WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 256 0:00:03.370 --> 0:00:04.010 Hey, everybody. 0:00:04.230 --> 0:00:06.120 Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know 0:00:06.380 --> 0:00:09.879 this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.700 week that just happened is here in one convenient and 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.020 with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.340 in a long stretch if you want. If you've been 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.390 listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going 0:00:21.410 --> 0:00:23.430 to be nothing new here for you, but you can 0:00:23.470 --> 0:00:24.410 make your own decisions. 0:00:28.790 --> 0:00:31.010 Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My 0:00:31.050 --> 0:00:33.430 name is Dadal Kurd, and I'm a researcher and analyst 0:00:33.490 --> 0:00:36.720 of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today, I wanted to talk 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.680 about the Israeli elections that are coming up. International Crisis 0:00:40.700 --> 0:00:42.800 Group published a Q & A on the topic, which 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:44.780 I found useful, and we'll link in the show notes. 0:00:45.420 --> 0:00:46.040 At the top of that. 0:00:45.979 --> 0:00:48.220 Q & A, there's a photo of a Palestinian farmer 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.560 in Rantis, a village outside of Raballah, walking past his 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.090 olive groves. And hanging over him are two giant campaign banners. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.779 One is Benjamin Netanyahu, and the other is for Gaddy Eisenkant, 0:01:01.940 --> 0:01:05.610 the former army chief who wants Netanyahu's job. That Palestinian 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.230 farmer can't vote for either of them. He can't vote 0:01:08.250 --> 0:01:11.610 in this election at all. But whoever wins will help 0:01:11.650 --> 0:01:15.429 decide whether settlers come for his olive groves this harvest, 0:01:16.050 --> 0:01:19.160 whether the army stands there and watches, and whether there's 0:01:19.180 --> 0:01:22.100 a road outside of his village next year. That's the 0:01:22.140 --> 0:01:25.570 Israeli election in one picture. It's coming up on October 27th, 0:01:25.830 --> 0:01:29.709 and for Palestinians, the options range from bad to catastrophic. 0:01:30.730 --> 0:01:34.410 Now let me explain why without burying the lead. Every 0:01:34.490 --> 0:01:39.740 serious contender in the Israeli election supports the occupation, and 0:01:39.819 --> 0:01:43.380 nobody is promising to end the war on Gaza. Jewish 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.360 Currents also published an explainer on the Israeli elections that 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.880 I'll link in the show notes. And the news editor 0:01:48.940 --> 0:01:51.400 at Jewish Currents writes in that piece that he almost 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.440 ran the election guide under the headline, the vote doesn't matter. 0:01:55.250 --> 0:01:57.510 But he says when he talked to Palestinians, he changed 0:01:57.530 --> 0:02:02.710 his mind. Although the Israeli political landscape is abysmal, Palestinians 0:02:02.730 --> 0:02:05.830 will suffer different impacts based on who wins. And so 0:02:06.150 --> 0:02:09.389 obviously they're watching this closely. It comes down to two names. 0:02:10.590 --> 0:02:15.670 Itzman Ben-Kavir and Bezabit Asmotrich. Ben-Kavir runs the national security 0:02:15.710 --> 0:02:18.540 right now, which means the police and the prisons. and 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.620 he's responsible for a lot of the abuses that have happened. 0:02:21.820 --> 0:02:23.960 And Bezalel Smotrich, which is the head of the religious 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.360 Zionist party, he's the finance minister, and he has enormous 0:02:27.380 --> 0:02:31.250 sway over the West Bank. Netanyahu losing doesn't end the occupation, 0:02:32.310 --> 0:02:35.490 but it almost certainly takes those two out of their ministries. 0:02:36.870 --> 0:02:39.590 If you're a political prisoner or a farmer in some 0:02:39.610 --> 0:02:42.090 of the rural areas in the West Bank, that isn't abstract. 0:02:42.980 --> 0:02:47.010 An organizer in Jaffa, Abdel Meshada, told Jewish Currents, that 0:02:47.210 --> 0:02:50.310 nobody is talking about change anymore. People are just asking, 0:02:50.470 --> 0:02:53.530 how do we just survive this point in history? That's 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.180 very bleak, and it's also realistic. Crisis Group frames this 0:02:58.300 --> 0:03:02.000 as a contest between different right-wing ways of running a 0:03:02.020 --> 0:03:04.919 country that already controls everything from the river to the sea. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.860 The occupation isn't on the ballot, but I think its 0:03:08.900 --> 0:03:12.060 intensity is. The next government that will take over in 0:03:12.100 --> 0:03:14.620 Israel starts from a very different baseline than four years ago. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.060 Israel has taken more land Gaza and the West Bank 0:03:18.090 --> 0:03:21.400 have been squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Cities and 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.880 refugee camps have been razed. And at least 74,000 Palestinians 0:03:25.900 --> 0:03:28.160 have been killed in Gaza by crisis groups count, but 0:03:28.900 --> 0:03:31.919 we know that this is an undercount. The settler movement 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.020 will stay active no matter who wins. So the question 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.530 isn't whether things get better, but the question is how 0:03:37.570 --> 0:03:41.110 much worse and how fast. Now, let me explain some 0:03:41.130 --> 0:03:44.490 basics for those of us who don't follow Israeli politics closely. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.570 The Knesset, the Israeli legislature, has 120 seats, and you 0:03:49.590 --> 0:03:54.630 need 61 to govern. A party basically needs 3.25% of 0:03:54.650 --> 0:03:56.430 the vote to get into the Knesset, which is about 0:03:56.470 --> 0:03:59.250 four seats. Fall short of that, and your votes are 0:03:59.380 --> 0:04:03.320 essentially burned. They simply vanish. And about a dozen political 0:04:03.340 --> 0:04:06.120 lists are expected to clear that bar. And there are 0:04:06.500 --> 0:04:12.470 basically two teams, or two-ish. Team one is Netanyahu's bloc, Likud, 0:04:13.510 --> 0:04:18.349 and Ben-Kavir's party. which is openly Qohonist, and Smotrich's religious 0:04:18.370 --> 0:04:20.290 side of the party, running this time with another one. 0:04:21.070 --> 0:04:24.250 Moshe Feiglin has said on camera, the head of the HUT, 0:04:24.970 --> 0:04:27.980 that he wants Gaza emptied of Palestinians. And that's who 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.260 the religious side of the party is running with. And 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.380 then the two Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism. 0:04:34.260 --> 0:04:37.980 So that's the coalition that has governed since December 2022, 0:04:37.980 --> 0:04:40.640 one that Crisis Group says is widely seen as the 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.130 most extreme in Israel's history. Their shared agenda, as the 0:04:44.170 --> 0:04:46.409 past few years have made clear, I think, is to 0:04:46.490 --> 0:04:49.950 expand settlements, push towards formal annexation of the West Bank, 0:04:50.390 --> 0:04:52.969 stay in southern Lebanon, and push the Palestinians entirely out 0:04:52.990 --> 0:04:58.090 of Gaza. Likud's slogan this year translates to the right 0:04:58.450 --> 0:05:02.190 or Palestine. Basically that either you're voting for the right 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.700 wing or you're voting for Palestinians. The message is that 0:05:05.779 --> 0:05:09.300 any other government would hand Palestinians a state. This brings 0:05:09.380 --> 0:05:12.360 us to team two. And maybe you'll see why this 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.460 slogan is funny. The second team, so to speak, the opposition, 0:05:16.860 --> 0:05:19.279 is led by Gadi Eizenkot and his new party, Yashar. 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.920 Eizenkot is a former army chief. In 2006, he formulated 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.300 the Lahya Doctrine, basically the idea that Israel wins by 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.740 using overwhelming force against civilian infrastructure. After October 7th, he 0:05:31.779 --> 0:05:34.450 sat as an observer in the war cabinet. And he 0:05:34.490 --> 0:05:37.370 lost a son in Gaza, which earned him real public sympathy. 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.490 On Palestine, Eisencott has called the two-state solution delusional. And 0:05:42.529 --> 0:05:45.029 he says he very much believes in settling the West Bank. 0:05:45.690 --> 0:05:48.830 But he has criticized settler violence and the E1 project, 0:05:49.350 --> 0:05:52.849 and says he'd clear outposts that are illegal under Israeli law. Now, 0:05:52.870 --> 0:05:55.450 to be clear, under international law, all of them are illegal. 0:05:55.850 --> 0:06:00.200 But they like to split hairs, these Israeli politicians. Alongside 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.960 him is Naftali Bennett. He's a former prime minister and 0:06:03.980 --> 0:06:06.940 former head of the Yerushalayim Settler Council. He's running on 0:06:06.980 --> 0:06:11.280 a slate with Yair Lapid. And Bennett openly supports annexing 0:06:11.500 --> 0:06:14.419 Area C of the West Bank. Then there's Abidur Lieberman, 0:06:15.140 --> 0:06:18.039 who's far right, but he's personally done with Netanyahu and 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:22.359 has floated the idea of handing Palestinians in a shrunken 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.630 territory over to Jordan. So again, not give them their 0:06:25.670 --> 0:06:29.029 own state, just hand them over to someone else. The Jordanians, 0:06:29.070 --> 0:06:31.870 I'm sure, have not been consulted on this. And then 0:06:31.910 --> 0:06:36.250 there's the quote-unquote central left, the Democrats, the Labour-Moritz merger 0:06:36.990 --> 0:06:40.130 led by Yair Golan. They're the only Jewish party that 0:06:40.230 --> 0:06:43.610 even nominally backs two states. But it's two states with 0:06:43.870 --> 0:06:47.310 long-term Israeli security control over all of it. And they're 0:06:47.330 --> 0:06:49.969 not talking about now or in the medium-term future. They're 0:06:49.990 --> 0:06:52.970 basically saying maybe a Palestinian state someday policed by the 0:06:53.010 --> 0:06:56.250 Israeli army. Now look at what the opposition actually attacks 0:06:56.290 --> 0:06:59.950 Netanyahu on. They're attacking him on October 7th. And who's 0:06:59.970 --> 0:07:02.409 to blame? They're attacking him on the cost of living 0:07:03.330 --> 0:07:07.320 and the draft exemptions for Haredi Israeli citizens. When they 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.420 criticize his wars, it's not because he's overseen war crimes 0:07:10.460 --> 0:07:14.440 or genocide, but because he's too soft. Lapid said, for example, 0:07:14.500 --> 0:07:17.210 that Israel should have bombed Iran's oil and gas facilities. 0:07:18.170 --> 0:07:20.350 And Bennett wants Qatar listed as an enemy state. 0:07:21.250 --> 0:07:22.730 Here's how I would put it. 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.160 The Palestinian question isn't contested in this election because it's 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.860 been settled within Jewish-Israeli public opinion. There's near consensus on 0:07:31.900 --> 0:07:35.320 keeping security control over the Palestinians. The actual debate is 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.600 about the style of control. Do we want something managed, quiet, 0:07:38.660 --> 0:07:42.820 out of sight, or do we want something extreme and turbocharged? Now, 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.620 at this point, you might be asking, well, isn't 20% 0:07:45.620 --> 0:07:48.970 of the country Palestinian? These are Palestinian citizens of Israel. 0:07:49.910 --> 0:07:50.450 Where do they fit? 0:07:51.270 --> 0:07:55.060 Sami Abushada, who heads Balad, the Palestinian Nationalist Party, is 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.680 running with two other parties on the joint list. But 0:07:59.060 --> 0:08:02.220 Sami Abushada himself is not on the ballot anymore. And 0:08:02.260 --> 0:08:05.080 I think what happened to him reflects the condition of 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.080 the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Right after October 7th, he 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.300 wrote an article analyzing what had just happened, calling the 0:08:11.340 --> 0:08:16.100 attack a significant historical event. And Ben-Gavir's camp then moved 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.670 to disqualify him. under a basic law amendment that bars 0:08:19.690 --> 0:08:23.070 candidates who support armed struggle, incite racism, or reject Israel 0:08:23.130 --> 0:08:26.690 as a Jewish and democratic state. Now, Abushadza denied supporting 0:08:26.740 --> 0:08:29.440 armed struggle. He said he was analyzing the events and 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.100 explaining their significance. He's a lawyer who works on human 0:08:33.140 --> 0:08:35.840 rights and has decades of experience attempting to work within 0:08:35.860 --> 0:08:38.480 the system in Israel to represent Palestinian citizens of the state. 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:40.720 I'll link in the show notes an interview he did 0:08:40.740 --> 0:08:43.720 with Peter Beinart for the podcast Occupied Thoughts. You can 0:08:43.780 --> 0:08:46.119 hear the outrage in his voice over the accusations he 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.679 was faced with, And by Ben Kavir, no less. Someone 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.490 with a criminal record with multiple convictions for offenses including 0:08:53.530 --> 0:08:58.090 incitement to terrorism and racism and supporting a terrorist organization. Well, 0:08:58.410 --> 0:09:01.990 as you might expect, the Attorney General backed the ban anyway. 0:09:02.590 --> 0:09:05.000 And here's where it gets really bad. This wasn't just 0:09:05.150 --> 0:09:08.000 the far right instigating a campaign against one of the 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.200 few Arab-Palestinian politicians and getting away with it. This was 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.260 a situation where the whole Zionist spectrum got behind the ban, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:16.929 including the Yair Golan of the Democrats. 0:09:17.330 --> 0:09:18.390 So the supposed left. 0:09:19.250 --> 0:09:21.530 And of course, here's where the Israeli left and right agree, 0:09:22.070 --> 0:09:25.210 oppressing Palestinians. And I want to note here, apparently there 0:09:25.270 --> 0:09:27.429 is a law in Israel that bars incitement to racism, 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:32.120 but apply that law evenly and half or maybe more 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.240 of the current governing coalition would be in trouble. But 0:09:36.260 --> 0:09:38.179 of course, the difference between them and Abu Shahada is 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.980 that he's Palestinian. And I'm not even saying he did 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.680 incite to racism. I'm just saying this is their accusation 0:09:43.700 --> 0:09:46.890 of him. Now, the Supreme Court was clearly going to 0:09:46.929 --> 0:09:50.540 uphold the ban. Sami Abushada mentions how the judges felt 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.300 threatened themselves. And then they also threatened him with more 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.410 severe legal action if he tried to oppose this. So 0:09:57.450 --> 0:10:00.329 earlier this month, he withdrew and he was... trying to 0:10:00.410 --> 0:10:02.449 avoid a precedent that would make it easier to knock 0:10:02.510 --> 0:10:05.580 out Palestinian candidates later. The far right has tried this 0:10:05.620 --> 0:10:08.620 for decades, and this is one of the times it's worked. 0:10:09.700 --> 0:10:12.099 Orly Noy, a candidate for the joint list and a 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.040 Balad member, told Jewish Currents that many supporters wanted him 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.680 to stay in and basically make the court own this decision. 0:10:20.330 --> 0:10:23.370 Abed Abushada, the Palestinian organizer for Miafa that I mentioned earlier, 0:10:23.429 --> 0:10:26.730 he's Sami's relative. He described people waking up sad and 0:10:26.770 --> 0:10:30.010 humiliated on top of frightened. I moderated a panel with 0:10:30.050 --> 0:10:33.290 Abed for Jewish Currents Live recently where he reiterated the sentiment, 0:10:33.370 --> 0:10:37.050 how heartbroken he was over Sami's decision. And this has 0:10:37.130 --> 0:10:40.880 ignited the debate again among Palestinians about whether there's any 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.480 point in participating in the Israeli system if you're a citizen. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:45.980 Because if you stay in, you lend legitimacy to a 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.860 rigged game. Or you exit and you lose the one 0:10:48.900 --> 0:10:52.220 lever you might have. Palestinian citizens are being asked to 0:10:52.260 --> 0:10:55.400 keep voting in a system that basically doesn't want them 0:10:55.450 --> 0:10:57.770 and showed them where the line is. Now, there's a 0:10:57.790 --> 0:11:01.730 parallel attempt to disqualify the entire joint list, the number 0:11:01.750 --> 0:11:04.630 of Arab parties and Rom, which is an Islamist party, 0:11:05.170 --> 0:11:08.050 as whole parties. And that attempt failed. So they're still 0:11:08.070 --> 0:11:11.860 on the ballot. But after election day, they'll be negotiating 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.060 with the same parties that helped push their leader out. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:20.360 So which of the Jewish-Israeli teams in this election will win? 0:11:20.940 --> 0:11:36.650 the upcoming election. Probably nobody at first. Rough numbers from 0:11:36.690 --> 0:11:39.190 the latest polling show that Netanyahu's bloc will likely get 0:11:39.230 --> 0:11:42.850 around 50 seats. And then the opposition will also likely 0:11:42.870 --> 0:11:45.650 get around 50 seats. Then the joint list, the Arab 0:11:45.670 --> 0:11:49.470 parties and Ram, the Islamist party together, will get around 14. 0:11:49.470 --> 0:11:53.110 And then there's a new right-wing anti-Haredi slate, the Reservists. 0:11:53.809 --> 0:11:56.880 They might get maybe four, and they're leaning towards Eisenkot. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.620 So let's do the math. Nobody gets to 61 without 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.760 the Palestinian parties. Crisis Group puts the odds of either 0:12:04.780 --> 0:12:08.520 bloc winning an outright majority well under 10%. On paper, 0:12:08.700 --> 0:12:12.160 that would make the Palestinian parties extremely important. They're kingmakers 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.660 in this election. But in practice, Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman, all 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.270 of them have said they won't govern with them. Jewish 0:12:19.309 --> 0:12:21.910 Currents compares it to the riddle of the wolf, the goat, 0:12:21.950 --> 0:12:24.090 and the cabbage. If you bring in the Haredim, you 0:12:24.130 --> 0:12:27.150 lose Lieberman. You bring in the Islamist party, you lose Yashar. 0:12:27.250 --> 0:12:30.089 Every boat sinks. So here are the four scenarios that 0:12:30.150 --> 0:12:33.380 Crisis Group lays out might happen. Number one is a 0:12:33.420 --> 0:12:37.060 hung parliament. Nobody forms a government. Israel votes again early 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.380 next year. Netanyahu stays on with Ben-Kavir and Smotrich still 0:12:41.420 --> 0:12:43.840 in their ministries until that next election. He doesn't have 0:12:43.860 --> 0:12:45.640 to win. He just has to make sure nobody else does. 0:12:46.570 --> 0:12:50.410 Number two, Eisenhower forms a minority government with Palestinian parties 0:12:50.450 --> 0:12:53.550 backing it from the outside. Now, there's precedent for this. 0:12:54.030 --> 0:12:56.839 Arab parties in the past have, for example, propped up 0:12:56.860 --> 0:13:00.119 Yitzhak Rabin from outside his coalition in the early 90s. 0:13:00.980 --> 0:13:03.580 Under Israeli law, a government just needs more yes votes 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.620 than no votes. So, Ram, the Islamist party, wants in. 0:13:08.500 --> 0:13:10.309 They want to be included. The head of that party, 0:13:10.350 --> 0:13:13.670 Mansour Abbas's attitude is basically, we're here to govern. Furthermore, 0:13:13.710 --> 0:13:16.350 the joint list leader, Yusuf Jabarin, has offered to be 0:13:16.390 --> 0:13:21.329 a safety net for any anti-Netanyahu government. The catch is Lieberman. 0:13:21.850 --> 0:13:24.210 He says he won't sit in a minority government, and 0:13:24.250 --> 0:13:26.610 he won't be on the side of any Arab party. 0:13:27.690 --> 0:13:30.189 If you take him out, then Jewish Currents Math puts 0:13:30.230 --> 0:13:34.930 that coalition at around 49, outvoted by Netanyahu's bloc. So 0:13:35.100 --> 0:13:38.520 this only happens if Eisenkant decides losing is worse than 0:13:38.540 --> 0:13:43.429 breaking his promise. Then the third scenario is defections. In 0:13:43.470 --> 0:13:45.850 this scenario, one of the parties or a few lawmakers 0:13:45.890 --> 0:13:48.790 switch sides. Now, Yashar's list, for example, is full of 0:13:48.830 --> 0:13:53.750 political newcomers, makes them targets. And another party, Shah's, has 0:13:53.790 --> 0:13:56.780 hinted it could back Isingard because they're angry that Netanyahu 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.440 never delivered their draft exemption. Or maybe there's a unity 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.500 government with Likud minus the Kahanists, which Netanyahu has floated. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.859 A number of different ways that that could happen. And finally, 0:14:06.900 --> 0:14:10.050 the fourth scenario is that someone wins outright. This is 0:14:10.130 --> 0:14:13.850 possible if several small parties fall under the threshold and 0:14:13.870 --> 0:14:16.550 burn their votes. But it would mean months of polling 0:14:16.890 --> 0:14:20.850 were wrong, so we're not sure how likely this is. Now, 0:14:20.990 --> 0:14:23.890 after the vote, Israeli President Herzog picks someone to try, 0:14:24.690 --> 0:14:26.970 and they get 28 days plus up to two weeks 0:14:27.030 --> 0:14:29.729 more to try to form a government. And if that fails, 0:14:29.850 --> 0:14:32.710 two more people get a shot than new elections. And 0:14:32.730 --> 0:14:36.109 there's one more wild card. Axios reported that Netanyahu and 0:14:36.130 --> 0:14:39.750 Trump discussed restarting the war with Iran before both countries vote. 0:14:40.210 --> 0:14:40.550 The U.S. 0:14:40.570 --> 0:14:43.190 Defense Secretary was in Israel this week to talk about Iran. 0:14:43.750 --> 0:14:46.550 And Crisis Group notes some Israelis worry a strike could 0:14:46.570 --> 0:14:49.250 be used to delay the election. So if something big 0:14:49.290 --> 0:14:52.090 happens before the election, all of this is basically up 0:14:52.130 --> 0:14:55.729 in the air. Now, what does this mean for Palestinians? Obviously, 0:14:55.750 --> 0:14:58.810 for me, the top concern. Let's go place by place, 0:14:58.850 --> 0:15:02.010 because Palestinians here means people living under very different rules. 0:15:03.220 --> 0:15:06.180 So first, Palestinian citizens of Israel. They're about a fifth 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.310 of the population. And their most urgent issue is surviving 0:15:10.750 --> 0:15:14.190 an increasingly repressive and racist society and government. And also 0:15:14.230 --> 0:15:16.430 dealing with a record wave of organized crime and gun 0:15:16.450 --> 0:15:20.370 violence in Arab towns that they feel is being allowed 0:15:20.390 --> 0:15:23.390 to happen under Ben-Gavir's watch over the police. And behind 0:15:23.430 --> 0:15:27.010 that is a deeper fear. Orly Noy, again, Bennett member, 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.000 told Jewish Currents that Palestinian citizens increasingly feel they're next 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.850 in line, that forced expulsion could come for them too. 0:15:34.970 --> 0:15:37.550 Crisis Group says Netanyahu's opponents worry he may try to 0:15:37.630 --> 0:15:41.750 discourage or intimidate Arab voters, as in past campaigns. And 0:15:42.050 --> 0:15:44.530 turnout in Arab towns is quite variable in this race. 0:15:44.790 --> 0:15:49.200 If it's high, then the anti-Netanyahu math gets easier. And 0:15:49.380 --> 0:15:51.180 obviously it makes sense why he would want to depress 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.340 their vote. Now, for Palestinians in the West Bank, the 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.720 situation is different. Remember that settler violence is the one 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:02.780 occupation issue Israel's actually arguing about a little bit. Even 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.460 Netanyahu has, you know, pretended to condemn what he calls 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:07.880 fringe groups while making every excuse for them, of course. 0:16:08.580 --> 0:16:10.890 But Crisis Group points out that the worry is mostly 0:16:10.930 --> 0:16:15.070 about the strain on the army and Israel's image globally. 0:16:15.530 --> 0:16:18.310 No one in Israeli politics actually cares about the Palestinians 0:16:18.330 --> 0:16:21.390 being attacked by settlers. And little has been done to 0:16:21.430 --> 0:16:24.250 stop it. I argued in an op-ed beginning of this 0:16:24.310 --> 0:16:27.140 month for Prospect Magazine that The settlers in the state 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.660 are symbiotic. They work together to achieve objectives using tactics 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.430 the other side can't use. So the state can continue 0:16:33.470 --> 0:16:36.470 pretending these are fringe groups while achieving their goal of 0:16:36.510 --> 0:16:41.390 ethnic cleansing. For Israeli politics, the issues of economic strangulation, 0:16:41.490 --> 0:16:45.050 home demolitions, land expropriation, they barely come up outside the 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:50.720 Arab parties. So an Eisenhower government might rein in vigilantes 0:16:50.980 --> 0:16:54.040 and evict some of the smaller outposts. And of course, 0:16:54.100 --> 0:16:56.300 that might mean the difference for a Palestinian villager who 0:16:56.380 --> 0:17:01.940 faces expulsion. The joint-list baseline ask is basically that you 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.760 need to stop the daily terror. But actually annexing Area 0:17:06.820 --> 0:17:10.660 C and doing something about permanent security control and doing 0:17:10.700 --> 0:17:13.480 something about the fact that Palestinians have no state, that's 0:17:13.540 --> 0:17:18.260 not on the table. This has brought support across both blocks. Now, 0:17:18.460 --> 0:17:22.470 let's turn to what the election means for Palestinians in Gaza. Here, 0:17:22.510 --> 0:17:25.179 the blocs mostly argue about who should govern Gaza and 0:17:25.220 --> 0:17:28.340 whether to prop up the Palestinian Authority. The Crisis Group 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:32.340 report calls these peripheral disagreements. The far right still talks 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:37.010 about expelling Gaza's population and rebuilding settlements there. The opposition 0:17:37.050 --> 0:17:39.630 doesn't say that, but it also doesn't say anything else. 0:17:40.590 --> 0:17:44.330 Then there's international pressure. In September, the UK led a 0:17:44.350 --> 0:17:47.889 ban on trade with settlements. And crisis groups read is 0:17:47.930 --> 0:17:50.889 that it won't really shift Israeli views much in the 0:17:50.910 --> 0:17:55.190 short run, because Israelis tend to dismiss outside criticism. But 0:17:55.369 --> 0:17:58.810 they're also not oblivious to isolation. And maybe that'll matter 0:17:58.830 --> 0:18:02.750 a little bit after Election Day, whoever wins. Okay, one 0:18:02.790 --> 0:18:07.530 last statistic. An Israel Democracy Institute poll in September found 0:18:07.570 --> 0:18:10.510 that 51% of Jewish citizens are optimistic about the future 0:18:10.530 --> 0:18:13.890 of democracy in Israel. But among Palestinian citizens, that number 0:18:13.930 --> 0:18:17.369 falls to 20%. So it's pretty obvious to everyone that 0:18:17.390 --> 0:18:19.740 the system is working as designed for one group of voters. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.680 Which brings us back to the photo I mentioned at 0:18:22.700 --> 0:18:25.420 the beginning of this episode, the farmer in Runtis walking 0:18:25.460 --> 0:18:28.859 under the banner of two candidates who both agree he 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.280 doesn't get a state, but they just disagree about how 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.310 hard to squeeze him in the meantime. That disagreement is small, 0:18:35.670 --> 0:18:38.770 but it's also the difference between the next harvest and 0:18:38.790 --> 0:18:41.330 a burned olive grove, between a prisoner who gets visits 0:18:41.530 --> 0:18:45.199 and a prisoner who doesn't. So, yes, let's watch the 0:18:45.220 --> 0:18:48.720 Israeli elections, but we can't confuse a change of management 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.600 with a change of the system. That is really not 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.500 on the table. And if Eisenkot really would rather hand 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.440 the country back to Netanyahu than lean on Palestinian votes, 0:18:58.340 --> 0:19:01.540 you know, the audacity of actually including some of your citizens, 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.270 we'll learn exactly what Jewish and democratic means in practice. 0:19:07.490 --> 0:19:09.750 Thanks for listening, everyone. Take care and stay safe. 0:19:22.750 --> 0:19:26.669 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast sometimes about elections, 0:19:27.150 --> 0:19:29.869 but a different kind of election. Hell yeah, we're talking 0:19:30.270 --> 0:19:38.050 union elections, talking loosely reform caucus-y stuff, kind of, not really, 0:19:38.109 --> 0:19:41.129 but sort of. Yeah, I don't know. Welcome to a 0:19:41.250 --> 0:19:44.990 different kind of 2026 election episode. I am your host, 0:19:45.050 --> 0:19:48.690 Mia Wong. And today I'm going to be talking about 0:19:49.250 --> 0:19:52.510 some other kind of union election. That's just to say 0:19:52.609 --> 0:19:56.620 union election in the IWW. And yeah, here with me 0:19:56.650 --> 0:20:02.440 to talk about that is Pam Sweetland-Hallis, who's an IWW 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:03.699 member in DC. 0:20:04.380 --> 0:20:05.179 Also, Andrew D. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.970 Ferguson, who's an at-large member from Houston. And Elizabeth Coppice-Duclos, 0:20:10.150 --> 0:20:13.590 an IWW member and is the Associate Treasurer of the 0:20:13.630 --> 0:20:16.109 Portland Branch. Yeah, you three, welcome to the show. 0:20:16.550 --> 0:20:16.889 Thank you. 0:20:16.910 --> 0:20:17.490 Thank you. 0:20:18.050 --> 0:20:18.570 Thank you very much. 0:20:19.470 --> 0:20:24.430 So let's start, I guess, by doing the thing we've 0:20:24.450 --> 0:20:25.990 done a few times on this show, but I think 0:20:26.050 --> 0:20:31.530 is worth at least getting into briefly here, which is, 0:20:31.550 --> 0:20:34.490 can you talk a bit about what the IWW is? 0:20:34.869 --> 0:20:37.250 And I guess for these purposes, like what it's up 0:20:37.290 --> 0:20:37.870 to these days? 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.480 Yeah, so the IWW is an all industries industrial union, 0:20:43.540 --> 0:20:47.970 which means that we're organized based on what the people working, 0:20:48.010 --> 0:20:51.830 what the union members make, what industry they're in, rather 0:20:51.850 --> 0:20:55.470 than exactly what specific job they are. So if, you know, 0:20:55.990 --> 0:20:59.390 you're an accountant. for a school, then you are part 0:20:59.470 --> 0:21:03.050 of the educational workers. Um, uh, and if you're an 0:21:03.070 --> 0:21:08.460 accountant for a car manufacturer, your industry is, is manufacturing 0:21:08.940 --> 0:21:11.520 because it's based on, you know, who employs you and 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.000 not what specific job you do. 0:21:13.900 --> 0:21:14.040 Yeah. 0:21:14.060 --> 0:21:17.300 It's just not like divided into different like trades or whatever. 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.270 It's like, no, no, no. One, one union, one big one. 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:21.430 Yes. Yes. 0:21:22.070 --> 0:21:23.969 Uh, the dream of the IWW is to have all 0:21:24.030 --> 0:21:28.010 workers in one big union organized and as best we 0:21:28.050 --> 0:21:31.850 can so as to maximize worker power so that we 0:21:31.890 --> 0:21:38.189 can end the wage system and the need for people 0:21:38.290 --> 0:21:42.730 to be exploited by a capitalist class by having their 0:21:43.510 --> 0:21:46.710 labor stolen from in the form of profits. 0:21:47.390 --> 0:21:47.570 Yeah. 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:52.000 Something that we emphasize a lot is like workers' democracy 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:57.149 or like workplace democracy. So one thing that like the 0:21:57.190 --> 0:22:01.310 IWW does when organizing, you know, like building up to 0:22:01.330 --> 0:22:03.520 the industrial, because it's not like you get everyone all 0:22:03.540 --> 0:22:07.140 at once. You might do office by office or shop 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:14.140 by shop, but we don't. defer decisions to an outside representative, 0:22:14.300 --> 0:22:17.320 people tend to be able to vote on things themselves 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.139 when it comes to them and like what they want 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:20.270 to do and how they want to do it. 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.240 Aside from four national paid employees that just take care 0:22:24.300 --> 0:22:30.000 of mostly paperwork style stuff, we are an entirely volunteer-based organization. 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.119 People engage in this, you know, not as their job, 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.880 but as in a way of helping their fellow workers, 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:39.680 sort of in a mutualistic, mutual aid sense. 0:22:40.900 --> 0:22:43.780 And all power within the union is held by members 0:22:43.980 --> 0:22:47.149 who are elected by other members in elections like the 0:22:47.250 --> 0:22:48.169 one that we're running in. 0:22:48.650 --> 0:22:48.990 Yeah. 0:22:50.010 --> 0:22:50.390 Yeah. 0:22:50.510 --> 0:22:53.690 And that's, I think, like a very unique aspect of 0:22:53.710 --> 0:22:58.820 the IWW in that it is the most democratic of 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:03.320 the unions, but both in terms of like, you know, 0:23:03.380 --> 0:23:06.659 I guess what you would call like shop floor autonomy, where, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.820 you know, like the actual like unions themselves get to, 0:23:10.869 --> 0:23:12.970 make decisions on how they're going to run their campaigns. 0:23:13.050 --> 0:23:18.070 But also, yeah, in terms of the direct election of officials, 0:23:18.130 --> 0:23:23.650 which is a like it's like genuinely staggering that there 0:23:23.690 --> 0:23:24.570 have been a lot. 0:23:24.430 --> 0:23:27.050 Of unions in the U.S. that, you know, the names of. 0:23:26.970 --> 0:23:29.850 Where you couldn't directly elect like the president of the 0:23:29.970 --> 0:23:31.850 union for a very long time. 0:23:32.250 --> 0:23:34.149 I mean, I don't think I have a vote in 0:23:34.190 --> 0:23:39.030 electing the president of the National Educators Association, even though 0:23:39.050 --> 0:23:39.770 I'm a member of that. 