Speaker 1: Alzon Media.
Speaker 2: I ain't coming that a big one. Are welcome back
Speaker 2: to it could happen here. A podcast that was originally
Speaker 2: about the theoretical possibility of mass civil conflict and coming
Speaker 2: militarized authoritarian regime and is now about the reality of
Speaker 2: that happening to different communities at different speeds all around
Speaker 2: the country, and right now Los Angeles is where we're
Speaker 2: focused on. Yeah, as you've probably heard from the news
Speaker 2: or from the episode we did earlier this week, Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: California has been in a state of what the President
Speaker 2: declared insurrection, what most people would declare fairly small protests
Speaker 2: based on the overall size of the city, topping out
Speaker 2: at maybe four to six thousand people on Sunday, and
Speaker 2: the President is called a National Guard, He's called in
Speaker 2: the Marines, and we called in James Stout to head
Speaker 2: up to Los Angeles and look at the scene. James,
Speaker 2: that's right, Yeah, me the alternative to the United States
Speaker 2: Marine Corps. Yeah, So I've just got back from LA
Speaker 2: I was there on Monday night, obviously covering the protests.
Speaker 3: I got there mid morning, I guess, but at that
Speaker 3: point the SEIU were having a rally. Yeah, the rally
Speaker 3: was for the release of David Huerta, who was released
Speaker 3: on bail. I believe after that, like not while the
Speaker 3: rally was going on, and from there, like I basically
Speaker 3: sort of started walking around downtown La. I guess there
Speaker 3: was this really weird kind of phenomenon where you'd like
Speaker 3: go down to a place and you'd see one hundred
Speaker 3: people shouting cops, fed troops, or some combination of the three.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Pretty often around the Federal building, it's weird. At the
Speaker 3: front entrance, like where the entrance was, you had like
Speaker 3: a initial presence of like the front line were National
Speaker 3: Guard with maybe it looked like it was maybe like
Speaker 3: NCOs or something. You had loaded service weapons, and then
Speaker 3: other soldiers had shields in it and like old school
Speaker 3: wooden button sticks, right, just just a long long ass stick.
Speaker 3: Basically around the other side you had LAPD at the
Speaker 3: front and National Guard behind them, and then across the
Speaker 3: street from that you had California Highway Patrol and their
Speaker 3: riot squad. And then in another location, I think it
Speaker 3: was at City Hall, you had La Sheriff's so literally
Speaker 3: every agency that can claim any jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There was also a DHSRPF FPS, Like literally literally every
Speaker 3: every federal and local agency that could send cops sent cops.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there were more
Speaker 3: than a thousand cops, Like maybe it was hundreds, But
Speaker 3: it was hard to get a handle on because every
Speaker 3: street you went down, every corner you turned, you ran
Speaker 3: into another wall of cops right of ten or fifteen
Speaker 3: cars behind them. They were constantly driving around until you know,
Speaker 3: I stayed until about two in the morning, and it's
Speaker 3: protest obviously, like as I'll explain later, kind of escalated,
Speaker 3: I guess, and there's police violence escalated. In the evening,
Speaker 3: you'd see these convoys of cop cars just hauling ass
Speaker 3: through downtown periodically every hour or so, like running lights
Speaker 3: and sirens, like a dozen or so cop cars just
Speaker 3: booking it through downtown. Yeah, so it's very hard to
Speaker 3: get a sense of like who they are, what they
Speaker 3: were doing. They closed all the freeway entrances and exits,
Speaker 3: which like I took the I took a train up
Speaker 3: trying to be a mass transit enjoyer, and it made
Speaker 3: it a fucking nightmare to get anywhere, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 3: makes sense, Like anyone who lives or works in downtown
Speaker 3: LA will have experienced this already, but like it's and
Speaker 3: then throughout the fuck in the evening, right, you've got
Speaker 3: people coming up to you being like, Hey, I live
Speaker 3: in little Tokyo. I can't get back because there's a
Speaker 3: wall of cops and they keep throwing tea, gescalades, any suggestions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't get home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like an unfortunately, like you know, not much we
Speaker 3: can suggest. And then on top of that, because it's
Speaker 3: southern California, you know the United States, really people who
Speaker 3: can't afford a place to live asleeping on the street
Speaker 3: and they're getting TS two and they're getting flashbag too.
Speaker 3: I remember like we were up by LAPDHQ at one
Speaker 3: point and I seen this guy sleeping on a bench
Speaker 3: and the cops were pushing up the street and I
Speaker 3: was just trying to sort of take a position where
Speaker 3: I could take a photograph, you know, and I saw
Speaker 3: him sleeping and I was like, oh, should I wait,
Speaker 3: wake this guy? You know, I don't want him to
Speaker 3: get a nasty surprise and wake up to a wall
Speaker 3: of robocops. And at that point the cops opened up
Speaker 3: with whatever they were shooting at that time, forty milimeter,
Speaker 3: thirty seven millimeter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of what I've heard is a mix of
Speaker 2: pepper balls and yeah forty milimeter yeah, yeah, grenades and
Speaker 2: rubber rounds, some foam, Yeah, some foam.
