WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 36 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.320 you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.600 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.440 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.960 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:17.919 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.160 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:29.000 can make your own decisions. Oh it's it could happen here, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:36.080 and it, by goodness, it continues to I'm Robert Evans. Um, Sophie, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.919 my producer just noted to me that we should probably 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:44.199 uh introduce Sharene Lanna units since you've recently joined the 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.920 team and have been on several episodes, and we just 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.440 kind of rolled with it. Sharine, Wait wait wait wait 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.440 wait wait wait what are you? Who are you? Where 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.640 are you? When are you? Those are a lot of 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.960 questions as I can't answer. You are a frequent ghost 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:10.600 on guest Um your producer with I heart you're on 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.920 the show, ethnically ambiguous with Anna Hosnia and um you 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.720 are our our our bud, I am your bud, thank you? 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:27.920 Yeah joined published Yeah, poet a filmmaker a depressed person. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.800 You know, I took all the boxes. U helped Sophie 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.920 bury that body the other year. That was between us. Yeah, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:35.600 I don't know why we need to put that on Mike, 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:41.560 between you and lake Mead m Okay, Well everyone's going 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.160 to know where that body is, so you're gonna find 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.720 it soon anyway. But yeah, I it's really fun to 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:49.400 talk to you all. So it's nice that we can 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:55.520 record me doing it now for work. Cool. That's Is 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:57.720 that a good intro? Yeah, that is a good intro. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.240 I'm really excited to have sharing on our team. It's 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.120 uh something that we've been hoping that would happen for 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.200 a while now, and we just feel very fortunate to 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.079 have her voice as part of our as part of 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:14.720 our very tight knit group. And um, you're welcome, listeners, hucks. 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:17.760 I feel very honored to be a part of such 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.840 a small, tight knit group, especially because everyone I'm not 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.880 even saying this to Fish please, but everyone here is 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.560 much smarter than me, and so I've been learning a 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.200 lot and I don't do nearly as much research as 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:36.760 y'all do. So I hope to be the like a 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.440 a someone representing the audience that knows nothing, you know 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.920 what I mean? Like, that's my role here is to 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.040 really give people, to let people be seen who have 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:53.959 their heads empty like mine. So representation matters. Well, I 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.480 feel like we had empty headed represented when I joined 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.200 the team. But fair enough, what are we? What is are? 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.079 Who are we today? What are we doing today? Where 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.200 are we today? Chris, you're the president of this episode? 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.919 Oh no, wait, that's bad. All right, so I'm gonna 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.120 I think I think I have to assassinate myself as 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:16.720 the way this works. But yeah, we're legally actually, yeah 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.640 that that I think next episode, I assassinate myself this episode, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.679 I'd get on elected or something. But yeah, we're we're 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:27.280 we're talking about sort of two convergent paths of how 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.760 we got to like the most recent disaster but the 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.240 most recent well this isn't even the most recent disaster anymore, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.080 but I how how how we got to the place 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.320 where review weade is about to die? And you know, 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.880 there's two threads. And tomorrow we'll be talking about the terrorism, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.480 but today we'll be talking I say, we mostly we shoene, 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.760 but yeah, we're gonna be talking about how the sort 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.760 of like half a century long electoral movement that got 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:57.200 us to this place. Yeah, it's really interesting because I 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.080 mean some of it is self explanatory and some of 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:00.920 it isn't that I think interesting to go back in 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.960 time and really figure out how we got where we are. 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.840 So I think it's pretty obvious that like Republicans use 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.160 the abortion issue to forge coalitions with like right wing 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.320 and fundamentalist Christian voters, but Democrats are also using it 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.960 to attract woman voters, and it seems like neither party 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.600 will risk modifying the rigid position that it has for 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.360 fear of alienating those who the abortion issue has helped attract. 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.040 Because it feels like it's this just we're at a 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.359 stand still. It's not solvable. But it's actually when you 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.960 look at the history, it's pretty I don't know, it 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.000 kind of makes sense how we landed here. And every 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.120 presidential candidate or any kid in general will present these 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.159 countries issues with like a sense of urgency, especially this issue, 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:48.160 but it really feels like they're just using it to 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.159 attract voters and then it gets ignored. Um, but how 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.480 did how did how did abortion become a part of 0:04:55.560 --> 0:05:01.039 an issue in America? The polarization of the parties on 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:06.240 this issue really started in the nineteen seventies and UM 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.960 party leaders just started moving farther and farther apart on 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.440 the issue. And a lot of scholars say that this 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.279 is a combination of like grassroots activism and also established 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.440 also just political strategy. So in nineteen seventies, UH, the 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.520 politicians used on abortion, it didn't break down on along 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:28.400 knee party lines. Republican president Gerald Ford, he opposed Roe v. Wade, 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.400 but the first lady was an abortion rights supporter, and 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.680 then his vice president Rockefeller, he presided over the repeal 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:40.040 of abortion restrictions in New York UM and UH. In Congress, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.800 Republican Republicans voted against abortion about the same rate as Democrats, 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.279 So there wasn't a huge black and white, good evil 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.000 kind of thing going on UM. And it started to 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.760 change in the seventies. So during his presidential campaign in 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.360 seventy two, Nixon began striking out anti abortion position are 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.400 staking out anti abortion positions as part of a state 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.400 strategy to appeal to Catholic voters and other social conservatives, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.679 and after he won with the majority of Catholic votes, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.880 Republican strategists began using the same tactics in Congress, and 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.600 they were forging coalitions with evangelical groups around opposition to abortion. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.280 And it was really the larger effort to make the 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.680 Republican Party painted as this like pro family to help 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.159 mobilize like socially conservative voters that really value this idea 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.280 of this like traditional and quotes family. So it might 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.520 have been both grassroots organizing, but I think both of 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:43.520 these efforts really focused around this idea of this traditional 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.960 quote unquote like Christian good family, um. And I think 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.520 that's still the a lot of the intention today is 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.640 to really promote that. And why abortion is wrong is 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.400 because it kind of goes against this idea of what 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.760 a family should look like or how families should act 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:05.320 like in particular how mother should act. Um. So yeah, thoughts, Yeah, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:10.000 I mean, like I definitely think we see that um everywhere. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:15.200 That type of propaganda, uh is you know there obviously 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.200 and then there in like the like oh this is 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:23.200 like hidden in type thing. But yeah, I mean Chris 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.800 has talked about that quite a bit on certain things. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.240 So maybe Chris would be best to to deep dive 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.440 on that a little bit. Yeah, I mean I think 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:33.320 there's there's there's a there's a couple of things that 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:38.440 have been like like are perculating around this time too, 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.239 which is also like this is this is a period 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.800 of like really intense feminist monibilization. And this is also 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.560 a period where, you know, the one of the sort 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.840 of rights driving issues had been integration, like like a 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.560 opposing integration and like promoting segregation. And by this period 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:01.280 they've like they've basically lost that and so they need 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.559 like something right, and like that's something winds up being 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.240 this vision of this sort of like of this like 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.120 very specifically white Christian patriarchal family. And and I think 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.520 it's also interesting that, like, you know, if you look 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.360 at the initial abortion stuff is largely yeah, it's like okay, 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.200 if Republicans are targeting Catholics, right, And the reason they're 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.800 targeting Catholics because Evangelicals particularly like haven't quite figured out 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.640 what they think about this yet and this kind of 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:32.560 like family stuff and I don't know it ties into 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.719 this this whole sort of this attempt to get evangelicals 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.920 into politics for the first time or not to the 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:39.440 first time, but they've kind of been out of it 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.400 for a while like on this sort of like while 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.040 the rapture is coming, so like what's the point of 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.800 dealing with like this impire like secular politics thing. And yeah, 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.400 they get sort of roped back into it by the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:59.880 polarization of abortion and by making like by by by 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.400 making abortion in the family this incredibly sort of central 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.760 part of what the Republican platform is, and by sort 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.160 of like you know, like attempting to destroy the kind 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.839 of like more moderate like Rockefeller liberal wing of the 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.720 Republican Party who just like get stomped don't exist anymore. Yeah. No, 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.560 that's a good point. And um, I think it's interesting 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.240 because I feel like we see a lot of candidates 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.840 go back and forth and issues now, but it even started. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:30.920 I mean, that's been going on since forever because politics 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.920 are all scamp But Ronald Reagan really illustrates the shift. 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.280 Um because when he was a governor of California and 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.439 sixty seven he signed a law that loosened abortion restrictions. 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.040 But in his nine presidential campaign he called for the 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.520 appointment of anti abortion judges. So he's just really I mean, 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.360 just like any political candidate, he's going with the tides. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.719 He's trying to get elected, he's not really no one 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:59.679 has actual morals that they stand on um, and only 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.960 after or nineteen doesn't show that more Democrats than Republicans 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.160 we're supporting access to abortion, because before then it was 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.960 pretty pretty much, even if not just a little bit, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.560 Uh yeah, it was mainly honestly split over whether or 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:16.760 not you were fucking Catholic, right, Like that was the 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:21.160 primary determining factor. Yeah. Yeah, And I think that there's 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.439 an interesting thing there too, because a lot of you know, 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.840 because it's like the anti abortion people see Reagan as 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.840 like their guy, but he gets into office and he's 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.280 like not as strong on it as they wanted. And 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.840 well we'll get into some of what that leads to 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:42.040 next episode. But yeah, this this was like fundamentally, when 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.520 you're looking at like the anti abortion movement, it's a 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.440 it's a Christian nationalist power grab. And at that point 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.760 they had just figured out the strategy. So it was 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.720 good enough that they were able to help get Reagan 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.760 into office, but it was not consolidated enough that Reagan 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.760 really felt the need to do much more than pay 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.480 it up service. You know. Yeah, We'll just an example 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.160 of everyone campaigning on something that they know, we'll get 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.680 them voted and then kind of ignoring it once they're 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.640 in office because like it served its purpose. Um, I 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:13.719 think there's there's another interesting thing that's going on here 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:15.800 with that too, which is that at this point, so 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:18.599 this is this is sort of the John of like 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.839 Jerry Farroll in the more Majority And Okay, if you 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.240 want to hear me talk about this for a really 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.400 long time, don't listen to my episode of the Moon 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.760 Eyes and how Reverend Moon also was a huge part 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.240 of this. But there's like this giant shift in like 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.240 the technology of recruiting voters where this this is where 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.240 you start getting mailing list organizing. This is where you 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.320 start getting like, you know, enormous list of people to 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.240 to call for fundraisers. Is where you start like you know, 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.440 this is where you start basically getting like the weird 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.440 Facebook letter like chain mail things that we have now, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.320 but like they were just like mail people like scare 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.800 stories about like here's like an actual baby they planned 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.000 parenthood killed and that That's what I was saying by 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:02.280 like the obvious things propaganda wise, But yeah, I think 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:07.400 that it's also like things on TV, things in movies. Yeah, 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:13.839 like uh yeah, they kind of try to pull out 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:19.120 the heart strings of some invisible heart they think people have. UM. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:24.320 But then even like like TV commercials things that like 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.040 the traditional family that like, yeah, the nuclear white Christian 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.160 family is like the default basic family and anything that 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:35.720 strays from that is abnormal. Um, it's still the case now. Honestly, 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.120 I think, yeah, calls for diversity or like putting a 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.199 black friend in the show still you know what I mean, 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.800 it's not really Yeah, I have eventually I will do 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:46.839 the entire rant that I have on this, but like, 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:48.120 like this, this is the thing that like this is 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:49.920 a powerful enough force that like, for example, if you 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.760 look at like every Asian American movie in the US, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.960 the entire plot of every Asian American movie is trying 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.640 to repair is a family, like in an Asian family 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.480 trying to become the white Christian nuclear family but having 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.520 problems with it because they're having family issues that get 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.280 resolved and then having problems with it because they're Chinese. Yeah, 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.160 and it's like it's it's just like warping sort of 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.160 like yeah, like structural basis of society that like it's 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.400 like a black hole that like like it tears the 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.520 fabric of reality and pulls everything else into it. You know, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.200 I have the same gripe with a lot of there's 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.680 in general, like movies and TV shows about marginalized people 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.800 with a least from people. It always seems like the 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:33.920 crux of the problem is cultural and overcoming whatever issue 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.840 the culture is having to to disrupt this perfect white 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:45.200 Christian life that is presented as the ideal. But going 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.240 back to abortion, Sorry, no, don't, don't appologize. I would 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.480 love to rant about this with you on another episode. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:14:00.559 You know what won't disrupt the white Christian hegemonic culture 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:05.720 in the United States capitalism the products as well. Actually, 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.560 it eventually will, because the nature of extractive capitalism, an 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.839 endless growth, will inevitably alter the world in ways that 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.240 makes the lifestyles that those kind of people harken back 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.280 to in their propaganda fundamentally untenable and impossible to exist 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.000 on any kind of scale. But I don't know what 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.200 my point was here. Here's some here's some fucking ads. Oh, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:33.560 we're back, We're back. Let's go to the late eighties, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:39.320 early nineties. So the ladies, both Republicans and Democrats at 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.400 this point, they were trying to appeal to the center 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.840 for a while so they can remain as appealing to 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.160 voters as possible. Um. Mary Zigler is a law professor 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.880 at Florida State University who has studied the history of 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.800 abortion and the abortion debate. And she wrote in the 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.120 The Washington Post that the ES and the early two thousands, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.200 for instance, many abortion opponent and they devoted their energy 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.680 to supporting incremental restrictions like a ban on dilation or extraction, 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.400 which is a technique for abortions later in pregnancy that 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:16.080 opponents call partial birth abortion. UM. And this restriction was 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.000 eventually passed at the federal level in two thousand and three, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.800 and it's far less sweeping than the heart heartbeat bills 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.000 that many Republican voters favor today, which banned abortions as 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.560 you know at six weeks UM. But Democrats, meanwhile, they 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.160 were somewhat like equivocal on the abortion debate during this 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:38.320 time period. Uh. Bill Clinton in his campaign he famlessly 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.920 said that abortions should be quote safe, legal, and rare. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.880 Hillary Clinton used the same language when she was running 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:50.440 in two thousand and eight too. Yeah, you really did, 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.640 just absolutely cowardly. Yeah, like we support it, but also 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.680 don't don't do it yeah like yeah. And obviously more 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.480 recently both sides of the abortion debate, they've come to 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.640 seek broader change. Among abortion rights supporters, there's been an 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.840 increasing awareness of reproductive justice. And this term was actually 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.840 coined in and it described an approach focus not just 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.640 on the legal right to abortion, but on safe, affordable 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.600 access to a range of reproductive health care as well 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:24.280 as the ability the ability to parent children safely. Um. