WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 222 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:05.520 Coolso media, Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.559 to let you know this is a compilation episode. So 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.320 every episode of the week that just happened is here 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.239 in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.440 you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.000 If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:24.480 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:29.000 Hello. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:30.720 Everyone, my name is Dan al Kurd and this is 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.440 it could happen here. I'm an associate professor of political 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.400 science and a researcher. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:36.479 Of Arab and Palestinian politics. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.880 Today on the podcast we have Danielle Kanter and she'll 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.560 be talking to us about mutual aid work in Israel, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.360 leftist politics at Israel, and her personal journey. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.280 Thank you so much for being on the show. Hi. 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.240 So yeah, if you'd like to introduce us to yourself 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.080 and your organization, Culture of Solidarity, that would be fantastic. 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.160 Sure. Yeah, Hi, I'm Danielle. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.319 I run with a beautiful community, a mutual aid called 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.360 Culture of Solidarity. I don't know if people here are 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.319 familiar with mutual aid work or if I should give 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:12.640 a little explanation about that. 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.319 I mean, you can give a shpiel, yeah, spiel. 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.920 Yeah, just basically kind of caring for your community through 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:25.560 different like aid programs while resisting the systems that kind 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.200 of preserve their poverty and their oppression. That's how I 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:34.200 view what mutual aid work is. And yeah, so we 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.559 run a mutual aid. It runs in many forms, but 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.200 mostly it's we have a food security program that supports 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.680 kind of the people that fall in between the cracks 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.080 of the systems within Israeli and Palestine. Well obviously the 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.800 systems within Israel and in Palestine. We work mainly in 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.280 Area C in the West Bank, in Mesaphiliata. Yeah, so 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.480 we do food security, like food packs that are truly 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.480 appropriate for each community receiving them based off of what 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.000 they are asking, whether it's diapers, baby formula. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:09.720 You know, fit to each holiday. 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:11.840 Now we just finished or we're still in the midst 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.880 of a Romandan annual campaign where they're all going to 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:22.120 be boxes fit for the holiday and we host well, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:22.640 we had. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.400 A community center for the past five years. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.640 We've been a collective, I guess since March twenty twenty 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.560 when COVID hit so Basically when that started, it was 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:33.840 kind of like we saw that there was going to 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.840 be a lot of food waste, like an obscene amount 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:42.200 of food waste because all the restaurants, offices, hotels, la 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.959 la la who would be closing, And we thought we'd 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.360 kind of rescue that food and redistribute it to communities 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.280 that were in need until the government kind of got 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.640 on their feet and understood what their virus was. That 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.000 was kind of the beginning of our deep, deep political 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.200 awakening of this place, thinking that there would be a 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.720 system that would come and serve the vulnerable communities around us. 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.120 So that's when it started. 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.560 And I think only like a few months into that 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.280 when we thought we were kind of just like, yeah, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.040 good citizens doing the work and not understanding how politically 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.440 charged it is to serve your community when they're actively 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.079 being oppressed by the systems that are supposed to care 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.440 for them. And I think in that moment we understood 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.720 that we want to not only serve our neighbors or community, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.640 we also need to learn about these root causes of 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:39.760 oppression and what brought them to this position in the 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.680 first place. You know, people often say like, oh, you know, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.440 someone's poor they don't have food in their fridge like 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.520 in their ways of trying to raise funds or whatever. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.640 And it's an atrocity almost to kind of depict it 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.600 that way, because all of these communities are actively. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.160 Being abandoned, Yeah, being abandoned in a nice way. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.360 You know, they didn't wake up one morning and didn't 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.360 have food in their fridge, right, they don't have food 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.720 in their fridge because of a policy that preserves that status. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.320 And so that is the mutual aid that we run. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.599 We had a community center for five years where we 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.960 hosted weekly events or daily events every evening. All the 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.599 events would be under that umbrella of learning as a 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:33.240 community about these injustices, and they could also be you know, shows, 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.880 and they could be debates, and they could be lecturers 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.280 or workshops, and all of the proceeds would go to 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.160 our food security program. And in that way, we are 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.159 one hundred percent community funded. 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:46.160 No one has salaries. 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.240 We made a conscious decision back in the beginning when 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.200 we realized all the injustices around us, that we didn't 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.080 want to institutionalize and become part of a system that 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.120 is responsible for that. And that is not to say 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.400 that NGOs aren't amazing. That is not to say that 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.080 you know, there aren't angios doing God's work here. 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.120 But they're constrained. Yeah, there's there's different constraints. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.400 Yeah, and this is our personal decision to act as 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.919 a community. There's another reason we didn't want to institutionalize 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.520 in this because we didn't want to make a business 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:21.920 out of something that shouldn't be needed, you know what 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.200 I mean when you get salaries and tacticy, like. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.840 It perpetuates the need to continue in. 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.040 A way, and like there's all going to be needed, right, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.640 Like it's not We're gonna you know, oh and then 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.560 they're not going to need anymore. But you know, I 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:40.120 saw unhinge like a dating app. Yeah yeah, it said 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.680 an app meant to be deleted, And I just thought 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:45.119 about that, like, oh my god. 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:47.360 That is the essence of it all. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.159 Like we're not supposed to be doing this, isn't Like 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.359 I mean, we should be caring for our community and 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:53.000 our neighbors. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:54.839 That should go without saying. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.240 But also our taxes should be directed to serving our 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.200 name or that are in vulnerable states. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.039 So I will definitely link in the show notes to 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.000 like the Instagram and things like that, and for people 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.680 who are I mean, I'm sure for some people who 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.280 have seen the documentary no Other Land, this is the 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:18.200 same community that you all work with in Masafaietta. But yeah, yeah, 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.960 so I'm interested in a couple of different kind of directions. 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.599 But would you say that a lot of the people 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.920 who come to Culture of Solidarity and like volunteer and 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.440 start to participate in your activities. 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:31.279 Do you think. 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.400 That that opens up the space to not only question 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.960 injustices within the Israeli system, but how that's tied up 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.559 with the occupation, Like is that kind of the path 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:41.440 forward for people? 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:47.120 I think that is the path or that we want 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:52.120 from people. I think we are very forgiving in a 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.600 sense in the way that like not forgiving, but just understanding, 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.320 you know, the journey that it took us to unlearn 0:06:58.400 --> 0:06:58.919 what we know. 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.160 Like that's a hard one and I'm going. 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.400 To go pre October seventh, you know you're doing work 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.080 to unlearn what you've been taught. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:09.960 Isn't your entire identity? 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.360 And you know, post October seventh, you just see everything, 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.040 like everything has become so much more pornographic, Like you know, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:23.600 it's the amount of death, murder, the genocide, the ethnic 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.560 cleansing in the West Bank. You know, just this week 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:31.320 six communities have been pushed out of their homes by 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:39.520 the army, by settlers Paris, and it's become much more immediate. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.040 Whereas I think before October seventh, I mean, there didn't 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:44.800 go a week in which we didn't have an. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.280 Event talking about the occupation and learning. 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.920 But I think after October seventh, it became this like 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:56.360 huge divide of like this kind of like protection. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:57.960 Over one's identity. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.800 So we did a lot of work to kind of 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:05.520 mantle that notion that to empathize with another people comes 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.640 on the expense of your own pain and trying to 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:16.080 you know, mirror the power dynamic to people like yes, 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.760 we all had family and friends and people that we 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:24.680 knew that were murdered, that were taken, that were like abducted. 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.480 And with that being said, Israel has been committing a 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.760 genocide in Gaza for the past still it's ongoing two 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:33.680 in something years. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:35.280 The other day I. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.600 Got a message on our Instagram basically being like I 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.240 love the work you do. You do really important things, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.160 and you know there is racism and there is poverty, 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.560 but from there to say that there's ethnic cleansing. Come on, like, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.520 I don't know if I can support your work anymore, 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.440 and basically also meet that with love as well to 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.680 be like I hear you. This is the policies that 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.880 people in our government, our advanced sing this is who 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.720 our army is protecting. This is what ethnic cleansing means. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.440 And in that situation, I can also turn to my 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.600 community and my friends, Like I have a friend that 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.680 what he does for work is kind of gathering all 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.160 this information of articles and everything that's coming out to educate. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.720 So all right, cool, I can use those articles to 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.000 help teach this person that yes, there is in fact 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.520 ethnic cleansing happening in the West Bank, like. 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:28.679 And you know it's not even like this like oh, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:29.400 how do I say? 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.240 It's like no, actually, our like our government officials are 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.280 saying this like smutly said it the other day, right, 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.320 So yeah, but yeah, it is this. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:44.120 Kind of like open door. Yeah for Israeli is that 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:45.680 maybe not? They're not there yet. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.520 Also, yeah, I think that it's like it's it's hard, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.960 it's like really hard because you're at this point where 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.600 it's like very far from where those people are that 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:01.920 are like beginning. And also you have sometimes resentment towards 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.120 your society, and most of sometimes a lot of the 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.800 time you have resented. I'm always as nothing with like 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.440 in general, when someone wants to is asking a question, 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.160 I think that is just like amazing and important and cool. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.839 Let's have a conversation about this. At least they're asking, yeah, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.960 and they're wanting to learn, they're questioning something. That's that's 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.280 the way forward. And with that being said, you know, 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.400 the past two enough years have also been excruciating living 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.520 in this society, like you're living in a genocidal society 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:40.120 and you're around people that could justify certain, you know, acts, 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.240 certain war crimes. Yeah, you kind of find yourself not 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.839 wanting to engage, not wanting to love, not wanting to teach, 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.120 not wanting not that I'm the one teaching, like we're 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.880 all learning together about this and hosting, but obviously not 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.640 wanting to have conversations sometimes because you're just like, well, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.080 you see what's been happening online over the past two years, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:05.200 and you still can't comprehend what is going on. Then go, 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.000 I don't know what I can do to help that. 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.240 But then I have to remind myself that if I 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:14.320 am here. If I'm living here, I have a responsibility 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:22.120 and that is to, yeah, facilitate more meetings conversations in 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:28.080 which people will be exposed to the injustice is being 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.959 committed in our name. And that's a problem with liberal 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.120 Zionism as well, because liberal Zionists will be like, oh 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.400 my god, yeah, it's terrible what's happening in the West 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.080 Bank settlers blah blah blah. But like those still send 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.079 their you know, their boys to go be pilots in 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:47.560 the army and you know, bomb children. And it's kind 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.840 of like finding the way to kind of be like, no, no, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.800 you can't, like you can't be against that, and then 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:55.680 before that. 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.280 Right kind of demonstrate the cognitive dissonance to them. There's 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:01.959 kind of a contradiction here. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:03.400 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.360 Sorry, I think you've just a little no, no, not 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.480 at all. This is extremely rich in thought provoking content. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.680 I want to ask what kind of organizations does Culture 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.720 of Solidarity engage with, whether in Israel and in Palestine, 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.160 and kind of related to that, what role do you 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.959 see an organization such as this a mutual aid organization? 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:39.240 What role do you envision for yourselves in Palestinian liberation, 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.280 Like what role are you intending to pay? You kind 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:43.840 of touched on it already in terms of like teaching 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:45.440 and learning within your own society. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.200 Yeah, we work with a lot of different organizations because 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.760 it is very important for us to you know, not 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:59.760 reinvent the wheel and kind of learn with our other organizations, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.080 whether it's Gisha who talk about the actual words of 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.240 Gisha's access and they talk about access in Gaza, the 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.880 access to water, to electricity, the infrastructure and Gaza, and 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.079 then we could host tours every. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.240 Time it's a different organization. This guy Money in our group. 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.800 He runs these tours and he will do with Breaking 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.920 the Silence and Masafetta, he'll do one with the Zoho, 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.240 which I'm sure, Yeah, you can probably link all of 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:27.640 these in. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:28.840 The definitely will. Yeah. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.320 It was Machia, which is the Charles Klora Muncia, which 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.240 is literally down the street from where I'm at right now, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.120 and it's the beach of Yaffa and the village that 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.239 once existed there, or even with a woman named Hilaharel 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.560 to go through a tour within the half abandoned Israeli 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.320 new bus station and they're all tied to injustices. They're 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.000 all tied to something that was or was there and 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.960 isn't anymore, or atrocities currently happening. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.439 Obviously, also when the in the negative, to. 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.520 Learn about the different Vedouin communities and the injustices that 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.280 they're experiencing. And then so that's yeah, it's called touring 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.240 and solidarity. And then we'll have I mean, honestly, probably 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.480 any left, radical left or organization that you could probably 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.920 think of, we collaborate with them in some way or another. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.720 It's a pretty tight knit community and this has been 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.440 a beautiful thing of like trying to you know, always 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:31.840 there's always a knits and grits of blah blah blah, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.720 but I mean, uplifting each other and collaborating with each 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:40.440 other is so important to not feel alone as Israelis 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.640 against the occupation, Yeah, and for an actual true democracy 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:46.800 in the land or liberation. 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:47.800 Yeah. 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.120 Do you work with Palestinian groups within Israel and in 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:52.320 the occupied territories? 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:53.920 Yes, we do. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.600 We worked with in organization in Gaza called Dignity for 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:04.560 Palestine and we did a bit big flower fundraiser last year. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.640 And we've worked with organizations that are like you know, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.200 physicians for human rights that are both you know, Israeli 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.280 and Palestinian lad and then we have our annual Ramandan 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.880 campaign that I was telling you about now, and that's 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.000 what rabbis for human rights who are not Palestinian, but 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.960 we do work with different groups within Palestine. One of 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.000 the people that was, you know, the main receiver and 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.760 distributor of these boxes was Adadarin, who was murdered in 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.800 July by settler you know, on Levy. 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.760 So yeah, it's working directly with communities. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:47.760 Second question was what role do you left this Israelis 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:48.360 have right now? 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:49.120 Is that the question? 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.160 Yeah, like, what role do you envision either for yourself 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.800 as you you personally or for Israeli left in Palestinian liberation? 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:58.680 I know it's a big question. 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.880 That is a big question, and it's an important question, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.640 and I think as long as we are living on 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.720 this land, it's our response. It's I mean, I mean, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:14.240 I think it's everyone's responsibility to free Palestine and for 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.560 the Palestinian people to have equal rights, to have access 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:23.400 to whatever they wish for under a government that sees 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.920 both counterparts equally, and the obviously accountability and reparations that 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.280 would need to happen in order to get there. I 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:35.480 think that our responsibility as Israeli left is to keep 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.200 fighting for that, is to keep fighting for that. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.800 Within Israel and within Palestine. 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.560 So, whether it's protective presence in the West Bank, protective 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.360 presence is a kind of program where you sleep at 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.800 different Palestinian homes every night just in case settlers come 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.040 in the middle of the night to attack or the 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:58.840 army comes in the middle of the night to attack, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.960 and you're there serving a protective presence. You obviously have 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:06.480 a privilege. You have an Israeli passport, you're Jewish. That 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.360 is a privilege on this land. And to be there, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.600 you know, obviously you don't decide what goes down. You 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.879 ask each family how they want to deal with this, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.080 and you serve that. So I think protective presence is 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.919 one of the most important things Israeli's israel leftists can do, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.840 because yeah, like I said earlier, it's just getting worse 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.080 and worse, and it's at a high. It's always been bad, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.480 but the past. Honestly, I think since no other land 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.439 came out, I think it's like gotten a lot of 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.160 attention on them. Essentially, well, there's always been attacked by 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.399 settlers of course, yeah, but I think that, Yeah, in 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.040 the past year it's gotten to an all time high. 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.720 Well, there's also kind of like the general impunity that 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.360 the Israeli government and the settler movement like exactly not yet, 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.160 especially after Biden left, like not that he was holding 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.040 them accountable, but at course certainly gloves were off after 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:02.920 that for sure. 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:04.960 No, no, exactly, that is very true. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.399 But basically in the last year two years, it's gotten 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.480 much much worse. So I think Israeli left us have 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:16.160 a responsibility to be serve as protective presence for one 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.640 number one, I think number two, they have a responsibility 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.600 to educate their society and to not only educate, but 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.000 to constantly learn. I feel like so many people in 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.240 Israel are in just like this constant victimhood of like 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.680 the whole world is against us, like everyone's anti Semitic, 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.280 blah blah blah blah blah, and like from that to 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.439 what actually I mean, Obviously there's anti Semitism, obviously there 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.679 are people not saying that there isn't of course, but 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.560 without any accountability for what we have turned our backs 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.240 to over the past two and a half years, Like 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.840 there's so much work to be done, and I think, 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.879 you know the easy way, whether it's a Western. 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.000 Or abroad telling you like, well, why do you live. 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.359 In Palestine You should leave blah blah blah, or whether 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.119 it's a Palestinian in the West Bank being like you 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.240 can't leave, like you have, we need you here. Obviously, 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.000 it's an unnatural ecosystem to have, you know, leftist activist 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.040 running through villages in the West I mean, but but 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.040 that's the reality of things. So as long as I 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.080 am here, living on this land and where I'm from, 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.120 I'm going to do everything in my power to resist 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.879 what is happening and to learn together with other people. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.119 It's it's hard because we're not we're a really tiny 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:37.000 community like that. You know, there's people that again are 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.080 against you know, all the war blah blah blah, like 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:46.600 but yeah, but not seeing how that is like interconnected 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.400 with the entire premise of this state. There's a lot 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.360 of work to be done, and it's hard because you're 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.359 also bitter, like you know, and you want to have 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.240 compassion within you're bitter. 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.560 And I'm like, ah, you're like you've made so much 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.760 work for Yeah, I mean, also I get it. 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.480 I've been there. I wasn't raised in a left home. 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.960 I know what it is to be raised up conservative, 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.080 right wing, you know, Zionists, and I'm obviously very far 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.760 from that. But I know what it's like to have 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.560 to leave everything you've been raised on. I know what 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.840 it's like to have family not want to talk to you. 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.960 I know what it's like to have friends not want 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.160 to be friends with you anymore, to have so many 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.480 people around you're telling you that you're wrong but you 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.600 know that this is the right thing to do. And 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:37.919 I get that, and I have compassion for that. But 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.960 then there's also just like sometimes you're. 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.119 Just like, yeah, no, I can't I can't imagine. I mean, 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:50.880 it's a very difficult journey to travel through. I understand 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:52.880 the sentiment that you've expressed that like the last two 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.760 years should have been enough. Yeah, but also it's like 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:01.240 this whole identity is fragile and people are human beings, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.680 and like it's difficult for them to like, yeah, I'm 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.440 not saying anything new, just reiterating what you said about 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.200 like unlearning, Like it's it's an extremely difficult thing to 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:12.360 go through, I think. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.000 But do you understand like, you know, you're a Palestinian 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.200 and like me complaining about this thing that we're doing. 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.960 Like it just feels like people know what's been going on, 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:28.199 but on Palestinians that have family friends that are subjected 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.560 to this violence and that are themselves subjected to that 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.439 violence abroad because of being Palestinian, and then what is 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:35.280 happening here. 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.680 It's like two different worlds. 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.280 Yeah, And it's funny for me to even like be like, 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.040 oh yeah, like to even try to explain that, because 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.600 I'm sure people will be listening to this and be like, oh, like, 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.159 you know, why are they complaining? Like, but then you 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.199 know your society, and you know what they have or 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.760 haven't been exposed to, and you know what they've chosen 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.560 not to look at to not necessarily at this point 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.480 what they have or haven't been exposed, because I think 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.200 that's also a bit of a kind of forgiving card, 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.520 because I think at this point you still call it Ai. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.520 If you still call it like, there's some deep reckoning 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:10.040 to do there. 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:11.240 Yeah. 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.200 But anyways, I just feel like it's such two different 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.439 worlds and I think that I think as Israeli leftists 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.120 that live here, you know, pay taxes in this land. 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.480 We have a huge responsibility, if not the number one 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:33.600 responsibility to posts any in liberation. And yeah, I think 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.160 that's a very long answer to your questions. 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.200 No, No, I mean I think it's yeah, it's a 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.560 fair answer. I just you know, think to myself that, 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.960 like it's not coincidence, and it's not to take away 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:51.040 from the agency of like individuals. Obviously, everybody has choices 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.919 to make, like Israelis have choices to make. They can 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.600 choose to believe or not believe, or they can choose 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.360 to turn their back. But at the same time, it's 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.200 like systems have led them to point where they dehumanize 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.639 to this extent that they can see the videos and 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:07.000 either make excuses or pretend they're not real, you know. 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.360 And so it's like the work is to to disrupt 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.679 the systems, you know. I think in that way, I 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.600 think about like structural constraints that is more worthwhile in 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.119 my effort. If I wasn't israel leftist, I'm not, But 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.040 if I was in your shoes, like, that's more worthwhile 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:25.480 in my effort than to be like kind of demoralized 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:28.719 by individuals. If you know, if you understand what I mean, 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:41.560 I guess that kind of leads me to my next question. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:44.040 I mean, I know that October seventh was such kind 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:48.120 of like a breaking point, but obviously the Israeli left 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.359 like was in the minority before as well. But what 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:53.000 would you say, kind of like in the last two 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.320 years and kind of to think about moving forward, what 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.840 are the biggest challenges that the Israeli left faces to 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.760 continue in its effort, whether it's to educate or to 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:07.480 be a type of protective presence, whether physically in the 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.080 West Bank or in their presence in Israel. 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:15.679 Well, obviously it's our you know, fascist government and fascist society, 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:20.600 you know, anyone that is like actively oppressing every minority 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.879 on this land and especially Palestinians. So I think our 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:27.040 biggest threat is our government at the moment. But I 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:30.280 think that our biggest, my biggest threat, if I could 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.680 think of, like, what is the biggest threat is apathy. 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:39.400 I think, like people not caring, people not getting up 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:42.439 and leaving their houses and doing things and organizing and 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:44.320 mobilizing just letting this happen. 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:48.199 And I think on paper, the biggest obstacle. 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:50.919 Would probably be our government that are you know, acting 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:57.240 in such a fascist, fanatic, nazi manner, and I think, yeah, 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:00.399 as an individual being a part of grassroots commun unities 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:02.760 and seeing, you know, at the end of the day, 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:06.040 there are people that are going out there and actively 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:11.520 like murdering Palestinians, that are you know, pushing for policies 0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:17.440 to deport children Filipino children or children of migrant workers. 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:22.840 There's so many injustices towards different people, and there are 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:26.760 people that are like actively going out and like fighting 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:31.240 for these like terrible, terrible, fanatic ideologies. And I think 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:35.240 whenever we people don't. I said this in a podcast recently, 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:36.720 and someone told me, like, wait, you have to take 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.560 up that part, because it sounds like you're like voting, 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:40.880 like you'rely grooting for the. 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:42.360 Bascies to active Like. 0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:44.760 No, no, no. The fact is that there are people that 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.720 are doing these really really bad things, and when we're 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:51.399 not countering them, when we are just letting them happen 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:54.359 and be like, oh, yeah, that sucks, but not doing 0:25:54.440 --> 0:25:58.000 anything about it, not using our privilege or a voice 0:25:58.119 --> 0:26:02.439 or a microphone to resist that, then we're conforming with it. 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:07.040 And I know that's not fun to think that. It's 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:10.960 not fun. It's not fun. To like go or organize protests. 0:26:11.000 --> 0:26:14.320 It's not fun to do a lot, even though actually 0:26:14.400 --> 0:26:16.480 there's a lot of things that are really beautiful as well, 0:26:16.880 --> 0:26:20.879 being in the West Bank, being with people, playing with children, 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:22.639 like these are beautiful, beautiful things. 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:23.800 It's not like we're doing that. 0:26:23.960 --> 0:26:27.200 But I think when it's within Israeli society, when it's 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.040 organizing protests, when it's joining a protest as a number, 0:26:30.560 --> 0:26:35.040 when it's you know, learning and doing un learning, it's 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:38.560 not always easy and it's not always someone's first yeah 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:39.720 decision to make. 0:26:40.320 --> 0:26:42.679 But I think that when you don't do that, I 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:44.440 think that is the biggest threat. 0:26:44.720 --> 0:26:48.200 You know, in the Holocaust and many different atrocities over 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:51.000 the years, the thing that like stood out most was 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:55.679 people that were silent and people that yeah, didn't resist 0:26:55.680 --> 0:26:56.960 in one way or another. 0:26:57.280 --> 0:27:00.320 Like that movie Zone of Interest, Like oh my god, 0:27:00.400 --> 0:27:00.960 that movie. 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:05.159 That movie just shaped these past two and a half years. 0:27:05.200 --> 0:27:08.040 Like I saw it a few months after October seventh, 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:12.280 and I just every moment that life just existed in 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:16.399 Israel and you saw warplanes flying above you, and you 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:19.280 know what's going happen. You hear too, like you hear 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.960 bombs falling you hear, and everyone's just like gotten used 0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:25.359 to it, and you're just like, we're living in zone 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:25.840 of interest. 0:27:27.000 --> 0:27:27.919 Yeah that's wild. 0:27:28.560 --> 0:27:30.719 And yeah, I think it's like a constant question of 0:27:31.840 --> 0:27:34.280 do I want to be a part of the society 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:35.280 do I want to fight? 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:38.360 Life would be much easier. 0:27:38.640 --> 0:27:43.080 If I moved away and I was just like fuck 0:27:43.119 --> 0:27:45.800 this place, which is not a bad thing to do. 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:47.639 I have many friends that have done this, and I 0:27:47.720 --> 0:27:50.919 understand it. It's really hard. You know, life would be 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:54.480 easier if I just left. It's not the I don't 0:27:54.520 --> 0:27:56.639 want to say, it's not the sexy narrative to be 0:27:56.760 --> 0:28:00.280 like like, look we can both you know, Look, you know, 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:03.639 let's learn. It's not fun to be talking and trying 0:28:03.680 --> 0:28:07.040 to reason with fascists like or people that are in deep. 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:10.760 Denial of reality. You're really well intertwined with. 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:16.480 But I think it's my moral responsibility as an Israeli 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:20.920 to be here and as long as I can and 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:29.080 help create platforms for our society to learn and resist. 0:28:30.040 --> 0:28:30.280 Yeah. 0:28:30.359 --> 0:28:32.679 No, I think, like you said, there are different pathways, 0:28:32.920 --> 0:28:35.720 but I can definitely understand like the feeling you have 0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:40.160 that it's like an application of responsibility. Having been a 0:28:40.200 --> 0:28:44.200 part of the society to some degree to yeah, throw 0:28:44.240 --> 0:28:45.320 your hands essentially. 0:28:46.960 --> 0:28:47.760 One last question. 0:28:48.040 --> 0:28:51.280 I was watching the documentary Coexistence My Ass, which is 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:54.680 an incredible documentary. I really encourage people to watch it 0:28:54.680 --> 0:28:59.000 if they can. And it's filmed and it incorporates that 0:28:59.040 --> 0:29:02.880 moment of October se and shows to I mean, I 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:06.360 think implies though of course I don't know how widely 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:11.160 this applies, but it shows and implies how parts of 0:29:11.240 --> 0:29:15.680 the left fell off, you know, after October seventh. Do 0:29:15.720 --> 0:29:18.440 you feel like, now we're twenty twenty six, we're recording 0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:21.160 February twenty second, twenty twenty six, do you feel like 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:22.360 people are starting. 0:29:22.040 --> 0:29:23.560 To like come back. 0:29:24.360 --> 0:29:28.000 I don't know, or did just the left get smaller. 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:32.480 I think the radical left has become just much more 0:29:32.520 --> 0:29:35.640 tight knit. And yeah, whoever's a part of it is 0:29:35.680 --> 0:29:37.719 kind of a part of it. People are always welcome 0:29:37.760 --> 0:29:40.040 to join and be a part, but it's kind of, 0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:42.200 you know, you kind of have your usual suspects at 0:29:42.240 --> 0:29:45.200 this point, and I think the broader like I don't know, 0:29:45.320 --> 0:29:48.840 liberal Zionists that will call themselves left, and Israel just 0:29:48.920 --> 0:29:52.880 like isn't really left because they're talking about a democracy 0:29:53.800 --> 0:29:58.600 within an apartheid state. They are, like I said earlier, 0:29:58.760 --> 0:30:02.160 sending their sons to or I'm not saying that's an 0:30:02.240 --> 0:30:04.800 easy thing, but at the same time opposing the war 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:10.680 and not acknowledging Palestinian suffering. And I think there's become 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:14.840 many people and this is from my personal experience, that 0:30:15.120 --> 0:30:18.880 just are like like I said, apathetic, kind of like 0:30:19.080 --> 0:30:22.320 looking forward with their hands on the sides of each 0:30:22.320 --> 0:30:26.200 of their eyes, trying not to see what's happening. You know, 0:30:26.240 --> 0:30:31.640 there are people thousands, tens of thousands in the streets protesting. 0:30:32.360 --> 0:30:35.840 You know, they'll be waving Israeli flags. That's hard for me. 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:37.800 I don't feel like I'm in the group that would 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:42.320 ever wave a flag. And I think they see themselves 0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:47.320 as left. Yeah again, like I said, like, you can't 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:54.240 be fighting for human rights, liberal ideologies within an apartheid state. 0:30:54.640 --> 0:30:58.880 You can't fight for democracy in an apartheid state. Like 0:30:59.000 --> 0:31:01.840 we have to touch the root of this, all every 0:31:01.840 --> 0:31:06.480 injustice happening on this land or in Israel in forty eight, Like, 0:31:07.320 --> 0:31:10.120 in my opinion, the root of it is the occupation. 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:14.720 We've planted roots on rotten soil, We've pushed people out 0:31:14.720 --> 0:31:17.760 of their homes and took them as our own, and 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:21.360 we're not really willing to reconcile what we've become, what 0:31:21.400 --> 0:31:24.880 we've done. And I think only when that starts to 0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:28.000 happen there could be some sort of future here on 0:31:28.040 --> 0:31:31.720 this land for both people. But as long as we're 0:31:31.720 --> 0:31:36.200 not acknowledging the atrocities we are committing, and the atrocities 0:31:36.200 --> 0:31:41.040 are silence is allowing to perpetuate, then the left here 0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:42.120 is very very tiny. 0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:46.400 And I say that not to toot our own horn. 0:31:46.600 --> 0:31:48.720 You know, it's not in a way of like's not 0:31:48.880 --> 0:31:51.920 we're not on a moral high ground, Like maybe there 0:31:52.000 --> 0:31:53.880 was a moment where I did feel that way in a. 0:31:53.920 --> 0:31:56.240 Sense of like I know and you don't know. 0:31:56.480 --> 0:31:59.960 It's like, but then you know very quickly in order 0:32:00.160 --> 0:32:03.640 to turn your activism into something sustainable, you have to 0:32:03.680 --> 0:32:07.520 remind yourself this is what I believe in. This is love, 0:32:08.000 --> 0:32:11.160 and it's not from bitterness, and it's not from being 0:32:11.160 --> 0:32:13.360 on a moral high ground like I'm doing this because 0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:15.840 I believe in it as me as DD and I 0:32:15.880 --> 0:32:19.160 really hope other people join and other people also open 0:32:19.200 --> 0:32:22.800 their hearts to these injustices and realize that in order 0:32:22.840 --> 0:32:27.479 for everyone to have a just reality of just future, 0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:29.800 then you have to fight for everyone to have those 0:32:29.880 --> 0:32:30.480 rights as well. 0:32:31.240 --> 0:32:33.520 Yeah, thank you so much for that. I always say, like, 0:32:34.040 --> 0:32:35.840 I mean, I think this is applicable lots of places. 0:32:35.880 --> 0:32:37.960 I say it here in the United States, like when 0:32:37.960 --> 0:32:42.000 there was a crackdown on pro Palestine protesters and just 0:32:42.080 --> 0:32:47.160 the complete reversal of freedom of speech and everything like 0:32:47.200 --> 0:32:49.880 that because they happened to be pro Palestine. I said, 0:32:49.920 --> 0:32:53.560 you know, this is eroding the tenuous democracy you have. 0:32:53.600 --> 0:32:55.720 It's democracy for all of us or none of us. 0:32:55.880 --> 0:32:59.920 And in Israel it's like, you can be liberal or 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:04.040 you can call yourself the left and advocate in this way. 0:33:04.120 --> 0:33:06.880 But unless, like you said, you realize what the construction 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:09.479 of the state and its continuation kind of like this 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:13.920 endless ethnic cleansing project that's happening in the territories, It's like, 0:33:14.360 --> 0:33:16.920 unless you address that, it will bleed into you. 0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:18.320 So it's you. 0:33:18.240 --> 0:33:20.800 Know, for a variety of reasons, moral reasons, of course, 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:25.200 but also self interest. Dahlia Schenlin has an interesting article 0:33:25.200 --> 0:33:27.640 about this and an interesting argument about this that I'll 0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:30.000 link in the show notes. And I would say she's 0:33:30.320 --> 0:33:32.920 a believer in maybe a Confederation or something like that. 0:33:32.960 --> 0:33:38.600 But her analysis is the occupation ruined the potential of 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:39.720 Israeli democracy. 0:33:40.320 --> 0:33:41.280 Like I said, she comes at it. 0:33:41.200 --> 0:33:42.800 From a very kind of different angle I think than 0:33:42.840 --> 0:33:46.240 you do, but still is a reasonable argument at the 0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:46.720 end of it. 0:33:47.320 --> 0:33:49.320 But yeah, thank you so much, Danielle. 0:33:49.320 --> 0:33:53.240 This has been a really rich conversation and I think 0:33:53.280 --> 0:33:56.960 that the listeners will benefit a lot from having this 0:33:58.280 --> 0:34:00.800 laid out. And of course I'll include everything in the 0:34:00.800 --> 0:34:02.760 show notes about the groups that we mentioned. 0:34:03.240 --> 0:34:07.360 Thank you so much for inviting me. And yeah, I 0:34:07.360 --> 0:34:10.600 hope I didn't talk your head off, No, not at all. 0:34:10.719 --> 0:34:11.960 This is very thank you so much. 0:34:37.640 --> 0:34:41.440 This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis reporting 0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:46.080 from the New York State Capitol. In the early early 0:34:46.239 --> 0:34:49.520 morning of Wednesday, February twenty fifth, I rode on a 0:34:49.560 --> 0:34:52.279 bus from the snowy streets of the Financial District in 0:34:52.280 --> 0:34:56.040 Lower Manhattan up to Albany, the New York State Capitol. 0:34:56.880 --> 0:35:01.160 The bus arrived at the Armory Arena shortly before ten am. 0:35:01.560 --> 0:35:05.760 Inside there was coffee and breakfast, signs and posters tax 0:35:05.840 --> 0:35:09.360 the rich embroidered beanies, and over a thousand New Yorkers 0:35:09.600 --> 0:35:12.279 gathered to tell Kathy Hochel and the New York State 0:35:12.320 --> 0:35:17.080 Legislature that it's time to tax the rich. After recovering 0:35:17.160 --> 0:35:20.400 from the morning bus ride, a rally was held in 0:35:20.480 --> 0:35:25.000 the Armory Arena, hosted by New York City Councilman Chosay, 0:35:26.200 --> 0:35:30.160 with speakers from local unions like the Nurses Association ten 0:35:30.239 --> 0:35:36.000 ninety nine SCIU, the Taxi Workers Alliance, immigrant justice organizations, childcare, 0:35:36.080 --> 0:35:39.680 housing and education advocates, as well as the co chair 0:35:39.800 --> 0:35:44.120 of the New York City DSA. Following the speeches, the 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:48.680 crowd practiced chants and protest songs ahead of the march 0:35:48.840 --> 0:35:53.399 to the Capitol. The rally at the Armory just wrapped up. 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:58.480 Now a thousand or so people are marching on Washington 0:35:58.719 --> 0:36:19.799 towards the State Capitol Building in Albany. The crowd is 0:36:19.840 --> 0:36:23.120 now in front of the Legislative building. There's some New 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:27.560 York taxicabs honking outside. The New York d Essay marching 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.880 band Why we Are. 0:36:33.680 --> 0:36:38.920 We Need? Why we are the workers? 0:36:39.200 --> 0:36:42.279 A little bit Matter we Need? 0:36:46.440 --> 0:36:49.560 Is twelve thirty and the crowd is now approaching the 0:36:49.600 --> 0:36:53.800 New York State Capitol Building. The crowd is stretching halfway 0:36:53.840 --> 0:36:57.040 around the square in front of all these government buildings, 0:36:57.440 --> 0:37:01.880 and still marching forward. I'm about to enter the State 0:37:02.200 --> 0:37:05.840 Capitol building. After about a twenty five to thirty minute 0:37:05.840 --> 0:37:10.880 march and some chanting outside, a steady stream of people 0:37:10.920 --> 0:37:18.719 are now flowing into the Capitol. 0:37:18.880 --> 0:37:21.759 You guys gotta have to exit. We cannot take any more. 0:37:23.440 --> 0:37:23.800 Okay. 0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:26.719 I have made it inside the Capitol building barely. The 0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:30.560 last person omitted in the top security section by the 0:37:30.560 --> 0:37:33.320 main entrance. But now I'm down at the lower level, 0:37:33.520 --> 0:37:36.960 the concourse, and as you can hear, a massive crowd 0:37:37.160 --> 0:37:42.880 is approaching the security gate in the lower concourse, taking 0:37:42.960 --> 0:37:48.520 up the entirety of that corridor, and just now have 0:37:49.200 --> 0:37:56.800 entered the security gate area of the Capitol. We'll return 0:37:56.880 --> 0:38:01.040 to Socialist January sixth later this episode, but first some 0:38:01.320 --> 0:38:04.719 context on why this protest is happening and what it's 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:08.920 hoping to achieve. On January first, Democratic Socialist a Zoron 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:12.200 Mumdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City. 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:16.439 But you don't magically get your social democracy paradise once 0:38:16.480 --> 0:38:19.600 a new mayor is sworn in. Getting elected and taking 0:38:19.640 --> 0:38:22.759 power is just the first step. Governor Hokel has been 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:26.960 resistant to raising taxes, and Zoron has said he's open 0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:30.720 to other funding avenues, but that a small tax increase 0:38:30.719 --> 0:38:33.880 on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations would be the 0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:38.520 fairest method of funding his agenda. Since taking office, Mayor 0:38:38.560 --> 0:38:42.560 Mamdani has decided to focus on governing and fostering a 0:38:42.680 --> 0:38:47.320 working relationship with Kathy Hokeel, rather than directing energy towards 0:38:47.360 --> 0:38:52.200 another uphill electoral battle that would create a purely adversarial 0:38:52.280 --> 0:38:56.359 relationship between the Mayor and the governor, making any concessions 0:38:56.480 --> 0:39:00.879 much more difficult in the interim. But extra pressure still 0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:03.840 must be applied to Governor Hockel in order to secure 0:39:03.840 --> 0:39:07.880 the funding for the Mamdani mandate that voters delivered in 0:39:07.920 --> 0:39:12.359 the twenty twenty five election. So, rather than discarding the 0:39:12.400 --> 0:39:17.280 grassroots organizing apparatus that got Mamdani elected, after the election, 0:39:17.760 --> 0:39:21.239 that apparatus and its network of volunteers spun off into 0:39:21.280 --> 0:39:25.840 a new organization called Our Time, which, in coordination with 0:39:25.880 --> 0:39:29.440 the New York City DSA, organizes door to door canvassing, 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:33.120 phone banking, community events, and rallies to win an affordable 0:39:33.200 --> 0:39:38.880 New York City and help enact Mamdani's policy agenda. Achieving 0:39:38.960 --> 0:39:43.440 Mamdani's campaign promises was already going to be a tall task, 0:39:44.040 --> 0:39:48.000 But then early into the new administration, the Mayor's office 0:39:48.000 --> 0:39:52.440 and comptroller discovered the city was facing an unexpected financial 0:39:52.480 --> 0:39:56.560 crisis in the form of a twelve billion dollar deficit 0:39:56.920 --> 0:40:01.239 left by former Mayor Eric Adams. This budget crisis was 0:40:01.320 --> 0:40:04.960 due to years of financial mismanagement and the under budgeting 0:40:05.080 --> 0:40:10.520 of essential services like rental and cash assistance, shelters, health insurance, 0:40:10.560 --> 0:40:14.839 and special education. While in office, Eric Adams covered up 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:19.640 this massive budget deficit, leaving the gaps grossly understated, gaps 0:40:19.680 --> 0:40:22.160 that were made worse by divestment in New York City 0:40:22.200 --> 0:40:26.319 by the state under former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Since the 0:40:26.360 --> 0:40:29.319 financial crisis of the seventies, the New York City mayor 0:40:29.440 --> 0:40:32.680 has been required by law to have a balanced budget. 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:37.160 So rather than sweeping this under the rug by continuing 0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:41.080 to cook the city's books like his predecessor, Zoron chose 0:40:41.120 --> 0:40:44.759 complete transparency about the crisis he has inherited and how 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:48.319 his administration will attempt to solve it. Zoron signed an 0:40:48.320 --> 0:40:51.920 executive order to designate chief Savings Officers in every city 0:40:51.960 --> 0:40:57.759 agency to quote, streamlined processes and eliminate waste. Through his 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:01.840 relationship with Governor Kathy Hochel, the mayor secured one point 0:41:01.840 --> 0:41:06.240 five billion dollars in state aid last month. That money, 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:10.920 combined with higher than expected Wall Street revenues, new savings measures, 0:41:10.960 --> 0:41:15.000 and eliminating inefficiencies and bureaucratic waste, have shrunk the deficit 0:41:15.239 --> 0:41:20.640 to five point five billion, still a painful gap to fill. 0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:25.120 In the preliminary budget, unveiled February seventeenth, the mayor laid 0:41:25.120 --> 0:41:29.200 out two paths to close this gap. The first is 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:33.080 a two percent income tax increase on New Yorker's making 0:41:33.160 --> 0:41:36.239 over a million dollars a year, as well as a 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:40.240 tax on the most profitable corporations. If that doesn't happen, 0:41:40.640 --> 0:41:42.800 the city will be forced to use the limited tools 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:45.759 at its disposal by rating the Rainy Day Fund and 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:50.359 raising city property tax by nine point five percent. Mayor 0:41:50.400 --> 0:41:53.880 Mamdani says this second option is one of last resort, 0:41:54.480 --> 0:41:57.560 as the property tax is the only mechanism for revenue 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:02.040 the city has complete control of. The preliminary budget has 0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:05.680 face criticism for falling short of promises to increase funding 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:09.080 to parks and libraries. The library budget is zero point 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:13.480 one point one percent less than Mamdani campaigned on, and 0:42:13.560 --> 0:42:16.759 the park budget remains flat rather than boosting it to 0:42:16.880 --> 0:42:19.680 one percent of the total budget as hoped. Though this 0:42:19.840 --> 0:42:23.960 is still preliminary and subject to change. This budget does 0:42:24.040 --> 0:42:28.640 contain five hundred million dollars for new programmatic spending, including 0:42:28.719 --> 0:42:31.480 new funding for shelter services, mental health care, and the 0:42:31.520 --> 0:42:35.759 Emergency Food Program, and cancels in Eric Adams's plan to 0:42:35.800 --> 0:42:40.640 add five thousand more NYPD officers, Though as promised, their 0:42:40.640 --> 0:42:45.200 budget remains effectively the same. Mayor Mamdani says that funding 0:42:45.239 --> 0:42:48.560 for his proposed Department of Community Safety will be covered 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:52.759 in the executive budget later this April. A number of 0:42:52.800 --> 0:42:56.960 Mamdani's key policies don't relate to the city budget. For example, 0:42:57.239 --> 0:43:00.640 making buses free will require deals with the state the MTA, 0:43:01.480 --> 0:43:04.840 but Mamdanie just appointed six new people to the Rent 0:43:04.920 --> 0:43:08.799 Guidelines Board, making a rent freeze more likely. In his 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:11.160 second week in office, mcdonnie announced a partnership with the 0:43:11.200 --> 0:43:14.480 governor to provide universal childcare for kids under five in 0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:17.520 New York State and in New York City, expand pre 0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:22.319 K the free three K program and free childcare for 0:43:22.400 --> 0:43:25.040 two year olds, which the state will fully fund for 0:43:25.080 --> 0:43:46.160 the first two years on top of the city budget crisis. 