Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 159

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Starting point is 00:00:35 Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know.

Starting point is 00:00:53 She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. Fine. Dear Chelsea, on the iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal,

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Starting point is 00:02:39 Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, 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 gonna be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.

Starting point is 00:03:14 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a show about things falling apart. We are back from our little break, and today I'm joined with Robert Evans to discuss fascism, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I'm here. We're talking fascism. Listeners, excuse me.

Starting point is 00:03:31 I have a sinus infection, so that's why I sound this way. Oh, that's why you sound like that. Uh huh. That sucks. It's life. Yeah, well, it might not suck as much as what I had to do last week, which is watch this six part documentary about the 2024 Trump election campaign called the Art of the Surge. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Overall, it was actually pretty boring. They were obviously trying to edit it like a succession episode. Oh my God. Really obnoxious. There is some insight into like the inner workings of the Trump team, like watching him and his team react to the Kamala Harris DNC speech, that like workshop counter messaging was actually interesting. And the doc does show kind of Musk's influence steadily ramping up starting in July.

Starting point is 00:04:20 The only time you see Trump and Vance together is after Trump's ABC debate when JD like preps him for the spin room. That's the only time we see them interact. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. Like I wouldn't want to be in a room with JD Vance more than I had to be. Although the fact that he does want to be in a room with Musk is baffling. Yes. And actually, Musk and JD get along quite well in the interactions that are seen in the documentary

Starting point is 00:04:47 Melania Trump never appears once not a single time Well, it's good to know that they've they've managed to put together a functional throuple. Ooh Don't like that. Don't like that at all first buddy. Yikes My biggest takeaway from this documentary is that it just showed how much his rallies are a religious experience for his supporters Like deeply deeply religious is especially the Butler, Pennsylvania Rallies where everyone talks about it like they would like like a genuine like limit experience or religious experience Right now this episode. I actually I want to focus on the rhetoric

Starting point is 00:05:25 employed at these rallies. In attempts to label Trump a fascist, there's been a lot of discussion on like Trump's authoritarian and dictatorial desires and tendencies. And expressions of those fears in particular were not enough to persuade the majority of voters against Trump, let alone siphon Republican support towards Harris. And we on this show have not talked much about the escalation of rhetoric used by Trump and his allies this campaign cycle with the Biden administration's horrific border policies and the enabling of Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza, drawing a great deal of our attention the past few months. But now I do want to draw attention to the

Starting point is 00:06:03 ethno-nationalist framing that has become all too common, especially with the Democrats' complete submission to Trump and the GOP's distinct focus on immigration as the top issue facing America. So part of what I'm going to do here is I've outlined a few clips and some quotes. I tried to limit the clips because I know no one wants to hear Trump and these guys talk for too long, But I will play some. And Robert, you've spent a lot of your time thinking about fascism the past few years and reading about fascism. So I'm certainly curious on your thoughts on some of these clips and quotes, as we'll kind of go through like three specific rallies, mostly great and outline what type of rhetoric

Starting point is 00:06:43 they are using and what it kind of points to historically. Now, one of the reoccurring phrases at Trump rallies this cycle was that the United States has become an occupied territory. Here's Trump invoking that language at a rally in Atlanta a week before the election. But it will soon be an occupied country no longer. November 5th, 2024 will be Liberation Day in America. And on day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We're going to get these criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.

Starting point is 00:07:25 These towns have been conquered. You know, they have been invaded. And can you imagine just as though a foreign enemy was invading a military was invading? Okay. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered. Conquered. Yeah. Just just as though an enemy a foreign enemy was invading. Yeah. Just just as though an enemy, a foreign enemy, was invading.

Starting point is 00:07:46 Yeah. I mean, that's I don't even know what to say about that. It's like that's textbook fascist shit, right? Like, I mean, among other things, ramping everyone up to justify, you know, at least the potential for violence against migrants. You know, it's it's self-defense, right? Yeah. Now, I like to focus first on the Madison Square Garden rally. Certainly, the Puerto Rico floating island

Starting point is 00:08:11 of garbage comments from the roast comedian got a lot of media attention. But what got less coverage was the much more historically worrying statements made by those within Trump's circle. Let's start with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. America is for Americans and Americans only. So, Robert, does that phrase remind you of any other phrases that have been used over time?

Starting point is 00:08:34 Yeah, I mean, like one people, one valk, one Reich, right? I guess. Yeah. I mean, again, like I don't even know what to say at this point, right? Like where it's so obvious what I started in the warning people about fascism game You had to like explain a lot of history and then sort of like walk in here's how you know What this is a signpost of you when someone does an 88? Yeah, what it means or whatever and we're so far past that like and specifically this one invokes The Germany is for the Germans, which is a phrase that is banned in

Starting point is 00:09:07 Germany now due to its use during the Nazi era. That gives us something to look forward to. Now, in a rant advocating for election denial in the case of Trump losing the election, Tucker Carlson referred to Kamala Harris as a

Starting point is 00:09:21 Samoan Malaysian low IQ. This is just kind of baffling old school racism. Yeah. I honestly didn't expect this type of thing to have such a resurgence the past year. More esoteric than I expected. Yeah. It's frankly odd. Now, Tucker also spoke about how the elites are trying to replace the population and the culture and customs of this country.

Starting point is 00:09:49 Just clearly invoking the white nationalist, a great replacement ideology that he kind of previously spread on his Fox show. In a country that has been taken over by a leadership class that actually despises them and their values and their history and their culture and their customs really hates them to the point that it's trying to replace them. Very clear stuff. And Don Jr. invoked very similar rhetoric saying that the government no longer puts Americans first and that the Democratic Party would rather, quote, replace Americans with people who will be reliable voters, unquote.

Starting point is 00:10:24 Well. Americans with people who will be reliable voters unquote. Well, this is types of stuff that we talked about in like 2018, 2019. It's like like Lauren Southern YouTube videos. And like if there's one thing the dims are bad at, it's getting reliable voters. Yeah, yes. But like this is the type of stuff that was so that was much more niche. And then you had a few like 4chan guys start like doing writing on Tucker's show and now it's being used at this point the president's rallies. Yeah. Now when Trump finally took the stage he mirrored Tucker's Kamala Harris IQ comments saying everyone knows she's a very low IQ individual. Like usual he called the press the enemy of the people. But he went

Starting point is 00:11:05 on to describe the true enemy masterminding the fall of America, the quote radical left machine that has taken control of the Democratic Party. It's just this amorphous group of people, but they're smart and they're vicious. And we have to defeat them. And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy, becomes a sound. The whole how can he say? No, they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within.

Starting point is 00:11:37 I do find it interesting the way he describes them as like amorphous. Yeah, it's not like a distinct sect, not like a few specific people. It's this like amorphous, almost like it's not like a distinct sect. It's not like a few specific people. It's this like amorphous almost like like a like a like a serial for second like inhabit people. Well, you need that because that among other things allows you to refocus the lens on anyone. Yeah, right? like you need the opportunity to keep shifting because eventually if you're just actually focusing on a real discrete group of human beings you get rid of those people you throw them in prison or whatever and then you don't have an enemy anymore and you always need that and you know what we need right now Robert products and services

Starting point is 00:12:18 yeah we do need to go on a quick break and then come back to talk about Duluth, Georgia. So not good. Great. All right. We are back. I'm going to now turn to a turning point action event on October 23rd in Duluth, Georgia, which I actually just visited for the first time. I went ice skating in Duluth, Georgia. And to kind of get a sense of what this town, it's not even really a suburb of Atlanta. It's it's so far north. As I was ice skating there, I'm pretty sure like a Christian cult showed up and they had all their members also ice skating because they were all wearing like the same outfits.

Starting point is 00:13:04 They all like very specific, like head scarves. A few of a few of like the more like youth pastoral types had like, you know, like Christ is King type hoodies. But it definitely wasn't like a regular church. It was it was more of some kind of like evangelical cultish formation based on like the uniform clothing. So that's Duluth, Georgia. Yeah. Now, Charlie Kirk gave a 15 minute speech, which he closed with a spiritual appeal, saying, quote, You have a biblical obligation to engage in this election and to fight evil. The Democratic Party supports everything God hates, unquote. supports everything God hates." Kirk then called this election a quote unquote spiritual battle.

Starting point is 00:13:47 And finally said quote, this is a Christian state. I want to see that continue. So none of this is like new, right? This is kind of at this point bog standard Christian nationalism. But this is a rally of about 10,000 people. It's not an official Trump rally. It is a turning point action rally that Trump did speak at.

Starting point is 00:14:07 But I'd like to hone in once again on Tucker Carlson's comments. Now, he called this the first speech he's ever given at a political rally. Now, both me and you saw Tucker speak at the RNC. I guess he kind of views the RNC as a little bit different from like a standard standard, like kind of more like a campaign rally type event. But Tucker called Trump a triumph of the human spirit. Christ, a triumph of the will, you could say. Yes, like what? What's another word for the human spirit?

Starting point is 00:14:40 But now I'm going to play it. Actually, this is the longest clip we have just because it's so fascinating. And I have a lot that kind of written on this already. I'm just going to play, actually, this is the longest clip we have just because it's so fascinating and I have a lot that kind of written on this already. I'm just going to play this clip. There has to be a point at which dad comes home. Yeah, that's right. Dad comes home. And he's pissed.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Dad is pissed. He's not vengeful. He loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them. Because they're his children. They live in his house. But he's very disappointed in their behavior. And he's going to have to let them know.

Starting point is 00:15:29 He's going to have to get to your room right now and think about what you did. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? You've been a bad girl. You've been a bad little girl and you're getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it's not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it's not. I'm not going to lie. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And you earned this. You're getting a vigorous spanking because you've been a bad girl. Well, that's just real sick and deranged. I mean, you can tell he really gets off on spanking little girls. I mean, like beyond like Tucker's like shown depravity here. I also just find like the the willingness of the audience just to eat this stuff up and like really enjoy it to like similarly be like both like fascinating and like a show of like a certain level of depravement. Well, it's this it's leaning into what has

Starting point is 00:16:33 always been the core of like the most militant conservatism, which is the like strict Christian conservative parents rights people. Sure. Be like my children are my property and also the right way to parent is like a dictator. I mean, this is like the most like openly Freudian display of American fascism that I have like ever seen before. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. This idea of like a harsh father whose love is replaced with fearful authority. It's really important that like America is framed as a bad girl.

Starting point is 00:17:07 There's this like feminizing of the masses, right? America is not like a bad little boy. A bad girl is like really important. Carlson's almost invoking like an incestuous like domination. Yeah, it's it's quite sick. And like I had to actually like like look up stuff on this because I'm like, I know Freud and a few others have have written about this type of thing before. And specifically Adorno has written about this in an essay called Freudian Theory and

Starting point is 00:17:30 the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda that I'd like to read just a few brief quotes from. Oh, I love some Adorno. Yes, please. Quote, there is either no mention of love whatsoever between members or it's expressed only in a sublimated and indirect way through the mediation of some religious image in the love of whom the members unite and who's all embracing love, they are supposed to imitate in their attitude towards each other. It seems significant that in today's society, with its artificially integrated fascist masses, reference to love is almost completely excluded.

Starting point is 00:18:01 Hitler shunned the traditional role of the loving father and replaced it entirely by the negative one of threatening authority." I'm gonna pivot to Freud here, specifically his essay on group behavior and how individuals regressed become a part of masses. He writes about how a leader of a cult can exploit psychological shortcuts in its followers to embody this like a group

Starting point is 00:18:25 ideal that governs their ego as a substitution. Quote, the leader of the group is the dreaded primal father. The group still wishes to be governed by unrestricted force. It has an extreme passion for authority. It has a thirst for obedience. The Primal Father is the group ideal. This is so displayed on what Tucker is doing. This is just exactly what it is. It reminds me of the other quote about how people seek out salvation in subjugation. I'll leave just one more quote from Adorno here. Quote, fascist agitation is centered in the idea of the leader, no matter whether he actually leads, or is only the mandatory of group interests, because only the psychological image of the leader

Starting point is 00:19:10 is apt to reanimate the idea of the all-powerful and threatening Primal Father. The formation of the imagery of an omnipotent and unbridled father figure, by far transcending the individual father and therefore apt to be enlarged into a group ego, is the only way to promulgate the passive masochistic attitude, the whom's one's will has to be surrendered. An attitude required of the fascist follower, the more his political behavior becomes irreconcilable with his own rational interests as a private person, as well as those of the group or class to which he actually belongs. The followers' reawakened irrationality is therefore quite rational from the leader's

Starting point is 00:19:51 point of view. It necessarily has to be a conviction which is not based on perception and reasoning, but on an erotic tie." Unquote. Ugh. I'm sure someone more skilled than me could write like a whole dissertation just on Tucker's speech here, because like it invokes so many of these ideas and like without trying to, this is all just like subconscious on their part. Like they're pulling on these things, like specifically like like

Starting point is 00:20:18 the passive masochistic attitude. It's like their submission to Trump is like this deep masochistic urge. There's another thing in there that I think is important, especially because I'm hearing a lot of people talking about like, well, once Trump pushes through his tariffs or does this or does that, the horrible negative consequences of this will like absolutely destroy the GOP. Right. That'll finally bring them down. We let them, you know, we know.

Starting point is 00:20:44 And one of the things that Dorno says there is that like the leader doesn't even need to be present. And that's an under discussed aspect of psychology and fascist states. One of the one of the phenomenons within Nazi Germany was, you know, there were a number of Nazi policies, Hitler's policies that had serious negative effects on people in Germany. And one of the most common phrases that you would hear from them was, if only Hitler knew, right? You know, usually deployed when like you were dealing with a government agency that was headed by just like an absolute criminal that, you know, Hitler had appointed that like,

Starting point is 00:21:20 oh, well, Hitler doesn't know that the Gestapo are doing this, right? You know, he would stop this. He'd put a stop to this if he knew he wouldn't let this happen. Right. That's what that's what Trump's believers. I don't know if that's what the the American people writ large may never buy into Trump the way that the Germans bought into Hitler. But Trump supporters are certainly already there. And this is something that Tucker saw in the audience when he started on this rant.

Starting point is 00:21:45 He started repeating certain phrases because he got such a good reaction from the crowd. Like this wasn't like planned. It was it was him reading the crowd and realizing, oh, they really like this. I'm going to keep doing it. And specifically, this is also how he closed his speech. And I don't believe this was this was planned. I believe this is because of the reaction that the crowd had previously. I'm going to play the very end of his speech where he basically endorses like a coup if Harris actually wins.

Starting point is 00:22:11 If they do all of that, they need to lose. And at the end of all of it, when they tell you they've won, no, you can look them straight in the face and say, I'm sorry, dad's home and he's pissed. Thank you. They love it. Yeah, of course, of course. All they have ever wanted is to be forced to be right, you know, and to the extent that reality disagrees with their beliefs, which it usually does And to the extent that reality disagrees with their beliefs, which it usually does, to be able to beat reality into place and at least continue to trick themselves until they die.

Starting point is 00:22:55 Right. Like that's all the fascists I know. You know, the older people, many of whom raised me, that's what it really was about for them was never having to acknowledge the mistakes that they had made, the things that they had supported that didn't work out. Like it was a rage at the people who insisted on pointing out, hey, you said this was going to happen and the opposite happened. So that promise of like, even if they win, dad's going to come home and beat them into submission is deeply attractive. beat them into submission is is deeply attractive. I mean, and even if it hurts your own self-interest, your own class interests, right? And it's like replacing all of the anguish you have as like an individual person and like replacing your own ego with the embodiment of this group ideal that is just someone else. This is why so many people have dedicated their lives to Trump.

Starting point is 00:23:44 You look at all these like boomers and even some Gen X people at these Trump rallies who Trump has become their personality. He's fully occupied their life. And yeah, it's similar to the way that a cult leader has, like how Freud wrote about it. Freud wrote all that stuff in the 1920s before Hitler really rose to power.

Starting point is 00:24:05 But he could like sense what was like coming in Germany. He could he could feel it. Yeah. And what I'm going to feel right now is the products and services that support this podcast. Huzzah. All right, we are back. I like to close by talking about Aurora, Colorado. Now a tactic the Trump campaign consistently used this past year is to hone in on particular small communities as being taken over by immigrants, who they would call like criminal migrants. The best known example of this is what happened in Springfield, Ohio. But this also happened in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado,

Starting point is 00:24:52 after a video went viral showing men walking through an apartment complex holding firearms. A false claim then spread that a Venezuelan gang was forcibly taking over entire buildings in the city. At a Trump rally in Aurora on October 11th, massive banners on both sides of the stage read, Deport illegals now and end migrant crime. On either side of the podium, there were large mugshots of Latino men with text that reads, Occupied America. Stephen Miller, now like chief advisor for immigration policy, takes the stage and says

Starting point is 00:25:31 that the patriots gathered at this event can quote, end the invasion and end the occupation by voting for Trump. Look at all these photos around me. Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you were raised with? Are these the neighbors that you want in your city? No, these are the criminal migrants that Kamala Harris brought into your community. Again, it's all pretty brazen stuff.

Starting point is 00:26:01 Yep. Yep. I mean, we call that brazen, but like that's just mainstream now. Yes. Like the fight to look at migrants as human beings and have any kind of sane justice, you know, for undocumented migrants in this country has has been completely botched. There's something about like the suburban neighborhood idea that is more like disturbing to me, like pointing to actual pictures of people being,

Starting point is 00:26:26 are these the kids you grew up with? And like the fight to like preserve this nostalgic idea of like your childhood neighborhood. It's just so dark to me. Now, invoking great replacement framing, Miller says that Kamala Harris was bringing these immigrants into your communities and that they are now taking over America. We don't need in this country homeless migrants, criminal migrants. We don't need migrants consuming and depleting our public resources, overwhelming our public schools, overwhelming our hospitals, taking over our apartment buildings, and yes, murdering innocent Americans. You have a right to love the community you grew up in.

