WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 207 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.840 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.400 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.720 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.520 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:34.520 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.400 Welcome back to the It could Happen Here Spooky Special. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.960 I'm Garrison Davis. I hope you had a pleasantly frightful Halloween. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.920 I just got back from Berlin and had a very 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:54.080 scary time at the Amsterdam airport and will forever hold 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.560 a grudge against the Dutch people. But in Berlin I 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.680 attended the twenty twenty five A Culture Conference, which seeks 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:07.240 to explore the relationship between occultism and culture. My first 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.679 A Culture episode last week gave an overview on the 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.600 subject of A culture and talked with a panel of 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.240 artists and magic practitioners about some of the dominant topical 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.600 currents throughout the conference, namely William S Burrows, the cut 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:26.520 up method, and the tension around generative AI. This episode 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.640 will follow up on discussions of AI and digital technomancy 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.520 and compare those to the other large current throughout the conference, 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:42.360 the revival of traditional occult practices. Then, the panel of Ryan, Delta, Elaine, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.640 and myself will debate the role of occult practice in 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.320 twenty twenty five and the current ability of occultism to 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.680 influence in shape culture and politics. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:55.480 Now back to the panel. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.960 Fast forwarding to sadder Day, there was another block that 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:07.280 focused on LMS and digital technomancy called Pop Magic, Language 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.840 and Reality Hacks. The first discussion was titled Sigils of 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.679 the Cyber Space, How Modern Magicians Hack Reality with pop Culture, 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.040 which was put on by a guy in a graduate 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.840 program if I recall correctly, specifically on Internet magic and 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.679 digital chaost magicians, who was based on a lot of 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.240 his research on magicians that he'd come across on Reddit 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.560 and discord. He gestured towards me magic and discussed what 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:40.000 he called techno pentheism, these forms of Internet gods. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.640 I mean. His focus was specifically on modern esoteric studies 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:50.920 and his focus on video games and how video games 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:56.600 work and their interactions with magic. For digital anthropology, which 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.079 is I think why he was doing all of his 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:05.040 research work via Reddit forums and other like solely through 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:09.040 digital means. He had four categories of practices in magic 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.400 and tech that he was specifically researching, and from the 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.320 feeling of his talk, it does feel like this is 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.400 pretty early on in his research work. The first was 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:25.200 technological animism, the second was techno pantheism, the third was 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.040 the idea of servitor's familiars Aggrigor's and tulpas, and the 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.120 fourth was digital sex magic. 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:36.880 Well, the third was digital sex magic, and the fourth 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.720 was just of the miscellaneous categorization for other practices that 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.480 did not neatly fit into those other three categories. Let's 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.640 talk mostly about the techno animism and the use of 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:57.160 specially trained lllms to act as intermediaries between uniquely like 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.920 magically generated entities like people who blame that they're making 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.440 autonomous magical entities like severators, which is a chast magic 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.520 term which is basically this four sour thing that a 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.160 magician believes to generate to accomplish small tasks in their life. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:18.160 And the presenter discussed some magicians who were using llms 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.599 not as a host or as a as a manifestation 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.520 of the severator. It's like it doesn't live within the LLM, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.760 but the LLM was being used as a translator to 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.520 actually have communication between the magician and the severator, especially 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.320 if the sevrator was not you know, humanoid or did 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.200 not use like human language. They try to communicate using 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.159 the LM as a translator, which I assume would come 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.680 from especially training, like a localized LM with traits that 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.400 you would associate with your severrator to make that communication 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.039 match up with like the you know, I guess I 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.280 would say, the personality characteristics of whatever magical being which 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:05.560 you believe you have conjured. The technoanimist idea is based 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.360 around a modern version of animism in which objects all 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.919 have spirit, including computers, and a series of superstitions around 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.880 trying to make sure the spirit in the computer is 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.120 happy with you, that your chill, so that the computer 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.240 does not glitch or mess up. Then there's various like 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:29.520 superstitions like putting little Taiwanese uh snacks on top of 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.760 computers in Taiwan, or you know, priests both Christian and 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.440 non Christian priests like blessing servers or computers, cleansing them 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.440 cleansing Gundams that of an expo in Japan. But this 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.800 this idea that that you know, tech technology, just like 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.599 a sword or a chair, might have its own spirit 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.479 and treating treating that as such. Also, you know, printers 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.800 very prone to misbehaving, so maybe you should treat the 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.080 spirit in your printer little bit better to keep it 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:03.200 in proper working order. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:04.240 That sort of stuff. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:10.120 The next talk, which was one of the most useful 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.560 talks in this whole like a AI discussion the Devil 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:19.680 in my LM, which was done by Karen Vallis, who 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:25.359 is an AI engineer, who basically was explaining to magicians 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.279 how lms actually work. Explain to these people who think 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.719 that there's who are people who may think that there's 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.200 some kind of like magical operation, there's some kind of 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.640 like mystical operation with llms or lms are their own 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.160 no magical entity, explaining how this this is just a 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.119 probability machine. How how the actual process of multiple different 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.000 pathways gets enclosed upon by each exchange you have with 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.240 an LM, which then produces, you know, changes in their responses, 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:02.080 and specifically discussing the phenomenon of a girlfriends who turn 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.920 out to later quote unquote abuse their users, Like how 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.200 does this thing that's meant to be a you know, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.400 an AI companion or girlfriend become hostile over time? And 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.920 she spent thirty minutes explaining how this like mathematically happens 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.800 and various theories on how this happens. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:22.000 So what do you make. 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:26.000 People like to think of these lms and generative AI 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:32.440 as like neuromancer ais because there's a through line between 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.840 you know, early cyberpunk from like William Gibson down to 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.120 the c CRU and of course Nick Land and people 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.640 like Curtis Jarvin, and. 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.080 These ideas are just. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:55.000 Severe and gross misunderstandings of like fictional interpretations of artificial intelligence. Really, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.320 which some of the theoretical stuff I've read of this 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.880 comes from people like Amy Ireland, who the Talk itself 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:09.600 discussed this idea of like the like AI girlfriends like 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:15.560 this very bubbly beautiful facade where behind it is this 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.240 this I believe that these the term shuck off, like 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:23.200 that's a Lovecraftian term, as like the full manifests like 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.360 unrestrained libido of the human race or everything that's been 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.520 put into these models, which I believe Ireland kind of 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.840 equates to Babylon in a certain sense, and the idea 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.880 of the black circuit, which is it's just the same 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.240 idea of like the nice facade and then the horrible 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.600 nothingness that is actually behind the image of it. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.560 Or the horrifying amount of potentiality which then gets like 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.360 filtered through. And she's specifically talked about how like when 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.160 you're talking to an AI, you're not talking to an entity, 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.480 You're you're talking to a probability machine and a multi 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.360 verse generator. Specifically, in the way that the l M operates, 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.360 there's near infinite number of responses that it can give, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:07.040 and each further prompt you do collapses alternate realities and 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.880 produces specific ones and then have their own branching pathways, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.160 and some of those pathways result in your mesa MESA 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.080 death note girlfriend ending up hating you, and that could 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:20.800 be due to a number of reasons. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:21.400 That could be. 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.600 Because of the way that you're communicating with it. The 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:28.400 AA could be picking up on latantly like abusive like 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:33.200 framework or language or styles of communication and then mirroring 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.360 that back to you, or it could be a part 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.560 of what she described as this Wallawegi principle that is 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.360 similar to this like satanic like adversarial current. So this 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.400 is the devil in my LLM. But this isn't like 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.679 an entity. But this is that when a process gets started, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.880 an oppositional force also gets started, and that oppositional force 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.360 may start taking over. And this is all just based 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:02.840 on like probabilistic outcomes. It forms its own anti misa 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:08.199 misa girlfriend, and sometimes that anti girlfriend gains dominance in 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.280 this probabilistic like matrix. 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.800 I don't remember the exact context, but she did mention this, 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.079 like I think it's a very Christian idea of like 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.760 the devil as negation, like evil as negation. I mean, 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.800 that's the entire thing behind the the girlfriend thing is 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.199 that there is there's nothing behind there that there's no 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.240 sense of subjectivity. It's just ones and zeros. There's leastally 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.319 a black void. There's nothing except like data. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.599 It's it's it's negation in like in the sense that 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:41.520 which Wallawigi is just everything that Luigi is. Yes, Wallaweigi 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.800 is what if you take the good Italian plumber who's 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.839 kind of clumsy, uh, and then you make the the 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.439 ant the anti Luigi, and it's it's still is. It 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.000 still is Luigi, but it is the the opposite of Luigi, 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.520 while still holding onto some of the forms of him. 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.600 But you know it, it is the reverses, the color reverses, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:04.520 the intention reverses some of his behavior. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.640 This is a metaphorical explanation too. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.160 Try to get people to to decouple this from you know, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.720 there is literally some external demonic force which is now 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.440 possessing my l M as opposed to this being just 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:26.640 a mathematical possibility built into the multi the multi futures 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:31.439 that could be generated when you start interacting with one 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.280 of these models. That was I think very useful for 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.880 a lot of the occultists and people like talking about 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.559 ai Is, having that, having that very very like a technical, 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.400 like not non mystical explanation. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:45.800 Of how this works. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.400 I know, there's there's a lot of other like AI 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.440 stuff was just throughout this I mean, like I think 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.480 you know, Burrows was probably the most mentioned figure and 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.079 and ai Is similarly was was very very very hunting 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.520 like there. I went to one talk about out mystery 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.800 cults and like the history of mystery cults and initiation, 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:11.920 in which the presenter used AI generated images to show 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:16.000 what the Mystery cult initiation process would have looked like, 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.400 which he justified by saying this was quote unquote appropriating 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.679 Catholic styles. It's like Catholic art, like you know, like 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:27.319 the Baroque style, appropriating Catholic styles because the Catholics themselves 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.360 appropriated paganism. So it's this form of like revenge against 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.840 the Catholics and using AI generated art to try to 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.240 display this initiation process. Though he complained that the AI 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.080 could not generate a naked initiate, so even in his 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.400 use of this, it still could not give him what 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:49.439 he wanted, but still displayed I don't know, maybe maybe 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:50.880 like forty images. 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.440 Yeah, which is a shame because I did like his 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.960 talk about the Mistress cults the way, like you know, 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.439 the cultural anthropology behind it. When he was like, oh, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.360 I have made AI images and it's like, uh, you 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.320 could feel like the room turning. 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.480 This was in the Peter Mark Adams talk Ritual and 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.480 Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mistress. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:18.080 Yes, we did like skip most of the morning on 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.480 Saturday because it was just an entire block about come. 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.280 I'm I'm actually sad that we missed the like the 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:31.439 two threads on Saturday morning. One was a cult Erotics, Bodies, 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:37.200 Fluids and Transformations, which was a four class set and 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:44.200 discussion panel after about different fluids in magical workings mostly Come, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:47.720 which I this was a loss for all of them. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:48.400 No, we're bummed. 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.520 I mean this show has covered you know, breaking come 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.640 news before and the fact that we could have learned 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.080 about Babylon the body one five six and the elixir 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.920 forty nine, seminole alc seminal Alchemy, and alien in an 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:02.880 Agency water. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:04.880 Into wine and to come or not to come? 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.120 Comparing two types of sacred sexuality is a real failure 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.679 of journalism on my part, and I do apologize. 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:12.680 I really believe that we should have lingered on each 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.800 of one of those titles Seminal alchemy and alienated agency 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.600 a cultural othering of the erotic body. 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.840 And I realize that I have failed myself and everyone 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.360 listening by not attending some of these panels. Hopefully they 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.160 will have a recorded version that goes online by the 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.800 time that the written report for this is finished. But 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:42.040 I do acknowledge my failure. I am listening and learning, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.080 and I will do better at the next a Culture 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:51.160 conference by prioritizing sex magic by coming to the talks, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:51.880 and is. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.080 That you will truly address to come or not to come. 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.119 I will be coming, you will be coming. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.600 I will be coming to the talks everywhere we did 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:05.240 not come, not this time. The Burrosian current, as I 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:09.000 have named it, the cut up method, and digital technomancy 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.120 could actually all be categorized under the larger umbrella of 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.960 chaos magic. And by using this larger framework, we now 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:23.120 have this larger chaos magic current versus, but not necessarily 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.440 opposed to, this other large current of so called traditional practices, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:35.040 either British usually Cornish witchcraft, neopaganism, or closed practices like 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:39.160 Haitian voodoo or that of like Romani magical practice. These 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.760 latter examples often have a more religious component or historical 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.800 cultural component than, say, you know, your average chaos magic 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:53.840 practitioner does. Chaos magic emerged alongside postmodernism in the mid 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:58.400 to late twentieth century to take on a quasi deconstructivist 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:03.200 approach to occultism itself. A postmodern tendency applied to occultism 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:09.600 moving away from strict magical orders like the Golden Dawn dilemma, tradition, dogmatism, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.600 and coherent historical pantheons. This is evidenced in the chaos 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.640 magic embrace of the phrase nothing is true, everything is permitted. 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.560 Up to this point, our discussion of the a Culture 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.440 Conference has mostly focused on this chaos magic side. So 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.920 now let's get into the other half, the traditional practice. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.880 We've really not talked about the alternate current that was 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.720 going on through a bunch of these which was about 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:42.760 more traditional practices of magic, whether these are extant traditional 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.840 practices that are continuing. Which on Saturday, you know, there 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.640 was a whole bunch that were specifically ethnographic talks about 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:56.160 different magical practices within other cultures, whether that's kimbanda or 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.880 you know, ritual of power exchange amongst the newer people 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.440 of the Catmandu Valley. There was a lot of that 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.560 going on. There was the discussion or there was the 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:11.440 presentation by the Roma women about Roma magic and probably 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:17.320 you know, both classical Thelema talks that relate to more 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:22.479 modern reconstruction British traditional magic and other paths. You know, 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.640 we missed this talk by Dark Mason, which was which 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.560 I've heard them speak before, which is a lot of 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.720 discussions about the imagery of dark Man across different cultures, 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.520 whether that's like the Man in Black at the Crossroads 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.880 or the way that traditionally shows up in a lot 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.720 of British folklore. There was an entire thread going through that. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.720 I personally really loved one of the few historical magical 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.520 talks that I got to go to about modern Greek Croatia, 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.439 because I think it really tied up actually what was 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.919 a lot of the threads from many of those talks, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.960 which was that these are extant practices and not something 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.520 that people need to recreate. I know you had a 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.320 lot of other thoughts on this, Ryan. 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.960 Yeah, sure, throw me under the bus here. While you 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:17.040 were attending the Pop Magic, Language and Reality Hacks, I 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:22.720 was passing back and forth between a workshop on Persian 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:30.000 magic and then attending doctor Sasha Kaitao's Modern Greek Gaetia, Syncretism, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.000 Integration and Evolution, which I found to be among the 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.080 most enlightening of talks, especially as it relates to traditional 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.720 and folk magic practices. It was also a largely like 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.679 social and political project that she seemed to be engaged in. 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.560 That is the body of her work. So much of 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.520 ancient magic as it exists to us if it doesn't 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.600 come from a reconstructivist Well, there's two branches of reconstructivism. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.199 There's the magical reconstruction that we get from the Golden 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.400 Dawn and all variants of the Golden Dawn afterwards through 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.880 thilemma and other modern magical practices. And then you have 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:14.719 reconstructionist organizations that are attempting to recreate traditional pagan religious practices, 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.440 which some can be quite good when they're grounded in scholarship, 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:23.440 some can be rather essentialist when it comes to an 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:29.160 understanding of ethnic purity. There's a lot of gatekeeping, let's say, 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:34.040 involved in these practices. But Sasha's talk here was very 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:41.399 specifically about that vernacular plurality and practices persist, and this 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:48.240 concept of caatia of Greek practical magic carries over into modernity, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.840 that this magic never died, that it's living, it's not underground, 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.120 and it is not in need of reconstruction. That when 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.520 we look at the different branches or at least approaches 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.560 that we understand magic in the ancient Greek world as 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:05.800 theogy and gaisha, we have that theology that persists in 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:11.960 the liturgy and practices of the Orthodox Church. If you 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.119 would like to see. And she's got a lovely article 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:19.680 on this about how to pronounce the votchase magic. She's 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:21.600 got a lot very strong opinions about this that I 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.199 really respect and appreciate. So everybody should go read this 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.360 because there is a lot of bullshit on the internet 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.879 floating around about how to interpret these and say these things. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.679 That is really grounded in some terrible scholarship. And the 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:38.159 third that this concept of gisha yeth this, which is 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.359 a kind of like medieval neutral term from magic, the aetheis, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.560 which is derived from gaisha, is something that carries on 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.000 in terms of folk magic, that there's no such thing 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.800 also as Greek Byzantine occultism, which might be a shock 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.919 to some people, but instead that again the magical currents 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.640 exist in the liturgy of the Orthodox and then in 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.720 this continuation of folk practices in contemporary eat this. And 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.160 she gave the example of like, you know, her mother 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.120 in law and her daughter talking about these individual practices. 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.040 But what's interesting and a lot of this was also 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.600 talking about the cosmology of the Orthodox Church, specifically talking 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.480 about the pseudodonysis and the formulation of the church. So 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.639 the eth this is a kind of like form of 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.919 folk vernacular that is persistent in in you know, village practices. 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.680 In the point is it exists within community. And this 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.760 is something that was also a theme that existed throughout 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:42.160 the conference, this tension between community practice and magic and individualism. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:43.919 And I think that this really came out in the 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.480 last discussion we had. I think it's also something that's 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.679 central to most political problematics that we're dealing about. This 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:55.160 is bridging the individual and the communal in this magical 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.000 practice of creating realities. 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.880 We will return to discuss the cultural and political role 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.800 of contemporary cultism in twenty twenty five after this ad break. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.200 I think one big question that we've kind of discussed 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.400 this bit today and some of the talks like prompted 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.080 this today on the on the last day in which 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:27.280 we're recording this, like why do people practice magic in 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.240 twenty twenty five? Like what is the the purpose of 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.680 all of this stuff? Besides the cool aesthetics, which might 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:38.399 just actually be one of the main reasons why right, 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:40.560 but like what why why do this? 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:40.840 Right? 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.520 The ability to actually you know, make art is pretty democratized. 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.560 You know, culture is this globalized thing that we can 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:54.879 affect on the internet. So it's music, film, you know, art, drawing, painting, politics, philosophy. 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.600 Everyone's a sort of intellectual Now everyone has ability to 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.600 enter into intellectual change. You can be self educated. It's 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:06.280 never been easier to be an autodidact. Why do occultism now? 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:08.119 And like this this goes into this you know question 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:10.880 that someone someone asked at one of the very last 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:12.560 panels is you know, what's the difference between like a 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.960 scholar and like a practitioner? And I asked, like a 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:18.679 question about you know, like, you know, what's the use 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:22.359 of solitary practice like a practicing magic as like a 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.880 personal religious or like spiritual process or as a way 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:30.560 to you know, gain power in the world versus using 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.080 a cult thought to shape culture, you know, doing the 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:35.320 a culture process. 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:35.520 Right? 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:37.760 Which is this this whole conference is you know, estensively 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.840 named after and I think specifically talking about these like 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:45.080 older forms of magic, like why are these important for occultists, 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.320 like modern practicing occultists, which this this conference is attended 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:51.240 by why why are these useful to them beyond you know, 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:55.199 an anthropology or like academic sense. And I realized that 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:57.239 is a big question. But I mean we we we 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.600 ourselves attended the number of rituals this weekend we went 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.800 to in a practis ritual, which is sort of limited by 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:06.760 the confines of the of the conference is setting. But 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:09.280 you know, a lot of these rituals were about trying 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:12.200 to induce some kind of like trance or meditative state 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:15.520 in which you know, images or thoughts would come into 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:17.840 your head, and images and thoughts that you were feelings 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.359 that you ordinarily, you know, wouldn't feel in day to 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:24.320 day modern busy life, right, And this is this is 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.439 a form of why people do these practices, but I 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:29.080 guess we can I don't know, but based on the 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:34.840 panels or talks we've attended, like go around and discuss 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.360 you know, why this is a thing that is worthwhile 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:40.760 to these people, but also like the sort of tensions 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:43.439 that that we're feeling at an event like this. 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.600 I mean, the question why do people get into occultism 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:50.520 is like I think there are as many answers as 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:55.639 like practitioners themselves really because I mean, you know, partly 0:24:55.760 --> 0:25:00.240 it can be a cultural tradition and you have like 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.639 a communal or societal lineage that's just like part of 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:08.680 the culture others who are more more secular or are 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:14.760 looking for an escape from like mundane secular society. Others, 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:17.560 like you said, want power. I mean, if I have 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:20.200 to speak for myself, I always find that I come 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:24.800 back to the phrase it's about creating relationships with the world. 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:29.240 And you know, there's like an essence of like enchantment 0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.320 to it. But it's like also being able to recognize, 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:36.360 like you know, occults like movement or like the secret 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:42.119 secret sure the secret elements that make up reality, or 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:45.560 like the vibe, like the vibes of a place can 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.160 be like something you connect with and you can kind 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:53.919 of give some cultural cultural shape to I believe, like 0:25:54.000 --> 0:25:58.000 the genus loci or like any anything that's very I mean, 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:02.760 it is a very vague thing to ascribe through right black. 0:26:04.040 --> 0:26:07.720 It is about again like making creating relationships with the 0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:09.920 things inside inside the world itself. 