Speaker 1: Welcome Did It Could Happen Here? Podcast? It recognizes that
Speaker 1: Lunar New Year's is not, in fact just one day,
Speaker 1: and in that spirit, our special New Year's episode is
Speaker 1: going on for a second day. So there's the rest
Speaker 1: of our conversation with Jane and Jane you know. The
Speaker 1: other thing I wanted to script touch on like this
Speaker 1: is I think kind of defferenting off the topic, but
Speaker 1: I think it is also something that I've been running
Speaker 1: into a lot, which is that like, you know, you
Speaker 1: have this kind of like you know, you have this
Speaker 1: kind of bind right because on the one hand, you're
Speaker 1: stuck between you know, like a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: the organizing and sort of in Asian communities has all
Speaker 1: of these problems, and then you know, okay, well, you
Speaker 1: know the other thing that's happening is is the sort
Speaker 1: of mainstream American left and the mainstream American left, I
Speaker 1: think the Canadian left has problem similar problems with this
Speaker 1: is that like it's a bunch of just like it's
Speaker 1: a bunch of tankies, it's a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: love the CCP. It's a bunch of just we are
Speaker 1: genocide deniers and like people who think that every Asian
Speaker 1: person who like doesn't like the government is a cia
Speaker 1: psi op And I don't know. This is something that
Speaker 1: I've like, I mean, I've I ran into a lot
Speaker 1: trying to, i mean, help people do in Kong Kong.
Speaker 1: Organizing is something I've run into just in like every organize,
Speaker 1: like I've I've run I run into this an anarchist
Speaker 1: spaces to like it's it's just I don't know. It
Speaker 1: feels really bad because it's like like you're you're just
Speaker 1: sort of caught between and I guess it's is sort
Speaker 1: of there's this three way triangulation, right because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, you have this sort of like you have
Speaker 1: the local dynamics with you know, the sort of the
Speaker 1: sentence of the sort of reactionary small business owners. You
Speaker 1: have this, you know, the Chinese community also being sort
Speaker 1: of split in between like pro and anti CCP factions,
Speaker 1: both of whom have like are absolutely chock full of
Speaker 1: natical right wingers. It's like, well, okay, it's like the
Speaker 1: CCP vers Epoch times and it's like I don't want
Speaker 1: any of them to win and then use them out.
Speaker 1: And you're caught in the middle of this sort of
Speaker 1: they're caught in the middle of the sort of I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it's sort of like a fox
Speaker 1: geopolitical struggle, but like one of one of the big
Speaker 1: sort of ideological conflicts being between both the CCP in
Speaker 1: the US sort of like using the specter of each
Speaker 1: other to sort of like disturb their basis. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I am incredibly frustrated by I'm incredibly frustrated
Speaker 1: by the way that these groups have expected like the
Speaker 1: ant CCP, like the pro CCP groups are sort of
Speaker 1: selectively been using and like selectively been using anti ation violence,
Speaker 1: as you know, they basically making the arguments of the
Speaker 1: importance of anti ation violence is that while this only
Speaker 1: happens because people say many things about the CCP, and
Speaker 1: if no one didn't like the CCP, then there wouldn't
Speaker 1: be any violence, even though like anti Asian violence here
Speaker 1: predates the existence of a communist party in China by centuries,
Speaker 1: like we we like the we we invaded, we invaded China,
Speaker 1: like how many times, at least twice, maybe three I
Speaker 1: think at least twice and maybe three times, like before
Speaker 1: there was a communist party. And so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I I feel trapped a lot between these dynamics in
Speaker 1: ways that are very frustrating. And yeah, I just want
Speaker 1: to open the floor to talk about that. I guess
Speaker 1: I see it as like co optation partly, UM, but
Speaker 1: I guess I also see it as how power works.
