WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 101 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.920 Al Zone Media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.360 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.360 Hello everybody, and welcome to it could happen here. It's 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.559 Schreene and today I'm joined by James and Robert to 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.520 welcome our guest. In this episode, we are joined by 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:46.040 Adam Broomberg. He is an artist, an activist and an educator. 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.080 He was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. His 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:54.160 parents and his entire extended family are Holocaust survivors and 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.480 he had a very Zionist upbringing. We talked to him 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.960 about how he grew up in apart Height, South Africa, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.320 how he broke free from Zionism as a teenager, and 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.760 how he's come to be a very vocal Jewish anti Zionist. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.360 He currently lives and works in Berlin and he's exhibited 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.319 his art all over the world. He's also regularly on 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.600 the ground in Palestine and he uses his work to 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.960 raise awareness about the crimes committed daily by the IDF. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.720 Members of the German government have accused him and labeled 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.000 him as being anti Semitic because of his criticism of Israel. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.280 And we're going to get into all of it. I 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.280 want it. So let's just go back into your background 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.840 a little bit. Your family on both sides are Holocaust survivors, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.840 and your ancestors like fled to South Africa, and that's 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.400 where you grew up with your parents. And I read 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.760 that you went to a zion the school starting from 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.880 age six. Can you tell us about your family background 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.280 and your experience going to issi in a school as 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:50.200 a Jewish person. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.720 So you remember the podcast you did about Lithuania and 0:01:54.800 --> 0:02:01.800 that particular character who is the pale who had to 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.200 flee from the pug Rams and all that stuff. So 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.600 basically this is part three. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.280 What he's talking about here is the Spanish Civil War, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.560 specifically about an episode we did more than a year ago, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.280 as many of thirty percent of the fallen volunteers who 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.120 fought in some units in Spain were Jewish. Some of them, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:23.480 like al Jakin, who have written about a lot, had 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.720 fled persecution in the pale of Settlement at a very 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.800 young age and arrived in the USA to relative safety. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.120 But after a few years in the USA, they began 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.800 to see the menace of anti Semitism spreading back towards 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.880 them through Nazi Germany and later through fashed Italy, and 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.320 they decided to take up arms and stop it when 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.239 it threatened to overwhelm democratic Spain. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:47.720 Imagine that kid gets on a boat, and that kid 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:53.079 is my grandfather. My grandfather's name is Joshua, right, and 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.440 he's like a towering six foot three beautiful man. He's 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:05.600 studying medicine. He he's fleeing his mother. His family is 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:11.200 not wealthy. The Pilgrims are going on. He's studying medicine, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:17.680 you know, very bright guy, but every like of sell 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.760 in his body says you've got to get out of here. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.880 Also that also he gets this opportunity. He meets a 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:31.040 woman called Dora Klatschko, my grandmother, who's like four foot two, right, 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.720 but comes from a very wealthy family in Lithuania. And 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.480 it's kind of an arranged set up and I think 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.920 Joshua was paid. Anyway, they get on a boat bound 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:53.600 for South Africa. Some landed up in Scotland or oddly 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:58.080 because the boat bound for America there would they would 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.920 they would disemb most of the all of the people 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.400 on board and tell them they were in America and 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.840 then take a whole lot of other people and then 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.240 carry on to America so they could double the fee 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.200 by the way. But anyway, my so, Joshua and Dora 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.479 land up on the boat and they land in the 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.480 port of Durban. It's around nineteen thirty three. 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.680 Oh wow, okay, and. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.880 They speak mostly Yiddish. They've never seen a black person 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.160 in their life. They land up, you know, on these 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:46.599 foreign shores. My grandmother, I think headed towards Johannesburg. And 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.839 this I got from my mother on her deathbed. My 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:55.320 mom passed away December seventeenth last year, so it's like 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.839 six seven months ago. And you know, she'd like she 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.040 did it magnifics, and she managed to tell those last 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:08.160 little bits of stories. And one of those was that 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:14.240 her mother, Dora, had had a child who died at 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:19.120 nine months old, and she was ann in Johannesburg when 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:24.560 the child died and Joshua, her husband, was still in Durban. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.719 So you can imagine the kind of the weirdness of that, right, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.160 I mean imagine your imagine your your the father of 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.640 your child not not coming to be with you when 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:42.920 you lose your child. Coupled with the fact that they 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.680 had both lost I think Dora, my grandmother, was one 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:53.200 of eight or nine children. I think only three survived 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:57.680 the Holocaust and her parents were killed, and the same 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:04.920 with Joshua. So they lost all their family and there 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:12.560 they were at the bottom tip of Africa, right without 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.560 without any kind of orientation. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:21.680 Really, yeah, can you talk a little bit about you 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.960 mentioned how you described it as bottom feeders. I listened 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.800 to another podcast you were on and you said that they, 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.360 your family suddenly really enjoyed and appreciated the change and 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.719 status they had in society. Can you talk about that 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:37.240 a little bit. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:42.480 Well, yeah, so you know, they got on the boat 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:48.080 as and their identity we were were there were Jews, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.920 so they were expelled from Europe as Jews. The minute 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:59.000 they toes touched the land in Africa, their identity transformed 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:04.240 from being Jew to being white, right right, Suddenly they 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.920 were they were identified as white people, like the word 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.520 the word Jew almost like just fell off, you know, 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.080 that that yellow star that they had to wear, it 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.800 just fell off. So suddenly they were like, oh my god. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:26.520 They were like utterly privileged, powerful and and in control right. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:32.800 And with all of the with all of the corruption 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:39.800 that apartheid provided for the elite, for the white for 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:45.880 the white supremacist, for the white the white people, that 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:51.160 the Jews who arrived were able to plug into that privilege. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.120 And there was about two hundred and fifty three hundred 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:59.040 thousand Jews who fled and arrived in South Africa, so 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.440 it was quite a big community. And they did ver 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.600 fucking well. Let me tell you, and I can tell 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.480 you why. I can tell you because my father, who 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.320 I just saw about three days ago, what's left of him. 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:22.360 When he was active and potent, he was the top 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:28.120 tax lawyer in South Africa, which means that his clients, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.560 and those clients are people who walk through my house, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.839 came through my house in the seventies and the eighties 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:44.920 were probably the most hideous characters in history. You know, 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:52.800 we're talking soul Kurzner. Sol Curzner started something called Sun's 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:59.240 City and he exploited the Buntustan, the homeland system that 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:05.880 apartheid built, and he built this casino hotel resort called 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:06.640 Sun City. 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.080 At this point in our conversation with Adam, we wanted 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.480 to ask about his personal journey into anti Zionism and 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:14.400 where it all began. 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.679 So I think an interesting way to approach this end 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:22.240 would be like, obviously they've found themselves and your parents 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:26.040 have found themselves in this country which is systematically discriminating 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:30.320 against people, right, this is apartheid South Africa, and Jewish 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.600 people were at once active in the anti apartment movement, 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.080 and as you're saying, also active in the apartheid government 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:43.240 and the apartheid regime. And you found yourself, I guess, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:48.400 going to this school which was explicitly Zionist. And I'm wondering, 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.520 at what point, and I suppose this involves seeing what's 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.840 happening where you are as well as what's happening in Palestine, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:01.520 At what point did you make that connection and be 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.360 like her this this like what what? Because you're you're 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.840 a very explicitly anti Zionist, right, Like it's what was it? 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.520 Something you read? Something you saw? Like what caused you 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:14.960 to make that leap, and how was that received in 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:15.679 South Africa. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.480 So I think it's a mixture of things. I think 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:25.079 I've got three older siblings, so I'm the last born 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:29.520 by seven years. I've got a brother Paul, seven years older, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.000 sister Man who's nine years older who lives in Israel, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.360 and an old My oldest brother, Jonathan, is ten years 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:44.439 older than me. Jonathan and Paul, Paul specifically was very 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:51.839 politically active, so he started an organization unlike Israel, so 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.400 that in South Africa the universities were like the bastions 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:01.120 of the anti apartype movement right, and he was in 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.439 newsas National Union or South African Students, and he started 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.000 a think called the End Conscription Campaign, which was to 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:16.880 fight against forced conscription of white men who were compulsory 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.640 called up into the army at the age of eighteen. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.880 And so given the fact that he was seven years older, 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:31.600 when I hit about fourteen or fifteen, at fifteen, I 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.360 went on a thing called ol pun, which is kind 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:39.600 of you've heard of birthright right or pun is something. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.520 So I went to the Zionist Jewish day School. So 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.560 every day I'd go I'd have to pray, go into 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.640 the synagogue, pretend to pray for about an hour, right, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.480 And I was looking at my school, like my sister 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.760 is like a gorgeous archivist, and she made this little 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.600 book called Adam's Life. And I was looking at the 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.760 school grades at the age of six, and it was 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.440 like Jewish studies. And we know what those Jewish studies were, right, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.079 So you walked into the Jewish Studies room and there 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.200 was a little blue tint which was the Jewish National Fund, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.000 and you would put your spare change in there, and 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:21.320 that money would go towards making the desert bloom I say, 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.199 in like work marks, right, So that was that money 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.080 would go to plants in like two hundred and forty 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:33.719 million pine trees in you know which I'm not indigenous 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.240 in Israel. But just to swing back. So at about 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.960 fourteen or fifteen, what happened is in parallel I was 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.120 being told on a daily basis two things I was 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.560 being told. Now you've got to remember this was the 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.120 heights of also the Cold War. So there were these 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:55.640 proxy wars that were being fought all around South Africa. 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:02.360 In Angola, in Mozambique. Mozambique you had for Lima were 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:07.920 backed up by Cuba, Russia. Right, you had you had 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.680 Ruanamo that were backed up by America and South Africa, 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.000 and they were running these kind of gorilla bush wars, right. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.960 And many of my friends who were called up in 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:27.040 the military would be flown into Angola or into into Mozambique. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.040 We dropped there, and you know, they were told, look, 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:34.840 if something happens you weren't here, Well, you're not there, 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:36.560 you know, We're not going to come and find you. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.440 What I'm referring to here are the proxy conflicts throughout 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.000 Africa that saw national liberation movements, often supported by Cuba 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:47.040 and the USSR, fighting against various last class colonial regimes 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.520 and African anti communist groups. These groups are often supported 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.440 by the US and the guys in anti communism. These 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.959 wars include the Civil War in Angola, the Namibian War 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.000 of Independence, some of those, Ambiquan War of Independence, and 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.320 the zimbabwe War of Independence. You might know the last 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.480 one as a Rhodesian bush war, but Rhodesia doesn't exist anymore. 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.880 Living in the United States, it's easy to use the 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.040 phrase cold war as a conflict free standoff mediated by 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.679 nuclear powers chess something without enowledging that in many parts 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.720 of the world, proxy wars in these post colonial states 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.240 and the conflicts of decolonialization throughout the late twentieth century 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.240 made that period anything but cold. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:29.080 The point is is that so at the age of fourteen, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.680 I'm going to these schools and I'm being told every 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:38.320 day that if apartheid ended, that would mean the end 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.960 of the white people in South Africa, right, because we 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.520 were by far the minority. White people were by far 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.520 the minority, I don't know what it was, ten twelve percent, 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.960 And there was this kind of you could see the 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.080 fear because the walls started getting higher, the security gates 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.960 were built, the razor wire, the electric fences, you know, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.360 it was it became more increasingly visible in the eighties, 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:13.560 the fear keeping keeping apart, tight, keeping people apart. So 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.680 I was told all the time, like if aparth he 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.840 had ended, that would mean the end of white people. 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.400 At the same time, I was told, given that my 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.080 community was like second generation Holocaust surviving, you know, the 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:35.360 notion of Israel as a place of salvation, a place 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.400 of when the ship hits the fag, that's where we 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.240 can go, right, And that we were always told that, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.240 and we were also told daily this is a land 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.400 without people for a people without land. That became a 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.360 kind of mantra. Honestly, it was like it was said 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:02.040 to me over and over again. Right, So when and 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:08.720 what started happening is I think that I became an 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:14.040 activist at the age of sixteen. There's an amazing she's 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.960 now a dear friend of mine. We've reconnected. She's a 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.920 theater director called yah El Faber, and we started an 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.840 organization called Links the age of sixteen, which was to 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.960 educate white kids about apartheid. And what we started to 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:37.760 do was to literally kind of break the apartheid wall. 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:43.280 We'd start doing visits into Suweta, we'd start doing visits 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:51.200 into Alexandria township, and we started forming friendships. And you know, 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.720 most kids just didn't go out of the suburbs. And 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.960 suddenly we go away on these weekends like led by 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.000 a kind of older activists, and we'd all hang in 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.560 the same you know, we'd all sleep in the same 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.320 dormitories and we start chatting, chatting and smoking cigarettes together 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:15.480 and so like genuine just basic childhood friendship started for me. 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:22.080 And when that stuff that profound very successful. Other ring 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:28.359 that the propaganda of apartheid succeeded in creating, you know, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:33.080 the black person as the other, as the enemy, which 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.840 it does it does in Israel right on the other 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.639 side of the apartheid wall is the worst enemy or 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:45.240 imagination could possibly conjure up right, And it's exactly the 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.840 same process. And suddenly when I kind of pierced that 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:55.359 wall and that started falling apart, then the kind of 0:17:55.520 --> 0:18:03.560 ideology around Israel and the the notion that Palestinians didn't exist, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.320 suddenly they started to exist for me somehow. And so 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.240 it was about around the age of sixteen, I'd say. 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:14.520 And it was It's interesting that it was like through 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.840 your experience of living in an apartheid state that you 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.160 were able to I think appreciate that like that what 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.400 was happening to the Palestinian people was like another form 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:25.520 of set like colonialism. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.520 I mean, I think, yeah, like none of this, none 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.439 of this is intellectual. So I think, like everything that 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.040 came to me or has driven to me is lucky 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.000 is through lived experience, it really is. So I think 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.520 it's like through these friendships that I realized and you know, 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.959 like touching, touching skin, and this is one of this 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.640 is the difference between apartheid South African apartheid Israel Palestine 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:59.000 is that we were segregated by law, you know, I mean, 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:06.920 mixed marriages were prohibited by law. Sex was prohibited between races. 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.480 But the thing is that we were mixed together because 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:18.159 the labor force was needed, right, so that like you know, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.919 the nineteen sixteen Tax Act forced a lot of black 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:26.199 migrant male workers into the cities to work on the 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.760 gold mines, which meant that there was the presence of 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.160 the other amongst us. And because there was the presence 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.960 of the other the other, there was also the desire 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.680 and it is a sexual desire or essential desire, and 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.840 the smells, and we would touch each other, and we 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.159 would walk through the city and kind of rub up 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.720 against each other. Now, my nieces and nephews having grown 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:56.200 up under the inter father and because of the apartheid War, 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.800 they've been deprived of that dential experience of the. 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.159 Other in Palestine Israel. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.399 You mean in Palestine Israel. Yeah, So that you know, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.920 they've built they've built this twelve foot there's twelve foot, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:17.639 seven hundred kilometer long concrete tsunami of a wall that 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.320 divides people, which means that you know, until recently, nobody 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:27.640 uttered the word Palestinian because they didn't exist, right, And 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:33.080 so for my nieces and nephews, what was on the 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.640 other side of that wall was, like I said, their 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.359 worst the worst enemy that their imagination could conjure up. 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:46.919 And children's imaginations are amazing, right, And I did I 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:52.600 did say this a while back where where you know 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:57.639 how Fucos spoke about He spoke about the structures that 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:05.359 were built around the plague, and after the plague ended, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.240 you were still left with these structures. Right now, let's 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.200 think about the apartheid wall. You've got the seven hundred 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:17.359 kilometers long, massive like concrete thing. It goes like five 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:25.600 meters underground. Yeah. Now, unlike for coose hypothesis that war 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:32.359 has created the plague, that war has created the enemy, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.560 because what's on the other side of that wall, that's 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:43.520 only that's only accessible through these little checkpoints that are 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:51.280 manned by these you know, poor teenage like little foot 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:55.640 soldiers of the state. That's the that's the only way 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.800 to penetrate that war. So on the other side of 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.800 that wall is whatever you tell the people is there, 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.200 and that's the that's the horror of that situation. 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:09.679 I actually I'm kind of glad you brought up the 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.240 plague idea because you mentioned that on a different podcast, 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.320 and I thought it was verly like poetic to illustrate 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.760 that a plague can be constructed by the structure versus 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:22.879 actually be a plague. 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.320 And it's it's also kind of worth noting. You know, 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.480 as you were talking about the restrictions on interracial marriage 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.680 in South Africa, versions of that very much still exist 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:35.600 to this day in Israel, including heavy restrictions on inner 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:42.560 marriage between Israeli and Palestinian people. You know that that's 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:44.359 a bigger topic than I want to just kind of 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.919 casually get into it. Like there's a number of restrictions 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.960 that exist into the present day because like civil marriage 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.880 is not really a thing there as it is. 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.720 In a lot of other countries. Yeah, So I wonder, 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:02.280 like you said that Estinian people existed in your childhood 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.359 only as this sort of construct, right, this other construct 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.720 and your experience of black people in South Africa has 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.560 showing you that those other constructs were false and misleading 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:17.119 and served perhaps an agenda. When you decided that, like 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.719 your stance was anti Zionism, and then you said to 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:22.719 your guessing, to your friend, to your family, to your 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.600 fellow children at the school, like hey, what this is 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:28.520 fucked up here and this is fucked up there too. 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:32.240 How was the response? 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:38.600 Well, it's like, you know, one doesn't come to these 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.199 decisions overnight and like announce it right, right. 