0:43:46.520 --> 0:43:49.040 The tax the Rich protests are also in the backdrop 0:43:49.120 --> 0:43:52.600 of Trump's tax cuts and the dismantling of the social 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:56.600 safety net, calls to tax the richer, calls to fund 0:43:56.680 --> 0:44:00.000 local services, and whether the massive cuts to snap food 0:44:00.120 --> 0:44:05.080 stamps and medicaid in Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill. The 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:07.960 Tax the Rich campaign writes, quote, if we don't tax 0:44:08.000 --> 0:44:11.160 the ritch, millions of New Yorkers will lose healthcare or 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:14.960 go hungry. New York can afford to stand up to 0:44:15.040 --> 0:44:20.160 Trump's agenda unquote. At the Albany rally, City Councilman chi 0:44:20.400 --> 0:44:24.640 Osa spoke about how New York State has over one 0:44:24.719 --> 0:44:31.120 hundred billionaires and New York actually gained thirteen thousand millionaires 0:44:31.160 --> 0:44:35.239 in twenty twenty four alone. This fight to tax the 0:44:35.320 --> 0:44:38.480 rich is a fight that the unions are united on, 0:44:39.040 --> 0:44:42.560 as demonstrated by the attendees and representatives present at the 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:43.560 Albany rally. 0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:47.959 Everyone needs to feel the low United Auto Orders Region. 0:44:47.719 --> 0:44:48.160 Nine a. 0:44:49.760 --> 0:44:51.640 National stand Christian. 0:44:57.760 --> 0:44:59.360 We gotta give this one a shout out because they 0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:03.640 just came off a historic strike and a huge, huge Contractman. 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:06.000 You you are saying Nurses. 0:45:05.640 --> 0:45:12.040 Association, Media Patres. 0:45:11.640 --> 0:45:18.520 And President Sciu. Not the union is network, the Doctor's Council, 0:45:19.120 --> 0:45:22.920 the New York Taxi Workers signs, New. 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:24.600 Yorker's United for Child's Care. 0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:27.120 What lot is quality education? 0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:30.600 That we are burning family is mard. 0:45:31.080 --> 0:45:32.399 But we really appreciate your here. 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:35.920 And when the coalition this strong made no mistake. 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:40.279 We are going to overcome the political power of the 0:45:40.360 --> 0:45:41.440 billionaire class. 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:45.799 But we aren't going to sap. 0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:52.160 The rich or I really are we can inform. 0:45:52.200 --> 0:45:55.120 This coalition went up to albody pushing for a handful 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:59.840 of bills currently under consideration. The first is a progressive 0:46:00.080 --> 0:46:03.760 state income tax bill, which will create new tax brackets 0:46:03.800 --> 0:46:07.200 starting at one million dollars, so that as people earn 0:46:07.520 --> 0:46:10.800 millions more dollars in income, they pay a slightly higher 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:14.399 share in taxes. This would raise an estimated twenty one 0:46:14.600 --> 0:46:19.000 billion dollars annually. The second bill is called the Fair 0:46:19.200 --> 0:46:23.040 Share Act, which seeks to address how New York City 0:46:23.360 --> 0:46:27.320 essentially charges a flat income tax if you earn fifty 0:46:27.400 --> 0:46:31.600 thousand dollars or five million dollars, where you pay practically 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:35.920 the same rate of roughly three point nine percent. The 0:46:35.960 --> 0:46:39.480 Fair Share Act seeks to add a two percent surcharge 0:46:39.560 --> 0:46:43.320 to those with incomes of over one million dollars per year, 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:48.040 which would raise about four billion dollars annually. The third 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:51.120 bill is a tax on the most profitable corporations, a 0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:54.279 corporate tax bill ensuring companies doing business in New York 0:46:54.320 --> 0:46:58.799 State with over two point five million in profits pay 0:46:58.800 --> 0:47:02.120 what they owe in taxes. This proposal would raise seven 0:47:02.280 --> 0:47:06.279 billion dollars annually. And finally, a bill which could be 0:47:06.280 --> 0:47:08.960 funded by some of the former tax bills is the 0:47:09.160 --> 0:47:13.399 Universal Childcare Act, which would ensure free, year round, full 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:17.840 day childcare without means testing, and guarantee that all childcare 0:47:17.880 --> 0:47:21.719 workers are paid a genuine living wage. As of now, 0:47:21.880 --> 0:47:25.319 twenty two New York City council people have signed on 0:47:25.600 --> 0:47:28.960 to tax the rich by supporting the Fair Share Act. 0:47:29.560 --> 0:47:33.160 Only four more council people are needed to reach a majority. 0:47:34.160 --> 0:47:38.000 So with that context, let's return to the Albany protest, 0:47:38.480 --> 0:47:42.520 both outside and inside the New York Capitol Building. 0:47:42.920 --> 0:47:46.040 Why oday billionaires make them pay. 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:47.120 We pay taxes? 0:47:47.239 --> 0:47:51.560 Why don't pay billionaires make them pay we pay taxes? 0:47:51.640 --> 0:47:58.840 Whid ot day billionaires. 0:47:58.920 --> 0:48:03.520 I was the asked person to be allowed into the 0:48:03.600 --> 0:48:08.720 Capitol building. There is hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people 0:48:09.200 --> 0:48:14.160 outside now trying to get in to tell the politicians, 0:48:14.320 --> 0:48:18.560 representatives and the governor that they want to tax the rich. 0:48:20.040 --> 0:48:23.320 I am in the lower concourse of the Capitol building, 0:48:24.200 --> 0:48:27.520 barely getting through security on the top floor because there's 0:48:27.560 --> 0:48:30.880 so many people, not because I was inherently dangerous, but 0:48:31.000 --> 0:48:33.799 now a large, large group of people are coming in 0:48:33.880 --> 0:48:37.880 via the lower concourse, about to reach the main security 0:48:37.920 --> 0:48:41.360 gate at the lower level. Looks like a few hundred 0:48:41.440 --> 0:48:47.080 down this corridor about to enter the Capitol holding signs 0:48:47.120 --> 0:48:51.000 taking up the entire passageway. 0:48:51.960 --> 0:48:53.120 It's the Coney group. 0:48:53.280 --> 0:49:02.759 It is the Public University Union that has appeared. Later 0:49:02.840 --> 0:49:06.920 that day, I interviewed someone with PSC, the Cooney staff Union. 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:11.359 I'm Liz Stevenson. I am an academic advisor at City Tech, 0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:14.400 which means I'm a member of the psc Quny Union. 0:49:15.200 --> 0:49:17.240 Why is a PC here at Albany today? 0:49:17.760 --> 0:49:19.200 So PSC. 0:49:19.320 --> 0:49:22.399 I'm on the Legislative Committee of the PSC, and many 0:49:22.440 --> 0:49:24.720 folks from our committee as well as other PSC members, 0:49:24.800 --> 0:49:27.319 have come to Albany because we really want to see 0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:30.480 fair taxation in New York State. You know, right now 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:33.719 a lot of millionaires and billionaires are not paying their 0:49:33.760 --> 0:49:37.160 fair share, especially as a result of Trump's tax cuts, 0:49:37.640 --> 0:49:40.480 and that means that we're not seeing the services we need, 0:49:40.600 --> 0:49:43.040 and certainly at CuNi, we're not seeing the funding that 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:47.040 we need to make our schools quality schools with safe 0:49:47.040 --> 0:49:50.719 and healthy facilities. Students are not getting. 0:49:50.440 --> 0:49:51.520 The services that they need. 0:49:51.560 --> 0:49:54.920 Class sizes are large, so we want to see more 0:49:54.920 --> 0:49:57.840 full time faculty, We want to see more academic advisors, 0:49:57.840 --> 0:50:00.600 we want to see more mental health counselors, and generally 0:50:00.880 --> 0:50:03.440 we want to see better facilities for CuNi. And we 0:50:03.520 --> 0:50:06.000 know that the only way that we can get the 0:50:06.320 --> 0:50:10.040 funding that we need for many services, including CuNi, is 0:50:10.080 --> 0:50:12.120 by taxing the rich. We really need to raise revenue 0:50:12.120 --> 0:50:12.560 in the state. 0:50:13.640 --> 0:50:17.880 So there's the three tax bills, the income, the corporate, 0:50:18.320 --> 0:50:21.640 and the New York City specific one. But on the 0:50:21.840 --> 0:50:24.720 on the PC flyers, it's also another bill or act 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:28.040 that is being pushed for specifically to help CUNEY get 0:50:28.120 --> 0:50:30.279 more funding. Can you talk about that aspect of the 0:50:30.760 --> 0:50:31.200 fight here? 0:50:31.520 --> 0:50:31.880 Sure? 0:50:32.080 --> 0:50:36.440 A little known former state legislator named Zoron Mamdani wrote 0:50:36.440 --> 0:50:39.600 this bill called the Repair Act, And what the Repair 0:50:39.680 --> 0:50:43.200 Act would do is allow the state to collect property 0:50:43.239 --> 0:50:47.880 taxes from NYU and Colombia and then use that money 0:50:47.920 --> 0:50:53.000 to fund public higher education like CuNi. So right now, 0:50:53.080 --> 0:50:56.640 you know, as technically as nonprofits, NYU and Colombia do 0:50:56.719 --> 0:51:00.720 not pay any property tax. In many places around the country, 0:51:00.760 --> 0:51:04.440 there are similar institutions that still make what we call pilots, 0:51:04.440 --> 0:51:07.280 so payments in lieu of taxes, and YUM in Columbia 0:51:07.360 --> 0:51:11.000 don't even do that. So it would take a constitutional 0:51:11.120 --> 0:51:14.600 amendment at the state level to require them to pay 0:51:14.640 --> 0:51:17.800 property taxes, and that's what the Repair Act would allow 0:51:17.880 --> 0:51:19.720 us to do. It would have to go through multiple 0:51:19.760 --> 0:51:23.480 legislatures in order to get a constitutional amendment that would 0:51:23.560 --> 0:51:26.239 require them to pay property taxes. That's another way to 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:27.320 raise revenue for CuNi. 0:51:28.520 --> 0:51:31.520 Liz also told me that PSC is fighting for a 0:51:31.600 --> 0:51:34.960 quote unquote new deal for Cooney because for the past 0:51:35.000 --> 0:51:39.840 few decades there's been divestment in public higher education across 0:51:39.880 --> 0:51:43.360 the country and especially in New York. Under Cuomo, Cooney 0:51:43.440 --> 0:51:47.040 suffered from defunding and is now currently suffering from chronic 0:51:47.160 --> 0:51:52.840 understaffing and facilities in decay. All While student enrollment has increased, 0:51:53.360 --> 0:51:57.440 teachers have resigned or retired and not been replaced. So 0:51:57.760 --> 0:52:00.879 PSC is fighting for a renewed in vestment to hire 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:04.520 more full time staff and repair and maintain facilities to 0:52:04.600 --> 0:52:08.719 improve not just their working conditions but their students' learning conditions. 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:11.200 A part of the new deal for Cooney is also 0:52:11.400 --> 0:52:14.319 fighting for the first sixty credits to be free for 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:35.319 all students. Once the crowd outside managed to find a 0:52:35.360 --> 0:52:39.600 way to enter the Capitol through the alternative entrances, groups 0:52:39.719 --> 0:52:43.800 split off to march around the interior perimeter while others 0:52:43.960 --> 0:52:47.280 lobbied legislators. Lunch was set up on the third floor. 0:52:47.719 --> 0:52:50.560 After a quick bite, even more people dispersed through the 0:52:50.600 --> 0:52:54.000 capital complex to hand out flyers to legislators and their staff, 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:57.120 while small groups lobbied door to door in the Legislative 0:52:57.120 --> 0:53:02.120 Office building and organizers attended private meetings. The action was 0:53:02.160 --> 0:53:05.799 timed to catch politicians and capital staff while they were 0:53:05.880 --> 0:53:08.839 on their own lunch break as they walked around the 0:53:08.880 --> 0:53:12.839 Empire State Plaza and eventually back to the chambers. By 0:53:12.920 --> 0:53:18.040 early afternoon, as a grand finale, hundreds of people packed 0:53:18.080 --> 0:53:22.680 the corridor from the Legislative offices to the Assembly and Senate, 0:53:23.280 --> 0:53:26.680 lining both sides of the hallway with chanting union members 0:53:26.719 --> 0:53:30.920 and organizers handing flyers to politicians and staff who hurried 0:53:30.960 --> 0:53:35.759 through the corridor. Supportive Assembly members cheered on the protest 0:53:35.920 --> 0:53:51.280 as they walked through the tunnel. That is the current 0:53:51.360 --> 0:53:54.280 state of the tax the Rich corridor. 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:01.480 Inside wit side? 0:54:01.719 --> 0:54:02.400 Are you on. 0:54:04.520 --> 0:54:04.840 Side? 0:54:07.719 --> 0:54:08.080 Side? 0:54:08.320 --> 0:54:10.120 Are you? 0:54:11.840 --> 0:54:16.000 Around three pm, the crowd left the corridor, boarded buses 0:54:16.040 --> 0:54:19.560 outside the Capital Complex and rode back to New York City, 0:54:20.080 --> 0:54:24.120 just in time to catch the sunset. Meanwhile, at a 0:54:24.120 --> 0:54:28.560 press conference on pre K and three K enrollment, Mayor 0:54:28.719 --> 0:54:33.240 Zoron Mamdani was asked about his absence from the Albany 0:54:33.520 --> 0:54:34.760 Tax the Rich Rally. 0:54:35.280 --> 0:54:36.120 Hey, Mayor, how are you doing? 0:54:36.360 --> 0:54:36.480 Jay? 0:54:36.640 --> 0:54:39.359 There's a Tax the Rich rally today in Albany. You're 0:54:39.360 --> 0:54:42.640 not there, obviously, even though taxing the rich has been 0:54:42.680 --> 0:54:44.640 one of your consistent calls to. 0:54:44.840 --> 0:54:46.000 Raise revenue for the city. 0:54:46.200 --> 0:54:47.520 So I wondering if you could talk a little bit 0:54:47.520 --> 0:54:49.759 about why you decided not to be there. Were you 0:54:49.840 --> 0:54:53.840 worried about irking the governor on this issue? And secondly, 0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:57.160 do you think it disappoints people in this movement that 0:54:57.360 --> 0:55:00.200 you've called for that, but you're you're not necessarily at 0:55:00.239 --> 0:55:00.720 this rally. 0:55:00.960 --> 0:55:03.680 So I make it clear time and time again that 0:55:03.760 --> 0:55:06.360 I believe in the importance of taxing the wealthiest New 0:55:06.440 --> 0:55:07.960 Yorkers that little bit more, as well as the most 0:55:08.000 --> 0:55:11.040 profitable corporations, and doing so while also ending the drain 0:55:11.120 --> 0:55:14.719 that has long characterized our city's fiscal relationship with the state. 0:55:15.080 --> 0:55:17.440 And I've said this both because it's important to create 0:55:17.480 --> 0:55:19.680 a fair at tax system and also because of the 0:55:19.719 --> 0:55:22.359 fact that we're facing a five point four billion dollar 0:55:22.560 --> 0:55:25.080 fiscal deficit at this time, the likes of which we 0:55:25.120 --> 0:55:28.240 haven't seen since the Great Recession, and my not attending 0:55:28.280 --> 0:55:31.200 one event does not change in any way the strength 0:55:31.239 --> 0:55:33.120 with which I believe this, the urgency with which I 0:55:33.160 --> 0:55:35.520 believe we have to respond to it. And I'm thankful 0:55:35.680 --> 0:55:38.920 for New Yorkers who continue to make it clear that 0:55:39.000 --> 0:55:40.640 they too want to build a city that everyone who 0:55:40.680 --> 0:55:42.560 calls it home can afford. The Governor and I are 0:55:42.600 --> 0:55:46.200 in constant communication, and we are always looking to build 0:55:46.280 --> 0:55:49.600 a healthier, stronger city. I'm appreciative of our partnership in that, 0:55:49.640 --> 0:55:51.560 and I know we have a long budget process to 0:55:51.560 --> 0:55:53.319 go through, and I'm encouraged by the beginnings of it. 0:55:54.239 --> 0:55:58.800 Rally, attendance was lower than organizers hoped. The early morning 0:55:58.840 --> 0:56:02.640 start and blizzer a few days prior likely effect and turnout, 0:56:03.239 --> 0:56:06.520 though as already discussed, many unions did sign on to 0:56:06.600 --> 0:56:10.920 the action and send representative members. Organizing on a grand 0:56:10.960 --> 0:56:14.719 scale right after what's perceived as a huge victory like 0:56:14.840 --> 0:56:18.759 winning an election can actually be difficult, even for a 0:56:18.800 --> 0:56:22.440 group like Our Time that's working to use the organizing 0:56:22.440 --> 0:56:26.520 apparatus that got Mamdani elected to help enact his policy agenda. 0:56:27.160 --> 0:56:30.080 Not as many people will be keen on canvassing right 0:56:30.120 --> 0:56:34.200 after spending six months canvassing for an election, even if 0:56:34.320 --> 0:56:38.440 the election was a victory. Our Time aimed to send 0:56:38.520 --> 0:56:42.279 twenty five thousand Tax the Rich letters to state legislators 0:56:42.320 --> 0:56:45.279 by the end of January, but as of now the 0:56:45.360 --> 0:56:50.240 website lists under seven thousand letters sent. But the Albany 0:56:50.320 --> 0:56:54.520 takeover protest was just the opening act. The state budget 0:56:54.560 --> 0:56:57.840 is set to be finalized by March thirty first, and 0:56:57.880 --> 0:57:00.360 there will be Tax the Rich events across the state 0:57:00.680 --> 0:57:03.640 leading up to the end of the month. This next 0:57:03.640 --> 0:57:06.200 week and a half, New York City DSA and Our 0:57:06.320 --> 0:57:09.960 Time will host a Week of Action or a week 0:57:10.000 --> 0:57:14.839 of tax shin to increase pressure on the legislature and 0:57:14.880 --> 0:57:19.600 the governor as they head into budget negotiations, proving the 0:57:19.640 --> 0:57:24.360 diversity of this coalition. Confusingly, there are two different time 0:57:24.440 --> 0:57:27.640 spans listed for the Week of Action across the social 0:57:27.640 --> 0:57:31.520 media and org websites March fifth through the tenth or 0:57:31.720 --> 0:57:34.360 March seventh through the fourteenth. 0:57:34.440 --> 0:57:35.200 But regardless. 0:57:35.280 --> 0:57:38.720 Between the fifth and the fourteenth, there are organized actions 0:57:38.720 --> 0:57:45.680 happening across the five boroughs and statewide in Buffalo, Hudson Valley, Ithaca, Rochester, Syracuse, 0:57:45.720 --> 0:57:50.760 and Westchester. There'll be door knocking, phone banking, collecting petition signatures, 0:57:51.040 --> 0:57:54.760 and a kickoff happy hour social at Solus in the 0:57:54.800 --> 0:57:59.720 East Village on Thursday, March fifth. To quote from our 0:57:59.800 --> 0:58:03.800 time quote, what happens in Albany this winter will shape 0:58:03.880 --> 0:58:07.640 Zorn's first year in office and determine whether working families 0:58:07.680 --> 0:58:10.440 get the relief they need. We have until March to 0:58:10.480 --> 0:58:13.320 build enough pressure to win a state budget that funds 0:58:13.360 --> 0:58:17.919 free childcare, backfills the cuts, and secures resources to do 0:58:18.080 --> 0:58:23.480 so much more unquote, beyond running the biggest city in 0:58:23.520 --> 0:58:27.600 the country. As a secondary goal, Momdani seeks to provide 0:58:27.640 --> 0:58:31.880 an example that left wing politicians can responsibly govern and 0:58:31.880 --> 0:58:34.280 that left wing policies can make people's lives better and 0:58:34.320 --> 0:58:38.400 more affordable, and New Yorkers are organizing to make that 0:58:38.480 --> 0:58:40.600 example as strong as it can be. 0:58:48.960 --> 0:59:23.760 Where you are, Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show. 0:59:23.920 --> 0:59:27.240 I'm joined today by Gordayen, who's a journalist from Kurdistan 0:59:27.280 --> 0:59:30.680 who's based in Germany, and we're going to discuss the 0:59:30.760 --> 0:59:33.080 bombing of Iran. How are you got in? 0:59:33.920 --> 0:59:34.240 Hello? 0:59:34.600 --> 0:59:38.600 Thank you again for inviting me, and yeah, I'm ready 0:59:38.640 --> 0:59:41.919 to talk about what's happening in Iran right now. 0:59:42.240 --> 0:59:46.840 Yeah, Yeah, it's a lot, a lot is happening. I 0:59:46.840 --> 0:59:49.240 mean we should begin, I suppose by if someone happens 0:59:49.240 --> 0:59:53.400 to have been avoiding the news and has somehow managed 0:59:53.440 --> 0:59:57.000 to avoid learning what is happening, can we give like 0:59:57.080 --> 1:00:01.120 a small summary of the event sort of happened since 1:00:01.560 --> 1:00:03.200 Friday night US time. 1:00:03.560 --> 1:00:09.440 So yeah, it was early morning, around eight nine in 1:00:09.480 --> 1:00:14.200 the morning in Iran time, that the Israeli army attacked 1:00:14.560 --> 1:00:19.320 the center of Tehran where Ali Khameni's house, which is 1:00:19.400 --> 1:00:23.800 known as Bete Aberti, the Leader's house, was located. And 1:00:23.840 --> 1:00:30.160 apparently the Iranian officials were having a very important meeting there, 1:00:30.640 --> 1:00:34.120 and following that there were more attacks across Tehran and 1:00:34.200 --> 1:00:38.840 other cities. And by night, as the attacks were going on, 1:00:38.880 --> 1:00:41.560 As the strikes were going on, bennam and Antonio came 1:00:41.600 --> 1:00:45.080 on TV and he said that I have some news. 1:00:45.240 --> 1:00:49.160 I have some information that confirms that Alikamani is dead, 1:00:49.960 --> 1:00:55.480 which caused a lot of panic and excitement among the people, 1:00:56.400 --> 1:01:00.600 and everybody was really excited and they were waiting for 1:01:00.640 --> 1:01:04.600 this to be confirmed. And then some people came out 1:01:04.640 --> 1:01:08.040 and said, no, it's not true. But after some hours, 1:01:08.160 --> 1:01:13.520 the Iranian state media, the TV channels all started confirming that. 1:01:14.080 --> 1:01:17.439 So following that the attacks did not stop. They were 1:01:17.480 --> 1:01:22.000 still going on. And then the American Army also joined. 1:01:22.760 --> 1:01:27.760 This is a completely coordinated cooperation between US and Israel. 1:01:28.080 --> 1:01:33.480 So as they were attacking different IRGC bases and the 1:01:33.520 --> 1:01:38.040 facilities belonging to the government, the Iranian government started attacking 1:01:38.080 --> 1:01:41.880 the neighboring countries. They attacked Uaa, they attacked Katar, they 1:01:41.920 --> 1:01:45.960 attacked Bahrain, they attacked Iraq, and they attacked also Iraqi 1:01:46.000 --> 1:01:51.360 Curtistan region, and they were just mainly targeting the US 1:01:51.480 --> 1:01:55.120 basis or facilities belonging to the US, but soon after 1:01:55.160 --> 1:02:01.120 they started attacking civilian buildings like hotels, like just randomly 1:02:01.160 --> 1:02:04.800 attacking different directions, And at the same time they also 1:02:04.960 --> 1:02:10.520 started sending missiles and drones towards Israel, which majority of 1:02:10.560 --> 1:02:15.720 them were intercepted. So they've been attacking these neighboring countries 1:02:16.160 --> 1:02:20.439 since the beginning of this war, and they have been 1:02:21.080 --> 1:02:26.720 specifically targeting Iraqi Kurdistan because first, the US has a 1:02:26.720 --> 1:02:29.800 lot of big military bases there in Iraq and Iraqi 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:32.520 Kuddhistan region, and at the same time they are the 1:02:32.640 --> 1:02:36.440 Kurdish parties from Iran who are based there and the 1:02:36.440 --> 1:02:39.360 regime has been seeing them as one of the major 1:02:39.480 --> 1:02:44.480 threats since decades. So since the beginning of this whole war, 1:02:44.600 --> 1:02:48.160 they have been targeting these Kurdish parties a lot, and 1:02:48.760 --> 1:02:52.080 they also attacked there is a refugee base that the 1:02:52.080 --> 1:02:55.200 families of the Kurdish forces basically lived there. They also 1:02:55.280 --> 1:02:59.560 attacked there, but luckily nobody was killed or injured, but 1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:03.480 some leagues were damaged. And they attacked Erbil with drones 1:03:03.480 --> 1:03:07.520 and missiles several times, which were all mainly intercepted by 1:03:07.520 --> 1:03:11.120 the US. Air defense systems because of the remainings of 1:03:11.240 --> 1:03:14.320 the missiles and the drones that were falling down from 1:03:14.360 --> 1:03:17.440 the sguise. Some people were lightly injured or some buildings 1:03:17.480 --> 1:03:21.680 were damaged. But yeah, still it's a crazy thing to 1:03:21.720 --> 1:03:26.640 see because previously in the past years, Iran had attacked 1:03:26.760 --> 1:03:30.360 or built several times and also other regions, but the 1:03:30.520 --> 1:03:33.240 US or the other countries that were there, they didn't 1:03:33.320 --> 1:03:38.520 really intercept the drones or the missiles. There's also something 1:03:38.840 --> 1:03:41.880 new that we're seeing. It's also important to know that 1:03:42.320 --> 1:03:47.160 Iran has also attacked Cypress, like British military bases were 1:03:47.160 --> 1:03:50.800 targeted there, but the drones or the missiles were sent 1:03:50.840 --> 1:03:54.400 from Lebanon. What's going on right now is the full 1:03:54.440 --> 1:03:57.280 scare war, and I think when you look at it, 1:03:57.280 --> 1:04:01.240 it's nothing like what we've seen before. If you want 1:04:01.280 --> 1:04:03.960 to compare it to what happened in Iraq the US invasion, 1:04:04.000 --> 1:04:07.240 this is completely different. I think it's it's even larger 1:04:07.280 --> 1:04:11.080 than that because Iran is a very big country and 1:04:11.120 --> 1:04:15.320 there are hundreds or maybe thousands of points across the 1:04:15.360 --> 1:04:19.840 country that have been targeted with heavy bombings inside Tehran, 1:04:20.040 --> 1:04:24.200 around Tehran. It's also really incredible to know, because the 1:04:24.320 --> 1:04:27.360 amount of intel that you need for this is also 1:04:27.440 --> 1:04:31.600 really a lot. I've seen videos, I've seen footage, I've 1:04:31.640 --> 1:04:37.800 seen reports that some random checkpoints on some remote places, 1:04:38.240 --> 1:04:42.560 especially in Curtison, we're targeted. So this is also something 1:04:42.600 --> 1:04:47.240 that shows that how really coordinated and well planned this 1:04:47.760 --> 1:04:51.040 attack and this war is. I want to jump into 1:04:51.120 --> 1:04:54.680 something else. A lot of people areally focused on these 1:04:54.680 --> 1:04:59.240 major attacks, major developments like yeah, they're attacking Dubai, they're 1:04:59.280 --> 1:05:02.480 attacking Doh. These are all happening, and of course the 1:05:02.520 --> 1:05:05.280 civilians they are also in danger. I think somebody in 1:05:05.360 --> 1:05:07.760 Doha was killed in the first day. It was just 1:05:07.800 --> 1:05:10.120 a civilian that was killed by the remainings of a 1:05:10.200 --> 1:05:13.840 massol or a drone. And this has made things really 1:05:13.840 --> 1:05:17.080 hard for the people on the ground. Many people are 1:05:17.280 --> 1:05:20.240 trapped in the airports on the borders. So this is 1:05:20.720 --> 1:05:23.360 something that's happening to the people outside of I round, 1:05:23.360 --> 1:05:28.440 but inside Iran there is massive bombings everywhere wherever the 1:05:29.280 --> 1:05:33.920 iergy or the intelligence service has a facility. And at 1:05:33.960 --> 1:05:36.600 the same time, the regime has cut off the internet, 1:05:36.720 --> 1:05:39.760 even though the normal phone lines barely work, and it's 1:05:39.840 --> 1:05:45.160 just so hard and almost impossible to get really precise 1:05:45.240 --> 1:05:49.200 information about what's happening in the cities and the towns around, 1:05:49.760 --> 1:05:52.520 just like what happened in the in the early January, 1:05:52.680 --> 1:05:55.720 like during the process. Only a few people have access 1:05:55.760 --> 1:05:58.120 to the internet, and it's very limited. Yeah, they share 1:05:58.160 --> 1:06:02.480 some videos with channels and like with news agencies, but 1:06:02.800 --> 1:06:06.160 it's very limited. For example, in my hometown today, some 1:06:06.200 --> 1:06:10.880 of the major I ergency bases and intelligence facilities that 1:06:11.760 --> 1:06:15.280 were some of the most important ones in western side 1:06:15.280 --> 1:06:18.040 of Iran, or as we call it, Iranian critisonal Rochalot, 1:06:18.280 --> 1:06:21.600 they were all bombed and I've been trying to contact 1:06:21.600 --> 1:06:25.520 people to see what happened exactly. I'm sure that there 1:06:25.560 --> 1:06:29.439 are civilians killed because the regime also has put all 1:06:29.440 --> 1:06:34.280 these bases inside the cities, near parks, near hospitals, near schools, 1:06:34.320 --> 1:06:38.080 near just random houses in the city. So a lot 1:06:38.120 --> 1:06:41.760 of people are possibly killed, but we don't know how 1:06:41.800 --> 1:06:45.120 many who are they. So this is also like not 1:06:45.160 --> 1:06:47.600 just in my city, in other cities to it's the same. 1:06:48.320 --> 1:06:51.440 This is also something that a lot of people are 1:06:51.440 --> 1:06:55.640 not talking about. But again, this is war and the 1:06:56.040 --> 1:06:59.360 bombings are so heavy and they're all being carried out 1:06:59.360 --> 1:07:03.400 with really advanced weapons, and it's just so hard. And 1:07:03.800 --> 1:07:06.120 when I talk to the people outside of Iran, the 1:07:06.160 --> 1:07:10.440 people in Europe, like some of my friends relatives, everybody's 1:07:10.480 --> 1:07:13.880 worried that what if one of my relatives, what if 1:07:13.920 --> 1:07:16.160 one of my one of my friends gets get killed 1:07:16.360 --> 1:07:20.600 randomly on the street. But because of this that people 1:07:20.800 --> 1:07:23.280 are seeing this also on the news. At least I 1:07:23.360 --> 1:07:25.600 know this from my family because I was able to 1:07:25.640 --> 1:07:29.840 talk to them two nights ago. Everybody's staying home, they 1:07:29.880 --> 1:07:33.360 have enough food for a few weeks, and they're just 1:07:33.560 --> 1:07:36.840 watching the news. They don't go out, ye, they're just 1:07:36.880 --> 1:07:39.760 trying to stay safe. But at the same time, in 1:07:39.920 --> 1:07:43.920 major cities like for me, for example, the people who 1:07:44.240 --> 1:07:47.480 have a house outside of the city or in a village, 1:07:47.960 --> 1:07:50.600 or if they have relatives outside of the city, they 1:07:50.600 --> 1:07:54.880 have moved out because it's it's it's generally safer. There 1:07:54.880 --> 1:07:59.120 are not many IRGC bases or like government government buildings 1:07:59.200 --> 1:08:02.800 or whatever in the villages and smaller towns, so this 1:08:02.840 --> 1:08:06.960 is also happening and people are trying to stay safe 1:08:07.000 --> 1:08:10.720 as much as possible. And yeah, this is this is 1:08:10.760 --> 1:08:13.520 something that's going on. And at the same time, when 1:08:13.560 --> 1:08:16.000 I talk to the people. I mean, I haven't been 1:08:16.040 --> 1:08:18.680 able to properly talk to anyone because the internet is 1:08:18.720 --> 1:08:21.920 really bad. But like I talked to my family and 1:08:22.200 --> 1:08:25.120 they told me that the food prices are really, really 1:08:25.160 --> 1:08:28.599 really high, and it's really hard to buy food now 1:08:28.680 --> 1:08:32.760 because everybody's panicking and there are shortages, Like there's some 1:08:32.840 --> 1:08:35.880 items cannot be found, some like essential items like I 1:08:35.880 --> 1:08:38.680 don't know, oil, meat and rice and things like that. 1:08:38.800 --> 1:08:42.000 It's it's it's too hard to find in the market. Yeah, 1:08:42.040 --> 1:08:44.160 and a lot of people are going to the to 1:08:44.160 --> 1:08:47.880 the gas stations to get some gas and to be 1:08:48.040 --> 1:08:52.679 prepared if something happens. But yeah, so this is also 1:08:52.800 --> 1:08:55.479 something that's going on, and people are worried about that 1:08:56.200 --> 1:08:58.559 what if it's it's going to get bigger, if it's 1:08:58.600 --> 1:09:01.439 going to scale it, so, like how are they going 1:09:01.520 --> 1:09:06.240 to deal with all these shortages. There is one more 1:09:06.280 --> 1:09:09.679 topic that I want to talk about. I also wrote 1:09:09.680 --> 1:09:12.519 about it a little bit earlier. I published some texts. 1:09:13.280 --> 1:09:18.000 It's the topic of ordinary soldiers. Yeah, explain that to people, 1:09:18.439 --> 1:09:23.000 the civilians who are forced into the military service. This 1:09:23.080 --> 1:09:27.240 is also like a very sensitive topic because there are 1:09:27.240 --> 1:09:31.920 probably thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of young men 1:09:32.280 --> 1:09:35.240 who are about eighteen years old that are forced into 1:09:35.280 --> 1:09:38.680 the military service because it's mandatory in Iran, and they 1:09:38.680 --> 1:09:42.360 are forced into this service. And there are also in 1:09:42.400 --> 1:09:46.800 these military bases, and the military bases are being targeted NonStop, 1:09:47.320 --> 1:09:50.160 and there is a possibility, I mean not the possibility, 1:09:50.160 --> 1:09:54.400 of course, it's surreal. Today one person, a young man 1:09:54.680 --> 1:09:57.479 from Curtison, was confirmed that he was killed, but I'm 1:09:57.520 --> 1:10:00.559 sure that there are more because we don't have a 1:10:00.760 --> 1:10:03.839 proper internet connection so we cannot like get all the information. 1:10:03.920 --> 1:10:08.160 But these military bases are being also targeted, and of 1:10:08.200 --> 1:10:11.360 course I think a lot of them might get killed 1:10:11.439 --> 1:10:14.479 or injured. And just from my own family, one of 1:10:14.479 --> 1:10:17.880 my cousins who is twenty four, he was also forced 1:10:17.920 --> 1:10:21.080 into this because he wanted to open a business. And 1:10:21.160 --> 1:10:23.000 like in Iran, a lot of people also, maybe I 1:10:23.000 --> 1:10:25.280 should give a little bit of context, like in Iran, 1:10:25.320 --> 1:10:27.120 if you want to open a business, if you want 1:10:27.160 --> 1:10:30.720 to have a passport or things like that, you have 1:10:30.840 --> 1:10:33.240 to serve in the army and we'll give you that. 1:10:33.400 --> 1:10:37.320 So yeah, he just he was listed, like I don't know, 1:10:37.439 --> 1:10:40.760 about five months ago or so, and then he wasn't 1:10:40.880 --> 1:10:43.880 in a military base between Tabriz and Urmia and their 1:10:43.920 --> 1:10:50.720 base was targeted. Luckily, the slipping quarters were not targeted. 1:10:50.720 --> 1:10:54.919 It was just where the commanders were I think staying. 1:10:55.160 --> 1:10:57.479 And yeah, I mean I couldn't talk to him, but 1:10:57.600 --> 1:11:01.120 he told my cousin who I called like a few 1:11:01.240 --> 1:11:03.960 days ago. He said that the moment that was bombed, 1:11:03.960 --> 1:11:06.760 everybody just ran out, and then everybody went back in 1:11:06.840 --> 1:11:09.840 and they took all their belongings and backpacks and they 1:11:09.920 --> 1:11:12.879 just left the military base and they went home without 1:11:13.040 --> 1:11:16.719 telling the wiser or something, and they were not there. 1:11:16.520 --> 1:11:19.600 They're not going to go back there anyways. So this 1:11:19.760 --> 1:11:22.760 is also something that I am personally worried about, all 1:11:22.840 --> 1:11:27.040 those young men who are forced to be in the 1:11:27.040 --> 1:11:30.920 military basis and they are absolutely not a part of 1:11:30.960 --> 1:11:34.479 the regime. There are just civilians who are forced into this. 1:11:35.000 --> 1:11:38.040 So that that's also something that I think. It's it's 1:11:38.120 --> 1:11:41.640 not really discussed because the whole focus right now is 1:11:41.720 --> 1:11:45.160 just on the major attacks. Which place was targeted or 1:11:45.680 --> 1:11:48.799 like which I don't know commander was killed or things 1:11:48.840 --> 1:11:49.080 like that. 1:11:49.520 --> 1:11:53.160 M Yeah, let's take it'll break for advertisements and we'll 1:11:53.160 --> 1:11:55.000 come back, because I'd like to discuss more of that, 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:58.240 like the structure of the Iranian state and who is 1:11:58.280 --> 1:12:13.000 and it's not like part of it. Okay, we are back, 1:12:13.800 --> 1:12:15.439 So I think that will be a really good place 1:12:15.479 --> 1:12:18.880 for us to do some deep dives. Would be people 1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:21.960 understand this part of the world through the lens of states, 1:12:22.000 --> 1:12:24.679 because they understand the world through the lens of states 1:12:24.720 --> 1:12:27.479 because they have been raised in a state system. But 1:12:27.560 --> 1:12:30.360 I don't think that it's a particularly it's not useful 1:12:30.400 --> 1:12:32.400 to see everybody who lives in the Iranian state as 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:34.519 part of the Iranian state. It doesn't actually give us 1:12:34.640 --> 1:12:38.200 a good grasp on reality. So perhaps you could explain 1:12:39.080 --> 1:12:42.080 first of all, perhaps explaining the structures of the Iranian state. 