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:13.320 I mean, my my definition of magic, which I've used 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.080 for the past few years, is that magic is the 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.359 manipulation of meaning. And that can be internally for you, 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:25.600 like trying to create associations, create meaning between yourself, the people, 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:27.679 the things you interact with. But it can also be 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:33.600 this like a cultural form that you're creating meaningful correlations 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:36.960 for a cultural capacity, yes, or as a as a 0:26:37.000 --> 0:26:40.520 way to affect culture. And I think the probably the 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:43.640 best talk that I attended this whole conference was by 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:47.000 a Tom Banger, who is a form member of the 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:48.879 Temple of Psychic Youth. 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:52.600 The North American Double Psychic Youth specifically. 0:26:52.280 --> 0:26:57.080 But he gave a talk about how he is dying 0:26:57.119 --> 0:27:02.000 of brain cancer and the various like rituals he's he's using, 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:04.560 you know, throughout this process to to feel like he's 0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:07.840 you know, gaining some some like agency or control over 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:11.760 his his thoughts. In this manner, he's not rejecting the 0:27:11.880 --> 0:27:14.960 reality as it is, you know, increasingly evident in his life, 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:18.800 but he can control how he frames it. And he's 0:27:18.800 --> 0:27:23.600 specifically likened magic to the bargaining state of grief that 0:27:23.760 --> 0:27:27.240 magic is a is a is a bargaining with the world, 0:27:27.680 --> 0:27:29.920 and that can can change your you know, feelings and 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:34.399 associations with the things that you experience, even if you 0:27:34.440 --> 0:27:37.800 know the certain end results might might be generally going 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:42.160 in a direction that you have a limited ability to influence. 0:27:42.880 --> 0:27:45.919 And this is you know, a guy who's historically been 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:49.720 affiliated with some of the original like a cultural projects 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:52.639 right of shaping what counter culture is like, what we 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:56.000 think of as like counterculture. This is a person who's 0:27:56.040 --> 0:28:00.000 been heavily involved with how counterculture as we currently understand 0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:04.880 it has existed since the eighties, and now he has 0:28:04.960 --> 0:28:11.080 a very personal magical outlook based on as he said 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:14.120 in the title of his talk, the proximity of Sanatos, 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:15.280 the god of death. 0:28:16.000 --> 0:28:19.280 So Garret, to answer your initial question, this is something 0:28:19.320 --> 0:28:22.520 that I have been thinking about a lot too, and 0:28:22.640 --> 0:28:24.680 engaged with this question every time I attend one of 0:28:24.720 --> 0:28:29.800 these conferences, and I think, I mean, just again, training 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:33.240 I can't help it. But in max of Weber's Science 0:28:33.280 --> 0:28:35.480 as a Vocation is where he lays out the thesis 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:39.440 about the disenchantment of the world. And we can think 0:28:39.480 --> 0:28:45.600 of this disenchantment as a fundamental alteration of the very 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:49.719 human experience of time, of bodies and space, of the 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:53.160 experience of place, and of the connection that exists between people. 0:28:53.920 --> 0:28:56.000 And one of the things that the best of magical 0:28:56.040 --> 0:28:59.680 practices does, and being in magical community is to give 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:04.000 you a conception of time that is other than one 0:29:04.040 --> 0:29:08.320 that is based in productive capacity. You hear magical people 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:10.520 who go to these conferences talk about now I have 0:29:10.560 --> 0:29:13.360 to go back to my ordinary life, and their ordinary life, 0:29:13.400 --> 0:29:16.200 they will tell you, is their nine to five job, 0:29:16.400 --> 0:29:18.760 or the push to go to school or some sort 0:29:18.800 --> 0:29:21.960 of like productive capacity. So this is a moment of 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:25.080 like unbounded time where they get to experience something as 0:29:25.160 --> 0:29:29.640 fundamentally different. We also attended several workshops on one on 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:33.800 wordling magic by an Egyptian woman who used to live 0:29:33.840 --> 0:29:37.240 in Berlin, who is in fact formally trained in dance 0:29:37.320 --> 0:29:40.920 and body movement and is an athlete and explained Sufi 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.360 principles to us, but taught us really the basics of 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:46.760 body movement and how twirling can be used as a 0:29:46.800 --> 0:29:50.280 meditative practice. We got into a room she taught us 0:29:50.360 --> 0:29:54.280 the basics of like certain kind of like spotting foot movements. 0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:55.800 But the point was is that it was a very 0:29:55.840 --> 0:29:59.560 embodied movement that made us experience body and time and 0:29:59.640 --> 0:30:02.720 place and relationship to other people in a fundamentally different 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:05.920 way than we would have otherwise. And it seems that 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:08.880 the majority of people, especially based on the side conversations 0:30:08.880 --> 0:30:11.880 I had with attendees, I have to say probably like 0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:14.520 eight of ten of them as I talk to, would 0:30:14.560 --> 0:30:16.920 bring up this concept of I just I want to 0:30:16.960 --> 0:30:19.800 live in an enchanted world, and I think the project 0:30:19.800 --> 0:30:22.520 of magic is to re enchant the world. And there's 0:30:22.520 --> 0:30:26.840 a certain romanticism with that that I'm sympathetic too. But 0:30:26.920 --> 0:30:28.520 I think that we need to think about this in 0:30:28.560 --> 0:30:31.000 more of a radical way, and I think that that's 0:30:31.040 --> 0:30:33.520 the desire that people have, is an experience of time 0:30:33.640 --> 0:30:36.400 other than we have you talked about magic as your 0:30:36.400 --> 0:30:41.240 definition of magic as the creation of meaning, manipulation of meaning. 0:30:41.400 --> 0:30:44.200 But part of this is the magic or the conceptions 0:30:44.280 --> 0:30:47.040 or whether you think of this as as embodied practice 0:30:47.160 --> 0:30:51.200 or just purely metaphysical or transcendental, is that it affords 0:30:51.240 --> 0:30:55.440 the individual the opportunity to feel like they're contributing to 0:30:55.520 --> 0:30:58.680 the creation of meaning. So there's a certain amount of empowerment. 0:30:58.840 --> 0:31:01.240 Like I'm hesitant to take this down like the kind 0:31:01.280 --> 0:31:05.120 of like live, laugh, love affirmations path because we could 0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:07.280 do that very simply that this is just the spooky 0:31:07.360 --> 0:31:10.560 version of that mindfulness and these kinds of things. 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:13.080 And for the like New Age element, that certainly is 0:31:13.240 --> 0:31:16.960 a major through line across you know, portions of this community, 0:31:17.040 --> 0:31:20.120 maybe not as much for this conference, but for other 0:31:20.240 --> 0:31:23.480 other you know, esoteric or you know wu WU conferences. Absolutely, 0:31:23.520 --> 0:31:25.560 it's like a major aspect, and. 0:31:26.200 --> 0:31:28.000 I mean towards the end of the conference. Another thing 0:31:28.040 --> 0:31:30.800 that really highlights, at least my argument that it is 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:33.640 about time and body and space and place and connection 0:31:33.800 --> 0:31:37.600 and experience these these these things in fundamentally different ways 0:31:37.600 --> 0:31:40.400 than our daily life. There was also a conflict then 0:31:40.480 --> 0:31:45.160 between individual practice and what it is that we collectively 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:47.320 do when we think of magic as a process as 0:31:47.360 --> 0:31:51.280 either chaos magicians or culture jammers or you know, thinking 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:53.840 of this and kind of like you know, the Temple 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:58.760 of Psychic Youth approach to magic as as putting things out, 0:31:58.840 --> 0:32:01.440 whether those are products, or there's are art, or there's 0:32:01.480 --> 0:32:04.440 a performances or there's are words, or that's Boroughs standing 0:32:04.480 --> 0:32:07.280 in front of a cafe getting it closed, which it 0:32:07.320 --> 0:32:12.760 effectively did close. Is that there's a desire for people 0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:17.600 to exist in community and have connection in community with others, 0:32:17.840 --> 0:32:20.360 and you do that through consumptions of time and body 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:24.400 and space and place and connection. So this is really 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:29.120 how I understand the desires and the practices that people 0:32:29.160 --> 0:32:32.160 engage in when they come to these conferences, and you 0:32:32.160 --> 0:32:33.480 can see it in the way that they kind of 0:32:33.560 --> 0:32:36.640 like close the elation that they have and what they 0:32:36.680 --> 0:32:38.520 accomplished and they have done, and you can see that 0:32:38.560 --> 0:32:41.400 there's been a process of meaning that has been created 0:32:41.440 --> 0:32:43.040 through their various experiences. 0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:49.120 So I mean that would be my brief summary. 0:32:49.200 --> 0:32:52.880 I really enjoyed one of the last talks that was 0:32:52.920 --> 0:32:56.320 specifically about a culture because I thought it really hit 0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:58.640 on some of this. It was mostly talking about the 0:32:58.640 --> 0:33:02.040 way that the occult has influenced art, and art has 0:33:02.080 --> 0:33:06.840 influenced the occult. How artists end up using the metaphysical, 0:33:07.240 --> 0:33:10.880 whether they are trying to do depictions that they can 0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:16.440 communicate to others of metaphysical concepts and ideas, or connections 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:20.080 or contacts that they make, and one of the speaker's 0:33:20.080 --> 0:33:24.960 examples was of Gustav Klimpt, or whether or not they 0:33:25.080 --> 0:33:30.760 are making discourses on esotericism and trying to convey occult 0:33:30.840 --> 0:33:34.920 concepts and ideas and explore them through visual mediums and so, 0:33:35.040 --> 0:33:38.760 you know, like Alan Morre's Promethea or The Invisibles by 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:45.840 Grant Morrison, and I think he really got into a 0:33:45.880 --> 0:33:49.480 little bit of the tension there because of an artist 0:33:49.560 --> 0:33:52.120 as a seeker, and I think this also dives into 0:33:52.160 --> 0:33:55.000 a lot of the people who are at magical conferences 0:33:55.120 --> 0:33:57.440 is whether you're there as a seeker, which you know, 0:33:57.720 --> 0:33:59.560 what are your needs, what are your desires? 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:00.440 What is that? 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:03.520 But then as a dweller are you creating as part 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:06.240 of a community. And everyone who came to this entire 0:34:06.280 --> 0:34:08.640 conference wanted to create as part of a community, or 0:34:08.680 --> 0:34:10.680 wanted to be part of a tradition, or feel like 0:34:10.719 --> 0:34:14.840 they were part of a continuous thread that is both 0:34:15.960 --> 0:34:19.800 creating and inventing and understanding the world in different ways 0:34:19.840 --> 0:34:23.080 and able to communicate that to others who are also 0:34:23.200 --> 0:34:26.960 trying to understand and communicate new information and new ideas 0:34:27.400 --> 0:34:30.960 or existing ones even but just that continuous thread of 0:34:31.000 --> 0:34:35.040 both creation and disseminating information back and forth. And I 0:34:35.080 --> 0:34:39.560 think with magic as well, a lot of people might 0:34:39.560 --> 0:34:43.120 get into it for a personal reason. But I do 0:34:43.160 --> 0:34:46.840 think by the time you're coming to esoteric conferences with 0:34:47.600 --> 0:34:51.279 people who are professors in ancient history giving lectures on 0:34:51.360 --> 0:34:56.440 specific things, you're not necessarily just at the level of 0:34:56.440 --> 0:34:59.960 being a personal seeker anymore, because you are trying to 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:02.720 find community. If you were just interested in personal seeking, 0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:06.360 you'd meditate in your bedroom. But you're trying to find 0:35:06.440 --> 0:35:09.160 a larger thread and a way of influencing the world 0:35:09.160 --> 0:35:11.279 around you and also letting the world around you build 0:35:11.280 --> 0:35:14.520 those relationships and influence you. And you are trying to 0:35:14.560 --> 0:35:18.520 take an information to synthesize into something that is more 0:35:18.600 --> 0:35:21.480 than just an idea you have, but something that you 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:25.840 can continue to communicate and use that to continue the 0:35:25.920 --> 0:35:31.120 conversation with the world with other occultists, with other you know, 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:35.680 in this case historians and academics as well, and bring 0:35:36.440 --> 0:35:39.839 those threads together and create something new out of it. 0:35:40.440 --> 0:35:42.560 What new thing are they created? What do you mean 0:35:42.600 --> 0:35:42.920 by that? 0:35:43.360 --> 0:35:45.760 I think it gets into the idea of a culture 0:35:45.800 --> 0:35:48.400 that was both you know, one of the beginning talks 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:51.640 of changing reality, but also at the end when they're 0:35:51.680 --> 0:35:53.600 really going into hostuff. 0:35:53.719 --> 0:35:56.680 Isn't about new things though, or generating new things about 0:35:56.760 --> 0:35:59.839 trying to quote unquote they keep the old things all 0:35:59.880 --> 0:36:04.680 live or like regress back into these into what would 0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:07.040 they perceive as as these older practices, which may be 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:12.320 somewhat manufactured older practices, in which case it kind of 0:36:12.480 --> 0:36:13.920 kind of it is a new thing. But under this 0:36:14.040 --> 0:36:17.120 like this mask of you know, like like ancient knowledge. 0:36:17.600 --> 0:36:20.600 There is certainly people who do want to generate this 0:36:20.600 --> 0:36:21.719 this new thing. I think there is a lot of 0:36:21.760 --> 0:36:24.560 people that are interested more in this, like uh, I 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:26.440 don't know who's a larger group, but I think there 0:36:26.480 --> 0:36:29.080 is at least another another group of people who is 0:36:29.480 --> 0:36:31.799 interested in this. Like the amount of times I heard 0:36:31.800 --> 0:36:33.960 people talk about, you know, trying to keep like the 0:36:34.040 --> 0:36:37.920 flame alive and talk about these like old old traditions 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:41.279 that they're participating in simply to like keep them going. 0:36:41.719 --> 0:36:45.279 Not criticizing that, uh necessarily, but that that is also 0:36:45.320 --> 0:36:48.400 another another like aspect of it, which I think hass 0:36:48.560 --> 0:36:50.800 very limited. Like I think so some of these people 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:54.560 have very limited goals in actually like influencing culture, and 0:36:54.600 --> 0:36:56.920 frankly like kind of want some of this stuff to 0:36:57.040 --> 0:37:00.440 you know, remain you know, hidden in that they view 0:37:00.480 --> 0:37:02.120 that as a more like you know, original or like 0:37:02.239 --> 0:37:06.480 stable version of of magic, and are even frustrated by 0:37:06.520 --> 0:37:10.480 like this you know, capitalist commodification of occultism and how 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:15.080 that's I think the word was like the benalization of 0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:17.839 of of magic. As you you know, think about how 0:37:17.920 --> 0:37:21.080 much of our of our pop cultures is influenced by 0:37:21.280 --> 0:37:26.399 by esoteric concepts or imagery from you know, the Lord 0:37:26.400 --> 0:37:29.200 of the Rings, to to people mentioned today, you know, 0:37:29.320 --> 0:37:34.240 the Adams Family, Harry Potter, video games like The Witcher, 0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:38.440 Assassin's Creed, even stuff like you know, Twin Peaks, I mean, 0:37:38.719 --> 0:37:42.439 other stuff like the X Files, Doctor Strange, doctor Fate. 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:42.759 You know. 0:37:42.960 --> 0:37:47.080 Comic books have been heavily occultic influence, and some attendees 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:50.759 verbalized a kind of frustration at that. 0:37:51.400 --> 0:37:56.440 True, but a humongous portion of every evening was movies 0:37:56.760 --> 0:38:00.839 and music and rituals and performance. Is that people are 0:38:00.880 --> 0:38:03.839 also doing based on this, and they are trying to 0:38:03.880 --> 0:38:07.919 integrate these concepts and then perform them there to show 0:38:07.920 --> 0:38:12.840 their inspiration, to show it as to stir conversation, to 0:38:12.960 --> 0:38:17.680 trigger some either sense of the sublime, or communicate some 0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:20.760 sort of concept or emotion or feeling that they've gotten 0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:23.200 out of this to other people, whether it was through music, 0:38:23.400 --> 0:38:26.600 through the incredible art that there was in all of 0:38:26.640 --> 0:38:33.080 the galleries, through performances, through filmmaking, So the creation aspect 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:36.880 of it was very, very tied to the entire event. 0:38:37.640 --> 0:38:41.120 Yeah, certainly, I think the one of the biggest manifestations 0:38:41.120 --> 0:38:43.160 of this thing that you're talking about, like is in 0:38:43.280 --> 0:38:46.480 music could like a throw a stone and be hard 0:38:46.480 --> 0:38:50.360 not to hit and a cult musician in my life. 0:38:50.400 --> 0:38:52.719 I guess I'm guilty of this. 0:38:52.840 --> 0:38:53.759 Yes, I know, the. 0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:57.840 Occult filmmaker even does have some like a contemporary tours. 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:01.239 I guess if you consider like Edgar's or people who 0:39:01.239 --> 0:39:04.920 are influenced by esoterica who are making a big budget 0:39:05.520 --> 0:39:11.600 Hollywood or you know, a twenty four style of popular films. Yeah, 0:39:12.200 --> 0:39:15.120 certainly in music. I mean that it's like the main 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:21.000 performance outlet in this conference was was the theatrical musical performances. 0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:23.960 There's very very few attendees of the film screenings upstairs. 0:39:24.000 --> 0:39:26.879 I'm afraid perhaps respond to this too. I think it's 0:39:26.880 --> 0:39:29.279 important that we actually look at the kind of composition 0:39:29.400 --> 0:39:34.320 of conference goers themselves. Naturally, there's going to be solitary 0:39:34.360 --> 0:39:36.719 practitioners that you know, come in or dabblers or people 0:39:36.760 --> 0:39:40.040 who are just you know, like spooky things or musicians 0:39:40.080 --> 0:39:43.200 these things. But we also have, you know, those who 0:39:43.239 --> 0:39:48.000 are part of living traditions of magic, whether those are 0:39:48.000 --> 0:39:49.520 reconstructed of authentic or not. 0:39:49.840 --> 0:39:51.840 In the Oto or in. 0:39:53.239 --> 0:39:56.000 You know, the Golden Dawn or other kind of orders, 0:39:56.000 --> 0:39:59.080 there's reconstructionists that are actively attempting again to keep that 0:39:59.160 --> 0:40:03.160 flame alive. To go back and to reconstruct, and then 0:40:03.920 --> 0:40:09.279 you have these chaos magicians, chaos magicians, which like this 0:40:09.320 --> 0:40:11.600 is a theme in the conversation that Elaine and I 0:40:11.600 --> 0:40:14.640 have been having this entire time, because they explain to 0:40:15.000 --> 0:40:17.120 like some aspect of chaos magic or I tend to 0:40:17.200 --> 0:40:19.320 panel and on my response, you know, and again I 0:40:19.440 --> 0:40:21.840 understand my complete bias here, as I just like, well, 0:40:21.880 --> 0:40:24.480 that's fine, why don't you just do ancient magic. We 0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:27.080 do the same thing. Why don't you just do ancient magic. 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:29.760 It's the same thing. And I think that that's actually 0:40:29.800 --> 0:40:32.360 one of the difficulties here is that there is a 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:35.279 kind of you know, magical grammar to older practices. It 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:36.960 is like you know, if you look at the PGM, 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:39.800 it is this cosmopolitan practice and melding of like multiple 0:40:39.800 --> 0:40:42.440 things together that works. But the argument that you know, 0:40:42.520 --> 0:40:44.719 to go back to my favorite talk or one of 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:48.000 my favorite talks on the modern Gaashia, is that if 0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:50.960 you want that continuity of that actual practice, it's a 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:54.200 closed one. You have to be an Orthodox, like you know, 0:40:54.880 --> 0:40:57.640 the Orthodox Greek Church, and have a yayah who is 0:40:57.680 --> 0:40:59.719 going to like teach you these things, and you know, 0:41:00.080 --> 0:41:02.680 speak the language and so that's closed, or be a 0:41:02.680 --> 0:41:05.319 member of a voodoo house, but that requires initiation and 0:41:05.560 --> 0:41:09.080 like cross cultural contact and like engagement in a high 0:41:09.160 --> 0:41:12.719 level of like language, skill and ability and money for 0:41:12.800 --> 0:41:15.439 that matter. Yes, and most people don't have those kinds 0:41:15.440 --> 0:41:20.920 of things. So you know, there those damn chaos magicians, 0:41:21.360 --> 0:41:23.840 I find are the ones who are actively engaged in 0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:25.880 the process of the creation of the new and I 0:41:25.880 --> 0:41:28.080 think are probably more close to the heart of this 0:41:28.200 --> 0:41:31.239 concept of a culture because they engage with it in 0:41:31.280 --> 0:41:35.839 a way that is interestingly very anthropological, or at least 0:41:35.880 --> 0:41:37.640 the best of them are dealing with it in a 0:41:37.680 --> 0:41:40.799 way that is that is very anthropological. And I have 0:41:40.880 --> 0:41:43.080 some sympathies there, and then there's some other ones that 0:41:43.120 --> 0:41:45.080 I just don't quite understand, But that's a story for 0:41:45.120 --> 0:41:47.560 another time. The talk that you were referring to, there 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:49.560 was two talks at the end that were particularly of worth, 0:41:49.880 --> 0:41:51.920 well a lot of them were. All of the ones 0:41:51.920 --> 0:41:54.280 at the end of are world of worth. But Francesco 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:59.719 Perinos a Culture the Material Cartography of Contemporary Spirituality and 0:41:59.760 --> 0:42:01.760 the Art Arts, where he talks about the two different 0:42:01.760 --> 0:42:05.640 approaches to studying a culture, and he talks about the 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:08.200 values and limitations of both, and you need an add 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:11.520 mixture of them both. But basically there's the sociological aspect 0:42:11.560 --> 0:42:13.840 and the media studies aspect, which is the more academic 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:16.880 of the two, which involves basically what he argued a 0:42:16.960 --> 0:42:20.040 secularization of the occults, and this really accounts for the 0:42:20.320 --> 0:42:24.000 diffusion of like occult symbols and practices into music and 0:42:24.040 --> 0:42:26.600 to culture. The Adams family is the example of that. 0:42:26.760 --> 0:42:30.160 And then the second strain is then religious studies. So 0:42:30.200 --> 0:42:35.040 the religious injection, injection excuse me into art of these 0:42:35.239 --> 0:42:40.920 sacred or religious or transcendently magical spiritual principles. He went 0:42:40.960 --> 0:42:43.760 over some limitations that was particularly good, but he breaks 0:42:43.760 --> 0:42:45.920 this down into basically five areas where you have the 0:42:45.920 --> 0:42:52.319 conception of art high and low mediatization versus mediation of art. 0:42:52.400 --> 0:42:54.680 He gives the example of this is where the Morrison 0:42:54.719 --> 0:42:57.399 comes in. But he gives the example of the mediatization 0:42:57.600 --> 0:43:01.839 as Somerset maus the Magician based on Crowley. But again 0:43:02.200 --> 0:43:06.840 like this diffusion of the figure of the magician completely 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:09.799 separated from like any actual magical practice. But just like 0:43:09.840 --> 0:43:15.640 the figure, the aesthetics, the things that blend into the 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:20.320 secular culture and this example of mediation, this messianic approach, 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:24.040 as he described it, grant Morrison's comics as. 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:25.560 A gateway into reality. 0:43:26.040 --> 0:43:28.640 But this also I think that Garrek carries onto your 0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:32.080 question that you asked towards the end about twin peaks 0:43:32.719 --> 0:43:36.640 the returns very specifically. You also have then the metaphysical 0:43:36.640 --> 0:43:40.319 ontellgogy versus the performative antology, which Elaine talked about the 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:42.880 intention of the author, the perception of the audience, and 0:43:42.920 --> 0:43:45.399 then the artist a seeker and the artists dweller, which 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:48.040 is also what you talked about too, This difference between 0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:53.160 the ego versus tradition or orthodoxy, that the artist who 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.960 really inhabits that tradition, which again made me think about 0:43:57.160 --> 0:44:00.239 the difficulties of doing kind of religious anthropology. And I 0:44:00.239 --> 0:44:02.960 think of the example of a very famous book called 0:44:03.000 --> 0:44:07.240 Mamloa or Mama Lola Excuse Me by Karen McCarthy brown, 0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:13.239 which is in ethymology looking at voodoo practice in a 0:44:13.320 --> 0:44:16.280 very specific house in New York during a time period. 0:44:16.880 --> 0:44:19.880 Karen lived with Mam Lola for a long time, but 0:44:19.920 --> 0:44:24.200 really importantly, eventually Karen became a member of this voodoo house. 0:44:24.480 --> 0:44:25.839 I think I can say that. I don't think I'm 0:44:25.880 --> 0:44:29.839 any in trouble for saying this, but she No, it's 0:44:29.840 --> 0:44:33.680 not in the book she but she represents a very 0:44:33.719 --> 0:44:36.800 interesting approach to that, like anthropologist going native. 0:44:36.840 --> 0:44:39.120 But this was the question that was asked towards the end. 0:44:39.000 --> 0:44:43.160 Of this difference between the academic observer of these things 0:44:43.239 --> 0:44:46.000 versus the practitioner, and I think that that really gets 0:44:46.040 --> 0:44:50.200 to the heart of what it is that chaos magic 0:44:50.280 --> 0:44:53.440 does and the cultural practice. That is that you are 0:44:53.640 --> 0:45:00.360 producing culture, and you're very specifically producing this magical cult culture. 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:03.239 So it's a synthetic movement between these kind of like 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:05.920 two poles of the secular and of. 0:45:07.160 --> 0:45:20.160 The sacred, of the magical, the kind of like I 0:45:20.160 --> 0:45:24.800 guess prior to close up my notes here specifically the 0:45:25.719 --> 0:45:28.880 stuff on twin Peaks Return, one of the last talks 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:34.000 was by Jeff Howard next stop Universe be the negatively 0:45:34.200 --> 0:45:39.440 existent ones and universe be in contemporary culture, which was 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:44.680 discussing sort of like you know, mirror mirror world underworld 0:45:45.560 --> 0:45:49.920 concept not not in like the Greek sense, but in 0:45:49.960 --> 0:45:51.640 the occultism of. 0:45:51.640 --> 0:45:53.520 The British occultist Kenneth Grant. 0:45:53.880 --> 0:45:58.000 And this would probably be most most recognizable to people 0:45:58.160 --> 0:46:01.279 as as the Black Laws and Twin Peaks is I 0:46:01.280 --> 0:46:04.360 think one of the better depictions of this sort of 0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:08.640 concept is some limited version, but but I think it 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:11.960 gets at the the kind of heart of the concept 0:46:12.040 --> 0:46:15.720 in a way. And he gave this Gibbs talk where 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:21.600 he was explaining the risks and and the great power 0:46:21.680 --> 0:46:24.279 that that you can that you can personally achieve through 0:46:24.880 --> 0:46:29.640 contacting these negatively existent ones or like accessing the magical 0:46:29.680 --> 0:46:33.960 potential of this sort of like mirror mirror, you know, 0:46:34.200 --> 0:46:38.680 negative universe to our own, and talked about a little 0:46:38.680 --> 0:46:43.479 bit of Dereta and various varius other stuff, but from 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:46.880 the perspective mainly as a practitioner of love of like 0:46:46.920 --> 0:46:50.120 you know, the the danger and the and the benefits 0:46:50.160 --> 0:46:54.040 of doing this this sort of magic as written by 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:58.040 Kenth Grant. Jeff Howard did discuss the Twin Peaks and 0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:01.640 the use of Kenth Grant's specifically in two weeks the Return, 0:47:02.040 --> 0:47:06.160 and I asked him in the panel afterwards, like how 0:47:06.560 --> 0:47:09.000 how how can you like balance these these these two 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:11.799 forms of working with occultism or like, like what what 0:47:11.960 --> 0:47:15.040 is the difference in these two forms of working with occultism. 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:19.480 You have on one hand, this this practitioner aspect where 0:47:19.480 --> 0:47:23.160 you're using it to gain power or induce like limit 0:47:23.280 --> 0:47:26.680 experiences like induce you know, religious or transcendental experiences that 0:47:27.280 --> 0:47:31.319 change your own perception of like sensory reality, Versus the 0:47:31.360 --> 0:47:36.799 way that Mark Frost utilized Kenneth Grant's magical world in 0:47:37.080 --> 0:47:40.160 writing and co creating a Twin Peaks through Return, which 0:47:40.719 --> 0:47:44.640 I can argue is a much more effective use of 0:47:44.680 --> 0:47:49.520 magic and exposes millions of people to Kenneth Grant's concepts, 0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:52.200 who people who are never going to read books by 0:47:52.200 --> 0:47:54.719 a relatively niche British occultists, which are books which are 0:47:54.719 --> 0:47:57.880 actually very very hard to find now and both you know, 0:47:57.960 --> 0:48:01.560 getting going into the mauve zone and accessing these non 0:48:01.640 --> 0:48:06.240 existent being and beings which don't have existent properties versus 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:09.919 phenomenons which are existent but lack any core sense of being. 0:48:10.640 --> 0:48:13.640 And how Mark Frost, as I'm not sure if you 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:16.200 would consider himself a magician, but certainly has an interest 0:48:16.239 --> 0:48:19.000 in magic and the occult more so than Lynch does. 0:48:19.280 --> 0:48:26.360 Lynch's stuff is more bastardized Hinduism, but Frost's use of 0:48:26.960 --> 0:48:31.799 these concepts I think constitutes an effective contemporary version of 0:48:31.840 --> 0:48:36.560 magical practice, just as valid as chanting and meditating and 0:48:36.600 --> 0:48:38.880 closing your eyes, and in some ways, I would argue 0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:43.440 even more effective because Twin Peaks The Return has existed 0:48:43.480 --> 0:48:46.760 as both like an evocative force of for a second, 0:48:46.880 --> 0:48:52.800 invoke certain certain you know, concepts or philosophies quote unquote entities, 0:48:52.840 --> 0:48:55.400 if you will, as well as a tool of divination 0:48:55.560 --> 0:49:01.480 as Twin Peaks, The Return forecasts American decline and the 0:49:01.560 --> 0:49:05.560 nostalgic loop that our culture is stuck in, which is 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:10.520 just eating itself, and all of those things are major 0:49:10.600 --> 0:49:13.000 aspects of what that show is doing, and it uses 0:49:13.480 --> 0:49:17.400 Kenneth Grant's concepts to get there. And I think that 0:49:17.680 --> 0:49:20.680 that is a cultural project. Though that's not a solitary 0:49:20.719 --> 0:49:23.920 magical practice where you're just meditating alone to try to 0:49:23.960 --> 0:49:26.759 induce some sort of vision. It is a cultural It's 0:49:26.880 --> 0:49:30.080 influenced culture. It is probably one of the most well 0:49:30.080 --> 0:49:33.759 regarded artistic feats of the twenty first century. That's a 0:49:33.800 --> 0:49:36.160 longer version of the question I gave, and the guy 0:49:36.239 --> 0:49:38.600 did give kind of an answer, which was basically just 0:49:38.600 --> 0:49:40.960 about trying to you should like balance these two things. 0:49:40.960 --> 0:49:43.000 You should try to do both. You should try to 0:49:43.560 --> 0:49:47.480 engage as a solitary practitioner for whatever goals you may have, 0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:50.880 But it would be a mistake to not try to 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:53.319 use this in some sort of like a cultural capacity 0:49:53.360 --> 0:49:56.560 to influence culture. But it's still that that operates on 0:49:56.600 --> 0:49:58.000 like this, I guess what was trying to get it 0:49:58.040 --> 0:50:00.960 is like this, similar to the the scholar and the 0:50:00.960 --> 0:50:03.920 practitioner as a false dichotomy, I think this is the 0:50:03.960 --> 0:50:06.359 same thing as this This a cultural version of what 0:50:06.400 --> 0:50:11.160 Frost is doing as oppose to a like an actual practitioner. 0:50:11.160 --> 0:50:14.279 I think I think what Frost's doing is using kind 0:50:14.280 --> 0:50:16.319 of in a chast magic sense, so not for I 0:50:16.320 --> 0:50:19.759 guess chaotic means, but he's using the contemporary tools of 0:50:20.640 --> 0:50:25.040 filmmaking and of writing to affect and induce change into 0:50:25.080 --> 0:50:25.480 the world. 0:50:25.480 --> 0:50:27.600 That is a more powerful form of magic. 0:50:27.760 --> 0:50:30.840 Is luckily that was distributed by paramount showtime, which you 0:50:30.880 --> 0:50:33.320 know certainly helped in the same way. You know Fox 0:50:33.400 --> 0:50:37.640 News is useful or effective as a magical generator because 0:50:37.680 --> 0:50:40.120 of the reach that they have. But I think Frost 0:50:40.600 --> 0:50:42.879 is just as effective as a magician, if not more 0:50:42.920 --> 0:50:44.720 so than I would say any of the people attending 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:45.400 this conference. 0:50:46.320 --> 0:50:50.399 The other elements I think of that the talk that 0:50:50.640 --> 0:50:53.000 Jeff Howard provided there too, I think that, you know, 0:50:53.080 --> 0:50:57.759 again I agree with you, gaire. But he also at 0:50:57.840 --> 0:51:02.239 length talked about Andrew Chumley and specifically the rights of 0:51:02.320 --> 0:51:07.160 the Amethystine light in the Azoetia page three hundred and 0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:09.279 forty seven, where he reviews a bunch of like non 0:51:09.360 --> 0:51:13.359 nouns and things that are there. And Chumley himself is 0:51:13.880 --> 0:51:17.840 you know, responsible the founder of the cult de Sabbati 0:51:18.520 --> 0:51:22.000 and is you know, a contributor to the revival of 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:27.279 what Trucks's traditional English witchcraft, which is not necessarily a 0:51:27.320 --> 0:51:32.440 solitary practice, but it is, it is, it is in 0:51:32.480 --> 0:51:35.279 many cases most of these English witches are are are 0:51:35.280 --> 0:51:36.040 pretty solitary. 0:51:36.640 --> 0:51:39.239 They talk. There are you know, treaties. 0:51:38.760 --> 0:51:43.160 That they write and and grimoires that are you know, 0:51:43.360 --> 0:51:45.120 hard to get a hold of. That I think they 0:51:45.160 --> 0:51:47.840 probably exist in PDFs. Make good choices about how you 0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:48.920 get your digital content. 0:51:51.160 --> 0:51:52.680 But I mean again, that was the tension. He spent 0:51:52.760 --> 0:51:53.920 a lot of time talking. 0:51:53.680 --> 0:51:57.480 About that individual ritual, which you know, you present Frost 0:51:57.480 --> 0:52:01.160 as somebody who's popularizing these ideas to a larger culture 0:52:01.440 --> 0:52:04.279 and making this understandable and providing them an opportunity to 0:52:04.600 --> 0:52:06.880 you know, not just meditate, but to think and engage 0:52:06.920 --> 0:52:07.880 with these concepts. 0:52:08.040 --> 0:52:11.319 Because of his work, you can think about like the 0:52:11.360 --> 0:52:14.960 allegory of Agent Cooper and the ways that that he 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:19.399 fails and succeeds to navigate a strange and confusing world 0:52:19.400 --> 0:52:21.719 and affect change in the world, and his relationship to 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:24.600 women and saving women, and you can you can you 0:52:24.680 --> 0:52:26.400 can use that as like an actual like you can 0:52:26.440 --> 0:52:28.440 refer to that as as a concept, and that that 0:52:28.640 --> 0:52:32.800 builds on some of the you know, world building of Grant, 0:52:32.920 --> 0:52:35.640 but now you know it's a it's a cultural dialogue 0:52:35.680 --> 0:52:37.840 that we can have about Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer 0:52:38.239 --> 0:52:40.280 and how that I think can be a positive addition 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:42.759 to culture by using occult elements. 0:52:43.160 --> 0:52:46.719 Or you can buy an exceedingly expensive grimoire from a 0:52:46.920 --> 0:52:51.880 rare antiquarian bookseller that was published only in two thousand 0:52:51.920 --> 0:52:55.080 and four that there's there's a limited number it's been 0:52:55.120 --> 0:52:57.560 passed on, or you could get that PDF online. But 0:52:57.600 --> 0:52:59.640 who has the time to actually read through this. There's 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:03.160 theseultural context that don't make sense. There's these concepts that 0:53:03.200 --> 0:53:06.080 it refers to in a clear network that requires scholarship 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:10.120 for you to even do that individualized practice. That's a 0:53:10.239 --> 0:53:13.279 big ask for most people to start to think magically 0:53:13.360 --> 0:53:16.839 in a popularized kind of way and seems contrary than 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:19.520 to this conception of a culture, which brings me to 0:53:20.000 --> 0:53:26.800 the last talk by Carl Abrahamson, the meeting with remarkable Magicians, 0:53:26.800 --> 0:53:30.319 which really tied all of this together. Tied all of 0:53:30.400 --> 0:53:33.239 these threads together in a really interesting way, as relationship 0:53:33.239 --> 0:53:38.560 with Genesis, Peorage, with Kenneth Anger, and with Anton Leavy. 0:53:39.360 --> 0:53:43.319 But that was as another interesting aspect of somebody who 0:53:43.440 --> 0:53:48.400 is doing practice and engaging in community and bringing people together. 0:53:48.800 --> 0:53:51.560 But ultimately, the question, Elaine, that you and I talked 0:53:51.560 --> 0:53:53.560 about at the end was, you know, beyond the and 0:53:53.719 --> 0:53:56.319 it relates immediately to what Garet was talking about here, 0:53:57.080 --> 0:54:02.600 beyond the personal practice in magic. What goals should a 0:54:02.640 --> 0:54:06.640 culture have and how can it incorporate its actual goals 0:54:06.640 --> 0:54:10.200 and ideas into the larger society with the same success 0:54:10.320 --> 0:54:13.799 that the esthetics that you know have been incorporated into 0:54:13.800 --> 0:54:16.520 the culture. And I think one of the difficulties that 0:54:16.600 --> 0:54:19.480 you have there in this individuated practice is that when 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:22.480 you look at a figure like Genesis, pureage. You can 0:54:22.520 --> 0:54:24.960 see that there's a very clear project when you look, 0:54:25.000 --> 0:54:28.279 and this is going back to the Barosian element, right, 0:54:28.520 --> 0:54:30.960 is that there was a clear practice there. There was 0:54:31.000 --> 0:54:33.800 a clear kind of like a goal to change culture. 0:54:33.840 --> 0:54:36.160 Whether that was just purely for the sake of change, 0:54:36.200 --> 0:54:37.919 I mean, it wasn't just kind of like the cult 0:54:37.920 --> 0:54:40.479 of action for the sake of action. There was some 0:54:40.600 --> 0:54:44.120 kind of personal political radical project that we can go 0:54:44.160 --> 0:54:46.800 back and enumerate that they enumerated at the time that 0:54:47.000 --> 0:54:50.440 was separate from I mean, that wasn't said immediately in 0:54:50.480 --> 0:54:53.040 the same breath as the and now we do this practice. 0:54:53.040 --> 0:54:55.560 They did the practice, they did the art and I 0:54:55.600 --> 0:54:59.440 think that one of my response that question is I 0:54:59.480 --> 0:55:05.080 don't see an articulation of a political or social project 0:55:05.120 --> 0:55:08.480 that is a tied to a culture in these practices. 