WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 62 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.359 you know. This is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.399 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.240 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.760 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.919 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:28.400 can make your own decisions. A welcome to It could 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.680 happen here, a show about things falling apart and also 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.320 putting things back together. Today we have an episode about 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.000 well it's this is This is kind of a big one, folks. 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.320 So everyone who listens to the show regularly will know that. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.959 There have been a rash of attacks by the far 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.519 right on drag Queen's Story hours and kind of similar 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.040 events to that. Events that are LGBT friendly, events that 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.880 also involved children have been regularly attacked all over the 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.720 United States. At the same time, there have been escalating 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.480 attacks by wingers, often the very same people, on reproductive 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:08.120 healthcare resources clinics that sort of thing. Um. This is 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.880 happening all over the country, but one place where things 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:15.920 have been particularly aggressive as of late is in New York, um, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.360 New York City, and today we're going to be speaking 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.720 with a couple of different people who live in New 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.560 York who have been present at some of these actions 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.440 and who want to talk about what's been going on 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.840 with the far right and the attempts to defend these 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.520 people in these organizations from from right wing aggression. So 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.759 I want to introduce Talia now. Talia, you are known 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.040 to our audience. You've been on this show and some 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.319 of our other shows a couple of times in the past. 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.600 Welcome to the show, Thanks for having me, and hello 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.760 to everyone who still remembers what I sound like. And 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.480 do you wanna you wanna drop your your your Twitter 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.160 and stuff up at the top here too, because you 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.040 do a lot of on the ground reporting at different 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.440 times and in this to young it's pretty simple. It's 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.760 Talia O t G as an on the ground UM 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:13.840 and yeah that's where I do my reporting on events, 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.480 analysis all that dumb ship. And then our other guests 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.959 are two New Yorker is sorry New York people, um, 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.440 who are both anti fascist activists who have been present 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.680 in the streets for a number of these recent events. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.560 I'd like to introduce Tom and Barry. Do we want 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.880 to go around and do pronounced real quick? Here? Um, 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.760 I'm I'm he him, Yeah, sure, I'm she are they? 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.040 This is Tom, I'm here him and I'm she her. Awesome? 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.040 All right, Well that is so, I guess I'd like 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.560 to kind of start and and hand it over to 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.920 to Talia if she wants to give kind of an 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.840 overview of how all of this has has has gone down. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.600 But basically we've seen. I mean, the thing that surprised 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.000 me most in the coverage that I have watched from 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.160 a distance is how aggressive and large some of the 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.800 right wing presence has been at like reproductive health clinics 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:11.880 in New York City. I was kind of surprised to 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.119 see that in New York. Yes. So there's a group 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.120 in New York called NYC for Abortion Rights and they 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:23.120 host once monthly clinic defenses at the Planned Parenthood on 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.519 Bleaker in Lower Manhattan. UM. And they do that because 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.360 there is a church nearby the basilica of Old St. 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:39.760 Pat's that hosts a a coalition of anti abortion religious 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:45.040 zelic groups. They organized these large they're usually processions to 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.760 the Planned Parenthood where they pray outside they throw holy 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.120 water on the building. They attempt to hand out UM 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.840 propaganda and literature and intimidate people who are coming into 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:05.440 the clinic for necessary health services. UM. And these same 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.680 individuals have been seen attending anti vaxx rallies that the 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:14.280 man who leads the procession to the Planned Parenthood UM, 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.720 his name is Christopher Mansinski. He's also known as Fidelist. 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.160 And he has invaded clinics in White Plains, New York 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.719 in I think UM East Hempstead. UM. He has been 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:31.160 trying to revive Red Rose Rescue, which UM. People who 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.640 are familiar with the fight for reproductive rights are probably 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:39.000 aware that that is the primary group that invades clinics 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:43.920 and tries to harass patients. UM, threatens doctors and care 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.880 workers and all all sorts of things. That the main 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.320 people who lead Red Rose are either in jail or 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:56.560 have died thankfully. UM. And he's trying to revive that 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:02.039 here in New York. UM. And he has attended um 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:09.440 rallies organized by far right conspiracists anti vax conspiracists. UM. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.919 And it's like, you know, he he went to d 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.359 C for the March for Life, and then he stuck 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:20.320 around for the my body, my choice, anti vax rallies. 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.880 It's it's very it's it's very contradictory. But we see 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:30.040 these same people because they're aligning on conservativism, on crystal fascism, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.080 and we're seeing him pop up um insured spaces pretty 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.440 frequently in New York in ways that I think are 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.960 more transparent or like more easy to clock here, even 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.200 if there is like a larger density of them that 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.839 do mobilize to these specific things like clinic Crossman's Yeah, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.919 that's um, that's a really interesting point. And that's also 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.640 what we've seen a lot in the Pacific Northwest. Um. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.640 You know, we just had an attempt rally at a 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.880 drag Queen story our and Eugene and it was a 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.880 lot of the same old crowd who used to rally 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.919 in Portland before they got scared off of Portland. Now 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.200 I'm wondering kind of what how would you characterize the 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.080 response of the police to these events and how they 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.440 kind of have have have treated the right wing at 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:24.440 these well, it is about it's uh cliche as cliche comes, 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:29.320 because every single time, um, when I've covered clinic defenses specifically, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.520 the police are helping move the procession along and threatening 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.960 clinic defenders with arrest on the basis that they're blocking 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:44.120 the roadway. Um. They are. They they essentially work as 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.600 like secondary of security. Um. Sometimes they will split off 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.080 from the other police and be like pushing and shoving 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.680 clinic defenders on their own in a way that doesn't 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.560 make any sort of strategic sense. But it's like they're 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:02.040 getting enjoyment from doing that. Um. It's it's the same 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.280 story over and over again. You know. We see it 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:10.400 in in San Diego when anti fascists were mobilizing against uh, 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.000 like Trump's supporters that were being very violent. The Trump 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.800 supporters were doing the violence, and it was the police 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.000 that were attacking the anti fascists trying to fight against 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.760 like trying to defend themselves against the far right. Um. 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.240 And we saw the same thing at Penn State just 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:32.560 the other night. The there was a gaggle of like 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.080 proud boys or or I think Tess Owen referred to 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.800 them as fascists in all black, who were macing the 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:47.360 crowd and they they you know, I didn't do anything. 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.679 The police escorted there was an incident where a proud 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.200 boy was assaulting or like somehow there was a fight 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.920 that happened with a demonstrator and a proud boy, and 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.679 the demonstrator the police threw the demonstrator on the ground 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.800 and then escorted the proud boy into the building where 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.120 Gavin mcinness and Alex Stein were supposed to put on 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.440 a very bad it didn't end up happening, lead him 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.560 back to his friends. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I asked that question, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.760 and I know everybody like listening, and I know all 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:18.880 of you knew like what the answer was going to be. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.040 I feel like you still have to like ask it. Um. 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:28.760 I am curious. The NYPD has a kind of manpower, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.800 access to manpower, and access to surveillance equipment that, in 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.800 my experience out does most nations I've been in. And 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.240 I'm interested particularly and everyone's responses are welcome, but particularly 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.720 what what Tom and Barry might have to say about 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:49.760 what sort of roadblocks that provides towards organizing responses to 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.120 these events and kind of how activists have had to 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.080 adapt to that. Uh, this is Tom here. I mean, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.480 I will say it's very clear that the NYPD constantly 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.160 monitors any sort of online space whatsoever, and I think 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.960 most people know to organize, you know, in person or 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.560 on signal with a small group of their friends, rather 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.760 than trying to get a larger group of people to 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.200 come to a thing publicly on the internet, because any 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.280 time that happens, it's like there's instantly you know, that 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.000 much larger of a police presency. Get dozens and dozens 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.760 of what's called the s RG, their Strategic Response group, 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.720 which I think probably can maybe speak on that a 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.920 little more, but they're basically the hats and bats that 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.520 come bust up protests. Yeah, definitely agree with that UM. 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.960 And I would also say that because of the sheer 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.880 volume of the vests that these exact same groups of 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.960 people who are now attacking UM drag story hours and clinics, 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.240 because we know this group already and they were having 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.079 on these daily anti bax rallies which objectively stopped kind 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.720 of being a thing to them, consider try to mobilize 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.800 accountable test for UM. So I think there is kind 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.840 of a large disconnect right now, which there by design 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.559 or accidentally where I think a lot of people feel 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.720 like UM, people who might attend account of protest that 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.120 is might feel like, oh no, it's just those same 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.040 idiots up to their nonsense again, you know that that's 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.320 we don't worry about that. But tell me if it's 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.200 the proud voice coming and we'll mobilized kind of protest. Um. So, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.559 I honestly feel that it's sort of the mental kind 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.600 of the mental associations that we have with these familiar faces. Um. 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.200 I mean, despite the fact that it's been kind of 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.520 obviously Bond observed that the anti vax stuff is direct 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:39.800 pipeline and radicalization, um, platform for these more extremelyst Cristal 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.560 fascists and transford with actions, now people still can't really 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.479 detach that, you know, this is actually serious now. So um, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:49.960 But yeah, I agree with what Tom said that it's 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.040 a matter of not dropping it. I'm sorry. I mean 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.120 that that gets to another kind of advantage these folks have, 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.880 which is because is of how much additional state repression 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.120 y'all are dealing with the kind of personal cost of 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.840 attending these events encountering the right is higher, both in 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:10.920 terms of potential risk and just kind of in terms 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.800 of the trauma incurred. I know from personal experience. I mean, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.360 I haven't been out in the street in quite a while, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:17.920 about a year at this point, and I know a 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.240 lot of other people who are in the same place, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.120 because it just kind of you know, you can only 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.040 take so much as an individual. What are some ways 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.920 in which y'all is a community try to cope with 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.000 burnouts that you can continue to meet the pace at 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.520 which the right is doing this stuff. I mean, I 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.559 think it's really relying on other people, like the same 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:38.840 one two or three or four or five people can't 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.720 keep doing everything well, so as people start to get exhausted, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.480 I think that it's time to you know, take a 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.679 step back, take a week off, take three weeks off, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:48.720 like there have to be other people that are ready 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.840 to step up, um, you know, throughout your community, but 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.760 throughout everywhere. Yeah, and definitely I think there's going to 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.400 be more of a need to emphasize that this requires 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.199 every day and a fascists. I think in New York 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.120 City especially, we kind of fell into a traveler any 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.040 kind of public fall encounter. It was very I mean, 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.959 they looks into style and boarding, you know, very clear 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.120 that it's a cab there, black the water, things like that, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.960 and the kinds of people that are just meaning members 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.160 that we actually do need to also show up and 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.680 saw the fascists that they're not welcoming their neighbors either, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.960 they're not going to respond to something like that multitude 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.200 of reasons. And UH, what can you say about sort 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.400 of the numbers that you're seeing kind of on on 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.679 both sides on the ground here, what's like a normal 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.439 action looking like in terms of that? UM? I mean, 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.440 you know, just from reporting and keeping tabs on different 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.520 types of protests. In New York City, we have a 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:49.320 lot of UH nonprofits and more established type groups that 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:55.400 organize larger events UM, and those are typically just marches 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:00.120 for visibility and awareness UM. And when it comes to 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:05.040 a counter or some sort of direct action like mutual 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.320 Aid for example, UM, we see much smaller numbers. But 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.000 those numbers that I mean that I see at least 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.040 is that these are people who've built community and UM 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:21.840 communicate together. As opposed to seeing a flyer and showing 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.040 up just for that one day. These are people who 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:30.079 consistently are engaging with one another and with that space. So, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.240 like I mentioned mutual Aid, we have UM Washington Square 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.880 Park mutually which meets every Friday, and the core group 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:43.440 that UM sets it up and distributes and everything is 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.040 relatively small. But the people who have shown up to 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.560 support in some capacity in the past two years that 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.800 it has been active. Um, they all know each other, 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:59.000 and that doesn't mean that, you know, they're like necessarily 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.679 like going to birthday parts together for um, you know, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.360 donating kidneys to one another or something like that. It's 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.840 not necessarily like best friend groups. But it's people who 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.640 have built a sort of neighborhood in this ideology and 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.880 in this space in this time. I would also say 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.120 like these particular events have kind of brought in like 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.720 a different group of people. It's not like the same 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.280 cruise of people that we're doing other things, because there's 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.120 more kind of liberal people getting involved that are like 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.200 coming to these drag string court, drag queen story our 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.600 defenses to you know, be joyful and hold up signs 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.240 and saying and like welcome people into the library. So 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.000 that's also made it more easy to keep these going 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.160 because we've kind of got a larger revolving door of 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.520 people rather than you know, smaller groups. Yeah, that makes sense, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.920 as like particularly is a way to not burn people out. 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.880 You know, I'm curious as to what have you seen 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.840 as far like one of the major tactics anti fascists 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:06.080 always uses identification UM and exposing people who are attending 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.080 these events rallying with fascist organizations. Have you noticed a 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.880 difference on how well this works for the people who 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.680 are showing up to protest like drag Queen story Our 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.560 events versus UM the people showing up at at reproductive 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.800 healthcare clinics, at planned parenthoods and such. Because it kind 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.320 of strikes me that one of those is more mainstream 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.360 maybe than the other. Although perhaps I'm being kind of 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.120 optimistic in that, but I'm wondering, does that does it 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.920 appear to be more effective against kind of one kind 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.440 of rally than it is in another kind, if that 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.840 makes any sense. So, a lot of the people who 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.400 are engaging in the clan carassments are known among their networks, 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:50.560 and because their goal is to present a sort of 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:57.680 legitimizing face for opposing abortion UM, they don't typically show 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.840 up to things that are a little bit more volatile. 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.120 But we have seen that with so it as it 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.200 happens that this the people who are harassing Drag story 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.640 Our for the most part, have been a part of 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.680 one specific core group of people that I've been monitoring 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.160 and reporting on for the past year, so I know 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:22.160 all of their names, which has pigeonholed them into what 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.960 they can and can't do. We had there's there's this 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:31.080 far right propagandist or in Levy. His brother was at ah. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.720 He was trying to harass a drag story Hour at 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.720 the Andrew High Scale Library for the Blind and that 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.320 was an event put on for NEUROW divergent children and 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.880 he was attempting to harass that. He ended up pepper 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.600 spraying to people. And because he has known, his name 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.560 is out there, his face is known, and he is 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.560 identifiable across all social media networks. It was very easy 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.880 for those people to be able to file complaints against him. Um. Yeah. