Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Together Everything, So don't don't don't Well, I guess
Speaker 1: we're here. We're back again, Yeah, bo Jeff, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: so scared of that. Hello of me the worst year Ever.
Speaker 1: We should have changed it to the worst Years Ever.
Speaker 1: When we continued on in hindsights years Comma, they have
Speaker 1: not gotten better. The year the year that continues poorly,
Speaker 1: even though it's technically a different year. That's good. That
Speaker 1: could we could do, like there could be a song
Speaker 1: that does have something to it. But I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: there's an internal rhythm. I think I think we can
Speaker 1: make it work. It flows to the beat of jazz
Speaker 1: like a cosmic gumbo like it is like a cosmic
Speaker 1: Gubbo Grrison's here today. Hello, hey Cody, You're so glad
Speaker 1: to see them? God, how did you? How did you
Speaker 1: feel about the Bubba Fette shows? The Bubba Here's how
Speaker 1: I feel about the Bubba Fette show. Um, well, the
Speaker 1: Mandalorian I would say it's like pretty good in terms
Speaker 1: of direction. It was trying to take the star war.
Speaker 1: Um Boba Fette is an interesting show because me, Cody
Speaker 1: uh from let's say fifteen years ago would have uh
Speaker 1: immediately watched it as soon as it was put up,
Speaker 1: and probably watched it a second time and watched all
Speaker 1: of it. Um, I haven't seen a second of the
Speaker 1: Boba Fette show. Good for You, Good for You. It's good,
Speaker 1: is it? I liked it because it's basically just more
Speaker 1: of the Mandalorian It is not show, which is nice.
Speaker 1: I don't care about Boba Fette. I just like I
Speaker 1: like it's fine. I like it's like it's kind of
Speaker 1: a it's kind of a wonky space Western thing, which
Speaker 1: is all all that I wanted from it. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to watch it a second time. That's when you
Speaker 1: want from I watched. I watched it. I enjoy the fights,
Speaker 1: I the characters are They're all actors that I like
Speaker 1: seeing do stuff. And I don't I don't have like
Speaker 1: strong feelings about it. The show is a list strong feelings. Well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't that I comprehensively enjoy it. See that's the
Speaker 1: thing about it. Like that's why I haven't watched it.
Speaker 1: It's like I have no feeling about it. It has
Speaker 1: it has no feeling. It is so sanitized and corporate,
Speaker 1: and the show is so uninterested in Boba Fett as
Speaker 1: a character because no one should be interested in him
Speaker 1: because he's boring. Ye, he's not any counterpoint from someone
Speaker 1: he has hasn't seen The Mandalorian or Botha, and he's
Speaker 1: not gonna Sometimes you just need something whatever to put
Speaker 1: on with good fights. That's that's kind of enough actors,
Speaker 1: and especially when the world is looking like it is now.
Speaker 1: I have not watched or cared about I have not
Speaker 1: cared about a Star Wars in a long time. I
Speaker 1: didn't care for any of the new movies. I did
Speaker 1: not care for any of the prequels. Um, but I've
Speaker 1: liked some of the comics and the Bubba fet shows
Speaker 1: fun I like, I enjoyed, I enjoyed it. Uh, it's good,
Speaker 1: It's not for you, Robert. Yeah, I would enjoy a
Speaker 1: Doctor Offer TV show, a Doctor after TV show, and
Speaker 1: the night. The thing that I liked most about the
Speaker 1: Bubba Fete show was black her Santin showing up, which
Speaker 1: made me think like, oh, we might actually get the
Speaker 1: thing that I want most. Well, so yeah, that's a thing.
Speaker 1: Like with a show like this, I'm like, well, don't
Speaker 1: do a Boba Fete show. Just do like literally tales
Speaker 1: for the past Star Wars anthology series much better, I think,
Speaker 1: But I feel like they did that. They just stuck
Speaker 1: the name Boba Fette on the top that the clicks
Speaker 1: and I don't but like care you're Disney, You're on Disney. Plus, uh,
Speaker 1: you're doing Star Wars. You don't need to get the clicks.
Speaker 1: Like it, like people will be there no matter what,
Speaker 1: no matter what you do. Here's my attitude. The fact
Speaker 1: that Disney launched what they claimed was a Boba Fette
Speaker 1: show and then in the middle of the series and
Speaker 1: turned into the episodes not feature Boba Fette is the
Speaker 1: bravest decision I've seen them make yet in the Star
Speaker 1: Wars realm. And very funny. It's really funny through it's
Speaker 1: literally just becomes the Mandalorian season whatever. Like he's not
Speaker 1: he's not in the it's just Pedro Bascal doing ship episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that's very funny. I thought funny. It turns into
Speaker 1: a show with and get I like Mark Cambell and
Speaker 1: that's what the show is. Here's what I like to see.
Speaker 1: I didn't like the c G I Mark Cammell stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll go that was the most off putting part of it.
Speaker 1: Tom Garrison. Yeah, I thought the number one. If you're
Speaker 1: going to do c g I mark Camill's face to
Speaker 1: make him look young. Okay, I'll take the argument because
Speaker 1: like he's a big part of the Star Wars expanded universe.
Speaker 1: Just let Mark Hambill do the voice. Don't. Don't get
Speaker 1: weird with the greatest voice actor alive. Use him. Do
Speaker 1: the thing that other things have done, which is get
Speaker 1: the actor to do it and then d age him
Speaker 1: like the try, you know, like, if you're gonna do
Speaker 1: the weird fucking you know, the deep fake thing, at
Speaker 1: least use his real voice. But that is that is
Speaker 1: the real problem is that it's also a deep fake
Speaker 1: voice via the program Reespeecher, and it's not good so emotionless, right,
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, it's a robot. It's a robot
Speaker 1: trying to Yeah, And that part I didn't like. But
Speaker 1: what I did like about it is that in terms
Speaker 1: of its construction, like it's bizarre for a TV show
Speaker 1: to be a stably based around a guy and then
Speaker 1: he disappears for half of the series, But it's not
Speaker 1: weird for a comic book like comic it's true and
Speaker 1: that that's kind of what I thought might be, that
Speaker 1: we might be heading towards something kind of neat where
Speaker 1: they actually are building up to just doing what they've
Speaker 1: been doing pretty well. Like the latest run of Star
Speaker 1: Wars comics have been good. And I said, again as
Speaker 1: someone who's not particularly a Star Wars fan, like I
Speaker 1: like all that ship, the Darth Vader ones and stuff, like,
Speaker 1: there's some good stuff in there, um, and it's my
Speaker 1: hope that like they'll just kind of keep spinning towards
Speaker 1: that and they'll get really weird with it. Like there
Speaker 1: were some moments of like cad Bane showing up and
Speaker 1: ship it's like without wow, okay, you guys willing to
Speaker 1: get kind of strange. Um. So it was as it
Speaker 1: was also fun when he did a drug trip with
Speaker 1: the Tuscans when he took the best episode was episode
Speaker 1: two when he just did drugs with the Tuscans and
Speaker 1: that was actually incredibly rad. There's some fun ship in there.
Speaker 1: And my must to you, as this Cody, if you
Speaker 1: watch the Boba Fetts show, you will be frustrated at
Speaker 1: some points, you will be entertained at other points. You
Speaker 1: will probably not be thinking about the looming specter of
Speaker 1: global conflict for most of the time that you that's
Speaker 1: so anyone can ask for from specifically Star Wars to
Speaker 1: like no one's asking you to make like amazing art
Speaker 1: speaking of global conflict before we pivot to the news. Um,
Speaker 1: I just this has nothing to do with Star Wars either.
Speaker 1: But it's a really good show that I know, and
Speaker 1: I want you to watch it. I want you want
Speaker 1: to watch it. And it's called Patriot, And thank God Prime,
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to see Euphoria. No, I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to do that. I truly think that you
Speaker 1: would all enjoy the show Patriot on Amazon Prime. And
Speaker 1: I've heard it's a show on Amazon Prime. Um, it's great. Um,
Speaker 1: it's got only got two seasons outstanding motherfucking cast um.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much to say to not
Speaker 1: spoil it. But it's basically like a guy works in
Speaker 1: the government and his son is a not secret service
Speaker 1: beat is off the book jobs for the government, and
Speaker 1: but he's all fucked up from one trip and he
Speaker 1: has to go straight into another one to intercept some cash.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah, and its spirals out. But it's very funny.
Speaker 1: It's so funny, and it's heartbreaking and well written and
Speaker 1: full of action. And it's also like a lovely family story.
