WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 111 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.040 All 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 --> 0:00:20.800 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:22.639 there's got to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.800 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.840 Welcome to it could happen here, a podcast about a 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.000 world sliding ever further into the abyss. I'm your host, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:39.080 Mia Wong. As the wave of atrocities committed by Israel 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:42.360 and Nagaza strip rages on, and the moral authority of 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.960 Biden in his liberal cohort crumbles day by day. A 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.960 new generation of right wing media grifters have seized on 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.159 Palestine as a way to boost their own reactionary brand. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.400 But these are not the standard kind of right wing 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.480 grifter that we've become accustomed to on this show. They 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.760 aren't Chris Ruffo, they aren't of TikTok, and although they 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.280 will eventually appear on Tucker Carlson, they are cut from 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:12.720 that pre existing template. These are our monsters. These are 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.720 monsters birth by the left. I grew up in by 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.080 the generation of new socialist radicalized by Bernie Sanders, the 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:24.000 Syrianceivil War, and the election of Donald Trump. This is 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.200 largely going to be a set up episode to understand 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.479 the background of the kinds of people who are going 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.480 to come later. But I wanted to start the story 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.640 with a taste of where it's going to end. Max 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.640 Bluemothal is a left wing journalist with the outlet Gray Zone. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.280 He was for a very long time well regarded in 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:47.120 anti imperialist circles. In many ways, he is the ideological 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.040 predecessor to enormous portions of the modern left. In twenty 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.520 twenty one, Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.840 Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Biden's chief health official, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.640 went on Face Nation to face allegations and calls by 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.000 Senator Ran Paul and Ted Cruz for him to step 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.760 down and quote be prosecuted over the course of COVID nineteen. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:10.720 Yeah. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.120 After this interview happened, Face the Nation released a tweet 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:17.120 about it. Bluementhal responded with an incredibly disturbing video I'm 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:18.680 going to read the tweet. I'm not going to play 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.480 the video because this guy listening to him is a 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:28.160 painful experience. Bluementhal responded, quote Nobel winning inventor of the 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.160 PCR test, Carrie Mollus on Anthony quote, I am the 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.200 science Fauci quote and this is from Molas Tony Fauci 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.359 does not mind going on camera in front of the 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.359 people who pay his salary and lie directly into the camera. 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.560 By the way, the part where he says lie instead 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.919 of lying, there is a direct quote that is him, 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:52.320 not me. So to understand how absolutely it absolutely absurd, 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.840 this is we need to talk about who Carrie Burris 0:02:55.880 --> 0:03:02.840 actually is. So Max Bluemoenthal is correct that Carrie Mollis 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.800 won the nineteen ninety three Nobel Prize for the invention 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:07.800 of the PCR test, which is now one of the 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.800 basic building blocks of biology. Like they let undergrads and 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.680 college do this stuff, But he is also an enormous crank. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.160 Berkeley's alumni magazine wrote a profile of him when he 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.240 died in twenty nineteen. They described him like this quote, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.360 He'd become a vociferous critic of widely accepted scientific theories 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:31.079 ridiculing the notion that CFCs caused the ozone hole, that 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.880 humans caused climate change, and that HIV caused AIDS. Now, okay, 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.680 climate change denihilism, I think is something we all understand. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.920 The ozone layer stuff is extremely funny. This interviews from 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:45.440 the nineties. So in the nineties, we were using these 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.920 things called CFC's, which is a class of chemical that 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.440 we used in like hairspray and refrigerators, and using them 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.840 tore a hole in the ozone layer. So the world, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.280 for maybe the last time, actually performed a collective action 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.600 stop using them, and the whole fixed itself. So okay, Obviously, 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.360 carry mollis unbelievably and very quickly proven unbelievably wrong. But 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.600 the last part, the part where carrying Mullus claims that 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.280 HIV does not cause AIDS, we need to talk about 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.560 a bit more because it is absolutely monstrous and it 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.080 is going to give molos a body count. Even Kissinger 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.160 would not in respect to So, okay, we need to 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.520 talk about what HIV AIDS actually is. So I'm I'm 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.479 just gonna go to the CDC for this one. HIV 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.760 Human and amino deficiency virus is a virus that attacks 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.880 the body's immune system. If HIV is not treated, it 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.000 can lead to AIDS acquired amino deficiency syndrome. There is 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.200 no effective cure. Once people get HIV, they have it 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.320 for life, but with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.360 People with HIV who get effective HIV treatment can live long, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.760 healthy lives and protective partners. And this is something that 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.040 people fought and died for. If you have HIV, there 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:05.960 are simple and easy tests for it now you can 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.240 get treatment and you can live a normal life. On 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.560 the other hand, if HIV isn't treated, you can get 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.479 acquired immuno deficiency syndrome AIDS, and that can and will 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:21.279 kill you. It is what killed so so many, almost 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.800 an entire generation of queer people. It killed them for 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.200 decades and decades and decades, and it's still killing them now. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.800 Carrie Mullis, the guy who max bluemitthal is tweeting a 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.800 video of to Go After. Anthony Fauci doesn't think that 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.120 HIV causes AIDS. He thinks that AIDS is caused by 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.280 malnutrition in poverty, and he is going to spend the 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.080 rest of his life telling anyone in everyone he can 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:49.080 getting mainstream press coverage telling people that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.120 He is the Andrew Wakefield of HIV AIDS in nihilism. 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.920 Lots of people believe him, including for example, the FOO 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.480 fighters Dave Gruel. They believe him because he is apparently 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.440 a reputable source. The man has a Nobel prize. But unfortunately, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.760 as we've already seen from his climate denial and his 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.960 CFC denial, he is spreading unbelievably dangerous lies, and this 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.880 specific lie that HIV doesn't cause AIDS fucking kills people. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:16.760 Here's from that Berkeley article. Again, I don't like the 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.000 way they're phrasing it. It's the you know, it's Berkeley, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.440 right like, so some stuff going to some stuff's going 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:28.880 to be racist. His views on AIDS don't just look bad, 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.160 they may have had deadly consequences. By the late nineteen nineties, 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.719 South Africa was in the midst of a catastrophic A's epidemic. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.960 President Thumbo mcbecky, under the spell of AIDS denialist including Mullis, 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.400 declared that A's was caused by poverty, not HIV. Many 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.719 South Africans were denied access to treatment. A two thousand 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.160 and eight study published in the Journal of Acquired Immuno 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.560 Deficiency Syndromes estimated that as a result, thirty five thousand 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.680 babies were born with HIV and three hundred and thirty 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.280 thousand South Africans died of AIDS on it. Necessarily, this 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:07.839 is monstrous. And here is Max Bluementhal, who was up 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.680 until very recently, at the very least nominally a left 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.400 wing journalist, tweeting a video of this fucking guy to 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.880 attack Anthony Fauci on behalf of a bunch of right 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.080 wing anti lockdown rules. Now, I especially want to do 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.560 this because if you want to attack Anthony Fauci, it 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.000 is very very easy to do from the left. You 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.920 can attack him for his response to the original HIV 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.160 AIDS pandemic, and you know, lots of queer people have 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.920 done this. Instead, Max Bluementhal is tweeting a guy is 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.960 tweeting a video from an unbelievable right wing crank who 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.360 was responsible for the death of three hundred and thirty 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.320 thousand people. And so the question we're going to be 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.120 answering for the next three episodes is how did we 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:57.240 get here and what is happening now, and to do 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.480 this we need to talk about the rise of American 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.000 Marxist Leninism. I'm going to try to present the ideology 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.320 as sympathetically as possible, because it's important to understand how 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.920 people came to believe in these things, because part of 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.720 the horror and tragedy here is that not all of 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.320 these people are the grifters and shills in right wing 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.040 fanatics that the IDEOLOGI spawned and who were now having 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.960 to deal with people who are on info wars agreeing 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.960 with Alex Jones. Most of them were people like us, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.400 people who saw the horrors of this world and wanted 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.760 to make it better. A lot of the writing about 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.240 this is clinical and antiseptic, largely coming from either academic 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:43.760 journals or very very angry liberals. And I can't be 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.840 clinical about this. I can't cover this neutraally, and I 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.120 can't do that because some of these people were my friends. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.760 There were people I loved and respected and cared about, 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.560 and they're people who have now lost, and so I 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.360 owe it to them to be fair about this. So 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.880 what is is the modern generation of Marxist Leninism. You 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.560 could start with the history of the Bolsheviks and Stalin's 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.080 consolidation of power and the development of Marxist Leninism as 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.520 an ideology, and you could trace it through the twentieth century, 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:13.880 and you could trace, you know, the ways in which 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.880 it is and isn't the ideology that Lenin had originally 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.840 been developing. But that really is the wrong place to 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.080 start here. If you want to understand how this ideology 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.440 came to be and why so many people came to 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.800 follow it, the right place to start is America. It's 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.040 with a generation of young people who grew up in 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.120 the wake of the two thousand and eight financial collapse 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.040 and the ruthless suppression of occupy by the Obama administration. 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:40.880 It's a generation of people who grew up on the 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.800 Internet who began to learn about the lies we've been 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.760 fed our entire lives about the world and America's role 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.120 in it. They learned the lies we've been told about 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.080 the war in Iraq, about Afghanistan, about Vietnam, about Allende 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.720 and Pinochet, about Cuba, about the Sandinistas, about American imperialism 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.559 in Lebanon and Haitian, Guatemala and Honduras and Iran, about 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.880 Patrice Labumba and the DRC, about Sukarno and Suharo in 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.720 the Killing Fields, about Thomas Sankara, about Shai Guavara, about 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.480 the Black Panthers, about a thousand wars and a thousand 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.720 crimes of the American Empire crime as we could spend 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:20.240 an entire episode just listing by name. They learned in 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.600 a tremendously short amount of time that the American Empire 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.560 was born of genocide. It was built by slavery, and 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.559 he is sustained by replicating those genocides across the world 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.600 and at home. That the governments, they were taught from 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.520 birth to love and respect, slaughtered children in the streets 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.640 with health fire and missiles, and then had the unmitigated 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.160 gall to turn around and proclaim itself the leaders of 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.640 the free world and the upholder of the rules based 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:48.679 international order. And so they started learning about how our 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.679 capitalist economy really functions. They started reading Marx, and then 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.640 they started reading Angles, and it led to other Marxists 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.559 into the great international enemies of American imperialism from the 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.480 last century ho Chi Minh Castro to Lenin, to struggles 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.719 against colonialism in Algeria, and to intellectuals like phenomen and 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.640 militants like Asada Shakur. It led them to believe, to 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.679 really believe in the struggle against capitalism and racism and imperialism, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.319 and that led them to Stalin and Mao, And eventually 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.839 it would lead them down a darker path, a path 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.040 where anything and everything could be justified if it meant 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.720 defeating the American Empire, a path that told them it 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.840 was their duty to back every state in the world 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.760 who could even conceivably check the advance of American power. 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.080 It led them to modern geopolitics, to the belief that 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.679 modern China and Vietnam or socialist states still resisting American imperialism. 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.079 It would lead them eventually to backing the very Russian 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.600 oligarchs that had destroyed their beloved USSR. And it would 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.080 lead some of them into the very heart of darkness itself, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.720 to an alliance with anyone and everyone who opposed liberal interventionism. 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:02.839 It would lead to the Sekin alliance with the arch 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.440 right wing anti communist Donald Trump. But it didn't start 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.480 that way. The co option of the ideology is a 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.880 process that took almost a decade and comprise a series 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.280 of debates inside the left about what capitalism, socialism, and 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.800 imperialism really are, and how the left should relate to 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.199 nationalism in the state. We'll talk more about how these 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.600 debates led to a right wing turn at episode three. 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:30.800 But the core beliefs anti imperialism, objection to capitalism, a 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.800 rejection of liberal interventionism, and some of the darker and 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.240 more conspiratorial tendencies, like accusing any protest movement against the 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.559 government they supported of being CIA assets, spread like wildfire. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.760 There were contradictions from the beginning, of course, how do 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.760 you square your opposition to capitalism with your support for China, 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:53.480 a country with almost one thousand billionaires. The solution was 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.959 to lie. Lies about China, in particular abound it. Many 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.280 Marxist Leninists believe, for reasons that are deeply unclear to me, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.600 that China has public housing that automatically guarantees every citizen 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.080 a home. This is not true. This unclear to me 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.200 if it's ever been true, even through this so, I mean, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.640 I guess you could argue it was sort of true 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.600 during the socialist period. It has not been true for 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.600 a very very long time. China has a lot of 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.840 homeless people. But you know, these sort of lies persist 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.439 because they are what you need to believe in order 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.360 to believe that China is a socialist state and not 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.760 a capitalist one. Another common line is that China has 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:37.720 a fully socialized healthcare system. This is unbelievably not true. China, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.960 in fact, used to have something like a universal medical 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.200 system that they operated in extreme difficulty with groups of 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.640 people called the barefoot doctors who would go to rural 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.440 villages that had never really received proper medical care before 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.160 and attempt to treat them. This was the thing that 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.480 China used to have, and then they tore it up 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.600 and privatized it, and now Chinese private healthcare is absolute disaster. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.400 Calculations by the Chinese Journal Twang estimate that almost the 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.480 entire Chinese economy is based on corporations not paying their 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.240 required contributions to healthcare plans, and that if corporations actually 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.679 paid into the healthcare plans of micro workers, the entire 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.960 economies of entire provinces would immediately go under as an 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.240 enormous majority of their corporations immediately went underwater. And so 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.960 what we're getting this sort of picture of is people 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:32.680 begin to believe things that need to be true in 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.800 order for their ant to square their anti imperialism, or 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.760 their version of anti imperialism, which is opposing at all 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:44.080 costs the United States with their anti capitalism when the 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.640 two began to conflict in terms of, you know, attempting 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:52.120 to support a very obviously capitalist economy, and this leads 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.440 to some very very bizarre twists in turns. One very 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.960 common thing is for socialists and socialist organizations in the US, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.640 or at least I say socialists, I made Marxist Leninists 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.920 organizations to advocate for a fifteen or twenty dollars midiroom 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.000 wage in China while simultaneously celebrating thirty two cents an 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.680 hour as the end of poverty in China. This has 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.720 never actually penetrated the minds of the new Marxist Leninists. 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.960 With their endless parades of flags and new countries added 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.640 every day, from the genocidal austerity bongers in Ethiopia to 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.960 the hardline, murderous anti communists to rule meenmore by baton 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.120 and bullet, new Marxist Leninists were able to effectively insulate 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.840 themselves from reality. This left them as prey for a 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.920 new generation of right wing grifters. Would cynically exploit them 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.120 for wealth and status. They also garnered the hatred of 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.880 the more internationalist factions of the left, and then, as 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.920 their numbers expanded, the increasing ire of liberals, who, stealing 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.800 a term from anarchists, began to call the Marxist Leninist tankies. This, 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.200 I suspect, if you have heard of these people, is 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.480 probably the word you've heard used to describe them. So 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:03.200 we should talk about what this word actually means. But first, 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:10.160 unfortunately some ads, and we're back. To explain what a 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.080 tanky is, we have to go back to, bizarrely, the 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:19.640 nineteen fifty six Hungarian Revolution. So all right, in nineteen 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:24.240 fifty six there was a massive uprising in Hungary. The 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.880 Hungarians effectively forced their government to break with the Soviets. 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.280 The Soviets respond to this by rolling a bunch of 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.880 tanks across the border, claiming everyone in the revolution is 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.240 the fascist and killing them all. And they were fairly 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.800 successfully able to convince a large number of communists that 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.560 the Hungarian revolutions really were fascists. They were aided in 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.520 this by the fact that the liberals also lied about 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.760 what the Hungarian revolution really was. And this is a 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.120 lie that they continue to spread to this day. The 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.840 liberal version of the revolution is that it was, you know, 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.640 it was a liberal revolution by people who wanted liberal 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.720 democracy against the Soviets'll tell Terrrianism, etc. Et cetera, et cetera. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.320 And that's also not true. The reality of that uprising 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.520 and what most of it was was a rebellion by 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:15.160 the Hungarian workers' councils, So workers across their factories seized 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.760 control of their factories, threw their bosses out, and began 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.440 to manage the democratically. The different workers' councils like foreign 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:27.639 regional federations. It is very stunningly, very very similar to 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.520 the original Soviets of the nineteen seventeen Russian Revolution, which 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.679 in theory the USSR is supposed to be named after. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.320 But when they reappeared again, the the Soviets just absolutely 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:43.120 smashed them because they weren't advocating for a Soviet aligned 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.960 one party state. And what this actually meant was tanks 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.560 rolling up to the gates of factories blasting apart the 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.439 very workers' councils who are supposed to be the basis 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.560 of communism. This was an attempt in some sense yes, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.840 to implement democracy, but it was an attempt to implement 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.520 democracy in the factory, and it was attempted by the 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.879 working class to seize control of the means of production 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:08.160 and manage them themselves. Now, the smashing of the Hungarian 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.120 Revolution led to a split in enormous numbers of communist 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.520 parties all across the world. There are people leave communist 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.760 parties and droves. This is a big enough deal that 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.359 it spawns effectively like a crisis in China, where there 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.879 is a series of bast strikes and people chanting like 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:28.040 here another Hungary, and in particular the British Communist Party 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.000 had a guy on the ground in Hungary reporting of 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.720 what was happening, and his reports split the party between 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:36.760 the people who supported the Hungarians and the people who 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.360 supported the Soviets. The latter faction became known as tankies 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.760 for their support of rolling tanks across the border and 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.760 slaughtering in the working class. The term was revived in 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.440 the twenty tens to describe the return of Marcist Leninists, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.760 so though much of its usage was about Russia and 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.000 Syria rather than the original Hungarian uprising. Now it is 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.679 true that all of these people do actually support they 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.639 do actually believe that the Soviets were crushing like the 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.440 return of fascism, but that that actual belief, like the 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.800 belief in you know, that the Soviets were right to 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.080 crush the Hungarian Revolution, is effectively irrelevant now except as 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.159 a sort of marker of loyalty, because you know, the 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.560 USSR is gone and the Hungarian Revolution is gone too, 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.280 and so what's left is a term that on the 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:33.640 one hand, does correctly, you know, it does correctly describe 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:38.600 a part of their political tradition, but it has it 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.560 has a tendency to sort of anchor these arguments in 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.280 the past instead of the present. With the substance of 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:50.160 disagreements with the Marxist Leninists actually are now Marxist Leninists, 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.280 they're also just yeah, they're called mls to Marxist Leninists 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.280 absolutely hate being called tankies except under, you know, the 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.320 circumstances where they adopted ironically, and I'm of two minds. 