WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 149 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:03.160 Also media. 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.360 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:12.680 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.520 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.000 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:20.960 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:22.720 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:24.880 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.720 Hello, and welcome through. You can happen here. It's James 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.800 today and I'm joined by Luca and Sailor. They're both 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.599 from Breadblock, which is a mutual aid group in San Diego. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.600 How are you doing today? 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.559 We're doing great, great. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:40.840 How are you wonderful? 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.960 Yeah, I'm thriving. I've just received my seventy fifth COVID 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.760 booster I think, I think so having a little miserable day, 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.639 but that's okay, not going to get novel coronavirus, which 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.560 is always nice. So can you guys start out by 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.960 maybe explaining, well, what Breadblock does, how long it's done it, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:01.640 and why it does it. 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:06.280 Yeah, So we are a mutual a group. We mostly 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.360 provide hot food. That's like the core of our services. 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.360 We feed about one hundred people like like eighty to 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.280 one hundred people depending on the day weekly in East 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:23.080 Village in San Diego. We also provide clothing and harm 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:30.640 reduction supplies and other things like tampons and plan b 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.920 when we can get our hands on it, and we 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.640 try to be we are there like at the same 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.360 time every day. I will not say the exact location, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.960 but if you are interested in getting involved, you can 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.360 always reach out And that's like what we're doing right now, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.320 and that happens weekly and sale am I missing anything? 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.720 Yeah, So this form of what we're doing with bread 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.560 Block in a more organized way has We've only been 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:02.080 doing it a few months. However, Initially we started doing 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.840 it in twenty twenty one when I started getting into 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.680 harm reduction stuff and I was working at a strange 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.560 exchange and realized a lot of people would be asking 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.080 for food and we weren't getting that out there, and 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:17.560 so that's why the initial idea came about. And then 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.720 we just had enough people who were willing to do 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.560 it in a weekly manner, so that's how we chose 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:24.440 that location. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:25.280 And started doing that. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.160 There's just a lot of people down there on those nights, so. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.880 It's time to happen at the same time that a 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.160 harm reduction services happen the needle exchange, So it's at 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:37.800 a time when a lot of people are down there 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.520 and the amount of time are like collective doing this 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.160 specific thing as exist is I believe since end of 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.120 March early April is how long we've been like consistently 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:49.640 providing services every week. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.119 Yeah, that's great. That's a long time. So especially through 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.519 like some it could be a difficult time. If you 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.640 don't have a house in San Diego, it gets increasingly 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.920 it gets very hot, and the streets themselves get hot, 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:03.640 and that becomes dangerous for people. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:04.919 Yeah, exactly. 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.040 So I want to start with like, at some point, right, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.480 say that you were doing a syringe exchange and you 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:13.720 are like, these people need to be fed. They are hungry, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.840 and now we're here and you're feeding them every week, right, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:18.600 But you had to do a whole lot of things 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.560 in between here and there. And like I know this 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.959 because listeners email me all the time. So many people 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.920 want to do that too, and it might not exist 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.119 where they are. They might not know, So, like, can 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.560 you explain how you went about like seeing a need 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:36.880 and then organizing to meet that need. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.320 Yeah, So I guess what came before that was we 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.640 had already built relationships with each other around our leftist 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.000 ideals and art and protesting and different stuff. So we 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.680 already knew a lot of people who were who were 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.880 interested in mutual aid and that capacity. Yeah, but I 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:00.000 will say things like Instagram have helped just meet more 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.600 people who are looking to get involved in mutual aid. 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:05.560 Yeah. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:06.240 Yeah. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.920 Like Selah said, we had like had spent some time 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.960 building community with each other and getting a core group 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.680 of people that trust each other, that had gone to 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:19.800 protests together, that were maybe in like affinity groups already 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.120 with each other, and then there was just sort of 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.200 like enough of us that were in community with each 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.719 other at the time that when Sala was like the 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.520 Encampment band is like really making things so much worse 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.839 for people in communities and we really need to do something, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.599 we were like, all just like it just happened because 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.640 we were all sitting in a room together one night 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.520 after a like social event, and Sala was like, we 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.320 need to talk about this, and we were like, okay, yeah, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.480 we like need to do this, and we had enough 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.880 people where we could pull together a first distro and 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:59.600 then a second and then gradually adding like more organizations 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.200 so that we could continue doing it sustainably over time. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.479 Yeah. Yeah, that's like I want to be opinion the 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.560 camping band, because the Camping Band is making things worse 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.359 for people who are already having a hard time just 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.559 surviving here, and it fucking sucks, and it's tod glorious fault. 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:15.279 You shouldn't vote. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:15.880 Yep. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.760 Let's talk about though, Like I want to get into 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.200 nuts and bolts, right, feeding one hundred people, Right, you 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.599 need a giant ass pan, you need loads of food, 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.640 you need a place where you can cook. How did 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.040 you identify all those things and how did you get 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.080 to a place where you could regularly have those things? 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.640 So in twenty twenty one, when I had initially started 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.640 this with kind of a different group of people, but 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.200 there were definitely over us, we just did it and 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.880 like used my mom's kitchen and bound some big pots 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.520 and just made it happen. And I feel like, if 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.240 you have the will to make it happen, you're going 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.920 to figure it out. And you know, maybe in the 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.719 beginning it was a lot more chaotic, which you know, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.200 we are anarchists, so we're okay with the chaos. But 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.760 it just after doing it a week after week, it 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.800 just became more streamlined. And you know, we just buy 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:13.080 a lot of essential bulk food and we have a 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.520 few giant popsy We like to make. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:17.039 Soup a lot. 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:18.640 Yeah. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.680 Currently, our kitchen is like like, our cooking equipment includes 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.200 two large pots and a rice cooker that someone recently 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.159 donated to us. And then we needed a fridge, so 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.920 we got a free fridge off offer up and cleaned 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.479 it up and put some cool stickers on it and 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.080 then plugged it into a garage. Currently, the kitchen that 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.200 we use is like a couple of us just like 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.920 live together, and so we use our kitchen and we 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.479 have access to our garage and we just stored the 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.320 supplies in the garage. We stored the fridge in the garage, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.000 and we make it work through donations we get on Instagram. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.160 So we knew some comrades that work with the community fridges. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.600 There's like some community fridges in San Diego, and so 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.520 they already had a relationship with a grocery store and 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.880 so we were able to hop in on that and 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.680 we get some donations from that, we get some donations 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:20.000 from what's sale the group. 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:21.440 Oh fortunate or fortunate. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.559 Yeah, And there's so much food waste that I feel 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.120 like if we were to find the right people, we 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.600 could be fully self supporting on just things that would 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:31.600 be thrown away alone. 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:32.480 Yeah, definitely. 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:34.680 Yeah, we just have to meet the right people in 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:36.280 order to do that. But we're getting there. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:38.520 Yeah, And I do want to say the kitchen is 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.440 a small slash regular sized kitchen, so you don't have 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.480 to have some big, crazy warehouse type kitchen to. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:45.280 Make this happen. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.240 Yeah. And then you're feeding people right like you're doing 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.880 it like in the afternoon and evening. Have you found 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.000 there were things that you said you like soup? But 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.200 I know, like we fed a lot of people at 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.840 the border last winter, right, and we found out that 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.520 certain things work, certain things didn't work, and we always 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:08.600 tried to keep it vegan because of people's religious needs preferences. Right, 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:10.840 Is there anything like that that you found the works 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:11.640 or doesn't work. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.360 We have done a lot of chili with our squad, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.640 and I know that Luca has done a lot of curry. 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.400 So there are certain things and they can both be 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.200 easily made vegan. Yeah, initially a lot of people when 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.880 we would have vegan stuff would ask for me alternatives, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.720 to which I understand people, you know, they don't always 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.280 have access to protein, so we tried out both options 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:35.640 when we can nice. 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.280 Yeah, it varies what we have because our group kind 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.600 of functions with for like autonomous squads, like well semi 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.320 autonomous that take turns doing the distross so that you're 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.040 only really responsible for it once a month, which helps 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:52.040 reduce burnout. 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.800 Yeah, definitely, How does that work? Explain how you came 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.600 up with that and how it's organized. 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.720 Yeah, so this was kind of like something we've been 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.439 talking about for a while. Some of us are like 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:05.959 more into the theory than others, but we're just kind 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.480 of talking about, like, oh, well, like how do we 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.239 get more people involved? Because I think what happens oftentimes 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.559 with these mutual aid groups is there's like a lot 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.839 of people sitting in a group chat and there's like 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.719 a small core of people who do end up doing 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.520 the majority of the labor, and that often results in 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.679 burnout for those people and building a resentment between like 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.960 the people who are doing a lot and the other people. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.880 Because I think also like sometimes people feel left out 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:33.760 and they don't feel like they can get involved, and 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:35.440 then they feel like the people who are doing the 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.040 core of the labor are like in charge and they 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.319 have to defer to them, which creates a lot of problems, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.360 which I'm not saying like we don't have any of 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.560 those problems, like we're still trying to work out the kinks. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.800 But the squads sort of like dynamic makes it so 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:56.000 that groups of about like five to ten. Because of distro, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.640 you need about like six people to make it happen, 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.760 so about five to ten people take turns, so you 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.400 just rotate, so you have you know when your day is. 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.520 It's once a month that you are responsible for the 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.800 distro and you are responsible for choosing the food that 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.040 you're cooking, making sure it gets cooked, organizing with your 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.720 other comrades, getting the donations, all of that stuff. But 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.400 you can always ask the larger group for help or 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.000 extra hands if you need it. But it sort of 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.920 shares that like responsibility, because I think the most stressful 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.960 part oftentimes is like, oh, the distro happening tonight is 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.160 on me and I and if I don't do it, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.720 it's not going to happen. Yeah, and so it sort 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.240 of spreads like that sort of labor. But we have 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.520 members who like show up to every single distro because 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.000 they want to, and that's totally fine, even if they're 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.520 in like whatever designated squad they're in, right. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.640 Yeah, for some people who show up like once every 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:51.840 few months because they have other stuff going on, you know. 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:53.480 So it's very open and you. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:55.280 Don't have to be in a squad and you could 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.600 just to join whenever you have the time, with whoever's 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.560 week it is. So it's pretty yeah, I would, but 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.400 it does give a good sense of structure. 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.440 Yeah, that helps a lot. I remember one day last year, 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:12.520 last winter, and I was out building shelters with an 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.040 Uzbek guy and a few Kurdish guys and we built 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.000 these shelters and we built three of them, And afterwards, 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:21.959 I was sitting down with some of my friends who 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.800 are also there as volunteers, and they're all anarchists too. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.400 We each asked each other what we did, and then 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:28.960 one of them said, so what do we all learn? 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.040 What did you learn when you did that today? 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:31.280 Right? 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:33.240 And I think that's a really valuable question that we 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.760 should be asking ourselves in our organizing spaces. So like 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.520 from your first distrow to now, I want to ask 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:39.920 what did you learn? 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.440 I would say, We've really learned how to trust each other. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.400 We're working on, you know, how to get consensus models, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.240 how to split the labor between different people, how to 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.720 work with different people, and also yeah, like I said 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.000 in the beginning, how to really how to trust each other, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.240 which you know, we all want to see the revolution 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.080 happen at some point, and so I feel like one 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.280 of the most important and valuable things we can be 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.080 doing is building relationships and communities with each other where 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.920 we can actually rely on each other. And so having 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.160 a mutual task really helps with that. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:16.640 Yeah. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.520 Yeah, And I think for me, like we've like tried 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.560 to do stuff in the past like this, and I 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.400 think the issue we've always run into was that, like 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.920 sometimes there's like a tendency to want too much structure 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.240 right away and be like, oh, if we don't have 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.600 everything planned down, we don't know how everything's going to work, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.600 then we can't do it, and we need to figure 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:41.520 everything out beforehand. And we learned a lot like doing it, 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.320 and even like we didn't have everything figured out, like 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.000 we're still working on like our consensus structure. We're still 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.880 working on like how we're going to make like big 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.280 decisions as a group, and like when the squads can 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.280 make their own decisions and when the group can make 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.000 their own decisions, and like we don't have everything figured out, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.240 Like it's very like loose, but we didn't need that, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.080 and we've been able to do a distro for like 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.559 months and we don't have everything figured out. We have something, 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.640 we had enough to get us started, and we're like 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.400 working on like slowly adding things as we need to 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.720 without like overburdening ourselves because I think sometimes like lots 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.800 of layers and lots of complexities can really make it 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.120 difficult to organize and adapt to what's happening on the ground. 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.280 Definitely, I think, yeah, we can overcomplicate it and like 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.880 be too anxious. Talking of anxious, I am anxious. So 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.760 we have yet to pivot to advertisements. So let's do 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:51.600 that and then we'll come back and we're back. Okay. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.760 So you spoke about like a lot about the logistics 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.840 of cooking, which is great, but I know from experience 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.240 of feeding hungry people can be a challenge, right, And 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.320 it's no one's fault, especially when people are hungry, like 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.480 we're not at ourselves. It's a whole advertising campaign built 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.800 around that. So how do you organize your distroyage that 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.760 should everybody feels that they're being taken care of. Everybody 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.880 feels safe and knows that they're going to get enough 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:17.280 to eat. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:18.640 Yeah. 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.080 Well, that also goes back to something more we've learned 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.120 is we try to have enough people at the distro 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.360 so we can have different people doing different things, and 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.520 sometimes that means one person is just walking around talking 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.560 to people, de escalating a situation if needs be. 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.600 And then we also figured out that at the end 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.160 when we run out of food in order, but people 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:40.480 who have. 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.560 Been waiting in line don't get mad, which is understandable. 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:44.960 You know, they've been waiting in line and there's no 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.440 more food than they're hungry. Yeah, of course, we try 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.240 to have like different snacks and like muffins or crinola 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.320 bards and water just to hand out at the end 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.760 for those people who still need something. And so sometimes 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.240 we have music and we all just try to bring 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.560 a good energy and so far nothing that we haven't 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:06.880 been able to handle happens. 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.120 Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:09.360 I know. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.360 We found that music was really helpful when we were 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.000 distributing food when really big groups at the border like 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.160 play some music or have a friend who plays music, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.120 play some music, and then we'd always ask folks from 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.640 the group who we were feeding to volunteer to help 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.600 us in that it helped us so become language barriers 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:28.160 and stuff. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:30.720 That's happened a couple of times as well where people 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.800 have just stepped up and wanted to help, which has 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:33.240 been great. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.440 Yeah, it's nice and it gives us all. Like part 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.960 of what we're doing with Mutual Aid isn't just meeting 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.280 material needs. It's also like the difference between solidarity and charity, right, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.840 Like we're there too because we care about you as people, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.600 not just as like hunger mouths that we can take 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.880 off a spreadsheet and working together is an integral part 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.760 of that and it's what distinguishes us from charity model. 