in sworn testimonies, which are part of this ongoing lawsuit.
Speaker 9: Multiple witnesses said Pretty did not brandish or draw his
Speaker 9: handgun quote. I have read the statement from DHS about
Speaker 9: what happened, and it is wrong. The man did not
Speaker 9: approach the agents with a gun. He approached him with
Speaker 9: a camera. He was just trying to help a woman
Speaker 9: get up, and they took him to the ground.
Speaker 8: One set.
Speaker 9: Another witness, a doctor was prevented from performing CPR are
Speaker 9: quote none of the ICE agents who were near the
Speaker 9: victim were performing CPR, they said. Agents demanded the physician's license,
Speaker 9: which evidently they did not have.
Speaker 13: Right.
Speaker 9: They just ran out of their house in their pajamas.
Speaker 9: Their testimony continues, quote, I could tell the victim was
Speaker 9: in critical condition. I insisted the ICE agents let me
Speaker 9: assess him. Did They appeared to be operating on the
Speaker 9: assumption that these people ICE, some of them were CBP.
Speaker 8: I should just say that.
Speaker 9: They also noted that agents quote appeared to be counting
Speaker 9: his bullet wounds. Yeah, Jesus, and there is video that
Speaker 9: shows him doing bizarre things to his remains that are
Speaker 9: not within the remit of trauma care or first to aid.
Speaker 9: In my experience in training, which is pretty significant when
Speaker 9: it comes to like this exact scenario.
Speaker 13: The documents that released today said that they placed the
Speaker 13: chess seals on him.
Speaker 9: They were placing chess seals on him. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 9: might explain. It looks like that're sort of pulling up
Speaker 9: on his shirt.
Speaker 13: I mean, this whole again, this whole incident is very
Speaker 13: very clearly documented with video multiple angles. After the shooting,
Speaker 13: an agent is like on top of his body, screaming
Speaker 13: for scissors to cut off his clothing. Yeah, and then
Speaker 13: later they placed chess seals. According to that document that
Speaker 13: was released to Congress. Yeah, we have not to carry
Speaker 13: scissors in your first day kit when you were in outraualmushes.
Speaker 13: But mine quimal, I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean these guys don't know what they were doing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the thing, right.
Speaker 9: Bavina also noted in his press conference that the agents
Speaker 9: were still at work, but they had been redeployed for
Speaker 9: their safety. Outside of the Twin Cities. Following the shooting,
Speaker 9: a vigil was held and there were protests, including some
Speaker 9: armed presents. In the protests, Minneapolis Police Department attempted to
Speaker 9: hold the space both to keep the vigil away, and
Speaker 9: the earlier that day they had refused to leave when
Speaker 9: told to do so by federal police. Later that night,
Speaker 9: they deployed extensive lefleithor munitions to clear the vigil.
Speaker 13: Let's go on ad break and then return to discuss
Speaker 13: the back. In fourth characterization of the shooting from Trump's cabinet,
Speaker 13: we are back. The day after the shooting, Cash Pattel
Speaker 13: went on Fox News to say that it is against
Speaker 13: the law to bring a firearm to a protest.
Speaker 8: Nope, here's a clip.
Speaker 20: I guess Christy said. You cannot bring a firearm loaded
Speaker 20: with multiple magazines to any sort of protests that you want.
Speaker 20: It's that simple. You don't have that right to break
Speaker 20: the law and incite violent That's wrong.
Speaker 13: In Minnesota, it is not against the law for permit
Speaker 13: holders to carry a firearm well attending a protest. And
Speaker 13: it's arguable whether what pretty was doing is even a
Speaker 13: quote unquote attending a protest. These sorts of spontaneous mobilizations
Speaker 13: against ice are not like a formalized we are protesting
Speaker 13: in this location at this point, to protest rally its
Speaker 13: community mobilizations. The term of protest is going to be
Speaker 13: applied a little bit loosely.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 13: The DJST statement three hours after the shooting made this claim, quote,
Speaker 13: this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to
Speaker 13: do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement unquote. This is
Speaker 13: the phrase that Bavino said verbato at the press conference
Speaker 13: on Saturday following the shooting. Mm HM Miller said something
Speaker 13: similar on Twitter as he was tweeting at Democrat politicians. Quote,
Speaker 13: it would be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement
Speaker 13: and a domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.
Speaker 13: Christy Nome also had a press conference the day of
Speaker 13: the shooting where she said, quote, when you perpetuate violence
Speaker 13: against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons
Speaker 13: to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of
Speaker 13: domestic terrorism. This individual, who came with weapons and ammunition
Speaker 13: to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement
Speaker 13: officers committed an act of domestic terrorism unquote. But by Monday,
Speaker 13: the White House began softly backtracking previous detests claims about
Speaker 13: the shooting. Press Secretary Carolyn Levit so that she has
Speaker 13: not heard President Trump characterized pretty as a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 13: That same day, Fox and Friends asked DOJ attorney Todd
Speaker 13: Blanche about whether Preddy committed domestic terrorism, and he replied
Speaker 13: like this.
Speaker 21: With all your respects, ser my question is more pointed,
Speaker 21: do you believe your colleagues may have gone farther? You
Speaker 21: are an attorney at DOJ. Eighteen US Code twenty three
Speaker 21: thirty one. It has a legal definition of domestic terrorism,
Speaker 21: and it doesn't appear to most of the country that
Speaker 21: have watched the available video. And we'll see if there's
Speaker 21: bodycam video. I'd love to know if that's going to
Speaker 21: come out, if there was such a thing, But it
Speaker 21: does not appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorists.
Speaker 21: And so I'm just sort of wondering how you in
Speaker 21: the DOJ are viewing whether your colleagues may have gone
Speaker 21: too far.
Speaker 22: Look, don't I don't think anybody thinks that they were
Speaker 22: comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of
Speaker 22: domestic terrorism. What we saw was a very violent altercation,
Speaker 22: and I am not going to prejudge the facts. You're right,
Speaker 22: there's a bunch of video that's out there.
Speaker 8: There's a bunch of video that we haven't seen yet.