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.000 And it was in the nineties that a lot of 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.320 organizations started to be formed to help support this, to 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:34.960 help UH, abortion rights justice like kind of take form. Um. 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.200 Sister Song, which is the Women of Color Reproductive Justice 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:42.520 Collective was formed, and it was by sixteen organizations of 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.400 women of color that formed these four mini communities. They 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.320 were largely made up of Native American, African American, Latina, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.840 and Asian American communities. And they recognize that we have 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.240 the right and responsibility to represent ourselves and our communities. UM. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.760 And I think this is important to note only because 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.240 I don't think women of color get enough credit for 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:09.679 really like leading the the the fight to get reproductive rights. UM. 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.520 I feel like a lot of I mean, I can 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.919 shoot on white feminism all day, trust me, UM, but 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.000 especially when it comes to this, a lot of white 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.480 women are like heralded as like I don't know these 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.760 um political heroes, when really, most of the time, with 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.399 most issues when it comes to this, UH, women of 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.359 color in the background doing most of the work. UM. 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:35.760 That's another episode. UM. But Sister Song defines reproductive justice 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:40.280 as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.120 not have children, and parent the children we do have 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.680 in safe and sustainable communities. So it puts a lens 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.240 on the emphasis of affordability of abortions as well as 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.240 on the legal status that it needs to have to 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.240 even be safe and affordable. UM. Because the right of 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.480 abortion means very little when we can't afford healthcare that 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.840 we need. UM. And this is something that Kimberly Inis 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.160 maguire said, she's the executive director of Unite for Reproductive 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.960 Gender Equity called URGE. UM. This isn't a rights group 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.560 focused on young people. UM. So there's a lot of 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:21.920 things that emerged during this more recent time that came 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:27.400 focused on more the justice aspect versus just the right 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.000 to have it, because it does doesn't do much if 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:34.000 we have the right, and yet um, it's still inaccessible. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.159 So in the last five years, reproductive justice activists have 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.280 campaigned to repeal the High Amendment, which was first passed 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.960 in nineteen seventies six, and it bars federal funding for 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.959 most abortions. It restricts Medicaid coverage for abortions, and the 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.920 amendment makes it difficult for many low income Americans to 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.360 pay for the procedure. The opponents of the High Amendment 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.159 have had some successes. In twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.359 Democrats and Congress introduced the Each E A. C. H. 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.800 Woman Act, which would repeal HIDE and allow Medicaid to 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.879 cover abortions. UM. But Democratic candidates have campaigned to repeal 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.919 HIDE as well. During her presidential run in Hillary Clinton 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.480 called for the repeal of HIDE, and the whole Democratic 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.720 Party followed suit. Um, which is something that would have 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.480 been unthinkable in the years when her and her husband 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:29.320 were calling for abortion to be quote unquote rare. So 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.719 things have progressed a little bit again, I think unfortunately, 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.960 though most of it is for following the trends versus 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:43.240 actual morals. But that's my opinion. UM. But on Hide, UM, Uh, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.120 it feels like what has changed in the last five 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.120 years is that a community of people UM, led by 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.720 young people women of color, decided that the status quo 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.879 was not good enough. So again it's just people in 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.919 the background doing most of the work. UM. And at 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.720 same time, abortion rights activists have been working to reduce 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.399 stigma around abortion and to present the procedure as a 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:10.200 normal part of medical of medical coverage UM. In response 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.200 to efforts to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, activists 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.320 and ordinary people shared stories of their abortions under the 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:22.560 hashtag shout your Abortion. So the left party, the Democratic Party, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:27.360 is definitely leaning now obviously to be abortion positive. UM. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.359 But I also think it's definitely used as a way 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:37.240 to attract voters more than anything else. And UM yeah, 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.840 I mean with our current president right now, we all 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.520 know he's Biden has had a mixed rested on abortion, 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.800 which is like very a good a good representation of 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.840 just how flip floppy politicians can be. Because when he 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.840 was in the Senate and seventy three, he was the 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.120 thirty year old practicing Catholic who concluded that the Supreme 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.200 Court went too far on abortion rights in the Row case. 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.199 He told an interview or the following year that a 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.040 woman shouldn't have the soul right and say to what 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.160 should happen to her body. That's a quote, the soul 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.040 right to say what should happened to her body. She 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.800 doesn't think women should have that. And by the time 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.480 he left the Vice President's mansion in seventeen, he was 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.240 seventy four years old, and he argued a far different 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.800 view that government doesn't have the right to tell other 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:28.439 people that women can't control their body. Um. Which is 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.160 interesting because he not only was very vocal about being 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:37.800 anti abortion, but like he uh used like in he 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.800 crafted the Binded Amendment to ban the use of foreign 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.000 aid for biomedical research related to abortion. So he was 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.560 not only like vocal about it, he actually tried to 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.000 push it back. And he repeatedly voted for the Tide 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.680 Amendment that prohibited the use of federal funds for abortions, 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.000 including medicaid. As I said, and both of these policies 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.760 remain in place today despite efforts by Democrats to end 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.280 the ban on the use of federal funds. Here's one 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.440 thought that I have and again I I continue to 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.000 be an advocate and don't take this the wrong way. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.640 We should learn from the right and how they made 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.560 the progress they did with abortion. There are lessons there, 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:25.200 and one of those lessons is that when you make 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.080 something into the kind of issue that can get a 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:32.399 politician elected, um, they will not actually pursue that issue 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:38.800 if it's difficult, unless you create true believers and put 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.200 them into politics. Right, Reagan got elected in part on abortion. 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.720 Reagan didn't really do much about it. It was it 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.560 was diligent periods of time of not just like putting 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:55.119 people in politics who believed in the cause, but also 0:22:55.240 --> 0:23:00.639 of applying brutal pressure to elected leaders over decades who 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:03.800 didn't confirm, firm, or conform. And we don't have that 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.800 kind of time with like let's say climate change. But 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.760 the same basic tactics need to be followed, which is, 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:16.080 you need to be vicious when you when your leaders, 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.840 when the people you elect don't move on these issues, Um, 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.399 you need to be vicious and like a concerted and 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.880 organized and like you need to come down on them 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.960 like the hammer of fucking God. You know. I think 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.280 that's that's how you win. But I think that's the 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:36.000 biggest difference with Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats unfortunately 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:41.680 are far more cowardly in voicing what they want. Even 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:45.840 even now, Biden is pro abortion quote unquote, but he 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:49.160 hasn't even said the word abortion out loud ever. He's 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.359 like he put it in a statement in a tweet, 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:55.680 the fact that there's a website, there's a web there's 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:58.840 a website that is called has Biden said abortion yet? 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:02.240 And there's just a big no on it right now? Obviously. Um. 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:08.280 But he has like cast this evolution of his views 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.320 as a like like wrestling with his teaching of his 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:16.560 faith or whatever. Um. But it's obviously more it reflects 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:21.080 a political calculation more than his views of fucking religion. Um. 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.640 And in for example, he said, I'm prepared to accept 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.840 that at the moment that the athe moment of conception, 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:30.200 there's human life and being. But I'm not prepared to 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:33.760 say that to other god fearing non god fearing people 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:43.880 have a different view. Heard nothing do Caward Joseph Robinette, 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:49.439 motherfucking Biden? What risting fun does that mean? Yeah? He 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:51.520 also has quote has been quoted to say that this 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:56.440 issue is the um like the most difficult thing he's 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:58.520 had to wrestle with as a Catholic kind of thing. 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:01.600 He's definitely made it this. I think he needs to 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:05.760 overcome or whatever the ship. It's a religion, right, sure, 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:09.159 it's a religion, and your religion has been at the 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:11.520 very least. What I'll say about the Catholics is they 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:15.240 did not adopt this as like a venal political strategy, 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.639 which the evangelical right did, like they've been. The Catholic 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:20.680 Church has been consistent on this for a minute now, 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:24.360 So I get why somebody who is legitimately a believing 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:28.440 Catholic would have to struggle with this. But the way 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:31.280 you what what you what you say, if you're actually 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:35.680 not like a fucking if you're not being a fucking 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.680 goober about it, Um, what you say is, hey, uh, 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:41.679 this is tough for me because of my faith, But 0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:44.480 this is the United States of America, and my faith 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:47.919 does not dictate what other people get to do. And 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:50.520 so I support the right to access to a portion 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:55.119 that's right. Please can? I mean, I only want to 0:25:55.119 --> 0:25:58.160 bring that up because I just think the Democratic Party 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:01.080 has conducted themselves in a really howardly way when it 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:05.040 comes to stuff like this versus Republicans are so outright, 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:09.560 even like volatilely trying to tell you how they feel. 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.720 But yeah, that's that. Where do we go from here? 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:18.399 I don't know. Um yeah, the world is the world. 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:24.920 It's certainly assuring. And uh, we'll be back tomorrow, Chris Water. 0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:28.080 What's our focus tomorrow? Tomorrow we're going to look at 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:30.440 the other side of how they got abortion, other than 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:33.400 like sort of running it as an electoral issue, which 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:38.720 is they did a an amount of terrorism that is 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:41.480 so large that like most of the people talking about 0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:46.000 the terrorism missed most of the terrorism. Yeah, it takes 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:53.040 a minute to list speaking of terrorism, I I just 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:55.320 wanted to Sorry, there is post role ads, but if 0:26:55.320 --> 0:27:01.159 you're listening to them, that's a choice. Blood. Hey, we 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:03.639 always support people making the choice to listen to our 0:27:03.640 --> 0:27:08.160 wonderful advertisers like the Washington State Highway Patrol and lately Taser. 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:12.080 Oh yeah, they've been running. Look we didn't. We don't 0:27:12.119 --> 0:27:14.639 approve that. We're getting them removed. But it is funny. 0:27:14.840 --> 0:27:16.760 Can I get a taser first? Or that is that? 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:20.960 Not what that is? Um? I mean, Sharine, we can 0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:24.040 expense you with taser. Oh ship great, I'll send a 0:27:24.040 --> 0:27:44.200 list of what I want perfect. Okay, fine, it happened here. 0:27:44.240 --> 0:27:47.480 The thing that happened here was at anti abortion terrorism 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:50.320 at High and Christopher Wong. I'm posting this. We're doing 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:57.600 this really speedy with me, Sharne, Robert Garrison, and Sophie. Hi. Yeah, Hi, 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:04.639 don't feel too speedy. I mean this is a yeah, 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:06.920 we're we're we're going through the interests. We can get 0:28:06.960 --> 0:28:08.680 to the we can get to the content fast. Get 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:11.000 to the meat. Yeah, let's get to the fucking meat. 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:15.280 Let's get to the sandwich portion of the I don't 0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:20.800 know what I'm doing. We're talking about terrorism, Sophie, your 0:28:20.840 --> 0:28:28.040 favorite thing first save the day. So okay, well, we've 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.560 we've talked about sort of abortion as a as a 0:28:30.640 --> 0:28:33.240 legal issue, but running parallel to the sort of legal 0:28:33.320 --> 0:28:38.320 electoral pain against abortion was a wave, a systemic campaign 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:41.080 of terror that ranged Trevor from you know, sort of 0:28:41.720 --> 0:28:45.920 individual personal humiliation and terrorization of individual women seeking abortion 0:28:46.040 --> 0:28:49.239 to like nail bombs and blowing abortion provider's heads off 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:55.120 with shotguns. Um. Yeah, so it's it's extremely bad, obviously, 0:28:55.240 --> 0:28:57.200 but I think there's a tendency among people who look 0:28:57.240 --> 0:28:59.479 at antibustion violence is sort of like isolated from its 0:28:59.480 --> 0:29:03.920 historical text, which is that, Okay, the American right has 0:29:03.960 --> 0:29:07.120 always ruled by terror from like literally its earliest extermination 0:29:07.120 --> 0:29:10.000 campaigns against addition as people who like whose land they 0:29:10.040 --> 0:29:13.600 stole to, you know, the sort of horrific psychological abuse 0:29:13.600 --> 0:29:16.520 and violence inflicted against slaves on their own plantation, who 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:20.800 there's an entire history of like denying abortion people to 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:25.440 slaves for numerous reasons. So you know, there's no reason 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:30.200 really to expect that anti abortion militants like wouldn't be violent. 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:35.000 And I think it's worth noting that that the tactics 0:29:35.080 --> 0:29:36.880 of of the sort of militant wing of the anti 0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:40.280 abortion movements, which are things like our arson bombings and 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:43.400 assassination are these these are the key tactics of the 0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:48.040 of the segregationist movement when they're finding against integration and 0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:52.480 you know, low and behold, like as as abortion becomes 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:55.160 the political glue for the right, after they sort of okay, 0:29:55.160 --> 0:29:57.560 well they sort of lose the fight over integration, they 0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:01.600 lose the ability to legally says like that you can't 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:04.680 do integration, but a lot of the sort of factors 0:30:04.720 --> 0:30:07.960 aggregation like still exists. But yeah, like as I do 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:11.360 that like you still see you know, you see a 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:13.920 new generation of sort of right wing militants like taking 0:30:13.920 --> 0:30:16.800 the tactics of the old right wing militants and using 0:30:16.840 --> 0:30:22.520 them to kill people, which is to add, yeah, for 0:30:22.600 --> 0:30:25.320 the for the record, yes that is our official position. 0:30:28.160 --> 0:30:33.320 But we're taking up bold stands here radicals. So I 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:39.080 think we should start with someone who was not killing people, 0:30:39.520 --> 0:30:41.760 because I think it's it's useful to see the sort 0:30:41.760 --> 0:30:44.320 of like the arc of of how this movement goes. 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:49.840 So John O'Keefe was a Catholic anti war protester. He 0:30:49.840 --> 0:30:51.840 his thing was okay, so he's anti abortion, right, but 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:54.360 he wants to fuse like the anti nuclear anti war 0:30:54.480 --> 0:30:57.200 movements with the anti abortion movements sort of in the 0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:00.520 wake of Roe v. Wade. And this doesn't work because 0:31:00.560 --> 0:31:04.200 the anti war and the answer nuclear movements are like 0:31:04.600 --> 0:31:07.840 driven by leftist and feminists and they're like no, like 0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:10.360 funk Off, like we're not gonna like we want people 0:31:10.360 --> 0:31:14.800 to have abortions, so you know, but but he he 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:16.960 he still is like dead set that there should be 0:31:16.960 --> 0:31:19.920 this sort of like direct actually against abortion clinics. And 0:31:20.120 --> 0:31:23.080 he managed to convince this convince this like quicker peace 0:31:23.120 --> 0:31:26.440 activist named Charles Fager to like teach the anti abortion 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:28.480 movement the sort of like techniques of like the civil 0:31:28.560 --> 0:31:31.760 rights movements and do like no violence ofilius obedience, and 0:31:31.840 --> 0:31:34.560 so people like like in the in the early seventies, 0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:37.080 like as az Row like is happening, people start like 0:31:37.160 --> 0:31:41.040 changing themselves to abortion clinics, and you know, like, I 0:31:41.040 --> 0:31:43.160 think this is if you've been around the left long enough, 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:45.040 like these are tactics I think you'd recognize. But these 0:31:45.400 --> 0:31:49.240 these are very very different campaigns. Then you're sort of 0:31:49.320 --> 0:31:53.200 like changing yourself to a tree like the And the 0:31:53.200 --> 0:31:55.200 biggest difference is like the the extent to which the 0:31:55.240 --> 0:31:59.440 focus is just purely on terrorizing people. So I'm going 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:01.400 to read a would have like what these protests actually 0:32:01.440 --> 0:32:04.000 look like? Um from the book Living in the Crosshairs, 0:32:04.000 --> 0:32:08.840 The Untold Stories of Anti Abortion Terrorism. The protesters stand 0:32:08.920 --> 0:32:11.040 at the entrance to the clinics parking lot and badger 0:32:11.080 --> 0:32:13.440 the patients. When they come in, they get screamed at. 0:32:13.480 --> 0:32:16.400 The protesters write down their license plates, they send them cards, 0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:19.680 they make phone calls to their homes. Protesters also swarm 0:32:19.720 --> 0:32:23.600 clinics and harass the people who work there. Those window blinds. Christina, 0:32:23.680 --> 0:32:27.240 who's works at a clinic, explained while pointing at the 0:32:27.280 --> 0:32:31.000 huge windows that surround the conference table in one of 0:32:31.000 --> 0:32:33.640 her clients. You pull them down, you can look through them, 0:32:33.680 --> 0:32:36.720 and you could find the protesters at the windows looking in. 0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:40.320 And Krista, who's the person who's talking about this, like 0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:45.000 she describes like the like these protesters would walk up 0:32:45.040 --> 0:32:47.520 to her and like say her kids names, you know. 0:32:47.600 --> 0:32:50.320 In order to get like the doctor into this clinic 0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:52.360 who is doing the abortions, like they have to smuggle 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:54.520 him in like that. He can't park in the parking 0:32:54.560 --> 0:32:57.240 lot because the abortion protesters will get to him, so 0:32:57.240 --> 0:32:59.080 they have to they have to like smuggle him in 0:32:59.080 --> 0:33:02.640 in in Christa's car. And like even then people follow 0:33:02.720 --> 0:33:05.360 them constantly, Like the doctors and nurses have to like 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:07.720 change the roots to work every day. They have these 0:33:07.720 --> 0:33:11.560 like decoys they have to use. Um. Like yeah, and 0:33:11.600 --> 0:33:15.000 if for the record, I've gotten reports from folks who 0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:18.720 work for abortion access organizations saying they are now in 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:21.640 multiple states using drones to follow people as they leave 0:33:21.680 --> 0:33:25.920 the Jesus their their license playing numbers. Yeah that God, 0:33:26.920 --> 0:33:30.800 that makes sense. But it's yeah, like these people like Krista, 0:33:30.920 --> 0:33:34.479 the person I was talking about, Like she she had 0:33:34.520 --> 0:33:37.200 to transfer her kids to a private school that like 0:33:37.360 --> 0:33:39.320 knew what her job was so that her kids wouldn't 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:41.600 get harassed. And like, well, we'll come back to this 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:43.800 sort of quote unquote non violent stuff later, but like 0:33:43.880 --> 0:33:46.200 even in it's sort of like non violent face. This 0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:49.719 is a terror campaign, like the the the goal of 0:33:49.760 --> 0:33:54.320 this is to terrorize everyone involved, like stalking them, by 0:33:54.360 --> 0:33:56.800 intimidating them, by harassing them, to get them to not 0:33:56.840 --> 0:33:59.960 do abortions anymore, making patients or people that want to 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:01.760 wortion is too afraid to get them, and people that 0:34:01.840 --> 0:34:06.440 provide them too afraid to provide them. Yeah. Yeah, and 0:34:06.560 --> 0:34:11.719 but you know this doesn't really work in the seventies, 0:34:12.440 --> 0:34:14.560 and but by time you shoot the eighties, it starts 0:34:14.560 --> 0:34:18.000 to get really violent. Um in nice and eight two 0:34:18.080 --> 0:34:20.680 or is this guy named Donnie Ben don Benny Anderson. 