Speaker 1: There's like a brother relationship that's very special. It's really
Speaker 1: it's good. Nobody watches it and is disappointed. I will,
Speaker 1: I will check that out. It's good to have a
Speaker 1: good show to watch when times are like this, if
Speaker 1: you need to like just that that sounds fun. I
Speaker 1: have been people all over my timeline. I've been talking
Speaker 1: about Euphoria, which my favorite thing about this. I don't
Speaker 1: I know nothing about this show. I haven't watched it.
Speaker 1: I don't plan to watch it. But the very fun
Speaker 1: part is that, like all of the commentary for weeks
Speaker 1: has been like, oh, it's high school kids. They're dealing
Speaker 1: with like drugs and you know, one of them's trans
Speaker 1: and like it's all this, like you know, it seemed
Speaker 1: like a normal, like basic basic stuff. And then someone's
Speaker 1: people started playing a clip from apparently the last episode
Speaker 1: where Okay, you watched the show, huh, I do watch it,
Speaker 1: iry see, I have no idea what I watch. That's
Speaker 1: not a secret that I watched television. Cody as another spoiler,
Speaker 1: Boba feats he gets out of the hole, he gets
Speaker 1: out of the pit. Pit. We started the show saying
Speaker 1: I've not seen the boat show yet. The class getting
Speaker 1: out of a pit, getting out, he got knocked into
Speaker 1: accidently classic feet, like a yeah, you know, I I
Speaker 1: think classic Boba Fett is just falling into the hole.
Speaker 1: And now we're we're expanding his character because he's able
Speaker 1: to get out of a whole. The end of the
Speaker 1: Hero's journey, crawled out of the hole. Do you read?
Speaker 1: And then he crawled out of the hole. Should we pivot? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should probably pivot. Probably. We've we've literally gone like
Speaker 1: probably a year or more without talking about TV, but
Speaker 1: now everything is so bad that we just talked about
Speaker 1: for eleven minutes. Last time we talked about it, it
Speaker 1: was it was well, it was gay Superman was the
Speaker 1: last time. That's right, god man. That was like forty
Speaker 1: seven moral panics ago. It was at least I forgot
Speaker 1: we had gay Superman. Yeah, they were the days Superman
Speaker 1: ruined society by having a gay son. Look where we
Speaker 1: are now. Things have gotten worse. So we had a
Speaker 1: gay Superman and then Vladimir Putin started a war because
Speaker 1: of it. Because of it, I mean, he did give
Speaker 1: that speech a few months ago about wokeness and PC
Speaker 1: culture in the West. So, yeah, I mean NATO stands
Speaker 1: for nobody ever takes no no as taste. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was going to try to tie
Speaker 1: it in, but there's no way I've got I've got nothing.
Speaker 1: What how are we all doing? What's going on in
Speaker 1: the world were pretty bad stuff. Patient You're like, shouldn't
Speaker 1: we talk about like what we're here for? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's been a hard week. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know how to start talking about everything, you know. So
Speaker 1: I think the thing that is most notable to me
Speaker 1: is that there are two, Like there's what's actually happening
Speaker 1: in the war, and then there's the Russian propaganda, which
Speaker 1: is fairly incoherent and not particularly because of like how
Speaker 1: rapidly a bunch of ship was d platformed. There's very
Speaker 1: little visibility of that um in the West. And then
Speaker 1: there's the Ukrainian propaganda, which is most of what people
Speaker 1: who are listening this are seeing on their timeline. Which
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that like it's not none of it's happening
Speaker 1: or anything, but it does mean that like a very
Speaker 1: skewed view of what's happening on the ground is being
Speaker 1: passed two people because largely that it feels good. And
Speaker 1: like again, there's all sorts of like there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of there's always mixes of truth in with it, like
Speaker 1: for example, the you know, you now have the thing
Speaker 1: that happens anytime a person in a position of power
Speaker 1: doesn't funk up, which is that a chunk of libs
Speaker 1: have gotten real weird and sexual about it, very very horny,
Speaker 1: and that I I felt because I you know, I
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really valid criticisms of Zelinski, particularly
Speaker 1: prior to the outbreak of fighting. Among other things, one
Speaker 1: thing that is, he repeatedly kind of downplayed what they
Speaker 1: believed as the risk of a full scale Russian invasion
Speaker 1: um to the point of like really arguing with a
Speaker 1: lot of the U S intelligence, which you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's an argument trying to keep it from panic
Speaker 1: and everything. But at the same time, people needed to leave. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of civilians who did not adequately get
Speaker 1: to prepare for what was going to happen. And and
Speaker 1: again I think that's a really important point to not
Speaker 1: just like the fact that they've had Russian military and
Speaker 1: on their periphery for a long time. You know, they
Speaker 1: were invaded not that long ago and eight years ago,
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, it happened, and they've been
Speaker 1: you know, Russians have build up, weeks have build up.
Speaker 1: But I think, from what I'm understanding, just people didn't
Speaker 1: quite they didn't until it happened. They didn't believe that
Speaker 1: it would happen. And there's so much disinformation that always
Speaker 1: rounds were so much disinformation surrounding this. It's not the
Speaker 1: kind of I'm not gonna like condemn Zalinski is a
Speaker 1: human being forever for that failure of his administration, but
Speaker 1: it is a failure and it deserves to be noted
Speaker 1: as such. UM. And there have been some other things
Speaker 1: that are really questionable. One of them is this is
Speaker 1: probably not questionable from a military standpoint, You could argue
Speaker 1: with the right thing to do, but it's a deeply
Speaker 1: morally questionable act. Which is the forced conscription of every
Speaker 1: adult male under the age of sixty UM, which is
Speaker 1: like to some really brutal moments, particularly at the border,
Speaker 1: as families try to flee and they are separated from
Speaker 1: their their sons and husbands, UM, which is again in
Speaker 1: the long view of history, when we're looking at this
Speaker 1: years down the line. Depending on how this all goes,
Speaker 1: people may say, well, this was you know that, this
Speaker 1: was what what allowed Ukraine to eke out a victory.
Speaker 1: This was necessary, you know, just like so many horrible
Speaker 1: things that had to be done by the Allied forces
Speaker 1: in World War Two wound up being necessary. Or we
Speaker 1: may say well this fed a lot of young men
Speaker 1: into a meat grinder, a lot of families without kids,
Speaker 1: and it didn't affect the the old. We can't know, right,
Speaker 1: these are things that are worth discussing and worth being
Speaker 1: potentially critical about, but we also have to acknowledge as like, well, nobody,
Speaker 1: no nobody ever makes perfect or even mostly good decisions
Speaker 1: in a war. I think that that would be fair
Speaker 1: to argue, like, you can look at fd impossible calculations
Speaker 1: inspiring moments of FDR from World War Two while he
Speaker 1: was like locking Japanese people up in internment camps. You know, um,
Speaker 1: the same thing with you know. So I'll give us
Speaker 1: a scale a lot of credit for staying and repeatedly
Speaker 1: putting his life on the line and refusing to do
Speaker 1: what I think nearly every other world leader would have done,
Speaker 1: which is get the funk out of there and hide
Speaker 1: in a mansion and you know, Germany or somewhat and
Speaker 1: try to direct this from a distance, which is by
Speaker 1: far the norm. And the fact that he didn't speaks
Speaker 1: better of him as a person than I can probably
Speaker 1: say of any other national elected leader on the planet
Speaker 1: at the moment um. And it's certainly caught the world's
Speaker 1: attention if it wasn't paying attention before. And you know,
Speaker 1: the morning is weird and I hate I hate it
Speaker 1: when that happens. I hate it because it makes me
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I made some posts being like
Speaker 1: this is something that should be law to the specific act,
Speaker 1: you know, refusing to leave that is, you know, an
Speaker 1: act of courage that we should appreciate. And then when
Speaker 1: a bunch of people get really horny about it, it's like,
Speaker 1: well should I even are you feeding into that by
Speaker 1: just like commenting on this thing that is legitimately good
Speaker 1: And these are kind of there's a lot of It's
Speaker 1: the same thing with like, are you feeding into unreasonable
Speaker 1: and unrealistic optimism about the course of the war if
Speaker 1: you celebrate specific kinds of victories, what happened of the
Speaker 1: broader struggle, what happens, what we see happening. I mean, Garrison,
Speaker 1: you put some examples in this doc I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: this this idea that it's like a movie playing out
Speaker 1: and he's are unlikely hero the guy with this game,
Speaker 1: I know, but like because he's got this storied past
Speaker 1: and it reads like a play. It is very funny
Speaker 1: that he played the piano with his testicles on stage
Speaker 1: at one point. That's that's that's great and fine, but
Speaker 1: also we don't need a New York party. A New
Speaker 1: York Post article saying we share discast Jeremy Renner as
Speaker 1: Lensky in Fantasy Ukraine. It makes me sick and everyone
Speaker 1: everyone doing that should be flung into the sea. We're
Speaker 1: like watching dies, but thousands of people. People are dying,
Speaker 1: like vacuum mombs are being detonated in crowded city blocks. Um,
Speaker 1: some of the most terrifying weapons that exist on this planet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can. You cannot stand precedents like you don't need to.