Speaker 22: In the minutes leading up to what happened and in
Speaker 22: what happened afterwards. And you're right to the extent there's
Speaker 22: bodycam or other videos that witnesses are still providing to us.
Speaker 22: So I'm not describing it as anything except for a tragedy.
Speaker 8: That's pretty pretty wild.
Speaker 13: Two days after, Christina tried to literally give a definition
Speaker 13: of domestic terrorism at a press conference and then dooj
Speaker 13: Attorney's just claiming, no, it's not the real legal definition
Speaker 13: of domestic terrorism. Yeah, this word is just a rhetorical
Speaker 13: tool for the administration to deploy at well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just we're using it because we killed a
Speaker 2: guy and we wanted to shut down discussion.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 9: And when we didn't stick the landing because there were
Speaker 9: multiple angles on video, now we got to find something else.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And we just did this, Like how many weeks
Speaker 8: ago was the no?
Speaker 13: I mean, this whole incident shows how vital documenting interactions
Speaker 13: like this can be, and how much public opinion is
Speaker 13: something that is not just fully fully dictated by administration statements,
Speaker 13: like they tried to deploy a narrative which, after enough
Speaker 13: circulated documented footage contradicted public opinion of this incident. Formed
Speaker 13: in pretty strong opposition to the administration's claims.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Yeah, this has penetrated into a lot of places that are,
Speaker 12: under ordinary circumstances, either extremely apolitical or very conservative.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 12: I am trying to remember, honestly, the last event that
Speaker 12: I saw between this and twenty twenty and the George
Speaker 12: Floyd uprising that had this kind of penetration into mainstream,
Speaker 12: non political society. I remember one of the biggest things
Speaker 12: that I saw was this moment of, oh, actually, this
Speaker 12: specific shooting has gone to a point where it's reaching
Speaker 12: people who normally would never hear about this stuff. Was
Speaker 12: There's an NFL commentary named Kurt Warner who used to
Speaker 12: be very famous quarterback. The only thing he ever talks
Speaker 12: about is quarterback play in football. This is the only
Speaker 12: thing he ever does. I'm not one hundred percent sure
Speaker 12: about this, but when I look back, I couldn't find
Speaker 12: him saying anything about George Floyd. And Kurt Warner came
Speaker 12: out and gave a statement about how this shooting was
Speaker 12: a horror and that the administration was lying about it,
Speaker 12: and you saw this sort of rattling through again very
Speaker 12: very conservative sports circles, which again this NFL's circle, specifically
Speaker 12: where this kind of stuff never really penetrates this weekends.
Speaker 12: You know, as as this sort of murder was happening,
Speaker 12: the NFC and AFC championship games were going on in
Speaker 12: the sort of immediate wake of this. And these are
Speaker 12: for people who don't follow football at all. These are
Speaker 12: after the super Bowl. These are this is the semifinals.
Speaker 12: The winner of these two games goes to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 12: These are the second most important games of the entire
Speaker 12: NFL season. And fans at both of these games booed
Speaker 12: the national anthem, a thing I have never heard of before.
Speaker 8: This is a football game. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 12: Yeah, right, like the beginning of most football games, there's
Speaker 12: a bunch of troops holding the flag and people. They
Speaker 12: didn't do this in twenty twenty. They were booing the
Speaker 12: national anthem. So one of these games was being played
Speaker 12: in Denver and the other one was being played in Seattle.
Speaker 12: And in the game in Seattle, the Fox broadcast kept
Speaker 12: cutting out the national anthem because people kept chanting fuck Ice.
Speaker 12: So they would just literally be cutting the audio anytime
Speaker 12: that happened. And this just kept happening to the entire
Speaker 12: course of this I have never seen anything like this
Speaker 12: breakthrough into sports like this. It's it's been breaking into
Speaker 12: there's a whole bunch of stories about just random groups
Speaker 12: on a reddit where it's breaking through into where you're
Speaker 12: getting statements from like, oh god, I wish I remember
Speaker 12: who on bluse guys saw this from, but the person
Speaker 12: who runs the subreddit where that's like playing your cat's
Speaker 12: but like bongo drums.
Speaker 8: About this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad they finally spoke up. Honestly, you know,
Speaker 2: we've all.
Speaker 9: Been waiting, but like I saw this in spaces where
Speaker 9: we're like like climbing forums or climbing subreddits.
Speaker 2: Like no, because they just shot a nurse in the head.
Speaker 12: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the second time they
Speaker 12: did it. And the thing to me that I think
Speaker 12: is really significant about this happening at NFL games. Right,
Speaker 12: one of the two teams that was playing in the
Speaker 12: game in Denver is the New England Patriots. Right, the
Speaker 12: New England Patriots are famously very very close to Trump
Speaker 12: as an organization, their owner is very close to Trump.
Speaker 12: So I had remembered a story from last year about
Speaker 12: so the Patriots have a jet that is the Patriots
Speaker 12: Jet that they fly all their players around in that
Speaker 12: is has giant letters the Patriots on it. Yeah, that
Speaker 12: is technically run through a charter company. But you know,
Speaker 12: I remember last year there's a story about how their
Speaker 12: jet was doing flights to Guantanamo Bay.
Speaker 2: Sure that makes sense for the Patriots yet yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right.
Speaker 12: This is the kind of organizations that we're dealing with here, right.
Speaker 12: And while I was looking into the story about the
Speaker 12: Patriots jet being used to do things to move apparently
Speaker 12: not detainees to but apparently just military people and supplies,
Speaker 12: which they do a lot, I found a completely unrelated
Speaker 12: story about a different Patriots jet in during the Biden
Speaker 12: administration doing deportation flights to Honduras. And this isn't considered
Speaker 12: an ideological thing. Oh that's just funny, Like this is
Speaker 12: the kind of conservatism you're dealing Yeah, you know, And
Speaker 12: I mean this is technically it's the contractors you're doing this,
Speaker 12: but you know, it's it's the plan with the Patriots
Speaker 12: logo on it. And they were doing deportation flights under
Speaker 12: Biden like four years three or four years ago. And
Speaker 12: now people are booing the national anthem enchanting fuck Ice
Speaker 12: a lot of the stuff that we've talked about and
Speaker 12: we're going to talk about about the way the Trump
Speaker 12: administration has been backing off of this is because they
Speaker 12: have been forced to watch the entire country go, holy shit,
Speaker 12: you just murdered this guy and then lied about it.