Starting point is 00:27:08 You have a right to love your neighbors as they are. You have a right to want a country that is of, by, and for Americans and only Americans. Again with that, like you have a right to love the community you grew up in. And then, of course, like Americans for Americans. And Miller later closed his speech by yelling, America will be reclaimed for Americans. Oh, gosh. Yep. I mean, look, these people suffered no consequences for what they did the last time.

Starting point is 00:27:45 So they're going to keep pushing further. It's done nothing but work for them. No one has ever taught them any lesson that like, hey, there's you've gone too far. And now there are going to be negative consequences that hasn't happened. So, yeah, they're just going to keep getting more and more mask off. This is where they've wanted to be. Miller, certainly from the beginning. And they've used these past four years

Starting point is 00:28:06 as prep work to build them to this point. And of course, none of what they're saying is real in terms of buildings being taken over. The famously pro-Harris liberal extremist group, the Aurora Police Department, have continued to clarify that no apartment buildings have been taken over by any gangs, nor have tenants been paying gang members rent money. According to the police, none of the armed men seen in that viral video, who have all been since identified or arrested, none of

Starting point is 00:28:33 them have any ties to Venezuelan gangs or organized crime. What happened was slumlords spread a false story about their apartment complex being taken over by a gang as a way to get out of doing repairs on the property, saying it was too dangerous to enter the premises. Jesus. It was all like a fucking scam by slumlords so that they wouldn't have to fix their own apartment building. Denver 7 found code enforcement and inspection records dating back to 2020

Starting point is 00:28:59 that show numerous violations prior to the influx of Venezuelan immigrants in the Denver metro area. The complex is now under new care, but a similar false tale of an apartment building in Chicago being taken over by immigrant gangs went viral in September due to the efforts of Libs of TikTok and Elon Musk, with Libs of TikTok saying, quote, First they did this in Aurora, Colorado, and now Chicago, Which city will be next? This invasion happened on Kamala's watch." The last thing I will mention here is all of the blood comments that Trump has been making the past year. In an interview last year, Trump said that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad that people are coming

Starting point is 00:29:41 in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have unquote This clearly invokes like blood framing used by Hitler and Nazis and like eugenics in general Yeah, and this is rhetoric that he's continuing to use to the present in an interview last month from said immigrants are naturally murderers because quote It's in their genes. We've got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. I mean, a lot of what this comes down to is that after World War II, we really needed to execute a lot more people. You know, like you could have quashed the eugenics movement. We needed to go after a lot of people in the US.

Starting point is 00:30:20 There were a lot of American fascists involved in eugenics. And after Treblinka and Auschwitz, we really just should have cleaned house. And instead, we let all of these people get into think tanks. I'm going to close with a with a quote from the Atlantic here. Quote, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan. Trump was right about everything. This is the language borrowed directly from Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben Gate posted a photograph of a building in

Starting point is 00:30:54 Mussolini's Italy displaying the slogan, Mussolini is always right, unquote. And that reminded me of what you said earlier about how these people just always wanted to be right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the core of it. And similarly, like people can surrender their own individual ego and substitute it with this image of Trump, right? Trump was right about everything.

Starting point is 00:31:17 Yep. Anyway, this is kind of what I wanted to put together, just focusing on all of these things, because I mean, as much as as you know, foreign policy in America is always kind of fucked, domestic policy, I think does often get changed based on who is in office. And this is what we're going to be dealing with these four years, especially with Miller taking a larger and larger role inside the White House.

Starting point is 00:31:38 We sure are. So everybody buckle up. online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

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Starting point is 00:32:56 Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift.

Starting point is 00:33:12 I know. She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. It felt like when you were on the plane ride coming home, texting with your dad about whether or not

Starting point is 00:33:27 she was alive still, there was almost an acceptance from you that that was the way it was gonna be. Instead of sometimes we resist and fight the reality that we're in. I think a lot of my lifetime has been acceptance. There's been a lot of things where I've just had to, like there's nothing to do other than surrender to what's happening. I just kept feeling like in the moment,

Starting point is 00:33:47 like the only way out is through. I just felt like I had to feel it all and had to be present through it. Find Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by I Heart and Sonora.

Starting point is 00:34:14 An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturne, Tales from the Shadows, as part of my Kultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:35:02 Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul and I'm Jordan or Joe Ho and we are the Black Fat Film Podcast, a podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. This year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Have a podcast or whatever you get your podcast, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex positive and deeply entertaining podcast,

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Starting point is 00:36:03 or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Sage. I run Andrewism over on YouTube. I'm joined by the one and only... Garrison Davis. Hello. Hello, hello. You don't sound particularly festive.

Starting point is 00:36:24 You know, it's been a long week. This is the last workday of election week when we're recording this. I just returned from my cabin in the woods, which I which I got to kind of watch the election unfold. So now I am back in the real world, not just hiding up in the mountains of Georgia. So it feels slightly worse. But we we carry on. As you mentioned, a cabin in the woods,

Starting point is 00:36:50 it actually reminds me of this movie that came out to Netflix. A little while ago, I don't know if you've seen it, Leave the World Behind. Yes, I have seen that. Yes, it's pretty apt that you're in a cabin and all this is going on. Yes, it's pretty apt that you're in a cabin and all this is going down. Yes, yes. We actually talked about that movie earlier on this show and some conspiracy theories around it. Yeah, the Obama connection. That's right, that's right. You understand. You're already receiving the messages. You already know. Exactly. But we're not focused on the US for this episode. Thank goodness.

Starting point is 00:37:27 Instead, we're going to be going back into the past and the present as well, because the struggle really doesn't end, and taking a look at the struggle of the Mapuche in Chile and Argentina. I'd actually mentioned them in my exploration of Latin American anarchisms that they would need their own episodes. So here we are taking a look at everything that they've been up to. And it's really thanks to the work of my fellow anarchists, M. Goldhawk and John Seferino and their research that I've been able to put together this elucidation of Indigenous

Starting point is 00:38:04 anarchist history. So the lands that now bear the titles of Chile and Argentina have long held the Mapuche people, long before borders were drawn, long before the world learned to cage the wild. The land itself is considered Wálmapu and it's deeply entwined with the identity of the Mapuche people. Walmapu is of course not just a geographical term, it is also a spiritual one. It is a tapestry of their histories and their dreams and also their view of the world through a lens of reciprocity.

Starting point is 00:38:41 Because the Mapuche do acknowledge their kinship with the land, the rivers, the mountains, and that worldview that they hold, and have traditionally held rather, champions, balance, and harmony, and respect for all forms of life. Which is what has been fuelling their ongoing fight against occupation. So in a sense, the Mapuche struggle echoes an anarchist ethos of autonomy and mutual aid, but I wouldn't call them anarchists. They have a very specific cultural, historical, and spiritual context that is distinct from anarchist thought despite the similarities. So today we'll be exploring the history, people, and struggles of Almapu that have shaped

Starting point is 00:39:25 the Mapuche experience. Now, ancient archaeological finds from tools to pottery have suggested that the Mapuche may have settled in present-day southern Chile and Argentina as far back as 2500 to 3000 years ago. Genetic and linguistic research connects the Mapuche lineage to other indigenous groups across the Andes, meaning that their ancestors may have migrated down the western spine of South America in waves, adapting to the rainforests, coastlines, and valleys of what's now Walmapu. Historically and currently, the Mapuche have spoken Mapudungun, and the language itself carries aspects of their cultural identity, as is to be expected.

Starting point is 00:40:07 Mapudungun is a polysynthetic language, meaning its words can be formed by combining smaller parts to reflect complex ideas. Mapuche itself combines mapu, meaning land, and che, meaning people. Some Mapuche lived on the border of the Incan Empire, meaning that they were in contact with centralized state organizations and hierarchical societies and would have chosen to differentiate themselves and their societies from these status peoples. So how did they do so exactly? The Puche way of life would have revolved around, as I said, a deep respect for kinship, communal responsibility, and spiritual stewardship of the land. The society itself was based around the LoF, or Family Based Communal Unit.

Starting point is 00:40:51 At each LoF hold-in, shared responsibility over a specific territory. Ensuring the one's personal wealth doesn't override the interests and wellbeing of the environment and the community. The LoF wasn't just limited to the people of that family-based communal unit. It also incorporated the ecosystem that that unit encompassed and occupied. Nature was in a sense part of the family. Rivers, mountains, forests, and other animals were treated as living relatives, with a spirit and agency that deserves respect. In the Mapuche worldview, all beings in elements possess Nguyen, the life force, and so they

Starting point is 00:41:31 have to be respected. That belief system also leads the Mapuche to practice a sustainable use of resources and intergenerational land care, and it also compels their, as I said, resistance to colonial resource extraction, deforestation, and industrial expansion. In Mapuche spirituality, Weno Mapu, or the land of the ancestors, refers to the spiritual realm connected to the physical world. They've traditionally believed that the spirits of past generations inhabit this realm, offering guidance and protection. The Machis, or spiritual leaders, serve as Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the

Starting point is 00:42:07 Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the Mapuche, the The socio-political structure of the Mapuche has been a confederation of love groups, known as the I-Lateral Way system, where the different loves would come together to make communal decisions and joint actions, particularly in times of conflict or threat. Each love would be represented in these confederations by a long-co, who would be bringing their community's voice and perspective to regional councils without necessarily exercising centralized authority.

Starting point is 00:42:50 The decisions of these councils are based on consensus, traditionally, and cooperation, compromise, honoring the collective will as much as possible rather than imposing will from above. And contrary to popular belief, this lack of centralization has actually made them more resilient, not more fragile. Rather than bickering and fighting and splitting and splintering constantly, the Mpuche have historically united and together resisted multiple attempts at subjugation. The decentralized alliances have empowered them to respond flexibly and quickly

Starting point is 00:43:25 to the ever-changing landscape of the threats they are facing. And this resistance continues to this day, but let me not skip ahead. The Spanish first made their way to the Mapuche territory in the mid-1500s, initially confident that they could conquer the area with the same ease they had subdued the Inca Empire to the north. But the Mapuche were not easily intimidated. Early encounters quickly turned to conflict, and the Spanish found themselves up against a serious resistance movement. From this start, the Spanish had underestimated the Mapuche's ability to adapt. When the conquistadors introduced horses and new weaponry,

Starting point is 00:44:02 the Mapuche observed and learned quickly, incorporating captured horses and arms into their own defense strategies. Rather than a simple series of skirmishes, this struggle would become a prolonged confrontation, one of the longest and most determined resistances to colonization throughout the Americas. This was La Guerra de Arauco, known the Arauco War, known for over a hundred years of protracted, brutal conflicts maintained by guerrilla warfare. And there would be no definitive battle or grand conclusion to this war. The Mapuche recognized that they were facing vast resources. They knew they had to find ways to level that playing field. And so using their familiarity with the forests, rivers, and mountains of Albabu, they ambushed, evaded,

Starting point is 00:44:52 and outflanked Spanish troops, cut off supply lines, and employed tactics that frustrated and exhausted their lost and ill-equipped opponents. The Mapuche were fighting on two fronts, defending their territories from physical invasion, and preserving their cultural practices from Spanish influence. Though the Mapuche are traditionally egalitarian, they did elect Toki, or war leaders, during times of conflict. These figures were limited to their role in coordinating forces during these conflicts, and had no other political power to wield above others.

Starting point is 00:45:26 One of the more notable of these Toki was a man named Lautaro. He was a young Mapuche who had been captured by the Spanish as a teenager and had worked for some time as a stable boy for chief conquistador and governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia. While working as a stable boy, Lautaro managed to secretly observe many of the tactics that the Spanish employed. He gained intimate knowledge of what made them tick, in a sense. And he eventually escaped captivity and brought this knowledge back to his people, transforming the Pujay resistance by effectively using captured horses and new formations to confront

Starting point is 00:46:01 the Spanish on even ground. Lautaro was a brilliant military strategist, and by all accounts, a charismatic young man that inspired his people through several major victories, including defeating a large Spanish force at the Battle of Tucapelle in 1553, which was a confrontation that killed his former master and a good British-Spanish morale. Unfortunately, the outbreak of a typhus plague, a drought, and a famine slowed the Mapuche advance to expel the Spanish, as they had to spend some time recovering. But Lautaro did try to push a band of Mapuches far north of Santiago, Chile, to liberate

Starting point is 00:46:37 the country from Spanish rule. Unfortunately, before he could even turn 30, he was killed in an ambush, and well, his spirit continues to live on as a symbol of Mapuche resilience. As the war evolved, they had cycles of conflict interspersed with uneasy pieces. Spanish settlements on the Mapuche frontier became isolated, vulnerable outposts subject to sudden raids, so in an attempt to hold the territory, the Spanish had to divert large amounts of their resources to maintain a military presence, which was a very costly strategy that didn't end up being sustainable long term. So finally, after decades of failed attempts to subdue the Mapuche by force, the Spanish

Starting point is 00:47:18 had to adopt a different approach. Resulting in a series of peace treaties virtually unheard of in the rest of colonial Latin America. Among these was the Parliament of Quilin in 1641, which established a formal boundary between Spanish controlled Chile and the autonomous Mapuche territories, granting the Mapuche legal recognition as an independent people with territorial rights. This is virtually unheard of across the rest of the Americas, and that's to tell you how powerful their resistance was at the time. The Spanish Crown recognized Mapuche control over land south of the Biobio River and agreed to regular

Starting point is 00:47:57 negotiations. And although this agreement was tenuous and at times violated, it did also mark an era of semi-autonomy for the Mapuche, allowing them to maintain their land, language, and traditions in the face of surrounding colonial expansion. The fact that they could even secure legal recognition of their autonomy from a state power as stubborn as the Spanish in a time like the 17th century is just remarkable. But, unfortunately, as you could probably predict, that recognition of their autonomy would not last. In the 1800s, Chile and Argentina emerged as independent republics following Spanish colonial rule,

Starting point is 00:48:45 each driven by an appetite for territorial expansion and a nationalist vision that excluded indigenous autonomy. With new ambitions to civilize and consolidate their nations, Chilean and Argentine leaders saw the Mapuche-held lands as resources to be exploited. Both governments had justified their encroachment on Mapuche land under the guise of national progress. To them, these indigenous lands were free real estate to be conquered and improved, not sovereign regions held by an indigenous population. This little Mapuche way of life has a barrier to their economic development,

Starting point is 00:49:20 to be replaced with European-style land holdings, settler colonies, and extractive industries. Under new management, they would not respect the 1641 Parliament of Kulin. As far as they were concerned, they hadn't signed that agreement, and they would never sign an agreement with savages. I mean, yeah, we also saw that sort of thing throughout the Americas, where you would have these like like alleged treaties that then either under future rule or even sometimes under the exact same rule would later just be completely disregarded.

Starting point is 00:49:50 Yeah, you didn't sign it with me, you know. It's like a common colonial tactic to buy time as well. Exactly. Establish and shore up your resources for a later attack. Yeah. And I can just say, well, I didn't sign that, somebody else signed it, so I don't have to be beholden to it, pretty much. And so Chile would launch their campaign

Starting point is 00:50:11 to annex Mapuche land, known as the pacification of Araucana, initiated in the 1860s. Some have argued that this attempted annexation was triggered by the events surrounding the wreck of Joven Daniel at the coast of Haracanía in 1849, where a wrecked Chilean Navy vessel was allegedly looted and its survivors allegedly attacked on Mapuche territory by members of Mapuche society.

Starting point is 00:50:39 Despite the Mapuche arguing that there had been no survivors, and despite them handing over some of the accused of looting to be tried by Chilean authorities, even returning some of what was allegedly looted, the perception of the incident as a brutal loot and rape by the Mapuche fueled anti-Mapuche sentiment within Chilean society. Although President Manuel Boulneas of Chile dismissed the opposition's calls for a punitive expedition at the time, the conquest would eventually come to pass, beginning in 1861. If you dig into this story, by the way, you come to find out that a lot of the lootings in Mapuche were accused of was actually members of Chilean society, embezzling the resources from the wreck and then playing into office if the

Starting point is 00:51:23 Mapuche were wholly responsible for the loss of the resources. Some of the same people who are accusing the Mapuche looters of stealing all the loot from the ship, many of them had received some of that loot from the Mapuche themselves. The Mapuche were trying to return the loot and they decided to keep it for themselves instead of, you know, returning it to Chilean government. So it's like the whole trial was bunked, there was a whole bunch of corruption and it was a real mess. And although the president did, you know, dismiss the attempts to attack at the time,

Starting point is 00:51:54 like I said, it would come to pass. The campaign was justified as every government does by necessity. You know, the reality, however, was a brutal invasion, ended up uprooted Mapuche communities, displacing thousands and absorbing their lands into the Chilean state. This whole like strategy also just reflects this just general dehumanization. I mean, even the stuff with like the treaties and just like the going back on the treaties, denial of the legitimacy of treaties, that tactic would not be used the same way against like other colonial nations. And then every subsequent like development and every subsequent incursion onto land, all of it is just based on this like underlying

Starting point is 00:52:34 level of dehumanization that just sees land as resources and the people there as like acceptable casualties or just fierce obstacles to overcome in conquest of those lands. Exactly. And obstacles they were because Chile knew where they wanted to reach in terms of what they saw as their rightful borders. And the Opuche were literally a wedge, an obstacle between them and reaching where they wanted to reach at the tip of South America. It was almost like a race between Argentina and Chile where they wanted to reach at the tip of South America. It was almost like a race between Argentina and Chile to see who could reach the edge and claim it first.