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.040 And another thing too, is it because this one group 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.440 does all of these harassments together. They started out doing 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.800 anti vax stuff where they were going and harassing a 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.600 restaurant called Dame in Um I think it's in the 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.400 village or yeah, it's in the village. They were harassing 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.200 that restaurant for a while, and then they started harassing 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.600 the Health Commissioner's house and then Gracie Mansion, which is 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.120 where Eric Adams lives. And they were all doing these 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.240 things together. So their network was very easy to monitor 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:31.760 and trace UM, and so when they started harassing Drag 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.800 Story Hour, which was undeniably they were doing that as 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:40.000 a result of far right propaganda that was being pushed 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.240 into all of their social media spaces, trying to convince 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:48.000 them that Drag Story Hour is, you know, the Satan incarnate, 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.520 and they start showing up and trying to harass those 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.680 and immediately they're known. They tried to harass Um, they 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.159 tried to disrupt um aoc at a listening event she 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.359 was doing in Queens. Immediately they were known. It was 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.400 like I saw the footage and I was like, that's 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.840 Robert White, that's you know, Cliff Lee, that's our Ronan Levy. 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.800 And it's doing that because they're known. Because it's clear 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.520 that it's one group that's showing up and doing this, 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.159 trying to trying to follow the lead on what is 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.280 the trending outrage on the far right that week. It 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.879 limits the number of people who are interested in joining them, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.080 because it's they rely on making it seem like they 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.639 are just neighbors and constituents who aren't happy with X, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.640 y Z, and it's like, no, you're a coordinated group 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.400 of harassers. We know who you are, so that mask 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.520 being off definitely I think has helped to reduce the 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:52.800 willingness to grow in those harassments. But I can't necessarily 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.399 speak to the future on what would hold or like 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.439 what other people have been inspired by them, because we 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.640 have seen you not to show up in other states 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.040 to protest drag story. I were the same way that 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.680 these this little you know band harassers has been harassing 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.840 the story hours. Yeah, um yeah, sorry, just a direct 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.280 response to that that I definitely agree um that. Yeah. 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.879 We've been monitoring the movement of the main actors in 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.320 the anti backs movement for a while, but I did 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.760 want to say that it is occasionally other groups, but 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.959 that they all have the same thing in common and 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.879 that they attached to the kind of hot topic issue 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.120 that they see happening in other cities and states. So 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:40.640 we did have actually like very like certainly Crystal cashis 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.760 group um uh TMP. I believe that it was called 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.560 whom you know had publicly next a rally to harass 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.880 the story. Our initially flashed onto that, um. But all 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.879 of it is kind of following national trends. Um. But 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.879 as they are initially trying to make see ur t 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.840 and schools be the thing that was a multitude of 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.639 different groups that are trying, and you know, they're looking 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.359 for something that sticks, and they're looking for something that 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.120 passers by any given passers by walking by will see 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.719 their side of if they hear it. Um. But their 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.919 lack of success though, is because of their violence and 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.480 um not especially convincing and very human on sounding antics 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.280 to where it is clear that they are not actually 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.919 they're protesting what they playing themselves. They're protesting, UM. You know, 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.720 they're they're losing sympathy because eventually their signs started being 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.080 about Antifa instead of about electracy protecting the children themselves. UM. 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:43.000 So their own messaging kind of probably also at fault there. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.560 But this issue is still always going to be at 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.639 risk for attracting different new Nazi groups. UM. I mean 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.040 we've seen Orlando and Ow there's a relition of Nazi 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:56.800 surgery together to attack story Hour. We've actually seen some 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.199 of that in New York. And it was just coincidence 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:04.840 that this crazy atax um showing to a tax story 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:08.239 I was the same day. Perhaps other groups were um 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:14.320 say too much something. Yeah, I was just gonna say, 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.520 I mean about the you know, neo Nazis and other 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.320 areas coming in protesting these drug Queen Story Hours. I 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.000 mean that the first bigger one we did was at 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.760 Elmhurst Library. There were not only somebody who was at 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.359 a neo Nazi rally in front of Trump Tower once 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.000 we had a January six insurrectionists and I think Holly 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.280 can probably speak to those two characters a little more. 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.800 But then there was some other there was another drug 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.280 Queen Story Hour where someone from g d L showed up. 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.680 And I'm sure you're familiar with g d L, Robert right, yes, yes, yeah, 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.000 the Goyam Defense League, these guys around the hate bus 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.399 flying the swastika there. Yeah, I mean you just said swastika. 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.240 But in place people are not aware of what Goyam means. 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.280 What you need to know is the Gham Defense League 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.160 or hardcore not Zis. Yeah, like they are legitimate, straight 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.240 up neo Nazis. They fly to swastika, they go harassed 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:14.720 Jewish neighborhoods um in those yeah capital m Nazi. Yeah, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.280 one of them went and harassed one of the drag 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:21.760 Queen story I was recently. Uh then he ran off 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:23.560 and said he was going to get his friends and 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:29.520 didn't show up with anyone else from what then, Speaking 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:35.600 of neo Nazis, you probably know Jovie Valve. Oh yeah, 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:37.920 Jovie and I had a conversation a couple of years 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:42.040 ago with with my good friend Goad. Yeah, your old buddy. 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.280 Mm hmmm. Well, he showed up at um I believe 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.560 it was a pediatric health care facility. I don't know 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.240 if they do gender affirming care, but he was in 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.080 front of it to sign I'm sorry, I said, neither 0:22:55.160 --> 0:23:00.919 did he? Yeah, exactly. It was literally because the clinic 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:06.480 had pried flags in the window. Yeah, okay, because he 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.399 was holding up a sign that said I'd rather a 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.320 Nazi than a pedophile, which is just like a nonsensible 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:20.240 and be like, we all know, just say you're a 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:24.280 fucking Nazi. Why is that the choice. It's so funny 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:27.000 because there's like pictures of him with the swastic netflace, 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.720 like doing the Roman salute, like everyone knows you're a Nazi. 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:34.440 You know, he's completely unashamed. And that's the weirdest part 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.560 about him, because you know, he learned an interesting lesson 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.679 about wearing just a you know, a maga hat in 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:42.840 a bar in Brooklyn a few years ago. If anyone 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:48.199 knows what incident I'm talking about, Oh yeah, So I 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:50.640 find it interesting that this actually did not deter him 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.040 from ever leaving his house again, you know, nearly losing 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:57.000 his entire nose, um so, and then still deciding to 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:59.959 just double down and actually start carrying the Nazi flags, 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:03.560 thinking it'll go better this time. Um And apparently he 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:07.280 just guys trying to make Nazi ship. He's trying to 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:12.000 make his name again in two like jovie Val is, 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:17.119 like he's he's expired, and he doesn't seem to realize 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:19.440 that he's one of You know, what I'm gonna do 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.400 is I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna have nobody 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:24.880 with me, and I'm just gonna be standing in front 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:30.520 of a closed pediatric clinic, like with a sign telling 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:32.920 people all they see from a distance is the word 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:36.440 pedophile and the word Nazi. But I mean, he did 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:38.960 have his one little body with him in fairness, according 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.240 to his own videos that he posted of the encounter, 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:44.280 and that buddy of his, whoever he was, could be 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:47.240 heard saying, uh something like hey man, you know I 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:54.600 can't fight actually got posted on Telegram and he said, Jovie, 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:56.920 I can't find I can't find man, I can't find 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.679 you can also hear Jovi Yeah, like what are you doing? 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:02.679 What are you doing? As he gets tossed into like 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:06.800 a construction area, and he's such an embarrassment to like 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:10.240 even other Nazis. They're even making fun of him online. 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:13.800 I mean somebody literally said that, why does jovie always 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:17.399 get his ass kicked? This is ridiculous. He is he 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:19.959 is the kind of he is the kind and generation 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:27.719 of Nazi that other Nazis consider cringe like fucking Jovie 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:32.240 valve ate him so much. At the same time, though, 0:25:32.240 --> 0:25:34.520 it is a little bit alarming because all of this 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:38.680 attention on UH figures such as Jovie Vale failing every 0:25:38.680 --> 0:25:41.240 time and like stepping on rakes metaphorically every time he 0:25:41.280 --> 0:25:44.120 goes outside, it does kind of open a nerving vacuum 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:46.600 up to like, oh what, I can be a way 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:50.000 better Nazi than that. So that is the part that 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:54.040 concerns me. If the constant attention is that, um, you know, 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:57.679 Jovie Val did not succeed in organizing a transphobic Nazi 0:25:57.800 --> 0:26:01.360 rally outside of a closed pediatric clinic. Okay, I guess 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:04.399 that's a win. But who else sees that and sees 0:26:04.640 --> 0:26:07.800 and thinks, oh, we can do so much better because 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:10.679 we do have a problem with unidentified Nazis throughout New 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:14.080 York City. There's you know, there's been increases in all 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:18.120 sorts of graffiti all over the subways, um Nazi literature 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:21.040 being put on trains and lefted places. It's, uh, you know, 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:23.240 so who is seeing this and how what is the 0:26:23.280 --> 0:26:26.840 messaging exactly to say that you won't succeed if you 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:29.920 try this either, just because you know, Jovi keeps getting 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:32.600 his ship rocked, like we need you to know he will, 0:26:32.800 --> 0:26:35.040 you will get your ship. I mean, that's the most 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:40.159 important thing, at least in my experience, and that is 0:26:40.200 --> 0:26:43.280 mostly as an observer. I'm not an organizer, but I've 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:47.000 I've watched what's happened in the Pacific Northwest. And the 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:50.760 reason why these people don't rally in Portland's the way 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:54.239 they used to is they were faced with consequences and 0:26:54.720 --> 0:26:57.480 that required I mean, that was that was not a 0:26:57.520 --> 0:27:00.720 simple process. It took fucking five years, and a lot 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:03.000 of people got broken bones and a number of them 0:27:03.000 --> 0:27:06.480 got killed. But like that is that is the thing 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:09.239 people like. These people's lives have to be created. And 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:12.000 one of the things that is a real problem is 0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:16.000 that it's a lot easier to create people for rallying, 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:17.399 or it used to be. Number one, it used to 0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:19.800 be easier to create people's lives because they were willing 0:27:19.800 --> 0:27:23.520 to rally with Nazis. But also now the right has 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:28.119 succeeded in mainstreaming these two specific things, going after drag 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:31.960 Queen story our events and going after reproductive healthcare clinics 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:35.000 and the people using them, to such a degree that 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:37.640 it's gotten a lot harder to ruin people's lives over 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:40.680 this sort of thing. That's that's true. But at the 0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:43.480 same time, there is an increase in so many of 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:47.800 them who are just unabashedly that way, beset their full names, addresses, 0:27:47.880 --> 0:27:52.520 photos they say, you know, identifying or doc see them 0:27:52.640 --> 0:28:00.639 is not there. It's just actually almost hyeah is in vogue, 0:28:01.200 --> 0:28:04.879 like most like a large chunk of the country is 0:28:04.920 --> 0:28:10.320 totally fine if you're a crazy bigot. The far right 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:15.720 is radicalizing in a sort of gradual pace over the 0:28:15.760 --> 0:28:20.040 course of many years. UM And what's happening with um 0:28:20.359 --> 0:28:24.480 people who are countering them is that there is this 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:30.120 density of media and pundits sort of um looking down 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:35.760 their nose at the decorum of countering them. So you know, 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:40.440 we look at Penn State, UM students showed up in mass, 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:45.200 hundreds of them, UM significantly outnumbered the Proud Boys that 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:48.000 did show up, the fascist that did show up and 0:28:48.440 --> 0:28:52.520 successfully shut the event down. But there's still this like 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:56.160 armchair pungentry reflex to say, oh, well, they didn't do 0:28:56.200 --> 0:28:58.680 it right. There's no like it's not the right way 0:28:58.720 --> 0:29:04.520 to protest. And I think, um, what Barry is sort 0:29:04.560 --> 0:29:10.000 of Verry mentioned earlier about everyday anti fascists, and that's 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:13.840 again like with your neighbors and recognizing that it's not 0:29:14.000 --> 0:29:19.240 this weird, um inaccessible, like isolated group of people who 0:29:19.320 --> 0:29:22.959 solely show up very militant and in black block and 0:29:23.000 --> 0:29:25.120 they've got like all this training and all these like 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:28.640 slogans and slang and words, and you know, it's it's 0:29:28.680 --> 0:29:31.480 none of that iconography. Because that is also the conservative 0:29:31.520 --> 0:29:35.160 media i e. Andy know constantly refers to all sorts 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:39.160 of things as, oh, this is just antifa, and the 0:29:39.200 --> 0:29:41.600 purpose of that is to make it seem like you 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:45.600 can't do that too, when in reality he uh andy 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:50.040 know that little ship stain. He referred to the defense 0:29:50.320 --> 0:29:56.600 of the successful defense at the Elmhurst Library. He claimed 0:29:56.600 --> 0:29:59.040 that it was ANTIFA militants. When I happen to know, 0:29:59.480 --> 0:30:03.280 there was as a pastor who was there. There was 0:30:03.360 --> 0:30:07.480 a nursing mother with her infant and her toddler who 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:11.400 was there. There were librarians present, and there were people 0:30:11.400 --> 0:30:13.600 who showed up because they were in the neighborhood and 0:30:13.640 --> 0:30:17.160 they heard that far right extremists were going to try 0:30:17.160 --> 0:30:20.400 and grass And sure enough, just like Tom mentioned, there 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:23.040 was a J six insurrectionist who tried to get into 0:30:23.080 --> 0:30:27.400 the building. I recognize, Yeah, he tried to rush in. 0:30:27.480 --> 0:30:30.640 I recognized him. His name is Mitchell Bosh. He's best 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:33.000 known for getting arrested for taking a knee in a 0:30:33.040 --> 0:30:40.680 burger king. Get arrested, okay, hoodie. Yeah, this guy tried 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:43.800 to rush in and I don't know how it happened, 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:45.640 but all of a sudden, my arm was hooked into 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:48.680 his arm, twisting his upper body slightly, so he didn't 0:30:48.720 --> 0:30:51.400 have a good he didn't have good leverage to try 0:30:51.400 --> 0:30:53.920 and burst into the building where I knew that if 0:30:53.920 --> 0:30:56.120 he got in, he would refuse to leave until he 0:30:56.200 --> 0:30:59.400 was physically removed by police, so then he could then 0:30:59.440 --> 0:31:01.719 go online and say that he was fighting for freedom 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:06.800 and collect bullshit donations for bullshit legal funds. So getting 0:31:06.800 --> 0:31:08.840 all back to this though, is that the media and 0:31:08.920 --> 0:31:11.880 like these these pundits and everything, they are complicit in 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:14.320 making it harder for people to build community. But people 0:31:14.360 --> 0:31:17.840 need to understand it is literally your neighbors. It is 0:31:17.880 --> 0:31:22.840 your local librarians, it is your UH friends, it is 0:31:22.840 --> 0:31:25.720 your coworkers, it's regular people. The same way people showed 0:31:25.800 --> 0:31:29.040 up to protest in they you know, oh, should I 0:31:29.040 --> 0:31:30.800 bring a sign? Should I bring a bottle of water? 0:31:30.800 --> 0:31:33.000 Should I bring my a d what should I bring? 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:35.200 And they just showed up and they mark you can 0:31:35.280 --> 0:31:38.200 do the same thing because when you have a significant 0:31:38.280 --> 0:31:41.040 number of people, you don't need to worry about being 0:31:41.080 --> 0:31:45.240 militant because you outnumber them. And across the board, if 0:31:45.280 --> 0:31:51.000 you look at data, the positions and the politics that 0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:53.400 these people hold and the things that they're pushing are 0:31:53.400 --> 0:31:57.120 in the significant minority of opinion. A majority of people 0:31:57.720 --> 0:32:02.440 are totally fine with trans people. They're totally fine dregs 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:06.720 story our like it's not a thing. But people aren't 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:09.800 showing up to remind them that their opinion is the 0:32:09.840 --> 0:32:13.600 minority and they are outnumbered. Yeah. I was going to 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:16.480 say I agree with that last point, And unfortunately the 0:32:16.480 --> 0:32:20.280 problem seems to be about our kind of cultural um 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:23.080 inability to agree on the definition of violence and how 0:32:23.160 --> 0:32:26.360 even though people are okay largely with queer and trans 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:30.640 people and protecting trans kids, UM, and they definitely do 0:32:30.720 --> 0:32:33.680 not support Nazis, UM, they still do not think that 0:32:33.840 --> 0:32:37.040 UM any kind of militant action, including violence against these 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:41.800 people is ever appropriate. UM. And just a direct response 0:32:41.840 --> 0:32:44.480 to the Penn State thing that goes beyond punditory, even 0:32:44.960 --> 0:32:49.680 because Penn State itself released a statement saying that UM 0:32:49.680 --> 0:32:52.520 that it does not condone violence without saying who started 0:32:52.520 --> 0:32:56.080 the violence, ak the Proud Boys, who are amazing people. UM, 0:32:56.160 --> 0:32:59.000 they said that, uh, just because you don't agree with 0:32:59.080 --> 0:33:02.000 a speaker and their right to free speech the game 0:33:02.360 --> 0:33:06.240 UM hateful tour of Gavin mcinnesson the Proud Boys, UM 0:33:06.280 --> 0:33:10.560 that there is no excuse for violence. So they denounced 0:33:10.680 --> 0:33:15.080 the content of the message as well as the response 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:17.760 to the message. So we're kind of in this limbo 0:33:18.040 --> 0:33:22.560 where people who have the voice to send these messages 0:33:22.800 --> 0:33:26.120 are still playing the meat at the dinner table both sides. 0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:29.320 Surely we can come to a peaceful resolution and then 0:33:29.360 --> 0:33:32.400 blaming the side that actually is militantly opposed to it 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:35.640 and how to overcome that, I don't know, but I 0:33:35.680 --> 0:33:38.480 do think the like Tolly also said, every day anti 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:40.840 fascism is a pretty good start. Yeah, I mean with 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:43.920 every day anti fascism, like the right does this grassritt 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:47.160 organizing and gets people to like tacitly agree with what 0:33:47.240 --> 0:33:50.200 the Proud Boys and these fascist groups do. I think 0:33:50.200 --> 0:33:53.720 there's plenty of like normal people who would tacitly agree 0:33:53.800 --> 0:33:57.600 with what we're doing on this side of things. Um, 0:33:57.640 --> 0:33:59.160 but I mean you look at like I think it 0:33:59.200 --> 0:34:02.800 was a body campaigning for Maybe it was Ron de Santis, 0:34:03.160 --> 0:34:05.200 Robert you know about this. It was like a literal 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:09.239 neo Nazi who got it was a Ruby Rubio and 0:34:09.239 --> 0:34:11.719 it was the guy was a member of the He 0:34:11.840 --> 0:34:13.960 was a Cuban fascist who was a member of the 0:34:14.000 --> 0:34:20.880 League of the South. Like there was a journalist online 0:34:20.880 --> 0:34:23.200 who was like this is awful. Somebody's like he's literally 0:34:23.200 --> 0:34:25.200 a Nazi. And then you look up this journalists like 0:34:25.280 --> 0:34:28.000 history of articles she's written, and one was like this 0:34:28.040 --> 0:34:29.800 is why you should be friends with the Nazi or 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:33.799 I'm paraphrasing, but that's literally like we should be friend Nazis. 