Speaker 12: You just executed him in the street, yeah, and light
Speaker 12: about it.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 12: I think the lying and you can just see them.
Speaker 12: And this is also the second time they've done this
Speaker 12: in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 13: Like, the lying thing is, like, I think for a
Speaker 13: lot of people, that's the really insulting thing. It's obviously
Speaker 13: a tragedy to have someone be killed by federal law
Speaker 13: enforcement like this. Yeah, but it's just the blatantness of
Speaker 13: the lying, I think is what really activated people here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is for years they've skirted by on
Speaker 2: the situations like the written house thing where you can
Speaker 2: kind of see what happens, But depending on what you
Speaker 2: bring into it ideologically, that can look like two different things, right,
Speaker 2: depending on where whether you think those protesters areangerous or
Speaker 2: not or whatever like that. That's a video that like
Speaker 2: everyone saw the same video and took something different out
Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, that's not the case with this video,
Speaker 2: or really with the Renee Good video for most people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's really jarring for them, most people who were
Speaker 2: not political, because that's what we're talking about is like
Speaker 2: the sheer number of people who do not normally wait
Speaker 2: into this stuff were making a comment. They would see
Speaker 2: one of these videos that is much more like if
Speaker 2: you're just kind of coming in and watching it, it's
Speaker 2: kind of unclear what's happening, and they would go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's another big com I'm just not going to get
Speaker 2: involved with it. People are arguing about what this is.
Speaker 2: Let them argue, I'm going to go on with my life.
Speaker 2: This is very clear what's happening, very clear that they're lying,
Speaker 2: and it's just upsetting. It's deeply upsetting to even people
Speaker 2: who don't normally think about this shit.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and I think part of that too is also
Speaker 12: you know, there were a lot of people who didn't
Speaker 12: get involved with the Renee Good shooting because you know,
Speaker 12: even then, people were still like, oh, well, maybe it's complicated.
Speaker 12: But once you've seen the second shooting in two weeks
Speaker 12: where the line from the administration and he's exactly the same,
Speaker 12: and you have video images again, Yeah, that's how you
Speaker 12: get someone like Kurt Warror, who was a faith family
Speaker 12: football guy. He's very open about being a Christian, is
Speaker 12: very open about he doesn't talk about politics, but he's
Speaker 12: very obviously conservative in a way that he doesn't think
Speaker 12: is political. And he looks at this and goes, holy shit,
Speaker 12: they murdered this guy and the government's lying about it.
Speaker 12: And that's a kind of breakthrough moment in all of this.
Speaker 9: I've seen a lot of stuff from like folks in
Speaker 9: the gun community, like who you wouldn't normally expect to
Speaker 9: be critical of the Trump administration being critical. Yeah, because
Speaker 9: the Trump administration has come out with just like insane
Speaker 9: they're repeating like anti Second Amendment talking points.
Speaker 8: Yep.
Speaker 9: I also saw his name is Tony Thomas, but he
Speaker 9: was previously the commander of Special Operations Command. Right has
Speaker 9: been sharing and unfortunately AI quote unquote enhanced photo of
Speaker 9: the shooting.
Speaker 17: God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I need to talk a little bit about there,
Speaker 2: but please continue.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's it's remarkable that you've got someone whose job
Speaker 9: has been killing people for the United States government, right,
Speaker 9: who've like retired to a role in investment banking. It
Speaker 9: doesn't normally make statements in public about immigration policy. But like, again,
Speaker 9: this one is kind of broken containment, right, Like they
Speaker 9: saw the police shoot a man in the back multiple
Speaker 9: times in broad daylight from multiple angles, and yeah, this
Speaker 9: one's been really hard for them, just been.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 12: One of the things that you know, when you talk
Speaker 12: about sort of Reddit as a site of this, right,
Speaker 12: one of the things on the front page A readit
Speaker 12: for a while that day was just a thing from
Speaker 12: like r slash picks where it's a picture of a
Speaker 12: frame in this shooting and then it's a picture of
Speaker 12: a Nazi officer with a gun to the back of
Speaker 12: the head of a prisoner they're about to shoot, and
Speaker 12: it's almost identical frame for frame, And that's the kind
Speaker 12: of thing that's just going around on like the front
Speaker 12: page of Reddit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, part of what I think is happening here is
Speaker 2: they got very convinced that their ability to kind of
Speaker 2: just brute force their own reality over what actually happened,
Speaker 2: and maybe they gambled too hard.
Speaker 13: Yeah, So much of this story is like the ultimate
Speaker 13: conservative nightmare of the government physically disarming you than executing you.
Speaker 13: And that sequence of events is I think also in
Speaker 13: part what has created this pretty consistent turnarway from the
Speaker 13: Trump administrations and the dhs' is like initial statement on
Speaker 13: what happened here, which the administrations themselves have started to
Speaker 13: roll back on after the public rejected this claim that
Speaker 13: they kept making, on him being like a terrorist, him
Speaker 13: intending to massacre law enforcement, all these things that they
Speaker 13: have no way to actually prove. On Tuesday, Stephen Miller
Speaker 13: told CNN that they are quote evaluating why the CBP
Speaker 13: team may not have been following White House approved protocol
Speaker 13: and that the initial statement from DHS following the shooting
Speaker 13: was quote based on reports from CBP on the ground quote.
Speaker 13: On Wednesday, the DHS Spokespersonent Tritich McLoughlin repeated this claim
Speaker 13: on Fox Business.
Speaker 19: Secretary Nome accused Alex Prette for being a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 8: Is the administration standing by that language?
