WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 160 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.280 All media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.760 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.440 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.719 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:24.800 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:25.680 Hi. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.240 Everyone, it's me James, and I'm coming at you today 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.680 with one of these little requests that I make sometimes 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.000 when there's something that we would like you to do, 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.800 when it's very important to do. So today I want 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.960 to talk to you about Syria and specifically Northeast Syria. 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.360 So with the world's eyes fixed on Syria, many are 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.640 rightly celebrating as a brutal dictatorship of Bashara Lasad comes 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.840 to an end. But for Kurdish and other minority communities, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.800 recent days have bought violent attacks, ethnic cleansing and occupation 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.920 by Turkey's back Jahadis groups in an attempt to take 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.520 advantage of the chaos by crushing the Rajava Revolution. Turkey 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.360 and it's most openly committing war crimes against the regions 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.039 autonomous communities. Many thousands have already been forced to be 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.319 displaced and thousands more are in danger. To make matters 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.320 worth this remains largely absent from the mainstream media reporting 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.319 on Syria. If you'd like to share your solidarity with 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.600 the people of northern and Eastern Syria, please call on 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.560 Congress to take urgent action by passing the emergency legislation 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.119 to stop the violence, hold Turkey accountable, and commit US 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.200 sport to the Syrian Democratic forces and the diverse communities 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.280 under their protection. If you want to take action today, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.120 you can go to defend Rajaba dot org. That's d 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.679 E F E N d R oja va dot org. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.600 If you are able to the most effective action we 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.600 can take right now is to call a couple of representatives, 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.240 one representative and one Senator. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.400 A representative would be Gregory Meeks. He's from New York. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.440 He's a Democrat. He is a ranking member of the 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.560 House Foreign Affairs Committee. His phone number is two zero 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.560 two two two five three four six one Leevlon Bee. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.200 Senator James rish He's an Idaho Republican. He is a 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.559 ranking member's Senate Foreign Relations committee. His phone number would 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.799 be two zero two two two four two seven five two. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.919 If you'd like to have some talking points, you can 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.360 find those on Defendbrajaba dot org. If you'd like to 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.520 donate financially instead, especially to this humanitarian aid effort for 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.280 the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.640 by the SNA's advances, you can donate to two organizations 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.720 that I would suggest to. First would be Heavier Sre 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:35.000 the Curtis Red Crescent. That's h E YVA s O 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.040 R dot com and you want to go slash e 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:39.760 n If you want to see their website in English, 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.800 you can donate there. The other one will be the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.080 Free Burma Rangers who are currently working in Raka. I 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.880 was talking to my friend Habat who works with them. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.440 You can donate to them at www dot free Free 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.000 Burma b U r m A Rangers dot com. We 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.680 will put all of this in the show notes, although 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.600 if you're driving you have to write them down. Those 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.639 are the concrete ways that we can help right now 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.400 and what is unfolding as a very terrible situation in 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.360 No Syria. Thanks, I hope you do an episode. 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.800 Welcome back to it. Could happen to hear a podcast 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:19.239 about Garrison Davis talking to me. Also, the world falling apart? 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.919 How do you feel about that? Gear? How you doing? 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.079 I'm pretty used to it by now, honestly. Yeah, we've 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.240 been doing this whole thing for quite a quite a while. 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:29.560 You sure have. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.079 Have you noticed that some of these some of these 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.240 cabinet picks are a little funny, They're a little bit odd. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.640 Have you noticed that yet? I don't know. I get 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:42.520 kind of a funny feeling about some of these guys. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.040 You've heard about this? Are you hearing about this? Yeah? 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.520 I don't love it either, Gear. They don't seem cool 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:49.040 and good. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.480 I mean, not all of them are like sticking around. 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:54.960 I guess you know. Matt Gatz is now out of 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.400 the job. Tragic, kind of like Icarus. He flew he 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.000 flew too close to an elementary sc. 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.520 Yeah, we've already got our scare Mucci. I was gonna 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.680 make a Scaremuccie joke, but your joke was much better. 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.240 It was a really fast turnaround for Gates too. Yeah, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.840 and now we're all watching Pete to see if he 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.120 if cures the top job at the Pentagon. But today 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.760 we're talking about this other guy named Cash Patel. How 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.599 do you feel about Cash Ptel, Robert. 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:28.640 Uh, not thrilled, kind of worry, not thrilled. Matt Gates 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.000 really seemed like the kind of guy you used to 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.920 make your sketchy Secret police and Cash Pattel as I 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:35.960 guess your backup to that guy. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.880 Totally, yeah, or at least, like I don't know. Cash 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.880 is different in a few ways, Like he does a 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.000 lot more kind of dirty work because he's not like 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.920 important as a person. He just wants to be seen 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.920 by Daddy Trump. And this episode, we're gonna get into 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.680 a little bit of Cash's backstory, what his plans are 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.000 for the FBI as he is now nominated for the 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.160 position of being director of the FBI, as well as 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.480 kind of what Cash been up to in the four 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.320 years since Trump's been out of office. So let's just 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.240 start all the way back to the beginning for background 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.240 on mister Patel here. Okay, So, Cash Pattel was born 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.640 in New York, but after graduating law school in two 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.279 thousand and five, he worked as a public defender in 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.560 Florida for nine years before becoming a federal prosecutor in 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.960 the National Security Division of the DOJ. He didn't really 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.800 want to be a public defender. It's that he really 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.040 couldn't get any other jobs because he wasn't like that's skilled. 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.800 So he ended up just working as a public defender, 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.160 even though it wasn't really what he wanted to do 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.599 out of law. But once he got to the DOJ, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.880 he worked as a terrorism prosecutor. According to a DoD profile, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.320 Patel quote led investigations spanning multiple theaters of conflict and 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.680 oversaw the successful prosecution of criminals aligned with al Qaeda, ISIS, 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.719 and other terroot groups unquote. Patel also worked with quote 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:59.680 counter terrorism units to conduct collaborative global targeting operations against 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.480 high value terrorism targets unquote. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.080 Right, Okay, I'm sure he was good at that job. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.080 I'm sure he didn't have any really embarrassing failures during 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:11.000 that period of time. 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.560 No, No, I say that just for kind of his 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.720 like more like surveillance background. But we will certainly get 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.120 to his ability to complete these jobs on a reliable 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.479 basis and like. Although that info is directly from the 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:30.280 DoD's website, Patel himself has exaggerated his career record, claiming 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.800 in a YouTube podcast to have been the quote unquote 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.200 lead prosecutor in the case against the twenty twelve Benghazi attackers. 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.440 Patel actually was not even part of the trial team, 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.240 was only a junior staff member at the DOJ at 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.279 the time, and he was removed from this case for 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.080 clashing with the US Attorney's office. But this incident kind 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.919 of marks the start of a few unfortunate events in 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.600 his career that really started to kind of turn Patel 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.400 against the justice system. To the New York Times, in 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.560 twenty sixteen, Patel was thrown out of a courtroom for 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.880 wearing quote rumpled khakis, boat shoes and a too small 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:10.560 borrowed jacket unquote. 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.320 I hate that he's got on my cousin Vinnie in 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.800 his record, because that movie is great and it gets 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.320 me on his side in a way I definitely shouldn't be. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.320 Did he Did he come in next wearing like a 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.320 funeral director's tuxedo or a fucking band leader's tuxedo or whatever. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.559 I don't know how to describe the tuxedo Vinie Weares 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.600 in the scene after that, anyway. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.360 No, he was just kicked out of the courtroom, with 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.520 the judge saying, quote if you want to be a 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.120 lawyer dressed like a lawyer unquote. Now this judge was 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.240 also like a racist asshole. Not defending the judge here. 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.240 And to be clear, Cash Bettel was not dating Marisitome. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.120 He could never pull Marsitome. 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.600 He could never pull I mean, honestly jokes, who can 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.440 That's yeah. 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.440 But this incident is an important part of his career trajectory. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.280 A profile in The Atlantic details Patel as growing increasingly 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.600 frustrated and disillusioned by his failure to navigate and rise 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.480 up in the justice system, just collecting more and more 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.080 personal grievances that fuel an animosity towards the bureaucracy of 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.680 the legal system, based on people's apparent unwillingness to help 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:24.080 him excel in his own career. But in twenty eighteen, 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:28.600 Patel got his really first like big break, with Republican 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.880 Representative Devin and Nunez hiring Patel to be the House 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.920 Intelligence Committee's lead investigator to disrupt the Special Council investigation 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.640 into Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election. Trump was 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.560 impressed enough with Patel's work under Nunez that he gave 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.920 Patel a job on the National Security Council and later 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.400 served as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:53.440 Christopher Miller. Trump mused about having Patel as deputy director 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.040 of the FBI or director of the CIA in late 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.880 twenty twenty after the election, but this led to harsh 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.400 resistance from within his own administration, with ag Bill Barr 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.000 saying that Patel would only become FBI director quote over 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.640 my dead body, unquote. So I don't know if we'll have 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:16.640 any updates on that, yeah say. But instead, back in 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.360 twenty twenty, Trump just put Patel on the Pentagon transition team. 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.280 Trump basically tasked Patel was doing dirty work and awarded 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.160 him with promotions for following orders. Patel advised on the 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.520 Ukraine impeachment, spread conspiracy theories that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.880 in the twenty sixteen election, created a list of intelligence 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.040 agency officials to fire in February of twenty twenty, and 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.600 helped manage the now dismissed a classified documents case against Trump. 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.080 The former deputy national advisor to Trump, Charles Kupperman, said 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.160 in an interview quote Trump wanted to make Cash a 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.120 political executioner to root out and fire individuals on the 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.360 White House staff who weren't being as loyal as he 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.040 thought they should be unquote. So that's kind of a 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.240 good look at him as a person, and like what 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:10.280 Cash's rule is like specifically for Trump and with the 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.559 possibility of the justice system becoming just more and more 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.680 of like a tool to target Trump's political rivals, Cash 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:17.720 is the exact guy that you would pick, especially for 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.160 a job that has like an investigative focus like the FBI. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.439 But Cash isn't always good at his job necessarily. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:27.400 Well, who amongst us? 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.439 We're gonna talk about one specific incident here that's one 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.600 of like the wildest stories in like national security that 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.880 I've ever read. In October of twenty twenty four, days 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.320 before the election, the Pentagon was planning an operation for 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.240 Sale Team six to rescue an American citizen, Philip Walton, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.200 who was kidnapped in Niger and being held in Nigeria. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.559 As the State Department was working to communicate with officials 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.120 in Nigeria to clear airspace for the operation, Patel, who 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.239 was not part of this operation, just called the Pentagon 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.760 saying that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had gotten approval 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:07.120 from Nigeria and the airspace was deconflicted, so as the 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.360 Seals were about to land in Nigeria, defense officials couldn't 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.480 verify that the flight actually had clearance, leaving the aircraft 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.960 to circle over the target for hours as they scrambled 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.720 to get approval from Nigeria. According to former Defense Secretary 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:26.360 Mark Esper, Patel was never in communication with Mike Pompeo 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:30.760 about this mission, and Defense officials concluded that Patel quote 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:37.000 made the approval story up. Unquote. Cool guy, this is wild. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.760 You almost caught Sealed Team six like shot out of 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.600 the air because you made up a story about having 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:44.480 flight clearance. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:45.760 It's like, it's crazy. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.520 Yeah, I mean, this is exactly the guy you want 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.120 running the FBI, for sure. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.800 A Pentagon official yelled at Cash, quote, you could have 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.280 gotten those guys killed. What the fuck were you thinking, 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.760 to which Cash replied, if no, but it got hurt. 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:02.359 Who the fuck cares? 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.040 Amazing stuff, amazing stuff. 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:07.840 Let him cook crazy stuff. 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.200 Look, here's the thing, Garrison, if it had gone the 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.360 worst possible way it could have gone, we'd have been 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:18.200 saved at least four interminable books and at least three podcasts. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.800 So like people like interviewed in the Atlantic, and I 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.800 think the author of the profile on Cash kind of 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.720 muses that, like maybe Cash just wanted this operation done 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.080 before the election to give Trump like an extra win 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.360 leading up to the polls. I don't know, it's it's 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.200 it's certainly odd, but like Cash has a very like 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.679 inflated sense of like personal worth. In an interview with 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.600 Glenn Beck, he talked about how like people should should 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:48.280 trust his expertise because quote, I've read the entire JFK file. 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.920 Well, I mean, geez you and Oliver Stone. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.160 Right, he makes comments like that, It's like no, no, no, 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.560 like trust me. I know everything, Like I've read all 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.959 the classified stuff that you're not allowed to. I'm like 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.880 the smartest guy in the room. I've read everything, right, 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.440 Like he's he uses this as like a as a 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.880 way to like inflate his own personal worth and like 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.120 flex to weird right wing online podcast. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.120 S grifters people have made this point. But it's guys 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.440 like this that have convinced me that there's no at 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.680 least no like perfectly known to intelligence smoking gun about 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:27.080 the Kennedy assassination. That shit would have leaked so quickly no, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.440 if not before Trump was in office, then certainly about 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:31.280 the time he was. 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.920 Yeah, because you have guys like Cash Battel reading these files. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:35.960 There's nothing in there. 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.040 There's no or at least if there is, it's the 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:40.920 kind of thing there may be a smoking gun that 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.600 someone who is deeply knowledgeable at the time period be like, oh, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:45.200 the fact that this guy was here at this time 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.319 really means that this other thing happened, and like, yeah, yeah, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:48.520 the Cash Hotel doesn't know shit. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.040 Yeah, he is not smart enough to put any pieces 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.880 together or maybe there's even still redacted and the versions 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.760 that he's reading don't really have any like pertinent info. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.120 Right. People are just like, let's not give this guy 0:13:59.200 --> 0:13:59.840 the real one. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:06.840 No, No, this guy likelying about prosecuting the Bengazi attackers 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:09.120 and almost got Seal Team six killed. 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.719 Now, oh man, and of all this, out of all 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.880 the Seal teams to get killed too, that's the one 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.200 that would be the biggest news day. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.840 Do you know who would never kill Seal Team six? 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.720 Robert I'm never gonna say never about killing Seal Team six. 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.600 Well, I mean, hopefully allegedly these products and services would 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.400 never wish harm upon Seal Team six. 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:37.920 All right, we are back. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.760 I'd like to talk a little bit now about Patel's 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:45.160 actual plans for the FBI. Now, this job doesn't require 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.240 a Senate confirmation, so we will see, you know, if 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.840 he gets past that process or if he's gonna get 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.120 pushed in through recess appointments, which we still don't really 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.320 know if Trump will be able to pull off. But 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.000 in terms of the FBI, we do have some idea 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.360 about what cas has in mind, because he spent the 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.920 past two years just talking about it a NonStop in 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:06.040 books and interviews. 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.920 Yeah, because he, like all these guys, cannot shut. 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:10.040 Up, can't stop talking. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:10.640 Yes. 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.440 In an appearance on The Sean Ryan Show in this 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.680 past September, Patel said, quote, I'd shut down the FBI 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.960 Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:29.000 day as a museum of the deep state. Unquote Okay, okay, cool. 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.960 Sure, I do feel like you're underestimating the expensive office 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.280 space and overestimating the availability of it, but sure, why not. 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.080 Yeah, I don't think they can make a whole museum 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:40.120 turn around in one day. 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.800 But I also think you are really really underappreciating docents. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.600 It is not easy to get a docent up to speed, like, 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.080 for example, it's a much harder job than you currently have. 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.640 No, like Patel does talk about like trying to like 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.840 clear out like the bureaucracy and red tape of the FBI. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.840 And though he has criticized the wide footprint of the 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.920 FBI and its surveillance operations though really only the ones 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.120 targeted against Trump and his campaign, Cash's ideal FBI would 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.480 not in fact have like a more limited presence out 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.080 in the world, saying that after closing the Hoover Building, quote, 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.440 then I'd take the seven thousand employees that work in 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.000 that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:26.160 Go be cops, your cops, go be cops unquote. So 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:27.720 this is what you give like a seven year old 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:29.840 the keys to the FBI, And this is this is 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.080 this is the kind of stuff he's talking about. Yeah, 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.240 it's like I'm going to send all these administrative employees 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.360 out into the world to chase down criminals. 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.600 Now you say that, Garrison, I absolutely would put a 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.080 seven year old in charge of the FBI. You know why. 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.680 That's a blockbuster movie. Now, to be fair, that's a 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.720 nineteen ninety seven blockbuster. But yeah, yeah, it's like that 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.440 could thirty years ago. Can you imagine the cat cat 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.680 young Mara Wilson running the FBI, fucking FBI. Yeah, perfect. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:58.880 You know, if we said it a little bit further, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:00.760 we could have like will we as like the villain, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:02.440 you know, like the. 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.359 Evil kid heading the CIA. They also put it, but 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.560 they put Will Wheaton in charge of the CIA. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.280 Yes, damn all right. 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.399 You know what, Garrison, this podcast is done. You and 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:13.919 I are writing a screenplay tonight. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.080 With the power of AI, I can just generate this 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:19.840 whole movie instantly. 