Speaker 1: Like you can. You can recognize that certain leaders are
Speaker 1: doing things that other people maybe too cowardly to do.
Speaker 1: But you can recognize that without getting weirdly horny about
Speaker 1: it because because the drive of hero worship specifically towards
Speaker 1: politicians and political leaders like is not good. Like, there's
Speaker 1: lots of other people who are putting their lives on
Speaker 1: the line way more, but we default always too politicians
Speaker 1: and political leaders, um and as and as as cool
Speaker 1: as it maybe that he's sticking around like this is
Speaker 1: a purposeful like like propaganda move like it and it's good,
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's very well done, but it does
Speaker 1: have that dual purpose and and and I think part
Speaker 1: of why one thing you have to clarify when we
Speaker 1: talked about it is a propaganda move. Propaganda doesn't just
Speaker 1: mean or even necessarily in a case like this, primarily
Speaker 1: mean something directed outward. It's it's this. The thing that
Speaker 1: I think is probably most successful about what Zelinski is
Speaker 1: doing is that it's it's having and from everything I
Speaker 1: can tell a significant morale impact on soldiers on the
Speaker 1: ground just knowing that, like, well, they would probably feel
Speaker 1: less bad about the fact that many of them are
Speaker 1: going to die if the guy who was ostensibly leading
Speaker 1: them was hiding in a mansion in Berlin or something,
Speaker 1: you know, um, which is understandable and and as a
Speaker 1: as a military choice, as a tactical choice, is a
Speaker 1: strategic choice is really more of a strategic than a
Speaker 1: tactical choice. UM, I think you probably lee with what
Speaker 1: Zelinski has done, get more people who are willing to
Speaker 1: fight harder and do things like what what we're seeing
Speaker 1: in um um Mariopol right now, where you've got the
Speaker 1: entire city now surrounded and cut off by an overwhelming
Speaker 1: number of Russian troops. And there's a pretty good chance
Speaker 1: that every single Ukrainian soldier there, if they don't surrender,
Speaker 1: is going to die fighting along with a funckload of civilians.
Speaker 1: And maybe people wouldn't be willing to do that if
Speaker 1: Zelinski had not made the example. And but that and
Speaker 1: that that also the question that we cannot answer until
Speaker 1: this is over is will that alter things? Has he
Speaker 1: made a decision by getting by increasing you know, doing
Speaker 1: these things that have improved fighting spirit so much? Is
Speaker 1: that going to help Ukraine fight off this aggression or
Speaker 1: is it just going to mean that when everything is settled,
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot more Ukrainians are dead and
Speaker 1: we you don't know, this is not a kind of
Speaker 1: thing you can condemn or applod it's a tactic, you know,
Speaker 1: and and it's not a tactic that we know the
Speaker 1: efficacy of yet um from I guess from a moral level,
Speaker 1: I can applaud fighting for your homeland. I think that's
Speaker 1: fighting for your homes against aggression is a good thing.
Speaker 1: But like as it does it, is it going to
Speaker 1: work or is it just going to be more bodies
Speaker 1: on the dirt? I don't know. Well, we need to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll come back and
Speaker 1: keep having this conversation together. Everything get back, And that's
Speaker 1: what we are. We are politely respectfully. We are a
Speaker 1: politely respectfully back So yeah, outside of you know, we've
Speaker 1: we've I think discussed Zelinsky to the extent that is
Speaker 1: useful for you. Just like keep the homosexual ship to yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if he dies, it's fine to mourn him. It's
Speaker 1: fine to like respect the choices he's making because I
Speaker 1: think he's handling this as well as a wartime leader
Speaker 1: possibly could, given everything he is capable of going and
Speaker 1: everything that we know I don't actually have. Like, it's
Speaker 1: fine to say that you don't. You don't need to
Speaker 1: talk about him being hot. That's not helping, and it's
Speaker 1: really basically disrespectful actually, and it's it starts intersecting with
Speaker 1: like the fantasy Ukraine invasion film type idea. It's not
Speaker 1: the numbers of people are going to die and have
Speaker 1: died already, you know, it's it's it's not okay. I
Speaker 1: wanted to respond to one thing that you had said
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about right before the break, if
Speaker 1: they should have surrendered or if they should surrender versus
Speaker 1: how many people are going to die and making that decision.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that, like this is
Speaker 1: this whole thing is so fucked because it's very clear
Speaker 1: that even if they do surrender, there's nothing about this
Speaker 1: that will be peaceful. People will continue to die, there
Speaker 1: will be uprising, the gay people that will be massacred
Speaker 1: with civilian The civilians are not going to stop making
Speaker 1: Molotov cocktails. They're not gonna like just walk peacefully into this.
Speaker 1: So either way, this is unfathomable bloodshed. You know, this,
Speaker 1: This is a situation a guy who's been handed a
Speaker 1: nightmare and a country that's been handed a nightmare. And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of points at which things could
Speaker 1: have been done to stop what we're seeing right now
Speaker 1: from happening um, beginning much further back than eight years ago,
Speaker 1: which is when the Russians invaded Ukraine initially, um, and
Speaker 1: nothing was done. You know, nobody, nobody did anything, and
Speaker 1: it's internationally nobody did anything. And if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about like the moral culpability of the United States
Speaker 1: or of NATO, it's in the fact that Putin number
Speaker 1: one went up in charge at all, which had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with US decisions that were made to
Speaker 1: r e Boris yelts In. It's the fact that a
Speaker 1: number of of Russian aggressive moves and backing of of
Speaker 1: dictators in a variety of countries around the world, particularly
Speaker 1: area where Russians tested weapons and tact experience, nothing was done.
Speaker 1: Nothing was done about Czechnia when they leveled gros ni Um,
Speaker 1: nothing was done. When when they invaded Ukraine eight years ago.
Speaker 1: And when you have a guy like Putin and nothing
Speaker 1: keeps being and no one pushes back effectively, at least
Speaker 1: over and over again, they keep grabbing more and more,
Speaker 1: and um, we are seeing the result. It's this thing
Speaker 1: I talked about when when Turkey, you know, moved in
Speaker 1: the northeast Syria. Um. And it's this thing I talked
Speaker 1: about a lot, because there's been this huge problem on
Speaker 1: the left of folks who have decided that, like this
Speaker 1: is a fight in any sort of struggle where the
Speaker 1: US and Russia can be opposed, they should be on
Speaker 1: Russia's side for vaguely anti imperialistic reasons. And and this
Speaker 1: kind of has been extended and for years was extended
Speaker 1: to it's it's part of why international support for the
Speaker 1: Arab Spring collapsed, and it's why you have these people
Speaker 1: who you know, stand Bashar al Assad as a socialist
Speaker 1: here or whatever the funk, these these gray zone scum fucks.
Speaker 1: And when you you cannot let a dictator mass murder people,
Speaker 1: because it never stops there, it'll spread. It's the same
Speaker 1: as ignoring cancer cells in your body. And what we
Speaker 1: are seeing in Ukraine and these threats that are these
Speaker 1: fears everyone has that are growing now that this is
Speaker 1: going to get nuclear. Uh, the seeds of this were sown,
Speaker 1: I mean much further back than you know, the start
Speaker 1: of the Syrian Civil War. But the Syrian Civil War
Speaker 1: was a major factor in all of this. And you
Speaker 1: can't just keep again at this point, there's no good
Speaker 1: solutions right every every and we'll talk a bit about
Speaker 1: that later. Every possible resolution to this is real ugly,
Speaker 1: and every possible tactic to resist what Russia's doing is
Speaker 1: real ugly and very problematic. There was a time when
Speaker 1: that would not necessarily have been the case, but we
Speaker 1: all just sat on this ship unless you're you know,
Speaker 1: someone who was fighting in the street against Assad and
Speaker 1: somebody who was, you know, resisting Russian aggression, and there's
Speaker 1: somebody and you know, the fact that not to be
Speaker 1: entirely Russia centric, the fact that the way in which
Speaker 1: the United States invaded Iraq has had massive impact on
Speaker 1: how the Russians proceeded in Ukraine. Um, and it's a
Speaker 1: big part of why so many people were willing to
Speaker 1: buy the idea that number one, all of the what
Speaker 1: the State Department was saying about the Russian invasion, all
Speaker 1: of this intelligence was was flawed and nonsense. Like the
Speaker 1: fact that so many people on the left believe that
Speaker 1: is understandable in part because there was a time in
Speaker 1: our immediate past when they lied a shipload about stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and that's consequences were tremendous. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of You can't trust your government, You can't trust
Speaker 1: what they're saying. Yeah, decades and decades in tech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is um fuck at all. How don't say and
Speaker 1: it't me saying this. Um, it is very frustrating to
Speaker 1: watch to talk about. I mean what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that we should be invading the United States,
Speaker 1: should be coming in on you know, the white Horse.