Speaker 3: I found some Safari Land thirty seven milimeter foam casings
Speaker 3: on the ground.
Speaker 2: Oh nice. Yeah, and yeah, mostly what it was.
Speaker 3: You know, LAPD have those green forty milimeters launchers with
Speaker 3: the eotex on top, and that was what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks down the barrel of a few times.
Speaker 3: And so if the evening went on right, you'd get
Speaker 3: larger groups and they'd become like, you know, more vocal,
Speaker 3: I guess in their protesting. At one point, people having
Speaker 3: like a street dance party. Occasionally people would would throw
Speaker 3: a firework or set off a firework, and then sporadically
Speaker 3: and like without really any clear kind of signal, at
Speaker 3: some point clearly the whole area was declared an lawful assembly.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing it's very hard to actually hear when they're
Speaker 3: saying stuff on the l RAD unless it's directly like
Speaker 3: pointed at you. But I heard some signed kind of
Speaker 3: olt rad an awful assembly announcement at some point, and yeah,
Speaker 3: periodically you'd come around a three corner and be like
Speaker 3: one hundred, one hundred and fifty two hundred people protesting
Speaker 3: right and then the cops would toss a flashbang or
Speaker 3: a tear gas, loose off a few rounds, push thirty
Speaker 3: yards and then stop and then do that again ten, fifteen,
Speaker 3: twenty thirty minutes later, and they keep doing that, and
Speaker 3: then they push people back past these various buildings which
Speaker 3: had cops like stationed in place like on the parapet
Speaker 3: of the building or on the courtyard outside, who would
Speaker 3: then also fire at them. So the protest never really
Speaker 3: got a chance to centralize. People didn't really get a
Speaker 3: chance to centralize in one place. And you know, like
Speaker 3: to have a sense of how many numbers of protesters
Speaker 3: there were was hard because every torny you turned, there were.
Speaker 2: More people and there were more cops. So like it
Speaker 2: was a bit broken apart.
Speaker 3: And I think that was the goal of the policing
Speaker 3: operation right to flood the city, was cops to shut
Speaker 3: it all down, to make it hard to get there, yep,
Speaker 3: and make it hard to gather there.
Speaker 2: I still don't get the sense, and this is what
Speaker 2: it sounds like from what You've said that most of
Speaker 2: what is being done effectively is not the National Guard
Speaker 2: and certainly not the Marines. It's the federal and local
Speaker 2: police and their game plan here is they assuming things
Speaker 2: calmed out in Los Angeles, which is probably the safe
Speaker 2: bet right now. Every time they get over a certain
Speaker 2: threshold of protesters a couple of hundred one thousand or
Speaker 2: so in a city, you know, do the same thing, right,
Speaker 2: like deploy the military national or federalized the National Guard,
Speaker 2: get him out there, right, Like that's that's where they're headed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so, Like I don't know if LA
Speaker 3: will back down, to be clear, Like La is a
Speaker 3: city of what like like four million people.
Speaker 2: And eighteen nineteen million in the greater Los Angeles metro area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it's uh, I know right, Like I had
Speaker 3: these I had good conversations with a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are out there protesting. I want to go to
Speaker 3: to ad like it is that we were really well
Speaker 3: received by everyone, which was nice. Like it wasn't the
Speaker 3: same crowd as folks I've seen in twenty twenty, Like
Speaker 3: no one was in black block, right of course, and
Speaker 3: then it was very young people and like a number
Speaker 3: of the approached. I was for a time. I was
Speaker 3: with Charles McBride and like some other oh yeah yeah
Speaker 3: colleagues and friends, like people have known fet years, right,
Speaker 3: we cover the same kind of shit. And people would
Speaker 3: come up to us and just be like, hey, it's
Speaker 3: good that you guys are here. Thank you for staying
Speaker 3: here after we got fucking tear guests, like people should
Speaker 3: understand that what's happening, Like the unprompted people would would
Speaker 3: come and say thank you, which was nice, you know,
Speaker 3: and like we didn't really face any any hostility for
Speaker 3: being there. But people when I spoke to them, like
Speaker 3: there was a lot of a lot of people I
Speaker 3: spoke to were very young, and they would say that
Speaker 3: they were the citizen kid of parents who either were
Speaker 3: you know, like permanent residents or visa holders or you know,
Speaker 3: they're veryous. I'm sure if some of them had undocumented parents.
