WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 124 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:02.880 Zone Media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.880 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:28.200 you can make your own decisions. Welcome everybody to it 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.199 could happen here, a podcast about it happening here. The 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.800 slow crumbling of the institutions that make up our society, 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.600 and that includes not just the good stuff that's become 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.600 the bad stuff, like, for example, Google Search, but it 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.880 includes the stuff that's always been bad and has gotten worse, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:51.240 like life inside the prison industrial complex, which is partly 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:53.720 what we will be talking today because our guest is 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:59.120 the great Corey, doctor, activist, writer, author of a book 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.360 called The Bezel, which is a fiction novel but deals 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.200 with some very non fictional stuff in relation to how 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.320 finance schools have changed life for people behind bars. Corey. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:11.160 Welcome to the show. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.080 Thank you for having me on. It's a delight to 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:14.720 be on again. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:15.280 Yeah. 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.280 Yeah, it's always wonderful to have you. I just finished 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.479 the Bezel. It took me. It was one of those 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.560 about a day, you know, in part because I just 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.080 like didn't want to stop reading it, Like I just 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.000 kind of blasted through. I picked it up in the 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.560 morning on a walk and then was done with it 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.440 at about like nine pm. So I found it pretty 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.440 compulsively readable. Amazing. 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.039 That's great to hear. With the first one, I knew 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.200 that I had something going on when I woke up 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.240 at two in the morning and my wife was sitting 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:44.600 up in bed next to me, and I said, what 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.040 are you doing? And she said, I just had to 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:47.080 find out how it ended. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.200 So yeah, and you said the first one. This is 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.320 the second book in a series based on a character 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.640 Martin Hinch, who's a self employed forensic accountant. I do 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.480 want to let people know right at the jump, I 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.240 actually have not read your first hinchbook yet, and they 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.200 don't have to be read an orgy. Yes, yes, that's 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.320 what I was going to point out before we get 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.480 into the stuff about the plot of this book and 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.480 how it relates to some very real things that are ongoing. 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.799 I wanted to talk about a not so stealth advertisement 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.640 within the series for a guy that we're both a 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.320 big fan of, Stephen Bruce. There's an extended digression where 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.760 Martin is sending books to a friend of his in prison. 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.240 And you talk a lot about Steven's Taltosh series, which 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.880 was a huge influence on me as a young person. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.200 I could definitely see, I think, an influence on this 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.000 series as well. 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:34.799 Yeah. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.320 I mean, Steve is a wonderful writer, and everything he 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.320 writes is amazing. That particular series, you know, he started 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.480 when I was thirteen years old. I'm now fifty two. 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.440 I just had dinner with him in Minneapolis. Or he 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.560 tells me he's two books away from finishing it. Yeah, Yeah, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.920 he had planned the whole thing all those years ago. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:02.360 He's a Zelosny protege. Yeah, and also a giant Fritz 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:07.760 liber fan. And the it's got that wise cracking Robert 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:13.200 McGee kind of or Travis McGee rather kind of affect 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.080 those books, and also the stuff that I love about 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.840 the best of what you know, disparagingly we could call 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.480 men's adventure fiction, yeah, which is that it at its best. 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.840 And Maria Ferrell just wrote something really good about this 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.120 on crooked timber, and it's best that stuff really geeks 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.960 out about a lot of stuff. That The bad version 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:34.760 of it is the kind of James Bond version where 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.640 it's like, yeah, you know, this is what the status watches, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.800 and this is what the status martini is, and this 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:41.840 is what the status whatever it is, and that you 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.600 call that the gourmet version right, where it's like, you 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.400 know what all the best of everything is and you 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.160 know how to how to signal you know, your ver 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.040 blend goods to other people had to signal that you 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.080 are posh and upper class. But the good version of 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.360 it is the is the gourmand version, which is like, 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:03.920 if you're going to eat cardboard pizza, this is the 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:05.280 best cardboard pizza. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:05.360 Yeah. 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.200 And if you're going to you know, like the very 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.240 best gas station toilets are and the you know, the 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.240 one thing that you should always do if you're staying 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.600 in a flophouse is right, And it's just that kind 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.119 of it could be like street smarts, but it's also 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.720 very uh, I want to say self indulgent, but that's 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.320 not the right word. It's no, it's very uh. It's 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.760 it's it's there's a lot of self care in it. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.680 There's a lot of like deliberate like, oh, this is 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:35.400 how I'm going to live my life so that it's 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.039 as good as possible, and I enjoy all of the 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.440 finer things as much as I can. This is the 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.360 thing that I do when I'm making a burger so 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.520 that it's a ten percent more delicious every time, you know, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:46.360 yeah kind of thing. 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.279 It's it's it's interesting. I came across the first book 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.080 in that series that I read was Dragon, which I 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.800 came across a strip cover from my uncle who worked 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.320 at a bookstore, and that's his like military fiction book 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.240 in the series, which is very much in line with 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.560 the like boys adventure stuff. But as the series goes on, 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:10.320 it increasingly trends towards like Russian revolutionary literature too. There's 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.840 a little bit more that which I think get an 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.440 influence on me. Well, Steve's a Trotskyist, yeah, yeah. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.520 But the thing about communist fantasy writers, there's a few 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.600 of them, There's you know, China Mayville and step and 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.599 a few others well, Shadderley and so on, is that 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.400 the one thing that they can always be relied upon 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.760 to do is get the ratio of vassals to lords, right, Yeah, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.160 you know that the number of peasants in the field 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.080 is always vastly larger than the number of lords in 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.520 the castle, and they all have a life and an 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.599 interiority and a reason for being there. That's not just 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.680 being scenery or cannon fodder. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.640 Yeah, yeah, that's it's something he does. Well. I think 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:48.840 that's enough of a digression. I just always love having 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.880 a chance to talk about Stephen Bruce's work. Let's talk 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.120 about the Bezel because the basic I mean, I try 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:58.880 I will try not to give away more than is 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.120 in like the good Reads summary, But the basics of 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.440 this story is that you've got this guy, Martin Hinch, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.240 who's this forensic accountant, and as a result, he's friends 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.359 with some people who have really succeeded in sort of 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.880 the pre dot com bubble tech industry. I guess you'd say, 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.400 and you take us with, you know. He goes with 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.599 one of them to a place called Catalina Island, which 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.440 is a real place that was founded by one of 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.839 like our nation's early plutocrats, who had a bizarre obsession 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.599 with their not being like fast food available on the island. Yeah, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:31.360 he had a lot. 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:36.520 Of bizarre obsessions. This is William Wrigley, the gum chewing 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.320 gum fortune, and his first obsession was chickle trees and 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.440 which you need to make gum. And his particular obsession 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.120 was owning every chickle forest in the world, which he did, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.920 which meant that if you wanted to make gum, even 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:51.720 if you were one of his competitors, you had to 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.520 pay him for the chickle. So there was no gum 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.360 that wasn't Wriggly's gum. In some important sense, this made him, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:58.680 as you might imagine. 0:06:58.320 --> 0:06:58.880 Very rich. 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.200 Yeah, he bought the Chicago Cubs, is the reason the 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.640 Chicago Cubs play at Wrigley Field, and they would have 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.480 their spring training on Catalina Island, an island that he bought. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:15.200 He loved Westerns, and one of the people who lived 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:20.080 on Catalina Island was or summered there. Rather was Zane Gray, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.160 the great Western writer, and there were a bunch of 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.040 Zane Gray movies that were made on the island, including 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.600 one where they brought over thirteen bull bison because they 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.160 were needed for the movie, and because they didn't know 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.880 a lot about animal handling, particularly they did not know 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.720 that male bison do not ever come into contact with 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.960 one another except to have a violent dominance clash, which 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.600 is how the thirteen mail bison all ended up escaping. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.440 And then Wrigley, in one of his other obsessions, thought 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.360 it was Unchristian for these bachelor bison to be on 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.360 his island, so he brought over thirteen cows and created 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.160 the bison invasive species. Think. He also didn't know that 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.200 bison operate in harems, which was another thing that he 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.120 was just badly wrong. Like it is true that like 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.400 being a billionaire lowers your IQ by thirty points and 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.720 being the son of a billionaire lowers your IQ by 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.600 forty points. Yeah, and and you know, Wriggly had all 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.400 kinds of esthetic ideas in the same way that like, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.360 you know, when when Ford built Fordlandia in Brazil, a 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.679 planned community that was an identical copy of Dearborn Michigan, 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.120 including the south facing windows, because he wouldn't let his 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.680 architects explain that south of the equator you want north 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.600 facing windows. Yeah, you know, he said, oh, well we're 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.440 you know, like he came up with all kinds of 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:45.800 weird rules for rubber planters rubber harvesters in the Brazilian jungle, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.600 and Wrigley came up with his own rules for people 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:48.800 living on his island. 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:50.280 And one of them is no fast food. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.480 And this turns out to be consequential in the story 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.000 because the protagon of the story, who's Martin Hench, Who's 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.320 this you know, two fisted, hard fighting forensic accountant who 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.600 bust finance scams and his pal are on the island 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.439 in the party scene while his friend waits to vest 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.720 from Yahoo, where he's been imprisoned by Dent of having 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.200 sold them a company for millions of dollars, which he 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.200 can only realize if he can sit tight and not 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.280 murder any of his colleagues. While they buy and destroy 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.959 every promising startup in Silicon Valley using the money from 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.400 the Royal family of Saudi Arabia that was funneled to 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.480 them by Masiyoshi Son and Soft Bank, they encounter a 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.960 Ponzi scheme, and the Ponzi scheme is grounded in what 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.240 is an actual practice of people bringing fast food to 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.360 Catalina Island. Like if you go to the K twelve 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.480 school and you have an away game, everyone brings back 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.960 a sack of burgers for their friends because it's forbidden fruit. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.000 It's exotic, and this turns into a Ponzi scheme to 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.960 sell flash frozen burgers brought to the island by various means. 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.280 And as with every Ponzi scheme, the thing that they're 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.800 actually selling is the right to sell, the right to sell, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.880 the right to sell burgers. Yeah, no one, No one 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.760 wants the burgers right. They want the down line. And 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.000 this is why Ponzi schemes always implode. And what Marty 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.920 realizes is that this Ponzi scheme is going on, and 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.600 that it has been cooked up by this guy whose 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.480 parties they've been going to, this real estate baron, and 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.920 that he's done it the same way you might carefully 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.680 tend an ant colony for the sole purpose of burning 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.800 them with magnifying glasses. You build this enormous sort of 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.360 Rube Goldberg machine, a self licking ice cream cone, and 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.240 then you destroy it, you smash it. He's waiting for 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.400 this economy to collapse once he's extracted every penny from 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.079 the island, which will add one percent to his net worth, 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.320 and so they do a controlled demolition of it. They 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.000 foil this guy's plan, and this kicks in motion the 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.640 real action in the novel, which is about the private 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:42.439 prison system. 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.760 Yeah, yeah, and I love that. In preparing to read 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.599 this chunk of the book where I learned quite a 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.840 bit about the private prison system, I also learned a 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:56.080 bunch about Catalina Island and this wealthy madman's insane dream. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.120 I appreciate that about your books. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.800 Yeah, I mean Catalina Island, and we could go on. 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.600 Marilyn Monroe is a fifteen year old child bride on 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:09.040 Catalina Island. The CIA was founded on Catalina Island. The 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.920 channel between Catalina Island and the mainland is the deepest 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:18.080 channel known to humanity and now dumped fifty thousand barrels 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.520 of DDT into it in iron that is rusting and 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:24.760 that we have no way to remediate, and that will 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:30.960 someday rupture and kill every bird downstream of that channel, 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.920 and also lots of fish. Catalina Island is this very 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:39.120 fraught place, this very beautiful place, very weird place. It's 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:40.959 one of my favorite places to go. We just booked 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.040 another trip there, and everything about it is is amazing 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.600 and also terrible, but also beautiful. 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.600 Yeah, and appreciate the way that you write that. And 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.719 I appreciate the way that you kind of wrap us 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.800 into by first establishing this character, this friend of Martin's, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.840 who then winds up in a California Department of Corrections 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.200 facility and taking us over a period of time as 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.000 it goes to the way I think most people think 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.440 prisons still are, right, the kind of the vision of 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.640 like prisons that was formed from movies we watched in 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.440 the early two thousands, in the late nineties, where you know, 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.199 they can be pretty ugly places, but like you have 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.520 family and they can come and visit you. Right, there's 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.000 a big room where everybody gets together with their you know, 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.440 we arrested developments maybe the most before this all changed, 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.520 most recent kind of touchstone on this. And also it's 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.319 a place that has like a library, and not just 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.080 a library, but like there are what comes with the 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.440 library is opportunities for people to like better themselves, to 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.200 learn things, to build skills, to potentially take some more 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.000 agency of their situation. Right, That idea of like the 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:03.240 jailhouse lawyer who comes informed in all that, and that 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.760 that world has really gone away to a significant extent. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.440 It's not completely gone everywhere, but certainly a lot of 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.200 those a lot of that has been pruned away. The 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.080 ability of prisoners to have face to face contact with 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.440 their loved ones and the ability of prisoners to like 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:20.960 use a library is something that is a lot less 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.440 common now than it used to be. And it's because 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.520 a lot of these a lot of these kind of 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:31.000 attitudes that have characterized finance for so long or increasingly 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.360 become in common within the companies that run these facilities. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.360 Yeah, and you know, maybe this is a good place 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.240 to explain what a bezel is and how this moment 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.040 relates to what a bezel is. So I really think 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.520 the title bezel is a banger. But I didn't realize 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.079 until I started touring this book that if you say 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.840 it aloud, it sounds like be eazel, which is the 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.800 rectanglar on your phone screen. It's actually be easy z 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.760 l e or a zed zed if you're a Canadian 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.160 like me. And that is a wonderful term coined by 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:08.960 John Kenneth Galbrath to describe the magic interval after the 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.920 con artist has your money but before you know it's 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.839 a con and in that moment, everybody feels better off. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.600 And one of the great bezel moments was the moment 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:26.080 between the crash of the dot com crash of like 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.560 two thousand and two thousand and one and the crash 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.200 of the Great Financial Crisis, the housing crash, and in 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.760 that period, all the money that people put into so 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.840 called investments and into the market and that made them 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:41.960 feel better off, made them feel like they had a pension, 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.000 made them feel like they had savings, and so on, 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.440 all that money was already gone. So this is one 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.360 of the things about a scam is it feels like 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.160 the moment that you lose the money is the moment 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.080 you realize it's a scam, But you actually lose the 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.000 money the minute you give it to the con artist. 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.200 The con artists might let you keep some of it 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.520 for a little while, but they can take it away 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.880 from you whenever they want. That was a moment of 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.400 kind of giddiness where none of us really wanted the 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.760 dream to end. We knew that once the dream ended, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.920 we would all be poorer, although in reality we're all poorer. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.280 Right then, One of the things about that moment is 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.600 it was the moment when another long con came doe, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.560 and that was the long con of the California three 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.520 strikes rule. So there had been a couple of quite 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.680 ghastly murders of young people, a teenager and a child 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:40.640 in California that were weaponized by some fairly cruel racists 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.760 to pass a law in California that says that if 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.320 you were convicted of three felonies, you would go to 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.040 prison for the rest of your life with no chance 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.640 of parole. And you know, this is California, which is 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.560 a place that's quite allergic to hire taxes, famously the 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.960 home Proposition thirteen, where you know, we can't raise our 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.040 property taxes unless something like seventy percent of us go 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.280 to the polls and specifically vote for it, which is 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.040 why our cities are so cash strapped. And so in 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.440 this place where you have these anti tax extremist types 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:17.760 and you have this increasing tax burden associated with locking 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.680 up an ever larger fraction of the population for the 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:26.080 rest of their lives, you have this unstoppable force and 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.760 this immovable object on a collision course with one another, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.280 because at a certain point, you're just going to have 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.720 prisons that are so full that you're going to have 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.680 to do something to relieve them. You're going to have 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:40.960 to build more prisons. You're going to have to reduce 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.800 the cost of operating those prisons. Something's going to give. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.120 In the end, what ended up giving was a Supreme 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.320 Court case that rule that just being in prison in 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.200 California violated your Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:01.000 That every California prison basically constituted a violation of the 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:05.840 Eighth Amendment. And California went through the you know, the 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.040 five stages of grieving, which I know they don't replicate 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.359 that it's not real, we don't. That's not really a 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.800 neat description of exactly what happens when we grieve. But 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.800 they certainly went through a period of denial and bargaining, 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:23.520 including mooting at one point sending prisoners to like Arizona, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.160 so sending California State prisoners to Arizona and paying Arizona 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.320 to take them off their hands. And as all of 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.080 this stuff was going on, some grifters saw great opportunity, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:38.240 and that opportunity was to cut costs in the prisons 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.239 and facilitate moving prisoners further and further away from their 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.320 families by replacing all of the services in the prison 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.000 with a tablet that you would get for free. Yeah, 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.720 So remember you know, the iPad comes out in two 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.760 thousand and eight. Steve Jobs is touting it as the future. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:56.000 Of the world. 