WEBVTT - Why Trump Wants to Conquer Canada

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<v Speaker 1>Calzon Media.

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<v Speaker 2>Welcome Tock It Happen. Hear a podcast about things falling

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<v Speaker 2>apart and them continuing to fall apart. I'm your host,

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<v Speaker 2>Mia Wong with me as James Stout.

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<v Speaker 3>Hi. Miya glad to hear about whatever's going to shit today.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so before we start talking about imperialism, we're starting

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<v Speaker 2>everything episode with this until you people stop, until you

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<v Speaker 2>stop doing this. It is the year two thousand and

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<v Speaker 2>twenty five. We are a quarter of a century into

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<v Speaker 2>this millennia and people are still getting kettled by cops

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<v Speaker 2>on bridges. They did this occupy in twenty eleven. They

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<v Speaker 2>did it in twenty eighteen during the Occupy Ice protest.

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<v Speaker 2>The people did it in twenty twenty. People did it

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<v Speaker 2>last year during the Dream of the Power sign and

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<v Speaker 2>Cambus people are doing it again this year. Simply do

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<v Speaker 2>not lead a march onto a bridge, yep or a

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<v Speaker 2>tunnel to dai reasons. We would also include a tunnel. Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>don't do the tunnel either.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah. If there's no side exits, just don't.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, here's the thing. You walk onto a bridge, all

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<v Speaker 2>the cops have to do is take both exits and

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<v Speaker 2>everyone on the bridge gets arrested. You can simply not

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<v Speaker 2>do this. If you must do it, you need to

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<v Speaker 2>like make one thousand percent sure you can hold both

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<v Speaker 2>sides of the bridge. Yeah, both of them. You need

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<v Speaker 2>to hold both of them. Yeah, and almost certainly you can't.

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<v Speaker 2>So only you, only you, dear listener, can prevent four

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<v Speaker 2>thousand more people from getting kettled on locking bridges. And

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<v Speaker 2>I'm going to keep starting episodes packing well, get it,

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<v Speaker 2>don't get kettled up bridges until this stop. All right,

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<v Speaker 2>this is this is this has been me as public

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<v Speaker 2>service announcement of a bridge kettling. Let's get into the

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<v Speaker 2>nature of imperialism and why Trump's is different. So we've

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<v Speaker 2>been covering a lot of Trump's sort of I don't know,

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<v Speaker 2>the trade wars, his call for the US to seize

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<v Speaker 2>the Gouzel Strip, a whole bunch of stories about the

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<v Speaker 2>way that Trump is using the power of the American

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<v Speaker 2>state to do imperialism. And I think it's worth actually

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<v Speaker 2>taking a second to unpack this because things are probably

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<v Speaker 2>going to get worse. There is a non zero chance

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<v Speaker 2>that we effectively start a war with Mexico in the

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<v Speaker 2>next like few months.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's great, it's spanging, everything's going as well.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, But I want to start with talking about the

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<v Speaker 2>way that Trump has been using tariffs as as a

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<v Speaker 2>sort of political weapon and not as an economic tool,

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<v Speaker 2>but varies very specifically as a political weapon, and how

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<v Speaker 2>this differs from the previous economic regime because I think

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<v Speaker 2>there's been a lot of you know, as the terriffs,

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<v Speaker 2>the threat of the tariffs go up, in the markets

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<v Speaker 2>sort of tank in fear of them. There's been a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of sort of defense of like free trade in

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<v Speaker 2>ways where I don't think people actually understand what's happening.

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<v Speaker 2>And to understand how what Trump is doing is different

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<v Speaker 2>from the stuff that's come before, we need to actually

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<v Speaker 2>understand what trade is. Now, when an economist talks about trade,

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<v Speaker 2>they go, oh, yeah, obviously trade is when two countries

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<v Speaker 2>exchange a thing, right, yep. But that's not actually what

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<v Speaker 2>most of the stuff on earth that is labeled as

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<v Speaker 2>global trade, that's not what it is, right, look at

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<v Speaker 2>like US Mexico trade. We're gonna go a bit more

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<v Speaker 2>too detail about what that stuff is, but do you

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<v Speaker 2>know what most not most, but do you know what

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<v Speaker 2>a huge portion of US Mexico trade is? It is

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<v Speaker 2>the same company, the same company moving an auto part

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<v Speaker 2>from one side of the border to the other, back.

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<v Speaker 3>And forth across the body. Yeah. I was gonna say, yes,

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<v Speaker 3>back and forth.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, So it's a lot of different people being paid

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<v Speaker 2>different wages can make the same thing. Yeah, or if

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<v Speaker 2>someone paid lower wages can make it, and yeah, someone

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<v Speaker 2>paid more con Q see it and then they can send.

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<v Speaker 3>It back yep. Yeah, very very common.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And this is actually a real substantive problem with

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<v Speaker 2>the way that I think everyone thinks about trade because

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<v Speaker 2>what is happening here and this is an argument that

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<v Speaker 2>the anti globalization movement used to make. You know, David

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<v Speaker 2>Graeber like makes this argument a lot, and they're right,

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<v Speaker 2>which is that most things that we think of as

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<v Speaker 2>quote unquote global trade are just a single corporation moving

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<v Speaker 2>a resource around the world.

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<v Speaker 3>So that they can produce something, yeah, and explore labor

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<v Speaker 3>at thes some impossible exploitation rate.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know. And this means that using nation states

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<v Speaker 2>as a way to understand trade is an absolutely terrible

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<v Speaker 2>way to think about the global economy. Right there, there

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<v Speaker 2>are some things we're thinking about specifically nation state trade,

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<v Speaker 2>like trade is important because you know, even even the

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<v Speaker 2>same corporation moving goods around. Right, that does contribute to

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<v Speaker 2>how much foreign currency a country right, right, And so okay,

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<v Speaker 2>there's things like balance of payments where if you run

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<v Speaker 2>out of it, if you're a country and you run

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<v Speaker 2>out of American dollars, suddenly you can't employ like fuel

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<v Speaker 2>anymore in your country, like explodes, And that's a very

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<v Speaker 2>common way that like this happens in Sri Lanka, for example,

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<v Speaker 2>pretty recently. This is a way for your economy to

