WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 104 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.920 Alzo Media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's got to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.600 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.600 Hello everybody, and welcome to it could happen here. This 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.400 is Sharene and I am so excited to be joined 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.760 by author and journalist Sim Kern. Their latest novel, The 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.360 Free People's Village is available now, so go to your 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.320 local bookstore and order it and support a voice that 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.960 I believe we all need in our zeitgeist right now. 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.000 So welcome Sim. Thank you so much for being here, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.680 Thanks for having me. For those of you who don't know, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.560 Sim has been making videos recently about the genocide and 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.600 Gaza from a queer Jewish anti Zionist perspective, and this 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.440 is one that I think a lot of people need 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.520 to be exposed to and to listen to. I mentioned 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.240 this to you before the recording, but a Jewish friend 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.720 of mine told me how much she connected with your 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.800 voice and how much she's learned from you, and how 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.360 your videos have been helping her approach really awkward and 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.840 difficult conversations with her peers. So I appreciate you very much. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.520 Happy to do whatever I can when. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.160 You decided to start making like the first video that 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.040 got a lot of attention, like were you seeing something 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:29.880 that you wanted to like make sure you correct in 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.360 the zeitgeist, like what was your perspective as a Jewish person? 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.480 Well, this is the first video that I made, was 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.200 encouraging people to read books by Palestinian authors, just to 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:45.319 learn about the Palestinian perspective which is so often censored 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.320 and not really allowed in our media. And also is 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.480 you really have to go seek out in publishing. And 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.240 this isn't the first time I've done this since I 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.280 think twenty seventeen or something was the first time I 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:05.080 created Read for Palestine challenge on YouTube. And just creating 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.280 this Read for Palestine challenge was enough to get me 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.480 put on the Canary Mission website. 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.239 I'm like outed as a. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.840 Anti semi by this very zionist website that of course 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.320 is a blocklist of mostly students who organize with like 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.920 Students for Justice in Palestine and really anyone who speaks 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:31.320 out publicly against Israeli apartheid. So simply like encouraging people 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:33.400 to read these books, I think is really powerful. And 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.639 I know for me, growing up Jewish in the United States, 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.639 I was just inundated with a lot of Zionist propaganda 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.360 from my more conservative family. My more liberal family would 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.040 take the line of like, it's just very complicated, both 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.160 sides hate each other, who can say who's right? And 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.400 it was only by reading Palestinian voices that I really 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.840 developed an anti Zionist perspective. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.239 That's awesome that you did the Read for Palestine challenge, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.840 but also like not surprising about the Canary Mission thing, unfortunately, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.440 but I'm glad that that didn't stop you or discourage 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.639 you when you start to learn more about Palestine. How 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.440 did you approach conversations with your friends and family? 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:21.080 Again, Like I guess initially it's different talking to friends 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.280 and family than it is talking to the internet. Honestly, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.440 it's much easier, I think sometimes to connect with the 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.080 Internet because it is not that like personal connection. I 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.880 think I've made more headway and had a much greater 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.680 impact online than I have with certain friends and family members. 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.760 But you know, I do think that everyone having those conversations, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.160 putting your beliefs out there, whether it's one on one 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.440 in face to face conversations or whether it is doing 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.040 it online, where like certainly your friends and family are 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.400 going to see the things that you're posting and the 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.040 things that you care about, it has a great impact. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.680 And like I've definitely noticed friends of mine over time 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:07.080 who maybe a few intense bombing campaigns ago, were very 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.440 checked out on this issue are now very. 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.640 Active and are and are speaking out themselves. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.279 And so that's I guess that would be my message 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.880 to other like anti Zionist Jews is even if the 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.479 first time you're putting stuff out there about Palestine it 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:24.400 feels like no one's listening, and it feels like, you know, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:28.200 you're not making a difference over time, you're planting the 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:34.720 seeds of like questioning the Western media's you know, pro 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:36.640 Israeli perspective over time. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.919 Yeah, it's a really really good point. But my friend 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.320 also mentioned she would never have been exposed to your 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.520 voice if I if I didn't share it, or people 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.920 were not sharing it. So I think people really underestimate 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.760 the value of social media sometimes or speaking up on 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.200 social media, they're just like, oh, people are already talking 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.800 about it or whatever. But everyone has a community they 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.040 can reach that no one else can reach. So I 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.840 think that's important to remember. You made some points in 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:05.520 some videos that you made that I would love for 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.000 you to not like regurgitate, but maybe just like cover 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.800 for people that haven't watched your videos or are just unaware. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.479 In general, I think a really important point you made 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:20.320 was how suffering is not monopolized or exclusive or any 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.920 worse or better than other people suffering if regardless of 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:25.960 what identity they are. Can you get into that a 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:26.400 little bit? 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.280 Yeah, So I made a video that was actually responding 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.800 to a comment by someone saying like, how dare you 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.280 compare the suffering of Palestinians to the suffering of Jews? 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.120 How dare you compare genocides? That that's disgusting and that 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.880 cheapens the Holocaust? And that was again I think responding 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.120 to a video or I was saying, like, read about 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.240 other genocides besides the Holocaust, because I think it again, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.800 as a Jewish American, I grew up steeped in Holocaust literature. 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.159 I read every book I could about it. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:05:59.680 You know, I think a lot of Jewish kids, by 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.279 the time more adolescents we have like this PhD level 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:04.800 knowledge of the Holocaust. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:06.560 I think that our. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.240 Peers who are non Jewish maybe don't have quite as 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.240 much exposure and understanding of the Holocaust. But that is 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.279 often the only genocide that is taught in US schools, 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.760 and so there's a narrative that the suffering of the 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.680 Jews and the persecution of Jews is uniquely specific, and 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.480 that it was all about the religion. It's something about 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.520 Judaism itself is why. 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:30.400 We've been persecuted. 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:31.400 Well. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.719 As an author, I currently I'm writing a book on 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.560 Jews in the seventeenth century, and I've just done a 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.200 ton of research on medieval and early modern Jewish history. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.480 And of course there was religious hate, but it was 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.040 motivated by and I contended in this video that all 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.840 genocides are motivated by land and wealth and power, and 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:57.960 the hate is manufactured by people in power to justify 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.240 taking people's land and wealth to solidify their own power 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.159 as rulers and the Christian Church use this against. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.200 Jews in the medieval and early. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.760 Modern period and in our times it's, uh, there there's 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.000 no one religion that has a monopoly. I'm committing genocide, 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.600 you know, there's no one state. And because really it's 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.840 states that are that are committing genocide that you know, 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.360 it's not directed to one people. So I've encouraged people 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.600 to read books about here in the United States, obviously 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:35.000 the genocide of the Native peoples, the Congolese genocide. You know, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.840 I just recommended a couple of different titles on the 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.880 Rwandan genocide for a more recent example. And uh it 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.680 is I reject the framework that you can't make comparisons 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.280 between genocides. I think that keeps us ignorant. I think 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.800 that keeps us from being in solidarity with one another 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:57.520 and understanding the mechanisms of power and control and wealth 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.520 accumulation that underlie all these genocides. And I do believe 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.640 what is happening in Palestine right now is a genocide 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.240 being committed by the Israeli state. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.360 Yeah, and also really good point about justifying it by 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.080 creating all of people in Palestine as barbarians or terrorists 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.880 or this rhetoric that becomes really dangerous and harmful and 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.920 as we've seen, like people can die, A sixty year 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.040 old can die from this rhetoric. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.120 Right, and Yahoo just said this is a struggle between 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.640 children of light and children of darkness like that genocidal rhetoric. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.560 I cannot believe that tweet. And I mean he deleted it, 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.040 but I mean the internet is forever. I just can't 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.600 believe that was that is so normal for him to 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.520 tweet just confidently at one point, just to say that 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.960 out loud. I think that's absurd. And also just like 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.640 to see how Yov Galant has been saying like human 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:57.720 animals or referring to Palestinians in such a dehumanizing way. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.400 You mentioned something really important that I think I appreciated 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:07.160 about how maintaining the dehumanization of the Palestinians is vital 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.079 to maintain the white supremacist, imperialistic thing that is Israel. 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:13.839 Can you get into that a little bit? 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.559 Yeah, Well, I think that was me trying. That came 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:19.839 out of me trying to understand why there was such 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.760 backlash when I first when I first years ago started 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.720 recommending people read Palestinian books. Is because when you read 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.599 a book by a Palestinian author, it is going to 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:34.760 humanize the Palestinian people for you, and that is incredibly threatening. 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.839 And Palestinian authors face a ton of discrimination within publishing. 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.320 I mean, look at what was it. 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:48.960 Earlier this week the Frankfurt Book Festival polled or canceled 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:54.160 a ceremony for a Palestinian author, Adania Shibley, and then 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.960 has made more time for Israeli voices and Israeli specific 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:05.080 panels that book festival. And simply because she is a Palestinian. 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:10.840 She writes books dealing with real, factual Palestinian history, and 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.160 her books are critical of Israel. But the silencing of 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.840 Palestinian voices is a global project. It is across all 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.079 media industries. You see it in you know, traditional book 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:28.240 publishing as well as journalism. Another an author friend of mine, 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.560 Hanin Ricott, has had the hardest time. She's been on 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.080 sub with her book and she's been told by multiple 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:39.120 editors to change the main character from a Palestinian character 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:45.000 to just a generic Arabic character because being Palestinian is 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.000 seen as inherently too controversial to publish. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.400 Yeah, I read that. That's just I mean, again not 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.600 completely surprised, but just so shameful that that is something 0:10:55.640 --> 0:11:00.719 that is still happening in these modern times. I think 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.559 another thing to remember is a lot of people get 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.360 confused between the differences between being non white and white 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.560 in the scope of like this world. I guess it 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.079 just seems so obvious that colorism and racism both exist 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:15.840 in today's world. And I really liked what you mentioned 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.000 about the difference between colorism and racism. Can you talk 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.199 about that for a little bit. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.640 Yeah, So I was explaining that in the Western media, 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.640 Israelis are treated as white and Palestinians are treated as 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.240 non white, and it really is regardless of the color 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.280 of your skin. So a lot of people giving me 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.480 pushback on that common say, oh, but there's black and 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.960 brown and white Israelis. Yes, and in the racist apartheid 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:44.120 state that is Israel, people of different skin tones are 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.240 treated very differently. Within Israel, there was four sterilization of 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.400 African Jews immigrating to Israel. Well, when it comes to 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.600 the Western media, our view of the conflict is not 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.960 as nuanced as recognizing those differences. And so I was 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.240 explaining that colorism is, you know, discrimination based on the 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.800 color of your skin. Racism is a racial construct us 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:12.720 about social economic and legal discrimination. And while colorism is 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:17.840 often used to determine racism, that's not always one hundred 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.480 percent the case. And in the case of Israel, when 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.679 you're talking about the Western media looking at Israel, they 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:27.200 report on Israelis as people, as people who are to 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:33.000 be mourned, as people are whose deaths are important, as 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.400 people whose lives are valuable, And they report on people 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.960 in Gaza Palestinians as you know, human shields is the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.600 most sympathetic way we hear them talked about. Their deaths 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.120 are not deemed important, They are not humanized within the media. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.520 If they're killed, they're either combatants or they were a 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.160 human shield. They were someone being used by combatants, and 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:00.400 their deaths are you know, maybe the lip services paid 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.880 to those debts being regrettable, but they're seen as necessary 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.800 and not not unconscionable in the way that deaths in 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:10.080 Israel are reported on. 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.720 Yeah, I think you bring a really good point about 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:18.559 the media and how important semantics are. I think something 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.760 that we've been seeing time and time again is how 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.760 deep the dehumanization goes. Like Israelis have been killed versus 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.160 Palestinians have died. The Gaza strip is being referred to. 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.760 I've seen it as an enclave, Oh my god, you know, 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.199 an enclave where terrorists lurk. So yeah, the words used 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.440 to describe the city of Gaza, the words used to 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:46.800 describe people as combatants, the words like, you know, Palestinians 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:52.319 die in a clash, when that clash was racist Jewish 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.440 settlers with machine guns coming after them, you know. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.760 So yeah, yeah, passive always. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.400 Does a lot of work, it does. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:01.880 It does. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.440 I mean, we've seen it just recently with the hospital bombing. 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.079 How the New York Times changed their headline like three 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:13.640 times from strike and then to blast I believe was 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.720 what they landed on blast, which I just find honestly 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:19.480 comical when I really think about it too hard. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.000 Yeah, Elizabeth Warren came out and condemned blasts. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:25.160 Like that is just so. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.240 Just the passive voice is so dangerous because it really 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.040 it really off use case the truth, which is that 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.560 Palestine people are dying of genocide. Even calling it a 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.960 war or a conflict does not do what's happening justice 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.320 because it still implies there are two equal sides that 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.000 are fighting against each other, versus an occupier and oppressor 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.680 versus the occupied the oppressed. So I think semantics are 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.520 so important for us to keep in mind even when 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.280 we're talking about it with our peers, to make sure 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.120 that we talk about it in the correct way, because 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.520 I like, unconsciously becomes ingrained in us, even if we 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.080 don't realize it when we keep talking about certain things 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:09.560 the way the media wants us to talk about them 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.480 as a conflict or as a clash or whatever it is. 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.000 And something else that I've really tuned into is really 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.560 being careful not to pit this as a struggle between 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:25.040 Muslims and Jews. Any framing like that is both Islamophobic 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.520 and anti Semitic and incredibly inaccurate. This is about an 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.960 ethno state, a nation state, and apartheid state, which is 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:40.920 Israel targeting is captive population. And and there are Palestinians 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.040 who are of all different faiths who are discriminated against 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:52.600 because they are Palestinians within occupied Palestine. So like, for example, 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.000 it just came to my attention that there are some 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.240 in the I'm a book talker. My book talk channel, 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.240 it's in books Instagram is mostly what I do is 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.040 just you know, share about books for folks to read 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.480 and share about the books I'm working on, and some 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.760 of my fellow book talkers have been recommending people read 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:18.280 books by both Palestinian and Jewish authors so they can 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.000 show both sides. A Paladinian author, Hanna Mushback, just wrote 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.120 a great letter to sort of call in our community 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.840 and explain this is this is very antisemitic to conflate 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.840 Judaism with Israel, the policies of Israel. You know, yesterday 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.880 we saw five hundred Jewish activists get arrested in the 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.760 Capitol building here in d C. In protests and demanding 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.240 an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So there are many many 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:49.560 anti Zionist Jews. Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing, 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:54.240 but conflating them gives Israel more power and gives it 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.240 a stronger moral foothold to say, oh, we're representing all Jews, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.760 not just this this state. So that's something also to 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.560 be really careful about, is to not pit this as 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:14.040 a Muslim versus Jewish fight, because it's not. It's about Israel, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.800 the state versus Palestinian people. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.200 Yeah, that's vital to remember. Let's take our first break 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.280 right here, and we will beat right back, and we 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.600 are back, you were just talking about how this is 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.040 just one hundred percent not a religious issue, and I 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.960 think talking about semantics again, I framing it as a 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.960 religious issue is another way for people to stop talking 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.240 about it, to be too afraid to get into this complicated, 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.600 ancient battle of all times, archaic thing that we can't 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.720 even get into because we can't understand it. I think 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.920 the Zionist narrative wants us to believe it's about religion 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.879 so people can ignore what's actually going on and be 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.880 too scared to speak out. It's like time and time 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.320 again something that I want to remind people that it's 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.359 not Muslim versus Jewish, which is what it gets framed 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.879 by most of the time. But speaking of Zionism and 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.480 how it's not equated to the Jewish religion at all. 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.520 If anything, Zionism is anti Semitic in and of itself. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.160 I believe that wholeheartedly. I believe Zionism makes all Jews 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:18.360 so much more unsafe. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.119 Yeah, it's it's also rooted in a lot of anti Semitism. 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.720 Even the way it was even the way the state 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.879 of Israel was created, was Europeans being like, hey, Jews, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.560 can you go here? It wasn't this gift to the 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.200 Jewish people. It was also about to be in Africa, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.800 which I find fascinating. And also I think people always 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.320 forget the majority of Zionists in the United States are 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.439 Evangelical Christians. That is one percent accurate. That's why they 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.159 support Zionism, and it's because they want all the Jews 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.959 to go to Israel for the rapture to happen. It 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.400 is the most like comic book idea I've ever heard, 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.119 and everyone just goes along with it. Yeah, that brings 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.160 me to another thing he brought up in your videos 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:04.200 about a homeland. I think what you discussed is really 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.200 important because because of this narrative that a lot of 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.920 Zionists teach to Jewish people about how they're constantly being persecuted, 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.440 I think people are led to believe that Israel is 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.359 their safe haven, Like if all of us fails, I 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.520 have Israel to go back to that as my home, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.080 even like American Jews that have no connection to Israel. Really, why, 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.240 in your opinion, do the Jewish people not necessarily need 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:28.639 a homeland? 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:29.720 Right? 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.960 Well, I made that video speaking to like other leftists. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.119 I was addressing other leftists, so I think if you 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.800 agree with me on the premise that everyone should have 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.439 a safe place to live and everyone should have equal rights, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.480 which I think are two pretty pretty basic tenets of 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:54.280 being a leftist, then you just can't have anybody having 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.840 a theocratic ethno state, which is what Israel is de 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.080 fact I mean, they say they're not, but that is 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.439 how they act and how that is how that country 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:07.639 is run. And so, you know, a lot of people 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.840 misinterpreted that videos is you know, which I kind of 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.240 try to argue with me saying, but there's other theocratic 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.880 ethno states. But I'm saying, yeah, if you're a leftist, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.200 you should think that's bad everywhere, because a theocratic ethno 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.840 state is an inherently fascist construct. It's inherently saying one 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.040 religion and or one ethnicity, in the case of the 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:32.960 way Israel interprets Judaism, these people are more valuable and 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.400 are more citizens here and have more rights here than 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:42.760 everybody else, and that is just incompatible with leftist values, 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:44.760 I think. And so I the point of that video 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.040 is nobody should have a theocratic ethno state. And this 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.120 is a line that I've heard even some leftist Jews 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.240 saying well, oh, we you know this is a complicated 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.320 issue because Jews need a homeland. Well, I'm sorry, our 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:02.480 world is just two heterogenous too diverse. You know, migrations 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.040 have been going on for tens of thousands of years 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.399 all over the place. There's no one plot of land 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.399 on Earth anymore that you can carve out and say, Okay, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.720 just this one type of people are going to get 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:19.240 to live here and be citizens here and have rights here. Now, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.439 I'm an anarchist personally, so I when I say no 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.720 theocratic ethno states, I'm also like in a bigger picture 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.240 way saying like no states would be the ideal for me. 