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:24.520 Perfect, with a truly ghoulish guest appearance by Robin Williams. 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:26.560 Just the worst taste imaginable. 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:36.399 No, sorry, President Williams. God, oh dear, nightmare nightmare fuel. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.159 Now it's it's really unclear if if like Cash's plans 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.240 here are like rhetoric, right, like you know, more vibes 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.679 than like actual plan, you know, like expressing some kind 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.480 of sentiment rather than like an actual practical like plan. 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.800 But last year, Patel published a book titled Government Gangsters, 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.359 the Deep State, The Truth and the Battle for Our Democracy, 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.639 where he also proposed relocating the FBI headquarters out of Washington, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.159 d C. To quote prevent institutional capture and curb FBI 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:11.359 leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship unquote, though the bulk 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.560 of this book also details like why we must root 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.520 out politicians, journalists, big tech, and quote unquote members of 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.879 the unelected bureaucracy that operate the deep state, so you know, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.600 like the FBI engaging in a little bit of political 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.119 gamesmanship is okay. In the appendix of this book, it 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.760 contains the names of sixty alleged members of the deep state, 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.120 most of them either like former Trump cabinet people who 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.600 like turned on Trump or just like current Biden adamin people. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.440 It's all pretty silly, but it's not like he actually 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.120 plans to take out political prosecutions away from like the 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.080 FBI's operational structure. Like, come on, buddy, this is like 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.760 your entire plan. In an interview with Steve Bannon last year, 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:58.520 Patel reiterated the goal of targeted prosecutions against political enemies, saying, quote, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.439 we will go out and the conspirators, not just in 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.679 the government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.560 come after people in the media who lied about American citizens, 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.600 who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.600 come after you unquote. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:16.800 So that's cool. 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:18.960 Again, It's this is this is the basic stuff that 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.119 Trump's been promising since like you know, the past four years, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.440 going after journalists, going after politicians. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:24.840 Yeah. 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.600 This quote specifically also just like reminded me that like 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:29.720 there's like a real possibility that like the head of 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.000 the FBI legitimately thinks the twenty twenty election was stolen. 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.640 And like then I got to thinking, like how many 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.959 of like the people operating the highest levels of government 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.919 now genuinely believe the election was stolen in twenty twenty, 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.040 which is like kind of kind of threw me for 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.359 a loop. I like didn't really like process that like 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.480 concept of like how just broken the reality structure will 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.560 be with something like so like clear, yep, that's his 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:54.680 FBI plans. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.760 Yeah, great, Well, seems like it's gonna end well for everybody. 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:01.640 I don't know, what do you think you think he's 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.720 gonna get confirmed? Because he's one I'm saying. People are 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.080 focusing now that Gates is out, people are focusing way 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.639 more on heg Seth, which is probably the priority because 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.880 my god, that man should not be leading the Department 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:13.800 of Defense. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:14.520 Because he's going to start a war. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.240 Yeah, he's going to He's going to drunkenly and accidentally 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.679 start a war. I'm not even worried about him like 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.320 launching a conflict with China, right, Like we're going to 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.959 wind up fighting an insurgency against the Portuguese because he 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.439 gets fucking hammered and mixes up a couple of letters. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.080 Like I mean, I'm also like really concerned about Tulci Gabbard. 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.320 Gabbard is top of my list because she is has 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.960 just never met a dictator she doesn't like, and yeah, 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:43.920 that's a scary person having that job. 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.480 Patello's really bad and we're going to get into some 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.320 more of his like kind of crank beliefs, but there 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.720 is a level of basic competence. The fact that Tulci 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.520 has been able to get into this position despite very 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.639 very clearly having like deep sympathetic ties to Assad in 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.239 Russia is like, yeah, super right. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:00.439 Name. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.520 She's evil but smart and incredibly power hungry. That's all 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:06.919 that matters to her is getting into power. And she 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.280 has things that she believes, and what we know of 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.159 the things that she believes is chilling, like, yeah, but 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.080 that's yeah, and we don't we we're talking about someone 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:17.159 besides Tulci today. 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:18.760 Yeah, yes. 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.280 Now, since twenty twenty, Cash Patel has served on the 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.280 board of directors for the parent company of Truth Social 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.600 called Trump Media Technology Group, so he's been part of 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.399 the team operating you know, Trump's version of Twitter, and 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.760 back in twenty twenty two, Patel was openly talking about how, 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.280 like the truth Social staff, we're trying to quote unquote 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:44.720 incorporate to QAnon into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences. 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:47.439 So this is this, this is the section where we're 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.719 going to really get into Patel's super super heavy q ties, 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:53.080 which is kind of like a throwback. 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:53.280 Right. 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.960 We don't really talk about QAnon as much anymore, And 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.520 I don't think Patel's interest in this is genuine. I 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:00.800 think it is just to like, no, grow both his 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.160 own brand and help boost the stock of truth Social. 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:06.680 It's still like the closest that anyone in Trump's team 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.719 has gotten to like openly endorsing q and on and 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.840 like repeatedly True Social staff operate an account at q 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.000 forms to piggyback off of q Andon's popularity. And draw 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.880 in popular Q and on influencers. In February twenty twenty two, 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.359 Patel posted a photo of a beer pint and the 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.720 arm of someone wearing a flannel shirt, with text saying 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:31.040 he was quote having a beer with Q right now unquote. 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.440 Ptel continued to frequently interact with the Q account, make 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.679 Q and on related posts, and do reoccurring appearances on 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.520 Q and on linked podcasts, most notably the X twenty 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:47.399 two Report, The Matrix Xxx Grove Show, and Red Pill 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.040 seventy eight. It's been a while since I've listened to 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:54.199 these types of shows, and it was it was like 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.359 a huge throwback, ah man, and they're like all chugging 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.840 along and now they're like chugging along better than ever, 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:03.400 which is, you know, not ideal for me on these shows. 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.240 Cash has praised the Q and on fandom researchers, saying 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:11.320 both he and the President have been impressed. It's all 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.080 like very pandering, but it really works for these people 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:15.040 I've seen. 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.600 On social media, on Trump, on truth social How could 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:19.600 these researchers are? And I kind of wish I had 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:21.240 some of them when I was doing Russia again, some 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:23.800 of these other things you know, Devin and I talk regularly, 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:25.199 and then you know, I talk with the President all 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.439 the time as well, and we're just blown away at 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:30.720 the amount of acumen some of these people have and 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:33.960 how quick they are to grab it and suss through 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.879 it and sort of thin it down and make it presentable. 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:41.160 Later in that interview, Patel openly said that he publishes 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:44.360 government documents on his website, Fight with Cash dot Com, 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.960 specifically so that QAnon researchers will dig through them to 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:51.320 make QAnon content. He openly said that's like why he'd 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:52.919 like posts these documents. 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.960 You see again, I'm sympathetic. Everything I do is for content, Garrison. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:00.119 That's that's just the way the world works now. Now 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:02.600 the content must flow. 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:03.679 You know. 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:06.760 Patel also has books just like you. Although he's been 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:09.680 signing copies of his with the q andon phrase where 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:10.880 we go one, do we go All? 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:12.880 I mean, I do that too, and he. 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:16.280 Has defended his use of the slogan on these QAnon podcasts, 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:20.320 like in this clip from the Matrix xx Groove show 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:21.040 where we go on. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:23.000 Where we Go All is, as you said, from a 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:25.159 great movie that I watched a long time ago, and 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:28.119 people took to it and so what you know, it 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:31.840 doesn't mean everyone's a conspiracy theorist. And people keep asking 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:33.040 me about all this cue stuff. 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:34.760 I'm like, what does it matter. 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:37.800 What I'm telling you is that there is truth in 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:40.600 a lot of things that many people say, and what 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:42.720 I'm putting out there is the truth. And how about 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:43.720 we have some fun along the way. 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:44.400 There's so many. 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:46.439 People who subscribed to the where we go on, we 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:50.040 go on all mantra, and it's what's wrong with it? 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:52.920 I'm going to quote now from an article in Media 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:56.359 Matters by Alex Kaplan, who's been reporting on Patel and 0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:58.760 his ties to QAnon since twenty twenty two. 0:24:59.280 --> 0:24:59.680 Quote. 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.640 On yet another show in June twenty twenty two, Patel 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.240 went even further, saying of q and on quote, we 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:07.800 try to incorporate it into our overall messaging scheme to 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:11.400 capture audiences because whoever that person is has certainly captured 0:25:11.600 --> 0:25:14.960 a widespread breadth of the Mega and America First movement. 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:17.320 And so what I try to do, is what I 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:20.040 try to do with anything q or otherwise, is you 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:22.760 can't ignore that group of people that has such a 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:26.640 strong dominant following unquote in the interview, Petel also said 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:28.720 of Q and on there's a lot of good to 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:30.760 a lot of it, and he agreed with the co 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:33.879 host who said Q has been so right on so 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:37.280 many things, saying, quote, I agree with you. He shall 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:39.639 get credit for all the things he has accomplished because 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:42.280 it's hard to establish a movement. Let's call it that, 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:43.439 because that's what it is. 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:47.120 Unquote. Oh boy, do you know what's also hard to establish? 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:49.760 Robert uh an alibi. 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:52.440 An alibi, and you know some people's alibis could be 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:55.199 reading ads like the one that we're about to do 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:55.760 right now. 0:25:56.000 --> 0:25:57.879 That's right, that's always my alibi. 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:19.360 That really is always your fun Yeah. 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:12.879 All right, we are back now. 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:16.479 In these podcast guest appearances, he would often plug his 0:26:16.520 --> 0:26:20.199 book and advocate that listeners just join truth social and 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:24.280 engagement with these more niche online streaming shows and podcasts 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:28.880 fortifies the right wing online media ecosystem and draws people 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:31.359 away from mainstream news like this is why he was 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:34.159 going on those shows so much back in twenty twenty two, 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:37.199 and Patel basically says as much on this episode of 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:38.719 the X twenty two Report. 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:41.639 They will never trust the fake news media again and 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:44.960 for us that's always been the championing cause to get 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:49.280 our people and mainstream America listening to your show rather 0:26:49.320 --> 0:26:51.600 than CNN and reading the New York Post or excuse me, 0:26:51.600 --> 0:26:53.480 the New York Times and the Washington Post. 0:26:53.800 --> 0:26:55.959 And I think part of why he's doing this, and 0:26:56.200 --> 0:26:57.840 whether he was told to do it or whether he 0:26:57.920 --> 0:26:59.840 just did it on his own volition, is that like 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:03.520 having someone who's seen as being close to Trump, especially 0:27:03.520 --> 0:27:07.560 with national secured experience, it helps keep Trump supporters politically 0:27:07.600 --> 0:27:10.600 engaged by making them feel like they are getting special 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:13.800 access to like exclusive information. It's all a part of 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:16.119 keeping the mega movement alive when their site is not 0:27:16.160 --> 0:27:18.879 in power, while also building up a ground base of 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:22.440 support in preparation for them to take power back. And 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:25.040 that's what he did like a lot in twenty twenty two. 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:27.600 Most of those podcasts were leading up to the midterms 0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:30.080 as well, so it is part of this general political 0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:33.520 strategy to engage with these like much more niche kind 0:27:33.520 --> 0:27:36.720 of smaller QAnon shows, which not only does like you know, 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:38.840 grow their audience over time as well, it does help 0:27:38.840 --> 0:27:41.400 their audience grow, it also just establishes like a completely 0:27:41.400 --> 0:27:45.080 siloed media ecosystem away from mainstream news like that. That 0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:47.920 is part of what they're doing, right. That's why Trump 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:50.800 made truth Social is to create more of these reality tunnels, 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:54.639 more of these like information silos. Now, Patel kept busy 0:27:54.880 --> 0:27:58.040 in between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four with a 0:27:58.119 --> 0:28:02.240 variety of kind of griff ventures. I'm going to quote 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:03.280 from the New York Times here. 0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:03.760 Quote. 0:28:04.160 --> 0:28:09.040 Mister Patel's company, Trishel, collects consulting fees, including one hundred 0:28:09.080 --> 0:28:12.320 and thirty thousand dollars last year from mister Trump's Truth 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:15.120 Social site. He also made three hundred and twenty five 0:28:15.119 --> 0:28:18.320 thousand dollars over two years for strategy consulting for the 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:21.640 pro Trump Save America pack and one hundred and forty 0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:25.919 five and twenty twenty one for fundraising consulting from friends 0:28:25.920 --> 0:28:28.960 of Matt Gates, the campaign committee for the now former 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:30.840 House Republican from Florida. 0:28:31.040 --> 0:28:32.080 Unquote now. 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:37.639 Last year, Patel's nonprofit charity, the Cash Foundation, received one 0:28:37.680 --> 0:28:42.680 point three million dollars in revenue, mostly from donations, though 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:47.800 it's reported expenses totaled six hundred and seventy four thousand 0:28:47.880 --> 0:28:51.200 dollars wow, which is the majority of the moundy and 0:28:51.320 --> 0:28:54.480 nearly half of that was spent on promotion and advertising. 0:28:55.560 --> 0:28:58.560 According to The New York Times, the charity spent more 0:28:58.640 --> 0:29:03.120 on ads than they act actually gave away, which is 0:29:03.520 --> 0:29:05.120 fantastic charity work. 0:29:06.240 --> 0:29:09.560 Oh fuck, good work. 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:14.560 Through this foundation, he also sells cash merchandise which is 0:29:14.640 --> 0:29:16.520 spelled K money sign. 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:20.520 H Yeah, that's that guy's gonna really fbi. 0:29:20.280 --> 0:29:24.200 Well, including six packs of wine for two hundred and 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:29.960 forty bucks and fifty dollars golf polo shirts. Part of 0:29:29.960 --> 0:29:32.160 these polo shirts have this like, you know, like pro 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:34.959 America branding. I want to read the description of one 0:29:35.000 --> 0:29:38.800 of them. Tired of seeing your money go overseas, support 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:41.680 your fellow Americans by purchasing our T shirt. Where do 0:29:41.680 --> 0:29:42.640 you think this T shirt's made? 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:43.760 Robert China? 0:29:44.080 --> 0:29:46.040 Well it's made in Haiti, oh Haiti. 0:29:46.280 --> 0:29:49.800 Oh okay, the America of the Ocean. 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:50.800 And South America. 0:29:51.280 --> 0:29:56.880 So you know you're still supporting Americans, just South Americans. 0:29:57.280 --> 0:29:58.080 Oh my god. 0:29:58.280 --> 0:30:01.640 Now this foundation is also fun to defamation lawsuits for 0:30:01.720 --> 0:30:04.640 a stop the steal activist and his friend and former 0:30:04.680 --> 0:30:08.719 boss at National Intelligence. But Patel's grifting does go beyond 0:30:08.760 --> 0:30:13.160 his foundation. Just earlier this year, Patel was hawking anti 0:30:13.280 --> 0:30:19.080 vaccine supplement pills from the company Warrior Essentials Wow, specifically 0:30:19.400 --> 0:30:22.360 the pills that claim to reverse the effects of the 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:24.880 COVID nineteen vaccine. 0:30:25.480 --> 0:30:26.040 I love that. 0:30:26.240 --> 0:30:28.320 What if these pills just give you covid, they're just 0:30:28.360 --> 0:30:29.040 COVID pills. 0:30:29.120 --> 0:30:31.560 Yeah, yeah, you just want to get covid. 0:30:31.440 --> 0:30:33.160 Want to reverse the effects of the vaccine. 0:30:33.160 --> 0:30:36.680 It's a performance enhancered you know, if we could conviit, well, 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:39.120 that's to say, if we could convince Joe Rogan covids 0:30:39.120 --> 0:30:40.840 to performance enhancer. I don't think we could get Joe 0:30:40.880 --> 0:30:44.360 Rogan's fans to spread any more disease than they already do. Yeah, 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:45.720 that's impossible. 0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:49.360 So this product that Patel was selling is called no 0:30:49.560 --> 0:30:55.080 Covid Dome, and it's allegedly formulated to quote destroy the 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:59.400 toxic spike unquote caused by the mRNA vaccine. 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:03.200 Now we should have called the COVID vaccines no covid 0:31:03.480 --> 0:31:05.480 it's a good name. That was just leaving money on 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:07.360 the table. Or Novid. 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:08.240 No It's good. 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:09.840 Novid would have been a great note. 0:31:09.920 --> 0:31:11.040 It's good. Yeah, Novid's good. 0:31:11.520 --> 0:31:12.520 Yeah, I go. 0:31:12.520 --> 0:31:17.400 According to journalist James Little, these no Covidum pills just 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:21.680 contain basic supplement ingredients like tumeric extract, green tea extract, 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:22.440 and vitamin D. 0:31:22.760 --> 0:31:23.040 Great. 0:31:23.760 --> 0:31:27.880 Yeah, a subscription for a thirty day supply is for 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:31.600 forty nine dollars and ninety eight cents. Jesus chries, and 0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:34.920 a single order of pills is fifty nine dollars in 0:31:35.040 --> 0:31:38.400 ninety eight cents. They're really pushing the subscription because you 0:31:38.480 --> 0:31:41.160 gotta keep doing more pills every thirty days in order 0:31:41.200 --> 0:31:44.600 to really keep the vacs suppressed. In a post this 0:31:44.640 --> 0:31:49.479 past February on True Social Patel truth Spike the vacs 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:52.840 order this home run kit to ridge your body of 0:31:52.880 --> 0:31:54.200 the harms of the vacs. 0:31:54.400 --> 0:31:56.400 Unquote, my god. 0:31:56.680 --> 0:31:58.920 I just can't believe that a guy like this could 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:01.600 be FBI director. It's just it just it makes me. 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:06.600 It's it's I mean, it probably will wind up being 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:08.959 much more dangerous. But there is a version of this 0:32:09.000 --> 0:32:12.840 where the FBI just pivots to selling supplements like where 0:32:12.880 --> 0:32:16.280 you get where you get your estrogen and testosterone through 0:32:16.320 --> 0:32:20.680 the MBI. Look, as long as it's market it is 0:32:20.760 --> 0:32:22.200 like a performance enhancement. 0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:23.800 I would love to believe that a guy like this 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:26.160 will lead to just general and competence. But I just 0:32:26.320 --> 0:32:29.000 can't let myself believe that, Like I think it's just 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:31.600 going to become more and more targeted against like people 0:32:31.640 --> 0:32:32.280 who are good. 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.400 Yeah, they're going to start, yeah with them. I mean 0:32:35.440 --> 0:32:37.800 it looks like just based on his enemy lists, they're 0:32:37.840 --> 0:32:41.280 going to start with Biden administration officials and people in 0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:43.440 the government. But like it won't end there. It's going 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:46.440 to depend on what happens, Like it'll be a reactive, 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:50.680 violent organization, which to a degree it always has been, 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:54.680 but there's always been like more of a sense of 0:32:54.800 --> 0:32:58.600 like predictability that will not be present well. 0:32:58.520 --> 0:33:01.760 And specifically, Like you know, Patel has also been a 0:33:01.840 --> 0:33:05.360 recurring Gray Zone guest and is pretty close with that 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:06.120 whole crew. 0:33:06.240 --> 0:33:08.920 That's not great for certain. 0:33:08.640 --> 0:33:11.600 People, but he really is the gift that keeps on 0:33:11.640 --> 0:33:15.640 giving in terms of like odd anecdotes, including his trilogy 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:17.200 of books, which will be kind of the last thing 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:19.520 I talk about here. So over the course of the 0:33:19.600 --> 0:33:23.880 past three years, Patel has written and published a children's 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:28.880 book trilogy titled The Plot Against the King, where Patel 0:33:29.000 --> 0:33:33.400 himself appears as a wizard to defend King Donald from 0:33:33.720 --> 0:33:34.520 enemy plots. 0:33:34.600 --> 0:33:41.200 Oh God, the one thing we all used to be 0:33:41.240 --> 0:33:43.360 able to agree on is that we don't like kings. 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:46.240 Here no, but now we have the FBI director who 0:33:46.240 --> 0:33:49.720 fancies himself the wizard to protect the king. I am 0:33:50.040 --> 0:33:52.600 going to read the description from the first book here 0:33:53.320 --> 0:33:58.080 quote a fantastical retelling of the terrible true story. Hillary 0:33:58.200 --> 0:34:01.960 Queenton and her shifty nine had spread lies that King 0:34:02.080 --> 0:34:05.200 Donald had cheated to become king. They claimed he was 0:34:05.200 --> 0:34:07.400 working with the Russianians. 0:34:07.960 --> 0:34:10.840 But how could that be Russians? 0:34:11.800 --> 0:34:13.319 Russian Onians. 0:34:13.560 --> 0:34:18.040 It's it's bad, okay, r U S S I O 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:20.479 N I A N S. 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:22.400 This is the kind of thing the FBI should be 0:34:22.400 --> 0:34:27.080 cracking down on. That's all. That's all I'll say about that. 0:34:27.680 --> 0:34:31.200 Cash the distinguished discoverer joined him as he uncovers the 0:34:31.239 --> 0:34:33.759 plot against the king and who was really behind all 0:34:33.800 --> 0:34:37.840 the lies unquote. Now Patel referred to this as quote 0:34:38.080 --> 0:34:42.520 the first ever children's Russia gate books unquote, which I 0:34:42.560 --> 0:34:43.480 gotta give him to him. 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:44.360 That's probably true. 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:47.880 That's almost well, no, because okay, you know what, I 0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:50.520 don't think it is, but it came from the opposite side. 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:54.200 Do you remember when the fucking Crassenstein brothers put out 0:34:54.280 --> 0:34:56.800 that children's book about Robert Muller. 0:34:57.600 --> 0:35:00.960 No, oh, you're right, Yes, this is another lie. 0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:05.640 With Weave Bannon because his hair was a weasel. I think, yeah, 0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:08.160 this was another lie. This was another lie from Cash. 