Speaker 3: I can't remember speaking to anyone who said that, but
Speaker 3: I'm sure that given the numbers of people and the
Speaker 3: number of times I heard like, I'm the citizen child,
Speaker 3: so I should be here showing up for my family
Speaker 3: and my community.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like it's gonna be hard to back those
Speaker 3: people down because they were fucking angry. Yeah, a real
Speaker 3: palpable sense of like fuck you was like very present throughout.
Speaker 2: People were also afraid.
Speaker 3: It's not people who are necessarily used to this, right,
Speaker 3: and like you said, the police response is an overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Use of violence, right, indiscriminately shooting it people from what
Speaker 2: what's the what's the furthest distance you were seeing them
Speaker 2: fire at people from.
Speaker 3: I mean I probably saw them taking one hundred meter shots,
Speaker 3: I'm guessing, like.
Speaker 2: Which is very long range for this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so at one point, when we've got
Speaker 3: pushed back past the LAPDHQ there, they had the whole
Speaker 3: sort of front face of it, and they led off
Speaker 3: a bunch of shots towards myself and some others. I
Speaker 3: just sort of got down behind some cover there and
Speaker 3: started filming. And then there was a group of young
Speaker 3: people who were in one of those kind of classic
Speaker 3: LA three corner open quad more things.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they're basically in a in a U shaped container,
Speaker 3: right with only one way in and one way out,
Speaker 3: and right there's glass stores around it like that, you know,
Speaker 3: there's all the shopping bits people go shopping and there's
Speaker 3: pill in the middle, and the cops are just unloading
Speaker 3: from a distance of maybe one hundred meters from labd HQ.
Speaker 3: I think into these people who are effectively like in
Speaker 3: a like fish in a barrel. Right, they're in a
Speaker 3: container where they is the only way I was the
Speaker 3: direction the cops shooting from. There was a small outlet
Speaker 3: on the other side, which eventually they were able to take.
Speaker 3: That meant they had to cross across like a four
Speaker 3: lane road while being shot at by the cops. And
Speaker 3: the cops just kept shooting at them there like it
Speaker 3: wasn't like they shot a couple of times. They clearly shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded,
Speaker 3: and I was filming from the other side, but you
Speaker 3: could see these projectiles whacking out like reinforced glass in
Speaker 3: the front of these businesses at head height, not breaking
Speaker 3: the glass and falling on the ground, punching a hole
Speaker 3: straight through. You know, they get coming with serious force
Speaker 3: even at that distance. And like those people weren't presenting
Speaker 3: a threat twenty one right, they had retreated into that
Speaker 3: building after the cops shot their first volley, and the
Speaker 3: cubs just kept shooting at them.
Speaker 2: I saw a lot of that throughout the.
Speaker 3: Night, Like it didn't seem like, you know, anyone was
Speaker 3: like okay, now it's a time for you guys to fire,
Speaker 3: you know, like they just just sporadic shots throughout the evening.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we're gonna continue talking about what's going on
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles and what we think is going to
Speaker 2: happen next. But first, here's some ads fuck and we're back. So,
Speaker 2: if you read like the manuals these people are supposed
Speaker 2: to follow, how they're supposed to utilize the riot control
Speaker 2: weapons that they use, there's a couple of things that
Speaker 2: you see. One of them is that they're supposed to
Speaker 2: be like a bladder of escalation before which they start
Speaker 2: utilizing force a range. And the other is that there's
Speaker 2: certain ways they're supposed to use these munitions, like, for example,
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to shoot people with rubber bullets. You're
Speaker 2: supposed to bounce them off of the ground and into
Speaker 2: people because otherwise they're not really less than lethal. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're seeing a lot of cases of people who've had
Speaker 2: at least several that I can count, I think three
Speaker 2: of people having surgically removed different like rubber and foam rounds,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't look like they're abiding by kind of
Speaker 2: any of the rules by which, per their own documentation,
Speaker 2: they're supposed to practice, right, I mean, yeah, that's what
Speaker 2: I saw.
Speaker 3: Some of them even have eotechs like on their launches,
Speaker 3: which I don't know why you'd want an eotech if
Speaker 3: you were skipping it off the ground. I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe there's a different rounds they're using, but like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: the overwhelming what I saw was just like zero to
Speaker 3: one hundred, right, Like they push, they'd throw a ta
Speaker 3: gass or a flash bang, and then you just hear
Speaker 3: like pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. Yeahs, a
Speaker 3: bunch of them unloaded and like raising the forty milimeters
Speaker 3: launcher to his shoulder and pointing it to someone two
Speaker 3: feet away.
