WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 168 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:05.600 Also media. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:08.639 to let you know this is a compilation episode, So 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.320 every episode of the week that just happened is here 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.360 in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.520 you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.079 If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:22.840 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.040 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:27.080 Hi. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:28.520 Everyone, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.240 It's me James today and I am very lucky to 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.600 be joined by Azad, who is fighting in Mianma Chinland 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.440 specifically with the AIF. Welcome to the show, Zad, thanks 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:39.040 for being here. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:41.640 Yeah, thanks for having me on of course. Yeah. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.239 This has been a project that I've been following from 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.920 Afar for some time, maybe several months now I think. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.919 But for listeners who have not been following, can you 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.280 explain very briefly the role of the AIF in the 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:55.680 struggle in Miammah. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.560 Yeah, sure, getting right into it. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.840 Yeah, first, I like give a little bit of a 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.720 spiel about like the context of the AIF maybe for 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:08.120 people who aren't so familiar. Yeah, in Burma already for decades, 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.120 there have been some kind of established president of we 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.600 can say foreign volunteers of some kind or you know, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.360 ex military personnel or you know, somebody who is somehow 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.000 drawn to the conflict. There has already been the president 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.320 for some decades of people coming in a very limited 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.520 capacity and helping with this group or that group. But 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.720 it mostly has been participation of two big characteristics. The 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.840 first characteristic is that, of course it's been an individual basis, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.320 like whoever individual had this idea, they organized it themselves, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.399 they handled it themselves, with the exception of like the 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.200 Freemam arrangers, but I wouldn't classify them as like, you know, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.240 foreign fighters or anything. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:46.360 They do very very. 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.200 Good work, but yeah, slightly different role. Yeah yeah. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.200 The people who did this kind of stuff were mostly 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.400 coming as individuals, you know, kind of on their own progative. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.040 And secondly, they were overwhelmingly we can say non political 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.720 or you know, ex. Military guys from Western nations or 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:07.880 you know, from neighboring countries who were somehow drawn to 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.200 the conflict and wanted to use their skills in that 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.240 kind of light. The AIF, on the other hand, is 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.679 absolutely by no means like the foreign fighter organization in 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:19.679 me and more or it's not like the foreign battalion, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.480 or that's also not what the goal in the mission is. 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.360 It specifically came about after twenty twenty three twenty twenty four, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.640 there were slowly more internationals in the country, internationalists we 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:32.240 can say. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.120 Yeah, who were here on a much more yeah. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.079 Albeit at the beginning individual it was the same where 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.600 people were organizing their own ways, organizing their own routes 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.679 and connections, but with a much more different perspective of 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.200 this kind of more intentional anti fascist internationalist perspective yeah, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.800 which led over into the name. So kind of as 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.600 a result of discussions between me and some other people 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.320 who were here and also some other people outside the country, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.360 the idea to set up a formation or an organization 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.640 like this was floated, and of course after talking with 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.840 like local partners and local comrades who anyway were involved 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.400 with on the ground, there was a lot of enthusiasm 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.079 on both sides, both from people outside the country, both 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:15.280 from people inside the country. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:16.320 So kind of. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.840 Within that context, the idea to take a step forward 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:24.040 in a more organized, explicitly consistent yeah, to use a 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:29.760 polite word, consistent perspective for internationalism and Meanmoir, that was kind. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:30.200 Of the goal. 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:31.520 Yeah. 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.760 And if people aren't familiar to see Anti Fascist Internationalists front, right, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.400 the AIF has a really cool logo with the peacock 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.600 tail and the three rows and the like the white 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.080 star in a red background. I thought that was I 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:47.400 really appreciate your logo. 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:48.320 Yeah. 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.200 So yeah, I think people will like when they talk 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.600 about the conflict in me Ima, they will be like, oh, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.680 why are they why I say, not more internationalists and 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.160 why is they not more international volunteers? Something that you 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:02.760 and I have spoken about before, it is that like, 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.600 this has always been an international conflict, right, and it's 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.160 always been an anti fascist conflict as well. Do you 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.200 want to explain that to people who because I think 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.040 sometimes it's easy for people to fall into these orientalists 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.720 of somewhat colonialist constructions of the conflict there, and I 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:22.400 think you and I both agree that those are not 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:23.760 the lens through which we should view it. 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:24.600 Yeah. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.920 I mean, of course, the history of let's just use 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.479 a big term, the history of conflict in Burma is 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.800 of course very deep and very complex and has a 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.560 thousand different ethnic and political you know branches that you 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.200 can go down. But if we're really focusing in on 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.640 this post coup situation, which even though it has its 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.839 roots and its context and of course the pre coup 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.240 with you know, the existing ethink resistance organizations and the 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.320 democracy movement, if we're really looking at the conflict post 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.599 twenty twenty one coup, fundamentally it is not any one 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.320 nations struggle. It is not anyone's people struggle. It is 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.880 not even like a national struggle of Berno, we can 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.080 say it is fundamentally a fight against fascism. It is 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.839 an anti fascist people's revolution. Where after, of course the 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.280 coup and after these initial stages of protest and uprising, 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.200 the people were faced by a choice of do we 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.280 accept dictatorship, do we go back and do we live 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.640 like normal? Do we accept fascism, do we live under fascism? 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.599 Or do we prepare to sacrifice everything to fight against fascism? 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.799 And that was the fundamental calculation in that So insofar 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.039 as it's to fight against fascism, that makes it an 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.120 international struggle in itself. I mean, without even you know, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.320 going on too much about how anyways, the so called 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.680 nation of Burma is dozens and dozens and dozens of 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.640 different ethnicities and religions and cultures, which I mean, if 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.680 you aren't thinking in the traditional nation state sense of 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.279 internationalism and more thinking in the kind of brotherhood of 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.120 cultures and traditions. Then yeah, of course, without the flashy 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.320 you know, foreigners coming, it's already an international struggle against fascism. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.160 But I think, you know, on a more intentional level, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.960 the dictatorship represents fundamentally the same fascism that exists all 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.680 over the world, fundamentally state oppression. So yeah, in that regard, 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.839 it's very much an international struggle. 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.880 Yeah, And something we've spoken about before is like the 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.200 links of the inspiration I guess that comes from the 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.360 internationalist struggle in North and East Syria and Rajava, and 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.200 how that's very much been like a source of inspiration 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:35.359 for young people in the MR. I've spoken to tons 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.160 of them even two years ago, especially young women there 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.000 right looking at the women's revolution in Rajava and seeing 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.120 like that this was a possibility, that this was something 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.839 like on the horizon that they could strive for. Do 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.000 you want to explain like your own perceptions of that 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:54.080 inexperience of it. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.240 Yeah, sure, Well, first, you know, not to overstate things, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.000 while of course the Rojava is a big inspiration I 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:02.479 think not just for the people here in me and 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.160 mar but truly like a beacon of hope in general. Yeah, 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.640 you know, you know, a little biased, having spent time 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.320 in Rozebah as you also have, I think, how can 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.040 we say, I'll give a bit of context. In twenty 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.840 twenty three, I think this message went out from the 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.360 can DF to the forces in Rajaba, and I was 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:23.000 there at the time. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.160 So was I really what? 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:25.560 Yeah? 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:27.440 Yeah, I was stared to say we were there. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.600 We were both there at the same time. Everyone started 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.680 hitting me up for book recommendations. It's like October, I 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.880 didn't know that. Yeah, okay, right off Joctoba seventh, I think. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:36.960 Okay. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.880 Anyways, so yeah, when this came out, like some friends 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:41.160 sent this to me and was like, hey, can you 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.040 translate this? And I like, not only me when I 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.480 saw it, but also all the friends in the leadership 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.440 and you know, all of the comrades there were like 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:54.160 very one surprised, but also very excited and very happy 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.000 to kind of see a message like this. And I 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.480 think also when the message was returned, you know, some 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.400 of the friends from the leadership you know, recorded this 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.880 video message and sent it back. It was very much 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.600 like a very pleasant, happy surprise for everyone involved, and 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.080 it really showed the degree to which fundamentally we are 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.920 fighting the same struggles, even though you know, maybe you know, 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.480 materially we're not talking about like guns going from one 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.480 place to the other. Fundamentally we're comrades on the same 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.200 very very long frontline. Now, I think what that looks 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.720 like locally, especially, I'm happy that you mentioned, like specifically 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.200 the women's situation. You know, I myself sometimes when I'm 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.880 giving training here, I like to show videos from certain 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.360 parts of Kurdistan where they're very effective, we can say, 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.160 and of course that naturally includes like the very very 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.800 heavy participation of the women's guerrilla units as well as 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.079 the men's guerrilla units, and specifically here and me andmar 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.640 we see a very difficult situation in the revolution in 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.720 regards to like the position of women, where because of 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.920 I mean, it's a very new revolution. Lots of these 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.480 people are you know, a couple years ago, they were 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.760 just in we can say, liberal society. They weren't in 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.520 any kind of you know, maybe at best activist context. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.360 But it's not like these people had a strong revolutionary platform, 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.400 and then they said, okay, let's launch a revolution against 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.880 the dictatorship. It was a natural evolution from protests to 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.000 resistance to revolution. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:19.240 No. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.760 So because of that, the same social structures that existed 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.439 in liberal society were in a large part transplanted into 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.120 resistance organizations, which means that, Yeah, of course, thousands and 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.400 thousands of women from all over the country have traveled 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.240 to these camps, you know, have prepared and have ready 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.719 themselves to fight against the dictatorship. But in a lot 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.760 of ways they're still facing off against you know, the 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.160 patriarchy that is inherent in all of our modern society. Yeah, 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.160 so I think Rajaba into much as like I think 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.240 anybody can take Rojaba as an inspiration. If there is 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.560 anybody who, more so than anybody else, can take as 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.600 an inspiration, it is women and youth. As that is, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.680 of course, like the revolutionary focus of the entire paradigm 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.480 of the Reva revolution. So I won't say that it's like, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.640 you know, like the leading inspiration for the people of 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.200 me and more or something, but definitely the people who 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.000 have interacted with it or interfaced with it in some 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.400 capacity be it official or unofficial. Of course, have gotten 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.080 a lot of inspiration from that, and us as internationalists, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.560 both me as well as some other people here, you know, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.040 having had that in person experience with the Java revolution, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.200 of course for us is eternal inspiration. 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.280 Yeah, and it's a really beautiful thing to see, like 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.839 you said, just to see people like when we think 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.560 about alliances in conflict, right, if we look at the 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.559 extremely interactional way that the United States enters inso those alliances, right, 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.200 it's willing to allow the people who approach Java to 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.840 die for it in the battle against I say so 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.760 Dash that it's not willing to stand by them when 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.760 they're being bombed by Turkey, right, something right, and you 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.680 and I have both seen. But to see something that 0:10:55.760 --> 0:11:00.719 is said begins with genuine solidarity and admiration. And one 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.280 thing I really liked was when the k and DF 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.800 replied to the video that came from Rajava, they said 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.240 that they still had a lot to learn, especially with 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:14.240 regards to gender. And it's so rare to see revolutionary 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.600 movements submitting their faults, especially during the struggle, right during 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.240 the moment of revolution. And that's something that I've been 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.080 so impressed with in Myanmar for a long time, is 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.080 their willingness to look out at the world and see 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.800 things that they think are better and adopt them or 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.640 to at least consider them. It's the thing in Java too. 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.160 Some of the one of the friends in Rajaba said 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.440 that they were excited to learn more about Meamma because 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.480 they hadn't worked everything out, and that they thought that 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.760 there might be some solutions that they could learn from there. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.840 And so it's really special to see that that solidarity 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.800 that comes from a very genuine place and not just 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.680 it's not just rhetorical. There are people such as yourself 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.480 who have made the journey to fight on behalf of 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.040 the revolution in me Mma. But it's really a special thing. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.400 It's really a wonderful thing to see, especially like with 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.760 the world seemingly getting more and more isolated and more 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.560 and more nationalists as supposed to internationalists, like, it's a 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.920 really beautiful time for it to happen too. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:16.160 Yeah. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.720 Absolutely, And I think I mean not to make the podcast, 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.240 you know, a democratic and federalism ideology lesson or something, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:27.080 but yeah, I think insofar as the revolution in Rajaba 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.239 considers itself a force on the side of democratic modernity. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.720 I think it's important to understand that they really mean it, 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.960 like they really do see the conflicts that we're facing 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.720 today against the capitalist system, against capitalist modernity. 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:43.240 They really do see it. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.680 In this all encompassing light, that even though something is 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.320 happening all the way over here in me and more 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.760 and that maybe you could only tangentially connect to what's 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.520 happening over there, they really do believe it when they 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.920 say we are comrades in this same struggle. And that's 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.600 why the solidarity is so beautiful to see, because it's 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.079 that real solidarity. It's not just like, you know, pendering 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.040 to some internationalist kind of sentiment. 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:06.920 Yeah. 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.360 No, it's very real and it has a very genuine 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:24.000 basis in sharing more than common interests. I will say, so, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.520 for people who are not as familiar with the struggle 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.560 where you are, which is in chin Land, would you 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.760 explain a little bit of I mean, obviously we can, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:36.640 and we will at some point explain a little bit 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.000 more of the history of chin Lan, because I think 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.960 it's very important and it sometimes gets marginalized from even 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:45.120 narrative of the revolution. But can you explain like the 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.880 groups and the struggle as it has been since twenty 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.520 twenty one. In many ways, Chinland is where the revolution, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.679 the arm revolution began, right, So can you explain how 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.080 we get to a place today where in recent weeks 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.280 we've seen massive victories in Chinland. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.520 Yes, So, as you know, the political situation at least 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.280 between the groups is somewhat complicated. So I'll try my 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:12.520 best to like most fairly but also somehow accurately described. Yeah, 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.400 I'll start from the history. We can say, as you 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.599 described in and around Mindot at the time of these protests, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.520 this was kind of like the catalyst and one of 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.480 the first places that actual armed resistance to this dictatorship started. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.920 And that wasn't armed resistance like with guns or something 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.720 that was armed resistance like with the shotguns like double 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.960 barrel shotguns from India, muzzle loading, traditional hunting rifles and 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.840 air guns and things like this, and with that kind 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.640 of weaponry, they were going and attacking police stations and checkpoints. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.720 So it really was a sign for everyone like not 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.560 only the bravery of the people that are willing to 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.440 do something like that, but the willingness and the risk 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.080 that these people are able to take, and the seriousness 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.560 of their opposition to the dictatorship that look, this isn't 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.040 just a protest anymore. Even we have only sticks and stones, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:14:59.880 we will. 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:00.960 Dis may this dictatorship. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.880 So yeah, that was a very inspiring early period. And 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.480 I think even before the involvement of some of the 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.760 bigger ethnic armed organizations, there were already local CDFs, which 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.040 stands for Chinland Defense Force, which is kind of just 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.360 like PDF. It's a moniker that a lot of groups share. 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:19.760 There were a lot of. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.840 Different PDFs and cdf popping up just in the days 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.800 following the coup in Chinland. So yeah, like from the 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.200 very beginning there was the precedent in the history of 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.840 revolution there. Now these towns that were the beginning of 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:34.840 the revolution have now been seized. So min Dot as 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:39.200 of last month was taken by the Chin Brotherhood Alliance 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.720 as well as you know CDF, min DOT and alliance partners. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.680 So the progress has definitely been made. The current landscape 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.760 looks a little bit like this. In Chin State, there's 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:53.200 two big blocks. We can say, one block is the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.920 Chin Brotherhood and one block is the Chin Land Council. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.480 At first there was only one block called the ICF NCC, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.480 which sends for interim Chin National Coordinating Council or committee. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:11.280 I always forget the last ceime and that was like 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.360 the political big umbrella organization. And there was the CJDC, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.960 which is the military big umbrella organization that sends for 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.120 Chinlin Joint Defense Council or Committee. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.040 Again Lessie always in big use. So yeah, for a. 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:28.200 Long time it was everyone, including one of the you know, 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.720 very old ethnic resistance organizations, the CNA CNF, the Chin 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.680 National Army, Chin National Front was kind of involved in 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.200 this one big umbrella organization and everywhere there was resistance 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.000 against the dictatorship and on some level cooperation both with 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.400 Chin groups as well as with the nug In twenty 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.840 twenty three, political events occurred and as we can say politely, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:56.080 a disagreement in the political future of Chinland separated into 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:01.440 two groups, with CNACNF withdrawing from the CJA and forming 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.640 their Chinlen Council, and the groups that kind of subscribed 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.840 to that vision and subscribed to that path they joined 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.760 the new Chinlen Council and all of the groups that 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.800 remained in the CGDC in the ICNCC continued to hold 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.280 on to the ICNCC as a kind of platform and 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.560 umbrella organization for the people in Chin State that didn't 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.200 want to subscribe to this new path, and then Chin 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.800 Brotherhood was formed as the new practical military alliance of 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.440 those people who remained, we can say, and since then, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.800 in only one year, I mean, both sides have have 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.240 had very incredible victories. No, Chinlein Council has been able 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.720 to in the north of Chin State liberate Chika and 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:42.920 Tunzong Town, and then of course in the south of 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.000 Chin State, Chindler has been able to take Matupe and 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:49.240 Contellette and Mindot. So definitely victories all around. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:50.240 But yeah, I'll. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.400 Stop myself before I comment too much more on that. Yeah, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.520 but victories, it would have been unimaginable. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:57.800 Three years. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.359 I mean we're almost exactly three years from the beginning 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.800 of the revolution. Four years guy, yeah, twenty twenty five, god, yeah, yeah, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.120 four years from the beginning of the revolution when, as 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.920 you say, like those videos, that was when I first 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.520 became aware of the post coup resistance, was seeing videos 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.960 online of people with those traditional muzzle loading hunting rifles 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.920 but taking on police checkpoints or attempted to organizer arm resistance, 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.399 and those little air guns with the made of the 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:30.359 blue plumbing pipe, like they it was incredible, like the 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.040 bravery of the people and their commitment and their willingness 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.840 to risk their lives and sometimes lose their lives because 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.640 like as one revolutionary doctor told me a few years ago, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.719 he said, like, my grandparents died for democracy, and my parents' 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.400 generation died for it, and we don't think another generation 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.320 should have to die for it, So like we're all 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.240 prepared to go down fighting for this, which I thought, 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.440 you know, was really impactful. And then he was right 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.560 that their willingness to risk their lives and to be 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.680 so brave is unparalleled, and the revolution wouldn't have got 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.320 to where it's got to. But it's such a beautiful 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.800 thing that it has. I wonder like it's a crucial 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.600 time for the revolution now right, like the revolution is 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.400 as successful it's ever been. We're reaching the fifth year. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:25.920 Can you explain like the role of the AIF within 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.360 the broader revolution, because I think people get really confused 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:30.840 by all the acronyms, and it can be easy to 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.800 think that these groups and it's an alphabet stup right, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.520 I'm writing a book about this and Spain, and like 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.399 I've spent most of the last week just trying to 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.360 write the dictionary of acronyms that goes in the back 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.840 of the book. But like, can you explain that these 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.080 aren't groups that are necessarily sometimes they are opposed to 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:48.800 each other, they have different visions for the future. But 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.600 can you explain the role of the AF within the 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:53.320 broad anti hunter movement. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:54.159 Sure? 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.560 First, I'll say, I'm reading a book right now about 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:58.560 like the history of the communist part of the in Burma, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.320 and that history goes from like of the thirties all 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.480 the way to the nineties, and every single page has 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.560 at least ten different acronyms, and it's absolutely insane. 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:08.680 Yeah. 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:09.000 Yeah, Yeah. 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.000 About the AIF, the Anti Fascist Internationalist Front, which I'm 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.520 hoping everyone just recognizes as AIF because it's kind of 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:20.640 a mouthful. Our perspective so far has been that especially 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.480 as foreigners, especially as like foreign foreigners, you know, like 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:24.320 Western foreigners. 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:25.680 Yeah, we really want. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.840 To avoid as much as possible the perception of we're 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.120 coming here, you know, we've got military experience, or we've 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:34.159 got this knowledge, or we've got that knowledge, and now 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.080 it's time. Now it's time for us to tell you 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:37.679 what to do. Or now it's time for us to 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.239 train or something like that. Yeah, I would say our 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.520 perspective is much more closer to the perspective of the 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.520 you know, the international structures in Rajava. Our goal is 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.359 recognizing that this enemy, the SASC dictatorship, the SAC junta, 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.760 is fundamentally a fascist, anti human enemy. That makes it 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.359 also our struggle, and so not in some kind of 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.600 like prison way, or not in some kind of like 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.879 imposing way, but in a very genuine and organic manner. 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.800 We want to come here and implement ourselves into the revolution. Now, 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.080 we have some friends who are coming who maybe have 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.000 previous experience with this or with that, and in their capacity, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.720 of course they give training. Because the people here have 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.639 the comrades, have been overwhelmingly receptive to training like this. 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.520 You know that there's been no pride or no like, oh, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:26.359 we don't need the help. 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:26.760 Yeah. 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.600 Quite contrarily, everyone at all stages, even the nug is 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.320 saying I'm not talking about us, I'm just talking about publicly, 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:35.720 you know, to everyone is saying, whatever help we can get, 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:37.040 we appreciate it. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:37.360 Yeah. 