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:44.919 Yeah, So. 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.399 There's vague memories I have, Like, like I said, I 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:50.679 was on that all Pun trip, which is like this 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.320 three week or three month trip. I mean they send 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:57.200 like one hundred and fifteen year old kids. You live 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.800 in a building in Jerusalem, and it's basically like this 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:06.119 three month propaganda tour. Right. You're given a Bible and 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:11.040 you're told that that's your guidebook. Literally you like you traverse, 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:15.400 you traverse this place following the stories of the Bible, 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:18.679 and that's meant to be like your holy land. But 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:22.560 I did have one of the one of the it's 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:25.040 called a Madrich, I think a teacher. He was he 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:27.840 must have been eighteen or nineteen. He happen to be 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:32.800 kind of like a vaguely liberal Zionist, and I remember 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:39.320 clearly him taking me to an anti Kahani protest. So 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:43.000 there was still like Maya Kahane was was alive, and 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.960 we know that Mayakahani, you know, the Cohanness movement, as 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:51.359 you know, was a kind of you know, they spawned 0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:56.840 the ben Geviers and these fascists who are in power now, 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:01.560 but at the time they were deemed a terrorist organization 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:05.919 by America. And and I remember going to an anti 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:10.480 Kahani protest, So somehow that planted a little seed in me. 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:17.600 And I guess, you know, I think that anti Zionism 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:22.840 came afterwards because I was so focused on the anti 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:26.399 apartheid struggle because that's where I was and that's what 0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:31.679 I was doing. And my university was either spent like 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:36.679 running battles with riot police or smoking weed. And I 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:41.160 literally went to about three classes. Honestly, I was definitely 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:44.840 the odd one out in my school. I mean, you 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:49.240 know it being a Zionist Jewish day school. I'm still 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.320 you know, I'm still probably perceived as like an absolute 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:54.840 fucking avarition. You know. 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:58.480 Yeah, you did describe your mother in one podcasts as 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:01.560 diehard zion and so I can only imagine. And you 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.399 you mentioned your nephew and her husband both were in 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:07.520 the IDF, So I can only imagine. I think It's 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:09.840 it's good to bring up that despite all of that, 0:26:09.880 --> 0:26:12.679 you were able to like think deeply about it and 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:16.760 work your way out of that brainwashing. Essentially, before I 0:26:16.760 --> 0:26:19.000 get too carried away, let's take our first break and 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:24.000 we'll be right back. BRB and we're back. I want 0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:27.720 to talk now about your experience in Germany and how 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:32.119 you experienced like state level accusations of being an anti 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:36.280 Semitic person even though you're just a vocal Jewish anti Sionist. 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:40.560 Can you talk about what led this person I didn't 0:26:40.560 --> 0:26:43.600 even though this person existed Stefan Hensel, who is the 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:46.879 anti Semitism commissioner of the City of Hamburg. That's the 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:51.720 position someone has, But what led him to call you 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:55.679 these really atrocious things in so many newspapers and like 0:26:55.800 --> 0:26:58.679 basically like just libelists and libelist stuff. 0:26:59.680 --> 0:27:03.000 Okay, so so check it out. So my mom dies 0:27:03.280 --> 0:27:07.480 the seventeenth of December. Yeah, I go away to a 0:27:07.720 --> 0:27:11.560 yoga retreat where there's like, there's no like coverage. I'm like, 0:27:11.720 --> 0:27:16.639 I'm offline. I get back to Berlin and there's emails 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:22.280 from like people are ready trust you know, and serious 0:27:22.320 --> 0:27:25.920 people in my life saying, you know, dude, you've got 0:27:25.920 --> 0:27:29.720 to respond to these allegations that are in like de 0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:34.880 Zeit Billin and zeem Aad's, you know, basically every major 0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:40.359 newspaper in Germany and social media all over the place. 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:44.959 There's this character, like you said, Stefan Hensel, who is 0:27:45.040 --> 0:27:48.440 the commission of Antisemitism for the state of Bullin. Now 0:27:49.119 --> 0:27:54.400 eight of the states of Germany have commissioners of antisemitism, right, 0:27:56.440 --> 0:27:59.440 none of whom are Jewish, none of whom were elected. 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:04.880 They kind of semi it's it's super weird they are, 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:09.439 it's semi legal. I mean, like nobody knows that exists. 0:28:09.560 --> 0:28:15.320 Nobody knows, like nobody elects them. This character Stefan Hensel, 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:17.359 and I don't want to pay too much attention to 0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:23.159 him because he's just like a nebulous Islamophobic pro Zionist, 0:28:23.720 --> 0:28:29.320 you know, bureaucrat. But anyway, he does a series of 0:28:29.400 --> 0:28:35.360 interviews and to summarize the numerous interviews and his social 0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:40.480 media posts, I am called, quote literally a hateful anti 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:47.320 Seamite who advocates for terrorism against Jews. Now this is 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:53.520 two weeks after bearing my Jewish mother, who was a 0:28:53.640 --> 0:29:01.440 second generation Holocaust survivor. Now that is that definition of 0:29:01.520 --> 0:29:08.840 gaslighting right now? As a white man, it's testimony to 0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:12.520 my privilege that I haven't experienced gas lighting on a 0:29:12.600 --> 0:29:17.640 daily basis as most women do. Certainly every Palestinian friend 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:22.360 I have, they experience that every minute of their lives, 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:27.320 because their very essence is illegal being Palestinian. You know, 0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:31.040 the blood that runs with their veins is illegal. They 0:29:31.080 --> 0:29:38.040 don't exist because they're Palestinian. Right, But so I stand 0:29:38.040 --> 0:29:42.560 accused of these things, and I'm like, I'm god smacked. 0:29:42.880 --> 0:29:46.840 I'm like, and the reason is is because I've been 0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:55.560 vocal about my support and solidarity for Palestinian rights, and. 0:29:55.480 --> 0:29:58.560 It was particularly about your support for the BDS movement 0:29:58.680 --> 0:30:00.240 right exactly me. 0:30:00.760 --> 0:30:07.080 So BDS boycott divestment sanctions has become a kind of 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:10.680 it's like one of these terms that emergers in the world. 0:30:10.720 --> 0:30:19.000 It's like terrorism or war on drugs or what aren't 0:30:19.000 --> 0:30:21.120 the terms can we come up with? You know, it's 0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:26.080 like it's one of these catchphrases and it's like BDS, yeah, 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:29.360 and it's like it's just like people don't even associate 0:30:29.400 --> 0:30:33.680 it with boycott divestment sanctions. If you break it down, 0:30:35.000 --> 0:30:39.160 you know what ended apartheid in South Africa. There was 0:30:39.200 --> 0:30:44.160 no there was no sudden moral awakening. Basically the Cold 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:50.400 War ended. Reagan and Thatcher, who were total supporters of 0:30:50.440 --> 0:30:55.360 apartheid South Africa, suddenly the Cold War ended. South Africa 0:30:55.640 --> 0:31:01.400 wasn't that important an asset, and there was national pressure 0:31:02.280 --> 0:31:05.120 and you know, more and more people started to see 0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:09.840 what the atrocities that were going on, and sanctions and 0:31:10.000 --> 0:31:15.920 divestments started to happen. Right, So Polaroid, the company Polaroid 0:31:16.000 --> 0:31:17.959 I did a project about this was one of the 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:24.000 first companies that colluded with the South African government but 0:31:24.120 --> 0:31:29.640 also divested when they were exposed, and that led to 0:31:29.680 --> 0:31:34.280 a number of banks divesting from South Africa. So sanctions 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:39.320 and investments and essentially the South African government in the 0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:45.400 late eighties was financially broke. So they were forced to 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:49.480 the negotiation table because they were broke, not because they 0:31:51.400 --> 0:31:55.400 woke up one morning and said, oh my god, we're 0:31:55.680 --> 0:32:02.000 oppressing the majority of black people in this country, and 0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:05.480 and and and and you know, so, uh, it's just 0:32:05.680 --> 0:32:10.200 like they were forced to and so so so b 0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:19.400 d S, which is a peaceful, non violent means of 0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:23.560 resistance that that that started during the second inter father 0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:28.880 has become one of these catchphrases, and I'll tell you 0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:31.640 a story, and and this all came to a head 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:36.760 around last year's Documenta, which happens in the city of 0:32:36.880 --> 0:32:42.600 Castle in Germany. Now, document is a really interesting art 0:32:42.760 --> 0:32:48.560 event in the art world calendar, and last year Documenta 0:32:48.800 --> 0:32:53.080 was that was was a very very interesting little theater play. 0:32:53.600 --> 0:33:00.920 So what happened during Documentary last year is that there 0:33:01.000 --> 0:33:06.200 was a group of Palestinian artists who were invited to 0:33:06.280 --> 0:33:13.040 show work and their space was invaded and there was 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:17.760 graffiti was sprayed on the walls. There were two things 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:23.520 were sprayed. One was the number one eight seven and 0:33:23.560 --> 0:33:25.400 then the word perolta. 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:28.120 Can you just explain what those both mean? 0:33:29.440 --> 0:33:32.960 I'm not exactly sure, but one eight seven I can 0:33:33.000 --> 0:33:36.520 tell you, okay. And the reason I could tell you 0:33:36.720 --> 0:33:40.440 is because one eight seven was spray painted outside my 0:33:40.800 --> 0:33:46.840 front door, inside my apartment building. And one eight seven, 0:33:47.480 --> 0:33:51.240 as any gang member in California will tell you, is 0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:55.920 the Californian penal code for murder. And when you spray 0:33:56.040 --> 0:33:58.240 one eight seven, it's a death threat. 0:33:59.280 --> 0:33:59.880 Oh my god. 0:34:01.800 --> 0:34:08.160 And so and so what the media did in Germany 0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:12.719 is said, oh, no, no, no, hang on, there's a 0:34:12.800 --> 0:34:15.920 hip hop band in Hamburg called one eight seven. 0:34:17.360 --> 0:34:18.920 Okay where that came from? 0:34:19.400 --> 0:34:19.760 Wow? 0:34:20.719 --> 0:34:23.239 Yeah, I was going to mention that Sublime also has 0:34:23.280 --> 0:34:25.319 a few songs with one eighth seven. 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:29.080 H They were just Sublime fans. 0:34:30.080 --> 0:34:35.640 Yeah, that song about riots. There was a radical branch 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:36.880 of the Sublime bankler. 0:34:38.239 --> 0:34:43.880 I mean, I'd love to hear this music, but. 0:34:44.080 --> 0:34:46.320 I think you don't want any Sublime. 0:34:46.600 --> 0:34:49.200 No, no, I really do. After this, I'm going to 0:34:49.280 --> 0:34:53.520 actually look and listen to But so on the morning 0:34:53.640 --> 0:34:59.240 when when so back to documenta. So they spray painted 0:34:59.560 --> 0:35:05.840 this stuff and and then there was a furor because 0:35:06.320 --> 0:35:11.880 there was there was an Indonesian collective who did a 0:35:11.920 --> 0:35:15.319 giant mural and one of the pieces that one of 0:35:15.360 --> 0:35:21.160 the characters in this mural depicted an IDF soldier, an 0:35:21.280 --> 0:35:25.360 Israeli Defense Force soldier or an Israeli occupying for a 0:35:25.480 --> 0:35:31.640 soldier as a pig. Right policeman soldier as a pig. 0:35:31.800 --> 0:35:34.600 I mean, that's an old truck. We've all done it right, 0:35:37.480 --> 0:35:40.920 you know, they're the pigs. Police are the pigs. But 0:35:41.040 --> 0:35:43.600 there was an ideaf as a pig and it was 0:35:44.000 --> 0:35:48.520 and so it was deemed anti Semitic, and fair enough, 0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:53.560 it's like it's Germany. It's an Israeli person in a 0:35:53.719 --> 0:35:58.360 uniform depicted as a pig. It's tasteless, you know, it's tacky. 0:35:59.320 --> 0:36:04.920 Immediately they kind of covered the mura, right, but bang 0:36:06.239 --> 0:36:10.120 the troops came in. The israel lobby, the Jewish lobby 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:15.319 came in. Boom, right, they seized the opportunity and they hit, 0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:22.960 and suddenly the word BDS came in. Right. And so 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:28.759 the two curators from grong Ruper, who were amongst the 0:36:28.800 --> 0:36:37.120 collective who were curating that year's documentor were visiting professors 0:36:37.320 --> 0:36:42.160 at the Art School in Hamburg, where I had been 0:36:42.200 --> 0:36:50.120 a professor for the previous six years, Okay, and Stefan 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:58.600 Hensel like a little kind of surgeon. He pinpointed these 0:36:58.880 --> 0:37:06.399 three little nitious, kind of pro Palestinian people that were 0:37:06.480 --> 0:37:11.640 inside a German university, and he wanted to remove them 0:37:11.840 --> 0:37:18.320 with his little tweezers. And so he grouped us together 0:37:19.920 --> 0:37:24.719 and he slammed the word anti Semitism. He accused us 0:37:24.760 --> 0:37:31.240 of being anti Semitic, and so he weaponized this word 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:34.919 and this word like it's such an interesting word, right, 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:40.480 anti Semitism. It's so here you've got a guy. Now 0:37:40.960 --> 0:37:46.320 he's never declared, and not that it's of any interest 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:51.960 to me whether he's Jewish or not. I mean, I 0:37:51.960 --> 0:37:55.200 don't think he has the right to buy into my 0:37:55.719 --> 0:38:02.440 lineage of trauma. He doesn't have that right. But he 0:38:02.640 --> 0:38:06.960 married a Jew. He named his son, I think David 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:13.640 or something, right, He's there's all these kind of like. 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:19.040 Gestures to make him seem like he's has the ability 0:38:19.080 --> 0:38:20.440 to say these things. 0:38:21.160 --> 0:38:23.799 Not not a loophole as much as a kind of 0:38:24.520 --> 0:38:29.240 as a kind of dress code. It's like, my son's 0:38:29.320 --> 0:38:32.880 called Yeah, my son's called David. I'm married to a 0:38:33.000 --> 0:38:36.920 Jewish person. I've lived in Israel for six years. I 0:38:37.120 --> 0:38:44.240 ran the Yidisham, the Israelish Germansia organization, you know, Israel 0:38:44.360 --> 0:38:49.520 German organization, which is like, you know, an Islamophobic kind 0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:53.880 of weird or weird ass think tank. I don't know 0:38:53.920 --> 0:38:57.960 what they do, right, But the point is he has 0:38:58.000 --> 0:39:01.560 this guy, and I bet you I would lay money 0:39:01.600 --> 0:39:06.600 on it that his parents or his grandparents were perpetrators 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:10.560 during the Holocaust. And this is this is the way, 0:39:12.400 --> 0:39:17.680 this is the psychological twist. This is like the beautiful 0:39:17.719 --> 0:39:25.799 little oo that the mind does to get oneself out 0:39:25.840 --> 0:39:29.040 of like feeling shit about yourself. 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:33.600 Yeah, I mean even attempting to remove those people from 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:38.400 their posts is like, that's a great example of Germany 0:39:38.520 --> 0:39:42.480 using anti semitism, like weaponizing it at an institutional level. 0:39:42.520 --> 0:39:47.440 Like that's a that's really unfortunate. I want to I 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:50.520 do want to mention this really quick. In twenty nineteen, 0:39:50.600 --> 0:39:54.600 Germany tried to make BDS a hate crime. And even 0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:56.520 though it was challenged and then it was found to 0:39:56.520 --> 0:40:01.000 be unconstitutional, that like the fact that that tent was made, 0:40:01.040 --> 0:40:03.960 from what I understand, there's still an attitude in Germany 0:40:04.080 --> 0:40:08.480 about BDS being this illegal ish thing. 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:14.840 Totally exactly. So it's like, you know, my father was 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:17.400 a lawyer, as I said, so I know, I know 0:40:17.520 --> 0:40:20.920 the difference between law and justice, and I know what 0:40:21.440 --> 0:40:26.240 a test case means. So you bring something to trial 0:40:26.800 --> 0:40:32.800 means it enters into the the language of society, right, 0:40:34.239 --> 0:40:38.640 And when you say, is BDS anti semitic and you 0:40:38.880 --> 0:40:43.160 like test this thing, suddenly there's this presumption and there 0:40:43.239 --> 0:40:47.400 is a presumption that BDS is anti Semitic. And I 0:40:47.440 --> 0:40:51.799 can give you concrete examples of how it's happened, how 0:40:51.840 --> 0:40:54.160 it's played out over the last couple of years. 0:40:54.480 --> 0:40:57.000 Oh wait, what I want James to mention? You looked 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:58.600 up that word, right, James is. 0:40:59.560 --> 0:41:03.400 Yeah, I'm familiar with her, unfortunately, and I think this 0:41:03.840 --> 0:41:07.600 kind of lines up with the sort of she came 0:41:07.600 --> 0:41:10.000 on the scene in twenty twenty one that I had 0:41:10.040 --> 0:41:12.880 been around doing antiempitism for a long time. She is 0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:16.120 a self self described fascist in Spain. She's part of 0:41:16.160 --> 0:41:18.560 a group or at the time was leading a group 0:41:18.600 --> 0:41:22.440 called Juvental Patriothrica, which is patriotic youth. And like the 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:25.919 speech that she's most famous for was delivered at a 0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:28.880 commemoration for the Division a Fool, which is a blue division. 0:41:28.920 --> 0:41:33.120 They're the Francoist volunteers who fought for Nazi Germany, which 0:41:33.840 --> 0:41:35.440 you know, if you're commemorating that, you're kind of a 0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:38.000 piece of shit. And then she went on to be 0:41:38.400 --> 0:41:41.000 a further piece of shit. I suppose by like, she's 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:43.640 very explicit in her anti Semitism, right, she doesn't do 0:41:43.719 --> 0:41:45.120 what a lot of these people do and kind of 0:41:45.239 --> 0:41:48.920 veil it. She talks about Jewish people as the eternal enemy. 0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:52.560 And it's worth pointing out that in Spain Spain has 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:55.720 had what's largely called anti Semitism without Jews, or sometimes 0:41:55.760 --> 0:41:59.959 called that because Spain conducted ethnic cleansing or conducted a 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:03.040 literally they'll call it an olympia, like a cleansing and 0:42:03.080 --> 0:42:07.080 a removal of Jewish people, and Spanish Jewish population is 0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:10.680 still very small, and so this sort of virulent anti 0:42:10.680 --> 0:42:15.080 Semitism that were seeing on her behalf, it had impacts 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:19.319 all around Europe, and she was kind of the most 0:42:19.400 --> 0:42:22.200 prominent and outspoken anti Semitic for a little while there. 0:42:22.880 --> 0:42:26.080 So that was the name they graffitied along with one 0:42:26.120 --> 0:42:26.920 of your seven. 0:42:27.440 --> 0:42:31.879 Yeah, I guess trying to tie this documentar to her 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:37.040 disgusting anti Semitic, which is entirely distinct things, right, like 0:42:37.560 --> 0:42:40.200 I think, as you were saying, and like that, by 0:42:40.880 --> 0:42:44.480 putting the two in the same phrase, we conflate them 0:42:44.520 --> 0:42:47.440 when when they are entirely distinct things. And she, I 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:51.600 think all of us would agree, is a terrible person views. 0:42:52.239 --> 0:42:56.640 But if we dig a little deeper, we get to 0:42:56.680 --> 0:43:04.160 the core, which is why did the Nazis and the 0:43:04.320 --> 0:43:09.200 Zionists collaborate in the nineteen thirties, Because they had the 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:13.759 same desire. They wanted the same outcome. They wanted the 0:43:13.880 --> 0:43:18.640 Jews out of Europe. They wanted them to move to Palestine. Right. 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:24.280 Zionism was a European project started in the early twentieth 0:43:24.280 --> 0:43:29.840 century in Vienna. They wanted the Jews out of Europe 0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:35.120 and into Palestine. The Zionists did so, they collaborated. And 0:43:35.600 --> 0:43:41.680 I think, really, truly, I think that we do face 0:43:42.200 --> 0:43:48.719 a real threat of real anti Semitism in Germany. And 0:43:49.120 --> 0:43:53.680 I have two children. My daughter is thirteen, her name 0:43:53.719 --> 0:43:58.560 is Lennie. My little boy is ten, his name's Marlow. 0:44:00.520 --> 0:44:05.080 And if you look at the police report of twenty 0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:13.279 twenty two that was released in Berlin, there are multiple 0:44:13.960 --> 0:44:26.280 numerous incidents of visual and quite violent incidents of real 0:44:26.480 --> 0:44:32.719 anti Semitism. Right, And why are we not addressing that? 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:40.960 Because my kids are in danger? And instead we have 0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:48.160 the Minister of Culture, whose name is Claudia Roff. Stand up. 0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:52.680 A couple of weeks ago on a Friday night at 0:44:52.680 --> 0:44:58.319 the opening of Hakka. There, you know, a huge institution. 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:04.919 My dear friend Bonaventour, who comes from Cameroon is he's 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:08.520 been made the head of this institution. And it's a 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:13.680 Friday night and the whole is full of people, and 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:18.080 it's glorious. It's a beautiful night. I mean, you have 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:26.120 diversity like you've never seen. This is like queer diverse blackness, 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:33.040 indigenous thought. It's queer thought. It's like fucking Peaches is there? 0:45:33.719 --> 0:45:37.560 Everyone's there, you know what I mean. And Claudia Raff 0:45:37.719 --> 0:45:42.080 takes the stage, she takes the microphone, and what does 0:45:42.120 --> 0:45:46.160 she say? She says, and there's silence in the room, 0:45:46.200 --> 0:45:54.600 and she says, BDS is anti submittic. Like what the fuck? Yeah, 0:45:54.880 --> 0:46:02.600 BDS is antisemitic. And I'll tell you I love Boner. Now, 0:46:02.680 --> 0:46:05.480 let me tell you about bonov into A Bonnach came 0:46:05.520 --> 0:46:11.400 from Cameroon thirteen years ago. He has a PhD. His 0:46:11.600 --> 0:46:18.640 PhD is in biotechnology. He worked all day building pacemakers 0:46:19.080 --> 0:46:23.840 while he set up a cultural institution called Savvy Contemporary 0:46:24.560 --> 0:46:31.960 and Savvy represented the biopop community in Berlin and in Germany. Right, 0:46:33.719 --> 0:46:40.560 Bonner is a genius. He deals with post colonialism like 0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:47.479 I mean, he's a maestro. He's amazing what he has done. 0:46:47.480 --> 0:46:53.600 He's changed the landscape of this country. He's brought colonialism 0:46:53.760 --> 0:46:58.359 into the into the discourse of the country, into the culture. Right, 0:47:00.160 --> 0:47:04.480 my fear is is. They've used him as a trojan horse, 0:47:05.920 --> 0:47:09.360 and they've got the German States have got their fist 0:47:09.640 --> 0:47:15.600 up his fucking ass. And that night when he it 0:47:15.760 --> 0:47:20.440 was Bonner's night, it was it was the night of diversity. 0:47:21.440 --> 0:47:25.360 There comes this pernicious minister of Culture and she stands 0:47:25.440 --> 0:47:30.080 up and out of the blue, she says, BDS is 0:47:30.360 --> 0:47:38.120 anti Semitic. Bonner because he's such a graceful, smart man, 0:47:39.440 --> 0:47:44.600 and because he knows that we are fighting intersectional struggles 0:47:44.640 --> 0:47:49.760 that happen at different velocities and happen at different speeds 0:47:49.800 --> 0:47:54.400 and come at different angles. He came up on stage 0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:59.800 and he said, we come in peace. It scares me, No, it's. 0:47:59.680 --> 0:48:02.279 It's I could only imagine what it was like to 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:05.120 be there a person. I mean, it sounds mortifying, especially 0:48:05.160 --> 0:48:08.800 if you're Palestinian or Arab bird just an anti Zionism 0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:11.759 in general. I brought up a story here that I 0:48:11.800 --> 0:48:14.800 heard Adam talk about on a different show, but future 0:48:14.880 --> 0:48:17.000 me is recording this now because I wanted you to 0:48:17.040 --> 0:48:19.480 have some more context to the story so you can 0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:22.479 really grasp the irony of it all. It's a great 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:25.960 example of the divide and intensity that happens or that 0:48:26.000 --> 0:48:29.520 can happen with anti Zionists and Zionists within the Jewish 0:48:29.520 --> 0:48:33.239 community itself. Adam said that some of the people who 0:48:33.280 --> 0:48:36.919 he had assumed were friends and allies have disappeared, which 0:48:36.960 --> 0:48:39.720 is one of the prices you pay for criticizing Israel. 0:48:40.960 --> 0:48:43.600 Adam had been spending more time in Hebron, what he 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:47.360 described as a wasteland. He said in a previous interview 0:48:47.360 --> 0:48:50.000 that you spend ten minutes at Hebron and you get 0:48:50.000 --> 0:48:54.640 the notion of apartheid, occupation and Jewish supremacy. You get 0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:58.080 it and no one has to utter the words. Adam 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:02.640 has documented violence in places like maximum security jails Afghanistan 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.880 two thousand and three, Iraq two thousand and five, but 0:49:05.960 --> 0:49:09.040 he said that two times he's felt the most existentially 0:49:09.200 --> 0:49:12.000 and physically a threat of death. One of those times 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:14.480 was last year when he was in Hebron and him 0:49:14.480 --> 0:49:16.840 and his team went to take photos of olive trees. 0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:20.799 Olive trees in that area can be two thousand to 0:49:20.840 --> 0:49:24.600 four thousand years old, and since nineteen sixty seven, Israeli 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:28.440 settlers have destroyed one million of these trees. I have 0:49:28.480 --> 0:49:31.320 an episode about this and the significance of the Palestine 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.719 olive tree, about how it's not only an immensely important 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:38.560 crop but also a symbol of Palestinian culture and resistance. 0:49:39.440 --> 0:49:41.600 I talk about this in that episode as well, but 0:49:41.600 --> 0:49:44.640 it bears repeating that destroying olive trees is one of 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:48.160 the most clear examples that Zionism isn't about wanting to 0:49:48.200 --> 0:49:52.520 return to a sacred land that is destined to you. Instead, 0:49:52.840 --> 0:49:57.640 Zionism is hateful and inexcusable. Adam shares this sentiment, which 0:49:57.680 --> 0:50:00.600 I appreciate, and I really loved learning about his work 0:50:00.640 --> 0:50:04.200 with olive trees. I just don't think Zionists have any 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:07.800 kind of rebuttal or reasoning to support why the hell 0:50:07.840 --> 0:50:11.279 they keep destroying olive trees decade after decade, Like in 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:14.719 what universe can you say and believe that you have 0:50:14.840 --> 0:50:19.080 a genuine attachment to that land, a biblical right to 0:50:19.120 --> 0:50:21.200 that land? Like how could you say that you love 0:50:21.320 --> 0:50:24.319 that land as a sacred space but then also go 0:50:24.360 --> 0:50:29.920 and destroy what Adam describes as its quote oldest indigenous citizens, 0:50:30.000 --> 0:50:33.680 aka the olive trees. That's not a person who loves 0:50:33.719 --> 0:50:37.040 that land that it's a person who was driven by hate. 0:50:38.120 --> 0:50:41.280 So Adam is working to preserve and protect these trees. 0:50:41.880 --> 0:50:44.800 Settlers pour gasoline down the center of the tree trunk, 0:50:44.880 --> 0:50:47.080 so by the time you see smoke, the tree is 0:50:47.120 --> 0:50:49.799 already dead. He was there and have Brun with a 0:50:49.840 --> 0:50:53.120 camera taking photos of the trees, and then Jewish settlers 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:55.560 sent these packs of kids that he said were ages 0:50:55.640 --> 0:50:59.560 five to seventeen, dressed in full religious garb, accompanied by 0:50:59.600 --> 0:51:03.400 these reals military. Adam and his crew kept getting attacked 0:51:03.440 --> 0:51:06.840 by these kids as the military stood by, but he 0:51:06.920 --> 0:51:09.400 explained that you can't lift a finger to defend yourself 0:51:09.440 --> 0:51:13.400 because these kids are miners. Adam talked about this and said, 0:51:13.760 --> 0:51:16.560 if I was Palestinian and I pushed back, I would 0:51:16.640 --> 0:51:19.200 be shot on the spot. The fact that I'm Jewish, 0:51:19.440 --> 0:51:22.000 I would just be removed and the work would simply 0:51:22.040 --> 0:51:25.520 be over. So he got beaten pretty badly several times, 0:51:25.560 --> 0:51:28.840 and apparently there's footage of it somewhere, and his experience 0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:31.000 and have Bron again is one of those two times 0:51:31.040 --> 0:51:34.600 that he's felt the most existentially and physically at the 0:51:34.640 --> 0:51:39.000 threat of death. The second time happened a few days later, 0:51:39.320 --> 0:51:41.560 which is the story. I briefly mentioned to him in 0:51:41.600 --> 0:51:43.839 the recording that we did that I want to talk 0:51:43.880 --> 0:51:47.080 about more here. So a few days after that incident, 0:51:47.160 --> 0:51:49.719 Adam returned to Berlin and it happened to be the 0:51:49.800 --> 0:51:53.320 anniversary of krystel Nacht or the Night of Broken Glass, 0:51:53.719 --> 0:51:56.520 which is widely known as the beginning of the Holocaust. 0:51:57.440 --> 0:52:00.480 It's also called the November Pagrome, and it was a 0:52:00.520 --> 0:52:03.839 pugrum against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party with 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:07.640 some participation from the Hitler youth and German civilians throughout 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:10.920 Nazi Germany on the ninth and tenth of November in 0:52:11.000 --> 0:52:15.040 nineteen thirty eight. The German authorities looked on as this 0:52:15.160 --> 0:52:20.279 happened without intervening. The name Krystelnacht is literally translated to 0:52:20.320 --> 0:52:23.560 crystal knight, and this name comes from the shards of 0:52:23.600 --> 0:52:26.640 broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of 0:52:26.719 --> 0:52:32.160 Jewish owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed. So back 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:36.600 to Adam's story, a memorial for Krystelnacht is held at 0:52:36.600 --> 0:52:39.399 the site of the two oldest synagogues that had been 0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:42.799 burned down in Germany. Adam arrived there with a crew 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:48.640 holding signs that said Jews against Fascism. Everywhere. He's surrounded 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:51.480 by fellow Jewish people, And this big guy comes up 0:52:51.480 --> 0:52:54.399 to Adam, and Adam describes this guy as being much 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:57.040 bigger and much taller than him. And so this big 0:52:57.080 --> 0:52:59.560 guy looks down at Adam and he says, get rid 0:52:59.640 --> 0:53:02.839 of those signs. Who gave you the right to be here? 0:53:03.640 --> 0:53:07.640 Adam responded, quote the death of ninety percent of my family? 