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.880 And thankfully most of the time we have enough people 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.160 if somebody needs to step aside and have a one 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.480 on one conversation with somebody because that's what they need 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.560 in that moment, and we can do that. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.000 Yeah, having floaters is really important, Like we always have 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.240 like two people at least two people serving food, and 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:15.800 then we have like a snack table, water table usually, 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.400 and then we have a section for harm reduction that 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.560 usually gets served on like another table, and then we 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.840 have like a section for clothes depending on what we have, 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.440 and people sort of like go down the assembly line 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.640 kind of like going down grabbing the different things, and 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.000 we give people like plastic bags that we get from 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.960 grocery stores so they can get their things. But we 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.320 also have like floaters usually so that like if someone's 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.400 like having like a medical issue or someone's like upset 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.120 or whatever is going on, someone can like step aside 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.760 and spend some time with them. Like the other day, 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.480 we had a woman who was not feeling well because 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.160 of the heat, and she had been out and she 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.200 needed to sit down. So we like grabbed one of 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:59.800 our chairs and we sat her down and got her 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.080 some water and just like talk to her. And we 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:03.880 had a couple of people who could step aside and 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.159 do that, and then everyone else just could keep like 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.280 feeding people without it kind of stopping things. But she 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:11.399 still got what she needed. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.760 And during that heat waves at one of the distros, 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:19.240 I remember you ran across and thought somebody gatoring because 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.720 they really were needed electrolytes. So we're lucky that we 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.040 have enough people that we get to be able. 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.280 To do stuff like that when we need to, right, 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.960 And I imagine that regularity is really important, Like people 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.280 know that you will be there and that they can 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.399 come and you will feed them. Like that builds trust, 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.080 right Like, and everyone I think benefits from middle structure 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.199 and being unhealthed. It could be really fucking hard to 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:43.400 find structure. 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:49.000 Yes, exactly, And it's very hard to get like home 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:49.680 cooked food. 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.760 Yeah, this is something I've encountered living in my cart, 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.439 Like it's hard to get healthy food. The food you 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.000 buy is shit. It's more expensive and it's less good 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.960 for you. And like these things compound over time to 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.760 have health and psychological consequences. 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.560 Yeah, everything we cook we eat as well. 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.480 And you know, if we're cooking or we're helping out 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.200 with sister, of course it's. 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.760 Not the mutual and mutual aid, we can also eat it. 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:15.520 Yeah. 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.159 Yeah, that's definitely something else we learned at the border 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.800 was that, like, especially if we're cooking something that's maybe 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.320 not a cultural cuisine, because we're meeting people from all 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.919 over the world a lot of times it's like like 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.080 you were saying, chili and carriage. It's like hot wet food, right, 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.679 like you know, the big semi liquid pan of chili 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.359 or whatever that we would cook and spaghetti and like 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:39.880 folks being like what's that, We're like, oh, do I'm 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.000 going to eat some? Do you want some? 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:41.920 Yeah? 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.800 And like, I honestly had some of the happiest moments 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.720 of last year. Just like I remember one day, I've 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:50.320 been building yurts all day with that I was that 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.760 guy and then we sat down and had our beans 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.520 and just like talked about our lives and it was 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:55.159 really sweet. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:56.360 Yeah. 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.080 I think that that is a moment of solidarity that 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.840 you don't get when you're you know, I've seen NGOs 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.200 in the US military tossing MRIs or refugees, and I 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:07.000 ain't the same thing. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:07.880 Yeah. 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.240 Yeah, Now there shouldn't be like a line between like 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.800 you and the people that you're providing mutual aid to. 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.280 I mean, like it should you should never give someone 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.600 food that you're not willing to eat yourself. And like 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.399 if someone's hungry while we're cooking, like they can totally 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:27.600 eat the food that we're making too. It's not like 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.320 cordoned off. Yeah, like, of course, we like you know, 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.439 we wear our ppe and we like you know, aren't 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.560 getting our hands or whatever. But yeah, I mean because 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.720 a lot of the people who are like, who do 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.320 provide mutual aid and work in mutual aid groups like, 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.439 are also people who may face houselessness or have trouble 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.040 paying for groceries or something. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:51.480 Yeah, yeah, for sure. 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.680 Yeah, there's no separation you know, between us and them 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:55.720 at the end of the day. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.200 Yeah, I think that's super important. So I want to 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.040 talk about the camping Maybe let's take another rab break. 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:03.720 We'll talk about the camping ban when we come back. 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:14.560 We are back. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.680 We are now discussing the topic which I love to 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.800 talk about, which is evil things that Todd Gloria has done. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.080 And today it could be the whole podcast every day 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.280 of the week for years. But we're going to talk 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.800 about this camping ban. For folks who didn't listen to 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.040 our camping ban episode, can you give me like a 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.479 sixty second synopsis on the camping ban and then we 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:37.880 can dive into what it's done. 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:38.440 Yeah. 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:43.040 So, basically, earlier this year, the Supreme Court overturned of 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.359 basically an ordinance that you don't have the ability to 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.960 cite or arrest somebody if there's not shelter available, but 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.000 they overturn that so now they can. And Gavin Newsom 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.000 issue the Sleeping Order that the agencies have to clear 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.400 encampment and ordered that cities and counties do the same. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:07.040 So now there's fourteen plus the cities in California that 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.480 do have a camping band in place. So that's criminalizing 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.119 living outside. 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.800 The existence of unhouse people is now a crime. Yeah, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.200 so what have you seen post enforcement? 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:20.760 Yeah? 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.200 So I also like work in the field of harm reduction, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.800 So you know, I do this in my free time 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:28.359 because I want to do it, but I also do 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.320 it for work, which there's definitely sometimes I feel weird about, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.160 like working for an organization and wish that I didn't 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:35.439 have to. 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.040 But it's just one of those things. 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:41.000 And I've seen it's really hard and really sad because 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.080 when people are in encampment a lot of times they 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.960 build a sort of community and family and they learn 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.359 how to take care of each other, and constantly being 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:51.800 split up is destroying. 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.280 These communities, and then they just have to. 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.400 Travel further and further away so that they're disconnected from 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.680 not only their community, but also real versus that they 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.920 do have. And so it's just really hard, and sometimes 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:05.520 we lose connections with people. 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:07.720 We don't know where they went, you know, where they. 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.359 End up in jail or it's been really horrible, And 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:13.840 we're just talking about how it just seems like people 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:16.840 don't really care and it's crazy that this is happening 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:18.399 in our communities and people. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.440 Aren't talking about it and aren't outraged by it. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:21.400 Yeah. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.760 Yeah, these bands also have like a really nasty ripple 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.560 effect because when these people got pushed out of San Diego, 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.879 then they go to other cities that don't have an 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:34.480 encampment band like Cheu La Vista National City and now 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.840 Cheula Vista National City and other cities are advancing their 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.440 own camping bands and citing an influx from San Diego. Right, 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.720 So it's like creating this really awful, like just progressive 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.000 expansion of these bands. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:49.879 Yeah. 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:53.080 And one one more thing I'll add is that some 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:55.119 people are like, oh, well, that's just going to you know, 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.280 be good, because these people are going to get into shelters, 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.800 find alternative ways of getting help. But that's not what's 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.840 happening because we have not had any more shelters. It's 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:09.000 really hard to get into a shelter actually, And you know, 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:14.640 since musselm has been governor, we've had apparently so many 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:18.960 billions of dollars twenty four billions spent tackling homelessness, and 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.360 it's like, what is there to show for it? Right, 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:23.480 people still don't have a place to go, and even 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:25.679 if they do get into a shelter, a lot of 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.320 times there's so many rules and regulations that if somebody 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.000 has a high level of mental health needs and they're 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:33.800 not going to be able to stay there and there's 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:35.520 just no solutions. 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.600 Yeah, it's giving the appearance of doing something to make 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:44.000 homeowners right, people who they think matter happy. It's really bleak. Yeah, 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.800 let's discuss a little bit then, like this camping band, 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:50.639 as you say, it's supposed people to other cities, Like 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:55.800 what do you think it does to the unhoused community? 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.080 Like you talked a little bit about breaking up encampments, 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:01.920 Like where do people end up? Right when their campments 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:03.679 get broken up in the community, and like where do 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:07.040 they end up? And how can people because this is 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:10.520 this is nationwide right, Yeah, Gavin Newson is being a 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.600 particularly odious turd about it, but like other people are 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.040 the states doing it too. It's something of Unie San 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:19.159 Diego for instance, people ending up in a riverbed. So 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:23.160 can you talk about like the risks there and then like, yeah, 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.000 the needs that it creates and how we can meet them. 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:29.199 So you're right, some of them are ending up in 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:30.200 river beds. 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:33.840 There's also like what they refer to as the Island 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:35.600 kind of close to Old Town where a lot of 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:38.000 people have been going. But you know, you have to 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:40.280 get a rash to go there, and it's not easy 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:42.640 to get there. They don't have a lot of resources there. 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:43.919 There's a lot of. 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:49.160 Crime that happens, and it's not the best scenario. And 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:53.040 other than that, for making these safe sleeping sites which 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:56.400 are not actually safe and they're kind of like concentration 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:01.119 camps and they're from people I've talked to actually live 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:02.920 in them. They're not good places to. 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:04.240 Be at, yeah at all. 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:06.920 And it's just kind of like pushing the problem out 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:11.320 of you without actually doing anything or providing anything meaningful 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:11.840 to people. 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:14.720 Yeah, which is the goal. I think it is to 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:16.000 make property invisible. 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:18.200 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:22.360 And the other thing that happens is like I live 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:24.920 in an area where there are a lot of encampments, 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:27.959 and there probably would be permanent encampments if it weren't 0:25:28.080 --> 0:25:33.240 for the band, And personally I would prefer that, because 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:36.800 like what happens is these people get like moved like there, 0:25:36.920 --> 0:25:39.600 their encamment will like crop up, It'll be there for 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:43.120 like maybe a week, and then like it'll disappear, and 0:25:43.160 --> 0:25:45.600 like I'll wake up one morning and they're gone, and 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:48.280 all of their stuff often gets thrown away. They lose 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:51.119 access to their things if they're not there to take it. 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:53.040 They basically can take only what they can carry on 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.040 their backs. If they're lucky. If they happen to be 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.399 there when their stuff is being thrown away, they're they're sighted, 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:04.200 they could be arrested. And then usually I see sometimes 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:06.240 the same people come back, but they just had to 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:08.639 like go find somewhere else. So they're basically being forced 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:13.280 to be like migratory rather than like staying in one place, 0:26:13.600 --> 0:26:16.760 which means that it often It also makes like the 0:26:16.760 --> 0:26:19.840 people who live in neighborhoods, like because I can't form 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:22.200 relationships with these people as much as I could before, 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:24.879 Like I can't know my neighbors as much because my 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:28.040 neighbors are constantly getting moved around, So like I'll like 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:30.679 former relationship with someone and I'll be like, you know, 0:26:30.720 --> 0:26:32.359 like I'll be like their beer guy, and I'll like, 0:26:32.440 --> 0:26:35.119 you know, like there's people that I'll know that I'll like, 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:37.080 go buy a beer for, go get water for if 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:38.840 I see them and I know their name and that. 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:41.760 But then when with the encamp ban, they might just 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:43.920 disappear one day and I don't know if they got arrested, 0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:47.399 I don't know if they've just been displaced, and that's 0:26:47.480 --> 0:26:50.920 like not great for me, not great for them, not 0:26:51.000 --> 0:26:54.560 great for literally anyone around, because it's like people are 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:56.920 safer if they're able to have like a stable place 0:26:56.960 --> 0:26:59.280 to be, Like, everyone is safer. 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:02.840 Yeah, if ours stated goal is getting people off the streets, 0:27:02.920 --> 0:27:06.040 like chasing them around the streets, isn't doing that making 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:07.800 it harder for people to find stability? 0:27:08.119 --> 0:27:11.960 Yeah, And you know, I've talked to people also about 0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:15.560 the reason sometimes they don't like the term homeless is 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:17.960 because they're like, yes, we may not have a house, 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:20.879 but we make our homes, we make a community, we 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:24.720 make a home, and losing that sense of security, any 0:27:24.800 --> 0:27:28.160 little bit of security they have constantly having to move, 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:30.240 not ever feeling comfortable or safe. 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:34.359 You know, that's traumatizing, Taking a bad situation and making 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:37.720 it worse, just what the state likes to do. I 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:41.760 wonder like, before we finish up, a lot of people, 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:43.720 like I said, want to start a mutual aid thing. 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:46.080 Do you have any advice for them? Things that you 0:27:46.080 --> 0:27:47.760 would do if you were starting over, things that you 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:49.879 feel like you did well. If you wanted to start 0:27:49.960 --> 0:27:52.400 bread bluck, now, how would you go about it? 0:27:54.200 --> 0:27:57.560 Start a group chat, maybe make an Instagram where you 0:27:57.600 --> 0:27:59.760 can post about it and find people who are also 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:00.640 in dressed than that. 0:28:01.160 --> 0:28:02.920 Go to a local event? What else? 0:28:03.000 --> 0:28:06.320 Luka having like a place where people can like congregate 0:28:06.359 --> 0:28:09.440 with each other, like having a regular like community event 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:12.639 to meet people and get to know each other and 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:15.840 trust each other. I really wish that we had started 0:28:15.920 --> 0:28:18.000 like sooner, because I think we had the capacity to 0:28:18.040 --> 0:28:21.320 start sooner, like way beforehand, and I think it was 0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:23.960 like the incamment ban and like sayalah, being like we 0:28:24.040 --> 0:28:26.919 need to do this like happening it like it just 0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:30.439 takes like one person being excited enough about something and 0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:32.760 then like their comrades being like yeah, no, you're right, 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:35.040 like we do need to do something, and I think 0:28:35.040 --> 0:28:37.000 people are really afraid to be that person to like 0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:39.880 push for something, to try to like wake other people 0:28:39.960 --> 0:28:42.720 up or like convince other people that you have to 0:28:42.760 --> 0:28:45.000 capacity to because I think the state can be really 0:28:45.040 --> 0:28:47.560 disempowering and they make you think that you need like 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:50.360 a budget and you need like all of these things 0:28:50.440 --> 0:28:53.520 to like be able to provide people like aid or 0:28:53.560 --> 0:28:55.560 or like like mutually to provide people anything. 0:28:55.880 --> 0:28:58.280 And like we did it with like literally. 0:28:57.960 --> 0:29:00.960 Just like a couple of our members just like gave 0:29:01.080 --> 0:29:04.280 some money that we had and that we had, like 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:06.160 you know, like we had like a couple hundred dollars 0:29:06.200 --> 0:29:09.240 that we got from people, and then that was enough 0:29:09.280 --> 0:29:11.640 to start and like you could literally start with like 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:13.080 fifty bucks and figure it out. 0:29:13.880 --> 0:29:16.480 Yeah, we did not come from a place. 0:29:16.240 --> 0:29:18.040 Of any of us having a lot of money, so 0:29:18.080 --> 0:29:19.760 we've basically just had to figure it out. 0:29:19.800 --> 0:29:22.120 And anybody can figure it out, you know. 0:29:22.200 --> 0:29:25.920 I feel like our culture is so individualized, but we 0:29:25.960 --> 0:29:28.120 do have the capacity to come together and yeah, just 0:29:28.160 --> 0:29:30.320 take somebody being like all right, let's do this, and 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:33.640 you'll you'll meet enough people who are also interested in that. 0:29:33.760 --> 0:29:36.520 Because people do want community at the end of the day, 0:29:37.160 --> 0:29:38.480 and people do want to help people. 0:29:39.040 --> 0:29:41.480 Yeah. Is there anything else you guys want to mention 0:29:41.560 --> 0:29:42.080 before we go? 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:45.040 Yeah, The only last thing I wanted to mention is 0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:49.360 that we do have a lot of future goals of 0:29:49.400 --> 0:29:52.360 expanding and doing more street medicine as well. 0:29:52.160 --> 0:29:56.000 And expanding to different areas. We're also having. 0:29:56.560 --> 0:29:59.360 Mobile teams where we can go out and leave people 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:02.640 who aren't in one location or who maybe have certain 0:30:02.640 --> 0:30:06.400 divisibilities and can't walk and get there. So we have 0:30:06.480 --> 0:30:09.200 a lot of ideas for that, and that just takes 0:30:09.360 --> 0:30:13.000 meeting more people who are into this and getting more 0:30:13.040 --> 0:30:14.680 funds and yeah. 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:17.760 Yeah, so hopefully that's something we can do. 0:30:18.600 --> 0:30:21.360 And I just wanted to briefly mention one of our 0:30:21.360 --> 0:30:24.480 members did some really great research on the way the 0:30:24.560 --> 0:30:29.360 Hillcrest Business Association is using the Encampment band to further 0:30:29.480 --> 0:30:33.880 harm and using they're actually using like private security to 0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:36.480 push people out so people can enjoy their night life 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:40.480 without having to deal with an objectionable minority that wants 0:30:40.520 --> 0:30:46.520 to live however it pleases for fuck's sake, the quote 0:30:46.600 --> 0:30:51.480 from mister Ben Nicholas of the Hillcrist Business Association, So 0:30:52.080 --> 0:30:55.959 they have a initiative called Hillcrest Clean and Safe Program 0:30:56.520 --> 0:31:00.400 where they displace people from Hillcrest for the benefit of 0:31:00.440 --> 0:31:05.080 the businesses. And they have like if you go on 0:31:05.080 --> 0:31:07.520 a Voice of San Diego you can hear some like 0:31:07.760 --> 0:31:10.440 just the way they talk about these people is really 0:31:10.480 --> 0:31:14.880 insane and really dehumanizing, and it kind of notes how businesses, 0:31:15.000 --> 0:31:18.400 how like capitalism in the state, are working together hand 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:23.200 in hand to displace our community members. So the business 0:31:23.280 --> 0:31:27.720 associations and the businesses themselves are being empowered by these 0:31:27.760 --> 0:31:32.720 encampment bands to further repetuate violence on peoples. 0:31:32.760 --> 0:31:37.160 Yet, yeah, and on that topic, the way that people 0:31:37.240 --> 0:31:40.479 actually are a dressing it here is making it so 0:31:40.600 --> 0:31:43.680 much worse. Like San Diego has a hot team which 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:44.880 is part of the police department. 0:31:44.920 --> 0:31:46.720 It's called the Homeless Outreach Team. 0:31:47.120 --> 0:31:50.720 And they're supposedly supposed to help get people into shelters 0:31:50.760 --> 0:31:52.880 and stuff like that. But anybody I've talked to who 0:31:53.280 --> 0:31:55.680 have tried to reach out for them and ask, you know, okay, 0:31:55.720 --> 0:31:56.920 if you're going to move me, like I need to. 0:31:56.880 --> 0:31:57.600 Get into a shelter. 0:31:58.200 --> 0:31:59.760 One of them who I was talking to about this 0:31:59.840 --> 0:32:02.959 was in the seventies and very medically vulnerable, and instead 0:32:02.960 --> 0:32:05.280 of helping them find somewhere to go, they just put 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:08.480 his car which she was sleeping in because it was unregistered, 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:10.000 and so they're not actually helping at all. 0:32:10.560 --> 0:32:11.280 It's just a cop. 0:32:11.480 --> 0:32:14.160 And that's why, you know, just us regular people have 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:16.600 to do something because the state's not going to. 0:32:17.440 --> 0:32:20.120 Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great thing. That's the 0:32:20.160 --> 0:32:23.360 fucking doc about the Hill Grest Business Association for people 0:32:23.360 --> 0:32:26.440 who aren'tailiar with San Diego. San Diego is like LGBTQA. 