Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 145

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Kamala Shuts Down the DNC Imane Khelif and the Co-option of the Mexican Terfs The Battle of Karbala Transnational Repression of Sikh Independence Activists Political Cults: The Democratic Workers Party feat. Andrew You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to do your homework. The best way to do that homework is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, as well as my pal Michael F. Florio, as we give you all the insight you need to set the best lineups each week. For a smart, fun, and entertaining path to league domination, the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. Every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want.

If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. All right. This is the last night of the DNC episode. We're reporting from our homes now, which is great, because I feel like death. Garrison Davis is here, I'm Sophie Lichterman, Robert Evans is here. We more or less survived the DNC.

Sophie took a few hits there at the end. I took a few. So the DNC is over, it's wrapped up, it's all finished, thank goodness. Tiring in a very different way than the RNC. And I it's wrapped up, it's all finished, thank goodness. Tiring in a very different way than the RNC. And I mean, obviously a very different demographic. This is something that I noticed just as soon as I got to the airport. When I got to the gate for the RNC, it was like, oh, I'm here for the RNC. This is just a regular airport gate. This is just normal people. There's a very broad demographic that, you know, pretty fairly would represent whatever

city you happen to come from. And in calling these people normal, that's not saying they're necessarily good people, but they're normal people. Sure they're into politics maybe a little bit more than your average person, but by and large, they are kind of regular people and including shitty in a lot of the ways that regular people are shitty about politics. Whether that be their views on Palestine, Gaza, queer people, but it's a pretty normal demographic base. Yeah, it's the difference between like when Sophie and I showed up at our gate for the RNC,

we took off our masks because the threat at that point was being on a mask surrounded by Republicans. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It was like the risk to our lives was greater than the risk of COVID to our lives, safety wise. Yeah. Whereas we just kind of treated the flights to and from the DNC like normal flights.

Like you'd handle the normal precautions, just regular people. Some of that has to do with the fact that Chicago is like a much larger city. Yeah, sure. But yes. But I mean, I got into a conversation with a delegate from Georgia who was sitting right next to me, you know, young guy, mid 20s, very clearly everyone on the plane was going to the DNC, at least for me. And yeah, I mean, you just had like a regular conversation.

Was it Lil Jon? No, no, Sophie, it was not. Oh, okay, cool. Sophie, Lil Jon is a senior citizen now. It's Lil Jon, thank you so much. But no, he was this young, kind of nominally progressive Democrat who is excited. This is, I think, his first time going,

excited to vote for Kamala, much more excited about her than Joe. He also just finished his college program to get a criminal justice degree. So it's like, yeah, this is who the Democratic Party is. Just random kind of queer, but definitely cis dude. Well, like gay dude, bisexual, whatever. But yeah, it's going to reform that criminal justice from the inside. Yeah.

Anyway, I just want to start by talking about those kind of general convention demographics because that's basically the same it felt well inside the convention as well. Yes, a lot more, what I will say is a lot more women who are like middle-aged at the DNC. Like that was the overwhelmingly most common demographic on like at the convention that I noticed. And probably more racial diversity than a lot of cities, probably honestly. Yeah.

I guess that's a good general sign, but it's not a great sign just in and of itself, right? I guess it's good for great sign just in and of itself. It's good for the general future of this country, but it doesn't really affect many of the biggest problems that we're addressing, whether that be Gaza, whether that be police brutality, all of these other things, LGBTQ issues, the economy, right? That does not necessarily equal over onto any of those, at least at the DNC, but that is a general trend that the country is heading towards, it seems.

So there you go. And my god, was there a lot of people? There was. There was such an unhinged amount of people. I can't even. It was so much bigger and so much more crowded The D R&C I said this online when right wingers were trying to be like there was nobody there Which was like you're you're so dumb

It was vastly more crowded but like at the RNC most of the time we generally had our an entire row to ourselves Yeah It was always easy to find seating super easy to find a spot to sit any time during the RNC. Not true for the DNC. No. Very challenging to find a seat. And this kind of brings us to the last day of the convention.

Horrible. The three of us wrap up a very nice dinner with Mr. Vermin Supreme. Lovely. Possibly the most ethical presidential candidate this year. The only presidential candidate who has been maced with a member of the Cool Zone media team. We can say that much, yeah.

So we have a great dinner with them. We walked over to DNC, massive, massive lines coming outside, terrible. And then we get told, it's okay, there's a special press entry. So we bypass all those lines. We are feeling great. We are feeling like gods, just passing by hundreds and hundreds of people waiting in line to get the DNC.

It was a very powerful feeling. I've never felt that empowered before. Oh, Garrison, oh, you sweet summer child. It was wonderful. It was really a rush that can't be described. Yeah, I always didn't want to let you guys know that the whole venue is at capacity. So we get up to the door after just breezing through, going past all of those lines,

and we get to the door and all the doors are shut. Yeah. There's secret service at every entrance saying that nobody can get in because the venue is at capacity and the crash, oh my god, the crash that we had from our high, so, so bad. I talked to a couple of police officers outside the venue who were like, yeah, the fire marshals are here. Like it's, it was literally, I do think that it from, and from everything I've read since, I think their reporting was accurate. Yes. Like there were just more people than were allowed to be in the building

They definitely let more people in than they should have. Yeah however, there was a group of journalists with garrison and myself that were waiting to be let in and There was like triple the amount of people to journalists that left in the time that we were standing there Which was a very long time and And let me just say, the Secret Service officer really enjoyed telling a bunch of journalists that we couldn't come in. He was having a great night, ruining our night. I mean, there's nothing that makes me happier than making a journalist miserable. So I actually do feel some solidarity there.

I would love to tell a bunch of journalists, fuck you. I was certainly skeptical because of just how many people were getting let out. I really wanted to see how full the venue actually was. And after waiting for nearly, for two hours, two hours. Two hours, two hours. I went home. The couple of speech already started. I abandoned you.

And then some media logistics person from the Secret Service entrance, every five minutes would point at 10 people like they were the chosen ones to let them into the arena. And on round three or four, Gar and I did in fact get in and run up like seven or eight flights of stairs, which I'm still feeling. You made the cut. You made the cut. We did. I bet Tim Walls whispered your very names into the ears of that Secret Service agent.

Although I do feel like a piece of me is still on those stairs because it was brutal. It was bad. And then we got up to kind of the floor of the arena that we usually entered into, and they were not lying. It was way too full. There was not a single seat available. People were standing in the fire exits.

People were standing on the stairs and on the hallways, inside the actual arena. It was, it was in fact a real safety hazard. Yeah, I do really feel the need to emphasize, not one of those things where the cops were fucking over the press or whatever for their own... No. It was a serious issue. No, we saw firefighters inspecting the hallways and letting a whole bunch of fire code violations fly. Yeah, we were not supposed to be standing in the middle of that stairwell.

And yeah, we got inside just in time for the foreign policy, border patrol, and geopolitics section of Kamala's speech. And we will talk about her speech, including those aspects, right after we come back from this ad break. ["The D&C Show Theme"] All right, the final speech of the D&C, arguably the most important one, although the D&C just went on for so long

that I was so checked out by that last day. Honestly, it was just Bill Clinton's nine hour speech where he just was just the oldest man who's ever lived. No, he's convinced me. You know, I watched last night several episodes of the show about him committing a sex crime as the president, and it really reminded me, boy, Slick Willie's gotten old. Yeah. Thank you for using my dad's nickname for Bill Clinton on Mike.

Slick Willie, that's every dad's nickname for Bill Clinton. My dad loves to call him that. Anyways, Garrison, we got up there. We are standing in a crowd of journalists just trying to get a glimpse of what's going on and Is there any particular part of the speech you want to talk about because there's a few things that come to mind for me I mean, yeah I have notes on like the whole speech just you know a few a few lines from each little section and I think this speech was more important than most of Trump's speeches

Yeah, because we've heard Trump speak a bajillion times. Now I will say Trump's RNC speech was important because this was his first speech after getting shot at in the head. Similarly, I think this speech for Kamala was extremely important because this is basically her second presidential speech. The speech she's been using for her campaign trail has been the same stump speech for the past month.

It's been the same one delivered many times, which is not irregular. But this is the first time we've really heard her do a new speech. And this is her introduction as a presidential candidate to the entire world. As she took the stage, there's obviously tons of cheers, chants of USA. She opened by praising Biden's record and his character, saying that history will prove him to have such a great record and character. And then she framed her own personal story as like a template of like the American journey, right?

Saying quote, I'm no stranger to unlikely journeys unquote. She talked about her mother as an immigrant, saying her parents met at a civil rights gathering and that her dad taught her to be fearless. Although her dad also, I guess, probably failed to teach her how to be a good Marxist, but she did not bring that part up in this speech. Complicated relationship.

Look, we all get to have one. Yes. But her parents taught her and her sister about different civil rights leaders, including civil rights lawyers that fought for civil rights in court. And Kamala said this is what inspired her to go to law school. Although, you know, very famously, she did not become like a civil rights lawyer, she

became a prosecutor. And Kamala said that this was inspired by her high school best friend getting molested by her stepfather. And that's what got her to want to go down the prosecutor path. That was the first time that I had ever heard her talk about that. Yeah, I hadn't heard that either. She mentioned it a few other times. Obviously not on that large of a stage.

Yes, no, no. There was a lot of talk about that and a lot of talk about her focus on like familial sexual abuse, molestation, and other sex crimes as a prosecutor. They're basically framing that as her specialty. And that was a good part of what she focused on when she was a courtroom prosecutor. The line that she used to refer to her work in the court was that, quote, everyone has a right to safety, dignity, and justice. So that was kind of the introduction to Kamala and her background. That was who she was, where she came from.

And then the speech pivoted to talking about Orange Man Bad, which worked very well in 2020. And I think we're going to see more of that the closer we get to the election. One way or the other, it's the last time you're going to get to make hay out of it. And so you might as well do that while the sun's shining. Yes.

Honestly, that was the general theme of the DNC speeches for me was like, orange man bad. We got one last shot. We can be good for you. Be good with us. We're good. Orange man bad. It's even less that they want to be elected to make any actual progressive change.

It's that in order to do that in the future, we first need to beat Donald Trump. And that was kind of the guiding principle of most of the DNC and Kamala's speech. She called this election a fight for America's future. It's infuriating that we deal with this again, right? Where we have to sit down and knock the Republicans out and end a chunk of the conservative ideology in this country because literally nothing can progress without doing that. And we still can't handle the more fundamental problems.

But you know, that's, that's the way it is. Yeah. And she talked a lot about voting rights, saying that Trump tried to throw away your vote. And when that didn't work, he directed an armed mob to the Capitol to overthrow the election. She talked about how Trump wants to deploy the military against protests, although she said he wants to deploy

the military against, quote, our own citizens, but this was in reference to him wanting to deploy the military against protests. And she framed the Supreme Court's new ruling to give presidents immunity in court from criminal prosecution as imagining Trump, but now without any guardrails, which of course is very scary. And part of this is Project 2025. Again, trying to reiterate this as the Republicans playbook, in case Trump is able to get back into office. Mentions of Project 2025 started a series of we are not going back chants, which I think is probably some of the best messaging.

The Democrats have the option of deploying this go around. I know there was an upper Democratic strategist who has been meeting with the Kamala team who said that this messaging doesn't work because it's too vague and too negative and not enough focused on the future. And thankfully, the Democrats, or at least Kamala's team, did not listen to that guy, because that is the most wrong a man has ever been. This messaging has been playing very well in person

at all these rallies and especially at the DNC. Kamala talked a little bit about economics, saying, quote, we are charting a future towards a strong and growing middle class, unquote. And, quote, we will build an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed, unquote. Which I guess is fine, I don't know, I have a few kind of issues with this, mainly like what happens when you don't succeed and what happens to the lower class. Throughout the entirety of the DNC,

there's been a lot of talk about growing a strong middle class and a big focus on the middle class, There's been a lot of talk about growing a strong middle class and a big focus on the middle class, but very little focus on actually helping the people that are having it the hardest in this country. Instead, really catering to the middle class voter. And I don't know, there's a lot of talk about labor, there's a lot of talk about working people, like workers' rights. That stuff all has a pretty big spotlight at the DNC this year. But very little mentions of how we can actually improve life for the lower class.

She did talk about very vague gestures towards lowering the cost of everyday needs, but so far she's kind of yet to unveil any actual solid policies really. We have that first time home buyers, like 25K. Yeah, she's proposed some details on how to help increase the number that first time home homebuyers like 25k. Yeah, she's proposed some details on like how to help increase the number of first time home buyers and build an additional like 3 million homes in the United States. Like there's been some, but it is all kind of vague at this point. Now, one thing that they do have going for them is when the

dim say like, we're going to cut inflation. You know, we've seen inflation drop. Yes, from from the post pandemic highs over the last couple of years to the point where it's at now. So like that is the, you know, there's a leg to stand on there. And in general, I actually think one of the better economic points was made by Clinton during his speech, which is that like the vast majority of jobs that have been created over all of our lifetimes have been created under democratic precedents. And you know, if like that's your voting issue,

the polls are also moving in the direction of that people seem to be trusting Kamala more on the economy. And they trusted Biden. Even though there's not really a perfectly logical reason to do that, but this is, elections aren't about logic. No, they're about vibes. They're about vibes. In a lot, no, they're about vibes. They're about vibes in a lot of ways they're about vibes.

And I do think the dims, I think the dims have that actually like the good headwinds on that. A lot can change in the next 70 days or so. What I really saw with this speech and with this convention as a whole was the democratic party embracing the middle and some conservatives. And yeah, they tried not to be too directly abrasive to progressives and the left, but they weren't catering to them, but they were not catering to it. Yeah.

Yeah. Kamala did attack Trump on taxes specifically, saying that Trump will do tax breaks to his billionaire friends that will add five trillion to to the national debt and she called Trump's tariff proposal Basically a national sales tax or a Trump tax that'll raise costs for middle-class families by up to four thousand dollars a year Which is in line with a whole bunch of economists predictions if Trump's tariffs do go through and then again gesturing to kind of vague if Trump's tariffs do go through. And then again, gesturing to kind of vague policy ideas without actually proposing strict policies saying that, quote, we will provide access to capital for entrepreneurs, small business owners and founders, warning that Trump will ban abortion pills and enact a national abortion ban and force states to report on people's abortions and miscarriages.

And instead, Kamala will sign into law a bill that protects abortion access nationally, as well as calling to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, and more kind of vague gestures towards protecting the freedom to love who you love, to have clean air and clean water, and the freedom that unlocks all others the freedom to vote. And so that's kind of the most of the domestic policy section of the speech. And that is the part of the speech that we missed. And then we came in right as she started talking about the border, saying again that, like

many others have talked about at the DNC, how the Democrats and Republicans worked together to write the strongest border bill in decades. And Kamala said that this bill was endorsed by the Border Patrol, which it wasn't. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol Union, but who cares? And Kamala talked about how Trump called Republicans to kill the bill so that Democrats couldn't take credit. And she promised that she will bring back this bill and sign it into law saying that, quote, we can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,

unquote. So again, this is one of the areas that Democrats, I think, have lost the most amount of ground on the past, like, eight years. And they are still kind of willing to cede it. And then in terms of like geopolitics and foreign policy, one line of commas that has kind of caught some flack, but also, I don't know, I'll just read it, we can talk about it. She said that quote, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world, unquote.

Yeah. So did you guys what did you think by the use of that language? She was trying to appeal to the voters that don't think a woman can lead. That's the end of my sentence. Agreed. Oh, interesting. I feel very differently. I found this as being a reaction to right wing and centrist attacks kind of questioning her strength as a leader. Yes.