0:34:33.840 --> 0:34:36.120 Like it's it is ridiculous how so much of the 0:34:36.160 --> 0:34:38.640 Mazed dream is like, let's come to the table and 0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:41.040 be polite. I mean, I really think, and I think 0:34:41.080 --> 0:34:43.160 a lot of other people think, when it comes to 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:45.799 Nazis and fascists in the far right, you have to 0:34:45.840 --> 0:34:49.840 make it as costly as possible, whatever that means to you. 0:34:49.840 --> 0:34:51.960 You have to make it as costly as possible for 0:34:52.040 --> 0:34:57.840 them so they are deterred from doing this. Organizer. Yeah, 0:34:57.960 --> 0:35:02.480 I think that's the the most durable conclusion certainly that 0:35:02.560 --> 0:35:06.319 I have. Seems like what y'all have experienced too and 0:35:06.360 --> 0:35:08.719 are continuing to experience. Is there is there anything else 0:35:08.800 --> 0:35:11.400 y'all wanted to get into about about what's been happening 0:35:11.600 --> 0:35:14.200 in with with these events before we kind of close 0:35:14.239 --> 0:35:16.200 out for the day. The only thing I could think 0:35:16.200 --> 0:35:19.520 to add was that that it's not over. And um 0:35:19.680 --> 0:35:22.160 people might think, oh, they stopped coming to Drag Story 0:35:22.160 --> 0:35:24.799 hours for whatever reason, but they're going to find the 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:27.760 next thing, the next issue, the next clinic, the next hospital, 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:34.320 the next healthcare provider. The next family was trans children. Uh, 0:35:34.360 --> 0:35:37.400 they have dresses, they have names, they know where to go. 0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:41.440 They're just looking for when they feel most emboldened to 0:35:41.440 --> 0:35:44.480 do so. Um, And it's kind of it's hard to 0:35:44.480 --> 0:35:48.360 communicate that because people think, oh, Okay, that was a 0:35:48.400 --> 0:35:51.040 successful action. You know, we're done, We're done with them 0:35:51.040 --> 0:35:54.440 for now. But I don't know, it's it's it's just 0:35:54.520 --> 0:35:56.799 it's really hard to communicate the message that, like, you know, 0:35:57.040 --> 0:36:02.319 it's like head on this level, this is the this 0:36:02.400 --> 0:36:04.320 is the hardest thing to not just to get across 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:07.760 to people, but to kind of like actively except for yourself, 0:36:07.800 --> 0:36:10.640 because it's it's one of the most frustrating realities of 0:36:11.320 --> 0:36:13.200 living in our society, and there's no way to get 0:36:13.239 --> 0:36:19.600 around it, which is that like not being eaten by 0:36:19.640 --> 0:36:24.040 these people is the result of constant vigilance against them. 0:36:24.080 --> 0:36:28.080 Like they win if you don't continue showing up and 0:36:28.680 --> 0:36:32.279 one day in in in the bright blue yonder. I 0:36:32.320 --> 0:36:35.800 do believe that if people continue showing up and continue 0:36:35.840 --> 0:36:38.920 making it clear that their cause is hopeless, these people 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:42.719 will I'll drink themselves to death or whatever. But um, 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:46.360 you know that's that's not an immediate term sort of thing. No, 0:36:46.480 --> 0:36:50.279 I know, and I mean for just my personal note, like, yes, 0:36:50.360 --> 0:36:52.840 that is exactly the mode I'm in now. And I 0:36:53.160 --> 0:36:57.120 mean I'm a Jewish anti fascist organizer. It's almost this 0:36:57.239 --> 0:37:02.680 kind of history repeating itself ancestral um to keep at it. 0:37:02.680 --> 0:37:05.480 And I'm one of many people UM in the same 0:37:05.520 --> 0:37:08.200 kind of mindset towards not an option to rest and 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:10.200 wait until they you know, strike when they think we're 0:37:10.200 --> 0:37:13.759 not looking. Yeah, but it's it's you know, obviously yeah, 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:17.680 I mean we have like, we have evidence that they 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:21.880 are looking for the next thing. We have evidence that UM. 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:25.480 You know, there's this one woman who got heavily involved 0:37:25.560 --> 0:37:29.680 with UM, the anti vax group New York Freedom Rally UM, 0:37:29.880 --> 0:37:32.480 and she would go on you know, Instagram live stream 0:37:32.560 --> 0:37:35.799 saying a lot of like transphobic stuff. But she never 0:37:36.040 --> 0:37:41.399 transferred that over onto public spaces until this week, where 0:37:41.480 --> 0:37:44.319 she reiterated the same points that she was making in 0:37:44.640 --> 0:37:46.799 the privacy of her home on that live stream to 0:37:46.800 --> 0:37:50.600 her little audience. She's now saying it on a stage 0:37:50.960 --> 0:37:57.040 that she's sharing with the candidate for governor, Lee z Eldon. UM. 0:37:57.080 --> 0:38:00.000 She's she's repeating these same things, So it's showing also 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:04.480 that they are finding it. They're finding themselves more comfortable 0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:10.640 in saying these uh bigoted things and pushing more extreme 0:38:10.719 --> 0:38:15.759 things and expecting for their followers and their friends to 0:38:15.840 --> 0:38:18.600 follow suit. There's people who have shown up to these 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:21.680 harassments of drag story art who have said directly to 0:38:21.800 --> 0:38:26.200 me that they don't really agree with the harassment itself, 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:29.880 but that their friends are they're doing the harassment, and 0:38:29.920 --> 0:38:33.359 so they're showing up for them, and that's a very 0:38:33.440 --> 0:38:36.480 quick road to they are going to decide to care 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:39.040 about this very deeply and go very hard about it. 0:38:39.640 --> 0:38:43.279 But what has worked is when people show up and 0:38:43.320 --> 0:38:46.799 make it not happy and not good for them, when 0:38:47.239 --> 0:38:50.719 their footage is ruined, when their sound bites are sucked up, 0:38:50.880 --> 0:38:52.879 when they are blocked from doing the thing that they're 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:55.480 trying to do to generate that content to feed that 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:58.920 like bigoted beast. When people show up, when those events 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:01.799 keep happening, that's a big thing is that like the 0:39:01.920 --> 0:39:05.759 venues that host these events need to not cancel them, 0:39:06.320 --> 0:39:09.640 because when those venues cancel, it tells the biggests that 0:39:09.719 --> 0:39:12.640 they are winning. And what needs to happen is the 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:16.480 venues feeling brave to put out calls for community support 0:39:16.560 --> 0:39:19.120 the same way that had been in Eugene. Because when 0:39:19.120 --> 0:39:21.719 that then you put out that ask, they got hundreds 0:39:21.719 --> 0:39:26.120 of people and they outnumbered the biggests ten to one. 0:39:27.080 --> 0:39:29.240 I was just gonna say I was, I'm very heartened 0:39:29.360 --> 0:39:34.279 by like how supportive the UH people in the neighborhoods 0:39:34.360 --> 0:39:37.880 and libraries have been, whether they're allowed to officially support 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:41.480 anything or not, it's been you know, nice to know 0:39:41.560 --> 0:39:44.880 that people are happy we're there. And also I would 0:39:44.880 --> 0:39:47.040 really love to see a name of Jovie Val stepping 0:39:47.120 --> 0:39:52.360 on a rank. Now you had that image in my head. Yah, Um, 0:39:52.560 --> 0:39:57.919 was there anything else we wanted to get to? UH? 0:39:58.120 --> 0:40:06.280 Self defense is community effect defense and if people are interested. UM. 0:40:06.400 --> 0:40:09.720 People in New York created something called I fact Fund 0:40:10.920 --> 0:40:14.239 where you donate funds and then people who want to 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:17.960 receive individual first aid kits UM can request one and 0:40:18.160 --> 0:40:21.960 receive one for free. UM. And it was created in 0:40:22.080 --> 0:40:28.360 honor of a anti fascist badass named torch Um who 0:40:28.719 --> 0:40:32.080 is always present a UM. But yeah, if if people 0:40:32.080 --> 0:40:34.800 wanted to check that out, it's UH. The Twitter account 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:37.840 is just at I fact Fund, I f a k 0:40:38.320 --> 0:40:41.680 fund UM if they want to donate I think it's 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:44.960 uh cash app is I fact fund? I think you 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:48.360 know someone else could look at up to check dollar 0:40:48.440 --> 0:40:52.400 sign fund. Oh, I'm sorry dollar signed I fact fund. 0:40:52.480 --> 0:41:01.719 Thank you whatever. Yeah, Um, and you know it's it's 0:41:01.760 --> 0:41:07.120 just a matter of like knowing that we keep us 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:12.480 safe in every sense of the word. Yeah. And I 0:41:12.520 --> 0:41:14.600 think that's a that's a perfect note to end on. 0:41:14.920 --> 0:41:17.880 Thank you all for your time, Thank you for continuing 0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:21.480 to be out there in the streets. Um and everybody 0:41:21.520 --> 0:41:28.320 else get out there and make a fascist stay worse. 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:47.880 We live in an age of uprising. From Haydi to 0:41:47.960 --> 0:41:51.400 Hong Kong, from Ecuador to Sudan, from Chile to Myanmar, 0:41:52.160 --> 0:41:55.200 from the US to Iran, an entire generation has been 0:41:55.239 --> 0:41:58.319 confronted with the horror of our world and took the 0:41:58.320 --> 0:42:00.960 simple expedient of picking up a brick and throwing it 0:42:01.000 --> 0:42:05.040 at a cop. Yet, as the uprising swept the globe, 0:42:05.320 --> 0:42:09.440 there was one country where it was considered impossible. Every expert, 0:42:09.560 --> 0:42:13.000 every policymaker, every kid on a street corner new there 0:42:13.080 --> 0:42:16.360 was simply no chance of a mass street movement in China. 0:42:17.120 --> 0:42:21.799 On Monday, it was unimaginable. On Friday, it was everywhere 0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:27.680 welcome to it could happen here. What we've been watching 0:42:27.680 --> 0:42:29.840 for the past three weeks now is the failure of 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:32.680 one of the most sophisticated political regimes in human history, 0:42:33.480 --> 0:42:37.359 a political, social, and economic regime designed specifically to stop this. 0:42:37.440 --> 0:42:41.439 One moment, after thirty years of repression, the national mass 0:42:41.440 --> 0:42:44.560 street movement has returned to China. This is what it 0:42:44.600 --> 0:42:48.440 was all about, everything from the censorship policies to union 0:42:48.480 --> 0:42:52.520 busting to subsidize mortgages from a rising Chinese middle class. 0:42:53.280 --> 0:42:55.840 It was about keeping people from going back to the streets, 0:42:56.239 --> 0:42:59.520 to make even the idea of it impossible. And yet 0:43:00.160 --> 0:43:03.239 here we are. In one sense, the Party is little 0:43:03.280 --> 0:43:06.040 to fear from this round of protests, barring an immense 0:43:06.080 --> 0:43:10.160 intensification of violence, which at the moment seems extremely unlikely. 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:14.080 But in another sense, the CCP is perhaps the last 0:43:14.080 --> 0:43:17.520 regime on earth that truly remembers the previous age of revolution, 0:43:18.120 --> 0:43:20.879 that remembers when the workers took Shanghai in sixty seven, 0:43:21.200 --> 0:43:24.080 very nearly took Beijing and eighty nine. These are people 0:43:24.120 --> 0:43:27.200 who understand that China's political system is built on shaving 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:30.800 a sleeping bear, and no matter how profitable that system 0:43:30.920 --> 0:43:34.200 is there's always a chance that one day that bear 0:43:34.280 --> 0:43:37.680 is going to wake up. Now the bear isn't fully 0:43:37.680 --> 0:43:40.400 awake yet. We are not watching in China full scale 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:44.120 uprising unless you're Dan or Myanmar. But that bear the 0:43:44.200 --> 0:43:46.839 air too, maybe the most militant working class and modern 0:43:46.880 --> 0:43:49.200 world has ever seen, is starting to open its eyes. 0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:53.640 So what is the CCP currently facing. Since about November, 0:43:54.480 --> 0:43:58.320 there have been widespread anti government protests in China. Unlike 0:43:58.360 --> 0:44:00.960 anything we've seen in the last thirty year years. These 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:04.680 protests are everywhere. They're in Beijing, They're in Nanjing, They're 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:07.480 in Shanghai. There in guang Show, there in Shing. John 0:44:07.600 --> 0:44:10.319 will get back to that one in a second. There 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:13.160 in Wuhan, reports I saw said that there were protests 0:44:13.200 --> 0:44:16.960 at seventy seven universities. That number is almost certainly an 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:19.640 under account now and these student protests are not just 0:44:19.719 --> 0:44:22.560 taking place at small colleges in the middle of nowhere. 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:26.560 There were protests at singh Qua University, which for an 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:29.280 American audience I would compare to China's version of Harvard. 0:44:29.680 --> 0:44:31.960 It's the college that produces the upper echelon if the 0:44:32.000 --> 0:44:36.200 Chinese ruling class. Hi Jimping graduated from there, so did 0:44:36.200 --> 0:44:38.719 his predecessor, Hu Jintao. And the only reason that ju 0:44:38.800 --> 0:44:41.440 Jintao's predecessor did not graduate from there is that that 0:44:41.520 --> 0:44:43.319 guy was so old that he went to college under 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:47.239 the Japanese occupation. When I was originally writing this, I 0:44:47.280 --> 0:44:49.160 had a joke here about how the only city where 0:44:49.160 --> 0:44:51.520 there haven't been protest is Harbin, which is the city 0:44:51.680 --> 0:44:55.360 in the absolute middle of nowhere in northern China. But no, 0:44:55.600 --> 0:44:57.520 I googled it, and it turns out there have been 0:44:57.520 --> 0:45:00.920 protests in bloody Harbin. For people who aren't very good 0:45:00.920 --> 0:45:04.960 at Chinese geography, which is probably most people. This means 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:07.319 these protests are everywhere. There in the north, there in 0:45:07.360 --> 0:45:09.520 the south, they're in the east, there in the west, 0:45:09.520 --> 0:45:12.360 they're in the far West. And it's true that a 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:15.239 lot of these protests are not that big, although some 0:45:15.320 --> 0:45:18.200 of them are absolutely massive. But the importance here is 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:20.000 that this is the first time in thirty years that 0:45:20.080 --> 0:45:23.839 we've seen widespread national protests over a single issue in China, 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:26.319 the anormity of which is compounded by the fact that 0:45:26.360 --> 0:45:29.360 people in the streets of cities like Shanghai are openly 0:45:29.400 --> 0:45:32.640 calling for the fall of the CCP and Sijianping, something 0:45:32.760 --> 0:45:35.400 that by itself can get you a decade in prison 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:38.799 just for saying we can ask what these protests are 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:42.440 actually about. The version you see in the American press 0:45:42.440 --> 0:45:44.879 is that these are anti lockdown protests, are protests against 0:45:44.960 --> 0:45:48.719 China's COVID zero policy, or that they're also pro democracy 0:45:48.760 --> 0:45:52.799 protests against the entire regime. And this is sort of 0:45:52.840 --> 0:45:55.760 true as far as it goes, but it doesn't capture 0:45:55.760 --> 0:45:58.600 the core of what's going on, which is that what 0:45:58.719 --> 0:46:02.200 we're seeing is a widespread fusion of labor rebellion, anti 0:46:02.200 --> 0:46:05.600 police brutality protests, and a revolt against the authoritarian state. 0:46:06.680 --> 0:46:08.560 The thing that's brought all of this together is the 0:46:08.600 --> 0:46:12.560 CCPs COVID policy, but that's because that policy is the 0:46:12.600 --> 0:46:16.440 most visible and most concentrated expression of the state's general 0:46:16.480 --> 0:46:19.400 authoritarian is a bit brutal war against the working class. 0:46:20.160 --> 0:46:22.719 We can learn a lot about what's actually been happening 0:46:23.239 --> 0:46:25.560 by going back a little bit to the very start 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:30.960 of the protests. There are three specific events that sparked 0:46:30.960 --> 0:46:34.239 the protests, two of which are pretty well covered and 0:46:34.320 --> 0:46:36.680 one of which has been basically ignored because of how 0:46:36.680 --> 0:46:40.239 long ago it happened. The first spark is essentially an 0:46:40.280 --> 0:46:42.839 event in its own right. This is what I would 0:46:42.880 --> 0:46:45.960 call the fox Con revolts, a series of worker uprisings 0:46:45.960 --> 0:46:49.920 against the manufacturer of the iPhone, which with a single factory, 0:46:50.040 --> 0:46:53.640 controls vast portions of the regional economy of Hainan Province, 0:46:54.320 --> 0:46:58.280 whereas large as factory is based. The fox Con revolt 0:46:58.320 --> 0:47:02.360 is I'm brewing for a long time. It began essentially 0:47:02.400 --> 0:47:05.720 when fox Con began to impose what's called the closed 0:47:05.760 --> 0:47:09.360 loop system. The closed loop system was originally developed by 0:47:09.400 --> 0:47:12.080 the NBA to run an NBA season during the beginning 0:47:12.120 --> 0:47:15.200 of the pandemic. The idea is that you keep everyone 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:18.279 inside a closed loop. This means that everyone in the 0:47:18.320 --> 0:47:21.719 production process has no contact with the outside world at 0:47:21.760 --> 0:47:25.600 all for as long as the manufacturing cycle goes. The 0:47:25.680 --> 0:47:29.040 CCP started adopting the closed loop as they hit problems 0:47:29.040 --> 0:47:31.840 with their twin imperatives to both stop COVID and also 0:47:31.920 --> 0:47:34.520 to make sure that fox Con hit its production targets 0:47:34.600 --> 0:47:37.680 so Apple could have enough iPhones for the Christmas rush. 0:47:38.040 --> 0:47:41.239 The result was that as an October wave of infections 0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:44.520 hit Hangan Province, where fox CON's largest factory, was located. 0:47:45.040 --> 0:47:49.120 Two hundred thousand workers were put into a closed loop system, 0:47:49.200 --> 0:47:52.240 which meant they were trapped in the factory in their dormitories. 0:47:53.160 --> 0:47:55.480 In order to keep this factory running, fox Con needs 0:47:55.520 --> 0:47:59.920 about a hundred thousand migrant workers. The problem from capital 0:48:00.080 --> 0:48:03.760 perspective with MiCT workers is that they can, if things 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:08.440 get bad enough, just go home, and that's exactly what happens. 0:48:10.239 --> 0:48:13.120 Workers inside the fox Con plant started to be quarantined 0:48:13.160 --> 0:48:16.040 with people who were sick in the same dormitory. And 0:48:16.120 --> 0:48:18.840 it's worth noting here that these dormitories are tiny. The 0:48:18.880 --> 0:48:23.399 conditions even outside of lockdown are atrocious, and when people 0:48:23.440 --> 0:48:27.400 were suddenly getting quarantined with people who were sick, workers 0:48:27.480 --> 0:48:30.920 essentially just said no and started to stage massive breakouts. 0:48:31.640 --> 0:48:34.640 There are incredible videos of these trains of people like 0:48:34.719 --> 0:48:37.600 along the road walking home as sort of hitching rides 0:48:37.640 --> 0:48:40.880 on people's trucks, fleeing the factory. We don't actually know 0:48:40.920 --> 0:48:43.080 how many workers escaped, but it was enough to be 0:48:43.120 --> 0:48:46.720 a massive problem for Capital. Again, they need these workers 0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:49.560 in order to make enough iPhones this for Christmas. Current 0:48:49.640 --> 0:48:52.600 estimates suggest that Apple is somewhere between eleven and fifteen 0:48:52.600 --> 0:48:55.560 million units behind what it needs to make the Christmas rush. 0:48:56.040 --> 0:48:59.480 So fox Con had the local government recruiting people to 0:48:59.480 --> 0:49:02.600 go work in a factory. What they told these workers 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:05.040 was that if they entered the closed loop for thirty days, 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:08.040 they'd be given three thousand yuan which is about four 0:49:08.120 --> 0:49:11.480 hundred and fifteen dollars to live on for the next month, 0:49:11.840 --> 0:49:14.360 and then get paid thirty on or about four dollars 0:49:14.360 --> 0:49:18.040 an hour, and then after the end of the next 0:49:18.080 --> 0:49:22.160 dirty days they'd get another three thousand john In the US, 0:49:22.280 --> 0:49:25.000 this would be a subminimum wage poverty job for a 0:49:25.080 --> 0:49:28.120 Chinese worker. This is a lot of money, or it 0:49:28.160 --> 0:49:31.880 would have been had it not been for one minor problem. 0:49:31.920 --> 0:49:34.600 All of it was bullshit. Fox Con and the CCP 0:49:34.719 --> 0:49:37.760 were lying out of their asses. After workers were already 0:49:37.800 --> 0:49:40.200 in the closed loop, they learned that the two three 0:49:40.200 --> 0:49:43.080 thousand yuan bonuses weren't going to be paid until March 0:49:43.200 --> 0:49:47.600 and May of next year, meaning that in order to 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:49.720 get what they were promised for two months of work, 0:49:50.000 --> 0:49:53.800 they were going to have to work for seven months. Also, 0:49:53.960 --> 0:49:55.920 the thirty U on an hour wage that they were 0:49:55.960 --> 0:49:59.080 promised was a lie. They were getting paid substantially less 0:49:59.080 --> 0:50:04.880 than that. So on Tuesday of November, workers who had 0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:08.719 emerged from quarantine to start work only to learn that 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:11.279 they had been systematically lied to by both the governments 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:16.759 and Chinese and Taiwanese capitalists came out of their dormitories 0:50:16.800 --> 0:50:18.799 and demanded that they either get their money or be 0:50:18.880 --> 0:50:21.680 allowed to leave. There's another part of this account that 0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:24.080 I think complicates a lot of the sort of narratives 0:50:24.120 --> 0:50:26.960 that we've heard about what the Chinese poster about that 0:50:27.239 --> 0:50:29.120 did not make the Western press at all, which is 0:50:29.160 --> 0:50:31.920 that these workers were also demanding that their bosses quote 0:50:32.040 --> 0:50:36.560 implement pandemic prevention and control measures. Um, it's not entirely 0:50:36.600 --> 0:50:39.440 clue what the specific demands refers to, but it seems 0:50:39.480 --> 0:50:42.160 to be about not quarantining sick people in the same 0:50:42.239 --> 0:50:46.760 dorms as healthy people, a thing that seems relatively obvious, 0:50:46.840 --> 0:50:52.720 but capitalism regardless. The product of bosses ignoring these demands 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:55.200 was several days of full scale fighting with the police. 0:50:56.040 --> 0:50:59.239 On November twenty three, a bunch of videos began to 0:50:59.280 --> 0:51:02.319 spread of work is taking those metal police barricades that 0:51:02.360 --> 0:51:04.080 you see all the time in the US that are 0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:05.960 essentially an arch with a bunch of bars and not 0:51:06.080 --> 0:51:08.399 get into a flat base. You've you've probably seen these 0:51:09.200 --> 0:51:12.240 picking them up and straight up throwing them at cops 0:51:12.400 --> 0:51:15.680 or grabbing them and beating police riot shields with them. 0:51:15.719 --> 0:51:17.719 I have I have never seen anything like it. It 0:51:17.800 --> 0:51:21.800 was absolutely wild. At this point, after several days of fighting, 0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:25.799 after their own regular security people literally refused to show 0:51:25.920 --> 0:51:29.800 up to go fight these workers, and police from outside 0:51:29.800 --> 0:51:32.960 had to be called in. Fox Con gave up said okay, 0:51:33.000 --> 0:51:35.800 we will give you ten thousand yond to literally leave 0:51:35.960 --> 0:51:39.839 right now, please just stop, And a lot of people 0:51:39.880 --> 0:51:43.040 took the money and left. And in any other year, 0:51:43.239 --> 0:51:45.719 in any other moment, that would have been the end 0:51:45.719 --> 0:51:48.800 of it. The fox Con riots would be another episode 0:51:48.800 --> 0:51:51.520 in the never ending series of they tried not to 0:51:51.560 --> 0:51:54.360 pay us riots that are the most common one of 0:51:54.400 --> 0:51:58.400 the most common forms of workers protests in China. Instead, 0:51:58.760 --> 0:52:02.719 on Thanksgiving Day in the United States, videos started to 0:52:02.760 --> 0:52:05.400 circulate of a fire in a residential block in a 0:52:05.520 --> 0:52:09.160 room Sheet, the capital of shing Jong. There are several 0:52:09.239 --> 0:52:12.359 videos of the fire. In one that journalists were able 0:52:12.400 --> 0:52:15.400 to verify, you can hear people screaming from inside the 0:52:15.400 --> 0:52:18.080 building as they tried and failed to escape the flames. 0:52:19.400 --> 0:52:22.320 Further videos showed that cops had barricaded off the streets 0:52:22.360 --> 0:52:24.960 with metal wires as a way to enforcing John's one 0:52:25.040 --> 0:52:28.480 hundred day long lockdown, which prevented firefighters from getting to 0:52:28.520 --> 0:52:33.120 the scene. Firefighters can be seen firing water hoses at 0:52:33.120 --> 0:52:36.120 the building, only for the hoses arc to fall shorts 0:52:36.560 --> 0:52:39.800 trapped behind barricades that prevented them from getting any closer. 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:43.640 Speculation about whether the doors of the apartment building themselves 0:52:43.640 --> 0:52:46.680 have been sealed shut with locks or barricaded from the outside, 0:52:47.000 --> 0:52:49.279 as had happened to so many other people's homes during 0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:53.120 the lockdown, ran rampant. One video I saw from another 0:52:53.160 --> 0:52:56.319 city appeared to show workers and has met suits who 0:52:56.400 --> 0:53:00.239 become known as the Big Whites, literally welding someone's door 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:03.560 shut to keep them in. To make matters worse, the 0:53:03.600 --> 0:53:06.600 head of the roomsche city Fire Rescue department blamed the 0:53:06.640 --> 0:53:11.200 families for their own deaths, saying quote some residents abilities 0:53:11.239 --> 0:53:15.200 to rescue themselves were too weak. These are the videos 0:53:15.440 --> 0:53:18.600 the fragments of Nightmares brought to life that started the 0:53:18.640 --> 0:53:22.880 mass protests. This is a revolution scene at thirty second intervals. 0:53:23.200 --> 0:53:26.359 Everyone is trying to beat the sensors, clips float back 0:53:26.360 --> 0:53:29.640 and forth between weach at, Twitter telegram back to weach 0:53:29.640 --> 0:53:33.880 hat again. Ironically, many sensors were ready home for the weekend, 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:36.760 allowing clips and posts that otherwise would have been removed 0:53:36.760 --> 0:53:41.239 immediately to circulate for hours and sometimes even days. These 0:53:41.280 --> 0:53:44.000 brought back the memory of the third Spark, the one 0:53:44.040 --> 0:53:46.800 that's basically been forgotten about in the West, if anyone 0:53:46.880 --> 0:53:48.800 even cared to know about it in the first place. 0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:51.800 In September, a bus full of people with COVID and 0:53:51.840 --> 0:53:55.560 Guangzho that the government was shipping to a quarantine center 0:53:55.640 --> 0:53:59.960 crashed and killed twenty seven people, wounding twenty others. Condition 0:54:00.200 --> 0:54:02.880 in these centers, which COVID patients are often forced to 0:54:02.880 --> 0:54:06.200 go to rather than quarantining in their homes, are atrocious. 0:54:06.640 --> 0:54:10.120 Pictures and videos circulate constantly of bathrooms covered in human 0:54:10.160 --> 0:54:13.600 ship from failing drainage systems, as China's already over tax 0:54:13.680 --> 0:54:16.360 medical systems simply failed to keep up with the demands 0:54:16.360 --> 0:54:20.480 on a place by the government, which, like the American government, 0:54:20.680 --> 0:54:24.759 has and continues to systematically refuse to invest in medical infrastructure. 