Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 72

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

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Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast that is sometimes introduced by me, Robert Evans. Other times it's introduced by James Stout or Mia Wong, who are both on the call today. How's everybody doing? Pretty good. We've declared victory over the balloon. Finally, the F-22 gets its first air-to-air kill. He's still careful. Hundreds of billions of dollars later.

We did it, guys. We did it worth every penny. The F-22 is God's perfect killing machine, and thus it is a $67 billion aircraft that's completely useless. It is a perfect air superiority craft, which in modern warfare makes it slightly less useful than an $850 DJI drone. Hand grenade strapped it? It should be fair. I cannot think of a better metaphor to understand how the U.S. Army works than using a $67 billion aircraft to shoot a $361,000 missile at a balloon. Listen, somebody's done several balloons in his life, admittedly not this high up.

It is extremely entertaining, and I can't fault that pilot. I am deeply disappointed in rural America that no crazy rich guy with a Cessna flew his friend with a 50 cal up to like 40,000 feet. This has dropped that thing. Why the 17 incinerator was invented for this specific instance, and we've been let down again. Anyway, what are we talking about today, Mia? We're talking about the balloon a little bit, and then we're going to talk about something more interesting, which is the sort of history of U.S.-China relations, and how it's not what everyone thinks it is. I've been led to believe by the media that there is nothing more interesting than the balloon, and that we should be focusing all our coverage on the balloon.

That's true. There have been other balloons. There are now a fifth balloon. Has it the towers? Excellent. Okay, so yeah, let's go. Yeah, so okay, so I want to start off by like... I want to talk a little bit about the balloon, which is that... Okay, so we have the American Arby's claim that this was a surveillance balloon. There's a chance it just was a random balloon.

Like, I don't know, I don't want to completely discount the fact that it was a balloon. I do want to talk a little bit about sort of balloon surveillance stuff though, because I've seen a lot of people both on the left and also on the right who are just like, why would anyone ever have a spy balloon? It's like, okay, so... In order to do this, we need to talk a little bit about surveillance satellites, which I come from a family of astronomers, and one of the sort of dark secrets of astronomy is that the stuff you point up also can be pointed back down again.

And... Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, one of the other things about this is that a lot of the companies that make telescopes that make lenses for that are companies that work heavily with the NRO, which is the National Reconnaissance Office, which is a genuinely terrifying organization with an unfathomable black budget dedicated to just like, spying on people from aircrafts and from space, and more people should be...

We have a lot of like, people are scared of the NSA, people are scared of the CIA, but more people should be scared of the NRO because Jesus Christ, that stuff is, whew. But on the other hand, okay, so the NRO has a bunch of satellites, right? But the thing about satellites is that they move. Okay, you can't prove that. I will, I will prove... I will do a war thunder, I will post-classify documents.

We live underneath a flat dome, and satellites are stationary. The dome rotates in a clockwise direction around them, and that's responsible for the illusion of motion in the heavens. Sure. Yes. There's no competitive response today. You've been owned again. I got nothing.

Nope. Owned. So, okay, alright. So, satellites move, they move in stable, predictable orbits, and this means a few things, right? One of the things that it means is that a satellite is only over the area you want it to cover for a limited amount of time, because it's, you know, the satellite's moving around the Earth, right?

And this means that, you know, you can calculate their orbits, and you can calculate when they're going to be in range of whatever they want to look at. And, you know, and this means you can do things like, for example, figuring out where the satellite's going to be and hiding whatever you're working on when they pass. This is how the CIA completely missed India's nuclear weapons program, is that they knew when the spy satellites were flying over,

they just hid all their weapons equipment, and the CIA never figured out they were building dukes. Base. Well, actually, not base, because nukes are bad. But, but, yeah. Yeah, very funny. Hiding is funny. Hiding is funny.

Yeah, yeah. What do they do? Did they just paint it like a hot dog or something, and just be like, no. No, they literally just, like, put tarps over it. Whatever the satellite came around, and then they built things underground. It's very funny.

I'm passionating the world's biggest hot dog idea in case someone else does that. Yeah, I think Jamie Loftus actually might have you beat to that. You don't have to do all to the death. Jamie's secret nuclear arsenal is something we're not supposed to talk about on the podcast. Well, look, it's like the Israeli secret arsenal. It's an open secret, not a closed secret.

So, okay, you can solve this problem of sort of telescope go move, either by having just a bunch of satellites going constantly, or by having a geosynchronous satellite, which is in an orbit where it's basically over the same spot of the Earth at one time. The problem is that both of these are like unfathomably expensive. And that doesn't mean that governments don't do that.

Like the US has a bunch of spy satellites, like lots and lots of countries spy satellites, but it's really, really expensive. And there's a few other reasons why you would use a balloon, which are some of the reasons the US uses them in Afghanistan. One is that you have really limited space on a satellite, which means that you can only fit certain kinds of equipment onto each satellite.

There's another issue, which is that, okay, if you're putting spy stuff on a satellite, it has to work in space, and it turns out that space sucks, and is wanting to kill you. It's a mark of how bad people are at strategic thinking that they would ever ask, why would you put spy stuff on a balloon?

Especially if it's a little weirder to float it over the US, if that's what happened. But if you are the US or China or Russia engaging in most of the conflicts those countries engage in, where they're not dealing with state-level actors, a balloon provides perfect surveillance very cheaply. It doesn't require refueling, like it's an incredibly reasonable platform to spy on people with.

Yeah, and I think there's another thing, which I think has been less talked about, which is that, okay, there's an equipment gap, basically, between when you design a camera for a satellite and when the satellite goes up. And this means that whatever kind of cameras and technology you're putting in a satellite are going to be, by definition, a few years out of date,

because that's just how long it takes to design the equipment and put it into the air. But, you know, for a balloon, you could use stuff that's more modern than what you would have on a spy satellite. Now, and also, you can also just put other stuff on the balloon that's not just cameras. You can do sighing stuff. So, okay, the moral of this story is that the spy balloon

is not a completely implausible thing. All right, if you, like, put a gun to my head and said, Mia, what happened to your, my guess would be it was like this spy balloon went off course or some shit, and it's lost control of it now. Yeah, it probably was not meant for the continental United States, because that's a weird move. But it does keep happening, so.

Hi, this is Mia in post. So, back when we recorded this episode in the heady days of early February, there had been but two balloons. There have now been so, so many more balloons, oh my God, the U.S. just has balloon mania. We now know a little bit more about the sort of suspect of Chinese balloon.

It does, that balloon seems to be an actual balloon. At the very least, the U.S. government claims that they've recovered an enormous amount of sort of technical and observational equipment from it. They said it was, what was the exact line, the size of three school buses, a bunch of signals, intelligence stuff, which is something we didn't mention an enormous amount,

but yeah, that's an everything you can use a balloon for is intercepting phone communications or radio communications, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, so it seems like the first balloon may have been an actual balloon. Every subsequent balloon, however, we have learned more. So, at least one, and my assumption is this is every single subsequent balloon

after the first balloon. We have confirmation that, so one of the balloons is shot down over Canada by NF-22, and this seems to be a Pico balloon from the Northern Illinois Bottlecat Balloon Brigade. These are just like tiny balloons that people send out so they can navigate the globe. These people are just balloon hobbyists.

They just like balloons, and it's just honestly really sad. These are just people who like, they just like putting balloons up and watching them go around the world, and they were met with the entire aerial bite of the world's greatest superpower, which spent literally more money than I have ever seen in my entire life

to annihilate literally like about $100 or $200 worth of essentially foil and some GPS equipment. These people apparently tried to contact the U.S. government and tell them what was going on, and the U.S. government was like, eh? So, yeah, congratulations to the U.S. government, which has won an important geostrategic victory

over the Northern Illinois Bottlecat Balloon Brigade. This has been breaking news from Mia in the balloon war. Yeah, enjoy the rest of the episode. But, you know, I wanted to use this to talk about something more interesting, which is, again, like the sort of arc of U.S.-China relations and what actually drives it, because I think people have a really,

really not very good understanding of how it works and why. Okay, I think it's reasonable to ask you, are you talking about the arc of U.S.-China relations? Aren't U.S.-China relations always bad? And the answer is no. In fact, U.S.-China relations are sometimes actually quite good. U.S.-China relations are driven by these two

sort of interlocking forces, right? On the one hand, you have the internal domestic and also kind of global balance of class forces inside a country, and that plays a huge role in a lot of the things that are going to happen in U.S.-China relations. And the other thing that happens is what you, I guess, would call geopolitics. And we're going to kind of start with the geopolitics side

and move back and forth between that and the sort of class angle on it. So you can get a kind of understanding of how this stuff actually works and how to think about it in ways that are just sort of incredibly simplistic and useless. So, all right. I'm not going to go all the way back to like the 1800s or whatever

because there are U.S.-China relations. We actually invaded China at one point and like the 1800s for some fucking reason. We did it again in the 1900s, too. Yeah, but, okay. But in terms of dealing with modern China, dealing with modern U.S.-China relations is about the U.S.'s relationship with the CCP.

And weirdly, during World War II, the relations were actually really good. You know, because obviously China is the U.S.'s ally in World War II. We're also allies with China's nationalist party, the KMT. But you know, what's interesting about this is that there's a faction of the U.S. Army that is anti-KMT and pro-CCP. And they're not pro-CCP because they're communists.

They're pro-CCP because, A, they're kind of racist and they really don't like the KMT kind of out of racism. And the second thing that that's going on is that the KMT, as we've talked about elsewhere, it's just like incredibly corrupt Esquad party. And that means that, you know, some of the people who have to work with them on the ground in World War II

are like these are literally the worst people who ever lived. Why on earth are we doing this? That means that when the Civil War starts, right, like the U.S. takes a nationalist side but like nowhere near as strongly as they could have. And this creates this sort of like this myth around like the loss of China that becomes this massive thing in the U.S.

because this is one of the things that triggers stuff. McCarthyism, et cetera, et cetera, is like, everyone becomes convinced. It was like, oh my God, like Truman, like they lost China. Like we could have kept China for the communists, but like they lost it. And it's like, wow, okay. But this has another massive impact,

which is that it creates this thing called the China lobby. And the China lobby is this sort of bank of these like incredibly psychopathic right wing like anti-communist ghouls and some also people who had, some also people who were like, had been rich in China and then got owned by the CCP. And they start pushing incredibly aggressively

for like regime change in China for just the U.S. and China not having diplomatic relations. And this starts to sort of like tank relations between the U.S. and China. And then obviously like, so we fought a war with China and Korea, a thing that I feel like doesn't get talked about as much as you would think it would.

Yeah, the Korean War is the memory hold war in the UK as well as America, but it's a war that no one talks about. Yeah, I mean, the forgotten war is literally like its most common nickname. There's a pretty good book by that title too. Yeah, but you know, like that war, like there are U.S. and Chinese troops

like shooting the shit out of each other. Like across the entire peninsula, like there are Chinese troops doing bayonet charges through the road artillery, like the American lines. The last, before I bought my place, my last landlord was a Chinese citizen living in the U.S. on a green card. And during a pandemic conversation over some wine,

we kind of figured out that both of our grandfathers wound up at the same battles and may very well have been shooting at each other. That's a melting pot, buddy. She became a landlord. Well, I mean, she was renting a room, but yeah. That's a dream. There is a reasonable argument that there and back,

again, a landlord's story is the entire course of the sort of like Chinese politics in the 20th century. Certainly with respect to the United States. Yeah. Well, and also China, right? Because landlords are back now. It sucks. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Not all Chinese people have become landlords, but many are subject to landlord shit. Yeah, you know, okay. So like, obviously, it's really interesting too, because when people write about U.S.-China relations, they normally, like the thing they pick from this period tends to be like the Taiwanese trade crisis. And it's like, okay, yeah, there was this,

there was this race crisis. But again, like the U.S. and China were like shooting at each other, like before this. Like, why is this the thing that you pick for the downturn of U.S.-China relations? Like, we were at war. Okay. But baffling stuff, right?

But, you know, relations are not good to like the 60s either. Like, sort of based on very similar sort of lines that you'd seen in the 50s. Like, this is a period where people sort of take communism and anti-communism seriously. That stops being true very quickly. On the other hand, these sort of geopolitics things have real material consequences, right?