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.720 Media companies are going crazy. They finally found their daddy 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.679 figure who's going to save them from tech by you know, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.520 siloing everything in an app that isn't part of the web. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.360 And all we can hear about is tablets of the future. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.000 And this sounds quite futuristic, right, We'll put tablet. We'll 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.720 give every prisoner a free tablet. It's like one laptop 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.000 per child, but for prisoners. And those tablets will replace 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.960 the library and in person visits and phone calls and 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:32.880 music and TV and continuing education and all of it's 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.560 going to cost. And it's going to cost a lot 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.800 more than you would pay outside of the outside of 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.480 the prison for the same services. So, you know, four 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.040 bucks a minute for poster stamp sized video instead of 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:50.680 free zoom calls, Yeah, music for three bucks instead of one. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.040 And then, of course these companies are very grifty, and 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:59.040 so they're constantly restructuring, going bankrupt, being bought, buying one another. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.720 And every time that happens, the company changes its name 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.040 and says, oh, we're no longer the same company. We 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.040 no longer supply all of those services. We are wiping 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.800 out all of your data, and you're gonna have to 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.720 buy it again. And so, you know, if that's music, 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.399 it means that the song that you pay three dollars for, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.600 that you bought by working in the prison workshop for 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.800 twenty five cents an hour is gone and you're in 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.280 prison for remember this is California, the rest of your life. 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.360 And so you're going to have to go back and 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.320 earn more money to get. 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:31.240 That song again. 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:36.040 But also the five dollars your kid paid to have 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.920 the birthday card that they wrote for you scant because 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.280 you can no longer get parcels or mail. Your family 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.920 have to pay to have their letters scanned, or they 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.520 have to pay to send you email. And so your kid, 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.960 who's growing up with the principal breadwinner, has paid five 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.920 dollars to have their handmade birthday card scanned. That goes 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.240 away too when the prison changes vendors. And it's a 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:05.120 kind of perfect parable for the indifferent sadism of capital, 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:10.600 like the degree to which the pursuit of profit drives 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.879 people to be far more cruel than mere ideology. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.600 You know, yes, yeah, that's so important because like, prisons 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.760 were not nice before, they were not humane before. But 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.679 someone who is simply trying to run a government prison 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:32.040 facility would not think of the idea of doing like 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.960 a doing like a shell game yank away of people's 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.320 music after letting them buy it and then make them 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.119 buy it again. That's like, that's not something that like 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.639 a bad prison guard comes up with. That's only something 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.880 that somebody from somebody from finance comes up with. 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.760 Well, and and you know, you it helps if the 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.600 way that you're running these prisons is by employing guards 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.919 through a staffing agency, and so you don't even have 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.480 to contend with the rising costs associated with staff turnover 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.639 when prisoners go bug fuck crazy because you took all 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.679 their shit away. Right, those guards are not your employees, 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.480 and it's not your problem. The whole thing is is 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:17.120 kind of running at several layers of indirection and remove. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.280 It's what Douglas Rushkoff calls going meta. You know, the 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.679 don't drive a cab found Uber, don't found uber invest 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.919 in Uber, don't invest in Uber, invest in uber derivatives. 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.120 Don't investor in uber derivatives, invest in uber derivative futures. Right, 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.160 like go meta, like get further and further away from 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.720 the useful activities. Yeah, you are insulated from the consequences 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:41.880 of whatever it. 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:42.320 Is you do. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:45.600 And that's such a it's part of it's like a 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.200 recipe for breaking things right, because the people who are closest, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:52.120 not that they're always good at it in the case 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.320 of prison guards, but the people who are closest to 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.119 the useful activity tend to know how to make things 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.080 work right. Whereas the further away you get from that, 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:03.879 the more likely your ideas are to break things that 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.560 you wouldn't have even thought of. And again, but for 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.879 that kind of person, everything you break is usually an 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.399 opportunity for financializing something else. 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:12.919 Yeah, you know. 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.720 The extent to which finance is the true banality of 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:21.840 evil is hard to overstate. Yeah, you know, we think, well, 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.600 we've heard a lot when you read about the Holocaust 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:27.760 and World War Two, you hear a lot about the 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:29.919 cruelty of Nazis, and no one's going to say, well, 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.639 the Nazis weren't cruel and the ideological cruelty of Nazis. So, 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.920 for example, there were moments where, rather than transporting troops 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:41.000 to decisive battles, they were shipping Jews to concentration camps 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.040 on those same trains and losing battles so they could. 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:44.840 Murder more Jews. 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.840 Right, Yeah, But up the road from Auschwitz was another 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.320 private concentration camp run by ig Farben called Monowitz. YEP 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.920 and ig Farbin were war profiteers. They were they were 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:02.480 gouging the Wehrmacht on war material that they were manufacturing 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:08.960 with slave labor, and they bought thousands of slaves from Auschwitz, 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.160 preferring women and children because they were cheaper, and they 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.879 worked them to death. And the lifespan of a slave 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:19.720 in Monowitz was only three months before they were worked 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:22.040 to death. It was half of what it was in Auschwitz. 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.080 The conditions were so bad at Monowitz that the SS 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:30.520 guards who were seconded to it from Auschwitz wrote to 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:35.480 Berlin to complain about the cruelty of Monowitz. At the 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:39.359 end of the war, in Nuremberg, twenty four Ig Farben 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:43.080 executives were tried for this. Their defense was that they 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:47.720 had a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize returns, 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.880 and nineteen of them were acquitted on that basis. 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:57.639 Yeah, God, and this is you know, before the Chicago 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:00.600 School guys had really like fully taken over. So this 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:04.600 this idea that like that was really the only responsibility 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:07.879 that a business had, even above a moral responsibility, was 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:12.600 much less established. Like the more you get into how many, 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:17.280 particularly of the money people got off at Nuremberg, like 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:22.720 it's maddening stuff. Yeah, indeed, and it is, like I 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:26.160 think one an accurate way to look at the Holocaust 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:31.200 from the perspective of those guys is the mining of populations, 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:34.720 like mining them to death. That's really how a lot 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:37.280 of this like because a huge chunk of especially the 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:43.520 early stages of Nazi oppression of like starting with German Jews, 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:46.119 but going beyond that as they conquered more land, was 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.879 the appropriation of businesses and property, right, like that was 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:55.640 it was, it was mining human beings. And that attitude 0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:58.639 is persistent. Right, It's not just a thing that happens 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:02.000 in Nazi Germany. It happens whenever you let people who 0:25:02.200 --> 0:25:06.480 don't have any sort of human concern take control of 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:08.560 every aspect of life. 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:12.800 And this is some of the structural stuff that's going 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.760 on in the book. So my editor on this book 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:18.600 is this great guy, Patrick Nielsen Hayden who's been my 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:21.960 editor since my first novel. He and I met on 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:24.320 a BBS in the nineteen eighties, so I've really known 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:25.320 him most of my life. 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:25.920 Oh wow. 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:29.359 And Patrick, when he gave me the editorial note on 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:34.040 my first novel, he said something like the way that 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:38.919 science fiction works is you have a world that is 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:41.880 like a thought experiment world, and you have a character 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:46.480 who's a microcosm for that world, and they are like 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:49.840 a big gear that's the world, and a little gear 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:55.000 that's the character. And if the microcosm meshes correctly with 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:58.960 the macrocosm, then as the person spins around and around 0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:03.600 doing their plot stuff, they spin around enough times that 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:06.359 the world, the big gear that they're meshed with, makes 0:26:06.359 --> 0:26:10.679 a full revolution. So you have this microcosm macrocosm thing. 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:13.560 And often when a book doesn't work, it's because the 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:18.800 microcosmic macrocosmic correspondences aren't sharp enough. There's some way in 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:21.679 which those teeth aren't meshing. One of the things that 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:23.760 this book tries to do, and that the Martin Hinch 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.000 books generally try to do, because they're all about these 0:26:26.080 --> 0:26:29.240 these finance scams, these high tech finance scams set in 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:32.400 different eras from the nineteen eighties through the twenty twenties, 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:35.960 is that they try to create a series of these 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:39.719 similar correspondences between small scams and big scams. You know, 0:26:39.760 --> 0:26:43.480 they use the small scam as a kind of setup 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:49.000 or a frame or like a cognitive tool for understanding 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:51.960 the much bigger scam. And so that small scam, that 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:56.600 Ponzi scheme, where you have a person who is setting 0:26:56.600 --> 0:26:59.800 out just for shits and giggles to make some money 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:03.119 by destroying a bunch of other people's lives and viewing 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:07.840 those people as not as people but as as things, 0:27:08.000 --> 0:27:10.480 as a means to an end, not as an end 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:18.359 unto themselves, ends up creating this sadistic, brutal, pointless, and 0:27:18.600 --> 0:27:22.960 deliberately unsustainable situation that he knows is going to hurt 0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:25.600 all these other people. And the way that he's able 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:30.399 to do it is by simply not considering the people 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:35.840 who are enmeshed in the scheme as fully people entitled 0:27:35.880 --> 0:27:39.680 to their own sort of moral consideration. And in the 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:42.560 same way that is that's like a microcosm for the 0:27:42.680 --> 0:27:46.879 kinds of decisions that are made when people go on 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:50.320 to found these prison tech companies and these other companies 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:52.280 that do these these ghastly things. 0:28:02.960 --> 0:28:07.320 And it's it's also very accurate to how an unfortunate 0:28:07.440 --> 0:28:11.000 number of just like regular people in society and in 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:14.240 government think about the victims of these schemes. Like when 0:28:14.240 --> 0:28:16.840 you when you try to talk about how unfair and 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:19.240 how much worse this situation has gotten, it's like, well, 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:23.000 they're prisoners, they're being punished, you know, as if, as 0:28:23.040 --> 0:28:24.399 if that makes it all okay. 0:28:25.480 --> 0:28:27.760 Yeah, it's kind of a it's kind of a like 0:28:28.240 --> 0:28:31.600 a much more extreme and therefore much more easily spotted 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:37.760 version of caveat emptor or you know, not your not 0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:41.680 your keys, not your coins. You know, these ideas that 0:28:42.960 --> 0:28:45.560 if if something bad is happening to you, it must 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:47.280 be because you did something bad. 0:28:47.440 --> 0:28:47.600 Right. 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:52.240 That the kind of providential ethics. And I think that 0:28:52.360 --> 0:28:55.840 the work that that does for people is it helps 0:28:55.880 --> 0:28:59.600 them put their own anxiety about their own future to rest, 0:29:00.320 --> 0:29:05.520 because you know, the if you are worried that something 0:29:05.880 --> 0:29:08.840 bad might happen to you, and you can convince yourself 0:29:08.840 --> 0:29:11.160 that the reason that something bad happened to someone else 0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:15.400 is that they had a deficiency right, they committed a sin, 0:29:15.960 --> 0:29:19.920 they were foolish, then you don't have to worry about 0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:22.920 it happening to you. You know, I a couple of 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:26.680 times in the last decade I have been the victim 0:29:26.720 --> 0:29:29.560 of various kinds of con and I am also someone 0:29:29.560 --> 0:29:32.920 who's written a lot about cons So I've been successfully 0:29:32.960 --> 0:29:36.160 fished once and I had a phone scammer talked me 0:29:36.160 --> 0:29:38.400 out of my credit card number once. And I always 0:29:38.400 --> 0:29:41.560 write about it when it happens, and I write about 0:29:41.560 --> 0:29:43.040 it in part because I want to make sure that 0:29:43.080 --> 0:29:46.200 people understand that, you know, you're not too smart to 0:29:46.280 --> 0:29:48.880 be conned, anyone can be conned and so on, and 0:29:48.920 --> 0:29:51.960 I think that's an inoculant against getting conned. But I 0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:55.160 also do it because the reactions are a kind of 0:29:55.200 --> 0:29:56.440 sociological study. 0:29:56.760 --> 0:29:56.920 Right. 0:29:56.960 --> 0:29:59.160 If you want to see into the minds of tech 0:29:59.200 --> 0:30:03.200 bros who justify the terrible things that they are doing 0:30:03.320 --> 0:30:06.640 or planning to do, or fantasizing about doing or working 0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:12.640 on to other people, look at their fraud apologetics where 0:30:12.680 --> 0:30:15.200 they say, you know, oh, that was just a business 0:30:15.240 --> 0:30:18.400 and you know you had a caveat emptor or you 0:30:18.440 --> 0:30:22.160 were lazy, or you were foolish, or you know, like 0:30:22.480 --> 0:30:25.040 you did something deficient and that's why it happened, and 0:30:25.040 --> 0:30:27.080 so you deserved it. And that means, on the one hand, 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:28.720 it's never going to happen to me because I don't 0:30:28.720 --> 0:30:30.720 deserve it. And on the other hand, if I ever 0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:33.680 do it to someone else, that's fine because if they 0:30:33.760 --> 0:30:36.040 fall victim to it, then they must deserve it. The 0:30:36.600 --> 0:30:40.680 old con artist saying that you can't cheat an honest man. 0:30:40.600 --> 0:30:44.120 As a version of this, Yeah, and it's I mean, 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:47.560 that's like it's such a limited view of it, right, 0:30:47.600 --> 0:30:50.840 because it's true that, like there are some cons that 0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:53.800 you can't trick someone into unless they have a little 0:30:53.840 --> 0:30:57.440 desire for some larceny, right, But like an increasing number 0:30:57.440 --> 0:31:00.120 of cons are just like a company using your bank 0:31:00.240 --> 0:31:02.880 phone number calling you and telling you you've been defrauded, 0:31:02.920 --> 0:31:05.400 and you give them information because you're not used to 0:31:05.480 --> 0:31:08.600 the or or somebody calls using the voice of your 0:31:08.720 --> 0:31:11.920 child and says that they need a ransom payment. Right, 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:16.000 you're not there's not like dishonesty in your heart because 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.320 you don't want your kid to be kidnapped. You're just 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:20.560 not ready for what tech has been able to do, 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:20.959 you know. 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:23.720 And while there are some of those cons where they 0:31:23.840 --> 0:31:27.760 you know they're they're playing on your cupidity or your dishonesty. Yeah, 0:31:27.840 --> 0:31:31.480 to make money off of you. Even in those instances, 0:31:32.000 --> 0:31:36.040 it is downstream of a system where it feels like 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:40.160 you can't survive unless you're cheating, right, like the one 0:31:40.160 --> 0:31:42.800 of the things. And so multi level marketing is actually 0:31:43.000 --> 0:31:44.760 a theme that runs through all of these books. That 0:31:44.880 --> 0:31:48.080 The next is set in the nineteen eighties and it's 0:31:48.160 --> 0:31:52.880 it's about a faith scam. It's an early PC company 0:31:52.920 --> 0:31:55.040 I made up called the Three Wise Men, run by 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:58.000 a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest, and an Orthodox rabbi 0:31:58.440 --> 0:32:04.720 who use, you know, affiliate marketing through congregations to prey 0:32:04.920 --> 0:32:08.640 on their own faith groups. And one of the things 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:13.000 about these Ponzi schemes, these pyramid schemes, is that they 0:32:13.120 --> 0:32:16.280 take the only capital that working people have, which is 0:32:16.320 --> 0:32:19.920 social capital, right the relationships they have among one another, 0:32:20.560 --> 0:32:24.920 and they convince them that it is entrepreneurial and therefore 0:32:25.040 --> 0:32:30.760 virtuous to instrumentalize your relationship to the other women in 0:32:30.800 --> 0:32:33.360 your life who help you look after your kids, or 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:36.960 to your coreligionists who you can turn to if things 0:32:37.000 --> 0:32:40.440 go really bad at work or with your family or whatever. 0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:46.360 And that turning that into a transaction that you can milk, 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:50.400 you know. Turning those people into a down line who 0:32:50.440 --> 0:32:53.400 have to recruit other people to make you whole so 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:57.480 that you can feed your own upline is just hustling. 0:32:57.840 --> 0:33:00.840 It's just your shot at the American dream. You know, 0:33:01.200 --> 0:33:05.080 Spike Lee telling you that investing in shit coins as 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:06.320 building black wealth. 0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:13.040 Yeah, yeah, I it is like the the fact, and 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:16.440 I think low key, this is one of the top 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:19.080 couple of problems that we have in this society because 0:33:19.080 --> 0:33:21.880 it feeds into everything else. It's like it's a I 0:33:21.920 --> 0:33:24.239 think that's probably why it runs through so much of 0:33:24.280 --> 0:33:29.400 your work, because this the scam economy, is behind every 0:33:29.400 --> 0:33:34.000 and it's increasingly becoming everything right, and there's this kind 0:33:34.000 --> 0:33:38.280 of pernicious effect where by people don't the more people 0:33:38.320 --> 0:33:40.760 are victimized by this, both the less they trust other 0:33:40.800 --> 0:33:44.400 people and the more the more they begin to accept that, like, well, 0:33:44.440 --> 0:33:47.400 this is just how you get by in our society, right, 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:51.320 Why shouldn't we take away prison libraries and replace them 0:33:51.360 --> 0:33:54.080 with more expensive kindle that we can yank away at 0:33:54.080 --> 0:33:57.760 any moment. Everyone's always nickel and diming me. I'm always 0:33:57.760 --> 0:34:00.240 getting more money taken away from me. By these same people. 0:34:00.240 --> 0:34:01.640 And I'm not even in prison, you know. 0:34:01.920 --> 0:34:05.320 Right, why shouldn't there be junk fees in prison if 0:34:05.360 --> 0:34:08.480 there's junk fees everywhere else, If you're if you're you know, 0:34:09.000 --> 0:34:12.760 local water company that's owned by your city is sold 0:34:12.800 --> 0:34:15.600 off to uh, you know, plug a hole in the 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:18.680 budget because you can't raise taxes. And then they start 0:34:18.760 --> 0:34:22.400 charging you a convenience fee to pay your your water 0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:25.200 bill with a check, and then a different convenience fee 0:34:25.320 --> 0:34:27.200 to pay your water bill with a credit card, and 0:34:27.239 --> 0:34:29.360 a third convenience fee to pay your water bill in 0:34:29.400 --> 0:34:32.279 person with cash. And then you realize that, like there 0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:35.239 that none of these are convenience fees. They're just they're 0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:35.800 just fees. 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:39.759 Yeah, it's just more money. Yeah yeah, I mean we're 0:34:39.760 --> 0:34:43.359 in we're in a pretty infuriating situation here, and you 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:46.279 get to that in the bezel, you really get that 0:34:46.360 --> 0:34:48.480 across well as this guy is trying to deal with 0:34:49.239 --> 0:34:51.799 the and and it kind of brought home to me 0:34:52.480 --> 0:34:55.040 the horror of like having someone you care for in 0:34:55.080 --> 0:35:00.239 this situation and seeing like their avenues for any kind 0:35:00.239 --> 0:35:04.440 of relief edged out chipped away at for the profit 0:35:04.520 --> 0:35:06.480 of some guy who will never notice the money in 0:35:06.560 --> 0:35:07.400 his bank account. 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:13.560 Yeah yeah, I mean, and you know that, unlike Steve Brucet, 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:16.840 I well, like Steve brust in some of those volumes, 0:35:17.239 --> 0:35:19.840 I told this story from the perspective of a fairly 0:35:19.920 --> 0:35:23.880 powerful person who's got a lot of agency, only because 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:28.200 it gives you the opportunity to tell a story that 0:35:28.280 --> 0:35:32.759 at least holds out the possibility of some relief. I'll 0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:34.920 leave it to the reader to find out what actually 0:35:34.960 --> 0:35:38.000 happens at the end. And you know, there have been 0:35:38.040 --> 0:35:41.560 successful prisoner uprisings that have been led by working people 0:35:41.600 --> 0:35:43.960 who are serving long terms, but for the most part 0:35:44.040 --> 0:35:46.920 those uprisings, we never even hear about them. You know, 0:35:47.000 --> 0:35:50.439 there was a prison labor strike before lockdown. I believe 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:52.920 it was twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. There's a national 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:56.640 prison labor strike, and it barely made a dent in 0:35:57.160 --> 0:36:00.120 anyone's consciousness. It was, you know, ultimately one of the 0:36:00.200 --> 0:36:04.480 largest strikes in modern American history. You know, there're thousands 0:36:04.480 --> 0:36:06.799 and thousands of workers were on strike, and we didn't 0:36:06.800 --> 0:36:11.000 even hear about it. Because there's such control over the 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:15.520 narrative about prisons and prisoners that's run by the carcerl system. 0:36:16.080 --> 0:36:18.720 And so you know, by telling this story about someone 0:36:19.160 --> 0:36:23.200 who goes into prison already a millionaire and who has 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:26.400 a friend on the outside who's kind of a hustler 0:36:26.560 --> 0:36:30.359 and you know, a pal and who is someone who 0:36:30.400 --> 0:36:33.759 knows how to finagle the system, I can spin out 0:36:33.840 --> 0:36:37.840 a yarn that takes you, like back to Patrick Nielsen 0:36:37.880 --> 0:36:40.600 Hayden and the Big Gear driving the Little Gear takes 0:36:40.640 --> 0:36:43.080 you on a three hundred and sixty degree tour of 0:36:43.440 --> 0:36:46.520 how fucked up the system is rather than just the 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:50.439 ant's i view or the worm's eye view that most 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:54.359 people get because they aren't even able to explore all 0:36:54.400 --> 0:36:57.439 the avenues and run into their dead ends because they're 0:36:57.480 --> 0:36:58.439 just stuck where they are. 0:36:58.760 --> 0:37:02.000 Yeah, this has been wonderful. I want to again let 0:37:02.040 --> 0:37:05.760 people know your book, The Bezel is in stores now. 0:37:05.920 --> 0:37:09.600 You can purchase it wherever fine books are sold. Do 0:37:09.640 --> 0:37:11.640 you have a preferred URL for buying it? 0:37:12.160 --> 0:37:15.520 The Dashbezel dot org is fine, but wherever people want 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:19.440 to get it. Yeah, it's a national best seller for 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:20.600 the third week running. 0:37:21.000 --> 0:37:21.840 It's very good. 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:22.760 That's great. 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:26.480 Whoever feeds into the USA Today bestseller. 0:37:26.000 --> 0:37:31.400 List you apparently that's wonderful. Yeah, well, Corey, doctor, do 0:37:31.440 --> 0:37:33.560 you have anything else you wanted to get to before 0:37:33.600 --> 0:37:34.400 we roll out today? 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:37.080 Well, I guess you know, if you want to follow 0:37:37.120 --> 0:37:39.960 the work that I do. Pluralistic dot net is a 0:37:40.000 --> 0:37:43.359 newsletter that I write every day or almost every day, 0:37:43.520 --> 0:37:47.560 and it's open access it so that means it's Creative 0:37:47.560 --> 0:37:50.480 Commons licensed. You can reproduce it. You can reproduce it 0:37:50.520 --> 0:37:54.360 and sell it if you want. And there's no DRM, 0:37:54.440 --> 0:37:59.840 there's no tracking, there's no you know ads, there's no anything. 0:38:00.160 --> 0:38:02.799 It's you know, black type on a white background. You'll 0:38:02.840 --> 0:38:05.359 never get to pop up asking you whether you want 0:38:05.400 --> 0:38:08.480 to subscribe to my mailing list or whatever. Yeah, and 0:38:08.719 --> 0:38:10.960 the email version of it, you can get it as 0:38:10.960 --> 0:38:13.920 an email list. The email version also no tracking. I 0:38:13.960 --> 0:38:17.160 can't tell when you've opened the email or anything. I 0:38:17.239 --> 0:38:21.800 keep no statistics, and I just it's a letter in 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:24.240 a bottle I write and throw into the ocean every morning. 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:27.160 And it's great. That's so much fun to write. 0:38:27.560 --> 0:38:29.520 It's a great letter in a bottle. You've been talking 0:38:29.600 --> 0:38:33.319 writing a lot, talking a lot about AI lately and 0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:36.080 kind of the how that all feeds into a lot 0:38:36.080 --> 0:38:39.680 of this stuff you've been covering about or the stuff 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:43.400 you write about often about you know, bezels and scam economies. 0:38:43.400 --> 0:38:46.600 And I've really enjoyed getting your take on that because 0:38:46.680 --> 0:38:48.280 I think you're one of the one of the people 0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:50.400 who hasn't lost their minds over all this stuff. 