0:32:26.480 --> 0:32:29.600 A neighborhood is called Hillcrest. One in three of our 0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:32.800 trandth youth are run housed and like, I guess they 0:32:32.920 --> 0:32:36.160 don't matter to the Hill Grest Business Association. Not surprising, 0:32:36.240 --> 0:32:39.480 but just fucked up. Where can people if they want 0:32:39.480 --> 0:32:41.160 to support you, they want to follow you, if they 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:43.120 want to come out and do food distro? Where can 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:44.320 they find you on the internet? 0:32:44.760 --> 0:32:47.840 Yeah, they can find us on Instagram. Our Instagram is 0:32:47.920 --> 0:32:51.200 bread Block Underscore Distro. If you want to provide like 0:32:51.360 --> 0:32:55.680 direct funds, bread Underscore Block is our Venmo. 0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:59.520 Lots with the feed not o k b l oc Oh. 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:01.960 Yeah, yeah, b l oc like block. 0:33:03.040 --> 0:33:03.480 We are. 0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:08.240 Yeah, And I also wanted to mention a couple of 0:33:08.280 --> 0:33:13.520 comrades of ours are facing houselessness themselves, and there's a 0:33:13.720 --> 0:33:16.760 mutual aid post on our Instagram and you can also 0:33:16.840 --> 0:33:22.200 find them at ruster dot music that's our U s 0:33:22.320 --> 0:33:25.600 T e R Music or their venmo is also in 0:33:25.680 --> 0:33:27.520 a post on our page. They could really use some 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:31.720 help because they are really big individuals who like show 0:33:31.800 --> 0:33:34.000 up all the time and help us cook and our 0:33:34.040 --> 0:33:37.200 a big part of our group, and you know also 0:33:37.320 --> 0:33:38.400 could use some mutual. 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:41.880 Aid, yeah, people to help them. Thank you so much 0:33:41.920 --> 0:33:43.520 for your time, guys. Thank you for doing all that 0:33:43.560 --> 0:33:46.400 important work and thank you for sharing it with us. 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:49.800 If people have questions, they can reach out to you, right, yes. 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:51.959 Yes, of course, thank you so much for having them. 0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:54.840 Yeah, thank you so much. It's much appreciated. 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:19.760 Welcome to katap and here I'm Andrew Siege, a FUTUREE 0:34:19.800 --> 0:34:20.759 channel Andrewism. 0:34:21.239 --> 0:34:24.520 I'm joined by Garrison Davis. 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:28.960 Hello there, once again, hello, and today I regret to 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:32.160 inform you that you must come to Brazil. 0:34:32.480 --> 0:34:36.319 I've heard mixed things about about Brazil currently, but I'm 0:34:36.320 --> 0:34:38.440 not I'm not I'm not against the idea. I have 0:34:38.600 --> 0:34:39.640 considered it before. 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:43.480 Yes, well we're not going to the Brazil of present 0:34:43.600 --> 0:34:47.880 times will actually be time traveling, continuing the somewhat informal 0:34:47.960 --> 0:34:50.799 series I've been doing on Latin American anarchism. We'll be 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:53.440 dipping our tours into the sand and the sea, the 0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:56.640 farmlands and jungles, the mountains and deserts, the cities and 0:34:56.719 --> 0:34:59.400 villages that make up the land, and crowned of the 0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:06.000 potential liberty of the people forcil, particularly the struggles for 0:35:06.120 --> 0:35:10.160 anarchism that they would have had in the late nineteenth 0:35:10.239 --> 0:35:13.080 and early twentieth century. All this is of course down 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:17.600 to the scholarship of people like Edgar Rodriguez, Jesse Cone, 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:22.640 Philippe Correa, Rafael Vianna, the Silva Quan, William Dos Santos, 0:35:23.320 --> 0:35:28.359 Edline Toledo and Luigi Biondi and without further ado, let's 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:32.040 get into it. So, the Portuguese landed in the region 0:35:32.040 --> 0:35:35.959 they will become known as Brazil in fifteen hundred. Prior 0:35:36.000 --> 0:35:38.520 to their colonization, the land was home to ethnic groups 0:35:38.560 --> 0:35:42.920 linked to four main language groups, the Irawak, the Tupi, Guarani, 0:35:43.280 --> 0:35:46.800 the Je and the Kalinago. Some of the specific ethnic 0:35:46.840 --> 0:35:52.040 groups included the Portiguara, Trema, Membe, Tavajara, Kayete, and so on. 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:58.520 After Pedro Alvarez Cabra landed, the following centuries were marked 0:35:58.560 --> 0:36:02.600 by colonization and slavement. His lands were dispossessed and cleared. 0:36:02.880 --> 0:36:06.520 Plantations were established, roads were laid, bridges were built, and 0:36:06.520 --> 0:36:09.920 so on, all by the auctioned and purchased efforts of 0:36:09.920 --> 0:36:13.960 whipped and exploited human muscle the president. Slaved Africans in 0:36:13.960 --> 0:36:17.279 the society would sometimes flee into the jungles and form 0:36:17.400 --> 0:36:22.239 qui lumbos or fugitive slave settlements, including the famous Palmarrius, 0:36:22.239 --> 0:36:25.160 which survived for almost a century with the population of 0:36:25.200 --> 0:36:29.520 between eleven and twenty thousand. After Brazil gains independence from 0:36:29.520 --> 0:36:33.120 Portugal in eighteen twenty two, retaining its own monarchy, it 0:36:33.239 --> 0:36:39.120 experienced numerous maroonages, reforms, and popular revolts, including the Stembrada 0:36:39.200 --> 0:36:43.800 and Novembrada revolts, the uru Preto Uprising, the Sabinada and 0:36:43.920 --> 0:36:49.320 Bailadda revolts, the Carmanachem Revolt, the Guerra dos Ferapos revolt, 0:36:49.480 --> 0:36:53.319 Liberal Revolution, the Prior Revolution, the extremely late ablition of 0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:56.040 slavery in eighteen eighty eight, and the proclamation of the 0:36:56.080 --> 0:36:59.640 First Brazilian Republic in eighteen eighty nine. It was in 0:36:59.680 --> 0:37:04.239 this multuous sociopolitical landscape that anarchism would take root. As 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:06.839 in much of Latin America, anarchism would be brought by 0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:12.200 immigrants through port cities like Rodighanio and Santos. Revolutionary ideas 0:37:12.200 --> 0:37:14.759 would also come to Brazil by way of Brazilians themselves. 0:37:15.280 --> 0:37:18.319 Some went to France and Portugal for their studies and 0:37:18.360 --> 0:37:22.080 discovered anarchism there. Others would find the words of Kropotkin 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:25.760 and Malchester in the bookstores of their native cities. Doctor 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:30.400 Fabio Luis, a Bahian hygienist and doctor, wrote two novels 0:37:30.400 --> 0:37:33.080 which sort to grapple with the social question of exploitation 0:37:33.239 --> 0:37:36.480 of man by man in Brazil. Doctor Luis also spent 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:39.920 his time working alongside unions and helping to fight the 0:37:40.000 --> 0:37:44.480 yellow fever and smallpox epidemics of plagued his nature. Another novelist, 0:37:44.760 --> 0:37:49.520 Manuel de Mendounca, also published in this time, contributing to 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:54.480 a slow growing liberteria and literary universe. These anarchist intellectuals, 0:37:54.480 --> 0:37:58.160 alongside others, would go on to launch a popular university. 0:37:58.960 --> 0:38:02.759 Other contributors propagation of Anarchism in Brazilian soil included Alicio 0:38:02.800 --> 0:38:08.480 de Carvallo, j Martins, Fontes, Pedro Docuto, Russia, Pombo Duel, 0:38:08.520 --> 0:38:15.120 Gonsalves de Silva, Maximino Maziel, Benjamin Morta, Francisco Vioti, et cetera. 0:38:15.800 --> 0:38:18.680 Anarchism in Brazil was actually quite diverse as well, as 0:38:18.680 --> 0:38:23.560 it found immigrants from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, 0:38:23.640 --> 0:38:28.160 Canada and England, alongside former black slaves and mestizos. It 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:33.000 found children, and it found women. Limo Berreto Domingos Pasos, 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:36.839 who was kind of known as the Brazilian Burcunan, Nino Vascos, 0:38:37.040 --> 0:38:41.880 Edgard Luinroth, Jose Oica, Mariela, La Serda de Mura, and 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:46.160 Maria and Helio Suarez all made key contributions to development 0:38:46.239 --> 0:38:52.880 of anarchism in Brazil. Dozens of newspapers like Cli Ciavi, Pianchi, Lavigne, 0:38:54.120 --> 0:38:58.600 Livitario and O Deespertar would also be published. Hundreds of 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:02.640 lectures would be hosted alongside language classes and artistic activities 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:06.719 at anarchist cultural centers or at ten ms and schools 0:39:06.760 --> 0:39:09.920 like the Illis Euricluse School and the modern schools in 0:39:09.960 --> 0:39:13.640 South Paolo, which also provided literacy courses, a vocational trainer. 0:39:14.480 --> 0:39:17.200 Revolutionary plays we put on in theaters by groups such 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:21.600 as Group, the Instructure and Group with dramatical helmina, blending 0:39:21.719 --> 0:39:24.880 entertainment with the syndicalist propaganda and front raising efforts for 0:39:24.920 --> 0:39:29.520 the labor movement. Worker's festivals feature in poetry, song, dance, 0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:33.759 and sport, raise money for anarchistyndicalist organizations and reinforced a 0:39:33.840 --> 0:39:38.360 sense of solidarity. The anarchist workers, being so numerously immigrant, 0:39:38.640 --> 0:39:43.160 attended to create a cosmopolitan counterculture centered on working class 0:39:43.239 --> 0:39:47.120 values and priorities. So all these projects and institutions, with 0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:51.359 the results of their efforts, Over a thousand foreign agitators 0:39:51.360 --> 0:39:53.640 would be deported from Brazil as a result of their 0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:56.960 radical efforts, and a few would even be killed. The 0:39:57.000 --> 0:39:59.480 food's anarchists be murdered by the state in Brazil was 0:39:59.480 --> 0:40:03.200 the Italian Polinice Mattei killed in South Paulo on the 0:40:03.200 --> 0:40:07.520 twentieth September eighteen ninety eight. Earlier that year, the first 0:40:07.560 --> 0:40:10.640 gathering of socialist leading workers in Brazil would take place 0:40:10.680 --> 0:40:14.960 in Rio Grande Rossoul, attended by delegates from various associations, 0:40:15.160 --> 0:40:19.480 anarchist groups, and a newspaper. As usual, the Italian immigrants 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:23.640 were heavily represented. The anarchist immigrants even managed to establish 0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:27.120 a settlement known as the Guera Rima anarchist colony organized 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:31.160 by Italian anarchists ar Tour Campanili. Perhaps the most notable 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:34.319 contribution to anarchism by the Italians in Brazil was the 0:40:34.320 --> 0:40:39.080 Cecilia Colony, which deserves special attentions mentioning of course that 0:40:39.160 --> 0:40:42.200 this project, as with everything taken place in Brazil in 0:40:42.239 --> 0:40:45.919 this time, took place on colonial land, which seemingly went 0:40:46.080 --> 0:40:49.440 unacknowledged by the anarchists themselves, but it was regrettably common 0:40:49.520 --> 0:41:02.839 in the colonial conditions of Brazil. In the southern state 0:41:02.880 --> 0:41:06.479 of Parana, in the ural municipality of Palmira, a group 0:41:06.520 --> 0:41:10.040 of Italian anarchists led by Giovanni Rossi and Gigi Damiani 0:41:10.440 --> 0:41:14.200 founded the Senior Colony in eighteen ninety. The land was 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.520 originally granted to them by Emperor Pedero the Second, but 0:41:17.600 --> 0:41:20.399 after the proclamation of the First Brazilian Republic, the new 0:41:20.440 --> 0:41:23.080 government did not acknowledge that land grant, and so the 0:41:23.080 --> 0:41:25.960 anarchists had to purchase it. Instead, the anarchists sought to 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:29.640 experiment and creating a society based on collective ownership and 0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:32.799 free love. The built of communal shared for shelter and 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:36.400 began the process constructing individual homes. The population of the 0:41:36.400 --> 0:41:39.840 colony quickly grew to almost three hundred people, including the 0:41:39.920 --> 0:41:42.680 Rossi himself, but by the end of eighteen ninety one, 0:41:43.040 --> 0:41:46.320 the colony was facing its first big challenge. They'd outgrown 0:41:46.440 --> 0:41:50.439 the infrastructure, with only twenty wooden houses in one community shed, 0:41:50.719 --> 0:41:53.880 the settlement simply couldn't sustain the influx of people, and 0:41:53.960 --> 0:41:56.600 to make matters worse, many of the settlers were industrial 0:41:56.640 --> 0:42:00.680 workers with little or no agricultural experience. Lack of farm 0:42:00.760 --> 0:42:03.120 and knowledge made it difficult for them to produce enough 0:42:03.120 --> 0:42:06.520 food to feed themselves. They tried to organize tasks based 0:42:06.560 --> 0:42:10.520 on people's existing skills. Artisans stuck to their trades, but 0:42:10.560 --> 0:42:14.000 the farmers struggled, especially with the differences between Italian and 0:42:14.040 --> 0:42:17.520 Brazilian soil. While they managed to plant crops like maize, 0:42:17.880 --> 0:42:21.200 the results weren't immediate. The money they brought they could 0:42:21.239 --> 0:42:24.080 buy groceries, tools, and seeds, but it wasn't enough to 0:42:24.120 --> 0:42:27.439 sustain them. Until their crops started yielding results, so many 0:42:27.480 --> 0:42:30.520 settlers had to seek work elsewhere, with some even taken 0:42:30.640 --> 0:42:33.960 government jobs. The colony wasn't just about farm in though. 0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:37.359 Over the years they built roads, sheds, bonds, a mill 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.440 and even a fish tank. They planted a huge cornfield, 0:42:40.560 --> 0:42:44.520 dug wells and set up a nursery for seedlands. They 0:42:44.520 --> 0:42:47.560 even tried out free love with rossiumself participates in in 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:49.520 a polyamorous relationship. 0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:52.480 Many such cases, many such cases. 0:42:53.239 --> 0:42:56.759 But despite all these efforts, the cracks were starting to show. 0:42:57.480 --> 0:43:00.400 In eighteen ninety two, seven families packed up and return 0:43:00.520 --> 0:43:02.960 to Italy. By the end of the year, the colonu's 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:07.520 population had dwindled just twenty people. Oh dang, yeah, it's 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:09.359 a very very rapid decline. 0:43:09.880 --> 0:43:10.240 Yeah. 0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:13.160 The sustainability of these types of projects is always like 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:15.440 the big thing, and especially when it comes to like 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:19.800 food and farming like that is unfortunately the joke whenever 0:43:19.800 --> 0:43:22.480 people talk about these sorts of projects. Now all of 0:43:22.520 --> 0:43:25.320 these artists and craftsmens don't want to spend out time 0:43:25.800 --> 0:43:27.239 toiling away in the fields. 0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:32.800 Yeah. Yeah, it's a challenge that the persisted today. 0:43:33.440 --> 0:43:36.640 So far, it seems like there's like a decent mix 0:43:36.680 --> 0:43:40.960 of like labor organizing, like social organizing, like with like newspapers, 0:43:40.960 --> 0:43:43.319 like theaters, plays like that kind of like more like 0:43:43.400 --> 0:43:48.400 cultural engagement stuff with like unions and this little like 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:51.680 anarchist society that they try. They've kind of like like 0:43:52.040 --> 0:43:54.239 sped run through a whole bunch of like I don't 0:43:54.280 --> 0:43:56.080 want to say like social anarchism, because that is a 0:43:56.120 --> 0:43:58.719 term that means something else. But there is a lot 0:43:58.719 --> 0:44:01.000 of stuff that's kind of very similar to that, at 0:44:01.120 --> 0:44:04.680 least like so far, and I'm not hearing very much 0:44:04.719 --> 0:44:06.880 stuff that leads me to believe there's like you know, 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:11.600 a large degree of conflextuality towards the actual Brazilian Republic. 0:44:11.680 --> 0:44:14.560 But was that also like an aspect during this time period. 0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.600 They would end up engaging in a lot more heavy 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:20.319 like you're talking about, like direct engagement with the state. 0:44:20.920 --> 0:44:21.280 Yeah. 0:44:21.680 --> 0:44:23.680 I think in this early period, when they were still 0:44:23.840 --> 0:44:26.640 building up and spread in the wood, it was sort 0:44:26.640 --> 0:44:30.160 of a honeymoon period for the movement in a sense. 0:44:30.239 --> 0:44:36.600 A lot of the dramatic confrontations are very soon pendent. Okay, Okay, 0:44:37.640 --> 0:44:40.919 So the cracks were certain to show families had packed 0:44:40.960 --> 0:44:43.359 up and returned to Italy, the colony had gone down 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:46.520 to just twenty people, and because a lot of the 0:44:46.600 --> 0:44:51.080 colonies made up of intellectuals, doctors, engineers, artisans, many of 0:44:51.120 --> 0:44:54.240 them left for nearby cities, where they founded the Jessepe 0:44:54.280 --> 0:44:58.880 Garibali Society, which I couldn't find much information on that 0:44:58.960 --> 0:45:02.200 particular society from that particular historical period in my research, 0:45:03.040 --> 0:45:05.719 but it seems to have been a mutual aid society. 0:45:06.280 --> 0:45:07.399 I'm not one hundred percent sure. 0:45:07.520 --> 0:45:09.279 I mean that would like make sense as it's like 0:45:09.400 --> 0:45:10.839 within like a bigger city. 0:45:11.760 --> 0:45:17.360 Yes, yes, And Garibaldi has a rather interesting history that 0:45:17.400 --> 0:45:20.640 I'm only recently learning about. And I didn't even know 0:45:20.719 --> 0:45:22.680 he went all the way to like South America and 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:27.120 Sclevantin and stuff. But like I learned very recently that 0:45:27.880 --> 0:45:31.840 he had married, I believe, an indigenous or a Mestizo 0:45:32.040 --> 0:45:34.960 woman while he was in South America and they had 0:45:35.080 --> 0:45:40.759 like this very romantic, dramatic life together, leading battlefield side 0:45:40.800 --> 0:45:41.880 by side all that stuff. 0:45:42.320 --> 0:45:42.480 Yeah. 0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:46.839 Yeah, yeah, So I'm not surprised that the Italian anarchists 0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:51.759 were perhaps inspired by Garibaldi, even if he himself was 0:45:51.840 --> 0:45:56.080 not an anarchist. Sure so, anyway, by eighteen ninety three 0:45:56.320 --> 0:45:59.919 new settlers had arrived, thankfully, and the colony was trying 0:45:59.960 --> 0:46:04.040 to manufacture shoes and wine barrels so they could make 0:46:04.120 --> 0:46:07.120 some sort of an income. They eventually grew to sixty 0:46:07.160 --> 0:46:10.040 four residents, and they established two wells and a new 0:46:10.120 --> 0:46:13.400 access road. But even with those new developments, the colony 0:46:13.480 --> 0:46:16.719 was still struggling. They were dealing with material poverty, the 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:22.319 neighboring Catholic communities were extremely hostile toward them, and they 0:46:22.400 --> 0:46:26.279 also had to deal with very poor sanitation conditions. And 0:46:26.320 --> 0:46:28.200 then in their fourth year they also had a crop 0:46:28.239 --> 0:46:33.040 epidemic that pretty much decimated the colony. And of course, 0:46:34.040 --> 0:46:36.839 as high minded as the ideas may have been, there 0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:40.200 were the internal struggles. You know, Free love and communal 0:46:40.280 --> 0:46:43.960 living may have been central to the colony's philosophy, but 0:46:44.120 --> 0:46:47.000 not everyone adapted well to the ideals. In theory, they 0:46:47.080 --> 0:46:51.239 embraced the values, but in practice there were some insecurity 0:46:51.480 --> 0:46:53.120 and jealousy that of. 0:46:53.239 --> 0:46:56.879 Rose out of that also many such cases. 0:46:56.920 --> 0:46:59.640 Many such cases. By the end of eighteen ninety three, 0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:04.040 it was abundantly clear that the colony couldn't survive. Labor 0:47:04.160 --> 0:47:07.080 was in high demand the nearby cities, and despite efforts 0:47:07.080 --> 0:47:10.239 to attract new settlers through socialist propaganda in Europe. The 0:47:10.320 --> 0:47:13.600 colony just couldn't maintain its population, and eighteen ninety four 0:47:14.200 --> 0:47:16.880 Celia Colony officially came to an end. They have in 0:47:16.960 --> 0:47:21.799 many players and dramatizations of the story Cecilia Colony. Most 0:47:21.840 --> 0:47:25.200 of them, as you would imagine, are in Brazilian Portuguese, 0:47:25.320 --> 0:47:28.560 so good luck finding them. 0:47:29.640 --> 0:47:33.160 I'll try to find a dub somewhere maybe yeah. 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:37.799 And its Olian Portuguese. But anyway, so, the experiment had 0:47:37.840 --> 0:47:42.600 held on for four dramatic years define pressure from the 0:47:42.640 --> 0:47:47.080 newly established Brazilian Republican government, heavy taxes and even military inclusions. 0:47:47.600 --> 0:47:50.800 Eventually material conditions disease and until the conflicts brought it 0:47:50.880 --> 0:48:05.840 Tourne and how we're entering into the twentieth century. Nineteen 0:48:05.840 --> 0:48:08.440 oh three saw the founding of the first fourmal structure, 0:48:08.520 --> 0:48:13.480 inspired by international syndicalism, the Federation of Class Associations. This 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:15.920 organization would take part in the first Workers Congress in 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:19.440 nineteen oh six, which brought together forty three delegates, predominantly 0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:23.480 anarchist from across Brazil, in over twelve sessions, discussing twenty 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:27.080 three items of discussion Giovanni Grossi, the guy behind the 0:48:27.120 --> 0:48:31.040 Cecilia Colony, was among the attendees. The Congress sought to 0:48:31.200 --> 0:48:35.160 advocate for economic resistance societies and laid the foundation for 0:48:35.200 --> 0:48:39.520 the Brazilian Workers Confederation or COBB for Sure in nineteen 0:48:39.520 --> 0:48:44.040 oh eight, which united over fifty unions, primarily from Rio Deshaneio, 0:48:44.600 --> 0:48:48.200 South Baolo and Rio Grande Rossul. Between ninety oh five 0:48:48.320 --> 0:48:51.960 nineteen oh eight, the workers movement witnessed a surge in strikes, 0:48:52.520 --> 0:48:57.000 notably among shoemakers, reallymen and other industrial sectors. Portoal des 0:48:57.080 --> 0:48:59.440 gres saw at the general strike in nineteen oh six. 0:49:00.080 --> 0:49:03.120 South Paulo was the scene of insurrectionary strikes in nineteen 0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:05.200 oh six and nineteen oh seven as part of the 0:49:05.239 --> 0:49:08.680 campaign for the eight hour work day. In Santos. The 0:49:08.719 --> 0:49:11.480 strikes for the eight hour day only ended in nineteen 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:15.200 twenty one, meaning they spent well over a decade close 0:49:15.239 --> 0:49:18.600 to two decades fighting for the eight hour day. Yeah 0:49:19.080 --> 0:49:21.839 The workers movement also held several congresses in this time, 0:49:21.920 --> 0:49:24.920 including the first and second South Paulo State Congresses, the 0:49:25.000 --> 0:49:29.600 first mass Cares, the First mass Heires State Labor Federation Congress, 0:49:29.680 --> 0:49:33.120 and the Parana Labor Congress, which affirmed the movement's commitments 0:49:33.200 --> 0:49:36.799 to anarchist cynicalism, and as with other anarchist groups around 0:49:36.800 --> 0:49:39.799 the world, they organized the demonstration to commemorate the death 0:49:39.840 --> 0:49:43.480 of Francisco Ferrere, the Modern School founder who inspired rational 0:49:43.600 --> 0:49:47.320 education efforts across Brazil. They also supported the Russian workers 0:49:47.360 --> 0:49:50.880 in both nineteen oh five and nineteen seventeen, supported Mexican 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:54.160 workers and peasants in nineteen ten, and commemorated the Chicago 0:49:54.239 --> 0:49:59.160 Martyrs on subsequent mediates. Nineteen thirteen marked the second Brazilian 0:49:59.200 --> 0:50:01.680 Labor Congress, much larger than the Foost where there it 0:50:01.719 --> 0:50:04.720 it's from one hundred and seventeen bodies across eight states, 0:50:05.120 --> 0:50:09.239 debated twenty four items. In nineteen fourteen, anarchists in South 0:50:09.280 --> 0:50:12.600 Paulo organize a conference it's like two delegates to represent 0:50:12.680 --> 0:50:16.320 Brazil at the London Anarchist Congress, which is eventually and 0:50:16.560 --> 0:50:19.799 unfortunately canceled due to the outbreak of World War One. 0:50:20.719 --> 0:50:23.239 But this is such an interesting moment in like international 0:50:23.280 --> 0:50:27.480 anarchism that at least right now, just like we have 0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:31.520 like the Internet, but that sucks, like this style of 0:50:31.600 --> 0:50:35.719 like actual like like international like anarchism. It's just something 0:50:35.800 --> 0:50:38.360 that is I've I've never really been able to like 0:50:38.480 --> 0:50:39.600 experience before. 0:50:39.719 --> 0:50:43.160 But Garrison, you forgets in something we have discourse. 0:50:44.520 --> 0:50:47.359 Oh I'm sure they also had discourse, but they got 0:50:47.400 --> 0:50:50.480 to go to London to do their discourse, which sounds 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:53.400 which sounds much better than doing it from my toilet 0:50:53.480 --> 0:50:57.719 on Twitter dot com. Sorry xx dot com, My apologies 0:50:58.600 --> 0:50:59.400 not that that's. 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:02.160 True, though, I would much rather the discords take place 0:51:02.200 --> 0:51:05.960 in puson over you know, the discord suvas and the 0:51:06.560 --> 0:51:08.200 Switzer and Breddit threads. 0:51:08.440 --> 0:51:11.000 I mean, like especially in that like international aspect, Like 0:51:11.080 --> 0:51:14.320 there's there's certainly like like anarchist gatherings and like conferences 0:51:14.360 --> 0:51:17.280 and convergences, you know, within within countries. 0:51:17.360 --> 0:51:19.160 I've been to many in the United States. 0:51:19.760 --> 0:51:23.200 But yeah, this this sort of like like having anarchists 0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:26.759 in Brazil go to London to talk with anarchists from 0:51:26.760 --> 0:51:29.680 everywhere else in the world, like compare their experiences and 0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:32.560 compare notes. Yeah, then talk about like what their actual 0:51:32.640 --> 0:51:35.120 like political goals are. It's something that I think is 0:51:35.200 --> 0:51:37.120 just stalling, doesn't really exist anymore. 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:40.200 And that's really a vital component for international solidarity because 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:44.040 that's kind of solidarity, that kind of portunity is very 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:48.720 difficult to find just through virtual interaction. There's something meaningful 0:51:48.840 --> 0:51:51.160 and shake and a Pusson's hand and embrace in them 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:54.520 and laugh at and crying together in Pusson sharing a meal, 0:51:55.520 --> 0:51:56.760 I think really makes a difference. 0:51:56.920 --> 0:51:59.120 I mean, yeah, especially when you have like the spread 0:51:59.160 --> 0:52:01.960 of anarchism is built on that internationalism, Like you have 0:52:02.239 --> 0:52:05.360 anarchists from Portugal and Italy and Spain. 0:52:05.640 --> 0:52:09.360 The immigrant influence exactly is very very profound. 0:52:09.680 --> 0:52:09.879 Yeah. 0:52:10.719 --> 0:52:13.800 But although there was the outbreak of war one closer 0:52:13.840 --> 0:52:17.600 to whom the anarchists were still involving themselves in that 0:52:17.680 --> 0:52:21.000 sort of regional discourse. I may have been flying to London, 0:52:21.560 --> 0:52:24.160 but they managed to meet with delegates from Argentina, Chile, 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:27.480 and Uruguay at the International Peace Conference and the South 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:31.319 American Anarchist Congress in October nineteen fifteen, all in an 0:52:31.320 --> 0:52:36.640 aim to foster both regional and international anarchist cooperation as 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:39.839 the war raged on. In addition to the anti war propaganda, 0:52:40.160 --> 0:52:44.240 Brazil's anarchists continue to rally against unemployment rise and living costs, 0:52:44.520 --> 0:52:48.520 scarcity of basic foodstuffs, while resisting the capitalists the clergy. 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:51.000 In the state, which sent young men to the slaughter 0:52:51.200 --> 0:52:54.279 on the battlefield. In response to the pressure levied by 0:52:54.280 --> 0:52:57.560 the libertarian proletaria, the government gave the go ahead for 0:52:57.680 --> 0:53:01.640 direct sale by the producer to the consumer without taxes levied, 0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:05.760 easing the hugging crisis in the country. So their struggles worked. 0:53:06.880 --> 0:53:09.680 This period and particularly from nineteen twelve to nineteen twenty, 0:53:10.200 --> 0:53:14.200 marked significant worker mobilization. The period from nineteen seventeen to 0:53:14.280 --> 0:53:19.160 nineteen twenty in particular, was marked by significant strikes, including 0:53:19.200 --> 0:53:22.200 the South Paulo General Strike of nineteen seventeen, which saw 0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:26.160 seventy thousand workers participate with sympathy strikes in the Rio Grande, 0:53:26.239 --> 0:53:30.840 Assul and Pirana demanding better working conditions, wages, and the 0:53:30.840 --> 0:53:33.880 eight hour workday. This period also witnessed an increase in 0:53:34.000 --> 0:53:37.400 unionization and the growth of the workers press, which provided 0:53:37.480 --> 0:53:42.880 critical platforms revolutionary ideas. In nineteen nineteen, an uprising exploded 0:53:42.960 --> 0:53:45.279 in Rio de Janeiro, leading to the death of three 0:53:45.360 --> 0:53:48.920 workers and the imprisonment or deportation of nearly one hundred. 