Speaker 1: Like I there's like this local paper and I was
Speaker 1: researching sort of the history of Chinese diaspora organizing locally,
Speaker 1: and there was a spat in the paper between two
Speaker 1: people who one of whom is from UM, a newer
Speaker 1: Hong Kong diaspora. There was like a whole spat um
Speaker 1: in the paper about his history. And there's the history
Speaker 1: of like those tensions are like written in the community itself,
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's not a new thing that people
Speaker 1: argue about what happened on June four. It's not new
Speaker 1: that people are really mistrustful each other and that there
Speaker 1: are actual like government forces that infiltrate and create a
Speaker 1: like basically deny other people's struggles like UM, when the
Speaker 1: that government is themselves perpetuating it. And I guess it
Speaker 1: just is really hard when fellow organizers that you otherwise
Speaker 1: really like I want to get along with, are are
Speaker 1: like uncritical of the state that has oppressed your family
Speaker 1: because you're just kind of like you're kind of like, wait,
Speaker 1: so are we have we had a conversation about this,
Speaker 1: Like we clearly haven't talked eno if this is what
Speaker 1: you believe in, And it's just a little bit hard
Speaker 1: because it's like community building is not assuming that we're
Speaker 1: in solidarity. Community building is actually like doing that hard
Speaker 1: work like what is your community experiencing and what is
Speaker 1: my community experiencing? How are we being like weaponized against
Speaker 1: each other? Like yeah, how are these governments like manipulating
Speaker 1: like communities? But that's like really hard when trust has
Speaker 1: been and probably broken, Like me, yeah, I think you're
Speaker 1: so right that it's it's really about co optation and
Speaker 1: a lot of it, like what I've witnessed is really
Speaker 1: so much about UM And this is like, like you're saying, Jane,
Speaker 1: this is a much older dynamic than you know just
Speaker 1: the past couple of years. Is like, uh, states being
Speaker 1: able to use this kind of home and asper of
Speaker 1: framework to UM demand loyalty through like targeting desper people's
Speaker 1: guilt UM and so there's so many like guilty desper
Speaker 1: people I know who are like you know, usually from
Speaker 1: usually from a class perspective, right, because they had the
Speaker 1: their family had the resources to leave or uh they
Speaker 1: were not born in the home country or whatever because
Speaker 1: of their family background, that type of thing, and they
Speaker 1: want to subsume that by taking this radical you know,
Speaker 1: anti U s anti Canada stance, um, which is fine,
Speaker 1: Like obviously being anti US and anti Canada is a
Speaker 1: good thing. But um, the thing that's really kind of
Speaker 1: frustrated me the most is seeing these kind of like
Speaker 1: radical folks in North America, especially queer folks who are
Speaker 1: like they'll take the most reactionary positions against women and
Speaker 1: queer and you know LGBT folks in China, for example,
Speaker 1: by supporting a state that is repressing them. Right. So
Speaker 1: it's it's such cognitive dissonance to me, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why these folks can't see, um that they're kind
Speaker 1: of perpetuating this violence in the service of this kind
Speaker 1: of overarching imperative of not ever seeing anything bad about
Speaker 1: China because it will help, it'll it'll bolster the US
Speaker 1: propaganda war machine, which is like, there's absolutely a way
Speaker 1: that I mean that absolutely happens if you do that,
Speaker 1: uh un carefully right if you just kind of repeat
Speaker 1: um US media narratives and stuff like that. But I
Speaker 1: think there's absolutely a way to do both right and UM.
Speaker 1: To me, the way to do that is to not
Speaker 1: um support the state discourses that demand loyalty from the
Speaker 1: dask bro but to actually, you know, it's the grassroots thing, right.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like we support career folks around
Speaker 1: the world who are struggling under oppression from their governments
Speaker 1: and that type of thing. UM. And being able to
Speaker 1: very carefully say that with nuance UM and to be
Speaker 1: against both at the same time, for example, UM, well
Speaker 1: that's really really difficult, right, UM. And people have very
Speaker 1: kind of vitriolic reactions when you try and do that. Um.