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.320 I have called these people's tankies a lot. But the 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.800 biggest problem with calling these people tankies is that the 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.159 original tankies, the people who supported the Soviets butchering the 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.640 Hungarian working class were actually communists. They were Marxist Latinists 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.359 who supported the USSR and believe that state ownership of 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.159 the means of production was the socialist transition to communism. 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.160 These modern quote unquote Marxist Leninists don't even believe that. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:27.960 Both Stalin and Kruish Chef, for all the differences, would 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.239 have had these people's shop for supporting capitalists in their 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.480 imperialist market economies. If you tried to explain to Mao 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.520 that Deng Jhao Ping, with his people's billionaires and a 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.359 trillion dollars of American treasury bond singing it sitting in 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.560 his coffers, was doing communism, he would have branded you 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.679 a capitalist, wrote and sent you to your re education 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.359 camp at the end of the day. Whatever else, the 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.320 original tankies, the British supporters of the USSR were communists. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.240 Their modern day equivalents don't even have that to height behind. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.119 They have been reduced to capitalists with a hammer and 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:03.440 sickle fetish. So who are these people really? What they've 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.639 become is suicide net socialists, because the suicide nets are 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.160 the actual content of their politics. This is the actual 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.080 content of backing states like the people's Republic of China. 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.960 It is full throated support for the suicide nets to 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.440 fly under the roofs of the Fox confactories in Shenzhen. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.840 The reality of their suicide net socialism is that the 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.600 Chinese working class would rather kill themselves than live under it. 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.960 And it was these suicide net socialists who sins spawned 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:36.080 their bastard children, patriotic socialism, and eventually Maga communism. So 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:41.960 how do we understand what these people are? I am 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.639 going to give the final word to Karl Marx, the 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:49.639 man whose ideology in theory spawned theirs. I'm going to 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.720 read from one of Marx's most famous works, the eighteenth 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:54.399 through Mayor. I'm pretty sure I've quoted it on the 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.840 show before. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.879 a nightmare on the mina into the living. And just 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.560 as they seemed to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.240 creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:13.480 epochs of revolutionary crisis, they anxiously conjure up the spirits 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.880 of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.440 battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.120 scene in world history and time, honor, disguise and borrowed language. 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:29.000 Thus Luther Martin Luther put on the mask of the 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.639 apostle Paul. The French Revolution of seventeen eighty nine to 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.920 nineteen fourteen draped itself alternatingly in the guise of the 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.920 Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.480 nineteen forty eight knew nothing better to do than to 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.960 parody now seventeen eighty nine, now the revolutionary tradition of 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:51.080 seventeen ninety three, seventeen ninety five. This is precisely the 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.639 trap that Marxist Leninis have walked into. Faced with mass 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.600 social upheaval, they knew nothing better than the down the 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.520 mask of Stalind and Mao. It was a terrible mistake. 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.400 Here is Marx again. The social revolution of the nineteenth 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.280 century cannot take its poetry from the past, but only 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.679 from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.280 has stripped away all superstition about the past. The former 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.040 revolutionaries required recollections of past world history in order to 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.919 smother their own content. The Revolution of the nineteenth century 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.480 must let the dead bury their dead in order to 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.879 arrive at its own content. There the phrase went beyond 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:36.480 the content. Here, the content goes beyond the phrase. But 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:40.640 we never buried our dead. The memories of dead generations 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:43.160 still weigh like a nightmare in the minds of the living. 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.080 And in the next episode we will walk face first 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:50.480 into that nightmare and behold the abyss within. 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:11.880 Woo All right, guys, I did my job. That could 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:14.760 happen here a podcast that I just opened by saying, 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:19.679 woo ha meyeah, I'm gonna throw to you. Now what 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:20.879 are we talking about today? 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.520 Boy? So, yesterday we did I guess, the sort of 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.200 intro legwork to the kind of stuff that you need 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:31.159 to know to understand the sort of new crop of 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:36.040 right wing Palestine grifters. And today we're actually gonna get 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.240 into who these people are and how their politics developed, 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.000 and how the sort of trajectory of this has shaped 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:49.840 a lot of the left. And to do this, unfortunately, 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.600 we need to introduce one of the main characters of this, 0:24:55.640 --> 0:24:59.720 for better or for worse, probably for worse, Max Blumenthal. 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:06.879 I just woke up. We're talking about Max Blumenthal and 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:10.600 I'm just barely starting my coffee for the morning. Son 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:11.240 of a bitch. 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:18.880 I'm so sorry. I apologize to everyone, but unfortunately, unfortunately 0:25:19.200 --> 0:25:20.399 this needs to be done. 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:23.680 Yeah, he's the human equivalent of soap scum. 0:25:24.119 --> 0:25:28.199 Yeah, so okay, I think the place to start with 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:31.120 Max Bluementhal is a thing that's pretty common among most 0:25:31.160 --> 0:25:33.960 of the kind of new crop of these Palestine grifters 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:37.040 is that he used to be a pretty normal progressive. 0:25:37.640 --> 0:25:39.560 Now for some of the people were going to be 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:42.120 talking about, pretty normal progressive was a thing they were 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:45.520 in like twenty nineteen. For Max Blumenthal, like, he was 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:49.639 a pretty normal progressive in like the two thousands and 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:50.840 in nine was. 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.359 A real journalist at some point, right, yeah, yeah, Like, 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:58.879 like he wrote this book called Republican Gomorah, Inside the 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:00.920 Movement that Shattered the Part, which is a pretty good 0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:02.800 book about the rise of the Christian Right and how 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:04.159 they seize the Republican Party. 0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:07.359 And this is very funny because the place he is 0:26:07.359 --> 0:26:09.359 going to end up at the end of this story 0:26:09.480 --> 0:26:13.280 is going on Tucker Carlson and being aligned with like 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:16.200 the exact forces he was talking about like a decade 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:19.680 and a half ago. So before we really started to 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:23.240 get into him, we need to talk about his family. Garrett, 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:25.159 do you know who Sid Blumenthal is? 0:26:26.359 --> 0:26:29.760 Oh? Yeah, the name sounds familiar, but it's not ringing 0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:31.080 any specific bells for me. 0:26:31.960 --> 0:26:34.400 Ye Clinton staffer, right. 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:37.720 Yeah, yeah, he was like Clinton's hatchet man basically, like 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:40.400 this is mostly originally with Bill Clinton, but like later 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:43.199 Hillary Clinton too. He's like the guy who does the 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:46.520 Clinton's like political dirty work, and he was like, here's 0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:49.800 a big guy in the nineties. The most impactful thing 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:52.199 that he did for modern politics is that he is 0:26:52.240 --> 0:26:57.000 the guy who invented birth rhythm is slightly too strong 0:26:57.040 --> 0:26:58.919 of a word, but he's the guy who pushes like 0:26:59.000 --> 0:27:03.679 Obama birth rhism him like into the mainstream because like 0:27:03.720 --> 0:27:06.480 as an attempt basically to kill Obama's campaign so that 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:07.640 Hillary could win the nomination. 0:27:08.520 --> 0:27:10.160 How well did how well did that turn out? 0:27:10.880 --> 0:27:16.320 Well? Gave us Donald Trump, So you know, things going great, 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:20.360 and you know, so so this is Max Bluementhal's dad, right, 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:22.080 like Max, And this is I think I think that's 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:24.280 kind of important about him is that he grows up 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:28.040 very sort of proximal to power. Like he goes to 0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:30.879 Georgetown Day School, which is a forty thousand dollars a 0:27:30.960 --> 0:27:35.000 year prep school that has like multiple Supreme Court justices, 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:37.679 Like I've sent their kids there now. But he's so 0:27:37.720 --> 0:27:40.840 he's like kind of a normal progressive journalist for a 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:45.160 long time. But in the early twenty tens, he takes 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:51.119 a genuine, a very principled stand on Palestine that gets 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:53.000 him kind of kicked out of a lot of progressive 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:56.560 circles because in twenty twelve thirteen, it was and it 0:27:56.680 --> 0:27:58.040 still is to this day, but like it was, it 0:27:58.080 --> 0:28:01.639 was very hard to take profalesime positions, and he like 0:28:02.200 --> 0:28:04.440 he just ends up in this sort of spiral where 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:06.760 like he loses most of his friends, his girlfriend breaks 0:28:06.840 --> 0:28:09.480 up with him, like he's not getting work from the 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:11.440 usual places he'd been getting work from because he's been 0:28:12.080 --> 0:28:14.879 sort of like kicked out and isolated for taking this stance. 0:28:15.359 --> 0:28:19.520 And the product of this is that he goes he 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:25.600 takes this meeting that is very very weird. So in 0:28:25.640 --> 0:28:30.040 twenty fifteen, Russia today has this like week long gala 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:32.840 thing that's for its tenth anniversary. And if you're like 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:35.760 a Mueller investigation fan, this is very famous. If you're 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:38.440 a Nova person, almost no one has ever heard of 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:41.400 this thing. Yeah, so this this gala thing is this 0:28:41.480 --> 0:28:43.680 in twenty fifteen. It has a bunch of very very 0:28:43.760 --> 0:28:49.280 important like Russian officials. Gorbachev is there, Like there's a 0:28:49.280 --> 0:28:54.520 bunch of like senior like senior officials. Very famously, Mike 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:57.320 Flynn gets paid forty five thousand dollars to speak there. 0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:01.959 Jill Stein, who the Green Party can in twenty sixteen? 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:04.760 This is where. 0:29:04.080 --> 0:29:06.360 Running again for the Green Party this year? 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:08.840 Technics. Yeah, I don't know if they're gonna be this year. 0:29:10.160 --> 0:29:11.720 I think they got it. I think they got it. 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.280 On lock Now Jill Jill Jill Stein twenty four? Would 0:29:15.360 --> 0:29:17.840 she beat Howie Hawkins? Is he not running again? 0:29:18.160 --> 0:29:21.120 I believe, I believe it's her. That's last last night 0:29:21.120 --> 0:29:23.880 I heard Jill Stein is making is making another run 0:29:23.960 --> 0:29:24.320 for it? 0:29:24.680 --> 0:29:25.200 Goddamn? 0:29:25.200 --> 0:29:28.680 All right, yeah, yeah, she has one month ago she 0:29:28.760 --> 0:29:31.960 launched her twenty twenty four presidential bid. 0:29:32.480 --> 0:29:36.280 Oh boy, so yeah, okay, so so Jill Stein. This 0:29:36.360 --> 0:29:38.400 is where if you've ever heard the conspiracy stuff, that's 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.840 like Jill Stein is like a Russian agent. It comes 0:29:41.840 --> 0:29:43.800 from the fact that she was at this meeting and 0:29:43.800 --> 0:29:48.400 then started running for president. Now, what's interesting about Max 0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:52.480 Bluman thought going here is at this point he's a 0:29:52.720 --> 0:29:56.120 pro Syrian revolution guy. He writes, he writes a bunch 0:29:56.160 --> 0:29:59.160 of articles like criticizing Western leftists for supporting a Saudid. 0:29:59.200 --> 0:30:02.719 I want to read from a little bit of them, 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:08.160 because it's a really interesting look into who he was 0:30:08.240 --> 0:30:11.120 before and the fact that he knows exactly what the 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:16.120 playbook that he's going to be using is. Besides exploiting 0:30:16.160 --> 0:30:19.600 the Palestinian cause, the Assaud apologists have eagerly played the 0:30:19.640 --> 0:30:24.040 al Qaeda card to stoke fears of his Islamic takeover Assyria. 0:30:24.200 --> 0:30:26.760 Back in two thousand and three, Assaud accused the US 0:30:26.800 --> 0:30:29.200 of deliberately overstating the strength of Alkaida in order to 0:30:29.280 --> 0:30:32.120 justify it so called war on Terror. But now in 0:30:32.160 --> 0:30:35.120 a transparent bid for sympathy from the outside world, Asad 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:38.520 insists the Syrian armed opposition is controlled almost entirely by 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:41.960 al Qaeda like jahadists who have come from abroad to 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:46.320 place the country under Islamic control, and is addressed to 0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:49.000 the Syrian People's Assembly. On June third, the dictator tried 0:30:49.000 --> 0:30:51.320 to hammer the theme home by using the terms terrorists 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.920 or terrorism a whopping forty three times. That is a 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:57.880 full ten times more than George Bush digit he speech 0:30:57.960 --> 0:31:02.240 to Congress. In the aftermath of nine to eleven, enjoining 0:31:02.320 --> 0:31:05.280 the Asade regimes campaign that g legitimize the Syrian opposition 0:31:05.360 --> 0:31:08.600 by casting it as a bunch off irrational Jahatis. Ironically, 0:31:08.600 --> 0:31:11.600 they seem to have little problem with Hesbelah's core Islamist values. 0:31:11.920 --> 0:31:15.960 Assaud's apologists have unwinningly underwritten the war on Terror lexicon 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.920 introduced by George Bush, Ariel Sharon and the Neo Kon 0:31:19.000 --> 0:31:23.720 cabal after nine to eleven. So this is pre twenty fifteen, 0:31:24.240 --> 0:31:28.640 like twenty fifteen, like pre this meeting, Max bluementhal So 0:31:28.840 --> 0:31:34.440 he goes to this meeting and then after that founds 0:31:34.600 --> 0:31:37.520 grey Zone and all of his positions suddenly flip. And 0:31:37.520 --> 0:31:39.360 this is the thing you can actually if you want to, 0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:41.040 if you go back and trace. So graizone is this 0:31:41.080 --> 0:31:44.640 sort of media outlet thing that Max Blumenthal found it. 0:31:44.680 --> 0:31:46.760 And it's interesting because there's a lot of like Aaron 0:31:46.760 --> 0:31:48.960 Batte too, Like if you go through the journalist in 0:31:49.040 --> 0:31:51.280 this outlet, the moment they start working for Greyzone, all 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:54.000 of their positions on stuff like Syria just immediately flip. 0:31:55.800 --> 0:31:59.240 There's okay. So there's a conspiracy version of this where 0:32:00.840 --> 0:32:03.200 like if you read Liberal Accouncil with Grayzone. They will 0:32:03.440 --> 0:32:05.800 argue that maxlely Wenthal went to this meeting, got paid 0:32:05.800 --> 0:32:07.960 off by the Russian government and that grey Zone is 0:32:08.000 --> 0:32:12.120 like a Russian asset. I I don't know. I don't 0:32:12.240 --> 0:32:14.600 think that's true. Well, the thing I can say was, 0:32:14.920 --> 0:32:17.760 nobody knows where Grayzone gets his money from. Right, they're 0:32:17.880 --> 0:32:20.600 very they're very sort of like like there's Patreon stuff. 0:32:20.600 --> 0:32:22.840 But other than that, they're very sort of sketchy about it. 0:32:23.360 --> 0:32:26.920 There's no evidence, like directly that he's been paid by 0:32:26.960 --> 0:32:29.719 the Russian government to do Grayzone. The thing that I 0:32:29.800 --> 0:32:31.720 can say is that he has taken a bunch of 0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:33.680 money from the Russian government to go on RT like 0:32:33.760 --> 0:32:36.160 all the fucking time. That's the part of it that 0:32:36.240 --> 0:32:38.080 I can say. I don't know. This is one of 0:32:38.080 --> 0:32:41.280 these things that's it's such a sort of like confluence 0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:42.880 of like all of these people were in the same 0:32:42.880 --> 0:32:44.120 place at the same time. It's one of these things 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:46.360 that generates a trilling conspiracy theories. I'm gonna say that 0:32:47.120 --> 0:32:50.800 I don't think that this is like a giant Russian conspiracy. 0:32:51.240 --> 0:32:55.720 But he does flip all of his positions almost immediately 0:32:55.880 --> 0:33:00.360 after going to this meeting, and the thing that he 0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:02.520 starts taking is is the exact same position that he 0:33:02.600 --> 0:33:05.440 was he was writing about like before this in twenty fifteen, 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:09.360 he starts talking about how like anyone who opposes a 0:33:09.400 --> 0:33:12.360 SAWD is a quote head chopper, and he starts he 0:33:12.400 --> 0:33:14.280 starts selling like one of these big things is selling 0:33:14.320 --> 0:33:16.000 this line that like a SAWD is the defender of 0:33:16.040 --> 0:33:18.880 serious ethnic minorities, which is like a thing that I 0:33:18.920 --> 0:33:21.400 think would be newsed to them, and you know, and 0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:24.200 he's he starts a podcast called Moderate Rebels, which is 0:33:24.240 --> 0:33:27.200 a joke about like, ah, like the US is funding 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:28.960 moderate rebels, but all those people are actually like ol 0:33:29.000 --> 0:33:33.480 Kaida supporters, and I don't know, like I think. I 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:36.800 think it's interesting comparing his pre twenty fifteen writing to 0:33:36.800 --> 0:33:42.880 his post twenty fifteen writing, because he very clearly understands 0:33:42.880 --> 0:33:47.520 what he's doing, Like he he wrote an analysis of 0:33:47.600 --> 0:33:48.960 the thing that he's going to be dealing. 0:33:49.080 --> 0:33:51.080 There's no plausible deniability with him. 0:33:51.440 --> 0:33:55.240 Yeah, and a big part of this whole deal is 0:33:55.280 --> 0:33:56.480 like and this is one of the things that Max 0:33:56.560 --> 0:34:00.200 Lminthal figures out is that there are there are there's 0:34:00.280 --> 0:34:03.640 a very large market in selling a palatable form of 0:34:03.680 --> 0:34:08.319 Islamophobia to the left. You're gonna see this in this 0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:09.960 is one of the things that he doesn't shing John, 0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:13.120 where there's he's he's part of this whole sort of 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:16.080 sphere of people who are like, there's nothing happening in 0:34:16.160 --> 0:34:20.000 Chan John, Everything's actually great. And with both that and Syria, 0:34:20.040 --> 0:34:22.560 there's exactly the same playbook, which is to go all, like, 0:34:22.640 --> 0:34:24.719 you know, all of the resistance to this government is 0:34:24.920 --> 0:34:28.760 CIA back Wahabi terrorists. You can find like some people 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:32.080 who suck and go oh hey, like these guys are 0:34:32.080 --> 0:34:35.719 all Jahadists, and you know, in Syria this is sort 0:34:35.719 --> 0:34:38.120 of bleakly funny because if you know your War on 0:34:38.200 --> 0:34:41.040 terror history, like Bashar al Assad like tortured people with 0:34:41.040 --> 0:34:44.360 the CIA and the US like held some Weiger guys 0:34:44.800 --> 0:34:47.960 for the CCP in Gitmo for allegedly being part of 0:34:47.960 --> 0:34:51.839 a separatist group. But this is an important part of 0:34:51.920 --> 0:34:57.759 how people sort of launder these right wing dictators. And 0:34:58.120 --> 0:35:00.480 this is something that there's a very old sort of 0:35:00.520 --> 0:35:02.920 tradition of this on the left that these these a 0:35:02.960 --> 0:35:05.319 lot of people are able to sort of raft onto 0:35:07.520 --> 0:35:09.680 And I'm going to take an example of this because 0:35:09.760 --> 0:35:14.520 I think it's important because one of the the er 0:35:14.719 --> 0:35:18.200 sort of moments of all of this politics is the 0:35:18.239 --> 0:35:21.640 collapse of Yugoslavia and the sort of left wing defense 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:26.399 of Melosovic. So I'm going to read from to take 0:35:26.400 --> 0:35:28.200 an example of like what this shit looks like. I'm 0:35:28.200 --> 0:35:30.839 going to read from an article that Jeremy Skahill wrote, 0:35:30.920 --> 0:35:34.399 which is, I think the worst article about Melosovik I've 0:35:34.400 --> 0:35:36.200 ever seen. This is this is a Huffington Post piece. 0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:37.560 This is I think the worst thing I've ever seen 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:41.759 written about Molosovik in a mainstream outlet. Here is here. 0:35:41.880 --> 0:35:46.080 Here is Jeremy's Gayhill quote. Little attention therefore, has been 0:35:46.120 --> 0:35:49.520 paid to Melosovic's long term efforts, which predate nine to eleven, 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:52.240 the nineteen ninety nine NATO bombing and his own trial 0:35:52.880 --> 0:35:55.640 to expose the presence of Al Qaeda and the Balkans 0:35:55.680 --> 0:35:59.359 from Bosnia to Kosovo. With nine to eleven, Melosovic's talk 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:03.319 of al Kaido easily dismissed as laughable, pathetic opportunism. But 0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:07.120 those who follow Melosovic's career and importantly the events of 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:10.000 the nineteen nineties in Yugoslavia, no, it was none of these. 0:36:10.920 --> 0:36:13.640 The those allegations were based on true events the US 0:36:13.680 --> 0:36:17.600 does not want discussed in an international court. Following the 0:36:17.600 --> 0:36:20.680 defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the eighties, many 0:36:20.800 --> 0:36:23.759 Musha Hadeen eventually turned their sights on Yugoslavia, where they 0:36:23.800 --> 0:36:28.120 went to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:32.080 and Catholic Croats. Once again, the US and bin Laden 0:36:32.120 --> 0:36:34.560 were on the same team. To this day, there are 0:36:34.600 --> 0:36:38.160 reports of trading camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. 0:36:38.840 --> 0:36:41.640 It is also likely a trading ground for future blowback. 0:36:41.719 --> 0:36:46.640 So that's like nonsense, Like there are not there are 0:36:46.640 --> 0:36:50.040 not all Kaida training camps in Bosnia, Like what the fuck? Like, 0:36:50.280 --> 0:36:53.840 it's just it's complete nonsense, And you know, it relies 0:36:53.880 --> 0:36:57.160 on a lot of the other sort of like weird 0:36:57.520 --> 0:37:01.759 things that leftists like believe and don't believe about this. 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:05.760 There's there's a very if if you want to actually 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:10.560 read about these sort of like transnational Islamist networks, there's 0:37:10.600 --> 0:37:13.040 there's a very good book by the anthropologist DARRYL Lee 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:16.560 called The Universal Enemy in Jihad and Jihada Empire and 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:20.640 the Challenge of Solidarity. But like, okay, I want I 0:37:20.640 --> 0:37:24.080 want to ask the audience a question, right, why would 0:37:24.120 --> 0:37:27.319 members of the muja Hadeen be in Bosnia in the 0:37:27.400 --> 0:37:30.160 nineteen nineties, And I want to suggest that it might 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:32.200 have something to do with the fact that Melosivic was 0:37:32.239 --> 0:37:36.080 trying to kill every Muslim in the fucking country. He 0:37:36.200 --> 0:37:39.960 almost did it. He was pretty close to actually doing it, 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:43.319 you know. But the sort of the sort of like 0:37:43.400 --> 0:37:45.480 left conspiracy solutions like no, no, it must have been 0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:48.640 the CIA. There's no plausible reason why ex Musja Hadeen 0:37:48.719 --> 0:37:51.200 guys would have gone to a country where someone was 0:37:51.200 --> 0:37:54.440 trying to kill the entire Muslim population, Like what the 0:37:54.440 --> 0:37:54.840 fuck did you? 0:37:54.960 --> 0:37:55.040 Like? 0:37:55.600 --> 0:38:00.319 It's it's it's all stuff that's like this, And you know, 0:38:00.400 --> 0:38:03.520 he also talks about how like Belosovic would have like 0:38:04.000 --> 0:38:07.560 testified about the CIA institution of a neoliberal government in Kosovo, 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:12.400 and like what like Belosovic is the guy who presided 0:38:12.560 --> 0:38:15.920 like he was one of the architects of of decollectivisation 0:38:15.960 --> 0:38:18.680 in Yugoslavia, like he is like before before he was this, 0:38:18.800 --> 0:38:20.560 before he was the butcher of Belgrade, he was the 0:38:20.600 --> 0:38:24.640 butcher of the Yugoslavian social estate. But you can, you know, 0:38:24.680 --> 0:38:26.600 and so and he was he was just a hardline 0:38:26.680 --> 0:38:30.239 right wing Serbian nationalist. But you can sell him to 0:38:30.360 --> 0:38:33.680 a Western audience by using Islamophobia, by exploiting, you know, 0:38:33.800 --> 0:38:35.960 by by by doing this thing where you're like, oh 0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:39.920 well actually like all of these people were, uh, they 0:38:39.920 --> 0:38:43.200 were all al Kaeda. You can use this to sell 0:38:43.280 --> 0:38:47.960 the guy who destroyed Yugoslavia as like the left to 0:38:48.000 --> 0:38:50.799 savor of Yugoslavia. And you know, I think that the 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:52.799 part about this that really said is like you know, 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:56.320 there was you know, the sort of last true believers 0:38:56.440 --> 0:39:00.279 of the old Yugoslavia working class right where these the 0:39:00.360 --> 0:39:04.440 Yugoslavin anti war protesters and these guys, you know, they 0:39:04.520 --> 0:39:07.439 they're they're they're protesting to stop the war. They see 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:10.239 coming that the Serbians are about to win, leash and 0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:16.279 they just get murdered in the streets by Melosovic. You know, 0:39:16.320 --> 0:39:18.600 well because seven years later the US society that they 0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:21.640 didn't like him, like he's become this like hero of 0:39:21.800 --> 0:39:23.840 a bunch of these like a bunch of barxsis Leninists 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:26.880 like see this guy as a hero, and this is 0:39:27.239 --> 0:39:29.360 you know, this, this is just this is their big 0:39:29.440 --> 0:39:33.600 sort of like political trick is using the threat of 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:38.800 like terrifying Muslim like terrorists to just legitimize right wing dictators. 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:44.239 I mean, you know, speaking of right wing dictators. Yeah, 0:39:44.360 --> 0:39:47.719 there's this non zero chance there's an ad for someone 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:51.120 who will be one in the future. Uh, right now, 0:39:52.080 --> 0:39:52.920 And we're back. 0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:57.880 So we're back to this stuff. And Syria and specifically 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:01.160 the way people think about Syria plays a huge role 0:40:01.440 --> 0:40:05.399 in the sort of development of the left. And one 0:40:05.480 --> 0:40:08.640 of the reasons that the sort of new gray zone line, 0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:11.160 which is that the entire opposition is composed of Islamists 0:40:12.080 --> 0:40:14.080 and that Asad is the only person who can stop them, 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:17.120 is that, like, you know, part of the reason this 0:40:17.200 --> 0:40:19.319 works is that like yeah, like they're and this is 0:40:19.360 --> 0:40:21.040 this is the gap that these people always sort of 0:40:21.040 --> 0:40:22.960 come in through. Is that like a lot of the 0:40:23.000 --> 0:40:26.720 Western media was not covering Syria very well. They weren't 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:29.880 covering the rise of like job Outel news Row very well, 0:40:31.400 --> 0:40:35.680 and you know, they use this gap to sort of 0:40:35.719 --> 0:40:38.200 like come through and rehabilitate a sod by going like 0:40:38.239 --> 0:40:40.560 the media is lying to you a sad who again, 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:42.399 I need to mention like ten years earlier, this guy 0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:45.520 was torturing people for the Cia. But you know, now 0:40:46.040 --> 0:40:49.840 like Asad is actually Nancy imperialist, and this works, This 0:40:49.920 --> 0:40:52.200 works enormously well. This is the sort of breach through 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:56.200 which Bluemithal enters the mainstream. And this, this discourse about 0:40:56.239 --> 0:41:00.359 Syria like reshapes everything about the left. This is where 0:41:00.480 --> 0:41:03.440 this is where American Marcist Leninism like comes from right, 0:41:03.520 --> 0:41:05.319 like a huge portion of ideas from the people who 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:08.600 backed the SOD And this is it's actually really weird, 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:11.560 like almost every big sort of like leftist like podcast 0:41:11.600 --> 0:41:14.160 or media thing like came out of the Syrian Civil 0:41:14.160 --> 0:41:17.360 War in some way or another, Like the whole Grazo 0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:20.120 versus Bellingcat thing is a like is a thing that 0:41:20.160 --> 0:41:24.280 was originally about the Syrian Civil War Tropo trap House, 0:41:24.640 --> 0:41:26.120 which is like I guess if people who don't know 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:31.520 it's this massive like social democratic podcast also like sort 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:33.680 of came out of there, like it was partially about 0:41:33.719 --> 0:41:35.480 like came out of like Turkish politics. But those were 0:41:35.560 --> 0:41:38.919 very very similar circles like on Twitter at the time, 0:41:39.840 --> 0:41:41.520 and you know, and one of their big things is 0:41:41.560 --> 0:41:43.840 like Felix Peterman's like The Truth about Syria, which is 0:41:44.320 --> 0:41:48.480 a sort of slightly softer like version of supporting ASAD 0:41:48.560 --> 0:41:51.719 that also supports like the revolution in Rojeva. Like I 0:41:51.800 --> 0:41:53.480 came out of this because I was on the pro 0:41:53.560 --> 0:41:55.520 Rojava side because like I'm an anarchist and I have 0:41:55.560 --> 0:41:59.120 a bunch of Kurdish friends. So there's this giant fight 0:41:59.280 --> 0:42:02.440 about what the Syrian Civil War is and what the 0:42:02.480 --> 0:42:05.080 sides are and what it means. And this is one 0:42:05.120 --> 0:42:09.000 of the things that comes to define what the left 0:42:09.080 --> 0:42:14.080 is and the grey zone people sort of win. And 0:42:14.120 --> 0:42:16.400 the result of this is that this pro acod like 0:42:16.480 --> 0:42:20.920 nominally anti imperialist position becomes the default position of a 0:42:20.960 --> 0:42:24.080 bunch of sort of like people who aren't like hardline Marxistlenis, 0:42:24.120 --> 0:42:26.640 who are just sort of like like kind of edgy 0:42:26.680 --> 0:42:30.160 Bernie like Birdie supporters. And this is something that like 0:42:30.360 --> 0:42:32.480 you can see the effect of this, like to this 0:42:32.560 --> 0:42:33.880 day if you look at left, if you look at 0:42:33.920 --> 0:42:36.799 like leftist meme culture, like you can see people who 0:42:36.800 --> 0:42:40.319 are otherwise mostly normal making Line of Damascus jokes about 0:42:40.320 --> 0:42:43.120 how like a sod is like the line of Damascus 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:46.880 people still make jokes about barrel bombs, which is you 0:42:46.920 --> 0:42:50.120 know this thing that ASD would do. Uh, there's the 0:42:50.200 --> 0:42:51.920 whole like the one that I see the most, it's 0:42:51.960 --> 0:42:54.400 like still very very common, is there is this whole 0:42:54.440 --> 0:42:57.279 meme of like Hillary Clinton says, asod must go, and 0:42:57.280 --> 0:42:59.239 then there's like the second panel as like who must 0:42:59.280 --> 0:43:01.400 go and Hillary Clinton gone, and people still do this 0:43:01.480 --> 0:43:02.440 like to this day. 0:43:02.360 --> 0:43:04.960 The other really common one, there's this little girl named 0:43:05.360 --> 0:43:09.200 Bana A Labet who was a Syrian girl who got bombed, 0:43:09.360 --> 0:43:13.120 and there's like a video of her, you know, reacting 0:43:13.160 --> 0:43:16.200 in the way a small child would to being bombed, 0:43:16.280 --> 0:43:19.360 and like there's a meme that's basically taking her words 0:43:19.520 --> 0:43:23.640 and twisting it into like please America, you know, come 0:43:23.760 --> 0:43:27.200 and intervene in Syria. Like turn it basically like this 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:30.279 this girl is CIA propaganda trying to like justify US 0:43:30.360 --> 0:43:33.040 intervention in the war. Like that's the that's the bit 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:36.120 you see it posted A lot people repurposed it after 0:43:36.280 --> 0:43:40.600 the Russian invasion of Ukraine to make fun of Ukrainians. 