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<v Speaker 2>blow up. But that's kind of an edge case in

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<v Speaker 2>terms of how global trade actually operates. But the problem

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<v Speaker 2>is that it is to the advantage of the ruling

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<v Speaker 2>class for you and everyone else to think about trade

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<v Speaker 2>as something that's like a war between you and the

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<v Speaker 2>country next to you, instead of a corporation. Like fucking

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<v Speaker 2>over everyone involved in the this entire thing. Now, there's

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<v Speaker 2>a pretty interesting book that I read recently called Border

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<v Speaker 2>Economies Cities, Bridging the US Mexico Divide by James Gerber

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<v Speaker 2>Gerber Nix Gerber, Okay, And one of the things he

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<v Speaker 2>points out is that the two largest trade relations between

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<v Speaker 2>any country, any two countries on Earth are the US

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<v Speaker 2>in Mexico and the US in Canada, and those are

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<v Speaker 2>the countries with the highest tariffs that Trumple's attempting to apply. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>and it's worth actually understanding what this does by looking

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<v Speaker 2>at what actually is traded between, for example, the US

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<v Speaker 2>and Mexico. And the place I want to start is

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<v Speaker 2>that one of the largest kinds of goods that is

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<v Speaker 2>moved from from Mexico to the US is computer equipment.

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<v Speaker 2>And nobody fucking talks about this ever, No one, like

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<v Speaker 2>zero fucking people talk about this. I am convinced this

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<v Speaker 2>is because of racism. But Mexico is a huge sort

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<v Speaker 2>of like assembly place for a whole bunch of things

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<v Speaker 2>like monitor screens, like computer equipment in general, and a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of that stuff comes into the US. And there's

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<v Speaker 2>also you know, the thing, the thing that we started

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<v Speaker 2>this episode on, that's I think the thing I guess

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<v Speaker 2>talked about the most now is transportation equipment, right, And

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<v Speaker 2>this is a combination of consumer vehicles and also like

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<v Speaker 2>heavy duty cargo trucks, yeah, which are unbelievably important for

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<v Speaker 2>the maintenance of the American economy, right of the entire

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<v Speaker 2>global economies. Like having these trucks is is if sort

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<v Speaker 2>of vital infrastructure thing for the United States. You can

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<v Speaker 2>move stuff around. A lot of that comest in Mexico.

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<v Speaker 2>And then also like a lot of it is like

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<v Speaker 2>whole cars that are like like finished assembly like in Mexico,

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<v Speaker 2>and they get shipped across the border, and there's a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of things there. And these are also like all

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<v Speaker 2>the same international car companies that work in the US.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's like Toyotas like Honda, Yeah, I mean these

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<v Speaker 2>are your American trucks often, right or like yeah, yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>four does this too, Yeah, what's GM now Stalares.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, like Chevy GM like these as well as

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<v Speaker 3>like Toyota. Toyota I think has a big planet. I

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<v Speaker 3>forget exactly where, but along the border is somewhere cool correctly, Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>this is extremely common.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And what this is right, like this is multinational

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<v Speaker 2>capitalist companies who are moving their products across the border.

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<v Speaker 2>And this gets counted as Mexico doing trade.

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<v Speaker 1>You know.

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<v Speaker 2>One of the things in one of the questions in

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<v Speaker 2>this book is about why Mexico's economy never had the

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<v Speaker 2>kind of economic bump that China did from the amount

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<v Speaker 2>of industrial production. If you look at like the East

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<v Speaker 2>Asian tigers, right. And I think part of that is

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<v Speaker 2>actually something that is not mentioned in the book, which

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<v Speaker 2>is if if you look at the East Asian economies

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<v Speaker 2>that develop their economies that you're talking like Sey, your

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<v Speaker 2>South Korea's, et cetera schedule like a lot of those countries,

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<v Speaker 2>like Japan, there was a lot of US military investment

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<v Speaker 2>there in a way that's just not true of Mexico.

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<v Speaker 2>Like Mexico is not like a place where you offshore

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<v Speaker 2>you're supplying your supplies to because you need to move

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<v Speaker 2>stuff to you know, fight the war in Vietnam. But

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<v Speaker 2>you know one of the other reasons is that, Yeah, Okay,

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<v Speaker 2>so like where is all the profit from the international

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<v Speaker 2>trade going. It's like, well, it's going to a bunch

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<v Speaker 2>of American and Japanese car companies. Yeah, because it's it's

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<v Speaker 2>those those multinationals are the people who actually reap all

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<v Speaker 2>of the benefits.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, to a degree, like post NAFTA, right, post ninety four.

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<v Speaker 3>It has created a class of people in Mexico who

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<v Speaker 3>have benefited from it, but it has it has not

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<v Speaker 3>lifted up like like the average income. Right, It's created

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<v Speaker 3>a greater disparity of income than at any point. Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>previous to that, and you'll hear people. So I was

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<v Speaker 3>talking to friend about this yesterday in Tijuana, like, how

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<v Speaker 3>like what NAFTA did, Like if you look at nineteen

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<v Speaker 3>ninety four, I think it's a really good example of

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<v Speaker 3>what you're talking about of Like, yeah, we opened up

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<v Speaker 3>that border to international companies to do taraff free back

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<v Speaker 3>and forth, right, but we didn't open it up to people. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>At the same time, we had Operation Gatekeeper, right like

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<v Speaker 3>enforced much harsher border enforcement. And the two things in

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<v Speaker 3>parallel really kind of indicate what the free trade is

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<v Speaker 3>going for.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, And you know, and this is another old

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<v Speaker 2>anti globalization thing, like we were talking about. This is

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<v Speaker 2>like yeah, free like free trade is about the free

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<v Speaker 2>movement of capital and unfree movement of people, right yeap,

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<v Speaker 2>is that it's about locking people down in place so

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<v Speaker 2>you can like you can you can dictate wages to

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<v Speaker 2>them and then moving capital around the world to avoid

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<v Speaker 2>them exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And we're gonna get into this more in a second,

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<v Speaker 2>but I want to talk about some you know, some

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<v Speaker 2>of the other things that are that are exported from

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<v Speaker 2>Mexico fruits, vegetables, alcohol, or like huge exports.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>And then also, and this is something that I don't

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<v Speaker 2>think is people don't understand what's happening very well. Is

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<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of oil from Mexico that's shipped to

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<v Speaker 2>the US. But the thing that's happening there, and this

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<v Speaker 2>is the thing that's very good about the oil industry,

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<v Speaker 2>is that the refinery facilities are not in the same

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<v Speaker 2>country as the extraction facilities a lot of the time,

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<v Speaker 2>So this oil is getting shipped around because they don't

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<v Speaker 2>have the refinery facilities to like refine the specific kind

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<v Speaker 2>of like crude oil or whatever that they're extracting. So like, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>it's it's again one of these situations where it's not

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<v Speaker 2>really like Mexico is sending its oil to the US.