0:53:49.480 --> 0:53:53.040 The government deployed police, troops and even naval warships to 0:53:53.160 --> 0:53:56.680 crush the resistance of the workers, and they also attempted 0:53:56.719 --> 0:54:00.400 to exploit racial divisions. They would take Afro Brazili and 0:54:00.520 --> 0:54:03.919 used them as scabs, and then once the strike was over, 0:54:04.000 --> 0:54:05.879 once they broke up this strike, they would fire those 0:54:05.960 --> 0:54:10.520 same black workers to reaffirm the privilege of white labor. Eventually, 0:54:10.520 --> 0:54:12.880 the government would concede and force capitalists to make some 0:54:13.040 --> 0:54:17.279 concessions where wages were concerned, but this came at a cost. 0:54:17.920 --> 0:54:21.800 Alongside the mass imprisonment and deportations, the state's efforts included 0:54:21.880 --> 0:54:26.040 infiltration of the unions, which eventually stayed reformist unions, into 0:54:26.040 --> 0:54:29.200 the leadership position of the working classes, supplanting the more 0:54:29.239 --> 0:54:34.880 revolutionary organizations. Thus, anarchism arguably entered a new era. In 0:54:34.960 --> 0:54:39.000 the nineteen twenties, there were still anarchist led labor congresses, 0:54:39.160 --> 0:54:41.640 including the Third Brazilian Labor Congress and the second and 0:54:41.719 --> 0:54:45.160 third rew Granded Assoul Labor Congresses, the latter of which 0:54:45.520 --> 0:54:49.080 endorsed a declaration of principles from the IWA and established 0:54:49.080 --> 0:54:52.239 an International Anarchists or Diarity Impact. But by the four 0:54:52.239 --> 0:54:54.960 to three or Granded as Soul Labor Congress, attended by 0:54:55.000 --> 0:54:59.200 sixteen workers organizations, two newspapers, six anarchist groups, SULB power 0:54:59.320 --> 0:55:03.560 militants and delegates from Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Anarchist efforts 0:55:03.600 --> 0:55:09.040 in Brazil had to become much more clandestine. Following the deportations, 0:55:09.120 --> 0:55:11.640 the state intervention, the general oppression of the success of 0:55:11.680 --> 0:55:15.880 Brazilian regimes. The anarchist movement had indeed weakened, and I 0:55:15.960 --> 0:55:18.600 took another blow with the establishment to the Brazilian Communist 0:55:18.680 --> 0:55:23.359 Party the PCB, partially inspired by Bolshevism in nineteen twenty two, 0:55:23.840 --> 0:55:28.120 which absorbed many former anarchists, including Edgar Lunov, who authored 0:55:28.120 --> 0:55:32.120 its charter, and Astriguilo Perera, who served as its secretary 0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:35.080 general for nearly a decade before he was expelled. The 0:55:35.160 --> 0:55:38.600 PCB competed for union leadership and worked with the governments 0:55:38.640 --> 0:55:43.600 of Artur Bernandez Washington, Louise and Catulio Vargas. The suppressed 0:55:43.600 --> 0:55:47.800 the libertarian movement and the free trade unions. The Bernardes government, 0:55:47.880 --> 0:55:51.520 by the way, sent to thousands of political prisoners, including anarchists, 0:55:51.800 --> 0:55:55.080 into the remote penal colony of Clevelandia, thousands with the 0:55:55.120 --> 0:55:59.480 harsh conditions killed one hundreds Wow and the Louis San 0:55:59.600 --> 0:56:01.479 Vargas governments of course we're not any better. 0:56:01.920 --> 0:56:03.920 I was also wondering, like, where are the people like 0:56:04.040 --> 0:56:04.719 deported to? 0:56:05.040 --> 0:56:07.160 Like it sounded like they've been in Brazil for quite 0:56:07.200 --> 0:56:09.640 a while when you were like mentioning there was all 0:56:09.680 --> 0:56:12.440 those all those other people who were deported out of 0:56:12.480 --> 0:56:15.680 the country, Like where where did they go? 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:18.920 Yeah, there was a story I was reading about that 0:56:19.160 --> 0:56:21.800 I didn't maintaince in my notes. Some only half remember 0:56:21.840 --> 0:56:23.680 in it, but one of my sources would have had 0:56:23.719 --> 0:56:27.320 it of the names I listed at the beginning, but 0:56:27.480 --> 0:56:30.960 they were spoken about how there were these I believe 0:56:31.560 --> 0:56:35.920 Portuguese people in Brazil, as in Portuguese from Portugal who 0:56:35.960 --> 0:56:37.680 have been there and there and working there and whatever 0:56:37.760 --> 0:56:42.480 for years and years and years, and because they hadn't naturalized, 0:56:42.480 --> 0:56:45.120 they were like subject to like these heavy attacks. And 0:56:45.560 --> 0:56:47.160 I believe some of them were deported as well. And 0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:50.400 so I'm assuming whatever country of origin they could be 0:56:50.440 --> 0:56:52.920 traced to, they would be deported there, or they're'd be 0:56:52.920 --> 0:56:55.960 deported to a neighbor in South American country. But I 0:56:56.000 --> 0:56:58.640 didn't really find specific details on where they were sent. 0:56:59.280 --> 0:57:03.280 I assume it's mostly their home countries or neighboring countries. 0:57:03.719 --> 0:57:07.400 Between that and like sending thousands of people to a 0:57:07.520 --> 0:57:11.440 penal colony with hundreds dying, like this is a massive 0:57:11.640 --> 0:57:15.520 wave of repression they're dealing with in like the early twenties. 0:57:15.560 --> 0:57:21.280 Here indeed, indeed, and unfortunately, their supposed allies weren't exactly 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:25.120 a help. In nineteen twenty seven, the anarchists Antonio Dominquez 0:57:25.320 --> 0:57:29.680 and Damiao the Silver who murdered by the communists, who 0:57:29.720 --> 0:57:32.640 also wounded another ten members of the printers union and 0:57:32.760 --> 0:57:35.360 attacked and stole the assets of the footwear workers Union, 0:57:35.960 --> 0:57:38.600 so that further weakened the anarchist struggle when they were 0:57:38.600 --> 0:57:42.880 already dealing with that government repression. And in a sense, 0:57:42.920 --> 0:57:47.680 anarchists are like roaches. We just keep on struggling and surviving, 0:57:48.240 --> 0:57:51.520 and the persistence of anarchist resistance in spite of all 0:57:51.560 --> 0:57:55.560 this repression, we would trigger a further backlash by the bourgeoisie. 0:57:55.960 --> 0:57:58.600 We should also arise to challenge the survival of anarchism, 0:57:58.760 --> 0:58:02.000 and they left in general in Brazil, from the very 0:58:02.080 --> 0:58:06.040 same Italy that brought Many an anarchist, also came Many 0:58:06.080 --> 0:58:11.120 a fascist, which brings us to the Brazilian integralist movement. 0:58:11.800 --> 0:58:13.760 But to find out what happened in the nineteen twenties 0:58:13.880 --> 0:58:16.200 and thirties and onward. You'll have to wait for the 0:58:16.240 --> 0:58:19.520 next episode. I have an andrew sage you can find 0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:21.960 on YouTube dot com slash Andrewism and feature in dot 0:58:22.000 --> 0:58:24.360 com slash same true and this has been it could 0:58:24.360 --> 0:58:48.600 happen here. All powerful the people welcome to that could 0:58:48.600 --> 0:58:52.720 happen here. I'm addressage of future channel Andrewism. Today will 0:58:52.760 --> 0:58:54.960 continue in the last in American Anarchism series with that 0:58:55.080 --> 0:58:59.880 exploration of anarchism in Brazil. I'm joined by Garrison D. 0:59:00.280 --> 0:59:03.200 Hello there and once again thanks to the scholarship of 0:59:03.480 --> 0:59:09.880 Edgar Rodriguez, Jesse Cohen, Philippe Corea, Raphael Vianna, Li Silva Cowan, 0:59:09.920 --> 0:59:15.360 Williando Santos, Edieline Toledo, and Luigi Biondi. When we last 0:59:15.440 --> 0:59:18.560 left off, anarchist labor resistance in Brazil had triggered a 0:59:18.680 --> 0:59:22.360 turning point and a reaction. Weakened by the splits caused 0:59:22.400 --> 0:59:24.880 by the Bolsheviks and the military repression of the government, 0:59:25.400 --> 0:59:28.520 another faction would step in to cripple the anarchist cause 0:59:28.720 --> 0:59:33.960 even further. The Integralists in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, 0:59:34.400 --> 0:59:37.840 Brazil saw the rise of the Brazilian Integralist Action, the 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:43.720 aib A nationalist movement led by Pinio Salgado. During a 0:59:43.800 --> 0:59:48.280 trip to Europe, Salgado became enamored with Benito Mussolini's fascist 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:51.520 movement in Italy. Upon his return to Brazil and at 0:59:51.520 --> 0:59:54.920 the height of Catulio Aragas's dictatorship, which was ushered in 0:59:55.040 --> 0:59:58.240 thanks to a cool weather the bren Alliance, Salgado founded 0:59:58.280 --> 1:00:02.480 this Society for Political Studies, gathering intellectuals who were sympathetic 1:00:02.680 --> 1:00:07.320 to fascism. Then he essumed the October Manifesto, laying out 1:00:07.360 --> 1:00:11.080 the groundwork for the Brazilian Integralist Action. The movement closely 1:00:11.160 --> 1:00:16.640 mirrored Italian fascism with its green shirted paramilitary wing, regimented demonstrations, 1:00:16.920 --> 1:00:22.120 and militant rhetoric. The Salgado publicly rejected racism, many members 1:00:22.120 --> 1:00:26.880 of his party adopted anti Semitic views. Integralism was financed 1:00:26.880 --> 1:00:30.240 in part by the Italian embassy, with the Roman salute 1:00:30.520 --> 1:00:33.800 and the Tupe word an nawe meaning you are my brother, 1:00:34.280 --> 1:00:38.480 as key symbols of the unity. Integralist action drew its 1:00:38.520 --> 1:00:42.560 support from lower middle class Italians. And Portuguese immigrants, alongside 1:00:42.600 --> 1:00:45.760 sections of the Brazilian military, particularly the navy. As the 1:00:45.800 --> 1:00:49.360 party grew, it became the dictator of Vargas's primary right 1:00:49.440 --> 1:00:52.560 wing basis support, especially after he began to crack down 1:00:52.600 --> 1:00:57.120 on the Communist Party. Integralists frequently engaged in street violence 1:00:57.200 --> 1:01:01.640 and terrorism aimed at leftist groups. In nineteen fifty one, 1:01:02.080 --> 1:01:05.919 Podagas introduced the Labor Regulations based and Mussolinian's Labor Charter. 1:01:06.720 --> 1:01:10.160 Independent industrial unions were banned. Union membership had to be 1:01:10.200 --> 1:01:12.760 registered with the Ministry of Labor, two thirds of the 1:01:12.840 --> 1:01:16.240 union membership had to be native born or naturalized Brazilians. 1:01:16.360 --> 1:01:20.160 Oh no, yeah, and union officers were required to either 1:01:20.200 --> 1:01:23.600 be resident in Brazil for ten years if naturalized, or 1:01:23.720 --> 1:01:25.240 thirty years if foreign born. 1:01:25.360 --> 1:01:28.360 That's pretty fucked up, I would assume. Also just very 1:01:28.440 --> 1:01:32.080 damaging to the entire labor movement in the country, A 1:01:32.240 --> 1:01:33.760 very intense series of restrictions. 1:01:33.960 --> 1:01:38.439 Yes, as a very immigrant empowered labor movement. Yeah, yeah, 1:01:38.480 --> 1:01:44.120 that was definitely targeted. Definitely definitely targeted. Obviously, like the 1:01:44.200 --> 1:01:46.880 class consciousness of the immigrant workers was such a threat 1:01:47.320 --> 1:01:49.120 that they had to root them all from any position 1:01:49.240 --> 1:01:54.640 of influence within the sanctioned unions. Salgado and the Interioralists, 1:01:54.680 --> 1:01:57.400 of course, welcomed these degrees and work with the police 1:01:57.440 --> 1:02:01.400 to capture in the ten workers. The communeists also apparently 1:02:01.520 --> 1:02:05.840 welcome the impositions the Ministry of Labor. Meanwhile, anarchists and 1:02:05.920 --> 1:02:10.560 workers were weathering rightist violence. One time, integralists kicked down 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:13.600 the doors of the Bakery Workers Union, the construction workers 1:02:13.680 --> 1:02:17.320 leave the mill and ware house operatives, Stonemason's Union and 1:02:17.560 --> 1:02:21.920 Union of Caffee Employees, destroy their assets and extra judiciously 1:02:22.120 --> 1:02:24.280 hauled away the workers as prisoners. 1:02:25.160 --> 1:02:27.720 So they just started like kidnapping people and doing like 1:02:28.320 --> 1:02:31.360 basically state sanctioned terrorism exactly. 1:02:31.880 --> 1:02:36.240 Another integralist, Gustavo Barosso, used his walking stick to break 1:02:36.320 --> 1:02:39.040 the arm of an anti fascist sixteen year old worker 1:02:39.560 --> 1:02:43.720 named neer Colejo as she was making a speech against fascism. 1:02:44.360 --> 1:02:45.880 Time is a flat circle. 1:02:46.440 --> 1:02:50.360 Indeed it is instead of sticks this time they're using cars. 1:02:50.480 --> 1:02:53.919 But it's the same same principle and sticks. Oh yeah, 1:02:54.040 --> 1:02:55.400 people are still collecting sticks. 1:02:55.480 --> 1:02:58.440 I have been hit by many a stick from a 1:02:58.560 --> 1:03:01.720 fascist at a street demo, but especially as the data hture. 1:03:02.120 --> 1:03:05.960 Hmm, down. So with all this violence the deal with 1:03:06.560 --> 1:03:09.400 in this time the anarchist presses had to hounked down 1:03:09.840 --> 1:03:13.040 and prepare to face further attacks. In nineteen thirty three, 1:03:13.120 --> 1:03:16.120 the Libertarian Anti Fascist Committee sounded alarm on the dire 1:03:16.240 --> 1:03:20.400 threat of integralism as what anarchist press wrote, like fascism, 1:03:20.760 --> 1:03:24.400 integralism means to enslave and fetter the people that has 1:03:24.440 --> 1:03:27.560 now defend our liberty like men. Let's we be forced 1:03:27.560 --> 1:03:31.000 to weep like mad men hereafter. On December twenty fourth, 1:03:31.120 --> 1:03:34.200 nineteen thirty three, the tensions were an all time high 1:03:34.960 --> 1:03:37.240 for when it humiliates and defeat at the Saloon ser 1:03:37.400 --> 1:03:42.200 gu Garcia Plinio Salgado's Integralists, known as the Green Shirts, 1:03:42.640 --> 1:03:46.080 planned a show of force to assert their dominance. Their 1:03:46.120 --> 1:03:51.560 target union leaders and leftists, particularly anarchists, who sit against 1:03:51.600 --> 1:03:55.280 their fascist vision for Brazil. According to reports from those 1:03:55.320 --> 1:03:59.080 of US on December first, the Integralists had organized eighteen 1:03:59.200 --> 1:04:02.280 companies of green in shirted marchers who would parade through 1:04:02.280 --> 1:04:05.360 the heart of South Paolo, prepared to crush any resistance 1:04:05.400 --> 1:04:09.800 that came their way. Reinforcements from Rudishonneio, led by Gustavo 1:04:09.840 --> 1:04:14.280 Barosso bolstered their numbers with five hundred trained assault troops 1:04:14.400 --> 1:04:17.920 prime to attack. The police, of course, were openly supported 1:04:18.000 --> 1:04:21.720 of the Interioralists and had even stationed machine guns at 1:04:21.840 --> 1:04:25.240 key points throughout the city to ensure the march went smoothly. 1:04:25.800 --> 1:04:29.760 Co Arleino de Olivera had an additional four hundred troops 1:04:30.160 --> 1:04:34.280 made up of infantry, fire brigade units and cavalry ready 1:04:34.360 --> 1:04:38.040 to intervene. Seems like clear overkill, but it was a 1:04:38.120 --> 1:04:41.640 shower force, so just to be expected. By the time 1:04:41.680 --> 1:04:44.840 the marchers reached the pressure that say, a huge crowd 1:04:44.920 --> 1:04:48.520 had gathered, some curious onlookers, others outright opponents of the 1:04:48.560 --> 1:04:53.400 fascist movement. As the Interroorists survived at the cathedral, cries 1:04:53.560 --> 1:04:56.720 of death to the Fascists and down with the Green 1:04:56.800 --> 1:05:03.560 Shirts echoed throughout the square. Suddenly shots rang out. Some 1:05:03.800 --> 1:05:06.840 say the fire and began accidentally when a machine gun 1:05:06.880 --> 1:05:10.600 set up by the civil Guard was nudged. Others claim 1:05:10.640 --> 1:05:13.600 it was the communists line in wait, ready to ambush 1:05:13.680 --> 1:05:18.240 the march. Regardless, chaos erupted before the anarchists had even 1:05:18.280 --> 1:05:22.760 initiated their planned attack. The scene quickly evolved into pandemonium, 1:05:23.360 --> 1:05:27.000 people fled in terror, shots continued to fire, and several 1:05:27.080 --> 1:05:31.280 were mortally wounded. The planned pledge of loyalty to Planio Salgado, 1:05:31.600 --> 1:05:34.280 the head of the Integralists, never took place that day, 1:05:34.760 --> 1:05:38.680 but by nineteen thirty seven, Salgado launched a presidential campaign, 1:05:39.200 --> 1:05:41.280 hoping to ride the wave of crow and support for 1:05:41.360 --> 1:05:45.040 his movement and become a dictator in his own right. However, 1:05:45.360 --> 1:05:49.400 when Varragas canceled the elections and established the authoritarian Estado 1:05:49.480 --> 1:05:52.760 Novo regime, he banned the Integralist Party along with all 1:05:52.800 --> 1:05:57.640 the others sideline in Salgado. In response, Integralist militants launched 1:05:57.680 --> 1:06:02.200 two uprisings in nineteen thirty eight, of which failed. Sagata 1:06:02.320 --> 1:06:06.200 was imprisoned and lead to exile to Portugal. After spending 1:06:06.360 --> 1:06:09.640 most of his life supporting the dictators of Brazil, his 1:06:09.760 --> 1:06:12.760 attempts to become one of his own utterly field. 1:06:13.320 --> 1:06:17.240 There's a few interesting things in this moment here, particularly 1:06:17.480 --> 1:06:22.040 like how the like initial struggle against fascism once again 1:06:22.240 --> 1:06:26.160 kind of laid at the feet of anarchists and communists 1:06:26.240 --> 1:06:28.520 had like a degree of hesitancy to like to like 1:06:28.680 --> 1:06:32.200 jump in fully and then also, like I find it 1:06:32.600 --> 1:06:35.200 interesting the way that these like this era of fascists 1:06:35.240 --> 1:06:39.760 in Brazil particularly, we're targeting unions, but as almost as 1:06:39.800 --> 1:06:42.200 a way just to target like immigrants, Like it was 1:06:42.240 --> 1:06:44.600 like the easiest way for them to actually just do 1:06:44.720 --> 1:06:48.400 anti immigrant violence was like through the unions. 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:53.920 Yeah, anti immigrant violence is almost always anti worker violence 1:06:53.960 --> 1:06:54.360 as well. 1:06:54.880 --> 1:06:57.040 Yeah, no, no, in the States at least right now, 1:06:57.160 --> 1:07:01.680 we're just like seeing another kind of uptick in like 1:07:01.760 --> 1:07:05.280 anti immigrant rhetoric and violence, and yeah, a lot of 1:07:05.320 --> 1:07:08.720 it is tied to like labor, like how immigrants are 1:07:08.920 --> 1:07:11.439 are taking jobs away from the lower classes, that sort 1:07:11.440 --> 1:07:11.680 of thing. 1:07:12.280 --> 1:07:15.360 Huh. As always you remember that, you know it could 1:07:15.400 --> 1:07:19.320 happen here, and it's important to be constantly aware and 1:07:19.400 --> 1:07:24.000 on God against even the ghost, the shadow of fascism 1:07:24.320 --> 1:07:28.560 creeping up in your communities. It's easy to be treated 1:07:29.040 --> 1:07:33.680 by the media or by others as just oh, you're 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:37.240 making a big deal about it, over exaggerates in the threat. 1:07:37.320 --> 1:07:42.240 But know, these things sinuwable very quickly. They need to 1:07:42.240 --> 1:07:45.680 be nipped in the bud. And it's largely thanks to 1:07:45.680 --> 1:07:48.800 anti fascists on the front lines that the situation is 1:07:49.120 --> 1:07:51.600 not as bad as it could be right now. Yeah, 1:07:52.000 --> 1:08:05.200 even though it is getting this every day. For the 1:08:05.200 --> 1:08:09.560 already weakened anarchists and labor movements in Brazil, Integralism had 1:08:09.600 --> 1:08:14.000 posed a dire threat. They were already splintered and in decline, 1:08:14.240 --> 1:08:18.320 struggling to maintain influence. An Integralism's rapid rise, with his 1:08:18.439 --> 1:08:22.120 militarized structure and anti leftist violence, fully suppressed their hopes. 1:08:23.000 --> 1:08:27.400 The communists weren't exactly a help either. The anarchists lost 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:30.120 a significant strongholder their struggle on the premises of the 1:08:30.200 --> 1:08:33.760 Anti Clerical League and Heriodi Jhaneiro when communists sent to 1:08:33.840 --> 1:08:37.320 disrupt their meeting called the police on them, leading to 1:08:37.400 --> 1:08:40.680 the arrest of eight anarchists and the closure of the 1:08:40.760 --> 1:08:44.559 Anti Clerical League center and its newspaper. With the help 1:08:44.640 --> 1:08:48.960 of the Integralists, communists and leaders of Cardinal Sebastio Lem's 1:08:49.000 --> 1:08:54.280 Brazilian Catholic Party, Getulio Vargas faced little resistance in establishing 1:08:54.320 --> 1:08:58.839 his Estado Novo dictatorship. His authoritarian regime lasted from nineteen 1:08:58.880 --> 1:09:02.120 thirty seven to nineteen forty five and was marked by 1:09:02.160 --> 1:09:06.280 continuous crackdowns on labor, autonomy and anarchism. But despite the 1:09:06.320 --> 1:09:09.599 common claims the nineteen thirties marked the end of anarchism 1:09:09.680 --> 1:09:14.080 in Brazil, anarchists remained active in unions and cultural spaces 1:09:14.240 --> 1:09:19.519 despite repression. Anarchists published influential periodicals like A playbe and 1:09:19.680 --> 1:09:24.320 a Childdreta, and aimed to create a national anarchist political organization. 1:09:25.080 --> 1:09:28.440 Post nineteen forty five, in the era of re deemocratization, 1:09:29.080 --> 1:09:32.800 anarchists converged in South Pawerlo for Brazilian Anarchist Congresses in 1:09:32.920 --> 1:09:36.240 nineteen forty eight and nineteen fifty nine, which brought together 1:09:36.360 --> 1:09:40.560 veterans and motivated the re establishment of social centers. The 1:09:40.640 --> 1:09:43.960 anarchists resumed educational and cultural activities that I found in 1:09:44.040 --> 1:09:47.439 the Centro des Cultural Socil the CCS, which became a 1:09:47.520 --> 1:09:52.400 hub for anarchist intellectual life, hosted lectures, conferences, literary events, 1:09:52.439 --> 1:09:56.839 and even theater performances. The anarchists were back. The CCS 1:09:56.880 --> 1:09:59.439 had played a key role in building anarchist networks, even 1:09:59.520 --> 1:10:03.759 hosted exiles from Spain and helped establish similar cultural centers 1:10:04.040 --> 1:10:07.040 in the suburbs of sal Paolo and other cities across Brazil. 1:10:07.920 --> 1:10:10.679 In Rio de Janeiro, a similar space emerged in nineteen 1:10:10.720 --> 1:10:14.360 fifty eight. The Centrol de Studos put Fessor jose Ka 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:21.120 or CEPJO, like the CCS, DECEPJO, hosted courses, lectures, and debates. 1:10:21.640 --> 1:10:24.839 In nineteen sixty one, it helps establish an anarchist publishing 1:10:24.880 --> 1:10:29.439 house called Mundo Libre in sarth Paulo. Union activity surged, 1:10:29.840 --> 1:10:33.559 with three hundred thousand workers striking in nineteen fifty three 1:10:33.960 --> 1:10:37.960 and another four hundred thousand in nineteen fifty seven. This 1:10:38.120 --> 1:10:41.720 period of intense mobilization provided an opportunity for anarchists and 1:10:41.760 --> 1:10:45.400 independent socialists to come together and form the Syndicalist Orientation 1:10:45.560 --> 1:10:49.880 Movement or MOS. Created in nineteen fifty three, MS aimed 1:10:49.920 --> 1:10:52.479 to fight for the autonomy and freedom of workers unions 1:10:52.800 --> 1:10:56.600 resistant state at corporate control. By nineteen fifty seven, they 1:10:56.680 --> 1:11:00.479 had enough momentum to contest union leadership positions, especially within 1:11:00.560 --> 1:11:04.840 the graphics sector. Despite these strides, however, the anarchists went 1:11:04.880 --> 1:11:09.439 one faced considerable challenges. The re democratization after nineteen forty 1:11:09.520 --> 1:11:12.799 five offered some room for growth, but the labor landscape 1:11:12.880 --> 1:11:16.720 was dominated by corporatist forces, the Communist Party and the 1:11:16.760 --> 1:11:20.800 Brazilian Labor Party anarchists found themselves battling for influence in 1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:25.040 a crowded political field. Their efforts to revitalize the movement 1:11:25.360 --> 1:11:28.480 were further stifled by a lack of resources and militants, 1:11:28.840 --> 1:11:32.840 which limited their presence in social movements. The momentum gained 1:11:32.840 --> 1:11:35.920 the nineteen fifties came to a crash in holds with 1:11:36.000 --> 1:11:40.160 the military coup of nineteen sixty four. Once again, Brazil 1:11:40.400 --> 1:11:44.439 entered a period of authoritarian rule, placing anarchist activists in 1:11:44.520 --> 1:11:49.040 a precarious position. In May nineteen sixty four, anarchists from 1:11:49.120 --> 1:11:52.320 Rio de Janeiro and South Paolo organized a secret meeting 1:11:52.439 --> 1:11:58.240 to strategize, focused on safeguard and anarchist resources. Many went underground, 1:11:58.640 --> 1:12:02.320 facing renewed repression and uncertainty about the future of their movement. 1:12:03.240 --> 1:12:06.160 They shifted focused to education and cultural spaces to survive 1:12:06.600 --> 1:12:09.719 with initiatives like the newspaper or Protesto and the publishing 1:12:09.760 --> 1:12:13.920 house Helminal. Anarchists, including young students new to the cause, 1:12:14.400 --> 1:12:18.280 formed the libertarian student movement the MEL in nineteen sixty seven, 1:12:18.680 --> 1:12:21.920 with the intention of fixing a position and fighting back, 1:12:22.360 --> 1:12:24.840 as well as having an active presence in class and 1:12:24.880 --> 1:12:28.280 ideological struggles market out directions more in accordance with the 1:12:28.320 --> 1:12:32.040 federalist principles which governed the life of every class organization. 1:12:33.080 --> 1:12:36.479 But after one student, Edson Louise, was murdered by the 1:12:36.520 --> 1:12:40.679 military police, the MEL and other student initiatives faced heavy 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:45.040 persecution after the nineteen sixty Institutional Acts Number five. With 1:12:45.160 --> 1:12:49.719 the AI five, which suspended most civil rights including herbiest corpus, 1:12:50.160 --> 1:12:53.880 allowed for the removal from office of opposition politicians, enabled 1:12:53.920 --> 1:12:58.040 federal interventions and municipalities and states, and enabled the institutionalization 1:12:58.200 --> 1:13:02.360 of arbitrary detention, taught and extra judicial killing by the regime. 1:13:03.040 --> 1:13:06.320 This military dictatorship that group Brazil from nineteen sixty four 1:13:06.360 --> 1:13:10.080 to nineteen eighty five forced anarchist movements into survival mood. 1:13:10.960 --> 1:13:15.080 In Rio de Janeiro, the Centro de Studo's professor Jose Equitica, 1:13:15.439 --> 1:13:19.280 operated secretly, while in South Paulo, the Centro de Cultural 1:13:19.439 --> 1:13:22.759 Sociel kept the flame of anarchist thought alive through underground 1:13:22.800 --> 1:13:28.479 propaganda and secret meetings. These centers were vital in maintaining 1:13:28.560 --> 1:13:34.639 connections with international anarchist movements, insurance the ideology persisted despite 1:13:34.720 --> 1:13:38.840 the harsh political climate. You see the importance of international 1:13:38.960 --> 1:13:41.720 solarity for in its head yet again, and you see 1:13:41.760 --> 1:13:45.719 also the importance of having cultural centers, social centers, community 1:13:45.840 --> 1:13:49.400 centers where they movement contraw strength even when it's not 1:13:49.560 --> 1:13:54.560 directly engaged in labor organizing or direct political struggle. Just 1:13:54.680 --> 1:13:59.720 that rejuvenation of community is enough to maintain the survival 1:13:59.840 --> 1:14:03.120 of that ideological struggle, even all hope seems lost. 1:14:03.680 --> 1:14:05.160 No, I mean this is something like you see a 1:14:05.240 --> 1:14:09.799 lot especially after or during like a movement that's faced 1:14:09.840 --> 1:14:12.320 incredible repression. Is that kind of it goes back to 1:14:12.439 --> 1:14:15.240 kind of its earlier forms, at least in terms of 1:14:15.360 --> 1:14:17.559 like like the like the social aspects. In some ways, 1:14:17.600 --> 1:14:20.160 it feels like it's kind of regressing back to kind 1:14:20.200 --> 1:14:22.520 of where it like started back in the last episode 1:14:23.000 --> 1:14:24.320 with some of those like same like you know, like 1:14:24.439 --> 1:14:26.760 like underground newspapers all this. Like this this like a 1:14:26.800 --> 1:14:30.320 cultural engagements, as you said, kind of like a way 1:14:30.360 --> 1:14:33.759 to like keep the light alive during like an intense, 1:14:33.880 --> 1:14:37.000 like military style effort of repression. 1:14:37.720 --> 1:14:52.680 Yeah, it's really quite necessary. Unfortunately, in nineteen sixty nine, 1:14:52.920 --> 1:14:57.160 the headquarters of Sepchu was raided by Air Force agents. 1:14:58.080 --> 1:15:01.240 The invasion resulted in the arrass and prospers of eighteen members, 1:15:01.680 --> 1:15:05.280 including the anarchist Adiel Perez, who endured a month of 1:15:05.360 --> 1:15:09.400 imprisonment and torture. So between nineteen seventy two nineteen seventy 1:15:09.439 --> 1:15:13.799 seven anarchists were forced into even greater degrees of secrecy, 1:15:14.360 --> 1:15:18.120 meeting in very small, title knit groups. In terms of 1:15:18.240 --> 1:15:21.880 organizational strength, this might have been the lowest point for 1:15:22.000 --> 1:15:26.240 anarchism in Brazil, but things began to shift in nineteen 1:15:26.320 --> 1:15:29.639 seventy seven as a dictatorship started to lose its grip. 1:15:30.600 --> 1:15:35.040 That year, the anarchist periodical or Animigouret or The King's Enemy, 1:15:35.520 --> 1:15:39.080 was launched in Bihir, marking a significant moment for the movement. 1:15:40.040 --> 1:15:43.479 This newspaper brought together student and union militants from various 1:15:43.520 --> 1:15:48.719 parts of the country Bahir, Rioligheiro, Sapaolo, Prio, grand Rasul, 1:15:49.000 --> 1:15:53.760 Paraiba and Para. Despite internal conflicts and ideological differences, the 1:15:53.840 --> 1:15:57.240 paper played a crucial role in reorganizing the anarchist movement, 1:15:57.760 --> 1:16:02.040 either the influence of the counterculture or Inimiguorey tackled issues 1:16:02.160 --> 1:16:07.800 like revolutionary unionism, anarchist syndicalism, the student movement, gender sexuality, 1:16:08.120 --> 1:16:11.639 and political theory. The paper ran until nineteen eighty two, 1:16:12.000 --> 1:16:15.320 and after hiatus resumed briefly between nineteen eighty seven and 1:16:15.439 --> 1:16:18.680 nineteen eighty eight. During this same period there was the 1:16:18.760 --> 1:16:21.759 first sign of notable anarchist engagement with the labor movement 1:16:21.960 --> 1:16:25.320 in years. Following a wave of strikes involving more than 1:16:25.400 --> 1:16:29.519 forty eight thousand workers, anarchists began questioning the bureaucratic union 1:16:29.600 --> 1:16:34.120 structures in South Paolo to Collectivo, the Britario de Opposichiao 1:16:34.200 --> 1:16:37.880 Syndical or COLLOPS was formed, closely aligned with the ideas 1:16:37.880 --> 1:16:42.800 of the Metalworkers Opposition movement. Collapse was officially established during 1:16:42.880 --> 1:16:45.800 the first National Meeting of Workers in Opposition to the 1:16:46.240 --> 1:16:50.280 Trade Union Structure or ENTOS, held in September nineteen eighty 1:16:50.479 --> 1:16:54.360 in NITROI. This meeting brought together in union opposition from 1:16:54.520 --> 1:16:58.880 sixteen states across Brazil, further spark in the revival of 1:16:58.920 --> 1:17:02.120 anarchist involvement in the labor movement. But one of the 1:17:02.160 --> 1:17:04.920 most significant developments to come out in this period was 1:17:04.960 --> 1:17:08.759 the rise of the movement Ento dos Trabahaldoes Urai Semterre, 1:17:09.280 --> 1:17:14.080 the Landless Workers Movement or MST, emerging nineteen eighty four, 1:17:14.360 --> 1:17:17.000 just before the end of the military regime, the MST 1:17:17.200 --> 1:17:22.040 became a mass movement with distinctly anarchist communist characteristics. It 1:17:22.120 --> 1:17:27.439 adopted decentralized, non hierarchical structure that prioritized autonomous direct action 1:17:28.160 --> 1:17:33.160 principles deeply aligned with anarchism. However, the MST has resisted 1:17:33.280 --> 1:17:37.639 being identified as explicitly anarchist, avoiding the label to maintain 1:17:37.720 --> 1:17:40.960 broader support and avoid the stigma attached to anarchist movements. 