Speaker 1: M fucking hey, Bluetooth and headphones. This has been a
Speaker 1: terrible morning of figuring out technology things. And it's also
Speaker 1: three in the afternoon, which is nine in the morning
Speaker 1: for me. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: the show where every week I write a very long
Speaker 1: essay about a different terrible person and then fail at
Speaker 1: the basics of setting up headphones. Um, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: the worst. The reason we've been having such terrible technical
Speaker 1: difficulties is that today I actually have someone in the
Speaker 1: studio with me, which we haven't done since the plague.
Speaker 1: But the person the studio, Yeah, my desk that's in
Speaker 1: front of my bed in my room that is filled
Speaker 1: with ants and pieces of guns. Um, why are there
Speaker 1: a Garrison? Say hello to the people? Hello? Hello, Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: this is this is Garrison. This is Garrison Garrison. Who
Speaker 1: are you tell the people who you are? High? So
Speaker 1: some people may know me as at Hungry bow Tie
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Garrison Davis tear gas proof. Um. I've
Speaker 1: been covering the protests in Portland and have been working
Speaker 1: alongside Robert Evans and some other fine fine folks while
Speaker 1: getting shot at by federal agents for months now. Yep.
Speaker 1: We we met in a cloud of tear gas, and
Speaker 1: most of our relationship has occurred in that cloud of
Speaker 1: tear gas. Uh. And now we are becoming podcast buddies
Speaker 1: in addition to tear gas buddies, which is which is
Speaker 1: an exciting moment. And I could have just stayed home
Speaker 1: and recorded from there and not had to deal with
Speaker 1: this terrible bluetooth headphone situation. It's been awful. So the situation.
Speaker 1: We want to have Sophie on as we record, but
Speaker 1: a variety of things make that problematic, including the way
Speaker 1: that headphones work. Nobody sells headphones splitters anymore, so we
Speaker 1: eventually had to go by these things that you zoomers love,
Speaker 1: these these little headphones don't separate, separate Bluetooth. Don't blame
Speaker 1: me for don't don't rope me into that. I am
Speaker 1: absolutely blaming you for the state of headphones back in
Speaker 1: my day. Back in my day, Garrison, all we needed
Speaker 1: was an audio jack and then a little splitter and
Speaker 1: you get as many headphones as you wanted on a laptop.
Speaker 1: Can we circle back to the part where you say
Speaker 1: you wanted to have Sophie on. Excuse me? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: are allowed to be here because I allow you to
Speaker 1: be here. Continue. Okay, So Garrison, you are you are
Speaker 1: one of the youth. Yes, that is the future. Yes
Speaker 1: I am I am the future. Yeah, you're you're famously
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. What is a TikTok? I've never had
Speaker 1: it is? It's a sound of clock mix. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's not what the president's banning. And I feel
Speaker 1: like you're hiding your secret, your secret millennial zoomer whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm seventeen for another month, but I've never had a TikTok. Okay,
Speaker 1: So maybe the other thing you can explain? What is
Speaker 1: what is an ariana grande? No, goddamn Robert, you know
Speaker 1: how to pronounce her name. It's a coffee from Starbucks, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds right, favor. Now that we've settled all these
Speaker 1: issues that the youth can teachious about the future. Um,
Speaker 1: sorry about climate change, by the way, that's going to
Speaker 1: be a real problem for you guys. Um, I'll be
Speaker 1: dead of many cancers by then. Thanks for that. In
Speaker 1: a year and a half, Um, we're talking today about
Speaker 1: Alexander Luca Shanko. Uh. And maybe folks don't super know
Speaker 1: about this guy, but you've probably heard about some messed
Speaker 1: up stuff happening in Belarus. Um, he's the dictator of Belarus.
Speaker 1: So this is a very timely episode. Um. And you know, Garrison,
Speaker 1: I was gonna have you want to talk about Dr
Speaker 1: Jordan B. Peterson. But considering the fact that Belarus is
Speaker 1: rising up against his dictator right now and they're all
Speaker 1: getting horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, and
Speaker 1: We've been horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets,
Speaker 1: I thought this would be a fun a fun subject
Speaker 1: that also is timely. Yeah, there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: relatability there. What do you know about Belarus, Little to
Speaker 1: nothing except they are now experiencing a lot of tear
Speaker 1: gas and getting shot at by their police. So that
Speaker 1: is probably true for basically everybody. I mean, I'll be honest, like,
Speaker 1: I knew that there was a dictator in Belarus and
Speaker 1: that he was famously called Europe's last dictator by a
Speaker 1: bunch of like American politicians. Um, but that's that was.
Speaker 1: That was about of my knowledge of Belarus. Other than that,
Speaker 1: I think they have arguments with Ukraine over who does
Speaker 1: the best strange pig based dishes, um, which I can't
Speaker 1: comment on, but there's some good ass pig based dishes.
Speaker 1: Salo man, fucking amazing. But they both have salo, So
Speaker 1: I don't know you ever had salo, Sophie. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: It's like guacamole made out of pigs. It kind of rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get along in Eastern Europe. I'll trust
Speaker 1: you on that one, buddy. Okay, So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: Lukashenko today. Um So, yeah, once upon a time, and
Speaker 1: by which I mean like three years ago, he was
Speaker 1: repeatedly called Europe's last dictator by a bunch of American politicians.
Speaker 1: And now there's a whole bunch of other dictators in
Speaker 1: Europe again, so that's not really Yeah, you've got like
Speaker 1: a discounting Russia if we call them like, because there's
Speaker 1: always that debate over like how European Russia is, like
Speaker 1: we've still got hungry. Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: dictators in Europe. So he's not he's not as special
Speaker 1: as he used to be, but it is special because
Speaker 1: uh Lukashenko has been in powerful like twenty six years,
Speaker 1: so like throughout the whole kind of Golden Age, or
Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, if the like
Speaker 1: the kind of height of the European Unions influenced the
Speaker 1: height of NATO's power. Um, he was like an old
Speaker 1: Soviet style autocrat hanging out in the in the middle
Speaker 1: of Europe. Um. It's it's a pretty weird story and
Speaker 1: he's not This is going to be I think useful
Speaker 1: because this is in the news right now. He's plays
Speaker 1: it pretty close to the chest, So we just don't
Speaker 1: know as much about the guy personally as we do
Speaker 1: about some other figures. But I think it's still a
Speaker 1: useful story to get out to people in the moment here. So,
Speaker 1: Lukashenko survived the collapse of the USSR and basically spent
Speaker 1: the whole period of capitalist democracy's victory lap ruling over
Speaker 1: a nation of nine and point five million people. He
Speaker 1: survived economic downturns, the birth of the Internet, conflicts between
Speaker 1: his nation's neighbors, and a bunch of really awkward to
Speaker 1: hang out sessions with Steven Seagal. Today though he's obviously
Speaker 1: in trouble and for the first time in thirty years, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's this is that. We talked about this on the
Speaker 1: Segal episode. This is the guy who like gave states
Speaker 1: Abolo Giant Carrott. He's just out there, Steven Seagal. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: is just occasionally kidnapping women and locking them in a
Speaker 1: I don't want to finish that thought. Um. Yeah, so no,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't. So there's a lot of eyes on Belarus
Speaker 1: right now. UM, we should probably start by covering some
Speaker 1: basic facts. Because most people don't know anything about Belarus. Um.
Speaker 1: Belarus is located in eastern Europe. It's about as far
Speaker 1: east as you can go without hitting Russia. It's immediate
Speaker 1: western neighbor is Poland and its habors to the north,
Speaker 1: or Latvia and Lithuania. You could call it Ukrainian Canada,
Speaker 1: although nobody does. No one does that, including this Canadian.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, there's not really any comparisons to make
Speaker 1: between Ukraine and Belarus, and in that regard, um, unless
Speaker 1: like is Canada dictatorship. Garrison not really Okay, okay, it
Speaker 1: tries not to be. Yeah, Garrison's Canadian. So I mean
Speaker 1: our current prime minister did not get the majority of
Speaker 1: the votes in our last election. Um, because we have
Speaker 1: a weird system that is different than the electoral college. Um.
Speaker 1: But has some similarities. It's weird and not great. But yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: it's cute how both of our countries make the same
Speaker 1: horrible decisions. Um but but just a little bit, a
Speaker 1: little bit a little different shine on them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's nice. That's what friends do. So um yeah, if
Speaker 1: you know a little bit of history and geography, you
Speaker 1: can tell that Belarus has had a rough time of
Speaker 1: it historically. Being right between Poland and Russia doesn't seem great.