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<v Speaker 2>It's like, I mean kind of right, that's like one

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<v Speaker 2>of the more direct ish ones. But largely what's happening

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<v Speaker 2>is that like again like it's an oil company moving

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<v Speaker 2>stuff to you know, moving stuff around to do refinement

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<v Speaker 2>of it so they.

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<v Speaker 3>Can sell it.

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<v Speaker 2>Now, there's there's been some other stuff happening with Mexico

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<v Speaker 2>that's a kind of reaction to Trump's previous thing. And

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<v Speaker 2>I think the extent of this has been overblown to

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<v Speaker 2>some extent, but a lot of very low end manufacturing

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<v Speaker 2>stuff has been leaving China for a long time. This

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<v Speaker 2>is one of my media things on the show is

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<v Speaker 2>that this has been happening for a while because labor

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<v Speaker 2>price has been rising in China and one of the

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<v Speaker 2>places that these things went to is Mexico. So there's

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<v Speaker 2>been a lot of like direct investment from trying to

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<v Speaker 2>et cetera, et cetera, and all of these things. You know,

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<v Speaker 2>like these these kind of movements, I'm talking about them

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<v Speaker 2>because these kind of like seismic global economic shifts, right

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<v Speaker 2>of the kind that we're going to be see are

0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.400
<v Speaker 2>driven by a lot of things, you know, I mean

0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.320
<v Speaker 2>stuff like currency evaluations, like local tax laws, like state

0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.559
<v Speaker 2>corporate planning policies, like demands or just blah blah blah

0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.120
<v Speaker 2>blah blah. But one of the single most important things

0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.760
<v Speaker 2>is the state of class struggle in a country and

0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.880
<v Speaker 2>what effect that has on wages or like you know,

0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:06.360
<v Speaker 2>like straight up uprisings. Right.

0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:07.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.440
<v Speaker 2>The geographer David Harvey, he gets credit for popularizing the

0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.320
<v Speaker 2>term the spatial fix, though other people were already using it,

0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.200
<v Speaker 2>and I don't like his work much, but he did.

0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.440
<v Speaker 2>He is the guy who gets credited with this. He describes,

0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.720
<v Speaker 2>you know, the sort of free trade regime that that

0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.280
<v Speaker 2>persisted roughly through like now. I mean it was it

0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.000
<v Speaker 2>was taking shape in sort of the eighties, like the

0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.320
<v Speaker 2>eighties through like roughly now, as the spatial fix for

0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.400
<v Speaker 2>declining profitability. Right, you know what else has declining profitability?

0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.960
<v Speaker 3>Well, I don't know. The worst things get the more

0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.360
<v Speaker 3>people listen to our podcast, and you can say that

0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:53.240
<v Speaker 3>we are back.

0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.600
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So let's talk about this, the sort of declining

0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.439
<v Speaker 2>profitability and the fix that capitalism sort of finds fit this, right.

0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.680
<v Speaker 2>You know, through the seventies there's this sort of spiraling

0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.160
<v Speaker 2>unemployment and inflation and the economy is sort of going

0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.199
<v Speaker 2>to shit and it's happening everywhere because they're sort of

0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.080
<v Speaker 2>like structural overcapacity and manufacturing. And the solution to this

0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.640
<v Speaker 2>is a spatial fix, right, which is destroying some manufacturing

0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.839
<v Speaker 2>capacity and just moving it to other places. Yeah, and

0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:19.240
<v Speaker 2>you know, and this is this is sort of what

0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:20.439
<v Speaker 2>James was talking about earlier.

0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:20.679
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.920
<v Speaker 2>The goal is to sort of weaken the power of

0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.640
<v Speaker 2>the working class by locking people down into their countries

0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.720
<v Speaker 2>and then moving capital to poorer countries, the weaker labor protections,

0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.520
<v Speaker 2>and also a weaker level of sort of like workers organization, right.

0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:38.079
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and then it leaves like the previously well organized workers,

0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.720
<v Speaker 3>Like if you look at the industries and the places

0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.120
<v Speaker 3>where my grandparents come from, the dog workers and minors, right,

0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.120
<v Speaker 3>those are not really jobs that are employing large numbers

0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.640
<v Speaker 3>of people in the UK anymore. And like as a result,

0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.440
<v Speaker 3>those working class towns are just destituting, you know that

0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.520
<v Speaker 3>previously thriving a well organized working class. So we had

0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.960
<v Speaker 3>Northern England, it's have to kind of like it has

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.360
<v Speaker 3>to relocate or reorganize, right, and it destroys those like

0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.040
<v Speaker 3>nexuses of working class power that existed in Britain up

0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:10.800
<v Speaker 3>until the eighties with a minus strike, right.