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.640 But you know, we're not just bringing people who are 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.080 you know Rajava veterans or veterans of some conflict where 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.680 they can come and give training. Fundamentally, it's an anti 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.560 fascist conflict, which means even people without experience are able 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.680 to come and not only participate in the revolution, but 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.800 in a less transactory way, not to say like, oh, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:21:59.480 I have something and I will give it to the revolution. 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:01.480 In the most important way is to come and to 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:02.520 learn from the revolution. 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:03.840 Exactly as you said. 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.160 Even a revolution like Rojava, which has decades and decades 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.399 of history and tradition and culture and ideology and is 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.879 steeped in this yeah, I would say, you know, one 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.160 of the most powerful, prominent revolutions of our time, Yeah, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.520 is still able to say a revolution like this, of 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.000 course we can learn from it. We need to learn 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.879 from the struggles of our comrades there, We need to 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.600 learn from the developments happening in this revolution. Our perspective 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.159 in AIF is very much the same where yeah, okay, 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.240 maybe we have some limited material things we can contribute, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.800 but ultimately it's about organically participating in this revolution which 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.080 is against fascism, and in our own ways to take 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:44.200 the lessons of this revolution, to take the fundamental meaning 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.760 of this revolution and be able to translate it for 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:49.639 ourselves and for of course the future works. 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:50.800 Which are ahead of us. 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:55.639 Shall we say, Yeah, I remember as much much younger 0:22:55.680 --> 0:23:00.080 talking to veteran of the International Group, an anarchist veteran. No, 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.399 it's from the International Brigade to correct myself, and I 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.040 have him to explain anti fascism to me, and he 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:10.440 said that for him, like when someone devalues humanity like 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.800 the hunter does in Burma, Francoist did in Spain, right, 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:18.400 like I did in Syria, it debases his own humanity, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.520 and like anyone who attacks humanity in that way is 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.040 attacking him and all humanity, And therefore it's the responsibility 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:31.360 of all humanity to defend humanity, to defend compassion in kindness. Absolutely. Yeah, 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.119 I think what you're doing in Myanmar is part of 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:38.399 that desire to defend humanity against inhumanity, against whatever we 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:42.240 want to call it. What are the struggles that the 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.560 revolution faces, Like I know you guys have recently been 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.800 doing a fundraising campaign, for example, and the revolution is 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.560 almost unique and its complete lack of solidarity from the 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:58.800 states of the world. Right, there is not a state 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:02.879 that is backing this revolution. It is entirely the force 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:05.280 of the people of Meamba. So can you explain some 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.520 of the struggles within the revolution perhaps because of that. 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:11.520 Yeah, I mean as much as some people you know, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:17.359 like to say CIA or something like this, of course, 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:19.840 the reality is that, you know, I've heard the term 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:21.160 crowdfunded revolution. 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:22.800 I think it's incredibly accurate. 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:25.240 Yeah, because no, in the af we recently did a 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:28.239 fundraiser for vehicles and equipment and things like this, but 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:31.240 that's on our scale. On the scale of these organizations, 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:33.840 I mean, they are fundraising from the diaspora millions and 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:36.520 millions of dollars to be able to wage this resistance. 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.720 And of course even like local people who themselves maybe 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:43.600 don't have a lot, are giving everything they can or 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:46.280 or any way acting any way they can, or doing 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:47.280 anything they can to. 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:48.040 Help the revolution. 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:52.440 So we can say overwhelmingly it is a popular resistance, 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:53.959 even I would go so far as to say it 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.399 is fundamentally a people's resistance against the dictatorship. That of 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:00.359 course represents itself in a lot of different organizations. But 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:04.680 these organizations enjoy the like ninety five percent support of 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:07.880 the people against the junta, you know. Yeah, So yeah, 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:12.320 in that regard, the challenge, of course, is always resources 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:14.760 and always the strength of the enemy. No, we're still 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:18.840 going up against jet fighters, helicopters, mortars, artillery. Yeah, you know, 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:19.840 they have a lot of AMMO. 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:23.440 Us not so much. So there's like lots of these 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:24.440 practical problems. 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:29.320 I think the how can we say cynical kind of 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:32.359 as you mentioned earlier, Western outlook has been to paint 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:35.000 this struggle kind of in Oh, it's a tribal struggle. 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:37.399 There's all these different groups, they're all fighting for their 0:25:37.440 --> 0:25:40.240 own area. What's going to happen after they win? Now 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:42.639 I disagree with that assessment obviously. I think you know 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:45.240 yourself as you're familiar with the conflict. I think it's 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:48.600 much deeper than that, And even across these many different 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:53.600 identities and cultures, there's very deep, very real coordination in 0:25:53.640 --> 0:25:56.840 cooperation where I don't think it's just like chaotic. But 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.320 on the other hand, that is a you know, not 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:02.480 to give the the cynic's credit. That is a question 0:26:02.520 --> 0:26:05.000 which going forward will politically very much be on the 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:07.520 AGENTA because I mean, now, as you're seeing, most of 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:10.439 the country is no longer in the junta's control, and 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.480 the parts that are in the junta's control are contested, 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:15.680 and then you have the tiny sliver of land which 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:19.360 they can say they somehow without any kind of you know, 0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:23.439 contestion control. So very soon the onus will be on 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:27.119 revolutionary forces to answer that question. Okay, how are we 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:30.800 going to consolidate? How are we going to transfer these 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:33.760 winds on the battlefield into something that is more permanent 0:26:33.760 --> 0:26:36.520 and more lasting. And I think you know already as 0:26:36.520 --> 0:26:38.879 you're seeing in Chinn State that I can speak of 0:26:39.119 --> 0:26:42.080 and that people are seeing and elsewhere that I can't 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:45.120 speak of because I don't know. There are definitely frictions. 0:26:45.119 --> 0:26:46.760 You know, I'm not going to say it's perfect. Everyone 0:26:46.800 --> 0:26:49.800 is smiling, everyone is working together, and there's frictions that 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:52.120 will have to be worked through. But fundamentally, I think 0:26:52.160 --> 0:26:56.320 the trajectory as it currently is is positive for the resistance. 0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:58.200 We can say, yeah, definitely. 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:01.520 I was talking to someone yeah, yes, today in another 0:27:01.560 --> 0:27:04.600 part of me Emma, and I was saying, you know, 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:07.800 I'm going to come visit you hopefully soon, and he 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:10.280 was saying, like, oh, you'll have it. Like just to 0:27:10.320 --> 0:27:13.040 be in the liberated zone is so special. Talk to 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:16.399 us about like liberated chin Land, right min Dat's just 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:20.359 been liberated. Large areas have been under the control of 0:27:20.400 --> 0:27:24.240 semi control of a dictatorial regime that has been extremely 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:27.120 oppressive to the Chin people for decades. Like how are 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:32.200 people receiving their liberty? How are they governing themselves or 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:36.320 attempting to take care of one another in these liberated spaces? 0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:39.760 Sure well, I think the first thing I'll say is 0:27:39.760 --> 0:27:42.000 maybe to contrast to other parts of meanwhile, we've been 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:45.320 relatively lucky in Chin State, and that even you know, 0:27:45.400 --> 0:27:48.680 for some years already the junta, due to the mountainous 0:27:48.760 --> 0:27:52.080 nature of Chin State, has anyway, been reduced to the 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:54.800 cities for years, like all of their checkpoints, all of 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:57.640 their like external places. The last of those were cleared 0:27:57.640 --> 0:27:59.480 in twenty twenty three, and most of them anyway in 0:27:59.480 --> 0:28:03.520 twenty twenty two were gone. So by land mass, even 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:06.960 before these towns were seized, the junta controlled if you 0:28:07.000 --> 0:28:08.760 were to add up all of the area that they 0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:12.719 actually physically control in Chin State, maybe a couple square kilometers, 0:28:12.800 --> 0:28:14.760 you know, just the area of like their bases and 0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:17.760 something like that. So because of the nature of Chinn State, 0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:22.000 they never had the of course they did these atrocities 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:24.359 and massacres and things like this, but on the kind 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:28.440 of like you know, fascist dictatorship level of oppression. Since 0:28:28.480 --> 0:28:31.360 after the revolution they had not really had the opportunity 0:28:31.520 --> 0:28:34.360 to impose themselves too much. They were the ones kind 0:28:34.359 --> 0:28:37.400 of cowering in their corner. Yeah, but I think especially 0:28:37.440 --> 0:28:41.240 after these towns are being seized now, you know, take Ricodar, 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:43.480 which is the border town on India, or take Mindatom 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:45.479 or Tupi. These towns that have just been recently seized. 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:50.320 These are towns which people are wanting to live their lives. 0:28:50.360 --> 0:28:52.520 I mean, Chin State has always been autonomous even in 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:56.720 British rule, in colonial rule, it was just labeled as unadministered, 0:28:56.840 --> 0:29:00.680 you know, and there was a very rich democrat tradition 0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:02.680 or how can we say, maybe not democratic in the 0:29:02.680 --> 0:29:05.920 traditional sense, but tradition of self rule and autonomy in 0:29:06.000 --> 0:29:08.400 Chin State, and the removal of the junta from these 0:29:08.400 --> 0:29:11.800 areas is allowing those relationships to much more naturally flourish. 0:29:11.840 --> 0:29:14.560 And I think the aspiration of a lot of people 0:29:14.600 --> 0:29:17.400 both abroad as well as internally displaced from Chin State 0:29:17.920 --> 0:29:20.360 is to return to those places where there's been fighting 0:29:20.760 --> 0:29:24.200 and to continue their lives as normal, which I think 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:26.560 finally now that not just in Chin State, but all 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:30.120 over the country, we're slowly seeing these alternative systems of 0:29:30.240 --> 0:29:33.000 you know, let's not call them like communist or revolutionary 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:36.200 or anything, but fundamentally they are alternative to the state 0:29:36.240 --> 0:29:37.360 administration system. 0:29:37.720 --> 0:29:41.960 Yeah, and I think that narrativit you pushed back on 0:29:42.040 --> 0:29:44.680 already that like, and we've seen it from so many 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:48.800 every think tank, every analyst, ever, every so called expert 0:29:48.840 --> 0:29:51.680 has said the eros will only fight for their territory. 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:54.240 When they've reached the limits to what they consider to 0:29:54.320 --> 0:29:57.040 be their like ethnic homeland, they will stop. And that 0:29:57.080 --> 0:30:01.760 hasn't happened, right, It's not happened anywa where. But the 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:05.200 fact that even if it did, right, or even if 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:07.840 some of these e ros have visions for the future 0:30:07.840 --> 0:30:10.680 which is not as liberatory as maybe you and I 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:13.480 would like the fact that there are parts of Bamma 0:30:13.560 --> 0:30:16.120 that are free now and that where people can live 0:30:16.160 --> 0:30:20.239 their lives as they wish will never change, and that 0:30:20.280 --> 0:30:23.520 will mean that those places are always there for people 0:30:23.560 --> 0:30:25.760 to go to. And like, I'm sure lots of people 0:30:25.760 --> 0:30:29.760 you're fighting with and alongside have come to Chinland, right like, like, 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:31.760 not all of them will be would have spent their 0:30:31.760 --> 0:30:34.720 whole lives. Yet they'll have come there from but my 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:36.680 majority cities maybe is that correct? 0:30:37.120 --> 0:30:40.720 Look like not to give any specifics, so I'll just 0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:44.120 make a very broad term to exaggerate the fact. You 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:48.000 can say that I have met somebody from almost every 0:30:48.040 --> 0:30:50.400 single group in me more Inchinsta. 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:50.760 Yeah. 0:30:50.840 --> 0:30:53.040 Now that's just to say. That's not to like, you know, 0:30:53.160 --> 0:30:56.040 be shocking or something. That's just to highlight the level 0:30:56.080 --> 0:31:01.040 of interconnectedness logistically, materially, militarily, you know, even if it's 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:02.720 just someone sending someone to say. 0:31:02.560 --> 0:31:03.400 Hi from somewhere. 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:03.600 You know. 0:31:03.800 --> 0:31:06.600 Yeah, it's not like, oh, everyone's in their corners fighting. 0:31:06.640 --> 0:31:09.360 I mean, I promise you there are soldiers here which 0:31:09.400 --> 0:31:11.280 are giving their lives for the towns and Chin State, 0:31:11.520 --> 0:31:14.440 which maybe they never even thought about Chinn State before 0:31:14.440 --> 0:31:15.000 this revolution. 0:31:15.120 --> 0:31:17.400 You know, they're coming from opposite sides of the country. 0:31:17.760 --> 0:31:17.960 Yeah. 0:31:18.040 --> 0:31:20.880 Absolutely, it's fundamentally a fight against the dictatorship. It's not 0:31:20.920 --> 0:31:23.400 the fight to liberate Chinland or to liberate Kadenny or 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:24.080 something like this. 0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:28.160 Yeah. I remember speaking to Mandoalate pdf a while ago, 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.480 and they were saying to me like they were really 0:31:30.520 --> 0:31:33.479 scared when they first left the cities because they've been 0:31:33.480 --> 0:31:36.040 told that like wild people lived in the mountains. Yes, yeah, 0:31:36.080 --> 0:31:39.680 at that now we're wild people. We like the wild 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:43.240 people like. But yeah, this narrative, I mean, James C. 0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:45.440 Scott talks about this right in the art of not 0:31:45.480 --> 0:31:48.040 being governed, this idea that these mountains were never really 0:31:48.040 --> 0:31:50.840 places that are amenable to state control and that now 0:31:50.880 --> 0:31:52.560 there are places where people can go to avoid it. 0:31:52.600 --> 0:31:55.560 But it's also important that this revolution. 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:57.200 Extends to beyond the mountains and into the cities and 0:31:57.240 --> 0:31:59.080 that people living there don't have to live under the 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:02.760 boot heel of dictatorial state, which is what's happening right. 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:04.200 Yeah, absolutely. 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:16.880 People will be listening to this, I'm sure and like 0:32:17.920 --> 0:32:22.320 thinking this is laudable, this is incredible, and a they'll 0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:25.200 be shocked that they haven't heard about this, maybe especially 0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:27.080 the newer listeners. And I do want to say that, 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:29.200 like you can go back and listen to our other 0:32:29.200 --> 0:32:30.000 coverage on MEMA. 0:32:30.240 --> 0:32:31.360 There is a lot. 0:32:32.000 --> 0:32:35.520 But like in terms of conflicts, right, conflict is always 0:32:35.640 --> 0:32:39.560 messy and war is never inherently a beautiful thing. Beautiful 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:42.600 things can happen, it was, but we rarely see wars 0:32:42.720 --> 0:32:45.400 where there is so much good on one side and 0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:48.600 so much evil on the other. And why do you 0:32:48.680 --> 0:32:51.800 think that the especially the Western media has largely overlooked 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:52.880 the conflict in Mema. 0:32:53.520 --> 0:32:54.360 It's a good question. 0:32:55.400 --> 0:32:59.040 Yeah, I will say, just on a very base level, 0:32:59.040 --> 0:33:01.240 without getting into any kind of like you know, pondering 0:33:01.320 --> 0:33:03.600 or something like that. I've spoken with a few journalists 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:06.960 and you know, before anything, before we even talk about 0:33:07.000 --> 0:33:09.640 politics or something, there is just the material calculation that 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:12.720 these outlets are making. From what I understand from what 0:33:12.800 --> 0:33:15.600 I have heard, people don't care. Now that's really unfortunate. 0:33:15.680 --> 0:33:18.840 But like these like big networks, you know, CNN, whatever, Yeah, 0:33:18.920 --> 0:33:21.080 I have to make the calculation of the people they 0:33:21.080 --> 0:33:23.200 send and the risks to send them, and the actual 0:33:23.600 --> 0:33:25.600 exposure that these news articles will get. 0:33:25.840 --> 0:33:26.520 From what I. 0:33:26.520 --> 0:33:29.360 Understand conversations that I've had with some people that are 0:33:29.400 --> 0:33:31.800 you know, involved in these networks. Right now, there is 0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:34.720 not on like the executive board level. There's just not 0:33:34.760 --> 0:33:36.520 a lot of push to cover me in market and 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:40.600 that's you know, that's really unfortunate. And I think one 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:44.200 really bad side effect of that is whenever there's a tragedy, 0:33:44.240 --> 0:33:46.880 the media is there. Yeah, you know, like whenever there's 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:51.040 some massacre, or whenever there's some you know, intertribal conflict, 0:33:51.080 --> 0:33:53.640 or whenever there's something bad to report about, or maybe 0:33:53.720 --> 0:33:56.520 you know, on a good day, they're really big, like 0:33:56.600 --> 0:33:59.360 a win like in last year that we saw, you know, yeah, okay, yeah, 0:33:59.440 --> 0:34:01.520 for these big things that Western media will be there. 0:34:01.880 --> 0:34:04.520 But I think even from recording these very like click 0:34:04.560 --> 0:34:07.400 baity eye catching things, it seems like they're not getting 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:10.120 the exposure that they want to get out of this content, 0:34:10.440 --> 0:34:13.319 which is putting them off of covering the you know, 0:34:13.360 --> 0:34:17.680 in our opinion, much more meaningful wall to wall content. 0:34:17.400 --> 0:34:19.239 That exists, I mean every day in me and Mark. 0:34:19.320 --> 0:34:22.480 Yeah, it seems like this Western eye is only interested 0:34:22.719 --> 0:34:25.839 in the suffering, we can say, which is really unfortunate. 0:34:26.120 --> 0:34:28.760 But you know, even if the media is not paying attention, 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:31.400 we can say, for better or worse, the governments are 0:34:31.440 --> 0:34:34.800 paying attention absolutely, I mean almost like hawks. 0:34:34.840 --> 0:34:35.400 You can say. 0:34:35.520 --> 0:34:39.080 There are every single regional government as well as foreign 0:34:39.080 --> 0:34:42.000 governments of course, keeping a very close eye on the situation, 0:34:42.120 --> 0:34:45.080 circling looking at developments, I mean China especially no being 0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:45.920 being very. 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:46.760 Involved in the process. 0:34:47.120 --> 0:34:47.359 Yeah. 0:34:47.480 --> 0:34:51.080 So yeah, Well, unfortunately, the kind of liberal media eye 0:34:51.239 --> 0:34:53.759 is not so much you know, giving me and more 0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:56.680 the coverage that it deserves as a popular revolution. The 0:34:56.680 --> 0:35:00.160 powers at b are definitely watching its progression, we can. 0:35:00.440 --> 0:35:01.240 Yeah, yeah, definitely. 0:35:01.280 --> 0:35:03.440 I mean it offers an alternative for the world that 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:07.319 like it's distinct even from Java, like the building of 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:10.920 a revolutionary movement, like you said, the crowdfunded revolution, the 0:35:11.000 --> 0:35:16.000 revolution that like entirely I mean at points armed itself 0:35:16.080 --> 0:35:18.640 using guns, it downloaded off the internet. You know, it 0:35:19.800 --> 0:35:23.440 offers sometimes I think when I'm thinking about, you know, 0:35:23.520 --> 0:35:27.440 my background in studying anarchists in Spain, and like obviously 0:35:27.480 --> 0:35:29.319 I've looked a lot at the past, but it gives 0:35:29.320 --> 0:35:31.760 me a vision of the future, like and it's only 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:37.719 in covering the small parts of the revolution that make 0:35:37.800 --> 0:35:39.640 it truly a revolution that we can see that. Like 0:35:40.280 --> 0:35:43.720 you have an Instagram and on there you're posting about 0:35:43.719 --> 0:35:46.120 training sometimes when you're doing the trainings and there are 0:35:46.120 --> 0:35:48.560 women who are coming to train, you know, with rifles 0:35:48.600 --> 0:35:51.319 to be I was gonna say, Marx, Marx people, I 0:35:51.320 --> 0:35:52.480 guess like people. 0:35:54.760 --> 0:35:57.040 Yeah, on the US military, guys are weird about calling 0:35:57.080 --> 0:35:57.600 things snipers. 0:35:57.640 --> 0:35:58.640 Yeah, there're snipers. 0:35:59.200 --> 0:36:02.760 Yeah, Okay, Yeah, let's do that, Okay, in the moment 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:06.759 that they receive that training and become like efficient with 0:36:06.800 --> 0:36:10.960 their weapons, like a revolution happens for that woman. And 0:36:11.680 --> 0:36:15.600 it's only through like following those those little revolutions that 0:36:15.600 --> 0:36:17.680 happen every day that make up a big revolution that 0:36:17.760 --> 0:36:20.440 we truly understand it. And I'm sure that's something that 0:36:20.480 --> 0:36:24.799 like you're seeing on a daily or weekly basis, right, 0:36:24.840 --> 0:36:29.640 like people's world's opening up and their horizons changing because 0:36:29.680 --> 0:36:30.280 of the revolution. 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:33.799 Well, listen absolutely now, of course, you know, as as 0:36:33.880 --> 0:36:37.439 leftists involved or interested in this revolution studying it, whether 0:36:37.440 --> 0:36:39.600 you're a socialist, whether you're anarchists, whether you're a communist, 0:36:39.640 --> 0:36:41.360 whether you're upper wist. You know, however you like to 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:45.920 describe yourself whatever flavor you are, you know, without pontificating 0:36:45.960 --> 0:36:50.440 too much. I think fundamentally this revolution is a symbol 0:36:50.480 --> 0:36:53.439 of hope that it can be done. No, Like, I'll 0:36:53.440 --> 0:36:56.080 give an example from the conversations that I've had with 0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:58.200 the comrades that have been involved in this revolution since 0:36:58.200 --> 0:37:00.959 it was just a protest movement in the street. One 0:37:00.960 --> 0:37:03.160 thing that I've heard a lot is that at the 0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:05.359 beginning of the revolution, when it switched, you know, when 0:37:05.400 --> 0:37:07.120 the police were fining blows into the crowds, and when 0:37:07.120 --> 0:37:09.680 people made this decision that Okay, now we have no 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:11.960 choice but armed resistance. We have no choice but to 0:37:12.200 --> 0:37:16.080 fight the dictatorship. When that calculus was made, when that 0:37:16.120 --> 0:37:19.840 decision was made, it was not made based on the 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:24.600 kind of analysis of the situation that they could even win. Yeah, 0:37:24.640 --> 0:37:26.719 it was not even that like, Okay, we're going to 0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:29.680 do this and we have this strategy of guerrilla war, 0:37:29.800 --> 0:37:31.440 and then we'll do this, this and this, and then 0:37:31.440 --> 0:37:34.360 we'll achieve the victory. The calculation that was made was 0:37:34.360 --> 0:37:38.240 a moral calculation. It was saying, we have the choice. 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:40.280 We can go back to our life. We can accept 0:37:40.280 --> 0:37:42.560 this oppression, we can give up this struggle for democracy 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:44.960 that we've been waging in one form or another, or 0:37:45.080 --> 0:37:46.839 we can make the decision to fight even if we 0:37:46.880 --> 0:37:51.440 won't win. It's the moral imperative to resist dictatorship. And 0:37:51.520 --> 0:37:54.080 I think what this revolution is showing not just for 0:37:54.160 --> 0:37:58.840 the people who themselves were surprised at their capability and 0:37:58.880 --> 0:38:01.719 we're themselves surprised at what they could accomplish when they 0:38:01.760 --> 0:38:06.320 actually stepped up and fought and sacrificed for revolution. Fundamentally, 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:09.120 it's a message to everyone. It says, look, these people 0:38:09.160 --> 0:38:11.360 at the beginning were going at checkpoints with like double 0:38:11.360 --> 0:38:14.359 barrels and air rifles, and at the end, now they 0:38:14.360 --> 0:38:18.319 are like threatening to overthrow what was previously assumed to 0:38:18.360 --> 0:38:21.280 be one of the most powerful militaries in Southeastern Asia. 0:38:21.360 --> 0:38:22.560 I mean, now, like everyone. 0:38:22.360 --> 0:38:24.640 Jokes on the top of dow because they're obviously garbage now, 0:38:24.680 --> 0:38:28.840 But like at the time, that wasn't That wasn't the analysis. 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:30.440 You know, it would be the same as saying like, oh, 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:32.959 you know, we're going to overthrow the USA or something 0:38:33.000 --> 0:38:37.080 like that. It was fundamentally people didn't even envision the victory, 0:38:37.800 --> 0:38:41.560 but on the moral principle to resist, they've resisted and 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:45.640 from that moral position they were able to materialize the 0:38:45.719 --> 0:38:46.760 victory that they had. 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:50.000 Previously not even imagined. So, you know, for me, that's 0:38:50.000 --> 0:38:50.800 what I take away. 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:53.120 There's no books, there's no ideological books here that you 0:38:53.120 --> 0:38:56.759 can study and understand the underpinnings of the revolution. You know, 0:38:56.800 --> 0:38:59.080 there's no classes that you can go to that the 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:02.680 PDF teaches you about what their revolutionary paradigm is. Fundamentally, 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:04.719 it's a fight of the people against oppression and against 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:07.640 the dictatorship, and while of course there's some strengths and 0:39:07.680 --> 0:39:11.080 some weaknesses that we face in the revolution, ultimately in 0:39:11.120 --> 0:39:13.000 the same way as Rajaba, in the same place as 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:15.640 other places in the world, it's a beacon of hope 0:39:16.160 --> 0:39:20.279 for democratic people who envision themselves fighting on the side 0:39:20.280 --> 0:39:23.520 of freedom and the symbol that actually, yeah, you can win. 0:39:24.320 --> 0:39:26.839 Yeah, it's given me so much hope, Like at a 0:39:26.960 --> 0:39:29.520 time the last few years when we've all desperately needed 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:31.960 something good to happen, Like something good is happening and 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:33.839 incredibly good through them. 0:39:34.360 --> 0:39:36.680 Yeah, Like it's breathtaking. 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:39.439 Like I went in twenty twenty two during the first 0:39:39.480 --> 0:39:42.080 year of the revolution, and I was shopping around this 0:39:42.200 --> 0:39:44.799 story for months, right, I knew these guys who were 0:39:44.800 --> 0:39:47.560 doing the three D printing, and I went to every 0:39:47.680 --> 0:39:49.879 major outlet. I was like, this is the story that's 0:39:49.880 --> 0:39:52.440 going to make people care, and no one bought it 0:39:52.520 --> 0:39:54.840 until eventually Cool Zone did and here I am. But 0:39:55.040 --> 0:39:58.239 like even twenty twenty one twenty two, talking to those guys, 0:39:58.320 --> 0:40:01.279 I was like, they might all die. It's still been 0:40:01.360 --> 0:40:03.680 worth it for them, but they might all be gone 0:40:03.719 --> 0:40:06.719 in a year. Unfortunately, familiar with that from my line 0:40:06.760 --> 0:40:09.799 of work, but like to see it succeed, it's so 0:40:10.560 --> 0:40:14.879 like incredible. It's obviously war is terrible, and terrible things 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:16.960 have happened in the war, but like it's such a 0:40:17.000 --> 0:40:21.719 beautiful thing to see people refuse to accept tyranny and 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:27.239 just through the tenacity of their refusal to create liberated 0:40:27.280 --> 0:40:29.560 spaces and to now threwn to topple like you say, 0:40:29.680 --> 0:40:32.160 one of what had previously been a feared army in 0:40:32.200 --> 0:40:35.319 the region. Like it continues to amaze me every day, 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:38.800 every every time I see people dancing in front of 0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:42.840 a captured military headquarters or I don't know, it's just 0:40:42.880 --> 0:40:47.359 such a such a remarkable revolution. Is that if people 0:40:47.400 --> 0:40:50.080 wish to be in solidarity, if they wish to follow 0:40:50.560 --> 0:40:53.319 the aif if they want to learn more about the 0:40:53.320 --> 0:40:56.799 af where can they do that? Are their places online 0:40:57.000 --> 0:40:59.520 or are there ways that they can support you aside 0:40:59.520 --> 0:41:02.080 from obviously like being part of the struggle, Like how 0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:02.840 can they help you? 0:41:03.280 --> 0:41:03.520 Yeah? 0:41:03.680 --> 0:41:07.279 Me personally, my information platform is mostly on Instagram, where 0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:10.279 I post updates about you know, either insights about what's 0:41:10.320 --> 0:41:12.520 going on or news updates or something like that. 0:41:12.600 --> 0:41:15.839 And that's a zod underscore AFA on instagraram spat out 0:41:15.840 --> 0:41:17.680 aside to fit the known courage speakers. 0:41:17.800 --> 0:41:22.400 Yeah, azad a z a d IF you will, Yeah, 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:27.160 Thanky underscore AFA on Instagram. The AIF also has an 0:41:27.160 --> 0:41:28.840 Instagram for like official posts. 0:41:28.880 --> 0:41:30.640 It's AIF me and more in. 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:34.160 General about the AIF, especially at this early stages. Right now, 0:41:34.239 --> 0:41:37.719 we're involved in some frontlines in Western meanmore and so 0:41:37.840 --> 0:41:40.520 because of that, we don't really have a lot of 0:41:40.520 --> 0:41:43.439 information presence out right now, but in the coming weeks, 0:41:43.440 --> 0:41:45.680 in the coming months, definitely when things get published, when 0:41:45.680 --> 0:41:47.799 more things like that come out, they will come out 0:41:47.920 --> 0:41:51.040 from kind of the existing distribution circles that have been 0:41:51.080 --> 0:41:53.960 going around, like libcom. There has been like statements going 0:41:54.000 --> 0:41:57.440 out as well as Instagram perr things like that. Yeah, 0:41:57.480 --> 0:42:00.600 and recently we just completed a fundraiser. Our goal was 0:42:00.600 --> 0:42:04.360 ten thousand dollars for the vehicles and the equipment that 0:42:04.360 --> 0:42:05.640 we will needed to get started. 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:05.919 Yeah. 0:42:05.960 --> 0:42:08.720 For listeners who don't know, maybe yeah, maybe they're not aware. 0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:11.439 This only started in October of last year, so we're 0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:15.960 still in the stages of consolidating and getting our equipment. 0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:18.479 We set the goal for ten thousand dollars and we 0:42:18.719 --> 0:42:22.080 exceeded it. We raised over thirteen thousand dollars for that nice, 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:24.239 so yeah, we're very happy to say that. But in 0:42:24.280 --> 0:42:26.720 the future, of course, there will always be more opportunities. 0:42:26.800 --> 0:42:30.200 As you know, revolution is very expensive. So yeah, on 0:42:30.239 --> 0:42:33.840 all fundraising platforms we have PayPal, cash app and venmo 0:42:34.280 --> 0:42:37.279 and all of those are aif me and more. And yeah, 0:42:37.280 --> 0:42:39.919 in the future, hopefully we will have more news both 0:42:39.920 --> 0:42:42.120 about what's happening in me and more are both how 0:42:42.239 --> 0:42:47.040 we specifically are involved, as well as just very exciting 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:49.160 footage we can say we hope to share soon. 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:51.839 Yeah, that'll be great to see and I hope you'll 0:42:51.880 --> 0:42:53.279 come back and join us again, and maybe we can 0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:54.920 delve into a little bit more of the history of 0:42:54.920 --> 0:42:58.279 the revolution and the revolution in chin Land specifically, because 0:42:58.280 --> 0:43:00.880 I think these are things that that we need to 0:43:00.920 --> 0:43:03.640 cover more and I'd love to give people a place. 0:43:03.480 --> 0:43:04.120 To learn about them. 0:43:04.200 --> 0:43:05.960 Yeah, absolutely great, Thank you. 0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:28.640 So much, Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here. 0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:31.480 I am once again your occasional host, Molly Conker, and 0:43:31.520 --> 0:43:34.279 I am joined today by Spencer Sunshine, the author of 0:43:34.440 --> 0:43:39.160 Neo Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism, The Origins and Afterlife 0:43:39.160 --> 0:43:43.920 of James Mason's Siege. It's available now in paperback. I 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:48.160 have my paperback copy from Routledge Press. So Spencer, I 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:50.920 guess let's get right into it. What is Siege and 0:43:51.239 --> 0:43:52.839 why should we still be talking about it? 0:43:53.400 --> 0:43:55.560 Well, unfortunately, we should still be talking about it because 0:43:55.600 --> 0:43:59.360 it's still influential. It was a book originally published in 0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:02.360 nineteen ninety three, but that is an edited version of 0:44:02.440 --> 0:44:06.240 newsletters published in the eighties by a fellow named James Mason, 0:44:06.400 --> 0:44:09.680 who is a lifelong neo Nazi. He joined the American 0:44:09.760 --> 0:44:12.840 Nazi Party at age fourteen in nineteen sixty six. He 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:18.160 is still an active ideological believer in national socialism. It's 0:44:18.200 --> 0:44:21.319 a book that in it he makes the argument that 0:44:21.560 --> 0:44:26.480 any kind of normal legal political activity was pointless for 0:44:26.560 --> 0:44:31.160 Neo Nazis to engage in and like forming organizations, holding marches, 0:44:31.440 --> 0:44:34.680 making the traditional propaganda, trying to build up parties, even 0:44:34.719 --> 0:44:37.000 guerrilla warfare. At the end of it, he becomes very 0:44:37.040 --> 0:44:41.799 cynical about and he says through what are essentially dramatic 0:44:42.440 --> 0:44:45.839 random acts of violence, of terrorism or murder. He even 0:44:45.880 --> 0:44:50.120 goes into praising serial killers like Joseph Paul Franklin, we 0:44:50.200 --> 0:44:54.560 can destabilize the government and society and after this neo 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:58.319 Nazis can come to power. This has become a very 0:44:58.360 --> 0:45:01.440 influential idea. More recent he was rediscovered. It was a 0:45:01.440 --> 0:45:04.560 pretty obscure The newsletters were very unpopular that he never 0:45:04.600 --> 0:45:07.839 made more than one hundred copies. The original book had 0:45:07.840 --> 0:45:10.719 a print run of one thousand, so it was a 0:45:10.840 --> 0:45:14.960 sort of obscure text. It was known amongst neo Nazi 0:45:15.000 --> 0:45:18.400 circles for some unusual reasons. It became mixed up with 0:45:18.440 --> 0:45:21.480 some countercultural figures and that was actually what made it 0:45:21.520 --> 0:45:24.440 more well known. But it was revived in twenty fifteen. 0:45:24.480 --> 0:45:28.080 It was found by these younger aspiring terrorists, let's say 0:45:28.080 --> 0:45:30.920 at the time, around a message board called Iron March. 0:45:31.480 --> 0:45:35.040 It became the bible of the Atom Offen Division, this 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:38.920 neo Nazi group that its members and associates killed five people, 0:45:39.440 --> 0:45:41.840 and out of that everyone in the Adam off And 0:45:41.880 --> 0:45:45.560 division had to read Siege, which became the hashtag, and 0:45:45.600 --> 0:45:48.800 out of that grew this whole sort of network, first 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:53.280 of groups and now really totally decentralized, like propaganda channels 0:45:53.320 --> 0:45:57.359 on telegram to terogram promoting these same ideas, and so 0:45:57.520 --> 0:46:00.440 it's become very influential today. It gets named in like 0:46:00.560 --> 0:46:05.360 terrorist manifestos. The school shooter, I think it was in Nashville, 0:46:05.680 --> 0:46:09.959 Tennessee that just happened. He makes a reference to people 0:46:10.040 --> 0:46:13.719 who are into siege in his writings, and more and 0:46:13.719 --> 0:46:16.800 more I've documented before him at least twelve murders or 0:46:16.840 --> 0:46:20.080 either by the amount Adam Waffin Division, by people inspired 0:46:20.080 --> 0:46:22.840 by siege culture, or by people directly linked to terogram. 0:46:23.320 --> 0:46:25.640 So if we want to look at the main text 0:46:25.800 --> 0:46:29.000 animating neo Nazi terrorism today, which has now spread around 0:46:29.000 --> 0:46:31.000 the glow of those groups in Latin America, there's groups 0:46:31.000 --> 0:46:33.480 in eastern Western Europe. It's even influencing groups in the 0:46:33.480 --> 0:46:37.160 Middle East or people in the Middle East. They're called accelerationists. 