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:36.359 But certainly theocratic ethno states are even worse within that 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:43.440 framework compared to like liberal democracies or something. So yeah, 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.119 that was a video that was like intended to be 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:52.000 an in group conversation, and then it got a million 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:56.000 views and got because my following has like really exploded 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.399 over the last week. So I wasn't expecting it to 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:04.400 go so far. And so for people who idealize ethno states, 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.320 like Japan or Sweden, they were really having a hard 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.600 time with me, with me saying that and thinking it 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:12.720 was really anti Semitic for me to say, oh, I 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.399 don't think Jews should have theocratic ethno state, but no, 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.119 I think nobody should have a theocratic ethno state. 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.080 That's a really good point to make. It's I mean, 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.720 it goes back to the idea of Jewish suffering being 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.800 more valuable in some way than other suffering. I think 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.920 it continues this hierarchy of sorts and everything you described 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.880 about people not being treated the same and not having 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.800 enough rights, that's all apartheid. I think people forget like 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.600 Israel is committing the definition of apartheid and has been 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.560 against the Palestinian people. And I find it weird that. 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:51.320 I mean, Amy Schumer posted this crazy video proving in 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.280 her words, that it's not an apartheid state actually and 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.640 how people have all the rights in the world when 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.960 in reality it's shameful. 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.920 Yeah, it's like the UN, Amnesty, International, Human Rights Watch 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.800 are all saying this is an apartheid state. But okay, 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:12.320 Amy Schumer, Yeah, it's not actually that complicated. 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.600 It's really not. I've been really appreciating Amanda Seals. She 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.080 did like a reaction video to what Amy Schumer posted 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:24.000 and laid out all the racist reasons why Actually apartheid 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.959 is what you would call that. I think something that 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:33.840 has bothered me within the both sides thing is this 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:35.919 is not a term that I hear often anymore. But 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:41.080 like the progressive except Palestine, I think that idea has 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.760 been really damaging because it makes it seem like you 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.959 can still be so liberal and progressive and still not 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:53.480 really recognize that Palestinians are being genocided for almost a century. 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.520 Yeah, and this is just so frustrating because again, what 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:00.760 you're seeing in Palestine, it's so stark, the violence is 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:05.880 so obvious, and it's so egregious. And there's all these 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:09.959 social justice you know, organizations and accounts that I followed. 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:16.400 There's like queer Jewish liberation accounts who said nothing about Palestine. 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.159 There's also non jew it just queer you know, all 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.119 sorts of queer liberation queer activists out there, which is 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:26.680 like a whole other network that I'm tapped in into, 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.000 and many of them are staying silent on this genocide. 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:34.120 And it's like we are all fighting the same evils, 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.320 the same type of oppression. And if you want people 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:40.600 to stand with you when your rights are being taken away, 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:42.200 you got to stand with everybody else. 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:43.000 That's the only way. 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.320 Intersectionality is the only way that we can overcome these 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:50.800 enormous forces of oppression in the world. So, yeah, it's 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:53.960 it's been very frustrating to see just how many, you know, 0:24:54.720 --> 0:25:00.600 anti racist organizations, queer liberation organizations are just staying completely 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:02.000 silent on Palestine. 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:03.080 Yeah. 0:25:03.240 --> 0:25:06.240 I have been really frustrated about that as well, because 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:11.119 it encourages this sort of selective outrage that is reserved 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:13.840 for certain kind of people that are deemed as human 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:17.760 versus the people that are not. I really believe one 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:20.160 of the most powerful voices in the fight for Palastine 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:24.720 liberation are Jewish anti zionists because they can speak to 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:28.680 what people deem is the source of that problem from 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:33.719 a different place. But I hope you realize how important 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:38.560 your voice is just in general, especially now. And Yeah, 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:40.800 I just really thank you for what you've been doing, 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:44.120 because it's kind of scary too. I'm sure to suddenly 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:47.520 have a big platform and have all these people analyzing 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:50.919 everything you're saying and trying to find little holes in 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:54.200 your arguments. But I appreciate that you're not backing down. 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:58.600 Yeah, I went from six thousand to one hundred eighty 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:01.560 thousand followers on Instagram in like a week. 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.040 I didn't realize that you started a six thousand. I 0:26:04.040 --> 0:26:06.200 was wondering about that. That is a crazy jump. 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:08.600 Yeah, it happened really really fast. 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.080 And on TikTok too, I had I had fifty thousand 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:14.360 on TikTok just from my book talk author talk account, 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:16.639 which I've been you know, growing over the course of 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:19.400 two years, and then it went Now it's like at one. 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:21.800 Hundred and fifty thousand, so like tripled on TikTok. 0:26:23.280 --> 0:26:27.879 But yeah, it's definitely made me more careful about what 0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:30.600 I say. Like again, I had that one video that 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:33.560 was sort of like an in group comment to leftist 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:36.080 because I'm used to being on like the leftist side 0:26:36.080 --> 0:26:38.639 of TikTok, and then realized, like, oh crap, like everything 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:41.520 I say is going to go out to like absolutely 0:26:41.560 --> 0:26:43.600 every single kind of audience, so I need to like 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:47.440 really think about the context of what I say and 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:48.760 that it. 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:51.280 Yeah, it's a it's a lot, it's a lot. 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.280 Yeah, I'm I mean it sounds really overwhelming and even 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:58.920 navigating it well and I don't know, I really appreciate 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:01.639 you before where we wrap this up. I would love 0:27:01.680 --> 0:27:03.840 for you to talk about your work a little bit, 0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:06.719 maybe your book where people can find it, where they 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:09.840 can support you in your work. The platform is all yours. 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:11.359 Yeah. 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:13.240 So I actually had a book come out about a 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:15.959 month ago called The Free People's Village, and it is 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:17.159 relevant to this topic. 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:19.040 It's a very leftist book. 0:27:19.080 --> 0:27:23.000 It's about a punk band organizing to save their warehouse 0:27:23.359 --> 0:27:27.359 from demolition to make room for a new electromatagnetic hyperway 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:30.440 in an alternate timeline where al Gore won the two 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:35.439 thousand election and declared a war on climate change instead 0:27:35.440 --> 0:27:37.800 of a war on terror. But it's a book that's 0:27:37.840 --> 0:27:41.800 really critical of neoliberal politics. So this solar punk utopia 0:27:41.840 --> 0:27:45.240 that's been created this world has really only impacted wealthy 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:48.720 white neighborhoods while leaving everybody else behind. So it's a 0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:53.280 book about centering racial justice within climate organizing. And the 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:55.960 final scene of the book actually takes place at a 0:27:56.040 --> 0:28:01.320 Free Palestine protest, and so that's definitely a presence throughout 0:28:01.400 --> 0:28:05.359 the book. And based on experiences I've had organizing with 0:28:05.920 --> 0:28:10.880 the incredible Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestini youth 0:28:10.920 --> 0:28:14.000 movement organizers that we have here in Houston. 0:28:14.119 --> 0:28:15.520 So for people who are. 0:28:16.000 --> 0:28:18.919 Listeners of this podcast, I do think they would enjoy 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:22.919 the Free People's Village and you can get it. The 0:28:22.960 --> 0:28:25.639 best place to get it is always your local indie bookstore. 0:28:25.760 --> 0:28:29.120 Of course, you can also support your local indie bookstore 0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:33.119 by shopping at bookshop dot org, which allows you all 0:28:33.160 --> 0:28:35.760 the convenience of ordering online, but you get to pick 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:38.880 your favorite indie bookstore to benefit. And then of course 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:40.960 you can get it also from all of the big 0:28:41.080 --> 0:28:48.640 corporate retailers. And it's available in hardcover and ebook and audiobook. 0:28:49.040 --> 0:28:52.360 And you can find me online at sim Kern on 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:57.080 TikTok and if you search simcr it's at sim Bookstagram's 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:01.560 badly on Instagram, but if you just search sim Kernel, 0:29:01.800 --> 0:29:03.760 I'll pop up on Instagram. 0:29:03.680 --> 0:29:06.600 And that is s I N k r N. 0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:09.560 For people that don't know, Yes. 0:29:10.160 --> 0:29:12.440 Just to leave us with something that we can take 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:15.280 away from this, do you have any advice for people 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:17.640 that are trying to open up these discussions with their 0:29:17.680 --> 0:29:22.200 peers and how should they approach them? And I don't know. 0:29:22.320 --> 0:29:27.840 I think these conversations are essential to humanizing Palestinians. Again, 0:29:27.960 --> 0:29:30.520 so do you have any advice before we sign off. 0:29:31.680 --> 0:29:34.040 You know, same advice which was the first piece I gave, 0:29:34.040 --> 0:29:36.120 which was just to read a lot and learn a 0:29:36.160 --> 0:29:40.200 lot and seek out those Palestinian voices. Also Jewish Voice 0:29:40.240 --> 0:29:43.200 for Peace if you go to their JVP dot org website, 0:29:43.200 --> 0:29:46.560 they have a ton of like great tools and kits 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:49.480 for learning how to talk about Palestine. 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:50.920 And so I. 0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:55.240 Would say, you know, always be learning and reading if 0:29:55.280 --> 0:29:57.280 you feel like you don't have the language yet to 0:29:57.320 --> 0:30:00.680 have these conversations. Like you said, it's really powerful to 0:30:00.880 --> 0:30:07.440 repost things by you know, commentators that you respect, journalists 0:30:07.440 --> 0:30:10.520 on the ground in Gaza right now who are doing amazing. 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:11.080 Courageous work. 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:14.280 Just letting people know what is happening and putting something 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:19.640 out that disrupts an imperialist narrative can be really really powerful. 0:30:20.120 --> 0:30:23.600 Thank you for saying all of that, because it's really needed. 0:30:24.160 --> 0:30:27.120 And I will put in the description all the info 0:30:27.280 --> 0:30:30.000 to where you can follow sim in their work and 0:30:30.040 --> 0:30:33.080 maybe I can put some recommendations for Palestinian books as well. 0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:38.280 And yeah, that's the episode. Thank you so much for being. 0:30:38.080 --> 0:31:08.040 Here, Thanks for having me Free Palestine. 0:30:56.880 --> 0:31:00.600 Greetings podcasts. Excuse the asset, it's me James A. Man 0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:05.920 who has commenced his one man war against cutter airlines, 0:31:06.360 --> 0:31:10.000 who detained me against my will for most of the 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:13.000 last two days in a very small part of a 0:31:13.080 --> 0:31:14.600 very big plane. 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:19.720 See there's a there's a you know. Airlines from Middle 0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:23.760 Eastern countries are are usually like the best airlines are 0:31:23.800 --> 0:31:27.840 like Royal Jordanian and Air Immirates. If it's if it's 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:32.200 owned by a king, it's usually a safe bet. But 0:31:32.200 --> 0:31:33.800 but cutter airways. 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:34.160 That's what they say about. 0:31:34.200 --> 0:31:38.800 England breaks that mold, proudly breaks that mold. Yeah, yeah, 0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:39.360 fuck me. 0:31:40.200 --> 0:31:42.800 One of the one of the less pleasant experiences available 0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:44.680 to a human being that doesn't end in death is 0:31:44.720 --> 0:31:49.920 a thirty six hour trip from Keston to southern California, 0:31:49.960 --> 0:31:51.520 which see I've just enjoyed. 0:31:52.680 --> 0:31:55.560 I always enjoyed those trips back from Air Emirates because 0:31:55.560 --> 0:31:58.200 when you're on the Air Emirates flight, if you ask 0:31:58.520 --> 0:32:03.280 the steward or whatever to if you tell him, hey, 0:32:03.680 --> 0:32:06.760 I would like eight shots of vodka and four glasses 0:32:06.760 --> 0:32:09.600 of orange juice, He'll just give it to you, like, 0:32:09.960 --> 0:32:12.520 not even a question, not even a question. And so 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:16.120 have I vomited on a couple of eir Emirates flights. Yes, 0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:22.600 is it always a good time? Probably you don't remember. No, No, yeah, 0:32:22.600 --> 0:32:23.040 I see. 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:25.400 I was at the point of frustration where like and 0:32:25.400 --> 0:32:29.600 I'm as an english Man, if if I've become frustrated 0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:33.240 and drunk, then my instinct is to fight everyone or 0:32:33.400 --> 0:32:35.560 throw bottles, and I thought that that would probably result 0:32:35.640 --> 0:32:40.960 in further detention, so decided against decided against becoming bladdered. 0:32:41.520 --> 0:32:43.680 Or I could have started singing. I guess that's the 0:32:43.720 --> 0:32:48.440 other option available to me. That sure fits my culture. Yeah, 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:50.960 So we're not here to talk about things that I 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:52.880 like to do in my free time, as much as 0:32:52.880 --> 0:32:55.440 I would love that, but we are here to talk 0:32:55.440 --> 0:32:59.680 about things that I have been seeing in my worktime. 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:05.120 When I was traveling to Kurdistan a couple of weeks. Kurdistan, 0:33:05.320 --> 0:33:07.280 for people who are not familiar, is a big area, 0:33:07.960 --> 0:33:12.240 the area where Kurdish people live, and it spans several countries. 0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:15.760 The areas I went, we're in a rock and in 0:33:15.800 --> 0:33:18.600 Syria or in that it's not really in I guess 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:20.920 Syrian regime territory. But if you look on the. 0:33:20.880 --> 0:33:24.040 Map, northeast Syria known as Rojava, the other two parts 0:33:24.080 --> 0:33:27.160 that are generally considered part of Kurdistan. Are a chunk, 0:33:27.280 --> 0:33:29.560 big chunk of southern Iran and also a big chunk 0:33:29.640 --> 0:33:31.080 of southern Turkey. 0:33:31.640 --> 0:33:35.640 Yeah, so Java just means west. I think Roja lat 0:33:35.680 --> 0:33:39.800 is east eastern Kurdistan. So yeah, I've spent the last 0:33:40.240 --> 0:33:45.200 several last week and change in that area. And while 0:33:45.200 --> 0:33:51.160 I was there, the Turkish state began a massive drone 0:33:51.520 --> 0:33:54.800 bombing campaign, which is what we are gathered here today 0:33:54.880 --> 0:33:59.280 to discuss. So for people who are not familiar, it's 0:33:59.600 --> 0:34:03.560 for years almost to This drone bombing campaign started almost 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:06.239 four years to the day since Turkey's invasion of what 0:34:06.240 --> 0:34:09.359 they call the M four Strip. So that's the area 0:34:09.360 --> 0:34:13.319 around Surakania and Tel Abiyad. We've talked about that before 0:34:13.360 --> 0:34:14.879 on the Podka, so if you want to know more 0:34:14.880 --> 0:34:17.759 about that, you can go back and listen to it. 0:34:17.760 --> 0:34:21.240 It's the area along the border, one of the areas 0:34:21.239 --> 0:34:25.720 on the border between Turkey and Syria. And as people 0:34:25.719 --> 0:34:29.480 will know, Syria is a country that has had a 0:34:29.520 --> 0:34:32.360 long and terrible civil war, which they've heard about in 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:35.239 lots of episodes, right, and we're not talking about that 0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:39.120 today so much as we're talking about the Turkish state's 0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:42.799 use of drones to bomb what people generally in this 0:34:42.880 --> 0:34:45.759 country will know as for a Java, right, So just 0:34:46.000 --> 0:34:49.759 to give them statistics off the top, this is the 0:34:49.960 --> 0:34:52.479 fourth year in a row of aggression at this time 0:34:52.560 --> 0:34:56.719 of year, right, So there have been two land attacks 0:34:57.560 --> 0:35:00.919 I think Operation Olive Branch and Operation with someone called 0:35:00.960 --> 0:35:04.399 peace Spring, and then two years the last two years 0:35:04.440 --> 0:35:06.839 there have been drone strikes at this time of year. 0:35:07.120 --> 0:35:10.560 This time of year, it seems very hard not to 0:35:10.560 --> 0:35:14.560 conclude that these are attempts to destroy civilian infrastructure and 0:35:14.600 --> 0:35:17.240 make it very hard for people in the cold months 0:35:17.280 --> 0:35:21.240 of the year. So right now around two million people 0:35:21.560 --> 0:35:24.040 in north East Syria are going to be without power 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:26.839 and without water. And I experienced some of that when 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:29.680 I was there, and the places I stayed will run 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:33.360 off generators, so you'd have like intermittent power. You'd have 0:35:33.360 --> 0:35:35.239 power from it, and then they'd put some petru in 0:35:35.239 --> 0:35:37.160 the generator and the power will go down, or the 0:35:37.200 --> 0:35:40.200 generator would have a little tantrum and the power would 0:35:40.200 --> 0:35:43.440 go down. But generally I had a lot better access 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:45.520 to power that some people had a lot better access 0:35:45.560 --> 0:35:48.080 to water. So as I was traveling around, I noticed 0:35:48.120 --> 0:35:50.360 some people didn't have access to like running water, right, 0:35:50.360 --> 0:35:52.960 they can't turn on the tap and get water. Obviously 0:35:53.000 --> 0:35:56.160 that's a massive problem. It's something I think. Look, as 0:35:56.160 --> 0:36:00.560 people are listening to this, Israel is also bombing the 0:36:00.600 --> 0:36:05.040 shit out of Gaza, the whole of the Gaza Strip, 0:36:05.360 --> 0:36:08.759 and the US recently intervened to ensure that people there 0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:13.080 had access to water, and they have done very little 0:36:13.120 --> 0:36:16.600 in the case of protecting people in North and East Syria. 0:36:16.719 --> 0:36:16.919 Right. 0:36:17.480 --> 0:36:21.600 So across this drone campaign, forty eight people have died, 0:36:22.280 --> 0:36:25.640 and in the worst I guess the highest casualty of 0:36:25.640 --> 0:36:28.960 producing strike was one that happened while I was there, 0:36:29.120 --> 0:36:33.800 twenty nine. Like internal security forces, sometimes you'll see it 0:36:33.800 --> 0:36:36.440 translated as police, but I don't think that's quite accurate, 0:36:36.480 --> 0:36:39.120 like that, they don't do cop shit, like they're not 0:36:39.160 --> 0:36:42.360 there to you know, like arrescue for parking in the 0:36:42.400 --> 0:36:44.520 wrong place, and they do the things that cops do. 0:36:45.080 --> 0:36:48.800 They're there largely is like internal security due to the 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:52.359 various non state arm groups that are in the area 0:36:52.400 --> 0:36:54.360 and state armed groups I guess that are operating in 0:36:54.400 --> 0:36:56.600 the area that would make things dangerous for people living there. 0:36:57.120 --> 0:37:01.360 So these particular essays were anti narcotic essay. And again 0:37:02.080 --> 0:37:03.959 why I'm grounding this and what they do is because 0:37:03.960 --> 0:37:06.080 they're not the people who like send you to jail 0:37:06.120 --> 0:37:08.000 for the rest of your life for like having an 0:37:08.000 --> 0:37:11.160 ounce of weed. They're the people whose job is to 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:15.480 prevent the trading cap to gone. Will people know what 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:16.600 people know what Captagon is? 0:37:17.160 --> 0:37:20.520 Absolutely yeah, it's it's it's it's one of the drug 0:37:20.600 --> 0:37:21.960 I mean, it's that when you when you hear about 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:25.120 drug in addiction forces, like like police in Rojava, they're 0:37:25.120 --> 0:37:28.479 going after CAPTI Gone. It's a big chunk of both 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:31.279 what kept isis it's it's the it's the purveten, you know, 0:37:31.320 --> 0:37:34.839 the meth that Nazis took that for isis right, and 0:37:34.840 --> 0:37:36.239 it was also a big chunk of how they got 0:37:36.239 --> 0:37:38.560 their funding was was moving and the a Sad regime 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:41.640 also gets a piece of a lot of the Captigon trade. 0:37:42.400 --> 0:37:45.719 It continues to fund these largely like it's the mist 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:48.440 insurgent groups right in the area because it's small and 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:51.319 it's high value, and like Robert, they has to give 0:37:51.320 --> 0:37:53.600 it to the fighters. It's this is very common like 0:37:53.640 --> 0:37:56.919 around the world. We we discussed this in miandmar too, 0:37:57.000 --> 0:37:59.960 right that the military there take something else called yaba, 0:38:00.080 --> 0:38:03.840 But these kind of math derivatives are very common and 0:38:03.880 --> 0:38:06.120 they're very commonly sold. That's how a lot of these 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:08.719 non state arm groups get money to buy stuff. Right, 0:38:09.160 --> 0:38:14.799 So when we're talking about drug interdiction, it's not done 0:38:14.840 --> 0:38:17.600 in a vacuum. It's not done because I could they 0:38:17.640 --> 0:38:20.759 think that necessarily that drugs are bad or that you know, 0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:23.440 there's some kind of moral failure that comes from the 0:38:23.560 --> 0:38:26.759 use of these substances. It's because it allows funding for 0:38:26.800 --> 0:38:30.399 groups that are trying to kill people on the ground. 0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:32.520 So like interdicting the drugs is part of an anti 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:35.880 terrorism operation that allows people to live safely, which is 0:38:35.920 --> 0:38:38.560 what they deserve after ten plus years of war in 0:38:38.600 --> 0:38:43.040 that area. So twenty nine people is a lot of people, right, 0:38:43.160 --> 0:38:46.000 twenty nine anti narcotics, I say issues is a lot 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:47.920 of the people who do that job. It's going to 0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:51.879 make it significantly harder for them to continue doing that job, 0:38:51.920 --> 0:38:54.400 which means it's going to make it significantly easier for 0:38:54.480 --> 0:38:58.080 those arm groups to get funding. Right. It's also so 0:38:58.120 --> 0:39:00.359 while I was there, there was a massive funeral for 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:05.640 these people. Right, every town, every settlement across where Java 0:39:05.840 --> 0:39:09.960 has lost somebody in that strike. Right, So in Kamishlo, 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:14.879 in Kabani, in Alhasaka, like all these places had big 0:39:14.880 --> 0:39:17.760 funerals because you know, three or four or ten people 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.560 came from that town and like that's I saw a 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:24.600 little girl like going to her dad's funeral, right, like 0:39:24.600 --> 0:39:26.439 a little girl holding a picture of her dad. And 0:39:26.840 --> 0:39:28.719 it's pretty fucked up. Like it's hard for that not 0:39:28.840 --> 0:39:33.480 to affect you, especially as like these people weren't fighting anyone, 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:36.960 they weren't attacking anyone, right, they were just they were 0:39:36.960 --> 0:39:39.640 taking a training. They were taking an anti narcotics training 0:39:39.760 --> 0:39:42.160 at night, and sixty of them were gathering it's building. 0:39:42.239 --> 0:39:45.319 Twenty nine were killed, twenty eight injured. It's in the 0:39:45.400 --> 0:39:50.239 sort of furthest northeast part of North and Eastsyria, but 0:39:50.400 --> 0:39:53.200 around a town called Derek, which is on the board 0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:56.880 of it al Malkay Derek. Yeah, Bobody, my pronunciation is 0:39:57.000 --> 0:40:00.080 asked al Malachaia might say on the map if if 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:01.600 you're looking at Google Maps, so you're trying to work 0:40:01.640 --> 0:40:04.520 out what it is. Lots of these places. The reason 0:40:04.600 --> 0:40:07.359 they will have two names is cored edition and Arabic. Right, 0:40:07.840 --> 0:40:11.960 So like under the previous side regime, like Arabic was 0:40:12.000 --> 0:40:14.760 the sort of language that people were enforced to speak 0:40:14.800 --> 0:40:19.080 and use, and now under the self administration, people tend 0:40:19.120 --> 0:40:21.960 to use Kurdish, and they tend to use a Latin 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:24.520 script as opposed to an Arabic script. Right, So that's 0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:26.880 why you'll see two names very often you're looking on 0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:30.120 a map, But like twenty nine is only you know, 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:35.160 there's nineteen other people, mostly civilians, right, who were killed. 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:39.600 Then two million people are now living without power, without water, 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:44.440 and without these basic services, which in turn will result 0:40:44.480 --> 0:40:48.719 in more death. Right, More people will die because they 0:40:48.719 --> 0:40:51.000 don't have access to those things which are life sustaining, right, 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:55.560 or people, young people, sick people. Both things are the 0:40:55.719 --> 0:41:00.280 very basics of sustaining human life, and so without the 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:03.399 things are going to get a lot harder. I want 0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:05.600 to talk a little bit about like where these drone 0:41:05.600 --> 0:41:10.399 strikes happened, because largely aside from the one of their age, 0:41:10.480 --> 0:41:15.560 they weren't at like large groups of people or buildings. Instead, 0:41:15.560 --> 0:41:20.760 they were like deliberately targeting infrastructure. So of the ones 0:41:20.840 --> 0:41:22.760 that I saw and the ones that I read about, 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:26.560 and they targeted like an electricity substation in one case, 0:41:27.280 --> 0:41:30.640 they targeted a lot of water facilities, right, like like 0:41:30.800 --> 0:41:34.280 water pumping stations, et cetera that allow people to get water, 0:41:34.800 --> 0:41:39.200 a cooking gas plant, which it's pretty obvious what that does, right, 0:41:39.239 --> 0:41:41.000 It allows people to get bottles of gas to cook 0:41:41.040 --> 0:41:45.120 their food, and a lot of oil in destructures. So 0:41:45.120 --> 0:41:49.360 I saw a few of those. Theyre called like donkeys, 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:51.680 you know, the things that go up and down. Yeah 0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:53.840 my using the word, I don't. 0:41:53.640 --> 0:41:55.560 Know the word, but the little crane. 0:41:55.239 --> 0:41:59.000 Things yeah, yeah, yeah, the like the things you can 0:41:59.040 --> 0:42:00.600 see if you drive through Bakersfield. 0:42:00.600 --> 0:42:01.480 I'm sure there's a name. 0:42:02.200 --> 0:42:07.360 Yeah, are they oiled derricks? Yeah? Someone someone googled the 0:42:07.440 --> 0:42:09.240 name of the nodding dog. 0:42:09.080 --> 0:42:11.319 That pumps jack? Is that no? 0:42:12.719 --> 0:42:17.399 Yeah, that's that's the first sounds like like a dude 0:42:17.440 --> 0:42:19.320 who goes to the gym a lot, Yeah, broke and 0:42:19.360 --> 0:42:19.879 pump jacked. 0:42:20.120 --> 0:42:24.120 I mean it is called the an oil donkey as well. 0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:27.680 So you were, yeah, nodding donkey pumps. Yeah, that's what 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:30.239 I thought they were, noding donkeys. Okay, Yeah, that's that's 0:42:30.400 --> 0:42:33.640 that's a phrase we're going with. So you could see 0:42:33.680 --> 0:42:35.120 a lot of these that were like knocked over on 0:42:35.160 --> 0:42:38.120 their side, right, that had been drone struck, and then 0:42:38.360 --> 0:42:40.360 you could see others that were just knocked out because 0:42:40.360 --> 0:42:43.360 the power to them had been knocked out. So obviously 0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:45.960 that's not only a major revenue source, but also like 0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:48.839 that is how people in the region get fuel, right, 0:42:49.000 --> 0:42:52.160 so it's going to be harder for them to get diesels, 0:42:52.239 --> 0:42:54.120 going to be harder for them to drive around. People 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:57.880 already don't drive around a lot because a lot of 0:42:57.920 --> 0:43:02.520 the drone strikes on people in the yepegay Yepija, so 0:43:02.600 --> 0:43:06.680 that the People's Defence Forces and Women's Defense Forces, lots 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:08.800 of drone strikes have happened when those people are driving 0:43:08.800 --> 0:43:13.160 their cars, when they get in a car, so it 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.680 can be quite hairy driving and a lot of people 0:43:16.680 --> 0:43:19.839 were driving too, like I drive around, but that's one 0:43:19.840 --> 0:43:21.840 of the areas of risk for people. 0:43:21.920 --> 0:43:22.080 Right. 0:43:22.760 --> 0:43:27.160 Of the people killed thirty fives as eleven were civilians 0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:29.120 and two s efs, so most of these were either 0:43:29.160 --> 0:43:33.680 internal security or civilians. And I think Robert you were 0:43:34.000 --> 0:43:36.400 Robert and I spoke while I was there, and Robert 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:40.399 made a good point about how this enables these non 0:43:40.440 --> 0:43:44.439 state armed groups like either ISIS or like HD. 0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:47.520 That my main concern for you while you were there 0:43:47.680 --> 0:43:49.960 was not that you would get hit in an air strike, 0:43:51.000 --> 0:43:54.759 but it was that because of the damage done to 0:43:54.800 --> 0:43:58.520 the security forces as a result of the Turkish are strikes, 0:43:58.680 --> 0:44:02.160 you would it would. There's there's always been is as 0:44:02.239 --> 0:44:05.480 cells there right that they've never gotten rid of all 0:44:05.560 --> 0:44:08.600 of them. And periods where the A and E. S 0:44:08.600 --> 0:44:11.319 self administration is under attack are the periods in which 0:44:11.360 --> 0:44:16.000 it's most dangerous because it provides there's less security forces, 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:19.919 you know, watching everything. People in general are outless, which 0:44:19.960 --> 0:44:22.680 provides cover for some of these groups that may want 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:23.680 to do like a kidnapping. 0:44:24.239 --> 0:44:26.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's not a place where a 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:31.040 lot of I guess folks who look like me. That 0:44:31.200 --> 0:44:33.040 was a concern for us, and like it's a concern 0:44:33.120 --> 0:44:36.280 for these people too. Write they still do car bombs 0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:40.120 in de rezor not, you know that they things still 0:44:40.200 --> 0:44:44.200 kill civilians. Yeah, they roll up Isis people on a 0:44:44.560 --> 0:44:48.240 probably weekly basis. People are interested in getting more information 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:50.440 both about the drone strikes and about what they call 0:44:50.520 --> 0:44:54.360 sleeper cells. There are Java Information Center, very nice people. 0:44:55.239 --> 0:44:58.480 They have a good website. It's Jarva Information Center to org. 0:44:58.760 --> 0:45:02.080 They produce monthly report on both things. So that will 0:45:02.080 --> 0:45:05.800 give more information on those things. That would be a 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:10.280 good time to pivot to adverts. But I've got all 0:45:10.520 --> 0:45:10.840 that is. 0:45:11.440 --> 0:45:14.279 Do you know who else provides great services? 0:45:14.680 --> 0:45:17.879 I don't think we can. I don't reasonably make that claim. 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:20.320 The products and services that support this podcast. 