0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.199
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and this was this was done deliberately, yeah, right,

0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.200
<v Speaker 2>I mean there's there's always a debate in the literature

0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.760
<v Speaker 2>about to what extent, like neoliberalism was like planned, or

0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.760
<v Speaker 2>to what extent it was you know, a sort of

0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.400
<v Speaker 2>reaction to a bunch of crises. But specifically this kind

0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.319
<v Speaker 2>of like offshoring and they get the container ship is

0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.120
<v Speaker 2>a big part of this, but like this specific kind

0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.720
<v Speaker 2>of thing and even the transition called oil was like

0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.760
<v Speaker 2>was a very deliberate thing done by like done done

0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.520
<v Speaker 2>by sort of American and British politicians in order to

0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.760
<v Speaker 2>sort of break the power like minors unions. And you know,

0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.199
<v Speaker 2>one of the major places that this went obviously like

0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.480
<v Speaker 2>a lot of these things go to Mexico. The sort

0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.480
<v Speaker 2>of first round of these go to like the original

0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.839
<v Speaker 2>like Asian tiger economies that I was talking about, I

0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.040
<v Speaker 2>mean places like it like Indonesia to with a lot

0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.199
<v Speaker 2>of those comomies sort of like Thaighland, those coconomies kind

0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.120
<v Speaker 2>of blew up in the nineties. Yeah, but you know,

0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.800
<v Speaker 2>one of the largest, most important ones was China. And

0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.120
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's important to sort of remember I've talked

0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.559
<v Speaker 2>about this on the show before. A lot of this

0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.920
<v Speaker 2>is also the product of Tianman Square. Because the thing

0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.520
<v Speaker 2>that's important to remember about Tianneman is that contra both

0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.000
<v Speaker 2>sort of liberal histories of Tannemen and also the sort

0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.680
<v Speaker 2>of CCP line. Most of the people who died at

0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.720
<v Speaker 2>Tannama were workers, right, Most people who were executed after words,

0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.400
<v Speaker 2>were workers. They were like students died, but it was

0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.320
<v Speaker 2>mostly workers who were killed. And a lot of what

0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.120
<v Speaker 2>happened there was that, you know, Tianneman was like the

0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.440
<v Speaker 2>last time that China's like trade union federation, which is

0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.840
<v Speaker 2>like now such a joke that it's like it's genuinely

0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.840
<v Speaker 2>a subject of academic debate and discussion as to whether

0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.480
<v Speaker 2>you can even literally consider it a trade union. Like

0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.800
<v Speaker 2>that's it, that's how fuck it is. And the last

0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.240
<v Speaker 2>time that Chinese trade unions took a political stand was

0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.200
<v Speaker 2>in favor of the Tianaman protests. And then the army

0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.520
<v Speaker 2>shows up and just like like slaughters their base.

0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:58.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.760
<v Speaker 2>And what this does is it makes the old Chinese

0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.280
<v Speaker 2>working class, right, it breaks the alliance with the students

0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.360
<v Speaker 2>that they'd had that was you know, and that was

0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:10.560
<v Speaker 2>a durable political force dating back to like the nineteen twenties, right,

0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.960
<v Speaker 2>And it breaks this extremely militant, well organized Chinese urban

0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.920
<v Speaker 2>working class, replaces them with a more exploitable and less

0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.720
<v Speaker 2>organized like migrant working class. And that is the class

0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:23.480
<v Speaker 2>that like to this day right now is like the

0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:25.960
<v Speaker 2>engine of global capital or like those like three hundred

0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:27.440
<v Speaker 2>million migrant workers yea.

0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:29.640
<v Speaker 3>And they can be in different parts of the world,

0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:30.960
<v Speaker 3>right like, well, the.

0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.200
<v Speaker 2>Other way, the three hundred million number, that's just the

0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.560
<v Speaker 2>microantworkers in China Jesus. To be clear, there are a

0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.280
<v Speaker 2>lot more internationally. Yeah, but yeah, China's market working population

0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.320
<v Speaker 2>is like almost the size of the US. It's like

0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.359
<v Speaker 2>the fourth largest country in the world just by like itself.

0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.840
<v Speaker 3>It's yeah, that's mad. I was just thinking of today,

0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.680
<v Speaker 3>like the scam compounds which exists on the border between

0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.640
<v Speaker 3>me and mahar and Thailand. Like they actually Thailand just

0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.280
<v Speaker 3>cut power off to them today. I mean, I can

0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.400
<v Speaker 3>see that the strategy there, but it's just going to

0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.400
<v Speaker 3>end up hurting people whore in those compounds more, of

0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.080
<v Speaker 3>course it is. Yeah, of course those people who are

0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:04.800
<v Speaker 3>in those compounds used to be able to escape and

0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.360
<v Speaker 3>go to places where they could like get back to

0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.640
<v Speaker 3>their lives, right like like be re taken care of,

0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.000
<v Speaker 3>And of course that's were funded by USA. So they

0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.120
<v Speaker 3>don't exist as of this week, which is pretty brutal,

0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.800
<v Speaker 3>but like, yeah, these people, right, these these migrant workers

0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.240
<v Speaker 3>who come from all over the world hoping for a

0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.960
<v Speaker 3>chance that the things that capitalism have promised them are

0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.200
<v Speaker 3>the people who have to be exploited so that people

0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:30.240
<v Speaker 3>in wealthy countries can have their treats.

0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and those workers are the basis of mono global capitalism, right,

0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.760
<v Speaker 2>Like you know, like those Chinese workers for example, like

0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.000
<v Speaker 2>it is it is illegal for them to form an

0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.160
<v Speaker 2>independent union. If you try to form an independent union,

0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.960
<v Speaker 2>you will go to prison so fast that like those

0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.120
<v Speaker 2>dust clouds like.

0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.560
<v Speaker 3>Hey, like Wiley Charyot will take you to prison.

0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Like, even trying to get your union to like

0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.440
<v Speaker 2>do something like trying to have your own independent people

0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.080
<v Speaker 2>elected to you to that union like canon will get

0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.960
<v Speaker 2>you arrested and like and even like Chinese lbor repression

0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.040
<v Speaker 2>like is pretty intense. But it's like you know that

0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.680
<v Speaker 2>we're also talking about countries like Columbia. It's like, well, yeah, o,

0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:07.719
<v Speaker 2>because what happens to union organizers in Colombia's like they

0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.040
<v Speaker 2>get being shopped by paramilitaries with machine guns, right, And

0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.880
<v Speaker 2>that's that's that's what the sort of spatial fix was, right,

0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.560
<v Speaker 2>was moving jobs to places where the ruling classes sort

0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.639
<v Speaker 2>of control was more firm and their ability to use

0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.720
<v Speaker 2>violence was higher. Yeah, And so this is what the

0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:29.840
<v Speaker 2>American imperial system sort of had been, right. It's based

0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.520
<v Speaker 2>on American capital flowing around the world. And this is

0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.480
<v Speaker 2>also like international capital too, right, Like we've literally been

0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.760
<v Speaker 2>talking about like Japanese corporations right doing like the same shit, right,

0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.760
<v Speaker 2>But you know, it's like international capital flowing around the world,

0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.760
<v Speaker 2>extracting resources and labor from other countries and accumulating it

0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.560
<v Speaker 2>in American corporations like that. That's what free trade is.