0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:43.360 It's like it's like pretty fundamentally cruel. 0:43:43.880 --> 0:43:45.959 Yeah, And that's that's how a lot of this stuff 0:43:46.080 --> 0:43:48.640 worked because it was it's stuff that fits into the 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:51.000 social values of that part of the left at that time, 0:43:51.400 --> 0:43:53.520 which is that both the Marxist leninists and what was 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:56.920 called the dirtbag left around Tchapa was completely irony poisoned 0:43:56.920 --> 0:43:59.000 and like, I get it. I was around then, like 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:01.399 I did my time in the art trenches, Like it's 0:44:01.440 --> 0:44:04.760 really hard not to react to the worlds with ironic 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:09.680 detachment when it's so fucking terrible. But you know the 0:44:10.280 --> 0:44:14.600 other side of that was like these people started like 0:44:14.640 --> 0:44:16.960 we're doing these Assadmians because they were like because they 0:44:16.960 --> 0:44:21.680 were edgy and contrarian, and because you know, like the 0:44:21.880 --> 0:44:23.360 like this is like the stuff with the bond. This 0:44:23.400 --> 0:44:25.080 is one of the things with the Bonum stuff is 0:44:25.080 --> 0:44:30.120 like deliberately demonstrating that you don't have any empathy is 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:34.320 something that's edgy and contrarian, and like like the performance 0:44:34.360 --> 0:44:39.520 of that was this very sort of like powerful emotional 0:44:39.680 --> 0:44:44.080 pull that that serves to legitimize a bunch of this stuff. 0:44:47.080 --> 0:44:50.400 And you know, originally, and part of the everything here 0:44:50.440 --> 0:44:53.440 too is like everyone everyone in all of these circles, 0:44:53.480 --> 0:44:55.680 their big thing is trying to own the Libs, and 0:44:55.719 --> 0:44:59.200 this is something that like the Libs cared about and 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:01.480 doing this thing of like how much you don't care 0:45:01.520 --> 0:45:04.759 about it and how much you think it's like them 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:08.120 falling for propaganda that was you know, that was something 0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:13.480 that was heavily incentivized by the structure of housings like 0:45:13.520 --> 0:45:18.799 Twitter work and how like retweets work, and you know 0:45:19.360 --> 0:45:21.760 this this is I mean, it's bleak in and of itself, 0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:24.960 but it leads to stuff that's worse because the only 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:31.719 other people who support ASAD are like white supremacists, and 0:45:32.080 --> 0:45:34.920 this leads to a bunch of very very weird cross 0:45:34.920 --> 0:45:38.040 pollution that normally you wouldn't expect to be happening between 0:45:38.080 --> 0:45:41.400 these circles and people who are just Nazis. One of 0:45:41.480 --> 0:45:45.200 the most common sources about Syria for both sort of 0:45:45.200 --> 0:45:48.040 Marxist Leninists and like social democratic Twitter users is this 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:50.680 person named Partisan Girl who's, like I still to this day, 0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:54.680 like a very big media figure. So she is a 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:58.920 Syrian Australian quote unquote Syria expert. We don't really have 0:45:58.960 --> 0:46:00.680 time to get into all of her stuff on. 0:46:03.640 --> 0:46:05.360 Munch, I think, yeah. 0:46:05.080 --> 0:46:08.080 Yeah, she's been on David Duke's podcast. 0:46:07.640 --> 0:46:10.440 David Duke as a former podcast, Yeah. 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.520 Yeah, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK. She was 0:46:12.520 --> 0:46:17.120 on Richard Spencer's podcast like she is just a Nazi. 0:46:17.840 --> 0:46:21.160 The last post that I saw from her was her 0:46:21.239 --> 0:46:23.440 responding to another guy who's just just a straight up 0:46:23.440 --> 0:46:25.799 Partland anti Semite who posted this beam that was like 0:46:25.880 --> 0:46:28.160 maybe this is why all conservatives support Israel and has 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:31.840 a bunch of faces of conservatives with like us stars 0:46:31.880 --> 0:46:35.879 of David on them, like including Max Blumenthal and partisan girls. 0:46:35.920 --> 0:46:37.719 Response to this is not too object to the fact 0:46:37.719 --> 0:46:40.319 that it's unbelievably anti Semitic, but to be like, no, no, no, 0:46:40.360 --> 0:46:43.720 Max Blumenthal is actually an anti Zionist, so you shouldn't 0:46:43.760 --> 0:46:45.359 include him with all of the rest of the people 0:46:45.360 --> 0:46:47.880 who you've included on here because they're Jewish, even though 0:46:47.880 --> 0:46:49.560 some of them aren't. He's just accusing random people of 0:46:49.560 --> 0:46:52.160 being Jewish who aren't. But that's the thing. Like she's 0:46:52.160 --> 0:46:55.840 straight up in anti semi just actually a fascist. I like, 0:46:56.800 --> 0:46:59.720 I literally, like we could sit here for ten minutes 0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:02.040 list the names of all of the fascist podcasts she's 0:47:02.080 --> 0:47:05.839 been on. And this is one of these things that 0:47:05.880 --> 0:47:08.560 people knew, Like people knew that she was a fascist. 0:47:08.640 --> 0:47:10.920 And I had arguments with people where I would be like, hey, 0:47:10.920 --> 0:47:13.759 this person is a Nazi, like she's been on David 0:47:13.840 --> 0:47:16.960 Duke's podcast, and people would be like well, yeah, she's 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:22.160 a fascist, but I like her Syria analysis and this 0:47:22.239 --> 0:47:25.680 is you know, one of the things that happens in 0:47:25.719 --> 0:47:28.880 this is this is I'm gonna kind of defer to 0:47:28.920 --> 0:47:31.160 you on this, Robert, because this is something I know 0:47:31.320 --> 0:47:33.600 a lot less about. But one of the things that 0:47:33.640 --> 0:47:36.440 the grays On people become really heavily involved about is 0:47:37.360 --> 0:47:42.040 the doing a bunch of weird denihalism stuff around chemical 0:47:42.080 --> 0:47:43.200 weapons attacks and Duma. 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:46.560 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's it. That's a lot of 0:47:46.760 --> 0:47:53.000 the nexus of the kind of asshole Left takes on 0:47:53.040 --> 0:47:57.000 Syria revolve around is because if if Basha al Assade 0:47:57.160 --> 0:48:01.640 was dumping chemical weapons on civil populations and mass which 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:06.239 we know he was, then there's absolutely no way you 0:48:06.320 --> 0:48:08.919 can justify or defend him. It doesn't matter how many 0:48:08.960 --> 0:48:12.120 of his enemies were quote unquote Islamists. He was pumping 0:48:12.200 --> 0:48:16.880 chemical weapons into civilian neighborhoods. So the answer has to 0:48:16.880 --> 0:48:20.160 be that that never happened, right, that that was the 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:24.400 CIA faking it or the CIA deploying chemical weapons and 0:48:24.440 --> 0:48:27.640 it got blamed on a sod. A lot of it 0:48:27.680 --> 0:48:30.640 comes down to there's this group. These guys are civil 0:48:30.640 --> 0:48:34.080 defense people. This is there are civil defense units in 0:48:34.120 --> 0:48:37.360 any city being bombed made up of civilians in the area. 0:48:37.440 --> 0:48:39.239 When I was in Mosul, I was embedded with a 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:41.120 lot of the Iraqi version of these guys. They go 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:43.520 in and they pull people out and bodies out of 0:48:44.080 --> 0:48:47.759 wreckage after bombings, right, they're usually locals. They provide some 0:48:47.800 --> 0:48:50.480 emergency medical care to the extent that that's possible. There's 0:48:50.480 --> 0:48:55.320 people doing this right now. In Gaza and in Syria, 0:48:55.360 --> 0:48:58.120 it was the White Helmets, And you know, the White 0:48:58.120 --> 0:49:01.319 Helmets were in large part formed by a dude named 0:49:01.400 --> 0:49:03.920 James Messia I believe it's the way his name is pronounced. 0:49:04.560 --> 0:49:07.360 He died under mysterious circumstances in Turkey not all that 0:49:07.440 --> 0:49:12.279 long ago. But a big part of this chunk of 0:49:12.320 --> 0:49:15.160 the left's line on Syria is that because these guys 0:49:15.160 --> 0:49:17.400 are the first responders and they're getting in after these 0:49:17.480 --> 0:49:20.800 chemical attacks and providing a lot of the initial evidence 0:49:21.600 --> 0:49:23.960 in the wake of them, it's that these guys, the 0:49:24.160 --> 0:49:26.879 White Helmets, are a CIA front and they're the ones 0:49:26.920 --> 0:49:29.400 who are kind of planting all of the evidence of 0:49:29.440 --> 0:49:30.200 these attacks. 0:49:30.880 --> 0:49:34.840 Yeah, and this stuff gets really really out of control 0:49:34.960 --> 0:49:37.360 very quickly. I mean, this is one of the you 0:49:37.400 --> 0:49:39.360 suddenly see all of these people doing the stuff that 0:49:39.400 --> 0:49:42.080 the Alex Jones supporters are doing about Sandy Hook were 0:49:42.080 --> 0:49:45.239 like they're like taking pictures of like dead bodies and going, oh, 0:49:45.320 --> 0:49:49.280 this is like a mannequin or like these are crisis actors, 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:52.560 and it's it's insane because it's like this is all 0:49:52.560 --> 0:49:55.919 the stuff that like the Israelis are doing now, where 0:49:55.960 --> 0:49:58.200 like they're taking pictures of a dead baby and going 0:49:58.239 --> 0:50:01.799 like this is a doll. But so many people were 0:50:01.840 --> 0:50:06.080 doing this with like with the shit in Syria, and 0:50:06.320 --> 0:50:08.919 it really struck me as like I was kind of 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:13.279 observing it from the outside because I don't know, like 0:50:13.960 --> 0:50:15.720 the period this was happening as the period where Occupy 0:50:15.800 --> 0:50:18.319 Ice was starting, so I was not super involved in 0:50:18.360 --> 0:50:22.160 this stuff, but you could just sort of see like 0:50:22.200 --> 0:50:25.920 the kind of the level of conspiratism just like skyrocketing 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:28.960 to the point where like all of the stuff that's 0:50:29.000 --> 0:50:33.360 like the modern like conspiracy canon is just getting embedded 0:50:33.400 --> 0:50:33.759 in there. 0:50:34.480 --> 0:50:38.240 Yeah, it's where you see a lot of the stuff 0:50:38.320 --> 0:50:41.600 that has been the norm on the right for twenty 0:50:41.680 --> 0:50:46.680 years start to take hold in the left default reality 0:50:46.880 --> 0:50:52.759 kind of fragmenting conspiratorial angles on verifiable things that are 0:50:52.760 --> 0:50:56.520 happening right where you have what's obviously occurring based on 0:50:56.800 --> 0:51:03.359 the evidence and the completely errant reality fragment that that 0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:07.120 is how you have to perceive events in order to 0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:10.759 stay ideologically consistent. That's when a lot of that start 0:51:10.960 --> 0:51:14.200 starts to infect the left in a way that is 0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:17.920 now you know, pretty widely prevalent. 0:51:18.719 --> 0:51:21.799 Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, one 0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:23.160 of the things that he's able to do with this 0:51:23.320 --> 0:51:26.120 that becomes one of the staples of a lot of 0:51:26.160 --> 0:51:29.440 the left is this this line about color revolutions, where 0:51:29.480 --> 0:51:31.719 every single time a protest starts in a country that 0:51:31.760 --> 0:51:35.080 he doesn't like, or like the US doesn't like, like 0:51:35.200 --> 0:51:37.239 everyone on Twitter would suddenly be like, Oh, it's a 0:51:37.360 --> 0:51:39.640 it's a color revolution, it's a CIA op. All the 0:51:39.640 --> 0:51:41.640 protesters are being paid by the CIA. And I could 0:51:41.680 --> 0:51:45.239 pick like a thousand examples of this from everywhere from 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:47.200 like Lebanon to Hong Kong. Like every time a mass 0:51:47.239 --> 0:51:49.360 protest would start, these people would be like, it's a 0:51:49.400 --> 0:51:52.799 it's a color revolution. I'm gonna I'm gonna pick one 0:51:52.840 --> 0:51:55.160 that I think, I genuinely think is the most egregious 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.680 piece of slander they've ever fucking printed or at least 0:51:57.719 --> 0:52:01.640 like like slander of a leftist group, which is so 0:52:01.680 --> 0:52:05.399 Ben Norton wrote a piece that was about Ecuador because 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:06.760 there been there have been a bunch of like Ecuador 0:52:06.800 --> 0:52:11.760 has periodic mass protests, they also had elections. And Ben Norton, 0:52:11.760 --> 0:52:15.440 who's another gray Zone guy who eventually like we wouldn't 0:52:15.440 --> 0:52:17.200 even have time to cover this, but he's gonna break 0:52:17.280 --> 0:52:18.919 with the gray Zone people when they take their hard 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:21.759 right pivot because they start doing like anti vax shit 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:22.319 that's too much. 0:52:22.320 --> 0:52:25.120 Even fame, which has been at least a little bit 0:52:25.160 --> 0:52:26.399 of fun to watch. 0:52:26.360 --> 0:52:29.319 Yeah, yeah, watching them all fighting each other has been 0:52:29.920 --> 0:52:33.520 all gone some one of the few pieces of satisfaction 0:52:33.560 --> 0:52:36.239 we've gotten out of this. But Norton, so he on 0:52:36.440 --> 0:52:39.239 the one of the people he's targeting is the Confederation 0:52:39.320 --> 0:52:42.440 of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, and so we've talked about 0:52:42.480 --> 0:52:46.840 them on this show before. They are one of the 0:52:46.840 --> 0:52:51.719 most radical indigenous organizations on the planet. Like they you know, 0:52:52.719 --> 0:52:55.720 they they have been literally in the case of Ben Norton, 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:58.520 they have been overthrowing near liberal government since before Ben 0:52:58.560 --> 0:53:02.080 Norton was born. Like their big thing is doing is 0:53:02.080 --> 0:53:04.080 is they do these days where like they call an 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:06.640 uprising and it uprising happens, hundreds of thousands of people 0:53:06.680 --> 0:53:08.080 go into the streets and try to bring down the 0:53:08.080 --> 0:53:10.920 government and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But 0:53:11.680 --> 0:53:13.560 you know this is this is one of their big things. 0:53:13.600 --> 0:53:16.560 And Gray Zone like like Norton calls these people uh 0:53:16.920 --> 0:53:20.439 anarchists inspired ultra leftists backed by the US. 0:53:21.920 --> 0:53:23.759 Which is just you know, you're in for a good 0:53:23.760 --> 0:53:26.760 political analysis when someone uses the term ultra leftists. 0:53:26.840 --> 0:53:30.360 Yeah, I love it as an insults like what, oh no, 0:53:30.400 --> 0:53:32.720 I've been ultra leftists and my politics are too good 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:35.560 you my takes are too based like what this is 0:53:35.560 --> 0:53:39.480 supposed to be an insult like baffling stuff. Yeah, but 0:53:39.520 --> 0:53:41.839 like and like, in the span of two years, they 0:53:41.880 --> 0:53:46.200 went from like praising they went from praising the Confederation 0:53:46.239 --> 0:53:48.480 if the Just Nationalities of Ecuador to calling them a 0:53:48.480 --> 0:53:52.200 cia OP like again within two years. And and a 0:53:52.239 --> 0:53:54.239 lot of a lot of this stuff is based on 0:53:54.280 --> 0:53:59.000 the work of this guy named William Engdah. I don't 0:53:59.000 --> 0:54:00.279 know how a pounce this Leason. I think I think 0:54:00.280 --> 0:54:03.960 it's William Ngdah. So he's he's a Laruchite We've talked 0:54:03.960 --> 0:54:07.120 about the Laruchites on this podcast before. They're famous for 0:54:07.239 --> 0:54:09.720 like beating up leftists on college campuses in the seventies. 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:12.840 They're also like the most feted up motherfuckers in the 0:54:12.960 --> 0:54:16.320 entire world. Like they are. They are snitching on leftist 0:54:16.360 --> 0:54:19.080 groups to like federal agencies you've never heard of before, 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:22.080 like they claim to have worked with the CIA, the FBI, 0:54:22.200 --> 0:54:26.080 Defents Intelligence Agency, directly cooperated with Reagan's National Security Council, 0:54:26.280 --> 0:54:30.000 like they have. They are like the biggest snitches in 0:54:30.040 --> 0:54:35.359 the entire world. And you know, Bluementhal's like copying their 0:54:35.440 --> 0:54:37.879 stuff right, Like he's this, this is where a lot 0:54:37.920 --> 0:54:40.560 of his stuff about what color revolutions are comes from. 0:54:40.800 --> 0:54:44.520 And eng Daw is, I'm gonna I'm gonna turn to 0:54:44.560 --> 0:54:47.920 some research by Emmy bevinse Us, an anti fascist researcher. 0:54:48.080 --> 0:54:51.840 So eng Daw thinks that BLM was a color revolution 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:57.440 because he is just a a really really hard line 0:54:58.000 --> 0:54:59.960 like right worker. This is actually like a pretty common 0:55:00.320 --> 0:55:01.920 thing in these circles of people who think that b 0:55:01.960 --> 0:55:05.160 Alema's color revolution, people who think that like occupies a 0:55:05.200 --> 0:55:08.359 color revolution, and that's sort of like the far right 0:55:08.920 --> 0:55:13.920 of these of these sort of circles, and uh, I 0:55:13.920 --> 0:55:17.879 guess speaking of the far right of these circles. Uh, 0:55:18.000 --> 0:55:20.399 do you know what is the by far the right 0:55:20.520 --> 0:55:30.560 choice for you to. 0:55:22.480 --> 0:55:29.480 To use your consuming power of the of the purchasing dollar. 0:55:29.520 --> 0:55:31.680 That's right, these these ads. 0:55:31.800 --> 0:55:32.200 Great job. 0:55:32.320 --> 0:55:34.640 Yeah, that was That was wonderful and. 0:55:34.640 --> 0:55:36.280 We are unfortunately back. 0:55:36.960 --> 0:55:39.600 Well my wallet is later and I've never felt happier. 0:55:43.000 --> 0:55:47.640 Yeah, So okay, so we The reason we're covering this 0:55:47.680 --> 0:55:49.839 in the first place is the sort of right wing 0:55:49.920 --> 0:55:55.759 pivot that this circle does. But before we talk about that, 0:55:56.160 --> 0:55:58.279 we need to talk about one more thing that is 0:55:58.320 --> 0:56:01.880 incredibly bleak, which which is the time he accused a 0:56:01.920 --> 0:56:04.600 sexual assault victim of being a co intel pro op. 0:56:06.960 --> 0:56:10.719 So this is a story I don't think most people know. 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:14.640 I only know about it because I was there in 0:56:14.680 --> 0:56:18.360 the DSA at the time this is happening. In twenty seventeen, 0:56:18.400 --> 0:56:21.799 the DSA has its first has his first elections after 0:56:21.840 --> 0:56:27.279 the giant surgeon membership from both like Trump winning and 0:56:27.320 --> 0:56:31.120 also Bernie, and they have his first elections to its 0:56:31.160 --> 0:56:33.200 governing body. And one of the people who's elected is 0:56:33.200 --> 0:56:36.279 this guy named Arles Stevens. Arl Stevens is. He's a 0:56:36.360 --> 0:56:38.640 very popular leftist leftist at the time he does this 0:56:38.680 --> 0:56:42.120 whole podcast circuit. He's very charismatic. He gets the third 0:56:42.160 --> 0:56:45.000 most votes of anyone elected to the National Political Committee. 0:56:45.880 --> 0:56:48.680 But it turns out he is also an abuser. A 0:56:48.680 --> 0:56:52.239 woman publishes an anonymous letter about Stevens sexually assaulting her. 0:56:52.440 --> 0:56:56.799 It is fucking brutal. Ben Norton, who's one of his 0:56:56.840 --> 0:56:59.600 coworkers that we've talked about before, makes a giant threat 0:56:59.600 --> 0:57:05.080 accused the victim of being co intel pro Max Blumenthal 0:57:05.280 --> 0:57:07.600 quote tweets it and says quote can't help but be 0:57:07.680 --> 0:57:11.719 reminded of cointelprobe while reading this thread, and even people 0:57:11.760 --> 0:57:14.640 who are normally Max Plumenthal supporters were like, what the 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:20.320 fuck are you doing? And like the full story of 0:57:20.840 --> 0:57:24.720 Norton and Max Blumenthal's involvement, and this is actually worse 0:57:25.040 --> 0:57:28.120 than I can talk about on air. So after the 0:57:28.120 --> 0:57:30.720 first thread where he where Ben Norton calls it a 0:57:30.760 --> 0:57:33.880 coen Tel for up, he deletes that one because it's 0:57:34.120 --> 0:57:36.600 just not obviously not sure if people are yelling at him, 0:57:36.920 --> 0:57:39.240 So he makes a second thread that that threat is 0:57:39.280 --> 0:57:42.760 still up to this fucking day. You can find the 0:57:42.800 --> 0:57:47.680 thread of Ben Norton talking about how a DSA faction 0:57:47.840 --> 0:57:51.600 called Momentum had like manufactured this sexual assault thing to 0:57:51.680 --> 0:57:54.919 like destroy its opposition. And I want to make something 0:57:55.040 --> 0:57:58.000 very clear, because I was there when, but when, like 0:57:58.080 --> 0:58:00.520 during the in this fight inside the DSA, which Momentum 0:58:00.560 --> 0:58:02.760 and everyone else in the fucking org And I was 0:58:02.800 --> 0:58:03.880 on the anti Momentum side. 0:58:03.960 --> 0:58:04.040 Right. 0:58:04.120 --> 0:58:06.680 Momentum was basically the right wing of the DSA, not 0:58:06.840 --> 0:58:08.440 exactly the right wing, like there's there were some other 0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:09.840 people who were further right than them, but they were 0:58:09.840 --> 0:58:11.560 they were like the center right of the DSA. They 0:58:11.560 --> 0:58:13.600 were electoralists. The only thing they ever wanted to do 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:17.200 was canvassing, like I was on and Arl Stevens was 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:19.840 on the other side, like opposing them, and I was 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:22.960 on like politically, I was in the in like on 0:58:23.000 --> 0:58:25.280 the same side as Arl Stevens here right, Like I 0:58:25.320 --> 0:58:27.320 fucking hate the Momentum people. I think they destroyed the 0:58:27.400 --> 0:58:30.360 DSA one one day I will do a whole thing 0:58:30.400 --> 0:58:34.200 about them. Like these these people, like the Domentum people, 0:58:34.240 --> 0:58:37.200 literally purged my friends from the York right. And Arl 0:58:37.240 --> 0:58:39.320 Stevens is one of their enemies. And that is not 0:58:39.360 --> 0:58:42.080 what this shit was fucking about like Arl Stevens is 0:58:42.320 --> 0:58:46.840 just a rapist. But you know, Max Blumenthal and Ben 0:58:46.920 --> 0:58:50.360 Norton came in and were like, oh shit, this Arl 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:52.680 Stevens guy is like an anti imperialist, so we're going 0:58:52.720 --> 0:58:55.360 to accuse the survivor of being a co intel pro 0:58:55.480 --> 0:59:01.720 op and it's fucking it's so fucking bl Max has 0:59:01.720 --> 0:59:04.760 deleted his tweet, but you can find it if you. 0:59:04.760 --> 0:59:07.000 You know, I have screenshots of it, and I have 0:59:07.080 --> 0:59:09.200 wayback machine things, right because I was there when this 0:59:09.280 --> 0:59:12.480 was happening, and none of these people ever suffered any 0:59:12.480 --> 0:59:15.200 professional repercussions for this. They were just fucking allowed to 0:59:15.240 --> 0:59:17.480 do this shit and nothing ever happened to them. I 0:59:17.520 --> 0:59:20.400 don't know. It makes me just incredibly deeply angry. 0:59:20.880 --> 0:59:24.280 Yeah, no, I mean it's it is like there's that 0:59:24.520 --> 0:59:27.800 piece that goes around regularly about how like misogynists make 0:59:27.840 --> 0:59:32.400 the best informants, and it remains a pretty durable fact 0:59:32.480 --> 0:59:37.160 about organizing. Like if you run into people who are 0:59:38.160 --> 0:59:43.280 immediately attacking the victim of sexual assault as some sort 0:59:43.320 --> 0:59:46.560 of an informant because the person who committed it is 0:59:46.720 --> 0:59:50.560 on the quote unquote right ideological side, that might tell 0:59:50.600 --> 0:59:53.560 you something about the people who are doing that. 0:59:55.320 --> 0:59:57.760 Yeah, and you know, and this is this is this, 0:59:57.800 --> 0:59:59.280 I mean, this is the thing that like, like to 0:59:59.400 --> 1:00:02.520 this day there are like really shitty left wing groups 1:00:02.520 --> 1:00:05.360 who still do this stuff. You know. Okay, so we're 1:00:05.560 --> 1:00:09.480 gonna move on from that to some very okay. So 1:00:09.960 --> 1:00:11.680 this is you know, all of the stuff that Max 1:00:11.720 --> 1:00:14.560 Blumenthal had been doing until that point, that was all 1:00:14.840 --> 1:00:17.280 inside of the bounds of what was considered acceptable on 1:00:17.320 --> 1:00:22.080 the left. And that sucks, right, like that's not good. 1:00:22.840 --> 1:00:27.840 But by about twenty twenty one, he is And I 1:00:27.880 --> 1:00:30.280 found the exact I'm pretty sure I found the exact 1:00:30.320 --> 1:00:34.600 bunth with this happened where in twenty twenty one, like 1:00:34.680 --> 1:00:39.080 Bluementhal just loses it like it is it'specifically August twenty 1:00:39.120 --> 1:00:44.720 twenty one, he very specifically starts like tacking right really fast. 1:00:45.360 --> 1:00:47.240 And what he starts doing is he starts he starts 1:00:47.280 --> 1:00:50.880 doing anti lockdown stuff. And so he starts ranting about 1:00:50.880 --> 1:00:54.080 how like Australian lawmakers or opposing fians for sharing information 1:00:54.080 --> 1:00:56.640 about anti lockdown protests and like fans for finans for 1:00:56.680 --> 1:01:00.960 attending rallies, and he just gets more and more into 1:01:01.000 --> 1:01:04.920 hardcore anti lockdown stuff and then into stuff that's effectively 1:01:05.400 --> 1:01:09.240 just straight up anti vax stuff. One of the things 1:01:09.480 --> 1:01:12.680 that he ends up doing is he writes an article 1:01:12.720 --> 1:01:15.600 about like if people back remember in COVID, there was 1:01:15.680 --> 1:01:17.720 the whole thing about flattening the curve and trying to 1:01:17.720 --> 1:01:19.360 get less people to die, and there was this whole 1:01:19.360 --> 1:01:22.720 debate over whether you should just like not have lockdowns 1:01:22.720 --> 1:01:24.320 to let everyone get COVID and that would give you 1:01:24.360 --> 1:01:27.600 like quote unquote herd immunity and everyone would be safe. 1:01:28.360 --> 1:01:30.800 And that's like like Sweden tried that and it fucking 1:01:30.880 --> 1:01:33.720 killed almost other people. So it was a terrible idea. 1:01:33.800 --> 1:01:36.520 But like the whole sort of Gray Zone crew like 1:01:36.560 --> 1:01:39.320 starts well except for Ben Norton, who leaves starts like 1:01:39.800 --> 1:01:43.640 rallying around this stuff. And it's really weird because like 1:01:43.640 --> 1:01:45.920 like in twenty twenty, when China was doing the lockdowns, 1:01:45.920 --> 1:01:51.520 Ben Norton was really really pro lockdowns, but as as 1:01:51.600 --> 1:01:53.920 twenty twenty one goes on, he starts pivoting into this 1:01:53.960 --> 1:01:58.320 anti lockdown stuff. And so I first saw the stuff 1:01:58.360 --> 1:02:00.840 from this journalist named Walter Bragman back when he goes 1:02:00.880 --> 1:02:05.080 on Twitter, is he starts like he he writes an 1:02:05.200 --> 1:02:07.840 article that has a bunch of claims from this thing 1:02:07.880 --> 1:02:10.200 called the Great Barringing Declaration. Do you if you remember that? 1:02:11.320 --> 1:02:12.480 Uh no, not really. 1:02:13.280 --> 1:02:15.800 Yeah, So so this this was this giant anti lockdown 1:02:15.880 --> 1:02:18.040 like declaration that a bunch of right wingers were pushing 1:02:18.040 --> 1:02:21.120 around that was it's this giant anti lockdown's creed that's 1:02:21.160 --> 1:02:23.280 basically saying, like, the way to stop COVID is you 1:02:23.320 --> 1:02:26.120 have to like open all the all the businesses again 1:02:26.160 --> 1:02:29.200 forced when to go back to work, and then people 1:02:29.240 --> 1:02:32.080 will get like infected with COVID and that will get 1:02:32.120 --> 1:02:36.080 the immunity to COVID, which is a terrible idea because 1:02:36.080 --> 1:02:38.000 if you get infected with COVID, there's, you know, the 1:02:38.080 --> 1:02:40.120 chance that you die, right. 1:02:40.200 --> 1:02:42.400 It's yeah, yeah. 1:02:42.440 --> 1:02:45.080 And but the interesting thing about the Great Barrying Declorations, 1:02:45.240 --> 1:02:48.040 so it's created by the Economic the American Institute for 1:02:48.280 --> 1:02:51.880 Economic Research. So we should ask who these people are. 1:02:52.160 --> 1:02:54.960 So they are a right wing libertarian think tank, which 1:02:54.960 --> 1:02:59.040 Bloominenthal should hate, right he's supposed to be a leftist, 1:02:59.040 --> 1:03:02.120 he should hate these people. They received sixty eight thousand 1:03:02.120 --> 1:03:06.000 dollars from the Koch Brothers to do an economics conference, 1:03:06.040 --> 1:03:08.160 a thing that they are very mad about anytime. So 1:03:08.240 --> 1:03:10.240 everytime someone tries to bring it up and to talk 1:03:10.280 --> 1:03:12.360 about how they're Coke funded, they're like, well, we only 1:03:12.360 --> 1:03:14.920 took sixty eight thousand dollars one time to do one 1:03:14.960 --> 1:03:19.080 economics conference. You can't call us Coke funded. But then, 1:03:19.120 --> 1:03:21.760 like all their website, they admit that they like quote 1:03:21.880 --> 1:03:27.600 for the record, aier received sixty eight thousand dollars in 1:03:27.640 --> 1:03:29.960 Coke funding over the last ten years, and that someone 1:03:30.080 --> 1:03:32.360 was used entirely the offset the conference of a single 1:03:33.160 --> 1:03:35.640 economics conference in twenty seventeen with no links to the 1:03:35.640 --> 1:03:38.160 Great Barrington decoration. But like you know, obviously, so the 1:03:38.200 --> 1:03:40.320 reason the Coke's fun this thing is because these guys 1:03:40.360 --> 1:03:43.680 have the same economics like politics as they do. And 1:03:44.600 --> 1:03:46.600 you know, as someone who has taken zero dollars from 1:03:46.600 --> 1:03:49.240 the Koch brothers, I could safely say that it's bullshit 1:03:49.280 --> 1:03:50.720 to say that we only took money for the Coke 1:03:50.800 --> 1:03:55.920 Brothers once. So what happens basically is the American Institute 1:03:55.920 --> 1:03:59.800 for Economical Research has a like conference for a bunch 1:03:59.840 --> 1:04:04.080 of weirdo hacks who are also technically scientists to put 1:04:04.120 --> 1:04:07.320 out this report saying the lockdowns that happened immediately like 1:04:07.400 --> 1:04:10.160 after like the disease like COVID really started spreading in 1:04:10.160 --> 1:04:12.560 the US. They said that that was a mistake, and 1:04:12.560 --> 1:04:15.640 they're advocating ending lockdowns, reopening businesses, and this was an 1:04:15.680 --> 1:04:18.200 overtly pro business campaign to get a bunch of people killed, 1:04:19.240 --> 1:04:22.600 Like that's what these people were trying to do. But MATC. 1:04:22.640 --> 1:04:26.280 Blumenthal suddenly is like pushing this stuff, like in pieces 1:04:26.280 --> 1:04:30.560 that he's writing for grey Zone. It's very deeply weird. 1:04:30.640 --> 1:04:33.560 And this stuff just and as as like twenty twenty 1:04:33.560 --> 1:04:35.880 one goes on, this stuff gets like worse and worse 1:04:35.920 --> 1:04:39.560 and worse. By twenty twenty one, the bluementhal is writing 1:04:39.680 --> 1:04:45.439 articles about an impending attempt to implement social credits alongside 1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:48.920 Jeffrey Lofredo. So, okay, we need to take this in 1:04:48.960 --> 1:04:50.880 two parts. We'll get to the social credit stuff at 1:04:50.880 --> 1:04:52.600 a second. First we need to talk about who Jeffrey 1:04:52.880 --> 1:04:57.440 Lofredo is, because this guy, so, this guy used to 1:04:57.520 --> 1:05:01.880 work at Rebel News, which is this like I I mean, 1:05:01.920 --> 1:05:03.400 like Garrison, I know, you know this is you know, 1:05:03.440 --> 1:05:04.560 you two know what Rebel News is. 1:05:04.600 --> 1:05:08.959 It's a Canadian Yeah basically yeah, yeah, Canadian art Yeah, 1:05:08.960 --> 1:05:11.480 it's like a bright bart info wars type thing. They 1:05:11.480 --> 1:05:13.960 have like podcasts and online sight. Yeah, they're like a 1:05:13.960 --> 1:05:17.520 Canadian far right news source. Essentially, they also engage in 1:05:17.520 --> 1:05:18.960 a lot of like activism. 1:05:19.280 --> 1:05:22.080 It's one of the few relatively few Canadian far right 1:05:22.120 --> 1:05:24.800 websites that also regularly goes viral in the US. 1:05:25.280 --> 1:05:25.440 Yeah. 1:05:25.560 --> 1:05:28.400 Yeah, like I think it's also quite popular in Australia 1:05:28.520 --> 1:05:30.640 or they have a in Australia. 1:05:31.120 --> 1:05:33.480 They played a significant role in if you remember the 1:05:34.200 --> 1:05:38.400 basically Caravan that drive. We're going to get to that. Yeah, yeah, 1:05:39.240 --> 1:05:40.000 we're geting to that. 1:05:40.320 --> 1:05:44.400 Yeah. So so Bluementhal is writing like an article with 1:05:44.560 --> 1:05:47.240 Jeremy Lafrido, who is a guy who like wrote like 1:05:47.280 --> 1:05:49.440 a million articles for Rebel News. In fact, as best 1:05:49.480 --> 1:05:52.200 I can tell, she was still working for Rebel News 1:05:52.440 --> 1:05:55.840 when Bluementhal starts like directly linking to Rebel News articles 1:05:56.640 --> 1:05:59.720 about this stuff. Now it turns out she was actually 1:05:59.760 --> 1:06:02.600 fine from Rebel Dues after a bunch of tweets surfaced, 1:06:02.600 --> 1:06:06.360 which like, okay, the kinds of how hard it is 1:06:06.440 --> 1:06:10.120 to get fired from Rebel News. I tracked down these tweets. 