0:38:50.719 --> 0:38:52.920 Oh yeah, I mean, I think we're really like so 0:38:52.960 --> 0:38:56.880 that we hear so much about AI disinformation and the 0:38:57.200 --> 0:39:00.680 people who have like most fallen prey to AID information 0:39:00.920 --> 0:39:03.480 are bosses who've been convinced that AI is good enough 0:39:03.480 --> 0:39:06.360 to fire you and replace you with and you know, 0:39:06.440 --> 0:39:08.920 it's it's not true. It doesn't mean they won't do it, right, 0:39:08.960 --> 0:39:12.880 but it's not true. Yeah, that's that's actually kind of 0:39:12.880 --> 0:39:17.120 the worst of all worlds, right, technological unemployment without without 0:39:17.160 --> 0:39:20.719 actual replacement. It's just it's just another basil. It's a yeah, 0:39:20.760 --> 0:39:23.440 it's a It's that long moment where you think you've 0:39:23.520 --> 0:39:27.239 zeroed out your labor force costs, but you haven't realized 0:39:27.280 --> 0:39:31.080 that you're no longer productive because the chatbot keeps, you know, 0:39:31.320 --> 0:39:33.600 as in the case of Air Canada, just like telling 0:39:33.600 --> 0:39:36.560 people they can get refunds they're not entitled to. And 0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:39.800 then you know, regulators come along and smack you around 0:39:39.840 --> 0:39:42.720 and charge you, you know, find you for your chatbot 0:39:42.800 --> 0:39:47.760 having lied to people about their bereavement, flight discounts and stuff. 0:39:48.920 --> 0:39:53.360 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to to that moment hitting. 0:39:53.400 --> 0:39:56.319 I guess because where we I mean, I do kind 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:59.840 of think we are sort of nearer to the bursting 0:40:00.280 --> 0:40:02.719 than we are to the peak of the bubble right now, 0:40:02.760 --> 0:40:04.160 But I guess we'll see. 0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:09.320 Well, remember, the market can remain solvent irrational rather longer 0:40:09.320 --> 0:40:10.520 than you can remain solvent. 0:40:10.960 --> 0:40:11.160 Yeah. 0:40:11.239 --> 0:40:15.400 So I've been predicting the collapse of the London housing bubble, 0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:19.160 for example, for a very long time. We're nowhere near it. Yeah, 0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:23.720 so that is my humbling lesson. It is definitely a bubble. 0:40:23.800 --> 0:40:26.440 It is going to burst when it's going to burst, 0:40:26.960 --> 0:40:29.920 and is very very very hard to predict. 0:40:30.120 --> 0:40:34.439 Yeah, what will burst with it? Yeah? Well, Corey, thank 0:40:34.480 --> 0:40:37.040 you so much for being on the show. Again. Everybody, 0:40:37.160 --> 0:40:41.080 check out the Bezel Wonderful book, and check out Corey's 0:40:41.080 --> 0:40:44.640 other wonderful books like walk Away. That's the episode. I 0:40:44.680 --> 0:40:46.680 have a good one, Thanks Robert. 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:03.960 Hello, everyone, welcome to the podcast today. We have a 0:41:04.040 --> 0:41:07.279 very interesting issue. You're very lucky to be joined by Onomo, 0:41:07.360 --> 0:41:10.440 who we've heard from before who is a minister who 0:41:10.440 --> 0:41:13.880 is hindering in the National Unity Government of Burma or Myanmar. 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.400 Both of those words are okay, And we're talking about 0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:21.239 the situation of Rhinga people and the development sort of 0:41:21.239 --> 0:41:24.680 happened in Rakaine State since I guess since the beginning 0:41:24.719 --> 0:41:27.600 of Operation ten twenty seven. So welcome to the show. 0:41:28.960 --> 0:41:33.080 Thank you so much, thanks for having me, and it's 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:36.160 good to be back with you to this show. 0:41:36.600 --> 0:41:38.799 Thank you. Yeah, no, it's wonderful to have you back 0:41:38.880 --> 0:41:41.920 and we're very fortunate. So I wonder if we could 0:41:41.960 --> 0:41:46.120 start by summarizing for listeners the things that have happened 0:41:46.239 --> 0:41:49.640 in the last few months in Rakaine State, because there 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:53.359 have been some massive changes since maybe listeners will last 0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:54.520 aware of what was happening there. 0:41:55.160 --> 0:41:58.920 Yeah, sure, thank you. Since the coup, the over on 0:41:58.960 --> 0:42:02.680 and off bikes in the Arkan Army and there, and 0:42:02.719 --> 0:42:06.440 the Malasia hunters process in Rakinda State, however, in the 0:42:06.480 --> 0:42:11.080 interests of the of the of the humanitary and neat 0:42:11.760 --> 0:42:17.880 both parties came to enter to a ceasefire peven In between, however, 0:42:18.360 --> 0:42:22.400 the fight against the military junta in and Mark started 0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:25.520 in different part of me and Mark continued to be 0:42:25.680 --> 0:42:30.560 accelerating and most recently the ten twenty seven and followed 0:42:30.560 --> 0:42:35.120 by others operations in in crime estate has has been 0:42:35.280 --> 0:42:41.680 has been quite rapidly spreading across the country and that's 0:42:42.200 --> 0:42:46.640 definitely went through a kinda state where resumed to target 0:42:47.320 --> 0:42:51.520 the the the junta in its polotopical objective to be 0:42:51.680 --> 0:42:56.080 to be reaching uh uh. That's the situations we are 0:42:56.120 --> 0:43:00.440 today that the Arcan Army has been in very goods 0:43:00.480 --> 0:43:05.359 to be dismantling the Hunter's forces in our kind of state, 0:43:05.560 --> 0:43:09.560 and so far since Operation twenty seven ten twenty seven 0:43:09.680 --> 0:43:14.799 staled more than half of the township districts in our 0:43:14.840 --> 0:43:18.000 kind of state has been ceased by the Arkhan Army, 0:43:18.400 --> 0:43:23.640 including some of those were majority of Ringa lifts. And 0:43:24.120 --> 0:43:29.160 it's continued to be under in the very literarating situations. 0:43:29.520 --> 0:43:33.480 Yeah, at the end, they've they've even sunk Hunter ships 0:43:33.520 --> 0:43:36.359 or captured them in some cases. I think it's been 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:38.799 a bit of a that there was a video that 0:43:39.440 --> 0:43:42.000 was quite like maybe not viruls around word. Certainly I 0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:44.960 saw a lot but of border guard forces right, which 0:43:45.000 --> 0:43:48.560 are like a militia's allied to the Hunter and fleeing 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:50.880 into Bangladesh. 0:43:51.200 --> 0:43:55.600 This this another the border guard process are from mostly 0:43:55.600 --> 0:43:59.400 from militaries. They are tree militaries. Their uniforms are changed 0:43:59.440 --> 0:44:05.000 into reguard force due to different agreement with that exists 0:44:05.040 --> 0:44:10.120 between two states in allocating. It's true along the border 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:14.160 side and the border guard forces are one of the 0:44:14.160 --> 0:44:17.880 most primary forces that's deported through Highen and run the 0:44:17.920 --> 0:44:22.279 Rohingia's sources in twenty seven and make them flee. So 0:44:22.800 --> 0:44:26.320 six years later they saying the GPS who committed to 0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:30.760 the crimes against the Rhinga atrocities that include crimes against 0:44:30.800 --> 0:44:35.719 humanity and war crimes had to flee to Bangladesh in 0:44:36.640 --> 0:44:41.879 a quite similar way to refuge. And so it's sort 0:44:41.920 --> 0:44:45.759 of karma or whatever you put it in a way 0:44:45.800 --> 0:44:50.560 and the perceptions and reality of course when it's it's 0:44:50.600 --> 0:44:55.120 kind of confrontations between the two groups Arcan Army and 0:44:55.160 --> 0:44:59.120 the military compless sources. The reality that has been defined 0:44:59.160 --> 0:45:02.360 by most of ours ninianmar and the course that we 0:45:02.520 --> 0:45:04.760 used to believe that the Burmis malitary is a strong 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:08.360 vote by human resource and equipment and then in reality 0:45:08.400 --> 0:45:12.239 they are very weak and our army has proved by 0:45:12.280 --> 0:45:17.320 dismantling a various battalion in country battalion and even capturing 0:45:17.600 --> 0:45:22.160 alive like second ice commanding officer in the whole of 0:45:22.200 --> 0:45:26.200 the kind of state. And also many senior level officer 0:45:26.239 --> 0:45:29.799 has been has has been killed over this. That so 0:45:30.280 --> 0:45:35.120 the reality perception has been deeper on the NMR malanitary 0:45:35.600 --> 0:45:38.600 when we look it from from external perspective. 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:42.280 Yeah, and I think just in case listeners aren't familiar, 0:45:42.360 --> 0:45:44.560 it can be very confusing if you don't read about 0:45:44.560 --> 0:45:46.400 this stuff all the time. It's sort of an alphabet 0:45:46.440 --> 0:45:53.360 soup of organizations, and especially with reference to Rahinga and 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:58.759 Rekind State, because we have Rahinga armed groups, so armed 0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:01.560 groups which drove mostly for Ngar people that don't necessarily 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:05.120 represent them all, and then we have the AA. Son, 0:46:05.239 --> 0:46:10.480 can you explain the AA's relationship to Kind State and 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:12.240 then how they relate to Rehinga people. 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.080 He has been established in two thousand and nine with 0:46:17.280 --> 0:46:23.239 aims to be having confederations and not less than war, 0:46:23.680 --> 0:46:29.440 which is another special regions now with a special autonomy, 0:46:29.920 --> 0:46:33.839 and it has been led by some young people and 0:46:33.920 --> 0:46:37.120 it has been quite a leadership as well within their 0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:45.960 kind political structrum. And he has been growing very apidally 0:46:46.080 --> 0:46:49.200 and the acceptance of the of the people, particularly or 0:46:49.320 --> 0:46:53.800 kind people has been very high. Therefore, the resource allocations 0:46:53.840 --> 0:46:57.680 that he got from human resource to other resources to 0:46:57.760 --> 0:47:00.600 be rapidly coping with that group growth has high end 0:47:00.600 --> 0:47:03.319 that put them in a position to be standing in 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:08.600 front of Hunta in a very stronger positions and defeat 0:47:08.640 --> 0:47:14.040 them and very rapidly. And of course the Arkhan Army 0:47:14.400 --> 0:47:18.080 which we refer here as AE, is not as inclusive 0:47:18.120 --> 0:47:20.120 as ra kind. Ra kind of state is very diverse 0:47:20.160 --> 0:47:23.040 and it has got a multiple ethnic group. The largest 0:47:23.080 --> 0:47:26.920 ethnic group is Rakin religiously with these people and to 0:47:27.000 --> 0:47:32.480 which the majority of army's leadership derived from there, and 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:36.320 the second largest majority, which are the Rowinga and Toroinga, 0:47:36.440 --> 0:47:39.480 are still the second largest majority in the rack kind 0:47:39.480 --> 0:47:42.640 of state. Despite a milion being pushed off to Bangladesh 0:47:42.640 --> 0:47:46.200 in twenty seventeen and several hundred thousand spread it across 0:47:46.640 --> 0:47:51.640 the region, and the inclusivity in an Arcan Army is 0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:57.640 still still not there. When we talk about Ringa, that's 0:47:57.719 --> 0:48:00.879 know that there might be some small a small number 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:04.880 of Rhingias in different battalions of Arkan Army and the 0:48:05.040 --> 0:48:09.080 administrative units that they're building at a very crossroot level. However, 0:48:09.680 --> 0:48:12.520 the the the Rhinga need to be included both by 0:48:12.520 --> 0:48:16.200 functions and in order to have to describe that relationship 0:48:16.239 --> 0:48:19.319 and inclusively between the Rhenia people and the Arkan army. 0:48:19.840 --> 0:48:23.360 Yeah, and it's that Arakan Is that Rakhan is the 0:48:23.480 --> 0:48:26.359 name of the area before it was called Rakayan state? 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:26.960 Is that right? 0:48:27.920 --> 0:48:34.000 Correct? It's even it's before Burma became Burma. Arkhan was 0:48:34.040 --> 0:48:36.480 a king kingdom and it used to have its own 0:48:36.520 --> 0:48:41.799 palace and its diversity, it's high page and it's natural resources. 0:48:42.120 --> 0:48:46.200 And then of course the Burmese colonizations happened to Burma 0:48:46.280 --> 0:48:50.040 and h and later on Kan has been named as 0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:50.839 rakinda state. 0:48:51.360 --> 0:48:51.600 Yeah. 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:55.480 So it describes a geographical rather than ethnic identity, right, 0:48:55.480 --> 0:48:59.000 which is distinct from some of the other revolutionary organizations 0:48:59.360 --> 0:49:02.200 like rank or any or what have you. 0:49:04.000 --> 0:49:06.120 I think there are similarities and as well as there 0:49:06.120 --> 0:49:10.400 are differences when when when you put them together, and 0:49:10.400 --> 0:49:13.480 and from a diversity perspective of a kind of statey, 0:49:13.520 --> 0:49:16.520 it's very diverse compared to other ethnic groups. And and 0:49:16.560 --> 0:49:21.000 also it's politically very complex. Uh So, the the the 0:49:21.000 --> 0:49:24.520 the but over their overall similarities as well, like like 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.400 you know, all are fighting to defeat the hunter, to 0:49:28.200 --> 0:49:32.160 to end the dictatorship in Meanmar. But the the the 0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:35.880 the primary thing here is the self interminations and self autonomy, 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:38.680 like people want to decide to determine what is their 0:49:38.719 --> 0:49:41.080 present and official look like, how they want to treat 0:49:41.080 --> 0:49:44.120 with their past. That's the the the the the aspect. 0:49:44.200 --> 0:49:48.759 But of course the the like to my to the 0:49:48.760 --> 0:49:53.360 best of my knowledge, these ethnic resistance organizations, both political 0:49:53.800 --> 0:49:58.200 and and and and the armed groups have never claimed 0:49:58.239 --> 0:50:00.480 that they want to separate from me and Mar. Yes, 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.600 it's coming together in a different way. The holding together 0:50:04.680 --> 0:50:05.799 would be in a different way. 0:50:06.480 --> 0:50:09.000 Yeah, And even when they speak to Bama people who 0:50:09.040 --> 0:50:11.520 are like the majority ethnicity and the ethnicity from which 0:50:11.560 --> 0:50:14.200 the junta's leadership had rule, and like they tell me, 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:17.920 they're committed to a federal and like a federal Mianma 0:50:18.040 --> 0:50:21.520 with autonomy for these different regions and groups. And that's 0:50:21.560 --> 0:50:24.320 something that has held that coalition together. 0:50:24.440 --> 0:50:24.640 Right. 0:50:25.960 --> 0:50:33.719 Yeah, approximately more than fifty million populations majority are Aburmese Buddhists, 0:50:33.800 --> 0:50:38.840 and they have been having this Buddhist supremacy and like 0:50:38.920 --> 0:50:44.640 Bama's supremacy over ethnic and religious minorities across the country, 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:48.520 and of course Katchin current and others and went to 0:50:48.560 --> 0:50:55.840 Desromine when their future by by themselves and have the 0:50:56.080 --> 0:51:01.080 equality both their functions and number. And that's where we're 0:51:01.120 --> 0:51:05.120 having these seventy years long civil war. You know, that's 0:51:05.320 --> 0:51:11.360 came to collective revolutions in twenty twenty one, and history 0:51:11.360 --> 0:51:15.239 really speaking, people have been fighting in Enmark for equality, 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:19.080 justice and to end the cycle of impunity for the 0:51:19.160 --> 0:51:20.719 last seventeen plus years. 0:51:21.600 --> 0:51:23.520 Great, I think that's a great place to take our 0:51:23.560 --> 0:51:37.080 first advertising break. All right, and we're back. I think 0:51:37.640 --> 0:51:40.480 he did an excellent job of explaining the history the 0:51:40.560 --> 0:51:43.440 Goddess here, and people will be very familiar with the 0:51:43.600 --> 0:51:47.320 trustees committed by the Burmese military and its proxies against 0:51:47.360 --> 0:51:51.719 the Rhinga people, I hope. But one thing that's been 0:51:51.760 --> 0:51:55.240 happening recently which are particularly appalling is the forced recruitment 0:51:55.360 --> 0:52:00.120 of Bahinga Peoplehinga people by that same military, right, can 0:52:00.160 --> 0:52:01.279 you explain what's been going on? 0:52:03.040 --> 0:52:08.080 So the the conscriptions law has been reactivated. It has 0:52:08.160 --> 0:52:15.719 been there large by the previous military cats, but it 0:52:15.800 --> 0:52:19.960 has not been active and so since the Hunter has 0:52:20.000 --> 0:52:23.399 been falling apart and collapsing. Not only were the kind 0:52:23.400 --> 0:52:27.120 of state across the country there wherever they fight, they lose, 0:52:27.560 --> 0:52:31.720 and they are battalions by battalion. That's uh, that's running 0:52:31.719 --> 0:52:34.439 away the to Thailand, running away to India, running away 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:38.839 to Bangladesh and and putting white black. And there are 0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:45.760 several casualties. And apparently the Hunter became the largest military 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:49.800 equipment supplier to the to the revolutionary force where we 0:52:49.880 --> 0:52:53.520 did not get we did not get international support when 0:52:54.680 --> 0:52:59.840 when young people actress, models and writers points decided to 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:04.000 to go to the forest to do to fight against 0:53:04.040 --> 0:53:07.680 this cunter and there was little to no international support. 0:53:07.760 --> 0:53:12.120 And we have been struggling to to to equip ourselve 0:53:12.280 --> 0:53:15.239 to to fight this center. And and of course the 0:53:15.880 --> 0:53:20.440 the resilience and the courage that young people had and 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:24.560 the tactical and strategy capacity that the ethnic Resistance organization 0:53:24.719 --> 0:53:30.640 had in combined became a factor. UH to have an 0:53:30.719 --> 0:53:34.880 strategic sourcing of the military equipment and Hunter like battalion 0:53:34.920 --> 0:53:36.920 by battalion. You don't need to buy the weapons and 0:53:37.040 --> 0:53:39.840 military tang and things like that. You you go and 0:53:39.920 --> 0:53:42.160 fight one battalion and they run away or they die 0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:45.880 and then you take over the That's how the the 0:53:46.080 --> 0:53:53.440 the whole old thing started in in In then when 0:53:53.480 --> 0:53:58.040 they are losing uh, they reactivated the conscriptions law and 0:53:58.640 --> 0:54:03.320 started to in the of making mandustry everyone to be 0:54:03.480 --> 0:54:08.600 serving by force in the military by terms. And of 0:54:08.680 --> 0:54:10.400 course when it's come to a kind of state or 0:54:10.400 --> 0:54:12.960 a kind of state. The six hundred thousand RINGA and 0:54:13.120 --> 0:54:15.239 T one hundred and fifty to sixty thousand of them 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:20.120 has been in concentration camp, consolidated in one place with 0:54:20.239 --> 0:54:25.759 movement restrictions, no access to education, healthcare and things like that, 0:54:25.920 --> 0:54:29.440 where they have been living more than a decade in 0:54:30.040 --> 0:54:34.680 some of those camp and villages where those people who 0:54:34.719 --> 0:54:37.080 are not in the camp as well has been imposed 0:54:37.120 --> 0:54:39.640 by additional movement restrictions, so you don't need to really 0:54:39.719 --> 0:54:43.400 go and mobilize and people to be forcefully recruiting. And 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:46.440 at the beginning the junta went to them and to 0:54:47.280 --> 0:54:49.800 give them sort of show them incentive of like you 0:54:49.840 --> 0:54:52.399 will become the citizens and will give that and we'll 0:54:52.400 --> 0:54:56.600 give that, and you need to fight against the Arcan 0:54:56.800 --> 0:55:01.000 army and of course the grassroot the leader community leader 0:55:01.480 --> 0:55:04.239 responded in a way that they need to respond to 0:55:04.360 --> 0:55:09.000 reject the the the requests from from the from the military, 0:55:09.080 --> 0:55:13.040 hometown and mality started to of course, I posted by 0:55:13.160 --> 0:55:15.680 using the force and as I mentioned earlier, they will 0:55:15.719 --> 0:55:18.880 need to like when you have consultilated people that amount 0:55:18.920 --> 0:55:20.759 of young people doing nothing and you just go and 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:22.880 catch them and put them on a truck, and some 0:55:23.040 --> 0:55:24.879 of them don't know where they are going because their 0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:27.080 whole life has been in this camp. Like when you're 0:55:27.120 --> 0:55:29.920 six years old and you are now eighteen and you're 0:55:30.320 --> 0:55:31.920 it's an industry for you to be serving in the 0:55:31.960 --> 0:55:34.520 military and you don't know what is happening in our 0:55:34.600 --> 0:55:38.360 side of your camp. Because yeah, so that's how really 0:55:38.480 --> 0:55:42.640 the the and then we got these news and of 0:55:42.760 --> 0:55:45.840 course we have been talking different community leaders and the 0:55:45.880 --> 0:55:48.600 community has been approaching to us as a government and 0:55:49.160 --> 0:55:53.040 we make uh. There are several media coverage as well. 0:55:53.080 --> 0:55:57.160 Then the military started to say that these Bengalis are 0:55:57.239 --> 0:56:01.480 not referring to the Hinga, are not the cities. Therefore 0:56:02.080 --> 0:56:04.680 there is no way that we make them served in 0:56:04.760 --> 0:56:07.440 the in the military. So those are fakings that. So 0:56:07.560 --> 0:56:11.120 they use these States propaganda TV channel and the state 0:56:11.560 --> 0:56:15.239 newspaper which is now under control of SUCK to deny that. 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:22.320 And on seventh October, seventh sorry, seven March, the the 0:56:23.239 --> 0:56:26.960 those who they have conscripted, uh more than five hundred 0:56:28.080 --> 0:56:31.480 has been brought into into the commanding office of the 0:56:31.560 --> 0:56:34.520 Hunter to be training in full uniform. Some of them 0:56:34.719 --> 0:56:38.600 those inside there has got managed to get internet internet 0:56:38.920 --> 0:56:41.600 access and then said to me the video footage, what 0:56:41.719 --> 0:56:45.880 is happening on the inside there, So I posted that 0:56:46.080 --> 0:56:51.040 on my Twitter and and then it's it's spread it 0:56:51.120 --> 0:56:54.320 from there and then we called them like their denial 0:56:54.480 --> 0:56:57.600 initially the lives that they have been putting by denying 0:56:57.640 --> 0:57:01.480 that Roo we're not conscripted, all was wrong. And then 0:57:01.600 --> 0:57:03.600 a few days later they have been sent to the 0:57:03.680 --> 0:57:06.239 front line to fight against a And then there are 0:57:06.360 --> 0:57:10.239 hundreds of those rough hingers who were who died in 0:57:10.360 --> 0:57:16.960 this front line while and the Hunter. The Cake came 0:57:17.040 --> 0:57:19.919 back a few days later talking to their family saying 0:57:19.960 --> 0:57:23.760 that Okaye, hundred plus people has died and we don't 0:57:23.800 --> 0:57:27.000 know who is who and when we bring your dead body, 0:57:27.000 --> 0:57:30.680 you will be able to be identified. And the first 0:57:30.760 --> 0:57:34.040 dead body that they brought and handed over to the 0:57:34.120 --> 0:57:37.920 clumby and the community leader with one million jets, which 0:57:38.000 --> 0:57:41.160 is three hundred and fifty dollars plus one hundred kg 0:57:41.280 --> 0:57:44.200 of rice as an incentive for the life that they 0:57:44.240 --> 0:57:48.080 have given in the fighting. So that's the situations and 0:57:49.040 --> 0:57:50.280 we can of course continue. 0:57:51.080 --> 0:57:56.800 Yeah, that's very bleak, isn't it? So this and we've 0:57:56.880 --> 0:58:00.240 seen like just today actually people have been online today 0:58:00.280 --> 0:58:03.760 there was a protest in Rapine State somewhere for a 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:06.800 hindred people rejecting the raconomy. Can can you explain like 0:58:07.440 --> 0:58:09.160 that that might not be what it seems on the 0:58:09.200 --> 0:58:11.840 face of it, right? Can can you explain what might 0:58:11.920 --> 0:58:12.600 be happening there? 0:58:14.680 --> 0:58:16.960 The situations in ra kind of state has been very 0:58:17.040 --> 0:58:21.880 much complex because there are there are hidden factors being 0:58:22.000 --> 0:58:25.080 created ar officially created by the Hunter. For so long 0:58:25.320 --> 0:58:31.000 from the two thousand and twenty twelve twenty seventeen, between 0:58:31.040 --> 0:58:34.520 these different communities, there has been always interdependency and social 0:58:34.520 --> 0:58:38.200 equation to somewhat level. But HUNDA always used the divide 0:58:38.240 --> 0:58:44.760 and rule methodology to bring the conflict between these community 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:46.840 and hate each other and then they can carry out 0:58:46.880 --> 0:58:50.720 what they need to do as a powerholder. And of 0:58:50.800 --> 0:58:56.840 course when the Arcan army is getting greater control over 0:58:57.520 --> 0:59:00.520 a kind of state and the hunter is losing the 0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:04.600 the Melochiy hunt and it used all tactics that they have, 0:59:04.920 --> 0:59:10.760 including the the the UH, the intercommunal tensions, and and 0:59:11.160 --> 0:59:16.440 so they there are Ruhinga, few Ringia maybe who has 0:59:16.560 --> 0:59:21.480 businesssess with this hunter, are being used as a proxy 0:59:21.680 --> 0:59:24.760 to push pressure or pressure on the Ruhinga and to organize. 0:59:26.080 --> 0:59:29.800 And so that's why the protest started a few years 0:59:29.840 --> 0:59:34.640 ago in one of the townships in the China state. 0:59:35.080 --> 0:59:39.120 We're eighty to ninety percent are Rringa and claiming that 0:59:39.240 --> 0:59:41.800 we don't want war and we don't want ee. And 0:59:42.000 --> 0:59:46.320 of course this can be happening artificially organically, and it's 0:59:46.400 --> 0:59:50.400 so artificial, and anyone who looks into this video footage, 0:59:50.720 --> 0:59:53.200 I can see that the Ruhingia never had in their life, 0:59:53.520 --> 0:59:56.760 like those who are protesting never know what is means. 0:59:56.800 --> 1:00:00.240 So a freedom of expression means And suddenly in one 1:00:00.360 --> 1:00:05.360 random morning, one hundred hundred of Rwinga, including minors, children 1:00:05.600 --> 1:00:11.880 coming on the street and protesting is not something normal. 1:00:12.120 --> 1:00:16.360 It can happen without the U And of course majority 1:00:16.400 --> 1:00:18.720 of the of the Rhingia are peace loving people and 1:00:18.880 --> 1:00:22.080 they want Burma to be an inclusive federal democracy and 1:00:22.160 --> 1:00:24.280 they want to be part of it and weird. That's 1:00:24.320 --> 1:00:28.840 why I myself as a Ruhinga taking a leading rule 1:00:29.000 --> 1:00:33.920 in the government as the first Rhina holding back ministrial 1:00:34.000 --> 1:00:39.360 positions in the cabinet since nineteen sixty two. And of 1:00:39.480 --> 1:00:44.480 course the Ruhingo equally want the to end the dictatorship 1:00:44.640 --> 1:00:48.200 once and for all because that very junta has been 1:00:48.920 --> 1:00:53.040 committing trustity scrims, including crimes against humanity and to genocides 1:00:53.080 --> 1:00:55.840 to Uringa. This is the very same military who devoted 1:00:55.920 --> 1:00:59.040 a million ringa killed more than twenty four thousands of 1:00:59.160 --> 1:01:04.920 people in burning children's life in twenty seventeen. So in 1:01:05.160 --> 1:01:08.760 which way that's the collectively will come and ascend with 1:01:08.880 --> 1:01:11.800 this hunt were the whole country. So this is not 1:01:12.600 --> 1:01:16.360 this is really not something organic, and this is artificial. 1:01:16.520 --> 1:01:20.280 This is too big and this is so like Hunter 1:01:20.480 --> 1:01:24.760 made to fit into be fitting into their political propaganda. 1:01:25.480 --> 1:01:27.920 Yeah, and I think one has to when I was 1:01:27.920 --> 1:01:29.840 looking at things in memr be aware that the Hunter 1:01:30.000 --> 1:01:33.120 just doesn't care about lying. It's something they've done for 1:01:33.200 --> 1:01:36.960 a long time. I apparently can't download iHeart podcasts in 1:01:37.040 --> 1:01:40.200 Memo now, like someone tried to download our podcast there 1:01:40.240 --> 1:01:41.800 and so they had to use a VPN. But yeah, 1:01:41.920 --> 1:01:45.560 they manipulate the media environment heavily, like you can read 1:01:45.680 --> 1:01:50.680 Hunter newspapers and some of its comically false. But one 1:01:50.760 --> 1:01:53.080 thing I did want to talk about is like when 1:01:53.120 --> 1:01:56.000 I talk to young PDF fighters, and I've spoken to 1:01:56.160 --> 1:01:58.600 dozens of them now, people who are Koreny, people who 1:01:58.640 --> 1:02:01.960 are Korenne, people who are a people who are kitchin 1:02:02.520 --> 1:02:05.200 they a lot of them say to me that, like 1:02:06.160 --> 1:02:08.880 what happened in twenty seventeen was atrocious and at the 1:02:08.960 --> 1:02:12.400 time they didn't realize because of this manipulated media environment, 1:02:12.880 --> 1:02:15.240 they didn't realize that the way the Rahinda were being 1:02:15.280 --> 1:02:19.560 treated was so appalling, and that now they're very upset 1:02:19.640 --> 1:02:22.840 about what happened. And like for them, I guess the 1:02:23.680 --> 1:02:28.320 litmus test for like a future for Burma is one 1:02:28.360 --> 1:02:32.200 that can include Rahinja people and so like with that 1:02:32.400 --> 1:02:36.800 in mind, I guess we've seen this kind of changing 1:02:36.840 --> 1:02:39.600 of language, right where previously they were referred to as 1:02:39.640 --> 1:02:43.080 Bangladeshi and then now they're referred to as Muslim or 1:02:43.200 --> 1:02:46.800 Hinga people. I guess can you just explain, like what 1:02:47.240 --> 1:02:53.720 is the n UGPDF kind of like how how do 1:02:53.840 --> 1:02:57.560 we ensure independence and safety for a Hingo people in 1:02:57.880 --> 1:03:02.160 Myanmar in a federal, democratic future without a dictatorship. 1:03:02.920 --> 1:03:06.400 We're in a context of identity politics where the identity 1:03:06.680 --> 1:03:11.880 is so much associated with very rights, whether it's political, social, 1:03:12.000 --> 1:03:16.520 and economical right that you deserve and what you need 1:03:16.600 --> 1:03:20.280 to give back as an active of the citizens and 1:03:20.360 --> 1:03:24.800 obligations to the country that you belong. Therefore, the identity 1:03:24.920 --> 1:03:29.240 the Rhinga is a primary thing for Ruhinga to be 1:03:29.440 --> 1:03:32.720 enjoying equal freedom and to be able to contribute equally 1:03:32.800 --> 1:03:35.919 as others in the nation building process. And of course 1:03:36.120 --> 1:03:41.680 before twenty seventeen, even before that, there has been a 1:03:41.760 --> 1:03:46.640 lot of misinformation. Disinformation is propagram that are widespread state 1:03:46.760 --> 1:03:54.920 sponsored against the Rhinga to that could be misleading and 1:03:55.240 --> 1:04:00.400 incitement of violence. And the Troum Bengali is a rum 1:04:00.520 --> 1:04:03.760 that's reefer that you're coming from Bangladesh illegally and you're 1:04:03.880 --> 1:04:10.760 illegally as you settling. That's how the terms came from. False. 1:04:11.040 --> 1:04:12.080 It's a false accusation. 1:04:13.200 --> 1:04:18.880 It's false accusations. And the the the Ruhingia people has 1:04:19.120 --> 1:04:21.320 existed in the kind of states side by side with 1:04:22.400 --> 1:04:25.200 your kind people, even Burma became Burma and they are 1:04:25.320 --> 1:04:29.320 historical facts that there are so many undeniable things that 1:04:29.560 --> 1:04:33.520 you could you could look into and into into various 1:04:33.640 --> 1:04:37.320 historical facts. And so the in between. Of course, the 1:04:37.440 --> 1:04:40.960 Rhingia the trum become illegal and the military denied it, 1:04:41.160 --> 1:04:43.520 rejected it, and then they started to use the tram 1:04:43.600 --> 1:04:47.480 Bengali and the most of the Burmese people fall into 1:04:47.600 --> 1:04:52.520 that trap. And even somewhere either silent in this horrific 1:04:52.960 --> 1:04:57.080 genocideal attack in twenty seventeen or somewhere taking side of 1:04:57.840 --> 1:05:00.400 a military at that time that that is okay to 1:05:00.480 --> 1:05:03.520 kill and it's okay to And of course these are 1:05:03.600 --> 1:05:08.800 being being propelled by all misinformations and disinformation that our 1:05:08.880 --> 1:05:13.480 earlier mentioned and twenty twenty one attempted could happened. And 1:05:13.640 --> 1:05:16.160 that's where a new perspective is being offered to the 1:05:16.160 --> 1:05:18.840 people of Me and Mar, because the same militory that 1:05:18.960 --> 1:05:23.080 has been carrying out atrocities clans against the Rhingia and 1:05:23.160 --> 1:05:27.000 other minorities came to Largerma people doing the same thing. 1:05:27.160 --> 1:05:31.120 So what has been told to us by the Ruhinga 1:05:31.320 --> 1:05:34.760 and the religious and ethnic minority in the end Mar 1:05:34.880 --> 1:05:38.840 for the decade came to be true, and that's how 1:05:38.920 --> 1:05:42.480 the acceptance of the Ruhinga has started to grow. Of course, 1:05:42.520 --> 1:05:45.240 it's not to the level that we would be satisfied 1:05:45.280 --> 1:05:50.040 with yet, it's a process and there is so much 1:05:50.120 --> 1:05:56.760 to unlearn because one provoking factor like attempted to should 1:05:57.160 --> 1:06:01.120 like wouldn't fix a problem, a problem that has been 1:06:01.160 --> 1:06:05.920 there for for decades. And a National Unity government declared 1:06:06.160 --> 1:06:10.480 that we accept the chum Ruhinga, and there has been 1:06:10.520 --> 1:06:13.800 a policy stating very clearly in twenty twenty one June, 1:06:13.960 --> 1:06:17.440 and that policy to be implemented of course when the 1:06:17.520 --> 1:06:23.360 situation is conducive, and there are significant challenges with the 1:06:23.440 --> 1:06:27.280 territorial control and things like that when it's come. But again, 1:06:27.720 --> 1:06:32.480 the momentum that I mentioned we got as a result 1:06:32.520 --> 1:06:35.920 of extreme evolutions need to be maintained in the higher scale. 1:06:36.640 --> 1:06:39.720 That's not only the ruhinga and anything that's wrong, that's 1:06:39.800 --> 1:06:44.000 primarily that's principle and value are strong. I need to 1:06:44.000 --> 1:06:46.960 be able to see it wrong, regardless of whoever it 1:06:47.120 --> 1:06:49.560 is and regardless of race and religion. If we are 1:06:49.600 --> 1:06:54.920 talking about federal, inclusive democracy, we cannot preach to our 1:06:55.000 --> 1:06:58.880 people or international community saying that support us or asking 1:06:58.960 --> 1:07:01.120 for support or be a part of this movement where 1:07:01.440 --> 1:07:04.520 we see a sepri floud fishers and inclusive federal democracy. 1:07:04.920 --> 1:07:08.760 We're actual values that we are not practicing by ourselves. 