Speaker 1: As you know, she set up talk Chris, So, I
Speaker 1: don't know this. This is still the contrum for me
Speaker 1: because I tend to take the more rigid stance against
Speaker 1: against these folks. But I know people who are very
Speaker 1: kind of they take a more compassionate stance, which is
Speaker 1: like these these are newly plus politicized youth. Um, they're
Speaker 1: just coming to a lot of these politics and positions. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, being anti US is better than not
Speaker 1: being anti us. Is it's what a lot of folks say,
Speaker 1: and you know, I agree to a certain extent, But
Speaker 1: then it's also like if they're being miseducated in these histories, Um,
Speaker 1: that's okay to a certain point when you're exploring and
Speaker 1: discovering these things and becoming radicalized. But you know, like
Speaker 1: Jane said, there's also these kind of material, direct impacts
Speaker 1: that you have on people that you work with, that
Speaker 1: you organize with, that that are your friends or loved ones,
Speaker 1: um that you know, that kind of explanation of like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're just learning is like it's insufficient in that kind
Speaker 1: of individual way because you're still hurting people and threatening
Speaker 1: people around you, right, So I think there has to
Speaker 1: be a balance and like being able to steer folks
Speaker 1: in into these like non Stalinist, non statist directions even
Speaker 1: while they're discovering. I hate how we're even having to
Speaker 1: be like steering people into a non sell yeah perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm not a horny for stalin I
Speaker 1: like the thing that pisces me off about this it's
Speaker 1: just like like they're not even Stalinist. Like this is
Speaker 1: the thing that's frustrating, Like if if if if they
Speaker 1: were merely twentieth century Stalinist, we wouldn't be having this
Speaker 1: argument because you know, twenty century Stalinism is like well, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: like twenty century Stalinist or anti market economy, and it's
Speaker 1: like no, they've they've somehow found a way to take
Speaker 1: literally the worst aspects of Stalinism and then be like, okay,
Speaker 1: but what if what if? What if Stalinism but also
Speaker 1: capitalism good at the same time, And it's just like
Speaker 1: how how did you do this? Like how how did
Speaker 1: you come up with an ideology that like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I think Also I think that's
Speaker 1: been frustrating to me about this is like it's a
Speaker 1: way of sort of of of it becomes this way
Speaker 1: of channeling you know, you have the deasperate guilt in
Speaker 1: the one hand, that you have just random sort of
Speaker 1: like white leftists sort of white guilt, and it becomes
Speaker 1: this way of like channeling that into this sort of
Speaker 1: follow anti racism where you know, you get you get
Speaker 1: people who are like actual professional like hacks, right like
Speaker 1: Roger Day for example, being like, uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: doing things like wow, if you if you if you
Speaker 1: could if you criticize this time you stay it all
Speaker 1: that sinophobia and like you're directly leading to people getting killed,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, that's not how this works. And
Speaker 1: there's this kind of it's it's it's it's this problem
Speaker 1: of they have this this fundamental inability to see Chinese
Speaker 1: people as people and not a sort of undifferentiated mass
Speaker 1: that can be sort of rallied behind in ideology. And
Speaker 1: I don't know that's been I think weird to deal
Speaker 1: with because you know, like yeah, like you you're always
Speaker 1: just in in Chinese communities, like you're always you're just
Speaker 1: you're just gonna have like you know that there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a few people who are just sort of like
Speaker 1: pro CCP right wingers, right, that's just that's just a
Speaker 1: sort of defailed political position. But there's there's this way
Speaker 1: in which you get this, you know, people adopting I
Speaker 1: mean just things that like if you said this about
Speaker 1: any like white American for example, if you if you
Speaker 1: argued that any like a white American making a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year wasn't in poverty, but like you just
Speaker 1: couldn't do it, you like, you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: literally impossible, like you you'd be laughing out of the
Speaker 1: room or you know, like you're you would you would
Speaker 1: you would be like ratioed until the cows come home.
Speaker 1: But you can just but everyone and people just say
Speaker 1: this constantly, like this is just just a thing that
Speaker 1: was like, well, if you look at poverty productions, like
Speaker 1: well Chinese, China's eliminated absolute poverty, it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: they a thousand dollars a year is outside of this now.
Speaker 1: And I think there's these ways in which it becomes
Speaker 1: hard to to intervene in this stuff because like every
Speaker 1: every Asian person, specifically the Chinese person just becomes a
Speaker 1: sort of token that like you know, you just sort
Speaker 1: of like throw at each other as just like oh,
Speaker 1: well yeah, here's the Chinese person who says that the
Speaker 1: CCP is good. It's like, well, here's another Chinese person
Speaker 1: who says that it's bad, and it's like you never
Speaker 1: It's like on both sides, whether whether the process people
Speaker 1: realize it or not, it's their agencies being sort of
Speaker 1: stripped by them and they've they've been turned into this
Speaker 1: sort of instrumentalized like you know, in the in the
Speaker 1: same thing that they're also doing to us, is that
Speaker 1: they're turning into sort of these instruments that you can
Speaker 1: use to like back your own sort of brought in
Speaker 1: political agenda. And this I don't know, like this has
Speaker 1: gotten me to just I I just don't work with
Speaker 1: these people anymore. Like we tried it, it was a disaster.