Speaker 1: Not not great, but there's a lot of problems with
Speaker 1: not the best spot to have, like not maybe not
Speaker 1: as bad as starting place as Germany, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty rough location to have a country. Um, as you
Speaker 1: might gather, but like they're they're they're kind of in
Speaker 1: the middle of a lot of ship historically, in the
Speaker 1: middle of a lot of genocide. Yeah, in the mid
Speaker 1: of genocide because connect to Ukraine, Russia and Poland, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of genocide in the adjacent area. Yeah, Belarusian
Speaker 1: history has a couple of different points where we say
Speaker 1: and then a shockingly high percentage of the nation's entire
Speaker 1: population was killed in the space of a year. Uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Belarus bad place to start as a country. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're playing like civilization or whatever, and this is
Speaker 1: where you land, you're gonna have a rough You're gonna
Speaker 1: have a rough game of it. Um. Belarusian identity is
Speaker 1: generally traced back to kind of starting to form in
Speaker 1: the tenth century in the establishment of the Principality of Polotsk.
Speaker 1: The first Belarusians entered history largely for their ability to
Speaker 1: maintain and profit off of a trade route connected the
Speaker 1: Vikings to the Greeks, Which is part of why it's
Speaker 1: such a rough place to be is it's like kind
Speaker 1: of right in the middle of a bunch of roads.
Speaker 1: Like if you want to get anywhere in Europe from Asia,
Speaker 1: you're gonna wind up rolling through Belarus probably um. And
Speaker 1: that you know, is a recipe for getting the ship
Speaker 1: kicked out of you a bunch uh. They had a
Speaker 1: lot of ups and downs the medieval period and spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time fighting with the Mongols um, which
Speaker 1: are not a group of people you really want to
Speaker 1: fight um, But eventually they won. By the thirteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: what is today Belarus had become a central part of
Speaker 1: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania UM, so Lithuanians and Belarusians
Speaker 1: were the same people for a while. Um. At least
Speaker 1: that's what the historians I've read tend to say. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's historians who will say that that's horribly inaccurate,
Speaker 1: but that seems to be broadly the consensus um and
Speaker 1: that at around like the fourteen hundreds, UM, Belarus and
Speaker 1: Lithuanian identity started to split, and by the sixteen hundreds
Speaker 1: that whole chunk of Europe was more or less a
Speaker 1: free for all of constant warfare between different kingdoms, between
Speaker 1: conflicts with Moscow, Poland, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire. The
Speaker 1: population of modern day Belarus was reduced by half over
Speaker 1: the course of a few decades in the sixteen hundreds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the first time a gigantic percentage of the
Speaker 1: of the population dies hard. Yeah, sixteen hundreds, half of
Speaker 1: belarusk uh theologists get murdered. Um, so that's good. In
Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds, Belarus was absorbed by the Russian
Speaker 1: Empire and became its northwestern region. So it's like the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest for Russia. There's so many relatable elements here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why, in addition to Ukraine's Canada. Belarus's other nickname
Speaker 1: that nobody calls it is Russian Oregon. That's good because
Speaker 1: I'm both Canadian and an Orgonian. Yeah, this is really
Speaker 1: we should be able to identify with these people. So
Speaker 1: being in the northwest of Russia was a bad place
Speaker 1: to be for basically all of the twentieth century. Um,
Speaker 1: and the horrific wars of that era, World War One
Speaker 1: and World War Two reduced the population of Belarus again
Speaker 1: by more than the third by the end of Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they just they just keep huge numbers of them,
Speaker 1: keep getting any time, like you're able to say, like,
Speaker 1: and then this whole region was depopulated by this massive fraction.
Speaker 1: It's not a great history. Um So, yeah, they've had
Speaker 1: a rough time of it. By the end of World
Speaker 1: War two, Belarus, it's been half a century being either
Speaker 1: torn apart by mechanized warfare or recovering from being torn
Speaker 1: apart by mechanized warfare. So the region settled into its
Speaker 1: new life after World War Two. Is one of the
Speaker 1: less memorable chunks of the Soviet Union. And for a
Speaker 1: while things were like relatively okay comparatively compared to everyone dying. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean once you've hit a low that bad. Anything
Speaker 1: besides that is comparatively good. Yeah, and they did, you know,
Speaker 1: they suffered. There was quite a bit of state repression
Speaker 1: in Belarus, which we'll talk about some of the effects
Speaker 1: from a little bit later. Um. And everywhere in the
Speaker 1: USSR had its different experiences, both good and bad. It
Speaker 1: was a big, complicated thing that happened. Um. You can
Speaker 1: make a case that Belarus was one of the parts
Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union that was kind of broadly happiest
Speaker 1: with the whole arrangement. I did come across interviews with
Speaker 1: a number of Belarusian anarchists who talked about severe repression
Speaker 1: of their cultural identity and the civic union in favor
Speaker 1: of Russian identity. Um. This is something that happened all
Speaker 1: over the USSR, and it seems like it was a
Speaker 1: problem in Belarus. Two. Um, But it is true that
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, when the various Soviets of the
Speaker 1: Union had a referendum on whether or not to keep
Speaker 1: being the Soviet Union, Belarus was one of the few
Speaker 1: places where most people wanted to keep going. Of Belarus
Speaker 1: voted to continue being a part of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: It seems like people were like broadly like on board
Speaker 1: with what was with what was going down, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't tell the whole story. Those numbers do get cited
Speaker 1: a lot as evidence that people were very happy with
Speaker 1: the system, but things aren't quite that simple. Faith in
Speaker 1: the Soviet government had begun to collapse in Belarus starting
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighties six with a chair Noble disaster and
Speaker 1: its subsequent cover up doesn't make people don't like nuclear
Speaker 1: power plants exploding and then being covered up, and sens
Speaker 1: of people being poisoned, not not a fan of giant
Speaker 1: explosions then getting yeah, yeah, yeah it's not it's not
Speaker 1: anyone's best day ever, and making of incompetence causing giant
Speaker 1: explosions also a timely, timely reference. So I thought you
Speaker 1: were going to do an ad pivot there. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: podcast is supported by the concept of nuclear power plants
Speaker 1: being improperly maintained. It was a real big ad gate
Speaker 1: for US Raytheon sponsors blowing up this entire city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they don't stop it, stop it if it's
Speaker 1: if it's not okay to influence a young man to
Speaker 1: appreciate Raytheon's fine product line, then I don't know what is.
Speaker 1: As we grow up in a complicated, conflicted world, we
Speaker 1: all need the security that comes from a raytheon based
Speaker 1: knife missile. It makes makes me feel safe and secure
Speaker 1: in my look. Sophie, seventeen year old isn't allowed to
Speaker 1: own a firearm, but there's no law that says he
Speaker 1: can't own a drone fired knife missile. Not in this country.
Speaker 1: Not in this country, good country. That's how you defend
Speaker 1: your home is with a knife missile. I thought it
Speaker 1: was with a mae. I have those two. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So people got angry in Belarus over chair noble. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that was six And in ninety eight that anger
Speaker 1: was compounded when an archaeologist named Zionon Pasniak discovered a
Speaker 1: series of mass graves that dated back to Stalin's terror.
Speaker 1: These graves were located at a place called Karapati outside
Speaker 1: of the Belarusian capital of Minsk, and they held more
Speaker 1: than a quarter of a million corpses. Okay, here we go, people,
Speaker 1: people are not at their While most Belarusians vote to
Speaker 1: stay in the Soviet Union, there's a lot of those
Speaker 1: were not able to vote. Those those guys couldn't vote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it does broadly make people less trusting of the
Speaker 1: government when they find a quarter of a million dead
Speaker 1: people buried outside of their hometown own. I wouldn't, I
Speaker 1: would be I would have some questions, I would we would.
Speaker 1: Yeah that it's not great. Um, when you that's not
Speaker 1: the thing you want to hear about, Like, yeah, So
Speaker 1: the fact that an archaeologist working for the state was
Speaker 1: allowed to reveal that a quarter of a million people
Speaker 1: had been murdered and buried outside of Minsk is evidence
Speaker 1: that in nineteen eighty eight there was a lot less
Speaker 1: repression in the USSR than there is. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it when the state doesn't kill someone for saying
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of dead bodies. Yeah. Obviously this
Speaker 1: was very troubling to people, and so there were a
Speaker 1: lot of calls to reform and accountability. Activists within Belarus
Speaker 1: created the Belarusian Popular Front in October of nineteen eight
Speaker 1: after mass protests that ended in fights with state security forces.
Speaker 1: And all of this brings us back around to Alexander Lukashenko,
Speaker 1: who by that point was running a series of collective farms.
Speaker 1: He was a pig farmer. Basically, um loves loves him
Speaker 1: some collective farms, um, and was apparently pretty good at
Speaker 1: running collective farms, and we should probably hop back in
Speaker 1: time again at this point. UM. Alexandr Grigoryevitch Lukashenko was
Speaker 1: born in August thirtieth, nineteen fifty four, and this much
Speaker 1: a lot of people agree on. Uh. Pretty much everything
Speaker 1: else about his background is up for grabs, though many
Speaker 1: sources will say that he was born in the rural
Speaker 1: verage village of Copius in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic,
Speaker 1: but Lukashenko himself has given multiple different answers when asked
Speaker 1: where he was born. He's claimed he was born in
Speaker 1: a god forsaken half Belarusian half Russian village and also
Speaker 1: that he was born in the city of Orsha. Uh.