0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:48.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.400
<v Speaker 2>And it's also you know, secondarily, right, it is a

0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.080
<v Speaker 2>debt system. It's based on forcing countries to like pay

0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.359
<v Speaker 2>back loans that were taken out by dictators Gogury de

0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:03.040
<v Speaker 2>Draber's debt least five thousand years. It's very good. But yeah,

0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.919
<v Speaker 2>it's it's it's based on like turning entire countries into

0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.600
<v Speaker 2>just debt servicing engines or like all of the wealth

0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:11.720
<v Speaker 2>that is produced by the entire nation is just going

0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.120
<v Speaker 2>to like pay debts to Bank of America. Yeah, and

0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:17.119
<v Speaker 2>you know the thing about this is that this is

0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.800
<v Speaker 2>actually a very very efficient model of empire. It's one

0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:23.919
<v Speaker 2>of the most sophisticated imperial systems that the world has

0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:24.359
<v Speaker 2>ever seen.

0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:24.560
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.240
<v Speaker 2>It workstremely well. It makes the US an unbelievable amount

0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.359
<v Speaker 2>of money, It protects global capitalism, and the people currently

0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.919
<v Speaker 2>running it don't want it to work like that. Now,

0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.160
<v Speaker 2>do you know who else, it doesn't want the current

0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.520
<v Speaker 2>system to work like it does because they can make

0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:43.439
<v Speaker 2>more money. I can guess it's the products and services

0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.680
<v Speaker 2>for this point, excited to hit which one we get?

0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.159
<v Speaker 3>You know, it can be it could be anything. I

0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.040
<v Speaker 3>really at this point, who knows?

0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.520
<v Speaker 2>We are back? So we've entered I guess what you

0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.200
<v Speaker 2>could call the phase of mask off imperialism US imperialism

0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.639
<v Speaker 2>usually at least sort of like war human face. And

0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.040
<v Speaker 2>and it did it for good reason, right you know,

0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.000
<v Speaker 2>Ronald Reagan did not give a single shit about democracy

0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.679
<v Speaker 2>and human rights, right like, like you know, and this

0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.560
<v Speaker 2>is this has been true of the US for like

0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.520
<v Speaker 2>ages and ages and ages, right you know that like

0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.760
<v Speaker 2>they prop up right wing military dictatorships constantly. But the

0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.359
<v Speaker 2>thing is democracy and human rights are things that like

0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.440
<v Speaker 2>people like, and so you know, it was it's it's

0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.600
<v Speaker 2>a weapon that he and and his sort of brand

0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:39.119
<v Speaker 2>of conservatives, like anti communist conservatives like, wielded it against communism.

0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.880
<v Speaker 2>And it was a very very powerful ideological weapon because

0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.520
<v Speaker 2>if if if your choice ceases to be between like

0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.919
<v Speaker 2>communism and capitalism, and your choice is now between like

0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:49.159
<v Speaker 2>do you want to live in a dictatorship? But do

0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:50.480
<v Speaker 2>you want to live in a democracy? Like that's a

0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.080
<v Speaker 2>very different question, and it's it's a very very important

0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.720
<v Speaker 2>question for sort of how how the Cold War was

0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:01.480
<v Speaker 2>won and how international power is wielded, right, because there's

0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.800
<v Speaker 2>there's always been an illusion that there's an international community

0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.480
<v Speaker 2>in that countries are like working together and this is

0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.800
<v Speaker 2>this is a very very powerful ideological thing, you know,

0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:12.760
<v Speaker 2>I mean, and this is something like you live through this,

0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.320
<v Speaker 2>God probably listen to you didn't leave to this now,

0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.560
<v Speaker 2>dear God. But like like the Iraq War, right, the

0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.560
<v Speaker 2>US didn't unilaterally invade Rock now. Now. It was called

0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.920
<v Speaker 2>the quote unquote Coalition of the Wilding and included like

0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.520
<v Speaker 2>like they dragged Australia in the war by threatening to

0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:33.200
<v Speaker 2>like destroy their like milk shipping contracts with the Iraqi government.

0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.000
<v Speaker 3>Like so you know, yeah, you had all kinds of

0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:37.720
<v Speaker 3>people running around in the Rock for a while there,

0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.280
<v Speaker 3>I guess. Yeah, obviously the United Kingdom played a big

0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.520
<v Speaker 3>role in it, like an outside troll, given being a

0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:43.760
<v Speaker 3>relatively small country.

0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:45.679
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you know, and this this, this is the

0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.280
<v Speaker 2>way that you do you know, even just overtly straight

0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.160
<v Speaker 2>up imperialis stuff like it like invading a rock right

0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.440
<v Speaker 2>was still done under the auspices of like multinational like coalitions.

0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:55.760
<v Speaker 1>Yep.

0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:58.920
<v Speaker 2>And the thing about different about Trump is Trump doesn't

0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.320
<v Speaker 2>give a fuck about any of that, right, absolutely not.

0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.399
<v Speaker 2>He has turned on Rob Ford, a man who is

0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.240
<v Speaker 2>like who boldly answers the question what if Trump smoke

0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.680
<v Speaker 2>crack like that is Rob Ford. Like he's he's turning

0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.199
<v Speaker 2>on his allies, like like right wingers who should be

0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.840
<v Speaker 2>his allies in Canada, right, who are exactly the kind

0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.679
<v Speaker 2>of people who you would expect to do sort of

0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.600
<v Speaker 2>like right wing multilateral interventions in countries, right. Yeah, and

0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.320
<v Speaker 2>you know he is caused with his like threat to

0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.119
<v Speaker 2>put terifs on, like he's caused these people to become

0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.239
<v Speaker 2>anti American. And this is the same thing with Mexico. Right,

0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.280
<v Speaker 2>Even the sort of like the nominally center left governments

0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.160
<v Speaker 2>in Mexico like have cooperated with American impulism. But Trump

0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.200
<v Speaker 2>doesn't want to fucking do that anymore. He wants to

0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:42.640
<v Speaker 2>run everything just very purely and very openly as as

0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:43.680
<v Speaker 2>an American empire.