Speaker 2: Like I saw a lot of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we'd be going down these streets trying
Speaker 3: to find a different angle, trying to find where we
Speaker 3: could stand and do our jobs as press right and
Speaker 3: come around the corner and just just get a forty
Speaker 3: milimeters pointed at you. I didn't see any skipping shit
Speaker 3: off the ground. Yeah, I did see businesses getting their
Speaker 3: windows punched out by things that the police were shooting
Speaker 3: at people like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I'm sure we're one getting blamed on protesters. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly right.
Speaker 3: I mean I saw CNN last night was picking up
Speaker 3: fucking phone button rounds and being like these are what
Speaker 3: they're throwing at the cops, Like yeah, it just remarkable.
Speaker 3: I mean I did see LASD and National Guard with
Speaker 3: rifles with magazines in the maguel and you know they
Speaker 3: had a round chamber doesn't matter, does it.
Speaker 2: No, you're a second away from chambering around, right, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the IDF carries with an empty chamber and it
Speaker 3: hasn't stopped them a whole lot of people, has it.
Speaker 3: The presence of lethal force was closer than I've seen before. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like I'm familiar with seeing overwatch at these things, Right,
Speaker 3: someone would what you would colloquially referred to as a
Speaker 3: sniper on a rooftop. But it's not overwatching if you're
Speaker 3: just in the back of a pickup truck with an
Speaker 3: M four right, look at an unmagnified optic, like you're
Speaker 3: not You're not over watching shit, you just have lethal
Speaker 3: force right there. And I saw that a number of times,
Speaker 3: right from the National Guard and then la SD. They
Speaker 3: did the whole l rad like go home. It's been
Speaker 3: declared an awful assembly thing. But then there wasn't that
Speaker 3: kind of scaled use of force that like you say,
Speaker 3: is supposed.
Speaker 2: To be there.
Speaker 3: There wasn't really much in the way of like we're
Speaker 3: going to start shooting now, and like, of course that
Speaker 3: means that if you're an unhused person, if you've arrived,
Speaker 3: if you're if you're a local person just trying to
Speaker 3: get home, it's very possible you can just walk past
Speaker 3: and get tear gas. Like at one point, right they
Speaker 3: were opening up, and like I'd been looking for a
Speaker 3: excuse of bathroom for a while because fucking southern California, right,
Speaker 3: like there are no public bathrooms, yes.
Speaker 2: Which is you know, increasingly every major city. He was
Speaker 2: an issue. People got, people get arrested by the fence
Speaker 2: for like being on federal property in Portland. Great when
Speaker 2: like there was really nowhere else to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and like some some kindly local guy
Speaker 3: invited us into his building and asked that, you know,
Speaker 3: let us use the bathroom. But yeah, then we stepped
Speaker 3: out and suddenly we're like confronted by cops again, Like
Speaker 3: you know, I could have been someone who was there
Speaker 3: just going to have to get a slice of pizza. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the force was like sporadic and unpredictable throughout the evening.
Speaker 3: And then as were these convoys of vehicles that would
Speaker 3: just come hauling ass through downtown right obviously not you know,
Speaker 3: stopping at red lights, et cetera.
Speaker 2: It was weird.
Speaker 3: Sometimes a green light would happen, so the cars would
Speaker 3: start going like and then this cop convoy would come
Speaker 3: and some of them would turn right, and some of
Speaker 3: them would assume the cars would stop and go straight on.
Speaker 3: And so you had the situation where the cops were
Speaker 3: nearly hitting each other and it just like it seemed
Speaker 3: utterly chaotic, and I don't know what they were doing
Speaker 3: other than driving around a high speed for fun. Once
Speaker 3: they did manage to kettle some groups of people right
Speaker 3: like they again folks maybe who haven't been at these
Speaker 3: events before will not be familiar with the way these
Speaker 3: things work. But like the police would move in from
Speaker 3: both sides and then suddenly you're like, oh shit, there's
Speaker 3: nowhere to go. And then I did and put up
Speaker 3: in a school bus to take presuably to detain those
Speaker 3: people and take them to process them. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: tactics were like, I mean, it's their cops. Is what
Speaker 3: you expect that you know, we've both been doing this
Speaker 3: for a while. You expect them to use those weapons
Speaker 3: in the way they can inflict the most damage and
Speaker 3: harm to people, And unfortunately, like that does seem to
Speaker 3: be happening again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, in terms of where things are right now, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Gavin Newsom is trying to thread the needle.
Speaker 2: It looks like between letting the LAPD do whatever they
Speaker 2: and he, to be fair, I don't think he has
Speaker 2: any issue with people getting fucked up with right nations
Speaker 2: what to do well, also not seeding responsibility for security
Speaker 2: of his state to the federal government, which has been
Speaker 2: an interesting line for him to walk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean his stance seems to be like the
Speaker 3: LAPD can fuck up these kids, just fine, we don't
Speaker 3: need your help, yes.