0:46:37.200 --> 0:46:40.319 They want to accelerate the collapse of things. And if 0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:43.440 there's a single ideological text today that's influential on this scene, 0:46:43.440 --> 0:46:46.080 it is by easily James Mason Siege. 0:46:46.600 --> 0:46:49.279 And what I particularly am enjoying about the book I 0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:51.160 just told you before we started recording, I haven't finished 0:46:51.200 --> 0:46:53.840 it yet. What I'm enjoying about this book is so 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:56.880 you know, you were saying that James Mason started writing 0:46:56.920 --> 0:47:00.480 this in the eighties, right, but nobody was reading it. 0:47:00.480 --> 0:47:02.520 It was very sort of niche. It wasn't popular, even 0:47:02.560 --> 0:47:05.160 with it its own niche. He was not a popular man. 0:47:05.239 --> 0:47:07.080 He had a lot of beefs with other leaders in 0:47:07.080 --> 0:47:10.120 the movement. It's rediscovered in the twenty tens. It's big 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:12.800 on Iron March. It's the animating force behind Adam Waffin, 0:47:12.880 --> 0:47:14.880 And so all of a sudden in the last ten years, 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:18.640 people like us researchers of the far right, mainstream journalists, 0:47:18.680 --> 0:47:23.040 people are talking about Siege, they're talking about Mason. But this, 0:47:23.680 --> 0:47:25.960 I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is the only 0:47:26.120 --> 0:47:27.600 book sort of tracing it. 0:47:27.560 --> 0:47:28.919 Back to its root. 0:47:29.320 --> 0:47:32.520 James Mason did not come into existence in twenty fifteen 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:34.880 on the pages of Iron March. Right, they sort of 0:47:35.000 --> 0:47:38.000 dug back up this writing that was at that point 0:47:38.239 --> 0:47:40.560 thirty years old. But this book, I mean, it's an 0:47:40.600 --> 0:47:43.839 incredible work of research, but it's also sort of a picuresque, right. 0:47:44.440 --> 0:47:49.480 It follows James Mason through decades of Nazi history. Right, 0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:51.600 he wasn't just a guy who wrote a newsletter. He 0:47:51.680 --> 0:47:53.480 was a guy who was in a lot of rooms. 0:47:53.920 --> 0:47:55.960 He knew a lot of people. So through the lens 0:47:56.000 --> 0:48:00.319 of James Mason's life, you can follow the orange of 0:48:00.320 --> 0:48:02.719 the modern neo Nazi movement back to the sort of 0:48:02.800 --> 0:48:07.520 splinters and sects and rival personalities of the seventies. Right 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:12.000 that you can't understand modern neo Nazi organizing if you 0:48:12.200 --> 0:48:14.320 don't know the history that goes back to the sixties 0:48:14.320 --> 0:48:15.320 and seventies. 0:48:15.400 --> 0:48:17.960 Well, thank you forgetting that. I had someone write a 0:48:17.960 --> 0:48:20.080 review and it was an interesting view from the viewpoint 0:48:20.080 --> 0:48:21.960 of literary criticism. And he's like, well, this is one 0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:24.480 of these books about a book it's not And I'm like, yeah, 0:48:24.520 --> 0:48:27.160 it kind of is, but it's really and I started 0:48:27.200 --> 0:48:30.120 after I started writing this which has an unusual origin, 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:32.799 or just maybe it is a usual origin, Like the 0:48:32.840 --> 0:48:36.000 first half is about neo Nazism in the nineteen seventies, 0:48:36.000 --> 0:48:39.640 which is incredibly undocumented. There's a huge problem with a 0:48:39.719 --> 0:48:43.360 documentation about the far right in general before twenty fifteen. 0:48:43.800 --> 0:48:45.839 Probably more books have come out in the last ten 0:48:45.920 --> 0:48:48.680 years about the far right in the US before twenty 0:48:48.800 --> 0:48:52.240 fifteen than came out before, and certainly about neo Nazis, 0:48:52.280 --> 0:48:56.240 who are almost always when they are written about American 0:48:56.360 --> 0:48:58.680 neo Nazis. It's usually in a history of the white 0:48:58.680 --> 0:49:02.520 supremacist movement, and there's no differentiation made between them, and 0:49:02.600 --> 0:49:05.160 I would say the National Socialists are quite different from 0:49:05.200 --> 0:49:08.920 other white supremacists for a variety of different reasons. So 0:49:09.000 --> 0:49:11.720 there is no book about Neo Nazism in the nineteen 0:49:11.760 --> 0:49:14.359 seventies in the US at all. There are only two 0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:17.160 documents I can really name, and they're both written by 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:21.319 National Socialists actually, one in Australia and one the head 0:49:21.320 --> 0:49:23.440 of the New Order, which used to be the American 0:49:23.560 --> 0:49:25.640 Nazi Party. It's actually not bad. It's an eight part 0:49:25.719 --> 0:49:28.279 series by Martin Kirk. So the first half is really 0:49:28.360 --> 0:49:31.600 reconstructing what happened in the nineteen seventies, because this is 0:49:31.640 --> 0:49:34.120 what Siege is coming out of. This Siege is an 0:49:34.160 --> 0:49:37.279 answer to the questions that faced neo Nazis in the 0:49:37.360 --> 0:49:39.760 nineteen seventies. And then the second half of the book 0:49:39.840 --> 0:49:41.839 is even I would say, less about Mason. It's about 0:49:41.840 --> 0:49:46.200 these four countercultural figures who discover Mason, help publish him, 0:49:46.200 --> 0:49:49.840 and eventually published and disseminated Siege itself. 0:49:49.960 --> 0:49:51.120 And part of that is I. 0:49:51.080 --> 0:49:53.640 Was just around the scene these people were part of 0:49:53.680 --> 0:49:55.879 in the nineteen nineties. Like I saw one of them, 0:49:55.880 --> 0:49:59.400 boyd Rice Play. I had many mutual friends with another, 0:49:59.480 --> 0:50:02.160 the published Adam Parfrey of Farreal House. So like, I 0:50:02.320 --> 0:50:05.359 was like right around what these people were doing as 0:50:05.440 --> 0:50:08.280 part of the nineties counterculture. So I became very interested 0:50:08.320 --> 0:50:12.000 in that because these people always denied their background, you know, 0:50:12.200 --> 0:50:14.759 or s left it off or something. And I found 0:50:14.840 --> 0:50:17.480 just so many smoking guns in this. And so I 0:50:17.520 --> 0:50:21.160 will say how this started is right after Charlottesville, they 0:50:21.239 --> 0:50:23.799 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Always you say these 0:50:23.840 --> 0:50:26.160 things and then just you give the name of the thing, 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:27.719 and people are like, wait a minute, that's like where 0:50:27.760 --> 0:50:30.920 I live. You know, we're more than that, you know, 0:50:30.960 --> 0:50:32.319 I was in Seattle. I was like, oh, I was 0:50:32.360 --> 0:50:35.360 at Seattle, referring to this nineteen ninety nine demonstration, and 0:50:35.400 --> 0:50:38.560 I'm like, people are here, weren't even necessarily born then, 0:50:38.640 --> 0:50:42.400 and just saying at Seattle doesn't mean anything. So after 0:50:42.560 --> 0:50:44.960 Younite the Right, there was a spike in popularity in 0:50:45.040 --> 0:50:47.960 Siege and the hashtag read siege because it looked like 0:50:48.040 --> 0:50:51.120 the rally followed what he said, and he said, no 0:50:51.160 --> 0:50:54.440 one in an American society will allow neo Nazis to succeed, 0:50:55.080 --> 0:50:56.680 and a lot of people don't know this, but what 0:50:56.800 --> 0:51:00.279 happened at the initial rally is that it wasn't the 0:51:00.360 --> 0:51:03.360 street fighting people might be familiar with, even that's dating 0:51:03.400 --> 0:51:06.080 from memory. Was before it was supposed to start, and 0:51:06.120 --> 0:51:07.920 when it was supposed to start at noon, the police, 0:51:07.960 --> 0:51:10.640 who had been standing a block away and letting everything unfold, 0:51:10.880 --> 0:51:14.440 marched in and forced everyone out, meaning the rally never happened. 0:51:14.440 --> 0:51:15.520 Nobody ever gave a speech. 0:51:16.400 --> 0:51:19.120 Nobody gave a speech. As we know, the car attack 0:51:19.200 --> 0:51:21.360 happened like an hour or two later. I got to 0:51:21.360 --> 0:51:25.360 look at a timeline, it's all like garbled now right, Yeah, 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:28.360 that sounds right. And the book is co dedicated to 0:51:28.400 --> 0:51:31.239 Heather Hair I just want to point out. So it 0:51:31.320 --> 0:51:33.759 seemed to coincide with what Mason said. He's like, you 0:51:33.800 --> 0:51:36.560 can't do legal work, you have to do a terrorism right, 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:39.000 And so there was a spike and interest in it, 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:41.719 and Adam often had been doing more and more. Adam 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:45.319 often people are committing murders, strange murders. They're all very 0:51:45.320 --> 0:51:47.759 strange murders, which I think speaks to a lot of 0:51:47.760 --> 0:51:51.440 the personalities who are involved in this and other forms 0:51:51.440 --> 0:51:55.120 of violence, even in more structured political movements. I think 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.960 it does attract tends to attract fringe people, except at 0:51:58.000 --> 0:52:00.640 certain times where people are intentionally using it a strategy 0:52:00.680 --> 0:52:02.400 as part of a bigger mass move And anyway, these 0:52:02.400 --> 0:52:05.200 are questions for terrorism studies, and so there was a 0:52:05.200 --> 0:52:06.719 spike of interest in it. So I was going to 0:52:06.760 --> 0:52:09.600 write a short article for a think tank I used 0:52:09.600 --> 0:52:11.959 to be associated with, which I will not name because 0:52:11.960 --> 0:52:14.239 I had such a bad experience with them, and it 0:52:14.280 --> 0:52:15.759 was going to be an article. I couldn't get the 0:52:15.800 --> 0:52:19.400 facts to line up. As I said, there's terrible scholarship 0:52:19.440 --> 0:52:24.080 about this period, and so I used this very sophisticated 0:52:24.160 --> 0:52:27.960 research tool called Google, and through that I found that 0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:30.840 Mason's papers There was a huge collection of Mason's papers 0:52:30.880 --> 0:52:33.400 at the University of Kansas and Lawrence, Kansas. So I 0:52:33.440 --> 0:52:35.719 decided I'd go there. I thought I'd just straighten these 0:52:35.760 --> 0:52:38.400 things out. There were some documents I needed, some very 0:52:38.400 --> 0:52:39.960 obscure fanzines and stuff. 0:52:40.200 --> 0:52:41.200 That'd be the end of the day. 0:52:41.760 --> 0:52:43.640 I got through. Well, first I discovered it's not easy 0:52:43.680 --> 0:52:45.520 to get to Lawrence, Kansas. You have to fly into 0:52:45.560 --> 0:52:47.440 an airport. And then I think I took an uber 0:52:47.480 --> 0:52:48.280 for like an hour. 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:49.600 There was like one. 0:52:49.440 --> 0:52:52.680 Bus a day or something. Anyway, I got there and 0:52:52.840 --> 0:52:55.520 started poking at the papers. It was sixty boxes of 0:52:55.520 --> 0:52:59.279 his correspondence. He had letters incoming and outgoing since the 0:52:59.320 --> 0:53:01.840 early nineteenth sixties. As you mentioned, he was an insider 0:53:01.920 --> 0:53:03.759 to the neo Nazi movement, so it was with all 0:53:03.800 --> 0:53:07.080 these people he had kept carving copies of his outgoing letters. 0:53:07.280 --> 0:53:09.840 It was a unique slice of national socialist life. 0:53:09.640 --> 0:53:12.080 In the United States. Never seen an archive like it. 0:53:12.120 --> 0:53:15.160 People didn't keep their papers because they were doing illegal activities. 0:53:15.200 --> 0:53:17.240 The government sees them and has them in a warehouse 0:53:17.280 --> 0:53:20.480 somewhere or whatever. This is even in the pre Internet. 0:53:20.480 --> 0:53:22.200 I can only do this because it was pre Internet 0:53:22.239 --> 0:53:25.120 and there were paper copies of stuff, and of the 0:53:25.160 --> 0:53:27.920 age where I grew up doing all research on paper 0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:31.879 and in archives. And I quickly found out what I had. 0:53:31.920 --> 0:53:33.840 And there were two things. One, as I said, was 0:53:33.840 --> 0:53:37.239 that there was this whole story of American Neo Nazism, 0:53:37.360 --> 0:53:40.120 of when the American Nazi Party splinters then called the 0:53:40.160 --> 0:53:43.680 National Socialistory People's Party in the nineteen seventies, and all 0:53:43.719 --> 0:53:45.480 these groups come out of it, many of which we 0:53:45.640 --> 0:53:48.960 know parts of like William Peters who wrote to Turner diaries, 0:53:48.960 --> 0:53:51.880 and the Skoky incident which is parodied in The Blues Brothers. 0:53:52.120 --> 0:53:53.520 Some people don't know this just. 0:53:53.480 --> 0:53:57.080 So Paul Franklin shooting and paralyzing US publisher Larry Flint, 0:53:57.080 --> 0:53:59.200 and some other things. And I was like, Oh, these 0:53:59.200 --> 0:54:01.440 are all people who came out of one thing, a 0:54:01.520 --> 0:54:04.400 splintering of the party. And I realized that there basically 0:54:04.440 --> 0:54:07.120 was a terrorist wing that came out of the splintering. 0:54:07.440 --> 0:54:10.279 And people knew Mason and people knew Pierce, but there 0:54:10.320 --> 0:54:13.200 was like a couple other groups or people, but people 0:54:13.239 --> 0:54:16.040 didn't put it together that they were all like the 0:54:16.040 --> 0:54:18.880 most radical wing of these splinter groups. So there was 0:54:18.920 --> 0:54:20.600 that story, and then, as I mentioned, there was a 0:54:20.640 --> 0:54:23.520 second story about these countercultural people who had always denied 0:54:24.320 --> 0:54:26.920 that they were involved in national socialism or the level 0:54:27.000 --> 0:54:29.160 of it. It was just a joke, all these things 0:54:29.160 --> 0:54:31.520 that we hear today almost word for word. AND's how 0:54:31.520 --> 0:54:33.600 I found all their letters to James Mason, and they're 0:54:33.800 --> 0:54:37.440 adorned with swastikas and eight aids, and they're helping him. 0:54:37.640 --> 0:54:40.239 Had they reveal the extent that they helped him, and 0:54:40.280 --> 0:54:42.400 the funny thing is a lot of this stuff was 0:54:42.520 --> 0:54:43.880 actually available. 0:54:43.360 --> 0:54:44.040 And out in the open. 0:54:44.080 --> 0:54:46.120 It was in published books, but it was like little 0:54:46.160 --> 0:54:49.600 pieces of flakes of gold scattered around everything. I started 0:54:49.600 --> 0:54:52.240 picking them up because I realized you could put them together. 0:54:52.800 --> 0:54:55.440 And so one article turnout was supposed to be one article, 0:54:55.520 --> 0:54:57.680 and then it turns two articles. And I sat down 0:54:57.680 --> 0:54:59.400 to write it and turned into a book. And then 0:54:59.520 --> 0:55:02.319 five year years later I finally had the manuscript done. 0:55:02.440 --> 0:55:04.960 Then took another year at the publishers, and then it 0:55:04.960 --> 0:55:08.560 came out last year. So it's been seven years of work, 0:55:09.120 --> 0:55:11.480 and I've been going around doing talks. I did seventeen 0:55:11.560 --> 0:55:14.160 talks and support of the book, and as many podcasts 0:55:14.160 --> 0:55:16.560 and stuff. So I'm still the book is still part 0:55:16.600 --> 0:55:18.400 of my life, as much as I would like to 0:55:18.880 --> 0:55:19.799 sort of put it down. 0:55:20.000 --> 0:55:21.640 But thank you for having me on the podcast. This 0:55:21.680 --> 0:55:23.640 is not great that you have me on the podcast. 0:55:23.719 --> 0:55:27.200 Not against no diss against you, no shade, no shade no. 0:55:27.280 --> 0:55:30.080 And I'm so I'm so jealous of your trip to 0:55:30.160 --> 0:55:31.560 Kansas to see the archives. 0:55:31.880 --> 0:55:33.720 I only recently. 0:55:33.480 --> 0:55:36.400 A year or two, discovered that his papers existed in 0:55:36.440 --> 0:55:38.560 those archives, and so I wrote to the archivist and 0:55:38.600 --> 0:55:40.800 I said, like, you know, are any of these digitized? 0:55:40.840 --> 0:55:42.239 I would love to see them. And they're like, you know, 0:55:42.280 --> 0:55:44.400 we've only digitized like one box. And they sent me 0:55:44.440 --> 0:55:46.759 a couple of a couple of scans, but most of 0:55:46.760 --> 0:55:48.919 it has not been digitized. So you have to go 0:55:48.960 --> 0:55:52.560 to Kansas if you want to read this old pedophile 0:55:52.680 --> 0:55:54.600 Nazis letters to Charles Manson. 0:55:54.880 --> 0:55:57.560 Well, I do have thousands of pictures I took of 0:55:57.600 --> 0:56:01.000 this correspondence. So yeah, if you were quest to digital copies, 0:56:01.040 --> 0:56:03.480 they won't tell you what they've digitized. And so it's 0:56:04.320 --> 0:56:07.400 like you know, trying to like randomly throw darts or something. 0:56:07.440 --> 0:56:09.200 If you get the right file they have them. 0:56:09.320 --> 0:56:11.240 And I was like, I was begging and pleading. 0:56:11.239 --> 0:56:13.120 I was like, please, just like any letters you have 0:56:13.200 --> 0:56:15.120 with Bob Heyite, I just I just want the Bob 0:56:15.200 --> 0:56:15.840 Hike letters. 0:56:16.480 --> 0:56:18.840 But I can give you the Bob Hyke letters. 0:56:18.880 --> 0:56:19.680 I would love those. 0:56:19.800 --> 0:56:23.040 I think they'll they'll digitize stuff for a price. 0:56:22.760 --> 0:56:25.319 Though, I'm sure I'm sure if I pay for it, 0:56:25.360 --> 0:56:28.080 they would do me the favor. But that's the thing 0:56:28.120 --> 0:56:31.160 is that there's so much interconnection here because these stories 0:56:31.200 --> 0:56:35.399 always get told episodically, right like the story of James 0:56:35.440 --> 0:56:38.040 Mason and Adam woffin the story of William Luther Peers, 0:56:38.080 --> 0:56:40.320 the story of the founding of the National Socialist movement. 0:56:40.719 --> 0:56:44.400 But nobody takes those pieces and slots them together because 0:56:44.440 --> 0:56:48.560 they interlock. They all interlock, right, And so this idea 0:56:48.600 --> 0:56:50.800 of the lone wolf, I mean, I guess James Mason's 0:56:50.800 --> 0:56:54.800 life's work is to perpetuate and motivate the lone wolf. 0:56:54.880 --> 0:56:57.880 But is it really a lone wolf if he's training them. 0:56:58.040 --> 0:57:01.040 Well, the lone wolf question is is a long question. 0:57:01.360 --> 0:57:03.239 A lot of people know Metzker moved to the lone 0:57:03.280 --> 0:57:06.719 wolf strategy after a war was sued by the SPLC 0:57:06.840 --> 0:57:10.120 and collapse, but Mason was advocating this beforehand and was 0:57:10.400 --> 0:57:13.920 very tight with Metzker. So there is actually a book 0:57:14.000 --> 0:57:16.760 describing what you've said, putting the pieces together, and it's 0:57:16.800 --> 0:57:20.200 called Neo Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fast exactly. It's the 0:57:20.280 --> 0:57:21.720 I think, which you can buy today. 0:57:22.320 --> 0:57:24.000 I mean, like I said, it's the only book that 0:57:24.040 --> 0:57:27.200 I know of that fits these pieces together. 0:57:27.520 --> 0:57:29.480 No, it is the only book. Actually, I've been in 0:57:29.520 --> 0:57:32.640 contact with James Mason, and he said when radio interview, 0:57:32.640 --> 0:57:34.560 it's not the first of its kind, but it's the 0:57:34.600 --> 0:57:35.600 best of its kind. 0:57:36.400 --> 0:57:51.200 High praise from the book's Nazi pedophile subject. Why did 0:57:51.200 --> 0:57:53.640 he donate his papers to the library, because, like you said, 0:57:53.640 --> 0:57:56.680 most people are not not only not preserving these items 0:57:56.720 --> 0:57:58.400 where they're not preserving them at all because they know 0:57:58.440 --> 0:58:01.400 what they've done is illegal or harassing to everyone involved, 0:58:01.440 --> 0:58:05.800 and they're intentionally destroying the evidence of these kinds of communications. 0:58:05.800 --> 0:58:08.520 But he not only saved them, but he wanted to 0:58:08.560 --> 0:58:09.919 make sure we could read them. 0:58:10.560 --> 0:58:12.040 Did you talk to him at all about why he 0:58:12.080 --> 0:58:12.360 did that? 0:58:12.640 --> 0:58:15.280 Well, he sold them. He was a wheeler dealer in 0:58:15.880 --> 0:58:20.320 especially American Nazi party memorabilia. You know, he sold furniture 0:58:20.600 --> 0:58:24.280 on the side, like antiques. He'd go antiquing and he 0:58:24.800 --> 0:58:26.920 if you've seen pictures of his apartment, it's filled with 0:58:27.000 --> 0:58:29.640 Nazi nickknacks, right, he's got a knife collection. 0:58:30.040 --> 0:58:32.480 I mean, it looks like it looks like the Area 0:58:32.560 --> 0:58:34.240 Nation's booth at the Tulsa Gun Show. 0:58:34.640 --> 0:58:37.000 It looks like my apartment, but like the in the 0:58:37.120 --> 0:58:43.160 inverse and fewer plants. So he was a collector. So 0:58:43.240 --> 0:58:45.720 he was already on My understanding is he was already 0:58:45.760 --> 0:58:49.640 selling George Lincoln Rockwell memoryabilia or whatever, papers and such. 0:58:49.800 --> 0:58:53.200 Two Kansas. They have this collection there called the Wilcox 0:58:53.280 --> 0:58:56.600 Collection of anti extremist stuff. This guy, Laird Wilcox, had 0:58:56.640 --> 0:58:59.960 been in early students for Democratic Society before they took 0:59:00.360 --> 0:59:03.040 like Marxist turn and then decided that the left and 0:59:03.080 --> 0:59:06.280 the right were the same, like in the seventies or something, 0:59:06.360 --> 0:59:08.880 and started collecting all this material. So they were one 0:59:08.920 --> 0:59:11.800 of the they're probably the biggest collection of far right material. 0:59:11.840 --> 0:59:14.760 And as I said, at the time, libraries weren't collecting 0:59:14.760 --> 0:59:16.760 it and people weren't writing about it. They were like, oh, 0:59:16.800 --> 0:59:18.880 these are just a bunch of kooks and wing nuts. 0:59:18.880 --> 0:59:22.000 They're not important. And some of this is because, like 0:59:22.040 --> 0:59:24.000 as I say in the book, the first neo Nazi 0:59:24.200 --> 0:59:27.040 mass murder wasn't until the late seventies, like it was 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:31.040 what we know as neo Nazism today really only emerged 0:59:31.080 --> 0:59:33.360 in the seventies, is one of my arguments in the book. 0:59:34.080 --> 0:59:35.840 So the papers were there because he sold them. The 0:59:35.840 --> 0:59:39.960 second thing is he is unique, I think, not unique, 0:59:40.000 --> 0:59:44.640 but very uncommon because he is an unabashed neo Nazi. 0:59:44.680 --> 0:59:46.640 He does not try to hide it. He is not 0:59:46.840 --> 0:59:51.400 like the NSM, which is actually a party he co founded, shockingly, 0:59:51.600 --> 0:59:54.360 but left over it as they turned because originally it 0:59:54.400 --> 0:59:56.360 was to promote violence, and then as it turned to 0:59:56.400 --> 0:59:59.160 a more traditional Hollywood Nazi party, he left. But it's 0:59:59.160 --> 1:00:01.400 the same one that was at Charlottesville, and Jeff's Scoop 1:00:01.480 --> 1:00:04.080 was the head of I actually taught Jeff Scoop about 1:00:04.120 --> 1:00:04.440 how the. 1:00:04.400 --> 1:00:07.200 Party was founded. That was very interesting. I interviewed him 1:00:07.200 --> 1:00:07.680 for the book. 1:00:07.840 --> 1:00:09.920 Another one of those dishonest actors. 1:00:09.640 --> 1:00:11.680 Well, the guy who had made him the head of 1:00:11.680 --> 1:00:15.280 the party, who was actually the second head, Harrington, cliff Harrington. 1:00:15.360 --> 1:00:18.440 Clifford Harrington did not give him the truthful account of 1:00:18.480 --> 1:00:21.520 the parties founding. Harrington claimed he was a co founder, 1:00:21.520 --> 1:00:23.680 and he wasn't. He claimed a different date. This is 1:00:23.680 --> 1:00:26.080 one reason I spent so much time on stuff. Also 1:00:26.120 --> 1:00:28.000 that I found all these things that had been printed 1:00:28.040 --> 1:00:30.880 that were wrong. The bi scholars and others that were 1:00:31.200 --> 1:00:32.880 and it wasn't their fault, they were taken. It was 1:00:32.880 --> 1:00:35.160 hard to get these harder to get these documents, especially 1:00:35.160 --> 1:00:37.760 when a group is moving. And so Harrington claimed he 1:00:37.760 --> 1:00:40.280 had been a co founder in nineteen seventy four or whatever, 1:00:40.360 --> 1:00:43.840 but he was lying. Mason was one of the co 1:00:43.920 --> 1:00:47.360 founders and not him. He only became the head in 1:00:47.440 --> 1:00:51.240 the eighties. So this is some of the stuff I found. Anyway, 1:00:51.240 --> 1:00:52.640 I was going to say the NSM at one point, 1:00:52.680 --> 1:00:54.440 god where not neo Nazis. 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:55.280 Were National Socialists. 1:00:56.000 --> 1:00:58.640 I was like, get the fuck out of here, like really, like, 1:00:58.800 --> 1:01:03.040 come all, your flag is a swastikonic ah, I mean, 1:01:03.080 --> 1:01:06.720 this is absurd, but people will do that, right, It's 1:01:06.760 --> 1:01:09.640 like the dead parents git in Monty Python. If people 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:12.200 know this and so. But Mason stands out because he's 1:01:12.200 --> 1:01:14.920 always been very upfront about his views. He's very proud 1:01:14.920 --> 1:01:17.640 of them. He's not ashamed. And if this it's embarrassed 1:01:17.680 --> 1:01:19.840 other people, they didn't belong He's as he told to me, 1:01:19.880 --> 1:01:21.760 they didn't believe in the One True religion. 1:01:22.600 --> 1:01:23.480 So I asked him. 1:01:23.320 --> 1:01:26.360 About these counterculture figures who have denied they were ever 1:01:26.400 --> 1:01:28.680 involved in this stuff. At the time, he was convinced 1:01:28.680 --> 1:01:31.680 they were National Socialists and he was like, well, they 1:01:31.720 --> 1:01:34.160 believed in something else other than the One True Faith. 1:01:34.200 --> 1:01:35.640 I think that's the word he used. 1:01:35.840 --> 1:01:38.880 So, yeah, he is nothing to hide. He's very open 1:01:38.920 --> 1:01:42.200 about it, very open about promoting terrorism. As you know, 1:01:42.320 --> 1:01:44.720 and maybe some of the listeners do young neo Nazis 1:01:44.760 --> 1:01:47.200 go to his apartment and he tutors them. They take 1:01:47.240 --> 1:01:51.560 pictures with him. This included Sam Woodward, who murdered a 1:01:51.600 --> 1:01:54.840 young gay Jewish man Blaze Bernstein, recently sentence to life 1:01:54.840 --> 1:01:59.120 in prison. There's pictures a Woodward in Mason's apartment. So yeah, 1:01:59.160 --> 1:02:01.720 I mean he wants he's proud of his lineage and 1:02:01.720 --> 1:02:03.800 he wants it documented. And I know I did him 1:02:03.840 --> 1:02:06.880 a favor by writing a book about his movement. I mean, 1:02:07.200 --> 1:02:10.200 they don't have the intellectuals and the resources to in 1:02:10.240 --> 1:02:13.560 the trained people to write historical books, and I did 1:02:13.560 --> 1:02:15.680 it a pretty straight up book. Even Mason was like, 1:02:15.720 --> 1:02:17.960 I kept waiting to read the smear. I kept waiting 1:02:18.040 --> 1:02:20.200 for the smear. There was no smear. I was like, yeah, 1:02:20.200 --> 1:02:22.440 I just wrote it as a history book. And so 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:25.800 in a way I've given them an insight into their 1:02:25.920 --> 1:02:28.800 history which wouldn't exist otherwise. So this stuff is always 1:02:28.840 --> 1:02:31.240 a double edged sword when you cover as you know, 1:02:31.280 --> 1:02:34.040 when you cover fascist groups, they want the publicity. 1:02:34.280 --> 1:02:35.280 By and large. 1:02:35.880 --> 1:02:39.160 I was told sometimes at the SPLC, like groups contact 1:02:39.240 --> 1:02:41.720 them and they're like cover us, give us coverage. 1:02:41.360 --> 1:02:44.320 Sending them their press releases. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:02:44.400 --> 1:02:46.600 But I mean I think someone like Mason, I guess 1:02:46.600 --> 1:02:48.400 he doesn't see the smear because, like you said, he's 1:02:48.440 --> 1:02:51.000 proud of himself. So this is I think is an 1:02:51.080 --> 1:02:55.480 honest appraisal of his legacy, and most people would see 1:02:55.520 --> 1:02:56.840 that as a smear, but he's proud of it. 1:02:57.160 --> 1:02:58.919 Well, it's not a smear. I don't need to say 1:02:58.920 --> 1:03:03.160 anything bad about him. He's there promoting Nazi terrorism. What's 1:03:03.200 --> 1:03:07.360 the point of, like, you know, denouncing this or something. 1:03:07.640 --> 1:03:11.120 I mean, Whereas I think someone like Pierce, I think 1:03:11.200 --> 1:03:13.960 sometimes when people write honestly about Piers, obviously he's been 1:03:13.960 --> 1:03:18.400 dead for twenty five years, but he resisted the characterization 1:03:18.600 --> 1:03:21.520 that he was inciting terrorism, even though he, like Mason 1:03:21.640 --> 1:03:23.240 very much was Oh. 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:25.520 Well, Pierce is just a liar. I mean, all these 1:03:25.520 --> 1:03:26.680 guys exactly. 1:03:26.360 --> 1:03:26.920 That's what I mean. 1:03:27.200 --> 1:03:29.280 But I think a book like this about Pierce, I 1:03:29.280 --> 1:03:32.120 think he would not have enjoyed, whereas Mason is at 1:03:32.240 --> 1:03:33.640 least honest about his legacy. 1:03:34.200 --> 1:03:36.400 You know, there is a terrible book about Pierce by 1:03:36.440 --> 1:03:39.800 one of the sickaphants who is a professor actually Griffin. 1:03:40.000 --> 1:03:44.360 Yeah, and that again, that is one of those dishonest histories. 1:03:44.400 --> 1:03:46.160 I think we were talking before we started recording that 1:03:46.200 --> 1:03:49.960 the problem with archival research trying to write a history 1:03:49.960 --> 1:03:53.240 of these movements is they are dishonest actors. And so 1:03:53.320 --> 1:03:55.760 Robert S. Griffin he wrote what is it the Fame 1:03:55.800 --> 1:03:56.880 of a dead Man's Deeds? 1:03:56.960 --> 1:03:57.160 Yes? 1:03:57.320 --> 1:04:00.360 Is that what it's called. He went into it saying like, 1:04:00.400 --> 1:04:00.880 I'm going. 1:04:00.720 --> 1:04:04.040 To write this neutral appraisal of this figure of the movement, 1:04:04.040 --> 1:04:06.520 about William Luther Pierce, and over the weeks that he 1:04:06.600 --> 1:04:09.200 spent on the compound to write it, and he spent 1:04:09.240 --> 1:04:13.600 time with Peers on the compound in Hillsboro, became radicalized 1:04:13.640 --> 1:04:16.480 and is a Nazi. Now are he still alive? I mean, 1:04:16.480 --> 1:04:18.720 he could take issue with that characterization if he wants. 1:04:18.760 --> 1:04:23.120 But yes, I'm sure you've read the book. It's not neutral. 1:04:23.360 --> 1:04:25.160 It's a has giography of Peers. 1:04:25.320 --> 1:04:25.560 Yeah. 1:04:25.600 --> 1:04:29.200 There's actually a book by Pierce's son too, which is interesting. 1:04:29.160 --> 1:04:30.360 I've read that. It's quite good. 1:04:30.600 --> 1:04:32.959 Well, unfortunately a lot of it's copy pasta. 1:04:32.840 --> 1:04:37.280 But I think his insight into his relationship with his 1:04:37.320 --> 1:04:40.240 father is very unique. It's called The Sins of My 1:04:40.280 --> 1:04:42.840 Father by Kelvin Pierce. I mean, that's a window you 1:04:42.880 --> 1:04:44.919 don't often get, although I guess now we do also 1:04:45.000 --> 1:04:48.760 have the Klansman's son by Don Black's. 1:04:48.240 --> 1:04:51.360 Daughter Black's daughter or son she has transitions. 1:04:51.400 --> 1:04:53.919 Oh, I did not know that well, Mazeltov. 1:04:54.160 --> 1:04:57.720 Yeah, yeah, I remember reading their work before Trump, and 1:04:57.760 --> 1:05:01.320 they actually wrote one of the most moving resignations from 1:05:01.360 --> 1:05:04.240 the movement that I've read, very much, taking you know, 1:05:04.280 --> 1:05:06.640 being accountable even though they were raised in it. I 1:05:06.640 --> 1:05:08.880 feel like children raised in this are not like as 1:05:08.920 --> 1:05:12.360 accountable as adults are, right, especially like they were in 1:05:12.480 --> 1:05:13.400 college at the time. 1:05:13.480 --> 1:05:16.080 But it was like a true interesting. 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:19.320 Working through it, and I felt like heartfelt apology for it. 1:05:19.480 --> 1:05:22.200 And yeah, actually this is a fun fact. You may 1:05:22.240 --> 1:05:27.720 know a member of the Aryan Nationalist Action A and A. 1:05:28.040 --> 1:05:30.880 This terrorist there's a bank robbing group from the eighties. 1:05:30.920 --> 1:05:35.680 I think became the first person to transition gender. 1:05:36.320 --> 1:05:37.200 From Donald Langyen. 1:05:37.280 --> 1:05:40.320 Donal Langen was known as pretty Boy Pedro when she 1:05:40.440 --> 1:05:42.720 was the head of the Aryan Republican Army. It's a 1:05:42.720 --> 1:05:45.560 bank robbery gang out of Allaheim City. Yeah, she was 1:05:45.600 --> 1:05:48.360 the first person to win a battle with the federal 1:05:48.360 --> 1:05:50.320 government to transition in federal prison. 1:05:50.120 --> 1:05:51.240 To get surgery. 1:05:51.400 --> 1:05:54.640 Yeah, and just recently. Actually, there was a filing in 1:05:54.680 --> 1:05:57.280 her case. She's trying to get the way the case 1:05:57.360 --> 1:05:59.920 is titled in the court records it's still Peter Lean 1:06:00.160 --> 1:06:03.720 in her dead name, and the judge denied her petition 1:06:03.800 --> 1:06:07.160 to retitle the case. But she has transitioned and is 1:06:07.160 --> 1:06:08.040 in a women's prison. 1:06:08.120 --> 1:06:09.040 Is she in Texas? 1:06:09.280 --> 1:06:11.360 Oh gosh, I could look up in the BOP where 1:06:11.440 --> 1:06:11.760 she is. 1:06:11.880 --> 1:06:14.560 Texas bans prisoners from changing their names. 1:06:14.840 --> 1:06:20.280 She is in FMC cars. Well that isn't in Dallas. 1:06:20.960 --> 1:06:22.760 Yeah, that's why. That's why. 1:06:23.560 --> 1:06:25.760 So she's still in the BOP system under her dead name, 1:06:25.760 --> 1:06:30.040 but she was allowed to physically transition. So that's again 1:06:30.120 --> 1:06:33.360 just a strange twist of history, right that the person 1:06:33.360 --> 1:06:35.640 who won that legal padel for us was a Nazi 1:06:35.680 --> 1:06:36.240 bank robber. 1:06:36.360 --> 1:06:40.600 Well, she has also long repudiated those politics. So I 1:06:40.600 --> 1:06:43.920 think she's been the only person to have surgery transperson 1:06:44.000 --> 1:06:47.000 has surgery who was in prisoned at the time, because 1:06:47.040 --> 1:06:50.040 I think that was recently and then everything, you know, 1:06:50.200 --> 1:06:53.680 everything they changed. They I know that they slowed down 1:06:54.600 --> 1:06:57.960 their trans policies waiting to see the results of the election. 1:06:58.400 --> 1:07:00.760 So for strange reason, I you know, actually a bunch 1:07:00.760 --> 1:07:02.720 of the stuff about trans people in prison. 1:07:02.840 --> 1:07:06.120 So anyway, no, I mean it's a remarkable, remarkable history. 1:07:06.240 --> 1:07:06.439 Yeah. 1:07:06.480 --> 1:07:10.240 Yeah, So you started writing this book after Unite the 1:07:10.280 --> 1:07:13.360 Right because there's this renewed interest in Siege. I mean, 1:07:13.440 --> 1:07:15.280 I guess what has the experience been, like, you know, 1:07:15.320 --> 1:07:17.480 over the course of spending the last six years of 1:07:17.480 --> 1:07:21.240 your life working on this, realizing that it is only 1:07:21.280 --> 1:07:23.960 becoming more relevant and not less. 1:07:24.400 --> 1:07:27.600 Well, the problem is is like for people like us 1:07:27.600 --> 1:07:30.320 who watch the far right, like our work is only 1:07:30.640 --> 1:07:33.360 important or people are only interested in it when there 1:07:33.440 --> 1:07:35.800 is a big upswing, and then like that's when people 1:07:35.800 --> 1:07:38.200 are interested and that's when it is more important. So 1:07:38.600 --> 1:07:40.800 on one hand, it's good that I didn't spend five 1:07:40.840 --> 1:07:42.920 years and then no one remembered what siege was and 1:07:42.960 --> 1:07:45.000 it was just a blip. I mean, that's good for me, 1:07:45.040 --> 1:07:46.440 But I'll have to say what's good for me is 1:07:46.480 --> 1:07:47.600 bad for society. 1:07:47.760 --> 1:07:48.919 And so I mean, I think. 1:07:48.800 --> 1:07:51.120 It would have been an important work of history regardless. 1:07:51.120 --> 1:07:53.080 But I guess as you're working on it, realizing that 1:07:53.120 --> 1:07:54.720 the body count is only growing. 1:07:55.200 --> 1:08:00.240 Yeah, it's it's I don't know, I don't really you know, 1:08:00.280 --> 1:08:02.720 what do you say about that. I call these people 1:08:02.880 --> 1:08:07.200 empty people spreading emptiness. Like it's hard for me even 1:08:07.200 --> 1:08:10.840 to get mad at the more aggressive neo Nazis and 1:08:10.880 --> 1:08:14.560 white supremacists. Like often they're young, and I just see 1:08:14.640 --> 1:08:18.360 like sad young people who can't deal with their problems, 1:08:18.439 --> 1:08:22.120 engaged in like hurting other people who are often not 1:08:22.240 --> 1:08:24.400 so different than them, you know, I mean there's a 1:08:24.439 --> 1:08:27.720 trans man who was in Adam. Often you know, like 1:08:28.280 --> 1:08:33.800 they're yeah, numerous stories of people being you know, of 1:08:34.280 --> 1:08:37.400 not white descent, either they're hiding that they're not, or 1:08:37.439 --> 1:08:39.599 they're a mixed race descent and they're sort of passing 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:43.120 as wide of being Jewish and being queer, all this stuff. 1:08:43.120 --> 1:08:44.960 The movement's filled with these people. 1:08:45.040 --> 1:08:47.320 Sometimes it's the people are even like how many straight 1:08:47.360 --> 1:08:50.160 white men are there in the movement, Like and it's 1:08:50.240 --> 1:08:53.600 just sad. You're like, I see you're being attracted to 1:08:53.640 --> 1:08:57.840 this because you're so alienated or you're so your identity 1:08:57.920 --> 1:09:00.559 is so shaky that you are attracted to this idea 1:09:00.600 --> 1:09:03.599 of a firm, strong identity. And I mean sometimes people 1:09:03.640 --> 1:09:06.320 forget Fascism in Italy and Germany arose and basically the 1:09:06.400 --> 1:09:09.960 last two countries that arose and solidified in Europe, Like 1:09:10.400 --> 1:09:13.240 those were countries that wasn't clear what Italy was going 1:09:13.320 --> 1:09:15.679 to be. There's such differences between the north and the south. 1:09:16.160 --> 1:09:19.040 There's no reason, Like it was unclear originally whether Germany 1:09:19.120 --> 1:09:22.280 was going to be Austria too, you know, and so 1:09:22.320 --> 1:09:24.679 they were. It's a way part of fascism is shoring 1:09:24.760 --> 1:09:28.640 up that national identity which was very fragmented, and it 1:09:28.760 --> 1:09:31.320 works the same I think with people's identities. And one 1:09:31.360 --> 1:09:33.439 of the one of the things that attracts people to 1:09:33.520 --> 1:09:37.000 neo Nazism, I think, is this strong affirmation of an identity, 1:09:37.000 --> 1:09:41.360 and people with mixed identities or conflicted about it or 1:09:41.400 --> 1:09:44.679 filled with self loathing are drawn to this for that reason. 1:09:44.800 --> 1:09:47.360 One of the many reasons people get drawn into these things. 1:09:47.479 --> 1:09:49.639 And they recruit so young. 1:09:49.720 --> 1:09:51.479 I mean, I think in the book you're talking about this, 1:09:51.720 --> 1:09:53.879 you know all the way back to James Mason's origins 1:09:53.920 --> 1:09:56.320 that he became interested in the Nazi Party as a 1:09:56.520 --> 1:09:57.920 fourteen year. 1:09:57.720 --> 1:10:00.000 Old, joined it, joined it at fourteen. 1:10:00.240 --> 1:10:04.160 So he's a child, right getting into this movement, and 1:10:04.200 --> 1:10:06.519 now that he is an old man, he is in 1:10:06.560 --> 1:10:11.240 turn in doctrinating children, right that Adam Woffen members are 1:10:11.720 --> 1:10:14.960 very young, I guess were Adam Woffin technically doesn't exist anymore, 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:19.040 but most of the young men who spilled blood for 1:10:19.080 --> 1:10:20.040 Adam Waffen. 1:10:19.760 --> 1:10:21.960 Were twenty years old, nineteen years old. 1:10:22.120 --> 1:10:24.599 And you know, someone pointed out the founder of the 1:10:24.640 --> 1:10:29.240 feuer Krieg Division when he founded it was twelve. He 1:10:29.320 --> 1:10:31.840 was arrested when he was thirteen or fourteen, but he 1:10:31.960 --> 1:10:32.800 founded it at. 1:10:32.720 --> 1:10:39.200 Twelve, and which tragic, obviously tragic, heartbreaking, disgusting. But imagine 1:10:39.240 --> 1:10:42.360 being one of the adults who is in that group 1:10:42.479 --> 1:10:44.799 and finding out that your fear was twelve. 1:10:45.280 --> 1:10:48.560 I grew up in the South in an extremely Protestant 1:10:48.640 --> 1:10:52.400 area at the height of that like eighties fundamentals Christian 1:10:52.840 --> 1:10:56.360 Christian right thing, and there were I knew about. These 1:10:56.360 --> 1:10:58.640 are kind of an older thing. Child preachers. Have you 1:10:58.640 --> 1:11:01.360 ever heard of child preachers? This was a big thing during. 1:11:01.160 --> 1:11:04.240 The Yeah, they speak in tongues and they sort of 1:11:04.400 --> 1:11:07.400 parrot the cadence of the way adults speak. 1:11:07.439 --> 1:11:09.519 But if you listen carefully, they're not saying anything. 1:11:09.920 --> 1:11:14.160 If they've memorized the way that adults give these barn 1:11:14.280 --> 1:11:18.920 burning you know, adul Protestants, Evangelicals give these barn burning sermons, 1:11:19.280 --> 1:11:23.680 but they don't necessarily understand what they're saying. And so, 1:11:24.439 --> 1:11:26.720 I mean, I think it's pretty common people adults will 1:11:26.760 --> 1:11:29.000 do this. They honestly believe in what they're saying. Maybe 1:11:29.000 --> 1:11:31.200 they understand it a little better. I think there's a 1:11:31.240 --> 1:11:33.920 bunch of post structuralist academics who don't even understand what 1:11:33.960 --> 1:11:34.439 they're saying. 1:11:34.439 --> 1:11:35.799 But that could happen too. 1:11:36.320 --> 1:11:38.880 And so I think people like, well, I don't know, 1:11:38.960 --> 1:11:40.519 I was a pretty smart twelve year old. Maybe I 1:11:40.560 --> 1:11:43.000 would understand it better. But you just need somebody repeating it. 1:11:43.000 --> 1:11:46.639 It's the slogans and the narratives have already been formed 1:11:46.680 --> 1:11:49.840 by others. You're not necessarily innovating on it. As long 1:11:49.880 --> 1:11:53.240 as you can repeat the dogma, it doesn't really matter 1:11:53.280 --> 1:11:56.080 who's saying. It doesn't matter if you're if the person 1:11:56.160 --> 1:11:57.080 is gay or Jewish. 1:11:57.360 --> 1:11:59.559 And I mean, the Estonian twelve year old was not 1:11:59.600 --> 1:12:00.439 a one, you know. 1:12:00.680 --> 1:12:02.800 In the Ethan Melzer case a year or two ago, 1:12:03.040 --> 1:12:05.400 Ethan Melzer was a US Army private who was trying 1:12:05.439 --> 1:12:09.000 to set up his unit in Turkey to be attacked 1:12:09.000 --> 1:12:12.160 by Middle Eastern terrorist groups, and the person he was 1:12:12.160 --> 1:12:15.080 communicating with online sort of goading him into these acts. 1:12:15.760 --> 1:12:17.600 Was a child. It was a child. He was the 1:12:17.720 --> 1:12:19.439 Order of Nine Angles though right he was Ona. 1:12:19.680 --> 1:12:22.600 He wasn't a near Nazi, right, I always try to 1:12:22.640 --> 1:12:24.680 distinguish there's some nine A's who are not. 1:12:25.479 --> 1:12:28.360 He was at the bleed point of Adam Waffin's splinter 1:12:28.439 --> 1:12:32.000 group and Ona he was involved with rape Waffen, was he. Yeah, 1:12:32.080 --> 1:12:34.760 the lineage of these groups is so messy. I think 1:12:34.800 --> 1:12:37.680 some of them don't even understand the ideological lineage of 1:12:37.720 --> 1:12:41.320 the sect they've ended up in. But but Melzer was 1:12:41.320 --> 1:12:43.960 at that sort of bleed point where Adam Woffin was 1:12:44.680 --> 1:12:45.840 becoming ONA. 1:12:46.400 --> 1:12:48.479 But I think what we're seeing now and definitely in 1:12:48.520 --> 1:12:50.880 these last two school shootings in the last month, is 1:12:51.960 --> 1:12:55.120 a syncretic murder. Cull the guy who just said the 1:12:55.200 --> 1:12:57.600 naspau one was black. But if you start looking at 1:12:57.640 --> 1:13:00.960 both of their manifestos, there were French to all different 1:13:01.040 --> 1:13:03.160 kinds of things, some of whom are white supremacists and 1:13:03.240 --> 1:13:07.560 neo Nazis, many of whom aren't just other school shooters, 1:13:08.040 --> 1:13:10.920 and they don't seem to have a real ideological, necessarily 1:13:10.960 --> 1:13:13.720 connection to some of this the political stuff. It's not 1:13:14.000 --> 1:13:17.679 become an O nine A. They are founded by neo 1:13:17.760 --> 1:13:19.519 Nazi and many of them are neo Nazis, And so 1:13:19.640 --> 1:13:21.240 I was going to say they're not. They don't have 1:13:21.320 --> 1:13:23.479 to be, and all the people aren't even if you 1:13:23.520 --> 1:13:26.439 were supposed to be there, they aren't all And so 1:13:26.560 --> 1:13:32.680 we're just getting through these various online forums on Telegram 1:13:32.720 --> 1:13:34.920 and elsewhere. Sometimes they just spread over all kinds of 1:13:34.960 --> 1:13:39.840 the different platforms. We're getting just this syncretic mix of 1:13:39.880 --> 1:13:42.880 these things. And this is one of the things that 1:13:42.960 --> 1:13:47.960 made Nina and Siege culture are parallel Mason's ideas because 1:13:47.960 --> 1:13:50.720 Mason's not a Satanist, and in fact, he's recently denounced 1:13:50.840 --> 1:13:53.800 Ordered nine Angles. And when he was around Satanists, they 1:13:53.800 --> 1:13:56.720 were atheist Satanists around the Church of Satan. That when 1:13:56.760 --> 1:14:00.120 you start saying, hey, we need to commit random murders 1:14:00.160 --> 1:14:03.400 in this goal of destroying the like suppose a Jewish 1:14:03.439 --> 1:14:06.920 controlled society so there could be a White Arean revolution, Like, 1:14:07.400 --> 1:14:10.000 it doesn't matter if you have a really political reason 1:14:10.080 --> 1:14:12.800 or if you're thinking that these heretical acts will destroy 1:14:12.920 --> 1:14:16.559 somehow the consensus reality, you're just trying to go people 1:14:16.640 --> 1:14:20.840 into these violent, random acts of terrorism and more random murders. 