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:11.160 The Crass and Steins beat you to this. This is 0:35:11.200 --> 0:35:14.520 truly the tear of man we're operating with. I'm going 0:35:14.600 --> 0:35:17.759 to start pulling every connection I have to somebody in 0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:20.680 Congress so that when he's being confirmed I can get 0:35:20.760 --> 0:35:21.719 up and hit him on this. 0:35:22.239 --> 0:35:25.760 You claim to have written the first children's book about 0:35:25.760 --> 0:35:28.560 them that I bring in the Crass and Steed brother. 0:35:28.920 --> 0:35:33.880 No oh, they're gonna sell MTG on crypto. 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:35.480 It's gonna be amazing. 0:35:36.000 --> 0:35:39.440 Unfortunately, there's two other books in the series. Part two 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:43.480 Quote tells the fantastical story of how two inquisitive minds, 0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:47.680 Denesh and Debbie search for the truth to uncover evidence 0:35:48.239 --> 0:35:49.839 of a terrible scheme. 0:35:50.239 --> 0:35:53.200 Who has been forced by a court to announce in 0:35:53.280 --> 0:35:56.480 public that he did not uncover any scheme. 0:35:57.719 --> 0:36:00.440 Part two is titled two Thousand Mules. It is no 0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:03.120 longer available on Amazon due to like all the lawsuits 0:36:03.160 --> 0:36:04.600 around this just being fake. 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:06.239 Because they broke a bunch of laws, because it was 0:36:06.280 --> 0:36:07.080 criminal and lies. 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:09.360 Yes, search for the truth to uncover evidence of a 0:36:09.480 --> 0:36:12.240 terrible scheme to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald 0:36:12.280 --> 0:36:14.680 on a choosing day unquote. 0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:18.040 Choosing day just called it election. 0:36:17.800 --> 0:36:21.560 Man, No, because it's fought. It's when they choose their king. 0:36:22.400 --> 0:36:25.080 There are kings that are elected anyway. 0:36:25.840 --> 0:36:29.360 The back of the book reads, come join Dneshan Debbie 0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:32.640 as they try to answer some troubling questions. Why did 0:36:32.640 --> 0:36:34.919 the counting stop in the middle of the night. Why 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:37.520 were there more votes than people in the kingdom? What 0:36:37.760 --> 0:36:39.759 is up with all the glowing Pooh? 0:36:39.960 --> 0:36:44.439 Unquote? That is what it actually says. Now, why I'm not. 0:36:44.440 --> 0:36:46.840 What is the glowing Pooh supposed to be? 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:49.680 I don't know, because I can't scam Amazon to buy 0:36:49.680 --> 0:36:51.720 the book and return it because it's no longer available 0:36:51.760 --> 0:36:54.359 on Amazon. I don't know what the glowing Pooh is. 0:36:54.520 --> 0:36:58.000 Sorry, listeners, if one of you has a copy of 0:36:58.080 --> 0:36:59.000 this book. 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:04.200 Oh my god. Then Part three is titled Return of 0:37:04.200 --> 0:37:08.680 the King okay quote. It continues the silly yet important 0:37:08.760 --> 0:37:11.759 journey of the Maga King as he returns to take 0:37:11.840 --> 0:37:15.680 down Kamalala Law and reclaim. 0:37:15.200 --> 0:37:16.919 His throne unquote. 0:37:17.239 --> 0:37:22.080 Okay, so yeah, that's Cash Patel possible new FBI director. 0:37:22.160 --> 0:37:25.799 Oh who also produced a song titled Justice for All, 0:37:25.840 --> 0:37:28.480 which is a version of the national anthem but sung 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:32.319 by all J six defendants in prison, with proceeds going 0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:34.879 to the Cash Foundation. So he also released a song 0:37:34.920 --> 0:37:38.160 which was not on my rap this year. Unfortunately. 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:41.360 That's a shame and I'm just double checking something. Yes, 0:37:41.400 --> 0:37:43.520 and he stole the name of his song from a 0:37:43.560 --> 0:37:48.200 Metallica album, one of the better Metallica albums. This is 0:37:48.200 --> 0:37:50.800 the one that has one on it. Oh my god, 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:52.320 you son of a bitch. 0:37:52.560 --> 0:37:54.359 I mean, it just is so odd to have the 0:37:54.480 --> 0:37:58.600 FBI director making a song with imprisoned J six defendants. 0:37:58.960 --> 0:38:00.799 You know, it really does is just throw my head 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:01.960 into a little bit of a spin. 0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:05.600 Yeah, it'll be interesting to see the current like FBI 0:38:05.719 --> 0:38:08.680 agents react to that, But I guess we'll see. We're 0:38:08.719 --> 0:38:11.399 all gonna learn a lot about the FBI, one way 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:11.879 or the other. 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:15.839 Any closing thoughts here on mister Patel, Now that we've 0:38:15.880 --> 0:38:18.959 done a very brief overview of his life story ending 0:38:18.960 --> 0:38:20.240 with this children's book. 0:38:20.360 --> 0:38:24.320 He seems like he's qualified to do something. 0:38:24.800 --> 0:38:27.400 That's what everyone's saying that's what everyone's saying. 0:38:27.760 --> 0:38:30.120 You No, Like, like every single person who's like announced, 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:32.000 you know, you get a wave of headlines from people 0:38:32.000 --> 0:38:33.680 who work in government being like this is the most 0:38:33.800 --> 0:38:37.200 unqualified person ever nominated for this position, and like it 0:38:37.280 --> 0:38:40.360 just keeps happening that I don't even feel obligated to 0:38:40.400 --> 0:38:42.080 like quote or say any of these things, because like 0:38:42.280 --> 0:38:44.560 we all know what's happening, Like, yeah, we all know 0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:45.520 why this is going on. 0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:47.520 Like that doesn't that doesn't matter. 0:38:47.719 --> 0:38:49.759 No, And I think that's one of the things I 0:38:49.840 --> 0:38:53.480 have no desire in focusing on, Like what Trump is doing. 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:56.640 That's like he's breaking the law, he's violating a norm. 0:38:56.760 --> 0:38:59.680 Like I want to hear you know, what are you 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:03.080 again I do to stop it? Right? What is actually 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:06.880 being done to try to resist this? Right? Like otherwise 0:39:06.920 --> 0:39:09.800 it's at least when it comes to stuff from elected leaders, 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:12.400 you know, I'm just not interested in like, oh, he 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:14.680 broke an outther a lot, Yeah, that's what he does. 0:39:15.239 --> 0:39:16.160 What comes next? 0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:19.239 And he hires guys like Patel to clean up his 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:21.399 messes and do all his dirty work. And if they 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:23.439 do it, they can slow the right to the ranks 0:39:23.440 --> 0:39:26.440 and become director of the FBI. Yeah, and that's the 0:39:26.440 --> 0:39:29.040 political strategy that they are all working with and have 0:39:29.080 --> 0:39:33.560 a run to success yet again in twenty twenty four. Well, 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:36.719 I guess stay tuned for more happenings here as they 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:38.600 continue for the rest of this week and for the 0:39:38.640 --> 0:39:46.920 next four years. 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:04.760 Ah, welcome back. It could happen here. A podcast about 0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:09.040 the things that are happening all around us, including, shockingly 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:11.439 in the last week something we did not expect two 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:15.200 weeks ago, the fall of the Assad regime, which our 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:18.000 official stance as a network is that fuck him. This 0:40:18.080 --> 0:40:20.120 is pretty good, but a lot of people feel differently, 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:22.520 and to talk with me about that. Another guy who's 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:26.840 always angry about Syria and also has been to Syria, James, 0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:29.319 And you know, just as a note, I think a 0:40:29.320 --> 0:40:31.680 lot of the people podcasting about this right now are 0:40:31.680 --> 0:40:34.239 talking about a place they've never been, although James and 0:40:34.280 --> 0:40:37.160 I have not been to EdLib. So you know, it's true. 0:40:37.280 --> 0:40:39.960 We're going to be fairly focused on our experiences in 0:40:40.000 --> 0:40:43.279 the Kurdish regions, but at least we're not just bullshitting 0:40:43.320 --> 0:40:45.920 about a place that we've read about on the internet. 0:40:46.760 --> 0:40:49.799 Yeah, claiming deep on the ground understanding of a place 0:40:49.840 --> 0:40:52.200 from ready, Yes, that is not us. 0:40:52.239 --> 0:40:56.120 Yeah we uh. I briefly look at regime held Syria. 0:40:56.239 --> 0:40:59.759 Yeah yeah, yeah over from a comichelo where is kind 0:40:59.760 --> 0:41:03.120 of the governance capital of Rojava, but is also a 0:41:03.160 --> 0:41:05.120 big chunk of it was held by the Assad regimes. 0:41:05.160 --> 0:41:07.359 You would just periodically like see that fucker's face on 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:09.080 the wall as you were a crossing the street. 0:41:11.840 --> 0:41:12.560 It's a good times. 0:41:12.719 --> 0:41:16.080 But my fixer would come around at noon for whatever 0:41:16.120 --> 0:41:18.080 reason when I was in Rajava, and like, I hate 0:41:18.080 --> 0:41:19.640 to sitting in the hotel, so I'd go out for 0:41:19.760 --> 0:41:22.919 walks around the market. Yeah, not advised by the old 0:41:22.960 --> 0:41:23.680 safety people. 0:41:23.680 --> 0:41:26.560 But no, one of the sketchiest cities I've been in, Yeah, 0:41:27.239 --> 0:41:29.320 because of the presence of regime troops. 0:41:29.400 --> 0:41:32.520 Yes, yes, everything else was lovely. Yeah, people are lovely. 0:41:32.600 --> 0:41:32.799 Yeah. 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:35.120 I'd be walking down the street and like I'd be 0:41:35.160 --> 0:41:37.200 looking around, see has anything interesting to go and see? 0:41:37.200 --> 0:41:39.960 And then you can literally take one wrong turn down 0:41:39.960 --> 0:41:42.719 the street and walk into to regime Syria, as you 0:41:42.760 --> 0:41:45.480 covered in in the Women's War. Like I was walking 0:41:45.480 --> 0:41:47.120 down one street and this man walked up to me 0:41:47.120 --> 0:41:49.640 and m curtis, she's not very good. Tried to say hello, 0:41:49.840 --> 0:41:51.840 told him my name and stuff, and then he starts 0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:54.359 getting more agitated, and he just starts repeating a higher 0:41:54.360 --> 0:41:56.080 and horror volume, a sad bad man. 0:41:56.120 --> 0:42:00.400 Yeah man, stay away, bro, stay away. 0:42:00.640 --> 0:42:02.279 He's like, you're going to fucking die to be. 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:04.520 A fucking of all. Yeah. 0:42:04.840 --> 0:42:06.839 Yeah, girl expars to that guy. 0:42:07.160 --> 0:42:08.560 Yeah, barsie barshi. 0:42:09.040 --> 0:42:11.200 Yeah it is. It was a very straight situation. 0:42:11.280 --> 0:42:14.319 It is no longer a straight situation because in the 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:18.040 last week the A Side regime has crumbled. Statues of 0:42:18.120 --> 0:42:20.040 him have been torn down all over the country, which 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:22.200 we love to see. It's another of us dancers other 0:42:22.239 --> 0:42:23.600 network is fuck a statue? 0:42:23.760 --> 0:42:25.480 Yes, yes, fuck most statues. 0:42:25.960 --> 0:42:27.800 Most statues. There are probably some cool ones. Does a 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:30.359 lady hitting the Nazi with a handbag in Sweden? That's 0:42:30.400 --> 0:42:34.239 a good statue, But yeah, most statues, most statues of 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:35.920 dudes in suits. 0:42:36.120 --> 0:42:36.799 Don't love them. 0:42:37.080 --> 0:42:39.000 No, very few dudes in suits. I want to see 0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:39.960 a statue. 0:42:39.560 --> 0:42:41.879 Of Yeah, I can't think of any right now. 0:42:41.960 --> 0:42:43.200 Yeah, it's not coming to me. 0:42:43.760 --> 0:42:44.799 Yeah, I'm sure it will. 0:42:45.280 --> 0:42:47.879 So these statues have been torn down because your said 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:51.920 regime has basically crumbled. It failed to really put up 0:42:52.000 --> 0:42:56.560 any meaningful resistance to this advance by different rebel groups, 0:42:56.640 --> 0:42:59.720 right by HTS, by SNA, by the Southern Front as well, 0:43:00.719 --> 0:43:04.080 and despite I guess even what I would have said 0:43:04.120 --> 0:43:06.600 two weeks ago, right me, even after they lost Aleppo, 0:43:06.719 --> 0:43:09.840 I assumed that they would regroup in Hama or Homs 0:43:10.239 --> 0:43:12.640 and they did not. They completely failed to do so. 0:43:12.800 --> 0:43:16.400 Their Russian backers more or less abandoned them, focused on 0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:20.160 getting their stuff and their people, those who survived out 0:43:20.200 --> 0:43:23.520 of the country, and as a result, there is no 0:43:23.600 --> 0:43:25.720 more a SAD regime. Right A SAD fled the country 0:43:25.760 --> 0:43:28.160 at some point. It was initially speculated that a Sad 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:31.080 had fled on an aircraft on Saturday night as rebels 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:36.400 were entering Damascus. That seems to be untrue, or perhaps 0:43:36.480 --> 0:43:39.160 it was true, but the speculation that aircraft had crashed 0:43:39.200 --> 0:43:41.239 or have been shut down, certainly it does not seem 0:43:41.239 --> 0:43:43.080 to SAD now seems to be. 0:43:43.400 --> 0:43:46.480 I think. Look, I made the call about two days 0:43:46.480 --> 0:43:48.120 before the regime fell that I felt he was out 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:50.440 of the country, based on some reporting, including reporting from 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:52.840 the Serian regime, that he'd gone to Iran first. I 0:43:52.840 --> 0:43:55.200 think he left days before it fell. I don't think 0:43:55.200 --> 0:43:58.520 he's Yeah, he's got enough instinct for self preservation that 0:43:58.560 --> 0:44:00.160 I think he got the fuck out of there. 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:01.759 Yeah, he didn't want to be found in a hole 0:44:01.800 --> 0:44:06.240 in the ground right like here, or end up like Canafi. 0:44:06.280 --> 0:44:08.080 I guess, so he left. 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:10.200 It's quite possible that he was doing a sort of 0:44:10.280 --> 0:44:13.000 final please please help Me tour of Russia rum which 0:44:13.080 --> 0:44:17.960 turned turned into his eventual exile. In breaking news, Robert, 0:44:18.400 --> 0:44:20.000 I don't know. I don't know if you've seen this 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:23.040 telegram post, and obviously we can't confirm it because we 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:26.200 don't have a direct clansi Assad regime. But allegedly he 0:44:26.239 --> 0:44:28.520 is planning on setting up a specialized hospital in the 0:44:28.520 --> 0:44:32.040 field of ophthalmology in Russia, Abkhazia and Dubai. 0:44:32.160 --> 0:44:32.520 Yeah. 0:44:32.640 --> 0:44:34.600 Great, great place for him to be working. 0:44:34.880 --> 0:44:38.480 Yeah, wonderful, cool stuff. Yeah cool. Yeah, not not at 0:44:38.480 --> 0:44:39.680 the Hague where he belongs. 0:44:39.920 --> 0:44:40.120 Yeah. 0:44:40.200 --> 0:44:45.160 Anyway, he is gone, and we have seen in response, 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:49.000 like some of the worst social media posting that I've seen. 0:44:49.040 --> 0:44:51.120 And I don't want this to be like like Twitter review. 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:53.960 I think that obviously that's pointless and pure ut but 0:44:54.440 --> 0:44:57.920 I want to address I guess this kind of really 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:01.319 disappointing response I've seen from a lot of people on 0:45:01.320 --> 0:45:04.600 the left that oh, yeah, well either I mean you 0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:07.120 have the like the grey zone tendency, right that the 0:45:07.200 --> 0:45:09.560 sab was great actually in the protection of human rights 0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:12.160 in the region, and the like the Syria was socialism 0:45:12.200 --> 0:45:15.000 in Karna, which is obviously nonsense, right, Like, this is 0:45:15.040 --> 0:45:18.680 a person who, as we have seen in the last week, 0:45:18.719 --> 0:45:25.400 whose regime prisons were holding thousands of people, killed tens 0:45:25.480 --> 0:45:29.279 of thousands of people, tortured people to death in some 0:45:29.320 --> 0:45:32.480 cases in Sednaia prison, which is a big prison in Damascus, 0:45:32.520 --> 0:45:34.040 certainly a Damascus i should. 0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:34.960 Say, towards the coast. 0:45:35.239 --> 0:45:38.200 It looks as if there were children in that prison 0:45:38.239 --> 0:45:41.520 who were possibly born in that prison and may have 0:45:41.640 --> 0:45:44.719 never been out of that prison, which is like one 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:47.800 of the most horrible things I've ever had to think about, 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:49.759 you know, like like a little child four or five 0:45:49.800 --> 0:45:55.000 years old never having seen the sky. It's just it's heartbreaking, 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:57.879 Like a lot of the things we are going to find, 0:45:57.920 --> 0:45:59.399 the things we're going to hear about in the next 0:45:59.440 --> 0:46:03.719 few weeks heartbreaking. And anybody who's prepared to apologize for 0:46:03.760 --> 0:46:05.560 that or prepared to say that that was good, I 0:46:05.560 --> 0:46:08.439 think you really need to question if there's someone who's 0:46:08.480 --> 0:46:12.120 aligned with you. But in addition to that tendency, there's 0:46:12.200 --> 0:46:16.480 one that sort of holds that in Syria, like what 0:46:16.520 --> 0:46:19.919 will come next is worse? Right, what will come next 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:21.880 to or we don't know, of course, we don't know 0:46:21.880 --> 0:46:23.439 what will come next, None of us can see the future, 0:46:23.480 --> 0:46:25.399 but what will come next will make a sad look 0:46:25.480 --> 0:46:27.759 like it was a preferable option, And like, I feel 0:46:27.800 --> 0:46:30.680 that we need to address that because I think it's 0:46:30.719 --> 0:46:38.160 one of the long legacies of authoritarian socialist how do 0:46:38.239 --> 0:46:42.160 I say this, like the authoritarian socialist media project. 0:46:41.920 --> 0:46:45.840 And that kind of colliding with the Iraq war anti 0:46:46.239 --> 0:46:48.920 anti war movement, yes, you know, yeah, the whole hands 0:46:48.920 --> 0:46:51.160 off Syria thing that groups like the PSL, the Party 0:46:51.200 --> 0:46:53.320 for Socialism and Liberation we're doing when the rebel started 0:46:53.320 --> 0:46:55.719 this offensive, being like we've got to stop you know, 0:46:55.760 --> 0:46:59.320 these US backed rebels from taking you know, Syria for 0:46:59.800 --> 0:47:02.560 the empires, Like, man, the fuck it. It's not the 0:47:02.680 --> 0:47:05.839 US that was primarily backing the rebels that did most 0:47:05.840 --> 0:47:09.960 of the fighting. Like these guys are Turkish backed, you know, yeah, yeah, 0:47:10.000 --> 0:47:13.120 the extent that that even matters, right, Like the that 0:47:13.280 --> 0:47:16.480 like this is not the CIA did not orchestrate all 0:47:16.520 --> 0:47:19.480 of this. The guys the CIA were really trying to 0:47:19.480 --> 0:47:21.319 back in Syria basically all died. 0:47:21.600 --> 0:47:23.200 Like, yeah, they've gone. 0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:27.000 Some of the weapons, sure that the US supplied in 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:30.160 Timber Sycamore are probably stood in the hands of HTS, but. 0:47:30.200 --> 0:47:31.880 Yes, some of them. But like even that's not the 0:47:31.880 --> 0:47:34.280 bulk of the weaponry that those fuckers know using. 0:47:34.600 --> 0:47:37.200 The entire weaponry of the Syrian arabambi is also in 0:47:37.239 --> 0:47:39.880 the hands of the HDS, which we'll move on to 0:47:40.000 --> 0:47:42.279 actually because maybe we should address that now before we 0:47:42.320 --> 0:47:46.200 address responses. Actually, yeah, when we talk about international involvement 0:47:46.239 --> 0:47:49.560 in Syria, right, we talk about the United States who 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:52.480 has supported the SDF not as a project, and this 0:47:52.560 --> 0:47:57.160 is important. They don't support the Democratic Autonomous Administration nor 0:47:57.200 --> 0:48:01.520 from Assyria as a democratic project. Support is the SDF 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:04.200 as a partner force in the fight against ISIS, and 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:06.920 that's been very clear when they have failed to defend 0:48:07.040 --> 0:48:12.680 the anes against genocidal violence, ethnic cleansing in a free 0:48:12.719 --> 0:48:16.600 and right what we're seeing again now in the Talifat area. 0:48:16.760 --> 0:48:18.680 I'll use that terminology because if you want to look 0:48:18.680 --> 0:48:21.880 it up on Google Maps, that's easier to find the 0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:25.000 violence that we've seen repeatedly from the Turkish back Syrian 0:48:25.080 --> 0:48:28.359 National Army or Turkish free Syrian Armies are sometimes called. Right, 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:31.960 the United States hasn't defended the people of the ans 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:35.040 against and it won't because that's not what it's there 0:48:35.080 --> 0:48:37.759 to do. And as much as we would like it too, 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:40.600 I don't think that as in the nature of the 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:43.279 US mission in Syria, and I don't think it's in 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:46.120 the nature of the US as a state to support 0:48:46.239 --> 0:48:49.239 a project which is seeking to build democracy without the state. 0:48:49.360 --> 0:48:50.959 It's not in the nature of the state. 0:48:51.280 --> 0:48:55.839 We stumbled backwards accidentally into exactly once supporting the good 0:48:55.880 --> 0:48:59.680 guys in the conflict, you know, specifically in the conflict 0:48:59.719 --> 0:49:03.279 with I. Yeah, like a broken clock, and we immediately 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:05.360 ever since we have been trying as hard as we 0:49:05.440 --> 0:49:08.399 can to pull back and you know, betray them, yes 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:11.080 to their deaths like that. That That is the story 0:49:11.360 --> 0:49:12.880 of US support of Rojava. 0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:15.560 Yeah, it's not. This is not a US proxy state. 0:49:15.680 --> 0:49:17.360 Some people trying to tell you it is not a 0:49:17.360 --> 0:49:19.319 CIA revolution of some people are trying to tell you. 0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:21.600 Indeed, Now, part part of what gives fuel for that 0:49:21.719 --> 0:49:23.520 is there are a number of photos of like US 0:49:23.560 --> 0:49:26.839 troops really vibing with the WHITEPG and YPG and they're 0:49:26.920 --> 0:49:28.919 vibing with them, And you and I could both say 0:49:28.920 --> 0:49:31.600 this having been with those people. They're nice. 0:49:32.320 --> 0:49:34.160 Yeah, they're fun, they're chill folks. 0:49:35.000 --> 0:49:37.520 Yeah, they have good music and they like to done 0:49:37.680 --> 0:49:38.960 generally cool people. 0:49:39.120 --> 0:49:42.600 Yes, yeah, I enjoy that company. I have vibed with 0:49:42.640 --> 0:49:43.160 the WHITEPG. 0:49:43.880 --> 0:49:46.120 You know, like, it's hard not to see a bunch 0:49:46.120 --> 0:49:49.320 of young women who like left isis captivity and immediately 0:49:49.320 --> 0:49:51.160 said give me a gun. I'm going to learn how 0:49:51.200 --> 0:49:53.600 to use it and be like, yeah, that's pretty cool. 0:49:53.719 --> 0:49:54.319 Good for you. 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:57.080 Yeah, it's one of the coolest things that's happened in 0:49:57.120 --> 0:49:58.480 the Middle East in the past century. 0:49:58.600 --> 0:50:02.560 Yeah, And like, the United States does not have a 0:50:02.600 --> 0:50:04.880 plan for what has happened in the last two weeks, 0:50:05.000 --> 0:50:07.160 and it appears to be trying to think on the 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:10.839 hoof right now. Joe Biden's foreign policy has been dog 0:50:10.960 --> 0:50:13.440 shit and it doesn't look like he's going to pull 0:50:13.440 --> 0:50:13.959 a one eighty. 0:50:14.080 --> 0:50:14.200 Now. 0:50:14.719 --> 0:50:17.880 We should not expect the United States to save for Java. 0:50:18.239 --> 0:50:20.080 We should do everything we can to get the United 0:50:20.120 --> 0:50:23.319 States to continue supporting the people who gave more than 0:50:23.360 --> 0:50:26.600 ten thousand of their children in the battle against ISIS. 0:50:27.040 --> 0:50:28.799 The US didn't want to say ground troops right at 0:50:28.800 --> 0:50:31.200 Obama didn't want to have another ground war. Neither did Trump, 0:50:32.040 --> 0:50:34.360 and so they got people from the SDF to do 0:50:34.440 --> 0:50:36.520 the dying and a lot of the killing were they 0:50:36.680 --> 0:50:41.759 maintained an aerial presence, was a light ground footprint. We 0:50:41.800 --> 0:50:44.560 shouldn't expect the US to show up for the people 0:50:44.600 --> 0:50:45.240 who showed. 0:50:45.040 --> 0:50:46.440 Up for it. That's not in its nature. 0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:50.520 The only state that had a plan for what happened 0:50:50.520 --> 0:50:52.440 in the last two weeks appears to have been Israel. 0:50:52.800 --> 0:50:58.040 Disappointingly right, Russia and Iran seem to have largely scrambled 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:01.600 extracted their state assets. Russia got some of its people out, 0:51:01.640 --> 0:51:03.959 they took some of the aircraft out, it ran. 0:51:04.400 --> 0:51:07.799 Likewise, the US seems to be kind of scrambling. 0:51:07.840 --> 0:51:11.320 I'm sure there are still some like odas, some Special 0:51:11.320 --> 0:51:15.279 Forces guys embedded with the SDF. I'm sure that in 0:51:15.320 --> 0:51:17.440 the areas where ISIS has written up, because in some 0:51:17.520 --> 0:51:19.919 areas where the regime has pulled back, there has been 0:51:19.960 --> 0:51:23.080 an increasing presence of ISIS sleeper cells trying to sort 0:51:23.120 --> 0:51:26.920 of once again control territory and attack the SDF in 0:51:26.960 --> 0:51:29.280 those areas. I'm sure that there are US special forces 0:51:29.320 --> 0:51:31.839 like directing air strikes, but I don't think the US 0:51:31.920 --> 0:51:33.399 is going to come and say Brisia. But the only 0:51:33.440 --> 0:51:36.520 country that had a plan was Israel. And what Israel's 0:51:36.520 --> 0:51:41.000 plan was was to invade Syria in the Golan Heights right, 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:44.680 to increase their area of control, and then to bomb 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:50.120 almost all of the aircraft. And perhaps I don't know 0:51:50.320 --> 0:51:52.880 it also includes air defense systems, but from what the 0:51:52.880 --> 0:51:56.800 IDF is saying today, they have bombed all of the 0:51:56.840 --> 0:52:00.000 Syrian Air Forces aircraft that had fallen into rebel hands. 0:52:00.680 --> 0:52:04.280 This includes ammunition for the aircraft. It includes the ammunition 0:52:04.400 --> 0:52:07.680 dump at Comishlow Airport. About half an hour before Robert 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:09.880 and I started recording here on Monday, I saw a 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:13.520 video from a friend in Kamishlow of the ammunition dump 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:15.480 at the airport, which have previously belonged to the regime 0:52:15.560 --> 0:52:18.879 now belongs to the A and E s exploding after 0:52:18.960 --> 0:52:21.840 it had been hit by an IDFs. Right. So what 0:52:21.920 --> 0:52:24.520 they're trying to do, I guess, is deny any of 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:28.600 those weapons to people who they perceive as a threat 0:52:28.640 --> 0:52:32.640 to their interests. Yep, and like there's been I don't 0:52:32.680 --> 0:52:34.319 know if you're seeing this also row it by a 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:38.160 lot of like Israeli accounts being like, oh we stand 0:52:38.200 --> 0:52:41.080 with the curd Israel and the Kurds are won. And 0:52:42.120 --> 0:52:44.399 first of all, I want to warn you. I want 0:52:44.400 --> 0:52:46.720 to warn you that we have an advertising breakcoming. Robert 0:52:46.800 --> 0:52:47.920 is what I want to warn you about. 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:53.240 Oh well, speaking of well, actually not speaking of the IDF, thankfully, 0:52:53.280 --> 0:52:56.359 but speaking about maybe the California State Highway Patrol. Here's 0:52:56.360 --> 0:53:08.439 some ads we're back. 0:53:09.320 --> 0:53:09.520 Yeah. 0:53:09.600 --> 0:53:12.399 Firstly, I think when you're seeing analysis about Syria, any 0:53:12.440 --> 0:53:15.840 when he talks about things in terms of these monolithic blocks, 0:53:16.040 --> 0:53:20.040 this Israeli counts, often we will support the Kurds. I 0:53:20.080 --> 0:53:24.120 would be sometimes I'll maybe use that to refer to 0:53:24.160 --> 0:53:25.719 A and E S or the SDF. But I really 0:53:25.719 --> 0:53:29.160 trend on too because it's a multi ethnic project. Right, 0:53:29.280 --> 0:53:31.919 like the areas that we'll talk about in a minute 0:53:31.920 --> 0:53:35.760 where the SDF is being attacked those areas, the largest 0:53:35.760 --> 0:53:38.600 component of the SDF is is Arab, yeah, forces right, 0:53:38.640 --> 0:53:41.359 and that that is the case in the SDF as 0:53:41.360 --> 0:53:43.800 a whole. Actually, the majority of the SDF is now Arab, 0:53:43.880 --> 0:53:46.080 not not Kurdish. I would be very skeptic of the 0:53:46.080 --> 0:53:49.799 expertise of anyone who refers to things in these monolithic absolutes, right, 0:53:49.840 --> 0:53:53.600 the Sunnis, the Shias, yeah, the alah Whites, the Kurds. 0:53:53.920 --> 0:53:56.160 There are a lot of different groups in Syria, and 0:53:56.200 --> 0:53:59.520 those groups are comprised of individuals, and those individuals shockingly 0:54:00.200 --> 0:54:04.080 have different and distinct goals and experiences and desires. 0:54:04.120 --> 0:54:04.840 Like there are. 0:54:05.160 --> 0:54:07.719 Absolutely al of whites who will have remained loyal to 0:54:07.800 --> 0:54:10.239 us sad there are others who, like the monstery did not, 0:54:10.840 --> 0:54:13.400 as we've seen in the last week, right, And so 0:54:14.640 --> 0:54:17.200 I would be skeptical of anyone who tries to paint 0:54:17.200 --> 0:54:21.040 things in those terms. And I would be skeptical, to 0:54:21.160 --> 0:54:24.400 return to what we were talking about earlier, Robert, of 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:27.799 people who tell you that, like we should expect the 0:54:27.840 --> 0:54:30.560 one I see most is Syria to turn into Lebanon, right, 0:54:31.120 --> 0:54:32.400 And like you and I have been talking about this 0:54:32.400 --> 0:54:36.840 before we recorded, but that's not a useful example in 0:54:36.920 --> 0:54:40.600 my mind of what we're likely to see in Syria, right, 0:54:41.800 --> 0:54:44.839 And the reason for that is that like in Lebanon, yes, 0:54:44.880 --> 0:54:46.920 there was a there was like a US Air. 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:48.520 Component, as there is in Syria. That's true. 0:54:48.560 --> 0:54:51.200 But I don't understand why we would look at the 0:54:51.239 --> 0:54:55.120 example of Lebanon, a place thousands of miles away, when 0:54:55.239 --> 0:55:00.839 we have at least two examples of governance in Syria, right, 0:55:00.920 --> 0:55:03.520 people who have been governing in one case for more 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:05.840 than a decade significant. 0:55:05.160 --> 0:55:08.800 Parts of Syria. Like they have a government project. 0:55:08.880 --> 0:55:11.279 In the case of the ANS, I don't think it's 0:55:11.600 --> 0:55:13.560 fair to call it a state project. Like they would 0:55:13.560 --> 0:55:15.840 tell you that they're trying to build democracy without the state, 0:55:16.440 --> 0:55:21.120 which is something that which might not be popular with states, evidently, 0:55:21.239 --> 0:55:23.279 which doesn't let them the support of many states, as 0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:27.360 we've seen. But we have and with HDS in July 0:55:27.400 --> 0:55:31.920 and the Salvation government, Right, we have these two governance projects. 0:55:31.920 --> 0:55:36.160 They're extremely different, right. The Salvation Government under HDS is 0:55:36.520 --> 0:55:40.680 people have been arrested for playing music at their own weddings. 