Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 178

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.  When Care Workers Organize Behind Myanmar's Devastating Earthquake Trump's Concentration Camps in El Salvador How Strikes Build Democratic Workplaces  Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #12 You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone  Sources/Links: When Care Workers Organize https://www.instagram.com/friendspdxunionnetwork/ https://friendspdx.org/donate Behind Myanmar's Devastating Earthquake https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/up-to-700-myanmar-muslims-killed-in-quake-hit-mosques-weakened-by-neglect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/world/asia/myanmar-earthquake-aftershocks-airstrikes.html https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/myanmar-juntas-aerial-attacks-continue-despite-post-quake-ceasefire/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/myanmar-junta-shoots-chinese-earthquake-aid-convoy-rcna199233 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/world/asia/myanmar-earthquake-aid.html https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/myanmar-lashes-out-at-quotchocolate-barquot-foreign-aid-idUSSP172535/ https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/lives-updates-quake-death-toll-rises-to-3600-junta-suspends-tourist-visa-after-quake-private-us-field-hospital-in-naypyitaw-and-more.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/global-response-to-myanmar-earthquake-shines-light-on-strategic-rivalries.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/live-updates-death-toll-exceeds-3500-hundreds-in-urgent-need-of-quake-aid-juntas-airstrikes-still-rage-on-and-more.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/world/live-updates-death-toll-rises-to-3471-quake-relief-teams-must-obey-junta-us-pledges-additional-7-million-in-quake-relief-and-more.html https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/resistance-forces-capture-indaw-town-after-months-of-fighting/?sfnsn=scwspmo https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/myanmar-junta-airstrikes-kill-over-30.html Trump's Concentration Camps in El Salvador https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogLw7I2BWO0 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/14/el-salvador-president-return-wrongly-deported-trump-00289234 https://documentedny.com/2025/04/14/ice-bukele-cecot-tren-de-aragua-el-salvador-new-york-deported/ How Strikes Build Democratic Workplaces  https://gofund.me/9ce38160 https://www.instagram.com/urban_ore_workers/ Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #12 https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/14/investing/us-stock-market/index.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-signals-readiness-for-talks-if-us-shows-respect-amid-numbers-game-191201017.html https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ensures-national-security-and-economic-resilience-through-section-232-actions-on-processed-critical-minerals-and-derivative-products/ https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/temu-cuts-us-ad-spend-drops-in-app-store-rank-after-trump-tariffs-.html https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-issues-export-licensing-requirements-nvidia-amd-chips-china-2025-04-16/ https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/dispatch-border-wall  https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/interior-department-transferring-federal-land-army-border-wall/story?id=65702870  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/military-mission-for-sealing-the-southern-border-of-the-united-states-and-repelling-invasions/ https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwy03j9vddlt?post=asset%3Aaff18753-80c9-4445-963e-03b9438ef121#post https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/dhs-issues-waiver-expedite-new-border-wall-construction-california https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/08/2025-05992/determination-pursuant-to-section-102-of-the-illegal-immigration-reform-and-immigrant-responsibilitySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York,

since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing

new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome, Dick. It Happened here, a podcast that asks the question what happens when the people who are trying to help put things back together are also being exploited in the process. I am your host, Mia Wong, and today we are going to be talking about a union that is attempting to do exactly that. And with me to discuss this are Jess and Jesus, who are mentors for Friends of the Children PDX and members of the Friends PDX Union Network. Yeah, Jess, Jesus, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm really happy to talk to you both because I think this is a very, very unique and interesting union, especially, you know, talk about especially right now. But to get people sort of rolling, can you explain what Friends of the Children is and what it is that you two do? Yeah. So Friends of the Children is, it's a national organization. It's a nonprofit. But they're individual chapters throughout different cities. We work out of Portland. which is the founding chapter and also the largest one. Some of the language I'll say that is used from the website and from like the mission statement

that really encompasses what our role is and also how it is told to like our community partnerships and the families and youth that we work with is that we are committing to youth when they are typically around kindergarten age level and they're being paired with a mentor and they will have a mentor until they graduate the program so that usually ends up being a total of 12 and a half years. And that like within that, we were doing a lot of like individualized care and support. We work with them in the schools. We work with them outside the schools. We help them get into extracurriculars. We help them with like social emotional regulation, developing relationships with other youth in the program. And really just like being a consistently reliable human being.

and one of the big pillars of our organization is the commitment to long term, which sometimes can be an issue when you are facing a lot of high turnover as an organization. We both have eight kids on our roster, as do most mentors. And within that, we have youth. I personally have youth that have been assigned to me that have just started in the program, meaning that they were like maybe first grade when I was assigned to them. And then I also have youth that are middle school level that have had several different mentors in the past, some that have stayed there for maybe a few years. And like sometimes there's ones that have been there for months. Yeah. If I can add to that, the kids we work with, they're enrolled into the program because they have some risk factors in their lives that,

would lead them to needing a little bit of extra support and help. So we work with a lot of kids that come from immigrant families, from families that have, you know, single-parent households, foster care, families and kids. Kids that like unfortunately are likely to face some challenges that our society and the way it's built up will deal to them. And our goal is to help them through those challenges, just be there for them so that they have a chance of, you know, graduating high school or entering adulthood without having, you know, having had kids or facing like the justice system. It's kids that we love dearly that we work with in a similar way as like, you know, program like big brothers, big sisters, but we are paid mentors, which is the big difference, right? We're not volunteer-based. We are employees, basically social workers for all of the

families that we work with. It's honestly, like, it's a great job. And I think right now, especially, like super necessary, because things are falling apart. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, just adding like one that made me think of how within the work like I think social work is a very apt choice of words because we are paired with the youth and it doesn't like stop there like we work like we work with the families we also work with like the siblings too because sometimes you'll have a youth that maybe is the only child in that family that for whatever reason got a mentor and then you support also I mean it's a choice but but I would say that most of the most of the mentors definitely opt in to being there for siblings and family members in the household

and making sure that they're also showing up for the caregivers to, yeah, help them create a loving home. Yeah, and I mean, you know, I think that you can look at this and see how it's supposed to work structurally. And, you know, you were talking about like, I mean, this is supposed to be a, like, over a decade-long commitment to these kids, right? that ideally you're working with the same person and you know you're forming really deep emotional attachments because you can't not do that if you're doing this kind of work but then also you know in order for that to work and I think it's you know you can see this to the outside like in order for this to work this has to be a job that you could stably do for a decade right? Yeah yeah which I will say we do and I want to do I want to get a

have so many props to one of our mentors who has stayed for for 12 years and has graduated their youth. But of all of our coworkers, I believe it's only one that has currently been able to do that and has stayed there as long as I have. Yeah. Yeah. And the truth of the fact like, yeah, for any job, 12 and a half years is a really long time, right? I mean, six years is a really long time. And with this job, we're like a, we're an emotional sponge for a lot of things, right? So, our kids go through everything that you could imagine. And within that, like, everything good and everything bad that you could imagine. And our job, a lot of times is, like, we can't solve the things that are affecting these kids, but we can take in some of those.

negative feelings and and that grief, that anger, we can take it in and almost like dissolve it a little bit, right? But within that, like, it can affect us so, so much. And that's where, yeah, the sustainability part of like 12 and a half years in this job, like, that is a lot. And we need a lot for that to like at all be possible. Yeah, I mean, like, there's this way in which you're effectively, like, what this job is, is like, you're the person who is trying to, like, mitigate the impact of, like, all, like, literally all of the structural systems of violence that exist in this entire country. And how, like, how they're just sort of, like, targeted down on these kids. And your job is to, like, try to, like, protect them as much as possible. and that's unbelievable amount of physical and emotional labor.

And then also, like, I don't know, it seems pretty bad that there's only been one co-workers has been able to graduate their kids. And just to clarify for history, that's been in like our time. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if like over the 30 years, I hope that other people have. But yeah, in recent years, it's only been the one. And also like, yeah, this is a job where you are. not necessarily able to like undo the systems at play but trying to support them and like we as

mentors are inevitably also facing those systems against ourselves and like one of the reasons that I think people gravitate towards this job is their empathy because they have those shared experiences one of the things that is kind of heavy in the culture of friends is being asked your why when you start, like, why did you choose friends? And for a lot of people, it is because of wanting to be the person that they needed when they were going through those periods of time. So there's bound to be like a lot of like reactivation of feelings inside yourself that I think we all, like, I want to say like every mentor I've worked with does like an incredible job of like handling that and like taking good care of themselves. But it is definitely something that like,

takes a lot of regulation and I think empathy is one of the greatest skills in this job but it also yeah it also then leads to us needing greater needs of self-care and things like that yeah and like I mean I guess like to put this in perspective for like people listening to this is like okay your job is to be the person like in the friend group who like manages like when someone's like having an emotional crisis like you have to like help them and deal with it and that is your job for like eight kids who are going to do like the worst shit in the world like Jesus Christ

oh good Lord it's it's honestly like like hearing this it's always really helpful to hear someone's outside's perspective of our job right because we get so so into it so into the muck of like what this job can be and I think like overall like social work it's not just like our our job

but like I'm sure other social workers and people in care industries, like we have that like continuous, like vicarious trauma that makes us forget, like how our job is sometimes. And then it's helpful to hear other people mention it because it's like, yeah, wow, our job is kind of crazy. And the work we do is like really important and really important for society. And also, yeah, like it's hard.

it's hard work. It's hard and it doesn't really have an end point. Like we have the hours we work with kids and then we have the hours we think about them and the things going on in their lives. And sometimes it's like sweet things. Like a lot of times it's sweet things where I'll see something and be like, oh my gosh, you know who would love that and things like that are like, oh, great idea. Or oh, let's go see this movie.

And a lot of times it's like worrying though too. And knowing that there is. there is only so many things we can control. And some things we just have to be the person that's there as they have to go through something. Which, yeah, it's hard because we also obviously develop such loving relationship with these kids. It's hard to see kids that you care about so much that sometimes the most you can do is just be there. Yeah, it definitely is a job that, like, to some degree is sort. of always with you. Yeah, we have a joke about this with this job where it's like, like,

if you do what you love and you'll never be free for a single second of your entire life, it's like, because you're just always on. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, as you say this, I, I worked till like 930 last night because I was like, you know what, I'm enjoying this so much taking out with my guys. So I'm just going to keep working. Yeah, yeah. So speaking, speaking of keeping working. We need to go to ads and then we will come back and talk about the ways in which at this job that requires an incredible amount of structural support

to keep people there for like over a decade is failing to do that. And we are back. So okay, now that we sort of talked about what this is, let's talk about the actual union,

which is the thing. Yeah. So can you talk about sort of how did organizing for this union start and what were the sort of issues that could have brought everyone to be like, okay, we need to do this? Yeah, for sure. So we first brought about our petition to unionize in March of 23. So that was two years ago, a long time ago, right? But the work for unionization, obviously the organizing behind it had started like much before that when I, I first joined friends.

It was in September of 22, and I knew that the work had already been, like, happening the summer before. What was the catalyst was post-COVID. A, obviously a lot of people left, given what COVID did to a lot of industries and especially care work. But then likewise, a lot of people were fired, and were many would say, like, fired without. a full-on, like, deep process that included a program manager who, you know, was really

listening to friends and advocating for the mentor role, and they were let go, which spurred a lot of people to want to start organizing. Some of the issues that we face, like, the pay, obviously, like, within social work in general and nonprofit work, like, it's never going to match up and never going to really be as good as, like, the cost of the cost of, of living, especially here in Portland, but the pay compared to like all of the emotional work and all the work that we do was just not there and not sustainable. It's why people were not like able to stick around because frankly we were looking at the same issues that our families were facing of like, you know, food insecurity and needing to like get food stamps or like needing

like rental and like housing assistance because our pay was just not up to par. Those are a few of the issues. Jess, I don't know if you have other thoughts. Yeah, I think you touched on a lot of them. I think it's hard to stay in this job. If you are looking to have a family, there's been issues, yeah, with pay, with insurance, with other sorts of things that have led to mentors leaving rather than like staying there, even if they like really wanted to stay there, just wouldn't necessarily allow for them to have maybe like the life they wanted. And also just honoring, I think with like bereavement leave and critical issue leave has been areas that haven't really been addressed.

Yeah. We have had very tragic things happen in the, in our working community with the families and that have. drastically affected, yeah, the well-being of mentors and staff members alike. Yeah, and I mean, you know, this is a job that structurally is designed to be a kind of like, like, again, if the goal is to have one person from like kindergarten, Chantelthi, like, like a graduating high school, right? Like, that is something that requires like 1950s, 1960 style Fordism, like you have one job for decades.

And the only way you can do that is if people are incredibly well supported. And it's like, the fact that it's like, okay, you're trying to do this, but you're not paying people enough money to fucking afford food. Like, what the hell? Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Just like, oh my God. Yeah, or even, I mean, it's still something that we're fighting, but like, our,

our workplace, like, doesn't provide health insurance for dependents, which I think is like... Oh, my God. Really ironic giving how much we care for kids. And then some of our mentors and other co-workers that have kids, like, have to spend so much money on health insurance for their own personal kids. Friends of some of the kids, apparently. That's how this works. The kids, they pick. Yeah.

Yeah. And honestly, like, big, big picture thinking, like, the reason why we... like started this whole unionizing project was because we care so much about our kids, right? Like I, when I first started working at Friends, like I think was the first mask mentor to be hired in a fairly long time after a lot of firings of other mass mentors. And two of the youth that, actually it's more than two of the youth, but the first two youth that I was matched up with. They hadn't had a mentor for over two years. Jeez.

Which is a really long time. Like when you, you know, are five, six years old and you're used to one person consistently picking you up every single week and hanging out with you and spending time with you for several hours for six or seven years. And then just like next. day next week, maybe even that same day you find out like, oh, you no longer have a mentor and you're not going to have a mentor for two more years because people keep leaving. People aren't wanting to apply for this job because the pay isn't high enough, right? That then like creates like

a lot of issues with the kids that we're dealing with. It's not like we are these like saviors or like anything like along those lines, right? But when someone has consistent, support and then that support is lost for a long time, especially when you're a young kid where it's been the majority of your life you've been having that consistent support, that then creates a lot of trust issues and overall like attachment issues that a youth could face. And for me, that was the main thing. Like working with these kids and having to like regain that trust was something that's like still to this day is like really emotionally like daunting. And And I like, I will keep saying this.

I love my kids so much. Like I like can't stop thinking about them. And I want to be with my kids until they graduate, which would mean me staying at this job for another eight years. Which is, it's a long time, right? But I want to do that. So I want to, you know, get paid. Have time off when one of my, sadly, this is something that did occur, where you've passed away. that I worked with and like didn't have time off to like really grieve that um hard stuff and I just

want to be able to stay there till they're done with the program yeah and it's like there's just I mean just like a litany of horrors where it's like one it's like you know what when there is like it's it's it's not you know like turnover in a normal job sucks and but this is like when there's turnover because people can't afford to live their lives it's like you're just like ripping a in these kids like the fabric of their social lives. And then also it's like, yeah, one of these kids that is literally your job to care for dies is you just have to fucking go to work the next day. Like, it is so hideous.

And it's just like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, like it makes sense that like, yeah. Yeah, people are organizing because it's like, you know, like this organization is just. systemically failing both the people they're trying to help and the people whose job it is to

help them and yeah yeah yeah i think one of the things that is like hardest to see while like working there is the ways in which this like job that you do like that like i care so much about and love doing but like seeing this like institution in a way be like part be part of the problem because if we aren't like having it so that employees feel supported in the way that they need to, like life happens. Sometimes people leave and like move and get a different job for various reasons. But a lot of the times it's it's because it's not sustainable and it's really hard to leave. And like it's a heartbreaking thing because I like I want to graduate many of my youth. and it is something that I think about of like, how feasible is that? Like, I want to do it. And like, also,

okay, then that means I got to be frugal in all these other ways or et cetera. And yeah, and working with youth that have already kind of experienced loss and wanting to continue to show up for them. The job itself feels so sacred and like I feel so lucky to be in these kids' lives. And I think just a lot of the turnover has been out of like lack of sustainability for yourself, like for your well-being. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the turnover numbers were pretty wild.

I think one time we calculated it and mentors were, it was like a 40-something percent like turnover rate for mentors. Yeah. And a lot of that happened because in this two-year time period where we've been fighting for a construct, they also froze wage increases. So I've had the same wage for the past two years, two and a half years that I've been working here. You know, in that same time period, inflation has been pretty crazy and rent for me. And it's about to get worse.

It's about to get so much worse. Yeah. Yeah, which, you know, gladly now we've had this fight and we're at the two-year mark and not at the zero-year mark and not looking forward to two more years of doing this. But yeah, it's been hard to sustain this when everything is increasing in price and our wages are completely stagnant. Yeah. Yeah, so let's take one more ad break and then we will come back to talk about, yeah, how unionization efforts are going. And yeah, we are back. Yeah, so let's talk about how this campaign is going.

So you said you've been in bargaining for like two years? So we had our petition for recognition on March 23rd, 23. So that was over two years ago. And then our employer didn't formally recognize us. But through the process of like voting, we got over 93% of. Wow. That's an incredible. That's incredible.

It's super great. And it's also like, wow, we all really. needed this. Yeah. And like there were some other barriers, including like not being formally recognized. Like we also had management contest a few positions that I believe most, if not all, we were able to successfully have be part of our unit. And then we didn't have our first bargaining session until September of 2023. So like almost six months, I think, if I did the math, right? After we formally presented our letter for recognition. Yeah, yeah.