0:45:20.400 --> 0:45:24.920 Here they are. We're back and we are discussing toerone 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:28.200 strikes on North Easyria. I guess not just from North Asyria, 0:45:28.239 --> 0:45:33.440 like these also happen up around Sulimani SOLMANI if you're 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:36.319 looking on the map. Depends again on that language, right, 0:45:36.760 --> 0:45:42.319 those have happened again against casey K, which is like 0:45:42.400 --> 0:45:47.120 the Kurdistan Communities Council. So that would be the I 0:45:47.160 --> 0:45:54.640 guess the if you look at like Syria, Iran, Turkey 0:45:54.840 --> 0:45:59.719 and Iraq as different countries, all of which have some 0:46:00.000 --> 0:46:03.319 administry to give control over the nation of Kurdish people, right, 0:46:03.400 --> 0:46:05.279 Kurdish people live in all four countries, and they live 0:46:05.280 --> 0:46:08.279 in other countries too. Of course, then the movements in 0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:11.760 each of those countries are subsidiary to the k CK 0:46:13.000 --> 0:46:16.560 and so some of those KKK folks who are up 0:46:16.600 --> 0:46:19.400 in Solimani so like that there will be drone strikes 0:46:19.400 --> 0:46:23.960 there and that's that's far inside Iraqi Kurdistan, right, You're 0:46:24.000 --> 0:46:26.520 you're a long way from the border there, and that's 0:46:26.600 --> 0:46:30.640 that's what these drone strikes, I guess. The drone strikes 0:46:30.680 --> 0:46:34.920 allow Turkish intelligence in the Turkish military to target people 0:46:35.640 --> 0:46:39.120 much much further inside with very little consequent or risk 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:42.240 on their own. Right, these drones are largely not being 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:47.719 targeted because certainly in an Ees, the Autonomous Administration in 0:46:47.760 --> 0:46:50.680 North Eastyria, they don't have the means to target them, right, 0:46:50.680 --> 0:46:54.160 the United States hasn't supplied them with the weapons that 0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:57.040 they would need to shoot down those drones, which I 0:46:57.080 --> 0:47:00.160 think brings me onto the role of the US in 0:47:00.200 --> 0:47:03.680 this and I guess more broadly the role of the 0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:08.120 coalition in this case. Coalition is a coalition to defeat ISIS. Right, 0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:13.719 it's made up of dozens of countries, the UK, the US, Germany, 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:19.920 lots of other Western I guess countries broadly, and countries 0:47:19.960 --> 0:47:21.480 in that part of the world too, like I think 0:47:21.560 --> 0:47:26.080 Iraq is part of it. Certainly, like Iraqi, Kurdistan has 0:47:26.239 --> 0:47:30.680 done their own operations against ISIS sleeper cells, peshmurger and 0:47:30.760 --> 0:47:33.440 like everywhere you go, right, you go through Peshmerga checkpoints, 0:47:33.480 --> 0:47:36.600 like I was going through an area where they had 0:47:36.680 --> 0:47:41.320 arrested an ISIS member the day before, so like it's 0:47:41.600 --> 0:47:43.880 they'll be getting you out of the car, you know, 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:46.360 going through your bags, looking through your stuff. Right, So 0:47:46.440 --> 0:47:49.239 that's all part of the same operation. But the US 0:47:49.280 --> 0:47:52.000 has a base in a place called Alhassaka, which again 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:53.520 you can look up on the map, right, it's a 0:47:53.520 --> 0:47:56.279 little west trying to light up my compass here, a 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:59.960 little west of Kamishloh, which is a capital of the region, 0:48:00.680 --> 0:48:05.200 and the US pretty much US troops don't do a 0:48:05.200 --> 0:48:08.200 great amount of leaving that base. It's fair to say 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:10.719 they'll come out in helicopters. They were going out like 0:48:10.800 --> 0:48:17.239 sort of supporting SDF patrols in the Ahuska region, but 0:48:17.239 --> 0:48:20.400 they were supporting them from the air. Right. They generally 0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:24.120 aren't going out and about like with people on the ground, 0:48:24.200 --> 0:48:26.719 talking to people, unless it's a specific mission, which they 0:48:26.760 --> 0:48:29.839 do sometimes you can if people are interested in like 0:48:30.040 --> 0:48:33.239 the US presence. It's called Operation Inherent Resolve, And they 0:48:33.280 --> 0:48:35.720 have a Twitter account whether sometimes post themselves doing things. 0:48:36.480 --> 0:48:39.480 But what they don't do is protect that. And so 0:48:39.600 --> 0:48:43.480 the US and the Autonomous Administration are allies in this 0:48:43.560 --> 0:48:48.239 fight against ISIS, right, but they are only allied in 0:48:48.280 --> 0:48:51.400 this fight against ISIS. The US is not supporting them 0:48:51.680 --> 0:48:55.319 in defending themselves from drone strikes or like ensuring that 0:48:55.920 --> 0:48:59.239 civilian population is protected from those attacks. So the US 0:48:59.320 --> 0:49:02.040 has the capacity city to shoot down these drones, and 0:49:02.080 --> 0:49:06.000 they prove that by shooting one down last week or 0:49:06.400 --> 0:49:08.320 the week before. I'm a little bit jet legged, so 0:49:08.480 --> 0:49:10.400 a bit bugled on time, but I think it was 0:49:10.480 --> 0:49:13.560 last week the US shut down a Turkish drones. 0:49:13.719 --> 0:49:17.600 It came out two weeks ago for when this is airing. Yes, yeah, sure, 0:49:18.000 --> 0:49:18.439 good point. 0:49:18.719 --> 0:49:21.200 Yeah, so yeah, two weeks ago the United States shut 0:49:21.280 --> 0:49:25.360 down and F sixteen shut down a Turkish drone. So 0:49:25.600 --> 0:49:29.000 specifically it was a drone called an a Kinji, which 0:49:29.040 --> 0:49:32.160 is a newer variant of the Bairaktar drone. We've spoken 0:49:32.200 --> 0:49:36.279 about these drones before, right, they're the drones that people like, 0:49:36.360 --> 0:49:38.160 I know, you can go on actually and buy a 0:49:38.200 --> 0:49:41.719 stuffy version of these drones, which, right, that's concerning. 0:49:42.239 --> 0:49:46.440 Yeah, it's really dystopian and crazy. 0:49:46.520 --> 0:49:47.120 I don't like it. 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:50.360 Yeah, I do not like it either. I think it 0:49:51.200 --> 0:49:53.480 illustrates the way the war in Ukraine has become like 0:49:53.520 --> 0:49:56.920 a football match for some people, yeah yes, or like 0:49:56.960 --> 0:49:59.520 a film where like I just want to reinforce it, like. 0:49:59.480 --> 0:50:01.960 It's turned into fandom. Yeah yes, yeah. 0:50:01.960 --> 0:50:04.960 I think that's an excellent way of putting it. Gara saying, like, 0:50:05.400 --> 0:50:08.120 it's not cool when anyone gets fucking drone struck. It's 0:50:08.160 --> 0:50:13.160 not cool when, like everyone in an area spends every 0:50:13.239 --> 0:50:16.560 night worrying if death is going to come from the 0:50:16.600 --> 0:50:19.920 sky at some point, right, Like, the effect of these 0:50:20.000 --> 0:50:21.719 drones trucks isn't just on the people killed, or the 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:24.799 people injured, or even the infrastructure. The effect is on 0:50:25.000 --> 0:50:29.680 every single person worrying what's going to happen tonight? Right Like, 0:50:29.760 --> 0:50:32.520 And I can speak to a tiny part of that experience. 0:50:32.600 --> 0:50:34.319 Right Nothing compared to what people are living there have 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:37.000 gone through at all. But it's a concern every time 0:50:37.040 --> 0:50:39.719 it gets dark, you know, well it's tonight the night, 0:50:39.840 --> 0:50:41.960 especially for the rural folks who might be living in 0:50:42.000 --> 0:50:44.640 a rural area but near to a substation, or near 0:50:44.680 --> 0:50:48.160 to one of those nodding donkeys or other infrastructure which 0:50:48.160 --> 0:50:50.719 has been targeted, or near a cooking gas plant. Right, 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:53.200 those things I can imagine explode with quite some force. 0:50:54.719 --> 0:50:57.680 They can't leave, right, they can't just upen and not 0:50:57.760 --> 0:51:00.440 live near any infrastructure. Infrastructures will allows place to be 0:51:00.440 --> 0:51:04.200 survivable for civilians, So they just have to live with 0:51:04.280 --> 0:51:08.560 this constant fear. And it's very odd to see that 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:12.680 and then simultaneously see this, this sort of deification of 0:51:12.760 --> 0:51:15.840 drone strikes that are happening in Ukraine and like this, 0:51:16.120 --> 0:51:21.360 you know, people with dog dressed as Napoleon Twitter avatars, Yeah, 0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:23.360 cheering someone's kid dying. 0:51:24.520 --> 0:51:24.800 Yeah. 0:51:24.840 --> 0:51:28.040 I mean throughout all of the kind of new conflicts 0:51:28.040 --> 0:51:32.440 we've had the past five years, like the and especially 0:51:32.480 --> 0:51:35.000 the past like two three years, Like the idea of 0:51:35.040 --> 0:51:38.880 like politics as fandom has produced some of the like 0:51:39.040 --> 0:51:45.000 most like inhumane, gross aspects of how people have been 0:51:45.040 --> 0:51:48.759 like consuming social media and just the sheer. It's like 0:51:49.000 --> 0:51:52.200 people forget that this is like thousands of people's actual, 0:51:52.239 --> 0:51:55.759 like human lives that they're like yes, sneaming about, and 0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:59.480 it's it just it just becomes just they talk about 0:51:59.480 --> 0:52:00.880 it in the same way they talk about like a 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:04.080 Marvel movie or like a star like it's it's it's yeah, 0:52:04.160 --> 0:52:04.719 or sports like. 0:52:04.719 --> 0:52:07.000 It's it it it. 0:52:06.719 --> 0:52:11.040 It's like this weird like gamified it allows you to 0:52:11.040 --> 0:52:15.120 to approach these things from a just a from a 0:52:15.239 --> 0:52:18.560 very separate perspective when you're when you're viewing it from 0:52:18.600 --> 0:52:21.439 like this fandom angle, I think. But politics is fandom 0:52:21.440 --> 0:52:22.919 in general. I think it's gotten a whole lot worse 0:52:23.000 --> 0:52:25.480 since the Trump era. Ye had, you know, like that's 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:29.360 where we had like resistance libs that were like copying 0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:32.200 off some of the stuff from the New Star Wars trilogy, 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:33.840 which is kind of the inspiration for a lot of 0:52:33.840 --> 0:52:36.279 their stuff. We got nazi's doing a whole bunch of 0:52:36.320 --> 0:52:39.759 politics as fandom as well. It just creates like it's 0:52:39.760 --> 0:52:43.319 it's it's like this team sports like fandom thing that 0:52:43.440 --> 0:52:44.600 is just pervate. 0:52:44.920 --> 0:52:45.759 It's it's it's it's. 0:52:45.640 --> 0:52:48.520 Seeped into like almost every single aspect of like not 0:52:48.560 --> 0:52:52.960 just politics, but not like conflict and like geopolitics. 0:52:53.040 --> 0:52:55.040 It's like whoever has the best branding is the one 0:52:55.040 --> 0:52:57.440 that's has the best chance. 0:52:58.080 --> 0:53:01.959 Yeah, and it's I don't know, it's it's disturbing to watch. 0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:05.720 I don't know how to like counter counter it because 0:53:05.800 --> 0:53:08.920 it feels like the more you engage, the further sucked 0:53:08.920 --> 0:53:13.160 into the abyss you become. But it also doesn't feel 0:53:13.160 --> 0:53:15.040 good to just like ignore it as well, because it's 0:53:15.160 --> 0:53:17.640 just it's like it feels like this kind of endless 0:53:17.719 --> 0:53:21.719 trap that is just a part of existing in this 0:53:21.760 --> 0:53:23.480 weird postmodern internet world. 0:53:24.719 --> 0:53:27.760 Yeah, I don't know. I think like one would hope 0:53:27.960 --> 0:53:30.480 that the Internet in some ways could help us see that, 0:53:30.520 --> 0:53:32.719 like at the end of every drone strike is a 0:53:32.760 --> 0:53:35.359 little fucking child most of the time, or like like 0:53:35.440 --> 0:53:37.879 I spent some time last week with a family who 0:53:37.960 --> 0:53:40.279 almost exactly one year ago lost their fifteen year old 0:53:40.280 --> 0:53:44.200 time in a drone strike, and like it that, Like 0:53:44.280 --> 0:53:47.600 I understand people die in these things, like on an 0:53:47.640 --> 0:53:50.200 intellectual level and even on a personal level, like having 0:53:50.239 --> 0:53:52.800 spent time in these places, you know, for a decent 0:53:52.840 --> 0:53:56.640 amount of my life, But fuck me, it's just like 0:53:56.719 --> 0:53:59.319 it destroyed you. Like seeing a mum mary her son 0:53:59.480 --> 0:54:03.040 cry for her little boy. It's fucking heartbreaking, and like 0:54:04.480 --> 0:54:06.560 I got to live that for one morning, and those 0:54:06.560 --> 0:54:10.880 people live that every single day and every time. And 0:54:10.960 --> 0:54:13.200 I don't, I know, it makes me want to shout 0:54:13.239 --> 0:54:14.680 at people when I see this. 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:19.320 I don't actually think it's I don't mean to be 0:54:19.320 --> 0:54:23.080 a doomer here. I don't think it's a solvable problem. Yeah, 0:54:23.120 --> 0:54:25.400 this is we are talking about it within the language 0:54:25.400 --> 0:54:29.400 of fandom because that is kind of the defining public 0:54:29.440 --> 0:54:33.799 social relationship of our time. But like, this is always 0:54:33.920 --> 0:54:37.960 what people have done to war, one way or the other. Right, Yeah, 0:54:38.040 --> 0:54:43.120 it's faster now and more commercial, right, like one thing 0:54:43.200 --> 0:54:45.520 for whatever reason, I think just because we're a culturated 0:54:45.520 --> 0:54:48.319 to it. Hearing people talk about, you know, doing what 0:54:48.360 --> 0:54:51.600 they do in times of war because of patriotism, because 0:54:51.600 --> 0:54:54.560 of nationalism, because of belief in the founding principles of 0:54:54.600 --> 0:55:00.200 their country, seems a little bit less coarse than like 0:55:00.480 --> 0:55:02.600 doing it because you fell in with a bunch of 0:55:02.680 --> 0:55:05.920 memers who use little dog avatars and shit. But like, 0:55:06.440 --> 0:55:09.480 I don't know, it's not it's not like less logical 0:55:09.760 --> 0:55:13.920 than than being right or die because like you happen 0:55:13.960 --> 0:55:17.120 to be born under you know so and so the king. 0:55:18.560 --> 0:55:22.640 Yeah fair, yeah, yeah, and like that dehumanization. I think 0:55:22.680 --> 0:55:26.960 the difference, like to me is like, so, like Robert 0:55:26.960 --> 0:55:29.239 and I have both experiences right to to in order 0:55:29.280 --> 0:55:32.040 to kill somebody, you have to dehumanize them. To kill 0:55:32.080 --> 0:55:33.880 people on mass you have to do that on mass, right, 0:55:33.920 --> 0:55:36.920 if you're fighting a war, it doesn't behoove you too. 0:55:36.960 --> 0:55:39.160 You make it sound like we're killing people, James. 0:55:39.400 --> 0:55:41.320 Well, that's the thing that we do on the podcast 0:55:41.400 --> 0:55:45.080 Robert's yeah, we kill people in mass Yeah, yeah, sure, 0:55:45.120 --> 0:55:48.040 you're gonna have to school A zone is where we 0:55:48.040 --> 0:55:50.880 talk about the killings. People want to subscribe. That's what 0:55:50.880 --> 0:55:53.000 we do instead of adverts, is we list the people 0:55:53.000 --> 0:55:53.520 we've killed. 0:55:54.239 --> 0:55:56.399 Yeah, James, as the as the quote on your Blue 0:55:56.440 --> 0:55:59.320 Sky account says, one death is a tragedy, one million 0:55:59.400 --> 0:56:01.359 is a statistic messed out. 0:56:01.800 --> 0:56:06.520 Yeah, yeah, that's right, and it's ever every day I 0:56:06.560 --> 0:56:11.560 strive to get my number up, you know, but so 0:56:11.560 --> 0:56:14.319 far I've let everyone down. That's not true. And to 0:56:14.360 --> 0:56:17.520 my knowledge, none of us have killed anyone but your knowledge, 0:56:18.040 --> 0:56:20.600 to my knowledge, yeah, suren's probably got some bodies in 0:56:20.640 --> 0:56:26.759 the in the class, you know, Jesus Christ. It's so 0:56:27.360 --> 0:56:29.359 what I wanted to say is that like when yeah, 0:56:29.440 --> 0:56:32.640 like if you're in the military, you probably know this, right, 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:36.440 like like this sort of blood makes a grass grows, shit, fine, whatever, 0:56:36.600 --> 0:56:39.520 Like that's how wars work. War is undesirable. It's horrible. 0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:41.799 You have to be horrible, you have to you have 0:56:41.880 --> 0:56:44.600 to dehumanize people to kill them. You don't have to 0:56:44.640 --> 0:56:46.920 fucking do that if you're on Twitter dot com. But 0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:51.120 like people, you know, people with the silly dog advatars chiefly, 0:56:51.120 --> 0:56:53.879 but other people to have begun to see themselves as 0:56:53.920 --> 0:56:57.440 like participants in conflict in a way that they maybe didn't. 0:56:58.280 --> 0:57:00.600 Maybe they did and I just wasn't around in second one. 0:57:00.800 --> 0:57:03.839 Yeah, No, that's I think I think that does tie 0:57:03.840 --> 0:57:06.200 into part of how the fandom things works, because a 0:57:06.200 --> 0:57:08.799 part of participating in fandom is being in these kind 0:57:08.840 --> 0:57:12.080 of very very alienating online spaces. Because any type of 0:57:12.080 --> 0:57:14.799 like engagement on the Internet in this way is is 0:57:15.200 --> 0:57:18.400 fuel through the process of alienation. But when that kind 0:57:18.440 --> 0:57:22.440 of starts applying to politics, you feel like either the 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:25.640 act of consuming or or like you know, joining in 0:57:25.680 --> 0:57:30.240 on conversation is itself like a form of activism. By 0:57:30.680 --> 0:57:33.320 just like just through like consuming or sharing content, you 0:57:33.320 --> 0:57:36.360 feel like you're actually participating in the thing itself. 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:39.880 Yeah, And I think some of it's this almost narcissistic 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:44.360 need to not let the world pass you by because 0:57:44.360 --> 0:57:48.440 it's there. There's something deeply uncomfortable about just like watching 0:57:48.520 --> 0:57:51.320 massive things happen and realizing like there's nothing I can 0:57:51.360 --> 0:57:56.040 do about this. Yeah, to feel like there isn't a 0:57:56.080 --> 0:57:58.880 lot of the time, right, like your your take, you know, 0:57:58.960 --> 0:58:03.720 the the instant a hospital gets attacked in Gaza, your 0:58:03.840 --> 0:58:10.160 take on that is not particularly helpful or necessary unless 0:58:10.160 --> 0:58:13.760 your I don't know Joe Biden, right. 0:58:14.760 --> 0:58:16.160 But which is not. 0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:18.120 I don't think his take was helpful, but right, it 0:58:18.200 --> 0:58:20.480 was like it had an impact because he's the president, 0:58:20.880 --> 0:58:24.080 but like most of us were just kind of part 0:58:24.160 --> 0:58:27.040 of the churn, and there's almost there's like a degree 0:58:27.080 --> 0:58:29.480 of emotional need to it, especially when you see these 0:58:29.520 --> 0:58:32.200 horrible footage of bodies piled high. Right, you feel like 0:58:32.520 --> 0:58:35.120 I'm a bad person if I don't do something, and 0:58:35.120 --> 0:58:38.560 the only thing I can do is tweet or whatever 0:58:38.720 --> 0:58:40.600 your social media, I feel like I. 0:58:40.600 --> 0:58:42.880 Just just to play Devil's advocate for hot sake. I 0:58:42.920 --> 0:58:47.400 think it's a little different when there's so much conflicting information, 0:58:47.560 --> 0:58:49.600 especially I mean, like the Gaza thinks a great example, 0:58:49.640 --> 0:58:53.160 because the electricity is out, they don't want them to 0:58:53.680 --> 0:58:56.560 share anything. So I think when it comes to something 0:58:56.600 --> 0:58:59.280 like that, it's more about like spreading awareness versus like 0:58:59.320 --> 0:59:02.320 having a take. In my opinion, it's more just like, hey, 0:59:02.520 --> 0:59:04.640 the news might say this, but this is from the 0:59:04.680 --> 0:59:08.160 actual person on the ground telling you what's happening. So 0:59:08.200 --> 0:59:11.960 I think there's a little bit of nuance because I 0:59:11.960 --> 0:59:15.120 also think the only reason that like just for Palestine 0:59:15.160 --> 0:59:16.720 for example, just is we don't have to go into 0:59:16.720 --> 0:59:19.160 it too much. But a huge reason why there's so 0:59:19.240 --> 0:59:22.960 much more support for the Palestinian movement is because of 0:59:23.000 --> 0:59:23.680 social media. 0:59:24.240 --> 0:59:27.200 Yeah, so definitely, Yeah, people see people in Gaza as 0:59:27.240 --> 0:59:30.600 people now, not as statistics or just through the lens 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:33.360 of Hamas or rightever, like yeah. 0:59:33.080 --> 0:59:35.080 Yeah, I mean it depends. I think it depends on 0:59:35.120 --> 0:59:39.320 how you do it, and like I mean, it is 0:59:39.400 --> 0:59:42.480 it is accurate to say that to a significant extent, 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:47.680 the ultimate outcome of these conflicts are determined in large 0:59:47.720 --> 0:59:50.440 part due to public sympathy, right Like, That's going to 0:59:50.440 --> 0:59:55.000 be probably true of, however, things that ultimately shake out 0:59:55.080 --> 0:59:59.160 in Gaza, and it's certainly been true of the conflict 0:59:59.200 --> 1:00:02.520 in Ukraine, right Like. The degree to which weapons keep 1:00:02.560 --> 1:00:05.160 flowing to that country is going to be heavily based 1:00:05.200 --> 1:00:10.480 on the degree to which sympathy for that cause remains 1:00:10.560 --> 1:00:13.200 among US taxpayers and taxpayers in other countries that are 1:00:13.200 --> 1:00:15.480 sending them those weapons. That's going to have an impact 1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:19.880 on the presidential election. Maybe. I mean that is the 1:00:19.920 --> 1:00:23.920 other thing, right that, like everyone who is engaging with 1:00:23.960 --> 1:00:28.680 this stuff via social media, there's a tendency to get 1:00:28.680 --> 1:00:30.360 caught up in a bubble in terms of just thinking 1:00:30.400 --> 1:00:32.600 about how much this is on the mind of like 1:00:32.680 --> 1:00:36.240 American voters. Maybe it'll be different this election, but generally, 1:00:36.920 --> 1:00:38.960 like again, my feelings on this are kind of muddled, 1:00:38.960 --> 1:00:42.160 but like very very often, no matter how big a 1:00:42.280 --> 1:00:47.120 deal a story is, you know, online and stuff, American 1:00:47.200 --> 1:00:52.240 voters rarely vote based on foreign policy concerns. Yeah, I 1:00:52.280 --> 1:00:55.080 want to say, I'm not saying that's what matters morally. 1:00:55.080 --> 1:00:58.440 I'm just talking about like you're totally correct. Yeah, yeah, 1:00:58.520 --> 1:01:00.560 and especially in terms of your ability to influence something, 1:01:00.600 --> 1:01:02.800 it doesn't matter how much if other people don't. An 1:01:02.800 --> 1:01:05.360 election time, I want to maybe finish up. I've just 1:01:05.440 --> 1:01:08.360 knocked over bottle of os of procole alcohols. My office 1:01:08.400 --> 1:01:09.760 is rapidly becoming. 1:01:11.360 --> 1:01:11.880 Yourself. 1:01:13.120 --> 1:01:14.520 That's why I went to turn on the fan and 1:01:14.560 --> 1:01:19.960 open the door. Good times. So maybe I want to 1:01:19.960 --> 1:01:23.680 finish up before I evacuate. By saying that that it's 1:01:23.720 --> 1:01:25.760 something you can do, and like it's to give your 1:01:25.800 --> 1:01:27.960 time and money. I know that doesn't feel as good 1:01:28.000 --> 1:01:30.800 as like, yeah, you know, trying to do amateur ocin 1:01:31.080 --> 1:01:35.520 on Reddit. But you can help, actually, like and you 1:01:35.560 --> 1:01:38.120 can make a meaningful difference with a few bucks. And 1:01:38.160 --> 1:01:40.080 I know I sound like an MPR advert now, but 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:44.680 like the Rajarv Information Center has some good resources and 1:01:45.440 --> 1:01:47.640 like they they have, I'm not going to read them 1:01:47.720 --> 1:01:50.280 because it's very complicated. Like I said, it's bank transfer information. 1:01:50.480 --> 1:01:53.480 But if you feel helpless, you are not, Like you 1:01:53.520 --> 1:01:56.040 can do a lot with a little. You can raise money, 1:01:56.600 --> 1:01:59.680 you can help to organize donations, right that like this, 1:02:00.240 --> 1:02:02.520 these things make a difference. If someone who doesn't have 1:02:02.640 --> 1:02:05.080 water now gets a palette of bottled water, that makes 1:02:05.120 --> 1:02:07.720 a difference. If someone gets a heater for their home, 1:02:08.160 --> 1:02:10.680 that makes a difference. If even if it's someone whose 1:02:10.760 --> 1:02:13.720 kid has died, right like making their life a little 1:02:13.800 --> 1:02:16.560 less painful in a physical sense, rightly helping them be 1:02:16.560 --> 1:02:19.000 warm at night, that does make a difference. And you 1:02:19.040 --> 1:02:22.000 can do that. And if you want to make a difference, 1:02:22.040 --> 1:02:25.000 I would really encourage you to do whatever it is. 1:02:25.360 --> 1:02:27.439 And it doesn't have to be here, right, It's happened 1:02:27.440 --> 1:02:30.640 that there's like there's an ethnic cleansing happening in azabadiant 1:02:30.880 --> 1:02:34.440 there is an ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza, right, Like 1:02:34.520 --> 1:02:38.360 these are places where like you can show meaningful solidarity 1:02:38.440 --> 1:02:41.240 and support with a little bit of a donation or 1:02:41.240 --> 1:02:43.840 a fundraiser. It's happening at our fucking border, right, Like 1:02:43.920 --> 1:02:46.720 someone died at our border since I last recording. Someone 1:02:46.720 --> 1:02:49.480 else got run over by some child in the truck 1:02:50.520 --> 1:02:53.320 or like you can make a difference in a meaningful 1:02:53.360 --> 1:02:56.280 way with actions, And it's really easy to get sucked 1:02:56.320 --> 1:02:59.680 into like just posting into the void and feeling helpless, 1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:02.000 but like very helpful things you can do. 1:03:02.720 --> 1:03:07.440 Yeah, and you don't have to just you don't have 1:03:07.520 --> 1:03:09.680 to be like rich or have a lot of disposable 1:03:09.720 --> 1:03:12.520 income to do this. There's a lot of like traditionally 1:03:13.360 --> 1:03:17.480 anarchist communities have put on benefit shows to run to 1:03:17.640 --> 1:03:21.840 fundraise from an entire community. So that's not just you 1:03:21.880 --> 1:03:24.400 trying to you know, you know, put like your few 1:03:24.440 --> 1:03:27.680 pennies aside. Uh, there is there's ways, there's ways to 1:03:27.680 --> 1:03:31.640 do this that just involve you actually like getting involved 1:03:31.640 --> 1:03:35.040 with your like local culture, and a part of that 1:03:35.200 --> 1:03:38.640 is like it's not politics as fandom. It is metapolitics. 1:03:38.640 --> 1:03:41.040 It's where you actually put your politics into your into 1:03:41.080 --> 1:03:44.440 your actual everyday life and it influences the friends you have, 1:03:44.480 --> 1:03:47.680 the communities you have. So whether that's you know, a 1:03:47.680 --> 1:03:50.960 whole bunch of trans musicians doing a benefit show to 1:03:50.960 --> 1:03:54.080 to get donations to send over to Rajava or send 1:03:54.120 --> 1:03:57.360 over to to Gaza, or you know, there's a lot 1:03:57.400 --> 1:04:00.560 of other sorts of things that that is a way 1:04:00.600 --> 1:04:03.400 of actually having part of your politics be not just 1:04:03.600 --> 1:04:07.040 like consumption have not. It's not just like Twitter accounts 1:04:07.040 --> 1:04:11.160 with flags and your avatar. It's actually like living your 1:04:11.160 --> 1:04:14.200 life in a way that matches the things that you believe. 1:04:14.640 --> 1:04:17.320 And I think that that like, sorry, having spoken to 1:04:17.320 --> 1:04:20.200 people in Java in the Yepigae and the Yepijay and 1:04:20.200 --> 1:04:22.760 these other organizations, Like one of the things that makes 1:04:22.760 --> 1:04:25.720 them distinct from other militaries is that they are building 1:04:26.360 --> 1:04:28.680 the world they want to see while they're fighting against 1:04:28.680 --> 1:04:30.840 the thing that's killing it, right like they're destroying it. 1:04:31.360 --> 1:04:33.240 Like a lot of times we'll see leftist military is 1:04:33.240 --> 1:04:38.560 not exactly doing the equality. The leftism is about one hopes. 1:04:38.800 --> 1:04:42.960 So like you can participate in that, as Garrison said, 1:04:43.040 --> 1:04:45.280 right by doing the mutual aid by doing the benefit show, 1:04:45.280 --> 1:04:47.960 by doing the fundraiser, Like, you are making a world 1:04:48.480 --> 1:04:52.000 in which this shit will happen less when you do 1:04:52.120 --> 1:04:54.120 things to stop it happening or to ease the pain 1:04:54.160 --> 1:04:54.840 of it happening. 1:04:54.880 --> 1:04:55.080 Now. 1:04:55.280 --> 1:04:58.600 So and you're building communities, right and in strong communities 1:04:58.600 --> 1:05:02.040 are more resilient to this shit. Yeah, And like things 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:04.960 are getting pretty bleak and we're only going to get 1:05:04.960 --> 1:05:07.760 through them by helping each other and building a network 1:05:07.840 --> 1:05:10.479 that continue. Like, if I think about how much better 1:05:10.480 --> 1:05:12.760 the mutual aid response has been this time to what's 1:05:12.800 --> 1:05:14.880 happened at the border compared to what it was in May. 1:05:15.400 --> 1:05:18.240 That's because people built networks didn't go away, and it 1:05:18.720 --> 1:05:21.240 was good in May in part because we built networks 1:05:21.280 --> 1:05:24.360 that help to make being gun housed in San Diego 1:05:24.440 --> 1:05:28.560 feel be survivable. Right, And like those networks are resilient 1:05:28.720 --> 1:05:33.800 and they're flexible, and they help us like mentally process 1:05:33.920 --> 1:05:37.720 all the horrible shit and also physically help people. So yeah, 1:05:37.800 --> 1:05:40.080 you have that within your means too, Right, you have 1:05:40.120 --> 1:05:43.320 a signal on your telephone, like you can organize things. 1:05:43.720 --> 1:05:47.120 I don't have to feel helpless, but I feel dizzy 1:05:47.680 --> 1:05:50.240 due today, I suppose, but alcoholic that has feeled. So 1:05:50.680 --> 1:05:52.479 maybe that's a wonderful time to end. 1:05:52.400 --> 1:05:56.680 The All right, everyone, James is going to hallucinate in 1:05:56.760 --> 1:06:00.560 his office, and you, I hope are going to hallucinate 1:06:00.680 --> 1:06:01.680 wherever you happen. 1:06:01.480 --> 1:06:05.400 To be right now. Enjoy the better world. 1:06:06.120 --> 1:06:08.640 Hallucinate the better world. It might be the only way 1:06:08.680 --> 1:06:12.320 to live through one wonderful podcast. 1:06:12.360 --> 1:06:18.160 To Garrison Davis's everyone, Hi, it's me James. You thought 1:06:18.160 --> 1:06:21.360 I died, but I have not. I survived the I 1:06:21.440 --> 1:06:24.680 superbot alcohol fumes. I wouldn't advise doing that to yourself. 1:06:24.760 --> 1:06:27.160 Very unpleasant, But I'm back just to update you. We 1:06:27.240 --> 1:06:30.640 recorded that last week and I am recording this today 1:06:30.680 --> 1:06:32.760 before this goes out, So I'm recording this on the 1:06:32.800 --> 1:06:35.680 afternoon of Monday, the twenty third of October. I just 1:06:35.720 --> 1:06:39.680 wanted to update everyone. As Robert mentioned in the show, 1:06:40.840 --> 1:06:45.480 the weakening of the essay shrint and the fact that 1:06:45.520 --> 1:06:47.840 people are not able to be out and about because 1:06:47.840 --> 1:06:51.800 of these drone strikes, combined with the events in Israel 1:06:51.800 --> 1:06:54.880 and Palestine in the last couple of weeks, have resulted 1:06:54.920 --> 1:06:57.680 in a significant uptake in violence in the area. So 1:06:58.320 --> 1:07:00.680 I just wanted to update you on that. I've seen 1:07:00.720 --> 1:07:03.480 a decent amount of misinformation, which will be shocking to 1:07:03.520 --> 1:07:06.040 many of you on Twitter dot com. So there have 1:07:06.120 --> 1:07:10.000 been a series of rocket and uav UOV and manned 1:07:10.120 --> 1:07:14.680 aerial vehicle right drones drone attacks on US bases across 1:07:14.680 --> 1:07:19.000 the north of Iraq and across Syria. So some of 1:07:19.000 --> 1:07:21.040 those happened Altant, which is further south. Some of them 1:07:21.040 --> 1:07:24.480 happened to Al Hussaka. Some of them also happened to 1:07:24.520 --> 1:07:27.400 oil pipelines. And I would be very wary of people 1:07:27.440 --> 1:07:30.120 posting pictures of big fires and claiming that there are 1:07:30.160 --> 1:07:32.800 attacks at the US Bass. Every time I've seen that, 1:07:32.800 --> 1:07:34.920 it's actually been an attack on an oil pipeline, and 1:07:34.960 --> 1:07:37.800 either the person doesn't know that that's not a US 1:07:37.840 --> 1:07:40.400 base or they are wilfully being leading to try and 1:07:40.400 --> 1:07:43.320 get more clicks. People get paid on Twitter for engagement now, 1:07:43.440 --> 1:07:46.440 so I'm quite cynical about people's reasons for doing that. 1:07:46.480 --> 1:07:49.240 But there definitely have been attacks that they have not 1:07:49.400 --> 1:07:52.240 resulted in much loss of life. One contractor I believe 1:07:52.280 --> 1:07:56.160 did lose their lives due to Carliac incident that happened 1:07:56.200 --> 1:07:59.440 when they were sheltering from a what turned out to 1:07:59.440 --> 1:08:01.520 be a false alarm of a drone attack, but no 1:08:01.600 --> 1:08:04.800 one has been directly killed by the drone munitions. There 1:08:04.880 --> 1:08:08.880 have been a number of people killed in increasing conflict 1:08:08.880 --> 1:08:13.160 in the area. Both one person was killed in Khamishlo 1:08:13.720 --> 1:08:15.520 very very close to where I stayed. Actually, you can 1:08:15.560 --> 1:08:18.519 probably see it from my Houtolium in a car bomb, 1:08:18.560 --> 1:08:21.000 which is not a normal thing to happen in the 1:08:21.040 --> 1:08:23.440 middle of that city, a car bomb going off, So 1:08:23.479 --> 1:08:27.720 that's obviously caused for concern for some people in Derrazor. 1:08:28.280 --> 1:08:32.959 SDF and coalition forces have conducted a number of operations 1:08:32.960 --> 1:08:36.679 against ISIS sleeper cells who are still there, arrested, obtained 1:08:36.720 --> 1:08:39.519 a number of suspected ISIS members. They've also been fighting 1:08:39.520 --> 1:08:43.599 against Iranian backed militias across the Euphrates. We've also seen 1:08:44.720 --> 1:08:48.120 fighting between the Peshmerga, so that those are the military 1:08:48.120 --> 1:08:51.920 forces of the Kurdist down regional government in that area 1:08:51.960 --> 1:08:56.400 of Iraq and the Iraqi Army around the Macmaal refugee camp, 1:08:56.520 --> 1:08:59.240 which is a refugee camp for Kurdish people who have 1:08:59.320 --> 1:09:03.599 fled from turky And of course we've seen a lot 1:09:03.640 --> 1:09:07.840 of threats, a lot of even fighting inside Iran, but 1:09:08.040 --> 1:09:10.559 it it's generally be an Iranian back to relations attacking 1:09:11.280 --> 1:09:16.040 US spaces so far across that whole area. So I 1:09:16.080 --> 1:09:18.200 just wanted to update you on those things. Obviously we'll 1:09:18.280 --> 1:09:21.000 keep updating you on them, and also to just suggest 1:09:21.040 --> 1:09:24.639 once again that people verify the sources of information because 1:09:24.680 --> 1:09:26.800 I have seen, especially about this area where I think 1:09:27.000 --> 1:09:29.640 literacy is very low among the general US populations, and 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:31.720 outrageous claims being made by people who either don't know 1:09:31.760 --> 1:09:34.840 what they're talking about or are wilfully misleading people. So 1:09:34.880 --> 1:09:38.479 I wanted to counsel people to be concerned about that. 1:09:38.520 --> 1:09:40.479 We don't have exact I don't have exact numbers of 1:09:40.479 --> 1:09:42.839 the numbers of drone attacks. I'm looking at a Pentagon 1:09:42.840 --> 1:09:45.120 press conference that happened thirty nine minutes ago, and then 1:09:45.840 --> 1:09:48.840 they're not giving them out there. So I have asked 1:09:48.880 --> 1:09:50.519 them for comment on a couple of things. So didn't 1:09:50.560 --> 1:09:54.360 email me back, very sad ghosting me. Bit, Yeah, that's 1:09:54.400 --> 1:09:56.519 the latest information on that. I wanted to make sure 1:09:56.520 --> 1:09:58.160 that we have the leader's update for you. 1:10:14.120 --> 1:10:17.240 Welcome back to it could happen here. I am Robert Evans, 1:10:17.320 --> 1:10:21.559 and this is a podcast about things falling apart. Sometimes 1:10:21.600 --> 1:10:24.479 it's about how to make things not fall apart, and 1:10:24.560 --> 1:10:27.800 other times it's more about enduring it. Today is more 1:10:27.840 --> 1:10:30.080 on the endurance side of things, and we're talking about 1:10:30.080 --> 1:10:32.880 a subject that we get a lot of requests about here. 1:10:33.360 --> 1:10:35.680 We've discussed this a year or so ago with one 1:10:35.680 --> 1:10:38.559 of our guests, a great Carl Casarta. We're talking about 1:10:38.600 --> 1:10:42.280 like security culture, and particularly the aspect of security culture 1:10:42.280 --> 1:10:45.799 that involves digital devices and how to communicate with your friends' 1:10:45.800 --> 1:10:51.360 affinity groups, whomever via your phone essentially or your computer. 1:10:51.840 --> 1:10:54.519 This is a thing where there's a huge amount of 1:10:54.560 --> 1:10:58.040 disinformation as to which apps are safe. What does it 1:10:58.080 --> 1:11:00.479 actually mean to say that an app is a cryptied 1:11:01.160 --> 1:11:03.599 How far does encryption get you? What sort of like 1:11:03.760 --> 1:11:08.800 cultural things come alongside the actual, like physical reality of 1:11:09.240 --> 1:11:11.360 the security of the device in order to kind of 1:11:11.400 --> 1:11:14.840 make a comprehensive security profile. We're gonna be talking about 1:11:14.840 --> 1:11:16.799 all that today and hopefully giving you some good advice 1:11:16.880 --> 1:11:19.519 on what you can trust. Because I am the furthest 1:11:19.560 --> 1:11:22.519 thing in the world from a technical expert. We have 1:11:22.600 --> 1:11:26.960 two actual experts with us today. Carolyn Senders and Cooper 1:11:27.040 --> 1:11:30.760 Quinton have both recently published a paper alongside several other 1:11:30.800 --> 1:11:35.639 authors Leila Wagner, Tim Bernard, Ami Meta, and Justin Hendricks 1:11:36.520 --> 1:11:40.080 called What is Secure? An Analysis of Popular Messaging Apps, 1:11:40.080 --> 1:11:43.839 and it's it's basically going over what is the actual 1:11:43.920 --> 1:11:47.240 level of security with a number of things like Telegram, 1:11:47.360 --> 1:11:52.280 you know, Telegram's private messaging system, Facebook Messenger, Apple Message, 1:11:52.680 --> 1:11:55.960 or I Message. I guess it's called and obviously signal 1:11:56.000 --> 1:11:59.120 and kind of as a spoiler, signal is your best bet. 1:11:59.160 --> 1:12:01.760 But that also isn't where you should end, right, I 1:12:01.760 --> 1:12:03.439 think we want to also talk about kind of like 1:12:03.520 --> 1:12:06.719 why and to what extent that's the case. But anyway, 1:12:06.880 --> 1:12:09.080 I'm going to turn things over to Carolyn and Cooper 1:12:09.120 --> 1:12:12.840 now because I have talked enough about this. Hey, guys, 1:12:12.880 --> 1:12:13.639 welcome to the show. 1:12:15.120 --> 1:12:17.200 Hey, Robert, thanks so much for having us on. 1:12:17.720 --> 1:12:19.320 Yeah ah yeah, thank you so much. 1:12:19.560 --> 1:12:23.479 A big fan of the podcast, so always lovely, really 1:12:23.520 --> 1:12:24.280 lovely to be here. 1:12:24.760 --> 1:12:25.800 Yeah, thank you so much. 1:12:26.400 --> 1:12:29.280 Yeah, it's really lovely to have you both again. Listeners. 