0:55:39.880 --> 0:55:44.680 It is, it is neither democratic nor particularly liberatory. And 0:55:44.719 --> 0:55:46.719 then we have the an S, which I would argue 0:55:46.760 --> 0:55:49.480 is the only democracy in the Middle East. Yeah, certainly, 0:55:49.480 --> 0:55:52.200 the only democracy where people of different ethnicities and genders 0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:53.200 matter the same amount. 0:55:53.520 --> 0:55:56.600 Yeah, certainly the only like multi ethnic democracy. Yes, in 0:55:56.640 --> 0:55:58.680 the Middle East. That's functional. 0:55:58.800 --> 0:56:01.600 Yeah, you know you're you're straining the definition of democracy 0:56:01.600 --> 0:56:04.719 if you're constraining it by ethnicity, right, right, So I 0:56:04.719 --> 0:56:06.120 think you can make a good case for it being 0:56:06.120 --> 0:56:09.520 the only democracy in the Middle East. I saw this 0:56:09.680 --> 0:56:13.480 really atrocious BBC interview this morning. I'm trying to network. 0:56:13.680 --> 0:56:16.279 Some networks now have reporters on the ground in Damascus, 0:56:16.480 --> 0:56:19.200 and I've been trying to watch those to see sort 0:56:19.200 --> 0:56:21.160 of what's going on. It can be very hard to 0:56:21.239 --> 0:56:24.040 just get your news from telegram. Like I would also 0:56:24.080 --> 0:56:26.279 caution people who are perhaps new to this, who who 0:56:26.280 --> 0:56:28.440 are finding these telegram channels, to take everything you read 0:56:28.480 --> 0:56:29.719 on there with a pinch of salt. You'll see a 0:56:29.760 --> 0:56:33.360 lot of disinformation there. One of the BBC had an 0:56:33.400 --> 0:56:34.880 expert on and he was like, Oh, every time we 0:56:34.880 --> 0:56:38.560 see people pulling down statues of dictators, I'm a bit concerned, 0:56:38.640 --> 0:56:41.640 and like, I have to think about how to express this. 0:56:42.880 --> 0:56:46.800 It seems to me deeply as lamophobic or bigoted or racist. 0:56:47.040 --> 0:56:49.480 I don't quite know the white term to say. Oh, 0:56:49.719 --> 0:56:52.239 the people of this country and the places in the 0:56:52.320 --> 0:56:54.640 last ten twenty years where we've seen people pulling down 0:56:54.719 --> 0:56:57.399 statues of dictators have largely been in the Middle East 0:56:57.480 --> 0:57:01.319 right to say that, oh, these people are incapable of 0:57:01.360 --> 0:57:03.959 self governance, these people are incapable of living in peace 0:57:04.000 --> 0:57:06.640 with one another, But like they're not. We've seen that 0:57:06.880 --> 0:57:11.400 in Rajava, and I don't think that the right response 0:57:11.480 --> 0:57:16.000 now is to respond with skepticism to like the Syrian 0:57:16.040 --> 0:57:18.200 people's ability to live in peace. They've been at war 0:57:18.280 --> 0:57:22.320 for fifteen years, fourteen years, thirteen thirteen years, thirteen and 0:57:22.320 --> 0:57:24.840 a half years. But I think that there is not 0:57:25.160 --> 0:57:28.640 an appetite for more killing and more dying, certainly from 0:57:28.680 --> 0:57:30.520 what I've seen and what I've heard. 0:57:30.600 --> 0:57:33.840 No exhaustion is a factor here, Like you really cannot 0:57:33.880 --> 0:57:38.920 emphasize enough how long I mean, HTS and the SNA 0:57:39.040 --> 0:57:43.320 have been at this and how fucking tired, particularly like 0:57:43.640 --> 0:57:48.040 HTS has to be. Like this has been more than 0:57:48.080 --> 0:57:52.560 a decade of constant terror and violence. So I do 0:57:52.600 --> 0:57:54.000 think that that's going to be a factor, and like 0:57:54.040 --> 0:57:56.480 what happens next, I should hope it will be. 0:57:56.840 --> 0:58:00.640 Yeah, I mean some things I don't know how to interpret. Right, 0:58:00.840 --> 0:58:04.760 HTS has asked the regime, police and authorities in cities 0:58:04.800 --> 0:58:08.720 to stay on Some of that is probably good, right, 0:58:08.720 --> 0:58:10.840 Like the people who ensure that the water gets pumped. 0:58:11.000 --> 0:58:13.640 I hope that they stay pumping the water. The people 0:58:13.680 --> 0:58:17.120 who were the police cybe regime. It's here an Arab republic. 0:58:18.040 --> 0:58:20.120 I don't want those people to stay on. I want 0:58:20.160 --> 0:58:23.040 those people to fuck off, and I want those people 0:58:23.040 --> 0:58:25.560 to be held accountable for the crimes that committed. But 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:30.120 it doesn't point to sort of wild sectarian violence. We 0:58:30.200 --> 0:58:32.720 don't have the situation we had in Iraq, right, Right, 0:58:32.840 --> 0:58:36.200 we have a US occupation which sits inside its basis 0:58:36.280 --> 0:58:39.080 and it only leaves c biglely to kill people. Right 0:58:39.200 --> 0:58:41.280 from the perspective of the people living in Iraq, that 0:58:41.280 --> 0:58:44.000 that's what the US occupation looked like for the most part. Right, 0:58:45.000 --> 0:58:48.560 it's guys in big military vehicles who kill civilians by mistake. 0:58:49.440 --> 0:58:50.480 We don't have that here. 0:58:50.560 --> 0:58:55.000 There's not that resentment, generational resentment that allowed the Islamic 0:58:55.040 --> 0:58:57.240 state to grow there. Now, the Islamic state did grow 0:58:57.280 --> 0:59:00.560 through capturing a lot of state institutions, which is HTS 0:59:00.720 --> 0:59:03.640 is done. But I don't see that same resentment, and 0:59:03.680 --> 0:59:06.760 they don't see that same desire for sort of redemptive 0:59:06.880 --> 0:59:09.160 violence that we saw. That I might be wrong, right, 0:59:09.160 --> 0:59:12.120 that there might be more into communal violence. I have 0:59:12.280 --> 0:59:15.640 seen some videos of what looked like summary executions in 0:59:15.720 --> 0:59:17.960 Damascus today. That's very concerning. 0:59:18.280 --> 0:59:21.640 Yeah, But also I mean, look, there's some people who 0:59:21.640 --> 0:59:23.160 need to be summer really executed in. 0:59:23.200 --> 0:59:26.600 This you know. Yeah, if you've got to shoot someone, 0:59:26.840 --> 0:59:27.439 fuck it. Yeah. 0:59:27.440 --> 0:59:29.920 If you're looking at the photos of just like thousands 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:34.160 of shoes and decomposed bodies, dissolved acid, its aid Naya prison, 0:59:34.720 --> 0:59:37.000 like you're liberating those places, you catch anyone who was 0:59:37.040 --> 0:59:39.840 working there. I'm not going to say that that's a 0:59:40.040 --> 0:59:42.720 bad thing to do. I might do the same thing, 0:59:42.760 --> 0:59:44.560 and there's that you in their circumstances. 0:59:44.880 --> 0:59:47.680 Yeah, I can't blame somewhere. I can understand someone doing that. 0:59:47.840 --> 0:59:48.520 What are you going to do? 0:59:48.920 --> 0:59:51.040 Yeah, I can understand that in the next few days 0:59:51.080 --> 0:59:54.160 they will probably be more of that violence, because we 0:59:54.320 --> 0:59:57.200 are literally in some cases opening the lid on some 0:59:57.320 --> 0:59:59.360 of the west crimes against humanity of this century. 0:59:59.440 --> 1:00:01.560 Yes, yes, and they are going to be catching There 1:00:01.600 --> 1:00:03.400 are a lot of mok brat, you know, secret police 1:00:03.440 --> 1:00:05.840 guys who didn't get out, who were throwing on We've 1:00:05.880 --> 1:00:08.760 got videos of them leaving the palace throwing on civilian 1:00:08.840 --> 1:00:11.920 clothes yep, and I'm not going to be shocked if 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:15.080 a lot of the justice process of that is ugly. Now, 1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:17.480 I do suspect that Joe Lannie is going to at 1:00:17.560 --> 1:00:20.000 least grab a chunk of those guys and do trials 1:00:20.120 --> 1:00:24.000 because he is really looking for state legitimacy, you know, 1:00:24.360 --> 1:00:25.640 and that's one way you get it. 1:00:25.880 --> 1:00:28.120 Yeah, that's his project now, But that's not going to 1:00:28.160 --> 1:00:29.840 be how all these guys go down. Some of these 1:00:29.880 --> 1:00:32.120 guys are going to die, and uh, yeah, they're just 1:00:32.200 --> 1:00:35.360 gonna get fucking got yeah. Yeah, And look, they got 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:37.120 a lot of people they kind of had it coming 1:00:37.160 --> 1:00:42.040 to me and not particularly concerned about that. I'm more 1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:45.800 broadly concerned with, like what are you doing on the left? 1:00:45.880 --> 1:00:47.880 If you see people in the streets, you see people 1:00:47.960 --> 1:00:51.040 tearing down statues of dictators, you see people celebrating the 1:00:51.160 --> 1:00:53.840 end of a regime that oppressed them for decades, and 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:57.080 you immediately go to, oh, this is bad, Like why 1:00:57.160 --> 1:01:00.560 do you even bother? If we don't believe that people 1:01:00.640 --> 1:01:03.480 can govern themselves, if we don't believe that the people 1:01:03.560 --> 1:01:05.600 in the street are normally the people who are right, 1:01:05.800 --> 1:01:09.320 and if we don't believe that the downfall of tyrannical 1:01:09.360 --> 1:01:10.000 regimes is. 1:01:10.000 --> 1:01:10.440 A good thing. 1:01:10.640 --> 1:01:13.320 Yeah, what what do you believe? You know, if you're 1:01:13.360 --> 1:01:14.880 just torturing it to be like, well no, you know, 1:01:15.640 --> 1:01:17.320 you and I both read that there was a post 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:20.600 earlier today with someone being like these leftists purity politics, 1:01:20.840 --> 1:01:23.560 you know, to be angry that aside kept a lid 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:26.760 on radical Islam and isis and just didn't do it 1:01:26.880 --> 1:01:30.240 super cleanly. And it's man, he was fucking guessing children, 1:01:30.400 --> 1:01:32.880 like what do you? Where are you here? Yeah? What 1:01:33.120 --> 1:01:34.800 is wrong with you? Come on? Man? 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:37.960 Yeah, this is yeah, this is a person who drop 1:01:38.120 --> 1:01:41.120 chlorine gas on blocks of flats with little children in them, right, like. 1:01:41.320 --> 1:01:42.439 Yeah, fuck this guy. 1:01:42.640 --> 1:01:44.720 It's good that he's gone. I wish he was dead. 1:01:45.520 --> 1:01:48.240 I'm sad that he gets to go and be an mphalmologist, 1:01:48.360 --> 1:01:50.800 like he, of all people, needs to be held accountable 1:01:50.840 --> 1:01:51.480 for his crimes. 1:01:51.720 --> 1:01:53.840 Yeah, yeah, some could have. We could have a song 1:01:53.920 --> 1:01:57.720 on Anteleirian kind of situation, right, Yeah, who's the Armenian 1:01:57.760 --> 1:02:01.680 who shot a member of the Turkey government in Berlin? 1:02:01.880 --> 1:02:04.600 Yeah we could have something like that, go down God willing? 1:02:04.680 --> 1:02:08.000 Yeah, yeah, you never know they yeah, I guess people 1:02:08.080 --> 1:02:09.240 there he's in Russia. 1:02:09.320 --> 1:02:10.160 Now he's in Russia. 1:02:10.200 --> 1:02:12.600 Someone will find him in his high end eye clinic 1:02:12.680 --> 1:02:13.040 one day. 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:15.040 Yeah, he's probably going to be going back and forth 1:02:15.080 --> 1:02:17.160 to Dubai. There's some Syrians who wound up in Dubai. 1:02:17.320 --> 1:02:18.400 Somebody might stab them. 1:02:18.480 --> 1:02:20.880 Yeah, we can hope. 1:02:21.040 --> 1:02:23.400 But I want to take one more break talking of stabbing. 1:02:24.440 --> 1:02:28.520 Maybe maybe we will get an advert for knives, you know. Yeah, 1:02:28.560 --> 1:02:29.760 I've never had a knife advert, have. 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:31.360 We No, I don't know that we have. And I 1:02:31.360 --> 1:02:32.720 would sell the hell out of knives. 1:02:33.600 --> 1:02:36.160 Yeah, almost any knives, even crappy gas stach night, Like, 1:02:36.200 --> 1:02:38.280 if you make the ones that look like an oil slick, 1:02:38.600 --> 1:02:41.400 get in touch with the advertising department at iHeartMedia. 1:02:42.320 --> 1:02:52.920 We'll pimp them. All Right, we're back. 1:02:53.640 --> 1:02:55.240 The last thing I want to talk about, Robert, is 1:02:55.560 --> 1:02:58.120 how the rebels won, because there was not a lot 1:02:58.160 --> 1:03:02.160 of fighting after the collap Civil EPO, but before there 1:03:02.480 --> 1:03:06.760 was fighting, and in part how that fighting went I 1:03:06.800 --> 1:03:08.480 think led to the downfall of the morale of the 1:03:08.520 --> 1:03:11.280 Syriat army. Right, so there are some things here that 1:03:12.400 --> 1:03:15.840 both Robert and I are somewhat nerdy about about conflicts, right, 1:03:15.880 --> 1:03:18.760 like it there's something even when we're not attending was. 1:03:19.200 --> 1:03:20.960 We like to read about them, and you and I 1:03:21.040 --> 1:03:23.960 both take a great interest in history, and I think 1:03:24.040 --> 1:03:26.680 we'd be unwise to not look at this and learn 1:03:26.760 --> 1:03:31.920 from it, especially with HTS who massively professionalized since the 1:03:32.160 --> 1:03:34.960 ceasefire in twenty twenty. I think professionalists is probably the 1:03:35.040 --> 1:03:39.120 right word. Like that command, the technology, that the way 1:03:39.200 --> 1:03:43.400 they operated looked a lot more like a modern military 1:03:43.800 --> 1:03:46.600 than it did, you know, the militias, like I'm sure 1:03:46.600 --> 1:03:48.560 you and I both remember the early Syrian of a 1:03:48.640 --> 1:03:50.280 war for people who are a bit younger than us. 1:03:50.440 --> 1:03:54.919 Like some of the most incredible improvised weapons that I've seen. 1:03:55.240 --> 1:03:58.000 Oh yeah, there was literally at one point they had 1:03:58.040 --> 1:04:01.400 an Ottoman era black powder or cannon on the back 1:04:01.520 --> 1:04:05.240 of a flatbed that they were using to hit regime positions. 1:04:05.800 --> 1:04:08.240 That they had literally taken out of the museum in 1:04:08.320 --> 1:04:10.720 a leopard to yaket it out of the museum. 1:04:12.720 --> 1:04:15.160 Fucking amazing stuff like theredible. 1:04:15.360 --> 1:04:17.560 Only I thought the top of like that sort of 1:04:17.680 --> 1:04:20.840 thing was when fucking insertance in Afghanistan would use seventeenth 1:04:20.920 --> 1:04:24.920 century Jazils to shoot at US troops. But the Ottoman 1:04:25.040 --> 1:04:27.520 cannon is really a was that's a flex. 1:04:27.960 --> 1:04:31.680 Yeah, with a huge flex they they also worked, you know, 1:04:31.720 --> 1:04:36.280 they fired propane cylinders out of huge tubes, these improvised 1:04:36.320 --> 1:04:39.800 motors they called hell cannons, Like really incredible and like 1:04:39.880 --> 1:04:42.160 it speaks to the ingenuity of people and their desire 1:04:42.320 --> 1:04:44.480 not to be oppressed, right, they desire to fight against 1:04:45.320 --> 1:04:48.800 state tyranny. But when we compare that to what we 1:04:48.920 --> 1:04:55.120 saw with HTS in twenty twenty four, a world of change. Right. 1:04:55.880 --> 1:04:57.920 In particular, I think it was very interesting that they 1:04:58.040 --> 1:05:01.520 captured armored vehicles and and they were able to combine 1:05:02.280 --> 1:05:05.640 armor and infantry very effectively, which is not easy to 1:05:05.720 --> 1:05:10.440 do right, that has eluded even some professional militaries. They 1:05:10.520 --> 1:05:15.880 also very effectively used drones, both drones to drop bombs 1:05:16.480 --> 1:05:19.880 and drones to adjust their artillery and mortifier, which I 1:05:19.960 --> 1:05:23.640 think is something that again like that modern militaries do, 1:05:23.800 --> 1:05:26.160 but it's not easy to do right, And it's not 1:05:26.360 --> 1:05:31.120 like HDS could do massive exercises in the lead up 1:05:31.160 --> 1:05:35.760 to this operation, like they seem to have professionalized very quickly. 1:05:36.160 --> 1:05:39.680 Another area that they were you can see that they've 1:05:39.760 --> 1:05:42.280 learned a lot from the conflicts in Ukraine and perhaps 1:05:42.280 --> 1:05:46.360 in Miammar too, was their use of FPV drones, a 1:05:46.440 --> 1:05:48.640 first person in view drone. How do you describe it. 1:05:48.840 --> 1:05:50.680 It's like your eyes are on the front of the drone. 1:05:50.760 --> 1:05:54.160 Is that a good description, Robert, Yeah, it's like you're flying. 1:05:54.360 --> 1:05:54.560 Yeah. 1:05:54.840 --> 1:05:59.560 And there are videos of whole classrooms of hts I guess, soldiers, militants, 1:05:59.560 --> 1:06:02.200 whatever you want, and called them practicing flying drones or 1:06:02.280 --> 1:06:04.640 using the controllers to play like a computer game where 1:06:04.640 --> 1:06:07.120 you have to like go through checkpoints and follow a 1:06:07.240 --> 1:06:09.440 route and things. And they seem to have developed like 1:06:09.480 --> 1:06:12.880 a training course that then gave them this drone brigade, 1:06:12.960 --> 1:06:17.200 which they used incredibly effectively. They had these massive first 1:06:17.240 --> 1:06:19.320 person view drones that were almost like a sort of 1:06:19.480 --> 1:06:22.280 Ersat's cruise missile, and it was I think one of 1:06:22.440 --> 1:06:27.160 those that penetrated some kind of command headquarters in Aleppo 1:06:27.280 --> 1:06:30.120 in the early days of the battle there, killed several 1:06:30.200 --> 1:06:33.960 important offices and commanders and helped to then spread that 1:06:34.120 --> 1:06:37.520 panic which they rode all the way to Damascus. Right, So, 1:06:37.720 --> 1:06:41.200 like this use of drones was extremely consequential. The other 1:06:41.320 --> 1:06:43.600 thing that they used in which we've seen the SDF 1:06:43.760 --> 1:06:47.400 use a lot, is these pulse art thermal optics. So 1:06:48.160 --> 1:06:50.480 a thermal optic sees heat, right, I guess would be 1:06:50.520 --> 1:06:53.120 the easiest way to describe it. And it maps heat 1:06:53.200 --> 1:06:55.880 in a visual fashion for the user, and in this case, 1:06:55.920 --> 1:06:58.400 they put them on their rifles and they're able to 1:06:58.480 --> 1:07:01.560 see other people. At our friend Carl, who we had 1:07:01.600 --> 1:07:05.000 on last week week before maybe Carl made a really 1:07:05.000 --> 1:07:08.040 good video about thermal versus night vision on his Arrange 1:07:08.120 --> 1:07:10.560 TV channel. I'll link it in the notes because I 1:07:10.560 --> 1:07:12.560 think it's worth people checking out. They're not familiar with 1:07:12.600 --> 1:07:15.400 this technology at all. The optics he used were not 1:07:15.480 --> 1:07:18.720 the optics they're using, but these thermal optics. You've seen 1:07:18.760 --> 1:07:21.360 them a lot with the SDF, especially in a freen 1:07:21.520 --> 1:07:25.360 like they'll do these night missions, right, and when you 1:07:25.480 --> 1:07:27.920 look at the recording from the thermal optic, it it 1:07:27.960 --> 1:07:31.520 looks like people are glowing because they are the hottest 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:35.760 things in that area, and it makes it very easy 1:07:35.800 --> 1:07:39.760 to target people. And HDS us these a lot when 1:07:39.840 --> 1:07:43.040 they were attacking a LAPPA, right, these thermal optics that 1:07:43.040 --> 1:07:44.760 they mounted on their rifles, and they allowed them to 1:07:44.840 --> 1:07:47.840 pretty much. The United States used to talk about owning 1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:50.360 the night right. Yes, it had night vision where no 1:07:50.400 --> 1:07:53.120 one else does. Night Vision's proliferated a long way now, 1:07:53.200 --> 1:07:55.800 and that means that some of the ways that they 1:07:55.880 --> 1:07:58.440 used to use night vision they can't anymore. Like, for instance, 1:07:58.480 --> 1:08:00.600 they used to send out lasers that were any visible 1:08:00.640 --> 1:08:04.480 and the night vision to aim weapons. If your adversary 1:08:04.520 --> 1:08:07.120 has night vision as well, you've now created a giant 1:08:07.200 --> 1:08:10.000 line that goes right back to you if you're using 1:08:10.120 --> 1:08:11.280 a laser aiming device, So. 1:08:11.560 --> 1:08:12.080 You can't do that. 1:08:12.200 --> 1:08:14.960 But these thermal optics, especially when they're fighting against Assyrian 1:08:15.000 --> 1:08:18.559 Arabami who I mean, these conscripts are massively demoralized. Right, 1:08:18.600 --> 1:08:21.439 They're underpaid, they're under fed. Did you meet any when 1:08:21.479 --> 1:08:23.879 you were in Jab did you meet any people who defected? 1:08:24.160 --> 1:08:26.240 Yes, yes, I've met a number of people who had, 1:08:26.400 --> 1:08:28.960 and some who had also had to flee, like from 1:08:29.000 --> 1:08:32.559 Aleppo and whatnot, because they had been on like rebels 1:08:32.600 --> 1:08:35.320 fighting the Asad regime, and some had wound up in 1:08:35.320 --> 1:08:37.200 the SDF, some more just civilians living in the area. 1:08:37.320 --> 1:08:39.479 I also there's also a number of folks who commuted 1:08:39.840 --> 1:08:42.240 like to and from regime held territory just because like 1:08:42.360 --> 1:08:45.200 if you were someone that wasn't particularly wanted, you could 1:08:45.320 --> 1:08:48.720 do that. Yeah, it was a very confusing situation for 1:08:48.800 --> 1:08:49.400 a lot of people. 1:08:50.320 --> 1:08:53.000 Yeah, extremely And I think when you meet the people 1:08:53.040 --> 1:08:55.920 who have been regime soldiers and come across often they're 1:08:56.040 --> 1:08:59.559 like they seem to be happy being waiters or working 1:08:59.600 --> 1:09:01.600 in the mark in Risjaba because their pay was so 1:09:01.840 --> 1:09:05.640 bad and their lives were so miserable as conscripts that 1:09:05.720 --> 1:09:08.720 they'd rather just come and work, you know, any job 1:09:08.800 --> 1:09:12.599 they can get in ans. And I think when you've 1:09:12.640 --> 1:09:15.240 got those guys going up against well trained people from 1:09:15.320 --> 1:09:18.880 HTS with these thermal optics, with these using torones, that 1:09:19.000 --> 1:09:22.240 communications were solid. You know, you can tell from their 1:09:22.280 --> 1:09:25.559 appearance that a lot of these guys are professionalized. They 1:09:25.600 --> 1:09:29.640 were almost indistinguishable from US troops. Like I think you 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:31.560 and I had both responded to this tweet about some 1:09:32.400 --> 1:09:36.479 YouTube guy was shocked that people were wearing helmets and 1:09:36.640 --> 1:09:40.400 body armor, which that has been the esthetic of violence, 1:09:40.439 --> 1:09:43.479 at least in places where the US has operated for 1:09:44.640 --> 1:09:46.519 I know, half a decade. Would you say, like the 1:09:47.120 --> 1:09:48.759 sort of US Special Forces? 1:09:48.840 --> 1:09:51.519 Look, yeah, I mean, and that's just the norm for 1:09:51.920 --> 1:09:54.439 dressing if you're fighting in a war anywhere on the 1:09:54.479 --> 1:09:57.439 planet now, yeh, Like, whether you're the Russian Army or 1:09:57.560 --> 1:10:01.439 some militia in Syria. It's you know, play carrier, usually 1:10:01.600 --> 1:10:04.200 like some sort of fast helmet, you've got you know, 1:10:04.720 --> 1:10:09.080 belt with sidearm mag pouches, and then usually either in 1:10:09.160 --> 1:10:11.719 akm or some sort of aar style weapon. Like everybody 1:10:11.840 --> 1:10:16.639 dresses that way. Everybody looks very similar. Yeah, now because 1:10:16.680 --> 1:10:18.400 it's just the most kind of I mean, number one, 1:10:18.479 --> 1:10:20.320 there's a lot of that gear lying around and it's cheap. 1:10:20.360 --> 1:10:22.439 And number two like it works, it's a load out 1:10:22.479 --> 1:10:22.840 that works. 1:10:22.960 --> 1:10:25.000 Yeah, it's very practical. Yeah, for what they're doing. 1:10:25.320 --> 1:10:27.360 I think number three as well, like we should not 1:10:27.520 --> 1:10:30.439 understate the desire to look like your avatar and call 1:10:30.479 --> 1:10:30.880 of duty. 1:10:31.120 --> 1:10:34.719 Yes, yes, it's also looks cool. It looks like being 1:10:34.760 --> 1:10:37.280 in a movie, and that is a that matters a 1:10:37.360 --> 1:10:39.280 lot to the kind of young men who start fighting 1:10:39.360 --> 1:10:39.759 in wars. 1:10:40.479 --> 1:10:40.679 Yeah. 1:10:40.800 --> 1:10:43.559 Yeah, people, I think if you've not been you won't 1:10:43.600 --> 1:10:46.200 realize how young a lot of these people are. This 1:10:46.360 --> 1:10:50.320 incredible professionalism or incredible professionism. I'm overstating it, but this 1:10:50.520 --> 1:10:55.120 dramatic change in the appearance and conduct of these rebels, 1:10:55.160 --> 1:10:59.200 particularly HTS, occurred over about three or four years from 1:10:59.200 --> 1:11:02.479 the cease fire in twenty twenty to this offensive in 1:11:02.560 --> 1:11:06.960 twenty twenty four, and I think it gives us an 1:11:07.120 --> 1:11:11.080 insight into the way that war is changing, right, that 1:11:11.680 --> 1:11:15.720 access to information is easier than it ever has been, 1:11:16.479 --> 1:11:21.160 and access to a lot of these technologies has proliferated 1:11:21.400 --> 1:11:26.360 massively because we've seen in Myanmar, right, drones proliferate people 1:11:26.520 --> 1:11:29.800 three D print little night vision goggles in Memba. Spoke 1:11:29.840 --> 1:11:31.800 to Milk about it about a year and a half ago. 1:11:32.439 --> 1:11:35.840 People remember Milk from our Meanma series about three D 1:11:35.920 --> 1:11:39.040 printing little night vision goggles that use the camera from 1:11:39.320 --> 1:11:41.640 you know those security cameras, Yeah, that can kind of 1:11:41.680 --> 1:11:43.360 see at night. They use those and then a tiny 1:11:43.520 --> 1:11:47.800 LCD screen. Of course, drones are everywhere now, right, things 1:11:47.880 --> 1:11:50.920 like plate carriers even you see rebels in Meanma wearing them, 1:11:50.960 --> 1:11:53.840 buying them from Ali Express. Like all of the technology, 1:11:54.000 --> 1:11:57.200 all of the tactics are also much easier to find 1:11:57.240 --> 1:11:58.920 on the internet. You know, Robert and I have both 1:11:58.960 --> 1:12:01.240 spoken to people who go said they go on YouTube 1:12:01.479 --> 1:12:05.639 to learn about like military tactics and small arms even 1:12:05.720 --> 1:12:07.760 and you know, how to use different weapons systems when 1:12:07.800 --> 1:12:11.519 they capture them. I think it's a real change in 1:12:11.840 --> 1:12:14.360 the way that conflict is conducted, and it's one that 1:12:14.439 --> 1:12:17.439 we will probably continue to see as like, you know, 1:12:17.560 --> 1:12:20.960 the world isn't getting any more peaceful, Nope, and waste 1:12:21.880 --> 1:12:24.960 a lot of you know, Russia and Iran took a 1:12:25.040 --> 1:12:27.840 massive l in Syria. That doesn't mean that they're not 1:12:28.200 --> 1:12:31.320 gone as sort of global actors. We will continue to see, 1:12:31.360 --> 1:12:34.240 particularly Russia obviously fighting in Ukraine. And I think it's 1:12:34.320 --> 1:12:36.360 worth looking at what happened in Syria so that we 1:12:36.400 --> 1:12:38.960 can understand what we're going to see in other parts 1:12:39.000 --> 1:12:39.400 of the world. 1:12:39.880 --> 1:12:41.960 Yep. One of the ways I like to think about 1:12:42.000 --> 1:12:44.479 it that is crucial for people to understand is that 1:12:44.680 --> 1:12:49.080 Syria has largely been the laboratory in which the twenty 1:12:49.160 --> 1:12:52.679 first century was cooked up, Like all of our futures 1:12:52.960 --> 1:12:55.680 have to some extent been built in Syria. Both like 1:12:56.439 --> 1:12:58.679 this is where we get a lot of the fuel 1:12:58.760 --> 1:13:01.600 behind the right wing surge that has been occurring over 1:13:01.640 --> 1:13:04.080 the last few years, started because of the refugee crisis, 1:13:04.160 --> 1:13:06.560 you know, but also a lot of the tactics and 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:09.679 weapons shit that like Israel is doing right now in Gaza, 1:13:09.800 --> 1:13:13.120 like Cereal, was the lab to a significant extent for 1:13:13.240 --> 1:13:16.599 how authoritarian regimes would crack down. And it was also 1:13:16.920 --> 1:13:19.719 the impetus behind a lot of the most significant things 1:13:19.800 --> 1:13:22.519 that have been happening over the last decade and change. 1:13:22.960 --> 1:13:26.000 So it might still be already. 1:13:26.320 --> 1:13:29.760 Yeah, siem and the Netherlands have stopped processing asylum applications 1:13:29.760 --> 1:13:33.519 from Syria, which is yeah, which is concerning yep. But yeah, 1:13:33.720 --> 1:13:35.640 I think it's worth continuing to keep an eye on. 1:13:35.960 --> 1:13:38.839 I will continue to post about it, we will continue 1:13:38.840 --> 1:13:41.200 to inform you about it here, and we will continue 1:13:41.240 --> 1:13:43.759 to bring on people who have more expertise and insight 1:13:43.840 --> 1:13:45.920 than we do. So yeah, we hope you'll keep an 1:13:45.920 --> 1:13:48.080 eye on it. And I just want to end by 1:13:48.120 --> 1:13:51.360 saying that like the democratic project in Rojava is under 1:13:51.520 --> 1:13:54.840 a great deal of threat, Yes, currently more than it 1:13:54.880 --> 1:13:56.240 has been for perhaps a decade. 1:13:56.400 --> 1:13:56.599 Yep. 1:13:56.920 --> 1:13:59.719 They do not have an ally in the United States. 1:14:00.120 --> 1:14:02.080 They do not, as far as we know, have an 1:14:02.080 --> 1:14:04.800 ally in Israel. And from what we've seen, it's one 1:14:04.880 --> 1:14:07.320 thing what Israel says, it's another thing what Israel does, 1:14:07.360 --> 1:14:10.120 and what Israel has been doing today is bombing ammunition 1:14:10.360 --> 1:14:13.240 that they already have in the Anes, and that means 1:14:13.320 --> 1:14:16.560 that it's more important than ever that you do what 1:14:16.720 --> 1:14:19.000 you can to support them. If you go to the 1:14:19.160 --> 1:14:22.320 Emergency Committee for a JAVA, you can find them online. 1:14:22.320 --> 1:14:24.040 You find them on all different kinds of social media. 1:14:24.280 --> 1:14:26.800 They have a toolkit for supporting JAVA right now, I 1:14:26.840 --> 1:14:29.360 would urge you if you care about that project, if 1:14:29.360 --> 1:14:31.840 you care about building democracy without the state, care about 1:14:31.880 --> 1:14:34.200 building a place where women and men are equal. And 1:14:34.640 --> 1:14:37.120 the revolution was led by women, it's not a revolution 1:14:37.240 --> 1:14:40.360 that include women, it's revolution by women for women. I 1:14:40.400 --> 1:14:42.880 would encourage you to do what you can to support them. 1:14:44.240 --> 1:14:45.639 All right, yep, that's all. 1:15:05.640 --> 1:15:08.400 Hey everyone, Robert Evans here and this is it could 1:15:08.479 --> 1:15:11.760 happen here. Obviously. One of the things that's been happening here, 1:15:11.920 --> 1:15:13.840 probably the biggest story of the last week or so 1:15:13.960 --> 1:15:17.559 at least, is the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian 1:15:17.680 --> 1:15:23.720 Thompson by an alleged shooter named Luigi Mangione. Meggione is 1:15:24.400 --> 1:15:26.400 an interesting character. People have had a lot to say 1:15:26.439 --> 1:15:29.200 about him, and so I went through his online footprint, 1:15:29.560 --> 1:15:31.920 everything I can find on his social media, and I 1:15:32.000 --> 1:15:35.200 wrote an article for my substack, shatter Zone, and I'm 1:15:35.240 --> 1:15:38.200 going to be reading that in a slightly amended form 1:15:38.360 --> 1:15:42.519 for you now as today's episode. I've spent much of 1:15:42.560 --> 1:15:45.280 the last ten years reading manifestos and being a fly 1:15:45.479 --> 1:15:48.840 on the wall in different little online boltholes where extremists 1:15:48.920 --> 1:15:52.880 plan and seek to incite mass shootings. When Luigi Mangione, 1:15:53.400 --> 1:15:56.600 the suspected shooter of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was 1:15:56.680 --> 1:15:59.439 arrested at a McDonald's, it didn't take long for digital 1:15:59.479 --> 1:16:03.080 sleuths to put together a comprehensive record of his online activity. 1:16:03.600 --> 1:16:05.360 I will tell you now that nothing he read or 1:16:05.400 --> 1:16:08.800 posted explains why he gunned down an insurance executive better 1:16:08.880 --> 1:16:11.320 than this single image in the background of his Twitter 1:16:11.400 --> 1:16:14.720 profile and the images, of course, of an X ray 1:16:14.880 --> 1:16:18.720 showing four screws in someone's lower base spine, apparently due 1:16:18.720 --> 1:16:22.040 to a lumbar spinal fusion surgery. The day after I 1:16:22.120 --> 1:16:24.679 wrote this article, The New York Times published a piece 1:16:24.800 --> 1:16:28.719 after finding Luigi's read it. The piece by Mike Baker, 1:16:28.840 --> 1:16:31.719 Mike Isaac, and my old boss at Bellancat, Eric Tohller, 1:16:32.160 --> 1:16:34.800 confirms that he had a spinal fusion surgery, that he 1:16:34.880 --> 1:16:37.519 had dealt with back pain for years, which had been 1:16:37.600 --> 1:16:40.719 minor and then gotten much worse after a surfing injury, 1:16:40.880 --> 1:16:43.240 and had grown even worse after slipping on a piece 1:16:43.280 --> 1:16:46.880 of paper caused persistent problems, including pain when he sat down, 1:16:46.960 --> 1:16:49.960 twitching leg muscles, and numbness in his growing in bladder. 1:16:50.000 --> 1:16:53.160 According to The New York Times, he had that spinal 1:16:53.240 --> 1:16:56.240 fusion surgery, which he had been deeply frightened of ahead 1:16:56.240 --> 1:16:59.200 of time, but which resolved those symptoms, and then he 1:16:59.360 --> 1:17:02.679 continued to have other symptoms, probably unrelated to the back pain. 1:17:03.200 --> 1:17:05.720 It's unclear if the back pain came back, but what 1:17:05.840 --> 1:17:09.760 is clear is that he wrote constantly online about pain 1:17:09.880 --> 1:17:13.160 and about his struggles with various other health issues, including 1:17:13.200 --> 1:17:15.960 a persistent brain fog that he seemed unable to get 1:17:16.200 --> 1:17:19.320 care for. His friend R Jay, who lived with him 1:17:19.360 --> 1:17:22.679 at an intentional community for digital workers in Honolulu starting 1:17:22.760 --> 1:17:26.479 in twenty twenty two, confirms that Luigi suffered an injury 1:17:26.560 --> 1:17:29.720 shortly after taking a basic surfing class after moving there. 