0:54:25.719 --> 0:54:29.480 Intimate familiarity with these wretched conditions and the raw horror 0:54:29.520 --> 0:54:32.440 at the deaths and Shing John and Guangzho sparked protests 0:54:32.440 --> 0:54:35.840 across the country. In a room sheet and now seventy 0:54:35.920 --> 0:54:40.480 percent Han City under constant police occupation, Han protesters appeared 0:54:40.480 --> 0:54:43.279 to be moved in solidarity with the weaker families killed 0:54:43.280 --> 0:54:46.040 in the fire, and fought the police with a ferocity 0:54:46.200 --> 0:54:49.720 unmatched anywhere but the migrant worker villages of Guangzho along 0:54:49.760 --> 0:54:53.200 the Parer River Delta, one of China's great manufacturing hubs. 0:54:54.080 --> 0:54:57.360 These desperate struggles were given relatively little attention by a 0:54:57.400 --> 0:55:01.640 Western media class enamored with the image of students carrying blank, 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:05.040 white pieces of paper to protest the censorship, a common 0:55:05.080 --> 0:55:08.919 form of protests in places like Hong Kong. This time, 0:55:08.960 --> 0:55:11.919 at least, they were tied to a particularly funny piece 0:55:11.960 --> 0:55:16.160 of media censorship. As protests mounted, people started posting an 0:55:16.280 --> 0:55:19.640 article version of a speech by Mao called let the 0:55:19.680 --> 0:55:23.759 People Speak, the Sky will not Fall. Chinese censors quickly 0:55:23.840 --> 0:55:27.000 ran into a classic CCP problem, which is that in 0:55:27.040 --> 0:55:31.440 a state whose heroes are communist revolutionaries, celebrated historical figures 0:55:31.440 --> 0:55:34.920 produced an immense repertoire of slogans and quotes for subsequent 0:55:34.960 --> 0:55:38.960 generations and revolutionaries to draw from, which has caused the CCP, 0:55:39.120 --> 0:55:41.640 at various points in time to ban the opening of 0:55:41.680 --> 0:55:45.160 its own national anthem arise Ye who refused to be 0:55:45.239 --> 0:55:49.200 slaves as sensors banned Let the people speak, the sky 0:55:49.239 --> 0:55:52.239 will not fall. People began posting the article, but with 0:55:52.280 --> 0:55:55.560 the words replaced by squares. This too was also deleted 0:55:56.320 --> 0:55:59.600 and then posting simply blanks white squares themselves, which saw 0:55:59.640 --> 0:56:02.320 their if auction in the students in the streets. The 0:56:02.440 --> 0:56:06.160 CCP in turn retreated to its traditional tactic of blaming 0:56:06.160 --> 0:56:09.720 the protests on foreign forces interfering in China, a claim 0:56:09.719 --> 0:56:12.000 which is less incredible on a country that has rolled 0:56:12.040 --> 0:56:15.360 up the CIA's entire in country intelligence network at least 0:56:15.360 --> 0:56:19.080 once in the last decade. There's an incredible exchange has 0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:21.319 made the rounds between a cop who is telling a 0:56:21.360 --> 0:56:24.240 group of protesters that there are quote foreign forces around 0:56:24.320 --> 0:56:28.160 manipulating the protests, who is immediately yelled at by a 0:56:28.200 --> 0:56:32.240 guy screaming who are the foreign forces? Marks and angles 0:56:32.440 --> 0:56:36.560 Stalin and Lenin. Another man appears and asks, Hi, can 0:56:36.600 --> 0:56:38.759 I ask if it was foreign forces who started the 0:56:38.760 --> 0:56:42.719 fire in Shing? John was the Guigo bus overturned by 0:56:42.760 --> 0:56:46.480 foreign forces. Another man grabs the mic and says, was 0:56:46.520 --> 0:56:49.560 everyone told to come here by foreign forces? The crowd 0:56:49.560 --> 0:56:54.279 shouts no. He then makes an incredibly obvious point, We 0:56:54.320 --> 0:56:57.360 can't even access to foreign internets. How are foreign forces 0:56:57.400 --> 0:57:00.400 meant to be communicating with us? Another man says, we 0:57:00.480 --> 0:57:03.840 only have domestic forces, not allowing us to govern themselves. 0:57:04.200 --> 0:57:08.840 Where are these foreign forces from the moon? Still managing 0:57:08.880 --> 0:57:11.759 these accusations to become a constant part of the protests, 0:57:12.160 --> 0:57:14.919 with calls from protesters to stop chanting things like down 0:57:14.920 --> 0:57:17.560 with the CCP, and attempts to keep the demands focused 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:21.760 on COVID policy like ending COVID zero. And this is 0:57:21.800 --> 0:57:24.800 where things get incredibly muddled by a Western press that 0:57:24.880 --> 0:57:27.240 decided to stop giving a shit about COVID deaths a 0:57:27.320 --> 0:57:31.040 year ago, and a set of contrarians arguing that no, actually, 0:57:31.120 --> 0:57:35.320 China's COVID policy is actually good. This entire debate hinges 0:57:35.360 --> 0:57:37.880 on the conflation of the state of government policy of 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:41.000 zero COVID, which is an attempt to stop all cases 0:57:41.040 --> 0:57:44.040 of COVID, and the actual execution of the policy, which 0:57:44.040 --> 0:57:46.320 has taken the form of a war against China's working 0:57:46.360 --> 0:57:50.880 class and a set of draconian police state abuses. One 0:57:50.960 --> 0:57:54.280 thing that Western quote unquote experts have been quick to 0:57:54.520 --> 0:57:57.480 point out is that will the CCP has to keep 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:00.480 doing COVID zero or one point five million people will die. 0:58:02.080 --> 0:58:04.160 There was a tiny bit of truth to this in 0:58:04.160 --> 0:58:07.560 that one reason Chinese COVID restriction so so harsh is 0:58:07.600 --> 0:58:10.120 that if COVID was simply let rip like it has 0:58:10.160 --> 0:58:13.240 been in the US, it would go through China's largely unvaccinated, 0:58:13.320 --> 0:58:17.760 rural elderly population like a chainsaw. And unlike in the US, 0:58:18.000 --> 0:58:20.360 if a million people died in China because the government 0:58:20.360 --> 0:58:23.080 fucked up a pandemic response, party officials would be getting 0:58:23.080 --> 0:58:25.560 beaten to death in the streets. And part of the 0:58:25.600 --> 0:58:28.440 reason for the crisis in China in the first place 0:58:28.520 --> 0:58:30.360 is that the rest of the world gave up on 0:58:30.440 --> 0:58:33.640 trying to contain COVID entirely. If the rest of the 0:58:33.680 --> 0:58:36.960 world had, you know, done their jobs and stamped out 0:58:36.960 --> 0:58:39.080 the virus, none of us would be here right now. 0:58:39.880 --> 0:58:43.680 On the other hand, no, absolutely not. You do not 0:58:43.880 --> 0:58:47.080 actually need to wield people into their houses or drag 0:58:47.160 --> 0:58:48.960 them by force out of their home so they can 0:58:49.040 --> 0:58:51.320 die and bus crashes on their way to unsafe and 0:58:51.400 --> 0:58:55.720 unsanitary pseudo hospitals with bathroom floors literally covered ship in 0:58:55.800 --> 0:58:59.320 order to contain the pandemic. Lots of pandemics across human 0:58:59.360 --> 0:59:02.840 history have contained without doing this ship just because the 0:59:02.880 --> 0:59:06.200 two great world powers have decided that the COVID responses 0:59:06.280 --> 0:59:09.640 are kill a million people by forcing everyone back to 0:59:09.680 --> 0:59:11.640 work so that no one has to actually deal with 0:59:11.640 --> 0:59:14.880 the political consequences of telling a bunch of unbelievably deranged 0:59:14.960 --> 0:59:18.920 and heavily armed fascists no and lock two people in 0:59:19.000 --> 0:59:21.080 a factory and forced them to make iPhones and then 0:59:21.120 --> 0:59:23.080 beat the absolute shit out of them when it turns 0:59:23.120 --> 0:59:25.960 out you lied to them about their pay. Doesn't mean 0:59:26.000 --> 0:59:28.160 that there aren't other options that we could take for 0:59:28.200 --> 0:59:31.760 pandemic responses if we decided to stop letting a bunch 0:59:31.760 --> 0:59:34.800 of venal and corrupt assholes rule us all. And this 0:59:34.840 --> 0:59:37.840 is something that people in China also understand. Even if 0:59:37.880 --> 0:59:40.720 the Western press corps dead set on presenting their demands 0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:44.760 as if they're American anti maskers, you can tell, obviously 0:59:45.240 --> 0:59:48.240 the Chinese protesters are not simply a copy of right 0:59:48.240 --> 0:59:51.160 wing American fascists by simply looking at a picture of 0:59:51.200 --> 0:59:53.840 a protest and seeing how many people are wearing masks. 0:59:54.680 --> 0:59:58.320 China is not the US. Regular people actually do care 0:59:58.320 --> 1:00:01.120 about containing the pandemic. This is why there is a 1:00:01.160 --> 1:00:03.600 real pandemic response in the first place, after the government 1:00:03.640 --> 1:00:06.520 utterly boshed it. If you look at the actual demands 1:00:06.560 --> 1:00:09.280 of the protesters, you will see things that normally would 1:00:09.280 --> 1:00:12.040 seem more at home with liberal American protesters attempting to 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:16.400 see pandemic restrictions enforced properly, things like our pandemic response 1:00:16.480 --> 1:00:20.320 must be based on science. But people, even people who 1:00:20.360 --> 1:00:22.520 don't want to die of a plague, do not want 1:00:22.560 --> 1:00:26.000 to be horribly abused by cops or horrifically exploited by 1:00:26.040 --> 1:00:29.400 the state and capitalists. And that, I think is something 1:00:29.480 --> 1:00:33.360 we do all understand. Only time can tell what will 1:00:33.360 --> 1:00:37.320 happen to these protests. The government is quietly making concessions 1:00:37.640 --> 1:00:40.120 and not so quietly hunting down people who took to 1:00:40.120 --> 1:00:43.640 the streets. It is entirely possible that the protest will 1:00:43.640 --> 1:00:48.240 simply die, and that in two or three years most 1:00:48.240 --> 1:00:51.160 people will have forgot they ever happened. From a sort 1:00:51.160 --> 1:00:56.800 of brutal materialist perspective, however, it seems unlikely. China's social 1:00:56.800 --> 1:00:59.200 system could function fine as long as growth was at 1:00:59.240 --> 1:01:03.640 fifteen or ten percent, or even eight percent, But when 1:01:03.640 --> 1:01:06.760 growth inevitably comes down to two percent, but the deal 1:01:06.920 --> 1:01:09.320 of keep your head down and everyone will get rich 1:01:09.560 --> 1:01:13.320 starts to look a lot less attractive. Covid is simply 1:01:13.360 --> 1:01:17.000 intensified all of the traditional contradictions in side Chinese society 1:01:17.280 --> 1:01:20.360 and made visible the horrors that previously had been obscured. 1:01:20.760 --> 1:01:23.600 And it seems unlikely that those contradictions will someday vanish. 1:01:24.400 --> 1:01:28.080 But here in the presence, the impossible continues, and every 1:01:28.160 --> 1:01:30.200 day it does is another day that the gates of 1:01:30.240 --> 1:01:35.560 possibility in h a bit further open. This espina could 1:01:35.600 --> 1:01:37.919 happened here. You can find us that happened here pot 1:01:37.960 --> 1:01:41.200 on Twitter or Instagram. We have a website closoned Media 1:01:41.280 --> 1:01:43.280 dot com where you can see the sources for this 1:01:43.360 --> 1:01:46.480 In other episodes, Enjoy your week, and remember that you 1:01:46.560 --> 1:02:09.840 too can defeat your own ruling class. It could happen here. 1:02:10.320 --> 1:02:16.520 Rail Strike Edition. I'm Robert Evans, Garrison, Davis, Chris. How 1:02:16.520 --> 1:02:19.240 are we all? How are we all doing? How's this? 1:02:19.880 --> 1:02:22.720 We were talking about a rail strike today. We're praying, 1:02:23.720 --> 1:02:26.680 we're praying for it. It hasn't happened. If you're listening 1:02:26.680 --> 1:02:29.040 to this, you probably know the broad strokes of this, 1:02:29.120 --> 1:02:31.320 which is that the people who make the trains go, 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:34.120 and by the way, trains are like a critical part 1:02:34.120 --> 1:02:36.240 of us all not starving to death or running out 1:02:36.240 --> 1:02:38.640 of insulin or whatever. The people who make those trains 1:02:38.640 --> 1:02:40.760 go have a pretty hard job and there's not a 1:02:40.760 --> 1:02:43.520 lot of them. And for a variety of reasons, that 1:02:43.640 --> 1:02:47.040 boiled down to companies not wanting to spend money. Uh, 1:02:47.080 --> 1:02:50.080 it's impossible for that. They don't get sick days. Um, 1:02:50.160 --> 1:02:52.520 So there were a bunch of other ship things like 1:02:52.600 --> 1:02:55.400 things that were shipped about the job, including pay, especially 1:02:55.440 --> 1:02:58.760 since rail company profits have been at like record levels, 1:02:59.160 --> 1:03:02.520 so they were threatening to strike. There were union negotiations. 1:03:02.840 --> 1:03:05.720 Some of the union leaders reached an agreement with the 1:03:05.800 --> 1:03:10.280 rail companies, but it wasn't it didn't include the sick days. 1:03:10.800 --> 1:03:15.200 So a lot of workers, potentially most of them are, 1:03:15.640 --> 1:03:18.720 we're at least willing to strike. And then Biden came 1:03:18.760 --> 1:03:22.560 in and had Congress basically say do the same thing 1:03:22.600 --> 1:03:25.120 Reagan did to the air traffic controllers in the eighties, 1:03:25.120 --> 1:03:28.440 where it's like, no, if you strike, it's illegal because 1:03:28.760 --> 1:03:32.919 this is a too critical a service for the country. Anyway, 1:03:32.960 --> 1:03:35.680 that's broadly the situation. Chris, you know this a lot 1:03:35.720 --> 1:03:39.640 better than I, the most pro labor president, the most 1:03:39.640 --> 1:03:43.240 pro labor precord. Okay, this is I think this is 1:03:43.240 --> 1:03:47.640 actually like that's that's why I don't like, that's my knowledge, 1:03:47.680 --> 1:03:49.680 and I think that's close to a layman's knowledge. So 1:03:49.720 --> 1:03:52.400 I'm waiting for you to fill in the gap. All right, 1:03:52.440 --> 1:03:55.080 let's let's let's start with what Biden has actually done, 1:03:55.120 --> 1:03:57.720 because it's it's it's slightly different than what Reagan was 1:03:57.760 --> 1:04:00.600 doing there with the air traffic controllers. Um. Part of 1:04:00.640 --> 1:04:03.040 the reason everything is fucked up with the railroads is that, 1:04:03.920 --> 1:04:07.560 like railroads almost since their inception have had like an 1:04:07.600 --> 1:04:12.120 almost entirely different regulatory framework than like anything else. So 1:04:12.320 --> 1:04:15.080 you know, your normal strike is covered by the National 1:04:15.120 --> 1:04:17.600 Labor Relations Act, Right, you go through your National Labor 1:04:17.600 --> 1:04:20.560 Relations Board, you do your votes, blah blah blah blah. Uh. 1:04:20.600 --> 1:04:23.160 If your railroad workers are not covered by that, they're 1:04:23.200 --> 1:04:26.640 covered something by something called the Railway Labor Act, which 1:04:26.720 --> 1:04:30.080 lets Congress just be like no, fuck you, you have 1:04:30.160 --> 1:04:32.320 to take this contract and the other thing it does. 1:04:32.480 --> 1:04:34.240 I mean, there is like a it is a oh 1:04:34.280 --> 1:04:37.520 I didn't realize that so well before, so well before, 1:04:37.640 --> 1:04:40.480 like you know, the modern era, and Reagan did his 1:04:40.480 --> 1:04:43.560 ship with the air traffic controllers. There was a it 1:04:43.600 --> 1:04:46.000 was written into the law that Congress could say like, yeah, 1:04:46.000 --> 1:04:48.560 you're a to a rail strike. That's really interesting, I guess. 1:04:48.560 --> 1:04:50.440 And it goes back to the days when they were 1:04:51.120 --> 1:04:54.000 literally making them out of human bones. Yeah. I mean 1:04:54.280 --> 1:04:57.360 it's been so it's been amended over time, and it's 1:04:57.440 --> 1:04:59.200 changed a bit. And there's some other stuff that happened 1:04:59.200 --> 1:05:01.080 in the nineties. After there's a there's a there's a 1:05:01.080 --> 1:05:03.120 failed rail strike in the nineties where Congress is also 1:05:03.160 --> 1:05:05.160 just like no, fuck you, you have to take this contract. 1:05:05.920 --> 1:05:09.800 But yeah, the the important thing about this is that like, okay, 1:05:09.920 --> 1:05:13.080 so in order to even potentially strike, you have to 1:05:13.120 --> 1:05:16.480 go through so much bullshit. It's called self help in 1:05:16.520 --> 1:05:19.000 the law. Like the people have been trying to strike 1:05:19.040 --> 1:05:22.080 for two years, and everything that we're seeing now is 1:05:22.120 --> 1:05:25.120 the product of two years of bullshit of these like 1:05:25.160 --> 1:05:27.120 there's all of this nonsense you have to go through. 1:05:27.160 --> 1:05:29.800 There's these like cooling off mandatory cooling off periods. You 1:05:29.840 --> 1:05:32.800 can't like, uh, you know, you have to like wait 1:05:32.840 --> 1:05:34.080 before you do anything else, and you you have to go 1:05:34.080 --> 1:05:35.400 to the next step, the next step, and the final 1:05:35.480 --> 1:05:38.920 step is Joe Biden had the choice to either let 1:05:38.920 --> 1:05:41.120 these rail workers strike and actually get the things that 1:05:41.160 --> 1:05:43.320 they fucking needed, or he could tell them to funk 1:05:43.360 --> 1:05:46.240 off and just eat a contract. And that that that 1:05:46.240 --> 1:05:48.520 that's what's happened right now, is that Joe Biden has 1:05:48.560 --> 1:05:52.040 just and also again with the support of both houses 1:05:52.040 --> 1:05:55.680 of Congress. And I also like explicitly want to mention 1:05:55.720 --> 1:05:58.360 here that a lot a lot of nominally socialist politicians, 1:05:58.400 --> 1:06:03.080 including like a lot of social Democrats vote talk about 1:06:03.080 --> 1:06:05.240 that too, because that that's that's another part of it. 1:06:05.280 --> 1:06:08.400 That again, so my my surface and I guess I'm 1:06:08.400 --> 1:06:11.520 playing playing the podcast idiot in this one, which is 1:06:11.560 --> 1:06:14.960 not abnormal for me. But my like layman's understanding of 1:06:14.960 --> 1:06:17.640 what happened with this is that, uh, there was a 1:06:17.640 --> 1:06:20.760 bill up in Congress as to whether or not to 1:06:20.880 --> 1:06:24.800 endorse this, and uh a bunch of progressives said that 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:27.760 they wouldn't vote on it unless it included seven days 1:06:27.880 --> 1:06:32.200 of paid sick leave, including Sanders that got pushed off 1:06:32.240 --> 1:06:35.680 into a separate bill, and there was like some kind 1:06:35.760 --> 1:06:38.080 of sketchy wording about like well we won't you know, 1:06:38.640 --> 1:06:42.040 like I I don't, I don't understand the congressional hijinks, 1:06:42.040 --> 1:06:44.520 but I know they just wound up voting for the 1:06:45.000 --> 1:06:49.479 the negotiate like what the union had negotiated without any 1:06:49.520 --> 1:06:52.760 sick leaf like it. Yeah, Like it seems like it 1:06:52.840 --> 1:06:55.240 kind of provided an opportunity for a bunch of progressives 1:06:55.600 --> 1:06:58.560 in the House to vote yes on the sick leave 1:06:58.640 --> 1:07:00.520 knowing that it wouldn't pass the sent it and knowing 1:07:00.560 --> 1:07:02.400 that the strike would still get stopped. Right Like what 1:07:02.400 --> 1:07:05.120 am I um? I mean it's basically that like the 1:07:05.800 --> 1:07:08.840 I'm not a congress nowhere. Yeah, I mean, there there's 1:07:08.880 --> 1:07:10.600 a bunch of sort of hiji inks that were happening 1:07:10.600 --> 1:07:13.000 in Congress where there's there's a slightly different version of 1:07:13.040 --> 1:07:14.680 the bill in the House, and they had this whole thing. 1:07:15.520 --> 1:07:19.600 But okay, the House, the House one for sick leaved 1:07:19.680 --> 1:07:23.400 did pass with support of every Yeah, and it's three 1:07:23.880 --> 1:07:27.600 three Republicans. But okay, the thing I think I want 1:07:27.600 --> 1:07:28.840 to point out here and I want to move away 1:07:28.880 --> 1:07:30.320 from the sick leave thing, because the sick. That's the 1:07:30.320 --> 1:07:32.200 fact that these people don't have sick leave is important. 1:07:32.600 --> 1:07:35.240 This is also not like the main thing the strike 1:07:35.320 --> 1:07:38.320 was about, like things are, things are things are so 1:07:38.440 --> 1:07:40.240 much worse like things are, things are so much like 1:07:40.280 --> 1:07:44.840 infinitely worse than people like at all understands. Like what 1:07:44.920 --> 1:07:46.920 the thing that the thing that's real strike is about, 1:07:46.960 --> 1:07:49.280 if you if you go like actually talk to the 1:07:49.280 --> 1:07:52.360 people who are doing it, is that these people are 1:07:52.400 --> 1:07:55.480 on call for nine of their lives, like and and 1:07:55.560 --> 1:07:57.240 when I say nine percent of their lives, they're on 1:07:57.320 --> 1:08:00.760 call while they were asleep. They're on call constant. Uh, 1:08:00.800 --> 1:08:02.400 there's there's there's no way to even there's no way 1:08:02.400 --> 1:08:04.200 to plan a consistant sly schedule because you can just 1:08:04.320 --> 1:08:07.520 be on call and you know, and part part part 1:08:07.560 --> 1:08:08.760 of what's going on here. And if if you read 1:08:08.760 --> 1:08:10.880 the sort of detailed accounts, you will see a lot 1:08:10.920 --> 1:08:14.480 of people talking about this thing called precision scheduled railroading. Yeah, 1:08:14.520 --> 1:08:20.120 precision scheduled railroading was it was a great theory kind 1:08:20.160 --> 1:08:26.439 of that was implemented so atrociously badly. It's basically fucked 1:08:26.520 --> 1:08:29.760 like the entire economy. Um that the idea behind it 1:08:29.800 --> 1:08:31.960 was like you could you could schedule when like a 1:08:32.040 --> 1:08:34.920 freight railroad was going to go right, and this this 1:08:34.960 --> 1:08:36.840 would give you a bunch of efficiency bonuses. You could 1:08:36.840 --> 1:08:40.840 plan like you could schedule things around each other. Um, 1:08:40.880 --> 1:08:42.960 this just didn't happen people implementing it. But what they 1:08:43.000 --> 1:08:48.720 implemented was just this nightmarror like amalgamation of we're going 1:08:48.760 --> 1:08:51.320 to reduce a bunch of staff and then we're going 1:08:51.400 --> 1:08:55.439 to make these trains that have like two cars on them. 1:08:55.520 --> 1:08:57.920 And this has been a catastrophe. It's called monster trains 1:08:57.960 --> 1:09:01.200 that there's there's Justin Rosniak, who's podcast doesn't see it 1:09:01.400 --> 1:09:03.479 doesn't seem like a good solution to the problem of 1:09:03.840 --> 1:09:06.559 not enough guys to make trains work is make the 1:09:06.640 --> 1:09:11.479 trains huge. Yeah, it's like it's just denorable train crap. 1:09:11.560 --> 1:09:14.680 It's awful. Again, these are your tw orter trains long right, 1:09:14.680 --> 1:09:16.120 so if if you don't get the weight you ship 1:09:16.160 --> 1:09:18.120 you should write, the train will fucking fall over. They 1:09:18.200 --> 1:09:20.080 keep doing this this this has been happening for like 1:09:20.160 --> 1:09:22.800 several years now. Is there's just trains everywhere derailing. There's 1:09:22.840 --> 1:09:24.880 like no coverage of it. The reason, you know, you know, 1:09:25.080 --> 1:09:27.160 you know, you know where I knew that from Chris 1:09:27.240 --> 1:09:29.680 Garrison will tell you when I get when I get 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:31.800 drunk or something late at night. My favorite thing to 1:09:31.800 --> 1:09:35.040 watch his videos of trains hitting stuff and train crashes 1:09:35.040 --> 1:09:37.960 are amazing to watch. It's incredible to think of all 1:09:37.960 --> 1:09:40.759 the human ingenuity it took to make that big, big boom. 1:09:40.840 --> 1:09:44.920 There's thousands of videos on YouTube of cool cargo getting 1:09:44.960 --> 1:09:49.360 stuck on train tracks and train happening through there yea 1:09:51.040 --> 1:09:56.439 boxes being pulverized in the air, they vaporized. It's so cool. 1:09:57.640 --> 1:09:59.760 So the downside is that one day we're going to 1:09:59.840 --> 1:10:01.559 have one of these trains that is run by a 1:10:01.600 --> 1:10:03.200 person who has had three hours of sleep in the 1:10:03.280 --> 1:10:05.759 last forty eight hours, and it's going to be caring, 1:10:05.840 --> 1:10:08.599 like fucking I don't know, it's gonna be carrying like 1:10:08.800 --> 1:10:11.040 sodium nitrate on it or some ship and it's just 1:10:11.080 --> 1:10:12.960 going to explode and it is going to kill enormous 1:10:12.960 --> 1:10:15.439 every pole. That just actually happened in Canada like a 1:10:15.439 --> 1:10:18.799 decade ago. But yeah, like these trains are too big. 1:10:18.920 --> 1:10:21.280 They're so big they don't fit in the fucking rail yards. 1:10:21.960 --> 1:10:24.280 Like they're so big that most the training infrastructure doesn't 1:10:24.280 --> 1:10:27.519 work for them. They are so everything is okay. They're 1:10:27.520 --> 1:10:30.200 they're really really really badly planned, despite the fact that 1:10:30.200 --> 1:10:33.840 this is supposed to be precision scheduled railroading. Like they're 1:10:33.920 --> 1:10:37.160 unbelievably badly planned. You have people just like being forced 1:10:37.160 --> 1:10:39.639 to just like sit there for twelve hours in a train, 1:10:40.120 --> 1:10:42.120 like waiting for the rest of like the other like 1:10:42.200 --> 1:10:44.040 ninety five cars that are supposed to be on this 1:10:44.120 --> 1:10:46.519 train to show up. You know. The whole situation just 1:10:46.520 --> 1:10:48.280 like it is utterly nightmares. And the ever thing about this, 1:10:48.360 --> 1:10:50.280 right is, if you're an engineer, right, and you're in 1:10:50.280 --> 1:10:52.559 one of these trains and you're sitting there for twelve 1:10:52.600 --> 1:10:55.280 fucking hours in this train, you legally can't have your 1:10:55.280 --> 1:10:57.760 phone because you know, I mean, this is a safety thing, right, 1:10:57.760 --> 1:10:59.120 And in some sense this makes sense. It's like a 1:10:59.120 --> 1:11:01.640 safety measure. You can't of your phone because you know, 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:03.240 you can't be distracted what you're driving. But you're just 1:11:03.280 --> 1:11:06.679 sucking sitting on the tracks for like twelve hours, and 1:11:06.760 --> 1:11:08.360 you know this this this stuff is, you know, and 1:11:08.400 --> 1:11:10.200 the fact that the fact that people are on call constantly, 1:11:10.240 --> 1:11:12.360 the fact that the entire rail network is just physically 1:11:12.400 --> 1:11:15.080 falling apart because the other thing about these trains rise 1:11:15.080 --> 1:11:16.680 they make an enormous amount of money. None of them 1:11:16.680 --> 1:11:18.800 ever fucking show up on time. It's a disgaster. It's 1:11:18.800 --> 1:11:21.240 a catastrophe, like like like genuinely like part of the 1:11:21.240 --> 1:11:23.639 reason why we're having all these supply issues is that 1:11:23.720 --> 1:11:26.080 no train has fucking showed up on time in like 1:11:26.120 --> 1:11:30.640 four years. And it's a new contract. It's okay that 1:11:30.920 --> 1:11:34.320 the new contracts signed in says that workers can have 1:11:34.560 --> 1:11:38.920 up to three unpaid days off for medical appointments. Oh wow, 1:11:39.400 --> 1:11:45.439 that's something. It's a three unpaid tab stays off from 1:11:45.439 --> 1:11:50.559 pre made medical appointments. Yeah, none for whatever. Yeah. And 1:11:50.560 --> 1:11:53.200 again like like like these people are on call for 1:11:53.840 --> 1:11:56.160 pent of their lives. You can't even like like you 1:11:56.200 --> 1:11:58.840 can't schedule when you're going to sleep because you might 1:11:58.880 --> 1:12:01.160 be on call, and call might be you have to 1:12:01.240 --> 1:12:05.360 fucking like drive like several hours to a place so 1:12:05.400 --> 1:12:07.400 you can get on a train, and the train cannot leave, 1:12:07.439 --> 1:12:09.479 and the train eventually leaves like six hours later, and 1:12:09.520 --> 1:12:11.320 you fucking drive and then you're just like dropped off 1:12:11.320 --> 1:12:13.840 somewhere in the middle of nowhere and then unpaid, you 1:12:13.840 --> 1:12:16.640 have to go back to like where you live. It 1:12:16.760 --> 1:12:20.120 is like, like, Okay, the thing, the thing I wanted 1:12:20.120 --> 1:12:25.360 to get out of this is like the railroading system 1:12:25.439 --> 1:12:27.920 in general, that the system of freight railroading that we 1:12:27.960 --> 1:12:30.440 have in the US is in the midst of collapsing. 1:12:30.600 --> 1:12:33.679 Like it it is falling apart, It is not working, 1:12:33.760 --> 1:12:37.639 it is is becoming increasingly dangerous. It is I mean, 1:12:37.760 --> 1:12:41.200 utterly inhumane for the people working on it. And and 1:12:41.280 --> 1:12:43.280 you know, none of the fucking even this even the 1:12:43.320 --> 1:12:46.240 sick Bowl contract, like didn't do anything for it. Right, 1:12:46.280 --> 1:12:48.680 The only way this actually could have been resolved is 1:12:48.680 --> 1:12:50.439 if Joe Biden and in a fifth the Democrats and 1:12:50.439 --> 1:12:52.680 if Congress hadn't been fucking cowards and had let these 1:12:52.680 --> 1:12:56.559 people strike because these kinds of concessions like and you know, 1:12:56.600 --> 1:12:58.559 I also like, I don't want to let the fucking 1:12:58.640 --> 1:13:00.559 unions off the hook here to be because they know 1:13:00.640 --> 1:13:02.880 all of this. But again, most of the sort of 1:13:02.920 --> 1:13:04.800 like senior union people are very tight with a very 1:13:04.840 --> 1:13:06.599 tight with Democratic Party. This is part of why all 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:09.439 of this ship was postponed till after the elections, because 1:13:09.600 --> 1:13:11.200 they didn't, you know, they didn't want to deal with 1:13:11.240 --> 1:13:12.960 this ship. They've been trying to force people to sign 1:13:13.000 --> 1:13:15.800 these contract too, and it's it's it's a ship show. 1:13:15.840 --> 1:13:20.599 It is a just absolute catastrophe on on every every level. Yeah. 1:13:20.680 --> 1:13:24.000 I mean, it's almost as if the rail system probably 1:13:24.040 --> 1:13:29.200 shouldn't be run by private interests. Yeah, because there's going 1:13:29.240 --> 1:13:33.240 to be now a hundred hundred rail workers who are 1:13:33.240 --> 1:13:36.439 forced to work under these still not great conditions. Meanwhile, 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:39.320 the managers and the owners of the railroads get to 1:13:39.520 --> 1:13:42.439 go back to just making tons of money. Yeah, and 1:13:42.600 --> 1:13:45.559 again record profits. None of this is happening. Not that 1:13:45.560 --> 1:13:47.040 that would make it okay, but none of this is 1:13:47.080 --> 1:13:49.639 happening in an environment well, well, you know, we're running 1:13:49.640 --> 1:13:51.559 at a loss, and we we have no money and 1:13:51.600 --> 1:13:54.519 no ability to like like they have. They're making hundreds 1:13:54.520 --> 1:13:56.760 of billions of dollars profits like this is this is 1:13:56.800 --> 1:13:59.000 like one of the most profitable times to run a railroad, 1:13:59.000 --> 1:14:02.040 and US can thence and devise more people to be 1:14:02.320 --> 1:14:05.280 railroad road workers if the job isn't a fucking nightmare. 1:14:05.320 --> 1:14:08.080 For example, what if instead of not being able to 1:14:08.120 --> 1:14:10.960 have their phones, we gave each of them a DVD 1:14:11.040 --> 1:14:14.240 player in a screen with a DVD of Step Brothers 1:14:14.320 --> 1:14:16.280 and they could watch step Brothers as much as they 1:14:16.320 --> 1:14:18.679 want while piloting a train. I think that would actually 1:14:19.120 --> 1:14:22.400 get I think that would cause mass mass layoff set 1:14:22.720 --> 1:14:28.080 a rail yard. That's that's how we get the strike. 