0:53:08.000 --> 0:53:10.920 What troubles you about the sign? Are you anti Semitic? 0:53:11.080 --> 0:53:14.520 Are you fascist? Are you bothered by the word everywhere? 0:53:15.080 --> 0:53:17.919 Have you got this weird synesthesia thing where you see 0:53:17.920 --> 0:53:21.000 the word everywhere and you see Israel? Do you think 0:53:21.000 --> 0:53:24.080 I'm implying that there's a possibility that Israel could have 0:53:24.320 --> 0:53:29.360 fascist traits? In response to this, this big guy starts 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:35.120 attacking Adam. So Adam ran absolutely terrified. He ran and 0:53:35.160 --> 0:53:39.400 sought protection from the German police. The irony of a 0:53:39.560 --> 0:53:43.720 Jewish person feeling his life threatened by another Jewish person 0:53:44.120 --> 0:53:48.480 and then seeking refuge from the German police. Adam says, 0:53:49.000 --> 0:53:52.240 this was the most surreal moment of his life. 0:53:52.480 --> 0:53:55.560 So so ironic. But let me flip that story on 0:53:55.640 --> 0:54:00.480 its head, right And now, okay, So it's nineteen eight 0:54:01.440 --> 0:54:04.959 and I am on the front page of a newspaper, 0:54:06.200 --> 0:54:09.320 and I get home to my mother and she's furious. 0:54:09.520 --> 0:54:12.839 She's fucking furious because there I am on the front 0:54:12.840 --> 0:54:17.000 page of the newspaper and I'm hold, I'm there, my 0:54:17.160 --> 0:54:20.440 face is there, and I'm holding up a flower, and 0:54:20.520 --> 0:54:24.200 in front of me is a is a South African 0:54:24.840 --> 0:54:29.480 riot policeman. Right, And it was one of the demonstrations 0:54:29.520 --> 0:54:31.719 I was at at the age of eighteen, on the 0:54:31.760 --> 0:54:35.479 campus at Vitsa University, all right, And I got into 0:54:35.520 --> 0:54:38.040 ship from my mother, who said, what the fuck are 0:54:38.080 --> 0:54:41.000 you doing standing in front of the riot police. I 0:54:41.040 --> 0:54:44.920 got into ship from a black student society because we, 0:54:45.000 --> 0:54:48.440 as white students, took orders from a black student society. 0:54:48.520 --> 0:54:51.360 He said, what are you doing holding a flower to 0:54:51.480 --> 0:54:54.440 the fucking pig. It's like, this is this is not 0:54:54.480 --> 0:54:57.719 the nineteen sixties. We're fighting a struggle. So I got 0:54:57.719 --> 0:55:02.400 in ship from both sides. Right now, cut to May 0:55:03.280 --> 0:55:07.000 a few months ago, I mean Iranian Platz. There is 0:55:07.160 --> 0:55:13.319 a commemoration organized for the ongoing Knuckba. All right, we 0:55:13.440 --> 0:55:17.239 know what the Knuckba is, the catastrophe, right, so in 0:55:17.320 --> 0:55:21.080 nineteen we don't have to explain that, but all for 0:55:21.200 --> 0:55:25.000 two the year before that, all commemorations for the Knackbar 0:55:25.120 --> 0:55:30.880 were banned, and in May, the commemorations for the Knackbar 0:55:31.160 --> 0:55:35.839 organized by Palestinian groups were banned. So yidsha Stima, which 0:55:35.880 --> 0:55:41.839 means Jewish voices the organization. They organized a commemoration and 0:55:42.040 --> 0:55:46.799 we gathered together on a beautiful Sunday morning, and you know, 0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:50.000 it was really lovely, and there were kids there, there 0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:53.400 were old people. It was great and we were all 0:55:53.960 --> 0:55:57.520 all gathered together there and we gave the platform to 0:55:57.600 --> 0:56:02.279 some Palestinian voices who were just speaking about freedom from 0:56:02.280 --> 0:56:06.080 the river to the sea, you know, and suddenly the 0:56:06.160 --> 0:56:09.840 riot police came boom, boom, boom, you know, lines of 0:56:09.880 --> 0:56:14.560 them intercepted us. And I was faced again at the 0:56:14.600 --> 0:56:20.280 age of fifty two, not eighteen, so flipped from nineteen 0:56:20.320 --> 0:56:25.040 eighty eight to twenty twenty three. And I'm facing eye 0:56:25.120 --> 0:56:30.200 to eye with a fucking white riot policeman and it 0:56:30.320 --> 0:56:33.440 was the same riot policeman. And you know what I 0:56:33.480 --> 0:56:36.359 said to him. I said to him, where was your 0:56:36.400 --> 0:56:40.360 grandmother during the war? And he didn't answer me, and 0:56:40.400 --> 0:56:44.200 I said, do you know where my grandmother was? And 0:56:44.239 --> 0:56:50.480 he said, I don't care, at which point I turned 0:56:50.480 --> 0:56:56.960 around and two or three, and there's there's footage of 0:56:57.000 --> 0:57:00.399 this from every single angle. Two or three of these 0:57:00.480 --> 0:57:04.279 right policemen jumped on top of me, brutally beat me 0:57:04.840 --> 0:57:08.800 and arrested me, handcuffed me. The handcuffed me so tightly 0:57:09.880 --> 0:57:13.160 that they had to call the fucking fire brigade to 0:57:13.280 --> 0:57:17.120 cut the handcuffs off me. And hang on, it gets worse. 0:57:17.480 --> 0:57:19.920 Then an hour later, I'm on the front page of 0:57:19.960 --> 0:57:24.720 the Berlin Zetel. There I am being marched off by 0:57:24.800 --> 0:57:29.000 German police, riot police, and you know what, the headline says, 0:57:29.640 --> 0:57:40.000 one hundred anti Semitic Palestinian protesters disrupt Jewish memorial. Check 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:43.240 it out, Check it out, and you know what, I 0:57:43.280 --> 0:57:48.600 think it's still up there. Yeah, Okay, this is where 0:57:48.640 --> 0:57:52.480 we're at. This is where we're at in this country. Like, 0:57:52.960 --> 0:57:57.160 forget fact checking. This is not a Palestinian. I'm a 0:57:57.280 --> 0:58:02.480 fucking Jew. You've arrested, had a fucking third generation Holocaust 0:58:02.520 --> 0:58:07.320 surviving Jew, your mother fucking Nazi. And they tell me 0:58:08.120 --> 0:58:11.760 de Nazification never happened in this country. There's no such 0:58:11.840 --> 0:58:17.720 thing as neo Nazis. They're Nazis man and this Stefan Henzl, 0:58:18.080 --> 0:58:22.800 he wants the Jews out of Germany. That's what's underneath 0:58:22.960 --> 0:58:26.480 all of the shit, right, because if they were worried 0:58:26.520 --> 0:58:32.320 about antisemitism, let's talk about antisemitism, okay, because I've got 0:58:32.440 --> 0:58:34.160 kids and they need to be safe. 0:58:34.880 --> 0:58:35.760 Yeah. 0:58:35.840 --> 0:58:38.280 I mean I was reading the other day a news 0:58:38.360 --> 0:58:41.880 article from I think fifty one or fifty two that 0:58:42.000 --> 0:58:44.720 was about one of the god Now I was facing 0:58:44.760 --> 0:58:46.480 at his name, but he was. He was a Wehrmacht 0:58:46.600 --> 0:58:50.000 general who was you know, commanded troops on the Ast Front, 0:58:50.520 --> 0:58:53.680 survived the war and later got into German politics, And 0:58:53.680 --> 0:58:55.640 it was just a it was an article about one 0:58:55.720 --> 0:58:59.880 of his political rallies where protesters were like broken up, 0:59:00.160 --> 0:59:03.440 beaten up by German police officers. And it's kind of 0:59:03.560 --> 0:59:07.200 this this same like, yeah, what were your what was 0:59:07.240 --> 0:59:10.400 your family doing during those twelve years? You know, like 0:59:10.600 --> 0:59:12.760 it's it's really it's a question you can ask, but 0:59:12.840 --> 0:59:16.160 it's rarely really a question, right, right, Yeah, Like there 0:59:16.280 --> 0:59:19.320 was never any That's such an important point, you know, 0:59:20.680 --> 0:59:24.360 particularly when we talk about like why there is you know, 0:59:24.520 --> 0:59:28.560 such what you can call technically support for Israel that's rooted, 0:59:28.600 --> 0:59:31.080 as you noted, often in just getting Jewish people out 0:59:31.120 --> 0:59:34.720 of Germany, like there was never any kind of real denazification. 0:59:35.520 --> 0:59:37.400 No, yeah, no, no, no systemic level. 0:59:37.720 --> 0:59:40.680 This is all about white supremacy, man, because I'll tell 0:59:40.680 --> 0:59:45.720 you what. And this goes deeper. On the fifteenth of July, 0:59:46.120 --> 0:59:51.640 they made a law in Berlin that all public swimming pools. 0:59:51.840 --> 0:59:55.840 They claim that there was a rise in violence in 0:59:56.000 --> 1:00:03.560 public swimming pools in Berlin, Okay, reticularly in Neikol and Kreutzberg, which, 1:00:03.720 --> 1:00:08.320 as we know, are the areas of migrants, particularly Palestinian 1:00:08.480 --> 1:00:14.560 Middle Eastern migrants. Right. And in fact, if you look 1:00:14.640 --> 1:00:21.160 at the statistics from twenty nineteen to two twenty twenty two, 1:00:22.240 --> 1:00:25.800 violence has gone down by twenty one or twenty three percent, 1:00:25.920 --> 1:00:31.400 I can't remember correctly, so that's incorrect. But now we 1:00:31.600 --> 1:00:36.360 have a state a position where at the entrance of 1:00:36.600 --> 1:00:40.320 every swimming pool there is a police fan and they 1:00:40.520 --> 1:00:47.560 are ethnically and racially profiling people who come into swimming pools. Right. 1:00:48.240 --> 1:00:51.840 And there is basically a law that says that there 1:00:51.920 --> 1:00:57.200 shall not be more than three men read three men 1:00:57.440 --> 1:01:04.280 of color in a public swimming pool. Okay, And this 1:01:04.480 --> 1:01:07.920 is where we're heading. Felix Klein, who's the federal Commission 1:01:08.000 --> 1:01:12.959 of Anti Semitism Stephan Henzel, who's the Hamburg one these 1:01:13.160 --> 1:01:20.000 people that the mayor of Berlin. On Pentecost night, he tweeted, 1:01:20.440 --> 1:01:23.400 check out check out his tweet. He tweeted something It 1:01:23.480 --> 1:01:27.520 went like this, It said, we wish everybody a happy 1:01:27.680 --> 1:01:34.320 Pentecost and we wish our guests a lovely time our guests. 1:01:35.520 --> 1:01:39.240 This is like, dude, I mean, you know. 1:01:41.080 --> 1:01:45.760 That Christian it's grim It's fucking grim man. And you 1:01:45.840 --> 1:01:49.440 know these people want a white they want a white 1:01:49.920 --> 1:01:54.400 Aryan Christian fucking country. They want the dark people out. 1:01:55.040 --> 1:01:57.280 I mean that's a huge part that people don't realize, 1:01:57.280 --> 1:02:02.120 as that Zionism is mostly white supremacy, mostly very anti 1:02:03.040 --> 1:02:05.920 anti Jewish, because that's its advocates for, just like the 1:02:06.040 --> 1:02:07.600 expulsion of the Jews. 1:02:07.640 --> 1:02:11.800 Again, well, it's a fucking mental illness, is what it is. 1:02:12.800 --> 1:02:13.680 I don't disagree with you. 1:02:15.680 --> 1:02:17.600 I just wanted to reflect, like maybe as we as 1:02:17.600 --> 1:02:19.720 we end up on how far the needle has swung 1:02:20.320 --> 1:02:24.680 when we talk about like anti Semitism, anti Zionism, and 1:02:24.840 --> 1:02:27.280 sort of where they because they do have a lap, yeah, 1:02:27.480 --> 1:02:29.760 but they don't know they are not the same thing. 1:02:30.240 --> 1:02:32.680 And I think about how there's this a letter of 1:02:32.680 --> 1:02:34.400 that is the New York Times published like it was 1:02:34.440 --> 1:02:37.240 in the late nineteen forties forty eight, forty nine. It 1:02:37.360 --> 1:02:40.200 co signed by a lot of prominent Jewish intellectuals, including 1:02:40.200 --> 1:02:46.160 Hannah Rent Albert Einstein, talking about the settler policies in 1:02:46.320 --> 1:02:48.600 Israel at that time by Zionist groups at that time 1:02:48.600 --> 1:02:52.440 as fascist, which is something that would now be considered 1:02:52.480 --> 1:02:57.360 to be like antisemit, Like that's calling Israel fascist was 1:02:57.440 --> 1:02:59.920 what got you chased at him by that guy. It's 1:03:00.280 --> 1:03:03.480 considered to be anti Semitic in Germany, right, And these 1:03:03.480 --> 1:03:07.280 are people who you know, had lost family members, you know, 1:03:07.320 --> 1:03:09.880 they can their nuclear family to the Holocaust, like prominent 1:03:11.560 --> 1:03:15.120 Jewish intellectuals who would now be considered I guess anti 1:03:15.160 --> 1:03:18.880 semitic under this by saying shit, New York Times would 1:03:18.880 --> 1:03:20.440 publish and the Times would have publish that. 1:03:20.520 --> 1:03:24.680 Now. Yeah, you know, a few of us got together 1:03:24.840 --> 1:03:28.120 in Iranian plus in a place where we were arrested 1:03:28.240 --> 1:03:31.040 in May a few like Jewish friends of mine, like 1:03:31.240 --> 1:03:35.200 some from Brooklyn, some from Israel, some from here, and 1:03:36.240 --> 1:03:40.840 you know, five nights ago a young Palesan man was 1:03:41.080 --> 1:03:47.000 arrested by twelve Israeli policemen and they branded a they 1:03:47.200 --> 1:03:53.120 cut with a knife the Star of David into his child. Yeah, 1:03:54.040 --> 1:03:58.680 and there's footage of this, and they literally cut the 1:03:58.800 --> 1:04:03.240 Star of David into his cheek. And we wore red 1:04:03.400 --> 1:04:08.680 Stars of David at the schedule tonight, and it just 1:04:08.720 --> 1:04:11.760 strikes me as ironic. You know, like eighty years ago, 1:04:11.960 --> 1:04:16.800 my ancestors were forced to wear a yellow star as 1:04:16.800 --> 1:04:22.440 a lapel on their armband or stuck to their jackets 1:04:22.920 --> 1:04:27.040 to shame them, to declare them as Jews, as dirty 1:04:27.200 --> 1:04:31.120 Jews in public. And now I feel like I've got 1:04:31.160 --> 1:04:35.880 to wear this red star because of our collective shame, 1:04:36.600 --> 1:04:39.680 because of what's being done in our name by the 1:04:39.800 --> 1:04:46.080 State of Israel and by Zionism. And this is not 1:04:46.920 --> 1:04:52.120 allowed to be done in my name. Really, sorry to 1:04:52.200 --> 1:04:54.680 be so grim. Fuck no, I mean, if. 1:04:54.600 --> 1:04:56.040 There was ever an ending story. 1:04:56.160 --> 1:04:57.200 Yeah, yeah, it's a. 1:04:57.200 --> 1:04:59.880 Grim story, but I think it's a great place to end. 1:05:00.280 --> 1:05:01.720 There's still so much I want to ask you. I 1:05:01.760 --> 1:05:04.360 would love to know your thoughts about like liberal Zionism, 1:05:04.480 --> 1:05:06.800 but that's gonna have to wait for next time. Thank 1:05:06.880 --> 1:05:09.480 you for giving us time in the middle or the 1:05:09.600 --> 1:05:10.440 early mornings. 1:05:10.840 --> 1:05:12.520 Thank you so much of course. 1:05:12.720 --> 1:05:16.080 Yeah, Adam, where can people find you online and help 1:05:16.160 --> 1:05:17.760 support the advocacy you're doing. 1:05:18.360 --> 1:05:21.800 Mostly I'm a bit of a geriatric, so I'm just 1:05:21.880 --> 1:05:25.200 on Instagram. Adam Broomberg put it in. 1:05:25.240 --> 1:05:29.800 The description for anyone that is curious. Thank you for 1:05:29.880 --> 1:05:33.320 doing your work. Everyone will follow Adam, make sure everyone doesn't. 1:05:34.720 --> 1:05:38.040 Let's let's protect Adam. Let's protect Adam and his family 1:05:38.160 --> 1:05:40.120 out there. But thank you again. 1:05:40.720 --> 1:05:41.480 Thank you guys. 1:05:41.880 --> 1:05:44.560 Yeah, thank you, thank you. Adam really appreciate me. 1:05:45.000 --> 1:05:46.040 And that's the episode. 1:05:56.400 --> 1:05:59.520 Hi everyone, it's me James, and I'm coming to eat today, sweaty, 1:06:00.040 --> 1:06:03.600 smelly and exhausted from my pickup truck out in the 1:06:03.680 --> 1:06:08.640 desert where I have been spending the weekend trying my 1:06:08.760 --> 1:06:11.920 best to help, along with lots of other dedicated mutual 1:06:11.920 --> 1:06:15.560 aid workers, to mitigate the damage done by an entirely 1:06:15.640 --> 1:06:20.479 preventable humanitarian crisis at the United States southern border. People 1:06:20.520 --> 1:06:23.760 are being held in the open desert in Hakomba, where 1:06:24.160 --> 1:06:26.560 it gets hot in the day gets very cold at night. 1:06:26.960 --> 1:06:29.120 And there are children, there are old people, there are 1:06:29.200 --> 1:06:32.400 young people. All the support they're getting it's from mutual 1:06:32.400 --> 1:06:35.600 aid workers. Then maybe get some water from border patrol, 1:06:35.640 --> 1:06:39.080 from federal government, and not much else. And I'm here 1:06:39.560 --> 1:06:42.640 before your podcast to ask you if you can to help. 1:06:43.000 --> 1:06:45.680 We've all spent all of our time and most of 1:06:45.760 --> 1:06:49.240 our money the last few days week trying to help, 1:06:49.720 --> 1:06:51.760 and we're all pretty broke, and we're all pretty tired. 1:06:51.840 --> 1:06:55.480 But I could really do with your support. And I'm 1:06:55.520 --> 1:06:57.320 going to give the venmos and cash apps and pay 1:06:57.320 --> 1:07:00.680 pal information for two organizations who I dearly love and 1:07:00.760 --> 1:07:04.680 whose work I have seen is extremely effective and is 1:07:05.200 --> 1:07:08.040 the only thing keeping this situation from being a lot worse. 1:07:08.120 --> 1:07:09.840 And please don't think that if you don't have much 1:07:09.880 --> 1:07:14.240 money that you shouldn't give. We can do a lot 1:07:14.280 --> 1:07:15.919 with a little. So if you only have five bucks, 1:07:16.000 --> 1:07:17.840 that is great. And five bucks is are top for 1:07:17.880 --> 1:07:19.920 someone to sleep under or a few hot meals. And 1:07:20.200 --> 1:07:23.680 what we're going to buy is food, blankets, tops, water, 1:07:24.040 --> 1:07:26.600 the things that stop people dying in the desert. Those 1:07:26.640 --> 1:07:30.520 two organizations, Border Kindness and Free Shit Collective, can be 1:07:30.600 --> 1:07:33.320 found online at border Kindness and at free ship PB 1:07:33.560 --> 1:07:36.760 on Twitter for Border Kindness, The venmo is at border 1:07:36.840 --> 1:07:41.320 hyphen Kindness. The cash app is dollar sign border Kindness 1:07:41.400 --> 1:07:44.440 Cash and the zell and PayPal. Information is info at 1:07:44.480 --> 1:07:48.280 Borderkindness dot org. Free Ship Collective are at free ship 1:07:48.280 --> 1:07:51.320 Collective on cash app and PayPal and at free shippbe 1:07:51.480 --> 1:07:53.200 on Twitter. Thank you very much, guys. 1:07:58.600 --> 1:07:59.240 Welcome Jake. 1:07:59.320 --> 1:08:02.320 It happened here a podcast about things falling apart and 1:08:02.440 --> 1:08:05.280 sometimes how to put them back together again. I'm your host, 1:08:05.400 --> 1:08:08.320 Bio Wong. Now, this is not one of those times 1:08:08.320 --> 1:08:10.280 where it's about how to put things back together again. 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:12.920 This is one of those episodes about why everything is 1:08:13.000 --> 1:08:16.680 absolutely awful. And one of the reasons why everything is 1:08:16.720 --> 1:08:19.880 absolutely awful, and something I've been driven progressively more and 1:08:19.960 --> 1:08:22.000 more insane by in the past sort of half a 1:08:22.120 --> 1:08:25.519 decade is the way people think and talk about class 1:08:25.560 --> 1:08:29.080 in the United States. Why, for example, do people think 1:08:29.200 --> 1:08:32.040 that Trump is working class? Why am I watching people 1:08:32.200 --> 1:08:34.960 argue that being a barista isn't actually being a worker. 1:08:35.560 --> 1:08:38.360 Why are all these millionaires driving forward f one fifties 1:08:38.760 --> 1:08:42.400 while simultaneously claiming that they are also somehow working class. 1:08:42.920 --> 1:08:45.920 Why are billionaires fleeing to Colorado and Wyoming to cause 1:08:46.000 --> 1:08:48.840 play as workers about wearing jeans and T shirts to bars? 1:08:49.280 --> 1:08:52.120 Why is every weight ring dipshit posting the same video 1:08:52.240 --> 1:08:55.000 of a guy in an oil rig committing approximately sixty 1:08:55.080 --> 1:08:58.160 thousand OSHA violations. Why is it that the only part 1:08:58.240 --> 1:09:01.120 of the working class that anyone ever seems to call 1:09:01.360 --> 1:09:04.600 the working class is the white working class. Why is 1:09:04.640 --> 1:09:06.679 it that when people talk about the white working class 1:09:06.680 --> 1:09:08.519 and then try to explain it with data, and this 1:09:08.640 --> 1:09:12.120 is true across the entire ideological spectrum, why do they 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:15.599 start defining working class by things that are objectively not class, 1:09:15.960 --> 1:09:20.320 like education levels. This reached a breaking point with me 1:09:20.479 --> 1:09:22.840 a few weeks ago and has finally caused me to 1:09:23.000 --> 1:09:27.759 snap and write this now, I've given the game away 1:09:27.960 --> 1:09:30.599 a little by leading with the white working class stuff, 1:09:30.680 --> 1:09:33.600 because a lot of the reason that everything sounds so 1:09:33.800 --> 1:09:36.479 nuts is that when people talk about class in the US, 1:09:37.320 --> 1:09:39.640 most of the time, what they're actually talking about is 1:09:39.760 --> 1:09:43.160 race and gender. And this pisses me off because I 1:09:43.280 --> 1:09:45.240 think more about class that a lot of people with 1:09:45.360 --> 1:09:47.880 my ideology usually do, and I think it can actually 1:09:48.000 --> 1:09:51.559 be a very useful way to understand the world. However, 1:09:52.160 --> 1:09:55.560 comma thinking and talking about class as a kind of 1:09:55.640 --> 1:09:59.200 floating signifier that you can just jam conservative racial and 1:09:59.280 --> 1:10:02.519 gender politic into is a really, really bad way to 1:10:02.560 --> 1:10:05.760 talk about class. On top of just the racism and 1:10:05.800 --> 1:10:09.599 the sexism, this way of looking at class reduces class, 1:10:09.640 --> 1:10:13.439 which is a social relation, into esthetics and grievances. And 1:10:13.560 --> 1:10:17.479 this leads to the question how did this all happen? Now, 1:10:17.880 --> 1:10:20.280 you could take a really expansive look at this here 1:10:20.400 --> 1:10:24.080 and go back to Aristotle or start later with Locke 1:10:24.280 --> 1:10:28.840 or something. But I'm not going to do that because, well, okay, 1:10:28.880 --> 1:10:31.280 partially because this would be seventeen years long if I 1:10:31.360 --> 1:10:33.599 tried to do this, and this episode is already now 1:10:33.720 --> 1:10:36.280 three episodes. The other reason I'm not going to do 1:10:36.400 --> 1:10:41.760 this is that the actual story of how everything got 1:10:41.880 --> 1:10:44.440 like this is the story of how the right adapted 1:10:44.479 --> 1:10:48.360 and distorted the incredibly successful leftist conception of labor that 1:10:48.479 --> 1:10:50.599 built the identity of the working class in the eighteen 1:10:50.640 --> 1:10:53.960 and nineteen hundreds. And in order to do that, we 1:10:54.080 --> 1:10:56.960 need to talk about the labor theory of value. Now, 1:10:58.840 --> 1:11:01.160 when I talk about the labor theory of value, there 1:11:01.520 --> 1:11:05.200 there are two things going on here. You have, on 1:11:05.320 --> 1:11:08.479 the one hand, Marx's law of value, and then you 1:11:08.680 --> 1:11:11.240 have the set of slogans that are passed down the 1:11:11.320 --> 1:11:14.960 mainline of the workers movements and these are not these 1:11:15.000 --> 1:11:17.800 are not the same thing at all. Even though when 1:11:17.840 --> 1:11:20.040 someone just says the labor theory of value, if that's 1:11:20.080 --> 1:11:23.720 a thing that you've heard of, you probably immediately think Marx. So, 1:11:24.200 --> 1:11:26.720 for example, let's get into a sense of sort of 1:11:26.800 --> 1:11:30.160 what this, this kind of like sloganeering looks like. Here's 1:11:30.200 --> 1:11:33.200 the beginning of the Gotha Program, which is the program 1:11:33.320 --> 1:11:35.920 of the German Social Democratic Party in late eighteen hundreds. 1:11:36.400 --> 1:11:39.639 It begins, quote, labor is the source of all wealth 1:11:39.720 --> 1:11:44.080 and all culture. Now Marx hates this line. He writes 1:11:44.080 --> 1:11:46.320 a thing called the Critique of the Gotha Program, where 1:11:46.360 --> 1:11:49.000 he goes on a giant rant about how you know, 1:11:50.120 --> 1:11:53.479 nature also produces use values and so on and so forth. 1:11:54.200 --> 1:11:57.000 But you know, Marx just sort of bitterness at this aside, 1:11:57.479 --> 1:11:59.840 labor is the source of all wealth is a very 1:12:00.160 --> 1:12:03.080 very common sentiments. It's the expression of the sort of 1:12:03.160 --> 1:12:06.439 common understanding of production, class, and nature of value. In 1:12:06.520 --> 1:12:10.679 the nineteenth and early twentieth century, as the anthropologist David 1:12:10.760 --> 1:12:13.640 Graeber pointed out, Abraham Lincoln, a man who is by 1:12:13.720 --> 1:12:16.040 no means a socialist and is in fact the President 1:12:16.120 --> 1:12:20.559 of the United States, talks like this. Here's Lincoln quote, 1:12:20.840 --> 1:12:25.080 labor is prior to an independent of capital. Capital is 1:12:25.160 --> 1:12:27.759 only the fruit of labor and could never have existed 1:12:27.800 --> 1:12:31.439 if labor had not existed. First, labor is superior of 1:12:31.560 --> 1:12:34.320 capital and deserves much the higher consideration. 1:12:36.439 --> 1:12:37.559 Now, this is. 1:12:37.640 --> 1:12:40.720 Obviously not something you'd ever hear from a president of 1:12:40.760 --> 1:12:43.679 the United States today, and we'll come back to Graver's 1:12:43.760 --> 1:12:46.720 argument about why that is later. But I want to 1:12:46.800 --> 1:12:50.200 get a bit deeper into not just the common conception 1:12:50.360 --> 1:12:53.080 of the labor theory of value, but what the sort 1:12:53.120 --> 1:12:57.840 of capital w capital m worker's movement believed in. And this, 1:12:58.120 --> 1:13:02.360 as it turns out, has a tenuous relation to Marx, 1:13:03.280 --> 1:13:05.600 but is not the same thing, and I think is 1:13:05.680 --> 1:13:08.559 different enough that I'm actually not going to spend another 1:13:08.720 --> 1:13:11.240 like fifteen minutes trying to explain Marx's version of the 1:13:11.320 --> 1:13:14.280 labor theory of value or Marx's law of value, because 1:13:14.280 --> 1:13:17.640 it doesn't ultimately matter that much, which is which is 1:13:17.680 --> 1:13:22.000 a very weird thing to say about the actual sort 1:13:22.040 --> 1:13:25.680 of you know about about about sort of Marx's role 1:13:25.680 --> 1:13:30.000 in labor movement, but it kind of doesn't. So what 1:13:30.080 --> 1:13:33.759 I'm going to do instead is read, well, I should 1:13:33.760 --> 1:13:35.680 I should, Okay, I should also mention like we are 1:13:35.760 --> 1:13:38.559 going to get a bit more into like the things 1:13:38.600 --> 1:13:40.840 that Marx actually wrote and why they mattered to the 1:13:40.880 --> 1:13:42.679 specific movement, like next episode. 1:13:42.800 --> 1:13:44.439 But you know, we'll do, we'll do. 1:13:44.560 --> 1:13:47.599 We'll deal with that tomorrow. And in the meantime, I'm 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:49.679 going to read a bit from the journal end notes 1:13:49.960 --> 1:13:54.880 from a Unity and Separation supporting workers claims to respectability 1:13:55.120 --> 1:13:58.720 was a vision of their destiny with five tenants. One, 1:13:59.200 --> 1:14:02.040 workers were built a new world with their own hands. 1:14:02.560 --> 1:14:02.720 Two. 1:14:03.120 --> 1:14:05.840 In this new world, workers were the only social group 1:14:05.880 --> 1:14:09.719 that was expanding, whereas all other groups were contracting, including 1:14:09.760 --> 1:14:13.960 the bourgeoisie. Three, Workers were not only becoming the majority 1:14:14.040 --> 1:14:18.000 of the population, they were also becoming a compact mass, 1:14:18.080 --> 1:14:21.439 the collective worker who was being drilled in the factory 1:14:21.600 --> 1:14:23.439 to act in concert with the machines. 1:14:24.240 --> 1:14:24.439 Four. 1:14:24.840 --> 1:14:27.479 They were thus the only group capable of managing the 1:14:27.600 --> 1:14:31.120 new world in accordance with this innermost logic, neither a 1:14:31.240 --> 1:14:35.440 hierarchy of order givers and order takers, nor the irrationality 1:14:35.479 --> 1:14:39.439 of market fluctuations, but rather in every more finely grained 1:14:39.479 --> 1:14:40.320 division of labor. 1:14:40.800 --> 1:14:41.040 Five. 1:14:41.640 --> 1:14:45.000 Workers were proving this vision to be true, since the 1:14:45.080 --> 1:14:48.519 class was realizing what it was in a conquest of power, 1:14:48.680 --> 1:14:51.360 the achievement of which would make it possible to abolish 1:14:51.439 --> 1:14:55.479 class society and thus bring Man's prehistory to a close. 1:14:56.760 --> 1:14:59.679 This is the basis of the formation of the identity 1:14:59.720 --> 1:15:03.280 of the working class. It's how people understand themselves as workers, 1:15:03.360 --> 1:15:05.120 you know, and so in Marxist terms, this is the 1:15:05.200 --> 1:15:08.560 class in itself becoming the class for itself, you know. 1:15:08.840 --> 1:15:12.480 This is this is this is this is the identity 1:15:12.720 --> 1:15:15.960 that produces the workers movement. It's the expression of what 1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:21.400 people believe about themselves. Now, there are ingrained ideological assumptions 1:15:21.439 --> 1:15:24.559 here that go sort of beyond peer arguments about class. 1:15:25.080 --> 1:15:25.200 Right. 1:15:25.600 --> 1:15:28.200 This is an argument about a very specific kind of 1:15:28.240 --> 1:15:31.280 factory worker. And in some sense I think the focus 1:15:31.400 --> 1:15:34.440 on the factory worker as like the sort of emblematic 1:15:34.560 --> 1:15:36.880 like bearer of this And this is true both of 1:15:37.080 --> 1:15:39.280 the theorist of the time and from people like end 1:15:39.320 --> 1:15:41.040 Notes who are looking back on it from like one 1:15:41.080 --> 1:15:43.439 hundred years later. I think this is kind of a 1:15:43.560 --> 1:15:47.040 distraction from what a lot of the actual base of 1:15:47.080 --> 1:15:49.439 the workers movement is, which is to say, like coal 1:15:49.520 --> 1:15:52.960 miners and workers involved with energy logistics. You know, you 1:15:53.000 --> 1:15:55.280 could take for example, like the beating heart of the 1:15:55.320 --> 1:15:57.599 anarchist movement in much of the twenties and thirties are 1:15:58.560 --> 1:16:02.000 these Andalusian coal mine whose militancy and ability to sort 1:16:02.000 --> 1:16:05.759 of control the supply of coal that you know, capital 1:16:05.840 --> 1:16:08.799 the capitalists class relied on for production gave them enormous 1:16:08.880 --> 1:16:12.639 leverage and as the sort of as a historian Timothy 1:16:12.720 --> 1:16:15.160 Mitchell has argued, it was, it was this sort of 1:16:15.280 --> 1:16:18.360 capacity to you know, break the economy through shutting off 1:16:18.400 --> 1:16:23.200 the coal supply, through strikes and sabotage, which workers you know, 1:16:23.520 --> 1:16:26.360 were workers at the time, like think of like the 1:16:26.439 --> 1:16:29.720 strike as a kind of sabotage and it's but it's 1:16:29.800 --> 1:16:32.240 this capability that informs a lot of the sort of 1:16:32.320 --> 1:16:35.639 politics intensive possibility of the twentieth century work as movements 1:16:37.120 --> 1:16:39.880 and you know, given what, but you know, like given 1:16:39.960 --> 1:16:43.280 what what the people who are like you know, working 1:16:43.360 --> 1:16:46.840 in a coal mine or like you know, are are 1:16:47.000 --> 1:16:50.280 like a doc worker or you know, it's like if 1:16:50.400 --> 1:16:54.080 you are working in a factory, right, it makes sense 1:16:54.360 --> 1:16:57.920 that these people believe this right, you know, in terms 1:16:58.000 --> 1:16:59.519 in terms of you know, if if if you're looking 1:16:59.600 --> 1:17:04.840 at some thing like you know, workers are building the 1:17:04.880 --> 1:17:07.160 new world with their hands, right, or like we're you know, 1:17:07.240 --> 1:17:10.800 we're the only social group that's expanding. We're the only 1:17:10.920 --> 1:17:13.559 people who are like capable of like managing the new 1:17:13.640 --> 1:17:16.840 world according to its own logic. This makes a lot 1:17:16.920 --> 1:17:19.639 of sense if you are one of the people who 1:17:19.760 --> 1:17:24.560 live in a world that has effectively disappeared. Now, you know, 1:17:24.640 --> 1:17:27.839 and that and that is a world where you literally 1:17:27.920 --> 1:17:30.560 are watching cities be constructed out of like you know, 1:17:30.640 --> 1:17:32.040 the tiny shells of villages. 1:17:32.160 --> 1:17:32.280 Right. 1:17:32.320 --> 1:17:34.599 The only way you can sort of experience that now 1:17:35.240 --> 1:17:36.720 is if you were one of the people in sort 1:17:36.720 --> 1:17:38.640 of the late the nineties and the two thousands in 1:17:38.760 --> 1:17:40.800 China who you know, like watch shen z En turn 1:17:40.840 --> 1:17:42.719 from a fishing village into one of the largest cities 1:17:42.760 --> 1:17:46.000 in the world. But that's not really a thing anymore. 1:17:46.800 --> 1:17:49.200 But on the other hand, like, this is what these 1:17:49.200 --> 1:17:52.200 people are experiencing, and this is a group of people 1:17:52.400 --> 1:17:55.200 who can literally feel in their hands the sort of 1:17:55.320 --> 1:17:57.360 the power and the value of the labor in what 1:17:57.479 --> 1:18:01.480 they're producing. They can, you know, they can see commodities 1:18:01.600 --> 1:18:03.560 appear in the world, and they can know that it 1:18:03.680 --> 1:18:05.840 was you by their hands that the world was built. 1:18:06.240 --> 1:18:08.439 And this is not you know, this is not purely 1:18:08.520 --> 1:18:12.839 a metaphor, right, These are people who are literally creating 1:18:12.960 --> 1:18:16.400 the world around them. To quote one of the verses 1:18:16.479 --> 1:18:21.280 of Solidarity Forever that modern trade unions hilariously notably do 1:18:21.479 --> 1:18:24.760 not include in the version of In the version of 1:18:24.800 --> 1:18:26.479 the song that they tend to sing at things, the 1:18:27.040 --> 1:18:30.280 trade union version drops a bunch of verses, and one 1:18:30.320 --> 1:18:33.120 of those verses is in our hands is placed to 1:18:33.200 --> 1:18:35.880 power greater than their hoarded gold, greater than the might 1:18:35.960 --> 1:18:39.320 of armies multiplied a thousandfold, We can bring to birth 1:18:39.360 --> 1:18:41.200 a new world from the ashes of the old. 1:18:41.360 --> 1:18:42.759 For the union makes us strong. 