1:06:11.200 --> 1:06:13.160 It is I'm not even gonna read any of them. 1:06:13.160 --> 1:06:16.680 There are there are there are seven different tweets where 1:06:16.680 --> 1:06:18.520 he talks about how how he wants to rate people. 1:06:18.520 --> 1:06:21.080 There's one where he's confascinating that's just about him being 1:06:21.080 --> 1:06:25.240 a pedophile. There's a bunch of him saying the N word. 1:06:25.480 --> 1:06:29.920 There's a bunch of like incredibly racist, like Chinese, anti 1:06:29.960 --> 1:06:32.680 Chinese stuff, which is very funny because Max Blumenthal presents 1:06:32.720 --> 1:06:35.640 himself as like the big pro China guy, and here 1:06:35.680 --> 1:06:39.000 he is like writing articles with this deranged anti Chinese 1:06:39.120 --> 1:06:43.120 racist and again like this this got him fired like 1:06:43.480 --> 1:06:47.280 from Rebel News, and the Maxi blue Waw article with 1:06:47.400 --> 1:06:52.680 him is still up now, so that that's insane enough, right, 1:06:52.720 --> 1:06:54.960 But the I wanted to talk the reason that was 1:06:54.960 --> 1:06:56.680 a rabbit hole that I fell down while I was 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:58.560 looking at this article. The reason I want to talk 1:06:58.600 --> 1:07:00.280 about this article in the first place is because he's 1:07:00.320 --> 1:07:06.160 writing about social credit. Now. For people who don't recognize 1:07:06.200 --> 1:07:10.120 the social credit stuff. Here's the title of this article. 1:07:10.800 --> 1:07:13.800 Quote the title is the subtitle The Titans of global 1:07:13.800 --> 1:07:17.360 capitalism are exploiting the COVID nineteen crisis to institute social 1:07:17.360 --> 1:07:22.640 credit style digital idea sisms across the West, So what 1:07:23.320 --> 1:07:25.400 is this social credit thing? This is like a this 1:07:25.480 --> 1:07:28.040 is a very big right wing conspiracy theory thing, like 1:07:28.080 --> 1:07:30.960 Alex Jones is a huge pusher of this. And basically 1:07:30.960 --> 1:07:34.280 what they're saying is that they're going to import this 1:07:34.400 --> 1:07:37.480 system from China that they say exists called social credit, 1:07:37.480 --> 1:07:39.240 where like if you say something bad about the government, 1:07:39.280 --> 1:07:41.640 you won't be able to like use your credit card 1:07:41.680 --> 1:07:47.280 to buy food. And this is not how things work 1:07:47.360 --> 1:07:51.960 in China. But it's very interesting because you know, these 1:07:52.000 --> 1:07:54.200 right wingers are absolutely convinced that social credit is coming 1:07:54.200 --> 1:07:55.720 to the US, Like this never happened, It was never 1:07:55.760 --> 1:07:58.200 going to happen. But what's interesting about it is that 1:07:58.240 --> 1:08:02.120 Gray Zone is specifically writing about this, which is insane 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:04.080 because again, this is this whole thing is an antich 1:08:04.200 --> 1:08:08.040 is an anti China conspiracy theory, and like all of 1:08:08.040 --> 1:08:10.280 the sort of Marcist Leninism's like whole one of their 1:08:10.280 --> 1:08:13.000 whole pitches was that they are the like they they 1:08:13.040 --> 1:08:16.519 support China against American imperialism, and then like within about 1:08:16.520 --> 1:08:18.679 a year, like in like a one year span, they've 1:08:18.680 --> 1:08:21.759 just pivoted to publishing like full on right wing social 1:08:21.800 --> 1:08:25.880 credit stuff. And you know, by twenty twenty two, it's 1:08:25.880 --> 1:08:27.800 gone even further. This is this is this is where 1:08:27.800 --> 1:08:31.080 we get at the trucker's convoy. So Garrison covered this 1:08:31.160 --> 1:08:35.840 extensively on the show. Yes, Yeah, do you want to 1:08:35.840 --> 1:08:37.920 do like the really short version of what that was? 1:08:39.280 --> 1:08:39.599 Uh. 1:08:39.840 --> 1:08:42.800 This of a few kind of quanon influencers, most of 1:08:42.840 --> 1:08:46.360 them based in Alberta, and then a few other kind 1:08:46.400 --> 1:08:49.920 of conservative influencers tied to and some of whom were 1:08:49.920 --> 1:08:51.800 tied to Rebel News kind of who were based more 1:08:51.880 --> 1:08:54.960 throughout Canada, organized this event where a whole bunch of 1:08:55.240 --> 1:08:58.800 truckers but mostly just regular people would drive to the 1:08:58.840 --> 1:09:03.439 capitol and park outside until Justin Trudeau would meet their 1:09:03.479 --> 1:09:07.960 demands or something like that. They were out there for 1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:11.280 for for a few weeks. It really started getting shut 1:09:11.320 --> 1:09:14.639 down by Canadian law enforcement when they started to block 1:09:16.479 --> 1:09:20.479 one of one of the big trade border crossings between 1:09:20.479 --> 1:09:22.639 the US and Canada. At that point, it became enough 1:09:22.640 --> 1:09:24.559 of a problem that the government was like, Okay, we're 1:09:24.600 --> 1:09:28.160 just gonna like make you guys leave, and that was that. 1:09:29.120 --> 1:09:32.040 It caused kind of chaos in Ottawa for a few days. 1:09:32.360 --> 1:09:33.840 It was compared a little bit to like it's like 1:09:33.960 --> 1:09:37.200 Canada's January sixth, not really. I mean it had a 1:09:37.320 --> 1:09:40.919 very large mobilization of people, which was unique for Canada. 1:09:41.360 --> 1:09:43.120 And we've started to see some of like the the 1:09:43.160 --> 1:09:46.479 tactics and stylings of this of this trucker convoy get 1:09:46.520 --> 1:09:49.120 adopted both in Canada and the States. We've we've had, 1:09:49.160 --> 1:09:51.519 you know, versions of this tried to get started in 1:09:51.560 --> 1:09:54.400 the States. Never they never really turned cross. There's been 1:09:54.439 --> 1:09:57.360 there's been people have tried to do organize it again 1:09:57.439 --> 1:10:01.160 in Canada. Hasn't really taken off the same way. But but yeah, 1:10:01.160 --> 1:10:03.639 that is kind of the gist. I did a few 1:10:03.680 --> 1:10:06.840 episodes as this was ongoing, and then I did a 1:10:06.920 --> 1:10:10.680 larger kind of piece about the whole thing that was 1:10:10.720 --> 1:10:13.040 that was more scripted towards towards the end of it. 1:10:13.400 --> 1:10:15.400 You can find those, I think in like if you 1:10:15.479 --> 1:10:18.639 go back to like February of twenty twenty two, you'll 1:10:18.680 --> 1:10:21.680 you'll find some some of those pieces. 1:10:23.040 --> 1:10:24.360 Yeah, And I think I think the other thing that's 1:10:24.400 --> 1:10:26.559 important to amcise about this is these guys are right wingers. 1:10:26.560 --> 1:10:29.839 Like I I have pictures of these guys waving Gustaci flags. 1:10:30.760 --> 1:10:32.599 What if you saw your like the guys you did 1:10:32.560 --> 1:10:34.040 in the Holocaust in Croatia, Like. 1:10:34.240 --> 1:10:36.960 Yeah, there, there there was a mix of like conservatives 1:10:36.960 --> 1:10:40.400 to like actual fascists with like not flags there like that. 1:10:39.600 --> 1:10:39.640 That. 1:10:40.760 --> 1:10:43.120 It was. It was pretty there was a pretty wide 1:10:43.160 --> 1:10:47.160 ideological spectrum that was present. Now, some conservatives weren't happy 1:10:47.200 --> 1:10:49.639 that they're not that yeah there and try and try 1:10:49.640 --> 1:10:52.680 to get them to leave, you know. Others are more ambivalent. 1:10:53.800 --> 1:10:56.840 But yes, there was there was a large variety of 1:10:56.840 --> 1:11:00.919 of ideological re representation at the trucker convoy. 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:05.160 Yeah. So here's Max Blumenthal's response to it. The lockdown 1:11:05.320 --> 1:11:08.479 Left spent the last week's about academic theory to undercut 1:11:08.479 --> 1:11:11.760 support for a trucker strike. Looks on with silent satisfaction. 1:11:11.880 --> 1:11:15.080 Is the imperial Trudeau regime imposes the Emergency Act to 1:11:15.120 --> 1:11:19.960 freeze bank accounts. They wanted this, So he's just fully 1:11:20.200 --> 1:11:22.439 like fully spends his whole time fully on board with 1:11:22.439 --> 1:11:24.400 a truckers thing. He's trying to convince people as a 1:11:24.400 --> 1:11:27.800 trucker strike, which is it's not it's like objectively it's not, 1:11:27.960 --> 1:11:30.639 it's it's almost all these people are like anti union 1:11:30.640 --> 1:11:33.320 who are participating. Yeah, and they're also they're also like 1:11:33.360 --> 1:11:35.920 the actual people who are truckers are the people who 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:38.160 own trucking companies. They're not like they're not the people 1:11:38.160 --> 1:11:41.400 who are leasing trucks out. They are like the owners 1:11:41.479 --> 1:11:45.280 of these trucks. So he's really doing this sort of 1:11:45.400 --> 1:11:49.120 like like he's really doing this this sort of like 1:11:49.760 --> 1:11:53.640 pivot right, like she was suporting himself. By twenty twenty three, 1:11:53.680 --> 1:11:58.320 he's just posting straight up anti VAC stuff, like here's 1:11:58.360 --> 1:12:01.639 here's the thing that he wrote about. Uh, Peter Holtz, 1:12:01.680 --> 1:12:03.280 who was this guy. He was like this guy who 1:12:03.320 --> 1:12:06.000 was I don't know, he's like a science guy. He 1:12:06.080 --> 1:12:07.920 was like he was a really big target of the 1:12:08.000 --> 1:12:11.200 right for a while because he wouldn't he kept for 1:12:11.479 --> 1:12:14.120 like there's there's this whole thing where Joe Rogan was 1:12:14.160 --> 1:12:16.960 trying to debate him about whether vaccines worked, and it 1:12:17.000 --> 1:12:23.479 was it was this whole weird thing meeting of the minds. Yeah, yeah, 1:12:23.520 --> 1:12:26.160 it's ffol with all his like Bill Gates made hundreds 1:12:26.160 --> 1:12:29.000 of millions of dollars off his investment in biotech thanks 1:12:29.000 --> 1:12:31.519 to government subsidies and one of the greatest fear campaigns 1:12:31.560 --> 1:12:35.719 in history. He called mRNA a miracle, VACS a miracle. 1:12:35.840 --> 1:12:39.479 Now he admits the vaccines were semi worthless, big pharma junk. 1:12:41.680 --> 1:12:45.720 And then, but after contributing so much social damage with 1:12:45.760 --> 1:12:49.040 his unrelenting sanatory in demand for hard lockdowns and the 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:52.759 mass mandating of what amounted to experimental pharma junk, including 1:12:52.800 --> 1:12:56.760 to small children, Hoates seems desperate to avoid account of building. 1:12:56.840 --> 1:12:59.840 So this is just straight up anti vax shit, right, 1:13:00.280 --> 1:13:04.120 Like this is like where we are like now. It's 1:13:04.160 --> 1:13:06.280 like he spent like a whole bunch of like the 1:13:06.320 --> 1:13:08.720 last two years just tweeting anti vax stuff and this 1:13:08.760 --> 1:13:12.479 got fused with like the lab leak stuff really quickly. 1:13:13.160 --> 1:13:14.679 And this is the thing I think is really interesting 1:13:14.720 --> 1:13:20.759 because it's another demonstration that like he knows what he's doing. 1:13:21.000 --> 1:13:23.880 So back in twenty twenty one, back like right after 1:13:23.920 --> 1:13:30.599 the Atlanta the Atlanta Spas shootings happened, he like maxlely 1:13:30.600 --> 1:13:33.360 menthol'sractionto was like, oh yeah, here's like, well, here's this 1:13:34.280 --> 1:13:36.680 in light of recent racist attacks. Here's a reminder of 1:13:36.760 --> 1:13:40.639 Josh Rogan's Trump disinfo dump the Washington Post blaming China 1:13:40.680 --> 1:13:44.200 for cooking up COVID nineteen. In the Lab, Rogan cited 1:13:44.240 --> 1:13:47.880 a US funded dissident as a fake scientist, legitimated propaganda. 1:13:48.040 --> 1:13:51.000 Now this is actually the stuff with the LAB leak 1:13:51.120 --> 1:13:54.320 is actually true, which is sort of wild. I mean, 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:57.120 it's not quite like the lab leak stuff I think 1:13:57.200 --> 1:14:02.000 has directly contributed to people getting attacked the Atlanta's shooting. 1:14:02.040 --> 1:14:03.880 I don't know. I did a bunch. I did two 1:14:03.880 --> 1:14:07.519 episodes about it at the like a bit later. Yeah, 1:14:07.600 --> 1:14:09.320 if you want to hear me talk about the full 1:14:09.880 --> 1:14:12.759 explanation of that for a very long time. So that's 1:14:12.800 --> 1:14:14.640 what he's saying. In twenty twenty one, right, is he 1:14:14.680 --> 1:14:19.240 has correctly identified that the lab leak stuff is I 1:14:19.320 --> 1:14:23.639 like theoconn like Trump like anti China stuff. 1:14:24.600 --> 1:14:25.040 Uh. 1:14:25.080 --> 1:14:29.040 One year later, he has Jeffrey Sachs on the show 1:14:29.080 --> 1:14:31.240 to talk about how the US is covering up how 1:14:31.240 --> 1:14:34.080 the Pentagon in the National Institute of Health funded biological 1:14:34.160 --> 1:14:38.720 research that created COVID nineteen a lab in Wuhan. In 1:14:39.080 --> 1:14:42.240 one year, he has gone from calling the lab leak 1:14:42.960 --> 1:14:46.800 like a neocon quote a quote Trump dis info dump 1:14:46.840 --> 1:14:49.280 that was created by a neocon to having Jeffrey Sachs 1:14:49.360 --> 1:14:51.040 on his show to talk about how the lab leak 1:14:51.120 --> 1:14:54.479 is real and like, like this is bad enough, just 1:14:54.479 --> 1:14:56.200 as an ideological shift. Right, But we need to talk 1:14:56.200 --> 1:14:57.920 about do you guys know who Jeffrey Sachs is? 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:02.839 No, not really, oh boy. 1:15:02.680 --> 1:15:08.800 Okay, So Sas is a Columbia University economists. He is 1:15:08.840 --> 1:15:11.880 also the guy who did shock therapy both in Russia 1:15:11.920 --> 1:15:14.360 and in Poland. Like, this is the guy who privatized 1:15:14.360 --> 1:15:16.479 the Russian economy and handed it over to a combination 1:15:16.560 --> 1:15:19.120 of like American investors, Russian mobsters, and the guys who 1:15:19.160 --> 1:15:23.479 would become Russia's oligarchy. Like, he is the guy who, like, 1:15:23.520 --> 1:15:26.519 if you are one of these people, he should be 1:15:26.760 --> 1:15:30.360 enemy number one, right he is. He is the guy 1:15:30.600 --> 1:15:32.800 who like destroyed if like, if you believe this, he's 1:15:32.800 --> 1:15:36.519 the guy who destroyed Russian communism, right he is. He 1:15:36.640 --> 1:15:38.160 is responsible. And this is this is one of the 1:15:38.160 --> 1:15:39.960 things that people will talk about a lot, is how 1:15:40.080 --> 1:15:42.519 like all of the shock therapy stuff like caused the 1:15:42.600 --> 1:15:45.639 largest drop in life expectancy between World War Two and COVID, right, 1:15:46.880 --> 1:15:48.639 and like, like Sax is not a bit Like Sax 1:15:48.720 --> 1:15:50.840 was literally in the room. He was in the room 1:15:50.880 --> 1:15:54.080 in the Kremlin when the USSR was dissolved. This is like, 1:15:54.160 --> 1:15:56.799 this is one of the greatest anti communist in human history. 1:15:57.240 --> 1:15:59.120 And here is Max Bloem with all a man who 1:15:59.120 --> 1:16:02.240 is supposed to like his entire thing is about like 1:16:02.240 --> 1:16:06.320 opposing the imperialist you over through communism, like sitting down, 1:16:06.520 --> 1:16:09.360 having like a very like a very sort of like 1:16:09.439 --> 1:16:13.519 having like a very paling around interview about that. That 1:16:13.840 --> 1:16:16.840 is sax pushing a conspiracy theory, the lady conspiracy theory 1:16:16.840 --> 1:16:19.360 that he was literally calling this info one year ago. 1:16:20.479 --> 1:16:24.360 And I don't know, I thought about this for a 1:16:24.439 --> 1:16:28.559 long time trying to figure out what was happening here, 1:16:29.479 --> 1:16:31.960 and the conclusion that I came to is that this 1:16:32.040 --> 1:16:34.160 is the soul of a man who believes in nothing. 1:16:35.040 --> 1:16:37.519 And you know, you can you can ask the question 1:16:37.720 --> 1:16:39.920 why do this? And the short answer people tend to 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:43.680 give is just is money. And that's like true, but 1:16:43.760 --> 1:16:45.960 it doesn't go anywhere near far enough because I think 1:16:46.000 --> 1:16:48.840 the real, the real answer why these people did these 1:16:48.920 --> 1:16:53.160 right wing pivots is much much worse the actual reason 1:16:53.200 --> 1:16:56.160 people in left media suddenly start taking right wing turns. 1:16:56.640 --> 1:16:58.800 And this is something we've seen from like the young 1:16:58.920 --> 1:17:02.679 Turks like taking this like anti trans anti homeless pivots. 1:17:03.000 --> 1:17:05.080 There have been several other outlets that have done a 1:17:05.160 --> 1:17:08.400 right wing turn. And this is a structural problem in 1:17:08.479 --> 1:17:10.639 left media, which is that if you're in left media, 1:17:11.800 --> 1:17:14.320 you have a massive and you're trying to expand, you 1:17:14.320 --> 1:17:17.040 have a massive problem. And the problem is that the 1:17:17.120 --> 1:17:19.439 left in the US just isn't that big. Right Like, 1:17:19.520 --> 1:17:21.760 there are more leftists now than there've been for a 1:17:21.840 --> 1:17:25.240 very very long time, but there's only so many leftists 1:17:25.280 --> 1:17:27.280 and you can't pull from them all because leftists all 1:17:27.320 --> 1:17:30.240 hate each other. So even if you try to corner 1:17:30.479 --> 1:17:32.439 like the market of one faction of the left, another 1:17:32.479 --> 1:17:34.240 faction to the leftist is going to hate you because 1:17:34.560 --> 1:17:36.639 this is just how this is just how infighting works. 1:17:37.479 --> 1:17:40.000 And so if you're producing something that's designed for the 1:17:40.120 --> 1:17:43.320 left and only the left, there is built in a 1:17:43.760 --> 1:17:47.920 hard cap on how big your audience can get. And 1:17:47.960 --> 1:17:49.800 if you're successful, you can hit that limit. But if 1:17:49.800 --> 1:17:52.240 you want to grow more after that, you have to 1:17:52.320 --> 1:17:56.839 expand your ideological base, like the ideological base of your audience. 1:17:57.960 --> 1:18:00.000 But the problem is there's only two directions you can 1:18:00.120 --> 1:18:02.760 go right. You can either try to get liberals to 1:18:02.760 --> 1:18:05.640 listen to your show, or you could try to get conservatives. 1:18:06.400 --> 1:18:08.240 But you know, for people like Max wely monthal or 1:18:08.240 --> 1:18:10.639 like Jimmy Dre for example, it's another person who did 1:18:10.680 --> 1:18:13.519 this big like anti vax pivot around the same time 1:18:13.600 --> 1:18:15.679 maxle Wenthal was doing it. They have a whole thing 1:18:15.800 --> 1:18:18.240 where they they're they're talking about how ivromactin is actually 1:18:18.240 --> 1:18:19.479 a good COVID treatment. Together. 1:18:21.320 --> 1:18:23.719 Yeah, he used to be like a like a left 1:18:23.720 --> 1:18:24.720 wing YouTuber or. 1:18:25.200 --> 1:18:27.840 Like yeah he was a young guy from the Young 1:18:27.880 --> 1:18:29.760 Turks and he went off to his own thing. Is 1:18:29.760 --> 1:18:34.320 now like just completely only does anti vax shit. But 1:18:34.560 --> 1:18:36.439 the promise if you're if you're a Jimmy dor Like, 1:18:36.479 --> 1:18:40.080 you're you're gray zone. Right. Recruiting liberals is really really 1:18:40.080 --> 1:18:42.479 hard because your entire brand is based on how much 1:18:42.479 --> 1:18:45.360 you hate liberals. And this means that the people who 1:18:45.439 --> 1:18:50.360 naturally agree with them are conservatives. And the other important 1:18:50.400 --> 1:18:54.080 thing here is that leftists don't have that much money right, 1:18:54.479 --> 1:18:57.280 like they're there's not there's like us. There's like there 1:18:57.280 --> 1:19:00.200 there are there are leftists who are like college students 1:19:00.200 --> 1:19:02.479 who have rich families who have some money. There's like 1:19:02.560 --> 1:19:04.439 a small number of like leftist business, but they like 1:19:04.439 --> 1:19:07.559 they don't have on average, leftists don't have that much 1:19:07.560 --> 1:19:11.759 money on the other hand, conservatives have an enormous amount 1:19:11.760 --> 1:19:14.920 of money and they are very very easily pandered to. 1:19:15.880 --> 1:19:18.840 If you just like pump out like bottom barrel anti 1:19:18.920 --> 1:19:23.160 vax shit, like, they will flock to you. And you know, 1:19:23.360 --> 1:19:25.640 whenever you need to get leftists sort of back on 1:19:25.680 --> 1:19:27.559 your side, right, you can just start tweeting with a 1:19:27.560 --> 1:19:30.120 Palestine and everyone will forget everything else you've ever done, 1:19:30.280 --> 1:19:34.280 because any like, any time anytime someone posts posts like 1:19:34.320 --> 1:19:38.280 a pro palesiine thing, people just click on it. Right, Yeah, 1:19:38.720 --> 1:19:40.760 this has been. This has been like some Maxleen thoals 1:19:40.760 --> 1:19:43.360 met the last about two years just doing anti vax stuff. 1:19:43.720 --> 1:19:47.920 The moment, like the moment Palestine became something that people 1:19:47.920 --> 1:19:50.599 were focusing on again, and you know, and there're gore 1:19:50.680 --> 1:19:52.920 reasons for that, right, like, but the moment he did that, 1:19:52.960 --> 1:19:56.519 he just pivoted back into doing Palestine stuff, and everyone 1:19:56.640 --> 1:19:59.880 just completely ignored what he'd been doing this whole time. 1:20:00.400 --> 1:20:03.759 And if you do this, and you could you pander 1:20:03.960 --> 1:20:06.759 to you pander to the antivactors and making anti vaxed content, 1:20:06.840 --> 1:20:09.160 and then also you could just go back and regain 1:20:09.200 --> 1:20:12.919 your leftist credentials and get views and support from leftists. 1:20:12.960 --> 1:20:17.200 By doing Palestigne stuff, you can make a lot of money, 1:20:17.240 --> 1:20:20.400 but there's a price. Every time you sell out to 1:20:20.400 --> 1:20:22.960 these people, you betray another part of yourself, until one 1:20:23.040 --> 1:20:26.280 day you believe in nothing left and the right and 1:20:26.479 --> 1:20:28.479 lose all meeting and the only thing that's left is 1:20:28.520 --> 1:20:31.360 content in the culture war. And I want to close 1:20:31.400 --> 1:20:36.599 this episode by talking by reading something from another Gray 1:20:36.680 --> 1:20:41.200 Zone contributor, Anya Parimpel, who is she's another Gray Zone journalist, 1:20:41.240 --> 1:20:44.800 and she's Maxi blue Wenthal's wife, and she she is 1:20:44.840 --> 1:20:47.439 the Gray Zone person who's reached the end of this cycle. 1:20:48.040 --> 1:20:51.240 Now I'm just going to read what this looks like quote. 1:20:51.280 --> 1:20:53.960 The labels of left and right are outdated in the US. 1:20:54.200 --> 1:20:56.960 Case in point, leftist white men now pander to other 1:20:57.000 --> 1:20:59.160 white men by telling women of color they're biggots for 1:20:59.200 --> 1:21:01.720 saying boys wouldn't be able to piss in the girls room. 1:21:02.320 --> 1:21:06.560 These same punks spent months loudly advocating against bodily. I 1:21:06.600 --> 1:21:13.320 don't know, Okay, her tweet just trails offices bodily. It 1:21:13.400 --> 1:21:15.760 says dot dot dot and just moves. I don't know. 1:21:15.760 --> 1:21:19.200 She's not a very good writer. Gender ideology has created 1:21:19.240 --> 1:21:21.040 a dynamic in which a bunch of men can come 1:21:21.080 --> 1:21:23.840 into organizing circles, play victim and a certain control over 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:26.720 what is acceptible for others, especially women, to say and think. 1:21:27.360 --> 1:21:30.280 Most people know it's just misogyny tied up at a 1:21:30.280 --> 1:21:34.040 frilly bow, but are too afraid to it. Just dots 1:21:34.080 --> 1:21:37.559 off again. I deeply weird now that participants in the 1:21:37.560 --> 1:21:40.559 Impression Olympics have spent weeks attacking an anti war rally 1:21:40.600 --> 1:21:42.839 because it didn't fit their tunnel vision for the movement. 1:21:43.360 --> 1:21:45.880 Gloves are off. Good luck winning over the people with 1:21:45.960 --> 1:21:48.200 your message. The same people who believed workers should not 1:21:48.280 --> 1:21:51.840 be mandated to take an experimental injection that did not 1:21:52.000 --> 1:21:54.559 quote stop the spread, cried my body, my choice, and 1:21:54.640 --> 1:21:57.360 roe was overturned. Yet these same these are the same 1:21:57.360 --> 1:22:02.280 people who do not even believe biologue women exist total incoherence. 1:22:04.160 --> 1:22:06.800 So this is this is just a collection of This 1:22:06.880 --> 1:22:07.120 is just. 1:22:07.080 --> 1:22:10.200 A collection of like very basic right wing talking points 1:22:10.200 --> 1:22:15.679 like this is the the the like the false correlation 1:22:16.240 --> 1:22:22.439 between like reproductive health care and like vaccines for public health, 1:22:22.560 --> 1:22:26.240 and the stuff a gender gender ideology. All of it 1:22:26.280 --> 1:22:30.200 is just very very basic like talking points used used 1:22:30.200 --> 1:22:32.759 by the right that conflate various issues. 1:22:33.800 --> 1:22:37.839 Yeah, it's just like this is indistinguishable from the ravings 1:22:37.840 --> 1:22:40.680 of any other right winger, and this is just this 1:22:40.760 --> 1:22:44.160 is just where this stuff ends, because this this this 1:22:44.200 --> 1:22:47.479 specific line, this is how you fucking make money. And 1:22:47.800 --> 1:22:50.040 you know, there's you know, I mean, we could talk 1:22:50.080 --> 1:22:53.160 about a million more iterations of how this these stuff 1:22:53.200 --> 1:22:55.280 fused together. I mean, maxply went aal goes to like 1:22:55.280 --> 1:22:57.360 an anti vax rally that has a bunch of like 1:22:57.400 --> 1:22:59.640 three percenters and like a bunch of just straight up 1:22:59.720 --> 1:23:04.679 right wing fascists. But you know, this is at least 1:23:04.720 --> 1:23:07.160 one of the end points of where this stuff goes. 1:23:07.840 --> 1:23:10.280 But tomorrow we're going to look at a group of 1:23:10.280 --> 1:23:16.120 people who took this even further. Yeah, so get ready 1:23:16.120 --> 1:23:19.719 for that ship, because it's about to get wildly anti semitic. 1:23:20.280 --> 1:23:42.440 Oh great, hooray. It's it's an introduction to the podcast. 1:23:44.600 --> 1:23:50.240 I'm your host Bi along with me with these Garrison. Hello, Hello, 1:23:50.760 --> 1:23:55.439 welcome to part three of This Nightmare. Yeah, so, okay, 1:23:55.479 --> 1:23:58.120 all the way back in episode one, I said that 1:23:58.160 --> 1:24:01.639 Marxist Leninism was based at a series of arguments about 1:24:01.680 --> 1:24:03.800 the state, the nature of socialism, and the left relation 1:24:03.920 --> 1:24:06.600 to nationalism, And today we're going to go through some 1:24:06.640 --> 1:24:10.679 of those arguments because they're key to understanding the rise 1:24:10.720 --> 1:24:14.240 of a new kind of nationalist socialism, one that's focused 1:24:14.280 --> 1:24:17.320 on taking back your country from nebulous global elites and 1:24:17.360 --> 1:24:22.120 from Zionists. They call it baga communism, but you might 1:24:22.200 --> 1:24:27.760 almost call it a kind of national socialism. So how 1:24:27.800 --> 1:24:32.560 do we get from Marxist Leninism in ideology, who's defining 1:24:32.880 --> 1:24:36.559 thing is pure total opposition to the American Empire, to 1:24:36.960 --> 1:24:39.320 maga communism and think about how great the US is 1:24:39.360 --> 1:24:40.120 and how much they. 1:24:40.000 --> 1:24:43.600 Like trump patriotic community. 1:24:43.880 --> 1:24:47.439 On that path, these are two distant Patriotic socialism and 1:24:48.680 --> 1:24:51.840 maga communism are two technically distinct things. Will be getting 1:24:51.840 --> 1:24:55.559 into that. It's a it's a long dark road ahead, 1:24:56.400 --> 1:24:58.080 but there's no light at the end of it either. 1:24:58.120 --> 1:25:02.680 It just it just keeps being long dark. So I 1:25:02.720 --> 1:25:06.880 think I think the place to start if you want 1:25:06.880 --> 1:25:11.280 to understand how this sort of like or a borous 1:25:11.280 --> 1:25:15.439 of shit emerged from the left is by talking about 1:25:15.600 --> 1:25:20.559 the left's discourse on nationalism. So one of the things 1:25:20.680 --> 1:25:23.120 that Marxist Leninism did, and this is one of its 1:25:23.200 --> 1:25:28.320 key political achievements, on the left was to rehabilitate nationalism 1:25:28.360 --> 1:25:30.400 and talk about it in a way that was very, 1:25:30.560 --> 1:25:33.360 very different to what was happening in the left before this. 1:25:34.360 --> 1:25:37.640 And you know, because the left around twenty eleven, like 1:25:37.680 --> 1:25:40.519 around Occupy, but after that tended to be very skeptical 1:25:40.520 --> 1:25:42.880 of nationalism because you know, they had come out of 1:25:43.360 --> 1:25:45.840 like the Bush era and where you know, had had 1:25:45.960 --> 1:25:50.040 had had first hand experience with like what American nationalism 1:25:50.080 --> 1:25:54.960 really looks like and how much it absolutely sucks now. 1:25:55.040 --> 1:25:57.360 And the Marxis Leninists are something to bring this bring 1:25:57.439 --> 1:26:00.200 nationalism back into the left, and they're doing this the 1:26:00.320 --> 1:26:04.160 arguments that aren't necessarily wrong. Their argument is effectively that 1:26:04.200 --> 1:26:07.760 anti colonial nationalism and anti colonial nationalisms, because there's a 1:26:07.760 --> 1:26:12.320 bunch of them, and particularly like non white anti colonial nationalism, like, 1:26:12.439 --> 1:26:14.760 aren't the same thing as American nationalism, and that these 1:26:14.760 --> 1:26:17.760 anti colonial nationalisms like are revolutionary. And this is true 1:26:17.800 --> 1:26:20.960 in a lot of cases, right, Like Palestinian nationalism is 1:26:20.960 --> 1:26:26.599 like a completely different thing from Australian nationalism. Yeah, and 1:26:26.800 --> 1:26:32.559 you know, I'm pretty opposed to like nationalism on principle, 1:26:32.800 --> 1:26:35.000 but I'm not going to like tell some Kourdish kid 1:26:35.080 --> 1:26:37.479 that they need to like abandon their desire to speak 1:26:37.520 --> 1:26:40.920 Krimungi because it's like insufficiently revolutionary or whatever. Right, Like, 1:26:42.080 --> 1:26:43.800 but this is where we kind of start running into 1:26:43.920 --> 1:26:47.400 problems because you know, okay, so what about like Bathism 1:26:47.600 --> 1:26:51.240 For example, Bathism originally is a leftist like nationalist movement 1:26:51.360 --> 1:26:55.000 right and they are opposed at least non lead to 1:26:55.040 --> 1:26:58.880 American imperialism. But they are one hardline anti communists and 1:26:58.960 --> 1:27:02.719 two hardcore Arab nationalists, which may have been vaguely tolerable 1:27:02.760 --> 1:27:04.680 if you were Arab, but like, God help you if 1:27:04.680 --> 1:27:07.640 you are like Kurdish or Syria or Yazdi or like 1:27:07.680 --> 1:27:11.640 any other national minority under bath Party rule, where you know, 1:27:11.720 --> 1:27:13.280 they're going to ban your flags, they're going to ban 1:27:13.360 --> 1:27:16.200 your language, they're going to like keep your keep you 1:27:16.280 --> 1:27:21.920 from like naming your kids like your names. This is 1:27:21.960 --> 1:27:24.519 literally a thing, Like it sounds absolutely nuts, but like yeah, 1:27:24.560 --> 1:27:26.080 like it was illegal to give your kid like a 1:27:26.160 --> 1:27:29.599 Kurdish name in both in both sort of Bathist Syria 1:27:29.720 --> 1:27:33.400 and Bathists I Raq. And you know, if you try 1:27:33.439 --> 1:27:37.120 to resist, they'll kill you. And I'm using Baphism like 1:27:37.240 --> 1:27:41.400 as an example for this, because like there are people 1:27:41.479 --> 1:27:44.920 now who are genuinely Bathists. But it's like it's really 1:27:45.000 --> 1:27:47.839 hard to find people who support the bath Party. 1:27:49.680 --> 1:27:52.960 Yes, for for reference, I have never heard of this 1:27:53.160 --> 1:27:55.000 despite have you never heard of the bath Party? 1:27:55.400 --> 1:27:59.240 This is this is Saddam Hussein's party in Okay. 1:27:59.280 --> 1:28:03.160 Well, in terms of of the it's relevancy to the 1:28:03.200 --> 1:28:07.720 modern kind of workings of of of the sort of 1:28:07.960 --> 1:28:10.439 political spheres I operated, this is not something that has 1:28:10.439 --> 1:28:12.439 come up in Yeah, I've in my. 1:28:12.400 --> 1:28:15.760 Conversations, I've ran into them. There. I've ran into a 1:28:15.840 --> 1:28:18.760 few neo Bathists who are either like Saddam well so 1:28:18.760 --> 1:28:22.120 so the big bastion of kind of like it's not 1:28:22.120 --> 1:28:25.160 even really Bathism anymore, but like like Basharo saw, it 1:28:25.360 --> 1:28:31.280 technically is like a Batheist. Okay, although his they're not 1:28:31.560 --> 1:28:34.840 really Baptists anymore. They just kind of have this party 1:28:34.840 --> 1:28:38.679 apparatus still around. But like you know, most people are like, Okay, 1:28:38.720 --> 1:28:41.879 this sucks, right, but but you know, I'm using Baptism 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:45.479 because it's it's the easy tall. But like this is 1:28:45.520 --> 1:28:50.480 this is a question you have to ask with basically 1:28:50.520 --> 1:28:53.320 all national liberation movements, and it's one people don't like asking, 1:28:53.360 --> 1:28:56.800 which is whose nation is being liberated. And you know 1:28:56.920 --> 1:28:59.680 what kind of class collaboration and ideological collapse do these 1:28:59.760 --> 1:29:04.920 national movements produce? And these aren't abstract questions, right. One 1:29:04.920 --> 1:29:07.519 of the big examples of this is West Papua, which 1:29:07.560 --> 1:29:13.280 is a place that is ruthlessly and brutally colonized by Indonesia. 1:29:13.880 --> 1:29:17.240 But you know Sukarno, who's this great sort of like 1:29:17.320 --> 1:29:20.519 Sucarno is this great like anti imperialist hero. He's the 1:29:20.560 --> 1:29:22.400 guy who did the band Dun Conference, which is the 1:29:22.600 --> 1:29:25.000 giant assembly of all of the sort of like Asian 1:29:25.040 --> 1:29:28.000 and African states to like join together to resist imperialism. 1:29:29.080 --> 1:29:31.719 And but but like, one of the things that that 1:29:31.720 --> 1:29:34.559 that this left wing Indonesian nationalism is about is their 1:29:34.640 --> 1:29:37.559 right to colonize Papua. So the West Papua wins just 1:29:37.560 --> 1:29:42.439 get absolutely screwed over by by the Indonesians. And this 1:29:42.520 --> 1:29:44.840 is this is this place where you have to ask, like, 1:29:44.920 --> 1:29:47.000 whose nation is being liberated? And the answer is not 1:29:47.040 --> 1:29:50.759 the West pap Wins. Right, They're just getting absolutely screwed 1:29:50.800 --> 1:29:53.160 because the nation that's being liberated is this new nation 1:29:53.200 --> 1:29:57.920 of Indonesia and not them. And you know, I mean, 1:29:57.920 --> 1:29:59.639 I've talked about this on the show before, like I'm 1:30:00.080 --> 1:30:03.600 so skeptical of left wing nationalist movements because I'm from China, Like, 1:30:03.920 --> 1:30:07.800 like my family is from China, and we had two 1:30:08.160 --> 1:30:11.160 left wing national liberation movements traded back by the USSR, 1:30:11.920 --> 1:30:14.160 and the first one, which is the Chinese Nationalist Party, 1:30:14.160 --> 1:30:16.160 made it about seven years before they turned on the 1:30:16.200 --> 1:30:18.120 Chinese working class and bushered them in the streets with 1:30:18.200 --> 1:30:21.000 machine guns and then spent the next seventy years is 1:30:21.040 --> 1:30:23.599 like a fascist desk squad party. And then the other one, 1:30:23.600 --> 1:30:27.599 the Chinese Communist Party, lasted yeah, it maybe like forty years. 1:30:27.760 --> 1:30:31.200 I mean they lasted like how many years in power, 1:30:31.320 --> 1:30:33.160 like seventeen years in power before they get to the 1:30:33.160 --> 1:30:35.320 Cultural Revolution where they were also shooting workers in the 1:30:35.320 --> 1:30:37.840 streets and bulldozing moss and ching John, which is the 1:30:37.880 --> 1:30:40.360 thing that they continue to do to this day as 1:30:40.439 --> 1:30:43.120 part of what is and I shit you not the 1:30:43.960 --> 1:30:46.920 name for the quote unquote counter terrorism operation that China 1:30:47.000 --> 1:30:49.559 runs in Ching John is the People's War on Terror. 1:30:51.200 --> 1:30:54.519 I wish I was making this up. I'm not right 1:30:55.000 --> 1:30:57.160 this and this is a probauct of Chinese nationalism, right, 1:30:57.200 --> 1:31:00.120 like like it's Chinese is amophobia and Chinese nationalist some 1:31:00.200 --> 1:31:03.040 that sort of do this stuff. I'm very skeptical of 1:31:03.120 --> 1:31:05.920 nationalism as like a liberatory framework, but like it's complicated, right, 1:31:05.960 --> 1:31:09.400 It's genuinely is sure one of these things that's you know, 1:31:09.520 --> 1:31:12.520 like there there are there are there's lots of nuances 1:31:12.520 --> 1:31:15.280 to it, and you know, I think you have to 1:31:15.320 --> 1:31:17.880 take a kind of middle ground of like you have 1:31:17.960 --> 1:31:20.400 to keep it kind of under control, but also like 1:31:20.400 --> 1:31:22.160 I'm not going to go tele a Palestinian care that 1:31:22.160 --> 1:31:25.880 their nationalism is bad, right, like it's you know, I should. 