1:14:28.200 --> 1:14:31.559 We include this in the next provision for destruction. I 1:14:31.600 --> 1:14:35.240 was I was stealthy in my accelerationist beliefs here. This 1:14:35.280 --> 1:14:40.439 is the fastest way he can transit infrastructure. He got 1:14:40.479 --> 1:14:43.360 like two years before this holding fucking implodes anyways, because 1:14:43.800 --> 1:14:46.280 part part of what's keeping people in the railroading system 1:14:46.479 --> 1:14:49.960 is that so railroading also has its own pension system 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:53.080 that's like disconnected from the regular pension system, and you 1:14:53.320 --> 1:14:54.800 have to you have to work there for ten years 1:14:54.760 --> 1:14:57.120 in order to collector pension. This is why like enormous 1:14:57.160 --> 1:15:00.240 numbers of people just haven't left, right. People have been leaving, right, 1:15:00.720 --> 1:15:02.880 But there's a there's a huge number of people who 1:15:02.880 --> 1:15:05.800 were hiring these giant expansion in two thousand four, and 1:15:06.400 --> 1:15:08.759 you know, like we're two years out from that contract 1:15:08.760 --> 1:15:10.200 from from all these people being able to collect their 1:15:10.200 --> 1:15:14.200 pensions and fucking leaving. Yeah, that's it's like, this is 1:15:14.240 --> 1:15:17.799 the only chance I have to ever not work myself 1:15:17.840 --> 1:15:21.080 to death, so I have to tough it out. But yeah, yeah, 1:15:21.080 --> 1:15:22.880 but these those those people are those people are going 1:15:22.920 --> 1:15:24.040 to leave, and you know, this is this is the 1:15:24.080 --> 1:15:26.240 sort of like this is the sort of hammer that 1:15:26.280 --> 1:15:29.040 capitalism has built over its own head, which is that like, yeah, 1:15:29.080 --> 1:15:33.280 congratulations you you successfully flexibilized and casualized your entire workforce. 1:15:33.680 --> 1:15:36.760 That means that if people like don't want to do 1:15:36.840 --> 1:15:39.719 your shitty job, they can leave and find another job. 1:15:40.240 --> 1:15:42.640 And at some point, like there are there is a 1:15:42.680 --> 1:15:45.080 ship that in this economy that like actually does need 1:15:45.120 --> 1:15:47.720 to be done. But these people have been sort of 1:15:47.760 --> 1:15:50.519 like so blinded by just like you know, they're so 1:15:50.760 --> 1:15:53.120 so blinded by Lyne grow goes up. They're so blinded 1:15:53.160 --> 1:15:56.600 by short term profit that they really don't understand that 1:15:56.680 --> 1:15:58.839 at some point there's just not gonna be fucking workers 1:15:58.840 --> 1:16:01.120 to run the railroad. Yeah. I mean a lot of 1:16:01.120 --> 1:16:04.439 this situation is built off of and instead of being 1:16:04.439 --> 1:16:06.920 compared to Reagan's stuff for their traffic controllers, it's actually 1:16:06.960 --> 1:16:09.640 more similar to what Carter did with some with some 1:16:09.760 --> 1:16:14.519 airline workers. Um. Then also with the with the nineteen 1:16:14.600 --> 1:16:19.240 eight kind of a Railroad de Regulation act um which 1:16:19.360 --> 1:16:21.280 which caused would would you which gave a lot more 1:16:21.320 --> 1:16:25.640 power to companies to run the railroads. And that's that 1:16:25.840 --> 1:16:28.880 is what kind of shifted shifted things to our to 1:16:28.960 --> 1:16:31.720 our current, our current problem because they were they gave 1:16:31.760 --> 1:16:34.920 permission for these rail companies to close down lines that 1:16:34.960 --> 1:16:39.000 were less profitable and to set their own um freight rates. 1:16:39.080 --> 1:16:42.679 And it's it's not being controlled by the inter State 1:16:42.680 --> 1:16:47.120 Commerce Commission. Instead it's being controlled by execuity. That that 1:16:47.200 --> 1:16:50.439 thing's weird, right because like, on the one hand, like 1:16:50.520 --> 1:16:53.160 the wave of corporatesalidation that happened after that is like 1:16:53.160 --> 1:16:55.200 a disaster, and the fact that there's basically like four 1:16:55.280 --> 1:16:58.160 real like rail companies now is a disaster. On the 1:16:58.200 --> 1:16:59.799 other hand, like it is also true that the Interstate 1:16:59.760 --> 1:17:04.559 Common Board was like dogshitted his jaws, it also s yes, 1:17:04.640 --> 1:17:06.920 absolutely it sucked, and for a short period of time 1:17:07.160 --> 1:17:12.599 it actually did improve things. But now it's it's it's 1:17:12.640 --> 1:17:16.560 it's powers coalescing again into the very types of monopolies 1:17:16.600 --> 1:17:22.040 that caused the that caused railroad regulation to be necessary 1:17:22.160 --> 1:17:24.799 back in the nineteenth century. Like in the first place, 1:17:25.320 --> 1:17:29.879 um power is being consolidated again, and it's it's this vicious, 1:17:30.000 --> 1:17:34.680 vicious cycle that are that fundamentally puts short term profits 1:17:34.720 --> 1:17:39.920 above of the conditions of workers. Yeah, I think, like, 1:17:40.200 --> 1:17:43.559 you know, Okay, so there have been a lot of 1:17:43.560 --> 1:17:45.760 people talking about like what the potential solutions to this 1:17:45.840 --> 1:17:50.679 are in a sort of macro sense, because like, okay, 1:17:50.680 --> 1:17:54.240 even even even with a better contract, right, like, something 1:17:54.280 --> 1:17:56.479 actually has to be done in order to force the 1:17:56.560 --> 1:18:00.400 railroads to not fucking suck and to like actually properly 1:18:00.439 --> 1:18:03.960 scheduled our goddamn trains and not work if one to death. 1:18:04.640 --> 1:18:06.960 And you know, I want to put that it is 1:18:06.960 --> 1:18:10.599 worth noting like we actually did like have national nationalized 1:18:10.640 --> 1:18:14.320 railroad company for a while, and it was kind of 1:18:14.360 --> 1:18:18.599 a ship show like it. Okay, Okay, this is something 1:18:18.600 --> 1:18:20.280 that's also important. Think about this, Like there's a lot 1:18:20.320 --> 1:18:23.080 of like there's a lot of different kinds of nationalization, 1:18:23.600 --> 1:18:26.920 right Like there there there was a huge difference between 1:18:27.000 --> 1:18:29.760 a firm that's like like you know, like we we 1:18:29.760 --> 1:18:32.439 we we sort of technically nationalized a bunch of the 1:18:32.479 --> 1:18:34.320 like car companies after two thousand and eight, right we 1:18:34.360 --> 1:18:37.040 bailed them out, but you know, like we like when 1:18:37.040 --> 1:18:38.720 in that stuff, we didn't really like take it. We 1:18:38.960 --> 1:18:40.960 we owned, we owned like a bunch of their stock. 1:18:41.040 --> 1:18:46.200 We didn't like take a control and like we we 1:18:46.240 --> 1:18:50.240 got like Nick tonight, like proto neoliberal nationalization of the 1:18:50.280 --> 1:18:52.479 railroads last time, and it kind of contributed to the 1:18:52.479 --> 1:18:55.479 problems we have now. There was also a period where 1:18:56.240 --> 1:19:00.919 Conrail's union was trying to like buy like the railroad, 1:19:01.800 --> 1:19:03.479 so we all we almost we almost got a railroad 1:19:03.520 --> 1:19:05.120 system that was run by its but it was owned 1:19:05.120 --> 1:19:07.559 by its own union, and then the company just like 1:19:07.600 --> 1:19:09.000 refused to sell it to them because they were like 1:19:09.040 --> 1:19:11.040 waiting to hold on, we can't have a worker run railroad. 1:19:12.200 --> 1:19:14.360 But one thing, one thing I am interested in is 1:19:14.960 --> 1:19:17.559 I I don't actually know this. What would what would 1:19:17.600 --> 1:19:20.920 the how would how would an illegal strike actually work? Like, 1:19:20.960 --> 1:19:25.400 what's what's the how? What is the differences between people 1:19:25.600 --> 1:19:29.000 striking illegally? Now, like there's some some discussion of that, 1:19:29.240 --> 1:19:31.400 who knows that's actually actually happened, But what is the 1:19:31.439 --> 1:19:35.280 main kind of difference between that and um, the non 1:19:35.360 --> 1:19:38.760 illegal strow? Okay, so the big thing is okay, So 1:19:38.960 --> 1:19:41.800 the thing about the National Labor Relations Act, right, which 1:19:41.800 --> 1:19:44.400 is the thing that covers normal strikes, was that like 1:19:44.520 --> 1:19:46.360 and this is also true to see I sat under 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:48.080 the room, but like, okay, so if you're doing a 1:19:48.160 --> 1:19:51.840 legal strike, you have legal protections, right, like there there 1:19:51.840 --> 1:19:55.960 are there are things corporations can't do to you. Um, 1:19:56.160 --> 1:19:58.719 like yeah, there there there's there's a bunch of stuff 1:19:58.760 --> 1:20:02.080 that can't Like I don't like it's it's it's a 1:20:02.080 --> 1:20:04.519 lot harder to just sort of fire people. The other 1:20:04.560 --> 1:20:09.840 thing is that also, like especially something like this, there's 1:20:09.880 --> 1:20:15.080 a like you you if you do if you do 1:20:15.080 --> 1:20:17.360 a wildcats trick like this and you you a specifically 1:20:17.360 --> 1:20:20.120 a strike that is like that is specifically illegal under 1:20:20.200 --> 1:20:24.360 this act, like you can all get fired. Um, I'm 1:20:24.800 --> 1:20:27.320 I think that I think they could technically arrest you. 1:20:28.240 --> 1:20:29.880 Like it It's it's I don't know that that part 1:20:29.920 --> 1:20:34.120 of it's not exactly clear to me, But yeah, I 1:20:34.120 --> 1:20:37.800 don't know. I mean there there's sort of like I 1:20:37.840 --> 1:20:40.240 feel like if if if they arrest you just for 1:20:40.560 --> 1:20:42.360 not going to your job, I feel like that is 1:20:43.280 --> 1:20:47.000 I mean that that has happened to people, Like I 1:20:47.120 --> 1:20:52.799 know people have been yes, like in the long history 1:20:53.080 --> 1:20:57.160 of labor struggles, people have been straight up killed. Um, 1:20:57.200 --> 1:21:02.000 but at least in you, I think it would be 1:21:02.120 --> 1:21:06.559 a bad look. Yeah, I mean I think Okay, So 1:21:06.800 --> 1:21:09.040 I mean I think where we're headed, and I think 1:21:09.080 --> 1:21:12.040 what they ought to do is just force get all 1:21:12.080 --> 1:21:15.960 of like the worst criminals, and I mean the murderers, 1:21:16.080 --> 1:21:19.519 the terrorists, all of those guys, and you make them 1:21:19.600 --> 1:21:22.040 run the trains. Whoever blew up all of those power 1:21:22.120 --> 1:21:25.479 transformers in North Carolina. You make them run the trains, 1:21:25.880 --> 1:21:28.880 and it'll be fine. Nothing bad will happen as a 1:21:28.920 --> 1:21:33.120 result of this. It'll work out perfectly well. The the 1:21:33.120 --> 1:21:36.760 the alternative plan and the thing that maybe these rail 1:21:36.760 --> 1:21:39.479 companies are just holding out for because maybe they're just 1:21:40.240 --> 1:21:43.360 making conditions be not great and underpaying and not giving 1:21:43.400 --> 1:21:46.720 sick days, is because they're waiting for trains just to 1:21:46.880 --> 1:21:50.640 become autonomous. They're already planning to severely cut down the 1:21:50.680 --> 1:21:54.599 crews that are on the trains. There's already trains in 1:21:54.720 --> 1:21:59.400 Australia that are a totally autonomously run that carry mining 1:22:00.000 --> 1:22:04.640 materials over for hundreds of miles, and that is the 1:22:04.720 --> 1:22:07.439 future that these that these companies want, because then they 1:22:07.439 --> 1:22:10.080 don't they need to pay for employees to actually run 1:22:10.120 --> 1:22:14.200 the train. Frustrating because like in an actual if we 1:22:14.200 --> 1:22:17.000 were an evening that approached a society that like dealt 1:22:17.040 --> 1:22:21.800 with things ethically and humanely, uh and equitably. Then this 1:22:22.080 --> 1:22:24.680 would be good, like because it seems like working on 1:22:24.720 --> 1:22:26.680 train sucks, and it would be great if we could 1:22:26.680 --> 1:22:30.519 automate most of that work. Uh, and then people less 1:22:30.560 --> 1:22:33.320 people would have to work in order to keep society running. 1:22:33.320 --> 1:22:38.080 But that's people don't have to work. We're just going 1:22:38.120 --> 1:22:41.000 to run through these people's bodies by like as we 1:22:41.080 --> 1:22:44.639 get up to autonomy automization, and then we will throw 1:22:44.680 --> 1:22:47.280 them away. Yeah, and then they will and then because 1:22:47.280 --> 1:22:49.880 they'll do it badly, there's going to be a disastrous 1:22:49.920 --> 1:22:51.880 train crash caused by the fact that they got all 1:22:51.880 --> 1:22:54.240 of the people off of a train hauling nitro glycerin 1:22:54.360 --> 1:22:56.840 or whatever, and it's going to destroy I don't know, 1:22:57.000 --> 1:23:00.719 duluth um, which you know, not the worst to lose, 1:23:00.800 --> 1:23:04.679 but I I sorry to Luke. Y'all are fucked well, okay, 1:23:04.880 --> 1:23:06.960 it's it's worth meesying. Like this stuff, like the automation 1:23:07.000 --> 1:23:09.640 stuff is already happening right like that we have right 1:23:09.720 --> 1:23:11.559 we have like this well and I mean it's like 1:23:11.560 --> 1:23:13.559 a very real sense that there's this sort of nightmare. 1:23:13.560 --> 1:23:15.000 Is one of the other sort of nightmare things that's 1:23:15.000 --> 1:23:18.360 going on right now, is that there are these like 1:23:18.360 --> 1:23:21.200 like I don't know, like driver assistance programs basically that 1:23:21.200 --> 1:23:24.120 are being run on trains. Now, where that are that are? 1:23:24.160 --> 1:23:26.480 You know that they're supposed to be like making decisions 1:23:26.520 --> 1:23:30.120 like for and with the drivers, but ay, they suck 1:23:30.160 --> 1:23:33.560 ass um be there. They're they're design. They're designed to 1:23:33.600 --> 1:23:37.200 basically maximize design to maximize profitability, right, And the way 1:23:37.200 --> 1:23:40.080 you maximize profitability is by running trains really really slowly, 1:23:41.320 --> 1:23:43.040 and you know that's contributing to the fact that every 1:23:43.080 --> 1:23:45.400 train is fucking late now and the phrases that doesn't work. 1:23:45.479 --> 1:23:47.200 And the third problem is that these is that these 1:23:47.240 --> 1:23:50.320 things keep fucking running trains off Like this is another 1:23:50.320 --> 1:23:52.280 reason why trains keep sucking crashing is that they suck. 1:23:52.479 --> 1:23:54.519 They keep they keep running trains off the tracks, and 1:23:54.880 --> 1:23:56.960 like you know and like that there's there's there's like 1:23:56.960 --> 1:23:59.200 there's there's a lot of ship here, right because it's 1:23:59.200 --> 1:24:03.479 like if you if you override the system, like you 1:24:03.520 --> 1:24:07.280 can you can get disciplined for for for overwriting the system. 1:24:07.320 --> 1:24:09.040 But then you have this sort of like you have 1:24:09.080 --> 1:24:10.640 this thing where it's like okay, so do I do 1:24:10.720 --> 1:24:12.880 I get disciplined for overriding system and not making the 1:24:12.920 --> 1:24:14.840 train crash, or do I just make the fucking train 1:24:14.880 --> 1:24:19.800 crash and doing the trolley problem? Yeah yeah, it's literally yeah, 1:24:19.960 --> 1:24:25.200 just like you love that this is just gonna inevitably 1:24:25.200 --> 1:24:28.120 gonna result in an exact recreation of the trolley proffle. 1:24:28.320 --> 1:24:30.000 It's already like this is already happening to people, and 1:24:30.000 --> 1:24:32.400 it's just like like it's none of the none of 1:24:32.479 --> 1:24:36.719 the stuff works automatic into this orphanage. I can divert 1:24:36.760 --> 1:24:39.360 it instead of this old folks. So it's like it's 1:24:39.400 --> 1:24:42.920 literally happening, like it's just like none of this stuff, Like, Okay. 1:24:43.080 --> 1:24:45.559 The thing that's like frustrating about this, right is okay, 1:24:45.720 --> 1:24:48.320 if any of the people at the sort of like 1:24:48.400 --> 1:24:50.720 at the level of where they're planning these trains could 1:24:50.840 --> 1:24:53.439 even sort of do their job right that this isn't 1:24:53.479 --> 1:24:56.439 even a thing that's like an inevitable contradiction between capital 1:24:56.439 --> 1:24:59.680 and labor. Like this is just if any of these 1:24:59.680 --> 1:25:03.160 people could actually fucking schedule the railroads, which is the 1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:04.800 thing they're supposed to be trying to do. If they 1:25:04.800 --> 1:25:07.519 could actually schedule when the train was supposed to go 1:25:07.640 --> 1:25:09.599 and when it was supposed to leave, you wouldn't have 1:25:09.640 --> 1:25:11.960 these problems because then all of the people who worked 1:25:12.000 --> 1:25:14.760 there would also be told when the fucking train was 1:25:14.840 --> 1:25:17.120 leaving and they could schedule around it. But no, they 1:25:17.160 --> 1:25:19.360 can't fucking do it because they're too fucking lazy, they're 1:25:19.360 --> 1:25:21.160 too fucking stupid, and they don't want to spend the 1:25:21.160 --> 1:25:23.400 money to actually make any of these systems fucking work, 1:25:23.880 --> 1:25:26.080 And so the consequence is just this bullshit. And then 1:25:26.120 --> 1:25:28.960 also because again and this is everything like that, like 1:25:29.320 --> 1:25:31.639 capital is also really falling down on the job here, 1:25:31.720 --> 1:25:34.240 because like the rest of capital needs to get their 1:25:34.240 --> 1:25:36.320 ship together and force the railroad to do something, because like, 1:25:36.600 --> 1:25:38.599 it's your asses on the line too, if this railroad 1:25:38.640 --> 1:25:41.840 then collapses. But because of because of the sort of 1:25:41.880 --> 1:25:45.200 immediate amount of money that that that these these shitty 1:25:45.280 --> 1:25:47.120 rail companies that pumped into Congress, they were able to 1:25:47.160 --> 1:25:49.800 buy people off, and the rest of capital was just like, yeah, 1:25:49.840 --> 1:25:51.760 we don't care. That's like three years out, we don't 1:25:51.800 --> 1:25:54.040 have to care about this ship. It's like guys like 1:25:54.400 --> 1:25:57.360 Bernie Sanders is fighting to save capitalism, right, These people 1:25:57.400 --> 1:26:00.479 are trying to save you from yourselves, and you know 1:26:00.520 --> 1:26:03.320 you won't won't even let That's that's their entire job, 1:26:03.360 --> 1:26:08.240 though of course it's like, yeah, what what what is 1:26:08.280 --> 1:26:11.280 happening here? Is that like is liberalism is running an 1:26:11.280 --> 1:26:14.880 acceleration is program to like cause the American American infrastructure 1:26:14.920 --> 1:26:17.320 to fall apart, and social democracy is attempting to save 1:26:17.360 --> 1:26:20.880 capital from itself, and capital was like literally fuck you 1:26:20.960 --> 1:26:25.160 eat ship. No, it's it's i've i've. I'm reading right 1:26:25.160 --> 1:26:29.280 now in interview with a railroad Workers United member and 1:26:29.280 --> 1:26:32.400 they're they're talking about how like there's this plan to increase, 1:26:32.640 --> 1:26:37.880 uh increase their pay over the next five years, and 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:41.599 he's there, like he says that lots of the railroad 1:26:41.640 --> 1:26:44.439 workers that he's talked to as a part of the 1:26:44.560 --> 1:26:48.000 union is saying, like people are willing to work for 1:26:48.120 --> 1:26:50.519 less money and take a job at like an Amazon 1:26:50.560 --> 1:26:53.719 factory or like a trucking job because at least those 1:26:53.720 --> 1:26:57.400 offer slightly more consistent hours, and like, yeah, like it's 1:26:57.439 --> 1:27:00.920 it's at least you when you're not working, you're not working. Yeah, 1:27:00.920 --> 1:27:02.840 And I just wanted to mention that because because we 1:27:02.840 --> 1:27:04.920 were bringing up like how these people are getting not 1:27:05.040 --> 1:27:07.160 very good pay, which is which is true, but for 1:27:07.240 --> 1:27:09.440 a lot of people it isn't even just to pay 1:27:09.760 --> 1:27:13.599 question it's it's it's just overall working conditions and like 1:27:13.720 --> 1:27:16.800 when you're thinking about moving to an Amazon factory instead 1:27:16.840 --> 1:27:21.439 because they have better working conditions, like oh god, yeah, 1:27:21.439 --> 1:27:27.760 it's like, I mean, they've they've managed to create like 1:27:28.160 --> 1:27:30.800 one of the worst systems that is imposed on like 1:27:30.840 --> 1:27:34.120 any worker in the country. Like it is. It is 1:27:34.400 --> 1:27:38.639 genuinely stunning. And right now again they're they're getting bailed 1:27:38.680 --> 1:27:40.439 out that people are by the fact that people are 1:27:40.479 --> 1:27:44.000 stuck in because they want their pensions. But like, but 1:27:44.080 --> 1:27:46.240 as soon as a people are done and we start 1:27:46.240 --> 1:27:48.200 moving to more autonomous things, then it's not it's not 1:27:48.200 --> 1:27:50.640 going to be worth it. I know, media companies have 1:27:50.720 --> 1:27:53.559 spent decades trying to convince kids to work for trains, 1:27:53.560 --> 1:27:56.679 with Thomas the Train chuggington for for decades and decades, 1:27:56.720 --> 1:27:59.720 you've tried to send train propaganda to these kids, and 1:27:59.760 --> 1:28:02.200 I I don't think I don't think they're gonna buy it. Yeah, 1:28:02.920 --> 1:28:05.080 did you guys know that in Thomas the Tank Engine, 1:28:05.280 --> 1:28:08.640 canonically World War Two happened and canonically all of the 1:28:08.680 --> 1:28:15.240 diesel engine signed sided with the Nazis. Well, that doesn't 1:28:15.280 --> 1:28:18.760 first today and that is official. Thomas the Tank in 1:28:18.880 --> 1:28:24.960 Jin Laura. I wonder how many other zoomers will um 1:28:25.240 --> 1:28:27.800 symbolize with me on this. I recently found out that 1:28:28.000 --> 1:28:32.040 Thomas the Train wasn't just the uncanny train segments that 1:28:32.200 --> 1:28:34.800 used to have live action actors in like little inter 1:28:34.920 --> 1:28:40.720 cut scenes, because it was fucked up because by the 1:28:40.760 --> 1:28:43.320 time Thomas the Train was airing on television when I 1:28:43.400 --> 1:28:45.800 was a kid, all of those were re edited. They 1:28:45.840 --> 1:28:48.840 had they had, they had no live actions segments at all. 1:28:49.040 --> 1:28:51.920 It was all the weird stop motion animation, which is 1:28:51.920 --> 1:28:54.479 still very uncanny, with like the faces. But I had 1:28:54.479 --> 1:28:56.280 no idea until like a year ago that there was 1:28:56.320 --> 1:28:59.519 live action actors in the original additions of Thomas the Train. 1:29:00.000 --> 1:29:03.800 Fletely oblivious. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad we could have 1:29:03.800 --> 1:29:07.840 this important union discussion. I am too. I'm gonna I'm 1:29:07.880 --> 1:29:10.240 gonna admit to you all right now. There was a 1:29:10.280 --> 1:29:13.280 moment earlier where Chris You kept saying that that the 1:29:13.280 --> 1:29:16.599 owners of the railroads were blinded, and I very nearly 1:29:16.840 --> 1:29:18.840 went into a bit where I just started reading the 1:29:18.920 --> 1:29:21.960 lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's Blinded by the Light. But I 1:29:22.000 --> 1:29:25.519 didn't do it. I didn't do it that I'm glad 1:29:25.560 --> 1:29:29.080 we were saved from that. That's that's that's because everybody, nobody, 1:29:29.640 --> 1:29:31.559 nobody gets the lyrics to that one, right because of 1:29:31.560 --> 1:29:34.439 the Manford Man's earth band version, which makes it sound 1:29:34.439 --> 1:29:37.479 like he's saying douche when he's really saying deuce and 1:29:37.560 --> 1:29:39.880 talking about an engine, which is why it would have 1:29:39.920 --> 1:29:42.760 been relevant to railroads. But none of you all would 1:29:42.760 --> 1:29:45.320 have gotten that, and you would have fucking made a 1:29:45.360 --> 1:29:48.040 big thing about it on Reddit. So to hell with 1:29:48.080 --> 1:29:52.599 you all. Anyway, support rail workers if they do an 1:29:52.600 --> 1:29:54.800 illegal strike, make sure we set up things so that 1:29:54.880 --> 1:29:58.680 they get protected and they get food and things to 1:29:58.960 --> 1:30:04.400 fight cops, go make rail way. I mean, people like, 1:30:04.720 --> 1:30:06.840 just keep it, keep an eye on what's going on, 1:30:07.080 --> 1:30:09.800 and if it happens, there will be ways. There will 1:30:09.840 --> 1:30:13.160 be ways to support these through the US government, Like 1:30:13.320 --> 1:30:15.360 I don't know things of this nature. Yeah, I mean 1:30:15.360 --> 1:30:17.760 that would be that, that would be nice. But if 1:30:17.760 --> 1:30:19.800 we got to put a pin in that, you know, 1:30:20.000 --> 1:30:22.320 keep an eye on the situation and if these people 1:30:22.360 --> 1:30:25.360 go on strike, there will be community resources and whatnot 1:30:25.439 --> 1:30:28.559 popping up to support the wildcat strike. It's the thing 1:30:28.600 --> 1:30:31.560 that's happened before. Wildcat strikes have a long history in 1:30:31.600 --> 1:30:34.880 this country too, um, you know, and we will we 1:30:34.960 --> 1:30:38.200 will be collecting resources if that happens, for ways people 1:30:38.240 --> 1:30:41.240 can help with the wildcatters. So this is a thing 1:30:41.280 --> 1:30:44.479 to have on the old, on the old noggain as 1:30:44.520 --> 1:30:49.240 we as we lurch forward into the holidays and uh 1:30:49.640 --> 1:30:55.080 possibly gigantic labor battle we'll see. And I like people 1:30:55.200 --> 1:30:58.280 in the UK have been doing rail strikes, uh like 1:30:59.040 --> 1:31:01.960 for a good part of this year, like they've been, 1:31:01.960 --> 1:31:04.479 they've been. There's been on and off rail strikes for 1:31:04.560 --> 1:31:06.600 most of for like, for like the most of the 1:31:06.640 --> 1:31:11.360 past few months. Um, it's possible, except again they're they're 1:31:11.360 --> 1:31:13.400 they're they're British, so they stopped doing the strike when 1:31:13.439 --> 1:31:19.519 the queen died. Well of course, so look, look there's 1:31:19.560 --> 1:31:24.200 certain realities that can't ever be a clipstograph. Here's the 1:31:24.320 --> 1:31:26.600 here's the thing. We have thrown off the shackles of 1:31:26.680 --> 1:31:29.680 the anglos are where a rail strikes stops for no one, 1:31:31.080 --> 1:31:34.960 al right except for the most pro labor president, Joe Biden. Alright, 1:31:35.040 --> 1:31:37.880 And that's the episode. It's the episode. And remember, if 1:31:37.920 --> 1:31:41.320 you see a diesel train, it is a Nazi. You 1:31:41.560 --> 1:31:58.880 you were obliged to punch it. Welcome to Dake bap 1:31:59.000 --> 1:32:03.679 in here a podcast at it happening somewhere else, you know. Okay, 1:32:04.120 --> 1:32:07.040 the theme, the theme of the show has gone slightly 1:32:07.840 --> 1:32:11.200 slightly off the rails since it was first conceived. However, Comma, 1:32:11.880 --> 1:32:14.920 I do think this is something that is very important 1:32:14.920 --> 1:32:17.960 to talk about, which is getting some more sort of 1:32:18.000 --> 1:32:23.200 background information and an understanding of what the history of 1:32:23.280 --> 1:32:25.479 sort of labor in general protest is in China as 1:32:25.520 --> 1:32:28.120 we look at a certain the sort of current protest 1:32:28.200 --> 1:32:30.880 wave that is going on there. And with me to 1:32:30.920 --> 1:32:33.479 talk about this is Eli Friedman, who teaches at Cornell 1:32:33.600 --> 1:32:36.680 University and is the author of the book The Urbanization 1:32:36.760 --> 1:32:39.839 of People, The Politics of Development, Labor, markets, and Schooling 1:32:39.880 --> 1:32:42.240 in the Chinese City. So, Eli, welcome to the show. 1:32:43.040 --> 1:32:45.960 It's good to be here. Yeah. So I'm excited to 1:32:46.040 --> 1:32:53.240 talk with you about this um partially because I think, Okay, 1:32:53.640 --> 1:32:59.439 so insofar as you've gotten sort of mainstream coverage of it, 1:32:59.600 --> 1:33:03.000 there's been a lot of focus UM in term in 1:33:03.080 --> 1:33:04.680 terms of this sort of current way of protests, There's 1:33:04.720 --> 1:33:07.559 been a lot of focus on like the A four 1:33:07.640 --> 1:33:13.000 paper stuff and people sort of you know, hanging signs, up, 1:33:13.160 --> 1:33:15.960 and as as the coverage has gone on, there's been 1:33:16.880 --> 1:33:20.080 a lot less about the fox con stuff. There's been 1:33:20.080 --> 1:33:23.519 a lot less about the broader trajectory of what protests 1:33:23.520 --> 1:33:25.400 has looked like in China in the last twenty years, 1:33:26.040 --> 1:33:29.120 as everyone sort of like immediately reaches back for their 1:33:29.160 --> 1:33:35.479 stock tienem in comparisons. I think you're very good. Yeah, yeah, 1:33:36.120 --> 1:33:40.599 So I guess I guess we could in some sense 1:33:40.840 --> 1:33:42.880 start with genomen because I think this is this is 1:33:43.680 --> 1:33:47.639 has nothing really to do with it. But I guess 1:33:47.720 --> 1:33:50.840 we could start with why why are the chan in 1:33:50.880 --> 1:33:55.000 comparisons bad? And why is everyone still reaching for them 1:33:55.400 --> 1:34:00.760 thirty years later? Yeah, I mean they're there's maybe a 1:34:00.840 --> 1:34:07.080 couple of reasons why. So. Um, the the the unsympathetic 1:34:07.160 --> 1:34:09.160 take on it is that you have a lot of 1:34:09.240 --> 1:34:12.960 people outside of China, particularly in the United States, who 1:34:13.640 --> 1:34:16.840 hope for things to go poorly in China as part 1:34:16.880 --> 1:34:22.920 of our imperial competition. And so UH was a bad 1:34:23.040 --> 1:34:26.320 year for China, whichever side of of that movement you 1:34:26.520 --> 1:34:30.799 you were on UH, and so they believe that it heralds, 1:34:30.920 --> 1:34:33.000 you know, that the downfall of the Communist Party, and 1:34:33.520 --> 1:34:36.080 you know, therefore America can march into the rest of 1:34:36.120 --> 1:34:39.880 the century without any real competitors, so that that is 1:34:39.920 --> 1:34:43.280 a real thing, right um. And that I think the 1:34:43.400 --> 1:34:49.559 somewhat more sympathetic take on this is that the Chinese government, 1:34:49.640 --> 1:34:54.479 and particularly under Stigent Ping, sets a ridiculously high standard 1:34:54.640 --> 1:34:59.880 for what qualifies as social stability. Right. So minor d 1:35:00.000 --> 1:35:06.040 deviations from um absolute harmony as conceived of by this state, 1:35:06.160 --> 1:35:09.160 which means you know, no street protests, it means relatively 1:35:09.240 --> 1:35:12.000 little descent online. And to the extent that you do 1:35:12.200 --> 1:35:15.439 see forms of collective action, they remain pretty small scale 1:35:15.840 --> 1:35:19.600 and fractured um. And so when you see deviations from that, 1:35:19.760 --> 1:35:22.960 that suggests that, well, they've kind of lost control because 1:35:23.000 --> 1:35:26.759 they do want to maintain this, you know, absolute image 1:35:27.000 --> 1:35:31.080 of placidity um. And if we look at the whole 1:35:31.320 --> 1:35:34.680 sequence of events that led up to where we are now, 1:35:35.520 --> 1:35:38.519 I think we have to trace it back. Well, there's 1:35:38.520 --> 1:35:40.680 a bunch of things, but one of them is the 1:35:40.800 --> 1:35:45.320 setone bridge protest um, which is just a single person 1:35:45.439 --> 1:35:49.000 hanging banners off a bridge in Beijing, um, and a 1:35:49.080 --> 1:35:53.960 single person hanging banners or holding signs in any other 1:35:54.479 --> 1:35:57.000 big city around the world does not create that kind 1:35:57.120 --> 1:36:00.200 of a stir, right. I mean, you know, you you're 1:36:00.240 --> 1:36:02.880 in Washington, d C. Or Or you're in Berlin or 1:36:02.960 --> 1:36:05.720 or Tokyo or whatever. You know, nobody cares, right, so 1:36:06.200 --> 1:36:07.880 that but that just shows a little bit of a 1:36:07.960 --> 1:36:09.920 crack in the system, and so then people let their 1:36:09.920 --> 1:36:15.000 imaginations kind of run wild. Um. And we're clearly not 1:36:15.120 --> 1:36:19.320 in a nine situation right now. It's not inconceivable that 1:36:19.439 --> 1:36:22.280 it would develop in that way in the future. Um. 1:36:22.640 --> 1:36:25.280 At the same time, I don't think it's particularly likely 1:36:25.400 --> 1:36:27.120 for for all sorts of reasons. And we can get 1:36:27.160 --> 1:36:30.560 into that if you want. Yeah, I mean one of 1:36:30.640 --> 1:36:35.120 the things that I think, I don't know one of 1:36:35.120 --> 1:36:37.919 the things that I've been looking at with these protests 1:36:38.040 --> 1:36:42.360 versus eight nine. I partially it's just the sort of 1:36:42.400 --> 1:36:45.479 class composition is just very very different. Like there are 1:36:45.560 --> 1:36:48.360 student protests, but it's it's they're like these these the 1:36:48.360 --> 1:36:51.560 students now, like are not the nine nine students, Like 1:36:51.680 --> 1:36:53.280 this is just if this is a very different sort 1:36:53.320 --> 1:36:55.920 of like it's's very different student body. It's a very 1:36:55.960 --> 1:36:59.160 different like the class competition of those people are different. 