Speaker 1: They screwed us over And so I don't know. But
Speaker 1: but but I think that's that's a that's a lonely
Speaker 1: stance in a lot of ways. Like you know, if
Speaker 1: if you take this kind of like hardline position, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna most people, even other people who don't support it,
Speaker 1: probably won't follow you there. I don't know, it's weird
Speaker 1: because I find a lot of organizing is really lonely.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not like like I want to boast
Speaker 1: around being like why aren't you all donatings? But that's
Speaker 1: not that's also guilt, right, that's like projecting guilt onto
Speaker 1: other people, um, and that's not an effective tool. And
Speaker 1: I think that like like so right, and addressing both
Speaker 1: the white guilt but also the diaspora guilt, and also
Speaker 1: just how frustrating it is to organize against the state
Speaker 1: when it's like two people, like three people doing it
Speaker 1: in a little group project for lack of a better word.
Speaker 1: But it's sort of like, how do we make this
Speaker 1: sustainable when it's so lonely? And how do we use
Speaker 1: the resources that are available to us? Two not replicate
Speaker 1: these systems yet again? And I guess when it comes
Speaker 1: to the left or progressive in Canada, it's like so
Speaker 1: frustrating because it's like there isn't actually a lot of
Speaker 1: community outreach to like racialized communities. There's no translation. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of like nonprofit work that is frankly very
Speaker 1: draining and co optive themselves. Um Like it's it's a
Speaker 1: bunch of social service organizations in a trench code and
Speaker 1: a bunch of political organizations that don't work together or
Speaker 1: talk to each other in a trench code. And um
Speaker 1: so I understand why youth would join like leftist like
Speaker 1: radical organizing, but it it's just really heartbreaking when it's
Speaker 1: you're they end up reading in reading groups where they're
Speaker 1: reading historical or so called historical texts that erase your histories.
Speaker 1: Like it's just such a like like reading is great,
Speaker 1: like political education is incredible. Um but I'm like it's
Speaker 1: hard not to grow resentful. So when the guy at
Speaker 1: the top is a university educated white dude and they're
Speaker 1: reading texts that literally erase your entire family, and it's,
Speaker 1: um that like yeah, for me, it's like just really
Speaker 1: personal that way. It's like there are people who are
Speaker 1: suffering in the present and you're reading a text by
Speaker 1: a white sociologist from the eighties, like like not like
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's not that like I don't think that
Speaker 1: we should do that political education. It's just that like
Speaker 1: at a reading group, will you listen to me when
Speaker 1: I call you out? Yeah, I definitely you know, both
Speaker 1: of you saying that this work is really lonely, especially
Speaker 1: if you take if you stand up for yourself, for
Speaker 1: you you really kind of stand by your principles. It's
Speaker 1: I think that's so true. And um, you know, not
Speaker 1: to speak for everyone in laws on, but just my
Speaker 1: experience has been like you know, everyone just everyone hates us,
Speaker 1: like it's you know, we got hate from the right,
Speaker 1: we got hate from the left, um and from Hong
Speaker 1: Kong's asp or from Hong Kong locals, like it's it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes it's really hard to see you know, because
Speaker 1: we're we're trying to stay true to our principles, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to see sometimes whether there's an impact or
Speaker 1: whether we're just kind of like in a little echo
Speaker 1: chamber with twenty other people, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And um, it's hard to find that balance because I
Speaker 1: don't want to become more and more pragmatists where I'm
Speaker 1: just like, all right, well, you know, I'll work with
Speaker 1: these people, but I don't agree with them on these
Speaker 1: fundamental issues, just on this one campaign or whatever happens
Speaker 1: to be. I don't know. I know that's a part
Speaker 1: of like building power quote unquote like that a lot
Speaker 1: of uh, certain socialist groups like to do or they're
Speaker 1: they're really focused on that kind of thing. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's too much of an academic few
Speaker 1: too to be like, if you're gonna do it that way,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're changing the outcome already, right because you're
Speaker 1: not addressing these kind of fundamental issues from the start
Speaker 1: um And I think that view can sometimes lead to
Speaker 1: like a lot of non starters where you're just like
Speaker 1: things don't ever get off the ground because you insist
Speaker 1: on whatever fundamental principle that you that you want to
Speaker 1: stick to, uh like anti nationalism for example. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just just kind of reiterating and commiserating with you all