Speaker 1: I understand what's at stake here, unders there's no He
Speaker 1: also knows that we've got a nuclear device pointed right
Speaker 1: at him, but he doesn't seem to care. He's not
Speaker 1: like some rational actor. We're not going to start sacrifice
Speaker 1: with Russia, but he could start. He could deploy tactical
Speaker 1: nukes and see what happens. Like, he is a dice
Speaker 1: rolling guy, and that gives him the power in this
Speaker 1: situation because he can conceivably and realistically threatened, Hey I'll
Speaker 1: get nuclear if you guys move troops in directly, you know, um,
Speaker 1: letting him do what he wants. Um. Yeah, And we're
Speaker 1: throwing out sanctions and stuff, which is a deeply questionable
Speaker 1: in a number of ways. Um well yeah, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is but the like This is what
Speaker 1: happens when you kind of seed all sort of initiative
Speaker 1: to the authoritarians, and when you do authoritarian ship yourself
Speaker 1: often enough that like there's no reason for anyone to
Speaker 1: trust you above them. There was a period of time,
Speaker 1: I think after World War Two, in the period of
Speaker 1: time after the end of the Cold War where there
Speaker 1: were real opportunities for an international system that would have
Speaker 1: made it a lot harder for dictators to do the
Speaker 1: kind of ship that's being done now. But all that
Speaker 1: also would have been an international system where again, for example,
Speaker 1: the United States would not have been able to invade Iraq.
Speaker 1: We right, there's so many instances of just like we
Speaker 1: we pushed this envelope in our own way for so
Speaker 1: many yes, absolutely that it's like, well, how can we
Speaker 1: what do we do now? We we made sure that
Speaker 1: the bottle was open and so that we could do it,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, you have to be willing to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that and see that otherwise you don't see the shape
Speaker 1: of the problem adequately without letting that be the end
Speaker 1: of your analysis. Because also the fact that the US
Speaker 1: did all of this fucked up ship and still does
Speaker 1: fucked up ship does not matter to people in Kharkiev
Speaker 1: who are being subjected to thermobaric artillery right now. Um,
Speaker 1: and that is the problem that we have the ability
Speaker 1: to do something about right now as a as a species,
Speaker 1: I guess, um. And so then the question becomes like, well,
Speaker 1: what what what could make the situation? What is the
Speaker 1: least awful way for this awful situation to potentially resolve?
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of the thing to discuss next,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's very much muddled, and it kind
Speaker 1: of depends on there's a lot of um, you know,
Speaker 1: to quote one of the guys responsible for this situation,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of known unknowns, right and then you know,
Speaker 1: you never know the unknown unknowns are I actually do
Speaker 1: like fuck him, But I don't think that's a useless
Speaker 1: thought schema to go into something. But like, what what
Speaker 1: are the unknown unknowns? Is worth asking. And one of
Speaker 1: the biggest ones, maybe the biggest one in the situation
Speaker 1: is how solid is Putin's actual grip on power? You know, what,
Speaker 1: what are the odds of a palace? Who we can see?
Speaker 1: Last I checked something like people arrested in several Russian
Speaker 1: cities in protests since the start of the war, which
Speaker 1: is enormous for I think it's an enormous number of people,
Speaker 1: given how illegal any kind of protest against this sort
Speaker 1: of thing is in Russia. Um, And it seems to
Speaker 1: be growing the can it ever, Is it even theoretically
Speaker 1: possible for it to grow to such a level that
Speaker 1: it threatens the stability of the state where I have
Speaker 1: no way of No one has any way of knowing
Speaker 1: that to a point of certainty, that seems unlikely. I
Speaker 1: think most people who know Russia's say. The thing that
Speaker 1: is more possible, not that it's likely, but it's more
Speaker 1: or possible, would be the term they use as a
Speaker 1: palace coup, right, which is people around Putin not being
Speaker 1: willing to deal with the consequences, economic and otherwise of
Speaker 1: this invasion and to some extent either minimizing him or
Speaker 1: taking him out of power. And there's some reasons to
Speaker 1: believe this is possible, including according to some reports at
Speaker 1: least he's kind of had really interesting response to COVID,
Speaker 1: shall we say, and has been hiding away from basically everybody, um,
Speaker 1: which would tend to suspect that maybe he's more atomized
Speaker 1: kind of from from a lot of people, and maybe
Speaker 1: there's more room for these people, for folks who who
Speaker 1: might otherwise have been too much under his sight to
Speaker 1: like make some moves. It's possible that the perception is
Speaker 1: that he's in a sort of a weak state or
Speaker 1: something by the restation or whatever. But we just don't
Speaker 1: know how realistic that is, right, certainly not something you
Speaker 1: can bet on, you know. It's it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where if if it happens, everyone will be kind
Speaker 1: of surprised and kind of not surprised at the same time.
Speaker 1: It will be like, oh, I didn't real lies this
Speaker 1: was possible, but also well, of course it might have
Speaker 1: been bought. You know, we're there, right, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do with that hope sort of space where
Speaker 1: like literally, I mean not literally, but like pretty much
Speaker 1: anything is possible. There's no way to predict the next
Speaker 1: you know, twenty four hours, little in twelve hours or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and so it's like this sort of
Speaker 1: thing you have to wait and see. We don't know
Speaker 1: what's real, what's false, what to what information to trust.
Speaker 1: And that's partly why I think that, like it's so
Speaker 1: easy for people to get stuck in that like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like a movie. Who's going to play this guy?
Speaker 1: Because like there's a sense of helplessness because we're not,
Speaker 1: like we can't influence the events really. UM. You can
Speaker 1: like donate to places you know are helping, UM and
Speaker 1: things like that, but like it's just we're just here
Speaker 1: watching TV. UM. And I think that also that's sort
Speaker 1: of like the past However many years have like let
Speaker 1: us up to this point where like it just seems
Speaker 1: like you're disconnected, but you want to feel connected. And
Speaker 1: it's just like it is like I say, one thing
Speaker 1: that you can do, I mean, just reiterating what we've said,
Speaker 1: don't do what we're saying, you know, and be aware
Speaker 1: of what's of not being just not reacting immediately to
Speaker 1: something like double check it look at who ye. Like
Speaker 1: this is rampant right now, Like literally you're sharing the
Speaker 1: bad information any Twitter is something that is how you
Speaker 1: should go about your day, especially saying I'm saying, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that, like that is a problem every single
Speaker 1: day on Twitter, especially if there's like a disaster like
Speaker 1: a hurricane, a hurricane, any sort of disaster situation, or
Speaker 1: like a mass shooting UM. And the most during a
Speaker 1: war h like because not only is there they're just
Speaker 1: bad actors doing like with misinformation, but like, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be propaganda from everywhere. You need to sift through
Speaker 1: it because it's very easy to get caught up in it,
Speaker 1: Like wow, Ghost of Kia, if we're gonna like very cool,
Speaker 1: it's like yeah in theory, but like wait a minute,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a mix of propaganda just
Speaker 1: like you know. One of the most viral initial story
Speaker 1: from this was those those border guards on Snake Island
Speaker 1: who you know said which absolutely told a Russian warship
Speaker 1: to go funk themselves. And the initial report was that
Speaker 1: they had all died, and now it seems like they
Speaker 1: did they all didn't, yeah, and they didn't, Like there's
Speaker 1: no way to know, like what was that propaganda initially
Speaker 1: from the government or were they just like, well, we didn't,
Speaker 1: like we just lost contact with these field that one
Speaker 1: feels less like propaganda as a story that we all
Speaker 1: reacted to before having all the information. One point I'll
Speaker 1: make is that while this isn't the first war during
Speaker 1: social media, of course not um this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: everyone's paying attention to it. What's happening and invasion of
Speaker 1: another country. We have social media, we have videos on
Speaker 1: the ground. It's it's not like the story takes happens
Speaker 1: and then five days later we're reading it in a newspaper.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it happen in real time, and so we
Speaker 1: are learning things and relatively real time, and that changes.
Speaker 1: So the place was bombed everyone you maybe think everyone's dead.
Speaker 1: It became almost like propaganda because we're all watching, we're waiting,
Speaker 1: and we're looking, and it becomes this hero's story and
Speaker 1: we start to martyr them immediately as you don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to them. There's lives are in danger. Still.
Speaker 1: Also think about propaganda, is that like it doesn't some
Speaker 1: of these propaganda doesn't automatically mean that it's false. It's
Speaker 1: not like it doesn't need to be a falsehood. It
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be a complete lie to be propaganda.