1:18:44.439 --> 1:18:47.719 And this is both the positive vision of the workers 1:18:47.840 --> 1:18:51.759 movement and its own sort of theoretical self conception wrapped 1:18:51.760 --> 1:18:54.719 into one. It is the sort of rosy romantic picture 1:18:54.920 --> 1:19:00.680 of what the worker's movement is. However, Comma, this is 1:19:00.760 --> 1:19:04.720 the incredibly romantic version of this. And before we sort 1:19:04.760 --> 1:19:07.920 of leave the world of pure romance and go into 1:19:08.040 --> 1:19:11.639 these sort of dirty and grimy worlds of reality where 1:19:11.840 --> 1:19:13.880 everything kind of sucks and things are not what they 1:19:13.960 --> 1:19:18.720 normally seem, we are going to take an ad break 1:19:20.360 --> 1:19:22.479 and we're back now. 1:19:23.200 --> 1:19:24.080 There are a lot of. 1:19:24.160 --> 1:19:27.280 Things about this work as movement that if you just 1:19:27.479 --> 1:19:29.960 sort of look at it theoretically, or if you know, 1:19:30.120 --> 1:19:32.200 you're looking at these one of the sort of like 1:19:32.280 --> 1:19:37.559 incredibly sort of rosy self caricatures. I guess if you're 1:19:37.640 --> 1:19:42.000 purely looking at the kind of propaganda that the movement 1:19:42.120 --> 1:19:46.560 produces in order to create itself, you are going to 1:19:46.720 --> 1:19:50.600 get a very distorted picture of sort of what was 1:19:51.080 --> 1:19:54.920 actually going on on the ground. And this also makes 1:19:54.960 --> 1:19:59.680 it very very difficult to understand what happened, because, you know, 1:19:59.760 --> 1:20:02.680 if if you want to understand how this movement was 1:20:02.760 --> 1:20:05.960 defeated and how the like all of the sort of 1:20:06.000 --> 1:20:09.440 branches of the Worker's movements, like all of his different ideologies, 1:20:09.439 --> 1:20:13.160 all of those different manifestations are essentially destroyed, you have 1:20:13.439 --> 1:20:17.439 to get to the point where you are you start 1:20:17.479 --> 1:20:20.640 to realize that the ideological conception of productivity right of 1:20:20.960 --> 1:20:24.040 the producer of you know, like of of what the 1:20:24.160 --> 1:20:27.600 worker is was never as sort of dry and objective 1:20:27.600 --> 1:20:29.720 as theorists wanted us. And you know, you got the 1:20:29.760 --> 1:20:34.200 sense that they wanted like themselves to believe. Case in 1:20:34.320 --> 1:20:36.840 point is the nature of what Marx calls the lump 1:20:36.920 --> 1:20:41.559 and proletariat. So here's from endnotes again, who were these 1:20:41.640 --> 1:20:46.000 lump and proletarians preaching anarchy? Attempts to spell that out 1:20:46.120 --> 1:20:50.200 usually took the form not of structural analysis, but rather 1:20:50.479 --> 1:20:54.280 of long lists of shady characters, lists which collapsed in 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:59.000 on themselves in a frenzied incoherence. Here is Marx's paradigmatic 1:20:59.080 --> 1:21:02.120 discussion of the lump proletariat from the eighteenth through mayor 1:21:02.240 --> 1:21:06.759 of Louis Bonaparte, on the pretext A founding a benevolent society, 1:21:07.160 --> 1:21:10.720 the lump and proletariat of Paris had been organized into 1:21:10.840 --> 1:21:16.799 secret sections, each section led by Bonapartist agents. These lumpen 1:21:16.840 --> 1:21:22.000 supposedly consisted of quote, vagabonds, discharged soldiers and jail birds, 1:21:22.439 --> 1:21:30.799 escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mounton bunks, lazaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, pimps, 1:21:31.200 --> 1:21:38.639 brothel keepers, porters, litter, roddy, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars. 1:21:38.880 --> 1:21:43.160 In short, the whole indefinite, disintegrating mass thrown hither and 1:21:43.280 --> 1:21:47.880 thither from which the French call labohem. Is there any 1:21:47.960 --> 1:21:51.719 truth in this paranoid fantasy? Do escaped convicts and organ 1:21:51.800 --> 1:21:56.120 grinders share a common counter revolutionary interest with beggars, which 1:21:56.200 --> 1:22:00.320 distinguishes them from the common mass worker, who are currently 1:22:00.400 --> 1:22:05.519 revolutionary by nature. To think so is insane. The lumpen 1:22:05.560 --> 1:22:09.280 proletariat was a specter haunting the worker's movements. If that 1:22:09.400 --> 1:22:13.360 movement constituted itself for the dignity of workers, then the 1:22:13.439 --> 1:22:17.160 lumpen was the figure of the undignified worker, or miraculately, 1:22:17.320 --> 1:22:20.200 the lumpen was one of its figurations. All of the 1:22:20.280 --> 1:22:23.200 movement's efforts to give dignity of the class were supposedly 1:22:23.360 --> 1:22:26.839 undermined by these dissolute figures drunk singing in the streets, 1:22:26.960 --> 1:22:31.400 petty criminals, and prostitutes. References to a lumpen proletariat registered 1:22:31.479 --> 1:22:34.200 what was a simple truth. It was difficult to convince 1:22:34.280 --> 1:22:37.000 workers to organize as workers, since mostly they didn't care 1:22:37.040 --> 1:22:40.519 about socialism. A great many of the poor, especially the 1:22:40.640 --> 1:22:43.840 very poor, did not think or behave themselves as proletarians, 1:22:44.280 --> 1:22:46.760 or find the organizations and modes of actions of the 1:22:46.840 --> 1:22:50.400 movement as applicable or relevant to them. In their fear time, 1:22:50.439 --> 1:22:52.880 they'd rather go to the pub than sing workers' songs. 1:22:53.840 --> 1:22:56.000 In the figure of the lumpen. We discover the dark 1:22:56.120 --> 1:22:59.120 underside of the affirmation of the working class. It was 1:22:59.160 --> 1:23:03.080 a biting class hatred. Workers saw themselves as originating out 1:23:03.120 --> 1:23:06.880 of a stinking morass from Kotsky is the class struggle quote. 1:23:07.360 --> 1:23:09.519 At the time of the beginning of modern industry, the 1:23:09.600 --> 1:23:14.040 term proletariat implied absolute degeneracy, and there are persons who 1:23:14.120 --> 1:23:18.040 believe this is still the case. Moreover, capitalism was trying 1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:20.880 to push them back into the muck. Thus, the crisis 1:23:20.960 --> 1:23:23.360 tendencies of capitalism could only be resolved in one of 1:23:23.439 --> 1:23:26.200 two ways, the victory of the working class or in 1:23:26.280 --> 1:23:29.439 its becoming lumpen'. Now you can see a couple of 1:23:29.520 --> 1:23:32.160 things very clearly here. One is there's been a lot 1:23:32.200 --> 1:23:34.800 of attempts to like resuscitate the lump and proletariat as 1:23:34.920 --> 1:23:39.360 like a functional class, especially see this especially in the seventies. 1:23:39.479 --> 1:23:43.600 And I really, I really would recommend those people go 1:23:43.720 --> 1:23:46.400 back and read what Mark's actually wrote about the lumpen proletariat, 1:23:46.479 --> 1:23:51.880 because it makes no sense. It is just like absolute 1:23:52.000 --> 1:23:55.240 sort of blithering nonsense. And the reason it's this kind 1:23:55.280 --> 1:24:00.840 of like incredibly bizarre, like paranoid, you know, to fantasies 1:24:01.040 --> 1:24:04.040 is that beneath the sort of like foe of scientific 1:24:04.120 --> 1:24:08.960 objectiveness of the workers' movement is this incredibly petty moralism 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:11.400 and a set of sort of Victorian social values with 1:24:11.520 --> 1:24:15.160 all of the sort of cruelty of their aristocratic masters. 1:24:15.720 --> 1:24:17.920 And I want to sort of point out here like 1:24:18.560 --> 1:24:23.560 this kind of thinking, you know, this kind of like 1:24:24.080 --> 1:24:26.200 we are the movement that is a liberation of the class. 1:24:26.320 --> 1:24:27.960 But in order to do that, we need to prove 1:24:28.120 --> 1:24:31.360 that like we are like actually sort of like real 1:24:31.479 --> 1:24:34.160 dignified human beings, and that there's another group of people 1:24:34.200 --> 1:24:36.800 who are just us, but we hate them because they 1:24:36.800 --> 1:24:38.600 don't behave the way that we think they're supposed to. 1:24:39.400 --> 1:24:41.840 This is a very very common thing that you see 1:24:41.960 --> 1:24:45.720 in basically all social movements, especially in their earliest and 1:24:45.880 --> 1:24:49.200 like shittiest iterations. You see this in the early feminist movement. 1:24:49.200 --> 1:24:51.360 I mean, you see this still in the feminist movement, 1:24:51.439 --> 1:24:54.280 but there are sections of it that do this too. 1:24:55.000 --> 1:24:55.880 There's a really good. 1:24:55.800 --> 1:24:58.360 Piece called some Like It Hot by Sophie Lewis about 1:24:58.439 --> 1:25:01.400 the sort of feminist reaction to Mertory Marilyn Monroe, and 1:25:02.160 --> 1:25:04.120 I'm gonna read a little bit from it. One of 1:25:04.200 --> 1:25:06.080 the things that you get this sense of is that 1:25:06.760 --> 1:25:11.840 people like Glorious Steinem just absolutely hate Marilyn Monroe, and 1:25:12.120 --> 1:25:14.560 the you know, the stuff they write about her is 1:25:14.640 --> 1:25:20.600 stuff that like you just will be like almost incomprehensible 1:25:20.680 --> 1:25:23.040 to imagine any of these people or even just sort 1:25:23.080 --> 1:25:26.240 of like you know, not even like like a modern 1:25:26.360 --> 1:25:30.640 sort of like conservative like writing on purpose about a 1:25:30.680 --> 1:25:32.640 woman and being allowed to sort of get away with it. 1:25:33.160 --> 1:25:36.280 I mean there right, just horrible things about her. I'm 1:25:36.280 --> 1:25:39.080 gonna read a little bit from the piece. Perhaps it 1:25:39.200 --> 1:25:41.840 was Monroe's dumping of three husbands, two of them were 1:25:41.880 --> 1:25:45.120 famous and powerful, that posed quote no adult challenge to 1:25:45.160 --> 1:25:49.439 Steinem's mind. Or perhaps Steinem's comments closed nothing so much 1:25:49.479 --> 1:25:53.439 as her own inability to see Highem people as subjects. Here, 1:25:54.600 --> 1:25:57.960 in case it might pierce a vail, is Monroe apagem 1:25:58.200 --> 1:26:01.400 written on Waldorf a story a letter paper in nineteen 1:26:01.439 --> 1:26:04.440 fifty five, quote everyone has violence in themselves. 1:26:04.640 --> 1:26:05.360 I am violent. 1:26:05.960 --> 1:26:09.400 Here is another spoken to photographer Bruno Bernard in nineteen 1:26:09.439 --> 1:26:13.160 fifty six. Both the anti communists on the House Committee 1:26:13.200 --> 1:26:15.560 on Un American Activities and the movie sensors on the 1:26:15.600 --> 1:26:19.920 production board should be buried alive. Perhaps Steinem, who proudly 1:26:20.000 --> 1:26:22.280 worked for the CIA in the fifties and sixties, would 1:26:22.320 --> 1:26:25.920 not appreciate this kind of courage, the courage of one Norma, who, 1:26:26.160 --> 1:26:29.800 when notified by the police at Los Angeles roadblock in 1:26:29.840 --> 1:26:32.519 nineteen forty nine that a nearby house was being monitored 1:26:32.600 --> 1:26:35.680 for ties to communists, shouted the officer's ear off and 1:26:35.760 --> 1:26:39.680 went straight to tip off blacklisted screenwriters Norma and Ben Bauersman. 1:26:40.840 --> 1:26:42.599 And so, you know, you can sort of see what's 1:26:42.760 --> 1:26:46.160 happening here, right, It's a very similar thing where there 1:26:46.200 --> 1:26:47.880 were these sort of like you know, you have these 1:26:48.000 --> 1:26:52.639 very sort of like like respectable mainstream feminists who look 1:26:52.680 --> 1:26:57.000 at someone like Marilyn Monroe, who you know, and they 1:26:57.160 --> 1:27:00.519 just fucking hate her. They absolutely despise her because she 1:27:00.760 --> 1:27:04.120 is sort of she she is the image of what 1:27:04.360 --> 1:27:07.120 they sort of think that they're fighting against, right, Like 1:27:07.760 --> 1:27:10.760 they're they're they're, they're, they're what what liberation looks like 1:27:10.920 --> 1:27:13.639 for them is to like not be this kind of woman. 1:27:14.040 --> 1:27:15.880 And that's, you know, and this is that's the sort 1:27:15.880 --> 1:27:20.200 of unspoken or so sometimes just overly spoken, core of 1:27:20.600 --> 1:27:21.800 what a lot of this stuff is. And you know, 1:27:21.840 --> 1:27:24.360 and This is how these people like can justify like 1:27:24.479 --> 1:27:28.200 working for the fucking CIA, right and you know, somehow 1:27:28.280 --> 1:27:30.920 claiming to themselves to be like superior feminists, feminist to 1:27:31.000 --> 1:27:34.679 Marilyn Monroe, who you know, at like great personal costs 1:27:34.720 --> 1:27:37.679 and at great danger, like you know, fought hu wac 1:27:38.320 --> 1:27:41.200 and shit. So you know, this kind of like we 1:27:41.280 --> 1:27:43.400 are the group who is going to free our own group. 1:27:43.520 --> 1:27:46.479 We're also not like because we're not like those other 1:27:46.560 --> 1:27:48.439 people who are literally the same as us, but we 1:27:48.520 --> 1:27:50.760 don't like them because they we don't think they're respectable enough. 1:27:51.080 --> 1:27:53.640 This is a very very old sort of trend, but 1:27:53.960 --> 1:27:56.519 it has real social consequences and it's you know, it's 1:27:56.560 --> 1:28:00.479 it's a really disastrous strategy because it means that all 1:28:00.560 --> 1:28:03.280 of these movements have these sort of flanks from which 1:28:03.320 --> 1:28:07.000 they can be attacked. One of these flanks for the 1:28:07.080 --> 1:28:11.320 workers movements, and one that's become increasingly important now, is 1:28:11.400 --> 1:28:14.080 the kind of producer's conception of what a worker is. 1:28:14.200 --> 1:28:15.880 You know, this is the man sort of creating the 1:28:15.920 --> 1:28:19.680 new world with his bare hands. The problem is that, 1:28:20.400 --> 1:28:24.240 you know, this is never what most labor actually was. 1:28:24.720 --> 1:28:28.560 Here's David Graber again. In fact, there was never a 1:28:28.720 --> 1:28:31.360 time when most workers worked in a factory. Even in 1:28:31.439 --> 1:28:34.240 the days of Karl Marx or Charles Dickens, working class 1:28:34.280 --> 1:28:38.679 neighborhoods housed far more maids, boot blacks, dustman cooks, nurses, 1:28:39.320 --> 1:28:44.280 cabby's school teachers, prostitutes, caretakers, and costermongers than employees and 1:28:44.360 --> 1:28:48.360 coal mines, textile mills or iron foundries. Are these former 1:28:48.479 --> 1:28:50.439 jobs productive in what sense? 1:28:50.479 --> 1:28:51.000 And for whom? 1:28:51.520 --> 1:28:55.440 Who produces us who flay? Is because of these ambiguities, 1:28:55.479 --> 1:28:58.240 As such, issues are typically brushed aside when people are 1:28:58.320 --> 1:29:01.680 arguing about value, but doing so blinds us to the 1:29:01.760 --> 1:29:04.880 reality that most working class labor, whether you're carried out 1:29:04.920 --> 1:29:08.839 by men or women, actually resembles what we are typically 1:29:08.920 --> 1:29:12.479 think of as women's work. Looking after people, seeing to 1:29:12.600 --> 1:29:16.639 their wants and needs, explaining, reassuring, anticipating what the boss 1:29:16.800 --> 1:29:20.480 wants or is thinking, not to mention, caring for, monitoring 1:29:20.560 --> 1:29:24.280 and maintaining plants, animals, machines and other objects. Then it 1:29:24.400 --> 1:29:28.880 involves hammering, carving, hoisting, or harvesting things. And you know, 1:29:29.040 --> 1:29:32.720 you can see in this sort of issue, right, you 1:29:32.800 --> 1:29:35.600 can see the axis upon which the workers movement is 1:29:35.680 --> 1:29:38.479 going to be split in the eighties and nineties. If 1:29:38.520 --> 1:29:40.519 you can convince a set of workers that what they're 1:29:40.640 --> 1:29:44.479 doing is you know, masculine productive labor, right, and that 1:29:44.680 --> 1:29:46.479 you know what those other people are doing, is this 1:29:46.720 --> 1:29:50.160 like feminine care labor that doesn't produce anything. You can 1:29:50.479 --> 1:29:53.599 turn the entire ideology of the workers movement on its 1:29:53.680 --> 1:29:57.160 head and transform it from a liberatory ideology about the 1:29:57.280 --> 1:29:59.880 end of the class system to a patriarchal ideology about 1:29:59.880 --> 1:30:03.600 the necessity of labor to sort of manhood of masculinity. 1:30:04.200 --> 1:30:07.400 And once that ideological shift is made, you can start 1:30:07.479 --> 1:30:11.160 writing off entire fields of laborers as being insufficiently quote 1:30:11.240 --> 1:30:14.719 unquote productive, or you know, as the right wing shift 1:30:14.840 --> 1:30:19.320 renders it, you can say productive and mean insufficiently masculine 1:30:19.360 --> 1:30:23.879 account as part of the working class TM. This problem, 1:30:24.400 --> 1:30:27.480 Graper argues, is a consequence of the sort of maniacal 1:30:27.560 --> 1:30:31.000 focus on production that defined the workers movement, because it 1:30:31.080 --> 1:30:33.960 obscures the fact that, again, most of actual labor is 1:30:34.040 --> 1:30:37.519 care labor. And this is something we've discussed at length 1:30:37.720 --> 1:30:41.000 on this show in sort of ethnographic if not theoretical terms, 1:30:41.760 --> 1:30:45.200 while talking to Starbucks workers, and in these conversations it 1:30:45.280 --> 1:30:47.720 becomes almost immediately clear that a huge part of the 1:30:47.880 --> 1:30:51.400 job has very little to do with making coffee or 1:30:51.560 --> 1:30:55.200 even sort of classical customer management, and like the interpretive 1:30:55.240 --> 1:30:58.320 and emotional labor of doing service work, what these workers 1:30:58.360 --> 1:31:01.320 are actually doing is acting as replacement for the collapsing 1:31:01.400 --> 1:31:04.519 American social safety net. Right they are taking care of 1:31:04.680 --> 1:31:07.800 and literally saving the lives of people who capitalism has 1:31:07.840 --> 1:31:08.439 spat out and. 1:31:08.479 --> 1:31:09.040 Left to die. 1:31:10.000 --> 1:31:14.800 And this is by by any like any actual you know, 1:31:14.840 --> 1:31:16.800 I'm not gonna say objective standard, because don't like there 1:31:16.800 --> 1:31:19.439 is an objective standard for what we're like how much 1:31:19.560 --> 1:31:21.920 work something is. But you know, in terms of the 1:31:22.000 --> 1:31:24.160 amount of labor, in terms of the difficulty of labor, 1:31:24.240 --> 1:31:27.200 in terms of like what he is being expected of 1:31:28.320 --> 1:31:32.920 expected of these workers, this is incredibly intense difficult labor. 1:31:33.720 --> 1:31:37.560 But you know, because of the sort of patriarchal like 1:31:38.479 --> 1:31:42.880 idea and conception that has sort of consumed what are 1:31:43.280 --> 1:31:46.439 our sort of collective conception of what a quote unquote 1:31:46.479 --> 1:31:49.280 real job is, the enormous amount of care labor that 1:31:49.360 --> 1:31:51.519 perics do every day. And you know, there's there's a 1:31:51.520 --> 1:31:53.960 good argument. Graber makes a very similar argument to this 1:31:54.120 --> 1:31:56.800 that you can look at the entire job. And you 1:31:56.840 --> 1:32:00.439 can look at like most economic production as carelabor, right, 1:32:00.479 --> 1:32:03.160 because you're producing this coffee in order to care for someone. 1:32:03.240 --> 1:32:06.360 You make a bridge in order to like, like in 1:32:06.520 --> 1:32:07.680 order so that people can use it. 1:32:07.800 --> 1:32:07.960 Right. 1:32:09.720 --> 1:32:12.519 But you know, there's a good argument that like all 1:32:12.680 --> 1:32:17.720 everything in Barista does is care labor. But because you know, 1:32:17.960 --> 1:32:20.400 it's not like making cars or being one of the 1:32:20.479 --> 1:32:23.120 last fifty thousand coal miners left in the US, it's 1:32:23.200 --> 1:32:28.680 not considered real labor. And this, all of this is 1:32:28.920 --> 1:32:32.160 just a bomb that is left sitting under the ideological 1:32:32.280 --> 1:32:37.360 core of the workers' movements. And that bomb probably would 1:32:37.479 --> 1:32:38.479 have just gone. 1:32:38.280 --> 1:32:39.160 Off on its own. 1:32:39.960 --> 1:32:41.679 You know why I say on its own. That bomb 1:32:41.840 --> 1:32:45.599 probably would have been set off by something we're going 1:32:45.680 --> 1:32:48.040 to talk about or tomorrow, which is the shift in 1:32:48.080 --> 1:32:50.280 the labor's force in a lot of countries that sort 1:32:50.320 --> 1:32:53.400 of de industrialize towards this kind of labor being the 1:32:53.640 --> 1:32:57.040 sort of standard like you knowing being just even more 1:32:57.120 --> 1:33:01.760 obviously the standard form of labor. But the ruling class 1:33:01.840 --> 1:33:04.320 figured out a way to sort of set this bomb 1:33:04.439 --> 1:33:08.760 off and ensure that, you know, and ensure that it 1:33:08.800 --> 1:33:12.000 would like just detonate the workers movement immediately, and the 1:33:12.080 --> 1:33:14.360 thing that they figured out to set this bomb off 1:33:14.520 --> 1:33:17.639 is racism. And that is what I'm going to talk 1:33:17.680 --> 1:33:21.160 about tomorrow, the story of how the fusion of racism 1:33:21.240 --> 1:33:25.040 and sexism that I may well be remembered by historians 1:33:25.120 --> 1:33:27.960 is the force that burned the entire world, consumed what 1:33:28.120 --> 1:33:30.719 was left of the workers' movement, and turned this country 1:33:30.840 --> 1:33:32.080 into neoliberal Reagan. 1:33:32.160 --> 1:33:44.720 Hell, hi everyone, it's me James, and I'm coming to 1:33:44.760 --> 1:33:49.240 you today sweaty, smelly and exhausted from my pickup truck 1:33:49.360 --> 1:33:52.680 out in the desert where I have been spending the 1:33:52.760 --> 1:33:56.720 weekend trying my best to help, along with lots of 1:33:56.800 --> 1:34:00.439 other dedicated mutual aid workers, to mitigate the damn done 1:34:00.520 --> 1:34:04.679 by an entirely preventable humanitarian crisis at the United States 1:34:04.760 --> 1:34:08.000 Southern border. People are being held in the open desert 1:34:08.200 --> 1:34:11.760 in Hakomba, where it gets hot in the day gets 1:34:11.840 --> 1:34:14.360 very cold at night. And there are children, there are 1:34:14.400 --> 1:34:17.639 old people, there are young people. All the support they're 1:34:17.640 --> 1:34:19.840 getting it's from mutual aid workers, then maybe get some 1:34:19.960 --> 1:34:23.040 water from border patrol, from federal government, and not much else. 1:34:23.800 --> 1:34:27.840 And I'm here before your podcast to ask you if 1:34:27.880 --> 1:34:30.680 you can to help. We've all spent all of our 1:34:30.760 --> 1:34:33.960 time and most of our money the last few days 1:34:34.320 --> 1:34:36.880 week trying to help, and we're all pretty broke, and 1:34:36.920 --> 1:34:39.960 we're all pretty tired. But I could really do with 1:34:40.040 --> 1:34:42.600 your support. And I'm going to give the venmos and 1:34:42.640 --> 1:34:45.360 cash apps and pay pal information for two organizations who 1:34:45.680 --> 1:34:49.680 ideally love and whose work I have seen is extremely 1:34:49.760 --> 1:34:52.960 effective and is the only thing keeping this situation from 1:34:53.000 --> 1:34:55.200 being a lot worse. And please don't think that if 1:34:55.240 --> 1:34:58.400 you don't have much money that you shouldn't give. We 1:34:58.520 --> 1:35:00.840 can work out do a lot with a little. So 1:35:00.920 --> 1:35:02.640 if you only have five bucks, that is great. And 1:35:02.880 --> 1:35:04.800 five bucks is are top for someone to sleep under 1:35:04.920 --> 1:35:06.840 or a few hot meals. And what we're gonna buy 1:35:06.920 --> 1:35:11.280 is food, blankets, tops, water, the things that stop people 1:35:11.360 --> 1:35:15.040 dying in the desert. Those two organizations, Border Kindness and 1:35:15.200 --> 1:35:18.280 Free Shit Collective, can be found online at border Kindness 1:35:18.280 --> 1:35:21.599 and at free ship pb on Twitter. For Border Kindness, 1:35:21.600 --> 1:35:25.120 the venmo is at border hyphen Kindness, the cash app 1:35:25.280 --> 1:35:28.479 is dollar sign border Kindness cash and the zell and 1:35:28.520 --> 1:35:32.760 PayPal information is info at Borderkindness dot org. Free Shit 1:35:32.800 --> 1:35:35.360 Collective are at free shick Collective on cash app and 1:35:35.400 --> 1:35:37.880 PayPal and at free shippbe on Twitter. 1:35:38.200 --> 1:35:45.720 Thank you very much, guys, welcome to take it up 1:35:45.760 --> 1:35:48.719 and here a podcast, but why everything absolutely sucks? 1:35:48.800 --> 1:35:53.280 I'm your host, Nia Wong. I'm back again. And last 1:35:53.360 --> 1:35:57.960 episode we talked about the problems with conceiving of all 1:35:58.040 --> 1:36:01.639 of labor as production from a sort of macro feminist 1:36:01.680 --> 1:36:05.360 perspective of you know, thinking about how you know, thinking 1:36:05.439 --> 1:36:08.720 of all labor as production doesn't actually capture what most 1:36:08.800 --> 1:36:11.240 labor is. And you know, we looked at how this 1:36:11.360 --> 1:36:14.519 allowed patriarchy to become a wedge to private workers movement apart. 1:36:15.400 --> 1:36:20.160 But there's another sort of more micro problem with thinking 1:36:20.200 --> 1:36:24.960 about productive labor, and that micro problem is that people 1:36:25.120 --> 1:36:31.200 are just absolutely unable to think about productivity in anything 1:36:31.280 --> 1:36:34.720 other than moral terms. As to you know, why this 1:36:34.880 --> 1:36:36.639 is the case, I'm not going to go forward an answer. 1:36:37.320 --> 1:36:41.120 I've seen every theory from like its Christianity, to like 1:36:41.280 --> 1:36:43.960 it's a structural feature of capitalism, to its human nature 1:36:44.040 --> 1:36:48.160 or whatever. I'm I don't know, did pick pick your 1:36:48.240 --> 1:36:51.640 theory about why everyone is incapable of being normal about productivity? 1:36:52.080 --> 1:36:55.519 But this turns out to be a real problem for 1:36:55.640 --> 1:36:59.880 anyone who is trying to use productive versus unproductive labor 1:37:00.040 --> 1:37:04.000 in a purely technical sense. Now, the most famous person 1:37:04.120 --> 1:37:07.599 to do this is, as some of you probably know, one, 1:37:07.760 --> 1:37:12.080 Karl Marx. And you know I was hard on Mark's 1:37:12.320 --> 1:37:16.599 last episode, but this one and the stuff that's going 1:37:16.680 --> 1:37:21.120 to follow isn't really his fault. Marx here is actually 1:37:21.600 --> 1:37:24.120 doing one of the times where he's being very reasonable 1:37:24.160 --> 1:37:26.720 and he's being very specific about what productive labor is, 1:37:27.360 --> 1:37:32.360 and everyone else is being extremely unreasonable. And you know, 1:37:33.000 --> 1:37:35.920 given the incredibly dark places this is going to go, 1:37:37.439 --> 1:37:39.600 maybe this is one of those things where, like, I 1:37:39.640 --> 1:37:42.920 don't know, you need to pick different words that aren't 1:37:42.920 --> 1:37:46.599 as emotionally charged as like productive nonproductive labor. But all 1:37:46.680 --> 1:37:50.880 in all, like this, the catastrophe that's about two unfold 1:37:51.080 --> 1:37:55.080 is not Marx's fault. There was really no way that 1:37:55.200 --> 1:37:57.800 he could have known how nuts everyone was going to 1:37:57.880 --> 1:38:01.880 go over this. So what actually is the distinction between 1:38:01.920 --> 1:38:05.760 productive and unproductive labor? From Marx? So, first off, and 1:38:05.880 --> 1:38:10.760 this is very important, productive versus unproductive labor is a 1:38:10.880 --> 1:38:14.519 technical term. It has no moral content at all. All 1:38:14.600 --> 1:38:18.439 it means is that some labor produces capital for the 1:38:18.479 --> 1:38:22.240 capital owning class and some labor doesn't that. That's literally it. 1:38:22.840 --> 1:38:27.120 Here's Marx. The commodities the capitalist buys for his own 1:38:27.200 --> 1:38:31.280 private consumption are not consumed productively. They do not become 1:38:31.520 --> 1:38:35.560 factors of capital, just as little to the services he 1:38:35.640 --> 1:38:39.679 buys for his consumption voluntarily or through compulsion from the state, etc. 1:38:40.520 --> 1:38:42.960 For the sake of their use value, they do not 1:38:43.080 --> 1:38:46.839 become a factor of capital. They are not therefore productive 1:38:46.960 --> 1:38:49.040 kinds of labor, and those who perform them are not 1:38:49.160 --> 1:38:54.080 productive workers. As you can see, this has literally nothing 1:38:54.160 --> 1:38:56.800 to do with the contents of the labor itself or 1:38:56.960 --> 1:39:01.200 morality whatsoever. If a dance er work for production company 1:39:01.240 --> 1:39:04.400 and gives a performance you know, working for the company, 1:39:04.520 --> 1:39:07.360 that's productive labor, because the company has turned their capital 1:39:07.520 --> 1:39:10.639 into more capital by using the dancer to produce a commodity, 1:39:10.720 --> 1:39:13.040 which is, you know, the performance, and then selling it. Right, 1:39:13.640 --> 1:39:17.479 If that same dancer puts on the same performance in 1:39:17.600 --> 1:39:20.439 the same place for a crowd of you know, just 1:39:20.560 --> 1:39:22.960 like their friends or even the same people, but who 1:39:23.000 --> 1:39:26.320 aren't paying a production company for it, Suddenly the dancer, 1:39:26.400 --> 1:39:27.960 who again is doing the same thing in the same 1:39:28.040 --> 1:39:31.479 place like even could be on the same day, is 1:39:31.560 --> 1:39:34.479 doing non productive labor because no capital is being created 1:39:34.520 --> 1:39:37.160 from it, or as you know, here's how Marx puts it. 1:39:37.960 --> 1:39:41.200 Labor with the same content can therefore be both productive 1:39:41.320 --> 1:39:45.560 and unproductive. Milton, for example, who did Paradise Loss, was 1:39:45.600 --> 1:39:49.040 an unproductive worker. In contrast to this, the writer who 1:39:49.080 --> 1:39:51.920 delivers hack work for his publisher is a productive worker. 1:39:52.960 --> 1:39:55.680 Later on, Milton sold the product for five dollars and 1:39:55.760 --> 1:39:59.000 to that extent became a dealer in a commodity But 1:39:59.120 --> 1:40:02.400 the light sig literally II reary proletarian who produces books 1:40:02.840 --> 1:40:06.640 e g. Compendium Political Economy at the instruction of his 1:40:06.680 --> 1:40:10.519 publisher is roughly speaking, a productive worker insofar as his 1:40:10.600 --> 1:40:13.720 production is subsumed under capital and only takes place for 1:40:13.840 --> 1:40:17.800 the purpose of the latter's valorization. This is a valorization 1:40:17.880 --> 1:40:21.679 of capital, which is like having capital make more capital. 1:40:22.640 --> 1:40:25.439 A singer who sings like a bird is an unproductive worker. 1:40:25.960 --> 1:40:28.600 If she sells her singing for money, she is to 1:40:28.720 --> 1:40:32.560 that extent a wage laborer or a commodity dealer. But 1:40:32.720 --> 1:40:35.600 the same singer when she is engaged by an entrepreneur 1:40:36.160 --> 1:40:38.200 who has her sing in order to make money, is 1:40:38.240 --> 1:40:43.600 a productive worker, for she directly produces capital. A schoolmaster 1:40:43.680 --> 1:40:46.320 who educates others is not a productive worker, but a 1:40:46.320 --> 1:40:49.519 schoolmaster who is engaged as a wage laborer and an 1:40:49.560 --> 1:40:53.760 institution alongside along with others in order to make in 1:40:53.920 --> 1:40:56.280 order through his labor to valorize the money of the 1:40:56.520 --> 1:41:01.280 entrepreneur of the knowledge mongering institution is a productive worker. Now, okay, 1:41:01.560 --> 1:41:04.080 I'm reading a lot of Marx here. I'm focusing on Marx, 1:41:04.960 --> 1:41:08.479 you know, because whether or not someone in you know, 1:41:08.600 --> 1:41:10.880 the eighteen hundreds is a Marxist or not. And if 1:41:10.920 --> 1:41:13.559 you picked us like a random worker in the period 1:41:13.560 --> 1:41:16.320 when this is being written, the odds are really bad 1:41:16.400 --> 1:41:19.920 that they're going to be a Marxist. Marx was enormously influential, 1:41:20.040 --> 1:41:23.479 particularly in Europe as sort of social democracy swept through 1:41:23.479 --> 1:41:26.280 the Germany's and then communism sort of swept back through Europe. 1:41:26.320 --> 1:41:29.160 In the US, and Marx is also and this is 1:41:29.200 --> 1:41:33.960 something that Marx himself, like takes great pains to conceal 1:41:34.040 --> 1:41:36.120 a lot of the time. Marx is a kind of 1:41:36.280 --> 1:41:40.120 medium through which the broad cultural consensus on labor was 1:41:40.200 --> 1:41:45.040 transformed into like capital T theory, and in this capital 1:41:45.120 --> 1:41:48.439 T theory, productive versus unproductive labor is not a moral 1:41:48.560 --> 1:41:50.599 claim at all. It's a measure of whether any given 1:41:50.680 --> 1:41:54.760 labor produces capital for the bourgeoisie. Now, part of what 1:41:54.880 --> 1:41:57.519 Marx is trying to do here is to intervene in 1:41:57.640 --> 1:42:00.880 existing discourse about productive and unproductive, to turn it into 1:42:00.960 --> 1:42:03.479 useful theory instead of people just yelling stuff at each 1:42:03.479 --> 1:42:09.479 other and Mars, I feel you, buddy, oh boy, taking 1:42:09.520 --> 1:42:11.960 this as a validation of what I'm doing. God, here's 1:42:11.960 --> 1:42:13.640 an example I'm just going to put in here of 1:42:13.720 --> 1:42:17.519 Marx being very mad about this. The self employed laborer, 1:42:17.640 --> 1:42:21.040 for example, is his own wage laborer, and his own 1:42:21.120 --> 1:42:24.719 means of production confront him in his own mind as capital. 1:42:25.479 --> 1:42:29.320 As his own capitalist, he employs himself as a wage laborer. 1:42:29.760 --> 1:42:33.160 Anomalies of this type then offer a favorable field for 1:42:33.280 --> 1:42:38.080 outpourings of drivel about productive and unproductive labor. So, you know, 1:42:38.320 --> 1:42:43.000 even in the eighteen hundreds, people are being incredibly normal 1:42:43.080 --> 1:42:46.559 about this. They're saying things that are great and good, 1:42:46.760 --> 1:42:52.240 and only only that they're being exceptionally good. Marx isn't 1:42:52.240 --> 1:42:56.280 slowly being driven mad by reading it all. But you know, 1:42:56.760 --> 1:43:02.000 when when it's being used as a technic category, the 1:43:02.280 --> 1:43:06.680 sort of productive versus unproductive distinction. You know, it can 1:43:06.760 --> 1:43:10.519 tell you a lot of stuff about how a capitalist 1:43:10.560 --> 1:43:15.720 economy functions, but when it inevitably becomes a moral category, 1:43:15.920 --> 1:43:20.200 things get very bad, very quickly. And so we're going 1:43:20.240 --> 1:43:23.439 to go into two times that this has gone very badly, 1:43:24.160 --> 1:43:28.679 the Nazis and Ronald Reagan. Now, the Nazis and Reagan 1:43:28.840 --> 1:43:31.240 aren't quite doing the same thing, although there's a lot 1:43:31.280 --> 1:43:33.880 of similarities, which is, you know, to be expected from 1:43:33.920 --> 1:43:36.240 a band who went to a Nazi cemetery that included 1:43:36.280 --> 1:43:39.240 a bunch of SS dudes and then gave a speech 1:43:39.320 --> 1:43:42.240 defending his actions where he said, and I quote they 1:43:42.360 --> 1:43:45.919 which is referring to Nazi soldiers, quote they were victims 1:43:46.080 --> 1:43:48.840 just as surely as the victims and the concentration camps, 1:43:49.960 --> 1:43:50.559 which I. 1:43:52.200 --> 1:43:54.160 I, I, what the fuck. 1:43:55.439 --> 1:43:57.479 What are you supposed to do with that? Like, I 1:43:57.800 --> 1:44:00.519 just this guy was a president of Uni States. 1:44:00.600 --> 1:44:02.400 I mean, I like, I don't know it makes sense, 1:44:02.520 --> 1:44:05.760 but like it never even crossed my mind that it 1:44:05.920 --> 1:44:08.960 was like it would even be possible to have a 1:44:09.120 --> 1:44:12.360 take that is, people in the Nazi army are actually 1:44:12.479 --> 1:44:15.840 just as much victims as the people in the concentration camps. Like, I, 1:44:17.280 --> 1:44:20.200 I don't know, baffling stuff by Reagan. I mean, I 1:44:20.200 --> 1:44:23.719 guess not baffling considering how closely his administration is tied 1:44:23.760 --> 1:44:27.040 to a bunch of sort of Nazis who became like 1:44:27.200 --> 1:44:29.439 anti communists, while here were always anti comics, but who 1:44:29.439 --> 1:44:32.439 became part of sort of like institutional anti communism and 1:44:32.600 --> 1:44:33.880 like the post war era. 1:44:34.520 --> 1:44:38.559 But god, what a terrible thing. I'm getting my shots 1:44:38.600 --> 1:44:41.360 in at Reagan now because this is about to get 1:44:42.360 --> 1:44:51.000 so incredibly bleak. So yay, so okay. So the right 1:44:51.240 --> 1:44:54.719 is able to sort of, you know, very successful in fact, 1:44:54.920 --> 1:45:00.400 in transforming this distinction between productive and non productive labor 1:45:01.160 --> 1:45:05.560 into a moral category, and then they infuse it with 1:45:05.640 --> 1:45:09.560 anti Semitism, and through this sort of I don't know, 1:45:10.080 --> 1:45:14.559 the horror of anti Semitism, productive labor is transformed into 1:45:14.760 --> 1:45:18.160 you know, productive and unproductive members of society. And this 1:45:18.360 --> 1:45:20.519 is one of the origins of sort of Nazi race 1:45:20.560 --> 1:45:22.960 science and race craft. You know, they have their attempt 1:45:23.000 --> 1:45:26.640 to quote unquote purify their race, which relies on a 1:45:26.680 --> 1:45:29.600 distinction between sort of productive and non productive members of 1:45:29.680 --> 1:45:33.960 society who'se like quote unquote value and productive capacity, you know, 1:45:34.120 --> 1:45:37.920 come to be seen as like genetically heritable, which you know, 1:45:38.040 --> 1:45:40.960 from the Nazi perspective, they are like, oh, this is stuff, 1:45:41.000 --> 1:45:43.200 this is heritable. We need to do eugenics and mass 1:45:43.240 --> 1:45:47.000 exterminations of, you know, increasing numbers of disabled, queer communists 1:45:47.000 --> 1:45:50.320 and especially Jewish and Groma people to ensure that only 1:45:50.400 --> 1:45:53.160 the quote unquote like productive members society remain and like 1:45:53.240 --> 1:45:57.960 pass down their traits. And this is fucking horrible. But 1:45:58.840 --> 1:46:03.160 this is also too simple for an explanation for what 1:46:03.479 --> 1:46:09.000 actually happens. In order to actually fully grasp the depths 1:46:09.040 --> 1:46:12.600 of what's happening here and how this stuff functions, we 1:46:12.760 --> 1:46:18.000 need to go deeper into specifically looking at anti Semitism. 