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:45.159 Yeah. Yeah. And that's like distressingly very common. 0:23:45.869 --> 0:23:49.970 Well, to be fair to our allies in the broader 0:23:50.030 --> 0:23:55.389 labor movement, a number of the larger unions, the UAW, 0:23:55.570 --> 0:24:01.040 the AFL-CIO, I believe they do actually elect their leadership 0:24:01.140 --> 0:24:04.140 from among the members now. So that's not as big 0:24:04.220 --> 0:24:05.480 of a difference as it used to be. 0:24:05.540 --> 0:24:05.960 It is good. 0:24:06.020 --> 0:24:06.540 Exactly. 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:12.410 But, you know, there is still even among those unions, 0:24:13.510 --> 0:24:16.250 even though they've made that change, they still often will 0:24:16.330 --> 0:24:19.840 come into a workplace where a group of workers have said, Hey, 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:21.700 we want to unionize. They will come in with a 0:24:21.700 --> 0:24:23.740 playbook and say, okay, this is step one. This is 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:25.980 step two. This is step three. And if you deviate 0:24:26.020 --> 0:24:28.790 from this, we're not going to help you anymore because 0:24:28.810 --> 0:24:31.230 you're not doing what we want you to do. The 0:24:31.290 --> 0:24:33.950 IWW is different because we believe that the people who 0:24:34.010 --> 0:24:36.590 are doing the work know the best about the work 0:24:37.070 --> 0:24:39.469 and know the best about what the workplace needs. So 0:24:39.490 --> 0:24:41.320 we let them lead and we just support them. 0:24:41.940 --> 0:24:42.320 Yeah. 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:46.340 And as a practical matter, because we are, you know, 0:24:46.380 --> 0:24:49.520 more accepting of the shop floor democracy, we often get 0:24:49.540 --> 0:24:52.360 a lot of union and unionization efforts that come from 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:58.629 places that are overlooked or rejected by the mainstream unions 0:24:59.130 --> 0:25:02.080 yeah recently of course as probably many of your listeners 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:04.220 have heard we you know organized an all trans union 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:06.020 which i'm incredibly proud of to have been a part 0:25:06.060 --> 0:25:09.240 of yeah the organization effort not the union. 0:25:09.900 --> 0:25:11.980 Yeah and like there's been a lot of service worker 0:25:12.060 --> 0:25:14.700 union organizing which also doesn't mean you get a bunch 0:25:14.740 --> 0:25:18.369 of trans people because guess guess who's doing service work 0:25:19.050 --> 0:25:21.670 if most unions won't organize. 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:23.490 Well, one of the things that I meant when I 0:25:23.550 --> 0:25:26.790 said that, like, you know, we get to represent ourselves 0:25:26.869 --> 0:25:29.369 like folks are talking about here is I don't know 0:25:29.390 --> 0:25:33.070 which major union it was, but I know some library 0:25:33.130 --> 0:25:38.040 workers locally who didn't get to see their contract. 0:25:37.490 --> 0:25:38.960 That like I'm using scare quotes here. 0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:42.710 They agreed to until after the city council had seen it, 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:46.320 like until after it had been fully negotiated. 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:47.120 You know, they they. 0:25:47.220 --> 0:25:47.460 Yeah. 0:25:48.040 --> 0:25:50.300 There's not a lot of participation in that sense. I 0:25:50.340 --> 0:25:54.109 think that's what's very different in the IWW compared to 0:25:54.150 --> 0:25:54.550 other people. 0:25:54.570 --> 0:25:54.649 Yeah. 0:25:56.830 --> 0:25:57.030 Yeah. 0:25:57.109 --> 0:25:59.750 And like, I mean, we've talked to NNU or National 0:25:59.770 --> 0:26:03.889 Nations United folks on here have talked about like their union, 0:26:03.930 --> 0:26:06.630 like cutting deals with bosses behind their backs like that. 0:26:07.740 --> 0:26:10.960 Like not a thing you can even do here. 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:12.160 Yeah. 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:13.359 Yeah. 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:18.120 Because when workers want to engage in negotiations with the boss, 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:20.639 which we don't require them to do, we have an 0:26:20.700 --> 0:26:26.000 organizing model that doesn't necessarily rely on formal structure or negotiations. 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:30.419 But when the workers do negotiate, it is the workers negotiating. 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:33.700 The union does not send people in from Chicago, where 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:37.760 we're based, to negotiate for them. So there is no 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:40.460 possibility that the workers at the workplace can get cut out. 0:26:40.780 --> 0:26:43.540 Yeah, and I think the other consequence of that structure 0:26:43.580 --> 0:26:46.359 and of that decision making is that it also means 0:26:46.460 --> 0:26:49.840 that sort of internal elections are very important, even though 0:26:50.180 --> 0:26:56.020 union elections are. We finally found a kind of election 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:59.520 that has lower turnout than like regular elections, which is 0:26:59.540 --> 0:27:06.480 sort of astonishing. But Jesus Christ, nobody votes in these. Which, yeah, 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:09.320 is especially a problem in larger unions where like you 0:27:09.340 --> 0:27:12.560 get these, you know, you get these like admin caucuses 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:14.760 that have been in power for like 40 years and 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:17.720 who suck and who just win on incumbency every single year. 0:27:17.740 --> 0:27:18.930 Yeah. 0:27:18.950 --> 0:27:19.770 And the situation's a. 0:27:19.950 --> 0:27:23.030 Little different in the AWW. Do you want to talk 0:27:23.070 --> 0:27:25.510 a bit about what the elections are like actually for 0:27:25.530 --> 0:27:26.429 and what people do? 0:27:26.850 --> 0:27:28.209 And yeah. 0:27:28.890 --> 0:27:29.220 Yeah. 0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:33.600 So, um, uh, right now there is the North American, uh, 0:27:34.060 --> 0:27:38.020 wide election for the North American regional administration. And so 0:27:38.040 --> 0:27:41.560 that's electing a handful of people for offices. Usually these 0:27:41.619 --> 0:27:46.659 aren't all very competitive races. Often these are races to 0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:51.600 fill committees like the education department or the IW editor. 0:27:51.619 --> 0:27:55.480 And it's a matter of more of wanting people to 0:27:55.540 --> 0:27:58.740 step up and volunteer to do that than a super 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:03.580 competitive race. But typically GST, the general secretary treasurer who 0:28:03.660 --> 0:28:08.310 is in charge of finances– not wholly in charge, but 0:28:08.369 --> 0:28:11.350 who has a lot of say over finances and the 0:28:11.790 --> 0:28:15.250 execution of the union's constitution, as well as the general 0:28:15.290 --> 0:28:18.199 executive board that's supposed to act as a check on 0:28:18.380 --> 0:28:22.580 the general secretary-treasurer and being a board of seven people. 0:28:22.640 --> 0:28:26.440 It's the sort of highest level executive for the IWW. 0:28:27.540 --> 0:28:30.889 In my eyes, these are people that are supposed to 0:28:30.910 --> 0:28:33.750 be acting in the background, largely, the education committees, the 0:28:33.770 --> 0:28:39.940 general secretary-treasurer that facilitate all of the branches and industrial 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:44.200 unions being able to execute their own local union democracy, 0:28:44.220 --> 0:28:46.960 you know, and there are some elections there for treasure 0:28:46.980 --> 0:28:50.640 and whatnot, but largely the democratic decisions are made at 0:28:50.770 --> 0:28:55.450 union meetings. And the secretary for Portland, for instance, like 0:28:55.770 --> 0:28:58.450 his main job is just onboarding and offboarding people. He's 0:28:58.510 --> 0:29:00.970 not in charge of the union at all. He just, 0:29:01.190 --> 0:29:03.910 you know, facilitates the, you know, kind of secretarial work. 0:29:04.370 --> 0:29:04.550 Yeah. 0:29:04.790 --> 0:29:07.700 Also on the ballot this year, like in addition to 0:29:07.740 --> 0:29:11.320 what you were talking about, Elizabeth, there's the Gender Equity Committee, 0:29:12.000 --> 0:29:14.640 which they do a lot of great things, but they also, 0:29:14.660 --> 0:29:18.080 you know, facilitate like mediations between conflicts and that kind 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:18.460 of thing. 0:29:19.160 --> 0:29:21.760 The IW editor, by the way, is the editor of 0:29:21.860 --> 0:29:25.320 Industrial Worker, which is our official publication. There are a 0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:28.920 number of committees, suffice it to say. that do really 0:29:28.980 --> 0:29:32.480 important administrative work to keep the union running and support 0:29:32.640 --> 0:29:37.330 our core mission of organizing workplaces to put workers in power, 0:29:37.550 --> 0:29:41.690 not bosses. And, you know, when these roles go unfilled, 0:29:42.390 --> 0:29:47.360 the union suffers. When people who are less concerned about 0:29:47.400 --> 0:29:49.580 the work and more concerned about the status come into 0:29:49.620 --> 0:29:54.280 these positions, the union suffers. So these positions are really important, 0:29:54.340 --> 0:29:57.820 as they would be in any organization. But Especially here, 0:29:57.900 --> 0:30:00.290 because we are trying to do something that is bigger 0:30:00.330 --> 0:30:02.510 than just, oh, we want to raise, oh, we want 0:30:03.070 --> 0:30:07.830 more break time. We're trying to actually build worker power 0:30:08.110 --> 0:30:11.620 in society. And so we really want to encourage the 0:30:11.650 --> 0:30:14.200 members of the IWW who are listening to this, as 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:16.820 we hope many of them are in your audience, to 0:30:17.300 --> 0:30:20.360 pay attention to these elections, to look at the options 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:23.500 on the ballot, and next year, consider running for any 0:30:23.600 --> 0:30:24.920 office that takes your fancy. 0:30:25.530 --> 0:30:25.690 Mm-hmm. 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:26.240 Yeah. 0:30:26.360 --> 0:30:29.580 Also, there will be positions that will go unfilled after 0:30:29.600 --> 0:30:33.800 the election unless there are a freak amount of writing campaigns. 0:30:34.100 --> 0:30:36.580 So if you can fill those positions, you can also 0:30:36.620 --> 0:30:38.500 volunteer for them after the election is up if they 0:30:38.540 --> 0:30:40.400 are still vacant. 0:30:41.840 --> 0:30:45.530 Yeah, it is one of the classic like there's this 0:30:45.570 --> 0:30:48.920 kind of like. dialectic is not the right term, but 0:30:48.940 --> 0:30:53.160 it's what's appearing in my somewhat sleep-deprived brain of, on 0:30:53.200 --> 0:30:55.300 the one hand, you have this thing where it's like, okay, 0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:57.220 this is a position that allows you to do stuff, 0:30:57.260 --> 0:30:59.490 and there's people who want to do it, and there's 0:30:59.530 --> 0:31:01.490 also sort of the classic anarchist thing of like, okay, 0:31:01.590 --> 0:31:04.530 all right, there's a responsibility here, and it technically comes 0:31:04.550 --> 0:31:06.470 with power, but you have to find someone. 0:31:06.150 --> 0:31:10.260 To do it because... Yeah, otherwise it's just like.... 0:31:11.950 --> 0:31:16.510 That's exactly right, and it's reflective of broader trends within 0:31:16.550 --> 0:31:21.090 the IWW as well, because historically we were inspired quite 0:31:21.110 --> 0:31:24.290 a lot by Marxist ideas, obviously, but we are structured 0:31:24.330 --> 0:31:28.810 very much in a very much a syndicalist way. I'm 0:31:28.850 --> 0:31:31.450 not going to say fully anarchist necessarily, but we take 0:31:31.490 --> 0:31:33.600 a lot of inspiration from anarchism and how we operate. 0:31:33.660 --> 0:31:37.520 So the IWW is very much a meeting of the 0:31:37.580 --> 0:31:41.360 minds there. So it makes sense that we'd have sort 0:31:41.380 --> 0:31:43.360 of problems from both ends as well. 0:31:43.380 --> 0:31:43.900 Yeah. 0:31:44.940 --> 0:31:49.160 I mean, syndicalist organization as a method generally came about 0:31:49.400 --> 0:31:53.100 after the IWW, but I'm not sure that's really that important. 0:31:53.780 --> 0:31:55.020 So maybe don't include that IDK. 0:31:56.020 --> 0:31:56.360 Yeah. 0:31:56.560 --> 0:31:58.120 I love to get into the history of it. 0:32:00.680 --> 0:32:04.830 You're right that it wasn't necessarily a form thing. I'm 0:32:04.850 --> 0:32:06.670 not good on dates, but like for the nerds out 0:32:06.690 --> 0:32:09.050 there who want to look into it, like the IWW 0:32:09.430 --> 0:32:12.030 kind of was like one of the early voices in 0:32:12.680 --> 0:32:15.580 some of these things, you know, so like syndicalism and 0:32:15.600 --> 0:32:19.120 all of its flavors, there were a lot of socialists, what, 0:32:19.160 --> 0:32:24.720 you know, whatever their political tendency was, like collective control 0:32:25.050 --> 0:32:28.170 over your working conditions was a central theme for sure. 0:32:28.190 --> 0:32:31.770 Well, I just mean the specific structure of the IWW union, 0:32:31.810 --> 0:32:36.630 I think moreover came about through naturally recognizing the troubles 0:32:36.670 --> 0:32:41.770 that the IWW encountered and sort of created its own, uh, 0:32:42.510 --> 0:32:45.730 idea about how to solve these things, certainly based on 0:32:45.770 --> 0:32:48.550 previous theory, but in a lot of ways contributing to 0:32:48.590 --> 0:32:53.710 future theory that would come from later workers and philosophers, 0:32:53.750 --> 0:32:58.690 you know, anarchist and syndicalist ideas. That's my very brief understanding. 0:33:09.750 --> 0:33:10.290 Yeah, I guess. 0:33:11.710 --> 0:33:15.530 What I'm sort of curious about is, I guess, partially, like, 0:33:15.610 --> 0:33:17.370 what y'all have been up to and talking a little 0:33:17.410 --> 0:33:20.750 bit about, like, what the union has been sort of 0:33:20.830 --> 0:33:24.820 up to recently and then how that relates to, yeah, like, 0:33:24.910 --> 0:33:26.880 what you want to see happen at the kind of, like, 0:33:26.940 --> 0:33:30.640 large-scale level of, like, the national union. 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:34.100 Well, I could talk on a very particular Portland experience, 0:33:34.240 --> 0:33:37.219 but maybe one of the two of you would like 0:33:37.240 --> 0:33:40.380 to talk about the larger experiences first. 0:33:40.940 --> 0:33:41.140 Well. 0:33:41.750 --> 0:33:43.930 I mean, I think that's part of it is that 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:48.820 the North American regional, that it's transnational, spans many, many boundaries. 0:33:49.100 --> 0:33:50.700 And, you know, most of what the union is up 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:51.220 to is. 0:33:51.860 --> 0:33:56.000 The aggregate of what all the branches and at-large members 0:33:56.040 --> 0:33:59.690 are doing. So I can speak on my recent campaign 0:33:59.790 --> 0:34:03.170 in D.C. going back to, like, what was it we 0:34:03.190 --> 0:34:08.430 were saying before? That there's sometimes the bosses go and make, like, 0:34:08.469 --> 0:34:12.209 backdoor deals with the unions. Well, I'm a canvasser. You know, 0:34:12.350 --> 0:34:13.670 I've got a lot of skills. I've worked a lot 0:34:13.710 --> 0:34:15.770 of jobs. But for the last seven years, I've been 0:34:15.790 --> 0:34:16.770 a canvasser in the D.C. 0:34:16.850 --> 0:34:17.170 Area. 0:34:18.010 --> 0:34:21.010 And the people that I worked for when we formed 0:34:21.290 --> 0:34:24.800 our canvassers union with IWW a couple of years ago 0:34:25.570 --> 0:34:29.740 on their board is the heads and like like union 0:34:29.800 --> 0:34:34.500 industry leaders of our state. And that absolutely played into, 0:34:34.700 --> 0:34:38.930 you know, how things worked out for that specific campaign. 0:34:39.190 --> 0:34:41.370 But yeah, I've seen campaign a lot. So a lot 0:34:41.390 --> 0:34:44.770 of what we're doing is organizing campaigns across the country. 0:34:44.790 --> 0:34:48.910 I think different sections of people are coming together depending 0:34:48.989 --> 0:34:49.750 on the locality. 0:34:49.770 --> 0:34:53.070 Yeah, I guess I'm curious sort of on that level 0:34:53.210 --> 0:34:56.230 where something I run into with the NW a lot 0:34:56.350 --> 0:35:00.560 is like people know maybe about like one thing that 0:35:00.580 --> 0:35:03.500 the union is doing. doing in their like local area 0:35:03.580 --> 0:35:08.140 and then there's like 16 000 campaigns going on yeah 0:35:08.600 --> 0:35:10.739 yeah that people just don't know anything about so i 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:13.830 guess what i'm kind of curious about is like yeah 0:35:13.850 --> 0:35:17.370 like what are you taking from your sort of local 0:35:17.410 --> 0:35:19.950 campaigns that make you like want to get involved and 0:35:19.969 --> 0:35:22.730 like what do you want to see out of like 0:35:22.890 --> 0:35:24.010 out of the union from. 0:35:23.890 --> 0:35:27.460 That Mine are pie in the sky. I mean, like, 0:35:27.800 --> 0:35:31.489 my goals are, you know, I mean, first of all, 0:35:31.570 --> 0:35:33.390 I do want to build up industrial unions, but, like, 0:35:33.670 --> 0:35:37.149 I'm hoping that we double our membership, triple our membership, and, like, 0:35:37.210 --> 0:35:41.009 not just, like, growing numbers to have numbers, but have 0:35:41.110 --> 0:35:45.440 people participating. You know, you were talking about how we 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:49.540 found an election that somehow has lower turnout than all 0:35:49.600 --> 0:35:53.140 the others. But that can be turned around if you 0:35:53.280 --> 0:35:55.960 decide to go out and vote in your local election. 0:35:56.060 --> 0:35:58.440 And our election period doesn't run for very long, so 0:35:58.480 --> 0:36:01.020 it's not supposed to take up too much of you 0:36:01.320 --> 0:36:04.319 as a rank and file member's time. But if you 0:36:04.340 --> 0:36:07.440 go out and vote, if you vote in the congressional races, 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:12.800 for example, your vote might be represented as one in 400,000. Here, 0:36:13.469 --> 0:36:17.230 you are making a much bigger impact when you do 0:36:17.290 --> 0:36:20.690 that and then take next steps to say, What do 0:36:20.710 --> 0:36:22.590 you want to see? Like, that's actually been my experience. 0:36:22.630 --> 0:36:23.989 And what I've heard from a lot of people who 0:36:24.030 --> 0:36:26.200 get good stuff out of the union is it's folks 0:36:26.219 --> 0:36:28.860 who say, I think we should be doing this. You know, 0:36:28.900 --> 0:36:32.040 like I have this frustration here at work or whatever. 0:36:32.180 --> 0:36:35.240 And then you have an avenue to kind of pursue 0:36:35.300 --> 0:36:37.299 that within the union. 0:36:37.320 --> 0:36:38.860 Yeah, absolutely. 0:36:38.880 --> 0:36:39.020 Like. 0:36:39.380 --> 0:36:43.140 The unfortunate reality is that, you know, a lot of 0:36:43.219 --> 0:36:45.930 the people who are members of the IWW are, I 0:36:46.390 --> 0:36:49.890 wouldn't say not awake members of the IWW. They're not 0:36:50.350 --> 0:36:53.670 active participants. But that means that everybody who does participate 0:36:54.110 --> 0:36:57.990 has a massively outsized impact. You have a genuine chance 0:36:58.030 --> 0:37:00.690 to change the trajectory of the union if you get involved. 0:37:01.469 --> 0:37:04.730 And as far as, you know, what our goals are, 0:37:04.790 --> 0:37:08.710 why we're running, you know, my perspective as an at-large member, 0:37:09.030 --> 0:37:13.350 a recently at-large member, because the Houston branch unfortunately had 0:37:13.390 --> 0:37:17.470 to de-charter a few months back because we couldn't find 0:37:17.670 --> 0:37:22.750 somebody who had the time to be branch secretary. You know, 0:37:23.270 --> 0:37:25.990 a lot of the experience that we had in Houston 0:37:26.070 --> 0:37:30.010 was that We were waiting for somebody to come along 0:37:30.489 --> 0:37:33.830 who wanted to organize their workplace. The members of our branch, 0:37:34.230 --> 0:37:38.049 we were all very eager to help people organize, but 0:37:38.270 --> 0:37:40.009 none of us were in a situation where we could 0:37:40.090 --> 0:37:44.370 organize ourselves. So I think there are branches like ours 0:37:44.469 --> 0:37:47.970 out there who, you know, the problem that they're facing 0:37:48.200 --> 0:37:51.420 is that there isn't enough interest from the general public 0:37:52.020 --> 0:37:54.879 to find people who are in a position where they 0:37:54.980 --> 0:37:59.060 could and want to organize. There are branches that are 0:37:59.160 --> 0:38:05.180 like Portland and like Philadelphia and like Chicago, where they've 0:38:05.219 --> 0:38:07.969 got a lot of people in them already. They've got 0:38:08.010 --> 0:38:10.950 a lot of leads, is what we call them, to 0:38:11.170 --> 0:38:16.470 organize already. They don't need publicity necessarily. They need material 0:38:16.489 --> 0:38:19.810 support in order to support all those leads. So there's 0:38:19.830 --> 0:38:22.910 not a one size fits all path here to making 0:38:22.950 --> 0:38:26.670 the union stronger. But I think all of us who 0:38:26.730 --> 0:38:30.009 are running together, and it is a broader group than 0:38:30.050 --> 0:38:32.009 just the three of us, All of us who are 0:38:32.030 --> 0:38:35.200 running together want to treat branches as individual branches, want 0:38:35.239 --> 0:38:38.379 to speak to them, understand their circumstances, and provide them 0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:41.520 with support that they need to be successful, whether that 0:38:41.640 --> 0:38:45.400 is more people to help onboard members and process leads, 0:38:46.180 --> 0:38:50.270 or whether it is better support to use the internet 0:38:50.310 --> 0:38:52.290 to get the word out about, hey, you have an 0:38:52.350 --> 0:38:55.510 IWW branch in your city. If you want to organize, 0:38:56.370 --> 0:38:56.710 come do. 0:38:56.670 --> 0:38:56.989 It with us. 0:38:57.810 --> 0:38:58.170 Oh, yeah. 0:38:59.170 --> 0:38:59.390 So. 0:39:00.150 --> 0:39:04.310 My perspective from Portland has been sort of based on 0:39:04.370 --> 0:39:07.750 the just reality of how it's been organizing in Portland. 0:39:08.310 --> 0:39:12.790 So in Portland, we entered say 2024 or so on 0:39:12.830 --> 0:39:16.190 a bit of a downturn. We had a couple campaigns 0:39:16.250 --> 0:39:19.950 that were moving along very slowly and weren't working on 0:39:19.989 --> 0:39:22.630 a whole lot else aside from that. As a group, 0:39:22.750 --> 0:39:27.610 we put together a strategy to increase membership, to find 0:39:27.830 --> 0:39:33.040 and create campaigns. and to generally just make the union, 0:39:33.060 --> 0:39:38.470 our general membership branch of the IWW, much more impactful 0:39:39.330 --> 0:39:42.730 in Portland and much more active. So we started tabling 0:39:43.190 --> 0:39:46.839 at any sort of political rallies or You know, queer 0:39:46.890 --> 0:39:49.110 events or just, I mean, any events that, you know, 0:39:49.170 --> 0:39:51.710 would have us and that we would fit for. And 0:39:51.730 --> 0:39:54.010 we would, we began to, you know, sign up people. 0:39:54.030 --> 0:39:56.870 We would talk to people, you know, learn what their 0:39:56.890 --> 0:40:00.380 workplace problems were. And we started, you know, finding a 0:40:00.420 --> 0:40:02.720 lot of leads. We started working on a lot of campaigns. 0:40:03.300 --> 0:40:05.350 We have a number of private campaigns that, of course, I... 0:40:05.870 --> 0:40:07.090 I'm not at liberty to talk about. 0:40:07.489 --> 0:40:10.450 Fun IWW problem of, sorry, we have a bunch of 0:40:10.469 --> 0:40:13.580 campaigns you're working on that no one can know what 0:40:13.600 --> 0:40:14.540 they are. 0:40:14.300 --> 0:40:17.160 Because don't want it getting out. 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:17.930 Yeah. 0:40:18.430 --> 0:40:19.270 Unless you join. 0:40:21.219 --> 0:40:24.540 Even then, we generally try and keep secrecy a priority 0:40:24.560 --> 0:40:28.000 so people don't get fired for organizing. But, you know, publicly, 0:40:28.080 --> 0:40:32.340 we have the Muji Workers United, Realm Workers United, Real 0:40:32.780 --> 0:40:37.740 You Electrolysis Workers United, Burgerville Workers Union, Friday Workers Union, 0:40:38.320 --> 0:40:42.759 Punchbowl Workers United, I want to say. I think these 0:40:42.840 --> 0:40:44.700 are all of our public campaigns. We might have a 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:45.480 couple more. 0:40:46.000 --> 0:40:48.620 There's a lot going on. It's going to be a 0:40:48.660 --> 0:40:49.000 long list. 0:40:49.960 --> 0:40:53.529 And so we've had a lot of success as an 0:40:53.570 --> 0:40:58.130 IWW branch, and we're really proud about that. And unfortunately, 0:40:58.690 --> 0:41:02.230 in my experience, working as the assistant treasurer for Portland 0:41:02.250 --> 0:41:08.210 IWW and as an external organizer helping these unions, GEB has, 0:41:08.230 --> 0:41:12.390 and general headquarters as a large, has ended up acting 0:41:12.610 --> 0:41:17.270 more as a hurdle to us than as somebody helping us. 0:41:18.370 --> 0:41:23.180 Our Realm Workers United campaign got stuck in a limbo 0:41:23.300 --> 0:41:26.960 regarding the acceptance of it by the general executive board. 0:41:27.910 --> 0:41:30.670 They demanded that we jump through a handful of hoops. 0:41:31.270 --> 0:41:34.049 I forget the exacts of it. Admittedly, I think some 0:41:34.090 --> 0:41:37.739 of them were just genuinely needed. But rather than try 0:41:37.780 --> 0:41:41.239 and help us in getting everything in order, they would 0:41:41.280 --> 0:41:46.360 just continuously send us back with no ratification from the 0:41:46.380 --> 0:41:50.990 general executive board. And Muji Workers United, the lawyers working 0:41:51.110 --> 0:41:57.610 for Muji, were able to put out actually true information 0:41:58.270 --> 0:42:03.610 about how the IWW has had a ULP filed against 0:42:03.690 --> 0:42:07.990 it by the workers working for the IWW. We'll probably 0:42:08.030 --> 0:42:09.910 have to talk about this later. Maybe we won't be 0:42:09.950 --> 0:42:10.650 talking about it too much. 0:42:10.670 --> 0:42:11.129 I don't know. 0:42:11.190 --> 0:42:13.410 This is sort of an aside. And we've had plenty 0:42:13.430 --> 0:42:16.330 of people who, you know, talk about signing up, talk 0:42:16.350 --> 0:42:20.069 about wanting to sign up. And they're like, I love 0:42:20.090 --> 0:42:22.910 the Portland IWW. Y'all are doing great things. But why 0:42:22.989 --> 0:42:25.529 is 40% of my dues going to National when I 0:42:25.550 --> 0:42:28.419 have no idea what National does? And it becomes hard 0:42:28.440 --> 0:42:31.480 to justify it when, you know, we're not able to 0:42:31.540 --> 0:42:36.950 get monetary support from national when we are having our 0:42:36.989 --> 0:42:40.830 campaigns hindered by nationals for us, like the ratification and whatnot. 0:42:41.469 --> 0:42:45.230 And when national has been often dismissive of the work 0:42:45.270 --> 0:42:51.380 that we've been doing. And so I saw those and 0:42:51.400 --> 0:42:55.990 I started attending GEP meetings and, And what I saw 0:42:56.370 --> 0:42:59.370 was really disappointing. I think the first GEB meeting I 0:42:59.770 --> 0:43:03.950 was at, one trans woman was talked over by one 0:43:03.969 --> 0:43:08.140 of the members of the General Executive Board. And then 0:43:08.450 --> 0:43:13.720 when another trans woman asked him to be more polite, 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:20.020 he dismissed that other person. And then after that whole, frankly, 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:24.580 rude incident, at the very least... He never apologized. Instead, 0:43:24.860 --> 0:43:29.020 another GEB member apologized on his behalf to everyone, which 0:43:29.219 --> 0:43:33.640 I just... Wow. comes off as very deeply childish. And 0:43:33.660 --> 0:43:37.280 I feel like, unfortunately, this immature behavior has been repeated 0:43:38.180 --> 0:43:41.900 over and over by different general executive board members. And 0:43:42.100 --> 0:43:44.510 it seems to be that a lot of them, not 0:43:44.550 --> 0:43:48.710 all of them, have found more interest in common with 0:43:48.870 --> 0:43:51.410 their fellow executive board members than with the union as 0:43:51.469 --> 0:43:56.770 a whole. and see themselves, and have sometimes described themselves, 0:43:57.390 --> 0:44:02.279 not as stewards of the union, but as its leaders, 0:44:02.570 --> 0:44:06.700 that they have been acting with authority to control and 0:44:06.780 --> 0:44:09.259 dictate how the union is run. I can go on 0:44:09.300 --> 0:44:13.100 about this at length, but it was the disappointment by 0:44:13.340 --> 0:44:16.299 the general hindrance and lack of support from general headquarters 0:44:17.180 --> 0:44:21.360 and the belligerent behavior of some of the general executive 0:44:21.380 --> 0:44:26.259 board members. That made me realize that there needed to 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:31.120 be members of, I think, better character and greater humility running. 0:44:32.300 --> 0:44:34.450 And to be honest, I don't want to have to 0:44:34.469 --> 0:44:39.370 be that person. But I've always believed that if you 0:44:39.410 --> 0:44:43.210 see a problem, the first step to solving it is 0:44:43.270 --> 0:44:46.469 finding someone to try and solve it. And if you're 0:44:46.489 --> 0:44:49.190 the one seeing the problem, that'll often have to be you. 0:44:49.969 --> 0:44:50.209 So. 0:44:51.130 --> 0:44:53.859 When we started talking about the problems we were experiencing 0:44:54.060 --> 0:44:57.020 as Portlanders and how those problems were being reflected to 0:44:57.980 --> 0:45:00.719 other general membership branches, I was one of the Portlanders 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:03.799 that raised their hand and said, I will do this 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:06.620 if it means that Portland can continue to do its 0:45:06.800 --> 0:45:10.620 amazing work. I love the NABW as a whole, but 0:45:10.890 --> 0:45:13.570 I have given so much of my time, my effort, 0:45:13.650 --> 0:45:17.390 and my life to Portland in particular. And I want 0:45:17.410 --> 0:45:18.630 to make sure that Portland is able to do its 0:45:18.670 --> 0:45:23.279 amazing stuff without having to deal with national. National should 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:26.580 not be an obstacle we have to overcome or opponents 0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:30.239 we have to fight. It should be our, you know, 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:33.759 backup in the corner in case we, you know, need it. 0:45:34.620 --> 0:45:38.080 And it should be stewarding the union along so that, 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:42.360 you know, these local, more democratic, more, you know, grassroots 0:45:42.410 --> 0:45:45.569 organization of the branches and the IUSBs can do what 0:45:45.730 --> 0:45:47.130 they are meant to do. 0:45:48.120 --> 0:45:50.609 Well, I'd like to pick up from that, if I may, 0:45:50.670 --> 0:45:51.690 if everyone's all right with that. 0:45:51.910 --> 0:45:52.360 Yeah, go for it. 0:45:53.450 --> 0:45:58.190 Everything Elizabeth is saying is things that I think all 0:45:58.210 --> 0:46:01.969 of us running have seen in this current general administration. 0:46:03.050 --> 0:46:06.790 And it is the impetus for why I think all 0:46:06.810 --> 0:46:10.330 of us are running. The culture that we have seen 0:46:10.630 --> 0:46:14.310 of disrespect for members is based on their identity, but 0:46:14.350 --> 0:46:16.780 also just based on the fact that sometimes they don't 0:46:16.930 --> 0:46:20.280 seem to agree with everything that the officers are saying, 0:46:21.160 --> 0:46:25.420 is a major point of contention in the union. And 0:46:25.640 --> 0:46:30.310 it drives people away from participating in the NARA level 0:46:30.730 --> 0:46:35.489 of the IWW. And I think that is one of 0:46:35.590 --> 0:46:40.160 the priorities for all of us running together in this campaign. 0:46:40.180 --> 0:46:43.560 It's certainly one of my priorities. I am running to 0:46:43.980 --> 0:46:47.570 restore respect for the membership on the general executive board. 0:46:48.170 --> 0:46:50.969 One of my major points in my campaign has been 0:46:51.030 --> 0:46:52.950 that it does not matter who you are. It does 0:46:52.989 --> 0:46:55.529 not matter what I personally think of you. If you 0:46:55.670 --> 0:46:58.550 are a dues paying member of the IWW, you deserve 0:46:58.590 --> 0:47:02.230 a basic amount of respect. And that basic respect involves 0:47:02.310 --> 0:47:05.340 me not calling you names. It involves me not talking 0:47:05.400 --> 0:47:08.259 over you. It involves me being willing to listen to 0:47:08.300 --> 0:47:10.720 your ideas, even if I disagree with them in the end, 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:13.910 but being willing to hear you out. And that's how 0:47:13.969 --> 0:47:16.850 I try to live right now. And I think it's 0:47:16.910 --> 0:47:23.109 really important for our administrative officers to live that way 0:47:23.150 --> 0:47:26.910 as well. If we're talking about personal stories, one of 0:47:26.969 --> 0:47:30.060 the issues that I've faced, I was a member of 0:47:30.180 --> 0:47:34.279 our international committee working with unions around the world last year. 0:47:34.900 --> 0:47:39.560 And we had an incident where one of the portions, 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:41.960 one of the sections of our union, the Incarcerated Workers 0:47:42.020 --> 0:47:46.200 Organizing Committee, there was some irregularity with their finances. And 0:47:46.219 --> 0:47:48.650 it turned out that they hadn't been keeping proper records. 0:47:48.890 --> 0:47:52.770 And that was a serious problem. But the general administration 0:47:52.830 --> 0:47:56.489 took that as an opportunity to punish them and sort 0:47:56.510 --> 0:48:00.310 of freeze their accounts for while the investigation was going on. 0:48:00.989 --> 0:48:05.130 They could make very specific transactions, but the rest of 0:48:05.350 --> 0:48:08.470 the things that they needed at that time were subject 0:48:08.489 --> 0:48:13.330 to review or not approved. And the international committee, we 0:48:13.370 --> 0:48:16.250 decided to sort of speak up because we felt that 0:48:16.290 --> 0:48:18.950 this was a concern of the entire union. We felt 0:48:18.969 --> 0:48:20.670 that this was a concern of all the members. If 0:48:20.710 --> 0:48:23.400 this could happen to one organ of the IWW, it 0:48:23.410 --> 0:48:26.480 could happen to any one of us. And in the 0:48:26.540 --> 0:48:32.490 process of that, I expressed my personal view that Legal 0:48:32.530 --> 0:48:36.529 compliance is not always the goal. It's not the thing 0:48:36.570 --> 0:48:39.370 that we should be always striving for. What we should 0:48:39.390 --> 0:48:41.830 always be striving for is to do the right thing. 0:48:42.290 --> 0:48:47.790 What is ethical, what hurts the least people. And that 0:48:48.770 --> 0:48:51.590 is a sentiment that I believe is obviously that I 0:48:51.630 --> 0:48:54.089 believe is reasonable, but it's a sentiment that I've heard 0:48:54.150 --> 0:48:56.669 expressed by many people inside and outside of our union. 0:48:57.110 --> 0:49:00.330 It's not an uncommon sentiment within our union at all. 0:49:01.219 --> 0:49:04.440 But because I was an officer, it was deemed dangerous. 0:49:05.160 --> 0:49:08.680 For those who aren't familiar, the Constitution of the IWW, 0:49:08.780 --> 0:49:11.819 as well as the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act 0:49:11.860 --> 0:49:17.150 of 1959, as amended, guarantees union members certain rights, including 0:49:17.170 --> 0:49:21.120 the right to freedom of expression. And despite both the 0:49:21.180 --> 0:49:25.989 Constitution and the LMRDA guaranteeing me a right to freely 0:49:26.070 --> 0:49:28.250 express my views, in this case, this was a view 0:49:28.310 --> 0:49:31.670 that I was expressing. I was doing so respectfully. I 0:49:31.730 --> 0:49:33.490 was still removed from my office. 0:49:33.510 --> 0:49:33.870 And the. 0:49:35.840 --> 0:49:38.920 General executive board had the opportunity to overturn the charges 0:49:39.020 --> 0:49:43.120 because they were in violation, direct violation of the IWW 0:49:43.160 --> 0:49:47.390 constitution and of US federal labor law, and they failed. 