1:17:41.880 --> 1:17:45.479 Over time, while maintaining its independence, the MST has built 1:17:45.479 --> 1:17:49.280 alliances with the various political parties, including the Workers' Party, 1:17:49.600 --> 1:17:51.479 which would go on to form the government in two 1:17:51.479 --> 1:17:55.080 thousand and two. But the nineteen eighties, Brazilian anarchism began 1:17:55.200 --> 1:17:58.479 reflecting the broader new social movements that had emerged globally 1:17:58.600 --> 1:18:02.760 after the nineteen sixties. Ecology, feminism, and new discourses on 1:18:02.800 --> 1:18:06.360 sexuality were now key components of anarchists. Thought. Then I 1:18:06.840 --> 1:18:10.640 saw the rise of pro homosexual actists like Nestor Penger, 1:18:10.960 --> 1:18:14.320 and Argentinian born intellectual who became a central figure in 1:18:14.439 --> 1:18:15.760 Brazilian anarchist Son. 1:18:16.200 --> 1:18:23.000 You know, some have considered me a pro homosexual, Okay, 1:18:26.200 --> 1:18:28.560 but but no mean this is a continued It is 1:18:28.600 --> 1:18:31.760 interesting to see this like starting with student movements and 1:18:31.800 --> 1:18:35.519 then getting back into kind of labor over time after 1:18:35.640 --> 1:18:40.560 they like rebuild their movement through students and then continuing 1:18:40.640 --> 1:18:44.400 to like adopt more and more like modern social views 1:18:44.439 --> 1:18:47.320 and like cultural engagement. Have an image here of one 1:18:47.360 --> 1:18:50.599 of their newspapers that has what looks like two men 1:18:50.720 --> 1:18:53.639 having sex right on the cover. That's like the seventies, 1:18:53.720 --> 1:18:55.440 which is which is quite something. 1:18:55.400 --> 1:18:58.599 Incredible, must have been very scandalous at the time. 1:18:58.960 --> 1:18:59.160 Yeah. 1:19:00.000 --> 1:19:03.320 Where the nineteen nineties, as Brazil transitioned to the New 1:19:03.400 --> 1:19:08.240 Republic and embraced new liberalism, anarchists became key players in 1:19:08.400 --> 1:19:12.040 shaping a wave of social movements. They actively helped to 1:19:12.120 --> 1:19:16.760 create and integrate into these movements, advocating their principles and strategies. 1:19:17.840 --> 1:19:20.880 One prominent example was Brazil's involvement in the global anti 1:19:20.920 --> 1:19:25.800 globalization movement, inspired by protests like the Seattle Wto demonstrations 1:19:25.840 --> 1:19:29.560 in nineteen ninety nine. In Brazil, this movement began in 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:34.360 Santos on the same date, led by anarchists, ecologists, and libertarians. 1:19:35.000 --> 1:19:38.439 By two thousand, a coalition of these groups emerged, particularly 1:19:38.520 --> 1:19:41.439 in South Parlo and continued to organize in actions against 1:19:41.439 --> 1:19:44.920 the liberal policies until two thousand and three. The protest 1:19:44.960 --> 1:19:48.200 targeted institutions like the IMF, the World Bank and WO 1:19:48.640 --> 1:19:52.840 and introduced the black block tactic to Brazil. Anarchists also 1:19:52.880 --> 1:19:56.639 helped to establish Brazil's Center for Independent Media CMI, part 1:19:56.680 --> 1:19:59.679 of the Global Indie Media Network, which aimed to challenge 1:19:59.760 --> 1:20:03.120 means stree media dominance. Active between two thousand and one 1:20:03.200 --> 1:20:06.240 and two thousand and five, CMI was a key platform 1:20:06.360 --> 1:20:12.479 for independent journalism across fourteen Brazilian cities. Beyond protests, anarchists 1:20:12.520 --> 1:20:16.960 were involved in broader social movements, contributing to housing struggles 1:20:17.000 --> 1:20:20.720 in South Power and rerosion Ero, as well as supporting feminists, indigenous, 1:20:20.920 --> 1:20:24.799 black and LGBT causes. They played significant roles in movements 1:20:24.880 --> 1:20:29.000 like the National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Material MMCR, 1:20:29.720 --> 1:20:33.280 the previously mentioned Landless Workers Movement or MSD, and the 1:20:33.360 --> 1:20:37.920 Homeless Workers Movement the MTSD, reflecting their deep involvement in 1:20:38.000 --> 1:20:42.160 Brazil's diverse social landscape. In the early two thousands, the 1:20:42.200 --> 1:20:46.120 anarchists popular Union the UNIPA helped form networks such as 1:20:46.160 --> 1:20:49.680 the Class and Combative Student Network or the RCC and 1:20:49.800 --> 1:20:53.160 the Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organizations of Brazil or the 1:20:53.320 --> 1:20:57.960 FOB further cement and anarchism's influence in students and workers struggles. 1:20:58.560 --> 1:21:00.920 Despite being considered part of a or a leftist current, 1:21:01.400 --> 1:21:05.280 anarchists specifically made a lasting impact on Brazil's social movement 1:21:05.520 --> 1:21:10.960 during this period. Today, Brazilian anarchism continues to evolve, shaped 1:21:11.000 --> 1:21:15.120 by the principles vispacifismo, a strategy we anarchists work alongside 1:21:15.200 --> 1:21:19.240 broader social movements or maintaining their own distinct ideology. Many 1:21:19.240 --> 1:21:22.000 anarchist federations have found common cause with groups like the MST, 1:21:22.520 --> 1:21:25.960 supporting their struggles or promoting their own vision of a stateless, 1:21:26.240 --> 1:21:29.680 non hierarchical society. The story of anarchists in Brazil is 1:21:29.760 --> 1:21:35.240 one of endurance, adaptability, and reinvention. Despite decades of repression, 1:21:35.640 --> 1:21:38.800 the movement has continued to shape Brazil's political landscape, from 1:21:38.880 --> 1:21:42.799 underground propaganda dune ditatorship to the mass mobilization of landless 1:21:42.840 --> 1:21:44.519 workers and intellectuals alike. 1:21:45.400 --> 1:21:48.720 Similar to what they were doing ninety years ago. We've 1:21:48.760 --> 1:21:53.040 also seen a resurgence of anarchist anti fascism in Brazil. Indeed, 1:21:53.320 --> 1:21:55.120 around the same time we kind of saw this rise 1:21:55.200 --> 1:21:58.439 in the United States as well as in Europe with 1:21:58.600 --> 1:22:02.479 the emergence of these like right wing populist politicians between 1:22:02.560 --> 1:22:05.519 like Trump and Bolsonario, you've been seeing more of like 1:22:05.640 --> 1:22:09.880 the black block style anarchism in Brazil, which often kind 1:22:09.920 --> 1:22:12.439 of in this era went hand in hand with like 1:22:12.520 --> 1:22:14.599 anti fascist action in organizing. 1:22:15.040 --> 1:22:21.080 Indeed, so that's been the story, very summarized account like 1:22:21.240 --> 1:22:23.040 I would recommend that you check out. Of course, the 1:22:23.439 --> 1:22:27.080 scholarship of the folks I mentioned the beginning, the resources 1:22:27.120 --> 1:22:32.000 all across the Internet, particularly the Anarchists Library discussing Brazilian anarchism. 1:22:32.840 --> 1:22:36.400 This has been it can happen here. I've been Andrew Siege. 1:22:36.720 --> 1:22:39.360 You can find me on YouTube dot com, stash Andrewism 1:22:39.479 --> 1:22:42.280 feature dot com stas Saint Drew. I've been here with 1:22:42.400 --> 1:22:46.680 Gare and that's a piece. 1:23:08.240 --> 1:23:12.080 Welcome back to It could Happen Here, a podcast in 1:23:12.240 --> 1:23:16.360 which every week I sit down with my friends Mia 1:23:16.479 --> 1:23:20.480 and Garrison and I walk them through a little backyard 1:23:20.640 --> 1:23:26.000 chemistry project. Now today we are building a common commonly 1:23:26.120 --> 1:23:29.600 used explosive no paters called oh What's that? 1:23:29.720 --> 1:23:30.120 Cason. 1:23:30.560 --> 1:23:32.599 That is, we cannot give those instructions on air. 1:23:32.840 --> 1:23:35.439 Oh oh oh, well, what about what about for our 1:23:35.520 --> 1:23:38.160 DX like hexogen safe? We can make hexogen right? 1:23:38.280 --> 1:23:41.720 I think you need a special H tech stamp or 1:23:41.800 --> 1:23:43.280 permit to teach that. 1:23:43.439 --> 1:23:45.680 Sorry, what if we talk about how to make it 1:23:45.800 --> 1:23:46.640 in roadblocks? 1:23:46.920 --> 1:23:47.080 Oh? 1:23:47.320 --> 1:23:49.920 Yeah, no, that's fine. They haven't. They haven't cracked roadblocks yet. 1:23:50.120 --> 1:23:50.839 They correct minecraft. 1:23:50.920 --> 1:23:53.000 That's good, that's good. The FEDS don't know about that one. 1:23:53.040 --> 1:23:54.680 Okay, they don't know about that one yet. 1:23:54.880 --> 1:23:57.040 Well, in that case, I'm going to read these this 1:23:57.400 --> 1:24:00.800 ingredient list for pet in that I found in a 1:24:01.000 --> 1:24:04.559 torrent of Taylor Swift songs. So this is I'm certain 1:24:04.680 --> 1:24:08.840 the best information available right now. Anyway, we're talking this 1:24:09.000 --> 1:24:12.680 week about explosives. We're talking particularly about the fact that 1:24:12.920 --> 1:24:17.320 Israel just carry out an attack against Tesblah, a militant 1:24:17.600 --> 1:24:22.280 organization in Lebanon, using pet in, which is one of 1:24:22.360 --> 1:24:26.000 the two ingredients in Semtex. It is commonly used as 1:24:26.120 --> 1:24:30.080 the detonator. It's a stable, high explosive, so it's often 1:24:30.160 --> 1:24:33.800 used to like basically trigger the larger explosive charge. 1:24:33.520 --> 1:24:35.000 Which is generally like hexygen. 1:24:35.240 --> 1:24:37.719 You know, you mix the two together with like plastic 1:24:37.800 --> 1:24:40.360 agents and you get like that's where you get the 1:24:40.520 --> 1:24:44.880 traditional plastic explosives. And it's come out recently that the 1:24:45.000 --> 1:24:48.759 Masad managed to sneak some of this stuff, well sneak's 1:24:48.800 --> 1:24:51.000 not even really the right word, but they managed to 1:24:51.120 --> 1:24:55.840 impregnate a batch of pagers and radios with pet in. Now, 1:24:55.880 --> 1:24:58.280 this was a pretty big story last week. I think 1:24:58.320 --> 1:25:00.760 a lot of people are focusing kind of on the 1:25:00.880 --> 1:25:03.519 wrong parts of it. But yeah, that's what we're going 1:25:03.600 --> 1:25:08.240 to be talking about today because there's an element of 1:25:08.360 --> 1:25:12.719 this story that hasn't gotten out, which is the degree 1:25:12.760 --> 1:25:17.000 to which what Israel did to hasblah here is something 1:25:17.120 --> 1:25:21.400 that anybody with roughly thirty thousand dollars could imitate to 1:25:21.560 --> 1:25:25.120 a surprising degree of fidelity. Like, this is an attack 1:25:25.280 --> 1:25:30.240 that is deeply easy to carry out, and the fact 1:25:30.280 --> 1:25:34.200 that Israel has kind of made the decision to pull 1:25:34.320 --> 1:25:38.439 this up is a kind of the breaking of a 1:25:38.640 --> 1:25:41.560 seal in a way, and I think it portins some 1:25:41.760 --> 1:25:44.040 very frightening things for all of us, and particularly for 1:25:44.160 --> 1:25:44.679 air travel. 1:25:44.720 --> 1:25:46.320 So that's what we're going to be talking about today. 1:25:46.560 --> 1:25:49.560 Do you think like the the either like hijacking or 1:25:49.640 --> 1:25:53.400 infiltration of the supply chain is as replicable for yes, 1:25:53.640 --> 1:25:55.000 a non state agency. 1:25:55.280 --> 1:25:57.360 Yes, that is the thing that is scariest about this 1:25:57.439 --> 1:25:59.040 attack to me, and that is going to be kind 1:25:59.040 --> 1:26:01.400 of the meat of what talking about. We should probably 1:26:01.479 --> 1:26:05.120 start by this sort of laying out the scale the attack. 1:26:05.479 --> 1:26:08.559 I mean, I also have one main question. What's a pager? 1:26:10.040 --> 1:26:13.280 So Garrison, once upon a time, Uh huh, we kind 1:26:13.360 --> 1:26:17.759 of had the ability to broadcast signals over large areas, 1:26:18.160 --> 1:26:19.880 but it was a real pain in the ass to 1:26:20.040 --> 1:26:22.400 like do that with a phone call or anything but 1:26:22.479 --> 1:26:24.760 a couple of words at a time. Oh so like 1:26:24.840 --> 1:26:27.840 a text message, like a text message, except for you 1:26:27.920 --> 1:26:31.679 can't really respond to it. Oh okay, but it looked 1:26:31.720 --> 1:26:34.400 pretty cool to clip on your belt in the late nineties, 1:26:34.560 --> 1:26:36.760 if you were like one of the doctors on the 1:26:36.840 --> 1:26:37.560 set of Er. 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:39.519 Did you ever watch Er Garrison? 1:26:39.600 --> 1:26:42.439 Were you too young for that? That's the George Clooney show, right. 1:26:42.520 --> 1:26:45.840 Cluone tang, But yes, he looked great in it. Yeah, 1:26:45.880 --> 1:26:48.240 So that's that's where pagers came from. Was the television 1:26:48.280 --> 1:26:51.439 show Er, written by Michael Crichton, which means pagers are 1:26:51.680 --> 1:26:52.880 related to dinosaurs. 1:26:53.479 --> 1:26:54.120 And yeah, so. 1:26:54.320 --> 1:26:57.519 Israel managed to get We'll talk a little bit later 1:26:57.600 --> 1:27:02.599 about how, but they managed to get explosives in an 1:27:02.680 --> 1:27:06.160 unknown number, but certainly hundreds of these walkie talkies, particularly 1:27:06.240 --> 1:27:08.840 in the batteries. By the end of the first day 1:27:09.080 --> 1:27:12.000 of attacks, round a dozen people were dead and twenty 1:27:12.080 --> 1:27:13.559 seven hundred had been wounded. 1:27:13.880 --> 1:27:14.360 Many people. 1:27:14.479 --> 1:27:17.880 Seriously, there's like horrible videos of folks going flying off 1:27:17.960 --> 1:27:20.640 of bicycles and the like when this stuff detonates, Like 1:27:21.200 --> 1:27:25.760 it takes very little petn to create a pretty significant explosion, 1:27:26.160 --> 1:27:28.479 and we're looking at about like zero point one point 1:27:28.520 --> 1:27:32.760 one grams I think of explosive agent actually in each 1:27:32.880 --> 1:27:35.320 walkie talkie, which was enough to kill in May May 1:27:35.360 --> 1:27:38.879 shitload of people. Some of these folks were members of Hesbelah. 1:27:38.920 --> 1:27:41.679 I think HESBLA has confirmed that eight of their fighters 1:27:41.720 --> 1:27:44.920 were killed. At least four of the dead are children, 1:27:45.160 --> 1:27:46.800 and the second day of the attack, a bunch of 1:27:46.960 --> 1:27:50.439 radios went off as well. Another twenty people were killed 1:27:50.560 --> 1:27:53.160 and hundreds more wounded. So you're talking about a very 1:27:53.280 --> 1:27:57.840 sizable attack. Israel is not claimed credit for this, but 1:27:58.000 --> 1:28:00.559 the New York Times has done some pretty keep reporting 1:28:00.600 --> 1:28:03.639 on this, and per that quote, twelve current and former 1:28:03.720 --> 1:28:06.400 defense and intelligence officials who were briefed on the attack 1:28:06.720 --> 1:28:08.360 say the Israelis were behind it. 1:28:08.600 --> 1:28:12.120 And it's just also obvious that this was Israel who else, 1:28:12.439 --> 1:28:15.000 Like who else would do this? 1:28:16.200 --> 1:28:19.040 Now, one of the reasons I'm getting into this is 1:28:19.080 --> 1:28:22.320 that there were a lot like the first kind of 1:28:22.439 --> 1:28:25.439 concern that people had when this attack was carried out 1:28:25.560 --> 1:28:28.400 is like, oh shit, was this some sort of a hack? 1:28:28.840 --> 1:28:32.599 Did Israel exploit some sort of a glitch in how 1:28:32.680 --> 1:28:35.880 these products batteries worked and basically like hack them to 1:28:36.600 --> 1:28:40.519 cause a runaway thermal escalation within the battery that led 1:28:40.560 --> 1:28:41.280 to it detonating. 1:28:41.920 --> 1:28:43.920 Is all of our electronics just one hack away from 1:28:44.000 --> 1:28:46.000 turning from being turned into a bob No? 1:28:47.920 --> 1:28:52.280 And I understand why people focused on that aspect of it, 1:28:52.360 --> 1:28:54.519 but it led to I think some articles that are 1:28:54.880 --> 1:28:56.799 this is going to be one of those we always 1:28:56.840 --> 1:28:59.040 we try to I hope we usually managed to be 1:28:59.160 --> 1:29:02.040 the like calm voices in the room, but this is 1:29:02.080 --> 1:29:04.160 one of those cases where really people need to be 1:29:04.280 --> 1:29:06.880 less calm. And I do want to highlight an article 1:29:06.960 --> 1:29:10.040 that I think went in the wrong direction on that front. 1:29:10.120 --> 1:29:12.280 It's a CNN business piece called we still don't know 1:29:12.320 --> 1:29:14.840 how the Lebanon pager attack happened. Here's what we do 1:29:14.960 --> 1:29:18.360 know about our own electronic devices, and I'm going to 1:29:18.400 --> 1:29:22.040 read a quote from that. In short, your communications device 1:29:22.200 --> 1:29:25.200 is not at risk for exploding unless it's heavily tampered with, 1:29:25.320 --> 1:29:26.520 un least with explosives. 1:29:26.720 --> 1:29:27.840 Experts who spoke. 1:29:27.640 --> 1:29:31.799 To CNN set Justin Kappos, a cybersecurity professor at NYU, 1:29:31.880 --> 1:29:34.120 said that it's possible to cause damage to a variety 1:29:34.160 --> 1:29:37.519 of batteries, most commonly lithium batteries, but he said it 1:29:37.600 --> 1:29:41.120 seems like the devices were intentionally designed to explode when triggered, 1:29:41.280 --> 1:29:43.840 not a pager that everyone else in the world is using. 1:29:44.160 --> 1:29:46.599 If you're a normal person with a lithium ion battery, 1:29:46.760 --> 1:29:49.559 I would not be over concerned about this CAPO set 1:29:49.960 --> 1:29:52.080 and I think that that is an error, and we're 1:29:52.680 --> 1:29:54.240 going to get into as to why. But let's talk 1:29:54.240 --> 1:29:57.080 about how Israel did this first. And this is again 1:29:57.160 --> 1:29:59.920 all kind of per the New York Times reporting how 1:30:00.120 --> 1:30:02.439 Israel built a modern day trojan horse. They seem to 1:30:02.479 --> 1:30:04.720 be the first people who have kind of put all 1:30:04.720 --> 1:30:07.439 of this together to an extent that is probably pretty 1:30:07.479 --> 1:30:10.600 close to accurate. There are some debates as to like, 1:30:10.880 --> 1:30:13.599 did they actually have a detonator in here or did 1:30:13.680 --> 1:30:17.519 they cause a thermal because PETN, while it's very stable, 1:30:18.000 --> 1:30:21.360 can be set off by heat. So it's theoretically possible 1:30:21.439 --> 1:30:24.480 to get a battery hot enough that it can detonate PETN, 1:30:25.000 --> 1:30:27.160 but it's not going to be as reliable as using 1:30:27.240 --> 1:30:30.040 something like a bridge wire cap like a traditional like 1:30:30.120 --> 1:30:34.720 triggering device, and so it's a little bit unclear as 1:30:34.760 --> 1:30:39.000 to how this was made. But whatever the case, basically 1:30:39.120 --> 1:30:43.120 what Israel did is they made their own batteries for 1:30:43.680 --> 1:30:47.519 walkie talkies that were clones of an earlier kind of 1:30:47.600 --> 1:30:50.400 walkie talkie made by a Taiwanese company that were no 1:30:50.560 --> 1:30:53.840 longer in production. Right, so, this Taiwanese company had made 1:30:53.880 --> 1:30:57.200 real walkie talkies for a while, they stopped making them. 1:30:57.680 --> 1:31:01.360 Israel got their hands on some originals and manufactured copies. 1:31:01.439 --> 1:31:03.080 Now that is the part of this that would be 1:31:03.160 --> 1:31:06.439 hard to replicate. But the copies of the walkie talkies 1:31:06.479 --> 1:31:11.320 themselves were not the explosive agent. What actually where the 1:31:11.360 --> 1:31:16.440 explosives were was in the detachable battery, and Masad crafted 1:31:16.520 --> 1:31:21.280 batteries themselves for these walkie talkies and wove PETN into 1:31:21.320 --> 1:31:24.360 the batteries. So if you haven't really looked at a 1:31:24.439 --> 1:31:27.280 lithium ion battery like one of the kinds of batteries 1:31:27.320 --> 1:31:29.720 that you're going to like, I mean, it's similar to 1:31:29.760 --> 1:31:31.519 the ones in your phone, but it's just also like 1:31:31.600 --> 1:31:34.920 any kind of electronics battery. They are kind of these 1:31:35.439 --> 1:31:39.479 weird folded things, like they look just like a little 1:31:39.720 --> 1:31:42.560 square packet, usually with like a cord coming off of 1:31:42.640 --> 1:31:44.680 it if you actually look at the battery. But the 1:31:44.760 --> 1:31:48.120 way they're asseymbled is they're like laminated into an aluminum 1:31:48.200 --> 1:31:51.360 foil pouch. And while you are kind of doing that 1:31:51.560 --> 1:31:56.400 laminating process, you can basically just weave some PETN into 1:31:57.320 --> 1:32:00.280 like alongside the battery, and it will cost you a 1:32:00.360 --> 1:32:03.679 small fraction of the batteries, like life like, you won't 1:32:03.720 --> 1:32:06.240 get as much actual battery time out of it, but 1:32:06.360 --> 1:32:09.400 it's not going to detonate on its own. PTN is 1:32:09.479 --> 1:32:11.880 They actually just conducted in twenty twenty a study to 1:32:11.920 --> 1:32:15.080 show that it can last for years. This is like 1:32:15.240 --> 1:32:17.839 the compound we use in the detonators in our nuclear devices. 1:32:18.280 --> 1:32:20.880 Once you get a bunch of walkie talkies that are 1:32:20.880 --> 1:32:24.040 impregnated with this stuff out there. You could sit on 1:32:24.120 --> 1:32:28.400 them for years until like you needed to actually use them. Now, 1:32:28.479 --> 1:32:30.439 the key thing about this, it seems like when you're 1:32:30.439 --> 1:32:34.080 talking about wrapping a battery that's got you know, plastic 1:32:34.160 --> 1:32:36.240 explosives in it, well, that's the kind of thing that 1:32:36.320 --> 1:32:38.960 only a state level actor can do. And this is 1:32:39.040 --> 1:32:41.160 going to bring me to the source that I really 1:32:41.200 --> 1:32:43.519 want to get to people for this episode, which is 1:32:43.560 --> 1:32:47.880 an article by a guy named Andrew Hwang at Bunny's Studios. 1:32:48.280 --> 1:32:51.320 Andrew is a computer scientist. He's got a doctorate in 1:32:51.439 --> 1:32:55.640 philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and kind of 1:32:55.720 --> 1:32:58.639 critically for some personal projects that he had done. Recently, 1:32:59.040 --> 1:33:03.080 he has manufied lectured his own lithium ion batteries, and 1:33:03.439 --> 1:33:05.839 in doing so, he's figured out like how to actually 1:33:06.040 --> 1:33:09.479 build a personal production line to make batteries like this 1:33:10.040 --> 1:33:13.320 that you could customize to fit into kind of basically 1:33:13.400 --> 1:33:16.960 any kind of electronic device you want. You can buy 1:33:17.200 --> 1:33:20.519 an entire pouch cell production line that will allow you 1:33:20.640 --> 1:33:25.120 to make your own custom lithium ion batteries using Alibaba 1:33:25.200 --> 1:33:33.439 dot Com. Yeah oh boy, Yeah, so that's great, right, 1:33:34.000 --> 1:33:36.720 or lithi Yeah, these are lithium pouch batteries, and it 1:33:37.040 --> 1:33:39.920 costs about fifteen thousand dollars in order to be able 1:33:40.000 --> 1:33:43.080 to make somewhere between like a few dozen and several 1:33:43.200 --> 1:33:46.519 hundred of these, right, So fifteen grand will provide you 1:33:46.600 --> 1:33:48.519 with all of the materials you need to from the 1:33:48.600 --> 1:33:51.360 ground up make at least, you know, probably a couple 1:33:51.479 --> 1:33:53.240 hundred pouch sell batteries. 1:33:53.560 --> 1:33:53.680 Right. 1:33:54.439 --> 1:33:56.640 And it's the kind of thing where it's not just 1:33:56.880 --> 1:34:01.360 any idiot could do it, but any reason intelligent person 1:34:01.520 --> 1:34:05.320 with the degree of like experience and engineering can do it. 1:34:05.680 --> 1:34:05.840 Right. 1:34:06.360 --> 1:34:09.000 Andrew is obviously a very smart guy with a lot 1:34:09.160 --> 1:34:12.240 of capabilities that you know, a layperson might not have. 1:34:13.080 --> 1:34:16.800 But basically any kind of competent engineer could figure this 1:34:16.920 --> 1:34:20.920 out pretty much. And you're talking again, a few thousand 1:34:21.000 --> 1:34:23.840 dollars to get potentially, you know, hundreds or even more 1:34:23.880 --> 1:34:26.439 of these made. Now, the other side of the attack 1:34:26.520 --> 1:34:30.360 here is that the Israelis created a bunch of shell companies. 1:34:30.880 --> 1:34:34.479 You know, they started manufacturing copies of these walkie talkies 1:34:34.720 --> 1:34:37.959 so that they could put their own explosives impregnated batteries 1:34:38.000 --> 1:34:40.280 in them. And then they built a bunch of shady 1:34:40.360 --> 1:34:43.120 ass companies in order to sell them. This was effectively 1:34:43.520 --> 1:34:46.760 what they were doing was creating like an Amazon like 1:34:47.280 --> 1:34:50.280 shipping company, right, and the same way that like anybody 1:34:50.280 --> 1:34:53.919 who wanted to, can you know, get a business license 1:34:54.200 --> 1:34:56.960 and get access to like a bunch of electronics and 1:34:57.000 --> 1:34:59.880 sell them on Amazon, like you could buy a consignment 1:35:00.040 --> 1:35:03.960 of a thousand walkie talkies, make your own batteries for them, 1:35:04.360 --> 1:35:07.439 and sell them on Amazon. Amazon does not do a 1:35:07.560 --> 1:35:11.320 particularly like any really checking up on the people who 1:35:11.400 --> 1:35:13.800 choose to sell through their site. And even if they 1:35:13.880 --> 1:35:18.880 were to do that, PETN is effectively impossible to find. 1:35:19.160 --> 1:35:19.280 Right. 1:35:19.400 --> 1:35:21.680 There is a way to scan for it, but it 1:35:21.760 --> 1:35:24.360 takes like a half hour per package, and it's the 1:35:24.439 --> 1:35:26.639 kind of thing where even if you're taking this stuff apart, 1:35:26.800 --> 1:35:29.960 unless you have someone who is like doing chemical tests 1:35:30.120 --> 1:35:33.519 on what's in there, anyone who's even someone who is 1:35:33.600 --> 1:35:36.360 moderately trained, is not going to be able to recognize 1:35:36.400 --> 1:35:38.560 a battery that's had some pet and put into it 1:35:38.920 --> 1:35:41.720 from like a regular battery. So I'm going to read 1:35:41.720 --> 1:35:44.479 another quote from that New York Times article about how 1:35:44.800 --> 1:35:47.479 the Masad kind of structured the shell companies here that 1:35:47.600 --> 1:35:51.760 allowed them to pose as a company making pagers. By 1:35:51.800 --> 1:35:55.000 all appearances, BAC Consulting was a Hungary based company that 1:35:55.160 --> 1:35:57.560 was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of 1:35:57.600 --> 1:36:00.880 a Taiwanese company, gold Apollo. In fact, it was part 1:36:00.920 --> 1:36:03.920 of an Israeli front. According to three intelligence officers briefed 1:36:03.960 --> 1:36:08.000 on the operation, BAC did take on ordinary clients, for 1:36:08.080 --> 1:36:10.880 which it produced a range of ordinary pages, but the 1:36:10.960 --> 1:36:13.920 only client that really mattered was Hesbelah, and its pages 1:36:13.960 --> 1:36:15.200 were far from ordinary. 1:36:15.880 --> 1:36:18.720 Why were hesblow using pages in the first place? 1:36:18.760 --> 1:36:19.840 Oh, yeah, I can talk about that. 1:36:20.040 --> 1:36:25.639 Couldn't they afford it an iPhone? Great question or something? Well, 1:36:25.760 --> 1:36:27.479 I think we'll let mea talk about that a second. 1:36:27.560 --> 1:36:29.280 But gar I will say an initial response to that. 1:36:29.360 --> 1:36:31.840 You know how like all of the activists in the 1:36:31.960 --> 1:36:34.559 United States after twenty twenty especially are saying like, hey, 1:36:34.640 --> 1:36:38.000 your phone isn't safe, don't use your phone, you know 1:36:38.280 --> 1:36:40.080 for any kind of like actions. 1:36:40.200 --> 1:36:42.600 The state can listen in on that. 1:36:42.720 --> 1:36:45.800 Yeah, yeah, Well Hesbela has been paranoid about that for 1:36:46.000 --> 1:36:49.400 a long time, and the Masade actually has spent a 1:36:49.520 --> 1:36:55.080 lot of effort spreading rumors within Hesblah about how capable 1:36:55.320 --> 1:36:59.519 Israel's smartphone exploits are like how strong their ability to 1:36:59.600 --> 1:37:03.440 like listen and on conversations, and that played a significant 1:37:03.520 --> 1:37:06.800 role in changing like policy from the top and hes 1:37:06.880 --> 1:37:08.320 a lot to like we are going to use the 1:37:08.439 --> 1:37:12.240 lowest tech communications solutions possible, and we're going to talk 1:37:12.320 --> 1:37:12.960 some more about that. 1:37:13.520 --> 1:37:14.679 You know, it's not low tech. 1:37:15.120 --> 1:37:18.200 These products and services that support this very podcast. 1:37:18.439 --> 1:37:22.000 That's right, high tech and absolutely no explosives in them, 1:37:22.120 --> 1:37:24.519 probably but really there would be no way to tell 1:37:24.560 --> 1:37:25.120 if there were. 1:37:35.320 --> 1:37:37.200 And we're back Mia, you wanted to talk. 1:37:37.600 --> 1:37:37.760 Yeah. 1:37:37.840 --> 1:37:39.320 The only thing I want to mention about that is 1:37:39.640 --> 1:37:41.280 so there's been a lot of focus in terms of 1:37:41.360 --> 1:37:44.720 the page you use on like on Hesbela trying to 1:37:44.720 --> 1:37:49.040 build this communications grid that's like more difficult to like 1:37:49.320 --> 1:37:52.240 do to compromise, Yeah, yeah, we well to compromise from 1:37:52.320 --> 1:37:56.080 like digitally right. But the other thing that's kind of 1:37:56.160 --> 1:37:57.880 going on here that I think is getting a lot 1:37:57.960 --> 1:38:02.240 less attention is that Lebanon's economy has been an absolute 1:38:02.360 --> 1:38:06.320 shit show for probably like eight nine years now. There's 1:38:06.320 --> 1:38:08.360 a massive dollars front kind of. 1:38:08.439 --> 1:38:12.680 The terminal like heart attack moment was that barge exploding, 1:38:12.800 --> 1:38:14.519 but it had not been doing it had been on 1:38:14.760 --> 1:38:15.400 the road down. 1:38:16.439 --> 1:38:17.599 I mean there were there were, I mean there were 1:38:17.640 --> 1:38:20.000 there have been huge riots there over. So part of 1:38:20.040 --> 1:38:22.280 what's going on is like there aren't dollars in the economy, 1:38:23.320 --> 1:38:26.320 and this has made everything unbelievably expensive, and one of 1:38:26.360 --> 1:38:30.880 the things that's unbelievably expensive is phone calls, and so 1:38:31.240 --> 1:38:34.439 there are I don't think there's been much coverage of this, 1:38:34.520 --> 1:38:37.599 but it's like there's also just regular people also use 1:38:37.640 --> 1:38:39.920 pages for things in order to set up what a 1:38:39.960 --> 1:38:42.400 phone call is going to be, because if you're going 1:38:42.439 --> 1:38:44.240 to have a phone call with someone, you have to 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:48.280 make sure that both of you are like there. So 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:52.880 it's it's not purely just a military thing. It's also 1:38:53.000 --> 1:38:57.719 just because of how unbelievably expensive like calling people has gotten, 1:38:57.960 --> 1:39:02.240 and this sort of terminal crisis of the Lebanese economy 1:39:02.280 --> 1:39:05.160 in the sense that like there aren't dollars to pay 1:39:05.240 --> 1:39:07.479 for things, and so we've gotten to this point where 1:39:07.640 --> 1:39:10.519 even even sort of stuff that we consider like fairly 1:39:10.600 --> 1:39:12.880 basically not that expensive, like phone service, has just gotten 1:39:13.240 --> 1:39:17.559 unbelievably expensive for everyone. And this is sort of caused Yeah, 1:39:17.760 --> 1:39:20.599 a lot of like regular people who have no affiliation 1:39:20.720 --> 1:39:22.759 with this whatsoever, to sort of move down the technology 1:39:22.880 --> 1:39:25.120 chain because it's just expensive. 1:39:25.479 --> 1:39:29.040 Yeah, and again it's this kind of perfect storm of 1:39:29.240 --> 1:39:33.920 like paranoia and economics sort of factors colliding here. But 1:39:34.600 --> 1:39:38.719 the sort of gist of it is Israel definitely wanted 1:39:38.800 --> 1:39:42.360 to push has a lot to adopting, Like they clearly 1:39:42.439 --> 1:39:46.519 had an understanding of what they could do and wanted 1:39:46.880 --> 1:39:49.280 deliberately to kind of push for this because it's a 1:39:49.320 --> 1:39:52.920 lot easier to get some a manufactured explosive and it 1:39:52.920 --> 1:39:54.519 would have been a lot harder to do this with 1:39:54.680 --> 1:39:56.920 like iPhones, right, Not that Israel hasn't done this with 1:39:57.000 --> 1:39:59.439 cell phones in the past, sure, very famously. Back I 1:39:59.479 --> 1:40:02.439 think it was the nine. There is this Palestinian man 1:40:02.520 --> 1:40:05.840 yahya Ayash, who was I think generally credited as like 1:40:06.240 --> 1:40:09.800 kind of an architect of like car bombing attacks, who 1:40:10.040 --> 1:40:12.960 the Masad killed with a cell phone that they had 1:40:13.080 --> 1:40:14.920 put it explosives in it. In that case, it was 1:40:14.920 --> 1:40:18.320 a very labor intensive process with a single phone meant 1:40:18.360 --> 1:40:20.559 to target and blow the head off of like one guy. 1:40:21.400 --> 1:40:24.519 This is like a much more reckless and much more 1:40:25.000 --> 1:40:29.800 like civilian casualty open operation. Again, I'm going to quote 1:40:29.800 --> 1:40:33.439 from that New York Times article in Lebanon's Baca Valley, 1:40:33.479 --> 1:40:36.479 in the village of Sarain, one young girl, Fatima Abdullah, 1:40:36.560 --> 1:40:38.360 had just come home from her first day of fourth 1:40:38.439 --> 1:40:40.760 grade when she heard her father's pager begin to beep. 1:40:41.080 --> 1:40:43.320 Her aunt said she picked up the device to bring 1:40:43.360 --> 1:40:45.200 it to him and was holding it when it exploded, 1:40:45.400 --> 1:40:49.479 killing her. Fatima was nine. It's probably worth noting here 1:40:49.600 --> 1:40:52.519 that while HESBLA is a militant group, they are also 1:40:52.840 --> 1:40:56.479 effectively the state in a decent chunk of Lebanon, and 1:40:56.760 --> 1:40:58.960 a lot of the folks who would have these because 1:40:59.000 --> 1:41:02.280 these these pagers and radios were generally seen as part 1:41:02.320 --> 1:41:05.000 of like a defensive measure, like if there is an attack, 1:41:05.120 --> 1:41:08.439 if we go to war again, these are our safe 1:41:08.520 --> 1:41:11.280 comm system, right Like this is our like low tech 1:41:11.360 --> 1:41:13.599 comm system to allow us to like stay in touch. 