You can look at this in the American side, where, for example, the industrial buildup of the Japanese and Korean economies, and also the industrial buildup, like the industrial buildup of California, right, has to do with these sort of trade languages that are being set up. In order for you, you have to run the war in Korea

and run the war in Vietnam. And China has its own sort of version of this, which starts getting more and more apparent by, it starts around the mid-60s. They have this thing called the Third Front, which is, okay, so having now been through, like, I don't know, how literally, I don't even know how many wars since the start of the century,

the CCP goes, okay, we need to shift our production away from sort of the coast and into the middle of the country, so that they can't be attacked by the Soviets and they can't be attacked by the Americans. And this has a really major effect in terms of what sort of Chinese industrialization looks like over the course of the mid-20th century, is you get this industrial belt that's built up

and that is going to be destroyed later on. And it's destroyed in part because of what starts happening in the 70s, which is to sort of warm up between the U.S. and China based on sort of Nixon and Kissinger's attempts to sort of peel the Chinese away from the Soviet Union. And, you know, like, Robert, you've talked about this on bastards before.

But, you know, part of what's going on here is that China, like, basically gets into a war with the Soviet Union in 1969. It's not called that. It's technically just called the border dispute. But, like, there are troops, like, shooting at each other, like, all across the border. People are beating each other to death with sticks.

Like, people are shooting borders at each other. It's a real war. And, you know... It's like in the grand British tradition of course calling, like, massive conflicts an emergency or the troubles. Yeah, yeah, it's like, okay. You know, but this really sort of...

This really sort of drives Chinese sort of international, like, relations to the point where they're like, okay, so... I know we're supposed to be communists, but also, like, the other communist power next door might, like, march an army across the border at any point. So, you know, you get the sort of triangle diplomacy of Kissinger trying to sort of bring China into the...

Well, at least away from the Soviet sphere and closer into the U.S. sphere. And, you know, this starts to work, right? And you can ask, you know... There's other things going on here, right? China's not just playing pure geopolitics. There's another factor involved, which is that part of the sort of conditions

for U.S. and Chinese sort of, like, I don't know, you call it bilateral relations or whatever sort of geopolitical cant bullshit you want to say for, like, getting along closer is the U.S. starts sending these technology transfers over to China, like, I mean, literally, like, like, taking, like, sometimes, like, taking factories, basically, and, like, taking them apart and then putting them in boxes

and shipping them over to China. Yeah. And, you know, okay, this is a huge deal for the CCP because, like, the Chinese economy in this period has been really bad. And part of this is just, you know, this is what happens when you bow. But a secondary part of this is that

China's has had a real, basically, China's been dealing with this sort of economic crisis since, like, literally since they came out of World War II, which is that, okay, so, most of China's industrial capacity was completely destroyed during the war. The parts of it that weren't were, like, there was this belt in Manchuria that had stuff, and the Soviets literally loaded

the factories on trains and shipped them back and shipped them back east, or back west. So, by the time that the CCP takes over, like, China has less industrial capacity than, like, Russia did at the beginning of 1917. Jesus. So, situations really bleak, right? And the other thing that's bleak about it is that,

okay, so in order to build an industrial base, right, we've talked about this a bit on the show, in order to build an industrial base, you need food. But in order to get, like, increased your agricultural productivity, you need, like, mechanical goods. But you can't get those mechanical goods unless you can increase your industrial capacity, so you have this bottleneck. And this winds up being one of the solutions to the bottleneck,

is getting technology transfers from the U.S. And, you know, the sort of product of this is that now, all of our products and services, which we are about to talk about, which we should buy, are made in China. So, yeah, go buy those things that are the product of all of this. There's no problems with it. Yeah, don't question it. Just purchase it. Get Alibaba and just find their Aliexpress and just wire them $700.

Within, I'm going to say, two weeks to 17 months, you'll get a package of something. Yeah, get a drone. Buy a drone. Honestly, if you order something from Aliexpress, there's no real way to know what you will get. That's the beauty of Aliexpress. Look, on the other hand, there is a non-zero chance you get a collection of really, really sick Chinese shirts

that just have absolutely random bullshit on them. It's great. Sick Chinese shirts or knock-off versions of military-grade optics that work well enough for the Taliban to use. Yeah. They're liberating people in the world over Aliexpress optics. All right, and we're back. So, okay, the Chinese swing into sort of alignment with the US.

They start doing things that even a lot of the US's right-wing allies won't do. Like, for example, China is one of the first countries to diplomatically recognize Pinochet's Chile. And they, like, send him a shit-ton of money. They send him loans. They send him direct cash transfers. And, like, this is a point where even, like, France and, like, the UK are, like, ooh, that's a... We're not going to have...

We're not going to acknowledge this military-grade kid's shit. But China's like, yeah, this rules. Hell yeah, Pinochet. And, you know, they do other stuff that's very sort of pro-US, right? They invade Vietnam in 1979 in the war that, you know... The only war that's more forgotten than the Korean war is... Yeah, that's true. ...is the Sino-Vietnamese war. There were some really good Twitter threads.

It taught me a lot about China's non-aggression towards other countries last week. Yeah, it's a good time. We could also talk about, like, the Sino-Indian war in the middle of this, where they just invade India of aggression. Which is great. But, you know, okay, but, like, what this sort of comes up to is in... Like, you get a point where the U.S. and China, by the end of the 70s and going into the 80s, are very much on the same side.

Like, for example, when Deng Xiaoping came to visit the U.S., he takes, like, an hour out of his schedule to make a secret visit to the CIA so that he can set up a joint, like, USCA listening post in China to monitor the Soviets. We talk about this a lot in the Kissinger episodes from last year. But folks should generally be aware that, like, Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon legitimately got along, like, enjoyed one another's company, as did Nixon and Chowchescu. Like, they were all good friends.

Yeah. Which is something one ruling class, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there's almost a class analysis you could make there. Yeah. But, you know, okay, we're gonna do a slightly different class analysis, which is that, like, okay, so U.S.-China relations are very good, like, basically until Tiananmen. And then everything gets kind of messed up, because Tiananmen... Tiananmen's, it's a very...

It has a set of, like, very weird and contradictory effects, right? You know, we talked about some of this in our Tiananmen episodes, but it does two things, right? On the one hand, like, in the U.S., people are horrified, right? You know, the entire media class just, like, watches this happen outside their windows. There's this incredible uproar, it becomes one of the sort of, like, central, like... I don't know, like, sort of... It becomes a thing that's, like, incredibly central to just, like,

the memory of what it is to be an Asian-American, is to sort of, like, remember, quote-unquote, Tiananmen. But on the other hand... You know, so, okay, what you would expect from there is, like, the U.S. and China break off diplomatic relations, and, like, the Cold War II starts again immediately with the U.S. and China, and it doesn't happen like that. Because the second thing that Tiananmen does is it finally crushes the Chinese working class.

And, you know, once the last Chinese working class is just gone, right? And all that's left is an incredibly disorganized and incredibly desperate sort of migrant working class. Suddenly, hey, look, we have a very highly educated, very poor population that you can just, you know, just ship labor to. And this is what actually happens in terms of the U.S. and Chinese relations over the 90s, which is that, you know, you have this double deindustrialization going on. You have a deindustrialization in the U.S. where, you know,

the last of the old Rust Belt falls apart. The sort of, like, minor industrial boom that had happened under Reagan just implodes. And, you know, some of this is decentralization. Some of this is these jobs go to, like, the suburbs and shit, or, like, places like DeKalb that are just incredibly accursed. But... A real call out there, Mia. Look, I'm sorry to anyone who lives in DeKalb.

I wish you best luck fleeing. There goes that DeKalb tourist board sponsorship that we've been looking for. Yeah, but, you know, but simultaneously there's another wave of deindustrialization happening in China, too, which is that that old third wave industrial belt that I was talking about, right? Those people had worked in, like, basically the equivalent of, like, the Chinese equivalent of sort of, like, good union jobs, right? They're working for state-owned enterprises, so they have housing, they have healthcare, they have pensions, and all of that is just destroyed.

Like, all these people lose their pensions, they fucking lose everything. There are, like, millions of people who are pushed out of their jobs. And, you know, both of these things happen at the same time, and a lot of companies who are watching the sort of East Asian companies, like, economies collapse, who are watching the South Korean economy collapse, or watching the Japanese economy collapse, suddenly start looking at China. And throughout the course of the 90s, sort of, more and more American capital,

I mean, there's already been capital from East Asia sort of flowing into China, more and more American capital starts flowing in. And what you get here is you get this battle between geopolitics and economics, right? The sort of geopolitics side, and the sort of, like, you know, the side that, like, the media is on, and the side is at the sort of, like, the sort of intellectual, et cetera, et cetera, like, anti-China class is on is, you know, they don't want to let China into the world. They want to let China into the world trade organization. But it doesn't work, right? Those guys just get destroyed.

China gets admitted into the world trade organization. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush support China entering the WTO, and they do it because they can see what I'm partially, a little bit of it is because they, for some, like, they've been drinking the Kool-Aid, and they believe that, like, if you have capitalism, then democracy will follow, which I... Yeah, empirical data suggests otherwise. Yeah, like, okay, sure, sure, in the OKONs, like, whatever. But, you know, but it's also because these people have financial backers,

and their financial backers are telling them, like, hey, look, we can, you know, if all of the sort of weird sanction regime shit has worked out, and if China's fully integrated into the capitalist system, like, we can make a lot of money. And they do. This is what the 2000s is, right? Like Wal-Mart and Walgreens and shit, like, directly integrate all of their supply lines into Chinese supply lines. They make deals with the Chinese government in order to do this. And suddenly, by, you know, in 2001, China is, I think, like, the fourth exporter of goods in the world. By 2009, they are number one by, like, an order of...

Well, it's not an order of magnitude, but they're, like, very, very much the dominant export, like, world's dominant export economy. And this is a problem, right? Because on the one hand, you know, if, like, American-Chinese relations get... They're actually really good, around 9-11, they're actually really good, right? Like, the U.S., like, there were guys from Xinjiang who, like, China sends to Guantanamo. It's like, here, take these people in the U.S. torches them for China, like, you know... Yeah, like, relations are good, right?

It's like, well, okay, hey, we both have, like, this, like, quote, Muslim extremist threat that we're, like, dealing with, you know, and they try to get on the war on terror. But eventually, relations kind of degrade, like, you have the whole Olympics thing you have. There's, like, in, like, the 2010s, there's this whole fight over these islands that the Philippines claim. But, you know, the problem with this is, like, okay, so you get, on the one hand, a faction of the American right that is really... And also, and also, like, there's a faction of the American right

that's really, really hardline anti-Chinese based on sort of racism. There's American liberalism, which, you know, has this thing about, like, the rural space, international order that, like, China's violating, they're also racist. And then there's, like, progressives, like Elizabeth Warren, who are also racist. And also, you know, whose thing is, like, oh, well, workers' rights in China are really bad, so we need to do, like, competition with them. It's like, okay. That's how you fix it with more capitalism.

Yeah, right. And, but they have a political issue, which is that there's another massive section of American capital that has enormous investments, both sort of financially and in terms of where their factories are, where the logistics are, where the supply lines are, that make them incredibly supportive of sort of closer US-China relations. Or, at the very least, makes them oppose any kind of sort of, like, real, like, anything that goes beyond kind of geopolitical posturing that makes it harder to do business for them. And this is something I think people have a tendency to forget when they try to think about US-China relations

in terms of economics, is that, like, okay, so the US has a military industrial complex, but that's not the entire US economy. Like, there are other people in the US who have lots of money. There was an entire financial sector. There was an entire tech sector. And those people also have a shit ton of money. And even sort of tech companies, right, who have a foot in sort of the American contracting business, also often have a bunch of their, you know, a bunch of the places where the technology is built, is in China, right?