So she went for very, very like intense language on this. See, I feel very differently about that. And I think this may be just due to the fact that I've kind of some more experience with how people in the NatSec space speak. Because the phrasing that she used, it's been lampooned a lot online. We've all had a couple of some bits about, you know, talking about, I don't want a lethal, the most lethal military in the world. I want this or that. But like, that's what the military does. No, well, lethality

is also a meme term, right? Like, like it, that's the way it is used in this space. Like, if you go to like speeches where people who are involved in any level as contractors in the military industrial complex, making arms, working for, like it is all about when they're talking about like improving efficiency within the air force, it's about lethality, right? We are increasing lethality, like that is our goal, that's what we're doing here today,

because that is the measure by which you determine the success of the organization. So what I saw Harris is doing by using that specific terminology was not, I am trying to talk extra hard in order to burnish my credentials because conservatives are going to attack me. It was Trump is actually kind of weak

on the national security stuff, especially within the community of people who are like NACSEC ghouls, right? Within people who are members, who are born and raised members, like my family, a lot of them, of the military industrial complex, the people who have their professions in that space, right? They actually don't all like Trump a lot.

And some evidence of that was recently, he made some statements where he essentially insulted Medal of Honor recipients that like the VFW came out and attacked Trump, which is wild, like absolutely unprecedented. I do think it's a little bit, I definitely agree with you Robert, but I do think it's a little bit of what Garron and I were talking about as well. Another thing that I'm just thinking of as Robert saying that is just how often Trump has said that the war in Ukraine wouldn't happen if he was in office, that Putin's scared of him and things like that as one of his main reasons why we should reelect him is because he commands authority and nobody did anything bad when he was in power.

And I think a lot of that has to do with Kamala's language choice. I mean, it's it's she said what she said, because it was a way of expressing like, like an internal signifier to other people in the NatSoc space. Yeah, yeah, it was it was it was a way of saying that I am not just I'm not an outsider. I am a professional I understand and speak about this the same way that you guys do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? No, I can see that.

You know, the whole speech I kind of saw in those terms, it was very much calculated. I could see who they were trying to get with that speech. There was a bit in there for everybody. And they were trying to get kind of those moderate chunks of every group, including the most moderate chunks of the people whose like primary issue is Gaza, right? Because there is a chunk of the people who are mostly concerned to this election with what the fuck we're going to do about Gaza,

but also are not hardline communists or whatever, are people who like the uncommitted folks really want to embrace the Democratic Party and are maybe- People who still believe in the system. Want to just need a little bit of a lie that they can go along with to vote, right? Like Kamala was attempting to kind of give,

cause she didn't announce a substantive change in policy. No. Her verbiage on Gaza in this speech was the same as the kind of stuff that like Obama was saying, honestly, like 10 years ago. Sure. Garry, do you have a quote of what she said? Yeah.

Let's talk about it, but first let's head to our last ad break real quick. All right. Let's talk about her closing remarks relating on foreign policy and Palestine. I guess there's a her closing remarks relating on foreign policy and Palestine. I guess there's a few other kind of general foreign policy things. Yeah. Saying that under her watch, quote, we will lead the world into the future on space and

artificial intelligence. America not China will win the competition for the 21st century, unquote. She framed Trump as an ally of Russia and Putin. And she claimed that she will help us, quote, stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies. And then finally, one of the last things she talked about was Israel-Palestine, saying, quote, President Biden and I are working around the clock. Now is the time to get a hostage deal done and a ceasefire deal done. This had a decent sized cheer. She followed this up by saying, quote, we will always stand for Israel's right to defend

itself and ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, unquote. And I think this signals mostly to people that it's unlikely she will adopt anything resembling an arms embargo. And there was a lot of internal pressure from the uncommitted folks, people who got into the DNC trying to push on this topic specifically. Because Democrats now kind of adopted kind of vague ceasefire rhetoric, now the goalpost does need to be shifted towards something that'll actually stop the bombing of families inside Gaza.

And that is an arms embargo, some kind of conditions on the way that bombs and weapons are going to be used. And I think this line signified that that is probably not going to take place, at least before the election. No. Definitely not before the election. That's very clear at this point. And she kind of both sides this issue.

Yeah. Her last quote was, quote, What has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. How? Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety. Why? Over and over again, the scale of suffering is heartbreaking. Whom is making them do this?

President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination." And this was followed by what I would call the biggest cheers of the entire night. Yeah, I was about to say the crowd reaction was massive to that. People lost it. So much bigger cheers than saying, we will ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. This closing line about dignity, security, freedom,

and self-determination for the Palestinian people got by far the biggest cheers. But what does it mean? What are you actually saying? It means nothing. I mean, what all of that means to me is that Democrats, because they are normal people, they're not Republicans.

They know how bad all this is. They hate it. They are mad at it. And Yahoo! You only really need to see a couple of war crime videos to know that like what happened is happening over there is is ghastly. They also aren't willing to like nuke their lives and a lot of other people's lives to let Trump back in. Right. And I do believe they genuinely view Israel as an extremely important ally in the Middle East. Yeah, and they think that this could be fixed, right?

Because like we did some awful stuff in Iraq, but then we elected Obama and everything got better, right? Or something like that, yeah. No, I mean like they don't like Netanyahu. The Biden admin doesn't like Netanyahu because he's not efficient at war. He's efficient at doing like an ethnic cleansing. He's efficient at doing wide civilian casualties, but he's not good at actually like fighting this war very well. This is something that

like Biden's team has consistently not been thrilled by, but they're not going to do much about it. Kind of the last foreign policy line that she had was, quote, I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran backed terrorists and will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un who are rooting for Trump unquote and I think basically this ties into a whole bunch of rhetoric that I've seen throughout the DNC, including from speakers, speakers who are either vets or active military, that seems to be kind of slowly preparing the Democratic Party for another war,

for some kind of on-the-ground activity in the Middle East, whether that be in Lebanon, whether that be in Iran. It's like they're slowly just prepping us for the possibility of war or invasion. Oh, that does seem likely. This is a big part of like the Democratic Party's official like policy platform on Palestine, which they did release during the DNC. And a big part of that is talking about

how important Israel is as a Middle East ally. Where will we fly our planes over? If they ever need to put troops on the ground. And I think that is so much of why they're unwilling to budge on anything resembling like an actual ceasefire or an arms embargo is because they view this as like a real possibility. Anyway, that was that was the speech the balloons dropped everyone lost their minds. It's not a cult in the same way. But there's there's you can see one building.

Maybe the party's a cult, but it's not a Kamala cult the same way the GOP is now a Trump. Right? Like the Republicans are now a Trump cult. It is it is not a cult of like who is the leader in the DNC, but it is more of a cult of like ideology, which I guess the Republicans just don't even have anymore. It's not even that it's it a cult of, I think I would describe it as defensive cult making. Democrats have been so bewildered and frightened by the momentum that Trump and his people have had over the last decade. And they have responded in part by adapting some aspects

of the cultic milieu to wrap around these ideas that are safe to them. Like that's a big part of the appeal of the don't go back chant, right? Which I think is a smart bit of politics. And I think actually it has the potential to save quite a bit of lives, particularly at least of like queer and trans people in the United States.

So I'm not saying this is bad politics, but there is a level of cultiness to that where you are kind of enrapturing people with this possibility of constant forward motion that we all know doesn't feel as true as it felt in 2015 or 14. It doesn't feel as possible as it felt in 2012 or 2008, that they're kind of trying to sell people on if we can just get over the hurdle of these Republicans, right? We can get back to the period where like things felt like we were all moving in the right direction. And that's magical thinking. Yeah.

We can get back to a period of steady progress. I try to be even about this because as I wrote that episode the fucking don't panic episode Because I was I was looking at people's talking on reddit and in Twitter and just in real life and being like I think Some folks might kill themselves soon. Yeah out of fear of the Republicans So I really hope no one reads what I'm saying is like all like, ah, these stupid libs and their hope fetish. It's like, no, no, no, but it's still a cultic belief. It's not rational. It may be necessary.

Sometimes irrational beliefs are necessary, but there's not a good reason for it yet. And don't fall too far. Like fall, try not to fall further down that hole than you need to fall in order to keep yourself alive for the next eight months. So even though Trump has spoke a lot the past eight years, his speech at the RNC I think was important because it was the first one post assassination, his viewership for that

speech peaked at 28.4 million. Viewership for Kamala's speech Thursday night peaked at 28.9 million. So she edged him out just barely, at least in terms of peak numbers by about 500,000 views. Very even, very even. Very even. And again, like Kamala's not spoken tons. There's a lot of people kind of tuning in to see what she sounds like kind of for the first time

on a big national platform. And meanwhile, I think people are just briefly tuning into Trump just to see what he's like after getting shot in the head. And I will read a few of Trump's tweets from- He's not doing well. He's not doing well at all. Man, was he spiraling.

Oh my God. From Kamala's speech. he just started by all caps, is she talking about me? Excellent, incredible stuff. Donald, buddy, I can tell you're slipping because four years ago, if you'd tried to tweet that out, you wouldn't have had to hear it from someone. There would have been a voice in your own head

before you pressed send that would have been like, don't do that, Donnie. Come on. Donnie. Come on. Come on, man. You're better than this. Quote, too many thank yous, too rapidly said, what's going on with her? Followed by one minute later in all caps, where's Hunter?

See, again, if it was prime, it would have been something like loopy hair or shit, some shit. He would have like made some sorty hair or shit, some shit. He would have like made some sort of insulting remark about her personal appearance and ignored the rest of the speech. One minute later, Walls was an assistant coach,

not a coach. That's such a weak line. Very funny, very funny. Oh my God. Because like for one thing, most American men have been on a sports team and we all know you just call them all coach. Everyone is coach.

Like they're just all coach. You don't say assistant coach. It's embarrassing to be honest. Like no player in a football team is ever like, hey assistant coach, could you come over here? Like that's just not the way people are. No, wow. Anything else?

A few months ago, we did an episode talking about kind of polls that is now largely outdated because Biden's no longer in the race. But we did talk about how most people's pick for president was literally anybody else. We saw one booth at the DNC protest that was a literally anyone else themed booth and oh boy, do I have news for you, buddy. Good news. But we do have some polling data kind of on how satisfied people feel based on their choices

for this presidential election. Now obviously there's a small post convention bump for Harris, but that kind of usually tapers off. But in terms of their satisfaction of the candidacy options, in May only 55% of Democrats said they were satisfied. Now, 79% say they're satisfied. Massive. And for Republicans back in May, 68 were satisfied and now 74 are satisfied. So, but both are

moving towards higher satisfaction. And obviously the giant shift in Democrat numbers is because of Kamala now. And they're more satisfied with her than Republicans seem to be with Trump, which is an interesting stat. This is based on a New York Times, the Siena College poll of registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. So that's just a few interesting little notes there as we close out this week talking about the DNC. And then finally, I have one kind of little funny anecdote. As we were leaving the DNC after Kamala's speech, me and Sophie were walking around

this area of Chicago trying to get far enough away from the Convention Center to get an Uber. And I saw this guy maybe in his like- Oh, so funny. Probably in his 20s, who was either about to block up or just de-blocked. And you can tell because he's wearing the pants, he's wearing Doc Martens. Garrison is referring to someone who has just taken off their black block, as in the traditional

kind of anarchist protest garb and put on normal street clothes so as to escape from a police cordon. Yeah. So this guy was walking around either about to go to the protest or just left. Still had the Doc Martens on, had like the backpack full of his stuff. And as he walked by me, I just, almost instinctively, like without thinking at all, this wasn't on purpose.

Just instinctively, I kind of muttered to myself, I know what you are. And he heard this and turned around looking kind of confused or concerned. And I had to turn around and I just gave him a smile and a thumbs up and he smiled back and kept walking on. And that was my last interaction at the DNC. Just a little bit amusing to me. There was a protest of around similar numbers to Mondays. So maybe like 3,000, 2,000 people for kind of the last march on the DNC last Thursday. So there was another one of these big kind of coalition-led marches.

It looked like it was not far from Mondays numbers actually, which was impressive. Pretty close, pretty close. But they did not breach the fence unlike last time. A small section of them did not break off from the protest marshals and bypass a section of the fence unlike Monday, which did cause significant disruptions. But disruptions were not needed because the DNC disrupted itself by overbooking the venue and having way too many people. So there you go.

That was the DNC. I'm really glad it's over. Me too. I'm really glad it's over too. And I can't wait until 2028 when we all get to be together again to cover the next election if there is one. Comrade AOC proudly takes control. She raises the red flag on stage. AOC proudly takes control. She raises the red flag on stage. Comrade AOC with her vice presidential candidate,

the literal bones of Leon Trotsky running versus just an open chasm to the pit of hell. An actual crack in the earth through which you can see the ephemeral forms of demons roiling in the magma below. That's gonna be a great one. Really excited for those conventions. And or Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Finally, the dream team. I believe they could open up a chasm to hell. I do. I think what would be more likely is if Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are on the same team with a bunch of secret service agents that we finally, finally have a presidential election

decided from a fentanyl overdose. They get some tampered coke. Anyways, the podcast is over. I'm gonna go die now. Goodbye. Ever wonder what it takes to be a professional athlete? Or how the best in sport are taking those skills to elevate women's sports to a whole new level? I'm Tiffany Oshinsky, host of League One Volleyball's podcast Serving Pancakes, a new show by iHeart Women's Sports. Get ready for some unfiltered analysis and

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on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us.

Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tignotaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old. And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out. And then they feel like it's too late to start or try or change things. And we both, I think, we're really drawn to just that idea of going, you know what?

You can do whatever you want whenever, and your life will be forever greater for having done it. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When, therefore, a man is told, you, your inner being, are so-and-so, because your skull bone is so constituted, this means nothing else than that we regard a bone as the man's reality. To retort upon such a statement, the retort here would, properly

speaking, have to go to the lengths of breaking the skull of the person who makes a statement like that in order to demonstrate to him in a manner as palpable as his own wisdom that a bone is nothing of an inherent nature at all for a man, still less his true reality. Welcome to Icknap here, I'm your host, Mia Wong, that was the man himself, George Wilhelm Frederick Hegel from the Phenomenology of Mind. I'm gonna go full Caesar straight post here, like, that's not Hegel! Oh, lovely. And with me is, as you have just heard, is Emi Flores, a queer socialist from Mexico

City who's, we've had on the show before to talk about Mexican TERFs, who's worked with Zapatista Networks, and we are once again, I think, delving into the terrifying, extremely well-organized worlds of Mexican TERFs. And I guess this is kind of a a they're eating a bit of shit episode oh yeah which is good we have good news in this show whoo it were very rare occurrence we have we have a little bit of good news yeah also welcome to the show excited to have you back I'm I love it I love the show and I'm happy to update because last time we left on a real sour note. And this time, I mean, it's not exactly fantastic news, but things are looking up in this specific part.