1:14:20.600 --> 1:14:22.040 Right, and the end result is the same. 1:14:22.400 --> 1:14:24.519 They're thinking is the same, and the end results is 1:14:24.560 --> 1:14:27.080 the same. So they start cross pollinating. And then what's 1:14:27.080 --> 1:14:29.360 the difference between the school shooter cults? 1:14:30.200 --> 1:14:30.439 You know? 1:14:30.720 --> 1:14:33.719 And now we have groups like the Maniac Murder cult 1:14:33.720 --> 1:14:37.400 who are ostensibly political, ostensibly neo Nazi and Order of 1:14:37.439 --> 1:14:40.559 nine angles been a reality or just like go attack 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:44.160 old people from behind. I mean, it's just pathetic stuff. Go, 1:14:44.439 --> 1:14:48.439 you know, beat up homeless people and stab them. It's like, 1:14:48.479 --> 1:14:50.599 at some point I often say this and my speeches 1:14:50.640 --> 1:14:52.879 as it's become more and more real, is like everything 1:14:52.960 --> 1:14:54.879 blends together in our society. 1:14:55.200 --> 1:14:55.639 I think. 1:14:56.200 --> 1:14:59.200 You know, you start with like school shooters, and it's 1:14:59.200 --> 1:15:02.880 hard to distinguish them from like a political mass shooters 1:15:03.320 --> 1:15:06.479 and from political mass shooters. Right, at one point, it 1:15:06.520 --> 1:15:09.439 just becomes this one thing that's like all mixed together 1:15:09.600 --> 1:15:12.160 because we're having in the United States, we're having these 1:15:12.200 --> 1:15:15.439 constant attacks and constant that often the body account is 1:15:15.520 --> 1:15:18.519 very high. Like what becomes the difference anymore? Does it 1:15:18.560 --> 1:15:21.920 really matter? Like the Allen, Texas guy who was a 1:15:22.000 --> 1:15:25.040 Latino neo Nazi who killed a bunch of people in 1:15:25.080 --> 1:15:27.880 an outlet mall, this is really a neo Nazi action, 1:15:28.360 --> 1:15:31.200 like he was, like clearly if you look at his 1:15:31.240 --> 1:15:34.480 stuff or an article called Nazis of color about this dynamic. 1:15:35.160 --> 1:15:38.599 But was his action? How is his action necessarily any 1:15:38.600 --> 1:15:41.519 different than like a school shooting or whatever, or just 1:15:41.560 --> 1:15:43.640 like you know, it's just like he's going somewhere and 1:15:43.720 --> 1:15:46.280 killing random people, Like what is this about? So I 1:15:46.360 --> 1:15:50.479 think we're seeing this syncretic murdercal is really I know 1:15:50.560 --> 1:15:53.080 other people have different ways of posing this that is 1:15:53.200 --> 1:15:56.400 sprawling out on different online platforms and appealing to very young, 1:15:56.439 --> 1:16:01.280 alienated people, probably whose whole lives are you know, online. 1:16:01.439 --> 1:16:04.920 I think especially younger people who went through COVID zoomers 1:16:05.080 --> 1:16:07.040 and I guess people younger than that would be Generation 1:16:07.160 --> 1:16:10.439 Alpha spend more time online than any other generation. Obviously 1:16:10.479 --> 1:16:13.160 they must, and this becomes especially when they're much younger, 1:16:13.160 --> 1:16:16.160 the horizon of other world right, and if they're in 1:16:16.240 --> 1:16:18.360 cells and they're not really connected to other people and 1:16:18.400 --> 1:16:20.800 they're not connected to their family, like it just it 1:16:20.880 --> 1:16:24.080 just drives these impulses more and more, and they don't 1:16:24.120 --> 1:16:27.240 have the maturity to look outside of it or to 1:16:27.320 --> 1:16:30.240 think about the repercussions of it, or think of have 1:16:30.320 --> 1:16:32.639 the empathy to think about how it's going to affect 1:16:32.680 --> 1:16:33.839 other people in their families. 1:16:43.840 --> 1:16:46.040 And so when it comes to Siege, what would you 1:16:46.080 --> 1:16:50.840 say its current role in this sort of evolving syncretic 1:16:51.720 --> 1:16:56.479 murder culture that we have, is it is Siege's legacy 1:16:56.560 --> 1:17:00.599 now just that it's ideological lineage lives on in sort 1:17:00.640 --> 1:17:01.840 of the terragram milieu. 1:17:02.160 --> 1:17:05.880 Or is it still itself influential? Oh, some of this 1:17:05.960 --> 1:17:09.799 is a question of ideas. I think sometimes Siege acts 1:17:09.960 --> 1:17:14.479 as a symbol. People can gesture that their neo Nazis 1:17:14.640 --> 1:17:17.799 is a serious neo Nazi four hundred and fifty page tone. 1:17:17.920 --> 1:17:19.720 They didn't read it. They didn't all read it. 1:17:20.840 --> 1:17:22.519 Yeah, I know read Siege, just like how many of 1:17:22.520 --> 1:17:25.320 you have read Siege? And I found out doing the 1:17:25.360 --> 1:17:27.920 work that there's like an edited one hundred page version, 1:17:28.439 --> 1:17:31.439 and then there's like a little pocket version. And then 1:17:31.479 --> 1:17:33.679 someone even made the ten tenuts of Siege. 1:17:33.880 --> 1:17:36.280 There's the spark notes murder called. 1:17:36.439 --> 1:17:39.000 Well adam Off the division apparently had a test on 1:17:39.160 --> 1:17:40.880 Siege to get in And I'm like, I know these 1:17:40.880 --> 1:17:44.680 people didn't write. They're like a lot of very disturbed 1:17:44.800 --> 1:17:47.360 or you know, people who aren't going to like it's 1:17:47.360 --> 1:17:49.920 a boring text. I mean I read it twice in like. 1:17:49.920 --> 1:17:52.160 I've read portions, but I'm not going to sit here 1:17:52.160 --> 1:17:53.439 and say I read the whole book. 1:17:53.520 --> 1:17:54.679 It's four hundred and fifty page. 1:17:54.720 --> 1:17:58.640 Man, I read every newsletter and the book and it's yes, no. 1:17:58.640 --> 1:17:59.120 Oh. 1:17:59.160 --> 1:18:01.240 So it acts as a symbol to be like, look, 1:18:01.280 --> 1:18:02.800 we have a serious intellectual thing. 1:18:02.800 --> 1:18:05.240 How many Christians have read the Bible? Let's be really sort. 1:18:05.200 --> 1:18:07.559 I think, yeah, I think that's the right analogy, right, 1:18:07.600 --> 1:18:11.120 that it is a foundational text, but they're not all 1:18:11.160 --> 1:18:13.479 sitting down and digesting or even understanding it. 1:18:13.600 --> 1:18:17.160 Yeah, I mean, how many Communists have read Dos capital No, 1:18:17.400 --> 1:18:19.680 even just volume one, which I have, I would like 1:18:19.720 --> 1:18:22.320 to say I have. Actually, is it more or less 1:18:22.320 --> 1:18:25.479 boring than Siege? It's more intellectual? And so there's that, 1:18:25.560 --> 1:18:29.760 and there's also like the conclusions are there, right, the 1:18:29.800 --> 1:18:33.000 whole argument is developed in Siege, But you really just 1:18:33.080 --> 1:18:36.479 need to take the conclusions, which is you can't do 1:18:36.600 --> 1:18:40.400 any political work, it's hopeless. You need to go out 1:18:40.400 --> 1:18:44.960 and commit dramatic acts of violence to help inspire people, 1:18:45.120 --> 1:18:47.880 and then you know, maybe afterwards there'll be some aran 1:18:47.920 --> 1:18:50.040 blah blah blah. Frankly, that's all you need to know 1:18:50.080 --> 1:18:53.160 about it, because that's what it advocates. You just need 1:18:53.160 --> 1:18:57.760 the praxis that it concludes. And most activists aren't intellectuals. 1:18:58.080 --> 1:19:00.880 Like I always say, like a movement can have three 1:19:00.880 --> 1:19:03.280 slogans and what you need to do on the left, 1:19:03.320 --> 1:19:05.200 you need to make sure those are the right slogans 1:19:05.240 --> 1:19:08.480 pointing in the right direction, because somebody who flows into activism, 1:19:08.479 --> 1:19:10.519 who's young, who it doesn't matter if they're young, doesn't 1:19:10.520 --> 1:19:13.000 have a background of politics, is going to take the 1:19:13.040 --> 1:19:15.080 thing seriously that you say. And you can only say 1:19:15.120 --> 1:19:18.400 so many things to people. Political movements are stupid. I mean, 1:19:18.439 --> 1:19:21.000 this is why we are The ninety nine percent was great. 1:19:21.080 --> 1:19:22.960 It was great. It wasn't true. 1:19:23.120 --> 1:19:25.160 I mean half of Americans are like it, you know, 1:19:25.280 --> 1:19:28.240 support the Republicans, but like it's like one thing and 1:19:28.280 --> 1:19:30.080 then the person can think about those things. They're not 1:19:30.080 --> 1:19:32.960 going to have complicated ideas. So what is what are 1:19:32.960 --> 1:19:34.840 the slogans that come out of something? What are the 1:19:34.880 --> 1:19:36.880 basic what does it boil down to the things you're 1:19:36.880 --> 1:19:40.439 saying And people have inherited that from siege or inherited 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:44.280 it secondhand, you know, because Terogram is very well versed 1:19:44.320 --> 1:19:47.559 in what Siege is about. I mean, Adam often had 1:19:47.600 --> 1:19:49.639 to read it, so they were more I think, into 1:19:49.680 --> 1:19:53.040 it as a text. And then as it's gone out, 1:19:53.280 --> 1:19:57.720 you know, Tarogram people, the Tarogram collective certainly knew what 1:19:57.880 --> 1:20:00.200 was in it and stuff, and so people are being 1:20:00.200 --> 1:20:02.920 affected by it even if they don't know, even if 1:20:02.920 --> 1:20:04.559 they haven't read, or even if they don't know. That's 1:20:04.560 --> 1:20:06.439 the origin of those ideas, right. 1:20:06.520 --> 1:20:09.080 So Teragram is directly downstream of Siege. 1:20:09.120 --> 1:20:09.240 Right. 1:20:09.280 --> 1:20:11.400 So Siege was a newsletter that became a book. 1:20:11.439 --> 1:20:13.920 People read the book, and the people who read that book 1:20:13.960 --> 1:20:15.280 turned it back into a zine. 1:20:15.880 --> 1:20:18.479 Right, So it's it's sort of oh to someone, Right, 1:20:18.520 --> 1:20:19.560 it's moving. 1:20:19.479 --> 1:20:22.479 Through its phases and now it's regressing back into sort 1:20:22.479 --> 1:20:24.480 of mimetic zine form. 1:20:24.800 --> 1:20:28.040 But people who join these movements who want something more intellectual, 1:20:28.160 --> 1:20:31.360 because everyone who joins a religious or political movement, some 1:20:31.400 --> 1:20:33.680 people want a more rigorous They're like, well, what's the 1:20:33.720 --> 1:20:35.600 reason for this? Well, I have these questions. How do 1:20:35.640 --> 1:20:37.439 you answer them? What is why are we doing this? 1:20:37.920 --> 1:20:41.480 Want more rigorous? Some people want a more rigorous background. 1:20:41.600 --> 1:20:44.240 Can turn to siege, and as they get older will 1:20:44.280 --> 1:20:46.640 turn to siege or move out of it. And they're like, 1:20:46.640 --> 1:20:49.400 what were the ideas behind this? Why did we have 1:20:49.520 --> 1:20:52.280 these ideas? And I think that's it's normal. I mean, 1:20:52.320 --> 1:20:55.400 there are all kinds of weird intellectual groundings for white supremacists. 1:20:55.400 --> 1:20:58.599 A lot of it is theology, which is sort of curious, 1:20:58.600 --> 1:21:00.880 and I kind of conclude it at some point that 1:21:00.960 --> 1:21:03.800 you just needed something complicated because they couldn't use race 1:21:03.840 --> 1:21:07.080 science anymore, and they weren't people who developed social science 1:21:07.600 --> 1:21:10.400 other than someone like a londabenoist who's saying something much 1:21:10.439 --> 1:21:13.479 more complicated than most white supremacis are. And so like 1:21:13.560 --> 1:21:17.280 theology just allowed something intellectual for people to chew on, 1:21:17.920 --> 1:21:20.080 you know what I mean, Like, people are real smart 1:21:20.080 --> 1:21:22.519 who are very analytical want something to chew on with 1:21:22.600 --> 1:21:25.519 the ideas, whether it really changes their practice or not. 1:21:25.720 --> 1:21:28.040 And I think there has to be something that serves 1:21:28.080 --> 1:21:28.639 that need. 1:21:29.120 --> 1:21:32.080 And so I guess, wrapping up, because we're supposed to 1:21:32.160 --> 1:21:34.880 keep these daily shows short, what is the takeaway that 1:21:35.080 --> 1:21:37.120 you want people to to come away from this book with? 1:21:37.200 --> 1:21:39.080 I guess, especially in this political moment. 1:21:39.360 --> 1:21:41.880 I think there's two things The book has two things. 1:21:42.000 --> 1:21:44.679 One, I just want to have people have a better 1:21:45.000 --> 1:21:47.599 understanding of neo Nazism in the US and. 1:21:47.479 --> 1:21:48.440 How it developed. 1:21:48.520 --> 1:21:51.280 It's just one big blur. It's part of other things, 1:21:51.320 --> 1:21:53.400 and I see it as a distinct strain. And I 1:21:53.479 --> 1:21:56.120 want people to have a just a better understanding of 1:21:56.160 --> 1:22:00.320 that political movements origins, which is maybe a more scholarly thing. 1:22:00.600 --> 1:22:02.560 And I am My next book, I hope if I 1:22:02.560 --> 1:22:04.240 can get a contract, is to write a history of 1:22:04.320 --> 1:22:07.200 national socialism in America, because again, there's not a single 1:22:07.240 --> 1:22:10.240 book that describes that, which is very strange. Certainly not 1:22:10.280 --> 1:22:12.360 a history post war, and there may be a pre 1:22:12.400 --> 1:22:14.240 war one, but not one that puts it all together. 1:22:14.400 --> 1:22:17.240 So there's a lot of ignorance about this movement. And 1:22:17.280 --> 1:22:19.720 the second part about the cultural actors, is about the 1:22:19.840 --> 1:22:22.880 danger of taking a radical cultural movement and to use 1:22:23.040 --> 1:22:28.960 impulses like transgression and turn them into the very toxic politics, 1:22:29.200 --> 1:22:31.559 into terrorist politics. At the end of the day, I 1:22:31.680 --> 1:22:34.200 had a discussion on Blue Sky. It was amazing. You 1:22:34.200 --> 1:22:37.000 could see, it wasn't twitter. I had a useful discussion 1:22:37.040 --> 1:22:39.960 on Blue Sky and where I learned something. It was 1:22:40.080 --> 1:22:43.360 just fabulous, and it was this woman posted that, which 1:22:43.360 --> 1:22:45.800 is like essentially in Matzau I read it. In the 1:22:45.840 --> 1:22:50.320 twentieth century, there was always this assumption that transgressive art, 1:22:50.320 --> 1:22:55.240 avant garde art was implicitly progressive. Sometimes it was ideological, 1:22:55.280 --> 1:22:57.840 but even when it wasn't, even when I had some 1:22:57.960 --> 1:23:03.719 dodgy elements, the impulse of it led to progressive, left 1:23:03.800 --> 1:23:08.640 leaning politics, and it's very transgression was progressive. And I 1:23:08.640 --> 1:23:10.439 mean these guys I'm looking at are and working in 1:23:10.439 --> 1:23:12.720 the eighties, and you see it now, we've all seen 1:23:12.760 --> 1:23:15.360 it with four Chan like that was never that isn't true, 1:23:15.360 --> 1:23:18.080 and that was never true true, right, I mean those 1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:19.920 of us in the punk scene in the eighties and nineties, 1:23:20.000 --> 1:23:22.559 it could see this, even if we certainly didn't put 1:23:22.560 --> 1:23:25.160 it that way. With like skinheads in particular, it was 1:23:25.240 --> 1:23:28.360 contested terrain where people were trying to take the subculture 1:23:28.360 --> 1:23:30.280 and pull it to the left and right right. There 1:23:30.280 --> 1:23:33.920 were so many Nazis, but there were anti fascist skinheads too, Sharps. 1:23:34.200 --> 1:23:37.040 Sharps to some extent, Sharps were a lot of them 1:23:37.080 --> 1:23:40.559 are rgling nationalists. They just weren't a Nazis. This is 1:23:40.840 --> 1:23:43.240 a common There was grips like rash Red and anarchist 1:23:43.240 --> 1:23:45.800 skinheads who still exist, but there was a contested train 1:23:45.800 --> 1:23:48.360 where people trying to pull it in different directions. This 1:23:48.479 --> 1:23:52.640 is still the case in neo folk and heathen religious circles. 1:23:52.760 --> 1:23:53.479 And that's sort of you. 1:23:53.640 --> 1:23:55.920 There's an implication which I don't think I can only 1:23:56.040 --> 1:23:59.520 like put it into words now, that like the transgressive 1:23:59.520 --> 1:24:02.680 elements of these subcultures didn't necessarily go one way or 1:24:02.680 --> 1:24:04.880 the other, and it was something you'd have to fight over, 1:24:05.160 --> 1:24:08.120 like they could go and have any direction. And I 1:24:08.120 --> 1:24:10.040 think it was clear on four Chan early on. I 1:24:10.080 --> 1:24:12.080 once was mentioned very early on in four Chan and 1:24:12.120 --> 1:24:12.919 someone chimed. 1:24:12.680 --> 1:24:13.880 In and they're like, leave them alone. 1:24:13.880 --> 1:24:16.000 He's my friend, and I'm like, no, which of my 1:24:16.080 --> 1:24:19.240 friends are on four Chan and defending me? But like 1:24:19.240 --> 1:24:21.240 four Chan didn't have to end up the way it did. 1:24:21.920 --> 1:24:25.840 You know, the earlier Internet culture wasn't like this. It 1:24:25.960 --> 1:24:30.760 was progressive or libertarian, or a more decent libertarian for 1:24:30.920 --> 1:24:33.840 reading of libertarianism than we have now. So that's the 1:24:33.920 --> 1:24:36.000 second part. I mean, other than these guys, if you 1:24:36.040 --> 1:24:38.120 ever were in the industrial or neo folk scene and 1:24:38.160 --> 1:24:40.280 you heard the beout, there's Nazis, I have all of 1:24:40.320 --> 1:24:43.200 the receipt in detail in the book. If that's of 1:24:43.280 --> 1:24:43.960 interest to you. 1:24:44.000 --> 1:24:46.400 Yeah, Boyd Rice will tell you he never meant it, 1:24:46.439 --> 1:24:49.320 but I've read some of the primary documents that lead 1:24:49.360 --> 1:24:50.440 me to believe otherwise. 1:24:50.640 --> 1:24:50.880 Yeah. 1:24:50.920 --> 1:24:53.200 And I even made a video of him creatively entitled 1:24:53.200 --> 1:24:54.960 Boyd Rice New Nazi Collaborator. 1:24:55.160 --> 1:24:56.720 And I know you're like, Spencer, what are you really 1:24:56.720 --> 1:24:57.280 getting at here? 1:24:57.280 --> 1:24:59.800 And I show the letters and stuff, and just if 1:24:59.800 --> 1:25:01.960 you're not familiar with these figures, I know a lot 1:25:01.960 --> 1:25:04.599 of people there were very obscure movements at the time, 1:25:04.800 --> 1:25:07.519 and you know, people are not familiar with them. But 1:25:08.040 --> 1:25:10.240 I think are familiar enough with this idea of like 1:25:10.280 --> 1:25:14.200 a super radical cultural movement about step by step by 1:25:14.200 --> 1:25:18.200 show how it can move into fully politicized a transgressive 1:25:18.200 --> 1:25:22.200 movement can move into a fully politicized, super toxic neo 1:25:22.320 --> 1:25:25.680 Nazism that is espousing terrorism, and that that this is 1:25:25.680 --> 1:25:27.559 something that we always have to watch out for in 1:25:27.600 --> 1:25:30.560 our own religious movements and our own cultural movements and 1:25:30.680 --> 1:25:34.080 occult circles. I just did a podcast with some you know, 1:25:34.200 --> 1:25:38.120 ac cult style esoteric podcast, and I was talking about 1:25:38.280 --> 1:25:41.120 Satanists to become Nazis. Satanists are sort of I would 1:25:41.160 --> 1:25:44.000 say split these days, but there's definitely a Nazi, you 1:25:44.040 --> 1:25:46.799 know peace in there are a very visible one. 1:25:47.040 --> 1:25:48.679 And so some of it's just about these things. 1:25:48.840 --> 1:25:52.360 That's an important takeaway too, that you know, in any subculture, 1:25:52.400 --> 1:25:55.840 especially the sort of transgressive subcultures like you know, counterculture 1:25:56.200 --> 1:26:00.200 music and art and you know, occult spaces, you know 1:26:00.200 --> 1:26:01.520 have a magical practice. 1:26:01.160 --> 1:26:04.120 That you engage in. People who engage in, you know, practice. 1:26:03.800 --> 1:26:07.840 Pagan faiths in all these subcultures, you need to call 1:26:07.880 --> 1:26:11.280 out these bad actors early and often push back. Don't 1:26:11.320 --> 1:26:13.439 let them bullow you and push them out of your spaces. 1:26:14.280 --> 1:26:18.840 Absolutely, and Nazis ruin everything. They intentionally go into all 1:26:18.880 --> 1:26:21.640 these spaces and sometimes don't intentionally. Actually, this was a 1:26:21.640 --> 1:26:24.800 comment on Stormfront I learned from talking about Nazis and 1:26:24.840 --> 1:26:27.960 the animal rights movement, and they're like, Spencer doesn't understand. 1:26:28.600 --> 1:26:33.680 We're not infiltrating these movements. We're just vegans. We're just 1:26:33.760 --> 1:26:38.320 also Nazis. Like, but we're not vegans because we're Nazis. 1:26:38.320 --> 1:26:40.679 We're not coming here from some other reason. 1:26:41.080 --> 1:26:42.719 Well, you can't let them sit with you either way. 1:26:43.800 --> 1:26:45.240 Well, this is a funny story. I don't know if 1:26:45.240 --> 1:26:45.719 you have tied. 1:26:45.800 --> 1:26:48.160 But I heard this story from a friend of mine 1:26:48.200 --> 1:26:50.920 that they were in a vegan group in southern California, 1:26:51.000 --> 1:26:54.720 I think, and they had a unofficial party, like a barbecue. 1:26:54.760 --> 1:26:56.360 It's people from the group, you know, from the group 1:26:56.400 --> 1:26:58.599 doing it. People brought their partners. It wasn't an official 1:26:58.640 --> 1:27:01.160 group function. But this white member of the group brought 1:27:01.160 --> 1:27:05.320 her husband, who was Kevin McDonald. Oh, and they were 1:27:05.600 --> 1:27:09.280 vegetarians or vegans, and people were like, holy fuck. And 1:27:09.479 --> 1:27:11.719 he was like, I mean, I feel a little sympathetic 1:27:11.760 --> 1:27:13.200 to me. He's like, hey, man, I don't know. I'm 1:27:13.240 --> 1:27:16.040 just I'm a I'm a vegetarian or whatever. I'm here 1:27:16.080 --> 1:27:16.719 with my wife. 1:27:16.760 --> 1:27:18.000 She's going to a party. 1:27:18.320 --> 1:27:20.200 Like, no, you're not allowed to have friends. You're not 1:27:20.240 --> 1:27:22.000 allowed to have friends, You're not allowed to have hobbies. 1:27:22.000 --> 1:27:22.639 You can't be here. 1:27:23.600 --> 1:27:26.919 Yeah, But he's like, I'm not here to recruit anyone. 1:27:27.280 --> 1:27:28.400 I'm here, you know what I mean. 1:27:28.439 --> 1:27:32.120 It's the barbecue is over with the race scientist shows up. 1:27:32.200 --> 1:27:34.639 Well. This became a big discussion in the group about 1:27:34.640 --> 1:27:36.439 whether to push him out or not. But you have 1:27:36.520 --> 1:27:38.280 to do these things, and if you even if you 1:27:38.320 --> 1:27:41.879 don't want to they're my friend, or everyone's welcome or whatever. 1:27:42.080 --> 1:27:44.200 What is gonna end up happening if you don't push 1:27:44.240 --> 1:27:47.280 the Nazi out, is that more Nazis show up. Well, 1:27:47.400 --> 1:27:50.000 if it's a single person, people are gonna start leaving, 1:27:50.080 --> 1:27:52.559 people of color are gonna leave, Jews are gonna leave, 1:27:52.800 --> 1:27:55.439 LGBTQ plus people are gonna leave, and you're gonna end 1:27:55.520 --> 1:27:58.280 up defending this one person losing many more So, even 1:27:58.439 --> 1:28:01.160 just on your own, you know, in life and self interest, 1:28:01.400 --> 1:28:03.080 if you want to keep your group together, and I've 1:28:03.080 --> 1:28:05.400 seen this again and again and again, and then they're like, 1:28:05.479 --> 1:28:08.599 you're defending a Nazis, so you're one too, So yeah, 1:28:08.640 --> 1:28:10.840 you've got to kick these people out, even just for 1:28:10.960 --> 1:28:13.599 practical reasons. I have a very low bar for people 1:28:13.680 --> 1:28:16.519 these days, and I try to appeal. I try to 1:28:16.560 --> 1:28:19.280 appeal to the Baser reasons sometimes with people you know. 1:28:20.320 --> 1:28:22.679 Well, if you would like to learn more about how 1:28:22.760 --> 1:28:25.160 a couple of guys in the counterculture movement in the 1:28:25.200 --> 1:28:28.920 eighties are responsible for the publication of the book that 1:28:29.000 --> 1:28:32.320 serves as the bible for modern Nazi terrorism, you can 1:28:32.360 --> 1:28:35.920 pick up a copy of Neo Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism. 1:28:36.040 --> 1:28:39.799 The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason's Siege by Spencer 1:28:39.800 --> 1:28:42.920 Sunshine from Routlige Press, and it's available I think wherever 1:28:42.920 --> 1:28:45.000 books are sold. I bought my copy directly from the 1:28:45.040 --> 1:28:48.920 publisher Routledge Press. I think it was only twenty seven dollars. 1:28:49.120 --> 1:28:52.519 You know, a bargain and a steal, So pick up 1:28:52.560 --> 1:28:55.080 a copy of that and where else can people find 1:28:55.120 --> 1:28:55.439 your work? 1:28:55.439 --> 1:28:55.839 Spencer? 1:28:56.000 --> 1:28:57.519 Thank you for now that you mentioned that. 1:28:57.680 --> 1:29:01.599 I am on all of the social usually at Transform 1:29:01.680 --> 1:29:02.639 sixt seven eight nine. 1:29:03.640 --> 1:29:05.080 Have a web page if you want, if you have 1:29:05.080 --> 1:29:05.880 an RSS feed. 1:29:05.920 --> 1:29:08.200 If someone has said this recently, they're like, it's actually 1:29:08.240 --> 1:29:10.280 one of the better ways to keep track of people. 1:29:10.320 --> 1:29:13.519 I was like, your followers billion people anyway, Spencer Sunshine 1:29:13.560 --> 1:29:16.320 dot com awesome. If you'd like to support anti fascist 1:29:16.360 --> 1:29:18.400 research and get a warm, fuzzy feeling, you should sign 1:29:18.479 --> 1:29:20.599 up for my Patreon for as little as two dollars 1:29:20.600 --> 1:29:23.200 a month. You can help me out with the rent 1:29:23.640 --> 1:29:25.320 and get some exclusive content. 1:29:25.640 --> 1:29:27.360 So yep, hell. 1:29:27.280 --> 1:29:28.880 Yeah, thank you so much for joining us today. 1:29:29.120 --> 1:29:31.080 Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. It's been great. 1:29:51.720 --> 1:29:54.160 Welcome to dick it apt here, a podcast where the 1:29:54.200 --> 1:29:58.360 singular it is seemingly irrelevant now because everything is happening 1:29:58.479 --> 1:30:02.760 all of the time. Host me along and one of 1:30:02.800 --> 1:30:06.880 the many, many, many chaotic things that has been going 1:30:06.920 --> 1:30:09.840 on over the last two weeks since Trump's power has 1:30:09.960 --> 1:30:13.920 been a bunch of funding freezes to the US federal 1:30:13.960 --> 1:30:16.840 government grant system. And I think to a lot of 1:30:16.840 --> 1:30:20.120 people that doesn't sound like an enormously big deal, but 1:30:20.360 --> 1:30:25.000 that is unbelievably catastrophic for like I would go so 1:30:25.040 --> 1:30:26.960 far to say, is like the survival of the human 1:30:27.000 --> 1:30:29.080 species for reasons they will get to in a second, 1:30:29.439 --> 1:30:32.719 but unbelievably bad for the quality of life of everyone 1:30:33.080 --> 1:30:35.679 on Earth. And to get to kind of a sense 1:30:35.840 --> 1:30:39.200 of exactly what this kind of stuff does, what these 1:30:39.200 --> 1:30:42.480 funding freezes do, and what the sort of threat, particularly 1:30:42.560 --> 1:30:46.160 to the future of American science is, I have brought 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:49.360 in two people who are intimately familiar with this Arguvon Salis, 1:30:49.360 --> 1:30:53.080 who's a surgeon and professor of medicine, and friend of 1:30:53.120 --> 1:30:57.160 the show. Yeah, come on, yeah, definitely. I don't know 1:30:57.200 --> 1:30:59.160 why I had such a hessidant friend of the show, 1:30:59.439 --> 1:31:01.160 because it wasn't in my notes that was that was 1:31:01.160 --> 1:31:03.400 that ad living it, But yeah, front of the show 1:31:03.439 --> 1:31:06.240 kave Hoda, who is a Gas show entrologist and the 1:31:06.280 --> 1:31:08.519 host of the podcast House of Pods, and both of 1:31:08.560 --> 1:31:10.680 you two, welcome to the show. Thank you so much 1:31:10.720 --> 1:31:11.400 for having us. 1:31:11.600 --> 1:31:12.280 Yeah, thank you. 1:31:12.600 --> 1:31:15.519 I'm excited to be here for your most Persian episode ever. 1:31:19.360 --> 1:31:19.880 For sure. 1:31:20.640 --> 1:31:23.920 We may have done episodes of like that were like 1:31:24.280 --> 1:31:25.160 about a row. 1:31:25.240 --> 1:31:29.080 Yeah, this is a Persians a bit too Persian doctors 1:31:29.200 --> 1:31:32.599 talking about Trump is about as Persian as a good 1:31:32.640 --> 1:31:35.200 and you're not You're not overselling it. This is a 1:31:35.520 --> 1:31:39.320 large scale attack on the healthcare infrastructure of the United 1:31:39.360 --> 1:31:43.120 States on a massive level, So you're not lying. It 1:31:43.320 --> 1:31:45.680 is a serious, serious issue, not just for us, but 1:31:45.680 --> 1:31:46.439 for the whole world. 1:31:46.920 --> 1:31:47.160 Yeah. 1:31:47.200 --> 1:31:48.720 And one of the mean the places I want to start, 1:31:48.760 --> 1:31:51.040 I think is with because it was happening I think 1:31:51.120 --> 1:31:54.479 in n s FNIH a bit before this happened. But 1:31:54.960 --> 1:31:57.640 the OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, sent out this 1:31:57.720 --> 1:32:01.760 memo last week that was a it was nominally a 1:32:01.800 --> 1:32:07.479 response to this very weird Trump executive voter. That's him 1:32:07.640 --> 1:32:10.200 being like every single program that has to do with 1:32:10.240 --> 1:32:12.360 civil rights, which is like, so my my description was 1:32:12.360 --> 1:32:13.760 anything it has to do with civil rights at all, 1:32:13.800 --> 1:32:17.040 like gone His description of it is like DEI woke, 1:32:17.400 --> 1:32:20.000 So like anything it has to do with queer people, 1:32:20.080 --> 1:32:22.920 anything that has to do with like racial inequality, And 1:32:22.960 --> 1:32:25.679 they were supposed to like go through and review every 1:32:25.720 --> 1:32:29.760 single government grant program for anything, but. 1:32:29.720 --> 1:32:34.200 Don't forget he also included the gender ideology, which is 1:32:34.200 --> 1:32:37.760 a meaningless praise and the Green New Deal is. 1:32:37.680 --> 1:32:40.160 All part of it, yep, yep, yep, you know, and 1:32:40.680 --> 1:32:43.559 this is part of the raft of executive voters, particularly 1:32:43.600 --> 1:32:46.559 the anti trans executive voters. But OPM's response to this, 1:32:46.560 --> 1:32:49.479 again Awfulist Personnel Management's response was to just freeze literally 1:32:49.520 --> 1:32:52.840 every single grant program in the country. And this was 1:32:52.880 --> 1:32:56.400 everything from pell grants and like work study for college students, 1:32:56.520 --> 1:33:00.000 to like food aid for single mothers to my personal favorite. 1:33:00.040 --> 1:33:01.800 And I don't know why this never made it into 1:33:01.800 --> 1:33:03.519 the press because I'm apparently the only one who went 1:33:03.560 --> 1:33:05.840 through and read the list, but one of the things 1:33:05.840 --> 1:33:08.919 that he froze funding for was security patrols for nuclear 1:33:08.920 --> 1:33:15.560 weapons manufacturing sites. So like we almost like, why, yeah, 1:33:15.640 --> 1:33:18.360 why is that included? It was because literally what happened 1:33:18.439 --> 1:33:21.679 was they found a list of every single grant that 1:33:21.840 --> 1:33:24.559 like anyone does like and any like program that gives 1:33:24.560 --> 1:33:26.200 out grants and they froze all of them, and so 1:33:26.280 --> 1:33:28.519 like another one of them that when I said this 1:33:28.600 --> 1:33:30.160 is like, this is a threat to all life on Earth, 1:33:30.160 --> 1:33:31.800 I was not I was not joking here. One of 1:33:31.840 --> 1:33:34.559 the other ones was defunding one of the very important 1:33:34.680 --> 1:33:37.960 like international nuclear non proliferation organizations, like specifically the one 1:33:37.960 --> 1:33:40.200 that's there to make sure that like random people don't 1:33:40.240 --> 1:33:44.400 get like enriched uranium or like obtain nuclear weapons. So 1:33:44.560 --> 1:33:48.400 like we we dodged a like giant nuke sized bullet. 1:33:48.439 --> 1:33:51.320 When when like most of these programs got their money 1:33:51.360 --> 1:33:54.040 back after a judge was like, well, you obviously can't 1:33:54.120 --> 1:33:58.360 do this. This is so unbelievably illegal that it's astounding, 1:33:58.640 --> 1:34:02.519 like the Constitute should like very blatantly says that the 1:34:02.560 --> 1:34:04.559 power of the purse is Congress, not the President. 1:34:04.560 --> 1:34:07.479 Eight like stop, yeah, but I would just want to 1:34:07.520 --> 1:34:10.960 clarify for the people listening here that it wasn't just 1:34:11.160 --> 1:34:16.080 grant specifically, it was like all federal assistance. So one 1:34:16.160 --> 1:34:19.040 of the things that was very confusing and chaotic was 1:34:19.479 --> 1:34:22.040 this question of does this mean Snap is gone, Does 1:34:22.040 --> 1:34:24.679 this mean Wig is gone? What about Headstart? What about 1:34:24.760 --> 1:34:27.960 meals on wheels. I mean, there are tons of federal 1:34:28.000 --> 1:34:30.960 assistance programs out there, and they had only made an 1:34:30.960 --> 1:34:34.960 exception for Social Security and medic care in the memo, 1:34:35.000 --> 1:34:37.840 but not Medicaid. And what happened the next day, but 1:34:37.880 --> 1:34:40.240 the Medicaid portal went down right. 1:34:40.320 --> 1:34:42.519 Yeah, And it's it's chaotic too, because like all of 1:34:42.560 --> 1:34:44.880 the programs you just named were on the list of 1:34:45.080 --> 1:34:47.000 like programs that they were putting a freeze on, but 1:34:47.040 --> 1:34:48.760 then it wasn't clear what was going to happen with 1:34:48.800 --> 1:34:52.679 them end And it's still not right right. 1:34:52.800 --> 1:34:54.200 Yeah, we just have a judge. 1:34:54.200 --> 1:34:56.240 We have We found one judge with a backbone in 1:34:56.280 --> 1:34:59.799 the entire country so far, and he said, no, you cannot. 1:35:00.120 --> 1:35:00.360 Yeah. 1:35:00.520 --> 1:35:03.080 Yeah, I am surprised actually that Trump hasn't gone out 1:35:03.120 --> 1:35:05.840 on the attack. Maybe I just missed it, like attacking 1:35:05.880 --> 1:35:09.760 that judge, you know, but it is, I mean, what's 1:35:09.800 --> 1:35:11.600 so confusing to me is, you know, I get it, 1:35:11.640 --> 1:35:15.519 at least in some part of their weird internal terrible logic, 1:35:15.920 --> 1:35:20.160 transphobic logic. I get why they're doing some of the 1:35:20.160 --> 1:35:23.639 things they're doing, but then some of them don't even 1:35:23.720 --> 1:35:28.240 make sense within their own whack internal logic. Like when 1:35:28.240 --> 1:35:31.439 they scrub, for example, the CDC for all the terms 1:35:31.479 --> 1:35:35.880 that they didn't like, gender terms, transgender terms, things like that. 1:35:36.240 --> 1:35:41.559 They also scrub things like following maternal morbidity or opioid use, 1:35:41.960 --> 1:35:45.840 things that don't, at least on the surface, even fit 1:35:46.280 --> 1:35:50.840 with their attacks on woke ideology. So it seems like 1:35:50.880 --> 1:35:53.479 it's a complete mess to me what's happening. And it's 1:35:53.680 --> 1:35:56.160 what's terrifying about it is not just that it's a mess, 1:35:56.200 --> 1:35:58.720 but it is happening. I mean, they are doing it, 1:35:58.760 --> 1:36:01.160 they are pushing it, even though they clearly don't even 1:36:01.200 --> 1:36:03.720 seem to really know what they're doing or even have 1:36:03.760 --> 1:36:05.679 a great sense internally of what they're doing. 1:36:06.400 --> 1:36:08.200 I think that's the danger of this right now, is 1:36:08.200 --> 1:36:09.880 that this is revenge. 1:36:10.000 --> 1:36:10.200 Right. 1:36:10.280 --> 1:36:12.760 They're lashing out in sort of in pure anger and 1:36:12.800 --> 1:36:16.400 pure hatred, and they have been given control of an 1:36:16.439 --> 1:36:18.960 apparatus that they don't understand at all, Right, Like that, 1:36:19.120 --> 1:36:21.280 that's how you get defunding a nuclear police. That's how 1:36:21.320 --> 1:36:25.200 you get them defunding like the very Goldwater Memorial grant 1:36:25.320 --> 1:36:28.320 thing that gives money to kids who're writing essays about 1:36:28.600 --> 1:36:32.280 bury Goldwater. They don't understand what the state is and 1:36:32.320 --> 1:36:33.880 what it does, and they're just trying to take the 1:36:33.920 --> 1:36:35.439 whole thing apart, and they're just trying to sort of 1:36:35.600 --> 1:36:37.360 rampage their way through it. And it means that we're 1:36:37.400 --> 1:36:39.400 in this situation now where like for a long time, 1:36:39.600 --> 1:36:42.439 the line on like trans Rice was like, well, you 1:36:42.439 --> 1:36:44.280 should defend trans Rice because they're going to come for 1:36:44.400 --> 1:36:47.120 you next, And that's no longer true. What is actually 1:36:47.120 --> 1:36:50.040 happening here is in order to kill us, they are 1:36:50.120 --> 1:36:52.600 willing to kill everything. They're willing to let all of 1:36:52.640 --> 1:36:56.559 you die in nuclear fire. It's like specifically in order 1:36:56.560 --> 1:36:58.880 to hurt us, Right, That's the sort of line we're 1:36:58.920 --> 1:37:01.160 at where you know, all of these all of these 1:37:01.160 --> 1:37:03.600 sort of complicated systems and all of these sort of 1:37:03.600 --> 1:37:07.639 complicated funding mechanisms are just getting lit on fire by 1:37:07.640 --> 1:37:10.960 people who don't understand what they're doing and don't care. Right, 1:37:11.120 --> 1:37:12.800 just out of Spider or something. 1:37:12.760 --> 1:37:15.280 For sure, out of fight and hate. But I want 1:37:15.320 --> 1:37:17.200 to just take a step back and think about the 1:37:17.240 --> 1:37:19.679 fact that all of this is happening because of two 1:37:19.800 --> 1:37:22.080 versus three executive orders, depending how you think about it. 1:37:22.200 --> 1:37:24.800 But they're literally executive orders. They are not laws in 1:37:24.840 --> 1:37:27.640 the books in Congress does not pass anything. It's like 1:37:27.760 --> 1:37:32.000 this elderly man woke up and said, hey, let's get 1:37:32.080 --> 1:37:35.640 rid of DEI and DIA for example. Those are the 1:37:35.720 --> 1:37:40.200 terms they use exactly without saying what DEI is or 1:37:40.240 --> 1:37:42.800 what DEI A is. And then just I feel that 1:37:42.840 --> 1:37:45.400 we need to pause for a moment on the ADI 1:37:45.560 --> 1:37:48.040 A and they spell out, you know, as for accessible, 1:37:48.680 --> 1:37:52.879 wiping out everything related to accessibility is directly in violation 1:37:53.000 --> 1:37:55.360 of the ADA and makes no sense. And it is 1:37:55.439 --> 1:37:58.280 cool and all of that, but also just like legally 1:37:58.360 --> 1:38:00.680 it makes no kind of sense, and they're going to 1:38:00.680 --> 1:38:03.280 go after the ADA, which I'm guessing is part of 1:38:03.360 --> 1:38:05.120 their plan to the extent that there is a plan. 1:38:05.520 --> 1:38:08.679 But the two key executive orders here are the sex 1:38:08.720 --> 1:38:11.639 and gender. One that's not defending quote unquote defending women, 1:38:12.080 --> 1:38:16.639 that basically dictates that sex must be only male and female, 1:38:16.640 --> 1:38:22.760 thereby erasing intersex people completely, and that there's really they're 1:38:22.960 --> 1:38:25.479 essentially saying there's no such thing as gender and that 1:38:25.720 --> 1:38:29.160 the only genders that they see are willing to recognize 1:38:29.200 --> 1:38:32.960 are male and female. They're by erasing trans folks, intersect people, 1:38:33.040 --> 1:38:35.840 non binary folks, cutter a gender, queer, gender whood all 1:38:35.880 --> 1:38:38.720 of those people. So for them to go into like 1:38:38.760 --> 1:38:41.680 the CDC data sets, take them offline so that they 1:38:41.720 --> 1:38:45.479 can binarize whatever is there eliminate I'm assuming I don't 1:38:45.479 --> 1:38:46.760 I mean, I don't know that this was something that 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:49.599 I'm assuming that that's what they're doing, taking any sex 1:38:49.640 --> 1:38:51.439 that thought male or female out of there, and then 1:38:51.520 --> 1:38:54.600 removing gender as a varia le because they've said that 1:38:54.680 --> 1:38:58.280 no grant funding should go to any assessment of gender period. 1:38:59.040 --> 1:39:01.519 So that's when you're talking to me about like how 1:39:01.560 --> 1:39:04.240 they're willing to throw everyone under the bus just to 1:39:04.280 --> 1:39:07.960 pursue this transphobic agenda about what you're talking about. They're 1:39:07.960 --> 1:39:11.360 willing to take huge lots of information off of the 1:39:11.360 --> 1:39:15.160 Internet so people can no longer research, or physician anyone 1:39:15.160 --> 1:39:17.679 else can no longer access this information, just to make 1:39:17.760 --> 1:39:21.439 sure that there's no hint or reference to anyone who 1:39:21.520 --> 1:39:25.160 is transgender. That seems to be like the key thing 1:39:25.280 --> 1:39:26.920 that they're trying to do with all of this. So 1:39:26.960 --> 1:39:29.800 they have thrown the entire government and take chaos and 1:39:29.880 --> 1:39:33.200 the lives of millions of people into chaos, all to 1:39:33.320 --> 1:39:35.720 remove the t in LGBT. 1:39:36.120 --> 1:39:38.639 Yeah, and the stuff that they're doing like the destruction 1:39:38.720 --> 1:39:40.960 of this research data, the way that it's been just 1:39:41.040 --> 1:39:44.559 like taken down and destroyed. Little parts of it have 1:39:44.640 --> 1:39:47.080 come back up after the sort of backlash, but you 1:39:47.120 --> 1:39:49.799 know what they're what they're doing is staging a digital 1:39:49.880 --> 1:39:52.720 version of the nazis burning all of the books at 1:39:52.720 --> 1:39:55.320 the sexual research. Like that's that's exposedly what they're doing. 1:39:55.360 --> 1:39:58.640 It's literally the same stuff, like it is research on 1:39:59.200 --> 1:40:01.519 queerness and trans people that they are lighting on fire. 1:40:02.000 --> 1:40:02.240 Yep. 1:40:04.040 --> 1:40:06.880 And you know you know who else lights research on 1:40:07.000 --> 1:40:09.840 queer and trans people on fire? It's it's the sponsors 1:40:09.880 --> 1:40:11.720 of this show. It's the products of services. 1:40:12.320 --> 1:40:14.720 Yeah, that's the way you get those big bucks. 1:40:14.920 --> 1:40:28.920 That's how you do it. That's professional broadcasting. And we 1:40:29.080 --> 1:40:32.400 are back. So I want to move from that to 1:40:32.720 --> 1:40:35.720 kind of the next phase after we got out of 1:40:35.760 --> 1:40:40.400 the sort of OPM like suspending everything phase, which has 1:40:40.439 --> 1:40:43.639 been this kind of this uncertainty around a whole bunch 1:40:43.720 --> 1:40:47.960 of the other funding agencies for science, the National Science Foundation, 1:40:48.439 --> 1:40:50.960 National Institute of Health. Can you talk a bit about 1:40:51.000 --> 1:40:53.519 what's been going on with grants there before we move 1:40:53.560 --> 1:40:56.000 into like how this whole process works. 1:40:56.360 --> 1:40:59.880 Yeah, So the first line that something was materially going 1:40:59.920 --> 1:41:03.960 to change after these executive orders. As I recall, I'm 1:41:04.000 --> 1:41:06.639 living this along with everyone else, and what is time. 1:41:06.920 --> 1:41:09.519 But the first thing that I recall is the study 1:41:09.520 --> 1:41:14.760 section being canceled. The study sections are meeting where scientists 1:41:14.760 --> 1:41:19.120 come together. They each will have read various grant proposals 1:41:19.240 --> 1:41:22.479 and scored them on a number of different dimensions, and 1:41:22.520 --> 1:41:25.559 then they come together and discussed. They don't discuss all 1:41:25.600 --> 1:41:27.320 of them, by the way, They only discuss the ones 1:41:27.320 --> 1:41:29.760 that have that seem to have the most merit, and 1:41:29.800 --> 1:41:33.040 then out of those they make recommendations for which ones 1:41:33.080 --> 1:41:37.960 they believe should get funded. So these are a critical 1:41:38.080 --> 1:41:40.920 part of the process by which the government gives out 1:41:40.960 --> 1:41:44.439 funds for research. If these meetings do not happen, people 1:41:44.600 --> 1:41:48.280 grants are not getting evaluated, assessed, and recommended for funding. 