0:49:47.150 --> 0:49:47.569 To do so. 0:49:48.290 --> 0:49:51.549 And so that was my personal moment of, okay, this 0:49:51.610 --> 0:49:55.700 is the last straw. I have to do something to 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:59.739 change who we've got making these decisions because they're not 0:49:59.820 --> 0:50:03.040 putting the members first. They're not putting our rights first. 0:50:03.060 --> 0:50:06.390 They're not putting our interests first. they are doing what 0:50:06.910 --> 0:50:08.050 appears to them. 0:50:07.910 --> 0:50:11.770 To be the easiest option. 0:50:11.830 --> 0:50:14.270 They are doing what appears to them to be what 0:50:14.310 --> 0:50:17.370 the law demands of them, whether they're correct or not. 0:50:19.489 --> 0:50:20.189 Allegedly. 0:50:20.410 --> 0:50:20.930 Allegedly. 0:50:20.950 --> 0:50:28.129 I think you both encapsulated that motivation for running pretty 0:50:28.150 --> 0:50:30.110 well in terms of how I've. 0:50:30.010 --> 0:50:30.950 Related to it as well. 0:50:31.570 --> 0:50:33.810 Yeah, for those who don't know, I am running for 0:50:34.320 --> 0:50:39.910 the GEB, along with these lovely people. But my candidacy 0:50:39.969 --> 0:50:43.350 has been kept off of the ballot. So I'm actually 0:50:43.410 --> 0:50:45.190 running a writing campaign. 0:50:45.210 --> 0:50:48.310 Oh, geez. Oh, no. You know, yay. 0:50:52.790 --> 0:50:56.190 But yeah, something that's really important is just like the 0:50:56.230 --> 0:51:00.870 common theme is that the IWW is and has always 0:51:00.910 --> 0:51:07.150 been a diverse and inclusive union, every good organizer knows 0:51:07.290 --> 0:51:10.029 that you're supposed to meet people with compassion and be 0:51:10.070 --> 0:51:14.840 constructive in your solutions for things. So the GEB does 0:51:15.300 --> 0:51:18.280 many things, but to me, one of the more important 0:51:18.300 --> 0:51:21.460 things that they're tasked with and are empowered to do 0:51:21.700 --> 0:51:26.540 is supporting campaigns, like Elizabeth was talking about, and supporting 0:51:26.580 --> 0:51:32.569 branch formations. So if Andrew's area becomes particularly interested in 0:51:32.610 --> 0:51:37.259 that way again, then It should be that you aren't 0:51:38.100 --> 0:51:43.620 feeling alienated or excluded when you try to access these things, 0:51:43.700 --> 0:51:47.120 but that you're being guided and supported. Yeah, when you're 0:51:47.140 --> 0:51:48.160 interacting with your union. 0:51:48.180 --> 0:51:49.900 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. 0:51:50.600 --> 0:51:52.460 And if we can touch on sort of the legalistic 0:51:52.500 --> 0:51:55.840 sense for a second, I've seen the GST and GEB 0:51:55.920 --> 0:51:59.759 back up their arguments by referencing a sort of reverence 0:51:59.960 --> 0:52:04.859 or respect for the law. And for the IWW Constitution, when, 0:52:04.880 --> 0:52:09.800 of course, they're only giving their personal interpretations on the law. 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:13.160 And if you, you know, talk to a union lawyer 0:52:13.180 --> 0:52:16.700 or any lawyer, they will tell you, you know, these 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:20.690 things vary and they're dependent on specific circumstances. And it's, 0:52:21.390 --> 0:52:23.970 you know, a lawyer's favorite two words are it depends. 0:52:26.050 --> 0:52:29.670 Just below this is not legal advice is it depends. 0:52:29.850 --> 0:52:30.210 Yeah. 0:52:30.290 --> 0:52:30.509 Yeah. 0:52:31.960 --> 0:52:33.299 Well, it depends also allows you to get out of 0:52:33.340 --> 0:52:37.370 giving legal advice. The one-two punch. 0:52:38.170 --> 0:52:43.510 Yeah. So even if they were experts on labor law, 0:52:44.469 --> 0:52:47.270 they would not necessarily have the correct answer. In fact, 0:52:47.290 --> 0:52:50.450 the matter is they're not experts on labor law. But 0:52:50.739 --> 0:52:54.120 members of the GEB have acted as if they have 0:52:54.260 --> 0:52:57.260 the final say on what is and isn't legally correct. 0:52:57.940 --> 0:53:01.480 And whatever they say is them following the Constitution correctly. 0:53:02.050 --> 0:53:08.109 or is them following labor law is just unquestionably what 0:53:08.150 --> 0:53:12.940 needs to be followed. And so they have sort of 0:53:13.060 --> 0:53:16.960 used that authority to reach their power beyond what I 0:53:17.000 --> 0:53:20.040 think it's responsible for the GEB to be doing. Well, 0:53:20.480 --> 0:53:21.980 I can go on with what they've done with this, 0:53:22.020 --> 0:53:24.040 but I think just the thing I was trying to say, 0:53:24.060 --> 0:53:26.200 I think I'm trying to get at is that like, 0:53:27.020 --> 0:53:29.520 I think that there is, to some degree, a certain 0:53:29.540 --> 0:53:32.430 amount of legalism that the GEB and GST are following 0:53:32.450 --> 0:53:36.189 that is guiding what they're doing. But I also think 0:53:36.310 --> 0:53:40.650 what they want to be doing is guiding their legal 0:53:40.710 --> 0:53:43.770 opinions regarding matters of the IWW. 0:53:55.780 --> 0:53:57.950 A lot of this kind of comes back to a 0:53:58.030 --> 0:54:03.110 question that we've talked about on this show a lot. 0:54:03.530 --> 0:54:08.070 This kind of fundamental question of what democracy is in 0:54:09.390 --> 0:54:11.770 the sense of is democracy a process by which you 0:54:11.810 --> 0:54:14.620 come together and make decisions or is democracy a process 0:54:14.700 --> 0:54:18.380 by which a group of people is elected and they 0:54:18.420 --> 0:54:21.520 get to make the decisions for everyone? And it feels 0:54:21.540 --> 0:54:23.819 like a lot of what is being described here is 0:54:23.860 --> 0:54:29.339 people sort of wielding their power to make decisions for 0:54:29.400 --> 0:54:30.939 everyone and try to enforce them. 0:54:32.680 --> 0:54:35.980 I think it would be fair to describe this as 0:54:36.080 --> 0:54:39.839 a conflict between those two notions of democracy. I think 0:54:39.860 --> 0:54:43.600 that our notion is that the members are the ones 0:54:43.680 --> 0:54:50.190 making the decisions. We appoint people who execute those decisions and, yes, 0:54:50.450 --> 0:54:54.960 sometimes make very small incidental decisions in the process of 0:54:55.040 --> 0:54:58.799 carrying out our will but the people who are in 0:54:58.840 --> 0:55:02.300 the regional administration are not supposed to be making decisions 0:55:02.620 --> 0:55:05.270 for us they're supposed to be carrying out our will 0:55:05.430 --> 0:55:08.819 as the rank and file and It is our sense 0:55:08.880 --> 0:55:11.620 that they haven't been doing that. So we are stepping 0:55:11.719 --> 0:55:14.420 up to say, and we can do this because of 0:55:14.500 --> 0:55:17.739 how democracy in the IWW works. We are stepping up 0:55:17.780 --> 0:55:19.759 to say, it is time for you to go. It 0:55:20.560 --> 0:55:24.420 is time for an administration that will follow the membership, 0:55:24.800 --> 0:55:25.730 not try and leave it. 0:55:26.140 --> 0:55:28.319 Yeah, I think that's very true. 0:55:28.400 --> 0:55:28.620 Yeah. 0:55:29.239 --> 0:55:31.850 So I guess in that spirit, what do you want 0:55:31.969 --> 0:55:35.290 to see the GEB do if you were able to 0:55:35.390 --> 0:55:35.970 take office? 0:55:36.830 --> 0:55:37.350 Yeah, so. 0:55:38.180 --> 0:55:41.279 My hope is to act as a GB member as 0:55:41.780 --> 0:55:45.719 somebody who is, you know, somewhat distant and partial and, 0:55:45.880 --> 0:55:47.739 you know, connects with the branches and talks to them, 0:55:47.780 --> 0:55:49.840 you know, as a fellow member and a fellow worker 0:55:50.590 --> 0:55:53.069 and finds where I can help them where they want 0:55:53.130 --> 0:55:57.310 help and where there's confusion and otherwise just facilitate the 0:55:57.350 --> 0:56:01.410 smooth running of the union without much, if any, intervention. 0:56:01.610 --> 0:56:04.730 You know, I would rather focus on connecting people, connecting 0:56:05.110 --> 0:56:07.529 different local branches together as they can help each other 0:56:07.969 --> 0:56:11.060 connecting people to the different parts of the regional administration 0:56:11.260 --> 0:56:14.560 that are, you know, dedicated to education and organizing and 0:56:14.700 --> 0:56:21.060 international connections and whatnot. And, you know, otherwise being someone 0:56:21.080 --> 0:56:23.779 who helps but does not lead. 0:56:23.800 --> 0:56:27.120 Yeah, I think what I would like to focus on 0:56:27.360 --> 0:56:32.610 quite explicitly is, like I said, helping branches form, helping 0:56:32.670 --> 0:56:38.000 new branches grow, you know, supporting the smaller groups among us. And, 0:56:39.080 --> 0:56:42.000 I mean, it sounds so dry, but like properly funding campaigns, 0:56:42.020 --> 0:56:45.879 just making sure things are properly funded, not irresponsibly. You know, 0:56:46.280 --> 0:56:48.680 I like to look at spreadsheets and I like to 0:56:48.719 --> 0:56:50.279 look at budgets and that's a lot of what you 0:56:50.320 --> 0:56:53.480 have to do with the GEP. But above all else, 0:56:53.719 --> 0:56:56.840 I'm hoping that I can learn. Like it will be 0:56:56.880 --> 0:56:59.719 such a privileged position to be in to, like as 0:56:59.760 --> 0:57:05.029 my job, essentially, be in contact with membership and branches 0:57:05.090 --> 0:57:09.690 and just learn about what's going on with people and. 0:57:08.870 --> 0:57:09.330 What they need. 0:57:10.300 --> 0:57:14.100 My personal goals for a term on the GEB are 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:19.740 honestly cultural, because at the local level, we're in somewhat 0:57:19.760 --> 0:57:21.740 of a holding pattern right now. We need to sort 0:57:21.780 --> 0:57:25.930 of lick our wounds and rebuild. But we need people 0:57:25.990 --> 0:57:29.310 to do that. We need driven people who want to organize. 0:57:29.610 --> 0:57:33.270 We believe that, frankly, a branch is best built around 0:57:33.770 --> 0:57:36.760 active organizing already. So we're going to try and foster 0:57:36.780 --> 0:57:40.330 that at the local level. But really, for me, at 0:57:40.370 --> 0:57:43.630 the national level or at the regional level, rather, I 0:57:43.730 --> 0:57:47.890 want to model the kind of officer I want to see. 0:57:47.910 --> 0:57:50.060 I want to be a respectful officer. I want to 0:57:50.100 --> 0:57:51.640 be an officer who listens. I want to be an 0:57:51.700 --> 0:57:56.100 officer who will basically take orders from the membership and, 0:57:56.120 --> 0:57:59.490 you know, not do what is convenient, but do what 0:57:59.530 --> 0:57:59.910 is right. 0:58:00.570 --> 0:58:00.730 And. 0:58:01.740 --> 0:58:06.770 That involves, obviously motivated by my personal experiences, defending our members' rights. 0:58:07.430 --> 0:58:12.230 When something threatens those rights and it is in my 0:58:12.270 --> 0:58:16.460 power to push back on that, I will. I will 0:58:16.500 --> 0:58:19.260 defend our members' rights to freedom of expression. I will 0:58:19.300 --> 0:58:23.220 defend our members' rights to a safe environment in which 0:58:23.280 --> 0:58:28.330 to express themselves and speak to power, to disagree with power. 0:58:29.040 --> 0:58:31.180 But at the same time, I want to reach out 0:58:31.280 --> 0:58:35.020 to those members who I described earlier as being asleep. 0:58:35.540 --> 0:58:37.340 I want to reach out to the people who aren't 0:58:37.980 --> 0:58:39.990 taking an active role in our union, and I want 0:58:40.070 --> 0:58:42.570 to see what it is that we can do to 0:58:42.790 --> 0:58:45.870 make them interested, whether that's at the local level, because 0:58:46.010 --> 0:58:48.090 there are plenty of places out there that don't have branches, 0:58:48.750 --> 0:58:52.910 or at the regional level, and make NARA basically a 0:58:52.970 --> 0:58:57.480 place that isn't hellish to interact in. Make the NARA 0:58:57.780 --> 0:59:05.260 level something that members can participate in without fear. Maybe 0:59:05.430 --> 0:59:07.570 I'm shooting too high there, but I think it is 0:59:07.670 --> 0:59:10.730 a change that can be made. And I think that 0:59:10.990 --> 0:59:15.050 every little bit helps. And I think that modeling those 0:59:15.180 --> 0:59:18.320 changes on the GEB will help bring them about. 0:59:19.000 --> 0:59:22.460 Yeah, I think that's a fairly reasonable set of things 0:59:22.560 --> 0:59:24.940 to want the national level of your. 0:59:24.900 --> 0:59:25.960 Union to do. 0:59:27.320 --> 0:59:28.760 No, we're just wild and out there. 0:59:30.280 --> 0:59:32.990 I would like to be able to safely interact with 0:59:33.030 --> 0:59:37.470 the national level of my union. It is incredibly radical demands. 0:59:38.070 --> 0:59:40.669 And have it actually support the things that I'm doing 0:59:40.690 --> 0:59:42.470 at the local level. Oh my God, yeah. 0:59:42.870 --> 0:59:45.110 Like a national organization is supposed to function. 0:59:45.850 --> 0:59:47.790 Hot take, organizing can be fun. 0:59:48.970 --> 0:59:52.990 You know, many are saying this. 0:59:55.420 --> 0:59:58.780 And it should be fun. And when it's not fun... 0:59:59.390 --> 1:00:01.170 We need to figure out why, and we need to 1:00:01.210 --> 1:00:03.050 change it. And that's what we're here to do. We're 1:00:03.070 --> 1:00:06.770 here to make organizing fun again. Hang on a minute. 1:00:07.150 --> 1:00:07.910 No. 1:00:08.590 --> 1:00:08.910 No. 1:00:08.970 --> 1:00:10.180 That's a bad cadence. 1:00:10.200 --> 1:00:10.510 Hang on. 1:00:10.720 --> 1:00:11.200 Scratch that. 1:00:11.940 --> 1:00:15.420 If I can pull things back to Raiwu, because it's 1:00:15.560 --> 1:00:18.500 just one that I'm always happy to talk about. All 1:00:18.520 --> 1:00:21.140 of the people who are on the picket line at Raiwu, 1:00:21.880 --> 1:00:24.400 they were showing up every day. They were there in 1:00:24.840 --> 1:00:25.900 June and July heat. 1:00:25.960 --> 1:00:26.100 Yeah. 1:00:26.750 --> 1:00:29.750 But they were all always approaching things in a happy 1:00:29.790 --> 1:00:33.350 and positive way, not because it was easy to do 1:00:33.470 --> 1:00:36.220 or because it was exactly fun to do, but because 1:00:36.410 --> 1:00:40.980 everyone there was uplifting everyone else. It was a community 1:00:41.000 --> 1:00:45.100 that had come together and was based on mutual support 1:00:45.140 --> 1:00:48.260 and mutual love. And I want to see that in 1:00:48.300 --> 1:00:52.180 the IWW at large. And I also want to be 1:00:52.560 --> 1:00:56.600 able to, as a external organizer, be able to say, 1:00:57.350 --> 1:00:59.610 You know, this is what we do in Portland. This 1:00:59.650 --> 1:01:02.450 is what we do at National. And both of these 1:01:02.530 --> 1:01:04.910 can help you in this way. Not this is what 1:01:04.930 --> 1:01:08.400 we do at Portland. And don't worry about National. They 1:01:08.440 --> 1:01:10.760 won't help you, but we'll try our hardest to make 1:01:10.800 --> 1:01:12.380 sure they won't mess anything up for you. 1:01:12.880 --> 1:01:13.300 Yeah. 1:01:13.580 --> 1:01:18.000 That's not a good pitch to prospective fellow workers. 1:01:18.620 --> 1:01:23.230 Well, full circle, that 40% goes to strike funds. Or 1:01:23.670 --> 1:01:27.100 they should, you know. That's a much better answer than I'll. 1:01:27.000 --> 1:01:27.680 Get back to you. 1:01:28.100 --> 1:01:28.300 Yeah. 1:01:29.540 --> 1:01:29.700 Yeah. 1:01:30.300 --> 1:01:34.620 This current GEB has, in addition to other problems, they've 1:01:34.660 --> 1:01:39.669 also been pretty dedicated budget hawks. You know, they have 1:01:39.910 --> 1:01:43.410 basically been cutting from every single committee as much as possible. 1:01:43.490 --> 1:01:46.210 And while I do understand there is a need for, 1:01:46.230 --> 1:01:48.930 you know, fiscal security and whatnot, I think it's been 1:01:48.970 --> 1:01:51.540 taken to the point where it's been sort of overriding 1:01:51.560 --> 1:01:56.150 the needs and community decision makings of the individual committees 1:01:57.030 --> 1:02:00.290 to the point where just a lot of funding for 1:02:00.330 --> 1:02:04.750 the things that the committees at national are supposed to 1:02:04.770 --> 1:02:08.250 do and want to do isn't supportive. And you only 1:02:08.270 --> 1:02:11.370 really get support if GEB likes you or likes what 1:02:11.410 --> 1:02:15.570 you're doing. I know members of the education committee, they 1:02:15.590 --> 1:02:17.600 had put together a budget and, you know, a list 1:02:17.660 --> 1:02:20.620 for what they're planning on doing for the year. And 1:02:20.840 --> 1:02:23.200 GEB said, well, we don't want to support this. Do 1:02:23.220 --> 1:02:26.140 you want to do something completely different instead? No, then 1:02:26.160 --> 1:02:30.270 we're not going to fund you. It, again, comes back 1:02:30.350 --> 1:02:32.950 to this question of whether or not you are a 1:02:33.770 --> 1:02:38.890 steward or a leader. Obviously, no matter what, the people 1:02:38.930 --> 1:02:42.730 in GEB will have an amount of power. But I 1:02:42.810 --> 1:02:46.640 think we need to elect people who do not want 1:02:46.700 --> 1:02:47.610 to use that power and. 1:02:49.270 --> 1:02:52.750 Who will not take that as permission to have control 1:02:52.790 --> 1:02:55.730 over other people. And also maybe in the future, we 1:02:55.750 --> 1:02:58.610 can institute, you know, reforms to decrease the amount of 1:02:58.660 --> 1:03:01.490 power that GB can take for itself and that other 1:03:01.510 --> 1:03:04.160 institutions can take for itself, continue to make the IW 1:03:04.240 --> 1:03:07.860 more and more democratic. The IW is, I'm going to 1:03:07.900 --> 1:03:12.160 say just pretty definitively, the most democratic union in the 1:03:12.200 --> 1:03:17.260 country and in Canada as well, but it can always 1:03:17.300 --> 1:03:21.250 be more democratic. And I think that we can always 1:03:21.350 --> 1:03:24.150 make the AWW better, as amazing as it currently is. 1:03:25.190 --> 1:03:25.430 Yeah. 1:03:25.710 --> 1:03:29.050 If I may, actually, this is something that's really important 1:03:29.090 --> 1:03:32.200 to me. I don't think there's any place for austerity 1:03:32.680 --> 1:03:34.780 in a radical left union. 1:03:34.800 --> 1:03:35.800 Yeah. 1:03:36.500 --> 1:03:40.000 Or any radical left organization. You can't grow by cutting, 1:03:40.560 --> 1:03:45.220 you know? Like, there are many creative solutions to times, like, 1:03:45.430 --> 1:03:49.780 of downturn, but I think how Elizabeth described it is perfect. 1:03:50.180 --> 1:03:53.680 To me, there is a difference between fiscal responsibility and 1:03:53.760 --> 1:03:57.200 using the budget as a boogeyman. I think it's incredibly 1:03:58.010 --> 1:04:01.150 dismissive and assumes that like myself and my fellow workers 1:04:01.430 --> 1:04:06.090 are too ignorant to understand numbers when people say, so 1:04:06.110 --> 1:04:09.150 this is a personal experience of mine that I'll ask 1:04:09.190 --> 1:04:11.030 for like line items on things and they'll say, just 1:04:11.050 --> 1:04:11.750 look at the budget. 1:04:11.830 --> 1:04:14.590 And it's like, well, I did. That's why I'm asking, right? 1:04:14.610 --> 1:04:14.690 Yeah. 1:04:15.180 --> 1:04:17.360 It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. There's a 1:04:17.450 --> 1:04:21.390 huge fund here that's not being dispersed, you know, if 1:04:21.430 --> 1:04:24.850 that makes sense. To me, there's no place for austerity here. 1:04:25.330 --> 1:04:29.590 Our solutions will come from other ways of organizing and 1:04:29.610 --> 1:04:30.470 supporting each other. 1:04:30.490 --> 1:04:34.110 And this current administration has seen a huge downturn in 1:04:34.370 --> 1:04:37.510 members and therefore in funding. And I don't want to 1:04:37.550 --> 1:04:39.930 say it's all general headquarters doing. I think a lot 1:04:39.970 --> 1:04:43.520 of these are trends outside of any members control, but... 1:04:44.790 --> 1:04:46.650 I don't think that it has to be as bad 1:04:46.710 --> 1:04:49.040 as it is now. And I think that if we 1:04:49.080 --> 1:04:52.240 were a union more willing to support its members, more 1:04:52.280 --> 1:04:57.200 visibly supporting its members, that we would not be having 1:04:57.220 --> 1:04:59.260 to worry as much about the budget because you would 1:04:59.280 --> 1:05:02.460 have growing membership and therefore increasing funds. 1:05:03.140 --> 1:05:06.630 Yes, it is absolutely a policy of austerity that the 1:05:06.670 --> 1:05:11.210 current general executive board is maintaining. And that's their solution. 1:05:11.250 --> 1:05:14.880 Their solution is cuts, not growth. And that doesn't work. Obviously, 1:05:14.960 --> 1:05:17.960 growth cannot be infinite. That's one of the problems that 1:05:17.980 --> 1:05:21.030 we're running into with capitalism. But, you know, in July 2026, 1:05:21.030 --> 1:05:26.970 the Federal Reserve estimated that there were 210 million working 1:05:27.190 --> 1:05:31.410 age people in the United States. We are a union 1:05:31.790 --> 1:05:35.320 of I think the largest estimate we've got is 9000 members. 1:05:35.440 --> 1:05:38.280 I'm not even sure if that's accurate anymore. So we 1:05:38.700 --> 1:05:42.420 are not at any point of reaching the limits of 1:05:42.480 --> 1:05:46.860 our potential growth yet. And in terms of specific financial analysis, 1:05:47.310 --> 1:05:49.070 I looked at our balance sheets, which is something that 1:05:49.350 --> 1:05:52.490 any member can do. And I sent my analysis in 1:05:52.530 --> 1:05:57.350 a letter to the member bulletin in July of 2025. 1:05:57.350 --> 1:06:01.150 And from what I saw, I calculated that we could 1:06:01.930 --> 1:06:06.210 afford to maintain the deficit at the time for six 1:06:06.390 --> 1:06:09.950 and a half years. Now, that is not forever, but 1:06:10.170 --> 1:06:12.930 it's certainly not the kind of crisis that this GEB 1:06:12.950 --> 1:06:16.440 is has used it as in order to slash committee 1:06:16.480 --> 1:06:20.340 budgets and barely touch their own. And it's definitely enough 1:06:20.400 --> 1:06:24.180 time to turn around our flagging recruitment numbers. You know, 1:06:24.220 --> 1:06:26.740 we need a GEB that can meet this moment, and 1:06:26.900 --> 1:06:30.600 that is the kind of board that we want to be. Yeah. 1:06:31.160 --> 1:06:33.790 Also, one note, I mentioned some ways that we might 1:06:33.830 --> 1:06:36.270 change the union and improve it. I don't think it's 1:06:36.290 --> 1:06:41.170 necessarily the GEB's place to make those changes for the members. 1:06:42.240 --> 1:06:44.200 We shouldn't get in the way of change. We should 1:06:44.220 --> 1:06:46.660 be able to facilitate it when it happens. But again, 1:06:46.680 --> 1:06:49.010 we're not in charge. We're not the ones changing the union, 1:06:49.030 --> 1:06:51.030 the membership at largest. 1:06:51.630 --> 1:06:55.330 Yeah, it's ultimately the workers, the fellow workers of a 1:06:55.490 --> 1:06:58.070 union who will change it is a good place to 1:06:58.110 --> 1:07:01.240 start wrapping up. So there has been a lot of 1:07:02.420 --> 1:07:04.860 mention of we in this endeavor. Do you all want 1:07:04.880 --> 1:07:09.100 to talk about who is running and what the sort 1:07:09.120 --> 1:07:10.220 of campaigns and write-ins are? 1:07:11.150 --> 1:07:14.550 Yeah, I specifically would like to highlight the write-ins. So 1:07:15.090 --> 1:07:17.280 for a recap, I'm Pamela Sweetland-Aulis. 1:07:17.320 --> 1:07:17.800 Hey, y'all. 1:07:18.320 --> 1:07:21.640 I'm running a writing campaign. So that means that if 1:07:21.660 --> 1:07:26.880 you could please write in for GEB, Pam S or 1:07:26.960 --> 1:07:32.860 Pamela S. In addition, we have John Hollingsworth running for 1:07:32.880 --> 1:07:37.580 GEB as a write-in and Greg Murray from Portland running 1:07:37.620 --> 1:07:42.020 a write-in for GEB. So to recap that, Bryden's for 1:07:42.040 --> 1:07:47.470 the GEB includes Pam S., John Hollingsworth, and Greg Murray. 1:07:47.990 --> 1:07:51.570 In addition, we have a fellow worker who, in addition 1:07:51.590 --> 1:07:55.410 to myself, was obstructed from the ballot, who is running 1:07:55.530 --> 1:08:01.700 for the IWOC administrative assistant. They go by Iggy, but 1:08:01.820 --> 1:08:06.700 I believe their name in red card is Philip I. 1:08:06.720 --> 1:08:10.060 or Philip Iguerto. So, yeah. 1:08:10.760 --> 1:08:12.200 And then you can find the rest of us in 1:08:12.240 --> 1:08:16.550 the GOB, me and Andrew, both cross-endorsed each other and 1:08:16.610 --> 1:08:19.150 a whole bunch of other people who are all supporting 1:08:19.189 --> 1:08:21.050 each other in trying to make this union better. 1:08:21.729 --> 1:08:27.250 Yes, there is a candidate statement section in the October 1:08:27.450 --> 1:08:31.679 GOB that lists our visions for the union. And then 1:08:31.979 --> 1:08:34.900 make sure to check the member submission section for our 1:08:35.000 --> 1:08:40.160 write-in candidates statements. Because unfortunately, as write-in candidates, they weren't given... 1:08:40.620 --> 1:08:41.660 dedicated space. 1:08:42.100 --> 1:08:45.080 Yeah we will get a link to that in the 1:08:45.140 --> 1:08:48.680 description and yeah thank you all so much for being 1:08:48.740 --> 1:08:52.050 on the show and thanks for fighting to make the 1:08:52.170 --> 1:08:53.330 union a better place. 1:08:53.610 --> 1:08:55.630 Thank you very much for having us thank you for 1:08:55.689 --> 1:08:59.280 having me indeed and trans. 1:08:59.100 --> 1:09:00.000 Rights are workers' rights. 1:09:00.700 --> 1:09:01.099 Hell yeah. 1:09:01.680 --> 1:09:02.120 Hell yeah. 1:09:02.840 --> 1:09:03.260 Hell yeah. 1:09:15.439 --> 1:09:18.260 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that is 1:09:18.560 --> 1:09:21.200 normally about things falling apart and how to put them 1:09:21.240 --> 1:09:24.600 back together again. However, as I think you can tell 1:09:24.650 --> 1:09:27.990 by the opening music, you're listening to a very special 1:09:28.130 --> 1:09:41.430 episode today about El Chupacabras. I'm Carlos Barrios Polanco. And 1:09:41.590 --> 1:09:45.349 I'm at an undisclosed location outside somewhere in Puerto Rico 1:09:45.840 --> 1:09:48.340 where my only company are the creatures of the night 1:09:48.520 --> 1:09:51.460 and the sweet music that they make. Also, my dog 1:09:51.500 --> 1:09:55.420 is here with me and she's pretty chill. The reason 1:09:55.439 --> 1:09:57.160 that I'm out here is that I wanted to set 1:09:57.200 --> 1:09:59.900 the scene for this episode by being in the same 1:09:59.960 --> 1:10:02.740 headspace and meat space as all of those people that 1:10:02.820 --> 1:10:06.330 claim to have seen something eating their livestock and draining 1:10:06.370 --> 1:10:10.570 their blood 32 years ago. And so far, I can 1:10:10.640 --> 1:10:14.540 definitely see why a person might see something, probably a 1:10:14.580 --> 1:10:18.100 dog or a mongoose, ripping the throats or biting the 1:10:18.140 --> 1:10:21.120 necks of their cows than attributing it to something that. 1:10:21.040 --> 1:10:22.140 They could not explain. 1:10:23.420 --> 1:10:25.620 If you spend any time in the middle of the woods, 1:10:25.840 --> 1:10:28.240 away from the noise and lights of the city, it's 1:10:28.420 --> 1:10:31.920 easy for your mind to play tricks on you, especially 1:10:31.939 --> 1:10:37.010 if hundreds of years of colonialism and societal and economic 1:10:37.050 --> 1:10:38.670 stress have your mind reeling. 1:10:39.530 --> 1:10:40.570 It would be easy to. 1:10:40.530 --> 1:10:43.890 Think that something was stalking you out here. But I'm 1:10:43.910 --> 1:10:49.840 getting ahead of myself. So what even is a chupacabras anyway? Well, 1:10:49.880 --> 1:10:53.580 in Spanish, it's called chupacabras, which often gets translated as 1:10:53.880 --> 1:10:56.360 goat sucker in English, which has always rubbed me the 1:10:56.380 --> 1:11:00.440 wrong way because it's cabras as in multiple goats. So 1:11:00.479 --> 1:11:03.450 it should actually be goat sucker. That's just a quibble 1:11:03.490 --> 1:11:05.510 I've had for ages that I'm happy to share with 1:11:05.530 --> 1:11:08.850 you right now. I'm sure that I must have seen 1:11:09.010 --> 1:11:11.570 something about the Chupacabras on the History Channel, but my 1:11:11.650 --> 1:11:15.599 first interaction with the Chupacabras as a cultural artifact was 1:11:15.689 --> 1:11:20.939 probably the 2003 direct-to-DVD movie Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico, 1:11:21.979 --> 1:11:24.420 which is like really funny to me because it's actually 1:11:24.439 --> 1:11:27.470 the monster of Puerto Rico and everybody else just ripped 1:11:27.530 --> 1:11:30.980 us off. I should say upfront that I'm not a believer. 1:11:31.280 --> 1:11:33.430 Although I think the truth is out there, the truth 1:11:33.470 --> 1:11:36.650 is that the Chupacabra is fake, a shape-shifting creature of 1:11:36.670 --> 1:11:40.430 the mind, not an extraterrestrial creature of the night. However, 1:11:40.890 --> 1:11:43.990 while it's not real, the animal attacks and the hysteria 1:11:44.030 --> 1:11:46.690 they caused, as well as the enduring obsession with it 1:11:46.770 --> 1:11:49.810 in some circles, I think, is really interesting because it 1:11:49.850 --> 1:11:53.130 is kind of the perfect boogeyman manifestation of a lot 1:11:53.150 --> 1:11:56.130 of the colonial history here and all over the world, honestly. 1:11:56.939 --> 1:12:00.799 Heard the book Tracking the Chupacabra, the Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, 1:12:00.840 --> 1:12:04.100 and Folklore by Benjamin Radford, which was a huge source 1:12:04.120 --> 1:12:06.600 for this episode and was way more serious than I 1:12:06.640 --> 1:12:09.880 expected it to be, there's three versions of this blood-sucking beast. 1:12:10.800 --> 1:12:13.360 The first is the original, the Puerto Rican version that 1:12:13.400 --> 1:12:15.710 is about three to four feet tall with spines or 1:12:15.770 --> 1:12:18.210 feathers running down its back that also has some kind 1:12:18.250 --> 1:12:21.410 of reptilian look to it that was first quote-unquote seen 1:12:22.110 --> 1:12:25.849 in the small town of Canoanas in 1995. The second 1:12:25.950 --> 1:12:29.470 is more of a dog-slash-coyote-looking thing that's been seen up 1:12:29.510 --> 1:12:32.650 and down the American continent, but mostly on the Mexico-US 1:12:32.670 --> 1:12:37.100 borderlands and Latin America. Several corpses of this type of 1:12:37.140 --> 1:12:40.680 chupacabra have been found in that area, and pretty much 1:12:40.900 --> 1:12:43.080 every single time it ends up being some type of 1:12:43.220 --> 1:12:47.320 animal with mange. Meanwhile, the third version is a catch-all 1:12:47.400 --> 1:12:50.600 for any type of unidentified animal that can carry the 1:12:50.640 --> 1:12:53.760 blame for an unexplained attack pretty much anywhere in the world. 1:12:54.430 --> 1:12:56.530 For this episode, I'm mainly going to be talking about 1:12:56.570 --> 1:12:58.769 the Puerto Rican version with a little bit of context 1:12:58.790 --> 1:13:02.010 here and there about the other versions. So the first 1:13:02.150 --> 1:13:05.210 quote unquote sighting of the Chupacabra occurred in August 1995 1:13:05.210 --> 1:13:09.300 in the small town of Canovanas in the center north 1:13:09.439 --> 1:13:12.679 part of the archipelago. There had previously been attacks on 1:13:12.729 --> 1:13:15.900 livestock that year that had left them with two bite 1:13:15.939 --> 1:13:18.120 marks in the neck and without a single drop of blood. 1:13:18.680 --> 1:13:20.479 But this was the first time that it was seen. 1:13:20.500 --> 1:13:24.580 The woman who saw it, Madeline Torrentino, claimed that she 1:13:24.660 --> 1:13:27.559 saw the beast from a window from her house alongside 1:13:27.600 --> 1:13:30.040 her mother. And she didn't get a sighting of a 1:13:30.080 --> 1:13:32.100 piece of it caught in the moonlight as it slipped 1:13:32.120 --> 1:13:35.090 into the darkness. No, she got such a good look 1:13:35.150 --> 1:13:37.990 that she was able to describe it in incredible detail. 1:13:38.930 --> 1:13:42.850 Her tracking the chupacabra, quoting the book Chupacabra and Other 1:13:42.890 --> 1:13:46.310 Mysteries by Scott Corrales, which I cannot find an ebook for, 1:13:46.370 --> 1:13:49.370 so I'm trusting Radford on this. It had dark gray 1:13:49.470 --> 1:13:52.720 or black eyes that ran up its temples, and went 1:13:52.939 --> 1:13:56.080 up into its sides. It walked like a human and 1:13:56.120 --> 1:13:59.580 its arms were, quote, drawn back in an attack position 1:13:59.760 --> 1:14:02.760 as though it were a TV monster, end quote. Keep 1:14:02.800 --> 1:14:05.509 that in mind for later, by the way. It had 1:14:05.590 --> 1:14:09.090 long skinny fingers and close cropped hair all over its 1:14:09.130 --> 1:14:12.130 body and skinny legs that had three separate toes like 1:14:12.170 --> 1:14:15.310 a goose. It never opened its mouth and had feathers 1:14:15.450 --> 1:14:19.330 running down its back that were flat. Tolentino even got 1:14:19.350 --> 1:14:21.710 a close enough look to see its genitals, or I 1:14:21.750 --> 1:14:25.870 should say lack thereof. According to Corrales' book, she somehow 1:14:26.010 --> 1:14:28.630 got on the floor from her window and managed to 1:14:28.689 --> 1:14:32.020 see that its genitals were sealed, even having time to 1:14:32.060 --> 1:14:33.860 make a joke to her mom about how it might 1:14:33.900 --> 1:14:37.460 have pooped through its mouth. According to the book, a 1:14:37.520 --> 1:14:40.480 young boy who worked for Tolentino's husband was also in 1:14:40.500 --> 1:14:43.299 the house and he sprinted out to catch the beast, 1:14:43.760 --> 1:14:46.390 even managing to do so and get close enough to 1:14:46.439 --> 1:14:50.750 perform an impromptu dental inspection because he opened its mouth 1:14:51.010 --> 1:14:55.020 and saw fangs. However, it eventually got away. From seeing 1:14:55.030 --> 1:14:59.200 the covers of Corrales' books, they are truly wild-looking, and 1:14:59.240 --> 1:15:01.460 from what I can tell, they're pretty much all written 1:15:01.520 --> 1:15:04.520 from the perspective of a person who believes, or at 1:15:04.560 --> 1:15:07.320 least wants you to believe, that the cryptids and aliens 1:15:07.380 --> 1:15:12.300 described in them are real. Meanwhile, Radford's book is written 1:15:12.320 --> 1:15:15.060 by a skeptic, a person who's open to the idea, 1:15:15.080 --> 1:15:17.780 but is actually trying to use a scientific method to 1:15:17.840 --> 1:15:21.280 see if the chupacabra is real. From reading Radford's book, 1:15:22.040 --> 1:15:25.720 He kind of has some serious beef with Corrales. And 1:15:25.760 --> 1:15:27.980 in some instances of the book, you can really see 1:15:28.000 --> 1:15:32.660 the contempt come through. Anyway, dragging the chupacabra points out 1:15:32.810 --> 1:15:37.889 several inconsistencies in Tolentino's statement. First, it moved like a robot, 1:15:37.970 --> 1:15:41.849 but then it ran, then hopped, then seemed to float. Also, 1:15:41.930 --> 1:15:44.650 she was watching from the window, but was able to 1:15:44.670 --> 1:15:48.150 get to the floor to see its genitals. It's possible 1:15:48.350 --> 1:15:50.309 that she said window, but she meant like a sliding 1:15:50.350 --> 1:15:51.150 door in her house. 1:15:51.470 --> 1:15:52.770 But yeah, it's improbable. 1:15:53.670 --> 1:15:56.380 Also, the fact that the boy managed to catch the 1:15:56.410 --> 1:15:59.840 creature and inspect it is wild. And when Radford interviewed 1:15:59.880 --> 1:16:03.500 Tolentino in 2010, she said that that never happened. The 1:16:03.540 --> 1:16:05.280 kid went out to find it, but he didn't actually 1:16:05.340 --> 1:16:08.820 see it. So it's unclear where that description came from. 1:16:09.810 --> 1:16:11.970 To let the cat out of the bag quickly, per 1:16:11.990 --> 1:16:15.800 Radford's book, The creature that Tolentino saw in the darkness 1:16:15.979 --> 1:16:19.970 was actually a half-remembered and more reptilian version of the 1:16:20.020 --> 1:16:26.090 creature Sil from the 1995 Roger Donaldson film Species. Sil 1:16:26.130 --> 1:16:29.610 was played by Natasha Henstridge and designed by H.R. 1:16:29.650 --> 1:16:30.009 Giger. 1:16:30.030 --> 1:16:33.210 Yeah, the guy who designed the xenomorphs is the reason 1:16:33.250 --> 1:16:38.140 that the chupacabra exists. Tolentino quote-unquote saw the chupacabra in 1:16:38.260 --> 1:16:41.260 August and Species had come out just a month before, 1:16:41.380 --> 1:16:44.250 in July. And if you look at pictures of Sil 1:16:44.310 --> 1:16:48.219 and the chupacabra drawn from Tolentino's memories, there's an uncanny 1:16:48.260 --> 1:16:51.299 resemblance there. I know that this is an audio medium, 1:16:51.360 --> 1:16:53.840 but I'll publish pictures on Blue Sky whenever this episode 1:16:53.860 --> 1:16:57.019 drops and you'll see it. Part of the movie had 1:16:57.060 --> 1:16:59.120 even been filmed in Puerto Rico, and one of the 1:16:59.180 --> 1:17:02.849 first images presented in the film is the Arecibo telescope, 1:17:03.060 --> 1:17:06.790 a gigantic radio telescope that was destroyed by Hurricane Maria 1:17:06.810 --> 1:17:10.540 in 2017. that had actually been used to send the 1:17:10.600 --> 1:17:15.519 first ever signals into space in 1974. Tolentino was even 1:17:15.740 --> 1:17:18.930 asked about the film, but her reaction was interesting, to 1:17:18.950 --> 1:17:23.309 say the least. In a 1996 interview with Lucy Pla 1:17:23.390 --> 1:17:28.450 and José Manuel Rodríguez, highlighted by tracking the Chupacabra, Tolentino 1:17:28.510 --> 1:17:32.660 said that Sill's resemblance to the Chupacabra was, quote, really impressive, 1:17:33.100 --> 1:17:36.370 end quote. And she wondered, quote, how can they make 1:17:36.430 --> 1:17:38.610 a movie like that when these things are happening in 1:17:38.670 --> 1:17:39.190 Puerto Rico? 1:17:39.729 --> 1:17:40.130 End quote. 