1:07:09.360 --> 1:07:11.480 So before we preach, we need to we need to 1:07:11.640 --> 1:07:16.080 act upon those principles by ourselves. And overall, I would say, 1:07:16.120 --> 1:07:19.600 the all the loss that we had, including life and livelihood, 1:07:20.280 --> 1:07:24.920 that hundred and hundred of people, thousands of people has 1:07:24.960 --> 1:07:30.640 been killed, jailed, and hundreds of villagers, township has been destroyed, 1:07:31.200 --> 1:07:33.760 the good thing that we got is the the these 1:07:33.880 --> 1:07:35.360 consciousness on the morality. 1:07:35.840 --> 1:07:35.960 Uh. 1:07:36.880 --> 1:07:40.120 And if we're able to accelerate that consciousness at the 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:44.520 greatest scale, that's where we will be able to maintain 1:07:45.320 --> 1:07:49.040 the values and principle of the inclusive federal democracy. That 1:07:49.080 --> 1:07:52.000 would be the pillar to maintain this as a process. 1:07:52.720 --> 1:07:55.600 Yeah, I think. So it's really fascinating to talk to 1:07:56.520 --> 1:07:59.280 young people talking to some manly PDF people not so 1:07:59.360 --> 1:08:01.600 long ago, and they were like, oh, yeah, well, when 1:08:02.120 --> 1:08:04.320 we left, we were told that like the Tang would 1:08:04.360 --> 1:08:07.200 hate us because we're Burmese and they would fight us. 1:08:07.280 --> 1:08:08.800 And then they're like, oh, they're really nice. Like this 1:08:08.960 --> 1:08:10.920 is a guy right next to me and they're like 1:08:11.360 --> 1:08:14.040 because they're joined up together. Now the PDFs and and 1:08:14.200 --> 1:08:17.280 the eros are largely fighting like side by side against 1:08:18.120 --> 1:08:21.639 is there like the PDF forces present in rakind state 1:08:21.680 --> 1:08:22.040 as well. 1:08:23.439 --> 1:08:27.719 No, there is Arkan Army particularly which is an allies 1:08:27.800 --> 1:08:32.280 with the with the we have been there have been 1:08:32.360 --> 1:08:35.639 multiple intract like you know, there are we have Alliance 1:08:35.760 --> 1:08:39.760 Relations Committee that we deal with all the alliance as 1:08:39.880 --> 1:08:44.599 National Unity Government and of course they have been playing 1:08:44.640 --> 1:08:46.920 in an important role in defeating the content. And there 1:08:47.000 --> 1:08:48.960 is no PDF in in the Kinda state. 1:08:49.479 --> 1:08:52.559 Okay, Yeah, so it's a little different there. Other often 1:08:52.640 --> 1:08:55.800 the PDF and the eras are very similar in fight 1:08:55.880 --> 1:08:56.559 side by side. 1:08:57.360 --> 1:09:00.400 Also, our army is not tracked alone in a state. 1:09:00.439 --> 1:09:04.320 They're almost also in in Sharna State and they're yes, 1:09:04.840 --> 1:09:07.240 fighting with not only in the kind Of state. So 1:09:08.200 --> 1:09:11.400 like when we talk about like even though the physically 1:09:11.479 --> 1:09:14.720 PDFs are not there, it doesn't mean that there is 1:09:14.800 --> 1:09:19.240 no military connect to military connections between the ethnic organizations 1:09:20.280 --> 1:09:22.000 that exists across the country. 1:09:22.479 --> 1:09:25.120 Yeah, and like we've seen that a lot since October 1:09:25.200 --> 1:09:28.799 and like since the Three brother Alliance started their campaign 1:09:29.479 --> 1:09:32.240 that moves hunter forces to one place and that allows 1:09:32.280 --> 1:09:35.120 other people like the KARENI to take advantage of the 1:09:35.760 --> 1:09:39.439 way those forces have moved and they've liberated huge parts 1:09:39.680 --> 1:09:43.960 of their territory. So it's all joined, I guess. 1:09:44.680 --> 1:09:46.519 Yeah. The tricky part that they have used in the 1:09:46.600 --> 1:09:50.400 past is like hidden cut, is that they will do 1:09:50.560 --> 1:09:52.400 sea fight in one part of the country and they 1:09:52.400 --> 1:09:55.880 will allocate all of their resources in another part of 1:09:55.920 --> 1:09:59.720 the country, and where they will defeat or they will 1:09:59.800 --> 1:10:04.040 at least like come to bargaining positions, let's not fight anymore, 1:10:04.160 --> 1:10:07.040 and and you stay where you are and don't don't 1:10:07.080 --> 1:10:10.759 try to like you know, and and and it's hunta 1:10:10.840 --> 1:10:14.320 who violate again all all these agreements that usually so 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:20.200 and and this time it's so coordinated across the country 1:10:20.280 --> 1:10:24.200 that the junta like cannot be able to position themselves 1:10:24.320 --> 1:10:27.719 or estrategize themselves or put then themselves in the tactical 1:10:27.800 --> 1:10:30.799 positions they're all tactic did not work in the modern 1:10:30.920 --> 1:10:33.879 coordinations of the PDF and Ethnic Resistance Organization. 1:10:34.439 --> 1:10:36.719 Yeah, No, They've tried multiple times to have that little 1:10:36.720 --> 1:10:50.040 individuals fires and it hasn't worked. So I wanted to 1:10:50.120 --> 1:10:53.400 ask just just to finish up people I think who 1:10:53.439 --> 1:10:55.360 listen to this will be very familiar with the situation 1:10:55.439 --> 1:10:57.519 in Meama, and they want to help, and they see 1:10:57.520 --> 1:11:01.280 that the international community is doing nothing, and I think 1:11:01.400 --> 1:11:03.880 a lot of people are rightly very upset about that. 1:11:04.160 --> 1:11:07.200 So what what can people do to help and especially 1:11:07.439 --> 1:11:09.120 to advocate for a hanger people. 1:11:10.080 --> 1:11:12.800 Particularly when it's come to the Rhinia people Ringer people 1:11:13.280 --> 1:11:18.280 crisis is so much interconnected with Burmese democratization process. Ruhindia 1:11:18.400 --> 1:11:23.040 will not be able to have a life that dignified, say, 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:27.920 and in their place of origin unless the Burma is 1:11:28.120 --> 1:11:31.880 solely in the hand of a civilian government. So the 1:11:32.000 --> 1:11:36.240 democratization process that whole verm is attempting to make need 1:11:36.320 --> 1:11:39.120 to be supported by international community. As I mentioned earlier, 1:11:39.800 --> 1:11:42.720 so far we got little to no international support. And 1:11:43.280 --> 1:11:46.120 on the on the Ruhinga crisis as well, there's one 1:11:46.200 --> 1:11:49.960 million people in Bangladesh where their Russians are cuts to 1:11:50.320 --> 1:11:54.040 eight dollars per month per person and which is a 1:11:54.160 --> 1:11:59.320 cup of coffee in the United States, and there is 1:11:59.479 --> 1:12:04.560 a greater danger of hunger restorations and malnitary nutrition and 1:12:04.920 --> 1:12:08.000 UH and so many other social economic problems that would 1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:12.200 have an impact on the regional security stability and things 1:12:12.280 --> 1:12:18.080 like that if the shortfall remains UH funding short call 1:12:18.160 --> 1:12:21.120 remains for for for for for for for the India. 1:12:21.720 --> 1:12:24.720 That's on the Humanustrian and and of course Rhingia need 1:12:24.800 --> 1:12:28.200 to be politically organized in order to be to be 1:12:28.280 --> 1:12:34.439 fitting into the changing political dynamic of Meanmar. Duringia has 1:12:34.479 --> 1:12:38.080 been oppressed, they were not able to study organizations, they 1:12:38.160 --> 1:12:41.559 were not able to be elevating themselves. So all these 1:12:41.680 --> 1:12:46.880 societal leadership aspects need to be supported, including having a 1:12:46.960 --> 1:12:51.559 company like having an organized political platform for for Ringa 1:12:52.040 --> 1:12:54.400 which will be able to represent Shuringa in the larger 1:12:54.439 --> 1:12:59.000 political table UH, ensuring their voices are heart and there 1:12:59.040 --> 1:13:03.880 able to equally take the rights that they deserve and 1:13:04.000 --> 1:13:08.360 more importantly equal equally able to contribute to a decision 1:13:08.479 --> 1:13:11.920 that will have an impact on their life. And the 1:13:12.040 --> 1:13:17.760 United States has determined the crimes against Ruhinga as genocide 1:13:18.960 --> 1:13:23.080 two years before. And of course the genocide discrimination does 1:13:23.160 --> 1:13:28.320 not simply is an announcement. It's come with the moral 1:13:28.360 --> 1:13:32.920 and legal responsibility. So we do want to require the 1:13:33.000 --> 1:13:36.880 United States and it's people to formally extent on the 1:13:37.000 --> 1:13:40.360 moral and legal obligations that it has in ensuring that 1:13:40.439 --> 1:13:43.880 the Rhinga are able to live equally peacefully and more importantly, 1:13:44.000 --> 1:13:48.080 the justice that they deserve on the physical and mental 1:13:48.200 --> 1:13:51.720 damage that happened as part of the genocide. And it 1:13:52.360 --> 1:13:55.120 was picked in twenty seventeen, it's continued to be happening 1:13:55.360 --> 1:13:58.720 today and even today one hundred and fifty people were 1:13:59.400 --> 1:14:03.000 arriving in Archie, Indonesia, where the Indonesian people who were 1:14:03.200 --> 1:14:06.600 showing greater humanity in opening their arms and parts to 1:14:06.640 --> 1:14:10.519 be accepting Ruhinga, are denying the rhinga. So for the Ruhinga, 1:14:10.560 --> 1:14:13.320 there is little to no space to be accommodated, both 1:14:13.360 --> 1:14:17.439 in regional and international and local setting, and it is 1:14:17.600 --> 1:14:21.320 very important that we are able to tackle and navigate 1:14:21.439 --> 1:14:27.040 these issues together with the international community in an innovative, effective, 1:14:28.200 --> 1:14:32.720 efficient and sustainable way for the sake of humanity. And 1:14:32.840 --> 1:14:36.599 there are competing priorities across the world, but the international 1:14:36.680 --> 1:14:40.519 community is we are so aware of that international community 1:14:40.600 --> 1:14:43.080 is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. 1:14:43.200 --> 1:14:44.559 It doesn't have to be either or. 1:14:45.120 --> 1:14:47.680 No, it can be both and it should be right 1:14:47.760 --> 1:14:50.000 like obviously people are very concerned with the plight of 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:53.400 Palestinian people, rightly so at the moment, but yes, we 1:14:53.439 --> 1:14:55.799 should remember that as a Muslim people have been subject 1:14:55.840 --> 1:15:00.120 to genocide for the last needed for seven years, as 1:15:00.160 --> 1:15:03.240 I suppose, and it's ongoing, and they deserve our support 1:15:03.280 --> 1:15:07.360 and solidarity as well. Yeah, I hope, yeah, yeah, I 1:15:07.479 --> 1:15:09.840 mean it does seem like I guess a little more 1:15:09.880 --> 1:15:11.639 hopeful than it was even a couple of years ago 1:15:11.720 --> 1:15:15.240 that there will be a democratic mean and. 1:15:17.000 --> 1:15:22.840 Yeah, the journey is is almost think and what we 1:15:22.960 --> 1:15:28.840 need is greater international support. Like support doesn't mean just 1:15:29.360 --> 1:15:33.360 you know, releasing the statement, meaningful comprehensive support that we 1:15:33.600 --> 1:15:37.360 are able to defeat this Manta once and for all 1:15:38.040 --> 1:15:40.519 for the sake of people of Me and Mark fifty 1:15:40.920 --> 1:15:47.839 plus million people giving the price at the highest possible 1:15:47.880 --> 1:15:51.560 price in their life that include again the lives and livelihood. 1:15:52.040 --> 1:15:55.800 An international community was not doing more than condemnations for 1:15:56.280 --> 1:15:59.599 releasing a statement of concern over the last three years. 1:16:00.200 --> 1:16:04.519 It's time to act and international community again has to 1:16:04.640 --> 1:16:09.160 answer this question to next generations when there's a questions 1:16:09.200 --> 1:16:13.120 on the morality we're the internetional community. When the genocide 1:16:13.200 --> 1:16:15.760 comes against community and work careme has been happening to 1:16:15.880 --> 1:16:20.320 meally anything send people in the eyes of international community. 1:16:20.400 --> 1:16:24.120 Yeah, no, I hope they do. And it's incredible the 1:16:24.400 --> 1:16:26.960 progress that has been made without that support. 1:16:27.280 --> 1:16:27.960 And I think. 1:16:29.640 --> 1:16:32.439 It's just incredible to me that even I remember in 1:16:32.479 --> 1:16:36.080 twenty twenty one talking to people who were just beginning 1:16:36.320 --> 1:16:40.679 their fight, and to see how far they've come is outstanding. Yeah, 1:16:41.720 --> 1:16:43.720 and yeah, people should be very proud of that. But 1:16:43.720 --> 1:16:45.599 it doesn't mean that they don't need more support. 1:16:45.640 --> 1:16:45.840 They do. 1:16:46.320 --> 1:16:48.400 Doesn't mean that they don't need surface to our missiles. 1:16:48.479 --> 1:16:48.680 They do. 1:16:49.240 --> 1:16:53.280 Like, yeah, that it's the thing that we should be doing. 1:16:54.000 --> 1:16:56.719 Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate 1:16:56.760 --> 1:16:59.080 your time and your insight into this. Is there anywhere 1:16:59.080 --> 1:17:00.800 where people can find you online if they were to 1:17:00.880 --> 1:17:01.280 follow on. 1:17:02.600 --> 1:17:06.360 Yeah, they can follow me on my tutor and Facebook 1:17:06.680 --> 1:17:12.960 and I it's my tutor is a K two okay, 1:17:12.960 --> 1:17:16.400 and my my Facebook is like my name. If you 1:17:16.520 --> 1:17:23.040 type my moo it will appear. So yeah. Yeah, looking 1:17:23.080 --> 1:17:26.240 forward to seeing you in near future. Yeah, thanks, thank you, 1:17:26.680 --> 1:17:27.400 thank you for having me. 1:17:27.920 --> 1:17:43.160 You're welcome, welcome. 1:17:43.360 --> 1:17:44.479 Let's take it out here. 1:17:44.600 --> 1:17:47.360 The podcast being recorded to a page of pain killers. 1:17:48.240 --> 1:17:50.559 I'm your host, via Wong, I'm fucking dying. 1:17:52.240 --> 1:17:57.320 Yeah it would be yeah, yeah, Phantalem episode even waiting 1:17:57.400 --> 1:17:58.160 for it here it is. 1:17:59.800 --> 1:18:00.280 Yeah. Yeah. 1:18:00.280 --> 1:18:04.599 And the other thing that's dying was dying has died 1:18:05.920 --> 1:18:08.840 sort of was a bunch of French colonists in Algeria. 1:18:10.760 --> 1:18:10.960 Yeah. 1:18:11.200 --> 1:18:14.920 Yeah, the French Empire as a whole. One could say, yeah, 1:18:15.040 --> 1:18:17.439 thank God, Jesus Christ, why did you let these people 1:18:17.479 --> 1:18:18.960 have an empire? Terrible idea? 1:18:19.240 --> 1:18:25.400 Yeah, not an empire the abroad France, right, like like 1:18:25.960 --> 1:18:27.800 the little parts of France which just happened to be 1:18:27.840 --> 1:18:30.880 in Africa, totally a normal thing, which particular part of 1:18:30.880 --> 1:18:33.120 the French Empire? Are we talking about it? Many many 1:18:33.200 --> 1:18:35.840 such cases of French French Empire taking l's. Not that 1:18:35.920 --> 1:18:39.240 that's unique, to be fair, also a British empire to 1:18:39.360 --> 1:18:40.000 the load of l's. 1:18:40.520 --> 1:18:40.720 Yeah. 1:18:40.760 --> 1:18:46.200 So today we're talking about Algeria, and I think one 1:18:46.240 --> 1:18:49.800 of the things that I sort of realized about how 1:18:49.960 --> 1:18:52.000 the Algerian Revolution is remembered in the. 1:18:52.040 --> 1:18:54.840 West is okay. 1:18:54.880 --> 1:18:59.920 So there's there's the kind of the Frank Herbert react 1:19:00.400 --> 1:19:04.040 where they saw people who were Muslim in the streets 1:19:04.200 --> 1:19:08.200 and were like, holy shit, it went insane for seventy years. Yeah, yeah, 1:19:08.600 --> 1:19:10.719 to be fair, to be fair, that was also poorly 1:19:10.880 --> 1:19:13.640 partly being driven mad by the Portland Dunes, which, like 1:19:13.880 --> 1:19:16.200 you know, like I get sometimes sometimes you're driven, you're 1:19:16.280 --> 1:19:21.240 driven completely insane by dunes. But you know, so there's 1:19:21.400 --> 1:19:23.519 that's that's there's a sort of reactionary memory of it. 1:19:23.640 --> 1:19:28.120 There's a sort of memory that functions in inside of 1:19:28.240 --> 1:19:32.519 like the American military where you know, Algeria's remember it 1:19:32.600 --> 1:19:34.600 is one of those sort of like examples of failed. 1:19:34.360 --> 1:19:35.200 Kind of insurgency. 1:19:36.160 --> 1:19:39.000 Yeah, and then there's there's the memory inside of the 1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:44.040 American left, which is largely confined to Fenn and the 1:19:44.120 --> 1:19:45.440 movie The Battle of Algiers. 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:48.600 Yep, classic movie to be. 1:19:48.640 --> 1:19:54.040 Fair, Yeah, great movie, like nothing nothing, a good good movie. However, Kama, 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:59.920 this is a real issue because the Battle of Algiers again, 1:20:00.160 --> 1:20:04.320 great movie ends in nineteen fifty seven. Finan great theorist 1:20:04.600 --> 1:20:09.800 dies in nineteen sixty one. Now notably, Algeria gains independence 1:20:09.960 --> 1:20:10.880 nineteen sixty two. 1:20:11.640 --> 1:20:12.639 So okay. 1:20:12.880 --> 1:20:16.320 The issue with this is that people kind of broadly 1:20:16.479 --> 1:20:20.040 know the outlines of the First Algerian Revolution, but the 1:20:20.160 --> 1:20:23.200 Second Algerian Revolution, the one where the Algerian working class 1:20:23.200 --> 1:20:25.160 season is the control of the means of production, attempts 1:20:25.160 --> 1:20:28.799 to run them Autonomous League is just has completely faded 1:20:28.800 --> 1:20:31.360 into the mists of history. I talk about it, no 1:20:31.400 --> 1:20:33.519 one has any idea what the fuck I'm talking about. 1:20:34.280 --> 1:20:37.559 And this is kind of startling, because you know, up 1:20:37.680 --> 1:20:42.000 until there's probably like there's like a four year span 1:20:42.280 --> 1:20:46.560 where the Algerian Revolution is the sort of like capital S, 1:20:46.760 --> 1:20:50.280 capital R social revolution, like it's the big one, is 1:20:50.320 --> 1:20:52.640 the one people all over the world taking inspiration from, 1:20:52.720 --> 1:20:55.280 and then it kind of, you know, it flounders out 1:20:55.320 --> 1:20:56.960 for reasons that we're going to talk about, and also 1:20:57.040 --> 1:21:00.800 the culture revolution starts and everyone lashes onto that. But 1:21:01.560 --> 1:21:06.519 it's sort of fascinating to me that this the second 1:21:06.560 --> 1:21:09.439 part of the revolution and the part that everyone was 1:21:09.520 --> 1:21:12.080 really excited about, which is the core of the revolution 1:21:13.040 --> 1:21:17.120 being worker self management, and that being the sort of 1:21:17.200 --> 1:21:20.800 great theoretical innovation of Algeria and socialism that has just 1:21:21.439 --> 1:21:26.599 completely faded for memory. It's just gone, and so today 1:21:26.640 --> 1:21:32.080 we're talking about that revolution. Unfortunately, one of the most 1:21:32.120 --> 1:21:34.280 detailed studies on this I'm can be citing from a 1:21:34.360 --> 1:21:37.840 lot is in Clegg's Worker Self Management in Algeria. Now, 1:21:38.200 --> 1:21:43.960 this is a good book. However, Comma Clegg is uh, 1:21:45.000 --> 1:21:48.519 He's a very specific kind of crimogeny Marxist guy. 1:21:49.560 --> 1:21:51.559 Yeah, I'm familiar with that kind of guy. 1:21:52.280 --> 1:21:54.360 Yeah, And so like the back third of this book 1:21:54.520 --> 1:21:57.759 is him engaged in a protracted ideological war with phenomen 1:21:57.840 --> 1:22:02.200 over the nature of revolutionary consciousness, which is largely pointless 1:22:02.320 --> 1:22:08.920 and goes nowhere. So many sues, you know, but it 1:22:09.080 --> 1:22:11.479 is a very very detailed and very useful account of 1:22:11.840 --> 1:22:15.720 what actually happened after the First Revolution, like after the 1:22:15.800 --> 1:22:19.519 French are forced to pull out of Algeria, and what 1:22:19.760 --> 1:22:23.080 happens effectively is well, we need to go back a 1:22:23.200 --> 1:22:28.920 little tiny bit, so there are you know, there is 1:22:28.960 --> 1:22:35.560 a staggering slaughter of people who attempt to resist French colonialism. 1:22:35.680 --> 1:22:37.680 Like a lot of the sort of techniques that are 1:22:37.680 --> 1:22:39.240 going to be used in Vietnam, they are going to 1:22:39.280 --> 1:22:41.240 be used all over the world. And kind of insurgencies 1:22:41.439 --> 1:22:44.720 are developed in Algeria in this period. I'm going to 1:22:44.720 --> 1:22:46.760 read a quote from Clagg about what they were doing. 1:22:47.840 --> 1:22:50.400 The use of air power in napalm to clear cover 1:22:50.640 --> 1:22:53.840 made movement inside the country almost impossible. The construction of 1:22:53.960 --> 1:22:56.840 mind and electrified barriers along the border with Tunisian and 1:22:56.920 --> 1:22:59.479 Morocco kept the better trained and armed elements of the 1:23:00.080 --> 1:23:03.599 Liberation Nationale from coming to support the gorillas and moving 1:23:03.680 --> 1:23:06.599 in supplies. One of the most successful moves encountering goerrilla 1:23:06.640 --> 1:23:10.479 activity was the policy of regroupment, initiated by General Chalet. 1:23:11.439 --> 1:23:14.360 This strategy, learned from the British and Malaysia, involved moving 1:23:14.439 --> 1:23:17.320 the rural population out of areas favorable to the gorillas 1:23:17.360 --> 1:23:20.360 and resettling them in camps on their military guard, and 1:23:20.560 --> 1:23:24.040 estimated two million peasants were treated this way, creating vast 1:23:24.080 --> 1:23:26.680 social and economic problems for the future. So, like they 1:23:26.760 --> 1:23:28.599 put two million people in concentration camps. 1:23:28.680 --> 1:23:32.320 Yeah, yeah, according it like Grey group more is a 1:23:32.720 --> 1:23:37.240 a fucking exercise in like and marketing. Like rarely have 1:23:37.360 --> 1:23:41.639 I seen something so nefari named, like we're regrouping them 1:23:42.240 --> 1:23:44.840 parentheses in a fucking concentration camp. 1:23:45.600 --> 1:23:47.640 Yeah, And this is this is a strategy that you know, 1:23:47.720 --> 1:23:50.320 so the British sort of start doing this in Malaysia. 1:23:50.720 --> 1:23:53.920 A lot of it's derived from attempts to counter you know. 1:23:53.960 --> 1:23:56.439 And this isn't really an episode about that ter and revolution, 1:23:56.520 --> 1:23:57.680 but I want to talk about this a little bit. 1:23:58.320 --> 1:24:01.000 It's it's it's design as a way to counter sort 1:24:01.040 --> 1:24:04.600 of MAOIs insurgency campaigns, which is the sort of you know, 1:24:04.720 --> 1:24:09.120 the becomes the new template for like the season that. Yeah, 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:11.120 and it's because it works really well, and you know, 1:24:11.240 --> 1:24:13.160 like the key thing of Maoist like well, I mean 1:24:13.160 --> 1:24:14.760 there's a couple of things obviously, but like one of 1:24:14.760 --> 1:24:16.400 the key elements of it is this is this line 1:24:16.439 --> 1:24:18.160 for Mao is it like the gorilla moves to the 1:24:18.200 --> 1:24:20.720 people like a fish moves through the sea. Right, So 1:24:20.840 --> 1:24:23.400 it's about like it's about building social basis such that 1:24:23.560 --> 1:24:25.760 you know, gorillas can move in and out of communities 1:24:25.960 --> 1:24:28.000 and not get turned in and stuff and use them 1:24:28.200 --> 1:24:29.080 as terrain. 1:24:29.960 --> 1:24:34.680 I've had that particular mao phrase paraphrase to me. I 1:24:34.720 --> 1:24:36.320 think sometimes by people who are where it comes from 1:24:36.360 --> 1:24:39.200 MoU sometimes people who probably have just sort of come 1:24:39.280 --> 1:24:43.519 to it through their own understanding or or heard it 1:24:43.560 --> 1:24:45.920 but not realize the source of it. By people who 1:24:45.920 --> 1:24:48.479 are not certainly not Maoists. All over the world, like 1:24:48.560 --> 1:24:51.280 I've heard it in the Middle East, I've heard it 1:24:51.320 --> 1:24:53.840 in Africa, I've heard it in Asia. It's it's it 1:24:54.000 --> 1:24:57.120 is a very important thing and like it, Yeah, it 1:24:57.400 --> 1:25:00.679 does make Garrida war. If you can remember the population. 1:25:01.240 --> 1:25:03.920 This is something that's propagated through because because of the 1:25:03.960 --> 1:25:08.479 success of Mao's like gorilla insurgency, this is something that's 1:25:08.560 --> 1:25:11.960 propagated through I mean through through obviously, like through through 1:25:12.040 --> 1:25:15.320 communist parties, but I mean like a lot of Islamist 1:25:15.360 --> 1:25:17.120 groups also pick it, like pick up a lot of 1:25:17.120 --> 1:25:18.639 the elements of it, because a lot of those groups 1:25:18.680 --> 1:25:22.719 are trained in uh the Plos camps in the Becker 1:25:22.800 --> 1:25:26.839 Valley in Jordan, and so like a lot of groups 1:25:26.960 --> 1:25:30.280 like all over the world of completely unrelated ideologies all 1:25:30.320 --> 1:25:32.360 sort of picked this stuff up. And the British response 1:25:32.439 --> 1:25:34.719 to this is the British are fighting a communist insurgency 1:25:34.760 --> 1:25:37.000 in Malaysia and they're like, Okay, we're gonna do concentration 1:25:37.120 --> 1:25:40.519 camps for our purposes. So obviously this is a a 1:25:41.200 --> 1:25:44.240 you know, this is an unfathomable atrocity, but it has 1:25:44.600 --> 1:25:48.599 enormous effects even after the war ends, because suddenly, you know, okay, 1:25:48.720 --> 1:25:52.080 like the war ends, the French are gone, but you know, 1:25:52.439 --> 1:25:55.560 two million people have been taken from their homes and 1:25:55.640 --> 1:25:59.200 locked in and locked in camps, and this has enormous 1:25:59.320 --> 1:26:01.439 you know, I mean, this is this is enormous economic 1:26:01.479 --> 1:26:04.840 effects and the second thing that has really sort of 1:26:04.920 --> 1:26:09.599 stunning economic effects are the Sore. There's been a class 1:26:09.880 --> 1:26:12.599 of people in Algeria called the Colognes who are basically 1:26:13.080 --> 1:26:15.840 the colonists. They're not actually all French, a lot of 1:26:15.880 --> 1:26:18.960 them are from other European countries, but they come to 1:26:19.040 --> 1:26:25.320 be this sort of hardcore French ultranationalist, sort of fascist 1:26:25.360 --> 1:26:30.200 turbo racists. I guess they're they're they're not quite the Rhodesians, 1:26:30.880 --> 1:26:35.040 but they're they're only not quite the Rhodesians because they 1:26:35.080 --> 1:26:38.680 didn't stay to fight it out. And when when the 1:26:38.720 --> 1:26:40.599 French lose the war, and when the French pull out, 1:26:40.840 --> 1:26:44.280 these people just flee, like all of them were talking, 1:26:45.080 --> 1:26:48.479 hundreds of thousands of people just are gone. I'm going 1:26:48.520 --> 1:26:50.960 to read another quote from Cleig, because you know, if 1:26:51.040 --> 1:26:54.880 these people had merely left, I think a lot of 1:26:54.920 --> 1:26:57.559 what's going to happen in this revolution goes a lot better. 1:26:57.840 --> 1:26:59.080 But they didn't just leave. 1:27:01.040 --> 1:27:01.320 Quote. 1:27:01.439 --> 1:27:04.800 In June, a policy of scorched earth was declared, inaugurating 1:27:04.880 --> 1:27:08.519 an orgy of destruction. With his dream crumbling, the colonist's 1:27:08.520 --> 1:27:12.080 response was to destroy this world, which I think is 1:27:12.120 --> 1:27:13.120 a really sort of elegant. 1:27:13.920 --> 1:27:17.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's you very well written, 1:27:17.360 --> 1:27:20.760 and it's funny. It's this thing that again, like you 1:27:20.960 --> 1:27:24.760 see replicated so often. There was this slogan that they 1:27:24.880 --> 1:27:26.600 used at the start the serience of a war like 1:27:26.680 --> 1:27:28.120 asado we bend in the country. 1:27:28.240 --> 1:27:31.680 Yeah, yeah, and it's it's this real you know. 1:27:31.840 --> 1:27:33.559 So, so what what the what the colons end up 1:27:33.560 --> 1:27:37.720 doing is they end up just destroying, Yes, everything they 1:27:37.760 --> 1:27:40.160 can get their hands on. They're destroying houses, They're especially 1:27:40.280 --> 1:27:42.920 destroying any kind of sort of factory of technical equipment, 1:27:43.160 --> 1:27:45.320 anything they can find. They're burning their lighting on fire 1:27:45.960 --> 1:27:48.479 and someone and the other thing about Okay, so Luxuria 1:27:48.560 --> 1:27:51.720 is a colonial economy, right, and the structure of the 1:27:51.760 --> 1:27:55.600 colonial economy is such that you know, if you. 1:27:55.720 --> 1:27:56.120 Are a. 1:27:58.720 --> 1:28:01.479 Anyone who has any kind of technical or manager gerial 1:28:01.600 --> 1:28:04.839 experience are all colonists, right. Everyone else in the country 1:28:05.200 --> 1:28:08.920 is either doing subsistence farming or has been fed as 1:28:09.120 --> 1:28:13.559 like these this sort of like seasonal workers or really 1:28:13.640 --> 1:28:18.560 really badly paid sort of contract workers on the on 1:28:18.640 --> 1:28:20.840 these sort of like cash crap agricultural farms, a lot 1:28:20.880 --> 1:28:21.760 of orange production and. 1:28:21.760 --> 1:28:22.200 Stuff like that. 1:28:23.520 --> 1:28:27.720 And so when the colonists flee the country. Suddenly, like 1:28:27.920 --> 1:28:31.920 the entire technical managerial class, everyone with technical experience, and 1:28:32.000 --> 1:28:35.320 also all of the bosses and the entire bourgeoisie are 1:28:35.439 --> 1:28:39.200 just gone. And this takes everyone by surprise. The Ethelen 1:28:39.640 --> 1:28:43.559 had assumed the Ethelens the the kind of like umbrella 1:28:43.840 --> 1:28:48.519 organization that carried out the revolution. They it kind of 1:28:48.560 --> 1:28:51.240 falls apart very quickly because it's it's not really a 1:28:52.040 --> 1:28:54.640 coherent ideological group. It's just the sort of banner that 1:28:54.960 --> 1:28:58.320 everyone who is fighting kind of attaches themselves to. 1:28:59.280 --> 1:29:02.760 Yeah, it is quite common, right, like national friends or 1:29:02.920 --> 1:29:05.160 like popular friends very often do this post fore. 1:29:05.240 --> 1:29:07.200 Yeah, and they are disintegrate. But but they had all 1:29:07.240 --> 1:29:09.720 expected that the colonists were going to stick around, and 1:29:09.800 --> 1:29:11.360 they don't because they're turbo racists. 1:29:11.520 --> 1:29:11.640 Right. 1:29:12.439 --> 1:29:14.720 And then the thought of having to live in an 1:29:14.720 --> 1:29:17.360 Algeria world by Algeria, this was like, Nope, I will 1:29:17.560 --> 1:29:20.080 fucking literally light the world on fire and flee to France. 1:29:22.040 --> 1:29:23.679 You know what else is going to light the world 1:29:23.760 --> 1:29:25.679 on fire and cause people to flee to France. 1:29:27.080 --> 1:29:29.519 The products, products and services it's supporting to show. 1:29:30.120 --> 1:29:32.200 Yeah, so how how fucking good they are. It's gonna 1:29:32.200 --> 1:29:33.960 it's going to cause the world to burn and make 1:29:34.000 --> 1:29:34.880 people flee to France. 1:29:35.120 --> 1:29:36.599 Yeah, I have to think about that when they think 1:29:36.600 --> 1:29:39.280 about like how big my pile of gold is, I 1:29:39.360 --> 1:29:42.120 think that that match it's too small. I better just 1:29:42.200 --> 1:29:43.519 bend all down and move to France. 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:59.160 And we are back now enter enter here. The heroes 1:29:59.240 --> 1:30:03.240 of this episode ode the workers Council, or very specifically, 1:30:03.400 --> 1:30:05.120 so this is this is a French this is a 1:30:05.160 --> 1:30:10.040 French colony. So in France and in Spain and in 1:30:10.160 --> 1:30:13.560 sort of I guess, the Romance languages. There, there was 1:30:13.600 --> 1:30:17.080 a concept called auto gision. I'm pronouncing it really badly 1:30:17.160 --> 1:30:19.200 because I'm reading the French version of it and trying 1:30:19.200 --> 1:30:20.880 to pronounce it half in Spanish, the only one of 1:30:20.880 --> 1:30:23.560 these languages I can even sort of speak. But it 1:30:23.880 --> 1:30:27.840 so it means self management, and it basically it has 1:30:27.880 --> 1:30:31.280 this context of of sort of like workers democratic self management. 1:30:31.360 --> 1:30:35.080 Right if you're if you're doing osteone, you're like the 1:30:35.120 --> 1:30:37.280 workers of a factory have taken over the factory and 1:30:37.320 --> 1:30:40.599 are running it themselves. The most prominent example and at 1:30:40.680 --> 1:30:46.479 this point of self management is Yugoslavia. Now this it's 1:30:46.560 --> 1:30:50.320 very Theoslavian version is very, very weird, but as a 1:30:50.400 --> 1:30:53.400 way basically to tell the Soviets to fuck off. Yugoslavia 1:30:53.479 --> 1:30:57.320 adopts a very different kind of model of socialism than 1:30:57.360 --> 1:31:00.719 everyone else's. So there are models based on the quote 1:31:00.760 --> 1:31:04.519 unquote the withering away of the state. So they're you know, 1:31:04.640 --> 1:31:09.920 you have basically these like reasonably democratic, like workers co 1:31:10.080 --> 1:31:13.280 ops that are the sort of that are sort of 1:31:13.280 --> 1:31:17.559 their productive basis of society. And these these co ops 1:31:17.560 --> 1:31:19.120 sort of compete against each other on the market. But 1:31:19.160 --> 1:31:21.719 other hand, there is a like a very large level 1:31:21.760 --> 1:31:25.760 of workers control that's different from you know, like the US, 1:31:25.840 --> 1:31:30.760 which is just a pure dictatorship of your boss in 1:31:30.840 --> 1:31:32.640 the workplace, tells you what to do, and if you 1:31:32.680 --> 1:31:36.400 don't do what you get fired. Yeah, and so Algeria 1:31:36.640 --> 1:31:42.280 gets there has their own version of self management. But 1:31:42.640 --> 1:31:46.000 unlike Algeria which was sort of effectively imposed by the 1:31:46.040 --> 1:31:50.000 top down for the Comnist party. In Algeria, what happens 1:31:50.240 --> 1:31:54.439 is you have this this enormous mass of workers who 1:31:54.880 --> 1:31:58.120 used to work on these plantations, used to work in factories. 1:31:58.320 --> 1:32:03.240 There's these huge colony lagger cultural estates. And what happens 1:32:03.600 --> 1:32:07.040 is with with the entire ruling class gone and when 1:32:07.040 --> 1:32:09.880 I say the entire ruling class, we're talking from all 1:32:09.920 --> 1:32:13.120 the way up from you know, the highest level government officials, 1:32:13.280 --> 1:32:16.680 through all all of your sort of capitalist bosses, right 1:32:16.800 --> 1:32:19.040 down to sort of the middle management guys are gone. 1:32:20.000 --> 1:32:23.439 All those people just have disappeared. So what happens is 1:32:23.760 --> 1:32:27.920 workers start taking over all of their all of their workplaces, 1:32:28.080 --> 1:32:33.560 and they start forming workers councils. Right now, this is 1:32:33.680 --> 1:32:36.679 this is driven largely by I mean there's there's there's 1:32:36.760 --> 1:32:39.160 there's a few different drivers. There's we'll get to the 1:32:39.200 --> 1:32:42.479 ideological aspect. A lot of it is that these people 1:32:42.600 --> 1:32:45.280 have no money and no one else is going to 1:32:45.360 --> 1:32:49.120 run it. So they're they're the workers who have now 1:32:49.160 --> 1:32:50.960 sees all the stuff are like, Okay, well we're gonna 1:32:51.840 --> 1:32:54.080 we're gonna get the money we need to survive by 1:32:54.479 --> 1:32:56.240 running by running all the stuff ourselves. 