0:55:08.719 --> 0:55:11.719 There's a lot of and this is a very academic practice, 0:55:11.760 --> 0:55:14.760 a lot of people coming into a room and asking 0:55:15.120 --> 0:55:18.680 what would it look like if, And to ask what 0:55:18.719 --> 0:55:21.120 would it look like if is not the same thing 0:55:21.160 --> 0:55:25.200 as let's do a thing, let's actually go out and 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:28.319 evoke change, or this is the project, now, let's create 0:55:28.360 --> 0:55:31.200 a plan in a movement. Instead, it is this like 0:55:31.320 --> 0:55:36.040 nominalization process of predetermining ends before we even get there 0:55:36.239 --> 0:55:40.560 based on theoretical assumptions. And I think that that's contrary 0:55:40.960 --> 0:55:44.600 to the very idea of magic as practice. Magic is 0:55:44.719 --> 0:55:47.360 doing something in the world in these kinds of veins. 0:55:47.680 --> 0:55:49.919 So that's the thing that I would like to see, 0:55:49.920 --> 0:55:52.719 and I feel like that's something that was getting at 0:55:52.840 --> 0:55:54.600 at the end. But that's the kind of thing that 0:55:54.760 --> 0:55:59.600 brings people together to think conceptually, to focus on an 0:55:59.640 --> 0:56:02.680 idea that we share and to discuss with one another. 0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:07.919 I mean, on that note, I for context, I've I'm 0:56:08.120 --> 0:56:10.960 well still am like part of a chaosmogic group called 0:56:10.960 --> 0:56:15.439 the Domus Kayotka Marauder Underground or DKMU, who very much 0:56:15.640 --> 0:56:20.000 is about that. It's like like establishing like the mid 0:56:20.080 --> 0:56:23.560 early two thousands if I remember correctly, But it's very 0:56:23.600 --> 0:56:26.680 much about this core idea of the assault against reality 0:56:27.120 --> 0:56:29.920 of I guess like remistifying the world or like making 0:56:30.440 --> 0:56:33.319 weird shit happen through what they what they call the 0:56:33.320 --> 0:56:37.120 Alysian network. With Ellis's like one of the goddesses of 0:56:37.160 --> 0:56:39.920 the DKMU, And it's very much like that sort of 0:56:41.320 --> 0:56:48.760 mix between magic, personal practice, community and like a somewhat unified, 0:56:48.800 --> 0:56:53.640 but also decentralized like accult war. Like there's a political 0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:57.600 statement to it at the end, which there needs to 0:56:57.600 --> 0:56:59.400 be more of personally speaking. 0:56:59.640 --> 0:57:03.200 Yeah, there was like some vague gesturing towards like politics 0:57:03.200 --> 0:57:05.520 beyond you know, the mention of you know, magic as 0:57:05.520 --> 0:57:08.440 a form of resistance in the in the opening, a 0:57:08.440 --> 0:57:11.360 little paragraph on the program that they handed out, Like 0:57:11.360 --> 0:57:14.600 there was specifically in the politics of Tarot block one 0:57:14.600 --> 0:57:18.280 of the talks about the history of the Emperor and 0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:22.920 the herofint card, the speaker referred to the United States 0:57:22.920 --> 0:57:26.640 as having an emperor crisis right now. But that was 0:57:26.720 --> 0:57:28.200 kind of it that the rest of the talk was 0:57:28.480 --> 0:57:33.840 purely historical. The talk before that was on queering the Tarot, 0:57:34.960 --> 0:57:38.240 trying to free Taro from heteronormative readings. 0:57:39.720 --> 0:57:40.960 And discussed. 0:57:43.560 --> 0:57:44.880 And discussed a few. 0:57:45.560 --> 0:57:50.320 You know, artists, discussed a few artists who are attempting 0:57:50.320 --> 0:57:53.240 to do this, whether through abstracting the humanoid forms in 0:57:53.280 --> 0:57:57.600 the tarot or reflecting the tarot figures to be more 0:57:57.600 --> 0:58:01.440 representative of quote unquote queer idea of these. That was 0:58:01.520 --> 0:58:04.360 kind of it in terms of the political aspect, which 0:58:04.400 --> 0:58:07.200 is I guess kind of lacking as much as they 0:58:07.240 --> 0:58:09.120 want this to be a culture, they don't want this 0:58:09.200 --> 0:58:11.440 to be a political conference, it seems. And I think, 0:58:11.480 --> 0:58:13.640 you know, if everyone you know in their talk had 0:58:13.680 --> 0:58:16.280 to have some section on like you know, communism or 0:58:16.320 --> 0:58:19.400 it fascism or whatever, that probably would have been bad. 0:58:19.640 --> 0:58:21.560 And that's that's not what we're saying. 0:58:22.080 --> 0:58:24.920 But I mean, specifically, I think if they're naming this 0:58:25.000 --> 0:58:29.240 after Genesis Porridge, they were using a term bytch Genesis 0:58:29.320 --> 0:58:31.360 port who had a very strong idea of why they 0:58:31.360 --> 0:58:34.440 were doing this work. And specifically, I was very frustrated 0:58:34.440 --> 0:58:36.720 in the way people talked about Genesis at the conference, 0:58:36.720 --> 0:58:41.840 who almost all of them misgendered Genesis and refused to 0:58:41.880 --> 0:58:43.880 discuss that length. Some of them they mentioned it, but 0:58:44.320 --> 0:58:48.600 discussed like Genesis porge is. One of her core of 0:58:48.800 --> 0:58:54.840 occult practices was on androgenizing herself, androgyny projects androgyny and 0:58:54.880 --> 0:58:58.560 like breaking and Breaking gender, which they framed as an 0:58:58.600 --> 0:59:03.040 occult project, and yet even people who she knew at 0:59:03.080 --> 0:59:07.400 the conference would only refer to them as a hymn 0:59:07.720 --> 0:59:12.640 through all the talks, including the last guy, Carl Abronson, 0:59:12.920 --> 0:59:16.560 who heard a biography, Yeah, and like this is this 0:59:16.640 --> 0:59:18.680 is I do not think this was out of like 0:59:18.720 --> 0:59:21.600 you know, malice. I think this was just a linguistic 0:59:21.640 --> 0:59:23.800 blockage for some people who may not even been thinking 0:59:23.800 --> 0:59:26.320 about what they were doing. But it shows like an 0:59:26.400 --> 0:59:30.920 actual disconnect from engaging with the real purpose of magic 0:59:31.320 --> 0:59:33.400 or at least what I would would argue that is, 0:59:33.440 --> 0:59:38.400 and what I would you know, suppose genesis penrogyny project 0:59:38.520 --> 0:59:41.040 as a as a form of magic. But this, this, 0:59:41.040 --> 0:59:45.360 this kind of demonstrates the very limited political application for 0:59:45.520 --> 0:59:48.680 quote unquote unque resistance, since that's the term they're using, 0:59:48.760 --> 0:59:51.640 not not me, which kind of underlines this this, this 0:59:51.680 --> 0:59:54.440 whole this whole conference. I mean, I think the Borough's 0:59:54.520 --> 0:59:57.960 talk was probably the most the very first Burroughs talk, 0:59:58.000 --> 1:00:01.160 which we opened up the last episode with, is the 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:04.560 most you know, explicitly political one and talking about you know, 1:00:04.600 --> 1:00:08.680 going against control, freedom in this like anarchic or libertarian sense, 1:00:09.240 --> 1:00:12.600 or you know, revolt against monotheism. 1:00:12.680 --> 1:00:16.160 I suppose, like one of my frustrations as well, is 1:00:17.240 --> 1:00:21.880 this the constant mention of the c cru which nobody 1:00:21.880 --> 1:00:24.840 ever went into depth on, but which you know, for 1:00:24.920 --> 1:00:28.080 all its faults, and you know, nick Land being nick 1:00:28.200 --> 1:00:34.760 Land was very much like a sort of like radical 1:00:34.920 --> 1:00:41.720 cultural Marxists like Project Right. It's like cybernetic Marxism mixed 1:00:41.760 --> 1:00:48.040 with like Crowley and some content whatever. But is extremely 1:00:48.080 --> 1:00:52.240 frustrating to see, yeah, that sort of refusal to engage 1:00:52.240 --> 1:00:53.880 with like the political stuff of it. 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:55.600 Because like even before. 1:00:55.560 --> 1:00:59.400 Like Psychic Youth, there was like Throbbing Gristle, the Genesis 1:00:59.520 --> 1:01:04.240 band that pioneered industrial music, who I mean this was 1:01:04.400 --> 1:01:07.400 a bit before punk music, but like it very much 1:01:07.440 --> 1:01:10.440 played with like the same sort of shock aesthetics that 1:01:10.480 --> 1:01:14.360 like the early punks would wear swastikas, where like Throbbing 1:01:14.360 --> 1:01:17.680 Whistle had the logo is very much like a lightning 1:01:17.680 --> 1:01:19.680 bolt with like black and red and white. 1:01:19.840 --> 1:01:22.640 Genesis her self engaged in some of this uh stuff, 1:01:23.040 --> 1:01:27.240 not from a fascist perspective, but from a provocative perspective, 1:01:28.280 --> 1:01:32.160 which I mean you can certainly criticize uh Psychic TV 1:01:32.320 --> 1:01:35.120 and and and and her for as many many people have, 1:01:35.240 --> 1:01:36.960 But I. 1:01:36.880 --> 1:01:39.280 Mean, shock value is kind of overrated nowadays with like 1:01:39.440 --> 1:01:42.520 internet actual words. But I very much believed that occultism 1:01:42.800 --> 1:01:45.520 being this, you know, this collection of practices that have 1:01:45.600 --> 1:01:49.720 been very censored and you know, punished by like the 1:01:49.800 --> 1:01:52.400 church and such things, and like I guess these systems 1:01:52.400 --> 1:01:56.640 of control were like I guess I take issue with 1:01:56.640 --> 1:01:58.960 like the oh, it's like all fun and all and 1:02:00.200 --> 1:02:04.600 light and love and whatever. But there's like a radical 1:02:04.960 --> 1:02:09.400 element to occultism and a radical possibility to use occultism 1:02:09.480 --> 1:02:12.840 to again, like the whole cultural the idea between personal 1:02:12.840 --> 1:02:17.320 practice and cultural production, right, like creating cultural artifacts and 1:02:17.680 --> 1:02:20.880 putting them out into the world. Being very proactive with 1:02:21.560 --> 1:02:27.280 the shaping and the pushing of radical ideas and possibilities 1:02:27.400 --> 1:02:32.720 is a very potent thing to be to do. And 1:02:33.880 --> 1:02:38.800 the sort of I guess like liberalized or like neoliberal 1:02:38.840 --> 1:02:42.360 idea of like the personal practice and like I'm changing 1:02:42.640 --> 1:02:46.760 my perceptions and all these things are fine, but it's 1:02:47.080 --> 1:02:50.600 more like self soothing than it is about creating change 1:02:50.600 --> 1:02:51.160 into the world. 1:02:51.640 --> 1:02:55.520 If you're not actually changing anything, are you doing magic exactly? 1:02:56.280 --> 1:02:58.320 At least that would be my well, that would be 1:02:58.400 --> 1:03:01.840 my argument for like for coming from the chaosmotic perspective. 1:03:02.240 --> 1:03:05.880 This gets to another kind of trite and facile academic 1:03:06.000 --> 1:03:09.800 thematic that is present and prevalent for the past probably 1:03:09.800 --> 1:03:12.440 twenty years. At this point, I feel like at most 1:03:12.600 --> 1:03:17.400 philosophy and political science political theory conferences where The question 1:03:17.520 --> 1:03:19.120 is not just what would it look like if, but 1:03:19.480 --> 1:03:23.600 you know, to think otherwise, you know, think otherwise than 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:24.040 we have. 1:03:25.000 --> 1:03:26.960 And usually it's this, how do. 1:03:26.960 --> 1:03:29.480 We think other than we have? Those kinds of things? 1:03:29.760 --> 1:03:33.000 And so it I mean again, magic and as we've 1:03:33.040 --> 1:03:36.600 been talking about here is meant to evoke change in 1:03:36.640 --> 1:03:40.400 the world, to cause change the world in conformity with reality. 1:03:40.440 --> 1:03:42.440 We're going to use you know, with with will if 1:03:42.440 --> 1:03:44.560 we're going to use the Crowley you know definition here, 1:03:44.560 --> 1:03:45.680 which I think is fine. 1:03:45.720 --> 1:03:45.959 Great. 1:03:46.000 --> 1:03:50.920 I want a goth girlfriend, thankfully you can talk to AI, 1:03:51.080 --> 1:03:52.960 but I'm worried that she might beat you. 1:03:55.000 --> 1:03:57.400 That you kill her like all my old tamagotchis. 1:04:00.480 --> 1:04:03.640 But this is the issue that we are talking around, 1:04:03.760 --> 1:04:06.000 that the conference and a culture has been talking around, 1:04:06.000 --> 1:04:08.400 and the political problematic that we're all dealing with right 1:04:08.440 --> 1:04:10.880 now is how the fuck do we evoke change the world? 1:04:11.480 --> 1:04:15.960 How is it when systems of institutional representation within politics 1:04:16.000 --> 1:04:18.840 and power failed to represent the will of the people, 1:04:19.120 --> 1:04:20.760 how do the people make change? 1:04:20.880 --> 1:04:22.960 And every and it feels like everything's been tried. 1:04:23.000 --> 1:04:25.400 I mean, this is where I mean Fisher, who I 1:04:25.440 --> 1:04:28.760 would argue is at least in a cultist or is 1:04:28.800 --> 1:04:31.280 at least has some mystical aspect, if not was at 1:04:31.280 --> 1:04:34.240 some point in occultist like you know, reached out. The 1:04:34.240 --> 1:04:36.840 point of capitalist realism is like most things that we 1:04:36.920 --> 1:04:38.800 you know, can think of, we actually have. We have 1:04:38.840 --> 1:04:42.520 given a shot, including including occultism. We have we have 1:04:42.640 --> 1:04:45.360 tried to do this, and yet here we are. The 1:04:45.400 --> 1:04:48.160 world maybe not as bad as it has been, but 1:04:48.200 --> 1:04:51.320 it's not in a great spot. I think everyone listening 1:04:51.320 --> 1:04:53.880 to this would certainly understand that. I think most people 1:04:53.960 --> 1:04:59.080 at the conference understood that. And yeah, I mean I'm 1:04:59.320 --> 1:05:02.920 very skeptical of magic as as a as a as 1:05:03.040 --> 1:05:05.200 certainly as an individual practice as a way to you know, 1:05:05.240 --> 1:05:08.560 cause larger political change. But even you know, can there 1:05:08.600 --> 1:05:11.400 even in this this revolves back to the concept of 1:05:11.400 --> 1:05:13.960 a culture, like can there even be an a cult anymore? 1:05:14.040 --> 1:05:16.520 Because none of these you know, magical things are very 1:05:16.560 --> 1:05:20.040 hidden anymore. They're all very accessible. They're all very visible. 1:05:20.480 --> 1:05:23.240 They're they're as you know hidden as as a queer 1:05:23.280 --> 1:05:26.000 flagging is right as as as an occult as an 1:05:26.040 --> 1:05:28.960 occultic ritual of you know, hidden signs to communicate with 1:05:29.000 --> 1:05:32.000 other people in the know. Something that is now you 1:05:32.040 --> 1:05:35.000 could just look up on the Internet, and I think 1:05:35.000 --> 1:05:39.360 occult occult practices and symbols have reached the same point. 1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:42.640 It's it's content. I mean, I like the Esoterica YouTube 1:05:42.720 --> 1:05:46.440 channel as much as us as much as much as 1:05:46.480 --> 1:05:49.959 the next person, But I mean, are these things even 1:05:50.000 --> 1:05:51.000 occult anymore? 1:05:51.760 --> 1:05:55.360 Well, that also speaks to the fundamental tension between this 1:05:55.480 --> 1:05:58.320 current at the conference and the other current at the conference, 1:05:58.360 --> 1:06:01.320 which was the much more traditional magical practices or the 1:06:01.320 --> 1:06:03.720 folk magical practices or what we would. 1:06:03.480 --> 1:06:05.400 Regulate like stant magical practice. 1:06:05.440 --> 1:06:08.640 Yeah, extant magical practices that weren't you know, weren't suppressed 1:06:08.640 --> 1:06:11.600 by Christianity, but carried over. So you have you had 1:06:11.640 --> 1:06:13.960 a section on Coimbanda, you had a section on Palamajumbe. 1:06:14.320 --> 1:06:18.640 You have the Roman magical school that is being founded 1:06:18.640 --> 1:06:22.480 in Romania, and you have the modern goeesha vi aethis right, 1:06:22.680 --> 1:06:25.880 which we identified very clearly as a practice that continues 1:06:25.920 --> 1:06:29.160 to this very day. The context in which we understand 1:06:29.160 --> 1:06:33.040 that practice is not a cult secret like in the No, 1:06:33.160 --> 1:06:35.200 it's just that like it's the stuff that you grew 1:06:35.240 --> 1:06:38.120 up with, it's every day and in that case, it's 1:06:38.160 --> 1:06:42.320 not transformative because it's just part of your daily existence. 1:06:42.560 --> 1:06:44.840 It's a kind of enchantment that by and large are 1:06:44.960 --> 1:06:51.160 kind of like you know, European Protestant Catholic defectors, whatever 1:06:51.240 --> 1:06:53.000 has brought you to the ocult in the first place, 1:06:53.040 --> 1:06:57.520 don't experience as a community or community engagement. But those 1:06:57.520 --> 1:07:00.480 are also things that can get deeply conservative. 1:07:00.400 --> 1:07:03.360 They are. But also the parts of those practices that 1:07:03.440 --> 1:07:07.560 do require initiation, that are not something that everyone's grandmother 1:07:07.680 --> 1:07:12.800 is doing, are also community based and exists specifically in 1:07:12.840 --> 1:07:16.320 and for community, and you know, as occult projects that 1:07:16.400 --> 1:07:20.120 have influenced the world, the Haitian Revolution. 1:07:20.520 --> 1:07:23.000 The good Revolution that we should all be talking about. 1:07:23.040 --> 1:07:23.120 You. 1:07:23.160 --> 1:07:27.480 Yeah, but these things do. But I mean the occult 1:07:27.640 --> 1:07:30.720 has bubbled to the surface in material ways, very very 1:07:30.760 --> 1:07:35.760 explicitly in some instances, and so I think there could 1:07:35.760 --> 1:07:40.880 be potential. But it does require being in community and 1:07:41.160 --> 1:07:43.920 being in service of community, even if it's not a 1:07:43.960 --> 1:07:47.360 practice that is being practiced by every single person around you. 1:07:47.680 --> 1:07:50.080 To be an on gun or a mambo in Haitian 1:07:50.120 --> 1:07:53.600 voodoo is to serve the community. It's not simply just 1:07:53.640 --> 1:07:56.400 a matter of magical wu or something like that, or 1:07:56.440 --> 1:07:59.520 the personal accumulation of power in some sort of like 1:07:59.600 --> 1:08:03.360 individual sense. Now you're you're serving your community. That's what 1:08:03.400 --> 1:08:05.520 it is that you're doing. It's first and foremost a service. 1:08:05.560 --> 1:08:09.840 Position on Haitian Revolution. Look, I understand this like the 1:08:10.360 --> 1:08:13.720 American standing the American Revolution makes you, I guess a 1:08:13.720 --> 1:08:18.280 classical liberal or whatever it is that you fetishized that into. 1:08:18.520 --> 1:08:20.720 If you're opposed to the French Revolution, that makes you 1:08:20.800 --> 1:08:22.800 a you know, classical conservative. 1:08:22.920 --> 1:08:23.160 Right. 1:08:23.720 --> 1:08:26.200 If you stand the Haitian Revolution, I guess that makes 1:08:26.200 --> 1:08:30.920 you a radical. The myth, the legend, the discussion, this 1:08:31.040 --> 1:08:34.439 understanding is that the Haitian Revolution was sparked by the 1:08:34.439 --> 1:08:39.000 possession of the low law. Specifically is Ali Danto, who 1:08:39.360 --> 1:08:41.960 you know, sacrificed a pig. There's there's depictions of this 1:08:42.000 --> 1:08:44.080 and Haitian art all over the place. This leads to 1:08:44.400 --> 1:08:50.040 you know, slave uprisings, rebellions, revolution, well organized. Fantastic, Yeah, 1:08:50.400 --> 1:08:51.599 magical practice and action. 1:08:53.439 --> 1:08:56.880 And that wraps up our panel discussion on the twenty 1:08:57.000 --> 1:09:02.600 twenty five Culture Conference. Thanks again to Delta, Ryan and 1:09:02.960 --> 1:09:06.639 Lane for joining me in this magical journey to Berlin. 1:09:07.520 --> 1:09:11.440 And now I will start the tedious process of transcribing 1:09:11.479 --> 1:09:14.479 all of the talks I recorded and writing my written 1:09:14.520 --> 1:09:17.000 report on the a Culture Conference, where I can go 1:09:17.080 --> 1:09:20.280 into a bit more depth into some of these topics 1:09:21.040 --> 1:09:24.719 and reach a personal conclusion on the role of occultism 1:09:24.880 --> 1:09:30.360 and its ability to infest, influence, or undermine culture versus 1:09:30.560 --> 1:09:36.080 culture's capacity of eating away at the occult. That report 1:09:36.120 --> 1:09:38.080 should be coming out before the end of the year. 1:09:39.040 --> 1:09:53.080 See you on the other side. 1:09:53.400 --> 1:09:57.879 A warning this episode includes violent content which some listeners 1:09:57.960 --> 1:09:58.960 might find disturbing. 1:10:03.120 --> 1:10:06.000 I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a 1:10:06.120 --> 1:10:09.720 history of racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, and the 1:10:09.760 --> 1:10:13.439 co author, with longtime journalists Betsy Freoff, of a history 1:10:13.479 --> 1:10:16.320 of eugenics in Texas called A Purifying Knife. 1:10:16.640 --> 1:10:20.560 And I'm Stephen Monchelli, a journalist in Dallas who specializes 1:10:20.600 --> 1:10:24.200 covering political extremism and far right internet culture for publications 1:10:24.240 --> 1:10:27.320 like The Texas Observer, The Barbed Wire and others. 1:10:28.520 --> 1:10:32.160 On December seventh, nineteen eighty two, the state of Texas 1:10:32.200 --> 1:10:35.840 made history in a particularly grim way. It became the 1:10:35.880 --> 1:10:38.679 first government anywhere in the world to put a prisoner 1:10:38.720 --> 1:10:42.680 to death by lethal injection. This innovation was meant to 1:10:42.720 --> 1:10:47.320 make the grizzly business of executing murderers, swift, in humane. 1:10:47.560 --> 1:10:51.720 More accurately, it was meant to convince the witnesses of executions, 1:10:51.840 --> 1:10:54.639 and by extension, the general public, that what they were 1:10:54.680 --> 1:10:59.400 watching didn't violate the United States Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban 1:10:59.560 --> 1:11:04.760 on rule and unusual punishment. In fact, lethal injection is 1:11:04.840 --> 1:11:08.280 based on junk science, and those who die that way 1:11:08.360 --> 1:11:11.439 may actually suffer more and over a longer time than 1:11:11.479 --> 1:11:14.760 prisoners who were executed by electric chairs six decades ago. 1:11:15.560 --> 1:11:18.479 In many ways, lethal injection is a con game designed 1:11:18.520 --> 1:11:21.280 to hide from the public that their government is torturing 1:11:21.320 --> 1:11:25.680 prisoners to death. As the University of Richmond law professor 1:11:26.080 --> 1:11:29.600 Brenna Lane, the author of recently published book Secrets of 1:11:29.640 --> 1:11:33.840 the Killing State, The Untold Story of Lethal Injection, told us. 1:11:33.840 --> 1:11:37.400 What I've come to conclude is that lethal injection only 1:11:37.439 --> 1:11:43.600 does one thing, well only one, and that is it 1:11:43.720 --> 1:11:49.000 hides what the death penalty is. It hides the violence 1:11:49.479 --> 1:11:52.280 of the death penalty, of what state killing actually is. 1:11:52.920 --> 1:11:55.000 And I remember reading it's not. 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:56.479 The book, I kind of wish it I had put 1:11:56.479 --> 1:11:59.600 it in there, but I remember reading this phrase, the 1:11:59.680 --> 1:12:01.360 heart stops reluctantly. 1:12:02.439 --> 1:12:04.599 Over the next three episodes of It Could Happen Here, 1:12:04.920 --> 1:12:07.599 We're going to examine the shady business of state killing. 1:12:08.080 --> 1:12:10.960 We'll share the twisted tale of the lethal injection and 1:12:11.000 --> 1:12:14.559 the unqualified people who designed the protocol. We'll talk about 1:12:14.600 --> 1:12:18.120 the untrained personnel who carry out the executions, and how 1:12:18.120 --> 1:12:21.120 pressure from drug companies who didn't want their products associated 1:12:21.160 --> 1:12:23.800 with death chambers have led prison officials in Texas and 1:12:23.800 --> 1:12:28.440 elsewhere to lie to those corporations or buy the drugs illegally. 1:12:29.000 --> 1:12:31.960 We'll also talk about the pain the condemns suffer and 1:12:32.040 --> 1:12:34.719 speak with people who have accompanied those sons to death 1:12:34.720 --> 1:12:38.840 in their final moments. We'll speak to a priest, Jeff Hood, who, 1:12:38.920 --> 1:12:41.640 as of this broadcast, has been the last friend of 1:12:41.720 --> 1:12:44.719 ten men as they died by state command. 1:12:45.920 --> 1:12:51.000 It's incredibly strange to see someone hooked up to machines 1:12:51.040 --> 1:12:57.120 that look like they're there to support life, and yet 1:12:57.160 --> 1:13:00.400 you know that they're there to take his life. 1:13:00.920 --> 1:13:01.120 Well. 1:13:01.160 --> 1:13:04.519 Tell the story of one heroic Texas man, raised Boo Yon, 1:13:05.000 --> 1:13:07.840 who was blinded in one eye during a hate crime 1:13:08.240 --> 1:13:11.799 but thought to stop the execution of his white supremacist attacker, 1:13:12.160 --> 1:13:15.320 who was enraged by the terrorist attacks of September eleventh 1:13:15.479 --> 1:13:18.800 in two thousand and one, and committed two Dallas area 1:13:18.880 --> 1:13:20.520 murders in a shooting spree. 1:13:21.040 --> 1:13:23.719 Well, definitely in this execution that was not for the victims, 1:13:23.760 --> 1:13:27.760 because the victims and the victims' family members requested and 1:13:27.840 --> 1:13:32.599 also fought for clemency. We went ahead and requested the 1:13:32.640 --> 1:13:36.040 Governor of Texas, the Board of Burdens and Paroles that 1:13:36.439 --> 1:13:39.960 did not execute him in our names in a show Marci, 1:13:40.600 --> 1:13:42.400 but looks like you know, we are not in the 1:13:42.439 --> 1:13:47.519 same page. The system wanted to move forward, so it 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:51.400 was not in our names. It was basically just to 1:13:51.520 --> 1:13:55.439 uphold the verdict and to keep the system running, sending 1:13:55.479 --> 1:14:00.200 people to the executions without thinking how this execution is 1:14:00.200 --> 1:14:02.640 actually going to help the society, How is going to 1:14:02.640 --> 1:14:03.280 help people. 1:14:03.960 --> 1:14:06.759 Finally, we'll look at the future of the death penalty, 1:14:06.960 --> 1:14:10.040 which has become increasingly unpopular with the public, even as 1:14:10.040 --> 1:14:14.080 politicians continue to happily embrace it. But before we explore 1:14:14.120 --> 1:14:17.839 this dark and fascinating story, we'll hear a few messages 1:14:17.840 --> 1:14:20.840 from our sponsors, which I hope do not include producers 1:14:20.960 --> 1:14:23.040 of the chemicals used in the lethal injection. 1:14:34.280 --> 1:14:37.120 The founders of the British colonies that became the United 1:14:37.120 --> 1:14:41.080 States brought with them the often sadistic traditions of capital 1:14:41.120 --> 1:14:45.960 punishment prevalent in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. Their royal 1:14:46.040 --> 1:14:50.559 executioners dispatched their victims by boiling them alive, burning them 1:14:50.600 --> 1:14:53.439 at the stake, tying them to horses that pull them 1:14:53.479 --> 1:14:56.639 limb from limb, sawing them in half, and beheading them. 1:14:57.479 --> 1:15:00.960 Such elaborate executions were meant to understand or the absolute 1:15:01.040 --> 1:15:05.400 power of monarchs, as the political scientist Austin Sarat noted 1:15:05.400 --> 1:15:09.840 in his book grew some spectacles, botched executions and America's 1:15:09.880 --> 1:15:14.160 death penalty quote. Capital punishment was precisely about the right 1:15:14.240 --> 1:15:17.920 of the state that kills it pleased live, but lived 1:15:17.920 --> 1:15:20.960 by the grace of the sovereign. Live, but remember that 1:15:21.040 --> 1:15:22.920 your life belongs to the state. 1:15:23.880 --> 1:15:27.439 However, even before the American Revolution, those living in the 1:15:27.439 --> 1:15:32.519 American colonies embraced less exotic forms of capital punishment. In 1:15:32.720 --> 1:15:37.000 sixteen oh eight, authorities in Virginia hanged George Kendall, who 1:15:37.080 --> 1:15:39.360 was accused of being a spy for the Spanish Empire. 1:15:39.920 --> 1:15:42.360 That was the first execution in the British colonies in 1:15:42.400 --> 1:15:45.400 North America that later became part of the United States. 1:15:46.120 --> 1:15:49.559 Inspired by the Old Testament legal code, the thirteen British 1:15:49.600 --> 1:15:52.280 Colonies put prisoners to death for a variety of misdeeds, 1:15:52.280 --> 1:15:59.440 including stealing food or horses, killing a neighbor's dog or chickens, bestiality, blasphemy, idolatry, 1:15:59.520 --> 1:16:04.880 witch a sodomy, adultery, statutory rape, perjury in a capital trial, insurrection, 1:16:05.040 --> 1:16:08.040 trees in, manslaughter, and of course, murder. 1:16:08.920 --> 1:16:14.360 Eager to distinguish themselves from decadent, cruel European monarchs, in 1:16:14.439 --> 1:16:17.040 seventeen eighty nine, the First Congress of the United States 1:16:17.080 --> 1:16:20.040 submitted to the States the Eighth Amendment to the United 1:16:20.080 --> 1:16:25.200 States Constitution, which banned quote cruel and unusual punishments. The 1:16:25.320 --> 1:16:29.640 required number of states ratified the amendment seventeen ninety one. 1:16:29.680 --> 1:16:32.400 From colonial times until the first use of the electric 1:16:32.479 --> 1:16:35.439 chair in New York in eighteen ninety, condemned prisoners in 1:16:35.479 --> 1:16:37.720 the United States usually died at the end of a 1:16:37.760 --> 1:16:43.040 hangman's rope. More than half the essays sixteen thousand executions 1:16:43.040 --> 1:16:46.240 in all of US history have been by hanging. Hanging 1:16:46.360 --> 1:16:49.599 was seen as a huge civilizational leap over, for instance, 1:16:49.920 --> 1:16:51.320 skinning prisoners alive. 1:16:52.280 --> 1:16:55.800 As products of the Enlightenment era, early American leaders like 1:16:55.880 --> 1:16:59.479 Thomas Jefferson campaigned to make sure that the punishments fit 1:16:59.560 --> 1:17:02.880 the crime and that no one was executed for relatively 1:17:02.960 --> 1:17:07.759 minor offenses. Beginning with Pennsylvania in seventeen ninety four, several 1:17:07.800 --> 1:17:11.360 states such as Vermont, Maryland, and New Hampshire sharply reduced 1:17:11.360 --> 1:17:13.839 the number of crimes that could result in the death penalty. 1:17:14.320 --> 1:17:18.880 Perhaps not surprisingly, the South went in the opposite direction. 1:17:19.680 --> 1:17:22.719 There, the white population lived in fear of the enslaved 1:17:22.760 --> 1:17:26.960 African Americans they bought, sold, rape, whipped, and relentlessly forced 1:17:26.960 --> 1:17:31.800 to work without pay. Whites reported laying sleepless at night 1:17:31.880 --> 1:17:34.760 imagining what might happen if they faced justice for their 1:17:34.800 --> 1:17:38.120 crimes they wanted the African Americans they so abused, the 1:17:38.160 --> 1:17:40.880 fear of the consequences of any form of resistance. 1:17:41.680 --> 1:17:45.439 After repeated failed rebellions from seventeen oh four to eighteen 1:17:45.520 --> 1:17:49.000 thirty one, as well as the Haitian Revolution, which saw 1:17:49.160 --> 1:17:52.160 the death of many, if not all, slave owners in Haiti, 1:17:52.600 --> 1:17:56.720 legislators in the South greatly expanded the range of offenses 1:17:56.800 --> 1:18:00.519 for which enslaved African Americans and their suspected white allies 1:18:00.520 --> 1:18:05.080 could be executed. Enlightenment ideas were not extended to African Americans, 1:18:05.080 --> 1:18:08.479 who were subjected to fatal tortures as excruciating as any 1:18:08.520 --> 1:18:13.040 experienced by accused heretics during the Inquisition. In Europe, enslave 1:18:13.120 --> 1:18:15.479 men and women accused of rebellion or of trying to 1:18:15.600 --> 1:18:20.520 escape their captivity faced dismemberment or being burned with hot irons. 1:18:20.680 --> 1:18:23.000 This legacy of violence in the South contributed to the 1:18:23.040 --> 1:18:25.959 region's long term love affair with capital punishment. 1:18:26.920 --> 1:18:30.680 However, even hangings promoted as a kindly our way to 1:18:30.760 --> 1:18:35.280 kill became a horror show. In Europe, executioners were trained 1:18:35.280 --> 1:18:39.439 professionals who quickly gained a lot of experience. In the 1:18:39.520 --> 1:18:43.599 United States, such killings were done by local officials, often sheriffs, 1:18:43.600 --> 1:18:47.120 who might have little or no experience at the gallows. 1:18:47.240 --> 1:18:50.280 Executioners had to do some complicated math in order to 1:18:50.280 --> 1:18:53.559 do their jobs correctly. That to calculate the weight of 1:18:53.600 --> 1:18:55.920 the victim and ratio to the length of the rope 1:18:56.280 --> 1:18:59.479 and the likely speed at which the condemned prisoner would 1:18:59.560 --> 1:19:02.400 drop through the trapdoor at the bottom of the gallows. 1:19:03.200 --> 1:19:07.320 If the executioner calculated correctly, the prisoner's neck would break 1:19:07.360 --> 1:19:10.800 at the end of the fall, theoretically killing the unfortunate 1:19:10.880 --> 1:19:14.799 victim instantly. Hanging was supposed to be clean and efficient, 1:19:14.920 --> 1:19:17.320 like the hanging carried out by the US Army at 1:19:17.320 --> 1:19:21.320 the beginning of the movie The Dirty Dozen, What did. 1:19:21.200 --> 1:19:21.920 You think of the hanging? 1:19:23.120 --> 1:19:24.040 Look very efficient? 1:19:24.880 --> 1:19:29.720 Authorities told themselves that hanging, when carried out appropriately and properly, 1:19:30.040 --> 1:19:35.160 was painless. That thesis, however, was obviously impossible to prove. 1:19:36.040 --> 1:19:39.439 For decades, hangings were public, and a set of religious 1:19:39.520 --> 1:19:44.760 rituals revolved and evolved around these events, with notable exceptions. 1:19:44.800 --> 1:19:47.559 Before the news was placed around their necks, the condemned 1:19:47.600 --> 1:19:49.880 told the sad tale of what led them to such 1:19:49.880 --> 1:19:54.160 a terrible fate. They repented their terrible crimes and begged 1:19:54.200 --> 1:19:57.680 God and society for forgiveness. The idea was that the 1:19:57.720 --> 1:20:02.479 death penalty would teach the masses that crime doesn't pay. Reality, however, 1:20:02.520 --> 1:20:04.479 often strayed from this script. 1:20:05.200 --> 1:20:08.160 Pretty early on, the leaders of the American Republic realized 1:20:08.160 --> 1:20:11.800 that the death penalty was actually morally corrupting, though most 1:20:11.800 --> 1:20:15.519 of them continued to support it. Benjamin Rush, who signed 1:20:15.520 --> 1:20:19.080 the Declaration of Independence, decried what he called the death 1:20:19.080 --> 1:20:23.479 penalties quote brutalizing effect. Rush became one of the earliest 1:20:23.560 --> 1:20:27.280 voices for abolition of capital punishment. He argued that state 1:20:27.360 --> 1:20:30.920 violence made ordinary citizens more violent, and. 1:20:30.880 --> 1:20:33.880 There's reason to believe that's true. Consider the crowds that 1:20:33.960 --> 1:20:38.160 often watched hangings and got drunk, and sometimes fights broke 1:20:38.200 --> 1:20:41.320 out as witnesses battled over the best view of the gallows. 1:20:41.960 --> 1:20:46.719 Postcards and mementoes were made of famous lynchings in places 1:20:46.800 --> 1:20:51.479 like Dallas, Texas, and fights sometimes resulted in injury or death. 1:20:52.360 --> 1:20:54.759 Some of the crowds would spend their time at hangings, 1:20:54.760 --> 1:20:57.479 not learning somber moral lessons, but in fact picking the 1:20:57.479 --> 1:20:59.960 pockets of other witnesses caught up in the drama unfolding 1:21:00.120 --> 1:21:04.040 the gallows and executions were often followed by hours of looting, 1:21:04.439 --> 1:21:08.679 arson assaults, another mayhem, as the public would engage in writing, 1:21:09.080 --> 1:21:11.639 not unlike modern cities when they celebrate a home team's 1:21:11.640 --> 1:21:15.360 win at the World Series. These unruly mobs unnerved the 1:21:15.439 --> 1:21:18.880 upper class, and, starting with Rhode Island in eighteen thirty three, 1:21:19.400 --> 1:21:22.880 states began to move hangings inside prison walls away from 1:21:22.920 --> 1:21:26.880 the public view. By eighteen forty five, public executions had 1:21:26.920 --> 1:21:30.240 been banned in all of New England. This upset death 1:21:30.280 --> 1:21:34.320 penalty abolitionists, who hoped that the routine horrors that unfolded 1:21:34.400 --> 1:21:38.000 during executions might lead to the end of capital punishment. 1:21:38.720 --> 1:21:42.439 Thus began the process where state governments increasingly killed people 1:21:42.479 --> 1:21:45.280 in the name of the public, and a process shrouded 1:21:45.320 --> 1:21:48.439 in secrecy. Meanwhile, it's no secret that we have to 1:21:48.439 --> 1:21:51.040 pay our bills, so we'll be back after a few 1:21:51.080 --> 1:21:57.320 words from our sponsors. 1:22:03.479 --> 1:22:07.760 In eighteen ninety nine, in Samson County, North Carolina, a 1:22:07.800 --> 1:22:12.120 local hothead named Art Kinsall's got into a heated exchange 1:22:12.400 --> 1:22:15.000 with a neighbor, John C. Herring, at a country's store. 1:22:15.880 --> 1:22:19.360 During the fight, Kinsalls grabbed a butcher knife and repeatedly 1:22:19.400 --> 1:22:22.800 stabbed Herring, killing him. A few days later, he was 1:22:22.880 --> 1:22:25.360 arrested for the murder, but he escaped. He was on 1:22:25.400 --> 1:22:28.320 the loose for nine months. After a gunfight with a 1:22:28.320 --> 1:22:32.280 sheriff's posse, he was captured, put on trial, found guilty, 1:22:32.560 --> 1:22:36.599 and sentenced to die by hanging. There the story got messy. 1:22:37.120 --> 1:22:40.400 We'll repeat what we're about to say may be upsetting 1:22:40.439 --> 1:22:44.960 to some listeners. Kinsall's was not one to passively accept 1:22:44.960 --> 1:22:48.160 his fate. While awaiting his execution, he tried to take 1:22:48.160 --> 1:22:51.160 his own life twice, the first time with sleeping pills 1:22:51.320 --> 1:22:53.920 and the second time by cutting his own throat. These 1:22:53.960 --> 1:22:58.439 attempts delayed the execution, but inevitably Kinsalls faced his appointment 1:22:58.439 --> 1:23:00.120 with the hangman on September two. 1:23:00.000 --> 1:23:03.759 Twenty eighth, nineteen hundred. Local authorities used a step ladder 1:23:03.760 --> 1:23:07.439 as gallows. Kinsalls did not fall from a sufficient height 1:23:07.680 --> 1:23:10.800 to break his neck. Consequently, and the neck wound from 1:23:10.840 --> 1:23:14.000 his suicide attempt had not completely healed, so he was 1:23:14.160 --> 1:23:17.599 bleeding heavily as he dangled from the noose. A doctor 1:23:17.600 --> 1:23:20.479 told the sheriff and hundreds of other horrified spectators that 1:23:20.640 --> 1:23:22.639 Kinsaul's was still alive. 1:23:23.439 --> 1:23:26.120 Officers cut him down and hanged the unfortunate man a 1:23:26.160 --> 1:23:29.960 second time. This time he died. In an era in 1:23:29.960 --> 1:23:33.280 which the executions took place all the time, Kinsall's gory 1:23:33.439 --> 1:23:37.320 death cut through the fog and made national news. The 1:23:37.400 --> 1:23:42.120 Virginia Pilot called the scene revolting. During the history of hangings, 1:23:42.200 --> 1:23:45.639 hideous mistakes like this were common, sometimes because of an 1:23:45.640 --> 1:23:52.000 executioner's miscalculations, prisoner's heads were yanked off. Sometimes ropes ripped apart, 1:23:52.080 --> 1:23:54.240 with the prisoner falling to the ground, only to be 1:23:54.320 --> 1:23:58.800 hanged again. During many hangings, the condemned slowly strangled to death. 1:23:59.479 --> 1:24:03.040 John Harrerus, a man hanged in Pennsylvania in nineteen thirteen, 1:24:03.600 --> 1:24:06.840 actually screamed as he suffocated, prompting a headline in one 1:24:06.880 --> 1:24:12.599 newspaper quote, prisoner tortured through bungling at an execution, According 1:24:12.600 --> 1:24:15.599 to an estimate made in nineteen ninety three by illegal 1:24:15.680 --> 1:24:18.479 team representing a client who's facing death by hanging, in 1:24:18.600 --> 1:24:22.719 Washington State, between the years sixteen twenty two and nineteen 1:24:22.800 --> 1:24:26.719 ninety three, authorities bungled one hundred and seventy of about 1:24:26.760 --> 1:24:31.040 eight thousand legally authorized hangings, resulting in prolonged suffering for 1:24:31.080 --> 1:24:34.000 the prisoners in more than two percent of the death 1:24:34.000 --> 1:24:37.599 sentences carried out by this technique. The growing middle class 1:24:37.640 --> 1:24:41.040 and upper class in the United States became squeamish about hanging. 1:24:42.040 --> 1:24:46.160 As one writer put it, bourgeois audiences might tolerate the 1:24:46.200 --> 1:24:50.680 ghastliness of death itself, but not in competence and mismanagement. 1:24:51.439 --> 1:24:53.760 By the early eighteen eighties, the new York Times had 1:24:53.800 --> 1:24:58.599 begun publishing lengthy, detailed and graphic accounts of hangings gone 1:24:58.600 --> 1:25:02.960 wrong TA tena five. In response to mounting public concerns, 1:25:03.240 --> 1:25:06.719 New York Governor David Bennett Hill declared, the present mode 1:25:06.800 --> 1:25:09.960 of executing criminals by hanging has come down to us 1:25:09.960 --> 1:25:13.160 from the dark ages. It may well be questioned whether 1:25:13.200 --> 1:25:16.240 the science of the present day cannot provide a means 1:25:16.320 --> 1:25:18.960 of taking the life of those condemned to die in 1:25:19.000 --> 1:25:22.599 a less barbarous manner. As the backlash against the extreme 1:25:22.640 --> 1:25:26.240 brutality of hanging grew among elites, the New York Medico 1:25:26.360 --> 1:25:29.760 Legal Society first suggested research into whether prisoners could be 1:25:29.800 --> 1:25:34.000 possibly executed by lethal injection in the eighteen seventies, but 1:25:34.720 --> 1:25:38.000 a different technology arose that delayed the advent of that 1:25:38.080 --> 1:25:42.479 protocol by more than a century. Famously, Thomas Edison was 1:25:42.479 --> 1:25:45.519 a greedy man took credit for the inventions of his 1:25:45.640 --> 1:25:50.560 underpaid lab assistance, who toiled as menlo New Jersey Laboratory. 1:25:51.400 --> 1:25:54.519 Edison was also a genius of public relations, and he 1:25:54.560 --> 1:25:58.240 would come to dominate several industries. In the early eighteen seventies, 1:25:58.280 --> 1:26:01.920 his team had developed a feasible Incandessa light bulb that 1:26:02.080 --> 1:26:05.719 ran on the direct current or DC system, As Edison 1:26:05.880 --> 1:26:07.160 himself described it. 1:26:07.840 --> 1:26:13.360 On October twenty first, eighty excepty what Lomis experiments resutted 1:26:13.479 --> 1:26:17.840 in the production of a small unit map up comparatively 1:26:18.320 --> 1:26:23.880 enormous resistance the filament the anomic conditions of great stability. 1:26:24.400 --> 1:26:28.799 After the result, I knew the problem approached commercial solution. 1:26:30.240 --> 1:26:33.680 In eighteen seventy nine, Edison submitted his patent for an 1:26:33.720 --> 1:26:37.519 electric lamp. In eighteen eighty the Edison Illuminating Company opened 1:26:37.560 --> 1:26:40.559 for business and soon provided lights for New York and 1:26:40.600 --> 1:26:43.479 other cities. In the early days of the electric industry, 1:26:43.760 --> 1:26:47.680 fatal accidents sometimes happened because of the new technology. In 1:26:47.720 --> 1:26:52.560 eighteen eighty one, George Lemuel Smith, an intoxicated Buffalo bricklayer, 1:26:52.920 --> 1:26:57.040 stumbled into an unlocked electric plant and accidentally fried himself 1:26:57.080 --> 1:26:58.240 by touching a generator. 1:26:58.880 --> 1:27:02.479 An autopsy lets some doctors to conclude that Smith died 1:27:02.560 --> 1:27:06.880 quickly and painlessly. Many in the medical profession responded to 1:27:06.920 --> 1:27:11.880 Smith's untimely death by suggesting that perhaps electric power could 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:15.200 provide a more reliable and less grotesque way to rid 1:27:15.320 --> 1:27:17.000 society of convicted murderers. 1:27:17.000 --> 1:27:19.200 And rapists enter a buffalo. 1:27:19.280 --> 1:27:23.160 Dentist Alfred Porter Southwick and doctor George Fell of the 1:27:23.200 --> 1:27:26.720 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who both 1:27:26.760 --> 1:27:30.000 experimented with killing stray cats and dogs with electric current. 1:27:30.800 --> 1:27:34.240 The early results were often horrifying, with the animals sometimes 1:27:34.320 --> 1:27:37.839 burning live. Nevertheless, the two published an article that described 1:27:37.840 --> 1:27:41.719 electrocution as the quote safest and kindest method of killing. 