Speaker 1: The reason for this discrepancy is simple. Lukashenko was more
Speaker 1: or less than nobody for most of his life. He
Speaker 1: was derided as just like a pig farmer by his
Speaker 1: rivals when he came to power, and there were very
Speaker 1: few public details about his early life. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the way that Lukashenko wanted it. As he began
Speaker 1: taking over, he knew that his biography was more of
Speaker 1: a tool for taking and holding power than it was
Speaker 1: an actual work of historical importance, and as such, most
Speaker 1: of it shall read about Lukashenko tells us less about
Speaker 1: the man himself than it does about the culture of
Speaker 1: leadership and propaganda in the U. S s R, which
Speaker 1: I find kind of cool. Um. So, wherever you find
Speaker 1: like a community, a subculture, occult, a nation, um, an
Speaker 1: ideology that's based around like charismatic individual people, you will
Speaker 1: find specific traditions about writing biographies for those figures. And
Speaker 1: this is true everywhere. Um. It's not just like a
Speaker 1: communist thing. It's not just a dictatorship thing. It's true
Speaker 1: of market capitalism. If you go grab a biography of
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and a biography of Steve Jobs, and a
Speaker 1: biography of Bill Gates, and you know, maybe run through
Speaker 1: a couple of those fawning profile pieces in like The
Speaker 1: New Yorker of people like Elizabeth Holmes or Travis Kallinik
Speaker 1: of Uber or the Wee Work guy, like before all
Speaker 1: of their grips became crashing to the grad. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you read a bunch of that stuff in a row,
Speaker 1: you'll notice a bunch of patterns. All of these biography
Speaker 1: they feel like kind of all just the same book.
Speaker 1: They are more or less. Yeah, And there's the thing,
Speaker 1: like you have to in those books, you have to
Speaker 1: have like, um, a period where they're working out of
Speaker 1: a garage. There's a structure, there's there's a structure that
Speaker 1: we like when we learn without the people, we like
Speaker 1: consuming a certain arenime exactly. And they constructed you know,
Speaker 1: Google was in this garage when it actually wasn't. You know.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. If
Speaker 1: you if you find the books that presidential candidates all,
Speaker 1: like every presidential candidate has to publish a stupid fucking
Speaker 1: book right before they start their campaign. It's required now. Um.
Speaker 1: And they're all the same book basically, uh, because that's
Speaker 1: just what we expect. Um. And if you grew up
Speaker 1: under evangelical Christianity, like you grew up like me, Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: you know what all of like the whenever you have
Speaker 1: like a charismatic preacher who comes to like deliver their
Speaker 1: you know, like they all have the same have the
Speaker 1: same story. It's the same grift over and over yet yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's it's just a thing that people need in their
Speaker 1: stories of charismatic leaders and it's the same uh in
Speaker 1: propagandistic biographies of Eastern Bloc leaders. Um So, one thing
Speaker 1: that is emphasized in all of the stories about Lukashenko
Speaker 1: is that he was his dad was absent, and he
Speaker 1: was raised by his single mother. Uh as was Joseph
Speaker 1: Stalin everybody, as with Saparmaranti is off of Turkmenistan. Nikolai
Speaker 1: Cichesko knew his dad, but his dad was an abusive prick,
Speaker 1: and Nikolai was always a mama's boy. So like shittier
Speaker 1: absent father is a Soviet leadership trope. It's it's it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's a trope that they keep that they
Speaker 1: keep using. Whether it's true or not right, it's it's
Speaker 1: still something that they will. They will still reinforce that narrative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they reinforce that narrative, and it's seen as being like
Speaker 1: important to getting people to um to like feel the
Speaker 1: way about the leader that they kind of expected. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like Disney, you got to kill the parents. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta kill the parents in order to have a
Speaker 1: good dictator. So if you want to make a dictator, Nope,
Speaker 1: I don't know where are you going? Anyway, continue, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, Sophie, I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 1: I'm just angry about the headphones. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not angry about, Sophie. You know what I'm not
Speaker 1: angry about find products and services that support this podcast.
Speaker 1: None of what's your headphones. I hope there's some wireless
Speaker 1: head I hope. I hope Recon gets in here real quick.
Speaker 1: If Recon starts trying to advertise on our podcast, they're
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with our other sponsor, Raytheon.
Speaker 1: And I tell I'll tell you who I think is
Speaker 1: gonna win in a fight between some people who make
Speaker 1: headphones and are are good friends with the Knife Missiles.
Speaker 1: It's the Knife Missiles products. We're back. Oh that was horrible.
Speaker 1: I accidentally made a minor adjustment to these goddamn newfangled
Speaker 1: bluetooth earbuds off. The whole situation was horrible. We spend
Speaker 1: hours getting this set up and destroyed it in a
Speaker 1: few seconds. I feel comfortable saying that Soviet Union works
Speaker 1: about as well as these horrible bluetooth headphones. In the headphones,
Speaker 1: I responsible for multiple genocides, well not nine, Okay, okay, okay, fair, fair,
Speaker 1: just like well, I mean you could argue series of
Speaker 1: war crimes anyway whatever whatever, Um, okay. So yeah, we're
Speaker 1: we're talking about like Soviet leader tropes and Lukashenko. So
Speaker 1: obviously all of his biographies will point out that his
Speaker 1: dad was gone. They all will a very different things
Speaker 1: about why his dad was gone, um, which is I
Speaker 1: think kind of interesting, Like it's like the Joker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so are they like stories like well, like
Speaker 1: is it like like yeah, kind of One of his
Speaker 1: stories is that his dad died during World War two, um,
Speaker 1: which is like a Turkmen Boshi, the Dictaty of Turkmenistan,
Speaker 1: had the same story his dad died in World War Two.
Speaker 1: The problem with this is that Lukashenko was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four. So I love how that works out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you said, all these true crime shows when they're
Speaker 1: like and then we we found the murder, and then
Speaker 1: they're like, I was in jail at the time of
Speaker 1: that death. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's like that, um. And it may seem kind of
Speaker 1: baffling that a guy who's already in power would choose
Speaker 1: such like an obvious lie. But Lukashenko's started making this
Speaker 1: claim during a different period for his regime, between two
Speaker 1: thousand six and two thous eight, when a bunch of
Speaker 1: opposition groups rose up in protests against one of his
Speaker 1: many sham elections. Uh, he meaned, yeah, I mean, our
Speaker 1: us in America have no experience with the leader in
Speaker 1: office making obvious sides about his family history. We don't
Speaker 1: know anything about this only happens in uh post uh
Speaker 1: Soviet Union satellites, not in this country. Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so he started lying about his dad dying in
Speaker 1: World War Two a decade before he would be born. Um,
Speaker 1: during like this period of time when he's, you know,
Speaker 1: his legitimacy as president was being challenged and thousands of
Speaker 1: protesters were out in the streets fighting with cops. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote now from an article in
Speaker 1: the journal of Journal of Folklore Research that's kind of
Speaker 1: about the different ways Lukashenko has presented himself. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's going to sort of try to explain why maybe
Speaker 1: he made this kind of baffling call quote. Lukashenko sought
Speaker 1: to gain support through different means, including an established genre
Speaker 1: from the Soviet period of Belarus fake lore epics about
Speaker 1: Soviet heroes. They were often made up by professional folk
Speaker 1: singers guided by professional folklorists to glorify Soviet ideologies and
Speaker 1: particular protagonists Lenin Stalin, workers of the Soviet Union, etcetera,
Speaker 1: who embodied them. These new epics, called novini, combined the
Speaker 1: structures and motifs of traditional epics and were purposefully recorded
Speaker 1: and published. So like, basically it was it was this
Speaker 1: kind of thing that everyone probably more or less knew
Speaker 1: where he was lying about his background, but he was
Speaker 1: lying about his background in order to make a specific
Speaker 1: kind of propaganda art that everybody like knew what to
Speaker 1: expect from. So like everyone kind of knew that he
Speaker 1: was lying, um, but also the people who liked him
Speaker 1: didn't care. Just part of the thing, this is just
Speaker 1: what like leaders do in this part of the world,
Speaker 1: as they talk about how their dads died fighting the Nazis,
Speaker 1: even if their dad didn't Yeah, when you were born,
Speaker 1: might not have been old enough to make a baby
Speaker 1: in nineteen yeah, um, so yeah, that's very funny. Um.
Speaker 1: I find all of this interesting anyway. So the right
Speaker 1: up in the Journal of Folklore Research that I found
Speaker 1: compares Lukaschenko's Lukashenko Shifting birthdate and birthplace to the book
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, where like the reality is actually meaningless
Speaker 1: to even him. What matters is like that the state
Speaker 1: can get people to believe it, or at least act
Speaker 1: as if they believe it. Um, which is cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's always neat um. I'm gonna quote again from that article.