1:12:29.320 --> 1:12:32.040 If you want to take a look at this their paper, 1:12:32.040 --> 1:12:34.439 if you just google what is Secure and Analysis of 1:12:34.479 --> 1:12:37.439 Popular Messaging Apps, you'll find the Tech Policy Press has 1:12:37.680 --> 1:12:40.200 a summary of it that's pretty quick. The full paper 1:12:40.280 --> 1:12:43.160 is eighty six pages or so. I also recommend reading that, 1:12:43.240 --> 1:12:45.160 but if you wanted to give this, you know, the 1:12:45.200 --> 1:12:48.120 summary a skim before you continue, that might help. But 1:12:48.360 --> 1:12:50.120 I kind of wanted to start by asking you, guys, 1:12:50.840 --> 1:12:54.759 what is it that makes signal a good option for people? 1:12:54.880 --> 1:12:55.040 Right? 1:12:55.040 --> 1:12:57.479 Because I think most folks you describe it as sort 1:12:57.479 --> 1:13:00.400 of security folklore, right, this the stuff that you hear 1:13:00.439 --> 1:13:02.960 about security from your friends, and if you're not a 1:13:03.000 --> 1:13:05.479 technical person, you kind of just like trust what the 1:13:05.520 --> 1:13:07.360 folks around you were saying. And that was sort of 1:13:07.360 --> 1:13:10.360 how I got into Signal. Right, I'm not a technical person, 1:13:10.400 --> 1:13:12.479 but people I knew and trusted who were were like, 1:13:12.520 --> 1:13:13.519 this is your best option? 1:13:14.200 --> 1:13:15.080 Yeah, thank you so much. 1:13:15.200 --> 1:13:17.280 That's such a good question, and I think Cooper and 1:13:17.320 --> 1:13:20.920 I probably have similar but also like very different answers 1:13:21.000 --> 1:13:21.320 to it. 1:13:21.800 --> 1:13:23.719 Cooper, I can go first if you want. 1:13:24.400 --> 1:13:26.000 One of the things I love about Signal is it's 1:13:26.000 --> 1:13:29.639 just really easy to use. It's in and encrypted, it's 1:13:29.640 --> 1:13:32.080 a messaging app. There's not a lot of stuff on it, 1:13:32.120 --> 1:13:34.800 but you can do a lot with it. So you 1:13:34.800 --> 1:13:38.160 can do video calls, you can send actually pretty large 1:13:38.160 --> 1:13:41.120 files like PDFs. You can have drag and drop stuff, 1:13:41.520 --> 1:13:45.160 it's like such a low threshold for use for users 1:13:45.479 --> 1:13:47.600 because it is a messaging app, but it does so 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:50.720 many different kinds of things. But then related to that, 1:13:50.760 --> 1:13:54.360 it's also actually quite minimal. So the paper which everyone 1:13:54.400 --> 1:13:57.559 should read, and we'll probably get into this later. Different 1:13:57.600 --> 1:14:02.960 apps like Telegram or of Facebook's Messenger app, for example, 1:14:03.160 --> 1:14:05.240 have have this thing we've been. 1:14:05.160 --> 1:14:06.280 Calling a feature bloat. 1:14:06.800 --> 1:14:09.599 They are messaging services that actually feel a bit more 1:14:09.680 --> 1:14:11.920 like social networks if you look at the amount of 1:14:11.960 --> 1:14:14.280 stuff that's on there, and by stuff, I don't just 1:14:14.360 --> 1:14:17.320 mean like stickers, I mean if you look at there's 1:14:17.360 --> 1:14:20.519 all these sort of specific and strange settings you can 1:14:20.600 --> 1:14:23.360 use to have all different kinds of messages and all 1:14:23.360 --> 1:14:26.720 different kinds of privacy settings, and all privacy settings. 1:14:26.400 --> 1:14:27.360 Are really really great. 1:14:28.240 --> 1:14:32.479 Because Telegram and Facebook Messenger are not encrypted by default, 1:14:32.520 --> 1:14:34.880 actually some of those settings can make you feel more 1:14:34.880 --> 1:14:37.160 secure when you're not so. Kind of the beauty of 1:14:37.200 --> 1:14:40.200 Signal is that out of the box, it's incredibly secure. 1:14:40.840 --> 1:14:43.920 It's an encrypted they're not holding any data about you. 1:14:44.280 --> 1:14:44.679 I believe. 1:14:44.720 --> 1:14:47.280 The only only day they hold is like when you've 1:14:47.479 --> 1:14:50.520 like when a phone number or a profile has downloaded 1:14:50.600 --> 1:14:53.960 Signal like when you've when you've signed up. But again 1:14:54.000 --> 1:14:59.000 it's it's incredibly easy to use. And another thing is, 1:14:59.200 --> 1:15:00.640 you know, if this was a few years ago, we've 1:15:00.680 --> 1:15:02.760 been looking at wire for example, when the nice things 1:15:02.800 --> 1:15:05.880 about Signal, and this might be controversial to some designers, 1:15:05.960 --> 1:15:08.719 is that it does follow modern design patterns and standards. 1:15:08.720 --> 1:15:11.680 So if you're using an iOS or Android version, like 1:15:11.840 --> 1:15:14.639 there are buttons in places where you expect them to be. 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:20.280 Signal is not perfectly designed, but it is quite usable. Yeah, 1:15:20.320 --> 1:15:22.280 So for me, that's kind of what I think makes 1:15:22.320 --> 1:15:23.839 it makes it really wonderful. 1:15:24.120 --> 1:15:27.280 Yeah, it's definitely as much as I love it, and 1:15:27.320 --> 1:15:30.320 it's my like standard messaging app I do every now 1:15:30.360 --> 1:15:32.000 and then run into the thing where like my friends 1:15:32.000 --> 1:15:34.080 will call me through Signal, which is great if you 1:15:34.080 --> 1:15:36.599 need a call to be secure, but it's not nearly 1:15:36.640 --> 1:15:38.720 as good, Like it drops a lot more often than 1:15:38.760 --> 1:15:41.160 a regular phone call and I'm like, we're just trying 1:15:41.200 --> 1:15:43.120 to meet at the movie theater. It's okay if the 1:15:43.240 --> 1:15:46.720 NSA no, right, Like, I've definitely. 1:15:46.400 --> 1:15:48.240 Had that with friends where I'm like I'm like, yeah, 1:15:48.240 --> 1:15:52.080 I'm like, we're just calling to talk about like your dog. 1:15:52.560 --> 1:15:56.280 It's probably fine, Yeah, the FBI can have this stuff. 1:15:56.600 --> 1:16:00.280 Yeah, please send, please send, please send dog picks through 1:16:00.720 --> 1:16:01.960 all messaging apps. 1:16:03.200 --> 1:16:06.280 You know. But on that note, it's uh writing, writing 1:16:06.520 --> 1:16:10.920 usable software that is also secure is really hard, right, 1:16:10.960 --> 1:16:15.000 And like as a like as cryptographer, I'm not a cryptographer, 1:16:15.080 --> 1:16:18.920 but like as somebody cryptographer adjacent, we got that wrong 1:16:19.040 --> 1:16:22.920 for a long time, right, like before Signal the problem, 1:16:23.120 --> 1:16:25.800 you know, there were the the the sort of most 1:16:25.960 --> 1:16:30.360 used encryption methods were probably uh PGP email, which is 1:16:30.360 --> 1:16:33.559 a method for encrypting email, and off the record chats, 1:16:33.640 --> 1:16:37.200 and both of those none of those ever got to 1:16:37.360 --> 1:16:40.760 the sort of level of user base that Signal and 1:16:41.080 --> 1:16:45.679 and certainly not WhatsApp have, right, And and that's largely 1:16:45.760 --> 1:16:50.320 because they were pretty much unusable, like PGP, almost entirely 1:16:50.400 --> 1:16:54.799 unusable even by cryptography professionals, right, even by computer security 1:16:54.800 --> 1:16:59.519 professionals like ourselves. OTR chat total pain in the butt, right, 1:16:59.600 --> 1:17:04.120 like just a real nightmare to use. So, like Signal, 1:17:04.320 --> 1:17:06.679 there are still some rough edges, and we talked about 1:17:06.680 --> 1:17:09.720 some of those in our paper, But overall, I think 1:17:09.760 --> 1:17:12.000 that the big, the big innovation they've had is just 1:17:12.640 --> 1:17:15.439 remembering that what people want to do on a chat 1:17:15.479 --> 1:17:18.280 app is not encrypt things. What people want to do 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:20.240 on a chat app is they want to they want 1:17:20.240 --> 1:17:23.479 to chat right. And and the second that that that 1:17:23.560 --> 1:17:25.760 the security sort of gets in the way of that, 1:17:26.320 --> 1:17:28.400 people will stop using it and go find something that's 1:17:28.479 --> 1:17:31.479 more usable. And it seems like that's been Signals sort 1:17:31.479 --> 1:17:35.759 of guiding star and it's and they've you know, doing 1:17:35.800 --> 1:17:38.479 the doing the most secure thing that you can well 1:17:38.560 --> 1:17:44.160 still being fun and usable to actually just chat on right, 1:17:44.240 --> 1:17:46.400 And I think that that has served them quite well. 1:17:47.240 --> 1:17:51.280 Yeah, I think there's it's it's so important. One of 1:17:51.320 --> 1:17:53.400 I think one of the things that that contributes to 1:17:53.479 --> 1:17:57.840 good overall security is setting yourself up for success, which 1:17:57.880 --> 1:18:00.400 means setting yourself up for a system that can function 1:18:00.479 --> 1:18:02.360 well if you're lazy, which is one of the nice 1:18:02.400 --> 1:18:04.240 things that you know, with Signal, you don't have to 1:18:04.280 --> 1:18:06.559 worry about like opting in and out and like selecting 1:18:06.560 --> 1:18:09.280 a bunch of stuff. It's pretty safe, especially for a 1:18:09.280 --> 1:18:12.479 normal person's uses right out of the box, which is 1:18:12.600 --> 1:18:15.479 huge and kind of in the same line as that 1:18:15.600 --> 1:18:18.639 is the fact that because Signal doesn't store metadata, you're 1:18:18.640 --> 1:18:22.200 not relying upon them being like committed, you know, anti 1:18:22.200 --> 1:18:25.879 state actors or whatever like, because they don't have access 1:18:25.920 --> 1:18:28.280 to the thing that, for example, Facebook will hand over 1:18:28.360 --> 1:18:31.000 to the cops if the cops just like breathe in 1:18:31.040 --> 1:18:31.599 their direction. 1:18:33.479 --> 1:18:36.120 Yeah, that's that's exactly right, And that's that is That 1:18:36.200 --> 1:18:38.200 is the other really cool thing about Signal. You know, we, 1:18:38.880 --> 1:18:42.000 as Carolyn said, the only data that Signal gives over 1:18:42.080 --> 1:18:46.759 in response to a subpoena is the time that the 1:18:46.800 --> 1:18:49.040 phone number signed up for Signal account and the last 1:18:49.040 --> 1:18:51.559 time it connected to the Signal server. And the reason 1:18:51.560 --> 1:18:55.600 we know that is because Signal publishes transparency reports with 1:18:55.720 --> 1:18:58.800 the full text and full response of any subpoena that 1:18:58.840 --> 1:19:02.320 they get, so like, we can actually just see in 1:19:02.360 --> 1:19:04.960 the responses that all they've given over is these two 1:19:05.000 --> 1:19:07.599 pieces of information, because that's all they have, and they've 1:19:07.600 --> 1:19:10.599 done some pretty clever things to make that be. 1:19:10.600 --> 1:19:13.599 The case, right, And that's actually so different than how 1:19:14.040 --> 1:19:18.280 other companies are i think, reporting on either subpoenas or 1:19:18.400 --> 1:19:19.080 any kind of. 1:19:20.720 --> 1:19:22.479 Weight that law enforcement puts on them. 1:19:22.840 --> 1:19:25.840 So for our report, I don't remember how much's it's 1:19:25.880 --> 1:19:29.000 mentioned in the report actually, but we did go through 1:19:29.240 --> 1:19:34.040 and look at Apple Meta and I think Google, like 1:19:34.120 --> 1:19:36.599 in their own transparency reports to try to get a 1:19:36.640 --> 1:19:41.160 sense of how that would stack up in comparison to Signals. 1:19:41.880 --> 1:19:45.440 I think in some cases it's saying like they received 1:19:46.160 --> 1:19:49.880 some kind of like notification, but like no, nothing really 1:19:49.880 --> 1:19:54.120 clear or specific on what they received from law enforcement 1:19:54.240 --> 1:19:56.840 or government, but rather just that they received one. And 1:19:56.880 --> 1:19:58.840 so that's also the really great thing about Signal is 1:19:58.880 --> 1:20:02.880 you are getting all this information that you're not getting 1:20:03.320 --> 1:20:05.880 from other companies or platforms. 1:20:06.479 --> 1:20:09.880 Yeah, you know, I wanted to kind of in the 1:20:09.920 --> 1:20:12.719 same subject and going back to we kind of opened 1:20:12.720 --> 1:20:16.760 this introducing the concept that y'all introduced me to. I 1:20:16.760 --> 1:20:18.920 guess I was aware of this, but not the terminology 1:20:18.960 --> 1:20:21.519 security folklore, and I wanted to chat a little bit 1:20:21.520 --> 1:20:23.479 about kind of the most recent example of this something 1:20:23.760 --> 1:20:26.000 a lot of folks have probably been wondering about since 1:20:26.000 --> 1:20:28.640 we started talking about Signal, which is that roughly a 1:20:28.680 --> 1:20:32.760 week before y'all and I sat down to talk about this, 1:20:33.760 --> 1:20:37.720 a kind of viral info meme started coming through that 1:20:37.840 --> 1:20:41.640 was like Signal has a zero day exploit, which is 1:20:42.000 --> 1:20:44.559 basically a hole that a hacker found in an Apple 1:20:44.640 --> 1:20:48.840 program that is that can't expose you. You have to turn 1:20:49.000 --> 1:20:52.840 off link previews, right, which is that when you when 1:20:52.880 --> 1:20:55.479 someone sends you like a link to an article in Signal, 1:20:55.680 --> 1:20:58.160 you get a little preview, not not dissimilar to how 1:21:00.120 --> 1:21:02.519 I think to be fair, just based on my very 1:21:02.560 --> 1:21:05.160 limited knowledge, that is, when I think about, like, what 1:21:05.240 --> 1:21:07.960 are potential holes in Signal, I don't think it's unreasonable 1:21:07.960 --> 1:21:11.799 to be concerned about that specific feature. But that warning 1:21:12.000 --> 1:21:14.479 was not what it kind of seemed to be basically 1:21:14.560 --> 1:21:16.120 or not as accurate as I think a lot of 1:21:16.160 --> 1:21:17.200 people took it as being. 1:21:17.240 --> 1:21:17.519 I know. 1:21:17.600 --> 1:21:19.280 I'll I'll tell I'll turn it over to you, guys. 1:21:19.280 --> 1:21:20.719 I think that's the next thing I want to talk about. 1:21:21.040 --> 1:21:24.680 I'll turn it over to Cooper who had you had? Ah? 1:21:25.640 --> 1:21:27.040 You have a lot of feels about that. 1:21:27.320 --> 1:21:31.080 I have so many feelings about this. I was working 1:21:31.120 --> 1:21:35.080 on this all weekend. So this Yeah, so this copy pasta. 1:21:35.320 --> 1:21:38.759 I'm calling this like the Signal copy pasta. Yeah, which 1:21:38.800 --> 1:21:42.240 is a term from you know, four Chan and other 1:21:42.280 --> 1:21:43.400 horrible Internet places. 1:21:43.400 --> 1:21:47.880 But some media audience is probably Internet enough. 1:21:48.680 --> 1:21:48.880 Yeah. 1:21:48.880 --> 1:21:51.439 I'm gonna guess a good half of the people listening 1:21:51.439 --> 1:21:53.320 at least got that message. 1:21:53.360 --> 1:21:53.719 Yeah. 1:21:53.800 --> 1:21:57.840 Yeah, And it's it's like, first of all, this is 1:21:57.880 --> 1:22:01.639 not if you if you have a zero DA and signal, 1:22:01.640 --> 1:22:03.439 which is it, which is an exploit for signal that 1:22:03.479 --> 1:22:06.200 has been unpatched, that has not been patched by the vendor, 1:22:06.240 --> 1:22:09.000 so you can actively exploit it. There are no people 1:22:09.040 --> 1:22:15.040 in the world who would choose to quietly leak this 1:22:15.240 --> 1:22:18.880 over you know, over vague signal texts. There are two 1:22:18.960 --> 1:22:23.040 types of people. One uh, you know, people like us 1:22:23.080 --> 1:22:25.479 that would bring this to signal immediately and get them 1:22:25.520 --> 1:22:28.360 to patch it to protect the you know, millions of 1:22:28.400 --> 1:22:31.120 high risk users that you signal, or to the type 1:22:31.120 --> 1:22:33.840 of people that would go sell this exploit to some 1:22:34.200 --> 1:22:36.320 horrible company that would use it, you know, sell it 1:22:36.360 --> 1:22:39.680 to Saudi Arabia or something and use it to kill activists. 1:22:40.080 --> 1:22:42.040 Right, Like there is and there's no in between. 1:22:42.080 --> 1:22:45.760 There's nobody that is going to quietly leak this for 1:22:45.960 --> 1:22:48.160 you know, just for fun with vague details. 1:22:48.240 --> 1:22:48.400 Right. 1:22:48.920 --> 1:22:51.919 So, so this this message set up red flags immediately, 1:22:51.960 --> 1:22:56.719 and like it's because I really do not like ling previews. 1:22:56.760 --> 1:22:59.439 And in our paper we discussed some of the issues 1:22:59.439 --> 1:23:02.240 that we have with link previews. You know, we think 1:23:02.280 --> 1:23:05.759 that they can they can leak some information about your 1:23:06.280 --> 1:23:09.760 chats to the owner of the website. Right, we think 1:23:09.800 --> 1:23:12.120 it's a kind of a large attack service. It's not 1:23:12.240 --> 1:23:13.160 super necessary. 1:23:13.560 --> 1:23:17.080 Would you mind explaining to actually the audience to like 1:23:17.680 --> 1:23:21.280 a little bit about what what we found when looking 1:23:21.320 --> 1:23:22.320 at link previews. 1:23:22.960 --> 1:23:26.320 Yeah. So, the way that link previews work is when 1:23:26.360 --> 1:23:29.160 you the way that they work on Signal and on 1:23:29.200 --> 1:23:32.920 WhatsApp is that when you send a link to somebody, 1:23:33.560 --> 1:23:37.840 the Signal app or WhatsApp goes and like fetches the 1:23:37.880 --> 1:23:39.960 web page that that you know for that link, right, 1:23:40.000 --> 1:23:42.439 It goes and downloads, you know, downloads the content of 1:23:42.479 --> 1:23:46.519 that link and gets a There are some there's some 1:23:46.560 --> 1:23:50.519 special HTML tags that describe, you know, sort of what 1:23:50.560 --> 1:23:52.760 the page is about, what the title of the page is. 1:23:52.680 --> 1:23:54.080 And like an image for the page. 1:23:54.320 --> 1:23:56.200 And it gets those tags and it puts them all 1:23:56.200 --> 1:23:58.800 together in this little package and then sends that all 1:23:58.840 --> 1:24:01.840 as part of the signalsage. So when you put a 1:24:01.880 --> 1:24:03.960 link in Signal, your phone actually goes out and gets 1:24:04.000 --> 1:24:05.960 that web page, and it gets that web page with 1:24:06.160 --> 1:24:11.680 a what's called the user agent, which is like a 1:24:11.720 --> 1:24:15.280 piece of text that's attached to the request that uniquely 1:24:15.439 --> 1:24:19.639 that that identifies it as being a request from Signal 1:24:20.000 --> 1:24:23.000 and from like from Signal and from your IP address. Right, 1:24:23.479 --> 1:24:25.600 So when you put a link in the owner of 1:24:25.640 --> 1:24:28.160 that website, whoever has the logs for that website, can 1:24:28.200 --> 1:24:32.200 know that somebody at your IP address is using Signal 1:24:32.240 --> 1:24:33.759 and sending this link over signal. 1:24:34.960 --> 1:24:38.280 What we're what our concern is is that if that link. 1:24:38.160 --> 1:24:44.000 Is unique, then anybody else who visits that link can 1:24:44.040 --> 1:24:48.240 be inferred to be somebody that you are talking with 1:24:48.320 --> 1:24:52.560 over signal, right, and so like this can be this 1:24:53.000 --> 1:24:56.720 can be a good an interesting a source of intelligence 1:24:57.120 --> 1:25:01.759 for website owners, especially for big websites that can easily 1:25:01.800 --> 1:25:05.240 generate unique links with like tracking parameters at the end 1:25:05.280 --> 1:25:06.240 of them, right, Like when you. 1:25:06.160 --> 1:25:07.919 Share a. 1:25:08.800 --> 1:25:11.439 Instagram post, and like at the end it's like question 1:25:11.520 --> 1:25:14.040 mark I G, S H I D equals you know, 1:25:14.160 --> 1:25:16.720 a long string of numbers and letters, right, or a 1:25:16.800 --> 1:25:19.639 Twitter post where you know T equals a long string 1:25:19.640 --> 1:25:20.400 of letters and numbers. 1:25:20.479 --> 1:25:20.599 Right. 1:25:20.680 --> 1:25:23.080 That makes a unique link, and then anybody who. 1:25:22.920 --> 1:25:26.240 Visits that same link can be determined to be somebody 1:25:26.240 --> 1:25:31.400 that you're speaking with over signal. So and also WhatsApp 1:25:32.000 --> 1:25:34.840 and so so for that reason. 1:25:34.880 --> 1:25:39.760 We we we think that Signal and WhatsApp should turn 1:25:39.840 --> 1:25:43.640 link previews off by by default because we think that 1:25:43.640 --> 1:25:44.879 that's an unncessary information. 1:25:45.000 --> 1:25:50.360 Link Signal and WhatsApps pushback on that is that link 1:25:50.439 --> 1:25:56.040 previews are a core feature that people demand, and if 1:25:56.080 --> 1:25:58.879 they if they were to turn off link previews by default, 1:25:59.400 --> 1:26:02.240 there were the people would leave the platform for less 1:26:02.240 --> 1:26:05.320 secure platforms like Telegram. 1:26:05.760 --> 1:26:07.439 So yeah, I mean, I don't want to tell them 1:26:07.439 --> 1:26:09.760 their business, because I'm sure they have data on this, 1:26:09.880 --> 1:26:15.680 but I've never thought about link previews as being a 1:26:15.760 --> 1:26:17.240 thing that I needed. 1:26:18.360 --> 1:26:20.920 It's like, yeah, I think it's I think it's one 1:26:20.960 --> 1:26:24.000 of those things. And you know, we haven't necessarily done 1:26:24.280 --> 1:26:29.600 like extensive general design research in this right, Like we 1:26:29.640 --> 1:26:33.040 haven't surveyed like three thousand people in the US. We 1:26:33.080 --> 1:26:36.559 have had like a Pew Research survey across countries and 1:26:36.640 --> 1:26:38.320 be like, what are your thoughts on link previews? 1:26:39.200 --> 1:26:40.360 But I would. 1:26:40.040 --> 1:26:43.840 Probably argue because it is it is included in so 1:26:44.000 --> 1:26:47.360 much of modern messaging apps that we now assume it's 1:26:47.439 --> 1:26:50.679 like a core feature. One thing I will give Signal 1:26:50.800 --> 1:26:53.439 that I think is amazing that other apps don't do, 1:26:53.560 --> 1:26:56.080 and this is true of WhatsApp is pretty much every 1:26:56.120 --> 1:26:59.720 feature except for encryption you can there's something you can 1:26:59.800 --> 1:27:01.040 talk or turn off. 1:27:01.200 --> 1:27:05.920 Right, So, like link preview already was available for people. 1:27:05.800 --> 1:27:09.720 To turn off on signal, WhatsApp does not allow that, 1:27:10.200 --> 1:27:14.280 and it seems like they're making no moves to allow 1:27:15.160 --> 1:27:18.120 that future to be optional to turn on or off. 1:27:18.439 --> 1:27:20.080 But that is I will say, one of the things that's. 1:27:19.920 --> 1:27:23.639 Really lovely about Signal that is so different from modern 1:27:23.840 --> 1:27:27.720 design and modern like big tech platforms and just platforms 1:27:27.720 --> 1:27:30.519 in general, is that those a lot of features are optional, 1:27:30.560 --> 1:27:33.880 whereas you know, WhatsApp in meta's sort of stance on 1:27:33.920 --> 1:27:36.400 design is that a lot of things are not optional, 1:27:36.439 --> 1:27:38.880 that those are things users would want. Why would we 1:27:38.920 --> 1:27:43.720 make foundational elements like link previews optional? And you're just 1:27:43.760 --> 1:27:47.439 like starting like gesturing wildly, but like you know, it's like, well, 1:27:47.720 --> 1:27:49.679 you don't know what people want, And I mean, what's 1:27:49.680 --> 1:27:52.000 the harm in turning off some of some of these things, right? 1:27:52.640 --> 1:27:55.759 You know, like maybe maybe people don't want to receive gifts. 1:27:55.840 --> 1:27:57.799 I don't know, maybe they don't want to receive stickers. 1:27:57.800 --> 1:28:00.479 Why don't you like let them have that option. What's 1:28:00.479 --> 1:28:01.439 the harm that could happen? 1:28:01.640 --> 1:28:01.920 Yeah? 1:28:02.160 --> 1:28:03.920 Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. 1:28:04.000 --> 1:28:05.760 Yeah, two things I want to say on that. 1:28:06.160 --> 1:28:08.879 One is one is that at first we should acknowledge 1:28:08.920 --> 1:28:11.120 that this it turns out that there was no zero. 1:28:10.920 --> 1:28:13.040 Day, there was no vulnerability. 1:28:12.720 --> 1:28:17.559 Yeah, this was absolutely just something that that spread virally 1:28:17.640 --> 1:28:19.920 out of nowhere. I'd be really interested to find out 1:28:19.960 --> 1:28:22.920 what the origin of this copy past I was, but 1:28:23.000 --> 1:28:24.559 I haven't. I haven't been able to. 1:28:24.640 --> 1:28:27.640 But it's I'm curious about that as well, because I 1:28:27.680 --> 1:28:29.479 was in another group threw that was like, we really 1:28:29.479 --> 1:28:31.400 need outside auditors to look at these. 1:28:31.240 --> 1:28:33.320 And I was like, we have a whole report that 1:28:33.400 --> 1:28:35.400 we wrote that didn't look at this. 1:28:36.360 --> 1:28:40.280 Speaking of outside auditors, I gotta pause you guys just 1:28:40.280 --> 1:28:43.240 a second because it is time for an ad break, 1:28:43.840 --> 1:28:48.040 So please spend your money and then come back to 1:28:48.120 --> 1:28:53.200 learn more. Ah and we're back. Okay, sorry about that, Cooper, Carolyn. 1:28:53.800 --> 1:28:56.160 You may continue as you were. 1:28:56.560 --> 1:28:58.599 The other thing I was, I was going to say 1:28:59.200 --> 1:29:03.639 that the idea that anybody would leave WhatsApp because they 1:29:03.680 --> 1:29:07.680 stopped having link previews is completely preposterous to me. 1:29:07.840 --> 1:29:14.120 Like Clownish has over two billion users, they are the 1:29:15.520 --> 1:29:19.720 you know, in a position to set the standard for 1:29:19.800 --> 1:29:24.440 what people expect from a messaging app. 1:29:24.280 --> 1:29:27.519 And so like they could do things like turn on 1:29:27.720 --> 1:29:31.439 disappearing messages by default and change that culture. They could 1:29:31.479 --> 1:29:33.640 do things like turn off link previews by default and 1:29:33.720 --> 1:29:36.600 change that culture. Like, they could do these things, and 1:29:36.920 --> 1:29:40.599 you know they would you know, they would not lose 1:29:41.479 --> 1:29:44.400 enough users to even. 1:29:44.240 --> 1:29:45.280 Notice or care about. 1:29:45.439 --> 1:29:45.559 Right. 1:29:45.640 --> 1:29:45.840 Yeah. 1:29:46.040 --> 1:29:48.360 They are the only people in the position in the world, 1:29:48.360 --> 1:29:51.600 in the position to decide what the culture should be. 1:29:51.640 --> 1:29:53.720 And this is what they've decided the culture should be. 1:29:54.400 --> 1:29:54.799 Totally. 1:29:55.200 --> 1:29:57.160 I hate to break it to you, but if WhatsApp 1:29:57.439 --> 1:30:00.240 just got rid of link previews, I'm just throwing whole 1:30:00.280 --> 1:30:00.960 phone into. 1:30:00.800 --> 1:30:03.240 The garbage garbage can, getting rid of it. 1:30:03.160 --> 1:30:05.320 Just tossing it back to a landline. 1:30:05.680 --> 1:30:08.040 Yeah, I'm just gonna eat it into a river. I 1:30:08.040 --> 1:30:10.559 feel like I don't need this anymore. Actually, I'm going. 1:30:10.439 --> 1:30:12.720 Back to carrier pigeons. That's how far back I'm going 1:30:12.800 --> 1:30:13.040 to go. 1:30:13.439 --> 1:30:15.360 I mean that that does kind of lead into the 1:30:15.400 --> 1:30:17.599 next thing I wanted to talk about, which is sort 1:30:17.640 --> 1:30:22.880 of the other wing from security folklore, which is security nihilism. 1:30:23.520 --> 1:30:26.320 And yeah, this is kind of you introduce this when 1:30:26.320 --> 1:30:29.519 talking about sort of if you do try to engage 1:30:29.640 --> 1:30:31.880 somewhat with the technology, or if you wind up just 1:30:31.960 --> 1:30:33.880 kind of in the position I think most lay people are, 1:30:33.960 --> 1:30:36.360 where you know, maybe you have some friends who know more, 1:30:36.560 --> 1:30:38.320 or maybe you have some friends who think they know more, 1:30:38.360 --> 1:30:40.920 and you get all these conflicting things about like this 1:30:41.040 --> 1:30:43.280 is safe, No, it's not. You can't trust signal. The 1:30:43.280 --> 1:30:45.439 FEDS could be running signal all this kind of stuff, 1:30:46.000 --> 1:30:48.679 and to be fair, the FEDS have run security based 1:30:48.720 --> 1:30:51.240 services before. It's not like I don't believe that's happening 1:30:51.280 --> 1:30:54.440 with signal, but it's not like I understand where paranoia 1:30:54.600 --> 1:30:58.400 like that can can enter into people's calculus, especially if 1:30:58.400 --> 1:31:02.680 you're not tech knowledgeable, and that can lead to this 1:31:02.760 --> 1:31:06.080 sort of state of security nihilism where you're just like, 1:31:06.520 --> 1:31:08.840 you can't communicate it all online. There's no way to 1:31:08.920 --> 1:31:12.320 do it securely, and obviously there's no perfect right. You 1:31:12.360 --> 1:31:14.160 never have it, but you don't have one hundred percent 1:31:14.240 --> 1:31:18.880 with like talking in person to somebody right There are 1:31:18.920 --> 1:31:22.479 individuals in prison right now who you know, somebody they 1:31:22.520 --> 1:31:25.360 loved and trusted rat it on them. There's no one 1:31:25.439 --> 1:31:29.520 hundred percents in this world. But that doesn't mean nihilism 1:31:29.600 --> 1:31:32.400 is the right response to like trying to figure out 1:31:32.520 --> 1:31:36.879 how to set up your communications standards with people right totally. 1:31:36.960 --> 1:31:39.439 I mean, I think the approach we take in because 1:31:39.760 --> 1:31:43.800 throughout this report, we were also teaching workshops to reproductive 1:31:43.920 --> 1:31:47.799 justice activists across the US and states where abortion is banned. 1:31:48.000 --> 1:31:51.240 I'm from Louisiana, I live half the year there, the 1:31:51.320 --> 1:31:55.800 abortion is banned there, And we were also working with 1:31:55.880 --> 1:31:58.320 journalists in India. So a big big thing for us 1:31:58.400 --> 1:32:02.000 was also teaching threat modeling and different kinds of what 1:32:02.080 --> 1:32:05.520 Matt Mitchell, a security trader and expert, calls digital hygiene. 1:32:06.000 --> 1:32:09.000 And so a lot of this was recognizing that there 1:32:09.080 --> 1:32:12.120 was certain practices we were picking up on, particularly with 1:32:12.240 --> 1:32:13.760 folks we were working with. So like a lot of 1:32:13.840 --> 1:32:17.559 reproductive justice activists we were working with are new to security, 1:32:17.560 --> 1:32:19.840 they're new to technology, they don't have a background in tech, 1:32:19.960 --> 1:32:24.320 and generally, you know, the American South, American Deep South 1:32:24.400 --> 1:32:28.080 is super overlooked in terms of tech policy, in terms 1:32:28.080 --> 1:32:31.519 of just I think a general focus when people are 1:32:31.520 --> 1:32:35.240 talking about tech or tech literacy or tech activism, and 1:32:35.520 --> 1:32:38.920 that is like leaving really massive gaps and knowledge for people. 1:32:39.680 --> 1:32:42.240 And so you know, when we were working on this, 1:32:42.479 --> 1:32:46.360 security folklore and security nihilism were both actually very almost 1:32:46.360 --> 1:32:47.880 like I won't say like a pendulum, but they were 1:32:47.960 --> 1:32:50.920 very connected. And so some of that was people hearing 1:32:50.960 --> 1:32:53.320 things like oh, I should put my phone in a 1:32:53.320 --> 1:32:56.400 microwave when I'm having a very sensitive conversation, right, And 1:32:56.439 --> 1:32:59.040 so that's where some of that security folklore is coming in. 1:32:59.520 --> 1:33:02.920 It is something that is technically safe, but it's like 1:33:03.000 --> 1:33:05.360 not the thing you necessarily like totally need to do 1:33:05.439 --> 1:33:08.280 in that moment. And with security nihilism what it kind 1:33:08.280 --> 1:33:09.960 of came down to, And this is stuff we've seen 1:33:10.000 --> 1:33:14.600 with other groups and other circumstances. A great example are 1:33:14.720 --> 1:33:17.880 are you know Palestinine activists and journalists Let's say, who 1:33:17.880 --> 1:33:21.080 are you know facing the threat of all different kinds 1:33:21.080 --> 1:33:24.200 of governmental censorship and surveillance of sort of saying like 1:33:24.200 --> 1:33:26.679 when there's this large threat sort of hanging on us, 1:33:27.200 --> 1:33:30.559 and there's also physical surveillance. And this is true for 1:33:30.600 --> 1:33:33.240 a lot of journalists in other countries like India as well, 1:33:33.360 --> 1:33:38.439 for example, you know, like should everything go through signal 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:39.400 or does it really matter? 1:33:39.560 --> 1:33:40.559 Like does it really matter? 1:33:40.600 --> 1:33:43.200 And this is also something again we saw with some 1:33:43.200 --> 1:33:45.120 some reproductive justice activists as well. 1:33:44.960 --> 1:33:47.599 Where it's like if everything is being monitored, what's safe? 1:33:47.800 --> 1:33:49.400 Like can I send stuff? 1:33:49.800 --> 1:33:49.880 Like? 1:33:50.040 --> 1:33:51.200 Can I even use Google? 1:33:51.600 --> 1:33:55.599 And part of this was, you know, by teaching privacy 1:33:55.600 --> 1:33:58.800 and security workshops, by teaching things like threat modeling, which 1:33:58.840 --> 1:33:59.599 is a. 1:33:59.479 --> 1:34:02.320 Framework just assessing are what are threats? 1:34:02.720 --> 1:34:02.840 Like? 1:34:03.120 --> 1:34:05.439 Are what are all the potential threats you could face 1:34:05.439 --> 1:34:07.880 and kind of mapping them from like the most minor 1:34:08.120 --> 1:34:10.400 to like the most major and what you can do 1:34:10.520 --> 1:34:13.559 about that. That's a way to try to combat security nihilism. 1:34:13.640 --> 1:34:15.320 But I think an approach Cooper and I are also 1:34:15.400 --> 1:34:18.040 really fond of is thinking of this like safer sex. 1:34:18.560 --> 1:34:20.599 There's all different kinds of things you can do that 1:34:20.640 --> 1:34:24.280 our mitigations are actually incredibly helpful, and we can't look 1:34:24.320 --> 1:34:27.160 at it as a binary of safe or not safe. 1:34:27.200 --> 1:34:31.960 It's actually like much more of a gradient. But you know, 1:34:32.280 --> 1:34:34.920 the focalore and the nihilism, I think come from a 1:34:35.000 --> 1:34:39.000 very similar place, which is we're asking people, like society 1:34:39.080 --> 1:34:41.120 is kind of asking or demanding that people be experts 1:34:41.160 --> 1:34:44.799 and something that's really hard. I am like a fairly 1:34:44.880 --> 1:34:47.479 technical person and even there are some things that I 1:34:47.680 --> 1:34:49.880 find hard to serve wrap my head around. And I've 1:34:49.880 --> 1:34:52.759 been working in privacy and security for like quite a while. 1:34:53.760 --> 1:34:56.439 And I think, you know, it's. 1:34:56.240 --> 1:34:58.120 Also really hard when you think about these apps as 1:34:58.160 --> 1:35:00.479 like a brand new person. It's like one of the 1:35:00.479 --> 1:35:02.160 things that popped up a lot in our research is 1:35:02.240 --> 1:35:04.360 like why should we trust signal? And that's actually a 1:35:04.360 --> 1:35:07.280 great question, Like what about Signal in its interface and 1:35:07.320 --> 1:35:11.000 its design would cause you to trust it? Like some 1:35:11.040 --> 1:35:13.160 people were like it's a nonprofit. That's great, but I 1:35:13.160 --> 1:35:14.880 don't know what that means. I'm like, that's actually a 1:35:14.880 --> 1:35:16.760 fantastic question, Like what does that mean? 1:35:17.000 --> 1:35:17.160 Right? 1:35:17.240 --> 1:35:20.160 Like why should you trust this? You've heard through the 1:35:20.160 --> 1:35:22.639 grapevine that you should. And I think these are kind 1:35:22.640 --> 1:35:24.360 of all the things that people are dealing with because 1:35:24.360 --> 1:35:26.120 if you sort of take a step back and just 1:35:26.160 --> 1:35:29.080 look at software or any different kinds of software generally, 1:35:29.479 --> 1:35:31.720 why should you trust that it's safe and secure when 1:35:31.760 --> 1:35:34.600 there have been so many different kinds of leaks or 1:35:34.640 --> 1:35:35.920 breaches or things breaking. 1:35:36.080 --> 1:35:36.320 Right? 1:35:36.760 --> 1:35:40.200 Yeah, Like so these. 1:35:40.000 --> 1:35:42.639 Are I think really really closely tied. But I think 1:35:42.680 --> 1:35:44.960 a big thing for us is trying to combat that 1:35:45.080 --> 1:35:48.360 security nihilism, like when whenever we can like there is 1:35:48.439 --> 1:35:51.160 things you can do, I don't want to say like 1:35:51.240 --> 1:35:53.240 no matter how great the threat. But I believe like, 1:35:53.280 --> 1:35:55.160 no matter how great the threat, there is stuff. 1:35:55.200 --> 1:35:56.240 There is stuff you can do. 1:35:56.920 --> 1:35:58.800 No matter how great the threat is, there's stuff that 1:35:58.840 --> 1:36:02.040 you can do to make it more difficult and more 1:36:02.080 --> 1:36:04.840 expensive for that person to attack you. Right, Like we 1:36:04.880 --> 1:36:07.600 all lock the doors to our house, or you know, 1:36:07.680 --> 1:36:08.559 for the most part. 1:36:09.760 --> 1:36:12.160 Or you know, we all we all do things. 1:36:11.840 --> 1:36:15.479 To to protect ourselves like that that aren't fool proof, right. 1:36:15.520 --> 1:36:17.920 Somebody can always break a window to get into your house, right, 1:36:18.000 --> 1:36:19.760 So we can find other ways to get into your house. 1:36:20.080 --> 1:36:23.080 But locking the door makes it so that somebody has 1:36:23.120 --> 1:36:25.280 to do the noisy thing of breaking a window. 1:36:25.720 --> 1:36:25.960 Right. 1:36:26.920 --> 1:36:28.600 It makes it so that, you know, somebody has to 1:36:28.640 --> 1:36:31.240 spend more time and effort and more risk of getting 1:36:31.280 --> 1:36:32.920 caught in getting. 1:36:32.600 --> 1:36:36.080 Into your house. Right. And that's and that's like we layer. 1:36:36.240 --> 1:36:40.240 When you layer these protections, right, the idea, you know 1:36:40.400 --> 1:36:44.599 is that you're you're you're making it harder, You're making 1:36:44.640 --> 1:36:48.360 there be more friction right to piercing your security. 1:36:48.920 --> 1:36:51.400 Yeah, I think that's that's a really good point, and 1:36:51.439 --> 1:36:53.920 that the concept of friction. You know, this is something 1:36:54.000 --> 1:36:56.760 I've talked about, not that these are exactly the same things, 1:36:56.760 --> 1:36:59.439 but in the although there's not not wildly different when 1:36:59.439 --> 1:37:03.799 it comes to like how insurgents win insurgencies, right, It's 1:37:03.920 --> 1:37:07.600 not by carrying out these sort of like great battlefield 1:37:07.680 --> 1:37:11.880 victories that sweep the enemy from the field. It's by friction, right, 1:37:12.160 --> 1:37:16.280 which wears down both the culture and the kind of 1:37:16.400 --> 1:37:21.200 readiness of the opponent until they simply bounce, which is 1:37:21.280 --> 1:37:23.800 a pretty durable and effective strategy. You can keep it up. 1:37:23.840 --> 1:37:29.839 It's this matter of like there's no like sweeping sudden 1:37:29.960 --> 1:37:33.840 like ninety minute three act win here. It's more a 1:37:33.880 --> 1:37:37.360 matter of the more difficult, the more expensive you make it, 1:37:37.600 --> 1:37:40.320 the more you hold on to and the more all 1:37:40.400 --> 1:37:42.280 of us hold on to. Right. That's the other benefit 1:37:42.360 --> 1:37:44.360 is like, even if you're not even if you are 1:37:44.520 --> 1:37:47.120 the most law abiding person in the world like myself, 1:37:48.720 --> 1:37:52.280 having these security measures in place means that you're kind 1:37:52.320 --> 1:37:57.040 of contributing to the overall immune system of a kind 1:37:57.120 --> 1:38:00.400 of community of people who don't want the NSA listening 1:38:00.400 --> 1:38:00.880 to the ship. 1:38:02.720 --> 1:38:06.800 Yeah, exactly exactly. And the friction thing is is also 1:38:06.880 --> 1:38:10.960 exactly what Signal does, right, Like by the threat model 1:38:10.960 --> 1:38:15.200 for Signal is stopping the NSA or other global adversaries 1:38:15.240 --> 1:38:19.720 from listening to all communications as they travel over the internet, right, 1:38:19.800 --> 1:38:22.519 And that's when you can when you can do that, 1:38:22.840 --> 1:38:24.959 like when you can when you can listen to everybody's 1:38:25.000 --> 1:38:27.920 conversations as they travel over the internet, it's really cheap 1:38:27.960 --> 1:38:32.000 to spy on anybody, right when you're encrypting that communication. Uh, 1:38:32.280 --> 1:38:35.360 then the NSA or whatever other global adversary has to 1:38:35.439 --> 1:38:39.240 go actually hack your phone, right, they have to. They 1:38:39.280 --> 1:38:43.040 have to target you specifically, they have to burn resources 1:38:43.160 --> 1:38:48.040 and you know, burn weapons, right, zero days to get 1:38:48.080 --> 1:38:50.200 access to your phone. And that's a lot more costly, 1:38:50.680 --> 1:38:53.320 it's a lot more noisy, it's a much higher. 