Speaker 2: Which I mean they literally can. Like I will say, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's not incorrect, right, I'm not talking at a moral level.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying like, yes, the LAPD has sufficient force
Speaker 2: for the protests that have been that have existed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the LAPD then the first Nights who
Speaker 3: were caught off guard.
Speaker 2: I think right, and so was ICE, And there was
Speaker 2: a lot of debate about because like you know, LAPD
Speaker 2: not coming in initially to support ICE when they got surrounded,
Speaker 2: like and that's those are the kind of things you
Speaker 2: get when the authorities are taken off balance. But if
Speaker 2: the numbers don't keep increasing, you know, and they have
Speaker 2: to increase pretty exponentially as they move in, you know,
Speaker 2: federal agents in the National Guard and mobilize the whole
Speaker 2: police force in a city like LA, then this situation
Speaker 2: becomes basically impossible for protesters to regain the initiative. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd say it's impossible right now,
Speaker 2: but unless there's some sort of like massive sea changes,
Speaker 2: what's happening that does seem kind of like where things
Speaker 2: are going to go. And to be clear, here we're
Speaker 2: talking about primarily Compton Paramount some protests, and then downtown
Speaker 2: Los Angeles some protests. There's a handful of city blocks
Speaker 2: and one of the largest metro areas in the entire country. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is not Los Angeles all collapsed.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it's not like the rights to occurred
Speaker 3: after Rudney.
Speaker 2: King, right, right, right, not even a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no yet right like, yeah, I mean people are
Speaker 3: pissed off obviously, like and maybe that you know, you'll
Speaker 3: get that sort of thing you had important right where
Speaker 3: more people came as the protest continued, and there's more
Speaker 3: and more FEDS turned up, Like there were people who
Speaker 3: might not have showed up at first just being like
Speaker 3: upset at the presence of FEDS in this. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it seems like right now that their move
Speaker 3: is to flood the city. I mean, crazy volumes of
Speaker 3: cops shouting all the exits on the one ten today. Yeah,
Speaker 3: National Guard, like the National Guide folks were mostly around
Speaker 3: the Federal building from what I saw, but like just
Speaker 3: a huge volume of cobs and no particular plan other
Speaker 3: than a vast number of police and I guess you know,
Speaker 3: massive detentions, massive use of right at munitions, massive use
Speaker 3: of violence to dissuade protest. But then I've seen like
Speaker 3: obviously it's interesting, right like, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Robert,
Speaker 3: Like you can be like nose to the grindstone in
Speaker 3: a conflict zone or at a protest and other clue
Speaker 3: what's happening, and I have to go on a Twitter
Speaker 3: or a Blue sky to work out what the fuck's
Speaker 3: going on, right, you.
Speaker 2: Can tell kind of what's happening in front of you,
Speaker 2: and even then you sometimes see something or you're looking
Speaker 2: left and the thing happens on the right, and you
Speaker 2: get three different stories about what happened totally.
Speaker 3: And so like, you know, you know, we found out
Speaker 3: David Twist had been released when me I sent a
Speaker 3: message saying that, like right, and then likewise, folks for
Speaker 3: finding out that they're protests in other areas of the country,
Speaker 3: which you know is always I think gives a little
Speaker 3: morale boost. And yeah, so like there's a chance I'm
Speaker 3: seeing more and more I sort of big protest in
Speaker 3: New York tonight. They can't deploy the Marines everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 3: right there there are a lot of marines, but not
Speaker 3: that many.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: It's in one sense, like and I know that this
Speaker 3: is maybe a strange opinion or stance or what have you,
Speaker 3: but like, in a sense, it gives me hope to
Speaker 3: see these things like at a protest or you know,
Speaker 3: like a big action like that, Like I always feel
Speaker 3: kind of very cared for and in a strange way
Speaker 3: because like the only thing that matters is taking care
Speaker 3: of each other, right, and trying trying not to get hurt,
Speaker 3: and then for folks who are in the street to
Speaker 3: try and remain there, right, And like it's quite a
Speaker 3: like you have this kind of disaster community, right, the
Speaker 3: same thing that you sometimes find in conflict zones or
Speaker 3: after natural disasters, and like, right, it's always beautiful to
Speaker 3: see that, right, Like you know, I'm vegan and I
Speaker 3: could not find any fucking vegan food for a while,
Speaker 3: and like people were bringing me snacks and I thought
Speaker 3: that was really sweet, and like, you know, I saw
Speaker 3: people taking care of strangers when they got tear gass,
Speaker 3: or taking care of strangers when they get shot, or
Speaker 3: like just folks who have bought snacks and like wanted
Speaker 3: to give them to one house people who were there, right.