Speaker 1: We might expect official narratives to strive for monologic uniformity,
Speaker 1: but the results of my research demonstrate that official discourse
Speaker 1: on Lukashenko's birth and life as a whole is an
Speaker 1: incoherent mess of of official representation, altered narratives, literary productions,
Speaker 1: and quotations ascribed to the president. That the president's own
Speaker 1: words are often contested provides a good example of how
Speaker 1: fragile his biography is and how easily it can be
Speaker 1: challenged by vernacular alternatives. Um, which is something we'll talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit later. The idea that um, a
Speaker 1: bunch of people have kind of made up their own
Speaker 1: opponents of Lucas Shanko get to also make up their
Speaker 1: own backgrounds for the guy, because everyone knows that everything
Speaker 1: you say about him is just sort of a liarar propaganda,
Speaker 1: like just like a choose your own backstory book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for the president if you want this backstory turned to
Speaker 1: page x x X. Yeah, but this backstory turned to
Speaker 1: page xx y. It's cool. So the alternative backstories for
Speaker 1: Lukashenko that his um his opponents com up with are
Speaker 1: often based on like racism, which is unfortunately yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Many in the Belarusian opposition are convinced that Lukashenko's father
Speaker 1: was a German soldier, which is the non racist option
Speaker 1: where they're like, he's so shitty, his dad must have
Speaker 1: been a Nazi. Um. Others contend that his father was
Speaker 1: secretly a Jewish Man, which is not a rumor I
Speaker 1: like as much. Uh. And he's also regularly accused of
Speaker 1: hiding his Roma ancestry um, although they are not polite
Speaker 1: enough to use the correct name. Uh and and go
Speaker 1: with calling him a gypsy. That's like a common slur
Speaker 1: against Lukashenko. Interesting. Um. Yeah, So I did want to
Speaker 1: get a clear idea of what the modern state propaganda
Speaker 1: about Lukashenko's background sounded like. I wanted to know, like,
Speaker 1: what is what is the actual government right about this guy?
Speaker 1: And I found a book called with a very fun
Speaker 1: title Belarus Country Study Guide. Uh. That certainly seems to
Speaker 1: be government propaganda. It's published by a US based publishing house,
Speaker 1: but the inside jacket notes that the information inside was
Speaker 1: provided by the Belarusian government. Um. And yeah, you can
Speaker 1: kind of tell by reading it that it was just
Speaker 1: published by the dictatorship propaganda arm and and not edited
Speaker 1: at all. The government propaganda version of his life, or
Speaker 1: at least this one that I found, because again they
Speaker 1: throw out a bunch of different versions, just states that
Speaker 1: he quote grew up and reared without a father. Um.
Speaker 1: Not not perfect grammar in this translation here they put
Speaker 1: this put a considerable amount of responsibility for his family's
Speaker 1: care on his shoulders. Quote. This is why it is
Speaker 1: logical that as early as in childhood such qualities as perseverance,
Speaker 1: back to work, sensibility to truth and verity as the
Speaker 1: main basis of the human soul, were being revealed. He
Speaker 1: was interestingly taking part in the social life of the
Speaker 1: collectives in which he studied or worked. The whole thing
Speaker 1: kind of reads like that, it's it's mostly incomprehensible, um,
Speaker 1: but it does have I don't know, a couple of
Speaker 1: of of attempts at facts in there. It notes that
Speaker 1: he served and served in the Soviet Army from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy to nine two. Uh. It notes that he became
Speaker 1: an officer in the Communist Party and eventually found himself
Speaker 1: managing collective farms. Uh. Notes that he rose in prominent
Speaker 1: did like a d I Y bio for himself. Um No,
Speaker 1: it's like, uh yeah, kind of like at least oversaw it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that there's like at different points in his rule,
Speaker 1: he's kind of let the people putting out state propaganda
Speaker 1: know that he wants them to write different biographies for him,
Speaker 1: to emphasize different things. So it's like when you have
Speaker 1: a friend who acts different around different friend groups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but instead of that, it's like a friend who acts
Speaker 1: different around different crowds of angry Belarusians in order to um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, keep everybody happy or to maintain power
Speaker 1: in a Yeah, in a very weird, it's cool, very
Speaker 1: strange quality. Yeah, it is. It is, And and Lukashenko
Speaker 1: is interesting just because like we actually know so little
Speaker 1: about the guy as a person, um, which is different.
Speaker 1: Like I much prefer it when we have a really
Speaker 1: detailed back story about one of these individuals. But we
Speaker 1: we just kind of have really the history of the
Speaker 1: different lies that his regime has told about him. Um So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate. Um So. He rose in prominence within the
Speaker 1: Communist Party throughout the late nineteen eighties, and he developed
Speaker 1: a reputation as a firebrand, like he was an anti
Speaker 1: corruption crusader within the Soviet Union for a period of time. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he received repeated reprimands from the party because he
Speaker 1: could not keep silent. Um. Yeah. And thankfully for him,
Speaker 1: you know, by the time he was getting in trouble
Speaker 1: for talking out against basically trying to drain in the
Speaker 1: swamp within the USSR, things had opened up culturally there
Speaker 1: enough that he didn't get disappeared or in trouble for it.
Speaker 1: And in fact, he was elected to the Belarusian Parliament
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety as a People's Deputy on a platform
Speaker 1: of fighting corruption. Lukashenko straddled an interesting line of criticizing
Speaker 1: the Soviet government that had managed things for decades while
Speaker 1: also opposing any breakup of the USSR. He was the
Speaker 1: only deputy of the Belarusian Parliament to vote against the
Speaker 1: nineteen dissolution of the Soviet Union, which is something he
Speaker 1: brags about today because like a lot of folks in
Speaker 1: that part of the world miss the Soviet Union. Some
Speaker 1: older folks are pri nostalgic for him. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: can be like, I was the one guy who knew
Speaker 1: that it was a bad idea. Yeah, it is a
Speaker 1: cool flex Yeah. But at the same time, like he
Speaker 1: actually got to power by repeatedly criticizing the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and pointing out how like fucked up and corrupt the
Speaker 1: government was, which is interesting. He's a fake, he's playing
Speaker 1: both sides. He's playing both sides. He's doing what you
Speaker 1: gotta do as a politician. It's like, how you gotta Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's pulling a job Biden, Yeah, yeah, or Biden's pulling up.
Speaker 1: So as the USSR fell apart, Western interests rushed in
Speaker 1: to help their former enemy transition to the world of democracy,
Speaker 1: and in practice this meant something for most like Soviet
Speaker 1: satellite states, something called shock therapy um, which was this
Speaker 1: kind of like theory among capitalists that like, as these
Speaker 1: nations sort of opened up, the best thing to do
Speaker 1: was immediately privatized every single thing in the country, um,
Speaker 1: and that that would work. That like shocking people into
Speaker 1: full on capitalism um would be a good idea for
Speaker 1: reasons that were unclear and probably based around the fact
Speaker 1: that it was extremely profitable for capitalists. UM. Shock therapy
Speaker 1: was not a wild success. It caused widespread economic and
Speaker 1: social turmoil uh and is generally seen as having been
Speaker 1: a disaster in most places it was tried, which is
Speaker 1: why you have all those old people who are kind
Speaker 1: of nostalgic because they got their lives kind of ruined
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties. Yeah, it was nice when like
Speaker 1: soulless business people didn't own our power plants. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they were instead like property that was held in common.