Speaker 1: Like this event, it is like sake, I isn't think, Okay,
Speaker 1: that happened. They said this. That's all we know. We
Speaker 1: can use that piece of information for like like we're
Speaker 1: talking we're talking about earlier with morale or just like
Speaker 1: general propaganda usage. It's not a lie. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: being used for some purpose samply with Ghost of KIAV
Speaker 1: in terms of it being yeah, this this tool that
Speaker 1: people in power are using to raise morale, and the
Speaker 1: truthfulness of it honestly does not even matter because of
Speaker 1: the way it's being used as a tool, because yeah,
Speaker 1: we we can you can point to all of the
Speaker 1: things being like, no, all the pictures that people are
Speaker 1: posting are actually of French helmet test photo shoot simulator
Speaker 1: and all and all all the videos are from video
Speaker 1: games that are all cut. And this has been going on,
Speaker 1: by the way, for years. It's happening for a long
Speaker 1: ton of this stuff happening, Like the Russia in particular
Speaker 1: had a thing of like posting footage from video games
Speaker 1: and then saying it was from you know wherever. Syria
Speaker 1: um and and the Ukrainian government is doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: They're posting videos that are from digital combat simulator and
Speaker 1: they're very good at it. They're doing there. It's been
Speaker 1: it's been extremes. They have definitely been Uh, whatever is
Speaker 1: happening on the ground, which we can talk about in
Speaker 1: a bit is debatable in in terms of propaganda, they've
Speaker 1: definitely doing of the propaganda war um, which is not nothing,
Speaker 1: especially when you when you talk about like, um, you
Speaker 1: know important yeah, yeah, and there's like, you know, caught
Speaker 1: up in the middle of like all of this glory.
Speaker 1: We we just dropped an episode and it could happen
Speaker 1: here today about it will have been a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, but it's called Escaping Ukraine, and it's about
Speaker 1: what it's actually like at the border and all of
Speaker 1: these people getting to the border right, whose stories are
Speaker 1: much less attractive than these these brave stories of resistance
Speaker 1: UM and stories of UH, particularly like black people, black
Speaker 1: Ukrainians UM, a lot of whom are refugees themselves getting
Speaker 1: denied the ability to cross at the border. UM. And
Speaker 1: it's it's a little unclear to me at the moment
Speaker 1: how much of that problem is with Polish border guards
Speaker 1: and how much is with Ukrainian There's a lot of
Speaker 1: like people are arguing about it enough that I don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable confident saying which is more responsible, But it's
Speaker 1: happening that there's certainly evidence that like that it's a problem. UM.
Speaker 1: Another article that just dropped today as there's a number
Speaker 1: of trans people in Kiev in particular who because of
Speaker 1: you know, just the realities of transitioning. Their passport did
Speaker 1: not yet match their their gender identity, and they are
Speaker 1: afraid to flee because they do not know what will
Speaker 1: happen to them at the border, particularly given Poland has
Speaker 1: done been great in general about Ukrainian refugees, but also
Speaker 1: Poland not super pro LGBT as as a rule. Um
Speaker 1: And but also obviously like a lot of those people
Speaker 1: would just be fucking murdered if if, if Russia takes over,
Speaker 1: because that's what that's what happened in fucking Czechnia, you know.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there's a pretty good chance that the
Speaker 1: guy who orchestrated like mass killings of LGBT people in
Speaker 1: Czechnia died fighting in Ukraine recently, although we know, we've
Speaker 1: got confirmation that decent numbers of his troops have we're
Speaker 1: we're wiped out because we've seen like the wrecked vehicles
Speaker 1: and stuff and see an in footage. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I haven't seen that guy's body anywhere, although
Speaker 1: you know, he's been claimed by the Ukrainian government that
Speaker 1: he's been killed, So it's hard to say. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of Again, fog of war is a thing UM
Speaker 1: for a reason in video games that it happens in reality,
Speaker 1: and there's UM. When it comes to like what you
Speaker 1: should and should not share, I think it's generally good
Speaker 1: to to share UM articles that are written by journalists
Speaker 1: who are there on the ground and seem to be
Speaker 1: trying to do with the knowledge that like that's not
Speaker 1: going to be perfect either. UM. You know, there's there
Speaker 1: are people on in places like Twitter journalists who are
Speaker 1: doing the best job possible of curating stuff and a verifying.
Speaker 1: Some of my former colleagues at Belling Cat have been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of work verifying, people like Eric Tohler,
Speaker 1: Giancarlo Um, people like Christo UM have been putting a
Speaker 1: lot of effort into attempting to verify things and and
Speaker 1: doing stuff like, Okay, here's a video that shows an
Speaker 1: air strike. Can we confirm this is in Ukraine? You know,
Speaker 1: can we confirm this wasn't you know, six years ago? UM?
Speaker 1: And so those would be people to UM, those would
Speaker 1: be people to look at. I'll try to grab you
Speaker 1: one more name before we go out of here. But
Speaker 1: in general, like you're sharing and retweeting combat footage or
Speaker 1: memes about fighting um or or jokes or you know,
Speaker 1: celebrating Russian defeat preemptively is not gonna help anything. Um,
Speaker 1: it'll help people feel good about themselves, Yeah, they will,
Speaker 1: and then they'll feel like something impossible happened when the
Speaker 1: war doesn't go well. Um. Because like here's here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It does seem fair to say, based on the things
Speaker 1: that we can like know to a point of certainty. Um,
Speaker 1: the initial Russian invasion was was kind of a cluster fuck. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's a number of reasons for that, right if
Speaker 1: you want to look at this as an attempt at
Speaker 1: blitz greg And it does seem accurate based both on
Speaker 1: what they did and based on some leaked conversations that
Speaker 1: have come out between a chechen leader in the Russian government,
Speaker 1: because this dude was just like recording voice messages and
Speaker 1: sending them over and um, I think the Guardian published
Speaker 1: that article that the initial plan that the hope and
Speaker 1: the belief among the Russian command staff and among Putin
Speaker 1: was that, as Hitler said, we need only kick in
Speaker 1: the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse. Right.
Speaker 1: That was this idea that like, there's not going to
Speaker 1: be much of a fight if we can kind of
Speaker 1: shock and awe them. Um, you know, the cities will
Speaker 1: collapse quickly, the government will collapse, and we'll we'll be
Speaker 1: able to take command. And so as a result, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at like how you know a blitzkrieg type
Speaker 1: situation is supposed to work, um, like what the Nazis
Speaker 1: did in France quite successfully or for a time successfully
Speaker 1: in in Russia. You have what's called your first echelon,
Speaker 1: which is your first wave of troops, and they move
Speaker 1: in and they move forward as fast as they possibly can,
Speaker 1: and they do not engage with every enemy they can.
Speaker 1: Their priority is to move forward and take in and
Speaker 1: like advance more than it is to engage with and
Speaker 1: destroy the enemy. Um. They do engage with and destroy
Speaker 1: the enemy at parts when they're blocked, but that's not
Speaker 1: their primary goal. And so the first echelon leaves large
Speaker 1: numbers of intact enemy forces behind them as they advance
Speaker 1: because their goal is disruption, and their goal is making
Speaker 1: it kind of impossible for the enemy to effectively react
Speaker 1: and to effectively engage resistance. And then a second echelon
Speaker 1: comes from behind them and they engage more of those
Speaker 1: troops that were left behind them, there's a third echelon, right,
Speaker 1: That's how a blitzkrieg tactic is supposed to work. That's
Speaker 1: not what the Russians did. In the first five days
Speaker 1: or so of this invasion. They sent in that first echelon,
Speaker 1: which included a tremendous deal of very elite special forces operators,
Speaker 1: airborne troops, um, you know, spetsnaz and they sent in
Speaker 1: elements of battalion task groups, but not cohesive ones. So
Speaker 1: to the extent that Russian soldiers were engaging with Ukrainian soldiers,
Speaker 1: it was often individual little units as opposed to like
Speaker 1: combined arms forces where you have air support and artillery support.
Speaker 1: And because the Russian army is is alart more than
Speaker 1: anything an artillery army, right, um, And that's why you've
Speaker 1: seen such terrible casualties and they do seem to be Again,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian government numbers can't be trusted, but there's enough
Speaker 1: verified videos of of of successful Ukrainian drone strikes and
Speaker 1: attacks that like they they have suffered significant losses. Um.
