Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast where the
Speaker 2: it is the authoritarian takeover of the city of Chicago.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today is an episode
Speaker 2: that was significantly delayed by the fact that our guests
Speaker 2: got shot in the face by riot munitions while attempting
Speaker 2: to cover an anti ice protest and an ice facility,
Speaker 2: and then her coworker was fucking grabbed by the FEDS
Speaker 2: the next day, which she was also still out at
Speaker 2: for reasons that are semi incomprehensible to me, because again,
Speaker 2: she was just shot in the face. Since this is Raven,
Speaker 2: a journalist with the independent outlet Unraveled, which really truly
Speaker 2: is doing a lot of incredible work on the incredible
Speaker 2: proliferation of ice raids around Chicago. Raven, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, oh boy?
Speaker 3: Is right? Thanks for that intro. Yeah, we're in the
Speaker 3: shit right now. We're in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it would immediately start this with you
Speaker 2: are mostly you're basically okay from my understanding, from getting
Speaker 2: shot in the face of the right munition like a
Speaker 2: week ago.
Speaker 3: I am. I am basically okay. I have like some
Speaker 3: swelling still in my jaw. I'm going to the doctor.
Speaker 3: We'll see like if there's any soft tissue like lingering
Speaker 3: effects later on down the line. But nothing's broken.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, thank god, holy shit, thank god that I
Speaker 2: can really fuck you up permanently.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, I mean it's been several weeks now of
Speaker 3: the fence just pummeling people with these stupid little pepper
Speaker 3: ball rounds yep, and like the core of it is
Speaker 3: like metal, you know, it's like this little bullet thing
Speaker 3: with like the pepper powder on the outside. So if
Speaker 3: you shoot someone in the face with those, I mean,
Speaker 3: like we've seen horrific injuries these last few weeks, and
Speaker 3: also like people getting concussions from like you know, sear
Speaker 3: gas canisters exploding right by their heads and other things,
Speaker 3: broken bones from these really violent arrests, and yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just been awful. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I was shot at,
Speaker 3: like literally, I was like taking a photo of a
Speaker 3: fed like an oppressed gaggle. We were all hiding behind
Speaker 3: this van while we're just like being shot at. And
Speaker 3: this guy, I mean he stared right at me and
Speaker 3: like right down the barrel of my lens, like he
Speaker 3: knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, another reporter. It was like a similar situation where
Speaker 3: these guys like fucking ambushed them. Like it was just
Speaker 3: two reporters like hiding behind a van, and these guys
Speaker 3: came up along the side of the fence and just
Speaker 3: started like shooting them in the face with these rounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and this has been at the protests at
Speaker 2: the ICE facility in Broadview. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Broby is like just a tiny little suburb, like just
Speaker 3: outside of Chicago. It's Stilling Cook County, majority black suburb,
Speaker 3: actually black working class, the mayors of Black woman And
Speaker 3: now this ICE facility has been there for a while. Obviously,
Speaker 3: people were protesting there weekly for like over a decade,
Speaker 3: but nothing like what we've seen these last few weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, let's go back in time a little bit,
Speaker 2: because in between the last time we spoke to you
Speaker 2: and now there has been so much unbelievably horrible stuff
Speaker 2: in Chicago. I guess let's go back a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks and talk about the guy they murdered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, shortly after this latest ice surge began, they
Speaker 3: sailed a man at a traffic stop. Two ICE agents
Speaker 3: who were seemingly operating completely alone, didn't seem to have
Speaker 3: any backup with them. It was just these two guys
Speaker 3: in this car who jumped down on the sky. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it feels it feels like forever ago, but of course
Speaker 3: it was only a few weeks ago. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 3: that's that's an example of just like a police killing
Speaker 3: that we may never learn more about because you know,
Speaker 3: it involves the FEDS, right, you know, there's no timeline
Speaker 3: under which they have to release any information or like
Speaker 3: tell us anything about their their own investigation into it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that is of course really horrifying and horrifying to
Speaker 3: know there's kind of these these missing few seconds of
Speaker 3: video right where we don't see the actual shot fired yep,
Speaker 3: or shots excuse me. We can sort of piece together
Speaker 3: what happened, but you know, this happened in a working
Speaker 3: class Latino suburb, heavily Latino suburb, not not very far
Speaker 3: down the road from the actual ice.
Speaker 2: Facility, because you were say, part of what's really frustrating
Speaker 2: about this is we can't tell you why they stopped this person, right,
Speaker 2: because they won't tell us, right, We know very little
Speaker 2: about this other than they stopped the guy. He tried
Speaker 2: to drive away and they shot him. That's like that's
Speaker 2: all we know effectively, right.
Speaker 3: I mean they claim he had some traffic violations, which
Speaker 3: is true, but I mean, like who doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I don't know. If we're shooting people for
Speaker 2: traffic violation, this country is going to have like ten
Speaker 2: people in it by the end of it.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, he wasn't suspected of any like crime.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I believe that it was just opportunistic, yeah, that they
Speaker 3: were just looking for an easy target, and these guys
Speaker 3: were acting like cowboys, I mean, like just doing this
Speaker 3: jump out by themselves. And and also to be clear,
Speaker 3: I mean like when they say he drove away from them,
Speaker 3: I mean some of the video that we do have
Speaker 3: it shows him slowly reversing backwards away from them. It's
Speaker 3: not like he just drove over the agents.
Speaker 2: No no, no no, yeah.
Speaker 3: Which is was of course their initial narrative that he
Speaker 3: like hit one of them with his car and all
Speaker 3: this stuff that of course turned out to be false.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's also frustrating too because you know, in
Speaker 2: the app well, I would say in the absence of
Speaker 2: better information, but it's the media. They will just straight
Speaker 2: up print you know, no matter just how unbelievably absurd
Speaker 2: the lies are, they will just straight up print Department
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security press releases as if they have anything
Speaker 2: to do with reality whatsoever. Even as it becomes increasingly clear,
Speaker 2: even more of an it's ever been, that you simply
Speaker 2: cannot rely on police press reports to understand what happened
Speaker 2: in the situation. People will just keep printing that. And
Speaker 2: so that's the first that's the version of the story
Speaker 2: that goes out first, which is what everyone sees. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they don't see the video where it's very clearly
Speaker 2: not what happened.