Starting point is 00:53:12 And Tehuche were something that was keeping them from doing that. And additionally, Tehuche would not have been granted the same legitimacy of a claim as Argentina. You know, Chile and Argentina eventually comes in agreement about where their border would lie and they respected that agreement. Same cannot be said for the Mapuche. I mean of course there were a lot of border disagreements in South America following the evacuation of the Spanish but of course those are treated on equal footing. Spanish, but of course those are treated on equal footing. The natives are different.

Starting point is 00:53:54 Matter. So Chilean forces would go on and advance into Araucania, forcibly remove thousands of Apuche families from their ancestral territories, and subject those that remained to the authority of the Chilean government. The traditional communal land holdings that remained were fragmented and redistributed, often to Chilean settlers, and the government imposed European-style laws, education, and religion to attempt to assimilate the Mapuche and suppress their identity. Military outposts and settlements were also established in the newly annexed land, festively facing the region under martial law and making it difficult for Mapuche communities to resist openly. Replace the words Chilean government with Israeli government and Mapuche with Palestinian

Starting point is 00:54:31 and that's just to tell you how antiquated the current tactics of colonization are. Very little has changed. That's exactly what I've been thinking about. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the former major colonial powers have found more subtle means of considering the exploitation and subjugation of people around the world. So it's very rare to see something so open and flagrant. You know, it's something that you expect to see in historical accounts such as this of land holdings being chopped up and given to settlers and laws and education being imposed on a native population to suppress and to assimilate their entity.

Starting point is 00:55:18 Military outposts being established on Uleanax land. Martial law being established for the native inhabitants. All those things hear about it in the push of the American frontier and hear about it in throughout South America and Africa's colonial history. You don't really tend to think about that here now when it is happening in 4k. No, like that's exactly what I was thinking about as you've been going through all this, how it just sounds exactly the same as what Israel is currently doing.

Starting point is 00:55:50 And I think why people latch onto Israel specifically so much is because of how out of time their tactics of colonial expansion feel. And similarly, it's just built on this base level of dehumanization. Exactly. That a whole bunch of other like imperial powers kind of try to like hide or like mask a little bit and with Israel just so mask off. So I think about all the time they were like a century late pretty much. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:17 If they had started this process like a century earlier, they would have actually probably have gotten away with it, unfortunately. Well, and they still might get away with it now to some degree. And that's like that is true. That's that's kind of the that's the super frightening thought is that even though it is this outdated style, what if it still works? And if and if it's proven to still work in Palestine,

Starting point is 00:56:38 where like where else can this be used? Like, will we just see more countries feel like they can get away with it? Because Israel did? And like, that's kind of part of looking into the next four years and looking into just how the world is going in this general kind of far-right power grab happening all over the globe. Will more and more countries be kind of willing to utilize these types of colonial tactics? And it's scary and bad. Yeah, I mean, when you think about how the severity of the climate situation is just going to worsen,

Starting point is 00:57:14 and you think about the pressures that places on the most exploitive regions of the globe, how that might pressure migration, and how that might pressure sort of efforts to resist the sort of tightening of the hold of exploitation up until the call that was reading this book called Warner People's History of Fashion. Just thinking about the whole textile trade as a whole and how it impacts different parts of the globe and whatever.

Starting point is 00:57:42 And as you're talking about this now, I'm just thinking like, if workers in those countries were to stand up, well, in all this time, some of the most deadly workers struggles have taken place in these regions in these settings. But if they were to stand up and resist now, I mean, it might get even more open and blatant with the suppression of those people

Starting point is 00:58:05 and those voices. And as they attempt to try and make their way out of those hotspots, those hot regions of instability and violence and climate catastrophe, you know, we have all this migrant rhetoric to make their struggle even worse. That's like the Foucault's boomerang idea of all of these colonial tactics also get eventually turned inward and right now you see the same level of dehumanization being levied against like millions of immigrants who are here both legally as refugees and are also here undocumented. But it's it's the same like rhetorical tactics that make people okay with this is that level of dehumanization. And you also see that, of course, levied against trans people. You still see that levied against indigenous people.

Starting point is 00:58:48 And it's just like a growing list of people that are no longer seen as real humans. Yeah. For some reason, you say that my mind fixated on the fact that you said undocumented, and this reminded me of the obscenity of all of this. The difference is literally some pieces of paper. The difference is literally a roll of the dice spawn point from one side of the border or another. I'd have to allow this to like totally dominate our lives. Yeah, it's like a deep spiritual evil.

Starting point is 00:59:24 So many people don't even like realize the absurdity of it and how just like it takes away so much of like thought and empathy. And people people just don't even know like they don't even like process that like that's what they've done to themselves by like constructing this system that they believe is like divine or like enshrined by God. Their right to exist defends. Yeah, so much of it is a dice roll. So much of it is situations beyond anyone's conscious control. Yeah. And to sort of pull us a bit back onto the track, you can also see the mirrors between the current Palestinian struggle and

Starting point is 01:00:06 the unquen Mapuche struggle. And even going back to this time that I hope you've been discussing, the Mapuche struggle of the past. Because despite all of this colonial expansion, the Mapuche resisted not only militarily but culturally. They held on to their language, they held on to their customs, they held on to their spiritual practices, they held on to their identity in defiance of assimilationist policies. And across the Andes, meanwhile, Argentina was pursuing a similarly aggressive campaign,

Starting point is 01:00:33 which was known as the Conquest of the Desert. This was led by General Julio Argengino Roca in the 1870s and 1880s. This really sought to eradicate and displace all the indigenous groups that were in the area, including the Mapuche, who had lived in the Fertile, Pampas and Patagonian regions to secure valuable land for, wait for it, cattle ranching, agriculture and European settler expansion. Cattle ranching as in kenukh, the whole meat trade. The cows are more important than the people. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:01:08 And the demand for the cows is more important than the people. You see this violence of agricultural expansion in other places as well. As I said, I was reading one and one of the things she noticed is that part of what pushed the American Westward expansion was that they were growing cotton and cotton is extremely water intensive and historically cotton was grown in a polyculture, it was grown with other plants, right? With these cotton monocultures, it really quickly strips the soil of its nutrients and so they were pushing westward because they kept on having to find new land to grow the cotton on. And course who was working that cotton and who was working those

Starting point is 01:01:47 plantations. Just exploitation all the way down and all that just to feed this rapacious appetite of expansion. You know we had thousands of years of sustainable growth and sustainable cyclical economies but things that would last and just in these last few centuries, we've just completely lost that because above all, the line has to go up. Well, and like also part of that quest for agricultural domination, in order to make that possible, there's the invention of the international slave trade, which is similarly built on this level of just base dehumanization and the desire

Starting point is 01:02:25 for agricultural production being way more important than the humanity of everybody involved in that process. Yep. And then it's also tied to the petrochemical trade, because to maintain these soils in this unnatural form, you have to basically pumped the land with these artificial fertilizers, which are typically derived from petrochemicals. And like that process of the soil basically becoming dead, like started even as early as like the late 1800s. Like this isn't even just like a modern like problem in like the past like 50, 100 years.

Starting point is 01:03:03 All of that land was like overused and starting to get destroyed almost like 200 years ago, but specifically like the late 1800s. Yeah. And this is what we're looking at here in this, this particular historical narrative. We're just watching the fall of Wildemarpo, of course, we're at, in a more grander sense, the fall of the remaining communities that actually were maintaining that connection with the land. They're being in this process subjugated so that there is no resistance and no present

Starting point is 01:03:35 alternative to the extractive model that was at least part of the goal of this expansion. As we see in Argentina, the few Mapuche who survived this massacre, because they employed all sorts of tactics ranging from scorched earth policies to forced relocations to like outright and reduce the labourers within this modern or rapidly modernizing Argentina. And General Roca's campaign was celebrated by the Argentine elite as a triumph of civilization over barbarism. Have I heard that before? So in both Chile's pacification of Araucana and Argentina's conquest of the desert,

Starting point is 01:04:25 they had this large scale dispossession of Apuche land and Guamapu now being fully split by the border of Argentina and Chile. The vast majority of Apuche now live in Chile. There are only a few tens of thousands left in Argentina to this day. The Mpuche Initially, Mpuche leaders and communities launched uprisings and guerrilla attacks against the Chilean and Argentine military forces fighting to defend their territories. But as military suppression intensified, resistance also had to adapt. Mpuche communities had to adopt more crude forms of opposition, maintaining cultural practices, stories, and languages as an act of resistance.

Starting point is 01:05:11 Some Puchi leaders petitioned for land rights and autonomy through legal channels, seeking to challenge dispossession through the courts. Others continued to resist through armed confrontation, often leading isolated uprisings when government forces overstepped or attempted to seize more land. The Puche resistance that follows this period is basically rooted in the traumas of this period, as the people were forcibly integrated into Chilean and Argentine societies, yet never fully accepted.

Starting point is 01:05:39 As we move into the early 20th century, the Puche communities continue to be hit hard by policies that aim to dissolve their traditional ways of life. The Chilean and Argentine governments squeezed Mapuche onto reservations, while surrounding lands were given to powerful landowners and settlers. Land scarcity was a significant issue as Mapuche families often had plots too small to sustain their traditional agricultural practices, and this dispossession led to economic hardship and widespread poverty, further marginalizing them from national economies. The assimilation attempts to free traditionalist identity as something to be erased in favour of European norms pushed out the Mapudan language and cultural ties, and aimed to impose Spanish as the primary language. Thankfully, today, Mapuandung still survives as the language of the Uche people.

Starting point is 01:06:31 At the time, Mapuche were also forced into low wage labour on settler farms, experiencing of course very harsh conditions and very little protection. Many of the Mapuche ended up migrating from rural areas to cities as the arable land dwindled. Ended up finding themselves in places like Santiago and Temuco beginning in the 1930s. And the Imapuche families ended up working as laborers in urban centers where they faced new forms of discrimination. A lot of Imapuche women ended up going to work as servants within the houses of the Chilean elite. And during this period of hardship, the early Mapuche political movements began to take shape.

Starting point is 01:07:08 In the 1910s, Mapuche leaders organized groups like Sociedad Capulcan Defensora de la Arocaña, which advocated for land rights and civil protections, aiming to reclaim the dispossessed land and fight against the abuse of Indigenous laborers. These early organizations marked a significant shift in Mapuche strategy, representing a movement towards formal, political approaches to resistance. The establishment of political alliances with sympathetic groups also strengthened the Mapuche cause. In the 1920s and 1930s, Indigenous organizations began working with the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties, focusing on indigenous labor issues and broader anti-landlord campaigns. However, these alliances often prioritized national labor and agrarian reform over specific indigenous rights, leaving the Mapuche to continue to fight largely on their own terms.

Starting point is 01:08:02 But in spite of this limited political power, these early efforts helped lay the groundwork for later land rights activism. From the mid 20th century onward, rapid industrialization, extractive forestry operations, and monoculture plantations began to dominate Mapuche land. And pollution increased. Rivers were contaminated. Forest biodiversity was replaced by non-native species like pine and eucalyptus plantations. And all of this leads of course to soil depletion. The remaining Mapuche agriculture and local ecosystems were naturally threatened, which further compelled their resistance.

Starting point is 01:08:36 At the same time, they were still of course working to preserve their language, their cultural practices, their music, their arts, their spiritual ceremonies. their language, their cultural practices, their music, their arts, their spiritual ceremonies. For a small moment, there was some hope. As the government of Salvador Allende, you know where this is going, passed an indigenous law that recognized their distinctive culture and history and began to restore Mapuche communal lands. But I think we all remember how that turned out. Bam bam, you have a whole coup sponsored by the US and Pinochet is in power. In power, Pinochet calls for the division of the reserves and the liquidation of the Indian communities.

Starting point is 01:09:18 He initially sounds like a cartoon villain with everything I've read and learned about him. I mean, who speaks of the liquidation of a people? Pinochet is extremely cartoon villain coded, except he was a real person. So I also have this tendency to not dismiss super evil people as like unhuman monsters. Because I think that actually limits our understanding of how evil humans can be. And this isn't even just a pure principle, like, I don't like dehumanization in general. It's that I think it actually makes these people limits our understanding of how evil humans can be. Sure. And this isn't even just a pure principle. Like I don't like dehumanization in general.

Starting point is 01:09:49 It's that I think it actually makes these people harder to beat if you view them as like some like monstrous force. Yeah. Instead of something that's actually deeply human. And yeah, he is a cartoon villain. He's also like a person and like that's actually kind of more scary than just viewing him as some monster. Very true. And I don't know. It's a frame of thought I've come back on specifically in like, thinking about like anti-fascism. Yeah, I mean, that's something I always think about.

Starting point is 01:10:14 When I think of a lot of the most brutal world leaders across human history, I often think, you know, this person did not spawn out of thin air. There was a time when this person was a newborn and they were babbling, learning to speak, learning to walk, became a toddler, small child, preteen, teenager, young adult. So much nature and nurture would have gone into the person they became. But they had the same spawn point as everybody else. They all started as a baby.

Starting point is 01:10:53 And Pinochet was, unfortunately, no exception. After the passing of his decree 2568-1979, the number of Indigenous communities was reduced by 25% and several Mapuche leaders were murdered, threatened with imprisonment, or exiled. After the fall of Pinochet and return to democracy, the Mapuche had a resurgence in identity and political activism for the 1990s. This revival gained momentum after the passage of Chile's Indigenous law in 1993, which acknowledged Mapuche land rights to advocate for bilingual education, opening new paths for cultural reclamation. That same year, Mapuche representatives at the UN

Starting point is 01:11:36 pushed for Chile to adopt ILO Convention 169, a key Indigenous rights treaty, but Chile didn't actually ratify the convention until 2008. Despite the established run to the National Cooperation of Indigenous Development, or CONADI, in 1993 to facilitate Indigenous inclusion in policymaking, Mapuche involvement in such state institutions has not guaranteed genuine representation. Several CONADI leaders who openly advocated for Mapuche autonomy or pushed against corporate interests have been removed from their positions. In 2015, Governor Francisco Juan Chumilla, a pro-Mapuche advocate in Araucana, was removed from his position due to his support for legal reforms recognizing Mapuche rights. He can't go in and change the system. System changes you, it gets you out of the way. With the intensification of extractive industries encroaching on Mapuche lands,

Starting point is 01:12:29 a wave of activism emerged specifically aimed at protecting secret territories and the environment. Mapuche activists have frequently stood up against forestry companies, hydroelectric projects, and multinational corporations that have aimed to exploit their resources, them engaging in land occupations and protests for land restitution and environmental protection. The Chilean state's reaction to Mapuche activism is entirely predictable. Harsh repression. Under anti-terrorism legislation, Mapuche activists face heightened police surveillance, imprisonment, and accusations of terrorism. A tactic which is universally used to delegitimize resistance to injustice and violence and exploitation and destruction.

Starting point is 01:13:14 It is kind of one of those magic words that has been increasingly invoked in the past 20 years. Yeah. Terrorists is a magic word. Illegal is another magic word. Yeah. They're all just like dehumanization terms, right? Like, you are not a person, you are not an ex, you are not, well, whatever.

Starting point is 01:13:30 You are a terrorist. And terrorists do not have the same rights as humans. It's not a war crime if you do it against a terrorist. Luke Skywalker was not a terrorist. You are a terrorist. You know? But no, whether you're fighting in an actual resistance movement was not a terrorist. You are a terrorist. But no, like like whether you're like fighting in like an actual resistance movement or you're just attending like a protest in an American city, both of those can now become quote unquote terrorists or or you're some like

Starting point is 01:13:59 the level clerk who just happens to be within his will. Yeah. Or you're a daughter of a low level clerk who is picking up a pager and oops, I guess your dad shouldn't have been a terrorist and like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, the media has a big part to play in all this. You know, terrorist as a term is associated with certain stereotypes about various groups of people.

Starting point is 01:14:28 The past few years it's been the machete and AK waving Islamist fighter, but in other time periods it was another prominent stereotype. The Black 70s or revolutionary or Viet Cong. And in the Chilean situation, media portrayals have also reinforced stereotypes of Mapuche violence, which of course serves the role of obscuring the reality of their fight for justice and environmental stewardship. It hasn't all been for naught, the Mapuche struggle. That is, they have had a few legal triumphs. Rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has held Chile accountable as much as any

Starting point is 01:15:15 state has actually held accountable for violates of Mapuche rights. Grassroots groups and its collectors worldwide have also supported Mpuche efforts. But currently these small victories and triumphs are really not much. They're not enough. Within the broader Mpuche movement, you do have the reformists and the assimilationists, and you have groups like Koordinadora Arauko Maeko, or CAM, and their splinter group which is Wai Chan Aukka Mapu. And they have adopted separatist stances, advocating for direct action such as land occupations and resistance against state forces, because they view autonomy and territorial reclamation as essential to Mpuche sovereignty, and they have no interest in compromise with the extractive industries and

Starting point is 01:16:04 governments that are responsible for their suffering. Traditionally, these groups are focused on acts of economic sabotage against companies that are infringing on their lands and their stewardship. Within wider Chilean society, there's still some prejudice against Mapuche, particularly, but not exclusively, from the right wing. But Chile's 2019 uprising against inequality and government abuses found strong support and allyship between right-wing Chilean society and Umpuche communities, who had seen echoes of their own grievances in national protests.