1:12:42.400 --> 1:12:47.679 When it comes to like there are pro regime militias, right, 1:12:47.720 --> 1:12:52.560 there are the IRGC, and then we have like the leadership, 1:12:53.000 --> 1:12:56.080 many of whom are now dead, some of whom we know, 1:12:56.160 --> 1:12:58.880 some of whom we think are dead. But then we 1:12:58.920 --> 1:13:00.800 also have and I know you and I have spoken 1:13:00.840 --> 1:13:03.280 about this before, but it's worth explaining again, right, Like 1:13:03.880 --> 1:13:07.880 Iran is the ethnically diverse country, so we have people 1:13:07.920 --> 1:13:11.880 who are ethnically excluded from power. We also have people 1:13:12.320 --> 1:13:15.960 within the majority ethnicity Persian people who are not pro ratime. 1:13:16.680 --> 1:13:19.879 So could you perhaps explain like those structures that exist 1:13:20.040 --> 1:13:22.400 And then you and I spoke about this a little 1:13:22.439 --> 1:13:25.880 bit before we were recording. But many of the facilities 1:13:26.439 --> 1:13:30.800 of the regimes, armed forces and repressive forces are right 1:13:30.840 --> 1:13:34.120 in the middle of town, right right next to civilian building. 1:13:34.200 --> 1:13:36.960 So perhaps we could explain the consequences of that for 1:13:37.000 --> 1:13:39.320 civilians as bombs are falling on these facilities. 1:13:39.800 --> 1:13:45.440 Yeah, so if I want to explain how the Iranian 1:13:45.479 --> 1:13:49.200 state system is, I would simply compare it to a 1:13:49.320 --> 1:13:54.280 full monarchy, but with a different label. Yeah, there's kink 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:58.040 who owns all of the power, and there are the 1:13:58.080 --> 1:14:02.679 people who are around him that also share some bits 1:14:02.720 --> 1:14:05.280 of power with him. And there is the army that 1:14:05.400 --> 1:14:09.479 is in full amount of the leader or the people 1:14:09.520 --> 1:14:13.240 around him. So this is simply something like that if 1:14:13.240 --> 1:14:15.920 I want to make it very very simple. But the 1:14:16.000 --> 1:14:21.840 Iranian state structure is actually quite complicated. 1:14:22.040 --> 1:14:22.280 You know. 1:14:23.080 --> 1:14:28.280 They follow some sort of religious hierarchy that the Supreme 1:14:28.400 --> 1:14:32.960 Leader is the representative of God on earth and he 1:14:33.200 --> 1:14:38.920 is leading the Muslim nation until the Ima Mahti, the 1:14:39.040 --> 1:14:41.880 savior of the world, comes from the skies and saves 1:14:41.920 --> 1:14:44.519 the world and brings peace. So this is what they 1:14:44.560 --> 1:14:49.040 actually believe. So the Supreme Leader is actually the person 1:14:49.080 --> 1:14:52.160 who approves everything. Yeah, there is normal parliament with the 1:14:52.200 --> 1:14:55.280 representative of the people, but at the same time, there 1:14:55.320 --> 1:15:00.920 is another type of religious parliament that the sides on 1:15:01.000 --> 1:15:06.360 the interests of the regime, which consists of some high 1:15:06.439 --> 1:15:11.759 level clerics or the molas, who are on a higher 1:15:11.880 --> 1:15:14.799 social level. And at the same time there is also 1:15:15.200 --> 1:15:20.200 a council of twelve people, six of them are molas, 1:15:20.600 --> 1:15:24.320 six of them are like lawyers and jurists that they 1:15:24.360 --> 1:15:29.760 are monitoring the let's say, the whole political process in 1:15:29.800 --> 1:15:34.320 the government. But whatever happens when you see that, Yeah, 1:15:34.320 --> 1:15:37.479 this is on paper in theory, this is a system 1:15:37.520 --> 1:15:41.320 that could possibly work. But all of these organizations or 1:15:41.360 --> 1:15:43.679 these parts of the regions or layers of the regime 1:15:43.720 --> 1:15:47.479 that I mentioned, all of them they follow the Supreme 1:15:47.560 --> 1:15:50.840 Leader and whatever they do has to be approved by him. 1:15:51.160 --> 1:15:51.360 Yeah. 1:15:51.560 --> 1:15:53.880 I mean, I'm not talking about like I don't know, 1:15:53.920 --> 1:15:56.439 the things that are decided in the city council or 1:15:56.520 --> 1:16:01.240 like very lolol. I'm talking about the national interests or 1:16:01.360 --> 1:16:04.479 things like that, or who's going to be the next president, 1:16:04.520 --> 1:16:09.560 for example. But basically that parliamentary system or those counselings 1:16:09.600 --> 1:16:13.200 are basically non functional. They're just there for a show. 1:16:13.720 --> 1:16:17.520 And at the same time, especially in the past decades, 1:16:17.920 --> 1:16:21.639 the iergy see it's not only a military force that 1:16:22.040 --> 1:16:25.439 it's not a militia that follows the leader. It's a 1:16:25.479 --> 1:16:32.839 whole organized and complicated structure that owns the economy, owns 1:16:33.120 --> 1:16:37.439 all the institutions in Iran and controls all of them. 1:16:37.760 --> 1:16:42.040 We're talking about the oil sector, we're talking about industry, 1:16:42.080 --> 1:16:47.880 we're talking about agriculture. I mean almost everything is owned 1:16:47.880 --> 1:16:50.840 by them. And i ergy C is a network of 1:16:51.680 --> 1:16:58.439 countless high level commanders or even let's say non military 1:16:58.479 --> 1:17:01.160 person that are that are all working together and they 1:17:01.160 --> 1:17:05.040 are running the country somehow, and of course even if 1:17:05.080 --> 1:17:08.400 the leader is dead, they still have some structures to 1:17:08.840 --> 1:17:13.679 continue to carry carry on. And this is how how 1:17:13.680 --> 1:17:16.120 this structure is in Iran, and I think this is 1:17:16.160 --> 1:17:20.360 what makes Iran very very different from other states and 1:17:20.400 --> 1:17:22.400 in the Middle East. And it's something that makes Iran 1:17:22.439 --> 1:17:24.840 also very different from what for example, if you want 1:17:24.840 --> 1:17:27.680 to compare it to Suda Mhussein system or in in 1:17:27.720 --> 1:17:30.920 Libya or in Syria, it's it's very different because the 1:17:31.040 --> 1:17:38.160 IRGC has put its hands and roots everywhere in every institution. 1:17:38.320 --> 1:17:41.800 We're talking about schools, we're talking about universities, we're talking 1:17:41.840 --> 1:17:45.240 about hospitals, We're talking about anything that you can imagine, 1:17:45.320 --> 1:17:48.639 even in a post office, like we were talking about 1:17:48.720 --> 1:17:54.360 this earlier, so that there is like in every governmental institution, 1:17:54.520 --> 1:17:59.080 from universities to schools and hospitals. Bi ERGC always has 1:17:59.120 --> 1:18:05.240 a specific office in every facility. It's supposed to recruit 1:18:05.439 --> 1:18:10.840 people to join the resistance, but in fact it's just 1:18:11.120 --> 1:18:15.000 a it's just an office to observe the people who 1:18:15.040 --> 1:18:17.240 are working there or the people who are going there 1:18:17.640 --> 1:18:22.840 for their daily matters. So they have control over everything, 1:18:23.680 --> 1:18:28.160 and that's what makes this regime very very structured and 1:18:28.280 --> 1:18:32.559 very hard to just topple in two nights. So that's 1:18:32.560 --> 1:18:35.479 why they are still resisting. There are still fighting back. 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:39.120 There are still even though Israel and America have destroyed 1:18:39.160 --> 1:18:42.760 the majority of their military basis and facilities, but they 1:18:42.760 --> 1:18:46.000 are still fighting back. This is also important to understand, 1:18:46.080 --> 1:18:47.440 I think, yeah. 1:18:47.880 --> 1:18:51.560 Yeah, and like with it being a little bit unclearly, 1:18:51.680 --> 1:18:55.400 like who is still alive, especially in that top end 1:18:55.400 --> 1:18:58.120 of the pyramid, right, Like we know Hamad I is 1:18:58.240 --> 1:19:02.200 dead or we're pretty sure he's dead. Ran has announced 1:19:02.200 --> 1:19:06.320 he's dead. We know that other people within that religious 1:19:06.400 --> 1:19:09.600 leadership and political leadership structure are dead. We know that 1:19:09.640 --> 1:19:14.120 they struck the Assembly of Experts today, which could have 1:19:14.200 --> 1:19:17.920 removed a good number more of those religious leaders. What 1:19:17.920 --> 1:19:20.599 they did in Venezuela was that they found somebody who 1:19:20.680 --> 1:19:23.400 was no less repressive, but was amenable to doing what 1:19:23.439 --> 1:19:28.320 they wanted right specifically with resources, specifically with oil. You know, 1:19:28.439 --> 1:19:31.679 we run the risk of a similar thing happening in Iran, 1:19:31.800 --> 1:19:35.080 right of like someone within the IRGC being like, we 1:19:35.160 --> 1:19:37.120 will do what you need us to do with oil 1:19:37.160 --> 1:19:39.400 as long as you allow us to continue murdering the 1:19:39.439 --> 1:19:42.720 Iranian people as much as we wish. Like, that's a 1:19:42.840 --> 1:19:46.080 real worry. They will find someone who they think they 1:19:46.080 --> 1:19:49.639 can do business with. That's what they wanted in Venezuela, right, 1:19:50.360 --> 1:19:54.080 run in Venezuela are different, they are both allied, but 1:19:54.400 --> 1:19:58.439 they're there very different countries. But that's a real worry 1:19:58.840 --> 1:19:59.360 for people. 1:20:00.120 --> 1:20:03.559 I think it's also like with Venezuela, it's it's it's 1:20:03.600 --> 1:20:09.479 completely different right now, because with Venezuela, America had like 1:20:09.560 --> 1:20:12.840 a clear person as you said that, yeah, he or 1:20:12.880 --> 1:20:17.560 she is going to be the next leader or whatever. Yeah, 1:20:17.600 --> 1:20:21.600 but with Iran, it's not really clear yet. You know, 1:20:23.160 --> 1:20:27.479 the so called Prince Pahlavi, he is he is always 1:20:27.520 --> 1:20:31.519 on TV, always on his social media saying that I'm 1:20:31.560 --> 1:20:33.280 going to come back, I'm going to do this and that. 1:20:33.360 --> 1:20:37.000 But it's not really clear if USA and America have 1:20:37.160 --> 1:20:39.920 made a deal with him because he doesn't really have 1:20:39.960 --> 1:20:43.920 that social base that he claims to have. Yeah, and 1:20:44.080 --> 1:20:48.200 on the other side, there are the ethnic groups, especially Kurts, 1:20:48.280 --> 1:20:53.280 Balucci's and Ahuasi Arabs. They're like better organized compared to 1:20:53.320 --> 1:20:57.120 other ethnic groups. And then today we just saw that 1:20:57.200 --> 1:21:00.800 Trump has made phone calls with the kurt leaders of 1:21:00.840 --> 1:21:04.839 these parties and uh, the other parties in Iraqi, Curtisan. 1:21:04.960 --> 1:21:09.439 This means something. And so yeah, it's it's not really 1:21:09.479 --> 1:21:12.080 clear that they're going to have a similar plan like 1:21:12.160 --> 1:21:15.479 Venezuela or they're going to have something completely different for 1:21:15.479 --> 1:21:18.439 for Iran. We're just waiting to see what's going to 1:21:18.880 --> 1:21:21.240 happen in the in the upcoming weeks, because it's just 1:21:21.280 --> 1:21:24.280 a few days that the war is going on. The 1:21:24.920 --> 1:21:26.360 entire region is. 1:21:26.640 --> 1:21:27.320 In a shock. 1:21:27.479 --> 1:21:30.519 It's it's it's still not clear that how people are 1:21:30.560 --> 1:21:33.600 going to decide on on their future now because the 1:21:33.640 --> 1:21:36.360 war is still going on and it's a very very 1:21:36.760 --> 1:21:40.559 high level, So of course it's It's also like even 1:21:40.640 --> 1:21:43.760 when I when I was talking to my family the 1:21:43.800 --> 1:21:46.719 other day, they were telling me, I mean most people 1:21:46.800 --> 1:21:50.160 in Kurdistan, I would say, majority of the people in Kurdistan, 1:21:50.280 --> 1:21:53.679 they don't want monarchy back of course, they don't want 1:21:53.680 --> 1:21:56.439 another form of dictatorship. And they would say, yeah, we 1:21:56.520 --> 1:22:00.120 want anyone to be installed, but not this Sky, not 1:22:00.200 --> 1:22:04.599 this Pala. We don't want him. Anyone is better than him. Yeah, 1:22:04.640 --> 1:22:08.519 so this is also something and I think, yeah, probably 1:22:08.640 --> 1:22:13.320 if they want to install Raza Palavi, the ethnic groups 1:22:13.360 --> 1:22:15.960 will not accept it and there's going to be more 1:22:15.960 --> 1:22:18.080 resistance and therefore more wars. 1:22:18.920 --> 1:22:21.320 Yeah, let's take another break and we'll talk a little 1:22:21.320 --> 1:22:24.240 bit about that, maybe specifically the Curdish situation, as I 1:22:24.280 --> 1:22:37.400 know it's of interest in both of us. All right, 1:22:37.680 --> 1:22:41.400 we're back. So, yeah, you mentioned this piece, right, There 1:22:41.479 --> 1:22:44.920 was an article. It was a very poorly written article. 1:22:44.960 --> 1:22:47.360 I will say. For instance, it seemed to think that 1:22:47.400 --> 1:22:51.759 Talabani and Barzani were Iranian, but Nonetheless, the central thrust 1:22:51.760 --> 1:22:55.559 of it was correct that that Trump has communicated with 1:22:56.640 --> 1:22:59.080 the KDP and the p UK. I understand, this is 1:22:59.120 --> 1:23:01.920 like a lot of acronym coming at people, And so 1:23:02.000 --> 1:23:05.080 maybe we can just say like political parties in Iraqi, Kurdistan, 1:23:05.680 --> 1:23:11.800 Southern Kordistan. But that doesn't necessarily tell us anything. I 1:23:11.800 --> 1:23:15.639 think it's very easy. Again, Like there's this American media 1:23:15.680 --> 1:23:18.040 frame of analysis which sees groups in the Middle East 1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:22.080 as monolithic, right, the Kurds, as if they're like an 1:23:22.160 --> 1:23:25.200 entirely homogeneous entity with one political interest, which is not 1:23:25.280 --> 1:23:28.599 the case. But like for America to fully remove this 1:23:28.680 --> 1:23:31.800 regime and it's Rael, it needs either a partner for 1:23:31.880 --> 1:23:35.200 uce or to be willing to commit thousands of its 1:23:35.280 --> 1:23:39.760 own soldiers to fight and know that hundreds of them 1:23:39.760 --> 1:23:43.960 will die, right like like did in a rack, I guess, 1:23:44.000 --> 1:23:47.080 like knowing what we know and knowing that there are 1:23:47.360 --> 1:23:49.320 these groups, right, and maybe it would be good to 1:23:49.320 --> 1:23:54.120 give people a primer on the Eastern Kurdistan resistance groups 1:23:54.160 --> 1:23:58.040 and the alliance that they've recently formed, Like where are 1:23:58.080 --> 1:24:01.640 they standing right now? They released a statement yesterday, but 1:24:01.760 --> 1:24:03.360 can you explain that to a little bit to people? 1:24:03.960 --> 1:24:08.400 There are several parties across eastern Kurdistan or as they say, 1:24:08.439 --> 1:24:11.400 irenely in Kurdistan, and of course they're very diverse and 1:24:11.600 --> 1:24:16.720 each of them have a different ideology. That's very normal. Yes, 1:24:17.240 --> 1:24:20.400 what happened in the past few months was that it's 1:24:20.400 --> 1:24:24.040 also a very great development for our people at least 1:24:24.880 --> 1:24:27.720 because they have been also calling for a form of 1:24:28.560 --> 1:24:32.320 cooperation between these parties and they finally announced that. Of course, 1:24:32.560 --> 1:24:36.280 two parties like the Komala and another branch, they did 1:24:36.280 --> 1:24:40.240 not join it because they had some disagreements, but that 1:24:40.400 --> 1:24:45.000 is also normal. So the thing is that these parties 1:24:45.560 --> 1:24:49.280 would definitely work together if the things are going to 1:24:49.400 --> 1:24:52.679 escalate more. For example, if I want to say about 1:24:52.720 --> 1:24:56.120 a week ago, the Riza Palavi, he published a statement 1:24:56.120 --> 1:25:00.320 and he threatened Kurdish people that if they think about 1:25:01.160 --> 1:25:04.799 autonomy or I don't know, thinking about taking quote unquote 1:25:04.840 --> 1:25:07.320 parts of Iran's soil, we're going to use the army 1:25:07.320 --> 1:25:10.479 against them in the future. It's incredible that the first 1:25:10.800 --> 1:25:15.200 Kurdish official who answered to that statement was Abdullah Martai 1:25:15.320 --> 1:25:18.519 from the Komala, who was not a part of the coalition. 1:25:19.280 --> 1:25:22.559 So that means that even though they have disagreements, but 1:25:22.640 --> 1:25:26.400 they are still trying to work together and help each other. 1:25:26.760 --> 1:25:28.960 I have talked to some people in the Kurdish parties. 1:25:29.000 --> 1:25:32.400 They are fully prepared for anything that could happen in 1:25:32.439 --> 1:25:35.320 the upcoming weeks or days or even months. I don't know, 1:25:36.320 --> 1:25:40.200 they're fully prepared. And what I know is that they 1:25:40.200 --> 1:25:44.439 are telling me that they are prepared that the Israeli 1:25:44.520 --> 1:25:48.559 army and also the American army would bomb or destroy 1:25:48.680 --> 1:25:53.200 the military bases on the border and also the checkpoints 1:25:53.200 --> 1:25:56.599 so that it would be easier for them to enter. 1:25:56.760 --> 1:26:00.920 And probably if it's going to be bigger than that, 1:26:01.000 --> 1:26:04.080 then maybe they could take over the controls of the cities. 1:26:04.080 --> 1:26:09.120 And what's really interesting is that they yesterday, these five parties, 1:26:09.280 --> 1:26:13.280 the coalition, published a statement and there were several points, 1:26:13.280 --> 1:26:15.799 but one of the points was that was really interesting 1:26:15.840 --> 1:26:18.640 for me was that they were calling on people to 1:26:18.840 --> 1:26:25.200 not damage any public buildings like banks, goals, I don't know, offices, 1:26:25.840 --> 1:26:29.120 and that means that probably there is a movement that 1:26:29.920 --> 1:26:32.479 they want to come back and take over all these 1:26:32.520 --> 1:26:36.840 buildings and try to control the cities better. So this 1:26:36.960 --> 1:26:40.320 is also something and there is a lot of discussion 1:26:40.600 --> 1:26:44.160 on social media and people are all saying that, yeah, 1:26:44.200 --> 1:26:47.599 we are ready that if something happens, we will go in. 1:26:47.960 --> 1:26:51.160 And I think right now the situation is really complicated 1:26:51.200 --> 1:26:54.760 and like we don't know how people can actually enter yet. 1:26:55.120 --> 1:26:57.479 And you said that, yeah, if there is going to 1:26:57.479 --> 1:27:01.160 be a force that's ready to sacrifice of its members, 1:27:01.240 --> 1:27:05.400 I think there are. The Kurts are ready to fight. 1:27:05.960 --> 1:27:09.720 They have been ready to fight for forever, for decades. 1:27:09.960 --> 1:27:10.200 Yeah. 1:27:10.280 --> 1:27:13.679 So this is also like something that the Courtish people 1:27:13.720 --> 1:27:15.960 already know that if we want to get rid of 1:27:16.000 --> 1:27:20.160 this regime, we have to sacrifice more. For me, it's 1:27:20.280 --> 1:27:24.559 very painful to say this, but I think our people 1:27:24.640 --> 1:27:27.479 have to sacrifice a little bit more more than that. 1:27:27.520 --> 1:27:30.679 They have been sacrificing for over one hundred fifty years, 1:27:30.720 --> 1:27:33.479 and I think maybe they have to sacrifice more. But 1:27:33.880 --> 1:27:37.799 one point here is that when I see what's happening, 1:27:37.840 --> 1:27:40.839 when I see that what is being said, that Trump 1:27:41.040 --> 1:27:45.920 is talking to the Kurdish parties, to the Kurdish organizations 1:27:46.280 --> 1:27:49.479 about the situation, one thing that I think about is 1:27:49.479 --> 1:27:53.360 that given the history of at least fifteen sixteen years 1:27:53.400 --> 1:27:58.400 of cooperation between America and the Kurts in Rajava, in 1:27:58.400 --> 1:28:02.040 in Syria and the fight again isis which was which 1:28:02.080 --> 1:28:05.160 was a great opportunity for Kurdish people, but at the 1:28:05.360 --> 1:28:10.000 end Trump just let Kurts down and and didn't really 1:28:10.040 --> 1:28:13.920 support them against Turkey, against all these Jadist groups that 1:28:14.000 --> 1:28:17.320 are supporting Syria. So the question is that what if 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:21.479 we fight against this regime, we we destroy the regime. 1:28:21.520 --> 1:28:23.920 I mean, it's not just us. I have to mention 1:28:24.000 --> 1:28:26.880 that the other ethnic groups are also ready. But what 1:28:26.920 --> 1:28:31.360 if all these ethnic groups fight this regime, they destroy 1:28:31.840 --> 1:28:37.559 this regime? And what if Trump just brings someone really 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:42.960 bad and some someone really useless, like Rizopalavi or other 1:28:43.920 --> 1:28:48.320 Iranian figures that of course are not after Kurdish people's interests. 1:28:48.600 --> 1:28:51.680 What if somebody likes that comes in power and then 1:28:51.760 --> 1:28:54.439 the same situation goes on and then we have to 1:28:54.560 --> 1:28:58.200 fight that system over and over again. So this is 1:28:58.200 --> 1:29:00.880 also something that I that I also think about it. 1:29:00.920 --> 1:29:05.680 But we still don't know what will happen is America's 1:29:05.800 --> 1:29:10.599 exact plan. It could be something like Iraqi Curtistan, which 1:29:10.680 --> 1:29:16.160 could benefit the ethnic groups a lot. Of course, there's 1:29:16.240 --> 1:29:19.560 still gonna be civil war, probably there's gonna be instability, 1:29:19.600 --> 1:29:23.960 but at least the ethnic groups might be able to 1:29:24.840 --> 1:29:28.040 self determine, you know, like might be able to control 1:29:28.080 --> 1:29:31.439 their areas and get rid of that Iranian control to 1:29:31.560 --> 1:29:34.840 some extent, maybe not fully, but that is also something 1:29:34.840 --> 1:29:39.400 that could be possible. And of course there's going to 1:29:39.479 --> 1:29:41.840 be killing. There's going to be a lot of civilians killed, 1:29:41.880 --> 1:29:45.040 and we know that already during all these bombings, many 1:29:45.040 --> 1:29:48.479 civilians are killed. We don't know how many exactly because 1:29:48.600 --> 1:29:51.400 there is no internet connection to make sure about the 1:29:51.479 --> 1:29:56.400 numbers or to investigate that. But of course all these 1:29:56.880 --> 1:30:02.240 Iranian government buildings are orgc bases, intelligence offices, or facilities 1:30:02.280 --> 1:30:07.759 that are all located in civilian areas, in in the cities, 1:30:07.800 --> 1:30:11.560 in the city centers all over Iran and also Curtistan. 1:30:11.680 --> 1:30:14.920 So there's always going to be some civilians who are 1:30:14.920 --> 1:30:18.960 living there, who are walking around there and they get killed. 1:30:19.040 --> 1:30:22.760 So this is also something that's that's really painful. But 1:30:22.920 --> 1:30:27.080 I think our people really had have had enough and 1:30:27.120 --> 1:30:29.679 they were ready for this, and they were they knew 1:30:29.680 --> 1:30:31.920 that this is this was this was going to happen, 1:30:32.000 --> 1:30:33.160 and yeah. 1:30:33.680 --> 1:30:36.960 Yeah, yeah, it's it's such a difficult thing. It's like 1:30:37.000 --> 1:30:39.800 it's what four or five weeks ago that we saw 1:30:40.960 --> 1:30:45.000 the STG and groups affiliatory and transitional government and groups 1:30:45.000 --> 1:30:50.360 affiliated with it, like live streaming them killing and mutilating 1:30:50.400 --> 1:30:55.120 the remains of captured Kurdish at men and women in Derrisol, right, 1:30:55.160 --> 1:30:58.360 like a place where maybe it wasn't a desire to 1:30:58.400 --> 1:31:01.360 liberate Kurdish people that took the SDF there. It was 1:31:01.400 --> 1:31:04.320 the battle against Isis and this idea of brotherhood of 1:31:04.320 --> 1:31:06.920 peoples right that they would liberate the Arab people who 1:31:07.000 --> 1:31:11.040 live there. Obviously that has resulted in these horrible things 1:31:11.080 --> 1:31:12.479 that we've seen over the last month. And then the 1:31:12.840 --> 1:31:16.280 thought of like, oh, well on, you just sent ten 1:31:16.360 --> 1:31:19.439 thousand more of your children to die so you can 1:31:19.520 --> 1:31:22.120 liberate people in Tehran and then we'll leave you again. 1:31:23.240 --> 1:31:26.040 I was just thinking about, like a couple of years ago, 1:31:26.360 --> 1:31:30.200 I was in Solomonia and I went to the museum. 1:31:30.240 --> 1:31:34.040 You know that they have the Red Security building and 1:31:34.080 --> 1:31:37.440 they have like a very good history of the Anfhle 1:31:37.880 --> 1:31:40.800 the genocide against Kurdish people committed by the Bathist state, 1:31:41.360 --> 1:31:45.760 and then they have the nineteen ninety one uprising, and 1:31:45.800 --> 1:31:48.479 then they have a lot of commemoration of the battle 1:31:48.520 --> 1:31:52.719 against the Islamic State, and like for my entire life, 1:31:53.120 --> 1:31:57.000 like the Americans have been leaving Kurdish people to die 1:31:58.080 --> 1:32:00.439 and then urging them to rise up again. And it's 1:32:00.640 --> 1:32:05.280 just I know, it's an incredible like revolutionary capacity and 1:32:05.479 --> 1:32:07.840 capacity for sacrifice, but it's also just very sad that 1:32:07.880 --> 1:32:11.720 Americans constantly expect Kurdish people to continue to sacrifice and 1:32:11.760 --> 1:32:15.120 then never for that bare end of the bargain. 1:32:15.520 --> 1:32:20.880 Yeah, that's that's unfortunately true. And yeah, this has been 1:32:20.920 --> 1:32:24.479 evident in the past few years as well, like in 1:32:24.479 --> 1:32:29.080 in Syria when when when America gave the the green 1:32:29.160 --> 1:32:33.080 light to Turkey to invade Rajava, and also recently that 1:32:33.280 --> 1:32:36.559 how they just abandoned Kurts. Of course they are still saying, no, 1:32:36.680 --> 1:32:39.599 we didn't abandon curs but but but they did, and 1:32:40.280 --> 1:32:43.679 we basically lost almost everything that we had gained in 1:32:43.680 --> 1:32:48.320 in Rajova. And there is also like a threat against 1:32:48.360 --> 1:32:51.880 the Iraqi Curtism region right now from Turkey and also 1:32:51.920 --> 1:32:58.639 from Iraq. And it's it's just the bitter truth that, yeah, 1:32:58.960 --> 1:33:02.719 apparently Curts are not considered as a long term partner 1:33:02.800 --> 1:33:05.759 for the us R and also the other Western countries. 1:33:06.320 --> 1:33:09.519 But like all these horrible things that are that have 1:33:09.640 --> 1:33:12.559 been happening to our people in the past one hundred years. 1:33:13.560 --> 1:33:15.360 I mean a part of it is, of course the 1:33:15.439 --> 1:33:19.320 result of the Western countries and colonization from the European 1:33:19.320 --> 1:33:23.600 countries Great Britain, Russia and also America. But at the 1:33:23.640 --> 1:33:27.879 same time it's it's it's really important to not forget 1:33:28.040 --> 1:33:31.920 that majority of this tragedy that our people are are 1:33:31.960 --> 1:33:35.160 living in is also caused by by by Turks, Arabs 1:33:35.160 --> 1:33:37.880 and Persians. And by that I just don't mean the state. 1:33:37.960 --> 1:33:40.920 I also mean the whole structure in the Middle East 1:33:41.040 --> 1:33:44.880 that has been prosecuting the Kurts. It's it's been centuries 1:33:44.880 --> 1:33:48.839 that are our people are trapped between these powers, the Turks, 1:33:48.840 --> 1:33:52.720 Prisians and Arabs that are also fighting each other, but 1:33:52.840 --> 1:33:57.760 then they bring all of their wars inside our homeland 1:33:57.800 --> 1:34:00.880 and then our people get killed and display and face 1:34:00.920 --> 1:34:05.040 all the tragedies. So yeah, this is also our situation 1:34:05.200 --> 1:34:08.439 right now, and I don't know if it's going to 1:34:08.560 --> 1:34:14.640 be changed to a better situation because it's just so 1:34:14.800 --> 1:34:18.400 unclear that how the superpowers, how the major powers, the 1:34:19.000 --> 1:34:22.240 original powers are are planning for these things, and how 1:34:22.400 --> 1:34:28.400 their interests actually matter. Like we talked about if if America, 1:34:28.520 --> 1:34:32.479 if Turkey or NATO and other Arab countries, we're not 1:34:32.720 --> 1:34:36.599 backing the new Syrian government, I would call it Syrian 1:34:36.640 --> 1:34:39.360 Arab government because that's how they identify themselves. 1:34:39.520 --> 1:34:42.400 Yeah, they's still the Syrian Arab Republic even a year 1:34:42.400 --> 1:34:43.040 and a bit later. 1:34:43.600 --> 1:34:48.400 Yeah, if it was only Kertish forces and the new government, 1:34:48.840 --> 1:34:52.320 trust me, they would not be able to enter all 1:34:52.400 --> 1:34:56.240 the territories controlled by SDF because SDF is way more 1:34:56.280 --> 1:34:58.920 advanced and more powerful than them, like military wise. But 1:34:59.240 --> 1:35:01.879 STF was le alone and there was so much pressure 1:35:02.040 --> 1:35:06.120 on STF from all the Arab countries, Turkey and also 1:35:06.760 --> 1:35:12.719 Western countries and America. So this whole thing like maybe 1:35:12.720 --> 1:35:15.280 this is a little bit unrealistic, but a lot of 1:35:15.280 --> 1:35:17.240 people ask me that what's going to be next. I 1:35:17.280 --> 1:35:21.400 think the next is going to be what America and 1:35:21.720 --> 1:35:25.599 Europe want. Like I'm sure that they don't care about 1:35:25.640 --> 1:35:29.400 what the people in Kurdistan or the people in Iran want. 1:35:29.479 --> 1:35:32.519 They just want to do whatever they want, whatever that 1:35:32.760 --> 1:35:36.200 benefits them. And of course the neighboring countries will also follow. 1:35:37.000 --> 1:35:39.759 From the Arab countries and definitely Turkey, they will follow 1:35:39.880 --> 1:35:43.879 the plan that benefits them. So the people are trapped 1:35:43.920 --> 1:35:49.440 between these decisions. If the Iranian structure also remains, probably 1:35:49.960 --> 1:35:55.920 they would also change course and then cooperate with America 1:35:56.439 --> 1:35:59.880 or Israel or NATO or Arab countries only to remain 1:35:59.920 --> 1:36:03.480 in power and maintain their interests. 1:36:03.960 --> 1:36:06.679 Yeah, it's a really difficult time if people are looking 1:36:06.720 --> 1:36:09.800 to stay informed on this right. Coverage in the US 1:36:09.840 --> 1:36:14.599 has been poor in the English language. Where would you 1:36:14.640 --> 1:36:17.120 suggest where could people follow your work and where would 1:36:17.120 --> 1:36:19.599 you suggest people people look to stay informed of what's happening. 1:36:20.240 --> 1:36:23.240 Yeah, I personally don't post a lot. I'm just trying 1:36:23.280 --> 1:36:25.880 to gather information and like be updated and then share 1:36:25.920 --> 1:36:28.400 it with other media that are asking me about and 1:36:28.479 --> 1:36:33.200 other journalists. But there are several pages that I can suggest. 1:36:33.280 --> 1:36:36.080 One of them is definitely our organization hang Out and 1:36:36.160 --> 1:36:39.519 the Organization for Human Rights. I would also suggest to 1:36:40.280 --> 1:36:45.000 follow news channels like Rudolph, which they have been working 1:36:45.080 --> 1:36:48.759 really good on this war. It's a Kurdish TV channel 1:36:48.800 --> 1:36:52.799 based in Iraqi, Kurtistan. I would also suggest to follow 1:36:53.000 --> 1:36:58.120 the social media pages belonging to the Kurdish parties like 1:36:58.240 --> 1:37:02.879 KDPI or Omala, just like their official pages on Twitter 1:37:03.040 --> 1:37:06.400 or It's for example, they post a lot of really 1:37:07.240 --> 1:37:10.639 good information. I would also suggest I think I also 1:37:10.680 --> 1:37:15.719 suggested in our last talk, there is this person called 1:37:15.840 --> 1:37:18.599 Vahit Online. He is an independent journalist and he has 1:37:18.680 --> 1:37:20.880 like some really big platforms and he posts a lot 1:37:20.920 --> 1:37:24.680 of reliable information and videos about the locations and the 1:37:24.720 --> 1:37:28.760 things that are happening. And I would also suggest to 1:37:29.000 --> 1:37:34.559 follow some other journalists like Ali Jawan Mahdi. He is 1:37:34.800 --> 1:37:40.080 the manager and supervisor of the Voice of America. He 1:37:40.200 --> 1:37:43.600 also like he has several platforms and they post He 1:37:43.680 --> 1:37:47.519 posts a lot of updated information about what's happening. But 1:37:48.160 --> 1:37:51.160 here's also something that I want to warn about. I 1:37:51.200 --> 1:37:54.519 would suggest people to not really believe in what they 1:37:54.680 --> 1:37:59.400 see on TV channels or media like Iran International, Manoto, TV, 1:37:59.439 --> 1:38:03.880 BBC version, because all these media have turned into a 1:38:03.960 --> 1:38:08.400 platform to do the propaganda for the monarchists, and they 1:38:08.439 --> 1:38:11.599 have been posting a lot of fake news, a lot 1:38:11.600 --> 1:38:17.280 of AI generated content, and it's been really damaging the 1:38:17.320 --> 1:38:20.200 whole course of the if I want to call it 1:38:20.240 --> 1:38:24.000 the revolution or the war or whatever like that's happening 1:38:24.080 --> 1:38:28.240 inside Iron and Curtiston. So, yeah, these are the things 1:38:28.240 --> 1:38:30.200 that I can suggest so far. 1:38:31.000 --> 1:38:34.000 Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Thank you well, thank you 1:38:34.080 --> 1:38:37.160 very much for joining us today. We'll get this out 1:38:37.160 --> 1:38:39.080 as soon as possible because I know people very interested 1:38:39.080 --> 1:38:39.880 to know more about it. 1:38:40.200 --> 1:38:43.559 Thanks Cordy, thanks for inviting me the next time. 1:38:57.200 --> 1:39:00.679 Welcome to you, Back and Hear a podcast about the 1:39:00.760 --> 1:39:04.559 consolidation of capital into increasingly centralized forms and how it's 1:39:04.640 --> 1:39:08.599 ruining your life. I am your host, Mia Long and 1:39:08.680 --> 1:39:11.960 with b today to talk about how the consolidation of 1:39:12.040 --> 1:39:17.559 media monopolies has ruined many, many, many things for many years. 1:39:18.120 --> 1:39:22.560 Is Vicky Osterweil, friend of the show, author of Forthcoming 1:39:22.640 --> 1:39:26.519 April fourteenth, twenty twenty sixth, The Extended Universe, How Disney 1:39:26.560 --> 1:39:29.679 killed the movies and took over the world. Vicky, Welcome 1:39:29.720 --> 1:39:30.160 to the show. 1:39:30.320 --> 1:39:31.800 Thanks, it's so great to be back. Thank you. 1:39:31.840 --> 1:39:32.080 Miah. 1:39:32.080 --> 1:39:35.479 I'm excited to talk about something a little less depressing 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:36.439 than the things we could be. 1:39:36.439 --> 1:39:43.320 Talking about it. You know, like, this is a story, obviously, 1:39:43.479 --> 1:39:46.800 the story that we're talking about here foremost is Paramount's 1:39:46.840 --> 1:39:51.680 acquisition of Warner Bros. Or forthcoming acquisition. Since Netflix has 1:39:51.720 --> 1:39:55.320 backed out, it technically still could fail, but seems very 1:39:55.439 --> 1:39:59.479 very unlikely to. And you know, you could tell things 1:39:59.560 --> 1:40:01.679 are going rate in the news where this is the 1:40:01.680 --> 1:40:03.840 fun one and the fun one is us before we 1:40:03.840 --> 1:40:06.760 started recording, talking about who we think the sort of 1:40:06.840 --> 1:40:08.800 Nazi commis are they're going to put in charge of 1:40:08.880 --> 1:40:15.160 CNN is going to be. They're very wise. So things 1:40:15.240 --> 1:40:16.519 going very good. 1:40:17.640 --> 1:40:21.880 You can tell, Oh my god, but you you. 1:40:21.800 --> 1:40:24.720 Had the most cursed name that I've heard so far. 1:40:24.840 --> 1:40:27.519 Oh yeah, Tim, Yeah, Tim Poole, I think is probably 1:40:27.560 --> 1:40:31.080 the most cursed. Yeah, that would be the most it's 1:40:31.120 --> 1:40:32.760 a dark horse candidate. I don't know whether where the 1:40:32.840 --> 1:40:38.000 numbers on poly market should we look? Who's should pull 1:40:38.040 --> 1:40:38.320 it up? 1:40:38.960 --> 1:40:42.800 They've probably that's probably up now. Yeah, I hate I 1:40:43.120 --> 1:40:45.240 refuse to track polling market. Even if I couldn't know 1:40:45.320 --> 1:40:48.120 facts ahead of time, I simply will not. They can't 1:40:48.120 --> 1:40:48.439 make me. 1:40:50.439 --> 1:40:53.360 God, but we're not talking about insider trading war crimes. 