Speaker 3: Yep. It is a maddening situation. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: like that happened. And then almost immediately and like concurrently,
Speaker 3: of course, all of this other ice activity started ramping up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then around a week and a half ago, Bovino
Speaker 3: showed up and Border Patrol showed up, And now it's
Speaker 3: amped up even further because they're even worse than our
Speaker 3: regular ice guys.
Speaker 2: Bovino and the Border Patrol people, those are the people
Speaker 2: who seem to have been pulled out of Los Angeles
Speaker 2: and deployed the Chicago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bovino moved this sort of larger border patrol operation
Speaker 3: here to Chicago. So there are border patrol units here
Speaker 3: from you know, Arizona, from California, different places, and they've
Speaker 3: been doing sort of a combination of like just strictly
Speaker 3: cornyass propaganda ops, you know, like driving around on their
Speaker 3: boats for photos, combined with like actual terrors, like a
Speaker 3: few nights ago, hundreds of Feds rating an entire apartment
Speaker 3: building of people in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we'll get to that rate in
Speaker 2: a second, because it was unbelievable, sort of gruesome and horrible.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I wanted to talk to you just about
Speaker 2: sort of what the general sort of ICE operations and
Speaker 2: then the border patrol operations have looked like in the
Speaker 2: city and what it's been like being in a place
Speaker 2: where there's just guys in mass dragging people off the street.
Speaker 3: It kind of feels like streaming underwater and no one
Speaker 3: can hear you. Yeah, just sort of witnessing this every day.
Speaker 3: And it is still highly dispersed, right like Chicago and
Speaker 3: the metro area and the suburban counties where this is happening.
Speaker 3: It's a huge, huge area. So, like we talked about
Speaker 3: last time, it's a real challenge to focus people's attention
Speaker 3: on because it can appear like the waters are calm
Speaker 3: like where you live, you know, like they're doing any
Speaker 3: of these very fast strike teams and this very dispersed way,
Speaker 3: so by the time you even hear about it, they're
Speaker 3: already gone. So many cars abandoned on the side of
Speaker 3: the road. Was like windows smashed out Jesus Christ, like landscapers,
Speaker 3: work bands and stuff. You know, like people are just
Speaker 3: rapid responders are just getting to sites where someone's reported
Speaker 3: something happening, and all they find is like a busted
Speaker 3: out card and then they have to piece together like
Speaker 3: potentially what happened. And additionally, the broad view so like
Speaker 3: this ice facility where people are protesting regularly. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not set up to be a permanent detention center.
Speaker 3: It's just supposed to be like a temporary stopping point
Speaker 3: because Illinois doesn't have overnight immigration detention. So additionally, there
Speaker 3: are like so many extra people crammed into this facility
Speaker 3: that wasn't designed to hold them. Yeah, and of course
Speaker 3: the conditions are horrible, you know, like they don't have privacy,
Speaker 3: they don't have enough bath rooms, they're not getting fed,
Speaker 3: they're not getting medication, you know, like after the kidnappings,
Speaker 3: after the disappearances, then there's this pipeline of detention horrors
Speaker 3: that people are enduring. So this is this is why
Speaker 3: people are protesting, you know. I mean, this is why
Speaker 3: people are out there yelling at the fence. Because the
Speaker 3: people who are who are brave enough to go out
Speaker 3: there and yell at the fence or to take the
Speaker 3: pepper balls or what have you, they they are in agony.
Speaker 3: They're aware of what's happening. They're witnessing all of this
Speaker 3: and feeling like this needs to stop. And there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people hiding in their homes. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: like like it it's true, Like I don't always want
Speaker 3: to make like Holocaust comparisons because I feel like that
Speaker 3: that's what we always go to. But I mean, like
Speaker 3: that's the most apt comparison that becomes to most people's mind.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: They think of like and frankiding in your attic, like
Speaker 3: those kinds of things, and it's like that is literally
Speaker 3: where we are at right now. People are literally in
Speaker 3: hiding because they are worried that if they go to
Speaker 3: Sam's Club, they will be cannapped by secret police.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the behavior that they've been exhibiting against
Speaker 2: the protesters too, has been very, very similar to what
Speaker 2: they've been doing to the people that they're grabbing off
Speaker 2: the street. I want to talk to you a bit
Speaker 2: about like what it's been like dealing with the way
Speaker 2: that the Feds have been attacking the protesters constantly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, these guys are fucking monsters. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 3: to thread this needle for people of like, all policing
Speaker 3: is bad, right, Like all policing is violent, All cops
Speaker 3: are violent, But there is something different happening here as
Speaker 3: a result of the fact that there is literally zero accountability.
Speaker 3: And I'm not suggesting that like police accountability isn't a sham,
Speaker 3: because in general it kind of is. But I think, like,
Speaker 3: you know, when you take away every single guardrail, these
Speaker 3: guys don't have to identify themselves and they don't have
Speaker 3: to answer to anyone. Yeah, their bosses aren't going to
Speaker 3: write them up. You know. It's it's kind of like
Speaker 3: with any other job, right, you know, take a city
Speaker 3: cop here in Chicago. Of course, it's rare that any
Speaker 3: of them ever actually get fired for the horrible shit
Speaker 3: they do. But you know there's this sort of base
Speaker 3: level of knowing, like well, I got to show up
Speaker 3: to work every day with my name on my vest,
Speaker 3: and I also have like all these other bosses and
Speaker 3: all these other people who are gonna, like, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe make my day harder if I like really fuck
Speaker 3: something up, right, And so when we're talking about the FEDS,
Speaker 3: there's just nothing. There's just nothing there. They can literally
Speaker 3: do whatever they want on top of like just not
Speaker 3: having the same level of like quote law enforcement training.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've been watching these guys for weeks like
Speaker 3: fucking hurt themselves with their papper ball guns like they live.