1:31:26.040 --> 1:31:28.120 I realized that I've never explained this the whole time 1:31:28.160 --> 1:31:31.560 I was doing this. So mL is an abbreviation for 1:31:31.680 --> 1:31:35.000 Marxist Leninist that people say because saying Marxist Leninists over 1:31:35.040 --> 1:31:36.479 and over again, like I've been doing for these past 1:31:36.479 --> 1:31:42.200 two episodes is wearying. Yeah, So the MLS decided to 1:31:42.200 --> 1:31:45.679 take the other extreme, which is just mainlining every single 1:31:45.760 --> 1:31:48.639 non Western nationalism that can get their hands on, because 1:31:48.880 --> 1:31:53.559 they're trying to hold nationalist positions that are contradictory at 1:31:53.560 --> 1:31:56.760 the same time. So for example like that, they're trying 1:31:56.800 --> 1:32:00.200 to be both. Okay, I guess I should explain this 1:32:00.240 --> 1:32:02.400 a little bit so part of it is people being 1:32:02.479 --> 1:32:05.240 nationalists for countries that they're not from, which is deeply weird. 1:32:05.520 --> 1:32:07.080 Part of it also, and this is this is part 1:32:07.080 --> 1:32:09.519 of the reason this stuff spread is you know, you 1:32:09.560 --> 1:32:12.439 get like Chinese people becoming Chinese nationalists, like in response 1:32:12.520 --> 1:32:16.000 to like COVID and anti Asian violence or just sort 1:32:16.040 --> 1:32:19.640 of in general as like a pipeline. But you know, 1:32:19.680 --> 1:32:22.400 you get people trying to have both being both like 1:32:22.479 --> 1:32:26.840 Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalist at the same time, and 1:32:27.240 --> 1:32:29.120 that doesn't make any sense. I mean, like the whole 1:32:29.120 --> 1:32:32.360 apparatus that all of these sort of revolutionary anti imperialist 1:32:32.439 --> 1:32:35.120 nationalisms would work together was sha like should have been 1:32:35.200 --> 1:32:39.600 shattered when China invaded Vietnam. Their solution to this is 1:32:39.640 --> 1:32:44.400 just to pretend that it never happened, you know. And 1:32:44.400 --> 1:32:47.519 and but but like like Chinese and Vietnamese nationalists like 1:32:47.560 --> 1:32:50.720 don't like each other, like on the Vietnamese side in 1:32:51.320 --> 1:32:54.000 like modern Vietnam. So they have like a basically their 1:32:54.000 --> 1:32:56.439 own vers it's not actually their own version of like 1:32:56.479 --> 1:32:58.840 it's not actually like a QAnon branded thing, but they 1:32:58.880 --> 1:33:01.040 have a conspiracy theory that like their version of the 1:33:01.120 --> 1:33:05.240 like sovereign citizen like q thing, and their version of 1:33:05.240 --> 1:33:08.519 it is that it basically says that the Vietnamese government 1:33:08.640 --> 1:33:11.280 sold the country to China in nineteen ninety and they're 1:33:11.280 --> 1:33:13.920 like embarking on like a forty year plan to like 1:33:14.080 --> 1:33:19.559 fully sell the country to China, and like the Globe, 1:33:19.600 --> 1:33:24.320 like Western House just completely ignore this stuff because it's 1:33:24.400 --> 1:33:26.360 not convenient for them, and they just pretend that all 1:33:26.400 --> 1:33:31.240 these people get along. But this stuff gets, you know, 1:33:31.320 --> 1:33:37.320 it gets incredibly bizarre and like just weird really quickly. 1:33:37.360 --> 1:33:39.000 Like one of the things I remember from back in 1:33:39.000 --> 1:33:41.519 twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, I started I was hearing like 1:33:42.640 --> 1:33:45.680 leftists talking about how Ukraine wasn't a real nationality and 1:33:45.720 --> 1:33:48.080 how they've been invented by Nazis and that Ukrainians are 1:33:48.120 --> 1:33:50.920 inherently fascist, and I was like, what, like why is 1:33:50.960 --> 1:33:53.920 some random kid from New Jersey suddenly screaming about how 1:33:54.000 --> 1:33:57.760 Ukraine is like a fake nationality? And you know, it 1:33:57.800 --> 1:34:01.360 turns out, yeah, like it's because these people were like 1:34:01.880 --> 1:34:05.719 really getting into Russian nationalism, and like in like twenty sixteen, 1:34:05.760 --> 1:34:07.559 it was just deeply weird. And then you get to 1:34:07.600 --> 1:34:09.439 like twenty twenty two and all these people are just 1:34:09.439 --> 1:34:13.000 straight up supporting like Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the 1:34:13.000 --> 1:34:16.400 grounds that like Ukraine isn't a real place and also 1:34:16.800 --> 1:34:21.720 is only Nazis and stuff like that. And this has 1:34:22.600 --> 1:34:27.439 real sort of ideological consequences for what Marxist Leninism becomes, 1:34:27.479 --> 1:34:33.040 because it begins to pivot around a collection of nationalism, 1:34:33.120 --> 1:34:34.920 so the point where it's not even it's not based 1:34:34.920 --> 1:34:39.200 on communism anymore, it's just pure economic nationalism. And this 1:34:39.280 --> 1:34:43.439 is a product of these incredibly convoluted justifications they have 1:34:43.479 --> 1:34:46.519 to put together for supporting China, which is objectively a 1:34:46.600 --> 1:34:49.559 market economy and like very obviously a market economy, will 1:34:49.960 --> 1:34:51.720 you know, so they have to support China while also 1:34:51.760 --> 1:34:55.200 nominally being anti capitalist. I'm not going to go into 1:34:55.240 --> 1:34:58.840 these arguments because they're just pseudo Marxist gibberish. It's just 1:34:58.840 --> 1:35:01.920 just weird intellectual posta ring. I think it's more useful 1:35:01.960 --> 1:35:03.800 to look at where it ends up, which is have 1:35:03.960 --> 1:35:08.160 have you ran into the people advocating bricks. It's like 1:35:08.200 --> 1:35:12.840 the great anti American thing. Do you know what bricks is? No? 1:35:13.880 --> 1:35:14.080 Oh? 1:35:14.160 --> 1:35:16.680 God, okay, so I don't know. Get I don't think 1:35:16.720 --> 1:35:21.200 so bricks is a thing. That stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, 1:35:21.240 --> 1:35:22.000 and South Africa. 1:35:22.160 --> 1:35:22.880 Oh god, it. 1:35:23.400 --> 1:35:27.439 Was originally a asset class developed by the chairman of 1:35:27.479 --> 1:35:30.479 asset management at Goldman Sachs. So this is how you 1:35:30.560 --> 1:35:33.160 know it's really anti imperialist, right, Like this. 1:35:34.240 --> 1:35:37.519 It's golden golden Sacks, carrier of the red flag. 1:35:38.000 --> 1:35:40.240 Yeah, like it's it's it's an investment, It's an outline 1:35:40.280 --> 1:35:41.480 of an investment strategy. 1:35:41.560 --> 1:35:41.720 Right. 1:35:42.600 --> 1:35:44.639 But a lot of a lot of these people become 1:35:44.720 --> 1:35:47.000 convinced that like bricks is like it's like a real 1:35:47.040 --> 1:35:49.680 alliance and these people are like gonna like create the 1:35:49.760 --> 1:35:52.679 multipolar world where the US is no longer the only power. 1:35:52.760 --> 1:35:56.439 This is anti imperialist and like uhhh yeah, this is 1:35:56.600 --> 1:36:00.120 like on a fundamental level if you're pushing bricks as 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:03.320 an anti imperialist formation, Like what are we even doing here? 1:36:04.000 --> 1:36:09.839 Like who is doing the socialism in Brazil, Russia, India 1:36:09.840 --> 1:36:12.240 and China and South Africa? Right? Like is it the 1:36:12.280 --> 1:36:15.040 guy who invaded Haiti? Is it the butcher a Gujarat? 1:36:15.200 --> 1:36:19.160 Is it Vladimir quote, we will show Ukraine true decommunization 1:36:19.320 --> 1:36:22.240 putin is it the African National Congress of selling your 1:36:22.280 --> 1:36:24.920 comrades out to Bank of America or is it quote 1:36:24.960 --> 1:36:28.599 we must combat Welfaism shijianping, Like none of these states 1:36:28.640 --> 1:36:31.760 are even remotely socialist, but you know, people are people 1:36:32.080 --> 1:36:35.080 are holding them up as like anti imperialist powers because 1:36:35.280 --> 1:36:39.000 you know, their their sort of faux anti imperialism has 1:36:39.240 --> 1:36:43.519 completely devoured whatever their anti capitalism used to be. And 1:36:43.600 --> 1:36:45.280 you know, you shouldn't look too close to yet, like 1:36:45.400 --> 1:36:49.400 India's relations with the US either, pay no attention to 1:36:49.439 --> 1:36:53.439 the fact that Indian and Chinese truth periodically beat each 1:36:53.479 --> 1:36:57.439 other to death in the mountains. You know, it's a disaster. 1:36:57.680 --> 1:37:04.600 But this is what happens you mix nationalism with your socialism. 1:37:05.640 --> 1:37:08.120 And because of where this is going, we should talk 1:37:08.160 --> 1:37:10.120 about the history a little bit, about the history of 1:37:10.160 --> 1:37:14.639 displacing class struggle with the struggle between states. Because one 1:37:14.680 --> 1:37:18.040 of the people who does this is a man that 1:37:18.120 --> 1:37:20.679 a garrison. I bet you have heard of. His name 1:37:20.840 --> 1:37:22.240 is Benito Mussolini. 1:37:23.040 --> 1:37:26.960 Oh yes, I'm slightly familiar with his with his work. 1:37:27.960 --> 1:37:31.519 Yeah, And Mussolini's thing, like one of his things in 1:37:31.560 --> 1:37:33.840 the beginning is that you know, okay, so like the 1:37:33.840 --> 1:37:37.000 Marxist line is that there's class struggle between the proletariat 1:37:37.080 --> 1:37:39.840 and the BOURGEOISI. Right, So the capitalists and working class 1:37:39.840 --> 1:37:42.720 are fighting it out, and that's the you know, the 1:37:42.760 --> 1:37:44.920 logic of history is driven by these two classes fighting 1:37:44.960 --> 1:37:49.040 it out, and Mussolini goes no, no, proletarians of bourgeoisie 1:37:49.080 --> 1:37:52.960 have been replaced by the struggle between like proletarian nations 1:37:53.280 --> 1:37:59.080 and capitalists nations. So this is you know, you can 1:37:59.120 --> 1:38:01.439 you can start to see the outlines of how we're 1:38:01.479 --> 1:38:06.320 going to get to a national socialism from here. But first, 1:38:06.439 --> 1:38:12.479 do you know who else opposes a national socialism? Is 1:38:12.520 --> 1:38:13.599 it the products? 1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:20.680 Okay this podcast? Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure advertising hates 1:38:20.760 --> 1:38:24.920 the tenants of national socialism. 1:38:25.360 --> 1:38:30.080 We're back, okay, So we have the nationalism part in 1:38:30.200 --> 1:38:35.479 national socialism. And one of the other parts about this 1:38:35.640 --> 1:38:39.479 nationalism is that it's the vector by which a bunch 1:38:39.479 --> 1:38:42.439 of right wing social values start creeping into these Marxist 1:38:42.479 --> 1:38:45.920 lnin spaces, because there are still a lot of like 1:38:46.040 --> 1:38:49.440 old school MARXISTLINS parties left over from like the sixties, 1:38:51.120 --> 1:38:53.800 but a lot of them are just basically right wingers now, 1:38:53.920 --> 1:38:58.160 Like they're unbelievably homophobic, they're transphobic, they like scream about 1:38:58.160 --> 1:39:01.960 cancel culture all the time, like they're just they're just boomers, right, 1:39:02.040 --> 1:39:03.960 but they're boomers who the thing they're a boomer for 1:39:04.120 --> 1:39:09.559 is marked just leninism. And the ML's strategy for dealing 1:39:09.600 --> 1:39:13.760 with this was to just ignore it effectively, you know. 1:39:13.960 --> 1:39:16.599 And and they're they're they're able, they do a really 1:39:16.640 --> 1:39:19.519 good job at ignoring this is happening right, like the 1:39:19.560 --> 1:39:22.080 fact that Russia has passed a series of laws that 1:39:22.200 --> 1:39:26.360 ban all gender affirming surgery and changing like all They 1:39:26.360 --> 1:39:29.120 bann all gender affirming surgery. They banned like anything that 1:39:29.200 --> 1:39:31.400 allows would have allowed you to change your gender on 1:39:31.439 --> 1:39:37.599 like any any like any state identification documents. Uh, they've 1:39:37.600 --> 1:39:40.439 banned same sex marriage and the Constitution. They banned anyone 1:39:40.520 --> 1:39:42.880 like the recent one is they banned anyone from saying 1:39:42.880 --> 1:39:46.479 that same sex relationships are quote normal or good and 1:39:46.520 --> 1:39:48.080 those are their words, not mine. 1:39:48.400 --> 1:39:49.280 Yeah, I have seen this. 1:39:50.320 --> 1:39:52.879 Yeah, And you know, they've also declared the quote global 1:39:53.000 --> 1:39:56.799 LGBTQ movement as an extremist organ immediately started doing raids 1:39:56.800 --> 1:40:01.040 on like queer ballers and nightclubs. And this has changed 1:40:01.040 --> 1:40:04.600 the minds of zero of the MLS who've been supporting 1:40:05.520 --> 1:40:09.280 who've been supporting like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They 1:40:09.320 --> 1:40:14.639 just don't care. And because they don't care, because they've 1:40:14.680 --> 1:40:17.040 been doing they've been spending an incredibly you know. One 1:40:17.080 --> 1:40:18.400 of the things that they do too, is like they've 1:40:18.439 --> 1:40:20.800 been trying to they try to make the argument that like, no, no, no, 1:40:20.800 --> 1:40:22.639 these places are actually good for group people. I see 1:40:22.640 --> 1:40:24.880 this with China a lot, where they're like, no, no, 1:40:25.200 --> 1:40:28.920 China has one trans person who was a talk show host, 1:40:29.040 --> 1:40:31.639 So conditions for trans people there are really good. Meanwhile, 1:40:31.720 --> 1:40:36.120 like actually being a transperson and trying to fucking sucks ass. 1:40:36.520 --> 1:40:41.919 There's really only like a tiny number of of gender clinics, 1:40:41.920 --> 1:40:44.599 like you have to like you have to like there's 1:40:44.600 --> 1:40:47.040 like this whole thing where you have to like get 1:40:47.080 --> 1:40:49.200 approval from a bunch of people to get surgery. You 1:40:49.240 --> 1:40:51.160 have to like prove you're not a criminal or something. 1:40:51.160 --> 1:40:53.400 You to have like a great it's it's it's completely nuts. 1:40:53.439 --> 1:40:57.720 The whole system is just nuts, right, But you know 1:40:57.760 --> 1:40:59.840 they would either just pretend that it wasn't real or 1:40:59.880 --> 1:41:03.519 just completely ignore it. And what this did was leave 1:41:03.560 --> 1:41:06.679 a space, like leave room in these Martians lenited spaces 1:41:06.680 --> 1:41:10.080 for people who are not really leftists at all, but 1:41:10.080 --> 1:41:13.960 are just like hard lined, homophobic, like transphobic, anti American nationalists. 1:41:14.840 --> 1:41:16.680 And I started seeing this with because so one of 1:41:16.720 --> 1:41:18.680 the problems that Martcis Leninism has is that it's not 1:41:19.000 --> 1:41:24.960 it's not an ideology that exists outside of like the US, Britain, Australia, 1:41:25.479 --> 1:41:29.479 a bit of Europe, right like, it doesn't exist in China. 1:41:29.640 --> 1:41:32.479 The closest equivalent to this stuff in China, like people 1:41:32.560 --> 1:41:36.120 who are pro like very hardline pro Chinese government and 1:41:36.160 --> 1:41:38.800 are also like pro Chinese nationalism. The only people in 1:41:38.920 --> 1:41:42.120 China who believe this stuff are hardline right wingers, like 1:41:42.120 --> 1:41:43.840 people who are people who in the US would be 1:41:43.840 --> 1:41:47.519 classified as fascists. And you started to see these people 1:41:47.640 --> 1:41:50.760 like moving into like Marcius Lendino spaces because you know, 1:41:50.840 --> 1:41:53.759 nobody gave a shit that they were like incredibly homophobic 1:41:53.840 --> 1:41:55.479 and transphobic and they were just I mean again, just 1:41:55.520 --> 1:42:00.920 objectively right wingers, right, and they start to sort of 1:42:01.160 --> 1:42:07.240 creep into these spaces. Now, this may or may not 1:42:07.439 --> 1:42:11.200 have ever turned into a real thing, we don't know, 1:42:11.280 --> 1:42:17.000 but there were two break points that really like kicked 1:42:17.080 --> 1:42:19.559 the sort of birth of the the of like maga, 1:42:19.560 --> 1:42:22.880 communism and patriarchs and like the sort of right trajectory 1:42:22.920 --> 1:42:27.360 of this stuff, like into focus. There was some stuff 1:42:27.360 --> 1:42:29.400 that happened in the middle of the twenty twenty uprisings 1:42:29.400 --> 1:42:35.040 and then surprise, surprise, January sixth. So do you remember 1:42:35.439 --> 1:42:37.800 you probably yeah, you were probably busy while this was 1:42:37.840 --> 1:42:41.160 going on. Do you remember that the giant outcry over 1:42:41.200 --> 1:42:45.040 the book in Defensive Looting? Uh? 1:42:45.120 --> 1:42:49.360 Slightly, Yeah, I know that liberals were mad about the 1:42:49.400 --> 1:42:50.839 title of the book, that's. 1:42:51.000 --> 1:42:56.240 Yeah, and and conservative selfiously oh yeah, yeah so yeah. 1:42:56.280 --> 1:42:57.840 So so in the middle of the uprising kind of, 1:42:57.840 --> 1:42:59.559 I guess, kind of towards the tail end of the uprising, 1:42:59.800 --> 1:43:03.080 completely by coincidence, my friend Vicky austinwil had been writing 1:43:03.080 --> 1:43:05.320 a book called Indefensive Looting, which people should actually go 1:43:05.360 --> 1:43:09.559 read because it's really interesting, and she got an interview 1:43:09.640 --> 1:43:13.280 with MPR about it, and people lost their fucking minds 1:43:13.720 --> 1:43:18.080 about this book. Like everyone from like everyone from Tucker 1:43:18.120 --> 1:43:21.439 Carlson who like sitting members of the US Senate were 1:43:21.479 --> 1:43:23.360 going on record announcing like I think I think the 1:43:23.400 --> 1:43:27.280 Democratic Party like officially denounced it like it was I 1:43:27.600 --> 1:43:32.240 have never seen this kind of like cross partisan every 1:43:32.360 --> 1:43:35.599 like hate longering about a book, and like the entire 1:43:35.680 --> 1:43:38.680 time I've been on the left, and you know, and 1:43:38.760 --> 1:43:42.200 this this didn't just it wasn't just liberals and conservatives 1:43:42.240 --> 1:43:45.120 and fascists whore freaking out about this. This extended to 1:43:45.200 --> 1:43:47.800 a bunch of the left. There was there's a lot 1:43:47.880 --> 1:43:49.719 of like like Ian the editors of the New Republic 1:43:49.920 --> 1:43:52.960 right or like writing articles announcing this stuff like it 1:43:53.000 --> 1:43:55.320 is it's and it spreads across the social democratic left 1:43:55.320 --> 1:43:57.400 because the social Democrats are mad that people are looting 1:43:57.439 --> 1:44:03.200 small businesses. And the other group that really really comes 1:44:03.200 --> 1:44:06.200 out against this is like, are the Marxistlennon is like 1:44:06.240 --> 1:44:08.680 as people like the gray Zone. People really come out 1:44:08.720 --> 1:44:12.360 against this, And you know, okay, so like why am 1:44:12.360 --> 1:44:15.040 I talking about people not liking a book. The reason 1:44:15.240 --> 1:44:18.520 I want to talk about this is that what emerges 1:44:18.720 --> 1:44:22.840 from this specific thing. So Vicky, the author of this book, 1:44:22.920 --> 1:44:26.080 is both trans and Jewish, and what emerges here is 1:44:26.080 --> 1:44:31.879 this very specific combination of transphobia, anti semitism, anti black racism, 1:44:32.000 --> 1:44:34.479 both explicitly anti black racism and in the form of 1:44:34.560 --> 1:44:38.920 crime panics. And if you look at all of those 1:44:39.000 --> 1:44:42.480 elements together, that has been the entire right wing strategy 1:44:43.280 --> 1:44:45.720 for you know, putting all of the like uppity minorities 1:44:45.760 --> 1:44:48.320 back in their place after the uprising right that was 1:44:48.360 --> 1:44:53.439 their entire strategy, the defense of small businesses, you know, 1:44:53.439 --> 1:44:55.320 and then and then turning that into crime panic to 1:44:55.640 --> 1:44:58.439 rebuild support for the police. This was you know, that 1:44:58.479 --> 1:45:02.200 anti semitism and transphobia. That is their entire strategy for 1:45:02.280 --> 1:45:04.680 post twenty twenty. And this is like, this is the 1:45:04.720 --> 1:45:06.720 place where it was first. All of it was put 1:45:06.760 --> 1:45:11.519 together in one spot. And again like a lot of 1:45:11.560 --> 1:45:13.839 people who are nominally socialists, like a lot of Marxist 1:45:13.840 --> 1:45:17.040 Londonists like join in on this because even though the 1:45:17.200 --> 1:45:23.480 point of socialism is to like end capitalists owning private property. 1:45:23.439 --> 1:45:27.880 Well that is that is ostensibly the point, I think, yeah, but. 1:45:27.800 --> 1:45:30.400 In reality, like like the Marxist London is, like they 1:45:30.400 --> 1:45:33.880 don't actually oppose capitalism, they just think it should be 1:45:33.960 --> 1:45:37.160 run by someone else. So they everyone, like everyone falls 1:45:37.200 --> 1:45:40.200 in line and joins this sort of like you know, 1:45:40.280 --> 1:45:42.720 joins the sort of ritual denunciation of this book. And 1:45:42.760 --> 1:45:44.479 this is one of these things that really sort of 1:45:44.640 --> 1:45:47.960 cleaves like it really it cleaves the left in between 1:45:47.960 --> 1:45:51.040 the people who like actually fully support the uprising, and 1:45:51.040 --> 1:45:52.960 the people who are like, oh no, the small business 1:45:53.000 --> 1:45:57.040 is oh no, the horror. And the second thing that 1:45:57.280 --> 1:46:01.400 really reshapes the environment, like the whole sort of ecosystem 1:46:02.200 --> 1:46:06.840 like of the left is January sixth, and so I 1:46:06.840 --> 1:46:08.799 don't know if people how much people remember the initial 1:46:08.840 --> 1:46:11.120 reactions to it. I think the reactions to January sixth 1:46:11.120 --> 1:46:14.240 and the left can be divided into roughly three different reactions, 1:46:14.280 --> 1:46:19.519 although people have mixes of them. Reaction one, this is funny, 1:46:20.600 --> 1:46:23.000 reaction two, oh my god, the fascists tried to do 1:46:23.040 --> 1:46:26.320 a coup and installed Trump as dictator. And reaction three 1:46:26.400 --> 1:46:29.400 January sixth was the white working class having its revenge 1:46:29.400 --> 1:46:36.320 on the liberal politicians. Now, okay, objectively, we can say 1:46:36.840 --> 1:46:39.960 that January safe was not the white working class. It's 1:46:40.000 --> 1:46:41.240 revenge with the politicians. 1:46:41.600 --> 1:46:45.599 If you are one of the first two opinions, that's fine, 1:46:45.720 --> 1:46:48.080 that's normal, that makes sense. If you're the last of one, 1:46:48.080 --> 1:46:49.760 you should stop listening to this podcast. 1:46:50.040 --> 1:46:52.479 Yeah, and you know I want to Actually so I 1:46:52.520 --> 1:46:54.280 spent a bunch of time after this, and some other 1:46:54.320 --> 1:46:57.200 people did this too, like trying to figure out the 1:46:57.280 --> 1:47:00.640 actual like who from who was arrest student who we 1:47:00.720 --> 1:47:03.800 know was there what their actual class backgrounds are. And 1:47:03.840 --> 1:47:06.280 it turns out the three most common kinds of people 1:47:06.280 --> 1:47:09.000 who were there are troops, cops, the small business owners. 1:47:09.080 --> 1:47:12.400 Which is it is as pure of an expression of 1:47:12.400 --> 1:47:15.880 the social base of fascism as you can possibly get, right, 1:47:16.040 --> 1:47:19.040 like it is. The world was just like, hey, this 1:47:19.080 --> 1:47:21.679 is what fashions crops like. I mean it is, well, 1:47:21.760 --> 1:47:23.559 I think there's I think there's a lot a lot. 1:47:23.520 --> 1:47:25.920 Of participants in that crowd who I maybe wouldn't even 1:47:26.000 --> 1:47:30.439 consider fascists. But they are a crop of conservatives that 1:47:31.200 --> 1:47:35.559 are that have the financial and social resources to be 1:47:35.600 --> 1:47:39.599 able to go across the country to this, to this 1:47:39.760 --> 1:47:43.160 big event to watch the soon to be ex president 1:47:43.280 --> 1:47:47.840 speak like they they have enough capital and sports to 1:47:47.920 --> 1:47:51.640 be able to do this, which is very different than 1:47:51.680 --> 1:47:54.919 a whole bunch of like broke punks writing on trains 1:47:55.000 --> 1:47:57.519 to go protests like halfway across the country like these 1:47:57.640 --> 1:48:01.720 these are two very different social factions, but yeah, it is. 1:48:01.760 --> 1:48:02.040 It is. 1:48:02.080 --> 1:48:05.120 It is a grouping of conservatives who are able to 1:48:05.360 --> 1:48:10.240 financially support going across the country to hear President Trump speak. 1:48:10.520 --> 1:48:13.480 And then in the moment you realize. 1:48:13.160 --> 1:48:17.479 Oh wow, where we can just go we're breaking into Congress. Yeah. Well, 1:48:17.760 --> 1:48:19.479 I think the thing I would say about that too 1:48:19.600 --> 1:48:22.400 is like like part of the process of what fascism 1:48:22.520 --> 1:48:27.000 is is turning those people from regular conservatives into into 1:48:27.000 --> 1:48:30.639 ground troops. Yeah yeah, yeah, and that's and that's what's 1:48:30.640 --> 1:48:32.679 happening here. But but there's a bunch of the left 1:48:32.680 --> 1:48:36.920 who like absolutely insist that this was really the working 1:48:36.920 --> 1:48:40.760 class because they are chronically incapable of distinguishing between a 1:48:40.840 --> 1:48:45.599 large group of white people and the working class. And 1:48:45.720 --> 1:48:50.599 these are the people. Okay, it's not good they keep 1:48:50.640 --> 1:48:52.880 doing this like they were. They were doing this with 1:48:53.000 --> 1:48:56.599 like a bunch of like like French anti vaxxers. Yeah, 1:48:56.640 --> 1:48:58.240 there's like a bunch of people who were convinced like 1:48:58.479 --> 1:48:59.800 and this is this is one of the everything we 1:48:59.800 --> 1:49:01.960 talk on this last episode, like these people support the 1:49:02.000 --> 1:49:06.000 Canadian trucker's convoy even though they're just right wingers. The 1:49:06.040 --> 1:49:09.080 other big example of this is the Belgian farmers protests. 1:49:09.360 --> 1:49:12.120 This is huge farm protests in Belgium that are like 1:49:12.479 --> 1:49:14.639 a very big car caused to left on the right, 1:49:15.080 --> 1:49:17.760 and literally the thing they are protesting about is that 1:49:17.760 --> 1:49:20.639 they're incredibly pissed off that there's environmental regulation to try 1:49:20.640 --> 1:49:23.320 to get them to not like dump fertilizer in the 1:49:23.360 --> 1:49:25.960 fucking rivers. It's like that's the kind of thing that 1:49:25.960 --> 1:49:28.439 they're mad about, Like they're mad about environmental regulation. They're 1:49:28.479 --> 1:49:32.800 mad about like like not being allowed to completely destroy 1:49:32.840 --> 1:49:35.320 the environment completely. But because it's like a large, massive people, 1:49:35.360 --> 1:49:37.360 there's all these people who are like, ah, it's the revolution. 1:49:37.560 --> 1:49:41.839 It's like no, these guys are like they're small business 1:49:41.840 --> 1:49:43.360 owners on farms. 1:49:44.120 --> 1:49:47.120 Yeah, ooh woo, small bean blah blah blah blah. 1:49:47.160 --> 1:49:50.040 Yeah. One of the products of this is this thing 1:49:50.080 --> 1:49:53.320 that becomes known as patriotic socialism. But first, do you 1:49:53.360 --> 1:49:53.920 know what else? 1:49:54.040 --> 1:50:00.920 Is a product all of the wonderful little snippet of 1:50:01.680 --> 1:50:04.680 important messages that it's about to flow right into your 1:50:04.720 --> 1:50:07.719 brain as you listen to these ads. 1:50:08.120 --> 1:50:13.120 We're back with patriotic socialism. So patriotic socialism is this 1:50:13.200 --> 1:50:16.320 thing that emerges in like I think like late. I 1:50:16.320 --> 1:50:21.880 think it's like early twenty twenty. I was too late. 1:50:21.960 --> 1:50:23.439 I'm obviously I was just gonna admit I was too 1:50:23.520 --> 1:50:25.400 lazy to go back and find the first time someone 1:50:25.520 --> 1:50:26.360 used the term. 1:50:28.000 --> 1:50:31.280 Socialist. You mean yeah, Yeah, I mean, I mean it's 1:50:31.360 --> 1:50:34.320 I mean, I'm sure those two words have been combined 1:50:35.280 --> 1:50:36.000 many times. 1:50:36.200 --> 1:50:39.440 Yeah, I mean, like in the modern context. Yeah, it's 1:50:39.439 --> 1:50:42.200 a thing from very like like twenty twenty. Basically is 1:50:42.200 --> 1:50:42.439 when it. 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:45.880 Like, yes, this specific ideological strain that we'll be talking 1:50:45.920 --> 1:50:48.679 about emerges around twenty twenty. 1:50:48.720 --> 1:50:52.920 I think that's fair. Yeah, And it's so patriarch socialism. 1:50:53.080 --> 1:50:55.720 It combines all of the elements that we've talked about already, right, 1:50:55.880 --> 1:50:57.720 it takes the now she lives in, the homophobia, the 1:50:57.720 --> 1:51:02.559 support for capitalist economies. But then it makes one crucial move, 1:51:02.640 --> 1:51:05.680 which is it flips the direction of the nationalisms. So 1:51:05.760 --> 1:51:09.880 instead of being like hard line anti Americans, you're now 1:51:10.160 --> 1:51:15.080 like a hard line pro American nationalist, instead of being 1:51:15.120 --> 1:51:15.719 an anti. 1:51:15.520 --> 1:51:20.680 Imperialist who ignores the war crimes of China and Syria 1:51:21.920 --> 1:51:26.920 and blah blah blah blah Blahhia and r yeah obviously Russia. Instead, 1:51:27.560 --> 1:51:29.200 now America is the best. 1:51:30.040 --> 1:51:33.360 Yeah, like you know, and I mean their line basically 1:51:33.600 --> 1:51:36.639 they've adopted this from like an incredibly stupid line that 1:51:36.680 --> 1:51:39.160 the American Communist Party took on like the thirties, which 1:51:39.200 --> 1:51:41.200 was like, ah, the way we get a revolution in 1:51:41.280 --> 1:51:44.960 America is through American nationalism. So we're gonna like post 1:51:45.000 --> 1:51:47.200 pictures of us next to Abe Lincoln, and this is 1:51:47.240 --> 1:51:51.200 going to make people not hate us, you know. And 1:51:51.240 --> 1:51:53.680 you can tell how well this worked by tracking the 1:51:53.800 --> 1:51:56.559 number of people in the Communist Party as they adopt 1:51:56.600 --> 1:51:59.000 the strategy in the late thirties and seeing how it plummets. 1:51:59.320 --> 1:52:03.479 So you know, winning ideas great, great, great moves here. 1:52:05.120 --> 1:52:10.080 But okay, so the thing about patriotic socialism is that 1:52:10.360 --> 1:52:15.920 it never did that well because it sucks because you 1:52:15.960 --> 1:52:18.760 can't There was originally an attempt to pull in people 1:52:18.800 --> 1:52:22.360 from the left right, but everyone who looked at this 1:52:22.560 --> 1:52:25.679 was like this is lame and sucks, Like why would 1:52:25.720 --> 1:52:26.880 I want to get? Why would I want it? 1:52:26.920 --> 1:52:27.000 Like? 1:52:27.040 --> 1:52:30.559 Did these people suck? I don't like that they're weird 1:52:30.600 --> 1:52:33.600 American nationalists. Why would anyone be interested in this? And 1:52:33.640 --> 1:52:35.960 so what they were in So that didn't work very well. 1:52:37.560 --> 1:52:40.320 The thing they're mostly pulling from is this weird core 1:52:40.400 --> 1:52:45.479 of like Laruhites and these like very weird third positionist people. 1:52:45.560 --> 1:52:47.439 But there's just not that many of them. 1:52:47.600 --> 1:52:50.160 I mean, like they definitely the people that were there 1:52:50.160 --> 1:52:52.400 were pushing this as like an it's almost like a 1:52:52.400 --> 1:52:55.680 memetic ideology. In twenty twenty, there was there was some 1:52:55.720 --> 1:52:58.480 of them who were more kind of typical like Marxist Latinists, 1:52:58.800 --> 1:53:02.160 people who kind of orbited around, uh, the writers at 1:53:02.160 --> 1:53:05.200 grey Zone. Like we mentioned in the last episode, we 1:53:05.240 --> 1:53:09.280 had this one YouTuber named Peter Coffin. He was like 1:53:09.920 --> 1:53:11.080 like a Marxist YouTuber. 1:53:11.439 --> 1:53:13.400 Yeah, the guy guy is mostly as for kicking himself 1:53:13.400 --> 1:53:14.599 in the balls on Live TV. 1:53:14.880 --> 1:53:16.760 Yeah, well I think he was really one of the 1:53:17.680 --> 1:53:23.120 guys to kind of uh popularized patriotic socialism as as 1:53:23.120 --> 1:53:25.360 a term, even before people like Kinkle came onto the scene, 1:53:25.400 --> 1:53:27.400 which I assume will be getting to show. We'll get 1:53:27.400 --> 1:53:29.560 to that, yeah, but but yeah, it kind of it 1:53:29.840 --> 1:53:32.679 kind of circled around this like Caleb Moppin, Peter Coffin 1:53:33.160 --> 1:53:36.960 circle of these sorts of like content creators and writers 1:53:36.960 --> 1:53:40.439 who were really into like a classical Marxist theory. Yeah, 1:53:40.479 --> 1:53:42.720 but like not but I yeah, it's like but from 1:53:42.760 --> 1:53:47.720 they were from from very like statist yeah, American imperial aspective. 1:53:47.920 --> 1:53:48.040 Right. 1:53:48.439 --> 1:53:51.280 The thing is like they suck as theorist right like 1:53:51.280 --> 1:53:53.800 and this is this is like a one of the 1:53:53.920 --> 1:53:55.920 trends of these people that they're and this is why 1:53:55.960 --> 1:53:58.080 it doesn't take off because like one of the other guys, 1:53:58.120 --> 1:54:00.000 he's going to become like a maga communism guy later. 1:54:00.080 --> 1:54:02.639 Or is this a guy named Hawes or Infrared who 1:54:03.600 --> 1:54:07.240 he's like the big theory guy and stuff is unreader essentially, 1:54:07.320 --> 1:54:09.800 But yeah, he's like a twits streamers. He's stuff is 1:54:09.840 --> 1:54:13.479 completely unreadable, like it's nonsense, like to the point where 1:54:13.520 --> 1:54:16.360 even when this politics gets big and Hinkle tries to 1:54:16.360 --> 1:54:18.600 get people to read it, no one will fucking read it. 1:54:18.640 --> 1:54:21.240 His own followers won't read it because it's awful. 1:54:21.080 --> 1:54:24.160 I think between like, I don't think that this at 1:54:24.240 --> 1:54:27.280 least in my observations of this political subculture. The point 1:54:27.320 --> 1:54:30.280 is not to convert people to your politics, because there 1:54:30.720 --> 1:54:34.560 really isn't any core political essence of this thing. It's 1:54:34.600 --> 1:54:37.040 mostly a visual meme to get eyes on you. Because 1:54:37.080 --> 1:54:40.000 all these guys that are pushing this are all content creators. 1:54:40.040 --> 1:54:43.440 Like it's all a way just to boost your personal 1:54:43.560 --> 1:54:46.160 brand and to make people affiliate you with a personal 1:54:46.200 --> 1:54:48.160 brand like that. All the guys who are pushing this 1:54:48.240 --> 1:54:50.280 really hard, none of them were serious about any kind 1:54:50.280 --> 1:54:53.160 of political theory. Tied to this notion. They were all 1:54:53.320 --> 1:54:57.680 plugging their twitch stream, plugging their YouTube, their new book 1:54:57.720 --> 1:55:00.200 that's coming out, like all of it was just to 1:55:00.440 --> 1:55:04.240 sell content. I read on a lot of the guys 1:55:04.240 --> 1:55:08.040 that at least initially started pushing this thing as a 1:55:08.040 --> 1:55:08.960 as like a meme. 1:55:09.720 --> 1:55:12.280 Yeah, But I think the thing that's important about this too, though, 1:55:12.320 --> 1:55:14.560 is the original guys were fucking losers, Like this is 1:55:14.560 --> 1:55:17.760 why this didn't work. Sure, often, like Coffin starts doing 1:55:17.760 --> 1:55:21.880 this because his arigest previous seventeen grifts have all fallowed 1:55:21.920 --> 1:55:25.959 apart he was, He's been through, He's taken every conceivable 1:55:26.040 --> 1:55:27.880 leftist position and tried to make a brand around it, 1:55:27.880 --> 1:55:29.480 and it was just failing. Right, he just turned in 1:55:29.520 --> 1:55:32.000 to this. It doesn't work and like him and Moppin 1:55:32.160 --> 1:55:34.160 and like the other people in the space like are 1:55:34.320 --> 1:55:38.240 so unbelievably uncharismatic, and so it just doesn't work. The 1:55:38.320 --> 1:55:40.880 thing about this too, right, is like the reason it 1:55:40.920 --> 1:55:43.760 doesn't work partially because the people aren't charismatic, and partially 1:55:43.800 --> 1:55:46.839 it's because they really are obsessed with writing theory bullshit, 1:55:47.000 --> 1:55:50.480 like like yeah, like the theory betialty is completely incoherent, 1:55:50.520 --> 1:55:53.160 but they're like reading their theory on streams and shit, 1:55:53.280 --> 1:55:57.040 and like nobody likes that they need to produce some 1:55:57.160 --> 1:56:02.000 theory to make themselves feel legitimate. Yeah, but like husband's 1:56:02.000 --> 1:56:04.120 almost time they're fancy about Hagel. It's like, does anyone 1:56:04.160 --> 1:56:05.800 want to list Like no, Like. 1:56:05.760 --> 1:56:07.720 I mean, I I do like hearing about Hagel, but 1:56:07.760 --> 1:56:11.880 not from host. Yeah, but you know, like like he's 1:56:11.960 --> 1:56:13.040 like he's also yelling about how like there. 1:56:13.000 --> 1:56:14.920 Isn't a real left anymore because I'm like the far 1:56:15.040 --> 1:56:19.040 right people want align with Putin. But into this gap 1:56:19.200 --> 1:56:27.440 comes Jackson Hinkle. So Hinkle was just like a nobody. 