And I think you're going to introduce us to a massive W we just got worldwide. Yeah. So we ended up not doing a full episode on this, but one of the big stories for the last few weeks, and I don't know when this is going to be coming out. So maybe this is going to be ancient news by that point. But the day we're recording this is like one day after the ajurean boxer in Mon Calif won the gold medal of the Olympics. She has been I mean this story's been sort of beaten to death, but like she's been like accused of being a man and

being like transgender and like all of this shit from a whole bunch of like I mean everyone from like Elon Musk to like JK Rowling to Megan Kelly's losing her mind about I forgot she even existed until this but she's apparently around and doing this you know so so I think people sort of know the basics of this story, but there's a part of the story about sort of, you know, I guess we'll probably get into a little bit of this about how a lot of this is sort of manufactured by a bunch of incredibly sore losers and like weird transphobes in an incredibly corrupt like Russian RAN boxing association. Russian RAN Boxing Association. Right, right. But the other side of this that has gotten absolutely zero coverage anywhere is that a huge amount of the attacks against her were started by the Mexican Turf Network. Yeah, and surprisingly one of the few coverages I've seen has been in Mexican feminist news,

which is part of the things that have changed since then. Mexican and Latin American feminists have realized, oh, we fucked up and we're trying to fix our mistakes. But sadly, I think the world suffered one of our latest mistakes. Yeah. So can you tell us about how this whole thing started, which I think is several years earlier than most people seem to really like understand. I think the corruption angle that we might expand a little

bit more, that is the beginning of it. And I think it was a little bit in and it was like in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let's be real. She won gold, I was not betting on her winning gold. Like, she's really good. But she's not like the buffest out there. It's pure racism and convenience that she's been labeled and targeted the way she is. Because like, you see her opponents and they're the buffest girls I've ever seen in my life. They're incredible. Like, every single athlete up there is amazing. And took pictures of her and say, you're telling me this is not a man? I've ever seen in my life. They're incredible. Like every single athlete up there is amazing and took pictures of her and say you're telling me this is not a man? Like she's like a little bit skinny honestly. Like she's really tall so she has to be skinny to be competing that way. Yes, like have you people ever seen a boxer before? Like I it's just sort

of baffling. Like one of the boxers that defended her, like she was offended like you're telling me that I beat Imani before and like I didn't even qualify for this year's Olympics. Like she's not invincible even if this is probably her best performance. Yeah. She's really strong under spotlight, I love her. But like she's not extremely muscular or anything. Not that being muscular is masculine but like this was really just both racism and convenience but part of that is one of the first people who started complaining about this after the corrupt Russian let Russian oligarch led boxing Federation that got disqualified from the Olympics yeah like I want to I want to pause here and everyone like take note of this. Do you understand how corrupt of an organization

do you have to be for the fucking Olympics to stop working with you? Like, you have to make the Chicago fucking machine look squeaky clean for the Olympics to not work with you. We're talking about every single other sport is also doing shit like this. Like, they just went too greedy. Like, they... like it's some Russian oligarch that got into fights with people during the war in Ukraine and then didn't stop doing corruption.

Like, they couldn't just take a year break. They had to push... Yeah. Like... They had to play too dirty. So at the end of the day, Imana got disqualified with, like, trust me, per all levels of citations for her. No one knew for a while what was the thing that disqualified her.

What was it? Hormones, chromosomes, vibes. It turns out it's mostly vibes. Yeah. And so when she got disqualified from a, not an Olympic event, but a corrupt Russian oligarch led event, a former boxer who lost against her, who's from Mexico, who sucks ass, like she's really dog shit, she started posting pictures of her bruises after the match and honestly she reminds me of the Italian boxer that also got her shit rocked yeah they keep she did perform very well Imane at the end when she got gold but the very first like matches she got were against like how did these

people get here? Yeah like that Italian boxer like this is the only time I will ever say this about something that happened in the Olympics but like the Italian boxer threw the worst punch I've ever seen and then instantly got punched by like The most obvious punch in the entire world in the face. It's like wait. What are you doing? How did you get here? I don't go deep into why why Brianna Tamara sucks so much ass because that would have been the episode we ended up not doing But suffice it to say like she's just not in that level. She didn't qualify for a reason this time But and also I noticed that she was waiting to do her pro debut Right now like something felt planned about all of this

Yeah, like she she announced that she retired from amateur boxing, which, honestly, is the more legit boxing. Don't at me. And she's going pro, which means she's now charging for tickets. And she announced her pro debut the same day that this whole, like, bungle started for international people watching the Olympics like she very much knew that the people were gonna try something yeah so she's using this as like boxing promoting yeah pretty much which is like the shadiest shit yeah boxing promoting in Sinaloa which like if you know

anything about Mexico that's that's gonna be a couple red lights. Oh boy. But so the thing is why did she knew that she was gonna happen really says a lot about how international TERFs are operating nowadays right like I don't want to get all fucking Russia gate and like uh like have my uh fucking persecure a body pillow like some LEAFS have but TERFs are trying to get money and influence anywhere they can and some of them are trying to get in from Russia right? Like yeah it's the if they're already putting people in concentration camps in Chechenia like they say hell yeah I want me some of that and you know the Brits are something too focused on Britain. You need something international to make the money flow down to Latin America, especially out of Spain. Spain kind of hugs it all for themselves. The first news site that took

this years ago, translated it to English, is called Redox magazine, like that I think it's a Canadian joint. Redox, it's the only site I've seen in all of like the turf landscape that only publishes in English and Spanish like it's very clearly a fulcrum for like turf organizing in Latin America and in the anglosphere and I don't think it's a coincidence that the this story broke quote-unquote like the first people who commented on this and like renewed the accusations of Yomane being trans was Redox and then other like transphobic boxing coaches from Italy and England and the United States started picking up the story but that was after like the the more

diplomatically minded Mexican TERFs and Spanish TERFs that usually don't work together. Again, they don't like to share. Listen, Mexico doesn't have the best relation with Spain for obvious reasons. Yeah. And but even then like as spaces for TERFs in Mexico had been closing, they're looking for funding from other places, right? The TERF Gambit didn't work quite well in Mexico so they're trying to look for international sponsorships and they thought they had hit a big one here they they had the attention of the entire world people were sharing Brianda's photos because like again Brianda doesn't have it's not a good boxer so she looks like a young short pretty lady

that could be your barista and put her against like someone who's like a head taller that beat her ass because she sucks. They couldn't ask for better propaganda. Yeah. But it really backfired when the entire world went, what? What are you talking about? Yeah. But I think it worked for Mexican Terps. I think they might get a couple grants here and there. They're back in the radar, at least internationally. And that's why I think coming here is really important because we didn't win precisely and we'll get to that. But at least we're in a stalemate.

And I think they're trying to look for either allies or honestly, jobs elsewhere. They might just want a spot in Redox magazine to get into, be able to move to Britain or shit like that. Yeah, I think this is something that is important about the Mexican turfs, which is that unlike in the US where there's just this unbelievably large pot of money that you can tap into from the Heritage Foundation and all of these right-wing think tanks. It's like the funding is a lot harder to come by. We all have trouble getting funding. Yeah. Any type of small grant that would be a nothing burger in America goes a long way here, right? And so the far right has been

really smart and pushing stuff, but it hasn't really paid dividends and It's all gonna dry up for a while. Honestly, especially with like how the economy is going I think in the age of infinite money of 2020 like they were willing to throw more money at like a longshot bet in Brazil or Mexico right now They gotta bring something to the table and they try to bring in money and they... I think they fucking ate shit. Hell yeah. So, okay, you know what else brings something to the table? It is the products and services that put food on my table, I guess?

God, the other pros of this. Here are these ads. Here are these ads. And we are back. So I wanted to kind of move to talking about what's been happening in the sort of Mexican feminist scene and in terms of sort of what's been going on with TERF since the election of the new Mexican president, Claudia Schoenbaum, who's I don't know, like I think a lot of Americans, I think the conception

of her is that she's like significantly further left than she actually is. Oh yeah, like I, you know what, I felt so much Skarren Freud when like people started talking about Kamala, like she was gonna end apartheid and yeah in the genocide and I was like how does it fucking feel I got really angry at every single article no one clocked her correctly like both the far right and the left thought she was significantly to the left like everyone said like oh finally a feminist Jewish woman and like the Jewish party is gonna play a part because like I do feel we're gonna see a rise in anti-semitism in Mexico a big one like I

Feel like a birther style movement from when Obama was elected coming up and it's gonna play again I I see Claudia Sheenbaum She's not just an extension of AMLO and she is I would say not further to the left than Andrés Manuel López Obrador of AMLO and she is, I would say, not further to the left than Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but she has less right-wing things about her. It's not like she's better than AMLO, she's just less worse. Because AMLO is like an old Christian guy. I do mean Christian. This is a Catholic country and AMLO is like, I think he's like Pentecostal or something.

He's never admitted what his relatives say something like he's never needed like what his relatives say but he did do like weird right wing things, especially culturally, well, I mean, not everywhere right like we got hell of militarized like half our infrastructure is owned by the military now, which is like, you can just Jakarta methane ourselves like for free. Yeah. And he goes on rants about how drugs are caused by volume be video games and like Like he like for for a week try to like say we should ban fortnight I think it was just because his son didn't stop playing it. Maybe he he overspent on the family Credit card, but like yeah, he's very like, he has a very Christian morality.

And it's a weird fit with Mexicans Catholic one. Yeah, in the weirdest way. Like he's very like work, well, like very Protestant ethics guy. And people didn't talk about that. And now they think Claudia is going to bring like Jewish ethics. And no, she's like way just like a Mexican scientist, professional. She's very much a scientist. At least that's her self-conception and how she operates.

And I think a lot of people underestimated her. Like they just saw her as an appendage of AMLO, with no real political acumen or skill of herself. She doesn't really have a base of voters. Again, she's like academic, like her base of voters are college graduates, left-leaning college graduates, but not too left-leaning because otherwise you'll see like, hey, please stop militarizing our country. And so we didn't expect her to win with the margins that she did. She won with historic margins, more votes than Amla Gabb.

It's just, she's so fucking shrewd. And this ties to the TERFs because four years we were really worried, because we thought she was a TERF. We straight up thought she was a TERF, even though she passed some of the largest trans-positive legislations in Mexico City. That was more like momentum from Mexico City being like this progressive center of Mexican politics. And like I know I participated in getting the law passed like like she wasn't happy about that. She basically was trying to get some Heritage Foundation funded folks to sit in a table and have a big discussion.

Hell yeah. A very, very centrist thing of like, let's listen to both sides. And it's because she had some of the OG TERFs from Mexico, some of them that started in the 70s, people who knew Janice Raymond when she was young, were literally in Morena's structure. During 2020, the women's agenda for Morena was set by TERFs, by some of the worst TERFs, some of the most internationally well-connected TERFs, too, right?

Yeah. And that was a huge problem. We managed to push back against that with protests, with talking to politicians, not really begging, we just, you know, that's a nice window you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. And also by like, my collective, like we started focusing on like, oh god, I don't want to say Olsen anymore because like,

since you're Krain, like saying Olsen is so cringe. Yeah. But like we started like investigating and like tracking, like these people started showing up in like government positions That was really worrying. Yeah, some of them were like very clearly affiliated with the far right but some of them were they came from like Union jobs on shit like that or they were like they were the anarchists throwing bricks at walls like a year ago and We started seeing them get co-opted slowly and we were really scared.

But then I think we underestimated that Claudia was playing us, but she was also playing them. Like she is a really shrewd political operator and she gave TERFs enough to get them to do what TERFs do best, which is break up feminist organizing. Yeah. So whatever Claudia could not directly co-opt to get leaders... There were some black blocs in Mexico whose leaders literally had in their Lint-ins that they were doing black bloc shit. Oh my god.

I know, it's incredible. And it just gave everything away, because the same person who did that Had in her lived in like a year previously that she was like an ad for a morena congresswoman Oh my god, and uh, yeah, I think what morena did was infiltrate a lot of black blocks to neutralize them because during 2020 two years after AMBLO got elected like Mexican feminists were I would say the biggest fire in social movements in Mexico like with the sabatistas getting surrounded by state-sponsored narco cartels and stuff like they were really paralyzed and with COVID and everything like that

Like a lot of other organizing got real damaged, but feminists were like they were trying to get abortion passed and they succeeded for most of it, but like institutional feminists succeeded batting abortion and more independent or street anarchist socialist based feminists, they suddenly didn't have anything to demand. So they either got cushy government jobs or they got arrested or they helped the police arrest people like by being like clearly just like, you know, the classic like eight people get arrested and one of them gets out in like a week and it's like, ah, yeah.

And, uh, so like feminists got a rude awakening. And before they were more permissive, like, like cool feminists, like real leftist, socialist and queer feminists were more permissive of TERFs during like the 2016 to 2022, because they thought like we need unity within within feminism. We need to like get abortion passed. We need to like combat both the far right and Amblos conservatism. And well, they won and a bunch of their leaders got co-opted. We have an epidemic of like feminist

activists passing laws with their names. Like the one movement that got defeated the worst is anti-carceral feminism. Like forget about abolitionism in the carceral sense. It's... No one gave a shit about that. Even anarchists were trying to pass laws to, like, lay Olivia to scalp dads who haven't paid child support. Like, they really bet everything on punitivism. And that's the thing that united, united like every single segment of feminism, including ratfans and terps. Like they love putting people in jail. It's their whole entire deal. And so the thing is, that's the way you get, you co-opt someone, you just tell her, okay, instead of

like being an anarcho-punk, like doing tagging government buildings, what if I just give you a shitload of money and I pay for you to go to fancy hotels in every state and like talk about how important it is that we throw your ex into a meat processing machine for like breaking up with you. Yeah. And I mean, I'm being glib. Like there's horrible shit. Like we had to pass a law to like give more time to people who threw acid at women's faces, right? But like that's already legal. Yeah. It's already legal. I don't know if it's gonna work that well,

especially cause like, I think one of the biggest cases of like a literal trafficker just got off jail this week. And he literally tortured one of Mexico's biggest rap fans. And it's like, what did you do? Did this all for nothing? Like, you're just going to lock up more poor people and like rich assholes are going to walk free. Yeah. And so, yeah, that was 2020.

Then it got co-opted. And just like Claudia gave us some laws for trans people, she put TERFs in government positions, we protested that, and then she dropped them. Like she really did a... Huh. Andy with Woody, like, I don't want to play with you anymore. Like once she neutralized the feminist movement, once there were, like, there was no threat of escalation, she really didn't need the fake black blocks.

She just, you know, dropped them. Yeah. And speaking of fake black blocks, you too could buy a fake black block from these products and services. And we are back. Yes. Let's get into what's been happening in kind of present day. The thing that's really interesting to me about like about the way that sort of Mexican turf stuff works is that they in a way that's kind of American terms kind of work like this, but like they really function in a very similar way to like left social movements, right?

Except that they're like, you were a world social movement for evil, but it's like, like they have a lot of the same kind of like strengths and weaknesses that that like conventional like social movements have, which I think ties into a lot of what's going to happen to them. and the fact that you can, you know, in the same way that you can co-opt a social movement, like they're also vulnerable to that. Yeah, well when money dries up and like the options are stop organizing as a feminist, like I cannot tell you how many lesbian separatists, TERFs are married and pregnant now. It's like they just drop that shit like Shimon dropped them.

Like Shimon didn't do it out of the kindness of her heart. I think she realized that this was a vulnerability. She needed to convince like the Jacobins of the world that she was this socialist president like, amble about even better now in feminist form. And she really couldn't do that if there was like these huge like people who didn't even pay attention to Mexican politics but just JK Rowling. Like this was just a huge vulnerability. She also didn't want this mostly to be a debate. I've heard rumors and I buy them completely like that she pushed for no trans women being legislators in our Congress Eve because we had we had two before One of them sucked ass and the other one was kind of fine. Like just normal lefty

Centrist woman the other one was just horrible. So it's honestly I'm good with it. Yeah, that's the situation We're about to head here. We're like we're gonna get our first transfer to Congressmen. She's absolutely dog shit like terrible zionist like Consistently I think they were just there to like waste our fucking time Like you would have a meeting with them. I should so should we like pass this Legislation saying that you can have like no gender on your voter ID. And that took the whole six years. Jesus Christ. And I didn't even want it.