Speaker 1: on the long laitness of that people think that like
Speaker 1: not working in these sort of unitfferent things is this
Speaker 1: like sort of purity logical position. But like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean so when when Occupy Ice was happening, right,
Speaker 1: Occupy Ice wound up being a kind of big friend thing,
Speaker 1: and one of the groups involved with it was was
Speaker 1: the Party for Socialism Liberation, who are this sort of
Speaker 1: like very much sort of like they're basically tanking cult
Speaker 1: like they've There's not a lot of other horrible stuff
Speaker 1: that will talk about at some point, but I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens, you know, Occupy Ice
Speaker 1: is that they you know, in Philadelphia, they destroy the encampment,
Speaker 1: like they convince enough people to just leave and do
Speaker 1: this completely pointless like march they can do a photo
Speaker 1: op of like people in front of the Mayor's office
Speaker 1: and they do it, and they camp collapses because suddenly
Speaker 1: there's not enough people. You know, they don't even get
Speaker 1: a majority of the people, but it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: they pulled enough people out that you know, that the
Speaker 1: camp couldn't be held against the cops anymore. And I
Speaker 1: think that in some senses this is kind of microcosm
Speaker 1: of what they what these people actually do, which is
Speaker 1: that you know that these people will never have any
Speaker 1: actual institutional power, right, you know, they're they're never going
Speaker 1: to create their like salentist state or whatever, like they're
Speaker 1: never going to get this. They're they're never gonna hold
Speaker 1: any power. What they can do is there are enough
Speaker 1: of them, they can they can siphon off enough people
Speaker 1: from actual leftist movements into this sort of just like
Speaker 1: white room pro capitalist stuff that they can they can
Speaker 1: cause peoples to collapse. And I mean they've done this.
Speaker 1: They did a lot of this stream the uprising, and
Speaker 1: there is a lot of them, you know, intentionally leading
Speaker 1: people on pointless marches. There's a lot of cop writing
Speaker 1: with the police and stuff like that. And I think
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's it's like having seen that
Speaker 1: like multiple times, right I I you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: for me, like not working with him is an incredibly
Speaker 1: pragmatic position because we tried it and they blew it up.
Speaker 1: But it's this problem especially you know, you have people
Speaker 1: who are radicalized in and it's like, well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a lot of them never saw
Speaker 1: this stuff, right, don't know who these people are. And
Speaker 1: their first instruction to the left is just like incredibly
Speaker 1: well financed like media blitz, and I think that has
Speaker 1: you know, I think that as consequences both for us
Speaker 1: as sort of like people on the left doing like
Speaker 1: Chinese people on the left doing our own desk, but organizing,
Speaker 1: and it has consequences for the broader left, and like
Speaker 1: you you can see other sort of versions of this
Speaker 1: right where you know, you have a sort of right
Speaker 1: wing we've been infiltrating left to spaces and destroying them
Speaker 1: like they're they're like there were there was a thing
Speaker 1: de cream Resistance basically blew up a like an anti
Speaker 1: lithium protest in the US by just like going there
Speaker 1: and just hammering transphobia constantly. And so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think there's there's this sort of dilemma because fundament
Speaker 1: like they will say a lot of the same things
Speaker 1: we do, but we have fundamentally different goals, and that
Speaker 1: manifests itself at you know, on the level of of
Speaker 1: of organizing individual campaigns, but it's something that's really hard
Speaker 1: to get people to see. I think we've lost a
Speaker 1: lot of movements because of it. Yeah, not to be
Speaker 1: you know, not to pile on the cynicism or anything,
Speaker 1: but I think, I honestly do think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as all this new Cold War stuff ramps up, which
Speaker 1: is like completely independent of what a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: like grassroots folks are even thinking or advocating, it's all
Speaker 1: just kind of up to the the two uh you know,
Speaker 1: Chinese and US governments as they ramp up their own tensions.
Speaker 1: I think it's really going to start, like people are
Speaker 1: going to start these people who are um, you know,
Speaker 1: tankys or whatever, are going to start narrowing our choices
Speaker 1: further and further right, like, you know, as soon it's
Speaker 1: going to be an athema to to not you know,
Speaker 1: take the anti US position and that's it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I think that's really scary to me.