So, you know, even people who could theoretically be brought into a sort of, like, a military industrial complex political coalition against China, like, have reasons not to do it. And, you know, and this works down the board, right? If you look at when Trump did the trade war, he, you know, initially there was a lot of popular support among sort of, like, American, like, mid-sized businesses who were like, oh, we can bring industrial capacity back to the US. And then all of them discovered that they had to pay, like, all of them discovered that, like, they had to pay more for their Chinese goods and were like,

wait, hold on, we fucked up. We've made a mistake. He's actually screwed us. And, like, you know, there's another kind of guy, right, who, there's a lot of people who you expect to be really anti-CCP who aren't, right? And Elon Musk is the best example of this. Like, he is a guy that, like... I think we'd expect Elon Musk to fully support anyone who can fully stamp on the face of their working class

because he is about that and nothing else. That's true, but he's the kind of person who you would expect by pure racism to be, like, a really hard-line anti-CCP guy. And he's not because, like, he has... There's a class consciousness, I think, which overrides even apartheid boys' racism. Well, and, like, Tesla has this, like, oh, god, it's called the Gigafactory, which is a name that makes me want to die. Yeah.

But the Gigafactory is in Shanghai, right? And, like, he has... Even during when, like, the media was, like, pretending to care about the Uyghur genocide, like, he opened a showroom in Xinjiang, like, during that period. So, you know, and there's also people like Michael Bloomberg, who are very, like, you know, if you read Michael Bloomberg talking about China, like, in the media, he was also talking about, like, how grave a leader Xi Jinping is, and it's, you know, it's because people have financial interests there.

And, you know, and this means that, like, you know, even the sort of media coverage of this balloon bullshit, right, and, like, China has been, like, threatening revenge or whatever for the shooting down of the balloon, but, like, this isn't going to turn into anything, right? It's the same in the same way that, like, the last time I watched, like, straight stuff, like, didn't turn into anything in the same way that, like, the last 17 goddamn of these scandals isn't going to go anywhere, and it's not going to go anywhere because there's an enormous, like, faction of American capital

who relies on this stuff. I think it serves, like, the military-industrial complex and the military, specifically, to have China be, like, Schrodinger's next-world war, right? Like, they're always a threat, but, like, they're not a threat, you know? Like, we can justify so much spending and allocation of resources if we can always, like, wave this stick of potential conflict with China. Yeah, and I think this is something that's kind of, like, this important to understand, is that, like, both the China hawks and the China doves

are enemies of both the American and Chinese working classes. Like, the China hawks thing is they want to, like, you know, they want to pit the Chinese and American working classes against each other, and it's, like, nationalist fervor in order to get everyone to ignore the fact that, like, both the societies are collapsing around them, and, by the way, did we add... I don't think this has really made the news yet, but Norfolk Southern fucking basically set off a chemical weapon in Iowa

by crashing a train full of toxic chemicals. Yeah, and it's literally exploding, like, right now, as we're fucking recording this episode, it's on fire. Ah, good. You know, I love how when you deregulate train industry so that you can have just, like, one guy working a massive train, hauling huge amounts of toxic chemicals, it works out great. Yeah, nothing bad happens. It's called efficiency, Robert. Yeah, look, a train crashed like this

would have normally taken dozens of people to engineer, so we have improved our efficiency markedly. Well, and also, in terms of efficiency, Robert, like, think how bad it could have been if we hadn't crossed the rail strikes. Yeah, see? Yeah, it could have been disaster. Yeah, there would have been.

There might not be a giant poison gas cloud in, what is it, Ohio? We can't have that, yeah, it's in East Palestine, Ohio. Honestly. No, it's Palestine, they don't say it. Palestine, ah. No, you can't call it Palestine. You can't have American things. Solidarity with the toxic chemicals.

Oh, no. Free Palestine. That's what I'm saying. That's been done already. The first Palestinian youth. This will seem like it's in bad taste if a lot of people wind up dying, but... Yeah, I mean something.

I also want to mention here that, I'm going to take this opportunity to mention that China is the second largest, Israel's second largest trading partner, and they do, like, yeah, they do, like, security exchanges with each other where people trade each other's militaries. It's great, it's great.

Yeah, but, you know... You can rely, if someone is oppressing working people, they've done a security exchange with Israel, that is like the golden law of cop beating you in the head with a stick. So it's never more than two degrees removed from the IDF. Okay, there's one last thing I want to talk about really briefly, which is...

Okay, so one of the things you will see people talk about who are like pundits or like people on the news talk about this thing called decoupling. And the thing you need to understand immediately is at the moment someone says the word decoupling, you can stop listening to everything they're about to say because they are lying to you. Like, it is bullshit.

So, in theory, the coupling is this thing where supposedly the US and Chinese economies are going to decouple, right? And all of the American firms in China are going to pull out and they're going to pull out their supply chains and they're going to relocate them to somewhere else in the world and the US and Chinese economies suddenly will not be coupled to each other. It's like, no, they're not.

This has never happened. If it was going to happen, it would have happened in 2017 or 2018 when Trump was doing the trade war. It didn't happen then. The only time it's ever happened, or the only time American companies have ever sort of pulled out of China, like, en masse or tried to, was ironically in June 2011.

But in 2011, they were trying to pull out because of the Wukong riots and this, like, massive surge of strikes in China and suddenly all these companies were like, oh my god, China might not be able to keep our, it might not be able to suppress the working class hard enough and then they got horribly crushed. And the other thing that happened was like, companies tried to go elsewhere and they couldn't do it

because no other countries had the combination of like things like a stable electrical grid and like working roads, like an actually highly educated population so they didn't have all of these things at once so they all came back. And, you know, that was as close as ever came to happening. Everyone talks about this all the time. They're lying to you, ignore them.

Yeah. It's not going to happen. The US and Chinese economies are inextricably bound to each other and they're going to continue to be. Yeah, I mean, we can't run, like our economy to a large extent our economy but our society runs on like providing treats to the working class just enough to prevent them from rebelling or from trying to actually change anything

and like we can't keep the constant stream of treats running if we decouple from China, right, of like cheap consumer goods. And also like the Chinese economy relies on like, is an expert economy, right? Like they've been trying to turn to an internal consumption economy for a decade, it's like not really working because, well, hilariously, it's not working because they don't pay people enough to buy shit

and surely no one will ever do that because. Yeah, but then that fucks the economy. Yeah, so, you know, but yeah, it's great. But, you know, okay, I guess like the, the gist of what I wanted to say here is that like, like US China relations are driven by forces that are more complicated than man on TV yell at balloon and as powerful as man on TV yell at balloon

seems like in the moment, it's not actually the thing underlying what's going on here and you need to be able to look past man yell at balloon on TV in order to look at sort of the broader political and social forces that are going on here. And I think beyond that, what we need to do is recognize that there's a deep emptiness at the center of American society that should have in this case been filled by rich people

in Cessnas and their friends with high caliber precision rifles flying into the sky in a noble Cajoteist quest to shoot that fucking balloon down. Just having Sancho Panza crank the air. I have never been so disappointed in this country. I expected 40 or 50 people to die, but that balloon to be taken down. There was a time when we had a country.

Yeah. Our founding fathers would have dropped that son of a bitch. Joe Brandon has forced them all into retirement. Yeah. And China has revealed its gender to the world. Anyway, I hope China sends another balloon. Yeah, what else are we going to do? Hopefully it'll be like a Mickey Mouse fucking frozen balloon.

You know, if they do like the girl from Frozen. Sure. That would be cool. I'd like to see that. They should start pranking us with character balloons. I'd fucking love that. Oh, God. But then the US would start sending like Winnie the Pooh balloons.

Elizabeth Warren would commission a Moana balloon. If it was legal for anything fun to happen, we would have like a balloon based Cold War where the United States starts shooting over balloons across China and the Russians start floating. And it's just... Yeah. We got to close the balloon gap.

Albuquerque becomes the number one world power. Green chili jackboots stamping over the face of humanity. The strong wind decimates our military capacity. The developers of balloons tower defense get hauled before a Senate committee for supposedly doing the future. God. Yeah.

Yeah. We've got to nationalize mylar production in order to monopolize it. All right. Well. Yeah. I think that's our episode. Yep.

All right. Until next time, everybody. Go forth and balloon. Yeah. Yeah. Float a balloon into the airspace of a sovereign nation. Just talk with them a little bit. By camera on Aliexpress.

Put it on a balloon. Uh-huh. Send it somewhere. Put a flag on it. You can be the CIA you want to see in the skies over a sovereign country. Just write CIA on the balloon. Sprint painted on the side.

Why not? Why not? Yeah. What's the harm? What could possibly go wrong? Send a flotilla of balloons. Now I'm going to listen on an unrelated note. I'm finally going to listen to the song

99 Red Balloons for the very first time. So I'll report back to see if this changes my opinion on what people should do with balloons. All right, everyone. Out. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations.

And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. The FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation.

In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of goods. He's a shark. And on the good and bad ass way. And nasty sharks.

He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science.

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize

that this stuff's all bogus, it's all made up? Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories.

But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space.

313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It could happen here. And today it's me and myself, and we're doing two interviews which is going to split over two different episodes. What we're talking about is a case in Asheville, North Carolina where a group of people doing mutual aid work with unhoused people

have been charged with felony littering. We're going to get a little bit in the episode into what felony littering is. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us can explain why that exists as a charge for individuals and not for BP or Shell or something, but such is the state. And so in the first episode, we're going to talk to Sarah. Sarah is one of the people facing these felony littering charges. Sarah has also been banned from parks in Asheville,

which we're going to talk about. So Sarah will explain a little bit of the process that led up to felony littering charges, what the situation is like in Asheville for mutual aid and for unhoused people. And then we're going to talk to Maniba tomorrow. Maniba is one of the lawyers at the ACLU, and she will explain a little bit of the legal background to the case and what is sort of the way that the ACLU is helping these people

oppose the ban. And so we'll have two separate episodes, but we actually recorded them in a different order. So you're going to hear Sarah maybe referring to some stuff. As Sarah said, Maniba saying, Sarah will say some stuff. Just know that we recorded Maniba first because she had a pressing time commitment. But we felt that Sarah's interview gives you a better setup for listening to Maniba's interview tomorrow.

Okay. Hope you enjoy. We're going to start out talking to Sarah. He's one of the people who is a quote unquote problem child in Asheville. Oh, you've seen those. Yeah. Sarah, did I introduce yourself and tell us where your problem child? My name is Sarah Norris.

It's so funny to be called something like a problem child, because I'm mostly like what I am as a mom of a little kid. I'm a social work student. I am a career educator. And I am also one of 16 local organizers who has been facing for almost the last year felony littering charges in conjunction with December 21, December 2021 arts-based protest.

Yeah. I'm sorry that this bizarre thing has happened to you. Obviously like on the face of it, felony littering is a bizarre charge. And the fact that you are banned from parks is also very weird. So let's maybe start off with like the situations before this. What were you doing in the parks that led to you being deemed unsuitable for parks? Gosh, in a way, you'd have to ask those who so deemed us,

but I can talk about what I did in parks for the year prior to being banned. And that's that I was part of a collective who at the beginning of the pandemic did like six times a week meals, coffee, gear distribution in parks. By the time I came around and started participating in these food sharings, in these community gatherings, we were at like two or three times a week.

And really what the way I spent my time in parks was Saturdays and Sundays, I brought my daughter to Aston Park. And we brought food with us, gear with us, art supplies with us, or nothing with us. We just showed up as us and we hung out and we distributed food, tents, packs, socks, toothbrushes, really whatever we could get our hands on. And towards the end of the year, we got a little bookshelf

and we were in charge of bringing books on this like little white plastic shelf and like talking to people about what they most wanted and seeing if we could match them up with whatever we randomly had. It was really like sitting in the sunshine and making sure the coffee thing was full and mostly just tired of people, people who were unhoused, people who are housed, people who walked by and were like, what's this?

What's this picnic? Why is everybody like using glitter glue? Like, oh, because there's a five year old and that's what we do. So that's what mostly I did in parks. And this is, this activity is in the context of a city who I think in 2021, I think we know there were at least 21 sweeps of homeless encampments and a sweep like that name for some of us really connotes violence, but I think it's important to name how

violent those are. A camp sweep means that folks have to leave the place where they've been living and very often their belongings are then considered to be trash, are bulldozed over, are at a minimum lost to them. And this has happened over and over again in the city of Asheville. And yeah, there's a way that being in the park weekly felt like a thing that happened in Asheville that was the opposite of

that was like, we're here. We're all here together. Like, here we are. And so the protest itself around which in the context of which like these arrests have come and happened in December and was an arts based protest and was really about was in favor of sanctuary camping in the city of Asheville with sanitation services.