1:56:27.880 --> 1:56:30.720 He was some random left Twitter person with like ten 1:56:30.800 --> 1:56:34.400 k followers. Yeah, like lost a city council race in 1:56:34.400 --> 1:56:37.960 to like he was like he was a joke. But 1:56:38.080 --> 1:56:42.480 in twenty twenty he starts to crack the formula, which 1:56:42.480 --> 1:56:44.080 is he figures out the same thing the gray Zone 1:56:44.080 --> 1:56:45.920 people do, which is that you can't pull from the 1:56:46.000 --> 1:56:48.960 left right. If you want to actually build a large 1:56:48.960 --> 1:56:53.000 scale brand, you have to pull from the right. And 1:56:53.080 --> 1:56:55.440 so he's one of the people who first gets really 1:56:55.480 --> 1:56:58.560 big into this thing called Maga communism, which is like 1:56:59.160 --> 1:57:02.760 kind of a it's like kind of a troll ideologies, 1:57:02.800 --> 1:57:05.760 like mostly a troll ideology, Like. 1:57:05.680 --> 1:57:07.360 It's yeah, yeah, it is, it is. 1:57:07.440 --> 1:57:11.040 It is meme based. Yeah. Basically, what they've done is 1:57:11.080 --> 1:57:14.520 like they've they've pulled together it's an attempt to build 1:57:14.600 --> 1:57:18.720 an ideology based on pure authoritarianism, Like it's based on 1:57:19.000 --> 1:57:22.640 like liking both Trump and CHIESI Ping and Putin at 1:57:22.680 --> 1:57:25.200 the same time, because all of them are powerful leaders 1:57:25.240 --> 1:57:29.840 who like want to restore their nation or whatever. And 1:57:30.080 --> 1:57:31.960 you know, but like the actual content of it is 1:57:32.600 --> 1:57:35.480 kind of nothing. But but what Hinkle does, and this 1:57:35.520 --> 1:57:38.280 is the thing he does that's very smart is that 1:57:38.360 --> 1:57:41.920 he's not an insufferable theory nerd. He's actually way less 1:57:41.920 --> 1:57:46.120 smart than Hawes. But because he's not smart, he kind 1:57:46.160 --> 1:57:48.440 of half stumbles and half figures out into how you 1:57:48.480 --> 1:57:52.560 make content for the right, which is just incredibly simple propaganda. 1:57:52.720 --> 1:57:55.280 Right You reach wheet write wing social media people. You 1:57:55.360 --> 1:57:58.560 make posts with very very simple slogans and like sentences 1:57:58.600 --> 1:58:02.720 with like words that don't go above two syllables, and 1:58:03.040 --> 1:58:04.960 you get You get in every single time a right 1:58:05.000 --> 1:58:07.840 wing grievance thing happens. You just get in and you 1:58:08.040 --> 1:58:12.240 just keep cranking out indescribable amounts of content every single day. 1:58:12.800 --> 1:58:14.200 He does this on his YouTube channel, he does this 1:58:14.280 --> 1:58:17.280 on his Twitter. He now has two point three million Twitter. 1:58:17.040 --> 1:58:20.760 Followers, most of which he has made in the past 1:58:20.760 --> 1:58:21.440 two months. 1:58:21.760 --> 1:58:25.080 Yeah. Yeah, And he was on you know, and he's 1:58:25.080 --> 1:58:26.840 now he's now taken like he's done one of these 1:58:26.920 --> 1:58:29.840 right wing media tours, like he's been on Carlson, He's 1:58:29.840 --> 1:58:32.720 been on fucking Info Wars, He's been on OEMs, the 1:58:32.760 --> 1:58:36.240 One American Network. And part of the reason this works 1:58:36.280 --> 1:58:39.560 is because right wingers love to find like a nominal 1:58:39.640 --> 1:58:42.640 leftists who agrees with them. And Hinkle, you know, he 1:58:42.680 --> 1:58:44.640 gets into argument with people sometimes, like when he was 1:58:44.640 --> 1:58:47.080 on Alex Jones, they're Alex Jones is like, what do 1:58:47.120 --> 1:58:49.840 you mean you're a communists? Like what the fuck? And 1:58:50.040 --> 1:58:54.960 Hinkle's putting out some bullshit about why Americ like communism 1:58:55.400 --> 1:58:58.960 is when no globalists, it's just. 1:58:59.880 --> 1:59:03.720 Like, in effect, they are doing a form of national 1:59:03.800 --> 1:59:09.760 socialism which relies which relies on anti Semitism and this 1:59:09.960 --> 1:59:14.480 notion of casting globalists as Jewish Zionists who are secretly 1:59:14.520 --> 1:59:16.560 controlling all of industry and We're going to give the 1:59:16.600 --> 1:59:20.360 real power back to the average regular working man which 1:59:20.400 --> 1:59:22.680 is it's it's he can frame it as communism, but 1:59:22.720 --> 1:59:24.360 like it is, it is it is just a form 1:59:24.400 --> 1:59:27.360 of Nazi theory. Like that is what he fundamentally operates on. 1:59:27.600 --> 1:59:31.760 And he's he's interesting because his she is he has 1:59:31.800 --> 1:59:34.520 gone you know, as as bad as the like transphobia 1:59:34.560 --> 1:59:36.480 stuff in last episode is right like that that is 1:59:36.520 --> 1:59:40.840 like an average like COVID grifter things he has. He 1:59:40.920 --> 1:59:44.200 has his own own share of transphobia as well. Yeah, 1:59:44.240 --> 1:59:49.360 well hekl is way further right than anyone who's ever 1:59:49.400 --> 1:59:51.160 come out of the left to like do this kind 1:59:51.160 --> 1:59:55.920 of thing has ever gone. He is like so there's 1:59:55.960 --> 1:59:58.640 a video of him arguing with a guy named sneak 1:59:58.680 --> 2:00:02.080 O and who I who just cover was just a 2:00:02.120 --> 2:00:02.839 twitch line. 2:00:02.720 --> 2:00:05.480 Is just as a twitch streamer who aligns himself with 2:00:05.520 --> 2:00:09.040 a whole bunch of kind of influencers for young usually 2:00:09.080 --> 2:00:13.240 white men. Like he's like, he's like close like Andrew Tate. 2:00:13.520 --> 2:00:16.640 It's it's it's just yeah, he's a fucking twitch influencer 2:00:16.640 --> 2:00:22.160 who courts unbelievable misogynist young man. That's the basic of it, 2:00:22.240 --> 2:00:25.000 you know, I mean, he he's he's kind of he's 2:00:25.000 --> 2:00:27.120 gone to the point where he's he's not quite in 2:00:27.160 --> 2:00:29.920 the same circles as Nick Flentes, but that's largely because 2:00:30.000 --> 2:00:33.880 Flentes is like a hardline Christian fascist, and Sneko's like, 2:00:34.320 --> 2:00:36.200 is like a Muslim fascist in the same wow like 2:00:36.240 --> 2:00:38.560 fat He's like, he's like a far right wing Muslim 2:00:38.600 --> 2:00:41.560 in the same Vein is like, I don't even I don't. 2:00:41.560 --> 2:00:45.520 I don't think Sneko is really id politically driven, like 2:00:45.520 --> 2:00:48.760 like like consciously so he's he's he's just a he's 2:00:48.800 --> 2:00:51.880 just an asshole who figured out that, hey, if you 2:00:51.920 --> 2:00:55.560 say certain things, you can get a twelve year employees 2:00:55.920 --> 2:00:58.120 to watch your stuff all the time. Like that's that's 2:00:58.160 --> 2:01:01.840 it's really, it's really the I think that the core of. 2:01:01.080 --> 2:01:04.360 Of of his of him, I hate politics. He sucks 2:01:04.400 --> 2:01:07.840 so much. But like so, Hinko goes on his show 2:01:08.400 --> 2:01:11.680 and he spends the entire show trying to convince Sneco 2:01:11.680 --> 2:01:15.000 that Hitler was gay and that the reason, and and 2:01:15.080 --> 2:01:18.880 Sneko's like, well, but Hitler destroyed the the Mangisrochwelt Institute 2:01:18.880 --> 2:01:20.480 for Sexual Research, And sneak Go's like, well that was 2:01:20.520 --> 2:01:24.000 a good thing. And Hinkel's response is no, no, no, 2:01:24.160 --> 2:01:26.200 all of the Nazis were gay in trans so they 2:01:26.240 --> 2:01:28.600 had to destroy the Institute of Sexual Research to cover 2:01:28.760 --> 2:01:31.440 up the fact, like to hide the evidence that they 2:01:31.480 --> 2:01:34.760 were all gay in trans Like this is a level 2:01:35.000 --> 2:01:39.560 of like homophobia and like transphobia that is like so 2:01:39.760 --> 2:01:46.920 far beyond the like normal shit that like and you know, 2:01:47.000 --> 2:01:49.320 and and and this, and like even Sneko is like 2:01:49.440 --> 2:01:51.280 what are you talking about? 2:01:51.520 --> 2:01:54.400 But I just can't take anything Hinkel says as like 2:01:54.440 --> 2:01:55.760 a literal thing he believes. 2:01:56.320 --> 2:02:00.320 He doesn't believe, he believes that everything. It's Yeah, he 2:02:00.480 --> 2:02:04.000 is the pure disillation of a man who believes in nothing. Yeah, 2:02:04.280 --> 2:02:06.440 Like like he is. She's not even a person, He's 2:02:06.440 --> 2:02:10.280 not even a human being. He is just a content mill. Yeah, 2:02:10.400 --> 2:02:12.560 That's that's all he is. He's just a brand. But 2:02:13.040 --> 2:02:16.000 what he's discovered, the way he's he's decided to build 2:02:16.040 --> 2:02:19.920 his brand is by basically out trying to he's doing. Okay, 2:02:19.920 --> 2:02:21.640 there was a there was a weird maga communism thing. 2:02:21.640 --> 2:02:24.800 He does that less now because it's outlived usefulness and 2:02:24.800 --> 2:02:27.680 a lot of this now it's now it's easier to 2:02:27.720 --> 2:02:33.879 be a a Palestine. Uh Yeah, like and quote unquote 2:02:34.000 --> 2:02:39.800 Anti's Zionist influencer. In reality, he just is extremely anti Semitic. 2:02:39.880 --> 2:02:42.680 Like this is yes, that is his actual politics. Yeah, 2:02:43.120 --> 2:02:46.480 let's talk about well okay, she's like it's genuinely unclear 2:02:46.560 --> 2:02:51.720 to me whether he personally is really anti Semitic, Like 2:02:51.920 --> 2:02:54.680 I don't know he might be. I mean, like it 2:02:54.720 --> 2:02:57.160 doesn't matter. Like that's the thing, Like he's. 2:02:57.000 --> 2:02:59.080 The way that he talks about it, the way oh yeah, 2:02:59.120 --> 2:03:02.800 he talks about how how how Zionists like rule the world. 2:03:02.840 --> 2:03:06.280 It's it's, it's it's you can just like that Intel 2:03:06.320 --> 2:03:09.880 Protocols of the Elders. Yeah, so this is the thing 2:03:09.920 --> 2:03:14.120 like like Hinkle, Hinkle is not really at this point, 2:03:14.320 --> 2:03:17.560 like they're like there there, there is no person behind it, right, 2:03:17.640 --> 2:03:21.520 He's just purely a right wing mill that regurgitates stuff 2:03:21.800 --> 2:03:23.640 and the stuff. And then the way that he figured 2:03:23.640 --> 2:03:26.240 out you could do this is by trying to outflank 2:03:26.840 --> 2:03:30.040 the traditional hard right on anti Semitism. So let's let's 2:03:30.080 --> 2:03:32.320 let's let's take a look at like exactly the kind 2:03:32.360 --> 2:03:34.440 of anti Semitic ship that he's on, because he is 2:03:34.640 --> 2:03:37.080 just straight up an anti Semite. Right, this is not 2:03:37.200 --> 2:03:40.040 a like think I'm saying because of the Palaside stuff, 2:03:40.720 --> 2:03:44.040 so grant the Like last week the trailer for Grand 2:03:44.080 --> 2:03:47.040 Theft Auto six came out. Yeah, and there's like a 2:03:47.080 --> 2:03:49.120 bunch of women tworking in it and like having a 2:03:49.120 --> 2:03:51.680 good time and like wearing bikinis and stuff, and there's 2:03:51.800 --> 2:03:58.080 like this enormous, like really weird, incredibly pathetic right wing 2:03:58.960 --> 2:04:01.760 like thing about it, saying that it's like anti Christian 2:04:01.840 --> 2:04:04.360 and it's like spreading porn to children and teaching people 2:04:04.400 --> 2:04:06.680 to do crimes, and that like shooting cops is bad 2:04:06.720 --> 2:04:09.240 and no one should ever play it. And because this 2:04:09.320 --> 2:04:11.600 is like the current right wing media panic, Hinkle starts 2:04:11.600 --> 2:04:15.000 tweeting about it, and his tweet is, so this starts 2:04:15.000 --> 2:04:17.040 with an Israeli flag, and it starts with like that 2:04:17.200 --> 2:04:19.520 like siren thing that people post when they're about to 2:04:19.560 --> 2:04:24.800 do an alert quote, why are the Zionists all capitalized 2:04:25.200 --> 2:04:29.000 at Rockstar Games releasing this all caps sexualized video game 2:04:29.040 --> 2:04:33.400 for children in America? Get hashtag ban GTA six. This 2:04:33.440 --> 2:04:37.160 is also in all caps trending right now. So this 2:04:37.480 --> 2:04:40.160 is straight up neo Nazi shit, right, This is neo 2:04:40.200 --> 2:04:45.520 Nazi shit about the Jews, conspiracy right, Like that's yeah, yeah, 2:04:45.880 --> 2:04:47.480 it's like this is a right of neo Nazi shit. 2:04:47.760 --> 2:04:50.080 And he's been trying to use the fact that he 2:04:50.240 --> 2:04:53.480 is more anti Semitic than openly anti semitic, even than 2:04:53.560 --> 2:04:57.240 so even than someone like Elon Musk, right sure, and 2:04:57.280 --> 2:04:59.200 he's been trying to use this as a way to 2:04:59.400 --> 2:05:04.680 basically to o their bases. So like two days ago 2:05:04.720 --> 2:05:07.720 when this goes up three uh really recently there was 2:05:07.800 --> 2:05:10.680 this giant like call, like there's this giant like Twitter 2:05:10.760 --> 2:05:13.200 space thing that had Alex Jones, Elon Musk, Andrew Trey 2:05:13.320 --> 2:05:16.720 and Vivik Ramaswami in it, and Hinkle just like keeps 2:05:16.800 --> 2:05:19.400 asking Elon Musk about whether he's gonna turn on the 2:05:19.400 --> 2:05:22.240 starlink like internet stuff or Palestine, and these people basically 2:05:22.240 --> 2:05:23.800 tell him to shut up and like kick him off. 2:05:25.200 --> 2:05:27.040 But then he does that. He starts doing this like 2:05:27.120 --> 2:05:30.160 giant like I've been censored like media thing about it. 2:05:30.320 --> 2:05:31.600 And what he's doing here, this is the thing he 2:05:31.640 --> 2:05:35.560 does constantly. He's trying to take the basis from people 2:05:35.600 --> 2:05:37.600 like Alex Jones, people like Elon Musk, people of Manedu 2:05:37.680 --> 2:05:41.960 Tate who wants more open anti Semitism, right like these 2:05:42.000 --> 2:05:44.360 people are anti He's trying to flank them. 2:05:44.400 --> 2:05:46.200 You can say, quote unquote from the right, but like 2:05:46.240 --> 2:05:48.680 at this point the right less spectrum kind of resolves 2:05:48.720 --> 2:05:50.840 into meaningless uh mambo jumbo. 2:05:50.960 --> 2:05:52.560 But yeah, he's trying to He's I mean, he's just 2:05:52.600 --> 2:05:54.360 a fascist, right, He's he's trying to he's trying to 2:05:54.360 --> 2:05:59.320 play like the anti Semite flame from the anti Semitics thing. Yes, yeah, 2:05:59.480 --> 2:06:02.800 and you know, and but but he's he's figured out. 2:06:02.960 --> 2:06:05.480 This is the thing that actually pushed him really into 2:06:05.520 --> 2:06:08.400 the mainstream. Is he figured out a way to do 2:06:08.480 --> 2:06:10.840 cover for this that also lets him get a bunch 2:06:10.880 --> 2:06:13.960 of like attention and clicks and stuff from the left, 2:06:14.800 --> 2:06:18.320 which is and also like a lot of support from Palestinians. 2:06:18.440 --> 2:06:20.800 And we're going to talk about that in a second. 2:06:20.800 --> 2:06:23.600 People who don't understand who he actually is, or maybe 2:06:23.640 --> 2:06:25.560 if they do, they just don't really care because because 2:06:25.600 --> 2:06:31.200 it doesn't affect them, Because he is currently possibly the 2:06:31.240 --> 2:06:35.720 most influential person talking about this conflict right now, like 2:06:35.720 --> 2:06:39.200 like at least on the internet, like his his his 2:06:39.280 --> 2:06:43.520 impressions is larger than anyone else. His tweets get read 2:06:43.600 --> 2:06:46.840 aloud in newsrooms across across the country. Like he is 2:06:47.200 --> 2:06:50.880 he has succeeded in grifting off of off of this 2:06:51.040 --> 2:06:55.720 conflict to promote his personal brand in almost an almost 2:06:55.800 --> 2:06:58.440 unparalleled way. Like there's never been someone who's done this 2:06:58.480 --> 2:07:01.200 as successfully as Hin called us for any other conflict. 2:07:01.360 --> 2:07:05.640 It is, it is. It is quite quite quite surprising 2:07:05.680 --> 2:07:08.640 that there's just this one guy sitting in sitting in 2:07:08.760 --> 2:07:12.400 on his phone in America has has been this successful 2:07:12.640 --> 2:07:14.600 by essentially just tweeting NonStop. 2:07:17.080 --> 2:07:19.200 Yeah, like to put this in perspective, so like he 2:07:19.240 --> 2:07:21.400 has Alex Jones got banned and that kind of like 2:07:21.480 --> 2:07:23.880 limited his coverage, but he has more followers on Twitter 2:07:23.920 --> 2:07:25.560 of Alex Jones. Alex Jones has just been on band 2:07:25.600 --> 2:07:27.920 from Twitter, Like he has more followers at Alex Jones. 2:07:27.960 --> 2:07:32.120 Like that's that's how And it's not even just followers too, 2:07:32.160 --> 2:07:35.880 it's it's how much his posts are seen and circulated 2:07:35.920 --> 2:07:37.960 like he yeah, there was. He was for almost I 2:07:38.000 --> 2:07:40.160 think the most of the month of October, he was 2:07:40.480 --> 2:07:44.320 person with the highest digital impressions on the platform like 2:07:44.360 --> 2:07:46.920 he he yea, his stuff was being seen by more 2:07:46.960 --> 2:07:50.200 people than anyone else, like he yeah, So let's let's 2:07:50.200 --> 2:07:53.000 talk about what that stuff actually is. It's large, It's 2:07:53.000 --> 2:07:56.080 like it's a combination of him just retweeting other people, 2:07:56.160 --> 2:07:59.560 stealing other people's like videos of like press conferences from 2:07:59.600 --> 2:08:03.120 a coma. Most of it is dead babies, like it's 2:08:03.120 --> 2:08:04.720 a bunch, it's a bunch of dead babies, it's a 2:08:04.760 --> 2:08:07.280 bunch of dead Palestinians, just over and over and over 2:08:07.320 --> 2:08:10.440 and over again. And then sometimes tweets of like ceasefire, 2:08:10.640 --> 2:08:11.960 like how could the Zionists do this? 2:08:13.640 --> 2:08:18.920 One about misinformations, characterizing attacks events, like a lot of 2:08:18.960 --> 2:08:20.200 others basic stuff. 2:08:20.000 --> 2:08:22.240 Like it's yeah, and one of one of his tricks 2:08:22.240 --> 2:08:23.560 and that this is this has been a thing for 2:08:23.600 --> 2:08:25.640 these kinds of like these Marginalonist people for a long time, 2:08:25.880 --> 2:08:29.040 is spreading spreading pictures that are actually from the Serians 2:08:29.040 --> 2:08:32.000 civil war, yes, features from Palestine, which they do constantly, 2:08:32.920 --> 2:08:35.040 and this, you know, and like one of the things 2:08:35.080 --> 2:08:36.400 that we haven't sort of toushed on yet is like 2:08:36.480 --> 2:08:39.320 yet he so one of the things that's happened with 2:08:39.400 --> 2:08:41.800 him is because he's the biggest person tweeting about Palestine. 2:08:42.400 --> 2:08:44.760 His like a lot of his tweets about Palestine are 2:08:44.800 --> 2:08:47.600 translated into Arabic and they're posted all over like Arabic 2:08:47.640 --> 2:08:50.400 Instagram of Arabic Twitter, Like it's like they're they're spent 2:08:50.480 --> 2:08:54.720 fucking everywhere. And those people, you know, either like don't 2:08:54.800 --> 2:08:59.560 know who he is, right, because they're only seeing him 2:09:00.080 --> 2:09:04.160 Palestine stuff, right, They're not seeing his like raving about 2:09:04.480 --> 2:09:08.920 how GTA six is anti Christian, right, They're only seeing 2:09:09.240 --> 2:09:13.560 that stuff. And this has made his work enormously more 2:09:13.600 --> 2:09:18.800 popular than actual Palestinian journalists and intellectuals. And this is 2:09:18.840 --> 2:09:21.040 one of the really grim parts about this, which is 2:09:21.080 --> 2:09:27.440 that you know, those those Palestinian journalists are just getting 2:09:27.480 --> 2:09:30.320 fucking killed all the time, Like every single day, another 2:09:30.360 --> 2:09:34.360 Palestinian journalist gets fucking killed, Like more and more Palestinian 2:09:34.400 --> 2:09:37.280 intellectuals are killed. And as these people die and Hinkle 2:09:37.360 --> 2:09:40.800 exploits their deaths for more fucking content, the number of 2:09:40.840 --> 2:09:44.120 people talking about this with any kind of platform shrinks 2:09:44.160 --> 2:09:47.000 and shrinks and shrinks. And he's been able to fill 2:09:47.040 --> 2:09:49.920 the void left by the fact that the Israelis have 2:09:50.040 --> 2:09:53.640 been fucking murdering all these journalists with just his own 2:09:53.680 --> 2:09:59.040 fucking grifting brands. And he's able to do this because 2:09:59.360 --> 2:10:04.440 you know, Kinkle is incredibly safe, just fucking living it 2:10:04.560 --> 2:10:07.839 up in the US while the people who's suffering, he's exploiting, 2:10:07.880 --> 2:10:10.280 are getting fucking murdered in the streets. 2:10:10.160 --> 2:10:11.920 And he's making tons of money doing this. 2:10:12.280 --> 2:10:18.280 Enormous amounts of money. Yeah, and I don't know, I 2:10:18.280 --> 2:10:21.280 don't I don't really have I don't have a fucking 2:10:21.280 --> 2:10:25.280 solution to this. Like he's he's effectively just figured out 2:10:25.640 --> 2:10:28.520 how to completely game this system in a way that 2:10:28.560 --> 2:10:29.800 hasn't been done before. 2:10:30.560 --> 2:10:32.720 I think part of this is like with the way 2:10:32.840 --> 2:10:35.960 Twitter's content moderation is working now, Gore can we spread 2:10:35.960 --> 2:10:38.160 around in ways that it didn't used to, which is 2:10:38.200 --> 2:10:40.280 a lot more emotionally gripping for a lot of people. 2:10:41.120 --> 2:10:43.960 So he's able to to do a whole buntu quote 2:10:43.960 --> 2:10:47.120 teet quote tweets on extremely graphic and upsetting images which 2:10:47.600 --> 2:10:50.840 draw more people to his platform. He's he's he's just 2:10:51.040 --> 2:10:53.480 like figured out a specific thing, like he's he's been 2:10:53.480 --> 2:10:55.280 trying to do this for a few years with very 2:10:55.360 --> 2:10:58.360 with various types of like you know, conflicts or like 2:10:58.440 --> 2:11:01.520 little little like bits that he he like tries to 2:11:02.080 --> 2:11:04.800 tries to do this media strategy thing on and this 2:11:04.800 --> 2:11:06.440 this one has happened to work. There there was there 2:11:06.480 --> 2:11:11.400 was a certain confluence of events that allowed him to 2:11:11.400 --> 2:11:16.440 to get get platformed by many, many, many unwitting people, 2:11:17.320 --> 2:11:20.000 and at this point, deplatforming is not even an option, 2:11:20.080 --> 2:11:23.480 Like it's it's like, you can't you can't deplatform someone 2:11:23.520 --> 2:11:26.960 with three million followers. Really, just that just isn't that 2:11:27.120 --> 2:11:29.840 He's strategy and it too, like yeah, yeah, it just 2:11:29.920 --> 2:11:32.440 it just that's right, It just doesn't even follow anymore. 2:11:33.840 --> 2:11:35.880 Yeah, I guess, I guess. One last thing I want 2:11:35.880 --> 2:11:38.520 to say about this is like, and he's he's been 2:11:38.600 --> 2:11:43.840 incredibly successful at leveraging, like at leveraging the fact that 2:11:43.840 --> 2:11:46.840 he posts not not even good pro pales sign content, 2:11:46.920 --> 2:11:51.880 right sucks ass right, it's but he's been incredibly successful 2:11:52.000 --> 2:11:54.840 leveraging that to use his defense against any claims of 2:11:54.840 --> 2:12:00.000 anti Semitism. And this sucks because he's, you know, he's 2:12:00.080 --> 2:12:03.440 he's effectively using he's using Palestinians as a human shield 2:12:03.960 --> 2:12:06.440 and then fucking climbing over their corpses in order to 2:12:06.440 --> 2:12:07.080 build a brand. 2:12:08.040 --> 2:12:11.160 While that also complaining about the degeneracy of seeing a 2:12:11.160 --> 2:12:14.120 whole bunch of non white people having a beach party 2:12:14.120 --> 2:12:16.320 in GTA five, right, Like it's like, it's not like 2:12:16.360 --> 2:12:19.920 he actually cares about the lives of Palestinians being killed 2:12:19.920 --> 2:12:23.080 because he's complaining about black people in GTA five. Like 2:12:23.080 --> 2:12:25.240 it's not like, come on, like it's it's he is. 2:12:25.960 --> 2:12:27.879 He's just an anti Semitic fascist. 2:12:27.920 --> 2:12:28.320 This is y. 2:12:28.520 --> 2:12:31.920 This is very very clear. I think I think the 2:12:31.960 --> 2:12:36.280 thing that can be done is, like we need to 2:12:36.800 --> 2:12:40.000 like these people can't be allowed to fucking get their 2:12:40.040 --> 2:12:43.000 start here, Like we can't be having a bunch of 2:12:43.040 --> 2:12:46.120 fucking transphobes and anti Semits. We can't be having all 2:12:46.160 --> 2:12:49.960 of these fucking homophobic right wing nationalists like in leftist basis, 2:12:50.000 --> 2:12:54.160 they just like they can't be here because if if 2:12:54.160 --> 2:12:57.520 there had actually been you know, a kind of sustained 2:12:57.520 --> 2:13:00.440 effort to get these people fucking out before before they 2:13:00.480 --> 2:13:02.640 pulled all of this shit, we wouldn't be here right now. 2:13:03.360 --> 2:13:07.480 But that wasn't done. Were people were just completely okay 2:13:07.520 --> 2:13:10.600 with having all of these right wingers just being there 2:13:10.600 --> 2:13:13.480 because they supported the same states that they do, and 2:13:14.000 --> 2:13:15.320 because of that we're here. 2:13:16.040 --> 2:13:18.120 I mean, yeah, I really only see that on like 2:13:18.720 --> 2:13:22.720 the heavily communist and statist contingent of the left right, 2:13:22.760 --> 2:13:25.600 Like these types of people aren't super popular among most 2:13:25.640 --> 2:13:30.360 like social democrats at least recently, there's been kind of 2:13:30.560 --> 2:13:35.760 a harder divide, at least from my observation between like 2:13:35.920 --> 2:13:40.560 SoC dems, between like socialists libertarian socialists, and the people 2:13:40.560 --> 2:13:44.920 who are like hardlined. I am a Marxist Leninist. I 2:13:44.960 --> 2:13:48.760 am affiliated with these Marxi Leninist organizations, and those are 2:13:48.800 --> 2:13:51.200 the sorts of organizations that these sorts of guys kind 2:13:51.200 --> 2:13:54.240 of almost like prey on to like gain followers and 2:13:54.280 --> 2:13:55.160 gain some poy. 2:13:54.960 --> 2:13:56.440 Well, and I would say this, like, this is like 2:13:56.480 --> 2:13:59.400 those groups like like the PSL for examples, PSL is 2:13:59.440 --> 2:14:01.480 what example shores right, And like they also have a 2:14:01.640 --> 2:14:04.240 there's a whole bunch of horror stories about them chasing 2:14:04.280 --> 2:14:08.160 down abusers. Like I know people who they liked a 2:14:08.200 --> 2:14:12.280 tweet that was talking about how the PSL had had 2:14:12.320 --> 2:14:16.120 fucked up a a sexual assault investigation and they were 2:14:16.240 --> 2:14:18.320 dragged because they had liked to tweet about this. They 2:14:18.320 --> 2:14:20.880 were dragged in front of the PSL Central Committee where 2:14:20.920 --> 2:14:24.840 Gloria Rivera, they're fucking like eternal presidential candidates started doing 2:14:24.880 --> 2:14:27.560 a bunch of fucking transphobia shit and then covering it 2:14:27.600 --> 2:14:30.240 with the exact same gray zone, Like I'm a woman 2:14:30.280 --> 2:14:33.400 of color, thing, you know, but these groups were like 2:14:33.520 --> 2:14:35.960 on they were on the edge of colla like basically 2:14:36.000 --> 2:14:38.720 becoming a non relevant because they've been supporting Russia during 2:14:38.720 --> 2:14:40.240 the war in Ukraine for this whole time. But then 2:14:40.320 --> 2:14:43.800 Palestine exactly is the one issue they're actually like, is 2:14:43.840 --> 2:14:47.960 the one issue that their stance is like, you know, 2:14:48.120 --> 2:14:50.520 tolerable to the general populace on it. So they've all 2:14:50.640 --> 2:14:52.560 all of these people have been using Palestine, even all 2:14:52.880 --> 2:14:56.200 these people who've been fucking pivoting harder, harder and harder 2:14:56.320 --> 2:14:58.280 right for years and years and years now have been 2:14:58.400 --> 2:15:02.240 have like have I've been exploiting the exploiting the fucking 2:15:02.240 --> 2:15:06.000 genocide and Palestine in order to fucking get all their 2:15:06.040 --> 2:15:11.840 leftist clicks back. And it's utterly grotesque. Yeah, that's that's 2:15:11.880 --> 2:15:13.080 That's what I've got about this. 2:15:14.080 --> 2:15:15.959 It is. It is certainly upsetting. 2:15:16.320 --> 2:15:18.560 Yeah, free Palestine, Fuck the grifters. 2:15:34.120 --> 2:15:39.640 Hello, welcome to it could happen here today. My episode 2:15:39.720 --> 2:15:44.040 is going to be a bit more philosophical. I love 2:15:44.120 --> 2:15:47.040 me some philosophy. I don't always understand it, but I 2:15:47.040 --> 2:15:50.280 do like it. And I read something recently that really 2:15:50.280 --> 2:15:53.240 stuck with me, especially in the context of what is 2:15:53.280 --> 2:15:56.880 currently going on right now in Palestine and the genocide 2:15:56.920 --> 2:16:00.360 and Gaza. I read something and I couldn't stop thinking it, 2:16:00.400 --> 2:16:03.240 so I thought, let's just make an episode. So today 2:16:03.320 --> 2:16:07.920 I wanted to talk about this word I learned called grievability. 2:16:08.920 --> 2:16:12.640 It was coined by Judith Butler in this blog post 2:16:12.640 --> 2:16:16.200 from twenty fifteen, when Butler is asking the question when 2:16:16.360 --> 2:16:20.600 is life grievable? In twenty sixteen, Butler wrote a book 2:16:20.680 --> 2:16:24.120 called Frames of War. When is Life Grievable? And this 2:16:24.200 --> 2:16:27.240 is a quote from this book. One way of posing 2:16:27.320 --> 2:16:30.120 the question of who we are in these times of 2:16:30.200 --> 2:16:34.200 war is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose 2:16:34.280 --> 2:16:38.680 lives are mourned, and whose lives are considered ungrievable. We 2:16:38.800 --> 2:16:41.600 might think of war as dividing populations into those who 2:16:41.640 --> 2:16:45.440 are grievable in those who are not. An ungrievable life 2:16:45.480 --> 2:16:48.640 is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, 2:16:49.360 --> 2:16:52.440 That is, it has never counted as a life at all. 2:16:53.640 --> 2:16:56.520 We can see the division of the globe into grievable 2:16:56.560 --> 2:17:00.000 and ungrievable lives from the perspective of those who weigh 2:17:00.280 --> 2:17:03.680 war in order to defend the lives of certain communities, 2:17:03.760 --> 2:17:06.840 and to defend them against the lives of others, even 2:17:06.879 --> 2:17:11.360 if it means taking those latter lives. So that quote 2:17:11.400 --> 2:17:15.720 kind of encompasses the idea of grievability. I really just 2:17:15.760 --> 2:17:19.000 thought it was poignant to talk about and relevant because 2:17:19.720 --> 2:17:23.320 we are being inundated with all these numbers every day 2:17:23.440 --> 2:17:28.600 of casualties and death counts and collateral damage. And people 2:17:28.640 --> 2:17:31.800 accept these things because it's part of being human. It's 2:17:31.840 --> 2:17:34.879 just the way war is. But I really don't think 2:17:35.040 --> 2:17:37.440 we should accept that as the reality. I think that 2:17:37.480 --> 2:17:40.600 makes us callous. And I think accepting human death, no 2:17:40.680 --> 2:17:45.000 matter in what context, is a little bit inhuman And 2:17:45.040 --> 2:17:47.440 so I think maybe that's why this concept fascinated me, 2:17:47.560 --> 2:17:53.240 because tying grief to the concept of being alive, it 2:17:53.280 --> 2:17:56.840 truly is indicative of if that life is worth something 2:17:56.920 --> 2:18:00.120 to you or to the world. And so we're reading 2:18:00.160 --> 2:18:02.560 and hearing about all these lives lost, and we're giving 2:18:02.600 --> 2:18:06.400 these numbers and stories, and these numbers are repeated every day, 2:18:06.480 --> 2:18:09.760 and they increase every day, and this repetition seems endless 2:18:10.000 --> 2:18:13.360 and impossible to change. And Butler is saying that we 2:18:13.400 --> 2:18:17.119 don't often consider the precarious character of the lives lost 2:18:17.240 --> 2:18:22.280 in war, and Butler defines precariousness as the following. To 2:18:22.320 --> 2:18:25.440 say that a life is precarious requires not only that 2:18:25.480 --> 2:18:28.560 a life be apprehended as a life, but also that 2:18:28.600 --> 2:18:32.200 precariousness be an aspect of what is apprehended in what 2:18:32.320 --> 2:18:36.240 is the living normatively construed. I am arguing that there 2:18:36.280 --> 2:18:39.400 ought to be a more inclusive and egalitarian way of 2:18:39.480 --> 2:18:43.800 recognizing precariousness, and that this should take form as concrete 2:18:43.920 --> 2:18:49.720 social policy regarding such issues as shelter work, food, medical care, 2:18:49.920 --> 2:18:53.680 and legal status. Butler goes on to explain that although 2:18:53.720 --> 2:18:59.920 this initially seems paradoxical, precariousness itself actually cannot be properly recognized. 2:19:00.879 --> 2:19:04.960 Butler says it can be apprehended, taken in, encountered, and 2:19:05.000 --> 2:19:08.680 it can be presupposed by certain norms of recognition, just 2:19:08.760 --> 2:19:12.160 as it can be refused by such norms. But the 2:19:12.200 --> 2:19:16.680 main recognition of precariousness should be as this shared condition 2:19:16.920 --> 2:19:20.960 of human life, so precariousness being a condition that links 2:19:21.160 --> 2:19:25.800 human life and humans to non human animals. So, for instance, 2:19:25.959 --> 2:19:28.680 to say that a life is injurable, that it can 2:19:28.720 --> 2:19:33.039 be lost, hurt, destroyed, or systematically neglected to the point 2:19:33.080 --> 2:19:36.600 of death is to underscore not only the finitude of 2:19:36.600 --> 2:19:40.080 a life and that death is certain, but also the 2:19:40.120 --> 2:19:44.240 precariousness of life, that life requires various social and economic 2:19:44.280 --> 2:19:46.959 conditions to be met in order to be sustained as 2:19:47.000 --> 2:19:51.560 a life. Precariousness implies that living socially means that one's 2:19:51.600 --> 2:19:54.879 life is always, in some sense, in the hands of 2:19:55.040 --> 2:19:58.560 the other. It implies exposure both to those we know 2:19:58.800 --> 2:20:01.520 and to those we do not know, a dependency on 2:20:01.600 --> 2:20:04.880 people we know or barely know, or know not at all. 2:20:05.680 --> 2:20:10.040 This existential reality that everything ends and everything is temporary. 2:20:10.680 --> 2:20:15.400 This encapsulates our relation to death and to life. Precariousness 2:20:15.480 --> 2:20:21.279 underscores what Butler calls our quote radical substitution ability and anonymity, 2:20:21.840 --> 2:20:25.240 and that dying and death is just as socially facilitated 2:20:25.320 --> 2:20:29.680 as humans persisting and flourishing. So Butler is saying it's 2:20:29.720 --> 2:20:32.560 not that we are born and then later become precarious, 2:20:32.600 --> 2:20:36.800 but rather that precariousness is intrinsic with birth itself, and 2:20:36.840 --> 2:20:41.440 birth is by definition precarious. It means that it matters 2:20:41.480 --> 2:20:45.120 whether a newly born infant survives, and its survival is 2:20:45.160 --> 2:20:48.680 dependent on what we might call a social network of hands. 2:20:49.520 --> 2:20:52.960 Precisely because a living being may die, it is necessary 2:20:53.000 --> 2:20:56.000 to care for that being so it may live. I 2:20:56.040 --> 2:20:59.280 put the following sentence in bold because I think it's 2:20:59.480 --> 2:21:02.360 kind of underlying what I'm trying to say, even though 2:21:02.360 --> 2:21:05.760 it sounds really simple. But only under conditions in which 2:21:05.800 --> 2:21:09.280 the loss would matter does the value of the life appear. 2:21:10.240 --> 2:21:13.040 And again, maybe it sounds simple, but I don't think 2:21:13.040 --> 2:21:16.400 we actually absorb the meaning of what that means to 2:21:17.040 --> 2:21:20.680 value a life and to mourn a life. And this 2:21:20.800 --> 2:21:23.480 is how we come to the idea of grievability, the 2:21:23.600 --> 2:21:27.760 idea that grievability is a presupposition for the life that matters. 2:21:28.480 --> 2:21:30.920 Butler gives us this example, so let's think about this. 2:21:31.640 --> 2:21:35.120 An infant comes into the world, is sustained in and 2:21:35.200 --> 2:21:38.000 sustained by that world as an infant, and through to 2:21:38.120 --> 2:21:43.320 adulthood and old age, and finally eventually it does. We 2:21:43.360 --> 2:21:46.600 imagine that when the child is wanted, there is celebration 2:21:46.760 --> 2:21:49.360 at the beginning of life. But there can be no 2:21:49.520 --> 2:21:54.000 celebration without an implicit understanding that the life is grievable, 2:21:54.320 --> 2:21:56.959 that it would be grieved if it were lost, that 2:21:57.000 --> 2:22:01.280 this future possibility is installed as the condition of its life. 2:22:01.920 --> 2:22:06.160 Life is celebrated because it can be lost. In ordinary language, 2:22:06.200 --> 2:22:09.560 Butler says, grief attends the life that has already been 2:22:09.640 --> 2:22:13.800 lived and presupposes that life as having ended. So the 2:22:13.879 --> 2:22:18.440 value of life comes from the reality and certainty that 2:22:18.520 --> 2:22:21.520 it will end. And if we think about this idea 2:22:21.560 --> 2:22:25.680 of possibility of future, this lack of possibility that happens 2:22:25.680 --> 2:22:29.520 when death happens, grievability is a condition of a life's 2:22:29.520 --> 2:22:33.760 emergence and sustenance this future. Concept that a life has 2:22:33.800 --> 2:22:37.039 been lived is presupposed at the beginning of a life 2:22:37.280 --> 2:22:40.520 that has only begun to be lived. In other words, 2:22:40.560 --> 2:22:43.840 Butler says, this will be a life that will have 2:22:44.040 --> 2:22:48.280 been lived is the presupposition of a grievable life, which 2:22:48.320 --> 2:22:50.400 means that this will be a life that can be 2:22:50.440 --> 2:22:55.160 regarded as life and sustained by that regard. I know 2:22:55.320 --> 2:22:57.320 it sounds heady, and I really had to read this 2:22:57.400 --> 2:23:01.480 multiple times to even try to comprehend it. But essentially, 2:23:01.520 --> 2:23:05.480 without grievability, without the impulse to mourn a life, there 2:23:05.600 --> 2:23:09.120 is no life, or rather, there is something living that 2:23:09.240 --> 2:23:13.240 is other than life. This other than life thing is 2:23:13.280 --> 2:23:15.560 a life that will never have been lived in the 2:23:15.560 --> 2:23:18.440 first place, because it's not mourned, and it's sustained by 2:23:18.480 --> 2:23:22.320 no regard, no testimony, and it is ungrieved when it 2:23:22.440 --> 2:23:27.000 is lost. The unease and anxiety and apprehension of grievability 2:23:27.200 --> 2:23:31.360 precedes and makes possible the unease and anxiety and apprehension 2:23:31.879 --> 2:23:38.120 of precarious life, and so grievability precedes and makes possible 2:23:38.160 --> 2:23:42.640 the apprehension of the living being as living exposed to 2:23:42.879 --> 2:23:46.280 non life. From the start, to put it in maybe 2:23:46.320 --> 2:23:51.040 a simpler way for me to understand even is that 2:23:51.560 --> 2:23:55.640 a life is worth grieving because we already know it 2:23:55.680 --> 2:23:59.080 will die, and that life is worth celebrating because it 2:23:59.120 --> 2:24:03.560 has already been to death or the implication of certain death. 