0:34:20.719 --> 0:34:24.040 It is two nephews, Matt and Wayne Moore carry out 0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:27.120 the first anti abortion, the first action of this this 0:34:27.200 --> 0:34:29.920 right wig anti abortion. Also they're like really anti gay, 0:34:30.000 --> 0:34:32.120 Like they they have a thing later on where they 0:34:32.160 --> 0:34:34.400 like they have this giant celebration for like the Saudia's 0:34:34.480 --> 0:34:39.240 beheading too gay dudes, three gay dudes, Like they're they're horrible. Yeah, 0:34:40.160 --> 0:34:43.120 this this network is called the Army of God. And 0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:48.160 oh these guys they're that sounds relier, Yeah, they're they're 0:34:48.160 --> 0:34:49.799 this very actually in some ways like they're they were 0:34:49.920 --> 0:34:52.879 very sort of quintessentially modern terrorist organization and that like 0:34:53.560 --> 0:34:55.600 they don't they don't have like a command structure. It's 0:34:55.600 --> 0:34:58.160 not even so much essentialized cells. It's just like people 0:34:58.280 --> 0:35:00.480 just sort of can freely affiliate to it. And like 0:35:00.640 --> 0:35:03.279 he used his name to carry out attacks. And the 0:35:03.320 --> 0:35:05.960 first one of these is it's it's this guy Johnny 0:35:06.000 --> 0:35:09.759 Benny Anderson. He kidnaps Dr Hector Zavalos and his wife 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:13.640 Jean and originally, like the their their plan is to 0:35:13.719 --> 0:35:18.160 kill them, um don Benny Anderson like he but what 0:35:18.280 --> 0:35:20.080 he writes about it is that he has been talking 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:21.799 to God and he has been talking to art Change, 0:35:21.880 --> 0:35:24.480 to the archangel Michael, and they have commanded him to 0:35:25.120 --> 0:35:31.320 go and kill this person. And eventually, like negotiators fortunately 0:35:31.360 --> 0:35:36.600 are able to talk them down, and like the doctor 0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:39.400 makes this like tells him like yeah, no, no no, I'm 0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:41.279 not gonna do abortions anymore. That they let them go. 0:35:42.360 --> 0:35:44.320 But yeah, I think, like, like like it is important to 0:35:44.360 --> 0:35:49.080 note that, like among people who are like this hardcore 0:35:50.400 --> 0:35:52.000 and and this isn't you know, And I said, like, 0:35:52.040 --> 0:35:53.239 there are people a lot of people who are more 0:35:53.280 --> 0:35:54.960 moderate than this, Like the the whole sort of talking 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:58.600 to God thing like that is not uncommon. No, that 0:35:58.760 --> 0:36:01.879 is like very good. No, these are all people who 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:06.200 in their churches will like say a bunch of gibberish 0:36:06.280 --> 0:36:10.040 words and tell everyone each other that they're speaking in 0:36:10.120 --> 0:36:12.640 like the secret language of God that God has like 0:36:12.719 --> 0:36:17.799 speak into their brains, speaking in tongues. Yes, yeah, so 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:19.560 like and yeah, like and I think I think like 0:36:20.440 --> 0:36:23.520 there's some tendency to like, like I've seen I've seen 0:36:23.560 --> 0:36:25.080 people trying to write this office of people who are 0:36:25.080 --> 0:36:26.719 mentally ill. It's like no, no, no, no, no no. 0:36:26.840 --> 0:36:29.600 These are desearching, so they don't believe in a different 0:36:29.640 --> 0:36:32.400 world than you do, and they're willing to use violence 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:36.840 to make their world real. Yeah, and the letter that 0:36:36.960 --> 0:36:40.840 they write, I like, why while they're holding these people captives, 0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:43.440 says quote, those who truly love God would kill the 0:36:43.440 --> 0:36:46.319 baby killers. And it turned out later that they've been 0:36:46.360 --> 0:36:50.200 funding their activities by robbing abortion clinics. And actually that's no, 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:52.319 that's the thing that doesn't that I don't think I've 0:36:52.360 --> 0:36:55.719 ever seen any of the like, like I don't think 0:36:56.000 --> 0:36:57.760 this doesn't get included in like the list of terrorist 0:36:57.760 --> 0:36:59.800 things people do against abortion clinis. But they get robbed 0:36:59.800 --> 0:37:02.000 a lot, Like there's like a lot of these builitians 0:37:02.000 --> 0:37:04.640 are just robbing abortion clinics to to fund their stuff. 0:37:04.800 --> 0:37:07.600 Um and and this is again like the thing you 0:37:07.640 --> 0:37:09.480 have to keep in mind when you're trying to an 0:37:09.640 --> 0:37:13.560 it like, if you literally believe the things that these 0:37:13.600 --> 0:37:19.160 people literally believe, this is the only moral thing to do. Yeah, 0:37:19.440 --> 0:37:21.640 if they're if there were just trying like getting their heads, 0:37:21.680 --> 0:37:26.319 if there were an organization literally murdering babies every single day, 0:37:26.360 --> 0:37:29.680 this would be the right thing to do. That's like 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:35.040 you have to actually like they're not crazy. They fundamentally 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:39.399 exist in a world that is as different from from 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:41.799 the one you live in as the world in a 0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:45.840 fucking Marvel comic. Like it's it's it's just another reality 0:37:45.920 --> 0:37:48.680 that they exist within. Yeah, and like you get sort 0:37:48.680 --> 0:37:50.839 of like you get like like I don't know, you're 0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:53.200 called like people who are trying to play the centrist 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:55.080 ango who were like oh, like people on the left 0:37:55.080 --> 0:37:57.120 don't understand that. It's like it's not about autonomy for them. 0:37:57.120 --> 0:37:58.880 They literally believe they're killing babies. And it's like that 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:02.239 doesn't like a no, but like yeah, like yeah, the 0:38:02.320 --> 0:38:04.720 fact that they literally believe that abortion is killing children, 0:38:04.719 --> 0:38:06.719 the only thing that does is make them more fanatical 0:38:06.719 --> 0:38:09.080 and more militants. And it's like, yeah, like I used 0:38:09.080 --> 0:38:11.040 to sort of believe, like I used to believe that, like, oh, 0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:13.279 black people don' understand they really think they're killing babies thing. 0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:15.200 And then I went to college and I like read 0:38:15.400 --> 0:38:17.640 started reading about the history of genocides, and I started 0:38:17.680 --> 0:38:20.600 reading about like what how how common it is for 0:38:20.640 --> 0:38:22.880 people who commit genocides to literally believe that if they 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:25.759 don't do this genocide, that the people that genocide and you 0:38:25.719 --> 0:38:28.680 you are going to kill them. And it was like oh, 0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:31.680 oh no, no, that that actually that just makes you 0:38:31.760 --> 0:38:37.359 more likely to do violence, Like it's and yeah, you know, 0:38:37.440 --> 0:38:39.160 and this this goes exactly how to expect in fact 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:40.600 that the and this is one of the other things 0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:43.839 that they're very effective about, which is each attack like 0:38:44.000 --> 0:38:47.879 radicalizes more people to start doing attacks. So remember remember 0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:50.200 John O'Keefe, the guy who was doing the non violent stuff, 0:38:50.560 --> 0:38:52.800 Like he starts questioning whether non violence is like the 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:57.200 right tactic and he never like bombs anything, but he 0:38:57.320 --> 0:39:02.720 likes stops condemning violence in public. And this this goes 0:39:03.239 --> 0:39:07.319 really really really badly really quickly. Um, the Army of 0:39:07.360 --> 0:39:10.880 God publishes this, like it's initially a very clandestine thing, 0:39:10.920 --> 0:39:14.280 but they published this manual about how to attack abortion clinics, 0:39:14.320 --> 0:39:17.280 but has stuff from like like pouring concrete overheating pipes, 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.200 how to make bombs. Um, they have this thing that 0:39:21.200 --> 0:39:25.280 the antibortion people do a lot, which is pouring bucolic acid, 0:39:25.360 --> 0:39:31.040 which smells like it is the thing that makes vomits 0:39:31.040 --> 0:39:34.560 smell bad. Like you you can you can smell like 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:39.920 two parts per ten million like of this thing like 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:41.760 in a room and they'll they'll take like a syringe 0:39:41.760 --> 0:39:43.400 and they'll inject it into a facility and like like 0:39:43.520 --> 0:39:45.799 one drop of this stuff is enough that like you 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:47.799 can smell it like months later, there's no way to 0:39:47.920 --> 0:39:51.000 like easily clean it. And eventually like they're pouring gallons 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:55.800 of this stuff like into abortion clinics into the ventilation system. Yeah, yeah, 0:39:55.840 --> 0:39:58.840 it's there are more than a hundred of these attacks 0:39:58.880 --> 0:40:02.719 today to like it. They've they've done this a lot. Yeah. 0:40:02.760 --> 0:40:06.000 By n four, this whole thing goes into overdrive. UM, 0:40:06.040 --> 0:40:07.919 I'm going to read a quote from from the book 0:40:08.000 --> 0:40:10.319 Armored for Life, The Army of God and anti abortion terror. 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:14.080 In the United States, the National Abortion Federation identifies thirty 0:40:14.120 --> 0:40:16.920 incidents of arson or bombing in nine four, exceeding the 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:21.120 previous seven years combined. The series of bombings included, but 0:40:21.239 --> 0:40:23.760 was not limited to, the offices of the National Abortion 0:40:23.760 --> 0:40:26.440 Fund and the Americans Civil Liberties Union in Washington, d C. 0:40:26.960 --> 0:40:29.680 As well as abortion clinics in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. 0:40:30.000 --> 0:40:32.200 The signature of the Army of God was also found 0:40:32.239 --> 0:40:37.319 in a subsequent clinic bombing in Saratosa, Florida. Um. One 0:40:37.320 --> 0:40:39.200 of the other things that they do that is that 0:40:39.320 --> 0:40:42.000 is great, is so they have to have a declaration 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:44.640 of war that the Army of God sends. They also 0:40:44.840 --> 0:40:49.160 like like specifically send a death threat to Harry Blackman, 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.120 who was the black Man was who was the guy 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:53.800 who wrote the Supreme Court justice who wrote Roe v. Wade, 0:40:56.480 --> 0:40:58.239 which is like, you know, this is a fun thing 0:40:58.239 --> 0:41:00.279 if you've been like the whole discourse cycle. But oh, 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:02.279 we shouldn't protest that these houses. Like yeah, man, a 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:05.240 terrorist group like threatened to kill the jestice who wrote 0:41:05.239 --> 0:41:11.600 this thing, like and and that guy, um, the guy 0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:15.360 who wrote that eventually carried out like this enormous bombing 0:41:15.400 --> 0:41:19.080 campaign where he started strapping like twenty pounds like liquid 0:41:19.080 --> 0:41:22.080 pro pain tanks to dumpowder bombs and blowing up clinics 0:41:22.080 --> 0:41:26.719 with them. And this stuff spread start spreads like wildfire. 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:28.680 People start using the Army of God's bomb recipes to 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:31.560 attack clinics in other ways like yeah, we talked, We've 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:34.520 talked about so of the other campaign stuff that they use. 0:41:34.680 --> 0:41:37.520 Um and and this this starts to like a lot 0:41:37.560 --> 0:41:40.239 of the people who wind up in the full on 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:42.400 terrorism stuff where like people who used to be like 0:41:42.480 --> 0:41:47.920 non violent protesters. So Shelley Shelley Shannon, who who had 0:41:47.920 --> 0:41:50.840 previously been like a non violent protester like goes violent 0:41:50.840 --> 0:41:54.160 and two and starts doing these like fautric acid attacks 0:41:54.160 --> 0:41:57.440 and then she graduates to arson. She attacks seven clinics, 0:41:57.520 --> 0:41:59.360 offices and health centers. And these aren't like when I 0:41:59.360 --> 0:42:00.920 say attacks, like this isn't like they threw a ball 0:42:01.000 --> 0:42:05.520 off at it. Like she is making napalm and like 0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:11.600 detonating napalm bombs like inside of these clinics, it is, 0:42:13.080 --> 0:42:15.839 do they even care if people are inside or so? 0:42:16.080 --> 0:42:20.800 It's weird. Initially they're they're targeting empty buildings, but they're 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:23.880 like they're like working themselves up to it, and like 0:42:23.960 --> 0:42:26.160 they they start to be they you could read this 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:28.360 in their writing like they they're working themselves up to 0:42:28.360 --> 0:42:29.800 a point where they're like, Wow, Okay, if there was 0:42:29.840 --> 0:42:33.680 a person in this building, we don't really care, and yeah, yeah, 0:42:33.719 --> 0:42:35.640 and but I see two the Army of God like 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:39.080 specifically in it in its manual, like as justification for 0:42:39.160 --> 0:42:43.279 killing people, m and lo and behold. One year later 0:42:43.480 --> 0:42:45.040 after this is one of the other strategies to use 0:42:45.320 --> 0:42:50.680 what what what What was their justification they're killing It's like, well, 0:42:50.680 --> 0:42:53.600 they're killing babies and have to have a bunch of 0:42:53.600 --> 0:42:55.160 Bible verses that they sit and they're like, now we 0:42:55.200 --> 0:43:01.040 can kill people because they're killing babies. It's great. It's 0:43:01.040 --> 0:43:07.160 that's that's truly like in writing to horrify. Yeah, and 0:43:07.200 --> 0:43:11.600 like like literally the next year there's all these they 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:13.560 start doing this thing where they put wanted posters with 0:43:13.600 --> 0:43:17.200 like an abortion doctor's name in them like like literally 0:43:17.280 --> 0:43:19.400 like stuff out of like a like a Battled West movie, 0:43:20.200 --> 0:43:22.000 and they'll have like their name and like where they 0:43:22.040 --> 0:43:24.400 live and like that fact that they're a doctor and 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:28.200 say they kill babies, and uh so you know, in 0:43:28.040 --> 0:43:33.160 in in in in three, these posters go up for 0:43:33.200 --> 0:43:38.279 this doctor named Dr David Gunn and he's one day 0:43:38.320 --> 0:43:40.680 walking back to his car when he gets shot three 0:43:40.719 --> 0:43:44.000 times in the back by Michael Griffin and he he dies, 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:47.000 and he is the first that David Gunn is the 0:43:47.000 --> 0:43:49.600 first abortion provider to be killed, and he is not 0:43:49.640 --> 0:43:54.080 going to be the last. Yeah, so this immediately and 0:43:54.760 --> 0:43:57.680 the moment someone does it, like it opens the floodgates 0:43:58.160 --> 0:43:59.920 and suddenly everyone is doing it. And so you know, 0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:02.919 this makes people like Shelly Shannon and who we talked 0:44:02.920 --> 0:44:05.879 about like setting off napalm bombs, who until this point 0:44:05.920 --> 0:44:09.160 has only like bombed anti buildings, Like she starts like 0:44:09.200 --> 0:44:11.720 considering killing people and a few months later she shoots 0:44:11.800 --> 0:44:15.719 Dr George Tiller. And if you're thinking to yourself, hold 0:44:15.719 --> 0:44:17.799 on weight, I thought Dr George Tiller was killed in 0:44:17.800 --> 0:44:22.280 two thousand and nine and not, you are right. Shelley's 0:44:22.280 --> 0:44:26.040 assassination attempts like she shot him like in both arms, 0:44:26.080 --> 0:44:29.200 but he survived to be murdered a a decade and 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:33.879 a half later. Um, Meanwhile, there's this guy named Paul 0:44:33.960 --> 0:44:36.560 Hill who's just like a like abortion clinic like protester, right. 0:44:36.600 --> 0:44:38.799 He he emerges in like the national media scene because 0:44:38.800 --> 0:44:40.480 he's he's like the he's like the guy who will 0:44:40.520 --> 0:44:45.080 go on TV and defends Michael Griffin killing killing a doctor, 0:44:46.280 --> 0:44:48.400 and they just let him do this. He does the 0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:50.600 whole fucking talk show circuits. They just let him do 0:44:50.680 --> 0:44:53.560 this to defend on Life TV. He's on all of 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:56.840 the mainstream networks to defend killing abortion doctors. And he 0:44:56.880 --> 0:45:00.000 does it again with Shelly Shannon's attempt to kill George Chiller. 0:45:00.280 --> 0:45:03.239 And a year later, uh, Paul Hill walked up to 0:45:03.360 --> 0:45:05.360 Dr Joe Britten Britten and blew his head off with 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:08.160 the shotgun wounds. His wife turns around and then killed 0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:11.560 an abortion uh like at clinic escort named James Barrett. 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:16.479 Like they had this guy on TV fucking every night 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:20.760 saying that like calling the saying that killing abortion doctors 0:45:20.800 --> 0:45:22.960 is justified, and then he fucking kills he blew an 0:45:22.960 --> 0:45:28.000 abortion doctor's head off with a shotgun the next year. Well, 0:45:28.880 --> 0:45:33.719 and uh yet I don't think I'm what's exciting is 0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:37.880 that I'm sure that when there are more attacks uh 0:45:38.520 --> 0:45:42.640 by pro choice oriented people, at no point will anyone 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:46.480 get brought on TV network to say anything. But but 0:45:46.640 --> 0:45:50.439 asked that cops get more money to crack down on them. Yeah, 0:45:50.920 --> 0:45:53.959 it's like just the media a symmetry. She was awful. 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:56.040 We're gonna talk about this more in a bit because 0:45:56.760 --> 0:46:00.239 it gets even worse. Um So that that's a year. 0:46:00.280 --> 0:46:02.680 In ninety four, there's a gunman named John Scali the 0:46:02.760 --> 0:46:07.720 Third who walks into a building and murders Shannon Loney, 0:46:07.840 --> 0:46:10.440 who is a social worker in anti abortion like she's 0:46:10.440 --> 0:46:12.560 she's an anti abortion and an anti child debrief advocate 0:46:12.560 --> 0:46:14.520 who's working at Plant Parenthood, and he just walks and 0:46:14.600 --> 0:46:16.880 shoots her. She shoots at a bunch of the doctors 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:19.080 and the patients and luckily they all survived. But then 0:46:19.080 --> 0:46:21.680 he goes to another clinic and he kills social worker 0:46:22.080 --> 0:46:24.399 Leanne Nichols, who was like working at the front desk there, 0:46:25.080 --> 0:46:27.480 and he's eventually arrested. He gets away with both of 0:46:27.520 --> 0:46:29.680 these ones, but then he goes and tries to shoot 0:46:29.719 --> 0:46:34.200 up a third clinic, and that one finally like he 0:46:34.239 --> 0:46:36.520 gets arrested for. But like and the other thing is 0:46:36.520 --> 0:46:38.120 like the third clinic that he shoots at, Like that's 0:46:38.120 --> 0:46:40.480 a clink that already had already been bombed, is a 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:43.080 clink that they've been protest that for years. And he's 0:46:43.200 --> 0:46:44.920 you know, he goes there and he shoots at these 0:46:45.040 --> 0:46:49.919 these people and he kills two more people, and yeah, 0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:52.400 and it's you know, and they just like keep doing this. 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:54.680 And one of the sort of incredibly grotesque things is 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.120 that like, Okay, so the Army of God has this. 0:46:57.200 --> 0:46:59.120 They have a website, right, and their website has these 0:46:59.160 --> 0:47:02.399 these things they called the Prisoners of Christ, who are 0:47:02.440 --> 0:47:04.520 like people who are like it's like prisoners of conscience 0:47:04.560 --> 0:47:06.560 but like Christ, who they like celebrate and they're like 0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:09.080 raise funds for. And one of the ways they do 0:47:09.120 --> 0:47:11.200 this is they have this thing called the White Rose Banquet, 0:47:11.320 --> 0:47:15.120 which is like one of the most offensive names I've 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:18.080 ever seen for an organization. That's it's named after the 0:47:18.080 --> 0:47:20.320 White Rose Society, which is just like Christian anti Nazi 0:47:20.360 --> 0:47:23.279 like nonviolent resistance group who's like leaders were all killed 0:47:23.280 --> 0:47:29.160 by Hitler for opposing Hitler. And they they're thing is like, well, okay, 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:32.440 so the abortion is the is the new Holocaust, and 0:47:32.480 --> 0:47:34.719 so you know they have this banquet that's like in 0:47:34.800 --> 0:47:36.799 support of these terrorists and they at the first one 0:47:36.840 --> 0:47:39.920 of these, they released this thing called the Nuremberg File Project, 0:47:40.719 --> 0:47:44.359 which was this like it was this archive of like 0:47:44.440 --> 0:47:46.760 abortion providers. It has like their names, has their addresses 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:50.160 as photos, it has their phone numbers. Um. They target 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:51.799 like they and it's not just like doctors, right, they 0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:54.280 target clinic staff, the target security guards, stark at anyone 0:47:54.280 --> 0:47:56.120 who's who's around there, and that they have like these 0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:59.759 like lists of different categories of people. So first, if 0:47:59.760 --> 0:48:02.920 you're still alive, your name will be in like bolded black. 0:48:03.080 --> 0:48:05.480 If you've been wounded, your name will be grade like 0:48:05.719 --> 0:48:08.040 great out. And then if you die, there's like if 0:48:08.239 --> 0:48:09.879 you get killed or you die, there's a strike through 0:48:09.920 --> 0:48:12.160 through it. So this is this is a killed list 0:48:13.280 --> 0:48:16.280 they've assembled. And this is just like going around the internet. 0:48:16.320 --> 0:48:19.759 There's enormous numbers of people who like providers who are 0:48:19.760 --> 0:48:23.120 who are put on this and they also like the 0:48:23.920 --> 0:48:26.040 White Rose siety, Like at this banker, they start putting 0:48:26.040 --> 0:48:28.200 out wanted posters with like a thousand dollar rewards for 0:48:28.239 --> 0:48:32.080 closing a clinic and for like convincing a doctor to 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:36.279 stop giving abortions. And because these people are just like 0:48:36.280 --> 0:48:38.920 like I can on emphasis is enough like literal monsters 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:41.640 in the night. The auction off the gun that Shelly 0:48:41.680 --> 0:48:46.759 Shannon used to kill George Chiller, that's like a fundraising thing. Yeah, 0:48:46.800 --> 0:48:49.600 and uh, there's a number of things you think about that. 0:48:49.680 --> 0:48:51.479 One of that is one of them is the fact 0:48:51.520 --> 0:48:55.200 that the local police department absolutely had to be um 0:48:55.280 --> 0:48:59.680 involved in that because normally murder weapons don't go back 0:49:00.080 --> 0:49:04.239 anyone that they're destroyed, um, which means the police were like, yeah, 0:49:04.239 --> 0:49:06.320 we absolutely want you guys to be able to auction 0:49:06.320 --> 0:49:12.040 this gun on cool stuff. The fear tactics they would 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:13.759 be like, of course they would work if your whole 0:49:13.760 --> 0:49:15.239 if your name is on this list and you have 0:49:15.239 --> 0:49:17.200 a family and you you know what I mean, Like 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:22.920 it's I will say that there is an interesting thing 0:49:22.920 --> 0:49:24.160 with this where like a lot of some of a 0:49:24.200 --> 0:49:27.040 lot of people who like get targeted by this stuff, 0:49:27.080 --> 0:49:28.719 like it just pisces them off and they get even 0:49:28.719 --> 0:49:31.120 more committed to it, which is like incredibly rad but 0:49:31.239 --> 0:49:34.800 also like Jesus Christ, they just they have these abortion 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:37.120 provider kill lists, and people on this list get killed. 0:49:37.560 --> 0:49:40.960 It's encouraged, like the people are encouraging to kill them. 0:49:41.200 --> 0:49:43.799 And like they do this in the open, like there 0:49:43.800 --> 0:49:46.760 are like literally like Christian radio stations will like they 0:49:46.840 --> 0:49:49.160 will be they'll they'll do this thing where like they'll 0:49:49.200 --> 0:49:52.120 they'll they'll start listing like like like by name and 0:49:52.160 --> 0:49:54.759 the addresses of like where the abortion providers dear them 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:56.480 are and then start talking about the biblical verses to 0:49:56.560 --> 0:49:58.640 justify killing them. And then they will literally say on 0:49:58.680 --> 0:50:01.160 the radio, go kill this person. And they could just 0:50:01.200 --> 0:50:04.040 do this. No one stopped them ever. They just got 0:50:04.080 --> 0:50:08.000 away with this for for decades and decades. So one 0:50:08.000 --> 0:50:12.160 of one of the other. I think this bombing is famous, 0:50:12.160 --> 0:50:14.760 but I don't think the reason why it happened is famous. 0:50:15.000 --> 0:50:17.680 Um so there's a guy Eric Rudolph. Oh yeah, it 0:50:17.719 --> 0:50:20.600 was was wondering whenday we're gonna talk about Rudolf? Yeah yeah, 0:50:20.680 --> 0:50:22.560 so that's right now. So so Eric Rudolph is most 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:28.600 famous for nail bombing the Atlanta Olympics. He yeah, he 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:32.479 put he was hundreds of peace yeah, yeah, he entered people, 0:50:32.520 --> 0:50:35.600 he kills killing killed one. Yeah, it was more Special 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:39.279 Forces guy, right, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, And he says 0:50:39.320 --> 0:50:44.080 that his commander and the ar Assault Regiment taught him 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:45.520 how to make bombs like out of out of like 0:50:45.560 --> 0:50:51.520 scrap stuff. So he like yeah, so so okay, so 0:50:51.560 --> 0:50:53.399 and he does in nine ninety six, he doesn't get caught, 0:50:53.920 --> 0:50:56.399 right this this this guy, this guy detonated a nail 0:50:56.440 --> 0:51:02.120 bomb at the fucking Olympics. As that a year later. Oh, 0:51:02.239 --> 0:51:04.440 don't worry, we're gonna We're gonna a year later. This 0:51:04.600 --> 0:51:09.080 twice next year. The next year he sets off a 0:51:09.120 --> 0:51:10.560 bunch of bombs, and he sets off a bomb at 0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:12.880 an abortion clinic. And this is like this, this is 0:51:12.920 --> 0:51:14.799 a double tap bomb. There is a there is a 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:17.120 bomb in a trash can behind that that's that's designed 0:51:17.120 --> 0:51:20.880 to kill the first responders. Um, this is seven people. 