1:17:40.950 --> 1:17:42.830 I really do not want this to come off as 1:17:42.870 --> 1:17:45.790 being mean to Tolentino because we've all seen weird stuff 1:17:45.810 --> 1:17:47.810 in the woods that we can't explain, told a few 1:17:47.850 --> 1:17:50.810 friends and then forgot about it. But the reason that 1:17:50.850 --> 1:17:53.670 Tolentino's tall tale became the myth that it did is 1:17:53.729 --> 1:17:58.019 because the news media absolutely pounced on her story and 1:17:58.060 --> 1:18:02.040 took it to insane heights. attributing any and all mysterious 1:18:02.080 --> 1:18:06.990 occurrences involving cattle mutilation or unexplained attacks or anything along 1:18:07.030 --> 1:18:13.470 those lines to the chupacabra. Before Tolentino saw, quote-unquote, the chupacabras, 1:18:13.510 --> 1:18:16.530 there had been other attacks that were retroactively attributed to 1:18:16.550 --> 1:18:20.610 the chupacabras, and it slowly became a boogeyman that was 1:18:20.650 --> 1:18:22.930 at the scene of everything that could not have an 1:18:23.070 --> 1:18:26.900 easy or normal explanation. I should also say that the 1:18:26.939 --> 1:18:32.070 name Chupacabras was reportedly coined by comedian Silverio Perez, although 1:18:32.110 --> 1:18:37.150 that's disputed by some. Shortly after Tolentino's encounter with the Chupacabra, 1:18:37.290 --> 1:18:41.849 she described the Chupacabra to artist Jorge Martín, whose drawing 1:18:41.870 --> 1:18:44.309 made the front page of El Nuevo Día according to 1:18:44.350 --> 1:18:47.750 tracking the Chupacabra. El Nuevo Día is our paper of record, 1:18:47.810 --> 1:18:48.530 so this was. 1:18:48.610 --> 1:18:49.570 A big deal. 1:18:50.370 --> 1:18:53.570 And although I can't find this front page anymore, as 1:18:53.610 --> 1:18:56.309 a nation we're pretty bad at archiving the past and 1:18:56.350 --> 1:19:00.479 it's not really easily accessible online. From reading the book, 1:19:00.840 --> 1:19:04.820 their coverage seems to have been significantly less sensationalist than 1:19:04.900 --> 1:19:09.400 other local papers. Although, I did manage to find an 1:19:09.470 --> 1:19:14.570 article from 2010 whose headline reads, quote, two chupacabra attacks reported, 1:19:14.830 --> 1:19:19.729 end quote. So your mileage may vary. However, the chupacabra 1:19:19.810 --> 1:19:24.550 reached worldwide fame when talk show host Cristina Saralegui aired 1:19:24.610 --> 1:19:27.370 a story about the chupacabra on El Show de Cristina, 1:19:27.530 --> 1:19:31.250 which aired across the Spanish-speaking world. Saralegui even had the 1:19:31.290 --> 1:19:35.019 mayor of Canobanas, José Chemo Soto, who was up for 1:19:35.080 --> 1:19:38.200 re-election to talk about his experience hunting the chupacabra in 1:19:38.240 --> 1:19:41.920 his municipality, which is something that he became super famous 1:19:41.960 --> 1:19:45.080 for in that late 90s period, and it helped him 1:19:45.140 --> 1:19:47.420 a lot because he was re-elected all the way to 2004. 1:19:47.420 --> 1:19:51.560 It was a publicity stunt, clear and simple, but it worked. 1:19:52.520 --> 1:19:55.790 Per the book, Governing Spirits, Religion, Miracles, and Spectacles in 1:19:55.870 --> 1:20:01.870 Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1898-1956, by Renaldo Román, he eventually 1:20:01.910 --> 1:20:04.560 came to be called Chemo Jones because of his hunt 1:20:04.600 --> 1:20:08.200 for the bloodsucker. It was clear to everyone this was 1:20:08.260 --> 1:20:11.340 a publicity stunt, but everybody went along with it, including 1:20:11.460 --> 1:20:15.180 more than 200 volunteers, scores of journalists, and off-duty police 1:20:15.240 --> 1:20:23.710 officers that accompanied him on a hunt on October 29th, 1995. Wait, 1:20:24.250 --> 1:20:27.870 you hear that? Is that something moving in the woods? Wait, no, no, no. 1:20:28.150 --> 1:20:28.540 It's just ads. 1:20:38.450 --> 1:20:41.410 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, where we're talking 1:20:41.550 --> 1:20:47.020 about the chupacabra. Even though not all Puerto Ricans believed 1:20:47.100 --> 1:20:51.460 in this blood-sucking beast, urban and international media almost always 1:20:51.540 --> 1:20:54.460 portrayed these rural folks as being a mass of fools 1:20:54.560 --> 1:20:58.930 that believed in mysticism and this extraterrestrial beast. So there 1:20:58.950 --> 1:21:03.009 was always a very real class aspect to the whole coverage. 1:21:03.430 --> 1:21:08.630 of this Chupacabra. Per the book Tracking the Chupacabra, quote, 1:21:08.790 --> 1:21:11.570 when reading accounts of the Chupacabra in Puerto Rico, I 1:21:11.640 --> 1:21:16.559 often came across phrases like, quote, the Chupacabra terrorized the island, 1:21:16.700 --> 1:21:21.320 end quote, or, quote, fear gripped Puerto Rico, end quote, or, quote, 1:21:21.460 --> 1:21:25.519 the island populace was near fever pitch, end quote. There is, 1:21:25.580 --> 1:21:29.930 of course, some truth to this description, but mystery-mongering hyperbole aside, 1:21:30.310 --> 1:21:32.750 it is not accurate to suggest that the entire Puerto 1:21:32.770 --> 1:21:36.210 Rican population, or even a majority of it, was gripped 1:21:36.250 --> 1:21:39.860 in terror over the goat sucker. Of course, some individuals 1:21:39.920 --> 1:21:42.520 and groups grew very concerned over the mystery, but most 1:21:42.560 --> 1:21:46.360 Puerto Ricans, especially city dwellers, went about their daily lives 1:21:46.439 --> 1:21:49.230 giving little thought or concern to the creature that they 1:21:49.240 --> 1:21:53.330 had heard about, mostly in backyard gossip and tabloids. If 1:21:53.570 --> 1:21:57.170 El Nuevo Día and Cristina brought the creature to mainstream attention, 1:21:57.410 --> 1:22:00.850 El Vocero, which is now a respectable newspaper but was 1:22:00.930 --> 1:22:05.309 a lurid tabloid back then, is what quote-unquote created the 1:22:05.350 --> 1:22:10.129 chupacabra in the popular imagination. Per Governing Spirits, El Vocero 1:22:10.189 --> 1:22:14.349 lifted dozens and dozens of stories about chupacabra attacks, adding 1:22:14.410 --> 1:22:17.800 details to every single one that in hindsight were clearly 1:22:17.840 --> 1:22:21.220 just kind of made up. One such story highlighted in 1:22:21.640 --> 1:22:25.280 Tracking the Chupacabra is about a five-year-old girl almost being 1:22:25.320 --> 1:22:28.020 abducted by the beast, but then she managed to escape 1:22:28.689 --> 1:22:32.520 And it raised her IQ to a genius level. This 1:22:32.560 --> 1:22:35.900 story was seemingly confirmed by a police officer at El Vocero, 1:22:36.240 --> 1:22:38.380 which saw it fit to print. We're going to talk 1:22:38.420 --> 1:22:40.880 a little bit more later about people in positions of 1:22:40.939 --> 1:22:44.900 authority confirming Chupacabra, but this was the type of thing 1:22:44.960 --> 1:22:49.440 that flooded El Vocero newspapers at the time. When I 1:22:49.500 --> 1:22:51.740 spoke to a friend who was alive at the time 1:22:51.780 --> 1:22:54.900 this was happening, he told me that El Bosero's tabloidness 1:22:55.000 --> 1:22:58.339 and propensity for publishing the most lurid pictures of accidents 1:22:58.400 --> 1:23:01.520 and murders led people to say that if you squeezed 1:23:01.580 --> 1:23:06.820 the newspaper, it would bleed. Ironically enough, per Tracking the Chupacabra, 1:23:06.840 --> 1:23:09.860 the majority of claims that animals were left without blood 1:23:09.880 --> 1:23:13.380 were published by El Bosero, without really any proof or 1:23:13.420 --> 1:23:17.479 an autopsy being performed. Quoting from Radford here, It is 1:23:17.560 --> 1:23:20.420 likely that if the animal's owners expressed any doubts that 1:23:20.439 --> 1:23:23.520 their animals had been vampirized, the tabloid reporter would have 1:23:23.580 --> 1:23:27.099 no reservations about massaging the facts and selecting the quotes 1:23:27.120 --> 1:23:30.100 that would make for a better story. A farmer or 1:23:30.160 --> 1:23:33.229 housewife who excitedly swears that the goat they found had 1:23:33.439 --> 1:23:36.769 absolutely been drained of every single drop of blood makes 1:23:36.790 --> 1:23:39.330 for a better story than one who isn't sure, or 1:23:39.390 --> 1:23:41.570 who admits he or she didn't really look. 1:23:42.290 --> 1:23:42.630 End quote. 1:23:43.490 --> 1:23:47.050 Mass hysteria is often caused by mass media covering an 1:23:47.090 --> 1:23:52.330 event badly, essentially a failure to perform journalism. Each instance 1:23:52.390 --> 1:23:55.330 of the chupacabra getting attention made it spread wider and 1:23:55.430 --> 1:23:59.430 wider until it was absolutely inescapable. Yet very little of 1:23:59.470 --> 1:24:03.290 this coverage attempted to show that it wasn't real. Any 1:24:03.350 --> 1:24:06.490 mysterious thing was now the result of the chupacabra, because 1:24:06.510 --> 1:24:09.220 it was the new thing that everybody knew about, and 1:24:09.260 --> 1:24:12.679 the creature that everybody was telling you to be very, very, 1:24:13.060 --> 1:24:17.720 very afraid about all the time. Actually, the animated 100% 1:24:17.720 --> 1:24:22.059 real documentary Paranoia Agent deals with mass hysteria spreading throughout 1:24:22.100 --> 1:24:24.960 Japan as a result of a mysterious boy attacking people 1:24:25.000 --> 1:24:25.400 with a bat. 1:24:25.820 --> 1:24:26.519 Highly recommend. 1:24:27.340 --> 1:24:29.840 El Vocero has a long history of making up stuff 1:24:29.900 --> 1:24:33.840 to sell papers. In fact, El Vocero's first year of 1:24:33.880 --> 1:24:37.820 publication was marked by another vampire creature boosting its numbers. 1:24:39.030 --> 1:24:43.030 In 1975, there were unexplained attacks in the western municipality 1:24:43.229 --> 1:24:47.689 of Moca that also reportedly left animals without blood. This 1:24:47.770 --> 1:24:52.290 creature was called El Vampiro de Moca, the Vampire of Moca. 1:24:53.310 --> 1:24:56.010 El Vocero latched onto this story like a tick and 1:24:56.050 --> 1:24:58.950 published dozens of stories that would come to foreshadow their 1:24:58.990 --> 1:25:02.849 coverage of El Chupacabra. Although they were admonished for their 1:25:02.890 --> 1:25:06.170 coverage at the time by editors from other newspapers, they 1:25:06.229 --> 1:25:09.330 said they were just reporting the stories out Just the facts. 1:25:10.090 --> 1:25:12.910 Although they later acknowledged it did lead them to reach 1:25:12.950 --> 1:25:17.450 a circulation of nearly 90,000 in their first year, according 1:25:17.490 --> 1:25:20.580 to Governing Spirits, which is a fuckton for a small 1:25:20.620 --> 1:25:23.160 tabloid in an archipelago that at the time had a 1:25:23.200 --> 1:25:26.660 population of less than 3 million people. So we see 1:25:26.740 --> 1:25:30.340 how history kind of repeats itself with El Chupacabra by 1:25:30.420 --> 1:25:34.380 analyzing El Vocero's actions during the time of El Vampiro 1:25:34.420 --> 1:25:37.660 de Moca. Both times, they knew that by focusing on 1:25:37.720 --> 1:25:42.320 sensationalism and obscurantism, it could make money, which is a 1:25:42.720 --> 1:25:47.280 lot of the reason that these myths spread. By the way, 1:25:47.380 --> 1:25:50.050 if you speak Spanish, the great podcast El Hilo did 1:25:50.070 --> 1:25:52.390 an episode in March of this year about El Vampiro 1:25:52.430 --> 1:25:57.130 de Moca called, quote, El Vampiro Entre Nosotros, end quote. 1:25:57.670 --> 1:25:59.849 That's excellent and was a big source for this section 1:25:59.890 --> 1:26:00.410 of the episode. 1:26:00.430 --> 1:26:00.490 So. 1:26:00.470 --> 1:26:05.740 20 years before the chupacabra struck, Puerto Ricans were already 1:26:05.820 --> 1:26:09.809 familiar with another bloodsucker. And although the natural inclination is 1:26:09.850 --> 1:26:12.530 to think that the vampiro de moca is just the chupacabra, 1:26:12.710 --> 1:26:15.290 from what I've read, people mostly view them as two 1:26:15.410 --> 1:26:19.650 separate creatures that show there are unexplained things going bump 1:26:19.710 --> 1:26:23.570 in the night in Puerto Rico. And that the government 1:26:23.610 --> 1:26:26.550 was either mostly powerless to do something about it or 1:26:26.630 --> 1:26:31.360 largely uninterested in doing so. Speaking of the government, there's 1:26:31.400 --> 1:26:34.700 an even older story than the Vampiro de Moca that 1:26:34.720 --> 1:26:38.540 had already created a strong association between the government and 1:26:38.600 --> 1:26:43.540 vampirism on the archipelago. First, to set the scene, Puerto 1:26:43.560 --> 1:26:47.300 Rico has been an important U.S. military stronghold since the 1:26:47.340 --> 1:26:50.850 late 1930s because of its strategic location that allows the 1:26:50.890 --> 1:26:55.470 military to project force towards Latin America. The archipelago eventually 1:26:55.510 --> 1:26:58.810 became an incredibly important part of U.S. military strategy in 1:26:58.830 --> 1:27:02.340 the Atlantic. At its peak, there were 20 separate installations 1:27:02.380 --> 1:27:05.809 that occupied roughly 13% of all arable land in the 1:27:05.860 --> 1:27:09.590 archipelago per a master's thesis written by Robert Jordan in 1:27:09.590 --> 1:27:13.750 2008 for the University of Texas at Dallas titled El Chupacabra, 1:27:13.830 --> 1:27:17.910 Icon of Resistance to U.S. Imperialism. The biggest installation was 1:27:17.930 --> 1:27:21.090 the Roosevelt Road's Naval Station, which was eventually closed in 1:27:21.090 --> 1:27:23.689 2004 but was reopened last year. 1:27:24.720 --> 1:27:25.160 The U.S. 1:27:25.200 --> 1:27:29.179 Military also occupied the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra 1:27:29.790 --> 1:27:32.800 which they used for all types of training, including using 1:27:32.820 --> 1:27:35.479 it as a bombing range. Per the Guardian, they dropped 1:27:35.580 --> 1:27:38.860 up to 3 million pounds of ordnance in Vieques per year. 1:27:39.720 --> 1:27:44.630 This includes 263 rounds of depleted uranium-tipped munitions that were 1:27:45.030 --> 1:27:50.450 quote-unquote accidentally expended during a training exercise on February 19, 1999, 1:27:50.430 --> 1:27:56.270 per Navy Facilities Command. Today, about two-thirds of Vieques are 1:27:56.330 --> 1:27:59.090 natural reserves that the public can't access because of all 1:27:59.130 --> 1:28:02.950 the unexploited ordnance there, and its people have sky-high cancer 1:28:02.990 --> 1:28:06.650 rates compared to the rest of the archipelago's population. I 1:28:06.670 --> 1:28:08.229 talk a little bit more about all this in my 1:28:08.290 --> 1:28:10.850 episodes about U.S. colonies, so check that out if you 1:28:10.870 --> 1:28:14.830 want to learn more. Vieques and Culebra were so important 1:28:14.850 --> 1:28:18.330 to U.S. military strategy that in the 1960s, the U.S. 1:28:18.390 --> 1:28:21.480 government attempted to purchase the entirety of the two island 1:28:21.520 --> 1:28:26.280 municipalities for bombing practice. This would have involved moving the 1:28:26.340 --> 1:28:29.580 nearly 9,000 people that live there to another part of 1:28:29.620 --> 1:28:34.130 the archipelago, as well as exhuming all the bodies in 1:28:34.150 --> 1:28:37.230 the cemeteries, some which had been there for over 200 years, 1:28:37.310 --> 1:28:37.770 and reburying them. 1:28:40.340 --> 1:28:40.979 Somewhere else. 1:28:42.240 --> 1:28:46.059 Because of this wild and weird ask, the negotiations were 1:28:46.140 --> 1:28:52.129 codenamed the Dracula Plan, Plan Dracula, by Puerto Rican officials. 1:28:52.979 --> 1:28:55.930 Although the plan never came to pass, per el Chupacabra 1:28:56.030 --> 1:28:59.650 icon of resistance, this early association between the U.S. government 1:28:59.750 --> 1:29:03.310 with a blood-sucking monster was prophetic for the way it 1:29:03.550 --> 1:29:07.340 viewed the bloodsuckers to come. Before I continue citing all 1:29:07.360 --> 1:29:11.599 the ways U.S. presence influenced the Chupacabra, it's worth noting 1:29:11.700 --> 1:29:16.180 that the Navy left Culebra in 1975 and Vieques in 1:29:16.180 --> 1:29:20.630 2003 after years of sustained and massive protests. And, per 1:29:20.670 --> 1:29:25.559 Jordan's thesis... Chupacabra sightings dropped off massively after Puerto Ricans 1:29:25.600 --> 1:29:28.349 were able to wrestle more control over their land from 1:29:28.390 --> 1:29:32.110 the U.S. But you know what you can't wrestle away 1:29:32.150 --> 1:29:37.170 control from? These products and services. And also, I'm sure 1:29:37.210 --> 1:29:40.599 they won't suck your blood out like the Chupacabra, but 1:29:41.080 --> 1:29:42.099 maybe watch out a little bit. 1:29:45.260 --> 1:29:46.490 Ha ha ha. 1:29:51.100 --> 1:29:53.099 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, where we are 1:29:53.189 --> 1:29:58.430 diving into the origin story of the Chupacabra. Since the 1:29:58.470 --> 1:30:02.370 Chupacabra came into the popular imagination, its origin has always 1:30:02.430 --> 1:30:03.410 been linked to the U.S. 1:30:03.450 --> 1:30:03.809 Government. 1:30:04.410 --> 1:30:06.890 The most prominent rumor goes that it was created for 1:30:06.930 --> 1:30:11.130 genetic experimentation on extraterrestrial life at a secret laboratory in 1:30:11.150 --> 1:30:14.670 El Yunque, which is the largest rainforest on our small archipelago. 1:30:15.490 --> 1:30:17.970 Many people consider it to be the last bastion of 1:30:18.050 --> 1:30:21.670 pristine and untouched Puerto Rico. And while that's not really true, 1:30:21.790 --> 1:30:24.410 it certainly is beautiful, and hiking the two to three 1:30:24.450 --> 1:30:26.410 hours or so that it takes to reach the top 1:30:26.530 --> 1:30:30.250 is something I would recommend to everyone. While the Chupacabra 1:30:30.370 --> 1:30:33.430 definitely did not emerge from a secret lab in Ajunque, 1:30:33.520 --> 1:30:37.720 there were definitely strange experiments taking place there, but of 1:30:37.740 --> 1:30:42.059 the man-made horrors beyond my comprehension variety. There are two 1:30:42.100 --> 1:30:45.640 big ones. The first was related to Project Plowshares, wherein 1:30:45.660 --> 1:30:49.650 the Atomic Energy Commission was attempting to quote-unquote peacefully destroy 1:30:50.500 --> 1:30:54.140 employ atomic explosions to create canals and harbors in Panama. 1:30:54.780 --> 1:30:57.180 As part of this project, scientists from the University of 1:30:57.220 --> 1:31:00.439 Puerto Rico injected trees and other vegetation in El Yunque 1:31:00.939 --> 1:31:05.139 with radioactive isotopes to see what would happen to them. Meanwhile, 1:31:05.740 --> 1:31:08.700 the second big one is the testing of Agent Orange, 1:31:08.820 --> 1:31:12.349 Agent White, and other tactical herbicides there and in six 1:31:12.470 --> 1:31:16.530 other locations because our vegetation resembled that of Southeast Asia. 1:31:17.310 --> 1:31:20.900 According to a document titled quote, the history of the U.S. 1:31:20.939 --> 1:31:24.890 Department of Defense programs for the testing, evaluation, and storage 1:31:24.950 --> 1:31:28.730 of tactical herbicides, end quote, written by Alvin L. Young 1:31:28.750 --> 1:31:32.070 in 2006 and submitted to the Office of the Undersecretary 1:31:32.130 --> 1:31:35.439 of Defense. As far as I've been alive, there's always 1:31:35.490 --> 1:31:39.160 been rumors of creepy things going on in Ajunque. It's 1:31:39.200 --> 1:31:42.000 a popular spot for UFO sightings as well, which people 1:31:42.140 --> 1:31:45.360 often attribute to the presence of U.S. military installations there. 1:31:46.160 --> 1:31:49.309 It's worth noting that El Junque's facilities were also used 1:31:49.390 --> 1:31:52.210 as a guided missile operations control unit and a joint 1:31:52.229 --> 1:31:55.469 surveillance site in the latter half of the 20th century, 1:31:56.070 --> 1:31:58.309 which is part of the reason that people always thought 1:31:58.330 --> 1:32:00.849 there was some secret spy shit going on that was 1:32:00.930 --> 1:32:05.160 calling the aliens to El Junque. Actually, my dad has 1:32:05.200 --> 1:32:07.480 this story that he's told me and my siblings maybe 1:32:07.600 --> 1:32:10.140 a dozen times over our lives where him and his 1:32:10.200 --> 1:32:12.760 best friend were confused for men in black at an 1:32:12.840 --> 1:32:16.560 El Junque stargazing slash UFO event. Because he was wearing 1:32:16.680 --> 1:32:20.860 aviators at night and a bomber jacket? Just the type 1:32:20.900 --> 1:32:23.820 of beliefs that can be inspired by something you can't 1:32:23.860 --> 1:32:27.930 quite explain. The Chupacabra being from a secret facility also 1:32:27.970 --> 1:32:30.750 ties in well enough with the plot of Species, which 1:32:30.830 --> 1:32:35.189 inspired that first sighting. Lauren Derby, in a paper titled, quote, 1:32:35.270 --> 1:32:39.610 Imperial Secrets, Vampires, and Nationhood in Puerto Rico, end quote, 1:32:40.350 --> 1:32:45.280 says that, quote, The Chupacabras reflects a contradiction very peculiar 1:32:45.300 --> 1:32:48.100 to Puerto Rico, which is a very small island with 1:32:48.150 --> 1:32:53.050 an extraordinarily pervasive array of U.S. military installations, most of 1:32:53.090 --> 1:32:56.389 which are called as top secret and therefore declared off-limits 1:32:56.410 --> 1:33:01.690 to locals, end quote. Per Derby's paper, quote, disproportionate number 1:33:01.710 --> 1:33:05.850 of Chupacabra narratives have been generated by the inside-class outsiders 1:33:05.910 --> 1:33:08.750 who have some access to the secrets of power or 1:33:08.810 --> 1:33:11.939 police its margins. Those who are close enough to touch 1:33:11.979 --> 1:33:15.360 the walls and halls of power, comma, the skin of 1:33:15.420 --> 1:33:19.870 the secrets and yet are still denied real access, end quote. 1:33:20.490 --> 1:33:23.670 These are mostly retired army personnel or police. I would 1:33:23.689 --> 1:33:26.769 wager to guess that like many other cryptids, the tail 1:33:26.790 --> 1:33:30.350 of the chupacabra was used whether consciously or unconsciously to 1:33:30.390 --> 1:33:34.330 keep people away from these restricted government areas. Essentially, el 1:33:34.790 --> 1:33:39.189 chupacabra was a psyop. You heard it here first. Tales 1:33:39.390 --> 1:33:43.599 of government experimentation weigh heavy on the Puerto Rican mind. 1:33:43.720 --> 1:33:47.740 In 1941, the American doctor Cornelius Rhodes, who worked on 1:33:47.780 --> 1:33:50.960 Puerto Rican patients, wrote a letter saying that he had, quote, 1:33:51.240 --> 1:33:54.520 done his best to further the process of extermination by 1:33:54.600 --> 1:33:59.200 killing eight and transplanting cancer into several more. Although an 1:33:59.270 --> 1:34:03.810 investigation found no evidence of unethical human experimentation, The rumor 1:34:04.090 --> 1:34:07.950 that he did inject people with cancer cells remains very 1:34:08.070 --> 1:34:12.150 permanent in Puerto Rican society. Meanwhile, between the 1930s and 1:34:12.170 --> 1:34:15.689 the 1970s, Puerto Rican officials, with support of the U.S. government, 1:34:15.710 --> 1:34:20.150 pushed a massive campaign of sterilization because of fears of overpopulation. 1:34:21.250 --> 1:34:24.150 Women who got la operación, the operation, as it was 1:34:24.210 --> 1:34:27.969 colloquially called, were promised a solution to poverty and economic stability. 1:34:28.550 --> 1:34:31.479 Many were also led to believe that the operation was reversible. 1:34:31.939 --> 1:34:34.300 but this proved not to be the case. About a 1:34:34.380 --> 1:34:37.599 third of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age were sterilized 1:34:37.800 --> 1:34:41.100 during that time. There's a very good documentary that I'll 1:34:41.120 --> 1:34:44.479 link in the sources called La Operación by Ana María 1:34:44.520 --> 1:34:48.100 García that talks about the sterilization campaign. Really recommend you 1:34:48.120 --> 1:34:50.360 take a look at it if you're interested in more context. 1:34:51.340 --> 1:34:54.420 Although both the peak of militarism and La Operación happened 1:34:54.500 --> 1:34:58.540 decades before the first Chupacabra sighting, it's within this blaze 1:34:58.580 --> 1:35:02.460 of government secrets and conspiracy and U.S. colonialism that tall 1:35:02.520 --> 1:35:04.860 tales of the Chupacabra bursting out of the woods and 1:35:04.900 --> 1:35:08.589 laying waste to livestock came about all throughout the archipelago. 1:35:09.560 --> 1:35:13.310 It's worth highlighting that economically and socially, things were not 1:35:13.370 --> 1:35:15.430 going very well for Puerto Ricans at the time that 1:35:15.450 --> 1:35:19.510 the Chupacabra myth started. The archipelago had been undergoing a 1:35:19.550 --> 1:35:23.940 drought that lasted from mid-1994 to 1997, per reporting from 1:35:23.990 --> 1:35:27.610 El Vocero. It's respectable now, I swear. This drought was 1:35:27.670 --> 1:35:29.790 one of the worst for PR in the 20th century, 1:35:30.030 --> 1:35:33.490 and it reached its peak in 1995. It caused 300 1:35:33.490 --> 1:35:37.650 million in damages, and approximately 165 million corresponded to the 1:35:37.729 --> 1:35:41.700 agricultural sector, aka the rural communities who owned the livestock 1:35:41.760 --> 1:35:45.460 that was being attacked by the Chupacabras. Meanwhile, a hurricane 1:35:45.760 --> 1:35:49.720 was also bearing down on the archipelago in 1995. Hurricane 1:35:49.760 --> 1:35:53.930 Mariling hit Puerto Rico in September 1995 and as a 1:35:53.970 --> 1:35:58.550 Category 2 hurricane and caused about $ 2. 5 billion in damages 1:35:59.290 --> 1:36:02.520 between PR and the U.S. Virgin Islands and 13 deaths 1:36:02.640 --> 1:36:06.439 between the two. At the same time, rural communities who 1:36:06.479 --> 1:36:09.860 largely depended on agriculture to sustain themselves had been forced 1:36:09.880 --> 1:36:13.000 to leave that work behind and move towards industrial jobs 1:36:13.100 --> 1:36:16.760 as part of Operation Bootstrap. This fragmentation was built on 1:36:16.800 --> 1:36:19.500 by the encroachment of urbanism throughout much of the region 1:36:19.560 --> 1:36:23.510 surrounding the capital municipality of San Juan. It's important to 1:36:23.590 --> 1:36:27.220 point out that Canovanas has experienced marked urban and commercial 1:36:27.270 --> 1:36:29.940 development over the past 30 or 40 years, to the 1:36:30.000 --> 1:36:32.360 point that what the municipality is most known for to 1:36:32.400 --> 1:36:35.260 people like me who don't live there is because of 1:36:35.360 --> 1:36:40.280 its gigantic outlet mall that started construction in 1998. Meanwhile, 1:36:40.300 --> 1:36:44.600 Orocovis and Morovis, where the first unexplained livestock attack happened, 1:36:44.800 --> 1:36:48.059 are still isolated rural communities that have been more or 1:36:48.120 --> 1:36:51.730 less forgotten by the central government. to the point that 1:36:51.850 --> 1:36:55.390 in 2019, Morovis had to sue our central water utility 1:36:55.470 --> 1:36:59.170 because of continued lack of access to potable water. So 1:36:59.490 --> 1:37:03.340 when rural communities composed mostly of lower or middle class 1:37:03.400 --> 1:37:07.700 people started seeing their livestock, a kind of physical manifestation 1:37:07.760 --> 1:37:10.939 of what little wealth they had, being attacked by something, 1:37:11.439 --> 1:37:14.540 it caused a panic. And within that panic, the Chupacabra 1:37:14.640 --> 1:37:17.550 emerged as the quote-unquote real thing that was hurting them, 1:37:18.070 --> 1:37:22.689 that they could theoretically find and stop, versus the growing environmental, societal, 1:37:22.729 --> 1:37:26.189 and economic crisis built on top of centuries of colonialism. 1:37:26.890 --> 1:37:29.930 Through the creation of the chupacabra, people were able to 1:37:29.990 --> 1:37:33.580 maintain their collective identity and impose a sense of control 1:37:34.280 --> 1:37:38.979 at a point where they felt powerless. Per tracking the chupacabra, quote, 1:37:39.140 --> 1:37:42.700 it was within this desperate environment of perceived U.S. intrusion 1:37:42.800 --> 1:37:46.110 and imperialism that the symbol of the chupacabra became the 1:37:46.150 --> 1:37:48.790 vessel into which many of the rural people of Puerto 1:37:48.810 --> 1:37:52.589 Rico poured all their fears and apprehensions about the strange 1:37:52.650 --> 1:37:57.050 industrial world seemingly thrust upon them by the United States. However, 1:37:57.250 --> 1:38:00.220 those rural municipalities of Puerto Rico where the U.S. lacked 1:38:00.300 --> 1:38:03.520 a major military or economic presence during this drought period 1:38:03.700 --> 1:38:07.980 did not receive any visits from the Chupacabra. Furthermore, large 1:38:08.100 --> 1:38:11.420 urban areas such as San Juan, where industrial or service-based 1:38:11.460 --> 1:38:14.600 livelihoods were less affected by the drought found elsewhere in 1:38:14.620 --> 1:38:18.510 the country, did not report sightings of the creature, end quote. 1:38:19.470 --> 1:38:22.389 In a sense, the creation of the Chupacabra also left 1:38:22.430 --> 1:38:24.930 the government that was not doing anything at all about 1:38:24.950 --> 1:38:28.650 the crisis its people were facing off the hook. For 1:38:28.689 --> 1:38:30.730 Chemo Jones, he even used it as a way to 1:38:30.810 --> 1:38:34.780 ride into re-election for free more cycles. However, for the 1:38:34.840 --> 1:38:38.180 people actually affected by the drought and the random attacks 1:38:38.240 --> 1:38:42.519 on their livestock, probably by wild dogs, the Chupacabra was 1:38:42.580 --> 1:38:45.180 a way to explain their misery, but it didn't provide 1:38:45.240 --> 1:38:47.900 a solution to their problems. They were left to fester 1:38:48.100 --> 1:38:51.700 and just have to take even more pressure onto themselves. 1:38:52.660 --> 1:38:56.030 The other countries in Latin America where Chupacabra sightings were 1:38:56.110 --> 1:38:59.950 also reported after the Cristina show aired were also suffering 1:38:59.990 --> 1:39:04.330 from economic and social turmoil at the time. In Mexico, 1:39:04.390 --> 1:39:07.979 the agricultural industry was suffering because of the passage of 1:39:08.020 --> 1:39:11.720 the North American Free Trade Agreement. Per an essay by 1:39:11.780 --> 1:39:17.420 William Calvoquiros titled Sucking Vulnerability, Neoliberalism, the Chupacabras, and the 1:39:17.500 --> 1:39:22.090 Post-Cold War Years, NAFTA caused the Mexican government to change 1:39:22.130 --> 1:39:26.310 their constitution to allow the privatization of communal land, which 1:39:26.390 --> 1:39:31.840 displaced several rural communities. It also deregulated import restrictions and 1:39:31.939 --> 1:39:35.799 caused an increase in unemployment. The reality of a monster 1:39:35.840 --> 1:39:39.600 attacking them was undeniable. It wasn't just chickens and goats, 1:39:39.740 --> 1:39:44.320 but entire communities were displaced because of NAFTA. Similar things 1:39:44.360 --> 1:39:46.760 were happening up and down the American continent. 1:39:47.380 --> 1:39:47.939 In the U.S. 1:39:48.000 --> 1:39:51.349 Borderlands, the myth of the Chupacabra came to embody the 1:39:51.390 --> 1:39:55.950 government's war against the welfare state and rising anti-immigration sentiment. 1:39:56.729 --> 1:40:00.850 The historian Mike Davis described the Chupacabra phenomenon in California 1:40:00.970 --> 1:40:04.600 as a byproduct of the increasingly hostile environment for migrants 1:40:05.220 --> 1:40:07.680 and the violence that the state was imposing on them. 1:40:08.540 --> 1:40:13.120 Quoting Calvoquiros here, at a base level, monsters and the 1:40:13.180 --> 1:40:18.310 phantasmagoric allow for the out-of-this-world atrocious experiences in daily life 1:40:18.370 --> 1:40:21.370 to become a collective spectacle that comes to represent the 1:40:21.450 --> 1:40:24.990 social relations and realities imposed over the community. 1:40:25.930 --> 1:40:26.850 Therefore, as a. 1:40:26.850 --> 1:40:31.030 Collective entity, the Chupacabras calls attention to the atrocities experienced 1:40:31.110 --> 1:40:34.150 by small farmers and those at the vulnerable and peripheral 1:40:34.229 --> 1:40:39.210 edges of society. As Jordan talks about in his thesis, 1:40:39.790 --> 1:40:42.110 the chupacabras can also be seen as a symbol of 1:40:42.180 --> 1:40:45.360 resistance against the very imperialism that kind of created it. 1:40:45.920 --> 1:40:48.680 The chupacabras was a creature so powerful that it could 1:40:48.740 --> 1:40:52.180 escape the ever-present eye of the state and the encroaching 1:40:52.220 --> 1:40:55.660 militarism that was affecting Puerto Rico at the time the 1:40:55.700 --> 1:41:00.430 alleged sightings were happening. Culturally, this has remolded the chupacabra 1:41:00.470 --> 1:41:03.210 from predator of the night to protector in some stories, 1:41:03.490 --> 1:41:06.670 like the comic Beast of Boricang. but that Chupacabras is 1:41:06.750 --> 1:41:11.660 actually physically fighting colonialism. To wrap up, Puerto Rico has 1:41:11.760 --> 1:41:15.360 always had vampires on it, except that they've never been beasts. 1:41:16.160 --> 1:41:19.240 The most visible of these vampires is the simple mosquito, 1:41:19.260 --> 1:41:22.300 a vicious bloodsucker that I've been attacked by at least 1:41:22.500 --> 1:41:25.320 once in the course of writing this essay. It is 1:41:25.360 --> 1:41:27.820 the deadliest animal in the world and is a victim 1:41:27.850 --> 1:41:32.190 of dengue fever in my youth. That shit sucks ass. Meanwhile, 1:41:32.470 --> 1:41:36.840 the second vampire is the continued colonization of the archipelago 1:41:36.900 --> 1:41:39.960 that has stripped it of so many resources for centuries 1:41:40.620 --> 1:41:44.460 and continues to do so to this day. Colonialism has 1:41:44.520 --> 1:41:48.120 always been vampiric, extracting as much as it can with 1:41:48.160 --> 1:41:50.790 little care to the corpses it leaves in its wake. 1:41:51.410 --> 1:41:54.290 Although the Chupacabra mass hysteria died down at the turn 1:41:54.310 --> 1:41:57.590 of the century, the forces that shaped its creation are 1:41:57.650 --> 1:42:01.630 still here and they've become even more acute. Whether it 1:42:01.670 --> 1:42:05.230 be the unelected fiscal control board imposed by the U.S. government, 1:42:05.970 --> 1:42:09.490 or corrupt Puerto Rican officials, there have always been vampires 1:42:09.550 --> 1:42:13.470 walking among us. They're just not beasts. They look just 1:42:13.530 --> 1:42:16.310 like us, and their system of oppression has harmed more 1:42:16.870 --> 1:42:21.190 than any single chupacabra ever could. Thanks for listening. You 1:42:21.229 --> 1:42:25.530 can find me pretty much everywhere online, at Vaquero2XL. That's 1:42:26.130 --> 1:42:26.430 about it. 1:42:37.540 --> 1:42:45.769 Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name 1:42:45.830 --> 1:42:48.530 is Kim Kelly and I'll be your host for today's episode. 1:42:49.290 --> 1:42:51.110 I'm a labor journalist and the author of a book 1:42:51.150 --> 1:42:53.880 called Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor. 1:42:54.580 --> 1:42:57.260 One of my self-styled superpowers is finding a way to 1:42:57.320 --> 1:43:00.970 link labor history with present day goings on. I'm not 1:43:00.990 --> 1:43:03.530 an official historian, but I've read a lot of books 1:43:03.970 --> 1:43:06.210 and talked to a lot of workers, and that's how 1:43:06.229 --> 1:43:08.930 you find all the good stuff anyway. I like to 1:43:08.990 --> 1:43:11.750 say that every story is a labor story, and that 1:43:11.810 --> 1:43:15.710 ethos can be applied to basically any scenario, especially if 1:43:15.729 --> 1:43:19.550 you dig down deep enough. Autumn has finally come to 1:43:19.570 --> 1:43:24.570 the East Coast. I'm talking leather weather, dead leaves, cool temperatures, 1:43:24.950 --> 1:43:28.030 and a blessed end to the infernal sunshine that has 1:43:28.110 --> 1:43:31.350 plagued my days for so long. Those of us in 1:43:31.390 --> 1:43:33.530 my neck of the woods are preparing for mischief night, 1:43:34.070 --> 1:43:37.590 and Halloween itself is only a few nights away. It's 1:43:37.610 --> 1:43:40.059 a good time to tell stories around a campfire or 1:43:40.070 --> 1:43:43.160 in a darkened room. Though, if your spirit cat is 1:43:43.180 --> 1:43:46.979 still in the shop, your headphones will work just fine. Now, 1:43:47.020 --> 1:43:49.400 since I've already got you in my clutches, let's get 1:43:49.420 --> 1:43:54.120 into a little morbid labor history. And, admittedly, there's a 1:43:54.140 --> 1:43:57.860 real dearth of genuinely spooky labor actions out there in 1:43:57.880 --> 1:44:00.740 the modern day or otherwise. I mean, we haven't seen 1:44:00.820 --> 1:44:05.110 any vampiric work stoppages or witches strikes, though I wouldn't 1:44:05.150 --> 1:44:07.810 put it past the Etsy coven to eventually get organized. 1:44:08.470 --> 1:44:10.630 And the only real monster we can point to as 1:44:10.689 --> 1:44:15.620 workers is capitalism and its bloodthirsty minions in the employer class. 