1:41:48.400 --> 1:41:50.559 That means they're not getting the funding. That means they're 1:41:50.560 --> 1:41:53.519 not hiring people, or they're having to fire people they 1:41:53.560 --> 1:41:55.840 already had in their layoff, people they already had in 1:41:55.880 --> 1:41:59.000 their lab. They're not able to continue the important work 1:41:59.080 --> 1:42:02.719 that they're doing. They may lose their job. Like really 1:42:02.720 --> 1:42:05.240 truly people can lose their job because they were not 1:42:05.320 --> 1:42:09.759 able to secure enough funding to support themselves and their labs. 1:42:09.760 --> 1:42:12.680 So these are really really important meetings, and those have 1:42:12.720 --> 1:42:15.920 been canceled for both the NSF and the nih for 1:42:16.120 --> 1:42:19.760 at least the last couple of weeks, And as of yesterday, 1:42:20.000 --> 1:42:23.280 I saw doctor Megan Ray said that her or not 1:42:23.400 --> 1:42:26.519 maybe not her, but that study sections were canceled yesterday 1:42:26.520 --> 1:42:28.800 that were due to happen today. So there had been 1:42:29.000 --> 1:42:32.960 some communication around perhaps the free of those activities ending 1:42:32.960 --> 1:42:35.679 on February first today that we're recording as February third, 1:42:36.320 --> 1:42:38.720 and those study sections for today were canceled. On the 1:42:38.720 --> 1:42:43.879 other hand, NSS, which is obviously a separate organization, has 1:42:44.040 --> 1:42:47.719 informally i've heard, decided that they were going to resume 1:42:47.800 --> 1:42:50.160 from study sections, although they haven't rexamned just yet. 1:42:50.360 --> 1:42:52.720 And if I did add, just to be totally clear 1:42:52.760 --> 1:42:57.680 with your listeners, these are incredibly important organizations for discovery 1:42:58.160 --> 1:43:03.040 of new medical breakthroughs and for pushing science forward. For 1:43:03.160 --> 1:43:06.080 the NAIH, for example, the nih IS is a big 1:43:06.080 --> 1:43:08.960 part of the reason we have mRNA vaccines now. They 1:43:08.960 --> 1:43:11.959 were the ones helping to promote that research for decades 1:43:12.240 --> 1:43:14.519 before we were able to turn them into vaccines, and 1:43:14.680 --> 1:43:16.400 because a lot of what they did that we're able 1:43:16.400 --> 1:43:20.400 to do that when we're looking for a new breakthroughs 1:43:20.439 --> 1:43:22.800 and we're looking for something where patient comes to us 1:43:23.000 --> 1:43:25.720 and they're like, isn't there anything We've tried everything, isn't 1:43:25.720 --> 1:43:27.599 there anything that we could at least try or some 1:43:27.680 --> 1:43:30.680 trial that we could be involved in. That's where we 1:43:30.760 --> 1:43:34.040 find these things. These are the things that we're talking about, 1:43:34.120 --> 1:43:38.920 these really important healthcare infrastructure that we're discussing. 1:43:39.760 --> 1:43:43.559 Yeah, and you know between NAH and National Science Foundation 1:43:43.720 --> 1:43:45.879 and you know, Department of Energy is having a similar 1:43:45.920 --> 1:43:48.760 thing to this because Department of Energy funds all like 1:43:49.439 --> 1:43:51.680 hy energy physics research, so all of your sort of 1:43:51.720 --> 1:43:54.720 like particle accelerator or stuff like that. It's not just 1:43:54.800 --> 1:43:57.439 sort of like the National Labs for example, that they 1:43:57.439 --> 1:43:59.519 get funding from these places, although you know National Labs 1:43:59.560 --> 1:44:01.679 are like, you know, you get your funding from grants 1:44:01.720 --> 1:44:03.920 like everyone else. But you know, I mean this is 1:44:03.960 --> 1:44:05.760 this is all the way down to the level of 1:44:05.880 --> 1:44:10.840 like undergrads and college chemistry labs, like they're they are 1:44:10.880 --> 1:44:14.200 getting paid out of these grants from National Science Foundation, 1:44:14.400 --> 1:44:17.760 from the National Institute's for Health, like all of these 1:44:17.800 --> 1:44:20.479 all of these institutions pay out everything, and it's like 1:44:20.560 --> 1:44:25.880 this is the basis of how all science almost all science. 1:44:25.960 --> 1:44:28.439 Like there's some private sector stuff, but the thing is 1:44:28.479 --> 1:44:31.840 like the giant private like Bell Labs right, like you're 1:44:31.880 --> 1:44:35.040 your old school giant private sector. Here's our giant R 1:44:35.080 --> 1:44:37.200 and D thing. Like that's all kind of gone, so 1:44:37.520 --> 1:44:39.040 you know, like the only people who are getting funded 1:44:39.040 --> 1:44:42.759 by this are like weird startup guys. And it's like, Okay, 1:44:42.800 --> 1:44:45.760 look look look what they've invented in the last like 1:44:46.240 --> 1:44:51.919 fifteen years. It's like cryptocurrency NFTs, which is cryptocurrency again, Arranos, 1:44:52.120 --> 1:44:56.599 don't forget Yeah, sarrados, the metaverse, juice row, like they're 1:44:56.640 --> 1:44:58.920 doing great. It's really great. And people will be like, oh, 1:44:58.920 --> 1:45:01.400 they invented a ey. It's like no, so National Labs 1:45:01.400 --> 1:45:04.360 were using those AA algorithms like a decade and a 1:45:04.400 --> 1:45:06.760 half ago. It's like, yeah, the generative blah blah. Okay, 1:45:07.000 --> 1:45:09.439 we're not We're not here to get into me complaining 1:45:09.439 --> 1:45:12.080 about generative AI. Go go go go listen to edgit 1:45:12.200 --> 1:45:16.080 runs entire Like yeah. 1:45:15.520 --> 1:45:17.640 Yeah, I mean, I think the bottom line of what 1:45:17.680 --> 1:45:19.640 you're trying to communicate here is that a lot of 1:45:19.840 --> 1:45:24.719 scientific and medical breakthroughs have come from labs and from 1:45:25.040 --> 1:45:28.200 researchers who have been funded by the NSF and the 1:45:28.360 --> 1:45:31.240 NIH and I will just say as an academic, these 1:45:31.240 --> 1:45:36.400 are certainly the kind of premiere funding opportunities. 1:45:35.560 --> 1:45:36.200 That we have. 1:45:36.439 --> 1:45:39.080 Like it also is really critical in the careers of 1:45:39.680 --> 1:45:42.160 researchers to be able to show that their work is 1:45:42.240 --> 1:45:44.240 worthy of this kind of funding. And that's part of 1:45:44.280 --> 1:45:47.360 why I would think people's jobs, yes, the people we 1:45:47.439 --> 1:45:50.000 pay off of our grants, but also people like me, 1:45:50.120 --> 1:45:53.880 our jobs can be really dependent on whether we get 1:45:53.880 --> 1:45:54.720 this funding or not. 1:45:55.280 --> 1:45:58.439 And it's a generational thing too, because the students also 1:45:58.520 --> 1:46:01.120 need this funding. And so people people who undergrads, particularly 1:46:01.160 --> 1:46:04.320 people who are like doctoral students, like their research, right, 1:46:04.439 --> 1:46:07.559 like the stuff that they're doing while they're in graduate school, 1:46:07.560 --> 1:46:10.040 like getting PhD so they can become scientists. That's all 1:46:10.120 --> 1:46:13.000 also like funded by these grants. And if that stuff 1:46:13.160 --> 1:46:16.080 goes away, like, it's not just that you're obliterating this 1:46:16.200 --> 1:46:19.080 generation of science, like you're decapping the next like three 1:46:19.200 --> 1:46:22.000 generations of scientists, right because each one of them down 1:46:22.000 --> 1:46:24.600 the line suddenly doesn't have for the research experience that 1:46:24.600 --> 1:46:27.000 they're supposed to have. Exactly, yeah, right. 1:46:27.040 --> 1:46:29.200 And also, who would want to go into science if 1:46:29.240 --> 1:46:31.760 it's going to be invited, right, if they's just going 1:46:31.840 --> 1:46:34.000 to be like some random person who goes into the 1:46:34.040 --> 1:46:36.519 White House and never mind, we're not doing that anymore. 1:46:36.560 --> 1:46:39.639 Who wants to be exposed to those kinds of winds. 1:46:39.880 --> 1:46:44.040 A lot of the smartest doctors and scientists I know 1:46:44.840 --> 1:46:47.400 that tend to be risk averse people. I mean, there's 1:46:47.439 --> 1:46:50.479 a lot of people the CDC that could try to 1:46:50.600 --> 1:46:54.080 maybe sue for you know, for not being able to 1:46:54.160 --> 1:46:55.880 use the terms that they want to use and study 1:46:55.920 --> 1:46:58.240 the things they want to study, and they might even 1:46:58.439 --> 1:47:00.439 I don't know, maybe they could win. You talk to 1:47:00.520 --> 1:47:03.439 Laurier about that. Seems unlikely because they're not private sector. 1:47:03.560 --> 1:47:06.920 But to them, they're not going to because they're living 1:47:06.960 --> 1:47:09.640 paycheck to paycheck. To some of these people that are 1:47:09.640 --> 1:47:12.280 at the lower levels, people that aren't making a ton 1:47:12.320 --> 1:47:14.759 of money and they have livelihoods that they're trying to maintain, 1:47:14.800 --> 1:47:17.080 they're not going to try and rock the boat when 1:47:17.080 --> 1:47:20.080 it comes to these things. It's putting them in a 1:47:20.080 --> 1:47:24.559 really tenuous position already. They're already worried about their next grant, 1:47:24.680 --> 1:47:27.240 their next however, they're going to fund their labs. 1:47:28.160 --> 1:47:30.120 Yeah, And I just want to highlight that postdocs I 1:47:30.160 --> 1:47:34.760 think are particularly vulnerable because they are often like the 1:47:35.080 --> 1:47:38.480 NFF where You's actually demonstrated a girl, they aren't as 1:47:38.479 --> 1:47:41.760 said like, they're definitely often living paycheck paycheck. And what 1:47:41.800 --> 1:47:43.960 the NFF breeze did was that it made it so 1:47:44.120 --> 1:47:47.200 floks could not get their next paycheck because we were 1:47:47.280 --> 1:47:48.880 this was happening at the end of the month, right, 1:47:48.960 --> 1:47:52.080 so it was delaying people getting their next paycheck. And 1:47:52.120 --> 1:47:54.880 in particular, and talking about postdocs, yes, it can affect 1:47:54.920 --> 1:47:58.519 graduate students as well, but a lot of postdoc funding, 1:47:58.680 --> 1:48:00.800 like one of the grand that I have actually we 1:48:00.840 --> 1:48:05.439 worked directly with postdoctoral and some predoctoral, but many postdoctoral 1:48:05.479 --> 1:48:09.439 training programs that fund postoc And to the extent that 1:48:09.520 --> 1:48:12.240 any of those grants are put on hold, that is 1:48:12.640 --> 1:48:16.240 threatening the income of people who really don't have buffer, 1:48:16.400 --> 1:48:18.320 who cannot afford to not get paid. 1:48:18.640 --> 1:48:20.920 And also, you know, and this is another aspect of 1:48:20.960 --> 1:48:25.280 this too, and I really doubt they understand this, but 1:48:25.479 --> 1:48:27.760 you know, there's also a lot of postocs who are 1:48:27.760 --> 1:48:30.479 not from the US right there, who are either international 1:48:30.479 --> 1:48:32.720 student or international students who are just who are you know, 1:48:32.760 --> 1:48:36.720 coming in from other countries and those people, if you 1:48:36.800 --> 1:48:39.200 suddenly don't have a grant, you don't have a job, 1:48:39.760 --> 1:48:43.240 and that is really really bad for your immigration status. 1:48:43.720 --> 1:48:45.599 Like that, that is enough to get you kicked out 1:48:45.640 --> 1:48:48.240 of the US. And this is the thing that's constantly 1:48:48.320 --> 1:48:51.759 leveraged in sort of labor organizing, right or like one 1:48:51.800 --> 1:48:54.439 of the threats that universities will make. Usually they do 1:48:54.479 --> 1:48:56.960 it implicitly. Sometimes they'll just go out and say it 1:48:57.160 --> 1:48:59.200 very legally, will be like, Okay, if if you this 1:48:59.320 --> 1:49:02.680 postoc like you, this grad student like tries to like 1:49:02.760 --> 1:49:05.280 join this union, like your your legal status in the 1:49:05.320 --> 1:49:08.639 US is going to be compromised. But that's that's another 1:49:08.720 --> 1:49:12.680 sort of risk from this is like those people's ability 1:49:12.800 --> 1:49:19.639 to stay in the US and not get imported basically exactly, yeah, exactly. 1:49:19.680 --> 1:49:22.000 And then then we talk about bringing in you know, 1:49:22.080 --> 1:49:23.800 I know there's a lot of internal debate right now 1:49:23.800 --> 1:49:26.679 between the publican party on you know, bringing in people 1:49:26.720 --> 1:49:30.040 to work these jobs and bringing in these minds. But 1:49:30.479 --> 1:49:33.519 this is a clear example of where the United States 1:49:33.520 --> 1:49:36.080 has excelled in the past. We've been able to bring 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:38.639 in great minds from all over the world to help 1:49:38.720 --> 1:49:42.000 us work on research and to help us come to 1:49:42.080 --> 1:49:44.040 work in these labs. I mean you go to like 1:49:44.200 --> 1:49:46.799 USA Staff and Stanford and you see these people working 1:49:46.800 --> 1:49:50.960 these labs on important stuff. And that's another like, that's 1:49:51.080 --> 1:49:53.000 that's that's something we're going to lose. And I hope 1:49:53.000 --> 1:49:56.040 we don't lose it permanently. I hope it's not, you 1:49:56.080 --> 1:49:59.120 know something like you say, well, last generations are worth 1:49:59.120 --> 1:50:01.320 of damage, but it's hard to see how it won't 1:50:01.360 --> 1:50:01.880 at this point. 1:50:02.640 --> 1:50:03.360 Yeah, I was just. 1:50:03.320 --> 1:50:06.320 Looking up one hundred percent agree and to your point 1:50:06.320 --> 1:50:09.479 about how much of the science and even other amazing 1:50:09.520 --> 1:50:12.400 things that are done in the country are done by immigrants. 1:50:12.800 --> 1:50:16.120 I think it's over just over a third of Nobel 1:50:16.160 --> 1:50:19.439 laureates from the United States have been immigrants to. 1:50:19.439 --> 1:50:21.360 The United States, you know, And it's sort of a 1:50:21.439 --> 1:50:25.280 nationalist thing, right, but like for ninety nine percent of 1:50:25.280 --> 1:50:28.200 the time for better like, the US has been very 1:50:28.280 --> 1:50:31.080 very good at absorbing other country scientists when you know 1:50:31.120 --> 1:50:33.680 this like we got up you know, okay, so like 1:50:33.960 --> 1:50:35.760 it's hard to take too much credit for it because 1:50:35.760 --> 1:50:37.679 we also took a bunch of scientists from the NAZS, 1:50:37.720 --> 1:50:40.400 like from the actual Nazis, but we also like a 1:50:40.840 --> 1:50:43.080 bunch of very famous US scientists, Like we're in the 1:50:43.200 --> 1:50:45.320 US because they were fleeing the rise of the Nazis, 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:47.960 And you know, like we are looking at a situation 1:50:48.000 --> 1:50:49.400 where we are going to be the opposite of this, 1:50:49.439 --> 1:50:52.200 where like our scientists are going to be fleeing everywhere 1:50:52.240 --> 1:50:56.360 else because our government is being run by these people. 1:50:57.120 --> 1:50:59.679 Yeah, and I wanted to highlight I think that's liter 1:50:59.680 --> 1:51:02.040 all really great points about the effect of not getting 1:51:02.040 --> 1:51:04.800 the funding and who it trickles down to. But I 1:51:04.840 --> 1:51:07.680 also wanted to highlight that there's two different kind of 1:51:08.040 --> 1:51:11.800 ways that the funding can be withheld. The one is 1:51:12.280 --> 1:51:15.640 just that review process and not actually reviewing grants. Right, So, 1:51:15.760 --> 1:51:18.719 like I personally submitted a proposal in the fall, who 1:51:18.760 --> 1:51:21.759 knows if when that will get discussed. There are people 1:51:21.800 --> 1:51:23.960 in that kind of position where they maybe were dependent 1:51:24.120 --> 1:51:27.040 on or really hoping to get funding this round, and 1:51:27.080 --> 1:51:29.880 now they don't know if or when that proposal will 1:51:29.880 --> 1:51:31.920 get reviewed. Of course, you never know if you're going 1:51:32.000 --> 1:51:33.840 to get funded, but to not even have a chance 1:51:33.880 --> 1:51:38.680 at review is an unanticipated barrier. Then on the other side, 1:51:38.840 --> 1:51:42.960 there's people who have been funded and are in the 1:51:42.960 --> 1:51:45.120 position that I'm in, which is not knowing whether I'm 1:51:45.120 --> 1:51:49.600 going to receive the next payment. Because the NIH so 1:51:49.680 --> 1:51:52.320 I have a five year grant and we are currently 1:51:52.360 --> 1:51:55.679 in year three. Every year you have to submit a 1:51:55.760 --> 1:51:59.639 status update on your project, and then they determine based 1:51:59.640 --> 1:52:02.439 online of different things, including what budget they are given 1:52:02.560 --> 1:52:05.559 from Congress, how much of the funds that they had 1:52:05.560 --> 1:52:08.400 originally projected they'll be able to give to you. And 1:52:09.040 --> 1:52:11.439 there are as you can imagine, a lot of people 1:52:11.479 --> 1:52:15.519 who are doing work that's related to health disparities, help equity, 1:52:15.680 --> 1:52:19.840 women's health, LGBTQ health, et cetera, who now do not 1:52:20.040 --> 1:52:23.880 know if our work falls under quote unquote DEI or 1:52:23.920 --> 1:52:27.559 deia or gender ideology or all these vague terms that 1:52:27.600 --> 1:52:31.719 the administration is using, and so we actually don't know whether, 1:52:32.240 --> 1:52:33.640 Like for me, I don't know if I'm going to 1:52:33.680 --> 1:52:35.720 get my next set of funds. In July, so I 1:52:35.760 --> 1:52:38.519 was in the process of interviewing to hire someone to 1:52:38.600 --> 1:52:41.880 join my lab, and I genuinely don't know whether I 1:52:41.880 --> 1:52:45.799 should hire someone at knowing that I may lose funds 1:52:45.800 --> 1:52:49.040 in you know, five months, or do I just try 1:52:49.080 --> 1:52:51.320 to make do without and then that's a job that 1:52:51.360 --> 1:52:53.479 no one gets. And if you play that out over 1:52:53.560 --> 1:52:56.599 the three hundred thousand people were funded in various ways 1:52:56.600 --> 1:53:00.080 by the NIH, you start to understand the scope of 1:53:00.160 --> 1:53:01.200 damage was being done. 1:53:01.240 --> 1:53:01.400 Here. 1:53:02.080 --> 1:53:07.760 Can you tell people what your current grant is? And 1:53:07.880 --> 1:53:12.560 because I think that is pertin into this conversation, yes, yes. 1:53:12.200 --> 1:53:15.920 Yes, you're right. Okay, So my grant is called ending 1:53:16.160 --> 1:53:20.240 sexual Harassment Teaching of Principal Investigators at a Q acronym 1:53:20.400 --> 1:53:23.000 E stops. So our goal is to try to help 1:53:23.040 --> 1:53:27.479 people intervene when there is sexual harassment, with the ultimate 1:53:27.479 --> 1:53:30.840 goal decreasing the amount of sexual harassment that's happening in 1:53:30.920 --> 1:53:32.080 biomedical research. 1:53:32.240 --> 1:53:34.400 Oh they don't, they don't what you do with that? 1:53:34.720 --> 1:53:34.760 Like? 1:53:35.560 --> 1:53:40.880 Oh, no, right, because one of the great terrible ironies 1:53:40.920 --> 1:53:43.559 of this whole thing is that their argument is that 1:53:43.560 --> 1:53:46.320 they're doing a lot of this to protect women, the 1:53:47.240 --> 1:53:50.560 sanctity of women or whatever this is. You know, I 1:53:50.960 --> 1:53:53.720 am hopeful that I'm wrong for you. I hope that 1:53:54.600 --> 1:53:56.760 this is not the case. But I could see them 1:53:56.840 --> 1:54:01.280 very easily saying that this somehow fits underwoke ideology, and 1:54:01.360 --> 1:54:05.439 even though it's something clearly that is designed to help 1:54:05.880 --> 1:54:08.439 not just women, but a lot of women could benefit 1:54:08.479 --> 1:54:09.559 from this, you know. 1:54:10.600 --> 1:54:14.160 Yeah, and to your point, like everyone is at risk 1:54:14.200 --> 1:54:17.200 for hearing things sexual harassment, it's just that the majority 1:54:17.240 --> 1:54:19.840 of folks who experience that are women or sexual and 1:54:19.920 --> 1:54:23.880 gender minorities. And so yeah, I've really, obviously, as you 1:54:23.880 --> 1:54:27.439 can imagine've been thinking a lot about how they are 1:54:27.479 --> 1:54:31.240 interpreting these words that they're using and whether sexual harassment, 1:54:31.240 --> 1:54:33.160 which by the way, is a form of discrimination, Like 1:54:33.320 --> 1:54:35.800 is that DEI is stopping discrimination? 1:54:36.160 --> 1:54:37.200 DEI? 1:54:36.720 --> 1:54:37.280 I believe? 1:54:37.960 --> 1:54:38.320 Who? 1:54:38.720 --> 1:54:38.960 Yeah? 1:54:39.440 --> 1:54:42.080 Well, you know, quickly, if I may, I can go 1:54:42.120 --> 1:54:46.480 over this. There was this email that was dispersed from 1:54:46.560 --> 1:54:49.320 the CDC about terms that were no longer going to 1:54:49.320 --> 1:54:51.400 be used, that were going to be scrubbed from the 1:54:51.440 --> 1:54:56.680 CDC's databases, and they included words like gender, transgender, pregnant person, 1:54:56.760 --> 1:55:01.400 pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non by binary, non binary. 1:55:02.120 --> 1:55:05.280 They use both to one with the hyphene hyphen. 1:55:05.360 --> 1:55:08.120 Signed male at birth, assign female at birth, biologically male, 1:55:08.200 --> 1:55:11.520 or biologically female. So anything that terms like that they're 1:55:11.560 --> 1:55:13.880 gonna scrub Wait, let me, can. 1:55:13.800 --> 1:55:16.760 I just clarify that, because actually it's even worse, I 1:55:16.800 --> 1:55:19.160 think than what you just described because what they actually 1:55:19.760 --> 1:55:22.040 said in that email, as I understand it, is that 1:55:22.080 --> 1:55:24.480 there's all these researchers who work at the CDC. So 1:55:24.520 --> 1:55:28.320 they said, if you have submitted a manuscript for publication 1:55:28.520 --> 1:55:31.560 to any scientific or medical journal that has any of 1:55:31.640 --> 1:55:37.440 these words in it, you must retract that manuscript. So 1:55:37.440 --> 1:55:40.320 it's even much much broader than just what's on the 1:55:40.360 --> 1:55:44.040 CDC's website. It's any work that anyone employed by the 1:55:44.040 --> 1:55:46.640 CDC has done, any research I could say that they've 1:55:46.680 --> 1:55:49.320 done that they are in the process of publishing. They 1:55:49.360 --> 1:55:52.920 have been asked to rescind that work so that they 1:55:52.920 --> 1:55:57.360 can remove these god awful words, right. That are actually 1:55:57.440 --> 1:56:00.880 words that are used routinely in science, but they can 1:56:00.920 --> 1:56:03.920 no longer have them in their manuscripts. And how nonsensical 1:56:03.960 --> 1:56:07.600 would their manuscript be without the word? I mean it, Yeah, 1:56:07.680 --> 1:56:08.280 it's terrible. 1:56:08.600 --> 1:56:11.120 The other thing that blows my mind about this is 1:56:11.200 --> 1:56:15.640 how incredibly inefficient. Maybe that's the point, is how ridiculous 1:56:15.680 --> 1:56:17.840 it's going to be. Who's going to be doing this, 1:56:17.960 --> 1:56:19.960 who's going to be looking over this. To my knowledge, 1:56:20.000 --> 1:56:22.840 there's only been one political point e in regards to this, 1:56:22.880 --> 1:56:26.000 and that's that the CDC it's Susan Moneraz is the 1:56:26.080 --> 1:56:30.360 acting director there at the CDC, and it's all going 1:56:30.440 --> 1:56:33.720 to go through that one person. All every study is 1:56:33.720 --> 1:56:36.480 going to go through that one person. It makes no sense. 1:56:36.560 --> 1:56:39.160 I don't even understand how it's going to be enforced. 1:56:39.240 --> 1:56:42.960 It's a ridiculous thing. I'm sure they're going to try 1:56:43.000 --> 1:56:45.520 to make some examples out of people, but how are 1:56:45.520 --> 1:56:48.160 they even enforced this. We're gonna find out what your grant. 1:56:48.240 --> 1:56:48.600 I guess. 1:56:49.520 --> 1:56:50.320 Yeah. 1:56:50.640 --> 1:56:53.200 I think the bleak thing about specifically the fact that 1:56:53.360 --> 1:56:55.480 you study retractions and it's just you know, this attempt 1:56:55.520 --> 1:56:57.760 to ban anyone from doing any research, right, is that 1:56:57.880 --> 1:57:01.280 like the problem for them with medical research about trans 1:57:01.280 --> 1:57:03.800 people is that everyone who's doing this who isn't a 1:57:04.240 --> 1:57:09.400 like unbelievably rabid anti trans person from the beginning, you know, 1:57:09.640 --> 1:57:11.880 looks at everything that they want to you to trans 1:57:11.880 --> 1:57:14.520 people and goes, this is going to kill unbelievable numbers 1:57:14.520 --> 1:57:17.960 of us. And I think like part of what they're 1:57:18.000 --> 1:57:21.280 doing here is they're trying to before any of this 1:57:21.320 --> 1:57:24.000 stuff come out, they're trying to stop the scientific apparatus 1:57:24.480 --> 1:57:27.440 from revealing the fact that they are trying to wipe 1:57:27.480 --> 1:57:34.080 us out and that's yeah, an unbelievably bleak thing to 1:57:34.120 --> 1:57:34.640 live through. 1:57:34.720 --> 1:57:42.320 I guess, like, yeah, so sorry. I mean, honestly, I 1:57:42.360 --> 1:57:45.080 wish I could say something more. It's really terrible. 1:57:45.480 --> 1:57:50.120 I won't say this like Jenny Wineley because it never happens. Obviously, 1:57:50.160 --> 1:57:51.680 the best the best thing you can do for trans 1:57:51.960 --> 1:57:55.000 people is like something that involves the follow the regime. 1:57:55.440 --> 1:57:58.040 Like the second best thing is like hire us, because 1:57:58.080 --> 1:57:59.800 no one does it and we can't. No one can 1:57:59.840 --> 1:58:03.480 get jobs, right, and but like like the third minimum 1:58:03.560 --> 1:58:07.120 thing after like money or like housing, is like like 1:58:07.360 --> 1:58:09.280 check in on the trans people in your life because 1:58:09.320 --> 1:58:12.320 nobody actually ever does it, and it means a lot, 1:58:12.400 --> 1:58:14.440 and it's not going to like stop the wrath of 1:58:14.440 --> 1:58:16.200 the state. But like, I don't know a lot of 1:58:16.200 --> 1:58:18.160 people feel us alone. This has been to be a 1:58:18.200 --> 1:58:22.920 trans public service announcement. It's now over. I think that's 1:58:23.040 --> 1:58:23.920 great advice. 1:58:24.280 --> 1:58:29.120 In other friend of the show, Margaret Kiljoy, she also said, 1:58:29.200 --> 1:58:32.280 you know when you hire people, you hire trans people, 1:58:32.600 --> 1:58:36.280 put them front of house, make it visible, and then 1:58:36.320 --> 1:58:39.720 when you go and you frequent these places, let them know. 1:58:39.840 --> 1:58:42.480 That's part of why you do it. I like that 1:58:42.520 --> 1:58:44.680 you guys are doing this. I'm here to support that. 1:58:45.040 --> 1:58:46.960 I mean, because we're talking about money, you're talking at 1:58:46.920 --> 1:58:50.560 people's livelihoods or at stake, and we have to show 1:58:50.640 --> 1:58:53.720 that these are people that are not only employable but 1:58:54.000 --> 1:58:55.320 could benefit your business. 1:58:55.480 --> 1:58:55.720 Yeah. 1:58:55.720 --> 1:58:58.080 Honestly, I don't know what to say about it either, 1:58:58.280 --> 1:59:02.480 aside from everything that they're doing is atrocious. It is 1:59:02.720 --> 1:59:08.240 a scientific it is in humane, It will it will 1:59:08.360 --> 1:59:09.040 harm people. 1:59:09.280 --> 1:59:12.160 Yeah, people are gonna die. People probably have already died. 1:59:12.640 --> 1:59:15.520 If you're transit, you're listening to this, fucking don't die. 1:59:15.680 --> 1:59:17.440 Think about how good it's going to be to get 1:59:17.440 --> 1:59:20.000 a piss on these people's graves in like eight years. 1:59:20.080 --> 1:59:22.080 It's gonna but. 1:59:25.160 --> 1:59:25.480 It is. 1:59:25.560 --> 1:59:25.800 It is. 1:59:25.840 --> 1:59:29.560 I agree, it is in dad to Argawan's point, it 1:59:29.680 --> 1:59:33.320 is dumb on every metric. I can't think of a 1:59:33.360 --> 1:59:36.840 single metric, and that these actions are not hurtful and 1:59:37.040 --> 1:59:38.480 going to harm us in the long run. 1:59:48.680 --> 1:59:50.640 To close this out that this is something that I 1:59:50.680 --> 1:59:52.520 think is very important because no one in the US 1:59:52.560 --> 1:59:55.560 apparently seems to understand this at all. How does the 1:59:55.600 --> 1:59:58.720 grant process actually work and what is it? Because you 1:59:58.720 --> 2:00:02.360 know this process, the difference between you like having clean 2:00:02.440 --> 2:00:05.440 water to drink and like that study that was going 2:00:05.480 --> 2:00:08.320 to determine if your water is clean or not not happening. 2:00:08.400 --> 2:00:11.920 Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you know, first thing I will 2:00:11.920 --> 2:00:14.280 say is that the word grant applies to lots and 2:00:14.360 --> 2:00:17.400 lots of different opportunities. And there are grants as small 2:00:17.440 --> 2:00:20.360 as like one thousand or five thousand dollars in grants 2:00:20.400 --> 2:00:24.680 as large as multimillion dollars. And the processes actually are 2:00:25.160 --> 2:00:27.240 I mean, they're analogous, but they can be pretty different 2:00:27.280 --> 2:00:29.240 because that you can imagine for a smaller grant, the 2:00:29.240 --> 2:00:30.920 amount of work that you have to do to earn 2:00:30.920 --> 2:00:33.800 that grant generally is a little bit less. But I 2:00:33.840 --> 2:00:37.000 can speak in the most detail to the NIH review 2:00:37.040 --> 2:00:39.920 process and specifically to these grants that they call ro 2:00:40.280 --> 2:00:43.160 one because are like kind of their fanciest grants that 2:00:43.200 --> 2:00:46.120 go to individual researchers with their team, but it's led 2:00:46.160 --> 2:00:48.960 by an individual researcher often. And the way this works is, 2:00:49.320 --> 2:00:51.040 first of all, I want folks to understand, it takes 2:00:51.040 --> 2:00:54.120 a year from the time that you apply until the 2:00:54.160 --> 2:00:57.200 time that you get money, can take up to a 2:00:57.240 --> 2:01:00.560 full calendar year, and so you put in in an 2:01:00.560 --> 2:01:03.800 immense amount of effort so I'll use myself as an example. 2:01:03.800 --> 2:01:06.440 I apply for a grant in October, huge amount of 2:01:06.480 --> 2:01:09.040 effort I don't know how many hours leading up to 2:01:09.120 --> 2:01:12.360 that brand submission, and then I just sit and wait 2:01:13.040 --> 2:01:18.240 for months, months and months before there's even a study section, 2:01:18.320 --> 2:01:21.400 if study section happens, and then after that, it's still 2:01:22.000 --> 2:01:25.080 a couple more months before I might get information. 2:01:25.120 --> 2:01:25.520 It depends. 2:01:25.560 --> 2:01:27.760 Of course, there's some variability there. But it's a long, 2:01:27.920 --> 2:01:30.120 long process, is what I'm trying to say. And the 2:01:30.160 --> 2:01:33.080 way the process starts is often you will send what 2:01:33.240 --> 2:01:36.000 called the letter of interest to the agency that you're 2:01:36.000 --> 2:01:37.920 applying to. So I've you said earlier it's the National 2:01:37.960 --> 2:01:42.120 Institutes of Health. So every institute has its own notice 2:01:42.120 --> 2:01:44.800 of funding opportunities or no foes that are like, here's 2:01:44.840 --> 2:01:47.720 what we're actually asking people to submit for at this 2:01:47.800 --> 2:01:51.000 point in time. And then people will send a letter 2:01:51.040 --> 2:01:54.800 of interest to the program officer. Each grant mechanism will 2:01:54.800 --> 2:01:57.840 have its own program officer, and you will send a 2:01:57.920 --> 2:02:00.400 letter of interest, maybe you get some feedback, and then 2:02:00.440 --> 2:02:02.960 you move forward to the actual grant itself. And I 2:02:03.000 --> 2:02:05.360 just want to say that it is more work than 2:02:05.400 --> 2:02:08.040 probably anything else I've ever done except maybe my dissertation, 2:02:08.760 --> 2:02:10.920 and so it's it's a huge amount of work. The 2:02:11.360 --> 2:02:15.960 ro one includes, for example, a one page specific aim page, 2:02:16.000 --> 2:02:18.680 which is you have the entirety of the study somehow 2:02:18.720 --> 2:02:21.520 magically summarized in one page with your three aims. And 2:02:21.600 --> 2:02:24.160 if that doesn't get the reviewer's attention, and if they 2:02:24.160 --> 2:02:27.880 don't think it's compelling and interesting and important, that may 2:02:27.880 --> 2:02:29.920 be the end. You may have done all the of 2:02:29.920 --> 2:02:32.800 the work and they may only read that, and then 2:02:33.120 --> 2:02:35.840 you have a twelve page These are single space pages. 2:02:35.880 --> 2:02:40.120 Single space pages happen toward twelve page research strategy. I 2:02:40.120 --> 2:02:42.320 don't know how many thousand words, thousands of words that 2:02:42.360 --> 2:02:45.640 it's I'm just telling you twelve single space pages. There's 2:02:45.680 --> 2:02:50.400 a lot of effects about your research, and it's like 2:02:50.880 --> 2:02:52.720 one of these puzzles where it like has to be 2:02:52.880 --> 2:02:55.040 exactly right, and you have like these figures and you 2:02:55.080 --> 2:02:56.760 have to get them exactly the right size and the 2:02:56.800 --> 2:02:59.200 exact right place on the page with the legend and everything. 2:02:59.240 --> 2:03:02.040 So that all matters in these tall pages because if 2:03:02.080 --> 2:03:04.800 you don't do it right, they will literally reject your 2:03:04.800 --> 2:03:07.720 grant for formatting problems. And so you may have spent 2:03:07.840 --> 2:03:11.080 months writing this grant, and because you had the wrong 2:03:11.440 --> 2:03:14.600 size or the wrong margin that they can literally choose 2:03:14.640 --> 2:03:17.160 not to even read it, and then you're you're then 2:03:17.400 --> 2:03:19.400 having to wait till either six months later if there's 2:03:19.440 --> 2:03:21.880 another opportunity, or sometimes a full year later before you 2:03:21.920 --> 2:03:22.560 can try again. 2:03:23.200 --> 2:03:24.840 Also, it's worth noting you also have to like do 2:03:24.960 --> 2:03:27.760 a bunch of science. Like if it was just you 2:03:27.880 --> 2:03:31.520 must do twelve you must write twelve pages of stuff 2:03:31.560 --> 2:03:34.000 in formatta, it would probably be okay, But like you 2:03:34.000 --> 2:03:36.560 also have to do science, like both for it and 2:03:36.720 --> 2:03:40.080 also while you're doing it. 2:03:40.080 --> 2:03:43.640 It's incredibly hard to get these. When someone gets a grant, 2:03:43.720 --> 2:03:45.920 we all celebrate it for them because they're all so 2:03:46.000 --> 2:03:49.040 excited because we know it's not easy. What's funny about 2:03:49.040 --> 2:03:51.640 that is the Republicans make it seem like all you 2:03:51.680 --> 2:03:53.600 have to do is put in a couple of terms, 2:03:53.720 --> 2:03:57.360 like you know, non binary, and you automatically get a grant. 2:03:57.440 --> 2:04:00.000 They're like, no, idea, how like challenging it is? 2:04:00.120 --> 2:04:02.880 No, It's like the only thing that could even potentially 2:04:02.920 --> 2:04:05.040 work like that is to say say, whatever you're doing 2:04:05.080 --> 2:04:07.880 is cancer research, Like that's the actual thing, right, Like 2:04:08.360 --> 2:04:11.600 sometimes you could like defraud the DoD by telling them, like, 2:04:11.880 --> 2:04:14.880 whatever research you're doing is camouflaged, like it's not it's 2:04:15.120 --> 2:04:18.760 even that is like it makes it like one percent 2:04:18.960 --> 2:04:22.120 more likely that you're endless hours of work. 2:04:22.240 --> 2:04:24.560 Yeah, I wish I could just by woke ideology. Yeah, 2:04:24.640 --> 2:04:28.040 future bulk pages and they're like ghetagrass music. But yeah, 2:04:28.160 --> 2:04:30.000 to your point, you have to part of what's in 2:04:30.000 --> 2:04:32.240 those twelve pages is what is the work that you've 2:04:32.280 --> 2:04:35.480 done that builds up to the work that you're proposing 2:04:35.520 --> 2:04:38.520 to do. And that's the stuff whole section called preliminary studies, 2:04:38.680 --> 2:04:41.480 And what's in there very is depending on what kind 2:04:41.480 --> 2:04:43.240 of research you're doing. If you're doing animal research, it 2:04:43.320 --> 2:04:46.160 might be various animal models that you've tested different things 2:04:46.160 --> 2:04:48.440 on that demonstrate, for example, that you are able to 2:04:48.480 --> 2:04:50.720 work with the specific animal model that you're proposing to 2:04:50.800 --> 2:04:54.280 use in this study, and that you have the specific 2:04:55.040 --> 2:04:58.440 methodological skills for whichever type of sace cellular analysis or 2:04:58.440 --> 2:05:00.760 whatever it is that you're doing, that you have those skills, 2:05:00.800 --> 2:05:03.200 that you have the equipment that you're able to actually 2:05:03.240 --> 2:05:06.560 carry out that research. Because part of what they're evaluating 2:05:06.720 --> 2:05:09.320 is can the person who's proposing to do this work, 2:05:09.360 --> 2:05:11.440 actually do the work. Last thing they want to do 2:05:11.560 --> 2:05:13.120 is give you millions of dollars and have you fall 2:05:13.240 --> 2:05:15.120 out on your face because you don't have the skills 2:05:15.160 --> 2:05:18.000 that are needed. So you have these pages. Part of 2:05:18.000 --> 2:05:20.800 those cult pages like often a page two three pages 2:05:20.840 --> 2:05:24.480 about what you have done to prepare for the work 2:05:24.480 --> 2:05:26.640 that you're proposing, and a lot of times to your 2:05:26.640 --> 2:05:29.280 point that work may or may not be funded. You 2:05:29.320 --> 2:05:31.800 may have to if you're like an academic institution, you 2:05:31.880 --> 2:05:33.760 might be using your startup funds, you might be trying 2:05:33.760 --> 2:05:36.840 to get smaller foundation grants or something to be able 2:05:36.880 --> 2:05:38.800 to do that work so that you can prove to 2:05:39.000 --> 2:05:41.400 the funding agency that you're able to do it. And 2:05:41.440 --> 2:05:44.840 then in addition to this culltation thing, there are a 2:05:44.960 --> 2:05:48.400 bunch of additional documents that are required, Like there's currently 2:05:48.440 --> 2:05:51.720 this will probably change, but currently there's like a diversity plan, 2:05:52.200 --> 2:05:54.920 there is a how are you going to treat participants 2:05:54.960 --> 2:05:57.879 to our women and minorities. There's like an age document, 2:05:57.920 --> 2:06:01.040 There's a page about resources and facility these there's all 2:06:01.080 --> 2:06:03.440 these additional documents which again all have their own specific 2:06:03.440 --> 2:06:06.560 formatting requirements. There's a project narrative which is shorter, and 2:06:06.560 --> 2:06:08.240 then a project summary which is longer. I think I 2:06:08.240 --> 2:06:10.000 could have those backward way ways the way it's all 2:06:10.040 --> 2:06:12.640 these additional pages. It's not just the specific games and 2:06:12.840 --> 2:06:13.760 just the reach of strategy. 2:06:13.800 --> 2:06:16.720 It's all of this plus the budget and the budget justification, 2:06:16.880 --> 2:06:18.320 and like you could just go on, but I think 2:06:18.360 --> 2:06:21.680 you start to understand that there are many many files 2:06:21.680 --> 2:06:25.080 that go into a single grant application, and it represents 2:06:25.360 --> 2:06:29.520 often months of work for an individual and their collaborators. 2:06:29.840 --> 2:06:33.280 And if you have, for example, another institution you're collaborating with, 2:06:33.440 --> 2:06:35.800 they all have to do a bunch of this paperwork 2:06:35.840 --> 2:06:37.640 as well, and there's a contract between the two and 2:06:37.680 --> 2:06:40.000 all this is done just to have a chance of 2:06:40.120 --> 2:06:40.880 getting counted. 2:06:41.560 --> 2:06:44.320 Yeah, and you know, the disruptions to the funding system, 2:06:44.640 --> 2:06:48.760 the disruptions to the studies, the disruption to just the 2:06:48.800 --> 2:06:52.040 payout means that like all of this work that you're doing, 2:06:52.720 --> 2:06:55.800 you know, you have no idea whether whether like again, 2:06:55.840 --> 2:06:58.040 all of this in some cases unpaid labor that you 2:06:58.080 --> 2:06:59.680 have been doing for months and months and months like 2:07:00.200 --> 2:07:02.680 could just not happen. Yes, And also like it's worth 2:07:02.720 --> 2:07:04.600 noting too, like you also have to like when you're 2:07:04.640 --> 2:07:08.080 figuring out what you're going to be doing next, like 2:07:08.600 --> 2:07:10.600 working out whether or not you're grant even as a 2:07:10.680 --> 2:07:13.120 chance of getting approved like that, like is something that 2:07:13.200 --> 2:07:15.040 is that is that is a long term decision that 2:07:15.040 --> 2:07:17.720 determines like what like you know, what colleges you go to, 2:07:17.920 --> 2:07:19.760 like what institutions you end up at, like all of 2:07:19.760 --> 2:07:21.720 that kind of stuff, and like that thing being all 2:07:21.760 --> 2:07:22.760 the stuffing up in the air. 2:07:23.040 --> 2:07:25.960 And for people who run labs, yeah, trying to figure 2:07:26.000 --> 2:07:28.400 out like can you so I don't personally work with 2:07:28.480 --> 2:07:31.000 graduate students, but a lot of people do. So can 2:07:31.040 --> 2:07:34.760 you afford to bring in and sponsor another support another 2:07:34.800 --> 2:07:38.280 graduate student? Can you afford the support of another postdoc? 2:07:38.480 --> 2:07:41.960 These are all long term decisions. These aren't just like oh, Okay, 2:07:41.960 --> 2:07:43.720 I'm going to hire some for two months until I 2:07:43.760 --> 2:07:46.480 find out the next thing. It's like you want to 2:07:46.520 --> 2:07:49.760 commit to people, especially trainees. So it makes it very 2:07:49.800 --> 2:07:53.760 difficult for people who run labs to make those decisions 2:07:53.800 --> 2:07:55.840 to bring people in because we don't want to let 2:07:55.880 --> 2:07:59.200 people down. And so I think the kind of intuitive 2:07:59.200 --> 2:08:02.560 and natural concept is that people will bring in fewer 2:08:02.600 --> 2:08:07.320 people because that's less risky than bringing in more people 2:08:07.360 --> 2:08:10.880 and then having to either cut their funding or let 2:08:10.920 --> 2:08:13.040 them go or whatever later on when you don't get 2:08:13.120 --> 2:08:15.640 the resources that you need. And I want to just 2:08:15.720 --> 2:08:18.600 point out that institutions here have a major role to play. 2:08:18.840 --> 2:08:20.920 And not all institutions, and by that I mean higher 2:08:21.000 --> 2:08:24.960 education institutions, and not all of them are equally resourced, obviously, 2:08:25.320 --> 2:08:27.440 but we all know that there are quite a few 2:08:27.520 --> 2:08:31.280 in this country that have massive endowments, and so are 2:08:31.440 --> 2:08:33.919 what is the plan there and what is the support 2:08:34.040 --> 2:08:36.640 for the folks at their institutions. And I'm not trying 2:08:36.680 --> 2:08:39.240 to be I'm not trying to oversimplify what is in 2:08:39.320 --> 2:08:41.960 fact a very challenging issue. But it would be nice, 2:08:42.120 --> 2:08:45.040 it would be fantastic if some of these institutions came 2:08:45.080 --> 2:08:47.480 out and said, we understand that this is a very 2:08:47.560 --> 2:08:50.320 challenging time where you being committed to supporting the work 2:08:50.400 --> 2:08:54.400 of our faculty, our graduate students are postoc et cetera, 2:08:54.520 --> 2:08:58.000 and we will and we will fund anyone who's funding 2:08:58.160 --> 2:08:59.720 is withdrawn or withheld. 2:09:00.080 --> 2:09:02.480 Let's just say it'd be nice if some of these 2:09:02.600 --> 2:09:07.120 very important, prestigious academic institutions showed maybe at least the 2:09:07.160 --> 2:09:08.919 same backbone as COSTCO. 2:09:09.840 --> 2:09:11.920 Yeah, it's all I ask. 2:09:12.040 --> 2:09:14.640 Okay too, I want to highlight too. It's very early 2:09:14.760 --> 2:09:18.440 yet in this game. But Brown did come out, I 2:09:18.520 --> 2:09:21.640 think it was yesterday or sometime over the weekend, stating 2:09:21.720 --> 2:09:26.560 clearly that they remained committed to their values of academic freedom. 2:09:27.160 --> 2:09:27.320 Right. 2:09:27.360 --> 2:09:29.120 So that's the way to say it, right, like, we 2:09:29.160 --> 2:09:33.360 support our staff and employees and students. Fact, we're doing 2:09:33.560 --> 2:09:37.960 whatever work they think is important. I think that that 2:09:38.120 --> 2:09:41.440 was their roundabout way of saying, we're not abandoning the 2:09:41.480 --> 2:09:43.880 principles of DEI. But who knows, but that's what they said. 2:09:43.880 --> 2:09:47.760 But but to Princeton, Princeton actually put out their annual 2:09:47.840 --> 2:09:51.600 report on DEI at Princeton and I forget the exact 2:09:51.600 --> 2:09:52.880 worrying and I don't have it in front of me, 2:09:52.920 --> 2:09:56.680 but their president talked about how important it is to 2:09:56.720 --> 2:10:01.040 support people from different backgrounds, et cetera. So that that's 2:10:01.080 --> 2:10:02.440 two that are trying to do something. 2:10:02.520 --> 2:10:05.560 Yeah, I remain hopeful. I remain helpful. Yeah. Also, I 2:10:05.560 --> 2:10:07.120 got I got to put in my word at Costco 2:10:07.160 --> 2:10:10.200 hate here, which is they're currently screwing over their unions. 2:10:10.360 --> 2:10:11.760 So I thought they resolved it. 2:10:11.800 --> 2:10:13.000 I thought they actually gave them. 2:10:13.080 --> 2:10:15.240 No, they didn't. They did in the page increase. 2:10:15.880 --> 2:10:17.200 Yeah, it's not resolved yet. 2:10:17.800 --> 2:10:19.680 I thought the hot Dog was still win fifty though, 2:10:19.720 --> 2:10:24.120 so that's important for me. Read Jamie Loftus's book Raw DOGG. 2:10:24.720 --> 2:10:26.480 I'm a doctor. I can't do that by law. 2:10:26.680 --> 2:10:30.960 Yeah, but even the NFL came out today and said 2:10:31.000 --> 2:10:34.640 that they're not going to end their d programs any typetube. 