Speaker 23: So initial statements were made after reports from CBP on
Speaker 23: the ground that was a very chaotic scene. We know
Speaker 23: that our ice law enforcement are facing rampant violence against them,
Speaker 23: a highly coordinated campaign. So that is why this investigation
Speaker 23: is so important so we can get accurate facts to
Speaker 23: the American people.
Speaker 13: Trump has denied that Preddi was acting as an assassin
Speaker 13: and has called the shooting a quote unquote very unfortunate incident,
Speaker 13: but he has continued to say that Preddy should not
Speaker 13: have been carrying a gun. Quote, you can't have guns.
Speaker 13: You can't walk in with guns, you just can't unquote.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has been pretty impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I'll say that, like generally right, like, especially organized gun
Speaker 9: owner groups in the United States tend to align very
Speaker 9: heavily with conservative politics. They have been like reinforcing that
Speaker 9: what pretty was doing was in no where legal, It
Speaker 9: should no way need to be being killed.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 13: As of Wednesday, we do know now that the Border
Speaker 13: Patrol agents involved in the killing of Alex Preddy have
Speaker 13: been placed on administrative leave. Around January twenty sixth, Trump
Speaker 13: struck some kind of deal with local officials, namely Mayor
Speaker 13: Frey and Governor Tim Walls. Local officials have said that
Speaker 13: quote unquote some federal agents would begin leaving Minnesota. Bonvino
Speaker 13: is expected to return to California, with The Atlantic reporting
Speaker 13: that he's been stripped of his quote unquote Commander at
Speaker 13: Large title and has been locked out of government social
Speaker 13: media accounts. Tom Homan has arrived in Minneapolis to take
Speaker 13: over Immigration enforcement operations and local Minnesota law enforcement have
Speaker 13: ramped up their policing of protests, especially outside of hotels
Speaker 13: where ICE and Border Patrol agents have been staying.
Speaker 12: And it's important to note as as you're seeing a
Speaker 12: lot of stories about sort of ICE pulling out of Minneapolis,
Speaker 12: and you know, an administration rolled back because of the
Speaker 12: sort of Bovino movement. Everyone that I have talked to
Speaker 12: in Minneapolis, and this is a fairly large number of people,
Speaker 12: have all told me that everything on the ground remains
Speaker 12: the same. The raids are continuing, and they want to
Speaker 12: make sure that everyone understands that the raids are continuing
Speaker 12: and that the same kinds of things that ICE in
Speaker 12: the Border Patrol have been doing up until this point
Speaker 12: are continuing to happen under I guess quote unquote new management.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think they may have withdrawn some Border Patrol agents, right,
Speaker 9: but the bulk of the people they deployed were actually
Speaker 9: ICE agents. They to my knowledge, have not been withdrawn home.
Speaker 9: And is not exactly a like a liberal figure when
Speaker 9: it comes to deportation. To build it mildly, it might
Speaker 9: be like a change in the outward appearance that the
Speaker 9: practice of what's going on that has not changed.
Speaker 13: Do we want to just have any kind of final
Speaker 13: discussion on that AI enhanced image that's been circulating.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: There's an AI enhanced image, and this is when I
Speaker 2: posted this. I've seen people comment that like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: more disinformation from the fascist. This is the opposite of that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: someone AI enhanced a still frame from the video because
Speaker 2: there's a question as to whether or not when one
Speaker 2: of the ICE agents disarmed Preddy, did he actit negligently
Speaker 2: discharge his firearm into the ground, and did that maybe
Speaker 2: spook them and cause the remaining chain of events. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's clear. And the video is not super
Speaker 2: clear as to whether or not the gun is firing.
Speaker 2: It's kind of grainy.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we don't know that yet.
Speaker 2: So and like the new AI enhanced version, you literally
Speaker 2: see like a tongue of fire coming out of the
Speaker 2: barrel of the gun and then a full round of
Speaker 2: five to five six seems to be exiting.
Speaker 8: We like with the casing. Just make shit up.
Speaker 2: It looks like it has the casing. It looks not
Speaker 2: like a firing gun looks And the text on this
Speaker 2: is this is from the AI info Twitter account. An
Speaker 2: enhanced video of a man who disarmed Alex Preddy shows
Speaker 2: the show's gun allegedly misfiring his ice agent with it,
Speaker 2: which has also been said to have spooked other agents
Speaker 2: into firing. AI video also enhances the visuals of the bullets.
Speaker 2: It would be clearly visible to the human eye.
Speaker 8: It was like, I didn't hit shit, you had to
Speaker 8: fight you. You had the digital quivalent of a five
Speaker 8: year old scribbling on it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know, Maybe I guess this
Speaker 2: could be them trying to be like, oh, it wasn't
Speaker 2: the federal agent's fault. It's those damn sig P three
Speaker 2: twenties that spooked everybody.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's it's like number one.
Speaker 2: AI can't enhance, Yeah things, Nothing can enhance a photo
Speaker 2: that's not a thing that's real. You can't just like
Speaker 2: add details to a photo that weren't in in a
Speaker 2: way that's different from just photos shopping them in. And
Speaker 2: that's what AI did. Someone said, add visuals of a bullet,
Speaker 2: and they did, and it's bad. It looks like a
Speaker 2: fucking sparkler is stuck in the end of a handgun.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just shit like this that's just going
Speaker 2: to be everything, Like every clash, every murder, every controversial
Speaker 2: thing that happens, there's immediately going to be a bunch
Speaker 2: of different AI slot videos and analysis. What scares me
Speaker 2: most or not even scares me. What I think is
Speaker 2: the biggest problem isn't even just the straight up disinfo videos.
Speaker 2: It's the stuff where people are claiming, look, I did
Speaker 2: some research using this AI, and it revealed this thing
Speaker 2: that isn't immediately visible to the naked eye, but this
Speaker 2: is clearly what really went on. Yeah, and how that's
Speaker 2: going to supercharge fucking conspiracy theories about stuff, and how
Speaker 2: the response when people are like, but the AI didn't
Speaker 2: enhance anything, will just be like you're not smarter than
Speaker 2: an AI, you don't know, Like that's that's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing where it's just got to be annoying. Like
Speaker 2: the truth ecosystem is already so damaged. I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 2: say that this is going to definitely make everything worse,
Speaker 2: but it's going to make everything more annoying.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I don't think I've seen this image that you
Speaker 13: were talking about, but I've seen a whole bunch of
Speaker 13: other like AI enhanced images of the shooting. It's specifically
Speaker 13: like the moment where where or like around the time
Speaker 13: that the agents are firing into the back of Pretty,
Speaker 13: And it's mostly like AI sharpened images, but taken to
Speaker 13: such an extreme extent that literally one of the heads
Speaker 13: of the border patrol agents is just missing.