1:32:56.720 --> 1:32:56.880 Yea. 1:32:57.400 --> 1:33:00.800 And so this sort of starts ineteen sixty two, and 1:33:01.040 --> 1:33:03.439 it it sweeps across the country very quickly. I mean 1:33:03.479 --> 1:33:05.240 there's a lot of real regions where it never really 1:33:05.280 --> 1:33:10.759 takes hold. But largely what's happening is that permanent workers 1:33:11.880 --> 1:33:13.719 who had been who had been workers at these firms 1:33:13.840 --> 1:33:18.320 seize control of them. This has benefits and downsize. The 1:33:18.400 --> 1:33:21.080 benefit of it is so there's an attempt by the 1:33:21.200 --> 1:33:24.040 sort of the new Algerian sort of bushwise either the 1:33:24.360 --> 1:33:28.960 sort of like small faction of Algerian capitalists to buy 1:33:29.040 --> 1:33:31.080 up all this land. And there's a much of really 1:33:31.120 --> 1:33:33.519 funny stories of these guys buying these estates and showing 1:33:33.560 --> 1:33:36.439 up and the workers conn they just kicking them out. Yeah, yes, 1:33:38.400 --> 1:33:42.840 this is extremely funny. Yeah, there's also issues. So part 1:33:42.920 --> 1:33:44.800 of what's going on is this is this is the 1:33:44.920 --> 1:33:46.800 sort of this is the permanent workers taking over the 1:33:46.840 --> 1:33:49.920 stuff with their people, right, and so a lot of 1:33:50.000 --> 1:33:55.080 times like they'll they'll kick out seasonal workers because yeah, 1:33:55.120 --> 1:33:57.479 so it's not it's not perfect, and there's a lot 1:33:57.520 --> 1:33:59.240 of issues with it, right because this is this is 1:33:59.280 --> 1:34:02.200 all being formed effectively, spontaneously about a bunch of extremely 1:34:02.240 --> 1:34:02.840 desperate people. 1:34:03.240 --> 1:34:06.320 That's what I'm just so obviously like because it's me. 1:34:06.680 --> 1:34:09.160 The point of comparison I'm thinking of is the Spanish 1:34:09.200 --> 1:34:12.120 Civil War, right, Yeah, and worker is self management. But 1:34:12.240 --> 1:34:15.120 there you have a workforce which is which has been 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:19.280 working towards collectivization for more than a decade in some cases. 1:34:20.000 --> 1:34:22.320 And also like this is the point actually gets missed 1:34:22.320 --> 1:34:24.400 a lot in online discourse about the Spanish Civil War, 1:34:24.520 --> 1:34:26.439 perhaps because people don't know as much as they think 1:34:26.520 --> 1:34:31.320 they do. That like, there were anarchists in all kinds 1:34:31.400 --> 1:34:34.559 of roles, Like when people talk about their rooty column 1:34:34.600 --> 1:34:37.640 or whatever like, there were absolutely anarchists, noncommissioned officers from 1:34:37.640 --> 1:34:40.479 the military who they relied on heavily for advice. And 1:34:40.720 --> 1:34:44.280 the same is true with the collectivized workplaces, right that 1:34:44.360 --> 1:34:47.320 there were anarchists in many roles, you know, in shop 1:34:47.439 --> 1:34:50.920 stewards and things like that, obviously not in like the 1:34:51.000 --> 1:34:53.559 higher management roles. I think, yeah, doing that is kind 1:34:53.560 --> 1:34:56.800 of incompatible with anarchism, but obviously what we're dealing here 1:34:56.960 --> 1:35:01.760 with is anarchosyndicalism. For the most part, the fire was 1:35:01.840 --> 1:35:05.519 more of a purest anarchist group, but there you had 1:35:05.560 --> 1:35:07.479 people who've been working towards this for a long time, 1:35:07.520 --> 1:35:10.280 who have been planning for it, and who did have 1:35:10.439 --> 1:35:13.839 people with a variety of experiences in I think oversight 1:35:13.960 --> 1:35:16.320 might be a better word than the management preps or 1:35:16.439 --> 1:35:22.240 like sort of organization. But they were very successful. But 1:35:22.760 --> 1:35:26.000 that didn't just happen overnight. It often gets presented as 1:35:26.000 --> 1:35:28.080 if it did as if on like the eighteenth of July, 1:35:28.240 --> 1:35:31.000 these people were just sort of going to work and 1:35:31.080 --> 1:35:33.439 by the twentieth they were fully formed the anarchists running 1:35:33.439 --> 1:35:35.960 their own workplaces. But that's absolutely not the case. 1:35:36.560 --> 1:35:38.920 Yeah, and jud jury is the exact opposite of this, 1:35:38.960 --> 1:35:41.120 which is, yeah, there's there's a very low level of 1:35:41.520 --> 1:35:47.880 political consciousness. There's organization is almost non existent, because so 1:35:48.040 --> 1:35:50.360 I mean the kinds of organizations that it existed are 1:35:50.760 --> 1:35:52.600 you know, you have these sort of vanguard cells, but 1:35:52.720 --> 1:35:57.120 those are largely rural. And then you have there are 1:35:57.240 --> 1:35:59.840 some unions, but they're not very they're not very large 1:36:00.080 --> 1:36:05.520 because they've been outlawed. Yeah, break ground, Yeah, like unbelievablexpression. 1:36:05.840 --> 1:36:08.040 Colonial context is extremely important. 1:36:08.160 --> 1:36:08.360 Yeah. 1:36:10.280 --> 1:36:13.240 Yeah, obviously Nia may Or I is blaming Algerian workers 1:36:13.320 --> 1:36:14.559 for not being Catalana. 1:36:14.720 --> 1:36:16.120 No, yeah, like this is this is this is the 1:36:16.160 --> 1:36:20.000 Frenchest fault and and you know, but but any such cases. Yeah, 1:36:20.840 --> 1:36:23.880 but this seizure really takes everyone by surprise because all 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:27.200 all of the sort of leaders of fl and all 1:36:27.280 --> 1:36:29.680 leaders of the various factions had assumed that either they 1:36:29.720 --> 1:36:34.320 were going to sort of do I don't know, there's 1:36:34.360 --> 1:36:39.240 ideological conflict. But they they they all assume that they're 1:36:39.280 --> 1:36:41.280 going to do some kind of like giant state led 1:36:41.280 --> 1:36:44.160 industrialization project, right, whether it's a socialist one, whether it's 1:36:44.160 --> 1:36:48.840 the more Islamist one, and then suddenly they're they're now all, 1:36:49.360 --> 1:36:51.800 you know, it's like, okay, well your economy is now 1:36:51.960 --> 1:36:55.840 on the Yugoslavian uh self management model because. 1:36:56.080 --> 1:36:58.840 All of these workers have just seized all their workplaces. 1:36:59.080 --> 1:37:01.680 Now that there are there there are a few organizations 1:37:01.760 --> 1:37:05.440 that are are politically very supportive of this. The UGTA, 1:37:05.640 --> 1:37:09.280 which is Algeria's big sort of trade union, are very 1:37:09.320 --> 1:37:14.160 politically socialist and they they are really the only people 1:37:14.240 --> 1:37:17.120 in this entire country who are who are an organized 1:37:17.120 --> 1:37:19.439 political body who actually want to see this thing work, 1:37:20.240 --> 1:37:22.320 and so they do a lot of work helping me, 1:37:22.400 --> 1:37:26.080 helping workers set up their their committees and spreading the revolution. 1:37:26.280 --> 1:37:30.240 Their plan is to use this against any attempt to 1:37:30.320 --> 1:37:34.880 set up basically a dictatorship by uh, you know, it's okay. 1:37:34.880 --> 1:37:36.759 And this is where it gets sort of interesting because 1:37:37.560 --> 1:37:40.200 very explicitly they are trying to stave off sort of 1:37:40.280 --> 1:37:44.120 Soviet style socialisticatorship, right they are, And their plan is 1:37:44.160 --> 1:37:45.639 We're going to use we're going to use the workers 1:37:45.720 --> 1:37:48.759 councils as the as the basis of of an actual 1:37:48.840 --> 1:37:52.560 sort of workers democracy against again against the sort of 1:37:52.680 --> 1:37:56.240 orthodox like Marcus Leninist stuff. And this is another thing 1:37:56.280 --> 1:37:58.160 that's going on too, is the army is a lot 1:37:58.240 --> 1:38:01.639 more orthodox Marcist Leninists than and then either the workers 1:38:01.720 --> 1:38:03.560 committees with the unions and so a lot in a 1:38:03.600 --> 1:38:05.120 lot of parts of the countries in the West, the 1:38:05.280 --> 1:38:07.360 army just sort of rolls through, knocks off the workers 1:38:07.400 --> 1:38:11.280 committees and seizes the land for itself. And that's a fiasco. 1:38:12.200 --> 1:38:15.559 But now now pretty very quickly Ben Bella, who emerges 1:38:15.760 --> 1:38:17.839 as as the sort of as the leader of Algeria 1:38:18.000 --> 1:38:22.280 after a set of political maneuvering that we're not going 1:38:22.360 --> 1:38:25.640 to get into here, is basically forced to and in 1:38:25.880 --> 1:38:29.400 nineteen sixty three set a bunch of decrees saying that, yeah, 1:38:29.640 --> 1:38:31.880 these guys are people who run the economy, et cetera, 1:38:31.920 --> 1:38:37.280 et cetera. But there's there I want to talk. I 1:38:37.360 --> 1:38:40.760 want to actually get into something that is really not 1:38:41.200 --> 1:38:44.439 talked about in ninety nine percent of the accounts of 1:38:44.439 --> 1:38:46.479 this stuff, which is how do these councils actually work? 1:38:47.200 --> 1:38:49.800 Because spoiler alert. This whole thing is going to fail 1:38:49.880 --> 1:38:51.519 and all these people are going to be crushed. And 1:38:51.680 --> 1:38:54.680 a lot of that has to do with how this 1:38:54.880 --> 1:38:58.400 thing's set up, which is very badly because it is 1:38:58.479 --> 1:39:02.360 a system designed by Marxists, and they're very sympathetic Marksist 1:39:02.360 --> 1:39:03.280 to a broad extent. 1:39:03.560 --> 1:39:07.320 But unfortunately the way that these that this is set. 1:39:07.240 --> 1:39:10.479 Up is that, Okay, so there's an assembly, right, that's like, 1:39:10.760 --> 1:39:12.679 all the workers in the firm are in this assembly. 1:39:13.400 --> 1:39:17.400 The assembly elects this worker's council, which has like ten people, 1:39:18.439 --> 1:39:22.479 and then that council elects the management Committee, which is 1:39:22.520 --> 1:39:25.040 the people who actually do the management. So it has 1:39:25.080 --> 1:39:27.439 a president and there's also a director supposed to represent 1:39:27.520 --> 1:39:30.360 the interest of the state or whatever. And and the 1:39:30.479 --> 1:39:33.000 issue with this is that it's designed specifically to keep 1:39:33.120 --> 1:39:35.519 power out of the hands of workers directly. Right that 1:39:35.680 --> 1:39:39.560 that that giant assembly, it can't actually make policy. The 1:39:39.640 --> 1:39:43.080 only thing they can do is approve plans or disapproved 1:39:43.120 --> 1:39:45.879 plans set down by the management committee. 1:39:46.240 --> 1:39:48.759 Got it, okay? And these people at the management committee 1:39:48.760 --> 1:39:51.960 will presumably like representatives as opposed to delegates. 1:39:51.560 --> 1:39:54.000 Right, yeah, yeah, they're the representatives. They also have three 1:39:54.080 --> 1:39:58.519 year terms, and it won. I think they can, but 1:39:58.600 --> 1:40:01.400 it's really hard, okay. And the other thing that that 1:40:01.439 --> 1:40:04.360 that sort of destroys this is that they those they 1:40:04.520 --> 1:40:07.120 there's a lot of sort of like election rigging by 1:40:07.160 --> 1:40:09.200 the state who doesn't want these things to be actual 1:40:09.280 --> 1:40:13.160 sort of democratic and the and this leads into the 1:40:13.200 --> 1:40:15.320 bigger issue, which is state control. And this is this 1:40:15.479 --> 1:40:17.719 is where I think, really this is something that Clegg 1:40:17.800 --> 1:40:19.920 doesn't get into much because Clegg is a Marxist. 1:40:20.479 --> 1:40:22.000 But this is where the. 1:40:22.080 --> 1:40:26.200 Marxism of it all really comes into play. But first, 1:40:26.240 --> 1:40:27.599 do you know who's not a Marxist? 1:40:28.240 --> 1:40:29.839 Oh, yes, almost certainly. 1:40:31.360 --> 1:40:34.519 Yeah, not Marxists. I think we I think we can 1:40:34.560 --> 1:40:35.600 say not Marxists. 1:40:46.720 --> 1:40:47.519 All right, we are back. 1:40:47.680 --> 1:40:49.960 So the biggest issue here, and this is something that 1:40:50.160 --> 1:40:52.920 was kind of true in both Algeria and in the 1:40:53.040 --> 1:40:57.439 others kind of big Marxist self management experiments in Chile, 1:40:57.800 --> 1:41:04.320 which is that these self managing firms don't have control 1:41:04.600 --> 1:41:07.080 over a lot of the things that they need. Right 1:41:07.600 --> 1:41:10.320 So in Algeria, when when when the state essentially tries 1:41:10.360 --> 1:41:12.120 to absorb all of this stuff, when it when it 1:41:12.160 --> 1:41:16.120 gets sort of legitimized under under these decrees, there are 1:41:16.120 --> 1:41:19.160 a lot of issues. One is that these self managing 1:41:20.080 --> 1:41:25.519 organizations don't have control over their own money. So y're, yeah, 1:41:25.560 --> 1:41:28.560 you're paid. You're getting paid by the state, right and 1:41:28.640 --> 1:41:30.599 you so you give the state your money and then 1:41:30.680 --> 1:41:33.759 they they pay you. And this becomes a real issue 1:41:33.800 --> 1:41:35.800 because the state goes, oh well, the people in these 1:41:35.800 --> 1:41:39.120 self managing things are actually like privileged workers, so they 1:41:39.200 --> 1:41:44.000 have permanent pay freezes. And also you can't reinvest your 1:41:44.080 --> 1:41:46.759 profits back into the firm, which is a real issue. 1:41:47.720 --> 1:41:50.360 It's like a horrible combination of like and cap and 1:41:51.000 --> 1:41:55.559 and like stylin its like it without. Yeah, I don't 1:41:55.600 --> 1:41:57.600 I don't want to like derail us too much. But 1:41:57.920 --> 1:41:59.519 this again, like it's it's a stake. 1:42:00.240 --> 1:42:02.280 It's so much worse than the Spanish system. It's so 1:42:02.400 --> 1:42:04.400 much worse, Like every part of it is set up 1:42:04.439 --> 1:42:04.800 to fail. 1:42:05.439 --> 1:42:07.920 Yeah, and I think this should always get This is 1:42:08.000 --> 1:42:10.479 the sort of discourse I am now going to derailiz. 1:42:10.560 --> 1:42:13.720 I'm sorry. This is the kind of like the online 1:42:13.880 --> 1:42:17.040 like hammer and sickle in bio discourse that we see 1:42:17.439 --> 1:42:19.719 so often, right, and you don't have to pay attention 1:42:19.800 --> 1:42:23.720 to these people, and like you probably shouldn't, but just 1:42:23.880 --> 1:42:25.439 just to like put it out there. I think like 1:42:26.080 --> 1:42:29.560 and archo syndicalism is right there, and it allows for 1:42:30.080 --> 1:42:34.559 the like unions and syndicate which over overlook a whole 1:42:34.640 --> 1:42:39.400 industry to coordinate between workers' committees and ensure that, you know, 1:42:39.800 --> 1:42:41.840 things get done and people get read with dignity, and 1:42:42.640 --> 1:42:45.360 they also make enough money or have access to the 1:42:45.400 --> 1:42:49.120 resources that they need to survive. And when we try 1:42:49.280 --> 1:42:52.040 and like cut the corners off this or kind of 1:42:52.120 --> 1:42:55.600 make a little collage between this and barkist leninism or 1:42:55.600 --> 1:43:00.519 state socialism, like neither thing works, and we to stand 1:43:00.640 --> 1:43:03.040 up with this kind of terrible hodge podge in which 1:43:04.040 --> 1:43:06.400 it doesn't it doesn't function, right, But that that doesn't 1:43:06.400 --> 1:43:09.240 necessarily mean that work is self management itself is invaded 1:43:09.280 --> 1:43:10.320 as a concept it. 1:43:11.120 --> 1:43:14.360 Yeah, and and and there's there's a lot of things 1:43:14.439 --> 1:43:15.560 here that you know. 1:43:15.760 --> 1:43:16.000 So the. 1:43:17.880 --> 1:43:19.840 One of the big criticisms of this at the time 1:43:20.000 --> 1:43:22.400 by by social intellectuals is people are going, well, there's 1:43:22.439 --> 1:43:26.040 not coordination, uh, you know, the firms competing against each other, 1:43:26.160 --> 1:43:28.680 there's not broad economic coordination. It's like, well, yeah, that's 1:43:28.720 --> 1:43:31.920 because that's because the state controls other finances. They don't 1:43:31.920 --> 1:43:34.120 they don't have the ability to do coordination. 1:43:33.800 --> 1:43:34.240 With each other. 1:43:34.560 --> 1:43:36.559 And yeah, the big thing, and this is the thing 1:43:36.600 --> 1:43:41.880 that really actually kills this is that so Cleik calls 1:43:41.920 --> 1:43:44.000 it marketing is controlled by the state. But that's not 1:43:44.120 --> 1:43:46.200 quite what's going on. The other thing that's controlled by 1:43:46.200 --> 1:43:49.280 the state is the state has the responsibility or and 1:43:49.400 --> 1:43:51.040 and is the people who are in charge of selling 1:43:51.120 --> 1:43:55.000 the products. And they just fucked us up completely. They 1:43:55.479 --> 1:43:57.880 can't they can't figure out how to get like the 1:43:57.920 --> 1:44:00.920 fruit that's being produced sold right. The problem here isn't 1:44:00.960 --> 1:44:02.840 is an output. Is that the city, the state is 1:44:02.920 --> 1:44:05.240 doing things like I mean sometimes sometimes they they'll have 1:44:05.240 --> 1:44:07.839 all these oranges. So a lot of the the Algeria 1:44:07.840 --> 1:44:10.360 and agricultural economy is set up as a cash crop economy. 1:44:10.640 --> 1:44:12.320 And you're supposed to fight you so okay, and it's 1:44:12.439 --> 1:44:16.200 it's never really worked very well. But the Algerian state 1:44:16.320 --> 1:44:18.840 just completely shits the bed. And there's I mean, this 1:44:18.920 --> 1:44:20.840 is like i mean we're talking like tons of fruit 1:44:20.960 --> 1:44:23.280 is just sitting there rotting a lot of the time. 1:44:23.360 --> 1:44:25.000 What they do is they just dump in onto the 1:44:25.080 --> 1:44:28.320 French market at for like basically zero cost, and so 1:44:28.520 --> 1:44:30.479 and you know, and so you you you get these 1:44:30.520 --> 1:44:33.120 things and you look at the sort of profit lost thing, 1:44:33.400 --> 1:44:37.599 and you know, the sort of like right wing parts 1:44:37.640 --> 1:44:39.560 of the state, and this is oh, I guess you like, 1:44:39.640 --> 1:44:41.720 I guess they are right wing, but the sort of 1:44:41.760 --> 1:44:43.600 anti self management parts of the statia going oh, well, 1:44:43.640 --> 1:44:45.639 look at these these firms. They're hemorrhaging all this money. 1:44:45.680 --> 1:44:47.960 It's like, well, yeah, they're hemorrhaging money because instead of 1:44:48.000 --> 1:44:50.000 actually selling the goods, you guys are throwing all of 1:44:50.040 --> 1:44:52.920 their goods into a dumpster. Like yeah, of course it's 1:44:52.960 --> 1:44:53.760 not working, right. 1:44:54.320 --> 1:44:57.560 Yeah, And it's just a struggle of like perst colonial economies. 1:44:58.360 --> 1:45:02.679 If you in the French colonial system, like they've decided 1:45:02.720 --> 1:45:04.160 that Algeria is going to be the place that makes 1:45:04.240 --> 1:45:06.680 oranges for the entirety of the French, I'm just sort 1:45:06.680 --> 1:45:11.040 of manufacturing example empire here. Then evidently what once you 1:45:11.479 --> 1:45:14.640 once you secede from that empire, you now have a 1:45:14.760 --> 1:45:17.400 fuck ton more oranges than you need for Algerias. You're 1:45:17.479 --> 1:45:19.920 now going to have to navigate and you might not 1:45:20.000 --> 1:45:20.519 have enough. 1:45:20.360 --> 1:45:21.880 Well, and they can't even figure how to sell to 1:45:21.920 --> 1:45:24.240 other Algerians too. That that that's that's the that's the 1:45:24.320 --> 1:45:25.960 problem with the sort of state control of the market. 1:45:25.960 --> 1:45:26.519 Is they can't. 1:45:26.680 --> 1:45:29.360 They can't do either because they're completely because the bureaucrats 1:45:29.360 --> 1:45:32.880 that are running this are completely incompetent, right. 1:45:32.920 --> 1:45:36.120 Yeah, man, I mean one can argue the states incapable 1:45:36.120 --> 1:45:38.880 of adimating resources equally or fairly. But yes, even so, 1:45:39.040 --> 1:45:41.320 they've they've done a bad job even by state standards. 1:45:41.760 --> 1:45:43.960 Yeah, and and and the and the and the subsequent 1:45:44.040 --> 1:45:46.479 issue too is it's because all the finances are controlled 1:45:46.479 --> 1:45:48.120 by the state. Even the firms that are profitable, and 1:45:48.120 --> 1:45:51.600 there are firms that are very profitable, they can't reinvest 1:45:51.960 --> 1:45:55.000 their profit back into you know, improving efficiency or do 1:45:55.240 --> 1:45:57.080 or doing the basic things that workers need, which is 1:45:57.560 --> 1:46:00.760 having money to eat, because that money is that all 1:46:00.840 --> 1:46:02.960 of that sort of capital is just being eaten by 1:46:03.000 --> 1:46:05.720 the state. And so you know, there's not even to 1:46:05.800 --> 1:46:09.599 quote Claig again, as the president of a self managed 1:46:09.640 --> 1:46:12.200 farm said to me in nineteen sixty five, in this situation, 1:46:12.320 --> 1:46:14.000 how can we persuade the worker that he is no 1:46:14.160 --> 1:46:16.599 longer working for a capitalist exploiter? And like, well, yeah, 1:46:16.640 --> 1:46:20.920 he objectively is right, he is, like the state is 1:46:20.920 --> 1:46:23.880 stealing all of his money and then doing some stupid 1:46:23.920 --> 1:46:24.600 bullshit with it. 1:46:25.320 --> 1:46:25.519 Yeah. 1:46:25.640 --> 1:46:28.439 I love that they're like they're not quite joining the 1:46:28.560 --> 1:46:32.320 dots there, Like these guys don't seem to be getting it, 1:46:32.720 --> 1:46:34.479 Like maybe maybe they do get it. 1:46:35.000 --> 1:46:36.920 And this is this is one of these things where 1:46:37.960 --> 1:46:41.599 you know, like I I go, Cleig Cleik doesn't really 1:46:41.720 --> 1:46:43.680 draw this line because he just I mean, Cleig just 1:46:43.800 --> 1:46:49.360 refuses to talk about either Hungary or the Spanish Revolution 1:46:49.640 --> 1:46:49.920 at all. 1:46:50.240 --> 1:46:54.240 Right, Yeah, and you really don't like to. 1:46:54.280 --> 1:46:55.880 Well he's not a mouth like that's the thing. He 1:46:56.800 --> 1:46:59.439 is a he is a pro worker self management guy, right, 1:47:00.320 --> 1:47:03.120 but he's a Marxist pro worker self management guy. 1:47:03.400 --> 1:47:03.599 Yeah. 1:47:03.680 --> 1:47:06.080 So she's distributing the failure this largely to like, well, 1:47:06.160 --> 1:47:08.040 there wasn't sufficient consciousness. So it's like, well, no, like 1:47:08.120 --> 1:47:11.200 this system, even if everyone wanted it to work, this 1:47:11.280 --> 1:47:13.880 system couldn't have worked because it was set up in 1:47:14.000 --> 1:47:16.800 such a way that it was. And this is something 1:47:16.840 --> 1:47:17.920 you know, this is part of why I want to 1:47:17.960 --> 1:47:20.040 talk to you about. This was that if you look 1:47:20.080 --> 1:47:24.640 at the way that that the Spanish system is set up, right, 1:47:25.560 --> 1:47:30.200 it's it's built off of coordination, like basically like sectoral 1:47:30.320 --> 1:47:34.160 coordination between everyone who's doing a thing, right, It's built 1:47:34.200 --> 1:47:36.960 on resource sharing. If I'm remembering my stuff, right, I 1:47:37.000 --> 1:47:40.080 mean they have basically they have a banking union, and 1:47:40.160 --> 1:47:42.639 people put their profits into the into the banking union, 1:47:42.760 --> 1:47:44.960 and then people can get money from the banking union 1:47:45.080 --> 1:47:46.519 to reinvest in other places. 1:47:47.080 --> 1:47:51.240 Yeah, I think that's correct. It's also like, yeah, this this, 1:47:51.760 --> 1:47:54.320 I guess would that be called vertical integration if it's 1:47:54.360 --> 1:47:57.639 the whole sector, even if it's they they. 1:47:57.600 --> 1:48:00.160 Do this thing which takes advantage of both of the 1:48:00.280 --> 1:48:03.800 advantages of self management gives you, which is one like 1:48:03.880 --> 1:48:05.759 and like sort of you know, and it's like socialist 1:48:05.760 --> 1:48:08.519 self management, right, you have the advantage of scale, which 1:48:08.520 --> 1:48:10.360 is that you're now instead of competing ast each other, 1:48:10.439 --> 1:48:15.160 you're now coordinating an entire sector, right, and you're you're 1:48:15.200 --> 1:48:18.360 producing stuff that you're producing stuff for need. And then 1:48:18.640 --> 1:48:21.080 on the other hand, you have the other thing that's 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:23.000 supposed to be the advantage of self management, which is 1:48:23.040 --> 1:48:26.559 that the workers themselves, who are the people who are 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:29.320 supposed to understand that production process the best, can make 1:48:29.400 --> 1:48:33.559 decisions over how they're going to do things. But then 1:48:33.640 --> 1:48:35.439 if you look at the Algerian system, because it's because 1:48:35.439 --> 1:48:38.120 it's set up by Marxists, it's specifically designed such that 1:48:39.360 --> 1:48:46.120 basically like you're you're instead of you actually managing yourself, 1:48:46.479 --> 1:48:50.240 you're you're just electing your boss, and then your boss manages, right, 1:48:50.880 --> 1:48:52.679 And that's not actually good. This is and it's weird 1:48:52.680 --> 1:48:55.679 because looking at this, right, this is actually a worst 1:48:55.760 --> 1:48:58.600 system in terms of self management, I think in a 1:48:58.640 --> 1:49:01.599 lot of senses than the Chinese, because the Chinese system 1:49:01.680 --> 1:49:04.679 is not designed for self management. But you can't fire people. 1:49:06.200 --> 1:49:08.599 So because you can't fire people, you have to listen 1:49:08.680 --> 1:49:10.640 to what people think and what people sort of do. 1:49:10.920 --> 1:49:15.160 Is this system, I don't know. It pisces me off 1:49:15.280 --> 1:49:19.880 because this is a revolution that very very easily could 1:49:19.960 --> 1:49:24.320 have worked, but it was you know, there's intentional sabotage 1:49:24.360 --> 1:49:26.080 by the state because most of the sectors of the 1:49:26.120 --> 1:49:27.320 state don't want this to work. 1:49:27.479 --> 1:49:28.040 And then. 1:49:29.800 --> 1:49:33.120 Just structurally from the way it's set up, it's doomed 1:49:33.120 --> 1:49:34.920 to fail from the beginning. And the consequence of this 1:49:35.200 --> 1:49:38.559 is that in nineteen sixty five, Ben Bella gets overthrown 1:49:38.600 --> 1:49:41.840 in a coup by another sort of but basically the army, 1:49:44.160 --> 1:49:46.400 a sort of state socialist faction of the army, and 1:49:46.520 --> 1:49:51.040 they hold on to power by basically turning Algeria into 1:49:51.080 --> 1:49:55.840 an oil economy. Yeah, and dismantling this entire thing. And 1:49:56.600 --> 1:50:01.400 I don't know, it makes me really angry because the 1:50:01.400 --> 1:50:05.200 the the like the actual Algerian ruling class had the 1:50:05.320 --> 1:50:09.639 right idea and then they just got completely fucked by 1:50:10.320 --> 1:50:14.720 everyone who was supposed to be leading them, or you know, 1:50:14.880 --> 1:50:16.639 the people who were supposed to be selling the stuff 1:50:16.680 --> 1:50:19.559 that they made, people who are supposed to be reinvesting, 1:50:19.640 --> 1:50:23.240 all the people who ended up with the financial control 1:50:24.400 --> 1:50:29.200 just completely screwed them. And yeah, I don't know, it's 1:50:29.400 --> 1:50:33.400 it's it's really it's it's it's really depressing in a 1:50:33.439 --> 1:50:35.040 lot of ways. But on the other hand, right, like, 1:50:35.880 --> 1:50:38.559 it doesn't it doesn't. It doesn't have to go like this, Right, 1:50:38.640 --> 1:50:42.639 you don't have to hand control of your workplace over 1:50:42.920 --> 1:50:49.120 to some fucking guy in the Department of Agricultural Waste 1:50:49.240 --> 1:50:52.680 Management or whatever so he can use your origines for 1:50:52.760 --> 1:50:55.920 fertilizer like you can. You can simply not do this. 1:50:57.000 --> 1:50:59.640 Yeah, I mean, I didn't know the exact situation that 1:50:59.720 --> 1:51:01.479 these were work has found themselves in, and maybe there 1:51:01.600 --> 1:51:03.800 was you know, like a degree of sort of need 1:51:04.040 --> 1:51:07.160 to get reproducing in order to solve hunger issues. 1:51:07.280 --> 1:51:10.240 But yeah, you simply do not have to do that. 1:51:10.439 --> 1:51:15.840 As many examples. I'm thinking of the collectivized farms in 1:51:15.960 --> 1:51:18.080 Spain as well, because perhaps they would have been a 1:51:18.160 --> 1:51:21.439 better example, right, I guess there it was slightly different 1:51:21.479 --> 1:51:24.640 because it was somewhat of a collectivized community that in 1:51:24.720 --> 1:51:30.400 turn collectivized the land as opposed to collectivizing the agricultural labor. 1:51:30.600 --> 1:51:33.920 And then you have this sort of source of labor 1:51:33.920 --> 1:51:36.519 which is not inherently tied to the land that like, 1:51:36.920 --> 1:51:39.599 you know, when when there was a need, like for instance, 1:51:40.280 --> 1:51:43.360 I'm writing a book right now and writing about the 1:51:43.400 --> 1:51:45.920 Druti column, and like they would because they had less 1:51:46.000 --> 1:51:48.880 rifles than they had fighters, they would rotate their fighters 1:51:48.920 --> 1:51:51.680 off the front line during the harvest time and have 1:51:51.840 --> 1:51:55.400 people help with the harvest, and then they didn't like 1:51:55.520 --> 1:51:56.840 need those people the rest of the year. Right, So 1:51:56.880 --> 1:52:01.320 they were able to incorporate like temporary surgeries in labor 1:52:01.600 --> 1:52:05.400 without it being like destructive to their model, because it 1:52:05.560 --> 1:52:08.839 was the idea was like a collective community as opposed 1:52:08.880 --> 1:52:12.719 to a collective as opposed to like just the workplace 1:52:12.840 --> 1:52:17.679 being this island of pseudo collectivisation, like you're saying in Algeria. 1:52:18.560 --> 1:52:21.040 Also shout out to the Iron column who I've been 1:52:21.040 --> 1:52:24.000 writing about recently, who solved their supply side issues by 1:52:25.400 --> 1:52:28.479 leaving the front line and raiding the cops because they 1:52:28.520 --> 1:52:30.640 didn't have enough guns either, so they simply took them 1:52:30.640 --> 1:52:35.519 from the cops. Telling Yeah, incredibly based, Yeah, very bag. 1:52:35.640 --> 1:52:35.800 Yeah. 1:52:35.920 --> 1:52:38.080 I think I think that's kind of the point that 1:52:38.160 --> 1:52:40.600 I want to end this on, which is that you know, 1:52:40.800 --> 1:52:45.240 there's something that that contributes to the collapse of Slavia too, 1:52:45.560 --> 1:52:51.400 is that if you know, the dichotomy they got forced 1:52:51.680 --> 1:52:57.680 on people in the twentieth century was you can either choose. 1:52:58.920 --> 1:52:59.120 Two. 1:52:59.400 --> 1:53:02.080 Okay, so your choices are you get a you get 1:53:02.120 --> 1:53:05.040 a sort of you get a styalinus planned economy completely 1:53:05.080 --> 1:53:07.200 run by the state, or you get a bunch of 1:53:07.240 --> 1:53:09.599 workers cooperatives competing against each other. And those are, like, you're, 1:53:09.640 --> 1:53:13.920 those are your two models of socialism, and those both suck, 1:53:14.040 --> 1:53:16.719 and both are set up to fail from the beginning 1:53:16.760 --> 1:53:19.840 because they're not actually you know, you're you're you're you're 1:53:19.920 --> 1:53:23.800 you're not actually doing the thing, you're not actually having 1:53:23.880 --> 1:53:29.040 the entire the entire class as a class, you know, 1:53:29.960 --> 1:53:34.960 abolishing itself. And then also managing managing production in such 1:53:34.960 --> 1:53:37.479 a way that people are cooperating to produce what people 1:53:37.479 --> 1:53:41.920 need instead of everyone fighting over like either well instead 1:53:41.920 --> 1:53:45.160 of either the state setting a steel quota and having 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:47.960 that be the entire goal of the economy, or like 1:53:49.000 --> 1:53:52.080 seventeen co ops and the like both producing all producing 1:53:52.120 --> 1:53:54.000 the exact same kind of coffee trying to figure out 1:53:54.000 --> 1:53:55.080 who can produce it more cheaply. 1:53:56.160 --> 1:53:59.320 Yeah, we we can do better, Yes we can, and 1:53:59.439 --> 1:54:02.519 we have, and so we should describe for I guess 1:54:02.880 --> 1:54:05.959 I know. If people want to read about the Spanish Revolution, 1:54:07.000 --> 1:54:09.439 there's a ship ton of books on libcom. I would 1:54:09.439 --> 1:54:13.519 say Pat's book is pretty good. Send a Spanish Revolution. 1:54:14.600 --> 1:54:17.160 Mary Bookchin has a book that the heroic years of 1:54:17.200 --> 1:54:21.720 Spanish anarchism. Able Paz has many books. Yes you can. 1:54:21.800 --> 1:54:23.519 You can spend time on libcom and read a lot 1:54:23.560 --> 1:54:26.639 about collective production in the Spanish Revolution, and for free, 1:54:26.840 --> 1:54:27.519 which is nice. 1:54:27.880 --> 1:54:28.679 Yeah, let's just been taken. 1:54:28.720 --> 1:54:32.640 Happy here, go take over your workplace and then also 1:54:33.040 --> 1:54:35.840 help everyone else take over theirs and coordinate with each other. 1:54:36.560 --> 1:54:38.280 Yeah, that would be very nice. And then then we'll 1:54:38.280 --> 1:54:39.800 do an interview with you on the podcast. 1:54:40.320 --> 1:55:02.200 Yeah, welcome back to it could have hear a podcast 1:55:02.680 --> 1:55:08.680 about things falling apart, and also about militant resistance, which 1:55:08.800 --> 1:55:11.920 is an aspect of things falling apart. As things fall 1:55:12.000 --> 1:55:14.920 apart any country, you get people who crawl out of 1:55:14.920 --> 1:55:19.280 the woodwork to either accelerate that process or try to 1:55:19.360 --> 1:55:21.560 reverse it in their own lives, and some of those 1:55:21.600 --> 1:55:25.040 people use weapons to do that. Now, we've talked a 1:55:25.080 --> 1:55:28.040 bunch on this show about the various forms that militant 1:55:28.120 --> 1:55:33.960 resistance can take. We've chatted extensively on this network about Rojava. 1:55:34.360 --> 1:55:36.800 We've talked a fair amount James Stout and I. James 1:55:36.920 --> 1:55:39.000 is on the show today, by the way, Hello James, 1:55:39.200 --> 1:55:41.880 Hi Robert. We've talked a lot about me and mar 1:55:42.560 --> 1:55:46.400 and the gin Z Revolution, there three D printing of 1:55:46.760 --> 1:55:51.120 firearms and kind of this war that these people have 1:55:51.240 --> 1:55:56.000 been waging in the Jungles successfully in order to overthrow 1:55:56.120 --> 1:55:59.480 the military dictatorship of their country. But we haven't talked 1:55:59.480 --> 1:56:02.839 a whole lot about naval warfare. And this is because 1:56:02.960 --> 1:56:05.440 for most of history, for most of at least our 1:56:05.520 --> 1:56:09.560 recent history, naval warfare was not really a thing insurgents 1:56:09.600 --> 1:56:12.120 could engage in, right, you know, you could every now 1:56:12.160 --> 1:56:13.720 and then if a ship was docked or something, you 1:56:13.800 --> 1:56:15.200 might be able to get off a bombing, right, like 1:56:15.280 --> 1:56:18.480 what happened to us as coal. And I'm not expressing 1:56:18.600 --> 1:56:23.360 general sympathy for everybody who does a militant insurgent act, 1:56:23.480 --> 1:56:25.200 but I am talking about like the overall kind of 1:56:25.280 --> 1:56:28.200 like tactics and strategy that underline how that stuff works. 1:56:28.520 --> 1:56:30.600 And one of the things that's really changed in the 1:56:30.680 --> 1:56:33.360 last couple of years, since twenty twenty two, you could 1:56:33.360 --> 1:56:37.240 really mark it out, is that irregular non state groups 1:56:37.560 --> 1:56:41.120 can now to an extent never before possible challenge the 1:56:41.240 --> 1:56:44.800 sea power of nations like the United States, which has 1:56:44.920 --> 1:56:48.960 an unquestioned, previously at least unquestioned level of dominance in 1:56:49.040 --> 1:56:52.320 sort of conventional naval power. And we talked about conventional 1:56:52.400 --> 1:56:55.480 naval power in the twenty first century. That means aircraft 1:56:55.560 --> 1:56:58.520 carrier groups. Right, the US has eleven of them, which, 1:56:58.560 --> 1:57:00.680 if I'm not mistaken, is more than the of the world. 