1:36:59.240 --> 1:37:01.800 The experience that they've had in the Chinese system is 1:37:01.920 --> 1:37:05.280 very different, and then also, I think someone more interestingly 1:37:05.479 --> 1:37:08.080 is like, it's it's not the same working class that 1:37:08.200 --> 1:37:11.960 showed up in because that class doesn't really exist anymore. 1:37:12.840 --> 1:37:16.400 And yeah, and I guess that that's another part of 1:37:16.800 --> 1:37:19.679 this that I think, I don't know. There is definitely 1:37:19.720 --> 1:37:21.960 extent to which these protests are weird, in that it 1:37:22.160 --> 1:37:25.439 is like it's it's it's it's a bunch of people 1:37:25.479 --> 1:37:27.640 in different places who are protesting about the same thing 1:37:28.400 --> 1:37:30.840 which hasn't which you know, hasn't really happened for a 1:37:30.920 --> 1:37:34.479 long time. But also like I don't know, there seems 1:37:34.520 --> 1:37:36.080 to be this reluctance to talk about the fact that 1:37:36.120 --> 1:37:39.880 there have been like not in significant protests in the 1:37:39.960 --> 1:37:42.200 last thirty years, like especially in the nineties, there are 1:37:42.240 --> 1:37:46.120 these huge protests against sort of like the industrialization, like 1:37:46.160 --> 1:37:49.120 the destruction of sort of the Chinese welfare system. And 1:37:49.720 --> 1:37:53.120 I guess one of the things I'm interested, I don't 1:37:53.160 --> 1:37:57.240 know it asking you more about is like there's there's 1:37:57.240 --> 1:38:03.320 a kind of jectory of what urban sort of protest 1:38:03.360 --> 1:38:06.800 has looked like and like as as as the sort 1:38:06.840 --> 1:38:10.040 of like as the Chinese working classes like increasingly become 1:38:10.479 --> 1:38:13.400 a sort of vigrant working class and so yeah, I 1:38:13.400 --> 1:38:16.960 guess we could jump off from there to also also 1:38:17.000 --> 1:38:18.840 I guess because that's the other thing is like Chinese 1:38:18.840 --> 1:38:21.720 cities are very different now than they were thirty years ago, 1:38:21.760 --> 1:38:23.760 which is the thing that is both incredibly obvious and 1:38:23.920 --> 1:38:31.679 also like people don't really seem to understand very well. Yeah, 1:38:32.200 --> 1:38:33.640 let's see, there's a lot in that question. Maybe we 1:38:33.680 --> 1:38:37.080 should circle back around to the question of the class 1:38:37.120 --> 1:38:41.320 composition of the students and the workers today in comparison 1:38:41.360 --> 1:38:43.280 to nineteen eighty nine. But first let's just talk a 1:38:43.320 --> 1:38:46.000 little bit about the sequence of labor protests over the past. 1:38:46.360 --> 1:38:50.559 And there is a lot of me going through stuff there. Yeah, 1:38:50.600 --> 1:38:55.200 I mean, all all really important insights um, each deserving 1:38:55.200 --> 1:38:57.360 a little bit of their own attention. So you know, 1:38:57.520 --> 1:39:02.639 after nine, Uh, there's this big divergence in the UM 1:39:03.320 --> 1:39:06.200 in in the opportunities that are afforded to the two 1:39:06.320 --> 1:39:09.599 constituent groups that were in Tanneman Square and other places 1:39:09.680 --> 1:39:12.040 around China. So you have the students and you have 1:39:12.120 --> 1:39:14.080 the workers, right, and there's there's other people, but like 1:39:14.160 --> 1:39:18.120 that's the sort of the social backbone of that movement. Uh. 1:39:18.200 --> 1:39:21.679 The students basically get this deal with the state, which 1:39:21.920 --> 1:39:26.320 is they demand compliance and political acquiescence in exchange for 1:39:26.479 --> 1:39:31.200 which they will enjoy a couple of generation, a couple 1:39:31.280 --> 1:39:35.120 of decades of unbelievably fast growth. And if you are 1:39:35.160 --> 1:39:38.920 graduating with a degree from one of these elite universities 1:39:38.960 --> 1:39:41.840 in Beijing or even not super elite universities and in 1:39:41.920 --> 1:39:43.840 other cities, there's a pretty good chance that you're going 1:39:43.880 --> 1:39:46.400 to experience upwards social mobility, that you'll be able to 1:39:46.479 --> 1:39:48.840 buy an apartment that you know, you will feel more 1:39:48.960 --> 1:39:52.720 materially secure than was the case for your parents, right, UM, 1:39:53.000 --> 1:39:55.479 I think that that deal is coming undone right now, 1:39:55.560 --> 1:39:59.080 which explains the students that we say out in the street, UM, 1:39:59.280 --> 1:40:01.120 but in any of and that that certainly was the 1:40:01.200 --> 1:40:04.920 case for for you know, for about thirty years after UM, 1:40:05.320 --> 1:40:07.879 or at least you know, twenty five years after after tenement. 1:40:08.320 --> 1:40:11.200 The workers who were in the square in nineteen nine 1:40:11.479 --> 1:40:18.080 had almost diametrically opposed social trajectory because immediately thereafter UH 1:40:18.280 --> 1:40:22.320 they were subjected to a brutal regime of privatization, of dispossession, 1:40:22.439 --> 1:40:25.280 of theft of public property. They were thrown out of 1:40:25.439 --> 1:40:27.680 these jobs that they had believed they were going to 1:40:27.800 --> 1:40:30.800 have forever. It was called the Iron Rice bul Um. 1:40:30.960 --> 1:40:33.240 One of the main architects of that was Johnsman, who's 1:40:33.240 --> 1:40:35.920 just died. He along with Drew g So I saw. 1:40:36.000 --> 1:40:38.439 I saw a great quote where someone was like, this 1:40:38.560 --> 1:40:41.120 is basically China, George W. Bush, where everyone's remember again 1:40:41.160 --> 1:40:43.479 fondly because things are so bad now. But oh my god, 1:40:43.600 --> 1:40:47.040 this guy was awful, Like dying dying right now is 1:40:47.080 --> 1:40:50.479 maybe the best thing he ever did. Like yeah, and 1:40:51.280 --> 1:40:54.040 it really is a testament to how bad things are now. 1:40:54.560 --> 1:40:58.519 But he is I think, um, the most neoliberal anyway 1:40:58.560 --> 1:41:01.200 of China's leaders, more so than than dung shopping in 1:41:01.320 --> 1:41:04.479 some important ways. Uh. And so you know that old 1:41:04.600 --> 1:41:06.799 working class who was told that they were the masters 1:41:06.920 --> 1:41:09.560 of the nation, um, you know under Jungs them in 1:41:09.600 --> 1:41:12.880 front in the late nineties, they were just they were 1:41:12.920 --> 1:41:16.240 just subjected to these real subsistence crises. And in response 1:41:16.320 --> 1:41:20.280 to that, actually the largest mobilizations to have happened since 1:41:20.400 --> 1:41:23.600 nineteen nine occurred in the like nineties and really the 1:41:23.640 --> 1:41:26.080 early two thousands. In some cases, you have these protest 1:41:26.160 --> 1:41:28.320 movements with many tens of thousands of people out on 1:41:28.360 --> 1:41:32.280 the street resisting privatization, resisting the theft of their pensions, 1:41:32.920 --> 1:41:36.400 um and and basically this you know, private profiteering and 1:41:36.680 --> 1:41:40.600 theft of public property. And I think that even the 1:41:40.640 --> 1:41:43.439 protests that we've seen in the last a week or 1:41:43.479 --> 1:41:45.960 two are are still not on the scale of those 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:50.360 worker uprisings that we saw twenty years ago. Yeah, which 1:41:50.360 --> 1:41:52.840 I guess, you know, like part part of the reason 1:41:52.920 --> 1:41:54.639 why we are where we are now is that those 1:41:54.640 --> 1:41:56.760 people lost. And I think that's been one of the 1:41:56.840 --> 1:42:00.320 other sort of themes of like Chinese protests. Lie. I mean, 1:42:00.360 --> 1:42:02.240 I think like like some some of the local ones 1:42:03.160 --> 1:42:06.040 like when, but the large scale ones have kind of 1:42:06.160 --> 1:42:10.120 just been like just like really just been getting owned 1:42:10.200 --> 1:42:13.880 for the last like twenty really like thirty years. Like 1:42:14.000 --> 1:42:19.640 it's it's been kind of a bleak march. And I mean, 1:42:19.720 --> 1:42:22.040 I actually I want to circle back around a bit, 1:42:22.160 --> 1:42:24.160 talk a bit more about the d industrialization, because I 1:42:24.160 --> 1:42:28.120 think this is a thing that like really is badly understood, 1:42:28.240 --> 1:42:31.840 especially on the left. Um. The other thing I wanted 1:42:31.840 --> 1:42:34.400 to talk about in that is, Okay, so you have 1:42:34.520 --> 1:42:37.519 this massive wave of privatization, you have this industrialization, and 1:42:37.560 --> 1:42:39.280 can we talk a little bit of also about how 1:42:40.080 --> 1:42:42.040 like for the people for the people who held on 1:42:42.200 --> 1:42:45.200 and say on the industries, what the transformations happen inside 1:42:45.240 --> 1:42:50.280 there was like because I think that's also like not understood. Well, yeah, 1:42:50.439 --> 1:42:56.080 so you have two prosessies. One is um the they 1:42:56.120 --> 1:42:58.680 talk about as a smashing the iron rice ball, right, 1:42:58.760 --> 1:43:02.920 and and that involved of two process. One is just unemployment. 1:43:03.160 --> 1:43:05.840 And there's been a lot of um efforts to try 1:43:05.880 --> 1:43:08.560 to estimate how many people lost their jobs. It is 1:43:08.680 --> 1:43:12.719 very hard. Political scientists named Dirthy Salinger wrote an article 1:43:13.200 --> 1:43:15.880 called why It's impossible to know how many unemployed people? 1:43:15.920 --> 1:43:18.280 There are some something to that effect. Um, but certainly 1:43:18.280 --> 1:43:20.360 tons of millions of people lost lost their jobs and 1:43:20.439 --> 1:43:22.519 we're just kind of thrown out into the market. And 1:43:22.600 --> 1:43:24.519 it's worth remembering that they're thrown out into the market 1:43:24.640 --> 1:43:27.559 largely in regions where the market was not at all dynamic, right, 1:43:27.600 --> 1:43:30.080 so in the northeastern part of the country, which did 1:43:30.120 --> 1:43:32.880 not have the booming economy of Guangdong Province or you know, 1:43:33.040 --> 1:43:36.439 jong Su Province or places like that. Um. So, so 1:43:36.560 --> 1:43:39.519 there were those people. People also probably know that there 1:43:39.560 --> 1:43:41.599 are still a lot of state on enterprises and something 1:43:41.680 --> 1:43:43.800 like a quarter to you know, maybe a third of 1:43:43.920 --> 1:43:46.840 China's economy is still accounted for by state on enterprises, 1:43:47.320 --> 1:43:52.040 but those enterprises have increasingly come to function like capitalist enterprises, 1:43:52.040 --> 1:43:54.439 at least with respect to the labor relations. They still 1:43:54.479 --> 1:43:56.800 receive a lot of subsidies from the state. They still 1:43:56.960 --> 1:44:00.720 enjoy um monopolies, right, so they you know, they don't 1:44:00.760 --> 1:44:05.360 face competition from other firms, at least domestically UM, and 1:44:05.479 --> 1:44:08.799 like monopoly based firms in capitalist countries, they offer somewhat 1:44:08.880 --> 1:44:13.000 better UM pay and somewhat better benefits to their core workforce. Right. So, 1:44:13.120 --> 1:44:16.040 I mean, if you think of of GM or four 1:44:16.160 --> 1:44:18.040 in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States, 1:44:18.160 --> 1:44:20.200 or you can think about Facebook or Google today, you know, 1:44:20.280 --> 1:44:23.479 these companies that are also basically enjoy monopoly position. Their 1:44:23.520 --> 1:44:27.320 core workers enjoy, you know, somewhat better pay. Right. But 1:44:27.479 --> 1:44:29.920 the other thing that's happened is they have increasingly come 1:44:29.960 --> 1:44:34.640 to be surrounded by a very large contingent of temporary 1:44:34.760 --> 1:44:38.680 and flexible workers, right um, and so in in in 1:44:38.800 --> 1:44:41.280 many of these state owned firms, UM, more than fifty 1:44:41.760 --> 1:44:45.559 of the employees are what they call in China dispatch workers. Right, 1:44:45.800 --> 1:44:47.880 they don't enjoy any of those same benefits they don't 1:44:47.920 --> 1:44:51.920 enjoy the same job stabilities um, and they eat in 1:44:52.200 --> 1:44:55.800 eat in response to market fluctuations and profitability. Those are 1:44:55.800 --> 1:44:58.880 always the first ones to be let let go, right. 1:44:59.640 --> 1:45:01.759 So you know, the fact that they are state owned, 1:45:01.920 --> 1:45:05.760 I think matters to some extent um, but when But 1:45:05.880 --> 1:45:08.680 it doesn't mean that the old labor regime from you know, 1:45:08.760 --> 1:45:12.360 the nineteen seventies has kind of continued unchanged. Like they 1:45:12.400 --> 1:45:14.920 are being these firms are being subjected to market pressures 1:45:14.960 --> 1:45:17.360 and that's reflected and how they treat labor. Yeah, I 1:45:17.400 --> 1:45:19.680 mean that's something that like if if if you, if 1:45:19.720 --> 1:45:22.960 you listen to and Ping like actually talk about what's 1:45:22.960 --> 1:45:26.360 going on. He just constantly, every every like two speeches 1:45:26.439 --> 1:45:28.760 that he gives there is a line about how like 1:45:29.040 --> 1:45:32.679 the economy is directed by the market, and like, yeah, 1:45:33.320 --> 1:45:35.519 he's very clear about it, and in some ways he's 1:45:35.600 --> 1:45:38.360 he's like very Reganite, like he's just like, we don't 1:45:38.360 --> 1:45:41.320 we don't want what these lazy people just enjoy welfare benefits, 1:45:41.479 --> 1:45:43.680 like they believe in the power of the market to 1:45:43.760 --> 1:45:47.080 discipline people. There's no question about it. Yeah, And I 1:45:47.120 --> 1:45:52.439 guess the other sort of consequence of this is China's 1:45:52.479 --> 1:45:55.200 enormous market worker population. And that's definitely another thing I 1:45:55.240 --> 1:45:56.880 wanted to talk about because that was another round of 1:45:56.920 --> 1:46:01.160 protest happens in two thousands. That's about uh, this giant 1:46:01.320 --> 1:46:04.519 fight over household registration that I guess was the last 1:46:04.600 --> 1:46:08.800 kind of successful, like really mass protest thing in China. 1:46:08.960 --> 1:46:12.280 We talked about that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, 1:46:12.400 --> 1:46:16.519 there haven't been the same scale of of collective protests 1:46:16.560 --> 1:46:19.080 by migrant workers. But um, you know, just as a 1:46:19.160 --> 1:46:22.160 little bit of background, you have the old state state 1:46:22.200 --> 1:46:25.760 owned working classes kind of declining or subjected to the 1:46:25.840 --> 1:46:28.720 market pressures that we're talking about, and so unrest um 1:46:28.920 --> 1:46:32.360 in that sector becomes a little bit less significant over 1:46:32.360 --> 1:46:34.760 the course of the two thousands. But that's happening at 1:46:34.800 --> 1:46:37.640 precisely at the same time that the working class in 1:46:38.200 --> 1:46:41.360 the private firms is increasingly constituted by these rural urban 1:46:41.439 --> 1:46:45.160 migrant workers. When they come to the city's they are 1:46:45.320 --> 1:46:48.040 treated essentially a second class citizens and don't have guaranteed 1:46:48.040 --> 1:46:54.360 access to all kinds of social services healthcare, pensions, education, etcetera. Um, 1:46:54.680 --> 1:46:57.280 and so there is a lot of mobilization. I mean, 1:46:57.479 --> 1:47:01.439 you know, the the Juko household system, household registration systems 1:47:01.439 --> 1:47:04.240 still exists, and it still has an important role in 1:47:04.360 --> 1:47:11.560 structuring people's UM classed experiences. UM, but it's it's a 1:47:11.600 --> 1:47:13.720 little bit less coersive than it used to be. So 1:47:13.840 --> 1:47:16.680 in two thousand three, there was this famous case UM. 1:47:16.840 --> 1:47:21.320 A migrant named Soon You're goung Um was taken into custody, 1:47:21.760 --> 1:47:23.920 as frequently happened, you know at the time, like police 1:47:23.920 --> 1:47:25.920 would just ask people for their papers on the street 1:47:25.960 --> 1:47:29.560 if they looked suspicious, and they had a thing in 1:47:29.640 --> 1:47:32.880 place at the time called custody and repatriation where they 1:47:32.880 --> 1:47:35.080 would take you into custody and they would they would 1:47:35.080 --> 1:47:37.920 repatriate you back to your village. Right, So very similar 1:47:38.240 --> 1:47:42.639 you know to like ice rates against Chinese people. Yeah, yeah, 1:47:42.880 --> 1:47:44.640 like they had even this is I think one of 1:47:44.680 --> 1:47:48.760 the things about like, insofar as you can make comparisons 1:47:48.800 --> 1:47:51.160 between like the Chinese system of the Soviet systems like that, 1:47:51.240 --> 1:47:52.599 that's one of the few things that was I think 1:47:52.880 --> 1:47:55.639 kind of similar, is that you do have these very 1:47:55.720 --> 1:47:58.240 intense into well okay, it's simultaneous that you have these 1:47:58.320 --> 1:48:02.120 very intense like internal restrictions on migration, but also very 1:48:02.160 --> 1:48:03.760 similar to the U S system. It's like the the 1:48:04.000 --> 1:48:07.559 economy is based on everyone breaking these things, that's right. 1:48:07.960 --> 1:48:13.040 Simultaneously it's illegal, yeah, yeah, right, exactly, Like there's no 1:48:13.320 --> 1:48:16.760 illegal immigration to the United States, but the economy would 1:48:16.760 --> 1:48:20.000 obviously collapse without undocumented workers. And it's exactly the same 1:48:20.040 --> 1:48:22.760 in China. Like, you know, they're like, we we know 1:48:22.920 --> 1:48:25.000 that these people are here, we know that our economy, 1:48:25.080 --> 1:48:28.080 particularly the coastal cities, is completely dependent on them, but 1:48:28.680 --> 1:48:30.920 we're still gonna have cops ask you for your papers 1:48:31.000 --> 1:48:32.559 on the street, and if they don't like you, they can, 1:48:32.720 --> 1:48:34.880 you know, round you up and send you home. In 1:48:35.000 --> 1:48:37.639 this in this particular case back in two thousand and three, 1:48:37.760 --> 1:48:40.920 the guy they got, it's like he was the quote 1:48:40.960 --> 1:48:44.599 unquote wrong guy because he was actually a university student 1:48:45.160 --> 1:48:49.720 and they they they detained him and killed him. And 1:48:50.040 --> 1:48:51.760 so when this came out and they're like, oh, they 1:48:51.880 --> 1:48:53.920 killed a college student. Like if had they killed a 1:48:54.000 --> 1:48:56.960 normal migrant worker, that would be one thing, but he's 1:48:56.960 --> 1:48:59.840 a college student. So so that created a big fuss 1:49:00.040 --> 1:49:01.800 and as a result, you know, they actually got rid 1:49:01.880 --> 1:49:05.240 of of the tention and repatriation, which is good, um there, 1:49:05.520 --> 1:49:08.479 And so migrant workers today when they're on the streets 1:49:08.520 --> 1:49:10.640 in the big cities are are not likely to you know, 1:49:10.800 --> 1:49:13.360 just have cops randomly asked them to see their papers. 1:49:13.720 --> 1:49:16.560 But they're still subjected to all kinds of social discrimination 1:49:16.680 --> 1:49:21.240 and definitely, um, you know, institutional discrimination. Yeah, So okay, 1:49:21.240 --> 1:49:23.800 we're sp speaking of institutional discrimination. We're going to take 1:49:23.840 --> 1:49:25.560 an ad break and then we will come back and 1:49:25.640 --> 1:49:29.320 talk or about this. So I enjoy some ads from 1:49:29.360 --> 1:49:33.120 companies who are probably benefiting from all of this, and 1:49:33.680 --> 1:49:37.560 we're back. So okay that That's another thing that I 1:49:37.920 --> 1:49:39.880 I do want to sort of, I guess, use this 1:49:39.960 --> 1:49:43.960 to push us forward a little bit, which is that, okay, 1:49:43.960 --> 1:49:47.160 this this is obviously skipping a lot of riots in 1:49:47.240 --> 1:49:50.080 til USand and eleven. But one of the big things 1:49:50.280 --> 1:49:52.879 about the COVID restrictions that I don't think people understand 1:49:53.880 --> 1:49:57.560 has been how bad it's been affecting megicant workers and 1:49:57.840 --> 1:50:00.040 the extent to which, you know, because one one of 1:50:00.080 --> 1:50:01.680 the things about the House of Registration system is like, 1:50:01.960 --> 1:50:03.519 as best I can tell, this is this is the 1:50:03.600 --> 1:50:06.360 way a lot of like a lot of resources in 1:50:06.479 --> 1:50:09.200 terms of like here's how you're getting food haven't being 1:50:09.240 --> 1:50:10.960 distributed and if you know, if you're in a place 1:50:11.080 --> 1:50:13.719 that's not weird house. The registration is just like, well, okay, 1:50:14.360 --> 1:50:16.439 the state's not giving you your food, how are you 1:50:16.520 --> 1:50:19.479 going to deal with this stuff? And yeah, they're not 1:50:19.560 --> 1:50:22.840 doing that. That that that That's been a big thing that, like, 1:50:24.120 --> 1:50:25.680 I don't know, a lot of this has been me 1:50:25.840 --> 1:50:29.280 being upset with the media coverage of these protests because 1:50:29.640 --> 1:50:32.200 like people will just say COVID zero and then not 1:50:32.400 --> 1:50:38.000 explain what the actual consequences of this are. So, yeah, 1:50:38.000 --> 1:50:39.880 I was wondering if you could talk about sort of 1:50:39.960 --> 1:50:44.240 specifically how how the lockdowns, especially as lockdowns have gone on, 1:50:44.479 --> 1:50:47.719 have been affecting my co workers, and then how that's 1:50:48.000 --> 1:50:50.920 and yeah, okay, well so we'll start start there before 1:50:50.960 --> 1:50:54.080 I jump into a question with seven parts. I mean, 1:50:54.160 --> 1:50:56.679 I do think it's really important to understand why people 1:50:56.720 --> 1:50:59.400 are opposed to zero COVID, and sometimes for people outside 1:50:59.439 --> 1:51:02.360 of China, they think back to the spring of when 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:04.840 you know, in the United States, we had like libertarians 1:51:05.080 --> 1:51:07.479 with guns being like in the lockdown, like we want 1:51:07.479 --> 1:51:10.360 our freedom, Like it is not that for all sorts 1:51:10.400 --> 1:51:13.439 of reasons, um and and the way to get at 1:51:13.760 --> 1:51:17.360 why it's different is to understand some of the classed 1:51:17.880 --> 1:51:21.679 differences that zero COVID has has entailed. And I should 1:51:21.680 --> 1:51:24.240 just say it's been pretty terrible for everybody, including rich people, 1:51:24.360 --> 1:51:25.880 and like you know, we can we can feel some 1:51:25.960 --> 1:51:29.400 sympathy for them to UM, but but it's had some 1:51:29.600 --> 1:51:34.800 particularly nefarious consequences for for migrant workers. This became really 1:51:34.840 --> 1:51:37.600 clear in the Shanghai lockdown. It's also worth noting that 1:51:37.680 --> 1:51:40.760 there are three hundred million migrant workers in China. So 1:51:40.840 --> 1:51:43.760 this is not like this this is like half the 1:51:43.800 --> 1:51:47.640 population of Europe like so many people are talking about here. 1:51:47.720 --> 1:51:52.040 It's it's it's almost an America sized population of people 1:51:52.360 --> 1:51:55.240 who are not living where their household registration is. And 1:51:55.600 --> 1:51:58.080 so the basic thing is, as you were just sort 1:51:58.120 --> 1:52:01.960 of saying that when they're is a lockdown and you're 1:52:02.000 --> 1:52:05.920 a migrant worker, you you kind of don't exist from 1:52:06.320 --> 1:52:09.080 the states, or you might exist, but like you might 1:52:09.160 --> 1:52:11.640 also be overlooked from the perspective of the state. So 1:52:11.760 --> 1:52:15.000 one very concrete way that this UM screwed people over 1:52:15.760 --> 1:52:18.280 was in these hard lockdowns, you're not allowed out of 1:52:18.320 --> 1:52:22.519 your house and you're dependent on the neighborhood committee, which 1:52:22.600 --> 1:52:25.280 is which is connected to the state. It's kind of 1:52:25.320 --> 1:52:27.240 the lowest level of the state. You were dependent on 1:52:27.360 --> 1:52:29.679 them for the delivery of everything that you need to survive, 1:52:29.920 --> 1:52:33.920 right critically food and medicine. Yeah, can back up and 1:52:33.920 --> 1:52:36.040 say something about this. This is something This is something 1:52:36.240 --> 1:52:39.679 very very different than the American lockdowns, which is like, well, okay, 1:52:40.160 --> 1:52:43.160 it depends on a like it it depends on a 1:52:43.560 --> 1:52:45.519 on on like a province of profit s basis. Like 1:52:45.600 --> 1:52:48.920 I know, my family was in Mogolia. They like in 1:52:49.000 --> 1:52:51.919 the Mogolia like you you just you like. The lockdown 1:52:52.040 --> 1:52:53.800 isn't like you don't go to work. The lockdown is 1:52:53.840 --> 1:52:56.479 you cannot leave your house like you can. You can say, 1:52:56.479 --> 1:52:59.000 I think I think their lockdown, their first one was 1:52:59.520 --> 1:53:02.000 one person in their house once a week can leave 1:53:02.040 --> 1:53:04.639 to go get groceries. But it's like it's not like yeah, 1:53:04.680 --> 1:53:08.080 like it's it's you, like you physically cannot leave. You 1:53:08.120 --> 1:53:09.680 will be if you attempt to leave, you will be 1:53:09.760 --> 1:53:13.160 prevented from doing so. And this means that you don't 1:53:13.479 --> 1:53:17.519 really have an independent way of like getting food or 1:53:17.600 --> 1:53:21.320 like going shopping or yeah, like getting I don't know, 1:53:21.400 --> 1:53:25.560 like toilet paper, like yeah, not toilet resonates with with 1:53:25.680 --> 1:53:28.680 Americans in our in our toilet paper shortage of but 1:53:29.160 --> 1:53:31.000 I mean in some cases, like people would actually just 1:53:31.240 --> 1:53:34.200 be literally chained into their apartments, right, So like this 1:53:34.400 --> 1:53:37.040 is not whatever people in in in the U s. 1:53:37.160 --> 1:53:39.080 Or even even in parts of Western Europe, you know, 1:53:39.120 --> 1:53:41.560 where the lockdowns were a little bit more intensely police like, 1:53:42.200 --> 1:53:44.760 it is not that it is a qualitatively different thing. 1:53:45.000 --> 1:53:47.840 And so yeah, you're completely dependent on the state. So 1:53:48.400 --> 1:53:51.240 therefore it's really really important that the state know that 1:53:51.360 --> 1:53:54.280 you are there and that the state feels itself to 1:53:54.360 --> 1:53:58.080 be tasked with your survival and if you're a migrant worker. 