Starting point is 01:16:41 The protests were initially sparked by a metro fare hike, but they quickly became a national movement demanding systemic reform. In both urban and rural spaces, Mapuche communities joined or supported protesters by resisting continued government policies that marginalised their communities and undermined their cultural rights. Mapuche symbols and flags emerged prominently, aligning indigenous struggles with these broader demands for social justice. And the government response, can you predict, was swift and severe. Military and police forces were deployed to use excessive violence.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Mapuche knew about this, but some of the Chileans, they're experiencing this for the first time. And this mutual experience of repression reinforced alliances between the Mapuche and other Chilean activists as both faced the state-driven violence of propaganda that portrayed them as radicals and terrorists and extremists. So despite the crackdown, the uprising saw unprecedented support for the Mapuche cause, amplifying calls for restitution of indicious lands, formal recognition of Mapuche cause, amplifying calls for restitution of Indigenous lands, forming recognition of Mapuche rights in a reformed constitution, and a decolonial approach to governments that

Starting point is 01:17:49 respects Indigenous autonomy. The 2019 protests laid the groundwork for a national constitutional reform, with significant Mapuche involvement and public support. The drafting of the new constitution in 2021 raised the potential for ensuring Indigenous rights, with Mappu-che representatives actively participating in the process and creating renewed optimism for meaningful legal protections that respect Mpu-che culture, territory, and autonomy. That somewhat progressive attempt at a constitutional reform, which also included gender equality

Starting point is 01:18:19 measures, was rejected. As in there was another attempt just last year in 2023, but it was a very conservative attempt shaped by the far-right Republican Party, which tricked up revisions on immigration, a ban on abortion, and a free market focus that did not resonate with the majority of voters. 55.8% voted against the 2023 draft, and 44.2% in favour. Chilean President Gabriel Boric, whose administration had supported constitutional change, acknowledged that further attempts at constitutional reform were unlikely.

Starting point is 01:18:56 So for now, Chile continues to be governed by the constitution that dates back to the dictatorship of Pinochet, while its leaders are looking at alternative paths for addressing social, economic, and environmental issues, in line with Chilean public opinion. If you know anything about me and my positions, you'll know that I'm not confident in the ability of states to meaningfully respect people's agency and autonomy ever, but I wish the Mapuche all the best wherever their struggle goes. And I've personally found their story very impactful. It's one of resilience, adaptability and days of centuries of adversity. They've had an unyielding desire to maintain their connection to the land and cultural identity and their ongoing fight is really just a testament to the power of solidarity.

Starting point is 01:19:42 And that's it for me. This has been It Could Happen Here. Wall power to all the people. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

Starting point is 01:20:31 You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeart

Starting point is 01:20:58 radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift.

Starting point is 01:21:19 I know. She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. It felt like when you were on the plane ride coming home, texting with your dad about whether or not she was alive still, there was almost an acceptance from you that that was the way

Starting point is 01:21:39 it was going to be instead of sometimes, you know, we resist and fight the reality that we're in. I think a lot of my lifetime has been acceptance. There's been a lot of things where I've just had to, like there's nothing to do other than surrender to what's happening. I just kept feeling like in the moment, the only way out is through.

Starting point is 01:21:57 I just felt like I had to feel it all and had to be present through it. Find Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

Starting point is 01:22:22 An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shape-shifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul.

Starting point is 01:23:13 And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the BlackFatFilm Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh, chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angela Carrasque and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

Starting point is 01:23:37 or whatever you get your podcast, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? No, that's right. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Okay, hi everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen here.

Starting point is 01:24:19 Today we're very lucky to be joined by Vladimir von Wilhelmberg, who's an underground journalist who covers Syria and Kurdistan. He's written two books, including one on the alliance between the SDF and the coalition. Is that a fair introduction, Vladimir? Yeah, you can call it like that. Thank you so much for joining us.

Starting point is 01:24:41 There has obviously been a massive increase in a massive change in the conflict in Syria in the last week or so, just under a week. And I think the information that's available to people is often very bad, very delayed or one side or other putting out propaganda things, which mischaracterize the situation on the ground, especially with regard to the Syrian national army, who we're going to talk about. Would you mind giving us a sort of very brief explanation of what has happened since last Wednesday when HTS, who we'll have to explain later, launched their operation against Aleppo? Well, in general, I mean, the current situation in Aleppo came to a surprise to many.

Starting point is 01:25:26 Many people didn't expect it. So just after the ceasefire in Lebanon, the Hayat al-Taghri al-Rushan, which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda. So they said they don't have relations with Al-Qaeda anymore. They split off from Al-Qaeda. They launched a big operation in Aleppo against the Syrian government or the Syrian regime, whatever you want to call it. I think initially they didn't think that they would go so far all the way into Aleppo city.

Starting point is 01:25:52 There have been agreements between Russia, Iran, and Turkey and Syria in Astana about the deconfliction zone in the Northwestern province of Idlib. So the HDS insurgents, they claim they launched this operation towards Aleppo in response to violation of this Astana agreement. So according to that agreement, this area will be in control of the HDS and the other area will be in control of the regime and they wouldn't bother each other. But this agreement was never really implemented. I mean, for instance, Russia, they were constantly bombing Idlib. Sometimes the HCS would attack regime positions. Also,

Starting point is 01:26:29 according to this deconfliction zone, actually the Syrian government and Iranian-backed armed groups, they went actually in that deconfliction zone was supposed to be controlled by the Syrian insurgents. So they launched this operation in response to the, they say the violations by the Syrian government. And I think because when they realized that the defenses of the Syrian government were very weak, they pushed further into Aleppo and it was not really planned to take the city of Aleppo. Although there's also a video of Jullani, the leader of HDS saying that my brothers one day we're going to be in Aleppo. So maybe it was planned. We don't know really for sure. But the fact is that the Syrian government defenses collapsed.

Starting point is 01:27:10 And for some people in the region, it was a sort of reminded of the days of Mosul when the Iraqi army, they fled Mosul in 2014 and then ISIS took over. Although the HDS really denied that they are similar to ISIS, although they have a similar Islamist ideology. So they took the city of Aleppo in three days and they have been trying to go up towards Hama, a city more up. So far they haven't been able to take the city. And on the other hand, you also have another group called the Syrian National Army, which is groups composed of basic groups that were supported by the Turkish government. They also started to move.

Starting point is 01:27:51 They also started to carry out operations against Kurdish led forces, also known as the Syrian Democratic Forces or the YPG. And also they started to do operations against the Syrian government in above Al Bab and also in northern Aleppo. And they took also several towns in northern Aleppo and also they advanced. And I think their main reason of that, so while the HDS is primarily mostly fighting against the Syrian government, I think the Syrian National Army, because it's backed by Turkey, they also have an interest to undermine the Syrian Democratic Forces because Turkey in the past they have said they don't want to have a second Kurdish autonomous region

Starting point is 01:28:29 in the region because we have already one in Iraq after which became recognized after the fall of Saddam. So you have a Kurdistan region in Iraq and Turkey was sort of afraid to have a second Kurdistan region in Syria, especially because it's kind of created by a group which has ideological affiliation with the PKK, they follow the ideology of the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, which Turkey sees as a terrorist organization. So it's very complex, which we always keep saying about Syria. But you basically have two different operations. You have the Turkish back groups that are trying to stop the Kurds from linking up with Aleppo. And then you have the HDS, the Islamist groups that are trying to go up and they already took Aleppo and they also took many areas in the countryside of Hama.

Starting point is 01:29:18 And actually, they now control all of Idlib province. So in the past, the Syrian government, they controlled some parts of Idlib, but now they control the HDS, they control all of Idlib. Yeah. So I think if we start by looking, I think most people who listen to this will be familiar with the SDF, with the autonomous administration in Northeast Syria and with the Rojava revolution. And they'll be wondering kind of the question I get mostly it's like, how does this impact that, that's what people are asking. So with that in mind, I think we should explain perhaps we've talked before in this show about operation peace spring, you've ready shield, are these Turkish

Starting point is 01:29:58 incursions into previously SDF controlled areas and the genocidal violence that accompanied that or ethnic cleansing, however you want to phrase it. Can you explain what's happened in the areas where the SNA have advanced and like what that's meant for the Kurdish people who live there or in some cases are still there? Yeah, in the northern Aleppo and Aleppo city, so you have two Kurdish neighborhoods called Ashrafiyah and Sheikh Maqsud. There are around 100 to 200,000 people living there. Then you have also two small Kurdish towns called Tel Aran and Tel Hassal, which have

Starting point is 01:30:36 changed hands constantly during the Syrian civil war between the YPG, the Syrian government and Iran, then by the rebels, then by ISIS, then by Al Qaeda, like it was a big mess. Then you have also, you have like Kurds that were displaced from Afrin because Turkey, they carried out an operation against the YPG in 2018. So you have thousands of Kurds that left Afrin. So the statistics are a bit unclear, but at least there were around 10,000 IDPs living in camps in northern Aleppo,

Starting point is 01:31:06 and you also have people living outside of the camp. So the statistics are always a bit unclear, but they now say that there were around 10,000 families that were displaced. So they were already displaced from Afrin before. And there's this town of Teleraphat, which has been a strategic location in Aleppo, because it was sort of like opening up the way to Aleppo city. And the Kurdish-backed forces, they took actually this town with Russian support from the Turkish-backed rebels. So they had like grievances about this town. But Turkey, even during the Afrin operation, they didn't get the green light to take this town from the Kurdish back groups.

Starting point is 01:31:47 Also the Syrian government was there, by the way, after agreements. So this town always was like a focal point of contention between the Kurds and the Syrian insurgents. So what happened after HCS took Aleppo, the Syrian National Army with the backing of Turkey, they moved on towards Tala Rafa'at. And also because in the past there was more a balance in Aleppo because you have also two small towns called Nubal and Zahra. They were like prominently inhabited by people from the Shia religion.

Starting point is 01:32:20 So there were Iranian back groups there and they were in the back of Tala Rafa'at. So they were sort of as a balance. So they sort of like the Kurds were able to hold out in Tala Rafaad despite like many offensive by the Turkish back groups. So what happened because of basically all the Syrian government, they were removed from Aleppo and as a result, like they were very weak and completely isolated. I mean, until now there's Kurdish forces in Astrafia and Sheikh Maksud, but they're completely surrounded and embargoed by the HDS, which is not something new because

Starting point is 01:32:51 before this conflict, this new renewed conflict in Aleppo, the Syrian government was also imposing embargoes on those two neighborhoods, not allowing food and stopping electricity and bothering people at checkpoints because they had like always issues with the Kurdish-led forces because they are sort of in the Syrian civil war. They have always played sort of a third role. Like they want to have their autonomy. Then you have the Syrian armed groups. They're trying to topple the Syrian government. And then you have the Syrian government trying to stop this from happening.

Starting point is 01:33:20 And then the Kurdish-led forces were trying to create an autonomous administration. And they got some support from the US in the fight against ISIS since the Battle of Kobani. So yeah, this is like the situation in Aleppo. So now what happened is that Tehrafat, where in 2016 the Arabs of Tehrafat, they fled actually this after the SDF, the YPG took this town. So now the Syrian rebels, they took this town. And this time that the people that fled from Afrin to these towns that they were living around

Starting point is 01:33:51 four or five, six IDP camps there, they were forced to flee. So the Kurdish groups, they were like trying to resist the SNA advances, but they were not able to resist them because they were completely surrounded. Because as I mentioned, Nubul and Zahra fell. So they were like completely pinched from all sides. But before there had always like Nubul and Zahra behind them. So they couldn't not be completely surrounded.

Starting point is 01:34:12 But this time they were completely surrounded. They were forced to leave. They were not able to continue the fight. So I think there was like a de facto deal or something because you saw like convoys with actually with fighters with weapons and armed humvees they were like being escorted to checkpoints and they were allowed to cross towards Tapka actually a town in northeastern Syria and maybe most likely the the US they were involved in a sort of de facto deal and Turkey but so far the US they haven't commented

Starting point is 01:34:40 on that but most likely there was sort of a deal for the forces in Tarrafah to leave with the civilians. And they are now hosted in displacement camps in the town of Tabqa. And then there are still Kurds living, as I mentioned, in Ashrafiyah and Sheikh Mahsoud, the two big neighborhoods in Aleppo. And then you have also two small Kurdish towns around the Al-Hassa, which are now controlled by the Syrian National Army, the Turkish backed groups. Yeah. So the Hayat al-Tahrir, some of their local administration, they offered the deal to the Kurdish fighters. They said, you can leave these two Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo without any issues. And the Kurds that are living there, we respect them and they can stay there.

Starting point is 01:35:18 But the Kurdish fighters, they have to leave. But then there was a statement, I think yesterday by the leader of the SEF, the Muslim Abdi, he was saying like we were forced to evacuate the people because we were trying to create a corridor between these Kurdish enclaves in Aleppo with the rest of North East Syria because they are like Turkish backed rebels and the Syrian government in between. Yeah. They were trying to make a corridor. So they said this corridor was actually was broken and they were forced to evacuate. But he said that the British forces were still in Aleppo

Starting point is 01:35:49 resisting. Yeah. So it seems that the YPG didn't completely follow this offer of the HDS. But of course, we don't know if there was maybe a backdoor deal with the HDS to allow first people in northern Aleppo to leave and then maybe in a later phase that they will also leave Aleppo because they are there in a quite difficult situation. Yeah, very difficult situation. But they're now accused by the Syrian rebels that they are positioning snipers in Aleppo and that they are still Aleppo, but they never left Sheikh Mahsud and Astrafiyah. What I also talked to people, they're saying that civilians, they were offered in Sheikh Mahsud and Astrafiyah to leave that area if they wanted to leave. So and Astrafia to leave that area if

Starting point is 01:36:25 they wanted to leave. So they were not forced to leave that. They had the opportunity to leave that area if they wanted, but then the buses didn't show up and they didn't leave. Because I mean, they not only evacuated Kurdish civilians from northern Aleppo, but I think they also evacuated the Shia population of Dubro-Zaghra. There were some talks also that they were also evacuated to Northeast Syria because they don't feel safe for their lives if those rebels take those areas Yeah, and they are still there. They don't want to be captured by the rebels and used as hostages or

Starting point is 01:36:57 So most likely they left with the Kurds to North East Syria. What will happen to them? They probably go to Iraq or to other areas in syria yeah you meet like um in northeast syria you meet sometimes like either former regime soldiers or people who have left regime areas and and like they've made their lives there So now we have the situation where we have these two little islands, we'll just call them YPG for the ease of not introducing another acronym, right? Of like Kurdish armed folks in Aleppo. To complicate this further, and people will probably have seen this, I want to explain it, in Deir Ezzor we have a different situation, right? We have the SDF attacking Iranian-backed militias and the regime.

Starting point is 01:37:53 Do you feel comfortable explaining what's going on in Deir Ezzor and why that's a different calculus? Yeah, so since the incoming President Donald Trump, when he pulled out troops from Syria in 2019, when Turkey did an offensive against the Kurds in Talabia and Ras al-Ain, at that point, the US, they left. But then there was so much criticism from both Democrats and Republicans that he was forced to come back. So until now, there are still 900 US troops in Deir Ezzor province and in Hasakah province,

Starting point is 01:38:25 which is actually not a lot because if you look to, for instance, South Korea, there are thousands of troops in South Korea and other places. So it's not a lot, but in the US discussions, it's always discussed, oh, we have troops in Syria. But actually, compared to other countries, it's not a very big number, 900 people. No, not at all. Very small footprint. So they have this small footprint in Deir ez-Zor and Hasakah and they basically, they

Starting point is 01:38:48 worked with the Kurdish led forces since the Battle of Kobani to basically defeat the ISIS caliphate because it was a threat to European security and US security and they were trying to carry out attacks in Europe and there were many attacks in Europe and when civilians were killed. So you have to send the ISIS fight. This is one of the reasons actually why the Kurdish led forces, they were forced to go to Deir ez-Zor because it was their last bastion in 2019 when they defeated the territorial caliphate of ISIS. So since there you have this the SCF there and they have their

Starting point is 01:39:18 own administration in Deir ez-Zor and they have like local forces and Arabs that joined them in the fight against ISIS. So what happened to that in the last few years, in the last one or two years, there have been attempts by the Syrian government and Iranian back groups basically to recruit our tribes to fight against the SDF. So there have been several skirmishes and battles since that time. After also the SDF, they arrested a commander of them that they thought he was like going to betray them. Yeah. So since that time there were like several skirmishes between

Starting point is 01:39:52 these malicious that are calling themselves the tribal army or something in that regard. And then you have the SDF. So you had like fights between the Iranian back groups and the SDF. And recently with all the changes in Syria, there were a number of villages around seven, six villages that were actually Russian army was based in those villages. It was like the line sort of dividing the US backed SDF forces and the Syrian government forces. And there is also a river. But those villages, they were like in front of the river. So the river is sort of naturally dividing the areas between the SDF and the Syrian government. But there were like still a number of villages that were not on that line.

Starting point is 01:40:31 And actually there were Russian troops based in that villages. But with the whole crisis with Aleppo and the fight now between the HDS and the Syrian government in Hama, the Russians, they moved out from those villages. So those villages, they're actually are almost empty. There is nothing there. So during this situation, they, SDF, they just moved in those villages and there was actually not so much fighting, although on the social media I see they all there's fighting and this kind of stuff. So there was some, over this like the last one or two years, they have been heavy fighting between the SDF and Iranian Pak groups, but in these villages,

Starting point is 01:41:09 not so much because it was just empty villages and they just took them over and there was no one there. Yeah, okay. So that leaves us with like, I guess, AANES getting a little bit larger in the south and then smaller in the west. Yeah, very much smaller in the west. And it's even not clear if they can keep their presence in Aleppo because I mean, Sheikh Mahshut and Ars Raufi are now completely surrounded by the HDS. And it seems that the HDS, they have been a little bit softer with the SDF and the YPG than the SNA because the SNA, I mean, they have their issues because they're also backed by the Turkish government.