Speaker 3: I really are like dropping shit as they're on the process,
Speaker 3: like like watching people have made like call of duty comparisons,
Speaker 3: like prowdboy comparisons, and like it is kind of like that.
Speaker 3: It's like if you just gave a bunch of chuds,
Speaker 3: a bunch of like military and police care and we're like,
Speaker 3: all right, go out and like pretend to be a cop.
Speaker 3: And that's like literally what it feels like. And so
Speaker 3: I'm trying to spread this deal for people of like yeah,
Speaker 3: all cops suck, but like what's going on with this
Speaker 3: is like so much worse. Like they're just out there
Speaker 3: like shooting at people randomly, like and you know, for
Speaker 3: no reason. Like it is just one of the craziest
Speaker 3: things I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I also I want to put this into perspectives,
Speaker 2: like you have also covered a lot of protests in
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've covered a lot of cop violence. I've been
Speaker 3: to a lot of protests, I mean hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 3: and hundreds at this point, right, Yeah, And there's just
Speaker 3: certain like things that you're used to seeing and certain
Speaker 3: there's a certain predictability sometimes to like a lot of
Speaker 3: them movement. And what's interesting too, is like in some
Speaker 3: ways they are actually more militarized, just in terms of
Speaker 3: like their riot formations and like how tightly coordinated their
Speaker 3: units are because they practice and they train for like
Speaker 3: crowd control stuff all the time. And then you have
Speaker 3: these just like ice chuds running around with like way
Speaker 3: more gear and they look way scarier, but they're like
Speaker 3: way less organized and way more chaotic, and there's not
Speaker 3: enough of them, right, so like they're not even like
Speaker 3: doing a good job of like backing each other up,
Speaker 3: you know, like in the field, like I'm just watching
Speaker 3: them like leave their own backs unwatched and you know,
Speaker 3: doing things that are like dangerous for them, Like they
Speaker 3: want to act like a military unit, but they're like
Speaker 3: definitely not.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, people have made the comparison of like
Speaker 3: crowd boys, which I think I don't know, it kind
Speaker 3: of works in a sense like street fighters because what
Speaker 3: they're acting like, you know, yeah, it's just it's just
Speaker 3: been super violent, super awful. Chicago does not have really
Speaker 3: any experience with like these just FEDS in general, like
Speaker 3: to this level. I know that out in Portland for
Speaker 3: years now, like there have been various protests outside of
Speaker 3: the ICE or something like, there's just there's been like
Speaker 3: a lot more a lot more FED presence out in Portland, Seattle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: throughout the past few years of protests, I've seen you know,
Speaker 3: people interact with them, and we just we've had nothing
Speaker 3: like that here. So this is also like very unprecedented
Speaker 3: like for this region.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because usually CPD is like brutal enough that they
Speaker 2: don't you don't end up with like yeah, federal deployments
Speaker 2: and now it's like oh boy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well and also keep in mind this is all happening
Speaker 3: in broad View, so like they don't even have I
Speaker 3: mean there's been there's been tensions and arguments and discussions
Speaker 3: around what's happening with their local police department and just
Speaker 3: sort of the interface here too, because it's like this
Speaker 3: tiny little police department is now having to sort of
Speaker 3: manage what's going on with this ICE facility, and they're
Speaker 3: not directly like assisting ICE with croud control, but they
Speaker 3: are like basically setting up a perimeter around the area, right,
Speaker 3: and so then like there guys are getting to your
Speaker 3: gas and like complaining about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, was it brought to you the police chief, who
Speaker 5: like finally was like, oh holy shit, I've never been
Speaker 5: treated this racistly by a police officer before. I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my fucking god, Like yeah, you're just now realizing
Speaker 5: that you're the baddie, Like when it finally like happens
Speaker 5: to you, like.
Speaker 2: Come on, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: He he went on on like ABC or whatever and
Speaker 3: was just did hit this whole interview about like, well,
Speaker 3: ICE is disrespecting me as the police chief, and it's
Speaker 3: just like like what did you expect?
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, you signed up for the racist organization and
Speaker 6: you were like, ah, yeah, I'm in charge of my
Speaker 6: local by local chapter of the Racist Association, so it'll
Speaker 6: never happen to be like, oh shit, you mean there's
Speaker 6: other people who are higher up in.
Speaker 2: The racism police, Like.
Speaker 3: God, yeah. So that's been that's just been like a
Speaker 3: weird side story to this of kind of like the
Speaker 3: mayor and the police chief and the fire chief are
Speaker 3: not thrilled about what's going on, and they're like looking
Speaker 3: into the legality quote of the fence that isis put
Speaker 3: up just like across this street that goes past their facility,
Speaker 3: which is in this kind of like tucked away sort
Speaker 3: of industrial park thing. But there are homes like right
Speaker 3: on the other side, and you know, they've just blocked
Speaker 3: off this entire street and there's like a business on
Speaker 3: the other side. You know, it's like obviously a huge
Speaker 3: fire hazard to just like block a whole road like that.
Speaker 3: They didn't ask permission to like put this up, not
Speaker 3: to mention a hazard for the people in the detention center,
Speaker 3: which is now boarded up and has this huge fence
Speaker 3: across the street. It's like, oh my god, if there's
Speaker 3: a fire or like an emergency and they needed to
Speaker 3: evacuate the people inside. Yeah, I mean, like obviously people
Speaker 3: would die.
Speaker 2: It's this incredible mix of both blatant disregard for the
Speaker 2: safety of anyone involved and also just wanting to hurt people.
Speaker 2: And it's it's this incredible fusion of they are both
Speaker 2: incompetent and malicious, which is yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, which is not a great combination.