Speaker 1: I don't I last year, I thought there was still
Speaker 1: room for intervention, but things are closing so quickly. And
Speaker 1: you know, my personal opinion is that a lot of
Speaker 1: these kind of bigger groups like No Cold War UM
Speaker 1: and others like Code pink are are definitely being you
Speaker 1: know that they have much more funding than a lot
Speaker 1: of other groups who are boarding more nuanced positions, and
Speaker 1: so like you're saying, it's just like these media blitz
Speaker 1: is that these shiny events and all those different things
Speaker 1: are very appealing to newly ic radicalized folks, right because
Speaker 1: they think that this, this is where the power is
Speaker 1: and this is where we can actually make a difference.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, things to me, things look pretty bleak
Speaker 1: in the near future. I mean it just takes one Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I will see. I think I think they made one
Speaker 1: major city mistake, which is they tried to do the
Speaker 1: new the push the giant like new cold war war
Speaker 1: China thing at the exact moment of the US and
Speaker 1: Russia we're like heating up in actually, and this left
Speaker 1: them like kind of off balance because they've been for
Speaker 1: the last two years. The whole thing has been the
Speaker 1: US gonna accelerate tensens with China, Use is gonna seltentions
Speaker 1: with China, and then it turns out that they're not
Speaker 1: doing that and in fact, like they're gearing up for
Speaker 1: just more proxy word stuff with Russia, which the thing
Speaker 1: they've been doing for the past decade. So I think,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like I think they their problem
Speaker 1: essentially is that they run into reality and there are
Speaker 1: certain points at which, like you know, you you can
Speaker 1: lie a lot, right, but when when when the lie
Speaker 1: that you're pushing is about what the mainstream media is
Speaker 1: going to say, and the mainstream if you just pivots
Speaker 1: and it's just completely about something that's entirely unrelated, Like
Speaker 1: I think, I think that hurts, and I think the
Speaker 1: everything that the other problem they have that that makes
Speaker 1: me hopeful is that the way there, their base is
Speaker 1: getting split by just the anti vax grifters, because so
Speaker 1: many of their media people just you know, are are
Speaker 1: just are just full on grifters, and you know, and
Speaker 1: you're you're seeing splits right now and gray zone about
Speaker 1: like basically between pro and anti VACS factions. And I
Speaker 1: think that also will help us in the long run,
Speaker 1: because you know, say, say what you want about most
Speaker 1: leftists and even most tankies, like anti vax is like
Speaker 1: a bit far even for them, and because you know,
Speaker 1: and the other things like the the it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to do anti vax without beginning to take positions that
Speaker 1: just like it's been baked into just sort of anti
Speaker 1: Chinese racism in so many ways that like you can't
Speaker 1: really like you know, like you can't simultaneously be pro
Speaker 1: incredibly CCP and then also be talking about how the
Speaker 1: US is trying to implement social credit, right, you know,
Speaker 1: these these are these these positions are just contradictory, and
Speaker 1: I think that's something that plays to our advantage and
Speaker 1: I think is weakening them to some extent because they've
Speaker 1: they try to have their cake and eat it too,
Speaker 1: and now they're sort of I don't know, they're there,
Speaker 1: their conspiracy theory base is interfering with their like left
Speaker 1: base in way. So I think you're helpful for us.
Speaker 1: It's just so interesting how like the anti vax position
Speaker 1: is literally rooted in racism and ableism, like um, there's
Speaker 1: an article in The Conversation called the inherent Racism of
Speaker 1: the anti vax movement that has like really good history
Speaker 1: around white settlers being afraid of African medicine, um um.
Speaker 1: And then there there's also just the able ism of
Speaker 1: assuming that your kid will get autism if you get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: That was that that's been a huge thing before the
Speaker 1: pandemic and that was part of how this was effective
Speaker 1: in the first place. And um, yeah, and obviously the
Speaker 1: anti Chinese, um like uh anti Asian like scapegoating as well.