Starting point is 01:41:49 And the Turkish government, they always said their policy is basically to stop the SDF from creating autonomous area. And they also said the SDF is linked to the PKK, although the SDF, they deny links to the PKK. Although they don't deny their ideological affiliation with the imprisoned PKK leader. So Turkey always said that they are feeling threatened and they have always claimed that attacks were planned on Turkey from northeast of Syria from Rojava on Turkey. Although the SDF have denied that.

Starting point is 01:42:19 I think there was also, there was not so long time ago, there was also an attack in Ankara and Turkey also claimed that it was carried carry plant from Kurdish citizens in Syria. So that's like the situation. Yeah, that gives us a pretty good summary a bit, because I think you're going to see one of two things, right? When we talk about the SNA and HTS, a lot of outlets will just collapse them under the same descriptor. They will just say Syrian rebels. And I think people will think of the original largely secular uprising in Syria in 2011.

Starting point is 01:43:06 And if they have not been paying attention, they'll realize that ISIS has been in gone, but they'll think, oh, these must be the same guys. These are not the same guys. Well, some of them may be the same guys who originally part like Jelani was originally sent there by Baghdadi way back to be part of ISIS. But these are not the secular rebels who originally rose up in Syria. And so can you explain like, HTS has this very interesting kind of legitimacy project, right? Like it's trying to build a pseudo state and present like a kind of gentler jihadism. I don't know how to say it, but

Starting point is 01:43:40 can you explain a little bit of this transformation of HTS and what you make of it? Can you explain a little bit of this transformation of HDS and what you make of it? I mean, as you mentioned that the Jullani the current leader of the HDS he was sent by at that time. I think it was the Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq Yeah, Syria basically to establish like But at that time there was no ISIS yet I think so so later basically he refused to pledge allegiance and he basically did his own thing. He created Jabal al-Nusra, which was the affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

Starting point is 01:44:14 But then he decided to basically split from Al-Qaeda and he denounced his links to, I think at that time the leader was Zawahiri but I'm not sure. So he basically splits from Al-Qaeda and you still have a split-off group from Al-Qaeda in Idlib. It's called Hura Saldin, which they actually had issues with. They had some problems with them. So HDS, although ISIS territory was defeated in 2019, the HDS or they basically with all the craze in Syria, because I mean, they have been fighting over all the problems between the Syrian government and different Syrian

Starting point is 01:44:50 armed groups. They managed to sort of cement that control in the province of Idlib and they created their own little administration there. But despite that, they say that we don't have any links to Al Qaeda. I mean, they're still listed by for instance, the US as a terrorist organization. Yeah. There's a $10 million bounty on Jilani still, right? They just never took it away from.

Starting point is 01:45:09 Yeah. So, I mean, it seems that the US doesn't believe this moderation idea that the HES tries to show them more moderately. But my idea of the HES is more like a sort of lighter, softer version of ISIS. I mean, they're not like ISIS that they're gonna broadcast people being blown up or beheaded on the film screen. It's just that they do it in the back of the screen. I mean, there's people being executed according to the Islamic Sharia law.

Starting point is 01:45:36 There are people being imprisoned. I mean, you also had protests actually in Idlib against Jelani that they were actually opposed to the authoritarian rule. And I think then you have separate from the sort of this Islamic Islamist, which you can actually sort of compare to the Taliban. Yes, I think that's a good comparison. HDS to the Taliban. And also I think Taliban, they have some relations actually with the HDS and they also congratulated

Starting point is 01:46:00 the HDS after they took control of Aleppo. So sort of it's like a Taliban rule, although of course Taliban is very different context related to Syria culture and Afghan culture. So it's different, of course, but they're both Islamist projects with a national project at the same time. So it's Islamist project for Syria and the Taliban have an Islamist project for Afghanistan, although you also have Pakistani Taliban, etc. Yeah. So it's not like a transnational jihad but you can call it like a national jihad maybe. Yeah I think that's the crucial difference right at least for the US like that makes them kind of more amenable than ISIS or

Starting point is 01:46:37 even al-Qaeda is that yeah they have this nationally contained jihadi vision. But they don't do attacks in Europe or in the US. But of course, there are several groups in Idlib that are sort of falling under the control of HDS that are possibly could do external attacks, etc. And apart from that, you have the Syrian National Army. So the Syrian National Army, it's like a mix of different groups. As you mentioned, in the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, you had the F Syrian Army. But then the Free Syrian Army split in several groups. Some linked to Muslim Brotherhood, some linked to Turkmen groups, other groups, secular groups, etc. All these groups that were basically fighting in different provinces, they were all gathered because Turkey did several Turkish military, did several operations since 2016 in

Starting point is 01:47:28 northern Syria with the main aim is to stop the YPG from linking up the Kurdish enclaves on the border with Turkey. So they did, I think the first one was Euphrateshield, then they had, I think, operation Olive Branch in Afrin in 2018. Yeah, incredible names. Then I think the last operation I can't recall was in 2019 when they took Talabiyat and Serekania from the Kurdish forces, the YPG SDF. So they have these preoperations and these groups are sort of a mix, as I mentioned, of different groups with also different ideologies.

Starting point is 01:48:04 Some are more Turkmen in nature. Some of them are more Islamist in nature. Some of them are like sort of leftovers from secular groups that use to fight. Some of them, even in the past, they received support from the US, from the CIA against the Syrian regime. So some of them, they received support. This is like a sort of umbrella of several organizations. So HDS is one group and they control also other groups in it, but it's one group. But the SNA,

Starting point is 01:48:32 there are like a lot of different groups. And they also have been fighting each other several times in areas on Turkish control. So this is very different and they are more sectarian in nature, let's say more. I mean, they have also been less under control than the HDS in the way that there have been a lot of kidnappings for ransom, a lot of like sexual violence against women, rape. This is all documented by several organizations, UN organizations. They also have child soldiers. So they have different kind of issues and, but they have been more accused of like more sort of gang style of activity. And that's why also some of them they were sanctioned by the US.

Starting point is 01:49:11 And also some of them they have integrated like ISIS, former ISIS fighters in their ranks. And you also have like, for example, you have some groups are from Deir ez-Zor, the other are originally from the area around Mara or Azaz. Some of them they are displaced from Ghouta. So a lot of them also came because the Syrian government they advanced with Russian support and then these groups were brought by buses to the areas under Turkish control. So these areas became a sort of like, maybe it's a bad word, a sort of a dumping ground for all these Syrian rebel groups that were not completely defeated, but displaced by Syrian government and offenses with the Russian support.

Starting point is 01:49:51 So I mean, before they were in Aleppo and Homs and Hama and Damascus, all these groups, they were moved with buses through agreements between Iran, Turkey, Russia and Syria to northern Syria, to Idlib. And now these groups, they are coming back because they were never completely defeated. I mean, they had their own administration. So the Syrian national army, they fall under the Turkish backed Syrian opposition. I think they call it the Syrian national coalition or in Arabic, the Italaaf. So they have their own interim government administration in the areas under Turkish Turkish control and then you have the salvation government under the HES.

Starting point is 01:50:27 So there are two different administrations and they also doesn't mean that they agree with so. So just calling them the rebels, it's a little bit like, yeah, it doesn't really fit to the reality. But of course, you also have to deal with the fact that for media, if they want to explain complex situations to a general public, it's very difficult to just say, okay, you have this acronym and you have this acronym and you have the YPSTUGA and the AGS and the SNA. So people, they will lose their interest.

Starting point is 01:50:57 So that's why it's always become a sort of this black and white. So, oh, you have the Syrian insurgents and then you have the Syrian government. And then it's already complex enough to also add Kurds to the mix. So, they also, versus often the Turkish government, they got very angry that the media keeps calling the YPG the Kurds because, oh, they don't represent the Kurds. But you can say that with any group in Syria or anywhere in the world. I mean, you have an Americans, you have different political parties, you have different parties in Syria, you have different parties in Turkey. So these groups don't represent all the Syrians or all the Arabs or all the Kurds or all the otherwise. They're always different political factions. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:33 And that's what makes it so complicated in Syria, because a lot of these groups got fragmented. But actually with versus the support of Turkey, they actually united on the one umbrella, which is called the Syrian National Army. Yeah. And then of course, even on the Syrian government side, there's many different groups. I mean, you have Iranian-backed armed groups, you have groups from Lebanon that are helping the Hezbollah, Lebanese Hezbollah, then you have Iraqi Iranian-backed groups that are supporting the Syrian government, then you have also Shias that were recruited from Afghanistan. And then also in the Syrian government security structure, I mean, in the past, there was no room for militias, but they have, for instance, the NDF, which is sort of like a Syrian government backed militia, which even sometimes fought with the Syrian government itself when they tried to become more too much powerful, sort of like what you have

Starting point is 01:52:18 in Wagner in Russia that tried to challenge the Russian government and then they got curtailed. So it's like even with the Syrian sort of the forces backing the Syrian army, it's not like so simple. It's also not you have just the Syrian army. That's it. You have also different kind of militias, some supported by Iran, some supported by Russia that are backing the Syrian government. Yeah, everyone wants. I think Ukraine has really reinforced this, they want war to be like colors on a map and a front line and the front line moves and that's just not how it like, oftentimes those little lines on a map will be, in reality it's people driving around and pick up trucks with Tushkas in the back wondering where the other guys are and what's going on. It's not like Ukraine where you have trenches and people firing at each other from trench lines who gradually move. As much as it would be easy to have modelists, we just don't in Syria. Yeah, I mean, in Syria it's different because there are more religious and ethnic

Starting point is 01:53:16 groups than in Ukraine. I mean, in Ukraine you have the Ukrainians and the Russians and you also have people speaking Russian in other areas of Ukraine but it's much more complex in Syria although you obviously also have different groups fighting in Ukraine but in Syria it's a bit more complex and it's difficult for the media to get a grip on that without like you know like trying to also explain to a normal reader what is going on in Syria but But also in general you have all this international media that are cutting down costs and they're closing their foreign bureaus. So also I mean the money for like extensive reporting in Syria is also getting less or in general in internationally speaking. Yes. And then you have another problem is that you have the problem of access in Syria. So

Starting point is 01:54:01 if you are wanting to go to the Syrian government areas, very difficult because if you have reported in Syrian rebel areas, the Syrian government is not going to give you a visa. You have to be like very pro-Syrian government. If you go to the areas under rebel control, to be honest, like it's very difficult for any journalists to go to HDS areas or the Syrian national army area. So even if a journalist wants to report positively about the rebels, it's very difficult. They have like a press adequate station in Turkey and they have to cross the border. It's very complicated. So there's barely in very rare cases, journalists going into Northwest Syria. And then with the Kurdish controlled areas, if you can call them like that,

Starting point is 01:54:42 like North East Syria, it's a bit easier. I mean, there are people flying through to Iraqi Kurdistan and then they can get like permission from the Kurdish authorities here in Iraqi Kurdistan and then they can cross the border. So it's a bit easier, but the number of journalists going there is very limited. And most of the interest actually of the Western media was not so much about the Syrian conflict. It was more about this Western ISIS woman and ISIS fighters that were jailed or held in camps in North East Syria. So most of the focus of the Western media was most of the time, okay, what's happening in the whole camp because you have thousands of ISIS families there or in versus in the prison. So, I mean, the American journalists were interested in US Daesh fighters and the Dutch were interested in Dutch. ISIS families are

Starting point is 01:55:26 fighters and the same for many other countries. Yeah, the British media is terrible for that. They go to North East Syria and they're not talking about North East Syria. And this whole just exists as kind of a bubble outside of context in that reporting. Yeah, they just talk about Shamima Begun and she became sort of a celebrity in the UK. Yeah. Although I think even that address nowadays, it's like very limited because a lot of these

Starting point is 01:55:51 European countries in the UK, they have their own domestic issues. So also in general, the interest in Syria has gone down a lot. And I think also with this current conflict in Aleppo, it will get some attention in the media for a few days, but at some point it's gonna go down again. Yes, of course. Unless, and maybe there will be conflicts in other parts of the world again. So I think at some point also this media attention, because the media attention for Syria already was like very low. Yeah. Unless it's gonna affect Europe in a large extent, because it could also create new waves of refugees trying to go to Europe. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:56:27 There's many people that were displaced again. There was a very nice post on X by one journalist from, I think a Saudi outlet. And he was saying, it's very sad to see. He was basically saying like, at any moment, our people can be displaced at any time or can be displaced again. So that's like sort of the life of Syrians that live in these different like front lines, like anytime they can displace like the people are frashering, they were displaced in 2018. And now 2024, they're displaced again. And then you have people displaced by the Syrian government living in the houses of Kurds in Afrin. And they are also victims of this conflict. So

Starting point is 01:57:02 Yeah, so it's a very complicated situation. People being displaced, moving in the houses of displaced and displaced living in other people's houses that are also displaced. So it's like a very cynical and sad situation. Yeah, and a very, very difficult one for civilians. And certainly like with the changing government in the US, it seems unlikely that we will be reaching out to help those displaced civilians in the near future. And certainly we've seen a lot of Kurdish people who have been displaced either by Turkish aggression

Starting point is 01:57:36 or who there's a whole other situation with Kurdish areas in Turkey at the moment and their elections and sites which we don't have time to go into. But many of them have come to the US and I've interviewed lots of them for this show. So we've, I think people will be familiar with that. Vladimir, I think that's probably about all we have time for. But I wanted to offer you a chance. You have very good tweets. You have a very good understanding of the whole situation.

Starting point is 01:57:59 Your articles do an excellent job of making it understandable. So where can people find your writing and follow you? Well, I mean, you can find my tweets on my personal Twitter page, which is on my name, Vladimir van Wilgenburg, at xpvanwilgenburg. And also I write for different outlets and think tanks. Like for instance, I write for Middle East Eye, Fikra Forum from the Washington Institute. Also I've been writing some pieces for Carnegie. So yeah I've been writing for several places on the current situation. Yeah and sometimes I also do interviews. I've

Starting point is 01:58:36 talked on BBC a few times on the situation and on Deutsche Welle. So you can find my work on my Twitter profile, always post my articles there. And yeah, yep, that's great. Is there anything else you'd like to maybe suggest that people follow? I think it could be really easy to get a lot of propaganda when it comes to Syria. So is there anything you'd suggest that people kind of get their news from? Well, I mean, I think in general, it's still like a good platform. It has been from the beginning of the Syrian civil war, although of course you have different accounts with different views supporting different factions. So it's always good to verify any videos posted. Although

Starting point is 01:59:17 it's like more difficult to verify videos than pictures, but it's always good to verify locations and the background of people that are posting stuff. And then also I think it's always good to verify locations and the background of people that are posting stuff. And then also I think it's very interesting and good to follow the maps of the Syrian civil war because you have several places where they publish maps of the civil war. So it's easier to follow it on the map than by tweets or posts on X. But I think in general, I mean, I mean, there are still like many international media that are trying to do reporting on Syria, but I think in general, what mean, I mean, there are still like many international media that are trying to do reporting on Syria.

Starting point is 01:59:47 But I think in general, what I've seen is becoming more limited. And it's mostly based on, for instance, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. So the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a good source. They have a page in English and Arabic, although sometimes there are the English pages are a bit difficult to follow for people if they don't know the background of the conflict because it's more written for locals. And then also you have, for instance, there's this civil society organization that focuses on human rights abuses. I think it's called Syrians for Justice. They have very good reports on the situation, but it's a bit slow because it's not like 24 hours. I mean it's like they do an investigative reports on abuses by all sides of the Syrian civil conflict. Yeah. So in general I think Ix is very grouped and also like Telegram I mean a lot of these

Starting point is 02:00:35 different groups they have Telegram channels where they post the latest updates but of course all of them are quite biased but bias you will get anyway in such a conflict is inevitable. Yeah everyone's biased to a degree. You will see dead people a lot if you go following telegram channels of the Syrian civil war so if that's not something you'd like to see that's probably not a platform to be on. Big Dev, thank you so much for your time. I know it's late with you and we'll let you get to sleep. We do appreciate you joining us and hopefully people will follow you on Twitter and get good information about what's happening. You're welcome. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max.

Starting point is 02:01:30 You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

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Starting point is 02:02:28 Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say, as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know. She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know. You know, she certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. It felt like when you were on the plane ride coming home, texting with your dad about whether or not she was alive still, there was almost an acceptance from you that that was the way it was going to be instead of sometimes, you you know we resist and fight the reality that

Starting point is 02:03:09 we're in. I think a lot of my lifetime has been acceptance. There's been a lot of things where I've just had to like there's nothing to do other than surrender to what's happening. I just kept feeling like in the moment like the only way out is through. I just felt like I had to feel it all and had to be present through it. Find Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo.

Starting point is 02:03:36 Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Starting point is 02:04:16 Listen to Nocturne, Tales from the Shadows, as part of my cultura podcast network, available on the iHeart Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity

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Starting point is 02:05:35 app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that has increasingly become about it happening in other places in the world. I'm your host, Mia Wong. With me is Gare. Hello, hello. So, if I'm remembering correctly, and it is entirely possible I have forgotten several

Starting point is 02:05:56 coups that I've covered, I think this is the second coup that I've covered in six months. That feels right. And, you know, when we last left the dumbest coup I had ever seen in my entire life. We were in Bolivia, and it was a truly spectacularly stupid coup. That coup ended with the army running away from a bunch of protesters who were just like, yelling at them meanly. So that one had the thing I've never seen before, which is the army, the protesters were trying to bring something up to break a barricade and the army ran away before they could get the like

Starting point is 02:06:29 Anti-barricade thing up to the police barricade. So that was a disaster today We are talking about what I having now studied this like since it was since it started I genuinely believe this somehow is an even stupider coup I totally believe this somehow is an even stupider coup than the last one. Like, you have to go back to like the CIA coup in Venezuela where everyone just got like arrested by fishermen to fight the stupider coups in this. It is, and even that one, like at least they like landed guys with guns. It was over so quick. Like yeah, I think the official number is that

Starting point is 02:07:06 the amount of time the martial law was technically in effect before the assembly voted to get rid of it was 190 minutes. Like, people could have like, slept through this coup, which is really funny, right? I made an executive decision, right, and I was like, I'm gonna sleep in for one more hour, so I woke up at 8am instead of 7am, and I missed like, half of it. Because I slept for one more hour, so I woke up at 8 a.m. instead of 7 a.m. and I missed like half of it because I was just, I slept for one hour.