And like throughout that process, so now it has been like, Jesus is quite good at keeping track of it, but I think as of today, we're about at 580 days of bargaining. God, yeah. Yeah, it's been a long one and it hasn't been, it's been like also a choppy journey where there has been delays in scheduling, delays in just getting different articles back in time. One of the biggest ones, obviously, was

compensation. And I think I can't quite remember the period of time, but we presented it over a year ago, I think, maybe. I could be wrong. And it took like, it took several, several, several months for us to get anything back from management, which, yeah, was a big bummer amongst other things. It sucks. It sucks. And obviously that's the one that we have yet to finalize, like as we're talking right now. Yeah, it is. Insurance and compensation are still our last two articles left. Yeah. And some of the, like, the difficult thing, I mean, when you are working on a project, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised given like really when these conversations started if we're looking at like over 900 or 1,000 days of like really talking about this. But then when you're dealing with bargaining for 580 days, like it's exhausting.

It is so exhausting. We have regular meetings that we attend to that are bargaining. meetings were specifically scheduled outside of work hours so that like the people on our bargaining team and other union members would have to put in that extra time outside of our 40 hour week. Yeah. And within that like the hardest part is when you directly confront, right, your managers and your bosses about like the rights and the things that you need. So much of it like boils down. And down to respect, right? And your respect as like a worker and the value that you have as a worker in your organization. And when there is the pushback on that, it honestly is like for me at

times was debilitating, right? When you're doing this work and your workplace is stretching things out for so long. And you're pouring your heart out on your kids, like really trying to do the best. That response from our, you know, our supervisors and managers, like, it really was hard. It was hard for me. It was hard for other union organizers in our workplace and was hard for all of our workers where we started thinking like, dang, like, what is the value that we have, like, in this workplace? What is the value that we intrinsically have in the work that we're doing with our kids? It's a lot.

And it's a lot when you're facing all these systems that our kids are facing and, like, taking those things in and then are trying to. to change those systems, finally able to try to change those systems. And we learned that, like, oh, wait, like, the place that we're working is actually part of these systems, too. And is doing the same things that we're, like, fighting to have our kids, like, have better lives. Like, we're facing it right now from inside the house. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to add into, yeah, very much realizing that, like, our management is also in a way operating, you know, maybe like a corporation, which isn't the hope you would have for a nonprofit. And one of the steps we had to take as a union was

filing a ULP, so unfair labor practice, which cited, like I had mentioned before, like delays in scheduling, and also regressive bargaining, which just means that like the way in which they were presenting things would have lessened our like quality of conditions. So definitely not what you want to be getting, not what you want to be handed across from the bargaining table. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Within this process, they were currently hourlyed workers, but they tried to change us to hourly

workers. Oh my God. Which again, like, we're always working. You know, we're always working. So unless you want to pay me for 24 hours. You know, you're talking about like. yeah, that they're behaving like a corporation. Like, oh yeah, this is exactly what like my employer did to me, which is like, like,

like, what are the largest media companies in the world? And they dragged out negotiations for two years. And like, you know, you're talking about this sort of like, just like, oh, they're like the feeling of disrespect where they're just not getting stuff back to you. And it's like, I remember, you know, like, we'd be sitting there for a bargaining meeting and they wouldn't, and they would be an hour late. And they'd be an hour late because they hadn't, like, bothered to beforehand spend time drafting out what their responses were going to be.

so they were frantically trying to get it done before we were there. I mean, we're all just sitting there for literally an hour waiting for them to show up. And it's like, okay, there are people in this unit whose job is to stand next to car bombs. Like, and you can't show up on time to your, to this meeting

that you have no was going to happen for weeks. Like, it's just, I say this every single episode. This is an incredibly common unit blessing tactic is draw out the first contract because that's like the second point where unions fail after like the, after you get like, recognition votes is like here. Yeah, for sure.

You know, like, I mean, I think there's some extent we expect corporations to do this, but it's like, okay, this is an NGO that's like the point of which is supposed to be like helping underprivileged underprivileged youth. And then they're like, we're going to turn around and we're going to screw over different underprivileged youth.

Like, yeah, it sucks. Yeah, and I think that's like, for me, one of the things that just like mess with my mind the most is that like, we're not selling a product, right? We're not trying to like get revenue or anything along those lines. Right. So like our job is a job that we actually like fully love and like want to stick around like not just for our own like financial piece and like our own like financial security. Like we want to stick around this job because we care about the job. And you know, that's not to like other, you know, business. and other workplaces that unionize, a lot of times people want to do that because they want

financial security, right? And I think for a lot of NGOs, nonprofits, and care work, like, we unionize because we want to stick around both because of financial security, right? But also because we just, like, care so much about the work that we're doing. And to be faced with actions by our workplace that, you know, tried to dissuade us from that, try to, like, in a sense, like, it felt like stopping us from wanting to stick around. Like, that, again, really hard, really hard. And I think, like, a really, like, psychologically hard part that comes with unionizing in the care work field and the, like, nonprofit space.

Yeah, like, this isn't a job that people are going to take for the money. but we do need to be receiving like equitable pay and benefits so that we stay at this job. Like this by all means and like still like this is the same way I feel about it to this day. I remember like reading the little like job description for this role and was like, oh, this is dude, this is like my dream job. This is like 100% what I want to spend my energy towards. Yeah. And yeah, I think that's a huge part of why we were able to get, like, that 93%, and to have also, like, routine support for different actions and stuff is just because we have people that care so much about wanting to stick around. Yeah. And that's the thing that NGOs, you know, and you see this in abortion work, you see this in, like, you see this in nursing, you see this in all of these different fields.

That's the thing that these NGOs used to exploit people is, you know, like, I mean, is the basic human empathy and love and care that we have for the people who are caring for. And these people are like, aha, look at this.

Aha, these people, they care about the thing that they're doing. We could underpay them and overwork them. It's like, why is there just to work like this? Like, it's just, oh, what a terrible way to design an economic system.

Yeah. It's just good Lord. Let's talk a little bit about like, you know, what kinds of organizing things you all have been able to do and the kinds of things you've been able to accomplish by, you know, working together even in these really kind of like, I don't know, structurally difficult conditions. Yeah, we've had, um, we've had a multitude of different actions over the past, you know, over the past 580 days. Um, I think one of our, one of our, one of our big.

biggest ones by far, which was, I think also, was just one of our most beautiful in a way was November of last year. We did an info picket. And it was one of those things too where it was very well planned out, but also even with the best of planning, midway through it, we had a shift location based off of just changing information we were getting. And we had one of our like little bits is because our union is called fun. A lot of our posters were SpongeBob themed. So instead of imagination, you know, it's compensation. And I think it's indicative of like also how much people that work with us are playful and sweet and why we're are good at our jobs of working with kids.

Yeah. And yeah, we had very high terms. out. I think we had 40-something people within our own organization that showed up for that. We've done smaller actions too by just asking for community support. Like we've had caregivers write letters of support to different people in management. We've also done a few pack the rooms for bargaining sessions, like especially when there have been times that have felt like there's been some semblance of stalling. Yeah, those are just some of them. Hesda's chime in with others. Yeah, within that. And I think like an interesting thing about

nonprofits, our revenue comes from donors, right? So we have to play this like fun game of like, okay, how do we communicate with our donors, right? So that we make sure that they know that like you know, this is part of like what they're donating to,

but then within that also like you know, ask for money as well, right? Because we do want you know, better pay and better benefits. Right. So we've contacted donors and will still plan to do that with both that ask of like support the union and support our organization, right? Because the thing that we care about the most is the work that we do with our kids and for that to happen. We want our organization to like stay afloat, truly, right?

Yeah, some of the wins that we've gotten, I mentioned earlier that they were trying to have us be hourly workers. And that was a big campaign that we, like, were fighting back on for a long time. It's also like what precipitated the ULP filing. I made too many buttons that said, you could never have puity buttons. Truly. That said, I work 40 plus hours a week because one of the people on the bargaining team for management at the bargaining table asked if we even work 40 hours a week while we were talking about this. And that's like one of those instances that I mean like, yeah, wow, that's like a little disrespectful and like really bites. So we all were wearing these pins regularly. We, you know, we signed a strike pledge where we had like 80 something percent

of the unit say that like if we came to voting for a strike, people would strike. And the big win was like, okay, great, we get to stay a salaried worker because they walk back on that, on that threat. We are time off. We have a time off contract or agreement now that like some of my co-workers that have been around a long time, once the contract gets ratified, they'll have like two more weeks of time off. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Because they haven't, they've been around for seven years and they're still at the same amount of time off.

basically that I'm at and that I've been at since the beginning. Yeah. And when it comes to wages, like, we're still figuring that out. But some of the gains that we are potentially looking at is, like, incredible. Like, I looked at the numbers yesterday of, like, what hopefully, given, like, where we're at right now in the agreements, like, what I would hopefully get. And I straight up, like, tiered up looking at the number. because it felt like such a big change in my financial status, right?

And yesterday, like as I said, I worked until 9.30 p.m. with my kids, probably because I had this, like, massive, like, weight of, you know, this financial doom that I'm looking at somewhat lifted at the hope of the wins that we might get from this contract. So it's been incredibly hard, incredibly long, way too long. And all of it is going to be so worth it, right? I hope that's something that the listeners really get that like this is hard work. But in the end, like is the change that we are hoping for, you know? Yeah.

And recently one of the things that we did do just like a run through of just to kind of boost morale since sparketing has gone on for so long was compile all the wins that we have so far just through TAs. So still tentative. But yeah, it did map out a lot of huge things. One of the things we do a lot in this job is drive. And we don't have many things in policy about cleanings or repairs when something happens in your car with the youth. Like say they throw up. It happens with kids.

Like that isn't necessarily something that would have been like covered. We would have had to just pay for that cleaning ourselves. And like mileage is a huge thing where. one of our potential, like, big wins is that we'll get, like, full mileage covered, rather than having to, like, deduct time from, like, this illusion of having an office where we were to have to minus some mileage in whatever way, made sense with where our buildings were located, despite even if our kids were, like, totally somewhere else where we were picking them up. It definitely wasn't, like, the most sensible way for us to be, like, being fully reimbursed for what we were doing.

And those are all huge wins that we do have. Like obviously compensation and insurance are two of the biggest that we're still working on. I think recently, like almost within this week, we've started to tip in a way that feels like we may be close to having a contract soon. Which I do want to say like, you know, as inspiration to everybody out there that works for a nonprofit, like unionize. And you know what? you might it might fare well for you. I have hope for everybody. And like right now I think a lot of our like a lot of my coworkers are starting to have hope again because I do think like you said, it is totally a manipulation tool to have it drawn out so long. And yeah, it is exhausting to be

basically stalled in your wage for two and a half years. But we are like gaining some traction again, which I do think is something that we're still being, you know, cautious with. Just just. because right now it does feel like management is working with us a little bit more, but I also think that there are reasonings around that. Like we're about to have in a few weeks our biggest fundraiser for our work. Because like Hesu said, we are majority donor-based. And I do think there's an appeal to management to have a contract by then. Yeah.

It adds to the whole we're doing good work and we treat our employees well. I hope that that is something then that is fulfilled by them in an honest way, not just a superficial way, because we are still pushing for a little bit more right now and have bargaining coming up next week. So yeah, I'm really hoping that what they're showing us isn't just performative that we really might be able to get to a point where there is something that is truly good for us because we're all ready. We're all ready for a contract. Yeah, as someone who got our contract, like it doesn't magically solve everything, but like, my God, does that should make your life better? Yeah. It is absolutely worth it. Yeah. Okay, so how can people support y'all both sort of locally here and then just like broader? Because most people are not here. Honestly, most of our like people in like management positions information is public. If you want to email them and support, go for it. Also just like encouraging either your workplace if you work in kind of a social work setting or like, you know, if you know people that are because this whole field of work takes such a toll on people and it is the most necessary work.

And I think it's really easy to fall into the mindset of I'm doing this for the greater good, not, you know, not for money, not for these things. But like you also deserve to feel okay and taking care of. and have the things you need to be saying. Yeah. Hasease, anything else? Do you want to add? Yeah, I mean, I would add that, like, we have an Instagram, right? That's friends, PDX union network.

It's a mouthful, but we'll link to the description. Yeah, great. And then within that, like, if you're in Portland, like, make sure to, like, follow us and, like, pay attention to what we're posting because we, you know, hopefully we do not have to get to a point in striking, especially the place that we're at right now with our contract. But in truth, like we're looking at 580 days, and that is quite a long time. Yeah.

And then also, like, if listeners do have the ability to donate, if they could donate some funds for friends of the children in Portland, and somehow on their notes be like, I support the union, like, I think that could also be a really interesting way to show, the support that like our supporters have like for both the work that we're doing on the youth level but then also like in the union side of things too there's been a lot of like communication of like oh this is really going to impact like the development side of our organization and like all of the things that like our fundraising team is going to have to do to like meet these which again I think that would be more true if like our executive director wasn't making like what like five times as much money as I am. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

But yeah, showing that support like it doesn't have to be a lot. But showing our bosses just how much like the populace like is supporting our unionization efforts. Like that would be really dope too. And then also like it impacts our kids like our kids. Like, that's the truth of it all. Like, I want my kids to have the best life that they could possibly have. And sadly, we live in a world where money really dictates that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So those are, we will have links in the description to all of that. And, yeah, thank you, both so much for coming on the show. And I hope you win. And, yeah, I hope you get to go back to caring for these kids and not. and also while not having to worry about, like, being able to live your lives.

Thank you, me so much. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. Yeah, of course. Honestly, it's been great talking about the work because it is, it is really important work, and I'm happy we get to do it. Yeah, it's wonderful. And, yeah, and so this is, yeah, this has been it could happen here.

And, yeah, I'd also go unionize your workplace. You can do it. I guarantee it. Hello and welcome to the show. It's me, James, today, and I am joined by Garrison Davis. Hi, Garrison. Hello. Garrison has just said some words about something that's happening on social media that I don't understand. And it's made me feel very old. This is what's happening today in my world. It's very sad. We're gathered here today to talk about the earthquake in Myanmar, right? I think most of you will probably have been made aware of the earthquake. it's somewhat odd that corporate media has really not reported on the revolution in any substantial way since 2021. But the earthquake apparently justified a lot of networks sending people to Myanmar for the first time. Very amusingly, people DMing me on Blue Sky and Twitter asking how to get a visa

from the Burmese hunter, which is not a thing I have ever done. The last communication I had with them came in the form of a car bomb that they set off near to a place where we were. But if you're not aware, the earthquake happened on the 28th of March this year, just before one in the afternoon. It was the biggest earthquake in Myanmar since 1912, and it registered 7.7 on the Richter scale, which is huge, because it's very hard for foreign journalists to get a visa to enter Myanmar. I love the initial reporting focused on Bangkok and the damage done in Thailand, but the epithet was in Sagang, which is near Mandalay. Mandalay's second biggest city in Myanmar. And that was where the worst of the destruction happened. Almost every street in Mandalay

has collapsed buildings. It's a little difficult for us to get a sense of the exact scale of the damage because the Hunter refuses to allow some media has been allowed in. The BBC, I saw like sneaked somebody in. It's very difficult for media to move and report freely. In addition to this, the Hunter has continued its practice of cutting off internet for people in Myanmar. right? Even during like emergency situations? Yes. Especially during emergency. They've kind of like as a response to this because I guess they perceive it to be something

that makes them look weak. This is a tendency that the hunter has displayed before. So in 2008, Cyclone Nagas affected Myanmar and killed over 130,000 people. And they blocked international aid. They said that people didn't need the quote, chocolate bars that the U.S. and other countries were trying to deliver and that they could exist by hunting frogs in ditches, was their suggestion.

I don't think people realize how far down the North Korea scale that the Burmese hunter is. But they're very worried that any interaction with the outside world, specifically with, I guess Western neoliberal powers will be damaging for their ability to control the population.

So for that reason, we don't know how many people have died, right? From what I've heard on the ground, the death toll is substantially higher than the 3,600 number being reported. The US Geological Survey estimated that an earthquake of that magnitude in that region would kill between 10 and 100,000 people. Obviously, that's quite a big kind of delta there. What I can tell you is that I've heard firsthand that there are some parts of mandolin is a gang where the stench of rotting bodies is so powerful that people have stopped returning to

their homes. There have been so many aftershocks that people are still sleeping in the street because they're worried about the damage structures falling down. The UN has an estimate of 17 million people across 57 townships. Townships are like the administrative districts that are used in Myanmar, have been affected with over 9 million people facing severe hardships. And of course, this is all compounded by the fact that there were already 20 million people in Myanmar who needed humanitarian assistance, and there are about 3.5 million internally displaced people as a result of the fighting that's happened after the revolution. So, like, it really came at a pretty difficult time in a place where the government is not willing. They said after the earthquake, they wanted international aid, but they've, as we'll see later in this script, they've only accepted it from certain countries. I spoke to a friend who has family in Mandalay yesterday.

He told me that the way they're assessing the damage is using like open source intelligence. They're trying to look in the backgrounds of people's videos on Facebook to like work out if their childhood homes fell down, right? They were using satellite imaging software when I spoke to them yesterday to try and ascertain if their families were okay. They told me, Sagang has very famous pagodas and the pagodas are all on a hill. And apparently a lot of those pagodas have fallen down and even the hill itself is like listing. So there's been like massive cultural damage as well. Another way in which the damage was compounded by Myanmar's politics was the quake struck, like I said, at 1pm on a Friday, right, which is Friday prayers.