Speaker 2: No, let's talk about this raid in South Shore. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we don't have a we don't have
Speaker 3: a ton of details on the true extent of this
Speaker 3: because it happened at one in the morning. So two
Speaker 3: nights ago, hundreds and hundreds of federal agents showed up
Speaker 3: to an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood, which
Speaker 3: is a predominantly black neighborhood where a number of newly
Speaker 3: arrived migrants settled because there's cheap housing there. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: when Governor Abbott started busting people here a few years ago,
Speaker 3: that is one place where you know, a number of
Speaker 3: people found housing. And unfortunately also too, there's like a
Speaker 3: lot of slum lords down that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cheap housing means shit in Chicago. Yeah, of course, Okay,
Speaker 2: I uee tents organizing that shity. I have seen shit that,
Speaker 2: Like I have seen people sewage like running out of
Speaker 2: their bathtubs. I have seen I have seen places with
Speaker 2: no electric like literally no electricity, no lights, no running water,
Speaker 2: like actually literally like frozen solid in the winter and
Speaker 2: no one can contact the landlord. And those were in
Speaker 2: parts of the city that were like not even that
Speaker 2: badly off. The apartment that I had there almost fucking
Speaker 2: killed me from dust inhalation, and like that's like that's
Speaker 2: like a like a normal cheap apartment. It gets so
Speaker 2: much fucking worse. The pictures from like in side of
Speaker 2: the apartment, not even just the parts were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the doors are blown off. It's like these apartments fucking
Speaker 2: sucked because they're run by they're run by fucking slanlords.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like the housing situation in Chicago, so much
Speaker 2: of it is so shit is never going to get
Speaker 2: repaired because these landlords don't give a shit because they
Speaker 2: can just keep a distracting money from it because you know,
Speaker 2: one can go anywhere else.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I mean these people were living in
Speaker 3: really bad conditions. I've heard that like a lot of
Speaker 3: people were like scrippled, quadrupled up in units. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't know what it looked like before
Speaker 3: it was rated. Yeah, but it's like virtually empty now.
Speaker 3: I mean like there there were some and to be clear,
Speaker 3: like what happened to back up a little bit, you know,
Speaker 3: they hundreds and hundreds of FEDS showed up with this
Speaker 3: building in the middle of the night and reportedly detained
Speaker 3: everyone in the building. So there were like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: people in the building who aren't immigrants, like black people
Speaker 3: who live in the neighborhood. You know. There was one
Speaker 3: woman being interviewed on broadcast who's like an older black woman,
Speaker 3: you know, who was just like, yeah, I was like
Speaker 3: detained by the FBI, you know, like in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, like asking me if I'm a citizen.
Speaker 3: You know, Like, it's just absolutely fucking wild that this happened.
Speaker 3: Also as of today, granted this might change by the
Speaker 3: time your podcast is.
Speaker 2: Out, importantly, So we're recording this the night of Wednesday,
Speaker 2: October first. Who fucking knows what we'll have learned about
Speaker 2: this or what will happen in between this and when
Speaker 2: it comes out probably Monday, probably there will be new horrors.
Speaker 2: If you've heard about like the horrors in Chicago, and
Speaker 2: it's not in this episode. It's probably because it happened
Speaker 2: after we recorded. Things are happening at a terrible rate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as of today, Wednesday, October first, I could
Speaker 3: not find a story on the sun Times or the
Speaker 3: Tribune website about this raid. And I think, yeah, of course,
Speaker 3: a lot of people want to indict mainstream media for
Speaker 3: not covering things, which like is fair sometimes. Don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, They've been trying. Things are happening so fast now,
Speaker 3: and there are so many horrible things happening every day
Speaker 3: that like no news room can keep up.
Speaker 2: Alert red alert. They did finally get a story up
Speaker 2: five minutes ago, so mid I checked the book. They
Speaker 2: got one up. They got one up.
Speaker 3: Is the tribute the.
Speaker 2: Suntimes sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, well it only took them two days. Okay, sure,
Speaker 3: I haven't read it yet. Maybe maybe it's a good story.
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe they went really in depth.
Speaker 2: It's not terrible. Yeah, it doesn't actually seem I mean,
Speaker 2: it's pretty long. I mean I'm going I'm gonna read
Speaker 2: one quote from it to get people and understand. This is,
Speaker 2: like I actually think is pretty representative of like the
Speaker 2: Independent media covers that I've read of it aren't federal
Speaker 2: agents and military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women,
Speaker 2: and children from their apartment some naked residents. Witnesses said,
Speaker 2: that is the thing I've seen in everything report about this,
Speaker 2: is that a bunch of people just literally didn't have
Speaker 2: clothes on because they were drag out of their bed.
Speaker 2: They were like fucking naked children, like naked, like people
Speaker 2: holding naked babies being pulled out of their fucking apartments
Speaker 2: Like Jesus fucking Christ God.
Speaker 3: And this was like such a huge number of beds
Speaker 3: that like the buses were rerouted around the scene. I mean,
Speaker 3: like there's questions. There's questions right now over like the
Speaker 3: level of CPD involvement in like protecting the scene. And
Speaker 3: this was not just ice. There were a ton of
Speaker 3: FBI and a ton of ATF.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which you know, it's like, okay, what what
Speaker 2: what is the FBI doing right now? They are fucking
Speaker 2: dragging naked children out of their fucking homes, like out
Speaker 2: of their fucking apartment at one in the fucking morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were they were in in fucking moving
Speaker 3: vans like Patriot front, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fucking horrible. I mean, like I got I over
Speaker 2: seeing a statement where it was like they were denying
Speaker 2: that they had loaded any immigrants into moving vans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which like maybe that's I don't know, maybe only
Speaker 3: the FBI. Yeah, beautiful malls.