Starting point is 02:07:27 So let's get into a bit about what happened here because you know, as dumb as this looks now because it failed, this was, for people who don't know, there was an attempted coup in South Korea. I don't know what day it's gonna be when, I don't know what day it's gonna be when I don't know what day it's gonna be in Korea when this comes out because Yeah, but but on on Tuesday On our Tuesday on our Tuesday in like the the it was I think

Starting point is 02:07:59 1030 at night there the hideously unpopular president of Korea Sok-yeol Yoon, declared martial law. Yoon is... his approval rating is like half of Joe Biden's approval rating. Like his approval rating is like 20%. He is staggeringly unpopular. He... yeah, so Yoon won one election in 2022 very narrowly In a race where neither of the candidates were particularly good and he is a a hardline far right dipshit He's you know, I mean one of his big things he has this unbelievably hard line in north korea, which is not You know doing anything productive at all

Starting point is 02:08:43 he's also You know and this is like if you want to look at like who are his 20% of supporters left. He was the guy of the unbelievably unhinged Korean misogynist movement, I guess you would call them, who are some of the worst people on earth. I mean these are guys who will just... there was a court case recently that decided that you can't just like beat someone up for having short hair because you think they're a feminist. Like that's the kind of like unhinged misogynist that we're dealing with, that's Yoon's base.

Starting point is 02:09:13 However, comma, a couple of things have happened since then. One is that he's racked by like a thousand scandals. Everyone in his cabinet keeps getting impeached for doing corruption. There are so many different corruption scandals with him going on right now that I was considering like reading out a list of all Them as a joke, but it's too long one of the the important ones is that he was like Basically doing like a pay-for-play thing to like fuck with his own party's primary process

Starting point is 02:09:39 Nice and this has pissed off basically his entire party Which is great Which is exactly the thing you want to be doing right before you attempt to stage a coup is piss off your own political party so Alright, let's get to the coup His major problem. Well, one of his very major problems is that he hasn't been able to do anything Basically since he's been in power and the reason he hasn't been able to do anything is that his first sort of like off election was this unbelievably crushing electoral defeat for his party the National Assembly which is their like Parliament is just straight-up controlled by the opposition Democratic like liberal Democrat

Starting point is 02:10:16 Well, okay. Let me be very civic about this It's controlled by the opposition Democratic Party who are the sort of like Korean Liberal Party and also a bunch of like minor Allied opposition parties and they keep on again impeaching all of his cabinet members, which is very funny You know, he was trying to get a budget through and the budget got eviscerated and he hasn't been able to do it So he's been very very angry and very frustrated. And so his plan Apparently to deal with this was just to knock out the National Assembly. This is so funny because like because of who I am, I was talking about this at the bar last night, just completely insufferable. And the one thing I couldn't put together is like what his exact motivation was besides like rooting out like political enemies.

Starting point is 02:10:59 No one knows that he like labeled as like quote unquote anti-communist. Right. But it's like we were talking about like how funny this all is and I'm like I still can't quite understand like why he did it No one knows Like this is this is Jenny Wiley. Nobody has any idea why the fuck he thought this would work like the best thesis and we'll get to this in a bit the best thesis that I've seen is that He wanted to do this because he was pissed off with the fact that he hasn't literally been able to do Anything his entire time in office because he's really mad at the National Assembly and also his own party And it's so funny to do that and then have that be underscored by them

Starting point is 02:11:38 Like be like, um, no actually you can't do a coup. No, no, thank you Nice try legally. You cannot coup me Yeah, like I think the the semi-serious part of this is that it doesn't make any sense to me How this could have been done if there also wasn't a faction of the Korean military that wanted this right? The Korean military is I mean most of Korea's history still to this day, I think I think it's still a majority of the amount of time South Korea has been in existence has been under military dictatorship of various kinds. There's been a whole bunch of them. They were staggeringly hideous.

Starting point is 02:12:17 They killed unbelievable numbers of people. They tortured unbelievable numbers of people. They were fully backed by the United States. And the military has also always had this real chip on its shoulder about sort of liberal civilian politicians. And they have their version of like all of the conspiracy things that we have about how all Democrats are communists and how they're all like secretly, etc, etc. For this, it's like they're all secretly North Korea supporters, etc, etc. Right. And this is something I was also seeing yesterday, people being like, oh, wow, when did're all secretly North Korea supporters, etc. etc. Right, and this is something I was also seeing yesterday, people being like, Oh wow, when did South Korea become North Korea? And you're like, oh my god, that's so... That's like, what a weird like orientalist racist comment. This is the most South Korean thing to ever happen.

Starting point is 02:12:58 Yeah, this is like military coup and then military coup being overturned by protesters is the single most South Korean thing ever, right? Like this is just how South Korean history has been having the fucking assembly have to like break in in the middle of the night To vote. Yeah, it's so funny It's yeah, we're gonna get to the actual details of it a second But I want it I want to go back to what was actually in this declaration of martial law So the Korean Constitution does let you declare martial law, but you're only supposed to do it if there's like a war going on or like... If there's like an actual crisis happening.

Starting point is 02:13:30 Yeah, instead of just like, I'm mad I can't pass my budget, which used to be what was happening here. You feel bad on a Monday night and you're like, oh, I guess I'll declare martial law. Yeah, so, okay, I'm going to read some, I'm'm gonna read a thing about what was going on here about how unhinged this was from Hakura who which is a Korean media outlet quote commander park on sue announced quote martial law command Proclamation number one which by the way that that's how you know you're dealing with people who have done this before

Starting point is 02:14:01 When when they start doing their like decree number one, decree number two. Oh yeah, that's good. That is an experience, the side of like very, very experienced military coup people. Announced martial law command proclamation number one, based on the contents of prohibiting all political activities of the national assembly and local assemblies. The proclamation also included contents that controlled the press and publications and prohibited citizens' assemblies and demonstrations as well as strikes and work stoppages by workers. It is also notable that it included the content, quote,

Starting point is 02:14:34 all medical personnel, including residents who are on strike who have left the medical field, must return to their original work within 48 hours and work faithfully and violations will be published in accordance with the Martial Law Act. Now, it's important to note here if the thing you're trying to do is impose Martial Law on Korea, according to the Constitution. And obviously, if you're if you're in the state where you're opposing Martial Law, the law has kind of got out the window. But you can't get rid of the National Assembly.

Starting point is 02:15:02 That is not a thing that Martial Law allows you to do. In fact, very explicitly in the Korean Constitution, it says that the National Assembly can't be gotten rid of by martial law. So this suggests to me that, yeah, this was something that was also being sort of spearheaded by parts of the Korean military, because if you're not someone in the army who has their own interests in doing a coup and someone asks you to just like overthrow the Parliament Which is a thing that they're not allowed to do you just say no Which which also makes the failure of this and how unbelievably stupidly it was all put together even more baffling right because if we assume

Starting point is 02:15:41 That parts of the clicks in the army had to have been involved with this and Like we know and this only NPR talks about You is like fucked right? There's no way he's holding on to power He's screwed and he's gonna be that will make him the second Korean president in seven years to be ran out by mass protests and during the last set of Politicians who were getting ran out by mass protests the army actually started drafting Like procedures for how they were going to do a military takeover to like knock out the protests. And they never did it.

Starting point is 02:16:10 But this is this has been a thing that's been in the background for a long time. And the liberal establishment has been talking about how the right wants to bring back military rule for ages. This is a situation that in some ways is similar to Brazil, where the right has always been a sort of like, we like military rule kind of thing. But nobody actually seriously thought they would do it until they did. And, you know, I'm going to read one more thing before we go to ads here, which is he claimed that the National Assembly was, quote, the mastermind behind the downfall

Starting point is 02:16:40 of the country, which, okay, that's pretty normal, cool stuff. Quote, monsters and quote, anti-state forces seeking to overthrow the system. Now, again, he has just described the National Assembly, which is the Korean Parliament, as quote, anti-state forces seeking to overthrow the system, which now gives us the specter of the anarcho-parliament. I do wonder how much of this type of stuff is influenced by Trump's victory and the enemy within rhetoric. I'm not sure how much influence Trump has in South Korea. I know he has a degree of influence, like pop culture-wise, in Japan.

Starting point is 02:17:23 I'm not sure of his influence in South Korea, but like in terms of just like geopolitics, like that's very similar to the type of like deep state enemy within rhetoric that like Trump used to success. Yeah, I not like tie everything back to America, but like I this like subversive shit is sure stuff that you can trace back to like the original dictatorship. Right. Like this is a very, very old, long running thing in Korean politics. Shit is sure stuff that you can trace back to like the detail the original dictatorship, right? Like this is a very very old long-running thing in Korean politics Okay, we will get to the coup after I guess we get to a faction that didn't back the coup Which is the the the Korean capitalist class. So here are some ads salute to our comrades

Starting point is 02:18:10 We are back. Now I will say, it is true that this whole thing folded so quickly that we never really got a chance to see how the Korean capitalist class would have reacted, other than the fact that all of the newspapers immediately were like, what the fuck are you doing? So it's also worth noting, if you're trying to do a coup, right, there are four things that you need to do. You need to arrest your senior opposition political figures. You need to seize the radio stations. This includes, you know, today, like newspapers, TV stations, podcasts, obviously, you know,

Starting point is 02:18:40 streamers, you know, yeah, we're a vital part of the media infrastructure that must be controlled. I show speed or whatever his name is he has to come under your control you got to get a Ross locked in the cage fast I fast I think speed would have fucking gone just gone sicko mode on their special forces guys given how just like Unbelievably their asses got kicked um you know you have to seize the airports You have to take the major government buildings right so how many of these did this coup manage to do? They did like zero, right? They sort of kind of took most of the National Assembly. Yeah, but that lasted what, like an hour? Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that in a second.

Starting point is 02:19:16 So it seems like what we have reporting from the Democratic Party of Korea, they claim that the military attempted to arrest the head of the National Assembly, the head of the Democratic Party, and then also the head of the PPP, which is People's Power Party, which is Yoon's own party. So he tried to have the head of his own party arrested by Korean Special Forces. And it didn't work because none of them were at their offices It's so funny because they kept putting out these like arrest boards for like the opposition party his own party The assembly was like oh Nice price nice tricer Any old they did legitimately shut down some news outlets not was it you know that was sort of genuine

Starting point is 02:20:01 I saw reporters like fucking like fighting with the military in the streets. It was sick. Yeah Well, this is why this is such a bad idea, right? Like in the words of a football commentator whose name I'm forgetting right now who had the greatest cast light in all of human history. Oh, no Disaster what a bad idea Okay, just just from the logistics of this right pretty up on the list of countries You don't want to try to hold by military force is South Korea And there's a lot of reasons for this one You know you're dealing with like one of the largest industrial bases in the world the other thing is like this is an entire

Starting point is 02:20:38 country of protesters and Capitalist protesters very scary well but like like everyone fucking like fucking everyone in this country, either like was a protester when they were a fucking kid, or was one now, to the extent where like liberal members of parliament know how to build barricades. It's so cool. This actually mattered enormously, like fucking guys who are just like random aides,

Starting point is 02:21:01 there are videos of this, of just like random staffer guys like holding barricades from like against like paratrooper units and like like just random staffers like shooting fire extinguishers at armed special forces units like can you fucking imagine that shit in the US like it was very cool to see yeah like this is this is why this is such a terrible idea because everyone has a whole bunch of institutional memory and experience of this right right? Not just because, you know, the Democratic Party, right? Which is the party that this was largely targeted at. Most of like the elder statesmen of this party used to be Korean student protesters. Like they're all veterans of the campaigns that brought down the military

Starting point is 02:21:37 government. And it's not just that there's like a there's a memory of it. It's like there are protests outside the national assembly like every fucking day, right? Like again, the last time they brought down a prime minister with mass protests was seven years ago. This is a whole country of people who know how to do this shit. And for some reason, these idiots were like, we have no popular support whatsoever, and we're just gonna be able to like roll over this entire country in one night. So I think the plan was to hold the National Assembly and prevent the National

Starting point is 02:22:05 Assembly from convening so that there was nobody who could override the martial law order. Yeah, that sounds pretty basic, right? Just to keep them out of the building so that they can't do anything. Yeah. So they failed. Easy. Right? Oh, oh no, they failed. Yeah. So the thing, the problem here again is that you're dealing with an entire country that has been doing this for fucking ages, right? So they do this at like 1030 at night

Starting point is 02:22:24 and immediately what happens is just like a bunch of drunk guys in bars, like show up to the National Assembly. Like the moment I knew it was doomed was there. I was reading in The New York Times, they had an interview with this guy who showed up. This is again the part that I'm talking about this being a country of protesters. Like these guys aren't like leftist, like revolutionaries. Right. This is one of the guys they were talking to. They the New York Times, like they're journalists

Starting point is 02:22:45 on the ground, pulls over a random guy, and he's a 60 year old real estate agent, right? This is a guy who should be, like this should be the base of a military coup, right? This is a 60 year old man who does real estate. And he heard about this, it immediately, his, his lie was quote, this is the end. So he drove for a fucking hour at like one in the morning to show up to the National Assembly to go fight the army.

Starting point is 02:23:08 There was just no way this is gonna work. And so people, even though it's really late at night, people just flood out and suddenly there's all of these protesters in front of the National Assembly and they're doing shit like there's this unbelievable video of this soldier like tries to take a guy's phone. And this guy has some kind of martial arts training. It just grabs his arm and just spins him around It's the coolest thing Soldiers like well fuck this I'm not dealing with this shit and there was such like a resignation Yeah in the movements of that military officer be like it's just like well shit We could keep fighting, but why?

Starting point is 02:23:45 Like, what's the point? Like, why am I out here? It's midnight. I should be in bed. What's going on? And part of this too also, and this is a smart decision by someone, is that these guys weren't issued with actual bullets.

Starting point is 02:24:00 So when I say these guys, and this is the actual alarming part about this, is that these were largely Korean paratrooper units and Korean paratrooper units are some of the most unhinged like Fascist troops in the entire world like these are people who didn't just fight in the Korean War a bunch of these guys fought in Vietnam like on the American side They are notorious as the people who the military

Starting point is 02:24:25 has always used to sort of put down protests. One of the most famous examples of this is the Gwangju uprising in 1980, which was a pro-democracy uprising after one of the various stages of insane military coup stuff was going on in South Korea in 1980. And there's a large democratic uprising from sort of students and workers, there's a bunch of strikes, they take this area and the paratroopers come in and shoot them all they killed probably several thousand people and a lot of the Paratrooper units that were deployed to take the National Assembly were literally the same units that were sent in to crush this uprising in 1980 So this was in some ways very very scary, right? Because these are like again

Starting point is 02:25:05 ways very, very scary, right? Because these are like, again, these are the units that were sent in to shoot a bunch of fucking civilians in the streets in order to keep military rule intact. However, comma, this time, these pair of units just got the shit handed to them. So it's sort of unclear exactly what was going on in the National Assembly. It seemed like some National Assembly members were still there, But somehow, and we know part of how this happened, which is protesters were just there's a video of I think it was like the opposition leader, the protesters like, like pushed him up over a fence so he could break into the National Assembly and get past the military barricades. Like 190 lawmakers somehow like got into the National Assembly and barricaded themselves in This also shows a level of like dedication

Starting point is 02:25:50 Yeah, that I suspect none of none of our lawmakers would do They're not gonna they're not gonna break into the capital when it's surrounded by military guard You know we had this with January 6th, right? And like what what did our congresspeople do drew January 6th They all ran and hid I mean these are slightly different circumstances Yeah, this is true, but like but like you know okay, so if you look at There's been a lot of shit talking of the of the American people's willingness to protest in Stuff in in the light of like watching the Korean people overturn this coup in like three hours

Starting point is 02:26:24 And and I will point out that in 2020, this was literally four years ago, like we put the president of the United States in a bunker. People fought the secret service hand to hand outside the gates of the White House. Like the police in this country lost control of the centers of several major American cities. So like Americans will fight, right?

Starting point is 02:26:43 But can you imagine like Nancy Pelosi or like like Chuck Schumer or whoever was around like trying to set up bear like like setting up barricades to stop the army from like marching into like no it's unreal and these were good barricades too these were very well constructed barricades these were barricades that like are better than a lot of barricades I've seen set up by protesters over the like in the US over the last few years. And the consequence of this was that the National Assembly just voted for the coup to be over because they can just vote to say that the martial law is over.

Starting point is 02:27:19 And then the military kind of just like, well, shit and just kind of left. I mean, they waited in the wings for a little bit. Yeah. And we were all curious to see what the president was going to do after the assembly was like, uh, nice try, sir. And I guess we will talk about that after another message from these ads. And we are so back. We are so back. It has never been more over for President Yun.