1:57:01.040 --> 1:57:04.600 We have a lot of fucking aircraft carriers. And previously 1:57:04.760 --> 1:57:07.400 that was believed to be you know, a guarantee of 1:57:07.440 --> 1:57:10.040 book dominance on sea, and if a carrier group or 1:57:10.080 --> 1:57:12.560 two is in the area, you generally we generally, the 1:57:12.680 --> 1:57:16.280 United States generally could count on having air supremacy. You 1:57:16.440 --> 1:57:19.520 certainly wouldn't expect it to be countered. You know, you 1:57:19.560 --> 1:57:21.480 could expect, like, for example, if we were to have 1:57:21.480 --> 1:57:25.200 a conflict over Taiwan, the Chinese navy could or the 1:57:25.320 --> 1:57:29.600 Chinese army could potentially interdict a carrier group using ground 1:57:29.680 --> 1:57:32.720 based you know, ground to see anti ship missiles or 1:57:32.720 --> 1:57:35.160 something like that. But we're increasingly in an era in 1:57:35.240 --> 1:57:38.560 which these kind of irregular non state groups have access 1:57:38.600 --> 1:57:41.360 to similar technology and have access to kind of even 1:57:41.600 --> 1:57:45.680 more bespoke technology like drone swarms that poses a unique 1:57:45.760 --> 1:57:48.720 threat to the naval dominance of the United States. And 1:57:48.880 --> 1:57:50.880 I wanted to start you know, we've got a two 1:57:50.920 --> 1:57:52.760 part of here. We're going to be talking about the 1:57:52.880 --> 1:57:55.160 Huthis and Yemen. We're going to be talking about the 1:57:55.240 --> 1:57:58.000 Ukrainian navy, which does not really have much in the 1:57:58.040 --> 1:58:00.720 way of boats, but it is still challenging the Russian Navy. 1:58:01.040 --> 1:58:04.000 And we're going to be talking about rebels in Myanmar. 1:58:04.400 --> 1:58:06.600 We're going to start today, we'll be talking about the 1:58:06.680 --> 1:58:09.920 Huthi and to understand Houthi resistance to the United States 1:58:09.960 --> 1:58:12.879 and why a militant group has had such success challenging 1:58:13.040 --> 1:58:16.080 US naval power. You first have to understand how they 1:58:16.200 --> 1:58:18.160 got to the point that they're at right now, where 1:58:18.200 --> 1:58:19.600 they are kind of in a lot of ways a 1:58:19.720 --> 1:58:23.520 near state actor, you know, not a world power actor, 1:58:23.560 --> 1:58:26.320 but near state actor. You know, they're probably more capable 1:58:26.400 --> 1:58:28.720 in some ways than the State of Yemen, which they 1:58:28.760 --> 1:58:31.920 are at war with. Yeah, yeah, And to get how 1:58:31.960 --> 1:58:33.880 they got to that point, you have to understand what 1:58:34.000 --> 1:58:37.760 happened with their fight against the Saudis. So the Houthi 1:58:37.920 --> 1:58:41.400 Movement or ansar Allah, which means Supporters of God, is 1:58:41.440 --> 1:58:44.880 a Zaidi Shia Islamist movement run primarily by members of 1:58:44.920 --> 1:58:48.120 the Huthi tribe. Zaidi Islam is a bit of an 1:58:48.240 --> 1:58:50.360 odd duck. You'll hear it described as, yeah, like a 1:58:51.280 --> 1:58:54.840 Shia segment. It's really probably more accurate to look at 1:58:54.880 --> 1:58:57.520 it as like it's kind of in between Shia and 1:58:57.680 --> 1:59:01.280 Sunni of like the Shia kind of denominations. It's kind 1:59:01.280 --> 1:59:04.520 of closest to being Sunni. I'm not an expert on 1:59:04.600 --> 1:59:06.320 any of this, but it comes out of a guy 1:59:06.400 --> 1:59:09.880 named Zaid iban Ali's rebellion against the Umiyad Caliphate, which 1:59:09.960 --> 1:59:13.200 did not succeed, but we still have the Zaidi. What 1:59:13.440 --> 1:59:16.400 matters for our purposes today is that the Huthi as 1:59:16.440 --> 1:59:20.480 a movement came out of opposition to the Yemen's president 1:59:20.960 --> 1:59:24.560 Abi Abdullah Salah, who was corrupt as hell. He was 1:59:24.600 --> 1:59:26.760 seen as corrupt, and he was in fact corrupt as hell, 1:59:27.040 --> 1:59:28.800 and he was. It was specifically they were they were 1:59:28.840 --> 1:59:31.879 accusing him of basically being bribed by the Saudis. That's 1:59:31.920 --> 1:59:34.400 where like the Houthi started the rebellion in around two 1:59:34.400 --> 1:59:37.520 thousand and three. So they began as a resistance movement 1:59:37.560 --> 1:59:41.200 to this corrupt president Salah. They adopted the slogan God 1:59:41.320 --> 1:59:44.200 is the Greatest, Death to America, death to Israel, and 1:59:44.400 --> 1:59:47.240 a curse upon the Jews, which is still their slogan. 1:59:47.360 --> 1:59:51.480 So they are not what you would call unproblematic. Again, 1:59:52.120 --> 1:59:55.640 but now that they applied out there, they're they're not 1:59:55.760 --> 1:59:57.800 hiding it, you know, dig for this stuff. 1:59:58.120 --> 2:00:01.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm using the triple parentheses 2:00:01.200 --> 2:00:02.480 they say the thing. 2:00:03.040 --> 2:00:05.080 Yeah, and it's you know, part of why we're talking 2:00:05.120 --> 2:00:07.560 about a regular naval warfare is that who knows what 2:00:07.640 --> 2:00:11.400 the next few years are going to include. It's always 2:00:11.480 --> 2:00:13.680 a long shot, but there's not a zero percent chance 2:00:13.760 --> 2:00:16.440 that people listening to this will wind up engaged in 2:00:16.560 --> 2:00:20.200 some sort of irregular conflict. And that's it's important to 2:00:20.360 --> 2:00:24.000 understand how modern technology has changed the dimensions of how 2:00:24.080 --> 2:00:26.160 that works from like a naval perspective, So that's why 2:00:26.200 --> 2:00:30.160 we're talking about this now. Hoothy armed activities against the 2:00:30.240 --> 2:00:33.920 Saudis really kicked off and hit a major level after 2:00:34.000 --> 2:00:37.320 the Yemeni Civil War, which officially started in twenty fourteen. 2:00:37.840 --> 2:00:40.440 The new president of Yemen, who was not Salah at 2:00:40.480 --> 2:00:43.680 this point, asked for military support from the international community, 2:00:44.000 --> 2:00:46.839 which in this case meant the Saudis right. So the Saudis. 2:00:47.560 --> 2:00:50.480 It's called a coalition. There's technically some other people involved, 2:00:50.560 --> 2:00:53.680 but it's the Saudis right, and the president of Yemen 2:00:53.800 --> 2:00:56.320 calls in the Saudis when his forces are kicked out 2:00:56.400 --> 2:01:00.200 of the capital of Yemen, Sana, by Hoothy fighters. The 2:01:00.240 --> 2:01:02.600 way when the Hoothy take Sana is when they get 2:01:02.640 --> 2:01:05.640 their first cruise missiles, largely just like a bunch of 2:01:05.760 --> 2:01:09.360 scuds and stuff, so like old Soviet shit, right. Operation 2:01:09.600 --> 2:01:12.760 Decisive Storm is the name that Saudi Arabia gives to 2:01:12.880 --> 2:01:15.080 their intervention in Yemen, and a lot of people will 2:01:15.080 --> 2:01:19.200 say this is basically Saudi Arabia's Vietnam, not an inappropriate 2:01:19.280 --> 2:01:22.520 comparison to make. So the Saudis start bombing the shit 2:01:22.760 --> 2:01:25.360 out of the Houthi and then they send in ground forces, 2:01:25.400 --> 2:01:27.800 because bombing the shit out of people who are motivated 2:01:27.960 --> 2:01:30.800 never really works as well as you want it to, right. 2:01:30.880 --> 2:01:32.680 Yeah, a lot of people have been bombing a lot 2:01:32.720 --> 2:01:35.600 of people. I mean, you can destroy that of shit, 2:01:35.680 --> 2:01:37.800 you can kill a load of civilians. 2:01:37.800 --> 2:01:39.560 And kill a shitload of civilians. 2:01:39.720 --> 2:01:43.680 Yeah, but many, many such cases if you're looking around 2:01:43.720 --> 2:01:46.520 the world right now. But yeah, one thing that doesn't 2:01:46.560 --> 2:01:49.000 tend to do is really get rid of motivated fighters. 2:01:49.280 --> 2:01:52.360 Yeah, when you've got an air force, everything looks like Dresden. 2:01:52.760 --> 2:01:55.160 So the Saudis try that for a while. They send 2:01:55.200 --> 2:01:58.640 in ground forces, they carry out naval blockades. None of 2:01:58.720 --> 2:02:01.640 this does much but make Thethi's more determined, and they 2:02:01.840 --> 2:02:04.960 exit this conflict. I mean it's not like you wouldn't 2:02:04.960 --> 2:02:07.360 say completely done, but they exit this conflict with the 2:02:07.440 --> 2:02:10.560 Saudis a lot stronger, right, a lot more organized, with 2:02:10.680 --> 2:02:12.720 a lot better weapons, right, and a lot of this 2:02:12.960 --> 2:02:14.880 you know, so by the way, I should also state that, 2:02:15.000 --> 2:02:16.800 like now, the Houthis are on the side of former 2:02:16.840 --> 2:02:20.400 President Sala It's a complicated conflict, right, but at the 2:02:20.480 --> 2:02:22.400 end of this all they have a shitload of Iranian 2:02:22.480 --> 2:02:26.560 weapons because Iran is a geopolitical enemy of Saudi Arabia 2:02:26.920 --> 2:02:28.920 and they see the Houthis as allies, and so they 2:02:28.960 --> 2:02:31.720 spend a lot of time this during this conflict shipping 2:02:31.800 --> 2:02:34.720 in agtms, which are wire guided missiles that are just 2:02:34.880 --> 2:02:38.080 aces and blasting holes in Saudi Arabia's tanks, which are 2:02:38.520 --> 2:02:40.960 US supplied. If I'm not mistaken as a general, Yeah, 2:02:40.960 --> 2:02:43.560 a lot of Saudi Arabia stuff is US and like, yeah, 2:02:43.680 --> 2:02:45.960 basic most of it, right, much of it? Yeah, Yeah, 2:02:46.000 --> 2:02:47.560 there are a lot of contractors over there. 2:02:47.720 --> 2:02:47.920 Yeah. 2:02:48.200 --> 2:02:50.200 And you know, the Houthis they make a lot in 2:02:50.560 --> 2:02:53.360 like waves and kind of people who are following a 2:02:53.440 --> 2:02:56.360 regular conflicts during this period in the late aughts because 2:02:56.360 --> 2:02:59.200 they're so successful in taking out these tanks that had 2:02:59.240 --> 2:03:02.200 previously been pretty hard to fuck up. And it's kind 2:03:02.240 --> 2:03:05.200 of you know, now, agtms in Ukraine are like one 2:03:05.240 --> 2:03:08.320 of the dominant weapons systems that has shaped the battlefield environment. 2:03:08.360 --> 2:03:10.640 But this is kind of when people start to realize, oh, fuck, 2:03:11.000 --> 2:03:13.280 you know Syria as well, these are This is really 2:03:13.360 --> 2:03:15.880 going to change a lot about how armor gets used. 2:03:16.240 --> 2:03:17.680 And this is also where we start to see the 2:03:17.720 --> 2:03:22.240 first Hothi deployments of ballistic missiles, which were used sort 2:03:22.280 --> 2:03:25.440 of they initially used them, not dissimilarly to how the 2:03:26.160 --> 2:03:29.600 Germans used V twos right in World War Two. There 2:03:29.640 --> 2:03:32.960 are terror weapons and they're used in retaliation for Saudi 2:03:33.000 --> 2:03:35.880 Arabia's use of a terror weapon, which is US jets 2:03:35.880 --> 2:03:38.360 and missiles. Right, So Saudi Arabia is terror bombing Yemen, 2:03:38.640 --> 2:03:42.120 and Yemen starts firing missiles back at Saudi Arabia because 2:03:42.360 --> 2:03:45.600 you know that's what you do, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. 2:03:45.680 --> 2:03:47.280 And I'm going to quote here from an article in 2:03:47.320 --> 2:03:51.040 the National News, quote Huthi militias and Yemen launched and 2:03:51.120 --> 2:03:53.440 this is from twenty twenty two. Huthi militias and Yemen 2:03:53.520 --> 2:03:56.160 launched ballistic missiles at Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia on 2:03:56.240 --> 2:03:59.120 Monday and the latest attack on neighboring states. Two missiles 2:03:59.160 --> 2:04:01.520 were destroyed in mid flight during the attempted terrorist attack 2:04:01.560 --> 2:04:04.040 on Abu Dhabi while in Saudi Arabia, one was shot 2:04:04.080 --> 2:04:07.160 down and another missile wounded two civilians in an industrial area. 2:04:07.560 --> 2:04:09.240 So this is that gives you an idea of like 2:04:09.560 --> 2:04:11.600 where they are a couple of years ago. And these 2:04:11.640 --> 2:04:15.000 are not super advanced cruise missiles, as you can see 2:04:15.040 --> 2:04:17.400 by that kind of like casualty rate. Right, they're not 2:04:17.560 --> 2:04:20.680 doing massive amounts of damage, but they caused terror. Right. 2:04:20.760 --> 2:04:22.720 It's scary to know that a missile could come out 2:04:22.720 --> 2:04:24.720 of the sky and kill some of you, and it's 2:04:25.040 --> 2:04:27.200 you know, from their perspective, how else are they going 2:04:27.280 --> 2:04:28.920 to strike back? They don't have an air force in 2:04:29.000 --> 2:04:31.400 the conventional sense, but what we do see here is 2:04:31.600 --> 2:04:34.160 by being able to carry out these attacks back on 2:04:34.400 --> 2:04:36.960 Saudi Arabia who's bombing them, despite not having an air 2:04:37.000 --> 2:04:40.960 force of their own. You already see how new technology 2:04:41.080 --> 2:04:44.600 and cruise missiles aren't new technology, but them being available 2:04:45.040 --> 2:04:48.560 to a non state actor is fairly new. You see 2:04:48.600 --> 2:04:51.320 how that has already changed the game in terms of 2:04:51.400 --> 2:04:53.880 like you can't really say the Saudis don't have this 2:04:54.400 --> 2:04:57.360 air supremacy. You can still say they have air supremacy 2:04:57.400 --> 2:04:59.840 because again, the Huthis don't have much in the way 2:04:59.840 --> 2:05:03.880 of air power at this point, but they can't stop 2:05:04.120 --> 2:05:06.880 missiles from hitting their cities entirely, which is a different 2:05:06.960 --> 2:05:09.640 game than when you know that's not really a possibility. 2:05:10.040 --> 2:05:14.720 The Houthy arsenal today includes a dizzying array of different Iranian, Soviet, Syrian, 2:05:14.840 --> 2:05:19.520 and indigenously produced rockets, including the Burkhan three missiles. These 2:05:19.560 --> 2:05:22.120 are for long range strikes up to twelve hundred kilometers, 2:05:22.400 --> 2:05:24.960 and the botter P one rockets, which have one hundred 2:05:24.960 --> 2:05:27.640 and twenty two one hundred and sixty kilometer range. They 2:05:27.680 --> 2:05:30.320 also have old Soviet Frog sevens, which are useful to 2:05:30.360 --> 2:05:34.080 about sixty five kilometers. None of these are accurate in 2:05:34.240 --> 2:05:37.240 cruise missile terms, you know, but they work well enough 2:05:37.280 --> 2:05:41.160 for the Houthy's purposes. The botter P is indigenously produced. 2:05:41.200 --> 2:05:43.480 It's made by the Houthies. It's thought to be based 2:05:43.520 --> 2:05:47.480 on the Syrian Kaibar rocket. It is unguided, and experts 2:05:47.520 --> 2:05:50.360 will say it's closer to being functioning as just like 2:05:50.600 --> 2:05:54.720 dumb artillery than an actual cruise missile. Un inspectors claim 2:05:54.800 --> 2:05:57.960 quote it is produced locally from steel tubing, very likely 2:05:58.080 --> 2:06:00.880 sourced from the oil industry. You hear this a lot 2:06:01.120 --> 2:06:03.240 in a regular conflict in the Middle East. When I 2:06:03.360 --> 2:06:07.000 was in Mosel covering the fighting with Isis, their mortars 2:06:07.040 --> 2:06:09.120 were made off out of tubing that was like part 2:06:09.160 --> 2:06:11.440 of construction projects. I think that traced back to the 2:06:11.480 --> 2:06:12.720 oil industry, at least some of it. 2:06:13.480 --> 2:06:13.600 Now. 2:06:13.640 --> 2:06:16.520 There are several variants of this rocket, like the botter. 2:06:16.520 --> 2:06:17.280 F and the P one. 2:06:17.320 --> 2:06:19.760 It's not really useful going through all of them. You 2:06:19.840 --> 2:06:23.320 can find some interesting studies on this, but it's not 2:06:23.480 --> 2:06:26.760 necessary to understand their capabilities. Their most accurate missile, as 2:06:26.800 --> 2:06:29.520 far as I can tell, is the OTR twenty one Totshka, 2:06:29.880 --> 2:06:32.440 which has a range of about seventy two one hundred 2:06:32.440 --> 2:06:35.440 and twenty kilometers and a four hundred and eighty kilogram payload. 2:06:35.840 --> 2:06:38.280 They only are believed to have a few dozen of these, 2:06:38.360 --> 2:06:41.120 although that's an estimate from an earlier report, and these 2:06:41.160 --> 2:06:43.520 were the ones they would use most regularly on ground 2:06:43.560 --> 2:06:46.520 targets during the Saudi intervention when they needed a precise strike. 2:06:46.560 --> 2:06:48.480 And I'm going to quote from an article and an 2:06:48.480 --> 2:06:52.120 analysis of their missile capability. The Huthis first fired a 2:06:52.200 --> 2:06:55.720 Tatchka missile in September twenty fifteen, targeting the coalitions that's 2:06:55.920 --> 2:06:59.280 the Saudi's software military base in Mareb, Yemen. The strike 2:06:59.360 --> 2:07:02.480 hit a weapons orige depot and killed sixty coalition soldiers. 2:07:02.720 --> 2:07:05.800 The Houthis fired another tachka on December fourteenth, twenty fifteen, 2:07:05.840 --> 2:07:09.160 targeting a coalition base south of Taia's City in Taia's Yemen. 2:07:09.600 --> 2:07:12.800 The strike reportedly killed over one hundred and twenty coalition soldiers. 2:07:13.000 --> 2:07:15.960 The most recently recorded tachka fire took place on November nineteenth, 2:07:16.040 --> 2:07:19.520 twenty sixteen, landing in a desert in eastern Marab Province. 2:07:19.760 --> 2:07:22.360 The target was unclear, but was likely the Arab Coalition's 2:07:22.400 --> 2:07:26.080 all weak military camp. So those are significant casualties. These 2:07:26.120 --> 2:07:28.640 are very effective weapons that do a lot of damage. 2:07:28.800 --> 2:07:28.960 Right. 2:07:29.560 --> 2:07:29.800 Yeah. 2:07:40.360 --> 2:07:44.040 Now, international experts, and especially if you read just kind 2:07:44.080 --> 2:07:46.880 of like think tank analysis of what the Hoothies are doing, 2:07:46.960 --> 2:07:50.320 we generally say all of this is only possible because 2:07:50.520 --> 2:07:53.640 of aid from Hisbolah and Iran. Right, That's the only 2:07:53.720 --> 2:07:56.560 reason the Houthis have these weapons. Right now, there is 2:07:56.600 --> 2:07:59.440 an arms embargo on Yemen. This has not stopped anyone 2:07:59.520 --> 2:08:00.880 from getting weapons to Yemen. 2:08:01.000 --> 2:08:01.160 Yeah. 2:08:01.200 --> 2:08:04.680 It also, to be very fair here, didn't stop anyone 2:08:04.720 --> 2:08:06.800 from didn't stop US from selling arms to the Saudis 2:08:06.840 --> 2:08:09.080 even though they're bringing those arms to Yemen, right. 2:08:09.360 --> 2:08:13.400 Yeah, yeah, fossible, ridiculous notion. 2:08:13.760 --> 2:08:15.560 Yeah, I don't know who you want to get angry 2:08:15.680 --> 2:08:17.960 or at here. I'm not really convinced either side is, 2:08:18.640 --> 2:08:21.600 you know, better than the other. Certainly the Saudis are 2:08:21.640 --> 2:08:25.240 not better, right right? Yeah that matters. 2:08:25.320 --> 2:08:25.640 I don't know. 2:08:25.760 --> 2:08:28.280 Yeah, yeah, it's just a shit situation for people who 2:08:28.280 --> 2:08:30.640 are trying to get home with me to not get 2:08:30.720 --> 2:08:31.160 blown up. 2:08:31.320 --> 2:08:35.840 Yes, yeah, really bad situation. I think that is over 2:08:36.000 --> 2:08:39.480 selling it a bit. Obviously, Iranian AID is critical to 2:08:39.520 --> 2:08:41.440 the Hoothies and that that has gotten them a lot 2:08:41.480 --> 2:08:43.800 of their advanced weapons systems, So I don't want to 2:08:43.920 --> 2:08:47.080 undersell it. But at this point they are making a 2:08:47.200 --> 2:08:50.520 significant chunk of these of these cruise missiles, specifically some 2:08:50.640 --> 2:08:54.720 of the less advanced ones indigenously, So because of the 2:08:54.800 --> 2:08:57.080 state things you could, I think it is accurate to 2:08:57.120 --> 2:08:59.720 say that Iran was crucial to them getting to that state. 2:08:59.800 --> 2:09:03.160 But even without Iranian aid's there's a signe probably a 2:09:03.200 --> 2:09:05.320 significant degree of time to which they could continue to 2:09:05.360 --> 2:09:08.200 produce some of these weapons because they are making them themselves. 2:09:08.680 --> 2:09:11.840 Yeah, they make three fifty eight missiles, right, like looid terrain, yeah, 2:09:11.880 --> 2:09:15.360 anti aircraft. Yeah, yes, even if Iran it's not supplying, 2:09:15.560 --> 2:09:19.160 it's probably worth noting that like this isn't like an 2:09:19.320 --> 2:09:23.840 Iranian design or concept at least, and it allows for 2:09:23.840 --> 2:09:26.680 a lot of testing, a lot of like a real 2:09:26.840 --> 2:09:30.240 world kind of verses the NATO US. 2:09:30.600 --> 2:09:34.000 Let's see Iranians, Yeah, to test their weaponry. And again 2:09:34.040 --> 2:09:36.400 I'm not trying to undersell how important they are, just 2:09:37.000 --> 2:09:38.280 you get a lot of like, well, if we can 2:09:38.360 --> 2:09:41.000 just cut off Iranian trade, the hoothies will collapse. I 2:09:41.840 --> 2:09:45.680 think that's accurate anymore. Yeah, you know, I can't say 2:09:45.720 --> 2:09:47.840 that to a point a certainty, but yeah, I think 2:09:47.880 --> 2:09:50.480 that that's kind of wishful thinking on behalf of some people. 2:09:50.720 --> 2:09:53.920 So these are great weapons for a non state militant group. Again, 2:09:54.000 --> 2:09:56.440 this is this stuff. If you think back ten fifteen years, 2:09:56.520 --> 2:09:59.960 the idea of a non state insurgent group having access 2:10:00.320 --> 2:10:03.040 to a cruise missile library like this, you know, not 2:10:03.160 --> 2:10:05.320 to say about like the other weapons they have, the 2:10:05.400 --> 2:10:07.280 drones and stuff they have, it would have been kind 2:10:07.320 --> 2:10:10.560 of unprecedented. That said, these are not good weapons in 2:10:10.600 --> 2:10:12.960 the modern military sense of the word. But I mean 2:10:13.000 --> 2:10:15.360 they are not very accurate for the most part, and 2:10:15.520 --> 2:10:17.600 compared to more advanced missiles like the kind of the 2:10:17.680 --> 2:10:20.920 United States, Russia and China have, they are easy to 2:10:21.120 --> 2:10:23.880 shoot down with the kind of weapons systems aboard say, 2:10:24.200 --> 2:10:27.600 US aircraft carriers. We will discuss that more later. This 2:10:27.800 --> 2:10:30.960 is largely inconsequential to what's been happening in the Red 2:10:31.040 --> 2:10:33.680 Sea because the vast majority of naval traffic that passes 2:10:33.720 --> 2:10:37.600 by Houthi territory does not have access to say FAYLANX, 2:10:37.760 --> 2:10:41.400 FELANX systems. Yeah, you don't have much in the way 2:10:41.440 --> 2:10:43.760 of anti missile systems on a normal containers. 2:10:44.040 --> 2:10:49.240 Yeah, no, you have fanti bridge antiah rhyming devices. But like, yeah, 2:10:49.280 --> 2:10:51.440 it doesn't matter if your missile is not super accurate, 2:10:51.480 --> 2:10:53.640 if it can't defeat these expensive systems, if you're just 2:10:54.120 --> 2:10:57.120 eating them into a narrow channel anything that goes past 2:10:57.320 --> 2:10:58.120 right right right. 2:10:58.400 --> 2:11:00.440 Yeah, And the Houthis are aware of that, and this 2:11:00.560 --> 2:11:03.400 is again an intelligent strategy on their part. You know, 2:11:03.480 --> 2:11:05.800 sometimes people get angry when you say that because they 2:11:05.920 --> 2:11:08.000 point out horrible things the Hoothis have done, which I 2:11:08.040 --> 2:11:09.760 don't want to deny, but we're not talking about the 2:11:09.800 --> 2:11:12.080 overall morality of this conflict. We're talking about how these 2:11:12.120 --> 2:11:13.240 tactics work, right. 2:11:13.320 --> 2:11:16.440 Right, Like the Nazis had intelligent and strategies as well. 2:11:16.520 --> 2:11:18.560 They were terrible fucking people, and I'm glad they asked 2:11:18.640 --> 2:11:21.440 them are mostly dead, but like, yeah, yeah, we would 2:11:21.440 --> 2:11:23.720 be unwise to just dismiss everything that they've been know. 2:11:24.320 --> 2:11:27.000 No, And likewise, the fact that the Houthi's right now 2:11:27.120 --> 2:11:29.240 that this interdiction of the Red Sea is based on 2:11:29.280 --> 2:11:31.880 an attempt to stop the genocide in Gaza, which I 2:11:31.960 --> 2:11:34.880 don't think it's going to work, but I would like 2:11:35.000 --> 2:11:38.080 it if somehow it did. That also does not have 2:11:38.160 --> 2:11:40.720 an impact on how this is working strategically, right, You 2:11:40.800 --> 2:11:42.920 are kind of setting all of that aside to just 2:11:42.960 --> 2:11:46.800 talk about how this is functioning, you know. Yeah. So 2:11:47.000 --> 2:11:49.680 in recent years, the Houthis have expanded their stock of 2:11:49.760 --> 2:11:53.000 anti ship missiles. In an article for the International Institute 2:11:53.040 --> 2:11:56.240 for Strategic Studies, a guy named Fabian hens Rights quote 2:11:56.680 --> 2:11:59.680 the parades these are Houthy military parades also featured of 2:11:59.760 --> 2:12:03.400 right of anti ship ballistic missiles ASBMs and guided rockets 2:12:03.400 --> 2:12:07.360 employing Iranian infrared or imaging infrared seeker technology. The four 2:12:07.440 --> 2:12:10.040 hundred and fifty kilometer range CEF appears to be a 2:12:10.200 --> 2:12:13.680 rebranded ASBM version of Iran's FATA three one three missile, 2:12:13.960 --> 2:12:16.840 while the Tongue Kill represents a previously unseen anti ship 2:12:17.000 --> 2:12:21.760 version of the IRGC Iranian Revolutionary GUARDCOREPS developed five hundred 2:12:21.800 --> 2:12:25.560 kilometer range so higher. The two designs constitute the heaviest, 2:12:25.600 --> 2:12:28.040 hoothy anti ship missiles, both with warheads of more than 2:12:28.040 --> 2:12:32.240 three hundred kilograms and are of Iranian origin. Three smaller ASBMs. 2:12:32.280 --> 2:12:34.800 The one hundred and forty kilometer range FLEK, the Mayun 2:12:34.960 --> 2:12:38.680 and the bar al Amar strongly resemble Iranian design philosophy 2:12:38.760 --> 2:12:42.640 and seeker technology, but do not precisely match known Iranian systems. 2:12:42.800 --> 2:12:45.240 They could either be Iranian systems not observed before in 2:12:45.320 --> 2:12:48.520 smuggle to Yemen, or Huthi produced rockets combined using Iranian 2:12:48.560 --> 2:12:51.880 guidance skits, not unlike developments made by another Iran proxy, 2:12:51.960 --> 2:12:54.840 the Lebanese has Belah in its precition guided surface to 2:12:55.120 --> 2:12:58.280 surface missile program. Finally, the Huthis have presented an S 2:12:58.360 --> 2:13:01.480 seventy five SA two surface to air missile, likely from 2:13:01.520 --> 2:13:04.120 pre war ye many army stocks modified for an anti 2:13:04.160 --> 2:13:07.840 ship role using an Iranian guidance kit. So that's that's 2:13:07.960 --> 2:13:11.160 that's a potent and it's probably more some ways more 2:13:11.240 --> 2:13:14.600 advanced than their general cruise missile stockpile arsenal for taking 2:13:14.640 --> 2:13:17.880 out ships. Now, the Houthis are still a non state force. 2:13:18.000 --> 2:13:21.120 When people say online that like the us IS is 2:13:21.360 --> 2:13:24.160 fighting Yemen, not quite accurate, because the Huthis are fighting 2:13:24.240 --> 2:13:26.520 Yemen too, right, like the government if you're if you're 2:13:26.680 --> 2:13:28.760 saying government, you're talking about the people. Well, people in 2:13:28.880 --> 2:13:31.800 Yemen are fighting each other, right, yeah, it's it's that 2:13:32.000 --> 2:13:34.280 is the situation. They are at war with the government 2:13:34.360 --> 2:13:36.200 of Yemen, right, that is still right case. 2:13:36.080 --> 2:13:39.160 We're fighting, we're shooting missiles at Yemen, but yet like 2:13:39.440 --> 2:13:41.640 as a geographical area, right than in the state. 2:13:42.160 --> 2:13:45.640 Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the Huthis did not survive years 2:13:45.680 --> 2:13:48.320 of intense bombing by Saudi Arabia and a nation with 2:13:48.400 --> 2:13:51.320 an on paper extremely modern military by making a lot 2:13:51.360 --> 2:13:54.080 of stupid mistakes. So when they decided to attack shipping 2:13:54.120 --> 2:13:56.880 in the Red Sea after Israel launched their genocidal campaign 2:13:56.880 --> 2:13:59.920 against Gaza, they did so with a competent plan, which 2:14:00.120 --> 2:14:02.560 was to make civilian freight travel in the area too 2:14:02.720 --> 2:14:06.320 dangerous to continue. Their stated goal here is to force 2:14:06.480 --> 2:14:09.280 damage on Israel and the Western nations who support it 2:14:09.480 --> 2:14:12.280 by hitting the only thing they care about, commerce, and 2:14:12.520 --> 2:14:15.520 their actions here have done real damage to international trade, 2:14:16.080 --> 2:14:20.760 not exclusively Western international trade. I should note the latest 2:14:20.880 --> 2:14:23.560 several months have seen them capture or sink a couple 2:14:23.600 --> 2:14:26.920 of merchant vessels. They've sunk one. They've hit at least 2:14:26.960 --> 2:14:30.560 sixteen vessels with drones and missiles. I found a Bloomberg 2:14:30.640 --> 2:14:33.400 report with the telling title houthy missiles do far more 2:14:33.480 --> 2:14:36.200 damage to trade than to actual ships, which is an 2:14:36.200 --> 2:14:39.640 interesting way to frame it. Yeah, and they're kind of 2:14:39.680 --> 2:14:42.839 trying to minimize what's going on here. While sixteen strikes 2:14:42.960 --> 2:14:45.000 is a large number for the industry to withstand, there 2:14:45.040 --> 2:14:47.440 have been even more failed attempts. Since the Hoothies began 2:14:47.520 --> 2:14:49.560 their attacks, there have been more than sixty incidents of 2:14:49.600 --> 2:14:52.240 some kind in and around the waterway, including everything from 2:14:52.280 --> 2:14:55.120 near misses to hijackings and harassment by armed militants and 2:14:55.200 --> 2:14:57.480 small boats. If you look at the damage that's occurred 2:14:57.480 --> 2:14:59.720 in most of these incidents, it has not been significant, 2:15:00.200 --> 2:15:02.760 said Marcus Baker, head of the Marine and cargo at Marsh, 2:15:03.000 --> 2:15:05.480 one of the world's top insurance brokers. So far, we 2:15:05.560 --> 2:15:07.840 haven't seen a total loss caused by a missile strike. 2:15:08.360 --> 2:15:11.320 That changed in March when the Houthi successfully sank the 2:15:11.400 --> 2:15:14.080 Ruby Mar despite more than a month of US strikes 2:15:14.120 --> 2:15:17.400 to degrade their capability. The vessel was initially wounded and 2:15:17.480 --> 2:15:21.440 drifted unmanned for almost two weeks before sinking. While it listed, 2:15:21.560 --> 2:15:24.400 A Hoothy representative promised the ship could be salvaged if 2:15:24.440 --> 2:15:27.480 aid trucks were allowed to enter Gaza. Ruby Mar wound 2:15:27.560 --> 2:15:28.240 up sinking. 2:15:28.560 --> 2:15:28.720 Now. 2:15:28.840 --> 2:15:31.280 Hoothi strikes have also hit at least one ship bound 2:15:31.360 --> 2:15:34.240 for Iran and another that was going to be delivering 2:15:34.240 --> 2:15:37.840 aid supplies to Yemen. At least three civilian sailors have 2:15:37.920 --> 2:15:39.880 been killed thus far, and a strike on a bulk 2:15:39.920 --> 2:15:43.640 carrier named the True Confidence. Now, how you kind of 2:15:43.800 --> 2:15:46.360 interpret this as a success by the Houthy stated goals, 2:15:46.400 --> 2:15:49.680 which is right, to inflict enough pain on the West 2:15:49.800 --> 2:15:55.040 and on Israel economically that it forces an earlier end 2:15:55.280 --> 2:15:57.560 to what Israel is doing in Gaza, Right, if that's 2:15:57.600 --> 2:16:00.880 their goal, Well, it hasn't happened yet, right, That's one 2:16:00.920 --> 2:16:03.800 thing we can say right, it has not yet. There's 2:16:03.880 --> 2:16:06.000 no evidence that I have seen that it has affected 2:16:06.080 --> 2:16:08.640 the tempo of Israeli operations substantially. 2:16:08.800 --> 2:16:12.160 You know, yeah, it would seem it does not so different, 2:16:12.520 --> 2:16:15.680 and obviously as an incentive for the United States and 2:16:15.800 --> 2:16:20.879 other international actors to like not let this tactics succeed, 2:16:21.320 --> 2:16:24.320 because you do not want a world in which I 2:16:24.440 --> 2:16:26.440 think it's not unreasonably. There's a thing called the right 2:16:26.520 --> 2:16:28.680 to protect an international law, which is probably what the 2:16:28.760 --> 2:16:31.080 heaths are claiming they have of the acting under it, 2:16:31.440 --> 2:16:34.439 and that's not, like, on the face of it, unreasonable, 2:16:35.120 --> 2:16:37.080 But yet I think the US has this very like 2:16:37.160 --> 2:16:39.440 strong incentive to not let it become a thing that 2:16:39.560 --> 2:16:40.160 keeps happening. 2:16:40.280 --> 2:16:43.920 Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised we sent a carrier group 2:16:43.959 --> 2:16:45.879 into the area. I'm also not surprised that that does 2:16:45.920 --> 2:16:47.800 not seem to be working either. Right, If you are 2:16:47.920 --> 2:16:50.880 judging how the US is acting and how the Houthis 2:16:50.879 --> 2:16:53.000 are acting based on their stated goals, the Houthis have 2:16:53.120 --> 2:16:56.240 not yet accomplished their stated goal with these strikes, and 2:16:56.520 --> 2:16:58.920 the US air strikes do not seem to have stopped 2:16:58.920 --> 2:17:01.600 the Houthis from being a to interdict naval traffic in 2:17:01.680 --> 2:17:05.360 the Red Sea. Right, there's I've heard some argument that 2:17:05.480 --> 2:17:08.040 the tempo is reduced since the US got there, But 2:17:08.080 --> 2:17:09.720 it's also one clear to me is like, well, they 2:17:09.800 --> 2:17:11.680 only have a limited amount of these missiles, right. Has 2:17:11.720 --> 2:17:15.920 the TiO changed because they need to marshal their ammunition effectively, 2:17:16.120 --> 2:17:18.640 or has it changed because there's been damage done to 2:17:18.720 --> 2:17:21.520 their infrastructure. I don't know that we'll ever really get 2:17:21.800 --> 2:17:23.880 a perfect answer on that, right, I know the US 2:17:24.000 --> 2:17:25.960 claims that it has. You know, we claim that our 2:17:25.959 --> 2:17:28.920 strikes have weakened them, but we always claim that, right, 2:17:29.320 --> 2:17:29.560 you know. 2:17:29.840 --> 2:17:34.000 Yeah, I mean yeah, we're gonna say, right, yeah, we 2:17:34.080 --> 2:17:35.679 all lived through Afghanistan. 2:17:35.879 --> 2:17:38.960 Right, you're aware of what the US says about shit 2:17:39.200 --> 2:17:39.360 like this. 2:17:40.000 --> 2:17:41.520 Yeah, I mean it would look pretty bad if we 2:17:41.600 --> 2:17:44.760 were like, now, dude, we just heated billions of ammunitions. 2:17:47.560 --> 2:17:52.040 Maxavel for US. It's unclear how much damaged the Hoothies 2:17:52.080 --> 2:17:54.279 have actually done to the global economy. As a consequence 2:17:54.320 --> 2:17:56.400 of all this, traffic has dropped to the Red Sea 2:17:56.480 --> 2:17:59.199 by about thirty five percent, and since the sea carries 2:17:59.200 --> 2:18:02.360 about twenty percent of global trade, that's a major hit. 2:18:02.760 --> 2:18:05.600 But it hasn't stopped trade through the Red Sea either. Again, 2:18:05.760 --> 2:18:09.240 most trade is still you knows, most of the pre 2:18:09.360 --> 2:18:11.760 war level is still occurring. Thirty five percent is a 2:18:11.840 --> 2:18:14.720 substantial drop. That is a hit, and it's hurt a 2:18:14.800 --> 2:18:15.480 lot of people. 2:18:15.680 --> 2:18:15.800 Right. 2:18:16.240 --> 2:18:18.320 It also has not wholly blocked like there's a longer 2:18:18.400 --> 2:18:20.520 route you can take around Africa to get into the 2:18:20.560 --> 2:18:23.200 Red Sea, but that makes everything more expensive too. The 2:18:23.320 --> 2:18:26.600 country hurt most is actually Egypt, because Egypt depends on 2:18:26.640 --> 2:18:29.240 the Suez Canal for about a quarter of its currency earnings, 2:18:29.600 --> 2:18:31.520 and you go through the Red Sea to get to 2:18:31.560 --> 2:18:34.360 the Suez Canal. For reasons that are obvious if you 2:18:34.400 --> 2:18:47.480 look at a map. Right, people who rightly see what's 2:18:47.480 --> 2:18:50.080 happening in Gaza as a crime against humanity are unlikely 2:18:50.160 --> 2:18:52.880 to care too much about the Egyptian economy, nor should 2:18:52.920 --> 2:18:56.000 they necessarily. But the bigger questions here are can the 2:18:56.080 --> 2:18:58.600 hoo He's actually force an into what Israel's doing? And 2:18:58.760 --> 2:19:01.040 how long can they keep this up? The answer to 2:19:01.080 --> 2:19:03.240 the first question, can the Houthi's force it into his 2:19:03.480 --> 2:19:06.440 reely aggression is not yet. And the answer to the 2:19:06.600 --> 2:19:08.880 second question is how long can they keep this up? 2:19:09.240 --> 2:19:11.800 I don't know, they might be able to eventually bring 2:19:11.879 --> 2:19:15.320 about international pressure through economic damage, but given the state 2:19:15.400 --> 2:19:17.800 of the US presidential election, I don't see that as 2:19:17.920 --> 2:19:21.640 particularly likely a method for changing net and Yahu's behavior. 