1:38:53.200 --> 1:38:54.280 Risk of them getting caught. 1:38:54.560 --> 1:38:58.280 So it's introduced to huge friction, uh in that in 1:38:59.080 --> 1:39:05.519 that area. Go ahead, okay, go ahead, go ahead, I say, 1:39:05.560 --> 1:39:07.800 And I think you're asymmetic. The sort of comparison to 1:39:07.840 --> 1:39:10.559 asymmetric warfare is exactly spot on, because none of us 1:39:10.560 --> 1:39:12.720 are ever going to have the money that that the 1:39:12.840 --> 1:39:15.000 NSA or MASADE has. None of us are ever going 1:39:15.040 --> 1:39:18.559 to have the the total technical acumen that the NSA 1:39:18.680 --> 1:39:19.720 or MASADA has. 1:39:19.800 --> 1:39:19.960 Right. 1:39:20.000 --> 1:39:22.439 But like those that you know, so we have to 1:39:22.520 --> 1:39:24.599 kind of fight a you know, in terms of caryption 1:39:25.360 --> 1:39:27.960 in terms of encryption, a guerrilla war, right, and we 1:39:28.080 --> 1:39:32.080 have to make things so expensive and so annoying for 1:39:32.120 --> 1:39:32.759 them that it's. 1:39:32.640 --> 1:39:35.920 Not worth it totally. And just to sort of building that. 1:39:35.960 --> 1:39:38.160 One of the things I love about Signal is while 1:39:38.160 --> 1:39:42.800 they're creating friction for our adversaries, it's actually so frictionless 1:39:42.840 --> 1:39:45.559 to use as a user. And I think that's one 1:39:45.600 --> 1:39:48.400 of the things I find just continually. 1:39:47.920 --> 1:39:50.960 Impressive about that. I don't want this to turn into like. 1:39:51.000 --> 1:39:55.160 The like we're all himbos for Signal, except we probably are, 1:39:55.840 --> 1:39:57.880 but because like that's one of the things as a 1:39:57.920 --> 1:39:59.720 researcher like Kuber and I stimes have to be like, 1:40:00.120 --> 1:40:02.400 we're not paid by a Signal at all, Like, but 1:40:02.600 --> 1:40:04.639 this is in fact, like one of the best things 1:40:04.680 --> 1:40:06.439 you can use. But again, one of the things I 1:40:06.439 --> 1:40:10.120 think is amazing is that it is so easy to use, 1:40:11.200 --> 1:40:15.559 and it really is designed for and I'm using the 1:40:15.640 --> 1:40:20.280 term usability as a design term, meaning that it is 1:40:20.800 --> 1:40:24.160 they're thinking about a common user, including those with like 1:40:24.200 --> 1:40:28.160 lower digital literacy or those that are have never used 1:40:28.320 --> 1:40:31.439 any kind of any kind of security tool, and so 1:40:31.560 --> 1:40:35.040 they're hitting a specific threshold of usability for things to 1:40:35.040 --> 1:40:38.280 be understandable, and again, that's incredibly hard to do well, 1:40:38.400 --> 1:40:40.400 and they are. They are doing it quite well. Like 1:40:40.439 --> 1:40:42.880 it's very I would argue it's very easy and sort 1:40:42.920 --> 1:40:46.200 of seamless for people to make a jump from WhatsApp 1:40:46.400 --> 1:40:49.360 or if you're on like Google or Android using like 1:40:49.400 --> 1:40:51.479 Google Messages, sorry Google, if. 1:40:51.360 --> 1:40:54.040 You're on Android or an iPhone. 1:40:53.720 --> 1:40:57.160 From like I Messages to Google Messages to signal like 1:40:57.200 --> 1:40:57.799 it doesn't. 1:40:58.040 --> 1:40:59.040 It might look slightly different. 1:40:59.080 --> 1:41:00.800 I might feel a lot more blue, maybe a lot 1:41:00.840 --> 1:41:03.160 more black, depending up on how yours is constructed. But 1:41:03.200 --> 1:41:05.599 for the most part, a lot of the features are 1:41:05.680 --> 1:41:07.840 kind of where you expect them to be, and it's 1:41:07.920 --> 1:41:10.920 not at all difficult to get it up and running, 1:41:11.000 --> 1:41:13.559 which is not something against Cooper said earlier we could 1:41:13.560 --> 1:41:15.759 say about things like PGP. 1:41:16.439 --> 1:41:19.280 Yeah, I wanted to kind of move on to talking 1:41:19.360 --> 1:41:22.160 about other apps and their security or lack of it, 1:41:22.200 --> 1:41:25.160 And I think we should start probably by talking about Telegram, 1:41:25.240 --> 1:41:28.040 because that's probably close to top of the list of 1:41:28.080 --> 1:41:32.920 things people use for secure communications that is not nearly 1:41:32.960 --> 1:41:37.280 as secure as they think. So yeah, I wanted to 1:41:37.360 --> 1:41:40.000 kind of chat with you about like why that is, 1:41:40.080 --> 1:41:42.280 and I specifically I wanted to talk One of the 1:41:42.280 --> 1:41:46.519 things that is frustrating about Telegram is they kind of 1:41:46.600 --> 1:41:48.679 have they have like a secret chat or private chat, 1:41:48.720 --> 1:41:51.559 like they have a couple of different options that don't 1:41:52.040 --> 1:41:55.880 necessarily mean what they sound like they mean to most people. 1:41:55.960 --> 1:41:58.960 Yeah, so that's actually one thing our report found. So 1:41:59.040 --> 1:42:01.800 private chat and secret chat are in fact. 1:42:01.680 --> 1:42:02.320 The same thing. 1:42:03.360 --> 1:42:06.679 They're just called slightly different things in the app, which 1:42:06.800 --> 1:42:09.240 for for again, for those listening. 1:42:08.880 --> 1:42:11.559 That are don't have the background in design, that's bad design. 1:42:11.600 --> 1:42:16.040 That's actually not that's not professional, that's a that is 1:42:16.200 --> 1:42:19.840 a mistake. There's no reason for a feature to have 1:42:19.880 --> 1:42:23.839 like two different names inside of inside of your software. 1:42:24.880 --> 1:42:27.680 And so I don't know if that's an oversight on 1:42:27.760 --> 1:42:32.200 their part, I'm assuming so, But like those two things 1:42:32.320 --> 1:42:34.960 correlate to the same feature, and so they should actually 1:42:35.000 --> 1:42:37.840 be called the same thing. But then even further that 1:42:37.880 --> 1:42:40.840 being said, what does private mean to a user? 1:42:40.920 --> 1:42:42.080 What does secret mean? 1:42:43.560 --> 1:42:47.799 You know, Facebook Messenger they call their encrypted message secure 1:42:48.040 --> 1:42:49.800 or no, they also call it secret. Sorry, they also 1:42:49.800 --> 1:42:52.000 call it secret, But like does that mean security? Does 1:42:52.040 --> 1:42:55.640 that mean encrypted? And so that's like one of the 1:42:56.360 --> 1:42:59.200 one of the weird things where it's like, you know, 1:42:59.479 --> 1:43:03.200 I think by using a very sort of like normalize 1:43:03.320 --> 1:43:07.040 or culturally almost like emotional name like private, it makes 1:43:07.040 --> 1:43:10.439 something seem like it's actually quite safe, when in fact 1:43:11.200 --> 1:43:11.559 it's not. 1:43:11.680 --> 1:43:13.479 And there's a variety of reasons as why, like. 1:43:13.479 --> 1:43:16.880 Telegram is not not a very secure app that I 1:43:16.880 --> 1:43:19.280 will let Cooper talk about more. 1:43:19.640 --> 1:43:22.799 Yeah, I would never advise anybody to have a chat 1:43:23.200 --> 1:43:27.400 over Telegram if they are concerned about the privacy of that. Yeah, 1:43:27.479 --> 1:43:32.160 So we were talking about friction and the fact that 1:43:32.600 --> 1:43:36.719 and encrypted chats are not the default in Telegram creates 1:43:36.720 --> 1:43:41.840 a friction for users to have an actually secure chat. 1:43:41.920 --> 1:43:44.040 Right, you have to go remember to turn it. 1:43:44.000 --> 1:43:47.160 On, and you can only turn it on turn it 1:43:47.200 --> 1:43:51.799 on individually per message. It's not like an overall feature 1:43:52.000 --> 1:43:54.760 on Telegram or Facebook Messenger, like you have to go 1:43:54.920 --> 1:44:00.240 select a specific like the specific conversation per conversation, which 1:44:00.280 --> 1:44:03.040 is and another thing ourper gets into is how also 1:44:03.360 --> 1:44:06.360 those chats don't look very different. They look almost identical 1:44:06.680 --> 1:44:11.360 to a normal chat. So for low vision users or 1:44:11.400 --> 1:44:15.280 anyone with any kind of like disability, especially a vision 1:44:15.360 --> 1:44:20.080 related disability, it's almost impossible to It's like nearly impossible 1:44:20.120 --> 1:44:23.720 to recognize which chat you're using if you're looking at 1:44:23.760 --> 1:44:24.519 the chat logs. 1:44:25.200 --> 1:44:28.800 Yeah, outside of that, like if people you know, in 1:44:28.920 --> 1:44:31.200 terms of like things that may not be options right now, 1:44:31.240 --> 1:44:34.960 I think basically everyone listening signal is a perfectly viable option. 1:44:35.000 --> 1:44:38.040 But it's not impossible that, for example, you might wind 1:44:38.160 --> 1:44:40.800 up in a country where, even if there's not a 1:44:40.800 --> 1:44:44.000 specific law against it, there is a precedent established that 1:44:44.040 --> 1:44:46.720 if you have signal on your phone, you know, it 1:44:46.840 --> 1:44:49.759 can be at least used as a justification for charges 1:44:49.760 --> 1:44:52.320 that you are planning to use. Like you know, with Atlanta, 1:44:52.400 --> 1:44:55.559 people are getting charges because they had a lawyer's name 1:44:55.600 --> 1:44:58.599 written on their arm, right, and so the state saying, well, 1:44:58.600 --> 1:45:01.600 that's evidence that we're planning to commit a crime. You know, 1:45:01.760 --> 1:45:04.000 that doesn't mean that convictions will go through on that 1:45:04.120 --> 1:45:05.559 kind of thing, but it may be a reason why 1:45:05.680 --> 1:45:09.120 signal might not be an option, or say, you know, 1:45:09.240 --> 1:45:11.639 something comes out about it that makes it seem less secure. 1:45:12.120 --> 1:45:16.479 What are other good or or acceptable options? And I 1:45:16.520 --> 1:45:18.800 know when we're talking about this, these are often options 1:45:18.840 --> 1:45:21.439 that require more input and work from the user in 1:45:21.560 --> 1:45:24.280 order to maximize their potential security. But I do think 1:45:24.280 --> 1:45:25.720 it's good to like let people kind of know what 1:45:25.800 --> 1:45:26.559 else is out there. 1:45:26.960 --> 1:45:31.040 Yeah, so when signal isn't an option, WhatsApp is actually 1:45:31.160 --> 1:45:35.599 not a bad option. So WhatsApp it is owned by Meta, 1:45:35.760 --> 1:45:38.559 which is a you know, which is which is you 1:45:38.560 --> 1:45:43.000 know not which is not ideal. But WhatsApp actually uses 1:45:43.080 --> 1:45:47.519 the same encryption protocol as signal. Uh So, like under 1:45:47.520 --> 1:45:49.160 the hood, the way that the you know, the way 1:45:49.200 --> 1:45:51.120 that the math works to hide your messages from the 1:45:51.240 --> 1:45:55.960 NSA is exactly the same, right, and and they've implemented it. Well, 1:45:56.560 --> 1:45:59.880 you know, there are a few more steps that, you know, 1:46:00.040 --> 1:46:02.080 few more precautions that you need to take with WhatsApp, 1:46:02.160 --> 1:46:05.240 like making sure that your chats aren't backed up being 1:46:05.280 --> 1:46:10.519 the main one. But WhatsApp is certainly good enough, right 1:46:10.600 --> 1:46:14.960 if you're if you're you know, chat networks aren't using signal, 1:46:14.960 --> 1:46:17.360 if you're in a country where you can't use signal, right, Like, 1:46:17.520 --> 1:46:22.040 WhatsApp has two billion users, I'm you know, it's it's 1:46:22.120 --> 1:46:24.400 you can use WhatsApp almost anywhere in the world. It's 1:46:24.400 --> 1:46:26.760 and it's ubiquitous enough that it's not going to mark 1:46:26.840 --> 1:46:29.240 you as you know, somebody with something to hide, right, 1:46:29.800 --> 1:46:31.800 And like and I don't want to I don't want 1:46:31.840 --> 1:46:36.120 to discount what's app. Right, getting two billion people to 1:46:36.680 --> 1:46:40.960 have end to end encrypted messaging by default overnight basically 1:46:41.479 --> 1:46:46.200 was a major cupe like that that was world changing, right, 1:46:46.439 --> 1:46:51.400 and like they they really do deserve applause for that obviously, 1:46:51.640 --> 1:46:53.840 you know, I think partly because of their scale, partly 1:46:53.840 --> 1:46:56.640 because they're owned by Meta, right, they haven't taken all 1:46:56.680 --> 1:46:59.880 of these same steps, like they do have more a 1:47:00.400 --> 1:47:05.160 metadata on their servers then Signal does, right, But if 1:47:05.160 --> 1:47:07.200 that's your option, that is a fine option. 1:47:08.000 --> 1:47:11.679 Yeah, I think that's really good to know, particularly since 1:47:12.200 --> 1:47:16.080 options are always more secure than not having any kind 1:47:16.120 --> 1:47:18.400 of a backup plan totally. 1:47:18.880 --> 1:47:22.120 And if people are like even slightly nervous about WhatsApp, 1:47:22.320 --> 1:47:25.559 of great things they do have disappearing messages. The downside 1:47:25.680 --> 1:47:29.120 is like the fastest disappearing message is only twenty four hours. 1:47:29.120 --> 1:47:33.160 But that's something that again you still have and that's 1:47:33.400 --> 1:47:35.639 like that is that is an amazing feature. 1:47:36.400 --> 1:47:39.800 Yeah, And that kind of gets into also what kind 1:47:39.800 --> 1:47:43.080 of stuff you can do in order to maximize the 1:47:43.160 --> 1:47:46.320 value of features like that, Like, for example, if you're 1:47:46.600 --> 1:47:49.680 coming back into the country or a country and your 1:47:49.720 --> 1:47:54.519 phone gets confiscated by customs or whatever, because security services 1:47:54.560 --> 1:47:56.719 have some sort of eye on you for whatever reason. 1:47:57.120 --> 1:48:02.000 If you've got you know, thumbprint log in or face 1:48:02.040 --> 1:48:04.040 log in, they're going to get into that phone right 1:48:04.479 --> 1:48:06.920 in your twenty four hour delete thing may not have 1:48:06.960 --> 1:48:09.920 gotten taken care of everything. If you've got like a 1:48:09.960 --> 1:48:14.799 complicated eight digit password and no biometrics enabled, maybe depending 1:48:14.800 --> 1:48:17.160 on where you are and whatnot, that'll keep your phone 1:48:17.200 --> 1:48:19.800 locked long enough for those messages to get deleted, right, Like, 1:48:19.840 --> 1:48:22.479 it's all about kind of maximizing the chances that something 1:48:22.520 --> 1:48:23.400 like that helps. 1:48:24.000 --> 1:48:28.320 Yeah, exactly. We definitely recommend that people turn on disappearing messages. 1:48:29.080 --> 1:48:31.599 I think that that's just a good sensible default to have. 1:48:33.320 --> 1:48:35.960 Also definitely recommend that if you're going to be in 1:48:36.040 --> 1:48:38.559 a situation where you think you're going to be, you know, 1:48:38.560 --> 1:48:40.879 there's a higher likelihood if you interacted with law enforcement, 1:48:41.120 --> 1:48:43.280 if you're crossing a border, if you're going to a protest, 1:48:43.720 --> 1:48:47.879 turn off the biometric unlock on your phone. Certainly, especially 1:48:47.920 --> 1:48:50.800 in the US, there's the case law isn't settled, but 1:48:50.840 --> 1:48:53.679 there's a lot of state courts that have decided that 1:48:54.320 --> 1:48:56.479 police can force you to unlock your phone with your 1:48:56.479 --> 1:49:00.519 biometrics and that that's totally fine. So, you know, in 1:49:00.560 --> 1:49:02.479 the in the US context, it's a good idea. In 1:49:02.520 --> 1:49:04.479 any context, I think it's a good idea if you're 1:49:04.479 --> 1:49:05.920 at heightened risk to turn off. 1:49:06.439 --> 1:49:09.559 Total I mean, one thing we're also a big fan 1:49:09.600 --> 1:49:11.840 of is figuring out too like and this is again 1:49:11.920 --> 1:49:14.559 where threat modeling is so key, is like, is this 1:49:14.760 --> 1:49:17.639 a circumstance where you need your phone or Another thing 1:49:17.720 --> 1:49:19.800 that you know you can always do if you are 1:49:19.880 --> 1:49:23.559 nervous about traveling across the border, is you can delete 1:49:23.560 --> 1:49:26.639 signal and reinstall it and everything is gone. You can 1:49:26.960 --> 1:49:30.559 delete WhatsApp temporarily while you're crossing a border so it's 1:49:30.600 --> 1:49:34.559 not on your phone. You know, there are things like 1:49:34.600 --> 1:49:37.840 that you can do if you feel comfortable wiping your phone, 1:49:37.880 --> 1:49:41.800 that's something also you can do. You know, these are 1:49:41.840 --> 1:49:44.679 all again, these are these are these are different things, 1:49:44.760 --> 1:49:46.879 and I think this is one of the things our report. 1:49:47.760 --> 1:49:49.479 I don't remember how too much we get into a 1:49:49.479 --> 1:49:51.599 bit something that at least we've been thinking about. Cooper 1:49:51.640 --> 1:49:55.680 and I run a little lab called Convocation, and one 1:49:55.720 --> 1:49:58.760 of the things we've been thinking about there is just 1:49:58.920 --> 1:50:01.840 also how do we install sort of like better, better, 1:50:01.840 --> 1:50:05.000 holistic practices where we understand that a phone is just 1:50:05.080 --> 1:50:09.400 one component of our safety, and so like secure messaging, 1:50:09.479 --> 1:50:11.920 encrypted messaging is one component of that safe safety. 1:50:11.960 --> 1:50:14.960 So like what are other things we can do? And 1:50:15.000 --> 1:50:15.959 some of that can. 1:50:15.760 --> 1:50:18.800 Be you know, wiping your phone of traveling if that 1:50:18.840 --> 1:50:21.000 makes sense for you or if that's thing that makes 1:50:21.000 --> 1:50:25.479 you feel safer, or removing certain apps and then you know, 1:50:25.560 --> 1:50:27.679 reinstalling them, reinstalling them later. 1:50:28.400 --> 1:50:30.959 Yeah, yeah, and it and it really is holistic. 1:50:31.040 --> 1:50:31.200 Right. 1:50:31.280 --> 1:50:33.760 Like a thing that a thing that people need to 1:50:33.840 --> 1:50:37.120 keep in mind is that, you know, disappearing messages can't 1:50:37.160 --> 1:50:44.920 stop an untrustworthy uh, conversation partner, right, Like if if 1:50:45.000 --> 1:50:47.920 my conversation partner is untrustworthy, they can take screenshots of 1:50:47.960 --> 1:50:51.280 the messages, right, they can you know, go they can 1:50:51.320 --> 1:50:56.479 go snitch to law enforcement about what I've told them, right, Uh, 1:50:56.600 --> 1:50:59.600 Encrypted messaging, disappearing messages, these are not panaspeas. 1:51:00.080 --> 1:51:00.200 Right. 1:51:00.240 --> 1:51:03.599 You still have to you still have to keep all 1:51:03.640 --> 1:51:10.040 of your other aspects of security as well, right, So 1:51:10.160 --> 1:51:13.479 don't entirely rely on these technologies to save you. 1:51:13.560 --> 1:51:13.680 Right. 1:51:13.720 --> 1:51:15.720 You have to also trust the people you're working with, 1:51:15.800 --> 1:51:17.800 and build these layers of security up. 1:51:18.520 --> 1:51:18.960 It's true. 1:51:18.960 --> 1:51:20.799 I mean, Cooper, you could leak all of my secrets 1:51:20.840 --> 1:51:23.120 right now on this podcast, and you chose them that 1:51:23.160 --> 1:51:24.560 to what a gentleman. 1:51:24.880 --> 1:51:25.599 And that is color. 1:51:26.400 --> 1:51:29.280 That is the other thing right where when it comes 1:51:29.360 --> 1:51:32.600 to like what is secure? One thing to remember is 1:51:32.640 --> 1:51:35.400 that signal for all the good things about it, nothing, 1:51:35.600 --> 1:51:38.400 nothing at all about that app stops the recipient of 1:51:38.439 --> 1:51:41.160 a message from you from taking a screen grab or 1:51:41.240 --> 1:51:45.439 just handing their phone over to their friendly local federal agent, right, 1:51:47.080 --> 1:51:49.880 which is always you know, we don't want to be 1:51:49.920 --> 1:51:52.040 I'm not trying to be a security nihilist here. I 1:51:52.040 --> 1:51:56.679 think you know there's no replacing communication over phones in 1:51:56.680 --> 1:52:00.160 many situations. But if you are, a full example, going 1:52:00.280 --> 1:52:06.200 to be transferring a bunch of Plan B pills in 1:52:06.240 --> 1:52:10.320 an area where that is prosecutable, that probably shouldn't go 1:52:10.400 --> 1:52:11.599 on your phone in that language. 1:52:11.680 --> 1:52:11.920 Right. 1:52:12.000 --> 1:52:14.719 Perhaps you know you could come up with a clever 1:52:14.880 --> 1:52:20.519 codeword or whatever, but don't you know it is security 1:52:20.600 --> 1:52:22.760 is like you said, holistic. You know you should not 1:52:22.920 --> 1:52:25.679 be looking at it as just like, well the app 1:52:25.760 --> 1:52:27.000 is secure, So that's enough. 1:52:27.880 --> 1:52:29.519 I mean one thing I also want people sort of 1:52:29.520 --> 1:52:31.880 think about too, because that's a really great point Robert is, like, 1:52:32.400 --> 1:52:34.200 we do all different kinds of things every day in 1:52:34.240 --> 1:52:37.760 our lives that could, you know, in dangerous. Like I 1:52:37.760 --> 1:52:40.000 think a lot of the work I do is I 1:52:40.000 --> 1:52:41.840 work a lot with people facing all different kinds of 1:52:41.840 --> 1:52:44.800 online harassment. So like falling in love, for example, is 1:52:44.840 --> 1:52:47.000 a dangerous thing to do. You could have your heart 1:52:47.040 --> 1:52:51.000 broken or that person could hurt you. Learning how to 1:52:51.040 --> 1:52:56.640 trust people, you know, crossing the street, deciding to jaywalk right, 1:52:57.120 --> 1:52:59.320 all different things we do sort of every day actually 1:52:59.400 --> 1:53:01.760 can expect to harm. And so one thing I think 1:53:01.760 --> 1:53:03.559 for people listening to keep in mind is that's the 1:53:03.560 --> 1:53:06.599 same when we have conversations. And I think a way 1:53:06.640 --> 1:53:09.559 to avoid nihilism is just to remember that that every 1:53:09.600 --> 1:53:12.240 day we are sort of going out there and actually 1:53:12.320 --> 1:53:15.720 being incredibly brave just by living our everyday lives, by 1:53:16.080 --> 1:53:20.040 deciding to be in community and have friendships and have relationships. 1:53:21.160 --> 1:53:24.760 And in my case, I love jaywalking, and no one 1:53:24.760 --> 1:53:28.120 around me does, and that's why that's my choice. And 1:53:28.360 --> 1:53:32.240 I have not yet gotten hit by a car j walking. 1:53:33.000 --> 1:53:36.240 I think it's good to look at this the same way. 1:53:36.240 --> 1:53:40.320 There's there's a concept that the military has sort of 1:53:40.360 --> 1:53:43.320 developed when talking about how not to die when you're 1:53:43.320 --> 1:53:46.479 in a gunfight or something. It's called the survivability onion, right, 1:53:46.800 --> 1:53:49.160 And I think it's extremely useful both if you're talking 1:53:49.160 --> 1:53:50.920 about like, well, I'm going to a protest and there 1:53:50.920 --> 1:53:53.000 will be violence there, you know, should I wear armor, 1:53:53.040 --> 1:53:56.000 et cetera. But it's also just really it's really useful 1:53:56.000 --> 1:53:59.280 with any kind of security and and the onion, it's 1:53:59.320 --> 1:54:01.639 it's in vision, doesn't on you because like the largest 1:54:01.720 --> 1:54:05.080 outside chunk of it is don't be seen, don't be acquired, 1:54:05.080 --> 1:54:07.240 which means somebody actually getting you in their head sights, 1:54:07.760 --> 1:54:12.080 don't be a hit, which means being behind cover or something. 1:54:12.320 --> 1:54:14.760 And then the very internal part of it is like 1:54:14.880 --> 1:54:16.120 have some sort of armor in. 1:54:16.040 --> 1:54:16.920 Case you are shot. 1:54:17.280 --> 1:54:20.280 But if you if the armor is useful, the majority 1:54:20.280 --> 1:54:24.000 of the onion has already failed. Right. If encryption is useful, 1:54:24.640 --> 1:54:27.720 that is not a dissimilar sort of situation. Right, So 1:54:27.760 --> 1:54:32.520 there's a there's a degree of canniness is super helpful 1:54:32.520 --> 1:54:36.920 and thinking about like what is what is visible about me? 1:54:37.040 --> 1:54:39.840 If I'm doing something, I know that I have to 1:54:39.880 --> 1:54:44.320 be extra concerned about the state seeing what is visible 1:54:44.360 --> 1:54:46.480 about me from the outside, you. 1:54:46.440 --> 1:54:48.560 Know, I mean, I think that's an amazing thing to 1:54:48.600 --> 1:54:51.760 think about. Like where where are you sending a text message? 1:54:51.800 --> 1:54:54.560 Are you in a place in which like someone can 1:54:54.640 --> 1:54:58.440 lean over, Like I'm the nosiest motherfucker in all the time. 1:54:58.560 --> 1:55:01.520 I'm constantly like looking around being like what's that person 1:55:01.560 --> 1:55:04.360 watching on an airplane? Or like if someone is sitting 1:55:04.400 --> 1:55:07.080 next to me scrolling, so like you wouldn't want to 1:55:07.120 --> 1:55:09.520 like send a sensitive text message like next to me, 1:55:09.560 --> 1:55:12.640 because I'd be like, that's that's interesting fodder. 1:55:12.720 --> 1:55:14.680 That's kind of a Texas to. 1:55:14.680 --> 1:55:18.320 Cooper later, you know, And so I think it's important 1:55:18.360 --> 1:55:20.560 to think about that, like who's around you? 1:55:20.880 --> 1:55:20.960 Is? 1:55:21.000 --> 1:55:24.160 This is like how are you describing something? Do you 1:55:24.240 --> 1:55:26.720 know the person you're messaging? If you're in a group message, 1:55:26.760 --> 1:55:29.880 you know everybody there? Like do you trust all of them? 1:55:30.880 --> 1:55:31.120 You know? 1:55:31.160 --> 1:55:33.280 And if you're ever nervous there are this is I 1:55:33.320 --> 1:55:36.400 guess the upside also to in person conversations. You can have, 1:55:37.320 --> 1:55:39.600 you know, a phone call or an in person conversation 1:55:39.680 --> 1:55:42.800 with someone. Right if you're really not sure or you 1:55:42.840 --> 1:55:45.960 don't feel comfortable even sending something over signal, that might 1:55:46.000 --> 1:55:47.120 be the time to be like, hey, do you want 1:55:47.120 --> 1:55:49.120 to meet up and get a coffee and then you know, 1:55:50.840 --> 1:55:55.280 try to find a discreet place to have have a conversation. 1:55:56.120 --> 1:56:01.800 Yeah, yeah, I do want to roll to ads real quick. 1:56:01.840 --> 1:56:03.920 One second, and I think Cooper had something to say, 1:56:04.000 --> 1:56:09.120 and we'll we'll continue, but first products Ah, we're back Cooper. 1:56:09.440 --> 1:56:11.720 You look like you had something to add on that. 1:56:12.240 --> 1:56:14.680 Nothing particularly serious, just that I think that that's I 1:56:14.720 --> 1:56:15.400 think that that's. 1:56:15.280 --> 1:56:18.000 Really good advice for the military and absolutely justifies the 1:56:18.120 --> 1:56:19.320 nine hundred billion dollars. 1:56:22.280 --> 1:56:26.040 Yeah, I'm glad they put together a fucking graphic. I 1:56:26.080 --> 1:56:28.280 wonder how many billions of dollars that did cost. 1:56:28.760 --> 1:56:31.600 I could I could make a graphic for hundreds of 1:56:31.600 --> 1:56:32.600 millions of dollars. 1:56:32.800 --> 1:56:35.360 Yeah, if anybody, if anybody wants to fund us for 1:56:35.480 --> 1:56:37.520 hundreds of millions, we will will do it less now 1:56:37.880 --> 1:56:39.480 a year, hundreds of millions. 1:56:39.520 --> 1:56:43.320 We have so many good T shirt ideas and sticker ideas, y'all, like, 1:56:43.960 --> 1:56:47.000 so many good ones, so many unhinged ones that the 1:56:47.000 --> 1:56:48.080 world needs to see. 1:56:48.480 --> 1:56:51.560 Yeah, I uh, I mean I do. I guess just 1:56:51.600 --> 1:56:53.600 because of the amount of time I've spent thinking about 1:56:53.600 --> 1:56:56.440 this stuff from my old job. There are a couple 1:56:56.440 --> 1:57:01.960 of concepts from military planning I think about in this context, 1:57:02.000 --> 1:57:04.680 and one of them that I also think is relevant 1:57:04.680 --> 1:57:06.960 to what we're talking about with friction is the concept 1:57:06.960 --> 1:57:09.440 of an ode loop, right, which is how do you 1:57:09.520 --> 1:57:13.560 win and combat against an opponent, And it's by disrupting 1:57:13.600 --> 1:57:15.240 this thing called the ode loop, and the odor loop 1:57:15.360 --> 1:57:20.400 is how an adversary carries out actions in a conflict 1:57:20.440 --> 1:57:23.000 like this, right. And the steps you have to go 1:57:23.040 --> 1:57:26.400 for are observe, orient, decide, and act. And if you 1:57:26.400 --> 1:57:29.240 can disrupt any stage of that, you can stop them 1:57:29.280 --> 1:57:32.320 from taking actions, right, which stops them from being able 1:57:32.320 --> 1:57:38.080 to harm you. And the good security is going to 1:57:38.240 --> 1:57:40.680 impact all three of those things, right, It's going to 1:57:40.720 --> 1:57:43.480 stop them from being able to see you sometimes if 1:57:43.520 --> 1:57:46.040 they can see you, stuff like you know, you were 1:57:46.080 --> 1:57:49.760 just talking, we were just talking earlier about link previews, right, 1:57:49.760 --> 1:57:51.800 and how that can kind of expose maybe who you're 1:57:51.840 --> 1:57:55.120 in communication with potentially well, that could allow the state 1:57:55.200 --> 1:57:57.920 to orient themselves to you and to your friends, right. 1:57:58.600 --> 1:58:01.800 And obviously stuff like locking down your device is not 1:58:01.880 --> 1:58:05.680 having unnecessarily info online can stop them bring being able 1:58:05.680 --> 1:58:08.160 to decide you know what you're doing, and how they 1:58:08.200 --> 1:58:11.480 should respond to that. And I think that's also good 1:58:11.760 --> 1:58:13.960 if you're thinking, if you're not just somebody who is 1:58:14.000 --> 1:58:16.520 concerned about your security like most people are, because it's 1:58:16.560 --> 1:58:20.320 good to have some security. If you're actually dealing with 1:58:20.600 --> 1:58:24.080 the state or a corporation as an adversary in some way, 1:58:24.480 --> 1:58:27.960 it can be useful to think about your security culture 1:58:27.960 --> 1:58:28.680 in those terms. 1:58:29.800 --> 1:58:33.560 Yeah. Absolutely, I think that's absolutely right. It's it's and. 1:58:33.560 --> 1:58:35.480 I think that it's you know, it points to like 1:58:35.600 --> 1:58:40.600 we should we should understand what the you know mode 1:58:40.600 --> 1:58:44.040 of thinking of our adversaries is, right, like we you know, 1:58:44.040 --> 1:58:47.840 we should if your adversary is the NSA, right, which 1:58:47.880 --> 1:58:51.400 is like probably actually not most people in the US, 1:58:51.440 --> 1:58:54.200 Like for most US activists, the NSA is not actually 1:58:54.280 --> 1:58:57.520 your biggest adversary, right, Like your biggest adversary is going 1:58:57.560 --> 1:59:00.240 to be local police, right, your biggest adversary is going 1:59:00.320 --> 1:59:03.320 to be you know, the the you know, somebody like 1:59:03.360 --> 1:59:05.720 your abusive partner, right. And you need to And this 1:59:05.760 --> 1:59:10.680 is why threat modeling is important, because you need to 1:59:10.680 --> 1:59:13.160 to really to really think about, you know, think through 1:59:13.280 --> 1:59:15.480 like you know, well, okay, wait, am I actually worried 1:59:15.480 --> 1:59:17.520 about protecting myself from the NSA or am I more 1:59:17.560 --> 1:59:21.320 worried about? Uh uh, you know the the racist police 1:59:21.360 --> 1:59:23.560 officer that drives down my street every day? 1:59:23.640 --> 1:59:23.760 Right? 1:59:23.760 --> 1:59:25.960 And yeah, probably it's the latter. And so you can 1:59:26.400 --> 1:59:30.080 you can take a lot more useful actions, right uh 1:59:30.160 --> 1:59:33.960 and and you know you can, you can you know, 1:59:34.040 --> 1:59:37.280 break that oda loop for him once you know actually 1:59:37.360 --> 1:59:40.200 what it is. Right, Yeah, if you're defending yourself against 1:59:40.240 --> 1:59:43.160 the NSA, you're gonna leave yourself wide open to the 1:59:43.320 --> 1:59:44.080 actual threat. 1:59:44.880 --> 1:59:45.120 Yeah. 1:59:45.120 --> 1:59:48.200 It's really I think a great example. And I I 1:59:48.200 --> 1:59:50.920 don't mean to be like quote unquote sub tweeting somebody here, 1:59:50.920 --> 1:59:53.840 but I've known a couple of folks like this. It's like, 1:59:53.880 --> 1:59:56.160 if you have if you're super paranoid, you're not putting 1:59:56.160 --> 1:59:59.240 anything online, You're only talking with your close friends. You 1:59:59.320 --> 2:00:02.320 use a dumb you have burners, but you also drive 2:00:02.360 --> 2:00:03.880 around with a shitload of weed in your car in 2:00:03.880 --> 2:00:06.480 a state where that's illegal. It's like, well, like your 2:00:06.720 --> 2:00:10.480 your threat modeling is not great in that situation, right, 2:00:10.600 --> 2:00:12.320 Or like I do all that, but I carry in 2:00:12.360 --> 2:00:15.600 a legal handgun with me wherever I go. It's like, well, 2:00:15.640 --> 2:00:18.120 it may be more of a threat than your phone. 2:00:18.360 --> 2:00:20.040 My partner the other day, was like, what if I 2:00:20.040 --> 2:00:21.360 got a dumb phone? I was like, what if I 2:00:21.400 --> 2:00:26.960 divorced you? Like, like what if? They were like what 2:00:26.960 --> 2:00:27.360 do you mean? 2:00:27.360 --> 2:00:28.840 And I was like, well, I'm going to be the 2:00:28.840 --> 2:00:32.440 one using all the maps for both of us, Yeah. 2:00:32.120 --> 2:00:35.320 And having to google all the dumb shit you want 2:00:35.320 --> 2:00:35.720 to google. 2:00:35.760 --> 2:00:38.480 That doesn't make I'm now your weakest link, Like go 2:00:38.560 --> 2:00:41.360 fuck yourself. But also I was like, I'm absolutely not 2:00:42.200 --> 2:00:46.120 going to be your your Google maps bitch, Like I'm 2:00:46.160 --> 2:00:47.120 not not doing that. 2:00:47.680 --> 2:00:49.440 But but I. 2:00:49.360 --> 2:00:51.120 Mean I think also, do you know to both of 2:00:51.160 --> 2:00:53.560 y'all's points to get serious again for a second. I mean, 2:00:53.600 --> 2:00:57.480 you know, like my threat model, for example, might be 2:00:57.760 --> 2:01:01.920 similar or slightly different, maybe slightly less than Cooper's. But 2:01:02.080 --> 2:01:04.720 you know, like some of the like the the the 2:01:04.840 --> 2:01:06.760 journalists in India we were working with, have quite a 2:01:06.840 --> 2:01:10.040 high threat model, right, Like, yeah, the Indian police force 2:01:10.440 --> 2:01:14.160 are very much like the NSA. They're very talented, they 2:01:14.200 --> 2:01:16.440 have a lot of money and tech at their disposal, 2:01:16.760 --> 2:01:20.080 and that might be different for some of the activists 2:01:20.080 --> 2:01:22.760 we're working with, let's say in like Louisiana or Texas, right, 2:01:23.960 --> 2:01:27.360 But the differences is like we're still talking about I 2:01:27.400 --> 2:01:32.160 would argue two brutal police forces that just have different 2:01:32.200 --> 2:01:35.080 means of disposal at their hands. So like the Louisiana 2:01:35.320 --> 2:01:39.120 Police are our groups you should totally be worried about. 2:01:39.360 --> 2:01:42.080 They might not be able to hack your phone, but 2:01:42.680 --> 2:01:45.240 maybe eventually they could. But there are other there are 2:01:45.280 --> 2:01:47.760 obviously other things we're about with them. But you know, 2:01:48.400 --> 2:01:50.560 in the context of like with some of the folks 2:01:50.560 --> 2:01:54.480 who are working with in the South, like reproductive justice activists, 2:01:54.880 --> 2:01:56.919 some of the things are probably much more. 2:01:58.560 --> 2:01:59.960 Serious in terms of your threat model. 2:02:00.080 --> 2:02:03.240 Would be like a nurse for someone who, let's say, 2:02:03.240 --> 2:02:06.320 is miscarring or has sought an abortion. This is something 2:02:06.400 --> 2:02:09.400 Kate Bertash from the Digital Defense Fund, a friend of 2:02:09.800 --> 2:02:12.520 of you know ours, has talked about where like the 2:02:12.600 --> 2:02:14.920 people that are supposed to take care of you might 2:02:14.960 --> 2:02:18.680 be the ones that are actually your your biggest threat, right, 2:02:18.880 --> 2:02:21.200 the ones that have heard you say something or you've 2:02:21.200 --> 2:02:24.480 can fight it in for example, And that is kind 2:02:24.480 --> 2:02:26.360 of a horrifying thing to think about, but that is 2:02:26.760 --> 2:02:29.120 that is a thing you have to threat model, right 2:02:29.240 --> 2:02:31.280 is can I trust this person? 2:02:31.920 --> 2:02:33.960 How am I describing you know what's happening? 2:02:34.640 --> 2:02:35.040 Yeah? 2:02:35.400 --> 2:02:39.480 Yeah, absolutely, Well did y'all have anything else you wanted 2:02:39.480 --> 2:02:42.320 to make sure to get into in this conversation. There's 2:02:42.320 --> 2:02:44.760 so much more in your in the great paper you 2:02:44.760 --> 2:02:48.000 you helped co author What is Secure and Analysis of 2:02:48.000 --> 2:02:51.720 Popular Messaging Apps on the Tech Policy Press. But yeah, 2:02:51.760 --> 2:02:53.680 is there anything else y'all wanted to really make sure 2:02:53.720 --> 2:02:54.840 you hit before we roll out. 2:02:55.400 --> 2:02:57.640 Yeah, please don't use Telegram for a variety of reasons, 2:02:57.640 --> 2:03:00.800 but also like it's very unclear how they respond to 2:03:00.840 --> 2:03:03.400 any law enforcement or government. They don't say anything, and 2:03:03.440 --> 2:03:05.720 it's kind of impossible to reach anyone that works there. 2:03:06.400 --> 2:03:10.200 Please don't use Facebook Messenger other than maybe sending memes. 2:03:11.760 --> 2:03:14.400 There's a lot of really gross surveillance capitalism inside a 2:03:14.400 --> 2:03:18.400 Facebook Messenger that the paper gets into. But effectively, Meta 2:03:18.440 --> 2:03:21.920 is building this weird, sprawling infrastructure inside of Facebook Messenger 2:03:21.960 --> 2:03:23.840 and try to link Facebook and Instagram. 2:03:24.280 --> 2:03:26.560 And one of the things we noticed. 2:03:26.320 --> 2:03:28.880 Is that like if you've blocked someone on Instagram or 2:03:28.960 --> 2:03:32.000 mute to them, but you haven't blocked me them on Facebook, 2:03:32.360 --> 2:03:34.920 but your stories, like all those stories are still coming 2:03:34.920 --> 2:03:38.800 across in messengers, so you can still see content from 2:03:38.840 --> 2:03:42.680 someone because it's linking both of those both of those profiles, 2:03:43.440 --> 2:03:45.800 so you know, you could see how we're taking like 2:03:45.880 --> 2:03:48.960 an online harassment lens, like why that's why that's really bad, 2:03:49.280 --> 2:03:53.800 Why that's really harmful and could be potentially you know, 2:03:54.280 --> 2:03:55.720 upsetting and triggering for folks. 2:03:57.880 --> 2:04:00.160 Yeah, I'll add that thing. 