Speaker 10: You know what.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call that enhanced, but I'd say it's an improvement.
Speaker 13: You have to like kind of like look for it
Speaker 13: because because of how much movement is in the night,
Speaker 13: of course, but I've seen I've seen this the AI
Speaker 13: hnts like like still from the Pink Jacket Lady, oh
Speaker 13: God of the shooting. I've seen this image spread all
Speaker 13: around by by people showing like how how like brutal
Speaker 13: this looks, and it you don't need to spread this
Speaker 13: AI sharpened version with the with the head missing, like
Speaker 13: there is like regular skills that maybe are a little
Speaker 13: bit more fuzzy, but they actually are are real. And
Speaker 13: you've seen a few other like AI altered images spreading
Speaker 13: around around this shooting. Specifically, there's been like AI altered
Speaker 13: images of Alex Pretty that like slightly changes his like
Speaker 13: facial proportions that have been used at some like memorials
Speaker 13: have been have been running on the internet, and that
Speaker 13: sort of stuff has been incredibly frustrating just to see
Speaker 13: the sort of proliferation of these of these AI images
Speaker 13: into like the news cycle.
Speaker 2: I shared the enhanced image that looks really bad. It's
Speaker 2: really bad.
Speaker 8: That's like, that's like, wow, I've not seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it's like a kidergartender. It's unreal.
Speaker 13: You don't need to do this like that. People that
Speaker 13: have seen the footage knows what happened. You don't need
Speaker 13: to spread these fake images like public opinion is already
Speaker 13: formed on this.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Well we'll go on ad break again, but I think
Speaker 13: to close this section, I'll play the short clip from
Speaker 13: the Minnesota timber Wolves game, which is which is a
Speaker 13: basketball game, I believe, Yeah, which they held a moment
Speaker 13: of silence for pretty and people chanted Towards the end,
Speaker 13: I'll shorten the moment of silence.
Speaker 8: For the audience, but you can take a listen.
Speaker 10: Here are the tragic laws of Alex Purty that occurred
Speaker 10: yesterday in Minneapolis. We extend our love, support and heartfields
Speaker 10: some of these two Alex's family friends in our community
Speaker 10: during this difficult time. Please join us in honoring the
Speaker 10: life and memory of Alex Pritty with a moment of silence.
Speaker 13: All right, we're back. After the shooting. On Saturday, Chuck
Speaker 13: Schumer said that Senate Democrats would not be advancing a
Speaker 13: House approved appropriations bill with the currently included DAHS funding
Speaker 13: Right now. The Senate is considering a six bill spending
Speaker 13: package that was narrowly approved by the House thanks to
Speaker 13: seven Democrats, and now Senadems are seeking to separate out
Speaker 13: the DHS bill and advance the five others. These six
Speaker 13: annual spending bills are set to expire on January thirty first.
Speaker 13: If at least some Democrats don't sign on to the
Speaker 13: bills by Friday, there will be a partial government shutdown
Speaker 13: on Wednesday. Schumer reiterated, quote until ICE is properly rained
Speaker 13: in and overhauled legislatively, the DHS funding bill doesn't have
Speaker 13: the votes to pass the Senate unquote. Possible immigration enforcement
Speaker 13: concessions that Democrats are pushing for include, but are not
Speaker 13: limited to, independent investigations into the recent shootings, mandating judicial
Speaker 13: warrants for immigration arrests, mandating body cams, requiring agent identification,
Speaker 13: no masks, no arrest quotas, no roving patrols and restricting
Speaker 13: border patrol agents to the US border.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so I want to address I've actually addressed the
Speaker 9: roving patrols before, and that the evidence standards for stops
Speaker 9: on those patrols. I'm not going to do that, but
Speaker 9: I do want to address this last one right with
Speaker 9: the quote unquote US border. So in the statute, border
Speaker 9: patrol is supposed to operate within a reasonable distance of
Speaker 9: the United States border, which they interpret to be a
Speaker 9: one hundred mile distance. Now, when you are thinking of border,
Speaker 9: you might be thinking of land borders, but remember this
Speaker 9: also includes ocean borders. They interpret the Great Lakes to
Speaker 9: be international waterways, and thus it begins one hundred miles
Speaker 9: from the shore of the Great Lakes. For context, That
Speaker 9: still doesn't get you into Minneapolis, right, You're looking at
Speaker 9: a bit further. One hundred and fifty miles was the
Speaker 9: shortest line I could draw on a map. People seem
Speaker 9: to be operating under the misapprehension that this includes airports
Speaker 9: and it does not. And I keep seeing this repeated online,
Speaker 9: and then people keep telling me the statue is actually
Speaker 9: very clear on what does and does not constitute a border,
Speaker 9: and it has talked about external borders and airports are
Speaker 9: not included in this. Border Patrol does not operate within
Speaker 9: one hundred mile radius of every international airport in the
Speaker 9: United States.
Speaker 13: Really unclear if Democrats will be able to get some
Speaker 13: of these things. Obviously, pushing for more training has its limits.
Speaker 13: The people involved in the shooting had years and years
Speaker 13: of training and gave the training. In some case, they
Speaker 13: were doing what they were trained to do. Yeah, but
Speaker 13: there's other stuff in here, like like mandating body cams,
Speaker 13: which though Border Patrol currently has body cams. ICE in
Speaker 13: Border Patrol they have body cams, they're not required to
Speaker 13: always have them on. This will be seeking to change that.