Like I haven't even changed my legal name. So like it's not my priority, but it was a lot of people's priorities. And they kind of wasted our, our core community's time. But even that was not enough. I think Shane just didn't want the headlines. Like she was content for others, other people to handle the quote-unquote debate. She didn't want anything to do with it because it only cost her. The reason she defended some tariffs is that some of them were loyal to her.

And that's what she wanted. She wanted loyalty. Because she needed party loyalty to have a tight grip on morena Because what she knew she could win pretty easily She didn't need to appeal to the right or the center right and good for her Like I'm an anti-elect or at least but like electoral is should not fucking listen to suburban moms Like who gives a shit? Yeah going more to the left is to a certain extent is better electorally like Just look at the numbers between Paris and Biden and it's just vibes

It's not even like real policy But just the vibes like you don't miss you don't need to listen to pan voters because they're pan voters they're not gonna vote for more than that and like the right here in Mexico is really weird because like They have this really really neoliberal view, but their culture is so aristocratic. It's kind of like what if Dems were like British Tories? Because they hate poor people. Not like Republicans hate poor people, because they also pretend to be poor people. Panistas don't. They lost half because Shane Bell really took hold of

Morena's structure and mobilized it to vote in a way that was unprecedented, even more than Amlo's vote. And because like Panistas just couldn't shut up about how racist they are. They were just constantly saying the most horrible shit about Morena voters. And there were campaigns by Pan saying go vote because they thought that like AmLO is like a dictator because they really think that everyone is a dictator. Yeah. Everyone that's to the left of Mussolini is a dictator. AMLO is a dictator, so go out and vote. They thought like, citizen participation is going to destroy the AMLO regime from, we're

going to be back to Mexico instead of being Cuba Suela del Norte. Oh no. And so, but the thing is, when you send most of the population to vote, they're not going to vote for like the most repugnant, classist people ever. Yeah. And the candidate they chose was not a far-right candidate. Like Xochitl Galvez was an indigenous woman. Like they thought they were going to outflank Shaman with that, but they didn't. She sucks as Sochitl. She's not far right.

She used to be in Perre, which was also an Amblos party, but she was part of, when Pan got into power in 2000, she was the one in charge of the negotiation with the Esetalene and she betrayed the Zapatistas. Oh, Jesus Christ. She was not going to get any indigenous vote. Like yeah. So this is the first time the right does this, right? Like Pan did the fucking classic damn thing of like offering a watered down version of

the other candidate and they lost enormously. And a lot of terms, to get back to the topic topic a lot of tears bet on both of them they were Really hedging they wanted to be especially more institutional terms They said as long as we get a woman president, we're gonna be cool. Yeah, and that like backfired on them Yeah, oh, yeah, like shame about like I said what she cares about is loyalty She didn't care about rap fans because she believed in them Just like she didn't care about trans people because she believed in us. She wanted loyal dogs. And if you are

hedging your bets and she wins with 60%, you're not going to see a single cent from the government. Yeah. She kind of... Okay, this is an absolutely deranged comparison, but she kind of reminds me of Xi Jinping in the way that Xi Jinping does politics is by... Every single Morena geopolitics not just fainted when you say that. They love what you say. Xi Jinping's political style is sort of, you know, he's been very, very good at centralizing the bureaucracy around him and sort of like neutralizing social movements. And this has been a classic, like a long sort of long range, like post-culture

revolution, like Chinese Communist Party thing of like, we need to make sure there's not street movements. We need to sort of neutralize. Yeah. It's also a must thing, you know? Yeah. But it's also like, you know, Xi Jinping sort of very much is also like a loyalty guy, right? He's like, you know, he will sort of set up anti-corruption things to like, purge people who are like, aren't loyal to him because that's, you know, that's the way that this kind of like centralizing politics works.

And it's, church speed is really interesting that like we're seeing this with, we're seeing this with the Terps route was like, well, you guys like, I'm sorry, you guys weren't fucking loyal enough. So like eat shit, you're gonna get, you're gonna get anti-corruption campaigns. There's people that we protested that are super close to shame on, that we were really scared would get government positions and wear turfs.

They didn't get shit. There's no, like, trans legislator, but there's also no turf legislators. Yeah. There's a world where that could have happened, that we would have been fucked. There's a world where that could have happened, that we would have been fucked. I think without our protests, like, not just the ones we organized from my colectivo de Red de Dicidencias Sexual y de Género, that we were focused on some of the closest to Shane Bond, but like, every trans person knew that, like, this was something real bad. And we kind of put a stop to it, but it ended up in a stalemate.

Because again, what Shane Bond did was defend her loyal Terps and she moved them to positions outside of the spotlight honestly more suited to their to their Talents like their her terms were not really charismatic. She was trying to set them up like as influencers and Like they just have No juice at all. I mean that is a classic Like just being the most juiceless motherfuckers on the planet. Absolutely. And like really in coherent politics. Yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. Because like again, they were kind of like they're more like lefty in discourse.

They're very nationalist, obviously, but also like they were hyping how feminist she was and like, oh, we're gonna confront American imperialism while at the same time being obsessed with British turfs. So it was really contradictory. So Morena calls their movement the Quattro Te, the Forte, the fourth transformation, which is like just... I won't even get into it, it's just such a fucking bizarre thing. Didn't Avila have the third transformation or or something was he also doing the fourth transformation Oh, it's like like no, no, it's like the independence when we kick Francis ass and then revolution

Those are the three. Oh and then okay, and then the fourth is him. Yeah, right like he's saying like I'm I'm beneath what is reborn and Yeah cringe but like it's stuck Honestly, I use it cuz like it's such a good shorthand because morena is so large Such such a big word and I need salt cringe because like movimiento regeneración nacional morena which means morena means like brown skin So and also like Birgen morena, which is like Mexico's virgin Mary. So very cringe even for like Mexico's Virgin Mary. So very cringe. Quatro T is even less cringe, so yeah, sure, whatever. But one of the most famous Mexican feminists started calling them the Quatro Terf. Oh my God.

And that stalks, it's brilliant. I fucking love plaqueta. So that stalk, but basically the Quatro Terf is not out of power. The most ambitious ones and the most purely terfs got kicked out. And the loyal dogs got sent to do like other jobs Like they're now talking to academics about like green progressive socialism and shit Like they're just doing talks in like with like 80 year old tenured professors and like that is still risky and there's we're still watching them Yeah, but I think shaman told them like I'm gonna protect you but you need to shut the fuck up You better not say the word trans for six years. Go nuts afterwards, but you're gonna have a job

and you are gonna have a possibility of returning and that I'm not gonna help you. That's on you. And like, honestly, at least that's a fair playing field. I'll take it, I'll fucking take it. So yeah, I guess like the state of things seems to be that the deal is we're just gonna take Like trans people as a political issue off the table for yeah, whatever many years

Well, I think we're gonna she's gonna let like states handle it. Hmm Like if a trans law passes in the state, she's gonna let it and I I don't think anti-trans laws are gonna have a good time trying to pass, because the right hate shit this election. They really thought they were gonna at least have a competitive edge, and no one voted for it. And again, like there's a lot of terms that were more aligned with the far right, but they were not acting like it. The rhetoric didn't look until a couple months ago like the rhetoric that Britain or the US turfs Have both types of US turf that I think there's we have every single type of turf

If you can think of a type of turf we have it I think Britain is mostly wine moms and the US is both NGO freaks and like hippie weirdos, like ex-anarchists, deep-brain resistance types, right? Like- Yeah, well I need to draw the line here, dammit, the D-Crew resistance people were never anarchists, they were always weird primitivists but like vanguardist primitivists? Yeah I know, I love that article by Julie who accompanied me in the last episode about someone falling in a hot dog and eating fucking rules. But yeah, right, like we had that.

Like we even have like a deep-rear resistance Mexico thing going on for like a couple of years. So Mexican turfs here that align themselves with the far right are gonna see both less resources because the far right is healing some bruised egos. So they're gonna have to go full fascist, which, oh, they will, believe me. Yeah, oh, many such cases. Yeah, they cannot longer get money from like your center-right, like respectable democracy people who are made basically are just right. They don't they they're they spend most of their time just complaining out like Maduro and Amlo and yeah, like treating like everyone's the same thing.

Because the only thing they want is like just they want neoliberalism. And I'm tired of telling them we have neoliberalism. Yeah. Like why not just neoliberalism with a little bit of just enough welfare state to like keep everything from blowing up. So yeah, that's the case here. They ate shit, they don't have money, so they either have to find local fascists, which they have, or they have to appeal to Brits with things like the boxing scandal. Yeah, and that sort of brings us full circle to, like I guess literally the present day,

as in like the time this is being recorded, where their big attempts to like generate a bunch of revenue for themselves and like bring themselves back in the spotlight has kind of blown up in their faces. Yeah, and listen, one of the few good parts of like Morena's co-option of feminism is that some previously like, I don't want to say controversial, but like, there were really a lot of campaigns to try to remove prestige from any prominent trans-inclusive feminists in Mexico.

Like, Mexican academia and Mexican like, high feminism really started to go full Ratham in 2016. And it started by trying to attack any single prestigious feminist that was not a turf. Chief amongst them is Marta Llamas, who I love her. She's extremely lame and but like, I still love her because she comes from a history of not quite radical, but not quite radical Mexican academia that says she reformists in method radical in objectives. Sure, sure.

But she at least thinks it's true and lives by it. And she is, if you want to read stuff by her, she has one of the best accounts of the history of sex work in Mexico, Fulgura en la Noche, a fantastic book, fully recommended. Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the description. Yeah. So she got into like the mayor of Mexico City's team. She's now in Clara Brugada's team. And Clara is like the front runner for the next presidential candidate. She is not Shimon's friend. So my suspicion is that Shimon is keeping her terms on reserve to push back against

Clara. Oh, interesting. To find another female candidate and proper up as the feminist successor to Claudia or a male candidate. Like she needs like feminists on her side on reserve to combat like Clara. Who Clara again, it's further to live than Sheinbaum. And she doesn't come from an academic background. She comes from a grassroots urban movement background in the, like the hood of Mexico City in turn, Brugada needs more institutional and like.

Legit support in Marta Lamas while she was controversial because of TERFs smearing her. But she is Marta fucking Lamas and she is white as hell, so Clara got her in her team and now she gets to be the chief leftist feminist in Mexico. Because if Claudia starts talking too much about feminism, well, she's a Google search away from like turf scandals Yeah, yeah, and not that really push back against turf influence in morena Which I'm really thankful like if you're gonna be co-opted this that's the least amount of like allyship you need to fucking do All right. Yeah. Yeah, you push the turfs out from your like fucking mansion

We can push X to the left. Well, then do it. I People love saying they want to push politicians to the left and then don't push politicians to the left They just want to have the critic power. Yeah Yeah, is there anything else that you want to make sure we get to before we wrap up I think Yeah, is there anything else that you want to make sure we get to before we wrap up? I think wrapping up to the Redox magazine, keep an eye on those kinds of places that are trying to connect things. Because we already saw that this can spill over from Mexico or Brazil or Korea. I think Korea is going to be bad.

Yeah, yeah. So, the thing about Korea, I haven't done much about, we probably will at some point cover the stuff in Korea, um, Korea's having a really, really sort of unbelievable sort of anti-feminist backlash, but this has also had the impact of like, really empowering the radfems. Yeah. And it's a complete catastrophe. Yeah. I would really advise against idealizing feminism and mental health work. Yeah. Do your research.

Don't just accept on face value that a face from a third world country is gonna be the voice of the global south. That's just not fucking true. If you hear a face of the global south, it's not fucking true like if you hear a face of the global south it's probably because there's money behind it like yeah unless you're really deep and know your shit the the first thing that's gonna show up is gonna have money behind it so be really careful with other feminist movements I saw how people idealized Mexican feminism not knowing just how

deeply both infiltrated by the government and paid by fire-rigged groups and that really backfired like one of the only survivors of right-leaning but left-presenting feminists that's called Brujas del Mar. They're probably the only group that's going to survive during the Shane Bone presidency. Yeah, big turf group. Yeah. They never tried to get close to Shane Bone But also they are they never dropped the mask fully and they're one of the biggest pushers of the Imanet thing Not the originators. Those are the more Internationally connected but they were the biggest pushers of it. They have the most followers. They really push the narrative

They were featured in times 100. She's like Arucionda was times 100 from Mexico. So be really careful of who you think are supporting. Yeah. Because this is going to be happening. I think it's, it might be over for now in Mexico and we, I think we didn't win, but maybe we can stop them from resurgent in five years or so. And then I think that would really seal the deal. But this is going to be happening everywhere where you're going to see it a lot in like African feminist movements in South Asian, Southeast Asian feminist movements.

Yeah. You're going to see it pop up all over the world. Take a lesson from Mexico and look for trans folks over there. Ask them, Hey, is this person cool? Yeah. Just the minimum due diligence before like sharing GoFundMe and shit like, please for the love of God. Again, a dollar goes a long way here. So if even like you give something that would barely cover rent for someone in the United States, that's enough to set up an organization here. Yeah. And really fuck local politics for years to come. So please be careful. Yeah. So if people want to find you and the stuff that you do that is not shit, where can they find you?

Well, I'm on XZ everything app as M.A. aquí Flores. And also I have a podcast called Fresa Patistas con Crema. It's a really good pun in Spanish, trust me. And I'm also trying to launch a project that's going to be like a sort of media watchdoggy thing. Again, we were working with like cents here, so it's going to take a while. But I keep an eye out if, I don't know, if you want to learn more stuff about Mexico and like what's going on beyond like far-right news, like that saw Shane Bond in a photograph with a trans flag and freaked out, or just like people who take

everything at face value and believe that Shane Bond is the second coming of Marx. So I don't, I'll try to keep folks posted because it's complicated. Like yeah, it took us an hour to talk about even just one topic. Yeah, things complicated. Who could possibly have guessed that, you know, it's difficult to understand very convoluted political configurations. Yeah. So, yeah. For now, I'm only on X, because on YouTube, again, Frasapatistas con Crema, I stream

on Twitch. Honestly, this is going to sound, maybe you're going to cut this, but I really admire you all. Like, honestly, both that and a little bit of envy. Uh, I wish... There's not really an ecosystem of content creation or news from a leftist perspective here. Like, most of the people... Again, a lot of them also got co-opted. A lot of friends I had in independent leftist perspective here, like most of the people, again, a lot of them also got co-opted. I, a lot of friends I had in like independent leftist publishing and news in Mexico are now

like full on like just more in a spokespeople or they went insane and anti-vax and like now they're far right. Well, yeah. Yeah. Many such cases. Yeah. So this has been a good out here. You can find us in the places and until then, I defeat your local turfs. Yeah, and don't become Jimmy Dora. That too. Ever wonder what it takes to be a professional athlete? Or how the best in sport are taking those skills to elevate women's sports to a whole new level? I'm Tiffany Oshinsky, host of League One Volleyball's podcast, Serving Pancakes, a new show by iHeart Women's Sports. Get ready for some unfiltered analysis and authentic conversations about volleyball and beyond.