Speaker 1: It's because they, I think, thought that these these sort
Speaker 1: the sort of first echelon is all they would need
Speaker 1: to collapse everything, and then they could bring in National
Speaker 1: Guard troops and conscript troops and and and and sort
Speaker 1: of riot police kind of troops in after that, and
Speaker 1: they would not be required to do some of the
Speaker 1: things that they have had to do in places like Sear.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have to shell these cities into rubble. Um
Speaker 1: that that that things wouldn't go that far. And clearly
Speaker 1: Ukrainian resistance has been significant enough that they're going to
Speaker 1: have to. So part of what we are seeing now
Speaker 1: is Russia kind of reorienting their strategy and the fact
Speaker 1: that this has been a funk up for them in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways up to this point, and claim
Speaker 1: the fact that they did not immediately gain air supremacy,
Speaker 1: Um that they seem to have lost a significant number
Speaker 1: of air assets and artillery assets to Ukrainian air power,
Speaker 1: which still exists at this point. Um, that's evidence of
Speaker 1: some substantial strategic and tactical failures by the Russians, But
Speaker 1: it's not evidence that they're fucked, because Russia has a
Speaker 1: lot of reserves to Yeah, they can keep going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing that we just saw yes one day ago.
Speaker 1: By the time we we we are recording this episode,
Speaker 1: it will have been a couple of days, since you
Speaker 1: know when you hear this is the deployment of thermobaric weapons,
Speaker 1: which so artillery and air strikes do not work as
Speaker 1: well as the people who advocate for their use like
Speaker 1: to think. And one piece of events you can look
Speaker 1: at like battles in World War One where you know,
Speaker 1: the British or whoever would would fire a million shells
Speaker 1: at a chunk of trench line a few miles long
Speaker 1: and then get machine gun to pieces by the people
Speaker 1: there because they didn't kill very many of them. Actually,
Speaker 1: because if you're well dug in and whatnot, that doesn't
Speaker 1: work as well. Um. And likewise, at the start of
Speaker 1: this war, you saw a lot of Russian missiles, a
Speaker 1: lot of Russian precision munitions like striking military targets, and
Speaker 1: then still tremendous Ukrainian resistance. All of this sort of
Speaker 1: shock and awe was not successful and disrupting Ukrainian command
Speaker 1: and control. So now the Russians are deploying starting to
Speaker 1: deploy what are called thermobaric weapons. And thermobaric weapons are
Speaker 1: the most frightening weapons humans have developed. They are not nuclear. Um.
Speaker 1: The way they essentially work is it's it's a couple
Speaker 1: of stages. So you have a precision munition that strikes
Speaker 1: a target, it releases a cloud of explosive material, often
Speaker 1: just like fuel, and then a second explosion ignites the cloud. Um.
Speaker 1: So what that does is, among other things, sucks the
Speaker 1: oxygen in from an area and and and it creates
Speaker 1: a vacuum, right like. One of the ways people die
Speaker 1: from thermo barracks is the the the the error is
Speaker 1: ripped from their lungs um and the explosive force of
Speaker 1: the blast is titanic. Some thermobaric weapons, like the Moab
Speaker 1: which Trump famously used in Afghanistan, and the Russians have
Speaker 1: their own version of this, are equivalent to low yield
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons in terms of their destructive pair. They're not radioactive.
Speaker 1: Obviously they're not nuclear, but in terms of the actual
Speaker 1: radius of the blast and the weight radius of the shockwave,
Speaker 1: they are equivalent to nuclear weapons. And there are no
Speaker 1: functional fortifications that can really withstand them, at least not
Speaker 1: unlike a tactical level. They wipe out troop formations. They
Speaker 1: are nightmare weapons, and the Russians have a lot of
Speaker 1: these to deploy, and the Russians have a lot of
Speaker 1: air power to deploy, and we're starting to see that
Speaker 1: being moved into position more effectively. Ukrainian resistance is still fierce.
Speaker 1: You're also seeing stuff like as this, you know famous
Speaker 1: now the current big I don't know meme of the war.
Speaker 1: Is this Russian convoy heading towards Kiev, right, and there's
Speaker 1: all everyone it's seventeen miles. No, it's just three or four, No,
Speaker 1: it's forty miles. Like there's a lot of debate as
Speaker 1: to how what kind of impact this, this, this will have.
Speaker 1: And you're seeing Ukraine adopt tactics. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of um an increasing kind of guerrilla tactics, taking supply
Speaker 1: vehicles and whatnot from this caravan, and like precision strikes
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Um So i'min. We're not saying the situation
Speaker 1: is doomed from their standpoint. There's a lot that could happen.
Speaker 1: And in Russian losses have been very heavy, including on
Speaker 1: some of their most elite troops. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, if Putin commits fully, if there is
Speaker 1: not a level of unrest in the streets of Russia
Speaker 1: that they can't deal with, or a palace coup, and
Speaker 1: if there is no outside intervention. Russia has the capacity
Speaker 1: to level every building in Ukraine until there is no resistance.
Speaker 1: They have done it in other places. It is not
Speaker 1: a thing that is beyond their capacity. Well that was really, yeah,
Speaker 1: depressing to listen to. And well here's together down. The
Speaker 1: one other thing that I would like to get your
Speaker 1: guys thoughts on specifically is and we talked before about
Speaker 1: how there's like, you know, having to verify footage, how
Speaker 1: there's you know, a lot of footage is like actually
Speaker 1: from from other places, from other kind of conflicts. So
Speaker 1: there's been multiple instances of video footage and pictures from
Speaker 1: Palestine being distributed to being from the Russian invasion um.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting looking at but like how actions taken
Speaker 1: in those photos are so people have there there's so
Speaker 1: much more valid in the Russian Ukraine conflict that they
Speaker 1: are in the Palestine Israel conflict. And I want to
Speaker 1: talk about like the selective validity of nations and how
Speaker 1: efforts to defend your home from invading attacking forces are
Speaker 1: viewed differently when all these extra political forces are at play,
Speaker 1: like all like the xenophobia and racism happening um. In
Speaker 1: one instance, um. And then you know, everyone accepting all
Speaker 1: these refugees from Ukraine because they're white people. Um. So
Speaker 1: I would I would like to get your thoughts on
Speaker 1: on those kind of notes that that have gathered. I
Speaker 1: think the Boast the most striking example of that as
Speaker 1: a video of a little girl who appears to be
Speaker 1: a white girl in the video, like you would like,
Speaker 1: that's what most people guessed upon seeing the video. They
Speaker 1: just she looked white to them, um, like kicking a soldier. Um.
Speaker 1: And like the video was claiming like this is a
Speaker 1: Ukrainian girl like kicking you know, a Russian occupier and
Speaker 1: like look at the courage of Like the reality is
Speaker 1: that she's a Palestinian girl kicking an Israeli soldier. And
Speaker 1: she went to fucking prison for she's she's a very
Speaker 1: she's actually relative relatively famous Palestinian activist who is part
Speaker 1: of a family of activists subens organizing since to us
Speaker 1: an eight Um. And she's been to prison. Her brothers
Speaker 1: and cousins have been have had their faces blown up
Speaker 1: by a regular by violence from from from Israeli forces. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and she she has gone to prison for a
Speaker 1: long time because of her efforts to combat and stand
Speaker 1: against these invading forces for her, for her home country.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, she ended up going to prison
Speaker 1: later than that picture was taken. They didn't imprison her
Speaker 1: at age five, but I think she's But the point
Speaker 1: is correct, this misinformation, but also these double standards that
Speaker 1: we have, you know, like blindness to the conflicts going
Speaker 1: on on around the world. Okay, well America evaded lots
Speaker 1: of places and nobody cares. You know, there's conflicts happening
Speaker 1: all over the world. Um, we're still paying attention to
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, there's the there's a bleak and there's
Speaker 1: a less bleak way of looking at it. And I
Speaker 1: can't tell you which one is right. Both of them
Speaker 1: have shades of right. One of them, which is true
Speaker 1: is that, well, the victims are white and people care
Speaker 1: because Ukrainians are white and that's why this is getting
Speaker 1: outraged when what happened and the civilized nation, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's the line that civilized conflict, like this isn't Africa,
Speaker 1: this is Ukraine and Syria. You know this exactly whatever Syria?
Speaker 1: Where we get the alphabet from anyway? Right of a
Speaker 1: collection of like statements made by people on maintream platforms.
Speaker 1: There was that Ukraine Deputy Chief prosecutor was on the BBC.
Speaker 1: He said, it's very emotional for me because I see
Speaker 1: European people with blue eyes and blonde terror being killed
Speaker 1: on on on CBS, there was a foreign correspondent uh said,
Speaker 1: this isn't Iraq or Afghanistan. This is relatively civilized, relatively
Speaker 1: European city. Relatively it's it's like simolanously racist too, huge
Speaker 1: chunks of the world and also pretty, but even place,
Speaker 1: even places like even even places like Al Jazeera. There
Speaker 1: was a commentator said, what's compelling is looking at them,
Speaker 1: the way they're dressed, their prosperous middle class people. These
Speaker 1: are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the
Speaker 1: Middle East or from North Africa. They look like they
Speaker 1: look like any European family that you could live next
Speaker 1: door to. Yeah, I mean, actually you can live next
Speaker 1: door to anybody. Yeah, its not just European families. I
Speaker 1: spend days on the refugee trail in two thousand and
Speaker 1: fifteen talking to Syrians who had just immediately fled the
Speaker 1: carpet bombing of their cities, and like, yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of them were like doctors and accountants and lawyers and professors.