2:24:03.680 --> 2:24:08.039 From the start, it is pretty heady. But maybe I'll 2:24:08.080 --> 2:24:10.600 just leave you to marinate with that during a break, 2:24:11.080 --> 2:24:16.800 and we can get more heady when we get back. Okay, 2:24:17.000 --> 2:24:20.560 we're back. Let's go back to the idea of war. 2:24:21.320 --> 2:24:24.200 One way of posing the question of who we are 2:24:24.240 --> 2:24:26.800 in these times of war is by asking whose lives 2:24:26.840 --> 2:24:30.959 are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives 2:24:31.000 --> 2:24:36.240 are considered ungrievable war is essentially the division of populations 2:24:36.320 --> 2:24:38.920 into those who are a grievable and those who are not. 2:24:39.760 --> 2:24:43.400 An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because 2:24:43.440 --> 2:24:47.040 it has never lived, that is, it has never counted 2:24:47.200 --> 2:24:50.480 as life at all. And we see this division of 2:24:50.520 --> 2:24:54.280 the entire world into grievable and ungrievable lives when we 2:24:54.320 --> 2:24:57.160 look at the perspective of those who wage war in 2:24:57.280 --> 2:25:01.040 order to defend their certain communities. Is kind of reiterating 2:25:01.120 --> 2:25:03.000 the quote that I'd started with at the top from 2:25:03.000 --> 2:25:07.320 twenty sixteen, But essentially to defend these certain communities against 2:25:07.320 --> 2:25:11.040 the life of others, it usually implies the taking of 2:25:11.080 --> 2:25:14.640 those other lives. Butler here makes a reference to nine 2:25:14.680 --> 2:25:17.520 to eleven, explaining that after the attacks of nine to eleven, 2:25:17.720 --> 2:25:20.640 the media showed us graphic pictures of those who died, 2:25:20.800 --> 2:25:23.800 along with their names, their stories, and the reactions of 2:25:23.879 --> 2:25:28.400 their families. Public grieving was dedicated to making these images 2:25:28.640 --> 2:25:32.000 iconic for the nation, which meant that, of course, there 2:25:32.120 --> 2:25:36.840 was considerably less public grieving for let's say, non US nationals, 2:25:37.160 --> 2:25:41.000 and none at all for illegal workers. Butler says the 2:25:41.040 --> 2:25:45.640 differential distribution of public grieving is a political issue of 2:25:45.879 --> 2:25:50.680 enormous significance, and Butler asks, why is it that governments 2:25:50.720 --> 2:25:54.560 so often seek to regulate and control who will be 2:25:54.600 --> 2:25:59.160 publicly grievable and who will not? Because it means something 2:25:59.280 --> 2:26:01.879 to state and to show the name of someone who 2:26:02.000 --> 2:26:05.160 has died, to put together some remnants of a life, 2:26:05.200 --> 2:26:08.080 and to publicly display and draw attention to the loss. 2:26:08.920 --> 2:26:11.720 So Butler is asking, in this context, what would happen 2:26:11.800 --> 2:26:14.880 if those killed in war were to be grieved in 2:26:14.920 --> 2:26:17.600 such an open way? Why is it that we are 2:26:17.640 --> 2:26:20.840 not given the names of all the war dead, including 2:26:20.920 --> 2:26:24.199 those the US has killed, of whom we will never 2:26:24.240 --> 2:26:28.040 have the image, the name, the story, never have a 2:26:28.080 --> 2:26:32.440 testimonial shard of their life, nothing to see, to touch, 2:26:32.879 --> 2:26:38.280 to know. Open grieving is bound up with outrage. Outrage 2:26:38.280 --> 2:26:41.840 in the face of injustice or of unbearable loss has 2:26:42.040 --> 2:26:47.959 enormous political potential. Butler draws a similarity here to Plato. Apparently, 2:26:48.080 --> 2:26:50.360 one of the reasons Plato wanted to ban the poets 2:26:50.400 --> 2:26:53.279 from the republic is that he thought that if citizens 2:26:53.320 --> 2:26:56.680 went too often to watch tragedy, they would weep over 2:26:56.720 --> 2:27:00.000 the losses they saw, and that such open and public mind. 2:27:00.760 --> 2:27:04.240 In disrupting the order and hierarchy of the soul would 2:27:04.280 --> 2:27:08.920 disrupt the order and hierarchy of political authority as well. 2:27:09.040 --> 2:27:10.560 And I didn't know this, but to put it in 2:27:10.600 --> 2:27:14.680 that context is really fascinating to me, because it's essentially 2:27:14.720 --> 2:27:18.680 saying that if we expose human beings to the reality 2:27:18.720 --> 2:27:22.240 of tragedy in life, they might care too much and 2:27:22.520 --> 2:27:26.280 start to fuck up our politics. Essentially, so, whether we 2:27:26.320 --> 2:27:30.040 are speaking about open grief or outrage, we are talking 2:27:30.080 --> 2:27:34.200 about effective or emotional responses that are highly regulated by 2:27:34.240 --> 2:27:39.840 regimes of power and sometimes subject to explicit censorship. The 2:27:39.879 --> 2:27:42.440 blog post I'm referring to that Judith Butler wrote was 2:27:42.440 --> 2:27:45.400 written in twenty fifteen, So Butler uses the wars in 2:27:45.440 --> 2:27:48.560 Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of what they're trying to say. 2:27:49.240 --> 2:27:52.320 For the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, we saw how 2:27:52.320 --> 2:27:55.600 emotion was regulated to support both the war effort and 2:27:55.920 --> 2:28:00.720 more specifically nationalists belonging. When the photos of Bougrabe were 2:28:00.760 --> 2:28:04.600 first released in the US, conservative television pundits argued that 2:28:04.640 --> 2:28:08.039 it would be un American to show them because we 2:28:08.040 --> 2:28:10.520 were not supposed to have graphic evidence of the acts 2:28:10.560 --> 2:28:13.520 of torture the US has committed. We were not supposed 2:28:13.560 --> 2:28:17.760 to know that the US had violated internationally recognized human rights. 2:28:18.120 --> 2:28:21.400 It was Unamerican to show these photos, an Unamerican to 2:28:21.520 --> 2:28:24.720 glean information from them as to how the war was 2:28:24.760 --> 2:28:28.840 being conducted. Bill O'Reilly thought that the photos would create 2:28:28.879 --> 2:28:31.160 a negative image of the US, and that we had 2:28:31.200 --> 2:28:34.240 an obligation to defend a positive image of the country. 2:28:34.800 --> 2:28:38.840 Donald Rumsfeld said something similar, suggesting it was anti American 2:28:38.959 --> 2:28:43.120 to display the photos. Of course, these idiots didn't consider, 2:28:43.360 --> 2:28:46.560 and neither did the vast majority of people in power. 2:28:47.080 --> 2:28:50.120 But the American public should have a right to know 2:28:50.280 --> 2:28:53.520 about the activities of its military, and it should have 2:28:53.640 --> 2:28:57.960 the right to judge a war. Understanding and judging a 2:28:58.000 --> 2:29:01.200 war on the basis of full evidence is, or at 2:29:01.360 --> 2:29:04.440 least it should be part of the democratic tradition of 2:29:04.480 --> 2:29:09.279 participation and deliberation. So what was this really saying? Butler's 2:29:09.320 --> 2:29:13.360 asking they say, it seems to me that those who 2:29:13.480 --> 2:29:15.920 sought to limit the power of the image in this 2:29:16.080 --> 2:29:20.599 instance also sought to limit the power of effect of outrage, 2:29:21.000 --> 2:29:24.440 knowing full well that it could and would turn public 2:29:24.480 --> 2:29:28.160 opinion against the war in Iraq as it died, it did. 2:29:28.920 --> 2:29:32.360 I feel like this is especially fascinating and parallel to 2:29:32.400 --> 2:29:36.680 what we're seeing now with the people in Palestine broadcasting 2:29:37.040 --> 2:29:39.959 horrific images of what is happening to them because of 2:29:39.959 --> 2:29:44.560 the state of Israel, and how there's selective outrage because 2:29:45.040 --> 2:29:48.520 it is almost impolite to show or proliferate these images 2:29:48.560 --> 2:29:52.879 that only show reality. It really feels like people are 2:29:52.879 --> 2:29:57.840 only outraged when they consider a life grievable, which takes 2:29:57.959 --> 2:30:00.840 us to this whole topic brings us back to the 2:30:00.920 --> 2:30:05.000 question of whose lives are regarded as mournable, as grievable, 2:30:05.320 --> 2:30:08.840 and whose lives are regarded as worthy of protection, whose 2:30:08.920 --> 2:30:12.200 lives are regarded as belonging to subjects with rights that 2:30:12.360 --> 2:30:16.520 should be honored. This ties indirectly to the idea of 2:30:16.560 --> 2:30:20.160 how effect or emotion is regulated, and what we mean 2:30:20.200 --> 2:30:23.760 by the regulation of emotion at all. Butler references the 2:30:23.800 --> 2:30:27.360 anthropologist Talal Assad, who wrote a book about suicide bombing. 2:30:27.720 --> 2:30:31.000 In this book, the first question he poses is why 2:30:31.000 --> 2:30:33.920 do we feel horror and moral repulsion in the face 2:30:33.959 --> 2:30:36.920 of suicide bombing when we do not always feel the 2:30:36.959 --> 2:30:41.000 same way in the face of state sponsored violence. He 2:30:41.120 --> 2:30:43.320 asks this question not in order to say that these 2:30:43.360 --> 2:30:47.000 forms of violence are the same or equatable, or even 2:30:47.040 --> 2:30:48.920 to say that we ought to feel the same moral 2:30:48.959 --> 2:30:53.120 outrage in relation to both. But Asad finds it curious, 2:30:53.280 --> 2:30:57.199 as does Butler, that our moral responses, responses that first 2:30:57.280 --> 2:31:01.480 take form as effect, are tacitly regular by certain kinds 2:31:01.480 --> 2:31:05.879 of interpretive frameworks. His thesis is that we feel. 2:31:05.640 --> 2:31:07.279 More horror and moral. 2:31:07.000 --> 2:31:10.519 Revulsion in the face of lives lost under certain conditions 2:31:11.080 --> 2:31:15.720 than under certain others. Assad explains that, for instance, if 2:31:15.760 --> 2:31:19.199 someone kills or is killed in war, and the war 2:31:19.280 --> 2:31:22.880 is state sponsored, and we invest the state with legitimacy, 2:31:23.280 --> 2:31:28.240 then we consider the death lamentable, sad, unfortunate, but ultimately 2:31:28.440 --> 2:31:32.920 not radically unjust. And yet if the violence is perpetrated 2:31:32.959 --> 2:31:38.279 by insurgency groups regarded as illegitimate, that our emotion invariably changes, 2:31:38.600 --> 2:31:42.680 or so Assad assumes. Asad is saying something here that 2:31:42.800 --> 2:31:46.960 is really important about how the politics of moral responsiveness 2:31:47.360 --> 2:31:51.800 really feed into public perception. That what we feel is 2:31:51.840 --> 2:31:55.400 in part conditioned by how we interpret the world around us, 2:31:55.959 --> 2:31:59.200 that how we interpret what we feel actually can and 2:31:59.320 --> 2:32:03.039 does alter the feeling itself. If we can accept our 2:32:03.040 --> 2:32:06.200 emotion could be affected and structured by things we do 2:32:06.280 --> 2:32:10.600 not fully understand. Can this help us understand why it 2:32:10.680 --> 2:32:12.720 is that we might feel horror in the face of 2:32:12.840 --> 2:32:16.600 certain losses, but in difference or even righteousness in the 2:32:16.720 --> 2:32:21.240 light of others. Conditions of war bring something really interesting here, 2:32:21.680 --> 2:32:26.960 this feeling of heightened nationalism. In this feeling of heightened nationalism, 2:32:27.000 --> 2:32:30.760 it's as though our existence is bound with others, with 2:32:30.879 --> 2:32:34.320 whom we find some kind of national affinity for who 2:32:34.400 --> 2:32:37.600 are recognizable to us, and who can conform to certain 2:32:37.640 --> 2:32:42.280 culturally specific notions about what the culturally recognizable human is. 2:32:43.160 --> 2:32:45.160 And sure, maybe some of you are like, well, this 2:32:45.240 --> 2:32:47.600 is really obvious. Of course, some people care more about 2:32:47.600 --> 2:32:50.320 people who look like them or about things that directly 2:32:50.360 --> 2:32:54.200 affect them. But what I'm arguing is that I can't 2:32:54.240 --> 2:32:57.480 accept that as reality. I don't think we should accept 2:32:58.160 --> 2:33:02.760 humans as by default. There's no way change happens that way. 2:33:03.320 --> 2:33:06.879 I think we have to question why we unconsciously are 2:33:06.879 --> 2:33:10.160 more outraged by certain losses than others, or why the 2:33:10.200 --> 2:33:13.200 public is this way. Even if you are not, Oh, 2:33:13.800 --> 2:33:15.440 that's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of information. 2:33:15.640 --> 2:33:18.240 Let's take our second break, we can just marinate with 2:33:18.280 --> 2:33:20.760 all of that, and uh, we'll be right back to 2:33:20.760 --> 2:33:25.240 wrap this up. Okay, we're back. So we discussed the 2:33:25.320 --> 2:33:28.760 differentiation of the population of the world into grievable and 2:33:28.800 --> 2:33:32.320 ungrievable lives, and now we are going to differentiate between 2:33:32.360 --> 2:33:35.600 the populations on whom your life and existence depend on 2:33:36.080 --> 2:33:39.440 and those populations represent a direct threat to your life 2:33:39.440 --> 2:33:42.879 in existence. This is a concept that really struck me 2:33:42.920 --> 2:33:45.480 as something we don't even give a second thought to 2:33:46.080 --> 2:33:49.360 that when a population appears as a direct threat to 2:33:49.440 --> 2:33:53.119 your life, they do not appear as lives, but as 2:33:53.200 --> 2:33:57.280 a threat to life. Butler asks us to consider how 2:33:57.320 --> 2:33:59.920 this is shown with how the world views an intern 2:34:00.040 --> 2:34:03.880 or Islam. Islam is portrayed and seen by our media, 2:34:03.959 --> 2:34:08.200 whether it's implicit or explicit as barbaric or pre modern, 2:34:08.560 --> 2:34:11.280 as not having yet conformed to the norms that make 2:34:11.320 --> 2:34:15.000 the human recognizable to the West, to the American. So 2:34:15.080 --> 2:34:18.000 those who Americans kill by following this line of thought 2:34:18.600 --> 2:34:22.400 are not quite human. They are not quite alive, which 2:34:22.440 --> 2:34:24.920 means that we do not feel the same horror and 2:34:25.080 --> 2:34:28.200 outrage over their loss of life as we do the 2:34:28.280 --> 2:34:32.160 loss of life that bear national or religious similarity to 2:34:32.240 --> 2:34:36.039 our own. And again, this isn't a novel concept. In 2:34:36.120 --> 2:34:38.800 simple terms, it can be whittled down to the reality 2:34:38.840 --> 2:34:41.600 that most people only care about things that directly affect 2:34:41.640 --> 2:34:45.240 them or things that happen to those who look like them. 2:34:45.440 --> 2:34:48.840 And again, maybe that seems like an obvious realization to 2:34:48.879 --> 2:34:51.879 make about our society. But what I'm asking you to 2:34:51.959 --> 2:34:55.160 do is not just accept this as part of the 2:34:55.280 --> 2:34:58.320 human condition and to question why it is like that 2:34:58.440 --> 2:35:02.480 in the first place. True deep understanding of ourselves and 2:35:02.520 --> 2:35:07.160 of our humanity is dependent on us excavating ugly truths 2:35:07.240 --> 2:35:10.520 about ourselves and humanity that we are not even maybe 2:35:10.560 --> 2:35:13.680 aware of. I think this is something that bothers me 2:35:13.879 --> 2:35:17.039 about how Israel's narrative or desion, this narrative of the 2:35:17.280 --> 2:35:21.960 conception of Israel almost makes them seem sinless. They had 2:35:22.000 --> 2:35:25.160 done nothing wrong, the Arabs or barbarians that didn't leave 2:35:25.160 --> 2:35:28.560 them alone. The same can be said about how American 2:35:28.640 --> 2:35:32.240 history books talked about Columbus and the Native American people. 2:35:32.280 --> 2:35:32.520 Here. 2:35:33.320 --> 2:35:36.000 Usually history is written by those who want to appear 2:35:36.080 --> 2:35:39.600 in a better light, and by default, I feel like 2:35:39.680 --> 2:35:43.680 this makes them sinless and pure and can do no wrong, 2:35:44.680 --> 2:35:49.840 but again better understanding. If humanity means accepting that sometimes 2:35:49.879 --> 2:35:52.920 it is grotesque, and I think that is something we 2:35:53.000 --> 2:35:57.600 need to accept and understand. I think Israeli's need to 2:35:57.680 --> 2:36:00.240 accept that the Nekba happened in order to move on 2:36:00.280 --> 2:36:03.360 from it. Things like that is what I'm thinking about 2:36:03.400 --> 2:36:07.160 when I read about this stuff. But anyways, tallal Asad 2:36:07.360 --> 2:36:11.240 is wondering why modes of death dealing are apprehended differently, 2:36:11.600 --> 2:36:13.840 Why we object to the deaths that are caused by 2:36:13.840 --> 2:36:17.760 suicide bombing more forcefully and with greater moral outrage than 2:36:17.800 --> 2:36:20.640 we do those deaths that are caused by aerial bombings. 2:36:21.440 --> 2:36:25.400 And then Butler takes this back to how we differentiate populations, 2:36:25.440 --> 2:36:28.440 how some are considered from the start very much alive 2:36:28.640 --> 2:36:32.800 and others more questionably alive or as living figures of 2:36:32.840 --> 2:36:37.039 the threat to life. Perhaps they're even regarded as quote 2:36:37.080 --> 2:36:40.959 socially dead, which is the term that Jamaican American historian 2:36:41.000 --> 2:36:45.280 and sociologist Orlando Patterson developed to describe the status of 2:36:45.400 --> 2:36:49.680 the slave war relies on and perpetuates a way of 2:36:49.760 --> 2:36:53.640 dividing lives into those who are worth defending, valuing, and 2:36:53.720 --> 2:36:56.520 grieving when they are lost, and those that are not 2:36:56.640 --> 2:37:01.600 quite lives, not quite valuable, recognizable, or mournable. And it 2:37:01.600 --> 2:37:04.640 should come as no surprise that the death of ungrievable 2:37:04.680 --> 2:37:08.000 lives would cause deep outrage on the part of those 2:37:08.080 --> 2:37:11.360 who understand and are seeing that their lives are not 2:37:11.480 --> 2:37:14.640 considered to be lives in any meaningful sense of the 2:37:14.640 --> 2:37:18.800 word in this world. Butler explains that although the logic 2:37:18.840 --> 2:37:22.840 of self defense portrays such populations as threats to life 2:37:22.879 --> 2:37:26.760 as we know it, they are themselves living populations with 2:37:26.840 --> 2:37:32.000 whom our cohabitation presupposes a certain interdependency among us. 2:37:32.760 --> 2:37:33.440 What does that. 2:37:33.480 --> 2:37:38.920 Mean, Well, it's about how interdependency is interpreted and executed, 2:37:39.160 --> 2:37:43.160 and how it has concrete implications for who survives, who thrives, 2:37:43.280 --> 2:37:46.320 who barely makes it, and who is eliminated or left 2:37:46.440 --> 2:37:50.800 to die. Butler writes, I want to insist on this 2:37:50.920 --> 2:37:55.440 interdependency precisely because when nations such as the US or 2:37:55.480 --> 2:37:59.560 Israel argue that their survival is served by war, a 2:37:59.640 --> 2:38:03.680 systematic error is committed. This is because war seeks to 2:38:03.760 --> 2:38:07.320 deny the ongoing, irrefutable ways in which we are all 2:38:07.360 --> 2:38:10.600 subject to one another, vulnerable to destruction by the other, 2:38:11.040 --> 2:38:15.199 and in need of protection through multilateral and global agreements 2:38:15.480 --> 2:38:19.920 based on the recognition of a shared precariousness. The reason 2:38:20.000 --> 2:38:23.160 I am not free to destroy another, and indeed why 2:38:23.280 --> 2:38:26.760 nations are not finally free to destroy one another, is 2:38:26.800 --> 2:38:30.679 not only because it will lead to further destructive consequences. 2:38:31.160 --> 2:38:34.920 That is doubtless true. But what may be finally more 2:38:34.959 --> 2:38:38.120 true is that the subject I am is bound to 2:38:38.160 --> 2:38:41.200 the subject I am not. That we each have the 2:38:41.280 --> 2:38:44.840 power to destroy and to be destroyed, and that we 2:38:44.879 --> 2:38:47.720 are bound to one another in this power and in 2:38:47.800 --> 2:38:52.920 this precariousness. In this sense, we are all precarious lives. 2:38:53.840 --> 2:38:59.600 That's essentially the takeaway that I got from the article 2:38:59.600 --> 2:39:01.680 as a whole, or this blog post as a whole, 2:39:02.760 --> 2:39:05.880 kind of just unifying us into the fact that we're 2:39:06.240 --> 2:39:10.560 all the same and our divisions are truly man made. 2:39:11.080 --> 2:39:14.320 Whether it's about grievable lives and ungrievable lives, or just 2:39:14.400 --> 2:39:18.240 this concept of grievability in general, I think it's worth examining. 2:39:18.400 --> 2:39:21.440 I think it's worth examining how now in real time, 2:39:21.680 --> 2:39:26.400 we're seeing how certain people value lives over others. This 2:39:26.560 --> 2:39:29.119 is across the board. I'm not just talking about one 2:39:29.160 --> 2:39:33.840 group of people. Grievable lives, I think are this concept 2:39:34.040 --> 2:39:39.800 for me, and tying grief intrinsically to life is essential 2:39:39.840 --> 2:39:43.280 to understanding why it is life is valuable at all. 2:39:43.320 --> 2:39:46.120 It's because it can be lost. And if life isn't 2:39:46.160 --> 2:39:48.440 valuable to begin with, if that life that you're looking 2:39:48.480 --> 2:39:50.880 at isn't valuable to begin with, you won't grieve it. 2:39:51.680 --> 2:39:54.040 And I think this also can go back to how 2:39:54.120 --> 2:39:57.920 we're seeing really dehumanizing language being used to specifically right 2:39:57.959 --> 2:40:01.720 now describe Palestinians or Arabs or most This all leads 2:40:01.760 --> 2:40:05.760 to dehumanizing a group of people to make them seem 2:40:06.240 --> 2:40:10.800 inhuman and in a way unlive. So well, all of that. 2:40:11.600 --> 2:40:16.920 I hope this philosophical pivot was interesting to you. And yeah, 2:40:17.720 --> 2:40:21.600 until next time, you know how it goes through. Kalsteine. 2:40:37.040 --> 2:40:41.720 Hello, hello Mia, Hello you lot. Hello podcast fans, this 2:40:41.800 --> 2:40:44.160 is it could happen here a podcast about how the 2:40:44.160 --> 2:40:46.600 world is falling apart and some people who are trying 2:40:46.640 --> 2:40:50.400 to pull it back together. Today, we are not talking 2:40:50.400 --> 2:40:52.760 about people who are pulling it back together. We are 2:40:52.959 --> 2:40:55.240 talking about a guy who is constantly struggling to hold 2:40:55.280 --> 2:40:58.600 it together. And that, my friends, is Joseph Robinette Biden, 2:40:59.000 --> 2:41:05.760 old guy United States president and a border fascist. And 2:41:05.879 --> 2:41:08.200 what's happening. Why are we talking about Joseph robin and 2:41:08.320 --> 2:41:12.200 Biden today, Well, because you will remember that Biden made 2:41:12.280 --> 2:41:16.200 some promises when he was campaigning in twenty twenty, and 2:41:16.240 --> 2:41:18.480 it will shock you to hear that he is throwing 2:41:18.600 --> 2:41:22.000 migrants under the bus again. In an attempt to get 2:41:22.040 --> 2:41:24.760 Republicans in the Senate to stop stamping their feet and 2:41:24.879 --> 2:41:29.320 whaling and having a tantrum, specifically, the Senate failed to 2:41:29.360 --> 2:41:32.279 pass an emergency spending bill which would fund military Among 2:41:32.400 --> 2:41:34.880 other things, it would fund military a to Ukraine, Taiwan, 2:41:34.920 --> 2:41:38.120 and Israel. And the reason they did that is because 2:41:38.160 --> 2:41:41.960 these Republicans are having a little tantrum about quote unquote 2:41:42.000 --> 2:41:47.040 border security. Border security probably doesn't mean what you think 2:41:47.080 --> 2:41:50.840 it means. In practical terms, what border security means is 2:41:50.920 --> 2:41:54.120 killing more innocent people, more people who are fleeing the 2:41:54.160 --> 2:41:57.320 worst things that are happening in this world at our 2:41:57.360 --> 2:42:01.119 southern border. It is making America a more deadly place 2:42:01.720 --> 2:42:04.560 for the most desperate people on earth. That is what 2:42:04.600 --> 2:42:07.680 border security means. That is what I want you to 2:42:07.720 --> 2:42:10.880 think of when you hear people saying we should secure 2:42:10.879 --> 2:42:14.640 our border because the people you're securing it against are 2:42:15.680 --> 2:42:20.560 the Azd mother I saw carrying her children to try 2:42:20.600 --> 2:42:24.240 and come to a safer place. They are the Afghan 2:42:25.600 --> 2:42:30.279 grandmother who I saw walking through the mountains last weekend. 2:42:31.120 --> 2:42:36.000 Those are the people who we're securing our border against. Right, 2:42:36.120 --> 2:42:40.480 And this is sorry, this just pisses me off to 2:42:40.520 --> 2:42:44.080 an unfathomable degree for many of you. But the reason 2:42:44.400 --> 2:42:47.880 we're talking about this today is because whatever happens at 2:42:47.879 --> 2:42:50.600 the border, right, whatever policy we have at the border, 2:42:50.680 --> 2:42:53.880 migration won't change because what people are leaving is worse 2:42:54.000 --> 2:42:58.520 than that, and so they will still come here because 2:42:58.560 --> 2:43:00.640 they believe the lies in America tells the world, and 2:43:00.640 --> 2:43:03.200 it tells its citizens about itself too, that this is 2:43:03.200 --> 2:43:04.879 a safe place. And for some people that has been 2:43:04.920 --> 2:43:09.320 a safe place, and that's a good thing. But what 2:43:09.400 --> 2:43:12.280 will change is how people are treated when they get here. 2:43:12.280 --> 2:43:14.800 Because what Biden has proposed is a return to Title 2:43:14.840 --> 2:43:17.400 forty two. I made a whole series on Title forty 2:43:17.400 --> 2:43:20.119 two that you can listen to. But what he's proposing 2:43:20.160 --> 2:43:24.560 this time is a very similar policy by which the 2:43:25.120 --> 2:43:27.520 border patrol agent who meets people after they cross the 2:43:27.520 --> 2:43:30.760 border in between ports of entry, can send them directly 2:43:30.800 --> 2:43:32.800 back to Mexico without them having a chance for an 2:43:32.840 --> 2:43:37.320 asylum hearing. Right, this is illegal under international law and 2:43:37.360 --> 2:43:40.280 parts of the US law. It doesn't It's not clear 2:43:40.280 --> 2:43:43.440 what Biden's proposing or what the administration is proposing to 2:43:43.520 --> 2:43:46.040 do about it. Maybe they could change the immigration law. 2:43:46.680 --> 2:43:48.880 They could probably get enough vote for that, given that 2:43:48.879 --> 2:43:51.840 people in Congress seem to care very little about migrants. 2:43:52.400 --> 2:43:54.800 But this isn't a well fleshed out proposal. But what 2:43:54.879 --> 2:43:58.720 it very clearly shows, right, is the intent to throw 2:43:58.840 --> 2:44:00.800 some of the most desperate people but on earth bit 2:44:00.840 --> 2:44:05.080 a buth and that is It's disgusting, it's ab horror, 2:44:05.160 --> 2:44:07.199 and it shouldn't be unexpected either. 2:44:07.680 --> 2:44:10.600 The executive is a branch in democratic control that is 2:44:10.680 --> 2:44:14.879 utterly incapable of helping a single person, but has the immense, terrible, 2:44:14.879 --> 2:44:17.280 and powerful authority to kill any person on Earth, and then, 2:44:17.320 --> 2:44:22.440 secondarily to I'm just going to call it, effectively perform 2:44:22.440 --> 2:44:26.760 ethnic cleansings by continually removing populations from the US. 2:44:26.840 --> 2:44:29.920 They could just do this, yeah, and all they used 2:44:29.920 --> 2:44:32.760 the executive for yes it is yeah, yeah, yeah. They 2:44:32.840 --> 2:44:36.600 have never once waived that executive power in defense of 2:44:36.640 --> 2:44:38.920 the little guy or people who desperately needed help. It 2:44:38.920 --> 2:44:41.480 would seem certainly not in the last couple of administrations 2:44:42.560 --> 2:44:46.320 shouts or the former Bomber administration staff. It's by the way, 2:44:46.320 --> 2:44:49.240 for showing their whole ass by the screaming racist shit 2:44:49.360 --> 2:44:53.280 at Muslim people in the last few weeks for people 2:44:53.280 --> 2:44:55.600 who hadn't already kind of worked out how terrible the 2:44:55.720 --> 2:44:58.960 Bomber administration's policy was. So I want to talk a 2:44:59.000 --> 2:45:00.960 little bit about the thing that they're trying to do. 2:45:02.440 --> 2:45:06.440 So the first and foremost would be allowing border patrol 2:45:06.520 --> 2:45:09.440 to summarily expel migrants. Let me explain to you exactly 2:45:09.440 --> 2:45:13.120 how fucking stupid this thing is. I was present with 2:45:13.200 --> 2:45:16.440 a border patrol agent last week who was trying to 2:45:16.440 --> 2:45:19.280 discern who was a child or not. Who was hampered 2:45:19.400 --> 2:45:22.240 in this by not being able to count in Spanish. 2:45:22.640 --> 2:45:26.039 Border patrol agents do take a Spanish class in their academy, right, 2:45:26.120 --> 2:45:29.160 but how the fuck are we expecting this guy to 2:45:29.200 --> 2:45:32.640 discern the veracity of someone's asylum claim when he can't 2:45:32.680 --> 2:45:38.280 count to eighteen like this person? Right under this proposed 2:45:38.440 --> 2:45:47.800 Democratic proposal would have the effectively life or death choice 2:45:47.800 --> 2:45:50.120 of whether someone can make an asylum claim or they 2:45:50.160 --> 2:45:53.880 get immediately bounced back to Mexico. Right, this person would, 2:45:53.920 --> 2:45:57.880 for instance, have the choice to send a trans woman 2:45:58.400 --> 2:46:02.000 who would not be safequote unquote remaining in Mexico while 2:46:02.080 --> 2:46:06.360 she applied for asylum here back to Mexico to apply 2:46:06.440 --> 2:46:09.599 for asylum here. Right, this person will be able to 2:46:09.640 --> 2:46:13.000 send someone who has very credible fears of violence in 2:46:13.040 --> 2:46:16.000 Mexico back to Mexico where they often have no network, 2:46:16.040 --> 2:46:20.440 they have no resources. It once again be putting the 2:46:20.480 --> 2:46:23.560 strain of our foreign policy and the fucked up shit 2:46:23.640 --> 2:46:27.080 we've done all around the world that is destabilized regimes, 2:46:27.240 --> 2:46:29.760 specifically across South America, but also all around the world. 2:46:30.240 --> 2:46:33.560 As a consequence of that, people aren't safe there. They're 2:46:33.600 --> 2:46:36.760 coming here to find safety, and we're placing it in 2:46:36.760 --> 2:46:41.160 the hands of a random border patrol agent who may 2:46:41.680 --> 2:46:43.680 very well not speak the language. You understand anything they're 2:46:43.680 --> 2:46:46.360 saying to bounce them back. That's not how we should 2:46:46.360 --> 2:46:48.360 do think I think it probably goes without saying. They 2:46:48.400 --> 2:46:52.040 also want to begin a process of what's called expedited removal. 2:46:53.360 --> 2:46:57.280 This allows immigration officials to deport people without court hearings 2:46:57.320 --> 2:46:59.680 if they don't ask for asylum or if they fail 2:46:59.720 --> 2:47:05.000 there an asylum interview. Again like this treating of people 2:47:05.120 --> 2:47:07.880 seeking asylum like they don't have rights or right like 2:47:08.400 --> 2:47:12.400 they have to they're guilty and to proven innocent almost 2:47:12.480 --> 2:47:17.200 in this system, right and to be proven to get 2:47:17.240 --> 2:47:19.280 these court hearings to do well in these court thinks 2:47:19.320 --> 2:47:22.600 they need money, They need lawyers. Those lawyers can cost 2:47:22.640 --> 2:47:25.320 anywhere from six to twelve thousand dollars from what I've heard. 2:47:25.480 --> 2:47:27.640 But these people aren't allowed to work in the United States. 2:47:27.680 --> 2:47:32.120 So we're creating a de facto system that privileges wealthier migrants. Right, 2:47:32.879 --> 2:47:35.760 ten twelve thousand United States dollars is a lot of 2:47:35.840 --> 2:47:38.360 money if you're coming from large parts of the world. 2:47:38.640 --> 2:47:41.520 We're waging so much lower, Right, So having that kind 2:47:41.560 --> 2:47:43.320 of money isn't something that people who may be in 2:47:43.400 --> 2:47:48.640 desperate need of help would have. For instance, yesterday I 2:47:48.720 --> 2:47:51.600 was speaking to a USD family. Is ed however you 2:47:51.640 --> 2:47:55.440 want to say it who people will be familiar with 2:47:55.480 --> 2:47:58.879 the way their community was treated by isis right. 2:47:58.959 --> 2:47:59.199 There. 2:47:59.720 --> 2:48:04.960 Some of the worst genocidal and misogynist violence that we've 2:48:04.959 --> 2:48:08.560 seen this century was enounted upon that community. They're coming 2:48:08.600 --> 2:48:12.680 to the United States to be safe, and I don't 2:48:12.680 --> 2:48:14.800 think those people would have had the money to get 2:48:14.840 --> 2:48:20.640 together for a hearing. Right they speak Kurdish. I've never 2:48:20.720 --> 2:48:23.320 encountered about a patrol agent who speaks Kurdish. Right, So 2:48:23.879 --> 2:48:25.880 they would have to make their claim on arrival. They 2:48:25.879 --> 2:48:30.720 could be immediately rejected. They could if they fail their 2:48:30.720 --> 2:48:34.879 asylum interview, they could be placed in this expedited removal 2:48:34.920 --> 2:48:37.520 process by which they wouldn't have a right to a 2:48:37.560 --> 2:48:40.600 court hearing, a lawyer or translator, all those things. And 2:48:40.640 --> 2:48:43.360 the final thing that they've indicated that they want to do, 2:48:44.320 --> 2:48:46.959 and I think this is the most bizarre one, is 2:48:47.000 --> 2:48:50.160 that they have decided that they want to mandate the 2:48:50.200 --> 2:48:57.840 detention of certain migrants while their claims are adjudicated. This one, 2:48:58.240 --> 2:49:00.760 it seems like obviously like a massive session into this 2:49:01.040 --> 2:49:04.440 sort of insane Republican right wing sort of demand that 2:49:04.480 --> 2:49:06.240 we criminalize all asylum seekers. 2:49:06.240 --> 2:49:09.240 And I think, which I want to say something like 2:49:09.320 --> 2:49:11.320 for a second about this too, because like, yeah, you know, 2:49:11.600 --> 2:49:14.160 one of the ways that all this whole anti migranting 2:49:14.480 --> 2:49:16.560 is ramped up, like when I was a kid, like 2:49:16.560 --> 2:49:18.480 because there was, you know, I was like growing up 2:49:18.480 --> 2:49:22.000 when this this first sort of like anti immigration hysteria 2:49:22.040 --> 2:49:25.280 was like ramping up. And back then the hysteria was 2:49:25.360 --> 2:49:29.240 illegal immigration. It's like this stuff is all legal, Like 2:49:29.480 --> 2:49:32.520 you have the legal Like these are literally people doing 2:49:32.680 --> 2:49:36.400 legal immigration. Yeah, they and we're just here now where 2:49:36.400 --> 2:49:38.000 it's like no, like like you try you, if you 2:49:38.040 --> 2:49:41.160 attempt to come into the US legally, we are going 2:49:41.200 --> 2:49:44.600 to fucking put you in a camp. Like it's fucking insane. 2:49:44.879 --> 2:49:47.600 It's like like this is shit that like even like 2:49:47.680 --> 2:49:50.360 fifteen years ago people would have been like what the 2:49:50.400 --> 2:49:53.039 fuck are you talking about. But the way that the 2:49:53.080 --> 2:49:54.680 way that this has been accelerated and this is something 2:49:54.680 --> 2:49:56.119 that's and you know, and like the fact that Biden 2:49:56.240 --> 2:49:58.400 is fucking just like just going like oh yeah, yeah, 2:49:58.480 --> 2:49:59.760 yeah we should this is this is fine, Like we're 2:49:59.800 --> 2:50:01.640 gonna like this is this is stuff that would have 2:50:01.680 --> 2:50:05.400 been unimaginable for a Republican president in the two thousands. Yeah. 2:50:05.760 --> 2:50:07.880 Like the thing about this too, is that none of 2:50:07.920 --> 2:50:10.320 this would have been possible without democratic implicity. This is 2:50:10.320 --> 2:50:11.840 this is just the way the system has worked this 2:50:12.000 --> 2:50:13.320 entire time. Right there is the reason they called a 2:50:13.360 --> 2:50:15.440 bomb of the deporter in chief, because he was the 2:50:15.440 --> 2:50:19.320 guy who could could have actually turned the tide against 2:50:19.320 --> 2:50:20.960 this stuff and just didn't and was just like, fuck you, 2:50:20.959 --> 2:50:24.120 We're gonna deport millions of people. And that's that's how 2:50:24.160 --> 2:50:26.760 we're fucking here with this shit over again. People who 2:50:26.840 --> 2:50:29.280 are literally coming through the country legally, which is what 2:50:29.320 --> 2:50:31.840 all these people said, spent all this fucking time saying 2:50:31.840 --> 2:50:32.640 you're supposed to be doing. 