That was the point of it. And there were like kind of standard protest related events on or sorry, arrests on Christmas night. So that's what Asheville police did. And I think it's important just to note that there were not unhoused folks evicted that night on Christmas night. And no one who was there was pretending to be unhoused and was arrested.

That's a strange narrative that the city of Asheville police department has set in open court. But there were standard sort of like misdemeanor trespass resisting officer arrests that night, including of journalists and then these felony littering cases came much later and in kind of a different context. But that's what that's what happened around Christmas. Okay.

Yeah, that's already pretty weird. But I think it gets weirder. Yeah. So presumably if you were not arrested, then I went home. Christmasy stuff. And then at some point, a letter comes through your door saying that you've been charged with like felony littering. So my own experience was that people organizers in the mutually

collective that I'm part of who had been showing up in the parks week after week distributing food and gear started getting arrested in mid January for what we learned was something you could be arrested for, which was felony littering and or aiding into and abetting felony littering, which like honestly, exactly. And yeah. And some people had one, some people have the other, some

people had both. People were and this is, you know, our understanding is that there's an unstated but generally followed policy by the city of Asheville police department that they don't go arrest people at work, but they went to people's work with five cops and arrested them. And this began in mid January. And it continued into into February and the arrest.

I mean, like honestly, the charges on the on the charge sheets would read like crazy statutes that weren't even felony littering. It seemed like they it really seemed like they were making it as they went along just from the what I can say is I mean, I can't speculate about what they were doing, but there was a strangeness to to even like the documentation that people who are arrested received.

And then at the in the first week of March of last year, the letter that I received was similar to others that others other folks received that day, which was in an envelope from the Asheville police department, but was on Asheville Parks and Rec stationery that told me that I had been banned from all city parks for a period of three years based on the commission of a felony. And this was how I found out that I even had any charges was

through this letter. And that's true for more than me. That's true for a few defendants. So, you know, not everybody who is now we understand to be banned from parks has even received one of those letters. But I did. And a few of us did. And there was on there a sort of like, if you would like to

appeal this, you have seven days, but the letter had been dated sort of five days before that. We were like, wow, what are we even doing? And so it's hard to, it's hard to really communicate the like level of both like sort of desperation and nonsense that was involved the next day. But, you know, so a few of us found this out. We were so sweet.

We self surrendered. And, and because we were a lot of us around the courthouse and city hall, we were trying to figure out what is this letter is even mean? What does it mean to appeal this? What does it mean to be banned? And so we traipsed around city hall, city offices, the courthouse trying to get some sort of answer.

Like what, here we've got these, what does this mean? And every place sent us somewhere where they were like, we don't know what that is. Parks and Rec said, we don't know what that is. Go talk to the police. We said, we don't know what that is. Go talk to the magistrate. The criminal magistrate said, oh, this seems like a civil

magistrate thing. You know, it's like a group of five mutual aid workers, you know, sort of just traipsing around trying to find out like, can I, do I get to go give out sandwiches and tents in the park this week or not for three years? Like what is, and who can help me figure this out? And no one could. And, and what ensued, we never got an answer that day.

We just had city employees looking at us. Often with a like, wow, we don't, we're sorry this is happening to you. This seems really dumb. I think it's like a, a, an expression. And eventually via email, it became clear that they were like, we don't know what this process is, but we're going to tell you soon. Like thank you for your email, you know, saying you're going to

appeal it. And over time we kind of got a little bit more like, okay, we're going to schedule the hearings. You will have a hearing. Eventually like, okay. We asked who will be these are like, for what, what is a hearing? And they didn't know. And then like, oh, okay.

Well, there will be some police officers there in, you know, the city, the representative from the city attorney's office, and you will have a chance to provide information. And, you know, at this point, like none of it, I think none of us had, maybe we'd had admin appearances, but like, at this point we're, we're dealing with felony littering charges that we don't understand. We're trying to figure out whether we can continue to provide

community care in the way we've been doing for years. And it seems like what the city is offering is a chance to come and maybe entrap ourselves. Like it doesn't make any sense to us. And so, you know, those of us who had representation that we could speak to said, oh, we're coming. And have you heard the recordings? No.

Well, if you would like them, I'm happy to send them. Mine is particularly, I can't listen to mine. I have a huge nervous system response. But mine is my, my attorney, asking over and over again questions of the, of the representative of the city attorney. It's not, it's John Maddox who's named in the ACLU demand letter. Just saying over and over again, like what, at that point we hadn't even seen any discovery.

Like we don't know what information this is even based on. Like there are two cops in uniform pointing body cams that assume, I have to assume pointing body cams at me. And in this, in this hearing, and my lawyer is just asking over and over again, like upon what evidence is this based? And they just said over and over again, you are here to give information. We are not giving in any information.

My lawyer asking, what is the standard of review here? Like how, upon what is this based? And the parks director just saying like my decision. And the, and the, and then, you know, what are the, what is the remedy? If this is, if the appeal is denied, there's none, then the appeal is denied. Like, and so it really was for me,

one of the moments where I realized like, oh, the city is, is pretty hell bent on keeping a bunch of sweet hearts who give out tents and sandwiches out of the park. And they're going to, like they're, they're up to something here. But I'm happy to share that. Yeah, I'd like that. What if it's our performance of like pseudo legal ceremony? I don't know.

Well, yeah. And like pseudo in a dangerous and extrajudicial way, like I had no protections there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing to respond to. Yeah. It's like, these are, these are,

these are star chamber proceedings. Like, like the king of France is going to walk out. Yeah. Like this is halfway through this. I was just thinking, it seems like such a British thing. Like, yeah. You told me this was in Britain and you'd been like shooting

the Queen's swans or something. I'd buy it, you know, but here we are in the land of the free, you know, that's. Well, and I think the equivalent of shooting the Queen's swans here is hanging out with poor folks in a park. And in ways that inconvenience, or that apparently inconvenience the folks who go, who pay money because you have to,

to play tennis at a public tennis court, which is like right by Aston Park. And, and we can go in in a minute as much as you want to, to what you saw as far as like their attempts after, their attempts to pass them, to sneak through an ordinance. Now we know quite clearly from public records directed at food sharing in Aston Park. Yeah, it's really,

I keep thinking about that, that Helder Kamara line. I, when I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I asked why the airport, they call me a communist. But it's like, they really seem to have blown all the way. Like they didn't even get to part two. They were just like, wait, hold on, you're giving food to the poor. Like it is time for a military response.

It's just, it's just horrible. Yeah. And being banned from parks for three years has a pretty big effect on my, on my, on my little life, you know, like there, there are constitutional aspects to it that matter far beyond me. And, and which matter in many ways more to me. But the fact right now is that like, I can't legally take my young child like to the park by her house

without risking arrest for misdemeanor trust cuts. And, and to my knowledge, I won't be able to for three years. And, you know, they've succeeded in getting us out of the park. They caused the harm to, they disrupted community care. They did it. They didn't need the ordinance. You know, it does happen. Food distribution happens. But it's in a place that really isn't the same. Like my daughter can't go there. She has sensory stuff.

Like being in the, the loud place that it is right now, like really doesn't work. So yeah, there's this, there's this very. Like the scopes of all of this. And, and I've been seeing that in the last couple of months, in terms of how they're being taken away from them from how Asheville as a city views and treats the folks who live on the street here, who the city has most abandoned.

There's the legal mechanisms, the like very strange way. They are like doubling down on criminalization. Of folks doing community care. And then there's just like, they're really day to day personal personal bits of this that lots of us in different ways. Like it endangers professional licensure. Like I'm trying to get a social work license.

Like people, it endangers professional licensure. Of course our rate to vote, housing and employment. And, you know, I'm the like middle-aged, white, middle-class, mom, second graduate degree person in the group. I am not really representative of our group. Like folks are in a lot less, folks are in a lot more precarious material circumstances

than I am. And so much so that like, you know, it feels safe for me to come on this podcast. It doesn't feel safe for everybody to come on a podcast. It feels safe for me to have my name out. Like it doesn't for everybody. And I think, yeah, I think that that's something that has to be named too.

Like how, what a threat this is to folks' future material well-being, as well as currently. Like folks that lost housing over this, folks that have lost employment over this. Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, like even if you're found completely innocent or whatever, like this has robbed you of your time or people at the housing or peoples of their jobs.

So it causes stress. And in that way, you know, it does feel and often to us like the, like the punishment is the process. Yeah. It's just harassment. So I don't know if y'all are updated on like there are five of us being taken to trial. Is that something you know?

Okay. Yeah, so yeah. But our listeners probably aren't. So explain like, so like right after this happened or at some point after this happened, so I know when we started speaking, I was like, oh, well I'd PRA this shit out of all your city council people and you were like, we already have.

Yeah. So can, cause there was some stuff in there that was just weird. Yeah. Can you explain what you got from like, this is where the problem child Monica comes from among other things. Sure.

Yeah. Gosh, it's so even talking about it, I have such a reaction and that I can feel. And I should say, you know, I speak about this to my name, not about the city, the text necessarily, but I speak about the situation to a lot of people because it does feel to us like, you know, they're also, I think they would like us to be ashamed,

but we're not ashamed of what is happening to, I mean, that's part of the degradation of the quit system. And so, you know, all of my neighbors know what is happening to me. All of the people that I work with in the various like school related jobs and such that I do. And to a person, everyone in Asheville starts with disbelief. They're like, no.

And then I'm like, yes. And then they're just so disappointed. Like they're just, they're so appalled. Often people say the number 1984, like often people are like, wow, I really, I didn't know. Some people did know, you know, that the city was like this. But, you know, that sort of paralleled my experience in a way, just like disbelief and then disappointment.

But yeah, we recently, it's intensified recently seeing the publicly available communication between council members. And I think, I wanna be careful and I don't have it in front of me. And so I don't wanna, I don't wanna misquote it. But what I can say is that anybody can go find on the city of Asheville's public records request.

Anybody can go get those now because they've been requested. And so they're publicly available. And we have texts between council members that are kind of debate, that are in contemplation of an ordinance that would restrict food sharing in public places to require permitting.

In contemplation of that, like we have texts from council members calling those who do food sharing and ask them, park problem children and saying that it's a shame that the problem children have ruined it for the rest of the class. We have one saying like, you know, probably if we go ahead, we city council go ahead with this ordinance

and there'll be a lot of protests and a lot of pushback, which of course there was once it came out. And we have the other council members saying like, yeah, that might be, but if permitting is the only way to get them to stop, then so be it. And anyway, I mean, I read that

and I have a variety of reactions, but mostly just like a kind of nauseous disappointment in, and this is not true of all council. Because some folks have tried to like understand the gap being filled by folks who give out food and gear in a park. And I think some of the council, and have recognized it as a gap that is being filled.

And I think some are so aware of what it says about the city that folks have to show up in a park and give out food and gear and there's never enough of either. They're so aware of what that lays bare about the abandonment that the city practices of those who live here, that they can only see that and they can only be angry with us

and call us problem children. Like I'm 43. Yeah, you can see the sort of like the kind of, just like petty dictatorship mind that they've gotten themselves into where like they can't see the people who like, nominally they're supposed to be serving, right? But like, okay, we know how far that goes,

but they can't see like you as anything other than just like a child because that's the kind of like, this is the sort of dictator brain that they've had it from like holding this power. It kind of reminds me of like how usually with the 14th, he said, let us say more like the state is me and therefore attacks on my reputation or attacks against the state.

Like that's how it feels. Like you're being treasonous by making them look bad. And I don't know if you saw this also in there, but on the day that the arrests happened, so those discussions about the ordinance were I think a little earlier in January that we should actually took that. But there's one that came right on the day

of the first arrests for felony littering that where someone asks like, can those arrested be banned from certain places? And we know now, yes, but it's a lot to see that. It's a lot to see that, it's a lot to see what looks so deliberately like depriving us of the right to be in a park. Yeah, yeah, you did hell of a lot. And so where is this, five of you are going to trial?

Yeah. An unknown number of people are banned from parks in Asheville. Yes, my understanding is that someone has been told, oh, we don't keep records of that, which also doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, how can you enforce a ban if you don't have a record of whose ban?