This happened during Ramadan, specifically the day before Idlfitter, which is a very busy day for mosques, if you're not aware, right? Successive governments of Myanmar since the 1960s have refused. used to allow even basic maintenance for mosques, that means that these buildings were in great states of disrepair. In Myanmar, there is an ultra-nationalist Buddhist movement, which has been embraced to a great degree by the Hunter, but also limited even the National League for Democracy, which was the relatively neoliberal aligned party that had previously been in power in Myanmar, or somewhat in power, I suppose. Ultrinationist Buddhist monks like Ashin Wurathu

and his 969 movement have kind of condemned anything that they did as making them pro-Muslim and they have this, essentially they have a great replacement theory, right, that Muslims are trying to come in

through Bangladesh to replace Buddhists in Myanmar. Yeah, lots of people here have this like very orientalist perspective of like Buddhism, TM as this like, you know, like, like peaceful, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, no,

like Buddhism, like every religion has a variety of sex. Yes. And the Buddhist national sex can be particularly nasty. Yeah, I mean, as vicious as any other, people, I'm sure will be familiar with the Rohingya genocide. There are a lot of monks that supported that, including whereathism, most notable one, but there are plenty more, right? And they're part of this. I mean, he's literally explicitly expressed, like, how much he looks up to the English Defense League. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, like, these are people who, like, they are part of this global nativist movement.

People's Orientalism, I think, sometimes stops him seeing that or appreciating that this extends outside of, like, white global north countries. Yeah. One thing that I did think that really touched me in the days after the earthquake was young Buddhist, Bama people of the majority ethnicity, reaching out to me and being like, hey, man, this happened in Friday prayers during Ramadan, and it has devastated Muslim population. Like, thousands of people.

hundreds of mosques have gone and thousands of people are trapped in a rubble and like no one's talking about it why is no one talking about it this is terrible and like it would have been inconceivable to hear young bumah buddhist people so concerned with the well-being of like their Muslim countrymen before the coup in 2021. It's with a country that had been manufacturing consent for genocide against its it's Muslim minorities for four or five years by that point right use. Specifically on Facebook that's a behind the bastards episode on this. You can also listen. If you're new to the show, Robert and I have made two scripted series about the revolution in Myanmar, which will include in the show notes. But like that change to a real genuine solidarity and care between these two groups,

which was really touching in the like moments after the earthquake and the days after the earthquake. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about the revolution and I want to talk about how the revolution has been responding to this and the impact has had on the revolution. We are back. And, of course, the revolution hasn't stopped because of the earthquake, right? The conflict is still ongoing and the PDFs and their allied ethnic distance organizations are still fighting against the Hunter. In fact, within an hour of the earthquake, the Hunter began using paramotors to drop bombs

on Hangu village in Sagang. And this has been a thing that they've started to do recently. In a sense, I guess it's a good sign because it shows that maybe like their jets and other aircraft are in a poor state of repair or that they're struggling to keep enough of them airborne. Initially, I wondered if they were using the paramotors because their runways had been damaged. But that doesn't seem to be the case. They've been airstriking just as much as they ever did, which is unfortunate. Satellite images report to my source on the ground. ground suggests that they're able to continue carrying out bombing rates at a pretty similar rate

from when they did before. Despite this, the National Unity Government, which is kind of the shadow government composed mostly of people who are elected and then deposed by the coup in 2021, and the PDF, who in theory are commanded by the National Unity Government, called a two-week ceasefire right after the earthquake to allow for like a humanitarian pause. The Three-Brotherhood Alliance, alliance of the three most powerful ethnic resistance organizations in Myanmar also called what they called a humanitarian pause for a month. In both cases, they said they wouldn't undertake offensive operations, but they would defend themselves, right? Because I think they had a sense that the Hunter wasn't going to stop attacking them. The Hunter did declare its own ceasefire on April 3rd,

and the Kachina Dependence Army, which is another ethnic resistance organization, followed shortly thereafter. notably that ceasefire from the Hunter came the day after its troops fired on a Chinese Red Cross convoy, which is not a great look for them. No, never loved to see that. Yeah, we don't love to see people firing on the Red Cross. This is especially bad for the Hunter

because China has been growing closer and closer to the Hunter and supporting it. China's had this weird back and forth relationship with the revolution. At times, it supported the revolution. It seems like, specifically supporting the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which is a group that broke off the Communist Party of Burma in the 1980s. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. There's also the United War State Army, which isn't part of the revolution, which has the strongest relationship with the PRC, and they're just chilling. They haven't really entered the conflict. It's called straight chilling, by the way, James. Straight chilling? Yeah, there you go.

That's how they say it. I've marked myself yet again. Straight chilling at the United War State Army. Thank you, Harrison. Actually, it spoke to some cadres from the Burmese Communist Party recently. The Communist Party of Burma re-entered after 2021. And they're not focusing on proselytizing the Maoist gospel to people. They're focusing on fighting the Hunter and developing alliances.

And it's interesting to see where that will go, given Marcus Lenin's Maoism is definitely not the majority ideology of the revolution. Most people are committed to some form of federal democracy, which when you speak to different fighters varies from, like, we want what you guys have in the US to something more akin to the democratic confederalism that people might be familiar with in Roshava. China is competing with Russia in Myanmar. So both of them are interested in supporting the Hunter, right?

And obviously, both their ideologies are far from liberatory. They're interested in propping up a totalitarian state. So we have seen both Russia and China send support to the hunters and rescue teams after the earthquake. Meanwhile, the US offered $2 million, which I was kind of surprised they offered anything. That is low-key surprising, considering Mark Rubio. Right, yeah.

Well, I think Rubio is more of a, like, a slightly... Ruby is a neocon. Yeah, I guess, like, it makes sense Mark Rubio, like, five years ago. Yeah. It doesn't make sense, like, post, like, You-Said being gutted. They're like, oh, you're still doing that kind of stuff. stuff, huh? Yeah, there's a weird

mix of things, because, yes, like, a traditional neocon style Rubio this tracks, but all of the movements that the Trump administration's been doing more recently, this seems like, seems like a, some kind of DEI shenanigans, if you'd ask

me. Yeah, actually, they added another 7 million later. 9 million. Which is, yeah, it's not a lot of money compared to what we would normally expect. And at the same time they did it. Three USAID workers, at least three, I should say, three that I'm aware of, were laid off, like, literally they received emails telling them that they no longer had a job while they were on the ground

assisting earthquake survivors. Department of government efficiency. Strikes again. Highly efficient. We'll send you the money and then also pull out our own people who, I guess, was supervising how the money is spent or would be. It definitely shows, though, like a strategic shift in the region. China and Russia, China obviously is interested in Myanmar because of its rare earth metals,

because of jade. China has traditionally had a lot of jade trade with Myanmar and then because it controls a large amount of sea front, right? China wouldn't want to fall into like why it would see as like someone with adversarial interests. Russia is still interested in just kind of projecting itself as a global power even as it continues to shrink every day in terms of its global ability to project power. But there definitely are both Chinese and Russian assistance helping the the Myanmar hunter now.

Meanwhile, the US doesn't seem to give a shit what happens here now. Like, this is kind of, not that the Biden administration was doing very much either, but at least we had USAID. And USIP was very invested in Myanmar and actually did a really good job

of kind of almost like being the foreign affairs, not branch, but like they explained the revolution to the world. Like whenever a journalist wanted to understand the revolution in Myanmar, it was USIP they went to. Obviously, all the context of have a USIP

have now been dope. which is a shame. So despite the ceasefire, right? I said they fired on these Chinese troops. The hunter has in fact not stop bombing. Earthquakes struck areas since the earthquake. Madelaide, PDF, who I'm in contact with, they're the revolutionary forces in the area that was most affected by the earthquake.

On April 7th, told me that they're aware of 10 airstrikes in their area of operations. Since the earthquake, a three-month-old baby and a 10-year-old child were killed. in an air raid on Nicar village in Papoon Township. That was in Karen State. On April 10th, they bombed a school. Something that the Hunter likes to do a lot. They dropped two 500-pound bombs on a food court. They then circled back and dropped another bomb on the people responding to

and giving aid to the people they'd initially bombed in the food court. By food court here, just to clarify, I'm not talking about at the shopping mall. I'm talking about like a market where people can buy, like, prepared food, right? They've killed the best I can collate from various sources, at least 72 people and injured about 100 people in addition to thousands who died after the earthquake. There are also reports that Hunter, quote unquote, recruiters here are engaging in forced conscription in the disaster zone. I read of at least one person who was on a search and rescue team that they were a trained search and rescue volunteer, right? So they were moving rubble to rescue people, and they were forcibly conscripted while they were doing that.

Obviously, that's had a chilling effect on people going out to help others, right? What the hunter is not doing is rescuing its citizens. The military is detested in most of Myanmar, even in the areas that it controls, and it's failure to even try and trap people rescued under the rubble won't help this. There was a video that went viral recently of Hunter troops, like literally a line of soldiers rescuing Brick. that they've gone to a collapsed building and they're inspecting the bricks to see if the bricks are whole and then passing them down the lined and stacking them up. Don't worry, the bricks are safe.

Yeah, the bricks are safe. The people are not. It was genuinely like infuriating to see it. And I can't imagine for people who have lost family members how it must feel. Even rescue workers, like I said, have been forcibly conscripted. Equality Myanmar has noted more than 100 cases to force conscription since the earthquake.

So Myanmar has a conscription rule, a law. So anyone, men and now women between certain ages, can be forcibly conscripted into the hunter's army. So they're just finding people displaced from the earthquake and forcing them. Yeah, it's people who have been hiding in their homes, right, who now don't have homes to hide it. Yeah. Or people who came out in order to save their neighbors. And now they're forcing them to be, to fight for them. Just as they hunted did with Cyclone Nargis, they've also delayed and in cases blocked aid.

A team came from France to assist in a search and rescue. They spent 24 hours sitting in an airport waiting for their visa to be approved. And then they spent one day working in search and rescue efforts before being told that search and rescue efforts had now finished and they were to go home. They traveled around the entire world, didn't save a single life. Abundance. It's great. Presumably because the hunter wanted to placate China, a Taiwanese team was straight up refused

entry into Myanmar. that Taiwan had a search and rescue team that they were willing to send who could have saved people lives and that they weren't allowed to enter. All tourist visas have been suspended so it's not like the hunter is overwhelmed with visa applications,

but they're not allowing search and rescue teams to enter from countries. I guess they're not politically aligned with. This kind of horrific indifference to human suffering has characterized a top model for decades and it's really unlikely to change as it grows even more desperate

and it loses even more territory. It's just going to clamp down harder and harder on its people. B1 in the liberated areas, aid is being mobilized using the mutual aid structures which have existed for decades in the absence of the state. In significant and growing parts of Myanmar, people are relying on each other instead of the government for aid. And that has its benefits, right? Like, people have been out rescuing people from the rebel, but they're also desperately short of resources. I spoke to Mandalay PDF rescue team at the first week of April and they literally sent me, they have a notebook of a list of

We've run out of gauze, we've run out of tourniquets, we've run out of adhesive dressings, we've run out of elastic bandages, right? They're like the little nuts and bolts of saving people's lives they run out of. We did a fundraising campaign for them through behind the bastards. We raised nearly $2,000, which is great. So they're restocking their supplies, which is fantastic. But that's just one township all across the country. People are struggling for the basic supplies that they need to save lives.

The military has also blocked aid and medicine from entering their areas, right? So the military controls a lot of roadblocks, and it uses its control of those roadblocks to stop aid and medicine. Often it's kind of hoarding it in the capital city, which is Napador. People aren't familiar, and Napador is a city that the Gunta built for itself to govern from. It means seat of kings. Also in Napidore right now is the U.S. aid agency Samaritans Purse. Are you familiar with Samaritans Perce, Garrison? I don't think so.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but all of these humanitarian organizations all have like the same like four. words that they shuffle around in different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Samaritan's Purse, perhaps most famous for being run by Franklin Graham. Okay, yes, yes. I do know what this is and who this is, yes. Yeah, having all their volunteers sign like a statement of faith and being extremely homophobic.

For some reason, Samaritan's Purse is establishing a field hospital in Napidore right now. They're going to force people to convert to evangelical Christianity before they give services, like they do in some cases? Yes, yeah, or just leave them. Like, they didn't Afghanistan if they're not Christian. I cannot work out for the life of me what the fuck they're doing. Because, like, the Hunter has made a consistent policy of bombing Christians in Myanmar, right? In Karen and Kerrani state there are a lot of Christian people.

On Christmas Day, the Hunter bombed people going to services because it knew that Christians would be going to services at churches, right? The Kerrani Christians this year I saw celebrated Christmas in caves because they were so, afraid of being bombed, right? Like, I have no idea what logical leap you have to make. Bizarar. Yeah, it's, and they're like, they're not even at the, uh, in Sagan. The only people, the only international aid I'm aware of that was able to make it to Sagan was a Malaysian team who were able to save some lives.

Unfortunately, there were really strong rains this week. And that made all the collapse structures even more unstable. And the Malaysian team I saw have now returned home. We're going to take another ad break here. When we come back, we will talk about what you can do to help. All right, and we're back. First, I want to, I guess, have some good news. Despite everything, the military has still been taking massive losses.

The All-Burma Students' Democratic Front captured remaining Hunter positions in Indoor. They're all-benton Democratic Front or a group that's been around since 1988, right? And they have armed up and re-entered the revolution since 2021. One of the things that they captured on Monday was a underground Japanese field hospital from World War II, which I guess had been like an entrenched position. I guess they're not covered technically by the ceasefire, but there was a unit under the National Unity Government's command that operated with them. And from what I understand, this began as a defensive action. They'd surrounded the hunter, I think it's called Japan Cave Hill. They'd surrounded them on Japan Cave Hill for a long time.

and then the hunter obviously seeing the earthquake and everything, thereafter decided that now was the time for them to break out of this encirclement. They did not break out. They took a fat hell. And as a result, they've all been captured now. Meanwhile, in Chin land, if people haven't listened to the episode I did a couple of weeks ago with Azad from the anti-fascist front,

I was just going back and listening to that to understand Chinlan. But the AIF and a lot of their allied forces from the Chinland Defense Force and a Chin Brotherhood had a significant victory in capturing the rest of the Hunters positions in Falam last week. And I think it's very much on the table that we will see the whole of Chinlan liberated in the next few months or by the end of the year, which would be great to see. So people are wondering what they can do to help, right? And I think it's a very valid question because I saw today that the UN was meeting with

the Hunter in Napidore. and I just have no faith that any money that goes to the Hunter is going to get to people who need it. Yeah, no, absolutely not. You cannot. Like, they want them to die. No, they're like evil. Why?

Yeah, yeah. They are literally genocidal. They have done a genocide that has been prosecuted international criminal court. Like, I have no understanding why people continue to, like international organizations continue to funnel money to them other than because they have a status quo bias, I guess. So don't be doing that.

But there are groups who are making a really big difference. And one of them that I wanted to highlight, and Robert and I both very familiar with their work from the last time that we were over reporting is community partners international. CPI are really cool because they work by empowering members of the local community to be health volunteers,

as opposed to dropping in some doctors from America. or doctors from the United Kingdom or whatever. And then when those people leave, they take their skills with them. CPI, the thing is to educate folks within the community so that they can take care of one another. And it's sort of CPI has a matching donations thing right now, which is pretty cool. So if you donate, someone else will match your donation,

and that will double the amount that you receive. Otherwise, I will provide a list of mutual aid funds that have been shared with me. Most of them are like GoFundMees or things like that. I'll put it all in the show description. They've all been vetted. And like I know people are sometimes reluctant to give to GoFundMe's and they'd rather give to like a 501c3

or like an organization which has a little bit more, I guess like online presence. In this case, you have to understand that like a lot of orgs just aren't operating in the liberated areas. The two that I'm aware of, CPI and Free Burma Rangers. I spoke to Dave from Free Burma Rangers. They're trying to get to as many people as they can as well. That would be another great place to donate.

And I would include a list of vetted GoFundMe's. If you want to have a look through those and see if any of them speaks to you more, you can do that too. What this will mean for the future of Myanmar, we don't know yet, right? We have really no sense of how many people have died, of what it's done to the Hunter's ability to control those areas. But until the revolution has a way to stop planes bombing people, we will continue to see the same dynamic, right, of the hunter losing terrain on the ground, pulling back its soldiers, and then bombing civilians in the areas that it's lost.

That is, it's game plan. It's continuing to get more drones from China. It's getting aircraft munitions and jet fuel from China. and until there is an embargo on jet fuel and munitions to the hunter, then we will see this same pattern continue, right? They lose terrain, they bomb a school. They lose terrain, they bomb a hospital. It's the same stuff that Israel is doing,

and they've, of course, previously been armed by Israel as well, but we don't see as much solidarity for the people of Burma. If you want to stay in touch with what's happening on the ground, I think the Irawari, I-R-R-A-WR-A, W. U-A-D-D-Y does a really good job of doing daily summaries right now. So I would suggest checking out what's happening there. And, of course, we'll keep you updated on developments in the Spring Revolution as they come. This is It Could Happen here.

I am not going to El Salvador. It's not going to happen. No way. No thank you, Mr. President. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by James Stout. Hi, Garrison. We're here to talk about possibly,

the most upsetting thing I've seen in American politics in like the past six months to maybe even I don't know viscerally it hit me for like the past few years like yet what happened on Monday in the Oval Office was is kind of the most black pill I've ever been which is not a great way to start an episode yeah it like it made me feel like like I found 2023 very hard like going out and seeing people freezing in the desert and then coming home and seeing Joe Biden eat ice cream on on the on the timeline but like this. This was different. This was so, like, blatant.

There's, like, a level of, like, intentional depravity that you're reminded of more blatantly. Yeah. And, like, Buckele's trolling of... Yes. Everyone. So, we're going to be talking about an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and El Salvador President Buckele.