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't doesn't make it more valid. But like, well,
Speaker 1: the judging people they look, You're like, yeah, they're leaving
Speaker 1: right now, they've just become refugees. Yeah, they're leaving their
Speaker 1: homes in this moment. But I just mean, like the
Speaker 1: idea of like you're you're talking about a stereotype of
Speaker 1: what you think of refugee is without like they're the
Speaker 1: type of people are reported. No, every refugee is leaving
Speaker 1: their home and then they lose their ship and they
Speaker 1: don't have a place to sleep and they're running and
Speaker 1: they're on the road and they can't you know, like
Speaker 1: fuck you. It's it's it's it's frankly one of the
Speaker 1: most gusting things. That's a commentary on this. There are
Speaker 1: a couple more quotes if you want to, because I
Speaker 1: think they're like, they're all worth I think you can
Speaker 1: just thin because they're all pretty nasty. You do something,
Speaker 1: Oh good. So here are words that I don't believe,
Speaker 1: but I'm reading it. This is a quote. Um, we
Speaker 1: are in the twenty one century, We're in a European city,
Speaker 1: and we have cruise missile fire as though we were
Speaker 1: in Iraq or Afghanistan. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: It's an important question talking can't? Yeah, can you? We're
Speaker 1: not talking here about Syrians fleeing. We're talking about Europeans.
Speaker 1: Excellent stuff. This time war is wrong because the people
Speaker 1: look like us and have Instagram and Netflix accounts. It's
Speaker 1: not in a poor, remote country anymore. Fuck you, you
Speaker 1: piece of human ship. Daniel Hannon like maybe like worries,
Speaker 1: what does this fucker do for a living? Daily Telegraph? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so somebody who should get a brick. God, that's a brick.
Speaker 1: That is if you're looking at how you can help
Speaker 1: in this current conflict. Brick people like that Instagram, Netflix accounts,
Speaker 1: Fuck you, piece of piece of dogs. Like there's it's
Speaker 1: it's so comprehensively wrong, but that like, do you think
Speaker 1: that having an Instagram or a Netflix makes you more human?
Speaker 1: And also do you think they don't have fucking Instagram
Speaker 1: and Iraq? Like do you think they don't have That's
Speaker 1: what I thought. It just like even just like if
Speaker 1: you like, it's not even taking it out of context,
Speaker 1: if you just wrong because people look like part of
Speaker 1: that sentence there was this very popular tweet from it's
Speaker 1: like a like a like a a news aggregator account,
Speaker 1: um that's popular in this region. That was a quote
Speaker 1: Polish border guard carries a young Ukrainian girl across the
Speaker 1: border to safety in Poland. This is how real refugees
Speaker 1: look like when in children. It's very it's on the
Speaker 1: Belarusian board where it's mainly Middle Eastern men trying to
Speaker 1: cross into Poland illegally. Unbelievable, Like it's really it is,
Speaker 1: like it is it is believable. So like but it's
Speaker 1: it's just gross. It's like it's it's it's really it's
Speaker 1: like full full mask off on all these people. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, just like saying like yeah, so I guess
Speaker 1: we know why you didn't care. Um, it's just really obvious.
Speaker 1: Um and kind of like I don't know, I get
Speaker 1: like it's one of those like you know, remembering back
Speaker 1: in you know, the other wars. Um, just like it's
Speaker 1: just awful. Take like month of just like okay, just
Speaker 1: like flood with like the worst opinions you could possibly imagine,
Speaker 1: and it's all okay because it's war coverage. Like we
Speaker 1: don't like there's uh like everyone's like less discerning, less
Speaker 1: careful with their words and how they frame things, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these people might not even realize
Speaker 1: what they're saying because they it's like you gotta say something,
Speaker 1: you gotta talk, and like I'm gonna let myself out
Speaker 1: all of that. And I don't have the exact quote
Speaker 1: in front of me, but it was some motherfucker being
Speaker 1: like celebrating, you know, Ukrainian resistance and being like, you know,
Speaker 1: what Putin didn't count on is that this is the
Speaker 1: first war. We're social with social media, We're like, we're
Speaker 1: seeing everything else. People realize is like are you are you?
Speaker 1: Have you been fucking high the last fifteen years? I like,
Speaker 1: I know I have spent a couple of hundred hours
Speaker 1: going through footage of multiple civil wars. I know people
Speaker 1: who have spent thousands of it. Every second of the
Speaker 1: Syrian Civil War has been either live streamed or tweeted
Speaker 1: or facebooked or instagrammed. Same thing with the Iraqi Civil War.
Speaker 1: Same thing to a substantial extent with what's happened in Libya.
Speaker 1: Same thing to a lesser extent, just because of I
Speaker 1: think some realities of infrastructure. But to a significant degree
Speaker 1: with what's happening in Ethiopia and Tigray right now. Like
Speaker 1: you you are, there's no limit to the amount of
Speaker 1: combat footage you can find. And this is not comprehensive.
Speaker 1: It's it's in Malaysia right or in Burma. UM huge
Speaker 1: amount of that war has been documented online, has been
Speaker 1: shown in videos, including like the protests up to beforehand
Speaker 1: and like the fucking gen Z militias that are now
Speaker 1: like fucking tick talking from the battlefield like this has
Speaker 1: been happening for forever, and not only that, not just
Speaker 1: are you wrong, this is the first ward that that's
Speaker 1: been a factor in Putin understood that he knew all
Speaker 1: of this was going to happen. His gamble is that
Speaker 1: what are you gonna fucking do about it? I have
Speaker 1: nukes and I have the ground power to win, unless
Speaker 1: NATO is willing to risk a nuclear war, which they won't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's even even just as a recording
Speaker 1: I found. I found another one from UM one of
Speaker 1: the most one of the most popular Spanish TV news channels,
Speaker 1: saying these aren't like other children that we've become accustomed to.
Speaker 1: These children are blonde with blue eyes, so this is
Speaker 1: very important. I mean, and again it's it's comprehensively wrong
Speaker 1: because like it as them being blonde matter. And it's
Speaker 1: also comprehensively wrong because, motherfucker, I have seen blonde kids
Speaker 1: in refugee camps in three countries. No, it's like like
Speaker 1: like it's so it's so rais like it it's it's
Speaker 1: so right. Also, like the dismissal of any kind of
Speaker 1: conflict in Palestine, any conflict around like like Belarus, the
Speaker 1: Middle East, South Asia, it's like they just they it's
Speaker 1: it shows that they just view those people as less
Speaker 1: as like less human, right well, and while at the
Speaker 1: same time using images from those conflicts as propaganda for
Speaker 1: this conflict exactly exactly of why you humor that video
Speaker 1: from where like that old man is on his bike
Speaker 1: moving backwards away from a police line and a cup
Speaker 1: shoves him and he cracks his head on the concrete
Speaker 1: and bleeds, and obviously that's fucked up. You should be
Speaker 1: angry at that, But like part of why people got
Speaker 1: so angry is he's not. He doesn't look like the
Speaker 1: people that's supposed to happen to exactly, you know, um,
Speaker 1: And that's a big chunk of this, and that's not
Speaker 1: I don't think that's surprising to anyone who listens to
Speaker 1: this show. No, it's not surprising, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is very bare watching them just express express how they
Speaker 1: view less people, how how they've view so many people
Speaker 1: as less human. Well well, yeah, just like Jessica Cody
Speaker 1: said at the same time, using footage from these conflicts
Speaker 1: as like for their own propaganda, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: so gross. Yeah. Well, I will say I think there
Speaker 1: is a potential optimistic side of this. I think it's
Speaker 1: up to us to make it be optimistic. But there
Speaker 1: is a potential here, which is that a lot of
Speaker 1: the people who are so horrified by what's going on
Speaker 1: in ways that they weren't about other conflicts that have
Speaker 1: been going on for years. It's not because like their
Speaker 1: monsters or they're actively racist. It's because that kind of
Speaker 1: ship didn't go viral for a lot of reasons that
Speaker 1: have very little to do with them, and so they
Speaker 1: didn't see much of it, and they don't, like other
Speaker 1: than vaguely knew that something was going on in serious
Speaker 1: something they're just not and they had shipped to do right.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got life going on. Everybody's like. I've talked to
Speaker 1: Ukrainians and I did when the war started, who were like,
Speaker 1: ID think it would happen here. As part of why
Speaker 1: I called the podcast it could happen here is when
Speaker 1: I was first reporting on that civil war, that was
Speaker 1: something people kept saying to me. Um, it was variants
Speaker 1: of like I didn't think it would happen like to me,
Speaker 1: and maybe there. I think there is a potential in
Speaker 1: people who are now rightly horrified by what's happening in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: to get them to recognize how widely this is happening,
Speaker 1: to get them to recognize this is the consequence of
Speaker 1: not dealing with authoritarianism on a global scale, of a
Speaker 1: lack of solidarity, of a lack of active willingness to
Speaker 1: stand up for the rights of other people, and to
Speaker 1: recognize the things going on in those countries is wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: I think there is a possibility to get people to
Speaker 1: have more of an understanding for Palestine, more of an
Speaker 1: understanding for Burma, more of an understanding and active solidarity
Speaker 1: for t Gray for a bunch of other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, because they're now activated in a moral sense,
Speaker 1: and and and and to to a degree. That's the
Speaker 1: thing that's like, that's a thing that you can do,
Speaker 1: and I think the way to do that is not
Speaker 1: to again, you have to be It's not a matter
Speaker 1: of saying you shouldn't care about Ukraine because this bad
Speaker 1: thing is happening here. It's a matter of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you think that's funked up. It is, in addition happening.