Speaker 1: But UM, I guess that also ties into like just
Speaker 1: how broadly ablest the left is and how like disability
Speaker 1: justice is not something that a lot of people know
Speaker 1: about um or care about. And it's yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's a huge problem for me as a disabled person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wanted to add really quickly too. I mean, I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you, and you know, I think one
Speaker 1: of the pernicious things that I've noticed though, is like
Speaker 1: these kind of big, you know, quote unquote anti imperialist accounts,
Speaker 1: like on Instagram for example. Um, they take this anti
Speaker 1: vax position precisely by saying that it's anti racist to
Speaker 1: take that position, which is like, it sounds that sounds
Speaker 1: very kind intuitive, it's not that does not reflect reality.
Speaker 1: But they will point to instances of you know, anti
Speaker 1: black us um us medicine for example, you know, like
Speaker 1: the Tuskey experiments and then say this is why we
Speaker 1: shouldn't trust the U. S. Government on any of this, right,
Speaker 1: because look what they've done in the past and it's
Speaker 1: like that logic makes a lot of sense in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, right, But you know, they obviously ignore
Speaker 1: the impacts that you know, anti vax uh and COVID
Speaker 1: has had on black and other POSD populations. Right, So
Speaker 1: I think I don't know if it's exactly like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it is appearing as hypocrisy to those
Speaker 1: people and then their audiences too, right, because I think
Speaker 1: they're able to spin it in this in this way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think I think my my my argument here
Speaker 1: is I don't think those are the same. I think
Speaker 1: these are the same basis, Like, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think that the majority of the Tanky base are people
Speaker 1: who are anti factors. And you know that you can
Speaker 1: see a line of this right of of you know,
Speaker 1: like one of the big things that like they're they're
Speaker 1: they're obsessed with sort of like with the Cuban healthcare system,
Speaker 1: right and like Cuba's Cuba's vaccines. You see this stuff
Speaker 1: from them a lot, and you know, and they also
Speaker 1: talk about like, yeah, like China's doing really well a
Speaker 1: good hitting COVID, And I don't think those positions are like,
Speaker 1: I don't think those people are the same people who
Speaker 1: are also turning around and then talking about how like
Speaker 1: you know, talk doing the CAZI experiments, the vaccines are
Speaker 1: actually like racism thing. I think, I think there's some
Speaker 1: overlap between them, but but I don't think that those
Speaker 1: bases line up enough for it to you know, not
Speaker 1: have the effect of just kind of like tearing them
Speaker 1: apart as their media people lipped into into one of
Speaker 1: the sort of camps. And I think the other thing, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if if you look at what's happening with like,
Speaker 1: uh like Max Bluemadal right now, is that he's just
Speaker 1: like full on like like he's just full on touring
Speaker 1: with like just straight up right wingers to an extent
Speaker 1: that even like even people who being habituated by the
Speaker 1: sort of like Syria false flags stuff into sort of
Speaker 1: working with right wingers, like you can't look at these
Speaker 1: people that you know, there's just these actually just like
Speaker 1: Republican operatives and be like, well, okay, we're we're on
Speaker 1: the side of these people and also like support Cuba.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know, I I have I have
Speaker 1: some faith in these groups being separate and they're being
Speaker 1: there being a point of cognitive dissonance where the system break.
Speaker 1: I guess I've seen people who have gotten out of
Speaker 1: tanky is M by having to interact with the actual CCP,
Speaker 1: and and that that that that gives me hope that
Speaker 1: there's there, there's there's a point of cognitive dissonance at
Speaker 1: which it falls apart. And I don't know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of like hopey m in here, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so interesting how like there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people for whom politics is a parlor
Speaker 1: game and not their every day like lived experience. Like
Speaker 1: I would not be so like like if I see
Speaker 1: my communities struggling, um and when people are dying or
Speaker 1: people are really like struggling with intragenerational trauma, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and pontificate and theorize about like, um,
Speaker 1: things that don't impact my communities. Um And Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the angle about class is so important here because it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of people can't insulate themselves from like
Speaker 1: the broader communities around them. Like if you're going around
Speaker 1: saying untruths in the media and your communities are like, hey,
Speaker 1: that that makes no sense, Like, um, if you're actually
Speaker 1: connected to people like like you would hopefully, unless you're
Speaker 1: just a big asshole, um, you would hopefully take some