Speaker 1: Is kind of the way a lot of people feel. Uh. Now.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety is the year Belarus held its referendum on
Speaker 1: membership in the Soviet Union. People overwhelmingly wanted to stay,
Speaker 1: but the Belarusian Popular Front had also grown into a
Speaker 1: significant pop political force at that point. These are the
Speaker 1: guys who were like nationalists they want Belarus to be
Speaker 1: its own separate country. Um. And they're also democrats, so
Speaker 1: like they want a democracy and they want Belarus to
Speaker 1: be an independent nation. Um. And under their charismatic spokesman
Speaker 1: a fellow named Pasniak. The BPF started at agitating for
Speaker 1: Belarusian national ambitions for the first time in a generation,
Speaker 1: and that year's elections to the Supreme Soviet the BPF
Speaker 1: one of the seats, and this probably would have satisfied
Speaker 1: most of the desire for change in Belarus at this point,
Speaker 1: but happenings elsewhere in the USS are forced people's hands
Speaker 1: in the direction of national sovereignty. In August of nineteen one,
Speaker 1: there was a coup attempt in Moscow. It didn't work,
Speaker 1: but it led to Yeah, I mean, wait, are you
Speaker 1: pro coup or anti cusa? I was pro coup, you're
Speaker 1: pro coup, You're you're you're in favor of this coup
Speaker 1: in Moscow. It's a strong stance in favor of Soviet
Speaker 1: hardliners by hardcore communist Sofia excited over the word coup. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I always support a coup. It's always an
Speaker 1: exciting word. We we we recently went through a coup
Speaker 1: with a riot rib restaurant. That there's a rib restaurant
Speaker 1: in Portland that had an armed coup. Reason. I actually
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy that one. It was not fun. It was
Speaker 1: seemed like a big, massive, yeah, and much like the
Speaker 1: rib restaurant that briefly existed in downtown Portland. The Soviet
Speaker 1: Union did not survive it's armed coup, or this attempted
Speaker 1: an armed coup um so it The coup failed, and
Speaker 1: it led to declarations of independence by all of the
Speaker 1: Soviets that bordered Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine. By this point,
Speaker 1: the writing was on the wallah, so every it's kind
Speaker 1: of most people in Belarus don't seem to really want
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union to go away, but also just because
Speaker 1: of how fucked up everything gets and how badly it's
Speaker 1: handled in Moscow, all of these other states in the
Speaker 1: Soviet Unions start declaring their own independence, and the writings
Speaker 1: kind of on the walls. Yeah, it's like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's gonna come down, so we might as well like
Speaker 1: get ahead start on being Belarus. So Belarus declares its
Speaker 1: own independence on August twenty five, nineteen one. Um. The
Speaker 1: sudden end of the Soviet Union ment opportunity for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Liberals, including members of the BPF, saw
Speaker 1: it as their chance to turn the country into a
Speaker 1: democracy along Western lines. There was a great deal of
Speaker 1: resistance to this, though, and for a while the country's
Speaker 1: old style Soviet organization remained mostly unchanged. By Nur, conservatives
Speaker 1: have been pushed into creating a new position at the
Speaker 1: head of Belarusian political life, the presidency. So everybody expected
Speaker 1: that the Prime Minister, a guy named Ki, would slide
Speaker 1: seamlessly from one head of state position to another, and
Speaker 1: that he would just kind of go from being the
Speaker 1: prime minister to the president now that they had a president.
Speaker 1: But then from out of nowhere came Lukashenko. He ran
Speaker 1: a lightning campaign based around fighting corruption in the ossified
Speaker 1: old regime. And again, the guy's a pig farmer at
Speaker 1: this point. Um, but he's a deputy and he kind
Speaker 1: of like um, proves himself to be a really successful
Speaker 1: rabble rouser. His campaign slogan was, I'm neither with the
Speaker 1: leftists nor the rightists, but with the people against those
Speaker 1: who rob and deceive them. He's he's just like a PA.
Speaker 1: He's an effective politician. He's a very effect and he's
Speaker 1: he's doing a drain the swamp sort of thing. Um
Speaker 1: he does one of the things that he's he's kind
Speaker 1: of focused on that that is probably a good idea
Speaker 1: in the long run is he he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: privatize Belarus's UM like state assets. Um. He wants to
Speaker 1: keep the economy pretty much the same way it was
Speaker 1: under the Soviet Union. And this is really the only um,
Speaker 1: the only Soviet satellite state in Europe where this happens
Speaker 1: in UM. So, Yeah, Lukashenko want a democratic elect with
Speaker 1: about eight percent of the vote. And this is probably
Speaker 1: like an actual election, and it's like it's not a
Speaker 1: fake election like the one that just happened. No, it
Speaker 1: seems like if I haven't heard any real arguments that
Speaker 1: he that this was a fake election, and he kind
Speaker 1: of came out of nowhere. He didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of institutional support when he won the presidency. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's he's kind of a weird guy to have
Speaker 1: as your first president because for one thing, he didn't
Speaker 1: really think there should be presidents. Um. He was not
Speaker 1: a fan of democracy. Uh. He supported immediate reunification with Russia.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't really a big supporter of Belarus being
Speaker 1: an interest nation at the start. UM. And yeah, mostly
Speaker 1: he mostly the reason that people voted for him was
Speaker 1: his anti corruption stances, right like his other his other
Speaker 1: the the other things that he like sort of focused
Speaker 1: on weren't as popular, UM find interesting, just like reconciling
Speaker 1: that with what he is now. Yeah, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's odd. He changes a lot. He keeps writing his worries,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he gets to do that because he's
Speaker 1: the guy who controls the state security forces. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, like that it makes sense that he's so
Speaker 1: wishy washy flip floppy out of character. I think he
Speaker 1: just has like a really bad identity crisis. Maybe just
Speaker 1: doesn't know who he is. Maybe he just needs to
Speaker 1: like go to therapy and like find himself thoughts. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he should take some molly and maybe, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he was told he was born at
Speaker 1: a time and was following somebody else following a different
Speaker 1: star sign when he should have been following another. We
Speaker 1: don't know. Oh, it's an astrology problem that you're saying.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that might might must be wrong people,
Speaker 1: because he doesn't know what his birthday is. What he
Speaker 1: could do is he could he could sign up for
Speaker 1: better help. Yeah, you're a better help online. That's something
Speaker 1: that he could do. If you want to stop becoming
Speaker 1: the dictator of Belarus. The only op is better Help
Speaker 1: online counseling. A hundred percent of people who don't use
Speaker 1: online counseling become the dictator of Eastern Bloc nations. It's
Speaker 1: guaranteed to prevent you from becoming a dictator to exactly,
Speaker 1: it's the only promise they make it Better Help is
Speaker 1: that you will not become Alexander Lukashenko if you use
Speaker 1: better Help. I mean it is actually time for an
Speaker 1: ad break though, Robert, I know that's why I did that. Well,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. You might as well roll
Speaker 1: into ads hopefully. I'm telling you Garrison is higher products.
Speaker 1: Ye beat me? Did it? Bit my job? Now? All right,
Speaker 1: we're back reize. So you've meant towards somebody who's younger
Speaker 1: than you and knows how to do more things, and
Speaker 1: it's slowly taking over your role, and he's sitting right
Speaker 1: next to you, and you don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: You know, it's terrible because he hasn't ruined his brain
Speaker 1: with drugs yet. It's very funny. He hasn't ruined his
Speaker 1: brain with a series of horrible decisions and has and
Speaker 1: he has flu fier hair, than you. It's just so fun.
Speaker 1: I know he's gonna coop me out of my show.
Speaker 1: I know. I'm telling you, I'm watching it. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm talking from machetes. God damn it. This is just
Speaker 1: knives at my bed and we and we slowly realize
Speaker 1: that your cat likes him more than you. It's just happening.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to hire riot police to protect
Speaker 1: my my podcast. And then I've always from a teenager. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: just which is what the riot police are doing right now,
Speaker 1: That's what that's what they're doing. So you could just
Speaker 1: use the same guys. And I always choose you. We
Speaker 1: will always choose you. I'm skeptical always, We'll see always
Speaker 1: and forever. Back to actual dictators. Back to Lukashenko. So
Speaker 1: he gets elected, this guy who doesn't really want to
Speaker 1: be president um and who wants to basically go back
Speaker 1: to being the Soviet Union, and who is like the
Speaker 1: only thing that he's really popular for wanting is fighting
Speaker 1: against corruption like that. This is the guy who becomes
Speaker 1: the president of Bellas and his presidency is kind of
Speaker 1: conflicted from the beginning. And I'm gonna quote now from
Speaker 1: a study on the country that was written by an
Speaker 1: academic named Helen fedor uh Quote. Lukashenka's presidency was one
Speaker 1: of contradictions from the start. His cabinet was composed of young,
Speaker 1: talented newcomers as well as veterans who had not fully
Speaker 1: supported the previous prime minister. As a reward to the
Speaker 1: parliament for confirming his appointees, Lukashenko supported the move to
Speaker 1: postpone the parliamentary elections until May. Lukashenko's government was also
Speaker 1: plagued by corrupt members. Lukashenko fired the Minister of Defense,
Speaker 1: the Armed Forces chief of Staff, the head of the
Speaker 1: Border Guards, and the Minister of Forestry. Following resignations among
Speaker 1: reformists in Lukashenko's cabinet, Parliamentary Deputy Deputy cr Hey Anton Chick, Sorry,
Speaker 1: good Russians read a report in parliament on December about
Speaker 1: coruption in the administration, and this is Lukashenko's administration, so
Speaker 1: he kind of like immediately puts new people in place
Speaker 1: and their wind up being corrupted ship too. Although Lukashenko
Speaker 1: refused to accept the resignations that followed, the government attempted
Speaker 1: to censure the report. Feeling the oppositions criticism of Lukashenko
Speaker 1: Lukashenko went to Russia in August nine and his first
Speaker 1: official visit abroad at head of the state. There, he
Speaker 1: came to realize that Russia would not make any unusual
Speaker 1: efforts to accommodate Belarus, especially its economic needs. Nevertheless, Lukashenko
Speaker 1: kept trying, and in February nine, Belarus signed the Treaty
Speaker 1: on Friendship and Cooperation with Russia, making many concessions to Russia,
Speaker 1: such as allowing the stationing of Russian troops in Belarus
Speaker 1: and hopes that Russia would return the favor by charging
Speaker 1: Belarus lower prices for fuels. However, because the treaty included
Speaker 1: no such provision, there was little hope of realizing this objective.