Yeah, and I shouldn't be quoted on that, but my understanding is that like, is that that has been the, it's like, oh no, there aren't records that we can, that can be made public about that because there's simply aren't for records. Which that just seems like incredibly bizarre secret police shit of like, yeah, I know,

we have lists that don't exist of people who are banned from spaces and we won't tell you what they are because they don't exist. Yeah, you'll find out when the SWAT team comes from behind the swings and... Yeah, just... Yeah. Yeah, what a...

Yeah, terrible. So yeah, you're banned from the park, you're facing, you're going to trial. Yeah, five of us have been, have been scheduled for trial and the other folks have been kind of, what's called, taken off the calendar. So they don't have, nothing's dismissed,

but they're not scheduled. There's no next court date for them. Okay, so when will you, if you don't mind saying when would your trial date be? Your trial date right now is set for February 27th. Oh well, okay, so coming up. It's coming right up. Yeah, that's tough.

We'll make sure we get this out before then. How can people support you, support the work that you are not doing in parks anymore? How can people help you through this, what I'm sure it's a really stressful trial process? Yeah, thank you for asking. So we post updates in a few different places of, like we don't have our own Instagram right now

because we're, we just don't. But our defendant statements get released in a few different places, including at AVL survival on Instagram. We also have a website where we always post our own statements and also all the press that comes out about us. And that is avlsolidarity.noblogs.org.

We have a Venmo, which is used, those funds are used for attorney fees. And, and frankly, like, you know, when someone loses housing or their car breaks down and they have had trouble finding employment because they have felony littering charges against them. We also use for material needs in that way. And that is AVL defendant fund.

And all that's actually on, on the website too. You can find those. And honestly, it matters so much that people just know this is happening. You know, when I tell people in Asheville, like more people know now than did before. When I tell people outside of Asheville, there's very much a like,

huh, I thought about coming there. I heard it was cool. They do want those who make, not just like a living from tourism, but those who make tons of money from tourism are certainly invested in you thinking that it's really cool and coming to spend your money here. And it's not cool in the ways that they want you

to think it's cool. It is cool because neighbors show up for each other and you can come here and we'll talk to you about that. But, but there's a way that like people knowing what this place is really like does matter. And there's a way that honestly people just like sending us, like their, their beautiful energy and hope really matters too. Like that actually, that actually really does matter.

So they can send us their beautiful energy and hope and material contributions as they might have. Yeah, sure people will because it's horrifically fucked up. I wanted to ask what is the sentence range for family littering? Yeah. So it's the lowest class of felony as it happens. None of us have any criminal history.

We'd be facing felony probation. And so that, that there's a range there of whether that probation is supervised or unsupervised. There's a range of how long it would be. There's a range of restitution in terms of community service. And, and I actually don't have the paper in front of me that says what the range of those things are, but I feel like it's eight to 12 months on their probation.

And a lot of that is simply at the discretion of insensing. And, and I think that, that there are some possible restrictions on just like being able to leave the state. Okay. What? Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, not for, sorry. Jesus Christ. Like this is fully fucking sent me now because a guy, a man called Robert Wilson in San Diego was arrested for hate crimes because he assaulted his gay neighbor since he was arrested. He's driven around San Diego and LA dressed as a Nazi sometimes with a horrifically anti-Semitic slogan, has just left the country and is living in Poland.

Oh, I thought so. Because I, because fucking like somehow, I don't, I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm, this is fully, fully sent me now. We need anger too. Yeah. Yeah. What is wrong with this shit?

Yeah, there was something else you wanted to get to. Yeah. I, I think I wanted to name. So, you know, people are so, in a way, like I wish I had a super cut of everyone I've ever said the word felony littering to just like their faces over and over again. Maybe I'll come to Asheville and just Vox pops. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's a way that, you know, of course that's just like, and if you add on aiding and abetting, which we've all been bumped up just to felony littering, but, or sort of, but, but, but the misdemeanor is conspiracy to commit felony littering. No. No.

Yeah. What's next? Like a Rico charge? Exactly. Yes. Yes. So, so on its face, you know, it has this ring of, of absurdity.

And of course, like it is, you know, a lot of the press about us, you know, they'll go talk to someone at the school of government who says like, well, this is baffling. And at the very least seems like a misapplication of the statute, which is about huge amounts of waste, often being like dumped by businesses. Right. But I think it's, it's, it's telling that a couple,

maybe a month or two ago, there was an article in the citizen times, a local paper about us in a company, waste pro, which had dumped an entire dumpster's worth of trash. And now I'm like, out somewhere outside of, of where it should have been, like in the, in the landfill. And, but it was all about like how actually they had followed procedure because there was like, maybe a little bit of a battery fire or something.

There was something going on with it where they, they weren't supposed to bring it in. So they just had to dump it. But in the course of this article, they, they interviewed a lot of people about like, well, what's going on with like litter in general, and like big amounts of litter. And our case was never mentioned,

but they did talk to some folks who, who do river cleanup and organization called greenworks. And that person said, you know, sometimes there are like huge amounts of dumping that happens. And we call the city and they say, yeah, that's illegal, but we don't actually prosecute that. And like, you know, that's the sort of thing also that seeing in print, I'm just like, what, what sort of strange,

like dystopian novel am I living in where the city is so upfront that like, oh no, like we wouldn't prosecute felony littering. But when it comes to aiming to disrupt a kind of community care and political speech that they don't like, they're willing to expend an incredible amount of resources on it. You know, like the number of resources that have gone into this would have funded like sanctuary camping with sanitation services, like for years, for years.

And, you know, I think you alluded though, maybe this is in the future in the podcast, like to the way that the city of Asheville or our lawyers have been clear that when you, when you look at the city of Asheville's like public announcements and the way that they talk about homelessness, it does seem like, oh wow, we're really, we're really trying to get on this. But at a recent meeting where a consultant group often referred

to as like, yeah, that other like that, that consultant group from now, because it's happened over and over again, presented findings about like what should actually be done to end homelessness here presented findings to the city council and the county commissioners. No one was allowed to talk except for this huge meeting. No one was allowed to talk except for council members and commissioners

and those who were presenting. But a man who actually has experienced was experienced with homelessness got up and talked anyways. And he was interrupted by the mayor. And like that's telling in its own right. That's that's telling in its own right. Also telling is that later also not allowed to speak a local pastor got up and said, you know, I saw that happen, you know,

like what we need to be doing is actually listening to the folks who've experienced this and like data. Yes, we need data, but we also need to like actually listen to the voices of what's going on. And he used the phrase, which I think was echoing the man who had spoken earlier, spiritual death and said that this he thinks as a pastor, that Asheville is in a moment of spiritual death. And in a way, that's why I say like, we need your we need your

material contributions to us as defendants to to collective care. Like when we have extra money in that defendant fund, we just give it away so people can buy more tents. And we need like we need some hope because Asheville is in this moment where it's as a city, it's making choices that seem so misaligned, not just with like the image that it would like to sell to tourists, but like with the people who live here and are actually like about it day to day in a neighbor's caring for

neighbor's way, like really misaligned with what we actually want and what we actually are capable of offering each other. Yeah, it is deeply sad that like, we've created this abstraction of society, which is being entirely antisocial like no one wants no one. Yeah. No reasonable person would do that, but we've got the state which in theory acts on our behalf and is doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. Which also is probably, I don't know, to editorialize for a second. Often people make this argument, I see it specifically around gun laws, but with other laws too, where this law won't always be enforced, they'll only use it if they need it, if they have to get a bad person.

They will use it if anybody threatens their interests, their shit, right? Right. Like it was extensively mobilized for a ghost gun law here which made some bizarre things illegal, like the bank stick which you use for spearfishing is now a ghost gun and a felony and like there were definitely boomers who have dozens of those in their garage, right?

And don't keep up on local audiences and are now in theory at risk of committing a felony and then obviously the response to that from the council is, oh, well, we wouldn't charge them. Like who are we, we can't trust the state to be benevolent when your experience has shown it's anything but. And you know, we, and I can say this personally because I've spoken, I've spoken to people in city government or in state government who I've just said like, hey, do you know this is

happening? And they're clear about how, sure it sounds nutty, but the city, but like, but the, that we as a group have been painted as particularly dangerous and that part to me is like, I mean, don't do this to anybody, you know, don't do it to anybody, but the part where, where what's going on is like it's, is this strange justification with the idea that, that we are dangerous people who deserve to be taken, you

know, who need to be taken out of a, who need to not be allowed to be in a park, you know, is, is particularly easily disproved by anyone who actually like hangs out with us knows what, knows who we are and what we've done, but not when it's just like a weird whisper campaign in the, in the halls of city government, like, oh no, they're bad, like they're just bad. Like we, we've heard the, the, the lies that they've told about us.

Some of them we have in, in, you know, public records requests, like that we haven't even talked about, but it's, it's a, it's a really strange thing to be, to be painted that way. Yeah. Yeah, it's design. Again, I'm sorry it's happening to you. So I think to wrap up, maybe again, you could just give that

Venmo so people can support materially and yeah, you know, if there's any other social media accounts where people can follow along, where people can send their support and best wishes, anything like that. Yeah, that's great. Our Venmo is AVL Defendant Fund. And yeah, you can, so on Instagram, we're easy to get to through AVL survival.

And there's a way to contact us through our website. We have a little, we have a little email. It'll be so cute to get some supportive emails. And that website is avlsolidarity.noblogs.org. Amazing. Yeah. And thank you all so much. Thank you for giving us your time.

I'm sorry that you're dealing with nefarious state bullshit. All right. So that wraps up our interview with Sarah. Tomorrow we'll be talking to Maniba from the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, and she will be giving us a bit of interactive and some more insight into this case. We'll look forward to talking to you then. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the

FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation.

In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark in on the good and bad ass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then

for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science.

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI.

How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to

Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It was 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved

country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's James again.

I just wanted to remind you that this is part two of a two parter. And if you haven't listened to yesterday's podcast, today's might not make a lot of sense. So I would suggest starting there. Obviously, you have your own life, do what you want. But you're going to understand today's a lot more if you start with yesterday's.

Today we're speaking to Maniba with the ACLU about the legal response to some of the bizarre things that the city of Asheville has been doing. If you hear reference to Pip in this episode, that's because Pip is another of the activists. They weren't able to make our call, but we're going to be speaking to them as well in our ongoing coverage of this. So hope you enjoy today's episode and know that we'll keep

you updated as this moves forward. All right. So our first guest today is Maniba. And Maniba, would you like to introduce yourself, explain your relationship to what we're talking about today? Sure. So my name is Maniba Pollister. I'm a staff attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina.

And I represent some of these wonderful folks that you'll be talking to after me. And it's unfortunate that we met this way. But, you know, I'm happy to be working with them. So basically I can go into it or do you want to ask me questions about it? I think it'd be great if you could start off by sort of walking us through how Mutual Aid seems to have met with this

bizarre prosecution. Yeah, of course. So we got connected to, you know, our now clients, the group of individuals who, you know, have been doing important advocacy and Mutual Aid work on behalf of unhoused folks in Asheville. And we were connected by this other organization called Center for Constitutional Rights and kind of filled in quickly

about how this group of people were not only banned from perks, but these bans were based on this absurd criminal charge called felony littering, which, you know, it sounds as crazy as it is. So, yeah, you know, I think my colleagues and I at the ACLU, we were eager to talk to these folks and learn more about what happened and see what we can do and, you know, start talking about some of the legal issues that arise from when a city tries to ban a large group of people from one of the few places that

they have to convene and to protest and demonstrate, which, you know, one of the first things I learned in law school is like how or like one of the first things I think I learned as someone living in the US, like you always hear kids say, oh, I have free speech, like, you know, free speech. So it's such a central part of being in this or like growing up in this country and being a citizen or a member of this country is just the way that it's thrown around sometimes

inaccurately, but people generally know that that speech should be protected and cannot be restricted except in very narrow ways by the government. Not by, like, you know, your mom, you don't have free speech in front of your mom, like, that's not, I learned that quick. Yeah, when I took my being an American test, I became a citizen a couple of months ago, and there's like only like 50 questions they can ask you, and I think two of them are like, what is free

speech? Like, yeah, can you claim free speech when you get banned from Twitter.com? Like, yeah, it's something that's... Yeah, and I think, you know, it's absurd to criminalize protests, of course, but it's also, like, equally as troubling to take away this important public space from people that, you know, especially in a city like Asheville, if you've been

there, it's one of the few public spaces that people can convene and get together and enjoy each other's company, you know, that being separate from also one of the few places that you can protest and engage in discussion about how to fix problems. So it's really troubling that the city of Asheville has taken that route. So when the ACLU got involved, we thought it would be best to

list out some of these legal issues. You know, I mentioned the First Amendment and free speech, but there are also a lot of procedural due process problems that are issues that come up when you ban folks from a park. One of the things that the city didn't do is provide proper notice. So a few of our clients never received notice that they were banned from the park and, you know, found out that they were

banned either through the discovery process in their criminal cases or by doing, like, very intense investigation of their own, which, you know, that is not a, that's just not okay. Like a city needs to, you need to, this is like a very basic thing, right? Notice and hearing, those are the tenets of procedural due process. And the city fails there.