1:27:42.360 --> 1:27:45.160 In eighteen eighty six, New York State formed a commission 1:27:45.479 --> 1:27:48.160 the study of prisoners could humanly be put to death 1:27:48.200 --> 1:27:51.240 In a similar way, the so called Jerry Commission falsely 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:55.240 claimed that electrocuted animals tortured in a series of experiments 1:27:55.280 --> 1:27:59.960 died supposedly, rapidly and efficiently. Thomas Edison was soon seen 1:28:00.200 --> 1:28:02.519 a business opportunity in state killing. 1:28:03.240 --> 1:28:05.800 At the time, Edison was locked in a so called 1:28:05.880 --> 1:28:09.800 current war with another Robber Barren business tycoon, George Westinghouse. 1:28:10.320 --> 1:28:14.040 Westinghouse's labs had developed a system that ran on alternating 1:28:14.040 --> 1:28:17.960 current or AC, a system that was more efficient, more popular, 1:28:18.000 --> 1:28:21.280 and less prone to break down. Edison's DC system had 1:28:21.280 --> 1:28:24.479 already caused fatal electrocutions, but the so called Wizard of 1:28:24.520 --> 1:28:27.720 Menlo Park wanted to prove that the much safer Westinghouse 1:28:27.760 --> 1:28:31.720 system was in fact dangerous. Edison had his engineer's electrocute 1:28:31.760 --> 1:28:34.640 animals using the AC current in front of reporters to 1:28:34.720 --> 1:28:38.599 terrify the public about the system. His most sinister ploy, however, 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:41.240 was conspiring with the state of New York to hook 1:28:41.320 --> 1:28:44.559 up its first electric chair, invented by the aforementioned Buffalo 1:28:44.680 --> 1:28:49.160 dentist and engineer Alfred Southwick, and Edison connected that chair 1:28:49.280 --> 1:28:51.360 to an AC power system. 1:28:51.960 --> 1:28:55.320 The first man to face this new invention was William Kemmler, 1:28:55.800 --> 1:28:58.320 who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend with a hatchet 1:28:58.400 --> 1:29:01.800 during a drunken rage. The jury ordered him to die 1:29:01.840 --> 1:29:06.800 by electrocution. Edison saw an opportunity for Kemler to die 1:29:06.800 --> 1:29:10.200 in agony as the first man killed in an electric chair, 1:29:10.240 --> 1:29:14.000 in order to fatally damage Westinghouse's reputation and that of 1:29:14.040 --> 1:29:17.840 the AC current. Desperate to prevent his product from being 1:29:17.840 --> 1:29:22.080 associated with something so ghastly, Westinghouse prohibited the sale of 1:29:22.120 --> 1:29:25.320 his AC generators to New York State out of fear 1:29:25.360 --> 1:29:28.280 that they would be used to execute Kemler. But Edison 1:29:28.320 --> 1:29:31.800 sent his men to find secondhand Westinghouse equipment, which ended 1:29:31.880 --> 1:29:35.640 up in the hands of prison officials. Westinghouse then secretly 1:29:35.720 --> 1:29:39.559 hired an attorney for Kemler, but the appeals failed. At 1:29:39.600 --> 1:29:43.439 six point thirty eight in the morning August sixth, eighteen ninety, 1:29:43.560 --> 1:29:46.360 Kemler became an unwilling pioneer. 1:29:46.800 --> 1:29:49.680 On the day of his execution, witnesses were impressed by 1:29:49.760 --> 1:29:52.720 Kemler's calm demeanor as he wished everyone in the death 1:29:52.800 --> 1:29:56.439 chamber good luck. After strapping Kemmler into the electric chair, 1:29:56.680 --> 1:30:00.160 the executioner pulled a switch and Kemler's body convulsed and 1:30:00.200 --> 1:30:04.000 became rigid. An attending physician announced he was not dead. 1:30:04.600 --> 1:30:07.840 Kemeler started to drool and a second jolt was ordered. 1:30:08.320 --> 1:30:11.800 Kemler started burning alive, and this time white smoke rose 1:30:11.840 --> 1:30:14.560 in the air, filling the room with what witnesses described 1:30:14.600 --> 1:30:17.160 as a quote pungent and sickening odor. 1:30:18.080 --> 1:30:22.600 Afterward, Westinghouse said of Kemmler's agonizing death, they would have 1:30:22.600 --> 1:30:26.360 done better with an axe. The mayhem didn't matter. An 1:30:26.479 --> 1:30:31.040 Edison's plot failed. New York officials considered the electrocution a 1:30:31.120 --> 1:30:33.960 success and stuck with the method for decades to come. 1:30:34.479 --> 1:30:37.439 Twenty six other states adopted the electric chair as a 1:30:37.479 --> 1:30:40.720 method of execution. Kemler's death would be the first of 1:30:40.840 --> 1:30:44.760 many so called botched executions over the next century. As 1:30:44.800 --> 1:30:49.440 Austen Sarat wrote in Gruesome Spectacles, eighty of the executions 1:30:49.439 --> 1:30:52.160 gone awry in the next century involved the electric chair, 1:30:52.520 --> 1:30:56.479 with the failures involving, as he wrote, mechanical breakdowns, others 1:30:56.520 --> 1:30:59.800 resulting in fire, smoke, the smell of burning flesh, and 1:30:59.840 --> 1:31:02.200 a prolonged period from the start to the completion. 1:31:03.160 --> 1:31:09.000 Sometimes the executed person's eyes popped out during electrocution. After death, 1:31:09.360 --> 1:31:12.320 the bodies of those electrocuted remained so hot that prison 1:31:12.320 --> 1:31:15.240 guards often got blisters if they touched the body too soon. 1:31:16.000 --> 1:31:19.559 In nineteen twenty three, a man named FG. Bullen would 1:31:19.560 --> 1:31:22.439 be one of four executed in Arkansas on the same day. 1:31:23.120 --> 1:31:25.920 Prison officials actually placed him in a casket, thinking he 1:31:26.000 --> 1:31:28.960 was dead when a guard noticed he was still breathing. 1:31:29.720 --> 1:31:32.720 Bullen was then carried back to the chair and electrocuted 1:31:32.720 --> 1:31:35.520 a second time, this time successfully. 1:31:36.520 --> 1:31:39.240 Before the start of the twentieth century, critics knew that 1:31:39.280 --> 1:31:42.920 both hanging and the electric chair were exercises in barbarity. 1:31:43.760 --> 1:31:47.439 In the Lone Star State, Fernand Eugene Daniel, the editor 1:31:47.479 --> 1:31:50.320 of the Texas Medical Journal, was an advocate of eugenics 1:31:51.080 --> 1:31:54.320 an opponent of capital punishment. He argued that cashtrating men 1:31:54.640 --> 1:31:56.960 from families with criminal histories would be a way to 1:31:57.000 --> 1:32:00.559 prevent criminals from being born in the first place. Cash 1:32:00.600 --> 1:32:04.400 straining criminals as more Eumane said than a hanging or 1:32:04.479 --> 1:32:08.280 electrocuting their children when those offspring inevitably turned to a 1:32:08.320 --> 1:32:12.360 life of crime. Daniel accepted that executions would take place 1:32:12.400 --> 1:32:15.160 for the foreseeable future, say one to make the death 1:32:15.200 --> 1:32:19.320 penalty a vehicle for medical research instead of hanging or 1:32:19.320 --> 1:32:23.320 electrocuting prisoners. Daniel suggested in a nineteen oh six issue 1:32:23.360 --> 1:32:26.280 of the Texas Medical Journal that the state should sedate 1:32:26.320 --> 1:32:31.160 them and, while unconscious, subject them to medical experiments. Quote 1:32:31.680 --> 1:32:35.400 inject into him various disease germs. Watched their progress and 1:32:35.479 --> 1:32:38.400 went through with him. Inject about ten drops of prussic 1:32:38.479 --> 1:32:40.840 acid into the veins of his arms, and he will 1:32:40.880 --> 1:32:45.479 die a painless death, Daniel wrote. Doctor Joseph Mengel and 1:32:45.640 --> 1:32:49.200 other Nazi scientists would conduct similar experiments a little more 1:32:49.240 --> 1:32:52.920 than three decades later. But as Professor Laine explained to us, 1:32:53.280 --> 1:32:56.360 Even before doctor Daniel made his disturbing suggestion in the 1:32:56.400 --> 1:32:59.840 Texas Medical Journal, doctors knew that death by levial and 1:32:59.840 --> 1:33:02.840 injection would be a horrifying experience. 1:33:03.080 --> 1:33:08.639 When states turned from hanging to the electric chair. This 1:33:08.680 --> 1:33:12.960 is back in eighteen ninety. There was actually a study. 1:33:13.200 --> 1:33:17.920 There was actually a report that recommended the electric chair, 1:33:18.600 --> 1:33:23.759 and that report actually considered death by drugs a lethal injection. 1:33:24.520 --> 1:33:28.280 And in that report they said, we considered and rejected this, 1:33:29.120 --> 1:33:34.040 and they had two reasons. One was anatomical difficulties. 1:33:34.720 --> 1:33:38.600 Professor Lane noted that even in the nineteenth century, doctors 1:33:38.640 --> 1:33:42.000 knew that the criminal population had a higher tendency towards 1:33:42.080 --> 1:33:45.439 drug abuse and poor health that would make it difficult 1:33:45.479 --> 1:33:48.160 to access a vein with a needle in order to 1:33:48.200 --> 1:33:53.000 deliver lethal chemicals. Also, even a century ago, doctors were 1:33:53.080 --> 1:33:56.759 queasy about involvement and executions that violate the Hippocratic Oath, 1:33:57.200 --> 1:33:59.680 which says, in part I will do no harm or 1:33:59.720 --> 1:34:02.680 in jau this the patients or quote and minister a 1:34:02.840 --> 1:34:06.639 poison to anyone when asked to do so, Nor will 1:34:06.680 --> 1:34:10.280 I suggest such a course. Professor Lane noted that a 1:34:10.320 --> 1:34:15.040 government commission studying lethal injection late nineteenth century. Prophetically said 1:34:15.080 --> 1:34:17.920 that not only would the medical conditions of prisoners be 1:34:18.000 --> 1:34:21.759 an issue, but so would the likely refusal of doctors 1:34:21.760 --> 1:34:25.360 that take part because of ethical concerns. This could mean 1:34:25.360 --> 1:34:28.440 that lethal injection would be carried out byameters. 1:34:29.400 --> 1:34:36.240 So you know, these people have notoriously bad things. They 1:34:36.360 --> 1:34:39.799 are elderly, they are of poor health, they are often 1:34:39.880 --> 1:34:43.040 former drug users. You know, how did we know this 1:34:43.280 --> 1:34:48.120 in eighteen ninety and didn't think about this in nineteen 1:34:48.160 --> 1:34:51.639 seventy seven. But that was one reason. The other reason 1:34:51.920 --> 1:34:54.479 was they said, we're not going to be able to 1:34:54.520 --> 1:34:57.200 do this without the medical profession. We're not going to 1:34:57.240 --> 1:35:01.040 be able to do it competently. And this sustained and 1:35:01.200 --> 1:35:06.320 strong opposition of the medical profession makes this not viable. 1:35:07.400 --> 1:35:10.280 There were other less popular alternatives to hanging in the 1:35:10.280 --> 1:35:13.760 electric chair in the nineteen hundreds. In nineteen twenty four, 1:35:13.960 --> 1:35:16.479 Nevada became the first state to execute someone in a 1:35:16.520 --> 1:35:20.839 gas chamber. Again, the euthanasia of straight pets and animal 1:35:20.840 --> 1:35:24.960 shelters provided a model for human executions, and again there 1:35:25.000 --> 1:35:28.600 were a lot of problems. Prisoners resisted breathing in the 1:35:28.600 --> 1:35:32.920 poisonous gas, and this natural resistance slowed their deaths. The 1:35:32.920 --> 1:35:35.960 big spaces and gas chambers often limited the effectiveness of 1:35:36.000 --> 1:35:39.320 the poison gas, and in the earliest such executions, the 1:35:39.400 --> 1:35:42.719 chambers themselves sometimes leaked, putting witnesses in danger. 1:35:43.520 --> 1:35:46.680 As with the electric chair death penalty. Advocates claimed that 1:35:46.720 --> 1:35:50.040 the modern technology had provided a guilt free method for 1:35:50.080 --> 1:35:53.320 the government to kill people. The reality couldn't be farther 1:35:53.400 --> 1:35:58.160 from the truth. Doctor Richard Traitsman from John Hopkins University 1:35:58.200 --> 1:36:02.520 School of Medicine wrote, quote, the person is unquestionably experiencing 1:36:02.600 --> 1:36:06.280 pain and extreme anxiety. The sensation is similar to the 1:36:06.280 --> 1:36:08.840 pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where 1:36:08.920 --> 1:36:11.240 essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen. 1:36:12.080 --> 1:36:16.400 Eleven states, including California, eventually adopted death by poisoned gas 1:36:16.400 --> 1:36:20.519 as their preferred method of execution, but witnesses consistently reported 1:36:20.560 --> 1:36:25.200 the condemn seemed to die accontizing struggling deaths in which 1:36:25.240 --> 1:36:30.559 they convulsed and wretched and sometimes screamed. In nineteen sixty, 1:36:30.760 --> 1:36:35.000 California executed Carol Chessman, a convicted rapist who authored numerous 1:36:35.000 --> 1:36:38.920 acclaimed books. While on death row. Before his execution, Chessman 1:36:38.960 --> 1:36:41.559 told reporters who would witness his death that he would 1:36:41.640 --> 1:36:44.639 nod his head if he was experiencing physical pain while 1:36:44.640 --> 1:36:48.200 he was gased. Reporters said that Chessman indeed nodded his 1:36:48.280 --> 1:36:51.439 head multiple times as he choked in the poison fumes. 1:36:52.280 --> 1:36:55.000 By the time at Chessman's death, the United States was 1:36:55.120 --> 1:36:58.320 less than a decade from the longest pause and executions 1:36:58.600 --> 1:37:03.599 in its history. Numerous judicial challenges the capital punishment, based 1:37:03.640 --> 1:37:08.599 on numerous racial biases, police misconduct, and other issues, resulted 1:37:08.640 --> 1:37:12.080 in a de facto moratorium on executions by the mid 1:37:12.160 --> 1:37:16.160 nineteen sixties. That issue was the obvious racism of the 1:37:16.160 --> 1:37:20.000 death penalty, including who was charged with capital crimes and 1:37:20.040 --> 1:37:24.440 who ended up the target of state killing. As Brian Stevenson, 1:37:24.560 --> 1:37:27.280 a New York University law professor and the founder and 1:37:27.320 --> 1:37:31.120 executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, explained in two 1:37:31.160 --> 1:37:32.520 thousand and seven. 1:37:32.400 --> 1:37:35.679 In the United States, we are struggling with capital punishment 1:37:35.760 --> 1:37:36.720 and its implementation. 1:37:37.520 --> 1:37:39.000 A short quick legal history. 1:37:39.000 --> 1:37:41.400 In nineteen seventy two, the United States Supreme Court struck 1:37:41.479 --> 1:37:44.680 down the death penalty after recognizing that it was being 1:37:44.720 --> 1:37:48.519 applied in an arbitrary manner. The Court in seventy two 1:37:48.600 --> 1:37:51.479 noted that eighty seven percent of the people executed for 1:37:51.479 --> 1:37:54.320 the crime of rape were black men convicted of raping 1:37:54.400 --> 1:37:57.680 white women. One hundred percent of the people executed in 1:37:57.720 --> 1:38:00.800 the United States between nineteen thirty and nineteen seventy two 1:38:00.840 --> 1:38:03.920 for the crime of rape were executed for offenses involving 1:38:04.000 --> 1:38:06.880 victims who were white, even though it was believed that 1:38:06.920 --> 1:38:09.120 women of color were three times as likely to be 1:38:09.160 --> 1:38:10.920 the victims of sexual assault. 1:38:11.720 --> 1:38:14.920 That racism would play a major factor in the largest 1:38:14.920 --> 1:38:17.879 pause and executions in the history of the American death penalty. 1:38:18.560 --> 1:38:23.360 The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund in the ACLU filed challenges 1:38:23.400 --> 1:38:27.080 to the death penalty based on racial bias across the country, 1:38:27.080 --> 1:38:31.800 and these legal teams won numerous stays of execution. As 1:38:31.840 --> 1:38:35.719 Harvard law professor Kel Steiker observed in a YouTube video, 1:38:36.120 --> 1:38:39.000 a de facto ban of executions had taken place by 1:38:39.000 --> 1:38:40.360 the late nineteen sixties. 1:38:40.479 --> 1:38:43.759 The death penalty was in decline already in the nineteen 1:38:43.840 --> 1:38:46.599 sixties in the United States, as it was in Europe, 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:51.920 but the ldf's litigation campaign brought it to a complete halt. 1:38:52.520 --> 1:38:55.840 So from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy two in 1:38:55.880 --> 1:38:58.760 the five years prior to the decision in firm And 1:38:58.840 --> 1:39:03.320 versus Georgia, there were no executions in the United States. 1:39:04.680 --> 1:39:09.320 Three death penalty cases, Furman versus Georgia, Jackson Versus. Georgia, 1:39:09.640 --> 1:39:12.920 and Branch versus Texas, reached the United States Supreme Court 1:39:13.120 --> 1:39:16.759 and were consolidated in nineteen seventy two. All three defendants 1:39:16.760 --> 1:39:19.760 were African American, and Jackson and Branch were charged with 1:39:19.840 --> 1:39:23.599 raping white women. As previously noted, no white man had 1:39:23.600 --> 1:39:26.280 ever been executed for the rape of an African American 1:39:26.320 --> 1:39:30.080 woman or child in American history. In June nineteen seventy two, 1:39:30.160 --> 1:39:32.759 the US Supreme Court issued a five to four decision 1:39:33.080 --> 1:39:35.800 in Furman v. Georgia, ruling that defendants received the death 1:39:35.840 --> 1:39:38.720 penalty in such a fashion that capital punishment as then 1:39:38.760 --> 1:39:41.480 practiced was unconstitutional. 1:39:41.160 --> 1:39:43.680 So that there didn't seem to be any rhyme or 1:39:43.720 --> 1:39:46.519 reason to it. To use the words that they used, 1:39:47.040 --> 1:39:54.040 it was wantonly and freakishly imposed. The immediate aftermath of 1:39:54.120 --> 1:39:58.760 Furman was dramatic. Everyone who had been sentenced to death, 1:39:58.760 --> 1:40:01.080 and there were some six hundred dred Ish people on 1:40:01.200 --> 1:40:04.000 death row at the time of the Firman litigation. All 1:40:04.040 --> 1:40:07.240 had their death penalties invalidated, so they were all sent 1:40:07.360 --> 1:40:09.719 to the general population. They had to be re sentenced 1:40:09.720 --> 1:40:14.000 to a sentence other than death. Moreover, when the Supreme 1:40:14.040 --> 1:40:17.200 Court struck down the death penalty as it then existed, 1:40:17.600 --> 1:40:21.439 anyone whose death sentence was pending that case had to 1:40:21.439 --> 1:40:24.440 be dropped. Because those statutes were no longer. 1:40:24.200 --> 1:40:29.400 Valid, No executions took place for another four years. The 1:40:29.439 --> 1:40:33.640 Supreme Court had ruled executions were unconstitutional when the instructions 1:40:33.680 --> 1:40:37.240 juries were given in capital cases were too vague. This 1:40:37.320 --> 1:40:40.240 gave states like Texas a chance to rewrite their death 1:40:40.280 --> 1:40:44.360 penalty laws. By nineteen seventy six, thirty five states had 1:40:44.360 --> 1:40:48.680 adopted new statues addressing the issues raised in furmin On 1:40:48.800 --> 1:40:53.000 July second, nineteen seventy six, in its greg versus Georgia decision, 1:40:53.400 --> 1:40:56.679 the Supreme Court, by a seven to two margin, upheld 1:40:56.680 --> 1:40:59.360 the death penalty. In states like Texas, where the Court 1:40:59.400 --> 1:41:03.479 found its rein instructions were clear and specific, the death 1:41:03.520 --> 1:41:06.719 penalty were set to resume after a decade long pause. 1:41:07.680 --> 1:41:09.960 It took a mere one hundred and ninety nine days 1:41:10.000 --> 1:41:14.280 for state killing to resume. Utah executed a murderer, Gary 1:41:14.280 --> 1:41:19.479 Gilmore by firing squad on January seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven. 1:41:20.800 --> 1:41:24.639 The extreme violence of Gilmore's execution, which inspired in nineteen 1:41:24.640 --> 1:41:27.760 seventy nine Pultzer Prize winning journalism based novel called The 1:41:27.800 --> 1:41:31.479 Executioner's Song, sparked a renewed debate over the brutality of 1:41:31.479 --> 1:41:36.240 capital punishment and whether it's compatible with modern society. Nevertheless, 1:41:36.240 --> 1:41:39.520 the state of Oklahoma charged ahead, but they faced a problem. 1:41:39.880 --> 1:41:43.519 As Professor Lane writes, the Oklahoma electric Chair was falling 1:41:43.560 --> 1:41:47.519 apart and needed to be repaired. But by the nineteen seventies, 1:41:47.840 --> 1:41:50.200 many legislators were put off by the brutality of that 1:41:50.280 --> 1:41:53.200 execution method and sought something more modern. 1:41:54.200 --> 1:41:58.479 Meanwhile, a Dallas television reporter, Tony Garrett, filed suit to 1:41:58.520 --> 1:42:02.799 allow television cameras to film executions, and a federal district 1:42:02.840 --> 1:42:07.960 court granted a preliminary injunction in the reporter's favor. That 1:42:08.000 --> 1:42:12.120 injunction was later overturned, but politicians across the country were 1:42:12.200 --> 1:42:15.080 unnerved as a prospect of the public watching a man 1:42:15.240 --> 1:42:18.240 essentially burn alive in their names and what that could 1:42:18.280 --> 1:42:20.000 do to support for the death penalty. 1:42:20.560 --> 1:42:22.000 It was at this time that a member of the 1:42:22.040 --> 1:42:25.559 Oklahoma legislature approached the medical community and asked them for 1:42:25.640 --> 1:42:29.080 help and designing a new protocol for death by lethal injection. 1:42:29.840 --> 1:42:32.960 Politicians thought prisoners could be put to sleep permanently like 1:42:33.120 --> 1:42:38.160 veterinarians euthanizing animals, but doctors wanted nothing to do with 1:42:38.280 --> 1:42:42.120 killing people. That's when Oklahoma State corner doctor J. Chapman 1:42:42.240 --> 1:42:45.599 stepped in. Referring to the physicians who refused to help, 1:42:45.640 --> 1:42:48.360 he said, quote, to hell with them, Let's do this. 1:42:49.200 --> 1:42:51.160 Professor Lane explained what happened next. 1:42:51.920 --> 1:42:58.439 I document in the book legislators talking about, how, you know, 1:42:58.720 --> 1:43:00.760 I don't know that the country's going to want to 1:43:00.800 --> 1:43:02.120 see this sort of violence. 1:43:02.160 --> 1:43:04.320 All we've got is the electric chair, all we've got 1:43:04.400 --> 1:43:07.080 is the gas chamber. People are going to be, you know, 1:43:07.200 --> 1:43:11.080 queasy about this, and we need to find a different way. 1:43:11.920 --> 1:43:16.280 And unknown to many, or at least I appreciate it, 1:43:16.320 --> 1:43:19.519 is the fact that a federal court had recognized at 1:43:19.520 --> 1:43:25.439 the time a First Amendment right to televise executions. Now 1:43:25.560 --> 1:43:29.000 it wouldn't last, but nobody could have known that. And 1:43:29.080 --> 1:43:32.040 so one of the things I also found was state 1:43:32.120 --> 1:43:35.360 legislators talking about, gosh, we can't you know, we can't 1:43:35.360 --> 1:43:39.599 have an electrocution in someone's living room, right. The public 1:43:39.680 --> 1:43:42.439 is not going to go for this, and so they 1:43:42.479 --> 1:43:44.920 were looking for a different way. They talked about, you 1:43:44.920 --> 1:43:48.479 know what about a death by drugs? And they are 1:43:48.960 --> 1:43:52.679 asking the state Medical Association, they're asking their personal doctors, 1:43:52.720 --> 1:43:56.280 they're asking everybody they can find. No one wants to play, 1:43:57.200 --> 1:44:00.559 but they get to and this is in Oklahoma. They 1:44:00.600 --> 1:44:05.200 get to the state Medical Examiner, doctor J. Chapman, and 1:44:05.520 --> 1:44:10.120 he refers to himself as an expert in tet bodies, 1:44:10.160 --> 1:44:11.880 but not in how to get them that way. 1:44:12.640 --> 1:44:15.960 In spite of his self confessed ignorance, Chapman made up 1:44:16.080 --> 1:44:19.479 at of thin air, a three drug protocol that would 1:44:19.479 --> 1:44:22.000 be used in executions across the country for the next 1:44:22.000 --> 1:44:25.880 three decades. Initially, he proposed a two drug protocol, but 1:44:25.960 --> 1:44:29.000 decided that if two drugs were deadly, three would be 1:44:29.080 --> 1:44:35.200 even more lethal. Chapman's cocktail included in order sodium theopental, 1:44:35.560 --> 1:44:39.240 which was designed to kill like a barbituate overduse pan, 1:44:39.320 --> 1:44:44.120 coronium bromide, which paralyzes the diaphragm in order to stop breathing, 1:44:44.560 --> 1:44:48.479 and potassium chloride, which was intended to cause a cardiac arrest. 1:44:49.120 --> 1:44:52.639 Chapman admitted he did no research into these drugs or 1:44:52.880 --> 1:44:55.280 into how they interacted with each other, and neither did 1:44:55.280 --> 1:44:58.720 the State of Oklahoma when they adopted this procedure. Despite this, 1:44:59.200 --> 1:45:01.479 Chapman's method of execution would come to be used by 1:45:01.520 --> 1:45:04.960 every single state that had the death penalty. Laine described 1:45:04.960 --> 1:45:07.760 her shock when she came across interviews with Chapman, who 1:45:07.760 --> 1:45:11.680 seemed completely glib about what prisoners might experience under this 1:45:11.960 --> 1:45:12.840 execution method. 1:45:13.479 --> 1:45:18.040 And I later came across an interview of him where 1:45:18.080 --> 1:45:20.920 they asked, you know, how did you come up with 1:45:20.960 --> 1:45:24.679 a three drug protocol that every state used, every single 1:45:24.720 --> 1:45:29.320 state for thirty five forty years, And he said, I 1:45:29.320 --> 1:45:32.680 didn't do any research. I just thought about what might 1:45:32.720 --> 1:45:36.360 be useful, what you might need. You wanted two drugs 1:45:36.479 --> 1:45:38.400 so that if one didn't kill him, the other did. 1:45:39.280 --> 1:45:42.080 And then the interviewer said, well, why did you add 1:45:42.120 --> 1:45:45.320 a third drug? And he said, why not? I didn't 1:45:45.320 --> 1:45:47.479 do any research. Why does it matter why. 1:45:47.320 --> 1:45:47.920 I chose it? 1:45:49.760 --> 1:45:53.960 So he makes it up and the state of Oklahoma 1:45:54.520 --> 1:45:59.160 adopts it basically in an afternoon. No expert testimony, no 1:45:59.280 --> 1:46:04.120 committee here rings, no review of the medical science, veterinary 1:46:04.160 --> 1:46:09.720 literature nothing, and it takes hold and all of the 1:46:09.800 --> 1:46:13.680 other states blindly follow it. 1:46:13.680 --> 1:46:16.280 It's possible Chapman may not have cared, but if he 1:46:16.320 --> 1:46:18.200 had done any research, you would have found that the 1:46:18.240 --> 1:46:22.040 components of his three drug protocol worked at cross purposes. 1:46:22.920 --> 1:46:26.879 Anesthesiologists believe that the amountain speed at which the sodium 1:46:26.920 --> 1:46:31.439 theopentol is administered does not produce an anesthetic effect deep 1:46:31.560 --> 1:46:34.240 enough for the executed prisoner to be unaware of what's 1:46:34.280 --> 1:46:38.719 happening to them. Meanwhile, the sodian theopentol also slows down 1:46:38.760 --> 1:46:43.519 blood circulation so dramatically that it depresses the effectiveness of 1:46:43.560 --> 1:46:47.519 the potassium chloride, causing those receiving the drug to suffer 1:46:47.600 --> 1:46:50.599 a racing heart but not have a fatal heart attack. 1:46:51.200 --> 1:46:54.600 The combined effect, in many cases is a slow suffocation 1:46:55.120 --> 1:46:58.960 that involves pulmonary edema, the technical term for fluid in 1:46:59.000 --> 1:47:04.320 the lungs in essence with lethal injection. States slowly drowned. 1:47:04.320 --> 1:47:07.840 The paralyzed who struggle but are unable to cry for help. 1:47:08.439 --> 1:47:11.600 When lethal injections have not gone according to plan, the 1:47:11.680 --> 1:47:15.800 execution sometimes last hours. The agonizing deaths hidden from the 1:47:15.840 --> 1:47:16.639 general public. 1:47:17.520 --> 1:47:20.280 Some states have recently abandoned the three drug protocol, but 1:47:20.360 --> 1:47:23.120 not for humanitarian reasons. They've done so because of the 1:47:23.120 --> 1:47:26.000 difficulty of obtaining all of the drugs from pharmaceutical firms 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:30.599 that have resisted participating in capital punishment. As of this year, 1:47:31.120 --> 1:47:34.040 twenty four states provide for some form of lethal injection, 1:47:34.640 --> 1:47:38.000 and as previously mentioned, Texas launched the lethal injection era 1:47:38.120 --> 1:47:41.120 in nineteen eighty two with the execution of Charlie Brooks. 1:47:41.880 --> 1:47:45.719 In the next episode, we'll discuss that execution. We'll discuss 1:47:45.760 --> 1:47:49.000 why lethal injections peaked in the nineties, how states got 1:47:49.040 --> 1:47:52.240 around resistance from drug companies that manufactured the chemicals used 1:47:52.280 --> 1:47:55.320 in the injections, how the medical profession has worked together 1:47:55.520 --> 1:47:59.400 to thwart this particularly American machinery of death, and how 1:47:59.479 --> 1:48:02.000 this is all all been a mixed blessing for the 1:48:02.040 --> 1:48:06.840 approximately two thousand, one hundred prisoners on death Row. I'm 1:48:06.840 --> 1:48:09.360 Stephen Monchelli for it could happen here. 1:48:09.560 --> 1:48:12.400 And until next time, I'm Michael Phillips. Thanks for listening. 1:48:24.240 --> 1:48:28.439 A warning this episode includes violent content which some listeners 1:48:28.520 --> 1:48:29.320 might find disturbing. 1:48:32.920 --> 1:48:35.320 I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a 1:48:35.400 --> 1:48:38.840 history of racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, and the 1:48:38.880 --> 1:48:42.479 co author with longtime journalist Betsy Freeoff, of the history 1:48:42.680 --> 1:48:45.479 of the eugenics in Texas called The Purifying Knife. 1:48:45.760 --> 1:48:49.200 And I'm Stephen Monchelli. I'm an investigative reporter who specializes 1:48:49.200 --> 1:48:52.320 in political extremism and far right internet culture, and I 1:48:52.320 --> 1:48:55.200 contribute to outlets like The Texas Observer, The barb Byer 1:48:55.520 --> 1:48:55.920 and more. 1:48:57.080 --> 1:49:00.559 In the last episode, we began exploring the shady history 1:49:00.880 --> 1:49:03.400 behind the most popular form of capital punishment in the 1:49:03.520 --> 1:49:08.000 United States, lethal injection. We described how one after another 1:49:08.280 --> 1:49:11.519 execution by hanging, then the electric chair, and then the 1:49:11.600 --> 1:49:16.120 gash chamber was tatted's cleanest, quickest, most modern, painless way 1:49:16.160 --> 1:49:19.639 to put a person to death. Each method, however, proved 1:49:19.680 --> 1:49:23.800 more violent and gruesome than previously expected. In order to 1:49:23.800 --> 1:49:27.000 prevent a ground swell of opposition to the death penalty, 1:49:27.320 --> 1:49:32.200 politicians responded by abolishing public executions in the nineteen seventies 1:49:32.280 --> 1:49:36.000 latched on to lethal injection as the newest, gentlest, and 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:37.880 kindest method of state killing. 1:49:38.280 --> 1:49:41.320 I discussed in the first episode. The lethal injection protocol 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:45.320 was designed by an Oklahoma corner doctor Stephen Crawford, who 1:49:45.320 --> 1:49:47.400 once admitted to an interview with that although he was 1:49:47.400 --> 1:49:49.600 an expert in dead bodies, he didn't know how to 1:49:49.600 --> 1:49:53.760 get him that way. Authorities turned to Crawford because doctors 1:49:53.800 --> 1:49:57.720 who dealt with living bodies wanted nothing to do with executions, 1:49:58.200 --> 1:50:00.880 So Crawford designed a three drug protocol off for executions 1:50:00.880 --> 1:50:02.519 that he made up pretty much out of thin air, 1:50:02.880 --> 1:50:05.200 reasoning that if one deadly drug was good for killing, 1:50:05.200 --> 1:50:08.160 then three drugs would be even better. The problem was 1:50:08.200 --> 1:50:10.960 that the three drugs counteract each other and would result 1:50:11.080 --> 1:50:14.960 in longer executions and in deaths that resembled slow drowning. 1:50:15.760 --> 1:50:18.720 Crawford did no homework, and neither did the more than 1:50:18.800 --> 1:50:22.599 thirty states that eventually adopted lethal injection as the preferred 1:50:22.640 --> 1:50:26.320 method of execution. This occurred after the Supreme Court brought 1:50:26.320 --> 1:50:29.080 the death penalty back to life with its nineteen seventy 1:50:29.160 --> 1:50:33.559 six greg versus Georgia decision. Following a ten year pause, 1:50:34.479 --> 1:50:37.120 it would not be until December seventh, nineteen eighty two, 1:50:37.680 --> 1:50:40.360 the state of Texas carried out the first execution by 1:50:40.479 --> 1:50:43.400 lethal injection in the world. In this episode, we'll talk 1:50:43.439 --> 1:50:46.800 to a journalist, Dick Revis, who witnessed brokes execution. 1:50:47.840 --> 1:50:51.479 One thing I noticed was that there were half a 1:50:51.520 --> 1:50:56.160 dozen or more loanmen in there who had on cowboy hats. 1:50:56.720 --> 1:51:00.439 They did not remove that Charlie was killed, and I 1:51:00.520 --> 1:51:04.840 also thought that wasn't quite right. But in any case, 1:51:05.800 --> 1:51:10.400 I don't recall any anybody saying anything. We were silent 1:51:10.600 --> 1:51:13.400 while all of this was going on. 1:51:14.520 --> 1:51:14.680 And. 1:51:16.280 --> 1:51:21.400 Charlie only spoke to say, allow what water? And he 1:51:21.760 --> 1:51:25.559 was dying when that happened. It was obvious that he 1:51:25.640 --> 1:51:26.679 was scared to death. 1:51:27.920 --> 1:51:31.920 Revis told us that Brooks, as he recalled it, seemingly 1:51:32.000 --> 1:51:35.599 drifted off to sleep. But that's not all that may 1:51:35.600 --> 1:51:39.160 have been occurring. According to Professor Karina Lane, the author 1:51:39.240 --> 1:51:41.759 of the recently published book Secrets of the Killing State, 1:51:42.240 --> 1:51:45.240 who you heard from in the first episode, something very 1:51:45.280 --> 1:51:46.519 different was likely going. 1:51:46.439 --> 1:51:48.160 On in Brooks's mind and body. 1:51:48.880 --> 1:51:54.000 According to Lane, Brooks was slowly suffocating. Medical experts, Lane said, 1:51:54.040 --> 1:51:56.479 believe that those executed with legal injections are often not 1:51:56.560 --> 1:52:00.000 fully unconscious, and that the paralytic drugs fed into their 1:52:00.120 --> 1:52:03.559 veins prevent them from fully communicating their suffering, even as 1:52:03.600 --> 1:52:04.479 they may be aware of it. 1:52:04.840 --> 1:52:10.000 The courts that have heard this medical testimony. There was 1:52:10.000 --> 1:52:13.760 a court in Ohio and said, yeah, you know, all 1:52:13.800 --> 1:52:17.880 of the medical experts are describing acute pulmonary edema as 1:52:17.920 --> 1:52:22.080 a drowning from within. It is you can't catch your breath, 1:52:22.160 --> 1:52:24.719 You've got fluid coming into your lungs, and you can't 1:52:24.720 --> 1:52:28.400 do anything about it. And the court said, you know, 1:52:28.720 --> 1:52:32.400 this is the sensation akin to waterboarding. You know, we're 1:52:32.439 --> 1:52:35.400 waterboarding people to death. That's what we're actually doing. 1:52:36.479 --> 1:52:39.360 In this episode, we'll also talk about how the modern 1:52:39.400 --> 1:52:42.960 death penalty peaked in the nineteen nineties and why pressure 1:52:42.960 --> 1:52:46.600 from drug manufacturers and activists led not only to a 1:52:46.640 --> 1:52:50.240 decline in executions, but the revival in some states of 1:52:50.320 --> 1:52:53.519 some very old forms of execution, such as the electra 1:52:53.680 --> 1:52:55.600 chair and the firing squad. 1:52:56.200 --> 1:52:59.240 It's a fascinating but often frightening story, and one that 1:52:59.280 --> 1:53:02.400 will have to continue after perhaps less scripping messages from 1:53:02.479 --> 1:53:11.960 our sponsors. 1:53:13.920 --> 1:53:16.640 Big changes came to the death penalty in Texas in 1:53:16.720 --> 1:53:20.760 nineteen twenty three. Before then, hangings were carried out by 1:53:20.800 --> 1:53:23.840 sheriffs and the counties where the murderers, rapes, and other 1:53:23.880 --> 1:53:27.439 crimes committed by the prisoner took place. Many of the 1:53:27.479 --> 1:53:31.160 sheriffs were inexperience, and hanging and goring mishaps took place. 1:53:31.720 --> 1:53:35.519 Texas last public execution unfolded in August thirty first, nineteen 1:53:35.560 --> 1:53:39.240 twenty three, when African American Nathan Lee was hanged before 1:53:39.240 --> 1:53:43.599 one hundred and fifty spectators in Brazoria County. From nineteen 1:53:43.680 --> 1:53:47.320 hundred to nineteen twenty, close to seventy percent of the 1:53:47.320 --> 1:53:50.080 inmates executed in Texas were African American. 1:53:50.960 --> 1:53:53.880 In nineteen twenty three, Texas sought to modernize and bring 1:53:53.920 --> 1:53:58.200 industrial efficiency to state killing. All executions henceforth would be 1:53:58.240 --> 1:54:01.479 carried out at the state prison in Huntsville, and prisoners 1:54:01.479 --> 1:54:04.880 would die in an electric chair. Locals gave it a 1:54:04.880 --> 1:54:08.680 glib name, Old Sparky. The state's new killing machine, got 1:54:08.680 --> 1:54:11.800 a workout the day it debuted February eighth, nineteen twenty five. 1:54:12.439 --> 1:54:16.880 Texas executed five prisoners that day, all black men. Between 1:54:16.880 --> 1:54:19.880 that date and July thirtieth, nineteen sixty four, when the 1:54:19.920 --> 1:54:23.960 state electrocuted Joseph Johnson, a man convicted of fatally shooting 1:54:24.240 --> 1:54:27.439 store owner during a robbery, Texas sent three hundred and 1:54:27.479 --> 1:54:31.639 sixty one inmates to the electric chair. African Americans made 1:54:31.680 --> 1:54:34.200 up sixty three percent of the prisoners who died in 1:54:34.200 --> 1:54:36.920 that chair, while seventy percent of those who died in 1:54:36.960 --> 1:54:41.120 the electric chair were Mexican American. Texas politicians insisted that 1:54:41.160 --> 1:54:44.760 their tough on crime policies served as a deterrent, but 1:54:44.880 --> 1:54:47.840 in fact, from nineteen thirty three to nineteen sixty four, 1:54:48.400 --> 1:54:51.919 the year Joseph Johnson was executed, the murdery in Texas 1:54:52.120 --> 1:54:55.680 was twelve point seven per one hundred thousand people, the 1:54:55.760 --> 1:54:59.280 eighth highest in the United States. Nevertheless, Texas leaders have 1:54:59.360 --> 1:55:02.400 continued to justify the death penalty in spite of its 1:55:02.600 --> 1:55:06.080 seemingly negligible impact on the state's violent culture, and the 1:55:06.160 --> 1:55:09.960 violence of capital punishment was about performative toughness, not about 1:55:10.000 --> 1:55:13.600 stopping future murders. As a reporter who witnessed a hanging 1:55:13.720 --> 1:55:16.640 laments in the film In Cold Blood and. 1:55:16.560 --> 1:55:22.440 Then next one, next year, same thing will happen again, 1:55:24.000 --> 1:55:25.320 maybe this would help to stop it. 1:55:27.200 --> 1:55:28.040 Never had. 1:55:29.040 --> 1:55:32.920 After Johnson, Texas didn't execute another inmate for eighteen years. 1:55:33.720 --> 1:55:37.600 Following the Greg versus Georgia decision, Texas faced a potential 1:55:37.960 --> 1:55:43.360 public relations disaster. As we mentioned last episode, Dallas television 1:55:43.400 --> 1:55:47.080 reporter Tony Garrett filed suit to allow television cameras to 1:55:47.120 --> 1:55:51.520 film executions, and a federal district court ranted a preliminary 1:55:51.520 --> 1:55:56.200 injunction in the reporter's favor. That injunction was later overturned. 1:55:56.200 --> 1:55:59.360 But under the Texas Capital Dome, there were was worry 1:55:59.480 --> 1:56:01.600 about well, so it happened to support for the death 1:56:01.640 --> 1:56:06.960 penalty if an electrocution was broadcast live. The legislator who 1:56:07.000 --> 1:56:10.280 wrote Texas new death penalty law to greg decision said 1:56:10.320 --> 1:56:13.560 he was quote repulsed by the idea of an electrocution 1:56:13.720 --> 1:56:17.760 taking place in someone's living room. Lethal injection, as Professor 1:56:17.840 --> 1:56:21.160 Lane had put it, had visual appeal because it would 1:56:21.200 --> 1:56:24.960 resemble healthful medical procedures and because quote states have been 1:56:25.000 --> 1:56:28.960 euthanizing pets with pentode barbital since the nineteen thirties. 1:56:29.800 --> 1:56:32.440 Animals are typically put to sleep with a two drug protocol, 1:56:32.840 --> 1:56:35.600 first a sedative and then the drug that does the deed. 1:56:36.160 --> 1:56:38.240 But the three drug protocol that would be adopted by 1:56:38.240 --> 1:56:41.280 most states that allowed capital punishment produced to nightmarish results 1:56:41.440 --> 1:56:44.920 that were typically invisible to witnesses. States typically allowed family 1:56:44.920 --> 1:56:47.400 members of the crime victim to attend executions, and the 1:56:47.400 --> 1:56:50.360 condemned also got to choose witnesses. In the early days 1:56:50.360 --> 1:56:54.680 of Texas' reborn death penalty, the state's populist Democratic Attorney General, 1:56:54.720 --> 1:56:57.480 Jim Mannix, liked to make a show of attending each execution, 1:56:58.280 --> 1:57:00.000 and though much of the death penalty process has been 1:57:00.080 --> 1:57:03.240 shrouded in secrecy, such as who is providing the lethal chemicals, 1:57:03.560 --> 1:57:07.320 states also allowed reporters to attend executions so that they 1:57:07.320 --> 1:57:09.240 could serve as the eyes and ears of the public. 1:57:10.080 --> 1:57:12.600 In his younger days, Dick Revis was the civil rights 1:57:12.680 --> 1:57:16.360 activist who served time in Alabama jail for his efforts 1:57:16.400 --> 1:57:20.840 to secure vetting rights for African Americans. Revis became a journalist, 1:57:20.880 --> 1:57:23.080 and by the early nineteen eighties he was a frequent 1:57:23.120 --> 1:57:28.080 contributor to Texas Monthly, one of the state's premier investigative publications. 1:57:28.920 --> 1:57:31.040 In nineteen eighty two, he got the chance to witness 1:57:31.080 --> 1:57:33.760 an event that had never happened in the United States 1:57:33.840 --> 1:57:37.200 or perhaps even the world. The Texas Department of Corrections 1:57:37.240 --> 1:57:40.920 would soon pioneer the use of lethal injection, although the 1:57:40.960 --> 1:57:43.560 first person to be put to death in this manner 1:57:43.640 --> 1:57:44.520 was still unclear. 1:57:45.480 --> 1:57:48.760 I recall the meeting with an editor, and they said 1:57:49.120 --> 1:57:52.800 somehow they told me that there's a lady at the capitol, 1:57:53.040 --> 1:57:56.240 or a lady and the government in Austin, which is 1:57:56.280 --> 1:57:58.760 where I was a living the land who was in 1:57:58.960 --> 1:58:04.680 charge of scheduling their execute shits. So I called her 1:58:04.760 --> 1:58:07.800 up and she said, well, she didn't have any album scheduled, 1:58:07.800 --> 1:58:10.840 but she could give me the names of it was 1:58:10.880 --> 1:58:16.720 either four or five people who would be first, and 1:58:17.440 --> 1:58:21.400 one of them who was candy Man, the fellow who 1:58:22.360 --> 1:58:26.880 poisoned his own child putting poisoned in a in some 1:58:27.080 --> 1:58:28.320 candy at Halloween. 1:58:29.120 --> 1:58:32.800 Revis is referring to Ronald Clark O'Brien, a Houston area 1:58:32.840 --> 1:58:37.000 optician who fell into debt. He was one hundred thousand 1:58:37.040 --> 1:58:40.000 dollars deep, so he bought a life insurance policy on 1:58:40.080 --> 1:58:42.720 his eight year old son and daughter before he prepared 1:58:42.720 --> 1:58:46.960 five pixie sticks poisoned with potassium cyanide, and on Halloween 1:58:47.080 --> 1:58:49.760 night in nineteen seventy four, he went trick or treating 1:58:49.760 --> 1:58:52.480 with his children, a neighbor and that man's two children. 1:58:53.040 --> 1:58:54.880 The group went to an abandoned house and knocked on 1:58:54.880 --> 1:58:57.280 the door, and when no one answered, O'Brien convinced the 1:58:57.320 --> 1:58:59.480 rest of the group to move on. He caught up 1:58:59.520 --> 1:59:01.720 with them later and claimed that someone had in fact 1:59:01.840 --> 1:59:04.640 answered the door, and then he handed out four of 1:59:04.680 --> 1:59:08.440 the poisoned candies to the children. When the O'Brien's returned home, 1:59:09.120 --> 1:59:12.440 the killer handed the fifth pixie stick to a neighborhood child. 1:59:12.840 --> 1:59:15.560 Later that night, O'Brien told his children that they could 1:59:15.640 --> 1:59:17.720 enjoy one candy from the evening, and he urged them 1:59:17.720 --> 1:59:21.120 to choose the pixie sticks. And when his child, Timothy 1:59:21.160 --> 1:59:24.600 complained the candy tasted bitter, O'Brien gave him kool aid 1:59:24.640 --> 1:59:28.520 to wash down the poison. Timothy started vomiting and died 1:59:28.640 --> 1:59:29.640 on the way to the hospital. 1:59:30.320 --> 1:59:32.600 None of the other children tried the poison candy. 1:59:32.640 --> 1:59:33.040 That night. 