1:44:16.740 --> 1:44:19.680 There's a historical fantasy novel called The Factory Witches of 1:44:19.740 --> 1:44:22.860 Lowell that looks pretty cute and does involve a witch's union, 1:44:23.600 --> 1:44:27.250 but I'd rather take this in a more concrete direction, 1:44:27.470 --> 1:44:32.490 shall we say. Let's talk about gravedigger strikes. So, quick 1:44:32.530 --> 1:44:36.830 note on language. Gravedigger is clearly way more fun to say, 1:44:36.850 --> 1:44:41.550 but the proper term is cemetery worker. The classic horror 1:44:41.630 --> 1:44:45.420 movie trope of the disheveled, shady, creepy gravedigger with his 1:44:45.479 --> 1:44:49.460 shovel and medicine cackle doesn't quite apply these days. And 1:44:49.500 --> 1:44:53.320 I'm sure today's cemetery workers don't really appreciate that stereotype. 1:44:54.400 --> 1:44:58.009 There are no midnight resurrections or bloody shovels lying around anymore. 1:44:58.820 --> 1:45:04.120 This is municipal work, really. Nowadays, cemetery workers operate heavy 1:45:04.160 --> 1:45:08.150 machinery to perform burials, to maintain cemetery grounds and dig 1:45:08.210 --> 1:45:12.450 foundations for headstones and monuments. These are skilled workers whose 1:45:12.490 --> 1:45:16.450 world straddles maintenance, construction, and landscaping. And a lot of 1:45:16.470 --> 1:45:19.790 them are union city workers. They're first on the scene 1:45:19.850 --> 1:45:22.179 to ready the grave and the last to say goodbye 1:45:22.300 --> 1:45:26.220 once everyone else leaves. It is tempting to romanticize the gig, 1:45:26.280 --> 1:45:28.540 especially if you're a morbid little freak like me, but 1:45:29.140 --> 1:45:33.700 Even with the aid of modern advancements, digging graves remains hard, dirty, 1:45:33.900 --> 1:45:37.650 intensive physical labor that can wear down the body and 1:45:37.670 --> 1:45:41.210 take a mental and emotional toll on the worker. There's 1:45:41.229 --> 1:45:44.229 still a lot of dead bodies involved, after all. Given 1:45:44.270 --> 1:45:47.220 the nature of their work, cemetery workers are no strangers 1:45:47.260 --> 1:45:50.700 to cooperation on the job. Nor are they afraid of 1:45:50.760 --> 1:45:55.160 collective action. There's a long history of gravediggers going on strike. 1:45:55.860 --> 1:45:58.420 though it's truly a wonder that any boss has ever 1:45:58.540 --> 1:46:01.080 dared to push them to that point, given the kind 1:46:01.120 --> 1:46:04.880 of leverage these particular workers wield. Strikes are meant to 1:46:04.920 --> 1:46:08.400 be disruptive, and there are few things more guaranteed to 1:46:08.640 --> 1:46:12.640 disrupt a city's normal operating procedure than a rotting pile 1:46:12.700 --> 1:46:16.760 of unburied corpses. That's what happened in 1949 in New 1:46:16.800 --> 1:46:19.880 York City, when tensions rose between the trustees of St. 1:46:19.900 --> 1:46:22.460 Patrick's Cathedral in Queens and 250 of its cemetery workers. 1:46:24.920 --> 1:46:28.600 These workers were predominantly Irish and Italian Catholics who earned 1:46:29.040 --> 1:46:33.889 about $ 60 a week, around $ 700 in today's dollars, for 1:46:33.900 --> 1:46:38.250 a six-day, 40-hour work week. After a breakdown in contract 1:46:38.290 --> 1:46:41.570 negotiations between the bosses and the unions, in which the 1:46:41.610 --> 1:46:45.490 workers were pushing for a five-day, 40-hour work week, higher wages, 1:46:45.550 --> 1:46:48.730 and overtime, the union called a strike for January 13th. 1:46:48.750 --> 1:46:51.410 I don't think it was a Friday, but it would 1:46:51.450 --> 1:46:54.430 be very satisfying if it was. So the work stoppage 1:46:54.470 --> 1:46:57.450 lasted for just under two months, and in that time, 1:46:57.470 --> 1:47:03.760 a thousand bodies went unburied. Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of 1:47:03.780 --> 1:47:08.800 the city's Roman Catholic Archdiocese, summoned 200 untrained college students 1:47:08.840 --> 1:47:12.840 from St. Joe's Seminary to fill in the scabs. One 1:47:12.880 --> 1:47:15.470 can only imagine how well these kids, who were far 1:47:15.550 --> 1:47:18.090 more used to flipping Bible pages than engaging in any 1:47:18.130 --> 1:47:21.390 kind of real heavy toil, adapted to chipping grays out 1:47:21.430 --> 1:47:24.290 of the cold winter dirt, But it's not exactly the 1:47:24.330 --> 1:47:26.530 kind of assignment you can turn down if you're trying 1:47:26.550 --> 1:47:29.630 to be like an extra special kind of priest. 1:47:29.670 --> 1:47:29.970 You know? 1:47:29.990 --> 1:47:32.400 I was raised Catholic. I feel like I can be 1:47:32.439 --> 1:47:33.980 as rude about these dudes as I want. 1:47:34.640 --> 1:47:35.280 Sorry, Grandma. 1:47:36.340 --> 1:47:39.660 The strike caused a stir among the city's Catholic labor activists, 1:47:40.000 --> 1:47:44.540 particularly the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, the Catholic Worker newspaper, 1:47:45.020 --> 1:47:49.700 and its founder, the renowned Catholic anarchist labor activist Dorothy Day. 1:47:50.160 --> 1:47:52.720 Still waiting for her to be sainted. It's coming. I 1:47:52.740 --> 1:47:56.400 can feel it. She personally took up the cause, both 1:47:56.439 --> 1:47:59.760 at the cemetery and outside the Cardinal's residence on Manhattan's 1:47:59.780 --> 1:48:03.720 Madison Avenue, and delivered food and medicine to the Stryker's families. 1:48:04.540 --> 1:48:08.400 Dorothy Day wrote directly to the Cardinal, emphasizing the economic 1:48:08.470 --> 1:48:12.370 hardships the workers faced and asking him to go to them, 1:48:12.689 --> 1:48:15.650 conciliate them. It is easier for the great to give 1:48:15.729 --> 1:48:18.729 in than the poor. They are hungry men. Their only 1:48:18.790 --> 1:48:21.439 weapon has been their labor. which they have sold for 1:48:21.479 --> 1:48:24.959 a means of livelihood to feed themselves and their families. 1:48:26.120 --> 1:48:28.680 The 70s being what they were, what had begun as 1:48:28.720 --> 1:48:32.370 a pretty straightforward dispute over time and money morphed into 1:48:32.510 --> 1:48:36.250 a really ugly, weird squabble over communism? 1:48:36.270 --> 1:48:36.330 Ha! 1:48:37.920 --> 1:48:42.140 Conservative Catholic leaders red-baited the union members because union, and 1:48:42.180 --> 1:48:46.040 the Cardinal decried their tactics as communistic. And now the 1:48:46.080 --> 1:48:48.820 workers got really pissed off about this because they hated 1:48:48.860 --> 1:48:53.430 communism too. And they took an anti-red oath to denounce 1:48:53.490 --> 1:48:56.650 communism in the middle of their strike. And they also, 1:48:56.670 --> 1:49:01.610 at the Archdiocese's insistence, disaffiliated from their union and joined 1:49:01.650 --> 1:49:05.759 the more conservative AFL as members of the Building Services 1:49:05.820 --> 1:49:09.690 Employees International Union. So they, like, got red-baited out of 1:49:09.729 --> 1:49:12.940 their union, and they still didn't even really win the strike. 1:49:13.720 --> 1:49:16.660 They eventually went back to work on March 12th and 1:49:16.720 --> 1:49:20.080 picked up their shovels in defeat. But it would be 1:49:20.120 --> 1:49:22.960 far from the last time America's gravediggers would call the 1:49:23.000 --> 1:49:29.600 bosses bluff. In 1975, 1,700 members of the local 365 1:49:29.600 --> 1:49:33.110 of the Cemetery Workers and Greens Attendance Union followed the 1:49:33.150 --> 1:49:36.330 lead of their predecessors. and struck for higher wages at 1:49:36.330 --> 1:49:40.350 44 cemeteries in the New York metropolitan area. By the 1:49:40.410 --> 1:49:43.479 end of that 27-day strike, the workers had won a 1:49:43.540 --> 1:49:48.759 small wage increase, and 1,400 bodies were waiting to be buried. 1:49:49.880 --> 1:49:52.059 Absent from those piles were the dead of the Orthodox 1:49:52.110 --> 1:49:57.830 Jewish community, whose faith requires burial within 24 hours. In recognition... 1:49:58.070 --> 1:50:01.089 the union had invited the loved ones of deceased Orthodox 1:50:01.150 --> 1:50:04.309 Jews to enter the cemetery and bury those bodies in 1:50:04.350 --> 1:50:08.540 accordance with their religion. Picket lines are sacred, but so 1:50:08.580 --> 1:50:11.300 are a lot of other things too. The next year, 1:50:12.040 --> 1:50:15.900 gravediggers from Cemetery Workers Local 265 on the West Coast 1:50:16.240 --> 1:50:20.150 launched a four-month strike that shut down 10 California cemeteries, 1:50:20.610 --> 1:50:24.210 including in Colma, a small town near San Francisco that had, quote, 1:50:24.210 --> 1:50:29.140 500 living residents, and hundreds of thousands of graves. The 1:50:29.180 --> 1:50:33.900 combination of manual labor, low pay, and cemetery-specific occupational hazards 1:50:34.060 --> 1:50:36.900 continued to spur cemetery workers to strike throughout the 80s 1:50:36.960 --> 1:50:40.520 and 90s. A few years earlier, a massive wave of 1:50:40.560 --> 1:50:45.599 strikes had overtaken the UK during 1978 and 1979's Winter 1:50:45.620 --> 1:50:49.160 of Discontent, and a group of cemetery workers in Liverpool 1:50:49.479 --> 1:50:51.960 had found themselves embroiled in a conflict that would become 1:50:52.000 --> 1:50:56.170 the subject of feverish national attention. Those 80 workers were 1:50:56.189 --> 1:50:59.630 the members of GMB, a general trade union, who had 1:50:59.650 --> 1:51:02.620 decided to join the thousands of other public sector employees 1:51:02.660 --> 1:51:06.580 who were already on strike around the country at the time. Unfortunately, 1:51:06.939 --> 1:51:11.479 those other workers' absence was a little less visible, and 1:51:11.500 --> 1:51:15.740 the backlash to the cemetery strike was brutal. The workers 1:51:15.780 --> 1:51:18.650 were demonized in the press and condemned by art school 1:51:18.689 --> 1:51:22.550 Margaret Thatcher herself. Photos of unburied bodies ran on the 1:51:22.610 --> 1:51:25.880 front pages over headlines screaming things like, Now they won't 1:51:25.920 --> 1:51:28.920 let us bury our dead. Members of Parliament called the 1:51:28.960 --> 1:51:32.240 strike an outrage to human decency. It was a lot. 1:51:32.970 --> 1:51:34.870 So the workers decided to end the strike after a 1:51:34.910 --> 1:51:37.210 week and a half. They were worried that their actions 1:51:37.250 --> 1:51:40.230 were hurting everyday people instead of the government that was 1:51:40.290 --> 1:51:44.349 causing so much suffering. Conservative politicians seized on the strike's 1:51:44.410 --> 1:51:48.070 shocking imagery to batter the Labour Party. They swept into 1:51:48.110 --> 1:51:51.150 power in the next election, all of which allowed Margaret 1:51:51.189 --> 1:51:54.450 Thatcher to eventually launch her own war on the working class. 1:51:55.610 --> 1:51:59.809 In 2021, with Thatcher safely rotting in her own grave, 1:52:00.450 --> 1:52:04.310 Liverpool's cemetery workers threatened to walk out again, but this 1:52:04.350 --> 1:52:06.450 time they managed to strike a deal at the 11th hour. 1:52:06.470 --> 1:52:08.570 I have a feeling no one wanted to repeat that 1:52:08.610 --> 1:52:12.390 whole situation. As each of these strike actions and many 1:52:12.430 --> 1:52:15.610 more besides have shown, cemetery workers and the work they 1:52:15.650 --> 1:52:20.950 do are absolutely essential. Without them, neither the living nor 1:52:20.990 --> 1:52:24.240 the dead can find peace. and the vital importance of 1:52:24.280 --> 1:52:26.960 that work should leave no argument over whether they should 1:52:26.979 --> 1:52:30.400 be paid fairly and treated well. Greedy bosses who have 1:52:30.439 --> 1:52:34.910 refused to recognize that have done so at their peril. Remember, 1:52:35.410 --> 1:52:38.570 gravediggers know where all the bodies are buried. Who do 1:52:38.590 --> 1:52:51.120 you think put them there in the first place? Speaking 1:52:51.140 --> 1:52:55.540 of unburied corpses... Cemetery workers weren't the only unionized workforce 1:52:55.560 --> 1:52:58.280 that has had to navigate a truly cursed minefield of 1:52:58.360 --> 1:53:02.400 bad bosses, public horror, and decaying human remains during a 1:53:02.439 --> 1:53:06.880 labor dispute. Here in Philadelphia, we got a front-row seat 1:53:06.920 --> 1:53:10.160 to that particular balancing act last summer during the huge 1:53:10.300 --> 1:53:14.620 Astme DC-33 municipal workers' strike that effectively shut down a 1:53:14.640 --> 1:53:17.139 good chunk of the city for eight very sweaty days 1:53:17.200 --> 1:53:20.120 in July. The most visible of the workers who went 1:53:20.220 --> 1:53:23.420 out came from the sanitation department, A heat wave was 1:53:23.500 --> 1:53:25.720 pummeling the city when they walked out on July 1st. 1:53:26.360 --> 1:53:27.939 And if you think Philly's a little grimy on a 1:53:28.010 --> 1:53:31.910 normal day, you should have seen and smelled the reeking 1:53:31.950 --> 1:53:35.070 mountains of trash that accumulated in what seemed like mere hours. 1:53:36.030 --> 1:53:38.810 Being the deep-thin serious city that we are, we obviously 1:53:38.870 --> 1:53:43.150 dubbed them Parker Piles after our evil mayor. The sanitation 1:53:43.189 --> 1:53:45.700 workers weren't the only municipal workers who went out, though. 1:53:46.400 --> 1:53:51.339 The strike also included clerical employees, library staff, street pavers, 1:53:51.750 --> 1:53:56.650 water department workers, and the medical examiner's office. That last 1:53:56.800 --> 1:54:00.180 one made a real big splash real quick. Because you 1:54:00.200 --> 1:54:02.780 know what the medical examiner is in charge of? The 1:54:02.840 --> 1:54:08.160 city morgue. Now, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, the 160-bed 1:54:08.200 --> 1:54:11.760 facility was filled to overflowing within the first 48 hours 1:54:11.800 --> 1:54:14.580 of the strike. Look, Philly's the best city in the world, 1:54:14.600 --> 1:54:17.840 but we do have our problems, and among those problems are, 1:54:17.860 --> 1:54:21.090 you know, sometimes people get murked. The city morgue is 1:54:21.110 --> 1:54:24.420 a pretty busy place. Now, during the strike, during those 1:54:24.479 --> 1:54:28.559 first awful 48 hours, the remaining staffers were left scrambling 1:54:28.600 --> 1:54:32.200 to find room for 180 bodies, and they ultimately had 1:54:32.240 --> 1:54:35.820 to double up on space, squeezing two cadavers into each bed. 1:54:36.920 --> 1:54:39.960 While the workers who usually handle death investigations and body 1:54:39.980 --> 1:54:43.520 transportation were on the picket line, grieving families were left 1:54:43.560 --> 1:54:47.370 in the lurch. In one especially horrific moment, the body 1:54:47.390 --> 1:54:50.490 of a 19-year-old gunshot victim... was left bleeding in the 1:54:50.530 --> 1:54:53.070 street for hours before someone came to pick him up. 1:54:54.110 --> 1:54:56.710 By day three of the strike, the city had had enough. 1:54:57.370 --> 1:55:00.040 They forced the medical examiner's office back to work via 1:55:00.080 --> 1:55:03.280 a court injunction, citing a threat to public health and safety. 1:55:04.500 --> 1:55:06.520 You'd think the mayor and her cronies at City Hall 1:55:06.560 --> 1:55:08.560 would have maybe taken a minute to look into what 1:55:08.580 --> 1:55:12.120 had happened in other recent morgue-related strikes, or even into 1:55:12.140 --> 1:55:15.490 what had happened back in 1986. when the Philadelphia city 1:55:15.530 --> 1:55:19.580 workers had launched another massive strike that included medical examiner staff. 1:55:20.260 --> 1:55:22.860 If they had, they might have realized just what a 1:55:22.940 --> 1:55:25.640 terrifically bad idea it can be to piss off the 1:55:25.700 --> 1:55:28.890 people who take care of all the dead bodies. Chicago 1:55:28.950 --> 1:55:31.730 folks might know where I'm going with this. Let's talk 1:55:31.790 --> 1:55:36.790 about the Cook County morgue scandal. In 2011, a string 1:55:36.810 --> 1:55:39.620 of institutional failures at the office of the Cook County 1:55:39.660 --> 1:55:43.430 Medical Examiner Illinois had led to a truly unbearable work 1:55:43.470 --> 1:55:46.650 environment for both the workers and the human remains they 1:55:46.670 --> 1:55:50.850 were charged with handling. Among other factors, funding cuts and 1:55:50.890 --> 1:55:54.430 changes in policy for handling infant remains and the unclaimed 1:55:54.470 --> 1:55:57.430 bodies of the dead had led to a staggering pileup 1:55:57.470 --> 1:56:01.750 of cadavers. At the time, CBS News reported that 400 1:56:01.750 --> 1:56:04.690 adults and 100 babies were being kept in a cooler 1:56:04.750 --> 1:56:08.980 meant for 300 bodies total. A whistleblower leaked photos of 1:56:09.020 --> 1:56:12.020 the carnage to the media, who predictably blew it up 1:56:12.060 --> 1:56:15.940 into a massive public scandal. Which seems pretty fair, honestly, 1:56:16.020 --> 1:56:18.050 when you read some of the workers' quotes on the subject. 1:56:18.910 --> 1:56:21.920 As one said, There are so many bodies in there now, 1:56:22.030 --> 1:56:24.870 they can't keep it cool enough. The stench is like 1:56:24.950 --> 1:56:29.630 nothing I've ever seen. I think it's sacrilegious. Photos showed 1:56:29.670 --> 1:56:34.030 bodies wrapped in plastic, haphazardly stacked on wooden shelves, while 1:56:34.130 --> 1:56:36.670 others were left rotting on the floor. 1:56:37.170 --> 1:56:37.750 Like, it was. 1:56:38.480 --> 1:56:42.370 It was fucked. It was really, really bad. And a 1:56:42.570 --> 1:56:45.790 worker told the public about it and some stuff changed. 1:56:46.230 --> 1:56:50.510 Shout out to the whistleblowers. Health hazards aside, it's just 1:56:50.530 --> 1:56:53.530 really fucking grim to hear these stories and to think 1:56:53.570 --> 1:56:58.330 about someone's grandma or granddaughter or mom left in that 1:56:58.370 --> 1:57:01.980 condition because someone in an office somewhere decided that those 1:57:02.060 --> 1:57:05.180 greedy corpse handlers could get by on a smaller budget. 1:57:06.370 --> 1:57:09.610 The state labor department dinged them with 21 safety and 1:57:09.650 --> 1:57:13.680 sanitation violations after this all came out, including exposure to 1:57:13.720 --> 1:57:18.260 hepatitis B, blood splatter, and a failure to protect workers 1:57:18.320 --> 1:57:21.810 from the risk of being hit by falling bodies. The 1:57:21.850 --> 1:57:25.490 resulting reforms, purges, and mass burials that followed the whole 1:57:25.550 --> 1:57:28.130 affair make it sound even more like something out of 1:57:28.150 --> 1:57:32.760 an indie horror movie, but that's bureaucracy, baby. We've jumped 1:57:32.770 --> 1:57:35.280 from the graveyard to the morgue. and now it's time 1:57:35.320 --> 1:57:38.550 to make a stop at the funeral home. To bounce 1:57:38.590 --> 1:57:40.830 back to New York City, I want to shout out 1:57:40.930 --> 1:57:45.670 one of its other particularly ghoulish post-mortem labor conflicts. For 1:57:45.690 --> 1:57:48.470 whatever reason, there have been a lot of corpse-related worker 1:57:48.610 --> 1:57:52.010 actions out there. Like, more than really seems reasonable, but 1:57:52.550 --> 1:57:54.390 with so many of the living being pushed out of 1:57:54.410 --> 1:57:56.910 New York every day, I guess it makes sense that 1:57:56.970 --> 1:57:59.310 even the dead can't always find a decent place to rest. 1:58:00.570 --> 1:58:07.090 So back in 1964, on October 1st, Over 400 embalmers, undertakers, 1:58:07.210 --> 1:58:10.220 and funeral directors from across the five boroughs of went 1:58:10.300 --> 1:58:14.480 on strike. Classic strike action. They're calling for higher wages, 1:58:14.560 --> 1:58:19.080 better pensions, and a 35-hour work week, which does sound 1:58:19.100 --> 1:58:21.440 like a pretty big ask for the 60s if you 1:58:21.460 --> 1:58:24.240 don't think much about what their work days actually looked 1:58:24.300 --> 1:58:26.720 like and forget that they're only making $ 122 a week. 1:58:29.160 --> 1:58:32.380 When talks broke down between members of Local 407, of 1:58:32.400 --> 1:58:36.160 the Funeral Directors and Balmers and Undertakers Union, who are 1:58:36.200 --> 1:58:40.020 part of the SEIU Extended Universe, also, if anyone can 1:58:40.100 --> 1:58:43.450 find a t-shirt, I will give you not a lot 1:58:43.590 --> 1:58:45.190 of dollars, because I don't have a lot, but I would, 1:58:45.930 --> 1:58:48.710 let me know. I will haunt eBay for the rest 1:58:48.730 --> 1:58:51.510 of my days if I can find a Local 407 shirt. 1:58:53.230 --> 1:58:55.810 But when talks broke down between the union and the 1:58:55.870 --> 1:59:00.480 Metropolitan Funeral Directors Association, workers at 100 of the busiest, 1:59:00.700 --> 1:59:04.860 most high-profile funeral homes in the city walked out, which 1:59:04.920 --> 1:59:09.380 left their supervisors, funeral home executives, and owners to handle 1:59:09.400 --> 1:59:12.620 the avalanche of bodies that were quickly left in their wake. 1:59:13.640 --> 1:59:16.940 It's funny, after only eight days of getting their hands dirty, 1:59:16.960 --> 1:59:21.370 the bosses were absolutely exhausted and dying for their workers 1:59:21.410 --> 1:59:24.830 to come back. So they backed down. The embalmers came 1:59:24.870 --> 1:59:27.390 back to work with an immediate wage increase and a 1:59:27.430 --> 1:59:30.700 bunch of other goodies too. As we've learned, as far 1:59:30.760 --> 1:59:33.780 as leverage goes, it's hard to argue with a rotting corpse. 1:59:34.900 --> 1:59:37.100 One last little tidbit I'd like to share before we 1:59:37.120 --> 1:59:40.520 go our separate ways comes courtesy of the Columbarium, an 1:59:40.560 --> 1:59:44.120 extremely fun newsletter about death from writer and death educator 1:59:44.260 --> 1:59:47.220 Becky Robeson. I saw her post about this story a 1:59:47.220 --> 1:59:48.920 little bit ago, and I had to hit her up 1:59:48.940 --> 1:59:52.290 for more details. Labor ghouls of a feather flock together, 1:59:52.310 --> 1:59:58.390 I guess. So, 1852. 200 of New York's coffin makers 1:59:58.810 --> 2:00:01.990 went on strike. Now, it may have been the Gilded Age, 2:00:02.230 --> 2:00:05.510 but it still stunk pretty bad back then, especially in 2:00:05.550 --> 2:00:10.070 the summertime when diseases like cholera, smallpox, and typhoid ran rampant. 2:00:10.810 --> 2:00:12.990 The poor bastards working at the city morgue would have 2:00:13.170 --> 2:00:15.770 killed for the kind of refrigeration setup they had in 2:00:15.790 --> 2:00:18.910 Cook County. But at the time, the best they could 2:00:18.930 --> 2:00:20.470 do was to keep their stiffs on ice. 2:00:21.380 --> 2:00:21.720 Literally. 2:00:22.020 --> 2:00:25.520 They would have used ice-lined wooden boxes called corpse coolers 2:00:25.620 --> 2:00:28.490 to keep the deceased and their loved ones by proxy 2:00:28.730 --> 2:00:31.730 as comfortable as possible before the funeral. We can really 2:00:31.750 --> 2:00:34.850 only do so much. The coffin workers were well aware 2:00:34.890 --> 2:00:38.570 of this fact and used their leverage, there's that word again, 2:00:38.600 --> 2:00:41.900 to ensure that when they joined the strike, their impact 2:00:41.940 --> 2:00:46.360 would be felt immediately. But this wasn't just a coffin 2:00:46.380 --> 2:00:49.640 maker's strike. They were part of a much bigger labor 2:00:49.760 --> 2:00:52.980 action that pulled together thousands upon thousands of workers from 2:00:53.020 --> 2:00:56.560 across 30 different industries from all over the city to 2:00:56.600 --> 2:01:00.140 call for an eight-hour workday. That movement had been bubbling 2:01:00.200 --> 2:01:03.100 for years at that point, with smaller local wins in 2:01:03.120 --> 2:01:05.980 New England inspiring workers in other regions to take up 2:01:06.000 --> 2:01:09.540 the rally and cry. Eight hours for work, eight hours 2:01:09.600 --> 2:01:13.550 for rest, eight hours for what we will. That 1872 2:01:13.550 --> 2:01:18.030 strike drew over 100,000 workers in total and scared the 2:01:18.070 --> 2:01:21.560 bejesus out of the corporate titans and city elites, who 2:01:21.580 --> 2:01:25.180 were suddenly faced with the harsh reality that, gosh, there 2:01:25.200 --> 2:01:28.100 really were a whole lot more workers than there were 2:01:28.140 --> 2:01:33.650 of them. They responded accordingly, weaponizing the police department. Piano 2:01:33.690 --> 2:01:37.830 man William Steinway personally hired 300 cops to protect his factory. 2:01:38.190 --> 2:01:42.170 Very fancy. forcing lockouts, and basically doing whatever they could 2:01:42.270 --> 2:01:45.290 to knock the fight out of the strikers. The workers 2:01:45.330 --> 2:01:49.380 won eventually, and that strike would prove to be just 2:01:49.560 --> 2:01:53.920 one more bloody stepping stone towards that eventual victory. The 2:01:53.960 --> 2:01:57.120 coffin makers had the last laugh, though. By the time 2:01:57.160 --> 2:02:01.890 that strike ended, 125 of the 200 strikers had forced 2:02:01.930 --> 2:02:05.530 concessions out of their bosses, which, given the way Victorian 2:02:05.550 --> 2:02:09.490 bosses tended to react to workers' labor demands, is pretty incredible. 2:02:10.410 --> 2:02:13.050 The unique nature of their employment as death workers saved 2:02:13.090 --> 2:02:16.410 them once again. As the Chicago Tribune wrote of the 2:02:16.450 --> 2:02:19.760 coffin makers and their strike at the time, quote, We 2:02:19.800 --> 2:02:22.540 see no escape from his clutches. We can resist the 2:02:22.580 --> 2:02:26.300 bricklayer by not building houses. We can offset the calciminer 2:02:26.340 --> 2:02:29.260 by refusing to whiten our walls. We can checkmate the 2:02:29.300 --> 2:02:33.150 servant by doing our own work. But unfortunately, as far 2:02:33.190 --> 2:02:35.790 as our pockets are concerned, we have got to die 2:02:35.810 --> 2:02:38.480 and we have got to be buried. And if the 2:02:38.520 --> 2:02:41.440 coffin maker persists in his demands, we know of no 2:02:41.500 --> 2:02:44.800 way in which we can refuse to patronize him. I'll 2:02:44.820 --> 2:02:47.060 leave you with one final quote from that same article 2:02:47.080 --> 2:02:50.740 that I just love. Not because of his intention, which 2:02:50.760 --> 2:02:53.890 was essentially whining about the coffin makers daring to demand 2:02:53.900 --> 2:02:57.010 to be paid fairly for their essential work, but because 2:02:57.070 --> 2:03:00.910 the Tribune accidentally makes a great observation about how fucked 2:03:00.990 --> 2:03:03.090 up it is that we're forced to spend every moment 2:03:03.130 --> 2:03:06.900 of our lives worrying about paying bills. You're right, 19th 2:03:06.940 --> 2:03:10.650 century newspaper hack. Unions are cool, and the necessities of 2:03:10.730 --> 2:03:15.030 life and death should be free for everyone. Quote, It 2:03:15.110 --> 2:03:17.790 is not enough that man, worm of the dust, must 2:03:17.830 --> 2:03:20.770 be perplexed and worried in life, must be reminded at 2:03:20.850 --> 2:03:22.950 every turn that this is a veil of tears and 2:03:22.980 --> 2:03:25.860 that all is vanity, but even after he is dead 2:03:26.380 --> 2:03:29.420 and no longer exposed to tailor's bills and house rents 2:03:29.600 --> 2:03:33.740 and butcher's bills and pew rents and servant-galism, and the 2:03:33.820 --> 2:03:36.910 thousand natural shocks that flesh his air to, there is 2:03:36.950 --> 2:03:39.810 still a class of men left who can worry his ghost. 2:03:41.650 --> 2:03:45.210 So that was my spooky labor Halloween episode for you. 2:03:45.230 --> 2:03:49.430 I hope you liked it. Thank you for listening. Now 2:03:49.450 --> 2:03:51.690 go give your boss a scare for me, and have 2:03:51.710 --> 2:03:52.430 a happy Halloween. 2:04:08.330 --> 2:04:12.340 This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly 2:04:12.380 --> 2:04:15.480 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 2:04:15.520 --> 2:04:16.440 and what this means for you. 2:04:17.020 --> 2:04:17.980 I'm Garrison Davis. 2:04:18.000 --> 2:04:20.900 Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, Robert Evans, 2:04:21.040 --> 2:04:25.560 and special correspondent Margaret Kiljoy, who is joining us for 2:04:25.720 --> 2:04:29.160 our spooky, slightly spooky, but also kind of regular edition 2:04:29.420 --> 2:04:31.930 of Executive Disorder. 2:04:32.730 --> 2:04:37.550 Class war. That's right. That's right. Um, The specter that's 2:04:37.570 --> 2:04:38.370 haunting Europe. 2:04:40.430 --> 2:04:44.129 We're covering the week of October 21st to October 28th. 2:04:45.150 --> 2:04:48.430 Not actually covering Halloween because that hasn't happened yet. But 2:04:48.610 --> 2:04:49.210 what can you do? 2:04:49.930 --> 2:04:51.750 Halloween's a season now, Garrison. 2:04:52.230 --> 2:04:52.760 It's months. 2:04:52.950 --> 2:04:55.140 That's true. That is true. I'm pushing for it to 2:04:55.150 --> 2:04:56.720 consume Thanksgiving. Okay. 2:04:57.080 --> 2:04:57.620 I'm so down. 2:04:57.900 --> 2:05:01.560 Halloween runs until the solstice. Yeah, straight into Saturnalia. 2:05:02.540 --> 2:05:02.720 Yeah. 2:05:03.260 --> 2:05:03.460 Sick. 2:05:03.620 --> 2:05:03.930 I love it. 2:05:04.710 --> 2:05:07.710 James, do you want to begin with some short stories? 2:05:08.210 --> 2:05:09.210 Let's do it. Okay. 2:05:09.570 --> 2:05:14.340 So starting, I guess, in this hemisphere, about a thousand 2:05:14.400 --> 2:05:17.660 troops from El Salvador have deployed to Haiti this week. 2:05:18.220 --> 2:05:21.080 The deployment came after four Salvadoran members of the UN 2:05:21.100 --> 2:05:25.420 task force went missing after they were ambushed and jumped 2:05:25.500 --> 2:05:28.060 out of their burning vehicle on the 18th of October. 2:05:28.580 --> 2:05:31.430 Bukele says that these people weren't on a combat patrol, 2:05:31.510 --> 2:05:33.670 that they were Air Force techs who are returning from 2:05:33.730 --> 2:05:34.270 a market. 2:05:35.000 --> 2:05:39.140 When they got ambushed. I won't comment. Four bodies have 2:05:39.200 --> 2:05:41.190 been handed over. They were handed. 2:05:41.050 --> 2:05:44.410 Over via one of these NGOs that does extraction work 2:05:44.470 --> 2:05:44.950 in the region. 2:05:45.610 --> 2:05:47.990 They were found burned and the NGO recovered them. 2:05:48.030 --> 2:05:51.010 I'm not quite sure if they were alerted that they 2:05:51.030 --> 2:05:53.460 were burned bodies or not. Bukele came to see these 2:05:53.520 --> 2:05:56.180 are not the missing personnel and he posted a picture 2:05:56.260 --> 2:05:59.860 of a Chadian soldier's ID but allegedly that Chadian soldier 2:05:59.880 --> 2:06:02.080 is alive but was injured and lost their ID in 2:06:02.120 --> 2:06:05.060 a mission. But Bukele came that the Bodies did not 2:06:05.100 --> 2:06:07.050 match the age or height of the. 2:06:07.210 --> 2:06:09.090 Lost Salvadoran personnel. 2:06:10.010 --> 2:06:13.990 Either way, it continues to be really desperate for folks 2:06:14.010 --> 2:06:17.090 trying to get along in Haiti. And I don't think 2:06:17.110 --> 2:06:18.610 the El Salvador military are going to make that much 2:06:18.650 --> 2:06:22.730 better for them. Another person has died in immigration detention. 2:06:23.390 --> 2:06:26.830 His death occurred in Core Civics' Otay Mesa facility, which 2:06:26.870 --> 2:06:30.250 is here in San Diego. Daylight San Diego confirmed this. 2:06:30.770 --> 2:06:33.870 ICE hasn't published anything on its news page yet. There 2:06:33.890 --> 2:06:36.860 were rumors earlier this weekend that someone has died. Daylight 2:06:36.880 --> 2:06:39.740 San Diego got confirmation, but I haven't seen anything yet 2:06:39.780 --> 2:06:42.140 on the ICE news page, so we don't know who 2:06:42.180 --> 2:06:43.200 that person was. 2:06:44.200 --> 2:06:44.760 At least I don't. 2:06:45.500 --> 2:06:49.250 Next, an Iraqi court has sentenced seven French Islamic State 2:06:49.290 --> 2:06:52.070 members to prison in the first verdict of a trial 2:06:52.210 --> 2:06:57.320 involving 47 accused Islamic State fighters. Because the international community 2:06:57.520 --> 2:07:00.620 manifestly failed to set up tribunals since the collapse of 2:07:00.640 --> 2:07:03.970 the territorial caliphate, the accused and their victims have faced 2:07:04.270 --> 2:07:09.550 massive delays in getting justice. The big worry for European 2:07:09.650 --> 2:07:12.230 Union states here seemed to be that their citizens would 2:07:12.250 --> 2:07:16.270 be sentenced to death, right? Some French citizens were sentenced 2:07:16.290 --> 2:07:19.760 to death in 2019, but their sentences were commuted. In 2:07:19.770 --> 2:07:21.760 this case, these people were sentenced to prison, not death. 2:07:22.100 --> 2:07:24.600 The United States, of course, helped transfer thousands of suspects 2:07:24.620 --> 2:07:28.190 from Syria, the SDG and the SNA began their offensive 2:07:28.350 --> 2:07:32.350 against the SDF earlier this year. In this case, Iraq 2:07:32.390 --> 2:07:37.090 is beginning these domestic trials of accused foreign fighters. Meanwhile, 2:07:37.190 --> 2:07:40.410 talking of Syria, both Jordan and Israel have conducted operations 2:07:40.550 --> 2:07:44.370 inside Syria this week. The Jordanians bombed what it claimed 2:07:44.470 --> 2:07:47.220 were Islamic State remnants responsible for an attack on a 2:07:47.270 --> 2:07:49.740 church in Jordan on the 26th of October which killed 2:07:49.780 --> 2:07:54.610 nine people. Israel, The IDF killed a young man with 2:07:54.990 --> 2:07:58.800 an intellectual disability and hearing problems during a night raid 2:07:58.820 --> 2:08:02.770 in Syria. they claimed that he kept approaching them and 2:08:02.810 --> 2:08:03.670 so they decided to. 2:08:03.640 --> 2:08:05.780 Kill him inside the country he lived in and that 2:08:05.800 --> 2:08:06.500 they don't live in. 2:08:07.060 --> 2:08:09.180 Inside the country that they were illegally invading along with 2:08:09.200 --> 2:08:11.300 all the other countries that they are illegally occupying yes 2:08:11.880 --> 2:08:14.040 there was like a really massive funeral for this man 2:08:14.820 --> 2:08:17.380 it's deeply fucking sad it's one of the thousands of 2:08:18.140 --> 2:08:21.200 horrific crimes against humanity that IDF likes to do about 2:08:21.230 --> 2:08:25.830 every week. So yeah, that's, it's all not the most, uh, 2:08:25.850 --> 2:08:27.690 happy stuff from me, but that's what I got for 2:08:27.730 --> 2:08:30.550 small things. The, the hunt is still taking an ass 2:08:30.570 --> 2:08:31.910 kicking every fucking day, man. 2:08:32.810 --> 2:08:33.430 So that's nice. 2:08:33.970 --> 2:08:35.350 In Myanmar, to be clear. 2:08:35.910 --> 2:08:36.440 In Myanmar. 2:08:36.650 --> 2:08:36.879 Yeah. 2:08:36.900 --> 2:08:37.060 Yeah. 2:08:37.230 --> 2:08:37.440 Yeah. 2:08:39.110 --> 2:08:40.690 I mean, it's nice to see them losing. I guess 2:08:40.710 --> 2:08:43.140 they've also decided to... Maybe I should report this. They've 2:08:43.160 --> 2:08:45.840 started to deploy their senior officers to the front lines. 2:08:46.220 --> 2:08:46.350 Oh, wow. 2:08:46.360 --> 2:08:49.480 Previously, their tactic was that the officers would plan the 2:08:49.520 --> 2:08:51.860 assault and then send conscripts in to die while they 2:08:51.920 --> 2:08:55.790 remained in the rear. And it seems that senior leadership 2:08:55.830 --> 2:08:59.090 is getting very pissed off at their absolute dedication to 2:08:59.190 --> 2:09:00.730 using World War II tactics in 2026. 2:09:00.710 --> 2:09:01.350 There are people.... 2:09:03.870 --> 2:09:06.590 Doing opposed amphibious assaults and getting mown down with MG42 2:09:07.090 --> 2:09:12.350 machine guns. They're doing an unsuccessful D-Day every day. It's 2:09:12.370 --> 2:09:15.470 tragic that that many conscripts are dying, but hopefully some 2:09:15.490 --> 2:09:17.190 of those officers find their way to the front too. 2:09:17.950 --> 2:09:18.760 Line all them up. 2:09:19.530 --> 2:09:22.790 I want to mention two things that we'll probably cover 2:09:22.950 --> 2:09:27.410 more next week. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have 2:09:27.570 --> 2:09:30.730 released a new report on Trump's ties with Jeffrey Epstein. 2:09:31.480 --> 2:09:35.280 which contains details about Trump's involvement in Epstein's trafficking operations, 2:09:36.050 --> 2:09:40.650 and a new rape accusation against Trump made by a 2:09:40.770 --> 2:09:46.230 former beauty pageant contestant. Earlier this week, Trump instructed the 2:09:46.490 --> 2:09:51.760 DOJ to block the certification of Alaska's election results if 2:09:51.820 --> 2:09:57.300 the Democratic Senate candidate, Mary Paltola, wins Tuesday's election. The 2:09:57.320 --> 2:10:01.250 White House's preemptive justification is is that two different people 2:10:01.430 --> 2:10:02.670 named Daniel J. 2:10:02.730 --> 2:10:05.270 Sullivan Jr. and Dan S. 2:10:05.390 --> 2:10:09.710 Sullivan are both on the ballot, Dan S. Sullivan being 2:10:09.770 --> 2:10:14.360 the Republican incumbent, who is marked as such on the ballot. 2:10:14.980 --> 2:10:19.400 Alaska also has ranked choice voting, so if there's any confusion, 2:10:19.660 --> 2:10:25.690 voters can scribble in both Daniel and Dan Sullivan. We'll 2:10:25.700 --> 2:10:29.690 see what comes of this next week. Robert. Do you 2:10:29.730 --> 2:10:34.190 want to do our first considerably not spooky story? Unless 2:10:34.210 --> 2:10:38.630 you want to consider Flavio's disappearing act in Miami. 