Speaker 1: So he's not great at this at first um and
Speaker 1: his main plan for being the president seems to be
Speaker 1: be like, become a Russian satellite state, so they'll sell
Speaker 1: you cheap oil, um, which is I don't know, not
Speaker 1: a great plan, but I've never been in charge of
Speaker 1: Belarus what do I know? So right off the bat,
Speaker 1: Lukashenko had issues with Parliament, mainly over the fact that
Speaker 1: he didn't think it should exist or be able to
Speaker 1: tell him what to do, which is a problem to have. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was convinced that as president he had the right
Speaker 1: to dissolve parliament in any moment, although no one else
Speaker 1: was really sure they had this right. He was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I could do this, um. And there
Speaker 1: were there were disagreements, including by the parliamentarians who did
Speaker 1: not think that he could do this. So eventually the
Speaker 1: Parliament of Belarus starts carrying out a hunger strike against
Speaker 1: the president UM and the protest ends when all of
Speaker 1: the striking deputies were evicted from the Parliament house in
Speaker 1: the dead of night by police who claimed that an
Speaker 1: alleged bomb had been hidden somewhere in the building. So
Speaker 1: they all get forced out of the Parliament building and
Speaker 1: they head over to the National TV and Radio building
Speaker 1: to make a statement, and they find that those buildings
Speaker 1: have also been closed up. The police stud to an
Speaker 1: alleged bomb. You don't think there were real bombs in
Speaker 1: those places? Well, yeah, this could have been something. So
Speaker 1: after all this, Parliament gave into Lukashenko on a number
Speaker 1: of his demands because thanks to Belarus's complete lack of
Speaker 1: a free press, he'd made it impossible for them to
Speaker 1: publicize their strike. There were the bombs. What else can
Speaker 1: you do? There were bombs and now we don't have
Speaker 1: a parliament. It's not no more. It's the problems happening
Speaker 1: in Europe. It does you know you know who else
Speaker 1: doesn't have a Senate right now? Us because September. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish they're no. Not gonna make that claim on
Speaker 1: don't need to have another conversation with anyway, um the parliament.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote again from Helen Federer's right up quote.
Speaker 1: The parliamentary elections held in May of nine were less
Speaker 1: than successful or democratic. The restrictions placed on the mass
Speaker 1: media and on the candidate's expenditures during the campaign led
Speaker 1: to a shortage of information about the candidates and almost
Speaker 1: no political debate before the elections. In several cases, no
Speaker 1: one candidate received the necessary majority of the votes in
Speaker 1: the May fourteenth elections, prompting another round on The main
Speaker 1: problem in the second round was the lack of voter turnout.
Speaker 1: After the second round, Parliament was in limbo because it
Speaker 1: had only a hundred and twenty elected deputies, still short
Speaker 1: of the hundred and seventy four members necessary to seat
Speaker 1: a new ledge aislature. After another round, another round of
Speaker 1: elections was discussed probably near the end of the year,
Speaker 1: but the government claimed to have no money to finance them.
Speaker 1: So basically he forces the old parliament out, which forces
Speaker 1: a new set of elections, but he also makes it
Speaker 1: impossible for anyone to report on this and makes it
Speaker 1: impossible for any of the campaigns to be funded, so
Speaker 1: that nobody can actually have an election or vote or
Speaker 1: know that they even need to vote. Um. And he
Speaker 1: kind of just does away with a parliament that can
Speaker 1: do anything against him in this in this manner, which
Speaker 1: is like a real anti corruption president. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how you get rid of the corruption. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure all of those guys were corrupt, probably probably, but
Speaker 1: there's another god of one corruptions for another, that's right, um,
Speaker 1: thus solving the problem forever. So they not to make
Speaker 1: a not all that long story short, Lukashenko emerged from
Speaker 1: his fight with parliament as basically a dictator, so in
Speaker 1: the space of his first year or two in power,
Speaker 1: he kind of does away with any of the restrictions
Speaker 1: against him. Political analyst Valerie Karbalovitch, author of an opposition
Speaker 1: biography of Lukashenko, cites two factors his explanations for why
Speaker 1: Belarus went straight to a strongman dictator after the fall
Speaker 1: of the USSR and just kind of, you know, they
Speaker 1: had a democracy for like a minute there, and they
Speaker 1: just kind of gave it up as soon as the
Speaker 1: first guy came along, who was like, but what if
Speaker 1: we said fuck that? Um? And her explanation is quote,
Speaker 1: Lukashenko was hungry for power and rejected having his powers
Speaker 1: curtailed and Belarusian society. Society yearned for a sense of
Speaker 1: of Soviet stability. So in nineteen Lukashenko decided to change
Speaker 1: the constitution on his own and allow himself to fire
Speaker 1: Parliament whenever he wanted, which really made the situation a
Speaker 1: lot easier for him. He got rid of all the
Speaker 1: deputies who had provided even mild resistance to his whims,
Speaker 1: and he replaced them with a parade of yesmen. Since then,
Speaker 1: he has not dealt with any serious challenges his to
Speaker 1: his rule from within the political establishment. In nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: Lukashenko established the Union State of Belarus and Russia with
Speaker 1: Boris Yeltson. This was never a real organization, but it's
Speaker 1: like it's like a fake EU for Russia and Belarus
Speaker 1: that they tried to get a couple of other countries
Speaker 1: on board with There was an idea that like they
Speaker 1: might Russia might seed its sovereignty to this so that
Speaker 1: Putin could be president passed his third term. But then
Speaker 1: they just wound up doing that anyway. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like this kind of fake political organization that
Speaker 1: existed to kind of tie Belarus to Russia, and the
Speaker 1: fact that it existed gave them sort of like political
Speaker 1: cover for some of the things that like Russia wanted
Speaker 1: to do. And in exchange for agreeing to this, uh
Speaker 1: Lukashenko got the ability to achieve what would go on
Speaker 1: to be the only real success of his reign, which
Speaker 1: was like slow, steady economic growth and reliable payment of
Speaker 1: state wages. UM. On paper, Belarus was a quasi Marxist state.
Speaker 1: About eight percent of the economy is a troll controlled
Speaker 1: by the states. Some people say sixty. It's somewhere in
Speaker 1: that ballpark. UM. Belarus remains the only former Soviet state
Speaker 1: where all farms are still collectivized. And while many Soviet
Speaker 1: former Soviet republics have gone on to have tumultuous economies,
Speaker 1: you know that of outright collapsed like Albania, and like Russia,
Speaker 1: Belarus has, on the surface, like kept a relatively steady
Speaker 1: course um and this has basically all been due to
Speaker 1: Russian economic support. Belarus has survived by buying heavily subsidized
Speaker 1: Russian crude oil, refining it, and then selling it to
Speaker 1: the rest of Europe at a profit. This is kind
Speaker 1: of like what funds everything in bell or what did
Speaker 1: fund everything in belarust And An economy based on cheap
Speaker 1: Russian gas allowed Lukashenko to mostly ignore Western complaints about
Speaker 1: the human rights abuses within his country. Um. There were
Speaker 1: many of these. He disappeared at least two of his
Speaker 1: cabinet colleagues after they got too popular, and at least
Speaker 1: four of his political opponents. Opponents like people running against
Speaker 1: him in elections have just sort of been are no
Speaker 1: longer there, whereabouts are no longer known. Um Now. Lukashenko
Speaker 1: has felt the need, over the last twenty six years
Speaker 1: of his rule to provide the occasional illusion of democracy
Speaker 1: and choice to people Opposite Asian parties are generally allowed,
Speaker 1: but then they tend to be either heavily compromised by
Speaker 1: the get go, or they're very quickly banned and their
Speaker 1: leaders are arrested, and in fact, it does kind of
Speaker 1: seem like the only reason there are opposition parties in
Speaker 1: Belarus is so that he can arrest the leaders of
Speaker 1: those parties after the elections and throw them in dark holes. Um,
Speaker 1: which is you know, one way to do it. Uh.