1:17:30.000 --> 1:17:31.720 This laid him up in bed for about a week, 1:17:31.840 --> 1:17:34.240 unable to move. His friends had to seek the special 1:17:34.280 --> 1:17:37.000 bed to help him with the pain. In general, we 1:17:37.160 --> 1:17:40.600 have ample confirmation that he was someone who dealt with 1:17:40.760 --> 1:17:43.680 a series of escalating health issues that changed him from 1:17:43.720 --> 1:17:48.120 an extremely active, physically fit young man into somebody who 1:17:48.200 --> 1:17:50.240 felt like they were no longer able to do or 1:17:50.400 --> 1:17:52.800 enjoy the things they had previously been able to do 1:17:52.880 --> 1:17:55.160 and enjoy. Now this is most of what we know 1:17:55.400 --> 1:17:59.559 about the health history of Luigi Mangione as of December tenth. 1:17:59.720 --> 1:18:02.680 Now when I record this twenty twenty four. As I 1:18:02.800 --> 1:18:05.919 write this, a purported manifesto is making the rounds online 1:18:05.920 --> 1:18:09.200 which discusses health issues his mother faced. It's still unclear 1:18:09.240 --> 1:18:13.360 if that manifesto is real. kN Klippenstein has finally gotten 1:18:13.439 --> 1:18:17.080 access to what he claims is the draft of the 1:18:17.280 --> 1:18:20.080 manifesto that the shooter had on him when he was 1:18:20.360 --> 1:18:23.519 arrested by the police. I don't know if that's a 1:18:23.600 --> 1:18:26.759 manifesto or something he wrote while nervous, because he largely 1:18:26.800 --> 1:18:29.280 addresses the cops in it and tells them you know 1:18:29.800 --> 1:18:32.760 what to expect when searching him. But again, at the moment, 1:18:32.880 --> 1:18:36.840 this purported manifesto that was also posted on substack, very 1:18:36.920 --> 1:18:38.840 unclear as to whether or not that's real. So for 1:18:39.080 --> 1:18:41.719 this today, we're going to stick with what we can verify, 1:18:42.160 --> 1:18:45.120 and what we can verify is that Luigi Mangione suffered 1:18:45.120 --> 1:18:48.320 from chronic back pain. He had five different books in 1:18:48.439 --> 1:18:51.120 his Goodreads that he read about dealing with back pain 1:18:51.200 --> 1:18:54.200 and healing from back pain, as well as other chronic 1:18:54.280 --> 1:18:57.519 health issues. If he is the shooter, then we can 1:18:57.600 --> 1:19:00.680 confirm he also chose to act out by targeting and 1:19:00.800 --> 1:19:03.439 insurance CEO. The New York Times has stated that he 1:19:03.560 --> 1:19:05.679 was arrested with a two hundred and sixty two word 1:19:05.760 --> 1:19:09.240 manifesto which has since been leaked, and in that manifesto, 1:19:09.360 --> 1:19:12.720 he describes the executives who run insurance companies as parasites 1:19:12.720 --> 1:19:15.240 who quote continue to abuse our country for I mince 1:19:15.320 --> 1:19:17.880 profit because the American public has allowed them to get 1:19:17.920 --> 1:19:20.800 away with it. In addition to all this, we know 1:19:20.880 --> 1:19:24.320 that Luigi came from a wealthy family. His grandfather made 1:19:24.439 --> 1:19:27.080 millions running a series of country clubs, nursing homes and 1:19:27.160 --> 1:19:30.080 office buildings and hospitals. One of his cousins is a 1:19:30.160 --> 1:19:33.400 Republican state legislator. It is unclear if Luigi had any 1:19:33.479 --> 1:19:36.160 access to the family money, but he was clearly financially 1:19:36.240 --> 1:19:38.719 comfortable enough to move to Hawaii and pay to join 1:19:38.760 --> 1:19:42.280 an intentional community. He had engineering degrees and a promising 1:19:42.400 --> 1:19:46.000 early employment history. This is a man who had options. 1:19:46.160 --> 1:19:48.519 He could have been almost anything he wanted to be, 1:19:49.120 --> 1:19:51.160 and the thing that he ultimately chose to do with 1:19:51.280 --> 1:19:54.639 his life after suffering a debilitating series of health issues 1:19:55.120 --> 1:19:59.400 was to shoot the CEO of United Healthcare, Luigi Mangione. 1:20:00.200 --> 1:20:13.760 Radicalized by pain. It's a well known fact that most 1:20:13.880 --> 1:20:17.360 terrorists tend to be radicalized in communities. Much of my 1:20:17.479 --> 1:20:20.680 career was spent watching eight chan turn from an imageboard 1:20:20.760 --> 1:20:24.080 dedicated into gamer gate into a machine for generating white 1:20:24.160 --> 1:20:28.280 nationalists mass shooters. These people often appeared as lone wolves 1:20:28.320 --> 1:20:31.280 to the untrained eye, but they were radicalized intentionally in 1:20:31.439 --> 1:20:34.560 and by a community. Much will be made in the 1:20:34.600 --> 1:20:38.000 coming days and months about Luigi's online footprints. I will 1:20:38.120 --> 1:20:40.599 go into some detail about where he spent his time 1:20:40.720 --> 1:20:42.960 and how we should characterize it, but I want to 1:20:43.000 --> 1:20:45.360 be clear at the outset that his intellectual diet does 1:20:45.439 --> 1:20:47.719 not seem to be what made him choose to take action, 1:20:47.880 --> 1:20:50.360 although it may have influenced the specific kind of action 1:20:50.520 --> 1:20:53.559 he took. Luigi followed a lot of accounts on Twitter 1:20:53.640 --> 1:20:56.599 that are wildly popular with young men, like Joe Rogan. 1:20:56.880 --> 1:21:00.280 He listened to Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson and agreed 1:21:00.320 --> 1:21:02.559 with them on certain things, but he also had cogent 1:21:02.640 --> 1:21:05.920 criticisms of their arguments and presentation. Here's what he said 1:21:05.920 --> 1:21:09.360 about Jordan Peterson on May fourteenth. This is why Jordan 1:21:09.400 --> 1:21:13.200 Peterson always bothers me. Overcomplicates everything he says aloud, wasting 1:21:13.280 --> 1:21:16.280 everyone's mental bandwidth and having to decipher it. The best 1:21:16.360 --> 1:21:20.679 teachers are the best communicators, clear, succinct, simple language, which 1:21:20.800 --> 1:21:24.040 does kind of gel with the fact that he wrote 1:21:24.160 --> 1:21:27.160 three words on the bullets he used to shoot that Ceo. 1:21:28.680 --> 1:21:32.400 Luigi also expressed frustration with wokeness and expressed opinions common 1:21:32.439 --> 1:21:35.080 on the libertarian tech influenced right, like a belief in 1:21:35.160 --> 1:21:40.200 the social benefits of Christianity, without expressing popular religious beliefs himself. 1:21:40.479 --> 1:21:42.559 I've found one post where he talks about how nature 1:21:42.600 --> 1:21:46.120 abhors a vacuum and shares an article about how Christianity's 1:21:46.120 --> 1:21:50.719 decline has unleashed terrible new gods. Some of his posts 1:21:50.760 --> 1:21:53.760 took the form of memes typical to online discourse of 1:21:53.840 --> 1:21:56.080 this type, but I've also read an essay that he 1:21:56.120 --> 1:21:59.360 wrote when he was fifteen years old, discussing how Christianity 1:21:59.479 --> 1:22:03.120 persevere over paganism in ancient Rome and that essay exhibits 1:22:03.160 --> 1:22:06.040 a long standing interest in this topic and a capacity 1:22:06.120 --> 1:22:08.960 to treat it with nuance. His paper is very well written, 1:22:09.080 --> 1:22:12.160 particularly for a fifteen year old, and while his conclusions 1:22:12.200 --> 1:22:15.880 are highly arguable, it's not the work of someone hopelessly 1:22:16.000 --> 1:22:19.880 brainwashed by culture war bullshit. Luigi liked to think and 1:22:20.040 --> 1:22:23.559 read and come to his own conclusions. He was interested 1:22:23.600 --> 1:22:26.680 in AI, in cryptocurrency, in life extension, and in a 1:22:26.800 --> 1:22:30.960 constellation of tech bro adjacent attitudes and philosophies often described 1:22:31.000 --> 1:22:34.240 as the Gray Tribe. I found one post where he 1:22:34.320 --> 1:22:37.439 talks about a senior speech he gave on the Future 1:22:37.800 --> 1:22:41.840 quote topics ranging from conscious artificial intelligence to human immortality. 1:22:42.880 --> 1:22:46.040 The term gray tribe was coined by an influential rationalist 1:22:46.080 --> 1:22:49.800 blogger and psychiatrist named Scott Alexander Siskin. He used it 1:22:49.880 --> 1:22:52.479 to refer to an intersection of nerd culture with Silicon 1:22:52.600 --> 1:22:56.960 Valley influenced ideology descending from the online rationalist movement. This 1:22:57.120 --> 1:23:01.240 community existed outside of traditional right left eye ideology. Now 1:23:01.240 --> 1:23:03.599 I've not found any evidence that Luigi was a specific 1:23:03.680 --> 1:23:07.040 fan of Scott, but he expressed appreciation for several figures 1:23:07.080 --> 1:23:11.320 associated with this big tent movement, including Peter Teel. If 1:23:11.360 --> 1:23:14.400 we describe Scott as representing the more liberal flank of 1:23:14.479 --> 1:23:17.040 the Gray Tribe, Luigi seemed to be drawn to folks 1:23:17.200 --> 1:23:20.120 closer to the right wing side of things. The worst 1:23:20.200 --> 1:23:23.520 person to use this terminology would probably be Teal associate 1:23:23.600 --> 1:23:27.559 Bilaji Shrinivasan, who has used Gray Tribe framework to describe 1:23:27.600 --> 1:23:30.920 his ideal big tech takeover of San Francisco and purging 1:23:30.960 --> 1:23:34.920 of progressives. However, I must stress that Luigi Mangione never 1:23:35.120 --> 1:23:38.160 expressed any support for this end of the ideology that 1:23:38.320 --> 1:23:41.480 I can find. He was a young man of libertarian 1:23:41.560 --> 1:23:44.080 inclinations who worked in big tech and had ties to 1:23:44.160 --> 1:23:47.519 San Francisco, but he was also clearly someone still making 1:23:47.560 --> 1:23:50.519 his mind up about the world. As information about him 1:23:50.520 --> 1:23:52.240 has come out, I have seen people on the left 1:23:52.280 --> 1:23:55.080 who initially saw his axis heroic lament that he was 1:23:55.120 --> 1:23:58.759 a bigoted tech bro. Scott Alexander has been credibly described 1:23:58.760 --> 1:24:01.720 as a eugenic supporter, as have many other people adjacent 1:24:01.800 --> 1:24:04.760 to the strains of rationalism and big tech ideology in 1:24:04.800 --> 1:24:09.280 which Mangione dabbled. Luigia's Twitter account does indeed include weird 1:24:09.360 --> 1:24:11.680 posts from his time in Japan, where he theorizes on 1:24:11.760 --> 1:24:14.759 how to solve falling birth rates by banning pocket pussies 1:24:14.840 --> 1:24:18.360 and video game cafes. At other points, he complains about 1:24:18.400 --> 1:24:23.280 Japanese citizens acting like quote unquote NPC's but race science 1:24:23.360 --> 1:24:25.880 and eugenics don't seem to have been a focus for him, 1:24:26.000 --> 1:24:29.000 and I would caution anyone against being overly reductive about 1:24:29.000 --> 1:24:31.600 a twenty six year old beliefs based purely on a 1:24:31.640 --> 1:24:34.599 handful of posts that bear no relation to his actions 1:24:34.680 --> 1:24:37.200 in the world. The evidence that we have of his 1:24:37.280 --> 1:24:40.360 online footprints suggests someone who was not unmoved by certain 1:24:40.479 --> 1:24:44.040 arguments rooted in social justice. He expressed admiration for a 1:24:44.120 --> 1:24:47.839 quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse five about criminalization of poverty 1:24:47.920 --> 1:24:51.519 in the United States. Quote America is the wealthiest nation 1:24:51.600 --> 1:24:53.600 in the world, but its people are mainly poor, and 1:24:53.760 --> 1:24:56.720 poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the 1:24:56.760 --> 1:24:59.840 American humorist Ken Hubbard, it ain't no disgrace to be poor, 1:25:00.120 --> 1:25:02.320 but it might as well be. It is, in fact 1:25:02.360 --> 1:25:04.599 a crime for an American to be poor. Even though 1:25:04.600 --> 1:25:07.720 America is a nation of the poor, every other nation 1:25:07.800 --> 1:25:10.080 has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely 1:25:10.200 --> 1:25:13.160 wise and virtuous, and therefore more esteemable than anyone with 1:25:13.280 --> 1:25:16.280 power and gold. No such tales are told by the 1:25:16.320 --> 1:25:21.280 American poor. Neluigi is certainly not the idealized leftist icons 1:25:21.360 --> 1:25:23.920 some had hoped, but he doesn't easily fit into any 1:25:23.960 --> 1:25:27.320 other box. We've got. His interest in gray tribe adjacent 1:25:27.360 --> 1:25:30.160 thinkers and self help books written by productivity hackers like 1:25:30.280 --> 1:25:34.000 Tim Ferriss is incredibly common among young men. Much has 1:25:34.040 --> 1:25:35.840 been made of the four st Hour Review. He gave 1:25:35.920 --> 1:25:39.760 industrial society and its future the manifesto of Ted Kazinski, 1:25:40.280 --> 1:25:42.240 But as with the rest of his media diet, he 1:25:42.320 --> 1:25:45.479 did not view Ted through the simple lens of hero worship. 1:25:45.520 --> 1:25:48.599 Here's what he wrote quote, he was a violent individual, 1:25:48.800 --> 1:25:52.760 rightfully imprisoned, who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend 1:25:52.800 --> 1:25:55.120 to be characterized as those of a crazy Luddite, however 1:25:55.280 --> 1:25:57.400 they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme 1:25:57.479 --> 1:26:02.760 political revolutionary. I know those words his condemnation of Kazinsky 1:26:02.880 --> 1:26:05.960 maiming innocent people are not just words, because we have 1:26:06.080 --> 1:26:09.080 seen the attack he allegedly chose to carry out, not 1:26:09.200 --> 1:26:12.080 a series of bombings that killed and maimed innocent people 1:26:12.160 --> 1:26:14.960 with no real power in our society, but a surgical 1:26:15.000 --> 1:26:16.840 strike against a man at the very top of the 1:26:16.880 --> 1:26:20.000 system he hated, and one that caused no collateral damage. 1:26:20.560 --> 1:26:23.920 He was capable of appreciating some of Kazinsky's conclusions, but 1:26:24.080 --> 1:26:26.439 ultimately the quote he chose to highlight in his review 1:26:26.560 --> 1:26:28.920 came not from the manifesto, but from a Reddit post 1:26:29.000 --> 1:26:32.040 made by a guy with the user name boss Potatoess, 1:26:32.439 --> 1:26:36.320 who otherwise mostly commented on the Grateful Dead. This post 1:26:36.439 --> 1:26:39.679 praises Kazinsky for having the balls to realize that peaceful 1:26:39.720 --> 1:26:44.040 protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere, and complains economic protest 1:26:44.160 --> 1:26:47.679 isn't possible in the current system. As a result, violence 1:26:47.680 --> 1:26:50.599 against those who lead us to such destruction is justified 1:26:50.680 --> 1:26:54.000 as self defense. Quote. These companies don't care about you, 1:26:54.200 --> 1:26:56.719 or your kids or your grandkids. They have zero qualms 1:26:56.760 --> 1:26:59.160 about burning down the planet for a buck, so why 1:26:59.240 --> 1:27:02.040 should we have an equalms about burning them down to survive. 1:27:03.240 --> 1:27:05.960 This is not the kind of radicalization pathway our media 1:27:06.040 --> 1:27:09.120 is good at discussing or analyzing. The things Luigi read 1:27:09.160 --> 1:27:12.280 and the people he interacted with online absolutely influenced what 1:27:12.360 --> 1:27:15.320 he did and how but Boss Potatoess is not some 1:27:15.520 --> 1:27:17.960 nazi on eight Chan trying to provoke a shooting spree 1:27:18.040 --> 1:27:20.720 for the lulls. He's a random dude angry about the 1:27:20.800 --> 1:27:23.360 things seventy percent or more of the country is angry about, 1:27:23.400 --> 1:27:25.599 and he's expressing a lack of faith in a peaceful 1:27:25.640 --> 1:27:28.719 way forward. If you read this post in its entirety 1:27:28.880 --> 1:27:32.320 as Luigi did, you can't miss the pain there, anxiety 1:27:32.400 --> 1:27:34.920 and horror at the inevitability of climate change and the 1:27:35.000 --> 1:27:37.519 looming knowledge that everything good and green on this earth 1:27:37.800 --> 1:27:40.240 is being fed into the bloody maw of an industry 1:27:40.320 --> 1:27:44.599 concerned only with maximizing profit. In more ways than one, 1:27:45.200 --> 1:27:59.679 Luigi Mangione was radicalized by pain. I know many people 1:27:59.680 --> 1:28:02.720 who suffer with chronic pain and ongoing medical issues. I 1:28:02.800 --> 1:28:05.360 will tell you that it is not uncommon, in dark moments, 1:28:05.400 --> 1:28:09.160 after fruitless, hours long calls about dropped medications or receiving 1:28:09.320 --> 1:28:11.840 surprise bills, for them to joke about what they'd like 1:28:11.960 --> 1:28:15.040 to do to the executives who run these companies. These 1:28:15.160 --> 1:28:18.519 are jokes made in moments of despair and pain. No 1:28:18.680 --> 1:28:20.960 one I know would ever act on them, because they 1:28:20.960 --> 1:28:23.559 all have lives. People to care for into whom they 1:28:23.640 --> 1:28:26.720 are responsible, they would never really do anything because the 1:28:26.840 --> 1:28:29.759 consequences to their own loved ones would be so severe. 1:28:30.800 --> 1:28:33.200 In the months before the shooting, Luigi had cut off 1:28:33.320 --> 1:28:36.599 all contact with his family. He admitted this in court. 1:28:37.000 --> 1:28:40.280 His parents eventually filed a missing's persons report in November 1:28:40.360 --> 1:28:42.719 of this year, and we have evidence that friends tried 1:28:42.760 --> 1:28:45.479 to contact him on his family's behalf via social media. 1:28:46.320 --> 1:28:49.600 As was first noted by a Twitter account, Luigi Mangione 1:28:49.680 --> 1:28:53.320 expressed interest in the works of Paul Scalis, a tech lawyer, writer, 1:28:53.439 --> 1:28:56.720 and prominent poster who writes about the Lindie effect, a 1:28:56.840 --> 1:28:59.920 concept that boils down to this the only effective joke 1:29:00.240 --> 1:29:03.439 of things is time. Scalus is popular among the set 1:29:03.439 --> 1:29:06.599 of people Magngione found himself drawn towards and writes about 1:29:06.640 --> 1:29:09.240 the wisdom of ideas from antiquity. It's not hard to 1:29:09.360 --> 1:29:12.040 grasp what a man with an academic interest in ancient 1:29:12.080 --> 1:29:15.639 realm might see in him. On December fourth, twenty twenty four, 1:29:15.920 --> 1:29:18.760 Paul made this post. Look, if you don't have any 1:29:18.800 --> 1:29:20.840 kids and you want of these guys just floating around 1:29:20.880 --> 1:29:23.200 the big cities. You got your education, but you never 1:29:23.240 --> 1:29:25.240 really used it. To make money. You got a dead 1:29:25.360 --> 1:29:28.080 end back office job and a future of just working 1:29:28.200 --> 1:29:31.799 somewhere until you're seventy five and then dying, Go ahead 1:29:31.840 --> 1:29:35.760 and do something. It's been suggested that this may have 1:29:35.840 --> 1:29:38.400 influenced Luigi, and I think the timeline makes it clear 1:29:38.439 --> 1:29:41.280 that cannot be the case. Luigia cut off contact with 1:29:41.360 --> 1:29:43.479 his family in most of his friends months before this. 1:29:44.160 --> 1:29:46.360 The evidence suggests that he had planned this attack for 1:29:46.479 --> 1:29:48.640 quite some time. He arrived in New York City on 1:29:48.680 --> 1:29:51.599 November twenty fourth, on a bus bound from Atlanta, where 1:29:51.640 --> 1:29:54.559 he did not reside. So I don't think this post 1:29:54.640 --> 1:29:58.080 represents a piece of his radicalization journey. Nor was Scalus 1:29:58.600 --> 1:30:01.680 advocating for people to kill CEOs. But the situation in 1:30:01.840 --> 1:30:04.920 mindset Scallus described does speak to a lot of young 1:30:05.000 --> 1:30:08.520 men like Luigi, young and educated, but without intense responsibilities 1:30:08.720 --> 1:30:11.839 or much hope for the future. This subset of society 1:30:11.920 --> 1:30:17.080 has always overproduced terrorists, revolutionaries, and of course, mass shooters. 1:30:18.479 --> 1:30:21.320 The United States has a mass shooter culture over the 1:30:21.400 --> 1:30:24.280 last several decades since Columbine, we have grown used to 1:30:24.360 --> 1:30:26.639 the idea that people who are angry and no longer 1:30:26.680 --> 1:30:29.160 care if they live or die will sometimes choose to 1:30:29.200 --> 1:30:33.040 go down killing strangers. In most cases, these shootings are 1:30:33.080 --> 1:30:36.559 totally random, the victims chosen with no concern beyond maximum 1:30:36.640 --> 1:30:41.879 body count and maximum attention. More recently, especially since twenty nineteen, 1:30:42.360 --> 1:30:47.720 mass shootings have become increasingly politicized. Different extremists, mostly right wing, 1:30:48.160 --> 1:30:50.559 have used them to put theory into praxis and earned 1:30:50.600 --> 1:30:54.040 free pr for their causes. Most people abhor these actions, 1:30:54.080 --> 1:30:56.040 but we have grown used to the idea that other 1:30:56.160 --> 1:30:58.360 people will use such acts as a way to spread 1:30:58.439 --> 1:31:02.240 messages that might otherwise getting gnat It is not coincidental 1:31:02.360 --> 1:31:05.559 that the white genocide conspiracy theories from Brenton Terrence christ 1:31:05.680 --> 1:31:09.880 Church Manifesto are now mainstream talking points and conservative politics. 1:31:10.800 --> 1:31:13.360 Luigimanngione grew up with all of this. He would have 1:31:13.439 --> 1:31:15.920 come to the same conclusions about the role shootings play 1:31:15.920 --> 1:31:19.240 in our society as any other reasonably aware person. What 1:31:19.360 --> 1:31:22.040 he did, was, of course, not a mass shooting, but 1:31:22.120 --> 1:31:25.400 the assassination, his actions afterwards, and his possession of a 1:31:25.479 --> 1:31:28.920 manifesto were all clearly plotted out by someone who knew 1:31:28.920 --> 1:31:31.280 the social script for how this kind of thing goes 1:31:31.400 --> 1:31:34.760 in the USA. In the wake of this shooting. Every 1:31:34.880 --> 1:31:37.840 media organization commenting on it has had to grapple with 1:31:37.920 --> 1:31:41.599 the waves of public enthusiasm for Luigi's actions. Right wing 1:31:41.720 --> 1:31:44.960 media figures condemning the left for celebrating this assassination have 1:31:45.000 --> 1:31:48.280 been criticized by their own readers and listeners. Insurance companies 1:31:48.320 --> 1:31:51.000 have pulled down lists of their executives from the Internet. 1:31:51.800 --> 1:31:54.519 This is because they too, understand the shooter culture of 1:31:54.560 --> 1:31:57.200 the United States. Like everyone else, they know that any 1:31:57.280 --> 1:31:59.800 mass shooting that meets with massive media coverage and in 1:31:59.840 --> 1:32:04.280 nas trist will spawn copycats. The assassination Luigi is believed 1:32:04.280 --> 1:32:07.080 to have carried out was new and exciting. It demanded 1:32:07.120 --> 1:32:09.920 the public's attention in a way that most mass shootings don't. 1:32:10.560 --> 1:32:13.479 At almost the same time, the United Healthcare CEO was 1:32:13.520 --> 1:32:18.160 gunned down, a gunman walked into a religious school near Oreville, California, 1:32:18.280 --> 1:32:21.799 and shot two young children before killing himself. This shooting 1:32:21.880 --> 1:32:25.320 drew almost no national attention. It was entirely drowned out 1:32:25.360 --> 1:32:29.160 by the execution of an insurance industry ceo. The armed 1:32:29.200 --> 1:32:31.360 and disaffected young men who are most drawn to this 1:32:31.479 --> 1:32:34.679 sort of thing will not miss this fact. I believe 1:32:34.760 --> 1:32:38.639 Luigi Mangione was radicalized by pain. The shooters who follow 1:32:38.720 --> 1:32:40.519 him will all have their own reasons for what they 1:32:40.680 --> 1:32:43.800 do for their own journeys to that violent end, but 1:32:43.960 --> 1:32:47.800 ultimately they'll do what they do because Luigi proved it's 1:32:47.840 --> 1:32:48.599 what gets attention. 1:32:49.560 --> 1:33:11.200 For Now, welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast 1:33:11.240 --> 1:33:15.160 where I your host Miya Wong, talks about inflation. We 1:33:15.280 --> 1:33:19.200 have covered inflation on this show extensively, and now it 1:33:19.360 --> 1:33:21.640 is once again time to return to it as we 1:33:21.720 --> 1:33:24.640 head into a world where concerns about inflation and the 1:33:24.760 --> 1:33:28.880 economy are the most cited justifications for people voting for 1:33:28.960 --> 1:33:33.040 one Donald Trump. But unlike our other Oh God, had 1:33:33.120 --> 1:33:36.439 so many episodes about inflation, this one is going to 1:33:36.600 --> 1:33:39.320 be a bit different. Is going to start out somewhat 1:33:39.360 --> 1:33:41.120 similar in that I am going to lay out a 1:33:41.320 --> 1:33:45.080 brief explanation of the sort of material causes of the 1:33:45.120 --> 1:33:48.400 inflation cycle and talk a bit about inflation theories, which 1:33:48.439 --> 1:33:50.519 is what we've been largely doing on this show for 1:33:50.600 --> 1:33:53.639 a while. And then I am going to explain why 1:33:54.000 --> 1:33:55.960 none of that shit mattered, why none of what was 1:33:55.960 --> 1:33:59.120 actually causing inflation mattered a single bit, because ultimately our 1:33:59.200 --> 1:34:02.799 experience of inflation and more importantly, of price in general, 1:34:03.320 --> 1:34:05.960 is based on a sense of justice, or as the 1:34:06.040 --> 1:34:10.519 academics call it, a moral economy, and not on anything 1:34:10.680 --> 1:34:15.320 that's sort of going on. So let's begin with what 1:34:15.640 --> 1:34:18.839 is going on with inflation. 1:34:19.720 --> 1:34:19.880 Now. 1:34:20.120 --> 1:34:23.360 As we've discussed before on this show, most economists do 1:34:23.520 --> 1:34:27.200 not understand why inflation happens. People will take theories. Those 1:34:27.240 --> 1:34:30.559 theories are usually quite bad. There is no mainstream consensus 1:34:30.640 --> 1:34:33.200 on what is going on. As both me and my 1:34:33.320 --> 1:34:36.679 friends at the magazine Strange Matters have pointed out, former 1:34:36.760 --> 1:34:41.360 Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarulo said quote, the substantive point 1:34:41.600 --> 1:34:44.559 is that we do not at present have a theory 1:34:44.600 --> 1:34:48.680 of inflation dynamics that work sufficiently well to be of 1:34:48.840 --> 1:34:52.000 use for the business of real time monetary policy making. 1:34:52.600 --> 1:34:54.960 So again, this is a guy who used to be 1:34:55.040 --> 1:34:58.280 a Federal Reserve governor who has admitted that they have 1:34:58.360 --> 1:35:00.320 no idea what the fuck is going on within inflation. 1:35:00.760 --> 1:35:02.639 Looking at the extent to which people don't know what's 1:35:02.640 --> 1:35:05.200 going on to inflation and how the various theories simply 1:35:05.280 --> 1:35:09.240 don't work is a large part of Steve Mann's notes 1:35:09.280 --> 1:35:11.360 towards the theory of inflation, which is a Strange Matter's 1:35:11.479 --> 1:35:13.080 article that a lot of this will be pulled from. 1:35:13.240 --> 1:35:15.639 And we've had Ze on the talk about this before. 1:35:16.479 --> 1:35:19.720 So there are a lot of theories about inflation, and 1:35:20.280 --> 1:35:23.839 none of them work very well. Inflation on a fundamental 1:35:23.960 --> 1:35:27.160 level is just prices going up. People have this tendency 1:35:27.240 --> 1:35:29.960 to think about inflation in terms of the value of 1:35:30.080 --> 1:35:34.639 money going down, but on a pure level, all inflation 1:35:34.800 --> 1:35:38.880 says is that prices go up. Now, the most common 1:35:38.960 --> 1:35:42.240 theory of inflation is inflation is based on there being 1:35:42.280 --> 1:35:44.799 too much money in the economy. And the thing about 1:35:44.960 --> 1:35:48.200 those theories is that they don't work outside of like 1:35:48.320 --> 1:35:51.960 a very few specific examples of hyperinflation that loom large 1:35:52.040 --> 1:35:54.599 over our understanding of what inflation is, even though they 1:35:54.640 --> 1:35:58.880 have absolutely quantitatively and theoretically, they have absolutely nothing to 1:35:58.960 --> 1:36:00.720 do with the inflation that we've seen over the past 1:36:00.800 --> 1:36:04.920 four years. So instead of talking about that Shaite anymore, 1:36:05.640 --> 1:36:08.040 Man and the Strange Matter's crew developed what they call 1:36:08.160 --> 1:36:10.840 the supply chain theory of inflation. So I'm going to 1:36:10.880 --> 1:36:13.200 read the quote from Notes Towards the Theory of Inflation. 1:36:14.000 --> 1:36:17.160 As economist JW. And Mason recently remarked, on his website. 1:36:17.439 --> 1:36:20.519 Inflation is just an increase in prices. So for every 1:36:20.600 --> 1:36:23.759 theory of price setting, there's a corresponding theory of inflation. 1:36:24.680 --> 1:36:27.800 If inflation theory is downstream of price setting, this is 1:36:27.840 --> 1:36:30.519 still a quote from that article, but not the JW. 1:36:30.680 --> 1:36:34.720 Maansing quote. If inflation is downstream of price theory, then 1:36:34.800 --> 1:36:37.919 no account of inflation can begin with the macro economy 1:36:37.960 --> 1:36:41.120 at all, since prices are set at the micro level. Rather, 1:36:41.520 --> 1:36:45.479 you need to look at particular industrial sectors, their supply chains, 1:36:45.680 --> 1:36:49.320 and ultimately the pricing decisions of their firms. Only then 1:36:49.439 --> 1:36:52.759 are the true causes of inflation, both the internal failures 1:36:52.800 --> 1:36:55.320 of the industrial system and external shocks to it which 1:36:55.360 --> 1:37:01.200 can cause price rises revealed. Man's price theory is fairly simple, right. 1:37:01.360 --> 1:37:03.920 It flows from the basic observation that prices are set 1:37:03.960 --> 1:37:07.120 by guys in offices, not by something you know abstract 1:37:07.160 --> 1:37:11.559 as like market forces and supply and demand. In economic terms, 1:37:11.600 --> 1:37:14.560 what this argument amounts to is the argument that corporations 1:37:14.560 --> 1:37:17.800 are price makers and not price takers. Right, there's a 1:37:17.840 --> 1:37:20.320 bunch of guys they sit in offices and develop a 1:37:20.360 --> 1:37:22.320 strategy of but what prices are going to be? And 1:37:22.439 --> 1:37:25.920 that's you know, how they're set, and what matters to 1:37:25.960 --> 1:37:28.720 the people who develop prices are things like goodwill, which 1:37:28.760 --> 1:37:31.920 is to say, not pissing off their customers by raising prices, 1:37:32.520 --> 1:37:34.920 and things like their balance sheets which reflect, you know, 1:37:35.000 --> 1:37:38.439 their incomes and costs. Price in this model is just 1:37:38.640 --> 1:37:41.960 cost plus markup. And we know this is how prices 1:37:42.000 --> 1:37:45.160 are actually set because, as Man points out, people have 1:37:45.320 --> 1:37:48.240 gone through and done surveys of pricing managers and ask 1:37:48.280 --> 1:37:51.320 them how they set prices and the answer is costless workup. 1:37:52.400 --> 1:37:56.240 So what would cause these guys in offices to increase 1:37:56.280 --> 1:38:00.920 their prices, Well, these are companies that are all part 1:38:01.120 --> 1:38:04.439 of a global supply chain, a very very broad global 1:38:04.479 --> 1:38:07.760 supply chain, and a very complicated global supply chain. This 1:38:08.000 --> 1:38:10.439 means that if the cost of the stuff they buy 1:38:10.600 --> 1:38:13.320 from other suppliers on the chain in order to produce 1:38:13.400 --> 1:38:16.800 what they're selling, if those prices go up, because there is, 1:38:16.920 --> 1:38:20.360 to use a purely hypothetical example, a giant global pandemic, 1:38:20.840 --> 1:38:24.720 those costs increases eventually had to be passed down to 1:38:24.800 --> 1:38:27.559 the people paying the products, so that the corporation can 1:38:27.600 --> 1:38:29.920 maintain its balance sheets and maintain its sort of price 1:38:29.960 --> 1:38:33.320 plus markup as something that you know, covers their costs. 1:38:33.600 --> 1:38:33.720 Right. 1:38:34.680 --> 1:38:37.360 This is what set off the giant inflation spike in 1:38:37.439 --> 1:38:40.040 the US and the Biden administration. You know, the cost 1:38:40.240 --> 1:38:41.959 side of cost plus markup exploded. 1:38:42.479 --> 1:38:43.400 But it doesn't really. 1:38:43.280 --> 1:38:46.640 Matter why the prices increased for our purposes, and our 1:38:46.680 --> 1:38:49.040 purposes are looking at sort of why Trump won the election. 1:38:49.720 --> 1:38:53.160 What was important, you know, about inflation wasn't even the 1:38:53.200 --> 1:38:56.400 price increases, It was the narratives around inflation and how 1:38:56.479 --> 1:39:00.200 we understand the economy at a moral level. So that 1:39:00.360 --> 1:39:02.200 we're going to turn to one of the most popular 1:39:02.240 --> 1:39:07.599 accounts of inflation, so called greedflation. Now, as we've said, 1:39:08.120 --> 1:39:11.519 price is cost plus markup, and you can raise prices 1:39:11.920 --> 1:39:14.679 because of cost, but you can also do this because 1:39:14.680 --> 1:39:18.360 you want to increase your markup. And this is something 1:39:18.400 --> 1:39:22.439 that happened during the inflation search. Companies realized that consumers 1:39:22.520 --> 1:39:25.479 were willing to accept higher prices without the usual good 1:39:25.520 --> 1:39:28.040 will hit because they thought the prices were going up 1:39:28.040 --> 1:39:30.840 because inflation was happening, and because they were willing to 1:39:31.040 --> 1:39:33.080 accept the higher prices and not you know, try to 1:39:33.120 --> 1:39:36.000 shop somewhere else, corporations went, fuck it, let's just keep 1:39:36.040 --> 1:39:40.160 jacking the prices up, and this really really pissed people off. 1:39:40.439 --> 1:39:42.479 It still does, and this is something that was true 1:39:42.520 --> 1:39:44.200 across the entire political spectrum. 1:39:44.240 --> 1:39:44.360 Right. 1:39:44.400 --> 1:39:47.439 People were very, very angry about this sort of reflation thing. 1:39:48.360 --> 1:39:51.799 And that rage is more important than the technical details 1:39:51.920 --> 1:39:55.960 of why inflation happened, because the way we understand inflation 1:39:56.320 --> 1:39:59.920 is not through conventional economics. We understand it through the 1:40:00.120 --> 1:40:03.960 moral economy. And when we come back from a different 1:40:04.080 --> 1:40:06.719 kind of economy, which is to say, this ad break, 1:40:07.040 --> 1:40:09.600 we are going to examine what the moral economy is, 1:40:09.840 --> 1:40:12.280 how it differs from our sort of regular economy, where 1:40:12.320 --> 1:40:16.160 it came from, and why it's relevant to our situation now. 1:40:26.720 --> 1:40:30.960 And we are so back, all right, let's talk about 1:40:31.040 --> 1:40:35.360 the moral economy. The moral economy is a concept developed 1:40:35.400 --> 1:40:38.280 by the British historian E. P. Thompson in the early 1:40:38.400 --> 1:40:42.599 nineteen seventies. Thompson was attempting to explain the previous century 1:40:42.640 --> 1:40:44.719 and a half of bread riots by what he termed 1:40:44.880 --> 1:40:49.639 the English crowd by applying anthropological principles to their actions. 