0:51:21.320 --> 0:51:23.880 And then in seven and it kills the police officer. 0:51:23.960 --> 0:51:27.040 Actually it doesn't, Oh I didn't, but yeah, kills the 0:51:27.040 --> 0:51:29.400 police officer. Yeah. And then like the next one, he 0:51:29.520 --> 0:51:35.239 bombs in Atlanta nightclub and win six people. I'm sorry specifically, yeah, 0:51:35.280 --> 0:51:37.239 he bombed, he bombs, I bought, he bombs a gay bar. 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:40.640 Um and there were that one he also like in 0:51:40.640 --> 0:51:42.560 the adjacent parking lot, because again he was trying to 0:51:42.600 --> 0:51:44.919 kill the first responders that the police find a bomb 0:51:44.960 --> 0:51:47.200 and defuse it before it can go off. And again 0:51:47.320 --> 0:51:50.919 they still don't get this guy the not until two 0:51:50.920 --> 0:51:55.560 thousand three. The next year, he bombs another rebortion clinic 0:51:55.640 --> 0:51:57.359 with a nail bomb. In this kind just good time, 0:51:57.360 --> 0:52:00.160 he kills a security guard named Robert Sanderson, and like 0:52:00.280 --> 0:52:03.440 permanently injures a nurse name Emi Leon's, who was like 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:06.600 Emily Leon's who was he was left like half blind 0:52:06.640 --> 0:52:08.920 and like permanently made by the fact that again he 0:52:09.000 --> 0:52:13.520 set off a fucking nail bomb and he was not caught. 0:52:13.600 --> 0:52:16.440 He he was not he was not caught for a while. Yeah, 0:52:16.600 --> 0:52:18.719 And I want to stop here and talk about like 0:52:18.800 --> 0:52:21.520 how the bombing stuff has carried in the media, right, um, 0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:23.600 as best I could tell, and I went to look 0:52:23.680 --> 0:52:26.320 for this. No anarchist has killed someone with a bomb 0:52:26.320 --> 0:52:29.840 in the US for a hundred years. Like Coral Marx 0:52:30.200 --> 0:52:34.000 was closer to seeing the moon landing, then a baby 0:52:34.080 --> 0:52:37.520 born today is of seeing an anarchist kill someone THEOS 0:52:37.560 --> 0:52:41.040 with the bomb. And yet anarchism everywhere is so constantly 0:52:41.080 --> 0:52:45.200 associated with bombs. Meanwhile, the anti abortion freaks. Fucking they 0:52:45.320 --> 0:52:48.600 bombed the nineties six Olympics with a nail bomb. And 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:51.760 he on when he was in his trial, he released 0:52:51.760 --> 0:52:56.120 to benifesto talking about how deadly force is justified against 0:52:56.120 --> 0:52:59.200 people who operate abortion clinics. He talks, he talks about 0:52:59.560 --> 0:53:01.239 the whole a whole munch of like whole bunch of 0:53:01.280 --> 0:53:04.120 anti gay stuff, whole bunch of anti abortion stuff, like 0:53:04.200 --> 0:53:06.440 and he's like he's given them like like on his 0:53:06.520 --> 0:53:11.280 trial just used to like read his manifesto. It's pretty 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:17.120 it's pretty wild. Where all the pro life activists when 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:20.200 it comes to taking life. That's interesting. Well, but I 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:22.600 mean that's that's the thing though. They're all they're all 0:53:22.719 --> 0:53:27.320 in favor of of like they see, Yeah, they're arguing 0:53:27.360 --> 0:53:30.200 that it's self defense or it's defensive. These these these 0:53:30.200 --> 0:53:33.920 babism not the well defensive, those who can't defend themselves. 0:53:34.400 --> 0:53:37.120 What they'll talk about it is entirely within them, the 0:53:37.160 --> 0:53:40.360 moral universe within they operate. It's it is entirely consistent. 0:53:40.400 --> 0:53:42.799 It's one of those things. Whenever like liberals will be like, 0:53:43.160 --> 0:53:45.480 why don't they do this or why don't they that's 0:53:45.520 --> 0:53:47.359 not pro life and it's like, well, because the word 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:50.239 doesn't mean the same thing to you, it does well, 0:53:50.280 --> 0:53:53.520 and the guy's doing this terror because you will occasionally 0:53:53.600 --> 0:53:55.120 you'll get some I mean, some of the pro life 0:53:55.160 --> 0:53:57.160 people oppose this because I think it's bad optics, right, 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:00.600 But apparently it's not bad optics because again, like, who 0:54:00.600 --> 0:54:03.040 are the people who get fucking remembered as bombers? Like, 0:54:03.239 --> 0:54:05.560 and I want to I want to read a quote 0:54:05.560 --> 0:54:07.560 from from the FBI. This is this is this is 0:54:07.600 --> 0:54:09.840 from from the book Armed for Life. In In nineteen 0:54:09.920 --> 0:54:12.600 eighty four, the year with the highest abortion clinic bombings 0:54:12.760 --> 0:54:16.560 to date, FBI Director William Webster went on television and 0:54:16.600 --> 0:54:19.560 informed the public, quote, Bombing a bank or a post 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:22.319 office is terrorism. Bombing an abortion clinic is not an 0:54:22.320 --> 0:54:25.719 active terrorism because the objective is social. Is social and 0:54:25.760 --> 0:54:29.799 anti abortion violence, and I don't believe it currently meets 0:54:29.840 --> 0:54:33.680 our definition of terrorism. Reagan's called Reagan called the anti 0:54:34.000 --> 0:54:38.320 abortion it's worse, okay, Reagan called called the bombings. The 0:54:38.440 --> 0:54:43.880 abortion clinic bombing is quote anarchist activities, Like the fucking 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:47.440 they are blowing up abortion clinics and we're still getting 0:54:47.520 --> 0:54:52.200 fucking blamed for it, Like Jesus Christ. I don't know 0:54:52.200 --> 0:54:54.719 a lot about anything, and so this is a lot 0:54:54.719 --> 0:54:56.560 of this is used to me, which is wild that 0:54:56.600 --> 0:54:58.319 I'm hearing about a lot of this for the first time. 0:55:00.000 --> 0:55:02.319 How have I not known about this? They bombed the 0:55:02.320 --> 0:55:06.719 Olympics and know what talks about it? Actually, like I 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:10.959 was just losing my mind the whold like it's it's 0:55:11.000 --> 0:55:14.640 bad and it's it's still happening. It's not. It's just 0:55:14.760 --> 0:55:17.440 like three people were killed and nine people were injured 0:55:17.480 --> 0:55:20.640 an attacked on a planned parenthood clinic in Colorado. Back 0:55:20.640 --> 0:55:26.040 in um there has been over at least at least 0:55:25.800 --> 0:55:31.120 at least eleven murders tied to anti abortion uh like 0:55:31.120 --> 0:55:35.680 like action. I guess six attempted murders, at least forty 0:55:35.680 --> 0:55:39.800 two bombings, two hundred arsons, and then thousands and thousands 0:55:39.800 --> 0:55:43.440 of more like assaults and random random incidents. We should 0:55:43.440 --> 0:55:45.359 also point out here when we're talking about the murder counts, 0:55:45.400 --> 0:55:47.560 murder count is lower vet it actually is because the 0:55:47.600 --> 0:55:50.360 murder count doesn't count to people who like the Americans, 0:55:50.400 --> 0:55:52.520 like specifically the Americans who went to Canada to shoot 0:55:52.520 --> 0:55:54.680 abortion doctors and the Americans who went to Australia to 0:55:54.680 --> 0:55:58.240 shoot abortion doctors, both of which happened, and threats against 0:55:58.280 --> 0:56:04.960 abortion providers have increased exponentially just since just since, like 0:56:05.320 --> 0:56:08.960 they have more than quadrupled, Like this is it's constant. 0:56:09.360 --> 0:56:11.799 It's been escalating at such a at such a rate 0:56:11.840 --> 0:56:15.640 that every year's data is insufficient for talking about the 0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:18.600 current period. Like it's it's you can't you can't even 0:56:18.600 --> 0:56:22.279 talk about it because all of the data is so inaccurate. Now, 0:56:22.400 --> 0:56:25.239 that's how fast this stuff is accelerating. And and like 0:56:25.360 --> 0:56:26.920 there's there's a few other things that like like we 0:56:26.960 --> 0:56:28.960 should mention when we talked about statistics. So one of 0:56:28.960 --> 0:56:30.880 the reason is the reason the death toll is like 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:34.879 quote unquote only eleven is because bomb making is really 0:56:34.880 --> 0:56:36.480 hard and a lot of these bombs don't go off. 0:56:36.520 --> 0:56:39.200 So for example, in Canada, a worker right a clinic 0:56:39.239 --> 0:56:41.279 discovered a bomb with two pounds of nails in it 0:56:41.280 --> 0:56:43.880 that quote how to destructive capability of a hundred feet 0:56:45.400 --> 0:56:47.319 um and you know, and also like I should put 0:56:47.360 --> 0:56:49.160 this out like okay, so like they they there's a 0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:51.000 lot of abortion doctors who are killed like outside of 0:56:51.000 --> 0:56:53.840 their clinics. But also there's a guy named James Copp 0:56:53.920 --> 0:56:57.719 who who shot He shot like four doctors and he 0:56:57.800 --> 0:57:01.319 shot them like in their homes like with with with 0:57:01.320 --> 0:57:03.920 with an s KS, like in their homes through their windows. 0:57:04.520 --> 0:57:07.880 And he he killed Dr Barrett Slippian in the nineties 0:57:07.920 --> 0:57:11.200 and like and you know and like it. They like 0:57:11.440 --> 0:57:13.240 they keep doing stuff like this, Like in two thousand 0:57:13.320 --> 0:57:15.920 and one. I don't know if I wonder how many 0:57:15.920 --> 0:57:19.520 people actually remember this. Uh, there was this huge anthrax scare. 0:57:19.600 --> 0:57:21.440 What was an anthwstor like that people were like they 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:23.320 were later they were anthract attacks. People were like mailing 0:57:23.360 --> 0:57:27.160 people letters with anthrax in it. And so right as 0:57:27.200 --> 0:57:30.120 this is happening, um, a guy named Clay Wagner since 0:57:30.160 --> 0:57:32.400 eight hundred letters signed by the RB of God with 0:57:32.440 --> 0:57:35.600 fake anthrax, the plan players heard clinics in seventeen states 0:57:35.720 --> 0:57:38.080 and these antis packets like it's not just like flower, right, 0:57:38.080 --> 0:57:40.720 these antis packets have BT in it, which is there's 0:57:40.960 --> 0:57:43.080 a pesticide that is so similar to anthrax at the 0:57:43.120 --> 0:57:46.120 package just texted tested positive. And so all of these people, 0:57:46.160 --> 0:57:48.640 these eight eight hundred clinics who opened these letters like 0:57:48.680 --> 0:57:50.520 thought they were going to die because they opened they 0:57:50.520 --> 0:57:52.160 opened a letter. There was White Potter in it it 0:57:52.240 --> 0:57:54.600 said it was anthrax, and then it tested positive for anthrax. 0:57:54.760 --> 0:57:57.320 And like to this day, a bunch of abortion clinics 0:57:57.440 --> 0:58:01.280 like have like like the when when they're like when 0:58:01.280 --> 0:58:03.480 they open their mail, they have they have like a 0:58:03.480 --> 0:58:06.160 special room that is like sealed off so that if 0:58:06.200 --> 0:58:08.080 they open the mail, they open a chemical weapon. Only 0:58:08.120 --> 0:58:12.320 the person reading the mail will die. Great, that's the 0:58:12.440 --> 0:58:16.640 side of a good system. Yeah. They also a lot 0:58:16.680 --> 0:58:19.720 of planned parenthoods have something kind of similar set up 0:58:19.760 --> 0:58:23.160 with the receptionist, where basically the way it's set up 0:58:23.200 --> 0:58:25.640 is that if there's a mass shooter, the receptionist can 0:58:25.680 --> 0:58:29.080 like seal off everyone but them. Yeah, it's like a 0:58:29.120 --> 0:58:31.240 thing that you know you're getting into if you're in 0:58:31.280 --> 0:58:34.120 a plant, if you if you're in that gig, it's 0:58:34.200 --> 0:58:36.200 like someone might come in and I might have to 0:58:36.240 --> 0:58:38.959 die to try and stop them from getting to everyone else. 0:58:39.840 --> 0:58:44.760 It's it's bad. I mean, just just from there was 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:49.160 a hundred increase in reports of assaults and batteries uh 0:58:49.280 --> 0:58:53.000 inside and outside clinics. Um there was double the amount 0:58:53.160 --> 0:58:59.280 of death threats from and things have not gotten better since. 0:59:00.320 --> 0:59:02.280 So we're just waiting for all that new data to 0:59:02.320 --> 0:59:06.840 come in because oh boy, Yeah. And I think there's 0:59:06.840 --> 0:59:08.560 another thing when we need to keep in mind with 0:59:08.600 --> 0:59:11.480 this data is that there's so much stuff doesn't get reported. 0:59:11.600 --> 0:59:13.720 All of those numbers are low, every single one of 0:59:13.720 --> 0:59:15.400 them is normally low. And there was a bunch of 0:59:15.400 --> 0:59:17.960 other stuff that is people do that just never gets 0:59:18.000 --> 0:59:20.520 talked about. Um, well, okay, so I think before we 0:59:20.560 --> 0:59:22.120 get into that, I do want to talk about the 0:59:22.360 --> 0:59:25.960 most famous abortion provider who got murdered, which is Dr 0:59:26.000 --> 0:59:31.800 George Tiller, who is like a genuinely incredibly heroic figure 0:59:32.080 --> 0:59:35.480 who he was keep doing it after the first time 0:59:35.520 --> 0:59:37.520 you were shot, Like you would be a hero if 0:59:37.520 --> 0:59:41.520 you did it up until you got shot. Going after 0:59:42.120 --> 0:59:45.120 like he got shot. He's a clinic got bombed. There 0:59:45.200 --> 0:59:49.520 was an entire Yeah he's clinic up bomb What was 0:59:49.560 --> 0:59:51.320 the other one? Yeah, he he was, he was one 0:59:51.320 --> 0:59:53.600 of the he was I think he was actually I 0:59:53.600 --> 0:59:55.360 don't know if it was that anthrax threat or like 0:59:55.400 --> 0:59:57.880 a different anthrax threat, but like people people like he 0:59:57.960 --> 1:00:01.160 kept getting anthrax threats. Um that there was this thing 1:00:01.560 --> 1:00:03.960 called Operation Rescue, which is I guess that there's still 1:00:04.000 --> 1:00:05.520 version of us around, but they are these like they 1:00:05.760 --> 1:00:09.080 do these like giant like non violent severe disit obedience 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:11.840 campaigns were like thousands of people will will will will 1:00:11.840 --> 1:00:13.680 show up to a place and they'll like change themselves 1:00:13.680 --> 1:00:15.480 the buildings, and they'll like prevent anyone from getting in, 1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:17.920 and they'll like terrorize everyone around there. And his office 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:19.400 is one of the is one of the ones that 1:00:19.440 --> 1:00:22.000 was targeted NET ninety one, which is like in there 1:00:22.000 --> 1:00:24.360 like that they had this big campaign called Operation Rescue. 1:00:24.440 --> 1:00:28.840 It was targeting like him specifically. And there is one 1:00:28.960 --> 1:00:30.640 fun story in this which is they tried this in 1:00:30.680 --> 1:00:33.160 Minneapolis next ninety three, but they got their as escape 1:00:33.160 --> 1:00:35.000 by a bunch of anarchists and had to all run away, 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:40.840 which was extremely funny. But yeah, like I'm the The 1:00:40.840 --> 1:00:43.400 other thing that that's important with with Tiller specifically is 1:00:43.480 --> 1:00:45.320 the extent to which the right wing media is like 1:00:46.200 --> 1:00:54.560 like culpable in this um like Tiller, like Bill O'Reilly specifically, 1:00:55.360 --> 1:00:58.680 is constantly yelling about Tiller. He calls Tiller the baby killer. 1:00:58.720 --> 1:01:02.280 He uses him of running a a operating a death mill, 1:01:02.480 --> 1:01:05.920 executing baby is about to be born, and destroying fetuses 1:01:06.000 --> 1:01:09.000 for just about any reason right up until birthdate. H 1:01:09.080 --> 1:01:11.640 he want one of his rants, he he literally says 1:01:11.760 --> 1:01:14.800 like right before, well not like pretty close to when 1:01:14.800 --> 1:01:17.240 Tiller has assassinated. Uh quote, if I could get my 1:01:17.280 --> 1:01:19.919 hands on Tiller, well you know, can't be vigilantes, can't 1:01:19.960 --> 1:01:22.000 do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable. 1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:26.080 Oh my god, it doesn't get worse? Does it get worse? No? Wow? 1:01:27.280 --> 1:01:29.240 So he's just like this is just like the ship 1:01:29.520 --> 1:01:31.720 that that he's that that he's being subjected to by 1:01:31.760 --> 1:01:34.720 the media. And then oh lo and behold he gets murdered. 1:01:35.640 --> 1:01:39.960 You know what, doesn't I don't know, I have nothing 1:01:39.960 --> 1:01:45.800 to say. Doesn't do uh coordinated you know what would 1:01:45.800 --> 1:01:47.400 be dope. Here here's what I'll say. You know, it 1:01:47.400 --> 1:01:50.400 would be dope if when somebody came to shoot George 1:01:50.400 --> 1:01:53.360 Tiller that person had gotten a shot repeatedly. That would 1:01:53.400 --> 1:01:57.400 have been cool. M that would have been neat. But anyway, 1:01:57.560 --> 1:02:05.720 here's ads and we're back with more horrifying stuff. Um. Yeah, 1:02:05.760 --> 1:02:08.240 so there's a lot of focus I think, you know, 1:02:08.680 --> 1:02:10.880 there's been a lot of media coverage recently about this 1:02:11.000 --> 1:02:14.000 just because like you know, as as a reaction to 1:02:14.080 --> 1:02:17.040 the incredibly bad faith like, oh, look at the sanctity 1:02:17.240 --> 1:02:20.560 of of people protesting at the Supreme Court. It's like 1:02:20.640 --> 1:02:24.600 they blew people's heads office shotguns. But you know, and 1:02:24.640 --> 1:02:26.560 like that's good, and I'm really glad there's there's more 1:02:26.600 --> 1:02:29.880 media reporting about this. But I want to talk about 1:02:30.280 --> 1:02:32.560 you know, there's there's an incredible focus here on the 1:02:32.560 --> 1:02:34.600 shootings and bombings, and like there's good reason for that, 1:02:34.600 --> 1:02:35.960 But I want to talk about some other ship that 1:02:36.000 --> 1:02:38.959 the force birth fanatics do because it's horrifying. It doesn't 1:02:39.000 --> 1:02:42.280 get talked enough about enough. Um. So, one of the 1:02:42.280 --> 1:02:44.919 people who gets interviewed in Living in the cross Hairs, 1:02:44.920 --> 1:02:46.480 which is a great book by the way, it's it's 1:02:46.480 --> 1:02:48.520 about I mean, okay, I don't agree with all of 1:02:48.520 --> 1:02:51.960 its policy recommendations, but it's a book like interviewing like 1:02:52.000 --> 1:02:55.480 abortion providers about their experiences. One of the people they 1:02:55.480 --> 1:02:59.200 interview is this guy named Rodney Smith, who's an abortion doctor. Um, 1:02:59.240 --> 1:03:00.680 and I'm just gonna eat the stuff that they do 1:03:00.760 --> 1:03:05.400 to this guy because it's okay, So protesters show up 1:03:05.400 --> 1:03:11.200 to his son's wedding. Um, they burn his house and 1:03:11.240 --> 1:03:15.479 his farm down, They burns to death, They kill their dog, 1:03:15.680 --> 1:03:20.680 their cats, and all of their possessions. Yeah. From the book, 1:03:21.520 --> 1:03:24.320 help Kill Babies can you tell me that the cats, Yeah, 1:03:24.360 --> 1:03:29.640 we will imagine script did this. Yeah, everyone would lose 1:03:29.760 --> 1:03:32.400 their minds. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a 1:03:32.480 --> 1:03:35.280 quote about this from this book. Someone mailed a letter 1:03:35.320 --> 1:03:38.840 postmarked the morning of the fire justifying killing the animals 1:03:38.840 --> 1:03:42.560 on Rodney's farm because Rodney quote murdered little children. However, 1:03:42.640 --> 1:03:47.400 the letter was untraceable. Wow. They do this ship all 1:03:47.440 --> 1:03:49.800 the fucking time, and it never gets reported. Because the 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:52.840 reason never gets reported is because when when, when, when 1:03:52.840 --> 1:03:54.960 this this the city comes to investigate, They fucking destroyed 1:03:54.960 --> 1:03:56.960 the entire scene of the crime. They showed the entire 1:03:56.960 --> 1:03:59.320 scene of the crime so thoroughly that when the fire 1:03:59.360 --> 1:04:02.720 marshal showed up the day after, they tried to arrest um. 1:04:02.880 --> 1:04:05.600 They tried to arrest Rodney Smith Smith for evidence tampering 1:04:05.760 --> 1:04:09.040 because I thought that he had done it right. Yeah, 1:04:09.160 --> 1:04:14.400 that makes sense. Wow. And and let's less lest you 1:04:14.560 --> 1:04:16.440 think this is the end of the ship. That that 1:04:16.560 --> 1:04:19.320 that that this guy goes through, right, Like they when 1:04:19.360 --> 1:04:22.600 they find out he's like going to like a conference, 1:04:22.640 --> 1:04:24.040 or like they find out he's staying in a hotel. 1:04:24.120 --> 1:04:25.960 That they do these campaigns where like they'll they'll do 1:04:25.960 --> 1:04:27.960 these mass columns to the hotel saying, hey, there's this 1:04:28.040 --> 1:04:30.280 person here, and if you don't kick them out, like 1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:32.120 we're going to protest all your branches. He get kicked 1:04:32.120 --> 1:04:35.360 out of hotels. Um, he gets attacked by an anti 1:04:35.400 --> 1:04:40.560 abortion protester in the chambers of the Supreme Court, like 1:04:40.640 --> 1:04:43.520 that Supreme Court, the big one. How did they even 1:04:43.600 --> 1:04:47.080 get in the two the chambers of the Supreme Court. 1:04:47.280 --> 1:04:48.240 He was just one of it was one of the 1:04:48.240 --> 1:04:49.800 people who was showing up at this thing, and that 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:52.680 the guy like throws him out of his chair, grabs him, 1:04:52.680 --> 1:04:54.080 throws him out of his chair, picks up the chair 1:04:54.120 --> 1:04:55.920 and starts beating the ship out of him reach his 1:04:56.040 --> 1:05:00.560 own chair in this is indie chambers of the Supreme courts. 1:05:00.720 --> 1:05:04.160 They beat an abortion doctor with his own chair. And 1:05:04.400 --> 1:05:06.760 you know, especially Roddy had had security with him, right 1:05:06.800 --> 1:05:09.360 because I you know it. It's yeah, when when you're 1:05:09.360 --> 1:05:12.000 abortion doctor and and people are this target at you, yeah, 1:05:12.040 --> 1:05:13.720 you have security so you don't get attacked like this. 1:05:13.960 --> 1:05:16.960 But the court wouldn't let him like bring his private 1:05:16.960 --> 1:05:20.560 security inside. And their rationalization was, uh, he he had 1:05:20.560 --> 1:05:23.840 been assured that quote nothing ever happens in the Supreme Court. 1:05:25.600 --> 1:05:29.480 And the thing about this, right, you cannot find a 1:05:29.560 --> 1:05:32.680 news article about this. Right, a guy got beat up 1:05:32.800 --> 1:05:36.600 by these people in the Supreme Court. If literally anyone 1:05:36.840 --> 1:05:40.400 who was not a fucking forced birth anti abortion fanatic 1:05:40.440 --> 1:05:42.680 did this, there would have been a new cycle that 1:05:42.720 --> 1:05:45.160 would have lasted until the fucking end of time. There 1:05:45.360 --> 1:05:47.840 have been a movie and and three shows made about it. Yeah, 1:05:47.920 --> 1:05:51.720 and there's just nothing well like wild like that is 1:05:51.760 --> 1:05:55.520 really showing like these things don't get These things aren't 1:05:55.520 --> 1:06:00.440 big problems, right because they aren't challenging to any kind 1:06:00.480 --> 1:06:03.560 of power structure. So they're allowed to happen because they're 1:06:03.600 --> 1:06:07.120 just reinforcing things. They're not actually challenging things. Um. But 1:06:07.360 --> 1:06:11.760 still it's very brazen. When you're killing like seventeen horses 1:06:12.160 --> 1:06:14.320 and going into the Supreme Court to beat someone with 1:06:14.360 --> 1:06:18.760 a chair, you would think that someone would say something. Um. 1:06:18.800 --> 1:06:25.040 And I've never heard of this before either, Alley gear. 1:06:25.560 --> 1:06:29.680 I know, this is like the thing the thing I 1:06:29.680 --> 1:06:31.880 want to emphasize about this. This is the things they 1:06:31.880 --> 1:06:37.880 did to one guy, one doctor. This is happening, This 1:06:37.920 --> 1:06:41.440 is right, Like this stuff, this kind of stuff is 1:06:41.480 --> 1:06:45.120 happening to people every fucking day across the country, and 1:06:45.160 --> 1:06:49.320 there is nothing. There is jack shit. You might maybe 1:06:49.440 --> 1:06:52.960 see a report in local papers like maybe it is 1:06:53.000 --> 1:06:54.840 a it is a it is a just an incredible 1:06:54.880 --> 1:06:57.320 campaign of chair. But this guy is like she is 1:06:57.480 --> 1:07:01.600 staggeringly based he that this is quote from that book. Again, 1:07:02.360 --> 1:07:04.280 Rodney is used to this type of verbal abuse and 1:07:04.320 --> 1:07:08.000 sometimes reacting kind. When a priest called him a murderer, uh, 1:07:08.120 --> 1:07:11.000 Rodney responded by calling the priest a child molester. When 1:07:11.640 --> 1:07:14.840 protesters told Rodney they were praying for him, he responded, no, 1:07:14.920 --> 1:07:18.880 you're preying upon us. There's a difference. So he rules 1:07:18.920 --> 1:07:20.680 and she likes he'd been a doctor who like did 1:07:20.680 --> 1:07:22.480 other stuff and when they worshiped people, I think I 1:07:22.480 --> 1:07:23.920 think it was after they burned his house down, he 1:07:24.040 --> 1:07:26.040 was like, no, fuck you, I'm only going to do abortions. 1:07:26.080 --> 1:07:31.960 Now he's exaggeratedly based like yeah, which which I guess 1:07:31.960 --> 1:07:33.520 also like this is this is a thing that like 1:07:34.000 --> 1:07:37.240 so like obviously, like, I don't think any leftist has 1:07:37.240 --> 1:07:40.880 ever fucking lit people's horses on fire, not that I 1:07:40.920 --> 1:07:44.600 know of the generally left. Generally they would have more 1:07:44.600 --> 1:07:46.720 of an instinct to free the horses. Yeah, like that 1:07:47.480 --> 1:07:50.200 you have to you have to be like genuinely monstrous 1:07:50.240 --> 1:07:52.560 to to light horses on fire, like they screamed, like 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:55.440 horses scream like when you let them on fire. I mean, 1:07:55.560 --> 1:07:58.920 and and and cats and dogs animal like at animal 1:07:58.920 --> 1:08:03.760 abusts and animal murder. But it's it's like pretty pretty despicable. 1:08:03.840 --> 1:08:09.560 And there's uh just justifying it by saying it's because 1:08:09.880 --> 1:08:13.680 they were on the property of someone who helps gives abortions. 