Speaker 2: Like I don't know. Yeah, I'm also just like haunted
Speaker 2: by like what other reports that I saw where they
Speaker 2: were talking about like they separated all of the black
Speaker 2: people into like one van and all of the non
Speaker 2: black people to another one, And it was just like,
Speaker 2: oh God, like these people. There's another thing. I think
Speaker 2: this is in the story that you that you wrote
Speaker 2: about this or they literally like a fed literally said
Speaker 2: fuck them kids.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I don't I deuinitely didn't write that,
Speaker 3: but I believe that someone said it.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I believe it. I'm I'm I mean, I'm glad to
Speaker 3: hear that. Five minutes ago the Sun Times covered it.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, they finally got around to it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: good for them.
Speaker 3: To be clear, like they probably interviewed a lot more
Speaker 3: people than we had capacity to. You know, it's been
Speaker 3: obviously a huge challenge to even cover all this stuff,
Speaker 3: like as this tiny random weirdo ass news outlet, like yeah,
Speaker 3: and we're still figuring out as we go, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean this this I am still it has done
Speaker 3: two days and I am like still trying to wrap
Speaker 3: my hat around this raid, this specific raid, because it's just, yeah,
Speaker 3: so horrific that this happened. And of course, like the timing,
Speaker 3: like they knew what they were doing by timing it
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night. Of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna fucking ref the Times article because I've
Speaker 2: just been reading it while you've been doing it, Like Watson,
Speaker 2: this is someny. Lists across the street said she saw
Speaker 2: agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without
Speaker 2: any clothes and into HU haul vans. Kids were separated
Speaker 2: from their mothers. It was heartbreaking to watch, said Watson,
Speaker 2: even if you're not a mother, seeing kids come out
Speaker 2: buck naked and taking from their mothers. It was horrible.
Speaker 2: They're literally ripping kids from their fucking mothers at one
Speaker 2: in the morning and throwing it apparently allegedly throwing them
Speaker 2: at U haul vans.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I mean, this is like psycho shit. The
Speaker 3: last three weeks, four weeks has just spent a gradual
Speaker 3: progression of like the most evil shit you've ever seen
Speaker 3: in your life. I don't even know what to say
Speaker 3: about it anymore, honestly, because it feels like it feels
Speaker 3: like our only way of grappling with things like this
Speaker 3: is by making comparisons to other things. And I don't
Speaker 3: know that that is really helping anybody right now. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's it's ethnic cleansing, it's genocide. It's
Speaker 3: like literally I was just saying earlier today when like
Speaker 3: when you drill down to it, like they're disappearing like
Speaker 3: vast majority Latino men are there are some women. It's
Speaker 3: not only men, but like they are definitely targeting like
Speaker 3: mostly Latita men, and like these are people who are
Speaker 3: migrating here from Central America who are like if you
Speaker 3: look at their lineage, mostly like indigenous to this fucking
Speaker 3: continent on like white people. You know, it's just an
Speaker 3: extension of like the American project, like of the white
Speaker 3: nationalist like extermination of the people indigenous to the AMAS.
Speaker 3: Like that is literally what's happening like right now. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it does not feel like I don't know, like like
Speaker 3: enough people get it to the level that they should.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and that's I think. Like one other thing
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to you about was like the
Speaker 2: way the press bubble has worked around this, where again,
Speaker 2: the fact that federal agents dragged naked children from their
Speaker 2: homes at one in the morning in the third largest
Speaker 2: city in the United States, that is a story that
Speaker 2: is hitting the mainstream Chicago press today two days later,
Speaker 2: and I think the only national coverage of it that
Speaker 2: I've seen are from people who are basically like repeating
Speaker 2: the scoop that was given to this, like unhinged UFO outlet.
Speaker 2: Who were the people that got the exclusive Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: right into this yet Oh oh god, no idea what
Speaker 2: hold on? Hold on? Let me let me god fuck Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to tell you about this is so unhitched.
Speaker 3: I saw like the propaganda video that they made about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the group that got like the exclusive like
Speaker 2: press release thing from the Feds, which is basically being
Speaker 2: like reprinted by Newsweek, who are just a joke at
Speaker 2: this point, Like their description of it is like a
Speaker 2: federal agent's repelled from black cop helicopters and the rooftop
Speaker 2: Chicago residential buildings targeting trend to Agua gang members, according
Speaker 2: to news Nation, and I was like, what the fuck
Speaker 2: is news Nation? Like, I've I have a pretty good
Speaker 2: grasp on like all of the weird right wing news outlets,
Speaker 2: I'd never heard of this one. I looked them up
Speaker 2: at the first like, big thing that I saw about
Speaker 2: them was that, well, ay, they are the people. They're
Speaker 2: the person that Chris Cuomo went to after he was
Speaker 2: like publicly disgraced as a journalist. And the second thing
Speaker 2: I saw about them was that their big thing is
Speaker 2: that they like quote unquote take UFOs seriously, and these
Speaker 2: are the people who were given like the exclusive scoop
Speaker 2: on this is like the UFO outlet.
Speaker 3: That is so funny. That is when I watched the
Speaker 3: propaganda video that we were watching about it, Yeah it
Speaker 3: was News Nation. I just thought it was like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, some right wing outlet like any other.
Speaker 5: That's why I thought too that looked at it, and
Speaker 5: like the Wikipedia article was like just when there's a
Speaker 5: section titled UFOs, I was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Great? Great? I didn't know about the UFO connection. I
Speaker 3: mean I saw them. I saw their reporters like actually
Speaker 3: at the protests, like interviewing like the one guy in
Speaker 3: a maga hat who showed up to counter protests, Like,
Speaker 3: of course that's who they interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 3: So that's good to know that they are UFO weirdos.
Speaker 2: Rehem approved of approved media outlet, the UFO guys.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, the the the official like like DHS
Speaker 3: line on this entire thing is that trend Aragua was this,
Speaker 3: Like this entire apartment building was a trend dea Arragua.
Speaker 2: I don't just like no, it wasn't like like.
Speaker 3: It's literally just the same fucking thing that Israel does
Speaker 3: about hamas right when they're like, oh, yeah, this hospital
Speaker 3: that we're.