The city then fails again at providing hearing and providing opportunity to, to appeal these bans. Like there is no pre-deprivation hearing, first of all. Like the bans, once our clients receive them, they're banned. They're banned from the parks and cannot go and don't have, didn't have any opportunity to defend why they shouldn't be banned or be heard about why they shouldn't be banned before that ban happened, which is, you know, it's, it's not okay.

I think a pre-deprivation hearing is really important when you're taking away an interest, like, like the first amendment interest that I laid out. And, and then the hearing that was provided was problematic in a lot of ways. For one, these were very short, cursory hearings that lasted from, I want to say like five to 30 minutes, but I'll let Sarah and Pip confirm.

And they, they had people from Asheville police department who are, you know, arguably also involved in the criminal cases that, that several of our clients are still battling through. They were not allowed to ask questions. And, you know, several of our clients do not have the resources to have proper legal representation. So sometimes their clients were there alone and had to fend for themselves and navigate that tricky area of not saying something

that could hurt you in your criminal case. And, you know, the hearing was just a mess in all of the ways. How does the city like legally justify banning someone from parks? Like, is there like a way which they can do that? So they have this policy called the restricted access to city parks policy. And it is, I think we should call it the park ban policy.

It basically allows the city to ban folks from parks based on certain violations of, I think the categories are city park rules, city parks and recreation department program rules, city ordinances, state laws and federal laws. So what's interesting is there is no, there's nowhere in the policy that says when a person has committed or that defines what a violation of any of these rules are like, is that a conviction? Is that a formal like citation?

The policy does not provide that. So this is important, I think, especially here where our clients, none of them, or actually I shouldn't say none of them, three of our clients have pled to less or misdemeanor charges, but everyone else has an open case and they have not been formally convicted of anything. And so it's strange that, you know, you can ban someone based off of the felony charge that hasn't even been fully litigated.

Yeah, have they banned, is there like a record of the city banning people from parks or have they just like dug this one up from the bowels of legislation to ban these people? Oh, that's a really interesting question and I'd love to know the answer myself. We did submit a public records request to try to figure out if they have, but I imagine the city is not going to want to tell us and I think, Sarah, you can speak to this later,

but I don't think they have, I think they've rejected PRRs that you all have done and have not provided that elusive restricted access list, which they have of like folks that they've banned from the parks and maybe that list is just, you know, our clients, which maybe they have. I don't know what's worse, like if they have a parks black list and they're just not notifying people until like they send a SWAT team after them, or if it's if it's only people who are

helping unhoused people and they just don't want to admit that both of those are pretty dark. On the topic of weird legal things, what on earth is felony littering? I'd love to know, I'd love to know what felony littering is because I'll tell you this, when I told my partner, like, I was like, oh, did you know there's something called felony littering and he's like, I hope that's when corporations get punished

for, you know, dumping toxic waste into the sea. But no, it's apparently when community members come together for a demonstration and the city is mad about what's left behind, which, you know, that's, I think it's really telling that the city has chosen to to prosecute folks on this like felony littering charge, which, you know, has I think in the past 10 years, there's only been one felony littering case out of Buncombe County, where Asheville is.

Okay, so I think that's really telling. And I think it's really troubling that the city of Asheville seems to be really taking out a position in silencing speech it does not like. Yeah, go ahead. No, they just seem to be taking like the most bizarre and run around the First Amendment that they can. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of like the Occupy era stuff where

like, all of these cities suddenly realized that like, wait, hold on, these people can actually use a park for political activity, and then immediately like suddenly that all these like ordinances started appearing where like, everyone has to like clear out of the park by 10 p.m. So they can clean it or something that eventually just were just like was used to force people out. And I don't know, it seems like there's there's something

interesting too about like, it seems like it's almost whenever like a city government tries to do something like this, it seems like they always like immediately reach for sanitation ordinances. Like, yeah, I was like that was like the big Occupy thing like they're doing this here too. I don't know. I think all around the country we're seeing the government

fish out these weird ordinances and make new laws to criminalize poverty and to criminalize unhoused people existing. And I think that trend unfortunately carries even in places like Asheville that are seen, especially after COVID, you know, there's been a rise in unhoused population everywhere. And so it's really upsetting, but it is the truth that these ordinances and laws that are being fished out are being fished out to target folks and new laws that lawmakers are

creating. Now I was thinking about this. I'm remembering there's a whole sort of anthropological literature about like how colonial states used like sanitation ordinances as a way to sort of destroy like indigenous public spaces and the places they colonize. And I guess like, yeah, I don't know, like there's there's a lot of sort of throughput, I guess, between like the sort of

old colonial governments regimes and the way that people still use sanitation as like the default way to sort of cleanse people out of public spaces. I think it's interesting how like an analogy one can make me visit, there are people with rights and people without rights even when in theory we all have rights and like this attempt to sort of use sanitation to be like all of these people's rights don't matter or they don't have those rights at all.

Yeah, it's not not linked to the way like metropoles rule colonies. I think also just, you know, going back to this position that the city of national is taking what's really troubling is like the different angles that they're coming at this issue with like, if you look at, you know, if you look at some of the press releases and blog posts on the city's website about the unhaused population, you might get the sense that they're

trying to find solutions to address what they seem to acknowledge as a big problem. But then, you know, on the flip side, you see these actions that directly contradict that sentiment. And, you know, these park bands, that's one of the ways that the city of Asheville kind of indirectly is like, no, please like, let us do our thing. We don't want to hear anything bad about what we're doing.

Like we're trying our hardest. You know, that's rich on its own. But, you know, there's, so there's the felony littering charges. There's the park bands. And then, you know, alongside all of this, like a few weeks ago, we filed a petition in Buncombe County Superior Court petitioning for the release of police body camera footage of the arrest of two journalists for the release of the footage

that shows the arrest of these journalists covering the eviction of encampments of unhoused folks in Aston Park on Christmas night in 2021. So around the same time that several of our clients, you know, are being hit with these felony charges and then shortly after with park bands. And the rest of journalists in a democracy is very or should be very rare and should be troubling.

And these journalists, like just to give you some context, we're not shy about their critique of the city and how it's handling the unhoused community. And that critique is protected by the First Amendment. But the city of Asheville, I think, is just, you know, doing its own thing when it's allowing arrests of journalists and the release of that body camera footage, we think is important to just show what happened,

because that's kind of strange. Like just in the same way that felony littering is strange. Yeah, it does seem like there is kind of a bipartisan commitment to not wanting journalists to meddle with you harassing unhoused people. It seems to be like very much a Democrat thing. It's one of the Republican thing. Were those journalists charged with anything, or were they just arrested?

They were also charged with, I want to say, second degree trespass. And they've been pretty vocal about their arrests and I think what's been happening, like their names are Veronica Coyt and Matilda Bliss. I'm not sure, Sarah, if you want to add more to that. But I think that's like another thread that's important to the story is like all of the different ways that Asheville is operating

to silence folks and to continue doing what they're doing, which if you look at just their own narrative where they talk about, oh, yes, we've evicted these folks as a success story. And they'll maybe list all of the free hotel nights that these folks thought for one or two nights. That's obviously not a sustainable solution to the plight of that community. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, I think sometimes things get done because things look good on a

press release rather than because it gives anyone like long-term access to housing. So I wonder like what's the situation? Several of your clients are now facing, and felony charges are serious, right? If people maybe aren't in the US or don't realize, maybe you could explain, like a felony follows you around for the rest of your life, right? Yeah, and just to be clear, the ACLU is not defending the criminal charges.

I think all of our clients have separate representation for their criminal charges. We've taken on the charge of addressing these part bans and how we think they're constitutional. So I'm sure, like, I can speak a little to this, but I think, you know, maybe getting one of the criminal defense attorneys to talk if they can about the criminal case might be more helpful. For sure, yeah. Maybe can you explain just in general terms what a felony would mean

for someone living in North Carolina in terms of just how it would affect their life going forward? Yeah, so there's a lot. I think, you know, I'm not a criminal lawyer, but let me just think about a few things. You know, having a felony on your criminal record just on its own, nobody wants a criminal record in a country and state that is still looking and, you know, allowing background checks for certain jobs and having to explain that in any context. Like, I will just, you know, let me just talk from my own experience where I've,

whenever I am getting admitted to a bar, I've moved a couple of times in the past few years and had to deal with the unfortunate process of being admitted into that state's bar. There are several intrusive questions and many of those involve like what kind of, what your background is and that means what your criminal background is. Like, we have to do, like, I have gone through the moral character fitness test for three states now and it's never fun. It's, you know, as someone who is privileged and does not have a criminal history background, it's not fun for me because I, like, the number of questions they ask you,

it's like you really, like, you know, have to dig back into the past, like, your whole life. Like, they ask all of the addresses that you've lived at in the past 15 years and if you get it wrong, you're lying. So you're, okay, I'm going off unattended. But the point is, like, any sort of certification or job or new opportunity, that is something, a criminal record is something that's looked at and considered and oftentimes in a negative way and can result in people not getting jobs. It, I think Sarah and, like, other Sarah and Pipps maybe can explain more about, like,

what the consequences would be, like, if you've had conversations with your attorneys, but I also have some background in immigrants' rights work. And I know that if any kind of criminal charges slash convictions that you're facing can be used by, can be used by ICE, can be used by USCIS to deny you immigration privileges and to deport you, to detain you before they deport you. And so, you know, beyond that, like, having to have this hang over your head where the process is not short, it's not easy, it's mentally taxing, and it's honestly degrading to go through our criminal legal system and it's degrading for everyone.

And, I mean, that's all I can say of, like, someone who does, like, general civil rights work, but if you talk to someone who's doing criminal defense work and in this all the time, I'm sure they're, you know, can paint a better picture of how dark that process is and how dark it can be to have that on a record. I think another thing with this is about, okay, I am not a lawyer. I'm also not like your lawyer, legal advice, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm pretty sure the way it works in North Carolina is that if you have a felony conviction, you can't vote until you serve out the time.

Jesus. So, yeah, like. In country. Yeah. Yeah. So that's another thing. And I'm fairly new to North Carolina. I moved here in March, so almost a year, but not quite.

So, but I do know that the hoops that you have to jump through just to vote are a lot more than other states that I've lived in. And, you know, of course, that is also another thing done on purpose to silence sort of voices. Yeah, that's dark. And certainly, like, you'll lose your Second Amendment rights or be jobs you can't do. There will be things that you don't have access to. Like, yeah, your rights will go away potentially forever, which is bad when you're just trying to help some people who need some help. It's pretty unconscionable. Yeah, I think that's the other, like, really wild thing about all of this is, like, a lot of the folks that are, you know, being banned on being targeted on this way

are providing really important services in a way that the city hasn't been able to and hasn't. And it's filling in this really important role of, like, making sure that folks stay alive and have support and are fed and closed. And it's unfortunate to have that taken away, like being banned from a park means being banned from one of the few spaces that our clients had to do this work and where they were able to distribute food and other aid to folks who don't have a home. And it's just, it's wild that that kind of action is being taken when we know that this is a crisis that the city is just not addressing. Yeah, they're, like, taking action against people pointing to the crisis rather than the crisis itself, which is, yeah, very sad. So what, what stage is your, I know you have to go in a second here, what stage is your, like you said, the ACLU is challenging the park ban. How has that, how's that gone for you? So, so far, we've sent a demand letter to the city. The city has responded to that letter with right now kind of wishy-washy commitments of, like, reviewing the policy.