1:46:19.080 --> 1:46:21.760 And in order to do this, I'm going to turn 1:46:21.880 --> 1:46:24.519 to the great sort of the great social theorist moist 1:46:24.560 --> 1:46:28.719 Pristone Dressed in Peace died a few years ago. Apparently 1:46:28.800 --> 1:46:33.439 a great guy. I don't know, but yeah, postone and 1:46:33.600 --> 1:46:36.960 his essay Anti Semitism and National Socialism. This is something 1:46:37.280 --> 1:46:39.479 I recommend people read it in full. It's a bit 1:46:39.560 --> 1:46:43.719 theoretically intense. It's also like one of the most heartbreaking 1:46:43.800 --> 1:46:46.479 things I've ever read, but I think it's important to 1:46:46.600 --> 1:46:52.160 understand what national socialism actually was and what it's sort 1:46:52.160 --> 1:46:58.160 of ideological basis was because it oh boy, not only 1:46:58.240 --> 1:47:01.760 has it not gone away, it you know, it's it's 1:47:01.800 --> 1:47:03.880 it's it's it's doing it's doing, it's doing a lot 1:47:03.920 --> 1:47:08.840 of the sort of work that we've we've been sort 1:47:08.840 --> 1:47:13.400 of discussing. Okay, so what what what is what is 1:47:13.439 --> 1:47:18.040 pistone actually talking about? So postone sees Nazi anti Semitism 1:47:18.160 --> 1:47:20.439 not just as you know, the sort of socialism of 1:47:20.560 --> 1:47:24.200 fools where like Jewish people get substituted for capitalists to 1:47:24.280 --> 1:47:26.400 see the worker and okay, like yeah, it's like it 1:47:26.880 --> 1:47:31.800 serves as function to some extent. But for postone, like 1:47:32.560 --> 1:47:37.000 Nazi anti Semitism is its own sort of horrific, incomplete 1:47:37.000 --> 1:47:40.160 anti capitalist system. It's this sort of ghastly aryan mirror 1:47:40.320 --> 1:47:43.680 of like Marxism, and you know, okay, So so to 1:47:44.000 --> 1:47:47.680 to get an understanding of what he means by this, 1:47:48.520 --> 1:47:52.280 because this is something that is you know, like it's 1:47:52.360 --> 1:47:56.800 it's it's deeply it's kind of theoretically intense, but it's 1:47:56.880 --> 1:48:00.560 worth it. So in Marxism, this the central mystery of 1:48:00.600 --> 1:48:03.920 the commodity is that a commodity is a well i 1:48:03.960 --> 1:48:05.800 mean central mystery isn't the right word, but this is 1:48:05.920 --> 1:48:07.800 this is one of the one of the opening things 1:48:07.880 --> 1:48:12.320 in capital is that you know, this is this is 1:48:12.360 --> 1:48:15.280 this thing called the commodity fetish. You have a commodity. 1:48:15.360 --> 1:48:20.000 A commodity is simultaneously a concrete physical object that nonetheless 1:48:20.920 --> 1:48:24.479 contains within it an abstract social relation. It has at 1:48:24.479 --> 1:48:26.880 the same time a use value, which is like, you know, 1:48:27.560 --> 1:48:30.599 the thing that makes it useful, right, Like take a pencil, right, pencil, 1:48:30.720 --> 1:48:31.040 it has. 1:48:30.960 --> 1:48:31.599 A use value. 1:48:31.640 --> 1:48:34.160 The use value is that you can like use it 1:48:34.280 --> 1:48:36.280 to write things, right, and you can use it to 1:48:36.360 --> 1:48:40.040 erase things. But the pencil also has an exchange value. 1:48:41.120 --> 1:48:44.519 And the exchange value, you know, is the value quote 1:48:44.600 --> 1:48:47.800 unquote that you use it to compare it to other commodities. Right, 1:48:47.800 --> 1:48:49.280 It's like, how much is this thing? How much is 1:48:49.360 --> 1:48:51.640 this thing worth? How much is this compared to like 1:48:52.320 --> 1:48:54.799 other commodities, And this is a that's simply an enormous 1:48:54.880 --> 1:48:58.040 that's that's kind of a simplication of it. But what's 1:48:58.080 --> 1:49:02.200 happening here is that the sort of the exchange value 1:49:02.240 --> 1:49:04.200 that lets you compare how much a pencil is worth 1:49:04.240 --> 1:49:06.840 and how much a bracelet is worth right, that's not 1:49:06.880 --> 1:49:10.080 an actual characteristic of the pencil or the bracelet. That 1:49:10.240 --> 1:49:13.800 is a serious you know that that's an embedded social relation, right, 1:49:14.479 --> 1:49:17.240 is an embedded capitalist social relation that allows a commodity 1:49:17.439 --> 1:49:21.120 to be compared to all of the commodities by again 1:49:21.240 --> 1:49:25.280 like embedding this capitalist social relation into it. The important 1:49:25.400 --> 1:49:28.479 part for our purposes is that the commodity has at 1:49:28.520 --> 1:49:32.360 the same time a concrete component, which is the physical object, 1:49:32.439 --> 1:49:34.599 and an abstract component, which is the sort of capitalist 1:49:34.640 --> 1:49:38.639 social relation embedded in the pencil that makes it appear 1:49:38.680 --> 1:49:44.560 to have value. Here's pistone as indicated above. On the 1:49:44.680 --> 1:49:48.960 logical level of the analysis of the commodity, the quote 1:49:49.040 --> 1:49:53.000 double character allows the commodity to appear as a purely 1:49:53.160 --> 1:49:58.479 material entity rather than as an objectification of mediated social relations. 1:49:58.640 --> 1:50:02.320 So this is a more complicated way of saying what 1:50:02.439 --> 1:50:04.080 I've sort of been trying to get at, which is 1:50:04.120 --> 1:50:06.759 that the commodity, you know, because it's a physical object. 1:50:07.120 --> 1:50:07.240 Right. 1:50:09.439 --> 1:50:12.559 The commodity fetish allows the commodity to appear as if 1:50:12.560 --> 1:50:16.360 it's just a pure physical object instead of something that 1:50:16.479 --> 1:50:20.080 is produced by capitalism and contains within it capitalist social 1:50:20.160 --> 1:50:26.160 relations that give value. So we'll back back back to pistone. Relatedly, 1:50:26.439 --> 1:50:30.520 it allows concrete labor to appear as a purely material 1:50:30.680 --> 1:50:35.639 creative process separate from capitalist social relations. On the logical 1:50:35.720 --> 1:50:41.040 level of capital, the double character labor process and valorization process. 1:50:41.120 --> 1:50:43.639 And by valorization process he means the process that turns 1:50:44.439 --> 1:50:47.640 you know, capital into more capital. So the fact that 1:50:47.680 --> 1:50:51.400 there's both a labor process and a valorization process allows 1:50:51.479 --> 1:50:55.400 industrial production to appear as a purely material, creative process 1:50:55.560 --> 1:50:59.720 separable from capital. The manifest form of the concrete is 1:50:59.800 --> 1:51:03.920 now more organic. Industrial capital can then appear as linear 1:51:04.000 --> 1:51:09.040 descendant of quote natural artismal labor as quote organically rooted 1:51:09.080 --> 1:51:15.120 in opposition to rootless, quote parasitic finance capital. You can 1:51:15.200 --> 1:51:18.360 see here where the whole sort of productive versus unproductive 1:51:18.400 --> 1:51:22.400 labor distinction has ended up right. It's been transformed into 1:51:22.479 --> 1:51:27.599 the sort of organic concrete rooted like productive national worker 1:51:27.760 --> 1:51:33.000 and like entrepreneur versus like rootless parasitic finance capital. This 1:51:33.720 --> 1:51:39.479 is unbelievably dangerous because now having set the concrete against 1:51:39.520 --> 1:51:42.400 the abstract, the fascist proceeds to turn the abstract into 1:51:42.479 --> 1:51:46.920 a people, which is Jewish people. The result of this 1:51:47.200 --> 1:51:49.400 is that in the fascist mind, the sort of concrete 1:51:49.400 --> 1:51:53.120 productive worker and the entrepreneur stand against the abstract anti 1:51:53.240 --> 1:51:56.639 national finance capital personified in the figure of the Jew. 1:51:57.320 --> 1:52:00.880 Here's pistona again of what happened next the extermination of 1:52:00.960 --> 1:52:03.800 European jeury is the indication that it is far too 1:52:03.920 --> 1:52:06.439 simple to deal with Nazism as a mass movement with 1:52:06.560 --> 1:52:09.880 anti capitalist overtones, which shed that husk in the nineteen 1:52:09.960 --> 1:52:13.360 thirty four Rome push at the latest, once dead served 1:52:13.360 --> 1:52:17.000 its purpose in state power have been seized. In the 1:52:17.120 --> 1:52:21.600 first place, ideological forms of thought are not simply conscious manipulations. 1:52:22.680 --> 1:52:25.800 In the second place, this view misunderstands the nature of 1:52:25.920 --> 1:52:29.400 Nazi quote anti capitalism, the extent to which it was 1:52:29.479 --> 1:52:34.519 intrinsically bound to the anti Semitic worldview. Auschwitz indicates that connection. 1:52:35.400 --> 1:52:38.240 It is true that the somewhat too concrete and Plebeian 1:52:38.360 --> 1:52:41.720 quote unquote anti capitalism of the essay was dispensed with 1:52:41.920 --> 1:52:46.240 by nineteen thirty four, not, however, the anti Semitic thrust 1:52:46.720 --> 1:52:50.480 the knowledge quote unquote, that the source of evil is abstract. 1:52:50.760 --> 1:52:51.200 The Jew. 1:52:52.520 --> 1:52:55.439 A capitalist factory is a place where value is produced, 1:52:55.960 --> 1:52:59.519 which unfortunately has to take the form of the production 1:52:59.640 --> 1:53:04.040 of goods of use values. The concrete is produced as 1:53:04.080 --> 1:53:09.160 the necessary carrier of the abstract. The extermination camps were 1:53:09.200 --> 1:53:13.840 not a terrible version of the factory. The extermination camps 1:53:13.880 --> 1:53:16.200 were not a terrible version of such a factory, but 1:53:16.439 --> 1:53:20.040 rather it should be seen as its grotesque aryan quote 1:53:20.080 --> 1:53:25.240 anti capitalist negation. Auschwist was a factory to quote unquote 1:53:25.320 --> 1:53:29.920 destroy value, that is, to destroy the personifications of the abstract. 1:53:30.880 --> 1:53:34.640 Its organization was that of a fiendish industrial process, the 1:53:34.720 --> 1:53:38.120 aim of which was to liberate the concrete from the abstract. 1:53:38.960 --> 1:53:41.120 The first step was a dehumanize, that is, to rip 1:53:41.160 --> 1:53:46.920 away the quote unquote mask of humanity, of qualitative specificity, 1:53:47.320 --> 1:53:50.280 and reveal the Jews for quote what they really are 1:53:50.800 --> 1:53:56.479 shadows Cipher's numbered abstractions. The second step was to then 1:53:56.960 --> 1:54:03.640 eradicate that abstractness. He transform it into smoke, trying in 1:54:03.720 --> 1:54:06.120 the process to rest away the last remains of the 1:54:06.160 --> 1:54:12.680 concrete material use value, clothes, gold hair, soap. Auschwitz, not 1:54:12.760 --> 1:54:15.160 the Nazi seizure of power in nineteen thirty three, was 1:54:15.200 --> 1:54:19.759 the real German revolution. The attempted to overthrow not merely 1:54:19.840 --> 1:54:22.759 of a political order, but of the existing social formation. 1:54:23.640 --> 1:54:25.880 By this one deed, the world was to be made 1:54:26.000 --> 1:54:27.840 safe from the tyranny of the abstract. 1:54:28.520 --> 1:54:30.240 In the process, the Nazis. 1:54:29.960 --> 1:54:34.880 Quote unquote, liberated themselves from humanity. The Nazis lost the 1:54:34.960 --> 1:54:38.640 war against the Soviet Union, America and Britain. They won 1:54:38.760 --> 1:54:45.760 their war, their revolution against the European Jews. And this ideology, 1:54:47.200 --> 1:54:51.000 this pitting of the abstract against the concrete, is so 1:54:51.320 --> 1:54:54.680 powerful that it was never defeated. By the time the 1:54:54.760 --> 1:54:57.440 Nazis were defeated militarily, they had, you know, by the 1:54:57.520 --> 1:54:59.960 combined might of five of the largest empires in human hait, 1:55:00.320 --> 1:55:04.720 they had already won, and their ideology never went away. 1:55:05.560 --> 1:55:08.640 If you look closely, you can still see it moving. 1:55:08.480 --> 1:55:09.160 Throughout the world. 1:55:10.440 --> 1:55:12.400 You can see it in the left making exactly the 1:55:12.440 --> 1:55:16.160 same mistakes it made before, waging war against the abstract 1:55:16.240 --> 1:55:18.640 in the name of an anti capitalism that can never 1:55:18.880 --> 1:55:22.480 end with the actual destruction of capitalism in that specific form. 1:55:23.160 --> 1:55:25.360 You can see it in a right that openly espouses 1:55:25.440 --> 1:55:27.800 these exact same ideas, in the form of pitting their 1:55:27.880 --> 1:55:31.920 nationalists and patriots against the globalists, in the way it 1:55:32.000 --> 1:55:37.680 pits national American or Russian or Hungarian workers against George Soros. 1:55:39.160 --> 1:55:40.320 It is the basis of all. 1:55:40.280 --> 1:55:44.280 Modern right wing thought. And when we come back from ADS, 1:55:44.360 --> 1:55:48.120 we're going to talk about right wing thoughts other basis 1:55:49.080 --> 1:55:54.560 Ronald Reagan's rampant racism. We've now seen one way that 1:55:54.680 --> 1:55:57.960 the productive and unproductive worker distinction can be turned into 1:55:59.000 --> 1:56:02.440 unfathomable right wing violence, and now we're going to take 1:56:02.480 --> 1:56:06.320 a look at another one, which is the myth of 1:56:06.400 --> 1:56:10.120 the welfare queen. So one of the ways that Reagan 1:56:10.200 --> 1:56:12.920 eventually took power was bite. I mean literally, he was 1:56:13.000 --> 1:56:15.360 doing this for like a decade. He does it for 1:56:15.520 --> 1:56:20.720 like twenty fucking years. It's insufferable, is screaming about the 1:56:20.840 --> 1:56:24.840 myth of the welfare queen. So the welfare queen for 1:56:25.280 --> 1:56:28.600 people who like, I don't know, we're too young to 1:56:28.760 --> 1:56:31.000 like remember what I mean. I wasn't around for the 1:56:31.080 --> 1:56:33.480 original height of it, but like I fucking remember it 1:56:33.520 --> 1:56:36.000 from when I was a kid. It's this sort of 1:56:36.120 --> 1:56:39.080 like mythical racist caricature of like a black woman who 1:56:39.120 --> 1:56:44.840 lives off of scamming the welfare system. And you can 1:56:44.880 --> 1:56:47.560 see what's happening here pretty clearly, right, This is not 1:56:47.760 --> 1:56:51.800 like a particularly subtle political maneuver. The plan is to 1:56:52.080 --> 1:56:54.680 pit you know, sort of so called like productive workers 1:56:54.760 --> 1:56:58.880 and entrepreneurs versus people on welfare, and through through the 1:56:58.920 --> 1:57:04.080 sort of incredible power of racism and specifically misogyn noir, 1:57:04.240 --> 1:57:07.520 which is, you know, through the power of America's just 1:57:07.720 --> 1:57:11.240 like specific abiden casure to black women, the identity of 1:57:11.320 --> 1:57:15.120 the worker is transflowed into a racial category. So what 1:57:15.280 --> 1:57:18.840 you're actually dealing with is this opposition Reagan is trying 1:57:18.880 --> 1:57:22.240 to create between quote unquote like productive white people who 1:57:22.440 --> 1:57:25.680 like work for a living or whatever, and you know 1:57:25.920 --> 1:57:28.760 black welfare queens quote unquote who are dependent on the 1:57:28.840 --> 1:57:30.320 state and don't work. And this is this is this 1:57:30.440 --> 1:57:33.600 is sort of Reagan's framing of it. Now, if you 1:57:33.680 --> 1:57:37.400 go back to this sort of older Marxist conception of class, right, 1:57:37.560 --> 1:57:41.240 like unemployed black people are like unambiguously part of the 1:57:41.320 --> 1:57:45.120 working class. And this is something that Reagan understood. Now, 1:57:45.400 --> 1:57:48.080 part of what was going on here actually was Reagan 1:57:48.200 --> 1:57:50.640 attempting to sort of crack down on black welfare activists. 1:57:50.680 --> 1:57:53.720 You were doing a lot of you know, really incredible organizing, 1:57:53.800 --> 1:57:57.040 ranging from sort of like you know, organizing mass protests 1:57:57.120 --> 1:58:00.560 to like doing squats to doing like it's fall on 1:58:00.640 --> 1:58:04.840 building occupations and Reagan, and more so the people sort 1:58:04.840 --> 1:58:07.720 of around Reagan by the end, because you know, like 1:58:08.760 --> 1:58:11.680 by like term two, Reagan has like basically checked out, 1:58:12.160 --> 1:58:14.840 you know, But the people around Reagan can see which 1:58:14.880 --> 1:58:17.520 way the wind is blowing, and you know, they are 1:58:17.640 --> 1:58:19.880 busy sort of like lining up every fan they can 1:58:19.960 --> 1:58:21.960 find to make the wind blow a bit stronger. And 1:58:22.040 --> 1:58:24.720 the way that the winds are blowing is that a 1:58:24.800 --> 1:58:26.760 bunch of people are about to be spat out of 1:58:26.800 --> 1:58:30.240 the capitalist system and too increasingly precarious service jobs or 1:58:30.360 --> 1:58:33.440 just no jobs at all. And as the sort of 1:58:33.520 --> 1:58:37.200 crisis dynamics emerged and intensified, and people tend to forget this. 1:58:37.360 --> 1:58:41.160 But Reagan's term started with him nuking the economy, setting 1:58:41.200 --> 1:58:43.520 off a recession and jacking employment up to ten percent. 1:58:44.680 --> 1:58:48.800 But you know, as this unfolds, Reagan sees a perfect 1:58:48.880 --> 1:58:52.840 opportunity to sever what Marks would call the industrial reserve army. 1:58:53.360 --> 1:58:55.200 Who are you know, all the people who've been spat 1:58:55.240 --> 1:58:57.400 out of the capitalist system and forced to face sort 1:58:57.400 --> 1:59:00.960 of pecarity and unemployments. He sees an opportunity to like 1:59:01.240 --> 1:59:03.680 to split these people from workers who held on to 1:59:03.760 --> 1:59:07.240 their jobs. And the way you do this is by 1:59:07.320 --> 1:59:10.000 talking about class in a way that's really about race. 1:59:11.800 --> 1:59:14.800 This new sort of moral division of like productive non 1:59:14.800 --> 1:59:18.040 productive worker is incredibly racialized, which is to say that, like, 1:59:18.120 --> 1:59:21.800 I mean, it's just it's just really racist. There's no 1:59:22.000 --> 1:59:25.400 certain I don't know, there's no I'm I'm not gonna 1:59:25.400 --> 1:59:27.160 do the circumlocution on that ship. 1:59:27.280 --> 1:59:27.480 It is. 1:59:27.680 --> 1:59:31.000 It is really racist, and it's it's specifically designed to 1:59:31.080 --> 1:59:33.560 pit white workers against black workers. And it's also this 1:59:33.600 --> 1:59:36.840 is something we should point out here, like reality has 1:59:36.920 --> 1:59:40.120 no effect on on the sort of like the actual 1:59:40.160 --> 1:59:43.680 propaganda value. But like the people who are on welfare 1:59:44.120 --> 1:59:47.120 who are working like they're off, they're working a lot, 1:59:47.200 --> 1:59:49.760 they're working really shit jobs. They're working more than the 1:59:49.800 --> 1:59:51.840 people who aren't on welfare in a lot of cases. 1:59:52.320 --> 1:59:55.480 What's happening here, right, is is this, this this entire 1:59:55.560 --> 1:59:58.360 thing is very specifically designed to pit white workers against 1:59:58.360 --> 2:00:04.120 black workers by invoking racial prejudice, and slightly more subtly, 2:00:04.320 --> 2:00:07.920 is designed to remove black workers from the category of 2:00:08.080 --> 2:00:11.040 labor altogether through you know, the sort of sort of 2:00:11.240 --> 2:00:14.280 means of America's like deep in abiding hatred of black women. 2:00:15.200 --> 2:00:20.040 Now back in sort of reality. And again bearing in 2:00:20.080 --> 2:00:23.360 mind reality has no effect on this bullshit. But you know, 2:00:23.520 --> 2:00:27.000 back in reality, like the actual biggest welfare cheat of 2:00:27.080 --> 2:00:30.160 the modern era is Brett Farr, former quarterback in the 2:00:30.200 --> 2:00:33.520 Minnesota Vikings. Please send all complaints at irite, okay on Twitter. 2:00:34.200 --> 2:00:38.040 Far managed to spend seventy seven million dollars of welfare 2:00:38.120 --> 2:00:41.640 money on a bunch of bullshit that includes like trying 2:00:41.680 --> 2:00:44.600 to get a multimillion dollar volleyball facility built at his 2:00:44.720 --> 2:00:49.400 daughter's school. The actual woman who was like the model 2:00:49.520 --> 2:00:53.920 for the first like welfare queen thing like, may have 2:00:54.080 --> 2:00:59.280 stolen eight thousand dollars. But you know this, this doesn't 2:00:59.360 --> 2:01:03.640 matter at all because again, like reality's ability to combat 2:01:03.680 --> 2:01:08.080 propaganda is incredibly weak, and you know, and the other 2:01:08.240 --> 2:01:10.160 the other thing that's that's important to understand about this, 2:01:10.240 --> 2:01:13.800 right is this was never actually about the money, and 2:01:13.880 --> 2:01:15.720 this is something that people use to try to combat 2:01:15.760 --> 2:01:17.840 this stuff, right, which people will point out and they're 2:01:17.960 --> 2:01:20.840 right that, like, yeah, like you know, in order in 2:01:20.960 --> 2:01:24.480 order to like quote unquote combat welfare fraud, like you 2:01:24.560 --> 2:01:26.640 spend more money try to combat the fraud than you 2:01:26.720 --> 2:01:29.320 save on the fraud. But that's not the point. That's 2:01:29.320 --> 2:01:32.840 not the point at all. The point is again like 2:01:33.120 --> 2:01:36.080 turning white workers against black workers to happen to be unemployed. 2:01:36.520 --> 2:01:39.400 And it works incredibly well because they tap into two 2:01:39.920 --> 2:01:43.240 just really powerful wells of emotion racism, and they happen 2:01:43.320 --> 2:01:46.200 to do a second one, which is people hating work. 2:01:47.120 --> 2:01:49.840 But because this is the right the way they tap 2:01:49.920 --> 2:01:52.320 into people hating work was they transform it into the 2:01:52.440 --> 2:01:57.680 seething hatred and resentment at the possibility of someone not 2:01:58.080 --> 2:02:01.440 having to have the suffering that you have and doing 2:02:01.520 --> 2:02:02.920 the thing that you always want to do, which is 2:02:03.040 --> 2:02:06.280 not work, and then tying that to, oh, these people 2:02:06.920 --> 2:02:09.040 don't have to suffer the way that I do because 2:02:09.080 --> 2:02:12.600 they're living off of like the product of my labor. 2:02:13.920 --> 2:02:16.040 And you know, you can you can see the sort 2:02:16.080 --> 2:02:20.440 of ghosts right of like an anti capitalist critique of labor, 2:02:20.480 --> 2:02:22.120 which is like, yeah, there are a bunch of people 2:02:22.280 --> 2:02:24.880 who like don't work a fucking day in their lives 2:02:24.960 --> 2:02:27.520 off the prophecy proceeds of our labors. They wear a 2:02:27.560 --> 2:02:31.640 bunch of suits and they you know, they they're like 2:02:31.960 --> 2:02:35.640 seventeenth generation like descendants of the Walton family or whatever. 2:02:36.440 --> 2:02:37.880 But you know, this is this is the sort of 2:02:37.960 --> 2:02:40.760 right wing version of it. And so through the sort 2:02:40.800 --> 2:02:43.080 of lens of racism and through the sort of transformation 2:02:43.440 --> 2:02:48.960 of class and productivity like into into sort of like 2:02:49.320 --> 2:02:56.040 pure race discourse, they've managed to sort of, you know, 2:02:56.120 --> 2:03:01.560 they've managed to completely transform the way people think about class. 2:03:01.600 --> 2:03:03.040 And this is this is a big part of the 2:03:03.080 --> 2:03:07.960 reason why the way Americans think about classes is so 2:03:08.040 --> 2:03:09.560 incredibly messed up. And it's a big part of the 2:03:09.600 --> 2:03:14.720 reason why, you know, the United States has spent, i mean, 2:03:14.800 --> 2:03:20.600 spent the next fifty years doing this unbelievably merciless like 2:03:21.480 --> 2:03:27.600 ruthless purge and just like mass infliction of suffering on 2:03:27.800 --> 2:03:31.080 the poorest people in the US. It's because of this shit. 2:03:32.240 --> 2:03:35.120 And this is also the reason that no one, you know, 2:03:35.400 --> 2:03:38.120 if you're fucking reading the New York Times, right, you 2:03:38.200 --> 2:03:41.400 will never hear anybody talk about black workers. They will 2:03:41.440 --> 2:03:45.440 only ever talk about white workers. And this is because 2:03:45.680 --> 2:03:49.160 that ideological project, the ideological project that Reagan was attempting 2:03:49.200 --> 2:03:51.760 to do, was a big part of It was again 2:03:51.920 --> 2:03:55.879 about an attempt to expel black workers from the popular 2:03:56.080 --> 2:03:59.320 collective imagination of the working class. And it fucking worked. 2:03:59.760 --> 2:04:00.880 If you're a white pundit. 2:04:01.040 --> 2:04:01.920 You can do this thing. 2:04:02.360 --> 2:04:04.480 You can make an entire career off of study and 2:04:04.560 --> 2:04:07.400 quote unquote the working class only ever talk to white 2:04:07.440 --> 2:04:09.600 people because that's the only part of the working class 2:04:09.640 --> 2:04:12.040 that like exists, to these people that they even will 2:04:12.120 --> 2:04:16.920 pretend matters. And then you know, never mentioned black workers 2:04:17.320 --> 2:04:20.800 even existing at all, much less like engage with black 2:04:20.840 --> 2:04:22.920 workers is like the core of the workers movements. And 2:04:23.280 --> 2:04:25.840 no one outside of like actual leftist circles or even 2:04:25.880 --> 2:04:27.280 bad and I no one, no one even thinks this 2:04:27.360 --> 2:04:29.560 is fucking weird, right, And you can get away with 2:04:29.640 --> 2:04:32.080 this ship because you know, eighty percent of all discourse 2:04:32.120 --> 2:04:36.200 about class is really about race or gender, and you know, 2:04:36.280 --> 2:04:38.320 eighty percent of all discourse but race as fucking white 2:04:38.360 --> 2:04:41.880 people talking to other white people. And that's what we're 2:04:41.920 --> 2:04:44.440 going to end for today. We will we will come 2:04:44.560 --> 2:04:47.720 back to the sort of ruling class reaction to this 2:04:47.960 --> 2:04:52.200 another time. But in the meantime, this has been naked 2:04:52.240 --> 2:04:55.400 happen here, go out into the world and make something 2:04:55.480 --> 2:04:56.200 that's not this one. 2:05:06.040 --> 2:05:08.880 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. The episode you're about to 2:05:08.920 --> 2:05:12.160 hear was recorded late last night at like two in 2:05:12.240 --> 2:05:16.240 the morning. Due to the time difference between me and Joe, 2:05:16.440 --> 2:05:19.800 who is based in Armenia. As you may have heard, 2:05:20.280 --> 2:05:26.040 Azerbijan launched another attack on the independent Armenian majority region 2:05:26.200 --> 2:05:30.760 of Artsak, which is in territory that Azerbijan claims. Since 2:05:30.840 --> 2:05:33.680 we recorded this a couple hours after the Artzok defense 2:05:33.760 --> 2:05:39.040 forces have surrendered, there's currently negotiations and something that's being 2:05:39.080 --> 2:05:42.160 called a ceasefire. Although there continue to be reports of 2:05:42.280 --> 2:05:47.640 shelling and other violent acts by the Azeri military. It's 2:05:47.720 --> 2:05:50.240 kind of unclear what is going to happen. Tens of 2:05:50.320 --> 2:05:55.240 thousands of frightened Armenians have crowded the airport out of Artzok. 2:05:55.840 --> 2:05:59.560 Pictures are pretty stunning and sobering, out of fears that 2:05:59.720 --> 2:06:04.120 Aside will be instituted against the Armenian populace in that area. 2:06:04.600 --> 2:06:06.560 The episode you're about to hear is Joe and I 2:06:06.760 --> 2:06:11.480 kind of talking earlier in the invasion, pretty soon after 2:06:11.640 --> 2:06:15.200 it happened, going over some of the history, what's going 2:06:15.280 --> 2:06:18.200 on now, fears for the future. So I thought it 2:06:18.280 --> 2:06:20.120 was still valuable stuff, but I wanted to let you 2:06:20.240 --> 2:06:23.760 know the situation has advanced since we recorded this, As 2:06:23.880 --> 2:06:26.320 is often the case when you're talking about you know, 2:06:26.640 --> 2:06:28.200 unfolding events. 2:06:28.480 --> 2:06:29.160 So thank you. 2:06:34.480 --> 2:06:39.200 Hey everyone, welcome to it could happen here, a podcast 2:06:39.360 --> 2:06:45.440 about it happening here, And unfortunately for our guest today 2:06:45.640 --> 2:06:48.600 it is again this is not the first time that 2:06:48.760 --> 2:06:53.120 it has been happening where this person happens to live. 2:06:53.640 --> 2:06:56.680 Joe Kasabian, Joe, Hey, how you doing, buddy? 2:06:57.320 --> 2:07:00.360 Hey, Robert, it's I. I would like this say it's 2:07:00.360 --> 2:07:02.560 good to be back. But you know this tends to 2:07:02.640 --> 2:07:03.160 happen a lot. 2:07:04.360 --> 2:07:07.560 We did you know in between the first time you 2:07:07.680 --> 2:07:09.360 were or the last time you were on this show 2:07:09.640 --> 2:07:11.880 and now you know, we had a surprise meeting in 2:07:12.000 --> 2:07:13.720 Dublin that was a lovely time. 2:07:14.760 --> 2:07:16.000 That is true. That is true. 2:07:16.080 --> 2:07:19.680 Yeah, And now Joe, you uh, you are a podcaster, 2:07:20.720 --> 2:07:27.600 a genocide expert and academic studying that and also you know, 2:07:27.760 --> 2:07:30.680 the host of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast, which 2:07:30.760 --> 2:07:35.520 is a lovely podcast. And you are based out of Yerevan, 2:07:35.800 --> 2:07:40.120 which is the capital of Armenia, which is a country 2:07:40.520 --> 2:07:47.600 that is not yet being invaded but is also in 2:07:47.720 --> 2:07:50.840 that in another way is being invaded right now, right 2:07:51.000 --> 2:07:56.440 like it's a it's a complicated situation. Basically, the gist 2:07:56.480 --> 2:07:58.280 of it is folks, if you're if you're kind of 2:07:58.320 --> 2:08:01.720 tuning in, there is a there are a number of 2:08:01.760 --> 2:08:07.480 different like little republics in the Caucasus region, and one 2:08:07.520 --> 2:08:09.840 of the like, over the course of the last like 2:08:10.000 --> 2:08:14.240 I don't know, a couple of thousand years, there have 2:08:14.400 --> 2:08:17.760 been a lot of Armenian people in this area that 2:08:17.840 --> 2:08:21.120 we call the Caucases, right, and you know, you have 2:08:21.400 --> 2:08:25.080 your you know, a couple of thousand years of history. 2:08:25.280 --> 2:08:27.600 You know, around the eleventh century, you get, you know, 2:08:27.720 --> 2:08:30.320 some claims start being made to this area in what 2:08:30.520 --> 2:08:37.360 is now called Karbak Artsak. And yeah, now you've got 2:08:37.800 --> 2:08:41.320 this kind of area that is an Armenian majority region 2:08:41.640 --> 2:08:47.640 where the surrounding Azeri people argue that it is their land, 2:08:47.760 --> 2:08:50.160 their territory, that they should be allowed to take it. 2:08:50.240 --> 2:08:51.960 And there have been a series of wars that have 2:08:52.040 --> 2:08:54.920 been fighting that have been going on over this area 2:08:55.040 --> 2:08:58.200 since the fall of the Soviet Union. And now as 2:08:58.280 --> 2:09:01.320 we are talking right now, Joe, you and I, the 2:09:01.520 --> 2:09:05.520 Azari military has just launched a new invasion with the 2:09:05.720 --> 2:09:09.160 presumed goal, with the stated goal really of retaking this 2:09:09.560 --> 2:09:15.000 entire region and potentially the goal of engaging the Armenian 2:09:15.080 --> 2:09:19.000 military in a wider formal way, right, that's at least 2:09:19.040 --> 2:09:21.720 the way the Azaris have discussed it. The Armenian military, 2:09:22.000 --> 2:09:24.560 the Armenian government has said like, this is not you know, 2:09:24.800 --> 2:09:29.720 Artsak is not Armenia. This is not like our troops 2:09:29.800 --> 2:09:33.080 and stuff on the ground here. But the Azaris have 2:09:33.160 --> 2:09:36.960 basically just said, like, we are disabling Armenian military equipment. 2:09:37.120 --> 2:09:40.160 Yeah, it's it's you know, it goes back to December 2:09:40.200 --> 2:09:42.920 of last year. I mean, obviously this goes back even 2:09:42.960 --> 2:09:45.800 before then. But if you start talking about you know, history, 2:09:45.840 --> 2:09:50.520 people's eyes are going to glaze over. Yeah, this the 2:09:50.720 --> 2:09:54.040 the war that was fought in twenty twenty obviously Azerbaijan one. 2:09:54.480 --> 2:09:58.920 And ever since then, Carlak or Artsak has been cut 2:09:59.000 --> 2:10:02.000 off on the Republic of Armenia through this area called 2:10:02.000 --> 2:10:06.840 the Lashing Corridor. And yeah, according to the treaty it 2:10:06.880 --> 2:10:09.080 was supposed to be maintained by Russian peacekeepers, but it 2:10:09.160 --> 2:10:13.760 never was, and specifically, since December of twenty twenty two, 2:10:14.560 --> 2:10:17.760 Karbak has been completely cut off by the Azarian Russian 2:10:17.800 --> 2:10:21.880 military and is effectively being starved out. So it's been 2:10:22.040 --> 2:10:25.120 you know, quite a long time, and we knew, like 2:10:25.240 --> 2:10:28.040 everybody knew the war was going to come again, but 2:10:28.320 --> 2:10:29.600 we kind of assumed it was gonna be in like 2:10:29.640 --> 2:10:32.320 twenty twenty five, when the Russians are mandated to leave, 2:10:33.640 --> 2:10:36.760 but st yesterday, you know, it s already yesterday. 2:10:36.960 --> 2:10:40.040 It seems like, I think it like the azeris invaded 2:10:40.320 --> 2:10:44.240 right after about twenty three tons something like that of 2:10:45.360 --> 2:10:50.040 essentially like bread was brought into like across the Lachin corridor, 2:10:50.120 --> 2:10:53.360 right like you literally like this, yeah, exactly, yeah, this 2:10:53.520 --> 2:10:56.920 tiny amount of food makes it into this starving populace 2:10:57.000 --> 2:10:58.640 and then the next day invasion starts. 2:11:00.160 --> 2:11:03.080 Since December, they've done as much as they possibly could 2:11:03.120 --> 2:11:05.600 to turn Karbak into what is effectively an open air 2:11:05.680 --> 2:11:11.160 concentration camp. And the military operation, Now, what it is 2:11:11.960 --> 2:11:16.040 it to me is it's a continuation of the twenty 2:11:16.320 --> 2:11:21.360 twenty war because they couldn't conquer Seapanicrits in twenty twenty, 2:11:21.400 --> 2:11:25.760 which is the capital of Karabak, due to external pressures 2:11:25.880 --> 2:11:30.520 as well as military capacity, because during twenty twenty, the 2:11:30.600 --> 2:11:35.920 Republic of Armenia, despite not legally directly fighting the war, 2:11:36.400 --> 2:11:41.920 was of course helping Karabak with volunteers, soldiers, military supplies, everything. Sure, 2:11:42.560 --> 2:11:45.760 this time, they can't. It's completely cut off, and that 2:11:45.960 --> 2:11:48.600 this is not a war of any kind of near 2:11:48.800 --> 2:11:53.800 peer powers. The local Karabak defense force, called the Artsak 2:11:53.880 --> 2:11:57.560 Defense Army, is a self defense group. They have some 2:11:58.080 --> 2:12:00.520 heavy equipment, but the vast majority of it was destroyed 2:12:00.560 --> 2:12:04.040 twenty twenty. So this is, you know, effectively like a 2:12:04.120 --> 2:12:06.880 local gun club trying to fight this army. 2:12:07.280 --> 2:12:09.800 This is more or less a militia going up against 2:12:09.800 --> 2:12:12.400 I mean, like the Azaris. One of their major suppliers 2:12:12.400 --> 2:12:16.200 of arms is Israel, Israel and Turkey. Yeah, yes, Russia, Russia, 2:12:17.040 --> 2:12:20.640 Russia as well too. Yeah, and Russia is selling obviously 2:12:20.760 --> 2:12:21.840 to our media as well. 2:12:22.720 --> 2:12:25.680 They actually aren't that we've we've found out I believe 2:12:25.800 --> 2:12:30.040 last year. The government isn't the best at transparency, I 2:12:30.200 --> 2:12:33.400 feel like is the best way to word that. And 2:12:34.160 --> 2:12:37.240 we have been paying Russia for weapons since twenty twenty. 2:12:37.440 --> 2:12:40.120 They have not delivered a single bullet since the war. 2:12:40.480 --> 2:12:44.320 Sorry I should have said Armenia is paying Russia for weapons. 