2:10:38.950 --> 2:10:41.430 Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of spook in that, 2:10:41.510 --> 2:10:44.510 I guess. But no, this is actually one of the 2:10:45.070 --> 2:10:47.830 happiest stories we'll have to say. And honestly, this is 2:10:47.870 --> 2:10:50.550 like the happiest I've ever been to be wrong and 2:10:50.570 --> 2:10:53.150 the happiest I've ever been to like more accurately read 2:10:53.190 --> 2:10:56.010 a bunch of sources that wound up being wrong. Because 2:10:56.050 --> 2:10:59.380 a couple of weeks back during my segment on ED, 2:10:59.460 --> 2:11:03.340 I talked about Lula's disastrous first round against Flavio Bolsonaro 2:11:03.700 --> 2:11:07.110 for Brazil's presidential election. And it went almost as badly 2:11:07.150 --> 2:11:10.770 for Lula as it could have gone. Neither side won outright. Obviously, 2:11:10.830 --> 2:11:12.630 Flavio winning outright would have been worse. 2:11:12.950 --> 2:11:14.730 But Flavio got more votes than Lula. 2:11:15.100 --> 2:11:17.600 Nearly all of the other candidates who got meaningful numbers 2:11:17.640 --> 2:11:20.220 of votes during that first round were further right even 2:11:20.260 --> 2:11:23.020 than Flavio and a lot weirder than Flavio. There was 2:11:23.040 --> 2:11:26.310 only like one left-wing candidate besides Lula that like got 2:11:26.370 --> 2:11:28.470 a notable really amount of votes. And it was still 2:11:28.610 --> 2:11:30.870 very small in the grand scheme of things. And so 2:11:30.910 --> 2:11:33.990 the assumption was that obviously for the second round of voting, 2:11:34.030 --> 2:11:36.570 you expect that people who voted for kind of other 2:11:36.640 --> 2:11:40.150 right-wing candidates and other left-wing candidates would they'll mostly coalesce 2:11:40.210 --> 2:11:42.990 behind whoever got the most kind of on that broad side. 2:11:43.050 --> 2:11:44.630 That's generally how you expect things to go. 2:11:45.070 --> 2:11:47.870 And so because most of the other candidates who'd gotten 2:11:47.910 --> 2:11:51.140 meaningful numbers of votes were further right, the assumption was, well, 2:11:51.180 --> 2:11:53.120 if Lula is going to pull a win out in 2:11:53.160 --> 2:11:55.380 the second round, he's going to have to turn a 2:11:55.580 --> 2:11:57.580 lot of these right wing votes. And that just doesn't 2:11:57.640 --> 2:11:58.640 seem like it's going to. 2:11:58.620 --> 2:11:59.400 Happen, right? 2:12:00.000 --> 2:12:01.320 There was a lot of the sources that I was 2:12:01.360 --> 2:12:04.680 reading said it's essentially, it seems essentially impossible for Lula 2:12:04.720 --> 2:12:06.840 to pull out a second round win, like based on 2:12:07.350 --> 2:12:10.350 what we're seeing and how previous Brazilian elections are going. 2:12:10.410 --> 2:12:13.010 Something unprecedented would have to happen for him to win. 2:12:13.350 --> 2:12:16.520 And something unprecedented did in fact happen because Lula won 2:12:16.560 --> 2:12:20.740 last weekend. And he didn't just flip out an absolute, 2:12:20.760 --> 2:12:23.760 like barely eking out a win. This wasn't a case where, well, 2:12:23.780 --> 2:12:26.200 it was kind of close the first round and Lula 2:12:26.220 --> 2:12:28.850 just sort of barely managed to edge his way ahead 2:12:29.230 --> 2:12:33.340 of Flavio. Lula won by almost 3.6% in the popular vote, 2:12:33.600 --> 2:12:36.320 like he doubled his margin of victory from the election 2:12:36.340 --> 2:12:39.780 in 2022. Why did this happen? Because the flaws in 2:12:39.800 --> 2:12:42.400 Lula's last administration didn't go away, and the fact that 2:12:42.550 --> 2:12:45.730 Bolsonaro nearly wound up right back in charge is proof 2:12:45.770 --> 2:12:47.570 of that, right? It points to the fact that Lula 2:12:47.590 --> 2:12:49.490 and the Brazilian left have a lot of work to do. 2:12:49.990 --> 2:12:52.260 And there's some other issues here. The most recent elections 2:12:52.310 --> 2:12:54.780 also handed Congress to the far right. So Lula is 2:12:54.820 --> 2:12:57.620 going to be fighting Congress basically from the moment he 2:12:57.660 --> 2:13:00.880 takes office. But the fact that Lula is president means 2:13:00.900 --> 2:13:03.060 that there's a fight to be had. You know, Flavio 2:13:03.100 --> 2:13:05.000 is not going to be able to, among other things, 2:13:05.440 --> 2:13:08.540 force out a bunch of Supreme Court justices who ruled 2:13:08.660 --> 2:13:11.620 against his father and stack the court in his own favor. 2:13:11.900 --> 2:13:13.850 There's a bunch of shit Flavio is not going to 2:13:13.890 --> 2:13:14.570 be able to do. 2:13:14.590 --> 2:13:15.170 Yeah. 2:13:15.190 --> 2:13:17.410 Putting Lula in prison again, which is a thing that 2:13:17.690 --> 2:13:20.430 is weirdly not discussed. But like, yeah, this was an 2:13:20.470 --> 2:13:23.510 election that was loser goes to prison. Like, that's a 2:13:23.570 --> 2:13:24.630 big part of this. 2:13:24.950 --> 2:13:25.550 Oh, Miami. 2:13:25.610 --> 2:13:28.030 In Flavio's case, it was losers go to prison because 2:13:28.090 --> 2:13:30.470 he had committed a bunch of crimes he was actively 2:13:30.530 --> 2:13:31.770 being investigated for. 2:13:31.810 --> 2:13:34.480 Yeah. And Lula, it was Lula. They'll send Lula to 2:13:34.490 --> 2:13:37.720 prison again for bullshit. Because fuck you. 2:13:37.900 --> 2:13:38.140 Yeah. 2:13:38.400 --> 2:13:42.120 Yes, but this was a loser-ghost-person kind of election. 2:13:42.140 --> 2:13:43.080 You are right about that. 2:13:43.900 --> 2:13:45.260 So in the next few days, we're going to have 2:13:45.300 --> 2:13:47.520 an episode from a Brazilian activist who was part of 2:13:47.560 --> 2:13:50.140 the massive grassroots campaign to turn things around for the 2:13:50.180 --> 2:13:51.980 second round of voting. And that's going to be the 2:13:52.020 --> 2:13:55.250 majority of our coverage on the subject because obviously the 2:13:55.270 --> 2:13:57.350 person that we picked is a lot more qualified than 2:13:57.390 --> 2:13:58.990 any of us to talk about this sort of stuff, 2:13:59.030 --> 2:14:01.630 living there and having been a part of this. So 2:14:01.790 --> 2:14:04.850 we'll have more detail for you on what exactly happened later. 2:14:05.250 --> 2:14:07.110 But for the purpose of this episode, there's a couple 2:14:07.150 --> 2:14:10.020 important things I want to go over that are important 2:14:10.060 --> 2:14:13.440 in terms of understanding how this all happened, like how 2:14:13.560 --> 2:14:15.970 Lula was able to pull out a win. One is 2:14:16.010 --> 2:14:19.990 that people got galvanized by terror at what a second Bolsonaro, well, 2:14:20.150 --> 2:14:23.390 Flavio Bolsonaro, which was seen as an extension of like 2:14:23.430 --> 2:14:26.940 Jair's presidency, what that would actually mean. And they had 2:14:26.980 --> 2:14:29.680 weeks to marinate in that anxiety. And that helped motivate 2:14:29.760 --> 2:14:31.340 a major get out the vote effort. 2:14:31.460 --> 2:14:31.660 Right. 2:14:31.720 --> 2:14:33.980 A lot of people who had been kind of, well, 2:14:34.040 --> 2:14:36.020 I don't want to vote because I'm disappointed in Lula 2:14:36.060 --> 2:14:38.980 or I'm just not motivated to vote. Like a significant 2:14:39.000 --> 2:14:40.980 number of people were willing to come out because of 2:14:41.060 --> 2:14:44.070 what the stakes were. But a massive reason as to 2:14:44.150 --> 2:14:46.580 why things worked out for Lula comes down to the 2:14:46.620 --> 2:14:49.220 fact that he and his team fought a lot smarter 2:14:49.400 --> 2:14:53.200 this time around. Bolsonaro, as one of my sources pointed out, 2:14:53.220 --> 2:14:56.200 because I've talked to a few Brazilians about this election 2:14:56.220 --> 2:14:58.620 and like what happened during this like couple of weeks 2:14:58.640 --> 2:15:01.090 span of time. And several of the people I talked 2:15:01.110 --> 2:15:03.930 to pointed out that Bolsonaro relies heavily on being able 2:15:03.950 --> 2:15:06.890 to propagate their message through a bunch of different mouths 2:15:07.030 --> 2:15:09.670 and make whatever issue or scandal they think will get 2:15:09.710 --> 2:15:11.270 them power to go viral. 2:15:11.380 --> 2:15:11.520 Right. 2:15:11.530 --> 2:15:11.850 The U.S. 2:15:11.910 --> 2:15:14.500 MAGA right works basically the same way. You have a 2:15:14.600 --> 2:15:17.840 bunch of people who are all ostensibly independent content creators 2:15:17.880 --> 2:15:20.860 and media people who are all taking marching orders, probably 2:15:20.900 --> 2:15:23.290 from the same couple of like signal groups or whatever, 2:15:23.710 --> 2:15:26.710 where somebody says, hey, we're angry about trans people doing 2:15:26.750 --> 2:15:29.190 this this week. And then suddenly you have like 40 2:15:29.190 --> 2:15:31.270 different people all putting out the same message and it 2:15:31.290 --> 2:15:34.020 goes viral, right? That's like a major thing in the 2:15:34.080 --> 2:15:35.560 United States on the right. And it was a big 2:15:35.640 --> 2:15:38.880 part of how The Bolsonaros, like, did what they were 2:15:38.940 --> 2:15:41.040 able to do. Like, it was a major messaging thing 2:15:41.080 --> 2:15:43.980 that they engaged in. Lula teamed up with a guy 2:15:44.100 --> 2:15:46.950 named Andres Llanones to come up with a counter to 2:15:46.970 --> 2:15:50.930 this media strategy. Llanones started out as a lawyer for 2:15:50.970 --> 2:15:53.570 the poor and went through a mixed political awakening. This 2:15:53.610 --> 2:15:55.610 is not a guy who has had, like, a straight 2:15:55.750 --> 2:15:59.760 shot to helping the left win an election. He did initially, 2:15:59.780 --> 2:16:01.880 when he was a much younger man, join Lula's party 2:16:01.980 --> 2:16:04.790 at one point, the Workers' Party. But then after that, 2:16:04.850 --> 2:16:06.770 he joined a far right party that was run by 2:16:06.830 --> 2:16:10.540 Carlos Bolsonaro. In 2018, he was the federal deputy of 2:16:10.600 --> 2:16:13.940 a centrist party. But then in 2022, after he had 2:16:13.980 --> 2:16:16.930 kind of an abortive presidential run himself and decided not 2:16:16.990 --> 2:16:19.370 to go through with it and declared himself for Lula. 2:16:19.910 --> 2:16:23.520 Yonanez's background helped him to develop a shit-stirring strategy that 2:16:23.540 --> 2:16:25.100 was used to great effect. The big thing this guy's 2:16:25.120 --> 2:16:27.420 been talking about for a while is the left can't 2:16:27.520 --> 2:16:29.500 win unless we're willing to do some of the dirty 2:16:29.600 --> 2:16:31.920 shit that the right is doing, right? Like we have 2:16:31.960 --> 2:16:34.200 to actually get down into the muck and try some, 2:16:34.540 --> 2:16:36.859 basically some dirty tricks in order to make shit work. 2:16:37.300 --> 2:16:39.820 And that's very much what happened. He created a WhatsApp 2:16:39.860 --> 2:16:42.570 channel called Lula's Army, which he estimated would need about 2:16:42.570 --> 2:16:45.310 10 million subscribers in order to guarantee Lula a win. 2:16:45.690 --> 2:16:48.550 It wound up with more than 11 million subscribers. Andre 2:16:48.570 --> 2:16:50.550 was the only person who could make posts there, and 2:16:50.570 --> 2:16:52.550 he used it to issue orders to his millions of 2:16:52.610 --> 2:16:55.810 followers about what to do online and in social media. 2:16:56.170 --> 2:16:58.709 And among these kind of standing orders were do not 2:16:58.770 --> 2:17:01.970 engage with far-right narratives. Don't talk to these people. Don't 2:17:02.129 --> 2:17:05.170 argue with them. Don't respond to bait posts, not even to, like, 2:17:05.330 --> 2:17:07.919 dunk them. Block all of the shit that you see 2:17:07.980 --> 2:17:10.160 from these guys to cut off the flow of attention 2:17:10.170 --> 2:17:12.560 to the fascists and at the same time flood the 2:17:12.640 --> 2:17:15.850 internet with stories that are useful to Lula's campaign. These 2:17:15.890 --> 2:17:17.830 are not just like pro-Lula messages. There was a lot 2:17:17.850 --> 2:17:21.200 of like, in some cases, boarding on conspiracy theorizing about 2:17:21.260 --> 2:17:23.580 Flavio Bolsonaro and the stuff that he had gotten up to, 2:17:23.640 --> 2:17:26.300 like pointing out his ties to Freemasonry, right? It was 2:17:26.400 --> 2:17:28.379 all stuff that would go viral and it would make 2:17:28.500 --> 2:17:32.640 fellow far-right assholes look bad. This channel, Lula's Army, was 2:17:32.720 --> 2:17:35.570 cited as a major reason for Lula's victory by everyone 2:17:35.590 --> 2:17:38.890 I've interviewed so far and by Lula at their victory party. 2:17:38.970 --> 2:17:43.050 He specifically shouted out General Llanones as the guy who 2:17:43.090 --> 2:17:45.030 had been the architect of of a lot of their 2:17:45.150 --> 2:17:48.120 online strategy. And this was very much framed as like, 2:17:48.160 --> 2:17:50.880 this is the far right's place of strength is the 2:17:50.959 --> 2:17:54.090 internet and like virality. And if we're going to actually 2:17:54.150 --> 2:17:56.310 beat these people, we have to be willing to like 2:17:56.870 --> 2:17:59.450 take the fight to them in this domain and win. 2:17:59.470 --> 2:18:01.590 And this was very much like Lula's army was very 2:18:01.629 --> 2:18:04.640 much an attempt to I want to quote from an 2:18:04.680 --> 2:18:06.920 anonymous source or a source that I talked to that 2:18:06.940 --> 2:18:08.879 wants to remain anonymous, but provided me some of his 2:18:08.959 --> 2:18:11.680 thoughts on like what had happened and what had worked 2:18:11.740 --> 2:18:14.400 from this online strategy. One of the things I thought 2:18:14.440 --> 2:18:17.180 was interesting, he described, you know, his thesis to me 2:18:17.379 --> 2:18:20.990 as we can reverse SEO and election through mass action. 2:18:21.650 --> 2:18:23.789 What I have witnessed from afar is basically millions of 2:18:23.850 --> 2:18:27.410 politically disengaged, normie working people saw this kind of small-time 2:18:27.450 --> 2:18:30.230 politician make some Instagram video about how they personally could 2:18:30.250 --> 2:18:33.650 change history by blocking your chud Bolsonaro cousin, printing out 2:18:33.690 --> 2:18:36.529 some articles to show your unconvinced auntie, searching things like 2:18:36.570 --> 2:18:40.270 Flavio Bolsonaro defended murderer of child on Google repeatedly until 2:18:40.350 --> 2:18:43.300 national newspapers were forced to mention it. He was literally 2:18:43.330 --> 2:18:46.030 doing little courses and videos like guys practice with me, 2:18:46.160 --> 2:18:49.840 anti-Lula clickbait, swipe away, don't click, don't argue, don't screenshot 2:18:49.860 --> 2:18:52.860 and quote tweet. Just swipe away like this. And now 2:18:52.900 --> 2:18:54.940 all these people have been posting for days, like, I 2:18:54.980 --> 2:18:57.199 have social anxiety, but I've been sleeping four hours a 2:18:57.240 --> 2:18:59.020 night to go talk with people all day. My life 2:18:59.040 --> 2:19:00.859 has changed. I think we'll need to be doing this 2:19:00.900 --> 2:19:04.070 for years to crush the fascists. This person expressed to 2:19:04.129 --> 2:19:06.379 me that they doubted at one point whether what was 2:19:06.430 --> 2:19:09.060 going on was any different from like the common social 2:19:09.100 --> 2:19:11.860 media delusion of thinking, oh, if I like retweet the 2:19:11.900 --> 2:19:15.720 right stuff, maybe it'll change politics. But this concerted activism 2:19:15.860 --> 2:19:19.039 did change politics because people were not just engaging with 2:19:19.060 --> 2:19:21.709 shit that inspired or pissed them off based on their id. 2:19:22.010 --> 2:19:25.370 They were acting strategically to block and deny the enemy 2:19:25.430 --> 2:19:28.830 terrain in which to maneuver. Here's another quote from that source. 2:19:29.330 --> 2:19:31.300 One of his tips, he's talking about Yonona's, One of 2:19:31.340 --> 2:19:34.160 his tips slash directives was something like, okay, we will 2:19:34.180 --> 2:19:38.199 post about topic X, but we will avoid keywords like Lula, PT, 2:19:38.260 --> 2:19:41.459 which is Lula's party, because meta has muted them. And instead, 2:19:41.500 --> 2:19:44.280 we'll use the hashtags of the enemy. So like Clockwork 2:19:44.340 --> 2:19:47.990 searching hashtag I'm with Flavio 22 or something on Instagram 2:19:48.200 --> 2:19:50.430 got you a wall of people doing the L fingers 2:19:50.470 --> 2:19:53.970 for Lula. It's all very signal jamming-y, while also completely 2:19:54.050 --> 2:19:57.030 low tech, like Americans just shooting flock cameras and all. 2:19:57.350 --> 2:19:57.750 LOL. 2:19:58.150 --> 2:19:58.390 That's it. 2:19:58.750 --> 2:20:05.340 Incredible. I've never been more proud of my people. 2:20:05.600 --> 2:20:10.120 I hope that becomes a new American international thing. They 2:20:10.160 --> 2:20:13.200 wear the fucking Realtree camouflage and they shoot flock cameras. 2:20:13.620 --> 2:20:16.550 Yeah, that's our new stereotype. A flock camera is not safe. 2:20:16.770 --> 2:20:19.810 This is our new Goku. It's the international communication. 2:20:19.830 --> 2:20:21.850 That's that communication. Hang on. 2:20:21.930 --> 2:20:22.320 Hang on. 2:20:24.070 --> 2:20:26.550 Now, as I said, we'll have a more detailed explanation 2:20:26.570 --> 2:20:27.630 of what happens soon. 2:20:27.790 --> 2:20:28.790 It's important that you know. 2:20:28.830 --> 2:20:30.010 And one thing I did want to point out is 2:20:30.030 --> 2:20:32.300 like one reason why they were focused on having, hey, 2:20:32.330 --> 2:20:34.730 we've got 10 million people start searching for like the 2:20:34.770 --> 2:20:37.140 same things, the same terms to make them go viral. 2:20:37.670 --> 2:20:40.500 Some Brazilian major news stations had like developed a kind 2:20:40.540 --> 2:20:42.520 of like a daily thing they would do of like. 2:20:42.459 --> 2:20:44.060 What's trending online. 2:20:44.220 --> 2:20:44.539 Yeah. 2:20:44.560 --> 2:20:46.400 And so if you have 11 million people in a 2:20:46.459 --> 2:20:49.280 WhatsApp group and you can make whatever shit you want 2:20:49.340 --> 2:20:51.330 about like the guy you want to defeat. 2:20:51.120 --> 2:20:53.590 Trend, that's a really powerful tactic. 2:20:54.010 --> 2:20:54.369 You know? 2:20:54.970 --> 2:20:59.450 If there's anything I've learned from using Twitter, Brazilians love 2:20:59.490 --> 2:21:00.029 to post. 2:21:00.290 --> 2:21:03.250 They're huge posters. They're posty-ass people, yeah. 2:21:03.270 --> 2:21:08.030 They are some of the most online people I've ever encountered. 2:21:08.330 --> 2:21:08.570 Yeah. 2:21:08.590 --> 2:21:11.830 But as much as this sort of organized posting strategy 2:21:12.220 --> 2:21:15.000 was a major aspect of this election and this organizing, 2:21:15.020 --> 2:21:17.980 which it was, there was a few other things you 2:21:18.020 --> 2:21:20.970 mentioned about printing off things to give to your aunt. Yes. 2:21:21.900 --> 2:21:25.240 other like in-person engagement, like having every person go out 2:21:25.340 --> 2:21:28.580 and like try to either flip someone that they know 2:21:29.400 --> 2:21:32.200 or talk to people who've like checked out of the 2:21:32.220 --> 2:21:34.580 political process and like harassed them into voting. 2:21:35.040 --> 2:21:35.220 Yeah. 2:21:35.260 --> 2:21:37.199 And I've even seen cases of people just sort of 2:21:37.280 --> 2:21:41.060 convincing their Bolsonaro supporting relatives to like go on vacation 2:21:41.080 --> 2:21:45.379 during the election. 2:21:46.120 --> 2:21:47.000 That's pretty funny. 2:21:48.250 --> 2:21:50.760 Yeah, it was a wide-ranging and creative effort, and I 2:21:50.780 --> 2:21:53.320 think this is really important. A lot of the stuff 2:21:53.480 --> 2:21:56.599 that was being done through Lula's army is not what 2:21:56.620 --> 2:22:00.870 you'd traditionally call ethical, certainly not in American politics. I 2:22:00.890 --> 2:22:03.590 don't have a problem with it, but this is getting 2:22:03.650 --> 2:22:08.260 down into the muck, right? This is not clean fighting. 2:22:08.300 --> 2:22:11.780 This is not going high. This is seeing what the 2:22:11.820 --> 2:22:13.680 far right's been doing for the last decade to get 2:22:13.700 --> 2:22:15.620 into power and going like, all right, well, two can 2:22:15.660 --> 2:22:19.020 play at that game, motherfucker. You know, like, I think 2:22:19.060 --> 2:22:22.100 that is important to acknowledge here. I'm seeing a lot 2:22:22.140 --> 2:22:24.120 of people online going like, this is proof that all 2:22:24.140 --> 2:22:25.780 we need to do is vote. And it's like, well, 2:22:26.910 --> 2:22:29.230 the first round is proof of what happens when all 2:22:29.310 --> 2:22:32.130 you do is vote. The second round victory is proof 2:22:32.150 --> 2:22:35.950 of what happens is when you get fucking creative, you know? Anyway, 2:22:36.150 --> 2:22:39.050 we'll have a more detailed explanation of everything that happens soon. 2:22:39.580 --> 2:22:41.990 It's important that you know right now that after his defeat, 2:22:42.070 --> 2:22:44.750 Flavia was ordered to turn in his passport because he 2:22:44.790 --> 2:22:47.879 was actively under investigation for a bunch of crimes related 2:22:47.900 --> 2:22:49.860 to corruption that he definitely committed. 2:22:50.260 --> 2:22:51.400 Yeah, tons of them. 2:22:51.890 --> 2:22:54.590 And after initially trying to get the election results rescinded, 2:22:54.670 --> 2:22:57.570 Flavio gave up on that, promised to return in his passport, 2:22:57.690 --> 2:23:00.810 and then fled the country. It looks like Marco Rubio 2:23:00.990 --> 2:23:04.100 helped orchestrate all of this. Basically, my understanding is he 2:23:04.160 --> 2:23:07.360 stepped into Argentina and then got on a flight that 2:23:07.520 --> 2:23:10.379 eventually led him to the United States with the help 2:23:10.420 --> 2:23:13.459 of the State Department. A senior State Department official told 2:23:13.540 --> 2:23:16.080 USA Today the State Department will issue visas to Flavio 2:23:16.100 --> 2:23:18.180 Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the 2:23:18.240 --> 2:23:20.260 United States. And sure enough, a few hours after that, 2:23:20.700 --> 2:23:21.660 He landed in Miami. 2:23:22.020 --> 2:23:22.959 Like father, like son. 2:23:23.260 --> 2:23:25.619 Like father, like son. 2:23:26.320 --> 2:23:29.839 I love that the list of Asylees and fucking refugees 2:23:29.860 --> 2:23:32.279 we accept is white South Africans are people whose last 2:23:32.320 --> 2:23:33.300 name is Bolsonaro. 2:23:33.340 --> 2:23:34.920 Yeah, we're great on that. 2:23:34.940 --> 2:23:38.550 This is my one initial criticism of Lula too, which is, 2:23:39.120 --> 2:23:42.170 as the great Marxist historian C.L.R. James said, the rich 2:23:42.190 --> 2:23:44.170 are only defeated when they are running for your lives. 2:23:44.209 --> 2:23:46.610 He forgot to add, you have to actually catch them. 2:23:47.500 --> 2:23:49.340 You have to catch them before they can run. 2:23:49.379 --> 2:23:51.490 I've got to wonder where he was watching the election 2:23:51.520 --> 2:23:53.830 party from, right? Like to have easy access to a 2:23:53.870 --> 2:23:55.830 land border where he can walk across. 2:23:55.870 --> 2:23:58.269 He must have been really making sure that he had 2:23:58.310 --> 2:24:02.040 that figured out ahead of time. Yeah, he covered his 2:24:02.100 --> 2:24:04.600 back there. I know Lula had a good response when 2:24:04.620 --> 2:24:06.940 it came out that Flavio has fled. He stated at 2:24:07.140 --> 2:24:09.500 a rally, this is what the Bolsonaro family is like. 2:24:09.600 --> 2:24:10.820 Brazil is their second nation. 2:24:10.860 --> 2:24:11.259 The U.S. 2:24:11.330 --> 2:24:11.990 Is their first. 2:24:14.470 --> 2:24:16.250 That's a fucking dunk. That's good. 2:24:16.610 --> 2:24:20.490 We'll see what happens and how the U.S. regime uses Flavio. 2:24:20.590 --> 2:24:23.850 Will Chamberlain of the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is supported 2:24:23.920 --> 2:24:26.940 by Peter Thiel. And I want to note that Ginny 2:24:27.000 --> 2:24:29.459 Kahn is the person who made me aware of this. 2:24:29.680 --> 2:24:33.480 She writes for the Bucks County Beacon. But yeah, he 2:24:33.700 --> 2:24:36.860 recently put out a statement saying, and I'm going to 2:24:37.040 --> 2:24:40.460 read from Will Chamberlain's statement, Flavio Bolsonaro's passport was canceled. 2:24:40.480 --> 2:24:42.380 He was forced to flee the country by Lula. His 2:24:42.400 --> 2:24:45.390 brother Eduardo has an arrest warrant for lobbying against the U.S. 2:24:45.870 --> 2:24:47.650 It's time for the Brazilian left to face the full 2:24:47.690 --> 2:24:50.650 force of American diplomatic and economic sanctions until they stop 2:24:50.709 --> 2:24:52.050 acting like a banana republic. 2:24:52.490 --> 2:24:54.090 And he's basically encouraging the. 2:24:54.070 --> 2:24:57.790 United States to treat Brazil like we treated Russia after 2:24:57.810 --> 2:25:01.830 the expanded invasion of Ukraine. including visa bans on government 2:25:01.870 --> 2:25:06.400 officials and also quadrupling tariffs on Brazilian goods. Chamberlain ended 2:25:06.440 --> 2:25:08.620 his message by saying the Brazilian regime should look carefully 2:25:08.640 --> 2:25:10.660 at what has happened to Venezuela and Cuba and remember 2:25:10.700 --> 2:25:13.480 that this hemisphere belongs to the United States of America. 2:25:13.980 --> 2:25:16.680 Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. 2:25:16.920 --> 2:25:17.680 We'll see where that goes. 2:25:17.700 --> 2:25:22.310 That's the Don Roe doctrine. That's a new advanced level 2:25:22.350 --> 2:25:26.010 of Don Roe doctrine. Actually, this hemisphere belongs to is wild. 2:25:26.370 --> 2:25:26.570 Yeah. 2:25:28.070 --> 2:25:31.790 It was interesting how kind of slightly tepid Trump's reaction 2:25:31.850 --> 2:25:34.910 to Bolsonaro losing was like he, he didn't, he didn't 2:25:35.030 --> 2:25:38.990 echo Bolsonaro's claims that the election was like rigged or stolen, 2:25:39.430 --> 2:25:42.970 but also said, I didn't take sides, but it was 2:25:43.010 --> 2:25:46.230 a terrible look for the world. Elections have to be indisputable. 2:25:46.550 --> 2:25:49.000 And it looked really bad to me, but he didn't 2:25:49.010 --> 2:25:52.020 really elaborate much more. Like he could, he could have 2:25:52.060 --> 2:25:55.530 gone a lot harder. And it's like, I didn't take 2:25:55.629 --> 2:25:59.470 sides is his first main response. 2:25:59.709 --> 2:26:01.890 Yeah. I assume he was like, all right, well, if 2:26:01.910 --> 2:26:03.610 they'd thrown a coup, we would have supported it, but 2:26:03.640 --> 2:26:05.699 he didn't throw a coup, so fuck it. Yeah. 2:26:05.820 --> 2:26:08.240 I think he also doesn't like to be associated with failure. 2:26:08.320 --> 2:26:10.800 He doesn't like a loser. And he lost by 4 2:26:10.800 --> 2:26:11.520 million votes. 2:26:11.680 --> 2:26:12.019 Oh, yeah. 2:26:12.060 --> 2:26:13.129 Dude took a fat L. 2:26:13.400 --> 2:26:17.330 Lula had to catch up by 2.5 million votes. And 2:26:17.350 --> 2:26:18.990 then won by 4 million. 2:26:19.030 --> 2:26:19.650 It's crazy. 2:26:19.970 --> 2:26:24.950 It's hard to dispute that. Even the extended voting hours 2:26:25.000 --> 2:26:30.220 because of issues on voting day only netted him 30,000 votes, 2:26:30.220 --> 2:26:35.170 35,000 votes. And that election extension was requested by both 2:26:35.209 --> 2:26:36.970 Bolsonaro and Lula. Yeah. 2:26:37.540 --> 2:26:40.410 Yeah, but Flavio Bolsonaro has pretended he didn't ask for it. 2:26:40.660 --> 2:26:42.810 Yeah, well, and he, I think, announced today that he's 2:26:42.830 --> 2:26:46.510 like the rightful president of Brazil from Florida. 2:26:46.730 --> 2:26:49.310 Sure, yeah, great. Keep that grift going. 2:26:49.370 --> 2:26:50.570 Get those four million. 2:26:50.310 --> 2:26:53.150 People out of the way. Maybe the coup's still to come. 2:26:53.690 --> 2:26:54.129 Oh, yeah. 2:26:54.190 --> 2:26:56.109 I mean, who knows what kind of shit they'll try. 2:26:56.450 --> 2:26:58.830 But also, Brazil is not Venezuela. 2:26:59.030 --> 2:27:00.730 Well, he's going to get on the list. At some point, 2:27:00.750 --> 2:27:03.690 they're going to try some shit in Cuba, right? So, like... Cuba. 2:27:04.530 --> 2:27:06.600 That's another one where they might be able to at 2:27:06.680 --> 2:27:10.340 least accomplish their initial goal of like kidnapping and excising 2:27:10.379 --> 2:27:11.459 the people they want to get out. 2:27:11.400 --> 2:27:11.900 Of the country. 2:27:12.180 --> 2:27:16.820 Rubio made a fantastic tweet, like trying to recruit CIA operatives. 2:27:17.100 --> 2:27:17.800 Oh, yeah. 2:27:17.840 --> 2:27:18.080 Yes. 2:27:18.360 --> 2:27:21.560 Yes. Well, I don't think you can do that with Brazil. 2:27:22.260 --> 2:27:23.610 Big ass country. Yeah. 2:27:24.050 --> 2:27:24.950 Very big country. 2:27:24.970 --> 2:27:25.750 Yeah. 2:27:26.250 --> 2:27:28.830 This is certainly the most exciting kind of election turnaround 2:27:28.850 --> 2:27:32.260 that we've seen. And like you said, it's going to 2:27:32.280 --> 2:27:34.990 be a hard fight for Lula and the Workers' Party 2:27:35.270 --> 2:27:37.310 in Brazil because they are dealing with a very, very 2:27:37.370 --> 2:27:38.660 far-right Congress. Yeah. 2:27:39.379 --> 2:27:43.929 But at least there will be a fight. It's a fight. Yeah. 2:27:44.470 --> 2:27:48.750 We have a game. All right. Let's hear from Bolsonaro. 2:27:49.170 --> 2:28:03.959 It's New Colón. All right, we are back. 2:28:04.600 --> 2:28:08.950 And what we are talking about now is non-citizen voting. 2:28:08.990 --> 2:28:13.150 Very scary. This qualifies as a spooky segment. Yeah. Yeah, 2:28:13.230 --> 2:28:15.510 I heard it's a big deal. This is what's going 2:28:15.530 --> 2:28:19.039 to destroy the democracy. And I feel strongly about borders. 2:28:19.240 --> 2:28:20.900 Maybe that's what Bolsonaro is going to go for, you know? 2:28:21.890 --> 2:28:23.810 He's the only one who's going to get caught voting. 2:28:24.690 --> 2:28:28.320 Well, unfortunately, Margaret. Well, not the only one, Margaret. Some 2:28:28.340 --> 2:28:30.420 people have already been committing voter fraud. We're going to 2:28:30.440 --> 2:28:33.420 hear about that after we hear... Well, actually, ISIS News 2:28:33.459 --> 2:28:35.920 page yesterday announced that they had arrested a legal permanent 2:28:35.959 --> 2:28:40.780 resident for voting in the 2024 election. Joyce Pitts, they allege, 2:28:40.840 --> 2:28:43.850 is a Dutch citizen living in Pennsylvania who cast a 2:28:43.870 --> 2:28:48.629 ballot illegally in 2024. She's one of nine people charged 2:28:48.670 --> 2:28:49.990 in a statewide investigation. 2:28:50.010 --> 2:28:50.530 Nine people. 2:28:50.590 --> 2:28:50.750 Ooh. 2:28:51.850 --> 2:28:55.690 So yeah, if anyone's keeping tabs, you probably won't need 2:28:55.730 --> 2:28:58.490 more than your fingers and toes, and you will actually. Meanwhile, 2:28:58.590 --> 2:29:03.510 the DOJ is claiming that 20,000 non-citizens are on California's 2:29:03.550 --> 2:29:07.170 voter rolls. In a post on x.com, the Everything website, 2:29:07.300 --> 2:29:11.200 the White House asserts this number as an absolute. But 2:29:11.780 --> 2:29:14.900 in the complaint filed by the DOJ, they are referred 2:29:14.920 --> 2:29:15.400 to as, quote, likely. 2:29:21.060 --> 2:29:23.740 Non-citizens. And this is a super important distinction. 2:29:24.000 --> 2:29:27.030 Yeah. Yeah. It's incredibly important. We're going to find out why, but... 2:29:27.150 --> 2:29:28.650 Lest us forget Nevada. 2:29:29.150 --> 2:29:29.369 Yes. 2:29:29.570 --> 2:29:29.750 Yeah. 2:29:29.810 --> 2:29:29.970 Right. 2:29:30.110 --> 2:29:32.470 And I think where none of them turned out to 2:29:32.510 --> 2:29:35.730 be non-citizens who are voting. It's worth noting that the 2:29:35.750 --> 2:29:39.740 DOJ is attempting to get California to sequester ballots from 2:29:39.780 --> 2:29:45.600 its 20,000 likely non-citizens, right? Saying that they could influence 2:29:45.620 --> 2:29:47.830 the outcome of the election. It's worth noting that they 2:29:47.930 --> 2:29:51.770 filed this on October the 15th. That is less than 2:29:51.810 --> 2:29:54.970 a month before polls close, right? Well into early voting 2:29:55.010 --> 2:29:58.150 in some states. The list was sent on a thumb 2:29:58.190 --> 2:30:01.320 drive to the state and the state failed to review 2:30:01.400 --> 2:30:04.420 said thumb drive within 48 hours as a DOJ asked 2:30:04.459 --> 2:30:08.760 them to. The DOJ is asking California to sequester this 2:30:08.800 --> 2:30:10.480 ballot and is trying to go through the courts to 2:30:10.520 --> 2:30:12.670 make them do it. Whether or not they will have 2:30:12.709 --> 2:30:14.790 to do that is currently being decided in court by 2:30:14.890 --> 2:30:15.870 Judge David O. 2:30:15.910 --> 2:30:19.310 Carter. O is his middle name, the initial of his 2:30:19.350 --> 2:30:22.670 middle name. It's not like the way that an Irish 2:30:22.709 --> 2:30:25.230 person would have their name. I was just confused for 2:30:25.250 --> 2:30:26.570 a long time about this, but I couldn't find an 2:30:26.610 --> 2:30:29.180 apostrophe anywhere and it took me a while. Yeah, honestly, 2:30:29.200 --> 2:30:30.840 if your middle name starts with O, I feel like 2:30:30.860 --> 2:30:32.990 you kind of got to... go by your middle name 2:30:33.370 --> 2:30:34.810 or cut it out entirely. 2:30:34.870 --> 2:30:38.320 Yeah, it's either way, but a very confusing way to 2:30:38.560 --> 2:30:41.760 present one's name. On Monday, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the 2:30:41.780 --> 2:30:44.980 Trump administration's appeal saying, quote, the United States failed to 2:30:45.000 --> 2:30:47.859 allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application 2:30:47.900 --> 2:30:50.520 for a temporary restraining order. For that reason, we lack 2:30:50.540 --> 2:30:53.379 jurisdiction over this appeal. So we grant the county's motion 2:30:53.420 --> 2:30:55.810 to dismiss this appeal and deny as moot the United 2:30:55.840 --> 2:30:59.110 States emergency motion for relief. So In this case, the 2:30:59.170 --> 2:31:00.000 county would be L.A. 2:31:00.080 --> 2:31:00.580 County, right? 2:31:00.600 --> 2:31:03.780 They're trying to force the counties to sequester these ballots. 2:31:03.820 --> 2:31:05.460 The county is saying, no, we're not going to do that. 2:31:06.240 --> 2:31:08.939 In the hearing the day before we're recording this on Tuesday, 2:31:09.430 --> 2:31:11.750 Judge Carter, going to just use Carter from now on, 2:31:12.250 --> 2:31:17.130 asked First Assistant United States Attorney Bilala Saleh why, if 2:31:17.170 --> 2:31:19.940 the issue was so big, they had not charged more people. 2:31:20.550 --> 2:31:23.110 Karl Matos has some good courtroom reporting on this. Quote, 2:31:23.379 --> 2:31:25.680 if it's that big, you've got a remedy for goodness sakes, 2:31:25.920 --> 2:31:29.000 the judge said. Go out and indict. Carter, who has 2:31:29.040 --> 2:31:31.940 previously denied the DOJ's request for the entire voter rolls 2:31:31.959 --> 2:31:35.039 to the state, also said, quote, some of these may 2:31:35.080 --> 2:31:38.800 be very valid voters, and that's my concern about disenfranchisement. 2:31:39.260 --> 2:31:41.709 He indicated that he's likely to appoint a special master 2:31:41.750 --> 2:31:43.970 to look at the evidence, which will not happen before 2:31:44.010 --> 2:31:46.690 November 3rd. He did seem to indicate that he would 2:31:46.950 --> 2:31:51.070 be ordering the feds to stop intimidating local election officials, saying, quote, 2:31:51.530 --> 2:31:54.129 this court believes it would be wise to any threats 2:31:54.170 --> 2:31:58.190 to state or county election employees cease immediately. What a 2:31:58.330 --> 2:32:00.270 formal way of saying, like, I'll fuck you up. 2:32:00.709 --> 2:32:01.189 Yeah. 2:32:01.209 --> 2:32:03.400 The court believes it would be wise if you were 2:32:03.420 --> 2:32:04.170 to step back. 2:32:04.700 --> 2:32:04.880 Yeah. 2:32:05.040 --> 2:32:05.620 Immediately. 2:32:05.640 --> 2:32:06.459 Yeah. 2:32:06.780 --> 2:32:11.800 That is a very judgy way of saying, come at me. Like, oh, don't. Yeah. 2:32:11.860 --> 2:32:12.480 I will come at you. 2:32:13.160 --> 2:32:16.140 So let's talk about that intimidation. On Friday, the DOJ 2:32:16.220 --> 2:32:19.900 sent letters to all 53 California counties, according to reporting 2:32:19.940 --> 2:32:23.470 in the New York Times. The letters contained a subset 2:32:23.550 --> 2:32:27.370 of the 20,000, they say, and gave election officials 48 2:32:27.370 --> 2:32:31.929 hours from Friday, that's the weekend, to identify who on 2:32:31.950 --> 2:32:34.039 the accompanying list is a citizen and who is not. 2:32:34.200 --> 2:32:34.820 It's a quotation. 2:32:35.430 --> 2:32:37.990 It then went on to say if, quote, citizenship status 2:32:38.010 --> 2:32:40.550 cannot be confirmed, we request you immediately instruct the appropriate 2:32:40.570 --> 2:32:45.540 elections official to segregate, not cancel, those individuals vote by 2:32:45.600 --> 2:32:49.760 mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined. It 2:32:49.920 --> 2:32:52.740 seems that they tried to cut up the list by 2:32:52.840 --> 2:32:56.320 county here. In your county, for example, Northern California, got 2:32:56.400 --> 2:33:00.410 two names, neither of whom have been issued ballots. Mendocino, 2:33:00.830 --> 2:33:03.910 according to the registrar who was interviewed by the Times, 2:33:03.950 --> 2:33:04.790 got the wrong list. 2:33:05.070 --> 2:33:07.770 Quote, it's from another county. Incredible. 2:33:08.209 --> 2:33:12.010 Feds requested sensitive personal information like social security numbers to 2:33:12.030 --> 2:33:13.150 determine eligibility. 