1:08:13.760 --> 1:08:17.040 Is some wild some wild thinking, Well, none of those 1:08:17.080 --> 1:08:19.200 what's in the Bible, Actually there is, There is a 1:08:19.240 --> 1:08:25.559 lot of animal murdering in the Bible. Never mind. Yeah, okay, 1:08:25.600 --> 1:08:27.680 well but but but but I mean, I I will 1:08:27.720 --> 1:08:29.759 say that there is a thing that can happen where 1:08:29.840 --> 1:08:32.439 if if you like, sometimes targeted protests on a person 1:08:32.560 --> 1:08:34.280 just like makes them bin for it, like dig into 1:08:34.280 --> 1:08:37.080 their beliefs. And that's some tops in and and I 1:08:37.080 --> 1:08:39.640 think like here, I think like there's a lot of 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:44.519 people who are just stunning Lee Brave who go through 1:08:44.560 --> 1:08:47.880 this ship and just still keep doing it because like 1:08:47.920 --> 1:08:50.240 this is something that they believe in. And you know, 1:08:50.280 --> 1:08:53.640 and those aren't even like that extreme examples of like 1:08:53.640 --> 1:08:55.479 the kind of stuff that happens again again. We've talked 1:08:55.479 --> 1:09:00.360 about like again nail bombs, right, like people getting their 1:09:00.360 --> 1:09:03.439 head blown off with shotguns. There's there's a systemic campaign 1:09:03.479 --> 1:09:05.920 of terror that has felt incredibly acutely by the people 1:09:05.960 --> 1:09:08.000 who need these services, who need to get abortions, who 1:09:08.000 --> 1:09:10.400 need to get reproductive healthcare, and is felt by the 1:09:10.439 --> 1:09:13.519 providers of that healthcare, and nobody else in society sees 1:09:13.520 --> 1:09:16.760 about it or talks about it, and they have you know, Okay, 1:09:16.800 --> 1:09:19.360 so the I'm gonna read another quote from Living in 1:09:19.360 --> 1:09:21.800 the Crosshairs about the tactics that these groups use because 1:09:21.800 --> 1:09:25.839 they have they have so many things. These tactics include bombings, 1:09:25.960 --> 1:09:29.040 arson and threat scares, and mass blockades. Extremists have also 1:09:29.120 --> 1:09:32.639 thrown beautric acid into clinics, glued clinic locks, shut locked 1:09:32.640 --> 1:09:35.400 themselves to clinic property using items such as bicycle locks 1:09:35.439 --> 1:09:38.479 or chains, drilled holes into clinic roops so that clinics 1:09:38.479 --> 1:09:43.120 flood invaded, invaded clinics, vandalized clinics, made threatening phone calls, 1:09:43.120 --> 1:09:45.679 try to persuade patients to go to fake clinics, which 1:09:45.800 --> 1:09:48.639 we've talked about that in our our episode on Cristis 1:09:48.680 --> 1:09:51.400 pregnancy centers. But those that is also like part of 1:09:51.400 --> 1:09:56.000 the systemic campaign of terror is deceiving and humiliating people 1:09:56.080 --> 1:09:59.919 into not getting abortions. Uh, they put spikes on driveway 1:10:00.000 --> 1:10:01.920 as they they they'll they'll still stand one of them. 1:10:01.960 --> 1:10:04.040 This is a very common things. They'll stand on stand 1:10:04.040 --> 1:10:06.040 outside of abortion clinics talking about how they're gonna make 1:10:06.040 --> 1:10:08.000 bombs and like the kind of close that they're mixing 1:10:08.520 --> 1:10:11.160 and uh, yeah, they they'll they'll lay down on sidewalks 1:10:11.160 --> 1:10:13.160 in front of buildings. They will they will jump on 1:10:13.160 --> 1:10:15.880 people's cars. Uh, they will camp out in front of 1:10:15.880 --> 1:10:18.960 clinics for like multiple day stretches that they send decoy 1:10:19.000 --> 1:10:21.680 patients like into the clinics to disrupt it. It's just 1:10:21.760 --> 1:10:26.640 so much Yeah, and like like the brazenness with like 1:10:26.680 --> 1:10:30.160 again like that if there are things on there, like okay, 1:10:30.160 --> 1:10:32.559 and like okay, So like I don't want to like 1:10:32.680 --> 1:10:34.800 make this point too much because like, yeah, you can 1:10:34.920 --> 1:10:37.280 get away with a lot of stuff, right, even if 1:10:37.280 --> 1:10:38.560 the state is hunting for you. There's a lot of 1:10:38.560 --> 1:10:40.080 stuff that you could do that you can get away with. 1:10:40.120 --> 1:10:43.160 But like the level of stuff they've been able to 1:10:43.200 --> 1:10:44.920 get away with, like the fact that they've been able 1:10:45.120 --> 1:10:49.080 to literally on the air say that you should murder 1:10:49.120 --> 1:10:52.160 a specific abortion doctor mentioned them by name. And the 1:10:52.200 --> 1:10:54.040 fact that I know people who have had the FBI 1:10:54.080 --> 1:10:55.840 show up to their doors because of jokes they made 1:10:55.880 --> 1:11:01.519 on Twitter, it is it is fucking appalling. Yeah, yeah, 1:11:01.560 --> 1:11:06.559 because I mean they're not they don't. The law doesn't 1:11:06.600 --> 1:11:09.679 exist a lot, a lot doesn't matter. It's all about 1:11:09.720 --> 1:11:13.719 who's actually challenging the systems of power. Yeah, and then 1:11:14.240 --> 1:11:16.040 the police are like again this this is one of 1:11:16.080 --> 1:11:20.320 those They literally do cross burnings, like fucking like, they 1:11:20.400 --> 1:11:22.800 literally do clan style fucking cross burning. So I I 1:11:22.880 --> 1:11:25.080 can once again go back to the old rage against 1:11:25.080 --> 1:11:26.960 the machine classics. Some of those who work forces are 1:11:26.960 --> 1:11:29.400 the same coop burn crosses because it is literally the 1:11:29.400 --> 1:11:33.080 same people. The cops will cooperate with them. Like, Um, 1:11:33.600 --> 1:11:35.880 there's the other thing that do a lot is they'll 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:38.920 just like shoot bullets through the windows of clinics. Yeah, 1:11:39.000 --> 1:11:43.080 that is constantly, and they never no, no, no one, 1:11:43.280 --> 1:11:47.040 no one cares. That is very common. Yeah, and like 1:11:47.160 --> 1:11:49.439 fire bombs happened to do this day that one of 1:11:49.479 --> 1:11:52.559 the incidents they talked about in that book was, um, 1:11:52.600 --> 1:11:55.160 so they like this, this is stuff that happened at 1:11:55.200 --> 1:11:58.000 like one clinic, they set the clinics fence on fire 1:11:58.000 --> 1:12:01.000 in the middle of the night. They luged the downspouts 1:12:01.000 --> 1:12:03.760 on like the roof after like a giant snowstorm, so 1:12:03.800 --> 1:12:05.680 that like when when the snow melted, the water like 1:12:05.720 --> 1:12:08.200 poured into this whole they drilled it flooded the entire clinic. 1:12:08.840 --> 1:12:11.479 Um they had another one where they they drilled holes 1:12:11.520 --> 1:12:13.280 in the ceiling of the clinic and ran a garden 1:12:13.320 --> 1:12:18.160 hose through it and flooded the entire building. And yeah, 1:12:18.160 --> 1:12:20.240 again like none of this stuff ever makes the news, 1:12:20.320 --> 1:12:22.320 Like like well you and you you can compare, you 1:12:22.400 --> 1:12:24.400 compare the re action to this to like how they 1:12:24.400 --> 1:12:29.599 reacted the Animal Liberation Front right that that caused there 1:12:29.720 --> 1:12:32.599 was like there were like that, there were there were 1:12:32.640 --> 1:12:35.960 like like law enforcement like techniques. There are law enforcement 1:12:36.000 --> 1:12:39.160 organizations that exist today specifically to stop people like like 1:12:39.200 --> 1:12:41.360 that existed a specifically because of this campaign to stop 1:12:41.360 --> 1:12:45.200 the animal liberation friend for freeing animals like these people. 1:12:45.200 --> 1:12:46.599 And you know, and I should say this like also 1:12:46.680 --> 1:12:48.519 like there's this whole push to like, oh, we need 1:12:48.560 --> 1:12:50.200 to call these people terrorists and like yeah, like Bill 1:12:50.200 --> 1:12:52.639 Clinton called these people terrorists and like what happened, nothing 1:12:53.479 --> 1:12:56.639 like they they they got one law that was like fine, 1:12:56.880 --> 1:12:58.400 that was like that was that was about trying to 1:12:58.439 --> 1:13:00.720 keep people from protesting grass out of backet struck down 1:13:00.720 --> 1:13:03.720 by the Screame Court. Because again, we live in in 1:13:03.880 --> 1:13:07.320 a size society that is constantly moving towards the acratic fascism. 1:13:07.360 --> 1:13:12.759 If you torch construction sites or sedans or people wanting 1:13:12.960 --> 1:13:16.800 to destroy sections the forest, then you're then you're a terrorist. Um. 1:13:17.080 --> 1:13:22.000 If you mail pops and to kill a whole bunch 1:13:22.040 --> 1:13:26.840 of horses, you're just you're just some some dudes, I guess. Yeah. 1:13:26.880 --> 1:13:29.320 And one of the things incredibly frustrating about the story 1:13:29.439 --> 1:13:31.720 is there will be people who are being stalked right 1:13:31.760 --> 1:13:34.480 whether they're being harassed, and like they're they're being intimidated. 1:13:34.560 --> 1:13:36.880 These people keep showing up, they'll call the FBI, and 1:13:36.880 --> 1:13:38.760 the FBI will go in, we don't care, And then 1:13:38.760 --> 1:13:40.439 the next day I'll get shot by the same person. 1:13:41.120 --> 1:13:44.080 This happens multiple times with multiple and like like that. 1:13:44.640 --> 1:13:47.200 We talked about this with the person who killed tiller Um. 1:13:47.240 --> 1:13:48.960 A lot of the people who do use anti abortion 1:13:49.040 --> 1:13:52.120 murders like we're just irregular anti abortion prisoners and protesters, 1:13:52.160 --> 1:13:54.240 and like everything happens a lot is like people will 1:13:54.280 --> 1:13:55.880 go to jail for an abortion bombing, they'll come out 1:13:55.880 --> 1:13:59.080 and they'll do it again. And it's like, you know, 1:13:59.240 --> 1:14:01.519 one of the one of the really scary things about 1:14:01.520 --> 1:14:03.519 this as well, I know this is this has been 1:14:03.560 --> 1:14:06.439 stated before. This isn't by any means a new a 1:14:06.479 --> 1:14:09.960 new a new thought or framing. But with all of 1:14:10.000 --> 1:14:14.120 the laws getting enacted around the whole like bounty hunter 1:14:14.280 --> 1:14:16.160 side of things, for like how there's going to be 1:14:16.360 --> 1:14:19.719 you know, citizens being deputized to track down both abortion 1:14:19.760 --> 1:14:24.599 providers people who sought out abortion. Um, it's giving all 1:14:24.680 --> 1:14:27.720 of this strain of thought, like this whole, all of 1:14:27.760 --> 1:14:31.160 the striving ideology, it's deputizing it, and it's giving it 1:14:31.400 --> 1:14:35.080 actual legal backing. So it's no longer just ignored by 1:14:35.160 --> 1:14:39.479 law enforcement. It is now being encouraged by local governments. Um. 1:14:39.520 --> 1:14:42.559 All of these all of these same motivations are now 1:14:43.479 --> 1:14:47.639 like you can get rewarded for doing this um And 1:14:47.800 --> 1:14:51.800 oh boy, well people sees on that opportunity. Yeah, And 1:14:51.920 --> 1:14:53.639 I think that there's a thing we can talk about 1:14:53.680 --> 1:14:55.640 with with fascism here where it's like Okay, So, like 1:14:55.680 --> 1:14:57.680 what what is fascism? And if if you're looking at 1:14:57.720 --> 1:14:59.280 like one of the one of the things that like, 1:14:59.360 --> 1:15:01.559 if you if you're using like a strict classical definition 1:15:01.560 --> 1:15:05.160 of fascism is the integration of of like parties sort 1:15:05.160 --> 1:15:08.280 of like party paramilitary forces into the state. And this 1:15:08.320 --> 1:15:10.080 is what we're looking at, is we're looking at these 1:15:10.120 --> 1:15:13.000 people who have been sucking a bombing abortion clinics for 1:15:13.160 --> 1:15:17.120 fifty years, like starting to do this stuff. And I think, 1:15:17.320 --> 1:15:21.360 like I'm gonna read another passage about the kinds of 1:15:21.400 --> 1:15:25.639 stuff they do to individual people because like I think, 1:15:25.800 --> 1:15:27.240 you know, I mean, I keep going back to just 1:15:27.320 --> 1:15:30.120 like here's the high level terror that they're doing, but like, yeah, 1:15:30.160 --> 1:15:35.120 like the individual people. Um. After being verbally targeted at 1:15:35.120 --> 1:15:38.120 our clinic for years, protesters started harassing Tammy Madison through 1:15:38.160 --> 1:15:42.839 various written communications. First, the protesters distributed flyers throughout Tammy's neighborhood, 1:15:42.880 --> 1:15:46.120 including one at Tammy's door. The flyer listed Tammy's address, 1:15:46.160 --> 1:15:48.400 the make and model of Tammy's car, and listed a 1:15:48.400 --> 1:15:51.360 telephone number reporter to be Tammy's number. Then the protest 1:15:51.400 --> 1:15:53.519 disappeared at her home with Science Is playing her name 1:15:53.600 --> 1:15:56.599 that said she kills babies and hires the baby killers. 1:15:58.320 --> 1:16:01.160 When they were outside Tammy's house, they handed out flyers 1:16:01.320 --> 1:16:04.840 about her. And when walking by, they do things like 1:16:04.880 --> 1:16:07.000 they'll they'll use like licenses for example, cause again you 1:16:07.040 --> 1:16:09.760 have to get licenses right to to to provide abortions, 1:16:09.800 --> 1:16:11.240 to be a doctor. And so they use a licenses 1:16:11.240 --> 1:16:14.439 to find personal information about people. These the people out 1:16:14.439 --> 1:16:17.040 there are like I mean their right wingers, right, so 1:16:17.080 --> 1:16:20.719 they're they're really racist. They like they they love screaming 1:16:20.800 --> 1:16:24.759 jew doctor at people because yeah, like they racial slurs. 1:16:24.920 --> 1:16:28.360 They constantly out people like the nail bob guy also 1:16:28.400 --> 1:16:31.880 attacked a gay bars. Yeah, there's a lot of crossover 1:16:32.040 --> 1:16:36.720 in terms of who they want to attack. Yeah, and 1:16:36.760 --> 1:16:38.840 like they use constant death thrust. There's also a thing 1:16:38.840 --> 1:16:40.120 I want to talk a bit about, which is like 1:16:40.200 --> 1:16:43.920 these malicious legal lawsuits. So one of one of the 1:16:43.920 --> 1:16:46.479 ways that people go after like clinks is that they're 1:16:46.600 --> 1:16:49.120 constantly these clinics are like constantly under legal for people 1:16:49.120 --> 1:16:51.880 are constantly suing them. People people are suing them just 1:16:52.000 --> 1:16:54.080 to find out personal information about them because the court 1:16:54.080 --> 1:16:56.680 will give court will give you information. Uh, they get 1:16:56.720 --> 1:16:59.080 they have like these fake like fake case inspectors who 1:16:59.120 --> 1:17:00.840 will come in in order to in filtrate the things, 1:17:01.000 --> 1:17:03.640 like they have. There's legal enormous legal pressure from the 1:17:03.680 --> 1:17:05.920 state itself, which is often trying to destroy these clinics. 1:17:05.920 --> 1:17:08.000 They're they're like they'll they'll pass laws specifically to make 1:17:08.040 --> 1:17:10.760 us with the clinics can't operate in various ways. Um 1:17:10.960 --> 1:17:14.280 like people who are just like district attorneys will, we'll 1:17:14.280 --> 1:17:17.679 do investigations into them over and over again. They also 1:17:17.760 --> 1:17:21.000 they go after like the kids of providers constantly. I 1:17:21.400 --> 1:17:24.760 read a story from this book that again, like no 1:17:24.920 --> 1:17:28.720 one ever talks about, like they they kidnapped this this 1:17:28.920 --> 1:17:33.160 provider's child like her like twelve year old child like 1:17:33.439 --> 1:17:36.760 at a clinic and like try to indoctrinate them and 1:17:36.800 --> 1:17:38.479 then eventually gave them back after a few hours. But 1:17:38.560 --> 1:17:45.360 like again, like they they kidnapped a child of one 1:17:45.439 --> 1:17:48.719 of the people who works at these things, and there 1:17:49.280 --> 1:17:53.160 no one even talks about it, Like it's never there's 1:17:53.200 --> 1:17:56.880 never anything. I just I don't know, like I just 1:17:57.560 --> 1:17:59.560 like the more you go into this is like the 1:17:59.640 --> 1:18:03.439 more stuff that you see that like like they target 1:18:03.479 --> 1:18:06.320 people's parents still like show up at like the nursing 1:18:06.400 --> 1:18:09.080 homes of like the parents of like of these doctors, 1:18:09.160 --> 1:18:12.400 like they target their neighbors. They go after the donors 1:18:12.479 --> 1:18:14.920 to clinics a lot, like they'll they'll they'll send them 1:18:14.960 --> 1:18:17.160 pictures of like bullets and knives. Um. One of the 1:18:17.160 --> 1:18:19.200 things they do often is that those burned down completely 1:18:19.240 --> 1:18:22.080 the wrong clinic. So there's been a lot of cases 1:18:22.080 --> 1:18:23.880 where they just they attacked the clinic next to it 1:18:23.920 --> 1:18:32.160 because they're not the stuff they've gone. Yeah, I want 1:18:32.200 --> 1:18:34.400 to I want to end on this guy named John 1:18:34.520 --> 1:18:37.759 Brockenhoff who he bombs three abortion clinics over two decades, 1:18:37.760 --> 1:18:39.160 Like he's one of the guys who they sent to prison, 1:18:39.200 --> 1:18:42.040 and then he came out and they bounded another abortion clinic. Um, 1:18:42.160 --> 1:18:43.960 And I want I want to read this quote from him. 1:18:44.680 --> 1:18:48.760 My orders to Vietnam didn't suddenly material materialize unexpectedly. I 1:18:48.840 --> 1:18:51.479 volunteered to go because I saw the South Vietnamese people 1:18:51.479 --> 1:18:54.280 were being threatened by a Communist takeover, and I figured 1:18:54.320 --> 1:18:56.200 if they were willing to fight for freedom, they deserve 1:18:56.320 --> 1:18:59.000 to be free and deserved help too. He goes on 1:18:59.120 --> 1:19:01.360 to point out in anywhere of seventy three, I had 1:19:01.439 --> 1:19:04.840 just returned from voluntary participation in a bombing campaign in 1:19:04.880 --> 1:19:07.439 support of the liberty of people eight thousand miles away. 1:19:08.000 --> 1:19:10.160 So I hope you will believe I will. I would 1:19:10.200 --> 1:19:13.080 not have turned my back on my own people, American babies, 1:19:14.680 --> 1:19:17.120 my own people, American babies. If you had asked for 1:19:17.280 --> 1:19:21.519 my help in bombing an abortion an abortionary in this country, 1:19:21.880 --> 1:19:24.680 even in seventy three, and especially since it was not 1:19:24.840 --> 1:19:27.599 mere liberty but very of their very lives at stake, 1:19:27.640 --> 1:19:29.800 I would have gone with you. So this guy is 1:19:29.840 --> 1:19:31.880 literally saying he's still fighting the Vietnam War, but he's 1:19:31.920 --> 1:19:33.960 doing it to bom abortion clinics, and he went to 1:19:34.040 --> 1:19:37.040 Vietnam because he want to kill communists. And this guy 1:19:37.600 --> 1:19:40.640 was at the Capitol at January six. But that that 1:19:40.720 --> 1:19:44.360 sounds about right. So yeah, like it's like one of yeah, 1:19:44.360 --> 1:19:47.880 we're we're like the moment we are at now is 1:19:48.120 --> 1:19:52.360 this sort of detritus of like every crime the US 1:19:52.400 --> 1:19:57.000 has ever committed is just rolling back and you know, 1:19:57.120 --> 1:19:59.920 we're we're we're we're seeing all of these people who, yeah, 1:20:00.000 --> 1:20:02.599 fought in Vietnam and came back home and like killed 1:20:02.640 --> 1:20:04.320 a bunch of people who did abortions and did a 1:20:04.360 --> 1:20:07.639 bunch of bombings, and now they you know, and they tried, 1:20:07.680 --> 1:20:09.439 they just try to do a coup. They're probably going 1:20:09.520 --> 1:20:12.040 to get away with like in actually like a legal 1:20:12.120 --> 1:20:15.200 coup pretty soon because they've now seen control of the 1:20:15.240 --> 1:20:20.439 court system and it's like, well they've done they do 1:20:20.680 --> 1:20:25.920 a really effective combination of violent direct action and legal challenges. 1:20:26.520 --> 1:20:30.720 Uh there their actions able to be so successful. Uh 1:20:31.000 --> 1:20:33.679 one because like the tactics they choose that cause material 1:20:34.000 --> 1:20:37.840 damage and material change. But also obviously like they're not 1:20:38.280 --> 1:20:42.280 getting like investigated the same way anyone else would, right 1:20:42.280 --> 1:20:45.439 because like they are they are capable of doing this 1:20:45.560 --> 1:20:50.320 effective action because they don't face any any similar level 1:20:50.400 --> 1:20:53.320 of oppression to any other group that would that would 1:20:53.360 --> 1:20:56.080 be doing doing this, especially if they're on the left. 1:20:56.360 --> 1:20:59.519 Um So, like it's it's it's it's always useful to 1:20:59.600 --> 1:21:02.320 look at the tactics of your enemy and how they 1:21:02.479 --> 1:21:04.559 and how they do certain things. But you can always 1:21:04.600 --> 1:21:05.960 have to realize, like this is the same thing with 1:21:06.040 --> 1:21:08.080 January six, if it was a whole bunch of people 1:21:08.120 --> 1:21:11.040 in black block storming, that the response from the cops 1:21:11.080 --> 1:21:15.439 would have been very different initially and continue on throughout 1:21:15.479 --> 1:21:20.000 the whole day and these subsequent investigations. Um so yeah, 1:21:20.080 --> 1:21:23.680 always good to look into tactics, but the response from 1:21:23.680 --> 1:21:26.360 the government is always going to differ depending on who's 1:21:26.360 --> 1:21:30.120 doing the actual challenging. Yeah, and I think, as I said, 1:21:30.160 --> 1:21:33.040 you thinks about this one, like there are things you 1:21:33.120 --> 1:21:35.240 can learn from how the right operates. You can't carbon 1:21:35.280 --> 1:21:36.880 copy their tactics and try to do them from the 1:21:37.000 --> 1:21:39.160 left because it just won't work because the start to 1:21:39.200 --> 1:21:41.880 structural conditions for the left are just different. But the 1:21:41.920 --> 1:21:45.720 second thing is also that like it is simultaneously true 1:21:45.760 --> 1:21:47.760 that the level of oppression against leftist is higher than 1:21:47.800 --> 1:21:50.640 it is against right wingers. And also that's true, and 1:21:50.680 --> 1:21:52.920 it's also true that you can do stuff and like 1:21:53.080 --> 1:21:55.360 people have and yeah, I mean none of the change 1:21:55.400 --> 1:21:58.600 revenge people have gotten caught yet. So like you know, 1:21:59.160 --> 1:22:04.080 webels people see, yeah comes out and like, well, well 1:22:04.200 --> 1:22:08.519 we'll see like in general, right, especially when movements are decentralized. Um, 1:22:09.439 --> 1:22:11.759 but yeah, I mean, wow, they should get they should 1:22:11.800 --> 1:22:13.240 get to get away with a whole bunch of stuff. 1:22:13.520 --> 1:22:17.559 You can be doing like pretty public of bombing incidents 1:22:17.600 --> 1:22:21.120 for almost a decade and not get caught. If you 1:22:21.200 --> 1:22:23.680 just can bomb the Olympics and not get caught for 1:22:23.920 --> 1:22:29.519 like seven years. It's wild. And I'm also just assuming 1:22:29.920 --> 1:22:32.960 the vast majority of these guys are white, and so 1:22:33.160 --> 1:22:37.200 they're not. So it's also that and also the fact 1:22:37.240 --> 1:22:40.920 that this didn't happen like a long time ago. It's 1:22:40.960 --> 1:22:43.559 still happening, and that's crazy that we still don't hear 1:22:44.280 --> 1:22:46.600 about it, Like yeah, like we we talked about we 1:22:46.640 --> 1:22:48.599 talked about on this show like a few weeks ago, 1:22:48.920 --> 1:22:52.800 like people people lit another abortion clinic on fire, like 1:22:53.320 --> 1:22:57.679 that happens still and will continue to happen, and people 1:22:57.880 --> 1:23:00.080 continue to not care about it because it doesn't and 1:23:00.120 --> 1:23:01.760 anyone who's in power ins what the media doesn't care. 1:23:02.280 --> 1:23:04.360 And it's been happening long enough that there's this sense 1:23:04.400 --> 1:23:07.080 of like normalization around it. It's not seen as radical, 1:23:07.640 --> 1:23:10.879 it's seen as oh, obviously, some people think that's justified. 1:23:11.200 --> 1:23:15.799 It's not. It's not surprising, um, and that normalization allows 1:23:16.120 --> 1:23:18.439 way more people to both feel capable of doing something 1:23:18.960 --> 1:23:21.800 and it when it happens, there's not as big of 1:23:21.880 --> 1:23:24.960 a fuss. I do think it's also true though, like 1:23:25.000 --> 1:23:26.840 I think there are a lot of people, like I 1:23:26.920 --> 1:23:32.439 think most people don't know that this happened like I think, 1:23:32.520 --> 1:23:36.400 I think there's an extent to which the level of 1:23:36.520 --> 1:23:40.160 violence has been totally invisibilized. And you know, because I 1:23:40.200 --> 1:23:41.639 mean they ever think about this again, is the reason 1:23:41.720 --> 1:23:44.120 that they're working like this is because this this is 1:23:44.200 --> 1:23:48.280 a completely minoritary and position, right, Like, they don't actually 1:23:48.320 --> 1:23:52.439 have that many numerical supporters. It's just that they're able 1:23:52.560 --> 1:23:55.920 to sort of, you know, they they have enough people 1:23:55.960 --> 1:23:57.840 to wage systemic cam pain of terror and because of 1:23:57.880 --> 1:24:00.240 that they're able to inflict their sort of able to 1:24:00.280 --> 1:24:06.160 inflict their their fascism on the rest of the population. Ah, 1:24:07.600 --> 1:24:26.519 that was a good ending sigh. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, some 1:24:26.640 --> 1:24:29.240 of these recordings haven't got the best sound quality. We 1:24:29.360 --> 1:24:33.000 were walking around the Butterfly Center. We tried the best 1:24:33.040 --> 1:24:36.400 to block the wind, but some of it's pretty blown 1:24:36.439 --> 1:24:38.160 out and we still wanted you to hear them. So 1:24:38.280 --> 1:24:41.559 we've included them, but apologies that the sound quality isn't 1:24:41.560 --> 1:24:48.479 what it could be. There was a time when you 1:24:48.520 --> 1:24:51.320 could have been forgiven for believing that American fascism had 1:24:51.360 --> 1:24:55.200 been thoroughly beaten back, marginalized, and damaged beyond the capacity 1:24:55.280 --> 1:24:59.679 for reconstitution. Only the very foolish and dishonest believe that today, 1:25:00.280 --> 1:25:02.639 every time the far right has taken a serious beating 1:25:02.680 --> 1:25:04.680 in this country, they've had a place to retreat, to 1:25:05.080 --> 1:25:08.679 a sanctuary, to reorganize, recoup, and surge it again towards 1:25:08.720 --> 1:25:12.120 the halls of power. That sanctuary is the U. S. 1:25:12.240 --> 1:25:15.519 Mexico border. There's a song I quite admire by the 1:25:15.600 --> 1:25:19.600 drive by Truckers named after a young Mexican man, Ramon Casiano. 1:25:20.080 --> 1:25:22.920 In nineteen thirty one, after the kind of stupid altercation 1:25:23.000 --> 1:25:26.040 young men have been having since time immemorial, Ramon was 1:25:26.200 --> 1:25:30.160 murdered by another kid named Harlan Carter. Harlan was convicted 1:25:30.200 --> 1:25:32.599 of murder and then led off by another judge due 1:25:32.640 --> 1:25:35.960 to a procedural issue with his case. It hardly needs 1:25:36.000 --> 1:25:38.680 to be said that Harlan was white. He went on 1:25:38.760 --> 1:25:40.960 to join the Border Patrol during a period when it 1:25:41.040 --> 1:25:43.599 was seen as a model of good racial policy by 1:25:43.600 --> 1:25:46.760 the Nazi government in Germany. Carter rose to lead the 1:25:46.800 --> 1:25:49.320 Border Patrol, helped to militarize it, and then went on 1:25:49.479 --> 1:25:51.280 to run the n r A and turn it from 1:25:51.320 --> 1:25:55.000 a simple gun advocacy organization to the far right culture 1:25:55.040 --> 1:25:59.160 war institution. It became everything we're dealing with today from 1:25:59.200 --> 1:26:02.000 the far rights started at the border, and to quote 1:26:02.040 --> 1:26:05.040 from that song, that's still where it is today. But 1:26:05.160 --> 1:26:07.120 the border is more than just a battle ground in 1:26:07.200 --> 1:26:10.160 America's endless culture war, and it is more than just 1:26:10.320 --> 1:26:14.160 the system of violencemnlike Carter helped make it into the 1:26:14.280 --> 1:26:17.760 United States. Border with Mexico stretches from the Atlantic to 1:26:17.800 --> 1:26:20.600 the Pacific, through the homelands of many indigenous peoples, and 1:26:20.640 --> 1:26:24.400 across the migratory trails of numerous species, and to many 1:26:24.479 --> 1:26:29.040 many people today, it's still just home. Marianna Jones right, 1:26:29.120 --> 1:26:32.760 runs a butterfly sanctuary that has somewhat improbably provoked the 1:26:32.800 --> 1:26:34.960 direct ire of a U. S President and become the 1:26:35.040 --> 1:26:38.280 center of a series of conspiracy theories. She also grew 1:26:38.360 --> 1:26:40.800 up along the border in the Rio Grande Valley. In 1:26:40.880 --> 1:26:43.959 high school, she'd take trips to discothecas and bars in Rainosa, 1:26:44.200 --> 1:26:47.639 just across the border from McAllen, Texas. Today, she runs 1:26:47.680 --> 1:26:51.200 the National Butterfly Sanctuary just outside of the nondescript town 1:26:51.320 --> 1:26:53.960 which seems to have endless strip malls, big box stores, 1:26:54.040 --> 1:26:57.160 and family run Mexican food joints. You can go there 1:26:57.200 --> 1:26:59.519 and see wildflowers walk in the woods, and if you're 1:26:59.560 --> 1:27:01.800 lucky like we were, you might even find a snake 1:27:01.880 --> 1:27:04.679 in some monarch butterflies making their way across the continent 1:27:05.000 --> 1:27:08.640 without regard for borders or immigration checks. So you know, 1:27:08.720 --> 1:27:16.560 growing up here, we all live very fluid lines. And 1:27:16.680 --> 1:27:21.200 I used that word. I mean in the nineteen seventies 1:27:21.360 --> 1:27:25.200 during the Classic crisis, you know, when the Harder was president, 1:27:26.000 --> 1:27:29.439 we would literally drive to Mexico to gas upper cars 1:27:30.040 --> 1:27:36.680 and then come back. We would for lunch and cocktas, 1:27:37.360 --> 1:27:39.519 come back for class to say of class, and come 1:27:39.560 --> 1:27:45.920 back to football names from the points. We were all 1:27:46.080 --> 1:27:49.920 in Mexico partying our casts. They had the best discos 1:27:50.040 --> 1:27:53.439 and clothes, and our parents were over there too, having 1:27:53.560 --> 1:27:59.479 to turn. I know people or citizens who lived next 1:28:00.360 --> 1:28:04.600 because it's more affordable because they have reliable with electricity. 1:28:07.640 --> 1:28:11.880 Y'all are laughing. But the border for most people living there, 1:28:12.320 --> 1:28:16.960 sometimes called fronts, is an inconvenience. You have to drive 1:28:17.040 --> 1:28:20.559 to a certain crossing. Sometimes your truck gets checked, sometimes 1:28:20.640 --> 1:28:22.639 the port of entry is closed and you're late for work. 1:28:23.400 --> 1:28:26.120 But in the public eye, especially during and after the 1:28:27.080 --> 1:28:30.840 presidential campaign, it looms like a scene from Lord of 1:28:30.880 --> 1:28:34.200 the Rings, and since then it's also started to look 1:28:34.280 --> 1:28:41.120 like one. So growing up here I knew there was 1:28:41.280 --> 1:28:47.000 illegal immigration. It's impossible not to know. I mean nearly 1:28:47.120 --> 1:28:57.000 everyone knows. Someone who came across is a family on 1:28:57.120 --> 1:29:02.400 a short term home, or they crossed the river somewhere. 1:29:02.840 --> 1:29:08.240 But you'll see here our river is hite deep and dangerous. 