Speaker 13: Other things like requiring the identification of agents deployed, not
Speaker 13: wearing masks, not having arrest quotas. These would significantly change
Speaker 13: the way that ICE operates on the ground. Possibly the
Speaker 13: most important thing that they are seeking here is the
Speaker 13: emphasis on judicial wards as opposed to this administrative warrant
Speaker 13: that ICE has been using as its primary justification the
Speaker 13: past few months.
Speaker 9: I think we should refer to those I've been called
Speaker 9: the ad ministry of warrants. I think a better I
Speaker 9: guess down to use is the form two fifteen, because
Speaker 9: that's what it is, a form that they filled out
Speaker 9: right like it. It's not a warrant in any meaningful
Speaker 9: sense of the word.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: But yeah, I'm just noting that because that's a change
Speaker 9: I'm going to be trying to implement in my work
Speaker 9: going forward.
Speaker 13: The last Minneapolis related story for this episode, which is
Speaker 13: mostly Minneapolis episode I Guess Yeah, is based on a
Speaker 13: CNN report that has claimed that federal agents encountered Alex
Speaker 13: Pretty a week prior to killing him. Pretty is said
Speaker 13: to have been driving and stopped his car when he
Speaker 13: witnessed ICE agents chasing a family on foot. Pretty began
Speaker 13: shouting and blowing a whistle before agents tackled Pretty and
Speaker 13: broke one of his ribs. Party was later released on
Speaker 13: the scene. DHS has told CNN that they have no
Speaker 13: record on this incident, though an anonymous source told CNN
Speaker 13: that Pretty was a known and identified protester to federal
Speaker 13: officials on the ground, quoting CNN quote. Earlier this month,
Speaker 13: the DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigrations
Speaker 13: and Customers Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned to the state,
Speaker 13: and a temporary duty asking them to use a form
Speaker 13: to input information on protesters and agitators. It is unclear
Speaker 13: whether the new intake form was used to share Pretty's information.
Speaker 13: It's also not clear whether federal agents who encountered Pretty
Speaker 13: on Saturday recognized him before they confronted him.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's definitely HSI that has been doing the federal
Speaker 9: stuff that involves citizens, I guess, right, like when they
Speaker 9: are investigating detaining people. I know Pam Bondi is there
Speaker 9: today again and it has posted pictures of people who
Speaker 9: are detained with HSI officers, which is not a usual
Speaker 9: thing to do. But yeah, HSI, for whatever reason, they're
Speaker 9: kind of using as their like surrogate FBI in these instances.
Speaker 13: Jason, you can also speak on the sort of like
Speaker 13: surveillance of protesters quote unquote agitators that Feds have been
Speaker 13: doing on the ground based on what you saw in Minneapolis.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's thank you, Gay.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So, like I was at the Whipple Building, right,
Speaker 9: the Whipple Building being the federal building in Minneapolis where
Speaker 9: they are taking people who are being detained and where
Speaker 9: ICE and CBP are deploying out of every day, right,
Speaker 9: I would say there because there was a protest on
Speaker 9: Friday as part of a general strike, and I noticed
Speaker 9: they look like CBPO ice right then they had like
Speaker 9: what I would describe with tactical helmets and gear on,
Speaker 9: but using DSLR cameras to take pictures of people protesting.
Speaker 9: They were in vehicles and they were shooting. I can't
Speaker 9: remember they had the door or the window to allow
Speaker 9: them to take photographs. But I noticed, like that is
Speaker 9: an effort at surveillance, right, It is not unreasonable. I know, Garrison,
Speaker 9: you also have this video which happened in Maine, right
Speaker 9: of an agent more or less saying this, But it's
Speaker 9: not unreasonable to think that there is surveillance of people
Speaker 9: who are engaging in First Amendment protected activities.
Speaker 13: Yes, and there has been some desire among ICE officials,
Speaker 13: including Tom Hollman, who went on Fox News earlier this
Speaker 13: month to say that he's pushing for a database quote
Speaker 13: where those people that are arrested for an interference, impeding,
Speaker 13: and assault, we're going to make them famous unquote. So
Speaker 13: this news that Alex Freddy had been previously identified in
Speaker 13: some way by federal law enforcement follows an incident last
Speaker 13: Friday where a federal agent in Maine photographed a legal
Speaker 13: observer's car and said, quote, we have a nice little database,
Speaker 13: and you're now considered a domestic terrorist. I'll play this
Speaker 13: clip here.
Speaker 8: It's not illegal to record.
Speaker 10: Exactly.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's what we're doing. Yeah, why are you taking
Speaker 8: my information down? Because we have a nice little database.
Speaker 8: Oh good, and now you're considerable domestic terrorists. So we're
Speaker 8: videotaping you.
Speaker 14: Are you crazy?
Speaker 13: Georgia McLaughlin has told CNN that there is quote no
Speaker 13: database of quote unquote domestic terrorists run by the Department
Speaker 13: of Homeland Security unquote.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 12: I want to say something about this main video, which
Speaker 12: is that I've been seeing a lot of people circulating
Speaker 12: this is Oh, there's new repression tactics app here. They're
Speaker 12: going to show up to people's houses. This has been happening.
Speaker 12: I mean, I know it was happening in Chicago. It
Speaker 12: probably was happening in la I just don't remember off
Speaker 12: the top of my head.
Speaker 8: But the stuff that's.
Speaker 12: Happening here where these people take pictures of your face
Speaker 12: is not new at all. It's not some kind of
Speaker 12: new innovation in these repression tactics. Like, obviously be careful,
Speaker 12: but this is not a reason that everyone suddenly needs
Speaker 12: to be afraid that there's like a giant crackdown coming.
Speaker 12: They've been doing this the whole time, and so far
Speaker 12: it really hasn't like it sucks, but it hasn't stopped Minneapolis,
Speaker 12: hasn'toped Chicago.
Speaker 13: No, they're trying to intimidate you stop doing this like
Speaker 13: that is the point of this agent walking by and
Speaker 13: joking about how you're now a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because that's not actually real.