2:19:22.240 --> 2:19:25.520 The answer to the second question is, you know, you know, 2:19:25.600 --> 2:19:28.200 how long can they keep this up? Probably forever? Right, 2:19:28.840 --> 2:19:31.959 US strikes have been lauded by the US as damaging infrastructure, 2:19:31.959 --> 2:19:34.240 but we don't know that that's true. Our air strikes 2:19:34.240 --> 2:19:36.080 in the region have been launched by the USS. D 2:19:36.080 --> 2:19:38.680 White D. Eisenhower, the head of the carrier strike Group 2:19:38.760 --> 2:19:40.920 in the Red Sea at present. And again, when you 2:19:40.959 --> 2:19:43.600 look at kind of like leftists analyzing this, because they 2:19:43.600 --> 2:19:46.200 don't often know much about the military, you'll get a 2:19:46.280 --> 2:19:48.120 mix of like people being like, ah, the houthis are 2:19:48.120 --> 2:19:49.680 going to kill a carrier because they put out a 2:19:49.760 --> 2:19:51.720 video of like a carrier in their sites and shit, 2:19:51.800 --> 2:19:54.440 and like, I don't think so, guys, doesn't seem likely. 2:19:55.200 --> 2:19:58.560 These are very well defended ships, and they are very 2:19:58.720 --> 2:20:01.160 competently led. Look I have looked into the capital of 2:20:01.240 --> 2:20:04.080 the ship, I've looked into how they have handled the 2:20:04.360 --> 2:20:07.280 considerable tempo of tax against them. I think that these 2:20:07.320 --> 2:20:10.840 guys are operationally competent as the US tends to be. Now, 2:20:10.920 --> 2:20:13.760 that doesn't mean they're going to win. The US US 2:20:13.879 --> 2:20:17.959 soldiers tend to be operationally competent most of the time, 2:20:18.320 --> 2:20:21.880 and we also lose a lot, right because operational competence 2:20:22.120 --> 2:20:25.800 doesn't matter if the operations you're being asked to undertake 2:20:25.959 --> 2:20:28.360 have no chance of victory. And that is more or 2:20:28.440 --> 2:20:30.880 less the situation. I think that these sailors are in 2:20:31.160 --> 2:20:34.640 right where they're pretty good at sailing around in an 2:20:34.640 --> 2:20:37.600 aircraft carrier and not getting killed. But that doesn't mean 2:20:37.640 --> 2:20:39.920 they're going to defeat the Houthies in a meaningful way 2:20:40.080 --> 2:20:42.840 right right, And the Hoothies are aware of this. They're 2:20:42.840 --> 2:20:45.960 in a holding pattern. They understand that the primary thing 2:20:46.280 --> 2:20:51.320 that is that all of strategy really hinges around stopping 2:20:51.440 --> 2:20:55.039 and denying terrain to the enemy. And all the Hoothies 2:20:55.080 --> 2:20:57.200 have to do to deny a significant amount of terrain 2:20:57.360 --> 2:21:01.280 to the entire west is keep lobbing missiles, often blindly, 2:21:01.720 --> 2:21:04.520 in this sea and it will make everything more expensive 2:21:04.600 --> 2:21:07.640 for everybody, keep them in the news, and that's a win. 2:21:07.840 --> 2:21:12.440 And it's unlikely, if not basically impossible, that using current methods, 2:21:13.080 --> 2:21:17.680 the US Navy and US you know, airpower in this area, 2:21:17.840 --> 2:21:19.400 based in this carrier group is going to be able 2:21:19.440 --> 2:21:21.240 to do anything but spend a shitload of money. 2:21:21.760 --> 2:21:21.880 Now. 2:21:22.000 --> 2:21:24.640 US Navy officers in recent weeks have reported attacks by 2:21:24.640 --> 2:21:29.039 both anti ship missiles, regular cruise missiles swarms of unmanned 2:21:29.080 --> 2:21:31.959 aerial drones, which has led to a general conclusion among 2:21:32.040 --> 2:21:34.960 people who analyze this stuff that drone swarms are going 2:21:35.000 --> 2:21:38.160 to be a significant part of naval warfare in the 2:21:38.720 --> 2:21:43.120 immediate future. Right, you can overwhelm you know, the houthis 2:21:43.640 --> 2:21:46.000 you know. As impressive as their drone swarms are, for 2:21:46.120 --> 2:21:48.840 a nonstate actor cannot put together the kind of a 2:21:48.879 --> 2:21:51.640 swarm that a state actor like China, for example, could. 2:21:52.080 --> 2:21:54.960 But people are looking at how close some hits have 2:21:55.080 --> 2:21:57.320 gotten to the carriers and being like, well, shit, if 2:21:57.360 --> 2:21:59.200 you add a lot more of these things, you could 2:21:59.280 --> 2:22:01.600 really cost some fucking problems for these boats. 2:22:01.760 --> 2:22:01.920 Right. 2:22:02.360 --> 2:22:06.119 Yeah. They have also used unmanned boats and unmanned underwater vessels. 2:22:06.160 --> 2:22:09.440 These are basically unmanned drone boats with explosives in them, right, 2:22:09.520 --> 2:22:12.959 and again, significantly more of these could potentially do some damage. 2:22:13.280 --> 2:22:16.400 This is, by any account, the most direct combat US 2:22:16.520 --> 2:22:19.000 naval forces have seen since World War Two. And one 2:22:19.040 --> 2:22:20.960 thing I fun thing I've learned reading articles about the 2:22:21.040 --> 2:22:23.400 operation is that our jets now get kill markers for 2:22:23.520 --> 2:22:24.400 the bombs they drop. 2:22:24.480 --> 2:22:24.840 Yeah. 2:22:24.920 --> 2:22:28.600 Yeah, you can be a drone ace or not a drone, 2:22:29.000 --> 2:22:30.400 a missile downing ace. 2:22:30.680 --> 2:22:30.880 Yeah. 2:22:30.959 --> 2:22:33.120 Yeah, it's like, I don't know, may I guess it 2:22:33.240 --> 2:22:36.120 makes sense whatever, it just it doesn't look as impressive. 2:22:36.760 --> 2:22:40.160 I did some googling. I guess you could become an 2:22:40.160 --> 2:22:42.560 ace shooting down barrage balloons in World War One. 2:22:42.680 --> 2:22:44.800 But yeah, the gag shooting back. 2:22:44.920 --> 2:22:47.560 Yeah yeah, they were very defense strongly defended. Yeah, it's 2:22:47.560 --> 2:22:49.800 a little different of V two rockets, I guess in 2:22:49.879 --> 2:22:51.960 World War Two. I did also find out that the 2:22:52.120 --> 2:22:56.280 navel some of the unmanned underwater vehicles are replacing. More's 2:22:56.360 --> 2:22:59.480 the pity the seals and dolphins that were previously in 2:22:59.600 --> 2:23:00.560 USNAV service. 2:23:00.680 --> 2:23:04.280 I don't mean seals like no, no, no, literal yeah, 2:23:04.320 --> 2:23:09.160 like literal seals heartbreaking, yeah, very In San Diego, I 2:23:09.560 --> 2:23:10.480 often go past them. 2:23:11.920 --> 2:23:13.480 You know what the seals don't want to do or 2:23:13.760 --> 2:23:17.000 they well again added the marine mammals. The other seals 2:23:17.160 --> 2:23:17.440 very much. 2:23:17.480 --> 2:23:20.960 The dolphins might I remember from the documentary SeaQuest that 2:23:21.040 --> 2:23:22.800 they that they enjoy naval service. 2:23:24.360 --> 2:23:27.280 I think all SeaQuest, James, I've not I've not watched 2:23:27.320 --> 2:23:28.840 Sea Quest. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. 2:23:28.879 --> 2:23:31.640 It's It's Star Trek, the next generation Underwater, but the 2:23:31.760 --> 2:23:34.320 role of Picard is played by the sheriff from Jaws. 2:23:34.680 --> 2:23:37.920 It's actually fantastic. Great. Yeah, I'm looking looking forward to 2:23:37.959 --> 2:23:42.520 being exposed to more of this universe. I'm hoping that 2:23:42.680 --> 2:23:45.400 the the Dolphins join force with the Orcas and take 2:23:45.480 --> 2:23:48.320 on the super rich with that using the skills given 2:23:48.360 --> 2:23:49.840 to them by the US military. 2:23:49.920 --> 2:23:53.920 In Challah, James. So, when it comes to the economics 2:23:54.040 --> 2:23:55.920 of this conflict, and a lot of this does come 2:23:56.000 --> 2:23:59.240 down economics, right, what the Houthy are doing is an 2:23:59.320 --> 2:24:04.480 incredibly efficient, good ass deal for them. These drones, specifically, 2:24:04.560 --> 2:24:06.760 a lot of what they've done. They fired missiles, but 2:24:06.959 --> 2:24:09.000 like those are expensive, they don't have a lot of them. 2:24:09.080 --> 2:24:11.160 I think that at this point they would prefer to 2:24:11.320 --> 2:24:14.480 use those on ships that cannot defend against them. They 2:24:14.520 --> 2:24:17.000 have since some manned boats, which the US has fucking 2:24:17.120 --> 2:24:19.680 mrked immediately, and they don't seem to be doing that 2:24:19.800 --> 2:24:22.280 anymore because it's dumb and the Hoothies didn't get where 2:24:22.280 --> 2:24:24.760 they did by repeatedly doing dumb shit. What they seem 2:24:24.760 --> 2:24:27.960 to have settled on is sending out drone swarms. Both 2:24:27.959 --> 2:24:30.920 of these boats, these underwater drones and of aerial drones, 2:24:31.280 --> 2:24:33.600 and these things can cost just a few thousand dollars each. 2:24:33.640 --> 2:24:35.040 Some of the biggest ones are probably more like tens 2:24:35.080 --> 2:24:37.560 of thousands of dollars. But the navy missiles that we 2:24:37.720 --> 2:24:39.840 use to interdict this shit and some of these, they 2:24:39.920 --> 2:24:42.320 also have some dumber cruise missiles that are pretty cheap. 2:24:42.800 --> 2:24:45.000 The missiles we use to interdict this shit are two 2:24:45.040 --> 2:24:46.520 point one million dollars is shot. 2:24:46.760 --> 2:24:46.920 Right. 2:24:47.280 --> 2:24:49.440 This is all in an adition to the insane cost 2:24:49.520 --> 2:24:52.240 of keeping a carrier battlegroup in the field and fighting. 2:24:52.400 --> 2:24:55.400 It's not at all cheap. I found one political article 2:24:55.440 --> 2:24:58.480 that quotes a DoD official admitting the cost offset is 2:24:58.600 --> 2:25:02.160 not on our side. Now we have some cheaper systems 2:25:02.200 --> 2:25:05.360 that can work really well on particularly drones. They can 2:25:05.480 --> 2:25:08.080 work on missiles too. We've used them and that these 2:25:08.080 --> 2:25:12.199 are air burst shells fired from the conventional guns on destroyers. 2:25:12.720 --> 2:25:15.520 These have worked really well, especially against drones and tests, 2:25:15.600 --> 2:25:18.080 but they're only effective from about ten miles or less away. 2:25:18.480 --> 2:25:21.920 In ballistic missile terms, that's extremely close. You don't want 2:25:21.959 --> 2:25:25.160 to rely on these for as and it's not even 2:25:25.200 --> 2:25:28.160 all that far away in drone terms right As a result, 2:25:28.320 --> 2:25:31.240 the US has expanded research into more efficient anti drone 2:25:31.280 --> 2:25:34.160 and anti missile weapons, including what amounts to laser, laser 2:25:34.240 --> 2:25:36.960 and microwave weapons that could be fired indefinitely for the 2:25:37.000 --> 2:25:40.080 cost of electricity. Given the nature of these weapons, that's 2:25:40.120 --> 2:25:43.000 not insignificant either, but it's a lot less than two 2:25:43.040 --> 2:25:45.520 point one million is shot. As is always the case, 2:25:45.560 --> 2:25:47.480 the kind of fight the Huthies are waging right now 2:25:47.720 --> 2:25:50.720 has an expiration eight right now. Any group that can 2:25:50.800 --> 2:25:53.920 put together a few million dollars to make hundreds and 2:25:54.040 --> 2:25:56.760 hundreds of explosive drones right which a number of groups 2:25:56.760 --> 2:26:00.840 are capable of, could at least exact a substantial toll 2:26:01.320 --> 2:26:04.519 on a US carrier battlegroup, make it, spend a shitload 2:26:04.560 --> 2:26:08.200 of money, potentially even do some damage. And again, even 2:26:08.240 --> 2:26:10.640 if this stuff hits an aircraft carrier, you're like very 2:26:10.720 --> 2:26:13.560 unlikely to see that thing sink. There's a story that's 2:26:13.560 --> 2:26:16.160 worth knowing that, Like when we decommissioned one of our 2:26:16.200 --> 2:26:19.240 aircraft carriers fifteen or twenty years ago. They started. They 2:26:19.320 --> 2:26:21.600 shot at a bunch like they just to see like 2:26:22.000 --> 2:26:24.240 how well it would hold up, and like they such 2:26:24.280 --> 2:26:27.800 a great sink and they couldn't sink the fucker. Like, 2:26:28.760 --> 2:26:30.640 you can do that, you could kill sailors. It would 2:26:30.680 --> 2:26:32.279 be a big deal if they hit a fucking aircraft 2:26:32.280 --> 2:26:34.280 carrier and killed some sailors, even if the carrier doesn't 2:26:34.280 --> 2:26:36.320 go down, that's a huge fucking deal. I don't know 2:26:36.360 --> 2:26:38.440 that they're capable of doing that, but it's unlikely they're 2:26:38.480 --> 2:26:39.760 going to kill one, right. 2:26:40.360 --> 2:26:42.480 Right, Yeah, they got to send one to the bonomiation. 2:26:42.720 --> 2:26:45.480 Yeah, hard, It's hard to do, right. They're made not 2:26:45.680 --> 2:26:48.440 to sink, and they're pretty fucking big. But one can 2:26:48.520 --> 2:26:51.080 imagine kind of a future in which the war the 2:26:51.120 --> 2:26:53.800 Hoothies are waging right now is rendered kind of impossible 2:26:53.879 --> 2:26:56.800 because weapons like that are positioned permanently around say the 2:26:56.920 --> 2:26:59.879 Red Sea, blanketing into defense grid that basically kill any 2:27:00.080 --> 2:27:03.199 thing fired into the sea. That's something that might happen 2:27:03.240 --> 2:27:06.520 in the future if this continues. But that's also just 2:27:06.640 --> 2:27:08.920 the way war works, right. You know, the Hoothies ten 2:27:08.959 --> 2:27:11.480 to fifteen years ago wouldn't have been able to wage 2:27:11.560 --> 2:27:13.680 a war like this against the US Navy. They fought 2:27:13.720 --> 2:27:15.480 the Navy to a stand still. That's the only way 2:27:15.520 --> 2:27:18.040 to analyze this, right, and again, that doesn't mean either 2:27:18.040 --> 2:27:20.560 side is achieving their operational goals. Right, The Houthis have 2:27:20.680 --> 2:27:23.480 not ended the genocide in Gaza, and the US doesn't 2:27:23.520 --> 2:27:25.840 seem to be capable of ending the Houthis. So they 2:27:25.879 --> 2:27:28.080 fought each other to a stand still in this matter. 2:27:28.160 --> 2:27:30.680 And that wouldn't have been possible twenty years ago. So right, 2:27:31.080 --> 2:27:33.720 twenty years from now, what's going on will be different. 2:27:33.879 --> 2:27:36.240 You know, the fact that the US seems to be 2:27:36.360 --> 2:27:39.000 pretty close to developing more efficient anti drone and anti 2:27:39.040 --> 2:27:41.600 missile weapons that are a lot cheaper to use doesn't 2:27:41.640 --> 2:27:44.480 mean that non state actors will not find a way 2:27:44.520 --> 2:27:46.760 around those. But that is the situation we're in right 2:27:46.879 --> 2:27:49.680 now with the Houthis, and that is the end of 2:27:49.760 --> 2:27:52.000 this episode. We're going to get back to you tomorrow 2:27:52.320 --> 2:27:54.760 for part two, where're going to talk about irregular naval 2:27:54.800 --> 2:27:58.360 warfare in Ukraine and Myanmar. James, you got anything else 2:27:58.400 --> 2:28:01.000 to say, No, I didn't think. So you need to 2:28:01.080 --> 2:28:02.680 be a bad day to be a boat. I guess 2:28:03.480 --> 2:28:05.440 bad day to be a boat, bad day to be 2:28:05.520 --> 2:28:08.080 a drone. They're really suffering in this. 2:28:08.200 --> 2:28:11.640 Yeah, it's a great day to be a military contractor, 2:28:11.720 --> 2:28:14.120 which is oh my god, such a good time to 2:28:14.160 --> 2:28:15.520 be a military contractor. 2:28:15.920 --> 2:28:18.440 Whether you're doing it for a run or the United States. 2:28:18.560 --> 2:28:21.600 You are, you are, you are in Clover right. 2:28:21.600 --> 2:28:24.840 Now, which is a massive change from the entirety of 2:28:24.920 --> 2:28:25.840 this century so far. 2:28:25.920 --> 2:28:26.640 So that's nice. 2:28:27.160 --> 2:28:30.039 Yeah, it's nice to see the military contractors finally pick 2:28:30.120 --> 2:28:30.480 up a win. 2:28:30.920 --> 2:28:32.360 Yeah, yeah, one for them. 2:28:32.959 --> 2:28:35.600 That's been It could Happen Here. We'll be back tomorrow. 2:28:48.959 --> 2:28:52.520 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here and our special 2:28:52.720 --> 2:28:57.600 two part series Irregular Naval Warfare and You, where James 2:28:57.680 --> 2:29:00.880 and I teach you how you too can challenge the 2:29:01.080 --> 2:29:04.280 US Navy's dominance of the seas or at least the 2:29:04.440 --> 2:29:08.960 coasts for fun and profit. Actually today, last episode we 2:29:09.080 --> 2:29:12.480 talked about people challenging the US Navy's coastal dominance. Today 2:29:12.520 --> 2:29:15.800 we're talking about doing the same thing for the Russian Navy. 2:29:16.120 --> 2:29:18.200 So that's going to be fun. And of course the 2:29:18.320 --> 2:29:20.760 Navy of mianmar which is a bit of a different 2:29:20.800 --> 2:29:23.960 class from the US and Russian Navy, but no less interesting. 2:29:25.000 --> 2:29:27.280 Yeah, still fun. I'd love to see a boat lose. 2:29:27.520 --> 2:29:27.680 Yeah. 2:29:27.720 --> 2:29:29.640 Well, I just like boats going down, you know, I 2:29:29.720 --> 2:29:32.480 just hate a boat. Yeah yeah, us the jocas many 2:29:33.320 --> 2:29:36.480 many such cases. Yeah, I'm going to start with Ukraine, 2:29:36.560 --> 2:29:38.240 and then we're going to throw to James to talk 2:29:38.280 --> 2:29:41.560 about our friends in Myanmar and how they have repurposed 2:29:41.600 --> 2:29:46.920 civilian technology and stolen weapons to counter a navy without 2:29:47.000 --> 2:29:50.840 really having one of their own. But first Ukraine. In 2:29:50.879 --> 2:29:53.800 twenty fourteen, when the Russian Army invaded eastern Ukraine and 2:29:53.840 --> 2:29:57.240 took Crimea, Ukraine lost a significant portion of it's already 2:29:57.400 --> 2:30:00.720 not that impressive navy. Most of their boats were just 2:30:00.920 --> 2:30:04.000 taken by Russia, along with a number of sailors who defected. 2:30:04.360 --> 2:30:06.880 A lot of other sailors fled the region, leaving behind 2:30:06.920 --> 2:30:09.760 their homes and cities like Sebastopol to continue serving their 2:30:09.760 --> 2:30:13.160 country in a war that a decade later is still ongoing. 2:30:13.800 --> 2:30:16.160 One of these sailors, who is a Sebastopol native and 2:30:16.280 --> 2:30:19.160 had to flee his home, possibly forever, in order to 2:30:19.280 --> 2:30:23.080 continue serving his country, is the current commander of Ukraine's navy, 2:30:23.440 --> 2:30:27.280 Admiral Nazpapa. He leads a navy that is almost without 2:30:27.400 --> 2:30:30.600 manned ships, and on paper, it is utterly incapable of 2:30:30.760 --> 2:30:34.200 challenging Russia's legendary Black Sea Fleet. Since the age of 2:30:34.240 --> 2:30:36.680 the Czars, the Black Sea Fleet has been infamous as 2:30:36.720 --> 2:30:40.600 a pillar of Russian military power. However, also since the 2:30:41.120 --> 2:30:43.440 age of the Tsars, it's had a nasty tendency to 2:30:43.480 --> 2:30:46.080 get utterly housed by enemies that should have been able 2:30:46.160 --> 2:30:46.600 to beat it. 2:30:46.720 --> 2:30:50.360 Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, not the first time it's taken 2:30:50.360 --> 2:30:51.480 an unexpected loot. 2:30:51.720 --> 2:30:54.560 Yeah, it has a legendary history. That doesn't mean good. 2:30:54.640 --> 2:30:57.160 There's bad legends out there, you know. 2:30:58.520 --> 2:30:59.640 Yeah, it's well known. 2:31:00.080 --> 2:31:03.720 Yeah, today that enemy is Ukraine. Since the expanded Russian 2:31:03.760 --> 2:31:07.360 invasion in twenty twenty two, just two years, Ukraine has 2:31:07.440 --> 2:31:10.480 destroyed or badly damaged more than a third of the 2:31:10.560 --> 2:31:14.080 Black Sea Fleet. Despite having no battleships or destroyers in 2:31:14.120 --> 2:31:16.840 the sea to counter Russian naval power. They have done 2:31:16.959 --> 2:31:20.440 enough damage to reopen Odessa and at least one other 2:31:20.600 --> 2:31:23.280 port on the Black Sea to international commerce, which has 2:31:23.320 --> 2:31:26.640 provided Ukraine with a crucial economic and strategic lifeline. And 2:31:26.800 --> 2:31:29.360 that's a remarkable achievement. Sinking a third of the Black 2:31:29.400 --> 2:31:32.600 Sea Fleet and basically when you reopen a port. That 2:31:32.680 --> 2:31:35.400 means that you have taken away naval dominance from a 2:31:35.440 --> 2:31:39.760 country that has a navy and you don't. That's pretty good, 2:31:39.920 --> 2:31:44.720 pretty good stuff. Over the last two years, Ukraine had damaged, 2:31:44.760 --> 2:31:48.200 irreparably or sunk seven active landing ships and one to 2:31:48.800 --> 2:31:52.040 seven active landing ships and one landing vessel. I don't 2:31:52.040 --> 2:31:54.440 know the difference. They've They've fucked up a lot of boats. 2:31:54.520 --> 2:31:58.199 They have destroyed a submarine with seed to ground capability 2:31:58.240 --> 2:32:00.800 that was docked for repairs. They have sunk a cruiser, 2:32:00.879 --> 2:32:03.560 the capital ship of the entire Black Sea fleet, the Moskva. 2:32:04.040 --> 2:32:06.400 They've also sunk a supply vessel and a handful of 2:32:06.440 --> 2:32:08.920 patrol boats and missile boats, and a number of other 2:32:09.000 --> 2:32:12.160 boats have been damaged. That's a significant rate of casualties, 2:32:12.560 --> 2:32:15.600 especially when you consider that every actually destroyed vessel we're 2:32:15.640 --> 2:32:19.280 looking at a year's multiple years lead time to replace. 2:32:19.720 --> 2:32:24.320 You cannot make naval vessels very quickly anymore. Back during 2:32:24.560 --> 2:32:28.520 the big Dub Dub dose, the US did, but nobody 2:32:28.560 --> 2:32:32.039 really does that anymore, not with the big ones. 2:32:32.080 --> 2:32:34.040 At least just roll through that. 2:32:34.400 --> 2:32:37.600 We were just we were just yeating aircraft carriers into 2:32:37.680 --> 2:32:41.520 the sea, just just flotting them out, Yeah, don't take 2:32:41.560 --> 2:32:45.199 them out a week. Yeah, because it's because Rosy Rivet 2:32:45.480 --> 2:32:47.320 was was really riveting at a high speed. 2:32:47.520 --> 2:32:49.840 She was, she was, she was quite a riveter. So 2:32:49.959 --> 2:32:53.120 at the start of hostilities, Turkey, which controls access to 2:32:53.200 --> 2:32:56.920 the Black Sea forbade any additional military vessels or at 2:32:56.959 --> 2:32:59.640 least military vessels of significant size, from entering the area. 2:33:00.200 --> 2:33:02.840 What this means this has a significant impact on how 2:33:02.959 --> 2:33:06.400 well Ukraine strikes work, because even if Russia can replace 2:33:06.440 --> 2:33:09.520 the losses physically, they can't actually get replacements into the 2:33:09.560 --> 2:33:12.720 Black Sea easily. They can't sail new shit past the Turks. 2:33:12.959 --> 2:33:15.720 The Turks are not allowing that right now. So again, 2:33:15.920 --> 2:33:18.360 this is a situation that has kind of favored the 2:33:18.440 --> 2:33:22.800 way in which Ukraine has adapted to countering Russian naval dominance. 2:33:23.120 --> 2:33:25.360 It is possible that at the present rate of attrition, 2:33:25.560 --> 2:33:28.240 the Black Sea fleet could be rendered inoperable in less 2:33:28.360 --> 2:33:30.560 than two years. Like if they keep going at this 2:33:30.640 --> 2:33:32.920 rates like eighteen months or something before, there's not really 2:33:33.000 --> 2:33:36.240 much of a fleet anymore. Now. If Ukraine had accomplished 2:33:36.280 --> 2:33:39.879 this task with a traditional navy using standard naval tactics, 2:33:40.200 --> 2:33:42.880 This would have been an impressive victory given the disparity 2:33:42.920 --> 2:33:45.280 in resources between the two nations. But they have done 2:33:45.320 --> 2:33:47.240 all this with a mix of cruise missiles, many of 2:33:47.280 --> 2:33:50.760 which are produced in country, aerial drones, and new bespoke 2:33:50.879 --> 2:33:55.480 locally produced suicide drone boats. This irregular naval warfare has 2:33:55.480 --> 2:33:58.520 been successful enough that one Rand Corporation engineer and analyst, 2:33:58.600 --> 2:34:01.640 Scott Savatz, described the BLA blaxiafleet as a fleet in 2:34:01.840 --> 2:34:05.200 being quote, it represents a potential threat that needs to 2:34:05.200 --> 2:34:07.960 be vigilantly guarded against, but one that remains in check 2:34:08.040 --> 2:34:10.160 for now. And I'm going to quote from a New 2:34:10.240 --> 2:34:12.880 York Times article on the topic. It brought a little 2:34:12.920 --> 2:34:16.720 more context. Ukraine has effectively turned around ten thousand square 2:34:16.760 --> 2:34:19.000 miles in the western Black Sea off its southern coast 2:34:19.040 --> 2:34:21.800 into what the military calls a gray zone, where neither 2:34:21.920 --> 2:34:24.920 side can sail without the threat of attack. James Heapey, 2:34:25.000 --> 2:34:28.120 Britain's Armed Forces Minister, told a recent security conference in 2:34:28.200 --> 2:34:31.360 Warsaw that Russia's Black Sea fleet had suffered a functional defeat, 2:34:31.640 --> 2:34:34.280 and contended that the liberation of Ukraine's coastal waters in 2:34:34.320 --> 2:34:36.520 the Black Sea was every bit as important as the 2:34:36.560 --> 2:34:40.000 successful counter offensives on land and Cersona and Kharkiv last year. 2:34:40.640 --> 2:34:43.720 The classical approach that we studied at military maritime academies 2:34:43.760 --> 2:34:46.720 does not work now, Admiral Nese Papas said. Therefore, we 2:34:46.800 --> 2:34:49.120 have to be as flexible as possible and change approaches 2:34:49.160 --> 2:34:51.920 to planning and implementing work as much as possible. That 2:34:52.200 --> 2:34:53.440 articles about a year old or so. 2:34:54.120 --> 2:34:54.160 So. 2:34:54.480 --> 2:34:57.359 The Neptune anti ship missile is one of the prides 2:34:57.400 --> 2:35:01.600 of Ukraine's nason arms industry. Missiles are credited with destroying 2:35:01.600 --> 2:35:04.680 the Moskva in April of twenty twenty two. Ukraine also 2:35:04.760 --> 2:35:07.800 has access to several Western anti ship missiles, including these 2:35:07.840 --> 2:35:10.520 storm Shadow and Scalp missiles. I believe the storm Shadow 2:35:10.560 --> 2:35:13.800 comes from your your folks, right James, yeah, convention. 2:35:13.720 --> 2:35:14.360 Yeah yeah. 2:35:15.200 --> 2:35:17.320 And these seem to be pretty effective missiles. These obviously 2:35:17.480 --> 2:35:20.840 much more advanced. And these are modern naval weapons, right. 2:35:20.920 --> 2:35:23.200 These are much more advanced than, for example, the weapons 2:35:23.240 --> 2:35:24.879 to who these have. These are the kind of things 2:35:24.920 --> 2:35:28.880 that can counter to some extent modern anti missile technology. 2:35:29.480 --> 2:35:31.440 For an example of kind of how that tends to work, 2:35:31.480 --> 2:35:33.800 they used a barrage of I believe it was mostly 2:35:33.879 --> 2:35:37.879 storm shadows to rain death on the crime import of Sebastopol. Recently, 2:35:38.640 --> 2:35:41.080 seven out of eighteen of the missiles fired made it 2:35:41.160 --> 2:35:44.440 through Russian air defenses, and these damaged or destroyed four 2:35:44.600 --> 2:35:47.040 landing ships in a single strike. And these are sizeable 2:35:47.120 --> 2:35:50.080 naval vessels. This is the most recent attack, although as 2:35:50.240 --> 2:35:52.440 after I wrote this, there was another attack on the 2:35:52.560 --> 2:35:55.320 Kirch Bridge. I'm not really sure how that took place 2:35:55.600 --> 2:35:57.760 yet that seems to have shut it down again. But 2:35:57.879 --> 2:35:59.560 that gives you an idea of like what you actually 2:35:59.600 --> 2:36:01.080 have to do. How much of these missiles you have 2:36:01.160 --> 2:36:02.600 to put in the air to get some through. And 2:36:02.680 --> 2:36:05.240 that's not too bad, right, eighteen missiles, seven get through, 2:36:05.320 --> 2:36:09.080 four ships down. That's a really good rate of return. 2:36:09.360 --> 2:36:11.840 Especially when you consider that, like you know, we were 2:36:11.879 --> 2:36:13.920 talking in our first episode about how the US is 2:36:13.959 --> 2:36:18.760 spending significant resources are maintaining its defending its carriers, right, 2:36:19.560 --> 2:36:22.360 Russia does not have the same ability to keep good 2:36:22.520 --> 2:36:27.240 Lord saying munitions no, and so like that's a finite resource, right, 2:36:27.240 --> 2:36:29.960 they're their means of defining that, defending their ships and 2:36:30.080 --> 2:36:33.720 defending really anything against missiles are a finite resource. So 2:36:34.320 --> 2:36:38.199 any time you can even if the ship doesn't get sunk, 2:36:38.280 --> 2:36:40.359 if the ship has to deploy one of these missiles, 2:36:40.400 --> 2:36:43.000 which it doesn't, which the whole country doesn't have very 2:36:43.040 --> 2:36:44.160 many of, that they're still a win. 2:36:44.680 --> 2:36:47.840 Now, this is we're talking about irregular naval warfare. And 2:36:47.920 --> 2:36:50.240 then this is not This is not what most people 2:36:50.240 --> 2:36:53.880 would have considered a traditional naval conflict prior to the 2:36:54.200 --> 2:36:57.360 expansion of hostilities in Ukraine. However, we are talking This 2:36:57.480 --> 2:36:59.279 is very different than the case of the Hoothies. Ukraine 2:36:59.400 --> 2:37:01.720 is a state. It doesn't have a massive arms industry, 2:37:01.760 --> 2:37:03.600 but it has one, and it has the support of 2:37:03.720 --> 2:37:06.320 nations with sizable arms industries. Right, so we are not 2:37:06.480 --> 2:37:09.120 talking about this part. We are going to talk about 2:37:09.280 --> 2:37:11.880 the aspects of Ukrainian a regular naval warfare. That are 2:37:12.040 --> 2:37:15.200 some guys that are hobbyists building shit. Yeah, this is 2:37:15.320 --> 2:37:18.400 not that part yet. But I think this information is 2:37:18.520 --> 2:37:20.760 kind of significant and that it shows the tactical use 2:37:20.800 --> 2:37:23.720 of anti ship cruise missiles and their ability to significantly 2:37:23.800 --> 2:37:27.040 shape an operational environment even when the country using them 2:37:27.240 --> 2:37:30.120 has minimal conventional naval assets of their own. It is 2:37:30.280 --> 2:37:32.480 largely through the use of these missiles that Ukraine has 2:37:32.520 --> 2:37:35.680 been able to reopen their black Sea ports. That matters 2:37:35.760 --> 2:37:38.280 to people seeking to understand both this conflict and the 2:37:38.400 --> 2:37:40.880 future of unconventional naval warfare. I mean, I guess you 2:37:40.920 --> 2:37:43.520 could say this is the future of conventional naval warfare, 2:37:43.560 --> 2:37:46.440 but I think we're still leaning on the unconventional side 2:37:46.480 --> 2:37:48.680 at the moment, at least in terms of how doctrine 2:37:48.760 --> 2:37:50.800 is changing as a result of this. So maybe I 2:37:50.840 --> 2:37:54.560 should update how we're defining this. But for our purposes 2:37:54.640 --> 2:37:57.000 as people unlikely to have access to cruise missiles but 2:37:57.120 --> 2:38:00.760 significantly likely to find ourselves waging an unconventional than having 2:38:00.840 --> 2:38:03.400 cruise missiles, it's more relevant to look at the new 2:38:03.440 --> 2:38:06.119 weapons systems Ukraine has developed that have helped them lock 2:38:06.160 --> 2:38:09.560 down the Black Sea fleet using civilian hobbyists. And this 2:38:09.720 --> 2:38:14.320 is where we get to drones. Ukraine's conventional aerial drones 2:38:14.360 --> 2:38:17.040 are a mix of actual military hardware. I'm talking about 2:38:17.080 --> 2:38:20.800 stuff like the Bairaktar, the Turkish drone, which is like 2:38:21.080 --> 2:38:23.080 kind of like the Predator A right, it's like an 2:38:23.160 --> 2:38:26.560 actual military product. But the majority in terms of numbers 2:38:26.640 --> 2:38:29.600 of drones that Ukraine is fielding are civilian drones, or 2:38:29.600 --> 2:38:32.920 at least drones that started out a civilian technology. A 2:38:32.959 --> 2:38:35.240 lot of these are now built to be military, but 2:38:35.280 --> 2:38:37.959 they're still based on these designs that started with people 2:38:38.040 --> 2:38:42.040 hacking and cobbling together civilian drones and outside of naval stuff. 2:38:42.240 --> 2:38:44.240 Prior to the war, there had been a lot of 2:38:44.360 --> 2:38:47.160 veterans and hobbyists who were veterans trying to convince the 2:38:47.240 --> 2:38:50.480 Ukrainian military that it needed to adopt drone warfare on 2:38:50.520 --> 2:38:52.520 a large scale, the kind of drone warfare that you 2:38:52.600 --> 2:38:55.880 can do with these these less expensive drones, and they 2:38:56.040 --> 2:38:58.280 received a lot of pushback until the war started and 2:38:58.360 --> 2:39:01.119 these guys just took to the fields, started fucking murking 2:39:01.200 --> 2:39:05.199 Russian armed units and infantry and killing generals and shit. 2:39:05.680 --> 2:39:08.320 And now Ukraine has integrated in a way that everyone 2:39:08.480 --> 2:39:11.480 is going to follow. Like Ukrainian like battalions have like 2:39:11.640 --> 2:39:15.160 companies now that are drone assault companies, and like line battalions, and. 2:39:15.560 --> 2:39:19.440 Within infantry you have people used artillery eating transit forwards. 2:39:20.040 --> 2:39:22.480 Yes, all over. They have set a goal for this 2:39:22.600 --> 2:39:24.840 year producing at least a million and ideally more like 2:39:24.920 --> 2:39:27.280 two million drones, and at least from what I read, 2:39:27.320 --> 2:39:29.400 that looks like very plausible and most of these are 2:39:29.480 --> 2:39:32.279 quite small, right, but that doesn't mean obviously ineffective. 2:39:32.560 --> 2:39:33.960 I know they buy a lot of their drones in 2:39:34.000 --> 2:39:37.400 the UK because the UK has consistently kicked itself in 2:39:37.440 --> 2:39:40.200 the nuts when it comes to like Brexit, and so 2:39:40.600 --> 2:39:43.000 the pound is significantly weaker, and so they're able to 2:39:43.000 --> 2:39:44.840 get the drones at a cheaper price and then drive 2:39:44.920 --> 2:39:45.800 them all the way across. 2:39:46.520 --> 2:39:46.720 Yeah. 2:39:46.760 --> 2:39:48.800 I know people who have done that. I was going 2:39:48.840 --> 2:39:50.320 to go join them, but never worked it out. 2:39:50.600 --> 2:39:54.360 Yeah, And you know there are a number of different 2:39:54.440 --> 2:39:58.080 like these. These these drones earlier in the war had 2:39:58.120 --> 2:40:01.080 an easier time being effected, i even causing casualties in 2:40:01.080 --> 2:40:01.560 the Russians. 2:40:01.600 --> 2:40:01.920 Then later. 2:40:02.040 --> 2:40:05.240 This is something that you know, kind of the hooplaw 2:40:05.320 --> 2:40:08.080 and support which I think is necessary that Ukraine gets. 2:40:08.160 --> 2:40:11.279 Lead some people to discount the degree to which Russian 2:40:11.320 --> 2:40:14.240 forces have adapted and gotten smarter. And one of the 2:40:14.240 --> 2:40:16.440 ways in which they've adapted and gotten smarter is in 2:40:16.640 --> 2:40:19.000 blocking drones and using drones of their own. You know, 2:40:19.080 --> 2:40:20.760 one of the stories the last couple of weeks is 2:40:20.800 --> 2:40:24.880 that Russia has succeeded in carrying out strikes on advanced 2:40:24.920 --> 2:40:29.440 weapons systems like samsites deep in Ukrainian territory. They've extended 2:40:29.480 --> 2:40:32.000 their kill chain beyond what they used to be capable of, 2:40:32.080 --> 2:40:35.520 and that's because they've adapted. They're also adapted with less 2:40:35.600 --> 2:40:39.240 efficacy at blocking drones and attacks on naval vessels. Some 2:40:39.400 --> 2:40:40.840 of this has been kind of funny. I want to 2:40:40.879 --> 2:40:44.000 read a quote from a Business Insider article here. Russia 2:40:44.120 --> 2:40:46.680 is painting silhouettes on naval vessels on land to try 2:40:46.720 --> 2:40:49.960 and trick Ukraine, which keeps destroying its warships. In an 2:40:49.959 --> 2:40:52.720 intelligence update on Wednesday, the UK Ministry of Defense said 2:40:52.760 --> 2:40:55.080 that silhouettes of vessels have also been painted on the 2:40:55.120 --> 2:40:59.000 side of ks probably to confuse the uncrude aerial vehicle operators. 