2:10:34.760 --> 2:10:39.000 NFL known for being all right, I mean that is 2:10:39.040 --> 2:10:40.680 a thing though, right if if, if you want to 2:10:40.720 --> 2:10:42.680 understand why the NFL is doing that, like look at 2:10:42.680 --> 2:10:45.200 who the current heads of the NFL Players Association are 2:10:45.520 --> 2:10:47.800 and like who their past heads for the last like 2:10:47.960 --> 2:10:50.400 decade have been, and that will give you an indication 2:10:50.520 --> 2:10:54.960 of like why it's like that. So yeah, MIO follows 2:10:55.000 --> 2:10:58.200 football pretty closely. I can tell it for unfortunately, if 2:10:58.200 --> 2:11:00.960 we're coming from feed all. Also, I kind of owe 2:11:01.000 --> 2:11:04.080 the NFL Players Association because they did they they did 2:11:04.120 --> 2:11:06.400 put out a statement in support of our unionization drive. 2:11:06.640 --> 2:11:09.760 So yeah, it was very sweet. 2:11:09.960 --> 2:11:10.560 That's nice. 2:11:11.000 --> 2:11:12.960 Well, I do want to say one more thing about 2:11:13.000 --> 2:11:16.919 the grant process, which is that often people are submitting 2:11:16.960 --> 2:11:21.240 the same grant over and over and over because the 2:11:21.280 --> 2:11:25.240 funding rates are so low and so often they will 2:11:25.640 --> 2:11:30.000 submit it the first time, get feedback, make changes, resubmit 2:11:30.080 --> 2:11:32.440 later and again. As I pointed out, it's not like 2:11:32.480 --> 2:11:35.040 this is a rolling submission process where any day of 2:11:35.080 --> 2:11:38.120 the week you can submit I think for most mechanism. Again, 2:11:38.160 --> 2:11:40.520 there's going to be some variability from institute to institute, 2:11:40.520 --> 2:11:43.520 but it's at most twice a year, so like if 2:11:43.560 --> 2:11:46.560 they're if they reject it, hopefully they give you feedback. 2:11:46.560 --> 2:11:48.440 By the way, sometimes you don't even get feed because 2:11:48.440 --> 2:11:51.400 if you weren't one of the top grant applications, you 2:11:51.480 --> 2:11:54.440 don't even get discussed, so you may not get feedback. 2:11:54.440 --> 2:11:56.960 But let's say you get feedback, then you try again, 2:11:57.080 --> 2:11:58.880 and then maybe you try again, and then maybe you 2:11:58.880 --> 2:12:02.040 try again. So sometimes they can take many cycles of 2:12:02.040 --> 2:12:06.560 this entire terrible process before you get funded one. And 2:12:06.920 --> 2:12:09.840 to Covey's point about efficiency, clier like, I mean, if 2:12:09.920 --> 2:12:12.840 you think about it that way, that it's extremely inefficient system. 2:12:12.880 --> 2:12:14.360 But the point I just wanted to make is that 2:12:14.440 --> 2:12:18.080 people work really, really hard to get these grants, and 2:12:18.400 --> 2:12:20.240 for some of the folks right now who are kind 2:12:20.240 --> 2:12:22.520 of in limbo waiting for study section to resume, this 2:12:22.680 --> 2:12:26.680 might be their third or fourth submission of something, and 2:12:26.840 --> 2:12:29.480 they were really hoping this was going to be the chance, 2:12:29.560 --> 2:12:32.480 because at some point you can't keep pursuing unless you 2:12:32.520 --> 2:12:35.520 have some other independent income, like often, at some point 2:12:35.520 --> 2:12:38.160 you cannot keep pursuing a specific line of research. So 2:12:38.200 --> 2:12:41.280 you have to think about what breakthrough is being put 2:12:41.320 --> 2:12:45.040 on hold or will never be identified because of all 2:12:45.080 --> 2:12:48.080 of this, because someone might have been waiting and maybe 2:12:48.240 --> 2:12:50.960 they can't wait for however long it takes to resolve 2:12:51.040 --> 2:12:54.280 this freeze, and maybe they end up switching their career 2:12:54.360 --> 2:12:56.640 path into something completely different. And I'll just say, like, 2:12:56.680 --> 2:12:58.800 even on a smaller scale, I had a grant that 2:12:59.240 --> 2:13:02.520 a colleague and I admitted several years back that got funded. 2:13:02.720 --> 2:13:04.560 That was a very competitive grant. It was not a 2:13:04.600 --> 2:13:07.680 federal grant, it was a foundation, very competitive and we 2:13:07.680 --> 2:13:10.520 were delighted. We were i mean just thrilled to get funded. 2:13:10.640 --> 2:13:12.760 And then we could not in the end take the grant. 2:13:12.760 --> 2:13:14.839 We did not do the work of the grant because 2:13:15.000 --> 2:13:17.960 he ended up not being able to find an appointment 2:13:17.960 --> 2:13:19.480 that was going to work for him in academia and 2:13:19.520 --> 2:13:21.840 so he went to industry, so that work never got done. 2:13:21.880 --> 2:13:24.480 To this day, that work has not been done yeah, 2:13:24.560 --> 2:13:26.840 I would love for it to be done. But those 2:13:26.880 --> 2:13:30.040 are the types of consequences that we're talking about when 2:13:30.040 --> 2:13:32.360 we're looking at like what's happening with these funds and 2:13:32.400 --> 2:13:35.120 the delay of distributing the funds and the chances that 2:13:35.240 --> 2:13:38.800 funds will be revoked from people. They really changed the 2:13:38.840 --> 2:13:41.520 course of not just individual lives, but of science. 2:13:42.000 --> 2:13:44.000 Yeah, And I mean, like the most visual example I 2:13:44.000 --> 2:13:47.000 could think about this was I knew some people who 2:13:47.960 --> 2:13:50.480 wanted to work in a coronavirus lab in twenty nineteen 2:13:50.480 --> 2:13:52.520 and couldn't do it because they didn't their PI didn't 2:13:52.520 --> 2:13:54.760 have funding for We're got a coronavirus thing. It's like, oh, 2:13:54.840 --> 2:14:01.560 what have been useful if they got that grant? Uh 2:14:01.600 --> 2:14:03.400 So I think this is a decent enough place to 2:14:03.400 --> 2:14:05.400 wrap up. I do have one thing that I want 2:14:05.400 --> 2:14:07.240 to plug, which is something you were talking about earlier, 2:14:07.240 --> 2:14:09.840 which is putting, which is these institutions like coming out 2:14:09.840 --> 2:14:13.160 and backing their scientists right, And that's that's a thing 2:14:13.160 --> 2:14:15.200 that you can do. You can put pressure on these 2:14:15.200 --> 2:14:18.440 institutions to do the right thing. And so it might 2:14:18.480 --> 2:14:20.800 be over by by by now, but like literally as 2:14:20.840 --> 2:14:24.160 we were recording this, there was a protest going on 2:14:24.520 --> 2:14:29.800 at NYU's Hospital. Yeah, because they've cut off care to 2:14:30.360 --> 2:14:34.840 transuse they cut off Yeah, and so you know you 2:14:34.880 --> 2:14:37.720 can do this the people who actually run these systems, 2:14:38.000 --> 2:14:41.000 and you know, and the entire federal government, right people 2:14:41.080 --> 2:14:43.760 running the federal government are relying on everyone just sort 2:14:43.760 --> 2:14:45.960 of sitting there being shocked, not knowing what to do, 2:14:46.000 --> 2:14:49.000 and doing nothing. And you know, you can go show 2:14:49.040 --> 2:14:51.960 up to the administrators, the offices of the administrators of 2:14:52.000 --> 2:14:54.480 these places, and you can confront them and you could 2:14:54.480 --> 2:14:56.720 be like, Okay, you're you're either right here right now. 2:14:56.760 --> 2:14:58.200 You're going to be a coward and you're going to 2:14:58.240 --> 2:14:59.840 go along with this, or you're going to go back 2:15:00.080 --> 2:15:00.560 own people. 2:15:00.960 --> 2:15:01.240 Yeah. 2:15:01.400 --> 2:15:04.080 Yeah, And that's something that you could do right now. 2:15:04.600 --> 2:15:06.480 And I just want to add we didn't talk about 2:15:06.520 --> 2:15:08.880 this earlier, but when we talked about the CDC and 2:15:08.920 --> 2:15:11.280 everything that's been removed, one thing that's relevant to that 2:15:11.400 --> 2:15:13.280 is that there's an Office for Research on Women's Health. 2:15:13.280 --> 2:15:16.000 It's the only resource dedicated to women's health in the 2:15:16.160 --> 2:15:19.000 entire national Institutes of Health. We do have a National 2:15:19.040 --> 2:15:21.240 Institute of Children's Health. We do not have a National 2:15:21.240 --> 2:15:23.520 Institute of Women's Health. We have an awful for research 2:15:23.520 --> 2:15:24.160 on women's health. 2:15:24.200 --> 2:15:27.480 Right if we love the US government, Jesus. 2:15:27.920 --> 2:15:30.360 Yeah, it gets worse. So the National Academy the Science 2:15:30.440 --> 2:15:33.200 is Engineering in Medicine, which is like, I would say, 2:15:33.360 --> 2:15:36.640 one of the most prestigious kind of academic organizations that existed. 2:15:37.240 --> 2:15:40.800 A review of funding for women's health research at the NIH, 2:15:41.080 --> 2:15:43.360 and they put out a report in December. It's pretty 2:15:43.400 --> 2:15:46.920 scathing if you read it, and they shared that from 2:15:46.920 --> 2:15:49.720 twenty thirteen to twenty twenty three, research for women's health 2:15:49.760 --> 2:15:53.040 was like eight point eight percent of the entire NIH 2:15:53.080 --> 2:16:01.000 budget as a reminder, women are the population, and they 2:16:01.120 --> 2:16:04.720 called for almost sixteen billion dollars of additional funding to 2:16:04.760 --> 2:16:07.000 go to women's health research in the coming five years 2:16:07.040 --> 2:16:09.680 and the creation of an Institute for Women's Health. So 2:16:09.760 --> 2:16:13.240 what happened last week with almost everything on the website 2:16:13.240 --> 2:16:15.320 for the Office of Research for Women's Health was deleted. 2:16:15.440 --> 2:16:16.880 Jes Christ it's gone. 2:16:17.000 --> 2:16:19.800 So they're funding. An opportunities page is gone, Their bios 2:16:19.840 --> 2:16:23.160 about their staff are gone, their updates on advances in 2:16:23.280 --> 2:16:26.080 medicine for women over the last twenty five years gone, 2:16:26.240 --> 2:16:30.280 their pages on maternal morbidity immortality gone, The importance of 2:16:30.280 --> 2:16:33.520 including women in minorities and clinical trial gone, their page 2:16:33.560 --> 2:16:36.280 on health equity gone. You get the picture. So all 2:16:36.400 --> 2:16:39.680 of that except for just a very bare minimum landing 2:16:39.720 --> 2:16:43.440 page and kind a link to the office of I 2:16:43.440 --> 2:16:45.320 forget the official in the office that's an office that 2:16:45.400 --> 2:16:48.720 works on autoimmune diseases. Like everything else is gone. And 2:16:48.800 --> 2:16:51.240 so I did create a script. If anybody wants to 2:16:51.280 --> 2:16:54.440 call their member of Congress, I have a script for that, 2:16:54.800 --> 2:16:57.600 and the CDC pages that people can use in terms 2:16:57.640 --> 2:17:00.600 of actions. That's something I think that is about as 2:17:00.640 --> 2:17:02.920 real as it gets for us at this point. And 2:17:03.000 --> 2:17:07.120 I think that the more we are emphatic in our 2:17:07.600 --> 2:17:10.400 messaging that none of this is okay, that we demand 2:17:10.400 --> 2:17:13.560 to have these resources back online, that we demand to 2:17:13.600 --> 2:17:17.039 continue funding research on health disparities for all the different 2:17:17.040 --> 2:17:20.520 groups affected, I think the better the chance is that 2:17:20.520 --> 2:17:23.720 that actually happens. So that's out there if anybody. 2:17:23.360 --> 2:17:25.360 Wants that, Yeah, well we'll put links to that in 2:17:25.400 --> 2:17:27.279 the description. Also, I'm going to put it a personal 2:17:27.360 --> 2:17:29.440 plug to call your congress person to yell at them 2:17:29.440 --> 2:17:33.040 about all of the anti trans stuff, because they are 2:17:33.120 --> 2:17:35.400 legitimately in a flux point right now where the party 2:17:35.440 --> 2:17:38.560 is slipping back and forth between just being like, yeah, whatever, 2:17:38.600 --> 2:17:40.800 we'll pass a defense bill that like banchanz people from 2:17:40.800 --> 2:17:43.480 the military, and we're going to stop things from happening. 2:17:43.600 --> 2:17:45.640 And so this is the thing that can go either way, 2:17:45.720 --> 2:17:48.320 and getting yelled at by their constituents legitimately does help 2:17:48.320 --> 2:17:51.480 with us. So yep, absolutely, yeah, do that too. When 2:17:51.480 --> 2:17:54.160 you're called. While you're calling, what the CDC, multiple things, 2:17:54.959 --> 2:17:57.600 different calls even, Yeah, you. 2:17:57.600 --> 2:17:59.480 Might just want to put them on feed though and 2:17:59.640 --> 2:18:01.280 make it, you know, on your drive if you go 2:18:01.320 --> 2:18:03.840 into work, maybe every day on the drive you're just calling, Hi, 2:18:04.320 --> 2:18:07.120 here's the issue of the day, because there's no shortage 2:18:07.120 --> 2:18:08.879 of issues that we need to be communicating now. 2:18:09.720 --> 2:18:12.840 So, speaking of things in bios, where can people find 2:18:12.879 --> 2:18:15.240 you two for stuff that you want to promote the 2:18:15.360 --> 2:18:17.240 way you do, et cetera, et cetera. 2:18:17.520 --> 2:18:20.320 I mean, I'm on all the things, even the terrible thing, 2:18:21.320 --> 2:18:24.640 which is most of them are terrible, But I'm on TikTok. 2:18:24.959 --> 2:18:26.959 If you just put my first name, usually all come 2:18:27.040 --> 2:18:30.959 up TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, I know, I know, and blue 2:18:31.000 --> 2:18:34.400 Sky and I'm not the only one I don't really 2:18:34.480 --> 2:18:35.480 do is Facebook. 2:18:36.520 --> 2:18:37.080 You're too cool. 2:18:37.120 --> 2:18:37.360 For that. 2:18:38.000 --> 2:18:41.080 Oh, I have a subset. That's where the script is 2:18:41.080 --> 2:18:43.440 by my subset. Now, not too cool for Facebook. I'm 2:18:43.480 --> 2:18:44.640 just too lazy for Facebook. 2:18:45.080 --> 2:18:47.520 I mean, I mean listen, if you're on these things, 2:18:47.520 --> 2:18:50.400 you're not too cool for anything. That's the really cool 2:18:50.480 --> 2:18:53.199 kids are not on any of these things. You can 2:18:53.240 --> 2:18:57.320 find me at on Blue Sky, at cave Ka V 2:18:57.440 --> 2:19:01.320 E H M D. And more importantly, you can listen 2:19:01.560 --> 2:19:05.760 to my podcast, The House of Pod. It's a relatively fun, 2:19:05.800 --> 2:19:09.680 informal look at medicine. We tried to make healthcare more relatable, 2:19:10.120 --> 2:19:12.680 you know. Sometimes we'll take an aim at medical quackery 2:19:12.879 --> 2:19:14.760 or griffs and that sort of thing. I think your 2:19:14.959 --> 2:19:15.920 listeners will like it. 2:19:16.120 --> 2:19:16.360 Yeah. 2:19:16.440 --> 2:19:21.480 Our guests range from doctors like Peter Hotez or Argavon 2:19:21.760 --> 2:19:26.760 here to musicians like Portugal the Man or a lot 2:19:26.800 --> 2:19:29.720 of the Cool Zone family that you all know and love, 2:19:29.959 --> 2:19:34.640 Prop and Robert and hopefully me as soon. So find 2:19:34.680 --> 2:19:37.080 it anywhere you get your podcasts, The House of Pod. Yeah, 2:19:37.120 --> 2:19:39.120 and you can find all of that. 2:19:39.440 --> 2:19:42.640 We've talked about like a staggering number of the other 2:19:42.720 --> 2:19:46.360 shows that we do in this one, but yeah, you can. 2:19:46.440 --> 2:19:49.279 You can find our other shows where there are podcasts 2:19:49.560 --> 2:19:54.320 and yeah, think god, I'm so bad at plugging these things. 2:19:54.520 --> 2:19:56.880 You think it's my living but now can't do it, 2:19:56.959 --> 2:20:01.200 so you're out of ted. Absolute failure. But yeah, thank 2:20:01.240 --> 2:20:04.680 you to both for coming on. And I hope you 2:20:04.720 --> 2:20:09.320 get your grand arka pod because fuck that, like Jesus Christ. 2:20:10.600 --> 2:20:11.160 Thank you. 2:20:11.360 --> 2:20:11.560 Well. 2:20:11.560 --> 2:20:14.440 If I if I don't get my funding renewed this summer, 2:20:14.480 --> 2:20:15.320 I will, I will. 2:20:15.160 --> 2:20:15.520 Let you know. 2:20:15.560 --> 2:20:16.640 I mean we can talk about it. 2:20:16.840 --> 2:20:22.879 Yeah, yeah, I'm down for a podcast. Yeah, this is 2:20:22.879 --> 2:20:27.240 this is big. Could happen here. I go harass your legislatures, 2:20:27.560 --> 2:20:33.200 your local administrators for universities, your local police departments. I 2:20:33.560 --> 2:20:42.800 make sure they do not bad stuff and do good things. 2:20:57.040 --> 2:21:00.280 Hi, everyone, I'm welcome to it could happen here today. 2:21:00.320 --> 2:21:03.760 It's me James and I'm joined by Nevdon jam Gochian. 2:21:04.000 --> 2:21:08.760 We're here to talk about Azerbaijan, Armenia and the increasingly 2:21:08.840 --> 2:21:10.680 genocidal rhetoric from Azerbaijan. 2:21:10.879 --> 2:21:11.959 But I want to start off. 2:21:12.120 --> 2:21:16.360 Nevdene, we're talking about COP twenty twenty four. 2:21:16.520 --> 2:21:17.959 I guess can you explain. 2:21:18.160 --> 2:21:20.800 I think people will be sort of somewhat familiar with 2:21:20.840 --> 2:21:23.320 these series of climate conferences but this one was held 2:21:23.560 --> 2:21:26.280 in Azerbijan, right, and can you explain a little bit 2:21:26.320 --> 2:21:32.400 about you've specialized in like these greenwashing, sports washing, various 2:21:32.400 --> 2:21:34.560 other sort of forms of laundering legitimacy. 2:21:34.640 --> 2:21:37.480 Rate, I'd love for you to start off there and. 2:21:37.480 --> 2:21:40.880 Explain how this particular conference was used as a means 2:21:40.920 --> 2:21:44.480 of laundering legitimacy for what is it like a genocidal project. 2:21:44.920 --> 2:21:50.600 COP twenty nine, which was just concluded in Azerbaijan, is 2:21:50.840 --> 2:21:56.720 the deadly serious and vital conversation about climate in the 2:21:56.800 --> 2:22:01.280 United Nations, which we absolutely need to have. But from 2:22:01.280 --> 2:22:07.320 the beginning it was a clown show. And the way Azerbaijan, 2:22:07.600 --> 2:22:12.280 a Petro dictatorship, was able to proture this for themselves 2:22:12.920 --> 2:22:16.240 was at COP twenty eight, which was held in Dubai, 2:22:16.400 --> 2:22:20.720 another questionable location for the climate conference, where they had 2:22:20.760 --> 2:22:24.800 a pavilion as reported by Political EU, where they had 2:22:24.800 --> 2:22:30.360 a giant advertisement that said Carabach is the first place 2:22:30.520 --> 2:22:35.840 to achieve net zero emissions in Azerbaijan, and that was 2:22:35.879 --> 2:22:39.000 one part of them getting the bid for COP twenty nine. 2:22:39.000 --> 2:22:43.480 And the way Zerbaijan was able to achieve net zero 2:22:44.360 --> 2:22:49.040 emissions in this particular location was they committed a genocide 2:22:49.160 --> 2:22:52.560 against all the people. If there's no people, there's no 2:22:52.959 --> 2:22:57.680 climate emissions. And that's probably not even true that it's 2:22:57.720 --> 2:23:01.280 a net zero emissions because they've engaged in so much 2:23:01.320 --> 2:23:05.280 of the eradication of any trace of Armenians in this 2:23:05.400 --> 2:23:08.920 place that Armenians been living in for at least two thousand, 2:23:09.040 --> 2:23:13.160 five hundred years. Destruction of buildings, of course is one 2:23:13.160 --> 2:23:18.400 of the huge source of pollution, and they've they've raised 2:23:18.480 --> 2:23:23.400 something like four cemeteries, thousands of the monuments, four churches 2:23:23.400 --> 2:23:28.879 have demolished, entire neighborhoods have been raised historical neighborhood so 2:23:29.120 --> 2:23:30.920 it's probably not even that zero, but that was their 2:23:30.959 --> 2:23:34.880 advertising claim to get the bid. The top twenty nine 2:23:34.920 --> 2:23:38.560 was originally supposed to be in Europe, but Russia was 2:23:38.640 --> 2:23:45.040 vetoing every European bid, and Armenia, who Azerbaijan is currently 2:23:45.120 --> 2:23:49.040 occupying two hundred and fifteen kilometers of Armenian territory, was 2:23:49.080 --> 2:23:53.600 blocking Azerbaijan. Tell Azerbaijan offered to give up thirty two 2:23:53.840 --> 2:24:00.120 Armenian hostages, so we've got to there, we've got the 2:24:00.160 --> 2:24:04.400 gangster hobstage situation, which they did. They gave up thirty 2:24:04.400 --> 2:24:07.400 two members of the Armenian military, and they made Armenia 2:24:07.480 --> 2:24:10.400 give up two other basignons that were reheld by Armenia 2:24:10.800 --> 2:24:15.640 because they had gone into Armenia and killed a local 2:24:15.879 --> 2:24:19.400 security guard trying to steal his car. They probably were 2:24:19.400 --> 2:24:21.560 lost and they killed this guy and they were trying 2:24:21.560 --> 2:24:24.320 to escape. But then just one of them had been 2:24:24.360 --> 2:24:27.440 sent to life imprisonment. But that's what Armenia gave up 2:24:27.879 --> 2:24:29.320 in exchange. 2:24:29.000 --> 2:24:31.160 To allow this climate conference to happen. 2:24:31.200 --> 2:24:33.879 That's correct, So let's stoom. 2:24:33.680 --> 2:24:36.280 Back from this climate conference, right like in this I 2:24:36.280 --> 2:24:39.200 think it's a really interesting place to start. The site 2:24:39.240 --> 2:24:42.440 of our genocide is a net zero area, and it's 2:24:42.440 --> 2:24:46.279 a very bleak vision of the sort of greenwashing future. 2:24:47.400 --> 2:24:49.280 Let's expand a little bit of the history of the 2:24:49.320 --> 2:24:52.760 conflict between these two countries, and also, perhaps more broadly, 2:24:53.040 --> 2:24:55.520 I think people will probably be familiar with the Armenian 2:24:55.520 --> 2:24:58.879 genocide if they've listened to this show, But of Armenian 2:24:58.920 --> 2:25:04.120 people as a subject discrimination and hatred for centuries. 2:25:03.720 --> 2:25:07.120 Right, well, you know, I mean, Armenians are one of 2:25:07.160 --> 2:25:11.080 the ancient people of that area, Greeks, Jews, Persians, they're 2:25:11.080 --> 2:25:12.480 one of the people that have kind of stuck it 2:25:12.520 --> 2:25:16.080 out for a long time in that neighborhood. The Turkic 2:25:16.120 --> 2:25:21.480 people are more recent visitors to the neighborhood, and there's 2:25:21.720 --> 2:25:26.480 nothing wrong with migration of people, but there's something about 2:25:27.240 --> 2:25:29.640 populations that have been there for a long time that 2:25:29.760 --> 2:25:31.840 really strikes a nerve if we want to be very 2:25:31.879 --> 2:25:35.760 mild about it, with the Turkic people, Turkey and Azerbaijan 2:25:36.320 --> 2:25:40.360 in the sense that they've been engaged in a policy 2:25:40.440 --> 2:25:46.279 of destroying any remnants of Armenians, including physical people, for 2:25:47.200 --> 2:25:49.640 least in the eighteen eighties. They've been making them second 2:25:49.680 --> 2:25:53.120 class citizens since they came in in the Ottoman Empire. 2:25:53.160 --> 2:25:57.240 There's this myth of the a multicultural society, which is 2:25:57.320 --> 2:26:00.840 interesting Azerbaijan is also trying to promote. But it really 2:26:01.200 --> 2:26:05.800 was a second class situation where the minorities in the 2:26:05.800 --> 2:26:10.600 Ottoman Empire had a lot of extra taxes and duties 2:26:10.680 --> 2:26:14.800 and persecution than other people in the area. 2:26:15.000 --> 2:26:18.840 Yeah, so let's talk about this this area then, specifically 2:26:18.840 --> 2:26:22.279 this area which would be called depending on who you asked, 2:26:22.360 --> 2:26:26.040 art Zach or Gona Krabak, Right, I think probably it is. 2:26:27.120 --> 2:26:29.000 I don't know, if I haven't looked on Wikipedia, but 2:26:29.040 --> 2:26:30.879 like what would the more commonly used terms for people 2:26:30.879 --> 2:26:33.720 wanting to look it up right in American English. But 2:26:34.280 --> 2:26:37.520 let's explain why there is a conflict in this area 2:26:37.600 --> 2:26:41.080 and then what has happened since. I guess we can 2:26:41.120 --> 2:26:43.560 go from like the fall of the Soviet Union would 2:26:43.560 --> 2:26:44.600 be a place to. 2:26:44.600 --> 2:26:47.039 Start, or I mean we talked about earlier. That's the 2:26:47.200 --> 2:26:49.600 tough thing about talking to rannions, like where I would 2:26:49.600 --> 2:26:51.640 start with the sixth century and the fall of the 2:26:51.720 --> 2:26:54.920 kingdom Ratu. Okay, but I guess we don't have that 2:26:55.000 --> 2:26:58.920 much time. So basically, and I do have to put 2:26:59.000 --> 2:27:02.120 this in there because there's a big Azerbaijani narrative that 2:27:02.800 --> 2:27:06.560 Armenians are effective people, they're effective presence. And I'll deal 2:27:06.600 --> 2:27:09.080 with that in a little bit. Ye, But you know, 2:27:09.200 --> 2:27:11.280 it's just been recorded by Greek. I mean, I don't 2:27:11.280 --> 2:27:13.200 know why I should have to prove our existence, but 2:27:13.879 --> 2:27:17.320 we do. Yeah, So anyway, I record to history that 2:27:17.600 --> 2:27:20.080 it's where the ourar media and alphabet was invented. These 2:27:20.080 --> 2:27:23.560 people have been indigenous to the region for thousands of years. 2:27:23.600 --> 2:27:26.200 They've got a deep connection with the land fall the 2:27:26.240 --> 2:27:29.959 Soviet Union. Fast forward, there had been under the territory 2:27:30.040 --> 2:27:35.119 of the Azerbaijani SSR as in a autonomous oblast, as 2:27:35.160 --> 2:27:38.599 they called it. It had been given to the Azerbaijani 2:27:38.800 --> 2:27:42.840 SSR because of Stalin, who was the Commissioner of Minorities. 2:27:42.920 --> 2:27:45.600 Calin has this big project to divide the people, the 2:27:45.640 --> 2:27:48.240 minorities in the Soviet Union to fight each other, which 2:27:48.280 --> 2:27:51.000 is ramped up in the nineteen sixties when the Soviets 2:27:51.000 --> 2:27:54.440 start inventing fake history to pit people against each other, 2:27:54.440 --> 2:28:00.760 which is wild, but Sloviet Union is crumbling. The people 2:28:00.959 --> 2:28:05.240 of Artsak, which is the armeniandigenous name Nagaro Karaba, is 2:28:05.240 --> 2:28:08.199 generally acceptable as well. That's that would be the colonial 2:28:08.280 --> 2:28:11.600 name or the name that the as Ais call the region. 2:28:12.120 --> 2:28:14.520 They are fed up with not being able to learn 2:28:14.560 --> 2:28:17.520 their language because of Azerbaijan. They're fed up with not 2:28:17.600 --> 2:28:20.720 being able to have any of the rights as Soviet 2:28:20.760 --> 2:28:24.920 citizens because the father of the current dictator of Azerbaijan 2:28:25.120 --> 2:28:30.359 was ruining Azerbaijan since nineteen sixty nine and his policy 2:28:30.480 --> 2:28:32.280 was to try to get as many armedients to move 2:28:32.320 --> 2:28:34.800 out of the region as possible. So they're fed up 2:28:34.840 --> 2:28:38.160 with this and they're like okay enough, they legally seceed 2:28:38.240 --> 2:28:42.120 from the Soviet Union. It's allowed in the Constitution, which 2:28:42.160 --> 2:28:46.280 of course infuriates that Azerbaijani SSR. You know. So there's 2:28:46.280 --> 2:28:49.440 a bunch of conflicts. There's the pogroms that happen against 2:28:49.480 --> 2:28:54.400 Armenians and cities of Baku and Sungate and at which 2:28:54.480 --> 2:28:58.120 point they seceed fully from the Soviet Union, one of 2:28:58.120 --> 2:29:01.840 the first areas to do so in nineteen ninety one. 2:29:02.440 --> 2:29:06.039 They actually left the Soviet Union before Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan with 2:29:06.160 --> 2:29:10.920 the Soviet Union's troops in bay there's this bloody mess 2:29:10.920 --> 2:29:14.680 it's called Operation Ring where they're killing Armenians in the area. 2:29:14.760 --> 2:29:20.200 There's a war that erupts when everybody seceedes. Armenians in 2:29:20.440 --> 2:29:24.359 Artsak get the upper hand due to they really cared 2:29:24.440 --> 2:29:27.360 about it and also probably because of racism within the 2:29:27.360 --> 2:29:29.920 Soviet Union, where they trained Armenians a little bit better 2:29:30.160 --> 2:29:34.320 than they did Azeris. It's a humiliating defeat for Azerbaijan. 2:29:34.800 --> 2:29:38.800 Azerbaijan is pushed back. Armenian sees about nine percent of 2:29:38.840 --> 2:29:43.640 Azerbaijani territory beyond art Soak, and that was a stasis 2:29:44.080 --> 2:29:45.160 until twenty twenty. 2:29:45.400 --> 2:29:49.240 Yeah, really yeah, sort of thirty years of right, but 2:29:49.320 --> 2:29:52.280 it was always disputed right this area was there as 2:29:52.320 --> 2:29:55.000 we don't continued to lay claim to the Attak region. 2:29:55.040 --> 2:29:55.680 Is that correct? 2:29:56.000 --> 2:29:59.840 For some reason, it was never recognized by the UN 2:30:00.120 --> 2:30:03.160 US being a real country similar to some other places. 2:30:03.879 --> 2:30:06.199 Why that is is confusing to me because they did 2:30:06.480 --> 2:30:10.280 leave earlier than anybody else. It is an ethnic minority 2:30:10.600 --> 2:30:13.880 that chose to leave the area, but it was they 2:30:13.879 --> 2:30:19.039 weren't considered legitimate by the UN by Azerbaijan, And secondarily, 2:30:19.840 --> 2:30:26.160 we have this brutal dictatorship that's held together by ethnic hatred. Really, 2:30:27.200 --> 2:30:33.519 I cannot overstate how terrible the Alif regime is in Azerbaijan. 2:30:34.080 --> 2:30:37.400 But you know, Urmeni forces committed at least one war 2:30:37.480 --> 2:30:40.120 crime that I'm aware of during that time in the 2:30:40.160 --> 2:30:42.360 place that called Joli, where they killed one hundred and 2:30:42.400 --> 2:30:46.000 eighty to six hundred Azari civilians. And they've used this 2:30:46.080 --> 2:30:48.760 event and I think one other, to really hold their 2:30:48.840 --> 2:30:52.959 country together in this pit of brothing, broth of it 2:30:53.160 --> 2:30:58.800 than hatred. So not till twenty twenty does that really coalesce, 2:30:58.879 --> 2:31:02.119 Do they become strong as a petro state? To take 2:31:02.200 --> 2:31:04.280 back large portions of the country. 2:31:04.560 --> 2:31:08.120 Yeah, talking of taking back, I'm going to have to 2:31:08.120 --> 2:31:10.600 take back thirty seconds to everyone's time for an advertising 2:31:10.640 --> 2:31:12.720 break here, So let's do that and we'll. 2:31:12.520 --> 2:31:23.560 Come right back. How it we're back. 2:31:24.240 --> 2:31:26.000 One thing I think that it might be illustrative to 2:31:26.040 --> 2:31:30.400 hear is that, like in the first Adzak War, Turkish 2:31:30.800 --> 2:31:33.640 I guess it, regulars or mercenaries or what you want 2:31:33.640 --> 2:31:36.720 to call them, people associated with the Gray Wolves fought 2:31:36.720 --> 2:31:40.680 on the side of Azubijan right and keen history understanders 2:31:40.680 --> 2:31:44.080 will know that there is some history of anti Armenian 2:31:44.120 --> 2:31:47.360 sentiment among the gray Wolves and then indeed in Turkey 2:31:47.400 --> 2:31:51.039 as a country. So preps, this is a good point 2:31:51.120 --> 2:31:56.320 to talk about the international involvement here, because I think 2:31:56.360 --> 2:31:58.280 it's very misleading to do this. As we're seeing in 2:31:58.280 --> 2:32:01.359 Syria right now, people want to do the world into blocks, 2:32:01.440 --> 2:32:05.520 right with like this sort of Cold War narrative that 2:32:05.560 --> 2:32:08.760 we have of Russian interests in US interests, And I 2:32:08.800 --> 2:32:10.960 think this is an excellent example of why that is 2:32:11.040 --> 2:32:13.840 not necessarily a great way to perceive the world. So 2:32:14.160 --> 2:32:17.840 can you explain the international involvement in Artsak and in 2:32:17.879 --> 2:32:20.760 this ongoing conflict, which we'll get to it beginning again 2:32:20.760 --> 2:32:22.200 in twenty twenty, I think in a second. 2:32:22.680 --> 2:32:27.240 In addition to Turkish forces being used in that twenty 2:32:27.280 --> 2:32:29.000 twenty war, which I guess we'll have to get into 2:32:29.000 --> 2:32:32.160 a little bit. Yeah, there, Syrian mercenaries were used as well. 2:32:32.200 --> 2:32:34.840 They were acuted, they were put on the front lines. 2:32:34.879 --> 2:32:37.560 It's kind of candid fodder. They're given something like one 2:32:37.600 --> 2:32:40.120 hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded a civilian, a two 2:32:40.160 --> 2:32:44.640 hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded in Armenian soldier there. 2:32:44.720 --> 2:32:49.000 But of course, Israel is the primary supplier of Azeri 2:32:49.360 --> 2:32:53.200 weapons in weaponry, going so far to test some of 2:32:53.200 --> 2:32:57.280 their drones on manned Armenian outposts early on before the 2:32:57.320 --> 2:33:00.600 war started. It's fair to say that Azerbaijan could not 2:33:00.680 --> 2:33:04.600 have been so successful without the aid of their ally, Israel. 2:33:05.280 --> 2:33:08.720 Israel has been deeply involved in Azerbaijan for a long time. 2:33:08.800 --> 2:33:12.520 They use Azerbaijan as a listening post against Iran. Israel 2:33:12.640 --> 2:33:16.600 stages raids from Azerbaijan on Iran and has to do 2:33:16.680 --> 2:33:19.440 with the ethnic minority in Iran. There's a lot of 2:33:19.560 --> 2:33:22.879 Azaris down there. Israel get something like forty percent of 2:33:22.920 --> 2:33:28.760 its oil from Azerbaijan. Right after the Palestinian genocide started, 2:33:29.240 --> 2:33:35.760 Israel awarded two contracts to the state oil company SOCAR 2:33:36.360 --> 2:33:40.480 in Azerbaijan that's right adjacent to the Palestinian gas field 2:33:40.520 --> 2:33:44.760 and the Lebanon oil field to SOCAR to explore. It 2:33:45.040 --> 2:33:48.680 cannot be overstated how complicit these two groups are with 2:33:48.800 --> 2:33:53.200 each other. They really really need each other in the region. 2:33:53.200 --> 2:33:55.879 In the United States also liked Azerbaijan as well. They 2:33:55.920 --> 2:33:59.920 see it as a friendly Muslim country bulark against Iran 2:34:00.080 --> 2:34:00.600 as well. 2:34:00.840 --> 2:34:03.480 Yeah, I think they also have some Turkish drones. Is 2:34:03.480 --> 2:34:08.240 that right the bay Car Yes, absolutely. So let's talk 2:34:08.240 --> 2:34:10.280 about that twenty twenty war, because that was a war 2:34:10.320 --> 2:34:14.320 that relied heavily on these drones, right, some major means 2:34:14.320 --> 2:34:18.680 of destroying Armenian armor and pushing that offensive. So what 2:34:18.720 --> 2:34:22.000 happened in twenty twenty along this disputed border, Well. 2:34:21.879 --> 2:34:26.119 You know, it's called mountainous Karaba. It's an area that's 2:34:26.560 --> 2:34:30.320 great defensively if you're fighting in a pre drone world. Yeah, 2:34:30.480 --> 2:34:36.280 but you know, as you've discovered your Kurdish friends, the 2:34:36.400 --> 2:34:41.640 drones are amazingly destructive against people hiding in caves, which 2:34:41.680 --> 2:34:45.080 is what the Armenian response had been. Armenians had been 2:34:45.120 --> 2:34:49.360 a bit lazy. They've been relying on Russian tanks and weaponry, 2:34:49.520 --> 2:34:53.360 whereas Arbaijan's is buying from Israel. They're buying from all, 2:34:53.560 --> 2:34:57.640 you know, many many, just different sources, which reflects the 2:34:57.640 --> 2:35:02.320 wealth of Azerbaijan, of course. So in twenty twenty, there's 2:35:02.320 --> 2:35:06.000 some indication that Alif, the dictator of as Evaijhan, had 2:35:06.000 --> 2:35:08.760 been planning us for a while. He had this playbook 2:35:08.800 --> 2:35:15.039 called Operation Azeri Smile twenty twenty. The troops move in, 2:35:15.520 --> 2:35:19.680 they encounter more resistance than they thought, and they get 2:35:20.080 --> 2:35:24.480 most of the Armenian held territory of Nicardo Karaba back. 2:35:25.160 --> 2:35:29.240 They're stopped at the last minute, probably by Russian intervention. 2:35:29.360 --> 2:35:32.080 At this time. The Armenia was a member of the 2:35:32.160 --> 2:35:35.560 Russian Alliance at that time, which they're leaving just because 2:35:35.600 --> 2:35:37.680 it's the Russia has failed to live up to its 2:35:37.720 --> 2:35:41.879 treaty obligations anyway, and it left a kind of a 2:35:41.920 --> 2:35:46.200 skeletal state of Artak left, which was only supplied by 2:35:46.240 --> 2:35:49.880 this one road called the Latchin Corridor, that was only 2:35:49.920 --> 2:35:53.280 one road from Armenia to supply the one hundred and 2:35:53.320 --> 2:35:57.959 twenty some thousand Armenians who lived in Artzak left, which 2:35:58.080 --> 2:36:02.039 brings us to twenty twenty four, twenty three, twenty. 2:36:01.720 --> 2:36:03.200 Two orl Yeah. 2:36:03.320 --> 2:36:06.520 So yeah, you have this situation where we now have 2:36:06.600 --> 2:36:12.680 this massive area that I guess occupied a lot of people. 2:36:13.440 --> 2:36:17.160 People began leaving at that time right through that Latching Corridor, 2:36:17.280 --> 2:36:19.640 like people didn't feel like they could safely remain there. 2:36:20.080 --> 2:36:24.080 I mean, the indigenous people of art Sock have this 2:36:24.200 --> 2:36:28.320 profound relationship with the land and the people. I am 2:36:28.360 --> 2:36:31.920 an icon painter, and I was talking to my priest 2:36:32.040 --> 2:36:34.440 and he was comparing the people there to the elves 2:36:34.440 --> 2:36:36.440 and the lord of the ring. You know, they whistled 2:36:36.480 --> 2:36:38.240 to the birds. You know, they've just been living with 2:36:38.320 --> 2:36:42.440 the land for a long time. So there was a drade, 2:36:42.440 --> 2:36:45.439 but it's not as big as you would have fought, 2:36:45.760 --> 2:36:49.560 just because there's this intense millennia old connection with the 2:36:49.600 --> 2:36:55.320 places of art Sock. So what Ezerbay John did, and 2:36:56.000 --> 2:36:59.520 this is I think unprecedented, is they had a fake 2:36:59.560 --> 2:37:05.240 equalize protest. Oh wow, that stopped the Lachin Corridor from 2:37:05.280 --> 2:37:10.360 supplying food in medicine to the people of Artsac, so 2:37:10.440 --> 2:37:14.280 they starved those people. They denied the medicine, people had 2:37:14.280 --> 2:37:17.800 miscarriages as areas, were firing at farmers in the field 2:37:17.840 --> 2:37:20.720 that were trying to collect food, and that went on 2:37:20.840 --> 2:37:25.000 for nine months. And what stopped what fether By John 2:37:25.400 --> 2:37:28.760 claimed it was a group of ecological protesters who were 2:37:28.800 --> 2:37:33.320 stopping trucks of food coming into Artsock for any any reason, 2:37:33.360 --> 2:37:35.680 which you know is enough of the smoke screen for 2:37:35.760 --> 2:37:38.480 the Western world to really throw up its hands. 2:37:38.800 --> 2:37:43.320 Yeah, fascinating. So they literally have a blockade of these protesters. 2:37:43.440 --> 2:37:46.520 These protesters blocked it. There'sn't The Russian troops that were 2:37:46.520 --> 2:37:50.720 the peace coopers refused to disperse these protesters. They were 2:37:50.879 --> 2:37:54.600 these old appraching kind of looking people wearing fur coats. 2:37:55.080 --> 2:37:57.520 They were identified on social media as actually being members 2:37:57.520 --> 2:38:01.520 of the Zari military and they had these printed signs 2:38:01.560 --> 2:38:06.360 that said things like protect nature, stop pollutions, very generic, 2:38:07.080 --> 2:38:10.680 wildly generic things. Ostensibly, they are against the gold mining 2:38:10.720 --> 2:38:15.080 operations in artsk which is nuts because a protest is 2:38:15.120 --> 2:38:18.119 not allowed. And Azerbaijan and THEI there had been an 2:38:18.160 --> 2:38:20.840 actual protest against a real gold mine that was owned 2:38:20.840 --> 2:38:24.240 by the daughters of the dictator and they were brutally 2:38:24.280 --> 2:38:28.760 shut down, you know before, So anybody who was paying 2:38:28.800 --> 2:38:31.800 any kind of attention to this knew that it was fictive. 2:38:32.560 --> 2:38:35.320 But I think the EU in particular needing enough of 2:38:35.320 --> 2:38:37.760 the smoke screen not to support these people. EU. Of 2:38:37.760 --> 2:38:41.600 course it's getting its gas through Azerbaijan. Yeah, because they've 2:38:42.080 --> 2:38:44.000 said they don't want it from Russia. But Russia's just 2:38:44.080 --> 2:38:46.600 feeding its gas to Azerbaijan, and then Azerbaijan is selling 2:38:46.640 --> 2:38:50.640 it's Azerbaijani gas to the EU. So they were just 2:38:51.160 --> 2:38:51.959 trying to do that. 2:38:52.240 --> 2:38:54.560 Yeah, we've just created a pass through and like someone 2:38:54.560 --> 2:38:57.800 who could live off that rentier income. So let's go 2:38:57.840 --> 2:39:01.160 to twenty twenty three. Okay, well we see happening in 2:39:01.200 --> 2:39:02.240 twenty twenty three. 2:39:02.640 --> 2:39:07.360 So the eco protesters they kind of run their course 2:39:08.000 --> 2:39:13.560 and then there's a lightning operation art sucks attacked positions overrun. 2:39:13.920 --> 2:39:18.320 There's this massive exodus of people, people who have to 2:39:18.400 --> 2:39:22.760 leave their houses immediately. The road is blocked. People are 2:39:22.879 --> 2:39:25.879 dying on this road on the way out, fighting each other, 2:39:26.400 --> 2:39:30.039 you know, just to leave their houses. In twenty twenty, 2:39:30.400 --> 2:39:34.080 Azebaijan has said, sure, you know, our Meetians can come back. 2:39:34.440 --> 2:39:36.520 We're just taking back a territory. You live here, you 2:39:36.520 --> 2:39:39.640 can do that. But when Armenians did, there's this one 2:39:39.720 --> 2:39:42.640 case of a sixty nine year old farmer who went 2:39:42.680 --> 2:39:45.879 back to get his possessions. Very troops cut off his 2:39:45.959 --> 2:39:49.160 head Jesus. They put it on a dead pig, and 2:39:49.200 --> 2:39:54.960 they put all those images on social media. They raped 2:39:54.959 --> 2:39:58.200 and tortured anybody that they could find left behind, and 2:39:58.520 --> 2:40:02.520 they turned it into means on stickers that were you know, 2:40:02.600 --> 2:40:04.760 something like down like twenty thousand times in the five 2:40:04.879 --> 2:40:07.680 days that were being monitored for this. So there was 2:40:07.840 --> 2:40:10.279 absolutely no question that people could stay behind. 2:40:10.600 --> 2:40:10.880 Yeah. 2:40:11.160 --> 2:40:15.720 Zero. Yeah, So there's no Armenians left. And so there's 2:40:15.800 --> 2:40:20.480 literally been daily ritual that's been going on for a thousand, 2:40:21.120 --> 2:40:24.240 seven hundred years that it doesn't go on anymore, and 2:40:24.240 --> 2:40:26.200 there's a tragedy in that. 2:40:26.440 --> 2:40:28.000 Yeah, yeah, it's been lost. 2:40:28.080 --> 2:40:32.440 Like yeah, it's hard to quantify that, like you know 2:40:32.640 --> 2:40:34.840 the meaning of that loss. I think, especially for folks 2:40:34.840 --> 2:40:37.640 who aren't familiar with people and their culture and the 2:40:37.840 --> 2:40:41.840 like that connection to these things. Talking of quantifying things, 2:40:42.000 --> 2:40:44.640 I need to look at the amount of time we 2:40:44.720 --> 2:41:05.640 got here and pivot again to advertisements. 2:40:56.959 --> 2:41:01.400 And we're back so what we see. 2:41:01.720 --> 2:41:05.400 In odds, especially in twenty twenty three, is a project 2:41:05.400 --> 2:41:10.879 of ethnic cleansing, right, genocidal violence, whatever however you wish 2:41:10.959 --> 2:41:12.760 to phrase it. I mean ethnic cleansing is not a 2:41:12.840 --> 2:41:15.360 term that has really like a definition in natural law. 2:41:15.440 --> 2:41:18.600 Genocide does often very much like in this incidentce I'm 2:41:18.640 --> 2:41:21.640 using them to mean one and the same things, the 2:41:21.720 --> 2:41:24.760 removal of people, either through killing them or forcing them 2:41:24.760 --> 2:41:26.000 to leave or starving them. 2:41:26.120 --> 2:41:30.920 The International Association gene Side Scholars, the Lumpkin Institute, Luis 2:41:31.000 --> 2:41:34.160 Moreno Campo is a founding prosecutor the ICC. You on 2:41:34.280 --> 2:41:37.240 your RESTR. Mendez a special advisor to the Pacer General 2:41:37.600 --> 2:41:40.879 on genocide prevention. They all call it genocide, so we 2:41:40.920 --> 2:41:43.080 can call it that, Yeah, we can call it really safe. 2:41:43.400 --> 2:41:46.280 Yeah, there have been many genocide of products in history. 2:41:46.320 --> 2:41:51.400 Like what is Azerbaijan's goal with this? Is it the 2:41:51.440 --> 2:41:53.959 removal of Armenian people with the areas such as as 2:41:53.959 --> 2:41:56.840 the repeople can occupy it? Is it access to the 2:41:56.920 --> 2:42:00.400 resources that are there? Is it settling a historical school? 2:42:01.080 --> 2:42:05.120 If you look at a map, there's this idea of 2:42:05.320 --> 2:42:08.800 pan Turanism. Is that something that's you're familiar. 2:42:08.320 --> 2:42:10.960 With yeah, can you explain that to listen to a 2:42:11.080 --> 2:42:13.080 not Pan Turanism. 2:42:13.320 --> 2:42:19.160 Is this Turkish idea of an ancient Turkish state that 2:42:19.480 --> 2:42:23.960 stretches from the Bosphorus all the way over to Mongolia, 2:42:24.240 --> 2:42:27.920 and there's one little country in the way that is 2:42:28.000 --> 2:42:33.080 blocking this, this empire that should exist according to the 2:42:33.120 --> 2:42:35.320 Pan Tyrannism. And this is an old idea, it's a 2:42:35.400 --> 2:42:39.200 nineteenth century idea. It's blumping in with every Nazi and 2:42:39.320 --> 2:42:44.160 race junk scientist idea that you have. But that's the idea. 2:42:44.200 --> 2:42:47.920 And the secondary thing is, you know again Alief is 2:42:49.040 --> 2:42:53.560 raping his people. He's in presenting every journalist, he's any scientists. 