I guess I could learn his first name. Naid Buckele. There you go. You know he's Palestinian-Salvadorian. Are you fucking serious? No, his dad's an imam. I don't even have time for that. This is just fucking...

I'm sorry if anyone's driving and has had an accident upon hearing that. So, as you probably know, recently, the United States government has sent upwards of 300 people, immigrants, to the El Salvador terrorism confinement center,

this prison black site that people never return from. I guess I could point to, for a pop culture reference, which feels a little bit in bad taste, but you can point to like the prison in the TV show Andor as being a very comparable facility, frankly. Except they turn off the lights in Andor. They do not turn off the lights in Seacott. Lights run all the time. They put 10 to 20 people per cell. It's pretty bad.

Jameson has done episodes on Seacot in the past. We'll probably keep doing more. The lights thing, by the way, was a specific... policy change by Buckele. There was a particularly violent weekend in El Salvador, and as a result, he stopped letting people who were detained for gang crimes go outside and stopped building windows into the prison

and just put the lights on. Like as a way of punishing, I guess, the gangs by punishing the people who were detained there. Yeah, they can't go outside. They stay in their cell for almost 24 hours a day. They might occasionally get 30 minutes outside, but that's not even confirmed because no one's even allowed inside to see what's going on.

there. And we've sent upwards of 300 immigrants there, the majority, vast majority of which have no criminal record, even if you do have a criminal record, being renditioned to a foreign prison camp is still bad. But this is something that Trump hopes to expand on greatly. And they are currently defending their ability to do so in the courts. Since it has been learned that a few people sent there may have been partially sent by accident, but the Trump administration is refusing to return these people and is instead still trying to convince the public that these are dangerous terrorists that deserve to be disappeared. So let's kind of start with that main case.

The case that's receiving the most public attention right now is of a Maryland man named Kilmer-Abrego-Garcia, who's a subject of a district court case that has been sent up to Supreme Court and then sent back to the district court on whether this man can be returned home to his U.S. citizen wife and child. And then on Monday, April 14th in the Oval Office meeting, President Buckele said that he will not return this Maryland immigrant with protected legal status back to the United States, who ICE admits was sent to CECOT based on a quote-unquote administrative error. Buckele said, quote, how can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous, unquote, unquote, unquote. The El Salvador president

also balked at the idea of releasing Garcia from Seacott, since he can't have a quote-unquote terrorist free in his country, lying about Garcia being a criminal. I am going to play a few clips in this episode, because I think it is necessary to listen to these people actually say the words that they are saying in the tone that they're saying them. And the exact phrasing on these, I think, is actually pretty important right now. So unfortunately, you are going to have to hear the voices of a few people who you might not rather hear from, including the president of El Salvador. So I'll play this first clip. What is your president, can President Buckele weigh in on this? Do you plan to return him?

Well, I guess I'm supposed to have suggested that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right? How can I smuggle? How can I return him to the United States? It's like I smuggle him into the United States or whether I do it, of course, I'm not going to do it. It's like, I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

So you could release him inside of the United States. Yeah, but I'm not releasing, I mean, we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. I mean, we just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country of the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back into the releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world. No, that's not going to happen.

Well, they'd love to have a criminal, you know, with you can do it. I mean, there's a fascinating. They would love it. Yeah. They're sick. These are sick people. It's just insane.

Like, the whole pretense of any, any, like, serious engagement with reality there. It's just gone. Yeah. And they're both, like, miming that neither of them have the ability to make any kind of deal between each other to send people back, even though they have the ability to make a deal to send people there. Yeah, as they sit in the same room. The whole time Bikali is talking,

Trump has this, like, a growing smirk on his face. Yeah. As Bikalia is talking about this, this preposterous notion of smuggling a U.S. immigrant back into the United States, despite a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of this immigrant back into the country. The whole smuggling framing is, is obviously absurd with him saying,

like, I don't have the power to return him to the United States. All he needs to do is release him from the country. Seacot and the U.S. can fly him back, right? Just as we flew him to El Salvador. Like, the two heads of state are sitting right next to each other. They could agree to do this at any time. But now everyone's pretending that suddenly they don't have the power to undo what they seemingly had the power to do in the first place. Like, Buckele has ruled, and we're going to do a whole episode on Buckele and like his rise to power and then his use of power. But like, he's ruled under a state of exception for years in El Salvador, which allows them to detain people without warrants,

without trials, right? And like, it's that state of exception that is now the norm there. And that's kind of what he seems to be referring to, right? Like, we just get to lock people up. Why would I not do that? In effect, they are arguing that every single human being that is sent to Seacot by the United States is unable to ever leave the prison alive. Yeah. That's basically what they're saying. They're saying both, both parties, both Trump and Buckela, are unable to have someone who's been sent there to return. So they're just, they're just saying, like, no one's able to do anything. Like, they're just stuck there until they die. Yeah. And, like, this is part of the design of Seacot. The person who runs, like, the Seacot, like, security has said that

they do not intend in any person ever being released from Seacot. You are not designed to get out. You are stuck there forever. No one's ever left there. Yeah. It's just where you get disappeared. And that's all that it is. And I think part of why they're so unwilling to send Garcia back is because then you have someone, like the first person who's ever gotten out and can talk about what it's actually like in there when you don't have like Christine Ome and like propaganda cameras pointed at at the prison bars. Yeah, Buckele is is very reticent to release anyone for that reason. And like there are plenty of allegations. And like I think it looks like Time magazine has published this. It's not hugely controversial that he made deals.

with gangs in the past in El Salvador, right, to get them to reduce the murder rate. And, like, he certainly wouldn't like to hear that testify to certainly not in the United States court, right? So, like, he doesn't want people to be released from there either. Like you say, they don't want anyone to be able to go to any international human rights courts and testify as to what happened to them there. So it's kind of in his interest to never have anyone be released. It's not just also, I guess, like, in his interest, he's also being paid, right, $20,000 per detainee per year by the United States right now. So he also has a financial interest in keeping people in there. Even this per year deal makes now kind of makes zero sense because

both of them are arguing that there's no way to send anyone back. Right. So like it's not that it's even like, oh, they're only going to be there for one year. It's like they're just there. And like, who knows if they're going to like still be alive by the time that some of these people would be able to get out, whether that's through the mirabre. miraculous Donald Trump impeachment of 2026, which will never happen. Or like, however, like, these people are, they are stuck there because he's not going to release them into his country. We are seemingly unable to take anyone back from there. I think... I mean, unwilling, right? Like, the U.S. is theoretically able.

It's argued that we're unable, as people get into more after this ad break. Okay, we are back. One thing that we've seen across the Trump administration the past 80 days or so. Something that we saw very evident in this meeting is that whenever a single person is asked a question about the outrageous, possibly illegal,

possibly not but just immoral or evil things that are being done. The first instinct is always to pass the buck on to someone else. We saw this a lot with Signalgate, how it was always someone else's faults. No single person could get like hammered down of being like, okay, you are the person

that's going to be like accountable for this. And throughout this Oval Office meeting, eventually they started taking questions from journalists and reporters and propagandists who were in the room. And you saw this trend of, you know, if someone asks Trump about what's going on, he passes the buck to Stephen Miller, who passes the buck to Buckele, who then passes the buck to Mark Rubio. And it's like this big circle of like everyone's just talking around each other because no one really has the authority to speak on what's going on or how to fix this problem because they don't see it as a problem. So instead they just talk in a circle. And I think Miller was one of the most effective at this. And unfortunately, we're going to play the longest clip in this episode, just under two minutes from Stephen Miller,

where he lays out the Trump admin's thought process and strategy behind what they are doing. And I apologize for this, but it is useful to hear from Himmler too. So here we go. With respect to you, he's a citizen of El Salvador. So it's very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens as a starting point. As two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13,

when President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law, which I'm sure you know, you're very familiar with the INA, that he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States. So we had a deportation order, that was valid, which meant that under our law, he's not even allowed to be present in the United States and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation. This issue was then by a district court judge completely inverted,

and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and flying back here. That issue was raised to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful, and its main components were reversed nine. zero unanimously stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the President could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador, who again is a member of MS-13, which is I'm sure you understand, rapes little girls, murders women, murders children, is engaged in the most barbaric activities in the world, and I can promise you, if he was

your neighbor, you would move right away. So you don't plan to ask for your... But the Supreme Court is asking to, and what was the ruling in the Supreme Court? received was it nine to nothing? Yes, it was a 9-0. In our favor. In our favor, against the Diction Court ruling, saying that no district court

has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States. As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador's sole discretion, was set back to our country, that we could deport him a second time. No version of this legally ends up with

an ever-living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador. That is the president of El Salvador. Your question to that from the court can only be directed to him. I ask you. So there's a lot there. Yeah.

I think I'm going to start with I can promise you if he was your neighbor, you would move right away. And I think that is really the heart of what this Trump administration is doing. Like it's appealing to this most basic like suburban crime panic

fear racism of well, if he was your neighbor, you wouldn't want him living next to you. Yeah, like if there goes a neighborhood kind of. Well, just completely lying about like the context of this case.

Yeah. With, you know, Miller saying it's arrogant suggests that we, the most powerful country in the world, or used to be before the tariffs, can tell El Salvador how to handle its citizens, falsely claiming that immigration courts

deemed him a member of MS-13, which just is not true. Yeah. Talking about kidnapping him from Seacot to return him to the United States, as if ICE didn't just kidnap hundreds of people with no criminal records and send them to a foreign gulag. And then also lied about the Supreme Court ruling, saying they found the district court order

to return Garcia unlawful and grossly mischaracterizing the scope of what the Supreme Court ruling was and how it was sent back to the district court to work with the details on what facilitate the return actually means. And again, I think like the one of the most telling parts is how he ends by saying, quote, no version of this ever ends up. with him living here. And yeah, like, they're going to look for any, any way to, like, make this test case to work, right? And if, and if they can do this to someone with protected legal status, who is not a, who is not a terrorist, who is not a actual MS-13 gang member, right?

This is kind of ideal for them, because that means they can pay anybody as, as a foreign policy threat enough to be sent to a foreign gulag. Then at the very end of the clip, he passes the buck off to Bukkelai, to have to have him answer this question. Again, perfectly laying out their strategy. There's a lot to break down in what military. It's also just kind of interesting Camiller is amongst the press. He's not one of the people like sat on the, the couches supposed to be giving the press conference, right? He just kind of wades in to, I guess, like, offer this opinion and kind of like be the kind of embassy of this, of their

response, I guess, in a sense. I think crucially, like, Abrago Garcia's protection was from being returned to El Salvador, right? Because he had been harassed by gang members when leaving El Salvador and when they're being in El Salvador. He's lived in the States since 2011, and he left El Salvador to flee harassment and abuse from gang members. Yeah, the gangs that he's been accused of being a part of. But like, it then follows that, like, it would be legal for them to deport him to a third country, right? And that is the path that they've followed with all the Venezuelan migrants, right? They've accused them of being members of Tren Daraagua. I have not seen a compelling case made that any of them are yet. I'm sure people from Tren Daragua have come to this

country, but they have not provided any evidence that the people they have sent to say, God, are those people? No, like, we've had like 14 people are, like, accused of some kind of, like, violent crime, like murder or rape. And the other, like, 275 do not have a criminal record whatsoever. Yeah, and the bulk of this is reliant on some kind of idea that they have entirely created from fiction, are tattooing practices when one enters Trendaragua. And for them, right, even if they can't be returned to Venezuela, they feel like they have this endram, which is, okay, we'll send him to El Salvador. But for the Salvadorans, that's a different question, right?

And that is what they're trying to find here. And that is worrying because the case here that is getting the most publicity that seems to be the one that the Supreme Court has taken up is about the Salvadoran man. And I hope that doesn't mean that, like, the ship is. sailed for the Venezuelans, right? That essentially, yeah, no. Like, they don't have a case.

Because that was the vast bulk of them. I think there was something like 60 Salvadoran citizens and the rest Venezuelans. No, hundreds of people have been like forgotten in this. After Miller's rant there, Mark Rubio jumped in to state that, quote, no court in the United States has the right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States, unquote. And Stephen Miller hopped back in to talk about this Supreme Court case that they're falsely saying, they won nine to zero, which is not how that case went.

And they start talking more broadly about what can be allowed if it has to do with the foreign policy of the United States and how the courts don't have the ability to intervene in that process. No, the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It's that simple. End the story. And that's what the Supreme Court held, by the way. The Supreme Court said exactly what Marco said, that no court has the authority to compel the foreign policy function of the United States. We want a case 9-0, and people like CNN are portraying it as a loss, as usual, because they want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children.

Part of what I find so disturbing about this idea of, you know, no habeas corpus, no due process, if you aren't on foreign soil, is that, like, this idea of the courts having no jurisdiction over foreign policy. decisions, it means that as long as you, whether you're a citizen, whether you're a permanent resident, documented or undocumented immigrant, as long as you are forcefully removed from the United States soil, your rights and your due process has been forfeit, and the U.S. has neither the obligation nor sometimes the ability to return you to U.S. soil if that is their foreign policy interest. And this is such a troubling, broad concept that the portions of the courts are kind of allowing them to claim right now, and the complete removal of due process is slowly getting encroached upon at first with undocumented immigrants and green card holders.

But as we will see in the next section, they are also absolutely going to be targeting US citizens. Yeah, I think, like, we should just point out, obviously, the court is not conducting the foreign policy of the United States. It's ruling on the legality of the action taken by the president, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. Yeah, and as it relates to your rights for due process, if you are in the United States. Yeah, yeah. Like every single U.S. person, right?

A U.S. person would be anybody who resides in the U.S. be they documented or undocumented migrant citizens, what have you, like has a stake in this. We're going to go on break and then come back to discuss the expansion of the Seacot detention program and the possible targeting of U.S. citizens. Okay, we're back. So on April 7th, a few weeks ago, while on Air Force 1, President Trump told reporters that he would be, quote, unquote, honored for the president of El Salvador to take U.S. citizens, quote, unquote, American grown and born criminals, and put them in Seacot, the terrorism confinement center prison black site, saying, quote, why should it stop just at people that cross the border illegally? Unquote. A few days later, the White House press secretary reiterated that this is something that Trump is discussing both publicly and. privately. And later, during the April 14th Oval Office meeting, Trump said that if Salvador

was to build more of these torture mega prisons, the United States would quote unquote help them out if the Trump administration could disappear more American immigrants and U.S. citizens to these prison black sites. I'm willing to pay for those facilities to be open if new ones were going to be built. I'd do something. We'd help them out. Yeah, we have them. They're great facilities, very strong facilities and they don't play games. I'd like to go a step further. I mean, I say, I said it to Pam. I don't know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways that hit elderly ladies on the back of the

head with a baseball bat when they're not looking that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you'll have to be looking. at the laws on that statement, okay? So this is just the start of a long process that is going to be deeply troublesome and worrying. And again, like, this is something that they keep talking about. I think they're still looking for some kind of legal justification or they're looking for something that maybe, if not allows for this,

explicitly prohibits this in a way that they can't, like, get around. Yeah, did you notice he called out military? He said you'll have to look at the laws on that, Steve. Obviously, Miller is not the Attorney General. He also did mention Attorney General Pambondi. Pam Bondi. Who's also looking into this option right now. Right, but Miller is often credited with being the kind of mastermind

behind Title 42, right? Which was an extremely obscure piece of public health law that was then mobilized by the first Trump administration to immediately return migrants to Mexico without giving them their right to an asylum hearing, right? And like, that's when I'm wondering if they're going, for again, like Steve Miller has been very good at this at finding obscure justifications in United States federal law for shit that they want to do. I think this is why they're definitely

trying to stretch this foreign policy claim as far as they can, that if it's outside U.S. soil, there's a limited way U.S. courts can actually interfere or undo things that have already been done. And again, like the idea that we're going to fund the construction of even more of these El Salvador mega prisons just to house. American grown and born criminals as well as immigrants like we're just funding like gulog camps

on foreign soil to send the undesirables to and no matter how much Trump talks about how we're only going to send quote unquote like American criminals there as we've seen with Seacot so far like no like they

the majority of people they are sending do not have criminal criminal histories I don't think anyone can trust the Trump administration's definition of what is and isn't criminal to this extent anymore. Later in the same meeting, Trump reiterated the same idea about sending U.S. citizens who his administration deems criminals to this foreign black side. Here's another clip. Just to follow a question, clarification, you mentioned that you're open to deporting

individuals that aren't foreign aliens brought criminals to El Salvador. Does that include potentially U.S. citizens fully naturalized immigration? If they're criminals and if they hit people with baseball bats over their head that happened to be 90 years old, and if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah, yeah, that includes them. Why do you think there's a special category of person? They're as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones, too, and I'm all for it. We have others that we're negotiating with, too.

But no, if it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. He's really obsessed with this baseball bat's thing. I don't quite know what that's about. It seems like a specific case that he's referring to. Maybe it's something he remembers for like 30 years ago, like it really got stuck in his head. Right. But also later, he says that they're negotiating with other countries

to send U.S. citizens to, not just El Salvador. Yeah. I mean, they've sent migrants third country. migraint to Panama before, right, and detained them there. Honduras, I believe, is building like a prison that's not dissimilar to Seqot. Like, I'd be guessing this will be their sort of way of courting allies in the hemisphere, like they'll sort of pay them a relatively large amount in order to attempt to offshore people they don't like. Yeah, and again, like, as we've seen the past few years and increasingly so now the effort to label like activists or people

who are vocally opposed to the United States, foreign policy, the United States and the state of Israel deeming them terrorists and then by extension if you charge them with a crime, then criminals, the idea that they can be housed in a place like Seacot now with very, very limited to no due process. The whole due process question is still very up in the air. for how they're going to handle that aspect. But you can't just take this as like, oh, you know, that's just Trump talking. Like, no, this is something they really want to do.