1:29:08.360 --> 1:29:15.720 It's deadly, um. I mean when I was growing up 1:29:15.760 --> 1:29:21.599 here and I'm fifty two, I had friends who really 1:29:21.680 --> 1:29:25.280 do weeks ago. Their parents had homes and businesses here 1:29:25.600 --> 1:29:29.559 and there. Some of them read rode the bus across 1:29:29.680 --> 1:29:32.519 the bridge every day for school in the morning. I mean, 1:29:32.560 --> 1:29:39.880 it was nothing. We never thought of anyone's, you know, 1:29:40.000 --> 1:29:48.679 in terms of citizenship or house. And they also play 1:29:49.040 --> 1:30:05.240 sort of liminals where two passports to navigate and co 1:30:05.439 --> 1:30:14.200 trees have since they have nothing, and there seems to 1:30:14.280 --> 1:30:19.679 be hardly any in between. In mainstream media, the border 1:30:19.720 --> 1:30:22.720 is presented as dangerous, as are the people crossing it. 1:30:23.360 --> 1:30:25.120 But it's hard to feel that you're in danger when 1:30:25.120 --> 1:30:27.800 you're watching the sunset over the real grand and listening 1:30:27.840 --> 1:30:30.080 to the owls who begin their work after dusk, and 1:30:30.120 --> 1:30:33.280 they have a diminishing wild places along the river's north bank. 1:30:34.360 --> 1:30:36.240 Up until a couple of months ago, we were coming 1:30:36.280 --> 1:30:38.920 out here four or five times a week, sometimes twice 1:30:38.960 --> 1:30:42.240 a day on our boat and bringing a lot of 1:30:42.360 --> 1:30:46.320 journalists out. It almost never wound up in the portage 1:30:46.439 --> 1:30:51.000 because they never seen you know. They were like, yes, 1:30:51.120 --> 1:30:52.800 take us out on the river. We want to see 1:30:52.840 --> 1:30:56.639 the illegals crossing. We're like, We're like, dude, the only 1:30:56.680 --> 1:31:03.439 way to do that is to hook up with campaign 1:31:03.520 --> 1:31:08.160 officials working some of the most beautiful and fragile landscapes 1:31:08.320 --> 1:31:11.720 in the country along the southern border. Part of Marianna's 1:31:11.760 --> 1:31:14.920 work is introducing kids to them. I've been lucky enough 1:31:14.960 --> 1:31:17.759 to spend time in many of them, camping in East County, 1:31:17.800 --> 1:31:19.840 San Diego, where the PCT begins. It is one of 1:31:19.920 --> 1:31:23.120 my favorite things to do. Writing my bike in southern 1:31:23.160 --> 1:31:25.800 Arizona is an adventure. I take it every opportunity, and 1:31:25.880 --> 1:31:29.040 I'm not the only one. From jaguars to butterflies, many 1:31:29.080 --> 1:31:32.000 species of wildlife live along the border and pass over 1:31:32.080 --> 1:31:35.559 it on a daily basis. The border might look serious 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:37.960 on a map, but for much of the last century 1:31:38.000 --> 1:31:39.599 you'd have struggled to point to it on the ground 1:31:39.680 --> 1:31:41.559 lest you had a GPS device and far too much 1:31:41.600 --> 1:31:43.920 free time on your hands. These kids that will be 1:31:44.040 --> 1:31:47.960 here this week as part of their academic study, they 1:31:48.120 --> 1:31:51.960 thought the Rio Rand Valley was a desert. They didn't 1:31:52.000 --> 1:31:58.040 know you know that we had eleven biologically distinct ecosystems 1:31:58.080 --> 1:32:00.400 in a four county region that would fit in side 1:32:00.479 --> 1:32:04.479 San Diego County, California. That you know that we have 1:32:04.840 --> 1:32:09.840 the river that's not a trickle when everybody flushes their toilets, 1:32:10.439 --> 1:32:12.760 you know, like it can be an El Paso. I mean, 1:32:12.840 --> 1:32:16.760 they had no idea that we are the edge of 1:32:17.040 --> 1:32:26.040 subtropical you know, America, the neo Tropics. Since eleven, though, 1:32:26.400 --> 1:32:29.439 the board has become a physical thing, a landscape thriving 1:32:29.479 --> 1:32:31.560 with life that's somehow found a way to exist in 1:32:31.640 --> 1:32:33.519 places that can kill you with heat in the day 1:32:33.800 --> 1:32:36.679 and cold the night, and sometimes both in twenty four hours. 1:32:36.920 --> 1:32:39.760 Has been torn apart to provide people who have never 1:32:39.880 --> 1:32:43.320 been there with a chance to grandstand about security, and 1:32:43.439 --> 1:32:47.519 various government contractors a chance to line their pockets. Ted 1:32:47.600 --> 1:32:50.479 Cruz recently posed in a boat, wearing body armor and 1:32:50.520 --> 1:32:53.400 standing next to a machine gun, just feet away from 1:32:53.439 --> 1:32:56.519 where we watched recreational boaters sail lately along the river. 1:32:57.160 --> 1:32:58.960 As we walked from the center down to the river, 1:32:59.320 --> 1:33:01.120 we spotted some trash on the ground and went to 1:33:01.160 --> 1:33:04.360 pick it up. Turned out to be a battery, the 1:33:04.479 --> 1:33:08.040 kind used in a tactical flashlight or weapon light. Marianna 1:33:08.080 --> 1:33:10.360 doesn't use those, and it wasn't there last time she 1:33:10.400 --> 1:33:13.920 walked down a trail. It's not just the wall that's 1:33:14.000 --> 1:33:17.240 ruining this landscape, she says, it's a constant presence of 1:33:17.320 --> 1:33:20.559 militarized border patrol. We see the area as a conflict zone, 1:33:20.840 --> 1:33:23.840 not a conservation one. As I was saying, they're the 1:33:23.920 --> 1:33:29.560 ones stuff as well. They're very commonly used on the 1:33:29.680 --> 1:33:37.200 kind of lights yea of the little night. They're so expensive. 1:33:39.800 --> 1:33:43.200 Marianna knows this only too well. Her butterfly center backs 1:33:43.280 --> 1:33:46.280 up to the Rio Grand. It's a beautiful, peaceful place, 1:33:46.479 --> 1:33:48.719 but since two thousands seventeen it has been under threat 1:33:48.800 --> 1:33:52.600 from the relentless militarization of the Southern Border. The butterflies, 1:33:52.800 --> 1:33:55.640 she says, are important for a number of reasons. So 1:33:56.160 --> 1:34:02.599 butterflies are critical pollinators to all of the green stuff, 1:34:03.680 --> 1:34:07.280 most of which we don't eat. People know bees pollinate 1:34:07.680 --> 1:34:11.680 about one third of our food and so they care 1:34:11.680 --> 1:34:14.240 about bees now because everyone would hate to lose one 1:34:14.320 --> 1:34:19.480 third of our food. But butterflies pollinate all of the grasses, 1:34:20.120 --> 1:34:27.360 wild flowers, shrubs, and trees on the planet. The ones 1:34:27.520 --> 1:34:33.479 that reduce erosion by holding the ground in place against 1:34:33.560 --> 1:34:40.040 wind and against rain and floods. The plants that reduce 1:34:40.320 --> 1:34:44.200 the radiant heat that would come off of the earth 1:34:44.280 --> 1:34:47.760 if we didn't have the green stuff. They filter the 1:34:47.880 --> 1:34:51.080 water going into the water table, and they produce oxygen 1:34:51.240 --> 1:34:55.800 for us. They filter our air. That's why butterflies matter, 1:34:56.120 --> 1:34:58.280 and that's why everybody should care about them and do 1:34:58.400 --> 1:35:01.479 what they can in their commune at ease with their 1:35:01.800 --> 1:35:08.000 intimate native plants to provide habitat for butterflies. It's not 1:35:08.200 --> 1:35:13.320 just the butterflies who are in danger either. It's disgusting, um, 1:35:13.920 --> 1:35:21.040 but it is I hate to say, entirely predictable, but 1:35:22.640 --> 1:35:28.599 it's fairly predictable in an in stage capitalist society. We're 1:35:28.680 --> 1:35:35.320 removing from military doesn't to a border security one where 1:35:35.520 --> 1:35:40.479 border walls and more security are the United States one. 1:35:42.920 --> 1:35:49.000 And how most people don't even know about art. I 1:35:49.120 --> 1:35:54.960 have been shot at by wordpeck many times, and people 1:35:55.040 --> 1:35:58.320 don't realize it was the CBP drums that we're flying 1:35:58.400 --> 1:36:02.599 overhead in Minneapolis. To understand exactly what is at stake, 1:36:02.760 --> 1:36:05.360 both for the border and the butterflies, it's important to 1:36:05.439 --> 1:36:08.679 understand exactly what the border wall looks like on the ground. 1:36:09.280 --> 1:36:12.080 The border wall ecosystem is not just a wall. It's 1:36:12.080 --> 1:36:16.000 a towering thirty foot steel structure topped with anticlimb plates. 1:36:16.439 --> 1:36:18.720 Along the barrier, which is often hundreds of yards from 1:36:18.720 --> 1:36:21.519 the actual border, there's a road wide enough for two 1:36:21.600 --> 1:36:24.559 of the expensive pickup trucks the CBP drives to pass 1:36:24.640 --> 1:36:27.680 each other in remote areas. A road to allow construction 1:36:27.760 --> 1:36:29.519 vehicles to get to the wall also had to be 1:36:29.600 --> 1:36:33.000 built for landscapes that had been untouched for centuries. It's 1:36:33.040 --> 1:36:37.400 been catastrophic. That's why the National Butterfly Sanctuary fought the 1:36:37.479 --> 1:36:40.040 border wall. In the summer of two thousands seventeen, they 1:36:40.080 --> 1:36:43.040 found contractors on their land using heavy equipment to destroy 1:36:43.120 --> 1:36:46.040 the plants they had worked so hard to protect. After 1:36:46.120 --> 1:36:50.600 we found the contractors here illegally clearing our land with 1:36:50.920 --> 1:36:57.120 no right of entry, no eminent domain exercise, no waver 1:36:57.320 --> 1:37:01.720 of NIPA, and other laws we um you know, we 1:37:01.840 --> 1:37:06.080 filed suit against the federal government. That brought some publicity 1:37:07.240 --> 1:37:11.000 and with it a lot of people who said, you 1:37:11.080 --> 1:37:15.240 know that we if we opposed border wall, we must 1:37:15.320 --> 1:37:21.400 be for illegal immigration, as though the issue is that simple. 1:37:21.760 --> 1:37:24.599 The wall, in addition to being a colossal expense, much 1:37:24.640 --> 1:37:27.599 of which is funneled to Zeckelmann Industries, a Canadian owned 1:37:27.680 --> 1:37:31.760 steel company, which was fined dollars by the FBC for 1:37:31.960 --> 1:37:35.960 legal donations to the Trump campaign, is pretty useless. That 1:37:36.080 --> 1:37:40.559 the border wall is built miles inside the United States, 1:37:41.680 --> 1:37:46.439 that Border Patrol picks up ladders every day, um to 1:37:46.720 --> 1:37:52.799 share photos of ramps built so vehicles could literally drive 1:37:53.200 --> 1:37:56.559 over border wall like you know the old range rover 1:37:56.760 --> 1:38:02.960 commercials and and and also other breaches. UM. We also 1:38:03.040 --> 1:38:06.439 got a chance to explain to them that up until 1:38:06.520 --> 1:38:10.599 President Trump, the Border Patrol Union itself had opposed border wall. 1:38:11.439 --> 1:38:16.519 They had called it a waste of money's ineffective, um, 1:38:16.960 --> 1:38:25.679 and really irrelevant to their mission of preventing illegal entry 1:38:25.800 --> 1:38:29.360 to the United States. Walking along the border, we found 1:38:29.400 --> 1:38:33.120 half a dozen ladders constructed from old wooden pallets. Alongside 1:38:33.200 --> 1:38:35.120 them were I D. S clothing And to try this 1:38:35.280 --> 1:38:37.960 that migrants had either abandoned on their journey north, or 1:38:38.080 --> 1:38:40.400 had thrown out for them by border patrol agents who 1:38:40.400 --> 1:38:44.040 had apprehended them. Either way, these discarded things told a 1:38:44.120 --> 1:38:47.799 sad story of young people, sometimes parents and sometimes children 1:38:47.920 --> 1:38:50.560 with siblings, crossing a river and then a wall to 1:38:50.640 --> 1:38:53.840 try to get a chance at a better life. What 1:38:53.960 --> 1:38:56.639 the border wall does do very effectively is funnel people 1:38:56.720 --> 1:38:59.480 through the giant gaps in it. From Texas to California. 1:38:59.520 --> 1:39:01.720 The Trump had aministration has rushed to build as much 1:39:01.800 --> 1:39:03.439 wall as it could in order to live up to 1:39:03.479 --> 1:39:07.519 the wildly exaggerated claims that Trump made in his election debates. 1:39:08.000 --> 1:39:10.679 We now have as strong a border as we've ever had. 1:39:11.040 --> 1:39:14.000 Were over four hundred miles of brand new wall. Of 1:39:14.080 --> 1:39:16.599 that over four hundred miles, three hundred and fifty odd 1:39:16.640 --> 1:39:19.920 were repairs to existing barriers or secure fences as they 1:39:19.960 --> 1:39:22.840 are technically termed, but the rest was built in places 1:39:22.920 --> 1:39:26.040 that were easiest to access. In southern California, mountains and 1:39:26.160 --> 1:39:28.960 valleys are simply skipped. The wall stretches across the flat 1:39:29.040 --> 1:39:31.439 lands in between. People are forced to cross in these 1:39:31.479 --> 1:39:34.080 gaps in the hardest places, and as a result, many 1:39:34.160 --> 1:39:37.400 more of them die. The Butterfly Center isn't one of 1:39:37.479 --> 1:39:41.080 the hard places. But Marianna has found dozens of identity documents, 1:39:41.280 --> 1:39:44.600 some of them in evidence bags labeled Department of Homeland Security. 1:39:45.160 --> 1:39:47.439 She says that people aren't dumping them, they are being 1:39:47.479 --> 1:39:50.320 stripped of their documents when they are detained. I know 1:39:50.560 --> 1:40:00.680 that the other side at the end of at the 1:40:00.800 --> 1:40:05.400 cart counts the ragrance of their phone and there I 1:40:06.400 --> 1:40:13.640 and that's a littl the migrants to keep phones piffle. 1:40:14.680 --> 1:40:18.240 It's how they hit the family to say you have 1:40:18.400 --> 1:40:24.720 to sit on you know, operated to spur um. The 1:40:24.880 --> 1:40:31.880 phone is the bank lifelibe not only uh you know, 1:40:32.160 --> 1:40:38.320 leads for the immigrant the cartel. That's the only way 1:40:38.360 --> 1:40:45.600 they get paid. And the fact that order patrol is 1:40:46.000 --> 1:40:52.800 making people undocumented is something folks in the United States 1:40:52.880 --> 1:40:58.120 don't understand. They don't see that. We find garbage bands, 1:40:58.320 --> 1:41:06.479 scroll of medical records, birth certificates, marriage licenses, ideas and 1:41:06.600 --> 1:41:14.000 other things from mons identities and their illness or the 1:41:14.160 --> 1:41:17.200 violence that they've they've suffered and every day to make 1:41:17.280 --> 1:41:24.400 their asylum cases, but more patrol trashes. Throughout the four 1:41:24.479 --> 1:41:26.960 years of the Trump presidency, the Butterfly Center fought to 1:41:27.000 --> 1:41:29.680 protect the ecosystem they had created and to keep the 1:41:29.720 --> 1:41:33.799 pristine riverbank for barn owls, not border patrol trucks. Marianna 1:41:33.880 --> 1:41:36.560 isn't alone. The South Texas Birding Preserve was forced to 1:41:36.600 --> 1:41:38.280 back out of a deal with the FEDS after a 1:41:38.360 --> 1:41:40.479 Cohinity outcry at the thought of the loss of one 1:41:40.520 --> 1:41:43.479 of the very few wild places in the area. While 1:41:43.520 --> 1:41:45.880 they have so far been able to stop the construction 1:41:45.920 --> 1:41:48.040 of portions of the border wall, they have not been 1:41:48.040 --> 1:41:50.800 able to stop the multiple armed agencies that police the 1:41:50.880 --> 1:41:55.400 border and often each other, from encroaching on the center's land. County. 1:41:55.439 --> 1:41:58.519 In Texas, there are several overlapping missions to protect the border. 1:41:59.360 --> 1:42:02.760 Under Operation and Loan Star, Texas National Guard soldiers are 1:42:02.840 --> 1:42:06.240 deployed to protect the border and prevent drugs smuggling and 1:42:06.320 --> 1:42:09.719 child trafficking, at least according to the Office of Governor 1:42:09.760 --> 1:42:14.000 Greg Abbott. Sadly, they're not able to protect themselves from 1:42:14.040 --> 1:42:18.200 each other. So far, four soldiers have died by suicide, 1:42:18.720 --> 1:42:22.880 two in accidental shootings. Texas law allows National Guard soldiers 1:42:22.920 --> 1:42:25.519 to bring their own personal weapons, which were responsible for 1:42:25.600 --> 1:42:28.680 both deaths, and one drowned trying to save migrants from 1:42:28.680 --> 1:42:32.240 the river Because the troops are deployed under state orders, 1:42:32.520 --> 1:42:36.000 not federal ones, they receive fewer benefits and their families 1:42:36.040 --> 1:42:38.160 are not compensated as well in the event that they die. 1:42:38.960 --> 1:42:42.120 In addition to the ten thousand Texas troops, there are 1:42:42.120 --> 1:42:45.240 also four thousand National Guard soldiers on federal orders along 1:42:45.280 --> 1:42:48.680 the border. Task Force Phoenix, as it's called, is a 1:42:48.760 --> 1:42:51.760 combination of thirty four different Guard units stitched together with 1:42:51.920 --> 1:42:55.240 very little cohesion or prior experience working together, and has 1:42:55.320 --> 1:42:59.040 been blighted by low morale. Troops in this deployment are 1:42:59.200 --> 1:43:02.040 three times likely to have a car accident that sees 1:43:02.280 --> 1:43:05.519 illegal drugs, and a battalion deployed to McCallan had three 1:43:05.560 --> 1:43:08.599 soldiers die, the same number as arrest of the National 1:43:08.680 --> 1:43:11.720 Guard combined that year. D u I use is so 1:43:11.880 --> 1:43:15.799 common the breathalyzers are being issued to units. The crisis 1:43:15.960 --> 1:43:20.599 isn't at the border. The crisis is the border. It's 1:43:20.600 --> 1:43:23.360 not only United States soldiers dying along the southern border, 1:43:23.640 --> 1:43:27.800 it's also migrants. According to the Missing Migrants Project, and 1:43:27.840 --> 1:43:30.160 the state is admittedly better viewed than it is heard. 1:43:31.040 --> 1:43:33.960 Migrants coming from Central or South America are far more 1:43:34.080 --> 1:43:36.840 likely to die at the USA's southern border than they 1:43:36.840 --> 1:43:40.240 are at any other point on the way there. One thousand, 1:43:40.360 --> 1:43:42.719 two hundred and forty eight people died or went missing 1:43:42.800 --> 1:43:45.680 last year and making the trek north, five hundred and 1:43:45.800 --> 1:43:48.639 ninety five of them at the border. Given that the border, 1:43:49.240 --> 1:43:53.080 both under Republicans and Democrats', is a weapon that's increasingly 1:43:53.120 --> 1:43:56.839 effective at killing people an increasingly present in political debate, 1:43:57.400 --> 1:44:00.880 it's surprising how many people have never been there. The border, 1:44:01.160 --> 1:44:03.000 at least the bits of it without the wall, doesn't 1:44:03.000 --> 1:44:06.000 feel violent. One night, while we were in Texas, we 1:44:06.080 --> 1:44:08.240 sat on the bank of the Rio Ground and looked 1:44:08.240 --> 1:44:11.040 across the river as the sunset. Behind us was a 1:44:11.120 --> 1:44:13.640 wall funded by private donations to a group called We 1:44:13.720 --> 1:44:16.280 Build the Wall. It's built so close to the river 1:44:16.520 --> 1:44:18.599 that the weight from the border patrol boats will see 1:44:18.600 --> 1:44:20.840 it undermined and washed away in less than five years. 1:44:22.200 --> 1:44:25.800 Across from us, little Cabanias and Bars studied the shoreline. 1:44:26.479 --> 1:44:28.800 They looked at Dylick and were it not for the 1:44:28.880 --> 1:44:30.880 thousands of armed people who make it their job to 1:44:30.920 --> 1:44:32.760 stop it, it would have been quite nice to swim 1:44:32.800 --> 1:44:37.360 across for a drink. Swimming over was out of the question. 1:44:38.320 --> 1:44:41.040 But the peaceful border we encountered was not the one 1:44:41.080 --> 1:44:43.599 you'd recognize if you've seen Fox News over the past 1:44:43.680 --> 1:44:47.360 four years. For much of Middle America, the border is 1:44:47.400 --> 1:44:51.080 constructed as a lawless land somehow also as a desert, 1:44:51.120 --> 1:44:53.680 despite the fact that miles of it and marked that river, 1:44:54.479 --> 1:44:58.200 and a place where cartel violence goes unchecked. Human trafficking 1:44:58.320 --> 1:45:01.240 runs rampant. A young children are snatched away from their 1:45:01.280 --> 1:45:04.880 families and sold in sex slavery. Of course, young children 1:45:05.000 --> 1:45:07.439 are snatched away from their families at the border, but 1:45:07.560 --> 1:45:10.680 that's your taxpayer money at work, not the zetas or 1:45:10.760 --> 1:45:15.760 cartels with dinner. Sadly, the butterfly centers opposition to the 1:45:15.840 --> 1:45:18.920 wall combined with this political theater at the border to 1:45:19.000 --> 1:45:20.600 place a group of people who just wanted to be 1:45:20.720 --> 1:45:23.599 left alone, to be nice to butterflies, at the center 1:45:23.680 --> 1:45:25.479 of a culture ward they wanted nothing to do with. 1:45:26.400 --> 1:45:29.000 At some point, the Trump White House became aware that 1:45:29.000 --> 1:45:32.040 a hundred acres of Texas grasslands were holding out against 1:45:32.080 --> 1:45:36.000 all the legal and questionably legal efforts of Department of 1:45:36.040 --> 1:45:39.840 Homeland Security and the Trump administration to destroy the little 1:45:39.880 --> 1:45:43.240 haven along the real ground. We know that Jared Kushner 1:45:43.360 --> 1:45:46.360 said in May of twenty nineteen, in the Oval Office, 1:45:47.360 --> 1:45:54.439 we solved the butterfly thing. And and Steve Bannon had been, uh, 1:45:54.760 --> 1:45:57.800 you know, the former former special adviser to President Trump, 1:45:57.960 --> 1:46:02.559 and then he is the one who who started this psyop. 1:46:04.000 --> 1:46:08.479 And they took aim at us, and instead of us 1:46:08.600 --> 1:46:15.280 being against the wall and possibly for um open borders, 1:46:17.160 --> 1:46:22.440 they declared that we were a cartel front and actively 1:46:22.680 --> 1:46:30.439 engaged in trafficking humans and drugs, that we were not 1:46:30.720 --> 1:46:35.160 about conservation at all, but we were selling women and 1:46:35.320 --> 1:46:39.880 children into sex slavery. Marianna's Twitter bio at a time 1:46:39.920 --> 1:46:44.680 of writing reads do no harm, take no ship, and 1:46:44.760 --> 1:46:47.720 that's approach she took. As a marga community began to 1:46:47.800 --> 1:46:51.719 sling an increasing amount of ship. The North American Butterfly 1:46:51.760 --> 1:46:55.320 Association filed suit against Brian Cole Fage slash we Build 1:46:55.360 --> 1:46:59.760 the Wall, Tommy Fischer slash Fishers and Gravel slash TRG Construction, 1:47:00.160 --> 1:47:03.080 A Lance new House slash new House and Sons. On 1:47:03.200 --> 1:47:07.240 December third, twenty nineteen. Call Phage, a US Air Force veteran, 1:47:07.479 --> 1:47:10.400 attempted to crowd fund the war after Congress wouldn't fund 1:47:10.439 --> 1:47:13.840 it to the ridiculous extent that Trump desired. He raised 1:47:13.880 --> 1:47:17.720 over twenty five million. In August of twenty twenty, call 1:47:17.760 --> 1:47:21.560 Phage was indicted, along with Steve Bannon two other co defendants, 1:47:22.320 --> 1:47:25.479 on federal charges of defrauding hundreds of thousandth of We 1:47:25.640 --> 1:47:30.560 Build the Wall donors. Federal prosecutors said that despite repeatedly 1:47:30.600 --> 1:47:34.000 assuring donors that call Phage would not be paid, the 1:47:34.080 --> 1:47:37.040 defendants engaged in a scheme to divert three hundred and 1:47:37.120 --> 1:47:40.040 fifty thousand dollars to call Phage, which he used to 1:47:40.120 --> 1:47:44.720 fund his lavish lifestyle. Call Phage was separately indicted May 1:47:44.800 --> 1:47:47.120 of twenty twenty one on federal charges related to his 1:47:47.200 --> 1:47:51.160 falsification of tax returns. In April of twenty twenty two, 1:47:51.280 --> 1:47:54.880 Cauthage entered a guilty plea, having accounted for about ten 1:47:54.960 --> 1:47:58.479 million in spending a little under five miles of actual war. 1:48:00.680 --> 1:48:03.479 Call Page's attempts to build the Wall in Texas were 1:48:03.520 --> 1:48:06.760 hampered by the National Butterfly Center lawyers, who argued that 1:48:06.840 --> 1:48:10.200 it was a flood risk because it is and by 1:48:10.360 --> 1:48:13.640 various tax issues at call Fedge's team seemed entirely unaware of. 1:48:14.720 --> 1:48:17.280 While they hope to transfer the war they built, which 1:48:17.320 --> 1:48:21.160 they called the Lamborghini of walls, to federal ownership. CBP 1:48:21.360 --> 1:48:23.599 wanted nothing to do with it, as they were building 1:48:23.640 --> 1:48:28.599 their own wall outside of the floodplane. After ignoring a ruling, 1:48:29.000 --> 1:48:31.600 call Fege eventually built about three miles of wall in 1:48:31.720 --> 1:48:38.080 Texas and then declared the project complete November. With litigation ongoing, 1:48:38.720 --> 1:48:41.520 call Fadge took to Twitter to accuse the National Butterflies 1:48:41.640 --> 1:48:46.400 Center of having a rampant sex trade taking place on 1:48:46.479 --> 1:48:52.080 your property and the death sick bodies. When we first 1:48:52.720 --> 1:48:58.040 saw Brian call Fage's tweets and then we build the 1:48:58.080 --> 1:49:02.879 wall videos using my image and talking about the Butterfly 1:49:03.120 --> 1:49:07.559 Lady and everything and the Butterfly Center. Um, at first, 1:49:09.080 --> 1:49:13.360 you know, we we kind of reacted with humor, like 1:49:14.280 --> 1:49:17.120 this is too funny, Like who in their right mind 1:49:17.160 --> 1:49:19.840 would believe any of this? And you know, we even 1:49:20.200 --> 1:49:23.479 tried addressing I mean, I didn't know who Brian cole 1:49:23.520 --> 1:49:28.599 Fass was at the time, but you know, we replied like, um, 1:49:28.920 --> 1:49:32.560 you have a very very active imagination or you're a 1:49:32.680 --> 1:49:37.920 really you know, twisted person. And we used the hashtag 1:49:38.080 --> 1:49:43.639 liar liar pants on fire because we really did think 1:49:43.720 --> 1:49:51.000 it was ridiculous, but any notion that this was not 1:49:52.080 --> 1:49:57.479 deadly serious was soon dismissed. And now I've become this 1:50:00.400 --> 1:50:08.479 or extremism in Americ politics word, as I told others, Yeah, 1:50:08.479 --> 1:50:11.160 I've had I've had a lot of journalists asked me, 1:50:12.000 --> 1:50:14.439 what does it feel like to be in the cross 1:50:14.600 --> 1:50:18.200 roads of the culture wars in America? And I'm like, 1:50:18.320 --> 1:50:22.000 I'm not at the crossroads of the culture war. I 1:50:22.120 --> 1:50:25.240 live in the borderlands, which are the proving grounds for 1:50:25.400 --> 1:50:33.240 fascism in America. That's where I live. And we're gonna 1:50:33.280 --> 1:50:35.360 see it more and more. Everybody's going to see it 1:50:35.479 --> 1:50:40.080 more and more. They test things like the aerostat balloons here, 1:50:40.640 --> 1:50:42.560 and the fact that we didn't cut them loose and 1:50:42.600 --> 1:50:45.920 shoot them down and set them on fire. The fact 1:50:45.960 --> 1:50:49.160 that we were like, oh, that's kind of a pretty innocuous, 1:50:50.360 --> 1:50:55.160 you know, white balloon in the sky. We can live 1:50:55.280 --> 1:50:59.040 with it means that now it's gone out from under 1:50:59.120 --> 1:51:02.280 DHS to d O D and it's being deployed across 1:51:02.360 --> 1:51:31.479 the United States coming soon were community. A few weeks 1:51:31.560 --> 1:51:35.280 after cal Fidges tweeting, the Butterfly Center closed its Rusty Gate. 1:51:36.520 --> 1:51:39.879 It reopened in late April of two, but the almost 1:51:40.040 --> 1:51:44.200 three months in between were harrowing experience for Marianna and 1:51:44.280 --> 1:51:46.640 for the staff. And we arrived at a center in 1:51:46.680 --> 1:51:50.080 early March. There was a police surveillance tower posted in 1:51:50.120 --> 1:51:52.920 the car park and young men and hum vys on 1:51:52.960 --> 1:51:55.960 the road. We traveled down together there despite them, or 1:51:56.040 --> 1:51:59.280 perhaps in a sense because of them. In the theater 1:51:59.360 --> 1:52:03.040 they represent, Marianna doesn't feel safe. She carries a gun 1:52:03.240 --> 1:52:07.040 on her property even without the wall. The mintorization of 1:52:07.080 --> 1:52:09.439 the border has had a huge impact on the center. 1:52:10.160 --> 1:52:11.720 You will go into the river. She shows us some 1:52:11.800 --> 1:52:15.800 of the roads and access routes had been built. Concrete 1:52:15.920 --> 1:52:18.840 goes here in the base of the levier, midway in 1:52:18.920 --> 1:52:24.479 the levee. The gap to make this road up here 1:52:25.120 --> 1:52:29.360 wide enough for two to three vehicles, and they're down here. 1:52:29.439 --> 1:52:33.240 They'll have a high speed all weather road. So we 1:52:33.400 --> 1:52:38.200 fully expect. There's porter wall and then there's border walls, system, 1:52:39.880 --> 1:52:44.600 the road, the lighting, the sensors, um those sorts of 1:52:44.720 --> 1:52:52.080 things part of the system. Clear and alter this par system. 1:52:53.320 --> 1:52:57.160 Otherwise they come down this high speed all weather road, 1:52:57.920 --> 1:53:02.360 have to slow down, but and drive along the canal. 1:53:03.680 --> 1:53:07.880 And we know the number one killer of Troy Agents accidents. 1:53:08.760 --> 1:53:11.200 As we walk along one of the roads, we talk 1:53:11.240 --> 1:53:14.080 about the impact that wall has had a wildlife. I 1:53:14.160 --> 1:53:16.519 tell her a story about idea I saw try to 1:53:16.560 --> 1:53:19.599 get around the wall into a point. For whatever reason, 1:53:19.720 --> 1:53:22.320 it was so desperately sad that I can't forget it. 1:53:23.160 --> 1:53:25.600 The devastation the border reads on human life tends to 1:53:25.640 --> 1:53:28.760 get the most pressed and rpefully so. But Marianna has 1:53:28.760 --> 1:53:31.280 spent years watching the wall spread like a cancer at 1:53:31.320 --> 1:53:38.600 the ecosystem. She loves the addition of herbicide, you know, 1:53:38.920 --> 1:53:43.840 keep the enforcement zone dead and free of any vegetation. 1:53:44.000 --> 1:53:46.960 It has to do with the installation of all night 1:53:47.040 --> 1:53:50.960 bright lighting that disrupts mammals, and of course the wall 1:53:51.640 --> 1:53:55.439 when it eliminates range area. When it when it forms 1:53:55.520 --> 1:54:00.240 that barrier for land mammals and reptiles, you eliminate yea 1:54:00.880 --> 1:54:06.479 genetic diversity from from breeding, you eliminate seed distribution, all 1:54:06.600 --> 1:54:10.080 kinds of other things. So um no, there's no way 1:54:10.800 --> 1:54:20.600 to build all in the Lower Reo Ran Valley Wildlife Observation. 