Speaker 1: During the two six elections, Lukashenko warned that any Belarusians
Speaker 1: who attended protests opposing his reign would have their next
Speaker 1: run rung as one might have duck. Um. Yeah great, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's nice. Um. And despite this, he consistently denies being
Speaker 1: a dictator, stating at one point that my position in
Speaker 1: the state will never allow me to become a dictator,
Speaker 1: but an authoritarian ruling style is characteristic of me. So
Speaker 1: like that's the that's his argument, and he's he's an
Speaker 1: authoritarian and that's like no, no, no, no no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dictator. I'm an authoritarian. Yeah, very very different,
Speaker 1: very different. It's like, um, it's like claiming you're a
Speaker 1: civil libertarian as opposed to uh, I don't know, a Nazi. Um. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: Belarus's international political alignment has remained broadly Russia focused for
Speaker 1: most of Lukashenko's reign, he made a point particularly early on,
Speaker 1: of thumbing his nose at Western powers. In nine, he
Speaker 1: bought a house in an upscale gated community in mink Minsk,
Speaker 1: which was shared by twenty five ambassadors, including the British
Speaker 1: and American envoys. And it was like nicer than most
Speaker 1: housing developments and in Belarus tended to be. I'm surprised. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Lukashenko decided he liked it and he wanted it all
Speaker 1: to be, including all of the other people's houses who
Speaker 1: lived there. So the British and American envoys refused to leave,
Speaker 1: and so Lukashenko ordered water, electricity and gas cut off
Speaker 1: to their homes. When they still refused to leave, he
Speaker 1: changed the locks on the front gate so they could
Speaker 1: no longer get back inside. Um, and eventually he got
Speaker 1: his nice compound. There you go. That's how you do it,
Speaker 1: and that's how you do it. That's how I procured
Speaker 1: all my housing. Yeah, just change the locks, turn off
Speaker 1: all the water and gas and change the locks. Then
Speaker 1: people stop coming to exactly, and then it's yours. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a good way to deal with the fact
Speaker 1: that nobody in your generation can afford rent. So eventually
Speaker 1: the U S and England withdrew their ambassadors in protest.
Speaker 1: Lukashenko ignored this because he didn't give a fuck. But
Speaker 1: his antipathy to the West has not been consistent in
Speaker 1: recent years, nor his alignment in Russia. After the two
Speaker 1: thousand six elections, the U S and the EU threw
Speaker 1: a bunch of sanctions out at Belarus because you know,
Speaker 1: because people protestion, yeah, and he beat them up, uh,
Speaker 1: And then Russia invaded Georgia and around the same time,
Speaker 1: um like, basically two dozen six, Lukashenko has some sham
Speaker 1: elections and he beats the ship out of people who protest,
Speaker 1: and the EU and the US put sanctions on him.
Speaker 1: But then Russia invades Georgia at around the same time,
Speaker 1: and he like is vaguely critical of Russia. Um. And
Speaker 1: that makes the EU and the US happens better, but
Speaker 1: it makes Russia angry, so they double the price of
Speaker 1: the gas they're selling Belarus. Well, you can't, you can't
Speaker 1: win it at all. No, no, And it's like he's
Speaker 1: kind of just been dancing between NATO, UH and Russia
Speaker 1: for most of the last ten years in particular, which
Speaker 1: is is like interesting. You'll see a lot of people
Speaker 1: will claim that, like, like there's a lot of suspicion
Speaker 1: that you know, he was gonna when the protests started
Speaker 1: getting out of hand, he was going to call on
Speaker 1: Russia to defend his sovereignty. Um, but Russia hasn't been
Speaker 1: super positive towards Lukashenko lately. Um, and the Belarusian government
Speaker 1: actually arrested like a bunch of Russian mercenaries at the
Speaker 1: whole start of things. So it's like it's a pretty
Speaker 1: complicated situation because like you also have people who will
Speaker 1: be like, oh, this uprising in Belarus is just like
Speaker 1: orchestrated by NATO to try to remove another you know,
Speaker 1: a good old fashioned socialist leader from Europe. And it's like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: there have been periods where like NATO was kind of
Speaker 1: okay with Lukashenko, and it's it's it's much more complicated
Speaker 1: than all that. Yeah, it doesn't seem super straightforward. No. Um,
Speaker 1: he's basically like he's he's kind of like, um, he's
Speaker 1: kind of a cock tease like that. That's Lukashenko within
Speaker 1: the context of European politics. Is like he'll flirt with
Speaker 1: Russia a little bit and then he'll run over to
Speaker 1: the US to make Russia jealous and then like that's
Speaker 1: just kind of happening. Yeah, yeah, gone with the sheep,
Speaker 1: Russian un filtered gas. I don't know, um, so yeah.
Speaker 1: This dance has continued regularly for the last like fifteen years.
Speaker 1: And you might look at Lukashenko's position in the New
Speaker 1: Cold War era as similar to positions taken by like
Speaker 1: a bunch of African and Middle Eastern nations during the
Speaker 1: Old Cold War, where they would kind of try to
Speaker 1: play both sides. Um. The Bush administration gave Lukashenko his
Speaker 1: last dictator in Europe nickname in two thousand five, but
Speaker 1: after two thousands six, Western powers were a lot more
Speaker 1: careful about how they referred to him UM, and Lukashenko
Speaker 1: through them Ramy to releasing his nation's most prominent political prisoner,
Speaker 1: Alexander Calzlan from prison after his two thousand and six
Speaker 1: conviction for hooliganism for leading a demonstration that protested against
Speaker 1: the Riggdpole Hoo. Luganism is how most a Larusian political
Speaker 1: opposition leaders wind up getting charged with this, just like
Speaker 1: we have felony mischief exactly, felony mischief. Don't call it
Speaker 1: that guy like at least make it sound like a
Speaker 1: serious crime as h and again he was still like
Speaker 1: the guy that he was, so as he releases this
Speaker 1: prominent political prisoner to make the West happier. He also
Speaker 1: detained twenty independent journalists after a series of cartoons making
Speaker 1: fun of him showed up on the internet. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know, you know, he he's he's continued
Speaker 1: to be the guy that he is now the clearest
Speaker 1: shortcut to guaranteeing a government response. Uh, In terms of
Speaker 1: like being an activist, like because he was, it's always
Speaker 1: been kind of weird, like what the state would respond to.
Speaker 1: As a rule, Belarus would allow protests, um, but would
Speaker 1: always punish the people who organized them. Um. But he
Speaker 1: for years actually got a lot of political mileage out
Speaker 1: of attacking the United States and the UK for tear
Speaker 1: gassing crowds because you're like, we don't have to do
Speaker 1: that in Belarus because we just torture and murder the
Speaker 1: people who organized the protests. How things have changed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they also he also tear gas Yeah, absolutely sure.
Speaker 1: If there's no media that doesn't have to get out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there were a number of other kind of
Speaker 1: weird rules that the media had to abide by in Belarus.
Speaker 1: Television stations in Belarus have been ordered, on pain of
Speaker 1: arrest and presumably torture, to never film him from behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this started because he went bald in the mid
Speaker 1: ots and he didn't want his bald spot to be visible. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't. I think he's bald enough now he's a
Speaker 1: comb over. So I don't know that that rule is
Speaker 1: still in place because it's very obvious. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he would imprison you for showing that he was bald
Speaker 1: for a while. Uh. And it's probably fair to say that,
Speaker 1: Like if you're gonna, if you're gonna, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: like rank dictatorships, um, Belarus is pretty low in terms
Speaker 1: of like if you're gonna, if you're gonna make a
Speaker 1: list of like which dictator ships have been the worst
Speaker 1: to live under? Um, I guess it's one of the
Speaker 1: better ones. Like the level of oppression, you wouldn't really
Speaker 1: compare it to like North Korea, um, so to speak,
Speaker 1: or to Syria. UM. Like in Syria they have their
Speaker 1: secret prisons where they torture people and they killed tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of people in those prisons, and Belarus they
Speaker 1: kill a handful, and they they do eventually let most
Speaker 1: people go. Um, so, you know, not great, but I
Speaker 1: guess it could be. I don't know. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say that either about a horrible dictatorship. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's just that's where they that's where
Speaker 1: they land on the worldwide things like you get information
Speaker 1: out of Belarus. People are able to report on things,
Speaker 1: but you also never know if reporting on something happening
Speaker 1: in Belarus is going to get you beaten and tortured
Speaker 1: by state authorities. But it might not. It could not, Yes,
Speaker 1: it could not. I love the uncertainty of if I'm
Speaker 1: going to get abused by the state for doing journalism.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it a good place. Favorite part of journalism.
Speaker 1: Yeah so uh yeah. And again for most of this period,
Speaker 1: like Lukashenko, there there would be kind of regular frustration
Speaker 1: with aspects of state repression, but most of the country
Speaker 1: was kind of on board with things just because like
Speaker 1: things were pretty stable. There was like slow, steady economic growth. Um.