2:04:00.240 --> 2:04:02.480 My The major thing I want people to to think 2:04:02.480 --> 2:04:05.840 about is that encryption really does work, and it works 2:04:05.880 --> 2:04:08.720 really well. And we can see that because a lot 2:04:08.760 --> 2:04:12.040 of countries right now are trying to pass laws that 2:04:12.160 --> 2:04:14.960 either weaken or byan encryption right and in fact, the 2:04:15.040 --> 2:04:19.320 UK uh did passed, did just pass such a law. 2:04:19.200 --> 2:04:21.080 The Online Safety Built in the UK. 2:04:21.760 --> 2:04:25.320 And so it's really important that we that we you know, 2:04:25.400 --> 2:04:28.000 push back against these laws and fight back against these 2:04:28.080 --> 2:04:32.120 laws and whenever we can, right And I'm not I'm 2:04:32.160 --> 2:04:35.000 not coming at this as somebody who's a big believer 2:04:35.320 --> 2:04:39.480 in the you know, in in incrementalism and in working 2:04:39.480 --> 2:04:41.320 with governments, but I think that I still think that 2:04:41.360 --> 2:04:45.960 it's really important to you know, educate folks and push 2:04:46.040 --> 2:04:47.960 back against these laws and try to not let these 2:04:48.000 --> 2:04:51.760 pass because these will be you know, really bad for 2:04:51.880 --> 2:04:53.440 all of us totally. 2:04:53.640 --> 2:04:55.880 And not to defend the online safe build because I 2:04:55.920 --> 2:04:57.960 would never do that, will go to my grave, not 2:04:58.520 --> 2:05:02.240 speaking highly of it, only speaking critically at least, like 2:05:02.320 --> 2:05:07.520 the pushback from encryption experts and encryption supporters like Merrit Whitaker, 2:05:07.960 --> 2:05:12.160 president of Signal, did lead to lawmakers in the UK, 2:05:12.320 --> 2:05:16.600 for example, admitting that there's no sort of feasible. 2:05:16.240 --> 2:05:18.280 Safe way to build a back door, right, And that 2:05:18.440 --> 2:05:18.880 is I. 2:05:18.760 --> 2:05:23.320 Think also a win because of so much pushback, because 2:05:23.360 --> 2:05:26.360 of so much research, because of so much criticism that 2:05:26.800 --> 2:05:29.880 security and privacy folks gave people that are pro encryption 2:05:30.120 --> 2:05:33.520 like that, we you know, we were able to walk 2:05:33.640 --> 2:05:37.120 back that part. And I do think that's a big deal, 2:05:37.760 --> 2:05:41.920 even if there are other issues with that bill, because 2:05:41.920 --> 2:05:45.120 I think it also sends a signal pun intended to 2:05:45.720 --> 2:05:51.080 other governments as well, and I think that that's incredibly important. 2:05:51.120 --> 2:05:53.040 But yeah, I would also say just just use Signal 2:05:53.040 --> 2:05:53.720 whenever you can. 2:05:56.200 --> 2:06:00.800 But yeah, yeah, we'll all right, folks, is going to 2:06:00.800 --> 2:06:05.360 be it for us here at it could happen here. Yeah, 2:06:05.360 --> 2:06:08.240 thank you all for listening, and thank you Cooper and 2:06:08.440 --> 2:06:09.920 Carolyn for coming on. 2:06:11.080 --> 2:06:12.960 Thank you for having us, yeah, and thank you for 2:06:13.000 --> 2:06:13.400 having us. 2:06:13.600 --> 2:06:17.480 You can find us on social media for now, I 2:06:17.480 --> 2:06:19.560 guess until it all lights on fire. 2:06:19.760 --> 2:06:21.600 Yeah, whichever one you want to trust. 2:06:23.320 --> 2:06:27.640 I'm Cooper Cue on most social media's Blue Sky Mastered 2:06:27.680 --> 2:06:28.720 on Shitter. 2:06:29.760 --> 2:06:33.040 Yeah, I'm Caroline Cinders, my first name, last name. Our 2:06:33.120 --> 2:06:38.040 lab is Convocation Research and Design Record Labs on Twitter 2:06:38.080 --> 2:06:38.600 at the moment. 2:06:38.920 --> 2:06:41.120 Hopefully we'll get begetting on Blue Sky very soon. 2:06:42.120 --> 2:06:45.080 Yeah, yeah, I'll probably get back on there more. Now. 2:06:45.120 --> 2:06:50.120 Twitter has gotten remarkably worse, which you know, we had 2:06:50.120 --> 2:06:53.720 a back back in the day on the old something 2:06:53.800 --> 2:06:56.600 Awful forums. There was a thread in one of the 2:06:56.760 --> 2:07:00.919 debate forums about this very right wing site, Free Republic, 2:07:00.920 --> 2:07:03.280 which is like one of the earliest reservoirs of what 2:07:03.360 --> 2:07:07.320 became trump Ism, and the tagline for the thread, just 2:07:07.400 --> 2:07:10.000 kind of watching these people was there is always more 2:07:10.080 --> 2:07:13.320 and it is always worse, And boy goddamn if that 2:07:13.360 --> 2:07:17.200 hasn't been a continually accurate statement about the whole of 2:07:17.240 --> 2:07:19.880 social media right now, isn't it time. 2:07:19.800 --> 2:07:22.840 Amazing to watch someone just light forty billion dollars on fire? 2:07:23.040 --> 2:07:26.080 Yeah, just like, yeah, totally to it. 2:07:26.400 --> 2:07:29.400 Yeah, it's like the nihilist and me being like, wow. 2:07:29.520 --> 2:07:33.280 Comrade Musk really really taking some hits to capitalism here. 2:07:49.000 --> 2:07:52.960 Hello, reviewone, it's me James. Today, I am back from 2:07:52.960 --> 2:07:57.080 my trip to kutis Don and I'm talking today with 2:07:57.760 --> 2:08:02.200 Rania Hayat, a name that I've probably just butchered, but 2:08:02.480 --> 2:08:05.960 Ranier is the communications officer for the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate, 2:08:06.080 --> 2:08:09.240 and we're very, very lucky to have Rennie talking to us. 2:08:09.280 --> 2:08:10.720 Welcome RENI, thank. 2:08:10.640 --> 2:08:15.200 You, Jams, thank you for contacting me and letting me 2:08:15.280 --> 2:08:17.200 be letting me with you. 2:08:17.560 --> 2:08:21.800 Yeah, of course you're very welcome. So I think Rania, 2:08:23.000 --> 2:08:25.840 it's been a really hard time to consume news. For 2:08:25.880 --> 2:08:30.680 the first week of what's happening. I was in mostly 2:08:31.080 --> 2:08:33.760 Sying and Iraqi, Curtistan, and I wasn't maybe consuming as 2:08:33.840 --> 2:08:35.760 much news so I normally do, because I was trying 2:08:35.760 --> 2:08:39.160 to write news in Todead, and then I got back 2:08:39.680 --> 2:08:44.040 just the the barraers you. Information and disinformation has been 2:08:44.120 --> 2:08:47.920 very hard for people to sort of wade through, and 2:08:47.960 --> 2:08:50.520 I wonder I think one of the things I'd like 2:08:50.600 --> 2:08:54.640 us to focus on first and foremost is the impact 2:08:54.880 --> 2:09:01.720 of Israel's bombing campaign on journalists, specifically working in Gaza. 2:09:01.800 --> 2:09:04.000 I know, like friends of mine a journalists in Gaza. 2:09:04.080 --> 2:09:08.000 We featured on this podcast before the people of Parkour, 2:09:08.120 --> 2:09:13.880 Gazah and I know that many journalists have lost their 2:09:13.880 --> 2:09:16.800 lives covering what's been happening. So can you explain a 2:09:16.840 --> 2:09:20.800 little bit about what's been happening and maybe bring us 2:09:20.880 --> 2:09:22.960 up to day on the amount of every loss is 2:09:22.960 --> 2:09:24.920 a tragedy, but like the amount of people who have 2:09:25.000 --> 2:09:26.360 lost their lives covering this. 2:09:27.880 --> 2:09:33.080 Yes, James, well, let's start that journalists in Gaza are 2:09:33.200 --> 2:09:39.640 civilians who are people who travel, they work, usually they 2:09:39.680 --> 2:09:42.640 should travel, but they work, They do their job. They 2:09:42.720 --> 2:09:45.520 try to cover the news with very hard conditions, with 2:09:45.560 --> 2:09:48.840 the daily life of Gaza. Since the beginning of the 2:09:48.880 --> 2:09:53.440 war against Gaza on the seventh of October, you know 2:09:53.760 --> 2:09:59.480 how the war started targeting everything in Gaza, not even 2:09:59.800 --> 2:10:03.520 all the people, more than the people, you know, the buildings, 2:10:03.960 --> 2:10:09.480 the children, even the animals, the plants, you know, just 2:10:09.560 --> 2:10:12.520 bombing and bombing and bombing, air strikes the whole time. 2:10:14.120 --> 2:10:16.400 At the beginning, we try to we have some our 2:10:16.480 --> 2:10:22.640 contacts with journalists and us we have our General Secretary 2:10:22.800 --> 2:10:26.520 member and so we try to get information from them. 2:10:26.680 --> 2:10:30.120 At the beginning, yeah, it was not easy, but it 2:10:30.280 --> 2:10:33.520 was okay to get some information about what's going on. 2:10:34.240 --> 2:10:36.960 But by the time. Now we reached to a place 2:10:37.200 --> 2:10:41.400 that when I call them, they always tell dozens of 2:10:42.920 --> 2:10:47.600 we don't know. We are disconnected. I'm homeless. Now, I 2:10:47.640 --> 2:10:50.760 am not able to get any news. I can't tell 2:10:50.800 --> 2:10:53.280 you about my friend or my neighbor next to me, 2:10:53.360 --> 2:10:55.720 but I'm not able to tell you about further than this. 2:10:57.600 --> 2:11:00.720 I will just give some statistics. Up to now, we 2:11:00.800 --> 2:11:06.680 have eighteen killed journalists who have been either killed while 2:11:06.800 --> 2:11:13.560 track covering, others were killed in their homes, being through 2:11:13.600 --> 2:11:17.840 air strikes with their families and so on. We have 2:11:18.040 --> 2:11:22.080 also many many journalists who have dozens of them have 2:11:22.160 --> 2:11:25.320 been injured. I'm really sorry, I was I wanted to 2:11:25.360 --> 2:11:29.840 have some you know, I curate statistics, but I can't 2:11:29.840 --> 2:11:32.800 give you until now. We are now trying trying to 2:11:32.800 --> 2:11:37.520 develop like a tool to get some statistics, but until 2:11:37.520 --> 2:11:43.680 now it's not working well. We have many journalists who 2:11:43.720 --> 2:11:47.240 lost their homes, homes because it was bomb bombed or 2:11:47.920 --> 2:11:55.160 ye air strikes. Others they were this place. Yeah, and 2:11:56.360 --> 2:11:58.840 many of them moves from their homes either because their 2:11:58.840 --> 2:12:01.720 homes was a bomb or other because they were threatened 2:12:01.720 --> 2:12:04.480 to stay at their home safely, so they go to 2:12:04.520 --> 2:12:10.600 other like schools, hospitals and so on. The most tragic 2:12:10.840 --> 2:12:14.560 is the journalists who are losing their families. When you 2:12:14.600 --> 2:12:17.680 call a journalist to ask him about any thing, they 2:12:17.680 --> 2:12:20.280 told you Okay, I lost my son, I lost my wife, 2:12:20.320 --> 2:12:23.320 I lost all my family, I lost my mother. Now 2:12:24.320 --> 2:12:28.600 they they are completely broken. You can't talk to them. 2:12:28.680 --> 2:12:32.080 They are you know, it's really very tragic situation. 2:12:33.520 --> 2:12:37.440 Yeah, it's I mean, it's literally unimaginable, Like, yeah, I 2:12:37.480 --> 2:12:42.240 think I've attended wars, I've lost friends, but nothing. I 2:12:42.280 --> 2:12:45.720 can't imagine what it's like on this scale. And it's 2:12:46.160 --> 2:12:49.400 heartbreaking to even think about it. And I think some 2:12:49.440 --> 2:12:54.919 of what you said obviously, like part of the situation 2:12:55.040 --> 2:12:58.800 this creates is that it's very hard to do reporting 2:12:58.840 --> 2:13:00.920 on the ground. It's always been hard to do reporting 2:13:00.920 --> 2:13:05.720 on the ground at Gaza. I have made plans to 2:13:05.760 --> 2:13:09.600 go to Gaza, which probably won't work out now, but 2:13:09.720 --> 2:13:12.400 like it's hard foreign press, and of course there are 2:13:12.400 --> 2:13:15.200 many very capable journalists within Ghays that we don't need 2:13:15.840 --> 2:13:19.160 foreign press to go then necessarily. But can you explain 2:13:19.200 --> 2:13:23.600 a little bit of how when this war started it 2:13:23.640 --> 2:13:28.240 didn't just like affect these people in terms of killing 2:13:28.280 --> 2:13:32.040 them killing their families, displacing them, destroying their homes. But 2:13:32.080 --> 2:13:34.600 also like every day this war goes on, it gets 2:13:34.640 --> 2:13:36.960 harder for us to see I think the impact of 2:13:37.040 --> 2:13:40.400 this war on civilians living in Gaza, right because of 2:13:40.400 --> 2:13:41.760 the damage to infrastructure. 2:13:42.520 --> 2:13:47.200 Is that fair to say, yes, this is what's going on, 2:13:47.360 --> 2:13:53.000 and yes, reporting is getting more and more complicated because 2:13:53.040 --> 2:13:55.920 as also you know, there is no electricity. 2:13:56.400 --> 2:14:01.480 Communication is very very difficult when sometimes through phone call 2:14:01.600 --> 2:14:04.440 I call them just to get something, they tell me, okay, 2:14:04.840 --> 2:14:06.800 wait until I get some internet and I will get 2:14:06.840 --> 2:14:10.240 back to you. I wait for hours and hours, sometimes 2:14:10.400 --> 2:14:13.480 for the second day to get a little information. So 2:14:13.520 --> 2:14:17.280 you can imagine how they can even contact with each other. 2:14:18.680 --> 2:14:22.440 Yeah, and yeah, that makes it very hard. I think 2:14:22.920 --> 2:14:25.280 often like we might have more into this is not 2:14:25.400 --> 2:14:29.080 uncommon actually, like you have more information sitting somewhere with 2:14:29.120 --> 2:14:31.600 a broad bank connection and access to Twitter than you 2:14:31.680 --> 2:14:34.040 do on the ground, right, Like they may not know 2:14:34.200 --> 2:14:35.200 everything that's happening. 2:14:36.800 --> 2:14:41.720 Yes, yeah, I don't know if I can talk about this, 2:14:41.920 --> 2:14:46.400 but you know about the restrictions that on all social 2:14:46.440 --> 2:14:51.520 media applications, the restrictions on the Palestinian contact content on 2:14:51.560 --> 2:14:57.760 the social media we're facing a big massive wave against 2:14:57.760 --> 2:15:03.280 our content, against our new was through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, 2:15:03.400 --> 2:15:08.840 all those applications, So we are not able even to 2:15:08.920 --> 2:15:12.320 reach many people are banned, many people are hacked, and 2:15:12.520 --> 2:15:15.760 we are just hearing about the banning of many accounts 2:15:15.760 --> 2:15:22.640 of Palestinians. The very limited reach, very limited, and there 2:15:22.640 --> 2:15:25.600 are sometimes many times they are blocked or yeah, blocked 2:15:25.680 --> 2:15:29.200 or from posting and so on. So even also this 2:15:29.320 --> 2:15:31.760 is another problem that we are facing to reach out. 2:15:32.560 --> 2:15:36.520 Yeah, I think this is in a sense obviously, like 2:15:37.280 --> 2:15:40.960 it's in terms of specifically getting information about it, because 2:15:40.960 --> 2:15:43.560 I think that is important. I think if people could 2:15:43.640 --> 2:15:47.480 understand what it's like to see someone lose their baby, 2:15:48.720 --> 2:15:52.880 and then I think very few people would be able 2:15:52.960 --> 2:15:56.320 to in good conscious support that. And the fact that 2:15:56.360 --> 2:15:59.480 this has come at a time when I think generally, 2:16:00.040 --> 2:16:04.160 certainly for the US, reporting on things outside the US 2:16:04.240 --> 2:16:07.680 is an all time low, like it's atrocious, and so 2:16:08.400 --> 2:16:12.080 people lack the context to understand, not through any fault 2:16:12.080 --> 2:16:14.000 of their own right, but they've just been fed terrible, 2:16:14.240 --> 2:16:17.440 you know, opinion pieces for the last few years. They 2:16:17.560 --> 2:16:20.200 like the context to understand why what's happening is happening 2:16:20.400 --> 2:16:27.280 and I think obviously Elon Muskersport, Twitter and and just 2:16:27.640 --> 2:16:30.560 it's assessable. It's terrible, it's full of false information. And 2:16:30.600 --> 2:16:34.640 as you say, often videos that I have friends who 2:16:34.720 --> 2:16:38.160 are photographers in Gaza, a friends who are just people 2:16:38.160 --> 2:16:41.280 in Gaza and videos that they post will be taken down. 2:16:41.400 --> 2:16:44.080 It's sometimes they're to say it's too graphic, it's too violent, 2:16:44.200 --> 2:16:48.200 but like also that's their everyday life. Now that's been 2:16:48.240 --> 2:16:53.120 happening for two weeks. The graphic violence is sadly what's 2:16:53.200 --> 2:16:54.320 visited upon them every day. 2:16:55.200 --> 2:17:02.039 Yeah, yes, believe me, what's going on and because is 2:17:02.160 --> 2:17:05.080 very you can't imagine, you can't hold it when you 2:17:05.120 --> 2:17:09.320 when you watch it. Even the TV channels they try 2:17:09.360 --> 2:17:15.080 to make to minimize how dangerous and how violent are 2:17:15.200 --> 2:17:19.560 the scenes that we see. At the same time, I 2:17:19.560 --> 2:17:22.800 had a discussion this morning, I don't want people to 2:17:22.879 --> 2:17:26.080 cry for us. It's not I don't want people to 2:17:26.120 --> 2:17:29.920 cry for the babies killed and so with very hard 2:17:30.080 --> 2:17:35.760 pictures and videos, I just want the humanity without seeing 2:17:35.800 --> 2:17:37.879 the video just here that there is a child. It's 2:17:37.920 --> 2:17:42.480 loading child. Children. Thousands of children are losing their child's 2:17:42.600 --> 2:17:47.279 life or nothing, are losing their hands their legs. They 2:17:47.320 --> 2:17:52.959 are now handicapped. They don't know why. You know, we 2:17:53.040 --> 2:17:55.720 don't need to see the video, just know that this 2:17:55.879 --> 2:17:58.640 is going on. We don't want to make a tragedy. 2:17:58.720 --> 2:18:02.119 We don't want to to to people to cry with us. 2:18:02.720 --> 2:18:06.760 We cry. Yes, we want, okay, some solidarity, but it's 2:18:07.720 --> 2:18:10.760 not something to have the emotions and then then we 2:18:10.840 --> 2:18:13.960 sleep and then we wake up. That's what or no, no, 2:18:14.040 --> 2:18:17.520 there is something going on. We don't need the sympath 2:18:17.600 --> 2:18:20.240 you know, we need some actions, we need steps, we 2:18:20.280 --> 2:18:21.320 need humanity now. 2:18:21.800 --> 2:18:25.040 Yeah, So I think that's an excellent, really really excellent point. 2:18:25.400 --> 2:18:27.480 It's not a film or like something you can consume 2:18:27.520 --> 2:18:30.520 and then step away from. So what sort of solidarity 2:18:30.560 --> 2:18:34.160 actions can people take to support people in Gaza, to 2:18:34.200 --> 2:18:39.280 support journalists there, to support the greater cause of not 2:18:39.520 --> 2:18:43.560 having this issue where every few years thousands of Palestinian 2:18:43.640 --> 2:18:44.680 civilians get killed. 2:18:45.560 --> 2:18:47.960 Yes, well, to be honest, we want when we want 2:18:48.000 --> 2:18:51.400 to feel better, we turn on the television to see 2:18:51.440 --> 2:18:55.680 the demonstrations. When we see the demonstrations London, blocks cell 2:18:56.720 --> 2:19:02.320 the United States and different cities Arab world everywhere. When 2:19:02.320 --> 2:19:05.200 we see these demonstrations, we feel that somebody knows there 2:19:05.240 --> 2:19:08.640 is like a kind of movement. This helps us, and 2:19:09.000 --> 2:19:12.880 we need further steps after the demonstration. We need lobbying. 2:19:13.120 --> 2:19:16.879 We need the people who elect their governments who support 2:19:17.160 --> 2:19:20.920 those massacs and to say no, we give you legitimate 2:19:21.040 --> 2:19:25.600 legitimacy to be human. Stop this inhumanity. We need the 2:19:25.600 --> 2:19:29.640 people to lobby on their governments that this should not 2:19:29.720 --> 2:19:34.000 be supported. This is this is the real action that 2:19:34.080 --> 2:19:37.480 we need. Lobbying, lobbying, lobbying by the people, by the 2:19:37.480 --> 2:19:38.400 power of people. 2:19:39.000 --> 2:19:41.320 Yeah, I think it's one of those things like some 2:19:41.360 --> 2:19:44.199 things will never change in America, at least not by voting, 2:19:44.280 --> 2:19:47.120 but like some things, yeah, I have enough people, and 2:19:47.160 --> 2:19:50.480 I think more people, Like I remember when I moved 2:19:50.480 --> 2:19:53.080 to America fifteen years ago, when I was young at 2:19:53.080 --> 2:19:55.600 twenty one, and I came into America and I had 2:19:55.600 --> 2:19:59.520 a free Palestine, like a badge on my jacket, like 2:20:00.200 --> 2:20:03.560 things on my jacket, you know, and they sent me 2:20:03.640 --> 2:20:06.840 straight to secondary you know, like the like where they 2:20:06.840 --> 2:20:08.320 pat you down and take your clothes and go through 2:20:08.320 --> 2:20:11.320 your bags and stuch and like it just wasn't as 2:20:11.320 --> 2:20:13.320 big of a concern. I think more people in the 2:20:13.320 --> 2:20:16.640 fifteen years since then have become aware of the tragedy 2:20:16.720 --> 2:20:20.320 and the loss of life. And certainly now I've seen 2:20:20.360 --> 2:20:25.320 more people wake up to what's happening and protest or 2:20:25.959 --> 2:20:27.800 you know, get out and do things in a way 2:20:27.840 --> 2:20:30.200 that they wouldn't have done ten years ago. And I 2:20:30.200 --> 2:20:35.320 think that's really it's good, Like hopefully that demand for 2:20:35.520 --> 2:20:38.119 people to be allowed to live with dignity and safety continues. 2:20:39.440 --> 2:20:42.000 Yes, I mean, I just always want to ask anybody 2:20:42.040 --> 2:20:44.720 you'd like to say, are you happy to pay your 2:20:44.760 --> 2:20:46.240 taxt for killing others? 2:20:46.640 --> 2:20:46.840 Is it? 2:20:46.879 --> 2:20:47.080 Yeah? 2:20:47.200 --> 2:20:49.879 Jesus, Yeah, this is. 2:20:50.080 --> 2:20:53.520 The very initial, very first question. Are you happy with this? 2:20:53.640 --> 2:20:57.240 Do you pay your tax for this or for anything 2:20:57.280 --> 2:21:02.200 that you like to have your text to be paid for? Yeah, 2:21:02.400 --> 2:21:06.360 this is what we want. We're we are facing killing, 2:21:06.400 --> 2:21:10.240 we are facing assination and bombarding and so on, and 2:21:10.360 --> 2:21:13.800 we need all what we need as humanity, nothing else. 2:21:14.680 --> 2:21:20.160 I was thinking this morning of like, how very obviously 2:21:20.240 --> 2:21:23.680 right when when Russia bombed Ukrainian cities, most people said 2:21:23.720 --> 2:21:26.240 we should help the Ukrainians, send them ms, send them 2:21:26.600 --> 2:21:28.800 medical supplies, and some of them went and volunteered to 2:21:28.800 --> 2:21:33.320 fight for the Ukrainians when and I understand that like 2:21:33.560 --> 2:21:37.160 this obviously this, this conflict began in very different circumstances 2:21:37.640 --> 2:21:40.520 other than the Russia Ukraine conflict, but nonetheless, like, little 2:21:40.560 --> 2:21:44.000 children are being killed and continue to be killed, and 2:21:44.080 --> 2:21:47.480 the response wasn't the same. And I think some of 2:21:47.520 --> 2:21:51.320 that comes from like and not particularly hard to see 2:21:51.320 --> 2:21:55.080 orientalism in the US and the US media. Also some 2:21:55.120 --> 2:21:58.240 of it comes from the complete absence of Palestinian voices 2:21:58.440 --> 2:22:02.800 in certainly in like English language press in America. And 2:22:02.840 --> 2:22:06.119 I wonder, like I know that there are certain organizations 2:22:06.160 --> 2:22:10.160 which have specifically worked to make it harder for Palestinian journalists, 2:22:10.160 --> 2:22:14.280 like my friend Hausam Salem. He's an excellent photographer. You 2:22:14.280 --> 2:22:16.480 can find him on all the places where you find 2:22:16.520 --> 2:22:19.360 people on the internet. But we worked on stories together, 2:22:19.920 --> 2:22:22.840 and I know he's now had he's lost contract with 2:22:22.920 --> 2:22:26.760 major outlets because of this sort of campaign of accusing 2:22:26.800 --> 2:22:29.320 him of biased. I think it's hard not to be 2:22:29.360 --> 2:22:32.800 biased when you see a little children die. But I 2:22:32.800 --> 2:22:35.039 wonder if you could talk about that, like how Palestinian 2:22:35.120 --> 2:22:38.000 voices are excluded or missing from what even now right 2:22:38.040 --> 2:22:41.879 the Atlantic since two weeks of bombing now and I 2:22:41.920 --> 2:22:43.840 was looking this morning and they've managed to find two 2:22:43.879 --> 2:22:48.879 Palestinian voices to share, like you know, it's maybe not, 2:22:48.920 --> 2:22:50.520 and I'll have to check that after we've done. But 2:22:51.440 --> 2:22:54.600 I was flicking through these big sort of opinion piece 2:22:54.640 --> 2:22:58.320 type outlets and it's very clear that like even now, 2:22:59.120 --> 2:23:02.640 people haven't editors specifically or the greater press has not 2:23:03.360 --> 2:23:06.920 stopped excluding Palestinia voices. So maybe we could talk about 2:23:06.959 --> 2:23:09.160 like how that happens, what allows it to happen, and 2:23:09.200 --> 2:23:12.640 what people can do to help lift up those voices. 2:23:14.120 --> 2:23:20.640 Well, yes, Prestilian voices are being banned all over by 2:23:20.680 --> 2:23:25.400 different movements. There are many times fired from their works 2:23:25.440 --> 2:23:34.480 and big news outlets and media outlets for different political reasons. 2:23:34.600 --> 2:23:37.080 And if you want to go and through the stories, 2:23:37.120 --> 2:23:39.920 you find that some people are just trying to make 2:23:42.560 --> 2:23:46.160 to make problems for those people to let them leave 2:23:46.200 --> 2:23:50.440 their work and stop writing or telling their news or 2:23:50.480 --> 2:23:54.160 analyzing or anything about the Perestinian cause and what's going on. 2:23:54.640 --> 2:23:58.480 We're facing this globally, and we have many cases recorded 2:23:59.240 --> 2:24:04.039 undocumented in the PGS, and we can give you many 2:24:04.080 --> 2:24:09.119 examples about them. But I have to tell about something 2:24:09.160 --> 2:24:13.199 that we're a member of the International Federation of Journalists 2:24:13.240 --> 2:24:18.039 and we have also even our president of Brazilian Perlisinian 2:24:18.120 --> 2:24:22.280 Journalist Syndicate. He's a vice president of the International Federation 2:24:22.320 --> 2:24:25.600 of Journalist. He has been elected last year in the 2:24:25.680 --> 2:24:30.640 last congress. We have sister unions. One of them one 2:24:30.680 --> 2:24:35.160 of the best friends of us are the National Writers Union, 2:24:35.560 --> 2:24:39.480 the American National Writers Union, which is a very big 2:24:39.520 --> 2:24:47.760 supporter to us. They even Harry got Better, the general secretary, 2:24:48.040 --> 2:24:50.880 even he visited us in Palestine a few months ago, 2:24:51.080 --> 2:24:54.840 and he's a very supporter of what's going on, of 2:24:54.920 --> 2:24:58.600 all our statements of our news at the beginning of 2:24:58.640 --> 2:25:06.040 the world. They they produced like a statement about biasity 2:25:05.480 --> 2:25:10.920 and misleading news and so on, how to avoid them, 2:25:10.959 --> 2:25:15.760 supporting the Pristinians, supporting our life, our right to life, 2:25:15.840 --> 2:25:19.600 and so on. So we we highly appreciate this movement. 2:25:20.600 --> 2:25:24.040 Of course, it's not the only one. Many many syndicates, 2:25:24.160 --> 2:25:28.560 many unions all over the world sent us solidarity letters. 2:25:29.600 --> 2:25:33.840 Some of them supported us even with some in kind contribution, 2:25:34.080 --> 2:25:37.760 with some funds in addition to solidarity, in addition to 2:25:38.040 --> 2:25:41.760 demonstrations and so on, which really gave us a lot 2:25:41.800 --> 2:25:45.280 of power of hope. So we can continue and we 2:25:45.320 --> 2:25:46.160 are not alone. 2:25:46.760 --> 2:25:50.600 Mm hmm, yeah. I think that's really powerful. Yeah, and well, 2:25:50.640 --> 2:25:53.560 I mean it's not enough, but it's something the unions. 2:25:53.600 --> 2:25:55.480 I think people also the members of the union can 2:25:55.600 --> 2:25:57.720 encourage the union to do that, right, just to make 2:25:57.760 --> 2:26:02.200 a statement. Yeah, it's the show some solidarity. I wonder 2:26:02.520 --> 2:26:06.920 like what you talked about in kind donations and you 2:26:06.920 --> 2:26:09.080 talked about the support you're getting from unions. I know 2:26:09.920 --> 2:26:13.280 one unions which i'm a member, that's your Workers of 2:26:13.320 --> 2:26:17.720 the World FJAU just did a fundraiser, still doing a 2:26:17.720 --> 2:26:23.200 fundraiser for flag Vest, bullet professors, for journalists. What kind 2:26:23.240 --> 2:26:26.640 of support can people give, like in a concrete sense, 2:26:26.680 --> 2:26:29.560 beyond getting in the streets and protesting and writing letters 2:26:29.600 --> 2:26:32.920 and emails and phone calls. Is the stuff that they 2:26:32.959 --> 2:26:34.840 can do with their money if they have some money. 2:26:37.200 --> 2:26:40.119 Well, it's not a kind of money, it's a kind 2:26:40.200 --> 2:26:44.360 of I will tell you now. The situation in Gaza 2:26:44.800 --> 2:26:47.879 we can't or what we do we need is a ceasfire, 2:26:49.120 --> 2:26:52.879 to be honest. They even don't have fresh water they drink, 2:26:52.959 --> 2:26:57.280 by the way, they say, try to minimize that the 2:26:57.320 --> 2:26:59.720 water they drink, and they know that the water they 2:26:59.800 --> 2:27:03.480 drink is not very clean. But just to survive, so 2:27:03.560 --> 2:27:06.080 you can start with this very basic need of life 2:27:06.080 --> 2:27:11.439 and then you go further. As I already told you 2:27:11.520 --> 2:27:14.480 that the safety vests are very important, but when you 2:27:14.520 --> 2:27:18.560 are under strikes, this will never help you. But if 2:27:18.600 --> 2:27:21.560 I want to talk about the daily life, about how 2:27:21.600 --> 2:27:25.439 it's going and the West Bank and Gaza, our journalists, 2:27:26.120 --> 2:27:32.520 we all work under the same conditions of aggressive events, 2:27:32.879 --> 2:27:37.560 covering aggressive events and so on. So we try as 2:27:37.760 --> 2:27:41.640 PJAS to contact all the media outlets in Palestine to 2:27:41.959 --> 2:27:47.120 offer or provide safety kits for all journalists who work 2:27:47.160 --> 2:27:53.680 in the field. But for example our freelancers, they work 2:27:53.800 --> 2:28:00.360 on their on responsibility and a very denserse situation. We 2:28:00.480 --> 2:28:04.480 try to to to tell how dangerous that what they 2:28:04.480 --> 2:28:06.440 do when you go to cover with you don't have 2:28:06.600 --> 2:28:12.800 very full safety kits or it's it's very dangerous for them, 2:28:12.840 --> 2:28:15.320 but they are not able to to cover it and 2:28:15.360 --> 2:28:18.240 they want to they need to work, they need to 2:28:18.280 --> 2:28:21.200 do their job, so they do it in a very strange, 2:28:21.959 --> 2:28:26.039 very dangerous conditions. So one of the things that we 2:28:26.120 --> 2:28:31.720 can support Junius is yes, safety kets which are very important. 2:28:33.200 --> 2:28:43.320 Medical kits also are very important. What what else we 2:28:43.440 --> 2:28:47.840 try we try to to do also we try to 2:28:48.000 --> 2:28:52.279 raise the awareness to make some materials for the journals 2:28:52.360 --> 2:28:57.039 about safety. Safety is very important for us. We try 2:28:57.080 --> 2:28:59.600 to to to teach them more about how to take 2:28:59.640 --> 2:29:01.720 care of them themselves, how to report and so on, 2:29:01.800 --> 2:29:07.039 about their security and so on. Yeah, this is mainly 2:29:07.080 --> 2:29:10.480 what I can talk about for the needs or the 2:29:10.520 --> 2:29:13.080 in kind contribution, as I told you, in the current situation, 2:29:13.240 --> 2:29:17.800 for example, we try to support through some donations, through 2:29:17.920 --> 2:29:22.640 support to support the journalists with better charging. But it 2:29:22.720 --> 2:29:25.480 is because of the lack of electricity and power sources 2:29:25.480 --> 2:29:29.320 in Gaza, so just to give them connected currently and 2:29:29.320 --> 2:29:32.840 they are very useful for them and it helps. Now. 2:29:33.560 --> 2:29:36.720 Yeah, yeah, I can see. It's probably best that you 2:29:36.720 --> 2:29:38.680 guys just have money and then you can be flexible 2:29:38.720 --> 2:29:41.440 in getting what people need. I think that's generally the 2:29:41.440 --> 2:29:44.480 best advice is when there's a crisis, is to send 2:29:44.480 --> 2:29:46.480 the people nearest to it money and then they can 2:29:46.480 --> 2:29:50.080 decide what they need. Certainly, I found that I found 2:29:50.080 --> 2:29:53.520 that in a lot of places I worked. Yes, so 2:29:53.800 --> 2:29:56.280 you talked about the power situation. I think that's sort 2:29:56.320 --> 2:30:00.400 of it has gone relatively unreported. I mean it'll still 2:30:00.440 --> 2:30:02.560 say like the power and water being cut off, but 2:30:03.560 --> 2:30:06.640 that creates a lot of other dangerous situations, right, Like 2:30:06.680 --> 2:30:09.520 obviously some people rely on that power if they're infirm, 2:30:09.600 --> 2:30:11.840 if they have medical devices, that kind of thing. But 2:30:11.920 --> 2:30:15.480 also like where there are places to charge, that results 2:30:15.480 --> 2:30:17.720 in a very high concentration of people, right Like my 2:30:18.280 --> 2:30:20.879 friend was telling me that their parents were in a 2:30:20.920 --> 2:30:24.640 hospital to charge their their devices. Right They wanted to 2:30:24.840 --> 2:30:27.640 call their child and say we're safe, we're alive, but 2:30:27.680 --> 2:30:29.080 their phone had run out of batteries, so they had 2:30:29.080 --> 2:30:31.640 to go to the hospital. Yeah, can you explain a 2:30:31.680 --> 2:30:33.800 little bit of some of the things that like that 2:30:33.800 --> 2:30:36.920 that has resulted in the loss of power for people. 2:30:37.840 --> 2:30:42.360 Yes, of course. But first of all, let me tell 2:30:42.400 --> 2:30:46.440 you that we already asked quested all our journalists and 2:30:46.480 --> 2:30:51.360 Gaza to be in the hospitals. Well, there's safety, we try, 2:30:51.480 --> 2:30:54.320 we expect that it would be a safe pless but 2:30:54.360 --> 2:30:56.959 there is no safe less in Gaza now, as you're 2:30:57.320 --> 2:31:02.760 already know about the hospitals that have been targeted. But 2:31:03.400 --> 2:31:05.959 we we already asked them to be in the hospitals. 2:31:06.080 --> 2:31:09.120 We try to make some press zones and the hospitals 2:31:09.240 --> 2:31:12.000 in some places where it's for press for journalists to 2:31:12.080 --> 2:31:17.960 be there, So they can get some electricity power and 2:31:18.080 --> 2:31:21.160 so they can all to be together, try to exchange 2:31:21.160 --> 2:31:27.240 information and work together, so it will be better for 2:31:27.280 --> 2:31:31.879 them to work and safer between brackets always for them 2:31:31.920 --> 2:31:36.640 to work. To be honest, yes, I don't know. If 2:31:36.640 --> 2:31:40.720 you see the news now, it's we had the sun 2:31:40.760 --> 2:31:44.600 has set, so it's completely dark because you just can 2:31:44.720 --> 2:31:49.600 have some lightned spots which are the hospitals. And you 2:31:49.720 --> 2:31:54.680 know that even the solar and the sorry, the fuel 2:31:54.720 --> 2:32:01.920 for school for hospitals is about to to to finish 2:32:02.040 --> 2:32:06.720 here and in two days I think maximum. But we 2:32:06.800 --> 2:32:10.280 will see. Maybe we'll have some trucks or they will 2:32:10.320 --> 2:32:13.040 get something inside Gaza for fuel and so on. But 2:32:13.280 --> 2:32:14.320 I'm not sure about this. 2:32:14.879 --> 2:32:18.240 Yeah, I think, yeah, every day it's changing, I guess. 2:32:19.440 --> 2:32:21.680 And I wondered, like talking about getting things into gather, 2:32:21.879 --> 2:32:26.000 getting getting things two people in Gaza, a thing that 2:32:26.160 --> 2:32:29.800 seems to be completely like, I don't know, it genuinely 2:32:29.800 --> 2:32:31.440 seems to be that people think people could just walk 2:32:31.480 --> 2:32:34.959 out of Gaza and and you know, go somewhere else. 2:32:36.000 --> 2:32:37.880 So I guess, just to be extremely clear on that, 2:32:37.920 --> 2:32:41.920 can you explain the situation for people in Gaza with 2:32:41.959 --> 2:32:44.520 respect to if they want them mobility and their ability 2:32:44.560 --> 2:32:47.520 to leave, because I think it's something that again has 2:32:47.560 --> 2:32:50.840 been like criminally overlooked in the United States, discourse. 2:32:52.400 --> 2:32:53.920 Ability to leave Gaza. 2:32:54.040 --> 2:32:57.320 Yeah, yeah, like a lack thereof would be more accurate, right, 2:32:57.400 --> 2:32:59.360 like they complete absence of that. 2:33:00.040 --> 2:33:04.279 Well, unfortunately, people and gas are blocked. They are all 2:33:05.080 --> 2:33:07.280 and they are not allowed to leave Gaza with any 2:33:07.360 --> 2:33:11.480 kind of borders. Even the people who have international passports 2:33:11.520 --> 2:33:16.080 like American, European or whatever passports, they are not now, 2:33:16.200 --> 2:33:20.080 they are not able to leave gazam. They have to 2:33:20.120 --> 2:33:21.039 face their fate. 2:33:21.160 --> 2:33:21.400 Now. 2:33:21.600 --> 2:33:24.680 They are just displaced from place to another. Some people 2:33:24.720 --> 2:33:30.000 have been displaced four times and for areas different areas, 2:33:30.480 --> 2:33:36.600 and others were displaced and bombed later. So no, they 2:33:36.640 --> 2:33:39.520 are blocked. They have They are blocked in a like 2:33:39.600 --> 2:33:43.880 a very limited area which is under strikes the whole time. 2:33:44.440 --> 2:33:50.480 No place is safe. Even the Baptist hospital. They thought 2:33:50.480 --> 2:33:53.560 that it would be a Baptist hospital hospital related to 2:33:53.600 --> 2:33:58.880 a church and so on. It was strike massively cruely. 2:34:01.280 --> 2:34:05.200 More than five hundred have been killed. They were all children. 2:34:05.320 --> 2:34:08.440 Mothers are sitting just as a thinking that it would 2:34:08.480 --> 2:34:11.920 be a shelter for them. So yes, this is the 2:34:11.959 --> 2:34:16.320 situation Gaza. There is no safe place, no hospitals. If 2:34:16.320 --> 2:34:18.040 you are in a hospital, you will be bombed. If 2:34:18.080 --> 2:34:20.080 you're in school you'll be bombed. If you are in 2:34:20.120 --> 2:34:22.400 a mosque if you will be bombed. If you're in 2:34:22.400 --> 2:34:27.080 a church, you will be bombed. No safe place unfortunately. 2:34:27.680 --> 2:34:34.879 Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's unimaginable. And like the act 2:34:34.920 --> 2:34:37.199 of bombing that we were talking about this before we started, 2:34:37.280 --> 2:34:42.280 but like when you're being bombed, it's very different from 2:34:42.280 --> 2:34:44.879 like a small art conflict or even like a you 2:34:44.920 --> 2:34:50.360 know whatever, artillery motors rockets like you, there isn't much 2:34:50.400 --> 2:34:53.160 you can do to be safe. It's not like there 2:34:53.200 --> 2:34:55.680 is no like cover from bombs. You know that you 2:34:56.160 --> 2:34:57.400 you there's no. 2:34:59.320 --> 2:35:01.640 By the way, there's not under ground shoulders. 2:35:02.160 --> 2:35:03.080 Yeah. 2:35:03.160 --> 2:35:05.039 Yeah, and now they are intense. By the way, they 2:35:05.080 --> 2:35:09.520 were in houses. The houses they were falling on their heads, 2:35:09.560 --> 2:35:13.200 so they went to tense. So when they were tent falls, it's. 2:35:13.160 --> 2:35:17.959 Not so yeah Jesus, Yeah, it's bit's bleak. It's yeah, 2:35:18.120 --> 2:35:22.360 it's it's unimaginable. Like I said, yeah, I just spent 2:35:22.400 --> 2:35:23.600 a week in a place that was being. 2:35:23.560 --> 2:35:27.320 Very fat protected by the sky which is full of 2:35:27.760 --> 2:35:29.400 planes bombing them. 2:35:29.680 --> 2:35:31.880 Yeah. Yeah, and every time you look up you wonder 2:35:31.920 --> 2:35:34.080 what that is and it's this still time, or it's 2:35:34.080 --> 2:35:38.000 just so on. So I think one thing people are 2:35:38.000 --> 2:35:43.640 really struggling with is like overload of information missed information, right, 2:35:45.640 --> 2:35:48.440 just some of the worst pieces I've ever seen in 2:35:48.520 --> 2:35:53.000 opinion pieces, things center on social media, which are like 2:35:53.040 --> 2:35:58.040 it seems that we've returned to like peak aslamophobic rhetoric 2:35:58.120 --> 2:36:01.959 of like September twelve, two thousand and one, and we've 2:36:02.040 --> 2:36:05.880 learned absolutely nothing from twenty years of killing and dying. 