1:41:14.280 --> 1:41:16.000 So a lot of these people would have been folks 1:41:16.040 --> 1:41:18.439 whose role was more on the social side of things 1:41:18.560 --> 1:41:21.240 rather than like actual armed militants. You have no way 1:41:21.240 --> 1:41:25.120 of knowing who you're blowing up. Everyone's just getting these devices. 1:41:25.800 --> 1:41:30.720 And it's interesting to me that the Masad or that Netanyahu, 1:41:30.840 --> 1:41:32.680 because I'm sure this order had to have come from 1:41:32.720 --> 1:41:35.960 the top gave the order to carry out this attack. Now, 1:41:36.560 --> 1:41:39.479 they had had these in place for a while. Exactly 1:41:39.600 --> 1:41:42.560 when is a little bit unclear, but long enough that 1:41:42.680 --> 1:41:46.840 there was like a nickname for the attack itself that 1:41:46.920 --> 1:41:49.160 everyone knew they were going to carry out at some point. 1:41:49.880 --> 1:41:52.519 So it's a little bit like, I wonder why this 1:41:52.840 --> 1:41:55.400 was specifically targeted for this point in time. I kind 1:41:55.439 --> 1:41:57.040 of suspect it may have been due to the fact 1:41:57.080 --> 1:42:00.880 that Israel's actual like ground forces are still tied up 1:42:00.960 --> 1:42:02.840 in Gaza, and so they were looking for a way 1:42:02.880 --> 1:42:07.320 to escalate with Lebanon, with Hesbelah that didn't necessitate the 1:42:07.400 --> 1:42:10.880 deployment of forces that you know, would still have a 1:42:11.040 --> 1:42:15.280 massive impact and be disruptive, which this certainly was. But 1:42:15.360 --> 1:42:18.920 you know, when it comes to kind of us and 1:42:19.080 --> 1:42:22.280 like why we're talking about this today, it's the fact 1:42:22.320 --> 1:42:25.960 that this is I think a Pandora's Box style attack, 1:42:26.200 --> 1:42:29.240 right like you have at this point opened up the 1:42:29.360 --> 1:42:32.920 possibility to doing this to any actor that has the resources, 1:42:33.080 --> 1:42:35.880 and as we've noted about, fifteen grand will get you 1:42:35.960 --> 1:42:39.559 the capacity to manufacture battery packs like this. You can 1:42:39.680 --> 1:42:42.400 just go on Ali Baba and buy things like radios 1:42:42.520 --> 1:42:44.240 or there doesn't have to be that you could get 1:42:44.520 --> 1:42:46.559 you know, like most a lot of people now carry 1:42:46.600 --> 1:42:50.599 around battery devices, right, like external batteries to charge their 1:42:50.680 --> 1:42:53.479 phones when they're out. Sure, you can purchase those from 1:42:53.520 --> 1:42:58.320 Ali Baba by the thousand. You can disassemble them, stick 1:42:58.400 --> 1:43:00.439 in your own batteries, And it's not the kind of 1:43:00.520 --> 1:43:02.160 thing where you have to be capable of doing this 1:43:02.280 --> 1:43:04.960 on the scale that the Masade did. You could stick 1:43:05.040 --> 1:43:08.080 this and you could buy two thousand batteries. You could 1:43:08.120 --> 1:43:10.799 stick this in two hundred of them, your own replacement 1:43:10.880 --> 1:43:14.599 explosive packs, and you could just send those out into 1:43:14.640 --> 1:43:17.839 the world, right Especially. One of the things that scares 1:43:17.880 --> 1:43:19.600 me is the idea of you get a bunch of 1:43:19.680 --> 1:43:22.760 these shipped get you impregnate a few with explosives, but 1:43:22.840 --> 1:43:26.400 you have a bunch of batteries that you then have 1:43:26.720 --> 1:43:30.000 on you know, shipping through the air right and trigger 1:43:30.120 --> 1:43:32.880 in the air like while they're being shipped to a destination. 1:43:33.680 --> 1:43:35.080 Like it's the kind of thing you would eventually be 1:43:35.120 --> 1:43:37.560 able to unravel who had created the front companies and 1:43:37.600 --> 1:43:39.960 the like, But there really is nothing built into the 1:43:40.120 --> 1:43:44.280 system that would very effectively be able to tell that 1:43:44.479 --> 1:43:46.560 you'd done this as long as you there was a 1:43:46.640 --> 1:43:49.800 degree of caretaken in the manufacturing process. And I want 1:43:49.840 --> 1:43:52.600 to turn back to Andrew Hwang's article here, and this 1:43:52.760 --> 1:43:54.760 is him talking about the way in which you could 1:43:54.880 --> 1:43:57.679 hide the fact that you had impregnated these battery packs 1:43:57.720 --> 1:44:00.879 with explosives. Once folded into the core of the battery, 1:44:00.960 --> 1:44:03.600 it is sealed in an aluminum pouch. If the manufacturing 1:44:03.680 --> 1:44:07.040 process carefully isolates the folding line from the laminating line 1:44:07.280 --> 1:44:09.720 and or rinses the outside of the pouch with acetone 1:44:09.760 --> 1:44:12.679 to dissolve away any pet in residue prior to marking, 1:44:13.120 --> 1:44:16.799 no explosive residue can escape the pouch, thus defeating swabs 1:44:16.840 --> 1:44:19.519 that look for chemical residue. It may also well evade 1:44:19.560 --> 1:44:22.160 methods such as X ray fluorescence because the elements that 1:44:22.240 --> 1:44:25.320 compose the battery separator and PETN are too similar and 1:44:25.400 --> 1:44:28.280 too light to be detected, and through case methods like 1:44:28.520 --> 1:44:33.240 sours spatially offset Ramen spectroscopy would likely be defeated by 1:44:33.240 --> 1:44:36.200 the multi layer copper laminate structure of the battery itself, 1:44:36.280 --> 1:44:39.479 blocking light from probing inner layers. Thus, I would pose 1:44:39.520 --> 1:44:41.960 it that a lithium battery constructed with a pet in 1:44:42.040 --> 1:44:45.760 layer inside is largely undetectable. And this is from like 1:44:46.120 --> 1:44:48.000 folks I have talked to who have a degree of 1:44:48.040 --> 1:44:51.920 expertise in the matter. I think very accurate, and I think, 1:44:52.040 --> 1:44:54.920 you know, even if you're not striking air travel here 1:44:55.040 --> 1:44:57.400 number one, it would be easy to get stuff like 1:44:57.479 --> 1:44:59.800 this on planes and people. There was in December some 1:45:00.000 --> 1:45:03.320 somebody attempted to and just kind of their detonation method failed, 1:45:04.080 --> 1:45:07.439 which is kind of with explosives. When people don't die 1:45:07.560 --> 1:45:10.679 and explosive attacks, what always saves them is it's kind 1:45:10.720 --> 1:45:14.160 of tricky to get the detonators right. But I'm very 1:45:14.240 --> 1:45:17.720 worried that the masade has effectively provided people with a 1:45:17.920 --> 1:45:21.400 perfect plan of attack to fuck with air travel or 1:45:21.520 --> 1:45:24.200 to fuck with the supply lines, because it imagine, just 1:45:24.360 --> 1:45:27.200 like a couple hundred people over the space of a 1:45:27.280 --> 1:45:31.000 week or so have battery packs or other electronics detonate 1:45:31.160 --> 1:45:33.439 on their person, like or a couple of dozen people. 1:45:34.000 --> 1:45:37.160 What that does both to the economy, to the supply lines, 1:45:37.280 --> 1:45:40.080 Like the extent to which that would be disruptive in 1:45:40.280 --> 1:45:44.599 society is like, the potential is enormous, and the potential 1:45:44.680 --> 1:45:46.799 for like runaway terror is enormous. 1:45:47.280 --> 1:45:49.559 Yeah, I mean that was one of the first things 1:45:49.680 --> 1:45:52.160 that we talked about once news of this drop is 1:45:52.240 --> 1:45:55.680 like beyond the actual like physical injuries and death caused 1:45:55.720 --> 1:45:59.320 by this attack, this is like primarily an infrastructure attack. 1:45:59.560 --> 1:46:03.920 In this case completely destroys like the communications infrastructure of HESBLA. 1:46:04.120 --> 1:46:06.720 But in like, yeah, the strategy behind this attack, it 1:46:06.800 --> 1:46:09.759 can be used just to target various types of infrastructure, 1:46:09.760 --> 1:46:13.240 whether that be like supply chains, travel, It puts distrust 1:46:13.360 --> 1:46:16.560 in your own equipment, and certainly it's application on like 1:46:16.880 --> 1:46:20.040 airlines is obviously very worrying. 1:46:20.720 --> 1:46:22.880 Well, it's very worrying. And one of the things that 1:46:22.920 --> 1:46:25.040 I keep thinking about is the degree to which the 1:46:25.120 --> 1:46:29.120 way Amazon has restructured the economy, and particularly the way 1:46:29.160 --> 1:46:33.519 that like digital commerce works, has created an opportunity for 1:46:34.320 --> 1:46:37.120 a malicious actor to carry out an attack like this 1:46:37.320 --> 1:46:40.840 with excellent security. Because you don't even have to be 1:46:40.960 --> 1:46:44.760 the one shipping these out right. No, you can get 1:46:44.840 --> 1:46:46.120 I mean you have to shift them at some point, 1:46:46.160 --> 1:46:47.960 but you can ship them to a third party that 1:46:48.120 --> 1:46:51.160 is the actual company that deals with Amazon, if you 1:46:51.280 --> 1:46:54.320 have enough kind of resources and ingenuity behind it, basically 1:46:54.360 --> 1:46:56.439 set up a drop shipping scam where you were having 1:46:56.560 --> 1:47:00.880 someone else send explosives to Amazon, which provides a lot 1:47:00.920 --> 1:47:04.040 of opportunity for you to both get away and a 1:47:04.080 --> 1:47:06.840 lot of opportunity to you could seede with a couple 1:47:06.880 --> 1:47:09.120 of different manufacturers, different devices. 1:47:09.600 --> 1:47:12.800 It's like terrorism in the era of the gig economy. Yeah, 1:47:13.040 --> 1:47:14.600 And that was one of the reasons I like to 1:47:15.040 --> 1:47:18.800 Fincher's recent movie The Killer, Yeah, just in terms of 1:47:18.880 --> 1:47:21.679 how much of the gig economy was like worked into 1:47:22.040 --> 1:47:26.479 these traditional industries, whether that be like terrorism, because hitmen 1:47:26.520 --> 1:47:27.639 aren't really real. 1:47:27.560 --> 1:47:29.360 But certainly terrorism is. 1:47:30.000 --> 1:47:31.800 And I think there's a lot of ways that these 1:47:31.840 --> 1:47:35.280 things can be applied in this kind of bizarre uber 1:47:35.479 --> 1:47:39.320 Amazon world that we've created where the economy is just 1:47:39.400 --> 1:47:40.679 so fractured in all these little ways. 1:47:41.000 --> 1:47:44.680 There's also I think the sort of production angle to 1:47:45.560 --> 1:47:49.240 which is that because the way that manufacturing is happening 1:47:49.280 --> 1:47:52.000 has become so decentralized and because it's become based on 1:47:53.000 --> 1:47:55.680 these it's kind of less so now. But a lot 1:47:55.720 --> 1:47:57.920 of like Chinese manufacturing had worked like this, where you'd 1:47:57.920 --> 1:48:01.320 get these sort of like smaller pop up things, and 1:48:01.560 --> 1:48:04.799 each of these sort of like fairly small like production 1:48:04.960 --> 1:48:07.720 facilities is like shipping stuff to like a larger one 1:48:08.080 --> 1:48:10.519 who's like doing assembly or whatever. But that means that Yeah, 1:48:10.560 --> 1:48:12.040 like as you're saying with Alli Bob, it's like all 1:48:12.120 --> 1:48:15.479 of this stuff is just available to purchase because it's 1:48:15.560 --> 1:48:18.640 designed to be sold to these people who are like 1:48:18.760 --> 1:48:22.479 starting their sort of like small scale like production line. 1:48:22.680 --> 1:48:26.360 Yeah, there's no quality control, there's no intense vetting. It's 1:48:26.400 --> 1:48:30.320 all extremely accessible. It's very easy to infiltrate this process. 1:48:31.680 --> 1:48:34.960 Yeah, here's another line from that Andro Huang article on 1:48:35.080 --> 1:48:38.440 Bunny at Bunny's Studios, be you in an Ie Studios, 1:48:38.920 --> 1:48:41.080 which is his blog. You don't even have to go 1:48:41.160 --> 1:48:43.240 so far as offering anyone a bribe or being a 1:48:43.280 --> 1:48:46.320 state level agency to get tampered batteries into a supply chain. 1:48:46.720 --> 1:48:49.040 Anyone can buy a bunch of items from Amazon, swap 1:48:49.120 --> 1:48:51.840 out the batteries, restore the packaging and seals, and return 1:48:51.880 --> 1:48:54.320 the goods to the warehouse. And yes, there is already 1:48:54.400 --> 1:48:58.000 a whole industry devoted to copying packaging and security seals 1:48:58.040 --> 1:49:00.880 for the purpose of warranty fraud. The perpetrator will be 1:49:00.960 --> 1:49:02.959 long gone by the time the device is resold. 1:49:03.400 --> 1:49:06.320 Yeah, and the other worrying part about that too is 1:49:06.400 --> 1:49:09.360 that you know, okay, so getting the explosives to work 1:49:09.479 --> 1:49:12.640 is kind of difficult, right, Like bomb making is not easy, but. 1:49:12.800 --> 1:49:14.479 You have to have a degree of competence. 1:49:14.520 --> 1:49:18.400 Yes, but the actual cost fifteen thousand dollars like that, 1:49:18.560 --> 1:49:20.920 that's not even like you're looking at like a millionaire, 1:49:21.240 --> 1:49:23.800 Like that's just something your local dentist can afford to 1:49:23.840 --> 1:49:24.280 pull off. 1:49:24.640 --> 1:49:27.439 You could carry out an attack like this in terms 1:49:27.479 --> 1:49:29.880 of cash expenditure for the cost of like a reasonably 1:49:30.040 --> 1:49:34.639 nice car, which is not prohibitive to a large scale 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:36.600 international terrorist organization. 1:49:36.320 --> 1:49:39.960 Or even just like a rich guy. Yeah, not even 1:49:40.120 --> 1:49:43.000 that rich guy can pull this off, yep, Which is. 1:49:43.800 --> 1:49:45.880 I guess the kind of the main inhibiting factor is 1:49:46.040 --> 1:49:50.200 we still don't quite know how Israel got these two detonates, yes, 1:49:50.640 --> 1:49:54.280 whether that is some sort of hack that overheated the battery, 1:49:54.640 --> 1:49:56.840 whether it was like a message that was sent out 1:49:56.880 --> 1:49:58.480 that like triggered something. 1:49:58.240 --> 1:49:58.920 Within the device. 1:49:59.160 --> 1:50:01.120 It seems to have been a message that mede the 1:50:01.160 --> 1:50:05.040 explosive detonates, because they did send a message immediately before, 1:50:05.640 --> 1:50:07.880 so it seems to have been tied to some extent 1:50:07.960 --> 1:50:11.080 with a message. Andrew Hwang kind of looked into and 1:50:11.400 --> 1:50:13.519 came to the conclusion that you could very well do 1:50:13.600 --> 1:50:16.640 a thermal runaway to set this off, but obviously the 1:50:16.720 --> 1:50:19.760 messade doesn't have any trouble getting a hold of military detonators. 1:50:20.360 --> 1:50:23.400 Wang also walked through how you could build a circuit 1:50:23.680 --> 1:50:28.760 into the actual battery itself, like a trigger circuit. You know, 1:50:29.000 --> 1:50:30.680 I'm just gonna go ahead, and I'm going to go 1:50:30.680 --> 1:50:32.360 ahead and talk about this a little bit when we 1:50:32.400 --> 1:50:34.559 come back, but let's do our second ad break now 1:50:34.640 --> 1:50:38.200 before we tell everyone how to detonated plastic explosives. 1:50:39.800 --> 1:50:42.400 This is going to be the one that gets all arrested. Yeah, 1:50:53.320 --> 1:50:54.120 and we're back. 1:50:54.439 --> 1:50:57.000 Here's a quote from Andrew on how these might have 1:50:57.080 --> 1:51:00.439 been detonated. Detonating the pet in is a bit more tricky. 1:51:00.560 --> 1:51:03.960 Without a detonator, PETN may conflagrate burn fast instead of 1:51:04.040 --> 1:51:07.800 detonating and creating the much more damaging shockwave. However, the 1:51:07.840 --> 1:51:10.679 Wikipedia page notes that an electric spark with an energy 1:51:10.720 --> 1:51:13.400 in the range of ten to sixty millidules is sufficient 1:51:13.439 --> 1:51:17.040 to initiate detonation. Based on available descriptions of the devices 1:51:17.080 --> 1:51:20.000 getting hot prior to detonation, one might suppose that detonation 1:51:20.120 --> 1:51:23.120 is initiated by a trigger circuit shorting out the battery pack, 1:51:23.520 --> 1:51:26.720 causing the internal polymer spacers to melt and eventually the 1:51:26.800 --> 1:51:30.400 cathode anode pairs coming into contact, creating a spark. Such 1:51:30.439 --> 1:51:33.080 a spark may furthermore be guaranteed across the pet in 1:51:33.160 --> 1:51:35.880 sheet by introducing a small defect, such as a slight 1:51:35.960 --> 1:51:39.320 dimple in the surrounding cathode anoid layers. Once the packets 1:51:39.320 --> 1:51:41.639 to the melting point of the spacers, the dimpled region 1:51:41.760 --> 1:51:43.880 is likely to connect, leading to a spark that then 1:51:43.960 --> 1:51:47.599 detonates the PETN layer sandwich between the cathode and anode layers. 1:51:48.000 --> 1:51:50.280 But where do you hide this trigger circuit? It turns 1:51:50.320 --> 1:51:53.400 out that almost every lithium polymer pack has a small 1:51:53.520 --> 1:51:56.479 circuit board embedded in it called the PCM or protection 1:51:56.640 --> 1:52:01.000 Circuit module. It contains a microcontroller, often in a tssop 1:52:01.240 --> 1:52:04.120 eight package, and at least one or more large transistors 1:52:04.200 --> 1:52:06.280 capable of handling the current capacity. 1:52:05.880 --> 1:52:11.479 Of the battery. And basically that's where you put it. Oops. Oops, 1:52:12.360 --> 1:52:13.760 and again I did talk to. 1:52:13.800 --> 1:52:17.120 Someone with expertise and explosives who said that they thought 1:52:17.120 --> 1:52:20.560 it was likelier that there was a conventional detonator, not 1:52:20.760 --> 1:52:22.960 because it would have been impossible to do with a 1:52:23.040 --> 1:52:25.160 thermal runway or the way that Andrew's set up, but 1:52:25.240 --> 1:52:28.040 because this is the masade, they have access to detonators, 1:52:28.080 --> 1:52:32.400 and a detonator guarantees that you get the proper kind 1:52:32.439 --> 1:52:35.760 of explosion. But again, even if you're using kind of 1:52:35.880 --> 1:52:39.880 the less Gucci method here, that would be available to 1:52:39.960 --> 1:52:43.040 a non state actor. If only fifty out of the 1:52:43.120 --> 1:52:46.040 three hundred devices you impregnate with explosives do a proper 1:52:46.120 --> 1:52:49.160 explosion and the rest just kind of conflagrate, well, that's 1:52:49.200 --> 1:52:51.959 still a very successful attack. You can do a tremendous 1:52:51.960 --> 1:52:54.320 amount of damage to people's sense of well being, into 1:52:54.400 --> 1:52:57.759 the economy to supply lines by carrying out an attack 1:52:57.880 --> 1:52:58.040 like that. 1:52:58.479 --> 1:53:01.760 This is so terroristic nature and like if any other 1:53:02.080 --> 1:53:05.840 group did this, like it has blood. Yeah, if homocitis attack. 1:53:05.720 --> 1:53:07.799 Oh my god, we would be we would be bombing 1:53:07.840 --> 1:53:08.679 them right now. Yeah. 1:53:09.280 --> 1:53:12.240 If some like just random like accelerationist network somehow pulled 1:53:12.280 --> 1:53:15.040 this off, like ye, we would be pully or hair out. 1:53:15.320 --> 1:53:17.400 We would we would like go to war over something 1:53:17.479 --> 1:53:17.640 like this. 1:53:17.800 --> 1:53:19.840 And the fact that it's like it's this type of 1:53:19.840 --> 1:53:23.080 attack is only okay when this one military does it 1:53:23.560 --> 1:53:24.960 is just I don't. 1:53:24.760 --> 1:53:26.640 Know what to do aniven, They've endangered. 1:53:26.240 --> 1:53:30.000 There, they have endangered everyone, right, Like, like every single 1:53:30.080 --> 1:53:32.760 person listening to this is less safe because it is 1:53:32.840 --> 1:53:33.960 reel carried out this attack. 1:53:34.040 --> 1:53:36.360 What is airport screening going to look like if this 1:53:36.520 --> 1:53:37.040 keeps happening? 1:53:37.080 --> 1:53:37.519 Importantly? 1:53:37.520 --> 1:53:38.680 Am I going to be able to take all of 1:53:38.760 --> 1:53:40.920 my batteries on the planes that I could play video 1:53:41.000 --> 1:53:42.360 games on a fourteen hour flight? 1:53:42.439 --> 1:53:45.479 Garrison? You know, Yeah, the plugs in the seats don't 1:53:45.520 --> 1:53:46.639 always work well. 1:53:46.640 --> 1:53:48.160 I mean, and even like what if you're able to 1:53:48.200 --> 1:53:50.880 do this to like the electronics of like the pilot jeez, 1:53:51.000 --> 1:53:52.880 and then you just you just like take out an 1:53:53.000 --> 1:53:53.439 entire airpa. 1:53:53.560 --> 1:53:53.760 Yeah. 1:53:54.120 --> 1:53:56.640 It's like it's such a fucked up Pandora's box that 1:53:56.680 --> 1:53:58.680 it feels like there's gonna be no real consequences for 1:53:58.840 --> 1:54:00.720 which is just kind of yeah, things have been this 1:54:00.760 --> 1:54:01.599 past year, I guess. 1:54:01.760 --> 1:54:01.920 Yeah. 1:54:01.960 --> 1:54:04.000 And the other the other issue with it is that 1:54:04.240 --> 1:54:07.680 like the only way to fix this would be an 1:54:07.840 --> 1:54:11.160 actual like you would you would have to change how 1:54:11.200 --> 1:54:13.479 our supply chains work, and it's like, well, no one's 1:54:13.520 --> 1:54:13.920 gonna do that. 1:54:14.120 --> 1:54:14.400 No one. 1:54:14.800 --> 1:54:17.759 There is no number of people that you like, maybe 1:54:17.840 --> 1:54:20.360 if they literally killed the president of the United States, 1:54:20.680 --> 1:54:24.599 maybe you could get enough political capital together to try 1:54:24.680 --> 1:54:25.479 to do something about it. 1:54:25.560 --> 1:54:28.760 But like, there's no way, no, and there's there's no way, 1:54:28.920 --> 1:54:30.960 and like the way the state will respond to this 1:54:31.200 --> 1:54:34.320 is by making air travel vastly worse. Right, Yeah, it's 1:54:34.320 --> 1:54:36.120 probably not the only thing that they will do. But 1:54:36.240 --> 1:54:39.080 that is like because there's just not an actual it's 1:54:39.120 --> 1:54:42.400 not really with present technology, there's not an easy way 1:54:42.720 --> 1:54:46.960 to actually find these things, like within kind of the 1:54:47.520 --> 1:54:50.080 context of like air travel, or the way in which 1:54:50.280 --> 1:54:55.000 like digital merchandising works, right, which is again why the 1:54:55.080 --> 1:54:56.800 Masad probably should have done this. 1:54:57.400 --> 1:54:58.120 What many reasons? 1:54:58.240 --> 1:55:00.400 What of many reasons, the dead kids being another. 1:55:00.920 --> 1:55:04.600 Yeah, I do want to conclude I've quoted a lot 1:55:04.960 --> 1:55:09.800 from Andrew Huang's wonderful article turning everyday gadgets into bombs 1:55:09.960 --> 1:55:12.600 is a bad idea, But I want to quote from 1:55:12.640 --> 1:55:17.120 his conclusion here. Not all things that could exist should exist, 1:55:17.280 --> 1:55:21.080 and some ideas are better left unimplemented. Technology alone has 1:55:21.120 --> 1:55:23.440 no ethics. The difference between a patch and an exploit 1:55:23.560 --> 1:55:26.800 is the method in which a technology is disclosed. Exploding 1:55:26.880 --> 1:55:29.600 batteries have probably been conceived of and tested by spy 1:55:29.680 --> 1:55:33.160 agencies around the world, but never deployed en Moss because 1:55:33.280 --> 1:55:35.640 while it may achieve a tactical win, it is too 1:55:35.720 --> 1:55:38.760 easy for weaker adversaries to copy the idea and justify 1:55:38.800 --> 1:55:43.120 its redeployment in an asymmetric and devastating retaliation. However, now 1:55:43.120 --> 1:55:44.960 that I've seen it executed, I am left with the 1:55:45.080 --> 1:55:48.480 terrifying realization that not only is it feasible, it's relatively 1:55:48.560 --> 1:55:52.000 easy for any modestly funded entity to implement. Not just 1:55:52.080 --> 1:55:54.720 our allies can do this. A wide cast of adversaries 1:55:54.800 --> 1:55:57.400 have this capability in their reach, from nation states to 1:55:57.480 --> 1:56:00.960 cartels and gangs to shady copycat battery factories just looking 1:56:01.040 --> 1:56:04.000 for a big payday. If chemical suppliers can moonlight and 1:56:04.040 --> 1:56:07.880 illicit drugs, what stops battery factories from dealing in bespoke munitions. 1:56:08.240 --> 1:56:10.600 The bottom line is we should approach the public policy 1:56:10.640 --> 1:56:13.280 debate around this, assuming that someday we could be victims 1:56:13.320 --> 1:56:17.240 of exploding batteries too. Turning everyday objects into fragmentation to 1:56:17.280 --> 1:56:20.240 grenades should be a crime, as it blurs the line 1:56:20.480 --> 1:56:24.280 between civilian and military technologies and that should be something 1:56:24.360 --> 1:56:25.400 everyone can agree on. 1:56:26.480 --> 1:56:30.160 Yeah, yeah, I think I think so Jesus Christ just 1:56:30.240 --> 1:56:33.360 as enacting terrorism through like the gig economy ecosystem. Yeah, 1:56:33.560 --> 1:56:36.080 and oh boy, what a fun time we've we've built 1:56:36.120 --> 1:56:36.680 for ourselves. 1:56:36.920 --> 1:56:38.520 What a great fresh hell for us all. 1:56:39.040 --> 1:56:41.880 Yeah, very excited first to have our first drop shipping 1:56:42.000 --> 1:56:43.200 terrorist attack. 1:56:43.280 --> 1:56:46.000 It's going to be great. It's going to be it's 1:56:46.040 --> 1:56:46.600 gonna be great. 1:56:47.520 --> 1:56:47.760 Yeah. 1:56:48.000 --> 1:56:48.200 Yeah. 1:56:48.480 --> 1:56:50.880 Anyway, folks, maybe drive next trip you got to take, 1:56:52.200 --> 1:56:54.960 probably should note before we come out here. The obvious question, 1:56:55.120 --> 1:56:58.760 and there's not a long answer to this for obvious reasons, 1:56:58.840 --> 1:57:01.400 is like, well, couldn't nonstate actor get their hands on 1:57:01.480 --> 1:57:06.480 PETN or RDX, you know these kind of explosive compounds 1:57:06.520 --> 1:57:08.800 that you can make into plastic explosives. And the short 1:57:08.840 --> 1:57:13.080 answer is yes, any moderately competent chemist with the right 1:57:13.280 --> 1:57:15.640 ingredients could make this stuff and they're not super hard 1:57:15.720 --> 1:57:18.640 to find. But also a lot of people in commercial 1:57:18.720 --> 1:57:22.120 spaces particularly have access to pet in. It's a kind 1:57:22.160 --> 1:57:26.120 of thing that like is commonently demolition, right, yeah, it's 1:57:26.120 --> 1:57:29.040 coming to demolition. It's also something artists use a good amount. 1:57:29.160 --> 1:57:31.760 There is a specific formulation of pet in where they 1:57:31.800 --> 1:57:34.200 make it like a thin sheet that you can use 1:57:34.320 --> 1:57:38.600 to suddenly weld metals together explosively. And there are a 1:57:38.640 --> 1:57:42.320 couple of specific famous artists who like use petn in 1:57:42.480 --> 1:57:47.160 order to like make bob relief sort of artworks. So 1:57:47.280 --> 1:57:51.600 it's again not something that is like impossible for people 1:57:51.640 --> 1:57:53.320 who are not the masade to gain access to. 1:57:53.920 --> 1:57:56.880 You need a chemist, an engineer, and someone who knows 1:57:56.920 --> 1:57:58.720 how to set up businesses. And between the three years 1:57:58.720 --> 1:58:00.280 them they are going to have enough money to this, 1:58:00.760 --> 1:58:03.560 which is yeah, not great, Yeah. 1:58:04.160 --> 1:58:07.400 Not great. Anyway, everybody, have a good night, enjoy your 1:58:07.440 --> 1:58:08.120 explain flight. 1:58:29.080 --> 1:58:31.200 Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here in 1:58:31.280 --> 1:58:33.800 your daily dose of the horrors that are in fact 1:58:33.880 --> 1:58:37.520 already happening all around us. I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger, 1:58:37.600 --> 1:58:39.200 and I am delighted to be joined today by the 1:58:39.320 --> 1:58:44.280 critically acclaimed author of Culture Warlords, journalist researcher, sword enthusiast, 1:58:44.560 --> 1:58:48.680 Sandwich expert, and my friend Talia Lavin. Hello. 1:58:49.760 --> 1:58:52.320 Yeah, I once introduced myself at an event as a 1:58:52.440 --> 1:58:56.920 Sandwich historian, which I think was the pinnacle of my 1:58:57.000 --> 1:58:58.320 public speaking career. 1:58:58.720 --> 1:59:02.040 But this is the second Pinnacle. Hey, Molly, what's up. 1:59:02.600 --> 1:59:04.400 Thank you so much for coming on today to talk 1:59:04.440 --> 1:59:08.080 with me about your new book, Wild Faith, is coming 1:59:08.120 --> 1:59:10.880 out in just a few weeks October fifteenth. 1:59:10.640 --> 1:59:13.840 Right, yeah, Wild Faith, How the Christian Right is taking 1:59:13.920 --> 1:59:17.840 over America. Not the terrible b movie entitled Wild Faith. 1:59:18.480 --> 1:59:22.040 Yeah, the SEO is scrambled on that one. But the book, however, 1:59:22.560 --> 1:59:25.120 is very good. I mean, first of all, I just 1:59:25.160 --> 1:59:27.280 want to say, like, so, I've been reading the Gally 1:59:27.320 --> 1:59:29.200 copy that you sent me, which I honestly made me 1:59:29.280 --> 1:59:32.160 feel very fancy. I've never received a Galli copy of 1:59:32.200 --> 1:59:34.080 a book that's not out yet before, so I felt, 1:59:34.160 --> 1:59:37.000 you know, kind of a kind of a broadcasting professional 1:59:37.120 --> 1:59:38.640 with my special book. 1:59:38.960 --> 1:59:41.720 It's an exclusive club. You're one of like five people 1:59:41.840 --> 1:59:45.400 thus read it. Oh my god, that that's very exclusive. Yeah, 1:59:45.800 --> 1:59:48.120 well it's about to become a lot less exclusive, So 1:59:48.240 --> 1:59:49.240 feel special while. 1:59:49.040 --> 1:59:49.800 You can, right. 1:59:50.360 --> 1:59:51.880 But I realized when I was reading it, you know, 1:59:51.920 --> 1:59:54.480 I have my little sticky tabs because I'm reading a 1:59:54.520 --> 1:59:58.280 lot more books lately. Regrettably, not not not big time 1:59:58.320 --> 2:00:01.920 book guy he's reading. I read a lot of court documents, 2:00:01.960 --> 2:00:03.120 but I'm reading a lot of books right now. For 2:00:03.320 --> 2:00:05.800 research for my show, and it's like my little sticky tabs, 2:00:05.920 --> 2:00:09.640 And as I'm reading it, I realize I'm not marking 2:00:09.760 --> 2:00:11.720 passages that I think would be useful for us to 2:00:11.760 --> 2:00:14.720 talk about in this interview. I'm just putting my little 2:00:14.760 --> 2:00:18.120 tabs on passages that just like punched me in the gut, 2:00:18.720 --> 2:00:18.920 you know. 2:00:20.440 --> 2:00:24.880 Ah, sorry for punching you, no, but I mean, I 2:00:25.000 --> 2:00:27.160 mean with the way the power of your words, because 2:00:27.200 --> 2:00:30.120 like a lot of what I'm reading sucks. 2:00:30.560 --> 2:00:34.440 It's just right Like I spent all day yesterday reading 2:00:34.640 --> 2:00:38.120 like twenty five year old Issues of Resistance, which was 2:00:38.200 --> 2:00:43.360 the quarterly magazine for a white power music label. So this, 2:00:43.560 --> 2:00:45.840 I mean it's a real departure, so you know, really 2:00:46.040 --> 2:00:49.000 just reveling in the richness of the pros and the 2:00:49.040 --> 2:00:51.320 fact that it, you know, didn't want to kill me. 2:00:52.760 --> 2:00:53.000 Yeah. 2:00:53.400 --> 2:00:57.280 No, I also have experienced, you know, Nazi research fatigue, 2:00:57.520 --> 2:01:01.280 and also just like the sort of lentless grimness of 2:01:02.400 --> 2:01:05.680 flowing through these like fundamentally hostile texts and also like 2:01:05.840 --> 2:01:09.240 academic texts, which are difficult in their own way. I 2:01:09.400 --> 2:01:13.960 try to write accessively or just like excitingly. I find 2:01:14.000 --> 2:01:18.160 that a lot of especially nonfiction sort of journalism me. 2:01:19.480 --> 2:01:21.760 Books tend to be a little dry, and I'm like, 2:01:21.880 --> 2:01:26.000 let's not be dry. Let's be like spicy and you know, 2:01:27.040 --> 2:01:30.360 like form and function, Like you're more likely to be 2:01:30.480 --> 2:01:33.720 moved by a message if you find the writing compelling. 2:01:34.360 --> 2:01:36.680 You know, it's just you have such a way with words. 2:01:36.680 --> 2:01:37.280 I mean, you know this. 2:01:37.360 --> 2:01:39.680 You're a professional writer. I don't want to embarrass you 2:01:39.760 --> 2:01:40.200 on the show. 2:01:41.280 --> 2:01:45.040 So I feel like I'm twirling my hair, like, yes, 2:01:45.720 --> 2:01:46.960 but I do write for a living. 