1:40:53.360 --> 1:40:56.200 We're talking about insider trading intellectual property. So that's that's 1:40:56.200 --> 1:40:56.639 pretty good. 1:40:56.760 --> 1:41:05.120 Yeah, yeah, okay, So to start, let's go back a 1:41:05.360 --> 1:41:08.559 ways and do you want to talk about I guess 1:41:08.560 --> 1:41:10.439 sort of the beginning of the history of what we're 1:41:10.479 --> 1:41:13.040 talking about here, which is the consolidation of all media 1:41:13.080 --> 1:41:16.480 into a handful of increasingly large conglomerates. 1:41:16.840 --> 1:41:20.880 Yeah, absolutely so in a way like consolidation is the 1:41:21.000 --> 1:41:25.120 entire history of the movie business. So obviously, what's happening 1:41:25.200 --> 1:41:27.720 here with Paramount, which is one of the oldest, one 1:41:27.760 --> 1:41:31.680 of the old five studios merging with Warner Brothers. That 1:41:31.840 --> 1:41:36.360 leaves Disney at Paramount, Warner Brothers as Sony as the 1:41:36.439 --> 1:41:39.160 three companies that released movies. 1:41:39.479 --> 1:41:44.040 Is this good? 1:41:44.720 --> 1:41:46.719 A twenty four is gonna get bobs? Of course three 1:41:46.760 --> 1:41:48.879 weeks from now, yeah, God. 1:41:48.880 --> 1:41:51.120 And that's Flix on Amazon. Are are the news of 1:41:51.160 --> 1:41:54.120 other studios? And Netflix was in competition for this and 1:41:54.240 --> 1:41:57.040 with True as you said anyways, but like one of 1:41:57.080 --> 1:41:59.719 the things that the very beginning of the Hollywood system, 1:42:00.400 --> 1:42:03.800 Hollywood starts because Thomas Edison. So now we're going way 1:42:03.840 --> 1:42:05.160 back right the eighteen nineties. 1:42:05.240 --> 1:42:07.479 Oh god, yeah, yeah, speaking of it, speaking a dude 1:42:07.520 --> 1:42:09.599 to ruthlessly consolidated their power. 1:42:09.680 --> 1:42:14.840 He's like that prop precisely, dear God. So Thomas Edison 1:42:14.920 --> 1:42:17.800 is credited in the US with inventing the movie camera. 1:42:17.880 --> 1:42:19.360 He is one of five or six people in the 1:42:19.360 --> 1:42:21.400 world who came up with technology around the same time. 1:42:21.840 --> 1:42:24.559 It's just not linearly possible to name any of them 1:42:24.600 --> 1:42:27.040 as the inventor of the movie camera. But he gets 1:42:27.080 --> 1:42:30.720 that credit because he sued the shit out of everyone 1:42:31.200 --> 1:42:35.519 who tried to make a movie for fifteen years. Jesus right, right, 1:42:35.680 --> 1:42:38.280 So he puts patents on the movie camera, He puts 1:42:38.320 --> 1:42:40.880 patents on his stuff. And then and this is in 1:42:40.920 --> 1:42:43.280 New York. He's in New Jersey. Menlo Park famously is 1:42:43.280 --> 1:42:45.920 where his lab is. And what he starts doing other 1:42:45.920 --> 1:42:49.559 than making really really boring movies, he's a mid film producer. 1:42:49.600 --> 1:42:51.880 His movies are not that exciting, and at this point 1:42:52.320 --> 1:42:56.479 a movie is fifteen seconds to about a minute, often 1:42:56.520 --> 1:42:58.719 seen in a nickelodeon, like in a really small screen, 1:42:59.160 --> 1:43:03.320 or like in a small room. These are short films. 1:43:03.600 --> 1:43:05.920 Ninety nine percent of them are loss of time. Can't 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:08.519 we can't even watch these movies, right. But one of 1:43:08.560 --> 1:43:10.559 the things that he would do is he, because he 1:43:10.600 --> 1:43:13.680 had the patent on movie cameras, anyone who tried to 1:43:13.680 --> 1:43:17.519 film a movie, he would sue them, right. So it's 1:43:17.520 --> 1:43:20.160 eventually too hard to maintain this. So what he did 1:43:20.200 --> 1:43:22.960 is he teamed up with the other large Independence and 1:43:23.160 --> 1:43:25.320 Eastman Kodak, and they formed a thing. I think it's 1:43:25.320 --> 1:43:27.720 called the Motion Picture Company, which is unreferred to as 1:43:27.880 --> 1:43:32.040 the Trust, quote unquote, and the Trust just did this 1:43:32.479 --> 1:43:34.760 at scale. So now instead of it just being him 1:43:35.040 --> 1:43:38.480 fighting against his competitors, it's all the leading movie filmmakers, 1:43:38.560 --> 1:43:41.960 all the leading filmmakers, and the literal film company will 1:43:42.160 --> 1:43:44.880 come down sue you sometimes even beat you up and 1:43:44.920 --> 1:43:48.040 like and shatter your cameras if you if you try 1:43:48.080 --> 1:43:51.160 to make a movie without their permission, without a license 1:43:51.160 --> 1:43:52.479 from them, and without their equipment. 1:43:52.840 --> 1:43:55.000 Right, this is such a good system, by the way, 1:43:55.120 --> 1:43:57.639 Like I just like like the system of property rights, 1:43:57.800 --> 1:43:59.360 so good, no problems. 1:43:59.360 --> 1:44:01.639 He that exactly. 1:44:02.160 --> 1:44:02.840 So what happened? 1:44:02.880 --> 1:44:08.000 So what happens? A bunch of filmmakers move to this 1:44:08.160 --> 1:44:12.400 new land development out in California called Hollywood. You know, 1:44:12.640 --> 1:44:15.479 it's nineteen oh seven. They're really far away from New 1:44:15.520 --> 1:44:19.679 Jersey lawyers at Edison goons, Right, they're as far as possible. 1:44:19.720 --> 1:44:23.519 So Hollywood is founded by a bunch of movie pirates, basically, right. 1:44:23.560 --> 1:44:24.560 That's incredible. 1:44:24.680 --> 1:44:28.040 We're violating, you know, Edison's copyright because they're sick of 1:44:28.200 --> 1:44:29.759 the of his of his legal harassment. 1:44:29.800 --> 1:44:31.799 So it's some real mountains are high in the Emperor's 1:44:31.800 --> 1:44:32.840 far away shift. 1:44:32.640 --> 1:44:35.760 Yeah, yeah, I mean exactly literally, how far can we 1:44:35.800 --> 1:44:38.120 get away while still being on the continent, Like that's 1:44:38.160 --> 1:44:40.519 you know, let's do it from New Jersey, which, like 1:44:40.560 --> 1:44:42.880 many such cases, many people yeah, yeah, I can get 1:44:42.880 --> 1:44:45.640 that far away from New Jersey before. But you know, 1:44:45.680 --> 1:44:48.760 so jumping forward into the classical Hollywood period are more 1:44:48.760 --> 1:44:51.559 familiar with, there are sort of five major studioos and 1:44:51.560 --> 1:44:53.600 one of the ways that the major studios worked is 1:44:53.640 --> 1:44:57.720 that they had something called vertical integration, which is something 1:44:57.760 --> 1:44:59.519 we should all know about as we are living through 1:44:59.560 --> 1:45:02.799 times monopolies. Amazon is a classic example of vertical integration, 1:45:03.120 --> 1:45:05.800 as is Google. What vertical integration means is that you 1:45:05.920 --> 1:45:10.040 own everything in the pipeline for movies. You have the 1:45:10.080 --> 1:45:12.839 offices where the producers work, You own the sound stage, 1:45:12.960 --> 1:45:15.080 you employ all the people who work on it, You 1:45:15.080 --> 1:45:18.120 employee the actors. You also then own the film that 1:45:18.160 --> 1:45:20.479 gets made. You own the cameras, You own the company 1:45:20.479 --> 1:45:23.040 that produces the film. Sometimes although tho's a instances, they 1:45:23.040 --> 1:45:25.240 didn't always own those companies, those chemical companies. It's an 1:45:25.240 --> 1:45:26.800 on board, but you know, and then you own the 1:45:26.800 --> 1:45:30.040 movie theater where it showed, right, So like movie theaters 1:45:30.080 --> 1:45:33.760 before the forties, you would go to a RKO Pictures House. 1:45:33.840 --> 1:45:35.720 Arko is one of the early big ones, or a 1:45:35.800 --> 1:45:39.880 United Artists theater, and they would only show United Artists movies, right, 1:45:39.880 --> 1:45:42.599 So they would be an active competition with one another. 1:45:42.720 --> 1:45:45.120 So your neighborhood would have you know, there'd be an MGM, 1:45:45.160 --> 1:45:47.439 there'd be an RKO, and you would go based on 1:45:47.439 --> 1:45:50.840 what movie was where. Then there's anti trust action done 1:45:50.840 --> 1:45:53.879 in the forties that breaks up these studios. The studio 1:45:54.000 --> 1:45:56.880 system sort of slowly collapses. They also then loses a 1:45:56.880 --> 1:45:58.679 lot of market share to television. This is a really 1:45:58.720 --> 1:46:00.880 pod ended history, but trying to do it as much 1:46:00.880 --> 1:46:04.400 as possible. So basically, so by the sixties or seventies, 1:46:04.800 --> 1:46:07.800 what you have is a lot of independent producers. So 1:46:07.840 --> 1:46:10.519 the studios just become a brand and a sort of 1:46:10.600 --> 1:46:13.720 pot of money and often a sound stage. They keep 1:46:13.720 --> 1:46:17.240 the sound stages right. But then like distribution, becomes independent 1:46:17.640 --> 1:46:21.559 actors and like directors, they all are independent. They all 1:46:21.600 --> 1:46:23.240 have agents, right. It used to be that they would 1:46:23.240 --> 1:46:25.280 be hired by a company and they would just work 1:46:25.320 --> 1:46:28.880 for that company. That's why you know classical Hollywood directors 1:46:28.880 --> 1:46:30.639 would make like sixty movies because they would just churn 1:46:30.680 --> 1:46:32.720 them out. They would just be like directing them show up, 1:46:32.760 --> 1:46:34.040 do it for two weeks, show up on the next one, 1:46:34.080 --> 1:46:37.360 do for two weeks, et cetera. Just the studio system. 1:46:37.560 --> 1:46:40.360 So then by the sixties and seventies, it's starting to 1:46:40.360 --> 1:46:42.920 look more like what you have now, which is the 1:46:42.960 --> 1:46:46.839 studios are basically they're the homes of all the producers, 1:46:46.960 --> 1:46:49.000 the producers of people who connect the money and the talent, 1:46:49.360 --> 1:46:51.439 you know, and put it all together and package and 1:46:51.479 --> 1:46:56.200 deal the market it right, and that process. It seems 1:46:56.240 --> 1:46:58.320 like it's sort of a losing proposition. The business isn't 1:46:58.360 --> 1:47:01.080 doing super well until the emergence of the blockbuster with 1:47:01.200 --> 1:47:04.400 Star Wars, right so, Star Wars and Jaws and a 1:47:04.400 --> 1:47:06.280 bunch of other movies in the seventies. We're going so 1:47:06.360 --> 1:47:08.120 fast right now and trying my best, but I'm sorry, 1:47:08.120 --> 1:47:08.439 this is. 1:47:08.560 --> 1:47:12.240 No this is like I was like, here, let's talk 1:47:12.240 --> 1:47:15.200 about like one hundred and fifty years of history. 1:47:17.479 --> 1:47:20.640 So anyways, with the emergence of the blockbusters, one of 1:47:20.680 --> 1:47:23.440 the other things that happens is that the way blockbusters 1:47:23.439 --> 1:47:25.679 work is that they are released everywhere in the country 1:47:25.720 --> 1:47:29.320 at once. Film comes on used to come on literal 1:47:29.360 --> 1:47:31.640 physical objects, and you can only have so many and 1:47:31.640 --> 1:47:33.800 they can only be so many places at once. Right. 1:47:34.320 --> 1:47:36.240 So the way film used to work is they would 1:47:36.240 --> 1:47:39.120 make a certain number of film reels if they thought 1:47:39.120 --> 1:47:40.360 it was going to be big. There was a star, 1:47:40.680 --> 1:47:43.320 but the studio was always gambling on how many how 1:47:43.400 --> 1:47:45.240 big it would be, how many people would pick it up, 1:47:45.400 --> 1:47:47.880 and then they had to sell it to the movie theaters, right, 1:47:47.920 --> 1:47:49.559 and then the films would circulate when they did well, 1:47:49.560 --> 1:47:52.040 they're print more. So movies would circulate for like a year, right, 1:47:52.160 --> 1:47:55.240 two years sometimes even. But with Star Wars and the 1:47:55.600 --> 1:47:57.559 day and date system that we have now, what they 1:47:57.560 --> 1:48:01.120 started doing was just putting it in every movie theater 1:48:01.240 --> 1:48:04.040 in the country. You also get the emergence of multiplexes, 1:48:04.080 --> 1:48:06.599 white flight in the suburbs. I'm really going faster up trying. 1:48:07.080 --> 1:48:12.559 But the result is that movies get both more potentially valuable, 1:48:13.160 --> 1:48:15.559 but that value gets more and more concentrated in the 1:48:15.640 --> 1:48:17.960 early period of the of the release right in the 1:48:18.000 --> 1:48:22.599 early window. Opening weekend was not very meaningful until the eighties. Really, 1:48:22.880 --> 1:48:26.600 you know, late seventies, early eighties. As that happens, do 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:29.320 you suddenly need more financing and you can make more 1:48:29.360 --> 1:48:33.360 money off of bigger gambles. Simultaneously, the rest of the 1:48:33.360 --> 1:48:35.920 economy is going through financialization, right, which is a process 1:48:35.920 --> 1:48:37.240 that you've talked about on the show before. 1:48:37.280 --> 1:48:39.639 I can't get into that, but yeah we can't. 1:48:40.720 --> 1:48:44.560 And then Reagan deregulates everything, right, Reagan rifts apart of 1:48:44.600 --> 1:48:48.680 the SCC in many ways, deregulates media ownership stuff. This 1:48:48.760 --> 1:48:51.880 is a big move. Then across the eighties, the home 1:48:51.920 --> 1:48:55.400 market opens, so you start getting VCRs and this completely 1:48:55.439 --> 1:48:59.200 transforms the business another time, because movies can flop in 1:48:59.240 --> 1:49:02.840 the theater, but you can guarantee rentals, right, So for 1:49:03.200 --> 1:49:06.240 like the eighties and the nineties, the big studios kind 1:49:06.240 --> 1:49:09.439 of could print money because it was pretty hard to 1:49:09.479 --> 1:49:11.760 lose money on a movie. Now the people who lost 1:49:11.760 --> 1:49:13.800 money on movies were like, you know, dentists from the 1:49:13.840 --> 1:49:15.439 Midwest who THEYD get to invest them. They'd be like, 1:49:15.439 --> 1:49:19.439 oh yeah, sorry, Like Threo's arcane deals. People still got rinsed. 1:49:19.439 --> 1:49:22.120 Obviously it was Hollywood. It was shady as well, but 1:49:22.280 --> 1:49:24.599 as so with the deregulation and with all this money 1:49:24.600 --> 1:49:28.240 flowing and with the integration of the home market, suddenly 1:49:28.479 --> 1:49:32.240 technology companies like Sony, and the emergence of of like 1:49:32.320 --> 1:49:35.800 Lucasfilms that they also get really into computers. Lucas Turgocus 1:49:35.800 --> 1:49:38.360 famously is into the computer side of the business. All 1:49:38.400 --> 1:49:41.479 these different technologies get brought into the cinema at the 1:49:41.479 --> 1:49:44.000 same time as he gets see regulated. So companies starts 1:49:44.000 --> 1:49:48.639 snatching up these other film studios, right and so where 1:49:48.680 --> 1:49:50.439 once there were five studios, and then the sixties and 1:49:50.439 --> 1:49:52.880 seventies were actually got a ton of independent studios, a 1:49:52.920 --> 1:49:55.920 lot of really small ones, and they started getting gobbled 1:49:55.960 --> 1:49:58.920 up by these bigger conglomerates. You know, Sony is the 1:49:58.920 --> 1:50:01.280 one that was also a mega corp in the eighties 1:50:01.280 --> 1:50:03.680 already that that would eventually go on to own to 1:50:04.000 --> 1:50:07.120 buy out a bunch of movie companies. The same thing 1:50:07.200 --> 1:50:10.280 is happening though with radio. With TV. The main thing 1:50:10.280 --> 1:50:13.439 that happens under the SEC regulation stuff is that they 1:50:13.520 --> 1:50:16.439 loosen up whether a movie studio can own a TV studio. 1:50:16.840 --> 1:50:19.719 They used to be fully separate, and then and and 1:50:19.920 --> 1:50:23.360 broadcast rule changed. Broadcast rules changed, so studios could own 1:50:23.439 --> 1:50:25.639 a movie theater or you could own a movie company, 1:50:25.880 --> 1:50:27.679 a radio station and a TV station. 1:50:28.200 --> 1:50:29.559 Ah O, good God. 1:50:29.760 --> 1:50:33.400 And as you can imagine that is how things started 1:50:33.400 --> 1:50:35.960 to alerate. You get like the ABC Disney merger and 1:50:36.000 --> 1:50:40.880 the late eighties NBC universal mergers acqusitions become the big thing. 1:50:41.360 --> 1:50:43.559 You know, the stock market is booming. Then you get 1:50:43.560 --> 1:50:45.600 other big corps buying them out, and then we're just 1:50:45.640 --> 1:50:48.799 in the classic phase of consolidation where bigger and bigger 1:50:49.080 --> 1:50:50.559 fish eat up the smaller ones. 1:50:50.800 --> 1:50:54.120 And this is not how I guess importantly for this story. Suddenly, 1:50:54.200 --> 1:50:56.760 like all of the television news media is owned by 1:50:57.280 --> 1:51:02.760 these giant ass movie companies. Exactly, surely nothing will go wrong. 1:51:03.000 --> 1:51:04.559 Well, yeah, we and we come to you here from 1:51:04.640 --> 1:51:07.439 iHeart Radio, which you know is a lovely new. 1:51:07.360 --> 1:51:11.840 Brand of kind of things making. We are iHeart Media. Okay, 1:51:11.880 --> 1:51:16.240 excuse me, a technically distinct company, I think. Actually, don't 1:51:16.240 --> 1:51:18.960 ask me to explain exactly how that whole right I 1:51:19.000 --> 1:51:20.559 heard media I Heart Radio split works. 1:51:20.560 --> 1:51:25.360 But exactly, you know, so media consolidation, this is you know, 1:51:25.520 --> 1:51:29.479 consolidation is the story of capitalism, famously right like that, 1:51:29.640 --> 1:51:32.719 Like you know, an industry builds lots of new entrepreneurs 1:51:32.760 --> 1:51:34.720 coming into the space. People figure out what's possible with 1:51:34.760 --> 1:51:37.479 the industry has more and more money flows in, a 1:51:37.520 --> 1:51:39.640 few winners come and consolidated. We've seen it happen in 1:51:39.680 --> 1:51:43.000 tech as well. But yeah, it has particularly perverse effects 1:51:43.200 --> 1:51:46.400 when we're talking about the visual culture, the audio culture, 1:51:46.520 --> 1:51:50.360 and the news media the way information is spread. Although 1:51:50.400 --> 1:51:52.479 I wouldn't you know, I would argue that the effects 1:51:52.520 --> 1:51:55.160 are still pretty perverse from the way social media and 1:51:55.560 --> 1:51:58.400 tech giants have control things. I think that's pretty pretty obvious. 1:51:58.840 --> 1:52:02.679 Oh, yeah, is extremely bad, I would say. 1:52:03.800 --> 1:52:16.160 You might say it's extremely bad. You know, a lot 1:52:16.160 --> 1:52:19.120 of people are very upset about the news that David Ellison, 1:52:19.720 --> 1:52:22.599 who is the NEPO baby to end all netpo babies, 1:52:22.600 --> 1:52:25.559 because he's not a Hollywood netbo baby. He's not the 1:52:25.560 --> 1:52:27.439 son of a previous He's just the son of a 1:52:27.520 --> 1:52:30.479 rich guy who wanted to be in movies. So he 1:52:30.560 --> 1:52:33.400 bought his way into like acting roles, and then he 1:52:33.479 --> 1:52:36.400 like just threw money around until he got sky Danced Global, 1:52:36.720 --> 1:52:39.760 which is this company that you know, he's been in 1:52:39.760 --> 1:52:42.559 Hollywood for ten years. Technically he's like an experienced producer. 1:52:42.560 --> 1:52:44.240 This man is forty three years old, which for like, 1:52:44.479 --> 1:52:47.320 you know, the CEO of a billion you know, he 1:52:47.400 --> 1:52:50.120 started with a generous loan from Daddy Larry. Let's just 1:52:50.120 --> 1:52:53.680 say and yeah, you know, I think people are very 1:52:53.720 --> 1:52:56.400 upset obviously because he's a Trump ally, right the Allisons 1:52:56.439 --> 1:53:00.280 or Trump allies. He has literally said, I'm gonna make 1:53:00.360 --> 1:53:02.680 more right wing movies, you know, like you know, the 1:53:02.720 --> 1:53:05.559 Daily Daily Wire. You know, they were all washing out, 1:53:05.560 --> 1:53:07.320 but now they'll probably have contracts or whatever. You know, 1:53:07.360 --> 1:53:09.680 who knows. Like it's going to be money. But a 1:53:09.680 --> 1:53:11.280 lot of people are also saying that this is just 1:53:11.320 --> 1:53:14.800 for CNN, and that's actually not true. So a thing 1:53:14.880 --> 1:53:16.880 that is important to know is that the cable part 1:53:16.960 --> 1:53:19.799 of this deal Netflix was going to spin off the cable. 1:53:19.920 --> 1:53:22.800 The Discovery channel at CNN was going to spin off 1:53:22.800 --> 1:53:25.360 all the cable. So if he just wanted CNN and 1:53:25.479 --> 1:53:27.679 he could have waited for the Netflix deal to go through, 1:53:28.000 --> 1:53:29.559 and he could have just bought it on the market 1:53:29.560 --> 1:53:31.840 for a steal. Because the thing about cable is it's 1:53:31.880 --> 1:53:35.040 losing money. If you look at Okay, this isn't really 1:53:35.120 --> 1:53:37.040 dark fact, and I apologies everyone, but if you look 1:53:37.080 --> 1:53:41.160 at the rate of cable subscription costs, if you look 1:53:41.200 --> 1:53:44.559 at a meta aggregate data of it, the price of 1:53:44.640 --> 1:53:50.000 the annual subscription to cable goes up by the distributed 1:53:50.080 --> 1:53:54.600 amount of the previous year's subscription costs that were lost. 1:53:54.320 --> 1:53:56.160 By boomers dying Jesus Christ. 1:53:56.200 --> 1:53:58.960 So basically it is a literally dying It is a 1:53:59.120 --> 1:54:02.240 literally dying market. The only people who still pay for 1:54:02.280 --> 1:54:06.160 cable other than institutional forces are like people above sixty, 1:54:06.439 --> 1:54:09.000 and they're just literally dying, and the price goes up 1:54:09.040 --> 1:54:10.040 as more and more of them dying. 1:54:10.240 --> 1:54:10.519 It is. 1:54:10.600 --> 1:54:14.240 It is over as a business. Cable even ESPN, Disney 1:54:14.360 --> 1:54:16.800 is trying to get rid of ESPN. Even sports are 1:54:16.880 --> 1:54:19.400 valueless now not valueless, I mean, it's still billions of 1:54:19.400 --> 1:54:21.000 dollars obviously, but these. 1:54:22.400 --> 1:54:24.120 Yeah, yeah, you know, if you look at what ESPN's 1:54:24.120 --> 1:54:25.880 like trying to do about this, they're like just turning 1:54:25.880 --> 1:54:29.240 into an influencer factory, yeah, with just like rich eyes 1:54:29.320 --> 1:54:33.880 and then like all these fucking unhinged dipshits exactly. 1:54:34.000 --> 1:54:37.400 So anyway, so people are pretty like despairing about it 1:54:37.440 --> 1:54:39.520 because I think it's about CNN. But if it was 1:54:39.560 --> 1:54:41.200 just about CNN, like I said, they could have just 1:54:41.240 --> 1:54:44.040 waited and gotten it for a song. David Ellison really 1:54:44.080 --> 1:54:47.080 thinks he's a he's cosplaying as a movie producer but 1:54:47.200 --> 1:54:49.440 because he has so much money, he's succeeding. Yeah, of 1:54:49.520 --> 1:54:51.920 the movies he's produced that you might like, although I 1:54:51.920 --> 1:54:53.320 didn't like it, but a lot of people like Top 1:54:53.320 --> 1:54:55.800 Gun Maverick like it's fun. I guess like fun. 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:58.720 Everything about that movie suddenly just like clicks into focus. 1:54:58.760 --> 1:55:00.160 It's like, yeah, oh oh. 1:55:00.680 --> 1:55:02.800 I just want you to know that Tapka Maverick is 1:55:02.960 --> 1:55:05.560 the greatest work of art that he produced by some 1:55:05.840 --> 1:55:10.160 extreme margin. This guy's responsible for Terminators five and six 1:55:10.280 --> 1:55:12.320 that would be a dark fight and Genesis. 1:55:12.640 --> 1:55:13.280 Oh no. 1:55:13.520 --> 1:55:16.960 He produced on Geostorm, which you may remember came too 1:55:17.040 --> 1:55:21.040 late to capitalize on the disaster thing. In twenty seventeen, 1:55:21.360 --> 1:55:23.440 he made the Gemini Man movie, which is what Will 1:55:23.480 --> 1:55:26.480 Smith fought Will Smith with weird yet aging technology. 1:55:26.600 --> 1:55:29.240 Oh. I basically remember seeing TV correction. 1:55:31.760 --> 1:55:34.560 It kind of killed Will Smith's marketability as a star. 1:55:35.000 --> 1:55:38.400 Like that was kind of the film like after Earth Chaalan, 1:55:38.480 --> 1:55:41.440 But he's responsible for ending Will Smith. He did this 1:55:42.200 --> 1:55:46.560 the Spy Kids reboot which I kids Armageddon from twenty twelve. 1:55:47.000 --> 1:55:49.440 No, this guy Jesus. 1:55:49.040 --> 1:55:51.760 Has made just really bad movies. 1:55:52.120 --> 1:55:54.520 All of these weird right wing people are all like 1:55:54.680 --> 1:55:56.320 the thing they want to do is make movies. This 1:55:56.360 --> 1:55:59.080 is like, what's like killing the Daily Wire? 1:55:59.200 --> 1:55:59.320 Is it? 1:55:59.320 --> 1:56:01.920 They decided to be a movie company and it turns 1:56:01.960 --> 1:56:03.680 out they can't make movies. But it's like this guy 1:56:03.800 --> 1:56:06.640 is like, what if you had that but backed by 1:56:06.680 --> 1:56:09.760 like the entire tech capital apparatus and your dad was 1:56:10.120 --> 1:56:12.600 fucking Larry Ellison, the Oracle guy, like one of the 1:56:12.680 --> 1:56:14.280 richest test fascists who's ever lived. 1:56:14.280 --> 1:56:15.760 Then you can do it. Then you can just buy 1:56:15.800 --> 1:56:17.680 yourself a movie studio, and you can do it because 1:56:17.680 --> 1:56:19.280 the thing movies need is money. 1:56:20.000 --> 1:56:22.960 And then you can keep buying all their movie studios. 1:56:24.000 --> 1:56:28.760 But and this is a bit contrarian. I'm not sure 1:56:29.320 --> 1:56:32.400 that this is worse for movies than Netflix getting it, 1:56:33.200 --> 1:56:39.440 because Netflix would have likely sabotaged what was remaining of 1:56:39.920 --> 1:56:45.160 WB's theatrical business model, right, Like Netflix doesn't like the theater. 1:56:45.280 --> 1:56:48.200 Now they've been trying to get into theatrical because that's like, 1:56:48.240 --> 1:56:50.080 you know, it's cash on the table, you know, it's 1:56:50.080 --> 1:56:52.560 how you build. It's the greatest marketing on Earth, right, 1:56:52.600 --> 1:56:54.320 And you when you have a big hit film, then 1:56:54.480 --> 1:56:57.600 that's a franchise. You get TV shows, you get theme parks, 1:56:57.800 --> 1:57:02.880 you get you know, lunchboxes, toys, t shirts, you get resales, 1:57:02.880 --> 1:57:05.280 you get a reboot ten years down the line, right, 1:57:05.360 --> 1:57:09.000 you get licensing, so they want that. But but Netflix 1:57:09.080 --> 1:57:12.840 is really I mean, they hate movies. Netflix literally has 1:57:12.840 --> 1:57:17.080 a production design, a design philosophy of making movies that 1:57:17.160 --> 1:57:19.560 are designed for people who aren't looking at them, so 1:57:19.600 --> 1:57:22.280 that the characters say what they're doing. I mean, there's 1:57:22.320 --> 1:57:23.800 a big article that came out about this a few 1:57:23.800 --> 1:57:26.720 weeks ago, like, yeah, Netflix is a nightmare company. So 1:57:27.440 --> 1:57:29.320 it's a real it's a real Cilly and carib this 1:57:29.440 --> 1:57:32.520 kind of situation. Yeah, right, Like you've got this fascist creep. 1:57:32.600 --> 1:57:34.760 But at least he like really thinks he likes movies, 1:57:34.840 --> 1:57:37.400 you know, Like I don't know anyway, the play being. 1:57:37.600 --> 1:57:39.560 People are very upset about this news because it's happened 1:57:39.560 --> 1:57:41.440 to you because he's a Trump ally, there's this political 1:57:41.480 --> 1:57:43.760 angle they were making all this noise, they were begging 1:57:43.840 --> 1:57:46.680 Trump to do it. Y'all are thirty years late to 1:57:46.720 --> 1:57:48.640 this being a problem. Like I'm not trying to be like, 1:57:48.640 --> 1:57:50.200 I'm not trying to be like that whatever. 1:57:50.080 --> 1:57:52.720 Like Noah, like, but like. 1:57:53.040 --> 1:57:57.120 We are well, but like having three movie studios instead 1:57:57.120 --> 1:58:01.000 of two, like you're already doing pretty bad. Like in 1:58:01.080 --> 1:58:03.240 the thirties, as I gave you in that little pot 1:58:03.240 --> 1:58:07.320 of history, in the thirties, Hollywood was so brutally integrated 1:58:07.560 --> 1:58:10.720 that they literally, the federal government literally broke it apart 1:58:11.120 --> 1:58:14.960 at the height. At the height of the studio system. 1:58:15.000 --> 1:58:16.760 The biggest company at the time, which I believe with 1:58:16.920 --> 1:58:20.520 MGM was the big studio, controlled eighteen percent of the 1:58:20.560 --> 1:58:22.720 market of the film market, which is massive. I mean 1:58:23.320 --> 1:58:27.880 the market of anything. Eighteen percent the market is obscene hideous. Yeah, 1:58:28.160 --> 1:58:31.240 Disney in a bunch of the past years has run 1:58:31.440 --> 1:58:36.200 forty percent of the market world wide, world wide, not messic, 1:58:37.240 --> 1:58:40.040 So like we are already at this level of concentration, 1:58:40.240 --> 1:58:43.280 like the fact that it keeps going, Like, yes, it 1:58:43.280 --> 1:58:45.440 does mean there will be fewer and fewer movies. It 1:58:45.440 --> 1:58:48.320 does mean more layoffs. It means things are getting worse. 1:58:48.840 --> 1:58:52.640 But you know, we've been here. You know what I'm saying. 1:58:52.880 --> 1:58:55.320 I think thirty seven. I think it's actually only thirty 1:58:55.320 --> 1:58:57.480 seven percent. 1:58:55.880 --> 1:58:59.000 Of thirty seven Oh wow, wow, yeah, three percent. 1:58:59.080 --> 1:59:01.120 Sorry, round up, I'm sorry about that. 1:59:01.360 --> 1:59:01.600 Yeah. 1:59:02.760 --> 1:59:06.320 Yeah. Well, And this is something I think gets back 1:59:06.360 --> 1:59:08.760 to one of the sort of political answers that I've 1:59:08.760 --> 1:59:11.440 been seeing to this is like, you know, this return 1:59:11.600 --> 1:59:14.720 from kind of like the left of the Democratic Party 1:59:14.800 --> 1:59:17.760 to being like, oh, we should talk about like anti 1:59:17.800 --> 1:59:20.040 monopoly and we should do like trust busting again. And 1:59:20.080 --> 1:59:23.960 it's like probably, yeah, but we did this right, Like, 1:59:24.400 --> 1:59:26.600 we did this, we got rid of the monopolies, and 1:59:26.640 --> 1:59:30.280 then they came back, and it's like this is you know, 1:59:30.400 --> 1:59:31.960 this is this is the problem is that this is 1:59:31.960 --> 1:59:34.720 this is basically a structural problem of capital is this 1:59:34.800 --> 1:59:38.000 kind of resolidation and you can break up the monopolies, 1:59:38.240 --> 1:59:40.880 but they'll just reform. It requires you to win the 1:59:40.880 --> 1:59:43.920 battle forever. And all the monopolies have to do is 1:59:43.960 --> 1:59:46.800 get like one fascist elected or get like like all 1:59:46.840 --> 1:59:50.080 they need is one Ronald Reagan and you just lose everything. Yeah, 1:59:50.120 --> 1:59:52.480 And it's like okay, like this this is a problem 1:59:52.560 --> 1:59:55.040 that can't be solved just by tinkering on the edges 1:59:55.080 --> 1:59:58.720 of the system. You have to actually destroy the conditions 1:59:58.720 --> 2:00:02.080 that make it possible. And those are regulatory conditions. Those 2:00:02.120 --> 2:00:05.880 are hold on why are people allowed to own this shit? 2:00:08.200 --> 2:00:10.520 Yeah? And I think that's exactly right. And I think 2:00:10.840 --> 2:00:13.640 you know, one of the things about monopoli the station, 2:00:13.720 --> 2:00:16.919 which is famous. One of the things that even capitalists 2:00:16.960 --> 2:00:20.600 don't like about monopolies is that the quality goes down famous, yeah, right, 2:00:20.640 --> 2:00:22.120 because you don't you don't know, you don't have to 2:00:22.120 --> 2:00:25.800 compete whatever, there's literally no reason to try and make 2:00:25.840 --> 2:00:28.600 the product good. But like one of the things about 2:00:28.600 --> 2:00:30.440 the concentration of IP, and like one of the things 2:00:30.480 --> 2:00:33.400 that's like sort of scary about it's consolidation in general. 2:00:33.880 --> 2:00:35.800 And this is a fact that's really important to understand. 2:00:36.480 --> 2:00:40.360 When you own a bucket of intellectual property. Let's say 2:00:40.360 --> 2:00:43.280 you own Sesame Street, right, which is one that's not owned. 2:00:43.320 --> 2:00:45.040 So it's a good example to use because it's weird 2:00:45.440 --> 2:00:47.480 when you own sesame Street, and if you start to 2:00:47.480 --> 2:00:50.560 make products of Sesame Street, it means that every idea 2:00:51.000 --> 2:00:54.480 that isn't Sesame Street but threatens to become more popular 2:00:54.560 --> 2:00:58.080 than Sesame Street is a threat. So it is if 2:00:58.120 --> 2:01:00.720 you own, if you own enough IP, is in your 2:01:00.840 --> 2:01:05.320 logical material interest to stop new ideas from being made, 2:01:06.200 --> 2:01:09.920 because every new idea is competition. If you own the 2:01:09.920 --> 2:01:12.680 back catalog of Bob Dylan, for as like some of 2:01:12.720 --> 2:01:14.440 these investment firms, do you I think he's I think 2:01:14.440 --> 2:01:17.600 he has sold to Hypnosis or one of these big 2:01:17.640 --> 2:01:20.640 There are these big music investment firms that own the 2:01:21.160 --> 2:01:23.640 rights to all of these old songs. If you guys, 2:01:23.680 --> 2:01:28.240 If y'all remember, in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, all movie 2:01:28.280 --> 2:01:32.000 trailers suddenly started having weird sad girl covers of like 2:01:32.320 --> 2:01:35.080 sixties and seventies pop songs. Do you remember this era? 2:01:35.240 --> 2:01:37.960 Oh yeah, yeah, the sad guitargra and I was just 2:01:38.000 --> 2:01:40.760 like what happened in like Hollywood? Was there like some 2:01:40.840 --> 2:01:44.240 weird trend. No, what happened was these investment firms got 2:01:44.240 --> 2:01:46.400 hold of it, and if they can release a new 2:01:46.880 --> 2:01:52.040 cover version of a song, they hit the property rights twice, 2:01:52.280 --> 2:01:53.560 so they get it on the new they get it 2:01:53.600 --> 2:01:55.280 on the new play, and then people go back to 2:01:55.320 --> 2:01:56.640 the old ones they're reminded of it. 2:01:56.960 --> 2:01:59.760 Yeah, because it's worse too, because the new ones are all. 2:02:01.680 --> 2:02:06.040 God and And this is only possible because of the 2:02:06.040 --> 2:02:09.360 way that the streaming services got consolidated and that they 2:02:09.400 --> 2:02:12.360 pay per play. Because pay per play, as everyone knows, 2:02:12.520 --> 2:02:16.200 completely screws artists. There's just no way to make any 2:02:16.240 --> 2:02:20.280 money off that. But if you own a massive library 2:02:20.360 --> 2:02:23.520 like the UM, like the BMG or sony universal. If 2:02:23.560 --> 2:02:25.720 you own a library like that, you do nothing and 2:02:25.760 --> 2:02:28.760 you make billions a year, right, so it becomes this permanent, 2:02:28.960 --> 2:02:31.720 perfect rent that you never have to worry about. So 2:02:31.800 --> 2:02:33.720 all you have to do is buy enough musical IP 2:02:34.200 --> 2:02:36.040 and then try and get new artists who are hot 2:02:36.080 --> 2:02:39.320 to cover your old ip. So this is like this 2:02:39.800 --> 2:02:42.960 really weird esoteric seeming. You know, it's bailed on the 2:02:43.000 --> 2:02:47.560 division between particular recording copyrights and the copyrights of like 2:02:47.840 --> 2:02:50.600 individual of the songwriting. It's like built on this sort 2:02:50.600 --> 2:02:53.880 of weird esoteric structure of intellectual property law, which like 2:02:54.240 --> 2:02:56.200 when you start talking about it, people's eyes literally roll 2:02:56.200 --> 2:02:58.360 in the back of their head, right, like they like 2:02:58.480 --> 2:03:01.280 fall over in a daisy pops up the cartoon. They're 2:03:01.320 --> 2:03:04.560 just dead. That's not interesting. But like because of that, 2:03:05.080 --> 2:03:07.640 for five years, when you went to the grocery store, 2:03:08.000 --> 2:03:10.760 you would be in a weird, uncanny valley where you 2:03:10.760 --> 2:03:13.200 were hearing a song that you thought you recognized but 2:03:13.320 --> 2:03:14.440 was like slightly different. 2:03:14.520 --> 2:03:14.720 Yeah. 2:03:14.800 --> 2:03:18.680 Right, So the entire material structure of the world, like 2:03:18.720 --> 2:03:21.600 the psychic structure of the world, gets transformed by these 2:03:21.640 --> 2:03:25.640 weird exploits over like financial loopholes by the worst people 2:03:25.680 --> 2:03:28.920 on earth whose goal is to never let you hear 2:03:28.960 --> 2:03:32.080 a new song, right, Like, they'd never want you to 2:03:32.080 --> 2:03:34.800 hear new music again. They just want the boomer tracks 2:03:34.840 --> 2:03:37.520 to play forever with like new versions by you know. 2:03:37.800 --> 2:03:42.160 They just want Charlie XCX to record fucking Jefferson Airplane. 2:03:42.200 --> 2:03:44.440 Like that's there. That's their wettest dream, you know. And 2:03:44.560 --> 2:03:46.240 all that shit is going on in the backgrounde of 2:03:46.280 --> 2:03:48.440 your life, right like, I mean it's not it's it's 2:03:48.840 --> 2:03:52.760 but it's affecting the psychic atmosphere. It's producing nostalgia, it's 2:03:52.760 --> 2:03:56.720 producing all these affects that are rife for fascism. It 2:03:56.720 --> 2:03:58.040 makes people want to go back. 2:03:58.400 --> 2:04:01.320 Yeah, it's like, okay, what happened the last time we 2:04:01.360 --> 2:04:05.360 saw like the completely unhinged like concentration of all capitals 2:04:05.400 --> 2:04:09.240 a monopolies, It was like, well, all that capital was 2:04:09.280 --> 2:04:13.160 liquidated by World War Two. There was World War One 2:04:13.200 --> 2:04:15.840 as well, too, right, these were both to a larger stent. 