Learn what it takes to be the best in the sport and what it takes to stand on the podium from top athletes and figureheads in sports. Every week, I'll dig into the perspectives from some of the best athletes in the world, like with Olympic gold medalist Justine Wong. I will say my journey has not been easy whatsoever. I've been cut from teams, I've made teams, I've been the starter, I've been a non-starter. And so for me to say that I made the Olympics, I immediately started crying. And give insights and behind-the-scenes stories from the people who are making the biggest impacts on global volleyball and women's sports, from the likes of three-time Olympic

medalist Jordan Larson. I'm finding little ways to like do things differently and now it's more of how can I help the next generation? You'll also learn about their other dream jobs if they weren't playing on the biggest stage, like from Olympian Lauren Carlini. I'm thinking about starting a dog walking business. Putting that out there. For anyone's dogs who need to be walked or watched or fed or played with. Listen to Serving Pancakes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues.

The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun,

and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues? Then look no further than the show Straight From The Source at NFL Media. Do it before it's too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day.

Every weekday we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old. And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out. And then they feel like it's too late to start

or try or change things. And we both, I think we're really drawn to just that idea of going, you know what? You can do whatever you want whenever, and your life will be forever greater for having done it Listen to the bright side from hello sunshine on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hello and welcome to it could happen here, my is Shireen, and today we're doing some history. We're going to be talking about the Battle of Karbala. And I'm talking about

the Battle of Karbala from very, very many centuries ago. Not to be confused with the Battle of Karbala that took place during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when US troops fought to take control of the city from Iraqi forces. No, we're talking about the ancient battle that many attribute to be the beginning of the schism in early Islam, that then caused it to branch off into the two main sects of Islam that we know today, the Sunnis and the Shias. The Battle of Karbala represents the defining moment in the split between the two main branches of Islam. It was the culmination of internal conflict early in the split between the two main branches of Islam. It was the culmination of internal conflict early in the history of the religion,

and ultimately it was a dispute over succession. You've probably heard that there are these two main branches of Islam, the Sunni and the Shia, but most people don't know why there's even a split in the first place. I mean, for me personally, between Christians and Catholics and Protestants and Mormons and a million other ones that I can't hardly keep up with, I don't blame people for not knowing the history of the religion of Asnum. But if you want to learn this history, keep listening to the episode. And if not, bye. The Battle of Karbala happened on October 10th or Muharram 10th 680. I will explain what that means in a second, but the battle was a brief military engagement in which a small party led by Al-Husayn ibn Ali, who was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

and son of Ali, the fourth caliph, and he was defeated by an army sent by the Umayyad caliph Yazid I. The battle helped secure the position of the Umayyad dynasty, but among Shia Muslims, who are also known and who call themselves the followers of Husayn, the 10th of Muharram became an annual holy day of public mourning, eventually called Ashura. Muharram is the first month in the Islamic calendar with at most 30 days. I say at most because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, so it changes. Warfare in Muharram is forbidden, and it had been so even before the advent of Islam,

but in Islam as well, it is one of four sacred months of the year when warfare is banned. Muharram is referred to as the sacred month of Allah by Prophet Muhammad, and it marks the celebration of the first month of the Islamic calendar. The 10th of Muharram is known as Ashura, and it's an important day of commemoration in

Islam across the board. For Sunni Muslims, the day marks the parting of the Red Sea by Moses and the salvation of the Israelites, celebrated often through fasting, which is not required by any means, and is more seen as an extra-extra good deed, or a good act that is in excess of what is morally or religiously required. It's also celebrated by Sunni Muslims not just with fasting, but with other expressions of joy, because it's seen as more of a positive commemoration. By contrast, Ashura is a day of mourning for Shia Muslims, who annually commemorate the death of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

and the third Shia Imam. Husayn was killed, alongside most of his relatives and his small party, in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE, against the army of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid ibn Muawiyah. The Shia rituals span the first 10 days of Muharram, culminating on Ashura with morning processions in Shiite cities. Also in Muharram in early Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Palestine, was initially set as the direction for prayer for early Muslims. The direction of prayer you might know now is the Ka'ba, which is in Mecca, present-day Saudi Arabia.

But I thought that history was interesting, because it explains one of the reasons why the Al-Aqsa mosque is so significant in Islam. Sayyid Muhammad Khan is a biologist, and what he describes as a history enthusiast. He wrote about the history of the Battle of Karbala back in December of 2020, and he did great work compiling this point of Islamic history, so I'm going to be referring to his piece a bit in this episode, and I wanted to give a shout out, so thank you. And now let's get into some historical context. It is unclear where exactly in history the two mainstream branches of Islam, Sunniism and Shi'aism, diverged from each other as distinct sex. However, political tensions had begun to divide up the nascent Muslim community immediately

after the death of Prophet Muhammad, who was alive from 570 to 632 CE. Since Prophet Muhammad did not have any male heirs, the succession of his temporal position became a matter of dispute, and Caliph Abu Bakr assumed control. He was Caliph from 632 to 634 CE and he was the first of the Rashidun Caliphate. However, a group called the Shi'at Ali, the party of Ali, favored a son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad Ali ibn Abi Talib and he was also the husband of the Prophet's daughter Fatima bint Muhammad for the position of Caliph. And Ali did eventually rise to the status, but it was only after three of his predecessors,

Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, had passed away, with Uthman having been murdered in cold blood by rebels. The murder of Caliph Uthman destabilized the political situation of the empire, leaving Ali to handle an enormous load on thin ice. Uthman's cousin and the governor of Syria, Muawiyah, and then later Muawiyah I, refused to settle for anything but justice for this fallen cousin. Muawiyah I was the founder and the first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death, but Ali failed to comply with the request

to get justice for this cousin, and the fissures deepened between the ruler and his subordinate, and this ultimately resulted in an intense civil war known as the First Fitna, which took place from 656 to 661 CE, with 656 CE being the year that Uthman was murdered. This civil war ended only with the death of Ali, who was murdered by a renegade group who once supported him, known as the Khadijites. And so with this, it ended the era of the Rashidun Caliphate. The Rashidun Caliphate is the first four caliphs after the Prophet Muhammad, and they are collectively referred to as the Rashidun Caliphate by the Sunnis, and it also means the rightly guided.

After Ali's death, Muawiyah's path to ascension seems clear, and he assumed the title of caliph, unopposed by any other prominent leading figure at the time. Ali's eldest cousin Hassan, which means beautiful, temporarily held on to his father's position, but abdicated in Mu'awiyah's favor in return for a high pension. Additionally, Mu'awiyah also agreed on some terms with Hassan, which are collectively known as the Hassan-Mu'awiyah Pact. One of these conditions in the pact dictated that the seat would pass on to Hassan if Mu'awiyah predeceased him, and this was likely to happen because he was much older than Hassan. Unfortunately, this did not come to pass.

Some sources dictate that Muawiyah treated Hassan and his younger brother Hussain Ibn Ali with great reverence, even showering them with gifts and favors. But in 670 CE, Hassan was poisoned and killed by one of his wives for reasons which are highly debated by historians. Because there is no historical evidence to suggest that Muawiyah was involved in the murder, but considering that he stood to gain the most from it and that he would not have been able to appoint his son, Yazid, as his heir otherwise, it is only natural for historians to look at Muawiyah with doubt, because his motive was there. However, the evidence is lacking when it comes to knowing for sure who was responsible and what happened.

With the death of Hassan, Muawiyah considered his agreement with him null and void, and actively began seeking support for her son, the future Yazid I, as his heir apparent, much to the discontent and frustration of notable Muslim figures, including Husayn ibn Ali and Abdullah ibn Zubayr. Abdullah ibn Zubayr was the son of Zubayr ibn al-Awam, and he was a prominent Muslim statesman and war veteran. There's a lot of names in this episode, so try to keep up, I apologize. It can get confusing, I'll try to remind you if who everyone is as we go. Historian Firas Al-Khatib notes at this point when it comes to why Muawiyah would maybe murder Hassan.

Quote, Muslim historians throughout the ages have speculated as to his reason for doing so, especially considering the subsequent opposition that arose to Yazid. However, keeping in mind the historical context of Wa'uiyah's time makes it easier to understand why the switch to a hereditary system made sense. Wa'uiyah's time as caliph showed the emphasis he placed on political unity and harmony. After the political upheaval of Ali's caliphate, Wa'uiyah's main challenge was keeping the Muslim world united under one command.

And so Firas is saying that this could explain the reasoning why Muawiyah would rather Yazid, his son, assume control over Hassan, in his attempt to keep the Muslim world unified. This ultimately did not work, but I guess if this was true, he tried. Mawiyah's influence and his wanting to give Yazid the throne at the end prevailed, and the stability that he brought to the empire after years of political tumult following Caliph Uthman's murder allowed Yazid to ascend the throne after his father's death in 680 CE, and this changed the nature of the future Islamic caliphates from a semi-republican system of governance to a monarchical one. But history has not been kind to Yazid I,

and perceptions of contemporary observers are not favourable either. British historian J.R. Hawting writes, charges such as enjoyment of singing girls and playing with a pet monkey are brought against him in the tradition. Which I take it to mean that he was just some kind of weird tool. And Yazeed's political ineptness, coupled with distasteful stories of his moral sense, convinced many people to stand against his accession. Both Abdullah and Hussein left Medina for Mecca following Yazid's failed attempts to receive their allegiance. Yazid sought to force submission out of his opponents and assume control over the reins of power as his father had done, but he would fail at

both. The city of Damascus was the new caliphate metropolis at this point. Damascus Syria, which was founded in 3000 BCE, is considered the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world as well as the oldest capital in the world. It is also the fourth holiest city in Islam. With Husayn in Mecca, he received news that the people of Kufa were willing to support him. Kufa is in present day Iraq and it was Husayn's father's capital, but it had been overshadowed by Damascus, which again had become the new Caliphate metropolis. But Husayn heard the people of Khufa were willing to support him and had accepted him as their leader.

With this support, Husayn decided to oppose Yazid's rule and he placed his bet with the Khufans. The plan was to march toward Karbala and then rendezvous with the local resistance leaders from Khufa. They then would gather their forces and in theory start a rebellion against Ysid. But nothing would play out this way. And this brings us to the Battle of Karbala. Before we get into it though, let's take our first break and we will be right back. And we are back. Okay, so we just talked about Hussain's plan to march toward

Karbala, rendezvous with the local resistance leaders from Kufa, and would these forces rebel against Yazid the first? Yazid had caught wind of Hussein's plan by chance, and he made haste to counteract this immediately. So Yazid gathered all available soldiers, mustering up a decent-sized force, maybe in anticipation of a massive rebellion. However, this army would only engage in a small-scale skirmish. The estimates for the Umayyad forces on this occasion range from a modest 4,000 to a whopping and unbelievable 30,000 people. But most modern estimates place the number at about 5,000. Yazid himself, though, was absent from this engagement, and he was absent with all other military expeditions during his reign, and people think it was perhaps to escape the

blame for whatever was about to unfold. On this particular occasion, Yazid handed the command to his cousin Ubaullah ibn Ziyad. Just one day before the annual Hajj pilgrimage, on September 9th 680 CE, Hussein departed Mecca with his family members and around 50 male companions, and he traveled north. On their way, the party seized a caravan that was due for Yemen, and they continued onwards. Eventually, they were met though with the news of Khufa's indifference while they were en route. The city of Khufa had been silenced under the wrath of Abaidullah, and Yazid saw to it that Husayn would receive no aid from the city. And this is very significant because Husayn embarked on this journey kind of banking on the support of the city because they had said that they had wanted him as their leader. And even though Hussein knew of the situation well, that they had been silenced, his close

followers refused to desert him. And so the group carried on. They had been intending to show up at the gates of Kufa regardless, and they hoped that their presence may spark a city-wide uprising. hoped that their presence may spark a city-wide uprising. While they were en route to Khufa, Hussein and his group met the vanguard of the Umayyad forces, which were some 1,000 men, and these men continued to follow them. A couple weeks later, on October 2nd, Hussein and his forces entered the desert plain of Karbala, where the rest of the Umayyad forces arrived by the next day. To force Hussein and his followers into submission, the Umayyads blocked access to the Euphrates River with 500 cavalry troops. So basically they tried to deny them water so they can surrender.

Hussein and his party did manage to get some water though, it was very little. Some historians claim that at this point, Hussein presented three proposals in his attempts to settle the dust. One, they let Hussein return to Mecca. Two, he'd be given a border post away from the rebellious region. Or three, he'd be allowed to meet Yazid in person and settle the matter directly with him. Other historians have contested the validity of this claim and instead assert that by this point Hussein was ready to fight to the death, and regardless if these three proposals claim is accurate, both sides ultimately prepared for battle on October 9th. Hussein offered his men the option to slip out of the camp under the cover of dusk, but

they were not willing to desert him. His followers tied their tents together and dug a defensive ditch behind this line of tents, filled with wood to be set on fire if the opponent attacked from the rear. The combatants then stationed themselves in front of the tents, with the ditch and the tents securing all sides with the front. It's said that Hussein's side was comprised of 40 infantry and 32 cavalry soldiers, although by other accounts the number was somewhere between 100 foot soldiers and 45 horse mounted soldiers. In either case, the Umayyad troops vastly outnumbered the Hussein troops,

but in hand-to-hand combat, however, Hussein's troops appear to have bested their foes by some historians' accounts. But since this event has been referred to and quoted with such frequency, and blended with fiction over the years, it's hard to tell what is true and what is fiction. Historian J.R. Hawting says, it is virtually impossible to disentangle history from the legend and hagiography from which it is associated. New word alert! At least a new word for me.

A hagiography is a biography of a saint or religious figure or leader, as well as by extension an idolized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun, or icon in any of the world's religions. Cool fun word. Haggiography. According to historian John Joseph Saunders, Hussain's resolve was beyond all doubt. Saunders writes, Though the odds against him were overwhelming, Hussain determined to die fighting.

While his women and children crouched in terror in their tents, he drew out his little band of men and engaged the enemy. The next day, fighting commenced on October 10th, which you now know means Muharram 10th. At dawn, the fighting commenced when Hussein's troops set the ditch that they had dug out the day before alight, and they manned their positions, fighting off enemy assaults. And though they were steadfast and resilient, Hussain's forces eventually began to wither. The cavalry troops on Hussain's side dismounted when they lost their horses and they continued to fight on foot, and they forced the Umayyad bands to retreat several times. It was after one such retreat that their foes set Hussain's camp on fire, hoping that with the tents burned to the ground, their flanks

would be exposed to attack, allowing an encirclement. Sometime after noon, Hussain's companions were surrounded and killed, and many noncombatants rushed to their aid. Sonder says that these were young lads in his word, barely at the cusp of manhood, but they were not spared, as Hussein's nephew Qasim, a boy of ten, died in his arms, and two of his sons and six of his brothers also perished. Legend has it that even though Hussein himself was heavily wounded, apparently having taken an arrow volley straight to his mouth and a heavy blow to his head, he fought his attackers until he was finally beheaded by one of them.

And with that, the battle was over. Around 70 men from Hussain's side lay lifeless on the ground, all of whose bodies were eventually decapitated and their heads were sent to Damascus. Husssein's belongings were stolen and his camp was looted. The women and children of his family were imprisoned, to be presented before Yazid. Hussein's only surviving son, Ali Zayn al-Abidin, had not participated in the battle, owing to a sickness, and he was spared, but the loss that incurred upon the House of Ali was irreparable. Umayyad casualties, on the other hand, were comparable with 88 dead, and they were all

buried before the army moved on. The same courtesy, however, was not extended to the dead of the opposing force of Hussein. It was only once the Umayyad army and their captives had moved on that the locals of the surrounding area gave Hussein and his followers a proper burial, without their heads. This battle site has become enshrined today, and is considered a holy site by Shia Muslims. Sunnis, however, do not consider Karbala itself to possess any religious value, and they only lay emphasis on the steadfastness and resilience of Hussein and his supporters.