Speaker 3: So all that stuff is just a reminder that like
Speaker 3: you know, like actually, you know, if you were consuming
Speaker 3: this thorugh of fucking New York Times, right, you'd think
Speaker 3: that people were looting and burning the city. And like,
Speaker 3: I didn't see anyone to steal shit. I did see
Speaker 3: people take care of one another. Yeah, and that's a
Speaker 3: beautiful thing. And you know, maybe people need to be
Speaker 3: in the streets to find one another right now, because
Speaker 3: you know, every every year, people it gets harder to
Speaker 3: go outside and easier to stay on the internet.
Speaker 2: Right, people get more adomized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like it was cool to see like young
Speaker 3: Mexican folks, young Salvadorean folks, uateateml and you know, people
Speaker 3: have different extractions who are now Americans and in addition
Speaker 3: obviously to their i think identities and backgrounds showing up
Speaker 3: and then like young black folks showing up with them
Speaker 3: and being like yeah, you know, like fuck the police,
Speaker 3: and like it was cool to see maybe folks who
Speaker 3: are a little bit more liberal, like I definitely had
Speaker 3: folks who are like, oh, we're not here for the riot.
Speaker 3: We're just here for the peaceful protest in so much
Speaker 3: as you know, and no one wants to get shot
Speaker 3: in the face with a forty millimeter, right, no one.
Speaker 2: No one's there to it, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: And so it's cool to see those people making those connections.
Speaker 3: And we need to make those connections now, right, We
Speaker 3: need to talk to people and talk to each other.
Speaker 3: I didn't see people beefing with each other. I didn't
Speaker 3: really see the like optics police, right, if you were
Speaker 3: again if you were consuming this on the fucking Blue Guy,
Speaker 3: which can be intolerably libs sometimes, like seeing people being like,
Speaker 3: you know, because I personally disagree with the optics of
Speaker 3: this one person's decision, the whole protest is therefore flawed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the whole protest as fun and let's just let I
Speaker 3: steal their fucking children. Like, yeah, people will let people
Speaker 3: be and and deal with the consequences their own actions
Speaker 3: instead of being condescending.
Speaker 2: Now, and I mean, I'm looking at Twitter right now
Speaker 2: where half of the comments are about someone who drove
Speaker 2: through a crowd in LA and people either this is
Speaker 2: what happens when America gets fed up? Or what other
Speaker 2: option did he have? You know, you're getting a mix
Speaker 2: of that sort of thing. Yeah, shit, are people okay?
Speaker 2: Like I'm not aware of any like serious injuries or fatalities, certainly,
Speaker 2: but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: That was the other weird thing, Like vehicles throughout the
Speaker 3: means LA everyone's driving all the time, but there were
Speaker 3: vehicles like constantly just moving through.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's LA raising people coming out to do their
Speaker 3: donuts stuff. But like it is a risk, like if
Speaker 3: someone we've shared a cob bomb, bro, But yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: we sure did. I've seen a few car bombs. It
Speaker 3: always freaks me out. We need a big crowd like that.
Speaker 3: And then you've got these cars around like the potential
Speaker 3: for vehicular violence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, Right, we have the quote unquote public safety
Speaker 3: forces deployed in massive numbers, and no one's no one's
Speaker 3: stopping that.
Speaker 2: No. And you know, also just a note to people,
Speaker 2: the only realistic way to stop cars in this situation
Speaker 2: is with a barrier made of other cars. Right, is
Speaker 2: you block off the route of march with vehicles. There's
Speaker 2: no other realistic tool at your disposal as somebody who's
Speaker 2: a part of a protest to stop a full ass vehicle.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk a little bit more with a
Speaker 2: couple of updates from the ground and then close out.
Speaker 2: But first here's our last but ads.
Speaker 1: Oh not forgot.
Speaker 2: Yes it's gonna be no not not not say no,
Speaker 2: baby's gonna been taken away like not no. That's so
Speaker 2: we're back in James. While you were leaving, the Mayor
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles declared a curfew in place from eight
Speaker 2: pm to six a m. For the one ten to
Speaker 2: the west I five to the east. Uh yeah, one
Speaker 2: ten to south, I five and one ten to north.
Speaker 2: This is from the public safety alert texted out to
Speaker 2: people in Los Angeles. So people are allowed to travel
Speaker 2: to and from work, to seek or to give emergency care.
Speaker 2: EMS people are exempt. No one else is exempt as
Speaker 2: far as i'm a but yeah, that's that's the situation.
Speaker 2: So part of why Mayor Karen bass Is issued a
Speaker 2: curfew is that it gives the police extra kind of
Speaker 2: freedom to take people into custody. Right yeah, Oh, credential
Speaker 2: media are exempt. Yeah, that's what I was told. Yeah,
Speaker 2: people to and from work, credential media, emergency and medical personnel,
Speaker 2: law enforcement are the limited exemptions. So that's that's what
Speaker 2: we've got going on right now. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you are at there working as a journalists,
Speaker 3: like it's important to carry your press pass right oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll stop you from getting shot with impact munitions because
Speaker 3: they've done that to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like you know, I had a large blue
Speaker 3: press badge on my plate carrier like I always do,
Speaker 3: and like, yeah, it's not doesn't.