Speaker 2: Bombing, Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3: There's hamasoles underneath. I mean, it's like the exact same shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The connection you made earlier to this functioning as
Speaker 2: an extension of like the genocide that founded this country.
Speaker 2: I think it might have been Hannah or want okay,
Speaker 2: I want to attribute this to her at Hannah w Rent,
Speaker 2: which is like it's kind of a mess because of her.
Speaker 2: Don't do not ever look up Hannah rent stuff on segregation,
Speaker 2: or actually maybe do if you want to see the
Speaker 2: worst argument you've ever seen in your life, where like
Speaker 2: famed intellectual Hannah or Rent says that segregation is like
Speaker 2: a defining quality of like a free society.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm not like a super expert on Hannah Rent,
Speaker 3: but I definitely did not know that.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, no that people. People don't.
Speaker 5: I'll say this, Waite, people do not be bringing that
Speaker 5: shit up. Everyone else is like, oh.
Speaker 2: God, holy shit. You were like a major subagregation, like
Speaker 2: intellectual who got brought out to be like segregation is
Speaker 2: actually good, nose is free association. But I think it
Speaker 2: might have been her, It might have been someone else.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to look for who had this idea,
Speaker 2: and I haven't been able to find who it was.
Speaker 2: And I vaguely remember being a Rent, But fuck her.
Speaker 2: This is a little bit A very long while. Up
Speaker 2: was saying, like, there's an idea that I ran into
Speaker 2: back when I was in my sort of like days
Speaker 2: in the academy about the way that societies reflect their
Speaker 2: founding violence. And you know, the sort of like the
Speaker 2: founding violence of the United States is the genocide vidicious
Speaker 2: people and slavery, and you look at what they're doing
Speaker 2: right now, You're just watching sort of in miniature that
Speaker 2: violence just being replicated over and over again, where like
Speaker 2: you're tearing fucking mothers from their children in the dead
Speaker 2: of night, and it's the same people, right, Like this
Speaker 2: is an apartment building where almost everyone is black, and
Speaker 2: the people who aren't black are immigrants, right and obviously
Speaker 2: like some of them are both, but like you know,
Speaker 2: but like you're just like watching the founding violence of
Speaker 2: this country just being played out over and over and
Speaker 2: over again every night. And it's this thing where like
Speaker 2: I don't think on a fundamental level that this thing
Speaker 2: that we've built, this sort of like this conception of
Speaker 2: what democracy is, like this conception of what the state is,
Speaker 2: this conception of like what this country is is going
Speaker 2: to survive this moment. Either it's going to change completely
Speaker 2: or the part of it that was nominally a democracy
Speaker 2: is going to be consumed by the part of it
Speaker 2: that's just doing this genocide over and over again. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I quote this song a Lot Song of Choice,
Speaker 2: Peggy Seeger. That's about the rise of fascism that I
Speaker 2: think about a lot that has like one of one
Speaker 2: of the lines is today the soldiers took away one,
Speaker 2: Tomorrow they may take away two one April they took
Speaker 2: away Greece, but surely they will never take you. And yeah,
Speaker 2: they're just fucking taking people away in the night, right now,
Speaker 2: Like that's that's the stage of this where we're at.
Speaker 2: And either something fundamentally changes or right, you know, like
Speaker 2: that the end of that song is either like they
Speaker 2: take you or at the end they don't take you
Speaker 2: because they know you didn't care, right.
Speaker 3: And I mean, look, I've been I've been covering civil
Speaker 3: conflict and violence, you know, like more or less for
Speaker 3: the last five years. Right, I was at January sixth,
Speaker 3: like literally in the middle of the mob. I've seen
Speaker 3: a lot of shit.
Speaker 2: Reporting on it.
Speaker 5: Make this very clear, reporting on it.
Speaker 3: Clear why I was there. I was not part although
Speaker 3: my FASCI stalkers might insist I was part of like
Speaker 3: an antipa conspiracy to right, But but you know, I've
Speaker 3: seen a lot of shit the last five years, obviously,
Speaker 3: and I think this particular moment feels like, yeah, like
Speaker 3: we're kind of you know, like we're a marble at
Speaker 3: the top of like a spiral, and it's like either
Speaker 3: we're going to keep rolling down or or somebody like
Speaker 3: jams it or takes the marble off, you know, like
Speaker 3: there's just this is a this is a spiral, Like
Speaker 3: there are so many factors that are going to contribute
Speaker 3: to this getting worse if we do not significantly alter course.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, this feeling that we have
Speaker 3: locally of like we're screaming underwater and nobody can hear us.
Speaker 3: I'm sure is share a sentiment that is shared in LA,
Speaker 3: that is shared in DC, that is Sheridan. Yeah, all
Speaker 3: of these cities all over where ICE is doing similar shit.
Speaker 3: It can make us really angry. I mean, I've been
Speaker 3: really angry at times in the last month about the
Speaker 3: lack of like attention whatever. But then I think about
Speaker 3: how everyone is overwhelmed because there's so much horrible shit
Speaker 3: happening every day on so many places, Like we just
Speaker 3: can't keep up anymore, Like none of us can keep up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I mean, like I'm in Portland right now,
Speaker 2: and like it's my job to keep track of this,
Speaker 2: and I can't tell you at this exact second whether
Speaker 2: a federal diploma to Portland is honor off. I think
Speaker 2: it's currently off. But also by the time you're listening
Speaker 2: to this, who the fuck knows? And like yeah, like right,
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's an Android line about how it's
Speaker 2: easier to hide a thousand atrocities and it is to
Speaker 2: hide one because you can just keep ramping the tempo
Speaker 2: up exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm not a historian. I'm just a journalist,
Speaker 3: so maybe you would know better than me. But I
Speaker 3: feel like we are literally already in a civil war.