0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Like America's always bullied Mexican. Right, when we talk

0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.800
<v Speaker 3>about the deployment of troops to the border Biden absolutely

0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.560
<v Speaker 3>bullied Amlo into into bringing those troops to the border

0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.439
<v Speaker 3>because they came before Donald Trump even came into office.

0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.640
<v Speaker 3>But now Donald Trump's just doing it on true social Yeah,

0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.359
<v Speaker 3>like it's it's it's different or Panama fuck. Like, you know,

0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.639
<v Speaker 3>I was in Panama September of twenty four and I

0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.480
<v Speaker 3>went to the Canal Museum, and Panama like is very

0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.119
<v Speaker 3>proud of its history of independence. Right it's relatively short, yeah,

0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.920
<v Speaker 3>and hardened and paid for in blood. But like, yeah,

0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.879
<v Speaker 3>I traveled. I'm a US city Cinea traveling. You know,

0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:20.560
<v Speaker 3>one gave me any shit. It was fine. Everyone's very

0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.280
<v Speaker 3>nice to me. Now the burning American flags in Panama City,

0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:25.280
<v Speaker 3>like yeah, yeah.

0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.200
<v Speaker 2>Because CRUP is trying to take the Panama Canal back.

0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:28.920
<v Speaker 2>And before we get into like you know, I mean,

0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:30.399
<v Speaker 2>I guess we can get into. Hear some of the

0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:31.879
<v Speaker 2>stuff that he's doing. Right, He's pulled out of the

0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.679
<v Speaker 2>International Criminal Court and it's putting sanctions on it. He

0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.040
<v Speaker 2>has been trying to use the sanctions that he's been

0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.920
<v Speaker 2>threatening to apply to Canada to get Canada to join

0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.000
<v Speaker 2>the US, Like he is trying to conquer Canada, right,

0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:45.639
<v Speaker 2>fucking silly, Yeah, he's he's been trying to he's been

0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.480
<v Speaker 2>trying to force the government of Denmark to buy Greenland,

0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.080
<v Speaker 2>sell Greenland, right, like he wants to purchase Greenland from them. Yeah,

0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:54.199
<v Speaker 2>he wants to buy Greenland. Yeah, there was. There was

0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.199
<v Speaker 2>the whole sort of showdown with Colombia over Columbia's like

0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.160
<v Speaker 2>being pissed off about the treatment of deportees to Columbia

0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.200
<v Speaker 2>and he used sanctions. There there is again him saying

0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:06.600
<v Speaker 2>the US is going to take over Gaza and this

0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:10.239
<v Speaker 2>is a very very substantively different thing than the than

0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.560
<v Speaker 2>the kind of American empire that we've had before. Right, Yeah,

0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.040
<v Speaker 2>the last time the US tried to take Canada was

0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:21.199
<v Speaker 2>eighteen twelve. Right, it's been like two hot years. This

0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:24.440
<v Speaker 2>is how Britain returns to the world stage, right, And

0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:26.320
<v Speaker 2>the thing is last time, the last time in the US

0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:28.359
<v Speaker 2>try to take Canada, they burned the capitol down, so

0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.800
<v Speaker 2>like you know, but like like this is something that

0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.680
<v Speaker 2>even even under like like people like Bush, right, who

0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.120
<v Speaker 2>is like a Bush is like a very very vert

0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.360
<v Speaker 2>American imperialist. Right, Yeah, Bush would never try to invade

0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:44.159
<v Speaker 2>Canada like that. Yeah, that's that's completely unhinged, right, and

0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:46.639
<v Speaker 2>this is this, This is just a very very different

0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.119
<v Speaker 2>kind of imperialism than than what existed before. And I

0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:53.320
<v Speaker 2>wanted to go into I think why this is the case? Yeah,

0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:56.200
<v Speaker 2>and I think the reason why this is the case. Okay,

0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.560
<v Speaker 2>So the reason that there's been such a defensive free

0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:00.080
<v Speaker 2>trade is like people being like, oh my god, he

0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.040
<v Speaker 2>puts tariff in place, it'll raise prices, and like, yeah,

0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:04.040
<v Speaker 2>that's true, right, we'll crash the global economy. The global

0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.040
<v Speaker 2>economy has been turned into a very very efficient engine

0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:09.800
<v Speaker 2>of extracting profit from countries and putting them in the

0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:12.520
<v Speaker 2>hands of corporations. Right, it's working exactly how Trump wants

0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:12.880
<v Speaker 2>to work.

0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:13.520
<v Speaker 3>Now.

0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:16.199
<v Speaker 2>If the US wants to rebuild a manufacturing economy, that

0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.199
<v Speaker 2>is technically possible. Right, Reagan was able to do this.

0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.520
<v Speaker 2>But what Reagan did instead of doing tariffs is that well,

0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:23.840
<v Speaker 2>I mean kind of you. But like the main thing

0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.200
<v Speaker 2>that he did was this thing called the Plaza Accords.

0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:29.800
<v Speaker 2>And the Plaza Accords was this this thing in the

0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:33.679
<v Speaker 2>eighties where he forced Japan. Japan was the important one,

0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:36.119
<v Speaker 2>but like Japan, West Germany, I think there are a

0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:39.560
<v Speaker 2>couple other countries like he forced them to increase the

0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:42.480
<v Speaker 2>value of their currency relative to the dollar, because like

0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:44.080
<v Speaker 2>you know, so if if you have a currency and

0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:47.040
<v Speaker 2>it's worth a bunch of like another person's currency, so

0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:48.720
<v Speaker 2>like you know, you have like the dollar and it's

0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:51.560
<v Speaker 2>worth like a million, like yen or whatever the fuck, right,

0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:55.600
<v Speaker 2>the currency that's worthless has a more competitive manufacturing economy.

0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:59.119
<v Speaker 2>And Reagan was able to like restart the American like

0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:01.119
<v Speaker 2>manufacturing economy for a while by doing this. But the

0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.560
<v Speaker 2>problem is that it blew up the entire world economy.