Speaker 2: Make you bulletproof.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, there's a curfew tonight, which, like you say,
Speaker 3: just gives them the means to use more coercive force
Speaker 3: and to charge people more harshly. They'll continue doing that
Speaker 3: helicopter shit, right, They had probably four or five helicopters.
Speaker 2: They really love putting them out in LA and especially
Speaker 2: now that they got the military.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it had a real kind of blade
Speaker 3: run a vibe to be in this like dark city
Speaker 3: at night with these helicopter circling spotlighting people from above,
Speaker 3: and like little fires happening across the city and then
Speaker 3: occasional clouds of like spicy air floating towards you. I
Speaker 3: have seen some speculation that they were using some kind
Speaker 3: of other chemical irritant instead of tear gas. I think
Speaker 3: that the most likely explanation is just they were using
Speaker 3: tear gas that was older.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it tastes different when it's older. The shit the
Speaker 2: FEDS US is often different from the shit state or
Speaker 2: local police use, Like yeah, you know, you get different
Speaker 2: sort of mixes. But I'm not aware, like it's I'm
Speaker 2: certain it's just tear gas, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's just a bit different.
Speaker 3: Different variants in ages of tear gas, and sometimes they
Speaker 3: take on different appearances too, and they weren't really fogging
Speaker 3: the tear gas, not that I saw. They were just tossing,
Speaker 3: tossing out the grenades. You didn't get that like wall
Speaker 3: of tear gas that you guys are familiar with in Portland. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it took on like the protest effectic, Like I
Speaker 3: didn't see as many people with half masks or hard
Speaker 3: hats or goggles any event stuff. So like, yeah, and
Speaker 3: in one sense, people it's it's great to see people
Speaker 3: coming out and like engating their right to protest. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and coming from where they are, as they are showing
Speaker 3: up to show out for something.
Speaker 2: Leaving work or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it makes me worried
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you know, I'm there around the block a
Speaker 3: few times, and I'm worried if people are going to
Speaker 3: get fucked up.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's curfew tonight. It's curfew tonight. There's still
Speaker 2: marine numbers are still at around seven hundred. There's about
Speaker 2: four thousand National Guard troops, so the number of military
Speaker 2: deployed significantly outnumbers demonstrators at this point. Mayer care and
Speaker 2: Bass has stated that or or sorry. The Pentagon has
Speaker 2: stated that it's costing about one hundred and thirty four
Speaker 2: million dollars this deployment, so esus man, Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's like i'd say, it's it's not a pointless escalation.
Speaker 2: The point of the escalation is that they want to
Speaker 2: keep using the military, right, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to sort of establish a precedent that domestic
Speaker 3: unrest can be dealt with by the military, which, to
Speaker 3: be clear, like by my reading, it's completely in contradiction
Speaker 3: of the constitution. Yeah, but a lot of things that
Speaker 3: are in constitution of the constitution happen, especially with policing
Speaker 3: all the fucking time, right, Like, yeah, Like it is
Speaker 3: important not to normalize this again, Like you don't have
Speaker 3: to be like a blue head ANTIFA to be like
Speaker 3: this is fucked up. And I think I definitely spoke
Speaker 3: to a few people, like folks who have come out
Speaker 3: of church and stuff and just like, yeah, we had
Speaker 3: they had sent the Marines here, so we just came
Speaker 3: on down because that's not okay, and that's good to see. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And like those are conversations that people who are invested
Speaker 3: in not living in a country where your first memorizes
Speaker 3: don't matter anymore because you can get shot by an
Speaker 3: eighteen year old marine who hasn't had the time to
Speaker 3: really morally and ethically consider that decision. Yeah, like it's
Speaker 3: important to have those talks with people now because like
Speaker 3: it is very concerning. Yeah, you know, you and I
Speaker 3: have attended a few civil wars. I don't want to
Speaker 3: be like this country spinning towards civil wars that you know,
Speaker 3: I think we have a long way from that.
Speaker 2: I mean, when the President stands in front of a
Speaker 2: bunch of enlisted men at Fort Bragg and talks about
Speaker 2: how they're using the military to restore order to an
Speaker 2: American city that's been invaded, there's no longer an argument
Speaker 2: that those comparisons are an escalation or exaggeration, right, like yeah, hyperbolic,
Speaker 2: like yeah, like we're in the ship right now, folks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, Like, show me a thing that Asad wouldn't
Speaker 3: have said today, right, right, right? And what you don't
Speaker 3: have is an actual insurrection going on. What you don't
Speaker 3: have is anyone actually fighting the government. You have people
Speaker 3: who are like angry and yelling and some folks who
Speaker 3: throw through rocks. You do not have a militant uprising
Speaker 3: against federal power. They're just kind of acting like it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like if you have an insurrection in this country. This
Speaker 3: country has a shit ton of guns. You all know
Speaker 3: if there's an insurrection, because people will be using them.