In the aftermath, according to some accounts, when the victorious general was presented with the head of the opposing fallen leader, he poked at it with a stick, which caused a stain from a soldier amidst his rank. Another version of the story states that it was Yazid himself in Damascus who poked at the head with a stick in public, and was then reprimanded by an old man, barely able to walk, who had been a companion of the prophet. In either case, it is said that Yazid at least did not mistreat the captives, perhaps fearing that he might be incriminated in the whole affair if he did so, but this turned out to have no real effect. Some say that Yazid even

cursed his cousin over the killing of Husayn, stating that he would have spared him had he been there. The women of the fallen imam's household wailed and were even joined by the women of Yazid's family, prompting the ruler to send them back to Medina, with compensation for the financial losses sustained by them. However, problems for Yazeed were far from over. You know what else is far from over? Us needing ads. So here they are. Okay, we're back. So the death of Husayn had the opposite effect of what Yazid may have anticipated. Although

the event was actually initially insignificant, it escalated to inconceivable heights and virtually confined Umayyad rule to the walls of the city of Damascus, following Yazid's death and the eruption of the second civil war of the Islamic Empire, also referred to as the Second Fitna, from 680 to 692 CE. Yazid tried, but he failed to distance himself from Husayn's death, and the opposition against his rule only grew in intensity. In his attempts to prevent a large-scale rebellion, Izzid ordered his troops toward Medina. This led to the Battle of Al-Hirah in 683 CE, and the Umayyad forces defeated

the Natives. And this battle was then followed by the sacking of the city. The Syrian forces, aka the Umayyad forces, then advanced toward Mecca, where Abdullah ibn Zubayr had established himself as the de facto ruler of the region. The siege of Mecca was cut short by Yazid's untimely death, but amidst the fighting, the cover of the Ka'bae caught on fire. The Ka'bae, if you don't know, is the holiest site in Islam, presumably built by Abraham and Ishmael for the first time. Abdullah proclaimed himself the Caliph from Mecca, and extended his control over Hejaz, Iraq, and Egypt.

Izzid's death had left his successors barely in control of the city of Damascus, and his son, Wawiyah II, died only a few months after assuming the office. In that time, it is said that he had distanced himself from his father's actions and expressed grief over the fate that befell the Alids. The Alids are those who claim descent from Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was again the fourth and final Rashidun Caliph, and after the Battle of Karbala, he became the first Imam in Shia Islam, with Husayn being the third. In Kufa, a rebel named al-Muqtarr assumed control in 685 CE. He was initially a subordinate to Abdullah, and Muqtarr received complete support when

an Umayyad army attacked the city of Kufa. However, he would later reveal that he had ambitions of his own. Ubaidullah, who had led the Umayyad troops on Karbala, was then subsequently defeated in the attack on Kufa, and he was also killed on the spot after his defeat. Muqdad also systematically hunted down people involved in Hussein's death, but when he parted ways with his sovereign-slash-ruler, he shot himself in the foot, metaphorically speaking. No guns yet. When he went against the ruler, the ruler went ahead and retaliated with an attack on his capital in 687 CE, and Muqtad was defeated.

And with Muqtad out of the way, the Umayyads only had to deal with Abdullah. In 692 CE, the second fitna ended following an Umayyad attack on Mecca and the death of Abdullah, who died defending Mecca. After this, the Umayyads managed to preserve their sovereignty for a little less than six decades from this point. But the seeds of discord had been sown at the field of Karbala, and these seeds slowly grew over the years. This ultimately led to the Abbasid Revolution in 750 CE, which ousted the Umayyads from power, and then it's said they subjected the living and the dead among the Umayyads to the most horrendous treatment that had been seen in the Islamic Empire. For some context, the Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire was the third caliphate to succeed the

Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and it's considered the second of the two great dynasties of the Muslim Empire of the caliphate. It was founded by a dynasty that descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abin al-Mutallib, from whom the Abbasid dynasty takes his name. So what does this all lead to? Even long after Yazid's death, Hussain's death sparked continuous resentment against the Umayyads. One of the biggest reasons why the Abbasid Revolution was successful was because they successfully harvested the negative emotions of the Empire Shia population. Even long after, Hussain's example was quoted repeatedly

in Islamic history, and Western historians agree that this was an extremely significant historical event. And thus, Hussein's death has become central to the belief of Shiaism and holds a special place in the Sunni belief too. Both sects of Sunni and Shia consider Hussein to be a martyr who fought against oppression even when things were hopeless, and his example has become so universal that Hussein is a popular name for children among both Sunni and Shia Muslims. Conversely, the name Yazid is taboo in the modern era. To this day, Hussein's death anniversary, the 10th of Muharram in the Islamic calendar, is commemorated

in the annual Ashura festival by the Shia community, Ashura meaning the 10th day. The Ashura festival spans the 9th and 10th of Muharram. Shia Muslims express the feeling of mourning that this event inspires through ritualistic chest beating and self-flagellation and hymn praises of Husayn while shunning and publicly cursing his offenders. And while the Sunni Muslims do share in this sentiment of mourning Husayn, they denigrate and do not agree with the atmosphere of mourning Husayn's death through self-flagellation and sorrow, because the Sunnis consider these actions to be contrary to the values that Husayn stood for, which were honor, commitment, bravery, and faith. Sunnis also object to the fact that in all criticisms

of the Umayyads, however justified they are, the Khufans, who were the ones who deserted Husayn, are mostly left untouched in these criticisms. ElIslam.org says that there are lessons to be gleaned from the tragedy of Karbala. They write, Karbala is the cruelest tragedy humanity has ever seen. Yet, the startling though appalling events in Karbala proved like a powerful volcano that shook the very foundation of Muslims. It stirred their consciousness, ignorant or learned alike. For sincere Muslims, Karbala turned into a triumph. The tragic event became the very beacon of light to always remind Muslims to practice Islam honestly and sincerely, to do what is right irrespective of

consequences, and fear no one except Allah. And with that, that's our episode about the history of the Battle of Karbala. And I hope you understand more about why these two sects branched off the way they did. At the end of the day, both Sunnis and Shias are Muslims, and they unite under the belief of Islam and the belief in the one God of Allah. Allah, for those who need a reminder, just means God in Arabic. It's just the name that they call him. It's the same God that Christians and the Jewish people believe in. It's just called Allah because for Muslims, both the religion of Christianity and the Jewish religion led to Islam. So both of these are also sacred to Muslims. Anyway, maybe that's more history for another time.

And with that, I have been Shireen, and I will be Shireen next time. Have a good day. Bye! Ever wonder what it takes to be a professional athlete? Or how the best in sport are taking those skills to elevate women's sports to a whole new level? I'm Tiffany Oshinsky, host of League One Volleyball's podcast, Serving Pancakes, a new show by iHeart Women's Sports. Get ready for some unfiltered analysis and authentic conversations about volleyball and beyond.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie

Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old. And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out. And then they feel like it's too late to start or try or change things. And we both, I think, were really drawn to just that idea

of going, you know what? You can do whatever you want whenever. And your life will be forever greater for having done it. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everyone, and welcome to the show. It's just James today, and I'm joined by Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh is an educator based in California, and we're talking today about the recent attempted assassination of a Sikh activist and this now years-long tendency of India to attempt to assassinate Sikh activists in the United States and in Canada and probably in other places too.

Welcome to the show Dr Singh. All right, thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. So I think people listening to this for the first time might not be super familiar with the situation in India and also like what Kalistan is and what that means. So I want to get into both of those things. To start with, I think, could you maybe explain Kalistan, explain what it means? Maybe people have seen this yellow and green flag or heard the word, but they might not know what it means. So could you break that down for us? Sure, sure. So Kalistan is essentially a freedom

of liberation movement that starts in Punjab. So it's north of India. and Punjab is a region that is populated primarily of Sikhs, though the population numbers are changing. And so, Khalistan is essentially sovereignty, freedom, it's its own homeland. So, it's labeled as a Sikh homeland. However, there will be many different ethnicities, many different people of religious backgrounds in Khalistan. So it is an ongoing movement. The Indian state, of course, it's

not in their best interest to lose a chunk of land and to lose especially a prosperous chunk of land. So they're doing everything in their power to silence those that speak about it, to oppress the people there so that they don't have enough willpower to fight back. So that's a very, very brief introduction to it. Yeah.

So let's zoom out a little bit and talk about the history of Sikh people in India, and then the recent tendency with Modi to sort of define Hinduism and Indianism as the same thing, and you can't be one without being the other. So maybe we can start with like that history of Sikh people within India. We can pick it up like, I guess, wherever you want,

you can start in 1930s or we can start a like that history of Sikh people within India, we can pick it up, like, I guess, wherever you want, you can start in 1930s or, or we can start a little bit later. Yeah, well, actually, I think it's important to start even earlier than that. The origins of Sikhs are in the region. Our faith was started in 1469 with Gujranath Devji, which is in now the Pakistan region. So that's where our faith was started. And our people have essentially been fighting an existential battle since the faith was formed. So different rulers of the time, different kingdoms

in that area would attempt to kind of wipe Sikhs out. And Sikhs have always been fighting back and fighting for their existence. So a small example of this is in 1738 and up until the 1770s there was mass slaughter of six and we're talking thousands killed in on a single day period. We refer it as the Vada and Shota Kalukara which is basically, in our history, largest population of Sikhs decimated in a single day was in 1738 and 1770s as well. So we went from that circumstance

to essentially forming our own kingdom, forming our own country in 1799. It was formally established under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, though the Sikhs were operating independently even before that and kind of governing their own regions. But in 1799 the Sikh Confederacy kind of joined and became what is now known as the region of Punjab. So the British came to colonize. They colonized India relatively quickly after arriving. And then when they approached the Sikh Kingdom, not only could they not penetrate it,

they had to sign a treaty with Maharaj Ranjit Singh, who was the ruler of Punjab at the time, and saying that we won't cross to this side of this river and you don't cross to this side. So they essentially signed a treaty saying, we can coexist, but we won't come to your side because they feared the repercussions of what that would lead to.

And then slowly, as they have with many empires, they have kind of infiltrated, they paid folks, they signed traders, and they broke down the annexed Punjab in 1849. So we have a period of colonization from 1849 officially till 1947. And in 1947, the Radcliffe line is drawn. That is where Pakistan is now what we see as Pakistan and now India is what we see as India, though before it was all together and a large region of it was Punjab. When 1947, what Indian would refer to as independence, though It was actually a transfer of power the Gandhi's of the time are kind of credited with the the independence movement But they were working with the British for decades before that They kind of knew that they would receive the reins once the British left the region. So truly it wasn't

Independence movement it was a transfer of power from the British to them So truly it wasn't independence movement. It was a transfer of power from the British to them. So in 1947, by creating kind of relationships through some false promises, the Hindu leaders of the time, essentially guaranteed six that you guys know how to fight for your rights if we were ever to infringe upon them.

You guys are allowed to be in the Punjab region. It's essentially going to be autonomous. So after independence, essentially, they immediately reneged on all of their previous assurances. And Sikhs have essentially kind of been fighting an independence movement since 1947. They were not allowed to speak their language. There was a Punjabi Subha movement in 1955

where they even had to fight for their native language to be able to speak their native language in their region. And so now, moving many iterations later, what we see is Modi, kind of the, I wouldn't say final form because we haven't lived to the end yet, but he is the latest iteration of Hindu nationalism of what extremism looks like. So he has now taken the work of the Gandhis and all of the prime ministers of India and kind of the Indian deep state agenda and now transformed it to saying that we want to be a nation of one language, of one religion, of one kind of people. And there's really no space for minorities in there,

though they won't say it openly because they want to carry the moniker of the world's biggest democracy. They are not a secular nation. And under Modi, we've seen massacres, we've seen, you know, very genocidal violence, which he himself allowed, and which he was not even allowed

to go into many Western countries because they held him accountable and responsible for leading the massacre of Muslims in 2002 Vajrap. But once he became prime minister, they kind of backed away from that stand and chose financial relationships. So today we are in a place where Sikhs, being less than 2% of the population in India, are continuing their struggle for liberation. And the Indian state, kind of consistent with their agenda since 1947, doesn't have room for that difference, doesn't have room, not only to give them their rights, but liberation entirely. That's the next step beyond that. So that's where we are today.

Yeah, there's a significant Sikh community, especially on the West Coast of the USA, right? And I've met probably hundreds of Sikh people in the last year crossing the border for the reasons you've just outlined and others of course deciding they're nearly all coming from India, right? And Punjab and they have told me some really terrible stories,

right? Some really upsetting things. I've heard from lots of other people, so it's not unique to them. But there's a significant sick population on the west coast of the US and Canada too. So can you explain, I know that sick people here have been organizing for Kalistan for some time. There was even like a vote recently, if I understand correctly. So can you explain like that history of the Sikh diaspora and how

they've been really important in getting the word out and advocating? First, yeah, I'm glad we touched on migration actually. Mass migration out of Punjab is not a natural phenomenon. It is the outcome of very genocidal violence. And further than that, it's the continued violence and oppression through different ways. So one example is there's a strong drug nexus in that area. And anyone who is distributing drugs is protected by the Indian state, whether through bribery, whether through their agenda in general of keeping Punjab kind of addicted and away from liberation. So that is one aspect of it. Further, Punjab, for the listeners, Punjab means the land of five rivers. Punjab means five and ab means water. So its name is literally created

on river water. And the Indian state has now taken those river waters, diverted them to different states of India, and Punjab gets no royalty for those, as opposed to any other state of India. If they have a natural resource, they get to sell it, and their state gets the benefit of that. So Punjab at this point has been giving trillions of gallons of water to different states for free. And Punjab is, there's different numbers out there, but 60 to 65 percent an agrarian society. So everyone is essentially farming.

And what the farmers of Punjab are being forced to do is dig underground for water, even though they have natural river water that should be going through Punjab itself, which they can redistribute. So there's a huge farmer suicide problem happening in Punjab because they are unable to get out of debt. They are viewing farming as an unprofitable kind of a dead end business as opposed to farming in many other places.

So it's very profitable. There's sick farmers in California who are multi-multi-millionaires. So it's not an unprofitable business. However, the state has made it that way, understanding that if we can cripple farming, their water supply and get their next generation addicted to drugs, then they'll be forced.

So the mass migration we see is not natural. It is the outcome of that. And I'm sorry, I think I forgot the second part of your question, something about six in the Western. Yeah, no, that's okay. That was a really good explanation. It's really important. I think we should just take a little advertising break here. All right, we're back. Yeah, so the second part I wanted to ask about was the importance of this diaspora community in organizing for Khalistan, right?