2:01:47.280 --> 2:01:49.400 If you'll indulge me, if it's legal, if the publisher 2:01:49.440 --> 2:01:51.720 will allow this. I just want to read this passage 2:01:51.760 --> 2:01:53.920 from the introduction that I think is a good jumping 2:01:53.960 --> 2:01:55.320 off point, and it was one of the first things 2:01:55.360 --> 2:01:58.000 I marked because I was just like, oh, hell yeah, 2:01:58.080 --> 2:02:02.280 we're getting into this. There's there's good words in here, okay. 2:02:03.360 --> 2:02:06.120 The Christian Right is a force in American politics and 2:02:06.240 --> 2:02:09.000 has been for decades, half a century to be precise, 2:02:09.440 --> 2:02:12.280 during which it has steadily gained power. It started in 2:02:12.360 --> 2:02:15.440 school rooms, continued in courtrooms, and perseveres with the aid 2:02:15.520 --> 2:02:17.480 of people who are perfectly willing to call in bomb 2:02:17.520 --> 2:02:21.520 threats to hospitals and attempt to overturn elections. It features 2:02:21.560 --> 2:02:25.040 self proclaimed prophets with a distinct interest in politics, newly 2:02:25.120 --> 2:02:28.200 minted apostles with very definite ideas about spiritual battle and 2:02:28.280 --> 2:02:31.360 its earthly components, and pastors eager to usher in the 2:02:31.440 --> 2:02:34.800 end of the world. Its adherents have hymns and devotionals 2:02:34.840 --> 2:02:37.680 and speaking tongues on occasion, and the showiest among them 2:02:37.720 --> 2:02:40.360 are known to march through cities, blowing Ram's horns in 2:02:40.440 --> 2:02:43.280 an effort to topple, as Joshua once did, the wicked 2:02:43.400 --> 2:02:46.400 cities of the world. They have their own insular world, 2:02:46.560 --> 2:02:49.640 their own media apparatus. They have legislators who get fire 2:02:49.720 --> 2:02:52.600 in brimstone speeches from the badly carpeted rooms where laws 2:02:52.640 --> 2:02:55.960 are made. They have lawyers too, and in case the 2:02:56.040 --> 2:03:00.600 lawyers fail, there's always the promise of congregations that might 2:03:00.680 --> 2:03:05.760 coalesce into mobs or arsonists. Who's burning holy zeal coalesces 2:03:05.800 --> 2:03:11.080 into the tiny pinpoint of a molotop cocktail. And I 2:03:11.160 --> 2:03:15.080 knew from the intro that we were in for a ride. 2:03:15.800 --> 2:03:19.400 Yeah, it's like cast of characters, the worst people ever, 2:03:19.640 --> 2:03:23.240 but like, let's write about it in an exciting way. 2:03:24.800 --> 2:03:26.959 I think that one of the themes of the book. 2:03:26.880 --> 2:03:31.960 Is really how these extra legal extremist movements like the 2:03:32.000 --> 2:03:37.400 anti abortion terror movement, and the legal framework of a 2:03:37.520 --> 2:03:41.920 movement work together. I actually initially heard about this from 2:03:41.920 --> 2:03:44.720 a friend who's talking about how like during the gay 2:03:44.840 --> 2:03:47.680 rights movement, you had sort of the act up built 2:03:47.720 --> 2:03:50.280 demonstrations that diants, and then you have the sort of 2:03:50.400 --> 2:03:54.280 like more respectively coded like gay people who you know, 2:03:54.360 --> 2:03:57.320 we're talking to the government and trying to get elected 2:03:57.440 --> 2:03:59.680 and you know, really trying to influence research and that 2:03:59.760 --> 2:04:03.680 ever movement needs sort of a radical outside and then 2:04:03.720 --> 2:04:06.880 a respectable inside. And I'm like, oh, this works in 2:04:07.280 --> 2:04:12.040 like the acratic movements too, where you have like this 2:04:12.440 --> 2:04:15.960 you know, fringe that's burning down clinics, and then people 2:04:16.160 --> 2:04:20.280 steadily working for fifty years to like ban abortion, and 2:04:20.360 --> 2:04:23.320 they have the same DNA and they have the same goals. 2:04:23.880 --> 2:04:26.760 They just go about it differently but complement each other. 2:04:27.200 --> 2:04:29.760 And I think that's like a running theme in the book, 2:04:29.880 --> 2:04:33.560 is that like you have lawyers and you have legislators, 2:04:33.640 --> 2:04:36.680 and then you have mobs and they're sort of all 2:04:36.800 --> 2:04:41.000 working towards the same goals. And that's really what we're seeing, 2:04:41.080 --> 2:04:45.040 I think on the Christian Right after decades of building power. 2:04:45.800 --> 2:04:47.640 Yeah. One of the notes that I wrote down in 2:04:47.760 --> 2:04:49.240 that vein while I was reading was that, you know, 2:04:49.280 --> 2:04:52.320 the Christian Right drives its power across a spectrum, right 2:04:52.400 --> 2:04:55.160 from the clinic bomber to the senator. But it's not 2:04:55.280 --> 2:04:56.800 you know, you might say it's two sides of the 2:04:56.800 --> 2:04:59.720 same coin, but to me, it looks like this isn't 2:04:59.760 --> 2:05:03.200 too different spheres of power to sort of separate but 2:05:03.320 --> 2:05:08.600 coexisting or comorbid ideologies. They're just different numbers on the 2:05:08.640 --> 2:05:11.400 same dial. Right, it's turning up and turning down. 2:05:12.120 --> 2:05:15.960 Yeah, it's like the hand that lights the torch and 2:05:16.040 --> 2:05:19.080 the hand that puts it to the you know, pyre. 2:05:20.040 --> 2:05:24.560 They perform different functions, but they have really the same goals. 2:05:24.760 --> 2:05:30.680 And if like me, you view stripping half the populace 2:05:30.760 --> 2:05:36.120 of its bodily autonomy, imposing a theocracy, hounding queer people 2:05:36.240 --> 2:05:42.960 out of public life, slash into death as fundamentally violent goals, yeah, 2:05:43.040 --> 2:05:47.120 I don't think there's like a respectable iteration necessarily, there's 2:05:47.280 --> 2:05:51.440 just cosplaying respectability and right. 2:05:51.480 --> 2:05:53.320 You can say it with a tie on on the 2:05:53.400 --> 2:05:56.160 Senate floor, but it's it's the same message. 2:05:55.840 --> 2:06:00.880 Yeah, and I think so much of our mediaaratus and 2:06:01.960 --> 2:06:06.680 governmental apparatus is really sort of views like again, this 2:06:06.840 --> 2:06:09.480 like form and function, right, Like if you are if 2:06:09.520 --> 2:06:13.680 you say something politely, it doesn't really matter what you're saying, 2:06:14.480 --> 2:06:17.240 Like if you say something with a suit on in 2:06:17.320 --> 2:06:20.400 the register of like, you know, in a calm sort 2:06:20.400 --> 2:06:24.720 of Mike Penci and Rush Limbaugh and decaf as. 2:06:24.600 --> 2:06:25.240 He called himself. 2:06:25.320 --> 2:06:27.080 Boy, she says, did he say that, Yeah, that's what 2:06:27.160 --> 2:06:28.640 he called himself when he read it, did a like 2:06:28.760 --> 2:06:30.120 evangelical radio show. 2:06:30.560 --> 2:06:30.760 Yeah. 2:06:30.880 --> 2:06:33.200 No, no matter what you say, as long as you 2:06:33.280 --> 2:06:37.120 are like white and you say it politely, like this 2:06:37.280 --> 2:06:40.200 is fundamentally sort of fine. And then if you look 2:06:40.240 --> 2:06:42.600 at it from you know, a step or two back, 2:06:42.680 --> 2:06:46.560 and you're like, no, actually, no matter how politely say it, 2:06:46.720 --> 2:06:52.440 this is like a violent, deeply unpopular theocratic agenda that 2:06:52.640 --> 2:06:58.760 like fundamentally is incompatible with multiracial democracy. I also think 2:06:59.360 --> 2:07:03.040 and running into this like well meaning liberals being like, 2:07:03.080 --> 2:07:05.080 but isn't there a separation of church and state? And 2:07:05.080 --> 2:07:06.920 I'm like, I don't know, do you fucking think there 2:07:07.000 --> 2:07:09.960 is in Alabama? Do you think there is an Arkansas? 2:07:10.280 --> 2:07:14.520 And all of these you know in Texas, Like all 2:07:14.600 --> 2:07:17.240 of these figures are like, we're Christians. 2:07:17.280 --> 2:07:19.560 We're making laws for Jesus, and. 2:07:19.800 --> 2:07:21.920 We have covenant marriages and we want you to too. 2:07:22.480 --> 2:07:25.280 Yeah, like we're gonna outlaw divorce because of God, and like, 2:07:25.960 --> 2:07:29.520 you know, women dying of sepsis in hospital parking lots 2:07:29.640 --> 2:07:32.920 is what Jesus wants and like, and I experienced this, 2:07:33.280 --> 2:07:36.120 I think you probably have to when you like report 2:07:36.280 --> 2:07:42.480 on you know, zealots and extremists, and people inevitably wind 2:07:42.600 --> 2:07:47.160 up like measuring other people's weep by their own bushel. 2:07:47.200 --> 2:07:49.960 In other words, they're like, they can't really believe this stuff, 2:07:50.040 --> 2:07:53.360 and it's like, no, they really do. They can't really 2:07:53.480 --> 2:07:55.920 have these goals. First of all, they do, but also 2:07:56.360 --> 2:07:59.120 does it matter, right, I mean the question of like 2:07:59.240 --> 2:08:02.240 impact versus intent. First of all, I think it's perfectly 2:08:02.800 --> 2:08:04.880 possible to be both a grifter and a true believer 2:08:05.000 --> 2:08:05.680 at the same time. 2:08:06.240 --> 2:08:08.160 That's just synergy maybe Yeah. 2:08:08.440 --> 2:08:13.280 And also fundamentally, this is a world premise done grievance, 2:08:13.480 --> 2:08:16.000 where it's this idea that like the world has got 2:08:16.040 --> 2:08:18.920 one O, We're on you. And so in a sense, 2:08:19.000 --> 2:08:21.960 grift is just like, well, you know, the world's corrupt 2:08:22.040 --> 2:08:25.320 and I'm fighting a righteous cause, So what does it 2:08:25.440 --> 2:08:29.360 matter the ethics that I sort of skip on along 2:08:29.440 --> 2:08:29.720 the way. 2:08:30.280 --> 2:08:32.440 I mean, once you've amped the stakes up to you're 2:08:32.560 --> 2:08:35.680 fighting the literal devil and everyone who's getting in my 2:08:35.800 --> 2:08:39.800 way is animated by actual demons from Hell. I mean, 2:08:39.840 --> 2:08:42.040 the steaks couldn't be higher. So you do what you 2:08:42.160 --> 2:08:45.640 have to do exactly, and it's this theory of power. 2:08:45.680 --> 2:08:47.160 And so then people sort of. 2:08:47.600 --> 2:08:50.680 Standing outside of that paradigm who are not keyed into 2:08:50.720 --> 2:08:53.840 this idea of like we're in an ethical spiritual battle, 2:08:54.160 --> 2:08:57.520 like and we must create like a Kingdom of Christ 2:08:57.640 --> 2:09:01.440 on Earth in America to win again devil, and then 2:09:01.480 --> 2:09:04.920 people outside being like, you're hypocrites, and it's like it's 2:09:05.000 --> 2:09:07.400 not a valid criticism to them because they're like, first 2:09:07.400 --> 2:09:11.080 of all, you're not like a Christian if you're a liberal, 2:09:11.160 --> 2:09:13.400 but also like you're not on our level, like we're 2:09:13.440 --> 2:09:16.840 fighting Lucifer and you're probably. 2:09:17.000 --> 2:09:19.840 A stand like on his team if you oppose us. 2:09:19.880 --> 2:09:24.080 So you know, a multitude of apparent hypocrisies can be 2:09:24.800 --> 2:09:28.240 excused by the idea that like this is a holy war, 2:09:28.400 --> 2:09:33.560 and in war, there's like all kinds of amart behavior 2:09:33.600 --> 2:09:37.520 that's OK, but doing holy war crimes, Yeah, exactly. I 2:09:37.600 --> 2:09:39.520 mean this is why, for example, you see a lot 2:09:39.560 --> 2:09:43.680 of like prominent female figures from Philish slaughleet, you know, 2:09:43.880 --> 2:09:46.920 in the seventies and eighties to like the tradwives now, 2:09:47.040 --> 2:09:49.640 and it's like, how does this fit in with your 2:09:49.720 --> 2:09:52.840 overall sort of idea that women should be chaste and 2:09:53.240 --> 2:09:55.440 submissive and meek and silent. I mean, first of all, 2:09:55.520 --> 2:09:58.760 tradwife stuff is often fetishish content. 2:09:58.880 --> 2:10:02.520 But yeah, I mean filish Filish made a living professionally 2:10:02.760 --> 2:10:06.400 saying that women shouldn't make a living professionally, but that 2:10:06.520 --> 2:10:08.280 contradiction doesn't matter. 2:10:08.800 --> 2:10:11.400 Yeah, I mean I think I call them valkyries for 2:10:11.800 --> 2:10:15.280 feminine submission in the book. Yeah, I mean, at the 2:10:15.360 --> 2:10:17.360 end of the day, like if you believe that this 2:10:17.600 --> 2:10:21.480 is your your calling, your mission, you know, your mission 2:10:21.560 --> 2:10:24.560 field in the service of the Lord to undo the 2:10:24.640 --> 2:10:28.120 demonic sort of influence of feminism, Like of course you're 2:10:28.160 --> 2:10:29.760 going to speak. 2:10:29.640 --> 2:10:31.840 You've been moved by God to do so. Yeah. 2:10:32.120 --> 2:10:36.680 And of course, like female leaders with the evangelical community, 2:10:37.280 --> 2:10:40.640 like sort of minority Republicans can be like knocked off 2:10:40.680 --> 2:10:44.120 their pedestal quicker and easier, but like they still can 2:10:44.200 --> 2:10:47.800 come out and exist and testify and schlafly throughout her 2:10:48.640 --> 2:10:52.480 very long prolific and lucrative career, you know, was like, 2:10:52.600 --> 2:10:56.840 I'm a housewife with six kids, and that was her. 2:10:57.000 --> 2:10:59.160 That was how she defined herself, even while being this 2:10:59.240 --> 2:11:02.880 incredibly proper and a figure and one of the sort 2:11:02.920 --> 2:11:06.080 of key architects of the current Christian right coalition of 2:11:06.240 --> 2:11:11.200 like right wing Catholics. She and Paul Lyric and Leonard 2:11:11.280 --> 2:11:14.800 Leo and some other right wing Catholics brought these Catholic 2:11:15.040 --> 2:11:19.960 values of being all about abortion to the evangelical right, 2:11:20.040 --> 2:11:22.080 which prior to the seventies is like, that's a weird 2:11:22.120 --> 2:11:22.760 Catholic thing. 2:11:23.240 --> 2:11:24.520 You don't really care I. 2:11:24.560 --> 2:11:26.840 Wanted to talk about that. So I'm not sure how 2:11:26.960 --> 2:11:31.839 sort of common knowledge this is, but the Protestant Christian 2:11:31.920 --> 2:11:35.520 community in the United States did not care about abortion 2:11:35.760 --> 2:11:38.000 until the seventies. It was not an issue in their communities. 2:11:38.040 --> 2:11:40.920 They were generally pro abortion. They were you know, the 2:11:41.320 --> 2:11:43.240 Baptists were in favor of Rob Wade. 2:11:43.840 --> 2:11:46.880 Yeah, the fucking Southern Baptist Convention came out in like 2:11:47.360 --> 2:11:49.440 seventy four. I think it was and was like, yeah, 2:11:49.720 --> 2:11:51.080 we approved Rob Wade. 2:11:51.600 --> 2:11:54.000 So it's not like, you know, opposition to abortion is 2:11:54.320 --> 2:11:59.200 baked into Christianity. It is baked into the American Evangelical 2:11:59.320 --> 2:12:03.320 Christianity of post nineteen seventy five or so because of 2:12:03.360 --> 2:12:07.800 this sort of conscious cynical political decision, And that I 2:12:07.880 --> 2:12:10.600 think is so interesting because you know, you get into 2:12:10.680 --> 2:12:13.400 this conversation of well, what are their deeply held beliefs 2:12:13.480 --> 2:12:15.600 and do they really believe it and does that matter? 2:12:16.560 --> 2:12:19.640 But we can pin down the moment they started believing 2:12:19.720 --> 2:12:22.400 this and we know why, and it's segregation. 2:12:23.440 --> 2:12:26.000 Yeah, I mean, first of all, I would say, like 2:12:26.080 --> 2:12:29.720 people can still like this is like several generations later 2:12:29.920 --> 2:12:35.080 of like constant barrages of extremely violent propaganda against abortion. 2:12:35.640 --> 2:12:38.480 Right, so the belief is sincere today, but you could 2:12:38.680 --> 2:12:41.760 look at it where it was born. Yeah exactly, it 2:12:41.760 --> 2:12:44.520 should have been aborted, right, Yeah, no, it definitely should 2:12:44.560 --> 2:12:47.360 not have been carried to term. But like it's it's crazy. 2:12:47.560 --> 2:12:52.040 And in addition, Tomi's book Randall Bahmer does some really 2:12:52.080 --> 2:12:52.880 good coverage of this. 2:12:53.760 --> 2:12:58.360 So the sort of general arc is like three sort 2:12:58.360 --> 2:13:04.240 of nineteen seventy you had this like generally conservative population 2:13:04.680 --> 2:13:09.280 of Southern Baptists who were like on board with McCarthyism, 2:13:09.400 --> 2:13:12.320 hated the godless reds, but kind of viewed politics as 2:13:12.400 --> 2:13:17.000 like worldly and not really their sphere, and we're not 2:13:17.200 --> 2:13:21.200 particularly politically engaged. And then brown versus a board of 2:13:21.400 --> 2:13:28.640 education passes immediately, the white Christian populist just disinvests these 2:13:28.720 --> 2:13:32.080 from the public schools, leaving multiple counties in the South 2:13:32.160 --> 2:13:37.720 without functionally any public education at all. And this mushroom 2:13:38.560 --> 2:13:43.840 after rain, kind of like patch of patches of parochial 2:13:43.920 --> 2:13:47.720 schools with church or Christian in the name start popping up, 2:13:47.800 --> 2:13:51.760 and they're all white schools. Their segregation academies is the 2:13:51.840 --> 2:13:55.080 sort of term of art for these, and they're explicitly 2:13:55.400 --> 2:13:59.960 under a Christian agis they're religious schools. Their tax exams 2:14:00.120 --> 2:14:03.800 as a result, and then in like the late sixties 2:14:03.920 --> 2:14:08.760 and seventies, the government was like, you can't be tax 2:14:08.840 --> 2:14:13.120 exempt and like considered a charitable organization if you are 2:14:13.840 --> 2:14:15.680 segregated and don't have any. 2:14:15.680 --> 2:14:17.839 Black students or minority students. 2:14:18.440 --> 2:14:22.000 And that is what woke the sleeping dragon of the 2:14:22.320 --> 2:14:25.680 Christian right really like, you know, get your filthy government 2:14:25.720 --> 2:14:30.120 hands off our tax exemptions. Like they just went, you know, nuts, 2:14:30.200 --> 2:14:34.080 they were really mobilized. You know, like these are the 2:14:34.120 --> 2:14:36.960 people who are like growing tomatoes at Ruby Bridges, Like, 2:14:37.480 --> 2:14:40.520 you know, they're really politically motivated for the first time 2:14:41.160 --> 2:14:46.640 because they're experiencing like a consequence for segregation. And so 2:14:47.360 --> 2:14:52.160 this is when like Jerry Fowell and Ralph Reid and 2:14:53.320 --> 2:14:56.560 you know, James Dobson start sort of coming forward and 2:14:56.640 --> 2:14:57.400 being more prominent. 2:14:57.880 --> 2:15:01.880 And then by the sort of mids seventies to eighties. 2:15:01.560 --> 2:15:06.720 You had these like savvy or political operators coming out 2:15:06.760 --> 2:15:11.240 and saying, hey, guys, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. 2:15:11.560 --> 2:15:14.120 Is Like it's great that it really fired y'all up, 2:15:14.720 --> 2:15:17.520 but it has sort of a limited appeal. 2:15:17.920 --> 2:15:19.560 And they shot George Wallace. It's over. 2:15:20.120 --> 2:15:22.880 Yeah, Like there's gonna be a ceiling on that, And 2:15:22.960 --> 2:15:25.360 a lot of people think you suck. So why don't 2:15:25.360 --> 2:15:27.120 you get it on the ground on this new civil 2:15:27.200 --> 2:15:30.960 rights struggle abortion where you can fight for the unborn 2:15:31.120 --> 2:15:34.760 who conveniently will never disagree with you. 2:15:35.680 --> 2:15:37.520 Right, their voices don't have to be centered here. We 2:15:37.600 --> 2:15:38.520 can speak for them. 2:15:38.960 --> 2:15:43.040 I mean, they're the most convenient political constituency in history. 2:15:43.120 --> 2:15:46.520 Right, because they're so innocent and you can't milkshake duck 2:15:46.520 --> 2:15:47.880 a fetus. He's not even here. 2:15:48.400 --> 2:15:51.080 Yeah, he can't talk, but he's not gonna say shit. 2:16:03.200 --> 2:16:06.520 So I mean that's like the very capsule history. And 2:16:06.600 --> 2:16:08.640 then of course it becomes this idea of like the 2:16:08.760 --> 2:16:12.280 moral majority and where the guardians of America's soul and 2:16:12.320 --> 2:16:14.120 we're gonna get really weird about sex. 2:16:14.760 --> 2:16:16.000 Also, it's just. 2:16:16.040 --> 2:16:18.320 Like if you strip it all the way down to 2:16:18.400 --> 2:16:21.440 the studs, like the core of this is women are 2:16:21.560 --> 2:16:24.680 bleeding to death in hospital parking lots because Jerry Folwell 2:16:24.760 --> 2:16:27.640 didn't want to pay his taxes or stop being racist. 2:16:28.400 --> 2:16:31.520 Yeah, I mean that's not fair. 2:16:32.080 --> 2:16:35.800 No, people sometimes like are a little skeptical when I'm like, 2:16:35.920 --> 2:16:39.879 all of the hatreds are interconnected. But then you look 2:16:39.920 --> 2:16:43.520 at like concrete historical examples of like this world historical 2:16:43.600 --> 2:16:46.120 wave of misogyny. I mean, it's not that this population 2:16:46.360 --> 2:16:50.320 wasn't like weird about sex or weird about women. 2:16:50.320 --> 2:16:51.760 Like to start with. I mean, maybe they would have 2:16:51.800 --> 2:16:54.440 gotten here a different way, but that's how we got here. 2:16:54.840 --> 2:16:57.600 Yeah, we got here by just like no, we will 2:16:57.760 --> 2:17:03.880 pay taxes on our segregation academies. Bob Jones University's interracial 2:17:04.000 --> 2:17:09.160 dating ban is perfectly great, and we're gonna mobilize about it. 2:17:09.560 --> 2:17:12.280 And so what you have then now is just like 2:17:12.560 --> 2:17:16.959 fifty years of political lock step because and you see this. 2:17:17.040 --> 2:17:18.440 In like other religious communities. 2:17:18.480 --> 2:17:21.080 I mean, like, I know, like it's sort of notorious 2:17:21.120 --> 2:17:23.640 how much corruption slides by in New York because like 2:17:23.680 --> 2:17:26.800 the Considic communities vote as a block, Like it is 2:17:28.320 --> 2:17:31.680 very useful to have a congregation that all votes the 2:17:31.760 --> 2:17:34.080 same way. It's politically useful. 2:17:34.240 --> 2:17:37.280 I mean, what other populations can you get together once 2:17:37.320 --> 2:17:39.800 a week as a captive audience and speak to with 2:17:39.920 --> 2:17:42.200 authority if you can mobilize those people. And that's what 2:17:42.320 --> 2:17:44.800 Jerry Folwell saw, right, is like this is a great 2:17:44.879 --> 2:17:47.400 way to get a lot of people to vote the 2:17:47.440 --> 2:17:48.400 way I want them to vote. 2:17:49.040 --> 2:17:52.000 Yeah, And you know, the church has always been like 2:17:52.080 --> 2:17:56.360 a really prominent institution in American civil society, especially as 2:17:57.320 --> 2:18:01.240 the rest of sort of civil society has fallen away 2:18:01.440 --> 2:18:04.520 and degraded. Like churches are some of the only social 2:18:04.560 --> 2:18:07.840 outlets that Americans have. And what's interesting when you talk 2:18:07.920 --> 2:18:11.080 to evangelicals and next evangelicals is just like being a 2:18:11.120 --> 2:18:13.920 Republican is like part of their religious identity in a 2:18:14.000 --> 2:18:17.120 major way. It's like this is how you vote, and 2:18:17.240 --> 2:18:20.280 this is you know, how you dress, and this is 2:18:20.320 --> 2:18:23.280 how you go to church and so on. But like 2:18:23.440 --> 2:18:25.760 the idea of being a democrat is like not only 2:18:26.680 --> 2:18:29.200 you know, a little bit out of step with your community, 2:18:29.280 --> 2:18:30.040 it's heretical. 2:18:30.200 --> 2:18:31.440 I mean, that's how the demons give in. 2:18:31.840 --> 2:18:35.400 Yeah, yeah, demoncrats, I mean, and like, yeah, it's stupid. 2:18:35.480 --> 2:18:38.400 But it's also like half of the people saying demoncrats 2:18:38.440 --> 2:18:41.320 like literally mean democrats are aligned with Lucifer. 2:18:41.720 --> 2:18:43.720 And I think that's a point that I don't want 2:18:43.840 --> 2:18:45.240 to get lost on the listener. 2:18:45.360 --> 2:18:45.400 This. 2:18:45.520 --> 2:18:49.640 You know, this idea that people literally have demons in them, 2:18:49.680 --> 2:18:51.920 that demons are active in the world, that demons are 2:18:52.160 --> 2:18:55.920 motivating the actions of their enemies is real for them. 2:18:56.320 --> 2:18:59.560 And I'm not saying that to be derisive or you know, 2:19:00.080 --> 2:19:03.560 it's real. It's real. It is an animating factor for 2:19:03.640 --> 2:19:06.560 a lot of these people. And that's hard to wrap 2:19:06.640 --> 2:19:07.360 your mind around. 2:19:07.959 --> 2:19:08.520 I mean, I. 2:19:08.920 --> 2:19:11.560 Struggle with the idea that that is real for them. 2:19:11.640 --> 2:19:13.840 But like that's how you get things like satanic panic, 2:19:13.879 --> 2:19:16.039 and we see echoes of satanic panic in this idea 2:19:16.080 --> 2:19:18.960 of you know, groomers in kids' schools, they really have 2:19:19.160 --> 2:19:23.720 this fundamental, like foundational belief in this, you know, whether 2:19:23.800 --> 2:19:25.840 or not they're calling it demons, that the existence of 2:19:25.920 --> 2:19:29.840 some sort of ontological evil that is coming for their children. 2:19:30.400 --> 2:19:32.160 And like, once you arrive at the place where, like 2:19:32.400 --> 2:19:34.720 where you understand that that's real for them, their actions 2:19:34.800 --> 2:19:37.160 make more sense. Like they're not behaving irrationally if you 2:19:37.520 --> 2:19:40.000 if you truly believe that these things were happening, you'd 2:19:40.040 --> 2:19:40.760 act crazy too. 2:19:41.600 --> 2:19:44.600 Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to get people to 2:19:44.680 --> 2:19:48.720 step outside their own worldviews, and in both directions, right, 2:19:48.920 --> 2:19:52.800 Like I don't believe that demons are you know, abroad 2:19:52.840 --> 2:19:56.240 in the world and motivating like every element of political 2:19:56.320 --> 2:19:57.560 action to someone who. 2:19:57.520 --> 2:20:00.119 I'm starting to see them some places, but generally. 2:20:01.320 --> 2:20:05.640 To someone who does, my viewpoint is incomprehensible and vice versa. 2:20:05.920 --> 2:20:08.320 So I think part of I mean not that I'm 2:20:08.360 --> 2:20:10.560 like one of those people that's like polarization is the 2:20:10.600 --> 2:20:13.760 big problem, like you know, as opposed to anything with 2:20:13.879 --> 2:20:17.520 like concrete policy, like you know where it's like the 2:20:17.600 --> 2:20:19.560 big problem is we all don't like each other enough. 2:20:19.600 --> 2:20:21.640 And I'm like, no, the big problem is like people 2:20:21.959 --> 2:20:25.520 are espousing policies that will cause deaths, and like also 2:20:25.600 --> 2:20:28.480 that people like believe their political enemies are like literally 2:20:28.600 --> 2:20:30.800 agents of Satan. I would say, is like a bigger 2:20:30.879 --> 2:20:34.640 problem than polarization and the abstract. But yeah, I mean 2:20:34.720 --> 2:20:38.000 this this doctrine of sort of spiritual warfare, which if 2:20:38.080 --> 2:20:40.080 you like google it, it's just like, oh, this is 2:20:40.160 --> 2:20:43.120 the mindset and it's like you, the listener to it 2:20:43.240 --> 2:20:45.640 could happen here, like you've been drafted into the spirit 2:20:45.760 --> 2:20:46.959 war from like birth. 2:20:47.800 --> 2:20:50.240 Congratulations, private, and you're. 2:20:50.160 --> 2:20:53.240 Probably in the side of the devil, so good job. 2:20:53.560 --> 2:20:56.199 I mean, I don't know, like a lot of Americans 2:20:56.280 --> 2:20:59.280 believe in angels and demons and that's fine, but it's 2:20:59.320 --> 2:21:03.280 like when starts impinging on the political sphere in a 2:21:03.400 --> 2:21:05.480 very serious way, It's like, how far would you go 2:21:06.440 --> 2:21:10.680 if you believed your opponent was under the thrall of 2:21:10.800 --> 2:21:11.400 like Satan? 2:21:11.840 --> 2:21:15.439 You would go pretty damn far's. 2:21:14.160 --> 2:21:16.760 I mean that's why you know clinic bombings were and 2:21:16.959 --> 2:21:18.840 I guess are on the rise again, right, like these 2:21:18.959 --> 2:21:22.600 arsins of clinics. It's not like other kinds of crime 2:21:22.800 --> 2:21:25.680 in my mind, right, it's not a crime of passion 2:21:25.800 --> 2:21:28.960 or an interpersonal dispute. It is people who have been 2:21:29.240 --> 2:21:32.240 motivated by this belief that this is a place where 2:21:32.320 --> 2:21:34.640 a genocide is happening, that there's a holocaust going on 2:21:34.720 --> 2:21:37.560 in there, that people are ripping you know, actual living 2:21:37.640 --> 2:21:39.800 babies limb from limb, and if you really did believe that, 2:21:40.600 --> 2:21:43.240 their actions make sense, and that's why it happens so often, right, 2:21:43.280 --> 2:21:46.320 because these people are motivated by this belief that God 2:21:46.440 --> 2:21:47.880 commands them to take this action. 2:21:48.840 --> 2:21:51.600 Yeah, I mean there's your dual element to that. I mean, 2:21:51.640 --> 2:21:54.119 first of all, absolutely, yes, Like I've read some anti 2:21:54.200 --> 2:21:58.080 abortion terror manuals speaking of extremely unpleasant research, and it's 2:21:58.160 --> 2:22:03.000 just really like these people are murderers. It's mass murderers, 2:22:03.120 --> 2:22:05.199 Like you're like killing Hitler, right. 2:22:05.400 --> 2:22:07.480 And wouldn't you wouldn't you kill baby Hitler? 2:22:07.879 --> 2:22:08.240 Exactly? 2:22:08.840 --> 2:22:13.200 Poltical about baby Hitler in like a countrywide scale. And 2:22:14.560 --> 2:22:18.040 when specific abortion doctors have been mentioned in right wing media, 2:22:18.160 --> 2:22:21.080 those guys end up dead and that's not a coincidence. 2:22:21.160 --> 2:22:24.040 So there's there's that element of it, which is the 2:22:24.160 --> 2:22:24.760 majority of it. 2:22:24.800 --> 2:22:25.240 It's huge. 2:22:25.240 --> 2:22:29.240 But there's also this idea of demonic geography, where like 2:22:29.840 --> 2:22:33.120 demons can possess sort of places like abortion clinics or 2:22:33.600 --> 2:22:38.560 institutions like Planned parenthood or even the Democratic Party, which 2:22:38.680 --> 2:22:42.480 you know, I read a lot of demonology books, like 2:22:43.360 --> 2:22:47.200 Taxonomies of Demons. Pigs in the Parlor was this really 2:22:47.240 --> 2:22:49.360 big hit in like the seventies, and it's been like 2:22:49.480 --> 2:22:52.240 reissued and reissued and millions of copies, and it's just like, 2:22:52.920 --> 2:22:55.640 on one level, it's really compelling because it's like, are 2:22:55.720 --> 2:23:00.120 you tired, are you sad, are you feeling clumsy? You 2:23:00.200 --> 2:23:03.640 have like persistent stomach aches. It's demons and here's how 2:23:03.680 --> 2:23:06.000 you deal with that. And like, in a country with 2:23:06.360 --> 2:23:10.520 shitty healthcare, I can totally see why someone who's like 2:23:10.680 --> 2:23:15.000 really depressed might go to like an exorcist or a 2:23:15.080 --> 2:23:17.600 deliverance minister, which is the Protestant if. 2:23:17.480 --> 2:23:19.480 You'll try anything, and this guy's going to do it 2:23:19.560 --> 2:23:19.920 for free. 2:23:20.600 --> 2:23:24.200 I watch so many videos of deliverance ministers doing their thing, 2:23:24.320 --> 2:23:27.360 and it's like crazy. It's like people you know, are 2:23:27.480 --> 2:23:30.480 just like sitting there and they're like people praying over 2:23:30.560 --> 2:23:33.800 them and screaming in their face, like and they wind 2:23:33.879 --> 2:23:36.840 up vomiting and crying and it's all very like intense. 2:23:36.920 --> 2:23:39.400 And you know, if you think about it from a 2:23:39.480 --> 2:23:42.760 placebo effect perspective. For like one second, you're like, obviously 2:23:42.879 --> 2:23:46.480 this person would feel a weightlifted from them. They've had 2:23:46.520 --> 2:23:50.280 this ecstatic experience. And this isn't the majority of it. 2:23:50.760 --> 2:23:53.959 This is about fourteen percent of America identifies this as 2:23:54.000 --> 2:23:57.680 white evengels so many Protestants, and it's still so many 2:23:57.760 --> 2:24:00.800 people because people keep asking me, like how many people 2:24:00.879 --> 2:24:03.480 really believe should like this, and I'm like, well, about 2:24:03.800 --> 2:24:06.480 eighty to ninety percent of like people who identify as 2:24:06.520 --> 2:24:10.640 might evangelical Protestants vows most of these beliefs. So that's like, 2:24:11.000 --> 2:24:13.920 that's like thirty million people. Yeah, yeah, And then you 2:24:14.040 --> 2:24:15.760 add in the Catholic right, which is. 2:24:15.760 --> 2:24:17.039 Getting weirder every day. 2:24:17.480 --> 2:24:17.680 Yeah. 2:24:17.840 --> 2:24:23.320 JD Vance, I hate women exist to reproduce, breathe you 2:24:23.440 --> 2:24:27.200 filthy sow. But like, even beyond the adult Catholic convert 2:24:27.560 --> 2:24:31.480 style weirdness, like right wing Catholics are an integral part 2:24:31.520 --> 2:24:35.440 of the Christian right, like Amy Cony Barrett, you know, 2:24:35.959 --> 2:24:40.480 antonin Scalia, that kind of thing. That's another bunch of millions. 2:24:41.040 --> 2:24:46.520 So this reactionary force has like numerically significant constituency. On 2:24:46.640 --> 2:24:50.560 the other hand, it definitely punches way above its weight 2:24:50.720 --> 2:24:51.680 in terms of right. 2:24:51.720 --> 2:24:55.920 They have an outsized influence of both you know, on 2:24:56.000 --> 2:24:58.720 the legislative floor and when it comes to you know 2:24:59.040 --> 2:24:59.920 who's racking up the most. 2:25:00.920 --> 2:25:04.640 Yeah, and also even like the culture wars right, like 2:25:04.760 --> 2:25:09.960 the sort of loudest culture warriors tend to at least 2:25:10.000 --> 2:25:13.640 come from like a background of I'm speaking for God 2:25:13.840 --> 2:25:16.000 or Christ is King or whatever it is, Like how 2:25:16.040 --> 2:25:18.800 many times have you and I encountered that an extremist 2:25:19.040 --> 2:25:22.360 contacts But also like the sort of more mainstream me, 2:25:23.800 --> 2:25:25.840 What the fuck the mainstream is? I don't know, it's 2:25:25.840 --> 2:25:28.280 full of piss, But like the more mainstream me, like 2:25:28.360 --> 2:25:31.600 Christian grifter, right, they come from this this I'm speaking 2:25:31.640 --> 2:25:35.080 from my faith. These are my religious principles. But like 2:25:35.600 --> 2:25:38.480 it is with noting again, just just to rewind in 2:25:38.520 --> 2:25:42.600 our conversation, but like the whole concept of religious liberty 2:25:42.959 --> 2:25:47.320 and religious freedom absolutely was like an ad slogan coined 2:25:47.440 --> 2:25:50.560 in the seventies around segregation. 2:25:50.320 --> 2:25:52.520 Right, religious freedom to do what I mean, it's like 2:25:52.600 --> 2:25:55.320 states rights, states rights to do what right? 2:25:55.480 --> 2:25:59.120 Yeah, Like you answer the question, yeah, it's it's religious 2:25:59.160 --> 2:26:02.279 freedom to have segregated schools, is the answer. 