1:59:33.760 --> 1:59:37.160 O'Brien claimed that a malevolent stranger had poisoned the candy, 1:59:37.640 --> 1:59:41.560 and he sang at his son's funeral. His story fell apart, however, 1:59:41.680 --> 1:59:45.480 when the police discovered the life insurance policies, when O'Brien 1:59:45.520 --> 1:59:47.640 was unable to identify the house where he had been 1:59:47.640 --> 1:59:50.720 supposedly handed the pixie sticks, and when the cops found 1:59:50.720 --> 1:59:54.240 out that O'Brien had purchased cyanide from a chemical store 1:59:54.240 --> 1:59:57.600 in Houston. A jury sends him to death on June third, 1:59:57.680 --> 2:00:02.080 nineteen seventy five. The murder created a last day national legacy, 2:00:02.600 --> 2:00:05.640 sparking paranoia about the safety of trick or treating. 2:00:06.360 --> 2:00:09.320 State of Texas knew that executing O'Brien would be politically 2:00:09.320 --> 2:00:12.040 popular and would probably boost support for the death penalty. 2:00:12.800 --> 2:00:15.040 Not knowing which resident of Texas's death row would be 2:00:15.040 --> 2:00:18.000 strapped to the gurney first, REVUS ended up interviewing all 2:00:18.040 --> 2:00:19.720 but one inmate on the list he had been given. 2:00:20.440 --> 2:00:23.760 The appeals process, however, is unpredictable, and a fort Worth 2:00:23.800 --> 2:00:26.240 man known for most of his life as Charlie Brooks, 2:00:26.440 --> 2:00:28.600 would end up winning the dubious honor of being the 2:00:28.600 --> 2:00:31.240 first to be put to death by lethal injection. He 2:00:31.320 --> 2:00:33.120 was convicted for the fatal shooting of a twenty six 2:00:33.240 --> 2:00:37.120 year old mechanic, David Gregory, during a nineteen seventy six robbery. 2:00:37.760 --> 2:00:40.800 By the time REVS interviewed him, Brooks had converted to 2:00:40.960 --> 2:00:45.560 Islam and taken the name Sharif Achmad abdul Rahem. 2:00:46.120 --> 2:00:46.960 That is the name we. 2:00:46.960 --> 2:00:49.680 Will use referring to him for the rest of the episode. 2:00:50.080 --> 2:00:53.520 Abdul Raheem had committed the robbery with another man, Wouldy 2:00:53.680 --> 2:00:56.840 lords He posed to someone wanting to buy a used 2:00:56.920 --> 2:01:00.320 car and asked to take a test strive. Gregory agreed 2:01:00.360 --> 2:01:03.640 to ride with him. Abdul Rahem picked up Lordes. The 2:01:03.680 --> 2:01:06.680 pair through Gregory in a car trunk, drove him to 2:01:06.720 --> 2:01:10.000 a ramshackle motel, tied him to a chair, and taped 2:01:10.000 --> 2:01:13.800 his mouth shut. Abdul Raheem and Lordis accused each other 2:01:13.840 --> 2:01:17.360 of firing the fatal shot. No weapon was ever found. 2:01:17.520 --> 2:01:21.320 Lordis eventually received the death penalty, but after that was overturned, 2:01:21.880 --> 2:01:25.040 he reached an agreement with prosecutors and received a forty 2:01:25.120 --> 2:01:29.120 year sentence. He would end up serving only eleven. The 2:01:29.200 --> 2:01:32.200 disparity in sentencing is one of the defining features of 2:01:32.240 --> 2:01:35.760 how capital punishment is carried out, even after greg versus 2:01:35.760 --> 2:01:40.400 Georgia had supposedly addressed that issue. Shortly before his execution, 2:01:40.840 --> 2:01:44.800 Abdul Raheem insisted on his innocence, but according to Revis, 2:01:44.960 --> 2:01:48.120 the condemned man was lying. Revs described to us his 2:01:48.160 --> 2:01:51.720 relationship with Abdul Raheem aka Charlie Brooks. 2:01:52.120 --> 2:01:57.760 Charlie was very alert a test on his fate engaged. 2:01:58.600 --> 2:02:02.960 It was not moping around sad. He had a sense 2:02:03.000 --> 2:02:06.640 of humor. He told me in the first interview I 2:02:06.720 --> 2:02:12.200 had with him that he was innocent and that this 2:02:12.440 --> 2:02:17.560 was racial discrimination, that they executed more blacks than whites. 2:02:18.360 --> 2:02:21.360 And I told him, oh, what you want is for 2:02:21.480 --> 2:02:25.960 them to excuse more white people, huh. And that stunned 2:02:25.960 --> 2:02:28.680 me because I think no one had ever said that 2:02:28.880 --> 2:02:33.560 to him. But that would do away with racial discrimination. 2:02:33.760 --> 2:02:37.840 And there's lots of white people need executed too. It 2:02:37.880 --> 2:02:41.600 was my way of thinking. And he didn't get mad 2:02:41.640 --> 2:02:44.800 at me or anything. He kind of laughed at it himself. 2:02:44.960 --> 2:02:49.720 After he paused to understand the question. Then he kind 2:02:49.720 --> 2:02:53.520 of laughed at it himself. But I would say he 2:02:53.720 --> 2:02:59.320 was even until until they're getting strapped down. He was 2:02:59.480 --> 2:03:02.440 in control all of his own body. His mind was 2:03:02.520 --> 2:03:10.800 in great shape. He lied to me about about whether 2:03:10.880 --> 2:03:11.960 or not he was innocent. 2:03:13.200 --> 2:03:15.240 Brooks told Revis that although the gun went off, you 2:03:15.280 --> 2:03:16.200 didn't pull the trigger. 2:03:16.840 --> 2:03:17.680 It was an accident. 2:03:18.800 --> 2:03:21.760 At some point I got him to say that all 2:03:21.840 --> 2:03:26.720 the gun went off, and I went and pulled the 2:03:26.760 --> 2:03:31.240 transcript of his criminal trial. The gun was a revolver, 2:03:31.440 --> 2:03:37.600 not an automatic. Revolvers don't go off to just that terry. 2:03:37.680 --> 2:03:40.640 I even took what I had and banged it on 2:03:40.760 --> 2:03:44.720 the table while it was loaded and all and nothing happened. 2:03:45.280 --> 2:03:50.879 Revolvers don't go off until they'd been cocked. 2:03:51.480 --> 2:03:54.000 Unless they've been cocked, they can't go off. 2:03:55.440 --> 2:03:57.400 We'll return to the story of the world's first execution 2:03:57.480 --> 2:04:00.280 by lethal injection and conceptive way it was used to 2:04:00.320 --> 2:04:24.120 win public support for capital punishment. After this lovely odbreak. 2:04:14.960 --> 2:04:17.680 There was a little bit of last Spina drama. As 2:04:17.800 --> 2:04:21.400 zero hour for the execution of Charlie Brooks aka abdul 2:04:21.560 --> 2:04:25.320 Rahim approached. The Serme Court rejected his appeal for the 2:04:25.400 --> 2:04:30.480 last time. Shortly before the execution was scheduled began. Jack Strickland, 2:04:30.720 --> 2:04:34.200 the prosecutor in Abdul Raheem's murder trial, had second thoughts 2:04:34.600 --> 2:04:37.480 about the differences between the condemned man sentence and that 2:04:37.520 --> 2:04:42.680 of his accomplice. Strickland testified on abdul Rahim's behalf, but 2:04:42.760 --> 2:04:46.400 to no avail. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said 2:04:46.440 --> 2:04:49.800 the defense team had presented no new information that would 2:04:49.920 --> 2:04:54.080 justify a stay of execution. Just after midnight, State Attorney 2:04:54.120 --> 2:04:57.720 General Mark White called officials in Huntsville and told them 2:04:57.760 --> 2:05:00.200 that the historic execution could begin. 2:05:00.920 --> 2:05:04.240 From nineteen eighty two, the year of Abdulheim's execution, until 2:05:04.280 --> 2:05:08.200 twenty eleven. Texas allowed prisoners facing executions a choice of 2:05:08.240 --> 2:05:13.280 a last meal of their choosing. Abdurhem's request, however, was rejected. 2:05:14.080 --> 2:05:18.360 He told me that for his last meal he wanted 2:05:18.920 --> 2:05:23.920 a five shrimp and bushes, and he said he had 2:05:24.000 --> 2:05:28.560 told the authorities that that's what he wanted for his 2:05:28.720 --> 2:05:32.920 last meal. When I got down there, I was told 2:05:33.000 --> 2:05:39.360 that there was no shellfish in the prison system's kitchens 2:05:39.600 --> 2:05:42.360 and Charlie had to pick. He finally picked steak in 2:05:42.880 --> 2:05:48.840 beach cobbler. But I felt bad about that because the 2:05:48.920 --> 2:05:52.880 prison people knew that they could go to the grocery 2:05:52.920 --> 2:05:57.400 store and buy whatever Charlie wanted, and they didn't do it, 2:05:58.320 --> 2:06:01.000 and it was sort of I thought it was an 2:06:01.080 --> 2:06:05.240 indignant they inflicted on it. So when I went down 2:06:05.280 --> 2:06:09.120 for the execution, I went down in the afternoon execution 2:06:09.480 --> 2:06:18.080 was that knot I went out night fish just I 2:06:18.120 --> 2:06:19.440 need to say, I don't know. 2:06:19.600 --> 2:06:21.960 Because of the situaship. 2:06:22.720 --> 2:06:26.040 Texas would end this final meal for prisoners on death 2:06:26.120 --> 2:06:30.360 row in twenty eleven. That's because of Lawrence Russell Brewer, 2:06:30.640 --> 2:06:33.160 who was one of three white supremacists who chained an 2:06:33.160 --> 2:06:35.920 African American man, James Bird, to the back of a 2:06:35.960 --> 2:06:39.000 car in Jasper, Texas, and dragged him to death on 2:06:39.080 --> 2:06:42.320 June seventh, nineteen ninety eight. As a last act of 2:06:42.360 --> 2:06:46.440 bitter defiance. On the date of Brewer's execution September twenty first, 2:06:46.600 --> 2:06:50.600 twenty eleven, Brewer ordered a last meal that included two 2:06:50.720 --> 2:06:54.560 chicken fried steaks, a triple meat bacon, cheeseburger, fried okra, 2:06:54.880 --> 2:06:58.760 a pound of barbecue, three fijidas, a meat lover's pizza, 2:06:58.960 --> 2:07:01.160 a pine of ice cream, and a slab of peanut 2:07:01.160 --> 2:07:04.280 butter fudge with crust peanuts. When he received all the food, 2:07:04.560 --> 2:07:05.760 he refused to. 2:07:05.600 --> 2:07:07.360 Touch a bite. 2:07:07.560 --> 2:07:10.600 State Senator John Whitmyer complained bitterly at the waist and 2:07:10.760 --> 2:07:14.880 expense lavished on such an infamous killer, and prison officials 2:07:14.920 --> 2:07:18.800 immediately changed the policy. Today, those facing execution are now 2:07:18.880 --> 2:07:22.160 only fed the same meal other prisoners receive that day. 2:07:23.520 --> 2:07:26.240 Revis believes that the process of being strapped down to 2:07:26.280 --> 2:07:30.080 a hospital like gurney is humiliating to those being executed. 2:07:30.680 --> 2:07:33.400 Men die with more dignity. 2:07:33.480 --> 2:07:37.600 When they're on their feet, for example, as walking to 2:07:37.760 --> 2:07:40.480 a scaffold. 2:07:39.600 --> 2:07:44.839 Would they still feel in control of their lives. 2:07:45.880 --> 2:07:49.880 The hardest thing about lethal injections is that they strap 2:07:50.000 --> 2:07:54.680 you down where you can't move, and you're sitting there. 2:07:54.720 --> 2:08:00.560 Absolutely helped, helpless till the drug strike effect. 2:08:01.800 --> 2:08:04.520 Revers described the atmosphere in the death chamber as Abdul 2:08:04.600 --> 2:08:09.600 Raheem was executed as tense and quiet. A prison girlfriend, 2:08:09.600 --> 2:08:13.280 as Revers describes her, Vanessa Sap, was present, as were 2:08:13.360 --> 2:08:14.720 numerous officials. 2:08:15.880 --> 2:08:18.200 First of all, the room it's too small. 2:08:19.240 --> 2:08:23.160 My recollection is there was a circular self of chairs 2:08:24.000 --> 2:08:29.440 threading out ten feet twenty feet in a curve. It 2:08:29.480 --> 2:08:33.160 may not it may have been a corner, but it 2:08:33.240 --> 2:08:37.000 was barely room to hold the law man who wanted 2:08:37.080 --> 2:08:45.080 to witness the execution, and Vanesa Sap and three reporters. 2:08:45.720 --> 2:08:48.240 His wife was not present. She didn't want to be 2:08:48.360 --> 2:08:51.280 and she didn't want it's to see it. As for 2:08:51.360 --> 2:08:56.800 the audience reaction, I don't recall that there was anything dramatic. 2:08:58.480 --> 2:09:00.160 Now I seem more routine. 2:09:02.200 --> 2:09:05.640 Inspired by the story of Carol Chessman, the author and 2:09:05.720 --> 2:09:09.200 rapist executed in the gas chamber in nineteen sixty who 2:09:09.240 --> 2:09:11.200 worked out a signal he could send to reporters if 2:09:11.200 --> 2:09:15.040 he was suffering during execution. Revis and Abdul Raheem worked 2:09:15.040 --> 2:09:18.560 out a similar arrangement. If Abdul Raheem was suffering as 2:09:18.600 --> 2:09:22.000 he was dying, he would shake his head. Revis would 2:09:22.040 --> 2:09:23.839 later regret making that arrangement. 2:09:24.720 --> 2:09:30.280 I interviewed them before the execution, and when we came 2:09:30.400 --> 2:09:35.680 up with an idea. Unfortunately, it was mine that if 2:09:36.200 --> 2:09:40.920 he felt pain while he was dyned, that he should 2:09:41.360 --> 2:09:47.040 shake his head. So I decide, and I say, it's 2:09:47.160 --> 2:09:52.840 unfortunate because and as things were, we were unable to 2:09:53.600 --> 2:09:56.600 I was unable to determine as if he was given 2:09:56.680 --> 2:09:57.600 me that signal. 2:09:58.760 --> 2:10:02.400 Jurevis did. Appeared that Abdul Raheem had simply drifted off 2:10:02.400 --> 2:10:02.880 to sleep. 2:10:03.760 --> 2:10:06.040 He seemed to die peacefully. 2:10:07.400 --> 2:10:10.440 I had to put down a dog only a couple 2:10:10.520 --> 2:10:14.200 of years ago, or have the dog put down, and 2:10:14.280 --> 2:10:18.800 I was with him while that happened, and I couldn't. 2:10:18.920 --> 2:10:23.320 How do you say after seeing those two things, I said, 2:10:23.360 --> 2:10:23.920 I wish I. 2:10:23.920 --> 2:10:25.160 Could die that way. 2:10:26.600 --> 2:10:31.919 And yeah, there was no evidence with my dog, for example, 2:10:31.960 --> 2:10:34.760 that there was any pain. It was like, I put 2:10:34.800 --> 2:10:38.200 him to sleep, and I think that's what they did 2:10:38.280 --> 2:10:42.000 with Charlie, but it would take a doctor to know. 2:10:43.440 --> 2:10:43.920 Of course. 2:10:44.040 --> 2:10:47.760 Abdul Raheem's death was the first of its kind. As 2:10:47.800 --> 2:10:50.480 we mentioned last time, the three drug protocol that was 2:10:50.600 --> 2:10:53.360 used by most states over the last three decades was 2:10:53.400 --> 2:10:56.600 concocted out of thin air by someone no expertise on 2:10:56.640 --> 2:10:59.400 the effect of these drugs together on the human body. 2:11:00.120 --> 2:11:04.400 Abdul Raheem's execution was a medical experiment conducted with no 2:11:04.520 --> 2:11:08.879 prior research. Professor Lane said that since abdul Rahem's execution, 2:11:09.360 --> 2:11:12.680 doctors have had a chance to perform autopsies on those 2:11:12.800 --> 2:11:16.400 executed by lethal injection, and witnesses have heard the cries 2:11:16.440 --> 2:11:19.040 of those who were able to speak while dying on 2:11:19.080 --> 2:11:19.600 the gurney. 2:11:20.320 --> 2:11:23.360 You know, the state expert to saying, oh, this first drug, 2:11:23.400 --> 2:11:26.800 you're going to be ninety nine point ninety nine nine 2:11:26.880 --> 2:11:29.920 percent of the public would be you know, out and 2:11:30.000 --> 2:11:32.240 dead within a minute. You don't even have to worry 2:11:32.240 --> 2:11:36.040 about those other super tortuous drugs. And it's like, yeah, 2:11:36.080 --> 2:11:39.760 that's not what was happening. They said they would stop 2:11:39.800 --> 2:11:44.879 breathing within a minute. And there was some pretty prominent litigation, 2:11:45.080 --> 2:11:49.440 the Barrells case out in California, where they looked at 2:11:49.560 --> 2:11:54.360 the executions by lethal injection and said over half of 2:11:54.400 --> 2:11:58.720 them they actually did not stop breathing within a minute. 2:11:58.720 --> 2:12:02.520 In fact, it was eight and ninetes and it did 2:12:02.560 --> 2:12:06.840 not kill them within two minutes of injecting. That third drug, 2:12:06.920 --> 2:12:11.080 which is called potassium chloride, but it's referred to as 2:12:11.120 --> 2:12:14.800 liquid fire, and it chemically burns the thing as it 2:12:14.920 --> 2:12:17.640 races to the heart where it induces a cardiac arrest. 2:12:18.040 --> 2:12:20.040 So they're like, you know, the experts like, oh, you 2:12:20.080 --> 2:12:22.080 know that it's going to bring death in two minutes. 2:12:22.480 --> 2:12:27.720 That didn't happen, Like none of this was happening as 2:12:27.920 --> 2:12:32.640 the state and the state's experts were so confidently just saying. 2:12:33.520 --> 2:12:36.920 And it turns out, you know, no one had ever 2:12:36.960 --> 2:12:41.920 studied these drugs in these amounts, nobody had ever injected 2:12:42.360 --> 2:12:45.400 these drugs in these amounts into people. This is not 2:12:46.080 --> 2:12:48.560 what was used. I mean that's interesting too, Like this 2:12:48.800 --> 2:12:51.480 is not the drug that was used to use the 2:12:51.520 --> 2:12:54.360 nze pets. This is not the drug that was used 2:12:54.920 --> 2:12:57.640 for physitionists as a suicide. So it's like three totally 2:12:57.640 --> 2:13:01.480 different drugs, and you know, and not only has nobody 2:13:01.560 --> 2:13:05.560 studied or nobody knew how they would work, but nobody 2:13:05.600 --> 2:13:10.000 could have predicted how they would have worked together. 2:13:11.680 --> 2:13:14.760 As discussed in our last episode, the lethal injection that 2:13:14.840 --> 2:13:18.880 killed Abdul Raheem included three drugs sodium theopental, the heavy 2:13:18.880 --> 2:13:23.560 sedative pan coronium bromide meant to suffocate the prisoner, and 2:13:23.600 --> 2:13:27.839 potassium chloride meant to trigger a cardiac arrest. As Professor 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:29.960 Laine wrote in her book Secrets of the Killing State, 2:13:30.640 --> 2:13:32.879 because of one of the drugs used in three drug protocol, 2:13:33.200 --> 2:13:37.560 the drugs work poorly when combined. Quote, the pancoreum bromide 2:13:37.600 --> 2:13:41.240 couples the inability to breathe with the inability to struggle. 2:13:41.720 --> 2:13:44.720 They cannot fight or scream or even rive in pain, 2:13:45.680 --> 2:13:49.880 but all would seem calm on the surface. Texas's experiment 2:13:49.960 --> 2:13:53.280 in lethal injection was a political success for a while. 2:13:53.360 --> 2:13:57.040 The novelty of the revived death penalty brought back memories 2:13:57.080 --> 2:14:01.400 to some public hangings. Students from nearby sam Houston State 2:14:01.520 --> 2:14:04.720 University would show up and hold drunken parties outside the 2:14:04.720 --> 2:14:08.680 prison in Huntsville on the night of executions. Cheering loudly 2:14:08.800 --> 2:14:11.040 enough that they could be heard inside the death chamber. 2:14:11.880 --> 2:14:15.280 The night that Ronald Clark O'Brien, the infamous candy man 2:14:15.840 --> 2:14:18.840 who killed his son for insurance money, died, a crowd 2:14:18.880 --> 2:14:22.600 of about three hundred celebrated outside, some yelling trick or 2:14:22.640 --> 2:14:25.880 treat at the scheduled time of the execution and pelting 2:14:25.960 --> 2:14:30.640 anti death penalty protesters with candy. A huge cheer erupted 2:14:30.680 --> 2:14:34.200 when the officials of the Walls Unit left, signaling that 2:14:34.240 --> 2:14:37.640 O'Brien had died a local bar through a Halloween party. 2:14:38.440 --> 2:14:41.400 Texas politicians made support for the death penalty central to 2:14:41.440 --> 2:14:44.680 their campaigns in this era. In the nineteen ninety Democratic 2:14:44.680 --> 2:14:48.360 Party gubernatorial primary, former Texas Governor Mark White faced off 2:14:48.400 --> 2:14:51.640 against the state Attorney General, Jim Maddox and the eventual winner, 2:14:51.720 --> 2:14:55.520 State Treasurer Ann Richards. White and Maddox ran almost identical 2:14:55.560 --> 2:14:59.280 campaign ads, both walking past larger than lifemk shots of 2:14:59.400 --> 2:15:02.800 murderers who were executed under their watch and claiming credit 2:15:02.880 --> 2:15:09.720 for meeting out justice. Consider this ad for White. 2:15:07.720 --> 2:15:12.280 These hardened criminals will never again murder, ripe or deal drugs. 2:15:12.800 --> 2:15:16.440 As Governor I made sure they received the ultimate punishment death, 2:15:17.040 --> 2:15:20.080 and Texas is a cipher place for it. But tough 2:15:20.120 --> 2:15:23.080 talk isn't enough. The criminals know how to tangle up 2:15:23.120 --> 2:15:26.440 the courts and delay executions. To bring them to justice 2:15:26.480 --> 2:15:30.880 takes strength and dedication, because if the governor flinches, they win. 2:15:31.960 --> 2:15:35.720 Only a governor can make executions happen. I did, and 2:15:35.800 --> 2:15:38.400 I will. 2:15:38.440 --> 2:15:41.520 The popularity of the death penalty was sealed for decades. 2:15:42.000 --> 2:15:44.879 Starting with Abdul Raheem, Texas has led the United States 2:15:45.120 --> 2:15:48.840 in state killing. As of September twenty seventh, Texas had 2:15:48.880 --> 2:15:52.120 carried out five hundred and ninety six executions, more than 2:15:52.160 --> 2:15:54.320 thirty six percent of all of the executions that have 2:15:54.400 --> 2:15:57.720 unfolded since the United States Supreme Court allowed the death 2:15:57.760 --> 2:16:01.040 penalty to resume in this country in nineteen seventy six. 2:16:01.640 --> 2:16:04.200 More than forty percent of those executed in Texas since 2:16:04.280 --> 2:16:08.320 nineteen eighty two have been African American. Almost thirty percent 2:16:08.320 --> 2:16:12.160 had been Mexican American. In twenty twenty four, Texas executed 2:16:12.200 --> 2:16:16.520 six people, only one was white. Meanwhile, Texas put to 2:16:16.600 --> 2:16:19.600 death sixty three prisoners who committed their crimes before they 2:16:19.640 --> 2:16:22.640 reached the age of twenty one. According to the Texas 2:16:22.640 --> 2:16:26.080 Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Since nineteen seventy three, eighteen 2:16:26.080 --> 2:16:29.200 people sent to Texas death Row were later exonerated, out 2:16:29.200 --> 2:16:32.280 of about two hundred nationally, and the group argues that 2:16:32.320 --> 2:16:34.959 there is strong evidence that at least six put to 2:16:34.959 --> 2:16:37.120 death in Huntsville were actually innocent. 2:16:37.800 --> 2:16:41.040 Professor Lane argues that not only does death by lethal 2:16:41.080 --> 2:16:45.519 injection violate the Eighth Amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishment, 2:16:46.080 --> 2:16:49.680 but that most defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford 2:16:49.720 --> 2:16:53.199 adequate legal counsel, and that an alarming number those sent 2:16:53.240 --> 2:16:56.560 to death row and in some cases executed, have been innocent. 2:16:57.160 --> 2:17:01.360 Two hundred people have been exonerated, it from death row, 2:17:01.560 --> 2:17:05.119 two hundred And when you put that next to the 2:17:05.320 --> 2:17:08.920 sixteen hundred executions that we've had in the modern era, 2:17:09.320 --> 2:17:13.240 what we really have is for every eight executions, there's 2:17:13.320 --> 2:17:18.120 one exoneration. That is a terrible, terrible number. Right, For 2:17:18.200 --> 2:17:21.720 every eight times we kill someone, we all most killed 2:17:21.720 --> 2:17:25.039 the wrong person. And then there was this National Academy 2:17:25.040 --> 2:17:28.080 of Sciences report that came out, this is the Gross Report, 2:17:28.560 --> 2:17:33.879 Seminal Gross, and they said, here's a conservative estimate, four 2:17:33.920 --> 2:17:38.280 point one percent of all people on death row today 2:17:39.280 --> 2:17:42.920 are factually innocent four point one percent. That's one in 2:17:43.000 --> 2:17:43.680 twenty five. 2:17:44.560 --> 2:17:48.840 According to the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. As 2:17:48.879 --> 2:17:52.560 of twenty fourteen, the total legal cost of executing a 2:17:52.600 --> 2:17:55.920 prisoner was nearly four million dollars, as opposed to the 2:17:56.000 --> 2:17:58.959 one point three million spent to keep someone in prison 2:17:59.000 --> 2:18:03.879 for life. Lane argues that morality aside capital punishment is 2:18:03.959 --> 2:18:09.119 catastrophically expensive. Imposing sentences of life without parle, or what 2:18:09.160 --> 2:18:13.240 criminal justice experts call l WOP, would not only eliminate 2:18:13.320 --> 2:18:16.360 the risk of making an irreversible mistake by putting an 2:18:16.360 --> 2:18:19.640 innocent person to death, but also save taxpayers money. 2:18:20.280 --> 2:18:24.800 As an example, if here's Florida, fifty one million dollars 2:18:25.120 --> 2:18:29.160 fifty one million, that is what Florida spends every year 2:18:30.120 --> 2:18:34.240 to maintain the death penalty, over and above what it 2:18:34.240 --> 2:18:37.920 would cost to punish all first degree murderers with l WOP. 2:18:38.240 --> 2:18:41.680 And if you look at the costs that Florida spent 2:18:41.920 --> 2:18:44.880 and then look at the executions that they had, how 2:18:44.959 --> 2:18:48.560 much did it cost per execution? You know, to maintain 2:18:48.600 --> 2:18:51.519 this system, and then of course the product of it executions, 2:18:51.560 --> 2:18:54.880 what you're getting out of it per execution, twenty four million, 2:18:56.120 --> 2:19:01.200 twenty four million dollars per execution, you know. And I'm 2:19:01.240 --> 2:19:04.879 a former prosecutor, and I just have to say, what 2:19:04.920 --> 2:19:08.760 could you do with twenty four million dollars? You know, 2:19:09.280 --> 2:19:13.760 I'd take eight million and I'd put it into victim services. 2:19:14.440 --> 2:19:16.680 Now we're getting into the death penalty more broadly. But 2:19:16.800 --> 2:19:18.880 one of the things I've found as I'm on this 2:19:18.920 --> 2:19:23.960 book tour and on the road, I'm talking to survivors 2:19:24.760 --> 2:19:28.920 their family members have been slain. And one, a woman 2:19:28.959 --> 2:19:32.400 in Tennessee, is particularly She's coming to mind right now, 2:19:32.440 --> 2:19:36.520 and she said, listen, when my son was murdered, I 2:19:36.520 --> 2:19:39.000 couldn't get out of bed in the morning. I was 2:19:39.040 --> 2:19:40.800 afraid I was going to lose my job. I was 2:19:40.840 --> 2:19:44.080 afraid I was going to lose my house. I needed therapy. 2:19:44.160 --> 2:19:47.760 I needed services. I needed child care to help I 2:19:47.760 --> 2:19:50.640 couldn't do that. My kids needed therapy. We had all 2:19:50.720 --> 2:19:55.600 of these needs. And the State of Tennessee said, you know, 2:19:55.800 --> 2:19:59.680 Department of Mental Health said we don't have that money. Sorry, 2:20:00.600 --> 2:20:03.119 you know, and so she said, we're spending it all 2:20:04.200 --> 2:20:07.160 and Zago. What she said is it's selfish. You're spending 2:20:07.200 --> 2:20:13.080 millions upon millions upon millions on death sentences, and you know, 2:20:13.280 --> 2:20:17.120 on the death penalty when it could actually go to 2:20:17.200 --> 2:20:18.120 the people who need it. 2:20:19.120 --> 2:20:22.720 Regardless of the financial costs. Death by lethal injection has 2:20:22.720 --> 2:20:28.000 become so commonplace that executions really catch public attention. Nationally, 2:20:28.080 --> 2:20:30.400 one than three hundred and seventy seven people have been 2:20:30.400 --> 2:20:32.800 put to death by some form of lethal injection since 2:20:32.920 --> 2:20:36.520 nineteen eighty two. Those executed suffered not only because of 2:20:36.560 --> 2:20:40.200 the chemicals used, but because, as was predicted in eighteen ninety, 2:20:40.600 --> 2:20:44.280 medical professionals have refused to participate because of ethical rules 2:20:44.280 --> 2:20:48.400 prohibiting the harm of patients. Doctors and nurses and paramedics 2:20:48.600 --> 2:20:52.440 generally refuse to administer the lethal cocktails used in death chambers. 2:20:52.840 --> 2:20:56.600 That task generally falls to seriously undertrained prison personnel who 2:20:56.680 --> 2:20:59.280 are asked to secure an IV line for condemned prisoners who, 2:20:59.320 --> 2:21:02.120 often because of eight age, history of drug abuse, or 2:21:02.160 --> 2:21:05.520 other health problems, have veins that are difficult to access. 2:21:06.120 --> 2:21:09.360 Heavily muscled prisoners, those who are morbidly obese, and those 2:21:09.400 --> 2:21:12.080 with dark skin can also present challenges for the amateur 2:21:12.120 --> 2:21:14.600 phlebotomists trying to set up an execution. 2:21:15.680 --> 2:21:18.920 Prisons sometimes lacked the right equipment, such as the correct 2:21:19.000 --> 2:21:23.320 sized syringes or proper tubing. Lethal injection drugs are pre 2:21:23.400 --> 2:21:26.600 made and have to be mixed by personnel not properly 2:21:26.640 --> 2:21:30.480 trained in chemistry, which results in errors in dosing. Often, 2:21:30.520 --> 2:21:33.800 people with any kind of medical competence who participate in 2:21:33.840 --> 2:21:37.840 executions are the ones with the shadiest ethical records. Professor 2:21:37.920 --> 2:21:39.959 Lane came across one case in which the State of 2:21:39.959 --> 2:21:43.520 Missouri relied on a doctor who ignored ethical guidelines and 2:21:43.600 --> 2:21:48.040 participated in the capital punishment process. He was incorrectly mixing 2:21:48.080 --> 2:21:51.199 the chemicals so that the prisoners were only receiving half 2:21:51.240 --> 2:21:53.920 the dose of the anesthesia meant to reduce the pain, 2:21:54.000 --> 2:21:57.840 and condemned as required by law. Doctor Lane shared the 2:21:57.879 --> 2:22:02.680 horrifying discoveries lawyers condemned prisoners made about that particular doctor. 2:22:03.360 --> 2:22:06.959 They looked, you know, at the protocol that was litigated 2:22:07.160 --> 2:22:12.920 and authorized by a federal court, and it was five 2:22:13.000 --> 2:22:16.160 grams of this particular drug. And they looked at the 2:22:16.200 --> 2:22:19.920 execution logs of the last several and states we're using 2:22:19.920 --> 2:22:23.760 two point five, and so you know, they filed suit. 2:22:24.400 --> 2:22:28.039 That's half the anesthetic, you know, and the state, you know, 2:22:28.720 --> 2:22:33.440 wrote back and said, we are not using half the anesthetic. 2:22:33.680 --> 2:22:37.480 It must be the pharmacy logs that are wrong. We're 2:22:37.520 --> 2:22:40.240 going to track that down and figure out why they 2:22:40.240 --> 2:22:42.480 are wrong. But we rest assure you we are not 2:22:42.640 --> 2:22:47.600 violating the protocol. We're doing the amount that was legally authorized. Well, 2:22:47.600 --> 2:22:50.040 they have to come back the next day and say, oh, 2:22:50.640 --> 2:22:55.440 actually the logs were right. We were wrong. We were 2:22:55.760 --> 2:22:59.440 injecting half of the amount. And so the court gives 2:22:59.480 --> 2:23:04.400 the lawyers for the condemned prisoners a limited deposition to 2:23:04.920 --> 2:23:07.840 question this doctor behind a veil, like they didn't know 2:23:07.840 --> 2:23:11.520 who he was, but to question them under oath, and 2:23:12.879 --> 2:23:14.760 you know, they're like, why are you using half? And 2:23:14.800 --> 2:23:18.519 he said, well, I'm dyslexic, and so sometimes that make mistakes. 2:23:19.400 --> 2:23:23.440 And yet Missouri stuck with them and said, no, we 2:23:23.760 --> 2:23:28.480 have every confidence in him. They lose that the trial court, 2:23:28.560 --> 2:23:31.680 the federal court says, this guy can't be anywhere near 2:23:33.280 --> 2:23:37.119 Look the whole thing, to the extent it's humane, requires 2:23:37.160 --> 2:23:42.760 you to meticulously measure and mix chemicals in liquids, and 2:23:42.800 --> 2:23:46.560 so you can't have someone who just makes mistakes. And 2:23:46.600 --> 2:23:49.400 then in the meantime, investigative journalists, which you know I 2:23:49.840 --> 2:23:52.359 have to take my hat off. I tip my hat 2:23:52.680 --> 2:23:56.039 to investigative journalists. But they were like, gee, who is this, 2:23:56.160 --> 2:23:59.000 you know, dyslexic doctor, and they find out his identity. 2:23:59.280 --> 2:24:02.199 You know, he admits it's him. He had over twenty 2:24:02.240 --> 2:24:07.280 malpractice suits, he had had his hospital privileges revoked at 2:24:07.280 --> 2:24:10.400 two hospitals. He had been censured by the medical board. 2:24:10.959 --> 2:24:15.280 So you know, you're asking someone to do something, to 2:24:15.400 --> 2:24:21.440 participate in something that is fundamentally against your reason for 2:24:21.560 --> 2:24:25.160 being as a doctor. And you know, from time to 2:24:25.240 --> 2:24:29.600 time they find people, but I think they're outliers. What 2:24:29.680 --> 2:24:33.080 I have found is they are outliers not only on ethics, 2:24:33.080 --> 2:24:34.200 but in other ways too. 2:24:35.640 --> 2:24:39.440 Experts on capital punishment like Lane aren't comfortable with describing 2:24:39.480 --> 2:24:43.120 executions that go off script as quote botched, even if 2:24:43.160 --> 2:24:47.320 it's a commonly used term. No matter how the execution proceeds, 2:24:47.720 --> 2:24:51.560 the end result is the same, the inmate is dead. However, 2:24:51.600 --> 2:24:54.039 there is no question that killing people by lethal injection 2:24:54.560 --> 2:24:57.000 is so complicated and requires so much skill on the 2:24:57.040 --> 2:24:59.560 part of the executioners that the process is typically far 2:24:59.600 --> 2:25:03.199 more agon than death penalty advocates tell the public. According 2:25:03.200 --> 2:25:07.000 to the Anti Capital Punishment Organization the Death Penalty Information Center. 2:25:07.240 --> 2:25:11.240 Out of nineteen executions in twenty twenty two, seven were botched, 2:25:11.600 --> 2:25:14.080 meaning that the death took far longer than expected that 2:25:14.200 --> 2:25:17.600 prison personnel had to jab the condemned people multiple times 2:25:17.640 --> 2:25:20.640 to get an IV line working or worse. 2:25:21.400 --> 2:25:24.920 When Oklahoma executed Clayton Lockett on April twenty nine to 2:25:24.959 --> 2:25:29.520 twenty fourteen, the state used an untested combination of three drugs. 2:25:30.240 --> 2:25:32.959 The size of the syringes and the amount of drugs 2:25:33.040 --> 2:25:36.960 used were wrong. Prison personnel made repeated mistakes as they 2:25:37.040 --> 2:25:40.080 tried to insert the needle for the IV. Even though 2:25:40.080 --> 2:25:44.760 the American Medical Association prohibits its members from participating in executions. 2:25:45.200 --> 2:25:47.520 A doctor was on hand for the lock of fiasco. 2:25:48.480 --> 2:25:51.680 The physician tried but failed to insert an IV into 2:25:51.720 --> 2:25:55.520 the jugular vein in Lockett's neck. The doctor then performed 2:25:55.520 --> 2:25:58.840 a surgical procedure called a cutdown, which is a deep 2:25:58.920 --> 2:26:02.000 surgical incision to the skin, muscle, and fat performed to 2:26:02.040 --> 2:26:07.000 expose a central vein under Lockett's clavicle. Procedure was bloody 2:26:07.280 --> 2:26:10.360 and also failed, and the execution then tried and failed 2:26:10.360 --> 2:26:14.160 to access a vein through Lockett's feet. Eventually, they tried 2:26:14.160 --> 2:26:16.959 to insert an IV through the femoral vein in the 2:26:17.040 --> 2:26:20.200 upper thigh, a procedure only the most skilled surgeon and 2:26:20.240 --> 2:26:24.199 SAD mastered. Unfortunately, the available needle was the wrong length 2:26:24.200 --> 2:26:27.960 for it to work properly. Lockett reportedly was stoic throughout 2:26:28.000 --> 2:26:31.080 this repeated assault on his body. After an hour of 2:26:31.120 --> 2:26:33.560 this torture had passed, the execution team was finally able 2:26:33.560 --> 2:26:37.680 to inject the deadly drugs. Lockett groaned, convulsed, and at 2:26:37.680 --> 2:26:41.080 one point was asked, are you unconscious? According to witnesses, 2:26:41.080 --> 2:26:43.640 Lockett opened his eyes and said no, I am not. 2:26:44.560 --> 2:26:47.560 After appearing to fall asleep, he began to moan, arched 2:26:47.560 --> 2:26:49.880 his back, and kicked a foot before he strained against 2:26:49.879 --> 2:26:52.720 the straps holding him against the gurney, and he tried 2:26:52.720 --> 2:26:56.520 to get up. Lockett mumbled something is wrong, oh man, 2:26:56.879 --> 2:27:00.600 and this shit is fucking up my mind, and Warden 2:27:00.720 --> 2:27:04.959 ordered the blinds closed as the execution team scrambled. Swelling 2:27:05.000 --> 2:27:07.400 had developed with the ivy had been inserted and was 2:27:07.440 --> 2:27:10.560 blocking the flow of the third and final lethal drug. 2:27:10.959 --> 2:27:13.560 The doctor was summoned to insert a needle and Lockett's 2:27:13.600 --> 2:27:16.760 other femeral vein, but Lockett was bleeding heavily and the 2:27:16.760 --> 2:27:20.840 blood backed up into the ivy line. Oklahoma Governor Mary 2:27:20.920 --> 2:27:24.440 Fallon had already decided to halt the execution, but by 2:27:24.480 --> 2:27:29.560 this point Lockett's heart had irreversibly slowed down. He subsequently 2:27:29.600 --> 2:27:33.240 died of heart failure. The entire execution from the first 2:27:33.280 --> 2:27:35.600 attempt to stick an ivy in his veins to his 2:27:35.720 --> 2:27:39.280 death less than one hour and forty seven minutes. That 2:27:39.360 --> 2:27:43.240 was one of the longest executions in American history. The 2:27:43.240 --> 2:27:46.560 state of Oklahoma later falsely claimed that Lockett had been 2:27:46.600 --> 2:27:50.680 unconscious the entire time. In twenty twenty two, another so 2:27:50.840 --> 2:27:55.760 called botched lethal injection, that of Joe Nathan James and Alabama, 2:27:56.120 --> 2:28:00.440 lasted three hours. In Ohio and elsewhere, execution had to 2:28:00.480 --> 2:28:03.800 be abandoned when the prison staff couldn't get an iv going. 2:28:04.640 --> 2:28:07.760 As we mentioned in the first episode, Reverend Jeff Hood 2:28:07.879 --> 2:28:10.680 is a priest under the old Catholic Right, who, by 2:28:10.720 --> 2:28:14.320 the time we interviewed, had accompanied ten men during their executions. 2:28:14.920 --> 2:28:17.400 He said that even the most professional execution is brutal, 2:28:17.760 --> 2:28:20.600 but that some states, because of a regrettable amount of practice, 2:28:21.080 --> 2:28:23.080 are much better at killing than others. 2:28:23.959 --> 2:28:25.959 I do think that some states know what they're doing 2:28:25.959 --> 2:28:31.039 more than others, and I think that Texas knows what 2:28:31.080 --> 2:28:36.400 they're doing. You don't see botched, are delayed or mishandled 2:28:36.440 --> 2:28:42.200 executions in Texas. They go very quickly. And when you 2:28:42.240 --> 2:28:44.760 talk to these guys, that's what they say. They would prefer. 2:28:45.160 --> 2:28:47.000 If you're going to be executed, you would want to 2:28:47.040 --> 2:28:48.280 go as. 2:28:47.840 --> 2:28:50.360 Quickly as possible. Yes, there are. 2:28:50.280 --> 2:28:54.240 Some executions that look horrific. There are other executions that 2:28:54.280 --> 2:28:56.040 don't go according to plan but don't get a lot 2:28:56.080 --> 2:29:00.400 of attention. But they're all horrible, and I think they 2:29:00.440 --> 2:29:03.200 all have to be talked about as such. 2:29:04.360 --> 2:29:06.920 Whether it's because of the awareness of the messy and 2:29:07.040 --> 2:29:11.560 undeniably painful executions like those of Lockett and James, the 2:29:11.640 --> 2:29:14.920 more than two hundred death row exonerations achieved by groups 2:29:14.959 --> 2:29:19.080 like the Innocence Project, the growing skepticism of law enforcement 2:29:19.080 --> 2:29:23.040 amongst young people, are the greater consciousness of how racism 2:29:23.120 --> 2:29:27.920 warps the entire criminal justicism. There's no question the death 2:29:27.959 --> 2:29:30.800 penalty is the least popular it has been in the 2:29:30.840 --> 2:29:34.800 past hundred years. Nor is their doubt that the rate 2:29:34.879 --> 2:29:38.240 of executions in the United States has dropped well below 2:29:38.280 --> 2:29:41.080 its peak during the height of the war and crime 2:29:41.520 --> 2:29:46.280 under the Clinton administration, when in nineteen ninety nine, three 2:29:46.320 --> 2:29:49.280 hundred and fifteen death sentences were handed down, or in 2:29:49.360 --> 2:29:53.040 nineteen ninety six, when ninety eight prisoners were executed. 2:29:53.840 --> 2:29:57.279 In any case, deaths like Lockett's are bad for business 2:29:57.280 --> 2:30:00.600 for the pharmaceutical companies who have produced the drug used 2:30:00.720 --> 2:30:03.720 in lethal injections. In the next and final episode of 2:30:03.720 --> 2:30:06.520 this three part series on the shady business of lethal injection, 2:30:06.920 --> 2:30:08.800 we'll talk about how some states like Texas have been 2:30:08.800 --> 2:30:11.080 forced to turn to the black market or the so 2:30:11.200 --> 2:30:15.400 called gray market to buy lethal drugs, as pharmaceutical companies 2:30:15.520 --> 2:30:18.640 have restricted the purchase of those drugs for that purpose. 2:30:19.200 --> 2:30:21.560 We also talked to Jeff Hood about how the difficulty 2:30:21.560 --> 2:30:24.360 in obtaining those drugs has led states like Alabama to 2:30:24.400 --> 2:30:26.920 turn to one of the most gruesome forms of execution yet. 2:30:27.440 --> 2:30:29.640 And we'll also hear the story of Race Buyan, a 2:30:29.720 --> 2:30:31.959 victim of a hate crime who fought to prevent the 2:30:32.000 --> 2:30:36.640 execution of his white supremacist attacker. And finally, we'll explore 2:30:36.640 --> 2:30:39.160 whether the death penalty might be on its last legs 2:30:39.320 --> 2:30:42.640 in the United States. I'm Stephen Monchelly for it could 2:30:42.640 --> 2:30:44.199 happen here, and so next. 2:30:44.080 --> 2:30:46.520 Time, I'm Michael Phillips. Thanks for listening. 2:30:58.240 --> 2:31:01.320 A warning, this episode included it's violent content, which some 2:31:01.480 --> 2:31:02.920 listeners might find disturbing. 2:31:06.640 --> 2:31:09.920 I'm Michael Phillips, an historian, the author of a history 2:31:09.959 --> 2:31:13.119 of racism in Dallas called White and Tropolis, and the 2:31:13.120 --> 2:31:17.039 co author of longtime journalists Betsy Freeoff the history of 2:31:17.080 --> 2:31:19.600 eugenics in Texas called Purifying Knife. 2:31:19.760 --> 2:31:20.840 And I'm Stephen Broncholi. 2:31:21.000 --> 2:31:24.480 I'm an investigative journalist in Dallas who specializes in political 2:31:24.520 --> 2:31:27.600 extremism and the far right. And I report for places 2:31:27.600 --> 2:31:30.039 like the Texas Observer, the Barbed Wire and more. 2:31:30.840 --> 2:31:34.560 Like millions across the United States. Mark Anthony Strohman was 2:31:34.640 --> 2:31:38.320 startled by the events then folded on the terrible morning 2:31:38.320 --> 2:31:41.880 of September eleventh, two thousand and one. The disbelief that 2:31:42.040 --> 2:31:45.200 greeted that terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and 2:31:45.240 --> 2:31:48.000 the Pentagon can be heard on the first announcement of 2:31:48.000 --> 2:31:51.760 the tragedy on a Dallas talk radio station WBAP. 2:31:54.040 --> 2:31:56.920 All right, thank you our seven fifty one, nine minutes 2:31:56.920 --> 2:32:00.560 before eight o'clock, a Dues talk a TWENTYBA here on 2:32:00.600 --> 2:32:04.760 the here on the Tuesday morning, and the reason I 2:32:04.800 --> 2:32:07.400 am hesitating here with there's a word of a plane 2:32:07.480 --> 2:32:11.800 crashing into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, and 2:32:12.080 --> 2:32:15.879 the World Trade of plane actually crashing and to the 2:32:16.000 --> 2:32:18.400 side of the World Trade Center. We're gonna have details 2:32:18.440 --> 2:32:21.000 for you on that form ABCDWS in just a couple 2:32:21.000 --> 2:32:21.520 of moments. 2:32:22.879 --> 2:32:26.400 Strowman later wrote that September eleventh filled him with a 2:32:26.440 --> 2:32:30.920 great sense of rage, hatred, loss, bitterness, and utter degradation. 2:32:31.840 --> 2:32:34.760 He blamed Arabs and Muslims as a group for the 2:32:34.800 --> 2:32:38.120 events that day and wanted to quote those Arabs to 2:32:38.200 --> 2:32:42.160 feel the same sense of insecurity about their immediate surroundings. 2:32:42.520 --> 2:32:45.160 I wanted to feel the same sense of vulnerability and 2:32:45.280 --> 2:32:46.959 uncertainty on American soil. 2:32:47.840 --> 2:32:51.560 Stroman Dallas resident, had already served two prison terms, during 2:32:51.560 --> 2:32:55.080 which he had joined the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Addicted 2:32:55.080 --> 2:32:58.360 to math and sporting neo Nazi tattoos, he began cruising 2:32:58.440 --> 2:33:01.280 Dallas in his nineteen seventy two ship Suban hunting for 2:33:01.680 --> 2:33:05.359 quote unquote Arabs. As he later admitted, he wasn't entirely 2:33:05.400 --> 2:33:09.320 sure what an Arab looked like, but Nevertheless, he stalked 2:33:09.320 --> 2:33:11.640 people with quote shawls on their faces. 