2:40:59.400 --> 2:41:02.080 They showed there's some images of this. They don't seem 2:41:02.240 --> 2:41:05.440 convincing to me. I don't know if I think this 2:41:05.680 --> 2:41:06.199 is working. 2:41:06.879 --> 2:41:07.480 This is great. 2:41:08.560 --> 2:41:11.360 I love this, like they have a cardboard navy next. Yeah, 2:41:11.440 --> 2:41:14.880 it's very bugs bunny. Yes, they're not working as well 2:41:14.920 --> 2:41:16.560 as bugs would like a. 2:41:16.560 --> 2:41:19.279 Hole in the side of the cliff face and crushing 2:41:19.320 --> 2:41:19.640 into it. 2:41:20.640 --> 2:41:24.200 Keeps throwing. It's very funny. I mean obviously they just 2:41:24.360 --> 2:41:27.879 Ukraine just sank like or damn it badly damaged. Four boats. 2:41:27.920 --> 2:41:30.000 So I don't think this is I haven't seen evidence 2:41:30.040 --> 2:41:33.000 that this is working well. Their actual like jamming efforts 2:41:33.040 --> 2:41:36.080 have been much more successful, right, Yeah, they always will 2:41:36.120 --> 2:41:38.560 be on civilian One of the thing that's really interesting 2:41:38.680 --> 2:41:41.800 compared to Meanma is that Ukraine tends to rely on 2:41:42.000 --> 2:41:45.200 modified off the shelf civilian drones, right your dji is 2:41:45.240 --> 2:41:49.480 that kind of thing in Mianma because of where a 2:41:49.520 --> 2:41:52.600 lott of the PDFs are. Because but they increasingly do 2:41:52.720 --> 2:41:56.040 control the borders, but they haven't always. They have been 2:41:56.120 --> 2:41:58.800 making their own drones. The group called Federal Wings you 2:41:58.800 --> 2:42:01.280 can find them on telegram who who make their own drones, 2:42:01.800 --> 2:42:05.640 and I think those seem to be less the Jammas 2:42:05.720 --> 2:42:11.280 that the sac that the Tamado has are Chinese made 2:42:11.640 --> 2:42:13.920 Jamma rifles. You see them all the time in captured 2:42:13.959 --> 2:42:16.280 weapon cashes, but they don't seem to be having as 2:42:16.360 --> 2:42:21.360 much impact on these homemade drones, which is really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, 2:42:21.360 --> 2:42:24.280 and it's you know, I've mentioned a couple of times 2:42:24.640 --> 2:42:27.360 we're doing this in part because the odds that people 2:42:27.480 --> 2:42:30.840 listening might be involved in an irregular conflict are not zero. 2:42:31.400 --> 2:42:33.720 You know what I think about when I say that 2:42:34.080 --> 2:42:36.600 is not that there's high odds for any individual person 2:42:36.640 --> 2:42:39.560 fighting themselves in that situation, but there is, given the 2:42:39.640 --> 2:42:42.120 number of people who listened to this podcast, probably someone 2:42:42.160 --> 2:42:44.600 who is not currently involved in a conflict that will 2:42:44.680 --> 2:42:47.320 find themselves that way in the future. And I base 2:42:47.400 --> 2:42:48.680 that in part on the fact that all of our 2:42:48.720 --> 2:42:51.440 friends in Myanmar who are currently fighting a war were 2:42:51.480 --> 2:42:54.120 a couple of years ago delivery drivers and you know, 2:42:54.360 --> 2:42:57.080 playing pubg online and not really thinking they would wind 2:42:57.200 --> 2:42:58.000 up as insurgents. 2:42:58.320 --> 2:43:00.000 Yeah. I've spoken to a number of people who are 2:43:00.120 --> 2:43:03.560 currently fighting done in Mianma who have listened to our 2:43:03.640 --> 2:43:06.920 Mianma podcast and realized the capacity of three D printing 2:43:07.040 --> 2:43:10.640 to be very useful and so like, even in that sense, 2:43:10.800 --> 2:43:12.959 it's already happening. But yeah, don't know one in Memma. 2:43:14.400 --> 2:43:16.840 Like many of them said that their entire combat experience 2:43:16.879 --> 2:43:20.160 is playing pubg. Yeah, now they're murking ships. 2:43:20.360 --> 2:43:23.000 Yeah. So anyway, it bears thinking about this stuff. And 2:43:23.080 --> 2:43:26.280 this brings me back to Ukraine's irregular drone warfare units, 2:43:26.280 --> 2:43:28.200 which again a lot of these guys started out as 2:43:28.280 --> 2:43:31.960 civilian enthusiasts who expanded responded to the outbreak or at 2:43:32.000 --> 2:43:35.880 least expansion of hostilities by expanding their hobby into a 2:43:36.040 --> 2:43:38.680 real world military effort that had a real world effect. 2:43:38.760 --> 2:43:41.879 Civilian drones were crucial in the Battle of Kiev, allowing 2:43:41.959 --> 2:43:44.480 Ukraine to do severe damage to that massive Russian armored 2:43:44.520 --> 2:43:47.200 column heading towards the city and providing intel that led 2:43:47.200 --> 2:43:50.320 to the assassination of multiple general level officers. So it 2:43:50.440 --> 2:43:53.240 is perhaps not surprising that Ukraine looked to the same 2:43:53.320 --> 2:43:55.840 group of volunteer hobbyists when it came time to expand 2:43:55.840 --> 2:43:58.600 their naval arsenal. And there's a really good article I 2:43:58.680 --> 2:44:02.240 found in CNN by some Bashtian Shukla, Alex Marcott and 2:44:02.400 --> 2:44:05.120 Daria Tarasova. And I actually want to give you the 2:44:05.200 --> 2:44:06.840 title of this article. Yeah, I'll try to thriller in 2:44:06.879 --> 2:44:10.200 the show notes is exclusive rare access to Ukraine's sea 2:44:10.280 --> 2:44:12.840 drones part of Ukraine's fight back in the Black Sea. 2:44:13.000 --> 2:44:15.040 Haven't really seen the word fight backies that way, but 2:44:15.120 --> 2:44:16.600 there you go. So I'm going to read a quote 2:44:16.600 --> 2:44:20.800 from that article. A government linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called 2:44:20.879 --> 2:44:23.680 United twenty four has sourced money from companies and individuals 2:44:23.720 --> 2:44:25.880 all around the world, pooling funds to disperse it to 2:44:25.920 --> 2:44:29.040 a variety of developers and initiatives, from defense to soccer matches. 2:44:29.440 --> 2:44:32.240 The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict 2:44:32.280 --> 2:44:35.240 guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who seen and 2:44:35.360 --> 2:44:37.160 met with declined to give their full names or even 2:44:37.160 --> 2:44:40.440 their ranks within Ukraine's armed forces. On a creaky wooden jetty, 2:44:40.480 --> 2:44:42.760 a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go 2:44:42.920 --> 2:44:45.280 by shark in front of him is a long, black, 2:44:45.320 --> 2:44:49.120 hard show briefcase. He unveils a bespoke multi screened mission control, 2:44:49.440 --> 2:44:52.760 essentially an elaborate gaming center combined, complete with levers, joysticks, 2:44:52.760 --> 2:44:55.080 a monitor, and buttons that have covers over switches that 2:44:55.160 --> 2:44:59.200 shouldn't accidentally be knocked. With labels like Blast. The developer 2:44:59.240 --> 2:45:01.160 of the drone, who act to remain anonymous sid their 2:45:01.200 --> 2:45:03.400 work on sea drones only began once the war started. 2:45:03.680 --> 2:45:05.680 It was very important because we did not have many 2:45:05.760 --> 2:45:08.480 forces to resist the maritime state Russia, and we needed 2:45:08.480 --> 2:45:10.480 to develop something of our own because we didn't have 2:45:10.640 --> 2:45:15.600 the existing capabilities. So again, these are hobbyist design I mean, 2:45:15.680 --> 2:45:18.040 this guy's not really a hobbyist anymore, but that's how 2:45:18.120 --> 2:45:20.920 he started. He's only not a hobbyist because the military 2:45:21.040 --> 2:45:23.240 recognized the value of what he was doing. And the 2:45:23.320 --> 2:45:26.200 current iterations of this sea drone weigh a little over 2:45:26.280 --> 2:45:29.800 two thousand pounds with an explosive six hundred and sixty 2:45:29.840 --> 2:45:32.720 one pound payload, a five hundred mile range and a 2:45:32.800 --> 2:45:35.480 max speed of fifty miles per hour. That is a 2:45:35.560 --> 2:45:39.600 significant weapons system. Multiple sea drones have been used to 2:45:39.640 --> 2:45:41.920 strike Russian assets in the Black Sea, and drones were 2:45:41.959 --> 2:45:45.240 involved in a successful attack that severely damaged the Kirch 2:45:45.360 --> 2:45:49.440 Bridge last July, rendering it impassable since until September. So 2:45:49.560 --> 2:45:51.840 these have had a real battlefield effect and they probably 2:45:51.879 --> 2:45:54.760 will continue to do so. The developer of these drones 2:45:54.760 --> 2:45:57.720 told CNN these drones are a completely Ukrainian production. They 2:45:57.760 --> 2:46:00.279 are designed, drawn and tested here. It's our own production 2:46:00.320 --> 2:46:02.960 of holes, electronics and software. More than fifty percent of 2:46:03.040 --> 2:46:05.959 the production of equipment is here in Ukraine. And that's 2:46:06.000 --> 2:46:09.320 really significant because you know, I think we're all aware 2:46:09.360 --> 2:46:12.800 of the difficulty Ukraine has had getting weaponry lately from 2:46:12.840 --> 2:46:15.560 the West as a result of fucking around in Congress, 2:46:15.959 --> 2:46:18.480 and so it is a necessity for them to be 2:46:18.520 --> 2:46:21.720 able to develop weapon systems like this that can interdict 2:46:21.760 --> 2:46:24.520 and counteract more advanced and expensive weapon systems and can 2:46:24.720 --> 2:46:27.560 be produced indigenously. You know, I don't think we have 2:46:27.680 --> 2:46:31.960 seen a mass suicide boat attack. I'm interested in what 2:46:32.080 --> 2:46:35.600 happens when we do, like with more significant numbers than 2:46:35.640 --> 2:46:39.200 we've seen deployed. I kind of wonder the degree to 2:46:39.200 --> 2:46:41.160 which the Russians have gotten good at spotting this stuff. 2:46:41.200 --> 2:46:43.040 I've come across at least a couple of stories of 2:46:43.080 --> 2:46:45.960 these boats likely destroyed on approach. So they certainly don't 2:46:46.000 --> 2:46:48.480 always work even a majority of the time. But given 2:46:48.520 --> 2:46:50.080 the cost of these things they don't have to get 2:46:50.120 --> 2:46:52.560 through the majority of the time, very much worth it. 2:46:52.760 --> 2:46:56.280 Right now, In you Know that interview with the New 2:46:56.360 --> 2:46:59.879 York Times, Admiral Najpapa caution that a Ukraine is still 2:47:00.200 --> 2:47:02.960 outgunned in the Black Sea. Even though the Russians no 2:47:03.080 --> 2:47:07.039 longer have supremacy, they still have air superiority. They are 2:47:07.120 --> 2:47:09.640 still able to launch from the sea long range missiles 2:47:09.680 --> 2:47:14.360 at Ukrainian targets, including civilian targets, So this is not 2:47:14.520 --> 2:47:17.240 again a situation that should be portrayed as them having 2:47:17.320 --> 2:47:20.080 their own way. Their ability to kind of interdict the 2:47:20.120 --> 2:47:22.560 sea has been the primary effects of it have been 2:47:22.680 --> 2:47:25.200 number one, the reopening of trade in the Black Sea 2:47:25.280 --> 2:47:28.440 and earlier in the war, by locking down the ability 2:47:28.480 --> 2:47:30.800 of these landing ships to put more troops on ground, 2:47:30.840 --> 2:47:33.160 and by doing damage to the Kurch Bridge, they were 2:47:33.200 --> 2:47:37.000 able to slow Russian reinforcements in Russian materiel from entering 2:47:37.520 --> 2:47:40.240 the war zone in order to this aided in some 2:47:40.360 --> 2:47:44.280 of the advances, particularly in areas like Carson. At this moment, 2:47:44.360 --> 2:47:47.680 the situation has changed because again, the Russians aren't just 2:47:47.800 --> 2:47:50.520 kind of like sitting around doing the same thing over again, 2:47:50.600 --> 2:47:53.200 or at least not always, and we don't tend to 2:47:53.240 --> 2:47:55.640 talk as much about successes on the Russian side of things, 2:47:55.680 --> 2:47:57.760 but that is an important part of the story. And 2:47:57.920 --> 2:47:59.600 one of the things the Russians have done is kind 2:47:59.600 --> 2:48:02.360 of igledge that the Black Sea Fleet may not be 2:48:02.640 --> 2:48:06.640 a fleet in being forever and certainly cannot be relied 2:48:06.720 --> 2:48:09.600 upon to handle everything they initially thought it would handle. 2:48:10.000 --> 2:48:12.600 And so Russian engineers spent a significant period of time 2:48:12.680 --> 2:48:16.240 building a sizable new railroad that connects Rostov and southern 2:48:16.280 --> 2:48:20.119 Russia to Mariopol and occupied southern Ukraine. This has allowed 2:48:20.160 --> 2:48:23.240 them to get high volume shipments into the area and 2:48:23.400 --> 2:48:28.440 supply troops to the area along Ukraine's southern front without 2:48:28.520 --> 2:48:31.560 relying on that bridge or relying on naval landings. 2:48:31.640 --> 2:48:31.760 Right. 2:48:32.640 --> 2:48:34.680 So the fact that Ukraine has been able to take 2:48:34.720 --> 2:48:37.440 out for landing ships recently is good. That's a win 2:48:37.600 --> 2:48:40.680 for Ukraine. It reduces Russian capability, but it is not 2:48:40.840 --> 2:48:42.560 half the same effect that it would have had, for example, 2:48:42.640 --> 2:48:46.680 two years earlier. Right, Yeah, because Russia has also evolved, 2:48:46.800 --> 2:48:49.640 and among other things, railroads are a lot easier or 2:48:49.640 --> 2:48:52.640 a lot harder to destroy to take out. Right, It's 2:48:52.640 --> 2:48:54.720 easy to damage a railroad, but they're easy to fix. 2:48:54.800 --> 2:48:57.200 It doesn't take a lot to get some guys over 2:48:57.280 --> 2:48:59.920 to fix a damage sunk of railroad. Fixing a bridge 2:49:00.000 --> 2:49:02.120 that's been blown up or a sunk boat is a 2:49:02.200 --> 2:49:02.720 lot harder. 2:49:03.160 --> 2:49:06.000 Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and there are people within Russia 2:49:06.040 --> 2:49:09.240 even who are sabotaging railroads, but as you say, it's 2:49:09.320 --> 2:49:11.840 like it's very high stakes for them, and it's relatively 2:49:11.959 --> 2:49:14.840 low cost for the Russian state to fix that stuff, 2:49:15.080 --> 2:49:17.359 so like it's not as effective. 2:49:17.879 --> 2:49:19.760 Yeah, But I think this gives you an idea of 2:49:19.800 --> 2:49:22.119 kind of like what we're looking at when we look 2:49:22.160 --> 2:49:26.200 at this kind of ongoing irregular conflict is the side 2:49:26.320 --> 2:49:29.200 that does not have access to a functional navy, not 2:49:29.360 --> 2:49:32.560 able to interdict or destroy fleets, but able to stop 2:49:32.640 --> 2:49:34.840 them from dominating the coast. And when you can stop 2:49:34.879 --> 2:49:37.600 them from dominating the coast, you have effectively denied them 2:49:38.160 --> 2:49:41.600 terrain that they can act in without being countered, and 2:49:41.879 --> 2:49:44.680 you have also denied them from stopping you from acting 2:49:44.720 --> 2:49:46.880 in that same terrain, even if you don't have total 2:49:46.920 --> 2:49:52.000 safety in that area. That opens up the operational possibilities substantially. 2:49:52.240 --> 2:49:55.520 And this is something that I kind of don't think 2:49:55.640 --> 2:49:57.480 is going to get put back in the bag. Even 2:49:57.520 --> 2:50:00.480 if some of these Star Wars ass weapons systems do 2:50:00.640 --> 2:50:03.039 come out in the near future. You know, maybe that'll 2:50:03.760 --> 2:50:06.320 have an impact in the immediate term on people like 2:50:06.400 --> 2:50:08.840 the houthies, but I don't think that it really will 2:50:09.440 --> 2:50:13.640 on you know, for example, what Ukraine's doing right Yes, yeah. 2:50:13.840 --> 2:50:18.080 Russia can't keep up with getting decent small arms, body armor, grenades, 2:50:18.160 --> 2:50:20.680 and ships. There's no way it's going to implement some 2:50:20.840 --> 2:50:23.800 kind of massive Star Wars system over its navy, not 2:50:23.879 --> 2:50:25.680 right now, not in the middle of a conflict that's 2:50:25.840 --> 2:50:28.199 it's struggling to supply yep. 2:50:28.680 --> 2:50:30.160 You know what, here's an ad break. 2:50:41.000 --> 2:50:44.320 All right, we're back and we are traveling around the world. 2:50:44.480 --> 2:50:47.600 Spend your little globe in your head and look for Meanma, 2:50:47.879 --> 2:50:51.920 which is of course in Asia. Now I'm talking about 2:50:51.959 --> 2:50:56.600 two different I guess anti ship sabotage or attack or 2:50:57.000 --> 2:50:59.080 two different ways ships have been sunk in the Amba. 2:50:59.320 --> 2:51:02.160 I'll start with the first one, which is undoubtedly the flashiest, 2:51:02.920 --> 2:51:07.400 just because it's fun. So a ship in the port 2:51:07.560 --> 2:51:10.040 of Yangon about about a month ago, so we're recording 2:51:10.080 --> 2:51:13.120 on a twenty. It's about the first of March. It 2:51:13.240 --> 2:51:15.480 was in the river, in the river in Yangon, right, 2:51:15.520 --> 2:51:18.760 and it was carrying allegedly carrying jet fuel. Now, if 2:51:18.840 --> 2:51:23.440 you follow Burmese activists, people in the Burmese Freedom movement, 2:51:23.800 --> 2:51:25.959 they will one of their demands for a long time 2:51:26.080 --> 2:51:29.280 has been to stop supplying the Hunter with jet fuel, 2:51:29.320 --> 2:51:35.000 which would in turn stop it being able to bomb villages, schools, civilians, 2:51:35.360 --> 2:51:38.920 PDF formations, just about anyone in the country. It's bombed 2:51:38.959 --> 2:51:41.520 at some point in the last couple of years. And 2:51:41.959 --> 2:51:43.960 they haven't been exactly right. They haven't been able to 2:51:44.000 --> 2:51:47.040 stop the supply of jet fuel coming to the Hunter. 2:51:47.520 --> 2:51:49.320 So they've taken it into their own hands. And what 2:51:49.400 --> 2:51:52.120 they did on the first of March was that they 2:51:52.800 --> 2:51:56.880 snuck onto a boat. So two, this is the story 2:51:56.959 --> 2:52:02.080 from the Burmese National Unity Governments Ministry Defense. Anyway, combat 2:52:02.160 --> 2:52:06.800 divers snuck onto this boat planted a kilogram of TNT 2:52:07.000 --> 2:52:09.560 or a charge equivalent to a kilogram of TNT. Robert 2:52:09.560 --> 2:52:12.160 and I've both spoken to people who make explosives in mema, 2:52:12.240 --> 2:52:14.400 so we do. We definitely know the PDF has access 2:52:14.400 --> 2:52:17.000 to a range of explosives. They set it on a 2:52:17.080 --> 2:52:19.600 five hour fuse and it blew up in the middle 2:52:19.600 --> 2:52:22.480 of the night, and there's definitely footage of the ship 2:52:22.560 --> 2:52:26.480 on fire having blown up. Now, this is pretty remarkable 2:52:26.520 --> 2:52:29.520 for never real Like this is like why the United 2:52:29.560 --> 2:52:32.280 States has units like the Navy Seals, right, like the 2:52:32.720 --> 2:52:38.600 higher speed guys, because it is not easy to scuba 2:52:38.680 --> 2:52:41.920 dive across a harbor, climb onto a ship, send an 2:52:41.959 --> 2:52:45.040 explosive charge without being detected, and then leave that ship 2:52:45.120 --> 2:52:47.200 and have the charge go off and sink the ship 2:52:47.280 --> 2:52:52.160 without you being compromised, without the charge itself being like compromised, 2:52:52.200 --> 2:52:55.000 and the ship being saved. Right, this is some like 2:52:55.200 --> 2:52:58.400 this is some classic like this is why they are 2:52:58.520 --> 2:53:02.760 special unit within the US Minute Now, the PDF very 2:53:02.800 --> 2:53:05.720 obviously did not have combat divers. Two years ago, I 2:53:05.840 --> 2:53:10.080 was looking into hobby scuba diving in Yangon. The rivers 2:53:10.160 --> 2:53:13.280 in that area are extremely muddy and visibility is very low, 2:53:14.120 --> 2:53:17.160 So the people who you find diving in that area 2:53:17.280 --> 2:53:20.119 are not so much like hobby scuba divers or free divers, 2:53:20.240 --> 2:53:24.560 but there's salvage divers and there's a whole little industry 2:53:24.600 --> 2:53:29.920 of people. And these people are diving in equipment that 2:53:29.959 --> 2:53:33.280 I would not consider safe or reliable. It's clamping an 2:53:33.360 --> 2:53:36.760 air hose in between your teeth and diving down and 2:53:36.879 --> 2:53:39.720 trying to find there's a large deposit of coal in 2:53:39.800 --> 2:53:41.520 one of the rivers in Yangon because of a ship 2:53:41.600 --> 2:53:44.840 that's sunk. There was a course copper, which everyone all 2:53:44.879 --> 2:53:48.039 around the world, including the Vigcong in Santia, are stealing copper. 2:53:48.920 --> 2:53:52.000 There's iron, right, So these people are diving down and 2:53:52.120 --> 2:53:55.840 trying to collect scrap and sell that for whatever minimal 2:53:55.879 --> 2:54:00.680 amount they can. Right, It's an extremely dangerous an extremely 2:54:00.760 --> 2:54:05.120 low income. It's one of the sort of really high risk, 2:54:05.200 --> 2:54:07.680 low reward jobs that you get in economies where people 2:54:07.720 --> 2:54:11.440 are really struggling to make ends meet, right, So those 2:54:11.480 --> 2:54:14.520 are the only divers I can find evidence of in Yangon. 2:54:14.640 --> 2:54:16.600 I don't think it was them who did this, because 2:54:16.879 --> 2:54:18.360 you have to have a boat above you with a 2:54:18.400 --> 2:54:20.840 pump if you're diving with a rubber hose in your teeth, right, 2:54:21.240 --> 2:54:27.080 So it seems like somebody in within the They said 2:54:27.080 --> 2:54:29.320 it was a Yangon PDF, that's what they attribute it to, 2:54:29.560 --> 2:54:32.920 So that would be one of these. It would likely 2:54:32.959 --> 2:54:35.879 be an underground group within the PDF, right, some people 2:54:35.959 --> 2:54:38.640 living in the city who were able to sneak onto 2:54:38.680 --> 2:54:40.480 this boat, set a charge and blow it up, And 2:54:40.520 --> 2:54:42.720 they would also had to have intelligence at the boat 2:54:43.400 --> 2:54:46.400 where it was, what it was carrying, et cetera. It's 2:54:46.440 --> 2:54:50.400 a pretty pretty daring mission that this is the first 2:54:50.440 --> 2:54:52.720 one like this we've seen, and we haven't seen anything since. 2:54:52.840 --> 2:54:56.000 But it's of course possible that this is a story 2:54:56.080 --> 2:54:58.600 that we're being told. In fact, they had like someone 2:54:58.680 --> 2:55:01.560 undercover on the ship, right, or like they had some 2:55:01.680 --> 2:55:04.320 other means of getting this charge onto the ship. But 2:55:05.240 --> 2:55:07.040 one way or another they managed to blow up this 2:55:07.120 --> 2:55:11.040 ship carrying fuel, which is a significant debt trim. Yeah, right, 2:55:11.560 --> 2:55:13.280 and that's how they get most of their shit, it's 2:55:13.320 --> 2:55:16.160 not over land, especially with more the. 2:55:16.320 --> 2:55:20.320 Terrain there is just absolutely like even with modern technology 2:55:20.400 --> 2:55:22.320 difficult to get significant amounts of shit through. 2:55:22.840 --> 2:55:26.480 They're resupplying some of their outposts that are ten miles 2:55:26.520 --> 2:55:29.320 from a town with helicopters right now, like A the 2:55:29.440 --> 2:55:36.119 terrain is burly, and B they don't have The PDF 2:55:36.200 --> 2:55:38.880 has denied them access that. Any time they send out 2:55:38.920 --> 2:55:42.360 a convoy, it gets attacked, so setting out. Plus, you 2:55:42.440 --> 2:55:45.600 know that their land border crossings are increasingly falling into 2:55:45.640 --> 2:55:49.360 the hands of the PDFs and the ROS, So getting 2:55:49.400 --> 2:55:50.880 stuff through the ocean is one of the ways that 2:55:50.920 --> 2:55:53.480 they can still get stuff. And if this keeps happening, 2:55:53.600 --> 2:55:55.960 then they will make that more expensive for them. And 2:55:56.120 --> 2:55:59.200 they're not exactly a wealthy like hunter, even though I 2:55:59.240 --> 2:56:02.720 guess Lung just made himself an air force one recently. 2:56:02.879 --> 2:56:03.840 I was just looking at it today. 2:56:03.920 --> 2:56:04.520 He's good. 2:56:04.560 --> 2:56:08.200 He's got himself too luxury. Yeah, they called it dictator class, 2:56:08.720 --> 2:56:10.720 like he's upgraded from president class. 2:56:10.840 --> 2:56:11.080 Nice. 2:56:11.840 --> 2:56:16.680 Yeah, yeah, yes, he has in many ways. So, yeah, 2:56:16.720 --> 2:56:18.840 that's one way that the PDF has been blowing up 2:56:18.840 --> 2:56:21.400 ships in the Yangon Robert, do you know who else 2:56:21.920 --> 2:56:24.600 has been blowing up ships in the yang In Yangon. 2:56:25.320 --> 2:56:30.480 Well, we are sponsored entirely by the British Navy circa 2:56:30.560 --> 2:56:33.640 the mid eighteen hundreds, so I would guess them that's right. 2:56:33.720 --> 2:56:37.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Lots of repressed, repressed 2:56:37.600 --> 2:56:39.400 feelings and growing up a. 2:56:39.720 --> 2:56:44.480 Lot of cabin boys with deep trauma. Anyway, here's the ass. 2:56:44.720 --> 2:56:57.600 Yeah, all right, we're Becka. We hope you enjoyed that. 2:56:57.760 --> 2:57:00.200 That pivot one of our best ones yet. And we're 2:57:00.240 --> 2:57:04.400 talking about the Arakan Army now. So the Arakan Army 2:57:04.879 --> 2:57:07.080 are not to be confused with the Arakan Rahine of 2:57:07.120 --> 2:57:10.320 Salvation Army. Different group. Arakan is a name of what 2:57:10.520 --> 2:57:12.920 is now a kind state before it was colonized by 2:57:12.959 --> 2:57:15.560 the Burmese. That was I think Arakan was a king 2:57:15.680 --> 2:57:17.840 before it was colonized by the Burmese, so that that's 2:57:17.879 --> 2:57:21.440 where that refers to. It's a geographical appellation rather than 2:57:21.840 --> 2:57:24.720 like necessarily an ethnic one. The Rakin would be the 2:57:24.760 --> 2:57:28.520 ethnic group. So what the AA have done is sunk 2:57:28.680 --> 2:57:32.959 I think at least four Hunter ships now, and most 2:57:33.000 --> 2:57:35.920 of these ships are kind of they're like the they 2:57:35.959 --> 2:57:39.080 look like big Higgins boats. They're like landing craft or 2:57:39.120 --> 2:57:42.440 like car ferries, like flat bottom with a bow that 2:57:42.560 --> 2:57:43.080 goes down. 2:57:43.280 --> 2:57:43.400 Right. 2:57:43.760 --> 2:57:45.520 I rode around a lot in the Marshall Islands in 2:57:45.840 --> 2:57:47.760 little landing craft like that because they can get them in. 2:57:47.840 --> 2:57:50.040 They don't have like docks, so they can just ride 2:57:50.040 --> 2:57:51.360 that right up to the beach and then drop the 2:57:51.400 --> 2:57:54.280 front and off you go. And they use them a lot. 2:57:54.600 --> 2:57:57.400 The Hunter doesn't have like per se marines that they 2:57:57.440 --> 2:58:00.680 don't have maritime infantry, but they they use them to 2:58:00.720 --> 2:58:04.000 transport their regular army around, right, and they use them 2:58:04.040 --> 2:58:06.400 to transport them up river. They also use them a 2:58:06.560 --> 2:58:11.320 lot in Rakhine State to shell AA positions and any 2:58:11.640 --> 2:58:13.800 townships that they've decided they want to wipe off the 2:58:13.840 --> 2:58:15.040 map and kill all the people in. 2:58:15.240 --> 2:58:15.360 Right. 2:58:15.440 --> 2:58:18.840 So these these boats have been a real like thorn 2:58:18.920 --> 2:58:21.600 in the side of the Aracan Army. After Operation ten 2:58:21.640 --> 2:58:25.760 twenty seven, when they joined with two other groups to 2:58:25.840 --> 2:58:28.240 form the Three Brotherhood Alliance, A launch attacks on the 2:58:28.320 --> 2:58:31.880 Hunter all over Vima. And so what they've been doing, 2:58:31.959 --> 2:58:36.720 it appears, is using underwater mines to sink these ships, 2:58:37.000 --> 2:58:42.600 which is interesting, right, Like, I guess the mines are 2:58:42.760 --> 2:58:45.760 like a very old technology, right, it's probably one hundred 2:58:45.840 --> 2:58:50.240 years plus underwater mines have existed. It seems the way 2:58:50.400 --> 2:58:53.120 that like, the reason they're able to get away with 2:58:53.360 --> 2:58:56.040 using what is their relatively dated technology is because the 2:58:56.120 --> 2:58:59.520 hunter doesn't expect to encounter anything, right, and so has 2:58:59.560 --> 2:59:02.480 not equiped its ships as such, Like they do have 2:59:02.600 --> 2:59:05.040 stuff like submarines, but that's not what's getting sunk. What's 2:59:05.040 --> 2:59:07.640 getting sun of these big kind of landing craft riverboats, 2:59:08.080 --> 2:59:10.760 And it seems that they're using mines and then once 2:59:10.840 --> 2:59:13.640 they disabled the ship, they're then attacking it with small boats, 2:59:13.720 --> 2:59:18.360 small arms like indirect fire mortars and stuff. I saw 2:59:18.440 --> 2:59:20.800 one post that suggested they'd use which is pretty cool 2:59:20.920 --> 2:59:24.840 if they did. The Burmese military has these like tank destroyers. 2:59:25.920 --> 2:59:29.360 It's a tank, it's what it is, and they've captured 2:59:29.400 --> 2:59:31.640 the AA has captured a number of these, and I've 2:59:31.720 --> 2:59:34.800 seen suggestions that they're using some of these on like 2:59:34.920 --> 2:59:36.640 they just set up an ambush along the banks of 2:59:36.680 --> 2:59:38.560 the river, right and as a ship comes in they 2:59:38.600 --> 2:59:40.480 can they can maybe disable it with a mine and 2:59:40.520 --> 2:59:42.960 then attack it with those. But there are videos online 2:59:42.959 --> 2:59:46.560 you can find them of the AA sinking these ships 2:59:46.640 --> 2:59:49.760 and then they've done some amazing drone photography of like 2:59:49.879 --> 2:59:53.800 they obviously they then like staged their units on the ships, 2:59:53.920 --> 2:59:56.000 like all saluting the drone and they had the Arakan 2:59:56.120 --> 2:59:59.400 Army flags and they're actually really cool photos of them 2:59:59.440 --> 3:00:02.480 taking these. But again, like I think this might be 3:00:02.560 --> 3:00:09.160 the first sinking of a Bermese naval ship since since 3:00:09.200 --> 3:00:12.120 independence from Britain, Like I can't think that they were. 3:00:12.160 --> 3:00:14.240 They really haven't played much of a role at all 3:00:14.360 --> 3:00:18.000 in its comics with the Eros aside as from like 3:00:18.480 --> 3:00:21.400 basically kind of just shelling places when they want to 3:00:21.480 --> 3:00:24.680 do that. But there's never really been any significant opposition 3:00:24.720 --> 3:00:27.320 to them, and that's changed now they have to obviously, 3:00:27.840 --> 3:00:30.199 just like everywhere else, watch out for drones. R drones 3:00:30.240 --> 3:00:33.920 have been used to a massive extent in Myanmar, and 3:00:34.120 --> 3:00:37.600 like the AA doesn't have as many like associated PDFs, 3:00:37.640 --> 3:00:40.400 I haven't seen them doing as much of the drone 3:00:40.440 --> 3:00:43.800 stuff as the PDFs. The pdf tend to be like 3:00:44.440 --> 3:00:47.120 the more urban folks, right, the younger folks and the 3:00:47.959 --> 3:00:50.480 gen Z folks that we've spoken about before, and a 3:00:50.560 --> 3:00:52.800 lot of them have been very savvy with their use 3:00:52.840 --> 3:00:54.720 of drones. Like I said, you can look up Federal 3:00:54.760 --> 3:00:58.000 wings and you can see them dropping bombs with drones 3:00:58.040 --> 3:01:01.400 and all kinds of stuff with their heavy metal soundtracks. 3:01:01.400 --> 3:01:04.520 So they like, but that what it wasn't even drone 3:01:04.560 --> 3:01:06.440 to you, it's pretty simple. It was just mine. So 3:01:06.920 --> 3:01:09.640 things they do love mines and meat of mines all 3:01:09.640 --> 3:01:12.960 over that country. But in this case, these I guess 3:01:13.080 --> 3:01:15.720 massive what mines in the rivers. Given that the Hunter 3:01:15.959 --> 3:01:19.360 is the only only entity sending big boats up and down, 3:01:19.879 --> 3:01:21.360 you could set them at a certain depth where these 3:01:21.360 --> 3:01:23.840 small boats wouldn't hit them, and eventually one of the 3:01:23.920 --> 3:01:25.560 Hunter boats is going to hit them, I guess. And 3:01:25.959 --> 3:01:29.440 so it's pretty basic technology, but it's still a massive 3:01:29.440 --> 3:01:32.120 step forward in terms of like a place where the 3:01:32.240 --> 3:01:35.440 state had complete impunity, it now doesn't. 3:01:35.560 --> 3:01:35.680 Right. 3:01:35.760 --> 3:01:38.400 They can't just cruise up and down these rivers shelling people. 3:01:38.800 --> 3:01:41.080 They were actually using some of the ships to evacuate 3:01:41.200 --> 3:01:44.320 soldiers and their families from a position. The soldiers they 3:01:44.360 --> 3:01:46.560 were trying to like, rather than surrendering, they were trying 3:01:46.560 --> 3:01:49.840 to evacuate them and move them to somewhere else. The 3:01:49.959 --> 3:01:51.760 AA asked them to surrender, and they didn't. They tried 3:01:51.760 --> 3:01:53.960 to evacuate them. So then they mined the ships and 3:01:54.280 --> 3:01:58.440 took those out. I think the hunters. Like tried to 3:01:58.480 --> 3:02:01.640 spin this as like the AA is attacking civilians, but 3:02:02.120 --> 3:02:05.320 I think a Burmese Navy ship with a Burmese Navy flag, 3:02:05.720 --> 3:02:07.560 when those ships have just been shelling you, seems like 3:02:07.600 --> 3:02:09.880 a legitimate target to me. And I think it's very hard. 3:02:10.160 --> 3:02:12.960 It's you know, it's a hunter, but children on one 3:02:13.000 --> 3:02:16.160 of their naval ships rather than the AA who attacked 3:02:16.200 --> 3:02:18.880 the ship because it had children. You can hear in 3:02:19.040 --> 3:02:20.959 one of the things. You can hear the AA are 3:02:21.040 --> 3:02:23.360 like attacking the ship in small boats and they're shouting 3:02:23.480 --> 3:02:25.320 like there are children on board, and you can hear 3:02:25.320 --> 3:02:27.480 them acknowledging it. And there are videos of the AA 3:02:27.680 --> 3:02:32.280 rescuing people who jumped overboard, rescuing them from the river, 3:02:32.760 --> 3:02:37.800 and then like, I guess they've just held us. POW's cool. Yeah, 3:02:37.879 --> 3:02:40.840 it's cool. It's interesting. Obviously, not many of us have 3:02:40.959 --> 3:02:45.840 access to underwater mines, but you know, maybe in a 3:02:45.879 --> 3:02:47.000 fictional future we might. 3:02:47.720 --> 3:02:51.840 Yeah. Well, there you go, folks. This has been irregular 3:02:52.080 --> 3:02:57.400 naval warfare. And you a podcast about a regular naval 3:02:57.480 --> 3:02:58.640 warfare and you. 3:02:59.600 --> 3:03:02.240 Yeah, send us to your videos of yourself. Yeah, ir 3:03:02.280 --> 3:03:03.039 regular naval. 3:03:03.120 --> 3:03:05.560 Yeah, absolutely, go out there. Look how about this, Every 3:03:05.640 --> 3:03:09.680 listener go out and sink one naval vessel, you know, 3:03:10.280 --> 3:03:13.320 no matter who's just any boat. Any go sink a boat, 3:03:13.360 --> 3:03:17.880 any boat, take super yot, knock it out. You see 3:03:17.879 --> 3:03:21.840 a dinghy, take that fucker out. People kayaking, fuck them up, 3:03:22.080 --> 3:03:25.520 you know. Ban on a boat, absolutely, a banana boat 3:03:25.600 --> 3:03:28.400 for sure. One of those weird duck boat car things 3:03:28.440 --> 3:03:31.120 that they have in some city. Oh yeah, actually, you 3:03:31.200 --> 3:03:32.800 know what, you don't need to do anything with that. 3:03:32.920 --> 3:03:36.480 That'll kill everybody on board on Those things are traps. 3:03:37.840 --> 3:03:38.560 Just pray for those. 3:03:39.240 --> 3:03:42.160 Yeah, any any other boat. Yeah, you see a doughnut, 3:03:42.200 --> 3:03:44.280 you know behind a speedboat? 3:03:44.520 --> 3:03:52.600 Oh yeah, murk it anyway, everybody go away. Hey, we'll 3:03:52.640 --> 3:03:55.680 be back Monday with more episodes every week from now 3:03:55.840 --> 3:03:57.200 until the heat death of the Universe. 3:03:57.840 --> 3:03:59.760 It Could Happen here as a production of Pool Zone. 3:03:59.800 --> 3:04:02.640 Need for more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our 3:04:02.680 --> 3:04:05.320 website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 3:04:05.400 --> 3:04:08.760 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 3:04:09.200 --> 3:04:11.320 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:04:11.400 --> 3:04:14.400 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 3:04:14.640 --> 3:04:15.400 Thanks for listening,