Speaker 1: Belarus kept enough of the old Soviet era institutions around
Speaker 1: to ensure that social inequality remained very low. Belarus has
Speaker 1: one of the lowest levels of social inequality of any
Speaker 1: place in the world. Um, so you didn't see a
Speaker 1: lot of like regular people on the street. Nobody had
Speaker 1: nobody was really rich, Like they wouldn't have known anybody
Speaker 1: who had like a lot. But also like you didn't
Speaker 1: know anybody who was dirt poor for most of the
Speaker 1: history of Lukashenko's reign. Um like people people there wasn't
Speaker 1: like it wasn't like, um, you wouldn't see homeless people
Speaker 1: on the street or whatever, right, um, And so people
Speaker 1: were like, well, at least things are stable and we
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about like all of these because
Speaker 1: like you look over at Albania and a bunch of
Speaker 1: other places that like experimented with capaalism suddenly in the
Speaker 1: nineties and they wound up like people lost everything and
Speaker 1: wound up on the street, and like that didn't really
Speaker 1: happen in Belarus. Um. So that made that helped him
Speaker 1: like maintain popularity, and they were still kind of quasi
Speaker 1: Marxists for a little bit. Yeah, aspects of it, Like
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where people actual Marxists and
Speaker 1: stuff will point out like a bunch of ways in
Speaker 1: which that actually is not the case, and really people
Speaker 1: people pointing out differences between Marxism. Really, I'm shocked, but yeah,
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, life in Belarus continued on from under under
Speaker 1: Lukashenko pretty similarly to how it had been under the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and that is, in the in the good ways,
Speaker 1: and that like people continued to be able to benefit
Speaker 1: from sort of some of these state institutions that got
Speaker 1: taken away in other parts of Eastern Europe and in
Speaker 1: the bad ways, and that like, there was still massive
Speaker 1: political repression and no real free no real like freedom
Speaker 1: to to you know, pick your own political leaders or whatever.
Speaker 1: Early on in his reign, Luke Shenko earned the nickname Vodka,
Speaker 1: which means father, and that's broadly how he's attempted to
Speaker 1: portray himself ever since it's like the father of the
Speaker 1: Belarusian people, um. And this kind of differs a lot
Speaker 1: from dictators like Kadafi, Turkmenbashi or the Kims, because he
Speaker 1: never portrayed himself as a superhuman figure um like. He
Speaker 1: he preferred to kind of the image. He seemed to
Speaker 1: prefer himself as, like as a farmer. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of propaganda about how Lukashenko, you know, as opposed
Speaker 1: to like the which you hope from like the Kims
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, they built a rocket ship, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever, they invented the game of golf. With Lukashenko,
Speaker 1: the stories that they tell about him and were like
Speaker 1: he went to a collective farm and saw that cows
Speaker 1: were being abused and so he fired his minister of
Speaker 1: agriculture to like make sure that cows are taken care of.
Speaker 1: Now in BELARUSI he's like the father farmer. That's kind
Speaker 1: of that's the image he tries to put out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of like yeah, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: farming dad is the is the way Lukashenko wants to
Speaker 1: be known. And it's like worth like when Steven Seagal visited,
Speaker 1: like they went and hung out at a farm and
Speaker 1: Sago all had to eat gigantic carrots that Lukashenko pulled
Speaker 1: out of the earth. It's a weird video very often.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's probably accurate to say that Lukashenko never
Speaker 1: really had a cult of personality like most dictators we
Speaker 1: talk about. Um, it's just not something he really went for.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote now from an article in Politico
Speaker 1: about this. It cites an expert on Belarus named Lushenko quote,
Speaker 1: on the face of it, that's a weakness, but Lashenko
Speaker 1: argues it differently. Ideology, she writes, is one of the
Speaker 1: most successful undertakings by the Belarusian leader, Unlike traditional Soviet ideology,
Speaker 1: though it does not consist of truths, but attitudes, principally
Speaker 1: feelings of security and pride. Belarusians are constantly reminded by
Speaker 1: the state propaganda machine that the outside world is dangerous,
Speaker 1: whereas life in Belarus is enviably calm and well protected.
Speaker 1: Wages and social payments are on time, there is no terrorism,
Speaker 1: no political upheavals as in Ukraine or Georgia. The constant
Speaker 1: struggle by authorities against external and internal enemies is not
Speaker 1: just successful but grounds for pride. Belarus, Or argues Lukashenko
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, has been endowed with the great
Speaker 1: mission of being the spiritual leader of Eastern European civilization.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting to me because you've got this country
Speaker 1: where there's a strong history of like half of the
Speaker 1: nation dying in horrible violence, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: Lukashenko's kind of argument for why he should stay in
Speaker 1: power has been like nothing happens we haven't had a
Speaker 1: massive genocide in our country. Yeah, like yeah, leader, yeah
Speaker 1: here since we were all killed or whatever. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: which is you know, I guess one thing. So yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: no real cult of personality for Lukashenko, but he has
Speaker 1: had some songs written about him, and his favorite is
Speaker 1: a ditty called Master in the House. Uh and it
Speaker 1: includes I don't I don't know that how to sing
Speaker 1: this to a tune? Um? But here's here's the English
Speaker 1: translation of kind of the most relevant chunk of the song.
Speaker 1: He is a hard nut to crack. He wouldn't teach
Speaker 1: you anything wrong. He can call everybody to order. He
Speaker 1: is really cool. He can easily redress all grievances. He
Speaker 1: is reliable and calm. That is that. That is a
Speaker 1: good ditty. That's a good ditty. Yeah. I I love
Speaker 1: it when people can easily redress all grievances. Um. But
Speaker 1: like also you see that, like he's kind of a
Speaker 1: boring dictator, and it seems like it seems kind of
Speaker 1: the only way he's gotten some support. Just he's just
Speaker 1: kind of boring. Yeah. Yeah, that's like what people like
Speaker 1: about him because things have been so tumultuous that's what
Speaker 1: people liked about him. Um. I think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: in some places you need to have like the dictator
Speaker 1: is you know, holds up the sky and is the
Speaker 1: only thing keeping you know, uh, you know the Western
Speaker 1: Hordes Backer, he invented all these wonderful things in Belarus.
Speaker 1: It's like he's calm, he's reliable, he keeps everybody chill. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the rest of the song goes on for a
Speaker 1: pretty considerable length of time. Um. Anyway, it's it's he's
Speaker 1: a weird guy. He's kind of hard to get your
Speaker 1: hands around. And I he's definitely not the kind of
Speaker 1: colorful figure that we tend to cover on behind the Bastards. Um.
Speaker 1: He is a terrible dictator who's suppressed a lot of
Speaker 1: people very violently. But he's also just like kind of
Speaker 1: a boring middle manager. He seems like a boring dictator. Yeah, he's, he's,
Speaker 1: he's he's kind of a boring dictator at the end. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I found a quote from him, another quote
Speaker 1: from him where he kind of talks about himself as
Speaker 1: an authoritarian from an August two thousand three interview, where
Speaker 1: he says, again an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic
Speaker 1: of me, and I've always admitted it. And the notes
Speaker 1: you need to control the the country and the main
Speaker 1: thing is not to ruin people's lives, um, which is
Speaker 1: a really self aware thing for a dictator to say, Like,
Speaker 1: as long as I don't fuck people up, um, Albeit,
Speaker 1: people will support me. They're gonna keep letting me be
Speaker 1: a dictator as long as I don't do something massively terrible.
Speaker 1: So in part two we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: time Lukashenko did a bunch of massively terrible things that
Speaker 1: made people not want to support him as a dictator anymore.
Speaker 1: But first this episode's over, Garrison, you want to tell
Speaker 1: people where they can find you on the internet before
Speaker 1: we talk more about Belarus. Yeah, if you want to
Speaker 1: see me talk about protests and getting shot at by
Speaker 1: police and federal agents, you can go to my Twitter
Speaker 1: at hungry bout I hungry as in the accessory, not
Speaker 1: the country. Um yeah, that's where. That's where most of
Speaker 1: my stuff lives right now. Work working on a few
Speaker 1: other things, but yeah, mainly on my Twitter right now.
Speaker 1: So follow Garrison's Twitter, tweet things at him. Uh, fill
Speaker 1: up my mentions with any anything that's legal yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's legal. Uh follow me on Twitter and fill my
Speaker 1: mentions up with anything that's illegal. Um, that's how it works.
Speaker 1: Crimes to me, laws to Garrison, that's how the Twitter goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're at the I rights all right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's the thing. So the podcast is over. Um, you
Speaker 1: can find us on the website at behind the Bastards
Speaker 1: dot com. You can buy t shirts. We have masks
Speaker 1: that will cure your diseases at the approved guaranteed to
Speaker 1: cure all diseases. Which first, okay, I thought this was
Speaker 1: a fake ad for you until I saw one of
Speaker 1: these masks in person. Days again, like, oh no, these
Speaker 1: masks are real. This isn't just a joke you do
Speaker 1: at the end of the podcast, I don't know they were.
Speaker 1: Actually Yeah, they're real FDA approved masks to prevent all diseases.
Speaker 1: And if the f d A has a problem with
Speaker 1: me claiming that, then they can come. They can they
Speaker 1: can attack Tea public Yeah, they're Canta te publics. Uh,
Speaker 1: mountaintop compounds with the basement full of children. Um, bring
Speaker 1: it on, f d A.