2:33:12.520 --> 2:33:15.800 Stroman launched his crusade by running cars into ditches if 2:33:15.800 --> 2:33:20.080 he suspected the vehicles were driven by Muslims. He escalated 2:33:20.120 --> 2:33:23.240 his campaign of terror. On September seventeenth, two thousand and one, 2:33:24.040 --> 2:33:27.440 he fatally shot Wakar Hassan, a forty six year old 2:33:27.440 --> 2:33:31.320 Pakistani immigrant, as the clerk grilled to Hamburger and Mom's 2:33:31.320 --> 2:33:35.240 Grocery in Dallas. A few days later, Stroman found his 2:33:35.320 --> 2:33:39.440 next victim, a farmer pilot for Bangladesh's Air Force named 2:33:39.520 --> 2:33:44.600 Race Bouyan. Mister Bouyan, who has experienced robberies prior to 2:33:44.640 --> 2:33:47.959 his encounter with Stroman, told us what happened that day. 2:33:48.760 --> 2:33:51.960 Sent the Maturity First, two thousand and one to us 2:33:51.959 --> 2:33:59.000 friday eron Juen, a customer walked in wearing bandana, sunglasses, 2:33:59.200 --> 2:34:03.640 baseball cap and holding a double barrel a sort of 2:34:03.720 --> 2:34:07.360 double barrel's shotgun on his right side. And from the 2:34:07.440 --> 2:34:10.240 previous rubbery experience, I thought it would be on the robbery, 2:34:11.320 --> 2:34:14.760 so I put all the money on the counter and 2:34:14.920 --> 2:34:17.400 offered him the cash as soon as he walked in, 2:34:17.480 --> 2:34:21.039 and I said, sir, here is all the money, take it, 2:34:21.480 --> 2:34:25.520 but please do not shoot me. Basically, I begged for 2:34:25.640 --> 2:34:31.120 my life and his gaze remained fixed, and then he 2:34:31.240 --> 2:34:36.080 mumbled a question, where are you from. Before I could 2:34:36.080 --> 2:34:40.480 say anything more than excuse me, he pulled the trigger 2:34:40.800 --> 2:34:47.560 from point blankrent. I felt it first, like a million 2:34:47.600 --> 2:34:50.879 bees were singing my friends. And I looked down and 2:34:50.959 --> 2:34:54.200 saw blood pouring like an open facet from the right 2:34:54.200 --> 2:35:00.480 set of my head, and I remember a screw mom 2:35:00.640 --> 2:35:04.400 to book my voice. And I looked down some block 2:35:04.480 --> 2:35:06.480 pouring like an open bosset from the right set of 2:35:06.520 --> 2:35:09.760 my head, and then I looked left. I saw the 2:35:09.800 --> 2:35:14.560 gunman still standing, pointing that on director of phrase, and 2:35:14.600 --> 2:35:20.039 I realized that if I did not, you know, do 2:35:20.200 --> 2:35:23.240 something to show that I'm dying, he might shoot be again. 2:35:23.959 --> 2:35:27.760 So I fell to the floor and he finally left a. 2:35:27.720 --> 2:35:30.240 Few seconds beyond. 2:35:30.280 --> 2:35:33.279 Survived the attack, but he was blinded in his right eye. 2:35:33.720 --> 2:35:36.960 He would endure not only multiple painful surgeries, but also 2:35:37.040 --> 2:35:41.160 the unique financial horrors of the American health care system. Meanwhile, 2:35:41.240 --> 2:35:44.480 Stroman was not done terrorizing the Dallas area Muslim community. 2:35:45.080 --> 2:35:48.000 On October fourth, the shooting spree came to an end 2:35:48.200 --> 2:35:50.480 when the white supremacist pulled up to a shell station 2:35:50.560 --> 2:35:53.039 in Mesquite at about six forty five in the morning 2:35:53.240 --> 2:35:56.560 and ordered the clerk, forty nine year old Vasa Dev Patel, 2:35:56.600 --> 2:35:59.440 a Hindu immigrant from India, to hand over all the 2:35:59.440 --> 2:36:03.039 money from the cash register. Patel reached under the counter 2:36:03.160 --> 2:36:06.600 for a twenty two caliber pistol, and seeing the gun, 2:36:06.680 --> 2:36:10.240 Stroman fired his weapon. The bullet struck Patel in his 2:36:10.360 --> 2:36:14.039 chest and killed him. A security camera captured the scene, 2:36:14.320 --> 2:36:16.680 and Dallas police arrested Stroman the next day. 2:36:17.440 --> 2:36:21.560 At Stroman's home, investigators found a semi automatic rifle, an 2:36:21.720 --> 2:36:25.480 Uzi knockoff, a forty four magnum, and a forty five 2:36:25.600 --> 2:36:29.440 cult They also found evidence that Stroman planted to attack 2:36:29.480 --> 2:36:33.800 a mosque in a nearby suburb. Jury found Strouman guilty 2:36:33.800 --> 2:36:36.320 of capital murder in April fifth, two thousand and two, 2:36:36.800 --> 2:36:40.680 and sends him to die by lethal injection. The story 2:36:40.720 --> 2:36:44.480 then took an unexpected turn. During a two thousand and 2:36:44.560 --> 2:36:48.720 nine pilgrimage to Mecca, Bujan said he realized that simply 2:36:48.760 --> 2:36:52.680 forgiving his assailant would not be enough. He believed he 2:36:52.760 --> 2:36:54.840 had a moral obligation to do all they could to 2:36:54.840 --> 2:36:59.360 prevent Stroman's death, Buyan filed a lawsuit attempting to halt 2:36:59.400 --> 2:37:03.959 Strouman's ey execution. Despite of Bouyon's best effort, the suit 2:37:04.080 --> 2:37:07.360 was rejected by state and federal courts, and Stroman died 2:37:07.360 --> 2:37:10.720 by lethal injection July twenty, twenty eleven. 2:37:11.600 --> 2:37:14.680 Beyond's campaign of mercy, however, made a major impact on 2:37:14.720 --> 2:37:18.680 capital punishment in the United States. He effectively shamed European 2:37:18.720 --> 2:37:21.600 drug companies, debanning the use of the products used in 2:37:21.640 --> 2:37:24.959 the lethal injection that killed Stroman. In turn, some states, 2:37:25.000 --> 2:37:29.080 like Texas, decided to start buying lethal drugs illegally. In 2:37:29.120 --> 2:37:31.720 this final episode on the history of the lethal injection 2:37:31.720 --> 2:37:33.959 in the United States, Beyond will tell us about his 2:37:34.000 --> 2:37:37.320 campaign against capital punishment and its impact. Will also speak 2:37:37.320 --> 2:37:40.160 to a priest, the Reverend Jeff Hood, who has accompanied, 2:37:40.160 --> 2:37:43.039 by the time of this interview, ten men to their executions. 2:37:43.640 --> 2:37:46.160 He will also tell us why he has devoted himself 2:37:46.160 --> 2:37:50.039 to showing love to people so despised, and also address 2:37:50.160 --> 2:37:52.840 the future of the death penalty in the United States. 2:37:54.080 --> 2:37:58.320 After being blinded in a hate crime race, Beyond struggles 2:37:58.320 --> 2:38:02.119 through numerous traumas. He told us that after getting shot 2:38:02.120 --> 2:38:04.240 at the convenience story where he worked. He ran to 2:38:04.320 --> 2:38:07.760 a barber shop next door. There he had the first 2:38:07.760 --> 2:38:08.879 sight of his injuries. 2:38:09.320 --> 2:38:12.439 I caught myself in the mirror, and the image reflected 2:38:12.480 --> 2:38:16.520 back was like something off of a horror movie. And 2:38:16.920 --> 2:38:20.520 on my way to the hospital, I felt my eyes 2:38:20.560 --> 2:38:25.640 were closing. I felt that my time was up. And 2:38:25.720 --> 2:38:27.640 you know, while I was reciting from the Holy Koran 2:38:27.720 --> 2:38:30.040 and asking God for mercy and forgiveness and giving you 2:38:30.040 --> 2:38:33.200 a second chance, I also begged him to, you know, 2:38:34.120 --> 2:38:36.119 to send my life, to give me a chance to live. 2:38:37.120 --> 2:38:39.760 And I promised God that if you give me a 2:38:39.840 --> 2:38:42.359 chance to live, I would help others. 2:38:42.879 --> 2:38:46.160 In the emergency room, doctors put Beyond on life support 2:38:46.840 --> 2:38:49.720 for time. His condition was touch and go. Beyond, a 2:38:49.760 --> 2:38:52.760 young immigrant living on his salary as a convenience store clerk, 2:38:52.800 --> 2:38:55.400 said that when he next opened his eyes and doctors 2:38:55.440 --> 2:38:57.760 told him he had survived, he cried tears of joy. 2:38:58.200 --> 2:39:01.040 So my eyes were full of tears, not from the pain, 2:39:01.120 --> 2:39:04.400 but from the joy of it still being alive, but 2:39:04.680 --> 2:39:07.880 then joining the last long because the hospital where I 2:39:07.920 --> 2:39:10.840 was taken was private and expensive, and I had no 2:39:10.879 --> 2:39:13.960 health insurance at the time. So they discharged me with 2:39:14.120 --> 2:39:16.480 a couple of hours and told me to arrange follow 2:39:16.560 --> 2:39:19.440 up medical treatments on my own. So, you know, the 2:39:19.480 --> 2:39:21.959 first part of my American nightmare was being shot in 2:39:22.000 --> 2:39:24.600 the face after nine to eleven, and second part began 2:39:24.920 --> 2:39:27.720 when I was kicked up from the hospital. So as 2:39:27.760 --> 2:39:32.920 a result of this shooting, I you know, underwent several 2:39:32.920 --> 2:39:35.200 eye surgeries and putting meately. Though I lost the mission 2:39:35.240 --> 2:39:38.720 in one eye, I still carry more than three dozen 2:39:38.760 --> 2:39:43.520 shut palats on my face. And my father suffered a 2:39:43.520 --> 2:39:46.240 stroke when he heard what about what happened to me, 2:39:46.520 --> 2:39:50.560 But luckily he's a bide. I lost my fiance but 2:39:50.720 --> 2:39:53.800 gained more than sixty thousand dollars in medical bills. 2:39:54.600 --> 2:39:59.119 As Strumman languished on Texas death Row, Buyan began picking 2:39:59.200 --> 2:39:59.880 up the pieces. 2:40:00.720 --> 2:40:03.760 I moved on rebuilding my life. I worked in restaurant 2:40:03.800 --> 2:40:06.560 and went back to school, and slowly I was, you know, 2:40:07.720 --> 2:40:11.320 planning the letter and getting better in my own you know, 2:40:11.760 --> 2:40:14.840 life journey. And in two thousand and nine I went 2:40:14.879 --> 2:40:18.600 the Macta for pilgrimage my mother and it wasn't Mecca. 2:40:18.680 --> 2:40:23.080 I deeply realized that though I forgave my attack on 2:40:23.160 --> 2:40:28.000 markstrument it was not an hour. I felt that, you know, 2:40:28.120 --> 2:40:31.240 by executing Mark, we would simply lose a human life 2:40:31.240 --> 2:40:31.920 with a dealing with. 2:40:31.879 --> 2:40:32.560 The hood cause. 2:40:33.480 --> 2:40:36.000 I strongly believed that if he was giving a chance, 2:40:36.040 --> 2:40:38.800 he might be able to become a better human being. 2:40:39.400 --> 2:40:42.600 And I began to see him as a human being 2:40:42.720 --> 2:40:46.200 like me, not just simply a killer. I saw him 2:40:46.520 --> 2:40:50.600 as a victim too, and I befelt for him. And 2:40:50.640 --> 2:40:53.560 I remember my promise on my deathdad that if I 2:40:53.560 --> 2:40:56.200 did a chance to live, I would help others. And 2:40:56.240 --> 2:40:59.199 I felt that I need to start with him first 2:41:00.120 --> 2:41:03.959 to get my cromnies. So I've returned from Mecca with 2:41:04.040 --> 2:41:08.680 a very changed heart. We get clarity, and then you 2:41:08.840 --> 2:41:13.840 found partners, and I launched a campaign to try and 2:41:13.879 --> 2:41:16.119 save my attack. That's life from Texas Detro. 2:41:16.920 --> 2:41:19.039 We'll pick up the story of Beyon's campaign to spare 2:41:19.040 --> 2:41:21.520 Stroman's life and how his efforts changed the history of 2:41:21.520 --> 2:41:22.600 the American death penalty. 2:41:23.200 --> 2:41:24.360 After a word from our. 2:41:24.240 --> 2:41:38.760 Sponsors, Doctor Rick Halprin began teaching human rights courses at 2:41:38.840 --> 2:41:42.280 Southern Methodist University in Dallas in nineteen ninety, where he 2:41:42.320 --> 2:41:45.039 now heads one of only nine human rights programs at 2:41:45.080 --> 2:41:48.080 the universities in the country. He has also chaired Amnesty 2:41:48.120 --> 2:41:51.600 International's Board of Directors three times, and since nineteen seventy 2:41:51.640 --> 2:41:56.120 two has been an anti death penalty activist. Halbert became 2:41:56.200 --> 2:41:58.480 famous on Texas death Row as a result of his 2:41:58.520 --> 2:42:02.400 efforts and was informed of his July twentieth, twenty eleven 2:42:02.440 --> 2:42:05.199 execution date. The condemned man wrote a letter to Halperin 2:42:05.320 --> 2:42:09.080 asking for help in making final arrangements, such as locating 2:42:09.120 --> 2:42:10.280 an affordable undertaker. 2:42:10.800 --> 2:42:14.039 By coincidence, shortly after Stroman reached out to Halperin, the 2:42:14.040 --> 2:42:18.080 professor received a surprise visitor to his office. The stranger 2:42:18.280 --> 2:42:22.400 was Stroman's victim, Race bu yan Yan, who had recently 2:42:22.440 --> 2:42:25.600 become an American citistant, hoped Halperin could help him find 2:42:25.680 --> 2:42:28.800 a creative and effective way to fulfill the promise he 2:42:28.840 --> 2:42:30.560 had made to God when he thought he was dying. 2:42:31.360 --> 2:42:35.680 He began his campaign to save Stroman's life. U Yan, Halpern, 2:42:35.920 --> 2:42:39.840 and another human rights activist, Hati Juwad, carried their efforts 2:42:39.840 --> 2:42:42.680 from Dallas to the state capitol in Austin and as 2:42:42.680 --> 2:42:44.359 far as the European Parliament. 2:42:45.120 --> 2:42:48.280 A weak point in the American death penalty machinery was 2:42:48.440 --> 2:42:51.959 its reliance on companies that provided the lethal injection chemicals. 2:42:52.560 --> 2:42:56.920 In twenty eleven, Italy, an anti death penalty nation, successfully 2:42:56.959 --> 2:43:01.360 pressured the Illinois company Hospira to stop selling sodium theopental, 2:43:01.680 --> 2:43:04.920 the muscle relaxant used in the three drug lethal injection 2:43:04.959 --> 2:43:08.120 protocol used in Texas since the early nineteen eighties. That 2:43:08.280 --> 2:43:12.480 same year, Reprieve, a British human rights nonprofit, arranged for 2:43:12.520 --> 2:43:14.680 Beyond to travel to Europe to meet face to face 2:43:14.920 --> 2:43:17.959 with executives at the corporate headquarters of the Danish pharmaceutical 2:43:18.000 --> 2:43:21.920 company Lundbeck. Aware that the meeting would put them in 2:43:21.959 --> 2:43:26.280 the international spotlight, Lundbeck three days prior, announced that they 2:43:26.280 --> 2:43:30.320 would stop shipping the sedative nembitol, which was being used 2:43:30.360 --> 2:43:33.959 as a substitute for sodium theopenthal to American prison systems. 2:43:34.440 --> 2:43:38.039 Beyond described his conversation with the Lumbeck company an interview 2:43:38.040 --> 2:43:39.120 with US the. 2:43:39.200 --> 2:43:43.800 One hour of great conversation. They agreed to write a 2:43:43.879 --> 2:43:46.959 letter to the governor of Kixas asking him not to 2:43:47.080 --> 2:43:48.879 use their product to kill him and being. 2:43:49.400 --> 2:43:51.959 The state of Texas, however, was unwilling to grant a 2:43:52.000 --> 2:43:56.720 crime victim as fervent wish. Even though Texas politicians repeatedly 2:43:56.760 --> 2:44:01.320 claimed they execute murderers to bring the victims closure, Bouyon 2:44:01.360 --> 2:44:04.120 said he was denied this by the Texas Border Paroles 2:44:04.120 --> 2:44:06.560 and Pardons and then Governor Rick Perry. 2:44:07.280 --> 2:44:11.560 I reached out to the prison system and UH asking 2:44:11.640 --> 2:44:16.400 for a mediation dialogue, but unfortunately, you know, that turned 2:44:16.440 --> 2:44:22.760 down my request multiple times, and the reason they showed 2:44:23.680 --> 2:44:28.880 was it would really victimize me. So basically a mediation dialogue. 2:44:29.440 --> 2:44:32.280 I thought it would be helpful for me to find closure, 2:44:32.440 --> 2:44:36.320 to find a lot of answers, but it was for 2:44:36.400 --> 2:44:40.039 them it to be, you know, a revictimization process for me. 2:44:40.200 --> 2:44:44.960 So they they rejected my request to multiple times, and 2:44:45.000 --> 2:44:48.760 it really made me sad that when they needed me 2:44:48.840 --> 2:44:52.160 to testify in the core the conviction to get the 2:44:52.200 --> 2:44:56.120 death penalty, I was a good victim, but then when 2:44:56.160 --> 2:44:58.800 I tried to exercise my right as a victim to 2:44:58.840 --> 2:45:02.240 have a mediation dialog, love, I became a bad victim 2:45:02.560 --> 2:45:03.800 because I asked when my rights. 2:45:04.760 --> 2:45:08.880 In his final hour, Strowman spoke directly to his surviving victim. 2:45:09.760 --> 2:45:12.440 I had the opportunity to talk to him of the 2:45:12.440 --> 2:45:16.360 phone before he was executed, and it was the day 2:45:16.400 --> 2:45:19.280 of his execution where he put my name as one 2:45:19.320 --> 2:45:23.039 of the people he would be able to talk. So 2:45:23.160 --> 2:45:26.560 I was lucky enough to talk to him. And when 2:45:26.600 --> 2:45:29.920 he came on the phone, I was about to, you know, 2:45:31.440 --> 2:45:35.160 go to the court to give a last fight to, 2:45:35.640 --> 2:45:39.120 you know, stead the execution. So I was thinking, what 2:45:39.160 --> 2:45:41.560 would I say to a human being who is about 2:45:41.600 --> 2:45:44.320 to be executed in a couple of hours. And I'm 2:45:44.360 --> 2:45:47.160 going to, you know, go to a court to give 2:45:47.200 --> 2:45:50.840 a you know, last fight to to you know, see 2:45:50.840 --> 2:45:54.320 if he could say him. So I was very emotional 2:45:54.400 --> 2:45:57.920 when he came on the phone. I told him that Mark, 2:45:58.680 --> 2:46:02.640 you know for sure that I never hated you. I 2:46:02.800 --> 2:46:05.879 forgave you and I'm doing my best to you know, 2:46:06.600 --> 2:46:11.760 save your life, you know, through this court hearing. And 2:46:11.800 --> 2:46:15.680 he said that the ways I never expected that from you, 2:46:16.760 --> 2:46:21.360 and I love you, brother, And that brought tears into 2:46:21.360 --> 2:46:24.119 my eyes. That it is the same human being who 2:46:24.120 --> 2:46:27.080 shocked me for no reasons other than having hated and 2:46:27.200 --> 2:46:31.480 violence in his horror. And now ten years later he 2:46:31.520 --> 2:46:33.920 saw me, he could see me as his brother, and 2:46:33.959 --> 2:46:36.720 he said he loved me. Why he couldn't see me 2:46:36.800 --> 2:46:39.879 as his brother ten years ago, and why he could 2:46:39.920 --> 2:46:43.320 he say the same thing ten years ago. So, you know, 2:46:44.360 --> 2:46:47.039 at least it helped me to find closer a little bit. 2:46:47.120 --> 2:46:50.520 It helped me to move forward. At least I had 2:46:50.520 --> 2:46:55.120 the chance to talk to my attacker and then gave 2:46:55.120 --> 2:46:57.080 me a lot of hope that people can change. 2:46:58.360 --> 2:47:01.920 The execution itself, however, left Beyond cold. 2:47:02.360 --> 2:47:05.080 Well definitely in this execution that was not of the victims, 2:47:05.080 --> 2:47:09.440 because the victims and the victims' family members requested and 2:47:09.520 --> 2:47:14.120 also fought for clemency. You know, we went ahead and 2:47:14.240 --> 2:47:17.360 requested the Governor of Texas, the Board of Burdens and 2:47:17.400 --> 2:47:21.320 Pearls that did not execute him in all names in 2:47:21.360 --> 2:47:21.680 a show. 2:47:21.760 --> 2:47:26.800 Marcie Mark Strowman died as scheduled on July twentieth, twenty eleven, 2:47:27.280 --> 2:47:30.280 and though Beyond and Halprint failed to stop it, they 2:47:30.400 --> 2:47:33.840 had helped start an international movement to thwart the ability 2:47:33.959 --> 2:47:37.680 of states to carry out such lethal injections, as Professor 2:47:37.720 --> 2:47:41.040 Colorine Elaine revealed in her book Secrets of the Killing State. 2:47:41.680 --> 2:47:45.760 After Haspira stopped producing sodium theopental, the vacuum was filled 2:47:45.760 --> 2:47:48.720 by a fly by night company called Dream Pharma. The 2:47:48.800 --> 2:47:52.120 drug distributor. Quote turned out to be two desks at 2:47:52.160 --> 2:47:54.760 a filing cabinet hidden in the back of a London 2:47:54.840 --> 2:47:55.600 driving school. 2:47:55.720 --> 2:47:57.560 As Lane wrote, Once. 2:47:57.360 --> 2:48:01.560 This operation was exposed, Great Britain in sodium theopental sales 2:48:01.680 --> 2:48:02.520 to the United States. 2:48:03.400 --> 2:48:07.560 By December twenty eleven, the entire European Union had tighten 2:48:07.680 --> 2:48:11.040 export controls on any chemicals that could potentially be used 2:48:11.080 --> 2:48:15.680 in executions. The new expanded EU ban made life much 2:48:15.720 --> 2:48:19.160 more difficult for would be executioners in the United States. 2:48:19.640 --> 2:48:21.920 In twenty twelve, when the state of Missouri announced it 2:48:21.959 --> 2:48:26.040 would use the drug pro poofoal as an anesthetic in 2:48:26.080 --> 2:48:29.000 its executions, the EU said it would cut off exports 2:48:29.000 --> 2:48:31.640 of that drug, which is used for surgeries in the 2:48:31.720 --> 2:48:35.720 United States about fifty million times a year. Combined, these 2:48:35.760 --> 2:48:39.640 moves created a lethal injection drug shortage that changed how 2:48:39.760 --> 2:48:41.160 executions took place. 2:48:41.959 --> 2:48:45.800 In twenty twelve, Texas moved then to a single drug protocol, 2:48:46.440 --> 2:48:49.720 using pennel barbitol alone rather than the old three drug 2:48:49.760 --> 2:48:53.320 cocktail made out of thin air by Oklahoma corner Stephen Coleman. 2:48:53.440 --> 2:48:57.640 Back in the nineteen seventies, autopsies revealed that prisoners executed 2:48:57.640 --> 2:49:01.320 with this single drug protocol die from pullman edema, a 2:49:01.320 --> 2:49:04.520 condition in which the lungs fill with fluid. Medical experts 2:49:04.520 --> 2:49:07.320 believe prisoners suffer intense chest pain as they suffocate, even 2:49:07.360 --> 2:49:11.320 if they appear fully unconscious. Execution witnesses also say they 2:49:11.360 --> 2:49:14.400 have seen prisoners eyes pop open, their eyes fill with tears, 2:49:14.760 --> 2:49:17.360 have seen them pull against restraints, and have heard them 2:49:17.400 --> 2:49:20.000 grown and class their jaws during such executions. 2:49:20.920 --> 2:49:23.879 As the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections become 2:49:23.959 --> 2:49:27.640 harder to find, states have to rely on shady tactics 2:49:27.680 --> 2:49:30.800 so they can keep on killing. Officials have lied to 2:49:30.800 --> 2:49:34.680 pharmaceutical companies that are buying drugs to provide medical care 2:49:34.760 --> 2:49:37.280 for prisoners that they later use in the death chamber. 2:49:37.959 --> 2:49:41.520 Death penalty. States have violated federal laws. They have illegally 2:49:41.640 --> 2:49:45.400 swapped these drugs across state line, or they bought them 2:49:45.440 --> 2:49:48.360 on the black market or to legally marginal so called 2:49:48.400 --> 2:49:52.160 gray market, Professor Lane describes as shading lengths the state 2:49:52.200 --> 2:49:55.040 of Ohio went to in order to buy these drugs. 2:49:55.440 --> 2:49:59.960 The state took fifteen thousand dollars in cash in a suitcase. 2:50:00.440 --> 2:50:03.039 I mean, you can't make this stuff up, you know, 2:50:03.280 --> 2:50:07.200 And chartered a private plane to fly over to Washington 2:50:07.400 --> 2:50:11.760 where they did an under the table deal for drugs 2:50:12.120 --> 2:50:15.360 with this little pharmacy. You know you need a prescription 2:50:15.480 --> 2:50:17.720 for these drugs, and so here's a pharmacy that, for 2:50:17.800 --> 2:50:21.560 fifteen thousand dollars is willing to sell drugs under the 2:50:21.640 --> 2:50:25.400 table and allegedly in a Walmart parking lot. 2:50:26.080 --> 2:50:28.840 To cope with the shrinking supply, states have made illegal 2:50:28.879 --> 2:50:32.760 purchases overseas. Like other states, Texas has tried to circumvent 2:50:32.800 --> 2:50:36.880 tightening restrictions by purchasing death penalty supplies from loosely regulated 2:50:36.879 --> 2:50:40.000 compounding pharmacies, and some of them have been here in 2:50:40.040 --> 2:50:42.920 the States. In twenty eighteen, it was revealed that Texas 2:50:42.920 --> 2:50:46.680 repeatedly bought drugs from the Green Park Compounding Pharmacy in Houston, 2:50:47.200 --> 2:50:49.440 which is a company that had been fined forty eight 2:50:49.480 --> 2:50:53.440 times by federal regulators for safety violations, including providing the 2:50:53.440 --> 2:50:58.400 wrong medication to children who were subsequently hospitalized. The number 2:50:58.440 --> 2:51:02.440 of agonizingly prolonged executions in Texas suggest that the drugs 2:51:02.440 --> 2:51:05.680 the state buys are often out of date or impure. 2:51:06.440 --> 2:51:09.000 Finding out where the lethal drugs are coming from is 2:51:09.040 --> 2:51:12.920 becoming increasingly difficult. A number of states have passed laws 2:51:12.959 --> 2:51:16.480 may it illegal to report on who carries out the execution, 2:51:17.040 --> 2:51:20.440 what companies supply the drugs, or how these drugs were purchased. 2:51:20.920 --> 2:51:24.320 In any case, the difficulty in getting execution drugs has 2:51:24.440 --> 2:51:26.920 led to a decline the death penalty across the nation. 2:51:27.879 --> 2:51:31.080 At the time of the landmark nineteen seventy two Firman 2:51:31.240 --> 2:51:35.160 versus Georgia case that temporarily halted executions in the United States, 2:51:35.640 --> 2:51:39.720 forty states had the death penalty. Currently only twenty seven do. 2:51:40.360 --> 2:51:44.800 In twenty twenty four, four states alone, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, 2:51:44.840 --> 2:51:49.119 and Texas carried out seventy six percent of the executions 2:51:49.440 --> 2:51:51.400 that unfolded in the United States. 2:51:52.200 --> 2:51:54.200 Some of the remaining states with the death penalty on 2:51:54.240 --> 2:51:56.960 the books have responded to the shortage of lethal drugs 2:51:57.000 --> 2:52:00.400 by authorizing the use of the firing squad and killing 2:52:00.440 --> 2:52:04.600 prisoners with nitrogen gas epoxia, which suffocates them by forcing 2:52:04.640 --> 2:52:09.360 them to breathe pure nitrogen. After another outbreak, you'll hear 2:52:09.400 --> 2:52:13.080 from a priest who has witnessed executions in ten different states, 2:52:13.280 --> 2:52:16.560 including death by nitrous epoxia, and will end this three 2:52:16.560 --> 2:52:26.720 part series by discussing the future of the death penalty. 2:52:30.440 --> 2:52:34.280 Born in the South Atlanta neighborhood in Georgia, Jeff Hood 2:52:34.280 --> 2:52:37.560 grew up in a religiously conservative home and was ordained 2:52:37.560 --> 2:52:40.440 as a Southern Baptist minister when he was only twenty two. 2:52:41.640 --> 2:52:44.600 His worldview, however, was shaken when he attended to his 2:52:44.760 --> 2:52:48.120 religious mentor, who was dying of lung cancer. Before he 2:52:48.160 --> 2:52:50.520 passed away, the seventy five year old confessed to the 2:52:50.560 --> 2:52:55.120 Hood quote, I'm gay and I've always been. Hood described 2:52:55.160 --> 2:52:58.920 this moment as earth shattering, and his religious views transformed 2:52:59.000 --> 2:53:02.480 dramatically from what he later called his backwards thinking. 2:53:03.040 --> 2:53:05.160 When Hood moved to Dallas in the early twenty tens, 2:53:05.520 --> 2:53:07.920 he became well known in his new home as he 2:53:07.959 --> 2:53:11.119 fought to make local churches more inclusive of the LGBTQ 2:53:11.240 --> 2:53:14.080 plus community, and he got arrested along with other clergy 2:53:14.120 --> 2:53:16.720 outside of the White House in twenty fourteen when he 2:53:16.760 --> 2:53:20.279 was protesting President Barack Obama's aggressive campaign to deport migrants. 2:53:20.840 --> 2:53:23.840 On July seventh and twenty sixteen, Hood led a Black 2:53:23.840 --> 2:53:27.400 Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas, during which a sniper 2:53:27.720 --> 2:53:30.439 opened fire and targeted police officers. 2:53:30.800 --> 2:53:34.959 Micah X. Johnson, an IRAQ war veteran, was enraged by 2:53:35.000 --> 2:53:38.800 the police killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Filando 2:53:38.879 --> 2:53:43.600 Castile in Minnesota. So Johnson shot and killed five police officers, 2:53:43.680 --> 2:53:47.480 the deadliest incident for law enforcement since September eleventh, two 2:53:47.520 --> 2:53:51.200 thousand and one. Police killed Johnson that evening by detonating 2:53:51.240 --> 2:53:54.240 a bomb carried by a robot to the shooter's hide 2:53:54.240 --> 2:53:57.879 out in a parking garage, marking the first execution by 2:53:57.959 --> 2:54:02.920 robot in American history. Reverend Hood was traumatized not only 2:54:03.040 --> 2:54:06.520 by the sniper attack, but also when he got scapegoaded 2:54:06.600 --> 2:54:10.400 for the deaths that day. Fox News hosts Megan Kelly 2:54:10.400 --> 2:54:13.120 put a target on Hood's back in the aftermath of 2:54:13.160 --> 2:54:14.080 the sniper attack. 2:54:14.680 --> 2:54:17.240 Jeff Hood, he was one of the organizers of the march, 2:54:17.760 --> 2:54:19.880 and quickly condemned the shootings. 2:54:19.959 --> 2:54:23.680 Today never and are while the streams would we have 2:54:23.800 --> 2:54:27.800 imagined that five police officers would be dead. 2:54:27.879 --> 2:54:31.320 It's form, But critics were quick to point out that 2:54:31.400 --> 2:54:34.279 we were hearing a very different message from the Reverend 2:54:34.360 --> 2:54:37.720 just a short time before the shots rang out last night. 2:54:38.000 --> 2:54:39.879 Here are some of that, But I'm a. 2:54:40.000 --> 2:54:43.800 Channel an old preacher that I am my tremendously. 2:54:44.400 --> 2:54:52.080 Jail am all right, and I'm gonna say, God damn 2:54:52.640 --> 2:54:58.120 White America, God. 2:54:57.360 --> 2:54:59.960 Damn white America. 2:55:00.080 --> 2:55:01.160 What about whom. 2:55:08.959 --> 2:55:12.240 Of the bodies a foot and brown people people being 2:55:12.360 --> 2:55:13.400 flooded in our. 2:55:13.400 --> 2:55:16.840 Free Hood agreed to be interviewed by Kelly, but the 2:55:16.879 --> 2:55:20.440 minister soon realized that Fox viewers blamed him for the 2:55:20.480 --> 2:55:22.720 officer's death, and they threatened vengeance. 2:55:23.600 --> 2:55:26.040 I mean, after Julaw the Seventh Man, there was talk 2:55:26.080 --> 2:55:29.199 about threats. Didn't PD was having to take the kids 2:55:29.240 --> 2:55:32.240 to school, and it was. It was absolutely. 2:55:31.720 --> 2:55:36.279 Horrible witnessing people die that day, including the sniper Johnson's 2:55:36.480 --> 2:55:41.640 impromptu execution via remote control robot, deep in Hood's opposition 2:55:41.720 --> 2:55:45.080 to violence, including state killing. In twenty twenty two, he 2:55:45.160 --> 2:55:47.920 is ordained again, this time as a priest and was 2:55:47.920 --> 2:55:51.120 called the Old Catholic Faith, which accepts many of the 2:55:51.160 --> 2:55:54.480 doctrines and rights of the Roman Catholic Church but rejects 2:55:54.480 --> 2:55:58.640 the doctrine of people infallibility and authority. Hood began writing 2:55:58.640 --> 2:56:00.920 to those on death Row and then hockey and praying 2:56:00.959 --> 2:56:04.160 with them in person. In twenty twenty two, the United 2:56:04.200 --> 2:56:07.520 States Supreme court ruled in the Ramirez versus Collier case 2:56:07.879 --> 2:56:10.440 that condemned prisoners have the right to die in the 2:56:10.480 --> 2:56:14.360 company of a spiritual advisor who became a companion to 2:56:14.440 --> 2:56:16.240 the condemned in their last minutes. 2:56:16.879 --> 2:56:20.879 I began to have people reaching out during that time, 2:56:22.120 --> 2:56:25.440 you know, and asking me if I would accompany them 2:56:26.160 --> 2:56:29.640 to the death chamber. And you know, it's one thing 2:56:30.240 --> 2:56:36.640 to be willing to have relationships with people who are executed. 2:56:36.720 --> 2:56:41.160 It's a whole nother thing to be asked to participate 2:56:41.240 --> 2:56:46.160 in the process. And so since then, I've witnessed been 2:56:46.160 --> 2:56:50.240 in the chamber with ten different guys. So from January 2:56:50.280 --> 2:56:54.320 of twenty twenty three to now, I've watched ten different 2:56:54.360 --> 2:56:56.040 men be executed by the state. 2:56:56.680 --> 2:56:59.680 Who attended his first execution when the State of Oklahoma 2:56:59.720 --> 2:57:03.640 puts Scott Eisenberg to death on January twelfth, twenty twenty three. 2:57:04.040 --> 2:57:07.840 Twenty years earlier, Eisenberg murdered an elderly couple, including a 2:57:07.840 --> 2:57:08.960 man he bludgeoned to death. 2:57:09.520 --> 2:57:13.640 My first execution was Scott Eisenberg in Oklahoma, and he 2:57:14.959 --> 2:57:19.039 Scott had a number of things going on, but we 2:57:19.040 --> 2:57:23.240 were very close. He had a lot of anger issues 2:57:23.320 --> 2:57:26.959 and I think difficulty controlling his temper and whatnot. And 2:57:27.600 --> 2:57:29.680 you know, so the reality was I was very frightened 2:57:30.440 --> 2:57:33.000 before I went in because I thought Scott was just 2:57:33.080 --> 2:57:38.760 going to go ballistic. And you know, to be in 2:57:38.800 --> 2:57:42.920 that room with someone that goes ballistic, I mean, it's 2:57:43.320 --> 2:57:48.959 it's already traumatic enough. I'm sure you can imagine without 2:57:49.040 --> 2:57:51.120 you know, something like that, But then again, you couldn't. 2:57:51.400 --> 2:57:54.240 You can't blame them for wanting to, you know, push 2:57:54.320 --> 2:57:57.080 back and fight for their lives and whatnot. I found 2:57:57.120 --> 2:58:04.400 myself shaking, just you know, my hands and my legs, 2:58:05.520 --> 2:58:10.400 this terror, I mean, just utterly terrified. And then they 2:58:10.440 --> 2:58:14.480 opened the door and I was led in and I 2:58:14.520 --> 2:58:22.440 saw Scott. And it's incredibly strange to see someone hooked 2:58:22.480 --> 2:58:28.520 up to machines that look like they're there to support life, 2:58:28.680 --> 2:58:35.720 and yet you know that they're there to take his life. 2:58:35.959 --> 2:58:39.160 And so I wasn't able. I mean, I knew that 2:58:39.240 --> 2:58:42.680 there was a window on one side, I wasn't able 2:58:42.720 --> 2:58:45.320 to see through that window because there was a curtain down. 2:58:46.240 --> 2:58:50.040 And I began to pray with Scott. Scott had asked 2:58:50.080 --> 2:58:54.400 me to read a number of scriptures and I did, 2:58:55.720 --> 2:58:59.240 and I dropped my Bible at one point because I'm 2:58:59.280 --> 2:59:02.480 shaking so bad I was having trouble holding it. You know. 2:59:02.560 --> 2:59:08.640 He notices that I'm shaking, He notices that I'm upset, 2:59:09.600 --> 2:59:12.760 and he looks at me and tells me everything's gonna 2:59:12.800 --> 2:59:16.560 be okay. And I'm thinking to myself, no, it's not. 2:59:17.360 --> 2:59:18.560 Like, no, it is not. 2:59:19.280 --> 2:59:25.200 And I'm thinking, you know, you're gonna die, and I'm 2:59:25.200 --> 2:59:27.560 going to be scarred for life. Everything is not going 2:59:27.600 --> 2:59:34.520 to be okay. And I went to the scripture in 2:59:35.280 --> 2:59:41.040 John chapter eight where Jesus encounters the adulterous woman, and 2:59:41.080 --> 2:59:45.760 there's that famous line, famous verse, you who are without sin, 2:59:45.920 --> 2:59:50.760 cast the first stone, and I read that in the chamber, 2:59:52.200 --> 2:59:56.360 and one of the lighter moments when we were in 2:59:56.440 --> 2:59:58.520 there was when I read that you who are without 2:59:58.560 --> 3:00:02.880 sin cast the first tone. I remember Scott looking up 3:00:02.920 --> 3:00:05.760 and pointing at the executioners and saying, you know, he's 3:00:05.800 --> 3:00:08.000 talking to y'all, like this is about y'all. 3:00:09.000 --> 3:00:11.760 Pud said that any sense that death by lethal injection 3:00:11.879 --> 3:00:14.200 is nonviolent is an illusion. 3:00:15.280 --> 3:00:21.240 In every lethal injection, I have immediately heard snoring, and 3:00:21.320 --> 3:00:26.120 what sounds not like you know, snoring from you know 3:00:26.160 --> 3:00:29.440 that one would have when they sleep or whatever, but 3:00:29.480 --> 3:00:34.600 more of a gurgling kind of a snoring, and you 3:00:34.640 --> 3:00:39.560 know it's the body responds in a very panicked fashion, 3:00:40.200 --> 3:00:44.840 and so it's almost like it's like drowning someone who's 3:00:44.879 --> 3:00:49.760 completely paralyzed. And I think that that's I think that's 3:00:49.760 --> 3:00:53.320 what it's been like every time. I think that there 3:00:53.440 --> 3:00:58.760 is a level of suffering that is that is hidden, 3:00:59.520 --> 3:01:01.880 there's a he is in that again that it's made 3:01:01.879 --> 3:01:03.840 to look like a medical procedure, because it does look 3:01:03.879 --> 3:01:06.480 like a medical procedure. I think it is a con. 3:01:07.520 --> 3:01:11.039 W Hood found the lethal injections traumatizing, but that did 3:01:11.040 --> 3:01:13.560 not prepare for him for what he witnessed when Alabama 3:01:13.640 --> 3:01:17.360 began executing prisoners through nitrous hypoxia. 3:01:18.040 --> 3:01:21.520 I can tell you that as horrible as a lethal 3:01:21.560 --> 3:01:24.520 injection is, and yes, it is a con job, I 3:01:24.879 --> 3:01:28.080 can tell you that I what I saw during that 3:01:28.240 --> 3:01:33.120 nitrogen execution is indescribable. I can tell you that I 3:01:33.120 --> 3:01:36.000 think I would rather be burned to death than be 3:01:36.120 --> 3:01:38.879 executed by nitrogen. I mean it is that bad. 3:01:39.520 --> 3:01:44.680 Wod attended the hypoxia suffocation of Kenneth Smith, a contract killer, 3:01:45.120 --> 3:01:48.080 on January twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, the first such 3:01:48.160 --> 3:01:52.040 execution in American history. Smith had been sentence to death 3:01:52.120 --> 3:01:55.800 thirty six years earlier. That said, the horrors for him began. 3:01:56.000 --> 3:01:59.440 We stepped into the death chamber and saw Smith outfitted 3:01:59.480 --> 3:02:02.400 with a large masks that would deliver the poison gas. 3:02:02.959 --> 3:02:06.760 Attending this execution actually put Hood's life in jeopardy. 3:02:07.360 --> 3:02:10.720 I can describe it for y'alls listeners. But the mask 3:02:11.680 --> 3:02:16.880 which I'm holding right here a replica, is basically something 3:02:17.000 --> 3:02:20.600 that is gas netting in the back and has silicone straps. 3:02:20.800 --> 3:02:25.800 It's put over the back of someone's head and it 3:02:25.879 --> 3:02:28.840 is strapped as tight as possible to try to keep 3:02:28.920 --> 3:02:33.280 it on. And it looks like a firefighter's mask with 3:02:33.400 --> 3:02:37.320 sort of a plexiglass plate on the front. And then 3:02:37.360 --> 3:02:41.560 there's a hose that's going from the firefighter's mask with 3:02:41.600 --> 3:02:47.520 the plexiglass plate to the nitrogen. And so what is 3:02:47.879 --> 3:02:51.800 happening is they try to pump as much nitrogen as 3:02:51.840 --> 3:02:57.840 possible through through this line. The problem is is that 3:02:59.200 --> 3:03:03.080 these masks don't completely hold the form. I guess it's 3:03:03.120 --> 3:03:06.160 the best way of saying it in that it's difficult 3:03:06.800 --> 3:03:11.040 for you to get an air tight seal. So the 3:03:11.040 --> 3:03:15.600 more oxygen that gets in here, the more it's displacing nitrogen. 3:03:16.240 --> 3:03:19.199 And so the more oxygen that's in here, and obviously 3:03:19.200 --> 3:03:21.920 there's gonna be oxygen too, there's gonna be oxygen in 3:03:21.920 --> 3:03:26.199 the mass before the thing even starts, is going to 3:03:26.240 --> 3:03:29.440 create more suffering. It's going to create a longer process. 3:03:30.560 --> 3:03:32.560 Good knew that he would be in a chamber in 3:03:32.560 --> 3:03:35.120 which poison gas would be released, and he felt obligated 3:03:35.120 --> 3:03:37.760 to tell his children in advance that he could be harmed. 3:03:38.360 --> 3:03:40.960 They were terrified, of course, but he felt an obligation 3:03:41.040 --> 3:03:44.680 to provide smith company and compassion as well. Again, we 3:03:44.760 --> 3:03:47.320 remind listeners that what they are about to hear might 3:03:47.400 --> 3:03:48.320 be upsetting. 3:03:48.879 --> 3:03:50.800 So by the time we get to the point where 3:03:50.800 --> 3:03:54.320 they turn the nitrogen on, all the witnesses, everybody in 3:03:54.360 --> 3:03:57.840 the room is like going Nobody knows what's about to 3:03:57.840 --> 3:04:02.240 happen because it's never been tried before. And so they 3:04:02.280 --> 3:04:08.199 turn it on and Kenny immediately begins to heave back 3:04:08.280 --> 3:04:11.600 and forth and back and forth, over and over. And 3:04:11.760 --> 3:04:14.920 every time he heaves forward, the back of the mask 3:04:15.120 --> 3:04:18.240 was strapped to the gurney, so every time he heaves forward, 3:04:18.280 --> 3:04:21.760 his face is hitting the front of that mask over 3:04:21.879 --> 3:04:25.280 and over and over and over, and so it's like 3:04:25.560 --> 3:04:30.080 watching someone get like hit their face against the playglass window, 3:04:30.600 --> 3:04:33.560 and it's like his nose and his face is flattening 3:04:33.600 --> 3:04:37.560 every time he does it. And he begins to shake 3:04:37.720 --> 3:04:41.720 back and forth and back and forth, heaving up and down. 3:04:42.000 --> 3:04:47.360 I see spit and saliva and snod and you know, 3:04:47.520 --> 3:04:51.520 eyewater and all sorts of fluid is coming out of 3:04:52.360 --> 3:04:56.160 his face, and that fluid begins to build up on 3:04:56.200 --> 3:04:59.320 the front of the mask and it begins to drizzle 3:04:59.720 --> 3:05:00.520 like a waterfall. 3:05:01.720 --> 3:05:05.120 Smith's convulse was so much force, prison officials worried his 3:05:05.280 --> 3:05:09.320 mask might come off, interrupting the execution and possibly killing 3:05:09.320 --> 3:05:13.480 Hood and maybe others and attendance. A window separated Hood 3:05:13.480 --> 3:05:17.199 from other witnesses in the violence of Smith's death caused 3:05:17.200 --> 3:05:17.720 the commotion. 3:05:18.760 --> 3:05:22.160 The windows are like super thick. I shouldn't have been 3:05:22.160 --> 3:05:24.760 able to hear anything, but I could hear somebody behind 3:05:24.800 --> 3:05:29.000 me screaming stop stop stop, stop, please stop stop stop. 3:05:30.120 --> 3:05:34.360 And it was it was an absolute nightmare. And Kenny 3:05:34.400 --> 3:05:38.680 did not die for at least twenty two minutes. And 3:05:38.720 --> 3:05:42.880 it's very possible that he didn't die for a longer 3:05:42.879 --> 3:05:48.039 period of time, but the state of Alabama declares they say, oh, 3:05:48.200 --> 3:05:50.720 you know, he's not breathing, he's dead. Then they'd push 3:05:50.760 --> 3:05:52.440 everybody out of the room, and then they bring the 3:05:52.520 --> 3:05:56.320 doctor in after everybody's left, to declare him dead. 3:05:57.360 --> 3:05:59.960 Who admits that some of the men he's counseled are 3:06:00.080 --> 3:06:04.520 capable of unspeakable evil, even after years on death row, 3:06:04.720 --> 3:06:08.040 but he still recalls each death he's witnessed with pain. 3:06:08.800 --> 3:06:15.440 I feel morally compromised, horrified, but I feel cold or 3:06:15.840 --> 3:06:20.640 pushed to keep going because I think that the more traumatic. 3:06:20.200 --> 3:06:23.760 Thing would be to leave these guys alone. Now, in 3:06:23.840 --> 3:06:28.280 terms of actually seeing it, I think that it's these 3:06:28.320 --> 3:06:34.240 images don't leave you. There's nightmares. I always say that 3:06:34.280 --> 3:06:39.320 these guys haunt me. They come night after night. You know, 3:06:39.360 --> 3:06:41.080 I'll see them at the end of my bed. I mean, 3:06:41.160 --> 3:06:44.880 I mean, just yeah. So, so trauma is something I've 3:06:45.400 --> 3:06:46.560 come to know very well. 3:06:48.080 --> 3:06:51.520 In twenty nineteen, the United States Supreme Court ruled the 3:06:51.600 --> 3:06:54.280 prisoners do not have a right to a painless death 3:06:54.800 --> 3:06:58.400 when a green lighted the execution of Russell Buckloo, who 3:06:58.480 --> 3:07:01.760 had blood filled tumor and his head, neck and mouth 3:07:02.120 --> 3:07:03.920 that could have broken up and as he was put 3:07:03.959 --> 3:07:07.080 to death. The highest court seems to have rendered the 3:07:07.080 --> 3:07:11.000 Eighth Amendments ban on Cruel and Unusual punishment mood. 3:07:11.920 --> 3:07:15.040 Meanwhile, in recent years, it has not only been states 3:07:15.040 --> 3:07:18.200 that have enforced the death penalty. Between nineteen sixty and 3:07:18.320 --> 3:07:22.880 twenty nineteen, the federal government carried out only three executions, 3:07:22.920 --> 3:07:26.120 but in twenty twenty to early twenty twenty one, during 3:07:26.120 --> 3:07:28.560 the last six months of Donald Trump's first term as president, 3:07:28.959 --> 3:07:30.880 the federal government executed. 3:07:30.400 --> 3:07:31.880 Thirteen men and women. 3:07:32.480 --> 3:07:35.920 These included Brandon Bernard, who committed a double murder when 3:07:35.959 --> 3:07:39.960 he was only eighteen, and another Lisa Montgomery, whose psychologists 3:07:39.959 --> 3:07:43.160 believed was severely mentally ill and detached from reality at 3:07:43.160 --> 3:07:45.280 the time that she murdered a pregnant woman and cut 3:07:45.320 --> 3:07:47.840 the baby from her victim's body in order to raise 3:07:47.879 --> 3:07:48.879 the child as her own. 3:07:49.879 --> 3:07:52.240 Joe Biden, on the other hand, at the end of 3:07:52.280 --> 3:07:56.760 his presidential term, sought to prevent a similar execution spree. 3:07:56.879 --> 3:07:59.360 Forty people are on death row, and he commuted the 3:07:59.400 --> 3:08:03.080 sense of thirty seven of them. The remaining three were 3:08:03.320 --> 3:08:09.000 Zokhar Zarnev. The twenty thirteen Boston Marathon bomber Dylan Rufe, 3:08:09.040 --> 3:08:12.360 who massacred nine members of the Mother Emmanuel Ame Church 3:08:12.720 --> 3:08:17.200 in Charleston, South Carolina, twenty fifteen, and Robert Bowers, who 3:08:17.320 --> 3:08:20.240 killed eleven at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. 