And it's like one of the freakiest things that I've seen in like domestic U.S. politics in a long time. Earlier, Trump was recorded half whispering to Bakele telling him that El Salvador needs to build five more Seekot-style torture prisons to house U.S. citizens. As Trump says, homegrown criminals.

Bucalia replies that they will have enough room, and then the entire Oval Office laughs. I said, homegrown are next. The homegrown is built. You got to build about five more places. Yeah, that's fair. All right. It's not big enough. It's the bleakest clip I've, like, ever seen before talking about homegrowns are next,

got to build five more places. Oh, we have enough space. Everyone laughs. And then Trump shows off the new gold frame. for the portraits in the Oval Office. Yeah, it's like a dinner party joke for them. It might just be worth noting that like every totalitarian regime has housed its dissidents outside of the imperial core, right?

Like Germany did this in the east, right? Russia sent people to Siberia for a reason, Russia, Soviet Union. Creating creating these like stateless zones where like the regular laws of your like fatherland state do not apply. Right. And where the horrors are so far from the populace that the populace can't really grasp them. Yeah. No, this is like elementary school stuff. It says like the first thing you learn about is concentration camps and gulags and how that's like this symbol of evil.

And now it's something you laugh about in the Oval Office to send home groans to five disappearing torture camps. Yeah. And like just to be like even clear, I guess what distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison is that there is no due process, right? People are sent there because of who they are, not because of what they did. Like if you're a Venezuelan man who may or may not have a tattoo. Yeah, like, we are, I don't know what it will take for some people to realize what's happening here. And like the president of El Salvador is so on board for this. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't hide from that reputation, right? He embraces it. His Twitter for a while had world's coolest dictator in the bio. I don't know if it still does. Like, like both him and Trump have an open.

They're openly align themselves with quote unquote nationalism and nationalists. They're openly saying this. Trump said, dictator on day one, that wasn't just a rhetorical device. That was literal. This is what he's doing. The El Salvador president told Trump, you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. And he followed that up by saying that he is eager to help with that.

And in fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That's the way it works, right? You cannot just free the criminals and think crime is going to go down magically. You have to imprison them so you can liberate 350 million Americans that are asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorists. And you can't be done. I mean, you're doing it already. So I'm really happy to be here honored and eager to help.

This whole, like, liberation through imprisonment thing is. elementary school stuff here. You don't have to have to have to have someone tell you that, like, liberation of the chosen nation by purging of the undesirables is fascist shit. But, like, I'm here with one to tell you if that's what you need, you know? Like, this is textbook stuff, like Garrison's saying.

Like, this is not debatable. Like, I know we spent the last four years debating, is Trump a fascist or not? I don't think that matters hugely, right? Like, this is a fascist thing. It's so much more disturbing that now, according to, like, polls, like half, around half the population, maybe a little bit less, just agree with the current way that deportations are happening and Trump's immigration policy, like, on a completely,

like, flat basis. And if you spend any time on X, the Everything app, watching videos of these press conferences, it's full of people just, like, cheering this on completely, like, completely blankly. I think that's a very skewed sample of people who paid for Elon Musk's hate app. Of course, of course. But, like, the number of people, yeah it's real humans saying like these are real people who just just completely completely blankly think this is a this is this is this is a net good and like this is those people are unreachable you cannot come back from that like you is there is no coming back from that if you believe that the way deportations are currently happening is fair just and right like i cannot understand

you as a human anymore that is so like divorced and like alien yeah you've gone past the point of no return, right? Liberals who like shield their eyes from like the horrors at the border. Like, I don't agree with that. But in some ways I can understand it. The open like cheering on of this is like a whole other level. Yeah, it's not like I can't bear to see it. I'm going to

ignore it because it'll cause me to confront the the contradictions. I'm seeing it. I'm watching it and I think it's fucking great. The last thing I'm going to, I'm going to play here. A CNN reporter asked Trump if he would obey a Supreme Court order to return someone to the United States. Instead of answering this question, Trump attacked the reporter and complained about how she wasn't praising him for deporting criminals. Well, Mr. President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that.

You said that on Air Force One just a few days ago. And they said that it must be facilitated. Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country? Why can't you just say that? Why do you go over and over? And that's why nobody watches you anymore. You know, you have no credibility. Please, go ahead.

President Trump. Yeah, mad. Very textbook authoritarian, like, blanket stuff. Like, there's nothing to, like, commentate about that. It just is what it is. I guess we do have some breaking news, because we're recording this on Tuesday. James, do want to, in possibly five minutes or less, fill us in about the update from the district court on Garcia's case

since it was sent back to the district court from the Supreme Court last week? regarding his possible facilitated return to the United States? Right. So much of this has hinged over what facilitate means, right? Like, they've found a legal concept that they can argue ad nauseum. And in this case, it's the word facilitate. The DOJ didn't present any new information today. But we see that there's some hopeful things from a district court judge,

and then it kind of all goes up in flames. But I think Chinis is X-I-N-I-S is how the name is spelled. I believe it's genius, has said that every day that he's there is a day of further irreparable harm. And she talks about the process being at the roots of the Constitution, right? She's ordered for like two weeks

more of discovery, which is going to mean that both sides have more time to repair their cases, right? She wants people to testify in front of the court. She is, so the administration has argued that facilitating his return would consist of them allowing him to enter the United States if Buckele released him.

and possibly providing a flight for that to happen, but not, crucially, ensuring his release from Secod, right? And so anything else subsequent to that, doesn't matter. Cheney said that, like, their interpretation of the word flies in the face of the plain meaning of the word. A quote, when a wrongfully removed individual is, and then I'm adding to the quote here, I guess, or context, she means when a wrongfully removed individual is taken outside the US, it's not so cut and dried that all you have to do is remove obstacles domestically. She also said, quote, to the Department of Justice here, you made your jurisdictional arguments, you made your venue arguments, you made your arguments, you made your arguments on the merits, you lost. This is now about the scope of the remedy, right? This is the case that Miller is claiming they won. That's pretty unequivocal for a justice. However, she does not seem to think that it is within her power to request his return from El Salvador. So she's calling for things to move quickly, right? They want to conduct depos

about 23rd of April. She said, quote, cancel vacations, cancel other appointments. I'm usually pretty good about it. Not this time. I'm going to be available if you need to do it at odd hours or weekends. That's what I'm talking about. Anything short of a judge saying you have to go to Secold, remove him from the cell, put him on the plane and bring him back to America. It's going to be interpreted by the Trump administration to mean that they don't have to do that. Yeah, they're going to weasel their way around it. The same way you heard Stephen Miller weasel his way around every question and with truth being used as a flexible medium to shape a sculpture of their choosing. And like they've done that right. The word facilitate. I think most people who are first language

English speakers have a fairly good grasp of what that means. And it doesn't mean like remove barriers domestically. That's what they've gone for. The only way that he is getting out, it's a majority Supreme Court decision that is extremely explicit that directs the Trump administration to go to El Salvador and remove him from that prison. I haven't seen anything to indicate that we're getting that anytime soon. And as the judge said, every day he's there. He's irreparable harm is done to him. And that's where we're at right now, right?

With people arguing over the definition of a word as hundreds of people are locked up having done nothing wrong in a giant torture prison. And this is not the only person who we believe it was, was quote-unquote mistakenly sent. There's reporting today coming out of documented New York. Yeah. Good outlet, by the way.

A father of a 19-year-old legal immigrant from Brooklyn. This 19-year-old with no tattoos was kidnapped off the streets of New York. The quote from his father reads, quote, The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, no, he's not the one. like they were looking for someone else. One officer, to be clear. Correct.

Yeah. But the other officer said, take him anyway, unquote. And now this father, exactly a month later, is still looking for his missing son who is disappeared into an El Salvador torture prison.

Yeah, Jesus. Like I've said before on this show, like one of the things that I learned in the Darien Gap was how much people can care about their kids and like this shit that I saw people do to ensure that kids have a better life like broke my heart in a way that war hasn't that like anything else I've seen in my life hasn't

and it's like honestly really hard for me to hear stuff like that and like not react just being really sad and really angry like it's fucking brutal things are looking a lot more grim in my mind than they were when we recorded that should you leave the United States episode I still think the things I said there, I stand by and I stand by the only recommendation I have is to create options for yourself.

And I think those options should be created as soon as possible, especially if your citizenship is a topic of debate according to the United States government. But even that will not keep you safe as we've talked about today. And your options include creating networks to take care of one another, right? Like the things that will probably affect more of you than direct state violence are economic downturns, are recessions, right? Things like this, like those are things that you can take care of one another through. And like, you should plan to do that too. You should think about how you're going to pay your bills, how you're going to feed each other, how you're going to take care of your medical needs. because I don't think that the world is going to want to keep doing business with the country

that acts like this, both economically and in terms of its conduct towards migrants. So, like, your plans don't have to be to leave. Your plans should also include what to do if things get really bad, like, in an economic sense. I'm not going to tell you what that means, but it's all the stuff we've already talked about, right? It's mutual aid. It's all the basic preparedness stuff that is not as big and scary as leaving the country, but is nonetheless vital. We will continue to report on the Garcia case, other court cases regarding these 300 people,

rendition to El Salvador and Seacott in the next few weeks. Yeah. Just to finish up, as things continue to get worse, people keep reaching out to us, which we appreciate. If you would like to, you can email us CoolZone Tips at Proton.me. We will read it.

We might not get back to you. Your email is not end to end encrypted unless the email that you're sending from is also encrypted. But you can reach out to us there. See you on the other side. Welcome to Jake. It Happened here,

a podcast increasingly well-named as the days go on. I am your host, Bea Wong, and it occurs to me over the course of the many, many, many, many, many union episodes we've done in this podcast. We haven't really done much coverage of just straight up how do you do a strike. So today we are going to be covering a pretty long-running strike. We're going to say how many days it's been going.

It's unclear when this episode is going to come out. So who fucking knows how long it'll be when you hear it. But yeah, with me to talk about this strike is Spencer Jordan, who is a rank-and-file member of the Urban Or workers. Union. Spencer, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you about this. So this is what day is it today? I should know this. April 15th.

It has April 15th, you've been on strike for 25 days. Yeah, that's just about right. Yeah, it started on the 22nd of March. We held our strike vote like a solid 12 days before before we actually went out on the picket line and won that strike vote with

14 yeses, a single no, and I think four, four extensions. That's pretty good. Yeah, so 93% of those voting voted yes. Yeah, which good ratios, good ratios. I think, like, typically you want at least, like, mid-70s. Mm-hmm. If we're going to do this kind of thing. But, you know, as listeners to the show, hopefully understand by now, you can't just, like, call a strike and have it happen. You know, you have to do a whole bunch of organizing. So I want to call a show. kind of start at the dynamics of the organizing of how this shop got going because this is a

pretty small shop from the sounds of it. Yeah. Yeah. So do you want to talk a bit about what the basic process of getting this organizing started was like and what the sort of like social mapping looked like and stuff like that? Yeah. So the organization process started around like a year and a half before we actually had our unionization vote, which was actually, we had the vote in March, and we got our win on April 7th, two years ago. So we actually just had our union two-year birthday. Oh, happy birthday. But yeah, so preceding that was like, like I said, about a year and a half of organizing that involved, you know, the typical thing of like one-on-one conversations with like all the staff making the, you know, color-coded spreadsheet and everything, which all of this was not my

purview. I'm a lot more involved now than I was at the start of the process. And I was approached by like one of our lead organizers really shortly after being hired just to kind of, you know, read the dipstick as to like my sentiments about it and whatnot. I was pretty on board right away. I mean, you know, like, I'm from the Bay Area, so. There are only two types of people for the Bay Area. We wouldn't be having one of them on the show. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm of the latter type. So, you know, being pro-union isn't, isn't like a foreign thing to my background. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You know, you don't look like a tech worker. Yeah, no, no, yeah, especially, like, my family's from the Midwest and everything. So there's, yeah, my, uh, my, my, uh, my, my, uh, my, my, uh, my,

My aunt actually just learned that she was like a clerk working for the railroads back in the day when like railroad jobs were still like a big thing you could have. Anyways. But yeah. So I had had my like own sort of like just observations of like, whoa, like what's what's going on in the workplace? Aside from like my own just like predilection to thinking, you know, more worker power is better. Yeah. Also kind of seeing like some of the factors that precipitated it. Like, for instance, like, when I was hired here, I was hired in my interview.

It was one of the owners and the manager of my department, my department being salvage and recycling department of Urbino, which is kind of like not super public facing. We go to the dump and like root around through the garbage, like, a unionist or whatever to get stuff for the store. But that manager, you know, he was there in the internet. view and we got to the portion where the owner explained what at-will employment is. Oh, boy. And she went, so we're at-wheel here.

So Samwell, Samwell's my manager. Samwell, how long have you been here? 21 years? He's there. Hands folded on the table. Yes. What at-will means is it could be tomorrow. I could say, you know, Samwell, it's been a great 21-year-old.

years. I really appreciate all the work you're done. Today is your last day. Why would you say that? And he has to sit there and go, Jesus Christ. And then she says, of course, likewise, tomorrow someone can come to me and say, hey, Mary Lou, it's been 21 years. I've enjoyed it. I'm quitting. So, you know, it's sort of sword over his neck is being cast as somehow equal to him not being like indentured. Yes. What are we doing here?

This also just, I mean, like, you know, yeah, on the basic level, yeah, it's like, okay, your opponent, I guess they are your opponent, your boss can just instantly fire you for any reason whatsoever for any amount of time. And then also you could quit the job. And then I'll second,

I feel like just as a management tactic, like, are you like trying to piss off your support? And it's like, What? I have never had a boss, like, just do that in a hiring meeting? What? I'm so good. Yeah, I mean, have you worked at like a, like a sort of small, like mom and pop, quote unquote business before? Yeah, I mean, that, that's probably, that's probably why because I've usually had like larger. My shitty jobs have either been like government jobs or like larger companies. So there was less of the like, I heard a line recently that I wish I remember where it was from.

It might be a line from Star Trek. It's like one of the Ferengi rules. Or does this like treat your employees like family, exploit them ruthlessly? Mm-hmm. Which I love. Well, hey, you know, that's a traditional line in business, especially in small business. And it's no stranger here. Yeah, that question of like wanting to piss off your subordinates or whatever, it's a

I don't know if pissing off is necessarily like the concern, but ownership here definitely I've gotten the impression that they enjoy showing their power. And I've gotten the impression that is sort of like uncertainty and like, yeah, my mom would call it jockeying for position that you have to do is a dynamic. But they, I can't say, I really can't say they honestly because the other owner, he hasn't, uh, been very active in the business since my hiring, but at least Mary Lou. Yeah. Tends to lean on. That's kind of like the special quality that you get with like a small business and organizing

in a small workplace. Is that like, you know, you can see sort of in their public communications the way that like the Zucks and the Bezos is and the rest of them feel about their employees. and you know, you can get a sense of perhaps how they might act towards their employees if they, like, interacted with them on a daily basis. But in a small business setting, you really get a keen view into how, like, the power of the employer mixes very readily with a person's, like, predilection towards discipline, predilection towards like personal

what would you call it personal battling almost yeah well and and it's also like it's inescapable in a way that it isn't with like you know if you're dealing with people who are you know you're at a larger company you're not dealing with the person like there's an old Chinese expression there's like heaven is high

and the emperor is far away so you know it's like you know like a lot of times you're dealing with okay yeah there is like you know your Zuckerberg is there but he's like he never interacts with you But with this, it's like, no, the small business tyrant is right there in your face all the time. And all of the weird petty shit that they want to do and all of this sort of like, you know, and I would say this isn't just like a unique thing of like small business owners. Like people in all positions, like in all portions of like the class society have in them kind of like the capacity for cruelty.

And there's just people like that. But they don't normally have the ability to just do it to you directly in your face. and that's yeah and that's like this is what you've been talking about is like yeah you have these small business tyrants like every suddenly in the same way that's like I don't know you're dealing with like one of the random king louis

and you're like in the court and suddenly just like the fact that this guy doesn't like people going to the bathroom means that everyone around him doesn't get a doesn't get a shit right like it's just like yeah it's just this weird yeah no exactly it's like it's actually an argument that

she's deployed in her Reddit correspondence, which has been seemingly a pretty active part of her spare time that she's not spending at the bargaining table with us, you know, made this comparison of like, this isn't a question about oligarchs or whatever. And it's true. Like, the small business man is not an oligarch. But the small business is a microcosm of like the larger capitalist social order. And while the small business man might not have the scope of power of the oligarch or like the actual capital resources of an oligarch, the behavior certainly rhymes. Yeah. And again, it's like it's a lot of it is about it's just how much power you have access to, right? Like lots of

people can be like this, but only the few, the proud of the small business tired get to do it. Yeah, Yeah, totally. And, you know, ultimately, the employer, wherever they are, they're in this privileged position of being able to, you know, you spend most people more than like a third of your life at work. Yeah. The employer has this unique power to dictate what that third of your life looks like, you know. Yeah. We talk about, I mean, shit, we don't. People are not so much talking about democracy writ large in the U.S. in the same. way now that they used to. But, you know, you talk about this idea of, like, living in a democracy, but democracy ends at the shop door. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, the kind of power that these people have is something that, like, these people get to control when you can go to the bathroom, like, what clothes

you wear, like, literally what you can do, what you can say at any given time. If you employed the exact level of control that your boss has over you on a state, it would be a totalitarian state. And yet, everyone seems to think that this is sort of like, you know, and this is an argument I've been making about, like, Trump is that like, yeah, this is, this is what sort of Trump and Elon and like that whole cadre and, you know, and Patrick, if you want to go into the sort of ideologues behind it, too, this is what people like Peter Thiel want. When they say run the government like a business, what they mean is that they want to, like, to import the sort of, like, the pure tyranny of the workplace and expand it into the entire political system so that their

their like sort of pure like totalitarian corporate rule can't be challenged. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, wasn't it Mussolini who coined the term the corporate state? Probably, although it would not surprise me if it was like some other fascist theorists and Mussolini just started saying it because, yeah. But yeah, like that's, you know, that's a substantive thing here. And what this also means is that like, even in ways that are sort of hard to see, like, a fight over democracy in the workplace, right, is a part of the larger struggle against all of the thing that's happening.