1:54:21.920 --> 1:54:25.400 Of course, the human cost is even high. Marianna first 1:54:25.479 --> 1:54:27.760 became aware of exactly what was at stake when she 1:54:28.479 --> 1:54:31.439 like millions of other people, opened up her phone learned 1:54:31.479 --> 1:54:33.600 about the most recent in a string of hate crimes 1:54:33.640 --> 1:54:38.360 inspired by anti immigrant rhetoric. A very disturbed young man 1:54:38.640 --> 1:54:42.640 drove from plane oh to the Walmart and El Paso 1:54:42.760 --> 1:54:49.680 and massacred twenty two people and injured dozens others. We 1:54:49.800 --> 1:54:54.280 were very much aware of that, and I believe that 1:54:54.760 --> 1:54:59.280 is ultimately what we build. The wall seeks to provoke. Here. 1:55:00.080 --> 1:55:03.120 The shooter, who openly targeted Mexicans and believed in the 1:55:03.360 --> 1:55:06.800 Great Replacement theory, which is common among white nationalists, had 1:55:06.840 --> 1:55:09.320 posted a manifesto on h Chan before he started his 1:55:09.440 --> 1:55:12.959 killing spree. In that manifesto, he complained of a Hispanic 1:55:13.000 --> 1:55:15.880 invasion and used rhetoric that mirrored that of Colfage and 1:55:15.960 --> 1:55:20.040 his fundraising collaborator, Steve Bannon. Two thousand nineteen was the 1:55:20.120 --> 1:55:23.400 year the eight Chan shootings dominated news coverage on extremism. 1:55:23.920 --> 1:55:26.480 I found myself as the world media's go to guy 1:55:26.560 --> 1:55:29.200 for explaining what had happened. The hardest thing to get 1:55:29.240 --> 1:55:31.240 across was how much of the hate that had ended 1:55:31.280 --> 1:55:34.760 in dozens of murders had started with ship posting, people 1:55:34.840 --> 1:55:37.680 spreading racist memes and hateful jokes. Within the confines of 1:55:37.720 --> 1:55:41.760 a digital echo chamber. For Marianna, the El Paso shooting 1:55:41.840 --> 1:55:44.720 was a wake up call, hard evidence that online bullshit 1:55:44.840 --> 1:55:48.360 can turn into deadly violence. The longer she spent online 1:55:48.400 --> 1:55:51.680 reading far right conversations, the more she realized co Fage's 1:55:51.720 --> 1:55:55.200 baseless allegations might mean real danger for her in her colleagues. 1:55:55.840 --> 1:55:59.120 After we filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security 1:55:59.280 --> 1:56:03.520 and and there is publicity about that, And honestly, the 1:56:03.600 --> 1:56:07.600 timing of that was kind of good because we filed 1:56:07.640 --> 1:56:09.840 suit at the beginning of December, so by the time 1:56:09.920 --> 1:56:13.240 media picked up on it, people were really already distracted 1:56:13.320 --> 1:56:16.960 by Christmas. You know, they were holiday planning and partying 1:56:17.080 --> 1:56:21.560 and shopping and all that. So there wasn't this enormous 1:56:21.640 --> 1:56:27.400 explosion of publicity and negative backlash. But we did start 1:56:27.520 --> 1:56:32.600 getting what we call disaster tourists, people who would show 1:56:32.720 --> 1:56:35.680 up going we heard they're gonna build the wall across 1:56:35.840 --> 1:56:38.760 the Butterfly Center, show us where they're gonna build our 1:56:38.840 --> 1:56:43.400 president's big, beautiful wall. And as long as they behaved, 1:56:43.600 --> 1:56:46.040 you know, we have maps, we would take their entry 1:56:46.160 --> 1:56:48.600 fee and say, okay, now you've got to walk a 1:56:48.720 --> 1:56:52.080 quarter mile that way to the canal. That's where they're 1:56:52.080 --> 1:56:54.160 going to build it, and then walk another one point 1:56:54.240 --> 1:56:58.680 two miles to the border, to the actual border. And 1:56:58.840 --> 1:57:02.440 again it gave us a chance to educate people. And uh, 1:57:02.800 --> 1:57:04.720 there was a lot of head scratching with people going 1:57:04.800 --> 1:57:08.280 but why would they build the wall? Things seemed to 1:57:08.320 --> 1:57:10.320 be going well, but then they took a turn for 1:57:10.400 --> 1:57:14.160 the worst. Kovach had tweeted that quote. The only butterflies 1:57:14.240 --> 1:57:17.080 we saw were swarming a decomposing body surrounded by tons 1:57:17.120 --> 1:57:19.960 of rotting trash left behind by illegals. And his lies 1:57:20.000 --> 1:57:22.280 had become something of a fixture on the places where 1:57:22.320 --> 1:57:25.400 MAGA and Q and on overlap. Almost none of these 1:57:25.440 --> 1:57:28.200 people had ever visited the border, but years of propaganda 1:57:28.240 --> 1:57:31.160 had given them a fixed set of expectations about this place. 1:57:31.640 --> 1:57:34.440 They spun up ever more ridiculous fantasies, and by late 1:57:34.480 --> 1:57:37.240 twenty nineteen, some of them had even started to show 1:57:37.320 --> 1:57:42.080 up in person. About that same time, police arrested to 1:57:42.880 --> 1:57:47.280 young men with Adam Woffen in West Texas and they 1:57:47.440 --> 1:57:51.600 had been stopped and uh, you know, pulled over, and 1:57:51.760 --> 1:57:56.040 they had all kinds of weapons and munitions and grenades 1:57:56.320 --> 1:58:01.120 and uh, you know, improvised explosive devices and everything in 1:58:01.160 --> 1:58:04.360 the car, and they said they were headed to the border. 1:58:05.400 --> 1:58:11.520 Then the militia people started coming here. And um, I 1:58:11.760 --> 1:58:16.320 was here the day the first ones came. The first 1:58:16.480 --> 1:58:21.240 that we know of, came inside the building to case 1:58:21.360 --> 1:58:25.960 the joint. And sometimes I sit here at the conference 1:58:26.040 --> 1:58:29.000 table to work. Sometimes I'm in this office right here, 1:58:29.640 --> 1:58:31.560 but I can always hear what's going on at the 1:58:31.640 --> 1:58:35.160 front counter, and we have a door time. And so 1:58:36.720 --> 1:58:40.120 there are questions that people ask when their first time visitors. 1:58:41.120 --> 1:58:44.120 There are questions people ask when they're part of our tribe, 1:58:44.200 --> 1:58:48.200 when they're naturalists, when they've come for the butterflies and 1:58:48.240 --> 1:58:50.840 the birds and all of that. And then there are 1:58:50.960 --> 1:58:56.240 questions people ask that make all of your spidy senses, 1:58:57.240 --> 1:59:01.200 you know, go off. And I heard heard that kind 1:59:01.280 --> 1:59:05.560 of questioning, And whenever that happens, I get my phone 1:59:05.760 --> 1:59:10.280 open to camera and I go out there. What the 1:59:10.400 --> 1:59:14.800 question you heard? Was that kind of They were asking 1:59:14.920 --> 1:59:19.160 about the lay of the land and how they would 1:59:19.200 --> 1:59:24.800 get to the river from here, And those aren't regular questions. 1:59:24.880 --> 1:59:27.640 When most people show up. They're like, we're here on 1:59:27.760 --> 1:59:30.600 family vacation and not our way to south padre, but 1:59:30.840 --> 1:59:33.440 we heard there was a butterfly center, so we stopped. 1:59:34.280 --> 1:59:36.840 You know, so they may say, like where are the butterflies? 1:59:36.960 --> 1:59:39.760 People show up thinking we're a betterfly house, and you know, 1:59:40.440 --> 1:59:44.440 but when people immediately say like how do I get 1:59:44.480 --> 1:59:48.480 to the river from here, or explained to me where 1:59:48.520 --> 1:59:51.720 the access points are there, you're kind of like, okay, 1:59:51.800 --> 1:59:56.680 we know that's And I took a picture of them 1:59:56.760 --> 2:00:00.600 from behind, and then I went out there and I 2:00:00.720 --> 2:00:03.040 was like, you know, hello, gentlemen, can I help you? 2:00:03.280 --> 2:00:06.120 You know, and make sure they you know, it's like 2:00:06.400 --> 2:00:09.080 we are looking you in the face, we can identify you. 2:00:09.960 --> 2:00:12.280 And one of them kind of turned and walked off, 2:00:12.480 --> 2:00:14.600 and one of them stayed to talk to me, and 2:00:14.960 --> 2:00:17.160 they were lazing, well, we've just you know, never been 2:00:17.280 --> 2:00:19.560 here before, and tell us which all are all about. 2:00:19.720 --> 2:00:23.160 And it was the week of Thanksgiving and we'd actually 2:00:23.280 --> 2:00:25.680 just had our pot luck for staff and some of 2:00:25.720 --> 2:00:29.240 our members. So they're like, and you've got food, and 2:00:29.320 --> 2:00:31.760 they're like, can we have some pecan pie or have 2:00:31.840 --> 2:00:34.720 a slice of pie? But the other guy who had 2:00:34.760 --> 2:00:37.560 peeled off, I noticed him walking around. He came and 2:00:37.680 --> 2:00:41.400 looked back here. He was noticing the cameras and all 2:00:41.480 --> 2:00:44.800 the places. He made his way towards the back of 2:00:44.880 --> 2:00:48.320 the building and started the same thing, and I was like, oh, 2:00:48.480 --> 2:00:51.760 and I told Luciano, go outside, photograph all the vehicles 2:00:51.800 --> 2:00:55.040 in the parking lot, you know, get license plates, get 2:00:55.600 --> 2:00:59.400 all the identifying information that we would need. And sure enough, 2:00:59.520 --> 2:01:04.360 there were two trucks backed in with the punisher stickers 2:01:04.600 --> 2:01:08.720 and the thirteen stars in a circle and the you 2:01:08.800 --> 2:01:10.840 know that don't tread on me and this and that. 2:01:11.040 --> 2:01:13.240 One of them was from New Mexico, and I believe 2:01:13.280 --> 2:01:15.880 the other one was from I want to say, like 2:01:16.080 --> 2:01:20.360 Oregon or somewhere, but it was, yeah, I mean it 2:01:20.600 --> 2:01:26.640 was I've still got all that information. And then I 2:01:26.920 --> 2:01:31.520 uh so after they left, we downloaded the security camera 2:01:31.880 --> 2:01:35.440 video and put our photos and everything together, and I 2:01:35.600 --> 2:01:40.880 emailed everything to the commander for DPS down here as 2:01:40.960 --> 2:01:45.840 well as the Mission police chief and UM and then 2:01:45.920 --> 2:01:49.160 asked to meet with them. And of course the Mission 2:01:49.240 --> 2:01:52.320 p D guys had no idea about the adam often 2:01:52.480 --> 2:01:55.880 people being arrested in Texas. They had no idea the 2:01:55.960 --> 2:02:00.360 militia was in town. UM. And then they more and 2:02:00.440 --> 2:02:04.120 more of them kept coming, and you know, one of 2:02:04.160 --> 2:02:06.800 them would drive up and down Sherbock and his huge 2:02:06.960 --> 2:02:10.840 jacked up truck. There's a red truck with the Trump flags, 2:02:10.920 --> 2:02:13.840 and he had two big great danes that you know, 2:02:13.920 --> 2:02:17.080 and he would just be loud and annoying. He wanted 2:02:17.120 --> 2:02:21.600 everybody to know he was here on patrol and and 2:02:21.760 --> 2:02:28.880 ready to intimidate. That was disconcerting, but the police responded. 2:02:29.920 --> 2:02:34.480 They wound up having several interactions with various militia people 2:02:35.240 --> 2:02:37.920 and even taking at least two of them that we 2:02:38.040 --> 2:02:41.160 know of, into custody, and at least one of those 2:02:41.280 --> 2:02:44.720 was turned over to the FBI. The man arrested had 2:02:44.760 --> 2:02:47.560 outstanding warrants and had been flying a drone in a 2:02:47.640 --> 2:02:51.480 controlled air space. Another had been impersonating a law enforcement officer. 2:02:51.960 --> 2:02:54.800 Seeing the threat, Marianna realized that if she wanted to 2:02:54.840 --> 2:02:56.640 stay safe, he was going to have to take matters 2:02:56.680 --> 2:02:59.280 into her own hands. We don't know if it was 2:02:59.360 --> 2:03:02.360 done here or somewhere else. I assume it was not 2:03:02.560 --> 2:03:06.920 here because they didn't tell us it was here. Oh No. 2:03:07.600 --> 2:03:10.640 The mission p D officer who is their liaison with 2:03:10.800 --> 2:03:15.000 the FBI came and met with me and thanked me 2:03:15.160 --> 2:03:17.440 for sharing all of that information. I mean, we knew 2:03:17.440 --> 2:03:21.080 what hotel they were staying at. We and we had 2:03:21.400 --> 2:03:25.880 We've had to become our own sort of security and 2:03:26.040 --> 2:03:30.240 detective force because nobody else is doing it. And I 2:03:30.320 --> 2:03:34.200 think most people in communities around the country think the 2:03:34.280 --> 2:03:37.000 police know what's going on and they're out there, you know, 2:03:38.440 --> 2:03:42.120 safeguarding us, when we have learned the hard way that 2:03:42.600 --> 2:03:47.040 that is absolutely not true. Soon she was plumbing the 2:03:47.080 --> 2:03:49.360 parts of the Internet that she'd only heard mentioned on 2:03:49.440 --> 2:03:53.680 passing in the news. We were aware of Pizza Gate, Yeah, 2:03:53.960 --> 2:03:57.800 we were aware that they had declared that Hillary Clinton 2:03:57.920 --> 2:04:02.320 and associates were running as Saint anach child you know, 2:04:02.560 --> 2:04:07.160 sex ring with you know, ritual sacrifice and all kinds 2:04:07.200 --> 2:04:10.600 of other preposterous stuff out of the basement of a 2:04:10.680 --> 2:04:15.280 d C. Pizza parlor, you know where the pizza parlor 2:04:15.320 --> 2:04:18.280 didn't even have a basement, much less a Satanic ritual 2:04:18.440 --> 2:04:21.880 child sex trafficking ring. Just a few weeks after the 2:04:21.880 --> 2:04:24.680 shooting an El Paso, we build the war Broke ground 2:04:24.760 --> 2:04:28.720 on their Phase two project within sight, very much within 2:04:28.800 --> 2:04:32.400 shooting distance to the National Butterfly Center. Marna was under 2:04:32.440 --> 2:04:36.840 no illusion about the stakes. They know that they have 2:04:37.120 --> 2:04:43.240 the ability to incite violence in that way to motivate 2:04:44.640 --> 2:04:49.000 people to take action, and they use a lot of 2:04:49.120 --> 2:04:55.640 really inflammatory rhetoric. Even Steve Bannon's broadcast is called the 2:04:55.840 --> 2:05:00.400 War Room. You know, we're all at war. We're war 2:05:00.600 --> 2:05:03.800 against the cartels, and we're at war for the soul 2:05:03.880 --> 2:05:07.480 of our nation, and we're at war against the Democrats, 2:05:07.600 --> 2:05:11.280 and you know, and and now they're at war against 2:05:11.640 --> 2:05:16.040 the Butterfly Center. In addition to her intelligence gathering, she 2:05:16.160 --> 2:05:19.760 started taking steps to protect herself and her workers. They 2:05:19.800 --> 2:05:21.920 weren't exactly the sort of thing she'd expected when she 2:05:21.960 --> 2:05:23.840 took a job. What you'd hope to write grunts and 2:05:23.920 --> 2:05:27.760 talk to kids about butterflies. We had to develop some 2:05:27.960 --> 2:05:33.200 very rudimentary safety plans, like if there were a shooting, 2:05:33.720 --> 2:05:41.960 where you would shelter, how we would try to safeguard visitors, um, 2:05:42.200 --> 2:05:46.000 and other things to like the women on staff, even 2:05:46.080 --> 2:05:49.760 the guys on staff, UM, Like I never have my 2:05:49.920 --> 2:05:53.120 hair down. I always keep it up or under a 2:05:53.200 --> 2:05:55.920 hat or something. Because you just learned in basic self 2:05:56.000 --> 2:05:59.080 defense that somebody's going to grab your ponytail or your 2:05:59.200 --> 2:06:03.920 hair as the fastest, easiest way to take control of 2:06:04.040 --> 2:06:07.960 your whole body. Basically, so we just we all take 2:06:08.320 --> 2:06:13.560 um a variety of precautions, and it has radically changed 2:06:13.720 --> 2:06:16.920 the way we we operate here and the way we 2:06:17.080 --> 2:06:21.040 perceived this place which used to be. I mean, we 2:06:21.160 --> 2:06:26.800 were blissful idiots coming to work in this oasis of 2:06:28.080 --> 2:06:32.400 of flowers and butterflies every day. And you know, my 2:06:32.600 --> 2:06:35.640 children described me as snow white, that I'm out there 2:06:35.760 --> 2:06:40.360 just with the you know, the butterflies landing on me, 2:06:40.440 --> 2:06:45.240 in the hummingbirds coming up and saying hello. Luckily she 2:06:45.440 --> 2:06:48.040 wasn't alone. As soon as people heard about the threats 2:06:48.080 --> 2:06:50.560 to her in the center, she began to receive mass 2:06:50.600 --> 2:06:53.840 us of support. It turns out it's not only right 2:06:53.880 --> 2:06:56.160 wing grifters. You can summon people to remote part of 2:06:56.240 --> 2:06:59.600 southern Texas, whether Rio Grand Tristrough the reads a local 2:06:59.680 --> 2:07:02.600 switch to English and Spanish as a mood suits soon 2:07:03.160 --> 2:07:06.280 groups him across the country, from veterans to indigenous nations, 2:07:06.600 --> 2:07:11.080 reached out to office support. So first we had the 2:07:11.160 --> 2:07:16.480 water protectors and indigenous people's like the Gattisco, Marugo and 2:07:16.840 --> 2:07:23.080 Navajo and other nations. People came here and set up camp. 2:07:23.400 --> 2:07:29.000 They were good being here night and day to be 2:07:29.160 --> 2:07:32.280 our eyes and ears and a deterrent for the militia 2:07:32.600 --> 2:07:37.120 entering the property. And along with them came others like 2:07:37.440 --> 2:07:44.920 the Sierra Club Military Outdoors Program participants who also camped 2:07:44.920 --> 2:07:49.440 out here for a week. And we had the brown 2:07:49.600 --> 2:07:57.800 Berets and veterans for Peace and um even UH folks 2:07:57.960 --> 2:08:01.840 from the Socialist Party and the Communist Party. I mean, 2:08:01.880 --> 2:08:04.200 I hate to even include that since we get called 2:08:04.280 --> 2:08:09.360 pinko comyne, libtards, snowflakes and all of that, but those 2:08:09.480 --> 2:08:16.120 folks showed up willing to help in the face of 2:08:17.240 --> 2:08:21.160 UH fascism, in the face of these militia lit all 2:08:21.200 --> 2:08:24.080 this stress and the need for constant patrols and vigilants 2:08:24.120 --> 2:08:27.400 to gets told even with support. Being the center of 2:08:27.440 --> 2:08:30.320 a fabricated firestorm of lies is no fun. It wasn't 2:08:30.360 --> 2:08:33.520 just Marianna who's impacted. The constant stressed and the NonStop 2:08:33.560 --> 2:08:36.280 over flights of the Border Patrol helicopters impacted her staff 2:08:36.320 --> 2:08:39.440 as well. And then in nineteen like all bets are off. 2:08:39.440 --> 2:08:42.680 Anybody can say anything they want. They can. You know, 2:08:42.800 --> 2:08:45.320 I hate to say it, but people hit mental health 2:08:45.480 --> 2:08:49.560 days now if they pay, if they just for whatever reason, 2:08:49.600 --> 2:08:52.360 are like I can't deal with this ship. Today they 2:08:52.400 --> 2:08:58.120 don't have to come to work, and I've lost good employees. Briefly, 2:08:58.280 --> 2:09:00.680 we built the wall one an injunction and kept building 2:09:00.760 --> 2:09:04.600 their privately funded wall. Massive erosion quickly undermined it, but 2:09:04.680 --> 2:09:07.640 the International Boundary and Water Commission report on the construction 2:09:07.760 --> 2:09:10.720 wasn't completed until March, by which time we build the 2:09:10.760 --> 2:09:14.200 wall had completed three miles of wall. The consensus among 2:09:14.320 --> 2:09:17.640 hydrologists and engineers interviewed by Pro Publica for a report 2:09:17.680 --> 2:09:20.360 on the wall said that the Rio Grand had scoured 2:09:20.400 --> 2:09:23.240 against the base of the wall, causing erosion and putting 2:09:23.240 --> 2:09:26.720 the wall in danger of collapse. With its very shallow foundation, 2:09:26.840 --> 2:09:29.920 Coal Fager's wall was an immediate danger of toppling into 2:09:29.960 --> 2:09:32.960 the river. In response to this, Trump did what Trump 2:09:33.040 --> 2:09:37.040 does and took to Twitter to blame everyone else. In July, tweeted, 2:09:37.280 --> 2:09:40.240 I disagreed with doing this very small, tiny section of 2:09:40.280 --> 2:09:42.480 the wall, going on to say it was only done 2:09:42.520 --> 2:09:44.880 to make me look bad and perhaps it now doesn't 2:09:44.920 --> 2:09:47.400 even work. Should have been built like rest of wall 2:09:47.560 --> 2:09:50.240 five hundred plus miles. I should also note that he 2:09:50.360 --> 2:09:53.800 misspelled perhaps in that tweet. While Coal Flas was still 2:09:53.920 --> 2:09:56.720 reeling from this condemnation, the acting U. S. Attorney for 2:09:56.760 --> 2:09:59.640 the Southern District of New York announced indictments of Coal, 2:09:59.720 --> 2:10:03.280 Fas and Bannon for wire fraud. The charging documents themselves 2:10:03.320 --> 2:10:05.560 are an unusually compelling read. We did a couple of 2:10:05.600 --> 2:10:08.879 episodes of Behind the Bastards covering them. The whole situation 2:10:08.960 --> 2:10:11.120 would be much funnier, though, if it weren't for all 2:10:11.160 --> 2:10:14.919 of the lives that Colfage and his cronies directly threatened. Anyway, 2:10:15.280 --> 2:10:17.120 it turned out they had been taking huge sums for 2:10:17.160 --> 2:10:19.560 their own personal use, while concealing their use of funds 2:10:19.600 --> 2:10:21.640 that donors thought would be spent on the wall by 2:10:21.720 --> 2:10:25.000 creating quote sham and voices and accounts to launder donations 2:10:25.040 --> 2:10:28.400 and cover up their crimes. Initially, all four entered not 2:10:28.560 --> 2:10:31.280 guilty please. They seem to be buying time, hoping that 2:10:31.320 --> 2:10:33.920 Trump would pardon them. In the end, he did pardon 2:10:34.040 --> 2:10:36.160 Steve Bannon, and you can make of that what you will, 2:10:36.520 --> 2:10:38.320 but the others were left to hang in the wind. 2:10:38.760 --> 2:10:41.320 This April call, Fage entered a guilty plea to these 2:10:41.360 --> 2:10:46.000 and other charges. The failure of Bannon and Colfage's grift 2:10:46.080 --> 2:10:48.600 didn't stop them from using the butterfly sanctuary as a 2:10:48.680 --> 2:10:51.160 punching bag and their fundraising grants that they published to 2:10:51.200 --> 2:10:53.640 whatever sites had not gotten around to banning them yet. 2:10:54.080 --> 2:10:56.560 As right wing radicals were d platform from Facebook and 2:10:56.600 --> 2:10:59.680 Twitter in the lead up to the election, Marianna stopped 2:10:59.680 --> 2:11:02.560 getting hagged in their rants, But they didn't stop ranting. 2:11:03.240 --> 2:11:05.160 Soon as it became clear that Trump had lost the 2:11:05.240 --> 2:11:08.000 election and refused to concede it, he began to lie 2:11:08.080 --> 2:11:10.320 about the election and then attempted to overturn it by 2:11:10.400 --> 2:11:13.600 encouraging his supporters to storm the US capital. At this point, 2:11:13.680 --> 2:11:16.040 it became clearer that the same people who were fanatical 2:11:16.080 --> 2:11:19.720 about building the wall had also become entirely detached from reality. 2:11:20.240 --> 2:11:23.240 Even after Biden had been inaugurated and their lie had failed. 2:11:23.560 --> 2:11:26.360 Who's who or perhaps a Who's not in jail for sedition. 2:11:26.480 --> 2:11:29.440 Yet of MAGA grifters continued to focus their rage at 2:11:29.440 --> 2:11:31.960 the que and on adjacent fantasies they had concocted about 2:11:32.040 --> 2:11:36.440 unspecified cartel's smuggling children across a butterfly sanctuary to sexually 2:11:36.480 --> 2:11:39.240 abuse them. Sometimes, they claimed they cut the heads off 2:11:39.280 --> 2:11:41.840 of children so that the corpses were easier to transport. 2:11:42.440 --> 2:11:45.600 It's the kind of habitual, unhinged escalation that liberals and 2:11:45.680 --> 2:11:49.600 lefties on Twitter love to consume mockingly via aggregator accounts 2:11:49.640 --> 2:11:52.440 that enable mass gawking at the far right. But for 2:11:52.600 --> 2:11:55.600 Marianna it was not at all amusing. Like I didn't 2:11:55.640 --> 2:11:58.600 even know rumble existed. I didn't know what rumble was. 2:11:59.600 --> 2:12:03.160 And they and we were sent the video that Christy 2:12:03.280 --> 2:12:09.480 Hutcherson and Lindsay Something from South Carolina made here in 2:12:09.560 --> 2:12:12.520 front of the Butterfly Center. And you know, of course 2:12:12.600 --> 2:12:16.040 there's the been Berkam stuff, and you know, we don't 2:12:16.080 --> 2:12:20.240 watch War Room, but sometimes I do have to go 2:12:21.520 --> 2:12:25.280 find and film portions of those broadcasts where Steve Bannon 2:12:25.400 --> 2:12:30.320 is still bashing us and and using that platform to 2:12:30.520 --> 2:12:39.200 bolster um the lies and and you know, really stir 2:12:39.480 --> 2:12:47.360 up the the the terrible sentiment and and ultimately we 2:12:47.520 --> 2:12:51.600 fear the stochastic terrorism. Let's stop for a second and 2:12:51.680 --> 2:12:54.160 go into more detail about the people she's referencing here. 2:12:54.560 --> 2:12:57.680 Christie Hutcherson founded a group called Women Fighting for America 2:12:58.160 --> 2:13:01.880 on their websites about page they today Americans closely held 2:13:01.920 --> 2:13:04.240 beliefs in freedoms seem to be under constant attack from 2:13:04.280 --> 2:13:08.280 mainstream media, elitist academia, judicial activists, foreign aggressors, and many 2:13:08.360 --> 2:13:12.040 times elected politicians. These attacks highlight the two extremely different 2:13:12.080 --> 2:13:14.920 ideologies fighting for our country's future, where we stand by 2:13:15.000 --> 2:13:17.800 and let America become a socialist, Marxist or communist nation 2:13:17.880 --> 2:13:20.720 and give our children up to this hopeless vision. I 2:13:20.760 --> 2:13:24.360 should also note that women fighting for America actively solicit donations, 2:13:24.480 --> 2:13:28.880 which they note are not tax deductible. Hutcherson incited rioters 2:13:28.960 --> 2:13:31.760 during the January sixth insurrection and is generally what you 2:13:31.880 --> 2:13:35.320 might call a B list MAGA star. Ben Birkwam is 2:13:35.360 --> 2:13:38.480 a correspondent for Real America Voice, the network that hosts 2:13:38.560 --> 2:13:42.440 Steve Bannon's War Room podcasts. In general, the folks most 2:13:42.520 --> 2:13:45.760 focused on harassing the Butterfly Sanctuary are a lower grade 2:13:45.800 --> 2:13:49.040 of MAGA influencer than the major national names, but they 2:13:49.080 --> 2:13:52.080 all have connections higher up to those big names, and 2:13:52.160 --> 2:13:54.880 when they do land a successful line of propaganda, it 2:13:54.960 --> 2:13:58.320 tends to filter up quite efficiently to those bigger names. 2:13:59.080 --> 2:14:01.680 In January of twenty two, a year after the failed 2:14:01.720 --> 2:14:04.240 coup at the capital, some of these MAGA holdouts came 2:14:04.280 --> 2:14:06.160 to the Rio Grand Valley to pick on a target 2:14:06.200 --> 2:14:08.200 they thought they might have a better chance of taking. 2:14:08.840 --> 2:14:12.200 The Wee Stand America Border Security rally was headlined by 2:14:12.280 --> 2:14:15.280 the few remaining Q and On conspiracy theorists and supporters 2:14:15.320 --> 2:14:18.160 of former President Trump who had not gotten in trouble 2:14:18.200 --> 2:14:21.280 for the Capital stuff. In part, like the entire phenomenon, 2:14:21.360 --> 2:14:23.840 the conference was a giant grifft, but for many of 2:14:23.880 --> 2:14:26.640 the people taken up with its religious proclamations and wild 2:14:26.720 --> 2:14:29.640 lives of child trafficking and sexual abuse, it was the 2:14:29.720 --> 2:14:32.360 last chance they felt they had to stop something evil. 2:14:33.000 --> 2:14:35.560 Marianna up until that time, hadn't been aware of how 2:14:35.680 --> 2:14:39.160 serious the threats against her sanctuary were. Then a friend 2:14:39.240 --> 2:14:42.280 involved in local Republican politics reached out and told her 2:14:42.720 --> 2:14:45.880 be armed at all times or out of town. Ahead 2:14:45.920 --> 2:14:48.160 of the rally. beIN Burquam appeared in a video on 2:14:48.280 --> 2:14:51.920 Getter outside of the sanctuary holding a pair of children's shoes, 2:14:52.000 --> 2:14:55.040 which he claimed were evidence of trafficking, and stated that 2:14:55.160 --> 2:14:57.720 he and the Butterfly Center were calling on Joe Biden 2:14:57.800 --> 2:15:00.320 to shut down the border were down here are actually 2:15:00.320 --> 2:15:02.320 heading down to Benson State Park to look at the 2:15:02.440 --> 2:15:04.520 end of the wall where Joe Biden stopped building the 2:15:04.560 --> 2:15:09.120 wall and this place, the Butterfly Center. They said they 2:15:09.120 --> 2:15:11.600 were afraid they had some credible threats that something was 2:15:11.640 --> 2:15:13.320 gonna go on. So we came down here and we 2:15:13.400 --> 2:15:16.760 want to join our voices with the Butterfly Center and 2:15:16.840 --> 2:15:19.760 say we stand against the credible threats of the cartel's 2:15:20.480 --> 2:15:23.600 trafficking children through the Butterfly Center, and we demand we 2:15:23.760 --> 2:15:27.360 call on Joe Biden to close this border down to 2:15:27.480 --> 2:15:30.840 protect the butterflies, because we all care about butterflies. I mean, 2:15:31.160 --> 2:15:33.160 you know the children that are being sold. These shoes 2:15:33.200 --> 2:15:35.360 were from one of the children that was trafficked across. 2:15:35.440 --> 2:15:37.360 This wristband was from one of the children that was 2:15:37.440 --> 2:15:39.880 trafficked across. Smaller than my four year old daughter's arm. 2:15:40.400 --> 2:15:44.680 But it really matters to the Democrats are the butterflies. 2:15:45.120 --> 2:15:47.000 And so we unite with them if that's what it 2:15:47.320 --> 2:15:50.040 If that's what it's gonna take to shut this border down, 2:15:50.160 --> 2:15:53.320 we unite with them and say protect the butterflies. Joe 2:15:53.680 --> 2:15:56.640 closed down the border because we know you don't care 2:15:56.640 --> 2:15:59.680 about the kids. The same day, Piper Loomis and hutchardson 2:15:59.760 --> 2:16:02.600 the p in their own video holding the same suspiciously 2:16:02.680 --> 2:16:06.640 new looking children's shoes, and they're horrifically overexposed video. They 2:16:06.680 --> 2:16:09.960 suggested that NBC was quote more concerned about butterflies than 2:16:10.000 --> 2:16:12.560 the little children, and that the Butterfly Center was used 2:16:12.600 --> 2:16:15.200 as a route for the sex trafficking of children. Together, 2:16:15.360 --> 2:16:18.960 the video's title said they would save America. Hey everyone, 2:16:19.040 --> 2:16:21.720 this is Lindsay Piper Loomis. I'm here with my bestie, 2:16:21.920 --> 2:16:25.360 Christie Hutcherson and founder of Women Fighting for America. I 2:16:25.400 --> 2:16:28.040 went to the border with her last year for six days. 2:16:28.280 --> 2:16:30.280 We are here at the Butterfly Center. Look at the 2:16:30.320 --> 2:16:32.600 credible threat. They said, there's gonna be a big protest here. 2:16:32.840 --> 2:16:36.440 There's no protests. They're protesting. What tell them about the butterflies? 