2:33:13.690 --> 2:33:17.410 And social security numbers do not... correspond to someone's citizenship 2:33:17.430 --> 2:33:18.930 status necessarily. 2:33:18.790 --> 2:33:21.410 Yeah well i mean yeah you there are certain points 2:33:21.470 --> 2:33:24.670 within your citizenship journey where you can get very like 2:33:24.690 --> 2:33:26.570 an itin or an ssn but that is not like 2:33:26.610 --> 2:33:28.630 a that's not like a black white as you say 2:33:29.209 --> 2:33:33.730 the feds also sent a letter to the office of 2:33:33.750 --> 2:33:37.500 the council so that i'm saying council sel not council 2:33:37.640 --> 2:33:39.710 c-i-l for Los Angeles County. 2:33:39.870 --> 2:33:41.369 Like legal counsel. Yes, exactly. 2:33:41.510 --> 2:33:41.670 Yeah. 2:33:41.910 --> 2:33:45.459 It's just in the audio format. I'm trying to distinguish 2:33:45.480 --> 2:33:46.800 between the two, right? 2:33:46.840 --> 2:33:49.000 They sent a letter to the Office of the Council 2:33:49.180 --> 2:33:52.180 for LA County and included a statement, quote, if persons 2:33:52.220 --> 2:33:55.740 knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies 2:33:55.800 --> 2:33:59.520 as non-citizens, they risk becoming aiders and abettors to a 2:33:59.580 --> 2:34:00.500 federal crime. 2:34:00.940 --> 2:34:01.160 Yeah. 2:34:01.500 --> 2:34:04.370 Bill Asseili posted a very similar message to X last 2:34:04.410 --> 2:34:08.430 week saying, quote, it's simple. California has not verified citizenship status. 2:34:08.840 --> 2:34:11.040 We did the work for them. We obtained the registered 2:34:11.080 --> 2:34:13.539 voter list and told them who we believe are non-citizens 2:34:13.600 --> 2:34:17.450 on their rolls. Knowingly processing non-citizen ballots is a federal 2:34:17.510 --> 2:34:22.750 crime under 18 U.S.C. Section 611 and 2. We hold 2:34:22.870 --> 2:34:25.610 election officials accountable. No one is above the law. 2:34:26.129 --> 2:34:29.010 Yeah, they're trying to scare local officials into taking away 2:34:29.050 --> 2:34:29.730 people's ballots. 2:34:30.290 --> 2:34:30.650 Exactly. 2:34:30.690 --> 2:34:33.690 Yeah, they're trying to scare people out of voting and 2:34:33.709 --> 2:34:36.470 scare people out of taking votes. This comes after Trump, 2:34:36.550 --> 2:34:39.030 in June, at a rally, said he asked United States 2:34:39.070 --> 2:34:41.689 attorneys to, quote, look into the state's voting practice. 2:34:41.870 --> 2:34:44.210 I called up the very powerful, very good U.S. 2:34:44.270 --> 2:34:47.209 Attorney in California, and I said, do me a favor, 2:34:47.730 --> 2:34:48.129 take a look. 2:34:48.150 --> 2:34:50.930 They're trying to steal that election, too. I guess they 2:34:50.950 --> 2:34:51.410 called up. 2:34:51.910 --> 2:34:54.050 Over the next week, he was definitely going to lose, 2:34:54.090 --> 2:34:54.570 but the U.S. 2:34:54.610 --> 2:34:55.270 Attorney called. 2:34:55.330 --> 2:34:58.830 We want to check your votes. About an hour after 2:34:58.890 --> 2:35:03.220 the call, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hilton has won. 2:35:04.430 --> 2:35:07.830 We did trim a little diversion that the president went 2:35:07.930 --> 2:35:11.369 on in the middle there about the local US attorney 2:35:11.390 --> 2:35:15.130 being present. So the DOJ has also brought in California 2:35:15.190 --> 2:35:18.750 charges against 28 foreign nationals who it claims voted or 2:35:18.870 --> 2:35:22.530 registered to do so. There are various charges here, right? 2:35:22.570 --> 2:35:24.710 In some cases, they're charging people with lying on the 2:35:24.750 --> 2:35:28.879 naturalization application, either lying and saying they hadn't previously committed 2:35:28.900 --> 2:35:32.000 a crime for which they had not been prosecuted or 2:35:32.070 --> 2:35:35.250 lying and saying that they had not fraudulently claimed to 2:35:35.290 --> 2:35:38.759 be a US citizen when they had. Not everybody here 2:35:38.959 --> 2:35:42.100 actually voted. In some cases, they registered to do so. 2:35:42.120 --> 2:35:46.500 I was kind of just looking demographically at this group. Obviously, 2:35:46.520 --> 2:35:49.150 it's people who are not born in the US, right? 2:35:49.650 --> 2:35:54.830 But they tend to be older folks, I noticed. I 2:35:55.110 --> 2:35:57.930 think the youngest person was 30. It's very easy to 2:35:57.980 --> 2:36:00.080 register to vote. And I could maybe see how it'd 2:36:00.100 --> 2:36:02.440 be possible that someone who didn't have English as their 2:36:02.480 --> 2:36:04.740 first language or the best command of the language could 2:36:04.800 --> 2:36:07.400 accidentally do that, but I don't know about any of 2:36:07.440 --> 2:36:11.360 these cases. The DOJ says they're all legal permanent residents, 2:36:11.470 --> 2:36:14.150 as was the case in Pennsylvania. I want to move 2:36:14.209 --> 2:36:20.790 on now to another case of misrepresentation of illegal voting practices. 2:36:21.430 --> 2:36:26.860 This one takes place in Hennepin County and involves serial 2:36:27.480 --> 2:36:32.039 streamer of his own crimes, james o'keefe uh because he 2:36:32.120 --> 2:36:35.379 is at it again this shit is wild have any 2:36:35.400 --> 2:36:37.560 of you seen this video i have not watched the 2:36:37.580 --> 2:36:40.490 video yet we're gonna go on a fucking journey together 2:36:40.520 --> 2:36:41.730 friends oh no. 2:36:41.670 --> 2:36:43.130 But i just want to acknowledge that oh in this 2:36:43.150 --> 2:36:45.490 case is part of the last name and not a 2:36:45.510 --> 2:36:48.070 middle initial i know everyone's confused. 2:36:47.629 --> 2:36:50.310 So yeah yeah well really uh we're mixing up with 2:36:50.330 --> 2:36:52.490 those yes in this case james o'keefe uh that is 2:36:52.570 --> 2:36:56.490 that is his last name and his colleague Cam Higby. 2:36:56.870 --> 2:37:02.340 They misrepresented themselves in Minnesota by entering polling places and 2:37:02.400 --> 2:37:07.890 representing themselves as registered voters. Quote, James Edward O'Keefe, 42, 2:37:07.879 --> 2:37:11.690 and Cam Higby, 26, both face felony charges of unlawful 2:37:11.750 --> 2:37:15.369 voting and identity theft in the primary in Minnesota, according 2:37:15.390 --> 2:37:18.410 to a Hennepin County Attorney's Office press release that came 2:37:18.430 --> 2:37:19.030 out this morning. 2:37:19.480 --> 2:37:21.480 These are like right-wing trolls. Yes. 2:37:21.879 --> 2:37:25.420 James O'Keefe, probably most famous for his Project Veritas stuff 2:37:25.530 --> 2:37:28.270 back in the day. I think they kicked him out 2:37:28.290 --> 2:37:30.689 of Veritas, something to do with The Definer. he's the 2:37:30.720 --> 2:37:33.520 guy who killed Acorn wait do people even no one 2:37:33.540 --> 2:37:37.190 remembers Acorn never mind this yeah that's like 15 years 2:37:37.230 --> 2:37:39.110 ago yeah dawn yeah it's the. 2:37:39.030 --> 2:37:41.290 Dawn of time yeah um oh i have like separate 2:37:41.310 --> 2:37:43.330 reasons i'm mad at acorn from 20 years ago but 2:37:43.350 --> 2:37:44.970 from the opposite direction. 2:37:44.530 --> 2:37:48.350 Oh yeah very funny it's like they also sucked but 2:37:48.390 --> 2:37:49.750 he killed acorn. 2:37:49.470 --> 2:37:52.369 Yeah i'm guessing you have little that you share margaret 2:37:52.910 --> 2:37:55.530 yeah is it amazing how much shit just goes down 2:37:55.550 --> 2:37:59.490 in hennepin county So what happened here is that O'Keefe 2:37:59.590 --> 2:38:02.930 and Higby entered a polling place and they wanted to 2:38:02.970 --> 2:38:08.490 draw attention to a practice called vouching. Vouching has been 2:38:08.510 --> 2:38:10.440 established for a long time in Minnesota. It allows a 2:38:10.560 --> 2:38:12.820 registered voter to vouch to someone who perhaps has recently 2:38:12.900 --> 2:38:14.360 moved to the area. 2:38:14.660 --> 2:38:17.820 Right. To say, hey, I'm coming in. I'm a registered voter. 2:38:17.840 --> 2:38:19.320 You got me on your list. This is my neighbor. 2:38:19.459 --> 2:38:19.980 They want to vote. 2:38:21.350 --> 2:38:26.060 O'Keefe obviously thought this offered a wide opportunity for fraud. 2:38:26.560 --> 2:38:29.760 And so... So he committed fraud? 2:38:30.260 --> 2:38:30.500 Yes. 2:38:32.400 --> 2:38:34.860 Not only did he commit fraud, Garrison, he filmed himself 2:38:34.900 --> 2:38:38.080 doing it. And then he posted to X.com, the Everything website, 2:38:38.100 --> 2:38:40.860 a video posted to O'Keefe's X account with the opening 2:38:40.940 --> 2:38:44.820 credits seeming to identify him and the other people as 2:38:44.900 --> 2:38:48.680 members of the Citizen Justice League. shows him dressed up 2:38:48.760 --> 2:38:52.060 in what he calls traditional Muslim attire. He's wearing a 2:38:52.180 --> 2:38:55.860 thobe and higbee in niqab. 2:38:55.970 --> 2:38:56.330 Fuck. 2:38:56.490 --> 2:38:58.610 Garrison, if you could just play the first 34 seconds. 2:38:59.030 --> 2:39:01.970 I've never been more excited to watch a James O'Keefe clip. 2:39:02.110 --> 2:39:03.269 You're going to see some shit. 2:39:03.850 --> 2:39:04.230 Fuck. 2:39:05.050 --> 2:39:07.470 I mean, like, they're not sticking the landing on this. 2:39:07.890 --> 2:39:10.220 I'm James O'Keefe, and this is vouching for seven other 2:39:10.250 --> 2:39:15.790 Muslims at a Minneapolis polling booth. We're going in to 2:39:15.810 --> 2:39:18.189 this location, and I'm going to say that I'm vouching 2:39:18.230 --> 2:39:21.870 for them. The name is William Lawrence. The question about 2:39:21.890 --> 2:39:23.780 the vouching program, yeah? 2:39:23.860 --> 2:39:24.220 Vouching? 2:39:24.840 --> 2:39:27.760 I can vouch for them, but they are not registered? 2:39:27.800 --> 2:39:28.840 That's okay, that's fine. 2:39:29.320 --> 2:39:30.300 Can I bring five more? 2:39:30.320 --> 2:39:30.700 Up to eight. 2:39:33.250 --> 2:39:34.129 Up to eight people? 2:39:34.230 --> 2:39:35.869 Okay, that's a good thing. 2:39:35.910 --> 2:39:41.510 We go back and we get Krishna and Ernesto and Mohammed. 2:39:41.650 --> 2:39:44.530 In Minnesota, you can show up on election day and 2:39:44.770 --> 2:39:47.350 vouch for up to eight unregistered voters. 2:39:48.670 --> 2:39:51.930 Pretty incredible stuff. Yeah, I mean, you guys can't see this. 2:39:52.270 --> 2:39:56.930 O'Keefe is wearing a Halloween-tier outfit and affecting an accent. 2:39:57.430 --> 2:39:59.990 It's like a level of racism that, like.... 2:40:02.140 --> 2:40:04.160 There are several things that I think he might be doing. 2:40:04.180 --> 2:40:08.420 He's filming in a polling place. I don't know what 2:40:08.459 --> 2:40:13.959 the rules are on recording consent in Minnesota. Higby in 2:40:14.020 --> 2:40:16.400 the cub, as you heard there, is the one using 2:40:16.440 --> 2:40:20.560 the cover name Ernesto. O'Keefe is the one using the 2:40:20.720 --> 2:40:25.440 affected accent in the video. Can we play 40 to 2:40:25.440 --> 2:40:26.959 45 to see what's going on with Ernesto? 2:40:26.980 --> 2:40:31.640 You guys can probably guess. I'm slightly less excited. 2:40:31.660 --> 2:40:31.760 Yeah. 2:40:32.570 --> 2:40:35.650 As I was a few minutes ago. You've made me 2:40:35.670 --> 2:40:36.090 a cry. 2:40:36.450 --> 2:40:39.560 Members of the Justice League dress up in traditional Muslim attire, 2:40:39.720 --> 2:40:42.020 including a transgender wearing a burqa. 2:40:44.459 --> 2:40:45.180 And put this. 2:40:45.160 --> 2:40:47.520 Vouching law to an extreme test on. 2:40:47.520 --> 2:40:48.660 Primary day, August 11th. 2:40:49.580 --> 2:40:49.760 Yeah. 2:40:50.240 --> 2:40:51.360 Not a burka, but that's all right. 2:40:52.020 --> 2:40:55.060 They're also putting on brownface, by the way. 2:40:55.500 --> 2:40:57.500 Yes, that's what I wanted. 2:40:57.320 --> 2:40:59.590 To add, Mia, is that they did include footage of 2:40:59.629 --> 2:41:01.170 them applying brownface. 2:41:01.190 --> 2:41:02.690 It's a lot to unpack here. 2:41:02.709 --> 2:41:06.490 They're putting on brownface, and I don't think that's the 2:41:06.530 --> 2:41:11.120 most racist part of this. This is the spooky week section. 2:41:11.140 --> 2:41:14.120 This is my fucking night. God, the fact that I 2:41:14.120 --> 2:41:16.570 have to live in this world is fucking spooky week. 2:41:16.700 --> 2:41:18.730 Yeah, it is the most American Halloween thing to do 2:41:18.790 --> 2:41:21.570 to find an incredibly racist costume that is also offensive 2:41:21.610 --> 2:41:22.570 in myriad other ways. 2:41:22.870 --> 2:41:24.629 No, we've learned that the most American thing to do 2:41:24.690 --> 2:41:27.230 is to put on camo and shoot flock cameras. These 2:41:27.270 --> 2:41:28.330 people are doing it wrong. 2:41:28.590 --> 2:41:28.930 Oh, yeah. 2:41:29.170 --> 2:41:32.580 They don't deserve to come to America. These white people 2:41:32.640 --> 2:41:35.280 who were born here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. What 2:41:35.320 --> 2:41:36.359 a war for this assault. 2:41:37.129 --> 2:41:40.530 So later in the video, you see that the poll 2:41:40.570 --> 2:41:43.450 workers have very clearly worked out that something fucking weird 2:41:43.510 --> 2:41:47.190 is going on because they are outside filming O'Keefe and 2:41:47.230 --> 2:41:50.289 his crew and following them back to their vehicle. Higby 2:41:50.890 --> 2:41:54.830 hides in the footwell of the vehicle as they peel 2:41:54.900 --> 2:41:57.119 out and attempt to do the same thing at another 2:41:57.180 --> 2:42:01.310 polling location. O'Keefe attempts to construct this as evidence that 2:42:01.370 --> 2:42:05.270 they know that the vouching system is wrong and not 2:42:05.420 --> 2:42:07.920 that they know that the group of people in brown 2:42:08.000 --> 2:42:11.880 face are probably up to some weird shit. I'm quoting 2:42:11.940 --> 2:42:14.940 again here from the presser. Minnesota law clearly states that 2:42:15.040 --> 2:42:18.280 no individual shall intentionally mispresent the individual's identity in applying 2:42:18.300 --> 2:42:20.310 for a ballot, depositing a ballot in a ballot box, 2:42:20.420 --> 2:42:22.869 or attempting to vote by means of a voting machine 2:42:22.890 --> 2:42:24.050 or electronic voting system. 2:42:24.709 --> 2:42:27.590 Well, Mr. Higby and Mr. O'Keefe did not sign the oath. 2:42:28.110 --> 2:42:32.109 Most men intentionally misrepresented their identities in applying for ballots, 2:42:32.150 --> 2:42:36.230 a press release said. The person O'Keefe impersonated only found 2:42:36.350 --> 2:42:39.550 out once the video was released. He was posing as 2:42:39.590 --> 2:42:42.410 a real person. Yes, that is a person. That is 2:42:42.450 --> 2:42:44.530 a registered voter in that precinct. 2:42:44.650 --> 2:42:48.240 Oh my God. This is a federal crime. William Pomeranz 2:42:48.640 --> 2:42:49.400 is a guy. 2:42:49.420 --> 2:42:49.830 Holy. 2:42:50.879 --> 2:42:54.879 Jesus Christ. That's wild. I didn't know they actually did it. 2:42:54.920 --> 2:42:56.779 They actually stole someone's identity. 2:42:57.440 --> 2:42:58.090 Holy shit! 2:42:58.350 --> 2:43:02.610 What's funny, and it didn't work. The poll people were like, no, 2:43:02.650 --> 2:43:03.709 you're fraudsters. 2:43:03.850 --> 2:43:06.230 Well, they didn't say that because O'Keefe never actually did 2:43:06.270 --> 2:43:10.340 the thing. He never actually signed the oath, right? You 2:43:10.580 --> 2:43:15.619 attest that these people are residents, right? Just as one 2:43:15.660 --> 2:43:17.500 might enter into any other contract. This is a fairly 2:43:17.540 --> 2:43:19.260 well-established thing that happens in law. 2:43:19.300 --> 2:43:20.990 You can attest to things, right? 2:43:21.590 --> 2:43:23.750 So in this case, I'm guessing he thought he wasn't 2:43:23.800 --> 2:43:26.359 stealing the identity because he didn't sign the contract. But 2:43:27.220 --> 2:43:28.980 Pomeranz found this when it was sent to him by 2:43:29.020 --> 2:43:29.760 one of his students. 2:43:30.000 --> 2:43:33.039 Jesus. Can we just play like. 2:43:32.720 --> 2:43:36.850 859 to 905 when the poll workers work out what's 2:43:36.890 --> 2:43:37.530 going on here? 2:43:37.830 --> 2:43:37.990 Yeah. 2:43:38.930 --> 2:43:40.950 That's the biggest scam, I think, is that you can, 2:43:41.070 --> 2:43:42.770 as long as you know their name and their address, 2:43:43.190 --> 2:43:44.550 you can show up and vote in their name, no 2:43:44.590 --> 2:43:45.510 verification required. 2:43:45.590 --> 2:43:47.310 It looks like we may have problems. 2:43:47.330 --> 2:43:48.060 We can't prove it. 2:43:50.160 --> 2:43:51.740 You want me to ask? Should I get up now? 2:43:51.780 --> 2:43:54.530 What we could do is just reposition. He's going to 2:43:54.550 --> 2:43:56.850 go alert somebody. Does he work there? 2:43:57.870 --> 2:44:00.790 I sure told him shit about us. 2:44:00.890 --> 2:44:04.020 Oh yeah, they're recording. 2:44:04.040 --> 2:44:05.140 Get down, get down, get. 2:44:05.000 --> 2:44:05.960 Down, get down, get down. 2:44:11.940 --> 2:44:15.039 Holy larp oh my god yeah i can't let them. 2:44:14.940 --> 2:44:17.280 Get close i love that at the moment he's saying 2:44:17.320 --> 2:44:20.340 you could vote without having an id but several poll 2:44:20.379 --> 2:44:22.660 workers have already followed him to his vehicle. 2:44:23.540 --> 2:44:26.230 And also just like the the just the hypocrisy if 2:44:26.290 --> 2:44:27.709 i can film them and they can't film. 2:44:27.550 --> 2:44:30.630 Me yeah yeah the whole thing they're filming us get 2:44:30.670 --> 2:44:34.170 down i don't expect better from them you're. 2:44:33.690 --> 2:44:36.190 You're you're posting it on twitter. 2:44:36.270 --> 2:44:40.830 Yeah what are you James O'Keefe, serious journalist, never thought 2:44:40.850 --> 2:44:42.590 to ask a lawyer, what if I do a number 2:44:42.629 --> 2:44:45.109 of federal crimes and then video them? 2:44:45.690 --> 2:44:48.640 The world is just that Simpsons meme of like filming 2:44:48.660 --> 2:44:50.660 this crime spree is the best idea we've ever had. 2:44:50.959 --> 2:44:52.500 Videotaping this crime spree. 2:44:52.520 --> 2:44:52.780 Yeah. 2:44:53.100 --> 2:44:53.360 Yeah. 2:44:54.820 --> 2:44:59.209 So amazingly, O'Keefe's most recent tweet reads, siren emoji, calling 2:44:59.290 --> 2:45:02.330 all election judges, county clerks, poll workers and watchers. Are 2:45:02.350 --> 2:45:04.930 you serving in the upcoming election? We want to connect 2:45:04.970 --> 2:45:07.050 with you to help ensure transparency and integrity in the 2:45:07.070 --> 2:45:10.430 electoral process. Send us a DM with your name, contact info, 2:45:10.470 --> 2:45:12.770 and the best time to reach you. He then links 2:45:12.800 --> 2:45:15.699 to the video in which his alleged crimes are recorded. 2:45:17.780 --> 2:45:18.260 Great stuff. 2:45:18.660 --> 2:45:21.040 Well, I'm glad that we were able to catch at 2:45:21.180 --> 2:45:22.840 least someone doing voter fraud. 2:45:23.379 --> 2:45:27.060 Right, yeah. The big problem is former Project Veritas people 2:45:27.100 --> 2:45:28.580 in this country undermining democracy. 2:45:29.260 --> 2:45:29.800 Oh, boy. 2:45:30.879 --> 2:45:34.120 Excited to see how this court case plays out. So 2:45:34.660 --> 2:45:38.480 I'm going to do an actual, I think, authentic, classic 2:45:38.560 --> 2:45:43.780 Spooky Week style segment and talk about doppelgangers. Rather than 2:45:44.100 --> 2:45:47.879 ghosts or goblins, zombies, werewolves, or vampires, the only spooky 2:45:48.220 --> 2:45:50.939 creature of sorts that I've ever been kind of scared of, 2:45:51.160 --> 2:45:55.810 felt like the heebie-jeebies about, is the doppelganger. The idea 2:45:55.860 --> 2:46:00.920 that you suddenly happen to encounter an apparent double of yourself, 2:46:01.200 --> 2:46:03.560 whether just like a glimpse for a short second or 2:46:03.620 --> 2:46:07.000 maybe an extended encounter with someone or something that looks 2:46:07.080 --> 2:46:10.300 exactly like you. And I'm not talking about like lookalikes here. 2:46:10.320 --> 2:46:12.779 I'm not talking about someone who just kind of resembles you. 2:46:12.860 --> 2:46:14.210 I mean, like you wake up in the middle of 2:46:14.230 --> 2:46:16.650 the night to use the bathroom and as you walk 2:46:16.690 --> 2:46:21.230 down the hallway, you see another version of you standing there. 2:46:21.690 --> 2:46:25.430 Or you're like cutting through like a crowded sidewalk and 2:46:25.590 --> 2:46:29.070 you notice... as you kind of pass by someone, you 2:46:29.250 --> 2:46:32.010 turn back because they look just like you, but then 2:46:32.190 --> 2:46:34.519 they're lost in the chaos. 2:46:34.100 --> 2:46:35.220 Of random passersby. 2:46:35.240 --> 2:46:39.780 That's the sort of doppelganger I'm talking about. So-called scientists 2:46:40.080 --> 2:46:43.379 say the odds of someone having the exact same facial 2:46:43.420 --> 2:46:46.760 proportions on a scale of eight features is like 0.11%. 2:46:46.760 --> 2:46:52.350 Not very likely that you experience someone with the exact 2:46:52.390 --> 2:46:55.050 same features as you, but Again, I'm talking about more 2:46:55.070 --> 2:46:58.310 of like a high strangeness type of situation here. So 2:46:58.350 --> 2:47:02.570 although this scientifically not likely to happen in the meat 2:47:02.610 --> 2:47:08.310 space flesh world, online digital doppelgangers are now quite plentiful. 2:47:08.750 --> 2:47:12.209 According to a report from the Wesleyan Media Project, which 2:47:12.310 --> 2:47:16.410 tracks data on political ads, they identified at least 220 2:47:16.410 --> 2:47:22.500 political ads from the 2023 election cycle that were generated 2:47:22.540 --> 2:47:26.640 at least in part using AI. And of these 220 ads, 2:47:26.700 --> 2:47:32.240 about half contained AI deepfakes of real politicians. And this 2:47:32.400 --> 2:47:40.330 is a growing industry. Just this year, more than $ 137 2:47:38.360 --> 2:47:43.380 million has been spent on AI political ads, compared to 2:47:43.520 --> 2:47:49.680 less than $ 50, 000 in 2024. And that $ 137 million figure 2:47:49.810 --> 2:47:53.609 is quote, almost certainly in undercount, given that it is 2:47:53.670 --> 2:47:58.310 difficult to detect uses of AI, per Wesleyan Media Project. 2:47:58.970 --> 2:48:03.400 This report found that 81% of AI-generated ads were sponsored 2:48:03.440 --> 2:48:06.959 by Republican candidates or groups, while only 12% of the 2:48:07.040 --> 2:48:10.680 ads were sponsored by Democrats. And a lot of the 2:48:11.020 --> 2:48:15.500 groups or candidates using these ads might not have a 2:48:15.780 --> 2:48:18.390 lot of funding, right? A lot of smaller campaigns may 2:48:18.420 --> 2:48:20.769 turn to AI when they are tight on cash, because 2:48:21.330 --> 2:48:25.450 what could have costed millions to produce now costs essentially nothing. 2:48:25.970 --> 2:48:27.650 which is not to say that candidates with big budgets 2:48:27.770 --> 2:48:28.970 don't also use AI. 2:48:29.230 --> 2:48:29.789 They do. 2:48:30.610 --> 2:48:32.330 But this is part of why you saw so many 2:48:32.370 --> 2:48:35.780 like AI ads during like primary house races, because a 2:48:35.800 --> 2:48:38.720 lot of those candidates might not have as much money 2:48:38.860 --> 2:48:41.980 as the big name Senate races. Now, these AI ads 2:48:42.000 --> 2:48:45.040 have shown up all across the country, at least in 2:48:45.040 --> 2:48:49.340 34 different states, with most being found in Oklahoma and Texas. 2:48:50.020 --> 2:48:54.520 And just 27% of these ads contain a disclaimer saying, 2:48:55.040 --> 2:48:59.590 that the ad featured AI-generated content. Let's go through some 2:48:59.690 --> 2:49:04.190 examples because since kind of this spring, I have been 2:49:04.250 --> 2:49:07.330 saving AI ads that I come across in the wild 2:49:07.690 --> 2:49:09.510 because I think they are fascinating. 2:49:09.530 --> 2:49:11.509 I don't like the future. I'm just going to go 2:49:11.530 --> 2:49:14.680 ahead and say it. I'm so excited to count fingers. 2:49:15.220 --> 2:49:18.519 A June ad paid for by Michigan State Senator Eric 2:49:18.740 --> 2:49:24.020 Nesbitt stars a deep-faked Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. 2:49:24.580 --> 2:49:26.380 colluding with an AI version of who I think is 2:49:26.420 --> 2:49:29.420 supposed to be New York Governor Kathy Hochul as they 2:49:29.860 --> 2:49:32.940 conspire to register illegal aliens to vote. 2:49:34.420 --> 2:49:38.410 The numbers are a disaster! We don't have enough illegals! 2:49:38.650 --> 2:49:39.150 Don't panic. 2:49:39.580 --> 2:49:40.490 I know someone who can help. 2:49:40.510 --> 2:49:46.650 Hey, what's up, Gretch? Don't worry, we got Michigan covered. Oh, 2:49:46.709 --> 2:49:50.029 don't forget to register to vote. Free bus rides for illegals! 2:49:50.150 --> 2:49:52.990 And you'll be sorry that you messed with. 2:50:01.340 --> 2:50:03.680 So that's the general vibe of stuff we're dealing with. 2:50:03.900 --> 2:50:06.920 Where we live in a satire. God damn. 2:50:07.240 --> 2:50:11.199 If that feels kind of like confused or chaotic, that's 2:50:11.220 --> 2:50:13.920 because it is. And that goes on for a whole 2:50:14.020 --> 2:50:17.990 other minute. That's less than one third of this ad. 2:50:18.860 --> 2:50:21.349 I'm invested. I need to know how he saves America. 2:50:21.550 --> 2:50:22.550 It's pretty cool. 2:50:23.560 --> 2:50:26.620 The GOP State Senator Eric Nesbitt then drives a tractor 2:50:26.640 --> 2:50:29.879 to intercept this caravan of quote-unquote illegals on their way 2:50:29.900 --> 2:50:30.320 to vote. 2:50:30.480 --> 2:50:32.740 Then ICE pulls up with guns drawn. Oh, cool. 2:50:32.980 --> 2:50:34.700 And then at the end of the ad, the Statue 2:50:34.730 --> 2:50:38.949 of Liberty comes alive and grabs Zoran Mamdani and Abdul Al-Said. 2:50:39.670 --> 2:50:43.750 Some interesting notes here. When Zoran starts talking, completely different 2:50:43.790 --> 2:50:46.250 voice than he talks in the rest of the ad. Yeah. 2:50:47.430 --> 2:50:51.730 Also, AI Zoran calls the blonde woman Gretch. Gretch and 2:50:51.770 --> 2:50:54.500 Whitmer they're going for? Yeah. 2:50:54.700 --> 2:50:58.180 As in Gretchen Whitmer, even though the text accompanying this 2:50:58.330 --> 2:51:01.709 ad and per the visuals, she's supposed to be Secretary Benson, 2:51:01.930 --> 2:51:02.990 not Gretchen Whitmer. 2:51:03.590 --> 2:51:05.410 So a little confusing. 2:51:05.430 --> 2:51:06.610 Great stuff happening here. 2:51:06.709 --> 2:51:08.090 Yeah, that's definitely my problem with it. 2:51:08.110 --> 2:51:12.030 It does scream the kind of attention to detail you 2:51:12.070 --> 2:51:14.900 want in someone who gets to decide what the law is. 2:51:15.610 --> 2:51:17.510 Michigan law requires me to tell you that this video 2:51:17.560 --> 2:51:21.040 was generated completely by artificial intelligence. It has been manipulated 2:51:21.080 --> 2:51:23.340 by technical means and depicts speech and conduct that did 2:51:23.360 --> 2:51:23.760 not occur. 2:51:24.240 --> 2:51:26.440 But that's, yeah, that's the general kind of vibe that 2:51:26.480 --> 2:51:27.460 we're going to be dealing with. 2:51:27.720 --> 2:51:30.310 For people confused, that was supposed to be a bald eagle, 2:51:30.360 --> 2:51:32.470 even though that's not what a bald eagle sounds like. 2:51:33.010 --> 2:51:35.790 Thank you for that clarification. I almost was going to 2:51:35.830 --> 2:51:38.850 make that particular note that all of the sounds we 2:51:38.890 --> 2:51:41.789 have for bald eagles are not bald eagle sounds, but yeah. 2:51:41.970 --> 2:51:44.140 I'm glad that the AI continued in the great American 2:51:44.160 --> 2:51:45.220 tradition of getting that wrong. 2:51:45.500 --> 2:51:50.000 Yeah. Also in June, a Trump-aligned organization, Citizens for Sanity, 2:51:50.440 --> 2:51:54.379 spent six figures on a 15-second ad of Tallarico in 2:51:54.400 --> 2:51:58.850 a maid dress singing a quote-unquote trans kids version of 2:51:59.070 --> 2:52:00.450 A Few of My Favorite Things. 2:52:00.470 --> 2:52:05.110 I feel like I'm being hate-crimed by being on this show. Yeah, sorry, Margaret, 2:52:05.129 --> 2:52:06.650 you've come on a rough one. No, no, it's all right. 2:52:06.970 --> 2:52:10.629 Changing the gender of all your offspring. This is, wow. 2:52:10.690 --> 2:52:14.490 These are a few of my favorite things. 2:52:15.600 --> 2:52:17.600 So this does not have a disclaimer that it's AI, 2:52:17.660 --> 2:52:20.750 even though it's maybe not impossible to tell by looking 2:52:20.810 --> 2:52:21.020 at it. 2:52:21.030 --> 2:52:23.070 Yeah, the apron dress doesn't have strings. 2:52:24.010 --> 2:52:25.630 This is kind of one of the more lo-fi ads 2:52:25.709 --> 2:52:28.310 compared to what we will see in the next few months. 2:52:28.850 --> 2:52:33.289 Because in September, Ken Paxton released his own AI-generated ad 2:52:33.370 --> 2:52:36.990 depicting a deep-faked James Tallarico sitting at a home desk 2:52:37.070 --> 2:52:42.260 reading paraphrased and abridged quotes from Tallarico from years past 2:52:42.920 --> 2:52:46.770 that are all stitched together. with things he hasn't said. 2:52:47.750 --> 2:52:50.590 Some of these quote-unquote quotes are being scribbled into a 2:52:51.150 --> 2:52:54.920 King James Tallarico Bible. I'll play this clip here, and 2:52:55.220 --> 2:52:57.180 I know this is, you know, visual content, and I 2:52:57.180 --> 2:53:00.359 will link the list of these ads below at the 2:53:00.400 --> 2:53:04.140 top of the description if you... Want to, for some reason, 2:53:04.160 --> 2:53:05.540 watch them all yourself. 2:53:05.980 --> 2:53:07.040 If you too. 2:53:06.840 --> 2:53:10.220 Want to annihilate your brain cells and like feel your 2:53:10.340 --> 2:53:13.800 soul physically drain from your body, which is the experience 2:53:13.840 --> 2:53:15.020 of watching this. 2:53:17.750 --> 2:53:21.150 In the beginning, God was non-binary and he wasn't a Christian. 2:53:21.670 --> 2:53:24.610 And God said, let there be six genders. And there were. 2:53:25.570 --> 2:53:27.629 Then God so loved the world that he. 2:53:27.590 --> 2:53:30.590 Gave us his only son, who was a radical feminist 2:53:30.709 --> 2:53:32.250 and never asked people to worship him. 2:53:32.900 --> 2:53:35.080 Look, I always think of myself as a Christian who 2:53:35.140 --> 2:53:36.000 hates Christianity. 2:53:36.990 --> 2:53:41.530 James Tallarico. Wrong for Texas. America is not a Christian nation. 2:53:41.629 --> 2:53:43.170 And wrong for America too. 2:53:43.890 --> 2:53:45.640 I'm Ken Paxton and I approve this message. 2:53:47.070 --> 2:53:48.710 A lot of the things Tyler Rico is saying there 2:53:48.830 --> 2:53:52.730 are things that are just, like, biblically accurate and, like, true. 2:53:53.250 --> 2:53:57.390 Yeah, that's Elaine Pagel's whole shit. Like, God's not a Christian. 2:53:58.110 --> 2:53:58.370 What? 2:53:58.550 --> 2:53:59.029 I know, right? 2:53:59.050 --> 2:54:02.050 There's a lot of stuff that's just, like, accurate and, like, true, 2:54:02.310 --> 2:54:04.110 but that's besides the point. With the way that they're 2:54:04.140 --> 2:54:07.140 stitching all these things together into sentences he didn't say, 2:54:07.160 --> 2:54:11.100 and then having his likeness say them, this is bad 2:54:11.120 --> 2:54:14.500 for democracy, right? This is not a good thing to do. 2:54:15.180 --> 2:54:19.180 And this ad in particular... is pretty photo-real, at least 2:54:19.300 --> 2:54:21.760 compared to some of the others highlighted in this episode. 2:54:22.280 --> 2:54:26.320 It's funny that riots are illegal. Like, this is more 2:54:26.379 --> 2:54:32.209 destructive to our society than fire is. I'm just gonna... Anyway, uh-huh. 2:54:33.129 --> 2:54:36.670 Yeah. And there's teeny, teeny, tiny text at the very 2:54:36.830 --> 2:54:39.990 end of the video that reads, certain video content depicted 2:54:40.070 --> 2:54:44.930 in this advertising was generated by artificial intelligence. Certain video content? Yeah, 2:54:44.950 --> 2:54:45.199 a little bit. 2:54:45.209 --> 2:54:45.950 The whole video, dog. 2:54:45.990 --> 2:54:46.170 Yeah. 2:54:47.959 --> 2:54:49.640 Now, following the. 2:54:49.860 --> 2:54:53.770 Lead of Iran state propaganda, a few candidates like Doug 2:54:53.810 --> 2:54:58.269 Bassler in Seattle have AI generated Lego style animations, as 2:54:58.330 --> 2:55:01.830 well as political ads like riffing on adult animated sitcoms. 2:55:02.270 --> 2:55:04.170 And we couldn't sit and laugh at how bad these are, 2:55:04.190 --> 2:55:06.230 but because they are not deep fakes, I'm going to 2:55:06.270 --> 2:55:09.010 skip them. But I will link to examples below. Again, 2:55:09.070 --> 2:55:11.820 if you want to check these out yourself. Before the 2:55:11.860 --> 2:55:15.420 Florida primary this summer, a Ted Cruz-linked super PAC called 2:55:15.570 --> 2:55:19.369 Frontline Action paid top dollar to broadcast AA ads targeting 2:55:19.750 --> 2:55:25.030 Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback during the World Cup. 2:55:25.990 --> 2:55:28.890 One of these ads has groups of people showing up 2:55:28.930 --> 2:55:33.930 to Fishback's house for an anti-Israel party, including who is 2:55:34.270 --> 2:55:38.700 supposed to resemble Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson, AOC, 2:55:38.800 --> 2:55:44.680 Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar... Columbia campus protesters, Hassan Piker, and 2:55:44.840 --> 2:55:46.019 Code Pink activists. 2:55:46.340 --> 2:55:46.750 Hell yeah. 2:55:46.810 --> 2:55:49.910 As well as Vladimir Putin and finally some like Iranian 2:55:49.970 --> 2:55:54.110 state officials who then slash an Israel party cake with 2:55:54.190 --> 2:55:58.290 a sword. The ad says, is this really what you 2:55:58.330 --> 2:56:00.670 want your Republican party to look like? 2:56:00.990 --> 2:56:03.810 So it's like a pun with the word party. Because 2:56:03.830 --> 2:56:06.789 some of those people are right wing people. I know 2:56:07.070 --> 2:56:09.090 I live under a rock, but that's a list of 2:56:09.110 --> 2:56:12.000 people that's. Right-wing people that they're now trashing. 2:56:12.160 --> 2:56:12.400 Okay. 2:56:12.440 --> 2:56:13.680 Some of. 2:56:13.700 --> 2:56:16.279 Well, yeah, I mean, Ted Cruz has had, like, an 2:56:16.340 --> 2:56:20.350 extended beef with Tucker, Candace, and, by extension, Nick Fuentes 2:56:20.370 --> 2:56:21.250 for the past few years. 2:56:22.110 --> 2:56:24.170 Over Israel? Over Israel, yes. 2:56:24.470 --> 2:56:24.730 Okay. 2:56:25.730 --> 2:56:28.369 And, like, as weird as this ad is, it's not 2:56:28.450 --> 2:56:32.850 nearly as weird as the other anti-fishback ad made by 2:56:32.870 --> 2:56:37.250 this Ted Cruz-linked super PAC depicting two fishermen who catch a, 2:56:37.650 --> 2:56:39.949 what I'll call a talking fishback fish. 2:56:40.530 --> 2:56:40.730 What? 2:56:41.110 --> 2:56:46.150 God damn it. Big mouth. White genocide is real. 2:56:46.470 --> 2:56:46.849 Oh, God. 2:56:46.930 --> 2:56:48.840 And I'm running for governor to stop it. 2:56:49.580 --> 2:56:51.879 On my first day, we will suspend the enforcement of 2:56:51.900 --> 2:56:54.140 the unconstitutional antisemitism law. 2:56:54.640 --> 2:56:56.060 You want to throw this fish back? 2:56:56.980 --> 2:56:58.220 We can't throw this fish back. 2:56:58.260 --> 2:56:59.260 He'll ruin the other fish. 2:57:00.220 --> 2:57:03.090 If we don't throw this fish back, what do we do? 2:57:03.129 --> 2:57:05.230 Election Day keep James Fishback out of office. 2:57:05.650 --> 2:57:07.850 The Frontline Action is responsible for the content of this advertising. 2:57:09.650 --> 2:57:09.970 If you want. 2:57:10.160 --> 2:57:12.340 any of these, you've got to look through the show 2:57:12.379 --> 2:57:13.760 notes to find this one. 2:57:14.650 --> 2:57:16.890 I'm going to see this in my nightmare. This has 2:57:16.990 --> 2:57:20.490 so many layers of, I don't even know who's criticizing. 2:57:20.570 --> 2:57:21.640 What about what? 2:57:21.660 --> 2:57:24.520 I mean, this is, this is the pro Israel part 2:57:24.560 --> 2:57:28.980 of the Republican party fighting back against the griper anti-Israel 2:57:29.060 --> 2:57:30.820 part of the Republican party, which. 2:57:30.800 --> 2:57:34.129 Fishback was kind of the main representative of. Okay. Thank you. 2:57:34.750 --> 2:57:37.680 And like, Frontline Action seems to specialize in like the 2:57:37.820 --> 2:57:41.060 sloppiest of AI slop ads, right? Like this stuff looks 2:57:41.100 --> 2:57:46.470 almost indistinguishable from those like creepy vegetable fruit, like cuckoldry 2:57:47.080 --> 2:57:49.090 videos that you may have seen if you like ever 2:57:49.150 --> 2:57:51.830 scroll Instagram. Those were popular a few months ago. 2:57:52.310 --> 2:57:53.090 I've missed those. 2:57:53.110 --> 2:57:56.050 The visuals of these is kind of of a similar quality. 2:57:56.070 --> 2:58:00.690 And in September, they released an ad targeting Abdul El-Said 2:58:00.990 --> 2:58:05.230 titled Family Values. showing Abdul, his sister, and Hassan Piker 2:58:05.430 --> 2:58:09.640 in his mouse suit and a keffiyeh playing a, quote, 2:58:09.820 --> 2:58:14.520 death to America board game about destroying, quote, the West. 2:58:15.100 --> 2:58:16.560 I fucking wish. 2:58:16.580 --> 2:58:19.580 The destruction of Israel and the West isn't just a 2:58:19.620 --> 2:58:20.180 game for them. 2:58:20.400 --> 2:58:21.019 It's a mission. 2:58:21.260 --> 2:58:23.689 His sister hates everything about America. 2:58:23.790 --> 2:58:26.459 His pal Hassan Piker thinks America deserved 9-11. 2:58:27.330 --> 2:58:29.990 And his father-in-law founded a charity. 