Because if, you know, if we're going to survive this and if we're going to make sure that we don't all live in a world where, like, if you say the wrong thing, you can be sent to a prison camp, democracy, if you want this to survive, is going to have to march into, like, into the layer of the beast. it is going to have to go into the source of this tyranny itself, which is the workplace, and it's going to have to crush it there. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you said it very, very aptly there. Like, the corporate structure mirrors the totalitarian structure. And, you know, not only does, like, fighting the corporate structure at the level of labor

makes sense in that, right, labor is what enables the flow of capital that sustains the totalitarian state. But also, like you said, you're addressing the structure in its, I don't know. I almost think of it as like the, you know, like Grendel's mother in the fen or whatever.

And like, you know, the authoritarian thing is like, is like Grendel maybe. And like Grendel's mother is like this capital. hierarchical structure. Yeah. You know, you take it on with an insistence on workplace democracy. Yep. As kind of libby as that sounds.

Okay. Speaking of capitalist totalitarianism, I hear the ads that we are required to run by our corporate overlords. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Let's hear him. And we are back. So, let's get back a little bit towards the more concrete parts of the union, although I do have more to say eventually at some point about the way that sort of labor liberalism co-opted democracy in the workplace from like, you know, the old sort of like anarchist idea of workers control, right? But, okay, so one thing I wanted to talk about before we sort of get into the more formal stuff about about the strike is I was, I'm really interested to hear you talk about what the process of kind of onboarding you to get more involved in the union. is because this is something that like

okay every functional union wants to do this like if your union is not trying to bring people like it's members like more to get more involved in the union and become more of the people becoming like core organizers and becoming you know like the people who are doing your bargain

and people are doing anything like your union is there's weird shit about it and you should probably like be looking into that but it's pretty hard so yeah can you talk a bit about the process of like how you were brought in and what sort of worked and what didn't? Well, I think ultimately, like,

the easiest thing is a sort of ramping up degree of, like, responsibility within the organization, right? So, like, at the start, I would come to some of the meetings, I would miss some of them. I would be like, oh, I'm fucking so busy with whatever is going on in my life. And, you know, I was supportive and sort of involved, but, you know, I wasn't like, I mean, I certainly wasn't doing things like this. Yeah.

And, you know, eventually, one, we, like, kind of persisted as a union over a longer period of time. The necessity of involvement became more, like, obvious to me, right? And that's a hard ask, you know, like, you're organizing, you want momentary. and you want, you know, you want to be able to change your conditions for the better as soon as possible. Yeah. And with, with Urbino, you know, lots of workplaces that need unionization have high turnover, right? And Urbanor is no different. And so I saw, you know, like some of the more committed elements of the bargaining unit be fired or quit or whatever.

Yeah. And, you know, they would be replaced with other people and you have to begin the work of organizing over again. And with some of them you succeed with something you don't. Yeah. You know, you have different dynamics. I feel like the hiring procedures may have changed a little bit after we won our election. But, you know, I can't say that for certain. So the sort of, like, necessity of, like, keeping that, like, flame going, especially after we had won the election, we were in contract bargaining for a long period of time.

made me feel like a sort of sense of like, I need to be more active in this because like this is an important struggle and like I see our like main organizers taking on like a fuckload of work. Yep. Yep. Yep. And like needing more voices at the table. Needing more more,

needing more people to be more involved. And so like I, you know, volunteered to like run for treasure. I was the only candidate. But theoretically, I could have been voted down. They could have been like, I don't know about Spencer. And, you know, like, ended up having, like, a little bit more direct responsibilities. Like, I was, like, receiving some of the donations to our strike fund.

Once we started fundraising for the strike, I had to keep track of those and, you know, put them in a special bank account. And then eventually take that money, get it to, like, the IWW branch. hand it hand a big check to Dino that kind of stuff and just like having like little things to be doing like Spurs involvement other people

you know became responsible for like parts of social media outreach graphic stuff like that and also like sort of I guess giving people the opportunity to leverage their individual connections within the workplace, because every workplace is like clicks and groups and subgroups

and all that to leverage those connections in like service of bettering everyone's conditions. So like to a certain degree, I've been like important as like an envoy to my particular department because it's our job takes us away from the job site or like from like the main work site often and stuff like that. So there's less of a direct avenue for communication there. Yeah. So I can say that's my experience. Yeah. As far as organizing goes, like, I'm easy.

You know, I was already, I was already believing in it. Yeah. And like, there are others that it's been harder. I will say, though, that the strike itself is, I mean, a strike is a conflict. And when you're in conflict together, it's an extremely coherent. force. Yeah. Which isn't to say that like necessarily you want your unionization to come to a

strike. But perhaps like raising a sort of consciousness of like the fact that like you are ultimately like in conflict with the boss. Yeah. The boss doesn't want you to unionize. The boss doesn't want you to force concessions out of them. And that like as a union, we are taking on this like responsibility to look after each other's interests.

Yeah. and to like support each other like tangibly in terms of like what we do and also intangibly in terms of like the kind of conversations we have around like morale planning and stuff like that you know to succeed together i think those are like really potent coherent forces and you know it helps to have a good uh a good opponent you know the boss is the best organizer and at urban or it's, you don't go along without coming head to head with like the, with conflict with ownership or with like ownership through the mediator of management.

Like, although like support for the union might be divided a bit at the workplace, one thing that's pretty universal is like a frustration with ownership. Yeah. So, okay, speaking of, speaking of a frustration with ownership, it is time for us to go to ads one last time. Oh, beautiful. But then after we come back, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike. Strike, strike.

Just after this message. Oh, God. Okay, we are back from a bunch of people who almost assuredly do not want you to go on strike. Yeah, so let's get into the process of how you actually organize a strike. yeah, let's start from just like the very beginning. What are the kinds of things that were happening that, you know, made people think that you needed to do this in the first place? So the strike itself is a result, specifically like,

this is a ULP strike. So it's in response to something that falls under the category of unfair labor practice according to the National Labor Relations Act. And it's, you know, backed up by charges filed with the point. board as opposed to like what's called an economic strike, which is a strike that is specifically about, you know, economic issues of the workplace. So the specific ULP that's being cited for our strike is bad faith bargaining. And for us, what that's looked like is two years of completely stalled negotiations where we are basically being faced with a take it or leave

offer of the status quo in the vast majority of our proposals. Bargaining is very, very slow, and ownership has held tightly to the offense at us having unionized at all, which, to my understanding, is pretty typical of small workplaces. Ownership takes it very personally, and that personal feeling of betrayal or whatever, becomes like a stumbling block in the negotiation process. I know that was the case of Moes, another, this bookshop in Berkeley that also unionized with the IWW. Hell yeah. So, you know, we've had our whole proposal on ownership's table for a year and a half now. We had started with bargaining proposal by proposal. They said, well, how can we possibly agree

to any of this without understanding the full context, especially the economic context? Oh, my God. And so we gave them a full proposal, and they said, oh, my God, how do you expect us to read all of this in time to bargain? This is way too much. How are we going to evaluate this all? Oh, my God. We got to do a proposal by proposal. So it's been really unclear to us if ownership has even actually, like, read the entirety of our collective bargaining agreement that we put on their desk.

Yeah. I know that in the past, the lawyers have said things. like, oh, my eyes glazed over when I read your email, so I missed such and such part of it. This literally your job! Yeah. You're a contract lawyer. You have one job. Yeah, you would think like a lawyer would have like a little bit more than like beyond like a tweet, tweet sized reading capacity.

Well, they give anyone law degrees. Yeah. Or like ownership saying like, well, I just thought it was so ridiculous. I didn't feel the need to read all of it. stuff like that. Oh my God. Does these readers bad faith bargaining? Yeah, that's bad by like the standards of like normal.

It takes two years to do a fucking contract because they're just not doing shit. Like, good Lord. Usually in those long contract negotiations by two years at least there's like been some progress. Yeah, yeah. They've read the proposals. Like, yes, okay, will your boss show up to your meeting an hour and a half? because they didn't bother to look through the proposals until literally right the time the meeting was going to start.

Yes, but will they have done it? Usually yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. In fact, in the sort of company propaganda where they're claiming that this bad faith bargaining charge has no grounds, they're like, ownership has come to like 25 to 30 bargaining sessions,

neglecting to mention there have been somewhere in the range of like 50 to 60. And of course, Maybe they've shown up more than half. I don't want to be libelous, but... Yeah, but still, like, at the point at which you are failing to show up for any bargaining session, I think you can... Look, I have always advocated that if it had managed

but doesn't show up to a bargaining session, you should just be allowed to take the company because clearly they're not serious about it. But... Hey, you know, they've been talking about a worker co-op for 20 years. Non-reformist reforms. Mm-hmm. But yeah,

So those kind of things. And then, like, finally, like, one of the bigger precipitating factors is, like, we've been trying to bargain over economics. Ownership has implied a lot of times that they cannot afford to pay what we're asking. They say it'll ruin the company. They say a company will go bankrupt. They say it's unsustainable. They say this and that.

And then when they get to the table, they say, we have never and we'll never argue inability to pay. Because the thing is, is that to say inability to pay, right? it obligates you to furnish information to prove that. And they, for whatever reason, do not want... Wow, I wonder why. Furnish financial information. So these have been some of the sticking points, and that's why we've been out on the picket line for about three weeks now.

Still waiting for them to come to the table. God damn it. So, okay, let's talk about, like, the... Just sort of the process of, like, how the discussions went for doing this? What did those sort of look like? and how did you sort of, you know, just like plan this thing out? Well, I guess the process towards like deciding that I needed to come to a strike was like,

you know, that is a sort of thing that builds over a long period of time. You know, you see ownership doing bad faith bargaining and you go, what more conciliatory approaches can we take first? You know, can we try this? Can we try offering this to make, you know, can we try this display of good faith? Can we offer this compromise? Dda-da-da. one of the things that was a big part was of some of the

not exactly contract related discussions, but like, I actually have been talking for a long time about a co-op transition that has never happened. You know, it's been 20 years. And, you know, now that we've unionized, they're like, our people who we were talking to about doing the co-op thing, they don't work with unions. And so the only way that's ever going to be a co-op is if the union goes away.

And so in response to that, we said, well, we're totally open to a transition. to a co-op that involves the union, and here is such and such organization. It was our lead negotiator who actually provided information some or the name of the organization, but here's such and such organization that actually specifically deals with union co-op workplace transitions was not received with interest. So it's like you mass this catalog of bad faith bargaining, and you end up in your strategy discussions with the whole unit,

testing the wires of like when is too much what's our red line that we need to take more direct action and what that began with for us was first well if we're going to have a if we're going to have a strike we need funds for it the iww is an organization that affords its unions a lot of freedom and a lot of mutual support and solidarity is not an organization with a huge amount of money. And so we did start with trying to get like a sense of like what we could get from, you know, the branches reserve. And we moved on from that to how we were going to fundraise and stuff like that.

So we held informational pickets that had donations. We sold shirts, posters, stuff like that. We held like a big strike fundraiser. Hell yeah. I think something around like a month in advance of our, or it was maybe like a month and a half in advance of our, of our strike. We also gave management like a courtesy notice about this, like pass it on to ownership, saying, hey, we've started fundraising for a strike. In the hopes that like being aware that we're taking active preparations to go on strike would facilitate bargaining. Sometimes it works.

I've seen it before. I've seen it before. Sometimes it works. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, sometimes you end up on a podcast talking about how it didn't. You never know until you try. Yeah, you never know. But we did, yeah, we did give them that sort of early warning. And our readiness to strike kind of like depended then on like where we were at in the fundraising process.

So we continue soliciting donations, reaching out to various organizations in the area that are, you know, pro labor. You know, we've talked to like DSA and whenever because, you know, they have their like workplace organizing committee. Yeah, I think it's Ewok. Yeah. Yeah. And various other, you know, yeah, organizations that are pro labor.

And once we got to a point where he felt like we were reasonably like prepared to sustain a open end of strike, because that's what we're doing. This is a strike with no. set end date. Then we announced our intention to hold a strike vote. We held our strike vote. Strike vote passes. The ownership was made aware at the bargaining session before the strike vote. So it was like the Monday before the strike vote, which is on, I think, I guess, Saturday. So in total, it was like around maybe like two weeks and change that they knew like definite possibility. pass the strike vote

12 days later the strike begins with unfortunately no bargaining in between oh good Lord yeah the whole way you hope

that they'll come to the table you hope that they will come to their senses yeah take the risk seriously take the risk seriously and unfortunately

this is not what's happened here and I think part of that is maybe an age thing here ownership is is in their 80s and they're pretty consistently held the view that, like, the union is, like, a bunch of young people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, you know, even though, like, the age range

of our union spans, the age range of the workplace. We've got people in their 50s and 40s and 30s and 20s, you know, which is, which is, of course, the problematic group. But, yeah, the unradicals. Yeah, so there's been this sort of. patronizing attitude that I think has resulted in like a real strategic failure on their part to seriously prepare for the strike or you know bargain to avoid it. Yeah. One more fundraising thing that I just I just want to mention this for people. If you're trying to fundraise for your own things, something that's actually,

we've had a lot of success with up in Portland is getting bands to do benefit shows. So like because it's Portland right, like the local hardcore scene has a lot of bands that you know, are just supportive of stuff. And we've done this for a whole bunch of different causes. And this is, this, this can also be a good way to just sort of do fundraising things that are fun and also raise morale because,

yeah, you're doing the show. Yeah, I was, I was hoping to have that be more of a thing with our fundraiser, but, yeah, it can be hard to organize sometimes.

Yeah, the people I knew were, didn't get quite the response. I was hoping from the community. If you were a hardcore band, if you are, abandoned Berkeley. There's still time.

I believe in you. That is totally a good option. We did. We ended up doing there. There was music, but it's also like, one of our organizers is really into cooking. You did like a barbecue thing. Yeah.

Sold food, stuff like that. And had a raffle. A raffle is a great way to fundraise. For us, we like raffled off like stuff we have. but honestly you can even do like a straight monetary raffle is still a great fundraising tool you know where everyone puts in money the winner

the top three winners or whatever get like a certain percentage of like the total pool and the rest of the pool is is a to the cause it really simple really effective yeah there's a reason it's not good but there is a reason why a whole bunch of state education budgets are funded by the lottery like it does work

and we're doing it love to gamble. Much better. Yeah. Bia says, having turned off her lunch, her path of exile to lunch break

to come to this interview. It's pretty such cases. Okay, so let's, speaking of, I guess this is something that's been tied into sort of all of what we've been saying here, but yeah, let's talk about, you know, sort of maintaining the strike when it starts

and sort of, yeah, what have been the processes of, like, keeping morale up, and keeping people engaged, and yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, definitely when you go into a strike, you want to go in with a militant core group. You want to basically be sure that everyone is committed to holding the line until a collective decision is made otherwise. You don't want people like peeling off. That's really bad PR for your strike.

Yeah, yeah. And like the bosses will grab on that. So like, for instance, like, you know, we have some people who are respecting our picket line, but chose not to picket with us, which is fine, as far as I'm concerned. But the issue with that PR-wise is that now the bosses are saying, and they're like tallying up of who's working

and who's not working, they're counting them as working. You know, they're like, oh, there's only... Yeah. Whatever. They've been saying eight people. I think it's more like nine or ten. We're on the picket line.

But the rest is the rest of the employees are working. They count themselves as employees in that count, of course. and they count these people who are not crossing the picket line but not on it also as among that that count of the rest of the employees that are working. What? And they've had the opportunity to really inflate that count because in sort of, you know, classic move, really all the moves are classic. You know, you read your organizing books and you're like, can it happen here?

And it does. So like we got a lot of new assistant managers after we want to. our election. So right now, like the composition of the workplace, right? Got 34 people, 15 managers. I really wonder when we're going to see the day where you have companies that have six like non-managers and 55 managers. Like, I feel like we're not that far out. Well, we're leading the charge here. We have a department that's two people, a manager and assistant manager. Who's the assistant manager managing? It's on this way. Oh, God.

So, yeah, you know, they've had these particular angles to, you know, sort of do their propaganda from. And I mean, honestly, I think a big part of, again, the boss is the best organizer. And like, a thing that keeps you committed on the line is like reading all this bullshit they say about you and knowing otherwise. And being able to talk to each other and be like, have you seen this? Isn't this crazy? Like, what the hell? Yeah. Um, also, you know, is, uh, this is where the sort of like seeds of organizing all the way,

that you start all the way back at the beginning of your union campaign become, you know, show themselves is like really important again. Because like the start, right, anyone will tell you is just like getting to know people, like being like, you know, being on like a, hey, how's it going kind of level, you know? And having like a personal rapport with the people you're on the line with is. vital just in the sense that, you know, obviously, like, you know each other, you're sort of friends. You're going to be more likely to stick up for each other. But also, like, you're out there nine hours walking in a circle with these people. Yeah. You know, you got to have positive, strong

relationships with them. You want to be able to have the kind of rapport where, like, you can talk to people about, like, what they're feeling anxious about, you know, like, where they're worried in, like, the strike strategy. Like, you know, you need to have that, like, trust between each other. that you can have like an open dialogue about how it feels to be on the picket line. Because you're not going to maintain morale if everyone feels like they've got things. They got to hold in about it. Like there's room to be like, shit. Like are they going to close the business?