Because in addition to all these Indian government policies that you've outlined that are having these impacts in Punjab, and like we shouldn't discount that climate change is also having impacts there, right? Absolutely. Across the whole Indian subcontinent. But in addition to that, right, there's a very powerful and developed Khalistan movement in the United States and in Canada that has been advocating for the issue and raising, I think, awareness. And that's what's being targeted now, right? Yeah, absolutely. Because they understand that if you save that word,

Khalistan within Punjab, the police is working with them. The judicial system is working with them. Every single facet of any organizational institution is working for them. So, I mean, there's been many people that do mention it and they end up dead. They end up in jails. They, you, they are silenced in one way or another. So despite that though, still many more folks that believe in Khalistan and Punjab than they are anywhere else in the world. And they are willing to say it openly despite the consequence of that, which is essentially

jail or death in the millions. So what happens is when we when six are a forced to migrate out or migrate out for any reason, they still hold those aspirations with them. They still remember the plight of their people in Punjab. So they have freedom of speech, which is what you should have in democracies, which they don't have in India. So when they have freedom of speech speech they express those aspirations to the point where there are people being killed all over the world. We named Canada and the US but there was an activist poisoned in the UK just last year. There's been folks killed in Pakistan which is on the other side

of the border for India and they tried to assassinate a Sikh in New York and as recently as a few days ago they tried to assassinate a Sikh here in California. So I mean the movement is very much alive and it's on the up and I think the Indian state understands this but they're having a tough time kind of wrapping their head around how to silence folks outside of their borders. Yeah, that's really where we are because within their borders, it's full on suppression. You can't say it folks within Punjab when they leave Punjab and they come to different countries, their eyes kind of finally open as to why they were in the conditions they were in. It's almost like when you're in the middle of a storm

You don't know you're in a storm. Yeah, but when looking on the outside in you're seeing hey, this is a this is a very intentional and systematic Genocide that is happening against our people. So that is one aspect of it But it's becoming more organized and you know, there's a referendum, there's intellectuals, there's conferences happening, there's grassroots organization and so Sikhs have the concept called Chardhikala and Chardhikala is essentially ever-rising spirits. Is that no matter the dire conditions that you may be under, you still keep the hope for sovereignty and liberation alive. And we've seen that in our history, where our population due to the oppression and the massacres dwindled down to the hundreds,

and they were living in jungles. And even then they would exit the jungles, fight, work to free those being captured by the Mughals at the time, or the people in the region. And they would die fighting oftentimes. And so now we're in a position where there's, being captured by the Mughals at the time, or the people in the region. And they would die fighting oftentimes. And so now we're in a position where there's millions of us.

We have no excuse. We keep the aspiration for sovereignty alive. And we see it kind of thriving in places where we're allowed to express ourselves. Yeah. So I think we should talk about this kind of transnational repression. It's not by any means unique to India. I mean, famously Russia loves to do this too, right? But let's talk

about some of these incidents. There was a foiled assassination attempt in November of last year, right? That the DOJ arrested an Indian national for. There was a successful assassination in Canada and an attempted assassination just this week, as you say, in Northern California. Yeah. I mean, transnational repression is not a new phenomenon. But what we'd like to do is actually have it addressed for what it is. Why is it that the American public understands or the Western public understands that Russia

does this? Yeah. public understands or the Western public understands that Russia does it. But when it comes to India, it's almost seen as this kind of yoga, chai tea, peace loving place where in reality anyone from there and anyone that's been on the other end of kind of oppression understands what India truly is. So I think what we'd like to do is, I don't think it's unreasonable. This is a nation that is very openly going on to other sovereign nations' land and targeting their citizens of any religious background. So I think it's something that these governments should be taking seriously. And the fact that it continues to happen,

I think, is a reflection of how not seriously it's being taken. If it was, you know, if there's, you know, some sort of public statements, sanctions, if there was, you know, a full on effort to say that this is a violation of our sovereignty, it would perhaps slow down, but it's continuing and it's continuing rapidly where we're seeing gunshots and you know, even though Indian nationals are being extradited to the states, it's not stopping. So I think more aggressive action is needed and the fact that it keeps happening is just a reflection of how lax these governments have been as a result of these actions. Yeah, you don't see it referred to in the terms of transnational oppression or really

like by the US government, at least as this consolidated program. It seems to be seen as like these incidents rather than, you know, joining the dots and being like, yeah, this is an attempt at repression, you know, murder of US citizens in these two cases, right? I know this has happened with other diaspora communities. Sometimes the DOJ or someone within that has reached out to people in the community, especially people who are prominent and been like, there is a legitimate risk of someone trying to kill you.

Has that happened within the Sikh community? Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's been multiple folks warned here in California in Canada all over the US that You know, there is legitimate threats to your life though. It's a problem because they cannot give you any more information than that So you're you ask, you know, where's the threat from they say we can't disclose that it's it's confidential so Obviously six who advocate for sovereignty and freedom of their people back in Punjab

know where the threat is from. And I think the underlying understanding within the community is that Western countries understand it as well. They're essentially waiting for when it is politically, you know, acceptable, when it is politically beneficial for them to actually say something about it. And I think we are under no illusions that these guys are going to speak for us for the

sake of justice, that they're going to express our perspective and condemn these nations based on the protection of Sikhs. We know our liberation is going to be the result of our efforts. But I think from a lobbying perspective, from an expression perspective, I think it is not unreasonable of us to expect that of governments where we are citizens. Yeah, like it's kind of the trade that you make, rain theory, like you give up a lot of freedom, and in turn you get safety in and you're giving up one and not getting the other right now. Right, right, exactly.

So like there have been various movements for Khalistan, I think we should just mention that like in the 1980s more like confrontational attempts at Khalistan independence were met with collective punishment by the Indian state and non-sick people within India. Yeah, so dating back to the 80s, actually up until 1984, there was no united movement for independence. Something else in the Khalistan Prindahale was kind of the face of the thick rights movement, but in the document they had proposed to the government, the Anandpur Sahib resolution, it wasn't a proposition for exclusively Sikhs. And I think that's an important point to continue to mention is that the way the Indian state portrays Khalistan is anti-Hindu. And I think they understand that to get the public support, we need to portray movements or anything really that's not in our interest as anti-Hindu.

We need to make them feel threatened. And if we can do that, there will be support for us to engage in these collective punishments. So in the 80s and 90s, actually, we call it the decade of disappearances, is where the Indian government went from village to village, disappearing six. Hundreds of thousands. Essentially, our last generation was wiped out

by the Indian state. And they would dispose of their bodies in crematories, throw them in rivers. And we basically say that there's a sixth river of blood in Punjab, stories, throw them in rivers. We basically say that there's a sixth river of blood in Punjab because that is just how many young men were killed from 85 to 1995. So there was an armed resistance against this. They were seeing their sisters taken into police stations and all kinds of atrocities

committed against them. They were seeing their brothers disappear, their family members. So at some point, it is better to give up your life than to live in these circumstances. And so that is the brink that they were pushed to. And so we lean on their example, though the movement is not quite exactly at that same place today. We lean on their example in that saying, these people were willing to give up their lives for this cause. And us sitting in comfort, even if it's, you know, temporary safety, we have a responsibility to move this movement forward. And with these new assassinations,

that's another important thing to mention. We saw murders of essentially the biggest Punjabi pop star, Sidhu Musa, in history. I mean, this guy was in Hollywood, he was everywhere. And when he started talking about Khalistan, when he started making music regarding Punjab's rights he was assassinating and we're seeing a new wave of Indian oppression and

For the first time now people that thought oh the 80s and 90s, you know You guys could be making something up. Maybe the Indian government is right. You guys could be making something up. Now they're seeing these assassinations happen in front of their eyes. And they're making the judgment call as to who is in the right and who isn't. And I think that's another reason that the Khalistan movement continues to gain kind of solidarity within the Sikhs all over the world.

Yeah, sure. Like if a government is trying to assassinate people for just essentially saying something, it disagrees with it, it's not hard to see who's in the wrong. Exactly. So I wonder, obviously there's a genuine threat to Sikh communities here. That continues to be a threat to Sikh migrants from both political parties in the United States, right? Yeah.

I'm interested, but not hopeful, to see how their asylum claims go, based on this very obvious discrimination that you've outlined. Yeah. And there's this threat to sick people in their homeland, I didn't point you out. How can people who are not sick, who are not part of the community,

be in solidarity? How can they support? What can they do to, I guess, to stop people being murdered? Well, it sounds cliche to say awareness, but at this point in time, there are just enough people aware of how in danger they are. Because if they don't speak for six today, tomorrow it could be them. And if the Western governments are allowing foreign nations to come in, and they have embassies in these countries, and they're allowing these nations to kind of, you know, assassinate

their citizens, then what's to say that they won't be next tomorrow? It's that eight-year-old saying, there was no one left to speak for me. That's part of it, is you have to understand the ramifications of ignoring something like this. So I guess the first thing we'd like to see is solidarity with that. Palestine now, most folks have an opinion on it, or at least they've heard the word. And they've seen Sikhs everywhere, you know, where the folks that walk around with turbans and where one of the probably 99% of people you see with turbans on are Sikhs. And so we're a very visible community however the reasons we're here our plight understanding of our background

is is generally lacking so I think the more that we can understand who six are what their beliefs are what they're fighting for why they're here to begin with I think you know there will be more political pressure regarding that. And I'm seeing it starting to shift slightly, especially in the past five to 10 years. We've tipped the skills just slightly, but we're far from anywhere substantial. Yeah. I think for like, at least for my group of friends, we go down to the border and help people. And we've encountered sick people because they were always there with us helping us, right?

Like some sick folks flew down from other places and joined us and then stayed out there and helped us feed people. And like sick folks have shown up for other people substantially, like all over the world. And I think it would be really good to see people kind of reflect that that solidarity that's kind of baked into the Sikh religion, that it would be nice to see people doing that in return. Absolutely. As Sikhs organized for their own community safety, like obviously there's like a pressing danger to people, especially people who are vocal,

like a Sikhs organized to like, take care of one another in that sense? To some extent, yes. And again, a part of organization and having support that comes from that organization is having political power. And Sikhs have political power in certain instances, but they do not have a homeland or the resources to kind of back it up. And, you know, politics kind of lobbying works with money. So yeah, the fact that we have these immigration problems, A is a result of India's efforts. But B, the reason that they don't have the support they need is because six don't have a homeland where they can say, all right, these are our beliefs.

These are our people. We support our people. We will give them these resources that they need So we're kind of always operating at a grassroots level Yeah, and that's part of the issue is why there's not grand or or large-scale change But it continues to march forward, you know as as generations grow up as they become more involved in different facets a lot of people especially in the United States, are first generation. So our parents' generation was just focused on surviving.

How are we going to put food on the table? How are we going to put a roof over your head? And so the next generation kind of has the opportunity to explore how they can make a difference for their people. So Canada is getting there. The UK is getting there, the UK is getting there, the US is behind just because our migration here was later than those places to that level, but it's getting there. Yeah, that's good. So if people want to find out more about like the Sikh religion or like

Sikh people, are there good resources that you could suggest? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a very thorough background of what Khalistan is just on khalistan.org. Okay. So k-h-a-l-i-s-t-a-n dot org. They have publications, they have documentaries. They've done a significant amount of work to give the background of a, why Sikhs will never stop fighting for freedom, and b, kind of what the circumstances are today. So they've, they've done a fairly good job at that. Other than that, there's, um, pages on social media, there's free five AB, uh, which stands

for free Punjab. It's on Twitter, Tik Tok. Okay. And of course, Tik Tok has deleted that page many times. So we're trying to figure out where the alliances are there. And Instagram, of course, has done their thing based on their alliances. But there are some resources out there. And of course, if you Google it, the first things that are going to come up is Times

of India, Hindustan Times, basically saying this is a terrorist movement that's funded by foreign governments to break the unity and integrity of India. It's a very rudimentary explanation, basically rooted in violence and how these people just have it out for us. But the reality is entirely different and the facts speak to that. And I think the assassination attempts of today, the folks that remain in Indian jails today, there's a UK citizen in an Indian jail.

There are folks that are dying in Indian prisons. There's folks that have completed their sentences six, 30-plus years still sitting in Indian prisons. So all of the circumstances today kind of speak to why this movement exists and will continue to exist. So hopefully we can take advantage of some of the resources out there. Yeah, that's great. And I hope people will go and educate themselves. You can look up Kalsa Aid as well if you're interested in the sort of solidarity and support side of Sikhism.

Those people have been great at the border and I know they've done tons of other great humanitarian work as well. Absolutely, yeah. Is there anything else you'd like people to know before we finish up here, like about Sikhs or about Khalistan, things they can do to help? Yeah, I think I would, especially all the viewers, I would like everyone to be open to the opportunity that there are more people in the world that are seeking to suppress and oppress than just what is told by American media today. At least be open to the opportunity.

India is the world's biggest democracy today until it's not anymore. And communities like the six who, experienced violent genocide and today are experiencing a genocide, I think it's very important to understand that the Sikh genocide never ended. It continues today in different facets and different forms. So that's A. And B, the struggle for freedom and sovereignty, they they want to put it on so the Indian state continuously tries to kill two birds with one stone they have enmity with Pakistan so they try to say that Kazakhstan is a movement is a

byproduct of kind of Pakistani interference yeah even though the facts speak otherwise that if it's not Pakistan that killed hundreds of thousands of six Pakistan that is assassinating six out in these foreign countries. So they try to kill two birds with one stone. India is definitely not a democracy. I would like the viewers to be open to that possibility as well and do your own research. Of course, I have a perspective based on the circumstances that my people have been

through and I would hope everyone can form a more I have a perspective based on the circumstances that my people have been through. And I would hope everyone can form a more thorough understanding and that there is a lot more happening, especially in that region, than is politically correct to say right now. So that's what I'll finish with. Yeah, that's great. Thank you very much for that. I think that's a really good place to finish. Thank you so much for your time. And I really appreciate you explaining that for great. Thank you very much for that. I think that's a really good place to finish. Thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate you explaining that for us.

Of course, thank you for having me, James. Ever wonder what it takes to be a professional athlete? Or how the best in sport are taking those skills to elevate women's sports to a whole new level? I'm Tiffany Oshinsky, host of League One Volleyball's podcast, Serving Pancakes, a new show by I Heart Women's Sports. Get ready for some unfiltered analysis and authentic conversations about volleyball and beyond. Learn what it takes to be the best in the sport and what it takes to stand on the podium

from top athletes and figureheads in sports. Every week, I'll dig into the perspectives from some of the best athletes in the world, like with Olympic gold medalist Justine Wong. I will say my journey has not been easy whatsoever. I've been cut from teams, I've made teams, I've been the starter, I've been a non-starter. And so for me to say that I made the Olympics,

I immediately started crying. And give insights and behind-the-scenes stories from the people who are making the biggest impacts on global volleyball and women's sports, the likes of three time Olympic medalist Jordan Larson. I'm finding little ways to like do things differently. And now it's more of how can I help the next generation? You'll also learn about their other dream jobs if they weren't playing on the biggest

stage, like from Olympian Lauren Carlini. I'm thinking about starting a dog walking business. Putting that out there. Um, for anyone's dogs who need to be walked or watched or fed or played with. Listen to Serving Pancakes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast Come hang out with me Marcus Grant and my pal Michael F Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship

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or wherever you up your day. Every weekday we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old. And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out. And then they feel like it's too late to start or try or change things.

And we both, I think, we're really drawn to just that idea of going, you know what, you can do whatever you want whenever and your life will be forever greater for having done it. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Good Appne here. I'm Andru Siege from the YouTube channel, Andruism,

and I'm joined again by James. Hey, Andru. Welcome back. Time to talk about political cults again. Oh good, fine. Continuing with the work of Dennis Turish and Tim Wohlforth in their book On the Edge Political Cults Left and Right. I've spoken before about the cult recruitment process, the contradictory positions held by cult members, ideological totalism, and commonalities of political cult members, ideological totalism, and commonalities of political cults including rigid belief systems, immunity to falsification,

authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership, deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language. And speaking of loaded language, I know that some people don't like the term cult because it is, you know, very charged. I prefer it personally. I know that other terms are used such as high control groups or new religious movements, but I'm sticking to cults. My question for you, James, do you think that you would be susceptible to a cult? One hopes not.