1:40:50.120 --> 1:40:52.400 I'm just going to read from Thompson's The Moral Economy 1:40:52.439 --> 1:40:55.439 of the English Crowd here. It is, of course true 1:40:55.520 --> 1:40:58.920 that riots were triggered off by soaring prices, by malpractice 1:40:58.960 --> 1:41:03.200 among dealers, or by hunger. But these grievances operated within 1:41:03.280 --> 1:41:06.760 a popular consensus as to what we're legitimate and what 1:41:06.840 --> 1:41:11.560 we're illegitimate practices in marketing, milling, baking, et cetera. This, 1:41:11.880 --> 1:41:15.320 in its turn, was grounded upon a consistent traditional view 1:41:15.479 --> 1:41:19.360 of social norms and obligations of the proper economic function 1:41:19.520 --> 1:41:23.559 of several parties within the community, which, when taken together, 1:41:24.320 --> 1:41:27.080 can be said to constitute the moral economy of the poor. 1:41:27.720 --> 1:41:30.720 In outrage to these moral assumptions, quite as much as 1:41:30.800 --> 1:41:35.240 actual deprivation was the usual occasion for direct action. Now, 1:41:35.520 --> 1:41:37.880 the moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth 1:41:37.920 --> 1:41:40.599 century is about a very specific period in British history, 1:41:40.600 --> 1:41:43.599 which is to say, the seventeen hundreds, and about how 1:41:43.720 --> 1:41:47.160 people thought bread should be sold. Peasants and the new 1:41:47.280 --> 1:41:52.640 urban workers had very specific ideas about bread, about how 1:41:52.680 --> 1:41:54.880 bread should be produced, about who should be allowed to 1:41:54.920 --> 1:41:57.040 sell it, about where and when they should be allowed 1:41:57.040 --> 1:41:58.840 to sell it, about how it should be sold, how. 1:41:58.800 --> 1:41:59.840 It should not be sold. 1:42:00.439 --> 1:42:02.879 And because of this, you know, because of their experience 1:42:02.960 --> 1:42:05.600 in sort of previous systems, that before the sort of 1:42:05.720 --> 1:42:08.800 imposition of the free market system or quote unquote free 1:42:08.840 --> 1:42:13.360 market system. They have a very specific series of hatreds. 1:42:13.760 --> 1:42:16.920 They hate middlemen, they hate grainhoarders, they hate all of 1:42:17.000 --> 1:42:19.680 the aspects of the new quote unquote free market that 1:42:19.800 --> 1:42:23.679 impose additional costs and burdens on them. And they also 1:42:23.840 --> 1:42:28.160 believed that elites have a kind of moral duty to 1:42:28.280 --> 1:42:31.000 the masses based on the norms and traditions of their society. 1:42:31.479 --> 1:42:33.280 And when they welch on that deal in a way 1:42:33.320 --> 1:42:37.360 that makes people's lives worse, people get extremely pissed off. 1:42:38.080 --> 1:42:42.759 These peasants, and you know, urban workers particularly hated price increases, 1:42:43.000 --> 1:42:45.639 and they hated price increases so much that this frequently 1:42:45.720 --> 1:42:50.479 turned into riots. But the actual contents of these riots 1:42:50.560 --> 1:42:54.599 are very interesting. Instead of simply seizing all of the grain, 1:42:55.040 --> 1:42:58.160 they do something else entirely. Here's Thompson again. 1:42:58.439 --> 1:42:58.759 Quote. 1:42:58.960 --> 1:43:01.599 The central action in this pattern is not the sack 1:43:01.680 --> 1:43:04.560 of grainaries in grain or flour, but the action of 1:43:04.680 --> 1:43:08.360 quote setting the price. From a few lines later, they 1:43:08.439 --> 1:43:11.880 might then order the farmer just end quote convenient quantities 1:43:11.960 --> 1:43:14.639 to market to be sold quote and at a quote 1:43:14.680 --> 1:43:19.160 reasonable price. The justices were further empowered to quote set 1:43:19.240 --> 1:43:21.679 down a certain price upon a bushel of every kind 1:43:21.720 --> 1:43:25.000 of grain. So, if you follow this here, right, what's 1:43:25.040 --> 1:43:27.559 happening in these British bread riots is that the revolt 1:43:27.800 --> 1:43:32.000 isn't just about their you know, being a price to grain. 1:43:32.560 --> 1:43:35.920 It's that people have a very very specific moral understanding 1:43:36.040 --> 1:43:39.080 of what the price of grain should be, and they 1:43:39.160 --> 1:43:42.320 take direct actions that are designed to set the price 1:43:42.400 --> 1:43:44.720 of grain to the level they thought it should rest at. 1:43:45.320 --> 1:43:48.800 And this kind of action is extremely common sort of 1:43:48.960 --> 1:43:52.439 across Europe in this entire time period. Right, it's also 1:43:52.520 --> 1:43:55.920 a hallmark of the French Revolution. You can see in 1:43:56.160 --> 1:43:58.160 this right, in this sort of rage of a price 1:43:58.280 --> 1:44:01.280 in the sense of justice, the outlines of our current 1:44:01.320 --> 1:44:05.719 moral economy. You have, you know, staggering outrage's price inclerease 1:44:05.800 --> 1:44:08.439 is seen as on jests, which is reflation or just 1:44:08.520 --> 1:44:11.360 inflation in general, because people are just mad about the 1:44:11.400 --> 1:44:14.439 concept of the price going up, paired with rage at 1:44:14.439 --> 1:44:16.599 the elites, which manifests the sort of hatred of Joe 1:44:16.640 --> 1:44:19.240 Biden the Democrats for being the people who presided over 1:44:19.520 --> 1:44:23.080 these price increases. We also have our own rage about 1:44:23.120 --> 1:44:26.559 price gouging in immediate market terms. And this is something 1:44:26.760 --> 1:44:29.560 that the most annoying libertarians and the defenders of the 1:44:29.640 --> 1:44:32.720 market love to point out. There's nothing actually wrong by 1:44:32.800 --> 1:44:36.720 market economics about say Martin Skrelly jacking the price of 1:44:36.800 --> 1:44:39.800 medicine up until you can't afford it anymore, or you know, 1:44:39.960 --> 1:44:43.880 other things that we find extremely terrible, like people jacking 1:44:43.960 --> 1:44:46.920 the price of water when people need water, like bottled 1:44:46.960 --> 1:44:51.080 water dreat hurricanes. We are all outraged, So why do 1:44:51.200 --> 1:44:54.080 we feel morally strong about it? And that is the 1:44:54.200 --> 1:44:57.200 moral economy. Maybe this is something that you know, these 1:44:57.320 --> 1:44:59.519 these reactions, right, the emotional reactions we have to this, 1:44:59.640 --> 1:45:03.120 the sense of injustice that we feel, are almost entirely 1:45:03.360 --> 1:45:06.760 outside of the realm of what you would call traditional economics, right, 1:45:07.320 --> 1:45:09.880 And that's because we're functioning on something that is, in 1:45:09.960 --> 1:45:13.479 some senses older than that kind of economics. But there's 1:45:13.560 --> 1:45:18.000 something else going on here at a fundamental level. And 1:45:18.400 --> 1:45:21.720 what's important about you know, price and the reaction to 1:45:21.840 --> 1:45:24.920 inflation is that it's an outrage based on a sense 1:45:24.960 --> 1:45:25.679 of justice. 1:45:25.840 --> 1:45:25.960 Right. 1:45:26.120 --> 1:45:29.200 This rage is not a measure of direct. 1:45:28.960 --> 1:45:32.400 Exploitation necessarily, I think it was the political scientist James C. 1:45:32.520 --> 1:45:35.360 Scott who wrote his own book called The Moral Economy 1:45:35.400 --> 1:45:38.720 of the Peasant, and Scott argues that, you know, and 1:45:39.000 --> 1:45:42.360 ib Thompson also argues this that it's the moral angle 1:45:42.439 --> 1:45:45.680 that causes people to revolt, not the direct level of exploitation. 1:45:45.840 --> 1:45:49.240 You can, in fact, you know, inflict hideous exploitation on 1:45:49.320 --> 1:45:52.600 people as long as they think that it's just. But 1:45:52.680 --> 1:45:56.360 when you violate these moral principles, that's when people really 1:45:56.439 --> 1:45:59.640 lose it. But it also means, right, the fact that 1:45:59.840 --> 1:46:04.400 the sense of outrage is not necessarily directly tied to 1:46:04.760 --> 1:46:07.479 the exploitation level. It means that rich people could be 1:46:07.520 --> 1:46:10.439 bad about inflation even though they're completely fine, because these 1:46:10.479 --> 1:46:13.320 people also still have this sort of sense of justice 1:46:13.320 --> 1:46:17.200 about what prices should be. Now, it's also worth noting 1:46:17.280 --> 1:46:20.040 here that it is possible to have high inflation rates 1:46:20.080 --> 1:46:23.080 and have everyone be fine. In fact, we have discussed 1:46:23.080 --> 1:46:26.920 scenarios like that on this show. In my episodes about 1:46:26.920 --> 1:46:29.000 the rise of Lulah of the current president of Brazil, 1:46:29.479 --> 1:46:33.440 we discussed how military dictatorship in Brazil produced an economy 1:46:33.680 --> 1:46:37.320 that was you know, you had twenty percent on year inflation, right, 1:46:37.600 --> 1:46:40.120 but also you had forty percent yearly wage increases, and 1:46:40.160 --> 1:46:42.519 so everyone was like kind of fine with it because 1:46:42.600 --> 1:46:44.120 the amount of money you were making was going up 1:46:44.160 --> 1:46:46.880 every year, So nobody really cared about even things like 1:46:46.920 --> 1:46:49.360 the military dictatorship itself. There was not an enormous amount 1:46:49.360 --> 1:46:52.519 of opposition to it. But then Brazil's trade unions figured 1:46:52.560 --> 1:46:55.519 out the government had been lying about inflation numbers, and 1:46:55.960 --> 1:46:57.680 this started off a series of protests that you know, 1:46:57.720 --> 1:47:00.840 would send Lula like into his blame his political career, 1:47:00.880 --> 1:47:03.320 and eventually this is one of the sort of dominoes 1:47:03.360 --> 1:47:07.479 that leads to knocking down the military dictatorship. And that's 1:47:07.560 --> 1:47:10.000 because you know, the level of exploitations people were living 1:47:10.080 --> 1:47:14.200 ut or hadn't changed. But the deal that they had made, right, 1:47:14.320 --> 1:47:16.519 the sort of deal with the military government of like, 1:47:16.600 --> 1:47:18.880 we won't do anything, our wages will continue to go up, 1:47:18.880 --> 1:47:21.160 and inflation will continue to work at a certain level 1:47:21.600 --> 1:47:25.679 such that we're still getting paid. That deal was violated, 1:47:25.760 --> 1:47:29.280 and that sense of injustice was powerful enough to really 1:47:29.479 --> 1:47:34.000 kickstart in extremely powerful Brazilian labor movements and kickstart at 1:47:34.000 --> 1:47:38.320 the fall of a dictatorship. Now, one of Thompson's arguments 1:47:38.439 --> 1:47:40.519 was that the success of Adam Smith and his Cohort, 1:47:40.560 --> 1:47:43.240 and Smith is moving around and making his arguments about 1:47:43.280 --> 1:47:45.360 what the free market is in the period where we're 1:47:45.360 --> 1:47:48.360 dealing with all of these sort of grand crises. His 1:47:48.560 --> 1:47:52.240 argument is that the success of Smith was moving economics 1:47:52.320 --> 1:47:54.280 out of the domain of morality where it was born. 1:47:54.360 --> 1:47:57.880 Economics was originally an aspect of moral philosophy, right, it 1:47:58.000 --> 1:48:00.960 was part of that discipline. But you know, Smith and 1:48:00.960 --> 1:48:02.880 as people move it out. And this is why liberal 1:48:02.920 --> 1:48:07.120 economists find the anger about inflation so incomprehensible. They see 1:48:07.160 --> 1:48:09.240 it in purely statistical terms and go like, look, the 1:48:09.320 --> 1:48:12.720 economy is great. Why is everyone mad? And you know, 1:48:12.920 --> 1:48:15.519 I could get into hear a bunch of arguments about 1:48:15.520 --> 1:48:17.599 whether or not this is actually true. I mean, I'm 1:48:17.640 --> 1:48:21.360 going to return to by sort of classic argument about like, well, yeah, okay, 1:48:22.040 --> 1:48:24.200 even if you believe all of the economic indicators are 1:48:24.200 --> 1:48:27.439 great versas people like I'm trans for me, the economy 1:48:27.680 --> 1:48:31.080 is it has an unemployment rate of like nineteen thirty 1:48:31.120 --> 1:48:34.160 six US great depression. So you know, there are a 1:48:34.160 --> 1:48:36.320 lot of people for whom the economic outlook is not good. 1:48:36.439 --> 1:48:38.680 People for whom you know, even the wage increases that 1:48:38.680 --> 1:48:40.960 they got in this period still leave them in sort 1:48:41.000 --> 1:48:44.200 of hideous and crippling poverty. And none of that shit 1:48:44.400 --> 1:48:47.160 matters because the statistics that these people are trying to 1:48:47.240 --> 1:48:49.599 use to try to get everyone to calm down are 1:48:49.720 --> 1:48:52.200 not operating in the inside of the moral economy. They're 1:48:52.200 --> 1:48:54.360 operating outside of it because they're from a tradition that 1:48:54.479 --> 1:48:58.080 is specifically about not working inside the moral economy, and 1:48:58.120 --> 1:49:00.559 the people that're interacting with are in the world economy. 1:49:01.560 --> 1:49:05.040 But why is it like this, right? Why do we 1:49:05.280 --> 1:49:06.200 have a moral. 1:49:06.000 --> 1:49:09.040 Economy that functions this way in the case of the 1:49:09.120 --> 1:49:11.080 peasants and you know, the working people of the seventeen 1:49:11.160 --> 1:49:13.080 hundreds across Europe, and you know this just goes on 1:49:13.160 --> 1:49:15.600 through the eighteen hundreds too. Right, we can trace the 1:49:15.680 --> 1:49:18.680 moral economy to a very very specific set of conditions 1:49:18.720 --> 1:49:22.479 and traditions and expectations rooted in how people traditionally bop bread. 1:49:23.320 --> 1:49:27.439 But what are the conditions of the modern American moral economy? 1:49:28.600 --> 1:49:31.240 To understand that, we need to turn to the concept 1:49:31.320 --> 1:49:35.000 of price itself. But first, do you know what guarantees 1:49:35.320 --> 1:49:37.679 low price? Actually, I probably shouldn't say the word guarantee, 1:49:37.720 --> 1:49:41.080 That is probably staggeringly illegible. You know what probably has 1:49:41.160 --> 1:49:45.040 low prices. It's the products and services that support this podcast. 1:49:55.720 --> 1:49:58.160 We are back. 1:50:00.240 --> 1:50:06.160 Now turn to price. The political economist Shimsheng Bickler and 1:50:06.320 --> 1:50:09.439 Jonathan Needson argue that price is the unit of what 1:50:09.680 --> 1:50:12.840 orders capitalist society. You know, price is like the fundamental 1:50:13.080 --> 1:50:15.559 unit of political economy. It's it's the thing that orders 1:50:15.600 --> 1:50:18.120 and structures the entire society. If you want to know 1:50:18.320 --> 1:50:22.000 more about this, read their book Capitalist Power. It's quite good. 1:50:22.720 --> 1:50:26.479 I am mentioning them because I'm about to misuse their 1:50:26.560 --> 1:50:29.120 argument completely in tandem with a quote from Marx that 1:50:29.200 --> 1:50:31.000 I am also about to misuse. And I am going 1:50:31.040 --> 1:50:34.760 to do this to make a different point. So I 1:50:34.960 --> 1:50:37.920 agree with Bickler and needs in that price is the 1:50:38.080 --> 1:50:41.320 unit that orders capitalist society. But what I'm interested in 1:50:42.280 --> 1:50:46.000 is price is what's called a social hieroglyphic. Now, social 1:50:46.080 --> 1:50:49.240 hieroglyphic is a term that's a one off term that 1:50:49.360 --> 1:50:52.839 Marx used wants to talk about how price like mystifies 1:50:52.880 --> 1:50:53.679 at hure value. 1:50:53.840 --> 1:50:54.120 Whatever. 1:50:54.720 --> 1:50:57.280 I don't care about that. I care about it because 1:50:58.200 --> 1:51:00.920 there's something very interesting about price itself, and there's something 1:51:00.960 --> 1:51:04.680 interesting about the notion of a hieroglyph Now March is 1:51:04.760 --> 1:51:06.600 using hieroglyph in the term of like it's something you 1:51:06.680 --> 1:51:08.320 have to be decoded, right, because he's writing in the 1:51:08.320 --> 1:51:08.960 eighteen hundreds. 1:51:09.040 --> 1:51:10.680 This is you know, everyone's obsessed with hieroglyphs. 1:51:11.360 --> 1:51:14.439 I am using hieroglyphs because hieroglyphs are also a method 1:51:14.520 --> 1:51:17.360 of encoding complex information into a single character. 1:51:17.800 --> 1:51:17.960 Right. 1:51:18.960 --> 1:51:23.040 Price as a social hieroglyph is important because price is 1:51:23.120 --> 1:51:26.040 the mechanism through which we understand and often through which 1:51:26.040 --> 1:51:27.639 we fail to understand the world. 1:51:28.479 --> 1:51:29.879 Our entire lives. 1:51:30.439 --> 1:51:32.360 In the eyes of the people who rule this world, 1:51:32.479 --> 1:51:36.040 our entire lives are captured in a single number. Everything 1:51:36.120 --> 1:51:38.640 you do at work is ultimately just a price on 1:51:38.720 --> 1:51:42.560 a corporate spreadsheet. The entirety of the labor process of 1:51:42.640 --> 1:51:46.080 producing a good, every hour worked, every drop of sweat, 1:51:46.360 --> 1:51:49.200 every tier, every broken body, and shattered city and trade 1:51:49.280 --> 1:51:51.200 union is lined up in front of a firing squad, 1:51:51.720 --> 1:51:56.320 appears in the end as a simple number price. To 1:51:56.439 --> 1:51:59.080 express it another way, heals Daniel conn At the painted 1:51:59.120 --> 1:52:02.880 bird from their the butcher's share. Let's take a walk 1:52:02.960 --> 1:52:06.080 around the old bizarre, where every little thing has trafficed far. 1:52:07.040 --> 1:52:09.720 Every pair of pants and grain of rice contains this 1:52:09.960 --> 1:52:13.360 poorer story in its price, a story of the power 1:52:13.439 --> 1:52:18.040 people wield, a story about factories and fields, a story 1:52:18.160 --> 1:52:20.760 of which you'll never have to be aware, just as 1:52:20.840 --> 1:52:25.200 long as the butcher gets his share. Price, this single 1:52:25.400 --> 1:52:31.080 number is how we understand the world, and it causes 1:52:31.200 --> 1:52:34.559 us to treat price and thus inflation, as a matter 1:52:34.680 --> 1:52:38.800 of morality and not economic rationality, because price is the 1:52:38.960 --> 1:52:42.519 way that our society causes us to interact with people. 1:52:42.720 --> 1:52:45.000 It's the way we interact with objects. It is the 1:52:45.080 --> 1:52:48.000 thing that structures the way we all behave and understand 1:52:48.280 --> 1:52:55.280 the world. But price has another function. It is the 1:52:55.439 --> 1:53:00.439 gatekeeper of capitalist society. Because price and a man with 1:53:00.560 --> 1:53:04.160 a gun is what's standing between you and the ability 1:53:04.240 --> 1:53:07.439 to live your life. Outrage of the moral economics of 1:53:07.520 --> 1:53:11.800 price increases are similar, but not identical, to the impulses 1:53:11.840 --> 1:53:15.800 behind looting. Everything that you ever need and have been 1:53:15.960 --> 1:53:19.639 unable to get is when you walk into a grocery store, 1:53:20.200 --> 1:53:23.280 just sitting there right in front of you, but between 1:53:23.400 --> 1:53:26.000 you and it is a number and a man with 1:53:26.080 --> 1:53:29.120 a gun, and the man with a gun fucking hates you. 1:53:29.960 --> 1:53:33.519 So the moment you're free, you just take it. Price 1:53:33.840 --> 1:53:37.880 in the entire economic system behind it is organized very specifically, 1:53:37.960 --> 1:53:41.800 so you don't do this. E. P. Thompson argued that 1:53:41.880 --> 1:53:45.200 the moral economy was pre political. The movements that it 1:53:45.280 --> 1:53:48.920 produced could be extremely well organized, but they fundamentally were 1:53:49.000 --> 1:53:51.800 not the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. 1:53:53.040 --> 1:53:56.760 In twenty twenty, we for a brief moment saw the 1:53:56.840 --> 1:54:01.599 outlines of that movement. The uprising was crushed in its place. 1:54:01.760 --> 1:54:05.479 We saw the emergence of pre political concerns about price. 1:54:05.800 --> 1:54:05.960 Right. 1:54:06.160 --> 1:54:09.320 We saw once again a massive panic about inflation. And 1:54:09.439 --> 1:54:11.519 this is not to say that you know, inflation didn't 1:54:11.600 --> 1:54:12.080 hurt people. 1:54:12.240 --> 1:54:12.559 It did. 1:54:12.720 --> 1:54:16.240 It was in large extents of fiasco. But look at 1:54:16.360 --> 1:54:18.840 the politics for a moment that this has produced. Right, 1:54:19.439 --> 1:54:22.160 What the media understands is economic anxiety, and what I 1:54:22.200 --> 1:54:25.240 think we can now better understand as the moral economy 1:54:25.360 --> 1:54:27.400 that is a result of the fact that our entire 1:54:27.439 --> 1:54:30.439 economic system is structured by price, and that we encode 1:54:30.479 --> 1:54:33.960 all of the information in our life into prices that 1:54:34.040 --> 1:54:36.120 we sell ourselves for, and that we in turn are 1:54:36.200 --> 1:54:41.240 sold things for those prices going up. The product of 1:54:41.320 --> 1:54:45.760 it was Trump, right, and there's I think a reason 1:54:45.960 --> 1:54:49.200 why these sort of pre economic explanations are preferred to 1:54:49.440 --> 1:54:51.640 the answers and you know, to the actions that people 1:54:51.680 --> 1:54:55.560 saw in twenty twenty four years later. Portland, one of 1:54:55.600 --> 1:54:59.240 the centers of the uprising, now has almost every grocery 1:54:59.280 --> 1:55:02.480 store the exit of it is armed guards with guns. 1:55:03.480 --> 1:55:05.880 And these guards are there to maintain the price system. 1:55:06.560 --> 1:55:09.680 They're there because for a very brief moment, people started 1:55:09.720 --> 1:55:14.200 thinking something dangerous. They started thinking, what if this didn't 1:55:14.240 --> 1:55:14.840 have a price? 1:55:35.760 --> 1:55:37.200 It's it could happen here. 1:55:37.320 --> 1:55:40.440 The podcast that's happening right now, this is maybe the 1:55:40.560 --> 1:55:44.320 foremost of the Putting Things Back Together episodes. I'm your 1:55:44.360 --> 1:55:47.160 host Miya Wong with me as James Stout guy. He 1:55:47.360 --> 1:55:49.960 likes it to put things together. Yeah, and you know, 1:55:50.360 --> 1:55:53.880 on the subject of putting things together over the last 1:55:54.440 --> 1:55:56.800 I don't even know three four weeks, the question I 1:55:56.840 --> 1:56:00.520 have been asked the most by everyone is how do 1:56:00.680 --> 1:56:05.240 I start organizing? And you know the problem with how 1:56:05.280 --> 1:56:07.720 do I start organizing is that it's not a question 1:56:07.920 --> 1:56:11.720 that has cleaner, simple answers. Now, the most common answer 1:56:11.800 --> 1:56:14.200 you get is just join an org. And the problem 1:56:14.320 --> 1:56:15.800 is that most of the people who you were hearing 1:56:15.880 --> 1:56:17.960 this from are already in an org. And want you 1:56:18.040 --> 1:56:19.120 to join their org. 1:56:19.800 --> 1:56:20.040 Yeah. 1:56:20.840 --> 1:56:22.680 Also, the problem is a lot of the orgs that 1:56:22.720 --> 1:56:25.720 are currently dominating left to spaces in the in the 1:56:25.840 --> 1:56:26.760 United States. 1:56:26.480 --> 1:56:31.200 Are trash, yeah, and bad for people, bad people in them, 1:56:31.240 --> 1:56:32.680 bad people who are not in them. Yeah. 1:56:32.920 --> 1:56:35.120 Here's a little test you can you can do. Is 1:56:35.240 --> 1:56:38.480 your org currently sad that Basha a Lasad is no 1:56:38.720 --> 1:56:41.480 longer governing Syria? Because if that's the case. 1:56:41.760 --> 1:56:43.240 Leave yep. 1:56:43.560 --> 1:56:46.360 And that's that's a lot of orgs that that's not Yeah, 1:56:46.400 --> 1:56:48.640 that takes most of them right now. We'll come back 1:56:48.760 --> 1:56:51.960 to orgs in a bit. But what I'll say about 1:56:52.080 --> 1:56:55.600 orgs is that, Okay, if you know an organization in 1:56:55.840 --> 1:56:58.080 your area that you like and you think does good 1:56:58.120 --> 1:57:00.960 work and most importantly spends their time actually doing work 1:57:01.080 --> 1:57:03.720 instead of either in fighting or talking about doing work, 1:57:04.280 --> 1:57:06.200 you join them. It will be good. But the important 1:57:06.200 --> 1:57:08.240 thing about organizations, and this is something we'll come back 1:57:08.240 --> 1:57:10.840 to you later. The important thing about organizations is they 1:57:10.920 --> 1:57:13.240 have a lot of people. Yeah, And the thing that 1:57:13.320 --> 1:57:16.320 makes organizing work is people. It's not organizations. It's not 1:57:16.520 --> 1:57:19.240 even necessarily ideological labels. It's there being a bunch of 1:57:19.320 --> 1:57:22.400 people who you can use and who want to do things. Yeah, 1:57:23.160 --> 1:57:27.200 but something I realized that the more I had these conversations, right, 1:57:27.760 --> 1:57:29.440 you know, I'm having it with friends, I'm having them 1:57:29.480 --> 1:57:33.080 with strangers, I'm having them with other organizers. And the 1:57:33.200 --> 1:57:35.760 more I had these conversations, the more I realize something 1:57:35.840 --> 1:57:39.440 sort of startling you. The person listening to this almost 1:57:39.480 --> 1:57:42.360 certainly already knows how to organize, but you don't know 1:57:42.720 --> 1:57:46.200 that that's called organizing. Yeah, that's a very good point. 1:57:46.920 --> 1:57:49.720 I have encountered some of the most stunning or I 1:57:49.760 --> 1:57:52.800 mean organizing that like I can't discuss the specifics of, 1:57:52.880 --> 1:57:55.080 but like some of the best organizing I've ever encountered. 1:57:55.160 --> 1:57:57.200 I have ran into you in the last three weeks 1:57:57.240 --> 1:57:59.760 some people who don't think that they're organizers and started 1:57:59.800 --> 1:58:03.560 talking to me about their stuff. I was like, what, Like, 1:58:04.680 --> 1:58:07.520 people are winning victories that like the like hardcore committed 1:58:07.600 --> 1:58:10.560 organizers haven't been able to do in like thirty years. Yeah, 1:58:10.680 --> 1:58:12.600 and it's just by random people who don't think they 1:58:12.680 --> 1:58:13.440 know how to do anything. 1:58:13.800 --> 1:58:15.880 Yeah. Can I tell a little organizing story? 1:58:16.000 --> 1:58:16.760 Do we have time? 1:58:16.960 --> 1:58:18.240 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. 1:58:18.320 --> 1:58:20.720 So I remember in like twenty eighteen, I am on 1:58:20.840 --> 1:58:22.880 a trip with a friend. We're coming back and we 1:58:23.320 --> 1:58:25.880 see the arrival of the migrant caravan. One of the 1:58:26.000 --> 1:58:28.200 migrant caravan is the one that everyone decided to have 1:58:28.280 --> 1:58:31.040 a fucking cow about right before the twenty eighteen mid terms. 1:58:31.800 --> 1:58:34.120 And at that time, they were corraling the people of 1:58:34.160 --> 1:58:38.360 the migrant caravan in a baseball stadium in Tijuana, and 1:58:38.640 --> 1:58:41.360 like it was raining every day, So the baseball stadium ends. 1:58:41.240 --> 1:58:42.960 Up looking like the Battle of the Psalm after like 1:58:43.080 --> 1:58:43.480 a couple of. 1:58:43.560 --> 1:58:46.040 Days, right, you know, kids in leady mud and shit, 1:58:46.680 --> 1:58:49.720 and I particularly know what to do, but evidently there 1:58:49.720 --> 1:58:51.760 were people there who were hungry and thirsty, and so 1:58:52.000 --> 1:58:54.000 I get three of my my friends. At this time, 1:58:54.280 --> 1:58:58.360 I was still making about half my money riding bicycles 1:58:58.400 --> 1:59:00.920 and in the other half writing. So my friends and 1:59:00.960 --> 1:59:03.240 I supposed to do a long bike ride. All of 1:59:03.360 --> 1:59:05.400 us are people who make a living riding bikes, right, 1:59:05.640 --> 1:59:08.640 we're not like expert organizers. And I was like, hey, guys, 1:59:08.680 --> 1:59:09.160 this is fucked. 1:59:09.200 --> 1:59:09.640 Which we do. 1:59:10.120 --> 1:59:12.480 We called a friend who has a company who makes waffles, 1:59:13.240 --> 1:59:17.000 where we obtained like as many waffles as we could 1:59:17.000 --> 1:59:19.760 physically carry across the border. At that time, we weren't 1:59:19.800 --> 1:59:22.200 able to get in. We found a way to get in. 1:59:22.760 --> 1:59:26.520 We began distributing the waffles. After that, we put something online, 1:59:26.600 --> 1:59:29.200 people sent us money, and we continued feeding people for months. 1:59:29.640 --> 1:59:32.080 None of us, I think, had a particular plan or 1:59:32.160 --> 1:59:35.000 a scheduled. Yeah, it is a bit chaotic at times, 1:59:35.560 --> 1:59:38.040 but we were able to do that and with a 1:59:38.040 --> 1:59:40.080 lot of other people. Clearly wasn't just us, right, but 1:59:40.200 --> 1:59:42.360 we were able to process tenths of thousands of dollars 1:59:42.400 --> 1:59:43.720 and feed thousands of people. 1:59:44.640 --> 1:59:46.560 Be everyone there, And. 1:59:46.600 --> 1:59:49.680 I've seen this countless times, especially working and organizing with 1:59:50.400 --> 1:59:52.920 well with refugees. For the most part, people are so 1:59:53.080 --> 1:59:55.840 good at organizing each other in themselves. Like when we 1:59:56.360 --> 1:59:59.120 got there with bottles of water and food, there are 1:59:59.120 --> 2:00:02.040 a thousand people who have not had sometimes a drink 2:00:02.280 --> 2:00:04.600 for days, let alone more than a thousand, I think, 2:00:04.720 --> 2:00:08.160 let alone something hot to eat. Right, Everybody made sure 2:00:08.200 --> 2:00:10.120 that the children and the sick people got what they 2:00:10.200 --> 2:00:10.760 needed first. 2:00:11.000 --> 2:00:14.160 Organizing is something that is very inherent in us as people. 2:00:14.240 --> 2:00:18.320 It just we don't call it that. Yeah, And that's 2:00:18.360 --> 2:00:20.000 part of what I want to try to the myth. 2:00:20.040 --> 2:00:21.840 I want to try to puncture with this because I 2:00:21.920 --> 2:00:24.840 think particularly in the US, but this is true in 2:00:24.880 --> 2:00:26.760 a lot of places. There's this way in which the 2:00:26.960 --> 2:00:30.640 organizer sort of TM capital T capital O. The organizer 2:00:30.720 --> 2:00:33.880 gets held up as this sort of I guess, even 2:00:34.000 --> 2:00:38.120 a particularly masculinist thing, which is it's this this guy 2:00:38.280 --> 2:00:43.440 with specialized knowledge, and that's just not true. This brings 2:00:43.520 --> 2:00:45.920 us something that I think is actually really important, which 2:00:46.000 --> 2:00:47.960 is what what even is organizing? 2:00:48.400 --> 2:00:48.520 Right? 2:00:49.200 --> 2:00:51.720 And the answer is that most organizing is you get 2:00:51.920 --> 2:00:54.840 you get a group of people together, you get them 2:00:54.880 --> 2:00:57.320 to show up to something, and then you do something right. 2:00:57.560 --> 2:01:01.320 And the thing about this, right, that's something all of 2:01:01.400 --> 2:01:04.240 you know how to do. If you can organize a 2:01:04.440 --> 2:01:07.520 dinner party, right, if you can get eight people to 2:01:07.640 --> 2:01:10.160 show up to a place to eat dinner, you can 2:01:10.240 --> 2:01:14.000 do this. It is it is largely the same skill sets, 2:01:14.040 --> 2:01:16.400 and all of the skill sets that make people good 2:01:16.520 --> 2:01:20.360 organizers are skill sets that you have to develop to 2:01:20.800 --> 2:01:22.360 you know, work a job right. 2:01:22.480 --> 2:01:22.600 You know. 2:01:22.760 --> 2:01:24.040 Like one of the things that comes up a lot 2:01:24.120 --> 2:01:27.240 in this which is less discussed and also kind of annoying, 2:01:27.360 --> 2:01:28.640 but you know you have to manage it is that 2:01:28.800 --> 2:01:31.400 organizing is about people and sometimes you have to you know, 2:01:31.440 --> 2:01:32.600 you have to do things like you have to manage 2:01:32.600 --> 2:01:34.800 people's egos. But like, I don't know, almost all of 2:01:34.880 --> 2:01:37.560 you work jobs or have work jobs, right, you have 2:01:37.720 --> 2:01:41.040 had to like deal with your boss being on one right, 2:01:42.040 --> 2:01:44.360 you have the skills to do this. You know how 2:01:44.400 --> 2:01:49.240 to do the interpersonal relationship stuff. It's just that you 2:01:49.280 --> 2:01:53.200 don't think about that as organizing, even though that's that's. 2:01:53.240 --> 2:01:54.120 Just what it is. 2:01:55.040 --> 2:01:57.280 Yeah, that's the core of it is getting people to 2:01:57.360 --> 2:02:00.000 do stuff, like like you do it every. 2:02:01.080 --> 2:02:03.839 Yeah, and the way you do this is by building 2:02:03.880 --> 2:02:06.880 relationships with people, right, And this isn't necessarily friendships, although 2:02:06.920 --> 2:02:08.840 that works. And like, one of the easiest ways to 2:02:09.520 --> 2:02:12.360 start organizing is by getting all of your friends together 2:02:12.480 --> 2:02:14.840 because you're already friends, you have pre existing relationships, and 2:02:14.920 --> 2:02:18.560 being like, Okay, motherfuckers, we gotta go do something. 2:02:19.200 --> 2:02:20.320 And actually I love that. 2:02:20.400 --> 2:02:22.760 The first thing that you brought up was an admittedly 2:02:22.840 --> 2:02:26.800 sort of medium ish scale lift version of this. But 2:02:27.000 --> 2:02:28.640 one of the very easiest things that you can do 2:02:28.840 --> 2:02:31.040 is you can just get food of some kind. You 2:02:31.120 --> 2:02:33.040 can either buy it or you can make it yourself, 2:02:33.680 --> 2:02:36.320 and you and a group of like eight people, not 2:02:36.440 --> 2:02:37.920 even eight people, you can do it with lower I 2:02:38.160 --> 2:02:40.080 know people who've done this just solo. 2:02:40.800 --> 2:02:43.040 Is that you can just go give food to people. Yeah. 2:02:43.240 --> 2:02:46.560 Literally it was this morning, so I'm tired. 2:02:46.640 --> 2:02:48.920 Yesterday morning, I have some mine house neighbors right and 2:02:49.000 --> 2:02:50.520 it was cold, and so I went out and gave 2:02:50.560 --> 2:02:54.520 them some hot breakfast, so hot coffee. It's super easy 2:02:54.560 --> 2:02:57.560 to do if you are struggling socially wherever you are, 2:02:57.680 --> 2:02:59.440 maybe you're finding a hide to make friends. I know 2:02:59.560 --> 2:03:02.400 that's the thing people often struggle, especially if you've moved 2:03:02.440 --> 2:03:05.200 to a new place or post pandemic, or you're still 2:03:05.240 --> 2:03:07.600 concerned with Liuvede gatherings or any of those things. Like, 2:03:07.960 --> 2:03:10.560 if you start doing that, you will find other people 2:03:10.880 --> 2:03:12.720 who want to do it too, Like so many of 2:03:12.760 --> 2:03:16.080 my friends I organize with are people. Like when we 2:03:16.240 --> 2:03:17.920 had the end of Title forty two and people were 2:03:17.960 --> 2:03:20.840 in between the fences that a lot of the people 2:03:20.880 --> 2:03:23.680 who I organize with now or who helped people with now, 2:03:23.760 --> 2:03:26.760 I didn't know. I just showed up with a giant 2:03:26.800 --> 2:03:29.200 sider generator that I happened to have and some stuff 2:03:29.240 --> 2:03:31.000 that we had to whip around a CAOL zone for 2:03:31.600 --> 2:03:33.960 and like people who care about the same things as 2:03:34.000 --> 2:03:36.560 you are generally cool and it's a good way to 2:03:36.680 --> 2:03:39.160 make friends, and then you can go on from there. 