2:58:29.530 --> 2:58:31.230 Tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. 2:58:31.410 --> 2:58:33.029 El-Said isn't playing games. 2:58:33.400 --> 2:58:37.359 And his family members are wrong from Michigan. I'm starting 2:58:37.400 --> 2:58:41.200 to think that the Republicans are racist. It does look 2:58:41.240 --> 2:58:41.600 that way. 2:58:41.620 --> 2:58:45.980 Yeah, so this last image is a framed family portrait 2:58:46.020 --> 2:58:49.140 with Abdul, four women in the cobs, and again, Hasan Piker, 2:58:49.640 --> 2:58:52.599 whom Abdul is not related to. He's not part of 2:58:52.620 --> 2:58:58.250 Abdul's family. But no, this is the most post-9-11 style 2:58:58.890 --> 2:58:59.910 anti-Arab racism. 2:59:00.530 --> 2:59:05.010 Yeah, it's 2001 gutter racism. The unfiltered shit you used 2:59:05.050 --> 2:59:06.690 to get with people talking about nuking Iraq. 2:59:06.930 --> 2:59:08.050 Yeah, it's great. 2:59:08.850 --> 2:59:09.110 Yeah. 2:59:10.540 --> 2:59:12.060 Half of these ads is kind of in that vein. 2:59:12.080 --> 2:59:15.080 An ad that came out this month from a GOP 2:59:15.100 --> 2:59:19.080 candidate for Congress in North Carolina uses AI-generated video to 2:59:19.280 --> 2:59:24.620 attack Democratic candidate Jamie Agar for hosting drag performances at 2:59:24.740 --> 2:59:29.340 his barn in 2019. And what's really insidious about this 2:59:29.580 --> 2:59:32.400 ad is that the first five seconds of the ad 2:59:32.440 --> 2:59:36.840 are actually manipulated media using real footage of Agar with 2:59:36.920 --> 2:59:41.100 a pride flag artificially added to the background. And then 2:59:41.240 --> 2:59:44.039 this real footage was used as the visual basis for 2:59:44.080 --> 2:59:47.790 the rest of the AI ad with him like dancing 2:59:47.830 --> 2:59:51.750 with various famous drag queens with no disclaimer that the 2:59:51.790 --> 2:59:53.330 drag queen footage is fake. 2:59:53.810 --> 2:59:54.849 I hate election years. 2:59:55.090 --> 2:59:57.970 There's this sort of like blending of reality in ads 2:59:58.010 --> 3:00:02.350 like this, which is like extremely dangerous. But the single 3:00:02.370 --> 3:00:05.110 candidate that's utilized AI ads the most is Republican candidate 3:00:05.160 --> 3:00:07.640 for New York governor Bruce Blakeman. According to the New 3:00:07.660 --> 3:00:10.200 York Times, Blakeman has posted at least 22 AI ads 3:00:10.280 --> 3:00:13.459 since April. He's been just pumping these videos out. From 3:00:13.540 --> 3:00:17.490 more traditional ads, just like replacing stock footage with more 3:00:17.530 --> 3:00:22.010 like cinematic AI visuals, to short little films or short 3:00:22.030 --> 3:00:25.630 videos of AI constituents talking about how bad New York 3:00:25.650 --> 3:00:29.490 has gotten under Kathy Hochul, to of course, deepfakes of 3:00:29.610 --> 3:00:34.289 Hochul herself. Blakeman's use of AI deepfakes has been rather innovative. 3:00:35.140 --> 3:00:38.310 One ad from September takes the form of a pharmaceutical 3:00:38.340 --> 3:00:42.929 commercial starring AI deepfake Governor Hochul and what is supposed 3:00:42.970 --> 3:00:44.090 to be Mayor Mamdani. 3:00:44.209 --> 3:00:47.529 Introducing Cathy, the political delusion pill for New Yorkers who'd 3:00:47.570 --> 3:00:49.950 rather not think about what four more years could actually 3:00:50.010 --> 3:00:50.580 cost them. 3:00:50.879 --> 3:00:54.379 Before Cathy, I worried about things like tax, utility bills, crime, 3:00:54.420 --> 3:00:56.520 and whether families could afford to stay in New York. 3:00:57.080 --> 3:01:02.250 And now? I just say it's someone else's fault. It's working. 3:01:02.950 --> 3:01:05.810 Side effects may include chronic wallet shrinkage, higher tax, higher 3:01:05.890 --> 3:01:09.690 utility bills, higher costs, shrinking paychecks, business leaving New York, 3:01:10.110 --> 3:01:13.769 uncontrollable government spending, sudden urges to defend socialists, and other 3:01:13.830 --> 3:01:14.730 financial complications. 3:01:15.410 --> 3:01:16.870 Every accusation is a confession. 3:01:18.709 --> 3:01:21.670 Like many others, this ad contained no AI disclosure in 3:01:21.709 --> 3:01:25.420 violation of New York law. Blakeman produced another ad in 3:01:25.450 --> 3:01:29.339 the form of a retro TV commercial, also starring AI 3:01:29.540 --> 3:01:33.910 Deepfake Hochul. where she offers free healthcare to, quote, illegal immigrants, 3:01:34.110 --> 3:01:37.250 sex workers, and homeless drug addicts. And that is supposed 3:01:37.270 --> 3:01:38.000 to be a bad thing. 3:01:38.920 --> 3:01:39.540 Yeah. 3:01:40.900 --> 3:01:44.439 Based on all the ads I've watched, which is more 3:01:44.520 --> 3:01:48.279 than I've included in this episode, I sort these AI 3:01:48.360 --> 3:01:55.820 deepfakes into three sometimes overlapping categories. First, there's demonstrative or 3:01:56.180 --> 3:02:01.920 descriptive AI, basically using AI visuals. in place of real 3:02:02.200 --> 3:02:05.820 photos or videos and more traditional ads. This is kind 3:02:05.860 --> 3:02:10.640 of using AI, like customized stock footage. Footage that looks 3:02:10.700 --> 3:02:15.539 and feels relatively realistic, like someone standing next to AI 3:02:15.620 --> 3:02:18.560 Trump at the White House, or a deep fake of 3:02:18.600 --> 3:02:21.970 a candidate reading quotes directly to camera with just like 3:02:22.010 --> 3:02:26.310 a plain white background. But because of its simplicity, this 3:02:26.370 --> 3:02:31.140 type of use could actually be the most deceptive. A 3:02:31.180 --> 3:02:35.380 deepfaked candidate reading a quote direct to camera without the 3:02:35.440 --> 3:02:39.959 context of why they said that quote could dramatically change 3:02:40.020 --> 3:02:44.400 its meaning and could be more easily mistaken for authentic footage. 3:02:45.200 --> 3:02:48.340 And then there's this other type, just like skits, right? 3:02:48.379 --> 3:02:50.940 This is what we've seen with the fishback ads. And 3:02:50.970 --> 3:02:54.430 this is deepfakes of political opponents usually acting in some 3:02:54.470 --> 3:02:57.830 sort of satirical sketch or narrative scenario. These could be 3:02:57.890 --> 3:03:00.760 either dramatic or comedic. They sometimes have like a brief 3:03:00.840 --> 3:03:04.160 plot that leads to a climax. This is most similar 3:03:04.180 --> 3:03:06.560 to what we would call like AI slop. Things that 3:03:06.580 --> 3:03:10.280 are much more easily recognizable as AI. And I think 3:03:10.340 --> 3:03:12.779 part of why these sorts of skits are so common 3:03:12.860 --> 3:03:15.280 is that for the sort of laws that are trying 3:03:15.320 --> 3:03:18.400 to regulate this sort of thing, there is First Amendment 3:03:18.459 --> 3:03:22.359 card votes for satire and parody. And so a lot 3:03:22.379 --> 3:03:26.240 of these ads could legally, arguably, be considered some form 3:03:26.260 --> 3:03:28.760 of parody. And that argument gives them a little bit 3:03:28.780 --> 3:03:32.380 of wiggle room. But there's another category of ad, which 3:03:32.400 --> 3:03:35.000 I'm going to call an AI scandal ad. A little 3:03:35.020 --> 3:03:37.140 bit of that drag queen barn ad, I think, would 3:03:37.160 --> 3:03:39.879 fall into this. And that's AI generating footage to visually 3:03:39.959 --> 3:03:42.920 implicate opponents in some sort of political scandal, whether by 3:03:43.300 --> 3:03:46.150 dramatizing an event that did happen, but with deceptive framing, 3:03:46.550 --> 3:03:50.090 or just depicting something completely fictional. A few months ago 3:03:50.110 --> 3:03:52.910 in Executive Disorder, I talked about that Niagara, Kentucky ad 3:03:53.629 --> 3:03:58.190 with AI generated footage of Republican Representative Thomas Massey holding 3:03:58.230 --> 3:04:02.030 hands and getting dinner with AOC and Ilhan Omar, followed 3:04:02.050 --> 3:04:06.279 by surveillance-style footage of them checking into a hotel room, 3:04:06.580 --> 3:04:10.420 with the ad being themed around Ilhan Omar and AOC 3:04:10.680 --> 3:04:13.550 and Massey are in a thruple together, and Massey has 3:04:13.709 --> 3:04:14.730 betrayed Trump. 3:04:15.310 --> 3:04:19.500 Thomas Massey caught in a throuple in Washington. He's cheating 3:04:19.510 --> 3:04:23.180 with the squad on the America First movement. Massey voted 3:04:23.260 --> 3:04:26.580 with the squad against Trump's tax cuts. As he voted 3:04:26.640 --> 3:04:28.840 with the squad against finishing Trump's wall. 3:04:29.379 --> 3:04:30.420 He voted with them. 3:04:30.320 --> 3:04:32.039 Against hiring new border agents. 3:04:32.520 --> 3:04:36.060 Well, this is worse than adultery. It's a complete and 3:04:36.140 --> 3:04:39.360 total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives. 3:04:39.780 --> 3:04:41.940 On May 19th, fire Thomas Massey. 3:04:42.220 --> 3:04:44.779 MAGA Kentucky is responsible for the content of this advertising. 3:04:45.250 --> 3:04:47.690 Massey has said that this ad did trick people into 3:04:47.730 --> 3:04:51.129 thinking that he was in a real throuple with these people. 3:04:51.629 --> 3:04:54.679 Because the footage is actually pretty convincing. For someone who's 3:04:54.820 --> 3:04:58.460 older than 60, it could be hard to distinguish that 3:04:58.480 --> 3:05:01.700 this is not real footage. Especially when they put these 3:05:01.879 --> 3:05:03.780 filters on it to make it look like it's surveillance 3:05:03.800 --> 3:05:07.080 footage of them checking into a hotel room. Currently 31 3:05:07.080 --> 3:05:09.830 states have laws regulating the use of AI and deepfakes 3:05:09.870 --> 3:05:14.730 in political ads. Maryland has banned misleading election-related deepfakes entirely. 3:05:15.300 --> 3:05:18.339 And California and Texas have banned the publication of deceptive 3:05:18.379 --> 3:05:21.410 or harmful political deep fakes 30 days prior to an election. 3:05:21.870 --> 3:05:25.310 Minnesota has a similar law. But other state regulations just 3:05:25.350 --> 3:05:30.390 require a disclosure if AI was used. And obviously, disclosures 3:05:30.430 --> 3:05:33.220 are not enough for this problem. And those don't even 3:05:33.240 --> 3:05:35.420 get followed half the time. We need to get as 3:05:35.459 --> 3:05:38.779 close as we can just banning AI ads entirely. There 3:05:38.800 --> 3:05:42.440 are currently two bills seeking to federally regulate, quote, deceptive 3:05:42.560 --> 3:05:45.990 AI and AI in politics. These are pending in Congress 3:05:46.050 --> 3:05:50.530 and probably won't pass anytime soon, at least certainly not 3:05:50.610 --> 3:05:54.160 until there's a new Congress. And for these bills to succeed, 3:05:54.180 --> 3:05:56.420 they do need to be written carefully, because if they're 3:05:56.560 --> 3:06:01.220 overly broad, they could be struck down on First Amendment grounds. Lastly, 3:06:01.300 --> 3:06:05.220 I'll mention there was a 2026 study in communication research 3:06:06.320 --> 3:06:09.700 which found that even when participants knew a video of 3:06:09.740 --> 3:06:13.080 a political figure was an AI deepfake, that deepfake, quote, 3:06:13.650 --> 3:06:18.080 still has the intended delegitimizing impact on the attacked politician 3:06:18.680 --> 3:06:22.840 by lowering support for the targeted candidate. So just because 3:06:22.879 --> 3:06:26.660 these ads aren't necessarily convincing all the time doesn't mean 3:06:26.700 --> 3:06:30.430 they don't have negative effects. So yeah, doppelganger is pretty scary. 3:06:30.910 --> 3:06:35.789 Y'all ever heard of a Butlerian jihad? A lot of 3:06:35.830 --> 3:06:39.330 that going around these days. Oh, God. 3:06:40.030 --> 3:06:44.519 Speaking of ads, hopefully not AI-generated ads, It is time 3:06:44.620 --> 3:06:46.050 for one more ad break. 3:06:57.879 --> 3:07:01.470 And we're back. And I know what you all are thinking. 3:07:01.550 --> 3:07:04.770 You're thinking Margaret hates everything. And that's not true. I 3:07:06.030 --> 3:07:09.879 like widespread revolt. Also, I like Sophie's outfit. I wish 3:07:09.959 --> 3:07:15.039 all of you out there could see. That's incredible, actually. 3:07:15.320 --> 3:07:18.879 That's legitimately crazy. Sophie as Princess Peach. Yeah, that's amazing. 3:07:18.940 --> 3:07:20.860 It's so nice to see someone just wearing an outfit 3:07:20.879 --> 3:07:22.640 that isn't racist and it's just nice. 3:07:22.900 --> 3:07:25.680 It's so rare in my line of work. 3:07:25.700 --> 3:07:25.840 So.... 3:07:30.570 --> 3:07:34.230 Countries all over are doing a widespread revolt thing right now. 3:07:34.290 --> 3:07:36.820 That is happening. That has been going on for a 3:07:36.860 --> 3:07:38.940 couple of weeks depending on– well, a couple of months 3:07:39.220 --> 3:07:42.040 depending on how you're going to be paying attention to this. 3:07:42.300 --> 3:07:45.680 And Albania is on the list of countries of widespread revolt. 3:07:45.920 --> 3:07:47.330 But it's one of the ones that no one covers 3:07:47.410 --> 3:07:49.790 despite the fact that it has the coolest flag of 3:07:49.830 --> 3:07:53.640 the countries that are covered in this particular way. Although– 3:07:53.870 --> 3:07:58.510 I probably just like medieval-looking things. Is it cooler than Nepal, though? Whoa, 3:07:58.570 --> 3:07:59.290 is Nepal in your vault? 3:07:59.510 --> 3:08:01.190 Nepal, I guess you could consider the first one of 3:08:01.230 --> 3:08:02.570 these from a couple years ago. 3:08:02.590 --> 3:08:06.509 Okay. Yeah, no, that's true. The dragon flag's cool as hell. 3:08:07.430 --> 3:08:09.220 We've got to acknowledge that. I mean, the one with 3:08:09.240 --> 3:08:13.400 the machete and the... Talking about Mozambique? Yeah, that's the 3:08:13.420 --> 3:08:16.539 best flag in the world. We just have to acknowledge that. Yeah, 3:08:16.800 --> 3:08:17.560 the machete and the AK. 3:08:17.580 --> 3:08:17.760 Okay. 3:08:18.310 --> 3:08:20.530 I don't even like a hammer and sickle all that much, 3:08:20.560 --> 3:08:24.080 although I recognize it as a good icon. Anyway, whatever. Okay, 3:08:24.220 --> 3:08:26.100 so Albania is on this list, and people don't know 3:08:26.160 --> 3:08:28.740 shit about Albania. And so I thought I would talk 3:08:28.840 --> 3:08:32.230 about the revolt in Albania. And this is going to 3:08:32.250 --> 3:08:35.910 be a situation that is entirely unfathomable to the American mind. 3:08:36.330 --> 3:08:40.350 There are two major political parties, only two, and one 3:08:40.390 --> 3:08:44.140 of them is center-left and one of them is center-right. 3:08:44.820 --> 3:08:47.600 And they're both corrupt as fuck. And they're both privatizing 3:08:47.640 --> 3:08:50.000 the shit out of everything. And they're the only... It's 3:08:50.020 --> 3:08:52.370 funny because it gets called a regime because they are 3:08:52.410 --> 3:08:54.190 the only parties that have been in power for like 3:08:54.190 --> 3:08:56.770 30 years. Yeah. Anyway, think on that. 3:08:56.870 --> 3:08:59.090 It gets called a regime because it's like east of 3:08:59.129 --> 3:09:00.410 some delineating line. 3:09:00.450 --> 3:09:03.660 Maybe Poland, right? Where everything... Yeah, totally. Yeah. 3:09:04.800 --> 3:09:04.980 Yeah. 3:09:05.420 --> 3:09:07.220 And it also is a regime. No one likes it. 3:09:07.240 --> 3:09:09.820 That's why they're having this big revolt. But the cost 3:09:09.840 --> 3:09:13.030 of living keeps rising. Conditions are getting worse. People are 3:09:13.070 --> 3:09:15.550 mad about their country sending aid to Israel. They're mad 3:09:15.570 --> 3:09:17.609 about the destruction of the environment in the name of 3:09:17.730 --> 3:09:20.630 rich people having fancy shit. They're even mad at like 3:09:20.670 --> 3:09:24.170 Jared Kushner has released all this. And they are tired 3:09:24.190 --> 3:09:26.030 of the violence of the police and other voices not 3:09:26.050 --> 3:09:29.750 getting heard. So they are in pretty open revolt right now. 3:09:30.450 --> 3:09:34.849 And I'm still working on building more about this. I've 3:09:34.870 --> 3:09:37.570 basically just spent the past couple days talking with comrades 3:09:37.629 --> 3:09:41.490 in the area. They're like busy and there's like stuff happening, 3:09:41.910 --> 3:09:45.020 you know. And so they're like sending me some things. 3:09:45.100 --> 3:09:47.420 And then like, here's 170 page book about the like 3:09:47.840 --> 3:09:51.820 neoliberalism of our country. And I'm like, okay, Albania is 3:09:51.840 --> 3:09:54.250 a small country. It's about two and a half million people. 3:09:54.310 --> 3:09:56.370 It is a one quarter of a New York City, 3:09:56.810 --> 3:09:59.470 depending on how you're mapping New York City's metro area. 3:09:59.970 --> 3:10:02.810 And it's in the Balkans. It's Northwest of Greece. Albania 3:10:02.830 --> 3:10:06.310 was once part of the Ottoman Empire, declared independence in 1912. 3:10:06.310 --> 3:10:09.570 Communists liberated the place from Nazis in 1944. And then 3:10:09.590 --> 3:10:12.490 they did a communist dictatorship that, overall is not looked 3:10:12.620 --> 3:10:17.090 nicely upon even by the modern left wing of that country, right? 3:10:17.450 --> 3:10:20.010 So people aren't like, oh, I miss when everyone was Stalinist. 3:10:20.070 --> 3:10:23.929 That's not really what's happening here. It got multi-party elections 3:10:24.470 --> 3:10:28.589 in 1991. The communists lost their first election in 1992, 3:10:28.590 --> 3:10:31.270 which put a guy named Sally Barishi in charge. And 3:10:31.310 --> 3:10:33.590 I have only been reading and I have not yet 3:10:33.650 --> 3:10:36.890 talked in person. So I'm going to mispronounce important names here. 3:10:37.230 --> 3:10:40.310 It put a guy named Sally Barishi in charge. Mia, 3:10:40.330 --> 3:10:43.930 you're the most likely to randomly know this guy's actual name. 3:10:44.709 --> 3:10:49.950 Yeah, unfortunately, I strike out after Hoxa, which was Albanian. 3:10:49.970 --> 3:10:50.370 That's cool. 3:10:50.510 --> 3:10:52.709 I didn't put Hoxa in here because I had no 3:10:52.790 --> 3:10:53.930 idea how to pronounce that name. 3:10:55.000 --> 3:10:58.039 Who was the main communist? Yeah, he was the communist dictator. 3:10:58.700 --> 3:11:02.119 Went from Maoism to the Maoist got too far right, 3:11:02.200 --> 3:11:03.480 so he became Juche, and then. 3:11:03.959 --> 3:11:07.120 Okay. Built a bunch of bunkers. The whole thing, fiasco. Oh, 3:11:07.180 --> 3:11:09.020 this is the bunker country. This is the bunker guy. 3:11:09.220 --> 3:11:09.940 Yeah, yeah. 3:11:10.400 --> 3:11:10.880 Okay, great. 3:11:11.080 --> 3:11:14.500 Yeah, this is bunkers. People know bunkers in a Norman wisdom. 3:11:14.760 --> 3:11:16.820 I should point out before someone goes on to Reddit.com 3:11:16.840 --> 3:11:19.199 that I am aware that Albania is not to the east. 3:11:19.100 --> 3:11:24.279 Of all of Poland. Yeah, totally. All right. Sally Barishi 3:11:24.340 --> 3:11:26.660 is still a player in this story, the guy who 3:11:26.680 --> 3:11:30.900 won in 1992. He was a big anti-communist reformer. It's 3:11:30.920 --> 3:11:34.170 a majority Muslim country, and he basically unbanned religion. He 3:11:34.209 --> 3:11:36.810 privatized the fuck out of everything he could. And then 3:11:37.010 --> 3:11:40.490 under him, literally half of the country's wealth was invested 3:11:40.530 --> 3:11:42.050 into a series of pyramid schemes. 3:11:42.110 --> 3:11:43.150 Oh, yeah, pyramid schemes. 3:11:43.820 --> 3:11:45.820 And so everyone gave all of their money to these 3:11:45.860 --> 3:11:48.500 pyramid schemes because they had just gotten out of communism. 3:11:48.560 --> 3:11:50.160 And so people were like, oh, I know what you 3:11:50.180 --> 3:11:52.520 can do with your money, but guaranteed returns. And probably 3:11:52.620 --> 3:11:55.440 all they've ever been hearing is like guaranteed returns. That's 3:11:55.459 --> 3:11:57.460 what people tell you about the stock market in America, 3:11:57.520 --> 3:11:57.720 you know? 3:11:57.920 --> 3:12:00.580 Well, and like people did get rich in like Russia, right? 3:12:00.600 --> 3:12:03.390 Like grabbing a bunch of previously nationalized shit. 3:12:03.430 --> 3:12:05.150 Like that's how some of the oligarchs came to be. 3:12:05.190 --> 3:12:05.330 Yeah. 3:12:05.950 --> 3:12:08.790 So you can see it happening, and it's very fertile 3:12:08.850 --> 3:12:10.410 terrain for this shit. 3:12:10.629 --> 3:12:12.930 Yeah, it's not like half the country are fools, right? 3:12:13.230 --> 3:12:16.400 But the pyramid schemes, it's not a very stable form 3:12:16.440 --> 3:12:19.520 of society. They collapsed, and it fucked everyone over because 3:12:19.540 --> 3:12:21.600 so many people had invested in these short deals. So 3:12:21.620 --> 3:12:24.500 Albania had basically a civil war level of revolt against 3:12:24.600 --> 3:12:27.780 corruption in 1997. It wound up with its current constitution. 3:12:28.410 --> 3:12:31.170 but it still has a fuck ton of corruption. It 3:12:31.190 --> 3:12:33.610 went on to join NATO in 2009. It's not yet 3:12:33.660 --> 3:12:35.879 in the EU. It's a candidate country. It has been 3:12:35.900 --> 3:12:39.160 for about 12 years. And Sally Barishi, the guy who 3:12:39.180 --> 3:12:40.879 let all this bad shit happen under him with the 3:12:40.900 --> 3:12:44.540 Ponzi schemes, he ends up prime minister again from 2005 3:12:44.540 --> 3:12:49.220 to 2013. But then, ever since then, he's the Democrat party, 3:12:49.280 --> 3:12:53.030 the Democratic party. They are the center-right party. Then the 3:12:53.090 --> 3:12:56.609 center-left party, the socialist party, has been in charge forever. 3:12:57.490 --> 3:13:00.910 Ever since 2013. Under the direction of a guy named 3:13:01.030 --> 3:13:04.720 Eddie Rama. And he has been prime minister since 2013. 3:13:04.709 --> 3:13:07.650 He's currently on his fourth term. And he is corrupt 3:13:07.810 --> 3:13:10.709 as fuck. Rama came to power by being, oh, and 3:13:10.730 --> 3:13:13.230 you all will like this. Rama came to power by 3:13:13.270 --> 3:13:15.449 being the popular socialist mayor of the biggest city in 3:13:15.490 --> 3:13:18.810 the country, the capital Tirana. And he won everyone's hearts 3:13:18.850 --> 3:13:21.910 by repainting the city vibrant colors to move away from 3:13:21.950 --> 3:13:24.330 like the drab Soviet era. So he was like, I've 3:13:24.350 --> 3:13:26.589 done civic improvement and I'm the socialist mayor and everyone 3:13:26.610 --> 3:13:28.740 loves me. And that's how the Socialist Party was able 3:13:28.760 --> 3:13:31.820 to come to power. But then he changed nothing. And 3:13:32.260 --> 3:13:35.110 he's fully into privatization and corruption just like the other guys. 3:13:35.430 --> 3:13:37.689 And he is fully in bed with organized crime, it 3:13:37.790 --> 3:13:41.330 seems like. Obviously, people like to argue about this. And 3:13:41.370 --> 3:13:44.650 press freedom is terrible there. Everything is just getting bad. 3:13:45.150 --> 3:13:48.170 About a third of the country has emigrated. There's about 3:13:48.170 --> 3:13:52.250 1.1 million Albanian-born people living elsewhere. Jeez. 3:13:52.270 --> 3:13:52.510 Right? 3:13:53.770 --> 3:13:57.570 To quote an as-yet-unpublished piece from some comrades in the Balkans, quote, 3:13:57.990 --> 3:14:00.369 For years, Eddie Rama has used his power to seize 3:14:00.430 --> 3:14:03.680 control over every sphere of social life. Much like under 3:14:03.720 --> 3:14:07.480 the government of Sally Berisha, oligarchs have forged close criminal 3:14:07.520 --> 3:14:10.800 ties with those in power. Oh, and then the worst 3:14:10.820 --> 3:14:14.160 thing about this man, he's a podcaster. Oh, wow. 3:14:14.840 --> 3:14:15.679 Oh, no. 3:14:16.140 --> 3:14:18.320 Yeah, he has a podcast. It's just the way it 3:14:18.379 --> 3:14:18.780 is now. 3:14:18.959 --> 3:14:19.300 Yeah. 3:14:19.840 --> 3:14:20.720 Gavin Newsom, too. 3:14:20.740 --> 3:14:20.800 So. 3:14:22.209 --> 3:14:24.590 That's the setup. Why are there big protests? And one 3:14:24.610 --> 3:14:26.350 of the reasons I want to do this, people feel 3:14:26.510 --> 3:14:28.850 in Albania feel pretty misrepresented in the West. And it's 3:14:28.870 --> 3:14:31.629 like everything I've read has been like it all started 3:14:31.690 --> 3:14:35.050 in France and it's spreading. And that's like, yeah, no, 3:14:35.209 --> 3:14:39.039 not really. I love the France revolt. Don't get me wrong. 3:14:39.459 --> 3:14:42.480 But like every country has its own reasons it's doing this, 3:14:42.640 --> 3:14:45.400 you know. So then Jared Kushner, I hate that I 3:14:45.440 --> 3:14:46.920 finally have to learn these people that you all talk 3:14:46.940 --> 3:14:48.760 about in your day job all the time. And this 3:14:48.780 --> 3:14:51.040 is why I do history for a living. Jared Kushner, 3:14:51.060 --> 3:14:54.240 Trump's son-in-law, he visits Albania and he sees a cool 3:14:54.420 --> 3:14:56.680 island called Cezanne. And I don't know if I'm pronouncing 3:14:56.700 --> 3:14:59.560 that right. And it was undeveloped and it was protected. 3:14:59.620 --> 3:15:01.620 It was protected wetlands. It was like, don't fuck with 3:15:01.640 --> 3:15:03.970 this island. We all love it. All that's there is 3:15:04.000 --> 3:15:07.710 an abandoned military base. And he's like, but my dad 3:15:07.770 --> 3:15:10.550 is Trump. So what if I want to put a 3:15:10.610 --> 3:15:14.320 really fancy resort there? And also a big part of 3:15:14.340 --> 3:15:17.019 the protected area of the wetlands on the mainland as well. 3:15:17.940 --> 3:15:21.280 So Rama personally visited Kushner and was like, yeah, fuck it. 3:15:21.410 --> 3:15:22.850 All right, we'll figure it out. We'll figure out a 3:15:22.870 --> 3:15:24.770 way to make this legal. And so they passed a 3:15:24.830 --> 3:15:27.310 law that was like, just kidding. Rich foreigners can bulldoze 3:15:27.350 --> 3:15:32.709 our protected wildlands. And people didn't like that. So in May, 3:15:33.010 --> 3:15:36.150 at a protest against the playgrounds for rich right-wing tourists 3:15:36.209 --> 3:15:39.470 that should have been a protected ecosystem... A protester was 3:15:39.550 --> 3:15:42.100 dragged and beaten by a private security guard who then 3:15:42.120 --> 3:15:44.780 put a gun to the guy's head, right? And all 3:15:44.820 --> 3:15:46.500 of this happened in front of the cops. Everyone's like, 3:15:46.840 --> 3:15:48.360 why aren't you doing anything? And they're like, I don't know, 3:15:48.379 --> 3:15:51.640 because we're the cops, right? We're corrupt. And this was 3:15:51.700 --> 3:15:57.950 the spark. But the protests aren't about the resorts. They 3:15:58.090 --> 3:16:00.150 are and they aren't. This is the spark. But the 3:16:00.270 --> 3:16:04.170 fuel is decades of corruption, privatization, rising costs of living, 3:16:04.230 --> 3:16:08.330 mass emigration, and And a sense of powerlessness, right? All 3:16:08.420 --> 3:16:11.610 protest movements have been captured by one political party or 3:16:11.650 --> 3:16:14.750 the other going back for decades. And so now you 3:16:14.770 --> 3:16:17.609 have the Flamingo protests, and they're called that because flamingos 3:16:17.629 --> 3:16:20.990 live in those wetlands. And they're very explicitly against both 3:16:21.090 --> 3:16:24.459 Rama and Berisha. Berisha is the opposition leader still. And 3:16:24.500 --> 3:16:26.520 he keeps trying to be like, oh, these are totally 3:16:26.560 --> 3:16:30.680 my protests. Everyone loves me. And best I can infer, 3:16:30.730 --> 3:16:32.970 I'm still waiting on confirmation. I believe that when his 3:16:33.030 --> 3:16:35.610 people show up to try and co-opt the protest, they 3:16:35.650 --> 3:16:38.010 get pushed to the outside and sometimes literally thrown in 3:16:38.030 --> 3:16:42.160 the river. We got to start doing that to try 3:16:42.180 --> 3:16:45.030 to hijack protests. And so it is and isn't a 3:16:45.070 --> 3:16:47.470 Gen Z protest. This is a whole generation of people 3:16:47.510 --> 3:16:49.709 who've only ever known the Rama regime and they see 3:16:49.750 --> 3:16:53.100 no fear. in themselves. So they are out there protesting. 3:16:53.400 --> 3:16:56.680 And for 130 days, it was a big, peaceful daily protest, 3:16:56.700 --> 3:16:58.370 which was a whole new kind of protest. It was 3:16:58.390 --> 3:17:00.550 a little more of an Occupy type thing. People would 3:17:00.570 --> 3:17:02.949 go out every day and they would like have a 3:17:03.050 --> 3:17:07.070 kind of carnival air, right? And the one rallying cry 3:17:07.230 --> 3:17:09.190 uniting the crime because all different types of people are 3:17:09.220 --> 3:17:11.260 there with all types of different demands. The one rallying 3:17:11.320 --> 3:17:15.680 cry is Rama to prison, Barisha to prison. So they 3:17:15.760 --> 3:17:19.100 want the head of both their political parties in fucking 3:17:19.160 --> 3:17:22.320 jail for decades of corruption. Which reminds me of the 3:17:22.379 --> 3:17:27.340 Argentinian protest chant from 2003. Que se vayan todos. They 3:17:27.379 --> 3:17:28.040 all must go. 3:17:28.060 --> 3:17:30.240 I think it's 2001. 3:17:30.240 --> 3:17:33.080 Is it 2001? I trust you far more than I 3:17:33.120 --> 3:17:35.920 trust me with remembering things like that. Which is funny 3:17:35.940 --> 3:17:38.890 because that's the exact line that came into my head. Yeah, no, totally. 3:17:38.910 --> 3:17:40.289 They all must go, right? 3:17:40.770 --> 3:17:41.110 Yeah. 3:17:41.930 --> 3:17:44.390 They must all go to prison. Yeah, totally. 3:17:44.470 --> 3:17:44.670 Yeah. 3:17:44.790 --> 3:17:45.550 Parentheses. 3:17:45.690 --> 3:17:45.890 Yeah. 3:17:46.459 --> 3:17:49.700 So that 130 days of peaceful protests were just ignored 3:17:49.900 --> 3:17:52.480 by the government and, and or repressed. Right. And so 3:17:52.520 --> 3:17:56.460 finally on October 13th, the students were like, man, fuck 3:17:56.480 --> 3:17:59.000 this shit. And so they had, they threw a student 3:17:59.040 --> 3:18:01.980 strike and the protests have escalated ever since into a 3:18:02.040 --> 3:18:05.119 genuine uprising. And the, the way it's presented by the 3:18:05.160 --> 3:18:08.480 people that I'm reading and talking to is like, the 3:18:08.580 --> 3:18:11.060 only question is what we're going to do when the 3:18:11.120 --> 3:18:15.260 Rama government falls. Like, They believe they are going to 3:18:15.330 --> 3:18:18.370 win as of time of recording last I talked to 3:18:18.410 --> 3:18:22.529 some people, right? And the government has been attacking people 3:18:22.550 --> 3:18:24.949 in the streets with all the usual shit, chemical weapons, 3:18:25.010 --> 3:18:28.709 water cannons, baton rounds. They took out somebody's eye. They're 3:18:28.750 --> 3:18:31.480 kidnapping people in the middle of the night. There's plainclothes 3:18:31.580 --> 3:18:34.720 officers attacking people, arresting people. People are being beaten inside 3:18:34.740 --> 3:18:37.540 of the jails. They're passing all of these new laws 3:18:37.600 --> 3:18:40.500 specifically to punish. Now, it's no longer illegal just to 3:18:40.540 --> 3:18:42.320 break shit at a protest, but if you're in a 3:18:42.360 --> 3:18:44.990 protest where anyone breaks shit, you can get in trouble 3:18:45.000 --> 3:18:47.790 for that. And this isn't stopping people. As for who 3:18:47.870 --> 3:18:51.590 is doing it, quote, I'm quoting this unreleased thing that 3:18:51.629 --> 3:18:54.610 is not, this is not the finished translation. And I'll 3:18:54.629 --> 3:18:56.930 be covering this more on some of my shows as 3:18:56.990 --> 3:18:59.250 I get more information. As for who's doing this, quote, 3:18:59.610 --> 3:19:03.780 students and pupils, trade unionists, parents and children, political groups 3:19:03.840 --> 3:19:07.959 and leftist political parties, sports fans, right-wing groups and nationalists, 3:19:08.420 --> 3:19:11.530 a whole host of people from diverse spheres, ranging from 3:19:11.629 --> 3:19:15.890 educators to social media influencers. And quote, there is no 3:19:15.990 --> 3:19:18.070 clear vision for what should follow the fall of the 3:19:18.110 --> 3:19:21.000 Rama government, nor is there a defined strategy for how 3:19:21.030 --> 3:19:24.460 the resistance might continue. But one thing is certain, there 3:19:24.520 --> 3:19:29.360 is no turning back. And public gatherings are being restricted. 3:19:29.440 --> 3:19:31.240 People are being told they can't leave the country, which 3:19:31.400 --> 3:19:34.250 is unconstitutional according to Albanian law. You're not supposed to 3:19:34.260 --> 3:19:37.830 be able to prevent people from leaving the country. And again, 3:19:38.400 --> 3:19:40.680 It seems like there is a chance that this will 3:19:40.720 --> 3:19:45.700 turn into a thing where people form assemblies and build counterpower. 3:19:46.200 --> 3:19:49.740 And if so, we might see a real revolution and 3:19:49.780 --> 3:19:52.680 not just one party replaced with another. I am a 3:19:52.980 --> 3:19:55.440 cynical enough person who's seen a lot of uprisings around 3:19:55.470 --> 3:19:57.970 the world where I'm not specifically holding my breath. But 3:19:58.010 --> 3:20:01.880 I fucking– fuck yeah. And in the meantime, Rama refuses 3:20:01.920 --> 3:20:04.039 to sit down. He's like, I'm willing to talk to 3:20:04.080 --> 3:20:06.279 you all. But everyone's like, no, get the fuck out. 3:20:06.340 --> 3:20:07.260 He's like, no, I'm willing to talk to you. So 3:20:07.280 --> 3:20:09.820 he set chairs up in front of his office as 3:20:09.840 --> 3:20:11.550 a symbolic, like, come talk to me. 3:20:11.580 --> 3:20:11.940 Sit down. 3:20:11.970 --> 3:20:14.490 We'll have a conversation. So they set the chairs on fire. 3:20:14.510 --> 3:20:20.030 Hell yeah. Incredible. They're not talking to this man. They 3:20:20.190 --> 3:20:22.710 are the power. They are the people. And they want 3:20:22.750 --> 3:20:26.000 him fucking gone. That's what I got so far. By 3:20:26.040 --> 3:20:28.240 the time this comes out, it might be completely different 3:20:28.360 --> 3:20:30.680 because even my news is about two days old. 3:20:31.420 --> 3:20:31.660 Nice. 3:20:31.680 --> 3:20:36.450 All right. Princess Peach is... I believe blessing the Albanian 3:20:36.750 --> 3:20:38.990 revolt is what's happening with Sophie right now. 3:20:39.209 --> 3:20:39.449 Yes. 3:20:40.650 --> 3:20:43.869 Orthodox Princess Peach. You all are going to be so 3:20:43.930 --> 3:20:46.950 sad this is not a video show because Sophie is 3:20:47.010 --> 3:20:47.770 fucking killing it. 3:20:48.090 --> 3:20:48.210 Yeah. 3:20:48.230 --> 3:20:48.330 Yeah. 3:20:51.410 --> 3:20:53.470 Oh, I got a headless horseman costume for my dog. 3:20:53.629 --> 3:20:56.110 That's perfect. I'm just going to wear one of my 3:20:56.230 --> 3:21:00.129 onesies like I always do. Anyway, that's what I got 3:21:00.170 --> 3:21:02.590 for this week. I have a bunch of other podcasts, 3:21:02.650 --> 3:21:04.150 ones called Cool People Did Cool Stuff, where I talk 3:21:04.170 --> 3:21:06.330 about history, except I also sometimes talk about modern revolt. 3:21:06.709 --> 3:21:09.330 I actually talk slightly less fast on that. And I 3:21:09.379 --> 3:21:10.849 also do Cools on Media Book Club, which you probably 3:21:10.879 --> 3:21:12.800 know because it's in the same feed as this particular show. 3:21:13.120 --> 3:21:16.100 But also, on Halloween this very year, I have a 3:21:16.140 --> 3:21:20.180 spooky collection of short stories called The Folktales of Lolan Sakaan. 3:21:20.540 --> 3:21:23.760 that comes out from tangled wilderness.org from strangers in the 3:21:23.780 --> 3:21:26.490 tangled wilderness. And it is only six bucks and it 3:21:26.530 --> 3:21:28.730 is the most beautiful zine. And it has five of 3:21:28.770 --> 3:21:31.470 my stories in it and you should pre-order it because 3:21:31.530 --> 3:21:32.769 pre-orders are awesome. 3:21:32.890 --> 3:21:33.190 Oh yeah. 3:21:33.350 --> 3:21:34.950 And if you like my fiction, which you have no 3:21:34.990 --> 3:21:36.609 way of knowing if you do, cause I didn't say 3:21:36.650 --> 3:21:39.630 anything fictional. I told you about some other stuff. I 3:21:39.850 --> 3:21:41.090 am need to eat. I'm done. 3:21:41.110 --> 3:21:42.250 Okay. 3:21:42.950 --> 3:21:43.270 Magic. 3:21:43.450 --> 3:21:45.410 If you're listening on the day this comes out, I'm 3:21:45.430 --> 3:21:48.449 doing a book talk in San Diego on Sunday at, 3:21:49.510 --> 3:21:52.870 the Garden Center in Mission Hills through the Fall Bookshop 3:21:52.990 --> 3:21:55.190 is what the place is called. If you would like 3:21:55.209 --> 3:21:59.660 to email us with a news tip, coolzontips at proton.me. 3:22:00.010 --> 3:22:03.519 Some of you marketing people still trying. Admire the tenacity. 3:22:03.700 --> 3:22:04.340 Not going to work. 3:22:06.200 --> 3:22:08.200 Put a trans girl on your spooky couch. 3:22:08.320 --> 3:22:08.720 I don't know. 3:22:10.300 --> 3:22:15.480 We reported the mostly scary but not always scary news. 3:22:16.180 --> 3:22:16.840 Woo! 3:22:17.000 --> 3:22:17.070 Woo! 3:22:19.810 --> 3:22:23.190 Be reported the news. 3:22:26.379 --> 3:22:29.500 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:22:29.580 --> 3:22:31.420 from now until the heat death of the universe. 3:22:32.280 --> 3:22:34.740 It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. 3:22:34.920 --> 3:22:39.300 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, 3:22:39.740 --> 3:22:42.540 or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 3:22:42.900 --> 3:22:45.700 or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find 3:22:45.760 --> 3:22:48.670 sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. 3:22:49.170 --> 3:22:49.870 Thanks for listening.