Starting point is 02:27:52 That is true. It has never been more over. So part of the part of the weird part about this is that Yun just like vanishes for most of this. Like we don't hear from him until like the morning when he announces that he's going to roll back the martial law thing, but he needs his cabinet there to do the vote. So he's going to do it later. I don't know. But the troops have already all pulled out by this point. And like they go back to their barracks after the National Assembly is like,

Starting point is 02:28:18 what the fuck? So there's been a lot of hay made about how 190 members of the National Assembly showed up and every single one of them voted to end martial law and like that's cool But I've seen a lot of people be like, oh look at how democratic the PPP which is the the right-wing party that unions a part of is from like they voted to do it But like okay. Yes, it was this was a unanimous vote I need everyone to understand that there were 300 members of the National Assembly and that means that means 110 of them didn't show Up and that of the people who showed up there were only 18 members yeah of the PPP who showed up to this now and part of that like it is true it is it was a bit difficult to get through the fucking military occupation

Starting point is 02:28:55 if it was paratroopers but everyone else seemed to have managed to so you know and UNZO party officer just hates him because again like one of the scandals he's going down for is like fucking with their primaries and Like getting a bunch of people who had safe seats like losing their safe seats So he could put his guys in and again He also tried to arrest the head of his own party So like these people don't like him for very immediate person or reasons not because the PPP is somehow like a party more committed to Democracy than the Republican Party is here like no these people all suck oh, God. But this leaves us with the aftermath of this. And the first thing I want to kind of go over is what the fuck were they doing? Because

Starting point is 02:29:38 again, if you look at the sequence of events here, right, there's this coup, right, the the martial law goes into effect the army backs it and tries to occupy the National Assembly but the National Assembly votes that the martial law is over and then the army just leaves now what if you go back to remember when I was talking about the beginning of this right season the National Assembly is not something you are allowed to do in a state of emergency or a martial law in position right. That's something explicitly the army is banned from doing. They did it anyways. Which means that like probably a like a bunch of generals are also going to prison for this. But then they also immediately back down when it became clear that you know there were going to there was going to be resistance and that if they

Starting point is 02:30:25 Were gonna try to stop this they were either wouldn't have to beat the shit out of or just like actually shoot a bunch of lawmakers in the National Assembly and I understand that That's a bad idea and I get why these people didn't want to do that Just put like from their own thing politically, but if you weren't willing to do that, why did you do this in the first place? like How did you think this in the first place? Like, how did you think this was going to go? Like, the only thing I could think of is that they thought they could just sort of, they thought it was 1030 at night. We can just shock and awe everyone.

Starting point is 02:30:51 Yeah. We'll just roll them over. But like, do you know what country you are in? I mean, yeah, it's a massive miscalculation. Like, that's what makes this the worst coup since Bolivia. I think it's worse than Bolivia. Oh, absolutely. Because like it shows a complete, like, disconnection from understanding the country that you're

Starting point is 02:31:08 in. What the fuck were they doing? Yeah. And like the willingness of the people to like get mobilized at 1030. Yeah. And the willingness of your own lawmakers to try to put like some level of resistance to this, even if it's not like physically fighting the army, which some of them ended up doing.

Starting point is 02:31:23 Which they did. They fought the army. Like of them ended up doing which they did they fought the army like ah What a world and also with with Bolivia to you know, there's okay so a with Bolivia There's a lot of debate over where that coup was real or not I I'd lean towards it was there's a lot of people think it was staged But also if it wasn't staged the excuse they have is that the general who was leading it was about to get fired So he just had to go right? It's like well. Yeah, okay It looked like a completely half-cocked coup because it was they just they had to go before he got fired this one

Starting point is 02:31:52 there was no time pressure he could have just done this whenever with better planning and I don't know. It's it's all it's all very Very deeply weird in terms of what's happening next, I mean, Yun was finished anyways. Like, again, he had a 20% approval rating going into this. Coming out of this, immediately the Democratic Party is trying to impeach him. Like, a bunch of the PPP,

Starting point is 02:32:17 who's again, supposed to be his party, are also going along with it because they hate him. There was some very funny comments from PPP guys who were like his supporters who were Like well he literally one of them said that he did this thing has anyone thought about like the pressure of burden placed on him Maybe someone should have gone to talk to him. He did this because he was lonely Which is the most insane thing I've ever heard of my life like he just he just tried to argue that This guy you know cool because he was lonely

Starting point is 02:32:43 It's the in-cell evolution. It's finally happening. It's South Korea. Yeah, and like he is going to get impeached. The only way he's not going to get impeached is if the judiciary steps in to save him. And I can't imagine them trying it. After again, he just tried to do a coup.

Starting point is 02:33:00 He's going to prison, like probably his defense secretary is going to prison, like the defense minister is going to prison, probably a bunch of military guys are going to prison like probably his defense secretary is going to prison like the defense minister is going to prison probably a bunch of military guys are going to prison like this is not it's so funny they have just effectively Annihilated their own political power for a generation like this faction of people who have been running the country is just gone I mean, they'll still be the PPP, right? This will be like conservatives, but like they just have obliterated themselves in maybe the most spectacular fashion I have ever seen.

Starting point is 02:33:29 And you know, what happens when they were sort of unclear is that right now we're recording this Wednesday. Yeah, Wednesday at like 10 a.m. Yeah, so it's unclear exactly what's going to happen in the time between when this when we record this and when this goes out. But you just finished. This is it's pretty over yeah and I'm hoping that we see a serious attempt to actually like deal with the fact that the army is ran by a bunch of people who tried to do a coup we won't see my well no like it here's the thing in the US absolutely not South Korea. Maybe there's a chance There's like a there is a slight chance that people get purged from this right in a similar way to like Lula kind of

Starting point is 02:34:13 Purging some of the army my South Korea does good things card is already full up because of yesterday. That's true I can't imagine they're gonna do more because it's South Korea Well, I will also say like one of the things that's happening is Korea's like major trade union federation is like doing a general strike until the impeachment happens. So, you know, there was a lot of pressure to clean house here. And like a lot of Korean liberalism is based on this sort of mythos of like, of the student protesters and like the protesters who brought down the military dictatorship and trying to do a military coup and immediately failing is like the best possible thing you could have done for them. The consequences of this for you and are going to be extremely bad. I hope we get a better Korea out of this. I hope this sort of starts to stem the tide of the unhinged right wing surge that's been happening there for a while now.

Starting point is 02:35:06 It'd be nice if this was like the tip of the bell curve. Yeah. In the global far right takeover. Yeah, I mean it's... Wow, it went bad. May every single right wing attempt to do this go this badly because good lord. What a heartwarming tale. Yep. Well, that's that's been it for us today here at It Could Happen Here. Tune in tomorrow for more exciting tales of political collapse. Yeah, and quite possibly, quite possibly this is going to happen to you too. And I want everyone to understand that in terms of military queues in the last six months, the protesters are 2-0 and the army's 0-2 So if this happens to you soon, which he very much might go get him

Starting point is 02:36:10 Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

Starting point is 02:36:37 You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

Starting point is 02:37:07 podcasts. Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know. She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know.

Starting point is 02:37:25 She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother. I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. It felt like when you were on the plane ride coming home, texting with your dad about whether or not she was alive still, there was almost an acceptance from you that that was the way it was going to be.

Starting point is 02:37:46 Instead of sometimes we resist and fight the reality that we're in. I think a lot of my lifetime has been acceptance. There's been a lot of things where I've just had to, there's nothing to do other than surrender to what's happening. I just kept feeling like in the moment, the only way out is through.

Starting point is 02:38:02 I just felt like I had to feel it all and had to be present through it. Find Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

Starting point is 02:38:27 An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters... ...to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Grrrrr! Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Grrrrr!

Starting point is 02:38:56 Listen to Nocturne, Tales from the Shadows, as part of my cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, the shadows as part of Michael Duda podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everyone, it's John also known as Dr. John Paul, and I'm Jordan or Joe Ho and we are the BlackFatFilm Podcast, a podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated.

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Starting point is 02:40:23 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that is quite often about abortion in this country. I'm your host, Mia Wong. Things have been very bad under the last administration and the administration before that and the administration before that. Going back a long, long time, things have been not good. They've been steadily getting worse. And there is a lot of fear and I think a lot of is very justified that things are going to get even worse under Trump. And to talk about what we need to be afraid of and what we don't is Kate Bertas, who's the executive director of the Digital

Starting point is 02:40:56 Defense Fund and also Crystal, who's an abortion worker and also a volunteer for abortion hotlines. So both of you two, welcome to the show. Excellent. Thanks for having us on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm really excited to talk to you both. And I'm also excited to let Kate talk a little bit about what the Digital Defense Fund is. Excellent. Thanks so much. Longtime listener, first time caller, I suppose. So the Digital Defense Fund is an organization that's been around for actually since the last election. It was started in response to Trump winning for the first time.

Starting point is 02:41:29 And we're an organization that was put together to provide free digital security and technology resources for the front lines of what then was just the abortion access movement. We've since moved to support other variety of autonomy and liberation movements, but we provide free digital security evaluations, trainings. We do a lot of project management work to help people set up what they'd like to change about their systems and security. And we also help people pay for it,

Starting point is 02:41:55 which is a really wonderful way to get to kind of see through our values. So I'm excited to be on here today to talk a little bit more about the implications for both organizations and individuals. The very first wave impact of this election has been a lot of fear about what's coming. And I wanted to ask you about what kinds of fears you've been seeing and maybe talk a little bit about which ones are more justified than others.

Starting point is 02:42:23 Because I think there's been some concern that I think is justified and is good. And there's also been some stuff that is kind of not rooted in what the threats are. Yeah, I think it's a great time anytime this happens to sort of get to ask and answer the question, which is like, how do we know? And I think we're sort of lucky in this way

Starting point is 02:42:41 that we know what are likely to be risks now to both people who are seeking abortions as well as people who help them get there, folks as well like Crystal, who I know will provide some additional color to this as well. But we know what kind of threats face people facing abortions and those who help them because unfortunately a lot of these threats have been happening for the last several decades. People have been prosecuted for suspicion of ending their own pregnancies. We get a lot of really incredible and insightful data from organizations like If, When, How,

Starting point is 02:43:10 who put out these reports that are called Self-Care Criminalized. And they look backwards across all of the different cases that have happened in this space and try to come up with sort of like these key aspects. And one of the big things that we know that I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot through this episode is that the core way that people come to the attention of law enforcement for seeking to allegedly end their own pregnancies is through usually someone they know reporting them or someone responsible for their care.

Starting point is 02:43:37 So that might be like healthcare worker, social worker, other representative agents of the state. And it can be really devastating to kind of hear and I think internalize that it's often people's family members, like ex or friends, neighbor who might turn somebody in expecting or misunderstanding that it is a crime to end your own pregnancy. I think one of the things that's really hard about this is that it involves some of the ways in which like, I guess it's what you would call very unfortunately typical policing practices, the way in which people's rights are violated when they are interrogated, when they are

Starting point is 02:44:12 pressured into disclosing information. There's something called consent search that it unfortunately ends up being a very common feature of these kinds of cases, which is where you're putting a room and you're talking to a representative agent in the state or a police officer. And they sort of pressure you into agreeing to unlock and disclose often your phone and other device or to otherwise share information quote unquote, voluntarily. And it's easy to see why people kind of get pressured into that. So that is something that tends to happen in many kinds of prosecutions of crimes or alleged crimes. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:44:46 And I think it's hard for a lot of people to imagine what that's like to be pulled over and searched in this way. Or like there are often like people are not the targeted victims of something like stop and frisk. And so it's sort of hard to imagine in your mind the way in which somebody's information or their data or their case comes to the attention of law enforcement. And so we tend to then imagine these other threats that feel perhaps closer to our daily experience, especially as often people who are not racially targeted by police, who are not targeted by the family policing system or have their pregnancies surveilled by the hospital systems. So people like to imagine then that, I think a big one that we all hear,

Starting point is 02:45:26 and I think we're all going to take a deep breath at the same time is period tracking apps. I thought it was kind of remarkable as Crystal, I'm sure you hear this too. And I would love to at least space Crystal for you to add any context to sort of like the threats that are present versus stuff that people imagine. So I know we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about our friend, the period tracker.

Starting point is 02:45:49 So at the time of recording, it's been like about almost a month since Election Day. And, you know, I answer the phones for a couple of different places, places for both work and volunteering. And there's been a lot of fear. And not saying that abortion access has been without fear up until this point, but people are very afraid. And I'm getting a lot of questions about people asking, can I be arrested for giving you my information, sending in my ID, giving you my real name, ordering medication online, can the United States

Starting point is 02:46:30 get my records if I order from this provider overseas, such as Women on Web, and just, yeah, people asking, like, can I be arrested? You know, can I do this? Will I be in trouble? And it is something that is going, we're going to see an increase in criminalization an increase in abortion bans

Starting point is 02:46:47 It is a complicated answer, you know, the straight of it is that yet you can Access abortion medication online, even if you're in a banned state Even if you're in a state with a total abortion ban, you can order the medication From reliable resources online and have it mailed to you. And people do this every day, hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people do this every day without any issue. But there is also risk. And it's kind of like what Kate was saying

Starting point is 02:47:14 where people tend to, it seems like people don't know what the risk has been or what it looks like. Cause like Kate was saying, there's like all been all these years of pregnancy criminalization and we know what it looks like and it tends to not be what people are worrying about right now where people seem to be thinking like that the police are going to come and arrest them for putting in this order along with hundreds of other people

Starting point is 02:47:36 in a given day or that the police are somehow going to get the their period tracker information on their on their phone and you know. And of course, practice digital security in a way that makes you feel comfortable. If you don't want to use a period tracking app, there are safer ones to use, or you don't have to use it. But the fact of the matter is that even if you are using pen and paper to record your period, if you have an abusive partner, they're

Starting point is 02:48:02 going to be able to take pictures and collaborate with police. So the biggest threats are always, as the data has shown, like Kate was saying, going to be healthcare workers and the people that you know, such as partners, family members, neighbors, friends, et cetera, who are going to get access to pictures, screenshots, and of course, the police and warrants. It's not going to look like the Handmaid's Tale where somebody's like coming in and going and forcing you to do something and dress a certain way or etc. It's not going to be like anything new and fancy. It's

Starting point is 02:48:35 going to be the same old police surveillance and criminalization that we've been seeing. But there are ways in which we can protect ourselves when we're doing that. When somebody calls and they ask me, can I get in trouble for ordering this medication online? And people can get really in trouble for anything. In the United States, you know, if the police want to go after you for something, they're going to find something. So you just have to not leave evidence.

Starting point is 02:48:59 Like, so yeah, you can order the medication online, but you can also use Signal. And I know that Kate's probably gonna go more into this, but you can make sure you have disappearing messages. You can use encrypted emails and search engines. You have to make sure you're thinking about who can see your data and where your data is being recorded. And that's really, like if you wanna protect yourself

Starting point is 02:49:24 in terms of avoiding criminalization for abortion and pregnancy outcomes and You know having a secure and safe abortion in the United States Then you have to look at the basics like this And I'm gonna let Kate talk about that a little bit more because I know that you have all the good Information that the digital defense son has looked into about yeah the apps and and then how to delete data And what data to delete and how to delete data and what data to delete and how to think about this. Yeah, I think one of the really tough things,

Starting point is 02:49:50 right, is that like, so like neither I or Crystal are attorneys, but often people are just getting a lot of advice from attorneys. And some of our work here is to make sure that like when you get sort of this idea of when something might be criminalized or often like in this circumstance where we just like don't know actually how it's going to show up a lot yet. We're trying to think about sort of what are the ways we can have our digital devices and our technology sort of support us with these by default type of settings. One of the things that's really tough to I think understand until you've been through it is sort of like what it looks like when you go through any kind of investigation. I think the other hard kind of like context to get from the way we talk about it now is that a lot of how pregnancy is criminalized, that sort of scaffolding, that infrastructure was built during the drug war. So one of the most common kinds of pregnancy

Starting point is 02:50:41 criminalization in America is drug testing people who are pregnant or come to give birth without their consent. And so we basically consider being an alleged drug user to be the sort of like primary way that our decision of how much the digital evidence matters has kind of come to take shape. So often when an investigation is happening, the police will look for where are all the sources of information I can find about this when an investigation is happening, the police will look for where are all the sources of

Starting point is 02:51:05 information I can find about this because the human body is not super compliant with digital forensic evidence, evidentiary processes. I think it's one of the most magical things about humans is that our bodies defy the letter of law in so many wonderful ways. But that means that they sort of have to then go to this digital body of evidence to kind of tell the story or as like all the wonderful lawyers that advise us like to say to sort of like be able to to draw the the dots or the lines between the dots and and form this kind of like coherent set of facts of what happened between one moment to the next. So often when we're like imagining all of the data that like lives in our phone because unfortunately in many cases, when you are perhaps coerced into consenting to the search of a device, they will often take your phone and then have you unlock it.

Starting point is 02:51:53 It gets plugged into a device that makes clone of the entire drive. And then they can sort of, with many different techniques, kind of leisurely look through it for keywords to kind of tell where there might be evidence somewhere on your phone that you, for example, went on the internet, searched for, and purchased abortion medication. So yes, like period tracking data might be one portion of that, but unfortunately in all the cases that we've seen, or at least in most of the ones that we're most familiar with, all of that quote unquote plain text data, So where you've just written out in your own unencrypted words into a search bar in the search engine on your phone, or you've sent a text message to a very close contact

Starting point is 02:52:34 with somebody telling them how you feel about your pregnancy, that you desire to end it, perhaps your plan to buy pills, even the receipt that comes into your inbox. It's not necessary then to go to all these companies and go file for a warrant and get all that information because now it's in just plain text, quote unquote, on your phone. And that is far more information than the abstract information that might come out of a period tracker. So unfortunately, cops don't tend to use these in cases that we've seen because it's quite

Starting point is 02:53:04 simply not necessary. That kind of like plain text admission of your state of mind or the statement of your intent has unfortunately been the sort of core evidence that comes up. And I think this has like a lot of like really quite sad implications. I know in prior to prepare for this episode, we were discussing a couple of cases that I know folks might be more familiar with. A big one that came up is, you know, the case of a mother and daughter out of Nebraska who were having a discussion around allegedly helping the daughter to find an end for her pregnancy over Metta's Facebook Messenger. I think what I find really quite devastating about it for many reasons is that these messages

Starting point is 02:53:41 were actually ones that I think any of us could hope to have with a very supportive parent or other person in our life is like why we have, you know, these conversations so that we can like feel connected and supported through such a complex and effecting process. It then becomes very sad to me that it becomes a criminal matter, just because it was in a place that that conversation, you know, meta did not have this family's back

Starting point is 02:54:04 in terms of encrypting those messages or ensuring that they were free to speak of what they wish when they wish by default. So I think like when we start to give out advice, it's been important for us at Digital Defense Fund to kind of work backwards. I know it's been an existential crisis, I think, for everybody in the digital security space to know that like the list of advice I could give you on how to protect yourself when going through these transactions or when seeking support or just having normal questions and going on the internet and being able to Google them and get them answered.