2:12:44.880 --> 2:12:48.720 Yeah, yeah, we're being fucked by Russia. But yeah, it's 2:12:50.280 --> 2:12:52.640 as far as the state of Azari goals are, they're 2:12:52.840 --> 2:12:55.480 they're very different. In twenty twenty when the war ended, 2:12:55.520 --> 2:12:57.280 they could frame it as a victory because they took 2:12:57.320 --> 2:13:00.720 over all these areas that they lost during the first war. 2:13:01.200 --> 2:13:03.640 Minds about an area where about one hundred and twenty 2:13:03.680 --> 2:13:07.000 thousand people live in Stapanikirt and the general outskirts there. 2:13:07.480 --> 2:13:11.360 But this time the messaging is much different. It is, 2:13:11.600 --> 2:13:15.680 you know, the government must collapse. You know they only 2:13:15.880 --> 2:13:18.560 going to like this is going quote unquote until the end, 2:13:19.160 --> 2:13:21.920 until they see a white flag from stepanik Hert. So 2:13:22.440 --> 2:13:25.960 this is because now if they don't do that, they 2:13:26.040 --> 2:13:30.760 can't spin it as a victory, right right, And since December, 2:13:31.160 --> 2:13:36.720 the Lashing corridor has been shut for everybody. People couldn't leave, 2:13:37.280 --> 2:13:40.000 people who live in Karbak, who are in our media 2:13:40.040 --> 2:13:43.720 for like school or whatever, couldn't go back. And now suddenly, 2:13:43.840 --> 2:13:47.920 yesterday when the war started again, they are saying there's 2:13:47.960 --> 2:13:52.600 a humanitarian corridor through the through Lachen. So the goals 2:13:52.600 --> 2:13:55.200 are very very clear here and we know from their 2:13:55.320 --> 2:14:00.680 conduct in twenty twenty government propaganda, just the general attitude 2:14:00.920 --> 2:14:04.520 of the Azari government towards Armenians, which is they don't 2:14:04.840 --> 2:14:08.280 they can't exist here, like this is a liquidation of 2:14:08.360 --> 2:14:10.520 the open air concentration camp that they've created. 2:14:11.840 --> 2:14:14.360 So, I mean, Joe, first off, I guess what I 2:14:14.400 --> 2:14:18.160 want to ask is, like, what what is it like 2:14:18.280 --> 2:14:21.400 in Yerevan right now? Because you know you are you 2:14:21.520 --> 2:14:25.560 are not far from from where the fighting is continuing 2:14:25.640 --> 2:14:28.280 at the moment, but obviously you are. Armenia is not 2:14:28.960 --> 2:14:32.040 technically involved at this point, right Like, that's at least 2:14:32.080 --> 2:14:34.880 according to the claims of the Armenian government. These aris 2:14:35.360 --> 2:14:39.040 alleged that they are striking Armenian military targets right now. 2:14:39.840 --> 2:14:41.240 What is it like in Jervan right now? 2:14:42.000 --> 2:14:44.480 I think everybody is. I mean, you can see it 2:14:44.560 --> 2:14:47.680 on everybody's faces, like they just they want information. They 2:14:47.680 --> 2:14:49.800 want to know what's going to happen next. There's a 2:14:49.880 --> 2:14:53.600 lot of protests yesterday and into the night because the 2:14:53.680 --> 2:14:55.840 Prime Minister came out and said, like, you know, we're 2:14:55.880 --> 2:14:59.560 not going to get involved, and he's not exactly very popular, 2:15:00.280 --> 2:15:02.600 despite the fact he kind of is our best option 2:15:02.920 --> 2:15:07.240 at the moment. So there's a lot of you know, 2:15:07.560 --> 2:15:11.960 rightful anger towards him, towards Russia, towards the EU, you know, 2:15:12.040 --> 2:15:15.000 you name it. Everybody's mad at everybody. So there was 2:15:16.160 --> 2:15:19.680 different protests yesterday there was you know, fuck Russia protest, 2:15:19.760 --> 2:15:22.720 there was fuck Nikol Pashnian, who's our prime minister protest. 2:15:23.040 --> 2:15:25.880 There was a combination of the two protests. They all 2:15:25.960 --> 2:15:28.200 kind of met in the middle. There is some fighting 2:15:28.280 --> 2:15:31.320 with the police. I heard reports that someone quite a 2:15:31.320 --> 2:15:34.440 few people tried to break into government buildings. That all 2:15:34.560 --> 2:15:37.080 seemed to have cooled off by that because I went 2:15:37.200 --> 2:15:39.480 down to the area where there was protesting and I 2:15:39.520 --> 2:15:43.000 didn't see any of that, but it seemed to have 2:15:43.080 --> 2:15:47.040 also started up again after I left. But again, it's 2:15:47.280 --> 2:15:50.720 only day one. People's anger is only going to get 2:15:50.760 --> 2:15:55.840 worse as the situation in Karabak gets worse. Yeah, you know, 2:15:56.320 --> 2:15:59.320 the fall of Karabak when Stapana karat If, and when 2:15:59.400 --> 2:16:01.680 that occurs, I have a hard time believing that the 2:16:01.760 --> 2:16:05.400 current government here in Armenia will survive. They'll either resign 2:16:05.600 --> 2:16:11.560 before stouts, you know, an unfortunate third option might happen, 2:16:12.360 --> 2:16:16.200 especially with the messaging coming from Russia where they're blaming 2:16:16.360 --> 2:16:18.600 Armenia and specifically the Prime Minister for all of this. 2:16:18.880 --> 2:16:22.880 Because since September of last year, Armenia has been doing 2:16:24.240 --> 2:16:29.120 decent diplomacy in turning towards the West. There's American soldiers 2:16:29.280 --> 2:16:32.840 in the Republic of Armenia right now for training. We've 2:16:32.879 --> 2:16:37.880 sent supplies to Ukraine. We've all but left the CSTO, 2:16:38.120 --> 2:16:43.000 which is like Russia's shitty version of NATO. Yeah, so 2:16:43.520 --> 2:16:48.080 this is not very functional, right, Like yeah, yeah, I 2:16:48.120 --> 2:16:49.600 mean this is a fact. I mean this is a 2:16:49.720 --> 2:16:54.320 green lit, punitive expedition on Russia's behalf effected. 2:16:54.480 --> 2:16:54.680 Yeah. 2:16:55.160 --> 2:16:57.800 And this is you know a couple of things. So 2:16:58.000 --> 2:17:01.560 like obviously the way in which which the paper on 2:17:01.720 --> 2:17:06.000 paper alliances here kind of like chart out is not 2:17:07.120 --> 2:17:10.280 friendly to the sort of like sound bite media of 2:17:10.680 --> 2:17:14.600 our day, right because Armenia on paper, Armenia's like big 2:17:15.160 --> 2:17:18.480 supporter has been Russia recently, right, as. 2:17:18.400 --> 2:17:22.720 Well as Azerbaijan, like as well, before Russia invaded Ukraine, 2:17:22.760 --> 2:17:26.840 they like cemented an alliance. But you know, because Azerbaijan 2:17:26.879 --> 2:17:29.800 has been very overt, I guess you could say, and 2:17:29.879 --> 2:17:32.720 their support for Ukraine giving them money and you know, 2:17:33.160 --> 2:17:37.240 supplies here and they're non military supplies but humanitarian supplies. Yeah, 2:17:37.320 --> 2:17:41.960 this gets spun in the brain dead infosphere as it 2:17:42.120 --> 2:17:45.400 being like another Russian ally that being Armenia is being 2:17:45.480 --> 2:17:49.800 invaded or you know, people equate Kara Bak to Crimea 2:17:50.640 --> 2:17:54.840 and Ukraine's war goals, and since Azerbaijan is, you know, 2:17:55.520 --> 2:18:00.120 a pr ally of Ukraine and supplying the E you 2:18:00.200 --> 2:18:02.920 with gas and supplying you with Russian gas as well, 2:18:03.400 --> 2:18:07.040 it gets spun as like people are cheering for Azerbaijan, 2:18:07.080 --> 2:18:09.920 which is is absolutely baffling to me. Like it I 2:18:09.959 --> 2:18:12.200 wish I could say I'm confused or surprised, but like 2:18:12.480 --> 2:18:14.760 when you treat war like it's a team sport you 2:18:14.840 --> 2:18:16.920 want to play on your favorite football jersey or whatever. Yeah, 2:18:17.400 --> 2:18:22.760 this is how it goes. When you know, Karabak declared 2:18:22.840 --> 2:18:28.480 independence from Azerbaijan during that the Azeri Soviet Socialist Republic 2:18:29.720 --> 2:18:32.840 when that was legal to do, and the state that 2:18:32.920 --> 2:18:36.080 they have created is one of the most free in 2:18:36.320 --> 2:18:41.280 the region, whereas Azerbaijan, according to like the Freedom Index 2:18:41.400 --> 2:18:44.720 is one point above the Taliban controlled Afghan state at 2:18:44.760 --> 2:18:48.280 the moment. Yeah, so like this, this is not a plan. 2:18:48.480 --> 2:18:50.880 This is not like a liberation. A dictator cannot be 2:18:50.920 --> 2:18:51.520 a liberator. 2:18:51.959 --> 2:18:54.440 No, And a lot of what is happening and why 2:18:54.800 --> 2:18:58.280 a Zerbijan is engaging in aggression right now is due 2:18:58.400 --> 2:19:00.440 to what's been happening to like the price of oil 2:19:00.520 --> 2:19:02.879 and like what that's done to the Azari economy. Right, 2:19:03.000 --> 2:19:06.320 Like this is a like I mean, it's it's it's 2:19:06.360 --> 2:19:09.960 a pretty standard page in the the authoritarian playbook, right 2:19:10.560 --> 2:19:10.959 of course. 2:19:11.040 --> 2:19:13.960 I mean they're a classic fascist dictatorship and so far 2:19:14.120 --> 2:19:17.120 as you know, every problem in the state that they have, 2:19:17.320 --> 2:19:20.000 of which they have many, because it's effectively a kleptocracy 2:19:20.080 --> 2:19:24.440 built around a Petro Petro dictatorship, is caused by Armenians. 2:19:24.879 --> 2:19:29.480 They're you know, every single anti Asari piece that gets 2:19:29.520 --> 2:19:32.080 published in any media, and you can use the term 2:19:32.120 --> 2:19:35.920 anti Asari to mean like literally anything is funded by 2:19:36.040 --> 2:19:39.200 the like the Armenian lobbying group, which I mean any 2:19:39.320 --> 2:19:44.000 Jewish conspiracy theory that we all know and hear about constantly, 2:19:44.160 --> 2:19:47.320 and Azurebaijan. You just replace Jewish people with Armenians, and 2:19:47.400 --> 2:19:50.080 it's a it's functionally the same thing. So you know, 2:19:50.200 --> 2:19:55.080 we're this global superpower with our tendrils and everything, but 2:19:55.200 --> 2:19:58.120 also we're weak and pitifol and need to be destroyed. 2:19:59.400 --> 2:20:01.959 It's it's kind of messaging that we're used to hearing 2:20:02.120 --> 2:20:06.600 for like classic fascist propaganda, and you know that as 2:20:06.640 --> 2:20:09.680 far as like why they're doing it now is because 2:20:09.760 --> 2:20:15.280 they've so ensconced themselves in the European good graces and 2:20:15.520 --> 2:20:18.160 over the last little bit they know nobody could. Nobody's 2:20:18.160 --> 2:20:20.880 going to stop them. The EU literally can't, and the 2:20:21.080 --> 2:20:24.680 United States, I mean, they're an outside player when it 2:20:24.720 --> 2:20:27.839 comes to European politics, at least internal politics. 2:20:28.240 --> 2:20:28.320 And. 2:20:29.800 --> 2:20:32.520 They are only loosely connected to Azerbaijehan. They do some 2:20:32.920 --> 2:20:36.800 military funding, but it's mostly to do it's like these 2:20:36.959 --> 2:20:40.800 weird ghosts of the early global War on Terror where 2:20:40.840 --> 2:20:44.560 they're looking for friendly Muslim powers that would act as 2:20:44.640 --> 2:20:49.080 counter terror forces. But the Azerbaijan secular this war has 2:20:49.200 --> 2:20:52.039 nothing to do with us being Christian or them being Muslim, 2:20:52.800 --> 2:20:55.400 though it does tend to be free framed that way 2:20:55.760 --> 2:20:57.560 by the worst people imaginable. 2:20:57.879 --> 2:21:02.960 Yeah, it's it's slots conveniently for a lot of people 2:21:03.080 --> 2:21:05.520 into those But like this is I mean again as 2:21:05.600 --> 2:21:08.280 I tried, and you know, this is what we're kind 2:21:08.320 --> 2:21:10.640 of like throwing this together in media res but like 2:21:11.280 --> 2:21:14.160 this is we're talking about, like this is the result 2:21:14.280 --> 2:21:17.880 of a very long period of conflict and movement of 2:21:18.000 --> 2:21:22.039 peoples in a region where they have been for thousands 2:21:22.080 --> 2:21:25.600 and thousands of years, right, Like that's like, it's not. 2:21:25.959 --> 2:21:29.280 I would say the current conflict is mostly rooted in 2:21:29.440 --> 2:21:32.600 about the last thirty thirty five years, I mean the 2:21:32.720 --> 2:21:35.680 ancient The ancient history gets thrown around a lot by 2:21:35.760 --> 2:21:39.920 like propagandists. But this is a direct result of the 2:21:40.040 --> 2:21:42.680 Soviet Union's policies. It has nothing to do with like, 2:21:43.360 --> 2:21:44.920 you know, the thirteen hundreds. 2:21:45.480 --> 2:21:48.880 Would you take it back though, to like like World 2:21:48.879 --> 2:21:51.240 War One? Right where you've got You've got this like 2:21:51.440 --> 2:21:55.080 very brief period where like Azerbijan and Armenia and Georgia 2:21:55.160 --> 2:21:58.680 all attempt to have this like almost little like Caucasus 2:21:58.840 --> 2:22:01.560 you win or e you of their own right, and 2:22:01.640 --> 2:22:04.400 then they all get like gobbled up, you know, over 2:22:04.480 --> 2:22:06.840 the course of the end of the war, by by 2:22:07.040 --> 2:22:10.840 by Turkey and then by Russia. Like it's this uh, 2:22:11.360 --> 2:22:13.440 like that's kind of where it all results from. Right, 2:22:13.480 --> 2:22:15.120 That's at least that's my understanding of it. 2:22:15.600 --> 2:22:17.440 Uh, if you want to go back that far, it 2:22:17.560 --> 2:22:22.240 has more of a result of early Soviet policy and 2:22:22.360 --> 2:22:25.520 specifically Joseph Stalin. Before he took over the Soviet Union, 2:22:25.560 --> 2:22:31.240 he was ahead of like the Office of like Minorities effectively, Yeah, 2:22:31.480 --> 2:22:37.600 he's a Georgian. Yeah he's it's so is Barria, and 2:22:38.040 --> 2:22:43.680 he he redrew the borders to include what is today 2:22:43.800 --> 2:22:47.280 Karabak within the borders of what effectively would become the 2:22:47.360 --> 2:22:51.840 Azaria Soviet Socialist Republic. And during the entire period of 2:22:51.879 --> 2:22:53.920 the Soviet Union, which you know, a lot of people 2:22:54.040 --> 2:22:57.120 like to frame as this, there's no problems in the 2:22:57.160 --> 2:23:00.880 Soviet Union control these areas, which is you know, magical thinking. 2:23:01.080 --> 2:23:04.600 There were protests by the Armenian populace, right, there was 2:23:04.760 --> 2:23:07.920 a lot of protests during the eighties. You have what's 2:23:08.000 --> 2:23:13.039 called the Karabak movement wanted either a Karabak to become 2:23:13.040 --> 2:23:15.920 its own Soviet Socialist Republic or b to be given 2:23:15.959 --> 2:23:20.000 to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and away from these areas, 2:23:20.080 --> 2:23:23.240 and failing that, they declared independence, which was within their 2:23:23.360 --> 2:23:28.480 rights under the Soviet constitution, which did exist, I mean, 2:23:28.560 --> 2:23:31.600 it was largely fluid and completely ignored as we see today, 2:23:32.120 --> 2:23:35.680 and that's what that triggered a lot of different programs 2:23:36.160 --> 2:23:40.440 between a Zaris against the Armenian population within Azerbaijan, and 2:23:40.840 --> 2:23:43.640 Armenians did the same thing here as well. But that 2:23:43.760 --> 2:23:46.840 started the First War, which ended with Armenia winning and 2:23:47.080 --> 2:23:52.920 Artsak becoming a de facto independent republic not recognized by 2:23:52.920 --> 2:23:56.199 anybody to include Armenia, and it's I mean. 2:23:56.120 --> 2:23:58.120 It becomes at that point kind of one of a 2:23:58.320 --> 2:24:02.080 series of sort of little fro and wars. During this 2:24:02.720 --> 2:24:06.840 kind of like early nineties period where the US was 2:24:07.240 --> 2:24:09.440 there was this there was some belief that the US 2:24:09.480 --> 2:24:12.320 would act if like these conflicts. 2:24:11.800 --> 2:24:12.760 Got out of hand. 2:24:13.600 --> 2:24:16.400 That was like often proved wrong, right, Like. 2:24:16.640 --> 2:24:21.160 The best comparison is effectively Kosovo. The only difference is 2:24:21.280 --> 2:24:25.959 that because of geopolitics, you're getting involved in this war, 2:24:26.720 --> 2:24:30.160 whether it be in the nineties, in twenty twenty or today, 2:24:31.320 --> 2:24:37.320 is it's not geopolitically advantageous, Like telling Azerbaijan to go 2:24:37.400 --> 2:24:44.160 fuck themselves by supporting art soccer Armenians doesn't help anybody geopolitically. 2:24:45.440 --> 2:24:49.760 If it was Russia invading US, it would be raining 2:24:49.879 --> 2:24:53.840 weapons from the West, but geopolitically doesn't benefit anybody to 2:24:53.879 --> 2:24:56.920 support us. And you know, like there's this concept of 2:24:57.040 --> 2:25:00.320 like ethics and morals from superpowers, whether it be you know, 2:25:01.440 --> 2:25:04.920 the bastion of democracy in the United States or this 2:25:05.080 --> 2:25:07.560 concept of European ethics and morals in the EU, Like 2:25:07.680 --> 2:25:11.160 that's all propaganda v aprior where it's not real. If 2:25:11.240 --> 2:25:15.039 your country is being helped by any of these countries, 2:25:15.520 --> 2:25:19.359 it's because it benefits the countries that are helping you geopolitically. 2:25:19.560 --> 2:25:22.360 It's not because of they they support whatever it is 2:25:22.440 --> 2:25:26.600 that you're doing, you know that, And because the Republic 2:25:26.680 --> 2:25:29.520 of Armenia itself is kind of in the situation as well. 2:25:29.879 --> 2:25:32.600 But the people of art SoC are certainly in this situation. 2:25:34.120 --> 2:25:40.240 And so like right now, I mean honestly, like what 2:25:41.040 --> 2:25:45.520 is there to do? But watch right, like is there 2:25:45.800 --> 2:25:48.000 is there? Do you have any kind of like hope 2:25:48.080 --> 2:25:51.520 for sort of positive productive action at this point or 2:25:51.560 --> 2:25:54.280 are we kind of stuck in this? We're going to 2:25:54.360 --> 2:25:59.000 see what the next chapter of this this conflict looks like, 2:25:59.320 --> 2:26:00.800 you know, as it rolls. 2:26:00.560 --> 2:26:04.920 Out here, Well, there's two options, really stop it through 2:26:05.240 --> 2:26:10.320 military force or let the largest genocide of the twenty 2:26:10.360 --> 2:26:17.280 first century go unimpeded. Right because the reason why our 2:26:17.360 --> 2:26:20.120 Prime minister said that the Republic of Armenia is not 2:26:20.240 --> 2:26:23.240 going to get involved is because it literally cannot. You know, 2:26:23.360 --> 2:26:26.520 we have Turkey on one border that will almost certainly 2:26:26.600 --> 2:26:31.200 be involved if we do. These areas also have guns 2:26:31.320 --> 2:26:34.440 pointed at our southern border, which they have said for 2:26:34.879 --> 2:26:39.120 years now they want to conquer. The Armenian military is 2:26:39.480 --> 2:26:42.080 not a superpower by any stretch of the imagination, and 2:26:42.640 --> 2:26:46.520 since we are not connected to Artsock in any feasible way, 2:26:47.000 --> 2:26:49.880 it would require a massive counter offensive to just relieve 2:26:49.920 --> 2:26:53.080 Stapanak Heart from the current siege. Right, there's a reason 2:26:53.120 --> 2:26:56.440 why it didn't happen when they were being starved. So 2:26:57.040 --> 2:27:01.520 Armenia lacks the ability to stop this. However, there's multiple 2:27:01.600 --> 2:27:05.800 countries in the world, mostly France and the United States, 2:27:06.000 --> 2:27:08.039 that could end this in five seconds if they truly 2:27:08.120 --> 2:27:08.520 wanted to. 2:27:08.720 --> 2:27:11.800 Yeah, you mentioned at the start that there are US 2:27:11.920 --> 2:27:15.480 troops who are in Armenia right now, and I'm my 2:27:15.600 --> 2:27:18.960 thoughts are drawn back to in twenty nineteen when Turkey 2:27:19.280 --> 2:27:22.480 carried out an expanded invasion of some of the regions 2:27:22.520 --> 2:27:26.360 in northeast Syria that composed Rojava, and you know US 2:27:26.440 --> 2:27:29.800 peacekeepers pulled out previous to that. Now, the US troops 2:27:29.800 --> 2:27:31.640 who were in Armenia were training that were not there 2:27:31.640 --> 2:27:32.560 as peacekeepers. 2:27:32.640 --> 2:27:35.600 But right, they have no mandate to do anything, and 2:27:35.720 --> 2:27:38.240 there's only like two hundred of them from some national 2:27:38.320 --> 2:27:39.920 Guard unit. It's not like it's a you know, a 2:27:39.959 --> 2:27:43.920 brigade combat team, and pressure is whatever you want to 2:27:43.959 --> 2:27:46.120 call them are not simply not going to happen. The 2:27:46.200 --> 2:27:49.080 European Union is not going to sanction Azerbaijan. They rely 2:27:49.240 --> 2:27:52.400 on their oil and Azerbaijan has only become more powerful 2:27:52.959 --> 2:27:58.000 in this petro diplomacy since Russia invaded Ukraine. The United 2:27:58.000 --> 2:28:03.560 States has no functional sanctioning powers over Asgerbajan that could 2:28:03.600 --> 2:28:06.400 really affect them. And not to mention, as we've seen 2:28:06.480 --> 2:28:09.320 since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sanctions don't stop wars. 2:28:09.959 --> 2:28:12.720 Yeah, now, I mean they never had. Like again, this 2:28:12.840 --> 2:28:15.080 is something that left is supposed to know right after, 2:28:15.280 --> 2:28:17.840 like what happened with Iraq and the nineties, But like 2:28:17.959 --> 2:28:20.520 they don't, they don't do anything like. 2:28:20.760 --> 2:28:23.720 No, Like if the only thing that stops a genocide 2:28:23.760 --> 2:28:27.040 is military force, and there's never been a genocide that 2:28:27.120 --> 2:28:30.640 has not ended from military from one actor or another, 2:28:31.280 --> 2:28:31.680 I might. 2:28:31.640 --> 2:28:33.640 Push even a little bit to say that, like one 2:28:33.720 --> 2:28:36.680 thing that in this case I think could potentially at 2:28:36.760 --> 2:28:41.240 least reduce the risk of certain kinds of genocide is 2:28:41.360 --> 2:28:45.240 like keeping us troops in the area, not even as 2:28:45.400 --> 2:28:47.800 like a viable combat force, but as a like all right, 2:28:47.879 --> 2:28:50.160 a zebra jen if you if you are going to 2:28:50.440 --> 2:28:54.880 like disrupt the territorial integrity of the actual Armenian state, 2:28:56.040 --> 2:28:58.560 then you know, we've got people who are in country, 2:28:58.840 --> 2:29:00.879 and so you'll have to you'll have. 2:29:00.959 --> 2:29:03.360 To kill them, you know. That's that's something that probable 2:29:03.400 --> 2:29:06.200 have been arguing for a long time now, not necessarily 2:29:06.280 --> 2:29:11.360 Americans exactly, but some kind of international peacekeeping mission, because 2:29:11.400 --> 2:29:14.160 we all knew that what Russia was doing, like this 2:29:14.400 --> 2:29:18.840 war benefits them as the previous instability in the region 2:29:19.360 --> 2:29:22.000 benefits them, because it allows them to have their hooks 2:29:22.080 --> 2:29:25.320 into Armenia. Which is why we're kind of worried of 2:29:25.400 --> 2:29:30.360 what happens next here because if Azerbaijan does complete the 2:29:30.480 --> 2:29:34.680 conquest of stapanic Herit, which unless someone gets involved, they will, 2:29:35.040 --> 2:29:36.960 they need to be like I need to be practical 2:29:37.000 --> 2:29:43.520 about these things, and once that happens, Russia won't have 2:29:43.680 --> 2:29:46.560 the sort of damicles hanging over the Republic of Armenia's 2:29:46.560 --> 2:29:50.800 head anymore. So it does make it does make us 2:29:50.879 --> 2:29:54.680 wonder like and everybody is very very stupid if they 2:29:54.720 --> 2:29:59.440 Thinkbaijan stops with art suck right that in September of 2:29:59.520 --> 2:30:01.440 last year when I was on your show, they were 2:30:01.480 --> 2:30:04.600 invading the Republic of Armenia. They were not invading Karabaker arts. 2:30:04.840 --> 2:30:08.320 They were invading the Republic of Armenia. And their stated 2:30:08.360 --> 2:30:11.560 goals have not changed. The only thing that would happen 2:30:12.840 --> 2:30:15.560 is that this thorn in their side over the last 2:30:15.680 --> 2:30:18.200 thirty years would not be there anymore. They would have 2:30:18.360 --> 2:30:23.039 no impediments at all within what is considered their own borders. 2:30:23.560 --> 2:30:26.280 They could focus everything on the Republic of Armenia. So 2:30:26.760 --> 2:30:30.280 people who believe that this ends in stapanic Hert like 2:30:31.120 --> 2:30:33.400 You'll only have to go back to this time last 2:30:33.520 --> 2:30:36.400 year to see that is not the case. The only 2:30:36.520 --> 2:30:38.920 thing that's going to happen is maybe they'll take a 2:30:38.920 --> 2:30:41.160 little bit of time. The war is coming to Armenia. 2:30:41.480 --> 2:30:45.000 This massacre will come across our borders. It's only a 2:30:45.080 --> 2:30:47.760 matter of is it one year, two years, three years? 2:30:47.879 --> 2:30:51.440 That that's the only thing. So without some kind of 2:30:51.640 --> 2:30:58.280 immediate intervention, this slaughter will continue until they're defeated. That 2:30:58.760 --> 2:31:01.960 you don't negotiate with people who want to murder you. 2:31:02.160 --> 2:31:02.960 It's impossible. 2:31:03.480 --> 2:31:07.080 No you can't. And it's it's also this is a 2:31:07.200 --> 2:31:10.760 very dangerous situation in part because like the reason why 2:31:10.920 --> 2:31:13.720 Armenia is acting now, right, and part is because you know, 2:31:13.800 --> 2:31:17.360 they have been watching and I think like keying and 2:31:17.920 --> 2:31:22.200 like sort of editing their behavior as a result of 2:31:22.280 --> 2:31:24.560 how the Russian campaign in Ukraine has gone. 2:31:24.720 --> 2:31:27.440 Right. Yeah, they definitely see it as a way to 2:31:27.480 --> 2:31:29.440 get away from Russia. I mean, like, yeah, like any 2:31:29.640 --> 2:31:32.680 small state in Russia's sphere is doing right now, with 2:31:32.760 --> 2:31:35.040 the exception of Georgia, who's kind of doing the opposite. 2:31:35.440 --> 2:31:38.280 Yeah, and they there is this, I mean, one of 2:31:38.360 --> 2:31:41.040 the things that is really unsettling right now is there 2:31:41.160 --> 2:31:44.520 is this there has been kind of a freeze and 2:31:44.640 --> 2:31:47.320 a number of conflicts around the world that we have 2:31:47.480 --> 2:31:51.200 seen thawing out for the last really the last five 2:31:51.280 --> 2:31:54.960 six years. It's been particularly like accelerating this kind of 2:31:55.120 --> 2:31:58.000 like thaw in a bunch of these old frozen conflicts. 2:31:58.680 --> 2:32:01.960 And part of why is that there's this understanding by 2:32:01.959 --> 2:32:04.520 a lot of these regional powers that like, well, if 2:32:04.560 --> 2:32:07.240 I kicked the fucking door and nobody's coming after. 2:32:07.080 --> 2:32:11.240 Me, right, And Azerbaijan understands that to a certain extent, 2:32:11.360 --> 2:32:13.560 which is why they acted the way they acted last 2:32:13.640 --> 2:32:16.480 year in September. I mean, the CSTO is a joke, 2:32:17.040 --> 2:32:20.880 but it does have a mutual defense clause, just like 2:32:21.120 --> 2:32:24.760 NATO does. So invasion of our borders should have triggered it, 2:32:25.080 --> 2:32:27.760 and that was if people had some kind of not 2:32:28.040 --> 2:32:31.480 sure if Russia could commit to other things. That's meanted 2:32:31.560 --> 2:32:34.400 it for a lot of people. It'smitted it for Armenia specifically. 2:32:34.840 --> 2:32:38.359 I mean, we're still technically legal members of that alliance, 2:32:38.640 --> 2:32:41.160 but we have no representation in anymore. We don't take 2:32:41.240 --> 2:32:44.359 part in trainings, we don't go to meetings. We're functionally 2:32:44.440 --> 2:32:47.520 out of it, and we certainly will be after this, 2:32:47.720 --> 2:32:52.920 I believe. But I mean as an example of how 2:32:53.000 --> 2:32:56.320 you can't really negotiate with someone with this kind of 2:32:56.360 --> 2:33:00.440 ideology in so far as from this position, like I'm 2:33:00.480 --> 2:33:03.640 not saying that like this only ends with international peacekeepers 2:33:03.720 --> 2:33:07.320 hoisting a flag over Blak Whuy with this kind of 2:33:07.440 --> 2:33:11.520 power discrepancy that the Azaria government has said that they 2:33:11.600 --> 2:33:16.959 will negotiate with the government in Stepankert in Karabak once 2:33:17.080 --> 2:33:20.720 they dissolve and lay down all their weapons. So once 2:33:20.760 --> 2:33:23.280 you completely disarm and get rid of all of the 2:33:23.360 --> 2:33:26.200 ways you can defend yourself from the obvious slaughter that's 2:33:26.280 --> 2:33:29.920 coming your way. Then we'll talk. Is that really a way? 2:33:30.240 --> 2:33:33.920 Is that a way of any negotiations could ever happen? 2:33:34.320 --> 2:33:37.520 Like being realistic, of course it's not. The government of 2:33:37.600 --> 2:33:40.120 kara Bak is the only thing. The government of Karabak 2:33:40.200 --> 2:33:45.000 and the small local self defense force is the only 2:33:45.160 --> 2:33:50.760 negotiating like little crumb that they have because it's it's 2:33:50.840 --> 2:33:53.560 stopping them from being murdered. And for people who think 2:33:53.600 --> 2:33:58.080 I'm being like I'm overreacting or something, look at how 2:33:58.120 --> 2:34:01.160 they treated that. Any Armenians villions that fell into their 2:34:01.240 --> 2:34:04.640 hands into the twenty twenty war. They cut off their ears, 2:34:04.760 --> 2:34:06.600 they cut off their fingers, they cut off their noses. 2:34:06.640 --> 2:34:09.240 They fucking beheaded them. It was like watching Isis videos. 2:34:09.280 --> 2:34:12.800 But they're wearing multiicam and wearing fast helmets and they 2:34:12.879 --> 2:34:15.920 publish them proudly on the internet. They're not ashamed of this. 2:34:16.840 --> 2:34:18.760 You can only imagine what happens when a city of 2:34:18.800 --> 2:34:21.680 one hundred thousand people falls into their hands, and that 2:34:21.840 --> 2:34:24.119 is more so than nineteen forties. 2:34:24.160 --> 2:34:26.760 Something around like yeah, about one hundred, one hundred and 2:34:26.760 --> 2:34:29.120 twenty thousand people who are who are still there. 2:34:30.040 --> 2:34:34.040 Our media cannot solve this problem. We do not have 2:34:34.440 --> 2:34:37.720 the power to force them to the negotiation table to 2:34:37.879 --> 2:34:42.920 guarantee the rights of existence for people where they live. 2:34:43.840 --> 2:34:47.520 The countries that do are now friends with the country 2:34:47.840 --> 2:34:52.120 that is doing it, So it requires some actual diplomatic spine. 2:34:52.640 --> 2:34:55.080 And the thing is, you know, the joke is, every 2:34:55.120 --> 2:34:57.480 time someone is deeply concerned about something, you take a 2:34:57.600 --> 2:35:01.440 drink and then you don't fucking alcoholism, But you can't say, 2:35:01.560 --> 2:35:04.600 you know, we call for an immediate cease of the 2:35:04.800 --> 2:35:08.600 of the military offensive without an or or like or 2:35:08.680 --> 2:35:12.600 what or fucking what? Like what are you doing? 2:35:12.720 --> 2:35:12.760 Like? 2:35:13.879 --> 2:35:18.480 You can't use strong words to stop a fucking ballistic missile. Yeah, 2:35:19.080 --> 2:35:20.200 there needs to be an ore. 2:35:20.879 --> 2:35:23.640 We're staring at about a century since we had a 2:35:23.760 --> 2:35:28.119 series of conflicts, many of which were based around different 2:35:28.240 --> 2:35:33.039 sort of like regional powers scapegoating and then carrying out 2:35:33.120 --> 2:35:37.160 acts of tremendous violence against groups of people, including specifically 2:35:37.240 --> 2:35:38.000 the Armenians. 2:35:39.680 --> 2:35:42.480 Like a tale as old as time. It's being treated 2:35:42.520 --> 2:35:45.280 as an anti terror operation and you can go back 2:35:45.320 --> 2:35:49.000 to nineteen thirteen during the Genosid, the first genocide, and 2:35:49.520 --> 2:35:51.959 it's the same exact excuse the Ottoman Empire. 2:35:51.760 --> 2:35:55.160 Used, well, and it's being treated you know, that's how 2:35:55.240 --> 2:35:57.520 the Azaris are excusing it. But over here, like when 2:35:57.520 --> 2:36:00.000 you're talking about like US politics or about Western policy, 2:36:00.360 --> 2:36:03.440 it's it's it's a thing that's happening over there, right, 2:36:03.560 --> 2:36:06.160 Like it's a couple of countries that most people don't 2:36:06.200 --> 2:36:10.080 know very much about, and like what is what is 2:36:10.160 --> 2:36:12.360 our Why are we involved in this? And it's like, well, 2:36:12.959 --> 2:36:16.360 because this is the thing that we said, like after 2:36:17.000 --> 2:36:21.800 one hundred something million people died, the idea that we 2:36:22.160 --> 2:36:24.560 all kind of came together with was, well, we should 2:36:24.560 --> 2:36:27.760 probably stop folks from doing some of the things that 2:36:27.879 --> 2:36:29.560 led to all of those terrible wars. 2:36:29.879 --> 2:36:32.320 And we just tell people frame it as, oh, those 2:36:32.360 --> 2:36:33.720 people have just been fighting forever. 2:36:34.200 --> 2:36:36.760 Yeah, no, we haven't. 2:36:37.160 --> 2:36:42.000 It's been within my lifetime. Like I'm thirty five years old. 2:36:42.120 --> 2:36:43.600 This war is not older than i am. 2:36:44.120 --> 2:36:48.560 Yeah, Like there was not always mass violence between like 2:36:48.720 --> 2:36:52.279 the people in this region, right, Like Azeris and Armenians 2:36:52.320 --> 2:36:55.520 have not been killing each other over Artsak for thousands 2:36:55.560 --> 2:36:59.200 of years, right, Like that's of course there's Armenians and 2:36:59.280 --> 2:37:01.200 is Olds. 2:37:01.560 --> 2:37:04.440 Yeah, they used to live next to one another. We're 2:37:04.440 --> 2:37:09.880 not intractable millennia long enemy. But isn't this isn't one 2:37:09.879 --> 2:37:12.360 of those conflicts that I mean, you shouldn't do that 2:37:12.440 --> 2:37:15.600 with any conflict because it's a scapegoat to get you 2:37:15.640 --> 2:37:19.080 to stop caring and educating yourself about it. But specifically 2:37:19.400 --> 2:37:22.120 in the context of this episode, certainly not this conflict. 2:37:22.160 --> 2:37:27.000 This conflict involves very recent events. Yeah, and it's it's 2:37:27.120 --> 2:37:30.560 tied to major geopolitical events happening in the world right 2:37:30.640 --> 2:37:33.200 now that whatever country that you're living in and listening to, 2:37:33.320 --> 2:37:34.440 your country is involved in. 2:37:35.280 --> 2:37:39.720 And it's I mean, like the the the actual as 2:37:39.760 --> 2:37:42.160 far as I can see that the actual like realistic 2:37:42.280 --> 2:37:44.240 solution here, because this is not a case, right, I 2:37:44.280 --> 2:37:47.600 don't think like shipping a bunch of fucking weapons is 2:37:47.840 --> 2:37:51.800 a realistic thing to hope for. Like the actual realistic 2:37:52.160 --> 2:37:56.520 case for stopping this is putting people in the country 2:37:57.160 --> 2:38:01.000 that uh provide some sort of like barrier to a 2:38:01.080 --> 2:38:04.360 Zeri aggression, right, Like that's like it's taking action we 2:38:05.320 --> 2:38:08.920 saying that we did for Kosovo. Yes, yes, that's exactly 2:38:09.000 --> 2:38:12.320 what we need without without any kind of negotiations or 2:38:12.440 --> 2:38:15.760 debates like that is the only thing that will stop 2:38:15.879 --> 2:38:19.240 what is coming. It's not an if like and this 2:38:19.480 --> 2:38:23.200 is coming and hey online left people, you know, the 2:38:23.280 --> 2:38:27.360 Azaris are buy in Israeli arms. Like this is a 2:38:27.760 --> 2:38:31.080 situation in which, like we're not talking about we don't 2:38:31.120 --> 2:38:34.119 need we don't need guys kicking indoors. We literally need 2:38:34.320 --> 2:38:40.680 dudes standing around to create a barrier by the sheer 2:38:40.800 --> 2:38:43.680 political fact of their existence, right, that's. 2:38:43.640 --> 2:38:45.680 All it takes. And not to mention if you're trying 2:38:45.680 --> 2:38:49.680 to frame this in like an anti imperialist context or whatever, 2:38:50.000 --> 2:38:55.480 Agebajon is literally a fascist fucking dictatorship. Like, yeah, and 2:38:55.760 --> 2:38:58.160 our media, we have our problems, car Bock. They have 2:38:58.280 --> 2:39:03.040 their problems, you know, but they're functioning representative democracies and 2:39:03.840 --> 2:39:07.120 with people in land that they've lived on. It's I mean, 2:39:07.160 --> 2:39:09.120 there are other people who are indigenous to that land 2:39:09.160 --> 2:39:13.480 as well, but it's also theirs. It's if you want 2:39:13.520 --> 2:39:15.840 to think of it in that way, which I don't 2:39:15.879 --> 2:39:19.160 really like to do because it's it's dirt. But the 2:39:19.800 --> 2:39:24.120 real issue here is the people. The people's lives are like, 2:39:24.240 --> 2:39:27.120 it doesn't fucking matter who controls TOPONICRT at the end 2:39:27.200 --> 2:39:29.240 of the day, if people are allowed to live there 2:39:29.360 --> 2:39:31.400 and live their lives in dignity, in the way that 2:39:31.480 --> 2:39:34.520 they choose to live them. Yeah, but that's not going 2:39:34.600 --> 2:39:41.039 to happen if the fascist dictatorship's genocidal armies come storming through, right. 