And while, while I think that's a great first step, I do think the city needs to commit to doing more and to commit to retracting the bans for all of our clients and potentially others who have been affected by this policy. They also need to change the policy, like reviewing the policy. That's a great first step, but, you know, I, I want to see, like, what are the things that they are building in to make sure that folks are getting proper notice that this policy isn't being abused and used by actual police department and others in an unfair way and that there is, like, you know, basic standards of, like, when the policy can be instituted, like, is there a conviction involved and what are the convictions? Like, does it make sense to ban someone from a park for, I don't know, like, I'm trying to think of, like, something. Oh, felony literature. Yeah, it's just so bizarre. Like, it's clown stuff. It is bizarre. And I think, like, you know, historically, park bans from what I know is, like, they've been used against, like, people who have committed, like, sexual offenses. And so it's kind of, it's kind of out of luck field to, and I'll just say this, that the city, like, were in their response, decided to one of the cases that, or two cases that involved sexual offenders who are banned from parks, which, you know,

is a group of peaceful demonstrators who provided aid to folks who are unhoused. So, you know, it's not really there. The comparison is not there. And I think, I hope the city can be honest. And if they are not willing to put in that work and to take some of these actions that I've laid out, I do think that we will continue to challenge these park bans and, you know, we'll continue to prepare to file suit if that's necessary. Great. And how can people follow along with that? Or if they want to sort of donate or support it? Is there a place they can do that? You know, our website is a great space to, or our website, I think, our socials, like Twitter and Instagram, like, our com team is amazing, and they update on our work frequently and often. And we try to provide updates there, but also kind of engage with our work and what it means broadly for folks across North Carolina and across the US. Great. And that's just ACLU North Carolina. Those would be the socials. So it's ACLUofNorthCarolina.org. And if you go to our website, you'll find our socials, but it's probably a very useful thought. Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for giving us some of your time.

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, that was great. Thank you. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. Because the FBI sometimes gets to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse.

He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match.

And when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart.

And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. Once again, the folks from It's Going Down are taking over the show. As today, we do a deep dive into how autonomous organizers are pushing back against a wave of far-right attacks on reproductive freedom and autonomy across the United States. A note to our listeners, this episode will include discussion on both sexual and far-right violence. I'm your host, Mike Andrews. Let's get into it.

In May of 2022, Politico first reported on the historic leak from the Supreme Court about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision which ruled under the 14th Amendment that a pregnant person has the right to privacy, including the liberty to abort their fetus. In June of 2022, the Dobbs decision struck down Roe, ruling that the Constitution does not guarantee a person the right to an abortion, triggering a wave of state governments rolling back abortion rights and access. For many, however, the fall of Roe only further cemented a lack of access to reproductive health care. It's already been the norm for millions. As The Hill wrote, quote, as of 2020, six states had only one abortion clinic each, and 89% of America's counties had no abortion clinic at all.

The cumulative effect of decades of restrictions authored by anti-abortion lawmakers. This is not to say that things haven't gotten worse. They have. In the months following the Dobbs decision in states like Ohio where access has been attacked, a rape survivor was forced to travel out of state to find an abortion, while local politicians, including the state's Republican Attorney General, claimed on Fox News that the story was totally fabricated. In other instances, people in Ohio have been denied care even though they face potentially life-threatening complications. In Texas, one woman nearly died due to sepsis because she was initially barred access to an abortion by doctors. And these are only some of the stories that have made headlines.

The deeper impact on this countrywide attack on reproductive health has hit low income in communities of color the hardest. A recent study from the University of San Francisco found that, quote, a third of American women of reproductive age now face excessive travel times to obtain an abortion, while twice as many are being forced to travel more than an hour to reach an abortion provider. In short, attacks on abortion, coupled with the already exploding wealth gap, lack of access to health care, the rising cost of living, and the continuing COVID-19 pandemic will only expand existing inequalities, especially for people of color, the disabled, and queer and trans folks in particular. On the legal front, some states have pushed to expand abortion access, and many are challenging legal attacks in the courtroom. Minnesota, for instance, most recently became the first state to enshrine abortion as a right.

Meanwhile, many continue to donate to abortion funds, and nonprofits like Planned Parenthood are even launching mobile clinics to provide care, and areas hit the hardest due to recent bans. But as our first two guests, Beck's part of a clinic defense group in New York City, and Ash and abortion doula in North Carolina reported, many autonomous organizers aren't putting their faith in the courts, the cops, or the state. You know, living in New York City, abortion is legal, and it's legal before a row, and it's been legal after a row, but that doesn't really necessarily mean anything, kind of, is what we've seen. So one of the things that we've seen is we've seen anti-abortion protesters and activists coming up from red states to target blue states now, and so we've definitely seen their presence increasing outside of the clinic that we defend in Soho in Manhattan.

And so that, I would say, is one of the biggest things that we've seen, is that they really are targeting blue states, they're targeting New York City, they're actively trying to recruit people to come to New York City, is I think the biggest thing that we've seen, and then also in New York City we've been struggling a lot with a really escalatory police presence at our clinics, and so that's the other thing that we're definitely really, really struggling with, is the response of the state after doves. So the first thing that I want folks to know is that people, abortion havers, people who might have abortions, where I am in time and space, they have always already been navigating some of these post-war realities that a lot of folks are just getting hip to, like, after that fateful Friday in June last year. And so I want to name here that we've always had a 72-hour waiting period in North Carolina, which is one of the longest waiting periods in the country, and there's a slew of other things that we find both hostile and restrictive.

And I'm using those words to describe a situation, an ongoing situation, because these are the words that are being used to describe North Carolina now, as we're seeing an influx of folks coming to North Carolina. So I'm saying that for the folks who live here always already, like, they've been dealing with a restrictive hostile climate. Bex just shared a little bit about, like, the presence of anti-abortion protesters, so we've always been dealing with that. In 2018, the abortion clinic that I had two abortions at in my life, they saw the most anti-abortion protesters in the Southeast, and we continue to see this. We also continue to see, as we see these anti-abortion protesters, right, a police presence. And we know, or I'm concerned about what that means for Black folks having abortions, for people who are undocumented,

and for people who otherwise, like, don't want the police all up in their business. In addition to what's changed since Dobbs are not changed, right, but changed, we have seen an influx of folks coming to North Carolina from states where abortion is illegal, or there are bans kind of early ingestation, and we're seeing those folks come to the clinics and access the services and the support networks that we have here in North Carolina. I think that one thing with the group that I work with called NYC for Abortion Rights, one thing that we've been working really hard on is not only talking about abortion, not only talking about, you know, going beyond just legalizing it,

but also really focusing on, like, our communities and building mutual aid networks, building repro-justice networks, and also just working overall on, like, community defense. So we work with a lot of mutual aid organizations all over the city of New York, and that's one thing that we're doing, like Ash was saying, is we're focusing on, you know, how do these people who are outside of our clinics are not only anti-abortion, but they're also anti-LGBTQ. They are fascist. That is something that we should be saying. They are also pro-police.

None of these things happen inside of a vacuum. They're all interconnected, and I think that that's one thing that we really, really have to do, is talk about how the issue of abortion bridge is out to so many other things, and we can't only fight one issue. We have to fight all of them, but we also have to fight the root of where these things are coming from, and they're coming from this mass conservative movement that's been being built since the 1970s. You know, groups like Focus on the Family, like the Federalist Society, these groups have so much influence in our society, and we need to be going after all of it.

We can't only be going after, you know, one tiny, you know, sector of the massive problem, because, like Ash said, it is all interconnected. Here, I'm thinking about, like, some political education that needs to happen, like, and that is the framework and the theories of reproductive justice. I know that they recognize so many, it recognizes so many things, but one of the things that grounds me that it recognizes, that RJ recognizes, is that dismantling white supremacy is key to achieving reproductive justice. It also says, it posits, that we live interconnected lives and not single-issue lives.

And it also, for me, this yields that, like, we can't rely on the state to, like, provide what we need. I'm seeing abortion doulas, clinic escorts, abortion funds, and other organizers and organizations really come together to support people having abortions and resist criminalization and state violence right now, and we need to, like, see more of that. You know, you talk about pro-choice, I think it's so whack, like, the logics of pro-choice. We need to go further beyond the logics of pro-choice and understand that RJ says that there is no choice without access.

And furthermore, RJ posits that the key to controlling entire communities is to controlling bodies. So if they're coming for the trans people on their HRT and their access to gender affirming and medical care, then they're going to come for everyone else, then they're going to come for the abortion havers. They've been coming for the poor people. I think that, like, again, when we go back to that reproductive justice framework, we can begin to, like, make these connections. And I'm also saying this as an organizer, like, reproductive justice is my lane, but so is, like, environmental justice, and so is racial justice.

And I'm on the front lines of different movements, and I go back to this framework because it acknowledges that, like, black people need an end to anti-black racism, and we need an end to the police and clean fucking water right now. I don't know of a framework that says that, like, we ought to demand all of those things right fucking now, and that we actually can't live self-determined lives without all of that shit. And so I'm ready to talk about RJ, like, I'm ready to do that political education. I think it's ongoing work. And, right, like, you don't have to be an abortion doula or a frontline organizer

to help someone get to their appointment to fund an abortion, to affirm someone's decision and support their decision to have an abortion. And so we really need that, like, we need that vibe right now. We need people to show up that way. I think that my biggest frustration with Democrats is they've been telling us for years, like, oh, you know, vote for us, vote for us. They've been fundraising off of the issue of abortion for decades now. They have done absolutely nothing.

And I think that what they've really done is they've really made us, made us, as in, like, the general, like, American populace, feel as though voting is the only way that we can change things and that voting is the only way that we can, like, show our impact and, like, help our communities when in reality it isn't. It's going out onto the streets. It's also, you know, doing abortion doula work. It's also, you know, going out, defending clinics. It's doing all of this work and we don't need the Democrats to do that.

And what we need to be doing is we need to be talking about the state and how we can go beyond the state. And I also want to say here, like, fuck Ro, like, Ro is the kind of legal infrastructure that made abortion possible, but it also made it possible for, like, both the Democrats, the Republicans, the Christian evangelicals, anyone who was checking for it to take abortion away. So, like, fuck Ro. It also gave us the trimester framework, which is, like, really whack.

And it also kind of made it more possible for the states and the federal government to put in bans and restrictions on abortion. That's something that we need to get clear about as well, as we fight to decriminalize and not legislate further abortion. Stay with us. It could happen here. We'll return after these words from our sponsors. On July 27th, 1996, Eric Rudolph set off a nail bomb

during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The explosion killed one person immediately, while over 100 more were horrifically injured. In a communique claiming responsibility for the bombing, Rudolph denounced the Olympics, abortion, and LGBTQ rights with talking points that seemed ripped right out of Tucker Carlson's nightly news headlines. He wrote, The world converged upon Atlanta to celebrate the ideals of global socialism.

The purpose of my attack? The Washington government sanctioning of abortion on demand. Along with abortion, another assault upon the integrity of American society is the considered effort to legitimize the practice of homosexuality. Whether it's gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate crime laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools, all of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed.

The existence of our culture depends on it. Rudolph would go on to carry out more deadly attacks against abortion clinics in a queer nightclub, releasing communiques under the banner of the Army of God, a group which endorsed leaderless resistance and was linked to the white supremacist Christian identity movement and the murder of multiple abortion providers. The Army of God was just one formation that grew out of Christian identity. A mix of white supremacy and Christianity,

the priests that Jews were satanic and people of color were subhuman and needed to be destroyed in a racial holy war. Christian identity adherents set up paramilitary compounds, Bible camps, radio stations and churches, from the Aryan nations to the Covenant of the Sword in the Arm of the Lord, and they helped usher in a wave of homegrown terrorist groups such as the Order and individuals like Timothy Nivea carried out the Oklahoma City Wami. Meanwhile, above-ground groups like Operation Rescue

cheered on the violence against abortion providers while organizing mass protest at clinics with the aim of shutting them down. In 2015, when a gunman killed three people in a mass shooting at a clinic in Colorado Springs, the far-right anti-abortion movement had carried out eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings and 186 arsons, all targeted against abortion clinics and providers. Wanted to know more about the history of fiery attacks on abortion access, and if they were indeed rising in the current post-op period,

we sat down with Melissa Fowler of the National Abortion Federation. Unfortunately, since abortion was legalized with the Roe vs. Wade decision, there has been a really coordinated campaign of harassment and violence to target abortion providers and try to stop access to legal abortion. And we've been tracking this since the late 70s. There have been a number of escalating events, everything from clinic protests and clinic blockades, all the way up to arsons and murders of providers just because they do this work.