2:42:53.600 --> 2:42:56.440 It's it's really on a level with truth Mngistan or 2:42:56.440 --> 2:43:00.080 what was happening in Syria or North Korea. And he 2:43:00.080 --> 2:43:04.600 needs ethnic hate to keep his country together. He's made 2:43:04.640 --> 2:43:07.879 an ethnic hate theme park. It's not called that, but 2:43:08.440 --> 2:43:12.959 that's what it is against Armenians. So yeah, so really 2:43:13.000 --> 2:43:16.440 I see it as a consolidation of power. He needs 2:43:16.520 --> 2:43:19.080 an enemy, he needs to move forward, which is why 2:43:19.120 --> 2:43:22.039 he's threatening to invade Armenia proper. Next. 2:43:22.600 --> 2:43:25.640 Yeah, and like I think one of the things that 2:43:25.840 --> 2:43:28.840 happened with the with the conflict in art Zac. I'm 2:43:28.879 --> 2:43:31.640 just I'm thinking about this, this Panturkic stuff because I 2:43:31.680 --> 2:43:34.360 see it every single day and their applies to my 2:43:34.440 --> 2:43:37.280 post on social media. Right. In my case it's with 2:43:37.520 --> 2:43:41.000 reference to my time in Kurdistan and in Rishaba. This 2:43:41.200 --> 2:43:44.119 information played a massive role in the in the twenty 2:43:44.160 --> 2:43:46.840 twenty three contract, in the twenty twenty conflict too, right, 2:43:47.120 --> 2:43:50.160 And I think people who are hearing about this sort 2:43:50.160 --> 2:43:53.920 of first time are at massive risk for finding that 2:43:54.000 --> 2:43:55.760 some of that differ information. Right. They hear about this 2:43:55.840 --> 2:43:57.640 driving to work today on our podcast and they go 2:43:57.680 --> 2:44:00.480 to google it. There's a lot of crap out there, right, 2:44:01.120 --> 2:44:03.800 So can we address that the role that it's played 2:44:03.840 --> 2:44:06.200 and continues to play. 2:44:05.440 --> 2:44:07.879 The load of crap or the pan Turanism or both? 2:44:09.240 --> 2:44:12.640 Well, the pan Turanism generates a lot of crap, right, 2:44:12.680 --> 2:44:15.200 Like I'm convinced that some of the accounts in my 2:44:15.280 --> 2:44:17.000 replies are not real human beings. 2:44:17.040 --> 2:44:21.800 Oh yeah, that's been a well established phenomenon, the number 2:44:21.800 --> 2:44:24.960 of bots that as of by genre to a lesser 2:44:24.959 --> 2:44:27.320 except Turkey, because I think Turkey is more secure and 2:44:27.400 --> 2:44:33.800 it's genocidal aspect, whereas and it's really really going for 2:44:33.920 --> 2:44:36.760 it you know, so not only the bots in the 2:44:36.800 --> 2:44:39.080 replies which has come up. No matter what you put 2:44:39.120 --> 2:44:41.879 in a keyword, there's going to be lots of mentions 2:44:41.920 --> 2:44:44.880 on your social media. Not to mention there's a pretty 2:44:44.959 --> 2:44:48.640 vicious campaign out there to dos anybody who talks about 2:44:48.640 --> 2:44:52.640 this is that's happened to me before and it's not pretty. 2:44:52.800 --> 2:44:53.039 Yeah. 2:44:53.200 --> 2:44:57.080 But also there's this thing called mirror propaganda. I don't 2:44:57.120 --> 2:45:00.200 know if you've heard of that, but there's areas will 2:45:00.240 --> 2:45:04.879 take something that Armenians say like, oh, our Armenians should 2:45:04.920 --> 2:45:07.080 go be able to have a right to return, say 2:45:07.440 --> 2:45:12.040 they drub this huge cloud of they'll take actual documents 2:45:12.320 --> 2:45:15.120 that have been produced by I don't know, Freedom House, right, yeah, 2:45:15.240 --> 2:45:18.199 and then they'll copy the entire doc document in format. 2:45:18.320 --> 2:45:22.360 Things the right of Azarias to return to Western Azerbaijan, 2:45:22.680 --> 2:45:26.120 which is their new concept, and western iver Dejan is 2:45:26.200 --> 2:45:29.040 the country of Armenia. So they have these maps where 2:45:29.040 --> 2:45:33.000 they renamed all the towns of Armenia with azari names. 2:45:33.000 --> 2:45:35.320 They claim Armenians only came to the region in eighteen 2:45:35.360 --> 2:45:39.160 twenty eight with the Russians, that they're fake people. Another 2:45:39.200 --> 2:45:43.480 tragedy of Artsak is they're taking these monasteries and places, 2:45:43.520 --> 2:45:47.320 not only destroying them but chiseling off ancient inscriptions to 2:45:47.320 --> 2:45:50.080 prove that Armenians didn't exist there. They've already done this 2:45:50.120 --> 2:45:52.120 in this other place called Natchivan, which is they call 2:45:52.160 --> 2:45:54.600 it the largest cultural genocide of the twenty first century, 2:45:54.640 --> 2:45:59.320 where they destroyed thousands of medieval monuments in stones with 2:45:59.400 --> 2:46:04.800 buljos and sledgehammers. So they're just wiping them out, any 2:46:04.959 --> 2:46:07.960 record of our medium, anything in they're claiming Armenia. It 2:46:08.080 --> 2:46:11.680 is really should be called Western Hazeraijan. And anytime Armenians 2:46:11.720 --> 2:46:13.840 talk about arts that going back, they're like, well, we. 2:46:14.000 --> 2:46:18.200 They made cookbooks, they've got a television show Western Basan, 2:46:18.280 --> 2:46:21.200 and it's just it's what you're laughing and I laugh too, 2:46:21.240 --> 2:46:24.959 but it's it's so ugly, so scary, but it's funny too. 2:46:25.520 --> 2:46:28.480 Yeah, And if these things are intil it's your grandma 2:46:28.840 --> 2:46:30.760 or have you been beheaded? 2:46:31.600 --> 2:46:34.320 Like yes, it does seem it does seem obscene, and 2:46:34.360 --> 2:46:36.800 it's so obscene that it's funny. Right, But like this 2:46:37.000 --> 2:46:41.440 is a concerted state project, right that, Like it's easy 2:46:41.480 --> 2:46:43.680 to get caught up in, and it's easy to get 2:46:43.680 --> 2:46:47.640 caught in this disinformation machine, not just from like like 2:46:47.640 --> 2:46:49.920 like a botty in your replies, but from news like 2:46:49.959 --> 2:46:54.039 you say, news outlets, or like doctored reports or things 2:46:54.040 --> 2:46:55.879 that look very convincing. 2:46:55.760 --> 2:46:58.560 Search results that go to the top. I mean, you know, 2:46:58.600 --> 2:47:01.400 on this course started with the writing andocide which ors 2:47:01.640 --> 2:47:05.200 Turkey and Azebay. John in Pakistan for some reason say 2:47:05.240 --> 2:47:08.160 it was fake. If you search for that, the top 2:47:08.160 --> 2:47:10.160 results are going to be our means are lying, they 2:47:10.160 --> 2:47:12.680 committed to genocide with us, And then they'll throw these 2:47:12.760 --> 2:47:15.000 numbers like, oh yeah, ARMANI it's killed three million turns, 2:47:15.000 --> 2:47:17.359 Like what are you talking about? These It's just like 2:47:17.360 --> 2:47:19.359 like words have meaning. 2:47:19.200 --> 2:47:23.600 You know, but increasingly less and less. 2:47:23.040 --> 2:47:25.240 Less and less. You know. There's that great Hannah Art 2:47:25.360 --> 2:47:28.680 line about constant lying is not aimed at making people 2:47:28.720 --> 2:47:32.080 believe a lie, but ensuring that no one believes anything anymore, 2:47:32.360 --> 2:47:34.120 and that's what they want. We're an obscure part of 2:47:34.120 --> 2:47:36.720 the world. This will say a bunch of shit, and 2:47:37.440 --> 2:47:39.120 people throw up their hands and walk away. 2:47:39.240 --> 2:47:41.160 Yeah, oh it's too complicated, and so. 2:47:41.240 --> 2:47:44.560 They too complicated, right yeah, Or you know, they'll say, oh, 2:47:44.560 --> 2:47:48.160 it's ancient hatreds and like that's bullshit. It's not ancient hatreds. 2:47:48.160 --> 2:47:50.800 It's a very modern thing. These are real people who 2:47:50.840 --> 2:47:54.560 have real understandable issues, you know, like in Gaza, it's 2:47:54.640 --> 2:47:58.680 like it's very clear, Yeah what's going on? Yeah? 2:47:58.720 --> 2:48:00.879 Yeah, I have the different sterias that have received a 2:48:00.879 --> 2:48:04.360 lot more coverage and longbow attention. So where does this 2:48:04.600 --> 2:48:06.400 leave us now? 2:48:06.520 --> 2:48:06.720 Right? 2:48:06.800 --> 2:48:10.400 As ab Giant has just hosted this conference, and like 2:48:11.080 --> 2:48:14.800 it's important to recognize that this conference is it's a 2:48:14.800 --> 2:48:19.040 project of kind of global liberalism right to the cop conference, 2:48:19.040 --> 2:48:22.879 and like it conveys legitimacy, and in this case, it's 2:48:22.879 --> 2:48:26.440 a means of kind of laundering legitimacy right for this 2:48:27.120 --> 2:48:31.040 Carabuck project in their case, right through the lens of 2:48:31.760 --> 2:48:35.160 protecting the planet. Where do they go from there? 2:48:35.879 --> 2:48:39.119 Well, So what makes the dictatorship as Down a little 2:48:39.160 --> 2:48:42.760 bit different from these other dictatorships I mentioned is I 2:48:42.800 --> 2:48:46.119 think they care about what people think a little bit. 2:48:46.280 --> 2:48:50.760 They bring in F one racing, the Eurovision. They really 2:48:50.840 --> 2:48:54.880 do these projects because they want to be seen as 2:48:55.120 --> 2:48:58.800 a legitimate state, where I think those others like North Korea, 2:48:58.840 --> 2:49:00.520 they don't do that. Like, no, it's going to like 2:49:00.600 --> 2:49:03.560 us no matter what we do. Yeah, giving up they 2:49:03.600 --> 2:49:08.000 want to play on the international stage. So that's one aspect. 2:49:08.040 --> 2:49:12.480 Another aspect, it legitimizes themselves to their internal critics. People 2:49:12.480 --> 2:49:15.160 as their Bajana smart they know what's going on, but 2:49:15.360 --> 2:49:18.720 they say, oh, the world is coming to us. The 2:49:18.760 --> 2:49:23.879 world accepts us. They must, you know, accept the brutal 2:49:23.920 --> 2:49:28.000 dictatorship that's cracking down anybody's gay, lesbian, anything you know, 2:49:28.800 --> 2:49:32.400 orchure is a feature of this regime. So it legitimizes 2:49:32.440 --> 2:49:36.640 themselves internally. Yeah, and what they fear, I guess is 2:49:36.680 --> 2:49:39.640 people were getting angry that they invade Armenia. So it's 2:49:39.680 --> 2:49:42.480 just I think it's that chene. Now we could argue 2:49:42.480 --> 2:49:45.360 whether that was effective because COP twenty nine was an 2:49:45.600 --> 2:49:49.840 absolute train wreck for them, but I'm not sure that 2:49:49.920 --> 2:49:53.480 matters to them right. Matters to the environment, Yeah. 2:49:53.480 --> 2:49:55.400 I think probably these COP conferences are not going to 2:49:55.440 --> 2:49:58.560 be the way we solve our our issues with climate change. 2:49:58.560 --> 2:50:03.480 But that's an another conversation. And going forward, like what 2:50:03.920 --> 2:50:07.560 is the status of odds? What can those people, those 2:50:07.560 --> 2:50:10.720 people who were able to leave, Like what does the 2:50:10.760 --> 2:50:14.800 future hold for them? Are they sort of refugees in media? 2:50:14.840 --> 2:50:18.760 Now there are refugees are Armenia Amenia is a poor state, 2:50:18.840 --> 2:50:23.160 doesn't have the oil reserves. The Azerbaijan just announced that 2:50:23.200 --> 2:50:27.200 they're increased their military budget by twenty percent. It was 2:50:27.280 --> 2:50:32.400 already incredibly high last time I got statistics. The flights 2:50:32.400 --> 2:50:37.600 from of Dah, which is the Israeli military insulation for 2:50:37.680 --> 2:50:42.039 flying equipment to Azerbaijan, has ramped up. It's higher than 2:50:42.040 --> 2:50:45.080 it was in twenty twenty before their invasions, on par 2:50:45.200 --> 2:50:47.840 for twenty twenty three. So that's a pretty clear sign 2:50:47.959 --> 2:50:52.640 that they're getting all their equipment from Israel. They stopped 2:50:52.800 --> 2:50:54.800 before copp and so I haven't been able to get 2:50:54.879 --> 2:51:00.760 data on that since then. Azerbaijan just issued a declaration 2:51:01.360 --> 2:51:05.800 that parents cannot visit their children in the military, and 2:51:05.920 --> 2:51:10.879 that's a bad, bad sign. So the question is not 2:51:11.600 --> 2:51:14.320 if it's win, it is winter or I mean, he has 2:51:14.360 --> 2:51:16.480 a lot of mountains. Those are pretty good defend people 2:51:16.520 --> 2:51:19.000 are figured out. Sure, you've talked to your friends of 2:51:19.040 --> 2:51:22.000 our Java. They figured out drones a little bit, how 2:51:22.040 --> 2:51:24.760 to deal with them better. I mean, he has reached 2:51:24.800 --> 2:51:28.600 out to France, who's been helping them a little bit. 2:51:29.120 --> 2:51:34.520 Azby John says there's some conditions for peace that are insane, 2:51:34.640 --> 2:51:37.520 you know, like change your constitution is one, get rid 2:51:37.520 --> 2:51:41.480 of all EU observers is another. Don't get any new weapons, 2:51:42.200 --> 2:51:44.760 and then give us the what's called this Zuger corridor, 2:51:44.840 --> 2:51:48.080 which is like this road that goes to their exclave 2:51:48.160 --> 2:51:51.080 Naccheban to the to the west there, and it's just 2:51:51.080 --> 2:51:54.520 like you can't stay. No country is going to do that. 2:51:54.680 --> 2:51:56.720 Oh and they've got another claim, which is they say, 2:51:56.760 --> 2:52:00.879 allow the UNESCO to visit Armenia to bick out erased 2:52:00.920 --> 2:52:05.920 Azerbaijani sites, which is just a mirror propacanda insanity because 2:52:06.000 --> 2:52:09.240 Unesca's already in our media and Armenia asked that of 2:52:09.360 --> 2:52:10.680 UNESCO for Azerbaijan. 2:52:10.840 --> 2:52:14.640 But yeah, of course they just copy that right and 2:52:14.680 --> 2:52:15.920 say well why do you do it? 2:52:16.120 --> 2:52:19.160 Yeah, right, which you know is not a real thing. 2:52:19.200 --> 2:52:21.320 But anyway, so those are a conditions piece. So it 2:52:21.480 --> 2:52:27.520 seems probable that Azerbaijan will invade, possibly in spring because 2:52:27.680 --> 2:52:30.560 the snow will melt it away. Possibly now, because Alia 2:52:30.720 --> 2:52:33.640 seems like he's very angry that the world kind of 2:52:33.640 --> 2:52:36.920 paid attention to Cop twenty nine is figuring out that 2:52:36.959 --> 2:52:40.720 he's a dick, and he's ramped up in arrest in 2:52:40.760 --> 2:52:43.640 his own country. He does arrest an entire television station 2:52:44.200 --> 2:52:47.400 of people that were you can it's it's one of 2:52:47.440 --> 2:52:50.080 the least press free countries on Earth. But I guess 2:52:50.120 --> 2:52:54.840 people were doing something before that. And they'll either take 2:52:55.120 --> 2:53:00.160 the southern half of Armenia or they'll take all of it, 2:53:00.280 --> 2:53:03.600 because they say Yerevan, the capital of Armenians, is historically 2:53:03.640 --> 2:53:08.320 part of Azerbaijan. So that's a state where we're at there, 2:53:08.640 --> 2:53:14.040 And I really think any other perspectives are wishful thinking, 2:53:14.080 --> 2:53:17.560 and I'm Sartaly so grim about that, but it's I 2:53:17.600 --> 2:53:21.320 think it's a very real possibility that there's Armenian genocide, 2:53:21.320 --> 2:53:25.360 that it's killed literally, you know, accountable millions of Armenians 2:53:25.360 --> 2:53:29.480 since the eighteen nineties and ramped up through nineteen fifteen 2:53:29.560 --> 2:53:32.160 through nineteen twenty three, and then socide a little bit 2:53:32.240 --> 2:53:37.000 is ongoing and their project will be completed in the 2:53:37.040 --> 2:53:37.520 next year. 2:53:38.520 --> 2:53:39.840 Yeah, that's pretty bleak. 2:53:40.560 --> 2:53:43.040 How can people they want to be in solid director 2:53:43.080 --> 2:53:44.680 if they want to support I think this is something 2:53:44.720 --> 2:53:46.680 that doesn't get reported on right in the US, even 2:53:46.720 --> 2:53:48.040 though they just want to learn more. 2:53:48.560 --> 2:53:50.240 How can they do that? Where can they go? 2:53:50.680 --> 2:53:53.039 There's a good site. This has learned for art SoC 2:53:53.480 --> 2:53:58.000 that's a good site. There's a bunch of Armenian web 2:53:58.240 --> 2:54:03.240 sites that people can go to. May I post some 2:54:03.240 --> 2:54:06.080 some links on the show notes? Would that be that'd 2:54:06.080 --> 2:54:07.120 be good? Yeah? 2:54:07.160 --> 2:54:08.760 Well absolutely, Betters in the show notes. 2:54:08.800 --> 2:54:11.560 Yeah, yeah, I would be very happy to do that 2:54:11.720 --> 2:54:14.920 if people want to donate things. But it's similar to 2:54:15.160 --> 2:54:20.039 Gaza or other places, like what what does awareness to do? 2:54:20.640 --> 2:54:24.560 I guess it could slow things down, Yeah, but really 2:54:24.760 --> 2:54:29.520 we just need state actors to respond to this. Our 2:54:29.560 --> 2:54:32.720 meetings get very cynically used in France and in the 2:54:32.800 --> 2:54:36.040 United States by right wing politicians who claim that they're 2:54:36.040 --> 2:54:39.720 protecting Christians. But I don't think that's something that will 2:54:39.760 --> 2:54:40.600 actually happen. 2:54:40.800 --> 2:54:42.720 Yeah, I mean people think the same thing for a 2:54:42.840 --> 2:54:45.200 sad right that he protected Christians in Syria while he 2:54:45.560 --> 2:54:47.640 Yea murdered to gas his own people. 2:54:47.879 --> 2:54:48.359 Exactly. 2:54:49.080 --> 2:54:52.160 That's a best a cynical thing and a worse justification. 2:54:52.280 --> 2:54:54.840 I mean, what have you seen that's effective in terms 2:54:54.840 --> 2:54:58.240 of world action for these things with the Kurds or 2:54:58.320 --> 2:54:58.920 other people? 2:54:59.120 --> 2:55:02.440 I mean, look, and we talk about how the Kurds 2:55:02.480 --> 2:55:07.360 have defended themselves from get a state project to eliminate them. Right, 2:55:08.480 --> 2:55:11.879 in some areas they haven't been able to, right, and 2:55:11.920 --> 2:55:14.200 when they have it's through their own armed initiative for 2:55:14.200 --> 2:55:16.360 the most part. Right that they were very fortunate to 2:55:16.400 --> 2:55:18.000 have the support of the United States. But that was 2:55:18.040 --> 2:55:21.119 only ever in the battle against Isis. It wasn't when 2:55:21.680 --> 2:55:26.120 genocidal violence, right, this genocidal project in a free and 2:55:26.400 --> 2:55:30.280 where we're seeing it right now in powerfact, the US 2:55:30.360 --> 2:55:32.680 didn't stand beside them there. And it's not in its 2:55:32.760 --> 2:55:36.680 nature too. And I think this is a really difficult 2:55:36.720 --> 2:55:39.000 situation that we find ourselves in all around the world 2:55:39.120 --> 2:55:42.240 right now, right, we see we've seen this in Africa too, Right, 2:55:42.720 --> 2:55:45.720 it's not really in the nature of the United States, 2:55:45.720 --> 2:55:50.560 not in this century, to intervene simply for human rights reasons, 2:55:50.640 --> 2:55:53.560 simply because it because genocide is wrong. 2:55:54.200 --> 2:55:56.080 We had a person that Sam had the power, who 2:55:56.080 --> 2:55:58.240 wrote a book on how genocide is wrong and we 2:55:58.240 --> 2:56:00.440 should intervene. And then what happens when she's the tower 2:56:00.480 --> 2:56:01.480 with Obama and Biden. 2:56:03.040 --> 2:56:05.920 We draw red lines and then less sad walk over them, 2:56:06.120 --> 2:56:08.680 like it happens all over the world. And I think, yeah, 2:56:08.720 --> 2:56:10.520 we're probably in a post hedge and monic era, But 2:56:10.560 --> 2:56:13.560 that doesn't mean that people deserve to die because we're 2:56:13.560 --> 2:56:14.720 in a post Hedge and Monic era. 2:56:15.520 --> 2:56:15.800 I know. 2:56:16.160 --> 2:56:18.120 Look, if I look at the other genocide, which I've 2:56:18.160 --> 2:56:22.320 spent more time with than most genocides, the weird thing 2:56:22.440 --> 2:56:25.920 to say, it's the genocide in Meammar. Of the range 2:56:25.959 --> 2:56:31.200 of people, they are still facing genocidal violence now, even 2:56:31.240 --> 2:56:36.360 from anti hunter groups. But I also see Muslim people 2:56:37.040 --> 2:56:41.120 in the current National Liberation Army. I see them fighting 2:56:41.240 --> 2:56:44.760 with the k and DF, and the way that those 2:56:44.800 --> 2:56:48.920 people liberated themselves was like from the bottom up, and 2:56:49.000 --> 2:56:52.480 I think that, like I find some hope in what's 2:56:52.480 --> 2:56:54.840 happening in Kurdistan and what's happening in me Ammar. And 2:56:54.920 --> 2:56:57.280 I don't see very much from the Community of States, 2:56:57.280 --> 2:57:00.360 so much of the thing that even fucking exists. I 2:57:00.400 --> 2:57:03.560 don't really believe that state to have a conscience. And yes, 2:57:03.959 --> 2:57:05.760 I don't think it's in their nature to care about people, 2:57:05.760 --> 2:57:08.160 because people are inherently valuable. But I do think people do, 2:57:08.360 --> 2:57:10.000 and I do think it is in the nature of 2:57:10.040 --> 2:57:10.720 people to care. 2:57:10.800 --> 2:57:12.879 So I guess we have to continue to hope. 2:57:13.120 --> 2:57:15.920 And there has been some positive statements by your Java 2:57:16.120 --> 2:57:19.400 regarding our Medians and there's a lot of solidarity there, 2:57:19.440 --> 2:57:21.879 which it was great. You know, Kurt's helped commit the 2:57:21.879 --> 2:57:25.520 first Armenian genocide and they've apologized, and so I'm seeing 2:57:25.520 --> 2:57:28.920 a little glimmers of hope in terms of the solidarity 2:57:29.000 --> 2:57:32.560 of people who see what's right and wrong who aren't 2:57:32.600 --> 2:57:34.680 state actors. That's absolutely right. 2:57:34.959 --> 2:57:37.600 Yeah, one of the things people, there's another thing that 2:57:37.640 --> 2:57:39.680 will be deployed very often. The Kurds are responsible for 2:57:39.720 --> 2:57:41.760 the Armenian genocide. Court if people were part of the 2:57:41.840 --> 2:57:44.640 Armenian genocide, and they will acknowledge that, and they've tried 2:57:44.680 --> 2:57:45.560 to make amends for it. 2:57:45.720 --> 2:57:47.920 Yes, exactly right, and that's all. 2:57:48.760 --> 2:57:52.800 Yeah, like we're here now, we're not prisoners of our history, 2:57:52.840 --> 2:57:54.400 but we have to acknowledge it so that we can 2:57:54.480 --> 2:57:55.080 move from it. 2:57:55.720 --> 2:57:57.920 Thank you for sharing all that, Yes, thank you. 2:57:58.080 --> 2:58:00.080 Is there anything else that we've failed to address, so 2:58:00.120 --> 2:58:02.920 you want to get in quickly before we I mean, yes, 2:58:03.040 --> 2:58:04.240 estousands of you as of stuff. 2:58:04.320 --> 2:58:09.640 But you know, visit Armenia. It's still called one of 2:58:09.680 --> 2:58:12.279 the safest places on earth. Is it's been rated safer 2:58:12.320 --> 2:58:16.519 than Japan. It's a beautiful place, it's a struggling democracy, 2:58:16.560 --> 2:58:20.360 but it's the only democracy in the area. Try to 2:58:20.400 --> 2:58:24.680 pay attention to the news, you know, is Hackeys. It 2:58:24.760 --> 2:58:31.240 seems right, your senator, you know, like I just feel 2:58:31.280 --> 2:58:34.120 wrong saying that, but what else can we do? Right? 2:58:34.720 --> 2:58:38.440 If you're in Britain, the UK is an incredibly agregious 2:58:38.440 --> 2:58:43.920 supporter of Azerbaijan through British petroleum. Really, you people probably 2:58:43.959 --> 2:58:47.080 can have the biggest effect because the UK is the 2:58:47.080 --> 2:58:51.640 biggest enabler of those dirt bags. And thank you for 2:58:51.720 --> 2:58:56.039 the time. I really appreciate it. And I don't feel 2:58:56.080 --> 2:58:59.440 like I've done justice to two thousand, five hundred years 2:58:59.480 --> 2:59:02.160 of history, but thank you so much. 2:59:02.560 --> 2:59:04.119 No, I think it's great. Is there any way people 2:59:04.120 --> 2:59:05.720 can follow you online if they'd like to? 2:59:05.959 --> 2:59:09.440 Oh, absolutely not. I'm tired of getting docs. 2:59:09.480 --> 2:59:11.160 Excellent, Yes, pretty fit event. 2:59:12.200 --> 2:59:14.520 You know, And that's why I pin icons. This is 2:59:14.520 --> 2:59:16.240 because it's it's anonymous, you know. 2:59:18.600 --> 2:59:19.320 Very offline. 2:59:19.760 --> 2:59:23.199 But yeah, but thank you so much, great. 2:59:23.040 --> 2:59:23.440 Thank you. 2:59:50.680 --> 2:59:52.000 This is it could happen here. 2:59:52.080 --> 2:59:55.400 Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the 2:59:55.400 --> 2:59:58.240 White House, the crumbling of our world and what it 2:59:58.280 --> 3:00:01.000 means for you. I'm Garrison David today, I'm joined by 3:00:01.040 --> 3:00:04.760 Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. This week we 3:00:04.840 --> 3:00:08.160 are covering the week of January twenty ninth to February fifth, 3:00:08.600 --> 3:00:11.680 and oh boy, has this week felt like a month. 3:00:12.240 --> 3:00:17.039 I am absolutely exhausted. And let's start, I guess by 3:00:17.120 --> 3:00:19.360 talking about what Trump did. 3:00:19.640 --> 3:00:20.600 Tuesday night. 3:00:21.160 --> 3:00:24.840 He had a press conference with both himself and Israeli 3:00:24.840 --> 3:00:27.920 Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo to announce that the United 3:00:27.920 --> 3:00:32.040 States would quote unquote take over the Gaza Strip, resulting 3:00:32.040 --> 3:00:37.120 in quote unquote long term ownership Previously. On that day, 3:00:37.240 --> 3:00:39.199 Trump also signed an order pulling out of the United 3:00:39.280 --> 3:00:42.760 Nations Human Rights Council and cutting off aid to UNRA. 3:00:43.440 --> 3:00:46.280 Let's start with this topic. Hopefully we will have a 3:00:46.320 --> 3:00:50.240 later episode maybe next week, covering what's happening in Palestine. 3:00:50.840 --> 3:00:53.240 But you know, this is, as of right now, the 3:00:53.360 --> 3:00:54.600 current most development. 3:00:55.000 --> 3:00:58.520 This is one of the more like crazy things that 3:00:58.560 --> 3:01:01.480 he's like, like you could see Netanyahoo even like in 3:01:01.520 --> 3:01:04.000 the room clearly finding out about this for the first time. 3:01:05.000 --> 3:01:07.720 Yeah, there was a real, oh shit, really vibe. 3:01:08.120 --> 3:01:10.000 I'm not sure how long Trump and Nan Yaho actually 3:01:10.000 --> 3:01:12.520 had this like entire thing planned that that is a 3:01:12.560 --> 3:01:15.680 distinct possibility that like this has been Netanyahu's goal for 3:01:15.720 --> 3:01:19.000 a while, and this was like impacted his negotiations with Biden, 3:01:19.440 --> 3:01:21.640 like knowing that he wanted this to be like the 3:01:21.680 --> 3:01:24.240 outcome where the US basically just takes and holds the 3:01:24.360 --> 3:01:27.720 territory of Gaza as a US territory, like indefinitely. 3:01:27.920 --> 3:01:30.520 I think Babe knew that Trump would give him a 3:01:30.560 --> 3:01:33.000 positive outcome in any number of ways, right, like to 3:01:33.080 --> 3:01:35.640 include just saying like bomb it off the map, Like 3:01:35.680 --> 3:01:37.640 I think it's reasonable to assume that. 3:01:37.640 --> 3:01:39.720 Well, and I mean something like this was I think 3:01:39.800 --> 3:01:42.480 the obvious outcome as soon as Trump, I mean from 3:01:42.520 --> 3:01:45.800 before Trump won, right, Yeah, net Yahoo never had any 3:01:45.800 --> 3:01:47.880 intention of letting things go back to the way they 3:01:47.920 --> 3:01:51.920 were before October seventh, and Trump has a vested interest 3:01:52.040 --> 3:01:56.600 in giving Netanyahu whatever he wants the most, Like it's 3:01:56.680 --> 3:01:59.560 a I don't know, I'm not surprised by it. I 3:01:59.760 --> 3:02:03.400 guess I'm a little bit like, Okay, at least now 3:02:03.520 --> 3:02:06.160 we know what they're going to do next. 3:02:06.840 --> 3:02:09.400 It's in line with the manifest destiny territorial expansion and 3:02:09.440 --> 3:02:11.760 Trump has been talking about the past few weeks. Yeah, 3:02:11.800 --> 3:02:15.039 I mean Joe Biden laid the groundwork for this by 3:02:15.120 --> 3:02:18.400 giving like Israel the actual like bombs and materials to 3:02:18.400 --> 3:02:22.000 to like do the demolition side of this project. And 3:02:22.040 --> 3:02:26.040 now Trump continues to discuss relocating Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, 3:02:26.320 --> 3:02:29.840 while promising to turn Gaza into quote unquote the riviera 3:02:30.000 --> 3:02:33.520 of the Middle East. Level it out create an economic 3:02:33.640 --> 3:02:34.920 development unquote. 3:02:35.080 --> 3:02:37.320 He has also said that he's gonna again said he's 3:02:37.320 --> 3:02:40.080 going to withdraw US troops from Syria, which would leave 3:02:40.280 --> 3:02:43.280 two thousand people in saintcom to deploy to Gaza. 3:02:43.320 --> 3:02:44.720 I guess if that's what they want to do. 3:02:45.400 --> 3:02:47.440 Yeah, I mean I feel like there's no possible way 3:02:47.520 --> 3:02:49.520 this can go quote unquote, well this is going to 3:02:49.560 --> 3:02:53.240 be a fucking catastrophe. The basic plan here is to 3:02:53.240 --> 3:02:55.600 do genocide. And then well mean this is this is 3:02:55.640 --> 3:02:58.039 part of a genocidal operation. Yeah, it's like this is 3:02:58.040 --> 3:03:00.920 like what we're doing a second law or your genui side. 3:03:00.959 --> 3:03:02.160 This is like the finishing touch. 3:03:02.440 --> 3:03:02.680 Yeah. 3:03:02.720 --> 3:03:05.199 But you know, like on a sort of practical level, 3:03:05.200 --> 3:03:09.480 it's like, Okay, the US couldn't hold Afghanistan, right, like 3:03:09.600 --> 3:03:11.480 and like obviously like this is this isn't like a 3:03:11.560 --> 3:03:13.879 quote unquote easier occupation. But it's like, this is gonna 3:03:13.879 --> 3:03:17.800 be a fucking shit, like a nightmare, like and I 3:03:17.800 --> 3:03:19.840 don't know. I mean, my assumption is that this is 3:03:19.840 --> 3:03:22.000 going to be just like if if he actually, like 3:03:22.560 --> 3:03:24.280 you know, does a deployment of US troops, this is 3:03:24.320 --> 3:03:26.360 going to be hideously unpopular. People are going to be 3:03:26.360 --> 3:03:29.440 coming back in body bags and it's gonna fucking I 3:03:29.480 --> 3:03:32.199 don't know, it's going to be a nightmare for everyone involved. 3:03:32.760 --> 3:03:36.840 And yeah, it's a absolutely terrible idea. 3:03:36.920 --> 3:03:38.640 I'm more scared that they're going to get away with it. 3:03:38.680 --> 3:03:41.600 I think it's I'm more scared that things will go 3:03:41.720 --> 3:03:44.560 find for them and this just becomes like an actually 3:03:44.560 --> 3:03:46.520 stable US territory in the Middle East. 3:03:46.879 --> 3:03:50.440 There will be significant pushbacks not the word right like 3:03:51.400 --> 3:03:54.840 that there will be gerrilla warfare, right Like. It's very 3:03:54.840 --> 3:03:57.440 hard to take and hold significantly large urban areas, as 3:03:57.440 --> 3:03:59.800 the US has found out for twenty years. Whether or 3:03:59.840 --> 3:04:02.120 not people would accept that, I think I think they might, 3:04:02.600 --> 3:04:06.039 Like I think Trump kind of needs an enemy, you know, 3:04:06.080 --> 3:04:09.080 and a war and and like a quote unquote, you know, 3:04:09.120 --> 3:04:11.160 he can he can paint almost anything as a win. 3:04:11.280 --> 3:04:14.280 And I think people might be more willing than we'd 3:04:14.360 --> 3:04:16.760 like to think to accept people coming home in body bags. 3:04:16.760 --> 3:04:19.760 From that, I'm not really sure. I think we're actually 3:04:19.800 --> 3:04:22.520 going to see the kind of troop deployment that people 3:04:22.800 --> 3:04:25.440 think based on what Trump has said as opposed to 3:04:26.520 --> 3:04:30.240 expanded support for what the Israelis have already been doing, 3:04:31.400 --> 3:04:35.520 which has like done a significant job to depopulate the 3:04:35.560 --> 3:04:39.280 area as it stands. Like, Yeah, I think we have 3:04:39.360 --> 3:04:42.560 to be hesitant to draw too strong a line between 3:04:42.600 --> 3:04:45.119 the rhetoric and what Trump is actually going to do. 3:04:45.760 --> 3:04:48.520 Which doesn't mean I don't think that it's not very 3:04:48.640 --> 3:04:51.520 likely that you're going to continue to see massy population 3:04:51.640 --> 3:04:54.360 in Gaza. I think it's just that, like, I don't 3:04:54.360 --> 3:04:57.640 know that. I think the only way that happens is 3:04:58.000 --> 3:05:01.120 something that looks like most of the occupations of the 3:05:01.160 --> 3:05:04.080 last century have looked like from a US point of view. 3:05:04.320 --> 3:05:07.000 Yeah, and the new model is this Syria model, right, 3:05:07.080 --> 3:05:10.039 make a relatively small footprint, and then in the local 3:05:10.120 --> 3:05:13.039 partner force at the IDF pulling security for US contracts 3:05:13.040 --> 3:05:14.640 and in US money like. 3:05:14.680 --> 3:05:18.000 That, right, the IDF and a lot of third party 3:05:18.200 --> 3:05:23.080 corporate PMCs. Yeah, PMCs, you know, like that's what that 3:05:23.240 --> 3:05:25.840 we've we've got guys champing at the bit to do that. 3:05:26.080 --> 3:05:28.760 And yeah, like I that looks a lot likelier to 3:05:28.800 --> 3:05:32.600 me than the tenth Mountain Division, you know, occupying large 3:05:32.680 --> 3:05:33.560 chunks of Gaza. 3:05:33.760 --> 3:05:36.640 Agreed. Yeah, Eric Prince is ready to ready to get 3:05:37.120 --> 3:05:38.080 sadly all. 3:05:38.040 --> 3:05:41.760 Right, let's uh, let's transition to our new segment titled 3:05:41.920 --> 3:05:45.280 Stinky Musk, which I came up with last night. Delirious 3:05:45.320 --> 3:05:47.240 and yes it's bad. No, I'm not going to fix it. 3:05:47.720 --> 3:05:50.760 South African Gang does a hostile takeover of the United States. 3:05:51.120 --> 3:05:52.080 Yeah, you're hitting. 3:05:52.160 --> 3:05:53.839 You're hitting today, Garrison. 3:05:54.080 --> 3:05:56.280 Elon Musk at a gig of overly online gen z 3:05:56.400 --> 3:05:59.680 interns are doing an oligarchic cyber coup of the federal 3:05:59.720 --> 3:06:03.160 government meant starting with the Office of Management and Budget 3:06:03.160 --> 3:06:06.800 and moving on to USAID, A General Services Administration, the Treasury, 3:06:06.959 --> 3:06:11.200 and as of Recording Noah, as well as many other agencies, 3:06:11.320 --> 3:06:16.080 smaller agencies, bigger agencies that they are infiltrating both physically 3:06:16.120 --> 3:06:19.440 and digitally. Yeah, employees of these agencies have been locked 3:06:19.440 --> 3:06:22.400 out both physically and digitally as the DOGE team ransacks 3:06:22.480 --> 3:06:27.039 various departments and accesses sensitive data with no oversight, and 3:06:27.120 --> 3:06:30.640 that's like government data about you possibly in the hands 3:06:30.680 --> 3:06:35.480 of a literal Nick Fuentes, pilled Groyper. Intern security officials 3:06:35.520 --> 3:06:38.280 who tried to resist Musk's seizure of classified materials have 3:06:38.320 --> 3:06:41.440 been fired, and DOGE personnel threatened to call the US 3:06:41.560 --> 3:06:45.080 Marshals to be let into buildings. I have some more 3:06:45.080 --> 3:06:46.879 info on this, as we will as we will go on, 3:06:47.200 --> 3:06:49.840 but I guess this is this is an okay time 3:06:49.959 --> 3:06:50.760 just to discuss. 3:06:51.280 --> 3:06:53.520 Yeah, I think the response to this is one of 3:06:53.520 --> 3:06:56.560 the more hopeful things going on right now. And kind 3:06:56.560 --> 3:06:59.640 of what led me to think that is looking at 3:06:59.680 --> 3:07:03.440 twenty looking at the fallout from twenty twenty and what 3:07:03.600 --> 3:07:08.160 worked and what didn't, largely what didn't work, and thinking like, okay, well, 3:07:08.280 --> 3:07:11.520 if we're going to actually get any kind of functional 3:07:11.560 --> 3:07:14.680 resistance to what's happening, what does that look like. And 3:07:15.400 --> 3:07:18.640 it doesn't look like the same cruise of people doing 3:07:18.680 --> 3:07:21.800 the same thing that they did four or five years ago, 3:07:21.959 --> 3:07:24.120 Which is why I've got some hope in the fact 3:07:24.160 --> 3:07:26.240 that you've got a different crowd of people who are 3:07:26.360 --> 3:07:29.440 radicalizing and taking to the streets, and you know, we 3:07:29.680 --> 3:07:33.080 have central employees, federal employees, right, and you've got a 3:07:33.080 --> 3:07:36.279 lot of like, yeah, most of them are still current, 3:07:36.560 --> 3:07:38.680 but you know, it's a mix of former and current 3:07:38.760 --> 3:07:40.800 federal employees. And these are these are the people who 3:07:40.879 --> 3:07:42.720 do a lot of the nuts and bolts stuff at 3:07:42.720 --> 3:07:46.680 the Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management Budget like. 3:07:46.720 --> 3:07:50.560 These are the people who like make keep things functioning 3:07:50.680 --> 3:07:53.320 at like a ground level, and a lot of them 3:07:53.360 --> 3:07:55.160 are are pissed off in a way that I don't 3:07:55.160 --> 3:07:58.480 think we have really seen before. And I think there's 3:07:58.480 --> 3:08:01.959 a potential And who's to say, Like, right now, we 3:08:02.080 --> 3:08:05.000 just had a big protest in front of Treasury about 3:08:05.040 --> 3:08:07.840 a full city block or so of people, many if 3:08:07.879 --> 3:08:11.800 not the vast majority of whom we're federal employees, rallying 3:08:11.800 --> 3:08:15.879 alongside a lot of Democratic members of Congress. And you know, 3:08:15.920 --> 3:08:19.760 that's that doesn't accomplish anything on its own, but it's 3:08:19.800 --> 3:08:23.240 a potential start to accomplishing something. You know, if you 3:08:23.320 --> 3:08:26.959 get those people out in the street, it provides, among 3:08:27.000 --> 3:08:31.000 other things, a lot of cover for everyone else. And 3:08:31.080 --> 3:08:34.920 it also is the start of you know, what you 3:08:35.040 --> 3:08:38.040 might call a reverse January sixth. You know, if January 3:08:38.080 --> 3:08:41.320 six was a bunch of random people taking and occupying 3:08:41.360 --> 3:08:44.160 government buildings without any knowledge of like what they are 3:08:45.160 --> 3:08:47.480 or how things actually function inside of them. The kind 3:08:47.520 --> 3:08:49.120 of thing that we might be looking at in the 3:08:49.160 --> 3:08:51.600 near future is the opposite of that, where a bunch 3:08:51.640 --> 3:08:54.959 of people who absolutely do know how those organizations and 3:08:55.000 --> 3:08:57.359 buildings function trying to take. 3:08:57.160 --> 3:08:58.039 And occupy them. 3:08:58.040 --> 3:08:59.800 And that's the feeling I got because I talked to 3:08:59.800 --> 3:09:04.119 some folks who are at the Treasury protest. One person 3:09:04.120 --> 3:09:08.000 that I talked to most extensively as a federal contractor 3:09:08.560 --> 3:09:11.520 who was present in twenty seventeen at the travel ban 3:09:11.640 --> 3:09:15.560 protests if you remember those, which is back when Trump 3:09:15.560 --> 3:09:17.640 announced his first Muslim bound and a bunch of people 3:09:17.720 --> 3:09:20.600 started occupying like airports and stuff like I was at 3:09:20.680 --> 3:09:23.960 the LAX for that. This person was at some of 3:09:24.000 --> 3:09:25.800 those protests and it was out in front of Treasury, 3:09:26.160 --> 3:09:27.760 and the quote that I've got from them there was 3:09:27.800 --> 3:09:31.600 I was expecting it it being this protest, the Treasury protest, 3:09:31.680 --> 3:09:33.480 to feel like the travel ban protests. 3:09:33.520 --> 3:09:34.160 It didn't. 3:09:34.440 --> 3:09:37.040 It was a lot angrier than the travel ban protests. 3:09:37.080 --> 3:09:39.640 The travel ban protests were kind of an in defense 3:09:39.680 --> 3:09:42.880 of another person sort of anger, and this was narrowly 3:09:42.920 --> 3:09:46.200 focused anger at a very specific group of people. There 3:09:46.200 --> 3:09:48.240 were a lot of people yelling and screaming outside of 3:09:48.240 --> 3:09:51.680 their congressman's offices and the like, and like, there hasn't 3:09:51.680 --> 3:09:54.720 been that much disruption compared to what we're going to see, right, 3:09:55.200 --> 3:09:58.480 Social Security payments haven't stopped going out in moss. So 3:09:58.520 --> 3:10:00.920 if we're seeing something like this at this early stage, 3:10:01.480 --> 3:10:03.560 I think there's a lot of potential there. And the 3:10:03.560 --> 3:10:06.720 thing this person brought up repeatedly is like, when we 3:10:06.760 --> 3:10:10.360 start seeing congressmen kicking indoors is when things are going 3:10:10.360 --> 3:10:12.920 to get interesting. If that happens, Like, that's kind of 3:10:12.959 --> 3:10:16.480 the stage at which there's a lot of potential for 3:10:16.560 --> 3:10:20.640 this to turn into something that could actually cause change, 3:10:20.800 --> 3:10:24.119 Like if you actually start getting government employees who are 3:10:24.200 --> 3:10:26.760 willing to do more than stand outside of their offices, 3:10:27.480 --> 3:10:30.600 like who are willing to take direct action to occupy 3:10:30.720 --> 3:10:33.480 those buildings or stop other people from and you've seen 3:10:33.480 --> 3:10:35.760 little bits of that, right. One of the things we 3:10:35.800 --> 3:10:39.000 did see is as these doge kids came along, federal 3:10:39.040 --> 3:10:42.360 employees refusing them entry, keeping doors locked. Now that was 3:10:42.400 --> 3:10:45.600 not illegal because these were literally, as it's been described 3:10:45.600 --> 3:10:48.480 in me by multiple people, just kids showing up demanding 3:10:48.640 --> 3:10:50.879 entry without any kind of a badge or evidence of 3:10:50.920 --> 3:10:54.360 who they are. Right when you get people who are 3:10:54.440 --> 3:10:58.000 willing to escalate from that and refuse entry, that's when 3:10:58.000 --> 3:11:02.119 we might actually see something start to seriously shift here. 3:11:02.480 --> 3:11:04.640 I mean, based on how much of what Musk is 3:11:04.640 --> 3:11:07.240 doing is just like bypassing Congress and doing like like 3:11:07.280 --> 3:11:09.840 a very kind of like typical like like Ola Garkic 3:11:09.920 --> 3:11:12.039 co coup, Like he's doing all those steps. And if 3:11:12.040 --> 3:11:13.720 you look at like what happened in South Korea a 3:11:13.720 --> 3:11:15.960 few months ago, we are not at the point where 3:11:15.959 --> 3:11:18.920 congressmen are literally like like you know, climbing over like 3:11:19.000 --> 3:11:20.560 fences barricading doors. 3:11:20.920 --> 3:11:24.000 We're not in South Korea territory yet, but yeah, but. 3:11:23.959 --> 3:11:26.200 Like their lawmakers like we're willing to do that. 3:11:26.360 --> 3:11:28.680 And and there is like I think waiting from people 3:11:28.760 --> 3:11:31.560 to like wait and see if our lawmakers are going 3:11:31.600 --> 3:11:33.279 to be willing to do the same to like protect 3:11:33.280 --> 3:11:36.920 the actual like functional aspects of our government, and like 3:11:37.360 --> 3:11:39.360 things are already happening, like we we are in some 3:11:39.400 --> 3:11:42.680 ways kind of already at this point. The USAYED website 3:11:42.720 --> 3:11:45.560 is now like completely removed, leaving only a note that 3:11:45.600 --> 3:11:47.960 claims that all personnel have been put on administrative leave, 3:11:48.120 --> 3:11:53.320 including overseas personnel. But this essentially leaves a whole agency 3:11:53.360 --> 3:11:56.320 shut down, but all done with like without an Act 3:11:56.320 --> 3:11:59.800 of Congress or even like an overstepping executive order from Trump. 3:12:00.320 --> 3:12:03.000 It was just it was just the unelected Elon Musk 3:12:03.160 --> 3:12:05.600 who decided to and carried out the closure of a 3:12:05.640 --> 3:12:08.600 government agency, which like should be like like should actually 3:12:08.680 --> 3:12:10.560 be like a criminal like there is like statutes that 3:12:10.600 --> 3:12:13.160 aren't designed to stop this from happening, just no one's 3:12:13.240 --> 3:12:15.720 enforcing them because they control almost every aspect of government. 3:12:16.160 --> 3:12:18.920 Musk has also closed the IRS direct file tax system, 3:12:19.080 --> 3:12:23.000 which has now forced taxpayers to use third party paid services. 3:12:23.040 --> 3:12:25.440 It's like he's doing this like one by one. I 3:12:25.840 --> 3:12:28.000 think the weakness that they have right now is that 3:12:28.520 --> 3:12:31.080 because you're causing so much chaos, because they're you're gonna 3:12:31.080 --> 3:12:33.959 talk about the FBI pers they're trying to do like 3:12:34.480 --> 3:12:36.440 you know, the thing that they're relying on is everyone 3:12:36.520 --> 3:12:38.880 is just going to let them in and just let 3:12:38.959 --> 3:12:41.080 them get walked over. But it's like, Okay, the thing 3:12:41.120 --> 3:12:43.920 about acting this muscleside the law is what guys with 3:12:44.040 --> 3:12:46.640 guns do you have who you can use to enforce this? Yeah, 3:12:46.879 --> 3:12:49.280 that's the thing where it's it's legitimately like, if there's 3:12:49.320 --> 3:12:52.560 serious resistance to them, they might start to crumple. Because 3:12:53.400 --> 3:12:56.920 the reason you work inside of the legal order or 3:12:56.959 --> 3:12:59.840 you have your own paramilitaries is so that you can 3:12:59.879 --> 3:13:01.920 have have like the guy with the gun to make 3:13:01.959 --> 3:13:04.520 you open the door. Yeah, And the more people who 3:13:04.520 --> 3:13:06.720 are willing to just be like no, fuck you, like 3:13:06.760 --> 3:13:09.440 and like force them to actually like find guys with 3:13:09.480 --> 3:13:10.480 guns who are willing to do. 3:13:10.480 --> 3:13:13.000 This, the odds are lower that you get a positive 3:13:13.000 --> 3:13:18.480 shift because people engage directly and aggressively with the cops. 3:13:18.560 --> 3:13:21.520 Then you have when some sort of like mid level 3:13:21.560 --> 3:13:24.840 military functionary is asked to drive a tank over a 3:13:24.879 --> 3:13:28.640 school teacher. Right Like, Historically, historically, if you look at 3:13:28.680 --> 3:13:33.199 when regimes fall, that happens more often than the waving 3:13:33.200 --> 3:13:36.520 a flag on top of like a pile of corpses. Yeah, right, 3:13:36.600 --> 3:13:40.160 Like demands are ordered illegal illegal orders are given to 3:13:40.320 --> 3:13:42.240 people with guns and they're like, no, I'm not going 3:13:42.280 --> 3:13:44.760 to shoot at a bunch of teachers today. That's not 3:13:44.840 --> 3:13:47.199 the only way this kind of thing happens, but at least, 3:13:47.240 --> 3:13:50.800 like for my money, that's the likeliest positive outcome, right. 