2:36:06.680 --> 2:36:10.160 So I wonder where you would recommend if there are 2:36:10.200 --> 2:36:12.760 members of your syndicate or other places where people can 2:36:12.840 --> 2:36:18.080 find reliable and for reporting, which is you know, fact checked, 2:36:18.160 --> 2:36:20.400 which is not overloading them with you know, like if 2:36:20.600 --> 2:36:22.320 you go on Twitter to try and find your information 2:36:22.360 --> 2:36:23.680 at the minute, you're just going to get into an 2:36:23.760 --> 2:36:25.800 argument with someone who has the worst opinions in the world, 2:36:26.200 --> 2:36:29.200 and it's not good and it can dissuade you from 2:36:29.280 --> 2:36:31.560 taking action in the ways that you've mentioned which are 2:36:31.560 --> 2:36:34.440 actually useful. So is there a place you'd suggest people 2:36:34.520 --> 2:36:39.080 look for information outlets or individuals they could follow. 2:36:41.200 --> 2:36:45.000 Well, who wants to know the truth will be will 2:36:45.000 --> 2:36:50.880 find it. You know, the media is always any media outlet, 2:36:50.959 --> 2:36:55.640 it has its it has its mandate and vision and 2:36:55.680 --> 2:36:59.080 so on. So I just advise everyone when you will 2:36:59.200 --> 2:37:02.400 go for any media outlets, just try to read about 2:37:02.840 --> 2:37:07.440 what's what's its mandate, who's they are related to, who's 2:37:07.640 --> 2:37:12.520 they are supporting, and so on, so to know from 2:37:12.600 --> 2:37:15.720 which perspective you will know the truth. I can't tell 2:37:15.760 --> 2:37:20.480 now the names of outlets because it's not me who 2:37:20.520 --> 2:37:25.360 to decide who's who's the right one. As you know, 2:37:25.440 --> 2:37:28.959 I am. I work in a syndicate which is like 2:37:29.040 --> 2:37:32.360 a union, which is for all journalists with all foods, 2:37:32.480 --> 2:37:35.880 all at outlets, so they are all our members. 2:37:36.080 --> 2:37:39.360 So yeah, yeah, I think that's good advice so that 2:37:39.400 --> 2:37:42.680 people can take more. It's it's good advice that people 2:37:42.720 --> 2:37:44.920 can take more broadly, because I think people are completely 2:37:45.000 --> 2:37:51.480 unaware the ownership of some outlets that mandate there perceived biases. 2:37:52.000 --> 2:37:55.600 Yes, try to read about them, not only the new 2:37:56.120 --> 2:38:00.760 not the news itself, but try to see about this outlets, 2:38:00.840 --> 2:38:05.240 about this establishment, how it's working, what their objectives, how 2:38:05.280 --> 2:38:08.600 do they work, and what are their connections and so on, 2:38:08.959 --> 2:38:12.520 so you will know which kind of news they are 2:38:12.560 --> 2:38:17.680 covering and how do they cover it. Yes, this is 2:38:17.720 --> 2:38:20.920 what I can say for us as Telisinia Journalists Syndicate. 2:38:21.000 --> 2:38:23.879 We try now to report about journalists because this is 2:38:23.920 --> 2:38:26.920 our manda, this is our work to tell about what's 2:38:26.959 --> 2:38:30.959 going for our members, to try to get any protection 2:38:31.120 --> 2:38:35.879 for them. Actually were in this very hard condition. But 2:38:36.000 --> 2:38:41.600 we tried, through our friends, through our relations, through our supporters, 2:38:42.080 --> 2:38:46.920 through our memberships and so on, to have some international 2:38:46.959 --> 2:38:51.720 support for them through information, through like a flow of 2:38:51.800 --> 2:38:55.640 information telling what's going on, how many journalists have been killed, 2:38:55.680 --> 2:38:58.880 how many journals are displaced, how many and so on, 2:38:58.959 --> 2:39:01.720 So we try to give them those that are not. 2:39:03.000 --> 2:39:05.840 As I already told you, it's really a hard job 2:39:05.879 --> 2:39:08.400 that we are going we are doing now. It's getting 2:39:08.400 --> 2:39:10.880 more and more difficult. We are trying to cope, trying 2:39:10.920 --> 2:39:14.240 to develop new tools to cope with this hard, very 2:39:14.240 --> 2:39:20.000 hard situation. But we try our maximum to be honest, 2:39:20.480 --> 2:39:24.440 to get very real and true information, not to get 2:39:24.480 --> 2:39:30.480 any misleading information. There's a flow of misleading information. Even 2:39:30.520 --> 2:39:33.640 we hear about many journalists that they are killed, but 2:39:33.920 --> 2:39:36.320 when we try to make sure that we found that 2:39:36.360 --> 2:39:38.959 they are not journalists. We don't get them put them 2:39:39.000 --> 2:39:42.240 in our lists. We try to investigate as much as 2:39:42.240 --> 2:39:45.600 we can, so to put our lists to be limited 2:39:45.680 --> 2:39:49.199 to journalists, to our members, to the people who work 2:39:49.280 --> 2:39:52.039 with us, with our within, our man dead and so on, 2:39:52.400 --> 2:39:57.720 so to be credible source of information. 2:39:58.360 --> 2:40:01.760 Yeah, I think it's very important. I so, I don't 2:40:01.800 --> 2:40:03.440 know if you guys who shared it. I sure a 2:40:03.520 --> 2:40:06.120 video early on. It was when I was still in 2:40:06.200 --> 2:40:09.279 Syrian Curdistan, but we were watching it of a funeral 2:40:09.320 --> 2:40:12.680 of three journalists who have been killed. Yeah, and like 2:40:13.120 --> 2:40:15.560 someone was saying at the funeral that they was speaking 2:40:15.560 --> 2:40:17.760 and someone else will pick up his camera and like 2:40:17.879 --> 2:40:21.680 keep documenting things, which really was very emotional for me 2:40:21.720 --> 2:40:25.640 and my friends. Yeah, it was really sad, but yes 2:40:25.680 --> 2:40:29.879 it is. I believe it's just you know, that's the 2:40:29.920 --> 2:40:32.480 thing that I do. And I see people, you know, 2:40:32.640 --> 2:40:35.600 dressed like me. People. I know it's been very of 2:40:35.720 --> 2:40:39.520 your coverage of that has been very emotionally challenging for me, 2:40:39.600 --> 2:40:44.240 But it should be emotionally challenging. It's terrible, but I 2:40:44.240 --> 2:40:47.240 think people should definitely tune into it if they can. 2:40:47.360 --> 2:40:49.640 I wonder are they're like social media accounts that the 2:40:49.680 --> 2:40:51.320 PJS has that people can follow. 2:40:52.520 --> 2:40:53.280 Yes, we have. 2:40:54.879 --> 2:40:59.959 Facebook page. It's on Facebook. Yes, it's a place senior 2:41:00.040 --> 2:41:05.040 and journalists syndicats. Yeah, just and we try to download 2:41:05.520 --> 2:41:08.760 all our news on it. Also we have our website 2:41:08.760 --> 2:41:13.240 which is www dot PJS dot ps. Also you can 2:41:13.320 --> 2:41:16.440 find some news statements, updates and so on. 2:41:17.040 --> 2:41:20.440 Yeah, that's great, and I encourage people to follow that 2:41:20.520 --> 2:41:24.000 they're able to. I wonder, really, is there anything else 2:41:24.200 --> 2:41:27.240 you think that people are like anything that's been missing 2:41:27.280 --> 2:41:29.200 from the media narrative that you'd like people to know 2:41:29.440 --> 2:41:32.680 about the situation now in Palestine, or like the situation 2:41:33.280 --> 2:41:36.400 more broadly that hasn't been reported on as much as 2:41:36.440 --> 2:41:39.480 it should be. Yeah. 2:41:39.600 --> 2:41:43.080 Yeah, I just want to add something about besides what's 2:41:43.080 --> 2:41:47.040 going on, and because even a journalists in the West Bank, 2:41:47.280 --> 2:41:53.600 even in Palestinian journalists in Israel are facing a lot 2:41:53.720 --> 2:41:59.200 of threats, facing a lot of problems. There is a 2:41:59.440 --> 2:42:03.879 massive a campaign of arrests. So up to now one thousand, 2:42:04.120 --> 2:42:08.640 in three days, one thousand persons have been arrested. We're 2:42:08.680 --> 2:42:13.800 trying to find the number of journalists which is I'm 2:42:13.840 --> 2:42:16.400 not sure about it, but I can't give you the figure. 2:42:16.560 --> 2:42:18.640 As I told you, because of the big number, we're 2:42:18.640 --> 2:42:23.520 trying to make sure who are the journalists, But a 2:42:23.560 --> 2:42:30.400 massive arrests campaign is taking place now. Also, journalists are 2:42:30.440 --> 2:42:34.160 facing a lot of threats about a lot of violations 2:42:35.240 --> 2:42:39.640 while covering many times that are prevented from coverage. They 2:42:39.680 --> 2:42:44.440 are threatened by weapons, They are threatened sometimes by the settlers, 2:42:44.959 --> 2:42:51.160 armed settlers, even not the army, while covering many of them. Also, 2:42:51.280 --> 2:42:57.039 they are subject to incitement through social media pages like 2:42:58.280 --> 2:43:01.640 spreading their photo or there and so to make a 2:43:01.720 --> 2:43:05.640 kind of excitement how to kill them or to get 2:43:05.720 --> 2:43:08.920 rid of them and so on. So also the journalists 2:43:08.959 --> 2:43:14.119 are facing a very hard time now. Yeah, they are 2:43:14.240 --> 2:43:15.160 under the threat. 2:43:15.320 --> 2:43:21.320 Yeah damn. Yeah, that's terrible and completely unacceptable. So yeah, 2:43:21.320 --> 2:43:23.440 I'm glad you shared that, And I think it's important 2:43:23.480 --> 2:43:26.760 that people follow this and do whatever they can to help, 2:43:27.800 --> 2:43:30.320 do whatever they can to to I don't know, to 2:43:30.360 --> 2:43:32.720 encourage people to stop bombing other people, Like it's never 2:43:33.560 --> 2:43:36.920 a good situation. People are bombing children and hopefully it 2:43:36.959 --> 2:43:39.480 comes to an end. They get it. I don't know. 2:43:39.480 --> 2:43:44.120 I've never seen this much outgoing support for Palestine the 2:43:44.200 --> 2:43:46.840 United States. But I've also you know, this is an 2:43:46.879 --> 2:43:54.600 unprecedented act of again war crimes, so delicated's it's very 2:43:54.640 --> 2:43:55.959 hard to see where this is going. 2:43:56.000 --> 2:43:59.880 I suppose, Yes, we believe that the voice is rich, 2:44:01.200 --> 2:44:04.680 maybe a little by not that fast that that's easy, 2:44:04.760 --> 2:44:08.600 because it's not easy. But we believe in every person 2:44:08.800 --> 2:44:12.760 who thinks and and say no, this is inhuman I 2:44:12.800 --> 2:44:15.000 should not I should be with those people who are 2:44:15.080 --> 2:44:23.520 under attack, who are under under Yeah, a lot of 2:44:23.800 --> 2:44:27.240 hard life. Yeah, it's a hard life, a lot of oppress. 2:44:27.720 --> 2:44:30.840 So yeah, when we see the as aduld, when we 2:44:30.879 --> 2:44:34.120 see the demonstrations, it really gives us power. It really 2:44:34.240 --> 2:44:37.360 gives us that we have right to life. You know, 2:44:37.480 --> 2:44:40.280 this is a minimum right that we need people to 2:44:40.320 --> 2:44:42.200 tell us, Yes, you have a right to life. 2:44:43.080 --> 2:44:44.959 Yeah, I think that's it's nice to hear. 2:44:45.040 --> 2:44:45.240 You know. 2:44:45.440 --> 2:44:48.320 It's like if you can feel that you're helping, even 2:44:48.440 --> 2:44:51.920 just helping people, feel like a little bit, you know, elevated, 2:44:51.920 --> 2:44:54.480 a little bit better, a little bit less despairing, because 2:44:54.480 --> 2:44:56.040 I can see how it would be very easy if 2:44:56.080 --> 2:45:00.160 you're stuck in guys to feel like the world's and 2:45:00.240 --> 2:45:03.360 in you. Because it has to a large degree, right, 2:45:03.560 --> 2:45:07.440 the words allowed this to happen and it's you know, 2:45:07.480 --> 2:45:11.800 it's not it's American bombs, American plaints dropping bombs. 2:45:12.280 --> 2:45:12.800 Fortunately. 2:45:14.520 --> 2:45:16.879 Yeah, so I think that's really good to hear. It's 2:45:16.920 --> 2:45:21.160 good to hear that that has made some difference. Thank 2:45:21.240 --> 2:45:22.920 you so much for giving us some of your time. 2:45:23.080 --> 2:45:26.560 I know it's thank you, Jams, thank you for having 2:45:26.600 --> 2:45:30.160 me with you. I wish you all good luck. Thank you, 2:45:30.240 --> 2:45:35.520 Thank you all who listeners, listeners to this podcast. I 2:45:35.560 --> 2:45:39.560 hope that I was able to give you an overview 2:45:39.600 --> 2:45:44.080 of what's going on. And let's pray that this violence 2:45:44.080 --> 2:45:45.240 will end very soon. 2:45:45.760 --> 2:45:48.360 Yes, yeah, yeah, indeed, let's thank you very much. I 2:45:48.440 --> 2:45:48.920 was wonderful. 2:45:49.040 --> 2:45:49.360 Thank you. 2:46:07.080 --> 2:46:11.320 It's spoky week. It can happen here. It's spooky week, 2:46:11.360 --> 2:46:15.080 the week where things are spooky. I'm your host, Mio Wong, 2:46:15.240 --> 2:46:16.439 and with me is Garrison. 2:46:17.040 --> 2:46:23.920 Hello, and today all right, all right. 2:46:23.840 --> 2:46:27.520 We've gotten, we've gotten, we've gotten the preliminary spooky out 2:46:28.800 --> 2:46:31.360 and so today we're gonna be talking about one of 2:46:31.360 --> 2:46:34.039 the sort of key elements of Halloween, and that is 2:46:34.160 --> 2:46:37.959 chocolate and so on. On a very basic level, we're 2:46:37.959 --> 2:46:42.640 going to ask what is chocolate? And the answer and 2:46:42.720 --> 2:46:44.520 it pains me to say this as someone who really 2:46:44.520 --> 2:46:49.080 loves chocolate is really really bleak. Yeah, but before we 2:46:49.120 --> 2:46:54.560 get into exactly how bleak it is, uh, we're gonna 2:46:55.480 --> 2:47:00.240 look at sort of the early history of chocolate. So 2:47:00.240 --> 2:47:03.680 so okay, there's there's a lot of disagreement about exactly 2:47:03.720 --> 2:47:06.320 how old chocolate is. I've seen sources that say three 2:47:06.360 --> 2:47:10.680 thousand BC. I've seen sources that say seventeen hundred BC. 2:47:10.800 --> 2:47:12.920 The sevente hundred b C is the one that's pretty consistent. 2:47:13.240 --> 2:47:18.000 It seems like the Olmecs had something like chocolate. That's it. 2:47:18.000 --> 2:47:20.760 It's a sort of bitter drink that they sometimes put 2:47:20.840 --> 2:47:23.320 vanilla or red pepper in. Yeah, it was, it was. 2:47:23.360 --> 2:47:23.600 It was. 2:47:23.680 --> 2:47:27.039 It was like a bitter slurry that you from what 2:47:27.160 --> 2:47:30.160 I hear, not very enjoyable, but it got you like 2:47:31.160 --> 2:47:34.720 really high, like not high like like like weed, but 2:47:34.840 --> 2:47:36.359 like kind of like cocaine. 2:47:36.400 --> 2:47:36.840 It was. 2:47:37.000 --> 2:47:39.199 It was like it was it was a massive stimulant, 2:47:39.560 --> 2:47:42.280 is yeah, from what I hear about these kind of 2:47:42.320 --> 2:47:44.640 early gross bitter chocolate slurries. 2:47:45.600 --> 2:47:47.280 Yeah, And you know, I mean this is the thing 2:47:47.320 --> 2:47:50.760 that's this is not a regular consumption drink. Basically everyone 2:47:50.800 --> 2:47:53.520 he uses this and this, and and chocolate is consumed 2:47:53.600 --> 2:47:59.880 by a bunch of different civilizations like across like most 2:48:00.040 --> 2:48:03.640 of South America. There's something sort of like the Mayans obviously, 2:48:03.680 --> 2:48:06.120 the Mayans and the Aztecs too. There's a lot of 2:48:06.120 --> 2:48:09.240 places where where this is being used, and it's everyone 2:48:09.280 --> 2:48:11.920 seems to use it for ritual purposes. Yeah, I think 2:48:11.959 --> 2:48:14.879 at some point the I think it was the the 2:48:14.959 --> 2:48:19.400 Omes at some point we're doing these like they were 2:48:19.440 --> 2:48:24.359 making fermented alcohol out of so so normally with with chocolate, 2:48:24.400 --> 2:48:26.760 you're using like the cocoa beans, right, but there's like 2:48:26.800 --> 2:48:29.120 a flesh and the flute fruit around the beans, and 2:48:29.120 --> 2:48:30.840 they were making like a fermented thing out of that. 2:48:31.480 --> 2:48:33.879 And I don't know, I leave as an exercise to 2:48:33.920 --> 2:48:36.840 the reader with you count that as chocolate. But the 2:48:36.920 --> 2:48:40.400 sort of conventional story goes okay. So like several thousand 2:48:40.440 --> 2:48:42.760 years after the Olmes, the Assex and the Mayans using 2:48:42.800 --> 2:48:46.480 it for ritual purposes, and the story basically is okay. 2:48:46.560 --> 2:48:51.600 So Herman Cortes drinks chocolate with stick king Maktazuma. Cortes goes, 2:48:51.720 --> 2:48:53.720 this is bitter as shit and sucks ass, but he 2:48:53.720 --> 2:48:57.879 brings it back to Europe anyways, and in Europe they 2:48:57.879 --> 2:48:59.640 mix it with sugar and also with honey, but mostly 2:48:59.680 --> 2:49:04.040 with sugar, and it becomes you know, it becomes very 2:49:04.160 --> 2:49:06.920 very popular drinking Europe. And at some point, this is 2:49:06.959 --> 2:49:09.959 like the eighteen forty so like like takes some about 2:49:10.120 --> 2:49:13.760 like three hundred years to figure out how to make 2:49:13.800 --> 2:49:16.959 cocoa powder. But once you have cocoa powder, you can 2:49:17.320 --> 2:49:19.600 it's not it seems to be bitter like it in 2:49:19.640 --> 2:49:23.279 the in the way that it sort of is naturally. 2:49:23.640 --> 2:49:27.160 You can you can process it with like like like 2:49:27.520 --> 2:49:32.440 basic solutions, which which neutralizes some of the acidic and 2:49:32.480 --> 2:49:35.360 bitter bitter tastes, which is why you should always buy 2:49:35.400 --> 2:49:37.959 a Dutch process cocoa powder, which is unfortunately hard to 2:49:38.040 --> 2:49:41.080 find these days. But it is, it is, it is, 2:49:41.160 --> 2:49:41.840 it is the shit. 2:49:43.120 --> 2:49:45.760 Yeah, that's that's that's actually yeah, so the that's that's 2:49:45.879 --> 2:49:48.800 Dutch cocoa. And then twenty years later someone figures out 2:49:48.800 --> 2:49:50.400 how to make that into a chocolate bar and you know, 2:49:50.440 --> 2:49:53.840 sort of a law, you have chocolate. Now, the conventional 2:49:53.879 --> 2:49:57.480 histories are missing something very very important, which is something 2:49:57.480 --> 2:50:02.040 that defined has defined the production of chocolate since Europeans 2:50:02.080 --> 2:50:04.320 got a hold of it. And continues to define it today. 2:50:04.800 --> 2:50:10.680 And that thing is slavery. Yeah, yes, yeah, And you 2:50:10.720 --> 2:50:13.760 know this is slavery is a very sort of important 2:50:13.800 --> 2:50:16.120 part of the history of chocolate because slavery is what 2:50:16.280 --> 2:50:19.600 transforms the older ritual chocolate used by a bunch of 2:50:19.600 --> 2:50:23.520 different indigenous societies for several thousand years, into modern chocolate. 2:50:24.080 --> 2:50:25.880 And this is this is the point that I want 2:50:25.879 --> 2:50:29.320 to make because most most histories of chocolate tend you know, 2:50:29.320 --> 2:50:31.680 when they're trying to find the origin of modern chocolate, 2:50:31.680 --> 2:50:34.640 they go, oh, it's chocolate bar. And I think they're wrong. 2:50:34.720 --> 2:50:38.120 I think they're very wrong. I think the distinct European 2:50:38.160 --> 2:50:42.160 innovation of chocolate is to add sugar to it. Yes, 2:50:42.240 --> 2:50:46.720 and this raises the very bleak question where does sugar 2:50:46.800 --> 2:50:51.199 come from? And the answer, of course is slavery. Sugar 2:50:51.320 --> 2:50:53.920 is one of the primary crops of slave economies in 2:50:54.000 --> 2:50:56.840 both the colonies and the West Indies. It is one 2:50:56.840 --> 2:50:58.920 of the key elements of the so called triangle trade 2:50:58.959 --> 2:51:00.600 where you know, you may have probably you have learned 2:51:00.600 --> 2:51:03.720 this in school, but you know, for people, for people 2:51:03.720 --> 2:51:05.400 who've been out of school for a long time. So 2:51:05.440 --> 2:51:08.720 the triangle trade is Europe since manufacturer goes to Africa, 2:51:08.800 --> 2:51:11.400 it trades that fruit enslaved people and slave people are 2:51:11.440 --> 2:51:15.440 taken from Africa to the colonies and sometimes to America, 2:51:15.560 --> 2:51:19.400 sometimes to the colonies in the West Indies. Uh. And 2:51:19.440 --> 2:51:22.119 then they take you know, the products of slavery from 2:51:22.120 --> 2:51:27.720 plantations back to Europe. And that's you know, rice, indigo, tobacco, cotton, molasses, rum, 2:51:27.760 --> 2:51:31.320 and critically sugar back to Europe. Actould wait did did 2:51:31.360 --> 2:51:33.760 they Did they teach you the triangle trade? Yeah? 2:51:33.840 --> 2:51:38.280 Yes, I mean I I I did learn. My Christian 2:51:38.320 --> 2:51:41.359 Homescholing curriculum wasn't the best, but. 2:51:41.320 --> 2:51:42.640 We did, we did. 2:51:42.879 --> 2:51:45.440 We did cover some basic things. 2:51:46.480 --> 2:51:49.920 It's interesting because the triangle trade as a model, like 2:51:50.080 --> 2:51:52.360 isn't that old, even though even though like this is 2:51:52.360 --> 2:51:55.480 the way that we all understand, like Tyler sort of 2:51:55.560 --> 2:51:59.240 colonial trade work, it's a kind of recent thing. Yeah. 2:51:59.280 --> 2:52:01.400 So sugar, sugar is a very very key part of 2:52:01.400 --> 2:52:04.000 this entire thing. And there's a very very famous this 2:52:04.120 --> 2:52:08.120 sort of classic study of sugar and slavery is Sydney W. 2:52:08.320 --> 2:52:11.320 Mitz's Sweetness and Power, which is a fundamental tax and 2:52:11.400 --> 2:52:14.959 a lot of sort of a lot of the sort 2:52:14.959 --> 2:52:17.959 of fields around the study of slavery, and one of 2:52:18.000 --> 2:52:21.680 his arguments is that the British industrial proletariat is fueled 2:52:21.680 --> 2:52:24.680 by slave sugar because the sugar is a stimulant that 2:52:24.760 --> 2:52:26.640 you know, they're putting it in tea, which another stimulant. 2:52:26.640 --> 2:52:28.400 They're putting it in whatever they drink, and this is 2:52:28.440 --> 2:52:32.240 a thing that allows them to keep working for longer 2:52:32.280 --> 2:52:33.720 than they otherwise would have been able to. 2:52:34.280 --> 2:52:37.160 Yeah, and this also was the origin of Britain's probably 2:52:37.240 --> 2:52:39.160 largest cultural trait, bad teeth. 2:52:44.480 --> 2:52:44.800 Yeah. 2:52:44.840 --> 2:52:46.240 And you know, so, so this is this is this 2:52:46.280 --> 2:52:50.160 is a many aspects of British culture I've are descended 2:52:50.200 --> 2:52:56.360 from from slavery and you know, but but the other, 2:52:56.440 --> 2:52:58.480 the other important thing for our story is that sugar 2:52:58.640 --> 2:53:02.600 is what makes chocolate sort of palatable to Europeans. And 2:53:02.600 --> 2:53:05.440 and this isn't a sort of interesting thing that Europeans do. 2:53:07.280 --> 2:53:09.640 You know, they do this with tobacco too. You haven't 2:53:09.720 --> 2:53:11.879 you have something that you're only supposed to use in 2:53:11.920 --> 2:53:15.400 fairly small amounts for ritual purposes, right, And the Europeans 2:53:15.400 --> 2:53:17.960 are like, okay, but what if we purified the shit 2:53:18.000 --> 2:53:19.959 out of it and they just ate it literally every day? 2:53:20.360 --> 2:53:25.440 Yeah, have you ever tried like unsweetened on like chocolate liquor. 2:53:26.320 --> 2:53:29.560 Fucking sucks. I hate it. It's not good. 2:53:30.959 --> 2:53:33.680 You can certainly nibble, it can be a fun novelty 2:53:33.720 --> 2:53:35.320 to nibble, but you certainly wouldn't want to eat like 2:53:35.360 --> 2:53:36.200 a whole bar of it. 2:53:36.800 --> 2:53:40.560 Yeah, it's it's some real hope boy. Yeah. So, like 2:53:40.680 --> 2:53:42.360 I mean, it makes sense that they added sugar to it. 2:53:42.440 --> 2:53:46.240 But the consequence of this is that we can ask 2:53:46.360 --> 2:53:48.800 we can finally ask the question right now, now, now 2:53:48.800 --> 2:53:51.040 that it's been transformed by sugar into this object, a 2:53:51.080 --> 2:53:54.120 sort of popular consumption, we can ask the question what 2:53:54.400 --> 2:53:58.000 is chocolate? And the answer is that chocolate is colonialism 2:53:58.000 --> 2:54:00.320 plus slavery. It is a fusion of cocoa, which is 2:54:00.320 --> 2:54:02.440 an indigenous ritual drink sees is a part of the 2:54:02.480 --> 2:54:05.760 wages of colonialism by the European empires, and sugar a 2:54:05.800 --> 2:54:10.160 slave crop that drove the colonial prontation economy. And you know, 2:54:10.040 --> 2:54:12.760 you might say me, you know you're being harsh here, right, 2:54:12.920 --> 2:54:15.280 even if we accept your argument about chocolate and the 2:54:15.320 --> 2:54:21.279 sixteen hundred, surely surely that's not sure now, wasn't wasn't. 2:54:21.240 --> 2:54:24.280 Wasn't slavery abolished in the eighteen hundreds, and now I assume, 2:54:25.000 --> 2:54:29.320 I assume Nesle's barving practices are totally above board. 2:54:29.680 --> 2:54:32.039 See, and this is I think the interesting part of 2:54:32.080 --> 2:54:35.520 the story is gare like our readers is assuming a 2:54:35.560 --> 2:54:37.880 thing I'm about to launch into here is the Mars 2:54:37.959 --> 2:54:41.160 Nestley Child slavery lawsuit, and we will because that is 2:54:41.160 --> 2:54:46.400 a critical elements of slavery and chocolate production. But there 2:54:46.440 --> 2:54:51.760 is also still slavery and sugar production capitalism. And not 2:54:51.840 --> 2:54:54.200 only is your slavery and sugar production, there is slavery 2:54:54.240 --> 2:54:56.680 in sugar production in the exact same places there were 2:54:56.720 --> 2:55:00.680 slavery and sugar production five hundred years ago. And this 2:55:00.760 --> 2:55:02.680 is one of the sort of stunning things about you know, 2:55:02.800 --> 2:55:07.360 the miss of capitalism, right, which is that, okay, capitalism 2:55:07.400 --> 2:55:10.400 has had four hundred you know, I'm gonna give them 2:55:10.440 --> 2:55:14.000 a bit of credit and be like, Okay, I don't know, 2:55:14.240 --> 2:55:17.160 like I I'm gonna give capitalism a little bit of 2:55:17.200 --> 2:55:19.480 credit and give it only with being responsible for four 2:55:19.600 --> 2:55:21.440 hundred years of this and not five hundred years of this, 2:55:22.120 --> 2:55:25.160 because you know, whatever complicated arguments about whether the capitalist 2:55:25.160 --> 2:55:27.160 transition is in the fifteen hundreds to sixteen hundreds. But 2:55:27.840 --> 2:55:30.840 you know, they have had four hundred years to solve 2:55:30.879 --> 2:55:34.360 the problem of slavery on Hispaniola. Has it done that? 2:55:34.959 --> 2:55:35.039 No? 2:55:35.600 --> 2:55:38.240 It is there is still slavery on the island of 2:55:38.240 --> 2:55:42.920 Fispaniola four hundred years later. Because we're going to be 2:55:42.920 --> 2:55:47.560 discussing in a second. Still, the best possible thing here 2:55:47.840 --> 2:55:53.400 is that maybe, and this is it is arguable, maybe 2:55:53.640 --> 2:55:58.039 last year there stopped being slaves there. Now I don't 2:55:58.040 --> 2:55:59.400 even think that. I don't think that's true. And we're 2:55:59.400 --> 2:56:03.000 gonna get into to that, but you know, before before 2:56:03.040 --> 2:56:05.080 we sort of launch into you know what, like whether 2:56:05.200 --> 2:56:07.240 or not there are so slaves on checker plantations in 2:56:07.280 --> 2:56:11.520 the Dominican Republic. If you have had four hundred years 2:56:12.040 --> 2:56:15.039 to solve a problem and you have not solved it, 2:56:15.640 --> 2:56:17.440 you are never going to solve it. 2:56:18.120 --> 2:56:22.560 Hey, hey, let's not let's let's not visionhole ourselves here. 2:56:22.640 --> 2:56:24.080 There's a lot of things that have been around for 2:56:24.120 --> 2:56:26.400 four hundred years that ought not to be. 2:56:27.520 --> 2:56:31.800 That's true. But if you are an economic system and 2:56:31.879 --> 2:56:35.200 your economic system has been you are supposed to have 2:56:35.440 --> 2:56:37.440 you are supposed to have dealt with this at least 2:56:37.520 --> 2:56:41.880 two hundred years ago. But you know, we've arrived here, 2:56:41.920 --> 2:56:43.880 and it's something we've talked about before in the show 2:56:43.879 --> 2:56:47.000 at least a bit. We've arrived here at one of 2:56:47.040 --> 2:56:49.600 the real weaknesses of both sort of liberal and radical 2:56:49.600 --> 2:56:54.440 accounts of how the capitalist economy works, because both sets 2:56:54.440 --> 2:56:58.560 of accounts take as their starting point the fact that 2:56:58.600 --> 2:57:01.400 capitalism is based on free labor, that it's free people 2:57:01.400 --> 2:57:03.600 who enter into contracts to sell you that their labor, 2:57:03.600 --> 2:57:05.560 and that forced labor is this sort of like hauled 2:57:05.560 --> 2:57:07.040 over from older economic systems. 2:57:07.160 --> 2:57:07.240 No. 2:57:07.360 --> 2:57:09.720 I actually just saw a thing today on the Dying 2:57:09.959 --> 2:57:13.000 Remains of Twitter about how capitalism is the only economic 2:57:13.040 --> 2:57:17.280 system that's not based on exploitation of violence. It's based 2:57:17.320 --> 2:57:18.840 on free trade between markets. 2:57:19.600 --> 2:57:23.760 It's like people really believe this shit. It's like I 2:57:24.520 --> 2:57:27.840 don't know, Like I don't know. So at some point 2:57:27.840 --> 2:57:30.560 I'm gonna do an episode about really good book whose 2:57:30.640 --> 2:57:32.720 name I'm forgetting right now because I didn't look this 2:57:32.840 --> 2:57:35.240 up beforehand. But there's a really good book on these 2:57:35.240 --> 2:57:38.440 sort of dueling forced labor systems driving the Tea economy 2:57:38.440 --> 2:57:40.960 in late eighteen hundred, so that there's there's one forced 2:57:41.000 --> 2:57:43.520 labor system in China and a different forced labor system 2:57:43.560 --> 2:57:45.360 in India that are both warring in each other to 2:57:45.400 --> 2:57:46.440 control the tea market. 2:57:46.600 --> 2:57:52.080 It is certainly interesting how much tea has impacted like geopolitics. 2:57:52.360 --> 2:57:55.000 Oh yeah, yeah, we'll. 2:57:54.120 --> 2:57:57.480 Do an episode on that one day. Yeah, t is 2:57:57.560 --> 2:58:02.039 not that great, guys. I'm sorry, it's fine, rips. I 2:58:02.080 --> 2:58:03.920 would not we just don't have good tea here. I 2:58:03.920 --> 2:58:05.600 would do as much killing as people have done for 2:58:06.640 --> 2:58:07.640 It's it's not worth. 2:58:07.520 --> 2:58:09.520 Killing anyone over the number of people who've been killed 2:58:09.560 --> 2:58:10.199 over it is. 2:58:11.000 --> 2:58:14.160 Like in early cra is fine on like a rainy afternoon, 2:58:14.280 --> 2:58:15.119 but come on. 2:58:15.800 --> 2:58:21.480 Yeah, it's not. It's not worth like conquering continents for huh. 2:58:21.520 --> 2:58:23.680 But okay, so we'll back back back to this sort 2:58:23.720 --> 2:58:25.920 of main plot that is not tea, that is in 2:58:25.959 --> 2:58:28.520 fact chocolate. So one of the things that we can 2:58:28.560 --> 2:58:30.440 learn that we learn from this is that, you know, 2:58:30.560 --> 2:58:32.920 forced labor is not just a holdover. It's been a 2:58:33.000 --> 2:58:35.040 It's been a central part of capitalism for as long 2:58:35.080 --> 2:58:38.440 as capitalism has existed, and given its current track record, 2:58:38.480 --> 2:58:40.440 it will be a part of capitalism for as long 2:58:40.480 --> 2:58:44.760 as it exists. And you know, so there's always been 2:58:45.000 --> 2:58:47.080 a racial compoundent to this right and this is like 2:58:47.120 --> 2:58:50.080 trivially obvious, right, Like, there's a racial component of slavery, Like, 2:58:50.080 --> 2:58:53.360 holy shit, it's mostly about race. But I think, you know, 2:58:53.920 --> 2:58:55.840 we can we can expand this a little bit, and 2:58:56.080 --> 2:58:59.200 it gets you to a some sort of interesting things, 2:58:59.200 --> 2:59:02.120 which is that race is one of you know, so 2:59:02.160 --> 2:59:04.960 like obviously capitalism is supposed to be based on wage labor, 2:59:05.400 --> 2:59:08.600 but race is what mediates your access to wage labor 2:59:08.600 --> 2:59:11.680 in the first place. So, you know, white, like if 2:59:11.680 --> 2:59:14.240 you're an American, right like, white Americans have basically always 2:59:14.240 --> 2:59:16.840 been able to get access to to wage labor, you know, 2:59:16.840 --> 2:59:20.879 and as shitty as wage labor is, it's it's not 2:59:21.280 --> 2:59:23.680 as bad as the other things you can get forced into, 2:59:24.320 --> 2:59:26.440 you know. But yeah, so if you're black, like, you know, 2:59:26.440 --> 2:59:29.240 you get as successive forms of slavery. If you're indigenous, 2:59:29.440 --> 2:59:32.959 they tried to enslave you and then either sort of 2:59:33.040 --> 2:59:35.440 kept doing it or gave up and just killed did 2:59:35.480 --> 2:59:41.560 the genocide Asian people like who came to this continents 2:59:41.600 --> 2:59:43.680 and also sort of the West Indies largely get debt 2:59:43.680 --> 2:59:45.240 pion engine and entered service to you and you know, 2:59:45.400 --> 2:59:46.840 you can you can sort of work this out, so 2:59:46.879 --> 2:59:49.280 on and so forth, there's there's different like modes of 2:59:49.400 --> 2:59:52.640 stuff that are the normal sort of like what you 2:59:52.680 --> 2:59:57.000 by default have access to if you are ex race, right, yeah, 2:59:57.040 --> 2:59:59.360 and obviously this, this sort of racial access to wage 2:59:59.400 --> 3:00:01.640 labor spread across the world. You know, your your access 3:00:01.640 --> 3:00:03.800 to wage labor is dependent on sort of your subject 3:00:03.800 --> 3:00:06.480 position as colonizer or colonize as well as you know, 3:00:06.480 --> 3:00:10.039 you're sort of global and also you're like local racial hierarchies, 3:00:10.480 --> 3:00:13.920 because oh boy, can that shit be really fucked up. 3:00:14.959 --> 3:00:19.160 But the upshot of this is that many of the 3:00:19.200 --> 3:00:23.000 descendants of enslaved Haitian people are still effectively enslaved today 3:00:23.000 --> 3:00:27.240 on sugar plantations than making republic. And so we're gonna 3:00:27.240 --> 3:00:32.200 we're gonna tell that story. But first we'd. 3:00:31.879 --> 3:00:34.840 Oh, god, do you know what doesn't know? 3:00:35.320 --> 3:00:38.120 I cannot guarantee that our products and services are slave 3:00:38.160 --> 3:00:39.640 free like I wish I could. 3:00:39.920 --> 3:00:45.440 But well, do you know what is also here for 3:00:45.480 --> 3:00:51.680 a spooky time this Halloween? That's right, these products and services. Okay, 3:00:51.760 --> 3:00:55.480 we are back. I'm drinking my not mocha coffee, drinking 3:00:55.520 --> 3:01:01.920 my regular unsweetened coffees. Therefore totally thought, no, yeah, yeah, I'm. 3:01:02.480 --> 3:01:05.520 Everything's nothing bad. Nothing bad has ever happened in the 3:01:05.560 --> 3:01:06.480 history of coffee. 3:01:06.720 --> 3:01:11.560 No, I'm here, no tea, no chocolate. I'm safe. I'm good. 3:01:13.360 --> 3:01:17.160 Anyway. So unfortunately, the people who are not safe is 3:01:17.640 --> 3:01:22.000 a Haitians in the Domaican Republic. So we are not 3:01:22.160 --> 3:01:24.680 going to do an entire history of slavery in the 3:01:24.760 --> 3:01:26.480 Jamaican Republic because. 3:01:26.879 --> 3:01:29.320 Because this is a chocolate episode, and yeah, we have 3:01:29.400 --> 3:01:30.000 so much time. 3:01:30.560 --> 3:01:33.840 Yeah, you know, for many reasons. But one of the 3:01:33.879 --> 3:01:37.600 things that happened in so we're gonna we're gonna look 3:01:37.600 --> 3:01:39.600 at sort of the like the modern history of this, 3:01:39.680 --> 3:01:41.600 and by modern, I'm starting it in I'm starting it 3:01:41.640 --> 3:01:45.320 in the eighties because I have to pick a place. Now. 3:01:45.440 --> 3:01:48.960 One of the things that happens in the nineteen eighties 3:01:49.120 --> 3:01:54.080 is that the Dominican Army effectively so goes into Haiti 3:01:54.400 --> 3:01:56.600 or just recruitation people who are in the Jamaican Republic 3:01:56.680 --> 3:01:58.560 and are like, hey, you're gonna okay, we have like 3:01:58.640 --> 3:02:01.440 jobs for you, like come do this work. And so 3:02:01.480 --> 3:02:03.920 a bunch of people get in like these like army 3:02:04.000 --> 3:02:07.480 vans and then they get there and they get moorshed 3:02:07.480 --> 3:02:09.000 out of the van. A bunch of guys point guns 3:02:09.000 --> 3:02:10.560 at them and go, you're gonna work for free or 3:02:10.600 --> 3:02:13.959 we're gonna or like or we're gonna kill you. So 3:02:14.600 --> 3:02:17.720 this is really bad. And this is this is how 3:02:17.800 --> 3:02:21.200 a lot of like through the eighties and kind of 3:02:21.280 --> 3:02:25.000 early nineties, this is how a lot of sugar production 3:02:25.200 --> 3:02:27.760 worked in the Jamaican Republic. And you know, it's it's 3:02:27.879 --> 3:02:30.440 very notable here that Dominican Republic produces a lot of sugar, 3:02:30.480 --> 3:02:32.400 and it produces a lot of sugar that specifically the 3:02:32.480 --> 3:02:36.959 US uses. Now this is like state run slavery right on, 3:02:37.040 --> 3:02:39.320 sort of like state run plantations. So then we had 3:02:39.440 --> 3:02:45.279 neoliberalism and so the state run plantations get privatized. However, 3:02:45.640 --> 3:02:51.440 come they still run on slave labor. So there's a 3:02:51.480 --> 3:02:53.840 very good Mother Jones report about this, and I'm gonna 3:02:53.840 --> 3:02:56.840 I'm gonna read some of it here. Kakata is one 3:02:56.840 --> 3:02:59.840 of about one hundred, according to a local missionaries estimate, 3:03:00.280 --> 3:03:03.760 isolated camps scattered around Centralman Central Romana. As a giant 3:03:03.959 --> 3:03:08.400 sugar plantation, Sentrau Romana's one hundred and sixty thousand acres 3:03:08.400 --> 3:03:11.320 of sugar cane attract almost as big as New York City. 3:03:12.000 --> 3:03:15.000 Most of the workers and their families live in these battaias, 3:03:15.200 --> 3:03:17.120 rising in the morning to work the cane and the 3:03:17.120 --> 3:03:21.480 punishing heat, clearing weeds, slashing and spraying the stalks. Nearly 3:03:21.520 --> 3:03:24.480 all are men of Haitian descent. Some were traffic back 3:03:24.480 --> 3:03:27.320 in the day of the journalists is doing this was 3:03:27.360 --> 3:03:30.320 the guy who basically uncovered a bunch of the original 3:03:30.400 --> 3:03:32.680 armies like the military slavery program in the nineties, and 3:03:32.680 --> 3:03:35.760 so he went back like a couple of years ago. 3:03:37.520 --> 3:03:39.440 So he s talked himself. Some of the people were 3:03:39.480 --> 3:03:42.800 traffic back touring the military slavery program, others were born 3:03:42.840 --> 3:03:45.360 and lived stateless, and others came from Haiti more recently, 3:03:46.320 --> 3:03:50.080 paying smugglers to sneak them across the border. For years, 3:03:50.120 --> 3:03:52.920 the government has resisted providing legal status to people of 3:03:52.959 --> 3:03:55.920 Haitian heritage in the country, even though born there and 3:03:56.080 --> 3:03:59.280 estimated two hundred thousand people who for generations have been 3:03:59.320 --> 3:04:02.320 to mean by ray and class are stateless. For the 3:04:02.320 --> 3:04:06.320 men in the camps, CenTra Romana is the state. Their 3:04:06.400 --> 3:04:09.840 villages are patrolled by armed company police empowered to evict. 3:04:10.160 --> 3:04:12.760 Centraro Romana owns the land or the Haitians work the 3:04:12.840 --> 3:04:15.279 railcars where they weigh and load the can and stocks, 3:04:15.320 --> 3:04:18.160 and the dwellings where they sleep. They are miles from 3:04:18.200 --> 3:04:22.200 the nearest Dominican town not controlled by the company. So 3:04:22.440 --> 3:04:28.480 things going great here, yeah, and the conditions you know, Okay, 3:04:28.280 --> 3:04:32.440 so the sort of the capitalist reforms that neoliberalism has 3:04:32.600 --> 3:04:37.440 brought to this system are the number of child slaves 3:04:37.440 --> 3:04:40.200 has decreased dramatically, because that was a big thing when 3:04:40.200 --> 3:04:43.039 the first reporting, when everyone was like, holy shit, there's 3:04:43.080 --> 3:04:46.199 a bunch of child slaves. This is a terrogress. Yeah, 3:04:46.240 --> 3:04:50.680 so we have less child slaves, right, and you know, 3:04:50.840 --> 3:04:55.080 so instead of the child slaves, right, it's now mostly adults. 3:04:56.560 --> 3:05:00.000 But the conditions here are still effectively slavery even after 3:05:00.120 --> 3:05:03.440 this or a child slavery stuff like is driven under. 