Speaker 1: accountability for what you're saying. UM. And I yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I just worry because this pandemic has also like
Speaker 1: really isolated people, like they people are not like talking
Speaker 1: to each other, and that makes it more easy for
Speaker 1: people to to be like, oh, I'm I'm just right,
Speaker 1: like this is my perspective, and I just yeah, I
Speaker 1: think about that the conditions in which we come to
Speaker 1: certain conclusions, like the conditions under which we become more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to culti e. Type things or like oversimplified like
Speaker 1: understandings of history. Because like I feel like the the
Speaker 1: anti vax uh like not taking the vaccine being uh
Speaker 1: anti racist is a very like manipulative like argument because
Speaker 1: it ignores the fact that these experiments UM on black
Speaker 1: and Indigenous people in North America and beyond are like
Speaker 1: about neglect and are about um deliberately deliberate, ongoing genocide
Speaker 1: and how like it's completely understandable for for people to
Speaker 1: not trust the government. But but like when the vaccine
Speaker 1: is actually a tool of protecting people, Like, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of like campaigns other than people who are
Speaker 1: uh rooted and disability justice, saying, hey, vaccines are like
Speaker 1: here to protect us, and how can we make how
Speaker 1: can we make like a like how can we resist
Speaker 1: the medical industrial complex enough such that we can make
Speaker 1: people feel safer taking them at vaccine? How can we
Speaker 1: bring people in as opposed to fearmongering? Because I think
Speaker 1: that fear is so powerful. It's like, once you're afraid,
Speaker 1: you're you're not gonna you're not going to even look
Speaker 1: into the research, right, So I don't know it's for me.
Speaker 1: I just think of all of this as like manipulation
Speaker 1: and human psychology on a on a like broad social basis,
Speaker 1: because it's like the stage is a big cult and
Speaker 1: these little groups are little cults. Yeah, do teach? You
Speaker 1: have any other things you want to say? Before we
Speaker 1: had oh here, Yeah, you're the tiger. I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to retweeting art like actually Ouary January one? Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: we should I think my okay, okay, closing less depressing question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what do you think is the etiquette on retweeting?
Speaker 1: Like you every retweeting like you're the tiger art before
Speaker 1: the actual before like Lunar New Year's I've been torn
Speaker 1: on it because I just I like the art, but
Speaker 1: also I'm like, it's not the years yet I haven't
Speaker 1: seen any I guess, so I guess I'm lucky. I
Speaker 1: have been either guilty or not guilty, depending on how
Speaker 1: you see it. Like I have retweeted all of the
Speaker 1: tiger are on January first because I did not care.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the tigers um. But I hope
Speaker 1: that I see more tigers like in the coming days,
Speaker 1: because if the tigers aren't coming, or if we aren't
Speaker 1: retweeting it, that that is an issue. Like there need
Speaker 1: to be like a second like a like a like
Speaker 1: a like like a like a second wave of the
Speaker 1: tiger are no pressure to all of the artists? Well alright,
Speaker 1: So if if people want to find you or work
Speaker 1: that you have that you want people to find where?
Speaker 1: Where where can they do that? Or if you also
Speaker 1: do not want them to find you, that is completely
Speaker 1: also valid. The internet is terrible in a mistake, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mostly and do not perceive me mode um completely valid.
Speaker 1: If you want to check out allow some stuff, feel
Speaker 1: free a low song collective dot com, it's good work.
Speaker 1: My social media is um pepack all Poetry um on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I uh, um, I have this graphic that I've turned
Speaker 1: into a sticker and it's raises funds for families who
Speaker 1: were affected by the fires and floods. Um. It's a
Speaker 1: sticker that says immunocompromised people are worth protecting, and it
Speaker 1: went viral multiple times. So I guess I cannot help
Speaker 1: but be perceived objections. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people all poetry. Yeah this this is what happens when
Speaker 1: you create things that are both incredibly politically powerful and
Speaker 1: also gorgeous. So yeah, b B be cursed with the
Speaker 1: reward for good work, which is also being pretty see. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you can you can find you can find us
Speaker 1: at Happened Here pod on Twitter and Instagram. There's the
Speaker 1: Cool Zone. You can find it. Yeah, go go, go,
Speaker 1: go retweet Tiger Art all right, go throw a brick
Speaker 1: at your sheriff non actionable, and yeah, destroy the American
Speaker 1: and Chinese States. Happy two years. It could Happen Here
Speaker 1: as a production of pool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from the Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com, or check us out on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: podcasts you can find sources for It could happen here.
Speaker 1: Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.