2:04:15.840 --> 2:04:16.920 And this is something that you know, if you go 2:04:16.960 --> 2:04:20.000 back and read anyone who's doing any political analysis about 2:04:20.000 --> 2:04:22.120 World War One in the lead up to it and 2:04:22.160 --> 2:04:25.640 as it's happening, the thing everyone is talking about is 2:04:25.640 --> 2:04:29.040 is the consolidation monopoly capital, and I think you can 2:04:29.280 --> 2:04:34.320 argue maybe that the early eighteen hundreds had like a 2:04:34.400 --> 2:04:38.280 larger consolidation, just in the sense of, like I'm questionable 2:04:38.280 --> 2:04:40.080 as to whether this is just because it's too expensive 2:04:40.120 --> 2:04:43.040 to literally run a country, but like we haven't quite 2:04:43.080 --> 2:04:45.760 returned to like the East India company has an army 2:04:45.760 --> 2:04:48.320 and they conquer countries periodically, but like I think it's 2:04:48.320 --> 2:04:50.600 just because that's too expensive and you'd rather just outsource 2:04:50.680 --> 2:04:51.280 that to the state. 2:04:51.640 --> 2:04:55.680 But it's less farther than your thing, because oh yeah, 2:04:55.800 --> 2:04:57.360 the part of the way that it outsourced us to 2:04:57.400 --> 2:04:59.640 the state. And this isn't this, this is all suffered 2:04:59.720 --> 2:05:02.560 my upcoming book which you can pre order. Now, that's 2:05:02.600 --> 2:05:05.800 true the World Trade Organization. One of the things that 2:05:05.840 --> 2:05:09.120 it did when you joined the WTO, and this was 2:05:09.160 --> 2:05:13.160 done by lobbyists, mostly film and pharma and chemical lobbyists 2:05:13.200 --> 2:05:16.120 from the US sense, if you join the WTO, you 2:05:16.240 --> 2:05:18.520 have to accept you don't not only have to accept 2:05:18.960 --> 2:05:22.880 their copyright and piracy law, you have to agree to 2:05:23.120 --> 2:05:28.040 build copyright courts and copyright police in your country Jesus Christ, 2:05:28.160 --> 2:05:32.720 so that if say Apple sees you making a fake iPhone, 2:05:32.880 --> 2:05:37.120 they have a liberal legal procedure domestic to your country 2:05:37.440 --> 2:05:42.080 to force you to stop to smash those prices. Major 2:05:42.120 --> 2:05:46.240 corporations can get police in Vietnam to go in and 2:05:46.360 --> 2:05:49.520 light a warehouse on fire because it's full of faked goods, 2:05:49.720 --> 2:05:53.360 like without ever leaving the US, right, So yeah, yeah, 2:05:53.440 --> 2:05:56.000 the company's more dintributed through these world trade organizations. 2:05:56.000 --> 2:05:58.960 Well, they did the order liberal thing of where we're 2:05:59.000 --> 2:06:02.880 using the super rested apparatus to negate the sovereignty of 2:06:02.920 --> 2:06:05.320 the state by creating the super state which we run. 2:06:05.680 --> 2:06:08.880 Yes, so I mean I'm obviously interested in the IP 2:06:09.040 --> 2:06:12.920 and the cultural angle. This is the only law like 2:06:13.000 --> 2:06:15.240 this in any of these agreements. All the rest of 2:06:15.240 --> 2:06:18.000 the trade agreements, like they can negotiate. But like, part 2:06:18.040 --> 2:06:20.920 of what's so obscene about Trump's tariffs is that the 2:06:21.000 --> 2:06:23.280 US already had this. It was called the Priority watch List. 2:06:23.600 --> 2:06:25.760 They just had this list in the White House where 2:06:25.760 --> 2:06:27.600 they could just say you're not doing a good job 2:06:27.720 --> 2:06:31.560 enough stopping piracy. And it gives the White House unilateral 2:06:31.960 --> 2:06:36.080 capacity to create trade embargoes on people without going to Congress. 2:06:36.280 --> 2:06:39.840 Like this was all the tariffs, which also hurt your 2:06:39.840 --> 2:06:42.120 economy obviously, but even if they worked the way Trump 2:06:42.240 --> 2:06:46.560 imagines they do, like he already had that power and 2:06:46.600 --> 2:06:49.360 like other presidents have been using it for decades. Big 2:06:49.480 --> 2:06:52.640 visible sanctions like what they put on Iran or Venezuela 2:06:52.720 --> 2:06:55.320 are a much more dramatic upscale. But the priority watch list, 2:06:55.600 --> 2:06:58.520 they can just threaten to upgrade you from on the 2:06:58.560 --> 2:07:01.360 watch list to a priority on that and you will 2:07:01.400 --> 2:07:05.600 watch countries fold entirely on trade policy, Like it's crazy. So, like, 2:07:06.040 --> 2:07:07.640 one of the things that's interesting about this moment and 2:07:07.680 --> 2:07:09.640 about the Trump this moment is that they're ripping apart 2:07:09.640 --> 2:07:12.560 their own infrastructure. Yeah, because they literally just don't understand 2:07:12.600 --> 2:07:13.040 how it works. 2:07:13.080 --> 2:07:14.600 No, It's like it's like that you had it to 2:07:14.640 --> 2:07:16.560 an aircraft carrier and they're ripping out the copper wires, 2:07:16.560 --> 2:07:17.760 just trying to tell it and it's like, you have 2:07:17.840 --> 2:07:20.200 an aircraft carrier, what are we doing? 2:07:20.320 --> 2:07:22.160 Yeah? 2:07:22.280 --> 2:07:23.440 God, exactly. 2:07:23.880 --> 2:07:26.080 You know. So again, like I think there is this 2:07:26.160 --> 2:07:29.760 talk about the consolidation of culture, and I think, like 2:07:30.800 --> 2:07:33.440 you know, people like the Ellison's are just they're just 2:07:33.560 --> 2:07:36.640 vulgar at it. Like the thing is like Mike Eisner 2:07:36.720 --> 2:07:39.120 was better at it, like Bob iger is, who is 2:07:39.160 --> 2:07:41.960 the CEO of Disney currently other he's about to step down. 2:07:42.240 --> 2:07:45.400 Bob Iger saw them through the acquisition of Marvel and 2:07:45.600 --> 2:07:49.520 Star Wars and all that. He is an incredible I mean, 2:07:49.560 --> 2:07:51.360 you know, ever, whatever his team, he himself is a 2:07:51.360 --> 2:07:54.240 pretty unimpressive guy. But like, you know, like other than 2:07:54.400 --> 2:07:56.879 internal politics, which is what all CEOs are good at anyway, 2:07:57.480 --> 2:08:00.240 you know, like these these these companies were already good 2:08:00.240 --> 2:08:01.800 at this, and like what has happened is that a 2:08:01.840 --> 2:08:03.680 wing of the capitalists who are really bad at it 2:08:03.720 --> 2:08:06.920 and really resentful because they're all sort of like the 2:08:07.200 --> 2:08:09.800 David Allison's in the world. They're all the resentful fail 2:08:09.920 --> 2:08:13.920 sons of wealth who you know, they want more power 2:08:14.040 --> 2:08:16.880 and more respect and they don't appreciate how much their 2:08:16.920 --> 2:08:19.160 shit is already built on the very thing they claim 2:08:19.200 --> 2:08:19.720 to want to do. 2:08:20.280 --> 2:08:22.680 Yeah, well, and I guess it is to some extent 2:08:22.720 --> 2:08:25.040 a kind of funny like the election of Trump. And 2:08:25.080 --> 2:08:28.200 also just sort of Ellison just like devouring this is 2:08:28.200 --> 2:08:30.440 what it was like third Studio that he's eaten in 2:08:30.520 --> 2:08:33.960 like five years, and like all all these forces being 2:08:34.000 --> 2:08:35.840 devoured by this. This is like well, yeah, like this 2:08:35.920 --> 2:08:39.160 is what happens when you set up a system like this, 2:08:39.440 --> 2:08:41.760 Eventually there's going to be a bigger fish who's just 2:08:41.760 --> 2:08:44.200 going to devour you because they have, for example, Oracle 2:08:44.240 --> 2:08:46.120 behind them, which is just an amount of capital that 2:08:46.840 --> 2:08:50.600 like outside of like Disney, you can't have that kind 2:08:50.640 --> 2:08:54.440 of capital, right, And like with Trump, it's like, yeah, 2:08:54.440 --> 2:08:58.640 you finally created a monster that is large enough to 2:08:58.680 --> 2:09:02.480 shatter the extremely della kit and complicated system that you did. 2:09:02.520 --> 2:09:05.360 And it's also just doesn't understand it. 2:09:05.840 --> 2:09:07.800 Yeah, exactly. And I think like if you want to 2:09:07.800 --> 2:09:10.760 see at the future of Hollywood looks like, I mean, 2:09:10.800 --> 2:09:13.160 you know, you can go worse than to look at China. Right, 2:09:13.480 --> 2:09:16.360 China is the most dynamic film market. It overtook the 2:09:16.440 --> 2:09:18.600 US as the number one value of the box office 2:09:18.720 --> 2:09:20.920 in twenty twenty two, I think I think it did 2:09:20.920 --> 2:09:23.200 in twenty twenty one, but that was still COVID shutdown affected. 2:09:23.520 --> 2:09:25.400 Twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three, China became an 2:09:25.440 --> 2:09:28.160 actual of the actual plurality of ticket sales in the 2:09:28.160 --> 2:09:31.560 world by dollar, if not by number. By number, they've 2:09:31.560 --> 2:09:35.080 already long surpassed the US. Yeah, but the way that 2:09:35.160 --> 2:09:38.400 Chinese film companies work is like they're all pretty nakedly 2:09:38.760 --> 2:09:43.840 financial companies like ten Cent and Ali Baba, right, and 2:09:43.880 --> 2:09:46.160 like the like these are companies, they're just already from 2:09:46.200 --> 2:09:49.200 other sectors, and they're just like we have cash, we 2:09:49.320 --> 2:09:51.200 use the cash to make a movie, yeah, which is 2:09:51.240 --> 2:09:53.360 what the studios always did too, Right. I want to 2:09:53.360 --> 2:09:55.640 be really clear, like I don't want to romanticize, but 2:09:55.800 --> 2:09:59.480 like you know, that's where it always was, right, And 2:09:59.520 --> 2:10:01.640 it's just that like in the turn of the century 2:10:01.640 --> 2:10:04.440 when Hollywood was being made, industries were just more divided. 2:10:04.840 --> 2:10:16.200 Yeah. 2:10:16.240 --> 2:10:19.440 The reason to talk about all of this business stuff 2:10:19.560 --> 2:10:21.760 on some level, I mean, it's interesting on its own 2:10:21.760 --> 2:10:24.400 as history, it's interesting as a critique of capitalism, but 2:10:24.560 --> 2:10:28.000 I think it's also interesting because it affects the aesthetics, 2:10:28.080 --> 2:10:30.600 like of what the movies that get made. Right. And 2:10:30.640 --> 2:10:32.760 I think when we think about when people think about 2:10:33.080 --> 2:10:36.520 fascist propaganda, you know, we think about the Nazis, right, obviously, 2:10:36.680 --> 2:10:40.200 because the Nazis had the longest running fascist propaganda machine 2:10:40.240 --> 2:10:43.480 in the world. They had the Ministry of Culture under Gerbels, Right. 2:10:43.800 --> 2:10:46.440 And I think when we talk about Nazi propaganda, we 2:10:46.480 --> 2:10:49.200 think about triumph for the will, and we think about 2:10:49.200 --> 2:10:53.600 stuff like Juden Zeus, right, like extremely horrifying anti Semitic bullshit. Yeah, 2:10:54.200 --> 2:10:57.400 extremely horrifying anti Semitic movies. There were two of them 2:10:57.800 --> 2:11:00.520 in the ten years that Gerbels ran the un which 2:11:00.560 --> 2:11:02.960 is the film company that made movies for Germany. The 2:11:03.160 --> 2:11:06.680 vast majority, the vast majority of films under the Life 2:11:07.040 --> 2:11:11.640 were frothy comedies and musicals and adventure stories. Because the 2:11:11.720 --> 2:11:14.879 principle that Girbels operating on was called the orchestra principle, 2:11:15.120 --> 2:11:17.600 and he believed that you should just actually art should 2:11:17.640 --> 2:11:20.160 just be reduced to creating feelings. It should be totally 2:11:20.200 --> 2:11:23.400 de intellectualized, and then very little of that art remains. 2:11:23.520 --> 2:11:25.960 Those movies are mid. You know, the movies made by 2:11:26.000 --> 2:11:28.320 Utha are not good, like even the ones that are 2:11:28.640 --> 2:11:32.520 not offensive, they're just mid. But they all do the 2:11:32.560 --> 2:11:36.360 same thing. They all work together around a principle of 2:11:36.520 --> 2:11:40.120 certain principles around family and romantic love and domestic life, 2:11:40.400 --> 2:11:43.200 most of it inoffensive in and of itself. And so 2:11:43.280 --> 2:11:46.560 I think when we think about Ellison taking over, I 2:11:46.560 --> 2:11:49.240 think we imagine, you know, as we were joking about 2:11:49.240 --> 2:11:51.320 at the beginning, shit like the Daily Wire, anti woke, 2:11:51.360 --> 2:11:54.080 Cinderella or whatever the fuck. Yeah, and I allowed to cuss, 2:11:54.120 --> 2:11:55.040 I'm doing so much of it. 2:11:55.120 --> 2:11:58.520 Yeah, all the time. Okay, thank god we are not 2:11:58.600 --> 2:11:59.760 regulated by the FCC. 2:12:01.280 --> 2:12:03.320 Let's go, No one is these days. 2:12:03.560 --> 2:12:05.600 I mean, I guess we technically are, but we're not 2:12:05.680 --> 2:12:08.120 under the radio regulation, so we can say whatever we want. 2:12:08.800 --> 2:12:16.000 Perfect love that. But like, fascist filmmaking has not looked 2:12:16.080 --> 2:12:19.160 like that for the most part in the history of it. 2:12:19.880 --> 2:12:25.320 Fascist filmmaking looks like family adventure fair often, and I 2:12:25.320 --> 2:12:28.280 think we have been so blinded to the way that 2:12:28.320 --> 2:12:31.400 this happens that we imagine that Ellison taking over is 2:12:31.400 --> 2:12:33.320 suddenly going to mean that now there's going to be 2:12:33.360 --> 2:12:36.520 fascist movies in theaters. But like, have y'all been to 2:12:36.560 --> 2:12:38.320 the movies? Yes, Like have y'all seen what Ward of 2:12:38.400 --> 2:12:40.480 Mothers did with like the Snyder verse? 2:12:40.640 --> 2:12:43.320 Like yeah, like did you did you watch The Beekeeper? 2:12:43.560 --> 2:12:43.720 Right? 2:12:43.760 --> 2:12:46.520 Speaking of Netflix? Like that was the most fascist movie 2:12:46.560 --> 2:12:50.040 I've ever seen exactly. It is literally it is a 2:12:50.080 --> 2:12:53.800 movie that is just a guy shooting a bunch of people, 2:12:54.040 --> 2:12:57.720 and then the background superstructure is an explanation of what 2:12:57.760 --> 2:13:00.560 the furory is, which is like the course that is 2:13:00.600 --> 2:13:03.040 outside of the order, that is able to violate the 2:13:03.120 --> 2:13:04.720 rules of the order in order to in order to 2:13:04.760 --> 2:13:07.640 create the order itself, except it's a guy called the 2:13:07.680 --> 2:13:09.880 bee Keeper and he just shoots people like. 2:13:09.800 --> 2:13:11.120 It's it's that's pretty bad. 2:13:11.400 --> 2:13:11.960 That's like that. 2:13:12.040 --> 2:13:14.800 Yeah, I did not watch that one, and I like state, it's. 2:13:14.560 --> 2:13:17.320 Really unhan, I want to it with my family. Nightmare. 2:13:17.800 --> 2:13:22.960 Holy shit, it's going insane. Yeah, things are so bad that. 2:13:23.080 --> 2:13:26.360 Like there was a movie, Nobody with Bob Odenkirk that 2:13:26.360 --> 2:13:28.640 came out in twenty nineteen, and it was basically a 2:13:28.680 --> 2:13:31.600 parody of those like Liam Neeson, you know, the John 2:13:31.600 --> 2:13:34.400 Wick movies and like Liam Neeson like Dad then taken 2:13:34.480 --> 2:13:34.920 stuff right. 2:13:35.120 --> 2:13:36.240 Yeah, and it was a parody. 2:13:36.680 --> 2:13:38.040 Maybe you could be clued in by the fact that 2:13:38.040 --> 2:13:40.400 it was Bob Odenkirk and it was filmed with comedians. 2:13:40.640 --> 2:13:42.960 Maybe you could be cluted by the fact that he's 2:13:42.960 --> 2:13:46.080 fighting because they took his daughter's Hello Kitty bracelet. Like 2:13:46.240 --> 2:13:48.640 there's a pretty like a dry but it's a dry 2:13:48.720 --> 2:13:49.520 plays a very dry. 2:13:49.760 --> 2:13:50.160 Yeah. 2:13:50.440 --> 2:13:54.880 Every single professional film critic reviewed it like it was 2:13:54.960 --> 2:13:59.360 dead serious, like Bob was to become the next Liam Neeson. 2:13:59.440 --> 2:14:02.440 And part of that is because they shot good action sequences, 2:14:02.520 --> 2:14:05.720 Like he did a good job with this satire. But 2:14:05.760 --> 2:14:08.760 then what happens, what happened next is that now there's 2:14:08.760 --> 2:14:11.480 a nobody too, and it's completely forgotten the joke and 2:14:11.520 --> 2:14:12.280 it's not good either. 2:14:12.400 --> 2:14:14.880 So like Jesus fucking Christ, yeah. 2:14:14.640 --> 2:14:16.280 And Bob when and Kirk just like he had this 2:14:16.320 --> 2:14:18.320 one window where he could really sell that he couldn't 2:14:18.320 --> 2:14:19.720 sell it in the sequel. It doesn't matter. 2:14:20.040 --> 2:14:22.600 It's it's the jort Head sequels right exactly. 2:14:22.840 --> 2:14:26.760 But like we're just in a time of extreme literalism, 2:14:27.560 --> 2:14:32.240 where like everything is really really like script driven. It's 2:14:32.280 --> 2:14:36.280 really on its face, it's really textual. Everything is just 2:14:36.320 --> 2:14:40.520 selling something else. Everything can possibly be sequel. Nothing really changes, 2:14:40.960 --> 2:14:45.800 politics only exists as bureaucracy. These are all deeply fascist concepts. 2:14:46.040 --> 2:14:50.440 They're just more subtle than goose stepping SS uniforms. You know. 2:14:51.320 --> 2:14:53.360 Part of what's so funny about the Daily Wire is 2:14:53.400 --> 2:14:56.280 it's like like they come for Disney, like you can't 2:14:56.320 --> 2:14:58.920 do anything to make a more fascist pot Like Disney 2:14:59.000 --> 2:15:01.600 entertains people and makes the flash as populous, like they're 2:15:01.720 --> 2:15:05.120 just bad filmmakers and that kind of matters. 2:15:05.360 --> 2:15:09.040 Yeah, I think there is a chance that like I 2:15:09.040 --> 2:15:11.320 don't know, Ellison is such a dumb ass that he 2:15:11.480 --> 2:15:16.040 just tries to do it anyways, like he just tries 2:15:16.080 --> 2:15:18.480 to be like fuck it. Well, but even then, like 2:15:18.520 --> 2:15:21.600 he hasn't really made like a stereotype of Nazi movies. 2:15:21.640 --> 2:15:25.680 He's made like actual Nazi movies. Just to say, the 2:15:26.120 --> 2:15:27.760 fucking Top gunn Baverick. 2:15:28.000 --> 2:15:32.760 And people loved Top Mavericks. People were like, yeah, I 2:15:32.760 --> 2:15:35.360 guess it's maybe kind of problematic, like but we love 2:15:35.640 --> 2:15:39.040 you know. It's like that movie is like literally propaganda 2:15:39.040 --> 2:15:41.320 for the Air Force. Like I thought it was fun. Yeah, 2:15:41.600 --> 2:15:44.640 don't get me wrong, but like people are have been 2:15:44.720 --> 2:15:46.800 really trained to not see that stuff. 2:15:47.280 --> 2:15:49.400 Yeah, and it's like we're like now fighting the war 2:15:49.520 --> 2:15:52.840 at that movie was propaganda for yes, exactly, like we're 2:15:52.880 --> 2:15:56.120 literally we literally are fighting. We made it a road 2:15:56.560 --> 2:15:58.160 like were we've bolved a ride at all. 2:15:58.000 --> 2:16:00.840 That fifteens went down so the first on the Gulf War. 2:16:01.560 --> 2:16:05.920 Yeah, because they got shut down by Allies air defenses. 2:16:07.560 --> 2:16:09.840 You know why we didn't have Maverick, We didn't have 2:16:10.560 --> 2:16:13.600 Tom Cruise training them. And that's what Allison's gonna do. 2:16:13.600 --> 2:16:15.320 That's why I'm happy he's merging it. Because our our 2:16:15.320 --> 2:16:17.200 brave boys and the skies are going to be safer. 2:16:17.560 --> 2:16:17.960 God. 2:16:18.240 --> 2:16:20.800 So yeah, anyways, I don't know where I'm going with this, 2:16:20.880 --> 2:16:24.400 because obviously things are bad, and anyone betting against things 2:16:24.520 --> 2:16:27.200 getting worse over the last ten years has lost their pants, right, 2:16:27.560 --> 2:16:32.920 But things can get worse. But like, also there is 2:16:33.600 --> 2:16:37.800 the actual object, the actual film object exists, and like 2:16:37.959 --> 2:16:40.640 part of what has been hard about Hollywood, the reason 2:16:40.640 --> 2:16:42.720 they've built these monopoly structus, the reason they've built these 2:16:42.840 --> 2:16:47.160 pease structures is because because audiences are fickle, and that's annoying, 2:16:47.400 --> 2:16:49.560 and you can't just like force stuff down their throats 2:16:49.560 --> 2:16:51.240 and they're not going to just like buy something for 2:16:51.280 --> 2:16:54.039 sure every time, and you have to sort of seduce them, 2:16:54.120 --> 2:16:55.800 right like, it's it's you have to you have to 2:16:55.840 --> 2:16:58.720 make something they want to see. Right The MCU was 2:16:58.840 --> 2:17:01.240 unstoppable until it stopped, and now no one likes it 2:17:01.280 --> 2:17:03.480 and it's really annoying, right like, and they still make 2:17:03.520 --> 2:17:06.080 their money back on the MCU, Like they're doing fine. No, 2:17:06.480 --> 2:17:10.000 do not play a violin for Kevin Feige. He's doing fine. 2:17:10.160 --> 2:17:12.640 You know, he's crying on his third jot, you know. 2:17:12.920 --> 2:17:15.280 But like, but so I guess what I'm saying is 2:17:15.280 --> 2:17:17.680 that like, is that, like, as we enter into more 2:17:17.720 --> 2:17:21.200 and more naked versions of this, what it should help 2:17:21.280 --> 2:17:23.360 us do you, rather than think, oh my god, all 2:17:23.440 --> 2:17:26.560 is lost? Is to reflect on how we got here already, 2:17:27.000 --> 2:17:30.680 How often we were already here under liberalism, under Biden, 2:17:30.840 --> 2:17:34.360 under just regular capitalist conditions, how often we've already been here, 2:17:34.959 --> 2:17:38.039 reevaluate the way we think about what good culture could 2:17:38.040 --> 2:17:39.680 look like, and then start to move. 2:17:40.200 --> 2:17:40.360 Yeah. 2:17:40.400 --> 2:17:41.960 I want to come back to something I said a 2:17:41.959 --> 2:17:44.200 few years ago when we did a show with Gare 2:17:44.320 --> 2:17:46.680 about the People's Joker, and. 2:17:48.360 --> 2:17:49.240 I saw the TV glow. 2:17:49.600 --> 2:17:51.440 Yeah, I saw the TV glob. I was about to 2:17:51.520 --> 2:17:53.880 say the one about the age who has the bad 2:17:54.000 --> 2:17:55.320 ending and never transitions. 2:17:55.520 --> 2:17:57.440 Yes, the horror of you about not transitioning yet. 2:17:57.520 --> 2:18:01.080 Yeah, Yeah, I think there is extent to which, you know, 2:18:01.680 --> 2:18:06.640 there was a really brief attempt to sort of sublimate 2:18:06.760 --> 2:18:13.080 transness into film for like one year. But you know, 2:18:13.240 --> 2:18:15.640 like we're the people who've been spat out of this, 2:18:15.800 --> 2:18:19.120 but also trans people are making movies at a rate 2:18:19.160 --> 2:18:22.080 that has never happened before. Ever, There's never been anything 2:18:22.160 --> 2:18:24.959 like it. And you know, like the wachowskis like have 2:18:25.040 --> 2:18:27.000 a studio now where they're pumping out a bunch of 2:18:27.080 --> 2:18:30.800 trans movies, and like, you know, we're getting like Manhunter, 2:18:30.920 --> 2:18:33.959 and we're getting like a whole bunch of other stuff. 2:18:34.160 --> 2:18:36.040 And you know, the thing I said a few years 2:18:36.040 --> 2:18:38.920 ago I think is even more desperate and true now 2:18:39.080 --> 2:18:42.400 is that like transfilm is one of the last things 2:18:42.400 --> 2:18:46.280 fighting for the existence of film as a medium and 2:18:46.400 --> 2:18:50.760 not as a way to sell you toys and like 2:18:51.160 --> 2:18:52.320 fifteen dollars popcorn. 2:18:52.879 --> 2:18:55.720 Hey, they also tell you all expenses paid vacations. You 2:18:55.720 --> 2:19:00.120 have to go into debt for it. Okay, me that 2:19:00.920 --> 2:19:03.440 support trans film, support local film. And the thing about 2:19:03.480 --> 2:19:05.320 movies is that movies are bad. But the other thing 2:19:05.360 --> 2:19:07.160 is that movies are good. So it's hard. 2:19:08.360 --> 2:19:13.000 The dialectic InMotion, yeah, yeah, Look, I will say this, 2:19:13.320 --> 2:19:16.440 there has been for many thousands of years a second 2:19:16.480 --> 2:19:20.880 dialectic operating, and then it's a dialectic labor and capital. 2:19:21.600 --> 2:19:24.560 That's probably I probably backdated capital too far, but you know, 2:19:25.120 --> 2:19:28.119 fuck it, I don't know. We could resolve We could 2:19:28.160 --> 2:19:31.520 resolve movies good in movies bad by resolving the other 2:19:31.600 --> 2:19:35.880 dialectic of capital and labor, by simply destroying the categories 2:19:35.879 --> 2:19:37.879 and ending the class system. I believe in us we 2:19:37.920 --> 2:19:40.959 can make a movie good again. Movie has never been good. 2:19:41.240 --> 2:19:43.400 There can be a new future. We're movie good. 2:19:43.920 --> 2:19:47.080 Yeah, that's right exactly. Yeah, yeah, I believe. 2:19:47.560 --> 2:19:51.039 One final thing, VICKI where where can people find your book? 2:19:51.920 --> 2:19:54.280 Yes, it's being put up by Haymarket, so you can 2:19:54.280 --> 2:19:56.360 go to their website. I also have a link to 2:19:56.760 --> 2:19:59.920 my bookshop page via a Blue Sky. I'm Vicky Acab 2:20:00.080 --> 2:20:03.120 on Blue Sky. So if you want to watch me 2:20:03.200 --> 2:20:09.040 posting through it, you know, come hang out, I guess. Yeah. 2:20:09.959 --> 2:20:12.480 Talk to libraries about it. Ask a local if you 2:20:12.480 --> 2:20:14.840 have a local bookshop, asking them that stuff really helps 2:20:15.400 --> 2:20:17.920 make a huge difference. And yeah, I would really appreciate 2:20:17.920 --> 2:20:20.320 any of that. If you're if you're interested in how 2:20:20.760 --> 2:20:23.080 Disney destroyed the world and in the ways that we've 2:20:23.080 --> 2:20:25.440 been talking about here today, can read way more about it. 2:20:25.760 --> 2:20:28.560 Yeah, and I don't know, Vicky. Vicky's book's good? Can 2:20:28.680 --> 2:20:31.440 confirm have read they are? 2:20:31.560 --> 2:20:32.039 They're good? 2:20:32.240 --> 2:20:32.600 Oh? 2:20:32.600 --> 2:20:33.039 Thanks man. 2:20:46.640 --> 2:20:48.800 We should have kept working on that bomb that they 2:20:48.800 --> 2:20:51.680 thought would turn the entire enemy army gay, which was 2:20:51.720 --> 2:20:53.280 the thing they really put money into. 2:20:53.840 --> 2:20:55.080 This is it could happen here. 2:20:55.240 --> 2:20:58.959 Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the 2:20:59.000 --> 2:21:01.280 White House, the Crumpling world, and what it means for you. 2:21:01.600 --> 2:21:04.720 I'm Garrison Davis today. I'm joined by Miawong, James Stout, 2:21:04.959 --> 2:21:07.959 and Robert Evans. This episode, we are covering the week 2:21:07.959 --> 2:21:11.960 of February twenty fifth to March fourth. A House committee 2:21:12.000 --> 2:21:15.640 just today on Wednesday, as subpoenaed ag pambonid to testify 2:21:15.680 --> 2:21:19.000 on her handling of the Epstein investigation, with five Republicans 2:21:19.040 --> 2:21:22.400 joining all Democrats in the vote. Hillary Clinton was asked 2:21:22.400 --> 2:21:26.800 about Pizzagate and UFOs during her congressional testimony on Jeffrey Epstein. 2:21:26.879 --> 2:21:29.560 More on that next week, in a special episode, God 2:21:30.280 --> 2:21:35.160 and Netflix declined to raise their offer to buy Warner Brothers, 2:21:35.320 --> 2:21:39.360 resulting in Paramount winning the bidding war. FCC chairman Brendan 2:21:39.440 --> 2:21:42.640 Carr held CNBC that the Paramount deal would be approved 2:21:42.680 --> 2:21:46.200 quote unquote pretty quickly and that Netflix quote would have 2:21:46.240 --> 2:21:50.000 had a very difficult path saying the Paramount deal is 2:21:50.080 --> 2:21:53.440 quote a lot cleaner, does not raise all the same 2:21:53.560 --> 2:21:57.240 types of concerns unquote. More on that in the episode 2:21:57.280 --> 2:22:03.920 before this one insane, he just said that outline and yeah, 2:22:03.959 --> 2:22:08.400 on Thursday, February twenty sixth, almost a year after Mahmoud 2:22:08.480 --> 2:22:13.039 Khalil was first attained, ICE agents arrested another Columbia student 2:22:13.160 --> 2:22:17.359 in the early hours of the morning. Shortly after six am, 2:22:17.640 --> 2:22:20.359 five playing clothes agents from the Department of Homeland Security 2:22:20.600 --> 2:22:24.279 showed up outside a Columbia apartment building without a warrant, 2:22:24.560 --> 2:22:29.200 demanding to be let inside. The agents gained entry by 2:22:29.240 --> 2:22:33.600 falsely telling the building's superintendent that they were police searching 2:22:33.680 --> 2:22:38.160 for a missing child, even bringing pictures of this fake kid. 2:22:38.600 --> 2:22:42.000 The agents used this lie to enter into the apartment 2:22:42.320 --> 2:22:46.000 of twenty nine year old student Ellie Agaheva, where she 2:22:46.280 --> 2:22:50.600 was then arrested and taken off campus. After being detained, 2:22:50.760 --> 2:22:56.800 Agaheva posted on Instagram quote, dhs illegally arrested me. Please help. 2:22:58.040 --> 2:23:01.840 This same day, Mayormamdanni happened to be meeting with President 2:23:01.920 --> 2:23:04.480 Trump in the White House regarding federal funding for the 2:23:04.560 --> 2:23:08.600 Sunnyside Yards housing project. During this meeting, the mayor voiced 2:23:08.600 --> 2:23:11.760 opposition to ICE raids and concerned about the detention of 2:23:11.800 --> 2:23:14.560 the Columbia student. Earlier that morning. 2:23:14.640 --> 2:23:18.039 I shared my concern with the President about IS's detention 2:23:18.160 --> 2:23:22.480 of Columbia student Elmina Agayeva yesterday morning, as well as 2:23:22.560 --> 2:23:25.600 the detention of four additional New Yorkers in relation to 2:23:25.640 --> 2:23:30.080 the university, Mahmud Khalil, Masen, Mahdawi, jinse O Chung, and 2:23:30.120 --> 2:23:33.840 the Kakordia. I asked that their cases be dropped. I'm 2:23:33.879 --> 2:23:37.120 grateful that shortly after our meeting, the President called me 2:23:37.240 --> 2:23:40.320 to inform me that Elmina would be imminently released, and 2:23:40.360 --> 2:23:41.280 indeed she was. 2:23:42.160 --> 2:23:45.000 The mayor also discussed the release of Akajeva in a 2:23:45.160 --> 2:23:46.800 question during this press conference. 2:23:47.400 --> 2:23:50.880 During your advocacy with President Trump, what do you think 2:23:50.920 --> 2:23:53.119 the winning argument was and did. 2:23:52.920 --> 2:23:54.039 They reverse course? 2:23:55.240 --> 2:23:57.840 All I can tell you is what happened, which is 2:23:57.879 --> 2:24:01.560 that I shared directly with the President and a list 2:24:01.560 --> 2:24:04.000 of names of Columbia students and those who've also been 2:24:04.480 --> 2:24:08.320 detained because of their activity on Columbia campus, and that 2:24:08.680 --> 2:24:11.680 these actions do nothing to advance the cause of public safety, 2:24:12.200 --> 2:24:15.200 and I asked that these cases be dropped, and the 2:24:15.240 --> 2:24:17.760 President said that he would look into it. Soon after 2:24:17.800 --> 2:24:20.400 the meeting, I received a phone call from the President 2:24:20.600 --> 2:24:23.160 saying that he was going to eminently release her. 2:24:23.640 --> 2:24:27.320 At three forty five pm, Agaheva posted on Instagram that 2:24:27.360 --> 2:24:30.520 she'd been released and was quote unquote safe and okay. 2:24:31.520 --> 2:24:34.800 On Thursday night, a dhspookesperson told a reporter that Akaheva's 2:24:34.920 --> 2:24:38.760 student visa was terminated in twenty sixteen for failing to 2:24:38.800 --> 2:24:42.400 attend classes and that quote ICE placed her in removal 2:24:42.440 --> 2:24:45.720 proceedings and she's been released while she waits for her 2:24:45.760 --> 2:24:48.920 hearing unquote. The current state of her case is unknown, 2:24:49.200 --> 2:24:52.720 with neither her lawyers nor DHS providing any follow up statements. 2:24:53.240 --> 2:24:56.440 That last part is very confusing to me, right, because 2:24:56.920 --> 2:24:59.439 if she had lost her student visa for non attendant 2:24:59.680 --> 2:25:02.800 that can happen, that would have shown up in SEBZ, right, 2:25:02.840 --> 2:25:06.080 and that was a decade ago. That part confused me. 2:25:06.360 --> 2:25:08.160 I just so I was scanning it right before we started, 2:25:08.160 --> 2:25:09.920 and I figured i'd just ask you in the episode. 2:25:09.959 --> 2:25:12.840 But yeah, I mean, she has no pending cases with 2:25:13.080 --> 2:25:17.040 DHS in their system, or no pending appeals. It's very 2:25:17.080 --> 2:25:19.960 unclear what happened here or the exact cause of why 2:25:20.000 --> 2:25:22.840 she was arrested and the state of whatever visa she 2:25:22.920 --> 2:25:23.200 is on. 2:25:23.600 --> 2:25:25.720 Right, Yeah, she could have been on a completely different visa. 2:25:25.879 --> 2:25:27.080 Yeah, it's very unclear. 2:25:27.160 --> 2:25:29.560 There's a lot here that I'd like to know many 2:25:29.640 --> 2:25:32.760 such cases, I guess, so to start with a couple 2:25:32.760 --> 2:25:35.680 of immigration things, do you want to send it? Hearing yesterday, 2:25:35.720 --> 2:25:40.280 that's Tuesday, Christine Nome doubled down on the claim she's 2:25:40.280 --> 2:25:43.760 previously made about Alex Pretty, which are as far as 2:25:43.800 --> 2:25:46.120 we can tell, false, right, saying his action to a 2:25:46.200 --> 2:25:50.120 quote the definition of domestic terrorism. She's in the House 2:25:50.160 --> 2:25:53.720 testifying today, So I will try and summarize both those 2:25:53.760 --> 2:25:57.480 testimonies in next week's ED just just so we don't 2:25:57.520 --> 2:25:59.240 end up covering this twice. And we've got a lot 2:25:59.280 --> 2:26:03.160 to address today. This is breaking news right before we 2:26:03.560 --> 2:26:08.080 released the podcast. Christine Noam, the Secretary of Homeland Security, 2:26:08.200 --> 2:26:10.160 is going to be leaving that job at the end 2:26:10.200 --> 2:26:13.480 of March, and she will be replaced by current United 2:26:13.520 --> 2:26:17.920 States Senator for Oklahoma Mark Wayne Mullin. Nom will be 2:26:18.280 --> 2:26:21.000 moving into another job where she will be the Special 2:26:21.120 --> 2:26:24.440 Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which is a 2:26:24.480 --> 2:26:28.440 security initiative for the Western hemisphere that Trump is planning 2:26:28.520 --> 2:26:32.640 on telling us more about this weekend. Mullin, for those 2:26:32.640 --> 2:26:36.360 aren't familiar, is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He 2:26:36.800 --> 2:26:39.160 has been in the House of Representatives for ten years 2:26:39.160 --> 2:26:42.279 before he was in the Senate for the last three years, 2:26:42.720 --> 2:26:46.560 and he used to be a professional mma fighter. Secondly, 2:26:46.640 --> 2:26:51.680 Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has announced an investigation into 2:26:51.760 --> 2:26:55.800 potential misconduct by federal officers in the state, and response 2:26:55.920 --> 2:26:59.440 DHS has claimed that quote federal officials acting in the 2:26:59.440 --> 2:27:03.120 course of their ties are immune from liability under state law. 2:27:03.760 --> 2:27:08.800 This isn't true in legal terms, right, Federal officials can 2:27:08.879 --> 2:27:11.880 be prosecuted if their actions weren't necessary or proper, or 2:27:11.920 --> 2:27:14.480 were not in the course of their duties. So this 2:27:14.520 --> 2:27:18.280 pertains to the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Right, and 2:27:18.320 --> 2:27:21.800 there's a two part test for supremacy clause immunity aid 2:27:21.840 --> 2:27:25.720 the federal officials actions authorized under federal law and be 2:27:25.840 --> 2:27:28.640 that they are quote necessary, improper in the execution of 2:27:28.640 --> 2:27:31.640 their duties as a federal officer. I will link in 2:27:31.680 --> 2:27:34.879 the sources of our document to a tenth Circuit case 2:27:34.920 --> 2:27:38.000 on this. The case was about some Federal Wildlife officers 2:27:38.040 --> 2:27:41.520 who had crossed on to private land during a wolf 2:27:41.600 --> 2:27:45.760 coloring operation in Wyoming, and then Wyoming A tempted to 2:27:45.760 --> 2:27:48.840 prosecute them for trespassing, right, so we can see like 2:27:49.160 --> 2:27:52.320 a previous example of this, but it's not true that 2:27:52.400 --> 2:27:55.959 they have complete immunity from state laws, which is what's 2:27:56.000 --> 2:28:00.320 important here. I want to move on to Iran, just 2:28:00.520 --> 2:28:04.840 like most of the US military has done. But thank you, 2:28:05.840 --> 2:28:09.080 it works so hard on these Yeah. So we made 2:28:09.080 --> 2:28:11.800 a whole episode about this, which came out on Wednesday 2:28:11.840 --> 2:28:14.400 of this week, and I don't want to recap what 2:28:14.480 --> 2:28:16.640 we said there. That is why we make lots of 2:28:16.680 --> 2:28:19.600 episodes so you can go into depth on things. So 2:28:20.200 --> 2:28:23.800 I will for the most part be picking up on 2:28:24.360 --> 2:28:26.600 that by updating people and things that have happened in the 2:28:26.640 --> 2:28:29.960 twenty four hours since we recorded that. Firstly, it seems 2:28:30.000 --> 2:28:33.440 that the attacks, or E said timing was heavily driven 2:28:33.600 --> 2:28:38.120 by Israel, who were likely acting on intelligence about the 2:28:38.360 --> 2:28:41.920 whereabouts of Harmoni. The attacks occurred in the daytime, which 2:28:41.959 --> 2:28:44.880 is pretty unusual, like normally they want to time these 2:28:44.920 --> 2:28:47.720 things with moon phase. They want to do them at 2:28:47.800 --> 2:28:50.280 night just to make them safer for any of the 2:28:50.920 --> 2:28:54.400 piloted aircraft that they're using. Right. I also wanted to 2:28:54.440 --> 2:28:56.959 point out so that the source of this Israel claim, 2:28:57.160 --> 2:29:01.840 let's start there, comes from the bid response forty seven account. 