2:39:41.200 --> 2:39:43.600 It's it's simply impossible. And that's one of the main 2:39:43.760 --> 2:39:49.440 reasons why Karabak Armenians and the Armenian State as well, 2:39:49.800 --> 2:39:53.960 has continuously said that Karabak can't exist within the frameworks 2:39:54.000 --> 2:39:58.879 of the Azari Republic because the Azari Republic is demonstrously 2:40:00.000 --> 2:40:03.520 anti Armenian. Like, for instance, if you have an Armenian 2:40:03.640 --> 2:40:06.440 surname like I do, you can't even go there. It 2:40:06.480 --> 2:40:08.959 doesn't even matter if you've even been to this country 2:40:09.120 --> 2:40:12.199 or not. Simply existing is enough to be denied entry, 2:40:12.879 --> 2:40:15.760 Like it's it's not a place. I mean, if you 2:40:15.800 --> 2:40:17.200 want to see how they'll be treated, look how they 2:40:17.240 --> 2:40:21.200 treat their own fucking people. Yeah, it's like asking anyone 2:40:21.280 --> 2:40:23.960 to be liberated by the fucking forces of North Korea 2:40:24.200 --> 2:40:28.720 or Saudi Arabia or something. It's obscene, it's absurd. The 2:40:29.120 --> 2:40:32.320 only thing that like, and I'm not saying I support 2:40:32.440 --> 2:40:35.000 the government in Armenia as any as anybody who knows me. 2:40:35.040 --> 2:40:39.880 I don't support any government, but the only constant track 2:40:39.959 --> 2:40:44.039 they've had is we support their right for self determination, 2:40:44.400 --> 2:40:48.240 as anybody should. And they voted in the eighties to 2:40:48.400 --> 2:40:51.080 be on their own, not to be part of Armenia, 2:40:51.160 --> 2:40:52.720 not to be part of Andrewijan, but to be the 2:40:52.760 --> 2:40:55.720 republic of art SoC because they're the only people who 2:40:55.879 --> 2:40:58.280 care about their own rights, their own dignity, and their 2:40:58.320 --> 2:41:02.560 own right to existence. That's all anybody should ever defend 2:41:02.879 --> 2:41:06.800 is people's rights to do that. Yeah, and ever since, 2:41:06.879 --> 2:41:09.840 they've made a functioning state with free and fair elections, 2:41:09.959 --> 2:41:14.080 ministries that handle these things, ministries of health, ministries of defense, 2:41:14.560 --> 2:41:19.240 ministries of education. It's a functioning republic. It's not some 2:41:19.480 --> 2:41:26.040 statelet that barely functions. And the powers invading it don't 2:41:26.080 --> 2:41:29.800 only mean to destroy those the separatist power, they mean 2:41:29.879 --> 2:41:33.840 to destroy the people that live there. There's no room 2:41:33.879 --> 2:41:35.440 for them to exist in this country. 2:41:36.800 --> 2:41:39.720 So, Joe, what do you expect us to see coming 2:41:39.800 --> 2:41:42.160 in the next couple of days here? As we you know, 2:41:42.240 --> 2:41:46.360 we're about twenty four hours in right now to the 2:41:47.879 --> 2:41:51.680 renewed a Zeri attack on art Sock, Like, what is 2:41:51.720 --> 2:41:53.879 your kind of expectation for what happens next. 2:41:55.320 --> 2:41:58.240 Well, the art sock defense armies doing their best. Yeah, 2:41:58.320 --> 2:42:01.879 I mean, obviously they're fighting as hard as they possibly can. However, 2:42:02.680 --> 2:42:08.279 without immediate international intervention in some capacity, I mean physical intervention, 2:42:08.879 --> 2:42:12.480 a you will stop or this will occur type situation, 2:42:13.040 --> 2:42:17.360 it's only a matter of time until it ends. Yeah, yeah, 2:42:18.040 --> 2:42:21.240 I think that's And to quote the former head of 2:42:21.280 --> 2:42:25.360 Doctors without Borders, you cannot stop a genocide with doctors. Yeah, 2:42:26.040 --> 2:42:28.000 there's only one way to stop it. And you know, 2:42:28.240 --> 2:42:30.680 like I've said a million times before, I believe before 2:42:30.760 --> 2:42:34.960 on your show, Yep, the only thing that's allowing this 2:42:35.080 --> 2:42:39.960 to go on is the unwillingness of literally anybody to 2:42:40.040 --> 2:42:44.640 get involved. And there's a couple of quotes about that. Yeah, exactly. 2:42:45.400 --> 2:42:47.080 It's it's not a new concept. 2:42:47.520 --> 2:42:47.720 Yeah. 2:42:47.959 --> 2:42:49.879 And genide studies. 2:42:50.160 --> 2:42:52.960 As someone who studies war, studies genocide and has fought 2:42:53.000 --> 2:42:54.959 in war, war is fucking awful. And I don't want 2:42:54.959 --> 2:42:57.360 it for anybody. I don't want a Zeri kids to 2:42:57.640 --> 2:43:00.879 conscripts to be fucking dying for this, don't want Armenians 2:43:00.920 --> 2:43:04.039 to be dying for this. But the only thing that's 2:43:04.080 --> 2:43:06.640 going to stop it is someone who is not Armenian, 2:43:06.879 --> 2:43:09.320 not his area, and certainly not fucking Russian to say 2:43:09.520 --> 2:43:14.360 stop or we will fucking stop it. Yep. 2:43:15.320 --> 2:43:16.480 Yeah, I think that's. 2:43:18.560 --> 2:43:21.400 I think that's as as good a point to close 2:43:21.480 --> 2:43:24.879 on as there is as we're going to find. At least, Joe, 2:43:24.959 --> 2:43:26.480 do you have anything else you wanted to kind of 2:43:26.520 --> 2:43:28.520 like bring up before we roll out here? 2:43:31.680 --> 2:43:33.920 I would. I would. This is normally where I would 2:43:33.959 --> 2:43:37.120 say you could support the people involved in this in 2:43:37.160 --> 2:43:41.199 this way, but unfortunately, there's they're under siege, they're surrounded, 2:43:41.360 --> 2:43:44.879 nothing can get to them. There's I got nothing, man. 2:43:45.800 --> 2:43:48.760 Yeah, I mean that that is the reality, right, It's 2:43:48.879 --> 2:43:51.440 like there's nowhere to send money, there's nothing to like, 2:43:51.920 --> 2:43:54.440 and to be quite frank, I mean, I think people 2:43:54.480 --> 2:43:59.360 should be harassing their their representatives over this. But you know, 2:43:59.480 --> 2:44:04.200 I'm not overly optimistic. Yeah, the Biden administration has been 2:44:04.240 --> 2:44:07.000 making noises, you know, but but I you know, I 2:44:07.160 --> 2:44:09.080 have not seen evidence that they're going to do more 2:44:09.120 --> 2:44:09.680 than that yet. 2:44:09.800 --> 2:44:13.240 So I will say, if the United States gets involved 2:44:13.360 --> 2:44:15.640 and they really want to turn Armenia to the West, 2:44:15.640 --> 2:44:18.160 which they absolutely should, there's no better time like now, 2:44:19.320 --> 2:44:20.240 this is the chance. 2:44:20.320 --> 2:44:20.640 To do it. 2:44:21.160 --> 2:44:24.120 You want to show that like the West is the 2:44:24.200 --> 2:44:27.879 way for Armenians and pull them completely away from Russia 2:44:27.879 --> 2:44:29.959 because everybody wants to get the fuck away from Russia. 2:44:30.280 --> 2:44:32.720 Like there. Yeah, there's thousands of people marching down the 2:44:32.760 --> 2:44:37.640 street literally saying fuck Russia yesterday. But you need to 2:44:37.720 --> 2:44:39.760 give them a path to do so, and this is 2:44:39.800 --> 2:44:40.400 the way to do it. 2:44:41.160 --> 2:44:41.360 Yeah. 2:44:42.800 --> 2:44:48.000 Well shit, thanks Joe. Sorry, sorry, we keep having you 2:44:48.120 --> 2:44:52.240 on the show and this, uh, this situation. I uh well, 2:44:53.160 --> 2:44:55.080 we'll come on and talk about something. 2:44:55.520 --> 2:44:55.880 I don't know. 2:44:56.040 --> 2:44:56.840 We probably won't. 2:44:57.520 --> 2:44:59.240 Neither of our shows ever talk about anything. 2:45:00.080 --> 2:45:01.000 About anything lighthearted. 2:45:02.200 --> 2:45:05.240 Check out Joe's show Lions Led by Donkeys, The Lions 2:45:05.320 --> 2:45:10.400 lad by Donkey's podcast Great Military History Podcast. Joe, thank 2:45:10.440 --> 2:45:17.000 you for being on, and please, I don't know, good luck. 2:45:17.680 --> 2:45:18.440 Thanks for having me on. 2:45:18.600 --> 2:45:30.880 Rob Hi everyone, it's me James. And just before you 2:45:30.959 --> 2:45:33.000 hear the episode, i'd want to warn you that you 2:45:33.120 --> 2:45:38.280 can hear our telephones going absolutely mental for much of 2:45:38.360 --> 2:45:41.480 this episode. That's because as we were recording, people have 2:45:41.560 --> 2:45:45.200 found out that SDG and E San Diego gast Electric 2:45:45.280 --> 2:45:48.160 were restricting access to one of the sites where migrants 2:45:48.200 --> 2:45:51.480 were in need of aid, and people were very concerned 2:45:51.520 --> 2:45:54.680 about that, so they were reaching out to James and 2:45:54.760 --> 2:45:58.160 Jacqueline and Pedro to ask for assistance and to me 2:45:58.280 --> 2:45:59.600 to let me know if I could get the word out. 2:46:00.240 --> 2:46:02.920 That's why you can hear our phones going crazy, and 2:46:03.000 --> 2:46:05.520 I think it's good that it's in there in a 2:46:05.600 --> 2:46:07.680 sense because perhaps you can get a sense of how 2:46:07.800 --> 2:46:13.240 mad the last few weeks have been for everyone. Our 2:46:13.280 --> 2:46:15.280 phone's constantly be going off. I'm sure mine a lot 2:46:15.400 --> 2:46:18.520 less than James and Jacquelines and Pedros because people are 2:46:18.600 --> 2:46:21.039 overwhelmed and they need more help than we're able to give. 2:46:21.160 --> 2:46:24.320 So consider that background noise a blessing and I hope 2:46:24.360 --> 2:46:32.400 you enjoyed the episode. Thanks. Hi everyone, It's me James 2:46:32.920 --> 2:46:35.280 today and I hear again to talk about the border today. 2:46:35.320 --> 2:46:38.720 I'm joined by some guests. I'm joined by James and 2:46:38.840 --> 2:46:41.280 Jacqueline from Border Kindness, who we've heard from before, and 2:46:41.320 --> 2:46:44.000 I'm also joined by Pedro Rias from the American Friends 2:46:44.040 --> 2:46:46.440 Service Committee. If you guys would like to introduce yourselves 2:46:46.440 --> 2:46:49.440 and explain the kind of role you play along the border, 2:46:49.480 --> 2:46:52.119 that'd be wonderful if we start with Pedro, because folks 2:46:52.120 --> 2:46:53.720 haven't heard from him before. That would be great. 2:46:54.560 --> 2:46:57.280 Great, Thank you, James, and it's such an honor to 2:46:57.360 --> 2:47:00.440 be on the show together with folks from Border Kindness. 2:47:00.520 --> 2:47:03.880 James and Jacqueline's great to see you again. My name 2:47:03.920 --> 2:47:06.080 is Pedro Rio. I'm director of the American Friends Service 2:47:06.120 --> 2:47:09.480 Committee US Mexico Border Program, which is a Quaker based 2:47:09.520 --> 2:47:13.400 human rights organization. I've been on staff now for twenty 2:47:13.480 --> 2:47:17.440 years working in San Diego on border issues, and it's 2:47:18.080 --> 2:47:21.920 been a whirldwind of two decades of work being able 2:47:22.000 --> 2:47:27.160 to follow this topic. Our work primarily focuses on border issues, 2:47:27.200 --> 2:47:32.120 and we have four components, one of which is documenting 2:47:32.200 --> 2:47:35.960 civil and human rights abuses that occur when contact goes 2:47:36.320 --> 2:47:44.320 awry between primarily federal immigration authorities with members of civil society, 2:47:44.320 --> 2:47:50.360 including migrants and border community residents. Documentation could be case 2:47:50.760 --> 2:47:58.600 evolving abuse of practices, abuse of policies, cases evolving abuse 2:47:58.600 --> 2:48:01.119 of authority, and so on and so forth. We also 2:48:01.160 --> 2:48:04.800 do a lot of policy analysis and advocacy at the 2:48:04.840 --> 2:48:07.320 local level, at the state level, and at the federal level, 2:48:08.959 --> 2:48:14.119 trying to hold agencies accountable, making them more transparent, ensuring 2:48:14.200 --> 2:48:18.760 that there are oversight mechanisms and how they operate, and 2:48:18.840 --> 2:48:25.039 that's done in conjunction with several coalitions at the county 2:48:25.200 --> 2:48:28.760 wide level in San Diego, but also at the national 2:48:28.840 --> 2:48:32.840 level with the Southern Border Communities Coalition and other organizations 2:48:32.879 --> 2:48:33.200 as well. 2:48:34.080 --> 2:48:34.800 And then we. 2:48:36.560 --> 2:48:40.519 Obviously work in allyship with a lot of other organizations 2:48:40.600 --> 2:48:44.480 that have campaigns of mutual interest, some of which have 2:48:44.560 --> 2:48:46.200 been going on for a long time, such as the 2:48:46.240 --> 2:48:50.000 Friends of Friendship Park and trying to gain access public 2:48:50.120 --> 2:48:55.879 access to Friendship Park, which currently is being impacted by 2:48:55.920 --> 2:49:00.880 the construction of two thirty foot border walls. And we 2:49:01.080 --> 2:49:04.680 also work directly with community members and providing information about 2:49:04.720 --> 2:49:08.800 what the rights are, how they can become and our 2:49:08.879 --> 2:49:10.840 leaders in their own communities, and how they can be 2:49:11.000 --> 2:49:17.520 active in straightening their communities and providing guidance to other 2:49:17.600 --> 2:49:20.680 people who might be in the same circumstances. So, in 2:49:20.720 --> 2:49:22.160 a nutshell, that's the work that we do. 2:49:22.520 --> 2:49:25.520 Yeah, great, it's very important work. And then James and Jacqueline, 2:49:25.560 --> 2:49:27.600 you want to explain Folks are familiar I think with 2:49:27.720 --> 2:49:31.120 Border Kindness from the previous episode, but like, maybe what 2:49:31.280 --> 2:49:33.920 have you been doing in the last I can't remember 2:49:34.000 --> 2:49:37.640 two weeks, like since people started being held out in 2:49:37.680 --> 2:49:38.520 the open again. 2:49:40.200 --> 2:49:43.520 So in our organizations kind of always evolving with like 2:49:43.680 --> 2:49:46.760 the evolving needs of the border, and over the last 2:49:47.640 --> 2:49:50.240 i want to say, like years in particular, we've really 2:49:50.360 --> 2:49:54.520 started to emphasize our services being present in the rural border. 2:49:55.440 --> 2:49:59.800 We're based in Mexikali, primarily, our water drops are generally 2:50:00.440 --> 2:50:04.600 in the Imperio Valley region, and we started to extend 2:50:04.720 --> 2:50:09.720 our services to the rural community in San Diego County 2:50:09.879 --> 2:50:12.960 with regards to like day labor, providing aid to micro 2:50:13.040 --> 2:50:16.680 community that's living in rural communities. So all that to say, 2:50:16.800 --> 2:50:20.280 when the border appeared to be having one of its 2:50:21.720 --> 2:50:26.440 episodes of chaos, what's happened in the last couple of 2:50:26.440 --> 2:50:32.360 weeks with folks being detained between the walls down in 2:50:32.400 --> 2:50:37.360 sanny Cidral and then folks being you know, just dumped 2:50:37.360 --> 2:50:39.280 out into the street at the transit centers if we've 2:50:39.320 --> 2:50:42.640 been seeing all over San Diego County. We sort of 2:50:42.840 --> 2:50:45.880 held off because we knew this was going to happen 2:50:45.920 --> 2:50:48.600 in Hakuma. It was kind of one of those sixth 2:50:48.640 --> 2:50:50.840 sense kind of things, like when you see the writing 2:50:50.879 --> 2:50:53.080 on the wall, and it was like only a matter 2:50:53.160 --> 2:50:57.480 of time before people ended up pushed into rural San 2:50:57.480 --> 2:51:01.360 Diego County, and unfortunately that has been the case. So 2:51:02.280 --> 2:51:04.640 we were actually out in the desert doing a water 2:51:04.720 --> 2:51:09.320 drop and heard that that in fact had occurred and 2:51:09.640 --> 2:51:10.680 there were hundreds. 2:51:10.360 --> 2:51:13.600 Of people in Hakkumba. So we've been out there providing 2:51:13.680 --> 2:51:14.400 EID ever since. 2:51:15.120 --> 2:51:18.640 Yeah, so Preps, we could describe these. So there are 2:51:18.720 --> 2:51:22.040 like three things I think people would benefit from knowing about. 2:51:22.200 --> 2:51:25.000 One is the detention of people between the walls in 2:51:25.040 --> 2:51:28.360 San Cathedral, which I think Pedro has seen a lot of. 2:51:28.680 --> 2:51:31.360 I've seen, We've seen each other down there several days. 2:51:31.879 --> 2:51:34.519 The detention of folks in the open desert in Hakumba, 2:51:35.000 --> 2:51:38.480 and this this dumping of migrants to various transit centers 2:51:38.480 --> 2:51:41.800 across the county. Those are the three things we've seen, 2:51:41.879 --> 2:51:45.560 like in massive numbers this last couple of weeks. So 2:51:45.680 --> 2:51:48.520 Preps we could start with explaining her Cumba, and then 2:51:48.680 --> 2:51:50.840 Pedro can take on explaining the other two because I 2:51:50.920 --> 2:51:53.280 know he's been responding to those. So can you just 2:51:53.320 --> 2:51:55.360 tell us, like what you saw, the number of people, 2:51:56.000 --> 2:51:59.720 the conditions in which they're being held, that kind of stuff. 2:52:01.720 --> 2:52:07.320 Yeah, usually what we're seeing now, I mean now it's 2:52:07.920 --> 2:52:08.760 currently what today? 2:52:08.879 --> 2:52:09.400 What is today? 2:52:09.400 --> 2:52:14.080 Wednesday? So I know it today is yeah, yeah, I 2:52:14.120 --> 2:52:15.760 woke up this morning. I asked jacquely on what day 2:52:15.760 --> 2:52:18.000 it was, because it just seems like a broken blur, 2:52:18.280 --> 2:52:21.240 you know, the in and day out. But we are 2:52:21.640 --> 2:52:25.680 on Wednesday now, that's Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Every day 2:52:25.800 --> 2:52:34.000 so far we have noticed a revolving door of roughly 2:52:35.400 --> 2:52:41.240 two and fifty spread out between one to three camps 2:52:41.959 --> 2:52:47.400 every day. There's a camp on the east side in Hokomba, 2:52:48.040 --> 2:52:50.600 there's a camp that's on the west side of Hokumba, 2:52:50.640 --> 2:52:52.840 and then there's a camp that's just outside Hokomba and 2:52:52.879 --> 2:52:55.080 Boulevard that seems to be the biggest camp right now. 2:52:56.280 --> 2:53:01.640 That camp is the largest one because it's kind of hidden. 2:53:02.520 --> 2:53:05.720 You got to drive down from the main highway. You 2:53:05.800 --> 2:53:08.360 have to drive, you know, at least fifteen minutes, you know, 2:53:08.680 --> 2:53:12.160 down some dirt roads, back roads, you know, past ranches 2:53:12.160 --> 2:53:15.720 and stuff like that to get to that open air camp, 2:53:16.000 --> 2:53:19.160 where the other ones, especially like we saw in May, 2:53:19.720 --> 2:53:24.119 were more like wide open, closer to the towns, closer 2:53:24.160 --> 2:53:28.080 to visibility, closer to highway access. And so what we've 2:53:28.240 --> 2:53:31.880 noticed is that speaking with the locals and seeing for 2:53:31.920 --> 2:53:35.600 ourselves that every day the camps that are more visible 2:53:36.080 --> 2:53:41.000 are having less people coming in and they're being taken 2:53:41.080 --> 2:53:47.040 out faster. And so that part I think is, you know, 2:53:47.080 --> 2:53:49.120 it could be done for for a multitude of reasons, 2:53:49.200 --> 2:53:52.280 but the camp that's hidden and out of you is 2:53:52.400 --> 2:53:57.720 the one that seems kind of strategic and seems calculated 2:53:58.280 --> 2:54:02.320 on a greater level that as people are being loaded 2:54:02.400 --> 2:54:05.960 up on vans or buses to be taken out for processing, 2:54:06.480 --> 2:54:09.200 almost the same amount of people gets walked in to 2:54:09.360 --> 2:54:13.040 that camp from the actual border by border patrol. So 2:54:13.120 --> 2:54:17.280 it it's definitely an odd situation that's going on there. 2:54:17.879 --> 2:54:22.680 It seems definitely calculated orchestrated and something that you know, 2:54:22.879 --> 2:54:25.560 we feel that will be going on for quite a while. 2:54:26.320 --> 2:54:29.200 Yeah, let's when we talk about that, right, So, like 2:54:29.280 --> 2:54:33.240 people are crossing and then being being transported, like you say, 2:54:33.280 --> 2:54:36.199 on foot by border patrol to the camp that's your understanding, 2:54:36.320 --> 2:54:39.720 right to that camp in in near Boulevard. I'll say, 2:54:39.760 --> 2:54:41.280 I don't want to give the exact location. 2:54:41.840 --> 2:54:45.480 Correct, Yes, we witnessed that as well. We witnessed on 2:54:46.000 --> 2:54:50.480 Monday night that we were there to help distribute food 2:54:50.520 --> 2:54:54.520 and warm supplies, and I think a total of five 2:54:54.640 --> 2:54:59.600 or six Border Patrol vans had, you know, about one 2:54:59.680 --> 2:55:03.560 hundred people are so lined up and loaded up onto 2:55:03.600 --> 2:55:07.119 those vans. And then right as they were getting ready 2:55:07.240 --> 2:55:11.520 to have the last two vans leave, we saw in 2:55:11.600 --> 2:55:16.040 the distance, in the opposite direction or Patrol their truck 2:55:16.200 --> 2:55:21.480 driving behind a group of roughly eighty eighty five new 2:55:21.560 --> 2:55:26.360 migrants coming in on foot. Right around there's a gap 2:55:26.440 --> 2:55:26.879 in the fence. 2:55:27.240 --> 2:55:29.480 Yeah, I saw people walking in. I was the other 2:55:29.560 --> 2:55:32.440 day before you guys. So I was early, as I said, 2:55:32.480 --> 2:55:35.160 early Monday morning, and I saw the same thing, like 2:55:35.320 --> 2:55:37.720 you know, sort of just after dawn. I couldn't make 2:55:37.720 --> 2:55:40.000 out who was walking home, just because it was dark. 2:55:41.000 --> 2:55:43.040 Can you explain briefly, and then then we'll move to 2:55:43.200 --> 2:55:46.680 to Pedro's situation. Can you explain the services that are 2:55:46.760 --> 2:55:50.120 provided for them by Border Patrol and then what is 2:55:50.680 --> 2:55:52.400 provided for them by volunteers. 2:55:53.120 --> 2:55:58.000 By Border Patrol. It's essentially nothing. When this occurred in May, 2:55:58.920 --> 2:56:01.080 we heard that at most people were receiving an eight 2:56:01.120 --> 2:56:05.440 ounce bottle of water daily, not really distributed in an 2:56:05.520 --> 2:56:10.440 organized manner. Currently, we're observing that people are when they arrive, 2:56:11.040 --> 2:56:14.560 they're at times provided with a sixteen ounce bottle of 2:56:14.600 --> 2:56:20.039 water and potentially a little toddler sized pack of goldfish crackers. 2:56:21.560 --> 2:56:28.359 Border Patrol is not providing any other continued services food, shelter, sanitation, 2:56:28.640 --> 2:56:33.280 anything like that. Those things have all been organized at 2:56:33.320 --> 2:56:36.440 a community level by a variety of organizations such as 2:56:36.760 --> 2:56:41.400 ours that's comprised of just regular people. So it's the 2:56:41.520 --> 2:56:48.480 government's task of managing a humanitarian crisis. 2:56:49.640 --> 2:56:50.039 They have. 2:56:51.640 --> 2:56:56.359 Like really outsourced it to the general community of supporters. 2:56:57.000 --> 2:57:00.160 So they have taken not just the role of not 2:57:00.280 --> 2:57:04.600 having any responsibility towards caring for migrants in like the 2:57:04.680 --> 2:57:08.280 most basic manner, but it also seems like they have 2:57:08.480 --> 2:57:13.240 come to expect the general community to come in and 2:57:13.280 --> 2:57:16.000 fill the gaps that they're not meeting. So Border Patrol 2:57:16.040 --> 2:57:18.600 is not providing them with anything. It's everyday regular people 2:57:18.680 --> 2:57:24.280 that are showing up with blankets, food, water, hygiene items. 2:57:24.920 --> 2:57:30.560 It's getting really cold, so people are distributing warm clothing, diapers, formula, 2:57:31.520 --> 2:57:34.240 anything that people need is being provided by the community. 2:57:34.840 --> 2:57:38.400 Yeah, yeah, a good summary, I think, so, Pedrick, could 2:57:38.400 --> 2:57:41.320 you explain how the how the situation is in sany 2:57:41.520 --> 2:57:45.520 Edra and then also at the transit centers, and it's 2:57:45.600 --> 2:57:46.680 a pretty similar situation. 2:57:46.760 --> 2:57:49.600 I think, yeah, sure, I'll start with Sunny zero and 2:57:50.440 --> 2:57:53.560 the location where community members and organizations have set up 2:57:53.680 --> 2:57:55.160 is known as Whiskey eight. 2:57:55.879 --> 2:57:56.879 There are at least. 2:57:56.680 --> 2:58:00.000 Three other locations that we know where encampman's has formed. 2:58:00.160 --> 2:58:03.720 One is Whisky four, which is close to the last 2:58:03.720 --> 2:58:06.880 America shopping mall. It's an outlet mall closer to the 2:58:07.000 --> 2:58:10.240 port of entry, and then about a mile west of 2:58:10.360 --> 2:58:13.880 Whiskey eight there's Spooners Mesa, and then close to that 2:58:14.160 --> 2:58:18.080 there's ninety one X. The Spooners Mesa is primarily where 2:58:18.720 --> 2:58:23.920 the men's encampment is has been arranged, and this happened 2:58:23.959 --> 2:58:27.400 back in May. There was an incident where Border Patrol 2:58:28.160 --> 2:58:33.280 decided to move all the single adult men and walk them, 2:58:33.400 --> 2:58:36.680 march them essentially about a mile up a hill and 2:58:36.760 --> 2:58:41.440 then up another hill to get to Spooners Mesa. After 2:58:41.560 --> 2:58:46.120 some advocacy last week, we convinced Border Patrol to allow 2:58:46.760 --> 2:58:49.640 two of us to go up there to feed about 2:58:49.840 --> 2:58:52.080 anywhere between three hundred and eighty and four hundred men, 2:58:52.680 --> 2:58:54.360 and it took us over an hour. About an hour, 2:58:54.560 --> 2:58:59.840 fifteen minutes to feed all of the men. Fortunately, we 2:59:00.120 --> 2:59:02.360 just barely had enough food for all of them. This 2:59:02.560 --> 2:59:05.240 was in the evening and as we were driving in 2:59:05.400 --> 2:59:09.680 and driving out, all we could see was milar blankets 2:59:10.360 --> 2:59:13.400 strown about, and that's all that was up there. And 2:59:13.520 --> 2:59:17.080 these were the men that were these milar blankets down 2:59:17.160 --> 2:59:21.400 in Whiskey eight. How community members and organizations have arranged 2:59:21.920 --> 2:59:26.960 the solidarity support stations have been in four set So 2:59:27.120 --> 2:59:31.080 you have the charging station, you have the medical supplies 2:59:31.240 --> 2:59:34.600 and other items station, then you have the food station, 2:59:35.200 --> 2:59:37.480 and then the water station. And so we tried to 2:59:37.560 --> 2:59:41.640 maintain the medical supplies. The food station is available only 2:59:41.680 --> 2:59:45.760 when we have enough food to provide substenance to everyone there. 2:59:46.280 --> 2:59:48.160 We don't want to create a situation where we only 2:59:48.240 --> 2:59:50.680 serve half of the people or a quarter of the people, 2:59:51.160 --> 2:59:54.160 and then the other people go hungry. And mind you, 2:59:54.200 --> 2:59:56.800 it's important to point out that when people arrive there, 2:59:57.160 --> 2:59:59.680 they are hungry, they are thirsty. Some of them have 3:00:00.040 --> 3:00:06.119 rapes because they scale the primary border barrier and injure themselves. 3:00:06.240 --> 3:00:08.320 Others are wet because they've walked through the canal to 3:00:08.879 --> 3:00:13.480 get to that location. I've also witnessed on several locations 3:00:13.520 --> 3:00:16.279 where a border patrol will tell people who are injured 3:00:16.440 --> 3:00:20.000 to walk towards our location because they tell them that 3:00:20.120 --> 3:00:23.280 that's where we will provide them with medical care. Now, 3:00:23.600 --> 3:00:29.720 I think it's important to mention that under customers and 3:00:29.720 --> 3:00:32.320 a Border Protection which is a parent agency of the 3:00:32.360 --> 3:00:35.400 Border Patrol, under their national standards for how they are 3:00:35.480 --> 3:00:40.640 supposed to transform, escort, detain, and search people under their custody, 3:00:41.240 --> 3:00:45.840 they are obligated to feed, to provide water, to provide shelter, 3:00:46.600 --> 3:00:52.200 to treat medical urgencies. Any time that individuals are under 3:00:52.240 --> 3:00:56.720 their custody. There is some back and forth. Orbitrol locally 3:00:56.800 --> 3:01:00.360 will say that individuals are not under their custody until 3:01:00.360 --> 3:01:04.000 they are being transported, even though they will provide them 3:01:04.080 --> 3:01:07.280 with a wristband or bracelet in some cases, tell them 3:01:07.320 --> 3:01:10.440 to remove their shoelaces, direct them to where they should 3:01:10.440 --> 3:01:13.720 be walking y'all at them when they're not forming in 3:01:13.840 --> 3:01:18.360 lines in order to be picked up. Sometimes throw a 3:01:18.480 --> 3:01:21.360 fit and will not pick people up even though they're 3:01:21.920 --> 3:01:24.040 supposed to be there to do that because people are 3:01:24.120 --> 3:01:26.800 not in lines as quickly as it should be. All 3:01:26.879 --> 3:01:30.840 of this to several of our organizations indicate that border 3:01:30.879 --> 3:01:36.800 patrol at some to some degree has people under their 3:01:36.879 --> 3:01:42.720 custody and as such is violating these national standards because 3:01:43.200 --> 3:01:47.959 it's not meeting their needs at any level. Besides maybe 3:01:48.120 --> 3:01:51.920 the bottle of water might provide and the one or 3:01:51.920 --> 3:01:56.320 two granola bars they provide per day, if even that, yeah. 3:01:56.400 --> 3:02:00.600 I think it's the national border patrol. Pio also claimed 3:02:00.640 --> 3:02:03.120 to me that they were not detaining people and that 3:02:03.200 --> 3:02:05.920 people were free to quote return to Mexico, which like, 3:02:06.800 --> 3:02:10.440 these people aren't from Mexico and in many cases, and 3:02:10.840 --> 3:02:13.080 like I think the first day, maybe I saw you 3:02:13.160 --> 3:02:15.240 speaking to one family who come from Mexico, but the 3:02:15.360 --> 3:02:18.480 vast jority of people weren't, and they'd also be entering 3:02:18.560 --> 3:02:21.560 Mexico between ports of entry because they're in the United 3:02:21.560 --> 3:02:25.880 States at this time. So yeah, it's just not those 3:02:25.920 --> 3:02:28.600 people are like, there's lots of evidence that they're being detained, 3:02:29.040 --> 3:02:33.440 even if they say they're not. What then happens to 3:02:33.520 --> 3:02:36.480 those people? They We've all seen it, right, These vans 3:02:36.520 --> 3:02:40.080 pull up. They generally process people in a certain order, 3:02:40.280 --> 3:02:43.840 which which is to take unaccompanied miners and women who 3:02:43.879 --> 3:02:47.000 are alone with children, and then families and then single adults. 3:02:48.400 --> 3:02:50.240 What happens to them once they get on that van? 3:02:50.400 --> 3:02:51.360 Do we do? 3:02:51.400 --> 3:02:53.120 We have a clear sense of that and where they 3:02:53.200 --> 3:02:53.520 end up. 3:02:54.600 --> 3:02:57.960 They will be taken to any one of several borbitual 3:02:58.000 --> 3:03:04.600 stations for processing. And it's that processing stage where most 3:03:04.640 --> 3:03:08.240 of them who are in these locations are there because 3:03:08.280 --> 3:03:11.400 they want to present themselves to the authority and begin 3:03:11.440 --> 3:03:14.920 an asylum claim, and so it's how they answer the 3:03:15.000 --> 3:03:19.240 questions while being processed that they get tracked, mostly for asylum. 3:03:19.320 --> 3:03:23.480 There are some that will be quickly removed from the 3:03:23.520 --> 3:03:28.520 country expeditiously, but most of them will be tracked for asylum. 3:03:29.600 --> 3:03:32.760 They will be given a court date when they should 3:03:32.959 --> 3:03:36.279 show up, and that court date the court location depends 3:03:36.320 --> 3:03:41.960 on where their final destination will be. Technically, Mexicans can 3:03:42.040 --> 3:03:45.560 only be detained for forty eight hours. Non Mexicans can 3:03:45.640 --> 3:03:48.280 only be detained no more than seventy two hours. So 3:03:48.600 --> 3:03:52.560 within that detention period, they then are being transported to 3:03:52.800 --> 3:03:56.240 one of four locations in San die County, two of 3:03:56.320 --> 3:03:59.199 which are in San Diego, the Santi Zeru Transit Center 3:03:59.280 --> 3:04:03.680 in the Iris Transit Center, one in Oceanside, and the 3:04:03.760 --> 3:04:06.880 other in Alcohol. And so we're seeing the majority of 3:04:06.920 --> 3:04:11.120 the people being transported to science Ero and to IRIS, 3:04:11.600 --> 3:04:15.920 and that's where colleagues with other sister organizations are leading 3:04:16.000 --> 3:04:19.080 the charge to try to support them with assisting and 3:04:19.200 --> 3:04:23.200 charging phones, providing food, clothing, getting them to the airport, 3:04:23.240 --> 3:04:27.039 getting them transportation, getting them housing, and as much as 3:04:27.120 --> 3:04:30.720 limited as that's possible, trying to connect them with lost 3:04:30.800 --> 3:04:35.080 family members. Because families have been separated, there are adult 3:04:35.120 --> 3:04:38.080 children eighteen nineteen who also are trying to figure out 3:04:38.080 --> 3:04:40.880 where their family members are. And in some cases, as 3:04:40.920 --> 3:04:43.280 a conversation I had with them, man from Venezuela, he 3:04:43.320 --> 3:04:45.200 had no idea what city he was at either, though 3:04:45.200 --> 3:04:48.120 he was in San Diego, and so trying to make 3:04:48.480 --> 3:04:53.119 that type of arrangement and clarification is always challenging as well. 3:04:53.800 --> 3:04:57.600 Yeah, and obviously also expensive. Right, Like these things all 3:04:57.720 --> 3:05:02.800 place burdens on like your donation network and both in 3:05:02.959 --> 3:05:06.640 sort of the community in general. And perhaps we can 3:05:06.720 --> 3:05:09.320 talk about like, because the scale of support that's been 3:05:09.360 --> 3:05:12.840 provided by the community is extremely impressive, and given how 3:05:12.879 --> 3:05:16.280 many people have already come through this sort of not 3:05:16.440 --> 3:05:19.720 detention detention system, but perhaps both of you could talk 3:05:19.760 --> 3:05:22.000 about like the support you've been able to provide and 3:05:22.760 --> 3:05:27.280 how people who are not in San Diego can help 3:05:27.360 --> 3:05:28.920 you continue to provide that support. 3:05:31.400 --> 3:05:36.039 So the first day that we heard of folks coming 3:05:36.120 --> 3:05:41.000 in because obviously it's interesting because border patrol, like Pedro 3:05:41.120 --> 3:05:43.600 says like they're claiming that these people are not under 3:05:43.640 --> 3:05:46.760 their care, but they're very much acting as if they're 3:05:47.080 --> 3:05:51.760 under their detained care. They're telling people that if they 3:05:52.400 --> 3:05:54.720 call an ambulance to seek medical care, as we observe, 3:05:54.760 --> 3:05:56.440 they say, well, that's going to affect your case if 3:05:56.480 --> 3:05:56.840 you leave. 3:05:57.680 --> 3:05:59.360 And so people are very. 3:05:59.320 --> 3:06:03.039 Much under the deliberate impression that they are being detained, 3:06:03.560 --> 3:06:06.280 but they're not being cared for in the most basic way. 3:06:07.120 --> 3:06:11.600 And so we first responded on Saturday. By Sunday we 3:06:12.440 --> 3:06:16.400 were there with five hundred meals that went very very quickly, 3:06:18.120 --> 3:06:23.200 providing shelter items for people, so tarps. Hakumba is a 3:06:23.520 --> 3:06:28.360 very rugged desert terrain. There is no shade in these areas, 3:06:28.440 --> 3:06:32.680 so people are making sort of like makeshift shelters, but 3:06:32.800 --> 3:06:37.000 there is nothing shielding them from the sun, which is 3:06:37.040 --> 3:06:39.920 really unrelenting all day and it gets up to nineties. 3:06:40.520 --> 3:06:44.120 So we've been providing tarps, pop ups that sort of 3:06:44.200 --> 3:06:50.840 thing so people are not becoming sick from overexposure. We're 3:06:50.959 --> 3:06:56.040 providing hygiene items, we're providing just basic needs. And that 3:06:56.120 --> 3:06:59.760 gets incredibly expensive because if it was a static situation, 3:07:00.120 --> 3:07:02.520 such as in May when there was eighteen hundred to 3:07:02.600 --> 3:07:05.920 two thousand people, that was a huge undertaking that also 3:07:05.959 --> 3:07:09.360 took a lot of community collaboration to meet the needs 3:07:09.400 --> 3:07:11.879 of so many people. But this time around, as James says, 3:07:11.920 --> 3:07:16.000 it's like a revolving door of hundreds and hundreds of people. 