Starting point is 02:54:35 We have to start from the basics because you have the right to find information from reliable resources. You have the right to buy pills from a reliable source. You have the right to seek that kind of connection and support from people in your life. And so we're trying to cut down on all the infinite amount of advice that we could give and try to narrow it to what is actionable, what has the greatest impact potentially in the cases we've seen. And I know we're going to dig into it, but I would love to leave room to talk a little bit more about that whenever it's a good time in this conversation to go through our top three action items. Before we get to that, unfortunately, we are under capitalism, which means we have to do these ads. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 02:55:17 We will be back shortly. And we are back. Another lawsuit, this is a little different because it's not a criminal charge. It was a lawsuit in Texas that I want to bring up just as an example of how our data can betray us in these moments. And this was a really silly lawsuit It has been dismissed but there was a texas man who filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Three women of helping his ex-wife obtain abortion pills I believe I think it was dismissed last year or maybe it was earlier this year

Starting point is 02:55:58 It wasn't even under the aid in a vet in law in texas It was actually you know, they they sought different avenue. There actually hasn't been a successful lawsuit against an abortion seeker under a vet law or any other law in Texas in the last two years, which I think is just something worth bringing up, is that we actually haven't seen that happen yet, other than this case. But what happened in this case is this person

Starting point is 02:56:22 was planning on terminating their pregnancy, they were talking to some friends who were helping them out and their iPhone was synced up to their iPad. So if anyone's familiar with that, you can have your iMessages appear on both devices. So the iMessages that are coming to your phone are also going to be going to your iPad. And her ex-husband took pictures

Starting point is 02:56:43 of the iMessages coming through on her iPad and that was what was used. Even though the lawsuit was dismissed because it was a very silly lawsuit, total waste of time. But that is the kind of thing that you really need to be asking yourself is, you know, where are my messages going? Who is seeing my messages? Who is seeing my emails? What is it connected to? Yeah, because it can just look like that too. I would say that's exactly right. I think I had a good friend who works in another area of security who, and this is how we learn these things, right? Is that folks who work in the parts of security that deal with, for example, intimate partner violence or the sort of quote unquote in-household

Starting point is 02:57:24 surveillance threat model, I think is vastly underestimated. I can't recall the figures at the moment, but one of those more recent reports from If One How actually had detailed just how frequently actually that sort of like how it is also this like intimate partner violence situation that comes up also in a pregnancy

Starting point is 02:57:42 or abortion criminalization case. And so, you know, this person challenged me to think about the exact threat model of the unlocked iPad on the family coffee table and thinking about like when we share information and we share devices, kind of like, where does it go? So like actually our first piece of recommendation that we often give is, it can sound deceptively simple and it doesn't sound technical at all, but it is to think about who you are telling about your experience and about your abortion or wanting to have an abortion and then understand whether you've been clear about your boundaries. Do you expect them to not share or tell with others?

Starting point is 02:58:19 Can you delete any messages with them? If you ask them after the fact to delete things for you, would they absolutely do that? I think it can be really challenging to zoom out and realize it's often not as easy as it sounds to do this mental inventory and think about all the different ways that me and my best friend talk. Or when I mention things to people offhand, we don't have a really good, I think, social practice of understanding the implication of sharing other people's information without their permission. And so it's very impactful, but also very difficult,

Starting point is 02:58:54 and it can't be very individual for all of us to think more carefully about with whom we share things and how we ask people to keep our confidence and how we can even offer each other the ability to delete things that we don't want to exist indefinitely. I think one of the biggest sort of existential struggles that crosses over to where people get support for abortions from like organizations also includes the fact that I know has been discussed many times on this podcast that there is a difference in how much information is kept depending

Starting point is 02:59:22 on where you were having a conversation on your phone. So an SMS text message, those little green bubbles that go back and forth between you and possibly other people who are on iOS, like iOS and Android combination conversation, your friends with an Android might have a green bubble come back to you. That basically means that that is going as an SMS text message to your phone carrier. And that means that it's going quote unquote in plain text, totally unencrypted

Starting point is 02:59:49 to the cell tower. And it's being held by that phone carrier unencrypted, readable as it is, as you typed it in, as far as we know forever. It can vary depending on whether or not you move to a different carrier, but unfortunately phone carriers have a very long history also of disclosing that information readily on request, either from law enforcement or from other agencies. And I think that is troubling. I think no person would really like to know that, regardless of what you intend to do

Starting point is 03:00:17 with your text messages. But it's why we often then encourage people as sort of a second step to try and use encrypted chat with Signal or another trusted end to try and use encrypted chat with Signal or another trusted and encrypted chat. Again, sounds overly simplistic, but I think having those disappearing messages on, especially between people who are seeking support from one another, whether it's somebody in your life

Starting point is 03:00:37 or another organization that's helping you to get your abortion, there really is something to that ability to again speak freely, to be best friends, helping your friends, you know, allegedly get abortion medication or to being a mom, you know, there to support your child no matter what. I think it's just something really wonderful about how using disappearing messages with Signal like reflects the values that we actually have already with each other and just like make sure that technology companies or corporations or law enforcement don't get to get in the way of how we want to live our lives. So yeah. Yeah. So really supporting somebody through an abortion includes digital security.

Starting point is 03:01:14 Yes. Same with providers, people who are answering the phones. Digital security is one of the number one priorities. And yeah, if you're supporting somebody with an abortion, that should be your number one priority as well. Well, and like I bet people like, you know, when you talk to people like you're supporting somebody with an abortion, that should be your number one priority as well. Well, and I bet people, when you talk to people, you're often, I imagine, one of the first people that they're expressing themselves to at all

Starting point is 03:01:32 about what they're going through. And I know that the point is to help people get to their procedure, but often they're bringing a lot of other things with them, and they're not sure if they're important. I remember you mentioning this, but just the amount of weight that is for y'all as, as the support too.

Starting point is 03:01:46 Yeah. And like people are scared for, for good reason. You know, we do, we do live in a fascist country and a police surveillance state. So, you know, their fears are founded, but there, there are a lot of excellent resources, they're not alone. Like, you know, you and I know this Cape, but there are so many people who've got the back of everyone who needs an abortion. You may not know the safe way of going about it, but there are people who are committed to digital security and safety and you're avoiding criminalization.

Starting point is 03:02:19 Part of the service is also reassuring people of that too, that it is possible to have a safe abortion even still. The next thing that I know that we were talking about, Kate, in terms of like really practical, like what you can do now to protect yourself is having a plan for when you need to go get health care and you have to interface With like a medical team a medical site such as an ER a clinic I'm an OBGYN a doctor of any kind because I think I believe the number one source of Criminalization like who's reporting who who is criminal like who's calling the police who's reporting these and giving over?

Starting point is 03:03:08 The information is as often health care worker. I believe that is the number one source So, you know you do that is something to keep you know, I am a health care worker, but it's just it's just a fact That that's something that we all need to be mindful of. And as a patient, somebody seeking health care, it's completely appropriate to be thinking of your own security and your safety if you need to access health care. So one thing is that luckily, abortion is very safe and very effective.

Starting point is 03:03:38 And if you don't feel comfortable going to an ER for very good reasons, there are many good reasons to not want to go to er Including costs including your safety and security the chance of criminalization There is a free medical resource and a free legal resource that you can call i'm going to talk about the medical resource first There is the miscarriage and abortion hotline or ma hotline.org and abortion hotline or mahotline.org. But you can call and get some feedback from a doctor about, hey, do I even need to go to the ER? Is this normal? Is something wrong? You actually can run that by a safe person before just going to the ER. And that's one example of having a plan. Okay, I think I might need to go to the ER

Starting point is 03:04:25 You know, let me check with a trusted resource let me check with the miscarriage and abortion hotline if I can get some feedback on what's going on with some of my symptoms and You know, it's like this extra kind of added support that you can access as a pregnant person or you know If you're having a miscarriage If you're having a miscarriage, if you're having an abortion, to assess your risk and to see if you can avoid even going to a medical site, given that going to an emergency room in a banned state is something that does increase your risk of criminalization.

Starting point is 03:04:58 Yes. And I think it was from our peers at M&A Hotline. And then I know the other hotline that, if you have questions also, the Repro Legal Hotline is a wonderful resource that I know in all the show notes will include these. We try to include along with the miscarriage and abortion hotline. So you have folks you can call who are professionals

Starting point is 03:05:17 to ask about medical questions. If folks you can call who can answer questions about legal questions about your abortion or pregnancy experience. I know that it's really hard because often when folks are in a hospital setting, we're sort of socialized to disclose everything. We want to tell our doctor what's wrong

Starting point is 03:05:35 and tell them everything we took. And you worry it might be relevant, but I was reassured, I think, by many other professionals in this space, that doctors treat based on the symptoms that you present with, regardless of how they got there. You might be in a position where you don't know. So if you just tell folks what's going on with your body, what you're seeing, what you're feeling and experiencing, it is their job to treat you, regardless of what you choose to share. And I would say that that's actually true regardless of what healthcare condition

Starting point is 03:06:05 you come into the ER with. It is your right to only disclose as much as you feel safe doing so. So I think like that was something that I know, again, we're not used to thinking about that as like a digital security measure, but it is an information security measure. And I think an operational security measure

Starting point is 03:06:22 that we've had to like then realize that that's actually probably almost more important to tell people before we start getting into this nitty gritty of things to do with your phone, is to understand that those principles that we believe, that again, the human body is very varied in how it experiences something like pregnancy,

Starting point is 03:06:40 miscarriage and abortion, and that folks have a responsibility to treat you regardless of what's in your phone or what happened before that or this statement of facts that are relevant to a courtroom and not to your care. So, yeah. Do you two have anything else you want to make sure the audience knows before we head out?

Starting point is 03:06:58 Yeah. Just one more piece. It's our last piece of the puzzle. So, just to reiterate, because I know it's good to hear things repeated again. You know, with the actual kind of pregnancy, criminalization, digital security advice, we talk about understanding who you're disclosing stuff to making sure they are clear on your expectations. Try to, if you can have conversations with them in a secure place or a private place, like signal with disappearing messages on. For our second item, we're going to make a plan for if we need to get care after the fact and ensure that we're trying to, again, have our support people also understand

Starting point is 03:07:29 that, you know, doctors treat you based on the symptoms you present with. That is, you don't have to tell them anything that you do not wish to disclose. And the third thing is that something that I think as digital security practitioners, we kind of forget is super important, which is that, like, you know, I think I run into this conflict where as experts or smart people, we try to imagine in our mind how we would have this perfectly footprint-free abortion. This use signal, use Tor, use Bitcoin, kind of strange way of architecting privacy in our mind.

Starting point is 03:08:02 And I call it the ghost abortion, that it's a myth. You can't have one. There's no such thing as an abortion that leaves no footprint. But I think we forget then that it actually is super meaningful to delete what's within our power to delete. So our third recommendation for folks is to like be aware of what's collected and then ensure that you know

Starting point is 03:08:19 that you can delete your browser history. You can delete your Google Maps history from like driving to the clinic. You can delete your emails. You can delete messages on certain platforms. And I think just like understanding that deleting what you can is actually super meaningful. I actually didn't know until I got this job that certain platforms, like even Google products, like if you delete something from it, it is purged from the servers, like something like two and a half months later. So when you delete stuff, it's very meaningful. I think there, you get more options than ever to decide like how long

Starting point is 03:08:48 you want to keep something. And it does make it so that that primary thing we talked about, like if somebody were to take my phone from me and to like, you know, make a clone of it and try to look through it, at least it's deleted, that copy is no longer on my device, even if they would have to go to like, you know, get a warrant later. That is still great. It still gives me and my counsel time to respond and also allows me to access my right to do process.

Starting point is 03:09:10 And I think so, these are these three simple things I know that we'll give to Link, that are guide that kind of puts this all in a row in very plain language. We also have a Spanish language guide for it as well. But just to know that these things are within our power. I think it's really easy to get tangled up in the idea of abstract data and things that are really tough for us to always know when they're generated, like ad tracker data or who is reselling or doing something with my period tracking apps. There are great options that are local only to your phone, like Yu-Gi app, if you are

Starting point is 03:09:40 concerned about that. Other apps, seeing whether or not they use best practices security, if they've responded and said how they would respond to a legal request, that's awesome. I think that just sort of taking that uncertainty away is great because tracking your period is really important. As Crystal would tell you, it is an essential way that you're going to know how pregnant you are and find the option that's safest for your circumstance.

Starting point is 03:10:00 So yeah, with that, I'll pass it to Crystal for anything else you think our folks should know before we depart. Yeah, tracking your period is important So yeah, with that, I'll pass it to Crystal for anything else you think our folks should know before we depart. Yeah. Tracking your period is important because if you don't know what's going on with your period and you get pregnant, it can delay your care. And optimally, you're getting the safest, quickest, most comfortable care for you, right? So it's really good to track that. I use Yuki. What I love about

Starting point is 03:10:26 Yuki is that it has a passcode and it stores everything locally and you can set to auto delete your data. And I love all of those things. And I don't like using my paper calendar. If you love using your paper calendar, go use your paper calendar. Whatever you want to do. But it is very important to know when your last security it was because it can just make your care more timely. And that's really important given the abortion restrictions and the abortion bans. Now, we are only admittedly, they're going to get worse. This is going to get less safe.

Starting point is 03:11:01 There's going to be greater risk of criminalization. So when people call and they ask, can I access pills? Yes, you can. No matter what Trump does, you're going to be able to get abortion pills. There are countries all over the world that have total abortion bans, and they use abortion pills all the time.

Starting point is 03:11:21 It's not new in America. But you do have to have a digital security plan while you're doing that. So yes, you can order pills online, but yes, also have a digital security plan and keep this stuff in mind. It's part of your health care plan now. Yeah, because you have the right to use safe, accessible, common sense, amazing technology products to actually obtain the abortion that you want. We really, really do believe that that part of autonomy, it includes digital autonomy

Starting point is 03:11:52 as well as bodily autonomy. They're all part and parcel. You can't have one without the other. So thanks for having us on. Yeah, thanks, Mia. Yeah, and I want to close with one more thing that is related to this, but is also more general advice. Don't talk to cops.

Starting point is 03:12:07 Oh, God. You know, I think that the common thing people say is it is legal for them to lie to you. And that is true. But it's not just as legal for them to lie to you. It is their job to lie to you. You cannot trust a single word that comes out of their mouths because it is their job to get you to confess to a crime or to get information out of you that will let you confess to a crime. So invoke your right to remain silent,

Starting point is 03:12:27 get a fucking lawyer, don't talk to them. And you know, this is advice, it's not just coming from me, right? Like this is the advice you will get from every single person who does any kind of offense. This is what you'll get from your public defender. This is what you'll get from anyone who has even sort of interacted with the legal system.

Starting point is 03:12:44 And this is also true even if they tell you that, oh, you're not a suspect, you're just blah, blah, blah, we're trying to get information. It is their job to lie to you. Think about it roughly the same way of like, if you're dealing with like a country secret police, how much information would you give them? The answer is do not, simply do not do this.

Starting point is 03:13:02 Exactly, and you know, no, no matter what, that there are people again like Crystal Sahiba support you. There are amazing teams across the United States from medical support to legal support were there for you and they would all I think wholeheartedly endorse as do we. Yes, please do not talk to cops. And that's a great note to end on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you to you both for coming on and maybe we'll live to see a world better than this one where you could just do this stuff and not have to have any concerns.

Starting point is 03:13:28 Yes, one day. But until then, we can do this very securely. Yes, we got our own backs. We can do this together. Thanks for having us on. 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.

Starting point is 03:13:49 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going.

Starting point is 03:14:20 That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Chelsea Handler here. This week on the Dear Chelsea podcast, Riley Keough discusses the memoir she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley.

Starting point is 03:14:48 But it's also such a gift to be able to sit here and say as an adult woman, I had such a good mother. Yes. That is a gift. I know. She certainly was not like a, I don't know what a perfect mother is. Well, she wasn't a traditional mother. She wasn't a traditional mother.

Starting point is 03:15:03 I am so grateful to have had her as a mother. To have that kind of love. Fine. Dear Chelsea, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Rock. Join me, Danny Drehovery, and step into the flames of fright.

Starting point is 03:15:24 An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Oh, chat. This year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angela Carrasso and more.

Starting point is 03:16:03 Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Film Podcast on the iHeart Ready to Die podcast. including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey show, Angela Carrasco and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Alpha podcast or whatever you get your podcast girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandi B.

Starting point is 03:16:27 As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions

Starting point is 03:16:53 that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that'll resonate with your experiences, Decisions Decisions is gonna be your go-to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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