2:29:02.360 --> 2:29:04.520 I guess I described that as like a White House 2:29:04.520 --> 2:29:08.199 affiliated Twitter account. I can't think of the Yeah, it's 2:29:08.400 --> 2:29:10.440 one of the accounts at the It's not White House, 2:29:10.480 --> 2:29:13.400 but it's one of the accounts that the Trump administration runs, one. 2:29:13.360 --> 2:29:16.240 Of the accounts the administration users to disseminate information. 2:29:16.480 --> 2:29:19.680 Yeah, it's quotation here from Marco Rubio quote. The President 2:29:19.760 --> 2:29:22.240 made the very wise decision. We knew that there was 2:29:22.280 --> 2:29:24.840 going to be an Israeli action, We knew that that 2:29:24.840 --> 2:29:27.879 would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew 2:29:27.879 --> 2:29:30.160 that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they 2:29:30.240 --> 2:29:33.640 launched over the attacks, we would suffer higher casualties. It 2:29:33.760 --> 2:29:36.960 seems like the initial push came from Israel, right. I'd 2:29:36.959 --> 2:29:40.240 also like to add that Tafran is getting bombed very 2:29:40.280 --> 2:29:44.200 heavily as we record this, something I think is missing 2:29:44.240 --> 2:29:46.160 in that discourse. We were actually going to have an 2:29:46.200 --> 2:29:49.960 episode about the water crisis in Iran this week. For 2:29:50.040 --> 2:29:54.840 obvious reasons, we made another Iran based episode. But Iran 2:29:54.920 --> 2:29:58.560 is critically low on water. Lake Umir, which was the 2:29:58.640 --> 2:30:02.560 largest lake in Asia, actually gone now from damning from 2:30:02.800 --> 2:30:06.520 draining of aquifers, and Tehran is sitting on top of 2:30:06.560 --> 2:30:11.240 an empty aquifer, which leads to greater potential for damage, 2:30:11.240 --> 2:30:14.160 I guess with some of these large bombs that we're 2:30:14.200 --> 2:30:15.440 seeing drop there, right. 2:30:15.520 --> 2:30:18.440 I mean, it also means that absent even any of 2:30:18.480 --> 2:30:21.720 this military aggression from the US that we're seeing right now, 2:30:22.280 --> 2:30:26.960 Iran was in realistic danger of becoming a failed state. Yes, 2:30:27.000 --> 2:30:30.200 because of the sheer lack of water. That is an 2:30:30.240 --> 2:30:34.400 existential threat when your capital city is running out of water, like, 2:30:34.440 --> 2:30:36.480 there's no other way to look at that kind scale 2:30:36.520 --> 2:30:40.400 of problem. And the fact that now they're dealing with 2:30:40.440 --> 2:30:44.280 this massacre of the people who had been running things, 2:30:44.280 --> 2:30:46.680 as well as mass destruction via the air of a 2:30:46.680 --> 2:30:50.039 lot of civil infrastructure. This is just so much more 2:30:50.120 --> 2:30:52.879 of a problem, and it makes the odds of the 2:30:53.000 --> 2:30:55.440 end result of all this being a failed state in 2:30:55.480 --> 2:30:59.199 the region that leads to a humanitarian crisis on scale 2:30:59.640 --> 2:31:02.119 of the refugee crisis we saw during the early stages 2:31:02.160 --> 2:31:03.800 of the Syrians of a war much likelier. 2:31:04.160 --> 2:31:06.920 Yeah, especially when you consider that there are millions of 2:31:06.959 --> 2:31:10.440 refugees already living in Iran right from Afghanistan right Ran 2:31:10.520 --> 2:31:13.720 it has been deporting them on a massive level. But like, yes, 2:31:13.800 --> 2:31:17.280 the chances of this being an absolute humanitarian disaster are 2:31:17.320 --> 2:31:21.520 worryingly high. Tehran received one millimeter of rain. Yeah, last 2:31:21.600 --> 2:31:24.480 year according to some Guardian reporting. I read like they 2:31:24.480 --> 2:31:26.760 were already, as you said, very close to people turning 2:31:26.760 --> 2:31:29.200 on the taps and nothing coming out. Yeah, they say, 2:31:29.240 --> 2:31:32.720 is not helping that. I want to move on to 2:31:32.879 --> 2:31:35.640 these claims that we have seen in the past twenty 2:31:35.680 --> 2:31:41.640 four hours about a Kurdish partner force in eastern Kurdistan, right, 2:31:41.720 --> 2:31:44.400 And in Kurdish that would be called Roja Lat that 2:31:44.400 --> 2:31:46.000 would be Western Iran, right. 2:31:46.040 --> 2:31:51.000 Right, Like Kurdistan. The broader region is western Iran, northern Iraq, 2:31:51.240 --> 2:31:54.720 northeast Syria, southern Turkey. Right. You can draw kind of 2:31:54.760 --> 2:31:57.000 a big glob around all those parts of the world 2:31:57.040 --> 2:31:57.880 that's Kurdistan. 2:31:58.080 --> 2:32:00.560 Yeah, exactly, if you can like draw up blot encompasses 2:32:00.600 --> 2:32:03.600 all of those things. Yeah. Obviously Kurdistan is not a state, 2:32:04.000 --> 2:32:04.960 it's an area. 2:32:05.040 --> 2:32:05.760 It's not at all. 2:32:06.080 --> 2:32:08.840 That is part of the issue at stake here, kind 2:32:08.879 --> 2:32:10.800 of a big deal kind of the thing. 2:32:11.480 --> 2:32:12.080 Yeah. 2:32:12.200 --> 2:32:16.160 So Axios has reported that Trump called Buffal Talabani and 2:32:16.200 --> 2:32:18.840 Masud Barzani, who are the leaders of the two biggest 2:32:18.879 --> 2:32:22.720 factions in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yeah at Southern Kadistan North in Iraq. 2:32:23.720 --> 2:32:27.160 The piece was written by Barak Ravine. This is not 2:32:27.320 --> 2:32:30.560 Barak's first time joining us on executive disorder. Friend of 2:32:30.600 --> 2:32:35.560 the Bad Yeah yeah, regular guest biography. People remember last 2:32:35.600 --> 2:32:37.320 time that we talked about Barak. It was in the 2:32:37.320 --> 2:32:41.760 context of a leaked proposal for peace between Russia and 2:32:41.920 --> 2:32:45.240 Ukraine that appeared to be essentially a list of Russian 2:32:45.280 --> 2:32:49.039 demands but was not present was presented as a US proposal. 2:32:49.760 --> 2:32:52.160 I will try and remember what week we talked about 2:32:52.160 --> 2:32:54.560 that and the so that link in case people want 2:32:54.600 --> 2:32:57.200 to go back, right like, I've spent a lot of 2:32:57.280 --> 2:33:00.000 time appointing out on various websites how bad this piece was. 2:33:00.280 --> 2:33:03.680 It was atrocious in its understanding of Kurdish movements. For instance, 2:33:03.800 --> 2:33:07.720 it it listed Talabani and Bazani as leaders of Iranian 2:33:08.520 --> 2:33:15.760 Kurdish factions. What yeah, Like. I think it's important to 2:33:15.840 --> 2:33:18.160 note at this point that like media perceptions of the 2:33:18.160 --> 2:33:21.560 Middle East are often formed by people whose understanding is 2:33:21.600 --> 2:33:24.640 eclipsed by the introductory part of the Wikipedia article on 2:33:24.640 --> 2:33:29.040 a given topic. Vastly like that's not an exaggeration. 2:33:28.840 --> 2:33:30.520 Like this, this is this is this is like saying 2:33:30.600 --> 2:33:33.680 Macron is the leader of like the Quebecy separatists. Yeah, 2:33:34.200 --> 2:33:35.240 like that kind of ship. 2:33:36.160 --> 2:33:37.080 Yeah, and I see that. 2:33:37.120 --> 2:33:41.000 I do believe Actually that's a separate episode. I will 2:33:41.040 --> 2:33:44.039 be actually doing that in partnership with Info Wars France. 2:33:45.320 --> 2:33:47.679 Very excited to see that. Get off the ground. 2:33:47.520 --> 2:33:50.040 Info wor France. It's a frightening concept. 2:33:51.400 --> 2:33:55.200 Like genuinely, hey baby, they're turning the frogs. Gay, we 2:33:55.240 --> 2:33:58.760 gotta do something about that. That was a French. 2:33:58.760 --> 2:34:03.840 French very any excellent. Sorry. They also kind of didn't 2:34:03.879 --> 2:34:06.440 understand that SDF and Peshmerga were distinct entities. 2:34:06.480 --> 2:34:09.560 That appears Jesus Christ wildly different in the yes and 2:34:09.600 --> 2:34:10.880 combat efficacy too. 2:34:11.200 --> 2:34:14.879 Yes, yeah, yeah, very just like unless they're talking about 2:34:14.879 --> 2:34:18.400 the Peshmega Raja I guess, which like exists largely telegram 2:34:18.480 --> 2:34:22.680 rumors these days. The piece does line up with the 2:34:22.680 --> 2:34:25.080 strategies that we are seeing though. Right there has been 2:34:25.120 --> 2:34:32.160 significant bombing of IERGC and police facilities along the border 2:34:32.200 --> 2:34:36.360 with a ruck. There have been and continue to be 2:34:36.879 --> 2:34:40.640 many Eastern Kurdish groups who are based in a rack 2:34:40.840 --> 2:34:44.560 right now. Right there has been significant bombing along the 2:34:44.680 --> 2:34:48.760 road from Halabd to Kamanche right, which would be like 2:34:48.800 --> 2:34:50.440 a road that you would use if you're planning to 2:34:50.760 --> 2:34:55.199 move some people in that way. In theory, the KDP 2:34:55.520 --> 2:34:58.320 and the p UK, so they are the two major 2:34:58.440 --> 2:35:03.280 Kurdish factions in a rack, have unified their Peshmerger. Peshmerger 2:35:03.720 --> 2:35:06.240 means those who face death. They are the armed forces 2:35:06.240 --> 2:35:09.440 that are affiliated to the two Kurdish political parties. This 2:35:09.600 --> 2:35:12.680 is really kind of a rhetorical construct because they have 2:35:12.760 --> 2:35:15.920 regional commands which effectively mirror the areas where the KDP 2:35:16.040 --> 2:35:19.480 and p UK and control anyway, but they have unified payroll, 2:35:19.560 --> 2:35:22.480 which is interesting. It is also worth noting that pro 2:35:22.560 --> 2:35:27.000 Iran groups inside Iraq have been targeting Peshmerger with drone attacks. 2:35:27.560 --> 2:35:30.200 Both sides in its conflict are bombing Iraq cration now, 2:35:30.680 --> 2:35:32.680 which really does suck for people in Iraq. 2:35:33.120 --> 2:35:37.560 Yeah, I mean like this conflict has been ever present. Obviously. 2:35:37.720 --> 2:35:41.160 After the Iraq War, Iran exerted a significant amount of influence. 2:35:41.200 --> 2:35:44.560 They brought explosively formed penetrators to the Shia militias in 2:35:44.640 --> 2:35:49.560 the region. Thea cleric Mattadal Sada, who was probably the 2:35:49.560 --> 2:35:53.160 most successful political figure of the war years and was 2:35:53.400 --> 2:35:56.720 very heavily involved with Iran. During the fighting in Mosul, 2:35:57.000 --> 2:36:00.640 you had Peshmurger, you had Iraqi Army soldiers generally from Baghdad, 2:36:00.680 --> 2:36:03.240 and then you had the PMFS, the Popular Mobilization Forces, 2:36:03.280 --> 2:36:06.879 and these were all Iran back militias and traveling, especially 2:36:06.879 --> 2:36:08.560 as I was with Puriage, you had always be really 2:36:08.600 --> 2:36:11.000 careful in the PMF positions because you never knew what 2:36:11.000 --> 2:36:13.520 would happen, because again they are enemies. They were tied 2:36:13.520 --> 2:36:17.039 together fighting ISIS, but they are not allied forces and 2:36:17.080 --> 2:36:18.840 they have a history of fighting each other. 2:36:19.200 --> 2:36:20.920 Yeah, that was a wild time ket a lot of 2:36:20.959 --> 2:36:22.800 people who had a lot of beef on the same 2:36:22.840 --> 2:36:25.520 side of that particular contract. It's also probably worth noting 2:36:25.520 --> 2:36:28.560 at this point that like it was the Department of Defense, 2:36:28.840 --> 2:36:32.360 not the CIA that was really driving the boat. Yes, 2:36:32.480 --> 2:36:36.160 when it came to like supporting the Kurds in Syria, Yeah, 2:36:36.240 --> 2:36:41.080 the CIA went with the TFSA right, that Turkish Free 2:36:41.120 --> 2:36:43.800 Syrian Army, which does not have a great record as 2:36:43.800 --> 2:36:46.920 far as not doing war crimes goes. I also received 2:36:47.080 --> 2:36:51.840 confirmation today that Barzani and Talibani spoke with Iran's foreign minister, 2:36:52.400 --> 2:36:55.600 so they've spoken with both Trump and the Iranian foreign minister. 2:36:55.920 --> 2:36:59.520 Kubad Talibani, who's a deputy Prime minister of Kurdistan, not 2:36:59.560 --> 2:37:02.480 the same person. It's Baffel Talabani, the leader of the PUK, 2:37:03.120 --> 2:37:06.120 made a statement to say that the Kurdistan region was 2:37:06.280 --> 2:37:09.480 not involved in the conflict. I think it's very unlikely 2:37:09.720 --> 2:37:14.959 that we will see large Peshmrger groups from northern Iraq 2:37:15.080 --> 2:37:18.879 southern Kurdistan entering Iran in the near future. I do 2:37:18.920 --> 2:37:21.959 think it's interesting that Reviede got this piece leaked to 2:37:22.040 --> 2:37:26.520 him because things don't generally get leaked because one person 2:37:26.560 --> 2:37:29.840 has a crisis of conscience. It does happen sometimes, but 2:37:29.920 --> 2:37:33.200 in events like this, it is normally a choice. And 2:37:33.959 --> 2:37:37.440 this particular story leaves the Kurdish people in a very 2:37:37.480 --> 2:37:41.080 difficult position because it puts a target directly on them 2:37:41.120 --> 2:37:45.200 for the Iranian regime, right, and they can fight or 2:37:45.240 --> 2:37:47.360 not fight, but they have been singled out as a 2:37:47.440 --> 2:37:50.680 group that is going to be the ground forces of 2:37:50.959 --> 2:37:55.040 this Israeli and US aggression, and what that means is 2:37:55.080 --> 2:37:57.199 they will be singled out for oppression at home, whether 2:37:57.320 --> 2:37:58.880 or not they fight. That leaves them in a place 2:37:58.879 --> 2:38:01.320 where they might have to chose to fight right or 2:38:01.360 --> 2:38:04.119 they might fight but not through their own choosing. There 2:38:04.200 --> 2:38:08.160 has been for some time an alliance for some time. 2:38:08.200 --> 2:38:09.920 I think twenty second of February is when it was 2:38:09.959 --> 2:38:14.199 made of five Kurdish groups, five Iranian Kurdish groups. These 2:38:14.240 --> 2:38:16.480 are Rather than saying them like phonetically, I had to 2:38:16.480 --> 2:38:18.160 read out the initials. People want to look them up 2:38:18.280 --> 2:38:23.440 pjak Pak, KDPI, and then these two groups have names 2:38:23.440 --> 2:38:25.640 not initials. There are two of the three parts of 2:38:25.720 --> 2:38:30.680 Kamala and Hubbat. It is more likely that these groups, 2:38:30.840 --> 2:38:34.640 specifically KDPI, will be willing to engage. We do know 2:38:34.680 --> 2:38:38.320 that Trump spoke to Mustafa Hidri that he's a KDPI leader. 2:38:38.840 --> 2:38:42.480 I have had sources that suggest that some Kurdish and 2:38:42.920 --> 2:38:47.600 some non Kurdish groups have at least the intention or 2:38:47.680 --> 2:38:52.360 desire to enter Iran and fight. I'm not really comfortable naming, 2:38:52.640 --> 2:38:56.080 particularly which ones I'd want DEADA sourcing on that. Yeah, 2:38:56.400 --> 2:38:58.760 what they plan to do is are unclear right. None 2:38:58.760 --> 2:39:02.480 of these Roja La groups are massive, like numerically, they 2:39:02.560 --> 2:39:07.320 don't have the manpower. However, ITV reported that weapons have 2:39:07.360 --> 2:39:11.080 been stuck piled in eastern Kurdistan for a while, and 2:39:11.160 --> 2:39:14.240 as we saw in in rajavers as we saw in 2:39:14.560 --> 2:39:17.920 southern Kokistan and the Islamic State times like, their ability 2:39:17.959 --> 2:39:22.080 to scale up their forces pretty rapidly is something that 2:39:22.120 --> 2:39:24.480 the Kurds have retained for a long time. 2:39:24.600 --> 2:39:28.440 Yet an advantage they have over so obviously, it is 2:39:28.480 --> 2:39:30.600 act true that in the months preceding this there were 2:39:30.680 --> 2:39:34.200 uprisings in Iran and tens of thousands were killed by 2:39:34.240 --> 2:39:38.000 the government, and that represents the people who in normal 2:39:38.040 --> 2:39:40.840 Iranian civil society would have been kind of best positioned 2:39:40.920 --> 2:39:43.480 to be active and a part of any sort of 2:39:43.520 --> 2:39:46.320 like government that were to follow. If the current government 2:39:46.360 --> 2:39:49.760 collapses under the onslaught being directed against it, a lot 2:39:49.760 --> 2:39:52.920 of those people are dead. That's not really the same 2:39:53.240 --> 2:39:56.000 case with the Kurdish movement, because at any given time, 2:39:56.080 --> 2:39:58.480 three quarters of the Kurdish movement is not you know. 2:39:58.720 --> 2:40:01.439 More or less is outside of a physically present. 2:40:01.280 --> 2:40:03.440 And this is what happened in Syria too. When you 2:40:03.480 --> 2:40:06.039 had other parts of the country massively depleted by the 2:40:06.040 --> 2:40:10.080 slaughter fighting asad in northeast Syria, you were able to 2:40:10.080 --> 2:40:13.080 have Kurds from southern Turkey and from northern Iraq come 2:40:13.120 --> 2:40:15.440 in and provide a lot of the backbone of what 2:40:15.560 --> 2:40:18.920 became these large and effective fighting units that were able 2:40:18.920 --> 2:40:21.840 to defeat. Isis when you're talking about, like, well, what's 2:40:21.879 --> 2:40:25.160 going to happen if the government of Iran starts to crumble. 2:40:25.720 --> 2:40:28.520 There's a pretty good odds that you wind up with 2:40:28.520 --> 2:40:31.440 a sizeable Kurdish force, and it would very likely be 2:40:31.480 --> 2:40:35.080 supported by Western at least initially by Western munitions in 2:40:35.160 --> 2:40:38.600 that chunk of Iran. Like, that's a very possible outcome. 2:40:39.040 --> 2:40:42.240 Yeah, I think it's probably if we do see like 2:40:42.360 --> 2:40:46.240 continued as strikes for the Iranian state to disappear in 2:40:46.280 --> 2:40:49.879 its current form, that needs to be a ground element, right, yes, 2:40:49.920 --> 2:40:53.400 And these are among the most likely people. It is 2:40:53.680 --> 2:40:56.360 of course important to include the context that the US 2:40:56.480 --> 2:40:59.600 is less than a month of abandoning its Kurdish allies 2:40:59.600 --> 2:41:01.279 in Syria, right Yeah. 2:41:01.320 --> 2:41:04.240 And you should never if you're if you're listening to 2:41:04.280 --> 2:41:06.760 this and a member of like a foreign militant group 2:41:06.840 --> 2:41:10.160 that the US is talking to, don't ever trust us? 2:41:10.800 --> 2:41:16.200 Yeah yeah. Bad friends, yeah yeah, bad friends indeed. Yeah yeah, 2:41:16.520 --> 2:41:17.199 not friends. 2:41:16.920 --> 2:41:19.440 At all, bad allies, not friends at all guys that 2:41:19.520 --> 2:41:22.959 will fuck you the second we can like the second 2:41:23.000 --> 2:41:23.520 we can. 2:41:24.400 --> 2:41:27.720 Yeah, I will say that the Americans in Syria was 2:41:27.760 --> 2:41:31.280 specifically there to fight. Isis they want there to aid 2:41:31.280 --> 2:41:34.560 in the curty freedom struggled, right, right, and they have 2:41:34.680 --> 2:41:36.640 been very consistent about not aiding. 2:41:37.000 --> 2:41:40.400 The other thing about Rojava was it was very explicitly 2:41:40.520 --> 2:41:43.320 not a state and not an attempt to carve out 2:41:43.360 --> 2:41:46.760 a separate state, and they were always extremely emphatic about that. 2:41:46.840 --> 2:41:49.720 So it's a very different situation than anything you're seeing 2:41:50.120 --> 2:41:52.760 with the regime change the Trump administration is working on. 2:41:53.240 --> 2:41:55.879 Yeah. Yeah, let's take a break here and then we're 2:41:55.879 --> 2:41:56.960 going to talk about boats. 2:41:58.120 --> 2:41:58.520 Huzzah. 2:42:11.000 --> 2:42:14.080 All right, we are back and it's boat time. 2:42:15.040 --> 2:42:17.640 It boat time, jam stout PhD. 2:42:18.480 --> 2:42:20.160 Yeah you can't see it, but I'm wearing my little 2:42:20.200 --> 2:42:23.320 boat hat right now. I've got one of those stripey 2:42:23.320 --> 2:42:28.360 shirts on. So the United States has sunk a submarine 2:42:28.400 --> 2:42:32.080 and a total of seventeen Iranian ships, it's claiming. In 2:42:32.120 --> 2:42:34.640 a briefing, Saint Com said they were going after the 2:42:34.800 --> 2:42:38.360 entire Iranian navy at the current time. They claimed there 2:42:38.360 --> 2:42:40.760 are no Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the 2:42:40.840 --> 2:42:44.320 Arabian golf, or the Gulf of a Man. This briefing 2:42:44.400 --> 2:42:47.600 was interesting because they explicitly made the comparison to the 2:42:47.600 --> 2:42:50.920 invasion of Iraq, not an invasion, not a war that 2:42:50.959 --> 2:42:54.840 has the greatest rep in recent months and years. 2:42:54.640 --> 2:42:56.439 Even among conservatives. 2:42:56.480 --> 2:43:00.960 At this point, Trump has made a thing of well, 2:43:01.040 --> 2:43:03.160 I mean, Trump wasn't strongly opposed to the war in 2:43:03.160 --> 2:43:05.720 Iraq right that, I think he has acknowledged that it 2:43:05.720 --> 2:43:08.320 was a mistake or the way it was conducted was 2:43:08.360 --> 2:43:10.640 poor at least. What they said here was that the 2:43:11.080 --> 2:43:13.400 scale of this bombing campaign was twice that of the 2:43:13.440 --> 2:43:16.160 shock and or bombing campaign that we saw in Iraq. 2:43:16.920 --> 2:43:20.200 They have so far used cruise missiles, air strikes B two, 2:43:20.280 --> 2:43:23.760 B one, and BE fifty two bombers, long range precision 2:43:23.760 --> 2:43:26.000 of strike missiles for the first time. They call them 2:43:26.000 --> 2:43:29.879 prisms and something called Lucas strones, which are kind of 2:43:29.920 --> 2:43:32.320 interesting to me. They are the result of the United 2:43:32.360 --> 2:43:37.000 States capturing and reverse engineering an Iranian Shaheed drone. The 2:43:37.120 --> 2:43:40.040 Shaheed is like a it sounds like a lawn mower, 2:43:40.280 --> 2:43:43.640 very distinctive, sound like I've heard them flying over and yeah, 2:43:43.680 --> 2:43:46.480 but they are one way attract drone. They're essentially a 2:43:46.520 --> 2:43:50.400 sort of guided munition. They're very cheap, and they've been 2:43:50.520 --> 2:43:53.560 very effective for Iran and for Russia, who now makes 2:43:53.600 --> 2:43:56.160 has licensed production of these drones. So it's interesting that 2:43:56.200 --> 2:43:58.879 the US is openly just saying, yeah, we saw that 2:43:58.920 --> 2:44:00.199 and we copied it. 2:43:59.800 --> 2:44:02.000 It's one of the best ideas in warfare of the 2:44:02.080 --> 2:44:05.960 laste hundred years. It's an incredibly effective platform that seals 2:44:06.040 --> 2:44:08.880 up an enormous number of holes that have always existed 2:44:09.440 --> 2:44:13.560 in modern militaries, like the capacity gap that it allows, 2:44:13.640 --> 2:44:17.039 particularly a country like Aron to seal, right, because with 2:44:17.200 --> 2:44:22.320 enough shaheeds you effectively can mimic not just the assassination 2:44:22.400 --> 2:44:25.280 capabilities of like bigger drones, but something like close air 2:44:25.320 --> 2:44:28.080 support in a way that's very hard to interdect with 2:44:28.200 --> 2:44:29.280 traditional air power. 2:44:29.480 --> 2:44:29.680 Right. 2:44:29.920 --> 2:44:32.480 Yeah, that's a real sea change, and they seem to 2:44:32.560 --> 2:44:34.440 be being used effectively right now. 2:44:34.879 --> 2:44:38.440 Yep, that's cheap. There's tons of them. Ukraine they've used 2:44:38.440 --> 2:44:40.640 like intercept to drones to intercept them, right, but that 2:44:40.720 --> 2:44:44.480 requires a lot of time, technology, and human effort. 2:44:44.879 --> 2:44:47.960 Yeah. So I think this is probably a good time, James, 2:44:47.959 --> 2:44:50.880 for me to talk about munitions, because as you noted, 2:44:50.879 --> 2:44:54.600 we're using a significant amount of high precision projectiles. We're 2:44:54.680 --> 2:44:58.240 using like advanced weapons systems that are made to allow 2:44:58.360 --> 2:45:01.600 us to hit targets very precisely that could not be 2:45:01.680 --> 2:45:04.760 hit with dumb musicians or with less intelligent munitions. The 2:45:04.800 --> 2:45:07.640 downside of this is that it's hard to make enough 2:45:07.720 --> 2:45:10.680 munitions to maintain on a war footing in peacetime because 2:45:10.720 --> 2:45:13.360 in peacetime it's kind of a waste of money as 2:45:13.360 --> 2:45:17.320 an industry, and so capitalism doesn't tend to unless there's 2:45:17.480 --> 2:45:21.160 a war on reward companies for producing the kind of 2:45:21.520 --> 2:45:24.000 like munitions and number in the kind of number you 2:45:24.000 --> 2:45:27.080 would need to fight a modern war, and so whenever 2:45:27.120 --> 2:45:29.400 one does start up, you wind up with this situation. 2:45:29.440 --> 2:45:31.400 We're seeing this that we saw this with Russia and Ukraine. 2:45:31.400 --> 2:45:33.240 We're still seeing it in Russia and Ukraine. And we 2:45:33.280 --> 2:45:36.199 saw it in World War One two where very suddenly 2:45:36.240 --> 2:45:40.600 everyone runs out of ammunition, right and prior to the 2:45:40.720 --> 2:45:43.039 United States going to I'm going to say, going to 2:45:43.080 --> 2:45:45.480 war with Iran again, like literally about a week before, 2:45:45.480 --> 2:45:47.480 there was an article that dropped in the i think 2:45:47.480 --> 2:45:50.680 the Wall Street Journal about how Trump's top generals were 2:45:50.680 --> 2:45:52.640 really worried that the United States did not have enough 2:45:52.720 --> 2:45:57.600 munitions to sustain conflict with Iran for any significant period 2:45:57.680 --> 2:46:01.119 of time. And there's immediately in reports as soon as 2:46:01.120 --> 2:46:04.160 this started that that is, in fact exactly what's fucking happening. 2:46:04.720 --> 2:46:10.240 There's a good piece on CNN Politics written by Sean Lynngas, 2:46:10.320 --> 2:46:15.040 Kylie Atwood and Isabelle Khrushudian, and it describes, or at 2:46:15.080 --> 2:46:18.320 least it talks to conversations with someone at the Pentagon 2:46:18.400 --> 2:46:21.000 saying that the United States is burning through long range 2:46:21.040 --> 2:46:25.240 precision guided missiles at an unsustainable rate, and this is 2:46:25.280 --> 2:46:28.560 not just to attack Iranian positions, but also to stop 2:46:28.640 --> 2:46:33.039 Iranian ballistic missiles. Quote from that source, Each intercepts represents 2:46:33.080 --> 2:46:36.120 hundreds of hours of training, readiness, and technology all coming 2:46:36.120 --> 2:46:39.560 together to work. Is designed so that means you don't 2:46:39.560 --> 2:46:43.480 have an infinite number of these, whereas Iran is capable 2:46:43.480 --> 2:46:46.120 of producing a significant number of the ballistic missiles and 2:46:46.160 --> 2:46:49.760 the drones that these precision munitions are needed to shoot down. 2:46:49.800 --> 2:46:52.560 Iran's producing something like one hundred ballistic missiles a month, 2:46:52.560 --> 2:46:55.720 and had a stockpile going into this, we can build 2:46:55.800 --> 2:47:00.039 six or seven interceptor missiles in a month, right, So 2:47:00.080 --> 2:47:03.879 obviously we're going into this with stockpiles, and Trump has 2:47:03.920 --> 2:47:07.400 claimed that US munition stockpiles have never been higher or better, 2:47:07.840 --> 2:47:10.840 and that the war could go on forever very successfully 2:47:10.879 --> 2:47:14.120 just using these supplies, but he didn't specify what munitions 2:47:14.160 --> 2:47:18.600 he was referring to, and all of the information coming 2:47:18.600 --> 2:47:21.119 out suggests that we are, like the seventh Fleet has 2:47:21.200 --> 2:47:24.880 basically burned through its supply of advanced munitions. There's been 2:47:24.920 --> 2:47:28.800 confirmation because the IERGC claims they took out two THAD batteries, 2:47:29.640 --> 2:47:32.720 and I don't take the IERGC at their word, but 2:47:32.840 --> 2:47:36.080 we did get local confirmation in at least one case 2:47:36.120 --> 2:47:38.680 that one of those batteries was disabled, and it seems 2:47:38.800 --> 2:47:42.600 very likely based on some satellite imagery that both were damaged. 2:47:43.200 --> 2:47:46.280 How damaged they are is very hard to say. We're 2:47:46.320 --> 2:47:49.440 talking generally the radar array that you use for the 2:47:49.480 --> 2:47:52.039 missiles has been hit, but we've only got like eight 2:47:52.160 --> 2:47:54.560 of these things. These batteries are like not just our 2:47:54.600 --> 2:47:56.920 most best protection we would have from like submarine based 2:47:57.000 --> 2:48:00.240 nuclear missiles, but our best anti missile systems period. And 2:48:00.280 --> 2:48:03.920 we're in the process of peeling away the fat batteries 2:48:03.959 --> 2:48:06.760 that we've got in Korea to bring into the Middle 2:48:06.800 --> 2:48:09.800 East to continue to protect Israel and to protect our forces, 2:48:10.360 --> 2:48:12.320 and the fact that any of them may have been 2:48:12.360 --> 2:48:15.640 seriously damaged or lost is a serious problem for the 2:48:15.760 --> 2:48:19.880 United States. I want to continue from that CNN piece 2:48:20.080 --> 2:48:24.760 here they're interviewing Colonel Mark Gunzinger, who's a retired military 2:48:24.800 --> 2:48:28.200 colonel and the director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments 2:48:28.200 --> 2:48:32.320 at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He basically made 2:48:32.360 --> 2:48:34.760 this claim that, like, since the United States has established 2:48:34.760 --> 2:48:37.360 air superiority early on in this conflict, quote, there's not 2:48:37.400 --> 2:48:39.520 such a need for the higher end, very long range 2:48:39.560 --> 2:48:42.920 standoff weapons. I don't know that I agree with him 2:48:42.959 --> 2:48:45.320 on this because it seems like we're using some of 2:48:45.360 --> 2:48:48.880 those munitions now, but he's primarily talking about we don't 2:48:48.920 --> 2:48:53.320 need to use as discriminating of weapons systems now. Instead 2:48:53.320 --> 2:48:57.360 of using our super advanced precision guided munitions, we can 2:48:57.440 --> 2:49:00.000 use stuff like jadams, which we have a lot more. 2:49:00.240 --> 2:49:03.119 We have a huge stockpile of jade m's of various 2:49:03.120 --> 2:49:06.760 sizes and small diameter bombs. The problem is that these 2:49:06.800 --> 2:49:10.519 are not nearly as advanced in terms of their guidance capabilities, 2:49:10.600 --> 2:49:13.960 and the civilian casualties related from using these are much 2:49:14.040 --> 2:49:17.560 much higher. So we're hitting a point where we're running 2:49:17.600 --> 2:49:21.480 out of precision munitions, and it seems very clear that, 2:49:21.520 --> 2:49:24.560 at least among military thinkers, the attitude is that's fine, 2:49:24.760 --> 2:49:27.800 because we'll just use these bigger weapons that kill more civilians, 2:49:28.080 --> 2:49:30.480 and yeah, that's what you should look forward to in 2:49:30.520 --> 2:49:31.920 the next stages of this conflict. 2:49:32.440 --> 2:49:35.959 Yeah, talking of I guess the next stages of this conflict. 2:49:36.240 --> 2:49:39.879 The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, it's supporting that it's been 2:49:40.000 --> 2:49:44.280 flooded with complaints from troops whose officers believe the operation 2:49:44.400 --> 2:49:47.320 will bring about the end of days as we're told 2:49:47.440 --> 2:49:48.280 in the Bible. 2:49:48.360 --> 2:49:48.960 Well there you go. 2:49:49.040 --> 2:49:53.080 Yeah, yeah. Here's a quotation from one of their non 2:49:53.080 --> 2:49:56.840 commissioned officer clients. Quote, this morning, our commander opened up 2:49:56.840 --> 2:49:59.760 the combat Redness status briefing by urging us not to 2:49:59.760 --> 2:50:01.480 be a afraid as to what is happening with our 2:50:01.480 --> 2:50:04.240 combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to 2:50:04.280 --> 2:50:07.080 tell our troops this was all part of God's define plan, 2:50:07.200 --> 2:50:10.520 and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book 2:50:10.560 --> 2:50:14.720 of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of 2:50:14.840 --> 2:50:20.000 Jesus Christ. He said that quote President Trump has been 2:50:20.040 --> 2:50:23.000 anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran, 2:50:23.160 --> 2:50:27.520 to cause armageddon and mark his return to Earth. I 2:50:27.560 --> 2:50:32.280 am not a big Bible understander, but Garretton Davis, a 2:50:32.360 --> 2:50:36.080 regular resident Bible person, please comment if you want to. 2:50:36.440 --> 2:50:39.320 I don't think this is good, is my take on that. 2:50:39.400 --> 2:50:40.880 I think it's a great way to be going around 2:50:40.879 --> 2:50:41.560 foreign policy. 2:50:41.920 --> 2:50:45.080 No, it's not a good foreign policy blueprint. 2:50:45.640 --> 2:50:49.199 It might be kind of made biblically accurate, though, I mean. 2:50:49.720 --> 2:50:52.640 That's the thing, is that the blueprint it is, it is, 2:50:52.840 --> 2:50:55.439 it is accurate, though I was Trump. 2:50:55.160 --> 2:50:59.320 Does in fact match a number of descriptions of the Antichrist, 2:50:59.400 --> 2:51:01.560 and it is possible that what we're doing in Iran 2:51:01.800 --> 2:51:03.440 ends in the apocalypse. 2:51:03.840 --> 2:51:09.080 So you know, my understanding is this hinges on a 2:51:09.080 --> 2:51:10.240 certain color of cat. 2:51:10.280 --> 2:51:12.240 The red hypher. This is the whole thing. We had 2:51:12.240 --> 2:51:13.160 a baling we. 2:51:13.200 --> 2:51:16.200 Made it in texas'er. Yes, yes, this is this is 2:51:16.200 --> 2:51:19.640 one of the first, the first like American like subculture 2:51:19.680 --> 2:51:21.800 things I ever engaged with it from like when I 2:51:22.200 --> 2:51:23.960 got the Internet at school and you could go into 2:51:23.959 --> 2:51:25.720 the computer lab and look at stuff I learned about 2:51:25.720 --> 2:51:28.240 if people trying to make a red heifer, right, like, yeah, 2:51:28.320 --> 2:51:31.320 that will bring about the apocalypse is cow. Yeah, fascinating stuff. 2:51:31.920 --> 2:51:33.600 Very normal, very normal. 2:51:34.640 --> 2:51:37.200 That's all I've got. Hopefully send us pictures of your 2:51:37.240 --> 2:51:39.240 cataly I you've got one of the appropriate color, and 2:51:39.240 --> 2:51:40.640 that will be a sign that it's all over. 2:51:41.080 --> 2:51:43.520 I mean, things in Iran do not seem to be 2:51:43.600 --> 2:51:47.080 winding down. If anything, they holding or ramping up. 2:51:47.520 --> 2:51:47.800 Yeah. 2:51:48.360 --> 2:51:51.360 On Tuesday, Mark Rubio said, quote, in the next few 2:51:51.400 --> 2:51:53.600 hours and days, you're going to really begin to perceive 2:51:53.600 --> 2:51:57.160 a change in the scope and the intensity of these attacks, 2:51:57.520 --> 2:52:01.160 as frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the 2:52:01.160 --> 2:52:04.880 world take apart this terroristic regime and defang it. 2:52:05.480 --> 2:52:08.959 Quote that, by the way, was also proceeded immediately by 2:52:09.040 --> 2:52:12.800 him saying We're going to unleash Chang which is a 2:52:13.120 --> 2:52:18.400 completely unhinged thing from the old old like anti communists 2:52:18.400 --> 2:52:20.840 far right where they're like, we're gonna unleash Shanghai shack 2:52:20.879 --> 2:52:22.680 and he's going to retake China and kill everyone. So 2:52:22.720 --> 2:52:25.720 that's that's great, that's that's fun, extremely normal. 2:52:25.840 --> 2:52:28.119 Yeah, that's a that's a John Bircher right there. 2:52:28.200 --> 2:52:29.720 Yeah, yeah, wow. 2:52:30.560 --> 2:52:34.400 And after a closed door Senate hearing briefing the Senate 2:52:34.520 --> 2:52:38.320 on actions in Iran, Senator Bluementhal said, quote, I am 2:52:38.320 --> 2:52:41.480 more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may 2:52:41.520 --> 2:52:43.240 be putting boots on the ground. 2:52:44.320 --> 2:52:47.600 Yeah, we have to. You can't actually stop the regime 2:52:47.640 --> 2:52:48.280 without doing that. 2:52:48.560 --> 2:52:52.160 Yeah, even that like Trump model, which is a Syria model, 2:52:52.240 --> 2:52:56.320 right of a relatively limited footprint with a partner for US. Yeah, 2:52:56.400 --> 2:53:00.240 it's still like American people died in Syria. 2:53:00.560 --> 2:53:03.840 Well, and unfortunately, I think they're also looking to Libya. Right. 2:53:04.920 --> 2:53:07.640 Initially we're hoping it would be something like that, But 2:53:07.680 --> 2:53:10.640 the thing is in Libya, you already had a situation 2:53:10.680 --> 2:53:13.920 where there was a massive army a raid against the 2:53:13.959 --> 2:53:17.440 dictator who was holding them back via air power. So 2:53:17.560 --> 2:53:19.959 being able to stop the air power was able to 2:53:20.200 --> 2:53:24.200 was enough to sign the regime's death warrant. And obviously 2:53:24.240 --> 2:53:27.640 the failure of NATO to do anything to help Libya 2:53:27.680 --> 2:53:30.560 in the wake of that has been awful. But it's 2:53:30.560 --> 2:53:34.560 totally different in Iran. Like it's the Iranian people, the 2:53:34.920 --> 2:53:39.560 Ranian like resistance. The Iranian protests had not taken territory. 