0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.600
<v Speaker 2>And so to save the world economy, Clinton rolled back

0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:08.560
<v Speaker 2>the accords and it, you know, and that was the

0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:11.000
<v Speaker 2>thing that actually finally sort of like a viscerated American

0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.639
<v Speaker 2>manufacturing and the exchange here was you know, and all

0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:16.920
<v Speaker 2>the stuff that I've been I've been talking about for

0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:18.520
<v Speaker 2>the last like a few minutes. So there's a very

0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:21.520
<v Speaker 2>very good essay written right after two thousand and eight

0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:23.960
<v Speaker 2>called What's good for Goldman Sachs is Good for America

0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:28.399
<v Speaker 2>by the economist Robbert Brenner. And what the strategy became,

0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:30.040
<v Speaker 2>and this is a strategy that was originally pioneered by

0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.919
<v Speaker 2>Japan that we took was instead of having like a

0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:37.399
<v Speaker 2>manufacturing economy like actually a production based economy. You have

0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:40.520
<v Speaker 2>an economy based on the value of assets, right. So

0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:43.080
<v Speaker 2>assets are things that you own, right, It's the stocks, bonds,

0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:45.720
<v Speaker 2>like real estate, which is important for our purposes, and

0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:47.920
<v Speaker 2>the goal is to make the value of those things

0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:49.800
<v Speaker 2>go up. Right. And so what you do is you

0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.560
<v Speaker 2>speculate on you take out loans, You speculate on the

0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:57.080
<v Speaker 2>prices of stocks going up, the prices of houses going

0:25:57.160 --> 0:25:58.840
<v Speaker 2>up right, and you know, you make it very easy

0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.880
<v Speaker 2>to borrow money. Now, obviously this produced a series of

0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:05.080
<v Speaker 2>like staggering economic collapses, including like the dot com collapse

0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.320
<v Speaker 2>two thousand and eight with you know remember that one.

0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:11.800
<v Speaker 2>But the thing is, in the wake of the financial collapse,

0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:14.520
<v Speaker 2>the US mostly figured out how to sort of stabilize

0:26:14.520 --> 0:26:17.920
<v Speaker 2>the system. But the thing is, you know, they were

0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:21.560
<v Speaker 2>sort of able to stabilize the system economically, right, what

0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:24.520
<v Speaker 2>they couldn't stabilize was the political sector. Where if you

0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:26.320
<v Speaker 2>look at the two people who are currently running the

0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:28.800
<v Speaker 2>United States, it is Elon Musk, who is the human

0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:31.920
<v Speaker 2>personification of the stock price goes up bubble economy, right,

0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:34.639
<v Speaker 2>and the other one is Donald Trump, who is the

0:26:34.720 --> 0:26:38.040
<v Speaker 2>human manifestation of the real estate class. Right, whose wealth

0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:41.080
<v Speaker 2>like believe enormously and the thing is right, But because

0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:43.239
<v Speaker 2>Elon Musk is like a tech bubble, go up guy, right,

0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:46.480
<v Speaker 2>those people don't think like the people who built like

0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:51.440
<v Speaker 2>American financial capitalists, right, like the people who designed the tratism.

0:26:51.480 --> 0:26:53.399
<v Speaker 2>They don't think the same way Trump does. Trump is

0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:55.639
<v Speaker 2>a fucking real estate guy, right, And this is how

0:26:55.760 --> 0:26:56.480
<v Speaker 2>he sees the world.

0:26:56.560 --> 0:26:56.679
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:26:56.720 --> 0:26:59.560
<v Speaker 2>He thinks in terms of land and borders and territorial control.

0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:02.000
<v Speaker 2>And he thinks in terms of like what physical thing

0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:04.679
<v Speaker 2>can I steal from someone in order to make money? Right,

0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:05.919
<v Speaker 2>and that you know, this is why he's trying to

0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:09.240
<v Speaker 2>steal the Panama Canal and and he thinks this way

0:27:09.359 --> 0:27:11.640
<v Speaker 2>instead of like things that are more abstract like debt

0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:13.840
<v Speaker 2>servicing and like you know, the sort of lines of

0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:15.199
<v Speaker 2>power in the coalition building.

0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:15.480
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:18.639
<v Speaker 2>He looks at a map of Greenland and goes, this

0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:20.880
<v Speaker 2>looks really big. I want it and so and now

0:27:20.880 --> 0:27:22.840
<v Speaker 2>he's going to try to use the American empire to

0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:24.000
<v Speaker 2>just seize this.

0:27:24.800 --> 0:27:28.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he sees things in terms of like raw power.

0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:29.320
<v Speaker 3>It's a very uh.

0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:35.040
<v Speaker 2>Undeveloped notion of like power, right, Like, yeah, I thinking

0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:37.640
<v Speaker 2>the other day, like whoever is in the same room

0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:41.159
<v Speaker 2>as Joseph Nye must be having a fucking field day

0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:41.560
<v Speaker 2>right now.

0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:44.760
<v Speaker 3>At the guy who he was. He wrote books about

0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:46.879
<v Speaker 3>soft power, right, the idea of the US power to

0:27:46.960 --> 0:27:49.800
<v Speaker 3>persuade rather than power to kind of whether there rare

0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:52.800
<v Speaker 3>than like hard power, which comes in tanks or tariffs.

0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:56.440
<v Speaker 3>I guess Joseph n is no longer relevant.

0:27:57.840 --> 0:27:59.720
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, no, we're we're back. We're back in pure

0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:02.520
<v Speaker 2>hard And something I think is renal very alarming that

0:28:02.520 --> 0:28:04.119
<v Speaker 2>I want to close on is the extent to which,

0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:07.640
<v Speaker 2>like the US media is just sort of just once.

0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:10.359
<v Speaker 2>Do you propaganda for it? Yeah, I'm gonna I'm going

0:28:10.400 --> 0:28:12.560
<v Speaker 2>to read a quote from a CNN artic Again, this

0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:16.280
<v Speaker 2>is CNN quote. The subject heading is the US has

0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:19.440
<v Speaker 2>been expanding for its entire history. This is an article, oh,

0:28:19.800 --> 0:28:22.040
<v Speaker 2>the title of which is Trump is Trump wants to

0:28:22.080 --> 0:28:25.880
<v Speaker 2>redraw the map of the Western hemisphere for fan's.