So when we talk about this, it's very real. It's a very real threat. And it is really terrorism that's happening by a coordinated group of people and individuals who really are aimed at stopping any access to legal abortion care. So we definitely have seen for a long time that there is an overlap between the people that target abortion providers and the people that are involved in other types of violent and extremist movements, including white nationalists.

We've known that for a long time. It's existed many years. In fact, in the 80s, the KKK began creating wanted posters listing the personal information of abortion providers. And the first provider who was murdered, Dr. David Gunn, who was murdered in 1993, was murdered by someone who was a white supremacist who had been mentored by someone who was a former KKK member. And so we've seen the overlap of these groups.

And in the last couple of years, we've seen that overlap be more coordinated and more public. So on January 6th at the insurrection, a lot of our members were watching on TV and recognized people because they were the same people that protest at their clinics. In fact, providers had even noted that day of pulling in the parking lot and not seeing their usual protesters and wondering what was going on because they saw less people outside of clinics. And we later found out it's because many of them were at the Capitol. And a number of people who are active in the anti-abortion movement

have posted about being at the insurrection, posted video and pictures of themselves at the insurrection. And so it's very clear to us and we very much see that overlap. We also see more of these right-wing groups actually showing up and participating at anti-abortion events. So attending some of the marches around the country in a more visible way than we've seen in the past. Sometimes these right-wing groups will do quote unquote security for the anti-abortion movement. So when they have people who are speaking or they're holding large events to target providers, they'll get security assistance from white nationalist groups. And so, you know, it's particularly disturbing to see.

It doesn't surprise us because we've known that there's an overlap in these groups for a really long time. But as we've seen in recent years, as people seem to be more okay being more visible about their membership in these groups or more vocal about their hate, we're seeing it more publicly. The anti-abortion movement is not doing anything to distance themselves from these groups. So since the leak happened last May, we immediately saw an increase in harassment and online posts that were threatening toward abortion providers. Even though we got a preview of the decision and we knew what was coming and that it would lead to clinics closing, that wasn't enough for some people.

We saw calls for people to go and burn clinics or go and take matters into their own hands and not wait for the decision to go and try and stop abortions from being provided that moment. And so we track those types of online posts. We saw a real spike in May and June around the decision. And we also started immediately hearing from our member clinics that they were seeing an increase in protesters an increase in threats and an increase in the intensity and hostility of those activities. So more really aggressive protesters that were touching patients and staff, yelling at patients and staff, photographing patients and staff.

And since the decision, we have seen a number of clinics close in places that are considered more hostile to abortion rights. But we know from our past experience that when a clinic closes, the protesters don't just give up and go home. In many cases, anti-abortion individuals will travel the same paths that patients are traveling and they will go to other states where abortion remains accessible and target the clinics there. So we are seeing an increase in activity in the places where abortion is remaining legal and where patients are going to get care. And we're just now collecting the numbers for 2022, so we don't have those yet for a little bit. But we do know anecdotally and what we're hearing from members and what we're seeing on the ground is that there is an increase in that activity. There have been a few arsons this year.

We're also seeing clinic invasions continue. And these are instances where people might pose as patients. In some cases, they go to a lot of work to try and infiltrate the clinic and find out about their practices for making appointments. And then they will pose as patients, make fake appointments and try to get into the clinic forcibly if they have to. And then once they're inside, they're harassing patients, they refuse to leave. In some cases, they hand out flowers or sing or yell. In California, they walked through the halls screaming the name of the doctor, ordering the doctor to come out and face them. And it was very traumatic for staff.

They didn't know if this person was armed or what they were doing. And they had patients in procedure rooms with them or in counseling rooms. And they were locking the door and sheltering in place. And it was very frightening. And we continue to see these types of invasions happen across the country. Ironically, however, laws passed in the 1990s designed to protect people seeking abortions and reproductive health care have now been weaponized against those who have been taking action in the wake of the Dobs decision, most notably under the banner of Jane's Revenge. A moniker used by anonymous activists taking action, usually in the form of broken windows and graffiti, against anti-choice, crisis pregnancy centers and beyond. As Natasha Leonard wrote in the Intercept, Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994, following the assassinations and mass clinic blockades, making the physical obstruction of clinics a federal offense, as well as threats of force and violence against clinic workers and clinic property.

And its 30 years on the books has been used sparingly. Now this law is being used to prosecute two reproductive rights activists who allegedly spray paint the outside walls of misleading and dangerous crisis pregnancy centers, known as CPCs, and now face up to 12 years in prison for the graffiti. This use of the FACE Act against those fighting to protect reproductive freedom and autonomy by weaponizing laws supposedly aimed at those threatening it, mirrors the numerous domestic terrorism charges lodged against forest defenders in Atlanta, made possible by a bill in 2017, following the massacre of nine black parishioners by the white supremacist Dylan Roof. Stay with us, it can happen here we'll return after these words from our sponsors. As the culture war is deepened on the right and even mainstream GOP leaders have embraced white nationalist talking points, many openly neo-nazi and white supremacist groups have come to see the anti-choice movement as a lucrative recruiting ground and a point of engagement with the wider right wing base. Again, we hear from clinic defender Bex in New York and abortion doula Ash in North Carolina. In our case in New York City, the group that we defend the clinic from is this Catholic group that gets an armed escort from the NYPD.

So that's one thing that really, really scares me. You know, when we talk about a far right is that the NYPD has been aiding these far right groups and giving them escorts for a very, very long time. And so I think that kind of like goes to a lot of the fears that a lot of us have when it comes to this kind of collaboration and the changing face of anti-abortion protesters. We already know down here that cops and clan go hand in hand and unfortunately like newly white radicalized. I don't know if you can call them that like politicized white women who want to defend clinics. They saw they they realize these realities like the cops are not here to defend you or people who want to have abortions. And we actually don't need the cops to have abortions and to make reproductive justice a real possibility in all of our lives. I'm thinking here also about like the need to decriminalize abortion and not legalize abortion again as an abolitionist as an abortion doula and as someone who's had abortions.

I'm making these connections and as a trans person, right? I'm making these connections that like the folks who are standing outside of abortion clinics, the anti-choice, the anti-abortion folks. These are the same people who are pro-police people. These are the same people who are racist in our communities, who are classes, who are anti-black, who are fascists. And furthermore, right, like these people who stand outside of abortion clinics, they are the same people perpetuating these rhetorics that like gay people are groomers. But also that like critical race theory, for example, shouldn't be taught in school. I am making these connections and I'm also going back to that reproductive justice framework that reminds me that like what do we have to do now is that we have to fight together. And one of the ways we can do that is by making these connections, right? Like these people are Christian evangelicals. They are fascists explicitly. We need to say that and it behooves all of us to like really fight together along those lines.

In the years since the attempted pro-Trump coup on January 6th, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and proud boys have ramped up their presence at anti-choice events. The neo-Nazi group Patriot Front has shown up to march alongside various anti-abortion groups, often to be bent with handshakes from anti-abortion activists and police escorts to protect them from anti-fascists. Several weeks ago, openly fascist groups took part in the yearly Walk for Life rally in San Francisco, California. As thousands took to the city streets after being busted from across the state, marching alongside them were proud boys decked out in their uniforms and mass neo-Nazis holding openly racist banners. Wanting to know more about this continued crossover, we spoke with anti-fascist journalist Pashaal Singh based in Southern California. In the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, there was big spike in demonstrations from the right wing where they were targeting clinics, they were targeting any kind of school boards with any kind of reproductive health, anything. They were doing it for several months. In places like California where abortion is still provided and still accessible, that makes a lot of the anti-abortion movement still feel like they're the victim of something,

even though they just had this massive political victory. At least in Southern California, I've noticed that they've continued to rally. They've had some pretty large rallies, especially for the pro-life thing that happened recently where cities around the country, including San Francisco, had some pretty alarmingly sized anti-abortion rallies. Some of them, like in San Francisco, you had some of the more extremist elements, white supremacist elements, showing up quite explicitly, quite proudly. And here in Southern California, I've seen that starting to pick up again. It's almost building off of the momentum from all these rallies targeting drag shows, which have been excellent networking opportunities for different right-wing groups to work with more far-right extremists and even all-out white supremacists. Once they get into a groove together, even if these groups don't always get along, they have a revolving door of enemies. And if it's time to target somebody because they think there's an advantage to it in the moment, then they're going to do it.

And right now, it does seem like reproductive rights is back in the crosshairs alongside LGBTQ rights. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a rally in Southern California outside of a Walgreens shareholders meeting, where a lot of right-wing activists were marching through the hotel chanting that Walgreens is killing people because you can get an abortion pill through them. I think this has created a very tenuous situation where there's always someone to go after. If it's not Planned Parenthood this week, next week, go after your local pharmacy. Go after your local clinic. Go after your local doctor. The anti-abortion movement is very malleable. It's very fluid. And right now, they're taking whoever they can get. And that includes a lot of openly radical militant groups who they turn to as groups that can do quote-unquote security work, you know,

because they're afraid of the left coming and attacking them. The anti-abortion movement isn't slowing down. As our guests from across the country have discussed, the more mainstream organizations with deep pockets also aren't attempting to distance themselves from the street-level fascist groups flocking to right-wing demonstrations, especially at a time when far-right violence is escalating across the country. In our last segment, IGD correspondent Marcella speaks on recent anti-choice demonstrations, which brought together both the mainstream and the fringe, organized in part by progressive anti-abortion uprising, which weaponizes feminist and progressive language against drugstore giants CVS and Walgreens in an effort to stop them from selling abortion medication. Anti-abortion people protested outside like CVS and Walgreens. It's passed Saturday, like in multiple places to prevent pharmacies from selling abortion pills. I'm honestly, like, really angry at this, not only because these people are trying to make sure they completely take away our rights to bodily autonomy,

but because you're also making me have to defend CVS and Walgreens. I've also thought about protesting outside CVS and Walgreens, but not because I'm obsessed with other people's reproductive organs. I'm tired of them putting everything I need behind a glass. Anyway, like, these abortion protests outside CVS and Walgreens were organized by the progressive anti-abortion uprising. Yes, I will say that again. The progressive anti-abortion uprising, PAAU, which claims to want to dismantle the abortion industrial complex. Honestly, it sounds like the PAAU thinks that you can just add industrial complex to something to make it sound bad, or they're just trying to sound cool to make people forget that they are fascists.

Like, one interesting thing about PAAU is they want to be so cool that their lead organizer, Lauren Handy, calls herself a feminist. I honestly can't believe that I have to say this, but being anti-abortion immediately disqualifies you from being a feminist. Fun fact about Lauren Handy is that she randomly, she didn't randomly, she was caught with five fetuses in her apartment and was indicted for blocking a clinic in Washington, DC in 2020. So she's out here blocking clinics, collecting fetuses, just like doing the worst. This is like just the tip of the Berg about how, like, these people are trying to act like they're freedom fighters. The PAAU spokesperson literally said, and I quote, their vision to turn pharmacies into abortion businesses which will exploit and kill disproportionately low-income people

and people of color for profit will be met with nonviolent resistance at every turn. That's hilarious. These people are literally trying to make fascism sound like freedom fighting. Like, if PAAU actually cared about low-income people and people of color, they would be giving away abortion pills at, like, every corner, not trying to stop people from buying them. And also, they'd be boycotting CVS on Walgreens for totally different reasons. They wouldn't be boycotting Walgreens and CVS for trying to sell people abortion pills. What they would be doing is that they would be boycotting Walgreens and CVS for putting toothpaste behind a locked glass which makes it much harder for poor people to get a five-finger discount on things that they need.

That is going to do it for us today. Thanks for tuning in. Once again, this has been It's Going Down, occupying the offices of It Could Happen Here. Be sure to follow us online at It's GoingDown.org and on Macedon at IGD underscore news. Until next time. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns.

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