2:53:39.600 --> 2:53:43.680 They had not swung large chunks of the Iranian military. 2:53:44.080 --> 2:53:46.800 The military and the regime were still in control of 2:53:46.840 --> 2:53:49.959 the country and nothing has changed in that regard. So 2:53:50.080 --> 2:53:52.120 if you're going to knock out the regime, you have 2:53:52.200 --> 2:53:54.280 to send in the fucking marines. That's the only way, 2:53:54.600 --> 2:53:56.560 and that's I think what's going to happen at some point. 2:53:57.680 --> 2:54:01.120 Yeah, it's going to be uh the next few days, 2:54:01.120 --> 2:54:03.200 probably by the time you're hearing this. By the way, 2:54:03.280 --> 2:54:05.959 just as we're recording this, hopefully this has left the 2:54:05.959 --> 2:54:10.040 news cycle. Several news outlets have published the Kurdish paramilitary 2:54:10.120 --> 2:54:12.560 forces are streaming across the border into a ruck. That's 2:54:12.600 --> 2:54:15.920 not true. Each of those groups who are claiming are 2:54:16.080 --> 2:54:18.879 doing that have denied it. There is going to be 2:54:19.000 --> 2:54:22.600 a lot of misinformation, yeah, in the next few weeks, 2:54:23.360 --> 2:54:26.720 and you should be very careful about where you are 2:54:26.840 --> 2:54:30.680 sourcing your news. Yeah. I just wanted to make that 2:54:30.800 --> 2:54:31.240 very clear. 2:54:31.480 --> 2:54:36.200 Yeah, this is the first war, potentially major war that 2:54:36.600 --> 2:54:40.400 started while already in place, was an entire system that 2:54:40.520 --> 2:54:44.640 monetized people getting disinformation about that war to go viral. 2:54:45.120 --> 2:54:45.280 Right. 2:54:45.360 --> 2:54:48.760 Yeah, obviously that has impacted things in Ukraine. Later in 2:54:48.840 --> 2:54:52.520 Palestine and Palestine too, but when the invasion started, those 2:54:52.560 --> 2:54:55.960 were not like it. Really it came into being over 2:54:56.000 --> 2:54:59.000 what happened in Palestine. You're right, Garrison, Yeah, but it's 2:54:59.000 --> 2:55:02.640 now in complete form at the start of the conflict. 2:55:02.840 --> 2:55:03.000 Yeah. 2:55:03.080 --> 2:55:06.640 Yeah, there's a whole like industry, you know, across many 2:55:06.640 --> 2:55:11.480 different countries, so misinformation to win money via the blue 2:55:11.560 --> 2:55:14.280 check system on Twitter, which is still used for you know, 2:55:14.360 --> 2:55:18.080 news sourcing across the world in the case of breaking events. 2:55:18.760 --> 2:55:23.480 So speaking of industry, so one of the other consequences 2:55:23.680 --> 2:55:29.680 of this war has been effectively the end of trade 2:55:29.720 --> 2:55:32.480 and passage to the straight offour Moose, which is extremely 2:55:32.520 --> 2:55:37.080 critical lifeline for the world economy. I'm going to quote 2:55:37.120 --> 2:55:40.920 here from Al Jazeera quote a commander in Iran's Revolutionary 2:55:40.959 --> 2:55:43.480 Guard course set on Monday, but the strait was quote 2:55:43.520 --> 2:55:46.280 closed and that any vessel attempting to pass through the 2:55:46.320 --> 2:55:51.600 water way would be set quote a blaze. Now, for CNBC, 2:55:52.000 --> 2:55:55.880 there's about thirteen million barrels of oil a day that 2:55:56.040 --> 2:55:58.240 flows through the strade of four Moose's thirty one percent 2:55:58.280 --> 2:56:01.920 of all sea worn crude flowed. The total like impacted 2:56:02.120 --> 2:56:06.600 oil production and distribution from this is about it's about 2:56:06.640 --> 2:56:09.200 a fifth of the world's oil supply total that is 2:56:09.200 --> 2:56:12.959 being impacted by this. Liquefied natural gas is also being 2:56:13.000 --> 2:56:17.840 massively impacted because of yeah, the places where a whole 2:56:17.840 --> 2:56:23.440 bunch of natural gas and oil are produced. This is 2:56:23.840 --> 2:56:27.760 a very, very significant blow to the world's energy supply 2:56:27.879 --> 2:56:30.000 and one of the reasons why, even if you don't 2:56:30.000 --> 2:56:34.400 care like the US does and about, you know, obliterating 2:56:34.640 --> 2:56:38.720 Ibronian schoolgirls with bombs, this war is a terrible idea 2:56:39.240 --> 2:56:41.640 because you're suddenly losing access to a fifth of the 2:56:41.680 --> 2:56:46.360 world's oil supply. Now, Trump has repeatedly said that this 2:56:46.560 --> 2:56:50.440 strait is not open. The RGC has repeatedly said that 2:56:50.560 --> 2:56:55.080 it is closed. Trump also yesterday that we're recording this 2:56:55.160 --> 2:56:58.600 on Wednesday, said that the US will escort tankers if 2:56:58.640 --> 2:57:01.920 necessary through the straight with US Navy ships. The other 2:57:02.080 --> 2:57:04.760 major issue here is that no insurance company will ensure 2:57:04.800 --> 2:57:07.000 any ship going through this, because why on earth would 2:57:07.040 --> 2:57:10.680 you do that. And Trump has also ordered the government 2:57:10.920 --> 2:57:15.920 to ensure these tankers. And this has stopped the massive 2:57:16.000 --> 2:57:18.720 rise in oil prices a little bit that was happening 2:57:18.720 --> 2:57:20.960 at the beginning of at the beginning of the conflict. However, 2:57:21.320 --> 2:57:25.000 I don't know why it stopped the rise in oil prices, 2:57:25.080 --> 2:57:30.360 because this won't work. You can't just escort oil tankers 2:57:30.480 --> 2:57:33.840 through the Strait with American battleships and have them not Like, 2:57:34.040 --> 2:57:35.840 do you know how big an oil tanker is and 2:57:35.920 --> 2:57:38.880 how slow they are? Like, there's no way militarily that 2:57:38.959 --> 2:57:41.520 you can actually move oil tankers through here. You just can't. 2:57:41.840 --> 2:57:45.280 It's too easy to hit with literally any munition. So 2:57:45.840 --> 2:57:48.959 the sort of American markets don't seem to have figured 2:57:48.959 --> 2:57:52.720 out that you obviously cannot escort oil tankers through the 2:57:52.720 --> 2:57:56.200 trade of permus. Where people have figured this out are 2:57:56.280 --> 2:58:01.760 the Asian markets, particularly South Korea and Thailand, where both 2:58:01.800 --> 2:58:04.320 of their stock index has had their circuit breakers triggered, 2:58:04.360 --> 2:58:06.480 which is the emergency system may have in place when 2:58:06.560 --> 2:58:10.280 the market is collapsing too fast all trading halts. South 2:58:10.360 --> 2:58:16.160 Korea's index lost twelve point zero six percent yesterday, which 2:58:16.200 --> 2:58:20.720 is the single largest drop that the market has ever experienced. Yeah, 2:58:20.760 --> 2:58:24.039 it's it's it's it's really bad. The Chinese indexes have 2:58:24.040 --> 2:58:27.920 been okay, but both Japan and Taiwan we're down between 2:58:27.959 --> 2:58:30.200 three and four percent, which is still also quite bad. 2:58:31.000 --> 2:58:34.600 Now South Korea and Thailand specifically, the reason that these 2:58:34.600 --> 2:58:39.560 two countries are having just sort of apocalyptic market collapses 2:58:39.600 --> 2:58:42.600 is that these two countries are extremely reliant on imported oil. 2:58:43.160 --> 2:58:46.400 And you know, there's this tendency to think about oil 2:58:46.480 --> 2:58:49.200 as just liquid money, and it's not. You do actually 2:58:49.200 --> 2:58:51.920 have to use it to power things, and a stificant 2:58:51.920 --> 2:58:54.400 portion of the of both the Thai and the South 2:58:54.480 --> 2:58:57.280 Korean economy are sort of heavy industrial things that require 2:58:57.320 --> 2:59:01.880 this oil. These countries are now in very dire straits. 2:59:02.520 --> 2:59:06.119 And the only way that this could stop is if 2:59:06.160 --> 2:59:09.400 somehow Trump wins the war very very quickly and be 2:59:09.400 --> 2:59:11.160 able to reopen the Straight, which I don't think is 2:59:11.160 --> 2:59:15.039 particularly likely. So this is probably just going to intensify. Yeah, 2:59:15.200 --> 2:59:17.119 you could call it a dire straight. 2:59:18.280 --> 2:59:21.840 Ah Garrison, you've you've brought up my favorite band, of 2:59:21.840 --> 2:59:25.920 which I am aware of one of their songs, great band, 2:59:26.160 --> 2:59:28.440 heard the one song of theirs, and I know one. 2:59:28.320 --> 2:59:30.520 Of the songs that has a slur in it. There 2:59:30.520 --> 2:59:31.920 are better songs, hey. 2:59:31.800 --> 2:59:34.840 No, but they stopped using the slur and more and more, okay, Andre, 2:59:35.800 --> 2:59:38.039 But also the slur was never it was never a 2:59:38.080 --> 2:59:42.120 slur directed at the audience. They were talking from the 2:59:42.200 --> 2:59:46.760 perspective of a bigot insulting them. Yeah, yeah, so it's 2:59:46.840 --> 2:59:47.959 I think anyway. 2:59:48.280 --> 2:59:51.000 Yeah, in terms of songs, were slurs not the worst 2:59:51.720 --> 2:59:55.040 speaking of dire straights, I'm cutting the white people off, 2:59:55.040 --> 2:59:55.800 talking about. 2:59:57.600 --> 3:00:00.680 Are cutting it off? Speak speaking of being in dire 3:00:00.720 --> 3:00:04.200 strait Spain in a well. When I wrote this script, 3:00:04.200 --> 3:00:06.440 I said, a rare moment of bravery. I should give 3:00:06.480 --> 3:00:09.760 them slightly more credit than that, but in a moment 3:00:09.840 --> 3:00:14.520 of genuine bravery and principle. The Spanish government has refused 3:00:14.560 --> 3:00:17.520 to allow the US to use its air bases to 3:00:17.560 --> 3:00:20.800 conduct the war in Iran. Yeah, these are American air 3:00:20.800 --> 3:00:23.200 bases in Spain. This has led to a bunch of 3:00:23.280 --> 3:00:26.600 assets being moved out of Spain. Trump has responded to 3:00:26.640 --> 3:00:29.720 this by I was going to quote out to Zerra, 3:00:31.920 --> 3:00:34.560 quote round the Zeerra. He said he had told his 3:00:34.840 --> 3:00:37.520 he had told his Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bestet, 3:00:38.000 --> 3:00:41.560 to quote cut off all dealings with Spain. We're going 3:00:41.560 --> 3:00:43.560 to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want 3:00:43.560 --> 3:00:45.680 anything to do with Spain, the president said. 3:00:46.400 --> 3:00:49.360 The Trump is taking away your your mona Berrico like 3:00:49.520 --> 3:00:52.760 you have to. We have to stop this, there will 3:00:52.800 --> 3:00:53.560 be no top. 3:00:53.400 --> 3:00:53.840 Most of them. 3:00:53.959 --> 3:00:56.440 Where else are we going to get the highest quality 3:00:56.520 --> 3:00:57.320 smoked meats? 3:00:58.200 --> 3:01:01.400 Yeah? So will that forever be worse. It's not really 3:01:01.440 --> 3:01:05.120 possible to do this, right because Spain is in the EU. Yeah, 3:01:05.280 --> 3:01:06.440 don't have internal boards. 3:01:06.480 --> 3:01:09.000 Yeah, it shouldn't be possible to do this. 3:01:09.160 --> 3:01:10.240 I knows. 3:01:10.280 --> 3:01:13.720 I think it's like probably, I'm leaning towards about ninety 3:01:13.760 --> 3:01:16.000 five to five that Trump just forgets about this. So 3:01:16.000 --> 3:01:19.920 there's a five percent chance there's some completely hitherto unused, 3:01:20.120 --> 3:01:24.000 unhinged national security like power that was passed by John 3:01:24.080 --> 3:01:27.840 wu specifically. But I don't know. We're back to Calvin 3:01:27.840 --> 3:01:30.119 ball trade policy. He's just saying stuff I was wrong 3:01:30.200 --> 3:01:31.720 last week. They're just making shit up. 3:01:31.800 --> 3:01:35.240 Well, here's the thing like that this shows that's may 3:01:35.240 --> 3:01:39.120 be optimistic, is how different the climate is like this, 3:01:39.440 --> 3:01:41.959 the social climate is in the United States as opposed 3:01:42.040 --> 3:01:44.160 during the Iraq War, where Like, if this has happened 3:01:44.200 --> 3:01:46.680 during the Iraq War, you would have had people like 3:01:46.760 --> 3:01:49.480 renaming Spanish dishes freedom fucking. 3:01:49.240 --> 3:01:50.279 Die or whatever. 3:01:51.720 --> 3:01:53.080 You would have had, there would have been like a 3:01:53.200 --> 3:01:56.000 social there's not There's been no cultural backlash against Spain 3:01:56.000 --> 3:01:57.760 in the United States that I that I've seen that 3:01:57.800 --> 3:01:58.520 as any kind. 3:01:58.360 --> 3:02:01.120 Of juice, and you know, and just to say like 3:02:01.360 --> 3:02:03.360 one serious than before we wrap this up, Like the 3:02:03.400 --> 3:02:07.120 approval rating for this war is sub fifty percent right now. Yeah, 3:02:07.160 --> 3:02:09.800 it's only going to get worse because worl approof of 3:02:09.879 --> 3:02:12.800 ratings are always the highest when they first start. It's 3:02:12.879 --> 3:02:17.000 already sub fifty Everyone hates this. I want to wrap 3:02:17.080 --> 3:02:19.680 this up before we go to ads by saying the 3:02:19.680 --> 3:02:22.760 administration had also claimed that Spain had, because of the 3:02:22.760 --> 3:02:27.560 threat of economic pressure whatever, had agreed to cooperate, and 3:02:27.600 --> 3:02:29.520 the Spanish government immediately said, no, we didn't. What are 3:02:29.560 --> 3:02:32.640 you talking about. Yeah, so they're just lying about stuff again. 3:02:32.680 --> 3:02:33.119 It's great. 3:02:33.440 --> 3:02:36.080 Yeah, whoo ooh fantastic. 3:02:36.400 --> 3:02:37.440 You know what else is great? 3:02:38.040 --> 3:02:39.400 What's that? Garrison America? 3:02:39.440 --> 3:02:39.720 Again? 3:02:40.160 --> 3:02:51.040 This brief ad break before we return for even more news. 3:02:56.720 --> 3:03:00.320 All right, we are back. Two final story used to 3:03:00.320 --> 3:03:04.920 cover this episode. Last week, the Kansas State Legislature passed 3:03:05.000 --> 3:03:09.959 new law, overriding Governor Laura Kelly's veto, invalidating state issued 3:03:10.040 --> 3:03:15.640 driver's license with updated gender markers, requiring quote Kansas issued 3:03:15.720 --> 3:03:18.960 driver's license and identification cards reflect the credential holders sex 3:03:19.000 --> 3:03:23.720 at birth unquote. After this law was passed, the state 3:03:23.840 --> 3:03:26.280 sent letters to trans people informing them their license was 3:03:26.320 --> 3:03:31.080 now invalid, effective immediately, including to at least one transperson 3:03:31.120 --> 3:03:34.920 who did not change their gender marker but recently changed 3:03:34.920 --> 3:03:38.240 her legal name. State officials say about one thousand and 3:03:38.440 --> 3:03:43.480 seven hundred license holders were affected. The law also invalidates 3:03:43.560 --> 3:03:46.720 updated birth certificates and prohibits anyone born in Kansas from 3:03:46.800 --> 3:03:49.800 updating the gender marker on state issued per certificates and 3:03:50.000 --> 3:03:54.359 driver's license in the future. This same law also prohibits 3:03:54.360 --> 3:03:57.680 trans people from using the public restrooms on government property 3:03:57.760 --> 3:04:02.000 that alignce with their gender, and allows private citizens to 3:04:02.240 --> 3:04:05.440 sue someone suspected of being trans in the quote unquote 3:04:05.480 --> 3:04:09.880 wrong restroom in a government building for damages totaling one 3:04:09.959 --> 3:04:14.640 thousand dollars. Two trans Kensons and the a Solu have 3:04:14.640 --> 3:04:17.440 filed a lawsuit claiming the new law SB two four 3:04:17.480 --> 3:04:22.039 four violates the Kansas Constitutions protections for personal autonomy, privacy, 3:04:22.360 --> 3:04:25.280 the quality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech. 3:04:25.800 --> 3:04:29.400 Yep, no, great, No, it's obviously is a violation of 3:04:29.440 --> 3:04:30.160 all those things. 3:04:30.720 --> 3:04:33.240 Yeah, I mean, I think it's also just word, noting 3:04:33.240 --> 3:04:35.600 that this is part of a trend we've been seeing 3:04:35.600 --> 3:04:38.480 of just this is basically what used to be a 3:04:38.480 --> 3:04:42.040 whole bunch of different bills like compiled into one. Right, 3:04:42.080 --> 3:04:44.360 this is like a bounty bill, this is like a ban. 3:04:44.560 --> 3:04:47.160 This is instead of having legislative fights O for all 3:04:47.200 --> 3:04:49.120 the different elements, they're just pushing them all through in 3:04:49.200 --> 3:04:52.880 one package, which has been working for them. 3:04:52.680 --> 3:04:57.080 Very like clear like egregious violation of rights. And now 3:04:57.120 --> 3:04:59.280 there's a Now you have people in a situation where 3:04:59.320 --> 3:05:02.760 they could have their passport being invalid, their birth certificate 3:05:02.760 --> 3:05:05.320 being invalid, and their state driveralisms being invalid. 3:05:05.400 --> 3:05:06.840 Yep, it's a. 3:05:06.640 --> 3:05:10.280 Very precarious situation. Yeah, that we will watch to see 3:05:10.280 --> 3:05:14.080 the followut of in the next few weeks to months. Finally, 3:05:14.640 --> 3:05:18.840 the Texas primary election that happened on Tuesday, some big 3:05:18.879 --> 3:05:22.600 news coming out of that the Republican Senate primary was 3:05:22.640 --> 3:05:26.640 going to advance to a runoff election between incumbent John 3:05:26.720 --> 3:05:30.520 Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Though this runoff could 3:05:30.600 --> 3:05:37.800 be disrupted because Trump just signaled that he will endorse Coronin, 3:05:38.760 --> 3:05:42.440 leading many to suspect that Paxton may drop out of 3:05:42.480 --> 3:05:45.039 the race. This is still unclear, but it was a 3:05:45.240 --> 3:05:48.000 very close race between those two and one other person 3:05:48.040 --> 3:05:50.960 that was going to go to a runoff due to redistricting. 3:05:51.120 --> 3:05:55.440 Two Democratic incumbents House Representatives Al Green and Christian Menefee 3:05:55.879 --> 3:05:58.280 battled over a new district and a close race that 3:05:58.360 --> 3:06:01.119 will now also go to a runof off sim Goo's 3:06:01.160 --> 3:06:05.280 representative Julie Johnson, and former Representative Colin Alred, who dropped 3:06:05.280 --> 3:06:07.520 out of the Senate race to run for this newly 3:06:07.560 --> 3:06:11.240 redrawn district. Neither of these two were able to reach 3:06:11.240 --> 3:06:13.720 a majority, so that race will also head to a 3:06:13.800 --> 3:06:19.480 run off. Incumbent Dan Crenshaw lost the primary, yeah, to 3:06:19.560 --> 3:06:23.240 the Republican challenger Steve Toath, who was backed by the 3:06:23.240 --> 3:06:26.440 party's far right an Tucker Carlson is significantly to the 3:06:26.560 --> 3:06:30.000 right of Dan Crenshaw. Yeah, he's as fun as it 3:06:30.040 --> 3:06:33.000 is to see Crenshaw go down. He's getting replaced by 3:06:33.040 --> 3:06:34.560 someone that is actually worse. 3:06:34.920 --> 3:06:37.359 It's not good, it's just kind of funny. 3:06:38.080 --> 3:06:41.640 We replaced Hitler with Hitler too. Yeah, great things happening. 3:06:41.959 --> 3:06:45.320 Because he specifically had spoken out about some Trump policies, right, like. 3:06:45.600 --> 3:06:48.920 Yeah, he had gone more independent on some issues rather 3:06:49.000 --> 3:06:53.560 than like keytoeing to the to the current Republican line, 3:06:53.879 --> 3:06:56.760 and that opened him up to attacks from the right. Yeah, 3:06:57.160 --> 3:06:59.600 but the big story of the night is the Democratic 3:06:59.600 --> 3:07:03.000 Senate I'm Mary, in which Texas State House Rep. James 3:07:03.000 --> 3:07:06.520 Tallerco is projected to be us A presentative for Texas 3:07:06.640 --> 3:07:09.760 Jasmin Crockett, who previously told tall Rico that she would 3:07:09.800 --> 3:07:12.600 not run for the Senate before entering the race late 3:07:12.760 --> 3:07:17.400 in December. Crockett did not concede the night of the election. 3:07:17.600 --> 3:07:21.000 Has since conceded, but did not concede election night, citing 3:07:21.120 --> 3:07:25.000 issues at voting precincts and dueling court orders that sowed 3:07:25.080 --> 3:07:31.000 confusion come election day. Republicans in Dallas County and Williamson 3:07:31.080 --> 3:07:36.320 County switched the rules from county wide centralized polling locations 3:07:36.520 --> 3:07:39.959 to an assigned precinct system where voters can only cast 3:07:40.000 --> 3:07:44.080 their ballots at one specific location. After reports of people 3:07:44.120 --> 3:07:47.480 being turned away from their regular polling locations on election 3:07:47.600 --> 3:07:50.200 day and being told they had to travel to their 3:07:50.200 --> 3:07:53.600 assigned precinct to cast their ballot, both Crockett and tall 3:07:53.680 --> 3:07:57.360 Rico advocated to expand voting hours in these counties to 3:07:57.440 --> 3:08:00.760 compensate for the confusion and ensure all the votes intended 3:08:00.760 --> 3:08:03.600 to be cast on election day would be counted. Judges 3:08:03.840 --> 3:08:08.720 in Dallas and Williamson County extended voting hours to nine 3:08:08.800 --> 3:08:13.240 and ten pm, respectively, but later that night, in a 3:08:13.320 --> 3:08:17.160 ruling just before eight thirty pm, the Texas Supreme Court 3:08:17.240 --> 3:08:21.120 blocked the lower court's order and instructed Dallas and Williamsman 3:08:21.200 --> 3:08:24.280 County to separate any ballots cast by voters who entered 3:08:24.280 --> 3:08:28.119 the line after seven pm and marked them as provisional ballots. 3:08:28.800 --> 3:08:32.120 After a request by Turn General Ken Paxton, who claimed 3:08:32.160 --> 3:08:35.359 his office was not properly notified of the extended voting hours, 3:08:35.879 --> 3:08:39.600 Paul Adams, the Dallas County election administrator, confirmed that these 3:08:39.600 --> 3:08:43.560 separated ballots would not be counted, pending further legal challenges. 3:08:44.400 --> 3:08:47.680 At her election night watch party, Crockett said that she 3:08:47.720 --> 3:08:51.039 had quote no idea how it is that clerks are 3:08:51.080 --> 3:08:54.000 going to know who was in line by what time. 3:08:54.760 --> 3:08:58.680 I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised quote. 3:08:59.400 --> 3:09:03.000 On Wednesday morning, Crockett did concede the race, but told 3:09:03.000 --> 3:09:06.440 The New York Times quote the Democratic Party should absolutely 3:09:06.440 --> 3:09:09.280 prepare for the worst and get some things litigated right now. 3:09:09.320 --> 3:09:11.840 People will not turn out because of what's happened. In 3:09:11.840 --> 3:09:15.320 my opinion, especially if no one fights for their votes 3:09:15.320 --> 3:09:17.000 to be counted unquote. 3:09:17.720 --> 3:09:20.920 It does feel a lot like the first decade of 3:09:20.920 --> 3:09:24.080 the century. Again, like we go wars in the Middle East. 3:09:24.080 --> 3:09:26.400 We've got people arguing about votes that should be counted 3:09:26.400 --> 3:09:27.520 and not counted. It's great. 3:09:28.440 --> 3:09:31.480 So the total number of votes cast in the Republican 3:09:31.480 --> 3:09:35.000 primary that are tallied so far at ninety five percent 3:09:35.040 --> 3:09:37.680 of the votes in is two million, one hundred and 3:09:37.720 --> 3:09:41.640 forty two thousand, two hundred and eleven versus the Democratic primary. 3:09:41.959 --> 3:09:46.119 That's two million, three hundred and eight thousand, eight hundred 3:09:46.160 --> 3:09:52.280 and thirty six, slightly more Democratic votes counted in the primary. 3:09:53.240 --> 3:09:54.560 Texas has open primaries. 3:09:54.600 --> 3:09:56.960 Apparently Texas has open primaries. 3:09:57.080 --> 3:09:58.440 Yeah, okay. 3:09:59.080 --> 3:10:03.560 Tallerico will up nine points among white voters, up twenty 3:10:03.600 --> 3:10:07.240 two points among Hispanic while Crockett was up twenty three 3:10:07.240 --> 3:10:10.640 points among Black voters. Crockett was up eight points with 3:10:10.800 --> 3:10:14.240 Biden voters and tall Rico up thirty two points with 3:10:14.400 --> 3:10:18.800 Sanders voters. If you look at the twenty twenty presidential primary, 3:10:18.879 --> 3:10:21.000 and that gives you a little bit of a peak 3:10:21.120 --> 3:10:24.160 into kind of what these two candidates are presented with 3:10:24.200 --> 3:10:26.840 Crockett serving on the Kamala Harris campaign definitely more of 3:10:26.879 --> 3:10:31.080 a k Hive esque candidate, and Tall Rico a little 3:10:31.160 --> 3:10:35.240 bit running off of the kind of Bernie Sanders progressive 3:10:35.480 --> 3:10:37.360 coat tails, a little bit not coat tails, but like 3:10:37.480 --> 3:10:40.680 using that sort of playbook as more of like a 3:10:40.879 --> 3:10:44.920 relatable working class guy, less of like an established mid 3:10:45.000 --> 3:10:49.800 Democrat like Crockett sort of branded herself as Tall. Rico 3:10:49.920 --> 3:10:52.280 is a former school teacher who served in the state 3:10:52.280 --> 3:10:55.800 House since twenty eighteen. Fought against Christian nationalism and a 3:10:55.840 --> 3:10:59.120 bill mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms, calling 3:10:59.200 --> 3:11:03.120 the bill unconstitutional, Unamerican, and deeply un Christian. In his 3:11:03.120 --> 3:11:05.920 past legislation lowering the cost of prescription drugs, He's like 3:11:05.959 --> 3:11:08.040 a progressive Christian. That's kind of I guess the best 3:11:08.080 --> 3:11:11.080 way to describe him as he Yeah, frequently went viral 3:11:11.160 --> 3:11:13.600 the past three years for clips of him, you know, 3:11:13.720 --> 3:11:16.600 arguing in the Texas State House, you know, arguing for 3:11:16.640 --> 3:11:19.720 progressive points of view while like quoting Bible versus that 3:11:19.800 --> 3:11:21.960 sort of thing. For this campaign of his, he was 3:11:22.000 --> 3:11:24.760 running on affordability and cost of living. That was the 3:11:24.800 --> 3:11:27.400 real focus of this campaign of targeting the richest one 3:11:27.440 --> 3:11:30.959 percent and giant corporations, making billionaires and corporations quote unquote 3:11:30.959 --> 3:11:33.840 pay their fair share of taxes, raising federal minimum wage 3:11:33.840 --> 3:11:38.120 to fifteen dollars, expanding child and earned income tax credits. 3:11:38.720 --> 3:11:42.760 He's opposed state legislation restricting gender a firming healthcare, including 3:11:42.959 --> 3:11:47.199 for people under eighteen. In September, right after he announced 3:11:47.240 --> 3:11:51.560 his candidacy, Tellerico, who's a member of the LGBTQ Caucus, 3:11:51.680 --> 3:11:54.920 responded to a question about trans athletes like this. 3:11:55.040 --> 3:11:56.000 I think it's interesting. 3:11:56.200 --> 3:11:58.040 I've been in this race for five days and I've 3:11:58.080 --> 3:12:00.879 had a lot of interviews with national meetia. No one's 3:12:00.920 --> 3:12:03.760 ever asked me about the cost of housing. No one's 3:12:03.760 --> 3:12:06.119 asked me about the cost of prescription drugs, no one's 3:12:06.160 --> 3:12:08.960 asking me about the cost of childcare. The only thing 3:12:09.160 --> 3:12:11.880 the media wants to ask me about are trans athletes. 3:12:12.320 --> 3:12:14.720 And so what I would say is that the only 3:12:14.840 --> 3:12:19.200 minority destroying this country is the billionaires. Trans People are 3:12:19.200 --> 3:12:22.720 one percent of the population, Undocumented people are one percent 3:12:22.720 --> 3:12:25.760 of the population, Muslims are one percent of the population. 3:12:26.200 --> 3:12:29.320 We are all focused on the wrong one percent. Trans 3:12:29.320 --> 3:12:34.200 People aren't taking away our healthcare. Undocumented people aren't defunding 3:12:34.200 --> 3:12:37.400 our schools. Muslims aren't cutting taxes for themselves and their 3:12:37.480 --> 3:12:40.960 rich friends. It's the billionaires and their puppet politicians. And 3:12:41.000 --> 3:12:43.800 so we need not only the media but all of 3:12:43.879 --> 3:12:46.199 us to focus on the real problem at hand. 3:12:47.560 --> 3:12:51.480 Hey, it appear like this was effective messaging. 3:12:51.760 --> 3:12:53.519 It's a good response. Yeah. 3:12:53.600 --> 3:12:57.000 Yeah, The only dangerous minority is to rich. It has 3:12:57.080 --> 3:13:01.560 consistently actually been a popular yeah messaging. The Democrats have 3:13:01.600 --> 3:13:03.320 nonetheless shied away from. 3:13:03.040 --> 3:13:04.680 Yeah, because that's who it donates money to them. 3:13:04.720 --> 3:13:08.520 Yeah, because they like that. It's the only minority they liked. 3:13:08.720 --> 3:13:12.400 Because many of them are ragel Yeah, and others wish to. 3:13:12.320 --> 3:13:16.680 Be Tallarico supports regulating AI universal health care, term limits 3:13:16.680 --> 3:13:20.600 for Congress and its threem court justices, halting Israel's illegal settlements, 3:13:20.959 --> 3:13:25.840 restoring the talking only filibuster, and banning gerrymandering, and establishing 3:13:25.959 --> 3:13:33.599 independent redistricting. Talary participated in the Texas Democrats protests against redistricting, 3:13:33.680 --> 3:13:36.360 both in like twenty twenty one and last year in 3:13:36.400 --> 3:13:38.920 twenty twenty five, where they fled Texas. 3:13:39.240 --> 3:13:40.640 Yeah, they went on the holiday for a while. 3:13:40.720 --> 3:13:43.600 On his campaign website, he talks about advocating reform to 3:13:43.640 --> 3:13:48.120 make legal immigration easier, in creating pathways to legalization for 3:13:48.280 --> 3:13:52.760 undocumented immigrants already long present, as well as spouses and dreamers. 3:13:53.400 --> 3:13:57.200 Part of his immigration policy reads, quote, prioritize the deportation 3:13:57.320 --> 3:14:01.480 of criminals, gang members, and human traffickers, not our neighbors 3:14:01.480 --> 3:14:04.800 who contribute to our communities, pay taxes, impose no threat 3:14:04.800 --> 3:14:08.400 to our safety unquote. Part of where this sort of 3:14:09.080 --> 3:14:12.360 language I think falls apart is that when the Trump 3:14:12.400 --> 3:14:16.400 administration claims that it's deporting gang members and criminals like 3:14:16.400 --> 3:14:20.920 what we saw with people sent to Seacott, that also 3:14:20.959 --> 3:14:23.320 includes regular people. That also includes our neighbors. And I 3:14:23.400 --> 3:14:26.720 think that is one slight fault in this messaging. It's 3:14:26.760 --> 3:14:28.800 going to be interesting with him running in the general now, 3:14:28.840 --> 3:14:31.640 you know in Texas where the border is a big 3:14:31.680 --> 3:14:36.000 issue there, and a lot of his immigration stuff definitely 3:14:36.160 --> 3:14:39.040 is not going to at least currently is not as 3:14:39.080 --> 3:14:41.800 far to the left as as some other progressive Democrats, 3:14:42.240 --> 3:14:44.920 and this is something that he is currently being pushed on, 3:14:45.680 --> 3:14:50.480 especially after winning. Progressive advocates are pushing him on Ice specifically, 3:14:50.800 --> 3:14:53.920 as well as some stuff on Israel. And Gaza. Telleryco 3:14:54.040 --> 3:14:56.879 Is advocated to stop the sale of quote unquote offensive 3:14:57.000 --> 3:15:00.560 weapons to Israel while still funding the I Dome and 3:15:00.600 --> 3:15:03.480 defensive weapons. Talked about trying to find a way to 3:15:03.520 --> 3:15:06.720 make sure that defense weapons cannot be used offensively. But 3:15:07.040 --> 3:15:10.960 he does recognize that Gaza is an extremely important issue 3:15:11.200 --> 3:15:13.400 and said in an interview quote one of the primary 3:15:13.400 --> 3:15:16.080 reasons the Democratic Party lost young voters in particular last 3:15:16.080 --> 3:15:19.119 election was our party's failure to recognize the moral disaster 3:15:19.200 --> 3:15:21.280 in Gaza. And I hope that we have leaders who 3:15:21.320 --> 3:15:23.880 recognize that mistake. I think that's all I need to 3:15:23.879 --> 3:15:27.760 say of regarding that the generals not until November, and 3:15:28.240 --> 3:15:31.000 if it is a Cornyn, that will be a much 3:15:31.440 --> 3:15:35.920 much harder race considering he's an incumbent versus Paxton, who 3:15:35.920 --> 3:15:38.400 has a lot of avenues for attack. For someone like 3:15:38.440 --> 3:15:41.199 tall Rico, who can lean on his like a Christian 3:15:41.280 --> 3:15:44.440 charm to it attract voters both in rural areas as 3:15:44.480 --> 3:15:46.480 well as lean on his support among Hispanic voters as 3:15:46.520 --> 3:15:49.800 demonstrated in the primary. Mia, you have one final thing 3:15:49.840 --> 3:15:53.000 to add based on the primary elections in North Carolina. 3:15:53.760 --> 3:15:56.600 Yeah, Yeah, there were a bunch of primary elections in 3:15:56.640 --> 3:15:59.360 North Carolina. And I'm mentioning this because there was a 3:15:59.400 --> 3:16:02.760 series of North Carolina Democrats who voted with Republicans to 3:16:03.600 --> 3:16:06.840 pass anti trans legislation over a veto from the governor, 3:16:06.920 --> 3:16:11.560 and also voted with them on really horrifying like pro 3:16:11.600 --> 3:16:16.959 ice legislation, and those people lost by cartoon margins. We 3:16:17.040 --> 3:16:19.680 are talking margins that start at thirty percent go to 3:16:19.720 --> 3:16:21.800 forty percent, and one of these people lost their race 3:16:21.840 --> 3:16:22.840 by fifty percent. 3:16:23.240 --> 3:16:23.520 Jeez. 3:16:24.000 --> 3:16:27.360 So the anti trans candidates and the like I am 3:16:27.640 --> 3:16:31.320 pro ice racist candidates lost by like bath party numbers, 3:16:31.920 --> 3:16:34.360 which which I think is actually very encouraging because I 3:16:34.360 --> 3:16:36.760 think it's a sign of where people are right now, 3:16:36.760 --> 3:16:39.840 where people are going. Even as the state is trying 3:16:39.840 --> 3:16:42.879 to do anti transppression, this has become a thing that 3:16:43.040 --> 3:16:47.000 is enough where if you are willing to vote for 3:16:47.040 --> 3:16:49.640 this shit and make a bunch of trans people suffer, 3:16:49.680 --> 3:16:54.400 you will lose by You will lose by forty in 3:16:54.480 --> 3:16:56.760 a primary. Unbelievable. 3:16:58.360 --> 3:17:04.959 Primaries tend to include more informed, politically engaged voters, and 3:17:05.000 --> 3:17:07.920 that it's one of the things that engages people most 3:17:08.000 --> 3:17:09.480 right now, specifically the ice stuff. 3:17:09.720 --> 3:17:14.000 It's also more ideologically motivated voters, and the right has 3:17:14.040 --> 3:17:16.160 made the far right has made use of this for 3:17:16.280 --> 3:17:20.200 decades to push the more moderate actual politicians stuff for 3:17:20.240 --> 3:17:24.080 the Republican Party further right, because you can't win primaries 3:17:24.120 --> 3:17:27.920 without getting like appealing to the most extreme of them, 3:17:28.480 --> 3:17:31.200 and there has not up until very recently been that 3:17:31.320 --> 3:17:34.560 kind of success with like far left positions. Not that 3:17:34.600 --> 3:17:37.440 I think basic respect for trans people ought to be 3:17:37.480 --> 3:17:40.199 far left, but it's clearly not a centrist dim position. 3:17:40.440 --> 3:17:42.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah, apparently, And. 3:17:42.600 --> 3:17:44.800 I think that this is good. I think it's a 3:17:44.840 --> 3:17:47.879 smart way to influence the direction of the party. 3:17:48.000 --> 3:17:50.800 Yeah yeah. I want to close with there's a slogan 3:17:50.840 --> 3:17:54.040 from Chile that gets used in social movements constantly that 3:17:54.080 --> 3:17:57.760 goes roughly like, Chile is where neiliberalism was born, and 3:17:57.800 --> 3:18:00.320 we're going to kill it here. And I think this 3:18:00.400 --> 3:18:03.240 is sort of the start of potentially that in North Carolina, 3:18:03.360 --> 3:18:06.720 where well, this isn't the start, but hopefully we're seeing 3:18:07.040 --> 3:18:09.160 like the culmination of a whole bunch of ways of 3:18:09.160 --> 3:18:13.680 activism and organizing amobialization that can kill this kind of 3:18:13.720 --> 3:18:16.039 anti trans politics in the place where it was born. 3:18:16.320 --> 3:18:17.519 The first bathroom. 3:18:17.120 --> 3:18:20.120 Bill, So if you would like to email us with 3:18:20.160 --> 3:18:23.680 some tips on stories. You can do so at cool 3:18:23.760 --> 3:18:26.360 Zone Tips at proton dot me that it's not the 3:18:26.400 --> 3:18:30.720 email address to plug your book or ask if you 3:18:30.760 --> 3:18:33.160 could be on behind the bus sets and if you 3:18:33.240 --> 3:18:34.840 do that, I will block you. 3:18:35.320 --> 3:18:36.720 Put at your end, Skirl on your couch. 3:18:37.360 --> 3:18:41.440 We reported the news, We reported the news. 3:18:46.720 --> 3:18:49.920 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:18:49.959 --> 3:18:51.840 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:18:52.600 --> 3:18:55.080 It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:18:55.280 --> 3:18:58.359 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:18:58.440 --> 3:19:02.000 coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:19:02.080 --> 3:19:05.640 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 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