We spoke about authoritarian personalities before, and I wonder if there's something similar for people who end up in cults. But I'm sure there's something that could get any of us. We all have our susceptibilities to these things. But I hope it wouldn't be. For sure. I mean, one would like to think, you know, yeah, I'm built different, you know, I wasn't born to a cult, but, you know, really, especially considering the paucity of community these

days, it's little wonder that so many people find a home in such harmful and abusive spaces. So previously I've touched on the LaRouche movement, the Newman tendency, and the United Red Army of Japan. The latter of which ended up killing some people. Today we'll be looking at another case study, not nearly as extreme, but still quite abusive. This time the infamous Marlene Dixon and her Democratic Workers Party. Oh, fun times.

Fun times indeed. I also got some information on Dixon's activity, not just from On the Edge, but also from the book Bounded Choice, True Believers and Charismatic Cults by Janja Lalich, who was actually a member of Dixon's Democratic Workers Party for 10 years. I like that. A lot of books written about cults are written by former cult members. Yeah, I mean, I think it can be like the point you raised in your initial question, right? Like everyone likes to think they're special and not susceptible.

And I can see how books written about them can be written from a place of like condescension or you know, othering. So I think it's always good when folks who have survived these things could write about them. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, one of the authors of On the Edge, Tim Wallforth, he was also part of a Trotskyist cult.

So these are people who are speaking from experience. Yeah, I was writing about cults long before I started this podcast. There was some weird cult-like behaviors in endurance sports. And I spoke to an expert. And she also was a survivor and introduced me to some other survivors of some more sort of classic left political cults. And it wasn't something I ever really felt comfortable

narrating their experiences. I would rather they narrate their experiences. For sure. It was really interesting to see how many of them were so willing to write about it and to talk about it and wanted to educate people about it. Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons I'm particularly passionate about political cults is just the way that they sap the energy, the passion, the drive, the potential of what

should be people involved in really positive change. They end up getting sucked in and the energies get sapped by these causes, by these leaders. They just sort of divert their potential trajectory. Yeah, absolutely. I think anyone who is active in the United States on the left in 2020 can attest to the ability of some of these groups to just cut the soul out of a popular movement, which was making a positive difference at one point. Right.

So let's get into it. Marlene Dixon was born into a family that valued education and intellectual pursuit. From a young age, she was immersed in an environment that fostered deep appreciation for learning and critical thinking, and this foundation significantly influenced her future path, setting the stage for her academic and political endeavors. Growing up, Dixon showed an early interest in sociology, a field that would later become her academic and professional focus. She pursued higher education with a passion, earning her undergraduate degree and going on to complete a PhD in sociology in the University of California. Her doctoral studies were marked by a rigorous exploration

of social structures and inequalities, themes that would resonate throughout her career. As a sociology professor, Dixon's classroom was more than just a place for academic instruction. It was a forum for radical ideas and critical debate. Her teaching was infused with a strong feminist perspective, challenging traditional notions and encouraging students to question societal norms. This feminist ideology was not just an academic interest, but a driving force behind her activism and the formation of her political beliefs. However, even early on we get signs that something's a bit awry. According to some of her former students and

colleagues, it was also during those years that she became interested in mass social psychology and group behaviour modification. She studied Robert J. Lifton's work on thought reform. She studied and admired total communities, aka cults, and other directed methods of behavioural control, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. She believed that these programmes provided positive ways to change people. Dixon's early academic career also provided her with a platform to connect with like-minded individuals who shared her passion for social justice. These connections were proved crucial as she moved beyond the confines of academia and into the world of radical political activism. Her political awakening came during a time of significant social and political upheaval.

The 60s and 70s were decades marked by civil rights movements, anti-war protests, and a growing disillusionment with the status quo. Dickson was deeply influenced by the principles of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. Marxism provided her with a free movement for understanding class struggle and the exploitation inherent in capitalist societies. Lenin's organizational principles, particularly the concept of the Vanguard Party, were also integral to Dickson's political thought. Lenin argued, of course, that a disciplined, centralized party was necessary to lead the

wooden class to revolution. Dickson adopted this idea wholeheartedly, seeing the need for a tightly controlled, hierarchical organization that could guide the proletariat towards socialism. Mao Zedong's influence on Dixson was particularly evident in her purged internal party dynamics. Mao's emphasis on continuous revolution and self-criticism as tools for maintaining ideological purity resonated with Dixson. She implemented rigorous criticism and self-criticism sessions within her future party, a practice that aimed to eliminate bourgeois tendencies and reinforce commitment

to the party's goals. Dixon's political engagement wasn't limited to theoretical discussions. She was actively involved in radical movements, participating in protests, and organizing efforts that sought to challenge existing power structures. Her activism extended beyond national borders, and she connected with international revolutionary movements and drew inspiration from their struggles. The culmination of these influences and experiences led to the founding of the Democratic Workers Party in 1974. for. Dixon's vision for the Democratic Workers' Party, or DWP, was deeply rooted in this idea of Leninist democratic centralism, Maoist self-critique, and Marxist anti-capitalism.

But beyond Marx, Lenin, and Mao, the New Communist Movement, or NCM, played a significant role in shaping Dickson's approach. The NCM was a diverse collection of groups that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, advocating for a revitalized communist movement in the United States. The NCM sought to build new Marxist-Leninist organizations that could address the shortcomings of the old left and provide a fresh militant alternative. Dickson was of course deeply inspired by the NCM's emphasis on building a revolutionary vanguard and his commitment to rigorous theoretical work and practical activism. At the time, the UWP was getting a

lot of credit for being one of the few feminist and women-led organizations in the new communist movement, which allowed the group to draw radicals from leftist circles, as well as the women's movement and the gay movement. When most NCM groups were virulently homophobic and dismissive of feminism, the DWP had a unique allure. Building on in her political career, Marlene Dixon also contributed theoretically to the DWP with the concept of proletarian feminism, which allowed the DWP to stand up against class prejudice and sexism and for the equality of all people. Over time though, her concept of proletarian feminism became less prominent in the DWP's approach and literature.

In the early stages, the concept of proletarian feminism attracted a lot of people, including Janja Lelich, the author of Bounded Choice who had been part of the DWP. The early days of the DWP were marked by a significant effort to recruit and train new members. Dixon and her close associates focused on building a cadre of dedicated revolutionaries who were deeply committed to the party's goals. These members were not just activists, but ideological soldiers, prepared to dedicate their lives to the cause of socialism.

Recruitment often targeted young intellectuals and activists who were disillusioned with mainstream politics and eager for radical change. In this early period, the parties organized study groups, protests, and community outreach programs, all aimed at raising political consciousness and building support for the party's revolutionary agenda. Dixon's charisma and intellectual rigor inspired many, but her leadership style also had its challenges. Early on, she had very authoritarian tendencies, influenced by her admiration for Mao Zedong, and it led to a highly controlled and often repressive internal atmosphere. Members were subjugated to rigorous criticism and self-criticism sessions, and these sessions

could be psychologically taxing, creating an atmosphere of constant scrutiny and pressure. This is an exemplary of social psychologists Anthony Prakhanis and Elliot Aronson's seven-step guide to creating a political cult, which included, crucially, maintaining a rigid internal regime. In these early years, we can also see the signs of their other steps, such as creating a distinct social reality, building commitment through dissonance reduction, sending members to proselytize, and fixating members on a promised land. The promised land being, of course, international communism. The UWP grew steadily in its early years. Full-time members, called

cadres or militants, typically numbered between 125 and 150 people, but in certain periods there were between 300 and 1,000 members at various grades of affiliation. One of the DWP's primary areas of focus was labour organizing. Dixon and her colleagues saw the labour movement as a critical battleground for the struggle against capitalism, and they dedicated significant resources to supporting labour strikes, organizing union drives, and advocating for workers' rights. The DWP's members often worked closely with existing labour unions, providing support and promoting a more radical, class-conscious approach to labour activism. And this involvement helped parties gain credibility and trust among workers, who saw the WP as genuine allies in their struggle.

Members were also active in campaigns for affordable housing, healthcare, and education, working to build coalitions with other progressive organizations and community groups. Political education was another cornerstone of their activities. Dixon believed that a well-informed and ideologically grounded membership was essential for the party's success, so they had regular study groups, workshops and lectures on Marxist theory, current events, and a revolutionary strategy. And these activities were not limited to members, but were also used as tools for outreach. Eventually the party's activities extended beyond its initial base in San Francisco and

reached other parts of California, even gaining attention on a national scale. Dixon's ability to connect with other radical movements, and her strategic vision for the DWP's role in the broader revolutionary struggle, had played a significant part in this growth. But despite their successes, behind the scenes was…not too hot, to put it lightly. While Dixon's theoretical acumen and charm had attracted many to her cause, her methods of maintaining control within the party with what gave it its cult connotations. One of the central aspects of Dixon's control was her personal domination over the party and its members.

Dixon established herself as the undisputed leader of the DWP, demanding absolute loyalty and obedience. Laylish describes her as a large, loud woman who exuded a type of charisma that could be difficult for outsiders to comprehend. Her personal style was abrasive and she was stern and domineering. Nonetheless, Dixon was able to exact commitment from her followers that entailed devotion to her person and undying defense of her actions as their leader. So we see a peculiar and almost haunting resemblance to other historical movements like Heaven's

Gate. On the surface, they seem worlds apart. One is steeped in political ideology, the other in spiritual salvation. But dive deeper, and you'll find that the currents beneath their surface flow with striking similarities. Take for instance the role of Charisma. Like Apple White and the nettles of Heaven's Gate, Dixon used words as her craft, her instrument, speaking to eager audiences weaving a vision of hope that drew people in. She wasn't just persuasive, she was magnetic. She created a myth for herself

that seemed to fit with the revolutionary zeitgeist of the time. Lalish describes that when she first joined the party, Dixon was a Tauren presence, who created an intense, almost sacred bond with them. Lalish speaks of how the followers were awed by her, desperate to follow her vision, willing to endure her criticism just to stay in her good graces. When Dexter would spend some time away and come back, they would spend long, cruel meetings where she would dissect every decision they made and criticize everything they did in her absence, showing them all the ways they had fallen short. It was brutal, but it also reinforced her authority

over them as they wanted to get her approval at all times. One of her documents on the development of Leninist democracy told the followers that the leadership was about authority, not popularity, and that whether we liked her or not, we had to accept her as the ultimate authority in the party. Latch also says that they were made to believe that being part of the DWP was a privilege. Authority wasn't just accepted, it was revered. And this was the foundation of their relationship with Dixar. She was the leader, the guiding force, and they were the followers, committed, obedient, and always seeking her approval.

And yet, there was a secret at the heart of her lure. She was a myth maker. Her backstory was curated, embellished, to paint herself as a champion of civil rights when the reality was far less dramatic. Systems of Control is another area where the DWP and Heaven's Gate shared common ground. Both groups thrived on a mix of carrot and stick. Promises of a better future. Harsh discipline for failure. The leaders would live apart from their followers, hidden away while their followers toil and

sacrifice. Every day was a test, every misstep a reason for criticism. And leaders were never revealing themselves fully. They created a distance. They would heighten their mystique and their authority. In the DWP, there was a very strict hierarchy and chain of command. Dixon was at the top, she had a select few leaders below her, and decisions were made top down.

Democratic Centralism, which was Lenin's tactic that theoretically allowed for debate and democracy, was really there to enforce obedience. Members were also split into tiers. You had trial members, candidate members, and general members. Each level carried distinct privileges and obligations. An advancement was up to Dixon. She decided who leveled up in the party. Sanctions for rule violations ranged from increased duties to expulsion, the severest being expulsion with prejudice, effectively erasing the individual from party history.

In the party's first purge, notably the quote unquote Lesbian Purge, exemplified Dixon's control tactics, as the target had perceived threat within the group and set a precedent for internal purges that instilled fear and loyalty among the members. And then lastly, there was transcendent belief. Another area where Heaven's Gates and the DWP had common ground. For Heaven's Gate, it was about transcendent human life to reach a higher plane of existence. For the DWP, it was about transforming society, reaching utopia through class struggle. The daily life of DWP members was highly regimented.

Dixon had strict routines and expectations, demanded complete dedication to the party's activities. Members were subjected to intense scrutiny, particularly those of the evil middle class backgrounds. And this method of course effectively suppressed dissent and ensured that members remained tightly bound to Dixon's vision. This relentless schedule that had them work in long hours both in their day jobs and on party-related tasks left them little time to foot pursuits or outside relationships,

which also helped Dixon maintain control over their lives. By limiting members' interactions with outsiders, Dixon minimized the risk of external influences undermining her authority. And this isolation extended to living arrangements as well, as the members lived communally, which further reinforced their dependence on the party and their separation from mainstream society. The combination of these control mechanisms created a highly controlled and insular environment within the DWP, as members were constantly monitored by both Dixon and their other peers,

to ensure that any deviation from the party line was quickly identified and addressed. The use of fear, guilt and psychological manipulation kept members in line. And of course the control was not just psychological, it was physical. Because when you're isolated and you're working all the time, your body is going to break down, you're exhausted, you're burnt out, and the emotional strain of constant criticism doesn't exactly help either. out, and the emotional strain of constant criticism doesn't exactly help either. But all of this worked to keep party members in their place. The controversy surrounding the DWP's methods and leadership eventually drew attention from both within the leftist movement and from external observers.

Critics argued that Dickson's authoritarianism and the party's cut-like practices were antithetical to the principles of socialism and genuine revolutionary activity. But these criticisms did little to alter the internal dynamics of the DWP during its peak. In the early days, Dixon and her followers truly believed the revolution was just around the corner. By the 1980s, recruitment was faltering, purges was narrowing the organization's focus, and the DWP's aggressive tactics had led to conflicts with other leftist groups.

Dixon had grown disillusioned. She'd begun to see the local struggles that were taking part in as insignificant as mere reformist gestures. She moved the party from distributing her local newspaper to publishing dense academic journals. She developed disdain for world systems theory, which had once been a guiding light in her movement, and rejected it as anti-socialist and cynical. In her eyes, the United States working class was no longer a beacon for revolution.

Instead, she placed her faith in the USSR, in Eastern Europe, in distant lands where she believed the future of socialism lay. Her frequent travels to conferences in Europe and her focus on theoretical debates alienated her members, as the heart of their struggle had been replaced with a distant, abstract vision that none of them could grasp. But the real breaking point came with her change in strategies. Dixon began to see the Petit Boudreauxis as potential allies instead of enemies as they had always been, a radical shit from her ideology that her party had been taught.

Beyond all that, her drinking had become more uncontrolled than usual, and her abuse of the members had increased. So in late 1985, a few of her members decided that enough was enough. While Dixon was away on one of her many trips, they gathered in secret, shared their frustrations, and laid bare the truth about what had become of the party. When Dixon returned, she was met with the harshest reality of all. They told her that the party was over, that she was expelled, and that they were dissolving the party.

Her reaction was of course a mix of disbelief and anger, and a final bitter confrontation with the collapse of everything she had built. Afterwards, there was of course a mess to clean up. The members, having endured abuse for so long, including financial abuse, took it upon themselves to divide the assets amongst themselves as a final small compensation for the years they had given. Each person received a paltry sum, a mere fraction of what they had invested, but at last the party's ideological crises weakened leadership and internal strife resulted in the organization's dissolution.

The party was indeed over and they could start their life anew. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, CoolZoneMedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonedmedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. I'm Andrea Gunning,

host of the all new podcast There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever

you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to do your homework. The best way to do that homework is to listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast Come hang out with me Marcus Grant as well as my pal Michael F Florio as we give you all the insight you need to set the best lineups each week for a smart fun and entertaining Pat to league domination the NFL fantasy football podcast is the show for you Subscribe now and listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast on the I heart radio app on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years I have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do What was that that was live audio of a woman's nightmare? Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.