Speaker 3: We just don't know it yet, or like we're waiting
Speaker 3: for like some specific thing to like prove it, you know,
Speaker 3: like I don't, I don't know. I think generally nobody
Speaker 3: knows until it's like already, you're already in it. To me,
Speaker 3: it feels like we're in it yea. But I also
Speaker 3: wonder if that's just the cognitive effect of like us
Speaker 3: being here literally in it because so much is going on,
Speaker 3: and then thinking like, well, if the ice surge subsides
Speaker 3: two months from now, is it going to still feel
Speaker 3: this way? I don't know. I mean, to me, it
Speaker 3: feels like we've got several more years of the Trump
Speaker 3: regime at least if we look at this in the
Speaker 3: sense of like, well, they're escalating, and then also this
Speaker 3: is going to keep going for over more years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a terrifying concept. Yeah, where do we go from
Speaker 3: here if it's just gonna like get even worse?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know. I think I've been there
Speaker 2: a lot recently.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's the thing I've been telling listeners of this show
Speaker 2: is that, like the upside of all of this is
Speaker 2: that everyone hates them. Yeah, oh yeah, Like their proof
Speaker 2: of ratings are so bad. Everyone fucking hates them, and
Speaker 2: all of this stuff is hideously unpopular. And the giant
Speaker 2: economic collapse that is very obviously going to happen when
Speaker 2: the giant AI bubble that is like that is like
Speaker 2: a third of the US's GDP pops what it inevitably
Speaker 2: does because it doesn't make any money. They're doing all
Speaker 2: of this in a situation where the economy still appears
Speaker 2: to be functioning, and when that shit implodes on them,
Speaker 2: shit is going to be even worse for them than
Speaker 2: it is now. But also, like, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: unless people do things about it, then it doesn't really
Speaker 2: matter how popular or not they are as long as
Speaker 2: no one is willing to stop them. And I guess
Speaker 2: that's like the last thing I kind of want to
Speaker 2: close on is about like, can you talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about like what you've seen organizing wise that you
Speaker 2: can talk about that have been effective.
Speaker 3: Well, I think people here are still figuring it out
Speaker 3: these protests outside of the ice facility. You know, there
Speaker 3: has been a lot of autonomous organizing. Chicago does not
Speaker 3: have the same entrenched autonomous organizing culture that you see
Speaker 3: in like Portland or Seattle for like a ton of reasons, yeah,
Speaker 3: which are like beyond the scope of this episode in
Speaker 3: one series of the history the history of organizing in Chicago,
Speaker 3: and like how we're in this specific moment. You know,
Speaker 3: it's important to remember, like this is a city where
Speaker 3: like the FBI murdered Fred Hampton, Right, it is bad.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of tension between organizing factions about
Speaker 3: how they want things done, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is fear driven for a good reason, because people are terrified,
Speaker 3: and yeah, they're still figuring stuff out. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think for lack of a better firm. Last Saturday, people
Speaker 3: got their shit rocked by border patrol. You know, they
Speaker 3: were so violent, they were so aggressive, they were just
Speaker 3: so out of hand, just like immediately too, I mean
Speaker 3: it was just like zero to sixty instantly, like there
Speaker 3: was just a Saturday we saw them just immediately tear
Speaker 3: gas and shoot at people over nothing, like nobody was
Speaker 3: doing anything and they just assaulted the crowd with like
Speaker 3: the most tear gas I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3: So I think folks were definitely underprepared for that. But
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that it's like insurmountable to resist something
Speaker 3: like that. I think there are questions surrounding the best
Speaker 3: way to protest this specific building because of the location,
Speaker 3: and it's tough because it's not in Chicago. It's hard
Speaker 3: to get to for some people.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: But I don't want to I don't want to write
Speaker 3: anybody off. I mean, I think people are just still
Speaker 3: figuring things out, like it's it's ice is adapting, border
Speaker 3: patrols adapting, and so then organizers also have to adapt,
Speaker 3: like it's like this tennis match, right yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 3: so you know, we are also very much here. Our
Speaker 3: activists are not used to like a huge and our
Speaker 3: press also by extension, are not used to like a
Speaker 3: huge amount of chemical weapons.
Speaker 2: Chicargo doesn't use tear gas like historically, like they just
Speaker 2: beat people right or like shooting with right munitions, like
Speaker 2: they don't tear gas, and I think I was literally
Speaker 2: always told, like growing up in the city as an activist,
Speaker 2: was like, if they start using tear gas, they're once
Speaker 2: its way from shooting you, right, And they finally did
Speaker 2: it in twenty twenty, which is the first time I
Speaker 2: anyone had seen it in like decades, right, And the
Speaker 2: fact that like they're just doing it all the time now,
Speaker 2: like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Well, the Feds, I mean we saw this in la
Speaker 3: like at the beginning of this summer, where like Border
Speaker 3: pat Role specifically just has this enormous amount of chemical
Speaker 3: weapons that they like I don't know, maybe maybe they're
Speaker 3: going to expire soon and they have to use them all.
Speaker 3: Like like I don't know, I don't know what the
Speaker 3: rationale there is other than just being evil. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it's like literally their first voice of like they're just
Speaker 3: I mean, they're fucking enjoying it. They're fucking enjoying it.
Speaker 3: They're enjoying yeah, shooting at people to your gassing them
Speaker 3: playing g.
Speaker 2: I Joe Like yeah, I mean, I will say it
Speaker 2: does also raise the question, like how much of this
Speaker 2: stuff do they actually have, because like twenty twenty they
Speaker 2: went through decades of stockpiles, right, right, And like this
Speaker 2: is the thing that, like, I don't know, someone who
Speaker 2: has a lot of time and as an investigative journalist
Speaker 2: should try to go track down how much of the
Speaker 2: countries tear gas supplies they've been able to replenish, because
Speaker 2: they used a lot of it on us in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: And like, I mean, this is I don't know if
Speaker 2: it is famous. I guess bicycles. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: famous story that one of the one of the South
Speaker 2: Korean military dictatorships was taken down by a student like
Speaker 2: protest movement that calculated exactly how much tear gas the
Speaker 2: police had and did this thing where they would do
Speaker 2: these marches where they would a whole bunch of people
Speaker 2: would show up and the police start characterizing them, and
Speaker 2: they would just slowly keep her treating and keep her
Speaker 2: treating until they ran the state out of tear gas.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, I hope to see that level
Speaker 3: of strategy in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, law, Like, you know, like nothing, nothing, nothing is
Speaker 2: impossible with the power of really really pissed off students.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 3: the I'm not familiar with the manufacturing process for these
Speaker 3: kind of like how long does it take the like
Speaker 3: replenish and where do they source it?