Speaker 2: Like that's not happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's young people in the street waving flags and
Speaker 3: shouting and like saying fuck the police. Is a constitutionally
Speaker 3: protected right in this country, Like, yes it is. You
Speaker 3: should not get hurt for exercising your first amendment right right, Yeah, man,
Speaker 3: Like I'm I'm proud of all those people who showed up.
Speaker 3: I'm proud of them for taking care of each other. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I hope that they they stay there, and I
Speaker 3: hope that they you know, as they stay there, they
Speaker 3: become more more astute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they learned some stuff.
Speaker 3: I saw a lot of running two hundred yards away
Speaker 3: from the cops in a very straight line, straight down
Speaker 3: a straight street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, which is not not the move right, Like
Speaker 2: you want to be? You want to be. I'm up,
Speaker 2: he sees me, I'm down. Yeah. Serpentine, serpentine, you do
Speaker 2: the worm, That's that's how you get him. Yeah. There
Speaker 2: is some polling out early polling. This is from g
Speaker 2: Elliot Morris, formerly of five point thirty eight but conducted
Speaker 2: June tenth by you Gov of four thy three hundred
Speaker 2: and nine adults. Do you approve a disapprove of deploying
Speaker 2: National Guard soldiers to the Los Angeles area to respond
Speaker 2: to protests over the federal government's immigration enforcement Thirty eight
Speaker 2: percent of food approved, forty five percent disapprove, and nineteen
Speaker 2: percent are not sure. Do you approve or disapprove of
Speaker 2: deploying marines to the Los Angeles area? Thirty four percent approve,
Speaker 2: forty seven percent disapprove, nineteen percent not sure. So you know,
Speaker 2: these aren't popular measures, although they're also not as unpopular
Speaker 2: as you would hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's not great. I'd like to see you more.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you got Tom Cotton doing is for
Speaker 3: getting to Wall Street. You're on the Washington postped right,
Speaker 3: sent in the troops for real?
Speaker 2: This time? Was that? I thought that was the times
Speaker 2: time I think I forget exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somewhat indistinguishable these days quickly in net OpEd pages,
Speaker 3: you're right, robate was at times No, No, that's a
Speaker 3: twenty twenty OpEd twenty five op edwards in the Wall
Speaker 3: Streets Choir, he.
Speaker 2: Got a new one.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, he wrote in twenty twenty rubber he wrote
Speaker 3: send in the Troops. In twenty twenty five, he wrote
Speaker 3: send in the troops Comma for.
Speaker 2: Real, for real? Okay, Well he got it, yep, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean he got what he wanted. Well done.
Speaker 3: Ranger Tom, guy who lied about being an army ranger.
Speaker 2: Yes, not a ranger, Tom, Yeah, not a ranger Tom. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean you see this in the UK a lot.
Speaker 3: I'm very familiar with this kind of also the powers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe that's a good place for us to end. If
Speaker 3: you were in the US military or the National Guard,
Speaker 3: if you were someone you love is in the military
Speaker 3: of the National Guard. Now it's a good time to
Speaker 3: read up about Bloody Sunday, Yeah, happened in Ireland. And
Speaker 3: now is a good time to look at what's currently happening,
Speaker 3: what has been happening to those soldiers, because it took
Speaker 3: a long time for those people to stand trial. And
Speaker 3: it's not officers who were standing trial, right, it's soldiers.
Speaker 3: It's paratroopers in this case, because those are always going
Speaker 3: to be the fingers on the trigger, right. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: so you know, no one, no one knows which direction
Speaker 3: history is moving in. But like things don't feel morally right.
Speaker 3: You know, there are things that the DII writes hotline,
Speaker 3: but I think people should be aware what happens when
Speaker 3: countries use their militaries to oppress protest and what has
Speaker 3: happened to some of the soldiers who have been ordered
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well look up Bloody Sunday, folks. Maybe we'll cover
Speaker 2: that in the not too distant future, because yeah, that's
Speaker 2: just going to get more relevant. Don't listen to you
Speaker 2: two if you can avoid it, but just look it up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: avoid you two, not the song Sunday or Bloody Sunday.
Speaker 2: But yeah, all right, everybody, Well this has been It
Speaker 2: Could Happen here. We will be back tomorrow. We'll see
Speaker 2: if Gavin Newsom has been arrested yet. All right, thanks James, Yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks for that's an episode by.
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