2:16:37.040 --> 2:16:39.080 Tell them why? Like, what was the big deal? I'm 2:16:39.120 --> 2:16:42.640 not really sure, but um, I got news. I've been 2:16:42.720 --> 2:16:45.320 hit by every single tabloid there is. But there's some 2:16:45.400 --> 2:16:50.040 kind of credible threat with butterflies here. UM in Mission Texas, 2:16:50.280 --> 2:16:52.680 UM from we stand America and Women Fighting for America. 2:16:52.920 --> 2:16:55.320 I can tell you Women Fighting for America loves butterflies, 2:16:55.320 --> 2:16:57.520 and we care about butterflies very much. So I wanted 2:16:57.520 --> 2:17:00.959 to come down here and see what the credible threat was, Um. 2:17:01.120 --> 2:17:03.240 And if we have to protect the butterflies, we need 2:17:03.280 --> 2:17:06.560 to protect the butterflies. I agree with that, So Biden, 2:17:06.920 --> 2:17:10.400 why don't you build the wall to protect the butterflies. Yeah, 2:17:10.600 --> 2:17:14.240 it's really that simple. UM. But my question to this 2:17:14.320 --> 2:17:18.800 administration and to the National Butterfly Museum here, why are 2:17:18.879 --> 2:17:22.160 you more concerned? Why are you more concerned about butterflies 2:17:22.480 --> 2:17:24.240 than you are than the little children who are being 2:17:24.280 --> 2:17:29.200 trafficked right behind this center, and they use the butterfly 2:17:29.720 --> 2:17:32.800 land to come up through and bring these children who 2:17:32.840 --> 2:17:35.000 are trafficked and these women who are trafficked. You know, 2:17:35.520 --> 2:17:38.280 Tom Homing yesterday was speaking on stage and was telling 2:17:38.360 --> 2:17:40.560 one of the stories where he's seen a little child 2:17:40.600 --> 2:17:42.879 where he had to rescue and that one child had 2:17:43.120 --> 2:17:46.959 over twenty two different people's d n A inside of them. 2:17:47.720 --> 2:17:51.080 That's disgusting. So as much as I care about butterflies, 2:17:51.120 --> 2:17:53.240 I can tell you this, Lindsay, I care a lot 2:17:53.360 --> 2:17:56.240 more about our children and the children who are coming 2:17:56.320 --> 2:17:59.880 up and being exploited from the different countries by the cartels. 2:18:00.320 --> 2:18:02.240 That's what I care about. So I've been telling you 2:18:02.320 --> 2:18:04.640 guys about how children are tattooed according to how they're 2:18:04.640 --> 2:18:07.320 going to be trafficked or sold into what type of trafficking, 2:18:07.440 --> 2:18:10.320 organ harvesting, sex, drug and human trafficking. How they use 2:18:10.360 --> 2:18:12.800 their body, they kill them, They use their body cavities 2:18:12.840 --> 2:18:15.240 to haul drugs across that border until the bodies start 2:18:15.320 --> 2:18:18.760 decaying and they find the bodies decaped, decapitated. Told you 2:18:18.800 --> 2:18:21.720 about the rape trees. But here we actually have a 2:18:21.800 --> 2:18:24.720 shoe from and this actually this is this is what 2:18:25.040 --> 2:18:27.280 so lindsay, this is a little bracelet and there's a 2:18:27.320 --> 2:18:29.680 little how much money it costs for this person to 2:18:29.720 --> 2:18:33.320 be brought aside um to to America from the cartels. 2:18:33.640 --> 2:18:36.160 The other thing is is that the cartels when they're 2:18:36.160 --> 2:18:38.720 getting ready to move children, they call them tickets. So 2:18:38.840 --> 2:18:41.200 they have no regard for life. They don't care. They'll 2:18:41.240 --> 2:18:42.760 throw them in the river, they'll leave them in the 2:18:42.840 --> 2:18:46.440 desert to die. Um, and they call them tickets. That's 2:18:46.520 --> 2:18:49.480 that's how disgusting this whole thing is. And America needs 2:18:49.560 --> 2:18:52.240 to wake up and understand we are at a war 2:18:52.440 --> 2:18:54.480 with the cartels. We are at the war to save 2:18:54.520 --> 2:18:57.120 our children, and every so much. Yeah, and every states 2:18:57.120 --> 2:18:59.480 the border state and South Carolina is ranked one of 2:18:59.480 --> 2:19:02.120 the top and then nation for trafficking. Lindsay Piper limits 2:19:02.160 --> 2:19:05.800 with Christie Hudgerson. Together, we're saving America. God bless. But 2:19:05.959 --> 2:19:24.760 this time they didn't stop with posting. On the day 2:19:24.800 --> 2:19:28.280 he was inaugurated, Biden signed an executive order re sending 2:19:28.320 --> 2:19:31.840 Trump's emergency Declaration at the southern border and ending some 2:19:32.040 --> 2:19:34.320 use of the d D funding. Trump had relied upon 2:19:34.560 --> 2:19:38.320 as an end run around accountability, but he didn't as 2:19:38.360 --> 2:19:41.959 he promised he would stop building immediately during the Biden 2:19:42.520 --> 2:19:47.720 Obama administration, Trump campaigned on um build that wall. Are 2:19:47.760 --> 2:19:50.520 you willing to tear that wall down? No, there will 2:19:50.600 --> 2:19:54.920 not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration 2:19:55.440 --> 2:19:58.720 number one. Like so much else, Biden didn't live up 2:19:58.720 --> 2:20:01.080 to his promises on the border. There have been some 2:20:01.280 --> 2:20:05.199 small victories for basic decency, but Biden's record is deeply mixed. 2:20:06.080 --> 2:20:09.400 He's reunited hundreds of children with their families, the ended 2:20:09.480 --> 2:20:13.800 court negotiations about a financial settlement for them. Migrant apprehensions 2:20:13.879 --> 2:20:17.279 climbed to one point seven million of record in fiscal 2:20:17.360 --> 2:20:21.040 year twenty one, but they also reflected an unusually high 2:20:21.120 --> 2:20:24.000 rate of adults attempting to cross the border multiple times 2:20:25.240 --> 2:20:29.320 that's because Biden's administration defended Trump's use of Title forty two, 2:20:30.080 --> 2:20:32.080 part of a seventy seven year old law called the 2:20:32.120 --> 2:20:35.600 Public Health Service Act, which has been interpreted to allow 2:20:35.720 --> 2:20:38.879 CVP to release migrants back into Mexico without booking them. 2:20:39.520 --> 2:20:42.160 Often this means they turned right back around across again 2:20:42.640 --> 2:20:47.400 in a more remote and often more deadly place. Biden 2:20:47.440 --> 2:20:49.440 hasn't lived up to his promises on the wall either. 2:20:50.240 --> 2:20:53.680 Marianna showed us a pile of wall sections, essentially giant 2:20:53.720 --> 2:20:57.000 metal poles, just a little shorter than Trump war. You 2:20:57.040 --> 2:21:00.120 could be forgiven for thinking they're identical, but these is, 2:21:00.360 --> 2:21:04.400 she explained, well, not technically wall. And you see the 2:21:04.520 --> 2:21:07.680 border wall that was being constructed there. Some of it 2:21:07.800 --> 2:21:12.040 has the tall ballards with the anti climb plate that's 2:21:13.160 --> 2:21:22.680 and then the short levy repair and guardrail. Well, I 2:21:22.800 --> 2:21:25.360 snapped moody black and white photos of the wall from 2:21:25.400 --> 2:21:27.720 on top of the levee, as I have all along 2:21:27.800 --> 2:21:29.960 the hundreds of miles of landscape that it cuts through 2:21:30.040 --> 2:21:32.560 like an open wound. Robot went down to see who 2:21:32.640 --> 2:21:35.080 made these new pieces of the Biden barrier, but we 2:21:35.160 --> 2:21:38.080 didn't have much luck finding a label the wall segments 2:21:38.160 --> 2:21:41.280 lay out in giant palettes surrounded by construction debris and dirt. 2:21:41.560 --> 2:21:43.480 Every palette is labeled, and so will are all the 2:21:43.520 --> 2:21:46.840 shipping containers, but the wall materials themselves had no clear 2:21:46.920 --> 2:21:49.880 maker's mark on them. As we walked back along the 2:21:49.959 --> 2:21:52.520 dirt road, we asked Marianna about the video that brought 2:21:52.600 --> 2:21:54.760 us here in the first place. If you haven't seen it, 2:21:54.840 --> 2:21:58.199 it's a video of Kimberly low along Odds. Marga congressional 2:21:58.280 --> 2:22:01.840 candidate from Virginia, really is an interesting figure. She started 2:22:01.879 --> 2:22:05.360 out as a Sanders backer in sixteen and has radicalized 2:22:05.520 --> 2:22:07.520 sense to such a degree that most of her local 2:22:07.640 --> 2:22:10.000 MAGA people want nothing to do with her. Some of 2:22:10.080 --> 2:22:13.000 them think she's some kind of double agent. Audio from 2:22:13.040 --> 2:22:15.560 the incident makes it clear why people might view Kimberly 2:22:15.640 --> 2:22:19.320 as unhinged. We're not here to cause any problems, I'm sorry. No, 2:22:19.640 --> 2:22:23.680 you are here to promote your agenda, and your agenda 2:22:23.840 --> 2:22:27.840 is not welcome here. So you're not for keeping the 2:22:27.920 --> 2:22:30.840 illgals out. So you're not that has all these four 2:22:30.879 --> 2:22:34.320 people in the humanitarian crisis. That's what we're here. So 2:22:34.480 --> 2:22:38.640 you're next trafficked and righted them that is not at 2:22:38.680 --> 2:22:42.360 all what this is about. We have girl scouts spend 2:22:42.400 --> 2:22:47.560 the night here. That's how safe it is. Yeah, I 2:22:47.680 --> 2:22:50.840 have children in the car. It's safe here. Anyway, We're 2:22:50.879 --> 2:22:53.080 not here to it now. You're you're here to make 2:22:53.160 --> 2:22:57.200 a show and to promote your agenda. So you can 2:22:57.320 --> 2:23:00.320 leave now, thank you for leaving, now, thank you? All right, 2:23:00.520 --> 2:23:03.600 But I'm sorry that you're okay with children being great. 2:23:03.760 --> 2:23:06.280 I'm not okay with any of that, and I thank you. 2:23:06.400 --> 2:23:10.320 Your bullshit is a big problem. I'm going to go 2:23:10.480 --> 2:23:13.080 help the world. I got a really nasty person. We'll 2:23:13.160 --> 2:23:17.480 let Marianna explain what happened. So I was sitting here, 2:23:17.560 --> 2:23:21.040 actually at the conference table, and my son was at 2:23:21.080 --> 2:23:24.480 the front counter. He doesn't work here, but he was 2:23:24.600 --> 2:23:29.280 covering for a staff member who was outsick. And as 2:23:29.320 --> 2:23:31.560 I was saying, you hear things that are like m 2:23:33.000 --> 2:23:35.680 you know, So I was on a conference call. I 2:23:35.760 --> 2:23:38.200 had my headphones in, but my son came over and 2:23:38.280 --> 2:23:40.960 he gave me a note and it said, you know, 2:23:42.120 --> 2:23:46.400 this woman says she's running for Congress and has her 2:23:46.480 --> 2:23:50.360 secret service agent with her, and you know, I thought 2:23:50.480 --> 2:23:52.680 that was strange. But then I you know, I'm still 2:23:52.760 --> 2:23:55.280 on this call, but I you know, I took my 2:23:55.560 --> 2:24:02.120 headphones out so I could hear them. And the one woman, Michelle, 2:24:02.520 --> 2:24:05.600 was claiming to be secret service. And I mean, I've 2:24:05.640 --> 2:24:08.280 had people like bettor Work when he was a congressman 2:24:08.320 --> 2:24:11.960 come visit Michelle Beckley, who's a state representative. I mean, 2:24:12.400 --> 2:24:17.520 I've had I've had people come visit and they don't 2:24:17.560 --> 2:24:21.280 have secret service, you know. So I knew that that 2:24:21.600 --> 2:24:25.000 was not true, that this woman was not secret service. 2:24:25.879 --> 2:24:30.120 And the congressional rep I asked my son get her name, 2:24:31.000 --> 2:24:34.279 and he did, and I just did, you know, literally 2:24:34.400 --> 2:24:38.440 like one or two minute Internet search for her, and 2:24:38.879 --> 2:24:45.120 it was immediately apparent that she was a MAGA candidate. 2:24:46.040 --> 2:24:49.840 And my son said, they want us to open the 2:24:49.920 --> 2:24:52.760 back seventy for them, but they don't want to pay admission. 2:24:54.240 --> 2:24:57.760 And on her Facebook page, I could see their Facebook 2:24:57.840 --> 2:25:00.400 live stream from just like five minutes or or where 2:25:00.400 --> 2:25:03.640 they had driven down Sherbock to the gate where we 2:25:03.720 --> 2:25:05.680 all have been and seeing, you know, we have a great, 2:25:05.760 --> 2:25:09.680 big private property no trespassing sign, and then they went 2:25:09.800 --> 2:25:13.840 up on the levy and interacted with the Texas National 2:25:13.920 --> 2:25:18.039 Guard there. Her video ended before that, but a reporter 2:25:18.200 --> 2:25:21.039 with stars and stripes. I know, was on the levee 2:25:21.680 --> 2:25:26.760 with National Guard and interacted with Kimberly and Michelle. So 2:25:26.879 --> 2:25:31.240 they trespassed onto our property. Then they came here demanding 2:25:31.360 --> 2:25:35.920 that they be granted access without paying admission and declared, 2:25:36.080 --> 2:25:39.160 just right up front, we want to go see the 2:25:39.360 --> 2:25:43.200 river and the illegals crossing on the rafts to the 2:25:43.280 --> 2:25:47.120 Butterfly Center. The rafts they were talking about, we're referencing 2:25:47.160 --> 2:25:50.120 a doctored image circulating around the right wing conspiracy web. 2:25:50.360 --> 2:25:51.960 We stood at the dock in the image. On that 2:25:52.080 --> 2:25:56.120 afternoon there were no rafts. Marianna decided to try and 2:25:56.240 --> 2:26:00.240 talk the two women down, so, um, you know, I, 2:26:00.440 --> 2:26:04.120 I put my phone on record, carried it out there. 2:26:04.160 --> 2:26:07.760 I got to business cards because it is my job 2:26:07.840 --> 2:26:10.880 to be professional and grieve these people when they come. 2:26:11.680 --> 2:26:14.120 So I went out there and I said hello, and 2:26:14.520 --> 2:26:16.520 the rest of it is history. As they say, you 2:26:16.640 --> 2:26:21.840 have that audio or um you know of of of 2:26:22.000 --> 2:26:24.280 me saying I know who you are and what you're 2:26:24.360 --> 2:26:28.800 up to. And I knew then it was a setup 2:26:30.480 --> 2:26:33.600 for someone to come here and say those things and 2:26:33.720 --> 2:26:38.520 be doing their own uh you know, sort of project 2:26:38.720 --> 2:26:49.840 Veritas Facebook live stream Border Adventure from Virginia. As they say, 2:26:49.920 --> 2:26:53.200 none of it smelled right, you know, that didn't work, 2:26:53.360 --> 2:26:56.200 so she asked them to leave. Well, it was when 2:26:56.240 --> 2:26:57.840 I told them they needed to leave and if they 2:26:57.879 --> 2:26:59.720 weren't going to leave, you know, we would call the 2:27:00.000 --> 2:27:02.240 e And I told him. I gestured to my son, 2:27:02.400 --> 2:27:03.960 just do it, you know, go ahead and call the 2:27:04.240 --> 2:27:08.000 call the police, which he did, and they were like, no, no, 2:27:08.200 --> 2:27:10.280 we're leaving, We're leading. They went out the front doors, 2:27:10.320 --> 2:27:13.520 but then they stopped, so I opened the door behind them, 2:27:13.600 --> 2:27:16.840 like keep it moving, ladies, you know you have to leave. 2:27:18.040 --> 2:27:21.080 And I was focused on Michelle who was on my left, 2:27:21.160 --> 2:27:26.359 who was again saying she was Secret Service and laughing 2:27:26.440 --> 2:27:30.640 at her. When I turned and Kimberly was on this 2:27:30.800 --> 2:27:33.520 side of me and had her phone up like this, 2:27:34.480 --> 2:27:37.000 so I didn't know if she was taking photos or filming, 2:27:38.360 --> 2:27:41.200 but we talked about how everybody now has their own triggers. 2:27:41.400 --> 2:27:43.800 I do not want my photo taken. I do not 2:27:44.080 --> 2:27:46.520 want anyone filming me. I don't I don't want any 2:27:46.600 --> 2:27:50.480 of that because of how cold Fasion, Bannon and their 2:27:50.520 --> 2:27:54.320 fake news outlets and everything else have used my image 2:27:54.680 --> 2:27:59.880 and have put a target on my back. So she's 2:28:00.000 --> 2:28:03.640 standing there going we're here at the Butterfly Sanctuary or 2:28:03.720 --> 2:28:06.879 whatever she called it, and I'm with this not nice lady, 2:28:07.040 --> 2:28:09.240 and I was like, oh no, and I just put 2:28:09.400 --> 2:28:13.320 my hand up to block her from photographing or filming 2:28:13.360 --> 2:28:16.359 me or to swat it away. And then I immediately 2:28:16.600 --> 2:28:21.160 turned back towards the doors to retreat inside the building. 2:28:21.640 --> 2:28:23.680 But I didn't make it inside the building. I was 2:28:23.840 --> 2:28:26.959 flat on my ass on the ground, and I didn't 2:28:27.040 --> 2:28:30.800 know if Michelle had grabbed me from behind, or if 2:28:31.000 --> 2:28:35.120 Kimberly had uh pushed me or whatever. But then my 2:28:35.360 --> 2:28:37.960 son busted out of the building and was sort of 2:28:38.160 --> 2:28:42.200 over me um and I'm trying to get up off 2:28:42.240 --> 2:28:44.400 the ground, and all this is caught on the video 2:28:44.840 --> 2:28:48.000 camera from the building. In a previous video, the women 2:28:48.040 --> 2:28:50.880 had indicated that they were armed, which is generally a 2:28:51.000 --> 2:28:53.560 safe assumption when MAGA type show up accusing you of 2:28:53.680 --> 2:28:58.200 child trafficking. The situation was rapidly growing more dangerous. My 2:28:58.400 --> 2:29:02.959 son feared for my life. He thought Michelle was going 2:29:03.000 --> 2:29:05.800 to stamp my face or my neck or my head. 2:29:06.520 --> 2:29:11.480 And she's a big girl, and and at that point 2:29:11.600 --> 2:29:14.400 Kimberly ran to her car. Somewhere in the midst of 2:29:14.440 --> 2:29:17.520 all that, she she fled to her car, where she 2:29:17.640 --> 2:29:22.120 had her three children waiting because this place is so 2:29:22.320 --> 2:29:26.520 dangerous and lawless and and everything. She brought her three 2:29:26.760 --> 2:29:33.440 children here for her opportunity to, you know, interact with 2:29:33.600 --> 2:29:36.760 cartel or whatever. I mean, it's just the whole thing 2:29:36.959 --> 2:29:42.240 just gets more bizarre. And uh. And Michelle at that 2:29:42.320 --> 2:29:45.560 point had taken my phone, and I was just telling her, 2:29:45.640 --> 2:29:47.880 you're not leaving with my phone, giving my phone back, 2:29:48.280 --> 2:29:52.960 while Kimberly is again live streaming from her car, yelling 2:29:53.000 --> 2:29:56.520 at Michelle to come get in the car. Uh. Michelle 2:29:56.600 --> 2:30:01.160 did walk to the car declare, she's not bothering me 2:30:02.760 --> 2:30:06.760 about me. Um. But my son had run to close 2:30:06.840 --> 2:30:09.440 the front gate because he didn't want them. I mean, 2:30:09.680 --> 2:30:13.480 he had just called. Unbeknownst to us, there was a 2:30:13.600 --> 2:30:18.000 visitor in the parking lot who had also dial and 2:30:18.200 --> 2:30:20.840 you guys have been here. There's police on the corner. 2:30:20.959 --> 2:30:24.600 There's police, right, I mean, there's police everywhere. So my 2:30:24.760 --> 2:30:28.000 son ran to close the gate one so they couldn't 2:30:28.080 --> 2:30:30.440 leave with my phone too, so they would be here 2:30:30.520 --> 2:30:33.600 when the police got here. But then the police didn't come, 2:30:34.720 --> 2:30:39.440 and as she fled the property, she's filming herself and 2:30:39.640 --> 2:30:46.600 she's gunning it the car as she races towards the gate, screaming, 2:30:46.640 --> 2:30:48.120 get the funk out of my way, Get the funk 2:30:48.160 --> 2:30:49.960 out of my way, and then she swerves like this 2:30:50.160 --> 2:30:54.200 at my son, who had to leap to the ground 2:30:54.400 --> 2:30:57.240 out of the way to avoid being hit by her 2:30:57.320 --> 2:31:00.600 red range rover. The center was full of visitors, some 2:31:00.720 --> 2:31:03.600 of them called nine, but no one stepped into help 2:31:04.080 --> 2:31:08.760 prior to this experience. Yes, I would have expected our visitors, 2:31:10.400 --> 2:31:16.280 any decent human being, to respond to a woman's screaming, help, help, 2:31:16.800 --> 2:31:21.960 help me, please, please help, but nobody did, only my son. 2:31:22.680 --> 2:31:25.200 At first, they didn't fully grasp what was happening, but 2:31:25.360 --> 2:31:28.760 soon Marianna had worked out who her attacker was. And 2:31:28.920 --> 2:31:32.400 so I relayed all of that to my boss and 2:31:32.680 --> 2:31:37.360 to the police, and uh, you know, my boss was 2:31:37.480 --> 2:31:40.000 kind of like, well, do whatever you want. If you 2:31:40.080 --> 2:31:42.400 feel like you need to close next weekend, then close 2:31:42.520 --> 2:31:45.800 next weekend. So we did. We closed that Friday, Saturday, 2:31:45.879 --> 2:31:50.600 and Sunday, and then we came back in the next Monday, 2:31:51.560 --> 2:31:55.520 and that's when we saw and people started sending us 2:31:55.600 --> 2:32:03.359 the videos that Berkewam and Hutcherson had filmed here, presumably 2:32:03.440 --> 2:32:06.600 on Sunday, And there's probably a lot more stuff out 2:32:06.640 --> 2:32:10.879 there that we haven't seen. After leaving the Butterfly Center 2:32:10.959 --> 2:32:13.400 one day, we went for a walk towards some nearby 2:32:13.440 --> 2:32:16.600 trailer parks. They're full of people who the locals called 2:32:16.640 --> 2:32:20.120 Winter Texans, people from the colder parts of the US 2:32:20.160 --> 2:32:22.160 who spend a few months in trailer homes on the 2:32:22.240 --> 2:32:24.680 border so they can wear shorts in March and not 2:32:24.800 --> 2:32:28.359 pay expensive heating bills. We bumped into some Winter Texans 2:32:28.520 --> 2:32:30.200 who are on their way to a bird sanctuary we 2:32:30.320 --> 2:32:33.200 just visited. They said they'd missed their usual trips to 2:32:33.240 --> 2:32:37.080 the Butterfly Center their friends in Minnesota. They said, I 2:32:37.160 --> 2:32:39.120 can believe that they would go down to the border 2:32:42.879 --> 2:32:46.320 in Minnesota. Is not reality as to what's going on 2:32:46.400 --> 2:32:52.720 in the border down here. Um, people don't understand. You know, 2:32:52.879 --> 2:32:59.280 all the world wire you coming down and really says 2:32:59.320 --> 2:33:04.200 the idea of sports of people attacking you know, it's 2:33:04.280 --> 2:33:07.320 like the people coming out of your brain right now. 2:33:07.520 --> 2:33:10.480 I mean, that's that's the impression they get, and we 2:33:10.640 --> 2:33:17.200 say we go. They do their best to help change perceptions, 2:33:17.240 --> 2:33:19.440 they said, And then we try to We try to 2:33:19.520 --> 2:33:23.200 do as much as we can to get factual information 2:33:23.520 --> 2:33:26.920 back home to people with questions and stuff like that. 2:33:27.560 --> 2:33:30.800 We worked, Um maybe well we haven't done the last 2:33:30.840 --> 2:33:34.480 few years because I couldn't. But yeah, um, four or 2:33:34.560 --> 2:33:36.640 five years ago we were working with the rest of 2:33:36.680 --> 2:33:40.200 It Center here with topic charities, and there were some 2:33:40.320 --> 2:33:42.840 men where allow of the people could go over and 2:33:42.920 --> 2:33:45.000 on it. The other thing, I come, I don't think 2:33:45.080 --> 2:33:48.800 that people realize because of the river there's not a 2:33:49.000 --> 2:33:53.640 straight line, or that you can't just build a wall, 2:33:55.320 --> 2:33:59.960 and that people live in their houses south of the wall. Yeah, 2:34:00.440 --> 2:34:04.280 you know, and people's farms are selves of the wall. Yeah, 2:34:04.440 --> 2:34:09.560 sometimes there's sometimes there isn't. Everywhere we go along the border, 2:34:09.720 --> 2:34:13.240 we see division. Locals are losing places they love, and 2:34:13.320 --> 2:34:16.000 people from a long way away of performing a charade 2:34:16.160 --> 2:34:19.560 for personal and political gain. But it's not all that 2:34:19.680 --> 2:34:23.000 cut and dried. One taco shop we walked past has 2:34:23.040 --> 2:34:26.879 a special parking spot reserve for DHS employees. A trailer 2:34:26.959 --> 2:34:29.720 park we drive by has sim blue line flags. Fine, 2:34:30.400 --> 2:34:33.360 despite my best attempts at putting the clueless foreigner card 2:34:33.879 --> 2:34:36.600 when we call them. They won't tell me why they 2:34:36.640 --> 2:34:39.400 have the flags or what they mean. Some of the 2:34:39.520 --> 2:34:41.760 National Guards troops we spoke to have been out of 2:34:41.840 --> 2:34:44.680 work before they came down to the border. Actually I 2:34:44.720 --> 2:34:48.840 didn't have a job. Okay, give me, and I'm planning 2:34:48.840 --> 2:34:54.120 to say, You're like, okay, yeah, you get active, dud, 2:34:54.120 --> 2:35:00.640 you pay while you're somewhere where it's like it because border. 2:35:03.440 --> 2:35:06.959 Everyone on the border wants to feel safe, including Marianna. 2:35:07.560 --> 2:35:09.800 But the reason the border is remarkable at all is 2:35:09.800 --> 2:35:12.720 because so many people have to cross it. Some cross 2:35:12.720 --> 2:35:16.039 will work, some cross for fun, some cross to change 2:35:16.080 --> 2:35:20.119 their lives. But without people, the border doesn't have any significance. 2:35:20.720 --> 2:35:24.560 For Mariana. Without people, she can't even enjoy the quiet 2:35:24.640 --> 2:35:28.680 calm in the sanctuary. She hopes, she says, they can 2:35:28.720 --> 2:35:31.800 reopen suit. I mean, honestly, I hope it doesn't last 2:35:31.840 --> 2:35:34.640 a whole lot longer, because we all miss one another. 2:35:35.879 --> 2:35:42.680 We miss uh being here. You know, really, of all 2:35:42.760 --> 2:35:45.240 the jobs that a person can have in the world, 2:35:45.840 --> 2:35:51.000 one where you get to interact with wildlife and garden 2:35:51.240 --> 2:35:55.200 and breathe fresh air and you don't feel the rain 2:35:55.360 --> 2:35:59.000 on your face. I mean, it's pretty awesome. And uh 2:35:59.160 --> 2:36:03.640 and interact with people who are absolutely thrilled and fascinated, 2:36:04.520 --> 2:36:09.960 especially the children, just delighted, gleeful about their interactions here. 2:36:11.000 --> 2:36:14.480 We want to get back to that, but we have 2:36:14.800 --> 2:36:19.400 to have more, Um, we have to have more help 2:36:19.480 --> 2:36:24.119 before we can do that. We we need professional guidance 2:36:24.280 --> 2:36:30.199 beyond what we've received three years ago when the first 2:36:30.480 --> 2:36:35.560 wave of community defense and mutual aid hit the ground. Here. 2:36:35.840 --> 2:36:38.400 Mariana doesn't know and she'll feel safe, but even with 2:36:38.440 --> 2:36:41.120 the center poise to reopen as we write this, she 2:36:41.320 --> 2:36:45.480 isn't secure yet. You know. I feel like it's a 2:36:45.600 --> 2:36:49.920 cat and mouse thing, and they're the cat and wear 2:36:50.000 --> 2:36:54.480 the mouse, and that they are going to continue to 2:36:54.680 --> 2:37:00.480 come back again and again until something really bad that happens. 2:37:01.720 --> 2:37:05.840 I think it's almost a challenge maybe at this point, 2:37:06.320 --> 2:37:13.080 from what I can tell about their their psyche. You know. Um, 2:37:13.160 --> 2:37:16.879 it goes right back to that winning. You know, Steve 2:37:16.959 --> 2:37:21.800 Bannon's no loser. He's not used to losing, and anything 2:37:22.000 --> 2:37:29.560 short of achieving his goal, whatever that may be, is 2:37:29.600 --> 2:37:33.119 not winning. If you've made it this far, you're probably 2:37:33.120 --> 2:37:36.800 wondering what you can do to help. If, like most Americans, 2:37:37.440 --> 2:37:38.960 you live a long way from the southern border, and 2:37:39.000 --> 2:37:42.080 I've never visited. It might seem strange take up and 2:37:42.160 --> 2:37:45.480 travel there to meet a nice lady and talk about butterflies, 2:37:45.800 --> 2:37:48.040 Q and on, while you have to drive past soldiers 2:37:48.080 --> 2:37:50.720 in fatigued with assault rifles to look at her pollinated gun. 2:37:51.360 --> 2:37:53.560 But Marianna says that even the small acts of solid 2:37:53.640 --> 2:37:56.960 arcty make a huge difference. Even people just sending really 2:37:57.200 --> 2:38:01.880 nice email or letters is so good. We'll probably have 2:38:02.000 --> 2:38:05.600 a wall of that when we get back, because the 2:38:05.720 --> 2:38:09.080 flip side of that is the hate mail, the ugly messages, 2:38:09.320 --> 2:38:13.280 the death threats, the voicemails that are so horrible. So 2:38:13.480 --> 2:38:16.760 do you hear from people that do support us and 2:38:16.959 --> 2:38:20.000 stand with us and feel like what's happening is horrible. 2:38:21.280 --> 2:38:24.200 People who write to say, you know, I told my 2:38:25.000 --> 2:38:28.880 quilting circle about what's happening at the Butterfly Center, or 2:38:29.480 --> 2:38:32.800 you know, I mean and uh and we're gonna make 2:38:32.840 --> 2:38:35.000 a quilt for you, or you know whatever it is, 2:38:35.240 --> 2:38:39.920 you know, Um, it helps, It really does, And then 2:38:40.920 --> 2:38:47.280 they can share our story because it's not just about 2:38:47.360 --> 2:38:51.160 the Butterfly Center. It's about what's happening to our democracy. 2:38:51.440 --> 2:38:59.480 It's about how these operations work um to manipulate people 2:38:59.720 --> 2:39:02.680 with lies. I don't I don't want to call it 2:39:02.879 --> 2:39:07.480 conspiracy theories or misinformation or any of that anymore. They're 2:39:07.600 --> 2:39:13.600 just lies, and people need to start to understand that, 2:39:13.800 --> 2:39:18.320 whether it's about COVID or the Trucker Convoys, or trans 2:39:18.520 --> 2:39:25.000 Kids or the Butterfly Center. Hey, we'll be back Monday 2:39:25.120 --> 2:39:28.039 with more episodes every week from now until the heat 2:39:28.080 --> 2:39:30.440 Death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is a 2:39:30.480 --> 2:39:33.320 production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool 2:39:33.400 --> 2:39:36.000 Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, 2:39:36.200 --> 2:39:37.920 or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 2:39:37.959 --> 2:39:41.120 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:39:41.160 --> 2:39:43.840 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 2:39:43.879 --> 2:39:47.080 cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.