Like what are we going to do? And like sort of like talk through that from a from a place beyond like, you know, like what? You're not letting it speak into a crowd of a million people or whatever. You're just like two people. Yeah, going through a stressful. experience together. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to actually grapple with that in a way that's not the sort of like weird corporate like we gotta improve morale things. Like that's not what that means. It means like, you know, it means actually grappling and engaging with people's feelings and how and what they need in a moment. And yeah, and their fears and their concerns. And yeah, you can't just sort of brush them aside. You have to actually grapple with it because that's that's what doing this stuff means. Yeah, exactly. Have it. these authentic conversations with people.

Because, like, yeah, that's like a totally great point you bring up there. Like, the HR speak, that's the boss's tool. And it's the boss's tool to divide and create disunity. So you can't lean on that model for morale within your union. It just creates distrust. Yeah, and I mean, I've seen that happen with unions where it's like, you guys did not do a good job of, like, talking to people about that. this and like, yeah, and it can be really disruptive to attempts to do this. But on the other hand,

if you, if you do it well, it's like, it's the most powerful single thing that you can, like, possibly do. There's, like, forging relationships that are based on, like, the actual experience of having gone through a struggle together and having had to, like, literally had to face your feels on the picket line. Yeah. Yeah. Like, ideally, you know, the union is a community. And it's a community of interest, right? It's a community of work interest, but it is ideally a community. It's not a family, right? And it's certainly not a family in the way that the bosses will tell you the workplace is, but it is a community. And it's a community in the way that an employer's idea of a community is fundamentally like incompatible with. Yeah. There's this is Ficky Austroa line that I think

about a lot from her book in Defensive Flooding, where she talks about how I feel like it was Ferguson that this is about, where like the police chiefs talking about the damage of the community and they keep saying our Walmart. It's like going into a Walmart and buying something is not a community.

Right? Like, you know, they, like, those kind of relations are not actual community relations. But when the bosses talk about community, that's what they mean. They mean like, our collective community Walmart. They mean preserving

the relation of extraction that they have. Yeah. And we are, you know, using the same word and reading something literally so radically different than that.

And you have to make sure in the way that you're acting that that radically different meaning is clear. Yeah. And yeah, it's funny you bring that up because that's just bringing to mind

like you see the difference in those attitudes, like when you're out there on the picket line, like interact. Because, you know, our picket line, a really pivotal part of it, because there are so many managers in there that they're able to maintain this, like, skeleton crew is the community outreach part. It's like talking to every single person who's coming up and being like, hey, how's it going? I've been on strike such and such long.

This is what's up. Please don't cross the picket line. And, you know, I've noticed you get this real funny situation where there are the people who are like, I've shopped here for 20 years. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. I don't know you. And I have to be like, well, I'm normally at the dump. Get in the merchandise you're buying. But, and who attribute the entire,

attribute everything that they like about the business to the bosses. Yeah. And then there's the other part of the community that is coming by frequently and like hanging out with us on the picket line. You know, I pet the dog and we chat about what's going on. They're like, how's the strike going? They're like, you know, I know it's been rough on you guys for such and such. And these people are our shoppers too, right?

But they like, it highlights that like sort of divide in like what you think of as like, can you get your responsibility to your community? Because like these people also love urban or come here all the time. But they recognize that like it's the workers at urban ore that create it every day, you know? Yeah. And it is a company that was like founded by the individual. The individual still owns it. He did found it with his with his labor and all that. He did the labor, you know, back when it was, you know, only a few people and stuff like that.

But ultimately, a business, like any sort of social phenomenon, has to be constantly recreated in order to exist. Yeah, yeah. And like the people who do the work that makes it more than just like a room full of garbage are us. And a lot of the like regulars recognize that. And a lot of them, you know, flip me off as they cross the text line, whatever. I think this is a good place to sort of start coming to a close of on this is a fundamental question about what the nature of our society is going to be, right? Like is the fundamental nature of our society that a community is a bunch of people who buy things and a bunch of people who make money from you buying things and you make money from the labor that you do, right? And then take credit for the labor and take credit both financially for the labor and,

in public for the labor, right? Is there a society going to just be a bunch of pure commercial relations where a bunch of people get very, very rich off the waiver of everyone else in the society and get to rule them as sort of like these petty tyrant kings or is it going to be a society

where the people who produce the society control it, right? And that society is a democratic society, is an egalitarian society, it is a society where people are free to do the things that they need to do, and people are free to you know, have a life where they can fucking pay for their groceries, right?

We're like, you know, where they're not forced to go to the market for all of the things that they need to live, where you can survive in a way that doesn't involve, like, subjecting yourself to just a tyrant for like a third of your life. Yeah, where, where like the place that you spend, like a third of your life is a place where you actually have, like, dignity. Yeah, dignity and freedom. and where you don't have to go home at the end of a day of making your boss money, worrying about whether you're going to be able to eat or not.

And that's also a society that does not involve, again, at the very highest level, like you getting thrown into prison camps because your God King hates you. And we can do this. We can live in that society. Yeah. The demands are not that crazy. No. And that's like the thing that we have encountered over.

and over again is this constant push and pull of people saying that like the expectation of bettering our conditions, whether it be like us on the picket line, just trying to get like a stable wage and just cause employment and stuff like that, or whether it be, you know, those larger societal changes that like you're talking about, you just butt up against these people who have such like a posity of imagination about what's possible. Yeah. And like about the legitimacy of trying to make something better. The legitimacy of saying, sure, I can subsist on this,

but, you know, there's so much more as possible. Yeah. So I'm maintaining that there's something more as possible. Yeah, I think it's possible, too. And that's the thing about this world, right? Is that our enemies have figured out that it actually

can change. That's why they have to fight so hard. Yeah, but the thing is, the fact that they can change for the worse also means that it can change for the better. Oh, beautiful stuff. Okay, where can people find your strength? Strike Fund, we'll also put it in the description. Oh, yeah, great.

So it's on GoFundMe. I'll send you the link and it'll be down there. But also, people can hit up our Union Instagram. It's Urban Or Workers with underscores between the words, urban underscore or underscore worker, that we've got the link to like strike fund. And also, hey, if you're in Berkeley, you can sign up for a picket shift.

And you get to enjoy listening to me discourse for nine hours instead of one. It's great. It's fun. Pickets are cool and good. If you haven't been on one, you should go on one. They're great. They're great. Yeah. It's a good time. This is It Could Happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you.

I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Dr. James Stout and Reverend Dr. the Honorable Robert Evans. That's right. That's right. Reverend Dr. the Honorable Evans, who is currently hacking up a fucking lung. No idea why. I feel otherwise fine. Well, I'm sure you feel otherwise fine due to this great week in American history we've all been through together.

Yeah. Which started with a meeting between President Donald Trump and El Salvador President Buckele on Monday morning in the Oval Office, where they discussed the possibility of the United States, helping to build more secret. cut-style facilities to disappear U.S. citizens and immigrants that the Trump administration deems criminals or terrorists. Yes. I mean, I keep getting asked, is this the panic moment? And I don't think panic is particularly productive. But like, yeah, this is the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is happening. The president's talking about sending citizens overseas to a concentration camp. Honestly, I'm on the verge of thinking it's okay to call it a death camp, but we just don't have the data yet. There's some very concerned.

Sermining satellite shots that appear to show piles of bodies. Yeah, that's from March of 2024. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but it won't have gotten better. No, no. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't, I don't know. This is about as bad as it could be, folks. We're in it. During that meeting, both President Buchalia and the Trump cabinet, argued that there's simply no way for people sent to Seekot to ever return to the United States, coming up with a whole bunch of absurd absurd reasons for why that is impossible due to

foreign policy and safety of both El Salvador in the United States. Me and James did a whole episode on this earlier this week that you can check out on the It Could Happen Here feed. I'm going to move on to an update on the student crackdowns. So ICE has targeted a third

green card holder for deportation based on pro-Palestinian activism. Mahozan Marawi is a Palestinian from the West Bank who has lived in the U.S. with a green card for a decade. While studying philosophy at Columbia, he co-founded the Columbia Palestinian Student Union in 2023 with Mahmood Khalil. Marawi was arrested by ICE last Monday, April 14th, at his citizenship interview in Vermont. Now, after Khalil was arrested last month, Madoe went into hiding and he suspected, that this citizenship interview could be a honeypot, but decided to go anyway after waiting a long time for this appointment. His lawyers quickly filed a habeas corpus petition arguing his detentions unlawful and violates the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge issued an order hours later that he was, quote, not to be removed from the United States or moved out of the territory of the district in Vermont pending further order of this court. Zionist doxing accounts targeted Mottwee in recent ways. weeks. I'm going to play actually this two-minute clip of Marwi talking. This is from December of 2023 on the program 60 minutes.

What was your initial reaction when you heard about the Hamas attack on October 7th? I could not believe what my eyes were seeing where I see Hamas members getting into settlements

and so on. But Also the first moment I saw that I put my hand on my heart. And I started praying, knowing that there will be a huge level of revenge from the Israelis. And I was praying that this will not be the result because it would be disastrous. The night of the rally, I believe someone in the crowd said something very anti. Jewish, not just anti-Israeli, but anti-Jewish. Yes. This was as a walkout on November 9th. And a person who's not affiliated with Colombia, we've never seen him,

we don't know who is this guy, comes down the stairs yelling death to Jews. I was shocked and they walked directly to the person and they told him, You don't represent us because this is not something that we agree with. And directly what I've done, I took the megaphone and they gave a speech and they said, we here are conscious, educated students and we know how to separate right from wrong. And what this guy has said is wrong. What this guy has said is clearly anti-semitic. against Jews.

Antisemitic. To be anti-Semitic is unjust. It's unjust. And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti-Semitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Yeah, I mean, he said everything that would make him a respectable protester, based on what the fucking dims were saying last year. Like there's nothing in there that's pro Hamas. There's nothing in any that I can tell this guy has done that his advocacy towards terrorism. But obviously that's not what matters. What matters is they have the ability to get him out

and they're doing that because of his speech. Yeah. He took a step back from protests in March of 2024 during the second wave of student protests at Columbia. Yeah. And like I believe he didn't, isn't he like a member of the university, Buddhist club. Yes. Part of why he took a step back was to focus on his role in the Buddhist

Club as a, as for I think in the past like two years he has been, has been participating in that on campus. Yeah. He told CBS News the day before he was detained. Quote, if my story will become another story for the struggle to have justice and democracy in this country, let it be, unquote. Like other students who've been targeted and arrested, he's not been charged or accused of any crime, but the State Department has deemed him a threat to foreign policy. Yeah, hard to see how, but I think as we're seeing it, that doesn't really matter. Yeah. Now, last Friday, a Louisiana judge ruled in favor of the Trump administration to allow the

deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, upholding the government's argument that the rarely used Cold War era statute of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows for the Secretary of State to deport aliens that pose, quote, adverse foreign policy consequences. The only quote unquote evidence presented in court was a two-page memo written by Mark Rubio that alleges that Khalil's presence in the country threatens, quote, US policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States based on information provided by the DHS, ICE, and Homeland Security investigations regarding the participation and rules of Khalil in anti-Semitic protests and disruptive actions which foster a hostile environment for Jewish

students in the United States, unquote. So there's no real evidence in this document. It is just Mark Rubio's opinion for two pages, and this is the only evidence that ever has been held in court that resulted in the judge ruling in the government's favor. A lot of what we're seeing here is the natural conclusion to what was happening with, like, Vance last year, talking about Haitian immigrants and admitting, like, yeah, it's not literally true, but like, it's true to how we feel. So it's, like, fine for us to spread this lie. Like, they're just, declaring these people terrorists and even

attempting to get evidence for that claim. They certainly have no need to. And the media that, like, I'm seeing coverage on Fox, particularly, that's just repeatedly framing this as like the left is angry

that like a terrorist got deported. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is the same stuff that we saw at the RNC where they refer to students as terrorists. Like, just completely, completely flattened. Like, every single person at a college campus who is upset about a genocide or criticizes the state of Israel,

that person is a terrorist. Lawyers for Khalil have until April 23rd to file an appeal to halt the deportation, and they plan to file an asylum case on his behalf. A separate habeas petition case is playing out in a New Jersey court. This week, NBC News reviewed over 100 pages of documents from the federal government and Khalil's legal team containing information about his immigration process, work experience and activism. These documents showed that the government used unverified tabloid reporting against

Khalil and contained contradictory information. Yep. So essentially using New York Post-style publications as a pretext for ICE to execute arrests against people who are green card holders, legal permanent residents of the United States. We're going to go on break and come back to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Finally, finally, something fun. All right, we're back.

I'm going to throw to Robert Evans for an update on everyone's favorite roadkill consumer. Yes, yes, RFK Jr., he's not just strapping the carcass of a dead whale to the head of his truck and driving down the highway. Now he is, well, kind of launching a genocidal campaign against people with autism. Kind of doing a national eugenics program. Yeah. Kind of calling a large group of people in this country, useless. eaters. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Fuck. And the gist of what's happening is they just had a new, quote-unquote, study come out that looked at, like, apparently rising autism rates. And again, I've covered this a lot. The reason why rates of autism are increasing, every credible scientist degrees is because we're looking for it more. Yeah.

And so we're finding more of it. And we have a broader understanding of what it is. RFK Jr. is obsessed with the idea, the image of autism as a disease that is, spreading due to an environmental contagion. And he is trying to make the case that this is a calamity. He has promised, the most recent promise he made is that by September, the government will release exhaustive studies that will identify the environmental causes of autism. And he made a statement, autism destroys families.

More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this. he is called autism a preventable disease, which it is not. While there is evidence that some of the factors that can be relevant in autism expressing are environmental, the vast majority of it seems to be genetic. There is no evidence, and there have been repeated studies. There's anything to do with vaccines. He's positive a couple of other theories as to what causes it, including mold and diet.

And these are largely based on what are already kind of quack, both autism treatment, and quack autism causes that are popular within the biomedical movement, the experimental biomedical movement, which is the fake autism medical industrial complex that we covered recently on the behind the bastards. One of the things I think is really worrying about the language that Kennedy is using is how similar it sounds to a lot of what you were seeing in the early 1930s out of the Nazi state. What we know of as the Holocaust, which is generally a term, generally primarily when people use that term there, talking about the mass killing of Jews and other ethnic minorities

in central Europe by the Nazi state. That got a lot of its start. And there's a couple of different places got it start. Obviously, the wild concentration camps and the political concentration camps are in that heritage. But when it comes to the actual mass killing of people, the very origin of that was in getting rid of the disabled, right? The term that was used in Nazi propaganda for these people was useless eaters. And this is the first time that the Nazis tested out gassing, right, in large numbers. And he hasn't used literally the term useless eaters, but he talks a lot about, one of the terms he uses is severe autism, right, which is not the term that is popularly used now for people who have kind of profound autism, I think, is the preferred term for people who do have

a significantly higher degree of like disability as a result of their autism or that correlates with their autism, right? As opposed to the vast majority of people who can be diagnosed as somewhere on the spectrum, who are able to, like, live independently, right? And Kennedy sort of does the thing that is very common within this community of sort of, number one, correlating that to everybody with autism and talking about it as if it is a disaster that justifies any kind of response because the people who have profound autism aren't real people in his eyes.

He made a statement, quote, these are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet on assisted. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children. And first off, having taught a lot of kids with profound autism, yes, they could play baseball. Like a number of them held jobs. Now, do a lot of them need assisted living? Sure. But like, number one, that's always been the case. There's no, there's no evidence that people with this kind of autism, that there's any sort of raise in this, right? What's raised is the number of people who are being diagnosed, right? And he's using this

kind of scare term, right? This idea that like, parents, you need to be frightened that something is going to steal your children from you in order to justify the dehumanization of everyone with autism, as well as like radical biomedical experimental procedures that are going to do harm at scale to lots of kids. One of his favorite new terms is epidemic denial, which is the term that he's using for people who say that like, this is not an epidemic. This is something that we're now screening for more. He's kind of repurposing the language of like a vaccine denial and whatnot as like a denial that this is sort of an immediate crisis. Yeah. That needs to be hit, which I find interesting. Also like co-opting like COVID-conscious language. Yeah, yeah. The way he,

and his group were referred to during COVID he's now using in the same fashion. Yeah. And it's interesting. His initial promise was that by September will know why autism rates are on the rise. That's not really a thing. You can't make science work that way. Like you can't guarantee that. Like you said, we already know because people are seeking out diagnoses.

Like, because we have better awareness of it now. But he's kind of altered that recently being like, no, we'll have some answers by September. And, you know, we're going to get those answers by removing the taboo so that doctors won't get gaslit by blaming autism on vaccines or, you know, mold exposure or the like. So that's what we can look forward to in the near future from our good friend, RFK Jr. who definitely doesn't pay taxes or write poems. I just want to make that clear. I don't think either of those are particularly good bars for whether or not you're a human being, but he for sure doesn't do either. Also, Frankly, I know way too many autistic people who write poems.