3:05:03.920 --> 3:05:06.680 On a good day, these workers make three dollars a 3:05:06.760 --> 3:05:12.320 day and they are effectively and sometimes literally unable to leave. Now, 3:05:12.600 --> 3:05:14.640 there are a lot of reasons for this. One of 3:05:14.640 --> 3:05:17.160 the big ones is that most of the workers there 3:05:17.280 --> 3:05:20.160 are most like basically all like you. You might find 3:05:20.160 --> 3:05:22.800 a worker somewhere who isn't stuck in this, but they're 3:05:22.800 --> 3:05:26.240 caught in these debt traps by Central Romana who and 3:05:26.280 --> 3:05:28.879 these are like classic company, but they're not. They're worse 3:05:28.959 --> 3:05:32.400 than like, you know, the classic American company town, because 3:05:32.400 --> 3:05:34.520 at least an American company town, you can go to 3:05:34.720 --> 3:05:37.600 another town that is not controlled by the company, whereas 3:05:37.640 --> 3:05:40.400 these people like cannot And so they're caught in these 3:05:40.440 --> 3:05:43.320 debt traps by Central Romana, which is that the company 3:05:43.320 --> 3:05:47.840 that owns these plantations. And because they're so in debt, 3:05:47.879 --> 3:05:49.800 they're constantly forced to work for the company in order 3:05:49.840 --> 3:05:51.959 to pay off their debt. But you know, they never 3:05:52.000 --> 3:05:53.680 actually make enough money to pay the debt off, and 3:05:53.720 --> 3:05:55.720 so they have to take on more debt to survive 3:05:56.000 --> 3:05:58.720 until you know, and largely what happens is these people 3:05:58.879 --> 3:06:02.320 work there in debt until they die. This is classic 3:06:02.360 --> 3:06:04.800 debt Pia nine, where a sort of debt transforms people 3:06:04.800 --> 3:06:07.640 into the effective property of the debt holder, who exacerbate 3:06:07.680 --> 3:06:09.880 the debt by denying them the ability to live without 3:06:09.879 --> 3:06:12.119 taking on more debt. A very common way this happens 3:06:12.160 --> 3:06:14.400 is with medical debt, which is something you know, I 3:06:14.400 --> 3:06:16.959 think we're familiar with to some extent here, but is 3:06:18.040 --> 3:06:23.440 egregiously worse. And the other thing that I was realizing 3:06:23.440 --> 3:06:27.400 about this is that this is actually really eerily similar 3:06:27.440 --> 3:06:29.880 to the way that Cortez and the Conquistadores and slaved 3:06:29.879 --> 3:06:33.240 indigenous people during the genocide. They would do the same 3:06:33.280 --> 3:06:34.880 thing of like, well, okay, now you're in debt to me, 3:06:34.920 --> 3:06:36.680 and because you can't pay the debt, you have five 3:06:36.760 --> 3:06:38.880 hundred percent interest per week, and so you know, that 3:06:39.080 --> 3:06:40.560 just accumulates, and now you work for me for the 3:06:40.600 --> 3:06:44.879 rest of your lives. And this is you know, this 3:06:44.920 --> 3:06:48.440 is one of the one of the sort of ways 3:06:48.480 --> 3:06:51.440 in which this the long shadow of Spanish imperialism like 3:06:51.520 --> 3:06:54.480 looms over the Dominican Republic, even in what has really 3:06:54.520 --> 3:06:58.440 been about two hundred years of the age of the 3:06:58.440 --> 3:07:03.280 American Empire, you know, and as you know, obviously like 3:07:03.320 --> 3:07:06.800 as much of an effect as the Spanish Empire has 3:07:06.840 --> 3:07:10.720 had here, and oh god, it's not good. Today it 3:07:10.800 --> 3:07:12.959 is the American Empire that lines the pockets of the 3:07:12.959 --> 3:07:16.840 slavers of the Dominican Republic. So such a Romana is 3:07:16.879 --> 3:07:20.080 owned by this family called the Fundjewel family, who are 3:07:20.120 --> 3:07:26.440 these Cuban expats who run this like enormous resort in 3:07:26.560 --> 3:07:30.720 shit where they live in Florida and are handed this 3:07:30.760 --> 3:07:33.600 is really fun. One hundred and fifty million dollars for 3:07:33.720 --> 3:07:36.199 the American state every year in the form of price 3:07:36.240 --> 3:07:40.480 supports for sugar. So like you're an American, right, Like 3:07:40.560 --> 3:07:44.280 obviously your tax money very obviously goes to support slavery 3:07:44.320 --> 3:07:47.520 because we have prisons, and so your taxes are paying 3:07:47.520 --> 3:07:51.640 to enslaved people, but your taxes are also paying for 3:07:51.760 --> 3:07:56.360 slavery in other countries. It's incredible, really really great stuff 3:07:56.600 --> 3:08:00.800 from the American political system here. And you know, and 3:08:00.840 --> 3:08:03.280 the way this has been maintained is through like two 3:08:03.400 --> 3:08:05.560 I think in the last twenty years, Mother Jones reported 3:08:05.560 --> 3:08:08.360 they've they've spent the sugar lobbyists spent two hundred and 3:08:08.400 --> 3:08:12.920 twenty million dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying, and it 3:08:13.080 --> 3:08:15.880 works really well. They've been able to influence the system 3:08:16.200 --> 3:08:18.879 for a very very long time. The other funny thing 3:08:18.920 --> 3:08:22.119 about the Fundjol family is that they've created the perfect 3:08:22.120 --> 3:08:24.120 political trap, which is so one of one of the 3:08:24.120 --> 3:08:25.880 brothers is like a Trump guy and the other person 3:08:26.000 --> 3:08:29.400 is a Hillary supporter, and they're both like incredibly immeshed 3:08:29.440 --> 3:08:35.520 in both of the circles. So it's great. Things are 3:08:35.520 --> 3:08:38.959 going very good. So after so the Mother Jones investigation 3:08:39.320 --> 3:08:43.160 was like in the last I think it was like 3:08:44.480 --> 3:08:48.240 last year the year before, and when the Mother Jones 3:08:48.280 --> 3:08:50.840 investigation about the fact that like all of this shit 3:08:50.959 --> 3:08:53.600 was still happening came out, there was a there was 3:08:53.640 --> 3:08:56.600 a giant uproar about it, and a couple of things happened. 3:08:56.640 --> 3:08:59.040 One is that so the village of the journalists had 3:08:59.120 --> 3:09:03.720 visited so Traya Romana, like, they didn't even bulldoze the villages. 3:09:03.840 --> 3:09:08.320 They blew everyone's houses down with like sledgehammers and forcibly 3:09:08.400 --> 3:09:11.080 move them to like other villages and separated people's families. 3:09:12.080 --> 3:09:16.959 So that's that's great. And then so in late twenty 3:09:17.000 --> 3:09:19.640 twenty two, under under pressure from this reporting, the US 3:09:19.720 --> 3:09:25.039 government like banned imports from that specific company. And Okay, 3:09:25.440 --> 3:09:30.680 it's unclear what is going to happen with it, if 3:09:30.760 --> 3:09:33.520 you know, if if they're gonna get unbanned eventually, uh, 3:09:33.600 --> 3:09:36.360 if it's gonna stick, if they're just gonna like I 3:09:36.360 --> 3:09:39.879 don't know, like transfer the assets to another company or 3:09:39.920 --> 3:09:44.280 something and use that instead. As so, as of right now, 3:09:44.640 --> 3:09:49.199 this specific set of plantations is not able to export sugar. 3:09:48.879 --> 3:09:49.440 To the US. 3:09:51.160 --> 3:09:55.520 So this is this is as much of a victory 3:09:55.600 --> 3:09:58.040 over slavery as we're going to get in this episode, 3:09:58.680 --> 3:10:02.800 and this victory is inc trying to reassure it's only 3:10:02.840 --> 3:10:05.560 gonna get work. This is this is the peak of 3:10:06.800 --> 3:10:10.520 anti slavery stuff we're gonna see here. Yeah, so enjoy 3:10:10.560 --> 3:10:12.240 it while you can. And do you know what else 3:10:12.240 --> 3:10:13.000 you should enjoy? 3:10:14.080 --> 3:10:19.320 Oh? These products and services that support this podcast. That's good. Yes, 3:10:19.640 --> 3:10:22.120 this is this is the real peak of the episode, folks. 3:10:23.200 --> 3:10:27.880 All right, I am rejuvenated by the advertising industrial complex. 3:10:27.920 --> 3:10:32.840 I feel ready to hear other tales of great progress. 3:10:33.640 --> 3:10:36.560 Whoa Okay, So now now, now we're now we're gonna 3:10:36.560 --> 3:10:38.560 turn to the type of slavery that everyone, I think 3:10:38.600 --> 3:10:41.600 expected this episode to mostly be about, which is the 3:10:41.640 --> 3:10:45.680 fact that cocoa bean production is also largely produced by 3:10:45.680 --> 3:10:51.160 slave labor. So, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna read a 3:10:51.160 --> 3:10:53.800 bit from a report by the Food Empowerment Project, which 3:10:53.800 --> 3:10:57.359 has done some very good work on most like specifically 3:10:57.400 --> 3:10:59.320 slavery in West Africa. They're also one of the only 3:10:59.360 --> 3:11:01.600 media people have ever seen talk about the fact that 3:11:01.640 --> 3:11:04.280 a lot of this stuff, it's not exactly the same, 3:11:04.320 --> 3:11:06.600 but a lot of the sort of slavery stuff also 3:11:06.640 --> 3:11:10.240 seems to be happening on plantations in Brazil, but there's 3:11:10.240 --> 3:11:14.520 effectively no coverage of it that's not in Portuguese. I 3:11:14.560 --> 3:11:18.240 don't know, so like, eventually, one day, I guess, like 3:11:18.560 --> 3:11:21.440 the fact that the other places other than West Africa 3:11:21.879 --> 3:11:26.240 have slavery will hit the anglophone media class or whatever. 3:11:26.320 --> 3:11:30.520 But until then, I'm going to read this section. In 3:11:30.560 --> 3:11:34.520 West Africa, coco is a commodity crowd grown primarily for export. 3:11:34.879 --> 3:11:37.440 Coco is the Ivory Coast primary export. It makes up 3:11:37.440 --> 3:11:40.879 about half the country's agricultural export and volume. Most coco 3:11:41.000 --> 3:11:43.600 farmers earn less than one dollar a day and income 3:11:43.680 --> 3:11:46.720 below the extreme poverty line. As a result, they often 3:11:46.800 --> 3:11:49.320 resort to the use of child labor to keep their 3:11:49.320 --> 3:11:57.840 prices competitive. In many cases, yeah, yeah, this is one 3:11:57.879 --> 3:12:00.000 of the things that happens when you're reading about child 3:12:00.120 --> 3:12:03.960 slavery stuff. Even people who like are trying to, you know, 3:12:04.160 --> 3:12:06.440 draw attention to how bad this is. You get stuff 3:12:06.480 --> 3:12:11.200 like that that's like Jesus Christ this. Yeah, so you know, 3:12:11.320 --> 3:12:14.360 they're making sub one dollar a day, they're using child labor. 3:12:14.400 --> 3:12:18.199 In many cases, this includes what the International Labor Organization 3:12:18.320 --> 3:12:22.640 calls quote the worst form of child labor. These are 3:12:22.680 --> 3:12:26.600 defined as practices quote likely to harm the health, safety, 3:12:26.720 --> 3:12:31.200 or morals of children. Approximately two point one million children 3:12:31.360 --> 3:12:34.520 in Ivory Coast and Ghana work on cocoa farms, most 3:12:34.520 --> 3:12:37.720 of whom are likely exposed to the worst form of 3:12:37.840 --> 3:12:41.879 child labor. Which is also really good that like we've 3:12:41.959 --> 3:12:46.160 we've capitalism has finally reached the you know, the apex 3:12:46.200 --> 3:12:48.720 of its control of the commanding heights of the world economy, 3:12:48.760 --> 3:12:52.040 which means that we're talking about we're trying to make 3:12:52.200 --> 3:12:55.200 tear lists of how bad child labor is. 3:12:56.200 --> 3:12:58.000 Well, yeah, I mean, a whole bunch of child labor 3:12:58.040 --> 3:13:03.280 laws just got like rolled back across many states here. 3:13:03.360 --> 3:13:06.280 Yeah, it's a great country, so it's very exciting. The 3:13:06.360 --> 3:13:10.640 children are for the minds, Yeah, it's it's it's it's great. 3:13:11.640 --> 3:13:14.400 You know. So, so obviously a lot of the child 3:13:14.400 --> 3:13:18.199 slavery on cocoa farms are from sort of like larger 3:13:19.560 --> 3:13:21.400 I mean, I guess they are corporate, but from sort 3:13:21.400 --> 3:13:24.840 of like larger plantations, but also less You think that 3:13:24.879 --> 3:13:27.640 it's better on family farms, No family farms, I mean, 3:13:27.640 --> 3:13:30.200 I guess it is technically better than like being kidnapped 3:13:30.200 --> 3:13:34.520 and enslaved, is merely doing child labor on your families, 3:13:34.800 --> 3:13:37.400 like just being born into. 3:13:38.640 --> 3:13:43.760 These pretty pretty uh not great labor practices that you 3:13:43.800 --> 3:13:46.080 really have no say it or any agency whatsoever. 3:13:46.200 --> 3:13:48.320 Yeah, yeah, and like you know, this is one of 3:13:48.360 --> 3:13:52.360 these things where like the economic conditions are so bad 3:13:53.080 --> 3:13:56.680 that people are people are facing impossible choices, and I 3:13:56.720 --> 3:13:58.840 think we can say that they make the wrong choice, 3:13:58.840 --> 3:14:01.640 which is a lot of Okay, So, like there are 3:14:01.800 --> 3:14:05.840 there were sort of different ways that children get trafficked 3:14:05.879 --> 3:14:10.480 into slavery work. A lot of them are sold by 3:14:10.480 --> 3:14:12.600 their own families who do not have enough resources to 3:14:12.640 --> 3:14:15.000 take care of them and are like, okay, we'll basically 3:14:15.000 --> 3:14:16.720 sell these people so they can go do this job. 3:14:17.360 --> 3:14:20.920 And these families don't know that like their child is 3:14:20.959 --> 3:14:23.160 about to be enslaved, right, They're just like, okay, well 3:14:23.160 --> 3:14:26.200 they're going to go off and do work. But the 3:14:26.320 --> 3:14:29.480 other way that this happens is that kids from like 3:14:29.600 --> 3:14:32.959 villages in other countries. But there's a lot of focus 3:14:33.040 --> 3:14:35.200 on Mali as one of the places this happens for them. 3:14:35.920 --> 3:14:37.600 But yeah, so there's a lot of these effects what 3:14:37.600 --> 3:14:41.840 are effectively raids into into Malli from the Ivory Coast 3:14:41.920 --> 3:14:46.320 to like steel children, and it's also happens to Bikina Fosso. 3:14:47.160 --> 3:14:50.640 You know, and this gets to the point where, you know, 3:14:50.720 --> 3:14:52.840 I'm gonna read a quote from one of these from 3:14:52.920 --> 3:14:56.320 this report again. In one village in Bikina Fosso, almost 3:14:56.360 --> 3:14:58.920 every mother in the village has had a child trafficked 3:14:58.959 --> 3:15:03.440 onto cocaine farms. Traffickers will then sell children to cocaine farmers. 3:15:04.600 --> 3:15:08.440 So this is like the worst paranoid fantasies of every 3:15:08.480 --> 3:15:12.440 American right winger, except it's you know, this is just 3:15:12.520 --> 3:15:13.560 how chocolate is made. 3:15:14.120 --> 3:15:16.519 Yeah, this is you know, all of all of the 3:15:16.560 --> 3:15:21.320 Sound of Freedom guys, uh with all of you know, 3:15:21.560 --> 3:15:25.959 the whole uproar around that movie earlier this year, versus 3:15:26.120 --> 3:15:31.160 all of them, Uh yeah, enjoying their little eminem said 3:15:31.920 --> 3:15:35.359 kit Cat said, Hey, I like the occasional kit Cats too. 3:15:35.720 --> 3:15:38.400 This is this is a massive problem. 3:15:39.320 --> 3:15:42.879 I I don't know, I really love chocolate. I have 3:15:43.040 --> 3:15:46.080 not eaten any chocolate since I started researching this, and 3:15:46.120 --> 3:15:49.080 I like, and there's and it's but it sucks because 3:15:49.080 --> 3:15:51.000 it's like you can't you can't and we're gonna get 3:15:51.000 --> 3:15:53.080 into board of this in a second, but like you 3:15:53.120 --> 3:15:56.160 can't like ethically consume your way out of this, right, 3:15:56.840 --> 3:16:01.240 like because the conditions but free trade cocoa exist. Oh boy, yeah, 3:16:01.240 --> 3:16:04.440 we're gonna get into that. But yeah, there's no there's 3:16:04.440 --> 3:16:09.439 no actual systemic like there's no way that you can 3:16:10.120 --> 3:16:13.680 like you can't change this stuff with your individual consumption habits. 3:16:14.400 --> 3:16:17.280 And you know that's something that's just really fucking bleak 3:16:17.320 --> 3:16:21.960 about this because these conditions are, I mean, as bad 3:16:21.959 --> 3:16:24.600 as you can possibly imagine. But the Food and Empowerment 3:16:24.640 --> 3:16:27.160 Project describes like children as young as five are forced 3:16:27.200 --> 3:16:30.200 to work up to fourteen hours a day, like chopping 3:16:30.280 --> 3:16:34.000 down cocoa pods and then chopping them open with machetes. 3:16:34.040 --> 3:16:36.360 And sometimes these people get Sometimes these kids are using 3:16:36.400 --> 3:16:41.720 chainsaws to like clear wood, like clear down like forests. Yeah, 3:16:41.720 --> 3:16:44.240 and you know, okay, so this goes exactly how you 3:16:44.280 --> 3:16:45.959 expected to go, which is a bunch of these kids 3:16:46.040 --> 3:16:47.760 just have a bunch of fucking scars from where they've 3:16:47.760 --> 3:16:50.760 been slashed by machetes, because again, you are handing machetes 3:16:50.800 --> 3:16:52.640 to children, some of whom are as young as five. 3:16:53.320 --> 3:16:55.720 And then they have to carry one hundred pound bags 3:16:55.720 --> 3:16:58.440 of cocoa beans through the jungle. And this is the 3:16:58.440 --> 3:17:00.160 thing that's also happening in to make a public and 3:17:00.200 --> 3:17:02.520 this happens a lot in a lot of places. Is 3:17:02.560 --> 3:17:07.040 that they just get you know, when when companies want 3:17:07.120 --> 3:17:11.160 to spray like they're farms with pesticides, right, they don't 3:17:11.160 --> 3:17:15.680 even bother even like clearing people out, which might you know, 3:17:15.720 --> 3:17:18.360 help like a tiny bit to make them not like 3:17:18.480 --> 3:17:21.840 die from fucking poison. But no, like these fucking dipshits 3:17:21.920 --> 3:17:24.760 just like spray them with toxic chemicals as they just 3:17:24.920 --> 3:17:27.680 like spray them with pesticides, like a lot of whom 3:17:27.720 --> 3:17:30.959 are Christinogians, a lot of And this is happening in 3:17:31.000 --> 3:17:33.879 the Dominican the surcane fields in the Dominican Republic too, 3:17:33.879 --> 3:17:36.200 And a lot of those people just fucking died because 3:17:36.640 --> 3:17:39.000 you know, they were stayed with these chemicals. There was 3:17:39.000 --> 3:17:41.400 a really terrible story of a of a guy who 3:17:41.440 --> 3:17:45.199 was trying to sue Central Romana and just fucking died 3:17:45.480 --> 3:17:47.680 from the like he wasn't able to get a pay 3:17:47.680 --> 3:17:49.560 off for the lawsuit because he died in twenty twenty 3:17:49.600 --> 3:17:53.480 before the lawsuit could like finish. So here's another great 3:17:53.560 --> 3:17:56.800 quote from the Food Empowerment Project. The farm owners using 3:17:56.959 --> 3:17:59.760 child labor usually provide the children with the cheapest food 3:17:59.760 --> 3:18:02.520 of ai, such as corn paste or the cassava and 3:18:02.520 --> 3:18:06.040 bananas that grow in the surrounding forest. In some cases, 3:18:06.080 --> 3:18:09.120 the children sleep on wooden planks and small windless buildings 3:18:09.120 --> 3:18:13.959 without access to clean water, sanitary bathrooms. And you know 3:18:14.080 --> 3:18:16.120 another key part of this, right is like, okay, so 3:18:16.160 --> 3:18:21.720 the conditions are obviously unbearably bad, but you know, a 3:18:21.840 --> 3:18:23.960 key part of this, like any system of slavery, is 3:18:24.000 --> 3:18:27.800 the physical violence against the enslaved people who are repeatedly 3:18:27.840 --> 3:18:31.400 and often beaten and abused and tortured in ways that 3:18:31.480 --> 3:18:34.520 are very reminiscent of sort of like older epochs of 3:18:34.560 --> 3:18:38.800 slavery if they try to escape. Now, this is the 3:18:39.240 --> 3:18:42.320 companies care about this to the extent that is bad. 3:18:42.360 --> 3:18:47.800 Pr Yes, and the charcout companies repeated, like the chocolate companies. Okay, 3:18:48.240 --> 3:18:51.320 they they signed a thing in the year two thousand 3:18:52.320 --> 3:18:55.000 where they said we're going to eliminate child's the worst 3:18:55.040 --> 3:18:57.199 forms of child slavery by two thousand and five. 3:18:58.280 --> 3:19:00.560 Yeah, like this is this has been a non issue 3:19:00.600 --> 3:19:03.519 for like over two decades. 3:19:03.480 --> 3:19:06.360 Now, Garrison, Yes, what year is it right now? 3:19:07.280 --> 3:19:08.920 The year of our Lord to us in twenty three. 3:19:09.480 --> 3:19:12.640 Yeah, they have been They have been promising to end 3:19:12.720 --> 3:19:19.400 child slavery in so originally there's supposed to be endy 3:19:19.480 --> 3:19:22.240 child slavery and then and then they scaled it down 3:19:22.320 --> 3:19:25.520 to the worst forms the worst. But they have been 3:19:25.520 --> 3:19:27.360 promised you could do this for longer than you have 3:19:27.400 --> 3:19:34.560 been alive, yes, correct, which is terrifying. Yes, yes. And 3:19:34.560 --> 3:19:37.400 and as we'll get into later, right, the number of 3:19:37.520 --> 3:19:42.160 child slaves is higher than it was when they started 3:19:42.160 --> 3:19:46.520 doing these child slave reduction efforts, so quote unquote production efforts, 3:19:47.520 --> 3:19:52.800 which are just sort of pr bullshit. So industry lobbying 3:19:52.879 --> 3:19:55.320 groups are also very, very powerful, and this is part 3:19:55.320 --> 3:19:57.760 of part of how this stuff persists. So the University 3:19:57.800 --> 3:20:01.680 of Chicago has a center called NORAK, which is like 3:20:01.720 --> 3:20:05.240 a public research center. I don't know, I went to 3:20:05.280 --> 3:20:07.640 that fucking school. I don't trust any of these motherfuckers, 3:20:07.800 --> 3:20:10.080 and NEI or should you, because it turns out there 3:20:10.160 --> 3:20:12.480 was so okay. So they released this report on how 3:20:12.520 --> 3:20:16.720 bad child slavery is, right, but there was a leak 3:20:17.000 --> 3:20:19.640 of the original version of the report that was supposed 3:20:19.680 --> 3:20:21.800 to come out, and mean, the original version of the 3:20:21.920 --> 3:20:25.080 report has the number of child slaves at like two 3:20:25.120 --> 3:20:28.680 point two million. Now, when the report actually comes out 3:20:28.720 --> 3:20:31.560 with no justification whatsoever and using a bunch of numbers 3:20:31.560 --> 3:20:34.720 for child slavery that are from before COVID nineteen, the 3:20:34.720 --> 3:20:37.240 Norak report was like, ah, there's only like one point 3:20:37.320 --> 3:20:42.680 six million child slaves. So six hundred thousand child slaves 3:20:42.760 --> 3:20:45.560 just sort of vanished in an editorial process after they 3:20:45.560 --> 3:20:50.160 got they came under fire from uh, the they came 3:20:50.240 --> 3:20:51.920 under fire from the chocolate lobby. 3:20:52.440 --> 3:20:56.439 Yeah yeah, let's uh, let's round that down. Makes it 3:20:56.440 --> 3:20:57.840 makes it easier to palace. 3:20:58.000 --> 3:20:59.960 And the other thing that it hides is that there's 3:21:00.120 --> 3:21:02.560 a ten to fifteen percent increase in the number of 3:21:03.520 --> 3:21:07.279 child slaves working in like in the co in Cocoa 3:21:07.680 --> 3:21:11.000 since COVID started, because COVID has been a giant sort 3:21:11.040 --> 3:21:15.279 of you know, the economic damage that COVID caused forced 3:21:15.320 --> 3:21:18.879 a bunch of people into into you know, increasingly desperate things. 3:21:20.400 --> 3:21:23.840 And you know, okay, so we tease this a little bit, 3:21:23.879 --> 3:21:25.920 and you might be thinking, well, I can eat fair 3:21:26.000 --> 3:21:28.120 trade chocolate, right, I can pay ten dollars for a 3:21:28.200 --> 3:21:30.039 chocolate bars as a fair trade on it, and it 3:21:30.080 --> 3:21:32.520 will and that will make sure that I'm only eating 3:21:32.600 --> 3:21:36.880 chocolate produced by free labor. Nope, the certifications for the 3:21:36.959 --> 3:21:41.600 chocolate are fucking bullshit. You're still eating slave chocolate. The 3:21:41.640 --> 3:21:44.039 follow is an excerpt from a study conducted by the 3:21:44.040 --> 3:21:46.920 Corporate Accountability Lab on the failure of initiatives in the 3:21:46.959 --> 3:21:51.360 chocolate industry like certifications quote. In order to understand the 3:21:51.440 --> 3:21:55.920 gap between consumer perception and farmer impact better, we brought 3:21:56.000 --> 3:21:59.520 certified chocolate bars to villages where some are all of 3:21:59.520 --> 3:22:03.080 the farm were certified. We held up the bar with 3:22:03.200 --> 3:22:06.440 the label and explained to the farmers what consumers expected 3:22:06.480 --> 3:22:09.440 out of the label, primarily that farmers were paired a 3:22:09.440 --> 3:22:12.800 fair price, earned a decent living, and certain practices like 3:22:12.879 --> 3:22:16.600 child labor and deforestation were not present. We also explained 3:22:16.600 --> 3:22:20.160 the difference in retail price between fair trade and uncertified chocolate. 3:22:20.560 --> 3:22:24.240 The overwhelming response from farmers to this information was shock 3:22:24.280 --> 3:22:28.840 and outrage. One farmer pulled out his worn shirt in 3:22:28.879 --> 3:22:31.000 front of him and asked if it looked like he 3:22:31.040 --> 3:22:34.240 earned a decent living. A woman in one village said 3:22:34.240 --> 3:22:36.480 she can hardly afford to send to her children to school, 3:22:36.680 --> 3:22:39.000 so how could anyone think she earned a fair price. 3:22:39.760 --> 3:22:45.040 Our farmer consultations revealed virtually imperceptible differences between certified and 3:22:45.120 --> 3:22:49.360 uncertified farms in terms of living incomes, poverty, education, access 3:22:49.360 --> 3:22:54.760 to healthcare, farmer bargaining power, or access to information. So, yeah, 3:22:55.200 --> 3:22:56.800 all the people who are telling you they're doing some 3:22:56.879 --> 3:23:00.320 fair trade shit, they're keeping your money and the places 3:23:00.320 --> 3:23:02.240 they are getting it from are as fucked as the 3:23:02.600 --> 3:23:06.280 as Hershey's yeah, so this is bad. 3:23:06.360 --> 3:23:06.560 Now. 3:23:06.680 --> 3:23:09.000 You might also think, Okay, we can get out of 3:23:09.000 --> 3:23:12.800 this by buying from coco cooperatives. Except except, and this 3:23:12.920 --> 3:23:16.800 is a wonderful thing that capitalism is brought on the world. 3:23:17.720 --> 3:23:21.640 Most coco collectives aren't actually like workers collector like aren't 3:23:21.640 --> 3:23:24.160 actually co ops. They're just sort of. 3:23:24.080 --> 3:23:28.080 All people's republic of chocolate farmers. I'm sure they're all 3:23:30.040 --> 3:23:30.880 a little red book. 3:23:31.520 --> 3:23:35.040 This is something actually, this is something that China actually pioneered, 3:23:35.040 --> 3:23:37.240 because there's there's a bunch of firms in China that 3:23:37.280 --> 3:23:40.160 are also technical. I talked about this in my episode 3:23:40.160 --> 3:23:42.160 of Bachelor's episode a long time ago about this milk 3:23:42.160 --> 3:23:45.280 company that poisoned three hundred thousand babies, and that company 3:23:45.400 --> 3:23:49.200 was technically a co op, but like it was a 3:23:49.240 --> 3:23:51.520 co op in the sense that there was a small 3:23:51.560 --> 3:23:54.520 group of workers who were basically managers who owned shares, 3:23:54.560 --> 3:23:56.200 and then they just hired every source everything out to 3:23:56.240 --> 3:23:59.560 independent contractors, so it functioned like a normal company. Yeah, 3:23:59.720 --> 3:24:02.080 this is a thing. A lot this the cocoa trade 3:24:02.080 --> 3:24:04.400 stuff is actually worse because most of these things that 3:24:04.440 --> 3:24:06.360 are called co ops aren't even co ops at all. 3:24:06.360 --> 3:24:08.879 They're just set up by cocoa growers as like fake 3:24:08.920 --> 3:24:11.000 co ops. And there they are like a very very 3:24:11.040 --> 3:24:14.200 small number of of of these coco farms that are 3:24:14.200 --> 3:24:17.480 actually workers cooperatives, but there's no way to tell which 3:24:17.480 --> 3:24:20.320 one is which unless you spend a bunch of time 3:24:20.560 --> 3:24:25.160 like actually going and tracking the cooperatives down. So there's 3:24:25.200 --> 3:24:29.400 no sort of like ethically way out of this, right, 3:24:30.360 --> 3:24:32.440 you're just kind of you're, you know, like you can't 3:24:32.560 --> 3:24:35.560 you can't eat your way out of this problem. And 3:24:35.640 --> 3:24:39.000 of course everything across the board, all these conditions have 3:24:39.000 --> 3:24:42.720 gotten worse since the pandemic, So you know, it's it's 3:24:43.280 --> 3:24:46.560 not only is capitalism not making things better every like 3:24:46.640 --> 3:24:50.720 things are in fact getting worse. Now, all right, I 3:24:50.800 --> 3:24:54.160 promised you the lawsuits. We're gonna talk a bit about 3:24:54.200 --> 3:24:57.720 the lawsuits. So there were actually two big lawsuits. There 3:24:57.760 --> 3:24:59.959 were eight people from Molly who were enslaved by coke 3:25:00.840 --> 3:25:06.000 plantations after being traffic from Mali sued nest Le, Cargill, Berry, Caliba, 3:25:06.160 --> 3:25:10.360 I don't know, some French shit mars Alam, Hershey's, and 3:25:10.480 --> 3:25:13.280 Models to try to get conversations from the companies by 3:25:13.360 --> 3:25:16.840 virtue of the fact that the companies sold products made 3:25:16.879 --> 3:25:21.360 by their child slave labor. Yeah. Now there's also a 3:25:21.400 --> 3:25:24.600 separate lawsuit against slightly different companies, so a lot of 3:25:24.640 --> 3:25:26.920 the same company is slightly different that's using a different 3:25:26.920 --> 3:25:30.360 set of legal arguments. Both of the lawsuits have been 3:25:30.360 --> 3:25:32.520 thrown out, and I want to take a second to 3:25:32.720 --> 3:25:34.400 look at the reasoning here, both of which are sort 3:25:34.400 --> 3:25:37.200 of just amazing. So I think the most famous one 3:25:37.200 --> 3:25:40.680 is the Supreme Courts eight to one decision that said, well, so, like, 3:25:40.760 --> 3:25:43.200 all this stuff happened, but it happened outside the US, 3:25:43.200 --> 3:25:46.720 so you can't sue companies for it. Here. She's an 3:25:46.760 --> 3:25:49.720 amazing piece of logic, which is just like, oh yeah, no, Actually, 3:25:49.879 --> 3:25:53.080 like corporations, like American corporations could just go everywhere else 3:25:53.120 --> 3:25:56.240 and do crimes. And this is in the American legal 3:25:56.280 --> 3:25:58.680 system is specifically written in such a way that like 3:25:59.440 --> 3:26:04.280 if in a American corporation enslaves you in like the 3:26:04.320 --> 3:26:07.200 Ivory Coast, there's nothing you can do about it in 3:26:07.240 --> 3:26:11.560 the US. And then a judgment do you see throughout 3:26:11.600 --> 3:26:14.720 the other case because you know, their argument was, well, 3:26:14.800 --> 3:26:17.520 you can't prove that the companies knew you were being 3:26:17.560 --> 3:26:21.800 enslaved on those farms. There's no quote traceable connection between 3:26:21.840 --> 3:26:23.560 the people who enslaved you in the company, and so 3:26:23.560 --> 3:26:27.000 there's nothing we can do. And the reason both these 3:26:27.080 --> 3:26:29.680 arguments work is the reason for the structure of the 3:26:29.720 --> 3:26:33.840 chocolate market, right the reason coco plantations in the Ivory 3:26:33.840 --> 3:26:37.840 Coast and also Brazil can get away with this. You know, well, 3:26:37.840 --> 3:26:40.080 the reason that those plantations are in the Ivory Coast 3:26:40.160 --> 3:26:43.400 or Brazil or other places, the reason they're happening there 3:26:43.440 --> 3:26:46.080 and not in the US is because these are places 3:26:46.080 --> 3:26:48.199 where you can get away with that level of exploitation 3:26:48.240 --> 3:26:50.920 in corporate violence that you know in the US would 3:26:50.920 --> 3:26:53.520 be a lot more difficult. And this shields them from 3:26:53.560 --> 3:26:58.199 legal liability. Furthermore, instead of just you know, jumping, instead 3:26:58.200 --> 3:27:00.640 of just running the cocoa plantations themselves, which these companies 3:27:00.640 --> 3:27:03.279 could easily do, right, this is a very very large trade. 3:27:03.360 --> 3:27:05.720 They could just sort of like they could invertially vertically 3:27:05.760 --> 3:27:09.359 and not even vertical integrate, they could just actually make chocolate, 3:27:09.640 --> 3:27:12.760 like they could just run the process, and they they 3:27:12.879 --> 3:27:16.480 very specifically choose not to do it. And the reason 3:27:16.520 --> 3:27:18.840 they choose not to do it, this isn't one hundred 3:27:18.879 --> 3:27:22.720 billion dollar industry, right, But instead they what they choose 3:27:22.760 --> 3:27:25.279 to do is to just buy cocoa from the chocolate 3:27:25.320 --> 3:27:28.320 market where all these sort of nebulous producers sell, which 3:27:28.360 --> 3:27:30.959 allows the chocolate companies to go, oh, well, these people 3:27:31.000 --> 3:27:33.119 don't work for us. We just buy chocolate from the market. 3:27:33.160 --> 3:27:36.200 How are we supposed to know which these plantations use 3:27:36.240 --> 3:27:40.320 slave labor? So it puts like a one degree of separation, Yeah, 3:27:40.400 --> 3:27:42.959 well it's actually two degrees. It's an additional degree of 3:27:42.959 --> 3:27:45.560 separation from the way something like Walmart works. Right where 3:27:45.600 --> 3:27:49.439 Walmart has a bunch of independent contractors. This isn't even contractors. 3:27:49.959 --> 3:27:54.400 They're just buying finished products from things they're like they're 3:27:54.720 --> 3:27:58.520 completely unaffiliated with, and this gives them, like it gives 3:27:58.560 --> 3:28:01.039 them like two degrees of legal separation because it's not 3:28:01.280 --> 3:28:04.800 just that their contractors are doing something that they didn't 3:28:04.840 --> 3:28:09.720 know about. It's that they're just buying it right, and 3:28:09.800 --> 3:28:14.320 this fucking sucks. And you know, since laws exist to 3:28:14.320 --> 3:28:16.760 protect the ruling class, judges and courts can just wave 3:28:16.840 --> 3:28:20.240 their hands and go, well, these companies definitely enslaved you, 3:28:20.400 --> 3:28:22.960 but we have no choice but to let them off 3:28:22.959 --> 3:28:27.080 completely scott free. So sorry about that. And I want 3:28:27.080 --> 3:28:29.000 to end today with something that has been running through 3:28:29.000 --> 3:28:32.520 my mind every since I fucking started researching this, which 3:28:32.560 --> 3:28:35.080 is that the voorgeoisie must pay for their crimes. The 3:28:35.120 --> 3:28:38.200 state has failed, the court has failed, the NGOs have failed. 3:28:38.720 --> 3:28:42.240 And if anything is ever going to fucking happen that 3:28:42.280 --> 3:28:45.720 forces these companies to be in any way, there there's 3:28:45.760 --> 3:28:48.640 to be like a single iota of justice for the 3:28:48.680 --> 3:28:51.160 fact that all of these companies have been fucking gorging 3:28:51.160 --> 3:28:55.520 themselves on the profits of slave labor. At all, we 3:28:55.600 --> 3:28:59.039 are going to do it or no one is. So 3:28:59.200 --> 3:29:04.280 congratulations you the American worker. It is unfortunately incumbent on 3:29:04.440 --> 3:29:08.440 you to deal with these fucking corporations that have been 3:29:08.440 --> 3:29:14.240 destroying the entire world. So yeah, happy spooky week everyone. Yes, 3:29:14.360 --> 3:29:15.680 this is very scary. 3:29:16.600 --> 3:29:22.279 Yeah, well, thank you for that lovely, uh depressing presentation. 3:29:22.720 --> 3:29:25.720 Uh, Mia, I mean. 3:29:25.640 --> 3:29:28.240 I guess is there is there is there a sort 3:29:28.280 --> 3:29:31.200 of takeaway besides, there's no ethical conception to under capitalism. 3:29:31.280 --> 3:29:36.279 I mean, like, I mean, capitalism will never abolish slavery. 3:29:37.400 --> 3:29:38.120 I don't think one. 3:29:38.440 --> 3:29:41.439 I know there is one US state where they grow chocolate, 3:29:41.840 --> 3:29:45.920 which is Hawaii, which has its own problems of colonization. 3:29:46.080 --> 3:29:48.480 So even if you try to buy from a place 3:29:48.520 --> 3:29:52.840 that is you know, arguably has less chocolate slavery, it's 3:29:53.080 --> 3:29:57.040 generally better produced, it still is you're still implicating yourself 3:29:57.080 --> 3:30:01.800 in in uh, all of the problems relating to like, uh, 3:30:02.360 --> 3:30:07.120 the independence of that island and the US's colonization. So 3:30:07.760 --> 3:30:11.240 it's it's it's we're really just really just kind of 3:30:11.480 --> 3:30:14.320 trapped on all sides. Here is what it feels like. 3:30:14.600 --> 3:30:17.360 I mean, this is this Halloween chocolate problem. 3:30:17.760 --> 3:30:21.000 Yeah, I mean, and I think I think the way 3:30:21.000 --> 3:30:22.879 to think about this, right is that this this is 3:30:22.920 --> 3:30:25.959 an actual systemic issue, right, This is a systemic thing 3:30:26.000 --> 3:30:29.080 capitalism has been doing for about four hundred years, like 3:30:29.200 --> 3:30:32.240 since its entire existence. And if you want to if 3:30:32.280 --> 3:30:35.600 you want to end it, we have to you have to. Actually, 3:30:36.480 --> 3:30:38.880 it's not it's not even enough to destroy these companies, right, 3:30:38.920 --> 3:30:41.040 because even if you brought down every single one of 3:30:41.080 --> 3:30:43.000 these chocolate companies right, there would just be another round 3:30:43.040 --> 3:30:45.119 of chocolate companies. It will be doing exactly the same ship. 3:30:45.959 --> 3:30:48.360 So you have to you have to destroy the system 3:30:48.400 --> 3:30:50.760 of property by which these things are allowed to exist. 3:30:51.680 --> 3:30:55.160 And at that point maybe you can start on being 3:30:55.240 --> 3:30:57.320 able to eat food that isn't produced by slave labor. 3:30:58.040 --> 3:31:01.480 It turns out Willia Wogkill was the villain the whole time. 3:31:02.160 --> 3:31:06.360 You know, I was trying to think about the amount 3:31:06.360 --> 3:31:08.320 of slave labor that we see from him versus the 3:31:08.360 --> 3:31:15.199 amount of slavery Wonka. Yes, it's it's I think Wonka 3:31:15.240 --> 3:31:17.440 is using more slave labor, but not by as much 3:31:17.480 --> 3:31:18.160 as it should be. 3:31:18.600 --> 3:31:21.000 I don't know, I don't know, it's it's it's hard 3:31:21.040 --> 3:31:23.360 to say. I I I think it's pretty clear that 3:31:23.840 --> 3:31:26.840 Walka's use of slave labor is just an accurate representation 3:31:27.320 --> 3:31:30.200 of the real life chocolate industry. 3:31:30.320 --> 3:31:35.359 Yes, so yeah, go go, go enjoy your weekend and then. 3:31:34.800 --> 3:31:38.480 Don't enjoy that new fucking twink Walgka movie that looks 3:31:38.680 --> 3:31:40.280 I have to say, dog shit. 3:31:40.600 --> 3:31:45.000 Oh yeah, bad herod, worst idea, badst idea, anyone's had 3:31:45.040 --> 3:31:47.320 since capitalism twin Kwonka. 3:31:47.400 --> 3:31:52.000 I'm sorry it doesn't slap I agree out of ten anyway, Well, 3:31:53.120 --> 3:31:56.119 tune in in the next few days for two more 3:31:56.120 --> 3:31:58.280 Spooky Week episodes for you. We only got We only 3:31:58.320 --> 3:32:00.119 got three this week because there's a lot of air 3:32:00.200 --> 3:32:02.480 news happen ach but yeah, we at least have two 3:32:02.520 --> 3:32:05.360 other Spooky Week episodes that I am about to finish 3:32:05.440 --> 3:32:07.039 working on, so stay tuned for that. 3:32:08.200 --> 3:32:18.800 Goodbye, Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every 3:32:18.800 --> 3:32:21.000 week from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:32:21.600 --> 3:32:24.120 It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:32:24.200 --> 3:32:26.840 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:32:26.920 --> 3:32:29.120 cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the 3:32:29.160 --> 3:32:32.560 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 3:32:33.000 --> 3:32:35.080 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:32:35.200 --> 3:32:38.280 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 3:32:38.400 --> 3:32:39.240 Thanks for listening.