3:07:16.560 --> 3:07:19.880 So it's taking hundreds and hundreds while at any given 3:07:19.959 --> 3:07:23.440 time there may be only and I say only two 3:07:23.520 --> 3:07:26.200 to three hundred people, it doesn't mean that to only 3:07:26.240 --> 3:07:28.960 two to three hundred people needed to be fed that day. 3:07:29.840 --> 3:07:32.840 It's that you know, that is who is there at 3:07:32.920 --> 3:07:36.280 that time. And when people arrive, as bethro said, like 3:07:36.400 --> 3:07:39.440 they haven't eaten in days. We talked to people that 3:07:39.520 --> 3:07:42.080 said that they took two days to walk to Hakumba. 3:07:42.800 --> 3:07:45.480 So if they arrived to Tijuana without much food in 3:07:45.520 --> 3:07:48.440 their belly and then they're having to walk for two days, 3:07:48.480 --> 3:07:52.039 they're arriving starving and begging for food and not being 3:07:52.120 --> 3:07:55.760 provided with absolutely anything. So if it wasn't for all 3:07:55.840 --> 3:08:00.280 of the organizations that are showing up and taking sort 3:08:00.320 --> 3:08:04.880 of shifts to feed people, there would be nothing for them. 3:08:05.600 --> 3:08:09.040 And we have absolutely no idea how long this is 3:08:09.120 --> 3:08:12.560 going to go on. It could be over today, it 3:08:12.640 --> 3:08:15.360 could go on for months year. I mean, we really 3:08:15.400 --> 3:08:19.280 don't know what to expect. And organizations are being relied 3:08:19.360 --> 3:08:22.760 on to provide, you know, life sustaining care for people, 3:08:23.320 --> 3:08:28.800 but we're not being communicated with from border patrol as 3:08:29.000 --> 3:08:34.680 to basically anything, what the outlook is, what the numbers are, 3:08:35.120 --> 3:08:38.800 what the updates of how the situation is going to evolve. 3:08:38.920 --> 3:08:41.040 So every day is a surprise and we need to 3:08:41.160 --> 3:08:43.400 have resources to be able to meet the needs of 3:08:43.480 --> 3:08:47.840 that day. It's incredibly like consuming of every resource including 3:08:47.959 --> 3:08:50.440 time and gas is six dollars a gallon. 3:08:51.280 --> 3:08:55.600 Yeah, now you need to drive your truck right because 3:08:55.680 --> 3:08:58.240 like you can't get to some of the locations, Like 3:08:58.320 --> 3:09:00.800 I know, I have a big get truck and loves 3:09:00.800 --> 3:09:02.320 of my friends about to catch a rye with me 3:09:02.320 --> 3:09:03.360 because I cause can't make it. 3:09:03.480 --> 3:09:06.960 It exactly like, we have people that have gas efficient, 3:09:07.040 --> 3:09:09.200 low priuses and stuff and they're going to bottom out 3:09:09.200 --> 3:09:12.320 out there. So we have our huge lifted jeep that 3:09:12.720 --> 3:09:16.240 you know, doesn't get as much gas mileage as something, 3:09:16.520 --> 3:09:18.640 but it's also going to be able to get the 3:09:18.680 --> 3:09:22.279 supplies out there. So every aspect of it is incredibly 3:09:22.440 --> 3:09:28.080 consuming of resources and we don't know what to expect. 3:09:28.120 --> 3:09:31.720 It's not it's hard to budget. You don't know what 3:09:31.840 --> 3:09:36.879 I expect. So the community has obviously come together in support, 3:09:37.560 --> 3:09:40.280 but then it's like, well, how do we manage this 3:09:43.160 --> 3:09:46.440 when we don't we can't forecast what's going on, so 3:09:46.920 --> 3:09:49.920 it's tough. It's definitely tough. We need sustained support. 3:09:50.440 --> 3:09:54.000 If I may add on that, as Jacquelin said, the 3:09:54.400 --> 3:09:57.000 people are showing up hungry, heavening for days. You know, 3:09:57.080 --> 3:09:59.440 we get reports that you know, people are showing up 3:09:59.680 --> 3:10:06.200 just begging for food, and the federal government more specifically DHS, 3:10:06.360 --> 3:10:12.640 more specifically CBP Border Patrol know this. They're trying to 3:10:12.680 --> 3:10:15.760 stop people out at whatever the endgame is, and maybe 3:10:15.760 --> 3:10:19.000 it's just another arm of you know, prevention through the terrence. 3:10:20.959 --> 3:10:26.760 It's cruel, it's on purpose. People you know, are are 3:10:26.840 --> 3:10:29.680 the ponds and whatever, you know, game is being played 3:10:29.760 --> 3:10:33.040 and it's cruel, and that's you know, we're doing what 3:10:33.120 --> 3:10:36.080 we can to try to offset that as much as possible, 3:10:36.120 --> 3:10:39.360 but cruelty is definitely they're all across the border. 3:10:40.440 --> 3:10:42.680 Just to kind of upbuild on what James said, like, 3:10:43.280 --> 3:10:46.119 I think it's very easy for this construct of migrants 3:10:46.240 --> 3:10:49.080 to like always be like this sort of demonized other 3:10:50.640 --> 3:10:53.760 Fox News and KUSI and all these outlets do that 3:10:53.879 --> 3:10:56.440 very well. But I think it's really important to like 3:10:56.520 --> 3:10:58.440 the people who were being cruel to. Like I saw 3:10:58.440 --> 3:11:01.600 a lady breastfeeding in the desert on Sunday night. I've 3:11:01.680 --> 3:11:05.240 seen grandparents, I've seen people who are eight months pregnant 3:11:06.040 --> 3:11:10.920 little children like these aren't like people who have done 3:11:11.040 --> 3:11:15.520 anything wrong, and they just for whatever reason they come here, 3:11:15.520 --> 3:11:17.120 it doesn't really matter. They don't deserve to be treated 3:11:17.240 --> 3:11:20.280 like that. And like James said, it's something of an 3:11:20.320 --> 3:11:24.040 induced Like I've been to natural disasters all over the 3:11:24.120 --> 3:11:26.960 world and reported on those and seen those, and I've 3:11:27.000 --> 3:11:29.720 been to refugee camps all over the world, but like 3:11:30.720 --> 3:11:33.160 it's some big of a unique to the US problem 3:11:33.440 --> 3:11:36.560 that our federal government can click its fingers and induce 3:11:36.560 --> 3:11:39.800 a humanitarian crisis and then like hold its hands up 3:11:39.800 --> 3:11:42.320 in the air and say we can't help you. Like that, 3:11:43.400 --> 3:11:47.040 Like aside from dictatorial regimes in places I've reported in 3:11:47.200 --> 3:11:50.800 like the people don't governments don't do that very often, 3:11:50.879 --> 3:11:53.520 and like James said, it's these people who paid the price, 3:11:53.600 --> 3:11:57.240 it's not us for the most part. Pedro, could you 3:11:57.720 --> 3:12:01.640 maybe explain a little bit of how American French Service 3:12:01.640 --> 3:12:04.680 Committee has been able to respond and the resources you've used, 3:12:04.760 --> 3:12:07.080 and how you can help make this a little bit 3:12:07.200 --> 3:12:09.960 less painful for the people who are being held in 3:12:10.040 --> 3:12:10.800 between defenses. 3:12:11.760 --> 3:12:15.800 Sure, learning from the experience that we had back in March, 3:12:15.840 --> 3:12:20.240 April and May, we heard a few weeks ago that 3:12:20.360 --> 3:12:23.040 there were people lined up in an area that we 3:12:23.120 --> 3:12:24.880 could not see from the US side but could be 3:12:24.920 --> 3:12:28.199 seen from the Mexican side, just west of the Sandy 3:12:28.200 --> 3:12:32.359 Sedra port of entry, with people wearing and using milar blankets. 3:12:32.400 --> 3:12:34.720 And so the milar blankets were an indication to us 3:12:34.760 --> 3:12:38.000 that people were there for probably longer than four hours, 3:12:38.040 --> 3:12:41.279 and so we kept monitoring that, asking colleagues in Tijuana 3:12:41.360 --> 3:12:44.960 to inform us if they had seen any other groups 3:12:45.040 --> 3:12:47.040 like that, and off and on over the past month 3:12:47.280 --> 3:12:50.080 there were reports of that, and it wasn't until about 3:12:50.080 --> 3:12:52.880 two weeks ago that someone said that they were there 3:12:52.959 --> 3:12:57.120 for a long period of time. So last last week 3:12:57.200 --> 3:13:00.360 we set up what we called an observation post at 3:13:00.400 --> 3:13:05.120 Whiskey eight so that we could determine for ourselves how 3:13:05.200 --> 3:13:08.240 long people were there, what sort of needs they might have, 3:13:08.480 --> 3:13:12.879 and how to respond whether to set up the solidarity 3:13:12.920 --> 3:13:16.200 support stations again, and quickly we determined that that's what 3:13:16.280 --> 3:13:18.760 we needed to do, so we call our colleagues from 3:13:18.840 --> 3:13:21.560 other organizations whenever set up up with that for instance, 3:13:21.600 --> 3:13:25.400 has been extremely helpful and leading the charge in different places. 3:13:26.800 --> 3:13:32.280 The Appreciate Collective So Mutual Group also has been extremely 3:13:32.360 --> 3:13:36.120 important in having their people out there, and Friends of 3:13:36.200 --> 3:13:38.959 Friendship Park also has been important. So all these organizations 3:13:39.000 --> 3:13:44.119 that responded quickly and started to build from the experience 3:13:44.120 --> 3:13:47.760 that we had back in late spring setting up these 3:13:48.800 --> 3:13:53.000 stations to charge phones. Phones our lifeline for people. And 3:13:53.320 --> 3:13:55.960 back in may Or Patrol threatened us and they said, 3:13:55.959 --> 3:13:58.200 if you want to keep feeding people, you can't be 3:13:58.320 --> 3:14:01.200 charging their phones. And so we said, well, we're going 3:14:01.280 --> 3:14:04.320 to have to keep charging phones because people need them. 3:14:04.400 --> 3:14:07.960 And unfortunately Borbtoal backed off then and now it's part 3:14:08.040 --> 3:14:11.040 of what we do right. We charge phones and it's 3:14:11.040 --> 3:14:13.360 how people are able to communicate with their loved ones, 3:14:13.400 --> 3:14:18.040 especially if they've been separated. Feeding people, it's just as 3:14:18.160 --> 3:14:20.520 much as we're able to, even if it's just a sandwich, 3:14:20.600 --> 3:14:25.520 even if it's a warm meal that we're able to 3:14:25.920 --> 3:14:30.160 get through the bars or the secondary border barrier, that 3:14:31.360 --> 3:14:34.320 could mean the difference between someone staying healthy or someone 3:14:34.840 --> 3:14:41.080 becoming seriously ill. Bandaging up small cuts could relieve someone 3:14:41.160 --> 3:14:47.240 from getting an infection, identifying when medical emergencies pop up, 3:14:47.360 --> 3:14:51.600 so an eight month pregnant person who is suddenly having 3:14:51.920 --> 3:14:56.000 labor pains and having a needing to call nine to 3:14:56.000 --> 3:14:59.440 one one, for instance, or insisting with porbatrol that the 3:14:59.560 --> 3:15:04.840 one month old child cannot remain overnight in between border walls, 3:15:04.879 --> 3:15:08.920 and just insisting and insisting and insisting, insisting that the 3:15:09.160 --> 3:15:11.680 two porter parties that they have there need to be serviced, 3:15:11.760 --> 3:15:15.360 for instance. And so all of this advocacy is happening 3:15:15.400 --> 3:15:19.160 at the same time that our colleagues and allies are 3:15:19.160 --> 3:15:24.039 also feeding people, and the constant communication with different elected 3:15:24.080 --> 3:15:28.920 officials pushing on them to take charge and to respond 3:15:29.640 --> 3:15:34.439 has been one of the different aspects of our response 3:15:35.160 --> 3:15:41.120 to what is a humanitarian disaster that has been slowly evolving, 3:15:41.120 --> 3:15:44.359 I would say over years and years, because human migration 3:15:44.600 --> 3:15:49.280 isn't centered around humanitarian needs and human rights. It's been 3:15:49.360 --> 3:15:55.720 centered around enforcement, around militarization, around cruel deterrence, as James 3:15:55.840 --> 3:16:01.120 was talking about, which creates conditions where people are led 3:16:01.160 --> 3:16:03.440 to suffer. And that's what we're seeing right now, people 3:16:03.560 --> 3:16:08.760 suffering because of how this has been manufactured, how immigration 3:16:08.920 --> 3:16:13.280 has been dealt with, regardless of who's in the White House, 3:16:13.680 --> 3:16:16.360 over and over and over, and so now we're challenged 3:16:16.440 --> 3:16:19.720 to respond to these humanitarian needs in ways that are 3:16:19.840 --> 3:16:24.240 stretching our limits, but we're able to do it and 3:16:24.640 --> 3:16:28.480 hopefully lifting up the dignity of people that are placing 3:16:28.720 --> 3:16:30.760 under these terreble inhumane conditions. 3:16:31.520 --> 3:16:33.440 Yeah, I think it's very important to give people a 3:16:33.480 --> 3:16:36.000 little bit of dignity as much as we can. One 3:16:36.040 --> 3:16:38.360 thing that you mentioned that we haven't spoken about we 3:16:38.480 --> 3:16:43.600 should is elected officials and local federal state governments. How 3:16:43.680 --> 3:16:47.000 much support, if any, have either of these sites received 3:16:47.080 --> 3:16:49.920 from people in elected office. 3:16:51.440 --> 3:16:57.320 You know, we have had support from Senator Seph Bala's office. 3:16:58.480 --> 3:17:02.200 That's been to me oppressive to see how much interest 3:17:02.240 --> 3:17:06.959 there is, how much advocacy there is from staff from 3:17:07.000 --> 3:17:11.600 that office. We have not necessarily had much support from 3:17:11.879 --> 3:17:16.800 congressional or federal senators. We have not seen them really 3:17:16.840 --> 3:17:21.880 on the ground. There is a responsibility I believe that 3:17:22.040 --> 3:17:26.440 the County of San Diego has to meet some of 3:17:26.520 --> 3:17:32.039 these challenging circumstances at the transit centers, they're bocking, I feel, 3:17:32.160 --> 3:17:36.240 and to the detriment of people who need these services 3:17:36.360 --> 3:17:39.879 and need the support. I believe the San Diego Police 3:17:39.920 --> 3:17:43.720 Department has been suggesting where people should be dropped off 3:17:44.200 --> 3:17:47.920 and not listening to folks on the ground about how 3:17:47.959 --> 3:17:51.320 the IRIS station should be central and not dividing the 3:17:51.520 --> 3:17:54.680 drop offs between Irish and Sandy Seso for instance. So 3:17:54.800 --> 3:17:59.520 there's a lot of a lot of necessity for local 3:17:59.600 --> 3:18:02.720 government to be coordinating with state and federal governments and 3:18:03.200 --> 3:18:06.600 and that's lacking again to the detriment of people who 3:18:06.680 --> 3:18:07.520 are cut in the middle. 3:18:09.240 --> 3:18:11.680 How about James and Jack And have you seen any 3:18:11.800 --> 3:18:13.160 sort of government support? 3:18:14.640 --> 3:18:15.959 No, not at all. 3:18:18.200 --> 3:18:22.960 I've you know, heard through channels of you know, sources 3:18:23.120 --> 3:18:28.160 that work for the county and they claim that they're 3:18:28.280 --> 3:18:31.560 handcuffed or that it's Border Patrols responsibility. And then Border 3:18:31.600 --> 3:18:34.760 Patrol is saying it's the county's responsibility, and it just 3:18:35.080 --> 3:18:39.920 it seems like appointing fingers. No one's trying to take 3:18:41.520 --> 3:18:45.480 you know, responsibility for it. And maybe that's because it's 3:18:45.520 --> 3:18:47.720 going to be something that's going to go on for 3:18:47.760 --> 3:18:52.000 a while. It's not something that either wants to you know, 3:18:52.320 --> 3:18:55.879 take on the responsibility of. And you know, you've seen 3:18:56.240 --> 3:18:59.640 county supervisors speak out against it, push them the blame. 3:19:00.760 --> 3:19:03.920 People are here, this is San Diego County, this is 3:19:03.920 --> 3:19:06.600 the United States. Someone needs to take care of, you know, 3:19:07.000 --> 3:19:09.840 the people here. That's that's the role of government. That's 3:19:09.840 --> 3:19:13.440 why people pay taxes for you know, for services, and 3:19:13.560 --> 3:19:16.000 services need to be provided for. You know, we pay 3:19:16.080 --> 3:19:19.400 taxes so other people can get services as well, citizens 3:19:19.480 --> 3:19:22.560 non citizens like that. To me, it seems so easy. 3:19:24.400 --> 3:19:27.080 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean. 3:19:27.000 --> 3:19:29.280 That's that's everything that you've been told, but everything that 3:19:29.320 --> 3:19:33.120 you're not seeing, you know, in practice. So I mean, 3:19:33.200 --> 3:19:35.920 this whole thing is to us on the ground, it 3:19:36.040 --> 3:19:39.680 seems so simple of how it should be done. But 3:19:41.240 --> 3:19:43.040 like you know, anytime, and we've spoke on it. I 3:19:43.120 --> 3:19:45.760 think on the last episode as well, like money's big issues. 3:19:45.800 --> 3:19:48.200 You're going to spend all this money, they need to 3:19:48.240 --> 3:19:49.680 make sure that their money is going in the right 3:19:49.720 --> 3:19:50.800 pockets that they wanted to. 3:19:51.480 --> 3:19:55.240 Yeah, Like I was sitting out in her cumba with 3:19:55.400 --> 3:19:59.320 the colleague and we got overflown by a uh sixty 3:19:59.400 --> 3:20:02.800 black Hawk, a Border Patrol helicopter, and it just hobbling 3:20:02.840 --> 3:20:07.440 around checking us out, and like it's just so I 3:20:07.480 --> 3:20:09.840 don't know, it's just so depressing to see this helicopter 3:20:09.920 --> 3:20:12.280 which costs millions of dollars, which are thousands of dollars 3:20:12.400 --> 3:20:14.800 just to take off next to the border wall, which 3:20:14.840 --> 3:20:16.880 got twelve million dollars a mile. And like on the 3:20:16.959 --> 3:20:19.720 same day that the San Diego City Council found an 3:20:19.720 --> 3:20:22.200 amicus brief in this case of the Supreme Court to 3:20:22.280 --> 3:20:25.400 allow it to further criminalize and house people. We have 3:20:25.680 --> 3:20:28.960 all these resources and we're just throwing them, as Pedera said, 3:20:29.240 --> 3:20:34.240 enforcement and criminalization of the most marginalized people in our communities, 3:20:34.320 --> 3:20:37.000 rather than giving a thirsty personal bottle of water or 3:20:37.040 --> 3:20:41.800 like a little baby blanket. And yeah, it's really hard. 3:20:42.760 --> 3:20:45.160 It's one of those agents over time of the day 3:20:45.320 --> 3:20:50.560 could literally feed everybody there. Yes, we're all like you know, 3:20:51.360 --> 3:20:55.959 calculating calories per dollar of like the mule and trying 3:20:56.000 --> 3:20:59.720 to get like every single dollar to stretch because we 3:20:59.760 --> 3:21:01.240 don't know how long this is going to go on, 3:21:01.520 --> 3:21:07.080 because we know that public perception and interest is something 3:21:07.320 --> 3:21:12.720 that is not sustained. And the purpose too, because for instance, 3:21:13.040 --> 3:21:16.360 Border Patrol is claiming and they were on what outlet 3:21:16.480 --> 3:21:18.439 was it CBA. 3:21:18.440 --> 3:21:21.440 CBS eight local San Diego said, I need to report 3:21:21.480 --> 3:21:24.000 that the Kumba camps are cleared. There's no one's there. 3:21:24.160 --> 3:21:26.000 I just you know, I had to step away from 3:21:26.040 --> 3:21:30.600 this this recording for a few to get an update 3:21:31.080 --> 3:21:36.320 that there are people still showing up. There's getting trying 3:21:36.320 --> 3:21:38.040 to get cleared out as quick as possible as people 3:21:38.040 --> 3:21:39.800 show up because it's in the public eye. But also 3:21:39.959 --> 3:21:44.480 now the power company is threatening legal action and criminal 3:21:44.560 --> 3:21:48.400 action against any aid orgs or people they show up. 3:21:49.040 --> 3:21:53.400 Oh great, cool, that'll be fun. Yeah, I mean yeah, 3:21:53.480 --> 3:21:57.080 the reporting on this has been poor, even more poor 3:21:57.120 --> 3:21:59.320 than it was in May. I'll say, like out in Hokumba, 3:22:00.000 --> 3:22:02.640 it's hard to get to. James and I both spent 3:22:02.680 --> 3:22:04.959 a decent junk of yesterday morning trying to direct people 3:22:05.000 --> 3:22:08.720 how to not get lost out there. But like I 3:22:08.840 --> 3:22:11.640 think more persinently when there is not an election or 3:22:11.680 --> 3:22:14.440 like a narrative that migration fits in. It gets, certainly 3:22:14.560 --> 3:22:18.199 by national outlets forgotten with the end of Title forty 3:22:18.200 --> 3:22:22.360 two in May. I think everyone had their like sort 3:22:22.360 --> 3:22:26.360 of doomsday op eds in the weeks beforehand, and then 3:22:26.560 --> 3:22:30.000 that that didn't actually happen in the way that it 3:22:30.240 --> 3:22:33.640 had been sort of like quote unquote experts who don't 3:22:33.680 --> 3:22:35.879 come to the border very often had predicted it would, 3:22:35.959 --> 3:22:39.280 and so folks turned up, especially at Whiskey eight, and 3:22:39.440 --> 3:22:43.080 did the sort of crisis story. But we haven't seen 3:22:43.120 --> 3:22:43.879 that this time. 3:22:44.560 --> 3:22:49.560 And you know, now it's appearing really different because, like 3:22:49.680 --> 3:22:54.520 you see sort of the management by border patrol of 3:22:56.360 --> 3:23:01.840 the situation in order to sort of shield the public 3:23:01.920 --> 3:23:05.360 from like the true level of the crisis. So in 3:23:05.520 --> 3:23:10.320 claiming that Umba has been cleared, I suppose that's technically 3:23:10.720 --> 3:23:13.560 correct if they're referring to the you know, they're relying 3:23:13.640 --> 3:23:16.920 on reality in order to so people, the average everyday 3:23:16.959 --> 3:23:18.879 person that's not immersed in this is going to read 3:23:18.879 --> 3:23:20.560 that and they're like, oh good, it's been cleared. Because like, 3:23:21.080 --> 3:23:23.480 my family back home knows a lot of like really 3:23:23.520 --> 3:23:26.560 conservative folks Outland par Valley, and like even the most 3:23:26.600 --> 3:23:29.360 conservative people I knew back in May were like, oh 3:23:29.400 --> 3:23:31.720 my gosh, how could they have babies out there in 3:23:31.800 --> 3:23:32.320 the desert. 3:23:32.400 --> 3:23:33.240 That's so horrible. 3:23:33.280 --> 3:23:36.040 And people had, you know, a lot of really strong 3:23:36.320 --> 3:23:41.800 emotions to seeing families huddled in the desert for a week. Now, 3:23:42.160 --> 3:23:46.240 it seems like there's a really deliberate management of like 3:23:46.560 --> 3:23:49.400 the pr with respect to this situation. 3:23:50.040 --> 3:23:50.760 So yeah, like. 3:23:50.840 --> 3:23:53.520 Relying on the technicality of Hakumba being cleared because the 3:23:53.600 --> 3:23:56.800 main camp in town has been cleared, but ten fifteen 3:23:56.840 --> 3:24:00.280 minutes away, there's still hundreds of people, and we're the 3:24:00.360 --> 3:24:02.520 ones that are out on social media screaming into the 3:24:02.600 --> 3:24:05.840 void into each other. Hey, this is still happening, people 3:24:06.120 --> 3:24:08.800 are you know, there's an amputee out here whose leg 3:24:08.920 --> 3:24:12.080 is bleeding. There is someone out here who hasn't had 3:24:12.120 --> 3:24:14.280 his heart medication for a week. Like those kind of 3:24:14.320 --> 3:24:18.119 situations are occurring still, while the report and the public 3:24:18.160 --> 3:24:20.320 perception is like, ohhkum has been cleared, it's all good. 3:24:21.120 --> 3:24:24.720 So unless somebody is like already involved, they're generally not 3:24:24.840 --> 3:24:25.480 hearing about it. 3:24:25.640 --> 3:24:27.360 And I think that's on purpose too. 3:24:28.320 --> 3:24:31.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's Yeah, that's a very 3:24:31.959 --> 3:24:34.280 that's a very niche technicality. It might not be within 3:24:34.360 --> 3:24:36.440 the boundaries of the town of a Cumba, but like 3:24:37.040 --> 3:24:40.640 people are still being corraled in the desert with no services, right, 3:24:41.000 --> 3:24:44.240 and that that's what we should care about, not which 3:24:44.360 --> 3:24:47.560 district they're in or what have you. So I think 3:24:47.720 --> 3:24:50.600 people have probably heard why now that things are bad 3:24:50.680 --> 3:24:52.240 and we don't know how bad they will be, and 3:24:52.320 --> 3:24:54.240 then maybe they'll get worse, maybe they'll get better, and 3:24:54.720 --> 3:24:57.400 hopefully they'll want to support. So how can people do that? Like, 3:24:57.520 --> 3:25:01.600 what what resource? Like what I guess the concrete actions 3:25:01.640 --> 3:25:03.280 can they take? Where can they give you money? How 3:25:03.320 --> 3:25:05.279 can they send you supplies if they want to volunteer 3:25:05.320 --> 3:25:07.840 in there in the county, how can they do that? 3:25:08.000 --> 3:25:10.400 And what kind of volunteers are most needed? 3:25:11.000 --> 3:25:15.720 Yeah, for Border Kindness, monetary donations are the biggest help 3:25:15.760 --> 3:25:19.600 that allows us to meet current needs, daily needs. We're 3:25:19.720 --> 3:25:24.119 on venmo at Border dash Kindness Cash app at Border 3:25:24.200 --> 3:25:28.600 Kindness Cash, they'll info at Borderkindness dot Org. 3:25:31.840 --> 3:25:41.400 Volunteering volunteering is pretty sensitive, We're not We understand that 3:25:43.160 --> 3:25:46.040 our team is already incredibly taxed, so we do need 3:25:46.080 --> 3:25:50.720 support in terms of like food preparation and getting supplies 3:25:50.720 --> 3:25:54.760 out there, transporting supplies, but it is a very sensitive situation, 3:25:55.120 --> 3:26:01.080 so we do want to I don't know if vet 3:26:01.280 --> 3:26:05.120 or we want to be able to talk to the 3:26:05.160 --> 3:26:11.160 people that want to volunteer, so certain expectations that they 3:26:11.240 --> 3:26:14.000 may have or some certain needs that we may have 3:26:14.120 --> 3:26:19.320 are all communicated really clearly. So the organization very amazingly 3:26:19.600 --> 3:26:25.200 agreed to help us with that task of screening volunteers. 3:26:25.480 --> 3:26:28.880 So people, if they are wanting to do so and 3:26:28.959 --> 3:26:35.320 come out to Hakumba, to email volunteer at Ala dot org. 3:26:36.120 --> 3:26:37.920 Perfect, Yeah, that's pretty good. 3:26:38.400 --> 3:26:40.600 Yeah, I'll send you that info and they can just 3:26:40.640 --> 3:26:43.400 say like what are they interested in doing, where they're 3:26:43.440 --> 3:26:45.240 located and that sort of thing, and then we'll be 3:26:45.280 --> 3:26:52.360 in touch. Primarily, I mean more than anything, Like twenty 3:26:52.400 --> 3:26:55.240 dollars is a tarp to cover a family and keep 3:26:55.320 --> 3:26:56.760 somebody shielded from the wind. 3:26:59.160 --> 3:27:01.039 We can feed a lot of people with one hundred dollars. 3:27:02.040 --> 3:27:07.040 So financial support is the most direct way, even though 3:27:07.080 --> 3:27:12.279 it's not necessarily always feasible for people, it is the most. 3:27:12.560 --> 3:27:14.400 Efficient way for us to be able to buy items 3:27:14.440 --> 3:27:14.880 in bulk. 3:27:15.560 --> 3:27:18.119 Yeah, I think even five bucks, right, Like maybe that's 3:27:18.160 --> 3:27:19.800 two people and it really makes a day to have 3:27:19.840 --> 3:27:20.400 a whole meal. 3:27:20.800 --> 3:27:21.320 Oh my gosh. 3:27:21.440 --> 3:27:23.080 Yeah, anything helps. 3:27:23.440 --> 3:27:25.680 So yeah, people can definitely do this. How about for 3:27:25.800 --> 3:27:28.080 American French service cammit be better? How can people donate 3:27:28.360 --> 3:27:29.360 volunteer help? 3:27:30.360 --> 3:27:32.480 Yeah, I mean I would. I would also stress what 3:27:32.840 --> 3:27:36.280 Jacqueline said in terms of vetting people and volunteers. It's 3:27:36.760 --> 3:27:39.400 you know, it's not it's not easy work, and we 3:27:39.480 --> 3:27:42.480 want to make sure that when people are volunteering that 3:27:42.600 --> 3:27:47.520 there's a certain level of emotional strength that people are 3:27:47.560 --> 3:27:51.360 able to have. It's very tough work. And at the 3:27:51.440 --> 3:27:54.640 same time make sure that what we're doing does not 3:27:54.959 --> 3:28:00.320 negatively impact those that we are presuming to want to help, right, 3:28:00.400 --> 3:28:04.119 and so that's important. I think going through those channels. 3:28:04.200 --> 3:28:07.120 If you you know the folks that are leading the 3:28:09.360 --> 3:28:13.360 work at the transit centers, check in with them first. 3:28:14.640 --> 3:28:16.080 But then there are other things that could be done. 3:28:16.120 --> 3:28:18.640 The other day, someone showed up with twenty boxes of pizza, 3:28:19.280 --> 3:28:24.120 you know, a very useful, easy way to support connecting 3:28:24.200 --> 3:28:27.520 with people and finding out what the needs are. That's 3:28:27.560 --> 3:28:31.800 another way. If if you would rather purchase the tarps yourselves, 3:28:31.879 --> 3:28:35.560 for instance, do that and then we can pick them 3:28:35.640 --> 3:28:38.959 up we can find out how to meet and pick 3:28:39.080 --> 3:28:42.560 up those items. If you want to donate. There are 3:28:42.920 --> 3:28:46.640 multiple organizations doing this work. I believe someone was working 3:28:46.680 --> 3:28:49.720 on a list to produce for us. Going on the 3:28:49.760 --> 3:28:53.880 website AFC dot org and being sure that you find 3:28:53.959 --> 3:28:58.040 our locations San Diego, so that our program then receives 3:28:58.080 --> 3:29:00.760 that donation directly. If the program goes to the overall 3:29:00.760 --> 3:29:02.360 a f C, we won't see it. 3:29:02.520 --> 3:29:03.760 So just be very. 3:29:04.240 --> 3:29:07.840 Mindful of when you're donating to a f CFC dot org. 3:29:08.320 --> 3:29:11.480 First locate the Sending a program office and then find 3:29:11.520 --> 3:29:15.240 the donate page on there so that we can be 3:29:15.360 --> 3:29:19.960 assured that you are sending it to our program, or 3:29:20.120 --> 3:29:22.920 you can definitely contact me and I could also assist 3:29:22.959 --> 3:29:23.320 you with that. 3:29:24.400 --> 3:29:26.080 Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's important that 3:29:26.160 --> 3:29:29.200 both if you sort of centered with regard to volunteering, 3:29:29.280 --> 3:29:32.840 that like there are organizations that exist to serve volunteers 3:29:32.920 --> 3:29:35.560 through facilitating like a service experience to them, and that 3:29:35.680 --> 3:29:38.040 that's not what is happening here, Like this is about 3:29:38.480 --> 3:29:41.320 serving people who are very vulnerable, So like there has 3:29:41.360 --> 3:29:44.240 to be some kind of vetting process and people have 3:29:44.360 --> 3:29:46.760 to understand that, like that's part of keeping those people 3:29:46.840 --> 3:29:51.119 safe and that that's why that's happening. So yeah, thank 3:29:51.240 --> 3:29:54.000 thank you very much for this. We'll keep covering it obviously, 3:29:55.160 --> 3:30:00.120 and I really hope people can find some resources to 3:30:00.200 --> 3:30:03.520 donate because it's been very taxing financially and all these 3:30:03.560 --> 3:30:06.960 groups and in our community generally. Is there anything else 3:30:07.000 --> 3:30:09.240 you guys would like to share before we finish up? 3:30:10.440 --> 3:30:13.120 The only thing I would add is that you know, 3:30:13.240 --> 3:30:16.320 pressing the authorities. That's the other way. If you are 3:30:16.400 --> 3:30:20.960 able to connect with the county, you know, your county 3:30:21.040 --> 3:30:23.920 supervisor in San Diego, press on them that they have 3:30:24.040 --> 3:30:27.680 a responsibility and an obligation to respond to this in 3:30:27.760 --> 3:30:31.720 a way that supports people who need to support And 3:30:32.000 --> 3:30:33.680 that's where I would push towards. 3:30:34.480 --> 3:30:36.720 Yeah, I'll add to that that having spoken to people 3:30:36.800 --> 3:30:39.240 in the county and then in state office, like if 3:30:39.280 --> 3:30:41.880 you call, that makes more difference, and if you email, 3:30:42.080 --> 3:30:45.000 so if you have the time to make a phone call, 3:30:45.600 --> 3:30:48.920 that could help a lot. Anything else from you, James Jaqueline, 3:30:49.760 --> 3:30:50.039 That's what. 3:30:50.080 --> 3:30:51.960 I can think of. I mean, everything changes daily, so 3:30:52.360 --> 3:30:54.200 if we were the record them so every single day, 3:30:54.200 --> 3:30:55.560 I'm sure I could come with something new. 3:30:55.680 --> 3:30:55.840 Yeah. 3:30:55.920 --> 3:31:00.360 Yeah, for people to stay clued in with pannels of 3:31:00.400 --> 3:31:03.840 communications such as this podcast that are actually with people 3:31:03.879 --> 3:31:07.520 on the ground and share that with their community is 3:31:07.560 --> 3:31:10.800 really important. Like we're already getting like some social media 3:31:11.000 --> 3:31:13.560 kind of comments. I mean, it happens every time about 3:31:13.600 --> 3:31:16.640 how we're aiding and abetting people breaking the law. But 3:31:16.720 --> 3:31:20.160 it's the government breaking the law. They're breaking international asylum law. 3:31:20.640 --> 3:31:25.280 And it's really important for people who aren't as versed 3:31:25.360 --> 3:31:27.760 in all of this to stay aware of that that 3:31:27.920 --> 3:31:31.440 everybody who is presenting for asylum has a legal right 3:31:31.520 --> 3:31:31.880 to do so. 3:31:32.080 --> 3:31:32.840 Not that it matters. 3:31:32.879 --> 3:31:37.520 I mean they have, like it's a humanitarian right, yes, 3:31:38.440 --> 3:31:41.040 but for people who are very concerned with legality, or 3:31:41.160 --> 3:31:47.120 at least they lean heavily on legality, presenting for asylum 3:31:47.280 --> 3:31:52.800 is illegally protected right, and that's something that is actually being. 3:31:56.000 --> 3:31:59.200 Cut short by the government in violation of that. 3:32:00.120 --> 3:32:02.120 Yeah, I think you're right. It doesn't really matter. Like 3:32:02.120 --> 3:32:03.720 I really don't give a shit about. 3:32:03.520 --> 3:32:08.440 Like, yeah, come back people that really about. 3:32:07.600 --> 3:32:07.960 It, you know. 3:32:08.480 --> 3:32:10.440 Yeah, Yeah, yeah, it's good to it's good to remind 3:32:10.480 --> 3:32:14.120 them that they are wrong, both morally and legally exactly. Yeah, 3:32:14.280 --> 3:32:16.480 So what would your social media SPA. If people wanted 3:32:16.480 --> 3:32:18.240 to keep up to date with what's happening. 3:32:19.879 --> 3:32:23.880 Border Kindness on Instagram tends to have the most up 3:32:23.920 --> 3:32:27.120 to date common I mean shares of like what we're doing, 3:32:28.200 --> 3:32:31.880 and that will have updates in our stories and our 3:32:31.959 --> 3:32:34.680 posts of how to help what's going on. 3:32:35.080 --> 3:32:35.800 How about you, Petri. 3:32:37.320 --> 3:32:39.480 We're we're terrible with our social media, but you can 3:32:39.520 --> 3:32:41.880 definitely find some of our work there a f C 3:32:42.879 --> 3:32:46.279 San Diego. Just look for a f C San Diego 3:32:46.560 --> 3:32:54.120 minus Pederal Pedro mostly on on Twitter, some ig and 3:32:56.520 --> 3:32:59.240 I'll be updating some items later today. 3:33:00.080 --> 3:33:00.280 Fact. 3:33:00.360 --> 3:33:03.680 Yeah, one more question, because people contacted me in May 3:33:03.760 --> 3:33:06.040 to ask if they could donate air miles to facilitate 3:33:06.120 --> 3:33:09.360 travel for folks after they've been paroled into the US. 3:33:09.840 --> 3:33:11.800 Is that something that AFSC can do? 3:33:14.440 --> 3:33:16.960 There is another organization that I'm not sure that's what 3:33:17.040 --> 3:33:19.760 you just mentioned a now, the Miles for Migrants. 3:33:20.320 --> 3:33:21.680 Yeah, Miles for Migrants, Yeah. 3:33:21.480 --> 3:33:26.039 Absolutely, absolutely a wonderful organization and that we've used through 3:33:26.080 --> 3:33:29.560 some of our other assists organizations and getting people to 3:33:29.600 --> 3:33:32.160 their final destinations. I would say that might be the 3:33:32.240 --> 3:33:32.960 best way right now. 3:33:33.240 --> 3:33:34.879 Okay, Yeah, so that's the thing people can do if 3:33:34.920 --> 3:33:37.440 they happen to have a surplus of those. And great, 3:33:37.480 --> 3:33:39.600 thank you so much for your time. I know you're 3:33:39.640 --> 3:33:43.840 all extremely busy. I appreciate it. And yeah, hopefully people 3:33:43.920 --> 3:33:46.080 listening will find a way to support if they can. 3:33:46.840 --> 3:33:48.560 Thanks guys, great, thank you. 3:33:52.360 --> 3:33:55.520 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:33:55.600 --> 3:33:57.480 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:33:58.120 --> 3:34:00.440 It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:34:00.680 --> 3:34:03.359 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:34:03.400 --> 3:34:06.520 Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:34:06.520 --> 3:34:09.720 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:34:09.760 --> 3:34:12.400 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 3:34:12.480 --> 3:34:14.680 Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. 3:34:14.879 --> 3:34:15.680 Thanks for listening.