Speaker 13: That is a way to scare you into not showing up,
Speaker 13: based on the u based on the idea that if
Speaker 13: you do, they'll take a picture of you, and now
Speaker 13: you get added to this domestic terrorist database.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Is it possible that they're making like some kind of
Speaker 13: catalog of pictures of protesters that they can maybe use
Speaker 13: for reference in the future to build a case against someone,
Speaker 13: or if they arrest someone, they can look to see
Speaker 13: if they've been at previous protests. No, that's not impossible.
Speaker 13: That is something that they've been doing for quite a while.
Speaker 13: It is sudden that anti fascists to do against like
Speaker 13: Proud Boys back in the day, where you just document
Speaker 13: a lot of people at a protest and then maybe
Speaker 13: eventually the information will become useful. Right, that is not
Speaker 13: like surprising, but like I've seen some pretty outrageous claims
Speaker 13: going viral that, like after Preddy had this encounter with
Speaker 13: law enforcement previously where they broke his rib that Preddy
Speaker 13: was then specifically targeted in the following weeks, Like.
Speaker 8: There is no information for that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we have no evidence to prove that.
Speaker 13: There's no information that this database led to him being
Speaker 13: intentionally targeted by federal agents on the ground that is
Speaker 13: that is just speculation at this point.
Speaker 12: Yeah, there's no evidence of that, and there's no evidence
Speaker 12: that this is like a new kind of campaigner repression.
Speaker 12: And I want to be very clear about this. If
Speaker 12: you are spreading this as a you need to be
Speaker 12: afraid now because there's a new thing that's happening. You
Speaker 12: are doing their job. You are spreading the fear that
Speaker 12: this is an intimidation that this is designed to do,
Speaker 12: so please stop doing this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think, like I understand that for a lot
Speaker 9: of people, any form of activism is very new and
Speaker 9: everything seems scary, But this is this is one of
Speaker 9: those times when you need to check what you're doing because,
Speaker 9: as Mia said, right, this has. The legal term is
Speaker 9: a chilling effect. Right, like the government generally courts a fan.
Speaker 9: The government should do not should not do things that
Speaker 9: have a chilling effect on First Amendment protected to speak.
Speaker 9: That's absolutely what the government is trying to do. You
Speaker 9: don't have to help them or not the government, but
Speaker 9: that particular agent, I should say, acting at work saying
Speaker 9: he's building a database, right, that is what that is
Speaker 9: trying to do is to have a chilling effect.
Speaker 12: Well, I mean I would argue the government's also doing
Speaker 12: this fear, you know, calling every legal observer domestic terrorists.
Speaker 8: Right, yeah, I guess, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2: So we should mention this just so we don't leave
Speaker 2: it out. Although we don't have a ton to say
Speaker 2: at the moment about this, but like the day before
Speaker 2: we were corded this on the twenty seventh of January,
Speaker 2: I believe elean Omar was doing a town hall in
Speaker 2: Minneapolis where she is a representative, and was assaulted by
Speaker 2: a man named Anthony James kasmir Zak, who was a
Speaker 2: fifty five year old. He was carrying what looked like
Speaker 2: a syringe but without a needle, just like a like
Speaker 2: a large syringe, like the kind you'd used to like
Speaker 2: give medicine to an animal or something. Yeah, an irrigation syringe, right,
Speaker 2: and it was filled with some kind of off brownish
Speaker 2: yellow liquid. I don't think we know what it was.
Speaker 2: It apparently was foul smelling, obviously, and he ran up
Speaker 2: screaming you must resign, and sprayed some of it at her.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much God on her. He was
Speaker 2: tackled very quickly by a security guard. Omar seemed to
Speaker 2: be squaring up and ready to fight him, which was
Speaker 2: you know, expected, given like the kind of shit she's
Speaker 2: had to deal with, right, she had to be a
Speaker 2: very tough person. She doesn't seem to be injured. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any evidence that the liquid or whatever
Speaker 2: was something that caused or is likely to cause health issues,
Speaker 2: which I mean doesn't make it not assault.
Speaker 17: It.
Speaker 2: I don't think she's currently in any times, you're thankfully. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's been a chorus of denunciations about the attack on
Speaker 2: her from a bunch of other elected leaders. I know
Speaker 2: people have said that like it's been ignored, but at
Speaker 2: least it hasn't been from other people in the house, right.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks, including some Republicans who have
Speaker 2: made comments on it, just because none of them like
Speaker 2: the thought of having shit sprayed on them. I think, yeah, yeah, Anyway,
Speaker 2: we don't know a ton about this guy and why
Speaker 2: he did otherwise, other than that he presumably hated illin Omar, right,
Speaker 2: and that he wanted to get her to quit her
Speaker 2: job or otherwise harmor in some way. We don't really
Speaker 2: know much about this guy. There's some people talking about
Speaker 2: the fact that his kids seem to be on the left. Well,
Speaker 2: he's clearly not. As if that's weird.
Speaker 8: It's not.
Speaker 2: If your dad is the kind of crazy asshole who
Speaker 2: will spray poison on elein Omar hit a town hall,
Speaker 2: I can see how maybe you become the opposite of him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's about all we know at the moment.
Speaker 12: I do want to mention Trump's comment on it, where
Speaker 12: ABC News asked Trump if you'd seen the video, and
Speaker 12: oh yeah, Trump said, quote, No, I don't think about her.
Speaker 12: I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that.
Speaker 12: She probably had sprayed herself knowing her.
Speaker 2: Yeah you said that like a guy who thinks about
Speaker 2: her constantly.
Speaker 8: Hey, yeah, yeah, really hideous stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Producer Sophie here with a quick pickup as we did
Speaker 1: not have this information at the time of recording. This
Speaker 1: is as of January twenty twenty six, per AP news quote.