Speaker 1: You have to care about it. You have to care
Speaker 1: about it in general. Not It requires people being willing
Speaker 1: to look at these conflicts as authoritarians versus non authoritarians,
Speaker 1: but not as um not as like sides in the
Speaker 1: geopolitical sense, because right Turkey is very much against what
Speaker 1: Russia is doing in Ukraine. Because Turkey and Russia have been,
Speaker 1: for a very long time, longer than any of us
Speaker 1: have been alive, geopolitical rivals in some very specific ways
Speaker 1: that they find this threatening, and so they are sending
Speaker 1: weapons to Ukraine, and they are you know, potentially cutting
Speaker 1: off Russian access to the Black Sea, um, doing a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Turkey is also engaged in continue this
Speaker 1: gradual process of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq and northeastern
Speaker 1: Syria UM, and they heavily supported a Zeriba, a Zerbaijan
Speaker 1: and ethnic cleansing in Armenia. Um, they're not good guys
Speaker 1: because they're on the right side of this conflict. But
Speaker 1: the Azeries and the Syrian and Iraqi Kords you should
Speaker 1: see as being broadly speaking, on the same side as
Speaker 1: the people resisting Putin, because they are all standing up
Speaker 1: against people who are trying to go into their fucking
Speaker 1: homes and take that from them. Um. And and there
Speaker 1: isn't there is a degree to which you have to
Speaker 1: understand the inherent solidarity of all people suffering and fighting
Speaker 1: against this kind of of of horror without letting that
Speaker 1: lead you to the simple simplifying things. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: Russia bad, US good. You know, Turkey good, Uh, Russia bad?
Speaker 1: Or Turkey bad, Russia good or like all like don't
Speaker 1: don't let like because that that's part of how it
Speaker 1: is black and white. It's just doesn't black and white
Speaker 1: in terms of fucking borders. I mean, even yes, there was,
Speaker 1: it's it's so horrifying because even like there was this
Speaker 1: transcript of a Russians of arrestan Russian soldiers text messages
Speaker 1: to his mother that kind of went viral. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Two days ago. It was like his his his mom.
Speaker 1: He was telling his mom that he's no longer in Crimea,
Speaker 1: he's not in training sessions anymore. His mom asks him,
Speaker 1: like where he is and where they can where they
Speaker 1: can send a care package to He replies, what kind
Speaker 1: of parcel? Mom? What can you send me? I just
Speaker 1: want to hang myself now. And Mom's like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? What's happened? He said, Mom, I'm in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: There's a real war raging here. I'm afraid. We are
Speaker 1: bombing all the cities together, even targeting civilians. We were
Speaker 1: told that they would welcome us, and they are falling
Speaker 1: under our armored vehicles, throwing themselves under our wheels, not
Speaker 1: allowing us to pass. They call us fascists. Mama, this
Speaker 1: is so hard, like everyone involved, it's all miserable for
Speaker 1: like like for a lot of people. There is there
Speaker 1: is there is some sickos that do enjoy the war,
Speaker 1: but the special but like most of them, but he's
Speaker 1: this Russia, this Russia's shoulder who just who just wants
Speaker 1: to hang himself because of all this happening. And if you,
Speaker 1: if you miss that, I think you're really missing out
Speaker 1: on a lot of a lot of what's actually happening,
Speaker 1: because this is an important aspect to recognize, even though
Speaker 1: it's it's tough to think about. Yeah, the war, it's
Speaker 1: a horrors of war. There are a bunch of kids
Speaker 1: that or men, young men however old, that joined the
Speaker 1: army and now, well they don't mean they don't president
Speaker 1: is making them go do this thing. They don't often
Speaker 1: choose to in Russia because a lot of them are conscripts,
Speaker 1: and even when they do the contract soldiers, a lot
Speaker 1: of them do it because it's a way to get
Speaker 1: like a government paid for apartment and they didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: expect this to happen. And it's most military prey on
Speaker 1: uh exact, there's this fucked up like the reality is,
Speaker 1: you know, to go back to people talking about like
Speaker 1: these people have Instagrams and Netflix, like there's a there's
Speaker 1: a lot of kids who would much rather be fucking
Speaker 1: around on Instagram or playing pub g or whatever first
Speaker 1: person shooter or something, and are having are burning to
Speaker 1: death and armored personnel carriers, um. And that's that's not
Speaker 1: that's not good either, doesn't mean that like I don't
Speaker 1: support Ukrainians firing as many anti tank missiles as they
Speaker 1: can into as many armored vehicles as try to enter
Speaker 1: their country because that's the fucking situation. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: not Yeah, it's none of it's worth celebrating, yea. To
Speaker 1: your point in like earlier point, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of a bummer that this is like the only, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess positive thing like out of so many stories
Speaker 1: where like the thing you take away from is like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess people will realize more that things are bad
Speaker 1: in these ways that they haven't previously. And that seems
Speaker 1: to be like the case with so many things these days,
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, at least people are realizing that
Speaker 1: it's bad, um like leading to okays will like people
Speaker 1: realize something else about it, but isn't enough. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want it to come across
Speaker 1: as like that's what I'm saying that at saying it
Speaker 1: is a responsibility to make people to make that matter, right,
Speaker 1: like that if you're actually looking at what you can do,
Speaker 1: you tweeting about Zelinski doesn't matter. You're tweeting even you
Speaker 1: tweeting like videos of like whatever thing you think might
Speaker 1: be a war crime or whatever, almost certainly will not matter.
Speaker 1: What does matter is the extent to which you can
Speaker 1: get people to realize what's actually going on here, and
Speaker 1: that being anti war is meaningless. Being anti Russia is meaningless.
Speaker 1: Being understanding the dynamics of the global net inner war,
Speaker 1: of this interlocking net of con lifts where different authoritarian
Speaker 1: powers are bringing tremendous violence on populations of people for
Speaker 1: the geopolitical gains of a tiny number of people. Understanding
Speaker 1: the way that networks, and understanding that the only way
Speaker 1: to actually combat it um is a mix of solidarity
Speaker 1: and at times open armed resistance as we're seeing in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: as is happening in Burmaz, is happening in Northeast, series
Speaker 1: is happening in all these other parts of the world. Um,
Speaker 1: that is the thing, and and and and get in
Speaker 1: seeing that is connected. Seeing the struggles of Palestinians against
Speaker 1: against Israeli soldiers, as connected to the struggles of Ukrainian
Speaker 1: civilians against Russian soldiers, even though Israel sending weapons to
Speaker 1: Ukraine right now. That is something that we can all
Speaker 1: have a role in furthering. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: productive thing that people can do. Yeah, yeah, alright, that's
Speaker 1: it for us today, I think, but we will obviously
Speaker 1: continue talking about this. Yeah. One last note. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for a Twitter account to follow that is actually
Speaker 1: putting effort into verifying videos and images that they find
Speaker 1: and is doing what I consider to be a competent
Speaker 1: job of that. Robb Ly are a Lee eight five
Speaker 1: on Twitter um has has done pretty consistently a good
Speaker 1: job of like not just vetting things, but sharing other
Speaker 1: things that other people have vetted. If you actually want
Speaker 1: to keep up with it in that way, it's better
Speaker 1: than just watching random people share videos from chunks from
Speaker 1: video games that have been you know, color corrected or whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, all right guys, um, yeah, watch yourself online.
Speaker 1: They'll be back. So I tried. Worst Year Ever is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.