2:03:40.360 --> 2:03:43.600 Yeah, and there's a second compounding thing here too, which 2:03:43.680 --> 2:03:47.320 is that you know, feeding people it's a way to 2:03:47.360 --> 2:03:50.440 build relationships with people, and also it's a really good 2:03:50.560 --> 2:03:53.840 way for people to get to know you in general 2:03:53.960 --> 2:03:55.800 and know that you are someone who will help them 2:03:55.840 --> 2:03:57.840 with things. Yeah, and from there, and this is a 2:03:57.960 --> 2:03:59.840 very common except I mean this is I literally had 2:03:59.840 --> 2:04:02.600 this conversation with one of my friends who's like an 2:04:02.640 --> 2:04:05.680 old school Food Not Bombs organizer. Food Not Bombs is 2:04:05.720 --> 2:04:08.600 a very very it's a cool organization. You can just 2:04:08.800 --> 2:04:11.840 like found a food out Bobs chapter. They have like 2:04:12.240 --> 2:04:15.120 a couple of principles, or you can just do your 2:04:15.160 --> 2:04:16.800 own thing. And I'm pretty sure it's still like the 2:04:16.880 --> 2:04:19.440 largest anarchist project in the world. Yeah, because all it 2:04:19.520 --> 2:04:22.120 takes is you and like three other people and you 2:04:22.280 --> 2:04:25.240 just go feed people. But the thing is from doing that, right, 2:04:25.280 --> 2:04:27.600 if there's other things that you're concerned about, people will 2:04:27.720 --> 2:04:30.280 bring you their problems and you can help them doing it. 2:04:30.320 --> 2:04:32.080 And this is a very good way to get into 2:04:32.200 --> 2:04:35.400 other kinds of organizing because suddenly, once you start building 2:04:35.440 --> 2:04:38.480 these relationships. Everything sort of cycles and cycles, and you know, 2:04:38.600 --> 2:04:41.120 you get involved in more and more things. Yeah, and 2:04:41.400 --> 2:04:43.200 that's kind of a that's kind of a late stage 2:04:43.560 --> 2:04:45.760 thing that we're sort of jumping to a bit. But 2:04:46.200 --> 2:04:48.160 I want to go back to the beginnings of how so, 2:04:48.240 --> 2:04:50.880 how do you get a group of people together to 2:04:50.960 --> 2:04:54.520 do a thing? And the answer is you kind of 2:04:54.680 --> 2:04:58.400 already know how to because you presumably at some point 2:04:58.440 --> 2:05:01.600 in your life have like organized a group of friends 2:05:01.680 --> 2:05:05.440 to go do something, right, Like I've gotten a group 2:05:05.480 --> 2:05:07.880 of people together to go accomplish a task. 2:05:08.240 --> 2:05:10.680 Yeah, and it could literally be anything, right, like, yeah, 2:05:10.800 --> 2:05:12.680 if you've got some people to go to a bar, 2:05:13.560 --> 2:05:14.400 you have the skills. 2:05:14.840 --> 2:05:16.880 One way I've been thinking about it recently and in 2:05:17.000 --> 2:05:19.240 my project is putting is thinking about it as like 2:05:19.440 --> 2:05:20.920 putting together a heist crew. 2:05:22.760 --> 2:05:26.440 And so, okay, I could vouch for this right. 2:05:27.320 --> 2:05:30.640 The feeling of walking up to eight people and telling 2:05:30.680 --> 2:05:34.040 them individually, I'm putting together a team and I want 2:05:34.200 --> 2:05:35.240 you it is. 2:05:35.480 --> 2:05:37.840 It feels you can just do it. There is nothing 2:05:37.880 --> 2:05:38.320 stopping you. 2:05:38.440 --> 2:05:40.840 There nothing in the world can stop you from just 2:05:40.920 --> 2:05:42.920 walking up to your friend and going I'm putting together 2:05:43.000 --> 2:05:47.000 a team, and it feels exactly as good as you 2:05:47.080 --> 2:05:48.360 think it would from the Ice movie. 2:05:48.640 --> 2:05:52.280 It rules, It's so fun amazing. 2:05:52.720 --> 2:05:55.080 Yeah, and and and but this gets into also what 2:05:55.400 --> 2:05:59.360 kinds of people you want to do right, because obviously 2:05:59.520 --> 2:06:02.560 you know, there's two vectors of this. There's on the 2:06:02.640 --> 2:06:04.880 one hand, you have the aspect of okay, who do 2:06:04.960 --> 2:06:08.160 you know? Right, And a lot of organizing is just about, 2:06:08.640 --> 2:06:11.480 here is a problem, and I know someone who has 2:06:11.720 --> 2:06:13.960 some sort of skill or resource that can that can 2:06:14.000 --> 2:06:15.960 help deal with it, and you put people in touch 2:06:16.000 --> 2:06:19.560 with each other, and that's organizing. That's so much organizing 2:06:19.680 --> 2:06:23.080 is literally just hey, like I have like a broken 2:06:23.160 --> 2:06:25.520 part of my car. I know someone who's like a 2:06:25.640 --> 2:06:28.520 car mechanic, right, and you put them in touch, and 2:06:28.600 --> 2:06:31.400 you have successfully organized people, and you have built relationships, 2:06:31.440 --> 2:06:33.920 and you have made all of the sort of social 2:06:34.080 --> 2:06:35.800 web that creates organizing. 2:06:35.840 --> 2:06:37.320 You've made it stronger. Yeah. 2:06:37.440 --> 2:06:40.120 It also just feels good because you know, and that's 2:06:40.160 --> 2:06:41.960 an auxiliary benefit to all of this is that it's 2:06:42.160 --> 2:06:43.920 a great it's a great way to sort of break 2:06:44.440 --> 2:06:45.920 break the isolation we're all under. 2:06:46.840 --> 2:06:49.200 Yeah, I think the best solution for despair is. 2:06:51.240 --> 2:06:54.440 I'm thinking of a quotation here something that the busy 2:06:54.560 --> 2:06:57.240 bee have no time for despair. But the thing that 2:06:57.360 --> 2:06:59.360 makes me feel better about the world is that I 2:06:59.480 --> 2:07:03.920 have seen that people can fix massive problems with very 2:07:04.040 --> 2:07:08.400 few resources by just showing up. And like I think, 2:07:09.600 --> 2:07:12.120 organizing is what gives me, what allows me to enter 2:07:12.200 --> 2:07:14.320 this period of time that we're entering into with a 2:07:14.480 --> 2:07:16.360 with a great deal more hope than I otherwise would 2:07:16.400 --> 2:07:16.640 have done. 2:07:17.480 --> 2:07:19.080 Yeah, and do you know what else will help you 2:07:19.240 --> 2:07:23.880 enter your situation with Is it the products and services 2:07:23.960 --> 2:07:25.280 that support this podcast. 2:07:25.480 --> 2:07:26.960 I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but 2:07:27.320 --> 2:07:30.160 we are not in control of the length of the ads. 2:07:31.520 --> 2:07:36.000 They just do it. We're sorry, here's a really long 2:07:36.080 --> 2:07:37.960 period of ads. I'm so sorry. 2:07:48.560 --> 2:07:50.960 We are back. So I want to I want to 2:07:51.040 --> 2:07:53.800 return to my highest career if I don't know if 2:07:53.800 --> 2:07:55.360 if you're a D and D person, the other way 2:07:55.400 --> 2:07:57.080 you can think about this is you're putting together like 2:07:57.120 --> 2:07:59.520 a Dungeons and Dragons party or like an RPG party. 2:08:00.240 --> 2:08:03.040 And the way you need to think about this is, Okay, 2:08:03.080 --> 2:08:05.920 so you've picked a thing that you want to do, right. 2:08:06.080 --> 2:08:08.000 You see, you've seen something in the world that is 2:08:08.080 --> 2:08:10.320 bad and you figure it you go, Okay, I can 2:08:10.400 --> 2:08:12.240 do this thing to solve it. And maybe and maybe 2:08:12.480 --> 2:08:14.800 that's you know, it's literally something as simple as feeding people. 2:08:14.880 --> 2:08:17.480 Maybe that's you know, I want to start. I want 2:08:17.480 --> 2:08:19.720 to start doing tenants organizing. I want to start because 2:08:19.720 --> 2:08:21.840 my rent is too high, right, people are getting evicted. 2:08:21.880 --> 2:08:23.920 I want to start doing like immigration defense. 2:08:24.600 --> 2:08:24.840 Yeah. 2:08:25.080 --> 2:08:28.720 And from there you make a list and that list 2:08:29.400 --> 2:08:31.560 is you know what you're interested in doing, and you 2:08:32.040 --> 2:08:35.680 try to match what things need to be done with 2:08:35.960 --> 2:08:39.560 people you know who have those skills. Yeah, and this 2:08:39.720 --> 2:08:41.320 is you know, this, this is is where you release 2:08:41.400 --> 2:08:43.640 and get into the higst things, right, because everyone has 2:08:43.720 --> 2:08:47.320 their sort of like highst role. Now, obviously part of 2:08:47.360 --> 2:08:49.000 this that you want is you want to create sort 2:08:49.000 --> 2:08:52.200 of balanced teams, right. You want people who have overlapping 2:08:52.320 --> 2:08:54.600 strengths so you don't just have only one person who 2:08:54.680 --> 2:08:57.280 can do a thing. And part of the way the 2:08:57.320 --> 2:09:00.880 successful organization works over time, and I mean just how 2:09:00.920 --> 2:09:04.320 successful organizing works is that eventually you are trying to 2:09:04.440 --> 2:09:07.080 organize yourself out of a job. Which is to say, 2:09:07.520 --> 2:09:09.920 you want your organization to function such that if you're 2:09:09.960 --> 2:09:12.280 not able to do it, you know, or just you're 2:09:12.320 --> 2:09:14.600 gone or you cycle onto a next thing, or you know, 2:09:14.680 --> 2:09:16.880 any any number of things that can happen. You want 2:09:16.920 --> 2:09:19.240 the organization to still be able to keep working without you, 2:09:19.400 --> 2:09:20.960 and you want you want you're trying to get people 2:09:20.960 --> 2:09:23.120 to be able to replace you as the person who's 2:09:23.160 --> 2:09:26.720 like organizing the thing, right, Yeah, And at this point 2:09:26.880 --> 2:09:30.040 we can start talking about the kinds of skills that 2:09:30.200 --> 2:09:33.280 people need for organizing, and a lot of people and 2:09:33.320 --> 2:09:36.320 this is unbelievably common when I talk to people, and 2:09:36.480 --> 2:09:39.120 like especially women and especially like a lot of non 2:09:39.160 --> 2:09:42.920 binary people and trans people particularly have this is that 2:09:43.920 --> 2:09:47.800 people don't believe that they have any skills and then 2:09:47.840 --> 2:09:49.840 you talk to them for five seconds and they're like, well, 2:09:49.880 --> 2:09:52.600 I'm good at carrying heavy objects, right, I'm good with kids, 2:09:52.640 --> 2:09:54.040 which is a huge one. We'll get to you in 2:09:54.080 --> 2:09:56.120 a second, right, Or like, I don't know, I have 2:09:56.280 --> 2:09:59.240 a car. That's a huge skill. There are so many 2:09:59.280 --> 2:10:01.880 different skills that are so useful for so many things. 2:10:02.000 --> 2:10:04.280 I'm just gonna go over lots of things that are 2:10:04.280 --> 2:10:06.760 actually really useful to get to get people a sense 2:10:06.880 --> 2:10:09.440 of like the kinds of things that there are. There 2:10:09.480 --> 2:10:13.160 are massive roles for so one of the most important 2:10:13.240 --> 2:10:15.440 ones and this is something you can you deliberately look for. 2:10:15.760 --> 2:10:17.040 You know, this is this is one of the things 2:10:17.080 --> 2:10:19.560 you do at the beginning of any union organizing campaign. 2:10:20.040 --> 2:10:23.160 Someone who's good at talking to other people and making friends. 2:10:23.680 --> 2:10:27.120 That is a staggeringly useful person because again, most most 2:10:27.240 --> 2:10:30.040 organizing is just talking to people and building relationships. And 2:10:30.200 --> 2:10:31.520 you know, one of the things you do when you're 2:10:31.520 --> 2:10:33.720 when you're doing your sort of they call it power mapping. 2:10:33.840 --> 2:10:36.040 But when when you when you're figuring out how you're 2:10:36.080 --> 2:10:38.720 going to organize a workplace, is you find the person 2:10:38.840 --> 2:10:41.600 who everyone likes and talks to and respects, and you 2:10:41.720 --> 2:10:44.480 talk to that person. Yeah, because that person can you know, 2:10:44.600 --> 2:10:46.880 can sort of like organize people down the chain because 2:10:46.880 --> 2:10:49.240 they have they have their relationships already, and also they're 2:10:49.280 --> 2:10:51.400 good they'll be good at, you know, talking to new 2:10:51.440 --> 2:10:54.960 people and and spreading your organization that way, and so, like, 2:10:55.200 --> 2:10:57.800 you know, if you're just someone who's social or and 2:10:57.920 --> 2:11:00.000 this is also very useful if you have a friend 2:11:00.520 --> 2:11:02.200 who is very social, because I know a lot of 2:11:02.320 --> 2:11:05.040 us are oporary social, but you probably have a friend 2:11:05.120 --> 2:11:07.000 that you're thinking of right now who is very good 2:11:07.120 --> 2:11:10.160 at conversations. That is charming and is good at making friendships. 2:11:10.720 --> 2:11:15.280 That person unbelievably useful, incredibly useful and compelling skill. Yeah, 2:11:15.520 --> 2:11:17.920 there are also things like research people who are good 2:11:17.960 --> 2:11:19.840 at and I think people are much better at research 2:11:19.920 --> 2:11:22.880 than they think to take like a tat a's organizing example. Right, 2:11:22.960 --> 2:11:24.920 one of the common things you have to do is 2:11:25.440 --> 2:11:28.720 find out stuff about a landlords, right, Yeah, and there's 2:11:28.760 --> 2:11:31.600 the higher difficulty version of that, which isn't that hard. Also, 2:11:32.000 --> 2:11:34.160 I want to mention this, but like going to a 2:11:34.240 --> 2:11:38.480 courthouse and finding records about who owns property companies. 2:11:38.600 --> 2:11:39.840 That high it's not that hard. 2:11:39.920 --> 2:11:41.840 It's like you could just do it, right, It's not 2:11:42.000 --> 2:11:44.720 as hard as you think it is from someone saying it. 2:11:45.240 --> 2:11:47.320 But there's also even just easier things than that, right, 2:11:47.360 --> 2:11:48.880 that all of you probably already know how to do, 2:11:48.960 --> 2:11:52.120 which is just looking at someone's social media profiles and 2:11:52.200 --> 2:11:55.600 finding out information about them. Yeah, and this is very useful, yeah, 2:11:55.680 --> 2:11:57.600 for like union campaigns, bosses. 2:11:57.800 --> 2:12:00.960 If you've ever been a person who uses dating apps, 2:12:01.320 --> 2:12:04.080 especially if you're a woman, yeah, yeah, then you know 2:12:04.280 --> 2:12:07.720 how to ocin. Actually maybe you don't credit yourself with 2:12:07.800 --> 2:12:10.480 that skill, but one hundred percent that like you've developed 2:12:10.480 --> 2:12:12.080 that skill to keep yourself safe. 2:12:12.160 --> 2:12:14.200 And you can use it for good. Do you want 2:12:14.240 --> 2:12:17.240 to explain what ocent is? And yes, how that how 2:12:17.320 --> 2:12:18.000 that process works? 2:12:18.160 --> 2:12:18.360 Yeah? 2:12:18.440 --> 2:12:21.960 Sure, So open source intelligence is it's an acream doesn't 2:12:21.960 --> 2:12:25.480 really need to exist. It's gathering information off open sources, 2:12:25.520 --> 2:12:28.520 things sort of openly accessible, right, as opposed to like humint, 2:12:28.600 --> 2:12:31.360 which is like being a spy, or singint, which is 2:12:31.480 --> 2:12:35.400 capturing signals. Open source information is you're creeping someone's Instagram, 2:12:35.720 --> 2:12:38.920 creeping their Facebook, looking at the weird fucking shit that 2:12:39.000 --> 2:12:41.480 they put on good Reads. Right, all the data that 2:12:41.640 --> 2:12:44.240 is out there, largely on the internet, about us. A 2:12:44.320 --> 2:12:46.760 lot of people put a lot of information on the Internet. 2:12:46.800 --> 2:12:50.760 And it's very easy. And I would imagine that if 2:12:50.880 --> 2:12:53.760 you're under fifty and maybe if you're over fifty two, 2:12:53.880 --> 2:12:56.040 like you just know how to do this because it's 2:12:56.120 --> 2:12:58.760 what you do anyway you want to find out about someone. 2:12:58.840 --> 2:13:02.320 And especially if you are a person who goes on 2:13:02.440 --> 2:13:04.400 dates with people who you haven't met before and haven't 2:13:04.400 --> 2:13:06.840 been introduced to by a mutual friend but you meet 2:13:06.840 --> 2:13:09.000 on the internet, you probably already do this to keep 2:13:09.000 --> 2:13:09.640 yourself safe. 2:13:10.320 --> 2:13:12.680 Yeah, and this is something that's very useful for I mean, 2:13:12.720 --> 2:13:15.080 there's so many use cases for this, right. There's you know, 2:13:15.280 --> 2:13:17.520 there's the very obvious ones where you're dealing with the 2:13:17.600 --> 2:13:20.120 local Nazi and you're trying to organize around like running 2:13:20.160 --> 2:13:22.120 them out. People say from them and you can find 2:13:22.160 --> 2:13:25.320 information about them. But I mean, it's useful for cops 2:13:25.320 --> 2:13:29.600 who are beating people. Is useful for politicians particularly, It 2:13:29.600 --> 2:13:31.960 can be very useful for it's useful for landlords. This 2:13:32.040 --> 2:13:35.000 happens all the time. It can be very very useful 2:13:35.080 --> 2:13:39.160 for bosses and union campaigns. Unions have like teams of 2:13:39.240 --> 2:13:42.080 researchers usually to like do this kind of stuff. But 2:13:42.120 --> 2:13:44.080 the thing is also and this is something I don't 2:13:44.120 --> 2:13:46.960 think people understand. Those guys, like the people they're hiring 2:13:47.000 --> 2:13:49.440 to be researchers are just you, but they got a 2:13:49.520 --> 2:13:51.760 job being a researcher for a union. Like they have 2:13:51.920 --> 2:13:53.600 the same skills as you. They know how to like 2:13:53.800 --> 2:13:56.200 Google stuff, and they know how to look through people's 2:13:56.360 --> 2:13:59.840 like dating profiles and like look through their their facebooks 2:13:59.840 --> 2:14:03.240 and Instagrams, and like a big one, a big one 2:14:03.560 --> 2:14:06.880 that that the rich people especially do not think about 2:14:07.280 --> 2:14:12.320 is like cash app and venmo oh venop because yeah, yeah, 2:14:12.320 --> 2:14:15.000 because because people's peoples trying. People just leave public transactions 2:14:15.080 --> 2:14:17.120 out there like that. That's how they got what's his name, 2:14:17.280 --> 2:14:21.520 the congressional Gates. Can I legally call him the congressional pedophile? 2:14:21.840 --> 2:14:23.760 I guess they call him the accused pedophile. 2:14:24.480 --> 2:14:27.360 Yeah, yeah, the man credibly accused of sleeping with an 2:14:27.440 --> 2:14:29.720 underage woman lots of times, you know. 2:14:29.800 --> 2:14:31.480 And one of the ways they found that was that 2:14:31.720 --> 2:14:35.000 and also like paying paying for that right, yes, which 2:14:35.080 --> 2:14:36.400 is which is rape by the way, I want to 2:14:36.440 --> 2:14:39.000 be very clear about that, like, yeah, having sex with 2:14:39.040 --> 2:14:40.440 someone who is underage is rape. 2:14:40.480 --> 2:14:41.920 It is always rape, you know. 2:14:41.960 --> 2:14:43.600 And the way people found that was that they just 2:14:43.760 --> 2:14:46.280 looked through like his cash app history and they found 2:14:46.360 --> 2:14:49.600 all of these money transfers to people. You know, this 2:14:49.760 --> 2:14:52.640 is all very very simple stuff. That's that's very very 2:14:52.760 --> 2:14:56.080 useful organizing wise that you already know how to do. 2:14:56.920 --> 2:14:57.160 Yeah. 2:14:57.400 --> 2:15:00.480 Pinterest is another absolute back Yeah. People, Yeah, so much 2:15:00.640 --> 2:15:04.080 interesting people on a pinning that they be pinning. You know, 2:15:04.200 --> 2:15:07.360 if you're hearing some of these things and you think 2:15:07.600 --> 2:15:09.960 that you can figure out how to do this. That's 2:15:10.160 --> 2:15:13.240 also a huge skill finding people who are willing to 2:15:13.400 --> 2:15:16.520 learn things and willing to learn new skills is a 2:15:16.760 --> 2:15:20.880 huge benefit to organizers because you know this, this gives you, like, 2:15:21.040 --> 2:15:23.320 this gives you a flexible person, right, it gives it 2:15:23.360 --> 2:15:25.520 gives you someone you can like flex into into any 2:15:25.560 --> 2:15:27.160 of a bunch of roles that you need. And also 2:15:27.240 --> 2:15:31.000 can you know, pick up skills to learn things. Having 2:15:31.040 --> 2:15:32.760 a car and being able to drive. 2:15:32.840 --> 2:15:34.080 And I know a lot of you don't do this, 2:15:34.160 --> 2:15:36.560 but if you do do this, this is you immediately, 2:15:36.640 --> 2:15:39.360 even if you literally cannot contribute anything else to a project. 2:15:39.840 --> 2:15:42.400 Being able to just drive a bunch of water to 2:15:42.520 --> 2:15:45.240 a place, oh yeah, huge, staggeringly useful. 2:15:45.640 --> 2:15:48.080 The amount of things that people can't access because they 2:15:48.160 --> 2:15:52.280 can't get there, it's vast, especially when I when I 2:15:52.360 --> 2:15:54.600 talk to migrants right have recently arrived in the US. 2:15:54.680 --> 2:15:57.320 They don't have a US cell phone, they can't uber yea. 2:15:57.960 --> 2:16:01.280 Oftentimes nowadays you can't even pay for mass transit with cash. 2:16:01.360 --> 2:16:03.640 You have to have a special card and then you 2:16:03.680 --> 2:16:05.360 have to get to the place to get the card. Right, 2:16:05.560 --> 2:16:08.000 The problems you can solve by being able to drive 2:16:08.080 --> 2:16:12.320 someone five miles are enormous, especially in the US, where 2:16:12.520 --> 2:16:15.520 everything is designed around everyone owning a motor car at 2:16:15.520 --> 2:16:16.400 all times yep. 2:16:17.080 --> 2:16:21.240 Yeah, And like transport based skills are also very useful. 2:16:21.520 --> 2:16:23.760 I mean, if you hike a lot, that's a very 2:16:23.960 --> 2:16:26.720 very useful skill. There's a lot of sort of mutual 2:16:26.760 --> 2:16:28.400 aid projects. There's a lot of you know, I mean 2:16:28.480 --> 2:16:30.520 even things like like setting up summer camps is the 2:16:30.600 --> 2:16:33.400 thing that like leftist groups do right, and being able 2:16:33.440 --> 2:16:34.360 to hike very good for that. 2:16:34.440 --> 2:16:35.959 It's good for things like wilderness rescue. 2:16:36.000 --> 2:16:37.400 There's a lot of you know the James like the 2:16:37.480 --> 2:16:39.800 work you do that has to do with like going 2:16:39.879 --> 2:16:44.160 in helping migrants, Like being able to hike is staggeringly 2:16:44.280 --> 2:16:44.959 useful skill. 2:16:45.520 --> 2:16:49.160 Yeah, yeah, it's very like, it's useful, it's important. It's 2:16:49.200 --> 2:16:51.600 okay if that's not something you can physically do or 2:16:51.879 --> 2:16:53.440 you know that that works for the way you like 2:16:53.480 --> 2:16:55.800 to live your life. Like another thing I was thinking 2:16:55.840 --> 2:16:58.840 of which can be massively important and people don't realize 2:16:59.040 --> 2:17:01.400 is if you know how to take off a tail 2:17:01.480 --> 2:17:04.880 light and replace the bulb in it. Yes, Like we're 2:17:05.080 --> 2:17:08.039 entering a time when people with darker, people with TPS, 2:17:08.120 --> 2:17:11.240 people who are undocumented, people are on temporary migration statuses 2:17:11.280 --> 2:17:13.560 are going to be definitely afraid of any interaction with 2:17:13.680 --> 2:17:18.760 law enforcement. If you can change the bulb on someone's 2:17:18.800 --> 2:17:21.680 tail light or their turn signal indicators of us in 2:17:21.720 --> 2:17:25.600 the UK, then you can meaningfully protect that person in 2:17:25.680 --> 2:17:26.840 a really important way. 2:17:27.120 --> 2:17:28.959 And it can literally take ten minutes. 2:17:29.280 --> 2:17:32.200 And this is something that you can scale up depending 2:17:32.240 --> 2:17:34.840 on how much skill you have. Right, there's even just 2:17:35.040 --> 2:17:38.120 very basic auto maintenance stuff is very useful for stuff 2:17:38.160 --> 2:17:38.320 like this. 2:17:39.000 --> 2:17:40.400 But you know, like if you're a. 2:17:40.440 --> 2:17:43.760 Carpenter, right, if you're an electrician, you do some kind 2:17:43.760 --> 2:17:46.400 of trade work, right, you do plumbing, right, that is 2:17:46.440 --> 2:17:49.879 the thing that is massively useful to a lot of people. 2:17:50.360 --> 2:17:52.760 There's a lot of other kind of just skills that 2:17:52.879 --> 2:17:55.520 you have from your job that can be very useful. 2:17:55.560 --> 2:17:58.120 I mean having someone to manage a spreadsheet oh yeah, 2:17:58.520 --> 2:18:02.120 yeah is aggeringly useful. And another one that I think 2:18:02.160 --> 2:18:06.040 people don't understand that they really have, but like being 2:18:06.040 --> 2:18:09.800 able to set up a meeting and like having a 2:18:09.920 --> 2:18:13.680 thing that lets you be like, okay, here's when everyone 2:18:13.840 --> 2:18:16.920 is free. Like you probably have to do this for 2:18:17.240 --> 2:18:19.400 your job or just for you know, trying to get 2:18:19.480 --> 2:18:22.240 your friends to go even just like be on a 2:18:22.360 --> 2:18:26.320 call together or like go have food or like just 2:18:26.560 --> 2:18:30.960 do anything. That is what literally, genuinely one of the 2:18:31.000 --> 2:18:33.240 most important skills you can possibly have as an organizer 2:18:33.360 --> 2:18:35.360 is the ability to just sort of like go talk 2:18:35.400 --> 2:18:37.200 to people and be like, hey, can you show up 2:18:37.240 --> 2:18:40.080 to this thing here? Yeah, and that is that is 2:18:40.240 --> 2:18:42.920 so much of just what organizing is. Can you be 2:18:43.080 --> 2:18:45.320 here at this time? And then trying to figure out 2:18:45.320 --> 2:18:45.600 a time. 2:18:46.240 --> 2:18:46.480 Yeah. 2:18:46.760 --> 2:18:48.480 So we're going to close out this sort of skill 2:18:48.600 --> 2:18:50.720 section with some I think just sort of like domestic 2:18:50.760 --> 2:18:53.800 these skills that I don't think people realize are super useful. 2:18:54.480 --> 2:18:56.600 If you have a button maker, you are instantly the 2:18:56.680 --> 2:19:00.400 single most useful person in any organization of that. Or 2:19:00.440 --> 2:19:03.640 you could obtain a button maker. They're very easy to use. 2:19:03.879 --> 2:19:07.080 But if you have one or you know the person 2:19:07.120 --> 2:19:08.880 who has the button maker, and suddenly you can just 2:19:08.959 --> 2:19:12.240 crank out buttons for every single event they rule. Everyone 2:19:12.320 --> 2:19:16.000 loves them. It helps, It helps me enormously. It's awesome. 2:19:16.600 --> 2:19:21.560 That's a badge for those in the Commonwealth. Also, if 2:19:21.600 --> 2:19:23.640 you have a sewing machine, yeah, I was about to 2:19:23.680 --> 2:19:25.200 mention that, Yeah, yeah, you're a hero. 2:19:25.520 --> 2:19:25.720 Yeah. 2:19:25.879 --> 2:19:27.840 One of my friends recently made me a little patch 2:19:28.760 --> 2:19:31.280 and it's really cool and I like it and putting 2:19:31.360 --> 2:19:34.480 all my stuff. But if you can sew, like, that's 2:19:34.520 --> 2:19:37.640 a skill that I do not have. And it's so 2:19:37.840 --> 2:19:42.280 great when people can fix stuff for someone or you know, 2:19:42.360 --> 2:19:44.760 make stuff fit someone. You know, if you're a person 2:19:44.800 --> 2:19:46.600 who finds it hard to get clothes that you like 2:19:46.720 --> 2:19:49.520 to wear that make you feel good, and someone one 2:19:49.560 --> 2:19:52.120 of my friends could do that. And one of my 2:19:52.200 --> 2:19:56.680 friends was making clothes for another friend for like a 2:19:57.720 --> 2:20:00.640 renaissance fair, and it was a nice thing I've seen 2:20:00.680 --> 2:20:02.640 someone do for someone else in a very long time. 2:20:02.840 --> 2:20:07.680 It really made her like, yeah, feel like nice and 2:20:08.000 --> 2:20:10.320 cared for. And like you might think that like this 2:20:10.440 --> 2:20:11.560 is just a weird little thing that you like to 2:20:11.600 --> 2:20:14.320 do with your sewing machine, but you can meaningfully really 2:20:14.400 --> 2:20:16.080 make someone feel cared for using that. 2:20:16.680 --> 2:20:19.600 Yeah, And that's a huge part of what organizing is right, 2:20:20.200 --> 2:20:21.880 and and that that goes into one of the things 2:20:21.959 --> 2:20:25.200 that is also an appreciable skill that's very useful, is 2:20:25.760 --> 2:20:28.400 I mean just like being nice to people, being kind 2:20:28.440 --> 2:20:31.160 to people, and having people around who are good at 2:20:31.440 --> 2:20:35.160 like keeping groups together. Yeah, And that's its own distinct 2:20:35.320 --> 2:20:38.039 kind of person is someone who can you know, keep 2:20:38.160 --> 2:20:40.240 all of the people who are involved in a thing, 2:20:41.000 --> 2:20:44.000 enjoying being around each other. That's that's that's a kind 2:20:44.040 --> 2:20:46.200 of person who's very valuable, and it's something that you 2:20:46.320 --> 2:20:48.080 can look for, you know. And if that's not you, 2:20:48.400 --> 2:20:50.400 like you can there's something you can you know, find 2:20:50.440 --> 2:20:51.920 in your friends. You can find in this sort of 2:20:51.959 --> 2:20:52.680 the people around you. 2:20:53.560 --> 2:20:54.480 Yeah, definitely. 2:20:55.120 --> 2:20:57.959 There's also something that I think you can tell when 2:20:58.000 --> 2:21:00.880 an organization is collapsing, because this is like the first 2:21:00.959 --> 2:21:04.400 thing with the quality drops drawing and graphic design are 2:21:04.520 --> 2:21:06.800 very very useful because a big part of what you 2:21:06.879 --> 2:21:09.560 do organizing is like you make a flyer and you 2:21:09.640 --> 2:21:11.560 put a flyer on a bunch of telephone poles to 2:21:11.600 --> 2:21:15.600 tell people that there's a thing happening. Yea, and yeah, 2:21:15.840 --> 2:21:17.760 you know, and this is also something you know later 2:21:17.879 --> 2:21:19.960 on you might be making a social media presence, but 2:21:20.080 --> 2:21:23.720 just having good artists and having good graphic design people 2:21:23.879 --> 2:21:28.160 is enormously useful for this kind of stuff. Yeah, and 2:21:28.320 --> 2:21:31.440 along this line, these things like making music, and there's 2:21:31.480 --> 2:21:32.960 a bunch of different ways this can go. This can 2:21:33.000 --> 2:21:34.880 be an immediate thing where you know, like you have 2:21:34.959 --> 2:21:37.360 people on a picket line, right and everyone's singing songs 2:21:37.400 --> 2:21:39.920 and this is great. We love this also, and this 2:21:40.040 --> 2:21:41.800 is another thing that you can be thinking about in 2:21:41.920 --> 2:21:43.720 terms of what skills you have and what things you 2:21:43.760 --> 2:21:47.320 can create benefit shows. This has been a huge part 2:21:47.400 --> 2:21:49.040 of a lot of how some of the Union stuff 2:21:49.120 --> 2:21:51.400 up here has been getting funded is by just having 2:21:51.480 --> 2:21:54.080 like punk benefit shows. And if that's the thing that 2:21:54.160 --> 2:21:56.240 you can do, well, you know people in bands, you 2:21:56.320 --> 2:21:57.880 know people who make music, you know people who just 2:21:58.000 --> 2:22:00.920 make stuff who are willing to contribut to the cause, 2:22:01.840 --> 2:22:02.840 that's great. 2:22:03.440 --> 2:22:06.439 I remember one of we had one night last September, 2:22:06.760 --> 2:22:08.440 so cold. We were in the desert and I'm like 2:22:09.000 --> 2:22:11.800 a thousand people, right, and we were at that point 2:22:11.840 --> 2:22:13.800 we were really struggling to feed everyone, even you know, 2:22:13.840 --> 2:22:15.600 because there was so few of us. But my friend 2:22:15.680 --> 2:22:18.640 bought out like their guitar and some bongo drums they had, 2:22:18.720 --> 2:22:20.440 and I think I had my harmonica in my truck, 2:22:21.240 --> 2:22:24.600 and like we were sitting around with these. We had 2:22:24.640 --> 2:22:28.000 some Seek guys, had some Weiga folks come from China, 2:22:28.160 --> 2:22:30.200 and then some Kourdish people and they were all explaying 2:22:30.200 --> 2:22:34.440 their different music and it was so nice like that, 2:22:35.000 --> 2:22:37.280 taking people out of a shitty situation for a moment 2:22:37.400 --> 2:22:40.160 with music. Again, like don't underestimate how important that it 2:22:40.280 --> 2:22:41.880 don't feel like if you have that skill, it's not 2:22:42.000 --> 2:22:42.640 a useful one. 2:22:43.360 --> 2:22:45.480 No, And this is something I've been starting to say 2:22:45.560 --> 2:22:48.280 more and more. If you need a three brained way 2:22:48.600 --> 2:22:51.760 to say this to someone who like is is like 2:22:51.920 --> 2:22:54.760 a curmudgety marks just who hates fun. 2:22:55.959 --> 2:22:58.400 Morale is a terrain of struggle that this is. 2:22:58.480 --> 2:23:00.920 There's a reason why more is one of the most 2:23:00.920 --> 2:23:04.360 important factors of military campaigns. You can't get people to 2:23:04.480 --> 2:23:06.840 do things if they're too depressed to do it. Yeah, 2:23:07.080 --> 2:23:10.160 And being able to raise people's morale, it's it's this 2:23:10.520 --> 2:23:13.240 massive if you want again, want to go into technical language, 2:23:13.280 --> 2:23:15.640 is a massive force multiplayer, right, It makes everyone you 2:23:15.800 --> 2:23:18.879 have enormously more effective, the better they feel about themselves 2:23:18.879 --> 2:23:20.480 and the better they feel about the situation they're in. 2:23:21.240 --> 2:23:25.120 And things like music, things like art, I mean things 2:23:25.200 --> 2:23:26.240 like pulling pranks. 2:23:27.080 --> 2:23:27.440 This thing. 2:23:27.600 --> 2:23:30.720 Yeah, if you were if you were in good practical jokester, 2:23:31.040 --> 2:23:34.720 this is a staggeringly useful skill. Both like in terms 2:23:34.760 --> 2:23:36.720 of you know, you need to be careful about whether 2:23:36.720 --> 2:23:39.160 you're you're playing your pranks on like other people in 2:23:39.200 --> 2:23:41.840 the ORG. But like you know, if you know how 2:23:41.879 --> 2:23:44.320 to just like pull pranks. This is a really really 2:23:44.480 --> 2:23:48.280 useful thing in like union campaigns, it tenants organizing. There 2:23:48.320 --> 2:23:50.840 are a lot of people who you can prank and 2:23:50.920 --> 2:23:53.600 it's very funny and it lowers their morale and it 2:23:53.720 --> 2:23:54.720 raises your morale. 