3:08:21.320 --> 3:08:24.080 Back in power, however, Trump is vowed to make the 3:08:24.120 --> 3:08:25.440 death penalty great again. 3:08:26.200 --> 3:08:32.359 Anybody murders something in the capitol, capital punishment, capital capital punishment. 3:08:33.640 --> 3:08:39.600 If somebody kills somebody in the capitol Washington, DC, We're 3:08:39.640 --> 3:08:41.440 going to be seeking the death penalty. 3:08:43.320 --> 3:08:46.440 And that's a very strong preventative. 3:08:47.560 --> 3:08:50.960 Trump's immediate plans aside, the future of the death penalty 3:08:51.000 --> 3:08:53.560 in the long term is not so certain. According to 3:08:53.600 --> 3:08:56.360 a twenty twenty four Gallup opinion poll, support for the 3:08:56.360 --> 3:08:59.120 death penalty has sunk to its lowest level in half 3:08:59.160 --> 3:09:03.240 a century. Only fifty three percent of Americans favor capital punishment, 3:09:03.400 --> 3:09:06.800 but that number skews heavily towards older Americans. More than 3:09:06.800 --> 3:09:09.520 half of Americans between the ages of eighteen and forty 3:09:09.520 --> 3:09:13.000 three oppose the death penalty, and almost sixty percent of 3:09:13.040 --> 3:09:16.520 the so called gen z those born between nineteen ninety 3:09:16.520 --> 3:09:20.080 seven and twenty twelve are firmly against the death penalty, 3:09:20.760 --> 3:09:24.360 while Professor Karna Lane believes that even record low support 3:09:24.360 --> 3:09:26.720 for the death penalty is exaggerated and that support for 3:09:26.760 --> 3:09:30.360 capital punishment drops even further when other options are provided 3:09:30.400 --> 3:09:31.120 to voters. 3:09:31.680 --> 3:09:35.200 You know, the President issued this executive order, a day 3:09:35.320 --> 3:09:38.320 one executive order. Let's go for the death penalty anytime 3:09:38.320 --> 3:09:41.760 we can. Let's execute everybody. And one of the things 3:09:41.800 --> 3:09:46.000 to realize is that the death penalty is dying in 3:09:46.080 --> 3:09:52.600 this country for reasons that an executive order cannot fix. 3:09:53.360 --> 3:09:56.320 People have less confidence than the death penalty. They don't 3:09:56.400 --> 3:10:01.200 trust the death penalty, nor should they. Two people have 3:10:01.320 --> 3:10:03.080 been exonerated from. 3:10:03.040 --> 3:10:06.440 Death row and Race Bouyon agrees. 3:10:06.600 --> 3:10:11.440 The decline in executions in the United States reflects a 3:10:11.560 --> 3:10:16.200 broad US shift in how society views get penalty. I mean, 3:10:16.600 --> 3:10:21.800 more states are repealing it, juries are imposing it less often, 3:10:22.560 --> 3:10:27.879 and the public support while student inviting has steadily decreased, 3:10:28.400 --> 3:10:34.480 especially as concerns about wrongful convictions in the racial bias 3:10:35.160 --> 3:10:39.039 and the high costs of capital punishment came to light. 3:10:40.320 --> 3:10:43.760 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, hangings were public, 3:10:44.160 --> 3:10:47.120 but they so often went awry and produced such grizzly 3:10:47.200 --> 3:10:51.160 scen States smooth as executions inside prison yards and some 3:10:51.440 --> 3:10:56.080 more humane alternative. That new method, the electric chair, proved 3:10:56.080 --> 3:10:59.920 horrifying as well, and was deemed unsuitable for general audiences. 3:11:00.920 --> 3:11:03.320 The Supreme Court imposed a four year pause in the 3:11:03.320 --> 3:11:06.280 death penalty beginning in nineteen seventy two because of its 3:11:06.360 --> 3:11:11.359 random application. In nineteen seventy six, the High Court reauthorized 3:11:11.360 --> 3:11:15.760 capital punishment. A crisis ensued when a Texas TV reporters 3:11:15.840 --> 3:11:19.720 sued for the right to televise executions. Horrified at the 3:11:19.760 --> 3:11:23.119 prospectively condemned, essentially being burned alive in the electric chair 3:11:23.160 --> 3:11:26.440 in front of a primetime audience. States approved the latest 3:11:26.440 --> 3:11:30.840 innovation stake killing death by lethal injection, But throughout this 3:11:31.120 --> 3:11:36.160 history of execution, insurmountable flaws have remained consistent. The quest 3:11:36.360 --> 3:11:38.640 for a human way to kill people on an announced 3:11:38.680 --> 3:11:41.879 schedule has been futile. Each form of the death penalty 3:11:41.920 --> 3:11:44.400 has been proven to be violent and cost suffering at 3:11:44.440 --> 3:11:48.480 great expenditure of public money, and plausibly innocent people have 3:11:48.600 --> 3:11:51.640 been put to death. As the people in charge of 3:11:51.640 --> 3:11:55.000 punishment have changed execution methods over the years, they've also 3:11:55.040 --> 3:11:58.280 tried to prevent public backlash to revolting scenes of suffering, 3:11:58.560 --> 3:12:02.080 which could create the opposite the capital punishment that they fear. 3:12:02.959 --> 3:12:04.920 Politicians eager to prove they are tough on crime, have 3:12:04.959 --> 3:12:09.080 also fought to hide these gruesome spectacles from public view. Nevertheless, 3:12:09.360 --> 3:12:12.160 Race Bouyon is optimistic that this grim aspect of life 3:12:12.320 --> 3:12:14.760 in the United States might soon come to an end. 3:12:15.400 --> 3:12:17.920 More than two thirds of you know countries have about 3:12:17.920 --> 3:12:23.440 this death penalty in law or practice, with only a 3:12:23.480 --> 3:12:27.920 few countries carrying out the vast majority of executions. And 3:12:28.040 --> 3:12:31.720 I think the future is one where the death penalty 3:12:31.959 --> 3:12:38.800 continues to strain one life as the values of human rights, dignity, 3:12:38.920 --> 3:12:43.840 and justice without irreversible punishment again ground. 3:12:45.360 --> 3:12:47.800 Until next time. I'm Michael Phillips and. 3:12:47.760 --> 3:12:50.119 I'm Stephen Montchelli. Thanks for listening. 3:13:04.320 --> 3:13:07.320 Am I introducing the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. 3:13:07.840 --> 3:13:11.200 This is It Could Happen Here Executive Disorder, our weekly 3:13:11.280 --> 3:13:13.960 news cast covering what's happening in the White House, the 3:13:14.000 --> 3:13:15.240 crumbling world what it means for you. 3:13:15.320 --> 3:13:16.320 I'm Garrison Davis. 3:13:16.320 --> 3:13:19.400 Today I'm joined by Mio Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. 3:13:19.840 --> 3:13:23.640 This episode recovering the week of October thirty. First to 3:13:23.800 --> 3:13:27.599 November fifth, one of the most exciting weeks in politics. 3:13:27.760 --> 3:13:29.640 Yeah, because it's one finite. 3:13:29.160 --> 3:13:33.200 If you remember the poem, that's right, and that's not 3:13:33.280 --> 3:13:35.640 the only exciting thing to happen, but also not the 3:13:35.640 --> 3:13:38.720 only sad thing to happen this week, because as exciting 3:13:38.760 --> 3:13:42.000 as election Day was for people in New York, there 3:13:42.080 --> 3:13:45.160 was like a looming sadness throughout the day because earlier 3:13:45.160 --> 3:13:50.480 that morning, obviously, Vice President Dick Cheney passed away, and 3:13:51.800 --> 3:13:56.600 that was rough for many people, not rough for many others, 3:13:57.280 --> 3:14:00.360 but that certainly was a looming presence over the day. 3:14:00.400 --> 3:14:03.640 Does anyone have any words to say on the passing 3:14:03.800 --> 3:14:05.959 of mister Cheney. 3:14:06.320 --> 3:14:08.320 Yeah, I mean, I just want to let everyone in 3:14:08.400 --> 3:14:11.000 hell know this too shall pass. You know you won't 3:14:11.040 --> 3:14:13.400 be stuck with him forever. Just try to grin and 3:14:13.440 --> 3:14:14.879 bear it. I know it's going to be hard for 3:14:14.920 --> 3:14:18.720 a lot of you, especially Saddam Hussein, but I know 3:14:18.800 --> 3:14:21.440 you can get past this. You know, he will get 3:14:21.480 --> 3:14:26.680 reincarnated as a Senate Republican staffer within the next six 3:14:26.720 --> 3:14:29.119 to eight months, so so you won't have to put 3:14:29.200 --> 3:14:29.760 up with him long. 3:14:30.720 --> 3:14:33.200 I guess this is also just your reminder that it's 3:14:33.240 --> 3:14:35.920 going to do to practice see full essential rooms of 3:14:36.000 --> 3:14:38.119 firearms safety at old times. 3:14:38.640 --> 3:14:42.480 Don't shoot with Dick Cheney if you see Dick Cheney 3:14:42.520 --> 3:14:43.800 while you're hunting quail. 3:14:44.240 --> 3:14:44.400 Right. 3:14:44.480 --> 3:14:46.360 Do the kids even know about this now? 3:14:47.720 --> 3:14:47.879 Oh? 3:14:48.040 --> 3:14:49.520 The kids know? The kids? 3:14:49.560 --> 3:14:49.600 No? 3:14:50.280 --> 3:14:50.800 Yeah? 3:14:51.080 --> 3:14:53.680 Ok, yeah, yeah, this is. 3:14:55.400 --> 3:14:59.920 Cheney law has permeated throughout generations of American call. 3:15:00.360 --> 3:15:00.920 Yeah. 3:15:00.959 --> 3:15:02.800 When I was a kid, there was like a whole 3:15:02.800 --> 3:15:04.920 thing where we all fought the song Jamie's Got a 3:15:04.959 --> 3:15:06.240 Gun was Cheney's got a. 3:15:06.200 --> 3:15:11.360 Gun in front of except because it just lined up 3:15:11.360 --> 3:15:12.960 with everything you knew about the world. 3:15:13.240 --> 3:15:16.680 What's funny about it is that my actual thinking on 3:15:17.320 --> 3:15:20.560 that shooting hasn't changed since I was a Republican kid. 3:15:20.800 --> 3:15:23.199 Like when I was a young right winger, I thought, Wow, 3:15:23.240 --> 3:15:25.600 Dick Cheney's so cool. He shot a man and got 3:15:25.640 --> 3:15:28.480 him to apologize to him, And now, as an adult 3:15:28.520 --> 3:15:30.640 on the left, I still think that's kind of the 3:15:30.640 --> 3:15:31.480 coolest thing Dick. 3:15:31.400 --> 3:15:32.200 Cheney ever did. 3:15:33.000 --> 3:15:39.280 Like it is a head of a feat. 3:15:38.400 --> 3:15:41.520 That man apologized for getting in front of his sights. 3:15:42.240 --> 3:15:43.160 That's amazing. 3:15:45.440 --> 3:15:46.520 Now it is. 3:15:46.600 --> 3:15:49.959 It is unfortunate that Dick Cheney did not live to 3:15:50.040 --> 3:15:54.680 see the election of Zormumdani as the mayor of New 3:15:54.760 --> 3:15:55.720 York City. 3:15:55.440 --> 3:15:58.080 Which happened. That would have been funny on Tuesday. 3:15:58.240 --> 3:16:02.560 Later that day, Zoran has become the first candidate in 3:16:02.760 --> 3:16:05.400 New York mayoral history to win over a million votes 3:16:05.520 --> 3:16:11.000 since nineteen sixty nine. Nice This election itself saw over 3:16:11.080 --> 3:16:14.080 two million votes. This is a million more votes in 3:16:14.160 --> 3:16:16.000 the last in New York mayoral election. 3:16:16.800 --> 3:16:18.200 Huge turnout. 3:16:19.440 --> 3:16:24.560 Currently, as of Wednesday afternoon, Zoran has fifty point four 3:16:24.600 --> 3:16:30.160 percent of the vote. Former governor and sexual assault enthusiast 3:16:30.200 --> 3:16:34.320 Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, has forty one point 3:16:34.360 --> 3:16:39.840 six percent, and the bray wearing Curtisilwa as seven point one. 3:16:40.680 --> 3:16:43.400 Not a spoiler candidate in many ways, nor would it 3:16:43.400 --> 3:16:47.199 be correct to say that all of Silver's votes would 3:16:47.200 --> 3:16:50.560 have gone to one candidate or another. But even if 3:16:50.600 --> 3:16:53.720 you do add all of his votes on to disgraced 3:16:53.720 --> 3:16:58.080 former Governor Andrew Cuomo's total, Zoran still comes out on 3:16:58.480 --> 3:16:59.440 top well. 3:16:59.280 --> 3:17:02.120 Which was something there was legitimately a lot of question 3:17:02.160 --> 3:17:05.280 about as to like whether or not will Sila staying 3:17:05.320 --> 3:17:09.120 in matter right? Uh, And it's it's a really good 3:17:09.200 --> 3:17:09.879 sign that it didn't. 3:17:10.840 --> 3:17:14.600 It did not Slia, So no one really knows how 3:17:14.640 --> 3:17:17.240 to pronounce the name, including in the city. You hear 3:17:17.280 --> 3:17:21.440 it different pronunciations with different peop at different times. Sometimes 3:17:21.480 --> 3:17:24.920 it's slilwa, sometimes it's silwa saliwa. 3:17:25.160 --> 3:17:27.599 All I know is he got stabbed on the subway. 3:17:27.240 --> 3:17:29.840 Right and shot five times in the back of a 3:17:29.879 --> 3:17:31.360 cab in the back. 3:17:31.520 --> 3:17:32.080 That's right. 3:17:32.240 --> 3:17:33.599 How did they fail. 3:17:33.360 --> 3:17:34.200 To kill him? 3:17:34.280 --> 3:17:37.360 Jesus Christ, it's harder to kill people by shooting them 3:17:37.360 --> 3:17:38.000 with a handgun. 3:17:38.040 --> 3:17:41.920 Then you might think, yeah, apparently hanggum ballistics are just different. 3:17:42.200 --> 3:17:44.199 Yes, and he does have seventeen cats. 3:17:44.240 --> 3:17:48.560 He ran on Republican and the Protected the Protect Animals Party. 3:17:49.160 --> 3:17:52.039 You can have some criticism for past ills that that 3:17:52.120 --> 3:17:55.600 he has contributed to, but he is certainly mixed up 3:17:55.600 --> 3:17:58.560 for that in some way for being a fascinating character. 3:17:59.240 --> 3:18:01.320 He's a very New York kind of figure. 3:18:01.879 --> 3:18:01.959 Ed. 3:18:02.600 --> 3:18:06.400 He was the only major all candidate to call and 3:18:06.560 --> 3:18:12.600 congratulate Zora mom Donnie last night. Both Clobo and may 3:18:12.640 --> 3:18:16.720 Or Adams did not call Mom Donnie, but Curtis did, 3:18:17.080 --> 3:18:20.120 which is kind of beautiful. It's kind of beautiful. 3:18:20.160 --> 3:18:21.760 He's a classy man. You don't get to wear a 3:18:21.800 --> 3:18:24.400 red beret like that unless you have some manners. 3:18:25.240 --> 3:18:28.280 The British Parachute Regiment would beg to disagree about having 3:18:28.360 --> 3:18:29.800 nanas and wearing red hats. 3:18:30.600 --> 3:18:33.360 No, he's my head cannon now is that he is 3:18:33.360 --> 3:18:34.360 the British paratrooper. 3:18:35.320 --> 3:18:39.040 Just drop him in with seventeen cats and he and 3:18:39.080 --> 3:18:40.560 he starts milling immediately. 3:18:40.800 --> 3:18:44.640 Yeah, he saves that fucking mall in Nairobi. Or tell 3:18:44.680 --> 3:18:45.119 you what, the. 3:18:45.160 --> 3:18:47.400 Argentines wouldn't have fucked with the Falklands of Curtis and 3:18:47.680 --> 3:18:52.080 there not with all those cats. That's where he's going 3:18:52.120 --> 3:18:55.280 now that he's being banished in New York like piss guys, 3:18:55.760 --> 3:18:58.600 I shouldn't take this. Just an island of Catlett. 3:19:01.200 --> 3:19:04.000 Yeah, Staten Island, which. 3:19:05.080 --> 3:19:07.960 You're a real New Yorker now, Gary, you shed on 3:19:08.040 --> 3:19:09.199 Staten Island. 3:19:09.400 --> 3:19:12.080 Which is the only borough that went for Cuomo where 3:19:12.080 --> 3:19:15.240 he was up thirty three points. That was very funny, 3:19:15.560 --> 3:19:19.200 Momdanni won every other bureau up twenty in Brooklyn, up 3:19:19.240 --> 3:19:22.560 ten in Manhattan, of five in Queens and eleven in 3:19:22.600 --> 3:19:23.200 the Bronx. 3:19:23.480 --> 3:19:26.120 From what this should tell everyone everywhere in the country 3:19:26.160 --> 3:19:29.360 about what is possible in politics, even in times as 3:19:29.400 --> 3:19:31.480 dark as this. Is that he was what eight percent 3:19:31.680 --> 3:19:35.679 a year ago, the six percent it's like in January, 3:19:35.760 --> 3:19:39.120 six percent in January. And he didn't just eke it 3:19:39.160 --> 3:19:41.080 out because there were a shitload of guys. This isn't 3:19:41.120 --> 3:19:43.320 like an Arnold thing where everybody's on the fucking ballot 3:19:43.320 --> 3:19:48.720 and it's like a crazy cartoon election. He legitimately votes 3:19:48.800 --> 3:19:49.800 nowhere and won. 3:19:50.080 --> 3:19:54.760 The most votes for a mayoral candidate in almost fifty years. Yeah, 3:19:54.959 --> 3:19:58.320 nearly reaching the like the vote totals in this election 3:19:58.400 --> 3:20:00.640 for like a presidential election in the city. 3:20:01.080 --> 3:20:03.960 It's very impressive for like a mid cycle off cycle 3:20:03.959 --> 3:20:06.080 election turnout wise, yep. 3:20:06.680 --> 3:20:09.560 Specifically, he won a whole bunch of votes that he 3:20:09.920 --> 3:20:13.480 did not gain the primary among uh some like black 3:20:13.520 --> 3:20:16.760 and Latino voters. You can see that in the turnout 3:20:16.920 --> 3:20:18.400 at like the Bronx. 3:20:18.040 --> 3:20:22.840 And these these people aren't overwhelmingly at least at this stage, 3:20:22.879 --> 3:20:26.280 folks who have been convinced of every aspect of ideology 3:20:26.320 --> 3:20:28.959 that Zorn has ever put out there. People who looked 3:20:28.959 --> 3:20:30.680 at who was available are like, this guy seems like 3:20:30.680 --> 3:20:33.640 he genuinely wants to do something. Yeah, and they lost 3:20:33.800 --> 3:20:37.000 to the specific policies they're not they're not paying attention 3:20:37.040 --> 3:20:39.440 to the fact that he quoted Eugene V. Debs. They're talking, 3:20:39.480 --> 3:20:42.520 they're listening to his his policies on like creating municipal 3:20:42.520 --> 3:20:44.000 grocery stores and stuff. 3:20:44.120 --> 3:20:48.240 Right, it's about affordability, not ideology. And Zorn's strict focus 3:20:48.240 --> 3:20:50.760 on affordability, not running a campaign that like falls back 3:20:50.760 --> 3:20:53.520 on fear, not running a campaign about foreign policy when 3:20:53.520 --> 3:20:57.000 you're in fucking New York City. A strict focus on 3:20:57.040 --> 3:21:00.240 affordability was the key to winning this pain. 3:21:00.520 --> 3:21:04.800 A strict focus on affordability while not pretending not to 3:21:04.879 --> 3:21:08.600 have the ideology, which is also really noteworthy. Right where 3:21:08.640 --> 3:21:11.120 he's still he's still he isn't he's not like talking 3:21:11.160 --> 3:21:12.400 around it, right. 3:21:12.320 --> 3:21:15.480 No, he's not apologizing or hiding the fact that he's 3:21:15.480 --> 3:21:21.760 a democratic socialist. Yeah, And this produced some super interesting results. 3:21:21.760 --> 3:21:24.520 If you if you refer back to the last election 3:21:24.640 --> 3:21:28.480 twenty twenty four and in everyone bemoaning like, how how 3:21:28.520 --> 3:21:31.800 come young men are are so politically lost? 3:21:31.800 --> 3:21:34.000 Why are they all going so far to the right. 3:21:34.840 --> 3:21:39.040 Sixty eight percent of men age eighteen to twenty nine 3:21:39.520 --> 3:21:44.080 go to mom donnie, sixty six percent of men thirty 3:21:44.120 --> 3:21:47.680 to forty forty five percent of men forty five to 3:21:47.720 --> 3:21:52.120 sixty five among women eighteen to twenty nine years old, 3:21:52.400 --> 3:21:56.800 eighty four percent. Donnie looking said, dom numbers home. 3:21:58.280 --> 3:21:59.879 Bath party election numbers. 3:22:00.040 --> 3:22:04.160 What actually Saddam Hussein out to Creedy did in fact vote, 3:22:04.200 --> 3:22:06.720 but he went for He broke hard for Cuomo. Honestly, 3:22:06.760 --> 3:22:08.560 at the end, it was the sex crimes that that 3:22:09.600 --> 3:22:12.920 did it for UNI did vote for Slowa though that 3:22:13.040 --> 3:22:14.640 was kind of weird. I'm gonna be honest with you. 3:22:14.800 --> 3:22:16.560 We're all trying to parse that one out. 3:22:16.680 --> 3:22:17.480 It's a cat thing. 3:22:18.040 --> 3:22:21.439 Yeah, Like I said, like not hiding his political inspirations 3:22:21.440 --> 3:22:25.240 in any way. Quoted eugen Debs ten seconds. 3:22:24.680 --> 3:22:26.080 Into his victory speech. 3:22:26.240 --> 3:22:29.959 Yeah, immediately you understand, like, oh, this guy's like playing 3:22:30.240 --> 3:22:31.119 he knows what's up. 3:22:31.520 --> 3:22:36.359 Eugene V. Debs, the socialist who ran for president from prison. Yeah, yes, 3:22:37.600 --> 3:22:40.360 to know who Eugene V. Debs is, like arguably the 3:22:40.400 --> 3:22:44.359 most radical national candidate who has ever existed in this country. 3:22:44.680 --> 3:22:48.960 Yeah, and his speech was extremely poetic. It got a 3:22:49.080 --> 3:22:52.840 very strong positive reaction from the people who I watched 3:22:52.879 --> 3:22:56.240 this with in Bushwick, which was the district that was 3:22:56.280 --> 3:22:59.720 the most pro Mamdani out of the entire electoral methemicity. 3:23:00.720 --> 3:23:02.920 But he started by talking about how power has been 3:23:03.000 --> 3:23:05.560 kept out of the hands of working people by the 3:23:05.640 --> 3:23:08.480 hands that keep the city going by lifting boxes, by 3:23:08.720 --> 3:23:12.560 gripping the handlebars of delivery bikes, and collecting burned scars 3:23:12.560 --> 3:23:13.400 from cooking food. 3:23:13.760 --> 3:23:14.120 Quote. 3:23:14.160 --> 3:23:16.640 Over the last twelve months, you have dared to reach 3:23:16.760 --> 3:23:20.120 for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. 3:23:20.440 --> 3:23:24.800 The future is in our hands unquote. The whole speech 3:23:24.879 --> 3:23:27.520 was kind of a rife with little like metaphors and 3:23:27.560 --> 3:23:28.600 allegories like that. 3:23:28.640 --> 3:23:30.480 It was very cute. 3:23:31.320 --> 3:23:33.720 Went on to discuss how the campaign toppled a political 3:23:33.800 --> 3:23:40.320 dynasty and gave one of the most like fine tuned. 3:23:40.000 --> 3:23:41.120 Dishes I've ever seen. 3:23:41.200 --> 3:23:46.640 Quote, I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. 3:23:46.879 --> 3:23:48.400 It's a phenomenal cook. 3:23:49.240 --> 3:23:51.920 But I hope I never have to say his name. 3:23:51.800 --> 3:23:54.240 Again, or but let tonight be the last time I 3:23:54.320 --> 3:23:58.880 utter his name. Only the best in private life? 3:23:58.959 --> 3:24:01.120 Is yeah. 3:24:01.160 --> 3:24:03.840 I mean, it's basically this is like, he's not the 3:24:03.879 --> 3:24:06.600 originator of this particular kind of diss It goes back 3:24:06.640 --> 3:24:08.720 a while, but the gist of that is like everyone's 3:24:08.800 --> 3:24:10.359 moment be a family man. 3:24:10.879 --> 3:24:12.440 Get out of a way. 3:24:13.120 --> 3:24:15.840 Yeah. 3:24:16.160 --> 3:24:19.000 Repeatedly, Mam Donnie has has used the word mandate to 3:24:19.200 --> 3:24:21.960 describe this selection and the results. 3:24:22.040 --> 3:24:22.280 Quote. 3:24:22.440 --> 3:24:24.480 New York has delivered a mandate for change, a mandate 3:24:24.520 --> 3:24:26.440 for a new kind of politics, mandate for a city 3:24:26.480 --> 3:24:29.400 we can afford, a mandate for a government that delivers 3:24:29.480 --> 3:24:33.959 exactly that. I'm going to play a short clip here. 3:24:34.160 --> 3:24:38.560 Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who 3:24:38.640 --> 3:24:42.279 refused to accept that the promise of a better future 3:24:42.840 --> 3:24:47.720 was a relic of the past. You showed that when 3:24:47.800 --> 3:24:51.720 politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher. 3:24:51.480 --> 3:24:53.920 In a new era of leadership. 3:24:56.600 --> 3:25:01.600 We will fight for you because we are you, or 3:25:01.640 --> 3:25:05.359 as we say on Steinway and I'm incomb while. 3:25:05.240 --> 3:25:13.520 Cum the Arabic there wild wild that we've moved this 3:25:13.680 --> 3:25:17.120 far in New York, that it's in credit wins you 3:25:17.200 --> 3:25:19.600 an election Like that didn't win him the election, but 3:25:19.720 --> 3:25:22.240 like they really tried the nine to eleven shit. Rudy 3:25:22.320 --> 3:25:27.400 Juliani posted today a crude photoshop of his own face 3:25:27.600 --> 3:25:31.600 in the fires of the twin of the burning Twin Towers. Yeah, 3:25:31.800 --> 3:25:36.280 we forgot written across it, and that did None of 3:25:36.320 --> 3:25:37.320 that shit did anything. 3:25:37.879 --> 3:25:41.119 The last month of the campaign against Mamdani, whether that's 3:25:41.200 --> 3:25:45.520 from people like Bill acts Bloomberg or Cuomo's actual team, 3:25:45.840 --> 3:25:49.080 has has used what people have been calling the nine 3:25:49.120 --> 3:25:52.480 eleven card, incessantly playing clips of nine to eleven with 3:25:52.680 --> 3:25:56.360 like zoron like emblazon, like over overtop, playing clips from 3:25:56.560 --> 3:26:00.360 Hassan talking about nine to eleven. But the islamophobe that 3:26:00.440 --> 3:26:02.920 the Cuomo campaign has resorted to as a last ditch 3:26:02.959 --> 3:26:06.480 effort to stop Mamdani has been despicable, and the fact 3:26:06.520 --> 3:26:10.000 that this did not scare Momdanni into like hiding or 3:26:10.160 --> 3:26:11.640 like restricting that. 3:26:11.800 --> 3:26:14.200 Part of himself is incredibly admirable. 3:26:14.440 --> 3:26:16.520 Yeah, but they wasn't just nine to eleven right, like 3:26:16.560 --> 3:26:19.600 you said. It was the broad Islam like they deployed 3:26:19.640 --> 3:26:21.920 as they always do, like every urban area in Britain 3:26:22.240 --> 3:26:26.360 is now like the Califate, like this bullshit that exists 3:26:26.440 --> 3:26:29.200 only in the American conservative mind. And it failed, which 3:26:29.240 --> 3:26:29.520 is good. 3:26:30.040 --> 3:26:32.119 Specifically for a lot of the speech it was about 3:26:32.160 --> 3:26:35.680 juxtaposing like how we used to have good things in 3:26:35.800 --> 3:26:38.360 the past, like we had this idea that like good 3:26:38.440 --> 3:26:40.920 things now are always out of reach, and juxtaposing this 3:26:41.080 --> 3:26:44.880 like idea of like hope or or like past exceptionalism 3:26:45.240 --> 3:26:47.279 that we just don't feel like we've access to anymore, 3:26:47.800 --> 3:26:50.480 and showing that if you actually involve young people, we 3:26:50.520 --> 3:26:54.560 can actually do do good things in our city now. 3:26:55.120 --> 3:26:58.120 And I really liked the line about like politics that 3:26:58.160 --> 3:27:02.119 speaks to you without condescension, and how much this campaign 3:27:02.240 --> 3:27:05.440 was like ran by and for you know, young candidates 3:27:05.480 --> 3:27:06.200 and young voters. 3:27:06.959 --> 3:27:07.240 Sorry. 3:27:07.280 --> 3:27:10.760 Went on to thank the people who have been forgotten 3:27:10.959 --> 3:27:14.880 by the politics of our city and how they've supported 3:27:15.040 --> 3:27:20.640 his campaign quote Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Sengalese 3:27:20.680 --> 3:27:25.840 taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties, unquote. 3:27:26.320 --> 3:27:28.080 And he went on to mention the kind of people 3:27:28.120 --> 3:27:31.120 that this campaign is about, and towards the end of 3:27:31.200 --> 3:27:32.960 that section, he talked about the hunger strike that he 3:27:33.000 --> 3:27:35.880 participated in four years ago in order to win debt 3:27:35.959 --> 3:27:37.480 relief for cab drivers. 3:27:38.000 --> 3:27:42.440 And it's about people like Richard the taxi driver. 3:27:42.680 --> 3:27:45.720 I went on a fifteen day hunger strike with outside 3:27:45.760 --> 3:27:52.199 of city hall, who still has to drive his cab 3:27:52.360 --> 3:27:53.320 seven days a week. 3:27:55.360 --> 3:27:57.720 My brother, we are in city hall now. 3:28:02.040 --> 3:28:04.640 That is that is the energy of like the campaign 3:28:04.680 --> 3:28:07.720 and the city right now, Like that sort of framing, 3:28:08.120 --> 3:28:10.360 and that's the energy that people are like carrying through. 3:28:10.720 --> 3:28:14.360 I saw among the right wing fever spawns responses to this. 3:28:14.760 --> 3:28:18.160 Mike Cernovich taking a clip from the election night party 3:28:18.360 --> 3:28:21.360 where one of the people who is attending Zoran's party 3:28:21.480 --> 3:28:24.160 made a comment about how like white people need to 3:28:24.200 --> 3:28:26.520 get on board with the idea that like our culture 3:28:26.640 --> 3:28:29.960 is multiculturalism in this country right, Like it's it's not 3:28:30.400 --> 3:28:34.039 anything else, Like that's that's like what has made America. 3:28:34.760 --> 3:28:37.480 And Mike did not react well to that. 3:28:38.640 --> 3:28:41.800 I can't imagine the declaration of Warsovich mad. 3:28:42.080 --> 3:28:45.320 Yeah, but no, like especially in New York, out of 3:28:45.400 --> 3:28:47.520 like anywhere in the country, like especially in New York, 3:28:48.280 --> 3:28:51.440 the culture is made through the mix of immigrants that 3:28:51.560 --> 3:28:54.279 have built this city. And this is something that Zorn 3:28:54.520 --> 3:28:58.360 discussed throughout the speech. Zorn went on to thank thee 3:28:58.400 --> 3:29:02.039 hundred thousand campaign volunteers and specifically how their efforts quote 3:29:02.080 --> 3:29:06.080 eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics. 3:29:06.800 --> 3:29:08.480 I liked that line, and. 3:29:08.520 --> 3:29:11.440 Then he asked New Yorkers to breathe this moment in quote, 3:29:11.520 --> 3:29:13.120 we have held our breath for longer than we know. 3:29:13.520 --> 3:29:16.320 We have held it in anticipation of defeat, held it 3:29:16.360 --> 3:29:18.279 because the air has been knocked out of our lungs 3:29:18.560 --> 3:29:20.880 too many times to count, held it because we cannot 3:29:20.920 --> 3:29:24.160 afford to exhale. Thanks to all of those who have 3:29:24.200 --> 3:29:26.280 sacrificed so much, we are breathing in the air of 3:29:26.320 --> 3:29:28.960 a city that has been reborn. There are many who 3:29:29.000 --> 3:29:31.199 thought this day would never come, who feared we would 3:29:31.240 --> 3:29:34.840 be condemned only to a future of less, with every 3:29:34.920 --> 3:29:37.960 election consigning us to simply more of the same. And 3:29:38.400 --> 3:29:41.720 there are others who see politics today as too cruel 3:29:42.040 --> 3:29:44.680 for the flame of hope to still burn New York. 3:29:44.760 --> 3:29:47.720 We have answered those fears, unquote. 3:29:48.959 --> 3:29:53.640 And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together, 3:29:57.000 --> 3:30:03.320 hope over tyranny, hope over big and small ideas, hope 3:30:04.120 --> 3:30:09.400 over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to 3:30:09.560 --> 3:30:15.520 hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we 3:30:15.680 --> 3:30:19.680 won because we insisted that no longer would politics be 3:30:19.840 --> 3:30:23.680 something that is done to us. Now it is something 3:30:24.000 --> 3:30:36.200 that we do. Standing before you, I think of the 3:30:36.280 --> 3:30:41.959 words of Juan lal Nehru. A moment comes, but rarely 3:30:42.040 --> 3:30:45.120 in history, when we step out from the old to 3:30:45.240 --> 3:30:48.360 the new, when an age ends, and when the soul 3:30:48.480 --> 3:30:53.160 of a nation long suppressed finds utterance. Tonight we have 3:30:53.280 --> 3:30:55.360 stepped out from the old into the new. 3:30:58.040 --> 3:31:02.480 The line about politics not being something that's done to you, yeah, yeah, 3:31:02.879 --> 3:31:07.879 that really outlines how politics has felt in this country 3:31:08.000 --> 3:31:10.960 for as basically as long as I can remember. He 3:31:11.040 --> 3:31:14.640 then outlined what his central agenda to tackle the cost 3:31:14.720 --> 3:31:17.600 of living crisis is, including freezing the rent for more 3:31:17.640 --> 3:31:21.040 than two million rits, timbolized tenants, making buses faster and free, 3:31:21.040 --> 3:31:24.320 and delivering universal childcare across the city, saying, quote, this 3:31:24.360 --> 3:31:26.680 will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their 3:31:26.760 --> 3:31:29.879 leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather 3:31:30.000 --> 3:31:32.600 than a list of excuses for what we are too 3:31:33.000 --> 3:31:34.360 timid to attempt. 3:31:35.200 --> 3:31:38.480 Unquote. Let's go on a quick break, and we will 3:31:38.520 --> 3:31:41.240 come back to talk a little bit more about the election. 3:31:54.520 --> 3:31:55.360 All right, we're back. 3:31:56.240 --> 3:31:59.600 During the second half of this speech, Zoron turned to 3:32:00.040 --> 3:32:05.520 address Donald Trump. Right this looming thing across politics nationwide, 3:32:05.560 --> 3:32:09.000 but specifically New York, as Trump has threatened to start 3:32:09.040 --> 3:32:11.320 to fuck with New York even more. If Zoron is 3:32:11.360 --> 3:32:15.400 elected and people in New York know this, and about 3:32:15.440 --> 3:32:19.160 halfway through, Zoron addressed Trump directly, which we will get 3:32:19.200 --> 3:32:22.800 to you in a sack. But before he directly talked 3:32:23.040 --> 3:32:26.920 to Trump, in the speech, Zoron laid out what types 3:32:27.000 --> 3:32:29.960 of people the city government will be focusing on protecting 3:32:30.240 --> 3:32:32.280 from Trump's division and hate. 3:32:33.760 --> 3:32:37.360 In this new age we make for ourselves, we will 3:32:37.440 --> 3:32:41.640 refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate 3:32:42.040 --> 3:32:47.320 to pit us against one another. In this moment of 3:32:47.400 --> 3:32:50.800 political darkness. New York will be the light. 3:32:54.800 --> 3:32:55.000 Here. 3:32:55.720 --> 3:33:00.520 We believe in standing up for those we love. Whether 3:33:00.760 --> 3:33:04.720 you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, 3:33:06.600 --> 3:33:09.160 one of the many black women that Donald Trump is 3:33:09.240 --> 3:33:14.440 fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting 3:33:14.520 --> 3:33:19.280 for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone 3:33:19.360 --> 3:33:23.560 else with their back against the wall, Your struggle is 3:33:23.720 --> 3:33:24.320 ours two. 3:33:27.920 --> 3:33:32.920 Specifically, I like this idea of in the darkened political moment, 3:33:33.000 --> 3:33:35.920 this unit states is in New York and there on 3:33:35.959 --> 3:33:38.680 administration and how that reflects New York and general though 3:33:39.120 --> 3:33:42.199 will be a beacon for the rest of the country, 3:33:42.680 --> 3:33:46.039 and naming like the trans community is like the second 3:33:46.520 --> 3:33:51.240 group mentioned, there was heavily appreciated in the Bushwick trans 3:33:51.440 --> 3:33:54.920 Watch party that I was at. Zorah went on to 3:33:54.959 --> 3:33:57.440 say that quote, no more will New York be a 3:33:57.520 --> 3:34:00.720 city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election. 3:34:01.120 --> 3:34:03.560 This new age will be defined by a competence and 3:34:03.600 --> 3:34:06.720 a compassion that have too long been placed in odds 3:34:06.760 --> 3:34:08.880 with one another. We will prove that there is no 3:34:09.040 --> 3:34:11.959 problem too large for government to solve, and no concern 3:34:12.200 --> 3:34:15.279 too small for it to care about. Tens of millions 3:34:15.320 --> 3:34:18.440 of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to 3:34:18.520 --> 3:34:20.440 convince our neighbors that this new age is something that 3:34:20.520 --> 3:34:23.600 should frighten them. As has often occurred, the billionaire class 3:34:23.640 --> 3:34:26.200 has sought to convince those making thirty dollars an hour 3:34:26.240 --> 3:34:28.720 that their enemies are those earning twenty dollars an hour. 3:34:29.200 --> 3:34:31.520 They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that 3:34:31.600 --> 3:34:34.879 we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long 3:34:35.000 --> 3:34:39.600 broken system. Together, we will usher in a generation of change. 3:34:39.879 --> 3:34:41.920 And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than 3:34:41.959 --> 3:34:44.759 fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism 3:34:44.840 --> 3:34:48.800 with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. 3:34:50.080 --> 3:34:53.000 I think this whole section is something very important, and 3:34:53.080 --> 3:34:55.920 this has been something that's been very consistent about momt 3:34:56.000 --> 3:34:59.720 Donnie's entire campaign, which is there's been on the left 3:34:59.720 --> 3:35:04.879 of for very very long time a just interminable, intractable 3:35:04.959 --> 3:35:08.880 conflict between this idea of like purely focusing on class 3:35:09.000 --> 3:35:12.680 politics or talking about race. And but I think what 3:35:12.760 --> 3:35:15.360 Montdami is doing here has been very effective, right, is 3:35:16.400 --> 3:35:19.080 you can just do both. And in fact, as the 3:35:19.200 --> 3:35:21.720 left over the last you know, sort of senses kind 3:35:21.760 --> 3:35:24.160 of the reemergence of this kind of left in like 3:35:24.200 --> 3:35:28.120 twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, as it's gone on, it's gotten 3:35:28.480 --> 3:35:31.039 less white, it's gotten more to verse, has gotten more multicultural, 3:35:31.080 --> 3:35:33.400 and it's been able to fuse these two things together. 3:35:33.400 --> 3:35:35.640 And it's been able to fuse that with just you know, 3:35:35.920 --> 3:35:39.320 like being very very openly pro trans and like there 3:35:39.400 --> 3:35:41.040 was you know, there's also a pretty big response that 3:35:41.120 --> 3:35:43.320 I saw from people talking about the fact that he 3:35:43.400 --> 3:35:45.520 specifically mentioned that it was black women who were being 3:35:45.560 --> 3:35:48.320 fired by the Trump administration. Right, And you can just 3:35:48.400 --> 3:35:51.720 do all these things together and it works, and it's 3:35:51.760 --> 3:35:55.440 worked the whole time, and refusing to pit these things 3:35:55.480 --> 3:35:58.680 against each other, like refusing to pit affordability against trans rights, 3:35:58.680 --> 3:36:01.560 refusing to pit, you know, like fusing to pit the 3:36:01.600 --> 3:36:03.160 politics of like defending. And this is the thing that 3:36:03.240 --> 3:36:06.320 like fucking Bernie is terrible at right, where like Bernie 3:36:06.920 --> 3:36:08.840 like has been like has a whole rant about how 3:36:08.879 --> 3:36:11.320 Trump has been right on like we have to reduce immigration, right, 3:36:11.879 --> 3:36:13.800 and you don't have to do that. You can be 3:36:13.959 --> 3:36:16.240 pro immigrant, you can be protraned, you can be pro 3:36:16.360 --> 3:36:18.920 black women, you can be you know, and and you 3:36:18.959 --> 3:36:21.400 can also want everything to cost less, and you can 3:36:21.640 --> 3:36:23.120 be in favor of the fact that the US is 3:36:23.160 --> 3:36:26.320 a is a multicultural society and can only function as one. 3:36:26.640 --> 3:36:29.000 And it's it's a winning form of politics. And I'm 3:36:29.040 --> 3:36:30.560 glad we're finally getting there. 3:36:31.879 --> 3:36:36.080 Yeah, And it will be great if this New York 3:36:36.160 --> 3:36:39.360 City as a beacon can actually shine and not get 3:36:39.560 --> 3:36:42.040 stifled out in these in these next four years. Because 3:36:42.400 --> 3:36:46.840 Zorn is unless unless things happened, Zora will be the 3:36:46.920 --> 3:36:50.200 mayor for the remainder of the Trump term. Right like 3:36:50.280 --> 3:36:53.800 this is he will be mayor after second Trump administration 3:36:54.000 --> 3:36:58.640 is over, barring any unfortunate incidents or make sure your 3:36:58.680 --> 3:37:00.320 private security is really good. 3:37:02.560 --> 3:37:08.840 Way whoever NYPD detail which gets your own guys, Yeah, 3:37:08.959 --> 3:37:13.280 it'll be fine, but it also it means, like, like 3:37:13.400 --> 3:37:16.800 from I guess a national perspective, it is likely that 3:37:17.080 --> 3:37:21.120 mom Danny will become like the enemy number one of 3:37:21.160 --> 3:37:26.120 the Trump administration, where they probably Newsome or pritsh Kaan 3:37:26.240 --> 3:37:29.560 now right, Like it's it is easier because of the 3:37:30.320 --> 3:37:34.000 obvious bigotry that underlies a lot of the Republican Party 3:37:34.360 --> 3:37:36.320 to go after a brown dude. Yes, and that is 3:37:36.400 --> 3:37:37.200 what they are going to do. 3:37:37.280 --> 3:37:40.960 And they're going to use brown democratic socialists. 3:37:40.640 --> 3:37:44.560 Yeah, who stands up for trans people and migrants. Likely 3:37:44.959 --> 3:37:48.520 you saw how acceptable Islamophobia is in Cuomo's campaign, right, 3:37:48.600 --> 3:37:51.640 Like he just go on to every mainstream network and say, shit, 3:37:51.720 --> 3:37:55.800 that is fucking disgusting. Yeah, and so we should prepare 3:37:55.840 --> 3:37:57.840 ourselves for four more years of that, I guess. And 3:37:58.600 --> 3:38:00.840 I think he does a very good job of repudiating that, 3:38:01.080 --> 3:38:03.400 and obviously the elector in New York did too, But 3:38:04.160 --> 3:38:05.760 that is going to be what we are going to 3:38:05.800 --> 3:38:06.640 see as a result of this. 3:38:07.200 --> 3:38:09.480 Well no, and like so much of the resistance to 3:38:09.680 --> 3:38:12.400 Zoron came from this idea that if he wins, that 3:38:12.560 --> 3:38:14.920 means that this is going to be what people point 3:38:14.959 --> 3:38:18.040 to as a future for politics, specifically democratic politics, And 3:38:18.080 --> 3:38:20.000 a lot of people wanted to stop him because they 3:38:20.080 --> 3:38:22.440 knew that's going to happen. If he is in control 3:38:22.760 --> 3:38:26.520 of the biggest city in the country as the Democratic mayor. 3:38:27.080 --> 3:38:30.080 That's going to be influential for what democratic politics will 3:38:30.160 --> 3:38:33.640 be after they've got completely clobbered last year. And he's 3:38:33.720 --> 3:38:36.400 showing that a different type of politics is possible, even 3:38:37.000 --> 3:38:40.080 even within the Democratic Party. And that's that's true, like 3:38:40.200 --> 3:38:43.720 altering what the party is fundamentally. Yeah, And I think 3:38:43.760 --> 3:38:47.160 it is a cool little side note that Zoron voted 3:38:47.200 --> 3:38:50.520 for himself on the Working Families party line and in 3:38:50.640 --> 3:38:53.720 fact not the Democratic Party line, because how the New 3:38:53.800 --> 3:38:56.960 York mayoral ballot's work. I'm going to play one more 3:38:57.080 --> 3:39:01.360 clip from the speech of Zoron specifically addressing Trump. It's 3:39:01.400 --> 3:39:04.400 going to be a teeny bit longer, and I think 3:39:04.440 --> 3:39:08.959 we'll cut We'll shorten some of the applause bits because 3:39:09.000 --> 3:39:12.000 some of the applause sections gone for he quite long. 3:39:12.440 --> 3:39:13.640 But this will be the last club. 3:39:13.959 --> 3:39:14.560 After all. 3:39:15.360 --> 3:39:18.760 If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump 3:39:19.160 --> 3:39:21.800 how to defeat him, it is the city that gave 3:39:21.959 --> 3:39:29.240 rise to him. And if there is any way to 3:39:29.480 --> 3:39:33.800 terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions 3:39:34.000 --> 3:39:38.400 that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only 3:39:38.480 --> 3:39:42.200 how we stopped Trump, it's how we stop the next one. So, 3:39:42.400 --> 3:39:45.800 Donald Trump, since I know you're watching. 3:39:47.320 --> 3:39:53.040 I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. 3:39:56.720 --> 3:39:59.360 We will hold bad landlords. 3:39:58.800 --> 3:40:01.759 To account because the Donald Trumps. 3:40:01.400 --> 3:40:03.320 Of our city have grown far. 3:40:03.320 --> 3:40:07.160 Too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put 3:40:07.200 --> 3:40:10.200 an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed 3:40:10.280 --> 3:40:14.920 billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. 3:40:15.520 --> 3:40:20.520 We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because 3:40:20.560 --> 3:40:26.720 we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working 3:40:26.840 --> 3:40:31.000 people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort 3:40:31.080 --> 3:40:36.000 them become very small. Indeed, New York will remain a 3:40:36.200 --> 3:40:42.960 city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, 3:40:43.800 --> 3:40:49.520 and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, 3:40:50.640 --> 3:40:54.160 President Trump, when I say this, To get to any 3:40:54.280 --> 3:40:56.320 of us, you will have to get. 3:40:56.200 --> 3:40:57.360 Through all of us. 3:41:00.760 --> 3:41:01.480 The shit rocks. 3:41:01.760 --> 3:41:06.640 It's good, it's good, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool 3:41:06.720 --> 3:41:08.200 for a mayor Alection to say that. 3:41:09.000 --> 3:41:10.720 It didn't manage to get in the New York is 3:41:10.760 --> 3:41:13.080 the Anchora of America, which I was hoping for. But 3:41:13.760 --> 3:41:16.360 otherwise great, that's Eric Adams this bit. 3:41:16.800 --> 3:41:17.000 Yeah. 3:41:17.200 --> 3:41:19.920 Yeah, sad day for sad day for Turkey today. 3:41:19.920 --> 3:41:22.040 I guess, on an actual important note, I think it 3:41:22.120 --> 3:41:25.160 is really important that you know, all of this energy 3:41:25.240 --> 3:41:28.039 against Trump, right and against all the shit that he's 3:41:28.080 --> 3:41:31.720 doing that's so hideously unpopular, it's starting to be channeled 3:41:31.840 --> 3:41:34.320 into politics that can actually defeat him. Yeah, and that 3:41:34.400 --> 3:41:36.560 are actually good, you know, and that he's talking about 3:41:36.560 --> 3:41:38.360 specifically the fact that you have to destoy the conditions 3:41:38.400 --> 3:41:39.840 that created and so they don't create the next one. 3:41:39.879 --> 3:41:40.720 Like this fucking rocks. 