Speaker 2: Yeap, this is this is one hundred percent a Hey,
Speaker 2: I know a bunch of journalists listened to this podcast.
Speaker 2: If what if you wants to go do this, you
Speaker 2: would be doing a great service to everyone in this country.
Speaker 3: Like, right, I'm like assuming that it's not made in
Speaker 3: the United States and they're like importing these things a hu.
Speaker 2: Huge amount of American American tear guests ends up like
Speaker 2: all over the world because we're one of the big
Speaker 2: suppliers of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, then I was mistaken. The popper ball gun
Speaker 3: dispenser company apparently is based in Lake Forest, so it's
Speaker 3: actually local.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, since you're kind of oh well.
Speaker 3: It's just like a glorified paintball gun basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing I've been getting from listening to you
Speaker 2: talk about this and from talking to other people is
Speaker 2: that like, both part of what's making this so horrible
Speaker 2: and also maybe where they fail is that these people
Speaker 2: don't know what they're doing. They just like violence, right,
Speaker 2: and liking violence and being willing to hurt people is
Speaker 2: a very effective short term strategy for causing violence, right,
Speaker 2: but it remains to be seen whether it's an effective
Speaker 2: long term strategy for like holding power and accomplishing their goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. It feels
Speaker 3: like it feels like there their operation is brittle, like
Speaker 3: it wouldn't take a lot to like impede it. But
Speaker 3: because they are so violent and so out of hand,
Speaker 3: that just like the slightest resistance, it's still really challenging
Speaker 3: to figure out. I mean, and to your point earlier
Speaker 3: about everybody hating them, I mean, that is palpable.
Speaker 4: I have heard the anger and the rage pouring out
Speaker 4: of people at these guys, you know, like, of course
Speaker 4: it's palpable how much people hate them, how much what's
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 3: Of course they're struggling to hire. Of course they're all
Speaker 3: wearing masks because they're fucking terrified they're going to be docs,
Speaker 3: you know, like they know that they're hated. But that's
Speaker 3: also a double edged short because I think knowing that
Speaker 3: every but he hates you anyway, well, that's just also
Speaker 3: sometimes going to make you even more violent because you
Speaker 3: don't care anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean I think the traditional social movement
Speaker 2: gambit has been like the more people can see how
Speaker 2: violent they are, the more people will go out to
Speaker 2: resist them. And I think right now we're in this
Speaker 2: scenario where because of the sort of media blackout and
Speaker 2: like the media bubble that's been put around this, it
Speaker 2: just hasn't been getting out the things that they've been doing.
Speaker 2: And I think that is also a thing that you
Speaker 2: random listener can do things about in terms of like, hey,
Speaker 2: tell people you know that, like, yeah, there's like a
Speaker 2: thing a federal occupation of a city and they're like
Speaker 2: dragging naked children screaming from their homes, like tearing them
Speaker 2: away from their parents. Like that's a thing that you
Speaker 2: can like, that's the thing you could directly do. That
Speaker 2: is a very very low lift.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also countering this like national guard misdirection thing
Speaker 3: that is just like constantly going on where it's like
Speaker 3: every fucking two days, Trump and Pritzburgh are arguing about
Speaker 3: you know, one hundred troops coming to town who are
Speaker 3: essentially just infrastructure for ice. They might block some roads,
Speaker 3: but like they're not the main threat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do you have anything else that you want
Speaker 2: to tell people? And then also where can people find
Speaker 2: and support your work as you go hopefully not get
Speaker 2: shot again.
Speaker 3: Well, I've resigned myself to the fact that I get
Speaker 3: shot again. But they can find us.
Speaker 7: At Unraveled on all the social platforms, you know, Unraveled,
Speaker 7: press dot com. And I think the only other thing
Speaker 7: I want to say is, you know, as bleak as
Speaker 7: this episode sounded, we do have to keep the fighting
Speaker 7: spirit alive and not just like yeah, resign ourselves to
Speaker 7: total dumerism. We have the moral high grounds, like we
Speaker 7: are doing the right thing and they are not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we can win this.
Speaker 2: I want to close on the story that came to
Speaker 2: mind when you said that, which was the story of
Speaker 2: the liberation of Turin in World War two, where Turin
Speaker 2: was like, you know, like one of the great industrial
Speaker 2: cities of Italy and it's directly under the occupation of
Speaker 2: the Nazis. By the end of the war and ahead
Speaker 2: of the Allied advanced the city plans and uprising, and
Speaker 2: the SS commander who is running the city explicitly tells them,
Speaker 2: if you like, if you do this, we will turn
Speaker 2: this into another warsaw And they do it anyways, and
Speaker 2: they beat them. All of these factory workers who had
Speaker 2: had guns smuggled in successfully do an uprising and defeat
Speaker 2: like an SS panzer division and just kick the shit
Speaker 2: out of them and liberate Turin. And you know, those
Speaker 2: were people facing odds that were so much worse than
Speaker 2: the ones they were facing today. They were facing a
Speaker 2: straight up military occupation by the SS, and they beat them,
Speaker 2: and they've read themselves. And you know, history is replete
Speaker 2: with dictators who thought that their occupations would last forever,
Speaker 2: until one day the Americans were withdrawing from Iraq, and
Speaker 2: the only thing that's eternal is their fear of the uprising,
Speaker 2: the will one day destroy them.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.