0:28:25.640 --> 0:28:29.320
<v Speaker 3>Sake, like twenty twenty five Monroe doctrine posting on CNN

0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:32.600
<v Speaker 3>literally literally literally, Okay, okay, you are so far ahead

0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:35.640
<v Speaker 3>of this thing, because the next I'm going to read

0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:38.240
<v Speaker 3>the one I was going to read first, uplift civilized

0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:40.480
<v Speaker 3>and christianized. What's next paragraph?

0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:43.880
<v Speaker 2>The next section heading is and I quote what is

0:28:43.960 --> 0:28:47.040
<v Speaker 2>Trump's doctrine? And explains the Monroe doctor.

0:28:47.000 --> 0:28:50.360
<v Speaker 3>For fox sake, this is I cannot explain how like

0:28:50.960 --> 0:28:54.960
<v Speaker 3>I have taught this as a thing in history classes

0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:57.800
<v Speaker 3>for more than a decade from the perspective of like

0:28:57.920 --> 0:29:00.760
<v Speaker 3>that was fucked up and shameful, and even the conservative

0:29:00.760 --> 0:29:03.480
<v Speaker 3>suite to like, yeah, hard agree, look at these racists

0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:06.560
<v Speaker 3>as fuck cartoons about Filipino people. That the way that

0:29:06.600 --> 0:29:08.920
<v Speaker 3>we're using here to justify this, and now we are

0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:12.320
<v Speaker 3>back like it is and like, yeah, CNN is just

0:29:12.360 --> 0:29:15.440
<v Speaker 3>out there like fucking cranking the manufacturing consent.

0:29:15.960 --> 0:29:18.480
<v Speaker 2>That's not even the worst part about it, Like I

0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:19.640
<v Speaker 2>want to read the session. So one of the other

0:29:19.680 --> 0:29:21.760
<v Speaker 2>sections headings is the US has been expanding for its

0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:25.360
<v Speaker 2>entire history sick quote expansion. Expansion is built into the

0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:29.840
<v Speaker 2>American DNA SYS Retired Ambassador Gordon Gray, now a professor

0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:32.840
<v Speaker 2>of practice at George Washington University and former Foreign Service

0:29:32.880 --> 0:29:33.600
<v Speaker 2>career officer.

0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:38.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, like an angel sweeping across the planes, fucking manifest destinies.

0:29:38.280 --> 0:29:40.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, it's we're you know, and this is this

0:29:40.480 --> 0:29:42.280
<v Speaker 2>is this coming all sort of coming into like the

0:29:42.320 --> 0:29:45.160
<v Speaker 2>way that Trump thinks about which Trump thinks about the US,

0:29:45.520 --> 0:29:47.240
<v Speaker 2>like like an eighteenth century land empire.

0:29:47.320 --> 0:29:48.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yah, yeah, yeh.

0:29:48.080 --> 0:29:52.360
<v Speaker 2>Eighteenth century land empires, you know, got money by conquering

0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.960
<v Speaker 2>people and like extracting tribute from them directly. And then

0:29:56.080 --> 0:29:58.880
<v Speaker 2>also you know they were mercancilst empires, right, so they

0:29:59.160 --> 0:30:00.680
<v Speaker 2>they got they got a their money. And this is

0:30:00.680 --> 0:30:02.040
<v Speaker 2>something that Tropic suposedly talks about. It is like he

0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:04.200
<v Speaker 2>wants he thinks he can raise revenue from like terrorists,

0:30:04.200 --> 0:30:05.680
<v Speaker 2>which like, no, he can't, but like what he can

0:30:05.800 --> 0:30:07.600
<v Speaker 2>do is use the threat of tariffs to like force

0:30:07.640 --> 0:30:10.000
<v Speaker 2>countries to do whatever the fuck he wants. And this

0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:11.800
<v Speaker 2>is the kind of imperialism that we're in now. It

0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:15.360
<v Speaker 2>is a definite substanctive break from what we've seen in

0:30:15.360 --> 0:30:19.120
<v Speaker 2>the US for a century, more than a century. Yeah,

0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:20.560
<v Speaker 2>and I think I think it's important for people to

0:30:20.600 --> 0:30:22.000
<v Speaker 2>understand exactly how this functions.

0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:25.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and yeah, it's sick. We're going into the new

0:30:25.120 --> 0:30:28.080
<v Speaker 3>opium Wars. It's going to be so fun.

0:30:29.280 --> 0:30:32.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's great, Bob, this is this spanikot appen here.

0:30:32.280 --> 0:30:35.600
<v Speaker 2>Do not get kettles on bridges go out into the

0:30:35.600 --> 0:30:37.200
<v Speaker 2>world and make trouble.

0:30:36.840 --> 0:30:40.959
<v Speaker 3>And people want to read more about the early like globalizing,

0:30:41.360 --> 0:30:44.920
<v Speaker 3>the previous year of neoliberal globalization, Like Naomi Klein has

0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.960
<v Speaker 3>some good stuff, and I think Joe Stiglitz does as well,

0:30:48.240 --> 0:30:49.720
<v Speaker 3>so we can Yeah.

0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:54.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I also recommend David Graeber's direct action in ethnography,

0:30:54.160 --> 0:30:57.640
<v Speaker 2>which is him writing about the original like anti like

0:30:57.680 --> 0:31:00.440
<v Speaker 2>ult globalization protests and his like time in them. Yeah,

0:31:00.560 --> 0:31:02.760
<v Speaker 2>so you know, if you need direct action ideas, they

0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:06.120
<v Speaker 2>did some fun stuff. Yeah, dressing guys up like marshmallows

0:31:06.120 --> 0:31:09.400
<v Speaker 2>and police batons and bounce off the great Yeah, bring

0:31:09.440 --> 0:31:10.160
<v Speaker 2>back clown Block.

0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:11.040
<v Speaker 3>That'll get us through it.

0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:18.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it could Happen Here is a production of cool

0:31:18.240 --> 0:31:21.400
<v Speaker 1>Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit

0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:24.440
<v Speaker 1>our website fool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out

0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:27.880
<v Speaker 1>on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:30.600
<v Speaker 1>to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could

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<v Speaker 1>Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.