Speaker 1: The Justice Department has charged a man who scorted apple
Speaker 1: sided vinegar on Democratic Representative Omar at an event in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: According to court papers made public Thursday, The man arrested
Speaker 1: for Tuesday's attack, Anthony kasmar Zak, faces a charge of
Speaker 1: forcibly assaulting, opposing, impeding, and intimidating Omar. According to a
Speaker 1: complaint filed in federal authorities determined that the substance was
Speaker 1: water and apple cider vinegar. According to an Affidavid, after
Speaker 1: kasmar Zak sprayed Omar with the liquid, he appeared to say,
Speaker 1: quote she's not resigning, You're splitting Minnesota's apart end quote,
Speaker 1: the affi David says. Authorities also say that kasmar Zak
Speaker 1: told a close associate several years ago that quote somebody
Speaker 1: should kill end quote Omar quote. Documents say kasmar Zak
Speaker 1: appeared briefly in federal court Thursday afternoon. His attorney told
Speaker 1: the judge her client was unmedicated at the time of
Speaker 1: the incident and has not had access to medications he
Speaker 1: needs to treat Parkinson's disease in other serious conditions he
Speaker 1: suffers from US Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster ordered that Kazmarzak
Speaker 1: remain in custody and told officials he needs to see
Speaker 1: a nurse when he's transferred to the Sherburne County Jail.
Speaker 1: End quote again, that is via AP News.
Speaker 9: So I want to very briefly update people on Rajava.
Speaker 9: The bfke bassing for a whole episode.
Speaker 8: We will do one.
Speaker 9: I've been in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a lot going on right now.
Speaker 9: Yeah and me you may have noticed, but this is
Speaker 9: all very important, right Like, horrible things are happening. So
Speaker 9: the STG that's a Syrian Transitional Government Ahmed al Shara
Speaker 9: Jiulani government right and the SDF Syrian Democratic Forces which
Speaker 9: includes the YPG and YPG the armed forces that defend Rashava,
Speaker 9: have signed a fifteen day extension to their ceasefire. But
Speaker 9: both sides are accusing the other of widespread violations of
Speaker 9: the ceasefire. Both of them are right, like, I've seen
Speaker 9: a lot of videos of ceasefire violations. Ceasefire was internationally mediated,
Speaker 9: likely by the US, and likely because of huge concerns
Speaker 9: around the escape of Islamic state prisoners. There was an
Speaker 9: attempted is suicide bombing in a ruck yesterday as we
Speaker 9: record this. That's the first time I can remember one
Speaker 9: of those happening in a while that the person was apprehended.
Speaker 9: But the US, I know, has been transferring detainees from
Speaker 9: the prisoner Hesseka and they're transferring them to US facilities
Speaker 9: in Iraq. Right, it doesn't the prince of the detainees
Speaker 9: is not the thing that is going to make the
Speaker 9: US support their allies in Rosjavo or their former allies
Speaker 9: in their SDF for I guess I should say now
Speaker 9: that the US, once again it is not going to
Speaker 9: be a good friend to the Kurdish people. Trump has
Speaker 9: also truthed that Iraq should not appoint Nurial Malachi as
Speaker 9: its next prime minister. In his Truth, he said quote,
Speaker 9: I am hearing that the great country of Iraq might
Speaker 9: make a very bad choice by reinstalling Nuriel Malachi as
Speaker 9: prime minister. Last time Malachi was in power, the country
Speaker 9: descended into poverty and total chaos. That should not be
Speaker 9: allowed to happen again because of his insane policies and ideologies.
Speaker 9: If elected, the United States of America will no longer
Speaker 9: help Iraq. And if we are not there to help,
Speaker 9: Iraq has zero chance of success, prosperity, or freedom. Make
Speaker 9: Iraq great again, Jesus Chris.
Speaker 2: First off, I mean, get us suck like he's a
Speaker 2: really bad guy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is not a like yay Malachi post, but
Speaker 9: this ain't the way to go about doing that.
Speaker 2: No, I mean just the whole we will cut all
Speaker 2: ties and support to Iraq thing. When everything happening there
Speaker 2: is still downstream of us fucking with them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we did this.
Speaker 9: We spent twenty fucking years killing people in a ruck.
Speaker 9: Like you don't just get to be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 9: and like the idea that we were doing regime change,
Speaker 9: but when the regime isn't and the one that we
Speaker 9: like that people are liked, and I was like, we're
Speaker 9: doing regime change again, Like obviously the whole thing was
Speaker 9: a fraud and a lie.
Speaker 8: Yes, yeah, still is.
Speaker 9: Yeah, very concerned for my friends. All the parts of
Speaker 9: Curtis dannergy. The peace process between the PKK and Turkeys
Speaker 9: is falling apart, and state violence in Iran is still
Speaker 9: absolutely repugnant scale. Right, Yeah, a pretty tough time in
Speaker 9: that part of the world. I thinking of them.
Speaker 12: So finally, I want to give a brief update on
Speaker 12: my story from last week about this attempt to end
Speaker 12: FED independence and this attempt to sort of do an
Speaker 12: investigation into the chairman of the Federal Reserve. So earlier today,
Speaker 12: as we were recording this, we got the result of
Speaker 12: the Fed's vote about what they were going to do
Speaker 12: with interest rates. There's a whole episode about that. Go
Speaker 12: listen to that if you want air.
Speaker 8: Send what this is.
Speaker 12: But the FED, instead of cutting rates as the administration
Speaker 12: has wanted, has decided to hold interest rates at the
Speaker 12: same level, which was what was expected out of the
Speaker 12: Federal Reserve before Trump started putting even more pressure on them. However,
Speaker 12: we did not get any updates from anyone at the
Speaker 12: Federal Reserve about this Department of Justice investigation or any
Speaker 12: of the Trump pressure that's been being put on the
Speaker 12: Federal Reserve. So we'll keep you updated as the situation evolves,
Speaker 12: but all we got was a very normal interest rates
Speaker 12: are being held at the same level.
Speaker 9: We will include our list of mutual aid fundraisers for
Speaker 9: Minneapolis again in the show notes for this episode. Would
Speaker 9: like to donate, put a transfer on your couch yep
Speaker 9: and if you want to email us cool Zone Tips
Speaker 9: at proton dot me use of proton mail addresses.
Speaker 17: Send it.
Speaker 7: We reported the news, We reported the news.
Speaker 2: Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
Speaker 2: from now until the heat death of the universe.
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Speaker 8: Thanks for listening.