Tons of them. Yeah, it's going to say, yeah, the ring poem things was a really fucking... The Poet Laureate of Washington State since 2023 is a woman with autism. So, yeah, like I... Writing poems. Nonsense. Extremely common activity for my fellow... Yeah.

My fellow autism people out there. Okay, okay, RFK Jr. Again, but he was talking. talking about, you know, people with what he calls severe autism, but he also doesn't ever care to, like, specify his language because there's no, there's no benefit. That's not a real medical. Yeah. And there's no benefit to his ideology in acknowledging that, like, well, most people who get diagnosed with autism may need some accommodations. It's a difference, right? It's a difference in the way your mind works, but they're fine.

Like, they're living healthy, happy lives. Yeah. I talk slightly differently in the cool zone work chat, which is kind of the extent of it for me. Yeah, that's the extent of it. Yeah. That is an aspect. Speaking of the Department of Health and Human Services, they released a report page on their website for you, the vigilant citizen. Oh, yes. To report trans minors receiving health care.

Finally. So another one of these snitching hotlines at this time on a federal government website that I'm sure will only get real, real complaints sent to it and not the B-movie script. And not repeatedly the B-movie script. Yeah. Speaking of trans people, I do have a few updates on some of the transgender stuff. During that meeting between President Buckele and Trump, they went on a small tangent about trans people, where Trump said that he actually doesn't like talking about, quote-unquote,

men in women's sports because he wants to wait and save that issue to use for the next election. Amazing. Yeah. I'm going to play the clip. And I don't like talking about it because I want to save it for just before the next election. I said many people don't even talk about it because they'll change. And well, but I watched this morning. It was a congressman fighting to the death for men to play against women in sports.

That's like super interesting Like very clear insight into how like Trump sees like the trans sports issue and and treats it as this like election winning superpower. And like he certainly he is directing like the DOJ and with his executive order. It's like he still is targeting trans people especially trans people like in school. So it's not it's not that he's treating this as like a hands off issue to like ensure that it can remain a hot button thing for the next election. election. But I think in his mind, like, he doesn't want to stop Democrats from caring about this issue in a way. Like, like, the more that they, that they fight for it in his mind is, like, what gives him ammunition for the next election, whether he's going to run for a third term or

just, like, Republicans, like, mega stuff in general. But I think that it is an interesting look into, like, his personal insight on, on this issue. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice just announced on Wednesday, April 16th, that they are suing Maine's Department of Education for not complying with Trump's anti-trans executive order by continuing to allow trans people to compete in sports, claiming that they are, quote, failing to protect women in women's sports,

unquote, which they say violates Title IX. The suit aims to get an injunction to force Maine to strip away rights from trans people in schools to take away two winning titles from trans-school. fleets and are considering to quote unquote retroactively pull all funding that Maine has received. Maine's attorney general Aaron Frey said on Wednesday, quote, Our position is further bolstered by the complete lack of any legal citation supporting the

administration's position in its own complaint. While the president issued an executive order that reflects his own interpretations of the law, anyone with the most basic understanding of American civics understands that the president does not create law nor interpret law, unquote. So Maine and specifically the main governor are adamant that this is going to be an issue that's only going to be settled in the courts and, in fact, challenged Trump at a recent meeting to see you in court over this issue.

We are going to go and break and then return to close out this episode of executive disorder. Okay, we are back. I'm now going to throw to myself and Mia to discuss tariff talk in a future recording. Welcome the tariff talk, the talk where I'd talk to you about the turf tariffs. So, all right,

the big thing that happens last week in tariffs was that Trump exempted smartphones and electronics. There's a whole suite of electronics that are exempted from the 145% turf tariffs from Liberation Day. Now, there was still a 20% tariff on

all these electronic goods from the earlier round of tariffs. In one of the initial rounds, there was a whole thing where he put a bunch of tariffs on. I'm so confused, though, because I thought that it's 10% tariffs for non-Chinese companies. Yeah,

but, okay, so here's the thing, right? China? Is it like additional or... No, okay, so what's happening with these is that in the very, very first round of tariffs that went out, there was a 20% tariff on all Chinese goods. And so the Liberation Day tariff,

which and then the subsequent retaliatory tariffs pushed it pushed all goods now like what 250 no okay we're gonna we're gonna get the 250% that number's bullshit okay but we're at 145% like tariff from the liberation day stuff but that also had included an earlier 20% tariff and you see why you see why we're reporting about this is so fucking hard right so that was back on top of that other tariffs so he's removed the liberation day tariffs but there still are 20% tariff on all on all like iPhones and all these electronic goods that are still in effect. So the tariff rate for those goods is now 20 instead of 145, but this is where things get even more murky.

So even before the exemptions for the semiconductor stuff had been released, Trump had been talking about imposing a bunch of tariffs specifically on semiconductors from all countries, which is going to like, again, if this is just also, if you want to just kneecap your entire economy, you put in a tariff on all semiconductors from other countries, which was what this is looking like. It's possible the levels are going to be that high anyways. It's, again, worth pointing out that, like, there's a bunch of the parts of this production process that basically can only be done in Taiwan, which will presumably have these new tariffs on

them. We don't know what they're going to be yet. They're coming in who fucking knows. But so it seems like these tariffs are being withdrawn for now due to the market sort of backlash. but probably they will come back at some point in the future we're not 100% sure there's also another thing I want to mention

where so the number that you said the 250% tariff thing so Trump tweeted that out but that's fake what that is is that there are a couple of items and I mean when I say a couple I mean like we're talking like single digit items like things like medical syringes

that already had like 100% tariffs on them the 145% tariff stack on top of all tariffs that were already in effect. So there's like, like three or four items already had 100% tariffs on them. So when you stack the 145 on top of them, they're 250%.

But again, it's like, it's like three things, right? So like that's fake. On the other hand, like substantively, and this is something that a lot of people have been talking about, the difference between 145% and 245% like isn't that relevant because at 145%

you stop doing trading? So it's, you know, The numbers at this point I just sort of in comedy levels. But yeah, so that's what's going on with the 250 number of people have been going around from. It's not real. It's still 145 for all non-electronics goods, 24 electronics. There's also been a bunch of sort of China's been doing retaliatory stuff for a little bit, and they've been ramping up this program to restrict U.S. access to rare earth elements that are necessary for a whole bunch of advanced engineering,

particularly sort of defense projects. This is something that could genuinely devastate the American. defense sector. Trump's plan for this is that he's threatening to use the Trade Expansion Act 1962 to impose even more devastating tariffs. Now, it is genuinely unclear to me. Like, what is he going to impose it a thousand percent tariff? Like, you need to buy these goods. You say that, Mia. And yes. He probably will. He probably will. Like two weeks ago, a thousand percent tariffs would have been a joke, but no, they might. They might legitimately do a thousand percent tariffs. Why not? There's also been,

the beginnings of on the U.S. and sort of export restrictions from chip exports to China and countries like Nvidia and AMD and this is a fucking big rip to the big rip to the fucking AI people eat shit, get fucked.

Yeah, so like, so that that's roughly the state of the tariffs right now. More, more bullshit will happen. We'll be back on tariff talk next week with another round of unbelievably hideous turf tariff shit. But I want to,

want to move on to one more thing, which is things that have been happening at the NLRB. So the NLRB, for people who are not regularly listeners to the show, is the National Labor Relations Board. They were in charge of a whole bunch of things related to negotiations between, like, employers and unions, or the people who certify union elections. They handle unfair labor practices, disputes. And Doge effectively broke into the NLRB and has seized a whole bunch of information that they shouldn't have. NPR broke the story

and has been doing a lot of good coverage of it. So it came in, right? They technically had some kind of like order saying that they were supposed to be able to come in and do this stuff and they set up and they disable all of the security stuff

and all of the sort of like logs and all of the sort of stuff that's supposed to like verify what someone's doing on a computer system. They go in and disable all of them. They delete all traces of what they do and this is a big deal

because the end of all. RB has a lot of extremely sensitive data. It has extremely sensitive data on unions. It has a lot of extremely sensitive trade data on private companies. Now, the NLRB person who blew the whistle on this to NPR described how, so he complains about to his superiors about Doge again, just like sort of breaking into this fucking like office and just like stealing all of this data. So he notices this program that they're building that's literally just called like

backdoor, which is like, again, what you would do if he, were literally running a hack, right? And we'll come back to that in a second. So the NLP person complains to a superior are like, hey, these Doge people are just like stealing all of the data from this. And then like the next day, someone from Doge tapes to his door

pictures of him and his dogs with like a threatening thing on it. Like drone footage of him and his dog. Like walking? Which is so fucking weird. I don't even know. I don't even. So, yeah,

That's extremely alarming. This is their, they're just blatantly threatening a whistleblower. Yeah. So the other reason that this is really concerning is that, so a lot of the corporate media is focused on the fact that there's a lot of trade information in there. There's also a lot of very personal information about unions, about union strength, about size, about tactics, about the history of negotiating things, about just where unions are and who's in them.

And it's, it's deeply unclear what Doge is going to do this information, but it's not good. and again, and I need to emphasize this, so I talked to friend of the show, Maya Arsson CrimeW, about this, who is someone who knows a lot about hacking, and I said to it, okay, so this is what you would do

if you were, if you were just straight up, like hacking the NLRB, right? Like, these are the things you would do, and they went, yeah, pretty much. So, it's great, it's great. Yeah, the, the, the, those are just stolen a bunch of information.

Who knows what's going to happen to it? Who knows what's going to happen with their escalation? of attacks on whistleblowers, but things bad. Things continue to go bad. Well, thank you for that uplifting story, Mia, about Doge breaking into and stealing data from the NLRB and posting overhead drone photos of people's houses who threaten the Doge supremacy.

We're back. Thank you, future Garrison and future Mia. So it's my role here to update you on the border fascism, right? And that's what I'm here to do. Where I want to start this week is in the Roosevelt Reservation. This is something that's been reported on a little bit. It's reek largely by people who maybe only found out about it this week and looked at a Wikipedia page and wrote a story.

The Roosevelt Reservation is a 60-foot easement that rungs along the southwestern border of the United States from the coast in San Diego or the way to New Mexico. It doesn't cover the Texas border. I've written about it before for the Sierra Club and for drilled news four or five years ago, and I'm going to include a link to the Sierra Club piece in the show notes, the drill pieces down now. They don't have that print side anymore. It was established in 1907 by Teddy Roosevelt, and it was transferred for three years from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Defense by the Trump administration in 2019, using an executive order.

This year in 2025, all of the Roosevelt reservation that is not part of federal reservation, land was placed on the Department of Defense jurisdiction. A lot of reporting seems to have missed this exemption for federal reservation land, which makes up a significant part of the border, especially in Arizona, right, in the Tornoldom Reservation. I'm going to quote from the language of the executive order here, quote, to provide for the use and jurisdiction by the Department of Defense over such federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, and excluding federal Indian reservations that are reasonably necessary to enable military. military activities directed in this memorandum, including border barrier construction and

placement of detection and monitoring equipment. The way I read this, it also doesn't limit to the reserve reservation. It seems to include other federal land, right, which could include national monuments, national parks, the BLM and the national forests, all of which exist along the border. The Trump administration this week also obtained waivers. The waivers waive dozens of laws that have been limiting construction in the San Diego sector. I'd like to quote a little bit from that Sierra Club piece that I wrote because I think the aspect of the damage done to the sacred space of indigenous people is being completely overlooked with a legacy media in this, not perhaps surprisingly. So one of the laws waived with

the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was enacted by Congress in 1990 to protect and safely relocate native burial sites when construction takes place on sensitive sites. The tribe in question should be consulted, and in the event remains or other archaeological objects are found, construction should be altered so as not to disturb the site. In the areas of San Diego where they are digging, what's called midden soil has been found. Midden soil is soil that contains evidence of cremated human remains, in this case of Kumi-I people. With this waiver, they don't have to comply with Nagpro,

Native American Graves Protection and Relocation Act, which means that they can continue digging through what are literally people's ancestors' graveyards. Here's another quote from that 2020 story. If this were another country's government destroying a region's holy land, the U.S. would go to war and the people would feel it justified activist Thomas Barber told Sierra.

But it happens here at home in front of us and we just turn away. We sure do turn away. Seems to be most of what we do these days. Yeah, it's not even what bugs me, it's like not so much of folks, you know, not doing anything. I get that it's overwhelmingly horrible at the moment. It's that this doesn't even get reported. Yeah.

Big outlets with a massive budget who are supposed to have a border reporter who's never fucking set foot on the border, doesn't take the time to talk to the indigenous people who's land the border crossed, right? Like, doesn't take the time to hear their concerns, doesn't take the time to think about when you dig 30, feet into this ground to build your border wall, that's 12,000 years of someone's history. How do they feel about that? And like, that is a failing of the legacy media. It has been a failing for a long time and it will continue to be on for a long time and piss me off.

Yep. I guess to talk more broadly than about this militarization of the Roosevelt Reservation and other public land, there's been some speculation about what this might mean. I don't think that you're going to see soldiers pointing their guns at the southern border and shooting anyone who comes across. I do think it's likely a lot of the people who have been deployed to southern border so far are MPs, military police, right? And it's possible that those MPs will be able to detain people and potentially charge them with trespassing on a military installation. That would just be another string to the bow of their attempt to like rapidly deport

people because they already have many other kind of options through executive order of doing that, which they're already implying, right? it might also make it easier for them to waive some of these other laws and to construct more surveillance equipment. In the Abrago-Garcia case, which we've covered for several weeks now, the Supreme Court has unanimously asked the United States government to, quote, facilitate his return. The U.S. government has embarked upon a unique definition of the word facilitate, which it feels like means allowing him to enter the country, and providing transport if El Salvador releases him.

Buckele refused to release him, saying that doing so would be to quote, smugler terrorists into the United States. Garrison and I did a whole episode about this yesterday that you can listen to. Today, Senator Chris Van Hollen went to San Salvador, right, capital of El Salvador, if you're not aware. He met with the vice president

because Buckele is still out the country. Van Hollen held a press conference right afterwards that I watched right before we recorded this. In the press conference, Van Hollen basically said, that he deserted to the Vice President Earl Salvador, there was no evidence nor any conviction of being a member of MS-13.

And he asked the VP why he was holding Mr. Abrago-Garcia, and the VP said because the US is paying us to hold him. Yeah, which... Yeah, they won't even lie. Yeah, no, he's not lying. That's why they're doing it. I believe that. Yeah.

And credit to this Maryland senator of being the only one to do something. And it's not enough, and it's just one person. 300 people there, right? They're not even going for the hundreds of other innocent people are there. It's one guy, but at least he's doing something. The rest of the Democrats are collectively like voting for Trump's nominees. He asked to meet with Mr. Abrago Garcia and was told that they needed more time. He said, I'll come back next week. They said they don't know if they can organize it in a week. He asked if he could call him. They said they didn't know if they could facilitate a call. They said maybe the U.S. Embassy would have to be the one that requests that. So he has now

requested that the embassy request that he be allowed to call Mr. Abrago Garcia and Mr. Obrigo Garcia be allowed to speak to his wife. Garrison and I spoke about how, like, it's not in the interest of the government in El Salvador to have people leave this prison and testify as to the conditions that are in it. No one has ever left this prison. That we're aware of, yeah, that no one who's been detained that has left. Yeah. The government wouldn't give him a date when he could meet Mr. Abrego Garcia or when he would be

likely able to make a call. And a separate case, Judge Bozberg, who we've spoken about before as well, right, Judge Bozberg was the judge who issued the tentative restraining order on the rendition of people to El Salvador, which the government then ignored, has found probable cause that the administration is in contempt of court. What does this mean? It doesn't mean, despite what you have seen on your timeline, that this will mean these people will be bought home. When they're found in contempt, they have two options, right? They can purge themselves of the contempt. and the way they would do that would be by providing habeas not by bringing all these people home at least not yet, right? Or they could present the people who are responsible

and then either an attorney could be appointed by the DOJ to prosecute them, I guess? I don't quite out how they were consistent or the judge himself can appoint an attorney to prosecute them for criminal contempt. Again, at least the guy's trying, I guess. No, I mean, I got nothing to say against him right now. Like, this is what they all should be doing.

He went there. He's true. He's something, and he's not mincing his words. He's saying that this man was disappeared. No, yeah. And he's asserting that, like, they need to listen to the court. They are supposed to listen to the court. Yeah.

Judge Ginez, in O'Janez, who is a judge on the district court that had its case sent to the Supreme Court for a view in the Abregor Garcia incident also, quoted the Merriam-Webster dictionary and said that the government's understanding of the word facility flew in the face of the common understanding of the word. Yeah. Again, like, I've seen it as a certain. is like, oh, legal experts can disagree. Meanwhile, you've got the actual judge in the actual case being like,

no, this is what the dictionary says. Your definition is ludicrous. I would caution people to be very careful looking at like blue check legal experts on X.com or people on Blue Sky. Oh, God. There has been so much misleading stuff about immigration law and the laws in these particular two cases and about the resort reservation, actually. Just be really careful where you're getting your information.

especially on immigration law from, maybe go back and check what that person was doing in 2023 when thousands of migrants were detained in outdoor detention camps because I've seen so much misinformation and people understandably who aren't expert in this because it's extremely complicated are likely to be taken advantage of by people who are grifting off what is at a moment when a lot of us are afraid

and a lot of us are uncertain. So to be very careful what you're reading out there. All right. I think that's all for us today on it could happen here. Yeah, I think that's our new erectile executive dysfunction episode. Erectile order. All right. Well, we're fucking done.

Go away. We reported the news. We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzone Media. visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio 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. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting. the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.