2:50:34.400 --> 2:50:36.840 Yeah, I mean, I think the claim of Biden administration 2:50:36.920 --> 2:50:39.840 is I don't fucking know, like they want people to 2:50:39.879 --> 2:50:43.480 use CBP one, right. CBP one is the biggest fucking 2:50:43.520 --> 2:50:48.600 disaster in applications. I can't think of anything. I don't know. 2:50:48.800 --> 2:50:51.000 It's like as bad as fucking Testa's auto pilot, if 2:50:51.000 --> 2:50:53.400 Testa's auto pilot got to decide your whole future. Right, 2:50:54.000 --> 2:50:57.480 Every single person I have met at the Southern border 2:50:57.680 --> 2:51:01.520 has tried CBP one. People but an't Like, no one 2:51:01.680 --> 2:51:05.279 wants to pay someone to drive them off road across 2:51:05.280 --> 2:51:09.320 the desert to a shitty hole in the wall in 2:51:09.360 --> 2:51:13.360 the middle of the freezing mountain range eighty miles east 2:51:13.400 --> 2:51:16.480 of here, and then to sit with their children while 2:51:16.520 --> 2:51:21.280 it rains, snows, freezes, and wait for one, two, three 2:51:21.560 --> 2:51:25.879 nights in this shitty conditions, with maybe a tent that 2:51:25.920 --> 2:51:28.520 we dumps to dive from a Susan g Comen event, right, 2:51:29.520 --> 2:51:32.600 or maybe if they're really lucky, like a yurt that 2:51:32.720 --> 2:51:36.200 me and my friend's built from palaps right. And no 2:51:36.240 --> 2:51:38.160 one in their right mind would want to do that. 2:51:38.200 --> 2:51:40.400 These people don't want to do that. They've tried fucking 2:51:40.440 --> 2:51:44.160 CBP one. Most of them who I have spoken to 2:51:44.280 --> 2:51:49.360 are carrying visa rejection letters, right. They've been to embassies 2:51:49.480 --> 2:51:53.080 all around the world, have just been summarily dismissed. They 2:51:53.080 --> 2:51:56.480 don't give a reason for rejecting your visa, right, and 2:51:57.080 --> 2:52:00.240 they've exhausted all their options. No one wants to spend 2:52:00.240 --> 2:52:03.880 their life savings and walk across the desert. It's dangerous, right, 2:52:04.200 --> 2:52:07.120 but that is the only way they can do it. 2:52:07.160 --> 2:52:09.760 And as you say, it is perfectly legal to enter 2:52:09.800 --> 2:52:12.959 the country between ports of entry and immediately surrender to 2:52:13.040 --> 2:52:16.160 the first law enforcement agent you see to claim asylum. 2:52:16.600 --> 2:52:19.600 That that is how one claims asylum when one is 2:52:20.720 --> 2:52:24.480 fleeing persecution. And when we have shut the door through 2:52:24.520 --> 2:52:27.840 this stupid app that only recognizes white faces and crashes 2:52:27.879 --> 2:52:31.680 all the time and isn't in those languages, and it's 2:52:31.800 --> 2:52:34.200 entirely understandable that people are taken this route. We have 2:52:34.400 --> 2:52:38.080 cooked the bottler of migration and then shaken it up 2:52:38.200 --> 2:52:42.000 right for three years with Title forty two, which is 2:52:42.040 --> 2:52:45.760 this Trump era policy that co opted the COVID pandemic, 2:52:45.800 --> 2:52:48.400 which they allowed to rip through large segments of the 2:52:48.480 --> 2:52:51.720 United States community and pretended that by expelling migrants are 2:52:51.760 --> 2:52:55.840 protecting us. It didn't have any provisions for vaccination, it 2:52:55.879 --> 2:52:58.080 didn't have any COVID testing. It was just a cynical 2:52:58.080 --> 2:53:01.600 attempt to use the pandemic, and we've seen through public 2:53:01.640 --> 2:53:04.440 records request is something they've planned long in advance to 2:53:05.120 --> 2:53:08.160 evict people from this country without giving them a chance 2:53:08.200 --> 2:53:11.640 of an asylum hearing, and now Biden is doing it 2:53:11.800 --> 2:53:15.160 without even the pretense of an excuse. Right, at least 2:53:15.200 --> 2:53:19.480 Trump made up some bullshit it was transparent, but Biden 2:53:19.600 --> 2:53:23.680 isn't even bothering to do that, and he's just going 2:53:23.720 --> 2:53:25.680 to boot these people back into a place where they're 2:53:25.720 --> 2:53:28.240 going to be vulnerable. I've spoken to migrants who have 2:53:28.400 --> 2:53:33.600 been abused, who have been robbed in Mexico. It's not 2:53:33.640 --> 2:53:36.119 a safe place of vulnerable people, and the more vulnerable 2:53:36.160 --> 2:53:37.920 people you put into it, they're less safe. It's going 2:53:37.959 --> 2:53:40.600 to get and nor is it. Mexico's a fucking problem, right, 2:53:40.720 --> 2:53:44.320 Like Henry Kissinger didn't fucking run Mexican policy and then 2:53:44.360 --> 2:53:46.800 get to live to one hundred and die in his bed. Right. 2:53:47.040 --> 2:53:50.360 It's a lot of these countries people are coming from. 2:53:51.000 --> 2:53:53.760 They're coming from because we fucked up their policy as 2:53:53.760 --> 2:53:55.600 a country. We fucked up their future. 2:53:55.680 --> 2:53:55.840 Right. 2:53:55.879 --> 2:54:00.000 We did this neo colonial thing where we stole everything 2:54:00.080 --> 2:54:02.840 we thought was a value. We impose dictators upon them 2:54:02.879 --> 2:54:07.440 when they chose socialist or more progressive regimes, and then 2:54:07.600 --> 2:54:09.120 we'd split our hands up in the air and said, no, 2:54:09.160 --> 2:54:12.320 you can't come here to no space. Sorry, and it's 2:54:12.600 --> 2:54:15.880 it's fucking inexcusable and it's abhorrent me. Do you know 2:54:15.959 --> 2:54:17.840 what else is inexcusable and abhorrent? 2:54:18.879 --> 2:54:21.280 Is it the products and services that it is marketing 2:54:21.320 --> 2:54:21.879 on the show? 2:54:22.959 --> 2:54:23.400 Yeah? 2:54:23.600 --> 2:54:28.160 Yes, the products and services that we so greatly loath. 2:54:28.560 --> 2:54:30.200 Oh hang on, I got something say about the fucking 2:54:30.240 --> 2:54:33.040 products and services. We're doing this now because we've got time. 2:54:33.240 --> 2:54:36.120 There was an advert for Novo Nordiskingna podcast the other day, 2:54:36.240 --> 2:54:38.119 and I just want to take this opportunity to say 2:54:38.120 --> 2:54:41.760 an extra special fuck you to them, because I have 2:54:41.920 --> 2:54:44.360 held in my hands a little fucking children who have 2:54:44.480 --> 2:54:47.040 died because they can't afford insulin. And the reason they 2:54:47.080 --> 2:54:50.520 have died is because these fucking ghouls want to extract 2:54:50.560 --> 2:54:52.800 every penny out of those of us who have diabetes. 2:54:53.440 --> 2:54:55.400 So I'm sorry that you heard those adverts and you 2:54:55.440 --> 2:54:59.560 won't ever again. But here's some other adverts we are 2:54:59.560 --> 2:55:05.520 back without, hopefully adverts for evil pharmaceutical companies. It's me 2:55:05.560 --> 2:55:08.400 and me and we're talking about Joe Brandon and his 2:55:08.480 --> 2:55:11.879 terrible immigration policy. So the final part of this, and 2:55:11.920 --> 2:55:17.280 perhaps the most bizarre one, is that the White House 2:55:18.000 --> 2:55:22.000 mandating the detention of these migrants pending their claims. The 2:55:22.160 --> 2:55:26.920 US has never had enough enough detention space to do this, 2:55:27.240 --> 2:55:32.160 and we don't now. It remains extremely fucking unclear how 2:55:32.200 --> 2:55:34.840 this will be done. I will say that there was 2:55:34.879 --> 2:55:36.840 a big fuss made me and maybe remember this, that 2:55:36.840 --> 2:55:40.880 Biden was canceling private prison contracts when he first came 2:55:40.920 --> 2:55:43.160 into our office. Do you remember his executive order on 2:55:43.200 --> 2:55:48.160 this vaguely? Yeah, yeah, I think it got a lot 2:55:48.200 --> 2:55:52.720 of attention that may have specifically applied to people who 2:55:52.720 --> 2:55:56.440 are in federal criminal incarceration, it's certainly never applied to 2:55:56.480 --> 2:56:00.240 people seeking asylum because those people have always been detained 2:56:00.280 --> 2:56:03.960 by third party contractors like cor Civic right, and they 2:56:04.000 --> 2:56:08.000 continue to be so into the Biden administration because again, right, 2:56:08.080 --> 2:56:11.800 it is seemingly the implicit policy of the Democratic Party 2:56:11.840 --> 2:56:15.320 that these people are of less value and have fewer 2:56:15.400 --> 2:56:22.560 rights than US citizens or then people seeking permanent residents 2:56:22.600 --> 2:56:24.160 in this country through other means. 2:56:25.120 --> 2:56:28.320 You know, one of the things I was, I was 2:56:28.360 --> 2:56:31.800 doing this for other reasons for not this story, but 2:56:31.840 --> 2:56:33.760 I was going back through when I was reading the 2:56:34.640 --> 2:56:38.400 Democratic Party platform from twenty twenty And if you go 2:56:38.520 --> 2:56:41.280 back and read the Democratic Party platform from twenty twenty eight, 2:56:41.320 --> 2:56:44.720 the opening thing is them talking about how they're they're 2:56:44.760 --> 2:56:47.560 when they're in power, they're going to do us need 2:56:47.600 --> 2:56:50.599 to dismantle structure of racism in this country. 2:56:51.000 --> 2:56:51.600 Fuck me. 2:56:52.560 --> 2:56:56.680 And it's like my ass, like and this is one 2:56:56.680 --> 2:56:59.240 of these these really really sort of grim things about this, right, 2:56:59.400 --> 2:57:06.240 is like the Democrats really really cynically capitalized off of, like, uh, 2:57:06.560 --> 2:57:10.200 like people's revulsion at the fucking horrible stuff doing it 2:57:10.200 --> 2:57:11.879 at the border, and then they got into power, they 2:57:11.879 --> 2:57:14.640 did all the same shit, and nobody fucking cares now, 2:57:14.680 --> 2:57:17.160 because that's that's literally what the Democrats are there for, right, 2:57:17.200 --> 2:57:21.400 They're there to the diffuse people's ability capacity a desire 2:57:21.440 --> 2:57:25.000 to resist doing the exact same fucking things Republicans are doing, 2:57:25.720 --> 2:57:28.600 and it's really effective. And the consequence of this is 2:57:28.640 --> 2:57:31.920 that now we're fucking here with like trying to bring 2:57:31.959 --> 2:57:34.360 fucking the same shit Trump was doing back. 2:57:35.680 --> 2:57:38.920 Yeah, and you're right, like so many people poured so 2:57:39.200 --> 2:57:43.440 much rage and passion into like I'm sure you can 2:57:43.480 --> 2:57:46.560 remember the whole no More Kids and cagey think, yeah, 2:57:46.760 --> 2:57:47.440 I will. 2:57:47.720 --> 2:57:50.000 I will say this. I was always kind of cynical 2:57:50.000 --> 2:57:52.080 about that because I fucking remember Occupy Ice. Now, I 2:57:52.120 --> 2:57:54.000 remember all those fucking liberals who told me they'd be 2:57:54.000 --> 2:57:56.400 marching in the streets just fucking abandoning us and leaving 2:57:56.440 --> 2:57:58.840 us to like deal with the fucking cops on our own. 2:57:59.200 --> 2:58:00.920 So like, I think, I think it is like there's 2:58:00.959 --> 2:58:03.280 been a sort of mythologization to some extent of how 2:58:03.320 --> 2:58:05.279 willing people were to actually do shit it or Trump, 2:58:05.640 --> 2:58:08.560 but they sure is fuck not here under Biden. So 2:58:08.920 --> 2:58:09.959 then yeah, there. 2:58:09.760 --> 2:58:11.640 Ain't no one in the street saying no more kids 2:58:11.680 --> 2:58:16.040 in cages now, right, Like then, here for the little 2:58:16.120 --> 2:58:19.879 children I've met, you know, day in day out for 2:58:19.920 --> 2:58:22.320 the last six months, who are going to be detained, 2:58:22.320 --> 2:58:24.160 who might be separated for their families. 2:58:24.400 --> 2:58:26.880 Yeah, and I want to this is kind of off 2:58:26.920 --> 2:58:30.520 topic too, but like, so this is this is a story. 2:58:30.560 --> 2:58:32.240 Like at some point I'm going to do an actual 2:58:32.280 --> 2:58:36.600 episode about this. There's been I've been I've been trying 2:58:36.640 --> 2:58:38.800 to get to talk to people about this for a bit. 2:58:38.959 --> 2:58:41.280 But so there's been a whole bunch of shit with 2:58:41.360 --> 2:58:43.560 a lot of So one of these subsequent things that 2:58:43.720 --> 2:58:47.160 was happening with all these people is that like the 2:58:47.200 --> 2:58:50.599 government in Texas has been like shipping them to random cities. 2:58:50.720 --> 2:58:52.959 So a bunch of people have been shipped to Chicago 2:58:53.000 --> 2:58:55.520 and it turned and there they're eventually were protests here. 2:58:55.600 --> 2:59:01.000 But like our fucking progressive mayor tried to have a 2:59:01.360 --> 2:59:04.880 basically a concentration camp company set up like a camp 2:59:05.120 --> 2:59:08.080 for these people on land that it turned out have 2:59:08.160 --> 2:59:13.160 been a toxic waste dump and only just didn't do 2:59:13.240 --> 2:59:16.080 I I don't even think he ever backed up the 2:59:16.959 --> 2:59:19.200 A story here is kind of I think what happened, 2:59:19.240 --> 2:59:22.560 if I'm remembering correctly, is that the governor was like, 2:59:23.040 --> 2:59:24.959 like pritz Crew was like, what the fuck are you doing? 2:59:25.000 --> 2:59:28.000 You can't have this stuff beyond a toxic waste site. 2:59:28.680 --> 2:59:31.320 But so that's like temporarily been stopped. Like that's that's 2:59:31.360 --> 2:59:33.800 the kind of shit that's happening, like in you know, 2:59:33.840 --> 2:59:37.880 like like Brandon Johnson like nominally is one of the 2:59:37.920 --> 2:59:39.920 most left wing mayors in the US, And this is 2:59:40.000 --> 2:59:42.280 what is fucking happening even in this from of the 2:59:42.280 --> 2:59:45.560 sort of progressive wing the Democratic Party, like the concern 2:59:45.760 --> 2:59:50.039 like the the Joe Biden conservative wing is like even 2:59:50.120 --> 2:59:52.160 worse on this stuff. 2:59:52.800 --> 2:59:57.039 Yeah, and like the entire Democratic Party in so much 2:59:57.160 --> 3:00:00.000 is ass And there was a time when it genuinely 3:00:00.120 --> 3:00:02.480 did show up for people trying to come to this 3:00:02.520 --> 3:00:06.760 country to seek asylum. At least it wouldn't. This is 3:00:06.800 --> 3:00:09.320 like the immigration system is like a ratchet and it 3:00:09.320 --> 3:00:13.160 only moves to the right, and under democratic government it 3:00:13.160 --> 3:00:16.800 wouldn't move to the right. It does now. And this 3:00:16.920 --> 3:00:21.240 means that there is not an electoral option for you, right, 3:00:21.320 --> 3:00:24.680 you cannot just vote if you give a single fuck 3:00:24.879 --> 3:00:28.120 about innocent people living outside of this country wanting to 3:00:28.120 --> 3:00:29.080 come here and be safe. 3:00:29.120 --> 3:00:29.520 You don't. 3:00:30.040 --> 3:00:32.240 There is nothing on the ballot box for you to 3:00:32.320 --> 3:00:37.800 tick that represents a serious option. And that's sad. Yeah, 3:00:37.800 --> 3:00:40.720 it's a pretty fucked reflection of our electoral politics. But 3:00:40.840 --> 3:00:45.400 I think it also impels us to look look at 3:00:45.440 --> 3:00:47.560 someone who believes that there is not a ballot box 3:00:47.600 --> 3:00:50.840 option that is going to deliver us a system with 3:00:50.920 --> 3:00:56.280 dignity and democracy and justice. Anyway, I think this is 3:00:56.440 --> 3:00:59.840 where we have to step up and do the stuff 3:01:00.080 --> 3:01:03.640 we always talk about. Like this happened a little bit 3:01:03.680 --> 3:01:05.360 in twenty twenty, it happened a little bit under Trump, 3:01:05.400 --> 3:01:08.200 but like now, more than ever, the need to do 3:01:08.320 --> 3:01:11.760 mutual aid, especially for migrants, but also for and house 3:01:11.760 --> 3:01:15.520 people within your community, for all the fucking human detritus 3:01:15.600 --> 3:01:19.840 of Joe Biden's dogshit governance. It's right now, and like 3:01:21.200 --> 3:01:24.520 it is as I've seen personally, within the power of 3:01:24.560 --> 3:01:27.000 a very small group of people to impact the lives 3:01:27.000 --> 3:01:30.240 of a very large group of people through organizing. I've 3:01:30.560 --> 3:01:33.920 participated in mutual aid for a while. I'm sure many 3:01:33.959 --> 3:01:35.800 of the people are listening have as well. But like 3:01:35.879 --> 3:01:39.920 if you if you haven't found the play or the 3:01:40.000 --> 3:01:43.440 way to do so, Like it's it's a great time 3:01:43.440 --> 3:01:47.640 to start organizing something. The options in the next electoral 3:01:47.720 --> 3:01:49.800 cycle are that things get worse or that things get 3:01:49.879 --> 3:01:52.920 much worse. I don't think we have an option which 3:01:53.000 --> 3:01:57.920 is dismantling the structural racism that is within the United States, 3:01:58.800 --> 3:02:01.000 or even just not hunching down on some of the 3:02:01.000 --> 3:02:03.959 most vulnerable people in the world, it would appear. And 3:02:04.640 --> 3:02:08.279 so to protect those people, it follows upon our communities. 3:02:08.280 --> 3:02:11.320 And that's that's a big burden to shoulder, right, When 3:02:11.360 --> 3:02:14.840 the state has enough money to send one thousand pound 3:02:14.879 --> 3:02:17.640 bomb States rail, that means that we have to pay 3:02:17.640 --> 3:02:18.959 for beans for hungry children. 3:02:19.680 --> 3:02:22.080 Yeah. Well, And I mean the thing that this too, 3:02:22.240 --> 3:02:25.680 right is like if you if you spent the amount 3:02:25.720 --> 3:02:29.240 of money that the US was spending on trying to 3:02:29.280 --> 3:02:32.000 keep people out of the country on just like giving 3:02:32.240 --> 3:02:34.440 like if you just gave that money to the same 3:02:34.560 --> 3:02:37.120 those same people, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. 3:02:37.600 --> 3:02:40.280 Like it isn't like putting people in a prison is 3:02:40.280 --> 3:02:42.959 like the least cost efficient way to do possibly do anything. 3:02:42.959 --> 3:02:47.039 And it doesn't matter because the whole point of this, 3:02:47.160 --> 3:02:48.600 like and this is one of these things with the 3:02:48.600 --> 3:02:50.440 sort of ratchet, right is, eventually you're going to get 3:02:50.480 --> 3:02:54.400 to fucking like you know, I mean, like the situation 3:02:54.440 --> 3:02:56.039 we have now right now in Greece where you have 3:02:56.240 --> 3:02:59.520 effectively a fascist government who's up like pot Like when 3:02:59.720 --> 3:03:02.440 like when when boastload boatloads and people go down to 3:03:02.480 --> 3:03:05.000 the Mediterranean, like go down to the Mediterraneans, ever a hundred 3:03:05.000 --> 3:03:08.040 people die, their popularity goes up because you know, and 3:03:08.080 --> 3:03:09.720 then and this is the thing you're gonna, We're gonna, 3:03:09.959 --> 3:03:12.640 We're We're not that far away from in the fucking us. 3:03:12.879 --> 3:03:18.440 Is the Republican demand in like maybe like eight maybe 3:03:18.480 --> 3:03:21.040 ten years is going to be just shooting like literally 3:03:21.080 --> 3:03:22.640 just machine guns at the border like that. This is 3:03:22.640 --> 3:03:24.320 this is, this is where this is fucking going, right. 3:03:24.680 --> 3:03:27.040 You haven't seen the replies to my to my posts. 3:03:27.360 --> 3:03:28.160 Don't like when. 3:03:28.040 --> 3:03:30.280 When I when I say, I mean like like this 3:03:30.320 --> 3:03:32.160 is gonna be the demand of the fucking House, like 3:03:32.160 --> 3:03:35.000 Republican caucus, right like this is this is, this is 3:03:35.040 --> 3:03:37.640 where this is fucking going. And the Democrats, like you know, 3:03:37.680 --> 3:03:39.920 and the Democrats will take power fucking twelve years later 3:03:40.000 --> 3:03:41.720 and be like, well, we're only going to shoot some 3:03:41.800 --> 3:03:43.480 of the people at the border. People are gonna call 3:03:43.480 --> 3:03:47.080 this progress, right, and the only way that this can 3:03:47.080 --> 3:03:49.160 be and this this cannot be stopped by voting for 3:03:49.200 --> 3:03:52.640 the Democrats. This is like, you know, and like people 3:03:52.680 --> 3:03:55.000 people thought this about Obama and people also thought this 3:03:55.000 --> 3:03:56.520 about Biden, was that we're going to vote for these 3:03:56.520 --> 3:03:59.240 people because they're going to be good on immigration, and 3:04:00.440 --> 3:04:02.200 like this is the reason why we're all fucking are 3:04:02.240 --> 3:04:07.160 where we are now. So like there is no solution 3:04:07.280 --> 3:04:12.560 to this that doesn't revolve around like fundamental systemic change 3:04:12.600 --> 3:04:15.959 to what the US is, because otherwise we're just going 3:04:16.000 --> 3:04:18.199 to every single fucking year, we're going to be back here. 3:04:18.760 --> 3:04:22.680 Yeah. Talking of being back here, we weed to a 3:04:22.680 --> 3:04:25.640 second advertising pivot. I think right that there are two 3:04:25.640 --> 3:04:29.200 mid roles in these yeah. Yeah, So we are back 3:04:29.240 --> 3:04:32.720 here once again lamenting the fact that we have to 3:04:32.760 --> 3:04:35.680 introduce these adverts for you here. You are all right, 3:04:35.720 --> 3:04:38.680 and we have returned to lament the decline of the 3:04:38.800 --> 3:04:42.040 United States. I wanted to talk briefly about what title 3:04:42.160 --> 3:04:44.600 forty two does to migration flow. 3:04:44.800 --> 3:04:45.000 Right. 3:04:45.879 --> 3:04:47.680 As many of you will be aware, Donald Trump has 3:04:47.720 --> 3:04:49.920 built a big, beautiful wall along the southern border of 3:04:49.920 --> 3:04:52.840 the United States. The caveat to that being only some 3:04:53.000 --> 3:04:55.440 of it, and that they didn't do the hard parts. 3:04:55.560 --> 3:04:55.800 Right. 3:04:55.879 --> 3:04:59.560 So the places in Hakumbo where people are entering our 3:04:59.640 --> 3:05:03.680 gaps in the war, right, there are camps at three 3:05:03.680 --> 3:05:07.200 of these gaps over about a fifteen mile area. There 3:05:07.240 --> 3:05:09.879 are gaps all up and down the wall. Right, And 3:05:09.920 --> 3:05:13.040 you'll very often see people saying, oh, you couldn't climb 3:05:13.080 --> 3:05:14.600 this war. Doesn't matter. You just walk along until you 3:05:14.600 --> 3:05:16.199 find a gap and get through. You also can climb 3:05:16.240 --> 3:05:17.840 the war. We've seen people climb the war. We've seen 3:05:17.840 --> 3:05:21.959 people cut it with angle grinders. Right. But what happens 3:05:22.000 --> 3:05:24.640 with Title forty two, what happens right now, under what's 3:05:24.640 --> 3:05:27.320 called Title eight of the United States Immigration Law, people 3:05:27.720 --> 3:05:31.160 enter the country through a gap in the wall, and 3:05:31.200 --> 3:05:34.520 they wait and they surrender to a border patrol agent 3:05:34.600 --> 3:05:36.560 and say I'm here to claim the silent Right. Then 3:05:36.600 --> 3:05:39.040 they end up in these open air detention sites in Cucumber, 3:05:39.040 --> 3:05:42.560 et cetera. What happens in a Title forty two is 3:05:42.560 --> 3:05:44.520 that if you think you're going to be bounced directly 3:05:44.520 --> 3:05:47.000 back to Mexico, and you believe that you aren't safe there, 3:05:47.760 --> 3:05:51.800 you attempt to avoid border patrol right, And so you 3:05:51.879 --> 3:05:54.720 go to the places where they're going to be watching 3:05:54.760 --> 3:05:57.240 these gaps in the war, one would issue. So you 3:05:57.320 --> 3:06:00.760 go to the furthest places and the hardest places, highest places, 3:06:00.800 --> 3:06:02.840 in the most rugged places, right, and you try and 3:06:02.959 --> 3:06:06.600 walk through those routes instead, you try and walk through, 3:06:06.600 --> 3:06:08.360 for instance, Value of the Moon, which is just to 3:06:08.400 --> 3:06:10.800 the east of the Cumber where just last week, some 3:06:10.879 --> 3:06:12.760 of my friends are involved in the search and rescue 3:06:12.800 --> 3:06:15.320 operation for a four year old child who'd become separated 3:06:15.320 --> 3:06:19.160 from their family coming from Afghanistan, and then they found 3:06:19.160 --> 3:06:23.840 that child, fortunately, but fucking no one else would have 3:06:23.879 --> 3:06:28.000 done if they hadn't been there, right. The result of 3:06:28.040 --> 3:06:32.600 this is that people will die in greater numbers crossing 3:06:32.600 --> 3:06:34.600 our border. And that's what we saw rounder title forty 3:06:34.600 --> 3:06:36.360 two hunder Trump, and it's what we saw in title 3:06:36.400 --> 3:06:41.280 forty two on Biden, because there was that like I 3:06:41.400 --> 3:06:43.840 have attended, that you've heard about on this podcast, and 3:06:43.879 --> 3:06:45.520 the ones that they haven't and that you haven't heard 3:06:45.560 --> 3:06:49.160 about on this podcast are not going to stop because 3:06:49.520 --> 3:06:51.879 Joe Biden offered a concession to the Republicans. They will 3:06:51.959 --> 3:06:56.440 keep happening. The poverty that we have created in much 3:06:56.480 --> 3:06:58.240 of the world is not going to stop. It will 3:06:58.280 --> 3:07:03.519 keep happening. Transfer a thing that we have exported culturally, 3:07:04.760 --> 3:07:08.560 that film Branton Too, which definitely yeah, island of terms. 3:07:09.560 --> 3:07:12.920 It's a it's a colla. It's been a collaborative effort between. 3:07:12.720 --> 3:07:15.440 Yeah, that's what a special relationship is about it. 3:07:16.560 --> 3:07:16.920 JK. 3:07:17.080 --> 3:07:19.440 Rowling and Temple if there. 3:07:19.600 --> 3:07:21.480 The French are also complicit in this too. They're not 3:07:21.480 --> 3:07:22.960 getting sucking off the hook for this ship. 3:07:23.320 --> 3:07:25.560 But yeah, this is not the podcast and it's fronts 3:07:25.600 --> 3:07:26.480 off the hook for anything. 3:07:26.560 --> 3:07:29.360 But you know, like I mean, this is something I 3:07:29.360 --> 3:07:34.240 think you're getting at too. But like we in large part, 3:07:34.440 --> 3:07:38.720 like the US and the UK, are responsible for why 3:07:38.760 --> 3:07:42.119 transphobia is as bad as it is in Mexico right now, 3:07:42.200 --> 3:07:44.960 which is it is so much more like as bad 3:07:45.000 --> 3:07:46.720 as it is to be trans in the fucking US, 3:07:46.800 --> 3:07:50.440 it is so much worse in Mexico. Like the odds 3:07:50.480 --> 3:07:54.800 of you being killed are indescribable. Even if you're not 3:07:54.920 --> 3:07:58.400 fucking killed, there's you know, like, well, this is actually 3:07:58.440 --> 3:08:02.320 like the one of the episodes now third, what week 3:08:02.360 --> 3:08:04.959 will that be? The week after next? Like, yeah, I'm 3:08:05.000 --> 3:08:08.600 gonna we're going to replay the epithet like the interviews 3:08:08.600 --> 3:08:11.920 that I did with Maxice trans organizers talking about the 3:08:12.000 --> 3:08:17.039 turfs there because they are armed and they will fucking like, 3:08:17.160 --> 3:08:18.400 actually they will attack people. 3:08:20.160 --> 3:08:24.560 Yeah, it's like they United Nations says, yeah, it's bleak. 3:08:24.680 --> 3:08:27.640 The UNS that life expectancy for trans people in Central 3:08:27.680 --> 3:08:31.280 America is thirty five or less. Right, that's a di 3:08:31.480 --> 3:08:36.960 am older than that. That is abhorrent. Right, that you 3:08:37.879 --> 3:08:43.560 are extremely likely to die young if you're trans in 3:08:43.600 --> 3:08:46.000 places not so far from here, right, And I think 3:08:46.040 --> 3:08:48.120 that's what I want to get at, And it's the 3:08:48.240 --> 3:08:54.320 fundamental conceit of this whole thing is that border policy 3:08:54.360 --> 3:08:58.040 doesn't change migration. Migration happens because people aren't safe where 3:08:58.040 --> 3:09:02.120 they are, and that's why they leave. They don't take 3:09:02.200 --> 3:09:06.280 this journey because it seems easy, because even right now, 3:09:06.640 --> 3:09:11.640 it's incredibly hard. People walk thousands of miles, They walk 3:09:11.640 --> 3:09:14.320 across mountains, they run and they take risks and hop 3:09:14.360 --> 3:09:20.160 on trains. They get extorted, they get robbed, that they 3:09:20.240 --> 3:09:24.480 get assaulted. Young women often get sexually assaulted. Like it's 3:09:24.520 --> 3:09:29.359 a terrible and dangerous journey, and people won't stop taking 3:09:29.440 --> 3:09:33.560 that journey because Joe Biden decided to do something different. 3:09:33.640 --> 3:09:36.240 The things that are driving them to leave their homes 3:09:36.280 --> 3:09:41.680 will still keep happening, and they will now have to 3:09:41.720 --> 3:09:43.160 take a more dangerous journey. 3:09:43.560 --> 3:09:44.640 And all that. 3:09:44.600 --> 3:09:47.720 This does is make it more likely that there's people 3:09:47.760 --> 3:09:49.880 will die on the way here, or that when they 3:09:49.920 --> 3:09:52.440 get here they have to live their whole lives always 3:09:52.520 --> 3:09:55.440 wondering if they're going to get sent back, right, never 3:09:55.520 --> 3:09:59.760 really feeling safe. It rubs people of what some of 3:09:59.800 --> 3:10:03.200 us can take for granted, right, which is being able 3:10:03.240 --> 3:10:06.760 to go sleep at night in feelix safe. And yeah, 3:10:06.800 --> 3:10:09.879 that that's I guess what we all voted for when 3:10:09.920 --> 3:10:12.800 we chose an anti fascist guy in twenty twenty. Like, 3:10:13.240 --> 3:10:17.720 it's a pretty fucking bleak vision of politics in this 3:10:17.800 --> 3:10:20.000 country and the impact it has for people who don't 3:10:20.040 --> 3:10:21.520 get a choice to vote in this country. 3:10:23.920 --> 3:10:26.960 Yeah, I mean, it's you know, it is a it 3:10:27.040 --> 3:10:31.360 is a functional, definitional totalitarian regime, and it will never 3:10:31.400 --> 3:10:33.720 be fucking described as that by the academics who fucking 3:10:34.400 --> 3:10:37.120 use this language. But you know, how how how else 3:10:37.160 --> 3:10:40.080 do you describe living in a condition where you can 3:10:40.160 --> 3:10:43.000 at any point be removed and are spending literally all 3:10:43.000 --> 3:10:47.120 of your time attempting to flee a police date Like, yeah, yeah, 3:10:47.280 --> 3:10:49.720 the w US, the US is and has always been 3:10:49.800 --> 3:10:53.720 an unbelievably authoritarian state, and it's getting more so fucking 3:10:53.800 --> 3:10:56.720 every day. And you know, and this is also one 3:10:56.720 --> 3:10:59.760 of these things where it's like, I mean we literally 3:10:59.800 --> 3:11:02.360 saw this in twenty twenty. The people who got sent 3:11:02.400 --> 3:11:05.240 in to put down the uprising in Portland, it was 3:11:05.280 --> 3:11:07.360 fucking Bortac right, it was. It was it was the 3:11:07.520 --> 3:11:09.440 the it was, it was it was the border patrols 3:11:09.480 --> 3:11:13.680 like special forces units, right, Like that's that's the inevitable 3:11:13.760 --> 3:11:18.000 logic of this state, is that you any person who 3:11:18.040 --> 3:11:20.640 wants to resist the state, eventually one day these people 3:11:20.640 --> 3:11:24.039 will fucking come for you too. And the question is 3:11:24.480 --> 3:11:27.440 whether you know, it's whether you start. Because Portak didn't 3:11:27.800 --> 3:11:30.560 win really and like the stuff that they were trying 3:11:30.560 --> 3:11:32.520 to do in twenty two, like they they basically kind 3:11:32.560 --> 3:11:35.600 of got beaten, but you know they're still there. They're 3:11:35.600 --> 3:11:38.240 still getting fucking money, like they're getting I mean to 3:11:38.280 --> 3:11:41.440 give more money. Yeah, So you know, either either we 3:11:41.480 --> 3:11:44.600 stopped them now before they fucking have another trillion dollars 3:11:44.600 --> 3:11:47.040 to spend on this shit, or you know, we fight 3:11:47.080 --> 3:11:49.800 them again in like five years when there's more of 3:11:49.800 --> 3:11:50.800 them and they're better funded. 3:11:51.680 --> 3:11:54.560 Yeah, And like the final thing I'll say with regard 3:11:54.640 --> 3:11:56.840 to that finding is, maybe you're meeting your family over 3:11:56.879 --> 3:11:59.240 the holidays, right, maybe hanging out with people he didn't 3:11:59.240 --> 3:12:04.120 often hang out. Even if you don't care about you 3:12:04.160 --> 3:12:07.240 know that their mother bringing her baby from Shingaal in 3:12:07.360 --> 3:12:11.760 Iraq to hear who I met last night, Right, even 3:12:11.840 --> 3:12:15.480 if that doesn't bother you and you're so somehow heartless 3:12:15.680 --> 3:12:19.959 that you don't care. I will say that, like every 3:12:20.080 --> 3:12:22.720 single time we put more money into border security to 3:12:22.800 --> 3:12:25.520 ends up with all of us being surveiled more. If 3:12:25.560 --> 3:12:28.360 you attended a protest in twenty twenty, you might have 3:12:28.440 --> 3:12:29.840 been surveiled by border patrol. 3:12:29.959 --> 3:12:30.160 Right. 3:12:30.879 --> 3:12:33.040 If you walk around in the desert where I live, 3:12:33.240 --> 3:12:35.480 you're probably being surveiled by border patrol. 3:12:35.520 --> 3:12:36.240 If you use your. 3:12:36.240 --> 3:12:39.320 Cell phone without encryption, you might be being surveiled at 3:12:39.360 --> 3:12:44.800 the border. Right. The companies, many of them are based 3:12:44.840 --> 3:12:46.800 in the US and then based in Israel, that are 3:12:46.800 --> 3:12:50.360 surveilling Palestinians are the same ones that are surveiling us 3:12:50.400 --> 3:12:54.720 at our border. And this will come back to bite 3:12:54.720 --> 3:12:57.400 you at the ass. In the ass, this will come 3:12:57.440 --> 3:12:59.680 back to bite you in the ass, even if you 3:12:59.720 --> 3:13:02.920 don't care about migrants, because the moment you are not 3:13:03.080 --> 3:13:06.920 in lockstep with the government, you become a potential victim 3:13:07.160 --> 3:13:11.679 of that surveillance. Right, And a big thing with undocumented 3:13:11.840 --> 3:13:14.920 immigration is it essentially makes you a legible and therefore 3:13:15.040 --> 3:13:16.199 untaxable to the government. 3:13:16.320 --> 3:13:16.440 Right. 3:13:16.879 --> 3:13:20.280 What would the government state at its very core want 3:13:20.320 --> 3:13:23.560 people to be is legible and taxable and accountable. If 3:13:23.600 --> 3:13:25.320 you think that it isn't going to bounce back on 3:13:25.760 --> 3:13:31.000 trans folks, right and making them specifically lon binary folks too, Right, 3:13:31.160 --> 3:13:33.120 Like the idea that you don't have a box to 3:13:33.160 --> 3:13:34.920 tick on a form and that makes you harder to 3:13:34.920 --> 3:13:38.840 be legible and statistically quantifiable by the government. All of 3:13:38.879 --> 3:13:41.400 this will come back and hurt you, even if you're 3:13:41.480 --> 3:13:43.640 just a super right wing libertarian who doesn't want to 3:13:43.640 --> 3:13:47.360 pay their taxes. Like this border of security is a 3:13:47.440 --> 3:13:52.200 thing that will eventually be used against you. And I 3:13:52.280 --> 3:13:55.760 don't think it's in any of our interests to just 3:13:55.879 --> 3:13:58.120 keep handing these tools to the state that end up 3:13:58.120 --> 3:14:01.920 being used against the most desperately in the world. And 3:14:02.640 --> 3:14:06.440 so hopefully I know there's no one you can fucking 3:14:06.520 --> 3:14:10.080 vote for to change that. Yeah, yeah, you can feel 3:14:10.120 --> 3:14:13.959 free to write your legislators. I have been on the 3:14:14.000 --> 3:14:17.200 phone to my legislators about individual cases of people who 3:14:17.200 --> 3:14:19.480 I care about very deeply, who are in a very 3:14:19.520 --> 3:14:24.400 grave amount of danger and they haven't done shit. So 3:14:24.440 --> 3:14:27.160 instead I go to the border and I build shelters, 3:14:27.200 --> 3:14:30.879 add of palettes and tops for people because it's the 3:14:30.879 --> 3:14:33.360 only thing that makes me feel like I'm not completely 3:14:33.400 --> 3:14:36.600 fucking powerless. And so if you want to take that 3:14:36.680 --> 3:14:40.280 paradynamic back, you know, cook some beans, make some rice, 3:14:40.440 --> 3:14:44.480 buy some tops with your holiday money, and go out 3:14:44.480 --> 3:14:46.160 there and start doing mutual aid. You don't even have 3:14:46.200 --> 3:14:48.680 to go on x dot com or Reddit to do it. 3:14:48.760 --> 3:14:50.600 Just fucking go out and start helping people. You'll find 3:14:50.640 --> 3:14:53.760 other people who want to help. You can organize and 3:14:53.800 --> 3:14:55.680 it's bad. The only way I can see that you 3:14:55.720 --> 3:14:57.320 can make things meaningfully better right now? 3:14:58.600 --> 3:15:02.800 Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's a good message 3:15:02.800 --> 3:15:03.240 to end on. 3:15:04.000 --> 3:15:04.480 Yeah it is. 3:15:05.640 --> 3:15:08.840 If you want to give your money to my little 3:15:09.879 --> 3:15:13.240 mutual laid gang of wonderful people, you can go to 3:15:13.240 --> 3:15:17.480 GoFundMe dot com, slash Hercumber, hyphen migrant hyphen camps. He 3:15:17.600 --> 3:15:21.600 Cumber is ja c U N b A. But you 3:15:21.600 --> 3:15:23.160 can also keep it. And I would love it if 3:15:23.160 --> 3:15:26.039 you started something yourself and told us what you were doing. 3:15:26.320 --> 3:15:29.200 That would make things less shitty for us. 3:15:32.680 --> 3:15:35.840 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:15:35.920 --> 3:15:37.840 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:15:38.440 --> 3:15:40.920 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:15:41.000 --> 3:15:43.680 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:15:43.720 --> 3:15:45.959 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 3:15:45.959 --> 3:15:49.520 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 3:15:49.800 --> 3:15:51.879 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:15:52.000 --> 3:15:56.039 monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.