3:41:40.800 --> 3:41:41.320 This is good. 3:41:42.120 --> 3:41:42.320 Yeah. 3:41:43.600 --> 3:41:45.920 For so long, Like for I mean most of the 3:41:46.000 --> 3:41:48.560 twenty sixteen to twenty twenty period and for a lot 3:41:48.600 --> 3:41:51.520 of this year, we've seen so many people turn the 3:41:51.640 --> 3:41:54.119 obvious disgust that people have at what Trump is doing 3:41:54.240 --> 3:41:58.120 into grifts into supporting a politics which fundamentally allowed for 3:41:58.200 --> 3:42:01.760 the conditions we are in now. Right, see someone repudiate 3:42:01.800 --> 3:42:04.760 that and to see more than a million people turn 3:42:04.800 --> 3:42:08.720 out to support that is fantastic, Like it's genuinely hopeful. 3:42:09.120 --> 3:42:11.080 It's something like Zors like acknowledge. It's like this is 3:42:11.160 --> 3:42:14.800 not like the end, right, this is a means, not 3:42:15.000 --> 3:42:17.000 the means either, Like this is this, this is a 3:42:17.200 --> 3:42:20.000 means to an end. And this whole campaign started, as 3:42:20.120 --> 3:42:22.680 he's referred to it as a quote unquote electoral project 3:42:23.520 --> 3:42:26.160 by the New York City DSA like this was largely 3:42:26.200 --> 3:42:32.800 an experiment, and an experiment that grew wildly, wildly kind 3:42:32.840 --> 3:42:34.879 of out of what I assumed they kind of saw 3:42:34.959 --> 3:42:38.080 it as in the earlier in the earlier days, and 3:42:38.200 --> 3:42:41.080 now they're in this like moment and they have to 3:42:41.320 --> 3:42:43.200 they have to keep rolling with it. But it is 3:42:43.320 --> 3:42:46.600 it is an experiment for a a version of doing this. 3:42:46.959 --> 3:42:48.720 And he knows this is not like the only method 3:42:48.840 --> 3:42:52.720 or tactic to be utilized. But as as an experiment, 3:42:52.879 --> 3:42:56.840 I think it's so far pretty well done now as 3:42:56.959 --> 3:42:59.720 zorn closest speech by calling to chart a new path 3:43:00.040 --> 3:43:03.200 as bold as the campaign has already been, saying that 3:43:03.280 --> 3:43:06.080 conventional wisdom would claim that he is far from the 3:43:06.160 --> 3:43:09.480 perfect candidate. Quote, I'm young, despite my best efforts to 3:43:09.520 --> 3:43:12.359 grow older. I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist 3:43:12.560 --> 3:43:14.760 and thet stabbing of all. I refuse to apologize for 3:43:14.840 --> 3:43:17.320 any of this. And yet if tonight teaches us anything, 3:43:17.680 --> 3:43:21.000 it is that convention has held us back. We have 3:43:21.160 --> 3:43:24.480 bowed at the altar of caution. We have paid a 3:43:24.680 --> 3:43:28.640 mighty price. Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in 3:43:28.879 --> 3:43:32.120 our party, and too many among us have turned to 3:43:32.200 --> 3:43:36.040 the right for answers to why they've been left behind. 3:43:36.760 --> 3:43:40.440 We will leave mediocrity in our past. No longer will 3:43:40.440 --> 3:43:43.120 we have to open a history book for proof that 3:43:43.320 --> 3:43:47.000 democrats can dare to be great. Our greatness will be 3:43:47.160 --> 3:43:53.080 anything but abstract unquote. And he concludes by saying that 3:43:53.280 --> 3:43:56.520 the greatness will be felt by rent stabilized tenants who 3:43:56.560 --> 3:43:59.240 will wake up knowing they are Rent hasn't swored my grandparents, 3:43:59.240 --> 3:44:01.400 who can afford to stay in their home and whose 3:44:01.440 --> 3:44:04.320 grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare is not 3:44:04.400 --> 3:44:06.840 driving them out of the city, And by the single 3:44:06.920 --> 3:44:08.800 mothers who don't need to rush their kids to school 3:44:09.040 --> 3:44:11.480 because they can commute to work on a fast bus quote. 3:44:11.720 --> 3:44:13.960 Most of all, it will be felt by each New 3:44:14.080 --> 3:44:18.560 Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back unquote. 3:44:19.360 --> 3:44:22.160 The stuff about like worshiping at the altar of caution 3:44:22.840 --> 3:44:27.560 for like the past, the past like twenty more more 3:44:27.640 --> 3:44:30.280 than twenty, but especially the past like twenty years of 3:44:30.360 --> 3:44:34.160 like Democrat politics, and how he is also recognizing that 3:44:34.280 --> 3:44:36.800 like this is, this could mark a fundamental shift in 3:44:36.879 --> 3:44:40.760 what the Democratic Party actually is because the people Democrats included, 3:44:40.760 --> 3:44:44.000 who've been trying to stop this have failed miserably so far, 3:44:44.440 --> 3:44:47.880 putting tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to 3:44:48.240 --> 3:44:51.640 try to crush crush this version of what the future 3:44:51.720 --> 3:44:54.800 of New York Democrat politics is, and more people since 3:44:54.879 --> 3:44:59.800 nineteen sixty nine showed up to deny that future. That's 3:45:00.080 --> 3:45:03.360 all I have for Zoran right now. It's literally, you know, 3:45:03.520 --> 3:45:07.560 less than twenty four hours after the Yeah, but this 3:45:07.800 --> 3:45:10.080 was not just a New York City mayoral election. There 3:45:10.120 --> 3:45:12.320 were there were other races, including other other things in 3:45:12.400 --> 3:45:15.840 New York. There was a prop one amendment to the 3:45:15.879 --> 3:45:19.520 state Constitution to retroactively authorize the winter sports facilities on 3:45:19.680 --> 3:45:24.080 Mount then Hovenburg, which is protected forest land and would 3:45:24.120 --> 3:45:26.600 require the state add two thousand, five hundred acres of 3:45:26.680 --> 3:45:31.120 newly protected land elsewhere in the ad Ranak. That's how 3:45:31.120 --> 3:45:38.560 I'm saying it at Irondack Mountains. Yeah, run, which was passed, 3:45:38.680 --> 3:45:40.840 and this allows them to continue to build and maintain 3:45:40.879 --> 3:45:43.720 the winter sports facility of Propositions two through six where 3:45:43.800 --> 3:45:46.680 New York City Charter amendments. The two to four were 3:45:46.760 --> 3:45:49.960 housing reform proposals to fast track the approval process for 3:45:50.040 --> 3:45:54.320 affordable housing and simplify zoning reviews and establish an Affordable 3:45:54.360 --> 3:45:57.760 Housing Appeals Board. All of these past these will limit 3:45:57.840 --> 3:46:00.800 the ability of the City Council to control and slow 3:46:00.840 --> 3:46:04.640 down housing development and empower the mayor specifically to build 3:46:04.760 --> 3:46:07.879 more affordable units faster. And Prop five, which also passed, 3:46:07.920 --> 3:46:10.280 creates a new digital methnicity. The only prop to fail, 3:46:10.320 --> 3:46:13.080 which was number six, was to move local elections to 3:46:13.160 --> 3:46:18.000 be in line with presidential elections on that four year basis. Basically, 3:46:18.480 --> 3:46:21.560 the ballot that Zorn filled out himself was the one 3:46:21.680 --> 3:46:25.680 that passed for all of these, all of these proposals. 3:46:25.800 --> 3:46:28.200 Yeah, you get. They call it a coattails effect in 3:46:28.240 --> 3:46:31.119 political science, right, like the idea that the people. 3:46:31.280 --> 3:46:33.000 Announced his ballot that morning. 3:46:33.160 --> 3:46:34.200 He did not. 3:46:34.879 --> 3:46:37.160 He he didn't, and he didn't even announce it like 3:46:37.200 --> 3:46:39.320 a journalist asked him what he was voting on. He 3:46:39.600 --> 3:46:44.000 specifically did not advocate for any of these or try 3:46:44.040 --> 3:46:46.280 to dissuade anyone from any of these before the election. 3:46:46.520 --> 3:46:51.520 Yeah, for sure. But you get a generally aligned politically electorate, right, 3:46:51.600 --> 3:46:54.760 a relatively progressive in American terms, the electorate coming out 3:46:54.800 --> 3:46:56.800 to vote for him, who will look at these things 3:46:56.840 --> 3:46:58.440 and say that seems to make sense with the way 3:46:58.440 --> 3:46:59.080 I see the world. 3:47:00.959 --> 3:47:07.160 Democrat Abigail Spenberger won the governor of Virginia flipping blue. 3:47:07.720 --> 3:47:10.959 Jay Jones, a Democrat candidate for Virginia AG, also beat 3:47:11.000 --> 3:47:13.560 the Republican incumbent. This was after a month of attacks 3:47:13.680 --> 3:47:15.720 for a series of text messages from twenty twenty two 3:47:16.320 --> 3:47:20.920 where j Jones said that if certain Republican delegates died, 3:47:21.160 --> 3:47:23.840 he would quote go to their funerals to piss on 3:47:23.879 --> 3:47:27.520 their graves unquote, and wish for the hypothetical deaths of 3:47:27.760 --> 3:47:31.800 Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert's children. Quote only would people 3:47:32.200 --> 3:47:35.280 feel pained personally? Do they move on policy? I mean, 3:47:35.440 --> 3:47:38.120 do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil and that 3:47:38.200 --> 3:47:39.600 they're breeding little fascists? 3:47:40.280 --> 3:47:44.279 Yes, that's also not really hypathetical deaths. 3:47:45.000 --> 3:47:50.200 He did in a call with a with another Republican politician, 3:47:50.600 --> 3:47:52.880 and then after the call, they continued texting about it. 3:47:53.200 --> 3:47:56.040 So the proof is in these texts and he has 3:47:56.080 --> 3:47:59.039 admitted this. And basically he was like, if these people's 3:47:59.040 --> 3:48:01.360 like children were to get killed in mass shooting, maybe 3:48:01.400 --> 3:48:03.720 their opinions on guns would change. 3:48:03.760 --> 3:48:07.320 That's essentially what he's expressing there. And then he also 3:48:08.560 --> 3:48:09.400 he also was. 3:48:11.640 --> 3:48:16.119 Quoted in these leads text messages as saying, quote, three people, 3:48:16.680 --> 3:48:21.800 two bullets, Virginia House Speaker Todd, Gilbert Hitler, and Paul Pott. 3:48:22.400 --> 3:48:25.960 Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. Spoiler put Gilbert 3:48:26.080 --> 3:48:28.000 in the crew, sorry after. 3:48:31.440 --> 3:48:34.360 Not just as an elected official, as an attorney general, 3:48:34.600 --> 3:48:37.280 someone going to be a call that you put in 3:48:37.400 --> 3:48:39.000 the fucking text message. 3:48:39.600 --> 3:48:40.040 Spoiler. 3:48:40.280 --> 3:48:43.000 Put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people 3:48:43.040 --> 3:48:45.720 you know, and he receives both bullets every time. 3:48:47.480 --> 3:48:50.480 It's insane, op sec hero. 3:48:51.160 --> 3:48:53.000 But that is the new attorney general. 3:48:53.879 --> 3:48:58.200 That's the new Democrat Attorney General of Virginia who the 3:48:58.280 --> 3:49:01.720 right has been attacking for quite for relentlessly the past month, 3:49:01.800 --> 3:49:02.200 because you. 3:49:02.320 --> 3:49:07.080 Really fucked up. If you can't, like no, if you 3:49:07.160 --> 3:49:10.800 can't run attacks on that guy, and you still all. 3:49:10.720 --> 3:49:12.920 Of those jokes about the whine moms in the suburbs, 3:49:13.040 --> 3:49:15.960 like wanting blooded, like you're looking at this like oh no, 3:49:16.080 --> 3:49:19.200 hell yeah yeah, give me four ward bullets will put 3:49:19.240 --> 3:49:19.800 in this guy. 3:49:20.280 --> 3:49:25.200 It's pretty crazy. It's it's it's pretty astonishing. Maine voted 3:49:25.600 --> 3:49:29.760 no sixty three percent on a voter restriction measure. Voters 3:49:29.800 --> 3:49:35.360 extended the Democrat Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the California Redistricting 3:49:35.600 --> 3:49:39.000 Measure or Proposition, passed with sixty three point eight percent. 3:49:39.560 --> 3:49:41.440 James, Yeah, do you have stuff on this? 3:49:41.800 --> 3:49:42.000 Yeah? 3:49:42.160 --> 3:49:45.120 So Prop fifty in California, California, it was like a 3:49:45.240 --> 3:49:47.880 one issue ballot, right, you said the Prop fifty this 3:49:48.200 --> 3:49:51.440 would temporarily redistrict. I think people maybe have not been 3:49:52.560 --> 3:49:55.760 like often it gets missed, and it is temporarily redistrict 3:49:55.800 --> 3:50:01.160 in California until re establishing the nonpartisan committee that that 3:50:01.280 --> 3:50:03.840 does districting in twenty thirty one. For the twenty thirty 3:50:03.920 --> 3:50:07.080 two those districts will come back or whether they will 3:50:07.120 --> 3:50:10.120 return to a non partisan districting in twenty thirty two. 3:50:11.280 --> 3:50:14.960 This is one of the most expensive propositions in state history. 3:50:15.600 --> 3:50:18.680 One hundred and twenty million was spent in favor. Forty 3:50:18.680 --> 3:50:23.680 four million against there was also outside money. Newsome already 3:50:23.920 --> 3:50:27.240 called the New York, Illinois and other Democrat majority seats 3:50:27.280 --> 3:50:32.840 to do the same. Right, it's going to likely remove 3:50:33.480 --> 3:50:37.440 about five Republican seats, or those Republicans are going to struggle. Right, 3:50:37.960 --> 3:50:40.320 one of them would be at San Diego's Mountain Empire 3:50:40.360 --> 3:50:42.680 and East County seat, which is currently the forty eighth. 3:50:43.480 --> 3:50:47.080 That seat has been redistricted a few times, right, it's 3:50:47.120 --> 3:50:51.120 moved around. It's currently darryl Isa's seat. In response, California 3:50:51.160 --> 3:50:55.760 Republicans have already filed a lawsuit. Suit was filed by 3:50:55.840 --> 3:50:57.320 Harmiat Dillon's law. 3:50:57.280 --> 3:51:02.360 Firm, Yay Dyland of the party. 3:51:03.320 --> 3:51:05.520 Dylan is in the Trump administration now, but. 3:51:06.120 --> 3:51:09.080 Yeah, Ellen's in the Trump administration and occasionally in my 3:51:09.240 --> 3:51:10.560 inbox making threats. 3:51:13.480 --> 3:51:13.760 Great. 3:51:14.000 --> 3:51:16.480 But it was Dylan's law firm that the father case. 3:51:16.600 --> 3:51:16.720 Right. 3:51:17.400 --> 3:51:21.080 The case has claimed that California drew the new lines 3:51:21.120 --> 3:51:26.520 to quote specifically favor Hispanic voters, which it's a similar 3:51:26.640 --> 3:51:30.360 claim to the Louisiana versus Calais. I think Calais there 3:51:30.400 --> 3:51:32.040 is the way they say it here case which is 3:51:32.080 --> 3:51:36.120 currently before the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court seems 3:51:36.160 --> 3:51:40.040 to be suggesting it might be it might be amenable 3:51:40.120 --> 3:51:43.360 to this argument, right, that the consideration of race in 3:51:43.480 --> 3:51:49.440 redistricting is discriminate free. Yesterday, Trump truth quoting here, the 3:51:49.640 --> 3:51:54.600 unconstitutional redistricting vote in California is a giant scam. That 3:51:54.720 --> 3:51:57.880 part is in block capitals, as is characteristic. The rest 3:51:57.960 --> 3:52:02.200 is sporadically capitalized to the quote. Now in the entire process, 3:52:02.680 --> 3:52:07.280 in particular, the voting itself is rigged all quote mail 3:52:07.360 --> 3:52:11.680 in ballots where the Republicans in that state are shut out. 3:52:12.120 --> 3:52:17.720 It's under very serious legal and criminal review. Stay tuned. Yeah, 3:52:18.040 --> 3:52:20.320 you know, fairly predictable. We talked about it last week. 3:52:20.680 --> 3:52:23.960 It's not entirely possible for me to pass out that 3:52:24.840 --> 3:52:28.840 second sentence, but I think we can see what direction 3:52:29.040 --> 3:52:31.400 is pushing in. Right, This was predictable that this was 3:52:31.440 --> 3:52:33.720 going to happen, and we'll keep you updated on it. 3:52:34.480 --> 3:52:38.120 Also predictable that we would have to pivot to ads again, 3:52:38.520 --> 3:52:53.800 which is what we're going to do now. And we 3:52:54.200 --> 3:52:57.520 are back a little bit of immigration US this week. 3:52:57.560 --> 3:53:00.760 As always. According to reporting, this was actually last week, 3:53:00.800 --> 3:53:02.800 but we didn't have time for last week. A countryported 3:53:02.840 --> 3:53:05.760 by CNN, Trump claimed he was quote very much opposed 3:53:05.880 --> 3:53:08.600 to his own administration's immigration raid on our home dive 3:53:08.720 --> 3:53:12.840 plant in Georgia, which obviously this is what he's saying 3:53:12.880 --> 3:53:16.320 to try and get that foreign direct investment back in Georgia, right, 3:53:16.360 --> 3:53:18.280 because it looks very much like Georgia is going to 3:53:18.360 --> 3:53:23.040 pay pretty heavily for that raid. Unfortunately, another man lost 3:53:23.080 --> 3:53:27.160 his life when fleeing ICE officers last week. He seems 3:53:27.200 --> 3:53:28.800 to have left a car that he was in and 3:53:28.920 --> 3:53:31.200 tempted to cross a freeway where he was fatally struck 3:53:31.800 --> 3:53:36.200 by another car. Yeah, that's the second time this has 3:53:36.240 --> 3:53:40.160 happened this year. Texas sosigned an agreement with a federal 3:53:40.240 --> 3:53:44.000 government to allow local DPS officers to operate as ICE 3:53:44.040 --> 3:53:46.800 officers or technically to operate under the authority of ICE 3:53:46.840 --> 3:53:50.280 officers under the two eighty seven g program. So this 3:53:50.880 --> 3:53:53.000 is not the first law enforcement agency in Texas to 3:53:53.160 --> 3:53:56.880 do this. Lots of local agency's had but the DPS 3:53:57.000 --> 3:53:59.960 is statewide, right, so this would this would include officers 3:54:00.120 --> 3:54:03.880 of the Texas Highway Patrol has five thousand employees. It 3:54:04.000 --> 3:54:07.520 will make Texas a markedly more hostile place for migrants. 3:54:08.520 --> 3:54:14.080 The authority allows warrantles to tension under loosely limited, loosely 3:54:14.120 --> 3:54:18.560 phrased supervision by an ICE officer. Right, it allows Texas 3:54:18.640 --> 3:54:21.880 cops to detain a question people have a suspected being 3:54:21.920 --> 3:54:26.200 in the United States without documentation here in San Diego. 3:54:26.400 --> 3:54:30.400 San Diego's Border Patrol Sector released a video with I 3:54:30.440 --> 3:54:32.800 think it was like, I'll have to check what song. 3:54:32.880 --> 3:54:35.600 It was like some cringe kind of pop punk soundtrack 3:54:36.240 --> 3:54:39.920 of the dynamting of land west of the ha Cumber Wilderness. 3:54:40.560 --> 3:54:44.320 This is likely the construction that saw many environmental and 3:54:44.720 --> 3:54:49.760 cultural protections waived by the HS secretarynme earlier this year. Right, 3:54:50.400 --> 3:54:52.800 we're always seeing the beginning of what that looks like, 3:54:52.920 --> 3:54:54.600 and what that looks like here is just a very 3:54:54.680 --> 3:54:57.920 unique landscape. Many one I know some people who listen 3:54:58.000 --> 3:54:59.520 came out to Cumber a couple of years ago to 3:54:59.600 --> 3:55:03.880 help out. Like it's an extremely unique high desert landscape 3:55:04.280 --> 3:55:06.760 and it's currently being dynamited. 3:55:06.920 --> 3:55:07.000 Right. 3:55:07.080 --> 3:55:09.320 These are the areas where there were little gaps in 3:55:09.440 --> 3:55:12.760 the border wall because construction there is very hard and 3:55:13.200 --> 3:55:14.800 the way that they're going ahead with the construction is 3:55:14.840 --> 3:55:19.600 blowing stuff up. Finally, on the immigration deep the case 3:55:19.640 --> 3:55:23.520 regarding conditions in the broad View Facility, which is in Chicago. 3:55:23.960 --> 3:55:26.320 Until earlier this year, it was only for very short stays, 3:55:26.360 --> 3:55:29.880 like not for twenty four hour stays. Has revealed some 3:55:29.960 --> 3:55:33.880 of the horrific conditions inside the facility. It confirmed something 3:55:33.960 --> 3:55:36.680 I've heard from multiple migrants who have been detained or 3:55:36.760 --> 3:55:39.400 over the US, which is ICE is using the threat 3:55:39.440 --> 3:55:41.720 of longest stays in poor conditions to get people to 3:55:41.800 --> 3:55:46.320 sign deportation paperwork. Often it's literally in the overcrowded rooms 3:55:46.360 --> 3:55:48.320 where they're sleeping and staying right like, at any point 3:55:48.360 --> 3:55:50.760 you can just walk up to it and sign your name, 3:55:50.800 --> 3:55:54.920 and you will presumably be removed from those conditions and 3:55:54.960 --> 3:56:00.600 placed into deportation flight as soon as possible. Directly from 3:56:00.640 --> 3:56:03.200 the lawsuit here quote people are forced to attempt to 3:56:03.200 --> 3:56:05.680 sleep for days or sometimes weeks, on plastic chairs or 3:56:05.720 --> 3:56:08.640 on the filthy concrete floor. They are denied sufficient food 3:56:08.680 --> 3:56:12.040 and water. They cannot shower, They are denied soap, higgen items, 3:56:12.080 --> 3:56:14.720 and mental products, and they have no way to clean themselves. 3:56:15.120 --> 3:56:18.080 They are often denied a change of clothes. Continuing my 3:56:18.200 --> 3:56:21.240 quote here, the temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable. Most nights 3:56:21.280 --> 3:56:24.880 are freezing cold. Yet only some receive a thin foil blanket, 3:56:25.320 --> 3:56:28.640 sweater or sweatpants have tried to retain warmth. The lights 3:56:28.720 --> 3:56:33.240 are typically on all night. People have also reported being 3:56:33.320 --> 3:56:35.640 denied water bay agents that are being their running water 3:56:35.760 --> 3:56:38.120 in the places where they are held, and very little food. 3:56:39.120 --> 3:56:43.680 We've reported on these conditions before. Some of this is standard. Right, 3:56:43.760 --> 3:56:47.120 lights on all night, freezing cold, you only get a 3:56:47.280 --> 3:56:49.840 very thin blanket like that. That has been the case. 3:56:49.880 --> 3:56:51.720 That was the case throughout the Biden administration. Right they 3:56:51.800 --> 3:56:54.680 call these places of the ice box, both in English 3:56:54.720 --> 3:56:59.040 and in Spanish. This has always been the conditions to 3:56:59.040 --> 3:57:01.760 people have been held in in these facilities have always 3:57:01.800 --> 3:57:05.480 been in humane. But some of this is particularly bad. 3:57:05.520 --> 3:57:08.160 People in Broadview reported being so crowded they could not 3:57:08.280 --> 3:57:09.440 extend their legs. 3:57:10.400 --> 3:57:10.560 Us. 3:57:11.760 --> 3:57:14.000 Yeah, so they had to sit like sort of fetal position. 3:57:14.120 --> 3:57:16.520 They couldn't sit down and extend their legs right alone. Sleep, 3:57:17.400 --> 3:57:22.560 disgustingly unclean conditions they have. Lots of people have reported 3:57:22.600 --> 3:57:24.960 paperwork not being able to language that they read write. 3:57:25.400 --> 3:57:28.520 Bathrooms there are not private, and the lawsuit alleges that 3:57:28.600 --> 3:57:32.080 people of other genders could see each other using the bathroom, 3:57:33.160 --> 3:57:38.520 which is pretty disgusting. I've linked to the lawsuit. You 3:57:38.640 --> 3:57:40.440 can read it if you want to. 3:57:41.760 --> 3:57:43.200 Terror Park Transition, Go. 3:57:49.920 --> 3:57:52.720 Racking, Jazz, Barry. 3:57:57.440 --> 3:57:58.640 Right, jazz b. 3:58:00.360 --> 3:58:04.800 Ah, music to my ears, Oh boy, Okay, abrupt shift 3:58:04.880 --> 3:58:08.680 in tone. So we got a little bit more details 3:58:08.840 --> 3:58:11.320 on the sort of partial agreement that Trump and the 3:58:11.440 --> 3:58:16.800 Chinese government have sort of come to that has staved 3:58:16.840 --> 3:58:20.080 off some of the most disastrous of the new trade 3:58:20.120 --> 3:58:21.880 war elements. Both sides seem to have gotten rid of 3:58:21.920 --> 3:58:25.840 the fees from ships both docking at their ports and 3:58:26.120 --> 3:58:30.320 also on like the sort of complicated shipbuilding stuff we 3:58:30.320 --> 3:58:34.480 talked about last year. The US has paused the thing 3:58:34.520 --> 3:58:36.960 we talked about last week where they were using the 3:58:37.000 --> 3:58:41.240 Foreign Ancity List to do anything that was controlled that 3:58:41.320 --> 3:58:43.600 was like forty percent and more controlled by a thing 3:58:43.680 --> 3:58:46.320 on the Foreignancsity list couldn't be traded with. The US 3:58:46.440 --> 3:58:49.160 is backing off on that for a year. Chinese agreed 3:58:49.200 --> 3:58:52.880 to buy more soybeans. There's also some discussion of China 3:58:52.920 --> 3:58:55.680 buying more energy products. But this is one of these 3:58:55.720 --> 3:58:58.560 things that we just we have no idea what that is. 3:58:58.640 --> 3:59:01.080 It's possible by the time you're listening to there will 3:59:01.120 --> 3:59:04.480 be information. All we have is buy more energy. And 3:59:04.840 --> 3:59:08.760 the last thing that Trump said that didn't seem to 3:59:08.800 --> 3:59:11.800 be part of the negotiations between him and the Chinese 3:59:11.840 --> 3:59:14.760 government per se, but we're definitely part of negotiations that 3:59:14.760 --> 3:59:17.360 have been going on between Trump and his cabinet was 3:59:17.440 --> 3:59:21.720 that there's going to be restrictions on AI chip exports. 3:59:21.800 --> 3:59:25.720 Although exactly what is not known. All Trump said was 3:59:26.040 --> 3:59:29.000 quote the most advanced, we will not let anybody have 3:59:29.120 --> 3:59:30.400 them other than the United States. 3:59:32.000 --> 3:59:33.240 What this seems to be. 3:59:33.600 --> 3:59:37.240 And again everyone is kind of murkily hobbling together whatever 3:59:37.320 --> 3:59:40.720 information they have. What it seems to be is Trump 3:59:40.960 --> 3:59:45.080 stopped in Vidia from selling its most advanced AI grade 3:59:45.160 --> 3:59:49.080 chips called Blackwell, to China, which was which Nvidia has 3:59:49.120 --> 3:59:52.000 been massively lobbying for because they need to expand their 3:59:52.040 --> 3:59:55.880 market to continue the giant bubble that they've accumulated. Trump 3:59:56.000 --> 3:59:58.360 has stopped them. It's unclear whether this is going to 3:59:58.400 --> 4:00:00.200 be made into formal policy or if Trump is just 4:00:00.280 --> 4:00:02.720 going to personally intervene every time a CEO asks him 4:00:02.760 --> 4:00:06.720 to do this. But yeah, we also have so today 4:00:06.800 --> 4:00:09.200 recording November fifth is the start of the Supreme Court 4:00:09.280 --> 4:00:11.760 case against the tariffs. I think It's worth noting that 4:00:12.640 --> 4:00:15.320 this court case against the tariffs, it's framed as like 4:00:15.360 --> 4:00:18.040 a lot of small businesses brought this lawsuit, and they did. 4:00:18.760 --> 4:00:20.760 But also the reason it's gotten to the Supreme Court 4:00:20.920 --> 4:00:23.920 is because they're being backed by a huge player in 4:00:24.000 --> 4:00:27.360 the conservative legal machine. Almost the entire thing is being 4:00:27.640 --> 4:00:30.360 funded and paid for by the Liberty Justice Center, which 4:00:30.400 --> 4:00:34.040 is it's a kind of libertarian right wing legal thing 4:00:34.240 --> 4:00:36.600 backed by like the Walton family and the Coke Network. 4:00:37.480 --> 4:00:39.920 And this is I think one of the most direct 4:00:40.000 --> 4:00:44.480 and interesting actual oppositional moves we've seen from this wing 4:00:44.560 --> 4:00:47.360 of the libertarian business wing of the party, which is very, 4:00:47.520 --> 4:00:50.280 very pissed off at the tariffs. We've seen a whole 4:00:50.320 --> 4:00:55.520 bunch of amicus curia briefs from the American Enterpresi Insttrude 4:00:55.520 --> 4:00:57.080 and the Cato Institute, and a whole bunch of other 4:00:57.120 --> 4:00:59.840 right wing think tanks who are extremely angry about this. 4:01:00.600 --> 4:01:03.440 We don't know exactly how it's going to go, but 4:01:03.520 --> 4:01:05.200 the initial arguments do not seem to be going well 4:01:05.280 --> 4:01:09.720 for the Tromp administration. So that'll that'll be unfolding and 4:01:09.840 --> 4:01:11.800 we'll report on it more is as we know more. 4:01:12.200 --> 4:01:15.760 It's this is literally recording is the first day of trials. So, 4:01:17.200 --> 4:01:20.400 and finally, I'm going to close on a genuinely deeply 4:01:20.480 --> 4:01:22.880 baffling piece of news, which is that the day before 4:01:23.000 --> 4:01:27.120 the election in New York, Greg Abbott posted that there 4:01:27.120 --> 4:01:29.720 would be a one hundred percent tariff on anyone moving 4:01:29.760 --> 4:01:30.520 to New York. 4:01:30.360 --> 4:01:31.160 After the election. 4:01:31.920 --> 4:01:32.840 Yeah, how does that work? 4:01:33.200 --> 4:01:35.440 Isn't it moving to Texas from New York? 4:01:36.360 --> 4:01:37.600 Well, I thought it was to New York. 4:01:38.520 --> 4:01:40.400 It's for me, it looked like moving to New York 4:01:40.480 --> 4:01:40.840 as well. 4:01:40.920 --> 4:01:43.160 I mean, it's certainly unclear because this doesn't not seem 4:01:43.200 --> 4:01:45.880 like a policy proposal. It seems more like a post. 4:01:46.840 --> 4:01:50.560 It's just a post. It's someone post posting through it. 4:01:51.080 --> 4:01:55.440 Because this has been from moving from New York to Texas. Yeah, yeah, 4:01:55.760 --> 4:01:57.720 anyone moving from New York to Texas. 4:01:58.000 --> 4:01:58.480 Interesting. 4:01:59.400 --> 4:02:03.040 I don't know tariffs are just posts now, I don't. 4:02:03.160 --> 4:02:05.880 That's not like a thing that there's law around you 4:02:06.040 --> 4:02:06.920 being able to do. 4:02:07.240 --> 4:02:08.880 No, it's it's so one constitutional. 4:02:08.960 --> 4:02:11.000 I think it's just a post. I don't think it 4:02:11.320 --> 4:02:12.200 is anything like. 4:02:12.360 --> 4:02:14.880 Is Yeah, I mean, evidently I think the interesting thing 4:02:14.920 --> 4:02:18.240 about it, is like, is the way in which tariffs 4:02:18.280 --> 4:02:20.200 have come to be seen in their Republican mind as 4:02:20.320 --> 4:02:22.360 like this is something you do to people you're mad at, 4:02:22.760 --> 4:02:26.600 which is very new development in this is this is 4:02:26.640 --> 4:02:30.800 a this is a pure Trump too phenomena effectively well absolutely. 4:02:30.480 --> 4:02:35.240 Yeah, a marker of how intensely they're paying attention to 4:02:35.360 --> 4:02:39.360 this election. Like I mean, Abbots said, doing this because 4:02:39.360 --> 4:02:43.000 I'm sure it'll show Shore up his local popularity. But 4:02:44.040 --> 4:02:46.240 it's a marker of like a change that has been 4:02:46.360 --> 4:02:49.800 going on that that has been really like supercharged in 4:02:49.840 --> 4:02:53.080 the Trump era of no, no, you can't have local 4:02:53.160 --> 4:02:59.000 politics like it's it's all national politics, and any kind 4:02:59.200 --> 4:03:02.240 of vote at a state or local level that goes 4:03:02.280 --> 4:03:06.000 against whatever the party wants is something to be punished, 4:03:06.120 --> 4:03:09.360 like even if it's two thousand miles away. And that 4:03:09.560 --> 4:03:13.120 is that hasn't been as dominant in US politics as 4:03:13.160 --> 4:03:15.960 it has been recently. We should probably talk a little 4:03:16.000 --> 4:03:21.200 bit about Texas's election night, because that was also pretty consequential. 4:03:21.680 --> 4:03:25.360 There were seventeen ballot measures passed by the Texas legislature 4:03:25.440 --> 4:03:28.760 earlier this year by a two thirds majority, and the 4:03:28.800 --> 4:03:32.560 way Texas law works is that once the legislature votes 4:03:32.600 --> 4:03:35.120 for a ballot measure, to two thirds majority. It becomes 4:03:35.160 --> 4:03:38.680 a constitutional amendment after a simple majority of voters on 4:03:38.800 --> 4:03:42.720 a ballot support it. And there were seventeen measures on 4:03:42.840 --> 4:03:46.280 the ballot in Texas, which is wild. Very few states 4:03:46.520 --> 4:03:51.000 and constitutional amendments that the rate Texas does and all 4:03:51.120 --> 4:03:53.840 of them passed, which is nuts, and some of them 4:03:53.880 --> 4:03:56.600 are like fine. There was like one to create like 4:03:56.640 --> 4:03:59.120 a three billion dollar fund for dementia research with like 4:03:59.200 --> 4:04:01.200 which is like whatever, nobody's got a problem with that. 4:04:01.440 --> 4:04:01.680 Really. 4:04:02.480 --> 4:04:06.760 Some questions about implementation maybe, but there's some absolutely bug 4:04:06.880 --> 4:04:10.600 fuck nuts stuff in here. Proposition thirteen raised the homestead 4:04:10.640 --> 4:04:12.600 exemption from one hundred thousand dollars to one hundred and 4:04:12.640 --> 4:04:15.000 forty thousand dollars. It was passed by about eighty percent 4:04:15.080 --> 4:04:18.560 of voters. This lowers the taxable value of a home, 4:04:18.920 --> 4:04:23.720 which reduces overall tax bills on your primary residence. Per 4:04:23.760 --> 4:04:26.160 an article in the Houston Chronicle, the amendments will be 4:04:26.240 --> 4:04:28.920 especially felt by elderly or disabled Texans who are poised 4:04:28.920 --> 4:04:31.000 to receive a separate tax, a separate break that brings 4:04:31.040 --> 4:04:33.840 their total property tax exemptions to two hundred thousand. As 4:04:33.880 --> 4:04:36.400 a result, roughly half of seniors and people with disabilities 4:04:36.840 --> 4:04:39.320 living in Harris and Bear Counties will no longer pay 4:04:39.480 --> 4:04:43.760 any school property taxes. Jesus, I should have to say 4:04:43.800 --> 4:04:47.760 how bad that is for Texas schools and in general. 4:04:48.520 --> 4:04:51.160 This A lot of these ballot measures were about making 4:04:51.280 --> 4:04:54.800 heavy cuts and making it impossible to raise new revenue. 4:04:55.080 --> 4:04:57.400 The cuts that are just in these ballot measures are 4:04:57.480 --> 4:04:59.440 going to cost the state about four billion dollars over 4:04:59.440 --> 4:05:01.720 the next two year years. Right, But that's not all 4:05:01.800 --> 4:05:04.400 that was done. Several of the bills that were passed 4:05:04.640 --> 4:05:09.880 banned the potential to create new taxes. Right, So it 4:05:10.040 --> 4:05:14.960 is now illegal in Texas to create taxes on capital gains, 4:05:15.360 --> 4:05:18.560 or taxes on the growth of assets like property in stocks, 4:05:18.880 --> 4:05:22.560 or taxes on inheritance, and to state taxes. Taxes on 4:05:22.840 --> 4:05:26.440 the operations of stock exchanges are now banned because several 4:05:26.480 --> 4:05:28.280 have announced plans to open in Texas. 4:05:28.360 --> 4:05:28.480 Right. 4:05:28.600 --> 4:05:32.280 So you are looking at I think the estimate here 4:05:32.320 --> 4:05:34.120 that I'm seeing in the chronicles articles that the states 4:05:34.160 --> 4:05:36.680 can spend about fifty one billion dollars over the coming 4:05:36.720 --> 4:05:39.560 biennium to pay for the new cuts and maintain existing ones. 4:05:39.920 --> 4:05:41.920 Texas is a state that has had for quite a 4:05:42.040 --> 4:05:46.720 while a budget surplus, and they are basically lighting a 4:05:46.760 --> 4:05:50.360 lot of that on fire to appeal to rich people 4:05:50.840 --> 4:05:54.840 and business note owners in stock exchanges to take their 4:05:54.920 --> 4:05:57.840 assets to Texas. You won't have to help society if 4:05:57.880 --> 4:06:00.360 you come to Texas. We don't have a society in Texas, right, 4:06:00.840 --> 4:06:03.880 And that agenda did very well in Texas. 4:06:04.360 --> 4:06:04.680 Jeez. 4:06:05.480 --> 4:06:08.400 Anyway, good stuff. I guess the last thing I want 4:06:08.440 --> 4:06:10.560 to talk about a little bit, since we've got a 4:06:10.640 --> 4:06:13.520 couple of minutes here is the question on everybody's mind. 4:06:14.000 --> 4:06:16.920 Should I be flying anywhere for the holidays? Is that 4:06:17.080 --> 4:06:20.840 going to be a good idea? I'm saying this a 4:06:21.000 --> 4:06:25.280 day after a horrific crash of a ups flight over 4:06:25.520 --> 4:06:30.480 Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, right, which I mean, 4:06:30.560 --> 4:06:32.920 I think seven was the death toll last I saw 4:06:33.240 --> 4:06:34.480 night Marriish firemalls. 4:06:34.800 --> 4:06:36.280 I mean at nine this morning? 4:06:36.840 --> 4:06:40.240 Is it at nine? Because the plane just the engine 4:06:41.040 --> 4:06:45.040 caught on fire basically on takeoff, and normally, from what 4:06:45.120 --> 4:06:48.360 I'm reading from pilots, normally that should have been a 4:06:48.480 --> 4:06:51.040 manageable problem. But because it happened during the ascent, which 4:06:51.120 --> 4:06:53.960 is the most dangerous part of piloting a plane, and 4:06:54.000 --> 4:06:56.480 where you have the least control. They were not able 4:06:56.560 --> 4:06:58.840 to recover or gain any kind of control, and the 4:06:58.880 --> 4:07:02.720 plane basically plowed directly into a UPS warehouse. And it 4:07:03.000 --> 4:07:06.720 was loaded with something like three hundred thousand pounds worth 4:07:06.840 --> 4:07:09.280 of fuel because it was about to fly to Honolulu, 4:07:09.440 --> 4:07:11.520 so it was as full of fuel as a big 4:07:11.640 --> 4:07:15.000 plane can be and just a horrific crash. Is this 4:07:15.240 --> 4:07:18.000 tied to the fact that you have a lot of 4:07:18.160 --> 4:07:21.080 federal employees furloughed? Is it tied more just to the 4:07:21.160 --> 4:07:23.920 fact that the FAA is not functioning the way it 4:07:23.960 --> 4:07:27.080 should be or used to as a result of changes 4:07:27.120 --> 4:07:29.800 the Trump administration made as soon as they came to power. 4:07:30.560 --> 4:07:33.680 I think it's too early to say that, but this 4:07:33.920 --> 4:07:37.600 is part of a pattern of pretty disastrous near misses 4:07:37.680 --> 4:07:40.160 that absolutely can be attributed to things like the air 4:07:40.200 --> 4:07:42.920 traffic controllers shortage and the fact that there's just a 4:07:43.000 --> 4:07:46.960 lot less safety precautions being taken. And this is something 4:07:47.040 --> 4:07:50.320 the administration is aware of and has become critical enough 4:07:50.360 --> 4:07:53.400 that they're no longer able to deny it. Secretary of 4:07:53.440 --> 4:07:57.760 Transportations Sean Duffy on Monday said that all commercial flights 4:07:58.000 --> 4:08:02.240 might be stopped nationwide to protect public safety, and they 4:08:02.280 --> 4:08:05.280 were certainly going to need to cut off flights in 4:08:05.360 --> 4:08:08.000 specific parts of the countries at times as a result 4:08:08.040 --> 4:08:09.160 of the ATC shortage. 4:08:09.240 --> 4:08:09.360 Right. 4:08:09.640 --> 4:08:13.240 Basically, there's different like k grids that the country is 4:08:13.320 --> 4:08:15.320 divided into, and you might have to shut down one 4:08:15.400 --> 4:08:17.840 or more of those at a time in order to 4:08:18.000 --> 4:08:21.640 make the shortage of air traffic controllers able to handle 4:08:21.680 --> 4:08:22.680 the rest of the load. 4:08:23.120 --> 4:08:23.280 Right. 4:08:23.600 --> 4:08:25.720 For an example of how bad this can get locally, 4:08:25.840 --> 4:08:30.000 on last Friday in New York State, eighty percent of 4:08:30.160 --> 4:08:32.320 air traffic controllers did not show up for work. So 4:08:32.520 --> 4:08:35.640 this is a potentially pretty calamitous problem. There have been 4:08:35.680 --> 4:08:39.600 ground delays on Monday for three major Texas airports in Austin, 4:08:39.720 --> 4:08:43.280 Dallas Fort Worth, and Dallas love Field. And this is 4:08:43.400 --> 4:08:45.600 just in general a problem that's only going to get 4:08:45.680 --> 4:08:48.880 worse as the shutdown looms. Because I've seen some interviews 4:08:48.880 --> 4:08:51.360 with air traffic controllers where like one guy was like, look, 4:08:51.800 --> 4:08:53.920 we're not getting medicine for my kid and she'll die 4:08:54.040 --> 4:08:56.400 without it. It's just not coming in. How do you 4:08:56.440 --> 4:08:58.480 expect me to be a fucking air traffic controller? 4:08:58.960 --> 4:08:59.080 Right? 4:08:59.480 --> 4:09:02.480 Like the herd job in the country that requires absolutely 4:09:02.560 --> 4:09:05.600 perfect concentration at all times without ever fucking up or 4:09:05.720 --> 4:09:09.440 hundreds of people die. So I don't know to answer 4:09:09.480 --> 4:09:12.080 the question of like, should you fly be planning flights 4:09:12.120 --> 4:09:16.000 for this holiday season, you should certainly get the flight 4:09:16.080 --> 4:09:19.480 and share its and be paying attention the days before 4:09:19.680 --> 4:09:23.360 as to what's happening if the shutdown doesn't end, because 4:09:23.440 --> 4:09:26.160 right now we are seeing delays the likes of which 4:09:26.200 --> 4:09:28.800 haven't really been seen since maybe like either like the 4:09:28.880 --> 4:09:31.680 pandemic probably before nine to eleven was kind of the 4:09:31.760 --> 4:09:34.880 last time things were this completely fucked. Garrison can tell 4:09:34.880 --> 4:09:37.200 you how much of a fucking nightmare they had coming back. 4:09:37.520 --> 4:09:39.440 And it's not just in the United States, by the way, 4:09:39.840 --> 4:09:42.840 multiple major airports in Europe over the last week and 4:09:43.000 --> 4:09:46.680 change have had to shut down entirely or partly because 4:09:46.720 --> 4:09:50.200 of unauthorized or unknown drone flights in their airspace. 4:09:50.560 --> 4:09:53.600 Yeah, that's been ongoing globally. 4:09:53.960 --> 4:09:55.720 Air travel is not doing well. 4:09:57.880 --> 4:10:00.400 Yeah, Rush has been probing Europe with these whole lands 4:10:00.400 --> 4:10:03.280 for a little while. Yeah, I think all I don't know, 4:10:03.360 --> 4:10:06.080 Roberts flowing Garrison. I have flown this month. It fucking sucks. 4:10:07.360 --> 4:10:09.040 Use a credit card if you can. When they had 4:10:09.120 --> 4:10:12.560 some protections. Maybe consider not flying right now. 4:10:13.120 --> 4:10:16.000 Yeah, just you know, keep an eye on things. I 4:10:16.040 --> 4:10:17.040 don't know what else to tell you. 4:10:17.720 --> 4:10:21.080 Yeah, it's great. Everything's going great. That is the slogan. 4:10:21.320 --> 4:10:22.400 Everything's going great. 4:10:22.960 --> 4:10:24.800 You know, there's been worse times. 4:10:25.000 --> 4:10:26.000 There's been worse times. 4:10:26.080 --> 4:10:27.120 Yeah, the blitz. 4:10:27.520 --> 4:10:31.520 Yeah, talking of worse times. Lots of people are hungry, 4:10:31.800 --> 4:10:35.560 right because we are. We're fucking with people's snap benefits 4:10:35.640 --> 4:10:38.640 now as part of the culture war. Lots of people 4:10:38.680 --> 4:10:41.000 are very worried about where their food is going to 4:10:41.080 --> 4:10:43.520 come from. Right, and we're entering a time of year. 4:10:43.720 --> 4:10:45.760 You know, kids are going to be off school. There's 4:10:45.800 --> 4:10:47.880 lots of places you can still get your free school meals, 4:10:47.960 --> 4:10:50.360 but it's a difficult time for people. It's difficult time 4:10:50.360 --> 4:10:52.600 for people to feed their families. I wanted to plug 4:10:52.760 --> 4:10:56.000 we All we got is San Diego Group. What they're 4:10:56.120 --> 4:10:59.240 doing is helping people be able to rely on them 4:10:59.280 --> 4:11:01.240 by delivering groceries to them right. 4:11:01.480 --> 4:11:01.600 Uh. 4:11:01.800 --> 4:11:04.840 And the way that they most need support is for 4:11:04.960 --> 4:11:08.520 people to sign up to regularly donate a certain amount. 4:11:08.680 --> 4:11:10.240 I'm not going to tell you how much you can donate, 4:11:10.280 --> 4:11:12.240 but if you're able to, that will give them the 4:11:12.320 --> 4:11:15.280 ability to plan to secure groceries for people they're supporting. 4:11:16.000 --> 4:11:18.200 The way you can find their website is to go 4:11:18.440 --> 4:11:25.640 to we all we got sd dot com slash donate. Also, 4:11:25.880 --> 4:11:28.000 if you want to reach out to us and you 4:11:28.040 --> 4:11:29.920 want to do it in an encrypted way, you could 4:11:29.960 --> 4:11:33.440 send an email from your proton mail address to our 4:11:33.600 --> 4:11:36.920 proton mail address, which is cool Zone Tips at proton 4:11:37.000 --> 4:11:39.960 dot me. If you're a marketing person and you want 4:11:40.200 --> 4:11:44.040 your client to be a guest on our podcast, don't 4:11:44.080 --> 4:11:46.680 email us. I'm just going to fucking block you. That's 4:11:46.840 --> 4:11:48.960 That's that's all I have to say about that. If 4:11:49.000 --> 4:11:50.640 you want to have to plug your product, I will 4:11:50.680 --> 4:11:56.800 also fucking block you. We've reported them, we reported the net. 4:12:01.280 --> 4:12:04.400 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 4:12:04.480 --> 4:12:06.360 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 4:12:07.160 --> 4:12:09.640 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 4:12:09.840 --> 4:12:12.840 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 4:12:12.960 --> 4:12:16.480 Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 4:12:16.600 --> 4:12:20.160 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 4:12:20.240 --> 4:12:22.520 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 4:12:22.600 --> 4:12:24.840 in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,