3:13:50.760 --> 3:13:52.560 Yeah, and if you look at the last world historical 3:13:52.560 --> 3:13:56.080 empire run by it incredibly unpopular genetocracy, it was the Soviets, 3:13:56.120 --> 3:13:57.720 and look at how they fell apart. 3:13:58.080 --> 3:13:59.720 That's that's more or less what happened. 3:13:59.760 --> 3:14:03.400 Yeah, Yeah, And like it's interesting that if we use 3:14:03.400 --> 3:14:05.600 a Bavarian definition of the state like that has the 3:14:05.640 --> 3:14:08.279 monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, right, that they've 3:14:08.320 --> 3:14:12.600 dismantled their apparatus for state violence as well. And this 3:14:12.640 --> 3:14:15.080 could just be like the blunt instrument of apparently offering 3:14:15.120 --> 3:14:18.840 every federal employee. I know, I've heard that they've tried 3:14:18.879 --> 3:14:22.680 to unretire Worldland firefighters who accepted their offer of retirement. 3:14:23.879 --> 3:14:28.480 Is extremely funny, but like it's it's very Yeah, if 3:14:28.480 --> 3:14:30.160 you're going to work, you're going to retire a bunch 3:14:30.200 --> 3:14:33.320 of FBI agents or fire them because, like Mia said, 3:14:33.360 --> 3:14:35.360 they are going to need hitters. They're going to need 3:14:35.400 --> 3:14:39.440 to use coercive force at some point, possibly very soon, Yeah, 3:14:39.480 --> 3:14:40.760 to get what they want to do done. 3:14:41.040 --> 3:14:43.120 And I think when it comes to that, the question 3:14:43.240 --> 3:14:46.840 is like which hitters. Yeah, because the the FBI and 3:14:46.920 --> 3:14:49.959 the CIA I mean are getting are getting gutted at 3:14:49.959 --> 3:14:53.240 the moment right now, Like so you're looking at like 3:14:54.080 --> 3:14:59.160 the NSA, you're looking at local police, Federal Protective Services, 3:15:00.000 --> 3:15:03.480 Apartment of Homeland Security, you know, and the marshals. Right, 3:15:03.600 --> 3:15:06.560 like these are kind of like the shooters Trump has 3:15:06.560 --> 3:15:09.520 to play with, and the military will remain an open 3:15:09.600 --> 3:15:11.760 question until the critical moment, right. 3:15:11.879 --> 3:15:15.360 Yeah, I mean, FPS is infinitely expandable and it's mostly 3:15:15.400 --> 3:15:17.720 contract threat orbit and aspected about it before. But like 3:15:17.760 --> 3:15:20.880 that's the one that has a lot of potential to grow. 3:15:20.920 --> 3:15:24.959 And I think within local especially sheriff's departments, you got 3:15:24.959 --> 3:15:26.439 some people who weren't bat annihilated. 3:15:26.520 --> 3:15:28.960 Some of those Oh no, no, no, absolutely not. And 3:15:29.440 --> 3:15:33.320 I do think that, like sheriff's departments are kind of 3:15:33.480 --> 3:15:36.880 what haunt me the most. But that's also it's not 3:15:36.920 --> 3:15:40.480 purely a matter of like which agencies and organizations are 3:15:40.680 --> 3:15:42.879 going to back Trump in this, It's also a matter 3:15:42.959 --> 3:15:48.120 of like geographic location and DC. In DC, at least 3:15:48.680 --> 3:15:51.480 he can count on a lot less of those guys 3:15:51.640 --> 3:15:54.320 because like the Capitol Police aren't thrilled right now. 3:15:54.400 --> 3:15:57.000 You know, essentially what Elon is doing right now is 3:15:57.040 --> 3:15:59.640 exactly what he did to Twitter, except to the entire 3:16:00.160 --> 3:16:03.560 States of America, and like by the end of this process. 3:16:03.680 --> 3:16:06.360 It still might function on some level, right, Like Twitter 3:16:06.480 --> 3:16:10.119 still kind of functions, but it's just worse in every way. 3:16:10.680 --> 3:16:14.080 It's worse. It doesn't have the quote unquote good features 3:16:14.080 --> 3:16:17.200 it used to. It's it's buggy, it's full of Nazis. 3:16:17.280 --> 3:16:20.840 It's just it's it sucks more Like the previous version 3:16:20.959 --> 3:16:24.080 was was already bad and harmful, but the new one 3:16:24.120 --> 3:16:26.039 is just worse and without the aspects that made it 3:16:26.040 --> 3:16:28.760 semi worthwhile. And like, I'm going to do an episode 3:16:28.760 --> 3:16:30.960 like next week, like it kind of about about this, 3:16:31.000 --> 3:16:35.320 like specifically, and how musk is Twitter afying the entire 3:16:35.360 --> 3:16:38.439 government using like all of the same tactics, like refusing 3:16:38.480 --> 3:16:42.760 to pay leases on buildings, installing beds in agency headquarters 3:16:42.800 --> 3:16:47.199 to make employees sleep there overnight, having teenagers review code 3:16:47.240 --> 3:16:50.520 of like long standing employees. It's the exact same process. 3:16:50.920 --> 3:16:53.200 And if you didn't like what happened to Twitter, that 3:16:53.240 --> 3:16:56.320 process is now happening to the government itself. 3:16:56.480 --> 3:16:58.600 I can't wait for the Irs to send me a 3:16:58.640 --> 3:17:00.960 letter saying my pussy and io like that. 3:17:00.959 --> 3:17:01.480 That will be. 3:17:02.160 --> 3:17:05.760 Hey, now you've now you've gotten me back on the 3:17:05.800 --> 3:17:09.640 Trump trained. You know what I'm piacing out for the day. 3:17:09.959 --> 3:17:10.600 I'm on board. 3:17:10.720 --> 3:17:10.879 Now. 3:17:11.760 --> 3:17:13.480 Before we close this segment and pivot to adds, I 3:17:13.480 --> 3:17:15.520 do want to shout out the work that Wired is 3:17:15.560 --> 3:17:16.119 doing right now. 3:17:16.240 --> 3:17:16.400 Man. 3:17:16.480 --> 3:17:19.920 Yeah, Wired magazine is doing for some fantastic reporting on this. 3:17:20.480 --> 3:17:24.240 The DC Attorney is currently promising to go after individuals 3:17:24.240 --> 3:17:27.360 who post about DOGE employees. They might end up going 3:17:27.400 --> 3:17:31.039 after some of these Wired journalists who identified this gen 3:17:31.200 --> 3:17:34.760 Z Doge team that is wreaking havoc throughout the government 3:17:35.240 --> 3:17:38.080 with no oversight. Wired provided what should be you know, 3:17:38.200 --> 3:17:43.119 legally required, a necessary identification of public workers who Musk 3:17:43.240 --> 3:17:45.920 is trying to keep secret. The DC Attorney and like 3:17:45.959 --> 3:17:47.879 Trump's DOJ, is very mad about that. They might they 3:17:47.959 --> 3:17:51.680 might end up like going after these people. But fantastic 3:17:51.720 --> 3:17:53.920 work coming out of Wired right now. If you want 3:17:53.959 --> 3:17:57.120 to keep up to date on Musk's takeover, I strongly 3:17:57.120 --> 3:17:59.880 recommend checking out their work. I'll post some of those 3:18:00.160 --> 3:18:03.000 sources below. Let's go on a quick ad break and 3:18:03.000 --> 3:18:06.680 then come back to talk about the continuing kind of 3:18:06.720 --> 3:18:09.600 fake trade wars and immigration sick. 3:18:21.959 --> 3:18:22.800 All right, we're back. 3:18:22.959 --> 3:18:25.760 I'm going to pivot towards James and Mia to discuss 3:18:25.840 --> 3:18:28.160 tariffs and immigration take it away. 3:18:28.680 --> 3:18:32.160 Yeah, So on Monday, Trump sort of averted the market 3:18:32.200 --> 3:18:36.240 collapse that he had set off with his declaration that 3:18:37.000 --> 3:18:39.080 there are going to be twenty five percent tariffs on 3:18:39.120 --> 3:18:42.160 all goods from Canada and Mexico and also ten percent 3:18:42.200 --> 3:18:45.200 tariff on China. So let's let's go into like what 3:18:45.280 --> 3:18:49.240 actually happened. So the tariffs on Mexico and Canada are 3:18:49.280 --> 3:18:53.520 on hold for a month. However, the ten percent tariff 3:18:53.560 --> 3:18:56.680 on all Chinese goods did go into effect, and we'll 3:18:56.680 --> 3:18:57.960 get some more about what that's going to do in 3:18:58.000 --> 3:19:02.959 a second. But much more important, Trump eliminated the deminimus exception, 3:19:03.080 --> 3:19:06.920 which allowed like people and companies to ship goods from 3:19:07.000 --> 3:19:09.200 China that were worth under eight hundred dollars and not 3:19:09.360 --> 3:19:12.600 have to go through the formal customs process and you know, 3:19:12.680 --> 3:19:14.680 pay tariffs on it and also have to spend all 3:19:14.680 --> 3:19:18.600 of that time paperwork and shit. And before we get 3:19:18.640 --> 3:19:20.400 into the sort of devastating effect this is going to 3:19:20.440 --> 3:19:22.000 have on businesses, I want to make it clear that 3:19:22.080 --> 3:19:26.279 like regular people in China use this to send things 3:19:26.280 --> 3:19:29.000 to people in the US, like that that's a very 3:19:29.000 --> 3:19:33.720 normal thing. Yeah, that is now really really difficult. 3:19:33.440 --> 3:19:36.160 And about a third of YouTube ads are supported by 3:19:36.160 --> 3:19:38.960 people who run companies that make use of this loophole. 3:19:39.879 --> 3:19:42.360 Yeah, okay, so on the business side, this is actually 3:19:42.360 --> 3:19:44.920 really interesting because I think it's one of the I mean, 3:19:44.959 --> 3:19:46.560 not the first one. I think it's going to be 3:19:46.560 --> 3:19:49.800 a very very early example of Trump completely fucking a 3:19:49.879 --> 3:19:52.560 base that's been very very supportive of him, because this 3:19:52.680 --> 3:19:56.400 is going to liquidate huge portions of the drop shippy economy, 3:19:56.480 --> 3:19:58.800 right like all of all of the stupid YouTube shirts, 3:19:59.160 --> 3:20:02.439 like all of that stuff is just going to be annihilated. 3:20:02.480 --> 3:20:04.879 Can you explain drop shipping if people aren't familiar mere 3:20:05.280 --> 3:20:06.600 just like ten second versions. 3:20:06.680 --> 3:20:07.080 Yeah. 3:20:07.200 --> 3:20:10.800 So drop shipping is a thing where you do an 3:20:10.879 --> 3:20:14.119 order and instead of having like an inventory, normally you'd 3:20:14.160 --> 3:20:16.000 have a warehouse a had shirts in it. Drop shipping 3:20:16.400 --> 3:20:18.959 you don't do that. You are now the intermediary and 3:20:19.000 --> 3:20:22.840 you have these manufacturers like print to consumption basically, and 3:20:22.879 --> 3:20:25.400 you can do this very cheaply, and then you can 3:20:25.560 --> 3:20:28.160 run the entire markup. But it works because of how 3:20:28.240 --> 3:20:31.120 cheap it is to get these like sort of small 3:20:31.160 --> 3:20:34.760 scale Chinese firms to like make stuff for you. Those 3:20:34.800 --> 3:20:38.600 people are screwed. Companies like Temu and Shian are either 3:20:38.680 --> 3:20:42.720 going to have to just completely eat shit or they're 3:20:42.720 --> 3:20:44.200 going to have to figure out a way to move 3:20:44.240 --> 3:20:47.360 their entire supply line through countries like Vietnam, which is 3:20:47.360 --> 3:20:49.440 going to be very difficult. I mean because Temo even 3:20:49.480 --> 3:20:51.120 getting stuff to the US has been kind of hard 3:20:51.120 --> 3:20:54.120 for them because of how the logistics network works. Yeah, 3:20:54.879 --> 3:20:57.080 and so obviously, like I don't think most people who 3:20:57.080 --> 3:20:58.960 listen to this show are that sad about Schian and 3:20:59.000 --> 3:20:59.959 Temu eating shit. 3:21:00.080 --> 3:21:03.160 But no, it is like a mixed bag because a 3:21:03.200 --> 3:21:06.800 whole lot of the MLM industry is going to take 3:21:07.200 --> 3:21:08.600 a header as a result of this. 3:21:08.959 --> 3:21:11.920 Yeah, yeah, there's some stuff to like fuck them. But 3:21:12.000 --> 3:21:14.160 on the other hand, there are a lot of people 3:21:14.280 --> 3:21:16.800 who are going to eat shit who are not those people. 3:21:16.879 --> 3:21:20.240 And this is there is a huge, like range of 3:21:20.280 --> 3:21:24.120 industries that are run by very very small businesses, like 3:21:24.200 --> 3:21:26.480 it was even just like an individual person who like 3:21:26.560 --> 3:21:28.760 makes crafts and sells it, and those people are also 3:21:28.800 --> 3:21:32.680 screwed because they rely on getting the resources in from China. 3:21:32.840 --> 3:21:35.000 And there's a lot of sort of you know things 3:21:35.040 --> 3:21:38.160 like like people who build like hand like retro handheld consoles, 3:21:38.280 --> 3:21:41.240 oh yeah, and like I don't know, like custom ariosoft rifles, 3:21:41.280 --> 3:21:42.800 I do you talk about, Like there's a whole bunch 3:21:42.840 --> 3:21:45.000 of industries like that that are these like small scale 3:21:45.040 --> 3:21:50.560 production things that are just screwed that rely on this stuff. 3:21:50.560 --> 3:21:53.280 And so the ripples of this specific part of it 3:21:53.360 --> 3:21:55.840 are going to keep playing out basically no matter what 3:21:55.879 --> 3:21:58.920 else happens in this trade war. Yeah, it's also worth 3:21:58.959 --> 3:22:03.360 noting that tariffs on Mexico and Canada aren't gone, They've 3:22:03.400 --> 3:22:06.080 just been postponed for a month. So there is a 3:22:06.120 --> 3:22:08.320 real chance that we end up in exactly the same 3:22:08.360 --> 3:22:10.680 place that we were going into the weekend, where no 3:22:10.680 --> 3:22:12.440 one knows where these terrifts are going to take effected, 3:22:12.520 --> 3:22:15.560 basically blow a smoking crater in the world economy, and 3:22:15.720 --> 3:22:18.080 we get another round of the negotiations that James is 3:22:18.080 --> 3:22:21.360 going to talk about. It's already setting off a really 3:22:21.400 --> 3:22:23.560 sort of staggering right wing I mean not even necessarily 3:22:23.640 --> 3:22:26.840 right wing, just like a nationalist backlash in Canada that's 3:22:26.920 --> 3:22:29.160 kind of been like tearing up this sort of international 3:22:29.200 --> 3:22:32.600 right wing alliance and nationalists because suddenly Trump's coming after 3:22:32.680 --> 3:22:34.560 them and now they're they're really mad about it. 3:22:34.640 --> 3:22:38.279 Well, and because Trudeau announced that that he would be targeting, 3:22:38.879 --> 3:22:41.760 you know, like retaliatory tariffs is specifically at red States. 3:22:42.080 --> 3:22:45.600 We now have people calling him dark woke or dark Trudeau, 3:22:45.760 --> 3:22:47.600 you know, for very different reasons than they used to 3:22:47.640 --> 3:22:48.720 call him Trudeau. 3:22:48.840 --> 3:22:55.560 Yes, yes, all right, all right, shop up high, right, 3:22:55.920 --> 3:22:58.200 all right, you're going to get canceled if you're not 3:22:58.320 --> 3:23:00.800 careful that outstanding. 3:23:01.320 --> 3:23:04.800 Speaking of getting canceled, what hasn't gotten canceled is the 3:23:04.800 --> 3:23:06.720 ten percent tariff on all Chinese good which is just 3:23:06.720 --> 3:23:09.720 now in effect. It's just happening. That's bad. It's going 3:23:09.760 --> 3:23:12.119 to increase inflation. It's also it's you know, it's it's 3:23:12.120 --> 3:23:14.640 sort of the opening round of this escalation to a 3:23:14.680 --> 3:23:19.320 trade war. China has retaliated with tariffs that are not 3:23:19.400 --> 3:23:23.279 a very big deal on US goods and some product 3:23:23.280 --> 3:23:26.800 control stuff, on expert control stuff on some rare earth 3:23:26.840 --> 3:23:29.680 minerals actually do with the rare smills, but like minerals 3:23:29.720 --> 3:23:32.360 you need for production stuff that isn't a big deal 3:23:32.560 --> 3:23:33.680 yet but could be. 3:23:33.800 --> 3:23:36.080 I mean, and we were all expecting Chinese tariffs. Having 3:23:36.080 --> 3:23:38.880 twenty five percent tariffs in Canada was not something I 3:23:38.920 --> 3:23:40.400 thought was like a looming. 3:23:40.120 --> 3:23:43.199 Milh Yeah, yeah, I mean I thought they'd do Mexico. 3:23:43.200 --> 3:23:43.760 I didn't know about. 3:23:43.800 --> 3:23:48.280 I'm very worried about the offshoring of Chinese labor and 3:23:48.400 --> 3:23:50.760 the impact that will have in places like Myanma, where 3:23:50.840 --> 3:23:53.200 China has these special economic zones, and it's something we 3:23:53.280 --> 3:23:53.680 will cover. 3:23:53.920 --> 3:23:55.439 We obviously have a lot of soci. 3:23:55.320 --> 3:23:58.199 Yeah Monday, Yeah, yeah, on Monday, we're recovering this spot. 3:23:58.800 --> 3:24:01.240 So I think something that's import to understand about these 3:24:01.240 --> 3:24:03.480 tariffs is that these terrifts are not economic policy. This 3:24:03.600 --> 3:24:05.959 is the mistake that all of the capitalists who backed 3:24:05.959 --> 3:24:08.920 Trump made is that they assumed that just like every 3:24:08.920 --> 3:24:11.119 other president who's made promise us like this, like Obama's 3:24:11.120 --> 3:24:13.840 promised to renegotiate NAFTA, they all assumed that because of 3:24:14.000 --> 3:24:16.440 economic policy, they'd be able to just like get Trump 3:24:16.440 --> 3:24:18.040 to be pro business and then he wouldn't do it. 3:24:18.240 --> 3:24:19.920 The mis calculation they made is that these are not 3:24:20.160 --> 3:24:24.800 economic tariffs. These are directly foreign policy, geopolitical tariffs. 3:24:24.840 --> 3:24:24.960 Right. 3:24:24.959 --> 3:24:28.000 Their international relations are to the deal bullshit and the 3:24:28.080 --> 3:24:30.640 goal of it. And he's been deploying this against like 3:24:30.680 --> 3:24:34.760 I mean, Columbia, Denmark, He's threatening the EU. Now he's 3:24:34.760 --> 3:24:37.280 going to keep doing this with China. The goal of 3:24:37.320 --> 3:24:41.000 this is to directly use American consumer power as a 3:24:41.000 --> 3:24:44.080 weapon of imperialism to make these countries fall into line. Yeah, 3:24:44.200 --> 3:24:46.080 and now I will pass it the jame to talk 3:24:46.080 --> 3:24:48.480 about what he was specifically trying to get out of 3:24:48.560 --> 3:24:50.560 Mexico and Canada in this round. 3:24:50.800 --> 3:24:53.520 Yeah, so, like we expect about falling into line there. 3:24:53.560 --> 3:24:55.280 I think it's probably a good place to start. Like 3:24:55.320 --> 3:24:58.199 this kind of Trump brinksmanship is very typical of his style. Right, 3:24:58.400 --> 3:25:01.320 Nearly every media outlet, I think, fell for it this 3:25:01.480 --> 3:25:03.400 time that it did in his first term, like we 3:25:03.480 --> 3:25:05.519 got this, like this is going to cause the crisis. 3:25:06.600 --> 3:25:10.199 Trump was very nebulous in his goals for these tariffs, 3:25:10.600 --> 3:25:13.520 and as almost always like, he talked a lot about 3:25:13.560 --> 3:25:16.960 like America being treated unfairly. Right, he talked about the border, 3:25:17.000 --> 3:25:20.000 and he talked specifically about fentanyl. Soon, let's begin by 3:25:20.000 --> 3:25:23.160 talking about fentanyl. It just to be clear, it is 3:25:23.280 --> 3:25:27.400 true that some fentanyl comes into the USA from Mexico 3:25:27.560 --> 3:25:29.800 and to a lesser degree or so from Canada. The 3:25:29.879 --> 3:25:33.920 vast majority of the fentanyl that enters the USA from Mexico, 3:25:34.200 --> 3:25:37.640 about eighty percent of the convictions made as a result 3:25:37.640 --> 3:25:42.240 of that fentanyl entering the USA are made on US citizens, right, 3:25:42.560 --> 3:25:45.200 And ninety percent of the fentanyl that is seized is 3:25:45.240 --> 3:25:48.760 seized at ports of entry. So this idea that there 3:25:48.840 --> 3:25:52.480 are like Mexican nationals backpacking fentanyl through the desert, that exists, 3:25:52.520 --> 3:25:54.720 but it is not what is bringing the bulk of 3:25:54.760 --> 3:25:56.560 the fentanyl that is killing the people in this country 3:25:56.560 --> 3:26:00.840 into this country. There are multiple cases of DBP agent 3:26:01.000 --> 3:26:03.440 taking bribes to allow the drug into the country. I 3:26:03.440 --> 3:26:05.120 will link to two of them in the show notes, 3:26:05.160 --> 3:26:07.680 but know that there are more of them, and given 3:26:07.720 --> 3:26:10.240 the relatively high bar for cbpagent, anyone in DHS to 3:26:10.240 --> 3:26:12.360 be investigated, right, we can assume that there's something that 3:26:12.440 --> 3:26:16.760 happens on at least a semi regular basis. So what 3:26:16.840 --> 3:26:18.680 did Trump do to stop this fence not coming into 3:26:18.680 --> 3:26:20.240 this the country? Where did he get He got this 3:26:20.760 --> 3:26:24.160 promise that Mexico will deploy ten thousand troops to its border. 3:26:24.680 --> 3:26:27.240 In reality, this isn't much of a concession at all. 3:26:27.520 --> 3:26:29.959 The Mexican National Guard has been deployed to the border 3:26:30.000 --> 3:26:33.720 for years. Specifically, it's been deployed at gaps in the 3:26:33.879 --> 3:26:36.720 US border wall for more than a year, so people 3:26:36.959 --> 3:26:40.039 will remember our coverage of the open air detention sites 3:26:40.080 --> 3:26:42.560 in the cumber Andese County San Diego. All of those 3:26:42.600 --> 3:26:45.879 open air detention sites correspond to gaps in the border 3:26:45.959 --> 3:26:48.240 wall where migrants would enter, surrender to border patrol, and 3:26:48.240 --> 3:26:51.200 then be detained in open air. Each of those gaps 3:26:51.240 --> 3:26:54.720 now has a Mexican National Guard checkpoint in front of it, 3:26:54.920 --> 3:26:58.680 and they're there in conjunction with IM the National Institute 3:26:58.680 --> 3:27:01.240 of Migration in English, the INM has camps for the 3:27:01.280 --> 3:27:02.400 migrants who do come there. 3:27:02.640 --> 3:27:02.800 Right. 3:27:02.879 --> 3:27:05.160 This is something that Biden obtained in I think late 3:27:05.240 --> 3:27:07.879 twenty three, early twenty four, and that's why we aren't 3:27:07.879 --> 3:27:10.120 seeing open ed attention one of the reasons, the other 3:27:10.120 --> 3:27:12.959 reason being Biden's a sylum band. We aren't seeing as 3:27:13.000 --> 3:27:16.199 many people crossing the border right. Mexican border towns also 3:27:16.320 --> 3:27:19.160 tend to be areas where the Mexican military deploys its 3:27:19.200 --> 3:27:22.080 troops because often they are places were organized crime occurves 3:27:22.120 --> 3:27:24.040 due to their proximity to the border and the market 3:27:24.080 --> 3:27:26.200 for drugs, and the fact that weapons from the US 3:27:26.240 --> 3:27:28.920 tend to flow into Mexico and that that's where large 3:27:29.000 --> 3:27:31.760 numbers of weapons for organized crime come from right. For 3:27:32.160 --> 3:27:35.520 more than a year, I've received press releases from Tijuana 3:27:35.879 --> 3:27:39.640 constantly talking about new unit arrives, Special Forces arrives, Army arrive, 3:27:39.800 --> 3:27:41.279 and then they'll have pictures of a parade. 3:27:41.360 --> 3:27:41.920 Right now. 3:27:41.920 --> 3:27:44.400 They never tell us when those units are leaving. They 3:27:44.480 --> 3:27:46.240 just keep telling us they're coming. So it's very hard 3:27:46.240 --> 3:27:48.560 to get a sense of actually how many troops are there. Sure, 3:27:48.800 --> 3:27:52.119 but the idea that Mexico is suddenly militarizing its border 3:27:52.400 --> 3:27:53.320 is kind of fascical. 3:27:53.920 --> 3:27:55.920 Yeah, and I want to There's been a lot of 3:27:55.920 --> 3:27:58.720 sort of cheerleading of shine Bomb, sort of like standing 3:27:58.800 --> 3:28:00.800 up to the US. And I don't think people in 3:28:00.840 --> 3:28:04.320 the US really understand the securitization on the Mexican border, 3:28:04.400 --> 3:28:06.120 and so something that I'm realizing that I don't think 3:28:06.600 --> 3:28:08.440 I just assume people knew about this, but I don't 3:28:08.440 --> 3:28:10.640 think everyone made into the western press much. 3:28:10.840 --> 3:28:11.160 Is that. 3:28:11.200 --> 3:28:14.240 So Like a few months ago in October, the Mexican 3:28:14.360 --> 3:28:17.560 Army just like opened fire on a convoy of like 3:28:17.600 --> 3:28:20.320 on a convoy of immigrants and this was on the 3:28:20.320 --> 3:28:23.440 border of Guatemala and just like killed six of them, 3:28:23.480 --> 3:28:26.360 shot twelve other people. So like and like there are 3:28:26.400 --> 3:28:30.280 massacres like that, like not infrequently right, like this is 3:28:30.360 --> 3:28:34.080 not a this is not a Mexico is pro immigrant 3:28:34.280 --> 3:28:36.640 like the US is anti immigrant thing. 3:28:36.879 --> 3:28:36.959 Like. 3:28:37.080 --> 3:28:39.400 Part of the part of the reason why Trump can, like, 3:28:39.879 --> 3:28:42.200 you know, sort of declare victory without getting any concessions 3:28:42.280 --> 3:28:45.920 or whatever is because of how murderous the Mexican armies, 3:28:46.120 --> 3:28:47.600 like border policy is already. 3:28:48.520 --> 3:28:50.879 Yeah, and then the Mexican leaders have succesfully been able 3:28:50.879 --> 3:28:54.280 to paint themselves as leftists, exclusively being two inches to 3:28:54.320 --> 3:28:57.440 the left of a further and further right regime in Washington, DC. 3:28:57.920 --> 3:28:59.879 People can listen to the last episode of My Daddy 3:28:59.879 --> 3:29:02.200 and Gap series for an idea of how Mexico is 3:29:02.200 --> 3:29:05.560 constantly deporting migrants to its own certain states. I want 3:29:05.560 --> 3:29:08.680 to talk a little bit about the Canadian concessions very briefly. Again, 3:29:09.000 --> 3:29:13.080 ten thousand agents and a border spending that really doesn't 3:29:13.160 --> 3:29:15.240 change much in what in terms of what was already 3:29:15.240 --> 3:29:16.760 becoming a more militarized border. 3:29:17.240 --> 3:29:18.080 There has actually been. 3:29:18.000 --> 3:29:20.840 A significant flow of migrants from the US to Canada 3:29:21.000 --> 3:29:24.320 in the last couple of years, specifically a Francophone African 3:29:24.320 --> 3:29:26.640 people who would take that route. I'm aware of several 3:29:26.720 --> 3:29:29.920 TikTok influencers as one guy or following Chad who or 3:29:29.959 --> 3:29:32.200 he's in Canada now, but he's from Chad and he 3:29:32.280 --> 3:29:35.840 makes these videos explaining to Challian people how to go 3:29:35.879 --> 3:29:37.840 from Mexico into the US and then move up to 3:29:37.840 --> 3:29:41.160 Canada obviously where they can speak French, and that makes 3:29:41.200 --> 3:29:42.960 their lives much easier, right, It makes it much idio 3:29:43.040 --> 3:29:45.560 for not to not have to learn a language. Trudeau 3:29:45.680 --> 3:29:49.839 did agree to list cartels as terrorist organizations. 3:29:50.920 --> 3:29:53.440 That seems to be from what I can tell, the 3:29:53.480 --> 3:29:54.760 big move. 3:29:54.600 --> 3:29:55.760 That he made. 3:29:56.120 --> 3:29:59.920 Yeah, so it does allow for some economic sanctions, right 3:30:00.480 --> 3:30:03.520 if they attempt to use that Canadian border and sort 3:30:03.520 --> 3:30:06.640 of get around the United States. It's much less significant 3:30:06.680 --> 3:30:10.640 than a US listing, which we believe is coming. Canada's 3:30:10.680 --> 3:30:13.400 not going to use it to do covert operations inside Mexico. 3:30:13.440 --> 3:30:15.880 I don't think Canada's not going to be drone striking anyone. 3:30:16.240 --> 3:30:20.560 But when Trump listed the Codes Force, he then structs 3:30:20.800 --> 3:30:22.959 its leader, right with a drone I don't think Trudeau 3:30:23.040 --> 3:30:24.280 is going to be I don't think Canada's going to 3:30:24.320 --> 3:30:28.000 be doing that. But nonetheless, that is a concession, and 3:30:28.959 --> 3:30:31.520 perhaps there is some plan for that right, it certainly 3:30:31.560 --> 3:30:34.240 allows for, and I've said this before, at the economic 3:30:34.240 --> 3:30:38.000 sanctioning of people who provide material benefit to those organizations, 3:30:38.120 --> 3:30:40.520 or potentially the arrest of people who provide material benefit 3:30:40.560 --> 3:30:44.400 to those organizations, which is a large number of businesses 3:30:44.400 --> 3:30:47.160 in Mexico which end up being extorted or paying protection money. 3:30:47.280 --> 3:30:47.560 Right. 3:30:47.640 --> 3:30:50.520 So we don't know what is going to happen with that, 3:30:50.680 --> 3:30:52.920 but it's one of the tools that Trump now has 3:30:52.920 --> 3:30:57.480 to use as another cudgel against it against Mexico. The 3:30:57.600 --> 3:31:01.800 last and perhaps most sinister of all development is this 3:31:02.080 --> 3:31:04.320 deal that Marco Rubio is struck. 3:31:04.040 --> 3:31:05.720 With boukele in de El Salvador. Right. 3:31:06.160 --> 3:31:09.480 El Salvador has said it will host US citizen criminals 3:31:09.480 --> 3:31:12.320 and deportees from any nation in its jail system. So 3:31:12.320 --> 3:31:13.440 I just read Boukelly's tweet. 3:31:13.480 --> 3:31:14.160 It's very short. 3:31:14.400 --> 3:31:18.080 We are willing to take in only convicted criminals parentheses, 3:31:18.120 --> 3:31:22.920 including convicted US citizens into a mega prison second, in 3:31:23.000 --> 3:31:25.760 exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low 3:31:25.800 --> 3:31:28.600 for the US, but significant for US, making our entire 3:31:28.640 --> 3:31:33.040 prison system sustainable. If you're not familiar, it means CHUAC 3:31:33.120 --> 3:31:35.160 terrorism confinements enter into Spanish. 3:31:35.879 --> 3:31:37.520 For people who haven't heard about this. 3:31:37.640 --> 3:31:40.560 It's the largest prison in the world that Bukelly opened 3:31:40.560 --> 3:31:42.720 in twenty twenty three, and it's a terrible place. 3:31:43.040 --> 3:31:44.840 There are cells of one hundred people. 3:31:45.480 --> 3:31:47.920 In that cell, there are eighty bunks, two toilets, and 3:31:47.959 --> 3:31:52.280 two basins. They are extremely confined. I think they get 3:31:52.320 --> 3:31:56.039 six point five feet of space per person. They get 3:31:56.080 --> 3:31:58.480 thirty minutes outside a day. They're forced to shave their heads, 3:31:58.520 --> 3:32:01.840 their ankles, and risk a chain. People are arbitrarily detained there. 3:32:01.879 --> 3:32:03.800 Sometimes the things like looking like they might be in 3:32:03.800 --> 3:32:07.720 a gang. Multiple human rights organizations including that, well, the 3:32:07.720 --> 3:32:08.279 State Department. 3:32:08.320 --> 3:32:10.520 It's not a human rights organization. Sometimes it's the opposite 3:32:10.520 --> 3:32:10.760 of that. 3:32:11.440 --> 3:32:14.680 The State Department itself has raised concerns about human rights 3:32:14.720 --> 3:32:17.160 abuse due to the quote unquote state of exception which 3:32:17.160 --> 3:32:19.880 exists in El Salvador, which allows the government to do 3:32:19.920 --> 3:32:24.560 these things without really any human rights ob sight. The 3:32:24.640 --> 3:32:30.040 US has already seemingly moved some migrants to Guantanamo Bay, 3:32:30.080 --> 3:32:33.000 to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and satellite imagery has 3:32:33.000 --> 3:32:36.800 shown tents going up there. Very few at the current time, 3:32:37.560 --> 3:32:39.480 and it seemed to come from Fort Lewis mccaud, which 3:32:39.520 --> 3:32:42.680 I couldn't work out. But there are tents. I guess 3:32:42.720 --> 3:32:44.600 I think I was washed. The Post had these satellite 3:32:44.600 --> 3:32:47.160 images of tents being constructed there. I'm trying to keep 3:32:47.200 --> 3:32:49.960 an eye on that satellite imagery. Of course, Biden open 3:32:50.000 --> 3:32:53.640 the door to outdoor attention. It's not impossible that we 3:32:53.720 --> 3:32:58.119 will see that again. But this Kaelic plan, this plan 3:32:58.240 --> 3:33:02.560 to send people to Al Salvador, especially US citizens, Evidently 3:33:02.680 --> 3:33:06.240 this is unconstitutional. The courts get to decide how much 3:33:06.320 --> 3:33:09.600 that matters, right, we don't, but this is deeply concerning. 3:33:09.879 --> 3:33:13.800 We're all waiting on the courts and we're all deeply concerned. 3:33:14.640 --> 3:33:15.959 Yeah, well, there you. 3:33:15.920 --> 3:33:18.040 Go, one final break and then we'll come back to 3:33:18.160 --> 3:33:21.320 end and discuss Trump's targeting of teachers in relation to 3:33:21.480 --> 3:33:37.320 gender ideology. Welcome back. So, last week, Trump signed an 3:33:37.320 --> 3:33:41.440 executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K through twelve schooling, 3:33:41.760 --> 3:33:44.200 and part of its focus was to prevent teachers from 3:33:44.200 --> 3:33:47.480 calling trans students by their names and preferred pronouns, even 3:33:47.520 --> 3:33:50.800 promising to inflict legal punishment for doing so, basically like 3:33:50.920 --> 3:33:56.120 mandating dead naming, misgendering, and forcibly detransitioning students, and this 3:33:56.320 --> 3:33:59.360 order specifically took aim at quote unquote social transition. 3:33:59.760 --> 3:33:59.920 Right. 3:34:00.040 --> 3:34:02.800 This is like the non medical social aspects of transitioning, 3:34:03.080 --> 3:34:07.640 like changing gender, names, pronouns, you know what facilities you use, 3:34:07.800 --> 3:34:10.680 socialization and like this TOYFF has historically been, you know, 3:34:10.720 --> 3:34:14.360 the most common form of transition for minors. It's the 3:34:14.400 --> 3:34:17.360 easiest to do. You don't even need you like your parents' help. 3:34:18.040 --> 3:34:22.279 But this order blames schools for indoctrinating children in quote 3:34:22.480 --> 3:34:27.440 radical anti American ideologies unquote, which they include gender ideology. 3:34:27.440 --> 3:34:29.920 As a part of the order, tries to mandate a 3:34:30.040 --> 3:34:33.640 national school bathroom band, restrict participation in school sports, and 3:34:33.720 --> 3:34:36.800 states that within ninety days, the Secretary of Education, the 3:34:36.840 --> 3:34:40.440 Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, 3:34:40.480 --> 3:34:43.240 and the Attorney General shall provide Trump with a quote 3:34:43.320 --> 3:34:48.039 unquote ending in doctrination strategy to protect parental rights and 3:34:48.120 --> 3:34:52.360 eliminate all federal funding that directly or indirectly supports gender 3:34:52.400 --> 3:34:55.680 ideology and doctrination in K through twelve schools, including curriculums, 3:34:55.879 --> 3:35:01.640 teacher education, certification, licensing, employment, and training. Quote from the order, quote, 3:35:01.760 --> 3:35:04.800 the Attorney General shall coordinate with state attorneys general and 3:35:04.879 --> 3:35:08.119 local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law 3:35:08.200 --> 3:35:12.119 and file appropriate actions against k through twelve teachers who 3:35:12.200 --> 3:35:17.320 violate the law by one sexually exploiting miners, two unlawfully 3:35:17.480 --> 3:35:22.240 practicing medicine by offering diagnoses and treatment without the requisite license, 3:35:22.520 --> 3:35:27.120 and three otherwise unlawfully facilitating in the social transition of 3:35:27.160 --> 3:35:30.000 a minor unquote. So basically, the goal is to try 3:35:30.040 --> 3:35:33.440 to make calling a student by their name and pronouns 3:35:33.440 --> 3:35:36.680 illegal and wrapping this in either with some form of 3:35:36.920 --> 3:35:41.240 ex sexual exploitation, practicing medicine without a license, and using 3:35:41.320 --> 3:35:43.840 those as justifications for making this practice illegal. 3:35:44.600 --> 3:35:44.840 Now. 3:35:44.920 --> 3:35:48.240 In response, school districts in Columbus, Ohio, Harrisburg, Virginia, and 3:35:48.240 --> 3:35:51.080 Montgomery County, Maryland announced that they would not comply with 3:35:51.160 --> 3:35:54.680 the order and continue to defend their students, according to journalists. 3:35:54.680 --> 3:35:58.080 To Aaron Reid, Seattle Public Schools published a statement reaffirming 3:35:58.120 --> 3:36:01.560 their commitment to protecting LGBTQUS students and staff, and later 3:36:01.720 --> 3:36:05.160 the California Department of Education pushed back on the legality 3:36:05.200 --> 3:36:08.280 of Trump's order. Other Blue cities and states have stayed 3:36:08.360 --> 3:36:11.120 quiet in the week since the order, with teachers and 3:36:11.160 --> 3:36:14.520 parents calling on places like the New York City Public 3:36:14.520 --> 3:36:17.000 School System to take a stance on if they will 3:36:17.000 --> 3:36:20.560 stand up for their transit students. So this is one 3:36:20.640 --> 3:36:24.320 side of the coin right now. The other side is healthcare, 3:36:24.360 --> 3:36:26.959 which we will close on now. In relation to Trump's 3:36:26.959 --> 3:36:31.120 executive order from his first week entitled Defending Women from 3:36:31.240 --> 3:36:35.360 gender ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal 3:36:35.360 --> 3:36:39.920 Government now, some hospitals have begun complying in advance by 3:36:39.920 --> 3:36:44.000 canceling patient appointments for gender affirming care. Denver Health and 3:36:44.120 --> 3:36:47.000 University of Colorado Health sacrificed the care of their patients 3:36:47.040 --> 3:36:50.039 for Trump's promise of continued funding by announcing that they 3:36:50.040 --> 3:36:52.959 would no longer be offering care including blockers and hormone 3:36:52.959 --> 3:36:57.360 replacement therapy for patients eighteen and under. The Virginia Commonwealth 3:36:57.440 --> 3:37:00.800 University and Children's Hospital of Richmond have also seen providing 3:37:00.920 --> 3:37:04.040 gender affirming care to those under nineteen. This past Monday, 3:37:04.080 --> 3:37:07.080 thousands of people gathered outside at the NYU Langan Hospital 3:37:07.240 --> 3:37:10.039 in protest of the hospital's choice to proactively comply with 3:37:10.040 --> 3:37:12.920 Trump's order to restrict healthcare. As the cancelation of two 3:37:12.920 --> 3:37:16.120 appointments for transpatients under the age of nineteen. Now, after 3:37:16.160 --> 3:37:19.680 these protests, which saw thousands of people protesting out in 3:37:19.760 --> 3:37:22.920 the streets. After this, the New York Attwority General sent 3:37:22.920 --> 3:37:25.720 a letter to the state healthcare systems saying that the 3:37:25.840 --> 3:37:30.400 state law requires that hospitals provide gender affirming care and 3:37:30.440 --> 3:37:33.560 claimed that the federal funding would not be impacted by 3:37:33.680 --> 3:37:37.720 inexecutive order. And like this really hammers on the point 3:37:37.720 --> 3:37:40.199 that like none of these executive orders are self enforcing, 3:37:40.720 --> 3:37:46.119 these all require proactive implementation by local actors. Doctor Jeremy 3:37:46.120 --> 3:37:48.720 Bernbaum was quoted in the New York Times. He's at 3:37:48.760 --> 3:37:51.600 pediatrician at the state run University Hospital of Brooklyn, and 3:37:51.720 --> 3:37:54.080 he was quoted as saying, quote, I am willing to 3:37:54.160 --> 3:37:57.680 go to jail to continue to provide your care, unquote. 3:37:58.360 --> 3:38:02.240 And you really can like protest hospitals that that comply 3:38:02.280 --> 3:38:04.920 in advance. The same thing with schools are these are 3:38:04.959 --> 3:38:07.760 targets that can provide actual pressure. And there's probably people 3:38:07.800 --> 3:38:10.160 on staff who are very sympathetic, and they just might 3:38:10.200 --> 3:38:12.640 be too scared to take a stance. Right now, and 3:38:12.760 --> 3:38:15.199 we have some breaking news as of this morning, State 3:38:15.240 --> 3:38:20.920 Attorney General from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Main Maryland, Massachusetts, 3:38:21.000 --> 3:38:25.320 New Jersey, Rhode Island, Nevada, Vermont, and Wisconsin released a 3:38:25.360 --> 3:38:29.000 statement saying that Trump's executive order banning trans healthcare is 3:38:29.080 --> 3:38:32.160 unlawful and the hospitals have a duty to provide care. 3:38:32.959 --> 3:38:35.600 So this is like the the most optimistic thing that 3:38:35.600 --> 3:38:37.920 we've seen so far. Now, obviously these these these are 3:38:37.959 --> 3:38:40.160 blue states. This is not going to impact red states 3:38:40.160 --> 3:38:43.320 who already have these types of bands either in process 3:38:43.560 --> 3:38:47.039 or you know, are going to have them down the line. 3:38:47.480 --> 3:38:51.680 At Georgia just put out a trans healthcare ban this 3:38:51.800 --> 3:38:54.320 morning for you know, a bill that'll reach our Senate 3:38:54.360 --> 3:38:56.760 in the next few weeks. But this is this is 3:38:56.800 --> 3:38:59.840 the current situation. Protests seem to have applied a degree 3:38:59.840 --> 3:39:02.520 of pressure that has gotten the state's attorney general to 3:39:02.560 --> 3:39:04.200 actually make a statement on this issue. 3:39:04.360 --> 3:39:07.080 Yeah, I will say, like so, I still teach, right 3:39:07.080 --> 3:39:09.440 a teacher at a community college, and sometimes through that 3:39:09.440 --> 3:39:11.760 we also teach high school students. If you are an 3:39:11.879 --> 3:39:15.640 educator or someone in healthcare, now is the time to 3:39:15.680 --> 3:39:18.320 be talking to your union about like how you meet 3:39:18.360 --> 3:39:22.760 this because like, the stronger we are the better we 3:39:22.800 --> 3:39:24.959 can confront this. And the only way to confront this 3:39:25.080 --> 3:39:26.800 is we all need to do it together. And like, 3:39:28.320 --> 3:39:31.160 these are conversations that we need to be having right now, 3:39:31.280 --> 3:39:33.960 Like we do not have time, and our unions are 3:39:34.000 --> 3:39:36.160 a very valuable tool for preserving our rights. 3:39:36.440 --> 3:39:37.920 Yeah, that's actually part of I was going to say. 3:39:38.280 --> 3:39:42.360 I've talked to a few union teachers who are like, yeah, 3:39:42.400 --> 3:39:44.160 we're gonna we're gonna go do this, We're going to 3:39:44.240 --> 3:39:47.480 go fight. So I expect in the next couple of 3:39:47.480 --> 3:39:49.680 weeks we're going to see more movement from the teachers' unions. 3:39:50.360 --> 3:39:53.080 And I think there's you know, there's an under I 3:39:53.120 --> 3:39:54.760 mean there's On the one hand, there is the threat 3:39:54.800 --> 3:39:57.520 that you know, these people do want to privatize the 3:39:57.600 --> 3:40:01.040 education system, right, so there is a chance that this 3:40:01.120 --> 3:40:03.160 is you know, trying to draw a backlash out of 3:40:03.160 --> 3:40:05.040 this is something that they're going to try to use 3:40:05.160 --> 3:40:09.199 to just completely eliminate like national federal education. But also, 3:40:09.520 --> 3:40:11.560 you know, this is something we've I want want to 3:40:11.560 --> 3:40:13.280 close this episode on that we've been talking about this 3:40:13.320 --> 3:40:16.880 whole time, right, is that this this whole coup is 3:40:16.920 --> 3:40:20.560 being carried out by a bunch of people with laptops 3:40:20.600 --> 3:40:22.640 and pieces of paper walking up the bureaucrats, and the 3:40:22.680 --> 3:40:25.760 bureaucrats doing what they're being told. Right, this is this 3:40:25.800 --> 3:40:28.400 is not a coup that's working with like an army 3:40:28.400 --> 3:40:32.000 that is showing up on your street. And you can go, 3:40:32.440 --> 3:40:35.040 like find the local bureaucrats who are the people who 3:40:35.040 --> 3:40:36.920 are supposed to enforce this stuff, and you can protest 3:40:36.959 --> 3:40:38.760 them and you can put some steel in their spine 3:40:38.800 --> 3:40:41.400 and make them make the administration actually try to do this. 3:40:41.840 --> 3:40:43.800 It's not that hard and they'll fucking cave. 3:40:44.360 --> 3:40:44.560 Yes. 3:40:44.760 --> 3:40:47.440 Yeah, yes, that's that's entirely what I was trying to 3:40:47.480 --> 3:40:50.320 get at earlier, and and you know, it ties into 3:40:50.320 --> 3:40:52.600 what James was saying, is like, this is the time 3:40:52.640 --> 3:40:56.640 to be making connections across as white a swath of 3:40:56.720 --> 3:40:59.680 the country as you can, including like everyone you can 3:40:59.720 --> 3:41:03.600 get in touch with who is not someone you would 3:41:03.640 --> 3:41:06.560 normally organize with, Like this is a moment of potential, 3:41:06.680 --> 3:41:10.280 and it's during moments of potential that you should be 3:41:11.040 --> 3:41:14.680 widening the swath of people that you connect to, because 3:41:14.720 --> 3:41:17.600 otherwise there's just no getting through this sort of shit. 3:41:18.360 --> 3:41:20.800 Yeah, we will be covering all these topics more in 3:41:20.840 --> 3:41:23.800 depth in our regular like daily episodes. I have a 3:41:24.000 --> 3:41:28.680 mind boggling, very frustrating episode on musk and the Trump 3:41:28.760 --> 3:41:32.840 campaign's promises of abolishing different departments of government, as well 3:41:32.840 --> 3:41:35.320 as a deep dive on like affirmative action and DEI 3:41:35.480 --> 3:41:38.280 wokeness in the coming weeks, and I'm sure we will 3:41:38.280 --> 3:41:40.520 all be focusing on different parts of this in our 3:41:40.520 --> 3:41:43.000 continuing episodes. But that does it for us today. See 3:41:43.040 --> 3:41:45.280 you on the other side. 3:41:46.040 --> 3:41:47.080 We reported the news. 3:41:49.959 --> 3:41:53.160 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:41:53.200 --> 3:41:54.640 from now until the heat death. 3:41:54.440 --> 3:41:55.080 Of the universe. 3:41:55.640 --> 3:41:58.160 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:41:58.320 --> 3:42:01.400 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:42:01.440 --> 3:42:05.040 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:42:05.120 --> 3:42:08.640 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:42:08.720 --> 3:42:11.040 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 3:42:11.080 --> 3:42:13.360 in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.