2:23:55.480 --> 2:23:57.480 Yeah, and I go back to your music as a 2:23:57.680 --> 2:23:59.720 like a like morale. It's a terrand of struggle. Like 2:23:59.760 --> 2:24:02.240 the other memory I have last year of playing guitars 2:24:02.440 --> 2:24:07.200 is in Rajava, being inside at night because everyone was 2:24:07.240 --> 2:24:10.279 getting drone struck all the time and it was dangerous 2:24:10.280 --> 2:24:13.560 to be driving around, sitting around with some ZD friends 2:24:14.040 --> 2:24:16.360 and like we spent all night playing the ood, which 2:24:16.400 --> 2:24:19.520 is like a it's like a guitar with a gord 2:24:19.600 --> 2:24:22.039 on the bottom and it to describe it like it's 2:24:22.040 --> 2:24:24.080 a string instrument. It's a string instrument, is what it is. 2:24:24.600 --> 2:24:28.400 And like that made everyone so happy. We had such 2:24:28.440 --> 2:24:32.160 a nice evening. Everyone was able to like get through 2:24:32.200 --> 2:24:35.240 it's a relatively difficult thing. Like, you know, it sucks 2:24:35.440 --> 2:24:38.240 that people are being killed and just for driving around 2:24:38.280 --> 2:24:40.800 are existing and they're bombing all this citly infrastructure and 2:24:40.879 --> 2:24:43.280 the power keeps going out and all these things. Right, like, 2:24:43.480 --> 2:24:46.960 but there's a reason that those people have kept ood 2:24:47.040 --> 2:24:51.120 around after fifteen thirteen years of war, and it's because 2:24:51.120 --> 2:24:53.520 it is important, and so don't overlook that. 2:24:54.240 --> 2:24:57.520 And you know, and resisting fear is another huge aspect 2:24:57.560 --> 2:25:01.040 of this, right. A lot of the ways that people like, 2:25:01.120 --> 2:25:03.440 a lot of the ways that you demobilize people. This is, 2:25:03.560 --> 2:25:06.120 this is why regimes like this spend a lot of 2:25:06.200 --> 2:25:09.000 effort trying to make people afraid. He is that it 2:25:09.120 --> 2:25:11.120 makes it harder for you to act. And things that 2:25:11.560 --> 2:25:14.040 you know, the things that make you less afraid, even 2:25:14.080 --> 2:25:17.400 if they sort of seem silly, are very very important. 2:25:18.000 --> 2:25:19.880 And you know, on sort of this note, one of 2:25:19.920 --> 2:25:22.080 the things that you know, as you've assembled your group 2:25:22.160 --> 2:25:24.760 of people, right, one of the things that that that's 2:25:24.800 --> 2:25:27.680 important to be able to sort of have a grasp 2:25:27.800 --> 2:25:31.720 on is that you can't just do organizing by having 2:25:31.800 --> 2:25:36.360 it only be the capital, the serious thing, the captialty 2:25:36.680 --> 2:25:39.240 organizing thing all the time. Your organization will not hold together. 2:25:39.720 --> 2:25:43.880 There has to be actual like bonds formed between you 2:25:44.000 --> 2:25:45.879 and the people you're organizing with and the people you're 2:25:45.879 --> 2:25:46.480 trying to help. 2:25:47.400 --> 2:25:49.359 I don't want to call out any organization in particular, 2:25:49.680 --> 2:25:53.000 there is an organization that perceives organizing to exist solely 2:25:53.040 --> 2:25:55.000 in the realm of wearing a high based vest and 2:25:55.160 --> 2:25:57.920 carrying a clipboard and getting people to write that email 2:25:57.959 --> 2:26:01.880 addresses down and then telling them to attend things, and 2:26:02.120 --> 2:26:04.720 like maybe there are several organizations like that. I don't know, 2:26:04.879 --> 2:26:07.400 I've just I've perceived one locally. If you don't have 2:26:07.560 --> 2:26:13.440 those bonds that, like those interpersonal relationships, like these things 2:26:13.600 --> 2:26:17.640 won't hang together. Like yeah, so many of my happiest 2:26:17.720 --> 2:26:20.720 organizing memories, like again going down James Memory Lane, I 2:26:20.720 --> 2:26:24.320 guess I have a memory of like Christmas Eve last 2:26:24.480 --> 2:26:27.400 year twenty twenty three, me and my friends have been out. 2:26:27.800 --> 2:26:29.120 I know some of them listen because some of them 2:26:29.160 --> 2:26:31.120 have come across from different states to help us at 2:26:31.240 --> 2:26:34.640 Christmas Holidays, which is nice. And it was cold, and 2:26:34.800 --> 2:26:37.480 we had been feeding people all day, and then we'd 2:26:37.520 --> 2:26:39.680 heard some people in another location that we'd gone to find. 2:26:40.120 --> 2:26:41.600 And then we got to the end of the day 2:26:41.640 --> 2:26:44.040 and like, rather than just going home, I had a 2:26:44.080 --> 2:26:47.360 bunch of we had some MRIs left the refugee emory 2:26:47.400 --> 2:26:49.520 sort of vegan. Lots of us are vegan, so we 2:26:49.680 --> 2:26:51.560 were like, we're not going to find any other vegan 2:26:51.600 --> 2:26:53.160 food in the middle of nowhere out here, So we'll 2:26:53.200 --> 2:26:56.640 set around eating the little vegan MREs and like just 2:26:56.760 --> 2:27:00.120 talking and like sharing some some thoughts and things we 2:27:00.680 --> 2:27:03.360 experience over the last months of doing this, And like, 2:27:04.000 --> 2:27:08.160 it's those moments that make your organizing groups so much stronger. 2:27:08.560 --> 2:27:09.439 No one's telling. 2:27:09.240 --> 2:27:12.280 Anyone to do anything. You know, there's genuine bonds and 2:27:12.360 --> 2:27:14.560 that the love and friendship we build up between each 2:27:14.560 --> 2:27:17.720 other doing things that are very important. Don't overlook the 2:27:17.920 --> 2:27:21.480 value of those because it's extremely valuable. 2:27:21.680 --> 2:27:24.359 And this is something that I think you can understand 2:27:24.640 --> 2:27:28.200 in your own life pretty easily, where Okay, if a 2:27:28.320 --> 2:27:30.800 random person on the street walks up to you and 2:27:30.920 --> 2:27:32.840 tells you to go do something, are you going to 2:27:32.920 --> 2:27:35.120 do it? It's like no, why No? 2:27:35.360 --> 2:27:38.480 Probably not, Like I don't know, Maybe it's something like 2:27:38.879 --> 2:27:41.959 really sort of, hey, there's children in a burning building. 2:27:42.000 --> 2:27:43.600 We're going to run in and grab them. But like, 2:27:44.160 --> 2:27:47.040 the odds are no, you're going to ignore them. But 2:27:47.200 --> 2:27:49.160 if your friend goes and tells you to do the 2:27:49.240 --> 2:27:52.080 same thing, and you know you've been friends with them 2:27:52.200 --> 2:27:54.040 for a long time and you really care about them, 2:27:54.200 --> 2:27:56.440 the odds of you doing it are much much higher, 2:27:56.959 --> 2:28:00.840 and that's all organizing is. It's finding ways to You 2:28:01.000 --> 2:28:02.880 have a thing to do, and you go talk to 2:28:02.920 --> 2:28:05.120 people and you ask if they want to help you 2:28:05.240 --> 2:28:07.880 do it. Yeah, and the stronger your relationships are, the 2:28:07.959 --> 2:28:09.879 more lucky that is to happen. And that's why it's 2:28:10.000 --> 2:28:12.720 very important to do things like you know, just like 2:28:12.800 --> 2:28:15.800 having potlucks, like bringing snacks and beatings. Oh yeah, and 2:28:16.080 --> 2:28:18.400 like you know, even if you're doing a potluck, it's 2:28:18.440 --> 2:28:21.720 good to you know, you do like one capital capital 2:28:21.800 --> 2:28:23.720 T organizing thing, right, you get like a little bit 2:28:23.760 --> 2:28:26.360 of work done, but mostly everyone's just sort of relaxing 2:28:26.440 --> 2:28:28.040 and eating chili or whatever. 2:28:28.400 --> 2:28:31.880 Yeah, if you're a baker, you know, you can bay people. 2:28:32.080 --> 2:28:33.680 It's a wonderful thing to God. 2:28:34.200 --> 2:28:34.400 Yes. 2:28:35.040 --> 2:28:35.240 Yeah. 2:28:35.520 --> 2:28:37.400 And just knowing how to cook. I realized I forgot 2:28:37.440 --> 2:28:39.120 to mention this one. Knowing how to cook is a 2:28:39.560 --> 2:28:43.880 staggeringly useful skill. And it's useful in literally every literally 2:28:43.959 --> 2:28:46.240 any kind of organizing you can possibly be. And it 2:28:46.400 --> 2:28:48.280 is a thing. It is a skill that is useful 2:28:48.320 --> 2:28:51.080 in like it's useful in war zones. It's useful like 2:28:51.680 --> 2:28:54.600 literally no matter what organization you are in, if you 2:28:54.640 --> 2:28:57.240 can cook for people, oh yeah, and you don't even 2:28:57.240 --> 2:28:58.600 and you don't have to be like a good cook. 2:28:58.680 --> 2:29:00.640 It's just like you can show up food that you 2:29:00.760 --> 2:29:04.519 have made. You have instantly made this whole thing more successful. 2:29:05.200 --> 2:29:08.640 Yeah, definitely, Like I've had some wonderful meals in wazone 2:29:08.640 --> 2:29:11.760 and I've deeply appreciated those people. More broadly though, those 2:29:12.000 --> 2:29:15.760 ties like the way we organize without the state. The 2:29:15.879 --> 2:29:19.280 reason I believe that that is the way we should 2:29:19.400 --> 2:29:21.280 organize and the way we will continue to organize in 2:29:21.320 --> 2:29:23.480 a way that we can make the state irrelevant is 2:29:24.320 --> 2:29:27.400 because we understand each other as people and care about 2:29:27.400 --> 2:29:31.320 each other as people, and then we approach our organizing holistically, 2:29:31.480 --> 2:29:34.080 right with everyone in it knowing this person is good 2:29:34.120 --> 2:29:36.440 at this, but they're struggling with this right now, and 2:29:36.520 --> 2:29:38.000 I care about them, so I'm not going to make 2:29:38.000 --> 2:29:40.960 them do that right now. That is how we can 2:29:41.040 --> 2:29:44.200 build sustainable communities in a way that state cannot and 2:29:44.240 --> 2:29:48.360 in a way that capitalism cannot. Right because fucking hurts 2:29:48.440 --> 2:29:53.400 rent a car doesn't care or know about its employees 2:29:53.600 --> 2:29:55.920 in a way that we who organize with people and 2:29:56.040 --> 2:30:00.240 care and love one another do, and like that where 2:30:00.240 --> 2:30:04.080 our organizations will always be stronger than those created by 2:30:04.120 --> 2:30:05.119 capitalism of the state. 2:30:05.440 --> 2:30:08.120 Yeah, unfortunately, speaking of capitalism of the state, we're taking 2:30:08.160 --> 2:30:09.680 our last ad break where you want. 2:30:10.320 --> 2:30:12.160 Yeah, hopefully it's a Trentdica. 2:30:22.800 --> 2:30:23.440 We are back. 2:30:23.760 --> 2:30:26.480 So I want to wrap things up by doing a 2:30:26.560 --> 2:30:28.440 couple of doing a few things. 2:30:28.800 --> 2:30:31.039 I want to talk about some kind of basic organizing 2:30:31.320 --> 2:30:33.360 things that you're going to have to do that are 2:30:33.400 --> 2:30:36.400 not very difficult but are extremely important. And second, I 2:30:36.440 --> 2:30:38.680 want to talk a bit about how we did the 2:30:38.720 --> 2:30:41.240 first organizing project that I ever was involved in, which 2:30:41.320 --> 2:30:46.120 was tenants organizing, because it's really not that hard, right, 2:30:46.959 --> 2:30:49.680 you just go do the thing, it will happen, Yeah, 2:30:50.080 --> 2:30:52.720 and suddenly it ceases to be this like, oh, this 2:30:52.879 --> 2:30:54.960 domain of expert knowledge, and there's like, oh, this is 2:30:55.000 --> 2:30:56.680 a really difficult thing. If you just I don't know, 2:30:56.840 --> 2:30:59.039 you go give food to someone and suddenly you've done 2:30:59.080 --> 2:31:04.240 that and it's happened. So there are things that are 2:31:04.360 --> 2:31:08.960 important to like basic organizing stuff. Knowing how to book 2:31:09.160 --> 2:31:14.080 rooms from like churches, from libraries, from whatever, meeting spaces, 2:31:14.240 --> 2:31:17.320 and also knowing how to book rooms in places that 2:31:18.040 --> 2:31:22.200 like accommodate disabilities is a huge thing because a lot 2:31:22.280 --> 2:31:24.920 of people book meetings in places are a wheelchair accessible 2:31:25.000 --> 2:31:28.080 and it's a fucking fiasco. And you can avoid that 2:31:28.200 --> 2:31:31.160 very easily, but you have to put a little tiny 2:31:31.240 --> 2:31:32.080 bit of work into it. 2:31:32.360 --> 2:31:32.560 Yeah. 2:31:32.720 --> 2:31:34.720 Literally, I reached out to a friend to book a 2:31:34.800 --> 2:31:37.520 room last night because I knew they would get at 2:31:37.560 --> 2:31:37.920 that stuff. 2:31:38.320 --> 2:31:40.920 Yeah, you know, there's arranging people's schedules, getting people show 2:31:41.000 --> 2:31:42.880 up for stuff, Things you can do to prepare if 2:31:42.920 --> 2:31:46.039 what you're doing is basically all the things we've been describing, right, 2:31:46.120 --> 2:31:48.080 getting together a bunch of people to do a thing 2:31:48.640 --> 2:31:52.199 that is technically forming an organization. Yeah, Now, how formal 2:31:52.320 --> 2:31:53.880 informat you want it to be, or just you know, 2:31:54.000 --> 2:31:56.680 maybe it's just your organizing project or whatever. There's things 2:31:56.720 --> 2:31:58.880 you usually want. You want some kind of email so 2:31:58.920 --> 2:32:02.000 people can contact you in tandem with the email. Something 2:32:02.040 --> 2:32:04.320 that's very helpful that I think younger people tend not 2:32:04.400 --> 2:32:07.560 to think about is getting Google Voice. Yes, when Google 2:32:07.640 --> 2:32:10.200 Voice lets you set up a voicemail account so people 2:32:10.240 --> 2:32:12.880 can call you and leave phone messages. I mean everyone 2:32:12.920 --> 2:32:15.000 should just do this because this is the way that 2:32:15.080 --> 2:32:16.800 a lot of older people communicate. 2:32:16.879 --> 2:32:17.000 Right. 2:32:17.000 --> 2:32:18.520 They won't send you an email, but they will leave 2:32:18.520 --> 2:32:20.800 you a voice message, and it's very very useful for this. 2:32:22.000 --> 2:32:24.840 Childcare is something that's important. I did, I mean a 2:32:24.920 --> 2:32:26.680 lot is probably too strong of a word, but like 2:32:26.760 --> 2:32:30.200 I did childcare when I was organizing, and it wound 2:32:30.280 --> 2:32:32.039 up being really helpful because there's a lot of people 2:32:32.120 --> 2:32:34.440 with kids, and so you know, there's a couple of 2:32:34.480 --> 2:32:36.120 ways that this could work. One is that you know, 2:32:36.240 --> 2:32:37.960 you have everyone bring their kids. You have like a 2:32:38.000 --> 2:32:40.200 little space, you bring them like coloring stuff, you bring 2:32:40.240 --> 2:32:42.200 them toys, you bring them games, and you just sort 2:32:42.200 --> 2:32:45.680 of watch everyone for a while. And as an organizing thing. Again, 2:32:45.680 --> 2:32:49.560 if you're good with kids, that's very useful, staggeringly useful 2:32:49.680 --> 2:32:50.400 organizing skill. 2:32:50.600 --> 2:32:50.800 Yeah. 2:32:51.040 --> 2:32:52.879 Another way this stuff happens. 2:32:52.720 --> 2:32:55.520 Is you know, everyone pulls together ten bucks and you 2:32:55.640 --> 2:32:58.280 hire a babysitter, Yeah, for a bunch of kids. And 2:32:58.360 --> 2:33:00.600 that's a very useful organized thing. 2:33:01.000 --> 2:33:03.680 Yeah. I organize with people who have kids. 2:33:03.879 --> 2:33:08.200 I remember four years ago, fuck me twenty twenty a 2:33:08.280 --> 2:33:11.600 long time ago, and also yesterday, but like we were 2:33:11.720 --> 2:33:14.360 organizing to feed and house people and we were having 2:33:14.400 --> 2:33:17.120 a big Thanksgiving dinner and like some of my friends 2:33:17.160 --> 2:33:20.120 have very young children and they bought them. And I 2:33:20.200 --> 2:33:23.080 think it's actually really cool to do that. A like 2:33:23.840 --> 2:33:28.600 for those kids, it is normal that, like we look 2:33:28.640 --> 2:33:30.640 after people in our community. This is what we do 2:33:30.840 --> 2:33:32.760 and ever since I've been little, this is what we did. 2:33:33.200 --> 2:33:36.520 And like it's also very nice for people. Like a 2:33:36.600 --> 2:33:38.560 lot of my friends also brought their children down to 2:33:38.640 --> 2:33:41.120 the border, especially last year when we had because there 2:33:41.160 --> 2:33:44.160 were children there anyway, right, Yeah, some of my friends 2:33:44.160 --> 2:33:46.440 who bring their children down and their kids would play 2:33:46.480 --> 2:33:48.920 with the other kids, and like it doesn't matter that 2:33:49.040 --> 2:33:50.840 some of the kids are Kurdish and some of the 2:33:50.920 --> 2:33:52.360 kids are from China and some of them are from 2:33:52.400 --> 2:33:54.400 Columbia or whatever. Like, they'll get along just fine. When 2:33:54.400 --> 2:33:56.840 they're four or five years old, they don't care. They 2:33:56.840 --> 2:33:58.600 just want to kick a ball or see a Teddy 2:33:58.640 --> 2:34:01.200 Bear or something. Yeah, I think it's really good for 2:34:01.320 --> 2:34:03.800 your children to you know, you're bringing them into a 2:34:03.879 --> 2:34:08.400 world which is cruel and at times unequal, and like 2:34:08.720 --> 2:34:11.320 your kids seeing that, like we can make a difference 2:34:11.360 --> 2:34:13.920 and we can do this. I think it's one of 2:34:13.959 --> 2:34:15.680 the best educations you can give your children. 2:34:16.000 --> 2:34:19.560 Yeah, and it's something that's good for everyone involved. 2:34:19.879 --> 2:34:22.480 Yeah, exactly, And it's also very I think one of 2:34:22.560 --> 2:34:24.400 the things I see a lot wh people are organizing 2:34:24.440 --> 2:34:26.960 thing with refugees of the end house is like they're 2:34:27.120 --> 2:34:29.600 just people, Like you don't need to be afraid of them, 2:34:29.840 --> 2:34:33.760 Like they don't want to hurt your children. And having 2:34:33.800 --> 2:34:36.680 your children around shows that, like you have grasped they're 2:34:36.800 --> 2:34:38.800 just people and that you feel safe and your children 2:34:38.840 --> 2:34:41.120 are safe around them. And I think that that's valuable too. 2:34:41.120 --> 2:34:44.160 You're giving both parties some dignity in that moment. 2:34:44.560 --> 2:34:47.680 Yeah, there are some other very basic things that I 2:34:47.760 --> 2:34:50.080 think are very important. If you've never done this before, 2:34:50.840 --> 2:34:52.400 I'm going to talk a little bit about how you 2:34:52.560 --> 2:34:55.200 run a meeting. Yeah, and you would think that this 2:34:55.320 --> 2:34:58.360 doesn't matter, and until you watch a group of one 2:34:58.440 --> 2:35:00.480 hundred people who don't know how to do this attempt 2:35:00.520 --> 2:35:02.959 to get anything done and they it just is a fiasco. 2:35:03.080 --> 2:35:05.400 And this is even true sort of smaller groups. Yeah, 2:35:05.879 --> 2:35:07.280 so I'm going to give you how to run a 2:35:07.360 --> 2:35:11.120 meeting one oh one, Okay. A very common way to 2:35:11.280 --> 2:35:13.600 organize meetings that people use all over the world and 2:35:13.680 --> 2:35:15.720 it's very effective is you have two things. You have 2:35:15.800 --> 2:35:18.240 an agenda and you have a stack. And those are 2:35:18.320 --> 2:35:20.800 like the technical terms for them. The agenda I mean 2:35:20.959 --> 2:35:22.680 is an agenda, right, you know what an agenda is. 2:35:22.879 --> 2:35:24.440 You put the things that you need to do on it. 2:35:25.080 --> 2:35:27.400 And another thing that's very helpful with these is you 2:35:27.480 --> 2:35:29.680 know you're going to be operating at our time constraints 2:35:29.720 --> 2:35:31.800 because people don't have forty five hours. 2:35:31.560 --> 2:35:33.280 To be in meetings, and my god, you don't want 2:35:33.280 --> 2:35:35.880 to be in a meeting for that long. Yeah, you know. 2:35:36.040 --> 2:35:38.680 Knowing how long roughly you want to talk about these 2:35:38.760 --> 2:35:41.920 things is very very useful and making sure that you're 2:35:42.160 --> 2:35:44.960 of moving the conversation through the stuff on the agenda 2:35:45.000 --> 2:35:46.720 because you have more stuff you need to talk about. 2:35:47.560 --> 2:35:50.279 All of this again, like this all sounds very obvious, 2:35:50.480 --> 2:35:52.879 and again you know how to do it, but until 2:35:52.920 --> 2:35:56.000 you've been in a room where people have not realized 2:35:56.000 --> 2:35:58.080 they need to do this, you don't understand how. 2:35:58.040 --> 2:36:01.440 I'm put on this stuff yet pain of it not happening. 2:36:01.560 --> 2:36:04.360 God, I have watched rooms full of like sciet these 2:36:04.400 --> 2:36:06.720 are like professional scientists, right, So this is the entire 2:36:06.840 --> 2:36:08.880 room of one hundred feet of people with physics PhDs 2:36:09.120 --> 2:36:10.879 who don't know how to run a meeting, and it's 2:36:11.080 --> 2:36:13.240 a shit show. And all of this stuff could have 2:36:13.280 --> 2:36:15.400 been avoided with with some very very simple things. 2:36:15.760 --> 2:36:15.960 Yes. 2:36:16.160 --> 2:36:18.720 The other thing, and this is genuinely a piece of 2:36:18.800 --> 2:36:22.520 social technology, right, it is the stack It is very simple, right. 2:36:22.600 --> 2:36:25.040 You have one person who is the stack keeper, and 2:36:25.120 --> 2:36:27.040 whatsone wants to talk. You have one person talking at 2:36:27.080 --> 2:36:29.080 a time, and what someone wants to talk, they raise 2:36:29.120 --> 2:36:31.160 their hand, they make some kind of signal to the 2:36:31.200 --> 2:36:33.960 stack keeper, and that person writes their name down, and 2:36:34.160 --> 2:36:35.960 so you now have a list of who gets to 2:36:36.040 --> 2:36:38.400 talk in what order. And so you go down the 2:36:38.480 --> 2:36:42.200 list and people get the say things. And again you 2:36:42.560 --> 2:36:44.400 know how to do this. This is not like a 2:36:44.480 --> 2:36:47.960 complicated thing. But again I have watched people who collectively 2:36:48.080 --> 2:36:51.640 have like more PhDs than like I earn money in 2:36:51.720 --> 2:36:55.480 a week, Like who know, I can not be. 2:36:55.560 --> 2:36:58.120 Able to pick this out, and you do. I believe 2:36:58.160 --> 2:36:59.840 in you. I believe in you, dear listener. 2:37:00.280 --> 2:37:02.720 But you could do this. Yeah, there's a very common 2:37:02.879 --> 2:37:05.480 Sometimes this is one person and sometimes this is two people. 2:37:06.160 --> 2:37:07.400 A very common way to do it is to have 2:37:07.440 --> 2:37:09.959 a stack taker and then have someone who's the facilitator. 2:37:10.000 --> 2:37:12.680 And the facilitator's job is to call on the people 2:37:13.280 --> 2:37:15.960 and to try to like move the conversation forwards and 2:37:16.120 --> 2:37:18.400 get and make sure make sure everyone's involved. And also 2:37:18.480 --> 2:37:20.440 another important part of this, and this is again something 2:37:20.520 --> 2:37:23.520 you'll know from your stupid work meetings, is you have 2:37:23.640 --> 2:37:25.039 to get people like me to shut up. 2:37:25.640 --> 2:37:28.360 Your meetings can't just be one person giving a speech. 2:37:28.640 --> 2:37:30.560 You have to cut them the fuck off and you 2:37:30.720 --> 2:37:33.760 have to get to the next person. Yeah, and doing 2:37:33.840 --> 2:37:36.360 that courteously is a skill. Yeah. Yeah. 2:37:36.640 --> 2:37:39.240 And finally on this note, there's a lot of if 2:37:39.240 --> 2:37:41.480 you want to go into the like more technical stuff, 2:37:42.160 --> 2:37:44.640 part of the things the facilitators use and part of 2:37:46.120 --> 2:37:48.280 you know, the formal name for this is like the 2:37:48.320 --> 2:37:51.240 progressive stack, but it's just a thing that's very useful 2:37:51.280 --> 2:37:53.440 in organizing is you want to make sure everyone in 2:37:53.520 --> 2:37:56.720 a room is engaged and talking and that it's not 2:37:57.080 --> 2:38:00.280 just three people who talk all the time. Yeah, and 2:38:00.480 --> 2:38:02.240 you know, and so the idea of the progressive stack, 2:38:02.320 --> 2:38:04.440 right is you're trying to find the most marginalized people 2:38:04.440 --> 2:38:06.560 in degrees, people who are least likely to speak, and 2:38:06.680 --> 2:38:09.120 you're trying to get them in first. And sometimes this 2:38:09.240 --> 2:38:11.560 is literally just like, hey, someone hasn't been talking in 2:38:11.600 --> 2:38:13.080 a meeting this whole time, and you can like ask 2:38:13.120 --> 2:38:14.640 them what they think about something or asked if they 2:38:14.680 --> 2:38:17.240 have anything to say, and a lot of times they will, 2:38:17.640 --> 2:38:19.520 but they just don't feel confident enough to say it. 2:38:19.640 --> 2:38:21.800 And this is this is a very very important skill 2:38:21.920 --> 2:38:23.880 for a facilitator or just even you could just do 2:38:23.959 --> 2:38:26.720 this in a meeting too, right, Like you can be 2:38:26.800 --> 2:38:28.480 the person who goes like, hey, do you have this 2:38:28.600 --> 2:38:31.320 this person have anything to contribute? And that is an 2:38:31.480 --> 2:38:33.920 enormous thing. Sometimes it can be you know, sometimes it 2:38:33.959 --> 2:38:36.120 can be a little bit awkward, but it's a very 2:38:36.160 --> 2:38:39.879 important thing because you're just losing out on people who 2:38:39.920 --> 2:38:44.120 have really really valuable ideas and contributions and plans. And 2:38:44.720 --> 2:38:48.160 if you just let the same three people give speeches, 2:38:48.800 --> 2:38:51.920 you can't get to the stuff that's actually useful. 2:38:52.480 --> 2:38:55.840 Yeah, definitely, if you've been a teacher or in any 2:38:55.920 --> 2:38:58.160 way what you know, you probably have had you have 2:38:58.320 --> 2:39:00.880 this skill. You might not consider it a skill, but 2:39:01.000 --> 2:39:03.000 even if you've been a TA in grad school something 2:39:03.040 --> 2:39:04.480 like that, you probably know how to do this. 2:39:05.120 --> 2:39:08.520 Yeah. So I'm going to put all of this together briefly, 2:39:08.560 --> 2:39:11.480 and I'm going to run through basically how we started 2:39:11.520 --> 2:39:13.400 the first organizing project I ever day, which was a 2:39:13.480 --> 2:39:16.800 tenants union in Chicago. Okay, so this is based on 2:39:16.879 --> 2:39:18.880 my memory. It's been a long time since I did this, 2:39:19.160 --> 2:39:22.400 but my basic memory of what we did was okay. 2:39:22.520 --> 2:39:24.760 So one of my friends is an experienced organizer. I 2:39:25.000 --> 2:39:27.360 was like a tiny baby, right this this was my 2:39:27.480 --> 2:39:29.320 first offline organizing project ever. 2:39:29.520 --> 2:39:30.640 Right, I had no idea what was doing. 2:39:30.680 --> 2:39:33.879 I thought I was a guy, which, like, that's how 2:39:33.959 --> 2:39:36.440 much of a fiasco, Like little tidy baby bo who 2:39:36.440 --> 2:39:37.199 doesn't know anything? 2:39:37.320 --> 2:39:38.560 This was, you know. 2:39:38.720 --> 2:39:41.160 And so my friend talked to some people that he knew, 2:39:41.320 --> 2:39:43.160 and he knew that I, you know, I was interested 2:39:43.200 --> 2:39:45.760 in getting involved in tennis organizing, and we like went 2:39:45.800 --> 2:39:49.160 to a cafe and we sat down and we ate 2:39:49.320 --> 2:39:51.560 and we just talked about what we wanted to do, 2:39:51.760 --> 2:39:53.760 what our plans were, what things we needed to do 2:39:54.560 --> 2:39:57.960 to get this organization set up. We talked about ideological stuff. 2:39:57.959 --> 2:40:00.360 And that's actually is something else important too, is part 2:40:00.400 --> 2:40:03.200 of organizing is getting people to think intentionally about their 2:40:03.240 --> 2:40:08.360 actions and think politically about their actions. Yeah, and that's 2:40:08.400 --> 2:40:10.080 something that's very useful. You also have to make sure 2:40:10.080 --> 2:40:12.199 that you're not forming a book club. Like book clubs 2:40:12.240 --> 2:40:15.199 are fine, but you need to make sure you're organizing group. 2:40:15.240 --> 2:40:16.600 If you try to do a thing, has it just 2:40:16.640 --> 2:40:18.880 become a book club? But that that's you know that 2:40:19.040 --> 2:40:20.800 that was something that was very useful to us. And 2:40:21.120 --> 2:40:24.000 you know, we started making a plan. And our plan was, okay, 2:40:24.120 --> 2:40:25.879 we made a bunch of flyers and then we went 2:40:25.920 --> 2:40:27.520 out and I did this, and I walked around through 2:40:27.560 --> 2:40:29.240 a bunch of streets and put them a light post 2:40:29.320 --> 2:40:31.680 or whatever. And then we put them like we hung 2:40:31.760 --> 2:40:33.800 them up in the buildings of tenants, you know, because 2:40:33.800 --> 2:40:35.280 you can just like walk up the stairs right and 2:40:35.280 --> 2:40:36.840 you need to put them on the walls. And you know, 2:40:36.959 --> 2:40:40.119 we had this flyer, this firehead information. This flyer said, okay, 2:40:40.120 --> 2:40:42.240 we're starting a tenant's union. If you have tenant, if 2:40:42.280 --> 2:40:44.480 you have issues with your landlord, or you want to 2:40:44.520 --> 2:40:47.000 talk about tenants stuff like, come here. At this time, 2:40:47.120 --> 2:40:49.640 we had an email you can send us stuff. We 2:40:49.720 --> 2:40:51.880 had a phone number that you could call ye you know, 2:40:52.000 --> 2:40:54.720 and so okay, and so parallel to this, we like, 2:40:55.120 --> 2:40:57.120 I forget if it was a church or if it 2:40:57.280 --> 2:41:01.400 was some building, some set center or something. We booked 2:41:01.400 --> 2:41:04.480 a room. We were kind of lucky in that we 2:41:04.600 --> 2:41:07.680 had like local press people nice who we sort of 2:41:07.760 --> 2:41:09.600 knew and This is another useful like if knowing a 2:41:09.680 --> 2:41:11.800 journalist can be a very useful skill, because one way 2:41:11.840 --> 2:41:13.320 to get a project off the ground, if you're trying 2:41:13.360 --> 2:41:15.520 to get to a bunch of people, is by finding 2:41:15.600 --> 2:41:17.720 a journalist who is willing to cover it, because you know, 2:41:17.760 --> 2:41:19.880 we're we're finding founding like the first tenants union in 2:41:19.959 --> 2:41:22.360 this place, right yeah, And you know, so we had 2:41:22.400 --> 2:41:24.680 media coverage and we got kind of screwed when this 2:41:24.760 --> 2:41:26.920 event eventually came together because there was like three feet 2:41:26.920 --> 2:41:29.720 of snow that night. But people still came, like people 2:41:29.800 --> 2:41:32.000 still came in the blizzard, Like a lot of people 2:41:32.120 --> 2:41:32.720 showed up for this. 2:41:33.040 --> 2:41:33.920 But what are things that we do? 2:41:34.040 --> 2:41:36.119 We also, like, you know, we just we just started 2:41:36.120 --> 2:41:38.400 talking to people, right, We started talking to tenants about 2:41:38.400 --> 2:41:41.080 their problems. We just you know, we talked to our friends, 2:41:41.160 --> 2:41:43.280 We talked to the people they knew. We ended up 2:41:43.360 --> 2:41:44.840 talking to someone, you know, and this is the thing 2:41:44.879 --> 2:41:46.920 that just happens as it spreads by word of mouth, 2:41:47.360 --> 2:41:49.520 right people start contacting you. We ran into a really 2:41:49.680 --> 2:41:53.080 long time tenants organizer in the city who had a 2:41:53.080 --> 2:41:56.760 bunch of incredible stories about how our corrupt politicians got 2:41:56.800 --> 2:42:00.200 their jobs by portraying the old Tenets organizers. Right. That's 2:42:00.200 --> 2:42:01.920 the other thing is you know, another thing that happens 2:42:01.959 --> 2:42:03.880 in projects is you'll you'll sometimes you'll just you just 2:42:03.959 --> 2:42:06.440 pick up someone who's you know, has been doing this 2:42:06.520 --> 2:42:09.240 since like the sixties. Yeah, and it rules because they 2:42:09.280 --> 2:42:11.400 have a wealth of experience and they want to they 2:42:11.440 --> 2:42:12.080 want to do stuff. 2:42:13.000 --> 2:42:14.320 We plotted out what we were. 2:42:14.280 --> 2:42:15.720 Going to do at our meeting, you know, we were 2:42:15.720 --> 2:42:17.360 going to do some political education. We were gonna have 2:42:17.360 --> 2:42:19.200 a bunch of time for people to talk about stuff, 2:42:19.200 --> 2:42:21.720 and we were gonna, you know, get get people to 2:42:21.800 --> 2:42:24.600 understand what we were doing how they can start organizing. 2:42:25.320 --> 2:42:28.520 And then we did it, and I unfortunately don't remember 2:42:28.600 --> 2:42:30.160 much of what we talked about because I was off 2:42:30.160 --> 2:42:32.119 in another room taking care of a bunch of people's kids, 2:42:32.560 --> 2:42:34.640 which was very nice, but I don't I don't remember 2:42:34.680 --> 2:42:36.000 what we talked about. But like that, you know, but 2:42:36.120 --> 2:42:38.840 like you all of those things, right, all of those 2:42:38.879 --> 2:42:41.720 steps from the start of you get five of your 2:42:41.760 --> 2:42:44.080 friends to go eat dinner and you talk about what 2:42:44.160 --> 2:42:47.400 you want to do through someone makes a flyer in 2:42:47.720 --> 2:42:51.000 like Microsoft or whatever you make it in like PowerPoint, 2:42:51.640 --> 2:42:53.880 and that's publisher what's what's what's the one I'm blinking, 2:42:53.920 --> 2:42:56.640 I haven't used it in so long, the one you 2:42:56.720 --> 2:43:03.280 make greeting cards in a program and I've forgotten it 2:43:03.560 --> 2:43:06.080 is you see this to make Christmas cars. But like, 2:43:06.160 --> 2:43:08.040 you know, okay, so we made a flyer and we 2:43:08.120 --> 2:43:10.320 walked around and put the flyers up and we made it. 2:43:10.400 --> 2:43:13.040 We made an email, you know, we got a space together, 2:43:13.160 --> 2:43:15.560 we figured out what we wanted to do, and then 2:43:15.600 --> 2:43:17.480 we did it. Yeah, and you know, and there's a 2:43:17.480 --> 2:43:20.040 bunch of organizing from there, right, But like we had 2:43:20.080 --> 2:43:22.640 started a thing, and you can do every single one 2:43:22.680 --> 2:43:24.840 of those steps. And if you can't personally do one 2:43:24.840 --> 2:43:27.400 of those steps, you can think of a person who 2:43:27.520 --> 2:43:29.360 you know, who you can bring in to help you 2:43:29.440 --> 2:43:32.760 do these things. Because organizing you already fucking know how 2:43:32.800 --> 2:43:34.560 to do it. Yeah, you just have to go out 2:43:34.560 --> 2:43:34.960 there and do it. 2:43:35.560 --> 2:43:39.720 Yep, you can have faith. Yeah, and this has been 2:43:39.760 --> 2:43:41.880 it could happen here, go organize. 2:43:45.520 --> 2:43:48.640 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 2:43:48.760 --> 2:43:50.640 from now until the heat death of the universe. 2:43:51.160 --> 2:43:53.640 It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media. 2:43:53.840 --> 2:43:56.880 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:43:57.000 --> 2:43:59.480 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 2:43:59.520 --> 2:44:04.000 iHeart Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You 2:44:04.040 --> 2:44:06.160 can now find sources for it could happen here, listed 2:44:06.200 --> 2:44:08.840 directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.