2:26:02.080 --> 2:26:04.000 To that, And you still see echoes of that with 2:26:04.160 --> 2:26:08.119 either still religious schools that can't accept federal grant money 2:26:08.200 --> 2:26:11.160 because they don't let students be gay, right, Like it's 2:26:11.240 --> 2:26:15.440 not racial segregation anymore, but they are refusing to admit 2:26:15.640 --> 2:26:18.959 gay students and that is a violation of federal civil 2:26:19.040 --> 2:26:19.440 rights law. 2:26:19.920 --> 2:26:22.760 Yeah, but that's where I mean, that's where that stillgan started. 2:26:22.760 --> 2:26:25.360 And then it's blossomed to include basically like a gay 2:26:25.440 --> 2:26:27.720 person came into my shop. 2:26:27.879 --> 2:26:31.360 Except they didn't, right, I know, there's no standing, right, 2:26:31.480 --> 2:26:33.160 Like that whole case was built a lie. 2:26:33.440 --> 2:26:33.720 Whatever. 2:26:33.879 --> 2:26:37.480 That's yeah, but it's like and the standing in the 2:26:37.560 --> 2:26:40.879 Supreme Court is so ridiculous. This, I mean, in many ways, 2:26:41.000 --> 2:26:44.840 this Supreme Court is the culmination and embodiment and apotheosis 2:26:44.879 --> 2:26:47.480 of like Christian right theocracy because you have these like 2:26:48.080 --> 2:26:51.320 absolutely bat shit religious zealots. I mean, Amy Cony Barrett 2:26:51.440 --> 2:26:55.200 is like from a cult, and in this unaccountable body, 2:26:55.280 --> 2:26:59.560 they're passing unpopular theocratic principles that the majority of the 2:26:59.600 --> 2:27:03.640 America public uh disagrees with. But like specifically what they 2:27:03.680 --> 2:27:05.800 are trying to enact and what they are what they 2:27:05.879 --> 2:27:10.600 are enacting is this theogratic agenda, where like the government 2:27:10.720 --> 2:27:14.240 is in your bedroom. The government is in your doctor's office, 2:27:14.360 --> 2:27:18.039 Like the government is sniffing your panties, and it's it's 2:27:18.200 --> 2:27:22.680 gross and it's upsetting and fundamentally, like theocracies are just 2:27:23.280 --> 2:27:26.720 very famously all up in your junk, Like they're obsessed 2:27:26.760 --> 2:27:30.280 with like controlling and censoring sexuality of all kinds of 2:27:30.280 --> 2:27:34.800 but particularly female sexuality and queer sexuality, like sniff those out. 2:27:35.320 --> 2:27:39.640 And so that's part of the reason why so many 2:27:40.400 --> 2:27:43.640 abortion arguments, Like, first of all, you have the like 2:27:43.760 --> 2:27:47.360 the you're murdering this cluster of cells, which is a 2:27:47.560 --> 2:27:50.480 full human baby. Like do you remember that article in 2:27:50.520 --> 2:27:52.480 The Guardian a couple of years ago that like showed 2:27:52.520 --> 2:27:56.320 the actual size of like fetuses at various stages of development, 2:27:56.400 --> 2:27:57.760 and it was like they were. 2:27:57.720 --> 2:28:01.200 Just like so little, like these little like little fingernails. Yeah, 2:28:01.280 --> 2:28:03.480 and it doesn't look like a tiny baby doll. That's 2:28:03.600 --> 2:28:06.440 just very small. Yeah, exactly, it's not like a mini 2:28:06.520 --> 2:28:10.080 baby like it like tides of gore. It's like literally 2:28:10.240 --> 2:28:14.840 like a tiny cluster of cells. So the anti abortion propaganda, 2:28:15.440 --> 2:28:17.760 like you are not immune to propaganda. It has like 2:28:17.879 --> 2:28:21.360 wormed its way into the popular consciousness just by virtue 2:28:21.400 --> 2:28:25.240 of its ubiquity and constant repetition being the key to 2:28:25.680 --> 2:28:28.959 successful propaganda. But so many of these arguments in addition 2:28:29.040 --> 2:28:33.040 to this this abortion is murder stuff is also just 2:28:33.080 --> 2:28:35.280 like you should have kept your legs closed, right, This 2:28:35.400 --> 2:28:37.960 is a this is a consequence, God did this to you. 2:28:38.520 --> 2:28:41.360 Yeah, Like sex for your sins a mortal sin and 2:28:41.879 --> 2:28:43.240 sex should be punished, and. 2:28:43.600 --> 2:28:44.840 I they must be doing it wrong. 2:28:46.000 --> 2:28:48.400 Like, I'm like, why do you want sex to have 2:28:48.680 --> 2:28:53.840 consequences and be punished? The like intensity of the misogyny 2:28:53.879 --> 2:28:55.600 around purity culture is so intense. 2:29:06.760 --> 2:29:08.520 I wanted to ask you, you know, about the experience 2:29:08.600 --> 2:29:10.680 of writing the book, right, So you know, your first book, 2:29:10.680 --> 2:29:15.200 Culture Warlords, was traumatizing for you to craft, right, because 2:29:15.240 --> 2:29:18.160 you had to spend so much time in these digital 2:29:18.200 --> 2:29:22.080 spaces in some in some cases physical spaces with you know, 2:29:22.400 --> 2:29:26.680 neo Nazis, four Chan guys, you know, aspiring terrorists, and 2:29:26.760 --> 2:29:30.560 so that's traumatic to experience, you know. But largely that 2:29:30.640 --> 2:29:33.520 experience was alone, like at your computer screen, sort of 2:29:33.600 --> 2:29:37.360 consuming this content that was eroding your soul. But the 2:29:37.440 --> 2:29:41.840 second half of this book is about child abuse, right, 2:29:41.959 --> 2:29:46.119 and you interviewed people who grew up in this movement 2:29:46.320 --> 2:29:49.600 about their lives, about their husband's raping them and their 2:29:49.640 --> 2:29:56.560 parents beating them as children, and like how did those 2:29:56.600 --> 2:29:57.600 experiences compare? 2:29:57.640 --> 2:29:58.280 And like what was that? 2:29:59.160 --> 2:29:59.240 How? 2:29:59.320 --> 2:30:01.000 I mean, how did you to do that? I don't 2:30:01.080 --> 2:30:05.080 even know how it'd begin to do that with care. 2:30:05.760 --> 2:30:08.560 I mean, I think my goal going in is like 2:30:08.720 --> 2:30:11.160 I'm not going to betray you, Like that was my 2:30:12.160 --> 2:30:16.000 guiding ethos of just like I view like your trust 2:30:16.080 --> 2:30:19.280 in me as a sacred thing, not like sacred in 2:30:19.360 --> 2:30:22.320 any formal religious sense, but just like you know, I 2:30:22.400 --> 2:30:24.280 view your trust in me as something that I hold 2:30:24.959 --> 2:30:28.520 very dearly. It's very important. I'm going to treat your 2:30:28.560 --> 2:30:31.760 pain with as much gentleness and respect as I can. 2:30:31.959 --> 2:30:35.480 And like I interviewed over one hundred people largely about 2:30:35.520 --> 2:30:40.080 their experiences with experiencing child abuse and an evangelical milieu 2:30:40.600 --> 2:30:44.280 as it's laid out with painstaking instructions, and like all 2:30:44.400 --> 2:30:46.960 of these parenting manuals. Actually, like I think reading the 2:30:47.040 --> 2:30:50.680 parenting manuals was even more disturbing than talking to people, 2:30:50.760 --> 2:30:53.320 because like people were like this fucked me up and 2:30:53.440 --> 2:30:55.960 it was wrong. And then these books are like, no, 2:30:56.200 --> 2:31:00.080 you must be your toddler because Jesus says so, and 2:31:00.240 --> 2:31:03.440 like here's exactly how to beat your toddler, and here's 2:31:03.560 --> 2:31:05.560 what you should use to beat your toddler, and here's 2:31:05.760 --> 2:31:09.640 the like supremely fucked up, like weird ritual that we prescribe, 2:31:10.200 --> 2:31:13.040 and then like reading those in tandem with like like 2:31:13.560 --> 2:31:16.600 the accounts of people who were like this specific thing 2:31:16.800 --> 2:31:19.440 like sucked me up for life and really messed up 2:31:19.480 --> 2:31:22.200 my ability to have like intimacy or self confidence or 2:31:22.280 --> 2:31:23.640 whatever all of that stuff. 2:31:23.680 --> 2:31:24.360 I mean, it was tough. 2:31:24.520 --> 2:31:27.200 I definitely took more time. Like I wrote Culture Warlords 2:31:27.240 --> 2:31:31.119 in nine months, so I was like totally immersed constantly. 2:31:31.600 --> 2:31:34.240 It just like didn't come up for ayer, yeah at all. 2:31:34.720 --> 2:31:36.040 And this one I was like, I need a little 2:31:36.080 --> 2:31:39.520 more time, guys, Like I wrote it over you know, 2:31:39.640 --> 2:31:44.080 almost three years. I also pretentiously started calling this philosophy 2:31:44.160 --> 2:31:46.560 Guarding your Heart because I really got lost in the 2:31:46.600 --> 2:31:48.800 sauce with Culture Warlords, Like I was in a dark 2:31:48.920 --> 2:31:52.200 place while I was writing it, and afterwards I was 2:31:52.240 --> 2:31:55.920 also the like it came out in mid COVID, so 2:31:56.040 --> 2:31:58.800 that didn't help either. But uh, it was a really 2:31:58.920 --> 2:32:01.480 really rough experience with I was like I'm going to 2:32:01.600 --> 2:32:04.120 keep writing, I'm going to write about sandwiches all the 2:32:04.160 --> 2:32:05.880 way through. I'm going to like make sure I have 2:32:06.000 --> 2:32:10.959 friendships and stuff that's grounding me. And I think consciously 2:32:11.040 --> 2:32:13.000 having that at the forefront of my mind really helped 2:32:13.800 --> 2:32:17.400 that being said, Like, what was really encouraging was all 2:32:17.440 --> 2:32:21.440 of these people who had experienced this sort of child 2:32:21.520 --> 2:32:25.920 abuse industrial complex in the evangelical community, where like we 2:32:26.080 --> 2:32:29.440 really value that someone wants to hear what we have 2:32:29.560 --> 2:32:32.240 to say, and also that it's someone from outside the 2:32:32.320 --> 2:32:35.880 community is like paying attention and thinks this is important, 2:32:36.200 --> 2:32:39.680 which is not to denigrate like expangelical voices, but more 2:32:39.760 --> 2:32:42.480 to say that, like, I guess there's a certain validation 2:32:42.600 --> 2:32:45.040 when someone who's like not didn't grow up in your 2:32:45.400 --> 2:32:48.760 corner of religiosity, dark corner. 2:32:48.760 --> 2:32:50.680 And sort of bringing it to an outside audience too. 2:32:50.720 --> 2:32:53.480 I think a lot of expangelicals their audience is largely 2:32:53.520 --> 2:32:55.880 their fellow expangelicals exactly. 2:32:55.959 --> 2:32:57.600 And I'm someone who, like I grew up as a Jew, 2:32:57.640 --> 2:33:00.640 and I'm like, yeah, this sucked. This terrible. 2:33:01.280 --> 2:33:04.120 I'm like appalled reading like to Train Up a Child 2:33:04.280 --> 2:33:07.400 by the Pearls or or The Strong Willed Child by 2:33:07.840 --> 2:33:10.840 jam Stobson which, like, to be clear, the strong willed 2:33:10.959 --> 2:33:13.800 child is a bad thing. It's a bad thing to 2:33:13.879 --> 2:33:14.760 have a child with us. 2:33:14.879 --> 2:33:17.440 You have to beat it out of them. Sure, literally, 2:33:18.080 --> 2:33:20.040 And I ran into this in the wild recently. I 2:33:20.080 --> 2:33:22.240 don't know if you have come across this guy online. 2:33:22.560 --> 2:33:24.840 Do you know the nineties movie The Little Rascals? 2:33:25.080 --> 2:33:28.120 Oh my god, alf from The Little Rascals turns out to. 2:33:28.120 --> 2:33:30.360 Be all Falfa. The guy who played Alfalfa's name is 2:33:30.400 --> 2:33:34.080 Bug Hall. He like, really like I don't got into 2:33:34.360 --> 2:33:37.720 a sort of main character situation over some posts about 2:33:37.760 --> 2:33:41.320 how he beats his infants. He beats infants because that's 2:33:42.240 --> 2:33:43.760 I guess, a good way to raise a baby. 2:33:44.320 --> 2:33:44.560 Yeah. 2:33:45.160 --> 2:33:46.959 Also I think he's homeless. 2:33:47.879 --> 2:33:53.080 No, he's a surf. Oh he's a voluntary serfdom arrangement. 2:33:54.520 --> 2:33:55.199 Oh my god. 2:33:56.720 --> 2:34:01.120 Okay, well he sounds like a big rat school. Yeah, 2:34:02.240 --> 2:34:06.320 he's continued that trajectory of rascaldom. But don't be your kids. 2:34:06.400 --> 2:34:09.000 I mean, I will also say the reason why this 2:34:09.120 --> 2:34:12.520 book focuses so much on child abuse, which, like I 2:34:12.680 --> 2:34:16.120 encountered some some haters and losers and doubters along the 2:34:16.160 --> 2:34:17.760 way who were like, why are you focused so much 2:34:17.760 --> 2:34:20.640 on child abuse, and I was like, there are a 2:34:20.680 --> 2:34:24.280 lot of different theories about like how authoritarianism develops, but 2:34:24.440 --> 2:34:28.880 one of the big ones is focusing on the pedagogy. 2:34:28.480 --> 2:34:29.959 In authoritarian societies. 2:34:30.480 --> 2:34:34.440 The societies that become authoritarian, you know, evolve from democracy 2:34:34.520 --> 2:34:39.640 to authoritarianism, and beating the shit out of people from 2:34:39.879 --> 2:34:45.640 when they're in infancy and particularly when they display disobedience 2:34:45.840 --> 2:34:51.560 or ask why, or you know, just deviate from expectations. 2:34:51.600 --> 2:34:53.480 It's a great way to make an obedient brown shirt. 2:34:53.840 --> 2:34:58.000 Yeah, exactly, Like this is a recipe for future authoritarians, 2:34:58.200 --> 2:35:00.480 like the people I spoke to who had sort of 2:35:00.520 --> 2:35:03.440 broken away largely from this culture. But many of the 2:35:03.520 --> 2:35:07.120 sort of most obedient soldiers in the Army's Army of 2:35:07.240 --> 2:35:11.160 God like are that way. Because again, I can't overemphasize 2:35:11.200 --> 2:35:15.480 how much these parenting manuals, which spanned from like nineteen 2:35:15.560 --> 2:35:20.520 seventy to twenty fifteen, these texts, you know, the dates 2:35:20.600 --> 2:35:24.200 that they were published, emphasize having an obedient child. What 2:35:24.360 --> 2:35:26.400 you want is not like a child who's kind or 2:35:26.520 --> 2:35:32.360 curious or thoughtful or smart. It's obedient, instantly obedient. Don't 2:35:32.400 --> 2:35:35.200 make me count to three is the title of one 2:35:35.240 --> 2:35:38.320 of the books, and like, what you're creating is a 2:35:38.360 --> 2:35:41.200 culture of people who a like empathize with the aggressor 2:35:41.400 --> 2:35:45.000 at all times. So hence this admiration for strength and 2:35:45.080 --> 2:35:48.320 even admiration for cruelty, people who are trained to obey 2:35:48.440 --> 2:35:52.320 and obey without question, and people who are very acclimated 2:35:52.400 --> 2:35:54.400 to the use of violence. 2:35:54.680 --> 2:35:57.640 I mean, you're doing fascism in the home, right. 2:35:57.879 --> 2:36:01.600 So the the author, like Alice Miller, the author of 2:36:01.640 --> 2:36:03.440 the book For Your Own Good, lays out a pretty 2:36:03.560 --> 2:36:05.480 she was also a Holocaust survivor. She lays out a 2:36:05.520 --> 2:36:09.240 pretty strong case for like, you know, early twentieth century 2:36:09.440 --> 2:36:12.960 Germany having this poisonous pedagogy that also involved beating the 2:36:13.000 --> 2:36:15.320 shit out of your kids until I was illegal to 2:36:15.400 --> 2:36:21.160 love your children. Yeah, to obey you, and how basically 2:36:21.280 --> 2:36:23.480 this is how you make a torture. And the book 2:36:23.600 --> 2:36:26.760 is called for your Own Good, and yeah, I mean 2:36:27.240 --> 2:36:32.959 I really think it is like under valued in politics, 2:36:33.040 --> 2:36:37.440 Like how much this culture of corporal punishment, which is yeah, 2:36:37.840 --> 2:36:42.840 Americans have like moved away from universal approval of corporal punishment, 2:36:43.240 --> 2:36:45.279 We're still like a lot higher than other. 2:36:45.240 --> 2:36:49.240 Western democracies in that regard. And like on a national level. 2:36:49.360 --> 2:36:52.840 We're the only country in the world that hasn't ratified 2:36:53.000 --> 2:36:55.680 the UN Conventions on the Rights of a Child, which 2:36:55.720 --> 2:36:59.040 include like having a name and like not being beaten 2:36:59.160 --> 2:37:02.560 and not being thrown in to like juvi solitary. 2:37:02.959 --> 2:37:06.040 Oh well, that's why America can't touch that. We need 2:37:06.160 --> 2:37:07.279 to incarcerate the children. 2:37:08.120 --> 2:37:10.000 Yeah, the children yearn for the cells. 2:37:10.680 --> 2:37:13.119 But it's also just like a lot of it actually 2:37:13.720 --> 2:37:17.480 was like worries that like evangelicals like would sort of 2:37:17.520 --> 2:37:20.240 object to the the interference in there. 2:37:20.400 --> 2:37:23.000 It's an infringement on their religious freedom to be this 2:37:23.120 --> 2:37:24.120 shit out of babies. 2:37:24.720 --> 2:37:28.360 Yeah, and their parental rights, which is another buzzword of this, 2:37:29.120 --> 2:37:29.760 this movement. 2:37:29.840 --> 2:37:31.800 Pnal rights is a red flag for me. 2:37:32.600 --> 2:37:34.840 Oh yeah, no, I hear parental rights, and I think 2:37:34.959 --> 2:37:36.560 you want to beat the shit out of your kids. 2:37:37.160 --> 2:37:38.800 You don't want your children to learn science. 2:37:38.959 --> 2:37:42.879 Yeah, you out of homeschool and under educate your kids 2:37:43.200 --> 2:37:48.160 or miseducate you want to cause a measles outbreak exactly. 2:37:48.680 --> 2:37:50.920 But that's like for us, because we're weirdos. We're like 2:37:51.400 --> 2:37:55.440 obsessively clued into this stuff. If you're not, Like parental 2:37:55.520 --> 2:37:58.840 rights is like religious freedom is like it sounds good. Yeah, 2:37:58.920 --> 2:38:02.119 it's an effective marketing slogan, but like what it means 2:38:02.280 --> 2:38:03.720 is like we're going to show up at the school 2:38:03.760 --> 2:38:06.320 board and yell about how I mean. 2:38:06.920 --> 2:38:08.000 And Trump is like bought. 2:38:07.840 --> 2:38:11.600 Into this obviously because he knows where his bread is buttered. 2:38:11.640 --> 2:38:15.000 He has savvy Like he's like, you guys do the policy, 2:38:15.280 --> 2:38:19.120 but like his current parental rights based his biggest like 2:38:19.200 --> 2:38:22.640 policy that he's advocating is like denying federal funding to 2:38:22.760 --> 2:38:25.959 any school with any vaccine a mandate, which is basically 2:38:26.120 --> 2:38:30.720 just like make measles great again, like bring back diphtheria. 2:38:31.680 --> 2:38:34.040 I think, like, yes, the MAGA movement is sort of 2:38:34.080 --> 2:38:38.160 the the efflorescence, the apotheosis of this sentially building power, 2:38:38.280 --> 2:38:41.920 but like there's also just like fifty years of power 2:38:41.959 --> 2:38:44.920 building behind it. And like, even if Trump is defeated 2:38:44.959 --> 2:38:47.520 at the federal level, which like I profoundly hope he is, 2:38:48.200 --> 2:38:51.080 sorry to come out as like a you know, partisan 2:38:51.240 --> 2:38:55.880 a voter, like a hashtag a voter, but like I 2:38:56.040 --> 2:39:00.240 think it would be just a nauseatingly harrad. It's a 2:39:00.320 --> 2:39:03.520 horrifying thought that he I mean, first of all, you 2:39:03.560 --> 2:39:08.000 would absolutely enact every item in this theocratic agenda starting 2:39:08.080 --> 2:39:10.160 with a national abortion band like that would happen in 2:39:10.200 --> 2:39:14.039 the first hundred days, I think, which would just functionally 2:39:14.720 --> 2:39:20.959 plunge American women into like a very very dark septocemic nightmare. 2:39:21.360 --> 2:39:23.360 Yeah, the dark place that we're going as a coffin. 2:39:24.280 --> 2:39:25.080 Yeah yeah yeah. 2:39:25.320 --> 2:39:30.040 But even should he lose, which you know, hope, there's 2:39:30.120 --> 2:39:34.520 still twenty two states where abortion is outlawed or severely restricted, 2:39:35.520 --> 2:39:41.520 and these places are becoming care deserts. Like medical residents. 2:39:42.160 --> 2:39:46.000 My extremely sexy partner is a medical residence, so I 2:39:46.280 --> 2:39:50.160 know more about the state of medicine than I otherwise would. 2:39:50.400 --> 2:39:53.440 But like residents don't want to do their residencies in 2:39:53.600 --> 2:39:55.039 states with abortion restrictions. 2:39:55.080 --> 2:39:59.840 They're like, right, given a choice, gynecological providers just are 2:40:00.959 --> 2:40:02.920 practicing there anymore. Like even if you know, even though 2:40:03.080 --> 2:40:06.360 your primary focus is not abortions, or even if your 2:40:06.360 --> 2:40:09.520 primary focus is not you know, pregnancy care, they just 2:40:09.520 --> 2:40:10.760 don't want they just don't want to work there. 2:40:11.200 --> 2:40:13.600 Well, it's also first of all that, but second of all, 2:40:13.640 --> 2:40:15.280 it's like, if you're in the er, you're going to 2:40:15.320 --> 2:40:18.959 experience pregnancy loss because it happens in one in five pregnancy. 2:40:18.600 --> 2:40:20.680 Right, so they're choosing to work in states where they're 2:40:20.680 --> 2:40:22.440 not going to go to jail for doing medicine. 2:40:22.600 --> 2:40:25.280 Yeah, like they don't want to incur the moral injury 2:40:25.320 --> 2:40:27.280 of not being able to apply the standard of care 2:40:27.959 --> 2:40:32.120 to patients in extremely common situations such as incomplete miscarriage 2:40:32.280 --> 2:40:36.959 and you know, pregnancy loss, whether you know self induced 2:40:37.520 --> 2:40:41.320 or just like miscarriage is super common and nobody talks 2:40:41.320 --> 2:40:41.640 about it. 2:40:41.920 --> 2:40:44.840 It's more common than we an Ectopic pregnancy is so 2:40:45.080 --> 2:40:46.960 much more common than people realize. Like there are so 2:40:47.080 --> 2:40:49.000 many things that your body can do to betray you 2:40:49.160 --> 2:40:52.440 that you need a doctors help with just ordinary pregnancy. 2:40:52.640 --> 2:40:54.840 And then after the baby is born, then your lustrous 2:40:54.879 --> 2:40:55.640 hair all falls out. 2:40:56.120 --> 2:41:00.400 Yeah, like ordinary pregnancy is so fraught with like weird 2:41:00.480 --> 2:41:03.680 body horror. Like but anyway, that's besides the point. 2:41:03.920 --> 2:41:04.240 Whatever. 2:41:04.400 --> 2:41:07.240 The point is someone presents with abdominal pain in the 2:41:07.560 --> 2:41:10.080 er and it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy, 2:41:10.640 --> 2:41:15.040 and like you can't do standard of care like dilation 2:41:15.200 --> 2:41:19.840 and cure tash procedures without checking with the hospital lawyer. 2:41:20.040 --> 2:41:24.280 Like that is a really bad position for a care 2:41:24.320 --> 2:41:27.000 provider to be in. So when you have these fundamentally 2:41:27.120 --> 2:41:31.240 unscientific laws, right, that are produced by people who don't 2:41:31.280 --> 2:41:36.520 know anything about pregnancy and are like very intentionally ambiguous 2:41:36.800 --> 2:41:41.000 so that cautious institutions will sort of interpret them at 2:41:41.360 --> 2:41:42.800 maximally interpret them. 2:41:43.240 --> 2:41:45.560 Like the life of the mother, How dead does she 2:41:45.720 --> 2:41:46.520 have to be? First? 2:41:46.840 --> 2:41:49.680 Yeah, she has to be almost dead, right, and then 2:41:49.840 --> 2:41:53.800 sometimes she winds up dying because almost dead is tough 2:41:53.920 --> 2:41:57.600 to judge, Like, it just winds up this grotesque sort 2:41:57.640 --> 2:42:02.039 of farce of medicine. And they're you directly, like, residents 2:42:02.080 --> 2:42:04.280 don't want to train, doctors don't want to practice in 2:42:04.360 --> 2:42:05.359 these places. 2:42:05.040 --> 2:42:07.600 And so you know, right, so this ends up killing 2:42:07.760 --> 2:42:11.480 more people than just the ones hemorrhaging in the parking lot. 2:42:11.520 --> 2:42:14.280 There are people who have completely unrelated problems who are 2:42:14.320 --> 2:42:17.640 now unable to access unrelated kinds of care because the 2:42:17.680 --> 2:42:18.600 doctors just aren't there. 2:42:18.920 --> 2:42:22.400 Yeah, Or people who have ordinary wanted pregnancies who can't 2:42:22.440 --> 2:42:25.000 access neonatal care, who have to drive hours and hours 2:42:25.080 --> 2:42:28.400 and hours to like get checkups. Like you know, I mean, 2:42:28.680 --> 2:42:32.480 human reproduction is like a pretty major part of like life, 2:42:33.120 --> 2:42:35.720 and a lot of people are doing it. Yeah, Like 2:42:36.120 --> 2:42:38.480 it's sort of how you know, it's just people do 2:42:38.560 --> 2:42:41.480 it all the time and not being able to access 2:42:41.879 --> 2:42:46.320 medical care around like the entire spectrum of like reproduction 2:42:46.520 --> 2:42:49.600 is pretty catastrophic. But yeah, it also impacts all the 2:42:49.680 --> 2:42:53.160 people not engaging in reproduction at this moment in time, 2:42:53.800 --> 2:42:55.640 like doctors who are just like, fuck this, I'm not 2:42:55.680 --> 2:42:58.480 wearing out a dar in Tennessee, you know, because I 2:42:58.520 --> 2:43:00.199 want to be able to treat patients. 2:43:00.120 --> 2:43:03.039 Without a lawyer in the room. Yeah, exactly, I. 2:43:03.080 --> 2:43:04.880 Mean, and then there are doctors who are bigots and 2:43:05.320 --> 2:43:09.440 doctors who are happily on board with abortion bands, But like, 2:43:09.600 --> 2:43:10.520 do you want that to be the. 2:43:10.600 --> 2:43:13.520 Only doctor in your county? I don't think so, you know. 2:43:13.640 --> 2:43:17.520 It's just it's a really grim situation. And I just like, 2:43:17.720 --> 2:43:20.520 I'm such an absolutist about bodily autonomy. It's like, if 2:43:20.560 --> 2:43:23.680 you don't own your body, you are not a full citizen, period, 2:43:23.840 --> 2:43:27.040 end of story. Like if a major organ in your 2:43:27.080 --> 2:43:30.440 body is treated as a controlled substance, like, you are 2:43:30.560 --> 2:43:34.280 not a full and equal citizen with rights, which I 2:43:34.320 --> 2:43:34.880 would like to be. 2:43:35.720 --> 2:43:38.240 I aspire to it. Yeah, so I want to ask 2:43:38.280 --> 2:43:40.360 you one more question about your book, and I will 2:43:40.440 --> 2:43:42.280 let you go. I told you that I wouldn't keep 2:43:42.320 --> 2:43:43.840 you very long, and I lied. 2:43:45.080 --> 2:43:46.960 But it's like, it's just because I like talking to you. 2:43:48.680 --> 2:43:52.160 So it's I think I've done the majority of the topics. 2:43:52.280 --> 2:43:52.640 You can't. 2:43:52.720 --> 2:43:57.040 You can't be like, oh, it's about your book, which 2:43:57.360 --> 2:44:01.879 you should buy listeners, preorder it now wherever you buy 2:44:01.920 --> 2:44:04.520 a books. And if you like the dulcet tones of 2:44:04.600 --> 2:44:07.400 my voice, which are I shouldn't have you to narrate 2:44:07.440 --> 2:44:09.760 in my audience books, you brush that passage. 2:44:09.920 --> 2:44:12.279 I'm a professional talker now, yeah, yeah. 2:44:12.120 --> 2:44:14.840 Well I narrated the audio book and then was like, 2:44:14.879 --> 2:44:16.840 why did I write such complicated sentences? 2:44:16.959 --> 2:44:17.519 Afterwards? 2:44:18.480 --> 2:44:21.160 So now that I read my own writing like on 2:44:21.240 --> 2:44:23.880 a regular basis out loud, which is new for me, right, 2:44:23.920 --> 2:44:25.520 So you know, I have my podcast and I'm writing 2:44:25.560 --> 2:44:27.160 my little scripts and then then I'm reading into a 2:44:27.160 --> 2:44:31.480 little microphone. Now that I struggle with that. I noticed 2:44:31.480 --> 2:44:33.160 while I was reading your book that oh, I wouldn't 2:44:33.200 --> 2:44:36.680 be able to read this out loud. Where would I breathe? 2:44:37.440 --> 2:44:39.320 I know it was because I write like that too, 2:44:39.360 --> 2:44:41.360 and it's something I'm like really grappling with right now. 2:44:41.720 --> 2:44:44.920 She's like call me ten clubs. I'm like, oh fuck, 2:44:45.080 --> 2:44:48.120 this sentence is this paragraph. This sentence is a paragraph. 2:44:48.360 --> 2:44:51.240 Stop it like I really really lost, really lost momentum 2:44:51.360 --> 2:44:51.560 that one. 2:44:51.680 --> 2:44:54.160 Yeah, I know, but like I managed to get through it. 2:44:54.760 --> 2:44:57.200 And if you if you enjoy the dulcae sounds of 2:44:57.240 --> 2:44:59.280 my voice, you can hear it for like, I don't know, 2:44:59.440 --> 2:45:03.360 eight hours or whatever. I assume you're being like, listen 2:45:03.440 --> 2:45:04.439 to my voice. 2:45:04.600 --> 2:45:06.560 But you know, invite me into your mind. 2:45:07.440 --> 2:45:07.640 Yeah. 2:45:07.840 --> 2:45:10.400 But I do think it's nice as an author to 2:45:10.440 --> 2:45:13.720 read your audiobook because I can like get mad and like, 2:45:14.000 --> 2:45:16.760 you know, emphasize stuff that I think is important. And 2:45:17.480 --> 2:45:21.600 also I'm a theater kid, like, like, I don't have 2:45:21.680 --> 2:45:25.480 many opportunities to perform, and it is a performance and 2:45:25.560 --> 2:45:26.320 it's it's fun. 2:45:26.600 --> 2:45:28.600 But yeah, and that comes out at the same time 2:45:28.760 --> 2:45:29.800 as the physical book. 2:45:30.480 --> 2:45:35.040 Yes, it comes out audio ebook, physical book with a 2:45:35.080 --> 2:45:36.000 cool snake on it. 2:45:36.560 --> 2:45:39.039 Oh yeah, Oh, I guess this is an audio medium. 2:45:39.080 --> 2:45:41.680 The listener can't see that I'm showing the cool cover. 2:45:42.520 --> 2:45:45.200 Yeah, it's got a cool snake, a red and black 2:45:45.200 --> 2:45:47.480 snake on the cover. I've named him Rocco that he 2:45:47.560 --> 2:45:50.480 has a cross for a tongue. If you're looking for 2:45:50.600 --> 2:45:52.840 a book to give to the metal head. 2:45:52.680 --> 2:45:53.240 In your life. 2:45:53.320 --> 2:45:54.959 Oh yeah, it's pretty metal. 2:45:55.040 --> 2:46:01.600 Heads, atheists, degenerates. Everyone is gonna love this book. 2:46:01.680 --> 2:46:02.879 It's perfect for everyone. 2:46:03.440 --> 2:46:06.560 And if you're light on cash flow, want it for 2:46:06.640 --> 2:46:09.480 supporting India authors is ask your library to stock it 2:46:10.160 --> 2:46:14.400 or your local bookstore because library orders are really important 2:46:14.440 --> 2:46:16.000 and you can just like put in a request in 2:46:16.040 --> 2:46:19.960 your library system and that is super helpful. 2:46:20.080 --> 2:46:22.520 Hell yeah, everybody go to your library's website right now 2:46:22.680 --> 2:46:25.560 and request that they purchase a copy of Wild Faith 2:46:25.680 --> 2:46:30.000 by Talia Lavin. Yeah, tallywhere else can people find you online? 2:46:31.000 --> 2:46:34.360 So I have a newsletter. It's on button down. 2:46:34.680 --> 2:46:37.320 I left some stack because they were like, we're never 2:46:37.440 --> 2:46:40.360 going to censor Nazis, but we will sensor porn. And 2:46:40.440 --> 2:46:41.960 I was like, I don't like your priorities, so I 2:46:42.040 --> 2:46:45.240 left for button down. So it's buttondown dot com. Slash 2:46:45.320 --> 2:46:47.199 the Sword in the Sandwich or if you just google, 2:46:47.320 --> 2:46:49.920 the Sword in the Sandwich comes up. Most Tuesdays I 2:46:50.000 --> 2:46:53.000 write about like the horrific state of politics, et cetera, 2:46:53.560 --> 2:46:57.640 And then Fridays I write an essay about a different 2:46:57.800 --> 2:47:01.880 sandwich on Wikipedia's list of notable sandwiches. And so far 2:47:02.040 --> 2:47:05.680 I'm I've written one hundred and eleven sandwiches. 2:47:06.280 --> 2:47:09.280 The sandwich content alone is worth the price of admission. 2:47:09.360 --> 2:47:11.279 You need to find out about these sandwiches. 2:47:12.000 --> 2:47:14.640 I mean it just and I get really deep into 2:47:14.720 --> 2:47:18.560 like the history and the provenance and like like ah, 2:47:18.840 --> 2:47:22.560 the shifting of people's led to this sandwich. But so 2:47:22.640 --> 2:47:25.600 I get really deep into it. And then you can 2:47:25.600 --> 2:47:27.880 also find me on Blue Sky, where I most of 2:47:28.000 --> 2:47:31.080 the time now because Twitter is just like robots and 2:47:31.200 --> 2:47:35.320 Nazis and Nazi robots, where I'm at swords Jew. I'm 2:47:35.400 --> 2:47:40.440 still on vishy Twitter as Moby Dick Energy. And you know, 2:47:40.959 --> 2:47:43.600 if you want to say hi or invite me to 2:47:43.680 --> 2:47:47.560 speak at your synagogue or bookstore, I'm at tellyol Even 2:47:47.560 --> 2:47:51.760 writes at gmail dot com. Or church if you're like cool. 2:47:52.040 --> 2:47:55.360 Yeah, if it's like a cool church, Yeah, you show 2:47:55.440 --> 2:47:56.840 up and they pass you a snake. 2:47:57.480 --> 2:48:01.039 Yeah, exactly. Oh god, I didn't tune up speaking at 2:48:01.080 --> 2:48:01.840 times for this book. 2:48:02.360 --> 2:48:05.959 Well, Tally, thank you so much for coming on today again. 2:48:06.080 --> 2:48:08.760 The book is Wild Faith by Talia Lavin, and you 2:48:08.840 --> 2:48:11.440 can pre order it now wherever books are sold, and 2:48:11.520 --> 2:48:13.600 you should request it from your library. 2:48:14.280 --> 2:48:18.240 Yeah, well, stand Civic services, and I'm a huge fan 2:48:18.320 --> 2:48:22.280 of public libraries and also of Molly Coungar. 2:48:22.400 --> 2:48:25.360 So thanks for having me on and take care. 2:48:25.879 --> 2:48:27.439 Bye bye. 2:48:29.440 --> 2:48:29.600 Hey. 2:48:29.720 --> 2:48:32.840 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 2:48:32.879 --> 2:48:34.560 now until the heat death of the Universe. 2:48:35.600 --> 2:48:38.080 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 2:48:38.280 --> 2:48:41.320 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:48:41.400 --> 2:48:43.920 cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 2:48:44.000 --> 2:48:47.880 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 2:48:48.360 --> 2:48:50.280 You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here. 2:48:50.360 --> 2:48:52.160 Listen directly in episode descriptions. 2:48:52.520 --> 2:48:53.280 Thanks for listening.