1:53:58.520 --> 1:54:00.800 So so one of the very greet ways that this 1:54:01.280 --> 1:54:03.920 effective migrant workers is that a lot of them live 1:54:04.120 --> 1:54:06.960 in informal housing, even in the biggest cities, even in 1:54:07.000 --> 1:54:09.439 place like Shanhai and Beijing, because those are the only 1:54:09.520 --> 1:54:12.040 places that they can live as far as the state's concerned, 1:54:12.080 --> 1:54:15.519 Like that informal housing might not exist, they are very 1:54:15.640 --> 1:54:19.280 very frequently more people living in those dwellings than are 1:54:19.400 --> 1:54:22.160 sort of legally accounted for. So you know, like there's 1:54:22.200 --> 1:54:24.400 ten people living in an apartment that's supposed to be 1:54:24.520 --> 1:54:26.840 for for you know, a family of three, and so 1:54:26.960 --> 1:54:29.960 they deliver three people's worth of food, but there's actually 1:54:30.040 --> 1:54:33.720 ten people living there. That's a subsistence crisis, right. Um. 1:54:33.840 --> 1:54:37.160 You know, the medical stuff is just like astonishing and 1:54:37.360 --> 1:54:39.440 very harrowing. I mean, you know, just people just dying 1:54:39.440 --> 1:54:41.680 in their apartment because like they can't get insolent or 1:54:42.160 --> 1:54:44.840 all kinds. I know, I know people whose family died 1:54:44.880 --> 1:54:46.800 because they had cancer and they couldn't get treatment for 1:54:46.840 --> 1:54:52.760 it because yeah, yeah, like yeah, it's disaster. Yeah. So 1:54:53.120 --> 1:54:56.200 so that's that's the situation. That's one of the problems 1:54:56.240 --> 1:54:58.360 with them for the migrant workers. And then in the 1:54:58.520 --> 1:55:01.000 very intense lockdowns at least in in Shanghai, back in 1:55:01.240 --> 1:55:04.360 in the spring of this year. Um, you know, they 1:55:04.400 --> 1:55:06.600 also can't leave. So like one option would be like okay, 1:55:06.640 --> 1:55:08.600 will you go back to the place where you do 1:55:08.800 --> 1:55:11.360 have your household registration, you know, back in the village 1:55:11.360 --> 1:55:12.880 and you have a piece of land and like you 1:55:12.960 --> 1:55:17.280 can survive. They couldn't leave, right, there's no transportation, um, 1:55:17.480 --> 1:55:19.720 And so they were trapped in this situation where they 1:55:19.760 --> 1:55:23.600 couldn't work, the government wasn't you know, delivering them food, 1:55:23.680 --> 1:55:25.400 and they couldn't go to some place some other place 1:55:25.440 --> 1:55:28.480 where they could get food. And so you know, there's 1:55:28.520 --> 1:55:30.400 been a lot of attention to these recent protests, which 1:55:30.400 --> 1:55:33.360 are extremely important and qualitatively different. But even back in 1:55:33.640 --> 1:55:37.440 in April, we saw food riots, like in Shanghai, a 1:55:37.520 --> 1:55:40.480 group of group of migrant workers just like requisitions like 1:55:40.600 --> 1:55:43.120 a truck full of cabbage, you know, and just started 1:55:43.200 --> 1:55:45.520 like tossing cabbages to people on the street because people 1:55:45.600 --> 1:55:49.680 were like literally starving. So I mean, yeah, so there's 1:55:49.680 --> 1:55:53.480 a real problem for the bigrant workers. And on that note, 1:55:53.600 --> 1:55:56.120 this has been nic could happen here? Join us tomorrow 1:55:56.200 --> 1:55:58.400 for part two of this episode. We'll be talking more 1:55:58.480 --> 1:56:03.560 about lockdowns, similar problems with workers and this all going 1:56:18.680 --> 1:56:20.840 Welcome to Dick It Happened Here, the podcast that you're 1:56:20.880 --> 1:56:24.440 listening to right now. It's your host, Christopher Long, and 1:56:24.800 --> 1:56:27.000 we are back with part two of our interview with 1:56:27.120 --> 1:56:30.840 Eli Friedman about the reason protests in China. I want 1:56:30.840 --> 1:56:34.360 to go back and talk about lying flat and that 1:56:34.520 --> 1:56:39.240 whole kind of I don't know, movement discourse that was 1:56:39.320 --> 1:56:43.520 happening last year, because it seems like the kind of 1:56:44.040 --> 1:56:45.920 I don't know if nihilism is the right word, but 1:56:46.000 --> 1:56:49.720 this kind of like collective understanding that the whole sort 1:56:49.760 --> 1:56:51.960 of bargain of the Chinese social system of you know, 1:56:52.000 --> 1:56:54.600 and this was to some extent extended to everyone, right, 1:56:54.760 --> 1:56:58.000 like the bargain of the Chinese social system of everyone 1:56:58.040 --> 1:57:00.160 everyone keep your head down while get rich together, or 1:57:00.560 --> 1:57:03.760 it suddenly became clear that this just wasn't gonna happen. 1:57:04.520 --> 1:57:06.760 And you know, I mean, I think like, in some 1:57:06.920 --> 1:57:09.320 sense it's possible to sort of like, you know, you 1:57:09.400 --> 1:57:11.640 can you can put on your sort of like hard 1:57:11.720 --> 1:57:14.160 materialist hat and you can like look at like the 1:57:14.360 --> 1:57:16.200 number of hammers banging out, and you can just look 1:57:16.240 --> 1:57:18.120 at the show of Chinese GDP graph of the last 1:57:18.160 --> 1:57:21.480 decade and be like, okay, well so eventually like when 1:57:21.600 --> 1:57:23.800 what what what it hit like two percent? Eventually we 1:57:23.880 --> 1:57:27.160 were going to have protests. But yeah, I guess, I 1:57:27.240 --> 1:57:29.760 guess I I wanted to talk a bit about like, yeah, 1:57:29.960 --> 1:57:33.000 what lying flat was? We covered this on the show 1:57:33.120 --> 1:57:34.720 a long time ago when it was happening, but and 1:57:34.760 --> 1:57:37.880 then also sort of how that attitude shift was important 1:57:38.000 --> 1:57:40.720 or wasn't important. I don't know, Maybe it wasn't. I 1:57:40.840 --> 1:57:46.800 think it was, but yeah, I think it's very important. Right, So, yeah, 1:57:46.960 --> 1:57:50.000 you can't just be a crude materialist and like mechanically 1:57:50.080 --> 1:57:52.880 read social protest off of some chart of you know, 1:57:52.960 --> 1:57:57.400 falling profitability or something like that. Um, but there it 1:57:57.560 --> 1:58:01.760 is a cultural expression of real fundamental changes in the 1:58:01.880 --> 1:58:04.800 organization of the Chinese economy. Uh. You know, we already 1:58:04.840 --> 1:58:07.480 talked about how the post eighty nine generation was like 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:09.600 you go to college and like you come out and 1:58:09.800 --> 1:58:12.520 you know you'll you'll be middle class right on average, 1:58:13.000 --> 1:58:15.720 And that's just not at all the case anymore. And 1:58:16.120 --> 1:58:19.400 young people in China and and older people, middle aged 1:58:19.440 --> 1:58:21.480 people you know, who are who have children, who are 1:58:21.520 --> 1:58:25.839 who are going through the system, um, feel immense pressure 1:58:26.120 --> 1:58:29.960 in like immense competition in all spheres of life, beginning 1:58:30.120 --> 1:58:33.080 from a young age in elementary school, all the way 1:58:33.120 --> 1:58:35.800 up through high school, through the super competitive and intense 1:58:35.960 --> 1:58:41.320 university admissions process, and then after graduating university and getting 1:58:41.320 --> 1:58:43.440 a job, and then getting a job that can you know, 1:58:43.920 --> 1:58:46.280 um uh, you can earn enough money to be able 1:58:46.320 --> 1:58:48.680 to afford an apartment. And so here we have to 1:58:48.760 --> 1:58:51.640 understand you know, the cost of housing and all of 1:58:51.680 --> 1:58:55.120 the other costs associated with social reproduction. So the like 1:58:55.240 --> 1:58:58.160 the cost of care workers. Right, middle class people in 1:58:58.240 --> 1:59:02.000 places like Shanghai and Beijing expect to have domestic workers, um, 1:59:02.160 --> 1:59:03.920 you know, looking after their children. They expect to be 1:59:03.960 --> 1:59:06.480 able to hire tutors who can um you know, and 1:59:06.560 --> 1:59:10.600 comtutor their children in English or in math um. And 1:59:10.960 --> 1:59:15.480 so just people feel under unbelievable pressure. And this is 1:59:15.560 --> 1:59:17.920 in a situation. The part of the reason that the 1:59:18.840 --> 1:59:21.080 pressure has is really ramped up is that there are 1:59:21.160 --> 1:59:24.800 fewer good paying jobs. You know, youth unemployment now in 1:59:24.960 --> 1:59:29.800 China is around um and so one of the responses 1:59:29.840 --> 1:59:32.080 to that is just forget about it. We're you know, 1:59:32.200 --> 1:59:35.200 we're gonna lie flat, We're gonna we're gonna reject all 1:59:35.280 --> 1:59:39.160 of this. There's different expressions, and I don't actually the 1:59:39.760 --> 1:59:41.960 sort of like you know, sociologists and me is like, well, 1:59:42.000 --> 1:59:43.800 we don't actually have numbers to know how many people 1:59:43.880 --> 1:59:46.480 are are lying flat, and like that is true, Like 1:59:46.640 --> 1:59:48.520 maybe most people are still just going to work and 1:59:48.920 --> 1:59:51.560 you know, doing their job. But there's enough you know, 1:59:51.720 --> 1:59:54.680 stories and certainly in terms of cultural residence of people 1:59:55.160 --> 1:59:58.200 just doing the bare minimum at work or working for 1:59:58.320 --> 2:00:00.960 short periods of time, earning just enough money to survive 2:00:01.520 --> 2:00:04.320 and not worrying about meeting those kind of social expectations 2:00:04.440 --> 2:00:08.000 around buying a car, buying an apartment, getting married, having kids, 2:00:08.080 --> 2:00:10.560 because people just see it as as kind of it's 2:00:10.600 --> 2:00:13.480 kind of hopeless. Um. And so I think that's a 2:00:13.480 --> 2:00:16.960 really important backdrop, because we have to understand at some 2:00:17.200 --> 2:00:20.040 level that these protests are about a sense of hopelessness, 2:00:20.280 --> 2:00:24.120 right be at economic opportunities, be at the political system 2:00:24.160 --> 2:00:26.600 where cigent being is going to rain as long as 2:00:26.640 --> 2:00:29.200 he wants, or be at zero COVID where you know, 2:00:29.240 --> 2:00:30.960 at any given moment, you're gonna be locked inside your 2:00:31.000 --> 2:00:32.440 apartment and you're not gonna be able to see your 2:00:32.480 --> 2:00:35.680 friends or or do anything. So um, yeah, So I 2:00:35.680 --> 2:00:39.160 think it's very relevant. Yeah, and I wanted to I 2:00:39.280 --> 2:00:42.040 guess also too. This is something I talked about on 2:00:42.080 --> 2:00:44.920 this podcast a lot. But I need to like drill 2:00:44.960 --> 2:00:49.240 into people's heads, like just the sheer amount that people 2:00:49.280 --> 2:00:53.560 in China are working, just like like the number of hours, 2:00:53.640 --> 2:00:55.960 a number of days a week, the the amount of 2:00:56.040 --> 2:00:59.360 effort that is being put in is like it it is, 2:00:59.440 --> 2:01:01.680 it it is. It is a level of rowser plus 2:01:01.760 --> 2:01:06.880 value extraction that like like like most places in the 2:01:07.000 --> 2:01:10.000 world haven't seen in like a quarter, like in like 2:01:10.160 --> 2:01:13.480 half a century. It is like or even longer than that, 2:01:13.640 --> 2:01:18.280 Like it is, it is a a truly stunning like 2:01:18.680 --> 2:01:21.240 there's a truly stunning level of exploitation in terms of 2:01:21.280 --> 2:01:23.840 things like nine six, in terms of the people who 2:01:23.880 --> 2:01:25.720 are working schedules that are way worse than that, who 2:01:25.800 --> 2:01:29.160 don't really ever get like talked about because they're not 2:01:29.240 --> 2:01:31.280 tech workers or they're not people who have sort of 2:01:31.440 --> 2:01:39.240 like a platform Chinese society. Yeah, it's it's extremely normalized, 2:01:39.760 --> 2:01:42.840 you know, I mean like thing which which first of all, 2:01:43.480 --> 2:01:46.360 it is maybe worth mentioning that China legally has a 2:01:46.440 --> 2:01:48.680 forty hour work week. You're only allowed to work thirty 2:01:48.720 --> 2:01:51.800 six hours of overtime a month, right, so probably you know, 2:01:52.040 --> 2:01:53.920 not more than forty nine or fifty hours a week. 2:01:54.120 --> 2:01:57.600 That's that's like the legal the legal standard. Nobody even 2:01:57.680 --> 2:02:01.120 remotely pretends like that is a thing in any industry. 2:02:01.240 --> 2:02:04.920 There's legal debates about like whether it applies to professional 2:02:04.960 --> 2:02:08.120 white collar you know, salaried workers or not. But um, 2:02:08.720 --> 2:02:11.040 you know, when the n S thing came out and 2:02:11.240 --> 2:02:14.560 there was a pretty cool i think movement based mostly 2:02:14.640 --> 2:02:18.400 online among tech workers, it was it was great, it 2:02:18.480 --> 2:02:22.520 was very inspiring, and also every single blue collar worker, 2:02:23.840 --> 2:02:26.840 like we've been waiting the United six for decades, you know, 2:02:27.600 --> 2:02:31.080 um and so so it is, it is very normal 2:02:31.200 --> 2:02:35.320 across these these different kinds of of stratum for sure. Um. 2:02:36.360 --> 2:02:38.480 One of the cool things about nine six is people 2:02:38.960 --> 2:02:41.600 were we're revolting against it and saying like this is 2:02:41.600 --> 2:02:45.280 an unacceptable way to live. And again it comes back 2:02:45.280 --> 2:02:47.120 to this whole thing of like all of these feelings 2:02:47.200 --> 2:02:50.240 of you know, these enhanced pressures right where it's just 2:02:50.360 --> 2:02:52.320 like how do I live in this city? How do 2:02:52.400 --> 2:02:55.360 I find like decent housing? Like if you know, if 2:02:55.400 --> 2:02:57.160 I want to have like a social life, which is 2:02:57.200 --> 2:02:58.960 the thing that some people in their twenties want to have, 2:02:59.200 --> 2:03:02.560 you know, how do I do that? It's impossible under 2:03:02.600 --> 2:03:09.000 those circumstances. Um. So so again, like you can't read 2:03:09.040 --> 2:03:12.680 these movements mechanically off of these these uh, these structural changes. 2:03:12.760 --> 2:03:14.680 But like that is a thing that has been happening 2:03:14.720 --> 2:03:18.920 that is unresolved. It's not at least for the you know, 2:03:19.040 --> 2:03:22.160 the blank paper protesters, the kind of the more elite 2:03:22.240 --> 2:03:26.240 students and stuff. They haven't specifically articulated um, their grievances 2:03:26.920 --> 2:03:31.520 as labor demands. Um. But it's it's at least an 2:03:31.560 --> 2:03:34.920 important backdrop to what's happening today? Yeah, and I think 2:03:34.960 --> 2:03:40.520 it's remember like how I think I think this was 2:03:40.640 --> 2:03:46.320 like mide twenty night keeen. I'm trying to remember when 2:03:46.360 --> 2:03:49.400 I when I saw this specific video. But there there, there, 2:03:49.480 --> 2:03:51.400 there there was a video from the Hong Kong protests 2:03:51.600 --> 2:03:53.960 that was like it's almost it was it was like 2:03:54.080 --> 2:03:56.920 literally one of these classic like like sort of Twitter things, 2:03:57.000 --> 2:03:58.080 but like what do you want out? What do you 2:03:58.120 --> 2:03:59.800 want to do after the revolution, And it was like 2:04:00.760 --> 2:04:03.160 most of it was like I want to start a bakery, 2:04:03.880 --> 2:04:06.680 like I want to work in a library. And it 2:04:07.960 --> 2:04:10.960 strikes me that there's these things that get subsumed under 2:04:11.080 --> 2:04:12.600 you know when when when when you see a pro 2:04:12.680 --> 2:04:15.440 democracy movement, right when when you see you know, like 2:04:15.600 --> 2:04:18.080 the sort of well, I I guess that there's something 2:04:18.080 --> 2:04:21.880 interesting to hear about the like like day one of 2:04:22.000 --> 2:04:23.920 the protests, there were a lot of videos that we're 2:04:23.960 --> 2:04:26.080 talking about Iran and that kind of seemed to like 2:04:26.840 --> 2:04:29.440 like the very early videos were about sort of solidarity 2:04:29.560 --> 2:04:32.560 with the protests in a room she and then like 2:04:33.640 --> 2:04:35.200 it was like it was like specifically tying that to 2:04:35.320 --> 2:04:39.080 Iran and then to sort of pro democracy demands and 2:04:39.120 --> 2:04:42.480 then later on you get the sort of like like 2:04:42.680 --> 2:04:47.120 the Shanghai like down with the party, Downianping, like we 2:04:47.160 --> 2:04:49.640 went to bocracy and free speech stuff. But it strikes 2:04:49.680 --> 2:04:52.320 me that like a lot of the times when you 2:04:52.400 --> 2:04:55.280 see people making those demands, it's because they think that 2:04:55.480 --> 2:04:57.840 like you know, it's like there there there's a whole 2:04:57.920 --> 2:05:00.560 set of of like things that they things that they 2:05:00.600 --> 2:05:03.080 believe about the future and about what will happen in 2:05:03.160 --> 2:05:05.960 the future that are like not articulated in the demands, 2:05:05.960 --> 2:05:07.600 but if you talked about if you talk about them, 2:05:07.840 --> 2:05:09.560 like if you talk to people about what they think 2:05:09.680 --> 2:05:12.640 is going to happen after that, there's this whole sort 2:05:12.680 --> 2:05:14.800 of like opening up of social stuff that they think 2:05:14.880 --> 2:05:17.920 will be like the necessary results of like the end 2:05:17.960 --> 2:05:19.760 of the one party state. And it's like, you know, 2:05:19.800 --> 2:05:21.480 I don't want him, Like I don't know. I had 2:05:21.520 --> 2:05:24.840 this debate a lot with like like there there's kind 2:05:24.840 --> 2:05:26.800 of like Chinese international student you get in the US 2:05:26.920 --> 2:05:29.760 who like comes to the US and it's like immediately 2:05:29.800 --> 2:05:32.160 like enormously enamored with the US. It's it's it's sort 2:05:32.200 --> 2:05:34.680 of the mirror image of how we have a bunch 2:05:34.680 --> 2:05:37.040 of people who are like incredibly enamored with the Chinese state, 2:05:37.960 --> 2:05:39.640 and then you get people who come here and are 2:05:39.680 --> 2:05:43.440 like incredibly enamored the American state, and it's like, well, yeah, okay, 2:05:43.920 --> 2:05:47.160 this politician will see you and they will talk to you. However, Comma, 2:05:47.520 --> 2:05:49.280 in about two years they will be voting to throw 2:05:49.320 --> 2:05:54.080 you in prison. So like, but like obviously, like both 2:05:54.360 --> 2:05:56.760 people in China understand the Chinese system sucks and that 2:05:56.840 --> 2:05:59.080 the promises that people like in the US believe about 2:05:59.080 --> 2:06:00.560 it are fake, and then people in the U s 2:06:00.640 --> 2:06:02.760 understand that you can get a multiparty democracy and things 2:06:02.800 --> 2:06:06.040 because still be absolutely shit. But yeah, yeah, you know, 2:06:06.200 --> 2:06:09.120 it strikes me that there's a lot of stuff sort 2:06:09.120 --> 2:06:12.000 of embedded in in these demands that are like not 2:06:13.320 --> 2:06:16.560 really explicitly articulated until later. And then that's also, I guess, 2:06:16.600 --> 2:06:19.480 been a hard part about these protests that like, I 2:06:19.520 --> 2:06:21.400 don't know, it's hard to get information out. You can 2:06:21.440 --> 2:06:23.920 get shortened views with people. Mostly what you're getting are 2:06:24.000 --> 2:06:30.320 like thirty seconds of footage of people yelling at a cop. Right, yeah, yeah, 2:06:30.320 --> 2:06:32.640 I mean there's a lot going on. Like if you 2:06:33.120 --> 2:06:36.920 have this one, this tiny little opening, and then instantly 2:06:37.160 --> 2:06:39.600 you have protests in like all of these cities all 2:06:39.640 --> 2:06:44.080 over the country, dozens of universities, protests among you know, 2:06:44.200 --> 2:06:47.800 working class migrants, like middle class people in Shanghai, like 2:06:48.200 --> 2:06:51.280 you know, all across the country. Like that suggests that 2:06:51.960 --> 2:06:55.040 people have a variety of sets of grievances and they're 2:06:55.080 --> 2:06:58.440 kind of funneling them through this this meta narrative around 2:06:58.560 --> 2:07:00.960 ending the lockdown, which is not to minished the significance 2:07:01.000 --> 2:07:03.680 of the actual lockdowns, which are are called causing real 2:07:04.200 --> 2:07:07.160 human suffering. But there's definitely a lot going on, and 2:07:07.480 --> 2:07:09.920 you know, one of the big ones is what's happening 2:07:09.960 --> 2:07:14.280 in shin Jong, Like it's we still don't really know 2:07:14.840 --> 2:07:18.160 how Weakers are feeling about all of this. The fact 2:07:18.240 --> 2:07:20.800 that like all of the all the Protestants in the 2:07:20.840 --> 2:07:24.080 big Eastern cities are about commemorating what happened in ermchi 2:07:24.680 --> 2:07:27.680 uh in a fire that killed mostly if not exclusively, weaker. 2:07:27.720 --> 2:07:31.280 It's like that that that deserves to be talked about. Um, 2:07:32.400 --> 2:07:34.760 we don't really know how Like the Han people on 2:07:34.840 --> 2:07:36.880 the streets in the Eastern cities, like if they're thinking 2:07:36.960 --> 2:07:41.160 about this this backdrop of you know, massive repression, surveillance 2:07:41.240 --> 2:07:45.720 and mass internment of of weakers and other Moslim minorities. Um, 2:07:46.520 --> 2:07:49.360 but that's another thing. Uh And and I think the 2:07:49.440 --> 2:07:51.840 same thing goes for the treatment of migrant workers in 2:07:52.360 --> 2:07:55.040 in fox Con and these other um blue collar workers 2:07:55.080 --> 2:07:57.120 who were put into the closed loop. Like to what 2:07:57.320 --> 2:08:01.280 extent our urban um Han people still kind of willing 2:08:01.320 --> 2:08:04.240 to go along with sacrificing migrant workers and treating them 2:08:04.280 --> 2:08:07.240 as as as second class citizens or is there a 2:08:07.240 --> 2:08:11.160 possibility of developing some real sense of of solidarity um 2:08:11.360 --> 2:08:14.400 with ending not just the closed loop, but ending you know, 2:08:14.640 --> 2:08:18.280 like kuko based discrimination, ending the camps in Shinjong, you know, 2:08:18.360 --> 2:08:20.960 I mean, you can kind of spin out from there 2:08:21.040 --> 2:08:23.560 if if you are interested in thinking about what it 2:08:23.600 --> 2:08:26.200 would mean to democratize China in like a in a 2:08:26.400 --> 2:08:29.360 robust sense of the word, I think points out of 2:08:29.440 --> 2:08:31.480 everything about these protests that are complicated, right, which is 2:08:31.560 --> 2:08:35.960 that like they are cross class in a lot of ways. 2:08:36.920 --> 2:08:40.240 But I don't know, it seems to me like the 2:08:40.280 --> 2:08:44.520 way they're manifesting is very much down class lines. Like Okay, 2:08:44.520 --> 2:08:47.520 I genuinely don't understand what's going on in Guangzho that 2:08:47.600 --> 2:08:49.320 like every single video I see at a Gwangho is 2:08:49.400 --> 2:08:52.360 like seventy people throwing bottles at a cop, and like 2:08:52.520 --> 2:08:55.200 every video I see out of like Shanghai is like 2:08:55.680 --> 2:08:58.240 six people holding a piece of paper. But it very 2:08:58.320 --> 2:08:59.920 much seems like, you know, like when when it when 2:09:00.000 --> 2:09:02.240 when when the cops are getting to like these these 2:09:02.280 --> 2:09:04.600 sort of like these working class neighborhood these neighborhoods that 2:09:04.640 --> 2:09:08.280 are like a informal housing, these neighborhoods that are full 2:09:08.280 --> 2:09:11.200 of migrant workers. There were these really really intense conflicts 2:09:11.240 --> 2:09:14.360 with the police in ways that like kind of aren't happening. Well, 2:09:14.360 --> 2:09:16.480 I mean, okay, that's because the kind of stuff seems 2:09:16.480 --> 2:09:17.840 to be happening in a room sheet and I think 2:09:17.880 --> 2:09:20.400 it's happening there partially because you know, this is like 2:09:21.240 --> 2:09:23.160 well okay, I don't know off thought in my head 2:09:23.200 --> 2:09:25.800 whether it's more militarized than Tibet, but like one of 2:09:25.840 --> 2:09:28.200 the most militarized, like one of the most heavily police 2:09:28.240 --> 2:09:31.240 places in China. And then also people are just really 2:09:32.000 --> 2:09:35.960 like the the the immediate and palpable anger seems to 2:09:36.000 --> 2:09:38.280 be the highest there because you know, I mean, like 2:09:38.760 --> 2:09:41.920 like it you're you're going to be more piste off 2:09:41.960 --> 2:09:44.000 when it's people in your city or like you know, 2:09:44.280 --> 2:09:48.040 you you maybe were like three blocks away from this fire. 2:09:49.040 --> 2:09:53.120 Yeahs like these people. But yeah, one of one piece 2:09:53.200 --> 2:09:57.040 about about urch is that they've been in some form 2:09:57.080 --> 2:09:59.520 of lockdown for like a hundred days, you know. Yeah, 2:09:59.680 --> 2:10:02.560 so that's not and and part of that has to 2:10:02.680 --> 2:10:05.120 do with the fact that it is this colonial setting 2:10:05.240 --> 2:10:07.040 where they feel like they can do things to people 2:10:07.120 --> 2:10:08.960 that they can't do in Beijing and Chong like people 2:10:09.520 --> 2:10:10.880 are not going to do that, right, It's just like 2:10:11.240 --> 2:10:14.080 it's inconceivable. Um, there's obviously a lot of Han people 2:10:14.120 --> 2:10:18.440 in An She is actually a majority Han, now yeah, 2:10:18.480 --> 2:10:21.520 I think, yeah, um that that sounds right to me, 2:10:21.840 --> 2:10:25.600 and shin Jong is increasingly Han as well, although I 2:10:25.720 --> 2:10:29.000 believe we are still constitute a plurality. So you know, 2:10:29.400 --> 2:10:34.360 there's just like each the lockdowns kind of filtered down 2:10:34.440 --> 2:10:37.720 to these different localities and into different communities with their 2:10:37.760 --> 2:10:40.560 different social and class compositions in different kinds of ways 2:10:40.600 --> 2:10:42.880 and have different kinds of effects. Right, So you can 2:10:42.920 --> 2:10:45.600 put people in lockdown in shin Jong for a hundred 2:10:45.720 --> 2:10:48.200 days and they're going to be really pissed when they 2:10:48.240 --> 2:10:50.480 get out. In the case of Guang Joe, you know, 2:10:50.880 --> 2:10:52.800 this was also part of the sequence that I think 2:10:52.880 --> 2:10:55.040 has been written out of the official narrative. It's not 2:10:55.200 --> 2:10:57.840 it wasn't just fox Con. You had the initial fox 2:10:57.960 --> 2:11:01.440 Con escape in in October early in November, and then 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:04.160 you had these pretty intense riots that happened in Guangzho. 2:11:04.600 --> 2:11:07.720 But those were in these urban villages, so called urban villages, 2:11:08.240 --> 2:11:13.480 largely informal housing, very densely populated, that are overwhelmingly migrant workers. 2:11:13.560 --> 2:11:16.400 In this case, it was mostly people from Hubei Um, 2:11:16.520 --> 2:11:19.960 which is which is where Wuhan is and Um and 2:11:20.160 --> 2:11:23.520 so you know, just those migrant communities were put into 2:11:23.560 --> 2:11:26.440 lockdown in Guangho. So if you were over in yeah, 2:11:26.480 --> 2:11:29.560 if you over in Tianaha District, which is the sort 2:11:29.600 --> 2:11:33.040 of the the newer like fancier part of Guangho with 2:11:33.120 --> 2:11:35.960 lots of high rises, um, you know, those places were 2:11:36.000 --> 2:11:40.440 not under lockdown. And so they they put the migrant communities. 2:11:40.520 --> 2:11:43.160 And I saw some like really not nice stuff, you know, 2:11:43.240 --> 2:11:45.040 people just being like oh yeah, you know. The the 2:11:45.080 --> 2:11:47.160 local Guanggo people on the other side of the river 2:11:47.480 --> 2:11:49.920 are just like going about their life and and they're 2:11:50.120 --> 2:11:52.440 they're okay with what's happening to the migrants, and the 2:11:52.520 --> 2:11:55.880 migrants were, as is the case in some of these 2:11:55.920 --> 2:11:59.280 earlier lockdowns, actually facing real subsistence crisis, like they didn't 2:11:59.320 --> 2:12:01.400 have enough food to eat, and they couldn't leave to 2:12:01.480 --> 2:12:05.200 try to get food. Um. So that's why you saw 2:12:05.320 --> 2:12:07.720 these super intense riots, and that's why you see them 2:12:07.760 --> 2:12:10.280 confronting the police and you know, screaming at them, throwing 2:12:10.320 --> 2:12:13.640 things at them. You see tear gas, all of these things, 2:12:13.840 --> 2:12:15.520 I think. So, I think that's the only place I've 2:12:15.560 --> 2:12:19.080 seen tear gas so far, like a room. I'm not 2:12:19.680 --> 2:12:21.400 there may have been a video, I don't I don't 2:12:21.440 --> 2:12:24.320 remember specifically by the room sheet, but definitely like going 2:12:24.640 --> 2:12:28.280 only place I've seen that level of repression. Yeah, yeah, no, 2:12:28.360 --> 2:12:30.280 it was. It was. I mean, you know, the Jung 2:12:30.360 --> 2:12:32.640 Joe Fox con was probably the most violent and the 2:12:32.720 --> 2:12:36.360 larger scale. Um, but you know that was it was 2:12:36.400 --> 2:12:39.000 a little bit different Gwangjoe. It's kind of like smaller streets. 2:12:39.000 --> 2:12:41.960 They're fighting, you know, street by street. So um yeah, 2:12:42.000 --> 2:12:44.680 so they have a different experience of people in Shanghai. Again, 2:12:44.760 --> 2:12:47.400 not to minimize their demands, and I think it's it's 2:12:47.440 --> 2:12:51.880 important for people to find points of commonality, um against 2:12:51.960 --> 2:12:55.400 this policy. Um, but it's you know, it's not like 2:12:55.520 --> 2:12:58.160 that if if you're if you're a middle class person 2:12:58.600 --> 2:13:01.919 Han person in Shanghai, which is again not to minimize 2:13:01.960 --> 2:13:04.800 the very real difficulties that those folks have been facing 2:13:04.840 --> 2:13:08.000 as well. Something this kind of you know, I think 2:13:08.000 --> 2:13:09.720 that there there's there's like another group of people who 2:13:09.760 --> 2:13:12.240 should probably talk about a little bit, which is like 2:13:12.800 --> 2:13:16.080 this sort of downwardly mobile class a business owners who 2:13:16.120 --> 2:13:18.120 have been kind of just getting a dilated by the lockdowns. 2:13:18.160 --> 2:13:20.360 And does that that happen in the US too, although 2:13:21.000 --> 2:13:27.760 the Chinese version of it seems they're like less marginally 2:13:27.840 --> 2:13:31.960 less absolutely psychotic, like they haven't tried, they haven't tried 2:13:32.040 --> 2:13:36.160 to like kidnap a governor yet, Like they're not like 2:13:36.240 --> 2:13:41.880 they're not as fascist as their American counterparts. Yeah, but 2:13:42.080 --> 2:13:44.000 it's it's it seems it seems like there's a kind 2:13:44.000 --> 2:13:47.280 of interesting I don't know, there's there's a class dynamic 2:13:47.360 --> 2:13:49.320 that kind of reminds me of occupy and that you 2:13:49.440 --> 2:13:52.960 have this sort of like kind of tenuous alliance between 2:13:53.720 --> 2:13:56.760 like some some parts of the working class, these elite 2:13:56.840 --> 2:14:00.760 students and like this downwardly mobile middle class. But it 2:14:00.880 --> 2:14:04.800 strikes me that, you know, I mean, the the sort 2:14:04.800 --> 2:14:07.120 of defining thing about occupying I think, like the defining 2:14:07.200 --> 2:14:09.720 thing about the whole sort of two thousand eleven doesn't 2:14:09.720 --> 2:14:12.680 thirteen wave of protests, was that, like it was it 2:14:12.800 --> 2:14:15.120 was really really easy to get people together into a 2:14:15.160 --> 2:14:18.040 physical space, and when when you were in that single 2:14:18.120 --> 2:14:20.080 physical space, it was like, yeah, it's not it's not 2:14:20.120 --> 2:14:23.400 like classes appeared, but it was like, you know, it was, 2:14:23.520 --> 2:14:25.280 it was, it was. It was it was a way 2:14:25.320 --> 2:14:29.520 in which sort of like classes were mixing and you 2:14:29.560 --> 2:14:31.880 could form this new kind of like identity based around 2:14:31.920 --> 2:14:33.440 like what you're doing in this place. And it doesn't 2:14:33.480 --> 2:14:36.360 really seem like that's possible here. It really seems like, 2:14:37.880 --> 2:14:39.960 I don't know, like there's this huge like you know, 2:14:40.920 --> 2:14:43.520 this this this is a protest that is like happening 2:14:43.560 --> 2:14:44.840 in a lot of different places at the same time. 2:14:44.880 --> 2:14:49.440 But it's like it doesn't. Yeah, the segments they don't 2:14:49.440 --> 2:14:50.880 and they don't they don't really have a sort of 2:14:51.000 --> 2:14:53.920 like cohesive social identity that in a way that you 2:14:54.400 --> 2:14:57.680 could get out of a bunch of people being in 2:14:57.760 --> 2:15:00.720 the same place. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I mean, 2:15:00.760 --> 2:15:05.560 they're spatially segmented. Um. Something someone pointed out on Twitter 2:15:05.640 --> 2:15:08.280 I can remember who. But they're drawing comparisons to the 2:15:09.400 --> 2:15:12.840 protests and the kind of the physical arrangements where people 2:15:12.880 --> 2:15:16.000 are living and so particularly given you know, the online censorship, 2:15:16.120 --> 2:15:18.040 like that's been really important. So you have these worker 2:15:18.080 --> 2:15:20.760 dormitories and fox Con like you can organize by actually 2:15:20.800 --> 2:15:23.840 talking to people with student dormitories, right, Um, and then 2:15:23.840 --> 2:15:26.520 you have much smaller protests among the you know, the 2:15:26.560 --> 2:15:30.000 middle class people who are able to circulate things online. 2:15:30.040 --> 2:15:32.120 And so the consequence of that is is they are 2:15:32.160 --> 2:15:36.200 pretty segmented. And I think you know, everyone has their 2:15:36.240 --> 2:15:39.240 own grievance with zero COVID, but these grievances are actually 2:15:39.280 --> 2:15:42.400 pretty different. Right. So the fox Con workers don't like 2:15:42.480 --> 2:15:44.880 the closed loop management system where you know, where they 2:15:44.920 --> 2:15:48.520 can't leave, where where they're subjected to unsafe conditions, etcetera. Um, 2:15:48.720 --> 2:15:51.680 you know, the petty bourgeoise like they don't like the 2:15:51.760 --> 2:15:54.160 fact that there's no foot traffic, you know, coming into 2:15:54.160 --> 2:15:57.160 their shops. Right. And UM, I don't know if you 2:15:57.200 --> 2:15:58.960 saw the video of the guy like kicking down the 2:15:59.000 --> 2:16:03.280 wall with a soup latal and yeah, specifically yeah, I 2:16:03.320 --> 2:16:06.160 mean it was. It was very theatrical and dramatic and 2:16:06.480 --> 2:16:09.120 uh and a great video you know in terms of 2:16:09.280 --> 2:16:12.480 like the class position, and yeah, you can see how 2:16:12.520 --> 2:16:16.920 it can kind of capsize into fash quickly. Um. And 2:16:16.960 --> 2:16:19.160 then like the students, you know, they want to be 2:16:19.200 --> 2:16:22.080 able to live normal student lives and like leave their dormitories. 2:16:22.160 --> 2:16:24.040 And that's the thing that I think students anywhere can 2:16:24.280 --> 2:16:26.800 associate with. So it's like, yeah, they're all against the 2:16:26.880 --> 2:16:28.880 zero COVID policy, but then it's kind of like what 2:16:28.960 --> 2:16:32.160 are their politics after that? And I think if if 2:16:32.280 --> 2:16:35.200 this is going to open up, um, you know, some 2:16:35.320 --> 2:16:37.880 kind of more expansive political vision, like, it's gonna be 2:16:37.959 --> 2:16:40.959 hard to maintain that like that unity. Right. The students 2:16:41.000 --> 2:16:43.960 are already talking about like you know, censorship, freedom of speech, 2:16:44.240 --> 2:16:46.520 those things which I support, I think are very good. 2:16:47.320 --> 2:16:49.680 You're probably not gonna get the petty bougeoisie to like 2:16:50.040 --> 2:16:52.680 risk arrest and violence with the cops, you know, over 2:16:52.800 --> 2:16:55.760 like holding up a blank white piece of paper, um, 2:16:56.320 --> 2:16:58.400 you know. And then the micrant workers have another whole 2:16:58.440 --> 2:17:01.439 set of things you know, around like basic like health infrastructure, 2:17:01.600 --> 2:17:03.720 like you know, can they get access to decent healthcare 2:17:03.760 --> 2:17:06.080 in the places where they're where they're living, and that's 2:17:06.120 --> 2:17:08.080 not going to resonate to the same extent with the students. 2:17:08.160 --> 2:17:11.840 So yeah, the one I think about a lot was 2:17:12.040 --> 2:17:13.800 like that there there's a video going around it this 2:17:13.879 --> 2:17:15.680 guy being like I don't care about politics, I just 2:17:15.760 --> 2:17:17.400 want to go to the movies, and I was like, 2:17:17.520 --> 2:17:20.800 this is the most American person in China, Like this 2:17:20.920 --> 2:17:22.840 is the one person that I'm like, okay, like that, 2:17:23.000 --> 2:17:24.800 you know, and and like that there is that kind 2:17:24.879 --> 2:17:26.240 of sort of like I just I just want to 2:17:26.280 --> 2:17:29.600 live my normal life like thing that's happening. And then 2:17:29.680 --> 2:17:32.800 that that I think is a kind of recognizable American impulse. 2:17:32.840 --> 2:17:34.600 But then you have the stuff that's like did you 2:17:34.600 --> 2:17:36.560 see did you see those pictures that were going around 2:17:36.920 --> 2:17:40.320 of like the hospitals they were putting vgicant workers in 2:17:40.400 --> 2:17:42.840 were just like the entire bathroom floor is just like 2:17:43.200 --> 2:17:47.200 covered in poop and like no, awful. Yeah, it's like 2:17:47.240 --> 2:17:49.840 the whole whole bathroom floors is just flooded. There's like 2:17:50.000 --> 2:17:53.560 just like the the the you can't flush toilet paper 2:17:53.600 --> 2:17:55.560 down it, so there's just these like mountains of toilet 2:17:55.600 --> 2:17:58.920 paper and I think like, yeah, it's awful like that 2:17:59.000 --> 2:18:01.000 the difference between the people whose things are like I 2:18:01.080 --> 2:18:03.240 want to go to the movies and the people who's 2:18:03.280 --> 2:18:06.840 demand is like please stop locking me in this like 2:18:07.480 --> 2:18:09.200 like people like you know that that was I guess. 2:18:09.200 --> 2:18:12.800 I guess the other sort of lost thing that seemed 2:18:12.840 --> 2:18:14.600 to be pretty big in Chinese social media that I 2:18:14.640 --> 2:18:18.040 don't that wasn't talked about much here was the uh 2:18:18.280 --> 2:18:21.640 there was this bus that capsized that killed like twenty 2:18:21.720 --> 2:18:24.920 seven people who were being taken like to a facility 2:18:24.959 --> 2:18:27.280 to specifically to hold, like you know, this is like 2:18:27.360 --> 2:18:30.040 what one of one of these sort of like I 2:18:30.120 --> 2:18:32.200 don't I don't even really want to dignify them by 2:18:32.200 --> 2:18:36.560 calling them hospitals because they're like like just a complete 2:18:36.640 --> 2:18:39.680 disaster um. But where were people were being held like 2:18:40.000 --> 2:18:43.680 held because they had yeah, yeah, and I don't know, 2:18:43.920 --> 2:18:46.240 it seems like that there's a really big sort of 2:18:46.440 --> 2:18:49.320 like you know, I mean, I guess it's like like 2:18:49.400 --> 2:18:52.920 the the protests are reflecting all of all of the 2:18:53.000 --> 2:18:57.080 sort of like existing classified in Chinese society in ways 2:18:57.160 --> 2:18:59.440 that I think are are pretty obvious if you look 2:18:59.520 --> 2:19:02.920 at it, which I guess in some sense, like this 2:19:03.680 --> 2:19:06.160 this does strike me as the most gentlemin esque thing 2:19:06.360 --> 2:19:08.560 we look. The most unuminous thing about it is the 2:19:08.600 --> 2:19:11.560 way that the media has been like specifically covering the 2:19:11.640 --> 2:19:14.960 grievances of exactly like two groups of people, which is 2:19:15.000 --> 2:19:18.440 like the students and like and then all of the 2:19:18.520 --> 2:19:22.600 labor stuff has just vanished after about day two. Yeah, yeah, 2:19:22.680 --> 2:19:28.480 yeah for sure. Um. And I mean I don't have 2:19:28.600 --> 2:19:32.880 much optimism that that that the coverage will um, but 2:19:33.200 --> 2:19:38.520 you know, there there is an experience, um that middle 2:19:38.560 --> 2:19:41.800 class people I think have had pretty acutely going back 2:19:41.840 --> 2:19:45.240 at least to the Shanghai lockdown, of this realization that 2:19:45.320 --> 2:19:49.400 there actually are no limits on state power, right, and 2:19:49.520 --> 2:19:52.040 that to them was kind of like a shock. You know. 2:19:52.120 --> 2:19:53.760 They're like, oh, like I thought I was just gonna 2:19:53.760 --> 2:19:55.280 be able to go about my life like as long 2:19:55.320 --> 2:19:57.520 as I didn't you know, demand to be able to 2:19:57.680 --> 2:20:00.200 vote for the president. Like I can have a job, job, 2:20:00.280 --> 2:20:02.840 I can um, you know, go eat hot pot or 2:20:03.040 --> 2:20:04.840 you know, get whatever kind of delicious food I want. 2:20:04.879 --> 2:20:08.760 Living in these big cities, can travel internationally. You know, 2:20:08.920 --> 2:20:12.360 all of these things are you know more or less Okay, Um, 2:20:12.959 --> 2:20:14.680 there's been lots of you know there's lots of other 2:20:14.720 --> 2:20:17.879 people in training society for him, that's never been the experience, right, 2:20:18.000 --> 2:20:22.360 most importantly the minorities and the workers and the migrant 2:20:22.360 --> 2:20:26.080 workers who have always you know, experienced that raw and 2:20:26.240 --> 2:20:30.000 unchecked power of the state. And so you know, does 2:20:30.280 --> 2:20:33.600 does this have the capacity to kind of bring them together? 2:20:34.080 --> 2:20:35.720 You know, it's going to be extremely difficult to do, 2:20:35.840 --> 2:20:39.000 especially because there aren't like spaces for political organizing and 2:20:39.120 --> 2:20:42.880 working through these differences in a constructive way. Yeah, I mean, 2:20:43.040 --> 2:20:45.560 I will see. The one thing that kind of that 2:20:45.680 --> 2:20:48.960 strikes me is something that like is just different about 2:20:49.000 --> 2:20:51.800 this cycle is that, like I don't know, I don't, like, 2:20:51.959 --> 2:20:55.600 I don't think I've ever seen in my lifetime outside 2:20:55.640 --> 2:21:00.200 of like really tiny maoist sex like people openly calling 2:21:00.280 --> 2:21:02.800 for the downfall of the government, like just in in 2:21:03.080 --> 2:21:05.880 a kind of like a large systemic way, and like 2:21:06.000 --> 2:21:10.000 it it seems like, I don't know, maybe maybe the 2:21:10.040 --> 2:21:13.879 censors will sort of get control back, but it really 2:21:14.000 --> 2:21:16.520 seems like there's been this kind of floodgate that's opened 2:21:17.360 --> 2:21:21.640 where suddenly, like there's a there's a brief moment where 2:21:21.680 --> 2:21:24.480 like it suddenly became possible to talk about things where 2:21:24.640 --> 2:21:26.360 you know, like like two months ago, it was like 2:21:26.920 --> 2:21:29.400 one guy laid aside on a bridge and like this 2:21:29.560 --> 2:21:30.840 was this was like the biggest thing that had ever 2:21:30.840 --> 2:21:33.400 happened in Chinese society whatever, etcetera, etcetera. And then suddenly, 2:21:33.480 --> 2:21:36.160 like you know, you just have people on the streets 2:21:36.200 --> 2:21:39.039 are shrun high, like just chanting stuff that wasn't even 2:21:39.160 --> 2:21:42.120 on that banner, and like, I don't know, like it 2:21:43.000 --> 2:21:47.119 really seems like like it's it's not like they've actually 2:21:47.240 --> 2:21:49.360 like fully lost control of the country or anything like, 2:21:49.400 --> 2:21:50.960 they're not even close to that, but it's it's like 2:21:51.840 --> 2:21:55.000 the sort of like the sort of regime of terror 2:21:55.080 --> 2:21:56.959 and fear that had been in place to keep people 2:21:57.000 --> 2:21:58.600 from doing this kind of stuff has fallen off a 2:21:58.680 --> 2:22:02.600 little bit. Yeah. I mean, I I'd be very curious 2:22:02.680 --> 2:22:05.600 to know what the vibe is like in China, and 2:22:05.800 --> 2:22:08.680 obviously I have not been there for a while. Um, 2:22:09.440 --> 2:22:12.760 but like, and this is wildly speculative, and if you 2:22:12.800 --> 2:22:15.280 have any Chinese listeners who want to correct me, I 2:22:15.400 --> 2:22:18.080 would be glad to have some more information about this. 2:22:18.200 --> 2:22:21.960 But my feeling from Hofar is that you know, like 2:22:22.120 --> 2:22:25.280 she Jinping is just like you can't you can't say 2:22:25.320 --> 2:22:28.720 anything about him, and that even in like private spaces, 2:22:29.280 --> 2:22:32.720 you know, people just like don't feel like the ability 2:22:32.840 --> 2:22:36.320 to kind of imagine something different and like that has 2:22:36.400 --> 2:22:39.400 been changed. Like I don't think we're going to see 2:22:39.400 --> 2:22:41.880 a lot more people on the streets chanting down to 2:22:42.480 --> 2:22:45.280 down with the Communist Party like that's you know, it's 2:22:45.280 --> 2:22:47.400 a risky it's a risky thing to do. But I 2:22:47.480 --> 2:22:49.480 do think that like now, at least people know that 2:22:49.560 --> 2:22:52.280 there's other other people in the country that are thinking 2:22:52.360 --> 2:22:55.240 the same things that they're thinking. And then at least 2:22:55.360 --> 2:22:58.920 within you know, like you know, face to face interactions, 2:22:59.360 --> 2:23:01.560 that people might be a little bit more willing to 2:23:01.680 --> 2:23:04.600 kind of say like, oh, like these protests happened, that 2:23:04.680 --> 2:23:07.440 was pretty crazy, Like let's talk about that, um and 2:23:07.640 --> 2:23:10.160 so so so that to me is optimistic. UM. And 2:23:10.240 --> 2:23:12.760 I do hope that more of this organizing can take place, 2:23:13.320 --> 2:23:15.480 you know, offline, because I think that's the only safe 2:23:15.520 --> 2:23:18.520 way to do it. Um. So So, yeah, I I 2:23:19.520 --> 2:23:22.560 think something has changed significantly, and you see it here, 2:23:22.800 --> 2:23:24.880 you know. I mean, I've been teaching Chinese students for 2:23:24.959 --> 2:23:28.320 ten years. Um, there's no question that people are interested, 2:23:28.800 --> 2:23:31.600 um in talking about things now in a in a 2:23:31.680 --> 2:23:33.760 more open way than was the case a couple of 2:23:33.879 --> 2:23:35.720 years ago. And like Herett Cornell, we had we had 2:23:35.720 --> 2:23:39.480 a little vigil for um Fer and she as well, 2:23:39.840 --> 2:23:42.440 and people were chanting, you know, down with Hi Jin 2:23:42.480 --> 2:23:45.160 ping Um, which is kind of like okay, you're you know, 2:23:45.240 --> 2:23:47.480 you're the good New York Like it's not dangerous. Well, 2:23:47.600 --> 2:23:50.920 I think students feel it to be dangerous, And definitely 2:23:51.480 --> 2:23:53.200 a month or two ago would have felt it to 2:23:53.320 --> 2:23:56.680 be quite dangerous. So yeah, and I guess we probably 2:23:56.720 --> 2:24:00.760 shouldn't like completely downplay the fact that like the CCP 2:24:01.000 --> 2:24:04.760 has international networks in a way that's like the way 2:24:04.800 --> 2:24:06.720 it tends to get covered in the press is very 2:24:06.879 --> 2:24:09.720 sort of like this kind of like right wing fear mongering. 2:24:09.760 --> 2:24:12.400 But was like, no, these people do exist, and like, yeah, 2:24:12.480 --> 2:24:15.120 like it is possible for you to like tweet something 2:24:15.160 --> 2:24:17.960 while you're in the US and then like someone in 2:24:18.080 --> 2:24:20.040 China finds out about it and things start to go 2:24:20.200 --> 2:24:22.960 very badly for you very quickly, And that's for sure, 2:24:23.120 --> 2:24:25.960 Like that's that's that's a real danger that yeah, and 2:24:26.400 --> 2:24:30.280 regardless of how many spies there are, how pervasive they are, 2:24:30.480 --> 2:24:33.760 like it is a real experience, real fear of the 2:24:33.840 --> 2:24:37.640 Chinese students here have right, they don't feel comfortable. You know, 2:24:37.840 --> 2:24:40.600 they might feel more comfortable speaking openly here than they 2:24:40.680 --> 2:24:44.119 do actually within China, but they still don't feel totally free, 2:24:44.240 --> 2:24:47.760 and and that is a very widespread sentiment. I guess, 2:24:48.040 --> 2:24:51.640 sort of enclosing, I don't know, my, I don't think 2:24:51.680 --> 2:24:56.560 anyone can really have much of an analysis that's better 2:24:56.640 --> 2:24:59.360 than them guessing about what's going to happen next, because 2:25:00.080 --> 2:25:04.200 this already was something that like two weeks ago, like 2:25:04.320 --> 2:25:07.320 if you'd ask anyone, like anyone in China or outside 2:25:07.320 --> 2:25:09.840 of China who wasn't like I don't know, like in 2:25:09.920 --> 2:25:12.119 the following Gong or something, whether whether they were suddenly 2:25:12.160 --> 2:25:14.959 going to be large deal like protested China, everyone would 2:25:14.959 --> 2:25:18.600 have been like, are you nuts? But yeah, I'm wondering 2:25:18.640 --> 2:25:23.240 how what you think is going to happen next? I 2:25:23.280 --> 2:25:25.880 don't know. My my, my sort of tentative read of 2:25:25.959 --> 2:25:30.920 it was like, it seems like I don't know. It's 2:25:30.959 --> 2:25:32.680 it seems to me that for for a very very 2:25:32.840 --> 2:25:36.120 long time, the Chinese political system was specifically set up 2:25:36.120 --> 2:25:38.520 to stop this, like like this was this was the 2:25:38.600 --> 2:25:40.440 exact thing. It was. It was designed to make sure 2:25:40.440 --> 2:25:42.840 there would never be another sort of like like that 2:25:42.920 --> 2:25:46.120 there would never be a large well you know, we 2:25:46.160 --> 2:25:48.280 don't know how how long this is going to go on, right, 2:25:48.320 --> 2:25:49.920 but there was there was never there was never supposed 2:25:49.959 --> 2:25:53.800 to be another street movement that was like coordinated between cities, 2:25:54.200 --> 2:25:56.920 that was large and that had real political demands. And 2:25:57.720 --> 2:26:01.000 you know, I like, I I don't know. Maybe maybe 2:26:01.000 --> 2:26:02.879 I could, I could be the most brog I've ever been, 2:26:02.959 --> 2:26:06.520 but I cannot imagine this like this specific round of 2:26:06.560 --> 2:26:11.840 protests really like challenging the government at all, Like I 2:26:11.920 --> 2:26:15.560 don't know, some something something would have to like I 2:26:15.600 --> 2:26:17.520 don't know, like aliens would have to like descend from 2:26:17.560 --> 2:26:20.960 the sky or something like. I don't know. I don't like, 2:26:21.080 --> 2:26:22.280 I don't I don't think they can do it. But 2:26:22.959 --> 2:26:25.760 the frequency at which these kinds of things break out 2:26:26.800 --> 2:26:29.320 has been increasing steadily for the past probably twenty or 2:26:29.360 --> 2:26:31.000 thirty years. I mean in the nineties are sort of 2:26:31.040 --> 2:26:34.160 a low point for this stuff. But you know, like 2:26:34.360 --> 2:26:38.080 if if you're if you're in a country like Ecuador, right, 2:26:38.440 --> 2:26:43.720 You've seen like two pretty large scale like mass street 2:26:43.800 --> 2:26:48.480 movements in like three years, right, And you know it's 2:26:48.520 --> 2:26:50.000 it's it's, it's, it's. It seems to be sort of 2:26:50.160 --> 2:26:53.600 broadly the there's there, there's, there's been this sort of 2:26:53.720 --> 2:26:57.160 like the decaying economic conditions are combined with this like 2:26:57.320 --> 2:27:01.640 the general decaying ability of the state to prevent like 2:27:01.879 --> 2:27:05.160 a subsequent movement from from unfolding. And so I don't know, 2:27:05.280 --> 2:27:08.160 Like I I my senses that this one's not gonna 2:27:08.160 --> 2:27:10.360 do anything, but we might see another one of these 2:27:10.440 --> 2:27:15.440 in like three years or something. Yeah, I don't think 2:27:15.560 --> 2:27:18.000 we're going to see this movement in the in the 2:27:18.080 --> 2:27:21.320 weeks and months to come to like cohere into this 2:27:21.560 --> 2:27:26.040 like massive politically potent force that has the capacity to 2:27:26.360 --> 2:27:30.480 either continue to exert demands on the central state or 2:27:30.680 --> 2:27:32.840 threatened state power. Like, I don't think that that's going 2:27:32.879 --> 2:27:36.400 to happen. Um, I do think. I think I think 2:27:36.440 --> 2:27:39.520 the first thing is to acknowledge and to chalk up 2:27:39.600 --> 2:27:43.520 the victories that have already been Um one, So Fox 2:27:43.920 --> 2:27:45.760 foxne workers got paid, you know, they went out the 2:27:45.920 --> 2:27:49.840 rioted like Fox's like, here's ten thousand un for you 2:27:49.920 --> 2:27:52.360 to leave that even for you to do your job right, 2:27:52.480 --> 2:27:54.480 so like, and those were workers that came in after 2:27:54.560 --> 2:27:56.520 the other workers escaped so they have been there in 2:27:56.600 --> 2:27:59.040 quarantine for like a couple of days. Rioted got ten 2:27:59.080 --> 2:28:02.320 thousand un which is almost U S. Dollars like they 2:28:02.440 --> 2:28:06.440 so so they did really well. Um And but I 2:28:06.520 --> 2:28:09.480 think more broadly, you know, around the zero COVID, the 2:28:09.560 --> 2:28:12.680 government has already made changes. They will never acknowledge we're 2:28:12.720 --> 2:28:15.920 doing this because people protested, like that's not how they operate. 2:28:16.440 --> 2:28:19.280 But um, you know, they said, Okay, we're actually gonna 2:28:19.320 --> 2:28:21.800 get more serious about vaccinating people, which is what they 2:28:21.879 --> 2:28:24.360 need to do in order to have sort of an 2:28:24.440 --> 2:28:28.320 exit strategy. There have been some some signals, low key 2:28:28.400 --> 2:28:31.120 ones about further loosening. I mean, I think that there's 2:28:31.120 --> 2:28:32.760 a real question about how they go about doing this 2:28:32.920 --> 2:28:34.879 because if they just let it rip tomorrow, like actually, 2:28:35.120 --> 2:28:38.320 hundreds of thousands of people will die. Yeah. So like 2:28:38.480 --> 2:28:40.560 I think what they need to do is they need 2:28:40.600 --> 2:28:42.800 to vaccinate people, and they need to build a real 2:28:42.879 --> 2:28:46.560 public health infrastructure that includes migrant workers. But you know, 2:28:46.720 --> 2:28:50.280 that's we'll see if that happens. So so I think 2:28:50.280 --> 2:28:52.880 that those are already victories like which which we should 2:28:53.080 --> 2:28:55.400 which you know, we should take account of. And I 2:28:55.480 --> 2:29:00.200 think moving forward, the ability to repress like the the 2:29:00.920 --> 2:29:04.400 street demonstrations should not be under underestimated, like the state 2:29:04.480 --> 2:29:07.440 has immense resources at its capacity. I don't think that 2:29:07.480 --> 2:29:09.960 we're going to continue to see people chanting, you know, 2:29:10.040 --> 2:29:12.800 down with the Communist Party in the streets regularly. Um 2:29:12.959 --> 2:29:15.040 So I think that they'll be able to at least 2:29:15.080 --> 2:29:17.760 push that down a little bit and maybe with some concessions, 2:29:17.800 --> 2:29:20.400 people will be satisfied. You know, the guy who just 2:29:20.440 --> 2:29:21.720 wants to be able to go to the movie, like 2:29:22.000 --> 2:29:23.920 next year this time, there's a good chance he will 2:29:24.000 --> 2:29:26.720 just be able to go to the movies. To kind 2:29:26.720 --> 2:29:29.560 of continue with my labor centric perspective, though, I think 2:29:29.600 --> 2:29:32.440 it's going to be harder for for workers. I think 2:29:32.480 --> 2:29:34.160 it's going to be harder for them to repress that 2:29:34.640 --> 2:29:36.800 as long as the closed loop management systems are in 2:29:36.879 --> 2:29:39.440 effect and lockdowns are happening. I mean, it just puts 2:29:39.600 --> 2:29:43.440 insane demands on these workers, and there were revolts against 2:29:43.520 --> 2:29:46.400 it when it first happened in Shanghai back in April, 2:29:46.800 --> 2:29:49.680 uh and I think that those will continue to exist. 2:29:50.440 --> 2:29:52.400 Um but I think we'll probably see this kind of 2:29:52.520 --> 2:29:58.160 reversion to what's existed for the last couple of decades, 2:29:58.160 --> 2:30:01.800 which is lots of you know, small scale, somewhat manageable 2:30:01.879 --> 2:30:06.120 and localized protests. The question is, like, does this kind 2:30:06.160 --> 2:30:10.320 of open up, um the possibility of politicization, which we 2:30:10.400 --> 2:30:14.440 have not really seen since nine um in a in 2:30:14.480 --> 2:30:17.400 a robust way at least, And so does this kind 2:30:17.440 --> 2:30:20.280 of open up some of those possibilities so those local 2:30:20.480 --> 2:30:22.960 protests can begin to to speak to each other with 2:30:23.080 --> 2:30:27.200 some sort of common language. UM, and and coher some 2:30:27.280 --> 2:30:29.960 kind of political force that's harder for the state to tame. UM. 2:30:30.720 --> 2:30:33.160 We'll see. Yeah, And I guess I guess the other 2:30:33.240 --> 2:30:36.680 sort of X factor here is like can can can 2:30:36.760 --> 2:30:41.680 the CCP get the growth rate above like five? But yeah, 2:30:41.920 --> 2:30:44.800 like yeah, I I I don't. I don't know how 2:30:44.840 --> 2:30:47.400 they do it like that. I don't know, like I 2:30:47.720 --> 2:30:51.200 I short of like short of like actually just letting 2:30:51.320 --> 2:30:54.880 all of the sort of like like all all of 2:30:54.959 --> 2:30:58.160 the sort of like slack and excess capacity just get 2:30:58.440 --> 2:31:00.560 like you know, just just like intention like tanking the 2:31:00.720 --> 2:31:02.959 entire economy and just like running all of these sort 2:31:03.000 --> 2:31:04.640 of unprofitab business in the ground. Like yeah, I don't, 2:31:04.640 --> 2:31:06.720 I don't see how they do that. And that does 2:31:06.760 --> 2:31:08.280 seem to me, like you know, to be a kind 2:31:08.320 --> 2:31:12.600 of like the sort of like looming horizon over. I 2:31:12.640 --> 2:31:14.440 mean this and this is really true of everyone, like 2:31:14.520 --> 2:31:19.160 the the sort of looming horizon over. Like every government 2:31:19.320 --> 2:31:21.360 in the world has been that the growth rate has 2:31:21.360 --> 2:31:24.960 been collapsing for like the last forty years. And China was, 2:31:25.080 --> 2:31:26.680 you know, trying to change the comedy was like the 2:31:26.800 --> 2:31:31.160 last thing that was really driving in and that's like 2:31:31.280 --> 2:31:35.400 not really true anymore. It's it's a disaster. I mean. 2:31:35.520 --> 2:31:37.680 And then even even without COVID, it was sort of 2:31:37.760 --> 2:31:42.240 like not going great. I mean, it wasn't like you know, 2:31:42.280 --> 2:31:45.360 I mean, it hadn't reached like it hadn't like reached 2:31:45.400 --> 2:31:48.240 like you know, like recession or i hadn't really reached 2:31:48.240 --> 2:31:52.320 like sort of post industrialized country levels of like here's 2:31:52.320 --> 2:31:54.280 your two percent growth every year, be happy with it, 2:31:54.400 --> 2:31:58.600 but like I don't know, yeah, but but the growth, 2:31:58.800 --> 2:32:01.880 I mean this is maybe like another whole conversation, but 2:32:02.040 --> 2:32:05.640 like the growth has become less effective, right, It's just 2:32:05.959 --> 2:32:09.240 it's this like investment led growth. It's there, there's massive 2:32:09.280 --> 2:32:13.560 growth in debt and they can you know, build another bridge, 2:32:13.560 --> 2:32:16.440 build another airport, building. I mean, they're not building the 2:32:16.520 --> 2:32:20.000 apartment blocks as much anymore. But they do that they 2:32:20.040 --> 2:32:22.400 can prop up the growth a little bit, right, But 2:32:22.840 --> 2:32:25.880 like the fundamental problem that they've been unable to address 2:32:26.000 --> 2:32:28.680 is like increasing domestic consumption and having a more equitable 2:32:28.760 --> 2:32:30.560 model of growth, And the reason that they can't do 2:32:30.640 --> 2:32:33.240 that is fundamentally a political problem, Like they can't figure 2:32:33.240 --> 2:32:36.520 out a way to give working class people more money 2:32:36.879 --> 2:32:40.480 and to give them some social protections, um and like 2:32:41.200 --> 2:32:44.760 until they resolve that political problem, Like I just don't 2:32:44.920 --> 2:32:47.640 see them being able to deal with with that economic problem. 2:32:47.720 --> 2:32:49.600 So that means you are going to continue to have 2:32:49.800 --> 2:32:53.440 this kind of ongoing forms of stagnation. Zero COVID really 2:32:53.560 --> 2:32:55.720 hurts it a lot more. Of course, the geo political 2:32:55.800 --> 2:32:58.959 conflict with the US and and Biden, you know, trying 2:32:59.000 --> 2:33:02.000 to economically unique at them like that doesn't help. And 2:33:02.080 --> 2:33:04.640 then the demographics of you know, like all of these 2:33:04.720 --> 2:33:07.760 things are making making their lives much more difficult. And 2:33:07.879 --> 2:33:12.360 so one way to interpret what's happened um under under 2:33:12.480 --> 2:33:16.160 zero COVID is the expansion of a massive and terrifying 2:33:16.280 --> 2:33:20.000 surveillance state that will allow them to weather whatever political 2:33:20.120 --> 2:33:24.400 storms are coming in the future. Yeah, and I guess 2:33:24.400 --> 2:33:26.960 I don't know well well well, well, well well we'll see, 2:33:27.040 --> 2:33:29.320 we'll see whether that works for them. I am somewhat 2:33:29.360 --> 2:33:33.160 skeptical in that, like I don't know, like good luck, 2:33:34.320 --> 2:33:37.000 actually terrible luck. I hope it goes badly for them, 2:33:37.120 --> 2:33:41.880 the worst of luck. Yeah. So, Eli, thank you so 2:33:42.000 --> 2:33:44.840 much for coming on the show. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Yeah. 2:33:44.920 --> 2:33:47.880 And okay, where where can people find you and find 2:33:48.200 --> 2:33:51.680 the stuff that you do? Uh well, I'm on Twitter 2:33:52.200 --> 2:33:55.600 as long as it's still there, um Eli D Friedman 2:33:56.160 --> 2:34:02.920 And uh yeah, I'm on the Internet. I don't know, 2:34:03.000 --> 2:34:05.080 that's that's the main place. Come if you're in Ithaca, 2:34:05.240 --> 2:34:08.000 come on by, all right. Yeah, this this has been 2:34:08.040 --> 2:34:12.400 Make it Happen here, drag every government into perpetual and 2:34:12.520 --> 2:34:18.240 terminal crisis until it stops existing. Hey, we'll be back 2:34:18.320 --> 2:34:21.520 Monday with more episodes every week from now until the 2:34:21.560 --> 2:34:24.080 heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is 2:34:24.080 --> 2:34:26.760 a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from 2:34:26.800 --> 2:34:29.680 cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, 2:34:29.879 --> 2:34:31.600 or check us out on the I Heart radio app, 2:34:31.600 --> 2:34:34.800 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:34:34.840 --> 2:34:37.520 find sources for it Could Happen here updated monthly at 2:34:37.560 --> 2:34:40.760 cool Zone media dot com slash sources, Thanks for listening.